maskofhearts | This is my December

This is my December

Hadyn had left the deck to meet with several sellers for various items the theatre had needed for their new productions. It was a routine sort of trip, and not one that had been expected to be overly eventful. After all, The Hearts did not engage in the sort of business that the other Suits seemed to be regularly embroiled in. Drew had let him go with just a promise to see him in a few days, and a promise to try to eat more than a salad while he was gone.

And in truth, Hadyn had expected nothing out of the ordinary with his trip, either. He had even concluded much of his business early, and taken the time to ride to the South of France to look out over the landscape of the French country side. He also found himself standing outside his mother's home, and her prison. She had let him in, and her servants had brought him tea. And for a moment, a brief moment, a weight in Hadyn's chest lifted as his mother congratulated him on his Rank. For that one brief moment in time, she seemed proud of something he had done.

Seemed.

Like the flash of a bulb, her words ripped that brief happiness from him. They aimed at his heart, they cut wounds that no eyes would ever see as she stood and leaned across the table. "You were nothing but a mistake, a tool to be used! I should have killed you the day you left my womb, but I did not. Even a mistake should have had its uses, to support his brother. To be a sacrifice, bleed for a King. You had one job! One purpose! And such a fool was I to ever believe you have potential to fulfill it."

A mistake. Mistake.

From the moment he'd learned that his father was not the man he thought, to this moment now he had always felt that weight on his shoulders. Georgios Kattalakis had never cared to save Hadyn from his prison of ignorance, his mother (as she told him, explicitly) used his need for affection to manipulate him, Dwayne Novak...and used his fist. He was a burden to those around him, he knew. He could often see the weariness in Drew's eyes, the worry as he regarded Hadyn from day to day. Others still came around less, few called in to see that he was fine...but rarely did it last for long. His own brother, Jordan...

Jordan's nightmares haunted him, Hadyn knew as well as any. He could see his brother pulling away from him, the anger and disgust in his features. It wasn't fist that Jordan used any longer to take his anger out on his brother, it was his silence. As if Hadyn's troubles were too much, too dramatic and tiresome for Jordan to deal with any longer. As though, as though he wanted him to just...go away.

So he had, hadn't he? He'd pulled back, resigned himself to fake smiles and distant stares. His heart ached, but he did not wish to burden Jordan with his misery if Jordan did not wish to see it. He could survive without that reassurance, he had thought.

And Zoe? Zoe had her own happiness now, with smiles and joy that came from a distant mountain of a man. Victor Fox had never struck Hadyn as capable of love, but then he witnessed something he doubted few others had- he watched Victor as he watched Zoe. Eyes soft, and lips hinting of a smile as his gaze never faltered. She had become the center of his universe, and Zoe had grown and flourished in that love. His strength became her's, and he gave it willingly.

And it pained him to see. Because he was incapable to capturing that fleeting happiness. His relationships of late were at arms length, hurt and fear driving deep wedges between him and his partners. And why? Because his heart had belonged to another man, a man who did not need him. Did not, perhaps, want him. Elisha had driven a knife deep, deeper than any other ever had. He'd uttered three words, and then ripped them out of his grasp as easily as Laureline's acidic words ripped his heart apart.

'I love you', he had said. He'd said it so easily, so casually. 'I love you'. And then he'd ended it, driving the knife to the hilt and pushing Hadyn away. Proving the one that Hadyn always felt but never spoke to others- he was unlovable. Unwanted. Unneeded. Tarnished and broken. A mistake that should never have been. He was the source of so much misery in others, demanding attentions that were not his to demand. They wouldn't need to be burdened with his misery if he...would simply disappear.

In retrospect, he hardly remembered having left his Mother's house. He barely registered the speed in which is drove his bike, pushing faster and recklessly forward as words kept replaying in his head: Mistake, unwanted, unloved, tarnished and broken. Mistake. He was a mistake. A burden.

