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What is life, if nothing but a slow death? 

The story will always have an ending. 

The amount of time one has is meaningless. It’s what is done with said time that matters. 

There are many things that he will never understand about the world. It’s frustrating, the not  knowing. That despite his age and after all that he has seen, there will always be something else just out of his reach.  

He’s always been quite ravenous for having more. A trait he’s found to also be carried by many of those around him, passed down the generations that he’s lived through. A double edged sword, though, as having such an attribute has not always led to greener pastures. 

History has long filled numerous books of these occasions. 

He has seen it all; the good and the bad. Life offers them both on a platter, alongside a cruel indifference to his own desires. 

Time is both a line and a wheel. He spends most of his life trying to figure out if he’s been here before, all while trying to keep moving forward. 

*********

There is a place in his head. 

He pictures it as a door. Simple and unassuming, just like what is housed within. 

Words. A list of his favorites. 

He’s learned, over his considerably long life, that nothing ever is free. He is gifted with time, only to pay for it with even more time. Memories fade–such fickle things, they are–and faces and places slip away in the night. 

He’s always been quite stubborn and tries to dig his feet in the sand as deeply as he can. He tries to hang on to everything he can manage. 

He finds that it’s easier the less he tries. He knows he can’t keep the whole field, so instead, he picks the best blooms to carry with him. 

Hence the door. 

It’s a memory technique he uses. He doesn’t remember the name for it–he hadn’t cared to learn, as he’d been using it long before it had gotten one. 

The words are like tethers. Strings in his mind that lead him to what he’s lost. A single anchor, that guides him back to the ship. That guides him back to the memories he has left. 

He doesn’t concern himself with whether or not what he remembers is real. What he has is his, and that’s all that matters. 

*********

“Camallo!”

Nicolò shrieks with laughter when Giano tackles him to the ground. 

Nicolò isn’t surprised he hasn’t made it far. His limbs don’t match the rest of his body and he trips over his feet like an excitable foal. 

He rolls around with Giano on the ground before his brother helps him up. “Come, camallo,” he says with a huge grin as he tugs Nicolò towards the shore. “There is much to do!” 

Giano has called him that ever since they’d first started playing down at the port. It doesn’t matter how many times Giano changes what he wants to be–it varies from king, to warrior, to captain, to king again–Nicolò is always and only the camallo. 

“You can be someone else, too,” Giano tells him once, brandishing a long stick. “You would make a good knight.” 

But Nicolò does not want to be a knight. He wants to be like the men down at the port. 

He tries to tell his older sister about his plans, but she just wrinkles her nose in disgust. She asks why anyone would aspire to lug cargo around at the dock, but she just doesn’t understand. 

Giano is his captain and Nicolò is his camallo. Giano leads the way and Nicolò gets to hold onto all the treasures they find. 

Even in the rare times that he is separated from Giano, when he hears the men call out for the camallo it brings a smile to his face. It makes him think of sand between his toes, pockets full of shells, and bubbling laughter.  

*********

He wonders what his mother would think of him, if she had survived giving birth to him. Whether she would think he is too much, or too little. 

All he knows is he’s not enough. A single look from his father–or lack thereof–would tell him as such. 

He asks Giano about his mother constantly. Giano’s story changes every time–she could stand on her head and could hold her breath for the whole day, she could sing better than the birds and her laughter could shake the mountains, her eyes were pearls that she’d stolen from the sea–but Nicolò doesn’t mind. 

He likes Giano’s stories. 

He spends his days running after his brother, breathless from questions and laughter. 

The other children speak of their parents and their siblings and ask Nicolò why he doesn’t. 

Nicolò just does not care to. He does not need his dead mother or his absent father or his older half siblings. 

He has Giano. He has no need for anyone else. 

*********

Giano tells stories like he needs them to live. 

He breathes the words to life and his whole body moves with the twists and turns of each tale. His eyes gleam and his chest puffs out in excitement. 

Giano is not even a year older than him, but he assures Nicolò that he will fill him in on everything that he’d missed while Giano had waited for him. 

He tells Nicolò of the places that lie beyond the sea, and those that lie under it. Of animals that tower over buildings; of men that could fly, with their armor glinting in the sun.

Nicolò hangs on to every word, as if he needs them to live as well. 

*********

Giano tells stories as if he’s a spider, and he spins complicated webs that only he can see, trapping everyone else. 

“That is not what happened,” Nicolò whispers to him, once they get further into town. Nicolò had expected that the day would end with the harbormaster calling for their father to drag them home and discipline them, not with the pair of them skipping away blame free. “Why did you lie?” 

Giano turns to look at him, his dark eyes glinting, his grain-colored hair tufting in the gentle breeze. 

He looks nothing like Nicolò. They’re similar in stature, he supposes, but Giano is just a hair taller. One step ahead of Nicolò, like he always is. 

Everyone knows they’re brothers regardless. Because where there is Giano, there is Nicolò. 

“I did not lie,” Giano answers. “I simply told a story.” 

Nicolò frowns. “Is that not what lying is?” 

“Does it matter?” Giano smiles. “Everyone enjoys stories more.” 

*********

“What do I need of another son?” his father asks him. 

Nicolò isn’t sure how to respond. Maybe because there would be no answer that his father would deem sufficient. The sting on his cheek and the broken vase are evidence enough that he hadn’t much liked Nicolò’s previous comments either. 

Nicolò has barely stepped outside before Giano finds and whisks him away. “Come, camallo,” he says. 

They sit on a gentle slope, watching the ships sail out with the setting sun. 

Giano wipes the blood from the corner or his mouth. He stares at Nicolò with heavy eyes, sad and full of wisdom–an unwanted reminder that they are getting older and the world around them does not seem to care. But then Giano smiles and then Nicolò is a boy again. Giano nudges his shoulder gently. “Have I ever told you about the story about the winged men?” 

Nicolò smiles back. “No,” he lies. “Tell me about the angels.” 

*********

He doesn’t mind the monastery. He’s a man of too many questions, so they’ve sent him to a place that claims to have all the answers. Given the lack of other options he’d had, it is not a bad ending. 

Ending. He’s not sure why he thinks of it this way, not when his life has only just begun. 

When he is not praying, Nicolò spends his days in the garden. If not there, then in the scriptorium, watching the scribes painstakingly create a book. 

He finds comfort in both places, despite them being so different. The garden is lush with color and space and sound. He could waste endless time trailing fingers over the different plants, smelling the different fruits and blooms. Light shines in every direction and the daily breeze caresses him as he walks. 

The scriptorium is dark and cramped. Isolated from the rest of the monastery, the only sounds coming from a flickering torch and the scratch of a quill against parchment. Nicolò likes to curl into a corner, the cool wall at his back sheltering him, the serenity of the room wrapping around him like a blanket. 

Not a bad ending, he thinks to himself. 

*********

Giano walks with him to the port one last time. Nicolò’s ship leaves for Jaffa soon. 

Nicolò stares at Giano, who is in turn looking at the docked ship. He looks different, now that he’s older. Still nothing like Nicolò. But despite his now darkened hair and thick beard and his body having filled out, Nicolò can still see the same bony child with a wild laugh that he’d chased after. 

He wonders how they both ended up here. Since one of Nicolò’s older half-brothers had suddenly died, Giano had stepped in to take over his uncle’s affairs. Nicolò could have followed–Giano would have let him–but he’d ended up in the church, and now here. 

They wait on the edge of the dock, side by side. Nicolò can’t manage to take another step. He realizes he’s never gone this far out before. Not without Giano. 

“Maybe you’ll see them.” Giano’s voice pulls him from his thoughts. 

“See who?” Nicolò asks. 

“The winged men,” he says, finally turning to face Nicolò, a sad smile blooming on his face. 

Nicolò chuckles, swallowing around a lump in his throat. “Maybe,” he agrees. 

Giano bundles him in his arms, kissing his cheek. Nicolò lets himself be held, and doesn’t pull away until Giano does. 

“Chin up,” Giano reminds him, knocking one of his knuckles against Nicolò’s jaw. 

An old reprimand, one that he’s been telling Nicolò since he had been a child. So clumsy, he’s always been, stumbling over his own feet as he stares at the ground, trying to keep up with Giano. 

“Come back with a story,” Giano whispers. 

“I promise,” Nicolò replies. 

*********

There are no winged men in Jerusalem. There is nothing but blood and heat and death. 

Nicolò trips over himself and the bodies of others, as graceless and lost as he’d been when he’d been a child. 

Chin up, he tells himself. Piercing hot steel slices across his exposed neck in answer. 

*********

He doesn’t die. 

Well, he does, but it doesn’t stick. 

He wakes up, again and again and again. 

Nicolò doesn’t like to think about why. He doesn’t have much time to think anyway. He barely has time to realize that he’s alive before he’s dead again. 

As his vision dims for what feels like the hundredth time, Nicolò can’t help but think of Giano, and how he’d never told a story like this. 

*********

He isn’t sure what to think of Yusuf al-Kaysani. 

He’s sure of what others have told him to think of Yusuf al-Kaysani. But Nicolò has been forced to question many things in the past weeks. 

He trails behind the man like a lost child, capturing every movement he makes. 

Yusuf is so sure with every step he takes. As if finding out that eluding Death is not enough to slow him down. Nicolò is envious of his resolution, but mostly, he’s in awe. He treats Yusuf like a live flame, getting as close as he dares without getting burned. 

Yusuf has stopped killing him. Has discarded him, and moved on to other things. Nicolò cannot disparage the man. Apparently God doesn’t feel Nicolò is worth the trouble either. 

He yells back to Nicolò–Yusuf won’t let himself get that close either–in broken Greek and Nicolò keeps hearing the word port, and they both nod at each other, as if heading there will answer the questions they haven’t been able to face: What am I and what are you? 

Until then, Yusuf lets Nicolò scramble across the same divots his own feet have left, and Nicolò is grateful. He’s always been a follower. 

*********

He dreams of women. Still not in the way that other men have said that he should, but he dreams all the same. 

Nicolò isn’t sure what they mean, but he doesn’t believe it to be anything good. They speak in a tongue he is not familiar with and kill in ways that shouldn’t be possible. 

He doesn’t tell Yusuf. Not that he would be able to tell him anyway. They’d tried to communicate the best they could–mainly Yusuf, as he appears much more learned than Nicolò. But after the word port had been discussed, Yusuf had closed his mouth and kept his distance. 

The silence during the day is almost as bad as the thunderous dreams that await him at night. 

*********

Yusuf leaves him at the port. 

He leads Nicolò to the middle and then holds up his hands to indicate that Nicolò is to stay. Yusuf takes a step away as he does so. Then another, and then gestures his hands outward, shooing Nicolò away. 

Nicolò watches him leave but he can’t find it in himself to move. 

He looks down at his hands, still unblemished and whole from his new curse. What would he tell Giano? What would he tell anyone? He still doesn’t know what to tell himself. 

He watches as ships leave around him. Still, he doesn’t move. 

When he does, it’s not towards the ocean. Instead, he turns on his heel and heads back into town. 

He finds Yusuf upon a bench on the outskirts, his head in his hands. Nicolò sits next to him gingerly, leaving plenty of space between them. 

Yusuf picks his head up and stares at him. If he’s surprised by Nicolò’s appearance, he doesn’t show it. His eyes are dark, darker than Nicolò’s ever seen. His hair is darker, and his skin. But his face–he wears one Nicolò is all too familiar with. 

His fear is etched deep into his features and Nicolò knows Yusuf sees the same look on him. 

“Did you know,” Nicolò says quietly, as if not to spook Yusuf. “Did you know that there is a city under the sea?” 

Yusuf furrows his brow. He does not know Ligurian, not anything substantial anyway, but Nicolò does not mind. Nicolò does not mind in the same way when he cannot understand Yusuf when he speaks his native tongue. Although the words and sounds are foreign, they’re soothing as they leave Yusuf’s lips, like a gently babbling stream. 

He hopes he can bring the same comfort to Yusuf. Giano’s stories always helped him. 

“It’s out there,” he continues. “The people that live there send fish to us to eat. And in return they take ships to build their houses.” Nicolò points to the water and Yusuf’s eyes follow. “Sometimes you can see the reflection of the buildings when the sun hits the waves.” 

Yusuf studies the water and Nicolò studies him. Yusuf is different in stillness. In the short time he’s known him, Nicolò knows that Yusuf is never one to sit. There is always a movement about him, a liveliness that Nicolò has never seen before. As if there is caged fire underneath his skin, begging to be let free. 

Yusuf nods once, likely to himself, and stands. He looks back down at Nicolò expectantly. 

Nicolò stands as well. When Yusuf takes a step, Nicolò mirrors. 

Yusuf sighs, nodding again, and gesturing for Nicolò to follow. 

*********

Months go by before Nicolò realizes that Yusuf is having the same dreams he has. He catches Yusuf dragging a stick through the dirt, drawing. He does this a lot when he wants to be alone in his own thoughts or when he does not want to talk to Nicolò. 

Despite the unmooring loneliness he feels, he likes to watch Yusuf. The wood dragging through the dirt reminds him of quills scratching against parchment. Nicolò had spent plenty of time with the monks, finding a comforting solace in their book making. 

Yusuf reminds him of the men that would be hunched over a single page for days, painting the margins of the pages with vibrant colors that Nicolò had never seen before. Silently, Nicolò thinks that the work he’d previously seen is of no comparison to the talent that Yusuf possesses. Even without splashes of color, Nicolò finds himself lost in the intricate details and loving realism. Yusuf must have been a man of great stature back at his home. 

Nicolò wants to tell him as such, but he doesn’t know enough of their shared words to tell him properly. He’s never been good with them. Besides, he knows that they would mean little to Yusuf if they come from him. 

Instead, he sits and watches quietly. Even when Yusuf draws a familiar jawline and sharp nose, he holds his tongue. He doesn’t know what it means that Yusuf is dreaming of the same women. Somehow, Nicolò does not want to know. 

*********

They kill Yusuf in his sleep. 

Nicolò had been gone for mere minutes, gone down to the river to relieve himself. When he comes back, he notices nothing amiss, Yusuf still resting on his sleep roll. 

In fact, neither of them notice that Yusuf had died until the next morning. Nicolò, having finally drifted off, is shaken roughly awake by Yusuf. His face is twisted in anger and he shouts at Nicolò about something, food, likely. When Yusuf mimes with his hands, Nicolò realizes that Yusuf’s satchel is missing. 

Nicolò shrugs as he stands. He hadn’t taken it. 

Yusuf scowls and shoves at Nicolò, sending him back to the ground. Yusuf rubs a hand against the back of his skull before thrusting it forward for Nicolò to see. Red stains his fingertips. 

Nicolò pales. “I didn’t…,” he starts, unsure what to say. “I didn’t hear anyone. I was gone for only a few minutes, I promise–”

Yusuf walks away and keeps his distance throughout the entire day. 

Just to be safe, Nicolò does not sleep for the next three nights. 

*********

Their first gift to each other is knowledge. 

Yusuf and Nicolò walk side by side as they exchange words. They piece together what little they share in Greek and Latin, and learn from there. 

Yusuf is much more talented than him. He runs circles around Nicolò and chastises him when Nicolò loses focus. 

“I’m sorry,” Nicolò apologizes. “I just like hearing you talk.” 

Yusuf doesn’t understand, and for once, Nicolò is grateful. “Again,” Yusuf says in Greek, pointing at his hands. Nicolò repeats the word in Ligurian, and Yusuf in Arabic. 

*********

When someone else comes to kill Yusuf in his sleep, Nicolò is ready this time. He rarely rests–threats from the road and the haunting women in his head make it easy to stay awake. 

When the brush rustles and announces their presence, Nicolò’s sword is already in his hand. 

There are three of them, and there are five deaths total. One for each of the bandits, two for Nicolò. 

Yusuf, much to Nicolò’s amusement, does not wake once. He’s a heavy sleeper, his newfound companion. But more so tonight, as the previous day he’d spent toiling in the sun, helping a farmer repair his fence. 

In the morning, Yusuf catches Nicolò trying to wash the blood from his shirt. He shoves Nicolò again, furious, and Nicolò is confused. “What?” he asks, pushing his dripping hair back. Yusuf had sent him straight into the river this time. “Why are you mad?” Nicolò continues. “You didn’t even die this time!” 

Yusuf ignores him for the rest of the day. 

*********

That night, Yusuf refuses to sleep. He glares at Nicolò until he relents, burrowing into his bedroll.

*********

“Again.” 

Nicolò sighs, but he can’t find it in himself to be frustrated. It’s fascinating, watching Yusuf. He does not do things because he needs to, but because he can. There’s a certain wild freedom about him that Nicolò finds intoxicating. 

They have a structure in place now, a solid base for them to communicate. They had started with what they’d known in Greek and Latin, and the rest of the gaps were to be filled in with Arabic and Ligurian. One word in exchange for another. 

It hadn’t lasted long, mainly because Nicolò is an abysmal student. While he is eager for knowledge, language seems to roll off like water on leather. His tongue twists and he is prone to frustration, leading him to walk in circles, relearning what he’d already had the day before. 

Yusuf is unlike him in this regard as well, much to Nicolò’s dismay. Whatever Nicolò teaches Yusuf only ends up sounding better coming from his lips anyway. 

Nicolò’s noticed over the past few weeks that Yusuf has turned their focus only to Ligurian. He has assured Nicolò that it is only because he enjoys the challenge of a new language. And Nicolò knows that it’s partially true. Nicolò catches Yusuf repeating the words under his breath sometimes, over and over again. Sometimes he doesn’t let Nicolò tell him the word’s meaning, just to try and discover the origin himself. 

But Nicolò also knows it’s because he is slowing them down. Yusuf is anxious and endearingly restless. If they are to figure out what they are to do with themselves, they need a way to decide. The bridge between them is still so fragile, and Nicolò knows that they cannot proceed any further without a proper way to communicate. Yusuf knows this as well. 

Which is why he’s sitting across from Yusuf, late into the night, teaching him new words. Nicolò hasn’t learned anything new in Arabic in weeks. He’s allowed it, selfishly. Not to take a break from learning, no, but only to get to enjoy Yusuf doing it. His eyes seem to sparkle when Nicolò tells him he is correct, and he has a tendency to bite the corner of his lip, his brow furrowing, as he tries to figure something out. 

He’s doing it now, his hand rubbing across his thick beard in contemplation as he mulls over Nicolò’s latest test. Nicolò’s eyes trace the movement of his fingers. “Aha!” Yusuf exclaims, clapping his hands together. Then he points to the sky. “The moon,” he says. “It means moon.” 

Nicolò nods, and Yusuf grins, his smile rivaling the brilliance of what hangs above them. Nicolò stares, transfixed, as Yusuf closes his eyes and repeats the new word under his breath, committing it to memory. He nods then, as if he’s satisfied with the new knowledge, and looks at Nicolò hungrily. “Another,” he says, before adding, “Please.” 

But Nicolò shakes his head, wincing when he catches Yusuf’s face darkening. “Another, tell me,” Yusuf whines, jostling Nicolò roughly on the knee with his hand. 

“No,” Nicolò replies. “No more.” 

Yusuf angers, and although Nicolò is far from fluent in his language, he knows that it’s nothing but foul curses that Yusuf now spits at him. “Why?” Yusuf demands, switching to Ligurian. He stands, pacing in front of Nicolò errantly. “You think it too good for me?” 

Nicolò blanches. “No, no!” he says, waving his arms in front of him wildly. Quite the opposite, as Nicolò hadn’t known his native tongue could sound so gentle before Yusuf had first learned. “It’s just, I…,” Nicolò trails off. Yusuf, still glaring, waits for him. Patient as always, regardless of whether Nicolò deserves it. 

Nicolò doesn’t know what to say. It’s not as if he couldn’t tell Yusuf. No, Yusuf is almost fluent in Ligurian. He would have no trouble trying to understand what Nicolò would tell him. But still, Nicolò’s mouth remains empty. 

Maybe it is because Nicolò cannot find it in himself to admit it. Not to Yusuf, certainly not to himself. 

But despite his lack of prowess with language, Nicolò still wants to be taught. 

Because then maybe Yusuf would smile at Nicolò the same way he does when he learns a new word. 

With a trembling hand, Nicolò points to the night sky, to the moon. “Tell me,” he whispers. 

Yusuf furrows his brow, but dutifully repeats the word in Ligurian. Nicolò shakes his head again. “Tell me in Arabic.” 

Yusuf remains quiet. Nicolò feels the weight of Yusuf’s stare, so he looks down at his feet. He doesn’t want to know what he’ll find in Yusuf’s eyes. 

When Yusuf finally replies, Nicolò blinks, finally looking up. “What?” he asks. 

Yusuf points to the sky and repeats himself. His face is still carefully blank, but Nicolò can see the faint wrinkling at the corner of Yusuf’s eyes. He’s captivated. 

Yusuf clears his throat and Nicolò startles, his face heating at his distraction. “Again,” he begs Yusuf. Yusuf obliges him, and Nicolò clumsily says it back to him. 

They go back in forth, trading the moon between them. Nicolò huffs in irritation, but Yusuf never once joins him. He breaks down the word, and helps Nicolò wrangle each part with a steadfast fortitude.

Nicolò doesn’t know how long they sit there until Yusuf nods, seemingly satisfied with Nicolò’s efforts. Nicolò rolls his shoulders back and shifts into a more comfortable position, determination flooding his veins. 

“Another,” Nicolò whispers. “Please.” 

Yusuf smiles. 

*********

Moon. 

He’ll never forget. The word reminds him of Yusuf’s smile, the first he’d given to Nicolò and Nicolò alone. 

*********

“Who are they?” Nicolò asks. 

They’re talking about the women they both dream of. Despite the worry that gnaws at him, Nicolò hasn’t been able to keep his dreams hidden from Yusuf. Yusuf is just as concerned as he is. 

“I don’t know,” Yusuf says, brow furrowing. “They must be important, though, if we both dream of them.” 

Nicolò doesn’t care who they are. There is a certain contentment that he hasn’t realized has bloomed. He shares meals and smiles with Yusuf, and they walk on parts of the world that he hadn’t known existed. 

Whomever the women are, he thinks they are trouble. They’re loud in his head when they drink and fight and yell, and they threaten to shatter the peace that has formed between him and Yusuf. 

They’re nothing but a bad omen, and Nicolò prays that they go away. 

*********

Nicolò tells Yusuf of Giano. Of his younger self and their exploits. Of Giano’s stories. 

Yusuf smiles and it makes Nicolò happy. He thinks that he and Giano would get along. 

Yusuf, in turn, tells him about his family. About his mother and brothers and sisters and cousins and uncles. “So many,” Nicolò comments. “And you all like each other?” 

Yusuf chuckles, knocking their shoulders together. “Most of the time,” he says. 

Nicolò runs a hand through his hair, watching the setting sun. “Do you not wish to go home?” 

Yusuf looks up from where he’s been sewing a tear in his shirt. “No,” he says quietly. “I had traveled for a long while before Jerusalem.” Yusuf pauses, taking a deep breath. “No,” he repeats. “My family will take care of each other. They do not need me.” 

Nicolò frowns. He doesn’t think he’ll ever not need Yusuf. 

“And you?” Yusuf asks. “Don’t you miss Giano?” 

“Every day,” Nicolò whispers. 

“Would you go back to Genoa?” Yusuf continues. “I would sail with you there, if you wish.” 

Nicolò looks down at his hands. It’s been at least two years since he’d left Giano. He wonders what Giano is doing. If he’s still on the dock. If he’s still taller than Nicolò.

“No,” Nicolò whispers, thankful his voice doesn’t shake. “I cannot go back yet,” he says. “I have no story to tell.” 

*********

They call it paper. 

Nicolò can’t stop touching it. He keeps trying to ask the vendor what animal they’ve used, but the man keeps shaking his head, getting more and more frustrated with each passing moment. Nicolò relents–his attempts at Arabic are practically laughable, and only Yusuf pities him enough to talk slowly. 

