Nathan wasn't quite sure what he was doing. One second, he'd been at the station with Audrey, reading over her report of what had happened on Duke's boat when those two robbers had commandeered it. The next, he was standing on the pier. The sunset was pretty, he reflected absently.

Too bad the sunset wasn't what he was here for. No, he didn't know what he was doing, but at least he knew why he was here. Or, more specifically, whom he was here for. He was here for Duke, the man whose boat he was presently standing beside. He'd read the report, how Audrey explained Duke's capture. Of course the smuggler hadn't allowed himself to be seen to afterwards. He'd gotten everyone off his flooded boat as quick as possible, and that had been that.

Except it hadn't, because the more he got to thinking about it, the more worried he became. He and Duke may not have gotten along well at the best of times, but Nathan had already accepted that was just a part of their relationship. He wasn't as dense as Audrey accused him of being; he knew he cared about the younger man. And not just because he was one of only two people he knew that could actually make him feel something. Insane as he was, not to mention reckless and annoying and cocksure, Duke was probably one of the best men he knew. Sure, he didn't exactly have the most savory occupation, but when it came right down to it, Duke was a good guy. He was a good guy who'd taken more shit from people than he deserved and never really complained, and Nathan got the sneaking suspicion that sometimes, that turned out bad for him.

He had seen Duke before they'd cleaned everything up. He'd been holding a bloody rag to his bloody face, with all his traditional Duke indifference. But Nathan could see through it. This had shaken Duke; after all, this was his boat. This was his sanctuary, and it had been invaded.

Still, he'd left. Duke was a big boy, and could handle himself. That was what he'd told himself, anyway.

Obviously, he'd changed his mind.

Before he could change it again, Nathan walked onto Duke's boat. No doubt, he'd get some lip from his (secretly) favorite smuggler for showing up on his boat without a warrant or a crime scene, but he didn't particularly care about that right then.

Nathan raised his fist, and knocked it against the door of Duke's boathouse. He'd only just moved for the second knock before the door gave way, revealing Duke clad in the same clothes he'd last seen him in. Only, this time, they were a lot dirtier. As a matter of fact, all of him was dirtier, smeared with dirt and slicked with sweat and seawater.

"Wuornos," Duke greeted, "don't take this offensively or anything – because you know how much I love your company – but now's not really a good time." Nathan had always been good at reading between the lines, and these lines clearly read fuck off.

Normally, though he would never admit it, Nathan found he like Duke best when he was covered in the marks of his trade. A little bit of engine grease against his olive-toned skin looked pretty damn good on him, after all.

Not this evening, though. Right now, he just looked…tired. One of his eyes was starting to bruise, and the other had a dark circle beneath it. His face, which hadn't looked that bad when Nathan had left, looked a lot more painful now. It wasn't grotesque or anything; Duke probably didn't even know how to do grotesque. All the same, though, it looked damn sore. His left cheekbone was swollen a little, and a big angry bruise surrounded a cut. His opposite jaw had similar bruising, and his lip was split badly.

Nathan got the feeling, though, that none of it would've looked quite so bad if Duke had taken half a second to try to clean himself up.

"You look like shit," Nathan said tactlessly.

Duke sneered, but the expression lacked its usual fire, and even the lightest twitch of his mouth had brought new blood glistening to the surface of his lip. "Yeah, getting interrogated will do that to you. Now, like I said—"

Nathan cut him off. "I take it you got the leak fixed."

"I thought the whole 'boat's still floating' would make that pretty obvious," Duke retorted.

"I was going more or less on the hammer hanging from your belt loop and the fact that you smell like bilge water." Nathan shrugged. "But six one, half dozen the other."

The look Duke flashed him for that little nugget of sarcasm would've been enough to melt a lesser man into a puddle of trembling goop. "Did you come here for something, Wuornos, or did you just feel like being an ass?"

"That's something, isn't it?" Nathan asked. It occurred to him suddenly that it felt like they had switched roles. Duke was never this snappy; he was more the tongue-in-cheek, veiled insults type.

Since talking to him obviously wasn't getting the job done, Duke decided just to ignore his unwanted visitor. If he was being perfectly honest, Nathan was the last person he wanted to see right now. It wasn't that it hated the guy; he wished he could hate him, but he just couldn't. No, the problem was a little more complicated than that. All he'd wanted was a chance to retreat back into his violated hidey hole and lick his wounds until his smug smirk could fall in place without making his eyes well up.