A car's horn blaring at him brought him back in time to jerk his bike out of the way of on coming traffic, hitting the dirt on the side of the road and skidding out. His bike flipped, flinging the thin rider off and down the embankment before it too went flying and crashing down, landing on top of his legs after both man and bike bounced and tumbled down to the shore of a frozen lake. He could feel the cold of the ground seeping in past his riding leathers as he laid there, staring out through his shattered visor as people rushed down the embankment toward him.

This, he thought as his eyes dipped shut, was probably a better way to die.

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He was not, of course, Hadyn's emergency contact. That didn't surprise him. He'd have expected Jordan, or perhaps Zoë with the distance the older Novak was putting in between himself and Hadyn, but it was Avery Hamilton, just recently recovered from her own accident, who called.

"I should have called Jordan," she said to him in a hushed voice from the hospital. "But...I don't know. I thought it was better to call you. Can you come?" And he hadn't even said any of the obvious things, Elisha thought as he moved through the hospital halls to where the slim blonde was pacing. He'd come immediately, which made him think he'd made a mistake when he'd ended it. Even if he'd done it for Hadyn's own good, because he wasn't any good for the younger man in the state he'd been in lately. Even if it was because he'd needed to take care of himself.

"Should I have called Jordan?" Avery asked, just over his right shoulder as Elisha simply stood in the doorway and looked at Hadyn, alone and almost small on the bed. Maybe she should have, he thought, but a moment later he shook his head. No. Jordan Novak was too much like him. Where Hadyn's pain was often like a raw wound that was too easy for those who did love him to see, Jordan locked his away and locked himself away. Right now it was such that Jordan was locked away from people more often than he wasn't, and if he knew...it would make it worse.

"No," he said. "No one tells Jordan." The guilt would be the end of it for Jordan Novak; he'd end everything, considering himself a failure, and if it were just him, a random Nine of Spades, Elisha wouldn't care as much. But losing Jordan would be the end of Hadyn. It would make this look like a moment of drama, hardly worth mentioning. He moved into the room, drawn towards the bed before he looked at Avery.

"I'll stay with him," he said. "Alone." Until that final word, it was Elisha Kagan speaking. But that last word - that was the King of Clubs, and Avery pressed her lips together before she disappeared into the hall.

It was in a word, bad. It was certainly as bad as it looked, given the way Hadyn's leg was suspended above the bed in traction, his arm wrapped in a stark white cast. His clothing had saved him from most of the scraps and punctures, but instead his body was littered with ugly, horrifying bruises. A long row of stitches showed where a branch had punched its way through his shoulder. Hadyn looked, now, as broken as he felt.

The miracle, the doctors had told Avery, was that others had been then when it had happened. Had Hadyn Novak been on that winding road alone when he and his bike went flying off the road, he would have been dead come morning. A branch the size of the man's arm and been rammed through his shoulder, had cut through several major blood vessels and very nearly cut through half of the boy's lung. It was a miracle, they said, he had not bled out before reaching the hospital. It was a miracle that he had stopped before hitting the frozen lake and drowning. A miracle he was still alive.

And that had been why the letter, once found, had broken his doctor's heart. Such pain, he knew, was difficult on people. But after such a miracle? He hadn't known. So he'd called the number, explained in terrible English as best he could before Avery had arrived. And then he'd given her the letter, and a pat on the shoulder. Hadyn would live, but not for long if the soul was not mended as well.

And it was a fair call on the Doctor's part. Because when Hadyn finally opened his eyes, and stared at the wall across from his bed, it was a groan of misery that softly escaped his lips. He hadn't wanted to live, and yet...yet here he was. Turning his head toward the window took effort, but he did so slowly. Expecting Avery, thanks to his letter, left him rather perplexed then to see...Elisha.

Why would Elisha have been there?

Edited 2017-06-22 03:08 (UTC)

He'd been there for hours. He'd been there long enough to formulate a story that they could tell Jordan without it being so very clear that the situation was what it was. The letter, the one the doctor had given Avery and Avery had given him, was tucked inside his jacket pocket, but the words were burned in his memory. He didn't really think he'd need to read it again as long as he lived.

He turned his head as he sensed Hadyn moving, and his lips kicked up in the corners but the smile didn't go anywhere near his eyes. "Well, Sleeping Beauty awakes, and without a kiss." He started to reach out to brush Hadyn's hair away and then...stopped, because here or not, he wasn't supposed to do that anymore. "Such a missed opportunity, darling."

