Josh closed his eyes then and captured Liam’s hand on his cheek.“I’m scared too,” he whispered.“Is that—can I say that?I-I’m so tired of being brave for everybody.I almostdiedlast year.I remember fighting so hard for each breath, and Danny and Felix, theyprayedfor me, and I think they both told God to fuck off a long time ago.And I couldn’t tell my mom—I couldn’t—because I didn’t want to let her down.And now I have you and….”He trailed off for a moment, and Liam wanted to soothe him, to calm him down, but God, he also really wanted to hear the end of that sentence.
“You have me and what?”he prodded, not proud of himself, but, well, Josh already knew him for his flaws.
“And I’m happy,” Josh whispered.“My mom is finally happy.Danny and Felix are happy.I… I mean, I’ll always worry about Grace, but he’s finally happy and might not die tomorrow.And I have you.And you love me, and my heart is so… so full.And I don’t want to lose that.I could live in a trailer in the middle of nowhere and never see a sky like today again as long as you loved me and my people were okay.But first….”
Liam saw the tear, saw the fear coming, and welcomed it.Oh God.His Josh, so snarky and full of life and determined not to ever let his illness or his hurt bring him low.
Liam rested his head next to Josh’s on the clean pillow and kissed his forehead as his boy wept silently.
“It’s okay, being scared,” he whispered.“It’s okay to let me see.How will you know I’ll still be here if I never see you need me?”
“I’m sorry,” Josh whispered, tiny sobs in his voice.“So sorry.I’m sorry.I’m sorry.”
He’d fallen asleep that way, still weeping, and Liam had hovered over him until his breathing evened out.Then he’d cleaned up and brushed his teeth and crawled into bed on Josh’s other side and held him tight.
And cried against his neck and hoped Josh slept through it.
It was okay if he didn’t—Liam wasn’t afraid of Josh knowing he was weak.
He had so many worse things to fear.
AND NOW,approaching the long drive to the castle via bus, Liam’s fears were churning in his stomach with the bagel sandwich he’d split with Josh.
Protein, fruit, carbs.Solid food—not so much it weighed him down, but enough to nurture him.
Liam had even made him eat blueberries with his yogurt.
God, anything to feel like they weren’t helpless against the sudden shifts of fate.
As the bus came to a halt, Josh and Liam disembarked casually, tourists excited to see King Ludwig’s stone-and-marble monument to whimsy, and neither of them glanced over to see Carl and Michael getting out of a cab that they’d taken at the same time.Carl looked awkward in jeans, Josh had told them dryly.Carl needed to stay in slacks and a polo and do rideshare and not public transpo.He was a solid member of the team, yes, but a chameleon he was not.
Besides, Carl was going to talk shop with the security officers there, so he needed to appear somewhat professional.
Michael, on the other hand, had dressed casual, like Josh and Liam, in cargo shorts and T-shirts and ready to hop onto public transport on the way home.
Which was why they’d planned this down to the second.If their exfil was the tourist bus, they couldn’t be the first—or the last—tourists on it.
“How you doin’?”Michael asked Liam as they loitered near a topiary.Josh was sitting nearby, taking pictures and apparently chatting with somebody cheerfully, and Liam was still a disinterested tourist.They hadn’t sat near each other on the bus, but Josh had given him a subtle bump with a rub of his thumb on Liam’s wrist as they’d disembarked, probably to still Liam’s nerves.
It was kindly meant, but God, Liam was still shaken after the night before.
“He’s not doing great,” Liam confessed.He’d promised not to call Danny or Felix.Somehow this entire enterprise had boiled down to “Just let me get on the train to Prague!”
Michaelhmmed.“Yeah.He is a bit peaked.”
It was such an old-fashioned word, delivered in Michael’s unapologetic twang.Liam smiled at him, liking the smaller man more with every meeting.
“He just wants to make it onto the train for Prague,” Liam said.“He’s pretty sure it’s a bout of anemia, but….”He didn’t want to talk about the two nosebleeds or the exhaustion.Didn’t want to talk about Josh’s face going pale in the moonlight, and the way his eyes had unfocused and his body had fallen away from Liam’s, limp and flaccid and unresponsive.
“We worry,” Michael said, and Liam guessed he’d know.Earlier that year Carl had gotten injured by a lucky knife throw in the middle of an op, and a month after that had broken his wrist.Michael’s boyfriendseemedlike a safe bet in the worry department, but Michael apparently knew what it was like to worry about that guy who jumped in and did important things.
“Yeah,” Liam agreed.He let out a little laugh.“I was thinking I’m the one with all the danger on the job, but it turns out this is what it’s like to love somebody who misses jumping out of buildings.”
Michael nodded.“You know, I’ve only known Josh since he got sick.You know the one thing that’s always struck me about him?”
“What?”Because Liam had heard an earful from Josh, from the others, about who Joshwantedto be, who he’d beenbeforehe’d been ill, but this… this was how Liam had known him too.
“He’s thoughtful,” Michael said.“Like the other night, when he really wanted to talk about the job, but me, I was just….”He gave a self-conscious smile.“But he never interrupted me, never once said, ‘Yeah, Michael, I know, I’ve been here before.’He asked me about my kids.Whole time he’s been sick, he’s been thinking about other people.Even you, I’d reckon.I think you’ve got the right of it, you know.You love the person you got, and if they’re down, you hope for the times when they’re not.But in the meantime, you… you know, love the person you got.”
