(C) by me too.

Kevin opened his eyes in the darkness and waited for them to adjust to the moonlight streaming in the window.

He didn't quite know why he'd woken up. His body was still warm and relaxed, not quite having shaken off the sleep yet.

He wanted to go back to sleep, but something, an odd feeling, was stopping him. He lay absolutely still in that bed, recognizing the sensation, and afraid any move he made would be the trigger.

He was beginning to know this sensation well. The moments before the pain came, the calmness in his body before all hell broke loose. They came out of nowhere, with never any more warning than this momentary calmness in him before something trigger the avalanche of pain in his body.

"Kevin?"

It was only a whisper in the dark, barely loud enough to be heard, but it ripped through Kevin like a blast from a shotgun.

The trigger this time was that one whispered word that sent fire racing through his veins as every nerve in his body awoke and screamed with electric pain, stealing his breath so swiftly that even though his mouth was screaming in pain, no sound came out.

Nick shot straight up in the bed when he felt Kevin's whole body tense beside him and he knew without a second's hesitation what it was. His hands flew to the bedside table and clicked on the light, searching for the instant release morphine pen-shots that Sullivan had given him for when Kevin had these bursts of breakthrough pain that came out of nowhere and completely crippled him in seconds.

Kevin curled himself into a ball as the soft light fell across the bed, "Too loud! TOO LOUD!!" His hands were covering his eyes, but the pain had caused all of his senses to become jumbled and right now the light that flooded his eyes translated as sound in his pain-racked mind.

Nick grabbed the pen shaped vial that held Kevin's rescue, in his shaking hand, as Kevin's body rejected the light and the pain it caused him. He saw Kevin's body shudder before a choking sound prodded him into action again.

He dove for the popcorn bowl that was lying on the floor beside their bed and managed to shove it in front of Kevin's heaving body just in time. Nick held him tightly, not letting him fall over the side of the bed as Kevin heaved violently into the bowl before him. Nick could feel the definition of Kevin's muscles straining against the surface of his skin, completely rigid and unyielding. The pain had made every single one of them tense in protest to the pain screaming from them. Nick knew how painful it must have been for Kevin and hung on tighter, biting his lip to keep from whimpering with Kevin when another round overtook him.

Kevin squeezed his eyes shut as his body heaved involuntarily. The pain blazing through his body was worse than any book or counselor could have described to him. It was like his body was exploding from the deepest level inside him to the hairs on his skin. Literally, he could feel every single hair on his body; his nerves were so hypersensitive at that moment. He could feel the marrow inside his bones bubbling and stretching the bone until the sounds of it splintering filled his ears. He could feel the flow of the blood in his veins; every pulse of it brought explosions of light beneath his eyelids. The blood itself burned inside him like acid, feeling like thousands of tiny fingernails scraping the inside of his veins in an endless loop through his circulatory system.

Sight and sound, touch, smell and taste all collided in a jumbled mess, making him not able to distinguish if his eyes heard the light or saw it. He couldn't tell if the musky smell of his sweat and the mess in the popcorn bowl was coming in through his nose or his fingertips.

Right now, it was all he could do to pull in a few breaths before the waves of nausea returned.

Nick saw an opportunity while the heaves ceased to give Kevin the shot he so desperately needed. Cringing, he uncapped the tip and drove the cylinder into Kevin's thigh and heard the spring release, driving the automatic needle through his skin and delivering the morphine to his bloodstream.

The shock of the needle being delivered caused Kevin to jump, disturbing the ripples of nausea into the waves they were before. Only this time Kevin had nothing to offer up and the sound of dry heaves echoed off the walls.

Nick held on to Kevin tighter with one arm and carefully set the bowl on the bedside table with the other. Gently, he slid away from Kevin and slowly turned him so they met eye to eye.

The sight of Kevin's face made Nick want to cry out. His eyes were bloodshot and the skin around them pulled taut from the exertion of heaving. The corners of his lips were smeared with remnants and his goatee had caught some as well. Even as he tensed and choked, it was Kevin's eyes that called out to Nick. They stayed steadily on Nick's and showed every emotion that Kevin was feeling. The pain that was slowly ebbing away, the helplessness of being crippled by this attack, the disgust he felt at himself for not being able to stop the heaving that was brought on by the breakthrough pain. Nick saw it all there in his eyes. But more than anything, he saw Kevin begging him silently for help. Pleading with him to make it better.

