What's better than a devil you don't know?

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Any TGV (high-speed train), France

Laswell knew he would be there. Her mole had been watching him for a week, and he had repeated the exact same pattern of behaviour from morning until dusk. She had too much respect for him to try and tap his phones or intercept his emails. Hell, she wasn't even sure the CIA could manage it anyway.

As she stepped across the threshold of the bar and the air conditioning washed over her face, she drew in a steadying breath. They had worked together for many years, and it felt alien to sit on the opposite side of the proverbial table. There was still a chance. She had to try.

"Laswell," Nik acknowledged in his low timber, gesturing the barman with two fingers. "You came personally."

"Of course, Nik. You're my..." she hesitated, "...you're my friend, and so is he." How far a spook could have friends was not a debate she really wanted to consider in that moment. It felt right. Like the only word that really encompassed the last decade and a half.

They sat in silence. Two dry martinis arrived. Nik took the end of the tooth pick and stirred the olive around the edge of the glass. She took a sip, lips pulling back over her teeth as she placed the glass back down. Strong.

Her fingers pushed over the base of the glass. "You can't save him from this one. He's too far gone."

Nik didn't answer immediately. He pulled the olive from the pick and chewed it. "Perhaps, perhaps not."

"Do you know where he is?"

"Sometimes."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Nik threw the pick onto the bar and returned to nursing his glass. "When he needs me, he calls me. When he does not need me, I wait to be called."

Nik wasn't looking at her, and she realised now that he was deliberately avoiding it. There was a tremor of pain in his voice that he couldn't mask. It was her way in, but she wasn't sure she was cruel enough to mine said wound for intel. "Is he... well?"

"No," Nik said. "He is... broken."

Laswell heard an echo of Price in Nik's choice of words. 'You broken?' She had seen photographs of him in recent months. He looked... gaunt. Everything from his facial hair to his clothes were dark. Like he had slipped from shades of grey to shadow, and lost himself in the process. Nik would have watched it happen, powerless to stop the spiral. She couldn't twist the knife anymore. "Help me bring him in, Nik. Help me help him."

Nik huffed a laugh, and his eyes lifted from where they had been studying a knot in the wooden finish of the bar. "You know I cannot do that."

Laswell felt a lump rise in her throat. Three decades of fucking service and nothing had ever hit her like this. No loss, no operation, no coup. She realised now she hadn't come here expecting to get Nik to betray John. She'd come to say good bye. "It looks like we're sitting at opposite ends of the table for this one then."

Nik sighed. "It seems so."

"I can give you two days' headstart."

"I appreciate it."

She sniffed, blinking quickly, her head tilting back as she looked at the ceiling to gather herself. Steadied, she lifted her glass from the bar. "To old comrades."

Nik tilted his drink to hers. "Za druzhbu."

Though John wasn't sure if the dream was one of the gentle, beautiful kind, or the opposite. It had become hard to tell as of late.

There he stood in the foyer of the flat John had found to hide in, the warm brown of his eyes shining honey-gold under the shoddy lighting. John couldn't remember if the last time he saw Nikolai the other man had looked as tired as he did now.

"What are you doing here?" John asked after too long, though the answer was obvious.

"I have been searching for you."

"Why?"

I am the only one who could find you.

The man didn't need to say it for John to know. The way Nikolai tilted his head, eyes full of sorrow, was enough. John's hands clenched into fists to stop them from shaking.

"Solnyshko..."

"Don't call me that," he bit out, taking a step back as Nikolai took one forward. Somehow he was simultaneously too far and too close, somewhere John could almost give himself the mercy of falling into him but still shrank away in fear of staining Nikolai's hands with the grime and blood that drenched his own.

His back hit the wall. A low whine came from his throat before he could clamp it down and to his shame he felt the prick of tears in his eyes as Nikolai hushed him gently, the other man's hand settling on the side of his neck.

"You are okay, John," he murmured. "We are okay." Blunt nails scratched the hair at the base of John's skull. The gentle motion made shivers wrack down his spine, drawing another low sound from deep in his chest.

Trapped between peeling tapestry and Nikolai's body, John wasn't sure whether to snarl and throw Nikolai off him or shatter and let him gather the pieces.

In the end the choice was made in his stead when Nikolai slowly, so slowly, drew him into his arms. His hands burned like a brand on the bare skin of John's back where one of them slipped under his shirt to hold him close.

He was loathe to admit just how much the realisation of how long it had been since gentle hands had touched him frightened him.

In the wake of it John let Nikolai bear his weight when his knees grew weak, his hands grasping the back of Nikolai's worn jacket in a desperate attempt to find some sort of tether.

Chapped lips brushed his hairline in a fleeting kiss, the rasp of stubble on his skin sharp and real enough to have him muffling a sudden sob on Nikolai's shoulder.

"I am here, John," Nikolai whispered. His grip was almost as desperate as John's was when he lowered them both to the floor and pulled John to his lap.

He took refuge in the warm expanse of Nikolai's chest and hid his face in the hollow of his collar. His breath hitched around the lump in his throat as salty tears left itching tracks on his cheeks. "M'- m'sorry."

Almost immediately Nikolai hushed him again. "No need for apologies," he said quietly against the crown of John's head. "We will figure it out."

He wiped the tears with a soft hand and pressed a kiss to John's brow. "Rest now."

John couldn't find it in himself to refuse now that Nikolai was there with him.