Chapter Text
The thief wasn’t his nemesis. Not at first.
He wasn’t even on Joe’s radar, is the funny thing. Far from the kind of criminal that he focuses on bringing down.
The tabloids and the papers sewed most of the nemesis story; arch-enemies, rivals, foes. And most of it came from a single desperate somebody in a news office somewhere who was overeager for a scoop. Somebody who picked up on the fact that out of all of the figures cast as heroes and villains in this wretched, cursed city, Joe and the thief are the only ones who carry around massive swords.
Joe uses a sword because he doesn’t believe in guns. Avoids them if at all possible, because even when everything is messed up and backwards and things like good and bad feel lost in an endless swirling of grey, guns are still evil. Plus, sword fighting is a somewhat antiquated form of combat, so his adversaries are never prepared to take him on, never on equal footing, once he gets close enough. Their lack of experience, in addition to his bullet proof vest and his deflection skills, haven’t failed him yet.
The thief, as far as he can tell, uses one purely because it’s sexy. That’s what he told the press, in any case, in one of his signature taunting video messages.
A flair for the dramatics, him.
It’s not even the same kind of sword, either, though the papers would have you believe that the two of them are a matched set, two halves of a whole. Joe’s is much more practical, thanks. It weighs far less than the longsword monstrosity the thief parades around. Much more dynamic, and suitable for Joe’s sort of fighting. Quick, in and out.
And, if Joe got the impression for one second that the thief ever actually used the absurd thing in fights with people, he might have taken more of an interest in stopping him. In living up to the rivalry the papers like to ascribe to them. But that’s not the thief’s game, and Joe knows that. Elegantly stealing diamonds and draining vaults doesn’t involve a lot of confrontation, not when you work with one of the most notorious hackers on the continent, and have yet to be caught in the act. Now, that Booker- he looks like he could do some damage in a fight. Him and his big, bulky muscles that could probably put some real swing behind a sword. But of course, Joe knows that’s not really his game, either. The only trouble he’s ever been credited with is orchestrated from behind a computer.
So the thief pulls off his heists, always and only from corporations and wealth hoarders who can spare it, the money going to places that Joe suspects (hopes) are actually in need of it. And Joe takes down the kind of men who do actual damage, if left unchecked.
They go about their very different lives, which don’t intersect. Not that the papers care, so long as peddling their own narrative sells.
It’s become a private joke, of sorts. The papers ask Joe (masked, identity concealed) about the thief, his thief, they’ll say, and Joe skillfully diverts to systemic issues that the police and the politicians aren’t solving. Tries to make it clear that he isn’t with them, that everyone in the city can make a difference in their own ways, even though the papers don’t much like to focus on that stuff.
And they ask the thief about Joe, when they can. In response to which the thief goes on about Joe’s biceps, or his ass in his suit, his curls that stick out of his hat sometimes. How sexy his voice is when he does his little conferences, and how enticing a passionate, poetic, well-versed hero is; a real man of the people. Extends an invitation to compare sword skills, which.
It is flattering, in a way. That somebody is paying attention, really paying attention, beyond the perceived esteem of it all.
They never meet, though. Never cross paths.
Until.
*
“Who did this to you?”
The thief hisses as Joe tries to get close enough to do anything at all, to help him up or hold pressure over one of the wounds. Flinches back not like he’s scared, because of course he’s not, the pompous dumbass, but like he thinks the contact is going to hurt. Like he knows he’s not winning any fights, tonight.
It doesn’t bode well, this.
Then he glares up at Joe with his big, furious eyes, flashing spectres in the dark, every bit as captivating as shown on the news footage and as the papers describe. Then he spits at Joe, wet and disgusting, so suddenly that Joe takes a step back.
The thief growls, raw, “what does that matter to you, Mr. Hero? Good for business if I’m out of commission, no?”
That leaves a bad taste in Joe’s mouth. He’d thought, however naively, that all the compliments meant they had a mutual respect thing going. Evidently, that is not the case.
How it is that the thief has wound up bleeding and mistrustful in an alley in Joe’s corner of the city is another question.
Joe stares down at him for a second, fuming. But then he looks at the blood pooling and spreading on the wet pavement, and he cocks his head, taking a breath and centring himself.
“No, man. You don’t know my business. Here, please.”
Joe holds out his hand.
The thief stares up at him, calculating.
And then there’s a clattering in the back of the alley, a sound Joe thinks might have been caused by a cat, or a raccoon, probably digging for dinner in the dumpster. But it makes the thief jump and clasp Joe’s hand as though it’s his last hope.
“Easy, easy.”
Joe gingerly helps him get his arm slung over Joe’s shoulders, and then they’re off, limping towards Joe’s apartment under too-bright moonlight.
