Our Fated Endeavors, a poltergeist: the legacy fanfic

Title: Our Fated Endeavors

Author: OpheliacAngel

Pairing: Nick/Derek, Nick/Julia (past/minor)

Genres: Romance/Hurt/Comfort

Rating: Teen

Summary: 'I hope you don't hurt yourself, Nick.'

It wasn't something that Derek would have said, not the Derek that Nick knew. Nick also knew that they weren't words he should dwell on but he did. There was Julia's bloodied unmoving lips and Derek's voice, loud and not real and the pain caused Nick's head to spin, and even though he put his head in between his knees it didn't help.

Nothing could now.

A/N: Written for h/c_bingo during amnesty for the prompt 'grief' on my bingo card, and wow, this h/c_bingo thing is so addictive.

Background: In the present moment this is early Season 2 AU, set after the events of 'A Traitor Among Us' and heavily addressing that episode, but the super prolonged flashback is an AU deleted scene of sorts of the Pilot episode 'The Fifth Sepulcher.'

Soundtrack: Paradise Lost's 'Perfect Mask'

~I live behind the perfect mask

Erase the truth forever

I live behind the perfect mask

Only the true endeavor

Help me I dare say there's no other way~

Nick went to bed early after their last long and arduous case.

Early meant eight o'clock, a time of night which he normally would have scoffed at while finishing dinner and then going to work on their latest case. Even if said case went late into the night Nick still needed some downtime, some time to get his head clear before he headed to bed, but by six o'clock this night his eyes were already drooping and he could barely keep his head up. He managed to say up for another couple hours: drinking his way to numbness, cleaning his guns, but then the urge to not fall asleep on the kitchen room table overwhelmed him and he headed up to bed.

He wouldn't want Derek to find him like that: alone, vulnerable, not fit to even walk up to his own room.

Nick wouldn't want Derek to find him period, he just wanted to be left alone.

He knew Derek was angry with him, or at least he should be angry with him after the events of last month. The things he had written in his journal, the words he might as well have told Derek straight to his face rather than have him find out about them in front of all the other members of the Legacy, in front of those who were trying Derek, prepared to kick the precept out forever. It wasn't that Nick regretted what he said, he still thought Derek was a careless son of a bitch sometimes, but not all the time and anyway, that was his job. He was preparing them for the darkness, for a cruel and heartless world that Nick had already known too well long before he joined the Legacy.

It wasn't that Nick wanted Derek to confront him either, but he couldn't stand the growing feeling creeping up the back of his neck and suffocating his entire world that Derek was taking it easy on him. The others weren't, though they wouldn't dare test him anyway. They had written much of the same things, even Alex, who he thought had sympathized with Derek the most. How wrong he was about her.

How wrong he was to think that all of this would go away too: this feeling of helpless, of anger and guilt and agitation and fury.

He was angry at Derek for so many things: angry that he had abandoned Julia to that very same darkness he was supposed to protect her from, betraying her in the worst possible way; angry that he couldn't tell Derek how he really felt, how much he looked up to him yet how much he hated him for his role in the bitter parts of his life too; angry that Derek looked right through him sometimes, on purpose, as if he looked too hard at Nick then he would break.

Nick would too. That was the part that killed him.

The nightmares hadn't stopped since Julia's death. He didn't know whether the others had them or not, but the thought might have been a comfort. He had flown them back to San Francisco silently, his hands clenching and unflinching periodically through the ride, and then that was it. He hopped out of the chopper, brushed past Derek and rushed to his motorcycle, hopping on it and gunning it before Derek or Alex came after him.

He wanted to be alone, but there were so many things he wanted.

He wanted Julia back, safe, right by his side. He wanted not to love her as much as he had, so it wouldn't hurt so much, enough that it kicked the breath right out of him. He wanted to be away from that damn house and all those damn memories, didn't want to see Alex's pity, didn't want to watch as Derek pressed on, as if wanting to forget about everything that had happened, everything that he had caused.

So Nick was alone for three days and three nights. He drank and didn't sleep and watched shitty daytime TV. Alex called him but he didn't answer, not needing any reminders of his life. He got by, but on the third night Derek called him for the first time, and Nick clenched the phone so hard in his hand it almost broke. He was seething inside, needing to scream out all the rage inside him. And he wanted nothing more than to scream at Derek. Not that it would do any good; the man could be as cold and lifeless as a rock sometimes. Distant enough to make Nick infuriated and want to shake Derek until he lost it.

