“Yeah.But still way better than in the hospital.Okay, next.Touch my face.”
Joey whimpered.The tears from Stevie’s rings had scabbed over, but the bruises and broken cheekbones still left swelling.
“Gentle, but touch it.”
And Joey had, while Gideon took him through the injuries, one by one.
When he was done, Joey slithered into bed next to him, his head pillowed gingerly next to Gideon’s.
“Why’d we do that?”he asked.
“So you could see I’m not dead,” Gideon said softly.“I’m sorry, baby.I’m sorry I got hurt, but I’m not dead yet.You gotta see I’m not dead yet, or you’ll never trust me to be here again.”
The tears came then, quiet and cleansing.Gideon had heard about Joey crying in the hospital and hadn’t believed it, but now he believed.
Joey slept quietly after that—but he looked even worse the next weekend, leading Gideon to believe he never slept at home.
He could take short walks by then, and after wandering around his father’s property for a while, holding Joey’s hand and appreciating the sunshine in the morning, he ordered Joey to eat dinner with Trish and Gerald and retired upstairs, claiming he needed a nap.
He called Harding instead.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Harding mumbled, and Gideon wondered if he’d been down forhisnap too.“We take turns sleeping on your couch, but it doesn’t seem to stop the nightmares.”
Gideon grunted.“Does he say what the nightmares areabout?”he asked.
“No,” Harding replied, and now he sounded… cagey.“But you gotta know, Gid, that day had plenty of nightmare fuel.You may need to ask Joey about it.He may need to… talk.”
Gideon frowned, because that sounded loaded, but you didn’t ask Harding questions when he got like this.
“Have them sleep in bed with him,” Gideon told him.“Nobody’s virtue is at risk—think wolves in a pack when one of them’s injured.”
Harding grunted.“Gotcha.Good thinking.”
“Has he moved out of the old apartment yet?”
“Yeah—he sublet it to Swan and Pearson, who claim to be using the guest room.”
Gideon let out a fractured laugh.“Of course they are.Is this healthy?Us with the partners who are partners?”
“No,” Harding said bluntly.“But I don’t want to break up teams that are working.When they stop working, they stop being partners.I think you’ve got the right of it, though.We’re a wolf pack—hell, even the spouses whoaren’tworking with us are our pack.Even Pearson’s or Crosby’s ex-roommates are in our pack.We don’t let pack go it alone.”
“Nope,” Gideon said, and then he really was ready for a nap.
“Call me later,” Harding told him.“And not just to worry about your significant other.I miss your pointy brain.”
Gideon smiled.Joey’s word for it.“I’m bored,” he admitted.And then, in the interest of honesty, “My stamina’s still for shit, but when I’m awake, I’m bored.”
“Maybe in a few weeks we can have you back to run a desk.Or overwatch.”Harding paused.“Definitely overwatch.”
Gideon smiled.“Joey still not great at it?”
Harding grunted.“He’s not bad, really.The audible he called when we went to get you?”
“Which audible?”Gideon asked.
“He didn’t tell you?”
Gideon had to breathe, because his lungs were still weak and he’d taxed them.“Nobody’s told me anything.It’s like….”
