[THREAD] Thursday night, December 19, 2013 WHO: Asher Diederich & Nikolai Mason WHEN: Thursday, December 19, 2013; sometime after 9:00pm WHERE: Nikolai’s apartment, 403 CAP WHAT: Coming home after a rough mission RATING: TBD (but be prepared for mopey Nikolai) STATUS: Incomplete/Closed
Missions were rarely easy. Nikolai was well-aware of this fact. After all, if they were so easy, what would be the point of putting students through years of training before sending them out into the field? No, everyone knew from day one that the life of an agent couldn’t be an uncomplicated or simple one and Nikolai had readily accepted that, thrived on the challenges even. Today, however, had been a special brand of difficult.
Surely Asher wasn’t asleep already, but Nikolai closed the front door to his apartment softly and followed his usual arrival routine with deliberately quiet and slow motions: taking off his shoes, lining them neatly with his others (and some of Asher’s now too, he noted with a brief flash of happiness), and emptying his pockets of his keys to place them on the small table next to the door. His gaze fell on the door to his room and he wondered which he hoped more, that Asher was awake and wanting to listen or that he was asleep and merely a peaceful presence in his bed. The latter was unlikely, maybe even impossible, since the two had been texting only minutes previously. Add to that, Nikolai had already shared the fact that he was legitimately upset, not something he imagined Asher would ignore in favor of sleep.
The mind he reached out to touch was not one of a sleeping person, unsurprisingly, alive and full of thoughts, the comforting and familiar buzz of Asher’s consciousness meeting his. Nikolai would never tire of that. A relieved and relaxed sigh left his mouth. Though he hadn’t been able to decide which he wanted, having his lover awake and attentive was apparently it. The comfort of linking to his mind washed over the telepath and he stood silently, a few feet from the front door, with his eyes closed as he enjoyed the connection.
Ash? His own tentative greeting nudged him out of complacency, prompting him to make the short trek to the room they, for all intents and purposes, now shared. I’m home. The ‘finally’ was implied, even though he’d really only been absent from Willowbrook grounds for a few hours.