Chapter Text
Nicaise was not freaking out.
He absolutely refused to freak out.
The faucet of his little sink roared with hot water—the water pressure was kind to him for once. Nicaise expected to deal with crusty stitches, ugly wounds, anything. He expected to have to clean up his own blood from his tiny, shitty bathroom—again.
He didn’t expect nothing.
No blood, no pain—exactly like it was when he woke up in the hospital.
It was perhaps contrary to want to be injured, to have proof of the fight against Govart on his body, but there wasn’t even bruising from their boxing round. How was he going to explain this to the police if they came? The nurse last night knew his last name. Nicaise has a record, the police would find him easily if they wanted to.
“Shit,” he said aloud. “Fuck.”
Turning off the sink, he pulled back on his sweater. The water pressure was kind, but the radiator will never work for him. The apartment was icy cold. Snow will fall soon. Nicaise felt like he was going to vibrate out of his skin.
He took out his headphones and turned on his playlist from his phone. He needed to calm down, he was in no state to see the kids right now.
Unblemished, unharmed, everyone would be thrilled. Nicaise couldn’t face them.
Where along the lines of his incredibly shitty life did he gain superpowers ?
Images of those four strangers came back in his mind’s eye again and again. Who were they? Were they real? Could they be connected to all this?
For a few moments, Nicaise tried to relax, focus on the music. When he first started his underground fighting “career,” he wasn’t immediately the vicious Blue-Eyed Pit Viper. He’d lost some matches, he’d taken hits and broke bones, went home with no money and only blood pooling in his mouth. As he got better, he came up with the ritual of listening to music on full blast before his matches. He got so good that he didn’t need it anymore.
But now, Nicaise felt vulnerable, wounded in some deep part of himself that ached like before he started fighting with his fists and when he was fighting with sharp words and a bad attitude to protect himself.
Nicaise wiped his eyes. If he was refusing to freak out then he could not let himself cry.
A brutish knock on his door made him jolt.
“Police. Open up please, Mr. Rheims.”
Nicaise bit back the “fuck” that lodged in his throat.
Dealing with police was old hat for him, but when Nicaise took his responsibility with the orphanage more seriously, he did everything he could to avoid any and all legal blowback that could affect the kids.
It was the oldest trick in the book to avoid the police. Nicaise grabbed his bag and went out the fire escape.
The skin of his hands burned with cold as he made his way down the metal ladder and into the alleyway between his building and the next. The near-winter chill caused his ears to hurt, but he ignored it all as he stealthily made his way over discarded garbage to the other side of the alley.
His feet took him towards the orphanage. He could hide out in one of their closets for a few days, or weeks, until the police get bored or distracted when the bribes come in.
He hated putting the kids in the zone of risk, but there was nowhere else for him to go.
———
Laurent saw him before he did.
He was trying to look casual, waiting by the front door of the orphanage, since there was no way to go in without sounding suspicious. Hey, I’m looking for a brown-haired blue-eyed kid who fights. No, I don’t know his name .
He was trying to be casual, though Damen always said that he “could never look casual while looking like a model.” He was waiting for them in their getaway car on the corner. “Laurent, it’s not a getaway car if we’re not running from anything.”
His last dream showed him this place, a clue on how to find the new immortal. Whatever higher powers granted them their power (not that Laurent necessarily believed in them at this point) knew that Laurent would know where to go.
These streets weren’t so different from how they were fifty years ago. Laurent could still picture the vibrancy of the new brick when the orphanage was first opened.
The kid had his hood up, his walk brisk, but his face was tightened with thinly-veiled panic.
Laurent got up from his super-casual posture against the brick wall. He was noticed immediately. Those gray-blue eyes locked onto his own and Laurent knew he got the right person.
This one’s got instincts .
“Hello,” said Laurent.
“You- you’ve been in my dreams,” the kid said, then he grimaced, realizing how embarrassing that sounded.
“It’s how we find each other,” said Laurent. “I know you have a lot of questions.”
The kid didn’t answer right away. Only his eyes flicked between the front door and the sidewalk. Was someone following him?
“We can get you somewhere safe. Then we’ll get to questions.” The sooner they get out of the way of any annoyances, the better.
“I’m not going anywhere,” the kid spit out. “Who are you?”
A cop car swerved from the corner. Laurent cursed inwardly. The kid turned to see it and cursed outwardly.
“What did you do?” asked Laurent as the cop car approached them.
“I fled the hospital,” said the kid with an edge to his voice, “because I was in a fight and my stab wounds fucking disappeared .”
Laurent grabbed the kid by the arm. “Then we have to go .”
The kid yanked out of his grip with surprising strength for his size. “I said I’m not going anywhere! Who are you?”
“Laurent de Vere the Sixth.” Laurent grabbed his arm again. With a better hold this time, the kid struggled to break free. “Stop struggling or I’m going to stab you in the knees.”
The kid begrudgingly seemed to acquiesce. Laurent figured he was smart enough to choose getting some answers rather than sit in a holding cell.
In their borrowed-not-stolen getaway car, Damen caught Laurent’s eye as he dumped the kid into the backseat. What the hell did you do?
Laurent shrugged. “Just drive,” he said.
As soon as Laurent closed the door of the passenger side, Damen peeled off the curb. Laurent texted Lykaios and Halvik: got him. we’re on our way.
