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Adam Raki and the Accidental Nurse

Today is my darling @hotsauce418‘s birthday and the trash possum extraordinaire requested some Spacedogs sickfic. So happy birthday hotty, I hope you enjoy <3<3<3

Also on AO3.

“Fucking cocksucking asshole cab drivers!”

If he looked at it objectively, Nigel would probably allow that there was a reason cab drivers tended not to stop for him. Six foot of glowering, tattooed Romanian was probably enough to make even your most toughened Californian cabbie lock all his doors, let alone the pussies who drove in this hoity-fucking-toity neck of the woods. Objectivity was not, however, one of Nigel’s strong points, so instead he elected to continue growling obscenities at the entire cab-driving profession as he moved down towards the back of the bus he’d been forced to mount in lieu of any other transport options.

“Motherfucking dick hole son of a fucking whore!”

“Could you please refrain from swearing until you have left the bus, please?”

Nigel swung to find the source of the soft but direct complaint, fully anticipating a welcome chance to knock some cheeky fucker’s face in. What he found, instead, was a face he wouldn’t wish to see damaged by his or any other fists for all the money in the world. Bright blue eyes, wide and innocent looking, were set in a pale, smooth-skinned face, and set off by waves of brown hair, just coming loose from the neat, careful shape they had been tamed into. Nigel took in the young man sitting opposite him, the old man clothes and stiff demeanour not remotely dimming his beauty, and immediately decided to switch from offensive to charm offensive.

He grabbed the rail above the kid’s seat and hung off it, leaning down with a smile to say, “My apologies, gorgeous, I didn’t realise I was being so uncouth. I’d hate to think I made you uncomfortable.”

The kid crossed his arms in front of himself, not meeting Nigel’s gaze, and said, “I don’t like loud noises or swearing, they make me uncomfortable. In addition, I have a very bad headache and am not feeling very well, so I would appreciate it if you could wait until you are further away before continuing your tirade. And my name is Adam,” he added. “Please don’t call me gorgeous, it is demonstrably untrue and therefore either you are mocking me, or attempting to use an endearment inappropriate for someone you have just met.”

Nigel blinked, and then gave Adam a slow look up and down. “Darling, I’m not sure what you see when you look in the mirror, but from here you are very evidently the most gorgeous thing in this whole damn state.”

At this, Adam flicked his eyes up to Nigel’s for a fraction of a second before he looked away again. He sighed and said, “I can’t tell if you mean what you say. Normally I would attempt to understand, but I’m really not feeling well enough to do so today. My stop is not far away, would you mind if we don’t talk anymore?”

“I don’t mind darling,” Nigel grinned. He was suddenly very glad to have taken the fucking bus this once, if it meant getting to sit next to this strange, pretty kid for a little while. “But in return, might I sit with you, seems like all the other seats are taken. Promise to keep my trap shut,” he added, holding his hands up as Adam narrowed his eyes. The kid peered at him – or at least, near to him – for another moment, then gave a curt nod of his head, and moved a little to the side to make space for Nigel.

True to his word, Nigel didn’t utter another syllable. He did, however, take advantage of Adam’s resolutely front-facing gaze to look his fill. At first, he simply admired the kid’s trim figure, his long legs and the way his surprisingly broad shoulders tapered into a slim waist. Eventually, though, he lifted his gaze above the kid’s neck and began to get concerned. There was sweat on Adam’s brow, and high colour in his cheeks. He hadn’t been lying when he said he was sick.

“Adam, I know I said I would be quiet, but you don’t look good, darling. Are you going to be ok?” The question drew no response, and Nigel began to get truly worried at the glassy look in Adam’s eyes. He was about to try again when the bus started to slow, and Adam stood jerkily, swaying a little as he gathered his things. Apparently this was his stop. Reluctantly, Nigel stood to let him past, already wondering if he should offer to see the kid home, if that would be unwelcome to this closed off young man. His mind was made up for him, though, when Adam fainted clean into his arms.

“Adam? Adam?” Nigel stared into his face in alarm, instinctively hefting the kid up into his arms.

