Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

For the first time in weeks, after a cramped and challenging journey across the ocean, he felt small, not because he was lost—but because he was standing in the presence of something larger than himself: a gateway to a new life.

As the ferry docked at Ellis Island, he stood motionless for a moment, eyes fixed on the grand building rising before him. It was more magnificent than anything he had imagined the Americans could have ever built—a red-brick structure with sweeping arches, tall turrets, and a majestic clock tower reaching toward the sky. The iron-framed windows glinted in the early morning sun.

When he entered the Great Hall, his breath caught in his throat. The ceiling soared nearly fifty feet above, an expanse of graceful Guastavino tiles forming arches that let in light from high-set skylights. The room resembled a cathedral, not a processing station.

All around him, people clutched bundles and children, whispering in a hundred different tongues. Despite the tension in the air—the fear of being turned away or of failing a health check—there was wonder in their eyes. The hall, with its glimmering chandeliers and polished tile floors, made them feel like guests of a nation rather than nameless strangers.

Even in its vastness, the room was crowded, smelly, and so noisy. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people were confined in a small space, lugging crying children, elderly parents, and all their livelihoods in plain, unmarked bags too small to even hold a week’s worth of clothes.

The row nudged further at a snail’s pace as people talked to the immigration officers, explaining in whatever language they had a better grasp on that they came off the Germanic. The overworked administrators gave them a once-over and sent them to the doctors.

It took him an hour before he reached the top of the line.

“Name?”

“Henry George Fox.”

“Age?”

“27.”

“Place of birth?”

“London.”

“Incoming vessel?”

“The Germanic.”

The man looked up at him and stopped scribbling. Henry smiled. The man raised his eyebrows in a mix of curiosity and confusion and then pointed Henry to the medical line.

Henry raised his hat in thanks and walked over to the next queue.

People were clamouring forward inch by inch, while a row of doctors took all of two minutes to examine them—or whatever passed for examination in this case. It was more of a thorough look over and a brief diagnosis marked on your clothing.

He needed to clear his head of the thrumming noise in the large hall, so he focused on listening to the doctors' words.

“This one’s too old,” one said, marking him with an S on the lapel of his worn-out coat.

“Might have to send him back,” his colleague said, not even looking at the heavily pregnant woman in front of him before marking her with an EX and sending her to a different line to be looked at further.

“Why do they even try to come over when they can’t work for shit?” another of them asked, a thick accent in his mouth that Henry hadn’t heard before. “They take up all our time and just end up sent right back out again.”

The doctor looked at the hunchbacked man in front of him and shook his head. He searched for a place to write his chalk diagnosis but found the man’s thick wool overcoat impossible to write on. He turned around, picked up a piece of fabric from the desk behind him, wrote a C, and pinned it to the man’s chest.

“Go over there now, sir; we need to do some more tests,” he motioned with his head to another line.

“что?”

The doctor rolled his eyes, put his hand on the man’s shoulder and pointed to another line of people.

“Go. There,” he said, thinking that speaking slowly would mean that the man, who couldn’t utter a word in English, would understand what he meant.

“что вы говорите?”

The doctor sighed and rubbed his temples. Henry could tell this was a common occurrence in his day.

“Врач хочет, чтобы вы перешли в другую очередь для дальнейшего обследования.”

The doctor looked at Henry with confusion. The hunchbacked man smiled, shook Henry’s hand, nodded and headed off to the line that Henry had pointed him to.

“What are you doing in this line?” the doctor asked, meeting Henry’s deep blue eyes for the first time.

“I was sent here by the immigration officer?” Henry asked, English accent crips, as innocent as the day he was born.

“No,” the doctor said, looking at Henry’s pristine cutaway suit, dark wool paired with a light blue waistcoat and matching ascot wrapped around a starched high collar. “What are you,” he repeated, emphasising something about Henry that set him apart from the rest of the people, “doing here?”

Henry was an Oxford-educated man, but it didn’t take his education level to understand the question's underlying meaning.

What are you, a tall, strong, blue-eyed, blond-haired, upper-class man doing in the steerage line? This was below your station.

It was Henry’s fault, and he had to admit it. The whole journey took weeks, and he couldn’t have reasonably been expected to be able to survive it all on an empty stomach. The ship’s personnel didn’t mind when someone in steerage died on the journey. He’d been witness to countless sea burials of corpses that arose on the journey, only some of them killed by him. Disease was rampant in the ship’s belly, and you could never be sure you’d survive it all. It was part of the risk. Having him on board didn’t skew any expectations more than could have reasonably been expected.

He had spent decades trying to stop feeling guilty about it, and on some days, it actually worked.  

It was his fault for falling asleep on the lower decks just before the ship entered the harbour. His fellow first-class passengers were swiftly observed while still on deck and allowed to disembark and make their way into New York, but he was left to be examined for lice and other diseases he may have contracted from mingling in with the pleb.

“There was suspicion I was sick,” he said, flashing bright white teeth. “Didn’t want to cause a scene on my first day in a new country.”

The doctor shook his head, and Henry knew exactly what he was thinking.

High-born Englishmen, more willing to withstand the strain of waiting in line for 3 hours than even dare to… cause a fuss.

“You’re free to go out into the city now,” the doctor said, handing him a card. Then he stepped aside and pointed to a door that led into America.

“Don’t I need a chalk mark for that?”

The doctor scoffed.

“That will be quite alright, sir. The card says you’re fine.”

Henry tipped his hat at the man, picked up his small handbag and walked out into the bright morning sun.

As he stepped out of the great hall and onto the ferry platform, the wind off the harbour caught his coat, filling it with the smell of salty water.

He stood in what he hoped would be the final line he had to endure while the ferry approached. 

The captain stood at the helm, eyes squinting against the morning sun as the ferry approached the dock. He adjusted the throttle with practised ease, guiding the vessel gently through the choppy water. The hull creaked as it glided alongside the worn wooden pilings, ropes swinging loosely at his side.

The deckhand moved with the calm precision of a man who had done this a thousand times before.

As the ferry edged toward the dock, he stood ready—broad-shouldered and steady-footed—coiled like a spring. At the captain’s signal, he leapt ashore in one fluid motion, heavy mooring line gripped tightly in his calloused hands. He looped the thick rope around the cleat, muscles straining as he cinched it tight, securing the ferry against the pull of the tide. He didn’t speak, didn’t hesitate. Just worked—silent, swift, and sure—anchoring the vessel like it was second nature.

Henry caught himself staring.

The engines rumbled into silence, and for a moment, all was still except the gulls wheeling overhead.

The queue started shifting as people hobbled their way onto the ferry.

They bought their tickets from the captain and stepped into the vessel while the young man held their hand and steadied their steps.

“Aren’t you a bit too fancy for this place?” he asked, holding his hand out to Henry when he reached the edge.

“Looks can always be deceiving,” Henry said, taking the outstretched hand even though he didn’t need it.

They were both equally cold, and Henry chalked it up to a chilly ocean breeze. The man grabbed his hand tight, and Henry marvelled at the fact. Human grips were usually so loose.

The boat rocked gently as he climbed aboard, joining others whose faces were still lit with disbelief and joy. Some wept quietly; others clutched hands or lifted small children so they could see what lay ahead.

And then, as the ferry pulled away from Ellis Island, the skyline of New York City began to rise from the mist. Smokestacks and spires pierced the sky, and the Statue of Liberty stood like a silent sentinel. She looked far grander from this angle—closer, almost reachable. Her torch burned gold in the morning light, and Henry thought it looked so much grander than it had when they were building it in France.

The deckhand leaned against the railing, arms crossed over his chest, his shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbows. Their eyes met for a brief moment—just long enough to register something shared. Or maybe Henry was imagining it.  With salt in his three-day beard and ropes burned into his palms, the deckhand saw the exhaustion behind the man’s eyes and understood it. Nothing more.

Henry, in turn, noticed the way the deckhand stood—not just strong, but anchored, like someone who’d fought the tide and learned to stay standing.

The island behind him faded into the distance. Ahead lay the unknown—crowded tenements, factory work, unfamiliar streets—but also a possibility. As the ferry glided closer to Manhattan, he pressed his hands to the rail, eyes wide, stomach-churning in expectation. In fear. In hunger.

~*~

Just off the Grand Central depot, behind a cloud of smoke and soot, the Hotel Manhattan sprung 14 floors above street level. Henry stepped out of the crowded tramcar, made his way between the horse carriages and people cluttering the streets and stepped inside. He had secured a few weeks of lodging at the railroad hotel, hoping to gain some footing in this new country before making decisions and making plans.

He wouldn’t seem out of place in a hotel as grand as this one and he wouldn’t want for meals so close to the thousands of daily commuters.

There was a reason he had chosen this place, after all.

“How may I help you, sir?” the man at the counter asked.

Henry pulled out a letter from his breast pocket and handed it to the man.

“I have requested one of my closest friends,” he said, knowing the weight of Bea’s title and signature on any old scraggly piece of paper, “to send a message ahead for me and reserve accommodation at your wonderful establishment.”

He looked around as if he couldn’t believe the grandeur, putting on his best of shows. He’d seen grader buildings, but he had to admit, from what he’d seen that day, that Americans were quite fond of tall buildings.

“Oh, of course, Mr Fox,” the man replied, in that accent that beat all consonants into a tasteless mush. “We have the best room available reserved and settled for you by Miss Hannover-Stuart.”

“That’s all very lovely to hear.”

“Can we release you of your bags?”

Ah, yes, the bags… The ones with the clothes that had been packed and used up over the course of their unending trip here.

“There has been a bit of a delay on the ship, I’m afraid,” Henry lied with a broad smile, “so I was given to understand they will be arriving at a later moment.”

“Oh my. That sounds like a headache,” the man said, craning his head to see only the lowly handbag in Henry’s possession. Would you like us to recommend a good local tailor, sir? He’ll have an entire wardrobe ready for you in a matter of days.”

It wasn’t the worst idea Henry had ever heard. He was such a messy eater that there was no way he’d be able to keep his clothes proper if he were to indulge in some dinner. His stomach grumbled at the thought.

“That sounds like a marvellous idea. Could he be here before day’s end?”

“Of course, sir. We aim to please.”

He remembered reading about Burton and Hormer's little steam-powered ascending room in London, but he’d never had the opportunity to experience it. While the ‘lift’ craze had evidently spread across the channel into France and Germany, fate said that he would first experience it in Manhattan.

An iron-caged carriage trimmed in polished brass and dark oak panelling was manned by a uniformed operator in crisp gloves and a peaked cap. Henry stepped inside, uncertain for a moment, before the operator gave a polite nod and slid the ornate metal gate closed with a practised clang.

With a gentle lurch, the elevator began its slow ascent, the hum of machinery and the soft clatter of pulleys filling the small, echoing space. The light inside flickered faintly from a frosted glass globe mounted in the ceiling, casting warm shadows across the elevator’s filigreed walls.

The gate slid open with a soft snap, revealing a quiet corridor lined with sconces and hushed luxury. Henry thanked the man, handed him a dollar, and walked to his room.

It exuded elegance from the moment he stepped across its polished parquet floors. Bea had outdone herself. High ceilings were adorned with ornate plasterwork—floral rosettes and gilded scrolls that caught the golden flicker of a crystal chandelier overhead. Heavy crimson velvet drapes framed tall windows that overlooked the bustling streets of Manhattan, muffling the city’s clamour like a velvet opera curtain.

A four-poster mahogany bed, dressed in fine linen and topped with an embroidered coverlet, stood as the room’s centrepiece. Beside it, a marble-topped nightstand held a crystal decanter and a cut-glass tumbler. A writing desk, carved with delicate motifs, was set near the window, accompanied by a green-shaded lamp and an ivory-handled fountain pen.

Henry took a moment to look around and then flopped on the bed. He brought his hands to his stomach and pressed the hunger away. He needed to wait until nightfall.

~*~

By the time the tailor had left his room, plans in hand to bring him five suits by the end of the week, the sun had set behind the high Manhattan buildings.

His hands were shaking, he felt cold, and his head was threatening to split in half from the pain. He knew the only way to make all of this go away was by eating. He could steal the clothes off of someone else; he didn’t care anymore. He needed to sink his teeth into something as soon as possible or risk delirium. Here, alone, without Bea next to him, that would be an unceremonious death sentence.

“We’ll start serving dinner in a short while, sir,” the man at the front desk said as he passed by, “should I write you down for a table?”

“It won’t be necessary.”

“Are you sure, sir? We have a lovely roasted partridge on offer,” he said as if that would have been enough to sway someone like Henry.

“Another time, perhaps,” Henry said, tipping his hat. “I have business in the city.”

“Please be careful, sir. Vagrants are roaming around everywhere.”

It’s what Henry was counting on.

It’s what he went in search of. He walked off towards the train station.

Its broad stone façade was crowned with a stately clock tower, and behind it stretched the long iron-and-glass train shed, barely containing the steam and smoke that hissed from inside.

He joined the throng of travellers pressing through the heavy wooden doors. Inside, the station pulsed with motion—men in hats, women in gloves, children clutching satchels and sweets. The air was thick with coal smoke and the scent of hot metal. The arched windows poured shafts of dusty light onto the tiled floor while iron girders soared overhead, caging the sky in steel and soot-streaked glass.

Steam whistles shrieked across the vast concourse. Conductors barked destinations. There was no calm, no elegance—only energy, raw and unfiltered.

The building wasn’t beautiful, but it was immense, alive, and undeniable.

He’d made the right choice. There were so many day workers to choose from. So many men and women without ties who wandered around the place. So many people that no one would miss.

He sat on a bench and waited. He would be more elegant about it tomorrow but needed something fast and dirty tonight. He let the shine of his gold pocket watch catch the glimmers of light coming off the dim lights. If this place was anything like London, at least 4 people would see it and want it before the hour was out.

He had to time it right. Too early and there would be too many people around to see him do it. Too late and he risked not having enough prey to choose from.

He sat stiffly on the edge of the wooden bench, hands clasped too tightly in his lap. The brim of his hat tugged low to shade the restless flicker in his eyes. One foot tapped—just once every few seconds. Around him, life went on: the shuffle of footsteps, the murmur of distant voices, the clatter of wheels on tile.

Something wasn’t right. Something was hiding in the crowd. He couldn’t see it, but he could sense it. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He looked around, his fingers tingling, his skin too tight, but he couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

He was hungry, though, which always made him antsy and aloof.

Every sound made his head turn—each creak of a hinge or shift in the air startled him like a day-old fawn. Maybe it was too much excitement; maybe the trip had finally gotten to him. His jaw clenched as he checked his pocket watch for the third time in a minute. It was nearing 10 o’clock, and the place was almost empty. A few hangers-ons, too drunk to be accepted on the trains, too poor to bribe the conductor, leaned against the walls.

Henry’s eyes passed from one to the other, trying to grab their attention enough to have them follow him.

Then his eyes landed on a man, no more than 20, who returned his gaze a little too long.

“So that’s settled,” he whispered to himself and got up from the bench. Once he was full, he could spare a few more thoughts to his malaise.

He slipped off the main road without looking back, the narrow alley swallowing him like a mouth. The streetlamp behind cast just enough light to stretch his shadow long against the slick brick walls. He walked slowly, deliberately, his shoes hitting puddles with soft splashes, not in a hurry—never in a hurry.

He needed to allow the young man to catch up to him. He made no effort to hide. He wanted to be seen.

Halfway down the alley, he stopped. He didn’t turn around. He just waited. Because even through his hunger, he couldn’t deny that this was the part he liked most: the stillness before the trap closed. The moment when predator and prey hadn’t yet decided their roles.

The footsteps were hard on the pavement, getting closer by the second. The boy wasn’t running, but he wasn’t far from it. He could hear the soft, panting breath of someone struggling to close the distance between them.

He turned around to look his meal in the face, and just as the boy was pulling out a switchblade, Henry saw something run behind him.

“Watch out!” he said before he realised what had happened.

Time had slowed. Or perhaps it had quickened—he couldn’t tell.

At first, he wasn’t sure what he was looking at—just two figures, locked strangely close, a silhouette hunched behind another. But then the light caught the scene—silver moonlight slicing down through the alley—and he saw the boy’s face.

Eyes wide. Not with fear, but a glassy, vacant kind of surrender. Mouth slightly parted, chest barely moving. A trickle of blood ran down his neck, painting a delicate line into his collar.

Behind him, the deckhand was still, almost tender. His hands rested lightly on the victim’s shoulders, his brown skin contrasting the white. His head was bowed, lips sunk into the side of the man’s throat like a lover whispering something intimate. But there was nothing romantic in it—only hunger. Old, patient hunger.

Henry felt rooted to the spot. The man’s eyes flicked up—just for a heartbeat—and locked with his. Unblinking. Calm. As if to say, ‘Come. I can sense you’re hungry, too.’

Henry wanted to turn around and walk away. There were rules when you met another, and those rules weren’t meant to be broken. He was in enough trouble with what he’d done to Bea; he didn’t need to bring more mess upon his head.

But he was so hungry. So, so hungry.

The man held out his hand, beckoning Henry forward. Throwing caution to the wind, Henry walked up to the man and his prey. The smell of blood was intoxicating. His stomach rumbled again, and before his higher functions could try to pry him away, he ripped open the young man’s shirt and sunk his teeth into the follow of his collarbone.

The blood was warm, fresh and sweet. It spurted into his mouth with the willingness only a young heart offered. He gulped it down with the urgency of a man who hadn’t tasted liquid in aeons.

The blood was sweet; would the flesh feel the same?

As if reading his mind, the deckhand pulled away from the quickly waning pressure of the young man’s carotid and pulled his sleeves up. The muscle was long and lean, and while the fatter ones provided more sustenance, he knew that beggars can’t be choosers.

“He’ll pass out any minute,” he said, looking into Henry’s eyes with a mix of amusement and curiosity.

He waited until the boy’s head lulled forward before he sunk his sharp nails into the fresh skin and flayed it from shoulder to wrist. The muscle was red and glistening under the full moon.  

“You look like you need it more than I do,” the man said, ripping a tick strip of muscle and handing it to Henry.

With the disappointed look of a child forced to give up his toy, Henry had to concede that the last drips of blood were no longer worth the hassle. He dislodged his teeth from the skin and took the offer on hand, biting into the sweet meat.

“Thank you…” he said, waiting for the man to offer a name.

“Alex.”

“Alexander.”

Alex looked him up and down and smiled.

“No. Call me Alex.”

He lowered the man in his arms to the ground and then crouched low on his haunches, blood slicking his fingers as he tore another piece from the red, glistening arm.

He raised the chunk to his mouth with reverence, almost savouring the moment before sinking his teeth in. The flesh gave way with a wet rip, and juice trickled down his chin, streaking his stubble and dripping onto his collar. He chewed slowly at first, letting the iron-rich flavour bloom across his tongue, eyes half-lidded in something that looked unnervingly close to pleasure.

Henry noticed that he had no shame in it. No hesitation. Only appetite—and the quiet satisfaction of feeding it.

“I didn’t think…” Henry started, his eyes wandering over the man, hoping to see… what? A mark? A brand? A sign of whose he was.

“We can talk at my place,” Alex cut him short, lifting the dead man in his arms.

“Where are you taking him?”

“At my place?” Alex asked in confusion. “I just said as much.”

Henry never took his food home. Henry left it where it lay and moved to a different city, as they all did back in Europe. But this wasn’t Europe. Surely, there were others here as well. There must have been customs Henry knew nothing about, as Henry was the new one here. It would help to have someone show him the ropes.

“Do you live nearby?”

Alex laughed.

“No, I live next to the docks.”

“But then how will …”

“We run,” Alex said, once again cutting him short. Patience didn’t seem to be a friend. He bumped his shoulder into Henry like they had known each other for eternity and laughed again. “Never met a European one before,” he said, “so I hope you guys can keep up.”

He threw the body over his left shoulder with tremendous ease and held out a hand for Henry.

He took it then like he had taken it on the ferry, and in a blink of an eye, both of them disappeared down the empty New York streets.

Chapter Text

The house clung to the edge of the city like it knew it didn’t quite belong. A narrow, two-story frame squeezed between brick buildings, its clapboard siding chipped and greyed from the salty air drifting in from the East River. Just a few blocks from the bustling docks, the sounds of ship horns, shouting longshoremen, and the grind of cargo pulleys filtered through the thin walls day and night. It wasn’t a home as much as it was a holding pen.

Inside, the rooms were small and close, lit by low-burning gas lamps. Whatever daylight got in had to spill through soot-smudged windows. The parlour doubled as a bedroom in winter when warmth from the iron stove was too precious to waste. The floors were bare pine, worn smooth by boots caked in harbour mud that tenant after tenant had dragged in. A faded quilt hung over the doorway to keep the draft out, and the air always carried a mix of boiled cabbage, tobacco, and damp wool.

“Make yourself at home,” Alex grinned. As if Henry would have ever felt at home in a place like this.

He watched the man try to find an appropriate stool to sit on, something that wasn’t stained, broken, or rough.

“I’m going to go on a limb and say you’ve never sat in anything that wasn’t covered in velvet,” he said, walking over to the side of the stove, where a red-coloured sheet was laid on the floor. He unloaded his victim, long since gone from this world and set about stripping him.

“What are you doing?” Henry asked, eyes widening in disbelief.

“We were a bit too messy with this one, I’ll give you that,” Alex replied, lifting the young man to pry the shirt off his back, “but nothing a good wash in some cold saltwater won’t fix.” He gestured to the world outside, “and we have a fresh supply of that whenever we want it.”

“You’re not going to … wear them, are you?”

Alex lay his arm alongside the young man’s for comparison, pale fleshy red contrasting with light brown, hoping it would be answer enough.

“Couldn’t even if I wanted to,” he added for good measure. “Kid’s even smaller than you. Nah. I’m going to sell them off, though. They seem well made. They’ll catch a pretty penny.”

He started taking the pants off when he heard Henry's distinct footsteps walking up towards him.

“Please don’t do that.”

“I’m not rich, your majesty,” Alex said, curling his words in a deliberate American accent. “And I haven’t been at this,” he gestured towards himself, hoping that Henry would understand, “for too long either. I’m doing the best I can with what I have at the moment, and if me figuring things out isn’t to your liking, I’m gonna have to ask you to leave.”

He didn’t need to look up to hear Henry take off his coat and place it on one of the chairs. He knelt next to Alex and lifted the boy’s body every which way was needed for Alex to strip him completely.

“Thanks.”

He worked quickly, yanking at the shoes first—scuffed leather, good soles, barely worn. One came off easy, the other took a bit of wrestling. The foot flopped limply as he tugged. Then came the trousers. Belt unbuckled with a tired jingle. Henry lifted the body by the hips, and Alex peeled the fabric down, rough wool scraping over pale legs. He tried not to look at the face, but his eyes flicked up anyway—mouth open, eyes glassy, staring at nothing. He was getting used to it by now, and he didn’t know if he liked it.

“How did you know I was…” Henry started and faded off, taking the pants out of Alex’s hands and folding them properly.

Alex stood up and walked off to a side cupboard. He searched through it for a second before he found what he was looking for – he pulled out a long butcher’s knife and walked back over to the corpse.

Henry stood silent as Alex inspected the body, trying to find some meat on the lanky build of a man who had barely started living. You couldn’t think about that, though. Once you started, it never stopped. Alex’s mind made sure of it.

He carved off pieces of meat from the man’s thigh and calf, from his arm and hips with cold, practiced detail. He was getting better at this by the day, and somewhere deep down, if he went searching for it, he felt proud.

“Used to be so bad at this,” he said, handing Henry a perfectly cut muscle strip. “Shank’s the best, I think.”

Henry took the offering and bit into it. Alex cut himself another piece and, finally, almost an hour since he had tasted the blood, he bit into the cold flesh. It tore easily between his teeth, sinew giving way with a wet, satisfying snap. He had learned to chew slowly, savouring the iron tang for as long as possible.  A thin line of juice ran down his chin, and he wiped it away with his thumb.

“You smell like us,” he said, answering Henry’s question.

He watched as Henry devoured his meat with the same intensity and couldn’t help but smile. After all these years alone, crouched in shadow, he thought he was becoming more animal than human.

Seeing Henry look precisely the same, closing his eyes in the same pleasure that must have ruled both their lives, he felt less of an oddity.

Henry was older, though. He didn’t need to be told that—he noticed it. He looked ancient and perfectly at ease with his existence.

“I… what?”

Alex shrugged, sucking his fingers clean. His breath came heavier, steadier. His hunger wasn’t sated, but his stomach had stopped hurting. Everything else was ritual.

“Everyone here has a smell. You must have noticed. The whole city’s awash with noise and smell. It never shuts up. Enough to drive a guy crazy.” He raised his fingers to his temple in a mock gun and pretended to shoot himself. “But you’re… silent. Odourless. The moment I laid eyes on you, I knew you were different. I haven’t met anyone else in New York, you know. Like us.”

“Why do you think I’m like you?”

The words weren’t sharp, but Alex heard the flicker of accusation. Not loud, but there. Like a bruise just beneath the skin. Maybe Henry was right—maybe he wasn’t like Alex at all. There was no telling what Henry actually was. All Alex had was the surface: the crisp accent, the pressed shirt, the studied cool of a man who never had to scrape for anything. A fancy English businessman playing around with the vagabond.

“I don’t. I just thought… Nevermind.”

He turned his back and carved into the meat again, blade slicing with rhythmic precision. Thick, pink cuts stacked neatly, as if control could be found in the shape of things.

“How long have you been like… this?”

“Thirty years, give or take,” Alex replied, refusing to look at Henry. It was childish. If he had any balls, he’d look him in the eye and ask about everything that was gnawing at him. If he had any self-respect, he’d probably send the man away. “You?”

“I stopped counting after my 200^th year.”

Yeah… that made sense.

“Who made you?”

Alex closed his eyes and saw her just as vividly as if it had happened yesterday. Laying in the red Texan dirt, dress ripped, muddy, bloody… Her eyes glazed over, her lips slightly parted, her breath a faint murmur.

“My sister,” he said, flicking the image away like ash.

He spared a glance at Henry. He looked like he wanted to say something but was holding back. Too many secrets in such a small apartment.

“Your shirt’s dirty,” Alex pointed out, mostly to break the silence. “I can give you one of mine if you want.”

Henry’s eyes narrowed, and he got up to his feet.

“One of yours will make me stick out more.”

Alex stopped carving and looked up.

“Was just trying to be helpful.”

“Yeah, thank you for that, but I think I’ll just go steal from a clothing shop.”

“You have a lot of experience with that?”

“Am I hearing judgment in your tone?”

“Just trying to match yours,” Alex retorted, feeling the annoyance creep in. Who the hell did this guy think he was? Alex had shared his meal and house and was willing to share his clothes…

“I think it’s best we keep out of each other’s way,” Henry proposed, picking up his jacket and taking several steps backwards.