Nicolò trails his fingers over the parchment again. Paper, he reminds himself. It’s called paper. He’s never seen so much of it in one place before. He thinks of Yusuf digging in the dirt, and then of the few meager coins in his pocket. 

He’d been on his way back from the docks. He finds work there, helping the fisherman. It’s grueling and the days are long but Nicolò doesn’t mind because if he shuts his eyes, he can pretend that he’s at home. And he is surprisingly good at the work. 

“It is because you look like a fish,” Yusuf had laughed one evening, after complaining that their shared room reeks of brine thanks to Nicolò. “Like calls to like.” 

Yusuf has a nice laugh. He laughs as he does everything else. Fully. 

Nicolò is breathless every time he hears it. As if the joy stokes the hearth in his chest. Nicolò thinks it a wonder that the entire world does not stop whenever Yusuf opens his mouth. 

Nicolò digs the coins out of his pocket and shoves them at the vendor, gesturing to the table in front of them. The money is replaced with a whole stack of paper, and Nicolò cannot believe his luck. He thinks about the wonders that Yusuf could make on them. Treasures on treasure itself. He barely remembers to thank the vendor before he runs back towards Yusuf. 

**********

“You what?” 

Nicolò blinks, feeling his smile dim at Yusuf’s sharp tone. His apparent confusion seems to frustrate Yusuf more, and he huffs, placing his hands on his hips. “You wasted all of your daily wage on paper?” 

Nicolò looks down at the bundle in his arm. He’d been so excited to show Yusuf what he’d discovered. He’d spent the whole run back to their humble abode wondering about the face he might make. If he would smile, and Nicolò would get to see the skin crinkle in the corner of his eyes. If he would thank him, and Nicolò would get to hear his own name fall from Yusuf’s lips. If he would laugh in delight. 

It’s anger that Yusuf shows, and Nicolò hadn’t expected it. 

“I don’t understand,” Nicolò answers slowly. “They call it paper. You can write on it. I thought you would like it to draw.” 

“I would also like food,” Yusuf frowns. 

Nicolò deflates and the paper suddenly feels like stone in his hands. Like most of the time he is with Yusuf, he feels unmoored and unsure which steps to take, if any. 

Yusuf sighs, long and hard. “Stay here, Nicolò,” he says. “I will find something for us to eat.” He walks to the door and then pauses, glancing back once. “Do not go to the market by yourself. They know you are not from here and they will trick you into paying more for simple things.” 

Nicolò doesn’t move for a long time. 

**********

They move quickly from place to place. Following the call of work and for places that won’t look at them for too long. 

One night, Nicolò drags his bed roll next to Yusuf. “We both need sleep,” he says. “We both cannot keep working during the day and then staying awake at night.” He lays down and tries not to think about how close he is to Yusuf. 

“This way, if someone comes, I will be close enough to wake you,” Nicolò continues. He doesn’t mention that for anyone to reach Yusuf they would first have to go through Nicolò. It’s better this way. Nicolò wakes first–he might as well be useful. 

Yusuf says nothing, his eyes too knowing, but shifts closer anyway. 

**********

No one comes in the night, but Nicolò doesn’t mind. Not when Nicolò wakes with Yusuf pressed along his back.

**********

When they do come eventually, it is a success. Nicolò jolts awake and defends the pair long enough for Yusuf to sweep up any stragglers. 

They grin at each other, and Nicolò tries not to think that this is how it will always be for them. Him and Yusuf standing over a field of death. He clings to Yusuf tightly that night, pleading with God that he would gladly keep the death without complaint if he got to keep Yusuf as well. 

**********

Nicolò has a single piece of paper from Yusuf’s pile. Even knowing that it has been purchased with his own money, Nicolò still feels guilty for having it. He refuses to take any more. 

It’s crumpled, torn, and dirty. What remains intact is almost black, ink scrawled so tightly onto the page it’s started to bleed together. 

Nicolò adds to it when he’s alone. While his spoken Arabic has improved, his writing is dreadful. It frustrates him, as he thinks it beautiful. He watches Yusuf write it with such flourished elegance. 

Yusuf writes almost every night. On the paper that Nicolò had bought him, Nicolò notes proudly. Letters to his family about what they’ve seen and done. Stories. He burns them once finished, and tells Nicolò that maybe the messages will find their way to his kin riding on the back of the wind. 

Nicolò tries to copy what he can remember, but it looks nothing compared to the masterpieces that Yusuf creates. 

Last week had almost left Nicolò devastated. He’d taken an arrow to the chest, and blood had stained over the top corner of the paper. Now dried, Nicolò uses it as a second layer, and is carefully inking familiar swirls and loops over the red. 

“What are you doing?” 

Nicolò jumps, the quill in his hand going flying. He barely manages to catch himself from knocking over the ink pot. By doing so, he leaves his paper abandoned, and Yusuf snatches it up before Nicolò can hide it. 

“What’s this?” Yusuf asks, narrowing his eyes at the ruined sheet. 

“Um,” Nicolò says, his cheeks heating. There is no point in hiding, but Nicolò still wants to bury his head in the sand. “I’m practicing my letters,” he answers quietly. 

Yusuf squints, but doesn’t jest at his poor attempts. Yusuf is a jovial man and will go out of his way to find a way to laugh, but never at anyone’s expense. He is a patient teacher and only praises Nicolò about his progress, regardless of how slow it is. 

“This paper has seen better days,” Yusuf smiles instead. “Get another sheet, I will help you with the alphabet.” 

He starts to reach for his pack, but Nicolò stops him, shaking his head. “No,” he says. “That paper is yours.” 

Yusuf rolls his eyes. “I think I can spare you a few pieces.” 

Nicolò shakes his head again. “It’s alright, Yusuf. Those are for your use.” He gingerly takes the shredded piece of paper from Yusuf’s hand, carefully folding it up and replacing it in his pocket. “Maybe if I have a coin to spare in the next town I will get some for myself.” 

He won’t. He isn’t sure when he’ll even see paper again and even if he did, there are far better and useful things to spend his money on. 

Yusuf is frowning at him. His head tilts, and Nicolò squirms under his glare, as if Nicolò is a puzzle that Yusuf is trying to solve. “It’s paper, Nicolò,” he says. “Not silk.” 

Nicolò shrugs. He doesn’t know how to respond to that. 

Yusuf hums, his finger tapping against the hilt of his sword. Then, he freezes. “They call it paper,” he says quietly. 

“What?” Nicolò asks. 

“They call it paper,” Yusuf answers, his brow furrowing slightly. “That’s what you said to me when you bought it.” He looks down, and Nicolò knows he’s staring at his pocket where he’d placed his scrap. “Did you not know what paper was?” Yusuf asks. 

Nicolò silently curses the heat that he feels bloom on his cheek. An obvious answer. “No,” Nicolò answers quietly. “I had never seen it before then.” 

Yusuf blinks. “What did your people use then?” 

“Parchment.” 

“Still?” 

Nicolò opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. Yusuf is silent as he waits for Nicolò to explain. “I don’t…,” Nicolò pauses. “The monks used it,” Nicolò says, biting his lip. “I would watch them stretch the skin to make the pages. I know how tedious it is to make and how hard it is to come by, so I just thought….” He trails off again. 

Yusuf is still staring at him. “You bought me paper,” he says quietly. “You had a handful of coins in your pocket and an empty stomach, and yet you bought me paper. Why?” 

Nicolò shrugs. 

“Why Nicolò?” Yusuf presses. 

He sighs, his shoulders slumping. “You…you are always moving,” Nicolò confesses, unable to look at Yusuf. “When you are not walking, you are talking. And when you are not talking, you are fighting or writing or drawing. You even move in your sleep.” He smiles softly at the memories of nights he’d been jolted from sleep as Yusuf had chased after a dream. “You would sketch in the dirt with a stick,” Nicolò continues, finally daring to meet Yusuf’s gaze. “I thought…I don’t know, that such beauty should not disappear when the wind blows. So I bought you paper.” 

“You bought me paper.” 

“I bought you paper.” 

Nicolò drops his head, running a hand through tangled strands. When he picks his head up, Yusuf is in front of him, and he gathers Nicolò into his arms. 

Nicolò doesn’t dare breathe. He’s never been this close to Yusuf. Sure, they press against each other in sleep, but nothing like this. 

Yusuf is warm, and he smells like tea leaves and chalk. His beard tickles against Nicolò’s ear. Nicolò lets himself be held. “Thank you,” Yusuf whispers, squeezing Nicolò tightly. “I don’t believe I said it earlier. But thank you, Nicolò, for the gift. It was very kind of you.” 

Nicolò just nods, his eyes fluttering shut as Yusuf holds him. 

Eventually, Yusuf pulls away, and Nicolò shudders at the waft of cold air that takes his place. He stares at Nicolò again before nodding once, coming to a decision. “Come,” Yusuf says, gathering their things. “Time to go.” 

Nicolò frowns. “Where are we going?” he asks, even as he starts to pack anyway. “Don’t we have to finish this job?” They’re in the middle of escorting a caravan to the next town over. 

Yusuf waves him off. “We will find better work in Baghdad.” 

“Baghdad?” Nicolò asks. “What’s in Baghdad?” 

Yusuf grins at him. “A paper mill.” 

**********

There is paper everywhere. More than that, there are books. Nicolò doesn’t know where to look. He’s afraid if he blinks, it will all disappear. 

Yusuf is grinning like a loon next to him. 

“What is this place?” Nicolò asks. 

“The House of Wisdom,” Yusuf answers. 

“And these…,” Nicolò trails off, looking over at some of the books on display. “They’re all different?” 

Yusuf nods. “They have anything you can think of. Philosophy, mathematics, poetry, astronomy, everything.”

Tears well in Nicolò’s eyes. “Everything,” he repeats in a whisper, and he can feel himself grinning. “I have never seen so many before.” He looks at Yusuf, pleadingly. “Can we?” he asks, gesturing further in. 

Yusuf takes his hand. “Yes,” he says with a smile. “Come, let me show you.” 

**********

Three weeks later, Nicolò shyly presents Yusuf with a letter. Written by himself in Arabic for Yusuf’s mother. 

It’s sloppy, and his lettering is uneven, but it’s legible. 

The letter details Nicolò’s laments at Yusuf’s actions just the previous day, in which he’d ruined Nicolò’s best shirt by spilling ink on it, and then proceeding to try and ‘fix it’ by covering the rest of it in the same liquid so at least it would match. In the end, the only thing successfully stained had been Yusuf’s hands and face. 

Please send some of Yusuf’s own clothes for him to ruin, and some common sense if you have some laying around. Your son seems to be lacking in it. 

At the end, he had written: You will never get this, but know that I thank you anyway. For you have already sent the greatest gift, that being your son. You would be proud of the man he is. He is a good man. The very best. 

Yusuf helps him burn it that night. He smiles at Nicolò and says, “I have a feeling she will receive your message. She always knew when I was being foolish.” 

Nicolò laughs and falls asleep in Yusuf’s arms. 

**********

Sometimes, he wonders if Yusuf doesn’t burn all of his letters. If he actually sends some home. 

Nicolò catches him with sealed messages in his hands, sees him reading them over the firelight, tucking them away in his pocket. 

Nicolò doesn’t ask. If Yusuf wants Nicolò to know, he would tell him. 

**********

One morning, Yusuf finds him tucked away in a darkened corner of the House of Wisdom. He’s got two books balanced on his lap and he’s pressed close to the wall where he can hear a lecture being taught on the other side. 

Yusuf chuckles at him and Nicolò shrugs. “I could not decide what to learn today.” 

Yusuf kisses him for the first time that day. “I have never met anyone like you, Nicolò di Genova,” he whispers against Nicolò’s lips. 

**********

Nicolò cannot sleep. Not after today. His fingers brush over his lips, and he can still feel Yusuf there. He can still feel how Yusuf had gripped him, how warm he’d felt against Nicolò, how his hair had felt like silk under his fingers. How his eyes had shone and how the lights of the building had haloed behind him. 

Quiet as a mouse, Nicolò slips from Yusuf’s grasp and walks over to their desk. 

He pulls out a sheet of paper and wets his pen. Giano, he writes. I found one. I found a winged man.

**********

He does not burn the letter. Instead he decides to carry it with him, tucked against his chest until he reaches the sea again. 

He’ll let it loose there. 

**********

He thinks paper is his favorite word. 

He owes everything to paper. 

The feel of it under his fingers, the smell of it. The way a quill scratches against it. He will not be able to think of paper and not think of Yusuf. 

About the way he kissed Nicolò. About the way he held him. 

About the way he loved him. 

He stores the word in his head next to camallo. Words of love, indeed. 

**********

They speak the tongue of rivers. There’s no other way he can describe it, as the direction they take seems to change daily. 

It had been Yusuf who’d started it, weaving Ligurian together with Arabic. “Your native language gathers dust in your head, my love,” Yusuf had said to him. “If you do not use it, you will find it gone one day. Besides, I still need practice!” 

Nicolò had chuckled at the lie. But he likes knowing that Yusuf still values the language, even though it is useless this far east. 

He’ll need it when Nicolò finally takes him home to see Giano. 

But for now, he delights in the way Yusuf spins their words together, as if they’d always been meant to become one. He delights in the way that he can now keep up with Yusuf, and they speak how they spar and make love. 

He doesn’t remember a time where he’s ever been happier. 

**********

He comes home empty handed. 

He’s been gone most of the day. He knows that Yusuf would normally not comment on his absence–Nicolò has been spending time at the mill, learning to make paper himself. A selfish act, as a certain satisfaction curls in his gut whenever he sees Yusuf work upon the sheets he’s made with his own hands. 

Today, however, he’d been distracted, and had never made it to the mill. 

Yusuf looks up at him and smiles. “Nothing worth saving today?” he asks, amused. Yusuf knows that Nicolò will only bring home the best of what he’s made. Nicolò argues that it is because Yusuf deserves the best quality, while Yusuf replies that anything Nicolò brings him is priceless. 

“I did not go to the mill today,” Nicolò explains. He’s breathless still; he had run most of the way home. 

“Oh?” Yusuf looks him over. He must catch something in Nicolò’s gaze as his face softens. “Tell me, my light,” Yusuf whispers. “What have you learned today?” 

“I learned fiction,” Nicolò grins. “I learned stories.” 

Yusuf’s eyes crinkle and he pats the seat next to him, gesturing for Nicolò to sit. “Tell me about them.” 

**********

Not a bad ending, he thinks scornfully to himself as his bones snap back in place and his skin reknits for what feels like the millionth time. 

He isn’t aging. It’s been years now, but he is frozen, the world moving on around him. Uncaring and unfeeling as it usually is. 

A man with too many questions. He’ll have plenty of time to ask them all now. 

At least Yusuf is here with him. God does not grant him Death, but he grants Nicolò the one thing that would make him forget the desire for it. 

His fears and burdens press him firmly into the earth. Nicolò ignores them, turning towards Yusuf. Watching him gasp awake, life flooding back into his eyes. 

Not a bad ending, he reminds himself. Nothing else matters as long as Yusuf is here. 

*********

Nicolò blinks. The women in his dreams are here. But this time, he is awake. 

All he sees is the taller one grabbing Yusuf by the front of his jacket, and then Nicolò is grabbing his blade. 

He wakes with blood on his shirt and in his mouth. The one with dark eyes is standing over him, sword dripping, laughing at him. “You are quick, boy,” she says in flawless Ligurian. “But not as quick as me.” 

**********

They are called Andromache and Quynh. 

They are like him and Yusuf. Touched by Death, but not taken. 

Nicolò has not moved since they’ve arrived, has barely even blinked. He’s dreaded this day, has known for a while that his dreams had been omens. He is wary, and they know it. Yusuf has welcomed them with open arms, but Nicolò looms over them. Yusuf’s shadow, waiting on bated breath for them to make the wrong move. 

“We have been tracking you for a while,” Andromache says. “It took us longer to find you than anticipated.”

“Quick,” Quynh says, nudging Nicolò’s shoulder. 

“But not as quick as you,” he replies dryly. 

She laughs and Andromache grins, and despite Nicolò’s misgivings, he feels himself relaxing. It is rare to see them without the rage of battle or with blood. It’s nice. 

“You two haven’t managed much, but I am glad to see you’ve gotten yourselves sorted,” Andromache continues, pointing between the two of them. “That would have made for a much longer conversation.” 

Nicolò tenses, anticipating the slightest comment, his gaze narrowing when Yusuf takes his hand. His fingers dance along the handle of his blade. They may be faster, but he is relentless, and they would not reach Yusuf before he stands in their way. 

Andromache stares right back, still smiling. As if satisfied with his unspoken threats. Quynh leans over, brushing her lips against Andromache’s ear. “I like them,” she says. “Can we keep them?”

**********

“Do you believe in God?” He watches Yusuf and Quynh walk by the river. Yusuf’s hands are clasped behind his back as if he’s caged them, and it makes Nicolò frown. He’s worried, conflicted maybe, and Nicolò yearns to comfort him. 

“I was a God once.” 

Nicolò tilts his head in contemplation. “Was it busy work?” 

Andromache laughs. “I suppose,” she answers. 

Silence falls between them. Nicolò thinks that she is waiting for him but he is not in a generous mood. Andromache huffs quietly next to him, amused by his petulance. “One would think you are taking this rather well,” she says. 

Nicolò turns towards his companion. “Would a stronger reaction change my destiny?” 

Andromache stares at him. The color reminds him of fish scales glimmering under the waves. They pierce through him like a blade. Everything about her is a weapon. “No,” she answers. “It wouldn’t.” 

Yusuf laughs at something Quynh says, and he captures Nicolò’s attention again. His head tilts up towards the sun, as if chasing the heat like a bloom. They continue walking and Nicolò catches himself looking further up the shoreline, making sure the way is clear for them. 

“You have loud thoughts for such a quiet man,” Andromache comments. 

“I’m sure the past years have been quite a burden for you then,” Nicolò says. “Having to deal with dreams of me and my loud thoughts.” 

Andromache chuckles. “Your mouth is as quick as your sword,” she says. She watches Quynh the same way he watches Yusuf. “Tell me what you are thinking,” Andromache continues. 

“I suppose I am disheartened.”

“Disheartened?” Andromache huffs. “Oh, is that all?”  

“You are a warrior,” Nicolò continues. “You have been a warrior this whole time. For thousands of years.” He looks to her again, and Andromache nods. “Is there nothing else?” he asks quietly. 

At Andromache’s frown, he continues. “Will we be having this same conversation in the next century? What about the century after that? Is that all I am to be, a blade for the world?” 

Andromache crosses her arms. “Who do you want to be?” 

Nicolò swallows. He doesn’t have an answer for that. 

“Have there been any others like us?” he asks, nodding towards Yusuf. “At the same time?” 

Andromache shakes her head. “Not that I am aware. If there ever was, they came and left before I first died.” 

Nicolò hums, biting the inside of his cheek. “I think I am a mistake,” he confesses.  

“I thought God didn’t make mistakes.” 

“You tell me.” 

Andromache nudges his shoulder, eyes twinkling in amusement. When he doesn’t answer she turns stoic, placing a hand on his arm. “I do not think you are a mistake.” 

Nicolò watches Yusuf and Quynh get further away, heads bent together, still deep in their own conversation. 

“If there is to be a man to walk the world for thousands of suns, let it be a man like Yusuf,” Nicolò says. “A man who understands the weight of the sword, who trades in kindness, loyalty and honor. A man who can find beauty in a simple sunrise.” 

“And what of a man like you?” Andromache asks. 

“There are already too many men like me in this world,” Nicolò answers. “And we can cause more than enough damage within a mortal lifespan.” 

Andromache is silent next to him. Somehow, Nicolò knows she understands. For as old as she is, she has likely seen far too many men like him already. 

They stand in silence for a few minutes before she asks, “Do you love him?” 

Nicolò ponders for a moment. “I do not think love is enough.” 

Yusuf finally turns back towards him, as if he’d heard Nicolò’s admission, and waves. Nicolò waves back. He can feel Andromache watching him. 

“Will it fade?” he asks. Will he tire of me? is what he means. He glances at his new companion. 

Andromache’s face softens, only slightly. “No,” she answers. “Some things are forever.” 

**********

He dies. A lot. 

More than he had when he’d been traveling with Yusuf. 

More than he had when Yusuf had been his enemy. 

Andromache and Quynh are ruthless teachers. 

Nicolò doesn’t mind. He wants to be stronger, faster. Better. 

Quynh shows him to move with the whispers of the grass, as quickly as she does. She shows him spices and sweets–a gift for him and not just Andromache who has a soft spot for such delights, as Nicolò finds he gets to kiss the sweetness from Yusuf’s mouth. 

He runs after Quynh and takes her bow and arrow, practicing again and again until he can shoot as well as she can. 

Andromache shows him to ride and to climb and how to shout with the wind. She shows him how to dance, how to use his body as both a shield and a weapon. She shows him how to keep his chin up. 

**********

“We can go west,” Yusuf suggests to him one morning. You can go home, is what he means. 

Nicolò pretends to fiddle with his scabbard. “Not yet,” he says. “Soon.” 

It’s been ‘soon’ for years now. The answer is always ‘soon’. Yusuf knows this, but he still asks the unspoken question all the same. As if hoping Nicolò will say something different once. 

Soon, Nicolò thinks. Soon I will have a different answer. 

**********

Quynh teaches him words from her native tongue. She calls him little fox and brother and sweet one. Nicolò hoards them in his head, practicing the sounds before he goes to bed each night. 

He can feel the love that pours from her voice as she teaches him. 

Nicolò cannot think of these words without thinking of Quynh. When he hears them, he feels warm and safe. They remind him of Quynh’s blinding smile and the way her shoulders shake when she laughs. They remind him of her soft hair, and how large she feels when she holds Nicolò, despite her small stature. 

**********

Andromache calls him sangdu nutuku.

She doesn’t tell him what it means, but it makes Nicolò smile anyway. Andromache sighs as she says it, as if exasperated, but Nicolò can hear the fondness of his voice. Another name, just for him, and Nicolò squirrels it away, pleased that he’s been gifted with such words. 

**********

Quynh informs him one day–in between bouts of laughter–that he should be anything but pleased with Andromache’s name for him. 

“It’s Sumerian,” she giggles. “It means one not having a head.” 

Nicolò scowls and Andromache shrugs. “Just last week you fell in a ravine because you were too busy looking at a bird,” she says. “What else am I supposed to call you?” 

**********

Despite Andromache’s jesting, he still covets the newly learned word. Because it is still Nicolò’s, and he is happy to have it. It makes him think of his foolishness, yes, but it also makes him think about Andromache’s wild grin, and he thinks the tradeoff is worth it. 

**********

“Ugh,” Quynh groans, wrinkling her nose as she clamps her fingers over Nicolò’s mouth. “Choose one, or none at all.” 

Nicolò tries to smile under her iron grip. Neither Andromache or Quynh like it when Nicolò and Yusuf speak in their mixed language. At first, they’d welcomed the challenge, but quickly grew tired of the venture. Andromache claims it is because they cheat and keep changing the structure. To which Nicolò had replied that it certainly wasn't his or Yusuf’s fault they couldn’t keep up. The broken nose he’d received in answer had been worth it. 

Despite the grumbling of their elders, Nicolò and Yusuf continue to speak in their shared tongue, even more so now. As if to relish in proving to Andromache and Quynh that they are not all-knowing. 

Even now, Yusuf is smiling at him from across the fire in the same private way he’d done so when Nicolò had begged Yusuf to teach him the word for moon. 

“Enough of this,” Quynh mutters, flicking his nose as if a dog. “Let me teach you a real language.” 

**********

When Nicolò and Yusuf make it to one hundred years, they all celebrate. 

Try to, at least. By the time the night comes, Nicolò is inconsolable. He’s banished the thought many times before but it cannot be ignored now. 

Nicolò is a centurion and Giano is dead. 