With a shuddering breath and a lump in his throat that dammed back the tears, Nick raised his cool hands to Kevin's warm, sweaty face and stroked his thumbs over Kevin's cheeks, trying to keep his grip gentle as Kevin's head involuntarily bobbed with every dry heave. "Look in my eyes, Kevin. Keep looking right in my eyes and listen to the sound of my voice. Can you do that?"

Nick's voice was soft and calm amid the wrenching sounds of Kevin. He kept a steady and even tone, one filled with warmth and love. He saw Kevin nod at his requests and his eyes never wavering in their hold on him.

"Good, Bumpkin. I want you to think about us in Paris. Do you remember how surprised you were when I led you into that hotel suite? How the blue and red rose petals were all over the bed and I'd gotten Denise to sent our bedding over to me so the hotel bed was made up with our sheets? The look on your face was so wonderful when I let you pull the blindfold off. You looked just like a kid on Christmas morning and you'd found the best toy, the one you forgot to ask Santa for, under the tree.

I thought my heart was going to explode when I saw that look on your face.

And during dinner when we kept our fingers tangled together during the whole meal, even though it make it really awkward to eat, but we did it anyway. I don't think I could have handled not having your touch while we ate.

God, Kev, sometimes when we are lying together, like we did that night, all wrapped in the sheets and there is nothing separating the feel of your skin on mine; it's not close enough. Sometimes I just want to shed my skin and climb inside yours with you, to exist in the same body with you. To have every part of you be part of me too."

As Nick was talking, he took the washcloth that was always on his bedside table and wrung it out in the small bowl of water it was in and wiped it across Kevin's face, cooling the skin and cleaning it. His eyes never for an instant leaving his husband's.

"Do you ever feel like that, Sweetie? I think you do. The way you held me so tight when we were dancing there in the room, looking at the Eiffel Tower's lights out in the night, you held me so close. With every word of the song you held me closer until I felt like I was melting into you.

A beautiful song, a beautiful view, a beautiful man I love with all my heart. That was one of the best nights of my life."

Nick guided Kevin's head to his shoulder and stroked his fingers over the side of Kevin's face. He could feel the tenseness in Kevin's muscles starting to release as the morphine worked through his system more and more.

The dry heaves had stopped while Nick was talking as Kevin fell more and more under the spell of both Nick's voice and the morphine oozing through his bloodstream.

He knew Kevin hated relying on the morphine to control the pain. He had gritted his teeth and tried to bear it. Until Nick had begged him to get Sullivan to prescribe something to use, when the crippling attacks became so vicious all Kevin could do was scream in agony, when he could even draw in the breath to scream. Nick could do nothing but hold Kevin and stop his convulsing arms from hurting himself involuntarily.

When Kevin saw the terror in Nick's eyes, he had given in to having the morphine on-hand to help him. It was the same terror he remembered in his own eyes when his father lay in the hospital bed gripping the arm rails, stubbornly refusing anything to cut the pain until the very end. For Nick, he had given in, but a small part of him gave in for that nineteen-year-old inside him that remembered all too well the terror in Nick's eyes.

Nick continued talking to Kevin as a soft breeze coming off the ocean, raised goosebumps on Kevin's damp skin. While whispering softly in Kevin's exposed ear, Nick lifted the sheets and blanket from where they had fallen at the foot of the bed and covered them both with them, rocking Kevin gently in his embrace.

He kept whispering in Kevin's ear of his love in the same soft, calm voice until the morphine's numbing was complete and Kevin was sleeping peacefully wrapped in Nick's arms.

Nick continued to hold Kevin until he was sure that Kevin was in a deep sleep and then carefully slid Kevin down until his head was on the pillow and he was tucked warmly in the blankets. Bending over, he kissed Kevin's cooled forehead and picked up the popcorn bowl, carrying it to the bathroom along with the spent pen-needle. Once the bowl was rinsed out and the medical supplies were in the lidded container he kept in there for the needles, the panic caught up to him.

There, in the bathroom, with only the moonlight spilling in the window, Nick sat on the floor. His body shook out of his control as he buried his face in a towel and thought how it never got easier to see him like that, knowing there would only be more to come.

There, alone in the moonlight, Nick cried himself dry.