He had come to Elisha's bedside when a bomb had nearly killed the man, and his heart had ached for it. He could remember the warmth of Elisha's hand as he had reached out and squeezed it softly. It had, perhaps, been the start of mending some of the hurt. They had both admitted to things they shouldn't have, that they'd missed one another. And in some ways Hadyn had regretted that, because it made his heart ache more when he laid in bed at night and stared at the wall.

When Elisha spoke, he could only frown before turning his head away. He didn't want to hear his voice, his playful words. It hurt. It hurt so much, and he couldn't stop it. Tears pooled on his lower lashes as he took a ragged breath. Why, why did they have to save him. Why couldn't they have just left him, left him alone. He was already alone, it wouldn't have mattered if he'd died on the cold ground.

"You're not Avery," he said finally, not looking at Elisha as his eyes dipped partly closed.

"No." He nearly said she was out in the hall - and she was, probably slumped in a chair, searching for an occupation. He nearly volunteered to get her, which surely was what Hadyn wanted. The bright, effervescent Ten of Diamonds so he could pretend this wasn't what it was. Certainly not the brooding King of Clubs who tended to see too much. And certainly that would be the easier thing to do. Elisha's fingers tightened into a fist.

"She called me," he said instead. And after a moment of hesitation, he did reach forward to brush Hadyn's hair out of his face. He didn't say that it was him or Hadyn's brother. He didn't say that he'd never seen Avery Hamilton look so scared, even when she couldn't remember herself. Instead he caught a tear on his thumb and his lips twisted into something too painful to be a smile. "Hadyn," he said. "Please."

He wasn't even sure what he was pleading for. He just knew that it was something he never did, but he was doing it now. He couldn't, he thought, lose Hadyn. Somehow nothing else mattered as much, no matter how much distance he tried to put between them.

"You shouldn't be here," he said in a hoarse voice as he tried to pull away from Elisha's touch. He didn't want this lie. He didn't want this untruth to pull at him more, he was already drowning. Didn't they see that? Didn't they understand that?

"I don't know, I don't what you want from me. And I can't do this any more," he said after a long silence, the empty feeling in his heart seizing. It was as though long fingers reaching through his chest and latched around his heart; twisting it, squeezing it. Tighter, crushing it without mercy. "I just...I don't want to be the reason others are unhappy. I don't want to fail them anymore."

He couldn't, after all, even manage to get himself killed properly. "I just a mistake." He said softly, in the end. "I shouldn't even be here."

Elisha let his hand drop and released his breath on a sigh. "You aren't the reason anyone's unhappy, Hadyn," he said. "You've never failed anyone." Though, perhaps, Elisha thought, he'd failed Hadyn. He hadn't been able to cope with the responsibility several months ago, when they'd broken up, and at the time it had felt like a responsibility. Like he needed to fix Hadyn, and he knew damn well some things couldn't be fixed.

His hand reached out, though, at Hadyn's next words, and he couldn't stop a certain sharpness in his voice. "You are not a mistake," he said, and then words spilled out that he'd thought when Hadyn appeared in his own hospital room and they'd nearly reconciled - but Elisha hadn't been able to get past his own pride then. "I need you," he said, softer now. "If you were gone, really gone..." Well, it wasn't just Jordan who would fall over the edge. Elisha might take longer about it. "I don't want to be the person I am when you aren't around."

Why. Why was he here saying these things, didn't he know? Didn't he know how much it hurt to hear those words? Hadyn looked back at Elisha, pain clear in his eyes as his lips quivered. It was one ragged breath, then two. Why, why couldn't he stop telling him such things?

"You seem happier when I am gone," he said, pain in his voice. "I just cause you trouble, we fight. We argue. I cause them, you've said as much. How can I make you better? How can I not ruin your happiness?" Tears trailed down his cheeks, his eyes red and puffy from the sudden onslaught of emotions that he was helpless against.

