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“You give too much of yourself,” Vic said, shaking his head at Adam. “You give, and give, and give, and now look at you?” He gestured at Adam’s bare chest, at the scars left there not just by the rusted sickle, but by White’s knives, and…the Warlock wound. Perhaps unseen, but there. Always, always there. “You’re damaged, soon you’ll have nothing left to give.”
“That’s not true,” Adam said, tears welling in his blue eyes. “Vic, that’s not true! Whatever I have left, it’s yours.”
“It’s not.” Vic shook his head. “You can never be mine, Adam, you’ll always give yourself to everyone else, you’ll let it kill you.”
“Vic, I love you.”
“Enough to die for me, maybe,” Vic said with a pained shrug. “But enough to live for me?”
“I…I…”
“Adam.” Vic’s voice was soft, gentle. “Adam, baby, wake up.”
Adam’s eyes shot open, his heart racing as his brain caught up to where his body was. He wasn’t standing in the kitchen fighting with Vic. He wasn’t bare chested, and he was crying, but he was in bed, their bed, in their apartment, and Vic’s hands were on his shoulder, resting where they had shaken him awake as Adam gasped for breath, trying to get his head around…everything.
“Baby, it’s okay. It was just a dream,” he said softly…and he hoped that was true. With Adam, he could never truly be sure. There was still so much he didn’t understand about how Adam’s Sight worked, and considering the fact that Adam had severed Wilcox from his craft, well, there was clearly quite a lot about Adam’s magic that even the warlock didn’t understand.
“You were leaving me,” Adam whispered, reaching up to swipe at the tears in his eyes.
“Never,” Vic said, his tone even, gentle, as he ran his hand down Adam’s spine, the fabric of Adam’s shirt pulling around Vic’s hand as he rubbed circles on Adam’s back. “Never.”
“You said…you said I loved you enough to die for you,” Adam gulped. “But that you didn’t think I loved you enough to live for you.”
“Oh, Adam…” Vic sighed, pulling the sandy-haired warlock into his arms. “That has nothing to do with how much you love me, and everything to do with how much you simply…love. I don’t want to lose you,” he admitted. “But how much you care for others is a part of you, of the man I fell in love with.” He kissed the top of Adam’s head. “I’m not leaving you, baby.”
“You said I was damaged,” Adam said, his breath shaky, more tears threatening to break though. “And that soon, I would have nothing left to give you.”
“It wasn’t me,” Vic said, his voice firm, but quiet, not aggressive, not hostile. “I would never say that, I don’t feel that way, Adam, you’re not damaged. You’ve been through too much, you’ve suffered too much, you’re traumatized,” he reasoned. “But you’re not damaged.”
“I’m working on it.”
“I know,” Vic squeezed Adam gently. Did he hate that there was a version of him like that? Angry, cruel, threatening to leave, that lived in Adam’s head? Yes, but he also understood that his boyfriend had been beaten, abandoned, tortured, forced to do things he struggled to forgive himself for. It had started when Adam was a child, and just seemed to keep happening. He knew that Adam didn’t villainize him. At least…not on purpose.
“I love you,” Adam whispered, sniffling as he buried his face in Vic’s chest.
“Oh, baby, I know you do.” Vic pulled Adam closer, strong arms practically crushing him in. He wanted Adam to feel the weight of him, to be completely enveloped in the presence of someone who loved him so much that little else mattered. “You went to hell to get me back. You fired a gun for me, without hesitation.”
“I would kill for you,” Adam whispered. “I hate that I would, but I would. And I’d die for you,” Adam pulled back just enough to look up at Vic, his gorgeous brown eyes shining in the moonlight that poured through their bedroom window. “And I will live for you. I’m trying, at least. I want to. Whatever comes at me, I will fight it with everything I’ve got to get back to you. Always.”
“You won’t have to fight it alone.”
“I miss our connection,” Adam admitted. “I miss being able to feel you with me.”