They are, until the thief kicks Joe in the shin and stumbles into the nearest brick wall, puts another crack in a half-boarded window, looking around with wild eyes.
Joe can only stand there, surprised, cursing, “what the fuck?”
The thief spits at him again, looking like a caged animal.
“We just passed Sal’s place! I’m not from this side of the city, sure, but I know that means the hospital is in the other fucking direction! Are you trying to drag me somewhere to have your wicked fucking way with me, you freak? I thought you were a good guy?”
Joe blanches at him, incredulous at the implication, stalking closer until the way the thief flinches back stops him. Now he looks scared, the shine of the blood through the black fabric of his shirt only getting thicker, spreading wider the more time they waste.
So Joe raises his hands, instead, switching tacts and trying to put on a placating face, behind his stupid mask. He can feel the barely there pattering of rain starting to come down, cool against his fingers.
“That’s true, the hospital is the other way,” Joe starts, “but if I take you there the police will be waiting, won’t they?”
The thief stares at him, eyebrows twitching. If he really would prefer the hospital, Joe isn’t going to stop him from going. But he doesn’t go there, himself. Which is the reason he has half of a trauma room arsenal in his medicine cabinet.
“Right, so- my place is this way, and I have what we need to take care of most of your injuries. You’ve seen some of the damage I’ve walked away with on the news, yes? I take care of them at home, which is much closer than the hospital, by the way. There’s nothing more to this than that.”
The thief barks out a half-hysterical laugh, and says, “you’re going to take me to your home? Where you live? You are going to take me home?!”
It sounds pretty stupid, pretty ill-advised to Joe, too. But he’s not going to let anyone bleed out in an alley, much less one so close to his own place. That’s asking for attention and trouble that he doesn’t need. Scrutiny. And he isn’t one to leave anything or anyone to the police, if he has another choice.
And this thief, with his dramatized heists and his fucking longsword, his witty banter with the press, his ties to fucking food banks and resource centres for troubled kids, ties that are only speculated at, vague enough that the money can never be reclaimed- he is far from a danger. Except, maybe, to the bank accounts of people who horde their wealth, so.
(Yeah, maybe Joe pays attention to the thief beyond the glamour, too).
“I barely make above minimum wage, pal. I don’t have much you’ll find worthy of stealing. I don’t see your fucking longsword, either, so I don’t have to worry about that, do I? I don’t see why I can’t take you there, unless you’re saying you’re going to give me a reason not to.”
He tries to approach the thief again, but then, suddenly, just as the skies crack open and the rain starts hammering down, he finds himself shoved up against the wall, moonlight glinting against the knife that is shoved against his throat.
It’s impressive, sure. It would be more intimidating if the thief wasn’t half slumped over him, though, managing to stay standing only because Joe gets his arms around him and helps hold him up.
“The fuck are you in this for?” The thief growls at him, agitated. “I do see the news, I know you’re not one of the pigs. So you’re some kind of actually good guy, right? Picking up their slack? Darling of the city? I know we banter, but what the fuck are you trying to get out of helping me, one of the bad guys?”
Joe finds it strangely charming that the thief considers his own incessant, flamboyant, performative flirting in the media and Joe’s mild tolerance in response banter.
The thief can only growl some more, clearly losing energy by the minute, as Joe gets a hand around the one he is using to clutch the knife. He’s shaking, maybe getting dizzy from blood loss, and barely resists Joe pushing the knife forward so that it’s pressed to his concealed throat, instead.
Joe murmurs, stone cold, “do not presume to know what I am, or why I do what I do. Good and bad- they are childish terms, no? Infantile? The darling of the city- that is a story that the media likes, nothing more. I am going to help you now because you need it, and because it amuses me when you steal from the mayor’s fucked up circle of friends. It’s funny, the shade of red he turns when he has his little press conferences afterwards, isn’t it?”
The thief stares, exhaling like maybe he’s laughing a little, even as he’s beginning to sway like he’s having trouble staying conscious.
Joe continues, “so just come with me. Let me patch you up, for fuck’s sake, so you can keep making entertainment for us both. Yeah?”
The thief goes with him, after that. He might have argued more, but he’s just about passed out on Joe’s shoulder, forcing Joe to support most of his weight, so.
It’s a late hour, late enough that there aren’t many people around to see them. Those that do blanch at the blood, but one look at Joe’s mask, another at the thief’s, and they’re turning away to get the hell out of dodge.
Joe only hopes that none of them will go to the papers.
When they make it into Joe’s apartment, the thief starts struggling again, though in a way that is more self-conscious, much more subdued than before.
“I’m really fine, you know- I will be. You don’t have to do this.”
Joe’s hand is numb, because the thief’s weight on him had been cutting off his circulation. There’s blood all over his clothes, and he’s aching from the walk over, damp and chilled from the rain. There is, in fact, nothing he’d like more than to be done with the night, to fall into his bed and forget that any of it ever happened.