"I don't want to be alone any more." He said, blinking away his tears. "And I don't understand why no one can love me. Not even my parents," he said said with a sad, tearful laugh. He looked away again, taking another ragged breath. "I'm sorry..."

"Do I?" Elisha said, and he couldn't help it, there was that irritating dry skepticism on his face, even as he edged the chair closer to the bed. "Why, because I laugh and joke and smile? You do the same thing." And clearly that didn't mean a damn thing. "I'm not happy without you, Hadyn." He might be - he was - frustrated with Hadyn sometimes but, God, he was frustrated with everything right now.

He was actually a father now, not just playing at one with the indulgence of her dying mother, and the only time he'd seen Hadyn recently was when he'd come to see Eileen. It was like the time in the hospital hadn't been real. Or, he thought, like Hadyn had decided it hadn't been.

"I love you," he said softly, and raised a hand when Hadyn started to shake his head. "I love you. Eileen loves you. Avery loves you so much that she called me. And your brother loves you. Your mother..." He trailed off, his lips tightening. "Your mother is not worthy of you, Hadyn. I know that doesn't help, but - she isn't worth half of you."

Moving was not something Hadyn could do very well, his leg tied up with the express intention of him not moving it. His right arm was broken, wrapped in a cast and throbbing ever so slightly as it laid beside him. Which was little matter, with being left handed. But it was his left shoulder that had suffered the branch, and while not wrapped in a cast- it was not less difficult to move it.

So he was stuck, swallowing hard as he turned to look back at Elisha with those say glossy red eyes. He didn't know if he believed the man, at least...not yet. It all made his heart hurt more, and his rational thoughts were desperately trying to cling to Elisha's words. He understood the meaning, he understood the implication...but it was as if his mind was convinced it was a lie, only to fight with itself in vain hopes of it being the truth.

Elisha loved him. They all loved him, family was who you made it, not who you were born to.

It wasn't long, though, before exhaustion took him again, his eyes fighting to stay open even as he drifted back into a fitful sleep. But, he thought as he drifted away, maybe....maybe tomorrow would finally be a better day.

He sat with Hadyn while he slept, until it was clear he wouldn't wake again, and then he asked Avery to sit with him while Elisha took care of the business of all of this. He talked to the doctor, who rather disapproved - possibly of the fact that Elisha had allowed this to happen, possibly of the fact that Elisha looked almost old enough to be Hadyn's father - but who gave him a timeline for release. The traction was temporary and surgery would be required the next day. After that...well, they'd see. Likely at least a week before he could go home.

Of course, there was more than that. The doctor didn't specifically make mention of the letter, but he made mention of therapy, certainly.

Elisha escaped that conversation to go out into the cold winter air and make the required calls. Catherine, because he'd not be able to return to the Clubs for a few days. Theo, because Hadyn wouldn't be able to return to the Hearts. Eileen, to explain that Hadyn had had an accident - that he was going to be okay (and god, Elisha hoped he wasn't telling a lie there). Victor, to tell Zoë, but keep her from coming, too. Finally Jordan, whose voice had been quiet and suspicious when he answered and sharp with worry and guilt when Elisha explained why. It just reiterated, he thought as he hung up, that Jordan couldn't know what really happened. Not now. He wasn't foolish enough to think that declarations of love, however genuine and even if believed, were going to be enough to pull Hadyn out of this. He wasn't foolish enough to believe that he was enough for Hadyn alone. No, he thought as he stepped back into the hotel room and murmured to Avery that she should go back to the Deck to rest. Hadyn needed all of them, and if his brother knew what had happened...

Well, Elisha wasn't confident that it wouldn't be the final straw for a man whose desire to live had been leaching away since they'd betrayed Laureline. And that would make anything he tried to do to make Hadyn happy moot. Hadyn would never be happy if Jordan killed himself.

He sighed gustily as he flopped into Avery's vacated chair, and he turned his head to watch Hadyn sleep. Even like this, Hadyn didn't look at peace, he thought, and Elisha blinked suddenly burning eyes. "I really do love you," he murmured as he settled in, and eventually he closed his own eyes. As days went, after all?