He respected Derek and he loved him too, that's what made it hurt so much. He was the one person Nick could never fully have.

Nick didn't answer the phone, but he did listen to the message. Whether what would greet him at the other end was Derek's barking voice to get back to the Legacy house because they had a case to work on, or a lifeless tone that simply stated that Nick should come back, he was prepared for neither. Maybe Derek knew full well he wasn't coming back. It was even more likely that he didn't care beyond the scope of what was best for the Legacy. Not even after what they had lost.

"Nick, it's Derek." There was a long, drawn out sigh coming from his boss and friend. Was he still his friend? Could Nick trust him to watch his back? Maybe the more important question was whether Nick could trust himself not to get anyone else killed. He wanted to pick up the phone and tell Derek to fuck off, but somehow that wasn't as important as listening, as wanting to see whether Derek would give him something, some sign that he actually wanted him back, dare he say it, for personal reasons. "I know it has been difficult since...," he cut himself off and Nick wanted to tell Derek how much of a son of a bitch he was, that he couldn't even say her name. "Things are not good between us." You're damn right they're not. "But I still want to try." Nick strained hard to listen, wondering what Derek would say next, but Derek's next words came too fast and Nick deflated. He shouldn't have expected anything but a cold shoulder from Derek. "I thought you should know that Julia's funeral is tomorrow. I hope you will come. Philip has prepared the service and Alex wants to know whether you are okay. I told her you were uninjured but she doesn't believe me. I... I hope you don't hurt yourself, Nick."

The phone went dead then, and Nick's heart stopped beating.

As much as he hated Derek, he hated himself even more. He should have gone against Derek's orders and went with Julia, should have been there with her, should have protected her. Julia would hate him as much as she hated Derek if she hadn't found peace, because Nick had always promised to be there and like a complete fuck up he had broken that promise.

Derek should be so angry at him for not being able to pull himself together. Angry like his father had been when he hit him repeatedly with his belt, when he tried to step in front of his mother and defend her. Angry like the bruises on his arms and legs and the welts on his back, angry as his screaming head.

How could Derek look at him now?

What good was he to Derek, to the Legacy, to anybody?

'I hope you don't hurt yourself, Nick.'

Nothing could now.

He came to the funeral, but none of the others would ever know it.

Nick watched them scatter her ashes across the lake, waited until just before they reunited with him and then drove away. He was untouchable now, tainted. Julia was dead and she wasn't coming back. If that thought hadn't sunk in then, then months later it definitely had.

The nightmares abated for a while, but they reared their ugly heads again after Derek's trial. There were just too many memories dredged up by past entries in his journal and the journals of his friends. He was selfish enough to believe after Derek revealed his involvement that Derek had put it all together to make Nick relive that one night, to somehow convince him of something.

Derek didn't look at him the same after that. Even though Nick hadn't been the traitor, even though Nick would never even think of going behind Derek's back for anything, not even to save his own life.

After the trial, Nick would close his eyes and remember himself screaming, raw and real, and he would remember Derek's hand on his shoulder, that it hadn't helped to stave off the chill embedded deep in his bones - icy cold that came from the rain and only grew sharper with the scene created for his eyes, a cold that was unending and vicious and squeezed the very life out of him - but that it had been there nonetheless. Derek sharing in his pain, Nick collapsing against him and Derek's arm falling across the back of his neck.

The cold and her dead eyes eating away at him piece by piece.

The next time he had been relatively coherent again, Derek was on his knees in the mud and the blood and the filth and shaking him, Nick's head bobbing back and forth, he supposed like a marionette on a string. "Nick," his voice had been urgent, as if he was embarrassing Derek, as if he could help falling apart in front of the one person he didn't want to. "Nick, you need to get up now." He hadn't wanted to get up, he just wanted to bury his head in the mud and never get back up again, but Derek was shaking him and he tried to remember what it felt like to feel warm and alive.

He wanted to remember so he let Derek help him up, and if he turned away from Julia too quickly and buried his head against Derek's shoulder then no could blame him for that, no one but himself. That weakness tortured him just as surely as Julia looking down at him had. Derek must have wanted to shove him away, to wallow in his own pain, but he let Derek's arms guide him back to the hotel and into his room. He thought about telling Derek to leave and go back to the room he had paid for himself, but as soon as his mentor drew the blinds shut and disappeared into the bathroom he knew there was no chance of that.