Alex stood too, tension rolling through his chest. There was a power to Henry, quiet and steady, and Alex hated how much smaller it made him feel in his own damn home.

“Of course,” he said coolly, letting the knife drop with a loud clatter beside the half-chopped body on the floor. “I can imagine the pinewood panelling is not to monsieur’s refined taste. Wouldn’t want to make it feel like he’s slumming it with the poor.”

“What? That’s not…”

“Listen here, cabrón,” Alex geared up, his blood suddenly boiling inside him, “I was here first, so I’m taking everything south of 22nd, you hear me?”

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. This wasn’t what Alex wanted when he first bumped into Henry. He’d hoped for something else—maybe a bit of recognition. Maybe even a connection.

"Pinches extranjeros vienen aquí y creen que mandan," he whispered under his breath.

“I can understand Spanish.”

Alex gave a mock curtsy, “Pues supongo que felicidades, motherfucker. Now get out.”

Henry opened his mouth like he might argue, but nothing came. He left instead, the door clicking softly behind him.

The moment the silence settled in again, Alex turned and slammed his fist into the wall. Wood cracked. A dent bloomed like a scar.

~*~

 When Alex woke, the air was still—cold and damp, the kind of quiet that only existed before the city found its voice. He dressed in silence. There were no lights, just the soft creak of old floorboards and the rustle of fabric. Outside, the horizon was still ink-black, but he knew where to go. His body moved on habit, his eyes accustomed to the dark.

The docks smelled of salt, rust, and river rot. The ferry bobbed gently at its mooring, skeletal in the predawn haze. Alex stepped aboard with a quiet familiarity, boots echoing faintly on the deck. He didn’t need light to see. Even if he were still human, he’d been working here for so long that he knew every inch of the boat.

With a bucket in one hand and a stiff-bristled brush in the other, he began to scrub—the same way he always did. Metal railings were wiped down, benches rinsed and dried, and trash swept into a waiting sack. He worked methodically, the repetition dulling the raw edges of his thoughts. It was just water, wood, and the scrape of bristles now.

He must have been the odd one out. The one that needed to have someone to talk to. It’s why June had left him and went west. His incessant mouth, never stopping for a single moment, never thinking about what other people were thinking.

He wanted to say it wasn’t his fault, that hearing everyone in a two-mile radius, smelling everything from here to New Jersey, sensing movement three blocks away – wasn’t healthy. His mind had no moment of peace, but that wasn’t special. That had always been the case. It hadn’t started once he turned. The noises were different, yes, but the chaos has always been there. It never died down unless his teeth were two inches deep in someone’s throat.

“Better luck next time,” he said to himself, wiping the sweat off his brow in this cold March morning.

The deck was clean when the sky had turned a pale, indifferent grey. Almost shining.

The captain’s voice broke the silence behind him. “Morning, Alex. You beat the sun again.”

Alex straightened and offered a small nod. “Someone’s gotta make her presentable.”

The captain chuckled. “She appreciates it. As do I.”

They shared a brief glance—nothing too warm but real. A human thing. They barely talked, and it drove Alex crazy to sit in silence next to the man, but he needed the job. Where else was he going to find a steady stream of people who would be willing to join him for the night? Sometimes it was for fun, sometimes it was for dinner, sometimes it was for both.

He tried to hear Henry. He strained as hard as he could to listen to that steady breath, that unmistakable step.

His ears rang empty with the silence of the city. Alex returned to his brush. The day would start soon enough. For now, there was still a sliver of peace left.

~*~

The ferry rocked gently as it glided across the Hudson, the morning sun catching on the waves like glass splinters. Alex wiped his hands on his coat and glanced over the deck. That’s when he saw her.

She stood near the railing, one gloved hand resting on the iron bar, her dark hair swept into a neat twist. Her eyes met his briefly—just long enough to hold, not long enough to feel deliberate. Her husband stood beside her, tall, clean-shaven, his arm draped lightly behind her waist. He noticed, too. He noticed her gaze lingering. Noticed Alex.

But there was no anger, no tension. Just something else. Curiosity, maybe. He’s seen this before more times than he could count.

There was something about moving to a different country, crossing an ocean to do so, that gave people a sense of freedom. It probably didn’t last long, but Alex had coined a term for himself and his passing victims. ‘Ferry high’ might not be a real thing, but he had the notches on his bedpost to prove that it brought results.

It probably didn’t last. The people who managed to escape his bedroom unscathed went back to being the God-fearing, law-abiding citizens he saw them to be deep down.

Alex passed by slowly, nodding a quiet good morning. Her lips curved slightly. The husband gave a nod in return, his expression unreadable but open. An understanding passed between them—not words, not even suggestion. Just possibility.

Later, as the ferry docked, Alex caught up to them on the gangplank. “You folks got a place to stay tonight?”

The man looked at his wife, then back at Alex. “We were just figuring that out.”

Alex hesitated. “My place is… small. But it’s warm.”

A pause.

She smiled. “That sounds perfect.”

Alex’s apartment was dim and quiet when they entered, lit only by the soft orange spill of gaslight through the frosted window. The couple stepped in first, cautious but curious. He watched them take it in—modest, clean, a strange contrast to the city’s grime and the bodies Alex usually dealt with.

“I wasn’t expecting it to be this tidy,” she said, slowly removing her gloves. Her voice was amused.

“I wasn’t expecting company,” Alex replied, shrugging off his coat. He never kept bodies long. After he ate his fill, he made quick work of the dismembered bodies. It was March, and the weather was still cold

He tried not to look too long, but her presence filled the space easily—her perfume catching in the air like warmth in winter. Her husband’s eyes followed Alex, measured and alert.

They moved slowly through the room, as if testing it. Testing him. Alex poured three glasses of something dark and sharp, and they drank without speaking for a moment. Heat gathered in the small room.

“So… do you bring many strangers home?” the husband asked, voice low.

Alex looked up. “No. Not usually.”

Their eyes held. Then hers did too.

The husband was a man of solid build, not quite imposing but with a quiet strength that sits comfortably beneath his tailored coat. His features are angular, sharp in a way that makes him seem composed, even when his thoughts may be wandering. His dark eyes often flicker with calculated interest, though a trace of uncertainty lurked beneath the surface, as if constantly measuring the world around him, evaluating risks before acting.

When Alex first noticed him, the man’s gaze was direct but not confrontational, more like someone sizing up an unknown variable in a familiar equation. His movements were measured, deliberate, a man used to being in control—but in the moment with Alex, something shifted. There was a curiosity, a flicker of something deeper behind his calm exterior, a vulnerability that showed when he looked at his wife, and then again when his gaze meets Alex’s.

The silence thickened. It wasn’t uncomfortable—just charged. A pause stretched out, taut as wire, until she crossed the space and gently took Alex’s glass from his hand.

“You’re not like the others,” she said.

And maybe that was enough to begin.

The heat in the room rose slowly. Clothes loosened, fell away—a jacket draped over a chair, a blouse slipped off with care, the brush of hands growing bolder. There was no rush, only the quiet hum of desire wrapping itself around the three of them like smoke.

Alex guided them toward the bed—narrow, clean, tucked into the far corner of the apartment. By the time they lay back, skin against skin, breath warm in the crooks of necks and shoulders, the lines between who touched whom had blurred completely. There was nothing left but the nearness—the sound of blood rushing and breaths hitching.

He hovered over them—naked, flushed, trembling for reasons they didn’t understand. The woman's lips were parted in pleasure; the man’s eyes half-closed, arms sprawled wide in surrender.

It was perfect. Almost kind.

Until it wasn’t.

The air snapped. The shift in him was so quick, so violent, it almost seemed like the room itself recoiled.

In an instant, the softness was gone. His lips, once gentle, were now a predator’s snarl as he descended upon them. The woman gasped, but the sound choked in her throat as Alex’s teeth sank into her neck, sharp and unrelenting. Blood flowed, thick and warm, flooding his senses, a rush that overwhelmed everything. The man tried to scream, but his voice was silenced when Alex’s hand wrapped around his neck and squeezed.

They were powerless in his grasp. He heard the crack before he felt the large body go limp next to him. The bed beneath them became soaked with blood.

The room spun. Time slowed. And for just a moment, Alex tasted the warmth of life fading—until the cold, bitter thrill of power replaced it. He drank greedily, savouring the rush, feeling their life drain away, a violent pleasure curling deep in his chest.

When she stopped moving, he pulled away, looked at the both of them and started crying.

Was this going to be his life from now on?

Chapter Text

Heir to Austria’s throne is slain with his wife by a Bosnian youth to avenge seizure of his country

Francis Ferdinand Short During State Visit to Sarajevo

Henry read the title twice, his eyes quickly scanning the two black and white pictures of the archduke and his wife bracketing the Austro-Hungarian coat of arms.

The secretary burst into his office with a fresh brew of that disgusting American coffee, the only thing she knew how to make.

“Did you hear the news, sir?”

“Just reading about it now.”

He couldn’t believe it. Wouldn’t. He hadn’t had the chance to meet Franz yet, but Bea always gushed about her dinner soirees with Sissi. She had nothing but the highest praises for the royal family, and he couldn’t believe that they’d just…

He shifted to the next page and then the next and the next. A three-page spread detailing Franz’s life, talking about Sophie and the kids, their charity work, and their ties to the rest of Europe’s royal families, it tried to teach the unknowing American public everything there was to know about what would surely become an infamous day.

“Send in the Annie, please,” he asked. He needed to reach Bea.

“Annie’s been replaced, sir,” his secretary said, grasping the coffee tray to her chest like a shield.

They always did that around him. He’d never once done anything to make them think he would react violently, but the other men in the world taught them a lesson that he couldn’t make them unlearn. He sighed.

“What happened to her?”

His secretary shrugged. “She didn’t show up.”

“Did we send someone to check in on her?”

His secretary shook her head. Of course they didn’t. This city brought thousands of fresh people in every day. Everyone was disposable. If one of them disappeared, another would pop up to take their place.

“Fine,” he sighed, wincing as he took a sip out of that tepid brown pond water. “Send in the replacement.”

“Sir, we couldn’t find someone suitable on such short notice, so we have a temporary…”

“I don’t care who it is, Helena, just send her in.”

Helena made a face, nodded and then opened the door to let the new girl in.

Henry gazed up from the newspaper now sprawled on his desk and saw a small woman entering his office.

Her blouse was crisp and high-collared, tucked neatly into a navy walking skirt that swayed just above her ankles. A modest jacket, worn at the elbows, hugged her narrow frame. Her dark hair was coiled into a tight bun beneath a dark grey felt hat.

Under one arm, she carried her handbag and a leather-bound notebook. She didn’t smile, but her expression carried a quiet determination.

Henry felt the air in the room shift. Regardless of what she might have said, he could tell from how her eyes grew wide that she sensed him just as much as he sensed her.

“As I said, sir, we’re still looking for an appropriate…”

“Thank you, Helena, that will be enough. I’m sure Miss…”

“June Claremont,” the small woman said.

“Diaz,” Helena corrected from the door, her eyes narrowing.

June swallowed hard, and Henry smirked at her restraint. She’d been around for long enough to learn to keep the rage at bay.

“I’m sure Miss Claremont-Diaz is going to do a fantastic job. No use wasting the company’s resources on looking for anyone else. I’ll let you know if I change my mind,” he added with a silencing hand when Helena opened her mouth.

He waited until the door closed and gestured towards the small typewriting desk to his left.

“You’re familiar with an Underwood, I assume,” Henry said, watching as she set her handbag to the side and set up a piece of paper.

“Yes, sir.”

“Good, then please take this down.”

My darling Bea,

I have just read the news and am at a loss for words. I cannot begin to comprehend what trouble must be brewing back home at this very moment, which is why I need you to come here.

You cannot risk being caught in a warzone, and I do not trust Philip to be able to take care of you. I would obviously extend the same invitation to our mother, but I cannot trust that she would take any message from me.

Please let me know what arrangements I can make. I need to know you’re safe.

We both know enough to understand that this will not end well.

With all the love in the world

Henry

Henry pretended to look away as he dictated but honed all his senses towards the woman in his presence.

The keys clacked in a steady rhythm beneath her fingers, each letter struck with careful precision. She sat straight-backed at her desk, eyes focused on the page, jotting down every word her employer spoke. His voice was smooth and slow, and he knew that not many bosses were as careful in their dictation as he was.

Even if he heard the talks around the office, after insisting on having a typewriter in his office instead of outside the door, like everyone else was in the habit, he practised, echoing across the panelled office with the confidence of someone who presented he was used to being obeyed.

She was good at her job. She nodded occasionally, her fingers never hesitating, as if her mind was already two sentences ahead—tracking the cadence of his speech, anticipating the next phrase.

His sign-off seemed to intrigue her because, from the corner of his eyes, he could see her lips parting. It was clear she wanted to ask, but she was stopping herself.

Henry couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for her. How she must have felt.

It wasn’t her place. Not here, not in this room with its brass fixtures, heavy books, and the ticking of a clock too fine to be touched. She was just a typewriter. A brown-skinned girl was lucky to sit in this chair, luckier still to be paid for it. So she dipped her head, pretended the question hadn’t formed at all, and pulled the paper out.

“Would you like to sign it, sir? I can have your secretary send it out?”

“Yes, that’s a good idea,” he said, scribbling his signature next to his name and handing it back to her. “She knows Bea’s address.”

~*~

The room was dim with the weight of late afternoon, golden light slanting through tall windows and warming the mahogany-panelled office.

Henry was swirling a glass of whiskey in one hand and puffing on a cigar with the other.

It had been a long day, and there was nothing he was less interested in doing than watching John ogle his new employee.

She sat poised behind her Remington, hands hovering just above the keys, the sound of each mechanical click barely daring to interrupt the solemn gravity of the moment.

John Morgan Jr. stood near the fireplace, not seated—he was not the sort to sit when history shifted. His presence filled the room more than his stature alone could account for. Morgan was a commanding figure, still towering and broad, even though age and illness had left their marks. His large, broad moustache dominated a stern, unsmiling face. His steel-grey eyes were deep-set beneath heavy brows, his gaze sharp and calculating even in repose.

He spoke slowly, each word deliberate. “This war will change Europe—and it will change us,” he said, voice low and gravelly. “We must not hesitate. American industry must rise to meet the moment. Not just for profit—but for power.”

He took a slow step toward the empty hearth, hands clasped behind his back. “England, France—they’ll burn through their stockpiles by the end of the year. Powder, munitions, steel. Ships. Loans. They will come to us. They have before they will again. And we must be ready.”

June barely breathed, her fingers racing to keep up.

“I do not care to involve ourselves in Europe’s battles. Let the diplomats posture,” Henry said.

“But the business, my dear boy? The banks, the railroads, the mills—we are the new arsenal. This war will be won with ledgers as much as rifles.”

Henry kept silent. He knew better than to speak at a time like this.

“History will record kings and generals,” JP said. “But it will be built on our credit.”

The soft click of her shoes echoed against marble tile as she followed a step behind him, carefully keeping pace.

The building still smelled of fresh plaster and varnished wood, the sort that clung to newness. 23 Wall Street had just been completed, its bold limestone façade gleaming outside like a fortress of capital. Inside, everything still shined—mahogany panelling along the walls, intricate moulding along high ceilings, and rows of gaslight sconces.

By the time they reached Henry’s office near the trading floor, where sunlight filtered in through massive, gridded windows, he knew she’d be ready to sit down and talk. He felt a need to impress her, to show her how far he’d come in life because… what? Because she was like him? What did that even matter in his circumstances?

“How old are you?” he asked, voice casual, almost distracted, as he gestured toward her desk—the tiny corner she now occupied beneath the high windows and brass lighting of his office.

“I’m 28, sir,” she replied, settling into the chair.

“No,” he said gently, walking back toward the door and turning the lock with a soft click. Not menacing, not rushed. Intentional. He returned, slow and composed, as if the moment had always been meant to happen this way. “How old are you?”

She didn’t flinch. Not like others might have. Instead, her fingers found the edge of the desk, gripping the smooth grain of the polished wood. She took a breath and met his gaze fully, her poise slipping just enough to reveal the woman beneath.

“I’m 64,” she answered, holding his gaze for the first time that day.

A flicker passed across his face—respect, maybe even relief. He lowered himself into the leather armchair beside her desk with the kind of elegance that came from practice, from having had centuries to perfect it.

“You’re very young,” he murmured. “Have you been in the city long?”

“I came here a week ago. Still finding my footing.”

“Any business in the city?”

She hesitated as if this was a step too far. As if this was the information she wasn’t willing to share with him.

“My darling,” he said softly, “I have no intention of hurting you, outing you, or showing you the door. Whatever it is, you’re safe in this room.”

She studied him, searching for cracks in the kindness. Finding none, she nodded faintly. “My sweetheart wanted to visit the city. She’s never seen one before.”

Henry took the information in with a blank expression. Sweetheart. What a lovely word to be able to call someone. Not that Henry would know. He’d never had the chance to say it to someone. The ones that came close to it left when they realised what he was.

“It’s a lovely city. I can understand why she’d want to see it.”

The visible tension left June’s body at the sound of those words.

“Is she your age?”

“No. She’s younger.”

He shook his head at that. If he didn’t know any better, and he did, that always meant just one thing.

“How about you?” she asked suddenly.

“Me?

“How did you get this job?”

“My ‘father’,” he quoted, hoping she’d understand the explanation, “worked at the London branch of J. S. Morgan & Co in the 1870s. “'He' helped draft the French loan agreements during the war.”

“And now you’re here, working for Morgan's son?”

“I’m well-funded. I don’t need the income—it’s more for appearance. Social legitimacy.”

“How long until you age out?”

Now that she felt safe, she was more daring than Henry would have given her credit for.

“Five years, maybe ten. If I can secure a wife, I might pass another decade. But a human wife is… complicated.”

She smoothed her skirt and stood, brushing invisible dust from the pleats. “Presumptuous of me to bring it up on the first day.”

“Oh?”

“Nora—my sweetheart—would never forgive me if I didn’t at least ask.”

“Ask?”

“I think… maybe in a few months, once I’ve seen what kind of man you really are… we’d like to invite you to dinner.”

She let the suggestion settle.

“It’s not every day we meet someone,” she said, eyes softening, staring at how he played with his signet ring ,“like us.”

~*~

The apartment was modest, tucked inside a weathered brick tenement on the fourth floor—high enough for quiet, low enough to avoid the exhausting climb of a true walk-up.

“Welcome to our humble abode,” June said, opening the door for him.

He handed her a large bouquet of lilies he had personally picked out and held on tight to the bottle of champagne.

“Just set that over on any flat surface you find,” she said. She turned to pick out a large empty jar from the cupboard and fill it with water. “They’re lovely,” she admired. “Come on, let me give you a tour of the property,” she imitated in a mock English accent.

Once the early unease had settled, and she noticed that Henry had no secret agenda to speak of, her true nature started popping through. Now, entirely in her territory, she had no qualms about acting precisely as she wanted.

She grabbed his hand with the ease of someone who knew it meant nothing and dragged him around the shockingly small place.

The entryway opened directly into a small front room that served as both a parlour and dining space. A threadbare rug covered most of the scuffed wooden floor, and a small drop-leaf table sat against the window, where the light was best for mending clothes or reading borrowed books. June gave him the impression of someone who was constantly learning. He was sure she’d read till she dropped.

Two mismatched chairs flanked the table, and a faded settee bought secondhand faced the coal stove tucked neatly in the corner. The wallpaper, yellowing at the edges, bore a delicate floral pattern that hinted at better times.

Beyond a curtained doorway, the bedroom was barely big enough for two narrow iron-framed beds—each made up with careful, hand-sewn quilts. Their few personal items—a hairbrush, a stack of letters, a framed photograph—were tucked neatly onto the shared dresser. Clothes were stored in trunks beneath the beds.

The bathroom was down the hall, and they shared it with two other apartments.

“It’s not much, but it’s the big city,” she said, pretending that living in New York was reason enough to accept this place.

They returned to the parlour, and June started pulling the table into the centre of the room. He took that worry off her hands, and she accepted his help pulling plates from the overhead drawer.

“Four?”

“I invited my brother over for dinner if that’s okay with you,” she said, opening the table leaf and setting up the places. He’s bringing in fresh meat.”

Fresh meat? Was her brother also a –

The soft clatter of boots on metal interrupted the calm hum of the room. A figure emerged through the open transom window—steady and unbothered by the climb. She wore a grease-stained boiler suit, rolled at the sleeves and dusted with soot from a long day’s shift. Her thick curls were pulled back beneath a kerchief, and her face—strong, alert, beautiful—glowed faintly with sweat from the climb and the early summer air.

She slipped through the window and landed soundlessly on the kitchen floor with a confidence that came from doing this many times before.

The sight of Henry, all dressed up and helping June set the table made her pause and she let out a low whistle, part impressed, part teasing. Her eyes wandered from the light suited man to the woman smoothing her apron.

“You didn’t tell me you were having company,” she said with a grin, unfastening the top button of her suit and shaking off the weight of the city. “Hope he likes trouble at the table.”

June rolled her eyes and walked up to the woman, giving her a peck on the lips and pointing her towards the washroom.

Henry blushed at the sight. He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to turn around and find something else to be interested in.

“How nice to finally meet you, sir. I’m Nora,” she said, sticking out a dirty hand in test.

Henry took it and gave it a short, firm shake.

“Go wash up before the food arrives, you little menace.”

Nora’s lips curled, and for a moment, Henry thought she would say something. Instead, reading some unspoken plea in June’s eyes, she saluted and walked to the entrance.

“I’ll help with the settee when I’m back. Let the man feel like a guest. Sit, please,” she said, ushering him to one of the threadbare chairs sitting next to the window. “When’s the vagabond supposed to be here?” Nora asked, opening the door.

“Is there someone else invited to dinner?”

Henry’s head snapped to attention as Alexander swopped down to grab Nora in a hug.

It took Alex a moment to register someone else in the room. He looked up and frowned.

“You," he said flatly.

Chapter Text

Henry rose from his chair slowly, deliberately. His face stayed calm, but his eyes had cooled.

“Didn’t expect to see you again,” Henry said, giving him a once over.

“We had an understanding. And yet here you are,” Alex snapped, turning to his sister. “You knew?”

“I invited him,” she answered, voice steady but quiet. “Didn’t know I’d need to ask permission.”

“I told you,” Alex growled, still looking at Henry, “we stay out of each other’s way.”

Henry didn’t flinch, and Alex respected that. He looked exactly the same as the first time they’d met. Maybe even better. Or perhaps time had dulled the memory.

 “It’s dinner, not a war. I didn’t do this on purpose. How was I supposed to know she’s your sister?”

Neither of them moved. This wasn’t sitting right with him, but he also knew June. She didn’t invite people over unless there was a good reason to.

He loosened the tight grip on the package in his hand. He could share a meal with him and then never see him again. They’d retreat into their corners, and nothing had to fundamentally change.

“Sure,” he agreed. “Not like I have anything to say about whoever she invites into her house.” The tone was accusatory, and June’s eyes narrowed. He could swear he heard her growl if he didn’t know any better.

He threw the package on the table, and she went about splitting the meat on the plates.

“Oh, we’re being fancy, is that it?” Alex laughed, dragging the empty chair to the table. “We’re gonna use knife and fork to work through the longshoremen’s shins?”

“If you want me to throw this out on the fire escape for you like a dog, then be my guest,” June snapped, baring her canines.

By the time Nora came back, dressed in a pair of pants and a boatneck cotton shirt, the three of them were silently watching the walls.

“Times like this, I love the fact that I can turn invisible,” she joked, taking her place next to June.

~*~

Alex stood by the window, arms crossed, while Henry nursed a drink with studied detachment. June and Nora sat close on the worn loveseat, knees brushing, hands just barely touching.

“We met in Vermont,” June said, smoothing her skirt, not quite looking at anyone. “I was passing through—spent a decade pretending to be someone’s widow, running bookkeeping in a small firm. Nora worked at the textile plant next door. Always walked home alone, even when it was dark. Something about that made me want to speak to her.”

Nora chuckled softly. “Took her a week to do it.”

Henry leaned forward, curious despite himself. Alex stayed leaning against the wall, arms crossed tight.

“We started talking. Every day. About work, about the world, about how long it takes to feel like you belong anywhere,” June continued. “But nothing in my life had ever lasted. I didn’t want to lose her.”

“She asked me,” Nora said plainly. “Not in some swooning, fancy way. Just honest. Said what she was, said what she could offer. I asked for a night to think. Took her hand the next morning and said yes.”

“She turned me by the river,” Nora added, her voice low and even. “Out where the trees go on forever. It hurt, but I’ve had worse. At least this time I chose it.”

June gave a tiny, proud smile. Alex picked at the peeling wallpaper, frowning in enforced focus.

“We came to New York together a few weeks ago. I wanted to introduce her to my brother.”

Alex’s jaw clenched, but his expression softened a fraction as he looked at them. He didn’t understand why Henry needed to be told all of this.

“I don’t need your blessing,” June said, staring at Alex but aiming the question for both men to hear. “But I do want your understanding.”

Henry looked between the two women—between the quiet strength in Nora and the elegant defiance in June—and finally nodded once, almost imperceptibly.

Alex didn’t move from the wall, but after a long silence, he muttered, “She’s braver than most.” He believed it when he said it.

“She is,” June said softly. “That’s why I asked. And that’s why I’m doing this.”

Alex frowned. What was that supposed to mean?

With a straightforward tone, June finally looked up at Henry and said, “I want you to marry me.”

Henry choked at the straightforward statement.

“What in the everloving-”

“Not now, Alex,” she cut him off and waved a hand.

“I’m not a dog.”

“Please. I’ve seen you turn into one,” Nora chuckled.

“Anyway,” June hummed, bringing the attention back to her request. “What do you think?”

“Would you care to expand on that?” Henry asked, voice barely above a whisper, and Alex agreed wholeheartedly with him for once. He would have, however, worded it less gently.

“It wouldn’t mean what you think,” she added, glancing at Nora, whose eyes remained steady, unreadable. “It would be for appearances. A socially respectable union—something the world can see and not question. So Nora and I can live together without drawing suspicion.”

Henry leaned back in the leather chair, thoughtful.

“You’re already living together!” Alex pointed out as if he wasn’t happy with the arrangement to begin with. “What more do you want?”

“I want her not to have to turn into a cat and walk up the fucking fire escape to come into the house,” June exclaimed without a hint of a stammer.

Why was she always so damn dramatic? She was living with a woman. She made that choice of her own free will. She turned someone else, again, without thinking it through. That was supposed to be his prerogative. He was the one who delved head first into every stupid decision that momentarily passed through his mind. He couldn’t believe he was the one being level-headed about this.

“Are you just expecting him to agree to a sham marriage so that you can be more comfortable? He’s just supposed to forgo any other woman because you want a happy ever after for yourself?”

