Page 104 of Incubus
Jim came back down in record time so they could leave, but every bump in the road made Nathan want to curse, and he clung to Sasha, afraid that a particularly harsh jerk would cause Sasha to fall off his lap down between the seats.
Once they were on the highway, Jim called back, watching Nathan in the rearview mirror. “Want the radio?”
“Nah. I kind of like the quiet right now,” Nathan said. He knew that made Jim’s gaze linger, but he really did like the quiet. It made it easier to hear the gentle huffs of Sasha breathing.
“I’ll call Schuester when we get closer,” Jim said. “I’ll just tell him…I’ll tell him Sasha’s hurt and we don’t have anywhere else to go. We’ll worry about the ‘he’s also an incubus’ part later. Is Walter still with us?”
“Sitting right next to you. He says we've done all we can.”
Nathan couldn't really think about Schuester and what his reaction might be. He couldn't think about Walter. Or Gabriel. Or anything. He just wanted to figure out how to wake Sasha up. There had to be a way. Sasha couldn’t stay like that forever, frozen but still alive.
He just...couldn’t.
Hours passed and still Sasha lived, breathing the same steady rhythm. They didn’t stop once until they reached Schuester’s apartment building.
With Sasha wrapped in a blanket, they brought him upstairs using the freight elevator to avoid any early risers, hoping that Schuester wouldn’t notice that Sasha didn’t exactly look normal until after they got him inside. It might have been a dirty trick, but Nathan and Jim weren’t in their right minds enough to care.
“Bring him into the guest room. It’s the closest,” Schuester directed them once they were inside.
Kitty observed them curiously from the living room, wearing bright pink footed pajamas, where she was supposed to be watching early morning cartoons.
Jim and Nathan carried Sasha into the guest room ahead of Schuester. They assumed he hadn’t noticed the horns and clawed feet quite yet, but there was no way they could hide the truth once Schuester came in behind them and started to help unwrap Sasha from the blanket.
Nathan expected shock or even a cry or look of revulsion. What he didn’t expect was Schuester's complete and utter disregard for Sasha’s incubus form as he checked Sasha’s forehead for a fever and inspected the sealed up wound on his chest.
“He’s been like this since ya left Chicago?” Schuester asked.
Nathan and Jim exchanged equally surprised glances before Jim said, “Yeah. No change.”
Schuester checked Sasha over for a few minutes but finally threw the same blanket back over him again to better keep the incubus warm.
“Hey," Nathan said, unable to stand how calm Schuester was acting. "You don’t seem too surprised to see him like this.”
Schuester looked across the bed at Nathan and Jim, and raised an eyebrow from beneath his thick black-framed glasses. “Well, neither doyou. How long have you boys known?”
“Since we were last in Minnesota," Jim said. "How long haveyouknown?”
Schuester smiled in his sad, understated way. “Since a skinny sixteen-year-old redhead showed up on my doorstep. I've known Sasha longer than I've known the two of you, but never very well. I thought he was lyin’ at first when he said he was Deklin Kelly’s son. I crossed paths with Deklin when I was younger than you boys. But the more I talked with Sasha, the more I knew he had to be tellin’ the truth. He has Deklin’s same smile, same walk, same way he carries himself. I put the pieces together. Last I heard from Deklin, he had a new wife. I imagine that if I had gotten the chance to meet her it would have been an interestin’ conversation.”
Schuester walked around to the foot of the bed, and Nathan and Jim moved to meet him.
“I want to help, but I don’t know anythin’ special about how an incubus hurts or heals,” Schuester said. “I'm a collector, not a seal or a fae physiological expert. Yer going to have to tell me exactly what happened.”
So Nathan and Jim did. Every last detail. But when they were finished, Schuester still looked as lost as they were.
It made Nathan so angry. Sasha was warm and safe and lying on a real bed, but that did them little good if they couldn’t wake him.
“Sasha…?”
Nathan turned to the door of the bedroom to find Kitty peeking inside with wide interested eyes at Sasha's revealed form. Walter was standing behind her, remaining in the hallway as if he felt it wrong to enter. Nathan wanted to tell Walter that it was okay, but he had grown too used to not speaking to Walter in front of anyone other than his brother...and Sasha.
"It's okay, Kitty," Schuester said, crossing to his daughter. "I know Sasha might look a little scary right now, but you trust him, don't ya?"
To Nathan’s surprise, a bright awed smile spread across the girl’s face. “He looks so cool! Like an angel! Is he an angel?”
Nathan tried not to snort.
Maybe if angels had wanton sex with every prospect they met.
