The nurse goes pale before he literally smacks himself upside the head. “Fuck. Of course you do. Dammit. I mean, from that first night. Not the next day, when you were…uh–” He’s bright red now, and Nix worries the sudden change in blood flow to his head might be unhealthy.
“It’s okay. I know what you mean.” He does, and the nurse clearly means what he says, but Nix is much more concerned with finding his distressed alpha. “It’s the hair, right? I’m not blond anymore.” He’s trying to give the man an easy out so that they can both move on. Luckily, he takes it.
The nurse nods, eager to avoid offending him, even though he has not stopped staring. He’s no closer than ten feet away when Tsuki gets to her feet and moves to stand in front of her chosen person. Still holding her leash carefully in her jaws, she’s taken up a protective stance between the nurse and Nix.
“Hey, uh.” He spots the nurse’s name tag: “Dennie, I’m here to see Finn. Do you know where he is? I, uh, left my phone at home, and he told me to meet him here—but I’m not sure where to go. I think he was meeting Riordan.”
“He’s here? Well, he hasn’t been to see me. Chief Kennedy and the admin offices are best reached through the ER to the left. You could go around but…I can’t go with you, as I’m the only one up here…or back there. It’s been dead…er…shit.”
Nix throws formalities out the window, as he doesn’t have the time nor the spoons for social niceties right now.
“Listen, Dennie, sorry to run, but I’m going to go find Finn, if that’s okay?” He starts through the doors, eager to get away, but he stops with his hand on the button to the automatic doors. “Hey. Thank you, though. For before? Yeah?”
He tacks on his biggest smile and is gratified when Dennie just nods his head dazedly.
Once he’s got the doors open, Tsuki is off at a trot like she knows where she’s going. Nix determinedly doesn’t look at the med-bay where he’d met his mate, but follows Tsuki’s doggy butt to the left and nearly knocks intoher from behind when she stops suddenly to go up on her hind legs and scratch at a door labeledStaff Restroom.
Knocking and then wiggling the locked doorknob, he calls, “Finn? It’s me, Nix. And Tsuki. Can you let us in?”
Now that he’s here, Nix feels exposed. He wasn’t supposed to leave the house, but now that he’s here and Finn is on the other side of the door, it’s finally sunk in.
The door swings open suddenly, and Finn yanks him through the narrow opening before slamming it shut once Tsuki is in, too. Nix’s alpha smells like rotten berries, and his hair is a sweaty mess.
What has happened that Finn is in this state? Has someone hurt him? Nix feels his fangs drop a bit at the thought. “Are you hurt? Why are you hiding in here?”
Instead of answering, Finn asks his own question. “Why did you come? Fuck, Nix, anyone could have–”
He plops down on his butt, Nix following suit right after. Tsuki finally drops her leash at Finn’s feet and nudges him with her nose until he moves over enough that she can lie down beside him.
They’re squished behind the door under the hand dryer, and it’s not the first time he’s sat on the floor of a bathroom that smelled like urine and anti-bacterial hand soap. It is the first time he’s not alone, though, and given how distressed Finn smells, Nix is glad he came.
“You never said why you’re in here and so sad, alpha. Come here.” At Nix’s request, Finn surges up and shoves his nose into Nix’s neck, who starts a low, soothing rumble.
Nix grabs his hand and places it over his diaphragm, trying to slow his own anxious breaths. They breathe together, and after a few attempts, their breathing syncs. It’s then that Nix notices his sad-smelling mate is crying.
“Finn. Please tell me what’s going on. Why are you hiding in here? Are you hurt?”
Finn uses the sleeve of the white sweater to wipe at his face and he just sticks his nose into Nix’s neck again. “I can’t.”
“You can’t what? You can tell me anything,” Nix says.
“I can’t forget what it was like when you were…” The words are whispered, and Finn just breathes deeper, clutching Nix’s pale yellow sweater.
When he was…hurt? Bloody?Dead? Nix is glad he can’t remember any of what went on because Finn is heartbroken enough to remember it for the both of them.
Nix feels a pressure behind his eyes, and a pulse starts up at the base of his skull, but he locks it down as well as his scent so he doesn’t upset his mate any more than he already is. The subsequent sound Finn makes is more like a wail than a whine.
“Nix, please, give it back. I need it. I can’t…” He’s scrabbling at the collar of Nix’s shirt on the left side.
It’s getting easier to get it going again, even if he can’t quite control how to make it stop every time.
Although it’s burned sugar, Finn sighs in relief, sagging back against the wall. “I’m sorry I’m like this. How am I going to go back to work if I can’t be here, Nix? It’s like every time I’m here, I see you broken. I can’t get it out of my mind. What am I going to do?”
So this has been why his mate has been a ghost in their home. Flitting from room to room, hiding his emotions and spending as much time away from them as possible.
Well, Nix is hardly the expert at getting over his shitty memories in a healthy way. His wolf shakes his head and snorts. Nix mentally chastises him with ashut up, you’ve been no help lately.
“I don’t know, Finn. I’m hardly an expert,” he says as he runs his hand through his alpha’s damp hair.