Derek wouldn't leave him, not after what had happened.

They didn't leave that godforsaken town until the next morning. Nick listened to the water run in the next room for a little while, his teeth chattering as he drew the blanket Derek had draped around him as soon as they entered the room closer. Somehow, he unlaced his boots and kicked them across the room. Then with everything he had in him he forced himself to focus and stared at the pulled to bathroom door, waiting for Derek to reappear.

It didn't take long for the water to shut off and for Derek to come walking out, avoiding eye-contact with a shivering and probably absolutely pitiful looking Nick. He pulled back one of the blinds and looked out into the night and it was the fear that came to the forefront of Nick's mind even before the pain and the cold and the loss. Suddenly he was sitting there frozen in more than one sense, paralyzed, Derek standing two feet away completely oblivious. Apparently to Derek, the danger wasn't over, even though Nick had watched the demon shrivel up and dissolve before his very eyes. But who was he to tell Derek any different? It could be out there right now, watching, lying in wait.

Nick had to move, get his head clear again. Derek's head whipped around and the blind dropped shut as Nick shifted on the bed. Moving was easier thought about than done, and he almost thought better of it because at least he could keep an eye on Derek out here. At least he knew he wouldn't have to be alone.

His fingers reached into the waistband of his jeans, but there was no familiar press of his fingers against an object he desperately needed. If it was possible to tremble harder, he did.

Derek stood over him this time instead of getting down on his knees. "We need to get you out of these clothes and warmed up."

"My gun," Nick mouthed the words before he coughed and repeated them with an ill-used voice.

"I disarmed you before we left the field," Derek said, without a hitch in his breath. God, he hadn't wanted to follow Derek out into that field, but he had despite the sinking pit in his stomach. Nick stole himself away from that memory with great energy. He studied Derek's face and analyzed his words in an attempt to get out of his own head for a while. It was dark in there, but if he didn't have to deal with the fear alone in the room then he could face whatever he had to.

Nick realized that Derek was noticeably shaking now, not as much as Nick was, but he had been exposed to the same weather out there. Not that Nick had forgotten that, just that he had been nowhere in particular on their walk here. "You."

Derek paused and glanced down at himself, also in soaking wet clothes, loose strands of hair dripping water onto his face. Nick had the urge to stand up and cup Derek's face in his hands, just to feel the warmth of another human being, to know that Derek was still alive and that he wasn't back there. That Nick wasn't alone. The man Nick was amazed to say he loved looked up at him again, hair shielding his forehead that Nick wanted to push away. He had been too numb to feel anger then. Just guilt and cold and pain and need that might as well have been physical with how well it pierced him like a shot to the gut.

"I'm all right..."

It was Nick who interrupted for once, but given the situation he was in no mood to smirk. "Kept you out there." Derek could have walked away and left Nick behind in that field. What if Nick had never responded? But maybe Derek was scared too, was that even possible?

"It does not matter now. We both need to get warm again and then rest. You will go first and then I'll take first watch." Nick nodded, knowing there was no point in arguing, and managed to get back up on his feet again. Derek hovered, his face a confusing blend of uncertainty and irritation when Nick caught his gaze. The precept opened his mouth to say something but ended up closing it. Before Nick could even think about moving again, his limbs locking up from the cold, Derek had his mouth open again and his voice was thick as he spoke. "Will you be alright?"

Nick snorted and ran a hand he knew was trembling over his face. He also knew that Derek's eyes were on him, the big, concerned eyes that Nick had always wanted on him but rarely received. Why did they have to come out now, when Nick was tired and couldn't think straight? "I'm a big boy, Derek. Can take a shower by myself."

Derek stepped closer and Nick took a step back, alarmed. His fear was misplaced being directed at Derek, but he couldn't help it any more than he could losing his mind out there in that field. "A bath, Nick," the precept insisted. "I have already drawn one for you." Oh yeah, that's right, forgot. "You're too unsteady on your feet." But sitting in a bathtub wasn't Nick's way of relaxing, especially since he no longer had that gun on him.

"Gee, thanks," Nick turned away. "Guess I can't handle this life after all." It came out a lot more bitter than he had intended, but Derek was fucking around with him whether he realized it or not, and Nick couldn't handle this pushing forward and then jumping back right now. Derek seemed even more jittery than he was, and it was more than just unsettling Nick.

"Nick. Please be careful. If you were to slip and fall, if I wasn't there..."