This one had shaped up to be one of the longest fucking ones of his life, at least since his mother had done just exactly what Hadyn had done today, when he was only seventeen.

Time flew by him, Hadyn thought, while he stood still. The surgery for his leg went fast- adding a few plates and rods to help hold the nearly shattered bone together. It was, he told, going to be a long recovery for his leg. There was even a chance he might well never run on it again. But then he was to be released, much to his Doctor's protest. And so with a newly purchased wheelchair in hand, Elisha took him home.

Elisha broke the silence of their trip to make him smile, even if it was weak and tired. And then there was the constant reaffirmations - 'I love you'. When asked why he kept saying it, Elisha replied that he would keep saying it until Hadyn believed him.

The following weeks were spent in Club Castle, always in the company of another. Elisha explained to them that Hadyn needed their help- what with the chair, and the broken bones. Secretly, Hadyn though, it was because he was afraid to leave the Jack of Hearts alone. It was fair, to be honest. It wasn't until week four, perhaps, that Hadyn truly began to believe that death might not be his only answer.

His weeks were filled, too, with visitors and well wishers. His brother and sister came by often- at first with worried eyes, and then...slowly, with smiles. Theo and Rowan each made their visits, though the King of Hearts also seemed keen to ensure that Caleb's work was sound. Drew stopped by daily, offering to steal Hadyn away for a beer between bringing him work. Master Henry, Clayton, Gaston, and a thousand others it seemed. Blythe came among the last, slapping him before wrapping her arms around his neck and softly making him promise to never do anything so stupid again.

By the time the cast came off his arm, Hadyn was starting to feel different. His heart still ached, but for the first time he felt it was bearable. At least...for now it was. It helped that Caleb brought him crutches and helped him stand slowly after having been confined to a chair or bed for so long.

The cast one his leg eventually came off, replaced by hard shelled boot that came nearly up to his knee. It was uncomfortable, though it allowed him to put some weight on his leg. But the best part, he supposed, was that he could take it off. He could sit on the bed with it stretched out in front of him, and pretend for a moment that it was not broken at all. And...well, he could also take a bath. Like the one he ran, for the first time in over a month, in his own bath.

In his own rooms.

Perhaps he should have told Elisha he was leaving, even if he'd only meant for it to be an hour or so. Freedom had been too intoxicating, though, to stand in a room. Besides, Bond was starting to miss his dog bed...

Well, probably not. Elisha was as good a bed as any.

He'd had a suspicion when he'd come back for lunch just where Hadyn had disappeared to. Hadyn had a strong dislike for being taken care of - something he acknowledged they had in common - and eventually he was going to slip out. And Heart Castle was the most likely place, he thought as he headed that direction. If he went to Spades, there'd just be someone else hovering.

Zoe for sure, Jordan...maybe.

It wasn't as quick a trip to Hadyn's suite as he was hoping, and that was also not surprising. He'd been King long enough now to know that he'd long since lost his ability to slip into other Castles without being accosted; this time it was Theo, questions about Hadyn's recovery, and a short list of intersuit relations problems that he was, Elisha thought, going to have to either deal with or boot to Catherine later. But he still had to sit through it, listen politely, and assure Theo that it would have his personal attention.

"Do you know I just had to sit through a discussion of a war between Hearts and Clubs over the fact that Marina Carter is a raging flirt?" He asked as he stepped into the bathroom and raised his eyebrows. "This is what you've done to me. I'm blaming you entirely for the completely unentertaining saga of Deck Capulets and Montagues."

Hadyn opened his eyes, and smiled softly at Elisha. His smiles were more natural of late, easier to bring out of him. It was, Joanna said, a good sign. She had also been one of those to come an visit, but more because he'd called. She came though, because he apologized to her. Admitted that, perhaps, he was sick in a way he couldn't just will away or ignore any more.

So she sat in the King's study with him, and listened. They would likely never be friends, their history too rocky to over come that. But, if he was willing then...so was she. As such, they made an agreement to be patient with each other as they built a solid trust.

It was, like a lot of things, a good start.