Yusuf doesn’t ask him about going home. Hasn’t asked him for years, now. Because the answer would not be ‘soon’ anymore. It would be ‘Why bother?’

**********

Andromache finds him standing on the shore, at the breath before dawn. Yusuf, who had stayed awake to comfort him through the night had finally fallen asleep and Nicolò had slipped away. 

Water kisses his ankles as the tide brings them in. He stares west towards Genoa, and thinks of the beach there. Empty. 

“I read something once,” Andromache says. “By Plato.” 

Nicolò hums. It is easy to forget how old Andromache is. Easier to forget that she will continue to get older too. 

“About Atlantis.” 

“Atlantis?” 

“An ancient island,” Andromache explains. “An enemy of the Greeks.” 

Nicolò watches as the sun starts to peak over the horizon. Another day. Another year. And so on, and so on. 

“Plato said that Atlantis fell out of favor with the Gods,” Andromache continues. “And that the ocean swallowed the city whole.” 

Nicolò turns towards her, eyes wide. “Really?” 

Andromache shrugs. “So they say,” she answers. “Maybe it’s still out there, under the water.” 

Nicolò feels a tear slip down his cheek. “I hope so,” he whispers. 

**********

Atlantis. 

He likes this word. It makes him think of the hopes and dreams of a young boy. 

**********

Yusuf takes him to Fabriano. Andromache and Quynh trail after them. 

They’d started in Palermo and had continued north through Rome, and now here. It’s the closest he’s been to home since he’d first left Genoa over one hundred and twenty years ago. 

It’s a quaint town but Nicolò’s been in a foul mood since they’d left Sicily. He shouldn’t be, as what does he have to worry about the world and its trivial problems anymore, but he can’t seem to scratch such a minor itch. Instead, it festers. 

“Are you still on this?” Quynh says, rolling her eyes. “Can’t we just enjoy the day without you moping about?” 

“Don’t tempt him,” Andromache replies. “The more you tell Nicolò not to do something, the more he will want to.” 

Nicolò ignores them. 

He’d been angered about the state of affairs that had met him upon arriving in Palermo. Sicily had been in anarchy again, fighting with Genoa and Pisa for power. Sicily appears to have won, and now that the problems were being dealt with, Frederick II has turned southward, vowing more Crusades to the papacy. 

So much time has passed and yet nothing has changed. What is the point of moving forward, if to only walk in circles? 

Upon passing through Sicily, Nicolò had already been lamenting. It hadn’t been until he’d seen a man nailing a public document to a door frame that he had almost lost it. “Parchment?” he had asked the worker. “Still?” 

The man had shrugged. “The emperor has prohibited paper. He thinks it inferior.” 

“Inferior,” Nicolò scoffs, even now. “Inferior why, because of where the practice comes from?” he argues to no one in particular. 

“My light,” Yusuf says, running a hand down his back. “You know how much I love the fire that burns within you. But no matter how loud you yell, Frederick will not hear you.” 

“Maybe I should write to him,” Nicolò frowns. “But oh wait, he probably wouldn’t read it. God forbid he touch such inferiority!” 

Yusuf sighs, bringing one of Nicolò’s hands to his lips and kissing it gently. “Come, Nicolò,” he says. “Let me distract you.” 

**********

Nicolò can’t let it go. 

He finds himself in a very heated discussion with the local townsfolk. 

“What is it?” one man answers–Luzio, if he remembers correctly. 

“Paper,” Nicolò answers. He’d spent the whole morning teaching them how to make it using linen and hemp. 

Luzio touches it gently, and it reminds Nicolò of himself just a century prior. Then he looks at Nicolò. “Seems easy enough,” he says with a shrug. 

“Will you make it?” Nicolò asks. 

“Will people buy it?” Luzio counters. 

Nicolò just smiles. 

 **********

Yusuf laughs his way through dinner after Nicolò tells him. He kisses him gently and says, “There are no men like you, Nicolò di Genova.” 

He takes Nicolò by the hand and leads him to the real reason Yusuf had wanted to travel here in the first place. 

There is a river that flows through the town. 

They call it Giano. 

Nicolò had used the same water earlier to help make the paper. 

“I think you have chosen the perfect town,” Yusuf smiles. 

They spend the rest of the night on the bank. 

**********

Before they leave, Nicolò travels to the river again. 

There’s another note in his hand, addressed to Giano. 

I hope you found the city in the sea, is all it says. 

Nicolò watches the current sweep it away.

**********

Fifteen years. 

“Is this a test?” Nicolò asks. 

Quynh laughs brightly. Even Andromache snorts from where she’s bridling her horse. 

They’re leaving them for fifteen years. Sending them off into the world, as Andromache had put it. A present, as he and Yusuf had celebrated their four hundredth year together. 

It isn’t as if they’d been apart before. No, both Andromache and Quynh had sent them on their way plenty of times before. But no longer than a few months at most. 

But today, Andromache and Quynh are heading north, and he and Yusuf are heading south. 

If Nicolò had been four hundred years younger, he might have relished at the thought of having Yusuf all to himself again. But he isn’t. He’s old and grumpy and worries too much, according to Quynh. 

“What will you do?” Nicolò asks. 

Quynh shrugs, smiling as she does so. She’s always been this way. Happy to go where the wind takes her. 

Nicolò admires her for it. He’s always been one for structure. Then again, he would drop anything at a moment’s notice if one of them asked him too. 

“You look so troubled,” Yusuf says, brushing a hand across his back. “A look like that really makes a man like me feel wanted.”

Nicolò rolls his eyes, nudging Yusuf with his shoulder. As if Yusuf doesn’t know how wanted Nicolò will make him feel the moment Andromache and Quynh disappear from the horizon. 

“Nicolò, you are more than welcome to come with us if you wish,” Quynh says, her eyes twinkling. 

He pretends to ponder, glancing at Yusuf once. “He does snore,” he answers, grinning when Yusuf splutters. 

“Four hundred years,” Yusuf moans dramatically, clutching at his chest. “Four hundred years at my side, and now I snore. You truly are a martyr, Nicolò, to have suffered in such silence.” 

Nicolò waves him off, biting down a smile. He turns to face Quynh again. “Will you miss me?” Nicolò asks and sounds as much of a child as he feels like. 

Quynh’s nose scrunches as she laughs at him. “Not as much as you will miss me, little fox.” 

**********

Yusuf’s hand is under his shirt and brushing against his bare back before Andromache and Quynh have crested the first hill. Nicolò can’t hide his smile, and leans back into Yusuf’s touch. 

“What would you like to do today?” Yusuf whispers, mouth brushing against Nicolò’s neck. 

“Something foolish, I think,” Nicolò answers. 

Yusuf laughs–it still makes his chest lurch, even now–and he grabs Nicolò, yanking him inside their house. 

Nicolò trips after him and Yusuf grins. “Like a newborn lamb,” he teases. “ You can’t even keep up with that curious mind of yours.” 

They fumble with each other’s clothes, movements uncoordinated and sloppy. It’s like they’re young again, hiding in the shadows of Baghdad as their nerves and lust spark between them. 

Yusuf lays back on the bed and Nicolò follows easily. 

Nicolò leans over him, studying his face. He’s beautiful. There will neve be a moment in which he’s not. 

“Nicolò?” Yusuf asks. 

Nicolò brushes a thumb over Yusuf’s cheek. He wonders how many times he’s done the same motion before. “Four hundred years,” he says quietly. Not enough. 

It will never be enough. 

Yusuf’s eyes soften and he smiles in a way that Nicolò selfishly thinks is just for him. “Here’s to four hundred more,” Yusuf answers. 

Nicolò hums, trailing his hand down Yusuf’s chest. “Let’s start with fifteen,” he says. “Best not to be hasty.” 

Yusuf laughs, and flips Nicolò onto his back before he brings them together. Not a bad ending, he thinks to himself with a smile. 

**********

There is poetry that comes with a pair. He likes the simplicity of it. 

Left and right. Up and down. Two sides of the same coin. Good and evil. Yin and yang. 

Him and Yusuf. 

There is no one without the other. 

He finds it both beautiful and heartbreaking. 

**********

The door in his head is a pair. There are two sides to it. 

One side houses his most treasured words. The ones gifted to him. He shares them and his stories with his family with a fond smile.

The other side is just for him. No one else knows it’s there. The door or the words within. He alone knows of these treasures.

**********

His favorite word is one that belongs behind the forbidden side of the door. 

One that he has only been brave enough to whisper when alone, or when Yusuf is fast asleep at his side. He does not dare say it in front of him, not since it had first been taught to him. 

“Ya’aburnee,” Nicolò had repeated clumsily. “What does it mean?” 

Yusuf had looked at him, his usually expressive eyes blank and unreadable. “You bury me,” he had said. “It means that I love you so much that I want to die before you.” 

Yusuf’s face had been pinched, as if the mere thought of being without Nicolò had been more than he could bear. His beloved’s pain keeps the word hidden, but Nicolò still thinks of it everyday. When Yusuf first blinks awake, when he shares his water skin, when his face tilts towards the sun when he laughs. 

When he looks at Nicolò as if there was nothing else worth looking at. 

Ya’aburnee, Nicolò promises in the dark, because his immortality may be vast, but not as vast as Nicolò’s love for Yusuf. 

*********

He checks sometimes. 

He knows he shouldn’t. He knows he shouldn’t because he feels guilty after. That, and he doesn’t tell Yusuf. 

Despite his guilt, he does it all the same. 

It becomes part of his morning routine. Wake up. Peel himself away from Yusuf. Relieve himself and wash. Slice his hand. Watch the wound close up. 

Each morning, without fail. 

Just making sure that it’s still there. Just making sure that he’s still there with Yusuf. 

*********

He thinks of the ship of Theseus. 

The story of time, and how the ship’s planks had been replaced as they’d decayed. The question is whether or not it could still be called the ship of Theseus, if centuries later, not a single original piece remained. 

Nicolò stares at his palm. Another day, another closed wound. 

Would he still be considered himself in the next decade? In the next century? 

Does he still have skin that he’d carried since he’d been a child? Are his bones still his first? 

He looks the same. Yusuf’s plentiful drawings of him confirm that fact. But sometimes in the silences, Nicolò cannot recognize himself. 

*********

“Where are we?” 

Yusuf’s laughter is loud and joyous, and his eyes clench shut in delight. His happiness is infectious, and Nicolò can feel his own grin blooming across his face. They lay side by side on a bed, gasping in the breeze carried in by the sea through an open window. The evening chills his dampened skin, but there is still a fire raging underneath his skin. 

Nicolò shifts, turning towards Yusuf and kisses him. Yusuf welcomes him, and soon they’re tangled together again. 

He hadn’t thought he’d find himself here. But last month, Yusuf had looked at him and had said, “I’m bored” and “Come chase me.” 

And so Nicolò had, thrilled about doing something he excels at. He’ll always chase after Yusuf. 

They’d been at it for weeks now, this little game of theirs. Yusuf never slipped beyond the horizon and Nicolò never dallied, but they’d kept dancing about, keeping just out of reach of one another, feeling young and foolish from the thrill of the chase. All to see who would break first. 

It had been Nicolò. 

Although, Yusuf must have been just as despondent as he’d let Nicolò corner him on an island. But he’d played dirty, and had let Nicolò see him along the shoreline, hair and shirt loose, his obsidian eyes and pearled smile shining in the morning sun. 

The rest had been a blur. 

“Malta,” Yusuf whispers against his skin, breathing it in. His hands haven’t stopped moving since Nicolò had first touched him. Catching up on lost time. Just as ruthless as Nicolò is. “We’re in Malta.” 

“Malta,” Nicolò repeats, throwing a leg over Yusuf’s, swinging himself on top. He grins slyly down at Yusuf and rolls their hips together. “Not a bad ending,” he says, leaning down to seal their lips together. 

*********

Malta. 

Nicolò presses it into his head. 

A word of fevered touches, wild devotion, and unbridled happiness.

*********

“Where did you get this paper?” Nicolò asks, leafing through some of the sketches on the desk in front of him. He holds one up to the window, the sunlight illuminating the design of the hidden watermark. 

“Hmm?” Michelangelo doesn’t even look up from the table he’s working at. “Oh, Fabriano,” he answers. 

Yusuf snorts into the book he’s reading. 

*********

He squirms in his seat, anxious. He’s in his best clothes, and he’s trimmed his hair and beard. 

Yusuf chuckles beside him, his eyes twinkling mischievously. “You look perfect as you do,” he tells Nicolò. “You do not need to impress them.” 

Nicolò cocks an eyebrow at his lover, gaze mocking. As if the crates at his feet are not filled with gifts and treasures and food. 

And fifteen years worth of stories to tell. 

Well, a little less than that. 

They’ve arrived early, and have sat outside of the inn every day, waiting for a familiar pair to come down the road. 

When he sees that Andromache has come, Nicolò grins, jumping to his feet as he waves erratically at her. 

When he sees that Andromache has come alone, his feet fall out from under him.  

*********

They search for Quynh. Decades pass and nothing changes. He forgets the feeling of brush against his ankle, and the smell of freshly bloomed flowers. They’re replaced with the rock of the waves and spray of sea salt. 

He stands between Andromache’s rage and Yusuf’s grief, while guilt silences his own screams. 

He cuts his hand straight down to the bone one morning and wonders again. He wonders why he would be chosen for such a gift when in the end it means nothing. 

*********

Thirty years into their search, he falls. 

The storm is raging around them, and Nicolò is praying for sand. He can’t see Yusuf’s footsteps otherwise. 

He’s careless, he’s always so careless. One misstep, a stumble left instead of right, and he’s tipping over the railing and dropping into the frigid ocean. 

His shouts are swallowed by the wind, and the storm is cruel enough to let him watch it sweep Yusuf away before it drowns him. 

*********

He is saved eventually, much to his demise. 

It’s on his fourth day out in the ocean. Maybe his fifth. He’s traded in death by drowning to that of thirst. 

He’s grateful when they fish him from the water, when they clothe and feed him. 

He’s less grateful when they tell him he’s on a cargo ship heading for Spain. 

His pleas to the captain to return to England are met with the same cold disinterest as the sea’s. 

*********

It takes him eleven months to return to England. 

Eleven months to sail to Spain. To beg and work and save enough money to afford passage from Bilbao to London. To get a horse and head north to Birmingham. To make it to Manchaster before he’s forced to sell the horse and walk the rest of the way. 

He thinks of Yusuf the entire time. They’ve never been apart this long, not in the entirety of the five hundred years they’ve known each other. 

He breathes in the crushing loneliness and the empty space on his right. He finds himself walking off to the side on the path, as if expecting Yusuf to step up beside him. 

In his solitude, he reflects that this could have been his life. If he’d done what he had been told when Yusuf had shooed him away at that port. He could have left Yusuf and that would have been that. 

He could have walked in the middle of the road. He could have stayed in Spain. He wouldn’t have even been in the ocean in the first place. 

Maybe he would have returned to Giano, and would have been content, not knowing what he had lost. 

When he arrives in Lancaster again, he stumbles to the beach and falls to the sand and cries. 

*********

He thinks part of the reason he never went back to Genoa is because he had been afraid that Giano would not be at the dock when he arrived. 

After all, he’d never gone to the dock without Giano. 

*********

It takes another eight weeks of waiting at the port until he sees Yusuf again. Nicolò would know his shape anywhere. 

Yusuf must know as well, because he leaps from the ship well before it’s made it to port, and swims the rest of the way. 

They collide together on the beach and the past thirteen months bleed away when he finally falls into Yusuf’s arms. 

Yusuf talks to him, cries for him, his hands roving over his arms and back, but Nicolò cannot answer. He moans low in his throat and clutches at Yusuf desperately, breathing in his sea-soaked skin. 

When he finally opens his eyes, he sees Andromache over Yusuf’s shoulder. There is a moment of crushing guilt. Nicolò wants to apologize. For it being him that had met them here, instead of her. That it won’t be her that will rest easy tonight. 

He thinks that maybe Andromache is disappointed, even resentful of him being here. It makes him want to throw himself back into the sea. 

Andromache must see something in his face. She charges forward and yanks Nicolò from Yusuf’s grip. He doesn’t have time to breathe his apology before she crushes him against her chest. 

She grasps the back of his neck and squeezes. “Do not,” she whispers, too low for Yusuf to hear. “Do not ever have that thought again.” 

Tears spring to his eyes and he clutches her tightly. “I won’t,” he lies, and lets himself be engulfed by his family. 

*********

He and Yusuf are inconsolable for days. He only moves when Yusuf does, tracing every motion as he once had centuries ago. 

He doesn’t see much of Andromache. Only in passing, a mother hen checking in on her chicks. When he doesn’t see her, Nicolò knows that she’s ensuring that no one else will see them either. 

Nicolò trails a finger over Yusuf’s bicep. He looks the same, but Nicolò knows better. Yusuf has felt these days as much as he has. Ya’aburnee, Nicolò thinks as he looks at him, barely managing to swallow it down. 

“I was lost without you,” Nicolò confesses quietly. He always is, without Yusuf. 

“Never again,” Yusuf promises, and they both ignore the lie.

*********

Andromache whisks them far away from England and far away from the sea. To the southeast, to Ankara, where the water cannot be seen in any direction. 

They don’t speak of Quynh. 

All the while, Nicolò and Yusuf plan. What if it happens again? What will we do? 

They make a list. Groupings of four cities, for each region of the world. 

“If one of us becomes lost again,” Yusuf explains, “follow the list. The others will stay at the closest city for three months, then move to the next one. Continuing in a loop until we are all together again.” 

Andromache nods in agreement. “Just in case,” she says. 

“Just in case,” Nicolò agrees. 

*********

Lykon. 

A forbidden word locked behind the door in his head. 

It’s a selfish decision, one forced by Nicolò and Yusuf. 

Nicolò feels guilty, knowing that Lykon had been their friend and brother. And that while he may be gone, he could be brought back to life with stories and memories. 

Still, both he and Yusuf shy away from asking about him. Because memories are only just memories at the end of the day. Lykon is dead. And he’s a reminder that they will be dead one day too. A laughable thought, as isn’t that how it is for everyone else? 

“All things die,” Quynh had once said wisely, after she and Andromache had first told him and Yusuf about Lykon. 

Nicolò had barely heard her. He’d stared at Yusuf, and had realized that all the time in the world would still not be enough. 

It had been when they’d gone to bed that night, Yusuf abandoning his own sleep roll to press tightly against him that Nicolò had first had the thought. 

Ya’aburnee, he’d promised Yusuf.

*********

He dreams of Quynh, but they are not the dreams that he wants to have. 

He wants to be the one that saves her. 

Nicky has lost count of the number of times Quynh had saved him. And now when she needs him the most, Nicky can’t even manage to save her once. 

He dreams of her smiling and fighting. He dreams of her just out of his reach, and she laughs at him. 

*********

Time passes. 

They part ways with Andromache–Andrea, now–every once and a while. They choose a time and a place to meet, and none of them are ever late. 

They never separate for longer than two years. A lot can happen during that time. 

Nicolò–Nicolas–had argued that they shouldn’t be apart for longer than a year. But travel is long, and Andrea had replied that with only a year apart, there wouldn't be much point to separate at all. 

And maybe that had been the point Nicolas had been trying to make all along, but he had understood why Andrea needed her space. They all agree and Nicolas finds himself counting the days after every time Andrea leaves. 

*********

“What is it?” 

Joseph holds his hand out, gesturing for Nicolas to wait. He slips out of the room, only to return with a handful of books. Nicolas’s latest additions. 

Joseph opens each one, placing a book on each of the eight shelves on the wooden wheel. Then, he leans back and smiles at Nicolas. “It’s a book wheel,” he explains. 

He tugs downward on the wheel, and Nicolò watches the parade of open books circle round and round. “For days when you cannot decide on what to learn,” Joseph says. 

Nicolas gasps, dragging a chair over to the wheel. He sits down and spins it himself, the books spooling around as if they’re on a spit. Nicolas laughs and he beams at Joseph. “It’s perfect,” he says, and Joseph kisses his temple, chuckling with amusement. 

*********

Joseph is less than amused when the squeaking wheel wakes him from sleep for the third night in a row. 

“Nicolas, my love,” he sighs wearily. “I promise it will still be there in the morning.” 

“I know, I know, I just–”

“You misunderstand me,” Joseph continues. He tucks Nicolas against his side, bringing a blanket to cover them both. “I promise it will still be there in the morning, but only if you sleep.” 

“If you keep me up,” Joseph continues, pressing his lips to the back of Nicolas’s neck, making him shiver, “I will not be held accountable for my actions.” 

Nicolas falls asleep with a grin plastered on his face. 

*********

Joseph catches him one morning. 

Nicolas hadn’t heard Joseph follow him to the privy. He wets his thumb to wipe away the drying blood on his palm when Joseph finally announces himself. “What are you doing?” he asks. 

Nicolas resists the urge to shove his hand behind him. “Um,” he says, swallowing thickly. “I nicked myself.” 

Joseph is quiet, and Nicolas shifts between his feet. He’s loved Joseph long enough to know that the silence is not to be worried about. It’s what follows that will bring a spectacle. 

Joseph has loved Nicolas for just as long, and knows he can only build excuses with weak straw. “And how many times have you nicked yourself?” Joseph asks, arms crossing. 

Nicolas doesn’t bother answering. Any answer Joseph needs will be painted clearly on Nicolas’s face. It’s why Nicolas doesn’t allow himself to think of some things. 

“Planning on going somewhere?” Joseph continues. 

“No!” Nicolas blurts suddenly. He waves his healed palm in front of them, as if in proof. “I was just…making sure.” 

He grimaces at his own response. Centuries old and here he is, still stumbling, despite sleeping next to a wordsmith each night. 

Joseph cradles Nicolas’s hand with his own. “You squint to look so far in the distance that you do not see what is in front of you,” he says sadly. There’s no anger in Joseph’s voice, and it frustrates Nicolas. How can he be so content with the unknown? 

Joseph knocks their foreheads together gently. “Do not race so far ahead,” he continues. “You are here with me and I am here with you, right now, in this moment. Nothing else matters.” 

Nicolas wants to argue. They cannot stay here forever. Even now, he feels the seconds slipping away, the moment getting ready to shatter. He clutches at Joseph with all his strength, to hold on for just a little while longer. 

When Joseph starts to pull away, Nicolas grasps him more tightly. “Don’t leave,” he whispers, but it isn’t just to Joseph who he’s begging to listen.

*********

As the years pass, Nicolas notices that Quynh has become a word that is now hidden behind his forbidden door. 

The realization breaks his heart and he doesn’t sleep for a week. 

*********

He wonders if she’s dead. 

He wonders and wishes, although Nicolas isn’t sure if it is for her to be alive or dead. 

*********

Nicholas gasps awake when he dreams of him. 

Andrea and Joseph are already chatting animatedly about the very same dream, but Nicolas isn’t listening. His blood is pumping through his veins and his heart is singing with anticipation. 

Another one.

A new one.

The first time he dreams of his new brother, he’s excited. He doesn’t reach for his knife, or Joseph, but for his shoes. 

*********

The second time he dreams of his new brother, he gets sick. 

It’s loud in his head. Loud and dark and ravenous, like a beast he’s read about only in books. 

His dreams of Andromache and Quynh had been chaotic, but nothing like this. Nicolas feels everything at once. Pain, guilt, and suffering one second, followed by blinding happiness and then lust. He sees white plains, bare, except for the blankets of snow. All the while, Nicolas smells oil from a factory, hears the sound of crashing waves and ringing church bells. 

By the time Nicolas can get acclimated, he’s shooting into consciousness, his heart racing. 

Find him, the dreams seem to scream at him. Find him quickly. 

*********

He hates Russia and the cold. Nicolas doesn’t like to think of their new brother out here by himself. He makes a note to take him somewhere warmer the first chance they get. 

