Distress engulfed James like a blanket. Which, in turn, assaulted Nikolai’s senses. He’d dealt with this before. He could handle it. It was just so much worse when it was someone you loved; it actually hurt in a way that he had completely forgotten.
“Hello, love” was all Nikolai could think to say when those arms wrapped around him. Like this was four years ago and they were in their own home again. Like it was any normal day. The words had a strange weight to them, felt odd on his tongue, and he wondered if he should be saying them at all.
A million questions flooded his mind and he had to bite his tongue to keep quiet. They would get to those later. He didn’t know how the interrogation had gone, but he’d never seen one that was pleasant or congenial. Not being there, sitting helplessly yards away, left a bad taste in his mouth. He could easily understand why they wouldn’t have wanted him involved and, hell, he wouldn’t have let himself attend if the positions were reversed. But he wished he could have been there and he was tired of feeling useless like he had for the last four years.
“I’m sorry,” Niko murmured against James’ chest, eyes closed and prickling like he could cry and god help him, that was the absolute last thing he wanted right now. He could count on one hand the number of times he’d cried in the last two decades and had no interest in increasing that number. So he just cleared his throat and stood there, attempting to collect his thoughts, arms around James.
What he was apologizing for was hard to articulate. Everything, really. Never had he felt quite so much like a failure, not even all those years ago when he’d nearly been killed on a mission.