But he suspects the thief wouldn’t have been left in that alley so long if he had anyone else trustworthy on this side of the city, so.
“Whatever. I do what I want.” He carefully lets him down, wincing at the thunk of him dropping onto the sofa. “Gonna get my supplies. Don’t move.”
When he comes back, of course, the thief has peeled off his own bloody shirt, and is using it to wipe gingerly at his chest. He’s breathing so fast and shaky that Joe wonders how he’s still conscious, and mourns absently that he’s going to have to replace this sofa, if he doesn’t want to look at blood stains everyday.
Shame. It’s served him well for nearly a decade.
“Whoa,” he says, immediately sinking to his knees and taking the shirt from the thief. He grumbles, and fights him a little, but all Joe has to do is push on his shoulder and his entire body just seems to give up, flopping back against the cushions. He has very broad shoulders, even slumped as they are. Probably part of the reason Joe’s back aches so much after lugging him so far, all that muscle.
Maybe he does get some use out of the ridiculous sword, after all.
The thief’s eyes are still open, even as his body has given every indication of having tapped out, frown firm on his face.
Stubborn. Joe can work with that.
As he goes about wiping up the blood himself, careful with the litany of black, blue and purple bruises all over his torso, the thief alternates between glaring and scrunching his eyes closed to hiss in pain.
“Sorry,” Joe tells him, “I can give you some pills after I clean this up. It’s, uh- my source is a doctor. It’s clean.”
“I don’t need your fucking pills,” the thief spits, which. Okay.
Joe shoves his mask off his own face, frustrated with how it’s obstructing his vision. There are a few scratches winding up the thief’s ribs that he wants to get cleaned and bandaged before he figures out how to dress the bigger wound across his chest, now that it’s mostly stopped bleeding.
He doesn’t notice that the thief is staring at him in confusion until he’s finished with them, digging around in his first aid kit for bigger bandages, and antiseptic.
“What are you staring at?”
The thief abruptly reaches out and cups Joe’s face, and Joe is so shocked he drops the bottle of antiseptic back into the kit with a clatter. He scrambles to pick it back up, to focus, but he’s a little worried about the thief’s head, now. Maybe he’s disoriented. Joe has a couple of people he could call- Andy, namely, who he gets the pills from -but he’d rather not implicate her in anything else if he doesn’t have to.
The thief pinches his cheek before smacking him lightly, affectionately, and Joe is trying to remember if Andy is available tonight.
“I’ve never seen you without the mask,” the thief says, then, and. Oh. Right.
Joe smiles, just a little, a childish excitement rearing up in his chest at finally getting to shuck the secret identity for somebody. For his apparent nemesis, no less. It’s all very comic-book-dramatic, and the kid inside Joe who loved to read them, long before he ever got into any of this shit, is rearing to go. What the hell, right? The thief already knows where Joe lives, what could his everyday nickname hurt?
“Well- nice to fucking meet you. My name is Joe.”
The thief frowns at him like he’s a stain on his shoe, and Joe grins wider.
Then, the thief raises his other shaky hand to fumble with his own hood-like mask until it’s pulled down to his neck, exposing his face.
“Nicky,” he replies, gruff.
He looks very normal, for lack of a better word. Young, or, close enough to Joe’s age, at least. Full head of hair, matted and messy right now from the hood and the sweat, but probably nice enough when it’s clean. Brown, maybe, or dirty blonde. Pretty eyes, but everybody already knows that. The papers love to go on about them, the one defining feature that the mask and the suit don’t hide. Flirtatious, as they’re often described, batted eyelashes and winks in the video messages that the thief- that Nicky leaves for the investigators and the police to find.
But now Joe knows that he also has a big nose, gently curved pink lips, little hooped earrings, scruff, an awful moustache, and a prominent mole that Joe thinks suits him very well. Just a normal guy. Tired, certainly. Vulnerable, trusting Joe to help him out with the injuries, not hiding the fact that he’s in pain. Whining and cursing like it’s his job, which. Cute, maybe, a hint of personality that feels like a more genuine form of the guy in the videos. Charming, in a way that Joe can see getting old fast.
Very, very human, in another.
He wonders what Nicky sees, looking back at him.
Joe sprays the antiseptic over the big wound, then, while Nicky is distracted taking in his features, and it makes him rip his hand away from Joe’s face to clutch at the back of the sofa, cursing and spitting insults at Joe all over again.
“Pleasure’s all mine,” Joe tells him, earnestly.
(Doesn’t tell him that he misses the warmth on his cheek).
