Hubble Bubble - 11. Chapter 11

“Nick...?”

Two figures appear through the swirling miasma coughing and ineffectually trying to dust themselves down. They have both changed back into men, their dark hair white with marble powder.

“Are you alright?”

“I’m fine.” He smacks his lips. “Although it is going to take some time to get this foul taste out of my mouth.” He grins, exhilarated by the experience, although there is a certain savagery to his glee that worries me. “My only regret is that I didn’t rip the bastard’s throat out while I had the chance.”

“I’m alright too, if anyone’s interested, although I have to admit I am a bit more battered than I have been in a long time.”

We both look at him. He is grinning and in that one instant there is a flash of something that passes between the two of them, Lucifer and Nick that rocks me. I never would have thought it but in that moment I could tell they are brothers.

Lucifer’s face is marred by a long deep scratch, from eye to chin, where the vampire in his dying throes had clawed at him. Matching scratches score across his back and chest but they are not serious; neither are the darkening bruises that barely show against his swarthy skin.

Feeling Nick’s arm around my shoulders I finally begin to relax, to feel safe.

“What about you, Ariel? Are you... Ariel?”

Ariel lies where he had fallen. The blast had not touched him. I drop to my knees and my hand is trembling as I reach out to touch him. He is cold, deathly cold. My first thought is... ‘Oh no, not again.’

Nick and Lucifer crouch beside me and, for once Lucifer has nothing smart to say as I half lift Ariel into my arms. The silver blue hair streams away from his face which is as still as the rest of him. One arm trails in the dust and Lucifer reaches for it. His strong brown fingers encircling the tiny wrist look as though they could snap it in two without effort.

“He lives, but barely.”

I glance up to catch Nick and Lucifer exchanging a look that chills me. “What?”

They turn simultaneously to look at me. Lucifer’s gaze is direct, almost challenging, yet strangely sad, Nick’s is more gently but equally sorrowful.

“What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Sam...” The word is soft, just a breath but it cuts through to my soul. Immediately losing interest in the other two my attention focuses exclusively on Ariel. The blue eyes are distant, pale as pewter and yet there is a look in them that makes me gasp because I have never seen such tenderness, such selfless abandon.

“You scared me. I thought... I thought...”

Ariel shakes his head slightly and smiles. “For everything there is a season Sam. A time to live and....”

“I know. I know that, and this is our time to live; your time. You saved us.”

“I said I would. I knew, I...” He pauses, breathless. Colour is coming back into his eyes and I dare to hope.

“Can you get up?”

Ariel smiles again and shakes his head. He closes his eyes for a moment with a sigh and the panic grips me again.

“You’re going to be alright Ariel.” I look up at Lucifer, pleading. “Lucifer can carry you back to the castle and...” Lucifer looks away, unable to meet my hopeful gaze. His face is grim.

“Sam.” Again the soft word brings my attention sharply back to Ariel. “I’m tired Sam.”

“I know. I know that but...” I am silenced by a pale finger against my lips. It is icy cold and trembles.

“Remember Sam... remember. To everything its season; its purpose. I never... had a time to love. I never had a time to hate. Now I have done both. My season came and now it is passing. I have had my time to live and now...now it is time...”

“No. No this... this is crap. This is not... not...” Something occurs to me and me eyes widen, a sick feeling settling in my stomach. “This is what you were trying to tell me. All this crap about seasons... that’s what you said when we were outside the force field. You said you knew what you were doing... that you knew how it ends.”

Tears roll down his face and splash on the pale skin beneath the torn blue shirt. Ariel, too is crying, tears spilling from topaz blue eyes which burrow into my soul.

“And I... I said it was worth it... and it is.”

“Please Ariel, don’t do this. I can’t bear it. I can’t lose you. Please don’t die.”

“I don’t have a soul Sam,” he says in his soft voice. Why have I never realised how beautiful it is. “Elementals don’t have souls. I am not mortal. I cannot die. I cannot come again.”

“But... but you are... you are...” For a moment the hope blazes again but there is something in Ariel’s face that will not let it blossom.

“I am... fading. My time is passing. There is nothing...”

“Yes. There is. There must be. We can... Lucifer? Nick? There must be something, some magic, something we can do.”

“Sam. I don’t want you to. I am so tired.” The pale hand rests against my cheek and I close my eyes, turning my face into the touch. The hand is so cold, so insubstantial. The fingers tremble like butterfly wings against my skin. “I am broken Sam. The vampire broke my body and The Merlin tore my deeply. I am bleeding inside and...” His lips tremble and I can see how terribly difficult it is for him to speak. For the first time I notice that Ariel’s shoulder, pressed against my chest is... wrong. No wonder he had been holding his arm against his side as he fought, his shoulder is shattered. He must have been in indescribable pain.

