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When John was 9, he’d found a stray dog that had been hit by a car, hiding out in the bushes by Auntie Dolly’s house.
It had been too badly hurt to stand, curled around two broken legs and snapping and snarling at anyone who got close. He’d snuck it food for a week, made a water bowl out of an old tin plate, and he’d been so sure that was enough to make it his friend, but when he tried to touch it it had bitten his hand to the bone, out of its mind on pain and fear.
He’d tried to hide the bite, but it had been bad, and when Uncle Harry heard what had happened, he’d silently taken down his shotgun from behind the kitchen door and gone out. The next time John went back to where he’d left the dog, there’d been nothing there except a bloodstain.
It’s not a happy memory, but he can’t help thinking about it while he watches Zee try to bully Nick into letting her take a look at his wounds.
He’s got that same fear, that same panic making him lash out at the people trying to help.
Either Zee never had an injured dog of her own or she decided she doesn’t care if she gets bitten because she’s taking none of Nick’s shit.
“It’s me or the ER, bucko, your choice.” She’s standing with her hands on her hips, like Wonder Woman in the old serials, her jaw clenched in the way it only does when she really means business.
“Did you just call me bucko?!”
“Yup, so you know I’m serious. You’re not sloping off to lick your wounds in peace, and you’re sure as shit not stitching anything up yourself.”
“It doesn’t need stitches.”
“Says you.”
“Yeah, says me! I’m not a fucking child, Zee, I don’t need you mothering me!”
“Then stop acting like one! I don’t know what you think I’m going to do to you, but it can’t hurt worse than it already does.”
Nick hunches his shoulders, curling a little tighter around his injured hand, and glares at her. “I’m not scared it’s going to hurt.”
“Really.”
“Oh fuck you, I didn’t ask for your help! I took care of myself just fine before you came along!”
“No, because you’re so fucking stubborn-”
“Stop it!” John hadn’t meant to yell, he hadn’t meant to say anything, he just couldn’t bear to sit there any longer listening to them sniping and snarling at one another. “Just… Stop it. Please.”
Zee reaches for him, and he doesn’t mean to but he flinches, and it’s so stupid, he knows she’d never hurt him, he knows it, and it’s not like she’d hurt Nick, she’s trying to help the stupid arse, but there’d been yelling and Nick is hurt, and the years away haven’t been enough to erase the sixteen years he lived at home.
He could say that, and Zee would be sympathetic and Nick would understand, understand as well as anyone who isn’t Cheryll ever could, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t want to bring that poison here, not if he can avoid it.
“What about John?” Zee asks, after a moment of pregnant silence. “Will you let him do it?”
Nick glances between them, and it’s so rare to see him look lost. He doesn’t know all the answers, doesn’t even know most of them, but he’s damn good at pretending he does.
Now he’s looking at Zee like he’s terrified he’s going to say the wrong thing. “You don’t mind?”
She lets out a long slow breath like she’s trying to ground herself, but she shakes her head. “I don’t mind, as long as you let someone look at it.”
“Okay,” Nick says, and he sounds like he’s trying to reassure himself more than her. “Okay, yeah. John can…”
There’s something there, something John doesn’t get until he kneels down in front of Nick to get a better angle and their eyes meet, and then… There’s a part of John that Zee will never understand, and he’s fine with that, better than. She was loved, cherished, and he doesn’t want her to understand what it was like to grow up without that.
He’s always known Nick got it, or more of it than Zee did. The shadows on his childhood weren’t the same, maybe, but they’d been there. They’re still there.
“I’m going to go down to the drug store,” Zee announces behind him. “Get some painkillers and stuff.”
Nick looks like he wants to stop her, but doesn’t have the right words. “Zee, I…”
The first time she’d ever kissed John, it had felt like a benediction. Her smile now feels the same way. “It’s okay. I just want you to be okay, you know that, right?”
Nick slants his eyes away, doesn’t reply, and after a moment Zee sighs sadly and leaves, taking Nick’s coat from the back of the door.
John doesn’t know what he can say that won’t make things worse, so he just reaches for Nick’s injured hand and Nick lets him take it, only hisses out a pained breath between his teeth when John straightens it out enough to get a good look at the cut.
It’s not as deep as he’d feared, and Nick doesn’t do more than wince when John moves his fingers so he figures the tendons or ligaments or whatever they are in the palm aren’t damaged.
He grabs some kitchen paper and their meagre first aid kit and starts dabbing away the blood, cleaning the area up enough that he’ll be able to put a dressing on it.
After several minutes of uncomfortable silence, Nick says, “Did Zee ever tell you the story of the scar on her knee?”
“Don’t think so.” It’s not a particularly big or dramatic one, only noticeable in the summer because she tans and the scar doesn’t.
“She fell into the band pit thing while her dad was rehearsing. Landed on the drum kit and went straight through one of them.”
John winces, more for the expense than the injury. “Sounds painful.”
“Yeah. You know what her dad did?”
Ah. “Nothing?”
“That’s what I said as well. No. He put a band-aid on her knee and paid the guy for the drum and skipped the rest of the rehearsal so he could make sure she was okay.”