"I am truly sorry," he said, leaning his head back against the larger than necessary tub. He could only imagine that a past Jack- John perhaps - had installed it in order to accomadate five people at once. "I just...thought a walk would do, and then a bath."

And he wasn't sure where they were, or what they were. Elisha had been patient, and determined. He told him, it seemed, that he loved Hadyn every day. Sometimes five times, and sometimes just the once. It was feeling all too easy to pull down the wall he'd built around his heart and let the man in again. Hadyn wasn't sure he was ready to do that without knowing if he was seeing only what he wanted to see.

"I...was also afraid to out stay my welcome," he admitted after a moment, motioning Elisha closer if he wanted. There was a stool by the tub that Hadyn had carefully used to get himself gingerly into the large tub without undoing all the careful healing of the past six weeks. "You've...been a lot more kind than you needed to be. I'm sorry to put you through this."

He wouldn't minimize the effort. It had been hard, and neither of them knew what they were doing, really. Elisha was operating based on the ways his own therapist had told him to deal with himself and a little by doing the opposite of what he'd done when it had been his mother. But it was hard, and sometimes he wanted to snap instead of being so infinitely patient. It was only that he knew that Hadyn was trying too that kept him from doing it really.

Though Hadyn certainly hadn't yet believed him enough to tell Elisha he loved him. Or perhaps he...simply didn't. He wasn't entirely sure.

He sat on the stool, stretching out his legs. "Did you expect me to yell at you?" He asked. It was actually a serious question. He'd been given to jealous rages and just plain rages before.

"Yes, and no." He said, closing his eyes as he let the warmth of the water seep into his bones. "Mostly, I imagined a lecture on going so far alone. On crutches." It hadn't been the most pleasant of walks. At all. Still, he opened his eyes and looked at Elisha with a gentle smile. "It wouldn't have been the first time for a disapproving lecture."

And they were lectures, and then fights. The fact that Hadyn was closer in age to Elisha's adotped daughter than he was to him was likely the cause of that.

"And to be honest, taking over your study to do my work was starting to get very odd looks. At least one person asked if I planned to become a Club, another....if we were sleeping together again." Which, they were. But in a rather platonic manner. It wasn't as if he'd make Elisha sleep on a couch while he slept on the bed, and besides...he liked the warmth of Elisha's body near his own.

"You have made it...very hard not to fall in love your again, do you know that?" He asked, turning his head away as he leaned forward to splash some of the water into his face. Looking back at Elisha, he had a considering expression on his face. "My rooms are much less cozy, though. I think Bond feels betrayed to be back here."

"I've been told I need to chill out." By his teenage daughter, mostly. And Blythe, who just seemed to think that he needed to in general. She probably wasn't wrong, but it was kind of the pot and the kettle there. The Ace of Hearts wasn't exactly calm.

His eyes gleamed with mischief, though. "You should have told them you'd caught me in your web again, to see the faces." And okay, mostly because Elisha found the idea of assorted Clubs hearing that hilarious.

"Well, he's in love with Cordelia, so it only stands to reason," he said of Bond. Q had taken to the closet more often of late, but Elisha was fairly sure he'd relearn how to deal. There was a more serious comment on the table, though, and Elisha's expression sobered and stilled. "Are you so convinced I'll hurt you again?" he asked.

"It is true. I think you tried to ground me two weeks ago." He hadn't really, but it had certainly started to come across that way as they argued about just how much he should be moving about on his own.

"Yes, I should have. And all the rumors that would blossom about the Deck would be unstoppable, you know. We would break hearts, if it were a lie." He said, smiling gently as he leaned back again and looked at Elisha with a considering stare.

"I do," he said, honestly. "I'm more afraid of wanting to let you, I think." It was true, too. He wanted to just fall back into that web, in part because it was so easy. In part because he'd never really untangled himself to begin with. "I missed you, and I never realized just how much I had until you were right there. But I don't want...something built on guilt, or sympathy." Or whatever it was that made Elisha so damned determined.

"And I don't think I could deal with another goodbye," he said, frowning as he looked away. "Maybe you were right all along."