Ariel sees the realisation dawn in my eyes and the tears flow more freely, soaking his lashes and cheeks. He opens his lips to speak but is overcome by a deep shudder that turns into a cough. When it is over thick, black blood runs from the corner of his mouth and he is clearly exhausted.

“I can’t Sam... I don’t want to.” Somehow he pulls himself up so he can reach behind m head and draw it down, his hand buried deep in my hair. His lips are soft and warm but almost seem to already be fading. The taste of blood is sharp and violent “I could not love Sam, and yet I did. I loved you. I am content. Let me go.”

I can barely speak, barely see through the tears. O feel Nick draw closer and his arm is around my shoulders; warm, strong, very much alive. By comparison Ariel is, indeed fading. His eyes, still fixed on mine are crystal clear but the blue has leaked from them with the tears and there is very little left in them now.

“Please Sam. To everything there is a season, a time to live and... and... a time to die. It’s my time. Please let me go.”

“I can’t. I can't let you go. Please Ariel. I can... we can...”

“It's what he wants Sam. Let him go.” Nick tightens his grip and I look up into his eyes. There are tears there too and somehow it opens something in my heart. I turn to smile down at Ariel, stroking his hair, his face, his lips. My heart is breaking.

“I... can’t.” But I can and I do. As I lowered my head to kiss Ariel one last time he senses it and smiles even as our lips are joined. When I raise my head Ariel gently disentangles his hand and tries to touch my face but it is too hard and he has to let the hand fall with a sigh.

“Thank you Sam.” He smiles the most beautiful smile I have ever seen and then... and then... he is gone. I will never forget the moment the light leaves his eyes, never. He doesn’t die as humans die. Once the light is gone his body becomes as insubstantial as it had always seemed to be, melting into cloud. Wisps of vapour smelling of lilac and hibiscus, linger like a breeze on my lips, a sigh in my ears and then he is gone; it is all gone and Nick holds while I sob.

I don’t remember how I get back to the castle. I don’t remember stumbling along the paths, my eyes blinded by tears, my heart breaking, raw and bleeding. I don’t remember Nick’s arm around me, or Lucifer’s hand on my arm. I don’t remember anything at all until I wake up in a soft bed, a warm body curled next to me, its arm protectively around my waist.

It is still dark, although a pale pre dawn light is filtering through the curtains at the window and falling softly over the beautiful face that lies on the pillow next to me. He is relaxed in sleep, a tiny smile playing with the corner of the soft, full lips as though he is dreaming of something that brings him pleasure; perfectly content.

‘I will never smile again’ I think, even though part of me realises that I am being hopelessly dramatic and ridiculous. Of course I will smile again I will smile often and one day... one day I will even smile when I think of the wraith with silver hair and eyes I could have drown in. One day... but not today. Today I turn away from Nick and stare out of the window at the lightening sky, tears rolling down my cheeks and wetting the pillow under my head.

Nick stirs and murmurs in his sleep, tightening his arm around me and snuggling closer into my back. Far away birds begin to sing and a breeze blows through the partially open window bringing with it the smell of lilacs and the freshness of rain in the garden. The breeze caresses my cheek and, despite myself I feel my eyes grow heavy and I drift into a deep, dreamless slumber.

When I next wake it is full day and I look around in confusion. I had expected to be at the castle but I’m not. Instead I am in the bedroom I had been sharing with Nick at Alex’s.

“Good morning sleepy head... actually I should say ‘good afternoon’ it’s past twelve. I thought you would never wake up.”

Almost reluctantly I roll onto his back. Nick is raised on one elbow looking down at me, smiling gently.

“Have you been watching me sleep?”

“For hours; or so it seems. You were so peaceful I didn’t want to wake you. You were upset last night.”

“Upset? Nick... Look, I know you didn’t like Ariel; that... that...” Just saying his name tears open a crack in the papered over chasm that exists in the place my heart used to be and I choke on my words.

“Oh Sam.” Nick lays his hand on my face and gently wipes away the tears. “I didn’t dislike Ariel. Okay, maybe I was a bit jealous... alright a lot jealous especially last night when... when I saw...”

“When you saw what? What do you think you saw?” The choked anger in my voice sparkes an answering flare in Nick.

“I didn’t think I saw anything. I know I saw you in the garden with Ariel in your arms. What was I supposed to think?”