God, even the idea of his dad... “She doesn’t get it.”
“No, she doesn’t. And I don’t want her to, I’m glad her dad loves her, but for this stuff…”
“She doesn’t get it.”
“She thought I was scared it would hurt.”
If he was Zee, he’d say that Nick doesn’t need to be scared of screwing up around them. He’d say that they’re never going to hurt him, or take advantage of him, or do anything to punish him for an accident. But he knows how tough this is, knows that even just sharing this much with him is more than Nick could have managed a year ago.
He’s not Zee, and he’s not good with words, not the ones that really matter. He can lie like nobody’s business, dance circles around the truth, but he’s not good at the real stuff.
Instead, he leans in and presses a slow kiss to Nick’s lips and pretends he doesn’t hear the hitch in Nick’s breathing that’s the closest to crying he ever gets. “She wouldn’t want to be protected.”
“I don’t care. I can’t hurt her John, I can’t, but this… I don’t mean to lash out, but she won’t stop pushing!”
“She loves you. She just doesn’t want to see you hurting, and she never had anyone tell her not to ask for help.”
“I don’t need help,” Nick mutters, but he doesn’t resist when John pulls his hand back into the light.
“You know what you’d say if I said that, don’t pretend you don’t. Being a dom doesn’t magically make you immune to needing stitches when you cut yourself.”
“It doesn’t need stitches.”
“No, it doesn’t, but you didn’t know that.”
“I just…” Nick won’t meet his eyes, high spots of colour on his cheeks. “I don’t want to hurt her.”
“You won’t. Hey, look at me. You won’t. You wouldn’t. You’re better than that. I believe in you.” Nick pulls a face, and John relaxes, glad to be back on safer ground. “Don’t laugh at me, you bastard, I was being inspirational.”
“The only thing you were inspiring is my desire to hurt you bad enough that you shut up for once.”
“Never.” He gets a lip twitch, not quite a smile but good enough for government work. “You’re welcome to try though.”
“Slut.”
“Only for you and Zee.”
This kiss is better, warmer and tasting less of unshed tears, and John’s so tempted to let Nick distract him, but if Zee comes back and finds that they haven’t dressed Nick’s hand she’s going to be pissed at both of them, no matter how persuasive Nick is.
The cut is too long for a sticking plaster, but there’s a dressing and a roll of bandage in the first aid kit, and John’s done this often enough on himself that he makes a decently neat job of it. There’s no tape or safety pins, but he’d left the inner end of the bandage sticking out in case, so he fastens it with a knot and then tucks the ends under the edge of the top layer to keep them out of the way.
“I think you were supposed to disinfect it first,” Nick says, surveying John’s work with a critical eye. “My mom always did.”
Nick’s never mentioned his mother before, never so much as acknowledged he even had birth parents, has only ever talked about foster families and even them not much, and John would love to press for more, but he doesn’t want to push too hard. “We never did. Just washed it out with water if it was dirty. Nothing’s dropped off yet, so it can’t be that important.”
They lapse into silence, and there are a million things John wants to say, and a million things he knows Nick won’t want to hear, but eventually he makes himself say, “You’ve gotta say sorry to Zee when she gets back.”
Nick sighs. “Yeah, I know.”
“Okay. Cool.”
“Don’t think you’re getting off that easy though.”
Being hurt, letting someone else take care of him, is a loss of the control Nick values more highly than just about anything. If taking it out on him will make him feel better, John’s absolutely willing to make that sacrifice. For Nick, obviously. Not at all because the look Nick’s giving him is turning his blood to lava, making him think about how good it feels every time Nick makes him bleed.
“We should wait for Zee,” he manages, impressed with himself at how coherently it comes out.
“Yeah, I know,” Nick says, and kisses him again. “I’m gonna take you apart, Johnny-boy, and she’s going to help me.”
“As long as you put me back together again afterwards.”
This kiss is slow and sweet and full of all the things Nick’s never going to say out loud, to either of them. “I always do.”
Behind John, he hears the door opening, but he can’t look away from Nick, not until he feels Zee’s hand on the hand of his neck, soothing and arousing in equal measure.
“Can’t leave you boys alone for a minute.”
“We’re incorrigible,” Nick agrees. “Zee, I’m…”
“I know.” She leans past John, kisses Nick hard and serious. “You can’t keep scaring me like that though. I thought you were hurt bad.”
“Just a cut,” he promises, holding up his bandaged hand. “All better now. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
It’s as close a real apology as they’re likely to get from Nick, and Zee accepts it as such, cupping his cheek and staring into his eyes, searching for something.
Nick looks away first. He always does.
“How do you feel about spotting me while I choke the hell out of John?”
She laughs. “I can’t believe nearly losing a hand made you horny. At least take some painkillers first.”
“I didn’t nearly lose a hand,” Nick says, but when John stands and fetches him a glass of water he takes the Advil Zee offers. “Thanks.”
“No prob-”
“Not for… Thank you. For… for putting up with me. For taking care of me. I know I don’t make it easy.”
“You surely don’t,” Zee agrees, “but you’re worth the trouble.” She hooks a hand around John’s waist, pulls him in close and rests her head against his. “You both are.”