June reached out to take Nora’s hand. “We’d say she’s the help. Live in the same house. Share the same roof. But behind closed doors, nothing changes.”

“And you agree to this?” Alex asked, his voice low, his eyes flicking to Henry with suspicion.

“She’s right. A marriage would grant her the public safety she needs. People ask fewer questions when a woman has a husband—especially one with standing. And anyway,” he said, holding Alex’s gaze, daring him to react, “I’m not interested in finding a woman.”

“What’s that even-”

“I’ve had colder arrangements.”

Alex opened his mouth to say something and then forced it back shut. If everyone was going to be out of their minds, he wasn’t going to add to the madness.

Henry turned to Alex, lips curling into something near a smile. “The estate I have my eye on is too large for just two. I need to get out of the city if I want to have a chance at coming back in a decade and not being recognised. You could live there too. It’d give you more cover. More comfort. And let’s be honest—it’s easier to hunt when no one’s watching.”

June raised her brows. “We’d be safer. All of us.”

Alex didn’t answer right away. He looked at Nora, then at June—his sister, impossibly older than she looked, impossibly determined. At Henry, the man he didn’t trust, and maybe never would.

“I’ll think about it,” he said at last.

June smiled. “That’s all I ask.”

~*~

The night had settled thick over the city, the gas lamps along the streets flickering like tired sentinels. He preferred them to those new electrical ones. They had a life in them.

Alex and Henry descended silently from the stoop outside June’s modest apartment. The streets of New York were quieter now, but they were not asleep. A low hum of life buzzed beneath the cobblestones. Alex knew they both could hear it.

Henry gestured toward the black automobile parked across the street—shiny, humming, new.

“Need a ride?” he asked, pulling on his gloves.

Alex shook his head. “No, thanks. I like my snail’s pace walking. Helps me think.”

Henry nodded, not offended.

Alex eyed the machine. “I’ve been seeing more of them. Automobiles. Maybe the horse carriages are finally on their way out.”

“Humans go through phases,” Henry replied, amused. “They fall in and out of love with things faster than they can make them.”

Alex glanced at him sidelong. “How long did it take you to get used to that? The shifting?”

Henry leaned against the side of the car, watching a group of late workers cross the street. “I haven’t. I’ve lived a long, long time and still haven’t gotten the hang of it.”

Alex studied him, his heart suddenly racing. He couldn’t understand why his voice was quieter. “And the loneliness? Can you deal with it?”

Henry didn’t answer right away. Then he shook his head. “No.”

For a moment, Alex thought he saw something in his eyes—something deep and unreachable. Longing? But for what? Connection? Forgiveness?

He didn’t understand it. Couldn’t parse what Henry had said after dinner. How could he not want a woman?

Alex didn’t sleep with men he didn’t kill. That was the rule, wasn’t it? They’d die anyway, might as well give them a fun way out. It wasn’t like he was interested in…

“Safe night,” Henry said, snapping him out of his thoughts before stepping into the driver’s seat.

“You too,” Alex muttered, already walking away, coat collar pulled up against the wind. He didn’t look back.

Alex walked the long way home, letting the cold bite at his skin. The city at this hour was hushed—just the occasional rattle of a carriage wheel, the hiss of steam rising from a grate. He liked it better this way when the streets were half-asleep. It felt closer to something eternal. Something he could understand.

He passed shuttered shops and quiet brownstones, gas lamps casting soft amber halos onto the wet pavement. A cat skittered across an alley; a drunk mumbled to himself on a stoop.

By the time he reached his building, his boots were damp, and his shoulders felt heavy. He walked like a human and, for a moment, felt like one.

He unlocked the door, stepped inside, and shut it behind him. The silence of the apartment pressed in around him like a held breath. The air smelled like yesterday’s blood and soap. His coat slid off his shoulders with a ruffle, and he left it in a heap by the door.

He stood in the centre of the room for a long time. No voices, no laughter, no sound of another breathing in the dark. Just the steady tick of the wall clock and the low hum of the city in the distance.

He sat down on the edge of the bed—still rumpled from the last visitors, still stained. He didn’t clean it. Didn’t move. He stared at the far wall and felt old for the first time in a long while. Not just weary. Old.

Lonely.

Henry’s words echoed in his head. No, I’m not used to it.

And Alex realised—neither was he.

~*~

12, Queen’s Gate Terrace
London, W.
15 October, 1916

My dearest Henry,

Word has just reached me regarding your engagement to Miss Diaz and I simply had to write at once—felicitations, my dear! It seems rather a marvel that you've managed it all in just over a year. You were never a quick planner on this side of the pond.

I understand from your last letter that Miss Diaz is aware of our particular situation, which is... unconventional, to say the least. If she accepts you as you are, and you trust her—then I shall trust your judgment as I always have. Still, I must ask: is it wise, truly, to relocate to some grand estate outside the city with three people you've only just come to know? I’m sure you’ll scoff, but that seems a tad theatrical even for you.

America during wartime gives me pause. Please don’t expect me to cross an ocean full of U-boats just yet—but once this wretched war is behind us, I shall catch the first safe passage and descend upon you all with champagne and opinions.

I miss you terribly. Please write more often. And do tell—do you have someone, Henry? Someone to spend your long days with, the way June has found with that darling Nora? I only hope you're not still hiding yourself away in those cavernous libraries. A little warmth, brother, can do wonders.

All my love,
Bea

The light from the tall windows of Henry’s office cut sharp lines across the floor, filtered through dust motes dancing in the afternoon sun. The room was still, save for the soft rustle of paper in Henry’s hand. The whole place was a monument to silence.

Perched on the edge of a sloping hill, surrounded by dense maples and wide stretches of lawn, the upstate New York mansion stood as a testament to Gilded Age ambition colliding with 20th-century restraint.

Henry sat at his desk, the golden edge of the letter still in his hand. Its wax seal was cracked and rested in two clean halves beside the blotter.

He looked up, expression unreadable, and gave a single nod to Alex, who was sitting in the doorway—an acknowledgement more formal than friendly but laced with a flicker of something warmer. Without speaking, he extended the letter across the polished mahogany desk. A gesture of trust, maybe, or just habit. They weren’t friends. Not really. But they were no longer enemies, and that civility was more than either of them had dared hope for a year ago.

Alex took it carefully. The parchment was heavy and soft at the edges, the kind that still held a faint scent of perfume and sea salt. Bea’s handwriting curled in deliberate elegance, each line a performance taught by governesses and burned into muscle memory by centuries of etiquette.

His eyes moved across the page as he stood by the desk, the subtle tightening of his jaw the only sign that he was reading something personal.

“She’s my sister,” Henry said softly, breaking the quiet. He’d never mentioned her before. Protective of her being even at such a great distance. “Bea. Still in London. Refused to leave, even after the last raid.”

Alex didn’t respond right away. His gaze lingered at the signature, “Bea,” as if the name carried weight. Finally, he folded the letter and handed it back.

“She sounds worried about you.”

Henry gave a soft, humourless laugh. “She always has been. Since before I can remember. But it’s worse now. I don’t know if she’s safer staying or leaving.”

“You can’t protect everyone,” Alex said, not unkindly.

“I don’t need to protect everyone. Only her.” Henry looked down at the paper again. “But she’s her own person.”

Alex sank into the worn leather chair opposite him, the frame creaking slightly under his weight. A silence stretched between them, but it wasn’t empty—it had gravity. It settled around their shoulders like a blanket.

Then, breaking it, Alex asked, “Who was the first one to be made?”

Henry looked up slowly. Of all the questions Alex could’ve asked, he hadn’t expected that. He tilted his head slightly, as if pulling the memory out from deep storage. “It was more or less the same time. My siblings and I… we were all turned in the same week.”

Alex blinked. “Wait—are you serious?”

“I look at you and really wonder when the first of us made the trek into America. Who started making you here?”

“Oh no, you don’t get to change the subject that easily,” Alex cut in. “You just dropped a bomb and want to pivot to immigration history?”

“I believe I can do whatever I please in my house, Alex.”

Alex rolled his eyes and leaned back, sulking in theatrical silence for a beat before another question bubbled up.

“Did you ever turn anyone?”

Henry raised a brow, considering the weight of that question. “No. Never.”

Alex shook his head too. “Me either. I don’t think I could ever… do that to someone.”

“Is it really so bad?” Henry asked.

Alex looked up at him like he had said a bad joke.

Alex’s face darkened slightly, his jaw tightening. “The hunger is paralysing,” he said flatly. “Maybe I’m still young, but I can’t look them in the eye when they die. The moment they stop fighting, I have to just—” He tapped his temple. “Shut it off. Leave.”

Henry shrugged.

“You learn to like the night more than the day,” Henry replied. “And you get used to it. Not because it gets easier—but because you stop waiting for it to be fair.”

Alex nodded, but it wasn’t agreement—it was resignation. “We’ll never be accepted. You know that, right? We pretend like this community we’ve built means something. But we still kill. People would run if they ever really saw us.”

Henry looked at him with a quiet kind of understanding.

“You make your own community, Alex. You take what you need, because no one’s going to give it to you. It took me a century to learn what your sister understood in half the time. You don’t wait. You build. Are you not happy for her?”

“I…” Alex exhaled, shaking his head. “I am unbelievably happy she found someone who cares for her.”

Henry tilted his head, reading the truth in his words.

“You just wish she didn’t have to make another.”

Alex looked up like he wasn’t expecting Henry to understand. Henry looked away before Alex could speak, as if resisting an impulse to offer something gentler, a hand on the shoulder, a shared truth. But they weren’t quite there yet. Maybe they were getting close.

A knock at the door broke the spell. Then it opened, and June stepped in, carrying a polished silver tray with a porcelain teapot and a single teacup.

“How about this one? Is this one good?” she asked, eyebrows raised hopefully.

Alex chuckled, bemused. “You’re getting married in a week, and you’re busy taste-testing tea?”

June shrugged and smiled. “A wife should know how to make a proper cup for her husband, right?”

Henry took the cup with the reverence of a man who’d endured far too many bad attempts. He sipped cautiously—then his eyes widened with delight.

“This is perfect, June.”

She let out a happy laugh and bounced on the balls of her feet. “Only took a year!”

Henry smiled genuinely now. “A quick learner if I ever saw one.”

~*~

The garden was quiet, caught in that strange, suspended hour between sunset and full dark when the world seemed to hold its breath.

June walked slowly down the winding path, boots soft against the gravel, hands buried in her coat pockets. Alex walked beside her, uncharacteristically silent.

Around him, maple trees rose tall and proud, their branches crowned in a fiery riot of red, gold, and amber. The air was crisp—cool enough to cloud his breath when he exhaled—and carried the faint, sweet scent of sap and damp earth. Somewhere nearby, a crow cawed once before flapping away, the only sound in a garden otherwise hushed by the hour and the season.

“Henry and Nora are best friends now, you know,” she said, trying to keep up with his fast pace.

He glanced at her, suspicious. “You’re joking.”

“Not at all. They talk books. Obscure French essays. Vampire ethics. It’s honestly kind of adorable.”

Alex rolled his eyes. “That man has ethics?”

“He does! Shocking, I know,” June said with a smirk. “Nora says he’s surprisingly well-read.”

“He owns a library, June. He probably sleeps in it.”

“Maybe,” she grinned. “But Nora doesn’t care. Not about the money. Or the name. Or any of it. She talks to him like he’s just a weird old neighbour who knows too much Latin.”

Alex looked sceptical. “And he likes that?”

“He loves it. She didn’t say too much about it, but I know they gossip about you and me.”

“Great,” Alex muttered. “That’s just what I need.”

June nudged him with her elbow. “He probably knows more about you than you think.”

Alex stopped walking. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I like him, Alex. And you’re still acting like he’s one misstep from betrayal.”

“I’m not—”

“You are,” she cut in. “You have a chip on your shoulder that I can’t pretend to understand. You barely speak to him unless someone else is in the room.”

“He’s ancient, controlling, and definitely hiding something.”

June arched a brow. “You sulk when you’re around him. Do you know that? Sulk. Like a teenager. I don’t know what’s going on in that head of yours, but you’re not yourself when he’s around.”

Alex sighed. “He reminds me of what we are. Of what we’ll never stop being.”

June was quiet for a beat, then said, “Yeah. He reminds me of that too. But he also reminds me that we don’t have to be miserable about it.”

Alex looked at her, and for a moment, his face softened. He wanted to tell her about the night they met and how he felt when he saw Henry, pale and hungry in the streetlamp light. It had been more than a year since June came back to him and yet he’d been skirting serious conversation ever since. He was afraid that if one thing started going, then it would all come tumbling out, and there was never a proper time and place to listen to all of it.

“I don’t think you’ve ever been silent this long before,” June mused, poking him in the arm.

“There must be a better way to spend your last night as a free woman,” Alex replied, “than to make fun of your baby brother,” he said.

“You’re right! I should go and make love to my girlfriend until the sheets are soaked.”

“You could marry the king of England himself, and you still wouldn’t learn to be a lady.”

“No one else seemed to care I wasn’t.”

“What do you mean no one else?”

June stopped walking and turned to Alex with a concerned look on her face. He didn’t like that. Bad things always happened when she was like that.

“This would be my third marriage,” she said, holding his gaze.

Alex’s eyes widened.

“What?!”

“I shouldn’t have said that, should I?”

“No, that’s not. How… why… who?”

“You can’t be a single woman roaming the country, Alex.”

Alex stood frozen, still trying to wrap his head around it.

“Three?” he echoed, voice pitched higher than usual.

June folded her arms, eyes steady. “Yes. Three. The first when I was moved to California. The second was when I needed papers to move up north. And Henry will be the third.”

“But you’re—you’re you,” he sputtered. “You don’t need a husband. Not anymore. I mean, not since you’re a…”

June tilted her head and gave a bitter little laugh. “You think a woman could travel alone, live alone, work alone? Without a husband? Without someone claiming her?”

He didn’t answer. She didn’t expect him to.

“You know what they called a woman who lived alone? Or one who dressed too well for a widow? Or didn’t go to church with a man on her arm?” She raised an eyebrow. “They’d say you were a whore, or worse, a witch. The whole village gathers to chase you out.”

Alex winced. Why did she leave him then? Why go through all of this trouble when he could have protected her? He would always protect her.

She paused, brushing her hand along a low maple branch. “Marriage wasn’t about love. It was protection. Legitimacy. A way to be left alone.”

He glanced at her, then looked away. “Did they hurt you?”

June was quiet.

Alex’s fists clenched in his pockets.

“I’m not asking to pry,” he said, trying his goddamn best not to let his voice shake. “I just… need to know.”

She sighed. “The first was cruel. The second was kind. I didn’t turn either of them.”

“Then what happened?”

She looked at him with a kind of tired grace. “One died in a flood. The other fell from the roof. You don’t have to kill people for them to vanish, Alex. The world does that well enough.”

They stood in silence for a moment. The trees rustled softly above them.

Alex broke it. “I’m sorry.”

The sound of soft footsteps on gravel drew Alex’s attention from the rustling trees. He turned just as Nora appeared from the curve in the path, her silhouette framed by the dying light. She wore a long, dark overcoat that fluttered slightly as she walked, and her hair was sleeked up loosely, a few curls catching the breeze. Her expression was focused but warm, lips pressed into a smile that was half affection, half exasperation.

“There you are,” she said, spotting them.

The sky overhead was streaked in pinks and bruised purples, fading fast into navy. The light filtered through the canopy of leaves, catching in flashes on Nora’s cheekbones and the dark curls that brushed her collar.

Nora slowed her step as she approached, tilting her head.

“I should’ve guessed you’d sneak off here.”

“It’s beautiful,” June said softly, ignoring the remnants of her conversation with Alex.

“It is,” Nora replied. “But it’ll still be here tomorrow.”

She offered her hand, the gesture as gentle as it was firm. “And you, my love, need sleep. I am not letting you show up to our wedding with shadows under your eyes. I will personally wrestle time itself before I let you look tired in our photographs.”

“Our photographs,” June mused. “You sound like Henry.”

“Well, someone has to be the reasonable one now that he’s off taste-testing tea like it’s a matter of state,” Nora quipped, brushing a leaf from June’s shoulder before tugging her closer.

June went freely, her fingers lacing through Nora’s like it was the most natural thing in the world. Alex, still standing a few feet away, watched the exchange in silence, something unreadable flickering behind his eyes.

“I just wanted a moment,” June said, brushing a maple leaf from her hair. “To breathe.”

“You’ll have forever to breathe, sweetheart,” Nora said, voice quiet. “But tonight, you sleep. Goodnight, Alex.”

They turned together, their silhouettes blending as they walked back up the garden path—one bright and restless, the other steady as stone, hands clasped, steps in rhythm. Behind them, the maples whispered overhead, and dusk folded the garden into shadow.

He paused by a low stone bench, half-buried under a thick drift of fallen leaves, and brushed them aside without thinking before sitting down. For a while, he just listened—to the rustle of the wind through the trees and the hush of approaching night. There was a peace in this place, something gentle and undemanding.

The exterior of the house was brick and pale limestone, softened by ivy crawling up the sides. It had a columned portico at the front entrance and tall, multi-pane windows set in symmetrical rows. Henry insisted on installing those electricity bulbs to keep up with the times, so the chandeliers flickered uncertainly overhead.

It made the whole mansion look like a flickering lighthouse. But inside, all was quiet—except for what Alex could hear.

His ears, sharp and inescapably attuned to the softest sound, picked up the familiar rustle of June pulling her covers up and the low exhale as she shifted into sleep. Her heartbeat slowed, steady and even as Nora shuffled close to her side. Regardless of what she had told him that evening, she was peaceful. Her life was peaceful.

But then—something else. A different rhythm entirely.

A soft, muffled moan—barely audible but unmistakably real—spilled from the other wing. It wasn’t pain. It was pleasure. Low, drawn-out, and so intimate that it made Alex’s bones hurt. Alex froze where he stood, his breath catching before it could even reach his chest. There was a pause. Then another sound. Another moan. A voice he didn’t recognise—deeper, masculine. Laughter. A scrape of furniture. Bodies shifting.

A strange, sharp current surged through him.

He didn’t want to be listening. He couldn’t stop.

Then footsteps—two sets. One lighter, familiar, Henry. The other slower, heavier, moving toward the front door. Alex stepped silently toward the wide double doors just as they creaked open.

The guest was tall, wearing a dark coat and a confident walk. His face was angled away from the moonlight, but he was clearly handsome and charming—the kind of man who didn’t need an invitation.

Henry walked him out in silence, only pausing at the threshold. The two of them exchanged a few words, and then, without ceremony, Henry leaned in and kissed the man. Brief. Certain. Like it wasn’t the first time.

Alex felt something twist in his chest.

He didn’t even know what to call it.

Jealousy?

Confusion?

Anger?

All he knew was that he couldn’t look away.

Henry looked up then, catching Alex’s eye across the greenery. His expression didn’t change. No surprise. No guilt. Just… blank acknowledgement. And then he shut the door.

Alex stood in the dark, alone, and tried not to think about what any of it meant.

Chapter Text

The light through the curtains was soft and grey, a quiet kind of morning light that barely registered. The mansion was still, heavy with the silence of early hours. Henry stirred beneath the thick covers, one arm lazily flung across the empty space beside him. He had woken up with it empty for such a long time, he wondered if he could ever get used to it being filled by someone again.

Then came the scent: black tea, sharp and fragrant, and a rustle of skirts.

“Good morning,” June said softly from the doorway, holding a large porcelain cup in both hands. She was still in her night robe, a simple ivory thing with lace around the collar, and her hair pinned up loosely. Her voice was warm and bright with the quiet thrill of the day ahead.

Henry blinked awake fully and shifted to one side, patting the space next to him without hesitation. “Come in. I warmed it up for you.”

She climbed in carefully, handing him the cup before curling up beside him under the sheets, her bare feet cold against his leg. He didn’t mind. They sat like that, shoulder to shoulder, passing the cup back and forth.

“This is a good blend,” he noted after a sip.

“It’s your wedding day. I thought I’d try to be generous.”

A smile tugged at his mouth. “How kind of you.”

They were quiet for a beat, watching steam curl from the rim. Then Henry said, without second meanings, “It’s my fifth.”

June looked over, blinking. “Marriage?”

He nodded. “Not all lasted. None of them were real. But yes, five, counting today.”

She snorted softly. Her hair tickled the side of his face. “Third for me. We’re practically veterans.”

He glanced sideways. “Do I ask what happened to the others?”

“You could,” she said. “But I probably won’t answer. And no, I didn’t eat them.”

“That’s a relief.”

June reached for the cup again, taking a slow sip. “It’s different for men. You can go years alone, and no one cares. For me... it was either marry or explain myself.”

Henry studied her profile. “You’ve never owed anyone an explanation.”

“I know. Doesn’t stop them from asking.”

He hummed in agreement. People always loved to stick their noses into others’ business.

She turned toward him and nudged his knee with hers. “Thank you. For making this easy.”

He looked at her, then took the cup back and raised it in a mock toast. “To practical love.”

“To not being alone,” she corrected gently.

He smiled. “That too.” Was he allowed to be lonely, though?

They stayed like that for a while—two people who had lived too long, made strange compromises, but found a kind of peace in each other. One that didn’t need grand declarations or eternal vows. Just warmth, and shared tea, and a bed big enough for two, should they ever be found wanting of a quiet chat.

Outside, the mansion was waking up.

Henry handed her the now-empty teacup, his fingers brushing lightly against hers.

“Do you think Nora will be alright?” he asked, not quite meeting June’s eyes.

She shifted beside him, drawing the covers up to her waist. “She will be,” she said after a pause. “She understands what’s happening. She always has.”

“And Alex…” Henry frowned. “He’s different. I can’t place him.”

June sighed, rubbing her palms over her knees. “You’re not wrong. He’s been acting strange ever since I moved back in with him in New York. Quiet. Too quiet. The man used to talk your ear off. He’s guarded now.”

“You left him alone for a while, didn’t you?”

She nodded, guilt flashing across her face. “Longer than I should have. I couldn’t face him. Not after what I did.”

Henry turned toward her, voice low. “What happened?”

She hesitated. Her hand reached absently for the cup again, finding it empty. “I’ll tell you,” she said, her voice softer now. “But not today. Not on the day I’m getting married.”

He searched her face for a moment, something unreadable in his eyes, then nodded once. “Fair enough.”

Outside, the wind picked up, stirring the rust-colored leaves into a whisper against the windows. The world waited for them to rise, to dress, to step into the ceremony that would bind them in name, if not in blood. But for now, they stayed in the quiet, sharing the last few moments of morning as if it belonged only to them.

~*~

Inside, the air carried the quiet chill that lingered in homes too large to heat evenly. The foyer opened into the grand staircase, its dark walnut bannister covered in chrysanthemums, its steps polished into a mirror-like sheen. The doors of all the rooms lay open, letting the open space flow through wide archways: a drawing room with a baby grand piano, a library panelled in cherrywood and lined with leather-bound volumes, and a dining room outfitted in dark linens and heavy silver cutlery. All were polished, dusted and decorated for what the newspapers had called the wedding of the decade. The state’s most important people were supposed to arrive in the afternoon, and the hired help was busy running around to put in the finishing touches.

Nora presided over all of it with a sharp eye and an even sharper tongue. In between giving orders, she went to check on Alex.

Alex stood by the tall mirror in the corner of his room, shoulders hunched awkwardly, fingers fumbling with the buttons of his tuxedo jacket. He looked up, startled, half-swallowed a curse, and immediately turned red.

“I swear these sleeves are longer than the last time I tried it on,” he muttered, tugging at the cuffs.

Nora laughed and crossed the room in a few quick steps. “Stand still before you wrinkle the whole thing,” she said, reaching up to straighten his bowtie and smooth the lapels. Her fingers moved with practised ease, knocking off lint, nudging his collar just so.

“You clean up really well, you know,” she said, stepping back to admire her handiwork. “Almost respectable.”

Alex rolled his eyes, but the corner of his mouth tugged upward.

“I came to ask you a favour,” Nora said, fixing her own reflection behind him in the mirror. “When the photographer starts snapping pictures, ask for one with all the staff. I want a photo with June.”

Alex blinked. “You? In a photo?”

“Don’t sound so surprised.” She smirked. “It’s a big day. Besides, you might even survive being in a picture, too, given how well you look. Might even smile, who knows?”

Alex snorted. “Highly unlikely if Henry’s in the room.”

“Come on, it’s a wedding. Even vampires can manage a grin for that.”

She gave his tie one final tug for luck, then patted his chest. “There. Now you’re officially fit to stand next to a bride.”

Nora turned to leave but paused in the doorway. “And Alex… thank you. For seeing her through all of this. It means the world to her.”

He didn’t answer right away. Just nodded once, and she disappeared down the hallway, her footsteps light against the floorboards.

~*~

The mansion was already alive with soft footsteps and murmured preparations. Somewhere down the hall, June was laughing.

Alex found Henry in the library. He always did. The man had a habit of retreating there when things got too human.

He was wearing a deep charcoal three-piece suit. The slightly lighter grey waistcoat was tailored snug against his frame, and his crisp white shirt was fastened with mother-of-pearl studs instead of buttons.

A black satin bowtie, carefully tied by hand, sat at his throat, and a white pocket square was folded with precision in his breast pocket. A single white rose boutonniere, freshly cut from the garden that morning, was pinned over his heart.

Everything about the look was timeless, deliberate, and quietly noble— and Alex had to pause a moment and take it all in.

Henry looked up from a leather-bound book, sensing Alex’s presence before the door even opened fully. “You're up early.”

“You didn’t think I’d let it go, did you?” Alex said, stepping in and closing the door behind him.

Henry raised an eyebrow. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

Alex crossed the room quickly, tension in his jaw. “Last night. The man. I heard everything.”

Henry didn’t flinch. He set the book down with careful precision. “And?”

“You kissed him,” Alex said, quieter now but no less fierce. “You knew I was watching.”

Henry studied him. “I happen to be nice to the people I share my bed with. I didn’t kiss him for you.”

“I didn’t say you did.”

“Then what exactly is this about?” Henry leaned back in the chair, eyes narrowing. “You’re not exactly the patron saint of chaste living. I hear the women. Even if you insist on never letting them step inside the house, everyone hears them, even from the gardener’s shed.” Henry scoffs. “Good for them, I suppose.”

“It’s not about chastity.” Alex's voice cracked just slightly. “It’s… I just didn’t expect you to bring someone here. In this house. The night before the wedding.”

Henry’s gaze softened just a little. “This house is mine. I don’t owe anyone apologies for how I live in it.”

“But you’re marrying June.”

“I am marrying June,” Henry said. “But June has Nora. And I’m not trying to pretend I’m anything else than what I am. We both understand the arrangement. You understand it.”

Alex didn’t respond. He couldn’t. There was heat behind his eyes and a knot in his throat, and he didn’t know what to name it.