Adam stirred a little at his name and blinked up at Nigel, who immediately felt a rush of relief. It was short-lived though, as Adam woke only long enough to murmur, “Please, no doctors,” before passing out again.

Nigel looked down at him in dismay, at a complete loss as to what to do with the unconscious young man in his arms. He gave Adam a little shake in desperation, but Adam remained resolutely out of it. Nigel wasn’t exactly one to panic, but right now, suddenly in charge of an unwell young man he didn’t know from… well, from Adam, regardless of how familiar he’d got with his appearance in the last twenty minutes, Nigel would definitely admit to being just the tiniest bit fucking fraught.

The bus driver piping up, “You two getting off or what, I’m on a timetable,” wasn’t helping matters either.

“Gimme a fucking minute,” Nigel barked at her, casting around for help from the other passengers and finding nothing but carefully turned-away faces.

“Buddy, either you and your sweetheart get off, or I’m closing the doors and leaving, what’s it to be?”

Nigel looked down into Adam’s sleeping, flushed face and made his decision.

“We’re getting fucking off, ok?”

“Hallelujah,” came the response, and Nigel barely kept himself from growling at her in response. He hefted Adam again, retrieving the kid’s bag from his shoulder and slinging it over his own, then awkwardly manoeuvred both of them towards the doors. As he passed, the driver asked, “He ok?”

Nigel just glared at her and said, “Giving a fuck included on your fucking schedule, is it?” She looked mildly shamefaced and he threw her a sneer before carrying Adam down to the sidewalk.

Fortunately for Nigel, it was the middle of the day and Adam’s was a quiet residential neighbourhood, so there was no one around to accuse him of mugging the kid. Instead, he was able to lay Adam down on a nearby bench and, with a muttered apology, go through his bag in search of his ID. A couple of minutes and a quick search on his phone told him Adam lived five minutes from the bus stop, in a pleasant looking little house. Nigel took a moment to question what the hell he was doing, then lifted Adam into his arms once more and started walking.

He should take the kid to the hospital, Nigel knew, should drop him safely into a waiting room, make sure he got attended to and then just leave. It shouldn’t matter that the kid had asked him not to, he wasn’t well and it sure as fuck wasn’t Nigel’s job to take care of him. As if Nigel knew how to fucking take care of anyone anyway. He continued to walk, though, Adam settled surprisingly comfortably in his arms, huffing warm breath against his neck and exuding way too much heat for either man’s comfort. Nigel wasn’t sure he could have stopped if someone had told him to, some weird urge inside him telling him to stay with the kid, to make sure he didn’t have to see anyone he didn’t want to, to get him back to his home and pray to every motherfucking deity he didn’t believe in that there was someone there who could take proper care of Adam.

As they neared Adam’s house, Nigel fully expected someone to rush from their front door and ask what the hell he was doing to their nice young neighbour. No one did though, and Nigel found himself stepping up to Adam’s front door wholly unmolested, digging the keys he had retrieved from Adam’s bag out of his pocket, and carrying the kid over the threshold as if they’d just got fucking wed.

“Yeah, this’d be a fucking romantic one for the grandkids,” Nigel muttered as he kicked the door closed behind them and carried Adam straight upstairs, in search of a bedroom. “How did you and Grandpa Adam meet, Papa Nigel? Well, kiddies, I harassed him on a bus, then he fucking passed out and I broke into his house.” Nigel shook his head and gave a sigh of relief as he found the bedroom, clean and neat as a goddamn pin. Nigel carefully laid Adam on top of the sheets, removed his shoes and jacket, laid the comforter from the end of the bed on top of him, and then stopped to wonder what the everloving fuck he was supposed to do now.

Going outside and having a smoke was looking like a really good option right now.

Except, Adam was still really flushed, and he was making this little snuffling sound in his sleep that was breaking Nigel’s heart, and – after Nigel had a quick look around the house – it was really fucking obvious that there was no one coming home to take care of him. So instead, Nigel took out his phone and asked Google what the fuck you do for someone with a fever.

The first thing, getting the person to rest, Adam had kindly taken care of by passing out. Apparently the loss of consciousness was a bad sign, and Nigel once again contemplated calling an ambulance, before deciding to give it a few hours before making that decision. Adam was breathing comfortably and he seemed peaceful, so Nigel decided he was more asleep than unconscious anyway.