Around Nathan, though, what he wanted had a tendency to change. Now, instead of retreating somewhere alone to lick his wounds, he couldn't help wishing that the other would notice. Logically, he knew it was better to hide it. He was Duke-freaking-Crocker, the master of smooth, cool, and everything otherwise unshakable. It wasn't in his repertoire to need help.

Still, he couldn't help that niggling hope: the hope that Nathan Wuornos actually gave a damn about him beneath that "go die and see if I care" exterior. He was just so tired and his everywhere hurt, and no one could be bothered to give two shits about him. Even Audrey just went on her merry little way, and she'd seen him getting the pulp beat out of him. It seemed to him that he only really existed when they needed something from him, and though it wasn't something he tended to mind, now…Now he needed more.

Frowning, he turned and started back for his stateroom. If he locked the officer out, maybe he'd take the freaking hint and get off his boat before Duke did something he'd get laughed at for later.

However, what he hadn't expected when he turned around was that the table he'd wisely side-stepped in his approach was still there. As he turned mid-step, the corner of the table bit into his bruised ribs, and all the air left Duke's chest in a rush.

Nausea rose in his stomach, and before Duke could fight it back, it forced its way up his throat. Mercifully, he made it to the edge of the boat before he tossed it, but it was all he could do to stay upright and keep his head over the boat rail.

Nathan watched in momentary confusion as Duke doubled over the card table, and then rushed to the side of the boat. As soon as he heard the sound of retching, his feet were moving him, and he ended up standing right behind the filthy, vomiting smuggler. Instinct and concern beat out common sense, and before Nathan knew what he was doing, he had one hand braced on the other's chest while he rubbed soothing circles between his pronounced shoulder blades with the other.

Out of respect, Nathan waited until Duke had finished feeding the fishes before he asked, "Are you okay?" It seemed like an obvious question once he asked it, but then, Duke's reply wasn't the obvious answer.

"I'm fine," he hissed, spitting the last of the muck from his mouth into the water. In truth, his head was spinning, pounding from where that thug's fists had used it as a punching bag. His ribs felt like they were in a vice, and no matter how good his sea legs were, it felt like his stomach was rolling with each and every wave of the relatively calm sea.

Still, if he could just make it inside, it wouldn't matter. Nathan would probably still laugh at him for getting seasick or something, but it was better than the truth. It was better than him knowing that Duke was only human, and that Duke could feel the pain that Nathan couldn't.

So, that was the plan. He shoved Nathan's hand from his chest – there was no denying the warmth and comfort of those hands, nor the absence their loss incurred – and started for the door as his vision began to tunnel.

He made it only a few steps before his knees buckled. In his defense, it was a truly valiant effort, and he didn't yelp or cry out. He accepted that he was going to hit the deck, and that it was going to hurt; all he could do was close his eyes and wait.

Only…the impact never came. Instead, he found himself in a pair of strong arms, leaning back into a firm chest that he'd only seen and felt in fleeting shoves and tussles.

"Jesus, Duke," Nathan said. It took some doing, but he managed to get the smaller man over to one of the chairs by the table that had been the cause of all this.

As soon as his ass touched the chair, Duke doubled over, his arms curled around his stomach. He was going to hurl again; he was sure of it. And it would be his luck that it'd be all over Nathan. Because he wasn't already humiliated enough.

Said HPD officer reached for Duke's arms, intent on unfurling them from his middle so he could get a look at him. The bruises on his face might've suggested a concussion or something, but the way he'd buckled when he hit his side on the table made Nathan think that there was something else there.

He'd only just gotten his fingers around one of Duke's abnormally thin wrists, though, before Duke wrenched his arm free. From the grimace, Nathan was willing to bet he paid for the act of defiance.

"Hey," Nathan said gently. He didn't want to make this a confrontation, anymore. His affections and their ongoing spat weren't important right now, not when Duke was so clearly hurt. "I just need to get a look at you, okay man?"

"I'm fine," Duke retorted. He moved to stand up, but he hadn't even gotten upright before the ground beneath him seemed to shift and he pitched forward again. Luckily, Nathan caught him and lowered him back into the chair.

Nathan raised an eyebrow. "You were saying?"