Henry stood, slow and deliberate, stepping close enough that Alex had to tilt his head up to meet his eyes. “Why do you care?”

“I don’t,” Alex snapped too quickly.

Henry almost smiled. “Of course you don’t.”

For a long moment, neither said anything. The clock ticked. Somewhere outside, the chapel bells were being tested.

“Do you think she’s making a mistake?” Henry asked, his voice quieter now. “June, I mean.”

“No,” Alex said, and meant it. “But I think I’m going to go crazy if I keep pretending I understand any of this.”

Henry nodded, lips thinning in thought. “You’ll figure it out.”

Alex looked at him, and for a moment, something unspoken flickered between them—complicated, heavy, and unnameable.

Then the door opened, and Nora poked her head in, beaming. “Gentlemen, the bride is demanding your presence. She refuses to walk down the aisle until she’s told her hair is perfect.”

Henry’s expression softened instantly. “Well, we can’t keep her waiting.”

As he passed Alex on his way out, he said, “You’re welcome to stay jealous, but try to be useful about it.”

Alex watched him go, stunned and burning.

He didn’t know what to do with this feeling. But he was starting to realise it wouldn’t be going away.

~*~

The garden had been transformed into a romantic dreamscape—rows of wooden chairs lined the trimmed grass, trailing with white ribbons and clusters of wildflowers. The makeshift aisle was nothing more than a path of soft moss and scattered petals, leading under an arch woven from maple branches, ivy, and blooms picked at dawn.

Alex stood tall at the edge of the garden path, his tuxedo dark against the golden light. His arm was hooked with June’s as he prepared to walk her forward. Despite himself, there was something undeniably reverent about the moment.

June wore a high-necked, long-sleeved wedding gown made from soft ivory silk satin that caught the light like water. Delicate lace detailing edged the collar and cuffs, and a row of tiny pearl buttons trailed down the back. A sheer veil was pinned into her softly curled hair with antique combs, spilling down her back like morning mist.

As they began their slow walk down the aisle, Alex felt every gaze on them, but all he could focus on was June's steady grip on his arm. She was radiant, not in an otherworldly way, but grounded—real, beaming, present.

Henry stood at the end of the aisle, waiting, composed yet visibly moved. When June and Alex reached him, Alex placed her hand into Henry’s. For a fleeting moment, the three of them stood in a quiet line.

Then Alex stepped back, and Henry took her hand fully, his thumb brushing lightly over her knuckles.

The ceremony had not yet begun, and yet something important had already passed between them.

Alex stood at the edge of the gathering, his eyes fixed on Henry. He wasn’t watching the ceremony so much as studying him—how he held June’s hand with steadiness, how his smile was subtle but sincere. It should’ve been simple, ceremonial. But something about the moment lodged in Alex’s chest like a thorn.

Marriage had always seemed abstract to him—especially now when death no longer carried finality and time stretched out endlessly. But this? This still meant something. Even if it was for show, an easy way to gain a decade of stability, it bound people together. Henry had rooted himself even deeper into Alex’s life.

There was no more pretending that Henry was a passing figure, someone he could keep on the periphery. This marriage—this moment—meant Henry wasn’t going anywhere. And neither was the slow-burning tension that tightened Alex’s chest whenever they locked eyes.

He looked at Henry and felt it again—that anxiety that crept up his spine, that curiosity he kept pretending wasn’t interest, that heat just beneath the surface. He wouldn’t be able to run from it now. Not for another decade, maybe longer. Whatever it was between them, it had settled in. A gravity that wasn’t letting go.

~*~

The sun had begun to soften its light, casting a warm amber glow through the garden as guests milled about, pausing occasionally to pose for photos against the autumn backdrop. Nora and June sat close on a cushioned bench near the flower-covered archway, arms linked tightly in that easy intimacy born of years spent side by side. June’s veil was tossed gently over her shoulder, revealing her beaming smile, while Nora leaned in and rested her head against June’s, their laughter frozen mid-breath.

The photographer, an older man with thinning hair and a perpetually furrowed brow, hesitated. “Ladies, perhaps something a little more—” He didn’t finish the thought.

Henry, watching from just a few paces away, stepped forward and pressed a folded bill into the man’s palm without so much as breaking his stride. “Twenty should help you forget your sensibilities,” he said quietly, with a polite smile that somehow still felt like a warning. The shutter clicked moments later, precisely capturing the scandalously joyful moment as it was.

Then, without fanfare, Henry turned toward Alex. “Come, one of us,” he said simply. Alex hesitated but nodded and stepped beside him. The two stood side by side before the camera, Henry clasping his hands behind his back, Alex fidgeting slightly with the cuff of his jacket.

Just as the photographer began his countdown, Alex turned—just slightly—and looked at Henry. A quiet, almost mischievous smile played at his lips, and Henry, feeling the warmth of Alex’s skin so close to his own, found himself smiling back without realising it. The flash went off.

Afterwards, as they stepped away from the gathering crowd, Henry tilted his head and asked softly, “Are you alright?”

Alex took a breath, exhaled slowly, and nodded. “Yeah. I think… I’ve decided I want to try being friends with you.”

Henry blinked, surprised, then gave a small, grateful smile. “I’d like that.”

~*~

The city was alive that night, loud and flush with electricity—horns blaring, streetcars rattling, the buzz of a Friday crowd pushing out into a velvet New York evening. The four of them stepped out together like a mismatched royal court, dressed in crisp evening wear and lit from within by the strange joy of survival and secrecy.

They chose a dance hall near Union Square, where the floorboards vibrated under the jazz band’s feverish tempo and bodies moved in syncopated heat. Henry and Alex took the edges, watching as June and Nora slipped easily into the crowd, their eyes scanning, laughing, already performing.

It was the start of 1916, and after weeks of back and forth, they decided to go out together for a hunt. It would be a bonding experience, they could learn something about each other’s style. Maybe it would even be fun.

They waited until ten days had passed since their previous meal, until the hunger took over enough for them to stop caring about what they did and how they did it. Mercy was something only granted on a full stomach. If they were going to be a makeshift coven, then they should know everything there was to know about each other. 

June, dressed in a pale rose silk dress adorned with sequins that caught the light, whispered something to Nora that made her throw her head back in delighted laughter. Together, they gravitated toward two young men—handsome, eager, and slightly drunk—and began their game. They batted their lashes, touched each other's arms, and pretended not to know how beautiful they looked. It was the kind of seduction that required no fangs—just charm and the promise of a good time.

Henry and Alex stood back, pretending to be engrossed in deep conversation and too drunk to realize what was happening. Henry leaned in close to Alex, his voice low beneath the music. “They’re having too much fun.”

The hunger curled low in Henry’s gut, an ancient ache that pulsed in time with the music thundering through the dance hall floor. Every beat of the drum vibrated up through his shoes, through the muscle and bone of him, setting his teeth on edge. The scent of warm flesh and perfume, of blood just beneath skin, was everywhere—cloying, rich, intoxicating.

He could hear it all: the staccato of shoes tapping across floorboards, the laugh of the man Nora leaned into, the thrum of twin heartbeats picking up speed as June dragged her fingertip along a jawline.

His throat was tight. His tongue felt heavy in his mouth. That old, primal part of him stirred, demanding, ravenous.

Alex smirked but didn’t look away. “They know what they’re doing.”

And they did. June traced a finger down one man’s sleeve. Nora brushed a strand of hair behind her ear and leaned into the other. Promises were made—teasing ones—about a drink after, a quieter place. The young men smiled, flushed with victory, not knowing they were being led.

He could sense the shift in body heat when one of the men leaned closer, hopeful but foolish. Nora caught his eye across the room with a wicked glint, and Henry exhaled slowly, as if it might cool the fire in his veins.

He gripped the edge of the table, his fingers tightening on the carved wood. His skin prickled with restraint. There were too many people, too many possibilities. His vision narrowed to the pairs beginning to drift toward the exit, June tossing a look back over her shoulder like a wink.

“They’re going to bring them outside,” Henry said, voice tight in his throat.

Alex nodded, tone somewhere between jealousy and admiration at how efficient his sister had been. “Time to give them some company.”

The two men were tipsy, laughing too loud, flattered beyond reason by the attention of Nora and June, who clung to their arms and whispered promises of another dance hall out on Long Island—quieter, more exclusive, more fun. It wasn’t hard to convince them. Desire had always made mortals stupid.

Alex was already at the car, leaning against the door and watching the girls play their roles. He didn’t say anything as the men piled into the back seat, June settling in between them, Nora sliding in last with a soft, breathy laugh. Henry climbed into the front passenger seat beside Alex, who darted away from the curb as fast as Henry’s car would let him.

The city lights flickered past as the car wound eastward. The men in the back were already half-drunk and entirely enchanted, the low hum of flirtation weaving between them and the girls. Nora leaned close to her chosen mark, breath hot against his neck. June draped a leg over hers, fingers tracing idle, meaningless shapes along his thigh.

By the time they reached Nassau County, the city glow had dimmed behind them. The air was quieter, and the streets were darker.

Alex pulled over onto a gravel shoulder, the car rumbling softly as he killed the headlights.

“What’s this?” one of the men asked, still laughing, still clueless.

Then it happened all at once. A soft gasp, a sudden movement—Nora struck first, her fangs buried in the side of her date’s neck with a force that crushed cartilage. He didn’t even scream. June followed suit, moving like silk and steel, pinning the second man before he could move.

In the front, Henry’s breathing hitched.

Alex said nothing, but his fingers flexed on the steering wheel. Then, quietly, he nodded.

Henry was out of the car in a blink, pulling open the back door. June slid out and let him take her place. The body was still warm. Still twitching. Henry didn't hesitate. His hands were already red.

Alex joined him. He crouched beside Henry, and without looking at him, leaned down and bit into the man’s wrist. The taste was hot and metallic and pulsing with fading life. The silence between them wasn’t awkward—it was necessary. Shared.

Henry wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve, the copper tang still clinging to his tongue, and stood over the limp body, breathing steadily now but cold. He looked at Alex, then back at the blood-soaked mess in the back seat. The night was still, but it wouldn’t be for long.

“We can’t leave them like this,” he said. His voice was low, quiet, edged with something older than guilt. “Someone will come down this road eventually. Hunters. Locals. We need to make it look like an animal attack—nothing deliberate.”

Alex narrowed his eyes. “That’s a lot of damage to fake.”

“No,” Henry replied, and he was already unbuttoning his coat, tossing it aside. “Not fake.”

Without further warning, his body cracked and folded into itself, bones reshaping, skin tearing and reforming, until where Henry had stood, a massive grey wolf now paced the gravel roadside, lips curled in a silent snarl. His coat was sleek and dark, silvered just at the back of the shoulders, and his eyes were unmistakably still his own.

He grabbed one of the corpses by the arm, teeth sinking in with ease, and began dragging it toward the forested edge of the road.

Alex stood still for a moment, watching him vanish into the underbrush. Then he sighed and shrugged off his jacket.

“Of course you’re one of those dramatic bastards,” he muttered, stepping around to the other side of the car. A moment later, his form shimmered and twisted, bones lengthening and fur blooming along his arms until he, too, was on all fours—sleeker, darker, the lean frame of a younger wolf.

Together, they vanished into the trees, dragging the bodies behind them. Leaves rustled underfoot, branches snapped under the weight, and a few scavengers stirred in the distance, stirred by the scent of blood and the promise of chaos.

Henry’s paws sank into the wet loam as he dragged the limp body into the shadowed brush. Leaves clung to blood-slicked skin, the copper scent thick in his nostrils. The body jostled loosely with each tug, bones already broken, the skull cracked from its impact against the car door. It didn’t matter. Nothing about it was human anymore.

The taste of the man’s scent still coated the back of his throat. He crouched low beside the body, teeth curling in, claws barely sheathed. He didn’t need to look back to hear the others approaching.

The first was Nora’s—a low, warning, territorial growl of a mountain bobcat. He recognised it and gave her space. Then June was there too, her sleek form brushing against him, tail flicking lazily as she circled. They were already tasting the air, noses twitching.

Henry struck first—incisors snapping into the man’s thigh, tearing through tendon, exposing muscle and marrow. The sound was wet and ragged but controlled. He didn’t gorge. He devoured, disassembled, and erased.

Behind him, he heard the crunch of rib as June dug in with feline grace, an almost rhythmic sound. She started at the chest. Nora was quieter and focused. He could hear her breath hitch as she pulled a forearm loose, snapping it mid-bone with a single flex of her jaw.

Alex didn’t join in until later.

When he did, it was wordless. His expression was unreadable in the dark, his body taut with that familiar reluctance. Henry watched as Alex dropped to a crouch beside the second corpse and slowly sank his teeth into the exposed belly, flinching at the first swallow.

But he didn’t stop. Had he… never done this before?

There was no conversation—only the sound of night, wind through the trees, the slick tearing of flesh, the hushed pant of exertion.

By the time they were done, no recognizable features were left—just pulp, fragments, and bits strewn like animal refuse across the moss and roots.

By the time they returned to the car, there were no bodies left. Only torn scraps, blood slicked into the mud, and the sound of night animals picking up the scraps.

Henry shifted back first, panting lightly as he grabbed a cloth from the trunk and wiped his hands.

“No one’s going to look for them here,” he said simply.

Alex stayed in wolf form a little longer. Just long enough to shake out his coat and cast a look back toward the woods.

Then, slowly, he changed back, his expression unreadable.

“I still think it’s creepy,” he muttered.

Henry cracked the barest grin. “It’s supposed to be.”

~*~

The road back to the city was empty and dark, the kind of quiet only the early hours allowed. Fog curled low over the asphalt, stirred up by the rolling tyres. Inside the car, the heater hummed softly, and the girls were curled up in the back seat—Nora’s head resting against June’s shoulder, both of them fast asleep. June still had a smear of red at the corner of her mouth, but her features were peaceful now, utterly still. They looked almost human like this, nearly innocent.

Alex kept his hands tight on the wheel, eyes on the road, jaw clenched.

Henry glanced over from the passenger seat. “Have you ever used your form before?”

There was a long pause. The soft click of the blinker tapped over the thrum of the tyres. Then, finally, Alex muttered, “Is it that obvious I haven’t?”

Henry cracked a small smile. “Well, you ran like your legs weren’t sure which direction your spine was trying to go. And your tail—”

“Don’t talk about the tail.”

Henry held his hands up in mock surrender. “Fair enough.”

They fell into silence again for a while. The city glow was barely beginning to rise on the horizon, soft orange bleeding into the black.

Alex shifted slightly, eyes still on the road. “It’s bad enough to have to live like this,” he said quietly. “I don’t need to be even more of a freak.”

Henry didn’t laugh. Didn’t offer a joke, not this time. He watched how Alex’s knuckles had gone white on the steering wheel.

“You’re not a freak,” Henry said finally. “You’re young. And maybe a little dramatic.”

Alex huffed, something close to a laugh but without any joy.

“I mean it,” Henry added. “You were turned before you got to decide what you wanted. It messes with you. You want control, but the hunger always wins. I get it.”

“You don’t get it,” Alex muttered.

Henry leaned back in the seat. He didn’t want to push more. He had carved a nice life for himself here in America. He never said the word out loud, but he liked to refer to it as his coven. If Bea were here, everything would be perfect. Well, that and the other thing.

 “You’re right. I don’t. But I’m still here.”

The city lights spilt further across the horizon, catching in the windshield's reflection.

Henry let his voice go softer. “You don’t have to be proud of it, if you don’t want to, but beating yourself up over something you can’t change anymore is a waste of time.”

Alex didn’t respond. But he didn’t push him away.

The car rolled on, carrying four monsters home. Henry let the silence hold.

~*~

The house was hushed when Alex slipped into the upstairs bathroom. He flicked the light on and closed the door behind him, then peeled his blood-streaked clothes off with the kind of practised detachment he’d honed over the years. The water came on hot, steam curling over the edges of the porcelain tiles, washing the scent of copper and soil off his skin. It felt good.

He let the water hit his shoulders, forehead pressed to the cool tile, chest rising and falling as the weight of the night began to loosen. The hunger had been sated, but the thrill of the experience still clung to his spine. His muscles buzzed with the memory of it. Of being more. He’d hated knowing that he could turn into that… thing. The first time it happened, he scrubbed his body raw the following day and told himself never to do it again.

Tonight, watching Henry have fun with it, embrace it for what it was, and dash into the forest with barely contained happiness, he almost liked the experience.

Maybe he just needed someone who understood it.

Henry had taken care to tuck June down the hall, brushing her hair off her forehead before laying the covers over both her and Nora, who stirred only faintly in her sleep. Satisfied, he made his way to clean up, too, shoulder stiff as he pushed open the bathroom door—

Only to stop short at the sound of the running shower and the sudden realisation of Alex’s silhouette against the white tiles.

“Shit—sorry,” Henry said quickly, already halfway back out the door. “Didn’t realise—thought it was empty.”

The door shut again. Quietly. Respectfully.

Alex didn’t even flinch. He let out a slow breath, brushing his hair under the stream. Somehow, it didn’t bother him that Henry had seen him.

When the door clicked shut behind Henry, leaving him alone again, Alex let out a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding. But the knot in his stomach remained, this time tightening.

There was no escaping it, so he might as well give in to it.

He took himself in his hand and closed his eyes. If he had said what he wanted to and reacted the way his body was telling him to, he’d have asked Henry to come in. He’d have walked up to him, naked, dripping water all over Henry’s fancy shoes, and he’d have kissed him. Slowly enough to let him pull away, hard enough to make him understand that he meant it. The Henry in his mind wouldn’t have pulled away, though. The Henry in his mind would have waited patiently until Alex undid the buttons of his shirt, of his pants, would have gotten him naked in the steamy bathroom and then, with that calm gentleness that June kept gushing about, he’d have taken Alex hand and pushed him under the warm flow of water and then taught him what felt good.

As the water ran cold, sending shivers down to the tips of his feet, he realised the truth: he was interested in men. Or maybe not men—no, he still clung to that idea—but he was definitely interested in Henry.

Uttering it to himself was not the same as accepting it, though. He would have to ignore it for as long as they shared a home.

He closed his eyes and let the water wash his thoughts away.

Chapter Text

The morning sun hung low over New York Harbour, casting a golden sheen across the water as the great ocean liner eased into port. Steam hissed from the ship’s funnels, curling into the sky in thick white ribbons, and gulls wheeled and shrieked overhead, adding to the cacophony that always seemed to fill this noisy city.

Henry stood at the edge of the dock, stiff-backed in a worn but well-brushed wool coat, his hat clutched absently in his hands. He scanned the deck of the arriving ship, eyes flicking over face after face, his heart hammering in his chest with a mixture of excitement and disbelief.

Twenty-two years. It had been twenty-two years since he’d seen his sister.

He had thought this American journey wouldn’t take half as long, and yet, now, as the war ended and the wave of death that followed it subsided, he couldn’t imagine going back to Europe. He left home chasing hope, chasing something newer than the quiet halls of the family estate. Chasing some relief from all that he was feeling, cooped up in that island that felt too tight to breathe in. On days when he felt honest, he’d admit to leaving because he couldn’t take it anymore. The pomp, the circumstance, the way they’d turned all into a spectacle and were expecting him to follow in their footsteps.

He didn’t miss any of it. He only missed one person, and now, decades later, she was finally crossing the Atlantic to visit him. She had always said she might come, but until now, it had been only letters. So many letters.

He nearly didn’t recognise her at first.

She stood near the top of the gangway, clutching a small brown valise, her figure framed against the backdrop of the ship like something out of a photograph. She wore a deep green coat that made her coppery hair blaze like fire in the sunlight, tucked neatly beneath a smart cloche hat. There was a poise to her—a stillness—yet her eyes were scanning, too, searching.

Then their gazes met.

For a beat, neither moved.

Henry felt something in his chest twist and then come loose. A boyhood memory flared behind his eyes—Bea, he, and Philip throwing food at each other with the ease of people who never had to work for their meals. And now she was, impossibly real, standing before him.

She smiled first. A wide, unabashed, glorious smile that crinkled the corners of her eyes.

“Bea!” he shouted, waving his hat over his head like a schoolboy.

She gave a startled laugh and began descending the gangway, her pace quickening despite the crowd and her heels. Henry surged forward, elbowing gently past disembarking passengers until they met—right there on the crowded dock, in a tangle of limbs, laughter, and the sort of hug that presses years away.

“Oh, Henry,” she whispered, breathless. “You look… older.”

He laughed, holding her at arm’s length just to look at her. “You look exactly the same. How have you done that?”

“Clean living,” she teased, dabbing at the corner of her eye with a gloved finger. “And a good tailor. Up-to-date fashion does wonders for one’s presentation.”

He reached for her suitcase. “Let me take that. You’ll love the place I’ve got set up. It’s not—well, it’s not like back home, but it’s better than what’s left of it after the bombing.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Is that where you’re living with your coven?”

He smiled, ignoring her unspoken insinuation. “I have this feeling that you, June, and Nora are going to get along like a house on fire.”

Bea laughed, looping her arm through his as they descended the dock together. Around them, the city roared and clattered and coughed, and the smell of coal smoke and brine clung to the air—but neither of them noticed.

They were too busy catching up on two decades of silence.

The drive out of the city was a slow unspooling of energy, leaving behind the steam and smoke of the harbour, the chaos of shouting cab drivers and the clatter of trolley bells. As they moved northward, the buildings softened, trees appeared in generous patches, and the roads grew quieter.

Bea sat beside Henry in the back of this spruced-up Model T, staring out the window with wide-eyed fascination.

“It’s larger than I imagined,” she murmured. “More… sprawling. And noisier. Everything rattles, doesn’t it?”

Henry chuckled. “It does rattle, yes. You get used to it. Then, one day, you find yourself missing the racket when it's quiet.”

She turned toward him with a teasing glint in her eye. “Have you gone fully American, Henry?”

He grinned. “God, I hope not. Still haven’t gotten used to coffee.”

When the car finally pulled up to the house, Bea let out a soft gasp.

The mansion stood just beyond a stretch of low, rolling green. Perhaps modest by aristocratic English standards, it was undeniably grand in its own right. It was the kind of house built not for show but for living well.

As they stepped out, the front door opened, and a woman came hurrying down the steps. She was striking, with a lean grace to her, dressed in a cream blouse and wide-legged trousers that moved like silk. Her dark hair was pinned back simply, and her smile was effortless.

“You must be Beatrice,” June said, reaching out both hands with warm sincerity.

Bea, startled in the most pleasant way, returned the gesture. “And you must be June. Goodness, I feel as though I know you already.”

June laughed. “The feeling’s mutual. Henry hasn’t stopped talking about you since—well, since forever.”

“Come inside,” Henry said, already lifting Bea’s suitcase. “Wait till you see the library.”

The house was light and full of life. The walls were lined with books and portraits, and shelves were cluttered with little tokens of lives lived well—souvenirs, gifts, and things that clearly held stories. Henry wasn’t a gatherer by nature, but he’d let the Diaz desires run wild in this house.

Henry guided her through each room with gentle pride. The conservatory, the piano room, the newly added sunny breakfast nook that looked out over the garden. Bea trailed behind, half-laughing, half in awe.

“I’d pictured something much smaller,” she confessed, admiring the light streaming through a stained-glass transom above the hallway door. “But this… Henry, it’s beautiful.”

He beamed. Now that she was here, he could proudly say, "It’s home.”

At last, he led her to the guest room upstairs—tucked beneath the eaves, with embroidered pillows, soft linens, and a small writing desk by the window.

As she placed her bag on the bed, a knock tapped gently at the open door.

Nora leaned against the frame. She had short, boyish curls and wore a soft wool sweater over slacks, her posture easy and open.

“You must be Bea,” she said, her voice bright with delight.

Bea turned, surprised again by the warmth of the welcome. “Nora?”

Nora nodded, stepped in, and hugged her without hesitation. “We’re so glad you’re here. I’ve heard enough stories about you to fill three novels.”

“Likewise,” Bea said, laughing. “I wasn’t sure any of you existed. Henry writes about you all like characters in a play.”

“Well, we’re terribly real, I’m afraid,” Nora said, then added, with a playful smile, “And terribly nosy. We’ve got a million questions and only a single dinner to ask them in before Henry locks you away in your room to catch up.”

“Then I’ll have to answer quickly.”

Nora winked. “June’s having the cook make coq au vin. Alex is bringing in something fresher. You’ll want to pace yourself.”

“Oh—good that she mentioned it,” Bea said, glancing at Henry. “Where is Alex?”

“Out on one of his forest runs,” Nora said, already backing into the hallway. “He goes off into the hills like some kind of poet-wolf. He’ll be back by dinner.”

“I can’t wait to meet him,” Bea said.

“You’ll love him,” Nora called over her shoulder. “Terrible at small talk, but he’s the best butcher in the tri-state area.”

Henry chuckled, watching her go, and then he turned to Bea.

“Well,” he said, resting his hand briefly on her shoulder. “You’re really here.”

She smiled up at him, soft and fond.

“I’m really here. Now go put the kettle on. We need to talk.”

The late afternoon light slanted through the guest room window, casting a warm amber glow over the wooden floor. Dust motes drifted in the air, catching the sun as if dancing in half-time.

Bea sat on the edge of the bed and looked up at him with that same quiet, thoughtful expression she used to wear as a girl, the one that made him feel, even then, like she saw more than he said.

She smiled. “It’s lovely, Henry. You’ve made a beautiful life.”

He gave a slight shrug and slid his hands into his pockets as if brushing away compliments was the only way he knew how to react. Bea tilted her head, studying him.

“You alright?” she asked, gently. No ceremony, no preamble. Just the soft, direct question of someone who’s known you since the beginning.

Henry blinked, caught off guard. “Yes, of course.”

But she didn’t look away. She only raised an eyebrow.

“I am,” he insisted, a little more firmly. “Really, Bea.”

She was silent for a moment. Then, very calmly, “You’re not sad. But you’re not... thriving.”

His jaw tightened just a touch, but he didn’t flinch. That was the thing about Beatrice—she didn’t say things unless she knew she was right.

He let out a slow breath, lowering himself into the window seat across from her. Outside, a bird trilled and flew off toward the orchard beyond the hill.

“I left home for a reason,” he said at last, voice low but clear.

“I know,” she replied. “But dating men wasn’t the reason.”

He looked at her then, properly looked at her. She wasn’t being harsh. Just honest. Loving. She always had been.

“How are you handling it?” he replied, trying to find something to hang onto in her explanation.

“I’m running away from it with all my might?”

“Is it working?”

“I’ve always been a stubborn little girl. Turned into a stubborn little woman. They can’t complain to you if they can’t find you. Haven’t had a stable home in years.”

“Stay long then,” he said. “I’m free here.”

“And I’m so glad for that,” she said, her voice catching just slightly. “But I’m not sure I believe you.”

