extent | duplicitynet

He hadn't fallen asleep, and yet his eyes are opening. He barely has time to compute that fact before the familiar heat sears his arm - but it's on the wrong side, the wrong arm. By instinct, Nate sits up and lifts his arm to look at it, to see the circle flaring to life against his wrist before fading to what looks like black ink.

His left arm is covered with a full sleeve of those circles, many of them interlocking. They're a map, showing him where he's been. This new circle is on the other arm, which means it's far away from the others. Unconnected. That's--

But he's distracted. He sees another tattoo on the underside of his right arm, just beside where the new circle had appeared. Runic symbols for the elements, and for creation. Nate knows them well. He also knows he hadn't had that tattoo a moment ago.

And yet it's familiar. He remembers doing it to himself, after...after he was attacked...

He frowns, his brain scrambling to keep up. He pushes out of the bed and crosses the room to the wardrobe, which is mirrored, and he looks at himself. He pulls off his shirt. There's his map of circles, all over his left arm and creeping up the left side of his neck. All his other tattoos are where they should be, but there's...there's this symbol on his ribs, a symbol of protection. Caleb had given him that, Caleb. And Nick had given him that carved heart on his chest, and John had burned the match into the other side of his chest, and he'd put those dermal piercings under his collarbone himself after his magic was stolen. And that mark on his hip, that C-shaped burn, that came from Caliban--

"Jesus fuck."

He'd forgotten. How could he have forgotten all of them? He puts his hand over that carved heart. He can feel his connection to Nick through it. And yet five minutes ago, he hadn't known who Nick was.

Five minutes ago he'd watched while Ineroth consumed Thorn in front of him, and he'd felt Thorn's magic pushing him to teleport, and -

And then he'd woken up in his bed in Duplicity. Duplicity, yes, that's the name.

"Fuck this," he mutters, and raises his left arm. He presses his thumb against the circle representing the last world he and Thorn had been in. It starts to glow, and he teleports-

Except that he doesn't. He tries again, pushing himself. Magic builds, circling him, and then promptly drops him on his ass while it dissipates. He can't teleport out of here. No, of course he can't, he knew that, but--

His head feels scrambled. He puts his face in his hands, overwhelmed by it. He's got to get back to Thorn. But he also has to find Nick and Caleb and John, he can't just forget them again, and...

Oh god, how long has it been for them? How long has he been asleep? He can still feel Nick's presence, but that doesn't mean much. It could've been months. It could've been years, since it's been years for him. The room looks how he remembers it, but they could've just kept it that way. Left him there.

He needs to get back to Thorn.

He needs to think, to breathe.

He gets back to his feet, swallows, and pushes the wardrobe open. Inside are clothes he'd worn years ago, all exactly as he remembers them. He steps back, still shirtless, and closes the door again. The sight of himself in that mirror is so strange. Is this even real? How would he know? It could be another of Ineroth's traps, just more sophisticated than he's used to. His hand moves up to that carved heart. He focuses on it, and on the tendril of Nick that's inside, and he presses the scar, flooding his magic into it.

This time the spell works. It teleports him to Nick, wherever Nick might be at that exact moment. It's only then that he realises he should've thought of something to say, and he hasn't, because he's operating all on instinct, and so all that comes out of his mouth is a muted:

"Hi."

And then, after a second:

"Is this real?"

Edited 2022-07-07 17:17 (UTC)

If Nick had his way, he would have spent all his time by Nate's side, for all that it matters when the man is asleep. He tells himself over and over that people who fall asleep always wake up, that he's never heard of someone not waking up, that he'll wake up any day now, but Nick still wants to hold vigil all the same. Rationally, he just can't. Even if he were willing to risk the kinds of consequences that might come down on him, on Kyle, for Nick just blatantly ignoring the housing restrictions in place, there's still a matter of the theatre.

Nate wouldn't want it abandoned, not even for him, so Nick doesn't.