“Oh, baby,” Vic smiled softly. “I’m always with you, and the connection we have now is just as deep - deeper, maybe, because we chose it. We chose each other. I will always choose you, Adam Binder.”
“Even when I do things that make you crazy?”
“Yes. Especially when you do things that make me crazy.” Vic reached down, a large hand cupping Adam’s cheek. “There is no one like you, Adam, and I know you’re struggling, and I know you’re in pain, and I know you’re worried, but I also know that you’re fierce, you’re strong, you love harder and deeper and more than anyone I’ve ever met, and to have even a piece of your heart?” Vic leaned in, pressing warm lips to Adam’s sweat-damp forehead. “It’s more than I could ever ask for.”
“This isn’t over.” Adam looked up at Vic. “Wilcox is going to do everything he can to get his hooks into Ian, and I am going to have to fight him every step of the way, and he-he almost got me. Of all of the things I’ve faced, it was him that almost took me out. Just because I severed his magic doesn’t mean he’s not a threat.”
“I know.” Vic nodded. “But if he thinks he’s ever going to take you again, he’s got another thing coming. No one kidnaps my boyfriend and gets away with it. One day, his time will be up,” Vic breathed. “And reaping him will be a pleasure.”
“I wish he had died,” Adam whispered. “I really do, because then he couldn’t get anywhere near Ian, or Bobby or Annie, but…I can’t kill him.”
“No one’s asking you to. None of us would ever ask that of you.”
“What if I can’t save him?” Adam asked.
“Wilcox?” Vic asked, confused.
“Ian.” Adam gulped. “What if he becomes that wolf, the older one, the hardened one. What if…what if, after everything, when we’re back there, I still have to do it?”
“No.” Vic shook his head. “No, that’s not going to happen.”
“How do you know? It happened once.”
“It hasn’t happened yet,” Vic reminded Adam. “And it won’t, because we won’t let it. We have an advantage, we know how he got that way. We know who poisoned his mind, who fed his power with hatred and anger instead of love and kindness, and we can stop him. We have time.”
Time was something Adam never thought he had much of. He had come close to death so many times that he had stopped, at least for a while, assuming that he would have a long life, that he was meant to. He didn’t know when his time would be up. He didn’t know when a reaper would come for him, but he had so much more to live for now than he used to.
“Stay here with me,” Vic whispered, pulling Adam back down onto the bed, Adam’s mess of sandy hair resting against his chest. His arm held Adam in place, refusing to give the other man the chance to think he was alone. “Just breathe. Close your eyes, feel me here. Listen to my words, and just breathe. Do you think you can do that for me, baby?”
“Yeah.” Adam nodded, gulping. “I can try.”
“Good man.” Vic did his best to focus his own breathing, to balance himself so that the steady rise and fall of his chest could ground Adam here, on this plane, in this apartment, in this bed, with him.
“I never thought I’d get to have this,” Adam said, his own breathing regulating, slowing to move in time with Vic’s. “You. Someone like you, the sort of…great love you hear about in books and songs and movies. I thought I was doomed to live a life half here, half there, never…fully anywhere, never fully anyone’s, but I like being yours. I know it maybe sounds tacky, or…or cliche, but I never felt like I belonged anywhere. I had one foot on this plane, one foot in the spirit world, but you? I belong with you, Vicente Martinez.”
“Yes,” Vic smiled softly. “Yes, you do.”
Adam let that in. He let in that feeling of belonging, of knowing that he had a family, and he pushed away the way that Wilcox and White had attempted to use all of that against him, to threaten the people that he cared about, because they hadn’t understood. They hadn’t understood that these people didn’t need Adam to protect them.
They were a team, a unit, and they protected each other.
Adam was weak right now, but he wouldn’t be forever, and until he got his bearings back, Vic was there, and slowly, accepting that, hearing Vic’s words, feeling his warmth, his breathing, Adam was able to fall back asleep.
This time, he rested easy.