Henry frowned. “What do you mean?”

She hesitated, searching for the right words.

“Are you free when no one knows who you are and where you come from?”

He stared at the floor for a long beat, then let out a soft, rueful laugh.

“They know the parts of me I like.”

Bea reached across the space between them and placed her hand over his.

“Maybe they’d like all parts of you if you’d let them. You can’t make people’s decisions for them.”

Henry didn’t answer immediately, but his fingers curled slightly around hers.

And just then, from downstairs, came the faint clatter of silverware and June’s voice calling cheerfully: “Bea! Dinner’s ready, darling!”

Bea stood and squeezed his hand. “Come on, then. Let’s go meet the rest of your strange, wonderful household.”

He smiled up at her—tired, maybe, but genuine.

“After you, madam.”

They walked out together, shoulder to shoulder.

The dining room was full of warmth—the clink of glasses, the glow of candles in mismatched holders, and the buttery scent of something rich and wine-dark drifting from the kitchen. The table was long and sturdy, worn smooth at the edges from years of use. Every chair around it looked slightly different, like it had come from a past life, repurposed here for something better.

Bea followed Henry in, smoothing her skirt and pausing in the doorway.

She saw June first, cheeks slightly flushed from the oven’s heat. They didn’t need the food, but they pretended perfectly. Nora was lighting a third candle at the far end, muttering something under her breath that made June roll her eyes and swat her with a dish towel. The two of them moved around each other like a dance, comfortable and teasing and utterly alive.

Then a figure stepped into view from the hallway, towelling damp hair back from his neck.

Alex.

Bea blinked. He was tall and lean, with sharp cheekbones and a loosely buttoned linen shirt that looked like it had been tossed on in haste. His brown eyes were clear and bright, and his presence was calm but commanding.

She turned very slowly to Henry with the most imperceptible movement of her brow, said it all:

Good lord.

Henry nearly choked on his laugh.

Alex came over with an easy smile. “You must be Beatrice. I’m Alex—June’s brother. Sorry, I’m late. Got caught running the ridge trail again.”

“Caught by what?” Nora asked, raising her glass. “Your own reflection?”

Alex ignored her sarcasm and offered his hand to Bea, who took it graciously, though she still looked mildly astonished.

“Lovely to meet you,” she said with a kind of polite clarity that reminded Henry of home. “Your sister’s been nothing short of delightful.”

“She’ll try to trick you into chess later,” Alex said, settling into his chair. “Say no.”

June set down the final dish. “It’s coq au vin, if anyone’s still pretending we’re French.”

“And tartare for our distinguished guest,” Nora added, sliding a plate toward Bea with exaggerated reverence.

Bea looked down at the small, artfully prepared mound of raw meat, garnished with herbs and accompanied by a drizzle of some sharp-smelling oil. Then she picked up her knife and fork, composed, and began eating with the same poise she would’ve shown at a Buckingham Palace luncheon.

Bea raised her eyes briefly to Henry and whispered, “This is really good.”

“It’s their diet,” he whispered back. After what he was sure was a year-long supply of starving war-weary Europeans, a good American meal was a feast for the senses.

Conversation at the table was fast—surprisingly fast. Stories overlapped. Everyone talked at once. Jokes were passed back and forth like juggling pins. At first, Bea looked vaguely alarmed, unused to the chaos. She reached for her wine glass like it might help her keep up. Henry could tell by how her eyes widened when she took a sip that she wasn’t expecting to be served blood in a crystal glass. They were posh, but they never had this at home.

At home, you ate in private, in the dark, where no one could see you and no one would catch on to your actions. Alone. Like an animal.

Nora and June were debating whether jazz or classical made for better morning music, Alex was describing a wild fox he saw on his run, and Henry was trying (and failing) to stop Nora from dramatically reenacting a joke involving a priest and a dropped corset.

Bea, caught in the middle of it all, didn’t say much at first. She watched. Her fork paused halfway to her mouth. She turned to Henry.

He wasn’t talking in this moment—he was listening, grinning as Nora gestured wildly with her wine glass, laughing under his breath when Alex gave him a withering look. There was a light in his eyes she hadn’t seen before. A quiet joy. An ease she hadn’t realized he’d been missing until now.

She looked at him the way only an older sister could: like she knew.

He caught her gaze. She didn’t say a word.

But she smiled.

~*~

The dishes were cleared, the candles burned low, and the rest of the house had started to drift into the lazy quiet that follows a good meal.

Alex lingered by the sideboard, pretending to tidy up the stack of mismatched plates, ignoring that they had hired people who could deal with it all. From the next room, faint jazz filtered through the open door—Nora had already commandeered the record player again. June was likely tucked up beside her on the couch, both of them half asleep already, tangled together like always.

He didn’t begrudge them that. It was just… a lot of intimacy in one space, sometimes. Enough to make a man feel like an eternal guest in a home that never seemed to fit him.

He was rinsing his hands in the kitchen sink when he heard a soft voice behind him.

“Can I borrow you for a moment?”

Alex dried his hands on a dish towel and turned. Bea stood in the doorway, elegant and composed even in the faded light, her hair pinned just so, wine glass still in hand like she’d wandered in from another century.

“Of course,” he said. “What’s on your mind?”

She didn’t answer at first—just stepped out through the back door and into the garden and waited. So he followed.

The night was cool. Crickets sang in the hedgerow. The garden was still, the grass silver under the moonlight. She moved to the stone bench beneath the linden tree and sat, her posture perfect but relaxed, as though she’d done this a thousand times before.

“I wanted to ask you something,” she said after a moment.

Alex raised a brow and sat down beside her. “Alright.”

“It’s about Henry.”

He gave a short laugh, dry and not unkind. “That narrows it down.”

She didn’t return the smile. “He tells me he’s happy here. That he’s free.”

“He is,” Alex said immediately. “At least... more than most people I know.”

“But is he well?”

Alex looked away, out toward the dark shapes of the hills, the flicker of lightning bugs near the fence. This woman had known Henry longer than anyone, and she was asking a stranger—him—what she couldn’t get from the man himself.

“Why not ask June?” he said, after a beat. “Or Nora? They know him best.”

Bea was quiet for a moment, then said, “They’re caught up in each other. I think sometimes they forget he’s even in the room.”

Alex huffed, something like amusement in his throat. “And you think I would know better?”

She turned her head and looked at him—really looked. Her eyes sharp, clear, uncannily observant.

And then she said it. No hesitation, no coyness.

“How long have you been pining for my brother?”

The question landed like a stone in a still pond.

Alex blinked.

His mouth opened slightly, as if to speak, but no sound came out.

Bea simply raised an eyebrow, took a sip of blood, and waited.

“I—” he began, then stopped, floundering in a way that felt deeply unfamiliar. “That’s... presumptuous.”

“Is it?”

“I barely know him.”

“Really?” she asked, leaning just slightly toward him. “Because the way you look at him? That’s not nothing.”

Alex swallowed. His heartbeat was too loud in his ears. He tried to summon some kind of deflection—something light or biting—but nothing came. Nothing fit.

Instead, he said, low and honest, “He doesn’t see me that way.”

Bea watched him a moment longer, then looked down at the garden path, thoughtfully tracing the rim of her glass.

“No,” she said. “He wouldn’t.”

Silence again. Not awkward—just full of thoughts neither wanted to verbalise.

Finally, she rose to her feet, smoothing her skirt.

“Well,” she said softly. “He’s worth loving. You probably already know that.”

She’d turned to leave, already halfway to the house, when Alex spoke again, his voice low and just a little rough at the edges.

“He’s keeping something to himself.”

Bea stopped.

The crickets didn’t. The breeze kept moving softly through the branches. But she turned back to him slowly, her expression unreadable.

Alex stood with his hands in his pockets, eyes fixed on some point just beyond her shoulder.

“He’s been carrying it for years,” he went on. “Something he’s never said out loud. Not to June. Not to Nora. Maybe not even to himself.”

Bea tilted her head slightly. “What makes you think that?”

He gave a small, tight laugh. “Because I know what it looks like. Holding something inside long enough that it becomes part of your posture.”

Bea didn’t reply, but the tension in her shoulders softened.

Alex looked up at the stars briefly before continuing. “He’s not unhappy. That’s what’s so maddening. He’s good to be around. Thoughtful. Steady. He lives here. But every time he gets close to someone—really close—it doesn’t last. Two months, three. Then it slips away. Or he lets it. It’s like… something’s always pulling him back from the edge. Like he’s afraid of what happens if he lets himself actually fall into it.”

Bea wrapped her arms around herself, watching him quietly. Her voice was softer now. “Do you think it’s guilt?”

Alex shook his head. “I don’t know. Could be grief. Could be fear. Could be... something he lost. Or someone.”

Alex took a breath as if choosing his words carefully. He was aware that Bea knew what it was, but it was also painfully clear that she wouldn’t say it. If he wanted to know, he’d have to ask Henry.

“I just keep thinking—he’s a vampire. He’s in a sham marriage. His wife has a girlfriend. His life is unconventional by design. There’s no rulebook. No society watching his every move. I don’t know what he got up to in England, but here, he’s free. But he’s still holding back. Like he’s living inside a room with all its doors open, but he won’t walk out of it.”

Bea looked at him then—really looked at him.

“You care about him more than you let on.”

Alex didn’t look away this time. He held her gaze, steady and open.

“I see him,” he said simply. “Whatever part of him he lets me see.”

For a moment, she didn’t reply. Then she exhaled slowly through her nose.

“I think,” she said, “he might need someone who does.”

She turned again, this time without ceremony, and disappeared into the darkened hall of the house.

Alex remained where he was, feeling the quiet wrap around him.

He looked back up at the stars, wondering—not for the first time—how long Henry planned to live like a man waiting for permission.

Chapter Text

The kitchen was steeped in a golden morning light that made the dust look like glitter. It turned everything soft at the edges, like reality hadn’t woken up either. The windows were flung open, letting in the scent of dew and lilacs. A half-finished pot of boiling water sat on the stove, still warm, and toast crumbs were scattered across the table as if any of them actually ate.

Henry sat alone, already dressed, hair still damp from his walk through the orchard trail at dawn. He held his tea like it was anchoring him to the world. Three newspapers were folded at sharp angles beside him, none yet opened. There was no need to read the news when you knew everything was going fine.

Then the door creaked open, and in swept Alex, barefoot, shirt half-buttoned, curls a sleep-mussed mess with a bright green apple in one hand like some mythic trickster god coming to raid a mortal pantry.

“Well, good morning, early riser,” Alex said cheerfully, dropping into the chair across from Henry with a theatrical groan. “You look disgustingly alive. Don’t tell me you enjoy mornings?”

“I like the silence,” Henry replied without looking up from his steaming cup. He got no pleasure out of food anymore, but this, this pleasurable sipping of tea was something not even death could take away from him.

Alex bit into the apple with a satisfying crunch. All food tasted bland to them, but after a late night a few weeks ago he’d found out that Alex liked the texture of it in his mouth. “You should’ve said. I could’ve ruined that hours ago.”

Henry glanced up at him then, lips twitching.

Alex grinned wide. “Bea seems nice.”

“She is.”

“Bit regal. Bit too good for this house, which I admire in a guest. She’d look good at a jazz club. Something underground, something with brass and sweat and too much gin. You know? A slow song. Spotlight. Whole room watching her like she’s not real.”

Henry huffed out a laugh. “She’d roll her eyes at the first note and correct the pianist’s tempo by the second.”

“God, that makes it even better.” Alex leaned forward. “She’s all angles and knowing glances. Like someone who keeps secrets in French.”

Henry raised a brow. “You got all that in one night?”

“I’m very efficient.”

Henry shook his head but fondly. It still took a while to catch all the words cascading out of Alex’s mouth, but Nora had told him that the whirlwind happened only when Alex felt comfortable. And he wanted Alex to feel comfortable around him.

Alex’s voice softened slightly. “She cares about you. I could see it.”

Henry looked down into his tea for a beat, then said, “She’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”

That quiet conviction settled between them for a moment.

Then Alex, casual as anything, asked, “What about the rest of your family?”

Henry gave a half-shrug, leaning back in his chair. A moment of unabashed sincerity took over him, and he’d forever blame it on Bea’s presence. “Father’s dead. Mother hasn’t been spotted since the reign of Queen Victoria.”

Alex raised an eyebrow. “Impressive.”

“She disappeared into a villa in the south of France and never responded to my correspondence again.”

“Glamorous.”

“Not quite. She took the dog and left me and my siblings behind. I guess the dog’s no longer there.”

“Oh,” Alex said, biting into his apple again. He thought about it for a moment and, unable to pretend to try and spin it into a positive, he said, “Charming.”

“Truly,” Henry said drily. “My brother grew up to be a prick. Hates people in general, me in particular.”

“Why you?”

Henry didn’t answer right away. He folded the corner of one of the newspapers, then said simply, “Because I don’t hate them. Because I sleep with them. Because I fall in love with them. Because… of many other reasons.”

Alex didn’t blink. He leaned back, arms folded behind his head, apple dangling from one hand like a pendulum.

“Ever fall in love with someone who wasn’t a human?”

The question hit with a quiet weight. Not cruel. Not joking. Just... a curiosity laid bare.

Henry studied him.

There was no mockery in Alex’s face. Just that maddening openness he wore like a second skin. It was a little too early in the morning for questions like that, and yet—something about the way Alex asked it made it feel like a question Henry had been waiting for.

He didn’t answer right away.

Instead, he looked out the window at the orchard trees, their branches heavy with spring.

And after a beat, he said softly, “Not yet.”

Alex nodded slowly, as if filing that away somewhere private.

Then he took another bite of apple and said, mouth full, “Would’ve bet on it.”

Henry looked back at him, amused. “You bet on everything.”

“I’m right most of the time.”

“And what makes you think you’re right this time?”

Alex smirked, eyes gleaming.

“I’m overdue.”

~*~

The party was golden.

It spilled out from the mansion like champagne from an overpoured glass—music and light tumbling down the grand staircase, laughter trailing from open windows, cigarette smoke curling into the night air. Strings of Edison bulbs looped from tree to tree in the garden, glowing like captive fireflies. Somewhere, a trumpet wailed its heart out, and couples swayed beneath chandeliers like petals in the wind.

Henry stood near the balcony doors with Alex beside him, both dressed in three-piece suits that fit like old sins. From across the ballroom, June and Nora were already halfway through a Charleston with a pair of dapper strangers, twirling with fierce delight. Bea, radiant in silk and rhinestones, stood at the edge of the dance floor with a glass of champagne and an expression halfway between curiosity and judgment.

“She looks like she was born for this,” Alex said, nodding toward Bea. “Like someone stepped out of a painting and handed her a martini.”

“She’d be furious if she knew you said that,” Henry replied, sipping his drink.

Alex tilted his head. “Furious but flattered.”

They stood for a moment in silence, watching the chaos unfold. Sequins caught the light like shattered stars. Everyone was laughing too loudly and dancing too wildly. The air was thick with perfume, bourbon, and desperation.

Then she arrived.

A woman—a little unsteady on her feet, her dress cut scandalously low and her lipstick long since smudged—drifted toward Henry like she’d just remembered his name. She placed a hand on his arm without invitation, her nails painted red, and leaned in with the slow confidence of someone who had been told "yes" too many times.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you here before,” she purred. “You look like something out of a dream.”

Henry glanced sideways at Alex, who raised one brow and gave the slightest smirk. They hadn’t planned to feat on a woman, but they didn’t turn down a willing participant.

“I’ve been told worse,” Henry said politely.

She pressed closer. “You could take me upstairs and let me forget what decade it is.”

Alex chuckled, low and wicked. “Bold.”

She turned toward him, intrigued. “And who are you?”

“Trouble,” he said, with a wink.

Henry could feel the shift in the air—that feeling, the old, deep one that tugged at his spine like music under his skin. Hunger, yes. But not the kind that started in the stomach. The kind that started somewhere between his and his prey’s hips and curled around his ribs.

He met Alex’s eyes across the woman’s shoulder.

The look that passed between them was quiet, quick, wordless.

You in?

I’m in.

Henry’s hand slid gently to the small of her back. “Let’s go somewhere quieter?”

The woman smiled wide, pleased with herself. She didn’t see the way Henry and Alex exchanged one more glance. Didn’t notice the slight darkening behind their eyes. She just let herself be led through the crush of dancers, her heels catching slightly on the rug, her laughter breathy and careless, the alcohol in her stomach warm and numbing.

They climbed the stairs, past rooms echoing with jazz and footsteps. The hallway above was quieter. Carpeted. Dim.

Henry opened a bedroom door. Alex held it for her with mock gallantry.

Inside, the lights were soft and warm. The bed untouched. The windows open to the moonlight.

She turned, one hand already on the clasp of her necklace.

“You boys always share your toys?” she teased.

But Henry’s eyes were already different. So were Alex’s.

“Sometimes,” Alex said softly, catching Henry’s eyes. “On wild nights.”

She laughed, not understanding.

And then they stepped closer.

The door clicked shut behind them.

The woman moved first, loosening the strap of her dress with fingers that trembled more from excitement than nerves. She looked over her shoulder at them, lips parted, flushed from drink and the anticipation of being desired.

“I’ve never done anything like this before,” she murmured, voice breathy.

Henry smiled faintly. “You’d be surprised how often we hear that.”

Alex was already circling the room, lazy, unhurried. His jacket slipped off his shoulders like silk and landed on the back of a velvet chair. He was all long limbs and coiled grace, looking her over like he could eat her right up.

“Take your time,” he said, voice smooth as smoke. “We’re not in a rush.”

Henry, still by the door, leaned back against the frame, watching. His hunger hummed low and constant beneath his skin, not yet unbearable—but building, steadily. He could smell the heat of her blood under her perfume. Could hear the faster rhythm of her heart now that they were alone.

She turned to face him again, but it was Alex who reached her first—one hand brushing against her wrist, gently turning it over, examining the pulse beneath the skin with something like reverence.

“She’s soft,” Alex murmured, looking over his shoulder at Henry. “Like cream and bad decisions.”

The woman laughed, half-nervous, half-thrilled. “Is this part of the show?”

But Alex didn’t answer. He just stepped behind her, brushing her hair aside, his breath warm against her neck.

Henry moved then, slowly, crossing the room to stand before her, stillness wrapped in flesh. She looked up at him with something between awe and want. She was so tiny between them.

“What are you?” she whispered, not even knowing why she asked it.

Henry's voice was gentle. “Exactly what you think.”

He leaned in. Close enough that she could feel his breath, but he didn’t touch her. Not yet.

Then, from behind her, Alex’s lips brushed her shoulder.

“Do you want it to hurt?” he asked, almost kindly.

She made a sound—soft, unsure, but not a no.

That was enough.

Henry took her chin in his hand and tilted her head back slightly. “Look at me.”

Her gaze locked with his. And then he let go.

The glamour slipped from his eyes like fog burning away, and what was left was too much—too beautiful, too ancient, too other. Her breath hitched. Her knees wobbled. But she didn’t pull away.

Alex’s teeth grazed her neck, not biting, not yet—just teasing the edge of sensation.

Henry whispered, “You’ll feel it in your bones.”

And then they fed.

It was slow—ritualistic. Not rushed, not clumsy. They didn’t rip. They sank in like music: one at her throat, the other at her wrist. Her gasp melted into something between pain and pleasure, her body trembling under the pull of two hungers older than comprehension itself.

For a moment, she was suspended between them, floating in velvet and teeth and the terrifying beauty of it. Every heartbeat a drumroll.

And when it was over—when the blood slowed and their hunger dimmed—they eased her down gently onto the velvet chaise, her eyes fluttering shut in a dreamless, dizzy slumber.

Not broken. Not yet dead.

Alex wiped the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand and looked at Henry, pupils still blown wide. “She was too drunk for our own good,” he said.

“I know.”

Henry offered him a quiet, breathless smile, with something dark and contented lurking just beneath the surface. He felt it as well, but he was older now. He had learned to manage better. The steady stream of drunken victims in his youth had taught him how to cope with bloodied alcohol.

They stood in the room's hush for a beat longer, savouring the quiet stillness left in her absence, the warmth still pulsing through their veins.

Then Henry look at his cufflinks and said, “We should go. People might start to notice.”

Alex chuckled. “Let them.”

She lay draped over the bed like a spilt secret—breathing slow and shallow, mouth parted slightly, eyes fluttering behind closed lids. Her skin was flushed, and her pulse was still just visible in her neck. She didn’t have long left in the world.

Alex looked at her, quiet now; the glint in his eye had softened, but it wasn't gone. He turned to Henry, and in the hush that followed their feeding, something within him shifted.

He reached up lazily, brushing a thumb along the corner of Henry’s mouth, wiping away a trace of blood. Not carelessly—deliberately. Slowly. Then he lifted that same thumb to his lips and sucked it clean, eyes never leaving Henry’s.

The room tilted.

Henry didn’t move. Didn’t blink.

Alex’s body had gone still in the way predators did just before they pounced—not threatening, not even overt, just ready. The air between them was warm.

Henry inhaled carefully. The taste of blood was still on his tongue, but now it was drowned by something thicker: want. Hesitation. Dread. Hope.

He knew that look in Alex’s eyes. Knew the tension strung through him, the fine line between affection and need. He’d been watching it build for months, years—this careful gravity between them, drawn out in half-smiles and elbow brushes and stupid, lingering glances over coffee and corpses.

And now, here they were. Not full, not quite satisfied. Standing on a fault line that had been waiting patiently to break.

Alex didn’t say anything. He just looked at him—open, gentle and maddeningly unguarded. Like he’d never once thought Henry wasn’t worthy of everything. Like he had all the time in the world to wait, and he would, if Henry asked him to.

Henry’s throat felt tight. His hands were trembling slightly, so he buried them in his pockets.

God, he’d been good for so long.

So careful. So clean.

He’d told himself there were lines he couldn’t cross. Because once he started—if he started—he wouldn’t stop. Not with Alex. Because Alex wasn’t just beautiful or clever or funny or infuriating.

He was kind. He was chaos wrapped in silk, and he made Henry feel like everything he was, was still something worth being.

He listened.

He let Henry lead.

He let Henry choose.

And he’d never looked at him like he was broken because of who he loved.

So, Henry stared at him now, every muscle taut, his jaw locked, his heart pounding with something far more dangerous than lust.

“You’re not saying anything,” Alex said softly.

His voice was different now—quieter. Waiting.

Henry’s eyes flicked away. “Because I don’t know what happens if I do.”

Alex stepped closer. Not touching. Just there.

“You’re not afraid of me.”

“No.”

“Then what?”

Henry looked at him—really looked at him. At the mouth that had just bitten down on soft skin. At the hands that could tear hearts from ribcages and still, somehow, held his with the care of someone afraid to drop it.

“I’m afraid,” Henry said, “that if I give in… I won’t stop.”

Alex smiled faintly, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

“Then don’t.”

Henry closed his eyes. Maybe the alcohol had gotten to him after all.

And for a long, suspended moment, the only sound in the room was the distant thump of jazz through the floorboards and the soft, shallow breath of a woman who would fall into eternal sleep.

Henry didn’t move.

Alex didn’t push.

And the space between them stayed humming, heavy with all the things neither of them said.

Then Henry pressed forward.

Just the lightest brush of his lips against Alex’s, a question more than a statement, the kind of kiss a man gives when he doesn’t yet know if he’s allowed to want.

Alex didn’t flinch. He didn’t pull away.

He only breathed out slow, his mouth parting slightly like he’d been waiting for this—for Henry—to decide for him.

But Henry pulled back first. Not far. Just enough. His eyes opened, searching Alex’s face like he wasn’t sure if it had really happened.

Alex tilted his head, a quiet, steady thing, and whispered, “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

Henry huffed a breath that could’ve been a laugh if it hadn’t sounded so strangled. His heart still pounded, his hands still ached to reach for more. But he didn’t move.

Alex let him decide.

And for the first time in a long, long while, Henry realized how dangerous hope could feel.

Outside, the night air hung cool and heavy, the world still spinning on despite everything. Inside, the space between them didn’t close, but it didn’t widen either.

Not yet.

~*~

The dining room was warm with late afternoon light, the windows thrown open to let in the summer breeze. The party was long over, and they were back in their house. It was quiet in that rare, in-between way that made it feel like a place where people actually lived, not just drank or fed.

Alex sat at the end of the long oak table, legs sprawled out, chewing the end of a toothpick and staring into the middle distance like it had personally offended him.

Across from him, June was flipping through a paperback novel she clearly wasn’t reading, and Nora, leaning against the doorframe with a cup of tea, was watching Alex with mild amusement.

He broke the silence first.

“I kissed Henry.”

June’s eyes lifted slowly from the page. “You what?”

“He kissed me,” Alex corrected, like that was important. He looked at her sideways. “But I let him.”

June blinked once, then slid the book aside. “And how do you feel about that?”

Alex exhaled hard and slapped the toothpick down. “I’m not queer.”

Nora snorted into her tea, not unkindly.

Alex turned to her. “You got something to say?”

She raised an eyebrow, setting the cup down. “Sweetheart, I’m sleeping with your sister. You think labels scare me?”

He ran a hand through his hair, exasperated. “It’s not about that. I mean—it is. But not like that. It’s just—he’s queer. I’m—I don’t know what the hell I am. But I’m definitely not someone who knows how to do… this.”

June tilted her head. “You mean love?”

“No. I mean—” He sat up straighter, trying to organise thoughts that weren’t meant to be organised. “I mean trying something out in the context of forever. Immortality. No ticking clock. No pressure to get married before your teeth fall out. Just… eternity. You kiss someone, and you don’t know if it means ‘we’ll date for a bit’ or ‘you’re mine until the oceans dry up.’ There’s no blueprint. No steps. And he’s a man.”

He tacked that last sentence in there like insurance, looked between them, eyes wide with something that wasn’t fear, but wasn’t far off.

“When you’re human,” he said, softer, “you’ve got a timeline. You fall in love, you screw it up, you try again. But it all ends, eventually. That’s comforting, in a way. It’s safe. But with Henry…”

His voice trailed off.

Nora’s face softened. “With Henry, there would be no end.”

Alex nodded. “Exactly. If I mess this up, he remembers it for the next hundred years. And if I don’t—what the hell does that look like? Do we share a coffin? Do we keep feeding on drunk girls at parties until the sun swallows us?”

June leaned forward, chin in her hand. “Do you want something with him?”

Alex hesitated.

“I don’t know,” he said, honestly. “I like him. A lot. He’s smart. And quiet in that way that makes you want to know what he’s thinking. And he’s kind. He’s been through hell, but he doesn’t treat people like he’s owed anything. And when he looks at me…”

He trailed off again.

Nora gave him a knowing look. “When he looks at you?”

Alex exhaled through his nose, a crooked, self-deprecating smile tugging at his mouth.

“It feels like he sees something worth holding onto.”