He manages to convince Nicky to sleep on his couch, eventually, once he’s all patched up and after the struggle of convincing him to let Joe sew the wound closed, because the guy is so exhausted and shaky after the whole ordeal that he can barely stand. Convinces him that Joe will give him some nondescript clothes to wear to sneak back somewhere safe sometime in the morning. And, the fact that he won’t stop being tight-lipped about how he ended up over here, bloodied and bruised and left for dead, that Joe is a little paranoid that whoever did it is still lurking out there- there’s no way Joe was going to let him walk out the door. Not until the urgency and the secrecy were melted away with the night.
Joe knows how it’s a lot easier to hide the shadiness of it all under the sunshine.
But, of course, when he wakes up the next morning, head aching from a too-late, too-uneasy sleep, the thief is already gone. There’s a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt missing from his closet, and to his utter dismay, his coffee maker is gone from the kitchen. It had been nice, that thing. Expensive, because Joe stole it. He doesn’t make a habit of taking things from places he busts, but it could make espresso, and the guy wouldn’t be around to use it anymore, would he?
There’s a scribbled note left where it was, at least, recommending the corner store around the block for a good morning cup. It also says that he’ll find his television gone next if it gets back to Nicky that Joe doesn’t tip Mr. Sharma behind the counter “handsomely.”
Not from this side of the city, huh?
And two weeks later, when Joe comes home from his day job to find his door busted in, the thief sitting at his kitchen table, first aid kit out, dressing his own wounds, two cups of coffee from Joe’s new favourite corner store sitting on the table in front of him- it’s all just as well.
*
Months later, when Joe finds himself with a knife wound of his own, bruises blossoming over his knuckles, shoulder and ribs, the last thing he’s thinking about is Nicky.
He’s just successfully foiled a voter suppression plot, which is what matters. Even if the only way he could figure out how to do it was to delay the perpetrators by putting himself forth as a punching bag for just long enough, blocking and backing down and taking hits only until he was certain they had missed their window of opportunity, at which point he took out all his anger at the system, at everything, on them with his fists. Harder and longer than he needed to, probably. Which is why he took the liberty of calling the ambulance before he slipped away.
Nicky would practically be drooling, putting on his video voice and calling Joe sexy and righteous, he thinks wryly. Spits a mouthful of blood out onto the sidewalk when he has to stop for a second to breathe, leaning against a lamp post, and hates the way it spatters against the ground.
So, maybe he is thinking about Nicky.
But mostly he’s too busy cursing the area of his lower back that’s twinging like crazy as he’s limping home, wondering if it’s been long enough since the last time he got his ass kicked that he can call in to work the next day without arousing any suspicion.
He thinks he can. Nile owes him a shift cover, he’s pretty sure.
And, shit. She’s willing to look past a lot of shady stuff, with Joe. Blood stained clothes, keeping odd hours, secrets, vaguely, and having unexplained absences. Having a boy around that she hasn’t gotten to meet, though- that’s unforgivable. Even if Joe is insisting that this one isn’t like that, that Nicky isn’t like that, not that kind of boy, not to Joe. Not that he’s even given up the thief’s name to her. It would feel like a betrayal, somehow. To Nicky, and to Nile.
Her fight is in the work they do at the non-profit, entirely above board, freeing the wrongly convicted. She’s going to get far with it, Joe knows. He’ll be working for her some day, if he doesn’t mess it all up for himself with his extracurriculars.
Which makes it all the more complicated, because Nicky’s been showing up more and more often, these days, taking up more of Joe’s time, and Nile is only asking more questions as the weeks go by.
Nicky shows up every two weeks or so, at least, in need of some first aid, or some food, or a place to lay low. Turns out his time when he’s not heisting is a lot bloodier than Joe had given him credit for.
Other times it’s a lot more often, when he’s not busy heisting or getting into petty fights. When he just wants company, Joe suspects. Because, for example, after he insisted while sewing up a wound on Nicky’s shoulder that he didn’t believe for a second that Nicky ever actually used that dumb longsword he flaunts around, of course Nicky had to prove him wrong.
He had showed up to Joe’s second fucking floor apartment with the thing in its holder on his waist at 4:00pm on a Thursday night, ready to spar, because he’s insane. The only way Joe had been able to placate him was to grant a rain cheque for the sword fight, and to take him on hand to hand in an indeterminable number of rounds, brutal and dirty and satisfying instead, after pushing all the living room furniture out of the way and still making Nicky promise to try to be quiet, because Joe has neighbours.
They still haven’t called a winner. Kept at it for what felt like and might have been hours, until they were both too exhausted to go on (and Joe’s upstairs neighbour began banging furiously on the floor to get them to shut the fuck up), new bruises all over, covered in sweat, knuckles sore and raw.
Nicky is no mouse, that’s for sure. In a fight, he’s a fucking panther.
(So, maybe Joe can’t fucking wait to take him on in a sword fight).