Elisha ducked his head with a slight smile, but then he looked away, across the bathroom into the living room. It was more Spartan than his and Elisha was not sure that it was a sign of style so much as mental state. "I pretended I didn't miss you," he finally said. "It was my idea, after all. And I told myself I was doing it for you, because I was too much of a mess for a twenty-one year old to want to tie himself. So if I missed you, it was my own damn fault."

It wasn't just Hadyn whose soul was damaged, and whose self-worth plummeted with the onset of a depressive episode. It had happened to Elisha too.

"But I was wrong," he said, looking over at Hadyn. "I should never have let you go, no matter how much we were fighting."

For the first time in these long weeks, Hadyn thought, he could believe Elisha when he said that. In part it was because the mood was slowly coming to the end of its course, like an ebbing tide. Reaching out with his left arm, he reached out to touch the King of Clubs' hand.

"Alright then," he said, bringing that hand to his lips before he could stop a smile from blossoming across his lips against his will. "So long as we are in agreement that you are an idiot." He pulled a little at Elisha's hand, dipping his right shoulder a little lower in the water.

"You know, you could just get in. And then...maybe we could discuss what the future holds for us." He suggested, looking back at Elisha. "We should, you know, talk about it. Before...we let this uncertainty get too far out of our hands. Because, I think, I want this. I really want this."

Elisha arched a brow and eyed the tub with an amused smile. "John was a very ambitious man," he said as he pulled off his boots, and then stripped off his clothes. "Somehow I doubt he ever used this to it's capacity. " Looked like it would fit at least six, he thought as he pushed back his hair and stepped inside.

He smirked as he settled in the hot water, casting a look at Hadyn. "So, am I doing the walk of no shame in the morning?" He asked.

Hadyn used the water to help him move to make room for Elisha, mindful of the fact that his leg was not really strong enough to support his weight just yet. Even the smallest of jars made him regret moving his leg. Even if Caleb insisted that he'd have to walk through the pain for it to completely heal.

"He was...different." Hadyn said, shrugging just a little before he smirked and settled back against the tub. "But it is comfortable, and it stays warm. You could practically swim in it." Looking at Elisha, though, he sat up and leaned in to tuck a strand of hair back from his face. It wasn't nearly as long as his own, but for Elisha's standards...it was getting a bit shaggy.

"Is it really a walk of shame if you feel no shame in it?" He asked, his hand moving to cup Elisha's face. His thumb gently brushed over Elisha's lips for a moment, before Hadyn leaned in and caught them in a kiss.

God, how long had he wanted to do that?"

Elisha wouldn't be able to tolerate hair as long as Hadyn's, and not just because of the inevitable curl - which didn't stop Hadyn - as much as because it would just be everywhere, annoying him.

"Oh, it's not," he said as his arm slipped through the water to wrap around Hadyn's waist and ease him closer. "Walk of no shame whatsoever, really." But then Hadyn was kissing him, and Hadyn hadn't kissed him since the day before Elisha had broken up with him months ago. So he kissed back, his hand slipping into Hadyn's hair.

Maybe they'd be alright, he thought. Maybe they were going to make it.

It was just a kiss, he thought, just a kiss. He'd wanted to do that for so long, and these last few weeks had only made that feeling worse in many ways. And when he pulled away, Hadyn's eyes were not looking at Elisha, even was his hand still cupped the man's face.

After a moment, silent and thoughtful, he pulled away and looked at the other man that sat so close to him. "Can we really do this all again?" He asked Elisha, not quite sure what answer he was hoping for. Or which one he would get. "I...don't think I'll get better, Not really. And I don't....I shouldn't. You have too much to worry about."

Too much to add to it a partner who seemed to occasionally lose his mind in one direction or another. It was categorically unfair of him to put the King of Clubs through a relationship with him. He understood it better for the last six weeks than he had when Elisha had effectively broken his heart.

Elisha tilted his head to one side, and while he tried not to manipulate Hadyn, and tried not to issue orders, there was more than a little of the Machiavellian intelligence officer who'd swiped a dozen spies from David in a month's time in his expression. More than a little of the man who let Alexander be king as long as he was useful, and then got rid of him.