The second thing, getting him into some lightweight clothes, was going to be a bit more challenging. Nigel had certainly given plenty of thought to relieving Adam of his clothing before he’d realised the kid was sick, but his imaginings hadn’t involved him ransacking his drawers for a pair of pyjamas – clearly bought from the same old man store as the rest of his wardrobe – and then manhandling his unconscious, sweat-soaked body into them. They certainly hadn’t involved leaving his underwear on out of respect.

Finally, Nigel got Adam settled again and went in search of ice (for hydration), a washcloth (for cooling), and a back door (for a fucking smoke, for Nigel’s fucking sanity). He found all three, along with a fully-stocked first-aid kit and, after a blissful if abbreviated cigarette, returned upstairs to find that Adam had kicked off the comforter but otherwise looked much the same as he had when Nigel had left him. Nigel replaced the blanket and then sat next to Adam on the bed, placing a bowl of water next to him and beginning to wipe Adam’s face and neck down with it. Nigel felt acutely the strangeness of doing this to a stranger, and tried to remember the last time he had shown an ounce of kindness to another person. He thought of Gabi, and winced, deciding quickly that she had no place in this house. Nor did he, of course, but he was in too far now to leave. Far too far, he thought, as he smoothed Adam’s damp hair back from his forehead.

Nigel jumped when he realised the kid was pressing into his hand, and removed it quickly, only to find blue eyes suddenly peering not quite at him once again.

“You’re from the bus,” Adam croaked, his voice small and weak.

“That’s right, Adam. My name’s Nigel. You weren’t well so I brought you home.” Nigel hoped to God he was managing to sound kind, rather than threatening. He wasn’t sure he remembered how.

“You called me gorgeous,” Adam murmured, and Nigel wondered how awake he actually was.

“Yeah, I fucking did, gorgeous, that’s right.” Nigel slowly reached for Adam’s hand, telegraphing his movements so as not to frighten him. “Listen, darling, I don’t want to trespass further on your space. You got someone I could call to come take care of you?”

Adam closed his eyes and Nigel wondered if he’d passed out again. If he had, he really would have to call the doctor this time. After a moment, though, they fluttered open again and Adam shook his head fractionally. “No, no one. Harlan is still in New York and my father’s in Queens.” He gave a weak little laugh that worried Nigel immensely. “That means he’s dead. Harlan said it was a joke but I don’t understand why it’s funny.”

Nigel’s heart dropped as he realised that Adam had no one. He scrubbed a hand over his eyes and tried to think what to do.

“It’s ok, Nigel, you can go. I can take care of myself. The fever will break and then I will be fine.” Adam’s voice was small, but firm, the same way it had been on the bus, and just as it had then, it decided Nigel at once.

“Don’t hate me, gorgeous, but I’m not gonna take your fucking word for that,” he said. “Think I should stay and check for myself.” Adam shook his head again, but Nigel ignored it. “Now, think you could drink something for me before you go back to sleep? I brought some ice up, it’s better for you than water, so doctor fucking internet tells me.”

Adam just squinted at him some more with those beautiful blues, and then asked, almost a whisper, “Why would you stay?”

Nigel smiled at him, and this time he was almost certain he managed to make it kind. “Because you need me to, gorgeous.”

Finally, Adam raised his eyes to Nigel’s, and Nigel’s breath hitched. Even sick, this boy was truly beautiful, and Nigel couldn’t think of many better ways to spend his time than simply to look at him. Adam just nodded, resigned, and then looked away, towards the glass of ice chips Nigel had brought up.

“Think you could manage a couple?” Nigel asked, and Adam nodded again. Nigel beamed at him – fucking beamed, when had he ever – and grabbed the glass. He helped Adam to sit up a little and then held one of the chips to Adam’s lips, who looked a little reproachful but didn’t make a move to stop him. He managed three of them like this, before his eyelids started to droop again, and Nigel took the glass away.