For a moment I see red. The way that Nick had said Ariel, as if it left a bad taste in his mouth is almost too much and I feel my hands bunch into fists at my sides. I can’t keep the bitterness out of my voice as I turn my face away, shaking free of Nick’s hand.

“If you had stayed around a few minutes you might have found out why I had him in my arms, and if you had done that you wouldn’t have gone haring off straight into the arms of that madman. None of this would have happened and Ariel... Ariel wouldn’t have... wouldn’t have...”

“Hang on a minute. Don’t try and pin all this on me. I had just had the biggest shock of my life and was hanging onto my sanity by a thread. Lucifer drags me out of hiding and insists I have to go to the garden because you desperately need to talk to me and when I get there I find you desperately needing to do something quite different.”

Grinding my teeth I turn back to face Nick and he flinches back at the look in my eyes. “You jerk. It’s all about you isn’t it? It’s always all about you. If you had paused for a moment; if you had really looked you would have seen what I was doing. I wasn’t... I wasn’t ‘holding’ him, not in the way you think. I... I told him that he had to go away. I said that neither one of us could be happy with the other around and... and... he was kneeling on the floor...” My voice breaks but I push on, shaking off Nick’s comforting hand. “I pushed him and he fell. He... he hit his head on the wall and... and I thought... I thought he was... He was unconscious and bleeding and I was just... just...”

“Oh gods. I’m so sorry Sam. I... I didn’t know... I... didn’t think...”

“No. You didn’t think. You never think; you react and if you hadn’t been so quick to react Ariel would be... he wouldn’t be... he wouldn’t be dead.”

“Sam...” Nick doesn’t know what to say and I don’t want to hear it anyway. Violently I throw off the bedclothes and leap out of bed. “Where are you going?”

“I’m going for a walk,” I snap at him

“Do you want me to...?”

“No. I want to be on my own.”

“Sam... please don’t... please...”

I turn half way through pulling on a pair of jeans. Nick recoils at the coldness in my eyes. “Just fuck off Nick.”

Grabbing a jumper I storm out of the room without even a pair of socks on my feet.

***
Nick remains perfectly still, staring at the door for a long time, until he is distracted by a draught from the window which is... odd. He turns his head as the draught becomes a breeze, which coalesces into a roughly human form which solidifies into a more recognisably human form and then there is a fairy in the room. It is the same incandescent, childlike creature who had invited them to the ball.... was that really only last night?

“The Queen requests your presence.”

“The Queen can request what she likes but that does not mean she’s going to get it.”

“The Queen anticipated you response and suggests that you bear in mind you are fey and she is your sovereign.”

“The Queen can anticipate all she likes but whatever I may be I do not recognise her as my sovereign, I have never recognised her as my sovereign and, frankly she can shove her sovereignty up her dainty little... well you get the message. Tell her if she wants to speak to me she can come here.”

“The Queen anticipated this response also and begs, as your mother, to offer you her protection until the renegade is apprehended.”

“Her protection? Tell her I don’t need her protection. I am perfectly capable of looking after myself.” He pauses, thinking back over the past months and especially the previous evening. “Alright so perhaps I am not so capable of looking after myself but I have friends here who will help me. Tell my mo... the Queen that I will take all possible care to ensure my safety and that I will visit her when I have had opportunity to consider my position and am ready to discuss the future.”

“When may I tell Her Majesty this would be?

“When I am ready.”

“And how soon will you be ready?”

Nick shrugs, annoyed. “When I am ready.”

“The Queen requests that when you return to the palace you do not bring the human boy.”

“Oh she does, does she? Well you can tell her royal pain in the ass...ness that where I go Sam goes and if she EVER wants to see me in that gods forsaken hole she calls her kingdom, then she had better get used to the idea that we come as a pair because if she ever... EVER tries to come between Sam and me again that will be the last she will ever see of me.

“Sam is my love, my second half, my soul mate. I would live or die for him and...” He stops as the meaning of the words he is speaking filter through to his mind. “Oh gods... what have I done?”

Ignoring the fey he gets out of bed and dresses. Then, without a backward glance at the shimmering creature that still hovers uncertainly near the window, he strides from the room.

Sam is sitting on the bench under the lilac tree, his head in his hands, weeping. He doesn’t hear Nick approach and, for a time he simply stands and watches, his heart knotting in his chest. It grieves him to see the grief in Sam but... what if he has gone too far, what if he has pushed him away and he never came back, what if he has lost him, lost the best thing he ever had because he was so stupid... so blind?