Joseph is excitable on the journey. So much so that he doesn’t seem to notice the winter around them at all–even though he is usually one to complain more than Nicolas about it. Joseph’s mood is infectious, and Nicolas grins at Joseph’s new prospect of a friend. 

Nicolas himself is curious as to the type of man the new one will be. He’s one of Napoleon's men, that they know for sure. Andrea had recognized the dress he wore. 

“A warrior,” Andrea says. 

“A soldier,” Joseph agrees with a nod. 

A conqueror, Nicolas keeps to himself, uneasiness sitting low in his gut. 

The world does not need another man like him. 

*********

They’ve been tracking him for months when Nicolas finally notices. 

It’s easier to dream of the new one now. His dreams are still loud, but Nicolas follows their brother’s movements as if tethered to a piece of string, and ignores the rest. 

Their brother’s steps are quick and solid. He is never resting when Nicolas dreams of him. Despite the frozen tundra around him, he always seems to know where he is going. 

Because he does. Nicolas stares up at the mountain range in front of him. Joseph had commented on it weeks ago, saying that it reminds him of a man’s profile. 

Nicolas grins. “He’s leading us in circles,” he says. Joseph–whose initial excitement had waned due to the frigid temperatures–throws his hands in the air, cursing wickedly. Andrea spins in a circle, as if only realizing herself. 

Tricking the master tracker, Nicolas thinks, amused. He looks back to the range whispering, “Clever,” and hopes that the new one can hear him. 

*********

When he sees him for the first time, Nicolas blanches. 

He towers and looms in the space he takes up. His pale skin is capped with dark, frost bitten hair, and his eyes are like the water under clouded ice. He stands so still, with a stare that threatens to crush Nicolas, and he wonders if this man had been birthed from the mountains he’d dragged them all through. 

It’s the lines in his face that give Nicolas pause. Evidence of a life already lived, of hard work, struggle, but still joy. His hardened features should make him menacing, but it doesn’t. His stoicism makes Nicolas feel at ease, secure even. The color of his eyes should make them appear cold and hollow, but they stare at Nicolas with a restless fire. And even after his clever strategies through the tundra, he looks lost and fragile, as he’d been the one traipsing the whole time. 

Nicolas takes a small step forward, smiling encouragingly. When the mountain holds his hand out, Nicolas is powerless to not meet him halfway. 

When the bone shiv is shoved through his neck, Nicolas laughs as blood fills his mouth. Clever, he thinks again as he dies. Andrea will be besotted with you.

*********

Sébastien Le Livre is his name. 

Livre. Book, in French. 

Nicolas smiles, thinking that maybe God does have a sense of humor after all.

*********

When Sébastien gasps awake one night, Nicolò wants to cry. 

In relief, because Quynh is still alive. In despair, because she is still alive. 

*********

Sébastien does not care for them. He makes that fact well known. 

His voice is soft, another contraction for such a man, and Nicolas hangs on to every word. He speaks like the whispers of low tide, as if to distract from the power he bottles underneath his skin. 

They take him back to France. 

He fights them the whole way. Makes them leave. “Stay away,” Sébastien snarls. “Whatever you’ve cursed me with, take it back. Give it to the corpse that hung next to me on the tree.” 

Nicolas watches him leave. Watches him go back to family without a second glance. Mere months into his immortal life, and Sébastien is already a better man than him. 

*********

“Should we have stopped this?” Joseph paces in front of them. He can’t manage to stand still; anxious and unsure. “This seems foolish.” 

Andrea doesn’t answer. Unlike Joseph, she’s as still as death. She stares out of the window of their shared room, looking at nothing, as she has for the past hour. Nicolas wonders what she’s thinking. 

“No, this is foolish,” Joseph continues, nodding to himself. 

“How would you know?” It slips out, the errant thought. He’s been quiet as well, letting Joseph voice their concerns for the both of them. 

Joseph blinks at him, coming to a halt. “How would I know?” he asks. “How would I not know?” He rubs his hands together, taking over the nervous motions from his feet. “Nicolas, he went back to his wife. His kids!” 

“And?” 

“And?” Joseph pushes. “And what?” 

“And we didn’t,” Nicolas answers quietly. “So how can you know if it’s foolish?” 

Nicolas is tired. He hasn’t been sleeping well. While the dreams of Sébastien have stopped, his head seems more consumed by the man than ever. 

Nicolas had thought that Sébastien’s journey across Russia had been driven by his determination to outrun them. He knows now that it had been the call of home that had pushed him. 

He has a few boys. Three, Nicolas thinks. And a wife. She’s very beautiful, and has a fire in her that Nicolas can understand that Sébastien is drawn too. He’d watched her strike Sébastien across the face when he’d first arrived home. Then she’d gathered him in her arms. 

And he’d bent. The immovable mountain that is Sébastien le Livre had wilted to her without a moment’s hesitation. 

“They’ll die.” Andrea is looking at him now, brought to life at the thought of death. “They’ll die, and he won’t.” 

“And that makes their grief insignificant?” Nicolas counters. “If he’d never returned, what would they have thought? They’d never have any answers.” 

“And the answers they get?” Andrea laughs. “How do you think they’ll take them?” 

Nicolas sighs, leaning back in his chair. “Answers are answers,” he says quietly, shrugging. “Not knowing is always worse.” 

He’d thought choosing to stay away from Genoa would be the best option for him. To spare him any additional pain. 

It occurs to him that he’s never considered Giano’s pain. 

*********

“You’re leaving?” he asks, frown etched on his face. She should not be leaving, not now. He needs them. 

She needs you, a voice hisses in his head. Or have you forgotten her? 

Nicolas shakes his head, forcing the doubt away. It would return, far sooner than his liking. It’s been a constant companion of his for the last few hundred years, materializing right after Quynh had been lost.

“He dreams of her,” Andrea says, not stopping from packing her bag. 

“Anything useful?” 

Nicolas frowns harder at Joseph’s question. He misses Quynh with a veracity that he did not think possible. He still remembers the first time she had smiled at him, the first time she laughed with him. He remembers thinking how small she was, when he’d first seen her. She still had no problem putting him on his ass. 

That’s a lie. 

He remembers, but he doesn’t know if they were firsts of any kind. He remembers the kindness in the curl of her mouth, how her laugh had sounded like songbirds. 

It doesn’t matter to him when he’d actually seen or heard them. He remembers as he likes, more stories he’s painted in his head. 

“Everyone enjoys stories more,” Giano’s voice echoes through his head. 

“We will stay,” Nicolas answers Andrea quietly. 

He can feel the heat from Joseph’s eyes on the back of his neck. This conversation is far from over. He doesn’t care. Quynh may need them, but so does Sébastien. 

Andrea shrugs as if his answer rolled off her like the breeze, but he can see the tight line that’s remained in his shoulders. 

She leaves in the night. 

*********

He goes to see Sébastien alone. 

“Why are you here?” he growls. 

“For you,” Nicolas answers easily. 

Sébastien’s face twists as if he’s bitten into a lemon. “Well, yet again, I’m sorry to say that you’ll be sorely disappointed.” 

I’m not. I could never be, he wants to say. It wouldn’t help though, as Nicolas only thinks Sébastien has said this because he has been a disappointment to someone before. 

“The first few years are the hardest,” he says instead. At least, he thinks so. The years are starting to haze, and it’s getting harder to sift through the annals of his mind. “I understand,” he adds, swallowing roughly. 

“You understand nothing,” Sébastien spits.  

Nicolas tilts his head, feeling a smile grow on his face. He likes him, his new brother, even if the feeling is not mutual. He’s quick like a rabbit, cunning like a snake, and roars like a lion. And he seems to carry the wisdom of a man much older than he. You understand nothing, he says, and Nicolas believes him. 

He’s a challenge. Nicolas likes a challenge. 

“Perhaps not,” Nicolas concedes. “But I’d like to. We’d like to,” he corrects. 

Joseph is just as despondent as he is. He paces in their room at night, his gaze always going to the window as if he expects Sébastien to be waiting outside. “I don’t remember being this difficult. Were we this difficult?” he had asked just last night. Nicolas hadn’t had an answer for him. Joseph’s memory, it seems, is as patchy as his. 

“I don’t need your help,” Sébastien says, and again, Nicolas believes him. 

Sébastien is scrappy. He doesn’t care about the mud caked in his hands, as long as he continues to press forward. 

He is not afraid to fight dirty. 

But it doesn’t matter if Nicolas thinks that Sébastien could survive on his own. Surviving is easy. Wanting to survive is harder. 

“I remember thinking the same thing,” he says. It’s not exactly a lie. He might not remember saying that, but he has enough memories of Quynh complaining about all of his failed ideas to know that it had happened at some point. “Whether or not I thought I wanted it,” he continues, “I knew I needed it. I will always be grateful for the strong hands that guided me and Joseph. I would not be who I am today without them.” 

It makes Sébastien frown. “I’ve had plenty of hands guide me before,” he replies harshly and Nicolas has to keep himself from flinching. “None of them worked out too well.” 

“Your life has been difficult. I can see that.” He sighs, knowing that his platitudes are not enough. What would Andrea say? “But there is a reason you have been chosen for this,” Nicolas continues. “You are a warrior, like us.”

“I’m nobody.” 

Nicolas doesn’t like this answer. He doesn’t think Sébastien could be anything less than extraordinary if he tried. 

“You’re our first, you know,” he says softly. “Mine and Joseph’s.” He feels off kilter under Sébastien’s gaze. He wants to squirm away from it. “I don’t believe we’re doing a sufficient job,” he confesses, wringing his hands together. 

We’re, he says. As if he is not only thinking about his own inadequacies. He wants to tell Sébastien that he doesn’t know how to help. He’s never been able to do it without the others. “I’m...concerned,” Nicolas continues. “For the time that is to come.” 

Sébastien doesn’t respond and Nicolas bites down on his lip. He should have sent Joseph to come instead. 

He can’t help himself. He turns his attention to the inside of the house. He can’t hear Amelia or the boys, but he knows they’re in there. Sébastien, that unmovable mountain, standing between them. “Have you told them?” Nicolas asks softly. 

The slamming door is the only answer he gets. Nicolas hears it loud and clear. 

*********

“You are not Giano.” 

Nicolas pauses, and he barely remembers to put down his glass before his grip loosens. 

It’s not like he and Joseph do not argue. They’ve been together for over seven hundred years; it would be preposterous if they never butt heads about anything. 

He supposes the way they do argue is different than most. Efficient is the word he would use. Most are over before they begin, all because one already knows what the other will say. Nicholas’s head is so consumed with thoughts of Joseph, he barely has room for himself. 

They bicker a lot. Spar, as Joseph would say. Even in their disagreements, Nicolas has never lost his footing with Joseph.  

But that’s not to say that after seven hundred years he still couldn’t be surprised. 

He turns to face Joseph. “What did you say?” he asks. 

“You are not Giano,” Joseph repeats. It’s said kindly, but maybe that’s what hurts most of all. Joseph must see something on his face–he has never been one to hide anything well–because he steps forward and grabs Nicolas’s hand, squeezing lightly. “That is not what I meant,” he says. 

“Then what did you mean?” Nicolas replies, voice hoarse. 

“I mean that Sébastien is not one to impress. He is a man of the world and has already lived a life long before we came along.” Joseph leans in, kissing his forehead gently. “You are not Giano and he is not a little boy with stars for eyes in need of saving.”

Nicolas tenses, shame and anger lodging in the back of his throat. He wants to snarl and scream, wants to tear the memory of Giano away where it would be safe. “What do you know?” Nicolas hisses, hot tears slipping down his cheek. 

“Nicolò,” Joseph whispers, a soft melody. 

Nicolas ignores him, thinking of his dead brother. He knows that what he and Sébastien have–which is to say, nothing–is not what he had with Giano. Nicolas swallows, selfishly wishing they were those things. He doesn’t know how to help otherwise. 

“There you go again,” Joseph says, knocking their heads together. “Tell me, my light, how fares the burden of the world on your shoulders today?” 

Nicolas frowns, and Joseph kisses it away. “You are not Giano,” he says again. “You do not need to be Giano.” He runs a hand through Nicolas’s hair, resting it at the base of his neck. “Sébastien does not need someone to save him. He needs someone to stand alongside him.” 

“He needs a brother,” Nicolas argues, his cheeks burning. 

“Yes,” Joseph agrees. “He needs you. Us.” 

Nicolas turns away. He doesn’t need me, he wants to argue. For I am not enough. 

*********

Nicolas is sitting on a bench, book in hand, brushing up on his French. Brushing up. A kindness he shouldn’t give himself, as the words blur on the page. He’s been here all morning, and he can’t remember anything he’d seen on the previous pages. 

One word, however, sticks out to him. He adds it to his list of favorites–a kindness to the French, he thinks with a snicker. 

Dès vu. The awareness that something will become a memory. 

He watches as Sébastien talks with one of his sons in front of his house. He is a good father, Nicolas can tell. There’s a gentleness about him, and he carries himself in a way that he’s never shown to Nicolas or the others. They are talking animatedly about something–arguing it seems. His son–Henri, he thinks–gets more aggravated with each passing moment but Sébastien never reciprocates. He weathers the storm with ease, a solid shoreline, and he curls his body towards his son to be used as both a whipping post and a shield. 

The son departs, and in his wake, leaves Sébastien with a cloud of frustration and guilt hanging over his head. But Nicolas watches as Sébastien rolls his shoulders and straightens his back, already moving to the next battle. 

He is fixing the shutters on his house, and works through the whole day, not even stopping when the rain comes. Nicolas doesn’t leave either, watching him as he’s done so for years. He’s seen Sébastien care for his home and his family through it all. 

He watches Sébastien hammer fresh nails into the boards and is reminded again of the ship of Theseus. There is no debate this time. Sébastien could gut the entire building and start from scratch, but it will always be a home. 

The festering jealousy that Nicolas had felt before is replaced with reverence, and Nicolas sends a silent thank you to whomever is listening, grateful that Nicolas gets to know him. A blanket of grief threatens to consume it, however, as Nicolas knows what is to come. Because no matter his desires, even he cannot stop the wheel of time. 

Instead, he sits in the rain and watches Sébastien. Des vu, he thinks, knowing that he will never forget the man fighting a losing battle, trying to keep his family afloat while drowning himself in the process. 

*********

He leaves a note at Sébastien’s front door. 

When you need us, we will be there, it says in carefully written French. 

*********

Sébastien does not answer the door for either of them anymore. But Nicolas’s note is gone, so the response is clear. 

I am not ready yet. 

They respect his wishes, and both Nicolas and Joseph keep their distance. 

*********

“Come away with me.” 

Joseph’s beard brushes against his cheek, his breath dancing again Nicolas’s ear and it makes his toes curl. 

He’s warm, almost uncomfortably so. Summer is coming faster than he’d expected. Still, he doesn’t try and pry himself away from Joseph. Instead, he burrows further into his side. He can feel the morning sun kiss the skin not covered by Joseph, but the town is still quiet under their open window. If Nicolas closes his eyes, he can forget where he is, when he is. Joseph is here and nothing else matters, and–

“Come away with me,” Joseph says again. 

Nicolas hums. Sébastien is still not ready–Joseph reminds Nicolas that it is not for them to decide when that time is–and Andrea is still away. He and Joseph have been…idle, for a lack of a better term. They’ve widened their perimeter, heading out through French countryside while they wait–leaving for longer bouts each time–circling back to Paris every once in a while, just to check in. 

“Come away with me.” 

It’s still a request, a plea, even after all these years. As if Nicolas wouldn’t have his shoes half on before Joseph had finished informing him on where he planned to go. 

Joseph knows this, but still asks all the same. 

“Anywhere,” Nicolas answers, the sheets twisting around them as he brings their lips together. 

*********

Amelia is dead. Sébastien’s wife. 

So is Tumas, his middle son. 

Nicolas and Joseph had been gone for both. 

They’d been in Luxemburg when Amelia had passed. Upon their return to Paris, Nicolò had still seen Sébastien puttering in front of their house, so they’d picked up and left for Bern. 

If they had stayed, Nicolas would have known that Sébastien had been fixing up a now empty house. If they had stayed, Nicolas would have known his wife had died. 

If they had stayed, Nicolas would have been there when his son had passed. 

“Come away with me,” Joseph says. He feels knuckles brush against his own. 

It’s dark now, and there’s a fine mist of rain in the air. It chills him more than any storm had ever had before. Nicolas stares at Sébastien's son’s grave and wants to scream. “No,” he whispers. Maybe he did scream. 

He plants his feet firmly, fresh grave dirt covering his shoes. “No,” Nicolas says again. “Do not ask me to leave again.” 

He stands a vigil over the son of a man he had promised to do the same for. 

He doesn’t move again until the sun is high in the sky and has dried the night’s storm away. 

*********

Children are something he will never understand. It’s also on his list of words to never discuss with Joseph, buried deep behind his forbidden door. 

It’s seated at a place of honor next to his favorite. Ya’aburnee. 

When he had first overheard the word and had asked Yusuf to translate it, it had not been said between two lovers. It had been uttered by a young mother, cooing down at the small babe wrapped in her arms. 

He’s wondered many times what it would feel like to hold the weight of a child in his arms. A ridiculous notion, as Nicolas has held many children before. 

But never ones he could call his own. 

He grieves for Tumas, a boy he’d never even met, but more so, he grieves for Sébastien. His heart cries out in agony for the immovable mountain, still stagnant, even as its rivers and valleys around him continue to dry up. 

Joseph sends letters in every direction, trying to find Andrea. Trying to call her home. 

Nicolas stands in front of Sébastien’s house, knowing he is sitting in there alone. A stalemate between the two of them. Neither moves. 

*********

Ya’aburnee, Nicolas thinks as he watches Joseph sleep. 

He wonders if Sébastien would say the same to his wife and children if he could. 

*********

He’s alone tonight, watching the house when he realizes that maybe he has been the lion this whole time. 

Pacing back and forth, prowling, waiting for the rest of Sébastien’s family to die. 

*********

Ya’aburnee. 

He realizes that there is no word for someone who cannot be buried. 

*********

It is Sébastien that finds them after Jean-Pierre dies. Finally ready. It makes Nicolas’s chest throb. 

They meet in another field, and Nicolas watches Sébastien look around, no doubt noticing the similarities as to when the first time they’d met. 

Nicolas reaches his hand out, palm upturned. He sees Sébastien scoff and then glance at Nicolas’s other hand, as if he would be the one to have a bone shiv this time. Nicolas smiles. He wiggles his fingers to show they’re empty. 

It still takes a few minutes for Sébastien to move. Nicolas doesn't mind. He has nowhere to be except for right here. 

As soon as Sébastien’s fingers touch his, Nicolas does not give that tired mind enough time to think. He yanks the other man forward, bundling him into his arms. Nicolas is not small by any means, but he feels engulfed by Sébastien. 

But it is when he feels the slight tremble from Sébastien’s legs that Nicolas scoops him closer, forcing himself to take the weight, as if Nicolas could shed the burdens from Sébastien’s shoulders right then. 

He wants to turn to Joseph and snap at him. See? he wants to yell. He does need a Giano.

Instead, he holds Sébastien closer and promises not to leave.  

*********

He follows in Sébastien’s footsteps, puttering after him every day. 

It amuses Joseph to no end, and he fills pages and pages of his sketchbook of Nicolas hovering. Andrea’s favorite is the one in which Joseph has depicted them as ducks, Nicolas mid squawk as he chases after an errant Sébastien. 

Sébastien doesn’t mind. Or if he does, he doesn’t say so. 

They move through the world quickly. It irks Nicolas. He wants to take Sébastien to a place he could rest. Instead, Sébastien is put to work. 

“He needs something to focus on,” Andrea tells him one night. Nicolas wants to argue that Sébastien has been working this whole time. Instead, he relents, letting Andrea take the reins. He is grateful that she is back to help guide them all. 

When they aren’t fighting, Sébastien continues to work. Teach me this, he says. Teach me that. 

He’s ravenous to learn and Nicolas is more than happy to oblige, as it reminds him of a younger version of him.

He showers Sébastien in books and knowledge. What delights Nicolas even more, is that Sébastien continues to be a challenge. He is quick and has a sharp tongue, and he retains information like a sponge. It will not be long before he is running circles around them. 

Nicolas doesn’t mind. He’ll just chase after him. 

*********

Sébastien is quiet; he stews and ferments, but that is what troubles him the most. 

He does not talk about his family so in turn, neither does Nicolas. He hides Giano away, and tries to get Sébastien to focus on the future. He encourages travel, schooling, and hobbies. 

If Sébastien does not want to talk about the past, Nicolas will not push him. After all, there are things in his past he wants to forget as well. 

*********

Sébastien hates them. Nicky knows this. Who wouldn’t, in his position? 

He stares at them when he thinks they’re not looking. 

Nicolas and Joseph have loved each other for so long that they do not need to constantly show it. They just enjoy doing so. But those first few years they distance themselves, a silent consideration for Sébastien, who mourns for what they still have. Instead, they center their love on their new brother. 

Andrea whisks him away from weeks at a time, and the pair of them come back bloodied, sweat-stained and grinning. Joseph plasters himself at his side, telling jokes and partaking in asinine bets. Nicolas steals the moments in between, drinking and cursing and learning with him. 

He wants to tell Sébastien that he is brave. That he is a better man than Nicolas will ever be. For if it had been Nicolas in his shoes, it would be a very different story. 

*********

He does not visit Amelia’s grave. He wants to. But as soon as he gets to the gates of the cemetery, he stops, his feet unwilling to take him any further. He visits his sons, all three, but never Amelia. 

He thinks it is because of Sébastien. Nicolas knows that he is one of the last men Sébastien would allow anywhere near his wife, even in death. 

Nicolas respects the unknowing decision, and instead, he walks the perimeter of the cemetery, his fingers trailing over the metal fence. Circling her, as he had done when she’d been alive. 

He pays someone to tend to it for him, and watches from the metal fence until it’s done. 

*********

He gasps awake and Joseph is leaning over him, his fingers running through his hair. “What?” he asks, blinking slowly. 

“I’m sorry.” Nicolas turns, and sees Sébastien pressed against the far wall, wringing his hands together. 

Nicolas squints. How had he ended up here? 

He had been…sleeping. Sébastien had woken him, lost in another nightmare. Nicolas had been out of bed before he could think twice, reaching to his friend to comfort him in the only way he could. 

When Sébastien had startled awake, he’d reached for Nicolas as well. Right for his neck, jerking it to the left, and breaking it. 

“I’m sorry,” Sébastien says again, his voice hoarse. 

He’d been dreaming of Quynh again. He tells the others about them sometimes. Not as much anymore, as they’ve all realized there is no point. They cannot help each other, and Nicolas cannot tell if dwelling on the dreams makes it worse for Sébastien. 

He rubs at his neck. In all the times he’s woken Sébastien from his nightmares, he’d never once resulted to violence. Sébastien brushes it off with another apology, but Nicolas notices how he tucks himself further into the corner of the room. As if he expects it to happen again, if given the chance. 

The thought keeps him up for the rest of the night. Sébastien may be sorry for killing him, but Quynh is not. 

*********

Sébastien leaves sometimes. Where he goes, Nicolas does not know and he does not ask. He does not think he prays–Sébastien is more one to curse God than to pray to him. 

He goes when he thinks no one is looking. 

Sébastien does a lot of things when he thinks no one is looking. 

But this he does most of all. 

His eyes drift, staring at a horizon that isn’t there. They glaze over, like a curtain dropping for a show that Nicolas can’t see. 

Sometimes he smiles when he leaves. A faint curl of lips that Nicolas rarely sees, unless when it kisses the tip of his flask. Sometimes he mouths something, but Nicolas can never tell what he’s trying to say. 

Mostly, though, he’s sad. Shadows cover his face and his breaths deepen, as if he’s collapsing under an invisible burden. 