“One last thing, beautiful, before you sleep. Let me take your temperature?” Nigel had found one of those fancy thermometers in the first-aid kit, the kind that went inside your ear and gave instant readings. Adam acquiesced easily, and Nigel took the reading. 38.8oc, high but not in the danger zone; they could avoid the hospital as long as it didn’t get any higher. Nigel looked back at Adam to give him the good news and found that the kid was already asleep again. He looked angelic to Nigel, flushed pink and with his hair forming into curls around his forehead. He looked like something Nigel wanted to protect.

Nigel woke the next morning with a stiff back and a dull ache everywhere else from spending the night in a chair next to Adam’s bed. He also woke with Adam’s hand clutched tightly in his own, and wondered at himself for getting attached so quickly. It had happened once before, of course, but… no, that wasn’t a thought he needed to have right now. He stood and placed his free hand against Adam’s forehead. No cooler than the day before, Nigel estimated, but no worse, which was good, he supposed.

He tucked the covers more firmly around Adam’s sleeping form, lingering just a little to take in how the early morning sunlight made him glow. Just looking, Nigel thought, fucking looking never goddamn hurt anyone. He spent the next hour finding ways to keep himself busy, taking a shower, having a smoke, snooping through Adam’s stuff (telescope, space books, space models… whole lot of space stuff. Nigel was really hoping he wasn’t one of those fussy nerd types, like on some bad sitcom, but Adam didn’t seem much of either from what he’d seen). Anything to keep himself distracted, because the urge to simply sit by the bed and watch Adam sleep was unsettlingly strong.

Eventually, Nigel deemed that enough time had passed for it to be completely reasonable for him to check in on his patient. He gathered another bowl of water and a clean cloth, along with painkillers and more ice chips, and climbed back up the stairs to Adam. As he set down his supplies, Nigel glanced at Adam’s face and found a blue eye cracked open, observing him closely.

“Hello, gorgeous,” Nigel said.

Adam continued to peer at him for a little while, and then said, “You’re still here,” his voice not much more than a croak.

“That I am, sweetheart.” Nigel perched on the edge of the bed and brushed Adam’s hair out of his eyes. The boy didn’t flinch, but Nigel could see the touch made him tense and he withdrew his hand. “Thought I’d be gone with the morning light?”

Adam’s eyes had followed Nigel’s hand as he drew it back, and he kept them trained on it as he said, “I don’t understand why you are here. You don’t know me, you have no reason to care about me. I don’t like not understanding, please could you explain?”

“Thought maybe if I helped out an angel, I’d get myself a free pass to heaven,” Nigel grinned, tossing a wink Adam’s way for good measure.

Adam just frowned and looked faintly irritated. “I am not an angel, Nigel, angels don’t exist. Nor does heaven, or at least it is a relatively unlikely theory and not a good explanation for your presence in my home.”

Nigel could do nothing but chuckle at the response. The kid wasn’t easy and, dammit, Nigel always liked a challenge.

“Ok, beautiful, but you won’t like it.” Adam just pouted at this, and Nigel was hard-pressed to think that he’d ever seen anything more fucking adorable in his life. “Truth is, Adam, I don’t have a good reason. Not every day that some gorgeous kid falls into my arms, thought I shouldn’t pass up the opportunity.”

“Nigel, I’m not sure at this point if you are in fact capable of being serious,” Adam protested, his voice weak and strained, “but please try.”

Nigel felt a little stab of guilt at teasing the kid when he wasn’t well, and decided to stop being an ass for a minute. “Ok, Adam, I’ll be serious. But first you’re gonna sit up and suck down a couple of these ice chips for me, yeah?”

Adam nodded, and let Nigel rearrange him without protest, accepting the piece of ice and placing it between his lips. Satisfied, Nigel told him the whole story, that Adam had asked not to be taken to a doctor, that Nigel had carried him home, that it was obvious Adam lived alone and Nigel hadn’t wanted to leave him when he was so unwell. He left out the parts about thinking Adam was the most beautiful person he’d ever clapped eyes on. Bit fucking much to lay on the kid at this point.

Adam seemed to accept this explanation, despite the fact that it didn’t really even make sense to Nigel how they’d ended up here. So Nigel figured he could ask his own question.