"You'll be in the other room, Derek," Nick said, exasperated. His hand was on the doorknob, and whether the exhaustion was dragging his barriers down one by one or the need he had for Derek to keep looking at him was, he didn't know and he honestly didn't care either. "Look, why don't you join me, okay?" He closed his eyes and breathed out; breathing in turned out to be a harder task, he couldn't get the oxygen he needed and he was dangerously dizzy. He couldn't keep himself on his feet much longer and Derek was hovering again, he could practically feel his fingers on his back. "Body heat will do us both some good."

He wondered how far he should take it, but Derek was already ahead of him and pulling back the shower curtain and Nick followed him, pulling the door back as far as it would go, so it smacked against the edge of the bathtub.

He started stripping when it was already made clear that Derek was way ahead of him, but it was slow work and not only because his limbs wouldn't cooperate. He was mesmerized like a lovestruck fool as he watched Derek strip just inches away from him, all the way down to his boxers. He had dreamed of that moment for so long now and there it was, playing out right in front of him, there for the taking. Derek was still in good shape, amazing shape as Nick's eyes took him in discreetly. His legs were long and lean, and he knew his arms were strong by the way he had manhandled Nick all the way here, holding him up, hands pulling him back together.

Derek turned around and caught his gaze and shot Nick a small smile, and goddammit but his smile was nice too, soft and crinkly around the edges and it reached his eyes. Those capable, strong hands helped Nick get out of his undershirt and pants and down to his boxers. And there they were: the two of them standing there huddling together, naked except for those damn boxers, thin material between what Nick wanted to get his hands on. Derek seemed sorta eager too. Nick couldn't ignore the way Derek's eyes lingered over him, eyes that seemed pretty freaking ravenous.

If he was dreaming it then he could deal with that too.

"Guess we should leave our boxers on." Derek was already guiding him into the bathtub though, and the older man slipped in behind him, legs bracketing Nick's, arms wrapping around his waist and helping him settle down. "Don't get any ideas," Nick chuckled, and Derek smiled against the back of Nick's head.

"I would not dream of it." Nick had closed his eyes and drifted off for a while, but not long enough for the water to have gone cold. Derek was a strong, hard presence at his back but Nick was also sinking back into him more and more by the minute, ignoring all his embarrassment, ignoring the screaming and the panicking in his head. He jumped when Derek first ran his fingers along Nick's arm, but relaxed into it almost immediately. "Rest now," Derek murmured. "We'll face whatever the morning brings us tomorrow."

Nick didn't remember falling asleep, but he remembered that Derek never did wake him up for that second watch.

Whatever had happened between him and Derek that night in that hotel room was never spoken about. They never went further than sharing a bath, no touching or groping, but Derek wouldn't have gone for it so easily without good reason, Nick had been convinced of that.

Now he wasn't so sure.

Derek had been avoiding him since the trial and with good reason too. Nick might not have betrayed him, but he did put damning evidence in his journal, a journal which he hadn't touched since it was put on display to ruin his mentor. He knew he would get in trouble if it was found out that he was no longer logging entries, given they were used for future trials like Derek's, but every time he picked up pen and brought it to paper he couldn't do it, could no longer show Derek in that light. Or in any light, for that matter. He would rather keep his thoughts concerning Derek to himself.

Besides, what more could he write besides that everything was back to normal, that everything would seem normal to an outsider but that Nick could so much as taste the tension between him and Derek?

Going to bed early had been the only recourse after three days of biting his tongue and biding his time. And biding his time for what? For Derek to confront him, for Derek to say things that he would never say? But he should have known to put up a fight against sleep, at least for a little while longer. The nightmares made his waking minutes with Derek all the more harder.

"Nick!" He had been dreaming of Julia, propped up again, arms strung up and the blood drained out of her face and dripping down from her fingers. She was mocking him. Look what you've done, look at what you've made me. No matter how many times he screamed her name, he couldn't get her gaze off him. No matter how many times he pleaded. Derek's voice dragged him out of that field abruptly and shoved him right back into reality. He jumped when he realized that the older man was hovering over him, too close, but Nick didn't vacate the warm bed. Derek's hand was on his shoulder and that was warm too, so warm it almost burned. The son of a bitch had taken Julia's life in his own blood-stained hands and destroyed it, but here Nick was, melting under his mentor's touch. "You were having a nightmare."