Nicolas bites back any comment. Sébastien has been less than subtle with his intrusions lately. “You coddle me too much, old man,” he tells Nicolas with a crooked smile. Sébastien thinks it’s funny, as Sébastien appears as the older of the two to the rest of the world. 

Just last month, Sébastien and Nicolas had assisted in the restoration work of a boarding school. The matron had commented that Nicolas is lucky to have an older brother like Sébastien to keep him out of trouble. “You have no idea,” Sébastien had laughed as he’d pinched Nicolas on the cheek. 

But despite Sébastien’s complaints that he is “nearly one hundred years old, Nicolas, relax”, Nicolas will always worry. 

He pats Sébastien on the shoulder as he passes. A silent reminder. I am here, he says. 

*********

He loses himself again. 

He said he’d be quick–he’s so quick these days–but still not quick enough. 

Not that it matters. Yusuf’s message never arrives where he’d promised it would. Another casualty of the war. Not that Nicolas could blame him–he’d also promised his little detour would be inconsequential. Quick, he had said. 

Over seven hundred and fifty years old and he still doesn’t know better than to test fate. 

He knows what he needs to do. He knows the loop of cities he needs to follow. Marseille to London to Hamburg to Venice. He knows to wait at the docks–wait as he always had before–for him to be found. The war is barely an obstacle; he and Joseph will find each other eventually. 

But the question of when mocks him. There’s no way for Joseph to know that his letter will never arrive. How long will he wait for Nicolas, assuming he’s making his journey home? And when he does notice, will his own travel take less than three months before Nicolas is to start moving again? And what of Andrea, and a newly immortal Sébastien, whole are awaiting them both? Andrea is too old and Sébastien is too young for them both to be left wondering. 

His absence of a few weeks threatens to turn into months and suddenly Nicolas is back in the streets of Bilbao, begging for scraps. 

Never again, Joseph had promised him that night in Lancaster. 

Nicolas agrees, deciding that he can’t afford to wait months. He doesn’t need to. He just needs to get Joseph’s attention. 

Nicolas silently thanks the war around him; a first time for everything. Instead of heading west towards Marseille, he heads east. 

He follows the army and ends up in Bezzecca, helping to retake the town. The war for independence sits upon the crest of a wave. It’ll be over soon; he’s seen enough to know the signs. He sweeps across the battlefield with cold detachment, one goal illuminating his path. 

After the town is secured, he waits two weeks until they receive the armistice telegram. And then another two days in the name of peace. 

After that, Nicolas does the only thing he can. 

He hikes up the surrounding mountain to the old hunting cabins the army had used as a base prior to the battle–now since abandoned–and sets them ablaze. 

He remains the entire night to ensure it all burns. 

*********

The whispers of what had happened travel as fast as the flames themselves. 

Joseph finds him not but six days later, sitting at the beach of Lake Ledro in the outskirts of Bezzecca. 

He’s wearing an amused smile and holds a wrapped parcel in the crook of his arm. A gift for Nicolas, as of course Joseph had known it had been him and would find him here. After all, they’d first met in fire and war. “That was dramatic,” Joseph says. “You could have just sent a telegram.” 

A jest, as Nicolas had taken an active stance against the telegraph, despite Sébastien’s insistence on the wonder of the invention. Nicolas prefers letters. He always will. 

Nicolas just shrugs. “Anyone could have sent a telegram.” 

Joseph laughs. “Yes, and I suppose only a certain type of man would set a forest ablaze.” 

“The forest is fine.” 

“And everything else?” 

Nicolas waves him off. “Italy owes me one,” he says. Or several ones, but it isn’t as if he’s been counting. 

Fingers brush against his jaw and Nicolas’s eyes flutter shut. 

Sometimes he can’t bear to meet Joseph’s gaze. Joseph carries the same bright eyes, even centuries later. He stares at the world with such awe and reverence, and it makes Nicolas wonder sometimes, of the things that Joseph sees that Nicolas can’t. He wishes he could, if only to see the beauty and splendor that Joseph does. 

But it’s when Joseph looks at him the same way that Nicolas feels unsettled. He’s not sure how Joseph could even make the comparison. 

He stands, eyes still clenched, wrapping himself around Joseph. He shouldn’t, not here and with so many eyes on them, but he doesn’t care. If anything, he hopes someone says something. The rage of their separation still simmers in his blood, and he waits for a reason to let the rest out. 

Joseph tilts his head back and kisses him, making Nicolas smile. Joseph, it seems, is feeling just as irresponsible. “Found you,” Joseph whispers in their old tongue, and Nicolas melts against him. Joseph will always find him. 

Joseph doesn’t comment that Nicolas has cheated. He doesn’t chastise his foolishness, or inform him of the plan that they’d created just for situations like this. Instead, he strokes along the back of Nicolas’s neck and tells him that he’d missed him. 

Nicolas knows then that Joseph would have done the same. 

“We should leave,” Nicolas says, knocking their foreheads together gently. The rest of the world could wait; Nicolas needs Joseph more. 

“Come,” Joseph replies in agreement, leading Nicolas away from the beach. He hands Nicolas the parcel, a hunk of bread and salted meat, and forces Nicolas to eat. They walk side by side, Nicolas on the left and Joseph on the right.

“There’s no need to tell Andrea about this,” Nicolas says, glancing at Joseph. 

Joseph shakes his head and chuckles, reaching into his pocket and waving a piece of folded paper. A telegram. “Did you really think that she wouldn’t hear of your little escapade?” 

Nicolas sighs. “Is it bad?” 

“Sébastien may have sent the message, but it’s clear who it’s from,” Joseph smiles. “I’m not sure how, but she’s found a way to yell in Morse.” 

*********

“Did you like it?” Nicolas asks, grinning at Sébastien. They’re outside the symphony, having just listened to some of Beethoven’s symphonies. 

“Sure, not bad for a dead guy,” Sébastien shrugs. “Better than Vivaldi, or so I hear.” 

Sébastien grins slyly at Joseph who grabs his shoulders and shakes him. “A man of decorum,” Joseph says and Sébastien chuckles, batting him away. Nicolò smiles in quiet agreement. The less said about Vivaldi the better. 

Joseph looks good in his suit tonight. So does Sébastien. He wears it well, considering he’s never donned one before this. 

Nicolas links his arm through Andrea’s as he asks, “Did you know that Beethoven used Fabriano paper for his compositions?” 

Sébastien furrows his brow. “What kind of paper?” 

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” Andrea groans, and she punches Nicolas in the shoulder. “You did not drag us all out here tonight so you could be smug–”

*********

Sébastien eyes him warily. “Are you sure?” 

He’s sitting in their parlor, a book curled in the palm of his hand. He’s been quiet recently, stewing about something. What it is, Nicky will never know. Sébastien is not one to force his burdens on the others. Instead, Nicky tries to help in the only way he knows how.

Nicky wags the wine bottle in front of his brother’s face. “What, did you have something else to do tonight?” 

*********

Joe bails them out the next morning. “Do I even want to know?” he asks, his lips quirked in amusement. 

“No,” Sébastien—Booker—sighs. 

Nicky bounds over to Joseph like a puppy. “Yusuf,” he proclaims. “We almost caught him.” 

“Who?” 

“Jack!” 

“Jack who?”

“The Ripper!” 

Joe looks over at Booker. “Really?” 

“Not even close,” Booker says with a shake of his head. “If anything, we’re persons of interest now.” 

Nicky shoves at Booker. Tries too. He ends up stumbling into Joe’s arms. Not a bad ending, Nicky wants to laugh. “You just wait, Booker,” he promises. “A few more nights and we’ll have got him.” 

“Booker?” Joe asks. 

“Don’t ask,” Booker says. He slips one of Nicky’s arms over his shoulder, Joe mirroring him on the other side. “He thinks he’s funny.” 

“I am very funny,” Nicky confirms. 

“And drunk,” Joe smiles, knocking his forehead gently against Nicky’s temple. He smells good. Joe always smells good. Booker, not so much. 

“It’s because I spent most of the night in Whitechapel’s sewers, you ass,” Booker complains. 

Nicky grins at him. “You had a lovely time.” 

Booker shakes his head. “Maybe if I were as drunk as you.” 

“You know why I am still drunk?” Nicky asks. “Because this is good, strong Italian wine. None of that French piss you’ve been known to have.” 

“Yes, I imagine you need strong wine to hide the blandness of your food.” 

Joe cackles at the pair of them. Nicky stumbles away from them and throws a wild punch. He misses Booker by a mile and ends up on the ground. 

The entire evening is worth it when he hears Booker join in with their laughter. 

*********

Booker quickly joins his list of favorite words, although he doesn’t quite remember how it had even come to be. 

*********

Nicky likes letters. He’ll always prefer them. 

The weight of the paper, the scratch of the pen. 

He’s never been good with words, but a letter offers him a respite. Time for him to hone and craft his response. 

It has amused Joe for centuries. “You stare any harder, my love, and the paper will burst into flames,” he’d told Nicky once. “I have never seen someone compose a letter with the same fervor they would military strategy!” 

Nicky smiles at the memory as he holds the receiver to his ear, twining the wire around his finger nervously. 

He and Andy are making the delivery themselves. In his usual moments of missing Joe, Nicky would write him a letter. He likes posting them, trying to beat the mail back when returning to Joe. And despite Joe’s teasing, Nicky knows he loves getting them. Nicky finds old letters folded in book pages and tucked in desks sometimes, worn and folded from where Joe had read and reread them. 

Tonight, Andy had reminded him that he had other options now. 

When a perky operator picks up, Nicky shyly asks to be connected to Joseph Jones. 

“Nicolò?” 

Nicky grins and jams the phone more to his ear, as if he could bring Joe even closer. “Joe,” he whispers, and he can almost hear Sébastien laughing at him. “I’d like to see a letter do that, old man,” he would say. 

The world continues to turn, changing around him at a breakneck speed. Nicky stumbles behind, as always, unable to keep up with how fast things move. 

Some things, however, are worth the advancement. 

*********

He decidedly changes his mind when he discovers napalm. 

It reminds him too much of Greek fire. 

*********

He stands on the tracks, the gates behind him. As if he’s expecting another full train to show up any second. 

He doesn’t know where Joe is. He couldn’t stand to be here, and Nicky couldn’t blame him. Booker is with the medics. He’d found some children earlier and had been plastered to their sides ever since, getting them food, medicine, and comfort. 

Nicky stays on the tracks. He’ll stay here until the rest of the wretched place burns to the ground. 

He hears Andy walk up beside him. They stand in silence for a few minutes before she talks. “Well,” she starts. “Let’s hear it.” 

Nicky blinks, finally tearing his eyes away from the train tracks. “Hear what?” 

“The ‘I told you so’,” she shrugs. Soot and grime cover her face, making her eyes appear almost ghostly by comparison. “You asked me once,” Andy continues. “If there was anything else. Or if we would be in the same place centuries later.” 

She gestures to the forest around them. Dachau burns brightly in the background. “Well, here we are. Eight hundred years in the making and you’re still fighting the same fight.” 

Nicky can see the raw pain etched on her face. Sometimes the world can still surprise her. It makes Nicky even more sick, knowing what could still lay in front of him. 

Nicky looks her over. “If you are looking for a fight, you will not find it here,” he says quietly. He can see the rage written on her skin, can see the hatred burning through her veins. He knows what she’s doing and he knows what she needs. It isn’t as if he doesn’t want to cry out for blood himself, but he’s too tired to cater to her right now. 

The past few years have weighed heavily on him. There’s too much all at once, and Nicky wants to run and hide in the farthest corner of the world he can find. 

Andy doesn’t seem to want to cater to him either. She stomps over to him, getting right in his face. “Is this not familiar to you?” she hisses in his ear and Nicky stills, feeling his blood curdle in his veins. 

Andy grins wickedly, knowing she’s hit a pressure point. She drags her feet through the gravel, pacing in front of him like a bull. Her fingers twitch for a weapon she doesn’t want to use and she waits for him to throw the first punch. “Still think you’re a mistake?” she asks, her assault relentless. 

Nicky clenches his jaw and he feels his face heat. His temple throbs and it sounds as if there’s an avalanche roaring in his ears. His body shakes and he reeks of ozone. His throat spasms as he chokes down the smoke and it’s not just smoke, it’s not just smoke–

Nicky roars, unholsters his pistol and shoots. 

*********

When he wakes, his head is cradled in Andy’s lap. She’s wiping the blood away from his temple with the corner of her jacket sleeve. She cries softly as she stares down at him. 

She’s crossed a line, they both have. But Nicky doesn’t want an apology. He wants to curl up in her arms and sleep until a better day comes. “It hurts,” he sobs, letting his own tears flow. The pain remains, even after the wound has long gone. “Is there nothing else?” 

Andy brushes shaking thumbs over his cheeks, soothing him. “I don’t know,” she whispers. 

*********

Pochemuchka. Russian, for a person who asks too many questions. 

Booker glares at him and Nicky blinks innocently. “I did not know that would happen.” 

“I thought wisdom came with age,” Booker says, teeth chattering. The two of them–along with Joe–are pressed together, huddling for warmth in a cell. 

“I am very wise,” Nicky argues, shivering. “I can defuse a butterfly bomb in five minutes. With my eyes closed.” 

“And you can apparently run your mouth for twice as long,” Booker grumbles. 

Joe chuckles, and Nicky can feel the vibrations along his back. “I happen to like it when you run your mouth,” Joe whispers in their old shared tongue, just for Nicky. 

Booker eyes them, but doesn’t comment on it. Instead, he says, “You better think of a good excuse for when Andy comes,” he says in modern Italian. “Because I sure as hell won’t mind leaving your ass here.” 

*********

Joe is dozing, but Nicky cannot sleep. They’re curled together, the same way they’ve laid for centuries. Around them sounds the symphony of night, and the stars shine high above.

Nicky reaches his hand towards the sky, tracing a finger around the moon, as if the Americans would be able to feel his touch. “They're really up there,” he whispers. 

Joe hums in agreement, burrowing closer to Nicky. 

Nicky grins. Men on the moon. Who would have thought? 

“Do you think we’ll go there one day?” he asks. 

“I hope so,” Joe replies sleepily. “I need to find out if it’s made of cheese or not.” 

Nicky’s laughter wakes the birds from the trees. 

*********

“Shouldn’t we read the directions?” 

Booker waves him off. “I glanced at them,” he says, unconcerned. 

Nicky peers over Booker’s shoulder. The microwave, they call it. Booker says they’ve been around for a while but yet again, they seem to drag their feet when it comes to progress. “You’re too slow,” Booker chides them. “It’s a miracle you still don’t only travel by horse.” 

They would, if Andy had her way. But Booker loves new technology. He tells Nicky that he enjoys seeing humanity's newest accomplishments. Nicky just rolls his eyes. Booker just likes to see if he is still smarter. He buys new toys just to take them apart and put them together again. 

They’d bought the machine this morning. It’s massive, and takes up most of the countertop. Not small enough to go unnoticed by Andy. Booker opens the door and places food inside, then goes to fiddle with the buttons on the side of the microwave. 

Nicky is skeptical. Of the machine for one, but mainly of the shrink-wrapped monstrosity inside that Booker has informed him is a meal. 

A loud whirring startles him, and Nicky takes a few steps back. Booker chuckles, clapping him on the back. “It’s supposed to do this,” he promises. Nicky frowns at the noise. He can already hear Joe’s future complaints. 

They wait in silence. What they’re waiting for, Nicky isn’t quite sure. He’s seen advertisements on the television–it had been the latest one, coupled with Booker’s wide eyed stare that had led him to this moment right now. Hopeless, Joe’s voice chuckles in his head. 

A shrill beeping sounds through the kitchen and Nicky’s handgun is in his hand before he can blink, three rounds let loose immediately after, sent straight into the infernal machine. 

Neither of them move. The microwave sparks, and a small plume of smoke rises from the shattered glass and metal.

Booker turns to face him. And then he’s throwing his head back and laughing, his whole body shaking from the force of it. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he says between laughs, wiping at his eyes. 

Nicky shrugs. “I panicked,” he answers, still looking at the smoking machine. The meal inside is undoubtable ruined. He can’t find it in himself to care. “Do you think it still works?” he asks. 

The microwave sparks again and a small flame dances to life. 

Booker sighs in response. “Typical.” 

*********

“I smell smoke.” 

Nicky doesn’t look up from his book. “I don’t smell anything,” he answers, probably too quickly.  

He hears Joe muffled laughter. He’d been the one to catch Booker and Nicky shoving the ruined microwave into the closet upon his and Andy’s arrival back home. 

Booker had gotten the closet shut just in time, and is now leaning against it, picking at his nails with cool nonchalance. Nicky sits ramrod straight in an armchair, with a book he’d grabbed in panicked desperation, pretending to read. 

Andy sighs, too old and tired to bother. 

“Your book is upside down,” Joe snickers. 

*********

“Where were you?” he hisses, and he can taste acid dripping from his mouth. 

He had burst through the warehouse door like a devil, and had picked off the remaining stragglers. Andy, Joe and Booker are drenched in their own blood. He had seen it all, of course, tucked safely away in his little next. Had seen his family gunned down again and again in continuous crossfire. Had seen Joe die alone, when Booker had been supposed to be at his back. 

“I was exactly where I was supposed to be,” Booker snaps. He’s angry, but Nicky is furious and has no sympathy to peddle to Booker’s mood. “Cambodia, 1973,” Booker continues. “I draw left because Joe comes in from the right.” 

“I thought you went right because I went left,” Joe says. Nicky still can’t bear to look at him, at the suffering clearly stained on his skin. Nicky continues to glare at Booker. 

“How can’t you remember?” Booker shouts, throwing his hands in the air. 

What do you know, child? he wants to scream. 

Because it isn’t what he remembers, it’s what he’s already forgotten. 

He’s hundreds of years old. He’s seen Joe die in every way imaginable. But what’s worse, is that he doesn’t remember all of them. As if some of Joe’s deaths had been inconsequential. Meaningless, in the long run. Joe would tell him that they are, but Nicky knows better. Each one means something. Each one is another step closer to the final one. 

He can still hear them talking, but it’s all white noise around him. 

Nicky thinks of Lykon unwillingly. He’d only been a few hundred years old when he’d finally died. Why? Is it a tally? Or does God close his eyes and pick one of them randomly? When they finally get Bingo, is that when the lights turn off? 

Booker is careless. He flirts with Death, craves it even. But his addiction is branching to the others and Nicky won’t allow it. 

He looks at Booker, who is in turn glancing at the back wall, his gaze leagues away. He’s gone again, to wherever he goes. So young still, Nicky thinks. But too old to be playing games like he does. 

*********

Joe lets him have him that night. 

Lets him. Nicky wants to scoff at the thought. 

Joe had given himself over to Nicky centuries ago; as Nicky had to him. 

Still, he thinks tonight is a reminder. Not to Booker, but to Nicky. 

Nicky clings to him every second and tries not to think about the amount of Joe’s blood they’d left behind tonight. 

*********

Joe lets him stew in the morning. 

Lets him. Nicky’s nose crinkles and he tries to hide his smile. 

Nicky could scream to the whole world that he had been blind before Joe. 

Sometimes, though, he knows that Joe has blinded him as well. 

He doesn’t know what he should do. Apologize to Booker, likely. He stares down at his feet, but they don’t move. When Joe’s come into his field of view, Nicky looks up. 

“I love you,” he says quietly, his voice hoarse. The same way he had first said it to Yusuf all those years ago.         

Joe leans down and pecks him on the tip of his nose. “He knows,” he answers with a smile.

*********

“How can’t you remember?”

Joe is resting against Nicky’s chest, his fingers tracing lightly over his pale chest. Nicky wants to know what he sees, what picture he’s creating today. It’s late, late enough to be considered early, but neither of them have found sleep. Joe is restless and Nicky can’t get Booker’s words out of his head. 

“What are you thinking about?” Joe asks quietly. Nicky smiles. Joe hadn’t even been looking at him, but he’d still known he’d been lost in his head. 

“Do you like durian?” Nicky returns. 

Joe pauses, splaying his hand over Nicky’s chest. Over his heart. He does this sometimes, but Nicky doesn’t comment. After all, he often finds himself counting Joe’s breaths. 

Joe turns to lay on his back, but he takes one of Nicky’s hands with him. As if he refuses to lose the tether between them. Nicky doesn’t mind. Joe stares at the ceiling, brow furrowing. “Durian,” he ponders. “I think so? Or maybe not, because of the smell.” He pillows his head with his free hand, glancing over at Nicky. “Do I like durian?” 

Nicky chuckles. “I don’t know,” he says. “We can head south next week. Figure it out.” 

Joe smiles, his eyes fluttering shut. “I’d like that.” 

He doesn't choose what he gets to remember. It’s a terrifying notion to think of sometimes, living each day only to forget them somewhere down the road. Only the darker ones always seem to linger, thick brambles caught in the recesses of his mind. 

But Nicky has come to terms with it. If anything, it’s not always bad. He’ll just do them all over again. Joe could remind him of lost poetry late at night; Nicky could find ways to relearn his body. They could see familiar coasts for the first time, could laugh at the same jokes, live the same day without the bondage of monotony. 

Nicky could wake each morning and get to love the man next to him like it's the first time. And that’s enough for him. 

*********

“You’re serious,” Nicky says, gaping at Booker. 

“Yes,” Booker chuckles. “It is a real saying.” 

Rire dans sa barbe. French. 

It means to laugh into your beard quietly while thinking about the past. 

Nicky stares at Joe. His head is tilted towards the sky, and the lamp behind him haloes his dark hair as he laughs at Andy. 

The French had made it just for Joe, Nicky decides. There is nothing quite like Joe when he laughs. He thinks Booker agrees as he stares at his friend fondly. 

“Booker,” Joe says, calling him over. “Let me tell you about the first time that Nicky saw a camel.” 

*********

“Why is it making that noise?” Nicky asks. 

“Don’t shoot it,” Booker replies. “It’s supposed to do that.” 

“Why would he shoot it?” Andy interjects. 

“Don’t ask,” Nicky and Booker reply at the same time. 

They’re crowded around Booker, watching him boot up the computer. 

“What do you do with it?” Joe asks. They’d seen these machines used in the war, but what use could they have now? 

Booker shrugs. “A lot of things,” he replies. “You could play games. The internet, of course, which…,” he trails off, brow furrowing. “Which may be a conversation for a later day. Oh, and you can send messages to people.” 

“Messages?” Nicky asks. 

“Emails,” Booker nods. “Electronic letters. Like instant telegrams.” 

“Letters?” 

“Here,” Booker says, and hits a few buttons. The computer screen turns white, and then after a few more taps of the keyboard, a message appears. 

Hello, Nicky, it says. 

Nicky laughs. “Joe,” he says, slapping at his bicep. “Go stand over there, I’m going to send you an email.” 

Booker sighs. “No, Nicky, that’s not how it–”

*********

Joe tosses a newspaper on top of the book he’s reading. 

FABRIANO PAPER TO SUPPLY ALL EURO DENOMINATIONS

Nicky hums, picking up his tea. “Spite is a powerful motivator,” he says, taking a sip. 

“Frederick must be rolling in his grave,” Joe chuckles, his eyes sparkling with mirth. 

“Tragic,” Nicky answers blandly and Joe’s laughter carries throughout the entire house. 

*********

“We’ve been set up,” Andy says. 

Nicky looks at Joe and his blood stained face. The dead are littered at their feet, doing the one thing they can’t seem to manage. Joe meets his eyes and smiles, almost sadly, despite the rage that’s clouding his eyes. I’ve seen you here before, the smile seems to say. 

It has. They always manage to find their way back here. 

Another day, another war. 

The same game, a different board. This time, they’re in South Sudan. 

As they head back out into the desert, Nicky prays that the kidnapped girls had never been real.

*********

She’s scared, he thinks as he gasps awake, yanking himself out of Joe’s arms. 

The train rattles on the tracks beneath them. The universe laughs. “Did you not come out here in search of girls?” it mocks him. “Do not worry, I’ve sent this one just for you.” 