“Why didn’t you want a doctor, gorgeous?”

Adam sucked on another ice chip contemplatively and then said, “I don’t like doctors, or hospitals. There are lots of people there, many of whom are loud and aggressive, and there are germs and disease everywhere.”

“Well yeah, it’s where fucking sick people go.”

Adam regarded him coolly and added, “In any case, a low-grade fever does not require a doctor, only rest and hydration.”

Nigel shrugged and asked, “So you won’t go see the doc now if I suggest it, then?”

“I would prefer not to,” Adam confirmed.

“Fucking rest and hydration it is then.”

Adam’s temperature cooled during the day – assisted by a not-at-all fucking awkward bath, during which Nigel had done his best not to see anything he wasn’t meant to, and had still seen enough to turn his attraction into full-blown lust. Adam was beautiful, lithe and perfectly-proportioned, with soft-looking skin and a pretty scattering of freckles. Nigel tried very hard to tell himself he wasn’t doomed when he caught sight of them and didn’t believe himself for a second.

It had gone back up in the evening though, and Adam writhed miserably in his bed as Nigel alternately tried to warm him up and cool him down. Eventually though, he settled, and looked up at Nigel beseechingly, clearly exhausted and drained. “Would you read something to me, Nigel?”

“Like a bedtime story, gorgeous?” Nigel teased, gently. He was beginning to learn that Adam didn’t really respond to sarcasm or irony, but that he was ok with being teased, so long as it wasn’t cruel.

“Yes, but not a story, please. I don’t enjoy stories.” Adam said this with such a straight face that Nigel couldn’t help but laugh a little.

“Alright sweetheart, what would you like then? I saw a lot of space books downstairs. You want me to read about the stars?” Adam nodded, a small smile on his face at Nigel’s suggestion, and Nigel dutifully trooped downstairs, returning with a selection of books from which Adam pulled one with a pink and purple nebula on its cover. Nigel settled himself in the chair by the bed and propped his socked feet up, having checked with Adam that he didn’t mind. He was going to have to do something about his clothes tomorrow; for himself, he could happily have worn the same ones for a third day running, but he didn’t want to fucking smell around Adam. He opened the book and started reading, quickly realising that he wasn’t going to understand a word of it and not caring in the slightest. It was easy to just let the words flow, no understanding needed beyond how to say them, so long as Adam knew what they meant. Before long, both men were asleep, and when Adam’s hand crept out to curl around Nigel’s ankle, neither one was any the wiser.

Adam’s illness continued into a third day, and a fourth after that, and Nigel went nowhere (save for a fucking trek to the fucking grocery store since Adam didn’t seem to have anything in his fridge that Nigel counted as food). Instead he continued to provide cups of tea, and warm (“not too warm, please Nigel”) baths and to read to Adam from whichever book he requested. He had found some clothes in a size close enough to his own to be wearable, and though they were in a style far from his usual, they had the advantage of being clean. When Adam saw him in the neat button down and slacks, he had stared for a moment and then just nodded and said calmly, “they don’t suit you,” before burrowing back down under the covers. Nigel had stood for a moment, unsure quite what to make of that, and then had gone to put his own clothes in the laundry.

Adam slept a lot, and Nigel found ways to occupy himself – watching shitty daytime TV, smoking, calling his associates to make sure they weren’t fucking up in his absence (“What does it matter to you where I fucking am or what I’m fucking doing, nenorocitule? Do as I fucking say or I’ll rip your dick off and use it as a fucking paperweight, got it?”). Mostly, he watched Adam, having admitted that he could blindfold himself and it wouldn’t matter. Adam was etched on the inside of his eyelids, like the afterburn of a blinding light. Might as well enjoy the object of his doomed infatuation while he could.

When Adam was awake, they talked. Nigel had wondered if he would have anything to say to this strange, detached boy with his head in the stars, but conversation flowed between them with unexpected ease.

“You swear a lot. More than anyone I’ve ever met.”

“Sorry about that, angel. Bad habit, years in the making. I can stop, if it bothers you. Try to, anyway.”