***
It scares he hell out of me when Nick appears and drops to his knees in front of me. I don’t want this, can’t handle it. I half rises to leave but Nick grabs my hand.

“Please Sam, please listen. I have been the biggest fool. I know it. Please give me a chance.”

Casting him a dark, suspicious look Sam I drop down again, sagging against the trunk of the tree.

“I was jealous. I couldn’t help it. I saw the way he looked at you and I saw the way you looked at him. I know you loved him.”

“Nick I...”

“Please Sam, just listen. From the moment I first saw the two of you together I knew there was something between you, and it grew stronger and stronger every moment. It didn’t help that I had Lucifer whispering in my ear adding fuel to the fire... but it wasn’t his fault, it was mine for listening.

“I know you Sam. I know you better than anyone. I love you and I trust you. But I didn’t trust you. I allowed the jealousy and the bitterness to get the better of me. Ariel was so... so sweet and lovely. He made me feel... clumsy and stupid. I did start to hate him. I hated him because I knew you loved him. I felt threatened by him and I was getting bitter and spiteful and that’s why I let what Lucifer was saying get to me.”

I can’t look at him, can’t bear the things he is saying or the sad desperate look on his face. He is realising what he has done, that he is scared he has driven me away; lost me forever. The think is... the thing is that I don’t know if he has.

“Last night, when I saw him in your arms... you’re right, I didn’t think, I reacted and I reacted badly. I felt as if you had plunged a dagger into my heart. After everything that had happened I thought that you would understand; that you would make it all make sense, like you always do. I was half crazy. I didn’t know what to think, what to believe, what to do but I knew you would calm me down, would make me see the sense in it all. But you were there and he was... there and... and all I could think of was getting away.” He bites his lip and turns his head away.

“I admit that, in that moment I hated him. I hated him with everything that was in me, and I was angry with you. But... but... last night... what he did... He did what I have always said I would do, never thinking for a moment it would ever happen. I don’t know how many times I have said that I would die for you but... but ... HE did.

“I can't hate that. I can’t be angry with you for loving someone like that. He must have loved you so very much... as much as I do. And I thought about how I would feel if you didn’t love me. The way you looked at me just now when you got out of bed... I... The thought that you would ever stop loving me is unbearable. I can't imagine how Ariel must have felt knowing that... that not only did you not feel that way about him but that you did feel that way about me.

“I’ve been a fool. I have been a cruel, blind, selfish fool and I am so sorry Sam. Please forgive me.”

Tears are streaming down his face and, for a moment I can do nothing but stare at him and then something gives way inside me. How could I ever have thought... I throw myself to my knees next to the bench and take him in my arms. We cling together, sobbing.

“Don't ever stop loving me Sam. Please, please don’t ever stop loving me.”

“As if I could. You are my world Nicholas Rayner. You might be stupid and selfish and headstrong and heartless sometimes but I wouldn’t change you for the world. You are my world. I love you.”

“I love you too. Do you forgive me?”

I pull away and stare at him for a long hard moment during which Nick holds his breath.

“It’s not you who needs to be forgiven Nick: It’s me. It was always my fault, all my fault. I thought I was helping him but I wasn’t, I was damning him. From the moment I gave him my energy and woke his emotions there was no other way this could have ended. Everyone tried to tell me... The Queen, Lucifer, even Ariel... in their own way. Elementals can’t feel. They are made of emotion but they can’t feel it and there’s a reason for that.

“I damned him and then I tortured him. I couldn’t distance myself from him. I did love him Nick. It was never in the way I love you, never with the same intensity, the same depth, but I did love him. And I killed him with that love.”

“You did nothing of the sort. You gave him a wonderful gift, not just by allowing him to feel love but by allowing him to express it in the ultimate way. He made the ultimate sacrifice... he died for love. If he was damned then surely that would have redeemed him.”

“Maybe.”

“Sam... it’s like he said... Ariel. To everything there is a season. He had a very long life which was never really a life at all: without love, without hate, without joy or sorrow. It was his time. If you had not given him your energy he would have died at the party. He would have simply... ended. What you did was give him the chance to be more, more than he had ever been before. Don’t you see... you gave his life meaning... you gave him life... and when it ended it ended in love and he will live on... in our memories and in the love you will always feel for him.”

“I wish I could believe that.”

“Believe it.”

“I’ll try.” Tears are still running my face but now they are running through a smile and although the chasm in my chest is still there it is slowly filling with a deep peace. Resting my head against Nick’s strong shoulder I sigh and the scent of lilac and hibiscus is strong all around me.