Joe has never had an acquaintance quite like Nicky. And, yes, acquaintance is the warmest term he can convince himself to use.
And following that conclusion, about the insanity- after Nicky proved entirely uncaring about Joe’s general safety and his cover as a means of keeping his living, kicking in his door knob again and again after each time Joe replaced it and he felt like dropping in when Joe wasn’t there to open it, Joe took other precautions. In the form of four separate locks of different strengths, scattered up the length of the door, ensuring that Nicky can’t destroy it enough to get it open without calling the attention of Joe’s neighbours, and by extension, the police. So now he has to either scale the fire escape and jimmy the window in Joe’s living room open like a self respecting thief who actually knows what stealth is, or wait for Joe at the door, like a respectful person (nemesis? frenemy? tentative ally? Acquaintance.)
The more often Nicky shows up, rarely for reasons to do with needing bandages, now, the less sure Joe is of anything.
Once, bizarrely, he’d shown up with a bag of groceries from Sal’s that he used to cook an entire meal. He made no indication he intended to share, not even greeting Joe when he came in the door, who was trying to catch up on his paperwork, until he marched out of the kitchen with a knife in his fist, which he used to threaten Joe into sitting at the table so that Nicky could serve him like it was a fucking five star joint. Like he didn’t know that Joe would be fucking delighted to eat his home cooked Italian if he had just asked like a normal person, to break bread with him and sing his praises. There’d been nice wine, and gentle music from the radio, and Joe hadn’t laughed or smiled so much as he did that night in a very, very long time. Because Nicky might have been aiming for the nines in a way Joe wasn’t familiar with, that made him feel a little out of place, honestly, made him wonder about where the fuck Nicky even came from. But he still ate with his elbows on the table, and ran his fucking mouth while there was still food in it, and it was still them, and it was perfect, in a way.
And then, of course, because it’s Nicky, and he’s insane, he’d silently disappeared after they ate, taking his opportunity while Joe insisted on taking care of the dishes, and then Joe didn’t see him again for almost a month.
Joe has too much going on in his life to worry about lunatics who go hot and cold faster than his shitty fucking shower, so he never asks, so long as too long doesn’t go by without him confirming Nicky is still alive through his features on the news, another heist pulled off. Just, lets Nicky do whatever, and when he’s gone, goes to his usual club and finds men who make more sense, at least for the solitary nights Joe will spend with them in their beds.
It’s his luck that tonight is one of the times Nicky has decided to be a sane, respectful person, and is sitting down on the floor in Joe’s hallway as he waits, reading some thick novel like every bit the sweet, innocent, college-educated big shot that he most certainly is not.
To Joe’s point, he flings the book to the side when he sees Joe, lets it skid down the hallway and smack against the wall as he stands and advances without so much as an eared corner to mark his page.
“The fuck, Joe? What happened to you?”
Joe just shakes his head, making a hand motion they’ve agreed means work thing, don’t ask.
Nicky keeps cursing anyway as he helps Joe fumble his keys into all the locks, eyes bulging at the shades of dark purple Joe’s swollen knuckles are turning, biting out vague threats at whoever it is, I’ll kick their teeth in one by one, I swear to god, should have brought my sword with me today, or my fucking sniper, fuck.
(Joe’s whole body flashes cold and tense when Nicky says the word sniper, and like a lot of times with Nicky, he hopes he’s heard wrong).
“I’m fucking fine, Nicky,” he bites out, shouldering past him when he gets the door open, suddenly exhausted, feelings and memories he didn’t fucking need tonight assaulting him, now.
“I just need some ice, and some fucking peace and quiet. Don’t you have somebody else to piss off?”
“Hold the fuck on,” Nicky grabs his shoulders to spin him around, just where Joe caught the blade of a knife at a truly unfortunate angle not an hour earlier, and Joe, by reflex, and fucking- built up fury, or some bullshit Andy tells him he should confide in somebody about, whips his bruised fist back even as he cries out in pain.
It’s a bad punch, by all standards. Because Joe is drained, and the angle was no good. But still, it was a hit, and it catches Nicky in the lip.
Joe thinks he’s apologizing before it’s even landed, because even if he’s tired and exhausted and it was a reflex, even though they do this all the time on purpose, Nicky didn't know he had a wound there, and he feels bad about it.
And, it’s Nicky.
Who is laughing at him and the remorse on his face even as he’s clutching his swelling lip, because he’s insane.
“Fuck- easy, Mr. Hero.”
They stand there in Joe’s hallway, just staring at each other, for far too long. Joe, feeling like the walls are crashing down around him, and Nicky, slow smile crawling onto his face, giggling.
Joe joins in the laughter all too soon, because crazy is contagious, or something.
“The fuck was that for, man?”