“No-o… I don’t think I mind when you do it. When other people swear, it sounds painful to me, like being struck. But yours is more like punctuation. You don’t swear out of anger, it’s simply part of your speech pattern. I enjoy the way you speak, there’s a rhythm to it that’s soothing.”

“Think that’s the first time anybody’s called me fucking soothing, gorgeous.”

“No one has ever called me gorgeous before, so that makes us even.”

“Must all have been fucking blind, beautiful.”

And,

“You ate it yesterday, Adam.”

“I was still feeling very unwell yesterday, it didn’t occur to me to complain.”

“But you’re well enough to do it today?”

“Yes.”

“So you’re telling me you only eat fucking macaroni and cheese?”

“And chicken and broccoli.”

“And you won’t eat the soup I made, from scratch, with ingredients that I trekked back on foot from the fucking grocery store five miles away, because all you have in your fridge is fucking mac and cheese and chicken and broccoli, unless you’re too out of it to know the difference?”

“Yes.”

“Well as long as we’ve got that fucking sorted.”

And,

“Where is your accent from?”

“Fucking Romania.”

“Were you born there?”

“Yeah. Lived there, too, until not so long ago.”

“But now you live here. Why did you leave?”

“Stupidity.”

“Who was stupid?”

“Me. Other fucking people too but, looking back, mostly me.”

“Do you miss it?”

“Not as much as I thought, gorgeous.”

And,

“What’s with all the space stuff?”

“I’m interested in space.”

“No shit, gorgeous. Kind of a smartass, aren’t you?”

“I have above average intelligence, yes.”

“Are you fucking with me right now, Adam?”

“I don’t know what you mean, Nigel.”

“You fucking are, I can see you smiling. Feeling better then, darling?”

“I’m beginning to.”

By the fifth day, though, it was clear that Adam was on the mend. He wasn’t as tired, his temperature was much lower, and he was able to get out of bed for a while, so Nigel could serve him mac and fucking cheese with only minimal complaining. He would likely be well enough to look after himself come tomorrow, Nigel realised, his stomach twisting painfully. There would be no reason for him to stay. No reason to keep waking up to the sunlight making Adam’s skin glow. No reason to listen to him talk about the stars and make it sound like the best story Nigel had ever heard. No reason to sneak smoke breaks only to stamp the cigarette out halfway through so as to get back to Adam quicker.

No reason to stay around the man he knows he’s fallen in love with.

That night Nigel climbed the stairs feeling sick himself. Five days and he couldn’t imagine an evening not spent with his feet on Adam’s bed, reading about some comet or distant galaxy, asking questions just for the sake of listening to Adam talk in that focused, expert, utterly engaged way he had when it came to the stars. Tomorrow he would go home to his empty apartment, where the only books were crappy paperbacks and nobody had anything interesting to say. He ached at the thought of it.

He wouldn’t say a word of it to Adam, though. He’d crashed into the kid’s life without asking, without giving him the chance to say no. And if he knew even part of what Nigel was, no was exactly what he’d say. No, and get out, and stay the fuck away from me. Nigel never wanted to hear those words from Adam’s beautiful mouth, never wanted to see his lovely face twisted in anger and disgust. So he climbed the stairs to the bedroom where Adam was already in bed, took his seat, let Adam choose a book, and, as always, asked his permission to put his feet up, everything exactly the same as the previous nights. Right up until Adam said, “No.”

“No?” Nigel asked, freezing in the act of lifting his feet.

“I don’t want you to put your feet up,” Adam explained.

Nigel felt a bolt of hurt go through him. Was this Adam pulling away already? Trying to put some distance between them so that Nigel would get the picture? The kid was smart, after all, far smarter than Nigel, he would already be thinking about tomorrow and-

“I’d like you to sleep next to me.”

Nigel’s brain froze along with the rest of him this time. He just stared at Adam for a few moments, trying to figure out where the joke was. When he finally remembered that Adam didn’t tell jokes, he made a concerted effort to form enough words to ask, “Could you just repeat that for me, gorgeous?”

“I’d like it if you slept next to me tonight. There’s plenty of room, you wouldn’t be uncomfortable.”