She’s just a child. Nicky’s stomach roils. 

“She’s scared,” Nicky relays to Booker. You were scared too, he doesn’t say, but he thinks Booker hears it anyway. 

*********

He frowns at the dilapidated kitchen. It matches the rest of the parsonage and it irks him. Maybe if I had more time too–

A snort pulls him from his thoughts. He turns, looking at Booker, who’s hunched in front of his laptop at the kitchen table. His shattered glass eyes flick to Nicky and his lips curl into a smile, and he shakes his head before returning his gaze to the screen. 

“What?” Nicky asks, brow furrowing. 

“You’re nesting,” Booker says simply. 

“I am not–,” he starts, but can’t bring himself to finish. There’s no point in arguing with Booker. He’s right; he’s always right. 

Nicky has been flitting through the Charlie Base for the past few hours with a deep rooted unease and indecisiveness. He hates it when he gets like this. He’s always been known for quick and derisive actions–both an admirable trait and a shortcoming, depending on which decade he consults–and today it drives him mad. 

Booker has been watching him the whole time, letting Nicky walk circles around the building in a fit of nerves, occasionally offering a gentle suggestion to get him back on track. He doesn’t butt in to help, but Nicky is grateful for it. Booker knows he needs something to do with his hands. He doesn’t do well to do nothing. 

Joe doesn’t either, which is why Booker had sent him off for food and basic supplies. He had been just as jittery at Nicky at the thought of their new sister. He and Nicky had bickered almost the entire drive to the airport on what food to purchase. It’s because of this that Booker hadn’t let Nicky go to the store with Joe. Joe handling it alone would take enough time. If Nicky had gone with him, neither of them would return until foolishness had won out and they’d purchased an entire fleet of food trucks. 

Booker’s tone had been light and jesting as he’d told Nicky as much and why he had to stay behind. Nicky lets him do so, glad Booker’s previously dampened mood has lifted slightly. He doesn’t comment on why the need for this first meal has to go well. 

Nicky still remembers the first meal they’d shared with Booker. He had gone out and trekked through the frozen wasteland of Russia almost all night, not content until he’d found a fresh kill. In the end, his lips had been more bitten by nerves than frost as he’d presented those two small foxes to be skinned and cooked. 

At the time, Booker, then Sébastien–well, actually nothing, as he had refused to tell Nicky and the others his name–hadn’t said anything, and Nicky’s heart had fluttered with inadequacy. Joe, of course, had boasted praise enough for the two of them, but for once, Nicky hadn’t wanted it. 

“First meals are important.” Nicky repeats his earlier argument to Booker. “First impressions are important.” 

He glances around the church again, frowning. “We should have taken her to Madrid,” he gripes. 

*********

He trips over a pile of books in his hurried cleaning and Booker laughs. A word pops in Nicky’s head. Tsundoku. Japanese. A word for leaving books unread after buying, discarded in a pile of other unread books. 

After Booker had joined them, the group's hoarding of books and knowledge had skyrocketed. Nicky had lost count of the amount of days he and Booker had wasted in a bookshop. Joe and Andy continue to gripe, albeit fondly. 

“Nicolò,” Joe had told him once. “Maybe just once I could get to bed without the threat of a broken neck, hmm?” 

Nicky hastily straightens the pile of books, pushing them closer to the wall. He looks at Booker, eyes gleaming. “Do you think she is a reader?” he asks excitedly. 

Booker stares at him and then smiles, almost sadly. “We will make sure she is,” he says quietly. 

*********

The meal is ruined. He thinks it has been since he’d first set the table. 

For most of dinner’s duration, the table is quiet, giving Nicky ample time to study their new companion. 

She’s young, but then again, everyone is young to him. 

If she had been scared in his dream, she is terrified now. She hides it well, her unease only given away by the jerky movements of her wide eyes. 

Nile. It’s a strong name. He smiles as soon as she introduces herself and wants to say yes, yes that is the right name for you. When she shakes his hand in that firm and steady grip, Nicky wants to tell her that he thinks that maybe the river is the one named after her, not the other way around. When she sits at the table and tilts her chin up as if begging for the others to fight her, it’s Nicky who wants to beg, to plead with her that she should never change her name. 

Time takes many things, their identities being another small consultation, But in this moment, Nicky will always remember her as Nile. 

The word sears into his brain and Nicky places it on a place of high honor. 

The joke is on you, he wants to tell the universe. She is perfect. 

*********

For the millionth time, Nicky wishes he held a sliver of Joe’s talents. 

His head is still foggy from the gas, his ears are ringing and the binds bite into his skin. All of which is inconsequential when he looks at Joe. 

Love pours from his lips like a river, and Nicky wants to drown in it. Joe never does anything without his entire soul. His words are honey and fire; the sweetest agony. 

Nicky wishes he could tell him. He wants to tell Joe how he’s blinded by even his shadow. He wants to tell him that whatever mistake the world has made with Nicky is paid for with just a hint of Joe’s smile. He wants to tell Joe that the world is cruel but time is crueler, mocking Nicky with its frivolous abundance, because it isn’t enough, it will never be enough.   

Who is he, to get to stare directly into the sun? 

He’s just a man with a sword in one hand and blood in the other, waiting to follow in footsteps he’s too scared to make himself. 

*********

He does not mind being a blade when one of the guards decides to lay a hand on Joe again. 

He does not mind when there are six men lying dead around him. His knuckles are bloodied and his heart skips in fear, but Joe smiles at him and for a moment, everything is alright. 

He does not mind when Copley and the others stare at him as they lead them onto the plane. 

Let them look and think as they please. 

They will not be able to do either for much longer. 

*********

He feels something regrowing under his skin. Nicky doesn’t acknowledge it, laughing at Joe instead. 

He’s just out of reach, but Nicky will take what he can get. He canvases over Joe’s body, categorizing the remnants of every wound. He will not forget. 

Joe’s looking up at the ceiling, his gaze far from Nicky. Whatever he’s thinking, Nicky wants to banish it from his head. 

“Do you know, I was thinking about Malta?” 

He feels Joe’s eyes on him. “What time in Malta?” 

Nicky shifts, glancing at Joe. 

“Oh, that time in Malta.” Joe grins at Nicky before turning away, chuckling. Nicky can’t look away from his smile. 

He wonders what memory Joe is thinking of. They’d been to Malta many times, all of them lovely. Nicky will always be partial to that afternoon in the cove, but he knows that Joe has sketched the bedroom view from that one rented villa plenty of times over the years. 

He supposes that’s why he’d chosen Malta in the first place. So many overlaps in history, but one of the few places that hasn’t been tarnished by time. Good stories to have in a time like this. 

“We should go back there,” he whispers, hearing heels hit against the linoleum floors. The doctor is coming back. 

“That would be nice,” Joe answers. 

*********

They leave Sébastien on the beach. 

He does not know what became of Booker. 

Nicky wonders if Booker had ever been real. 

*********

Joe doesn’t say anything when he says he wants to go to France after they leave Sébastien in England. He says nothing when they rent a room in the outskirts of Paris. He says nothing when Nicky slips away at night, with no words of his own. 

He goes to see Amelia. 

The cemetery is closed for the night but it somehow makes it all the more fitting as he slips over the fence and stalks through rows and rows of people that had done what he could not yet do. 

He knows exactly where she’s buried. He’s watched the headstone at a distance for centuries, but had never yet traveled inside before tonight. He had done so out of respect for Amelia. 

Now, he thinks otherwise. If Sébastien could not keep his own promises, then why the hell does he have to be anchored to his own? 

Nicky looks at the grave and wants to scream. 

He is only stopped, however, by the thought of how many things that Amelia would want to scream at him. 

He falls to his knees and sobs. 

And all the while, he thinks he hears Amelia whisper to him, mocking him: ya’burnee, ya’burnee, ya’burnee. 

*********

Joe finds him in the morning. Knowing him, he’s known where Nicky has been the whole time, but has given him the space he needs. 

Joe tilts his head towards the grave. “Amelia,” he says in greeting. 

Nicky brushes some of the loose grass blades from the grave. “What do we do?” he asks, pleads, with Joe. He looks up, searching for answers. 

Joe is staring at Amelia, face unreadable. “Do you remember when Tumas died?” he asks. His gaze is leagues away, and Nicky wants to chase it. 

“Yes,” he answers hoarsely. 

“You made me promise we would not leave again.” 

Nicky’s face shutters at the memory. “I did.” 

Joe turns finally, giving him a soft look. “Now, I ask you,” he says. “Do not ask me to leave again.” 

Nicky sighs, slowly getting to his feet. “Joe–”

“Nile needs us right now.” 

“And Sébastien needed us, and we ended up here anyway,” Nicky replies. 

“No we needed him,” Joe hisses. “We needed him and he–,” Joe breaks off and glances down at the ground again, as if he is afraid that Amelia will hear. He can see the agony in Joe’s eyes and Nicky wants to steal it, wants to lock it in a box to be forgotten. “Why?” Joe whispers, and Nicky knows the question is not for him. “Why?” Joe asks again. “I don’t understand.” 

Nicky wraps an arm around Joe, holding him close but doesn’t answer. Instead he thinks of an argument he’d had with Joe about Booker once. 

They had both been right in the end. Nicky isn’t Giano and he hadn’t been enough. 

*********

Aware. Japanese. The bittersweet feeling of a fading moment of beauty. 

Nicky banishes the word to his forbidden door immediately. 

Andromache is dying. 

They’ve been so focused on Sébastien and Nile that she’s almost been an afterthought. 

Nicky thinks that Andy is counting on that fact. As if she’s hoping that everyone will forget. 

Nicky corners her one night to ensure that she knows she won’t be that lucky. “Here,” he says, shoving a pill bottle into her hand. 

She raises an eyebrow, managing to look disappointed. 

“They’re vitamins,” he continues. “They're good for you.” 

She doesn’t spare the bottle a glance before placing it on the counter. 

“What?” he snaps. “Do you want the gummies instead?” 

“Nicky,” she chastises, like he’s a child. 

“I don’t….” He trails off. There’s no point in continuing. I don’t know what to do, he wants to say. I don’t either, Andy would say back. 

“Take them,” he says, gesturing to the vitamins again. “Please.” 

Andy smiles, softly. “I’m not going anywhere just yet.” 

Yet. But that yet will not last as long as he wants it to. She can’t leave them, not with Nile. Not with Booker in the wind. They’re floundering, adrift, and only her wingspan is large enough to corral and shelter them all. 

“We’re not ready,” Nicky confesses. 

It makes Andy snort. “With that kind of attitude, you’ll never be ready.” 

Nicky stares at her. “Is that really so bad?” 

Andy walks past him, vitamins ignored, brushing a hand down his arm as she passes. “You are many things, Nicky, but a coward is not one of them.” 

She’s wrong, of course. Nicky’s always been a coward, never able to face things for what they are. Only what he wants them to be. 

His brother had coddled him, his father had hated him. Andy pities him, Sébastien envies him, Nile doesn’t understand him, and Joe–

Nicky swallows. “I don’t like this story,” he tells an empty room. 

Not a bad ending, God seems to laugh at him. 

*********

He’s surprised at how few reminders of Sébastien there are in the houses they stay at. He had never been a material man, even after he’d left poverty behind for the last time. 

But what does remain seems to be saturated with him. Nicky trails his hands over a line of books, unable to pick any of them up. There is tech littered in nooks and crannies, left behind and forgotten by new advancements. Scattered cups placed in front of wine that only Sébastien drank, clothes tucked into dressers. 

As if Sébastien had planned on returning with them one day. 

Nicky wanders sleeplessly through the halls like a ghost, wondering when Sébastien had made the decision that he wouldn’t.

*********

Nicky is proud. He always has been. 

It’s pride that gets him and Giano into far too many scraps; it’s pride that lands him on a ship to Jaffa and then onto Jerusalem. 

It’s pride that keeps him from crawling back to Giano again. 

It’s pride that bubbles in his chest every time he looks at Yusuf. He is mine and I am his. 

It’s pride that gets him an arrow sticking out of his neck, courtesy of Quynh. 

It’s pride that makes Andy call him sangdu nutuku. 

It’s pride that tricks him into thinking that he could look out for Nile. 

*********

It’s pride that eventually keeps the blame on Sébastien. 

*********

Some things, he wishes he remembers, no matter how painful they may be. 

He doesn’t remember meeting Joe. 

Not completely, at least. 

He falsely preaches peace and patience and justice behind a mask of painted hypocrisy. 

He remembers Jerusalem. The heat, the fire, the screams. He remembers knowing that he’d died, so so many times. He remembers the pain, the anger, the stench of fear and blood in the air. 

But that’s it. 

There’s nothing else. He doesn’t remember that first moment, if he had turned and had seen Joe across the battlefield. If he’d met his gaze when they’d clashed blades. 

Joe knows that he doesn’t know. Nicky had confessed it to his lover just last century, face red with shame and embarrassment. But Joe had gathered him in his arms and had pressed him tightly against his chest. He’d whispered a beautifully crafted story about their first meeting and he’d cried into Nicky’s shoulder and Nicky had cried too, because it was just a story. 

Nicky had cried because Joe doesn’t remember either. 

*********

Fernweh. In German, it means to feel homesick for a place you’ve never been. 

When Nicky thinks of the word, he thinks of Atlantis. He thinks of Giano. 

It helps him remember the times he’d spent chasing after his older brother, wet sand kicking up around his legs as they’d run. How they’d stuff rocks in their pockets because Giano said that’s what the sea people used as currency. How they’d whisper secrets into shells and throw them into the bay to entertain the fishes. 

It’s a good word. It helps him think of simpler times. 

*********

Nile and Andy are chattering in the kitchen, heads bent over an opened laptop on the table. Nicky smiles as he listens to their bickering, a white noise that has become quite comforting to him. 

“–would want a snack like that.”

His ears perk up. “You want something to eat, Nile?” 

She glances up at him. “What?” she asks. 

“You said you wanted a snack?” He’s jittery today. Cooking will calm him down; he’ll make something that requires a lot of chopping. 

“Oh,” Nile says, eyes darting down to the computer. “No, no thank you. Nothing for me.”

“So…you are not hungry.” His hand hovers over the utensil drawer, as if he is expecting Nile to change her mind. 

“No, Nicky, I’m not talking about food. It’s a different kind of snack.” 

He frowns. “There’s a different kind of snack?” 

Andy sighs from where she’s seated next to Nile. “English is evolving again, apparently,” she says, rolling her eyes. “I’ll go get the whiskey.” 

Nicky hums in agreement, but his mind is already drifting, wondering where he’s stored his shurikens. 

It’s a deal they have, Nile with the rest of them. Whenever they teach her something new, she does so in return, and vice versa. It had been Nile’s idea, after she’d found out–with much dismay–that Joe had never bothered to learn how to ride a bike. 

“Infernal machines,” he had hissed to Nicky a lifetime ago. “What the hell is wrong with walking?” 

Nicky can’t remember the last time he had laughed as much as he had when Nile had forced her teaching upon him, Joe shakily riding up and down the private drive of their safe house. 

Nicky had taught Nile how to count cards after that experience in payment, if only to see Andy’s disbelief at losing poker to a child. 

Typically, a new word taught is met with new words learned in return–a tip of the hat to a much younger Nicky and Joe trying to learn to talk to each other–but Nicky can see the bags that are packed until Nile’s eyes. She’s been running herself ragged, trying to keep up with them, soaking everything up like a sponge. 

Nile is tired and Nicky is, well, quite frankly, bored. Teaching her how to throw a shuriken seems like a fitting solution. 

“What is a snack?” he asks. 

“Well, it’s,” Nile huffs, as if she knows it will be a long conversation. “It’s a word to describe someone.” 

“You describe someone as food?”

“Not really?” Nile says. “But kinda?” 

Nicky sighs and wonders how everyone else has not already given up on English. 

“Okay,” Nile continues. “When food is a snack, you can describe the food as delicious, right?” 

Nicky nods. 

“Well, you can do the same thing with a person. If you call them a snack, you think they’re delicious.” 

“To eat them?” 

“Metaphorically!” Nile shouts, and Nicky hears Andy snicker. “It’s just saying you think the person is…I don’t know, yummy?” She sighs again, rubbing at her temple. “It’s someone who’s attractive, basically.”

“Oh.” 

Nicky’s gaze is pulled to Joe, who is sitting in the living room, curled on the couch with a book, unaware of the conversation around him. Nicky furrows his brow, pointing to Joe. “Snack?” he asks tentatively, looking back towards Nile. “Joe is a snack?” 

Nile looks at him, eyes wide and mouth agape before throwing her head back and laughing. It’s wild and loud and dangerously infectious. Nicky finds himself grinning in turn even though he’s still just as lost to the whole conversation. He hears a book close, and Nicky notices that Nile’s joy has even captured the attention of his heart. 

She’s beautiful when she laughs. Nile is always radiant, but Nicky thinks that this is when she is at her best. Her grin is sparkling and her eyes crinkle in delight. She looks young and carefree; exactly how she’s supposed to be. 

It's been so long since he’s heard something like that here. The weight of the past months seem to disappear and Nicky wants to grab onto each passing second, forcing them to stay. 

He glances at Joe again, and sees the same look of awe no doubt copied on his own face. Nicky knows that Joe will be up all night, sketching this memory countlessly until he gets it right. 

“Yes,” Nile laughs, wiping at the corners of her eyes. “Joe is a snack.” 

“Did you hear that, Joe?” Nicky says. “You are a snack.” 

“A title I shall hold in the highest of regards,” Joe answers with a wink, which sets Nile off in another fit of giggles. 

Snack, Nicky thinks, mentally adding it to his list of favorites. He looks at Nile again, who’s attention has refocused on the computer but is still wearing a small smile. Snack. Maybe English isn’t such a lost cause, after all. 

*********

He is content all day, watching Nile smile. 

He lays awake in bed all night when he is reminded that he hadn’t thought of Sébastien the entire time. 

*********

L’appel du vide. 

The call of the void. 

It’s fitting that it’s French. 

Nicky thinks of this saying, fastened tightly in his head. It reminds him of Sébastien, about his betrayal. But more so–and why he keeps it locked up where no one could see–it is because it makes him wonder. 

He’s done it again. Nicked his palm. 

He’s in the bathroom, watching the blood run down the inside of the porcelain sink. Joe is still sleeping. Nile is pretending to be. Booker is gone and Andy is dying. 

And Nicky stands alone in the bathroom with a stained knife and a scarless hand. 

He thinks about what he’ll do when the cut doesn’t heal. He thinks that maybe despite his prayers for eternity, he secretly yearns for the day that the blood will keep flowing. 

“We go together,” Joe keeps telling him, but Nicky does not care for that story. 

He does not care how it will happen. He does not care for who makes the decision or when. 

All Nicky cares about is that he will do everything in his power to ensure that when the void does come, it will come for him first. 

*********

He still hasn’t returned to Genoa. It's a forbidden topic. 

*********

“Come,” he says, holding out a hand. Nile eyes him warily before accepting and it makes Nicky smile. The last time Andy had told Nile to follow her, she’d ended up in the backcountry learning to skin squirrels. 

They meander through Melbourne in comfortable silence. It’s still early yet, but the city is already buzzing with life. 

Joe had whisked them here just last week, when Nile had confessed that she’d never been. 

“What are we doing?” Nile finally asks, looking around. 

Nicky just smiles. “This way,” he says, leading her into the closest building. 

One might think that this library isn’t anything special, considering the others he’d had the luxury of walking through. But Nicky takes in a deep breath, relishing in the familiar smell of books and the lulling silence.  

He turns to Nile and smiles. “Pick a direction,” he says. 

“What?” Nile asks. 

“I want to learn something new today,” Nicky says with a shrug. 

“Okay.” Nile eyes him warily. “And?” 

“And,” Nicky repeats with exaggeration. “I need you to find something for me. Now go.” He shoos Nile with the back of his hand, smiling as she complies, albeit with begrudging hesitation. 

Nicky chuckles to himself, clasping his hands behind his back as he looks around the library. There are a few other people milling about, poking through the cramped rows of books. A young girl scuttles by with a pile that reaches past her chin. She wobbles and her thick braid swings with each step, but her face is set in a grim line of determination as she makes her way over to the empty tables to his right. It makes Nicky smile, his heart clenching as he watches her pass. 

Before he can lose himself further down that train of thought, Nile comes back, a single book in hand. She chucks the paperback at him and he catches it gracefully. 

Nicky blinks down at the title. Why Your Parents Are Driving You Up the Wall and What To Do About It. 

Nile gives him a scathing look as she passes and Nicky has to bite his tongue to keep from laughing. She’s waiting for a retort, for a white flag, but Nicky can be just as petty if he wants.

He walks over to one of the abandoned study tables and opens the book, not sparing a second glance at Nile. He hears her sigh in frustration, but Nicky doesn’t look up until she walks away, smiling when he catches her running her hand along book spines as she passes. 

*********

He finds her in the children's section. She’s staring at a series of slim books. She doesn’t reach out and touch, but he knows she wants to by the way her fists are balled tightly against her side. 

“Learn anything interesting?” Nile drawls. 

“Apparently there is no scientific evidence that prolonged screen time is bad for kids,” Nicky says. He nudges Nile gently. “But I still think you should go outside more.” 

She cracks a small smile at his nagging. “My mom used to get these for me and my brother,” she says, nodding to the books in front of them. “She used to read one to us every night.” She swallows tightly but doesn’t offer any other hint of weakness. She never would. That’s not Nile. 

He suddenly wishes Joe was here. He’d known she’d been feeling adrift lately–she’s been quiet and brooding and lifeless, hence why Nicky had brought her to the library, to his refuge. But again, he feels as if he’s only helping to dig the hole deeper. 

“Can I tell you a secret?” Nicky asks, leaning close. When Nile nods, he continues. “I hate oysters.” 

Nile’s brow furrows, her nose scrunching. “What?” she asks, blinking at the change in subject. “We had them for dinner last week. In fact, you were the one to come home with them.” 

“Yes, I was,” Nicky smiles. 

“Then why?” Nile eyes him suspiciously. “If this is a sex thing–”

Nicky chuckles, nudging her with his shoulder. “It’s not, I promise,” he says, amused. He swallows then, smile slipping from his face. “I like to eat them because they remind me of my brother.” 

Nile frowns. Nicky’s never told her about Giano before now. 

“He would collect the shells and string them together. Drape them over his shoulders and pretend they were chainmail,” Nicky smiles. He remembers puffed cheeks and scrunched noses, how he’d forced himself to swallow. He’d never considered just scraping the meat out. Giano had eaten them, so he had as well. 

“I tried so hard to like them,” Nicky continues. “Still trying apparently.” 

Nile groans then, pinching her nose. “Our taste buds don’t change, do they?” 

Nicky chuckles. “Unfortunately not.” 

“Figures,” Nile says with a defeated sigh. Her eyes return to the line of books. 

“The world is cruel,” Nicky says. “I will not tell you otherwise.” 

“You know for a doctor, your bedside manner sucks.” 

Nicky doesn’t answer. He waits in silence, letting Nile take all the time she needs. “They’re going to die,” she continues quietly. 

“Yes,” he answers. 

“They’re going to die and I am not.” 

“Yes.” 

She looks at him, unshed tears brimming in her eyes. “What am I going to do?” 

Nicky sees a much younger version of himself instead. Is there nothing else? 

He thinks for a moment, wondering what he would tell his younger self. Truth be told, he still hasn’t found an answer. He wonders if Nile already knows this, but asks anyway. “It is easy to think that we are frozen,” Nicky says. “That everything else moves on around us, uncaring and unnoticing.”

He smiles sadly. “We are, in a sense. The world will not wait for us,” he continues. “But that does not mean that we have to let it leave us behind.” 

Nicky wraps an arm around Nile, turning her back towards the open library. “Do you know why I come here?” he asks. “It is because there will always be something else that I don’t know. There is always something else to be done, to experience.