Nicky calls it over his shoulder as he heads for the washroom, where Joe keeps his supplies.
Joe sinks down onto the couch, and calls, “long fucking day, asshole.”
“Long fucking life,” he mutters to himself, quieter. Fumbles in his jeans for his pack and a light, inhaling deep and needy once he gets the cigarette in his mouth and lit.
When Nicky comes back, first aid kit in one hand and two bags of frozen vegetables in the other, Joe is struck with the thought that Nicky must have felt something like this that first night Joe dragged him home. It would have been different, certainly, because they were just the thief and the hero, then.
Nicky steals the smoke from between his lips and takes a drag, which would not have happened, and he wouldn’t have stubbed it out in the ashtray on the coffee table, wouldn’t have given Joe a look like that, not that first night, but.
It’s this vulnerability, the look of concentration on Nicky’s face as he rips alcohol wipes open with his teeth and uses them to clean up Joe’s swollen hands. Gentle, in a way he rarely flaunts. The humanity of it all. That’s what started all this. Seeing someone in pain, and for better or for worse, trying to do something, anything, to help.
Joe had been planning to give Andy a call to come see about his shoulder. He won’t be able to reach to sew it up himself, is all.
He watches Nicky bite his lip, breathing deep and even to keep himself steady as he carefully flips Joe’s hand, beginning to treat the scrape across his palm.
“Do you know how to sew, Nicky?”
Nicky grins, then, all teeth. His eyes never leave the area of skin he’s working on, and he doesn’t waver at all in his motions. Joe doesn’t let himself think that it’s a sniper’s steadiness.
“Oh, I’m practically a Girl Scout. You should see me in a pink skirt.”
They decide that Joe should lay face down across the sofa. It’s after he admits that he’s passed out a few times before, when Andy has sewn him up.
“Squeamish, are you? That’s cute. And fucking hysterical, considering how you spend your time.”
Joe has to whisper through clenched teeth, because Nicky is pushing a needle through his skin, and it hurts like a motherfucker.
“Needles are a whole ‘nother level of evil, thanks.”
He can hear Nicky snickering over his shoulder, not touching him now, trying to calm himself down before he brings the needle to Joe’s skin again. The sound helps, a little. And then Joe thinks about how Nicky must never laugh like that, not when he’s behind the sniper, and the spike of adrenaline fused anger and pain makes him grit his teeth tighter.
“Can I ask you a work question?”
Nicky doesn’t pause, back to it now, when he replies.
“I’m not going to make you a personalized heist video to get off to unless you say pretty please.”
Joe would have shoved him, if there wasn’t a needle in his shoulder controlled by Nicky’s hands. He decides to let it go, considering.
“Okay. But you mentioned a sniper, earlier.”
Now Nicky pauses, but only for a second before he’s back at it.
“Yes, I did.”
Joe waits for more, but nothing comes.
He asks, fighting to keep the plea out of his tone, “why do you have a sniper, Nicky?”
Nicky stays silent until he pulls the last stitch through Joe’s skin, douses it in antiseptic and presses the bandage over it. Joe feels like he’s going to explode.
He doesn’t say anything else until Joe is sitting up, again. Tries to hand a clean shirt to him, but Joe just catches his wrist and holds it, hating how shifty Nicky’s expression has gone.
“Nicky-”
“Why are you questioning me now?”
Joe blinks at him.
Nicky continues, “this whole time, you could have asked questions this whole time. Why now?”
Joe releases his wrist, and puts his head in his hands.
“I don’t fucking know, Nicky. Maybe because theft and street fights are a different fucking game than sniping.”
He feels Nicky’s hand come down on his non-injured shoulder, and wants to throw it off. Doesn’t.
“I have a past, Joe. The sniper is part of that past.”
Joe shrugs the hand off, then.
“You threatened to use it on whoever did this to me. You said it like it was nothing.”
Nicky stares at him.
“Yeah, I said that. Because you showed up limping and bleeding, and the best I could do was run my fucking mouth and try to make you feel better. I haven’t touched it in years.”
That’s worse, somehow.
“It’s a killing machine, Nicky! It kills people! And you threatened somebody you know nothing about with it in the heat of the moment?! You just threatened somebody’s fucking life like it was nothing! What the hell is that?”
Nicky sniffs. Turns his head away, jaw clenching, eyes furious.
“I don’t understand why you have issues, suddenly. All this time, it’s been ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ with us, and now, you’re losing your fucking mind because you asked to know something. If it’s a problem that i’m not some perfect little hero like you, why did you ask? Better yet, why the fuck did you drag me out of that alley?”
Ringing through Joe's head in angry, bright red, is the phrase "you're losing your fucking mind."
Joe is on his feet before he processes that he’s furious, actually, and suddenly, he’s slamming Nicky against the wall, grasping his collar.