There was a silence after that. Heavy, but not uncomfortable.

June reached across the table, covering his hand with hers.

Alex looked down at their hands, then at Nora, who gave him a little shrug and he let out a sigh that sounded suspiciously like surrender.

“I don’t know what to do.”

Nora stood at the sideboard now, arms crossed, jaw tight.

“So let me get this straight,” she said, voice low but pointed. “You’re spiraling because you kissed a guy?”

Alex glanced up at her. “It’s not that simple.”

“No. It is. You kissed a guy you like—a good man, who treats you like you matter—and instead of being grateful that you’re not stuck in some joyless heterosexual farce of a marriage, you’re moping.”

“That’s not what I’m doing.”

“You’re acting like it’s a tragedy.”

“It’s not a tragedy,” he snapped, pushing back from the table. “It’s just complicated. You think I grew up dreaming about being immortal and queer?”

Nora narrowed her eyes. “Well, you won’t have to worry about it for too long.”

He stilled. “What does that mean?”

Nora hesitated for half a second—long enough for it to mean something—then sighed and looked away, fiddling with the rings on her fingers.

“It means it’s probably time for us to go.”

Alex blinked. “Go?”

She turned back to him, voice quieter now, but steel beneath the softness. “There’s only so many years a couple can be married without children before someone starts asking questions.”

He stared at her.

“And the people asking questions,” she continued, “are the ones who think anything outside the perfect little box of God-loving, baby-making Americana is a moral disease.”

“That’s—”

“This isn’t England,” she said, like she knew anything about it. Like she had travelled anywhere that wasn’t within 10 feet of June. “This isn’t made for your wild forest runs and jazz club nights and spontaneous confessions. This is New York. And this city only has patience for the strange and beautiful when they can’t smell the difference.”

Alex sat back down slowly, the weight of it settling on his shoulders.

June nodded slowly at Nora’s words. Had they been talking about this for a while? Had they been planning things without letting him know?

“Henry has protected us. From the papers. From suspicion. We’ve been safe in his house, in his life, and he’s never asked for anything back.”

Alex’s voice was barely above a whisper. “He’d never ask.”

“I know,” Nora interjected. “That’s why we have to be the ones to know when it’s time.”

A long silence settled between them. Alex looked toward the hallway, as if expecting to see Henry there, listening in quiet understanding.

“Do you agree with her?” he asked his sister

“I’m the one who said it out loud first.”

That made something in Alex twist.

“So what happens now?”

Nora’s expression softened a little. “We make it a beautiful goodbye. And we don’t make it any harder for him than it already is.”

Alex looked down at his hands.

“I don’t want to leave.”

“I know,” she said. “But it’s not just about what we want.” She looked at June and swallowed hard. “It’s never going to be about what we want.”

And for once, Alex didn’t have a quick reply.

Chapter Text

Alex found June in the study, curled into the corner of the leather couch, fingers tracing over a map she clearly wasn’t reading. The heavy silence between them snapped the moment he stepped inside.

“You were just gonna leave?” he asked, sharp.

He wasn’t going to give up without a fight.

She didn’t look up. “We were going to tell you once we had a plan.”

“We?” His voice cracked with disbelief. “You and Nora decided to leave, and I’m just supposed to follow along like a dog on a leash?”

June’s gaze flicked to him, cool and calm, but there was fire behind it. “Don’t be dramatic.”

“I’m not. You’re making decisions that affect me without even asking if I want to be part of them.”

June stood abruptly, the map falling to the floor like a discarded thought.

“Alex, don’t do this. You knew this wouldn’t last forever.”

“No,” he bit out, “you thought it wouldn’t. You decided it wouldn’t. Just like you always do. You plan, you make choices, you decide. For both of us.”

June’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t you dare.”

He stepped forward, fists clenched at his sides. “I didn’t sign up to have you make every decision for me just because I didn’t let you die!”

Her face changed then—like he’d slapped her.

There was a long beat of silence before she answered, voice low and shaking with controlled fury. It was scarier than being yelled at.

“You think that gives you some kind of power over me? That just because you didn’t run when I turned, I owe you something? I never asked you to stay, Alex. You offered yourself. You looked me in the eyes and said, do it. I never begged.”

“That’s not what I meant—”

“You think I haven’t carried that guilt every day since?” she snapped, cutting him off before he even had a chance to defend himself. “You think I haven’t hated myself for what I did to you?”

He faltered. He never thought about her side of things, not that he would have ever admitted it out loud.

“You want to talk about deciding things for other people?” she said, stepping in now, all sharp edges and unshed tears. “You decided my life was worth yours. My baby brother joins me in death if that means I can roam the earth a few more years. And I’ve been trying to make that mean something ever since.”

Then she was moving past him, pushing out the door before he could say another word, the slam echoing like a shot through the house.

He stood there, staring after her, the ache in his chest familiar and bitter. This wasn’t as satisfactory as he has hoped it would end up being. The righteousness that had been bubbling in his mind ever since she had left him had been popped with astounding ease. She was always good at showing him how his mind wandered in circles around itself, winding him up further and further.

And then Nora was there—leaning in the doorway, arms folded, expression unreadable. He should have been able to hear her, but the thrum in his mind drowned everything else out.

“Glad to see you’re keeping your streak of starting family fights during daylight hours,” she said, voice cool as ice. “Gives humans the chance to listen in.”

He looked at her helplessly. “She didn’t even tell me. She just… decided.”

“She’s scared,” Nora said, as if it was clear to see for anyone with eyes. “She always is, underneath. You think she wants to leave this? Leave Henry? She would never imagine of leaving you. She’s trying to keep you alive, Alex. That’s all she’s ever tried to do. With some dubious choices, granted, I’m not going to get into that right now. I just know how many times I’ve had to talk her through a panic attack at the mere thought of leaving.”

“She doesn’t trust me to make decisions.”

“No,” Nora said, stepping forward now, face closer, voice lower. “She doesn’t trust herself not to lose you. That’s different.”

He looked away, jaw clenched.

“She did it once,” she added, “I don’t think she can do it again.”

He didn’t answer. She turned and left him in the quiet, map still on the floor, the weight of old choices hanging heavy in the air.

~*~

The bank’s offices were as pristine as ever, dark wood polished to a shine, the ticking of the large wall clock echoing through the quiet room. The morning sun filtered in through tall windows, casting pale gold across Henry’s immaculate desk. Papers sat in neat piles. Everything in its place, just like him.

Bea stood by the bookshelf, still dressed in travelling wool, despite having been in the country nearly a year. She fit perfectly into the polished world of this building, elegant and composed.

Henry looked up from his seat and said, softly, “Close the door, will you?”

She turned, brows lifting slightly, but did as asked. The latch clicked quietly into place.

Henry nodded toward the leather armchair across from him. “Sit. Please.”

She did, carefully smoothing her skirt. “Henry, if this is another secret blood ritual I’m being initiated into—”

“Just… listen,” he interrupted, lifting a finger to his lips. He gestured subtly toward the wooden wall that divided his office from the secretarial bullpen.

There was a pause.

Then, just barely—through the narrow gap beneath the door, through polished floorboards enhanced by their capacity to hear a mouse ten rooms away—came the sound of two women talking.

“…heard she’s tried everything. Doctors, specialists, those new nerve tonics. Nothing.”

“Poor Henry. I mean, he married so far beneath him, and now the girl can’t even give him a child.”

“She has the face, and he’s only human. But if it were me?” A laugh. “I’d never get off him. Man like that? I’d keep him home, not let him run around with that sad little smile like something’s missing.”

Bea’s mouth slowly parted, breath catching.

“You think that’s why his sister came over?”

“Course I do. What else could it be? June must be beside herself. First, there were no babies; now, this sister from God knows where is coming to talk sense into him. Maybe get him to leave her.”

A pause. Then:

“Honestly? Something’s wrong with her. She’s beautiful, but… cold. Something about her doesn’t sit right.”

The voices faded again, or maybe they moved away. Silence reclaimed the office.

Bea looked at her brother.

His eyes were fixed on a point far away, unreadable, but his jaw was tight.

“That’s disgusting,” Bea said quietly.

He gave a dry, bitter smile. “That’s human nature.”

Bea stared at the door as if she could see through it, still hear the voices of women who had never seen June read poetry aloud, dance in the garden barefoot, or lay with her head on Nora’s lap humming under her breath.

“And that,” Henry added, his voice calm but heavy, “is why June thinks it’s time.”

Bea turned her gaze to him slowly, silently asking him to go on.

“She wants to leave. Make a life somewhere else. Somewhere safer, maybe quieter. She hasn’t said it to my face, but I’ve caught fragments of her conversations with Nora. I try not to pry. It’s not my place to tell her what to do, marriage certificate notwithstanding.”

He looked at her now, not with sadness, but something like tired relief. There was only so much he could think about what that meant before he’d feel the sting of tears.

“They think she’s barren. Cold. A waste of a womb. That’s what they whisper when they think I’m not listening. And June hears it, too. Always has. But she’s not bitter. She just… doesn’t want to rot in someone else’s version of what a wife should be? She’s thinking about my reputation.”

Bea pressed a hand to her chest.

“And you?” she asked. “What are you thinking?”

Henry’s smile was soft this time, but no less sad.

“I want her to be free.”

The clock ticked. Somewhere outside, a typewriter clacked back to life. The city moved on.

But inside Henry’s office, the silence between siblings held the shape of truth.

The air in the office had settled again, but something heavier hung between them now—less the whispers of outsiders and more the ache of something deeply personal.

Bea, still seated across from Henry, folded one leg over the other and regarded him carefully. “I understand about June,” she said. “And I admire you for standing by her. Truly.”

He gave a soft, grateful nod.

“But,” she added, tilting her head, “I’m not stupid. You haven’t said a word about how you feel about Alex. He’s leaving with them I take it?”

Henry looked down at his hands—long, graceful fingers lightly drumming against his knee. “It’s not really my place to feel anything about that.”

“Oh, do shut up,” she said, not unkindly. “You’re allowed to feel, Henry. You’re not a saint. You’re a man. Technically,” she added when he gave her a look.

He sighed, then after a moment, said, “He kissed me. At that party last month. We were… not entirely ourselves. Blood drunk. It was messy.”

Bea’s eyes widened a fraction, but she didn’t interrupt. It didn’t look like she was very shocked to hear it. “And after?”

Henry shrugged, tone light but brittle. “He’s been avoiding it like the plague. I assume it was a mistake. Just a heat-of-the-moment thing.”

“Did you want it to be more than that?”

He hesitated.

And in that silence, Bea saw the answer written all over him—across the tired slope of his shoulders, in the careful way he kept his voice from cracking.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said finally. “I’m not going to ask him to choose between me and his family.”

Bea didn’t answer right away. She leaned forward slightly, resting her arms on her knees. When she spoke, her voice was soft, but steady.

“Henry, you have spent decades—centuries, maybe—making room for other people. You made a home for a wife who loves someone else.  You smile through gossip and keep your secrets neat and folded in your breast pocket like handkerchiefs.”

He looked at her, a flicker of emotion behind his eyes.

“And I love you for it. You’re better than all of us, given the circumstances. But for God’s sake, maybe it’s time you thought about what you want. Not what’s best for everyone else. Not what keeps the peace or protects reputations.”

She reached across the space between them and took his hand gently in hers.

“You’re allowed to want love, Henry even if it’s complicated. Even if it hurts.”

He looked down at their joined hands, his voice quieter now. “It does hurt.”

“I know,” she said. “But maybe it wouldn’t, if you stopped pretending you don’t feel it.”

A long silence fell between them. The noise outside the office door was still—the secretaries off to lunch or too deep in paperwork to chatter.

Henry exhaled slowly and closed his eyes, just for a moment.

Then opened them again and whispered, “He looked at me like he meant it.”

Bea smiled faintly. “Then maybe it wasn’t a mistake at all.”

~*~

The garden behind the house had always felt like something out of a storybook—hedges clipped to perfection, the stone paths warm from the day’s sun, red leaves blooming defiantly even in the chill of early autumn. But now, in the growing dusk, it held a different kind of stillness.

Henry sat alone on a bench beneath the twisted arms of an old magnolia, its first yellowing leaves catching the last of the light. He was reading—or pretending to—but the pages had stopped moving some time ago.

He didn’t look up when Alex approached, but he knew it was him. There was a certain kind of motion in Alex’s presence, even when he was trying to be still. He wondered what that meant, knowing a person by the sound of their strides.

Henry only lifted his gaze when Alex finally said, quietly, “I’m leaving.”

The book shut with a soft sound. Henry looked at him—not surprised, exactly, but like he’d been holding his breath for this moment all day.

Alex didn’t sit. He stood just off the path, hands deep in his coat pockets, jaw tight.

“I wanted to tell you before we go. I didn’t want you to hear it from June. Or Nora.”

Henry nodded slowly, his voice low. “Is it because of the kiss?”

“No.” Alex looked away. “Yes. Maybe. That’s part of it. But not the whole of it.”

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, like the story he carried was heavy on his bones. Henry wanted to hear it, but he didn’t want Alex to feel like he was pushing.

“I was twenty-three,” Alex said. “Finished with school, ready to take on the world. I went off with friends for a weekend. She was going to be fine, right? My parents were still at home. Nothing was going to happen in the two days I’d be missing.”

Henry said nothing, only watched him, listened.

“When I came back… our parents were gone. Blood all over the walls. Not a body in sight. And June was—God, she was half dead. On the floor. Eyes black. She’d been turned, but no one had fed her. She was starving.” He laughed bitterly. “It was the first time I ever felt true fear. Real, mortal fear.”

Alex took a slow breath, shifting his weight around his unsteady feet.

“When she saw me, she motioned to me, and I came close. I couldn’t hear what she was saying her voice was so low. She asked me for something, and I just said I’d do anything she needed. I didn’t even think. I just—offered myself.” His hand lifted unconsciously to his neck like the memory still burned there, like the imprints of her fangs were palpable. “She drank more than I thought I could give. And when I collapsed next to her, barely breathing, she made a decision.”

Henry's eyes softened. “She turned you.”

Alex nodded. “I don’t remember saying yes to it. I might’ve. Doesn’t matter. She wouldn't have let me die. She couldn’t.” His voice cracked slightly. “And when she came to, when she saw me and saw what I was, what she’d made me… I don’t think she’s ever going to forgive herself for it. She was gone, you know. When we met, when I bumped into you I... hadn’t seen her, hadn’t seen another vampire for eleven years. She ran, because she couldn’t face me. Couldn’t face what she’d done.”

He looked at Henry, eyes dark and shining now.

“And when she came back… found me in New York and moved in… I didn’t yell. I didn’t ask questions. I didn’t leave. Because I can’t. Because we can’t live without each other. Not yet at least.”

Alex shrugged.

“Maybe I’m too young. Or maybe I’m sentimental. Only time will tell.”

Henry swallowed, throat tight. He understood. He wanted desperately not to understand, to think that Alex was crazy and that he was speaking in tongues, but no, he understood.

“And that,” Alex said, stepping closer, “is why I have to go.”

Henry opened his mouth, but no words came out.

“I care about you,” Alex said softly. “I think—if I stayed—I’d fall into you so fast it would ruin us both. And I… that scares me. I can’t handle ruining you. Ruining me.”

There was silence. The wind moved gently through the trees.

Finally, Henry whispered, “What if I told you I’d wait?”

Alex’s smile was broken and warm. He crouched to Henry’s height and held his gaze for a moment. “Then I’d ask you not to.”

He stood, took one last long look at Henry—the man who had, quietly, slowly, become something impossible to ignore.

Then turned and walked back toward the house, the fading sunlight catching in his hair.

And Henry sat there in the garden until it was dark, until the moon rose over the hedges, and the scent of wet earth folded into the cold.

~*~

The house was still.

It was the stillness of the early hours, when even the restless had finally settled and the weight of tomorrow hadn't yet begun to press in. Shadows stretched long across the hallways, and the windows flickered with faint silver from the moon outside.

Alex’s bedroom door creaked open with the lightest touch. No footsteps—just the whisper of movement as something low, silent, and dark slipped inside.

A wolf.

Not the kind with wild eyes and slavering jaws, but one with sleek fur like storm clouds and a steady, patient gaze.

He stood in the middle of the room, his chest rising and falling in quiet rhythm. His tail flicked once, then twice.

On the bed, Alex stirred.

Half-asleep, he blinked blearily into the dark, then sat up as realization dawned. “Henry?”

The wolf padded closer. No sound. Just the soft thud of claws on the wood floor.

Alex’s eyes narrowed, and then he gave a crooked smile. “What, you want a goodbye lap before I leave?”

Henry huffed, a short exhale that might’ve been a yes.

Alex laughed under his breath and shook his head. “You’re mad.”

But he was already swinging his legs over the side of the bed.

He rose and walked to the center of the room. Closed his eyes. His body began to shift—bones stretching, reshaping, skin melting into fur the color of copper and pine needles. In seconds, where the man had stood, now waited a wolf, lean and restless and wild.

They met each other’s eyes.

Then ran.

Through the open window at the end of the hallway, down the slope of the garden, into the trees that bent and whispered around them.

They ran in silence. They didn’t need to utter any sound, because they knew it would break the tight tension that held the words they wanted to say.

I know. I understand. I don’t need words to say goodbye.

Twigs cracked beneath their paws. The cold air kissed their fur. Birds startled from branches above, and moonlight streamed through the canopy like a promise they weren’t ready to make.

They chased the wind and watched the world spin below them.

Every once in a while, Henry would glance to his side and see Alex running just ahead, wild grin painted into the angle of his jaw, eyes alight with something old and feral and free.

He would miss that. He already did.

When dawn was a pale whisper on the horizon, they stopped on the ridge, panting, paws soaked in dew and blood warm from the night.

They stood there a while. Just breathing.

Then Henry turned and nudged Alex gently with his snout.

One last touch.

And then, without waiting for more, Henry turned and loped back into the trees, letting the shadows swallow him whole.

Alex stayed behind, the rising sun casting gold across his fur, until he couldn’t hear the other wolf anymore. And only then did he shift back, barefoot and bare-chested in the early morning cold.

Chapter Text

The alarm on the nightstand ticked with an almost mocking precision—loud in the stillness. Henry blinked awake into the gray, heavy quiet of morning, the ceiling above him blank as a confession. The room was neat, too neat. Stripped bare but for a bed, a narrow dresser, and a coat hung like a shadow on the back of the door. There were no photographs. No mementos. Nothing that hinted at a life beyond function.

The house was silent, save for the faint rhythm of Beatrice’s breath in the next room—steady, measured. Familiar. But it wasn’t enough.

He sat up slowly, letting the cold air bite at his shoulders. The silence pressed against him, thick and unnatural. He used to wake to the rustle of sheets in the next room, to June laughing under her breath, to Nora muttering half-sentences that only made sense to June, to the sound of mismatched records playing too early in the day. He missed the scent of strong coffee already brewing, the clatter of cups, the warmth of women in love building a life in the edges of dawn.

But mostly, he missed him.

Henry hadn’t realized how tuned his body had become to the subtle music of Alex’s presence—the weight of his footfalls in the garden, soft and careful when he didn’t want to wake anyone, the scuff of his heel when he was thinking too hard, the cadence of his breathing that Henry could read like a weather pattern. Even when Alex was distant, even when they weren’t speaking, he was there, echoing in the air Henry breathed.

Now there was nothing. Only the quiet and the ticking clock and the looming fact of the day ahead—suits and ledgers and men who smiled with their teeth. Henry dressed without turning on the light. He fastened his tie, feeling his hands move on autopilot.

It was a job. It was a life. It was not a world where Alex existed.

Henry didn’t turn on the overhead light in the kitchen—just the dim glow over the stove, casting long, softened shadows along the countertop. The kettle wheezed faintly as it warmed, and the cabinets, pale with chipped corners, looked more like they belonged to a boarding house than a home.

No smell of coffee. No sharp, rich note hanging in the air like it used to. He hadn’t bothered to buy any beans since Alex left. There didn’t seem to be a point. What remained now was bergamot—thin and bright, a perfume of memory more than comfort. He used to like the smell. Used to say it reminded him of mornings in London, back when mornings still held promise.

Now it just meant another day without Alex.

The kettle sang, and he moved on instinct—lifting it off the flame, pouring the hot water over two waiting cups. The scent bloomed into the room like a ghost. Henry stirred in the milk slowly, watching the color shift.

Behind him, soft steps on the wood. He didn’t turn around.

“You’re up early,” Bea murmured. Her voice was still rough with sleep.

“I have to be,” he said, handing her the second cup without looking at her directly. “Bank doesn’t care about poetic silences.”

She took the tea and leaned against the doorframe, still in her nightgown, sleeves pushed up, hair loose over one shoulder.

“Isn’t it strange,” she said after a beat, watching the steam curl up from the cup, “how we still go through all of this, knowing we can barely taste any of it?”

Henry gave a half-smile, not quite bitter, not quite amused. “Habit,” he said. “Or maybe the performance of being human is harder to let go than the taste itself.”

Bea took a sip anyway, eyes closed like she remembered what warmth used to mean. “Or maybe we just liked pretending,” she said. “That we’re home and our loving family surrounds us.”

He didn’t answer that. Didn’t have to. She could feel the ache radiating off him like heat from the kettle. The years hadn’t softened it. How could they? What’s a few years in the span of centuries. Gone in the blink of an eye.

“I’m still family,” he said in the end.

“And I’m still here.”

~*~

The morning sun filtered pale through the high windows of the J.P. Morgan building, catching on the brass rails and polished marble like it didn’t yet know the world was about to end.

Henry sat alone in his office, his suit perfect, his tie neat, but his posture slouched. His fingers tapped absently against the cool edge of the desk as he stared down at the numbers on the ticker tape.

They didn’t lie.

The market wasn’t just dipping—it was crashing.

He'd seen the signs—too many loans, too much speculation, too much greed packed into too small a window. He’d felt the quiet tremors days ago, the shiver in the voice of junior investors, the tightening of the breath in the corridors.

Now the tremors had turned to collapse.

Outside his frosted door, the usual buzz had become something louder, almost manic. Footsteps hurried. Phones rang and rang. There were too many whispers. Too many men pretending not to be panicking.

Henry leaned back, the leather of his chair creaking faintly. He stared at the ceiling, then closed his eyes.

He had money, of course. Nestled in places even JP Morgan couldn’t touch. He wasn’t ruined. Not the way others would be. But it didn’t matter.

This version of Henry, well-respected banker, polite vampire of impeccable dress and gentle manner—was about to go extinct.

The collapse wouldn’t just crush fortunes. It would crush lives. New York would be gutted. Men would jump from rooftops. Bread lines would twist down the avenues. People would starve. People would break.

And in times like that, people noticed the ones who didn’t age. Who never lost weight. Who always looked too calm, too well-fed.

It wasn’t safe for someone like him. Not anymore.

Henry stood slowly and walked to the window that overlooked Wall Street. The sky above was cloudless. Deceptively calm.

He didn't want to leave.

He loved this city.

Loved the jazz that poured out of speakeasies in Harlem, the cobblestones of the Village, the way the skyline clawed its way higher every year. He loved the dirt and the grandeur in equal measure. It had been his first sight of the new world and it had been a home now for almost three decades.

But it wasn’t safe.

Soon, people would start looking for someone to blame. And his house—his sprawling mansion filled with memories of laughter—would start to look obscene. Suspicious.

Too permanent.

He could vanish tonight. Take what he needed. Leave the house empty but undisturbed. They’d write it off as another casualty of the crash.

In a few years, when the dust settled, when New York started to put itself back together, he could return. A new name. A new face. Perhaps a professor next time.

The weight settled heavy on his shoulders. He didn’t sigh—he didn’t need to stop and breathe—but the feeling mimicked it just the same.

He turned from the window and reached for his coat.

Time to get Bea and disappear.

Again.

~*~

That evening, the mansion felt heavier than it had in years.

The curtains breathed softly in the late October breeze, and somewhere in the walls, the bones of the old house groaned. Henry stepped inside, shedding the weight of the city with each footfall. He loosened his tie, undone for once, and didn’t bother lighting the lamps. He didn’t need to see the place in full to know it would soon be gone.

The grand hallway echoed with stillness. He found Bea in the drawing room, curled up in the armchair near the window, bathed in the last light of the sun. She held a letter—creased, opened and read too many times. When she saw him, she straightened quickly, folding it and tucking it into the folds of her skirt like a child hiding sweets.

Henry tilted his head and gave her a quiet look.

“From June?” he asked.

Bea pursed her lips, then nodded. “She wrote last week. It only arrived today.”

He walked to the fireplace and leaned against the mantel, brushing ash from the edge with a distracted motion. He should have expected that they kept in touch. He probably knew, deep down, every time she startled at his presence, like she had a secret to keep.  “How are they?”

“Safe,” she replied. “Settled, in a way. The three of them are on a ranch just outside of Kerrville, laying low. Not many neighbours, no one asking questions. Plenty of space.”

He nodded, eyes distant. “Texas,” he repeated softly, like a taste he couldn’t quite place. He refused to look up pictures. He refused to scan a map and understand where Alex might be hiding. He didn’t trust himself to not pack it all up and follow him there.

Bea looked up at him from her chair, her tone lighter than the words. “You could go. You know they’d welcome you.”

Henry smiled faintly, but it didn’t reach his eyes, amazed at how she could feel his want shimmering beneath his skin. “I don’t think I’m meant for Texas.”

“Not enough bankers?” she teased.

“Too many stars,” he murmured. “Too much sky. I don’t do well where the horizon stretches. I like a city to hold me in place. Remind me I’m still on Earth.”

Bea watched him. He probably looked tired—not in the mortal way, not from lack of sleep, but from decades of goodbyes. Of becoming and unbecoming. Of leaving behind places that felt like home only after they were already lost.

“I suppose you’re not wrong,” she said. “You were a little better with streetcars than horses.”

“I like to hear when people are coming,” he said, lips quirking into something closer to a real smile.

There was a pause because they both knew what he hinted at.

Then Henry looked at her. “We need to go,” he said, his voice low and calm. “The city’s turning. People will be looking for villains soon, and I’m too polished to pass for broke.”

Bea stood, smoothing her skirt. She didn’t argue. She’d been around long enough to read the air too.

“Where?” she asked simply.

He glanced to the windows. To the city darkening beyond them.

“Chicago,” he said, like the word had been waiting in his mouth all day. “It’s fast. Loud. Easy to get lost in. I think we could make a decent run of it there.”

Bea smiled softly. “They’ve got good music.”

“I hear they’ve got good everything,” he replied.

And for a moment, they just stood there together, two old souls in a house that had held too much of them.

“I’ll start packing,” Bea said at last.

Henry nodded, his hand still warm around the chipped ceramic cup. “I’ll close the bank accounts,” he murmured.