“It helps me,” he continues. “I find myself stuck in the mud plenty of times, myself. It is important to remind myself that there will always be more.” He tugs Nile closer to him. “The world may be cruel, but it is filled with beauty as well. It brims with life and it’s there for you to have, but you must take that first step.” 

“I just…,” Nile sighs. “I don’t know which way to go.” 

“That’s alright,” Nicky says. “You don’t need to know. Mistakes will be made. But how else will you learn? Just remember that you are not alone.” 

“Andy is dying too,” Nile whispers. “One day you and Joe will be gone too.” 

She doesn’t mention Sébastien. He thinks it’s for his benefit.

“That’s true,” Nicky says. “We will be by your side until then. But once we do leave, you will not be alone. Something tells me it will be you dragging a few new recruits behind you, instructing them on Martian trade routes.” 

“Mars, huh?” 

Nicky nudges her. “Could you imagine?” he asks. “Something to look forward to, is it not?” 

Nile smiles at him. Her first real smile in weeks. 

“Do not be so hard on yourself,” Nicky says softly. “You are allowed to feel pain. You are allowed to struggle. But never lose faith in yourself. You are stronger than you realize.” 

“Is this your weird way of telling me I should be more like you?” 

“Quite the opposite,” Nicky chuckles. “You should be like anyone but me. I still force myself to stomach oysters for a man that’s been dead for a very long time.” 

Nile snorts, shaking her head, but Nicky grabs her hand, squeezing gently. “Nile,” he whispers. “You are beautiful, fierce, and loyal. You are kind and funny, and make old men like me feel young again.” He smiles at her and wishes he could tell her how much more he feels. “I weep for the pain and grief you’ve already seen in your life, but I smile at the promise of all you have in front of you.” He tucks her in close against his chest. “You will do wondrous things, Nile. Only because you are you, and no one else. And I am glad that I am blessed enough to see it.” 

*********

They’re barely out the door before Nile turns around and hugs him. “I’m sorry,” she whispers into his chest. “I know how hard it is to miss your brother.” 

Nicky swallows. He knows she isn’t talking about Giano.

*********

Joe still only buys Fabriano paper. 

It still makes him smile every time. 

*********

Nile gasps awake, but Nicky keeps his distance. He’s learned not to get too close. 

He slips from Joe’s arms and heads to the kitchen to brew some tea. There’s a nice blend that Joe’s brought home that–

“She’s out.” Nile sucks in deep breaths, as if she’s run a marathon. 

“What?” Joe asks, and although turned away, Nicky can picture him blinking the sleep from his eyes. 

“She’s out,” Nile says again. “She’s not in the ocean. She’s on land.” 

The mug slips from Nicky’s grasp and shatters at his feet. 

*********

She’s in there, just inside. It’s the closest they’ve been in centuries. Quynh is there, on the other side of the door. On the other side of Sébastien. 

It had only taken them a few days to track their location. Despite Nile’s excitement, Nicky hadn’t found it promising. Which is why it had taken them months to finally make the journey. 

“What do we do?” Nicky had asked Andy one night, and maybe that’s all his life has ever been, just letting others decide what he should do with it. 

Joe had been the one to suggest the Nile go in alone. Nicky had wanted to argue, he still does, even knowing that Joe is right. 

They may have tried for years, but it had been Quynh that had saved herself. Now, it’s her choice as to whether or not they should get the opportunity to reap the benefits. 

The door opens and Nile is gestured inside. Nicky can’t see much behind the wall that is Sébastien, but he catches a flash of dark hair and a soft noise escapes his lips. But it’s gone as soon as it comes, and the door shuts again. 

Nicky sucks in a long breath, running a hand through his hair. He’d gotten it cut, just for today. The same way he’d done when he’d waited for Quynh the first time. Nicky hunkers down on the room, settling in. They’ve been here before, after all. Prowling. Waiting. 

*********

She kills Joe. 

Nicky doesn’t even have time to think about what he’ll say to her, when Nile ushers them inside. One second he sees her, stricken by how beautiful she is–had her face slipped that much from his memory?–and the next, Joe is on the floor, bleeding out. 

Nicky moves on autopilot. He stands between Joe and takes the next blow. Cold steel licks fire into his skin as she cuts him. 

Back and forth she goes. Joe, then Nicky, then back to Joe. Nicky barely hears Joe gasp to life by the time he’s dead again.

He should do something. Move, fight, run, anything. But he doesn’t. He spreads himself further over Joe and listens to Quynh’s yells of anger, knowing that they’re finally real. 

He awaits the next death, but it never comes. Nicky looks up, blinking away the blood from his eyes, and sees Sébastien standing between them, knife caught in his chest. He stumbles away, knife and all, out of Quynh’s grip. A nice gesture, but pointless. Quynh using the knife to kill them had been her idea of appeasement.

Nicky forces himself to look at her. She looks the same, but nothing like he remembers. He wants to crawl to her, wants to lay himself down at her feet. “Quynh,” he whispers, voice trembling. 

She stares at him, eyes dark and fathomless, and there’s something ugly that separates them, as thick and cloying as the guilt and rage that threatens to suffocate as well. She’ll start again, he thinks, and this time, she won’t be as forgiving. 

Nicky doesn't care. He won't leave, not until she makes him. He feels Joe’s hand at his back. He’s not leaving either. Nicky stares at her, unblinking, waiting. 

Quynh lets out a loud sob, body swaying before she crumples to the floor. Nicky scrambles to catch her as she falls–not quick enough, he’s still not quick enough–Joe tumbling with him. 

When he finally brushes against her, feels her in his arms, he cries. 

*********

He looks at Sébastien while they wait outside the house; while they wait to see if Quynh kills Andy. 

Sébastien does not look any different from when they had left him on the beach. He’s wearing the same dark clothes he always does. His beard is unkept and his dishwater blonde hair is slicked back. 

Nicky thinks that it’s because he looks the same that it stings the most. 

A cruel reminder that Sébastien has not only begun to suffer. He’s been suffering this whole time and no one noticed. 

*********

Ya’aburnee. 

He thinks he hates it. 

*********

He calls him Sébastien. 

An ugly part of him preens as he does so. “Pass the salt, please, Sébastien?” An even darker part of him relishes in the swift change in pallor of Sébastien’s skin. As if the color had been washed away by the strong tide of his words. 

The hateful feeling lingers, but worse, it festers. Because dinner is barely over before Nicky realizes the hate he feels is not for Sébastien but for himself. 

Sébastien does not leave his room for a week. He doesn’t wait until Nicky sleeps to leave. Nicky only knows this because he doesn’t sleep, watching Sébastien’s closed door instead. No, Sébastien doesn’t leave at all. 

It’s clear that Nicky’s words have affected him. 

And that’s what makes it harder, that Sébastien had been hurt. That the name Booker had meant something to him. That the memory that had created Booker had meant something. 

And Sébastien had betrayed them anyway. 

*********

“Keep up,” Nile says. 

Nicky chuckles, trailing after her idly. They’re at a bookstore today on a university campus. Nile still goes with him sometimes to get books–although he thinks that she only does so to appease him–but today had been her idea. She’d been the one that had woken him from sleep this morning, slapping Joe away to release him, jacket in one hand, pastry in the other. 

She leads him down the long aisle, through the wandering students. It’s crowded despite the earlier hour. The semester must be starting soon, and Nicky smiles, thinking that maybe Nile has taken him up on his suggestion to go back to school. 

She pauses at the end of the row and looks at him expectantly. Nicky snorts, holding his arms out like a shelf, Nile immediately piling books onto them. 

Nicky glances down at the titles, grinning wider. “Not interested in the medical field, eh?” he jokes. For the past few months, Nicky has tried to get Nile to consider since they’d completed their first aid course. He, Joe, and Nile had taken one together on a whim, for Andy’s sake. Nile is bright and has a kind temperament and has been gifted time she hasn’t had before when she’d first signed on for the Marines. 

“What?” Nile asks, pausing. She glances down on the books on neuroscience. “Oh, God no, these are for Booker.” 

Nicky clenches his jaw. What does he need of those books? “He has two doctorates in this field already,” Nicky comments. 

“Well, you know,” Nile shrugs. “Maybe there’s been some development in the past couple of years. If anything, maybe it’ll help him understand his condition more.” 

“Condition?” Nicky asks, frowning. “What are you talking about?” 

Nile furrows her brow. “You know, his thing?” she asks, pointing to her temple. “I can’t remember the name for it. Booker would,” she added with a snort. She tilts her head, grimacing. “Get it? Because he can’t forget anything?” 

Nicky stares at her. “What?”

Nile blinks. “Wait, you don’t know?” 

*********

Nile’s words haunt him in the coming days. He watches Joe fall asleep beside him, and then watches him blink awake the next morning. 

“It’s been a few decades,” Joe finally says to him, before his eyes even open, knowing that Nicky hadn’t slept. 

Nicky hums in question, his hand reaching out without a second thought, tracing over the soft skin of Joe’s wrist. 

He feels the bed shift as Joe sits up, feels the heat of Joe plaster closer against his back. “It’s been a few decades,” Joe says again, dropping a kiss to Nicky’s shoulder, “since I’ve seen you this perplexed. What puzzle weighs heavy on your mind this time, my light?” 

Nicky’s lips twitch. “What did you dream of?” he asks quietly. “When we first dreamed of him?” 

Him. That’s all he is now. Not Booker. Not even Sébastien. Nicky’s stomach churns at the thought of calling him either. 

He can almost hear the answering questions rattling around in Joe’s brain. Instead, he answers, “Snow. The ice and cold.” He noses at the base of Nicky’s neck, as if he’s chasing away a phantom chill. “And the taste of crow. That one in particular, was less than pleasant.” 

Nicky doesn’t answer. He had dreamed of those things as well. 

“Nicky?” 

“Did you dream of anything else?” he demands instead. 

Nicky thinks of how he’d felt like he’d been drowning, how he’d been pulled in every direction, engulfed by the monsters in his head. 

How Nicky had seen not only Russia, but years and years of memories as well, screaming at him behind their cages. 

A moment of silence. And then, Joe says, “Why do you ask?” 

Nicky swallows. It’s answer enough. 

*********

He wonders a lot. About what might have happened if he hadn’t had Joe. 

If he’d gone left instead of right. If he’d stayed with Giano instead of going to war. If he’d left when Joe had first left him on that dock. 

He doesn't like thinking about it. 

After all, what is the night without the day? 

He knows what type of man he would be without Joe. And it scares him. 

*********

Quynh keeps her distance from them. When Nicky does see her, she’s plastered against his side. 

Nicky feels jealousy roil inside him again, similar to how he’d been centuries ago, watching a full family from a distance in France. Nicky knows he has no right to feel these things, but he feels him all the same. The others do too. They try to force themselves back in, as if they’d been the ones in exile this whole time. 

Quynh must notice. He does too.

When Nicky wakes one morning and finds them gone, he’s hardly surprised. 

*********

What does surprise him are the tickets that are sent to them a few days later, requesting their presence in America. An olive branch to meet up again. There’s no question on whether or not they’d be going. 

Nicky thinks of a newly immortal Sébastien, holding his hand out for Nicky to grasp. 

Nicky supposes he will have to make the journey to see if he will stab him this time. 

*********

He knows he’s staring. He’s been staring far too long, given the change in position of the sun. But he can’t seem to tear his eyes away, and the others are kind enough to let him be. 

It isn’t as if the world doesn’t continue to surprise him, because it does. But usually, Nicky finds these hidden gems among people. New language, new knowledge, new stories. 

But rarely by things like this. 

They’re in the Badlands, a stop along ‘Nile’s Reunion Tour’ as she likes to call it. He’s at an overlook staring at miles and miles of painted rock. He tracks every curve and crevice, following the path of water long since gone. Valleys of such warm colors for such a dark place. Devastatingly beautiful, he thinks. He can’t look away. 

Another tourist had actually chuckled at Nicky’s stillness as he’d walked up next to him, snapping a picture as he’d asked, “First time?” 

Nicky hadn’t answered. No, it isn’t his first time in this part of the States. He’d been here before the Dakotas had even been states. But he’d never been to the Badlands before. Why would he? They got their name for a reason. 

But Nile had insisted and none of them could refuse her anything. Which is how he found himself here, staring at something far older and wiser than him. 

It makes him feel small. Something that had come hundreds of thousands of years before him, and something that will outlast him just as long. 

He’s suddenly tired, and feels every year of his age. He has seen centuries, but unlike the landscape in front of him, he has nothing to show for it. Nothing more than loud thoughts and quiet burdens, and a family that tiptoes over glass they themselves had thrown in their way.

*********

Things are…better, he thinks. 

Maybe all of them are just tired. Their trip through America makes for a wonderful distraction. They’ve left their problems across the Atlantic, and Nicky is more than content to pretend for a little while. 

Just last night, Quynh had laughed at something Andy had said. Nicky had almost cried from the sound. It had been at his own expense, but he hadn’t minded. He’d lost a bet with Nile–the validity of the bet is still up in the air, if one would ask him–and then Andy had made a smart comment and then Quynh had laughed. A small, simple joy, and it had rocked him to its core. 

He cherishes each day, but despite the truce between them all, he has never felt more adrift with the rest of them. This is nothing but a temporary balm, and Nicky is already dreading the moment they wipe the diversion from their eyes. 

He is not sure where everyone stands, and feels as if he’s being pulled in every direction. 

He wonders who will shatter the illusion first. 

*********

Of course it’s Nicky that does. 

He corners Nicky on a Thursday. It’s not the first time he’s done so. In fact, Nicky can count eight other occasions in which he’d done the same thing. He’d just never done anything about it. 

It could be for many reasons. He hadn’t known what to say after he’d gotten Nicky alone. He’d ‘chickened out’ as Nile would say. Maybe because the lighting wasn’t right. 

This time, Nicky is in the kitchen cooking dinner. He’s alone in the house, but not completely alone. Joe is just outside, reading in the afternoon sun. It’s a smart move, Nicky thinks. Finding a way to talk with Nicky alone but still give him an out in case things go south. It’s the same thing Nicky would have done, if he were in his shoes. 

Bile fills his mouth suddenly, and Nicky thinks of the years he’d spent whispering into his ears about strategy. He could probably run circles around Nicky these days. Maybe that is the real reason he’s delayed this conversation. Not for his benefit, but for Nicky’s. 

“What?” he asks, not bothering to look up from his task of placing chopped vegetables in a large pot. Nicky supposes he should let him stew, maybe give him time to think of something to start the conversation off, but honestly, Nicky is far too tired for niceties nowadays. 

He walks further into the kitchen. 

Nicky doesn’t know what to say to him. How to act around him. As if they’d never met before. Maybe they haven’t. They’d both been keeping secrets. Nicky hadn’t been the man he’d promised to be, but he hadn’t either. 

Fitting, as they now both seem to orbit around each other, but never quite colliding. 

“What do you like?” he asks suddenly. 

Nicky sighs, turning the burner off. “What?” he says, turning, placing his hands on his hips. Anything to stop them from twitching for a blade. 

He grimaces, and rubs at the back of his head. “Uh, Nile suggested I…,” He trails off, nervous. Good, Nicky thinks wickedly. “Since I can’t help but remember, she suggested I fill my head with things that I want to remember. And I guess, well,” He laughs awkwardly. “I’m almost three hundred years old and there are still some things I don’t know about you. So…what do you like?” 

Nicky knows that he should be flattered. That he is waving a white flag, and is trying to make amends in the only ways he knows how. But still, Nicky frowns. “You don’t know what I like?” he asks. 

“Well, I…believe it or not, Nicky, you’re quite the enigma.” A lopsided smile follows. It’s a joke, and at one time, Nicky would have laughed. Now, he doesn’t. It would be as halfhearted as the joke itself, and Nicky would rather spare them both. 

“I like to read,” Nicky says with a shrug and turns, as if to shoo him away. If he hadn’t figured that out yet, then he had never much cared for Nicky at all. 

He doesn’t move. Only hums in response. “What?” Nicky snaps, spinning around. “Not good enough for you?” 

“No, it’s not that, it’s just–”

“Fine,” Nicky interrupts. “I like to write. How about that? Did you ever bother to notice me doing that once?” 

He narrows his eyes, anger flaring in his eyes. He’s been doing this more, getting angry. Nicky knows that it’s a step forward, and rather than burying his ire, he’s voicing it with the others. And clearly he has a bone to pick with Nicky. “Oh, I noticed,” he hisses right back. “But I also noticed that you were never one to lie to me. I get that you’re angry, rightfully so. But I’m trying to work on myself here, and I’d rather have you ignore me than lie to me.” 

Nicky blinks, his irritation quelling instantly. That hadn’t been the response he’d expected. “What?” he asks, confused. 

He scoffs. “Nicky, I’ve seen you write hundreds of letters,” he says, pointing to his head. “You only do when you’re pissed about something and you need to get the anger out, or when you’re sad and missing Joe or ‘how things used to be’,” he continues, gesturing with air quotes. “I’ve never seen you write a happy letter. I don’t even think you like writing letters. You only pretend you do because Joe likes them.” 

Nicky opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. That’s…not true. Is it? “No,” Nicky husks out. “You’re wrong.” 

He huffs. “I always am, aren’t I?” 

Nicky’s lips curl back in a sneer. “What do you want from me?” he hisses. 

“I could ask you the same thing.” 

“You want to do this now?” 

“I’d like to do it in general, yes, Nicky,” he sighs. “I know you’re pissed, you’re sad, you’re confused, hell, you’re probably everything under the sun, but you never do anything about it!” he shouts. “At least Joe has the decency to take me out back and spar with me to get some of it out. But all you do–all you’ve ever done–is sit there and watch. Do something.” 

Tears burn in his eyes and Nicky swallows around fire. “I have nothing to say to you,” he whispers. 

“Yes, you do.” He walks up to Nicky, their faces now inches apart. “You’ve got a lot to say. You’ve got a lot to feel, to do. You just don’t allow yourself to do so.” 

“If you want to get your ass handed to you, go find Joe,” Nicky snarls. “I am in no mood to stoop so low.” 

“Oh, such a martyr,” he laughs hollowly. “That’s Nicky for you. Telling others to go fix themselves when he won’t even fix himself.”

“I need fixing?” Nicky laughs. “Pray tell, then. What do I need fixed?” 

He smiles hollowly, and Nicky wishes to could take the question back. “What do you like?” he asks quietly. 

“I don’t understand.” 

“Yes, you do.” 

“No, I don’t, because clearly any answer I give you is not enough!” 

“Because it would not be an answer,” he snaps. “You’re unbelievable sometimes, you know that?” he continues with a scoff. “Let me tell you why.” He prowls around Nicky like a shark.

“You claim you like letters but you don’t. I’ve seen you throw away trees worth of paper because you can’t get the words right. So maybe you’d tell me that you like to bake. And I’d call you a liar again. You only bake because Andy likes sweet things. You rarely eat anything you put together, as if you’re never satisfied.” 

“I-I don’t–” Nicky tries to interject. 

“You don’t like oysters but you stomach them down anyway. You say you like sharpshooting because it reminds you of Quynh and how she’d first taught you with a bow. But that’s not true is it?” he asks. “Remember Cambodia? How many times did Joe die that day? And were you really mad at me, or at the fact that you hadn’t died, tucked safe and far away from the rest of us. You hate being alone, Nicky, but you force yourself to be anyway!” 

“You’re wrong,” Nicky says, his face burning. 

“I’m not, Nicky,” he says softly, the fire inside him suddenly extinguished. “Know why?” he asks, smiling sadly. “Because you’re talking to me in French.” 

Nicky blinks. “So?” 

“So?” he huffs. “Nicky, you hate languages. Learning them, at least. How many times have you complained about the amount of letters we use for a word, when we only pronounce half of them? But yet you force yourself all the same?” 

A tear slides down Nicky’s cheek. “I like to learn,” he says softly. 

“That I can believe,” he says. “But only about others. Never yourself.” 

He runs a hand through his hair, sighing. “I’ve been spending some time thinking of things. I have thousands of memories of you, but I’ve realized that they’re only what you want me to see. What you want the others to see. You like what they like, do what they do. I don’t know what to do with that.” 

Nicky doesn’t either. He doesn’t know how to answer. So he doesn't. 

“What about you, Nicky?” he asks. “What do you want?” 

Nicky does what he does best. He flees. 

*********

Joe finds him. 

He’s back in the Badlands. The night is clear and beautiful. It should fill him with bittersweet fondness, and all of the decades spent under the stars with Yusuf, with nothing but the clothes on their backs and each other. 

This time, Nicky doesn’t notice the stars. He doesn’t notice the moon, or how its glow sweeps over the landscape like a blanket. Instead, he stares at the rocks. They’re dark and foreboding, now; the warmth is long gone. If Nicky hadn’t known any better he would think he is looking at a completely different place. The landscape seems to laugh at him. 

“Nicolò,” Joe whispers from behind him. 

His footsteps scuff along the gravel as he approaches. Joe does that a lot, making unnecessary noise so as to not startle him. 

Nicky doesn’t move. He waits for the night to consume him.

What do you want? What do you want? What do you want? 

“Nicolò?” Joe asks again. 

He lets out a sob, his legs buckling. 

Joe catches him; he always does. He bundles Nicky into his arms and lets him cry into his neck. 

What do you like? What do you want? 

Nicky weeps because he doesn’t know. 

*********

My light. 

That is what Joe calls him. 

As if he does not see that Nicky is only a reflection of Joe’s own brilliance. 

*********

It’s Booker that is waiting for them when Joe brings Nicky home. Because it is Booker, Nicky knows it’s him, and it makes him want to cry again. He hasn’t seen him for so long. 

Booker stands in the archway of their rented house, in clothes of dull gray that would be soft to the touch, his hair rumpled. He’s the mountain he’s always been, but he holds his hand out for Nicky with such gentleness. 

Nicky accepts the gesture, and Joe brushes past them with a final kiss to Nicky’s temple, leaving them alone. Nicky sees Booker watch Joe as he walks away with wide eyes, not expecting such a sign of trust. 

All the same, he leads Nicky into the house and deposits him at the kitchen table. He disappears briefly, only returning with two mugs and a bottle of scotch. 

Nicky swallows. “I don’t actually like this,” he says, voice hoarse. 

Booker pours a few fingers in each mug regardless. “I know,” he answers, voice soft. He sits down in the chair next to him, pushing one of the mugs towards Nicky. “Can I confess something?” Booker continues, grabbing his own glass. “I don’t think I much like this either.” He takes a sip, grimacing. “I just drank it because you did.” 

Nicky sips from his own glass. “What a pair we make,” he says softly. 

It makes Booker smile. They drink in silence. Neither apologize. Booker wouldn’t accept his, and Nicky, well, Nicky doesn’t want to fight with him anymore. He’d never had, and Nicky’s stomach roils, realizing it had been another thing he’d done, even though he hadn’t liked it. 

“Tell me a story,” Nicky whispers, body trembling. 

“What kind?” 

“A good one,” Nicky says. “A happy one.” 

*********

Joe doesn’t ask him about that night. 

Not because Nicky doesn’t want him too. No, he knows Joe wants to talk about it. He can tell from the look on Joe’s face. 

But he doesn’t. He’s waiting for Nicky. Waiting for him to figure it out for himself. Patient. Always patient. 

*********

“I want to hate him,” Joe says to him one night. He’s curled around Nicky, latched onto him like it’s he’s the only thing to ground him. Nicky relishes in the contact, knowing that for once, he can be the support for Joe. 

“I want to hate him,” Joe says again. “But I can’t.” 

“You are full of too much love to hate,” Nicky whispers, kissing his temple gently. “And even if you could hate him, you still wouldn’t.” 

“I loved him the first time,” Joe whispers. “It wasn’t enough.” 

Nicky holds him close. “Then we will do better. We all will.” 

*********

Things are better. He can tell this time. The others can as well. 