It's a miserable sort of affair in the lab without him, though. Lack of distraction doesn't make him any more productive, and he spends half his time portalling back to Nate's house anyway. Just to check in, even when nothing changes. And the days wear on like that, Nick split in two and poking the place where he normally feels Nate, stuck in stasis and waiting.

When that quiet spot very suddenly wakes up, it just about knocks him on his ass. It's hardly been that long, but it still takes Nick a moment to pick apart his feelings from the sudden explosion of Nate, finding where his confusion begins and the other's ends.

It shouldn't be surprising, when Nate appears in front of him, but Nick still presses a hand over his mouth. As if it'll to anything to muffle the sob, and anyway he abandons that quickly in favour of rushing over, catching Nate's face in both of his hands instead.

"I think so." There's a lot of theories floating around, but Nick suspects he's probably not looking for a philosophical debate on the answer right now. Instead he lets out a helpless little laugh, wet sounding as he looks at Nate. "Fuck, I missed you."

Hands on his face, Nick's eyes looking wet, Nick's voice, his touch. They all feel real. This connection between them feels real. If this is a trick, it's the cruelest he's yet seen.

Even so, he still doesn't believe it. Not fully, not after so long.

But that doesn't stop his hands from coming up to Nick's face, doesn't stop him from holding him, from pushing those hands into his hair.

"How long?" He murmurs, and before he even gives Nick time to answer, he's pressing closer to wrap his arms around him. He lets out a little sound, and drops his face down into the space beside his neck. "You have to be real, please, I can't, I...can feel you, please don't let it be false."

"Almost two weeks."

It doesn't take a genius to figure out it's been longer for Nate. Even without the new tattoos, without anything else, Nick can feel the difference. Still absolutely, uniquely Nate, but undoubtedly different. He doesn't know how much time has past, but it certainly hasn't been a couple of weeks.

There will be time to worry about that later, though. Right now Nick just winds his arms around Nate in turn, cups a hand to the back of Nate's head and holds him close. For a moment there's just relief to have Nate back in his arms again, holding him back. Sometimes two weeks can feel like a lifetime.

"It's real. Nate--I'm real, I'm here okay?" He turns his face in to murmur the words into the side of Nate's head, pressing light kisses into his hair in the spaces between the words. "I'm here, I'm with you. You're awake."

Two weeks. Almost two weeks? How is that possible? Everything from Duplicity is a blur to him. He needs to try and sort through it all, and then make sure everything here is how it should be and that it's not just--

"So it's not another bubble. You're here, this isn't in my head. I'm out."

He says it like he doubts every single word. He'd learned not to trust his eyes. It's why he hadn't gone to anyone else, why he hadn't been able to believe what was in front of him. Nick is more than what he can see. He can feel him.

But he hadn't been able to feel him before, and that's what's so strange. Their bond shouldn't have depended on this world.

"The mark was gone. My memories were gone, it was like I was never here. For years and years. And now it's all back. Two weeks?"

His hands keep a tight hold of Nick, like he expects him to disappear. He breathes him in, and leans into his hands and his lips, and slowly he starts to calm down. It's a gradual thing. He concentrates on their bond, which at this moment feels like the only thing he can really rely on, something that he doesn't think Ineroth could fake. None of the bubble dimensions had ever involved something like that. They'd looked right in every detail, but they hadn't involved this. And they'd felt fake. The sun hadn't moved, time hadn't seemed to pass. Food never tasted like anything. They'd felt wrong, somehow, and this doesn't. This feels right. Nick feels right.

Which doesn't make any of it easier to believe.

"I was trapped. But for years, not for...none of it makes sense."

Nick already knows that they don't retain any memories of the city when they do--whatever it is that happens in these dreams. Go back, is what everyone says. Whether or not that's what happens is up for debate. At any rate, Nick is aware that they don't remember the city, but it still hits hard to hear Nate say it. Gone, it was all gone.

The time to feel something about that isn't now, though. Right now he just rubs his thumb against the back of Nate's head, sighs quietly against him. After a moment he reaches for one of Nate's hand, tugs it up and worms it between them where it can press flat against Nick's chest.