"Don't you think I can make that decision?" He asked, trailing his fingers over Hadyn's cheek. "And do you really think you don't deserve to be happy?"

Elisha had, actually, made that decision once before. And a part of Hadyn wanted to say as much, even if he didn't want to deal with that hurt any more. But perhaps the skeptical look on his face was all Elisha needed to know his thought on that, given the slight look that crossed his.

"Sometimes, I don't think I've earned it," he admitted after a moment, shrugging just a little. "Sometimes I don't believe it is possible, either." But that wasn't the heart of the matter, was it?

"There should...be rules," he decided, lifting his hand to Elisha's face as his heart thundered in his chest. The last time they had done this, there hadn't been rules...not between them, at least. Instead, Elisha had twisted him up in a game of cat and mouse- first playing at things, then jealously declaring a desire for more, then hiding it, then not hiding it, more jealousy, more fighting. When he thought about it? Elisha had been right, they had been doomed to fail. Why? Because their relationship had been ridiculous.

"Rules that we can't break, shouldn't." He said, sighing a little. "No more...trying to manipulate me, that isn't fair." It wasn't, after all, as if Hadyn had been exactly blind to the ways Elisha had twisted him around his fingers, after all. Considering Hadyn had been breed for just that purpose himself.

Elisha was really, he thought, not good at being in a relationship. He never had been. He'd never had one that wasn't either a power game or a complete disaster, and his own therapist told him that his relationship with Bastian - which had been Sieben's real name - had colored for him the way relationships worked. He'd manipulated Hadyn because he'd been manipulated himself.

Then, too, his PTSD had been...bad the last time he and Hadyn had been dating. Debilitatingly bad, at times.

"Okay," he said after a long moment of watching Hadyn. "I'll do my best. I might not always succeed. But," he aded. "On your side - you can't shut me out when this happens." And they shouldn't pretend that Hadyn didn't, he thought.

To be fair, Hadyn had let Elisha manipulate him until he wasn't even aware it was happening any more. And then, Joanna told him, there was that unconscious response Hadyn had to the feeling of being loved. He'd not had it from a parent as a child, and so getting it for the first time...in a romantic way? It had become a bit of a drug for him, she was certain.

"Okay," Hadyn said, with a nod. "I'll try. If...you're patient with me." This was, he thought, a good start. "It...scares me to tell you, you know. And sometimes...I just don't know, I don't know why it is happening. Little things, stupid things...said, or done. And, and it just snaps. Like a boulder just shoved suddenly down the mountain, crashing through every rational thought in my head. And...I can't, I can't..."

Find the words, he thought as he closed his eyes and frowned. The worst thing about depression, he thought, was how it ebbed and flowed like water. One sad thought, and then rush of the tide washed the sand out from under you. And it could stay, or wash back out- it was hard to tell. Harder, he thought, to explain.

"But....I'll try."

"I feel like I keep saying this," Elisha said, letting Hadyn lean against him as they talked, "but I'll try." Love had not come easily for him, either. Reina had loved him - and finally, he'd forgiven her - but her love had been complicated and sometimes selfish. Hadyn wasn't selfish, not in the same way, but he was complicated in a very similar way. His moods were very similar. It was, perhaps, what had made him run before. Why would he want to repeat history?

But then, there were just some people in life you were meant to be with.

"We shouldn't stay in here forever," he said, squeezing Hadyn's hand. "If I fall asleep, I don't think your leg is strong enough for you to pick me up just yet."

Try was really all that either of them could do, and right or wrong- they would have to live with the results of starting over. Though this time they could at least start off the way a couple was supposed to, not sneaking off to hide their romance...or lying to partners about who they were really with.

"No, but it is nice in here. My leg aches less in here, and there are worse places to nap." Hadyn said with a sigh. However, Elisha was very correct- his leg would not support him hauling the King of Clubs out of the tub. It barely supported him hobbling about with crutches and a walking boot. And so it was with a heavy sort of sigh that Hadyn sat up and unstopped the drain. "If you are staying," which he hoped Elisha was, "you'll have to convince Bond to share his side of the bed. He barely shares with me on my side."

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