“I knew you were a fucking thief, not a murderer!”
Nicky doesn’t push back, and Joe hates him, just for a moment, because all they ever do is push each other, and now there’s a reason, and Nicky isn’t pushing back. He looks hurt, and that’s not fucking right, none of this is fucking right-
and Joe might pass out.
“I am not a murderer.”
Joe lets him down, hands shaking, turning around and twisting his fists into his hair way too hard, hurts. He can’t breathe. He feels like he needs to be angry, needs to yell, but he can’t breathe. Hears Nicky approach, but no hand comes down on his shoulder, and he is incredibly fucking glad it doesn’t because he would snap and break it, if it did.
“Joe- I am not, okay? I was working for some vile fucking people, a long time ago, because I thought- they told me they were something they weren’t. That’s not me, though. You have to know that. The heists- that’s it, now, and I can show you a fucking list of where the money goes, places that need it, I fucking swear- I am not a murderer.”
Joe sinks down to the floor, because he doesn’t want to collapse and fall all over the coffee table. He can hear Nicky cursing behind him.
“Fuck- did you get hit in the head earlier, Joe?”
Joe shakes his head, nearly wheezing. Nicky is in front of him, then, looking confused and concerned and terrible, and his lip is swollen from the punch, shitty as it was, gone red and shiny.
Of course, Nicky’s beaten the shit out of Joe himself, sparring and not. But he’s never seen him like this.
“I didn’t get hit in the fucking head, dumbass.”
Nicky comes closer, slowly, hovering his hand to give Joe the chance to push it away.
Joe knocks it away so quick and hard that it must hurt, a little, jerking his hand out before he thinks about it. Hears Nicky’s wrist crack against the coffee table, which. Nicky doesn’t let it show, if it hurts. Just settles, hands raised as if to show he’s not a threat, a good few feet away on the floor.
“Okay, well- you’re going to pass out. Just- stop, man. Breathe.”
Joe barks out a hysterical laugh, and Nicky frowns at him, in a way that isn’t, but feels absolutely wicked.
“Stop it, he says-” Joe sobs before he can help it, and the way Nicky is looking at him- he feels like he’s coming apart.
He whispers, trembling like it’s freezing, half to himself, “don’t you think I would fucking stop if I could?”
Nicky makes a helpless sound as Joe presses his face into his knees, digging his nails into the tops of his calves and counting in his head as he rocks back and forth.
“Joe, I-“
“Shut-up-shut-up-shut-up! Shut the fuck up, you mother-fucking son of a whore, I swear on your fucking life if you don’t shut up-”
“Okay, okay.”
Nicky shuts up.
Joe kind of loses track of things, then.
He feels like he’s been doused in cold water, rocking back and forth, counting in sets of four, and forcing his lungs to comply even as his heartbeat races ahead.
And it works, eventually. His fingers digging into his legs work as a grounding point, and since he’s controlling his air intake, his heartbeat has to come back down, even though it doesn’t want to.
Even after it does, he can’t convince himself to look up at Nicky. His cheeks feel hot and wet, pressed uncomfortably into the rough material of his jeans, and everything smells like blood, sweat, dirt, and wrongness.
It’s not clinical, though. Not like the hospital smells. He can pick up the cigarette smoke, from earlier, and it helps to focus on that.
“Are you fucking happy now?” He screams, silently, just in his head, “now that you’ve seen me fucking broken? Now that you know I’m weak?”
He almost forgets that Nicky is there at all, in a weird way, after the fury melts away. As the after-crying numb settles in, and he’s just blinking down at the dark of his knees. Flexing his fingers against his pant legs, achey with the blood rushing back into them.
That numb, that almost-forgetting- that’s the only way he convinces himself to look up, again.
Nicky is still there, unfortunately.
He’s not looking at Joe. He’s just frowning down at his lap, tightly, picking at a loose thread on his jeans.
Joe says, voice croaky, tone too flat for the joke he’s trying to make, “this is the longest I’ve ever seen you keep your mouth shut.”
Nicky stares at him, something like concern messing his face all up where Joe knows his own must be looking terribly expressionless. After taking a breath, he says, “guns are a no-go, okay? Don’t you fucking bring that sniper shit up around me ever again. And I’m not- I’m not okay with it Nicky, I’m just fucking not. You’re not a murderer, I shouldn’t have said that. But you can’t bring that up around me, got it?”
Nicky is nodding quickly at him. Seems relieved.
He says, “okay, asshole. Just fucking breathe, will you? You’ve got enough enemies, you don’t need to knock yourself out.”
Joe doesn’t know what he’d been expecting him to say, but. He’s grateful, that it was that.
He feels more solid, now, though still sort of numb and overheated. So he flops down on his back on the hardwood floor, wiping his hands down his face. Hisses, a little, because his shoulder hurts, in a persistent way. And everything else aches, hotter and more concentrated in his ribs and his knuckles, but.