"Fuck off, Wuornos," Duke snapped. He didn't feel like putting up with Nathan's lip. Some part of him might've wanted Nathan to figure out his lie, to help him, but if he was just going to harass and patronize him, then he would rather he just buzzed off. "Aren't there some innocents you should be helping or something?"

"I don't know about innocents," Nathan replied, "but it looks like you could use some help." He tried to sound as earnest as he knew how; he really did want to help Duke. It was just a matter of getting the proud young man to accept his help.

Duke finally looked up, and for a moment, his eyes seemed to bore into Nathan's own, like he was searching for something. Nathan didn't know if he found it, but he let out a sigh and admitted, "I think it's just a bruised rib."

"You think?" Nathan asked.

Scowling, Duke straightened a little in his chair. "Yes, Nathan, I think. I'm not a fucking doctor."

It took some effort, but Nathan managed to ignore how good his name sounded on Duke's lips, and instead tried to offer something productive. "Maybe you should go see one?" He thought it was a valid suggestion.

Duke, apparently, didn't share that opinion. "I don't do doctors, man," he said. It wasn't exactly an olive branch, but at least there wasn't quite the fatal dose of venom he'd been spitting before.

Right, he remembered something about that. He remembered back when they were kids, when Duke had showed up with a broken arm. He'd tried righting it himself and nearly passed out in the playground. That was when he'd first figured out that Duke had a problem with hospitals.

Of course, it wasn't until a few years after that when Nathan found out it was Duke's father who'd broken his arm in the first place. By then, the enmity between the two of them was just a little too strong. It was only recently, now that he'd gotten to know the man better, that he started to feel just how great an injustice that had been.

It was Nathan's turn to let out a sigh. "Well, will you at least let me take a look at it?" Not that he thought Duke's reply would matter much. He'd take him into custody and get him a physical if he had to; vomiting and collapsing after getting the tar beaten out of you wasn't normal behavior.

Duke didn't look too keen on the idea, but he knew Nathan better than he got credit for. The guy would get his way eventually, and this was the preferable option. "Can I get a shower first?" he asked. As fond as he was of the smell of the sea, he didn't have a particular fondness for walking around smelling like fish and petroleum.

Nathan took one look at the guy and promptly nodded. Getting cleaned up would probably do the guy some good, anyway. His only question was whether Duke would be able to stand up long enough for a shower.

"All right, so shower first, and then you and I get to play doctor," Nathan said.

He took it as a good sign when Duke's lips quirked up into a shadow of that traditional smirk of his. "Sounds kinky," he said, and even though it sounded halfhearted, it was nice to see a little bit of the Duke he knew slipping back.

"Yeah, yeah, keep your fetishes to yourself, fish boy. Think you can get up?" Nathan asked. Duke went to do just that, but he only made it a few inches before he dropped back into his seat. "I'm gonna take that as a no…all right, let's get you in." He offered his hand, and when Duke took it, he pulled the other man up. Hooking his arm around Duke's lithe waist, he started to help the smaller man inside. It was all he could do not to think about the feel of Duke's warm skin pressed so close to him. Given his condition, even being able to feel anything at all was enough to send his heart racing. But this…this made it hard to think.

Once they made it to Duke's beloved stateroom, Duke started to pull his arm back from around Nathan's shoulder. It seemed like he was getting his feet back under him.

Nathan let himself be brushed off, if for no other reason than to let Duke protect what little was left of his wounded pride. All the same, he stayed within arm's reach of him as he walked gingerly around his cabin, gathering up some clothes for his shower. As soon as he stepped into his closet of a bathroom, Duke tried to shut the door, only to have it stopped by Nathan.

"I don't need a babysitter, Wuornos," Duke said.

So, they were back to the last names again. "No," Nathan agreed, "you don't. You never have. But right now, you look about one rock of the boat away from collapsing on your feet."

"Your concern is touching, but—"

"Just don't lock the door," Nathan told him. At Duke's curious look, he added, "You're a big boy, Duke. You can shower by yourself. On the off chance you do decide to have a gravity surge, though, I don't think either of us wants for me to have to break the door down."

Duke seemed to consider that for a moment. "And they say I'm uncivilized," he muttered finally. Nathan took that as a "yes" and removed his arm from the door, just in time for Duke to pull it shut.