After Damen deftly maneuvered through the city’s morning traffic, blending in with the rest of the commute, Laurent turned to the kid.
“What’s your name?”
The kid held onto his bag like a lifeline. After a pause, he answered. “Nicaise.”
“That’s a lovely name,” said Damen, not looking away from the road.
“You think all “Nick” names are nice,” said Laurent.
Damen replied with a smile, “Well, they are.”
Nicaise inspected Damen, his eyes boring into the back of his head. Laurent both knew what each of them were thinking. They all dreamed of each other after all.
“Who are you then? The Sixth or the Seventh?”
“In terms of numbers, there are only four of us- Well, now five,” said Damen, waving to Nicaise.
“Your name, dummy,” said Laurent.
“Oh, I’m Damianos, but you can call me Damen.”
Nicaise scoffed. “Laurent and Damianos? Are you fucking with me?”
Laurent glanced at Damen the same time he looked back. Their story really was popular.
Is this going to be a problem? The crease of Damen’s eyebrows deepened.
We’ll figure it out. Laurent’s lips pressed into a hard line, calculating how best to go about this. When they found Lykaios, she didn’t even know how to read. Nowadays, people could get any information they wanted with the tap of their finger.
The world was getting smaller and smaller every day.
“It’s as you said yourself, your stab wounds disappeared.” Laurent turned his upper body to look at Nicaise full-on serious. “We’re not fucking with you. We can’t die.”
The revelation settled heavy in the air like the charge of approaching thunder.
At some point, they broke free from traffic and were making their way out of the city. They couldn’t take the bustling international airport without risking discovery. Their contact was already awaiting them in the smaller airport outside city limits to take them to a commercial airport in the mountain border between Akielos and Vask.
Nicaise, recovering from his moment of shock-stillness, noticed their distance from the Marlas city center. “No fucking way. Let me out of this car.”
Damen pressed a button on his drivers-side window. Nicaise yanked and yanked on the lever. “You did not just turn on the fucking child-locks!”
Laurent took out his gun from the duffel bag at his feet and pointed it at Nicaise. Damen frowned.
“Laurent, my dear, please don’t. We don’t have time to clean the blood.”
“Stop the car. Let him out.”
Damen looked at Laurent, who responded to him in kind. He sighed, then pulled the car over to the shoulder. It was a nondescript forest-edged road. No cars were in sight.
Niciase bolted as soon as the child-safe locks clicked open.
Laurent and Damen calmly got out of the car. Laurent screwed on the silencer for his gun and aimed.
It was a clean shot through Nicaise’s head. Birds cried as they took flight from the trees from the crack of the gun (because a silencer only did so much). Nicaise fell with a thud, blood pooling on the grass.
Damen grimaced. “Gods, I hate guns.”
“Would it have been cleaner with a sword?”
“Less noisy at least.”
They walked towards where Nicaise’s body lay. His skull hadn’t started stitching back together yet. Damen kept glancing up and down the road, keeping an eye on any approaching cars. Laurent only stared at Niciase, waiting for the light to flicker back into his eyes. The first few deaths were always so fucking slow.
One eternal moment passed, then two, listening to the slow crackle of bone and skin mending. Nicaise gasped for breath.
Damen kneeled beside him. “You’re one of us now, Nicaise. We have to protect each other.”
He offered a hand to him, but Nicaise ignored it, trudging back to the car instead.
Damen looked slightly hurt. Laurent patted his shoulder. Death as a bonding experience only worked for them… kind of.
In the weeks following the battle at Marlas, Laurent’s suspicions were confirmed in two parts: the first was when he purposefully nicked himself with a knife and watched as the wound closed, leaving no scar; the second was when the war council received word that Prince Damianos was alive.
Auguste cursed under his breath. His father and uncle turned to converse in hushed tones.
Laurent only looked down at his hands and the memory of blood flashed through his mind.
He could always rely on logic, on the facts presented in front of him, to solve any puzzle. This, however, confounded and bewildered Laurent beyond reason.
Ever since they laid eyes on each other on the fields of Marlas, they couldn’t seem to be rid of each other, in life, in dreams, and even in death.
Damen trained harder than he ever had in his life. They were launching another bid for Marlas in the coming days.
Even as his muscles wore out and healed, even when he opened a blister on his palm from swordwork and watched it close, Damen put it all aside for the task at hand: take back Marlas and make his father proud.
Every time he dreamed of blue eyes, of blond hair mixing with earth and blood, he went back out to the training field again and again and again.
Weeks after their first death, Laurent and Damen stood on the same field once again.
It wasn’t the same field where they fell. Theomedes decided for an alternative two-front attack to spread out the already-thin Veretian troops.
It felt like ages when the Akielon vanguard pressed up against the front gates of Marlas. Before Damen knew it, he was searching for blond hair in the thrall of swords and shields. If he found one brother, he was sure to find the other.
Instead, he found him. What greeted him first was his sword.
Blood bursted from Damen’s mouth as he pitched forward. The force of the stab wasn’t enough to keel him over. Damen caught blond in the corner of his eye.
“I killed you.” The voice was soft it felt a whisper between lovers in the night. “I swear I felt you die.”
“I could say the same of you.” Damen coughed out the words before blood welled in his throat once more. “I know what it’s like to kill a man.”
“I’m sure you do,” replied Laurent. “So do I.”
For the second time in his life out of many, Damianos of Akielos fell at the sword of Laurent of Vere.