"You can feel me, right? Just...focus on that, take your time. Just feel me, breathe. Start at the beginning."

Yes, he can feel him. He can feel Nick's emotions as well as his skin. His worry, his relief, the tangle of it all. There's a rightness to that. Nate remembers being used to having Nick's emotions in his chest. It's part of what grounds him. He leans back to see Nick's eyes, his face.

He comes to several conclusions, very rapidly, but now isn't the time for them. His mind doesn't need to race more than it already is. Nick's right, he needs to get it in order again. He should start at the beginning.

But...

He laughs, and takes a breath.

"Where's the beginning? It's all running together."

Overlapping. He turned 20 in both worlds, he's sure of that. He'd turned 21 here, he remembers that too. He remembers it, because he'd been so unhappy then. But he hadn't turned 21 back home, because he'd been trapped by then.

Okay. He nods, and moves back a bit. He doesn't let go of Nick, because Nick is like a tether, and at any rate he can't imagine himself willingly giving this contact up. Not now that he has it again. But he steps back enough to talk, and keeps a hold of a Nick's hand.

"I was in London," he says. "With Anna. She was here, right, so you know...? She felt something. I tried to find it with a spell, but the spell pulled me in, and I was in another-- realm. Maybe that's the right word. Hell might be another one. I was in a hell world. There was a demon. He did...things, to me. I got away from him eventually, but I couldn't leave his realm. Every time I tried I would land in a world within his world, like a micro-world. I called them bubbles, like bubble dimensions. He made them to look how people wanted. His captives, while he consumed them. They were made to feel like home."

He pauses, and a nervous glance takes his eyes around the room. His hand tightens on Nick's.

"But that's not...what this is, right? This is something else. A different sort of trap. It doesn't belong to him. Right?"

He wishes he had some simple answer. That they're in a dimension, or a simulation, or whatever other crazy theories might be floating around, but at least an answer. All Nick has are the same questions as everyone else, the same questions as Nate, really. He might not know what this demon of Nate's is, but they're the same questions he's been asking since he first arrived in Duplicity.

Nick squeezes his fingers around Nate's, teeth digging in at the inside of his cheek for a moment before he reaches up to touch Nate's cheek again, not content to give up contact for any meaningful time right now. Not after the last couple of weeks, not after how they left things.

"I think...this place was around before you, right? People have been here longer, people from all sorts of worlds. I think whatever is going here, it's different to what any of us have any kind of experience with. I don't...know if that helps."

Nick frowns a little, clasps Nate's palm to his chest tighter. It's relatively easy magic, to boost the thuds of his heart beat until they can be felt through his chest, a little uncomfortable but worth it for the point he's making. He's here, he's real.

"Whatever this is, I think it's something different. You're out of there now, Nate. We're here. I'm with you."

If it's different, is that better or worse? Nate really isn't sure. A trap is a trap, regardless of the trimmings. He tightens his hold on Nick again. He can feel his heart beating, and it helps to ground him again. Like an anchor.

He missed him, even though he didn't know him to miss.

"Ineroth was around long before me. He had so many trapped there. I freed some of them, but most were too far gone. Except for one, who stayed with me, and then at the very end Ineroth found us both. He consumed him. I saw him take him. I wanted to save him, but he pushed me away, and then--

Then I woke up here."

He swallows, and then looks at Nick. The distress is palpable through their bond, though outwardly, Nate controls it well. He doesn't look like how he's feeling. His breath is a little ragged.

"I spent so long trying to get out. I've got to get back, though. But I already tried and I can't...still can't teleport out of this bloody place."

"I know. I know, I'm sorry."

If he could, Nick thinks he might well just rip a portal out of this place for Nate right now. Even if that meant saying goodbye forever, because he can feel just how hurt he is, and there's very little that Nick hates more than that feeling.

He can't, though. All Nick can to is hold the hand on his chest, hold the cheek in his palm, do his best to be something calm and solid in the face of all of Nate's distress and confusion.