Oh, so Adam was feeling bad for him having to spend so many nights sleeping in a fucking chair. That made sense. Nigel could work with that.

“I can just go sleep on the couch, darling, you don’t have to share your bed to save my back.”

Adam frowned and flicked his eyes towards Nigel’s for a second. “I’m not making myself clear, am I? Sometimes it’s difficult for me to explain my meaning.” He began playing with the edge of his blanket, beginning to look distressed.

Nigel leaned across and put his hand on Adam’s, saying gently, “It’s ok, sweetheart, I’m not going anywhere. You take your time and keep going until I understand, ok?”

And then, instead of saying anything else, Adam just leaned in and kissed Nigel softly on the lips. Just a press, and no more, and it was the sweetest thing Nigel had ever felt. He nearly fucking whimpered when Adam pulled away again, looking adorably nervous and biting his lower lip in a way that made Nigel want to pull him back and take over.

“I want you to sleep with me, so that you can hold me, because I like you. And because you will go away tomorrow and I might never see you again, and I didn’t want never to have kissed you. I don’t know if that’s ok but I just…”

He trailed off, and Nigel gaped at him for a second before pressing him down to the bed and covering him in more kisses. “Sweet boy, gorgeous thing, I wanted to kiss you the second I clapped eyes on you, didn’t you know that?”

“No,” Adam said, panting the words between kisses, “you didn’t say.”

“Well, I guess that’s fucking true.” Nigel pulled back far enough to look at Adam properly. “Adam, let me make this perfectly fucking clear, the only reason I would leave is if you asked me to.”

Adam smiled at this, the first time he’d smiled fully at Nigel, and Nigel couldn’t help but kiss him again. Again and again. And when he was done (for the fucking moment) he curled both of them together beneath the sheets, Nigel’s chest pressed firm to Adam’s back, their legs entwined, and drifted off to sleep imagining that he would never let Adam go to sleep without kissing him ever again.

It wasn’t until about four in the morning when Nigel woke, still with Adam tucked against him, and asked himself what the fuck he was doing. He was a thug, a criminal, a killer. He had no business being with a sweet kid like Adam. He might have left the truly bad parts of his life behind in Bucharest, but he was still ready and able to kick a few heads in when they needed kicking. He still carried a gun to work. He still could put Adam in danger just by being in his life.

Besides that, Nigel knew there was something off about Adam, something different in the way he perceived the world. He was a creature of habit and routine; he’d had something close to a meltdown on their third day together, when he was well enough to know that his meal and sleep times had been disturbed, and had only settled when he’d extracted a promise from Nigel to follow his schedule from then on. How would someone like that cope with Nigel in his life, who came home at all hours, who ate leftover takeout for breakfast and hadn’t had a regular bedtime even when he was a kid?

Nigel buried his face in Adam’s hair and breathed in the clean, warm scent of him. He wanted this forever, wanted nothing more than this boy in his arms, breathing calmly and making soft little noises in his sleep. He’d take just the rest of this night, though; he could have that, no harm done, except maybe to his heart. He’d make Adam understand it was for the best, somehow.

The next time Nigel woke, it was to Adam gently brushing his fingers through his hair, pushing it off his forehead with a feather-light touch. Nigel cracked open his eyes and gazed up at his angel, bathed in the morning’s glow, and tried to fix the image in his mind, wanting to be able to remember Adam this way. If he could just keep this memory to draw on, maybe it would be enough, maybe it would ease the pain he knew leaving Adam behind would cause.

Adam caught his eye and, realising Nigel was awake, smiled down at him contentedly. “You did this to me very often while I was sick. It felt good, so I thought you might enjoy it too,” he said.

“I do, gorgeous, it feels very good.” Nigel leaned into the touch and tried to memorise it too.

“Also it means I can detect that you are running a temperature and likely have contracted the same virus I had,” Adam continued, matter-of-factly.

“What?” Nigel asked, suddenly wide awake. He took stock of his body and realised that, fucking fuck, he was indeed feeling hot and sweaty, and his head was definitely aching in a way that usually indicated he’d hit the vodka too hard the night before. He pushed back the covers and made to get up, only to have Adam gently push him back down.