Nick grimaced and turned his head away from him. "Fifth one this week."

Derek pulled his hand away rather than move closer to support him, and Nick swallowed down the bile in his throat. The precept would be at the door within minutes,, leaving Nick to wonder whether he had been dreaming him too. "Shall I make you some tea?"

"Don't bother," Nick spat out. He was already moving out of the bed and stumbling over to his closet, yanking a shirt off its hanger and pulling it on. His fingers were shaking, preventing him from buttoning the buttons on his shirt.

He closed his eyes and breathed, willing his mind to focus, but all he saw when he shut them was Julia. Julia, with her dead eyes penetrating him as she laid propped up as a human sacrifice, a substitute for the scarecrow that should have been there. Julia, blood dripping from her fingers and onto Nick's face, into Nick's open mouth. He might have started screaming, he didn't know for sure, but Derek's hands on his own and his concerned gaze told him that the screaming was all in his head. And what a relief it was. He didn't know if he could handle Derek's wide eyes and Derek backing away from him like he was a lunatic that he shouldn't be under the same roof with.

"You're not fit to work," Derek felt privy to inform him. Nick leeched all the concern he thought he heard from that one sentence, but there wasn't much. Rachel would be gentle with him and so would Alex, but Derek was all hard, stony gaze and somewhat cold eyes and Nick was just another cog in the machine, in the machine that Derek ran, maintained, kept well-oiled. "Take the day off, Nick." Nick didn't think he could, not when every time he closed his eyes he saw her.

He saw himself, down on his knees, tilting over into Derek and Derek's arm wrapped around him and Nick screaming and falling and breaking and no one hearing him.

"I'm fine."

"It's not a request," Derek snapped back. A long pause that seemed purposeful. "You need time to heal," he insisted this time. "Time to rest." Nick caught the concern this time, and he also took note of the way Derek's fingers curled slightly into the fabric of Nick's shirt, despite that all the buttons had been buttoned. Nick swayed drunkenly, unsure what this was but wanting it nonetheless, just like he had that night, despite thinking then that he didn't know any better. Derek steadied him, eyes wary but Nick turned away. "Nick, look at me," but Nick didn't look, and was Derek's voice shaking? "What happened was not your fault. Nick?"

Nick sneered at him. "You're right. It was your fault." He caught the flash of what was unmistakably anger in Derek's eyes and took it as his mentor about to leave. Like always. His hand found Derek's arm and he grasped it unsteadily. "Wait... don't. Don't leave. Not yet. Can't... can't do this." Derek's arm slipped out from underneath Nick's but it came round him, holding Nick as he curled in on himself, as he swallowed back choking sobs that were threatening to dislodge from his throat. "Don't want to be alone. Not like her. She was alone. She died alone, Derek!" He screamed, he knew he was half-crazed but he didn't care. Derek wasn't looking at him like he was crazy. Maybe to Derek he was but that wasn't what his eyes said.

He drifted for a while, finally losing control. When he came back to himself he was half on the floor and half in Derek's lap, and Derek was whispering soothing nonsense in his ear while Nick slowly but surely lost it. His throat was burning and he wondered if he had done anymore screaming. If he had, Derek didn't seem to care.

"We'll go outside and get some fresh air. Just you and me, and we'll talk. I promise. I keep my promises, Nick." Derek tilted his head up and kissed him then, and Nick's eyes went wide with disbelief. Derek lips were soft and they were slow as they moved against his own chapped lips, but Nick felt that Derek was sure about this one thing. Nick had always been sure, in the back of his mind. "I am not going to lose you, Nick. Julia's death was my fault and I will never forget my role in her death, but I will never leave you to that darkness. Do you understand me?" Nick nodded and finally collapsed against him, letting Derek support him like he knew he would, like he had in that bathtub halfway across the world. He was more tired than he had been that night, so tired. Derek lifted him up too easily, like Nick had already broken. "But for now, I'm going to get you up and into bed, okay? Do you trust me?"

"You have my back," Nick murmured. "Never doubted that for a second, Derek."

In his own way, he never had, even when he knew they still had such a long way to go.

FIN

A/N: God, I love Nick's character so much. He's so tough and capable and hardheaded and a total bad ass too, but inside he's such a good guy and a kind person and he gets so quiet and brooding sometimes and he cares so much about the people he loves and the world around him. Seriously, what is not to love? Plus, Martin Cummins pulls him off so well. Thanks for reading.