It’s everywhere, the ache.
Nicky soon flops down beside him.
Eventually, he says, quietly, “you’re not crazy.”
Joe is staring at the ceiling, and he can feel Nicky’s eyes on him. He almost wants to laugh, because he knows that, even if it doesn’t always feel true. Feels Nicky nudge his hand, gently. He doesn’t do anything else, when Joe doesn’t nudge back, and Joe is glad, in a way that feels distant and half-untrue.
“You’re not. And- there are doctors you can talk to, if that happens a lot, you know-”
Joe’s laughing then, suddenly, coldly, and Nicky trails off.
“I know what a fucking psychologist is. I’ve seen one. I know how to deal with this. You’ll notice that I didn’t actually pass out, this time.”
Nicky keeps just looking at him, until Joe looks back. Watches Nicky puzzle over it, the unspoken piece of the puzzle, Joe’s own past.
Instead of picking at it, he asks, “do you want me to leave?”
Joe keeps looking back, and he knows that if he says yes, Nicky won’t come back again.
He sighs, and then looks at the ceiling.
“My day job involves building cases to defend people who either didn’t do the things they have been accused of, who get caught up in things they shouldn’t have, or had no other choice but to do, and giving them the chance they need to turn things around. Okay? I know you’re not a murderer. I’m fucking pissed, because guns- they shouldn’t- I wish you had fucking known better than to get caught up in that. But I don’t want you to leave.”
It’s quiet, then, for a long, long time. But they can’t stay down on the floor forever, so.
Nicky makes Joe get up and go to bed, when they finally get up, instead of just flopping onto the couch like he wants to, and starts acting fucking weird, even for him. Gets all worked up when Joe says he wants to shower, because he’s been bleeding and sweating and feels disgusting, insists on him leaving the door open and shouting if he feels like he’s going to pass out again. Also insists on him eating, after, when he’s dry and sprawled across his bed. Brings him some juice, and a glass of water, and a fucking bizarre sampling of food from the kitchen. Some dried mango, a granola bar, a sleeve of cookies, and a container of leftover pad thai.
Joe looks at him like he’s insane, all that shit clutched in his hands as he looks for a place to set it down, because he is.
(And yet, Joe keeps him around).
“I’m not that hungry, man. Can you bring me a fucking pill, instead, so I can sleep?”
Nicky fixes him with an agitated look.
“You just- lost some blood, and almost passed out. Humor me, alright? Your blood sugar is probably- low, or what the fuck ever, or- you’re fucking dehydrated.”
Joe laughs at him, too fucking exhausted to see anything but the humour in all this, and Nicky frowns some more.
“Nicky, baby. You worried about me?”
He grins up at Nicky, knows his dimples are showing because his beard is trimmed tight these days, just a shadow. Lets his eyes crinkle up, and bats his eyelashes, just twice, for good measure.
Joe knows he’s cute, right. And after an episode like that, he tends to want to flaunt it for some attention, someone to ravish him for a night, make him forget. Usually in a club, but. This’ll do.
And Nicky might just be turning pink, spitting out insults as he spins around and locks himself in the bathroom (after delivering a pill to Joe), starts the shower up for himself, because he’s covered in Joe’s blood and sweat and the persistent odour of antiseptic, too.
What a fucking day, Joe thinks, leaning back against the pillows, munching on slices of mango between sips of water, feeling more cheerful. Texts Nile, confirms he doesn’t have to go in to work the next day. And then he remembers, abrupt and unbidden, the way Nicky had been looking at him earlier.
The smile falls off his face again, unease and unhappiness welling back up.
When Nicky comes back out again, in yet another stolen set of Joe’s clothes, he looks baffled to find Joe with all the lights off, shitty television on top of his dresser streaming Dracula, blankets all wrapped around him like he’s some kind of goth moth, waiting to hatch out of his evil little cocoon.
Nicky asks, “did you eat, man?”
Joe glares at him.
Nicky stares back, before walking around the bed and throwing himself onto the other side, grabbing the container of pad thai from the nightstand.
“Whatever. I’ll fucking eat it then. What are we watching?”
Joe hits the button on his controller, so that Nicky can see the title pop up on the screen.
“Cool,” Nicky mutters, and then he shuts up again. Doesn’t speak another word that entire night, but when the credits start rolling and Joe is too close to sleep to bother putting on anything else, he picks it up himself and puts on Silence of the Lambs.
He’s gone, when Joe wakes up in the morning. Later than he intended to, if the sunlight blaring through the window is to be trusted.
But there’s a glass of water on the nightstand, right beside a coffee from the corner store that’s gone cold by now, and another pill, so. It’s all just as well.