"We'll keep working on it. I'll keep working, Nate--we'll figure something out." It's too big of a promise to make, but Nick makes it anyway. He sounds sure, if only because he is certain that he'll never drop it at least. Whether there's a way out of here to be found or not, he won't stop trying to find it. "I'm...glad you're here, though. I'm sorry. But I am."

"No. No, don't be sorry, don't--Nick."

Nate turns to look at him, focuses on him in a way that makes his eyes blaze. If he'd learned anything in Ineroth's realm, it was that he would not give up, ever, no matter what happened to him or how hopeless everything seemed. He would keep fighting, because even when the odds were stacked impossibly against him, he could still make changes that mattered. He felt that way with every soul he managed to free.

He feels it now, even though he's in another trap. Because he got back something precious.

"I can't lose you again. If I leave this realm and I forget you then what's that worth? I need to fix that. I have to keep hold of this."

He pulls Nick's hand down to that carved heart, where they're connected.

"I'll break this whole universe to keep hold of you. It's not going to keep us apart."

It's one hell of a thing, being on the receiving end of that kind of intensity. Nick knows very well that he is loved, he doesn't doubt it for a second, but it's one thing to know something and another thing to feel it, bright and fierce enough that it almost takes his breath away. Nick knows, but it's a nasty place, the inside of his head; it's been a long couple of weeks.

At any rate, all that focus, all that intense love, it's just about enough to bring him to tears again.

"Yeah?"

He doesn't even mean to ask it, really. The word comes out in between one breath and the next, in a whisper, and he digs his hand into the spot where the scar sits, breaths out slow and shaky.

"Fuck, Nate--" He can't bear it any longer. Nick steps in, hooks his other hand back around Nate's head, but this time it's to pull him into a kiss, hard enough that it leaves him breathless, hard enough that when he does try to speak again, it's barely audible, muffled into his mouth. "I missed you so much."

Nate gathers him in, pulling them against each other without hesitation. He kisses Nick like he hasn't kissed him for years, because he hasn't. He doesn't remember that thing had been awkward between them before he slept. He doesn't remember the specifics of his last conversations with anyone. He just remembers the people, and the feelings, and in the end, that's what matters. That's what he can't lose.

He pulls Nick in tight. He's physically different. At home he'd never gained the muscle mass he worked to here, and so he's lost a lot of it, like it dripped away through lack of use. He feels thinner, and there's a lot of new tattoos. Most feel magical. Some are active spells, but others make little sense, like he'd scribbled on his own skin. His hair is a bit longer.

The way he holds Nick is the same, the way he tugs his hands through his hair is the same, the way he pushes up against him and breathes "please" into his mouth, is the same.

It's urgent, desperate.

But he can also feel Nick's need. He can feel that tangle of emotions. Two weeks, but Nick seems as desperate as Nate.

"What is it?" He murmurs, still against Nick's lips. "What's happened with you? Tell me."

It feels a little like it's been years, as irrational as Nick knows that is. A couple of weeks is nothing in the grand scheme of things, it shouldn't sit so heavy on his heart. But that same time, in the face of how they left things, have been agony.

"I just--kept thinking, what if I never got the chance to make things better with us. Nate, I never want things to not be right with you."

None of that feels as important as pressing up against Nate, pulling him in close at the same time, trying his very best to rid any space left between them. He's finally finding his footing again, the world just feels right again.

To make things right...

Because the last time they talked, it wasn't. It was full of sadness, of despair, of guilt, of anger. It's a memory, to Nate. Everything Nick means to him means so much more. But it's still important.

So he takes hold of Nick now, takes his face between his hands.

"So then we'll make it right. When I woke up, I felt you. You're still the only real thing I can feel here. The things that hurt me then aren't hurting me now. Sometimes things will. You don't have to save me from them, Nick, I just want to run to you when they hurt. And I never want to hurt you again."

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Forward dated to when Nate wakes up

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