But he didn’t move yet. Outside, in the distance he could feel that the city was waking up—streetcars rattling on the tracks, someone shouting a name two doors down, a dog barking like it had never stopped.

He thought about how many times they’d done this. Packed up. Slipped out. Reinvented themselves with new names, new papers, new habits that would last until they wore through and needed replacing.

He let out a slow breath. “You know,” he said, voice softer now, “I’ve lost count of how many times we’ve done this.”

Bea turned to him, a faint crease in her brow. “I remember seven,” she said. “Big ones.”

Henry shook his head slowly, gaze far away. “I count every one. Even when we don’t leave the city—just shift neighborhoods, reinvent who we are for the neighbors, relearn which grocer won’t ask questions. That counts.”

He met her eyes. “If that’s how we’re measuring, I’ve got at least fourteen.”

Bea gave a wry, tired smile, one that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Always the archivist.”

Henry didn’t smile back. “Do you think she has more?” he asked, and didn’t have to say who she was.

Bea’s expression flickered, the way light does when clouds pass over the sun. She hesitated, then said lightly, “Our mother hasn’t moved in decades.”

He didn’t respond right away. The words caught on something sharp in his chest. Not the fact of it, but the way Bea said it—like she knew. Like she’d been told. Like she was still in touch.

Of course she is, he thought. Of course she is.

And as the city outside began to break—sirens rising like ghosts, light bleeding through soot-streaked windows—the two of them moved like shadows through their rooms, already halfway gone.

~*~

The sun was just beginning to dip below the horizon, stretching long golden fingers across the dry earth. A breeze stirred the tall grasses, carrying the scent of dust and livestock, and the faint hum of distant crickets started their nightly chorus. The world was wide here—open and sprawling, as far from the sharp angles and noise of New York as one could get.

Alex sat on the fence post near the west paddock, sleeves rolled, boots muddy, the hem of his shirt still damp from the creek. In his hands, a folded letter, edges soft from the way he'd been turning it over again and again.

Bea’s handwriting was unmistakable—precise, graceful, but never fussy. He’d read it twice before June and Nora had even come back from town. Now, with the ranch quiet again and the cattle fed, he let himself read it a third time, eyes tracing every word like it might tell him more than she meant to say.

"Henry and I are leaving New York. The crash was worse than we thought it would be, and he believes it's time to disappear. There’s too much gossip, too much danger. He’s chosen Chicago. Says it suits him better than Texas ever could."

Alex frowned, thumb smudging the bottom of the paper. Chicago. Of all places.

The city had teeth. He'd heard it from the men in saloons when he still lingered in cities, from headlines in papers that made their way south. Gangsters and speakeasies. Guns and deals behind locked doors. Al Capone’s name was tossed around like a threat or a promise, depending on who you asked.

He didn’t like the idea of Henry walking straight into that.

Not because Henry couldn’t take care of himself—he could. He was old and careful and smart in the way a man had to be to survive centuries. But there was something delicate about him, too. Something in the way he looked out windows too long, or listened to silence like it might answer back.

Chicago would chew on a man like that.

Alex folded the letter slowly, tucking it back into its envelope. He leaned back on the post and tilted his head toward the wide sky, now streaked with pink and bruised lavender.

"You're not gonna like it there," he muttered, as if Henry could hear him across the miles.

A soft rustle came from behind—June, brushing hay from her sleeves as she stepped out of the barn. She didn’t say anything right away, just looked at her brother with that quiet sort of knowing she always carried.

“News?” she asked gently.

Alex held up the letter. “They’re gone. New York’s too hot. Crash made everything worse. They’re headed to Chicago.”

June’s face tensed, just a fraction.

Alex stood, jumping down from the fence with a thud. “You think that’s smart?” he asked her, brows raised. “That city’s a powder keg. Bootleggers. Mobsters. Dirty cops. Even the rats have guns, probably.”

“He’s smart,” June said simply, but she didn’t sound convinced.

Alex crossed his arms. “He’s tired. And tired people make mistakes.”

June walked past him, laying a hand briefly on his shoulder as she did. “You could go to him, you know.”

He didn’t reply. Just looked back toward the barn, then the open land around them. The Texas silence was familiar. Safe. But he felt it again, the slow ache in his chest—like part of him had been left behind in a house that no longer existed.

The wind tugged gently at the envelope in his hand.

He couldn’t go. It would make his stomach turn into a well fastened knot and his brain give up on trying to process anything. The longing tugged at his chest though, and that meant he had to go out on a walk, find himself a pretty lady a good hundred miles away and satisfy all of his hungers.

Chapter Text

The bar sat low on a corner off Clark Street. He took it because he liked the way the light never fully reached the floor. The smell of whiskey and smoke clung to the walls like old wallpaper. The front was packed. The clink of glasses and sharp laughter drowned under the steady pulse of the jazz band on stage — their brass horns cutting through the haze like the night’s heartbeat.

But in the back, half hidden behind a curtain and a table heavy with half-empty bottles, the world was quieter.

Henry sat with his sleeves rolled, tie loosened, a glass of bourbon in his hand — still, untouched. Across from him, lounging like a man born to shadows was Frank, sharp-suited, silver hair slicked back, his hat tipped over the chair behind him.

The two of them sat in easy silence, watching the band through the thin haze of cigarette smoke. Frank’s fingers tapped along to the rhythm, but his eyes were elsewhere — cold, calculating.

“Capone won’t be coming back,” Nitti said finally, voice low like he was telling Henry a secret he already knew. “The Feds got him wrapped up tight. Tax evasion was just the excuse — they wanted him off the streets, and they got it.”

Henry nodded, gaze still locked on the band. “Shame,” he murmured, more out of politeness than sincerity. “But I imagine the Outfit isn’t short on men looking to fill the space.”

Frank’s mouth pulled into something between a smile and a grimace. “Men, sure. Leaders, not so much.” He leaned forward slightly, elbows on the table. “That’s why I like you, Henry. You got a good head for numbers. You run this place smooth, quiet. No bodies in the alley, no trouble with the law.”

Henry’s eyes flicked to him. He knew a pitch when he heard one.

Frank lit another cigarette, pausing just long enough to exhale a slow stream of smoke before continuing. “I’m expanding. Liquor’s still good, but a man can’t lean on hooch forever. The girls — the right kind, the right place — they bring in steady cash. Less volatile than whiskey, too. More forgiving, when the cops we still haven’t bought off get nosy.”

Henry finally lifted his glass, took a slow sip, and let the taste sit on his tongue.

“Brothels,” he said flatly, as if trying the word out for size.

Frank’s lips twitched into a dry smile. “You make it sound like such a dirty business.”

Henry chuckled once, under his breath, resting the glass back on the table.

“You’re a businessman,” Frank went on. “You got the look, the voice. Men trust you. Women too, I bet. You set the place up, I send the girls, we split it fair. It’s safer than bootlegging, and it pays better.”

The band on stage slid into a slow, syrupy tune, all brass and velvet. Henry watched the couples on the floor dance, the swaying of hips and the soft laughter weaving through the music.

“I’ll think about it,” he said finally.

Frank nodded like he’d expected that answer, tapping ash off the end of his cigarette.

“Don’t take too long,” he murmured. “The city moves fast. Either you take a bite, or you’re the one getting chewed.”

Henry raised his glass slightly in a mock toast.

“To new ventures,” he said.

Frank clinked his glass lazily against Henry’s, his smile sharp but not unkind.

“To survival,” he corrected.

~*~

The last notes of the jazz band had long faded and his people were gearing to get the floor swept the chairs turned onto tables, and wash away the stench of spilled whiskey and cigarette ash. The night settled into that quiet hour before dawn when even the drunks had stumbled home.

Henry wiped down the bar with slow, practiced strokes, glass rag in one hand, bourbon glass in the other, half-empty and forgotten — when the sharp crack of voices broke the stillness.

By the corner of the bar, a group of men, factory types by the look of them — shirtsleeves rolled, knuckles scuffed from work and too much drink — were circled around a lone figure. A black man, sitting steady and quiet on his stool, nursing a whiskey neat like it was the last drink left in the world. The slurs floated through the air, mean and slick:

“Queer little peacock, ain’t he?”
“Look at that suit, all dressed up like a fancy man.”
“You even belong here, boy?”

The man didn’t answer. His fingers stayed on the glass, firm and still, as the words kept coming, sharper, uglier. One of the men shoved his shoulder. The whiskey barely rippled, but the insult was clear.

Henry’s voice cut through the haze before the next shove could land.

“Cash.”

A mountain of a man in suspenders, built like he’d been carved from iron — moved from the shadows by the door without a word. He grabbed the nearest drunk by the collar, yanked him back so fast his feet barely touched the floor, and herded the whole pack toward the exit like cattle.

“Out,” Cash grunted, and the sound of the door slamming shut rang through the empty room like punctuation.

Henry slid behind the bar, refilled the man’s glass with another two fingers of whiskey, and set the bottle down.

“You alright?” he asked, voice quiet but steady.

The man looked up, dark eyes sharp and unreadable beneath the tilt of his wide-brimmed hat. He was dressed better than most in the room ever would be — deep charcoal suit, pinstripe sharp enough to cut, silk tie neat and knotted just right.

“I’ve seen you around,” Henry added. “Were you with the band?”

The man’s jaw tensed, his voice clipped and cool.
“Not all negroes are jazz players, you know.”

Henry raised a hand slightly, the ghost of an apology in the gesture. “Fair enough.”

A pause stretched between them, long and taut as a wire, until Henry asked the question hanging in the air.

“Did you know those men?”

The man let out a short, bitter laugh, eyes flicking back to his glass. “Didn’t need to know them. They saw me minding my own business and they thought I was queer,” he said simply. “I’m not. But that’s none of their business.” He turned his gaze back to Henry, dark and unflinching. “None of yours, either.”

Henry nodded once, slow. “You’re right. It isn’t.”

The man studied him for a long moment, then offered his hand.

“Percy. Pez to friends.”

Henry shook it, the grip firm, steady.

“Henry.”

Percy narrowed his eyes.

“Brit?”

Henry shook his head. After so many years in so many countries, he’d learned to adapt his accent to whatever helped him blend in better. His name, as always, still held remnants of who he really was. It was easily brushed aside.

Percy leaned back slightly, eyeing the nearly empty room, the weight of the conversation shifting as smooth as his posture.

“You’ve got yourself a fine place here,” Percy said, voice low but edged with purpose. “But I’m guessing you’re looking to do more than sling drinks for washed-up bankers and factory scabs.”

Henry arched a brow, waiting.

“I want to help you expand,” Percy went on. “Bronzeville’s full of Black and Tan clubs. Places you’ll never set foot in without someone like me at your side. I know the owners. I know the street. You let me run them, you take a cut.”

Henry leaned against the bar, tapping a finger once against the wood.

“And why would you come to me?”

Percy’s mouth lifted into a small, knowing smile.

“Because I’ve seen the way you run this place. You don’t make trouble. You keep your head down, your books clean, and you don’t care what a man does behind closed doors. That makes you smarter than most.”

“So you’ve been here before.”

“I make sure I know the people I do business with.”

Henry let the silence settle again, weighing the offer. The city was changing fast — and Bronzeville had money in its walls, if you knew where to look.

“I’ll think about it,” he said at last, the same words he’d given Nitti. But this time, he meant it.

Percy tipped his glass toward him in a silent toast before finishing the drink in one smooth swallow.

~*~

1935

Henry followed Bea into the bar, the warm hum of conversation and saxophone slipping around his shoulders like an old coat. The place was already alive—laughter at the booths, the clink of ice in highball glasses, shoes sliding across the scuffed floor in rhythm with the band’s lively stomp. Brass flared bright and wild at the front of the room, threading joy through the smoke-thick air.

Bea’s face lit up immediately, her steps quickening. “Oh, finally, something with a pulse,” she said, and grabbed Henry’s hand before he could protest.

She dragged him toward the bar, eyes already scanning the room with delight. “Let’s try to keep up with Chicago, shall we?” she said, flagging down the bartender. “One Chicago Fizz, and something moody for my brother here.”

“Something moody?” Henry said, raising an eyebrow.

“You heard me.”

They were barely halfway through their banter when a familiar voice cut through the din.

“Well if it isn’t the old poet himself,” Percy said, slipping in beside them with an easy grin.

“Percy,” Henry said, turning to clasp his hand. “Bea, this is Percy—Percy, my sister, Beatrice.”

Percy gave her a nod and a smile so smooth it could’ve been practiced in the mirror. “Pleasure’s all mine, Miss Beatrice. But you can call me Pez.”

Henry narrowed his eyes, mock-offended. “That nickname was earned, you know. Years of trust and maybe a brawl or two.”

Percy shrugged. “Any lovely lady who walks into my place is a friend already.”

Bea laughed, tilting her head with theatrical charm. “I’ll take that as an invitation to dance.”

“Oh, you’ll find someone,” Percy said, glancing toward the crowd. “Boys here know how to lead.”

Henry took a sip from his glass, something smoky and bitter. “Bea, I need a moment with Pez. Business.”

Bea waved him off with her drink in hand. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll dance my solitude away.”

She disappeared into the swell of music and motion, the deep red of her dress catching the light like the last streak of sunset.

Henry followed Percy through a side curtain and into the back room.

It smelled like sweat, wood polish, and the low, dusky perfume of bourbon that had soaked into the walls over the years. Laughter and trumpet runs thumped in from the main floor, now filtered to a heartbeat under velvet.

Percy dropped into his usual spot behind the narrow desk, sleeves rolled up, ink on his fingers like always. The old ledger sat open before him, half-filled with rows of precise numbers and spidery notes.

He poured two fingers of whiskey into mismatched glasses and slid one across the desk toward Henry without even glancing up. “It ain’t perfect,” Percy said, tapping a column, “but we’re up. Last week alone brought in near three hundred.”

Henry picked up the glass, took a slow sip. “Not bad for a man with half the city watching his every move.”

Percy grinned. “Let ‘em watch. They still come through my doors.”

Henry leaned over the book, expression unreadable but eyes sharp, following the neat figures and penciled margins. He’d done this so many times in his life, in so many centuries, his eyes were able to pick up the slightest irregularity. “And the officers?”

“Handled,” Percy said, with a flick of his wrist like brushing dust from his coat. “Couple dollars in the right pockets, and suddenly, no one hears a trumpet after midnight. Don’t even blink when the lights stay on until four.”

Henry’s mouth curved in the smallest suggestion of a smile. “You always did have a knack.”

“You had no idea what I was capable of,” Percy said. “Which is why I’m thankful you took a leap of faith.”

“I’ve been around enough to be a good judge of character.”

Percy chuckled and nodded out toward the bar. “You see the man by the wall? That’s the editor of The Defender. Name’s Abbott. Smart as hell. Knows when to keep quiet, too.” He glanced sideways at Henry. “There’s a girl writing for him—poetry, mostly. Young, but she’s got something. I’ll send you some of her stuff. Thought it might speak to you.”

Henry raised his glass. “I’m sure it will. I mean it, Percy. You’ve built something good here.”

Percy clinked his glass gently to Henry’s. “Not just good. Strong. And this time, nobody’s burning it down.”

They drank to that beneath the hum of jazz and the weight of knowing how hard it was to make something that lasted.

“I’m impressed I’ve stayed in business with a man you know next to nothing about,” Henry said, letting the words hang.

Percy leaned back in his chair, glass resting against his lip, eyes narrowing just a little at Henry’s comment. A small smile ghosted across his face, dry and a touch amused. He set the glass down with a quiet clink. “Then ask,” he said simply. “What do you want to know?”

Henry shrugged, a lazy roll of one shoulder, though his gaze was keen. “General life points, I suppose.”

Percy gave a soft huff of laughter, leaned forward again and cracked his knuckles against the edge of the desk. “Chicago raised,” he said, voice quieting. “Bronzeville before it had a name. My father worked with the WAFF. Got his leg blown to pieces by the Germans in Cameroon before it even got going. That was 1914. I was three. He didn’t say much about it. Just came back with a hole in him and a fire behind his eyes.”

Henry didn’t speak, just listened. The whiskey between them felt warmer now, like it was holding the room together.

Percy’s tone softened. “Took me and my mother and found a boat. America looked cleaner from across the ocean. Thought we’d find something better here. Maybe he did.”

“You think he’d be proud of all this?” Henry asked, gesturing to the hum of life just beyond the curtain, to the bar Percy had built from nothing.

Percy didn’t smile, but his eyes lit faintly. “If he saw this? The music, the people, the way they keep dancing no matter what comes? Yeah. I think he would.”

“And the people you keep company with?” Henry tried to push.

“I don’t care about what it is you do,” Percy said. “The gangster stuff either,” he added, making sure Henry understood what he meant to say.

Henry raised his glass again, slower this time. “To fire behind the eyes, then.”

Percy clinked his glass again. “And to keeping it lit.”

Percy leaned forward again, pencil tapping idly against the column of figures in the ledger. “Alright, Mr. Secretive. Since we’re trading notes—what about you? You ever think about what’s next, once you’ve made your fortune?”

Henry looked at him over the rim of his glass. “That assumes I’m in it for the money.”

“You’re not?”

A slow smile curled at the corner of Henry’s mouth. “Let’s say I enjoy what money makes possible.”

Percy gave a grunt of approval. “Same here.” He shifted in his chair, gaze going a little distant. “If the money keeps flowing, if I get to a place where I’m not always glancing over my shoulder—I’ve always wanted to see Europe. Benny and Duke and Cab been over there. Played London, Paris. Say the air smells different, like it’s thicker with history or something. I want that. I want to see what all the noise is about.”

Henry’s smile deepened, not mocking but fond. “I’ll take you.”

Percy’s brow rose. “You’ll take me?”

“Sure,” Henry said, voice like velvet and dusk. “Show you around. I know the corners worth seeing.”

“You been there?”

“A long time ago.”

That got a laugh out of Percy, sudden and rich. “You? What, as a child prodigy or something? You don’t look a day over thirty.”

Henry raised his brows, leaned back as if considering. “Maybe the drink’s getting to me,” he said lightly.

Percy shook his head, still chuckling, the candlelight in the backroom flickering across his face. “Alright, Henry. If you say so.”

They sat in the quiet for a moment longer, the numbers forgotten, the old jazz from the front of the bar soft through the walls. A promise laid between them now—not in stone, but in spirit.

Chapter Text

Chicago, March 3rd, 1936
Miss June Diaz
Somewhere on that dust-swept Texas ranch

Dearest June,

It’s been too long since I last put pen to paper, and for that I hope you’ll forgive me. I’ve been meaning to write — I always mean to, but the days and nights blur together in this city. Business has a way of doing that to a man.

I wanted to tell you about someone — a fellow by the name of Percy. I met him a few years back at the bar, sharp as a blade and dressed even sharper. With his help, I’ve carved out more of this city than I ever thought I would. Between the two of us, we’ve got our hands on most of the bars and speakeasies worth their salt. Percy’s the kind of man who sees the world as it is, and makes no apology for it. I respect that about him. You’d like him, I think.

I’ve just taken over Sunset Café — ever heard of it? It’s the kind of place where the music clings to your bones and makes you feel alive again, even if you’d rather not. There’s this singer, Louis— Percy swears he’s going to be one of the greats. I believe him. You and Nora, especially, would fall head over heels for the sound of that trumpet, and I’d wager Alex might even crack a smile.

The best part? All my bars are integrated, every last one. No one cares what you look like, or who you bring with you, so long as you’ve got the price of a drink and a taste for music. Percy and I are working on something else, too — trying to get the old guard to understand there’s money to be made welcoming folks that other places turn away. Queer money spends the same as straight money, I’ve been telling them. Some of them are beginning to listen, though it’s slow going.

I’d like you to come visit. All of you. I miss you fiercely, and this city is too loud for a man to be alone in for so long. I know Bea keeps you up to date about everything, but I want you to see the place I’ve built. I want you to hear the music. I want to know you’re all alright.

Tell me how Nora’s holding up. And Alex... well. Give him my best.

Write me back soon, won’t you? You’d be surprised how quiet the nights feel even with all the jazz in the world playing right outside the window.

Yours,
Henry

April 2nd, 1936
Mr. Henry George Fox
Chicago, Illinois

My dear Henry,

You’ve got no idea how welcome your letter was. Alex read it first — caught the post before I did — and had the nerve to sit on the porch with it for an hour, before handing it over. Said he liked the sound of Chicago, happy you found someone to spend your days with there when Bea isn’t around.

Texas has turned sour on us. Even tucked away on this dusty ranch, with nothing but mesquite and heat for miles, it’s not enough. People still come knocking. Folks still have questions about the three peculiars living out here with no family and no children and no sign of aging between them. You’d think keeping away from towns would buy us peace, but even out in the wilderness, men will come sniffing if they’re of a mind to start trouble.

And trouble’s what we’ve been drowning in lately. It’s one thing when it’s the odd vagrant or drifter — those are easy enough to make disappear, as grim as that sounds. But it hasn’t just been drifters. These days, it’s neighbors. Deputies. Church men. The kind that don’t take kindly to folk like us even before they catch sight of Nora. And the more of them we deal with, the more restless the others get. We’ve started hearing folks talk about heading west, to California.

I think it’s about time we did the same.

They say Hollywood’s got more misfits per square mile than anywhere else on the planet. Maybe Nora can charm her way into helping on the pictures. Maybe Alex can finally find some corner of the world where people let him be strange without raising a rifle. And maybe — if the stars are kind — I can stop looking over my shoulder.

I won’t pretend the thought of Chicago didn’t tempt me for a moment, after your letter. I could see us there — tucked into one of your jazz-soaked nights, glasses raised, pretending the world’s kinder than it is. But you and I both know trouble sticks to us like perfume, and I’d rather not drag mine into your new kingdom. Besides, I’m not much for brothels, Henry. Even if I did like the sound of your Percy — he seems a man of good sense, which I know you’ve always needed more of around you.

Write me, when you can. Or better yet, come west once the wind changes. I’ve no doubt the coast will call to you, eventually.

Yours,
June

~*~

The bar was dim, low-lit with the soft amber glow of old sconces and the warm buzz of jazz leaking off the stage. Smoke curled lazily from the mouths of half-lit cigarettes, the scent of whiskey and damp wool hanging thick in the air. Henry stood behind the bar, wiping down a glass, half-listening to the crooning trumpet from the bandstand when a man slid onto the stool beside him.

He wasn’t the usual sort. No rough-edged street shark or well-oiled banker. This one had clean lines — a crisp suit, a sharp tie, a mouth like sin, and the kind of self-assuredness that told Henry he knew exactly what he wanted.

Their eyes met for half a second longer than polite.

“You always pour the drinks,” the man said, voice low and smooth. “Anyone ever pour one for you?”

Henry arched a brow, setting the glass down slow. “Not often.”

The man’s smile tugged wider, slow like honey. “Maybe it’s time you let someone.”

Percy, standing a few feet away by the register, caught the exchange. His eyes flicked over the man once, then over to Henry. And when Henry glanced his way, Percy only lifted his glass in a lazy, knowing salute — the smallest flick of a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth.

I don’t care, that look said.

Henry set the rag down and leaned in, voice pitched quiet beneath the jazz. “You looking for something?”

The man’s hand traced the rim of his untouched glass. “That depends. You offering?”

A moment’s pause. Then Henry tipped his head toward the back office, the silent invitation hanging in the air. The man slid off his stool, smooth as silk, and followed without another word.

Inside the office, the door clicked softly shut behind them.

Henry stood still for a breath, watching the man lean against the desk, his confidence unshaken even in the quiet.

“You always let strangers follow you into back rooms?” the man teased.

Henry stepped closer, slow and deliberate, one hand finding the man’s jaw, fingers brushing against skin that was too warm, too alive. For a moment, he just looked at him — at the ease of someone who didn’t know the danger standing inches away.

And then Henry kissed him.

Not hurried, not rough — just the press of mouths and the heat of two men who both knew the rules of this particular game. It wasn’t about tenderness or promises. It wasn’t about forever.

It was about now.

And for the first time in months, Henry let himself take it.

The man’s mouth curved into a slow, knowing smile as Henry leaned in again, deepening the kiss. His hands found Henry’s shoulders, steady but not demanding, letting him take the lead. The warmth of another body, the grounding press of skin and breath and closeness — it had been too long since Henry let himself want this without pretense.

He slid his hands down the man’s chest, undoing the buttons of his sharp suit, one at a time. The fine cloth parted, revealing pale skin, warm and human, pulsing with life beneath his fingertips. The man’s breath hitched when Henry’s lips skimmed down his throat, his hands resting heavy at his sides, patient, trusting.

Henry sank to his knees on the worn rug, his hands steady at the man’s hips, fingers curling around fabric and belt. He looked up once, meeting the man’s gaze — there was desire there, sure, but not the kind that stayed. Just another night. Another brief collision in a life full of them.

When he leaned forward and took the man in his mouth, the taste of salt and skin filled him, grounding him in the moment even as some distant part of his mind drifted away. The man’s fingers threaded lightly through Henry’s hair, not pulling, just anchoring.

Henry moved slow, deliberate, savoring the way the man’s body reacted, the quiet, stuttered breath above him, the shift of hips, the slight tremble in his thighs. And still, even as he worked the man toward the edge, his thoughts strayed.

It wasn’t about needing release, not really.

It was about wanting someone who’d stay after.

When the man finally let out a quiet, bitten-off sound of pleasure, his hand falling away from Henry’s hair, the moment passed. Henry rose back to his feet, already straightening his clothes, the spell broken before the man even fully caught his breath.

The man pulled his shirt back on, still a little flushed, lips curved in lazy satisfaction. “You’re good at that,” he said lightly, fastening his collar.

Henry offered a faint, tired smile. “Yeah,” he said softly. “So I’ve heard.”

And as the man left the office, Henry stood alone, staring at the closed door, wishing the weight in his chest didn’t feel heavier than before.

~*~

Hollywood, California
September 19th, 1938

Henry,

You wouldn’t believe the sun out here. It seeps right into your bones and makes you forget about all the cold winters in the city. I’d say I miss New York, but that’d be a lie, and I figure you’ve known me long enough to spot those when I try.

We’ve put down roots, or at least the closest thing to it, here in Hollywood. Turns out all these Westerns they’re shooting need horses, and more importantly — they need folks who know which end does the kicking. I slapped on my best pair of boots, let the accent drip a little thicker, and wouldn’t you know it — steady work wrangling horses like I was born to it. Guess there’s something to be said for that old Texas badge, even if I was never much for the Lone Star life.

Nora’s set herself up as a seamstress. The studios churn through costumes like gamblers through pocket change, and her needle’s quicker than any of them can ask for. I think the work suits her, though she still swears every man on the lot is blind to fashion and half of them to common sense.

And June, well, she’s somehow landed herself as an assistant to Wallace Beery. Yeah, that Beery. You’d hate him. Loud, self-important, and rough as an unwashed boot, but the studio pays her good money for keeping him in check. She says her patience grows thinner by the day, but her purse grows fatter, so she hasn’t packed up and bolted just yet.