They are healing, and there are still plenty of bad days, but after each night, they are all still there in the morning. The days he’s seen, the miles he’s trekked, the pain he’s felt…it’s all meaningless to him right now. 

He thinks he could die happy, in this moment of peace they’ve found. Not a bad ending, he smiles to himself as he watches his family bicker over breakfast. 

*********

Nicky clears his throat softly. 

It’s him who’s cornered Booker in the kitchen this time. The house is empty, but Quynh is outside in the garden. The others are at the market, gathering something for dinner. 

Booker must realize the similar predicament because he gives Nicky a small smile. “What?” he asks, and he’s mocking Nicky, answering him in that gravely tone that Booker swears sounds just like the Genoan tongue he’s never been able to lose. Nicky doesn’t care about the teasing. The teasing makes Booker’s eyes crinkle and makes Nile giggle. Even Joe laughs sometimes, bright and unexpectedly pleased, in a way that Nicky rarely hears. 

He gently places some photographs down in front of Booker. Of the Badlands. “Is this what it is like?” he asks. 

Booker furrows his brow. “Like what?” 

Nicky points to the photos. To the rolling hills made of rock and sand, painted a smattering of warm colors. “Is this what it is like in your head?” he clarifies. 

He’s spent a lot of time with Nile recently. Trying to string together an idea of his condition. Nile had only managed to dream of Booker once, so she had even less to go on than Nicky. Joe had said they should let it be, and let Booker tell them when he was ready, but Nicky can’t afford to wait that long. Booker is almost three hundred. All that time, and he hadn’t been ready to share with them. 

Nicky knows he won’t be able to sleep until he knows. Until he knows about the endless hell he’d glimpsed through the cracks of Booker’s mind. Until he knows the extent of Booker’s suffering. 

Booker hums. “Sort of,” he says. He takes the nearest photo and turns it sideways so the mountains are standing vertically. “It’s more like this.” He points to each of the layers of stone. “My memories aren’t necessarily stacked on top of each other, but more existing next to one another, all at the same time.” 

He gestures to the bottom of one of the mountains, the layer a dark rust color. “My oldest memories are just as fresh as the ones I have from yesterday. I can see my mother cleaning the blood from my shirt. And I can see you washing the dishes after dinner last night.” 

Nicky nods, staring at the pictured landscape to force him to understand the scope of it all. Thousands and thousands of memories, each a single thread, weaving together to create an immense masterpiece. 

Breathtaking to see, Booker’s ability. But only at a distance. 

He remembers the way he had felt when he’d awoken from his second dream of Booker. How he had been crushed by a harrowing void, both endless and constricting at the same time. He’d floundered under the weight of his mind, but still stood in awe of him upon their first meeting. 

Yes, breathtaking to see. But nightmarish to experience. 

Badlands. 

“Okay,” Nicky says quietly, nodding once. “I cannot help you, can I?” 

Booker chuckles quietly. “You cannot fix me, if that’s what you’re asking.” 

“I’m not,” Nicky snaps back, frowning. “You don’t need to be fixed.” 

Booker smiles softly, and Nicky wonders when the last time Booker’s given him one and meant it. He could ask, and Booker would tell him, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t want to know. 

Instead, Nicky holds out a hand. A familiar gesture. “Come,” he says, tugging Booker from his chair. 

“Where are we going?” Booker asks. 

“To fill your head with stories. Good ones.” 

*********

“Is there any tea?” 

It takes a moment for Nicky to catch up. He’s got a bowl of batter in his hands, trying his hand at something called kitchen sink cookies, and honestly, Nile really needs an education in the essence of finer dining. 

The response is about to fall from his lips when he remembers that he’s already served Joe some tea. And that the person who’d asked is definitely not Joe. 

The bowl falls from his grip. He doesn’t even hear it shatter at his feet. 

He stares at Booker, who blinks at him like a deer in headlights. “What did you say?” he asks. 

He can see the wheels turning in Booker’s head, cogs running at full speed to find a way out. “What’s wrong?” Booker replies. 

Nicky’s face twists. “No,” he snaps. “What did you say about the tea?” 

Because it isn’t because Booker has asked for tea. It’s that he’s asked in their language. His and Joe’s old tongue, their first one. The one of rivers and the foundational patchwork of their relationship. And Booker had just used it fluently. 

He can see that Booker wants to run. The eerie silence behind him tells Nicky that Joe is just as dumbfounded. “I’m sorry,” Booker says suddenly. “I didn’t mean to learn. It just happened; I promise, I didn’t mean to–”

Nicky cries. He doesn’t mean to do that either. He rushes forward, bundling Booker in his arms, tugging him close to his chest. 

“You know?” he hears Joe ask behind him. “You know what we speak?” 

“You taught me,” Booker replies, and Nicky clutches him tighter, refusing to let him go. “You spoke, and I listened.” 

Nicky moans, pressing a kiss to Booker’s cheek. Keep talking, he wants to beg Booker. Tell me more. 

He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed the sounds. Hadn’t realized he’d missed it at all, considering that he and Joe still use them. 

But only them. It had only ever been them. 

Everyone else who’d spoken the words they still use are now long dead. 

Except now for Booker. He opens his mouth and all Nicky can hear is his brother. His mischievous older brother, with a head full of stories and a heart fuller than any bay. 

You are not Giano, Joe had told him once. 

Maybe it’s because it’s always been Booker. 

*********

“I like to garden.” 

He stands in front of Booker with a small bag, tools spilling over the top. A bundle of flowers in his other hand. 

Booker looks up from the newspaper he’s reading. His eyes are red and drawn out, bags sitting heavily under his eyes. Nicky knows why they’re there. It’s hard for Booker not to notice that they’re back in Paris. 

Booker glances down at his bag, smiling at the bright pink gardening gloves tucked in the front pocket. “Oh?” he asks. 

“It’s very calming,” Nicky says. “I like…,” he pauses, waiting to find the right word. “I like to watch them grow.” 

Booker nods, placing the newspaper beside him. Then, he looks back up at Nicky, expectantly. And? comes Booker’s silent question. 

Nicky shifts his weight between his feet. “And,” he continues. “I have trees.” 

Booker furrows his brow. “Trees?” he asks. 

“I have a list,” Nicky nods. “Places where they are. I keep them in my wallet.” The flowers in his hands suddenly feel like they weigh a ton. Booker’s stare feels heavier. “I plant seeds, sometimes,” Nicky shrugs. “If I pass through again and I see a tree there, then I know it is mine. And I add it to my list.” 

He likes knowing that they’re out there. Likes seeing how much they’ve grown in the decades since he’s seen them last. Likes knowing that they’ll still be there after he’s gone. 

It’s something he’s been doing for the past century. Or at least, paying attention to him doing it. Nicky has planted plenty of seeds over his lifetime; there are more trees out there that are his that he does not even know about. He tells Booker as such. 

“A tree guy, huh?” Booker grins. 

Nicky nods. He does not have children, but he has trees. He doesn’t tell Booker that. 

“Would you like to come with me today?” he asks Booker. “I can show you?” 

“Of course.”

He leads Booker down the streets of Paris. 

Leads him to the graveyard, to his sons. 

They stand over Jean-Pierre’s grave and pull weeds, trim the grass back, wash the stone. Leave flowers at the base. 

The same motions Nicky’s been making since they’d died. 

He hands his bag to Booker and lets him clean Amelia’s grave himself. 

*********

“You know, I had a very interesting conversation last night,” Booker says. 

Booker speaks to him in his old tongue. He only does so now, with Nicky and Joe. Speaking the one language that Nicky actually loves. Nicky relishes in each word from Booker’s mouth, taking special care at each hint of Ligurian. The sprinkle of French in there as well. Booker's additions, to their rivered tongue. Another thread in their quilt. 

They’re sitting on a bench outside of the cemetery. It’s been closed for hours, but when the gates had shut for the night, Booker had gone and sat on a bench across the street instead of heading home. Nicky had joined him, his gardening bag tucked between his feet, silently sitting with Booker as he held a vigil over his wife. 

“Oh?” Nicky asks in question. He hadn’t known that Booker had left last night, but he always had a quietness to him, despite his size. “With who?” 

“You,” Booker says. 

Nicky frowns, turning to face his friend. He had spent last night with Nile.

Booker smiles, tapping his head in answer. “Brazil. 1958.” 

“Ah,” Nicky smiles. He doesn’t bother trying to place the conversation himself. Booker would fill in the gaps for him. “Was it a good one?” 

“The conversation?” Booker asks. “Yeah, it was fine. A weird one to be having after a bar fight, but you always get existential after a few drinks.” 

“Oh, yes, now I remember,” Nicky chuckles. “What a mess.”

“A mess that you caused,” Booker snickers. 

Nicky waves him off. “Winning the World Cup does not excuse ungentlemanly behavior. Besides, they were the ones that started it.” 

Booker laughs, no doubt reliving how it had actually been Nicky’s fault. But Booker would never say so. He would remember that Nicky thinks otherwise instead. He does that, remembering what the others want, on top of what actually happens. Stories, alongside memories. 

“Any reason why you found yourself there last night?” Nicky asks. 

Booker bites his lip, finally looking away from the cemetery, from Amelia. “I was thinking.” 

“How dangerous,” Nicky comments. 

Booker rolls his eyes. “I was given some sound advice then, but I think it would help you as well.” 

“Oh?” 

“An honest man can still hide in his own shadow.” 

He doesn’t remember telling Booker that. It sounds sanctimonious enough to be him. “I sound pretty wise for a man that doesn’t know what to do with himself,” Nicky comments. 

Booker smiles and slaps a hand against his back. “Who would have thought, huh?” He leaves his arm strewn across the back of the bench. “I think you might have been on to something.” 

Nicky leans into Booker’s touch, chasing the warmth. “I don’t know what I want,” he whispers. “I haven’t known for a long time.” 

“Yes, you do,” Booker replies. “You just wished you didn’t.” 

*********

“You were right,” he says. He finds Quynh outside. She can usually be found out here, soaking in the sun. 

She doesn’t open her eyes but Nicky knows she’s listening. He lays down on the blanket next to her, pillowing his head in his hands. 

“Right about what?” she asks. 

“I did miss you more.” 

He can almost hear Quynh thinking next to him, trying to think about what he means. But then she’s laughing, smacking a hand across his chest and Nicky groans in pain at the reprimand–still so damn fast. 

He cocks his head to the side and Quynh is looking at him now, smiling. She’s always smiling these days. “I knew you would,” Quynh replies. 

He doesn’t know what to say to her. He never has, not really. When he’d been younger, he’d been just as unmoored and awed by her presence. Every second with her had been like a competition, trying to find something that would impress her. “Can I lay here with you?” 

Quynh raises a brow. “You’re already laying here. You’re asking now?” 

Nicky shrugs a shoulder. “Better late than never.” 

Quynh snorts before narrowing her eyes. “I didn’t think it possible, but it appears you’ve gotten older. Grumpier from what I’ve heard as well.” 

“You remain timeless, as always.” 

“Cheeky little fox,” Quynh smiles and Nicky’s heart flutters at the old nickname. “Yes, you can lay here,” she continues. “As long as you promise not to cause trouble.” 

“I promise,” Nicky replies. “Pinky promise.”

Quynh furrows her brow. “Pinky?” she asks. 

Nicky holds a hand out between them, sticking a pinky out. He gestures for Quynh to do the same, and she does, tentatively. “Nile taught me,” Nicky says, curling his pinky around Quynh’s. 

“How is this different from a normal promise?” 

“Honestly, I have no idea,” Nicky sighs. “But Nile says all the kids are doing it, so.” 

Quynh laughs again. It sounds like church bells. “Alright then,” she says. 

She starts to pull her hand away but Nicky holds it tight. “I will not leave,” he whispers. “I will stay here by your side, for as long as you’ll have me.” He hopes it conveys all that he wants to say, but can’t. “Pinky promise.” 

“Okay, Nicolò,” Quynh replies, her eyes welling. She cuddles closer to his side. “Pinky promise.” 

*********

He finds Andy and Nile sparing in the front yard. 

He offers Nile and quick wave before he steps in front of her, intercepting Andy’s punch, wrapping his hand around hers. 

Andy blinks, confused, before she gives him a toothy grin. “I can still take you,” she says, but she doesn't need to. They already both know it to be true. 

Nicky shakes his head. “Not tonight,” he replies. “We’re going out.” 

“Out?” Nile asks, poking her head around Nicky’s back. “Where are we going?” 

Nicky cocks his head, looking at Andy in question. “Where would you like to go?” 

Andy relaxes her fighting stance, snatching her hand back from Nicky, cradling it close to her chest. She looks small in front of him, untethered. Nicky wonders if anyone had ever asked her something like this before. 

Andy jerks her head towards Nile. “There’s work to be done.” 

“Not tonight,” Nicky says again. He steps forward, pressing a kiss to Andy’s cheek. “There is more to life than this,” he whispers in her ear, too low for Nile to hear. 

Andy smiles when he pulls back, as if she knows what he’s said is not only for her. She grabs his hand. “Take me dancing,” she demands. 

Nicky is horrendous at dancing. Still has no idea what to do with his feet. Andy, on the other hand, is as graceful and breathtaking as she is on the battlefield.

But Nicky will go all the same. Because Andy doesn’t ask to see him dance, she asks to see him laugh. “Okay,” he promises. “I’ll wear my best shoes.” 

*********

He tries to think of the last time he had been nervous with Joe. Certainly not for a few centuries, and that had just been a big misunderstanding. 

Nicky shuffles into their room, ducking his head down as he wrings his hands together. 

“There you are.” Nicky preens at the soft words. Joe is always looking for him. He’ll always look for him. As sure as the sun rises and the moon calls to the waves. 

He takes Nicky’s hands and clasps them between his own, rubbing them slightly. Just like he’d done centuries ago, when they only had each other to keep each other warm. 

“You look determined,” Joe says, amused glint in his eyes. “Have you finally solved your conundrum?” 

“Yes,” Nicky answers quietly. 

Joe chuckles, squeezing his hands lightly. “Well, go on,” he said. “Tell me, my light. Should I reach for my sword or for my pen?”

Words catch in his throat. He could lie. He could day he needs more time. Joe would give it to him. He would give anything that Nicky asks, or doesn’t. 

He wonders, as Joe understands Nicky better than he does himself, if Joe already knows what he will say. If he already knows what Nicky has been hiding from. 

“You are everything,” Nicky says quietly. It’s not what he needs to say, but at the same time, it’s all he does need to say. 

At the end of the day, after each grief and heartbreak, after every draft, there is always Joe. There will always be Joe, to pick him up, to brush the tears from his eyes, the dirt from his clothes. 

“Surely that is not what you have been toiling over for months,” Joe replies, grinning. Still, he leans in, knocking their heads together. Kissing Nicky sweetly. 

“No,” Nicky says, not letting himself find a way out. “I just wanted you to know.” 

Joe combs through his hair. “I know,” he replies. “You show me every day.” 

Nicky swallows around a lump in his throat. Joe waits for him. Patient, patient Joe. “Tell me,” Joe whispers. “What have you learned today?" 

He steels himself, swallowing the pain down. He thinks of the words locked tightly in his head. He unlocks the door, blurting, “I want children.” He doesn’t give himself time to regret it before he pushes ahead. 

“Not a child,” he continues, his mouth a runaway train. “Not just one, of course. I know I won’t be satisfied with just one. And not two, either. No, not a pair.” He shudders at the thought. “Two makes me think of that damn song that Booker sang for decades. And three won’t work, because what if one feels like they’re left out?” 

He breaks from Joe’s hold and starts pacing. “Yes,” he nods to himself, ignoring Joe completely. “A whole bundle. A houseful. I want more children than rooms. I want–,” he pauses, gasping for air. 

“I want to know about Lykon, everything that I can, to ensure that you will never be him,” he says with conviction, even as his body trembles. "I want to grow old. I want to my hair to whiten and my body to ache. What's worse, I want to know what it would be like if I did it with you." He shudders at the admission, at the twisted fantasy. At the horror of Joe withering away, at the cruel desire to wither alongside him. 

“I want to go home,” he whispers, voice breaking. “I don't want to fight, I want to go home, to Genoa. I want to see the dock, I want to dig my feet in the sand.” 

Tears pour down his cheek as he continues. “I want to find my brother,” he sobs. “I want Giano.” 

He wants to scream it from the rooftops. He wants to yell and rage and plead with the world, with God, with anyone who would listen. “I’m so afraid, Yusuf,” he cries. “I feel as if I’m never not afraid.”

He stares at Joe, ready to drive the final nail into the coffin. He walks over to Joe, pulling him close. “Ya’aburnee, Yusuf,” he sighs into his love’s mouth. “Ya’aburnee.” 

Joe lets him fall, catches him as he always does. He soothes Nicky, kissing him back with just as much fervor, his hands smoothing over every available inch. 

Nicky breaks away for air. He would have let himself die, would have happily done so in Joe’s embrace, but he doesn’t need to give Joe another thing to be upset about. 

Silence falls between them. Minutes tick by. Nicky doesn’t move, barely remembers to breathe. Joe doesn’t either, but Nicky is glad that at last he hasn’t shoved him away. Nicky lifts his head hesitantly, unable to stop himself from looking back at Joe. 

Joe is already looking at him, smiling sadly. Waiting. “Tell me, camallo,” he says. “How fares your burden today?” His own tears trail down his cheeks and Nicky brushes them away. 

Nicky sighs, shaking his head. “Joe, I–”

“How many times,” Joe interrupts. “How many times have I told you to stop looking so far ahead? You do not see what is in front of you, you cannot allow yourself–”

“How can I?” Nicky cries. “I have been gifted so much in this life, who am I to ask for more?” 

Joe quiets for a moment, the only sound between them being their ragged breaths. 

Joe traces a thumb across Nicky’s cheek. “My light,” he whispers. “My moonlight.” 

Nicky shivers at the old nickname; Joe’s first one for him. “I still see him, you know. You are still him, even after all these years,” Joe says. “The boy with stars for eyes. The one who speaks in kindness and barters in hope. Who dreams of the moon.” 

Joe holds Nicky’s face in his hands, forcing him to meet his gaze. “You have so much life in you, yet you leave none for yourself.” 

“You are my life,” Nicky argues. “Our family, they are–”

Joe shakes his head, pressing fingers over Nicky’s lips to stop him. “You are more than just the others around you.” 

Nicky kisses the pads of Joe’s fingers, turning his heads so they curl against his cheek. “I’m a mess,” he says. “Over nine hundred years old and I still am trying to find my way.”

Joe chuckles. “Me too,” he replies. “We’ll find it together. Much better this way, rather than walking alone.” 

“Efficient,” Nicky sniffles. 

Joe doesn’t laugh. Instead, he grasps the back of Nicky’s neck, squeezing tightly. “You are not alone, Nicolò. You do not need to shoulder these burdens by yourself.” Joe heaves out a deep sigh, before adding, “You are not the only one who fears for what lies ahead. I am a desperate and greedy man; you have given me more than I could have ever asked for, but still, it is not enough. I will never have enough of you.” 

Nicky smiles, his eyes crinkling. He understands the feeling. “I have burned thousands of sketches,” Joe continues, so quietly that Nicky can barely hear him. “All of little ones that wear your face. But it’s the memories I can’t rid myself of. Of you, with bundles pressed against your chest, with a wide smile and gentle voice.”

Joe shudders, as if he’s thinking of one now. "Sometimes I think about the lines that will one day show on your face," he confesses softly. "About how I would burn the world to make sure I get to see them." Nicky shakes at the thought. Joe would do it. He would.

 “You are not the only one who is scared," Joe says. "Who thinks of Lykon, and now Andy. Of Booker’s grief, Quynh’s rage. Of Nile, all alone." Joe smiles, cheeks wet, eyes red. He's beautiful. “I am terrified, but you give me strength.” 

“Scared together,” Nicky whispers, kissing the fingers still pressed to his cheek. 

Joe's smile widens. “Come away with me.” 

Nicky chuckles. “Anywhere,” he replies. “Where would you like to go?” 

“To see Giano.” 

Breath catches in his throat, and Nicky stares at Yusuf. “What?” he asks, breathlessly. 

Now it is Joe that looks nervous. His eyes grow distant, sad. “I always knew we wouldn’t go,” he admits to Nicky. “You kept saying soon, soon we will go to Genoa, but I knew we wouldn’t. I could see in your eyes that you couldn't bear it.” 

Joe pauses, sucking in a huge breath. “But I would catch you staring at the waters sometimes, as if you expected to see the Genoan shoreline on the horizon. I knew you wanted to go–you would talk of Giano so much–but you could never force yourself to take that step.” 

Nicky’s cheeks burn and Joe presses close again, forcing the shame away. “You weren’t ready, but I didn’t care. I didn’t want you to lose him.” 

“What did you do?” 

“I kept an eye on him for you.” 

Nicky blinks. “What?” he whispers. 

“Well,” Joe answers sheepishly. “I had someone else do it. They’d send me letters of how he was and what he was doing. Apparently it was an arduous task; your brother was quite the rapscallion.” 

Nicky laughs wetly, fresh tears running down his cheeks. “Yes, he was.” He places a hand on Joe’s chest, right over his heart. “You watched over Giano for me?” 

“Yes,” Joe smiles. “Would you like me to take you to him?” 

Nicky nods, letting another sob loose as he bundles Joe close. “He’s waiting for you,” Joe whispers into his ear. “We were both waiting for you.” 

Because Joe is right, he never bothers to look at what’s in front of him. He should, not at himself, who he’s always worried about being half a step behind. But rather at Joe, who’s always half a step ahead, waiting for him. Always waiting for him. 

Patient, patient Joe. 

“You are everything,” Nicky says again. 

“You are more,” Joe counters. 

“Cheap,” Nicky murmurs into Joe’s neck. His toes curl at the sound of Joe’s laugh, at the feeling of the vibrations across his cheek. 

Joe leans back and Nicky follows. He knocks their heads together again. “There will never be another man like you, Nicolò di Genova.” 

Nicky smiles. “Ya'aburnee,” he whispers, kissing Yusuf gently. 

“Ya'aburnee,” Joe says back against his lips. “Ya'aburnee, Nicolò.” 

*********

Everyone is asleep. 

Nicky stands in the hallway, listening. The bedroom door he’d snuck through is cracked open, and he can still hear Joe’s quiet breaths, a steady metronome that calms him. 

The other doors surrounding him are shut, but he knows that the rest of his family are tucked in safely behind them. He imagines Booker drooling into his mattress, pillowed only by his latest read. Nile in a similar position in his room, only tangled in her earphones instead of a book. There’s only four bedrooms in their rented villa. Assuming he doesn’t find someone downstairs passed out on a couch, there’s a good chance that Quynh is spending the night with Andy. 

Nicky creeps down the stairs and pokes his head into the sitting room, smiling when he finds it abandoned. Good, he thinks. All are where they should be. Except him, who is wandering the halls like a ghost. 

Sleep hasn’t found him yet, and although he still isn’t sure how, Joe has a predilection of waking up when Nicky is restless. He claims that he is awoken by Nicky’s errant thoughts–an interesting notion, as he’d seen Joe sleep through an entire bombing once. But as much as he’d enjoy letting Joe tire him out, Nicky had decided to let him sleep. 

He continues his journey through their residence and steps outside. He hears the lapping waves against the shore call to him like a siren. 

They’re in Malta. It had been Nicky’s idea. 

He and Joe had been there so many times in the past. But never once had they come with the rest of them. 

But when Nicky thinks of Malta, he does not only want those secrets with Joe. Malta is nothing but love and happiness to him, and it is for more than just him and Joe. His heart is for all of them. 

He turns towards their villa. There’s a single light coming from the second floor that hadn’t been there before. Joe, waiting for him, calling him home. 

Nicky smiles. “Not a bad beginning,” he says to no one in particular. He wades from the shallows and back to land, his bare feet moving across the wet sand intrepidly, as he heads towards his family and into tomorrow.