“Why are you getting up?” he asked, frowning.

Nigel tried again to rise, but the room swayed around him and he had to give up. He looked back at Adam, who was wearing a confused expression, a little crease appearing between his brows. Nigel reached up to smooth it away, and smiled gently at the kid. “I should go home while I can, gorgeous. Just let me get my shit together and then-”

“O-oh, no, you can’t go home. You took care of me when I was unwell, and now I will take care of you. I can’t take care of you if you go home. Unless I come with you but that seems like an unnecessary effort when we are both here already.”

“Gorgeous, you can’t take care of me,” Nigel sighed.

“Why? It’s Friday, so my employer told me not to bother coming in. That means I have three days to look after you, by which point you should be past the worst of the symptoms. Then you can still go home if you wish, though in fact I think you should stay here.”

“Until I’m all better?”

“Yes, but I actually meant permanently.”

Nigel could only gape stupidly at Adam for a good minute, as Adam straightened the covers around him, seemingly content to wait for Nigel’s response.

“Adam?” Nigel said, slowly.

“Yes, Nigel?”

“Did you just ask me to move in with you?”

“Yes, Nigel.”

Nigel was reasonably certain that he wasn’t running enough of a fever to be hallucinating, so he had to conclude that the beautiful boy currently methodically plumping his pillow had gone insane, and said so.

“Though I am not neurotypical, Nigel, I am perfectly sane.”

“We’ve known each other for six days, gorgeous, and you were fucking unconscious for most of them. You can’t ask someone to move in with you after six days.”

Adam looked at him, confused again. “But I don’t want you to leave. You said you would only leave if I asked you to, but when I think about you leaving, it hurts. So I want you to stay.”

It took everything Nigel had not to pull Adam down and kiss him and just say yes. Instead he said, “Sweetheart, even if it wasn’t far too soon to be asking, I’m not the sort of person you want in your life. I’m… I’m not a good person, Adam. I’m a very fucking bad, bad person, in fact.”

Adam finished fussing with the bedsheets and got up from the bed himself, gathering the discarded mugs and glasses from his nightstand. “I don’t think that’s true, Nigel.”

Nigel sighed and scrubbed a hand across his face. “Believe it, angel. I’ve done things that would scare you. That would make you stop liking me real fucking quick if you knew about them.”

Adam stopped straightening the room and turned back to the bed. “I’m aware that you make your living doing something not strictly legal, if that’s what you’re worried about. You are not quiet when you talk on the phone.” Nigel opened his mouth to protest but Adam held up a hand to stop him and continued. “And in any case, it doesn’t matter to me how you are with other people, or what you do for work. What matters to me is that you have been kind and patient with me, that you cared for me when you didn’t have to, and that you have been in my home for six days without making me feel uncomfortable or distressed. In fact having you here has made me happy, which is very rare for me. So I would like you to stay. Please.”

Nigel watched Adam give this speech, much as someone else might have read out a shopping list. It wasn’t impassioned, or desperate, it was a simple laying out of facts. Adam wanted Nigel to stay, so he had asked him to. Adam knew exactly what Nigel was, and he didn’t care. Adam was a fucking angel and Nigel was a bad, bad man.

But, Nigel considered, being a bad man didn’t mean he was a stupid one.

“Tell you what, gorgeous, I’ll move in with you, on one condition.”

Adam’s bright blue eyes seemed to light up with Nigel’s words and he smiled, wide and happy. “What is it, Nigel?”

Nigel grinned at him in return and flipped the sheets back in invitation. “That you put down all that shit and get back into fucking bed with me so I can show you just how happy you make me.”

Adam bit his lip and shook his head, but there was a gleam in his eye that Nigel found impossibly appealing. “But you’re unwell, Nigel, I don’t want you to strain yourself.”

“Darling, unless you want to be responsible for me dragging my feverish ass out of this bed, you’d better come over here because there’s no way I’m going another second without kissing you fucking silly,” Nigel growled.

And as Adam slid into bed next to him and let Nigel gather him up to be kissed, Nigel considered that, fever or no fever, he couldn’t remember ever feeling better in his entire fucking life.

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