I’ve been meaning to write sooner, but well… you ought to come west.

The ocean’s warmer here, the air’s lighter, and the city doesn’t sleep, but it sure knows how to play pretend better than any of us ever could back in New York. I think you’d like it. Hell, I know you would. You could start fresh — again. Maybe for the last time.

How’s Bea? Tell me she’s still sharp as ever, still keeping you honest even when you don’t want her to. I miss her, too. You both always felt more like home than Texas ever did.

Don’t let too much time slip by before you write. Or better yet — don’t write at all. Just show up with your new man.

I’ll save you both a spot by the sea.

— Alex

He stared at the wavering lines of Alex’s handwriting — not neat, never was, but always with a rhythm, like someone trying to outpace their own thoughts.

"Your new man."
Henry exhaled through his nose, soft and bitter. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to laugh or feel offended. What new man?

His mind, traitorous as ever, flicked through a short reel of faces — dark rooms, gin-wet mouths, the hush of things never spoken. A Paris poet with trembling hands. A fresh off the boat Irish father of four who cried after sex. That boy from Washington with the scar across his collarbone who’d insisted on pretending they were in love until he left without saying goodbye.

None of them stayed. None were his.

The idea that Alex thought he had someone—had found someone—felt strange. Sweet, almost. Or maybe sad.

Henry let his head fall back against the frame of the window. Afternoon sun sliced through the panes in dusty gold ribbons, warming only half the room. The other half remained cold, untouched.

“Don’t write at all,” the letter said. “Just show up.”

Henry sighed, long and low. He knew better than to believe that was simple.

He wouldn’t write back — not yet. Not because he didn’t want to, but because the ache hadn’t softened enough. Because if he answered, he might say something true, and if he said something true, the dam would crack, and the loneliness he’d been patching over for years might come rushing in.

So instead, he tucked the letter into the back of the drawer, beneath receipts and scribbled notes, and closed it gently. Let it sleep a while.

Henry rose, stretched, and made for the kitchen to brew tea he couldn’t taste.

Chapter Text

The October sun was already beginning to fall soft and gold against the Los Angeles skyline when the train hissed into Union Station. The place was brand new, gleaming in Spanish Deco style, its whitewashed walls and soaring arches standing proud like the West had finally decided it deserved some grandeur.

Bea stepped off the train first, her gloved hand tucked through the crook of Henry’s arm. The long journey from Chicago had been one of restless sleep and muted conversation, both of them too aware of the world teetering beyond their window glass — a war swelling across Europe, boys from their bar trading jazz for khaki, laughter for rifles. The trip they’d once planned across the Atlantic had vanished the moment the newspapers screamed Blitz and London bombings in bold ink.

For Henry, the choice had been easy in the end. Chicago’s streets had grown thin with faces, the bar had turned quiet, and the Outfit was smart enough to start sinking roots into Hollywood soil. When he’d pitched the idea of relocating to his employers, the answer had been sharp and simple: California’s got plenty of thirsty dreamers. Go.

And now, here they were — the station platform crowded with servicemen, dazzling women in dark sunglasses, and families reuniting with tears and suitcases.

Standing among them were June, Nora… and Alex.

June looked unchanged, still sharp as a blade beneath her sunhat, still wearing that cool, knowing smile like armor. Nora stood beside her, waving as if they’d been gone centuries instead of just years. And Alex — Alex looked like California suited him. His sleeves rolled to the elbows, hair wind-swept and unbothered, like he’d never once belonged to the wild mess of New York winters or Texas plains.

Bea let out a small breath, smoothing the wrinkles from her traveling coat, but her smile came easy the moment she caught Alex’s eye. Henry watched them all, feeling the same old weight and relief twist inside his chest. He hadn’t let himself think about this moment too much on the ride over — not about the ache that still lingered behind the reunion, or the questions they’d all politely avoided writing down in their letters.

Alex was the first to step forward, clapping his hand to Henry’s shoulder, steady and familiar.

“Took you long enough,” he said, half-grinning.

“We had a war to outrun,” Henry answered, voice dry but warm.

June embraced Bea like a sister, tight and silent, while Nora fussed at Henry over how thin he looked, as if vampires had any business losing weight. It felt like slipping into an old suit — one that still fit, even if the world had worn thin around its seams.

They loaded the bags into Alex’s truck, the sun dipping lower as the city stretched out in front of them, its streets humming with new stories and old ghosts. Henry leaned against the side of the truck for a moment, letting the warm breeze wash over him. For the first time in months, he let himself think — maybe this would be enough.

“Welcome to California,” Alex said quietly, nudging his shoulder as they both watched the women chatter away by the car.

Henry nodded, his gaze lingering on Alex’s profile for just a moment longer than necessary.

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s good to be back.”

~*~

The sand was cool underfoot, the sky cracked open wide in that burnt orange way only California could pull off, and the ocean was lazily folding itself onto the shore in soft, endless rhythms. Alex tilted the neck of the beer bottle to his lips, watching as Henry wandered back from skimming stones along the waterline.

He looked different out here. The suit and tie were gone — traded for worn denim and a plain white t-shirt that clung just right to his frame, sleeves cuffed sharp over his forearms. Casual, effortless, and so goddamn handsome it almost annoyed Alex that it had taken him this long to get Henry into clothes that actually fit the West Coast air.

A month had slipped by since the train had brought Henry and Bea to Los Angeles, and this — sitting side by side on a beach that smelled like salt and freedom — was the first real chance they’d had to talk without someone else within earshot. Work had swallowed Alex up. Horses didn’t break themselves, and movie sets didn’t stop for personal lives. But now, as the sun sagged toward the horizon, the world felt unhurried for once.

“So,” Alex started, flicking his beer cap across the sand. “You never told me about Chicago. How bad did it get?”

Henry sat back, stretching his legs out in front of him, the bottle swinging loosely from his fingers. His face softened a little, but his voice stayed even.

“Too many men left to prep for the war,” he said. “The bars thinned out. The ones who didn’t go overseas were too scared to spend what little they had. I left Pez holding down the fort, but there wasn’t much to hold onto anymore. Nitti’s dead. Ricca got locked up. The Outfit’s crawling with Feds these days, and anyone with half a brain is putting distance between themselves and that mess.”

Alex whistled low under his breath, tipping his head back. “And here I thought California was a gamble.”

Henry gave a wry, crooked smile. “Better a gamble than a sinking ship. I’ll find something here. Make connections. But I’ll get my own place. I’m not dragging you and the girls into whatever storm follows me from the East.”

Alex nodded slowly, taking a sip before glancing sideways. The words came easy, too easy, slipping out like he hadn’t meant to ask at all.

“So... you happy with Percy?”

There was a pause — long enough for Alex to realise the question had come out the wrong way. His throat tightened, waiting.

Henry let out a soft laugh, tilting his head toward him. “Very happy,” he said. “He’s sharp. Smart as hell. If luck holds, he’ll be rich in a few years.”

Alex swallowed, letting the words settle. He nodded once, lifting his bottle slightly like a toast.

“Well. I hope you two are happy.”

And then — the slightest shift. The tiniest nudge against his arm. Henry looked at him, something warm but heavy sitting behind his gaze.

“Percy’s not my boyfriend, Alex,” he said, quiet but clear. “Chicago wasn’t... like that for me. One-night stands, sure. But nothing real.”

Alex’s throat tightened all over again, but for a different reason this time. The beer bottle stayed heavy and cold in his hands.

“Guess I wasn’t exactly painting the town red either,” he muttered, kicking at the sand. “Not in Texas. Bit of a eunuch, if I’m honest.”

That earned him a look from Henry, the kind that lingered, the kind that wasn’t meant for the moment to pass without more being said. But neither of them spoke. The space between them stretched tight, until Alex cracked first, clearing his throat and squinting at the horizon.

“You reckon the war in Europe’s gonna properly drag America into it?” he asked, pretending like the question had always been waiting.

Henry knew it for the deflection it was. But he let it slide, his gaze drifting back toward the water.

“Probably,” he answered softly. “It’s only a matter of time.”

The sun sank lower, brushing both of them in gold, and the waves rolled steady and unbothered. After that, they sat in silence, letting the air fill with all the things neither of them could say.

~*~

The thin paper crinkled between Henry’s fingers as he stood at the window, the ink on the Western Union telegram still sharp, still fresh, like the words were burning themselves into his palm.

DRAFTED. DEPLOYMENT WEST COAST. SHIPPING OUT FOR PACIFIC. LEAVING CHICAGO IN A WEEK.

He stared at the words until they blurred into nonsense. It wasn’t a surprise — after Pearl Harbor, draft notices had rained down on every able-bodied man, no matter their status, no matter their connections. Percy wasn’t spared, and neither had he. Neither had Alex.

The envelope with his own draft papers was still unopened, tossed on the desk like a ticking clock he couldn’t silence.

“Damn,” Henry muttered under his breath, pacing the small room, the telegram still clutched tight in his hand. Without Percy, Chicago would eat itself alive. The Outfit would sniff out the power vacuum before the week was done, and once word spread that Henry Fox had lost control of his holdings — that he wasn’t untouchable after all — every deal he’d brokered would turn on him like rabid dogs.

He’d have to go to Murray the Camel. The old bastard was still running the gambling houses along Halsted. If anyone could patch over Henry’s absence long enough to keep the blood off the floor, it was him. Murray owed him favours.

But even if he managed to fix that, there was no fixing the war. The draft was real. The uniform was waiting.

Maybe it wasn’t the worst thing. Shipping out meant disappearing from records, from mob lists, from enemies’ reach. Europe was drowning in it now — the perfect place for a man who didn’t plan to fight, a man who knew all the cracks in the world where he could hide until the war burned itself out.

And the thought, sharp and selfish, flickered at the back of his mind:
Take Alex.
Just the two of them, away from everything. Alone for the first time in years. Quiet. Safe. Together. They would find a corner of Europe where they hadn’t even heard of the war, and they would spend months there, reading books, lounging, enjoying life the way it was meant to be enjoyed.

The idea nestled deep, tempting, a hollow ache in his chest he hadn’t let himself feel in a long time. But then his gaze drifted to the photograph resting on the mantel. The girls. Their faces caught mid-laughter on some sunlit afternoon, a world away from the headlines and telegrams.

He couldn’t ask them to go. Not into a world at war. But leaving them here, without him, felt worse.

And yet... America, even at its worst, was still farther from the front lines than anywhere else. Safer. Safer than Europe. Safer than hiding.

His jaw tensed, the choice tightening around him like a noose.

No easy way out. Not this time.

But the clock was ticking. He’d have to decide, and soon.

~*~

The evening air in California carried that soft, honeyed glow only the coast could conjure, and the porch light from June and Nora’s place flickered like a beacon as Henry pulled up with Percy riding shotgun.

Inside, the table was already set, the smell of garlic and rosemary floating from the kitchen, the easy laughter of June and Nora bouncing against the walls.

Percy barely had time to hang up his coat before Bea crossed the room and pulled him into a tight hug, one hand thumping his back like they’d known each other since childhood.

“Well, look what the California sun dragged in,” she said, grinning against his shoulder. “You got taller, or I got shorter.”

“You’ve been hanging around too many softie westerners,” Percy replied with a warm chuckle, pulling back just enough to look at her. “And don’t think I haven’t missed that sarcastic tongue of yours.”

Bea rolled her eyes fondly. “You just missed someone who could drink you under the table.”

“You’re damn right I did.”

Henry, standing by the doorway with a bottle of wine in his hand, smiled as he watched them. For a moment, it felt like no time had passed at all since those smoke-filled nights in Chicago, and he let himself enjoy the comfort of their reunion.

“So this is the famous Percy,” Nora teased as she slid out of her chair. “The man who charmed Chicago into handing him the keys to the Bronzeville clubs.”

Percy, dressed sharp as ever, even in peacetime civilian clothes, offered a short, playful bow. “The pleasure’s all mine, Miss Holleran. I’ve heard you run Henry’s life with an iron fist.”

“Someone has to.”

That broke the ice. The dinner moved easy after that — Percy had the charm of someone who’d learned to read a room fast, and the women loved him for it. Even June, who barely ever smiled these days, not since she learned about the deployment, was leaning forward in her seat, trading quips with him like old friends.

At one point, Bea raised her wine glass and tilted it toward the three of them, half-mocking, half-affectionate. “You know, the three of you’d make quite the household. I’d wager people wouldn’t dare mess with that address.”

Percy laughed, easy and rich. “If I live through this war, I might just take up on that offer.”

The moment hung sharp in the air. None of them had said it out loud until then — the ‘if’ that shadowed every drafted man, every soldier waiting to ship out. The reality that Percy, the charming, street-smart businessman, could be reduced to just another casualty. A name on a list.

Later, after the plates were cleared and Percy stepped out onto the porch for a smoke, Nora pulled Henry aside in the dim light of the hallway, her voice low but urgent.

“Don’t let him go,” she said. “Turn him before he ships out.”

Henry’s jaw tightened. He hadn’t wanted to think it. But the second the words left her mouth, he realized he’d been trying not to admit it to himself. He shook his head. “I can’t. You know I can’t. I’m not making another.”

He was not going to debate it, regardless of the look in Nora’s eyes.

“Then I’ll do it,” Nora shot back, voice flat and stubborn. “I won’t stand by and let him die for a country that wouldn’t even let him sit at the same table.”

Henry’s stomach clenched. “You’ve never made another before.” It wasn’t a question. He could smell it on her. The lack of weight that dragged your conscience down into the mud. He’d seen what it did to people.

Nora’s eyes flared, her mouth hardening into a line. “Then that makes two of us, doesn’t it? You had to start somewhere.”

The argument grew sharp and low, and old wounds slipped between the words. Alex caught the tension, drifted in from the living room, brows knitting as he caught the tail end of it.

“Nora — what the hell are you saying?”

She turned to him, voice steady but resolute. “I’m not going to let him go off and get torn to pieces on some foreign hill.”

Alex shook his head, pulling June into the conversation when she stepped closer. “You have to talk her out of this.”

But June only folded her arms, her gaze settling on Alex with that cool, pragmatic calm that always made him feel like a child again.

“Is dying in some trench better than being like us?” she asked softly. When he didn’t reply she felt the need to add, “If you think it is, then you’ve got a funny sense of mercy, Alex.”

Her words sat heavy in the air, but Henry raised his voice just enough to cut through the tension. “We ask him. No surprises.”

The room stilled.

“If he says no,” Henry went on, his voice ironclad, “that’s the end of it. You don’t push this on someone who doesn’t understand what it means.”

The silence that followed was long, and when Henry’s gaze drifted toward Alex, he caught that quiet, knowing look in his eyes. A flicker of memory — of the day Alex had told him about his own turning. The lack of choice. The quiet, irreversible violence of it. Henry’s words hadn’t been for Percy.

They’d been for him.

And Alex understood.

He gave a slow, wordless nod, and the night went still.

The living room was dim, the ocean breeze rattling the half-open windows, and Percy leaned back in his chair, a glass of bourbon in hand, when Henry finally cleared his throat.

“We need to talk,” Henry said, his voice quieter than usual, which made Percy glance over with curiosity.

June and Nora were both sitting stiffly on the couch, Alex standing near the window, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. Bea perched on the armrest, restless and watching.

“About what?” Percy asked, swirling the drink lazily. “You all look like someone died.”

He hadn’t drank enough to cloud his thoughts and Henry was pleased about it. At least this way he knew what he’d sign up for.

Henry met his eyes. “We want to offer you a way out. Out of the draft. Out of dying.”

Percy’s brow arched, sharp and skeptical, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “What, you got a guy at the draft office? Gonna fake my papers?”

“No,” Bea said, sliding off the armrest, her tone unusually gentle. “It’s not like that.”

Henry sighed, hoping to ease Percy into it, but then, right in front of him, she shifted. Limbs narrowing, bones reshaping, fur spreading across her skin until the sleek black cat sat where Bea had been, her green eyes blinking slow and deliberate.

Percy lurched out of his chair, the bourbon glass crashing onto the floor. His pulse thundered in his throat, eyes wide, mouth opening to shout, but Nora was already there, her hand on his arm.

“Percy, hey—hey,” she said, her voice low and steady, like talking a man off a ledge. “I know it’s a lot. I lost my mind when I found out too.”

He shook his head, voice breaking around the words. “You—Jesus Christ, Bea just turned into a cat! What the hell is this?!”

“Percy, listen to me. I know it’s a lot. I know it sounds insane.”

Percy was pacing now, rubbing both hands over his face, as if he could wipe away what he’d just seen. His mind scrambled for something rational, for an explanation that would undo the impossible. But every glance at Bea, still calmly perched in cat form, shattered those thoughts.

Nora’s voice followed him like a soft tether. “You don’t have to ship out. You don’t have to die. If you let us... we can make you like us.”

He froze, turning toward her, and his voice came out hoarse, choked with disbelief. “You’re telling me... you’re not human.”

“Not anymore,” Nora answered. “And it’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Percy dragged his fingers through his neatly coiffed hair, his sharp suit now feeling suffocating. His mind spun. He thought about the draft — the gray ships waiting at the harbor, the Pacific front, the endless churn of bodies in mud and blood, the boys who came home maimed or didn’t come home at all. He thought about the cheap government-issued coffin, the folded flag handed off to no one, because there was no family left to mourn him.

But this? This was something else entirely. An escape hatch from mortality itself.

His gaze landed on Henry, the one person in the room who always seemed like the bedrock of reason. “You, too?” Percy asked, voice low, searching, almost betrayed.

Henry’s expression softened but didn’t flinch. “I’ve been alive for centuries,” he said. “I’ve seen countries rise and burn. I’ve survived more wars than I can count. It isn’t a curse, Percy — it’s a second chance.” He hoped it sounded believable.

Percy’s throat tightened. The weight of it sank into his bones — all the years he might never have. All the lives he might never get to live. The freedom. The cost. The question of whether he’d still be himself on the other side of it.

The room was silent, holding its breath while he stood there, one foot planted in the life he knew, the other brushing the edge of something vast and unknowable.

His voice cracked when he finally spoke. “I need time. I can’t—” He shook his head. “I need to think.”

Henry nodded once, calm and steady. “You’ve got a couple of days before you ship out. Let us know what you decide.”

Without another word, Percy reached for his hat and slipped out the door, the soft click of it closing echoing through the heavy silence, leaving the rest of them standing in the dim room, the air still thrumming with the weight of his choice.

~*~

The morning sun was barely cutting through the coastal fog when Henry heard the knock at his door. He wasn’t expecting anyone — not this early — and when he opened it, there stood Percy, dressed sharp as always but with something different in his face. Gone was the usual smooth charm, the easy smile he wore like armour. Instead, he looked like a man who’d stood on the edge of something and decided, finally, to jump.

“Morning,” Percy said, voice rough from a night without sleep.

Henry stepped aside and let him in without a word, closing the door quietly behind them. Percy didn’t bother sitting. He paced the room once, then stopped in front of Henry, holding out a pair of draft papers and a khaki bundle — his issued gear.

“Went to the office,” Percy said, flicking the papers with a finger. “Picked this all up like I was supposed to. Stood there at the counter, holding the uniform in my hands, staring at the name stitched on the chest.”

He looked up at Henry, the bravado stripped bare. “I realized I got no intention of dying in some trench or floating off the coast of a place I never even heard of. I like breathing too much. I like good music, good suits, good whiskey. I want to get rich, I want to dance, I want to laugh at stupid things, and I want to do it for a hell of a lot longer than the army’d give me.”

There was a small, almost embarrassed quirk at the corner of his mouth, but his voice stayed steady. “I don’t have my dad’s luck, and I saw the way he stares off into the distance sometimes, so I want to go through with it, Henry. I want to be… whatever it is.”

Henry leaned back against the table, studying him — not with judgment, but with a quiet, grounded understanding. He’d seen the same resolve in more faces than he could count, men and women alike, who’d faced their own end and clawed for a way out. Percy wasn’t asking for eternal life. He was asking for the chance to live, without the threat of time hanging over his head. Maybe he’d take to it better than Henry ever did.

Henry nodded once, slow and deliberate.

“Alright,” he said. “Tonight. Come by June and Nora’s place. Wear something you don’t mind ruining — there’s usually blood involved.”

Percy huffed out a breath, a laugh without much humour. “Figures.”

Henry stepped closer, meeting his gaze. “You still have until then to change your mind. This isn’t something you can undo.”

But Percy just squared his shoulders, his usual cool confidence settling back over him like a well-fitted suit. “I won’t change my mind.”

Henry held his gaze a beat longer, then gave a quiet, knowing nod.

“Alright,” he said again, voice softer. “See you tonight.”

As Percy turned to leave, Henry watched him step out onto the sunlit street — one life ending, another about to begin.

Chapter Text

The night air was heavy with the salt of the sea, thick and still, as Percy stood on the front step of Nora and June’s small, unassuming house. He wore an old shirt and trousers — clothes that didn’t matter, ones he wouldn’t mind leaving in tatters on the floor. His heart was thudding deep and steady, like it already knew what was coming and was trying to remind him of every last beat.

Nora answered the door with a calmness that didn’t quite reach her eyes. She stepped aside and let him in without a word. The living room was dim, the lamps turned low, their soft golden light pushing against the shadows clinging to the corners of the room.

June sat waiting on the arm of the couch, sleeves rolled up, a white cloth in her lap that would never stay clean. She looked up at him, offering a nod — quiet, strong, but solemn. No one here pretended this was going to be easy.

“You sure?” Nora asked, her voice quieter than usual. She stood in front of him, her sharpness replaced with something more careful. “Once we start, there’s no going back.”

Percy looked between her and June, then let out a breath that felt like the last one he’d ever take as a mortal man. “I’m sure.”

The room seemed to hold its breath as he sat on the worn velvet armchair. Nora moved behind him, her hands gentle on his shoulders for a moment before she tilted his head to the side, baring his throat to her.

The bite came fast.

A sharp flash of pain lanced through him, white-hot and blinding, as her fangs sank deep into his neck. The wet, warm rush of blood spilled out too fast for his body to understand, spattering across the front of his shirt, speckling Nora’s jaw and collarbone. His fingers clenched the arms of the chair, knuckles going pale, breath stuttering from his chest.

June sat nearby, watching, her hands folded tightly together, but her voice steady when she murmured soft instructions to Nora — guiding her, reminding her how much was enough, how to hold back the line between death and rebirth.

In the next room, Henry sat with Alex and Bea, the distance doing little to soften the sounds. The sharp, wet gasp of air Percy dragged into his lungs as his heartbeat slowed. The crackle of bones shifting, mending, breaking again in ways nature hadn’t intended. Every ragged, choking sound was a knife in the quiet.

Henry felt Alex tense beside him, the colour draining from his face, and without a word, Henry reached over, laying a steadying hand over Alex’s. Alex caught his hand between his own, gripping tight, knuckles pressing pale against Henry’s skin with every guttural sound that slipped from behind the wall.

They waited, breath held, through the stretch of agony that felt endless.

And then — silence.

When the quiet finally settled like ash over the house, Henry rose, Alex still holding onto his hand, and together they moved toward the living room. Bea followed quietly, her eyes sharp but soft with understanding.

There, on the floor, Percy lay sprawled, chest rising and falling with shallow, unsteady breaths. His skin, ashen and cold, was already shifting — life returning unnaturally fast. His eyes, once warm brown, were now a deep, impossible red. His lips parted, revealing sharp, new fangs, and his hands clawed weakly at the air as if the world itself felt unfamiliar.

Nora crouched beside him, her hand resting over his chest, calm but watchful. June sat nearby, her face pale but composed, wiping the blood from her hands with a cloth that would never be clean again.

Percy blinked, slow and dazed, like waking from a nightmare and realizing he was still inside it.

“You’ll need to eat,” Henry said softly, stepping closer. “That hunger doesn’t go away on its own.”

Nora stood, wiping at the blood streaked across her throat. “We’ll take him out tonight,” she said, her voice clear and firm. “He’ll hunt with us.”

Percy’s gaze shifted, unfocused, toward Henry, toward Alex, toward the world that suddenly stretched endlessly ahead of him. His lips quirked into something close to a smile — not quite human anymore, but still the Percy Henry knew, and already, something else.

~*~

The night was soft with the scent of salt and the hush of the tide pulling against the shore. The moon, heavy and gold, hung low over the ocean, casting long shadows along the beach where the small clusters of late-night wanderers strolled, their laughter rising now and then like bubbles through the dark.

Percy stood still, hands in his pockets, trying to quiet the pounding hunger in his chest. Everything felt too sharp. The scent of seaweed tangled with sweat and sun-warmed skin, the sound of heartbeats fluttering from all directions — like standing at the center of a world that had never before seemed so alive, so breakable.

Nora stepped up beside him, the heels of her boots soundless on the damp sand. She tilted her head toward the scattered silhouettes along the beach.

“Pick one,” she said, her voice level, cool and certain. “Someone walking alone. They’re the easiest. You don’t want the ones in groups.”

Her dark eyes glinted with the kind of quiet ease that only came from centuries of experience. “Too many witnesses.”

Percy nodded, throat dry, eyes roaming the shoreline.

June’s voice floated in from behind him, calm but edged with warning.

“Once you’ve picked, you can’t just grab them,” she said. “You’ve got to lead them somewhere quiet. Away from the lights, away from the crowd. Make them want to follow you.”

She tucked her hands into her coat, her face thoughtful. “Charm them. You’ve got it in you.”

Bea stretched out along a washed-up log, one leg crossed over the other, her voice light and lazy as ever.

“And don’t frighten them too soon,” she added, golden eyes sparkling. “Fear sours the blood. You want them warm and sweet when you take the first sip.”

Percy let out a breath and flexed his fingers. His instincts buzzed, his body ready to pounce before his mind could catch up — but the sharpness of their advice kept him tethered. Then Alex came up alongside him, resting a hand briefly on his shoulder.

“Watch your strength,” Alex murmured. “And your speed. You won’t feel it until it’s too late. One second you’re trying to hold someone steady, the next you’re crushing them. You’ve got to learn the difference.”

Percy nodded, his pulse tight behind his ribs, but Alex gave him a small, reassuring smile before stepping back.

Last came Henry, quiet and steady, standing a little apart from the others. His voice was low, meant only for Percy.

“If you get overwhelmed,” Henry said, his gaze level and warm, “if you need help — just whisper.”

A pause.

“I’ll hear you. I’ll come.”

The words settled deep, more solid than the hunger twisting inside him. Percy nodded once, meeting his eyes with something steadier than before.

Then, slowly, he turned toward the beach again, scanning the faces until one stood out — a man, maybe mid-thirties, walking alone near the dunes, his head tilted back toward the stars, unaware of the predator now moving toward him.

The others hung back, watching in silence, as Percy’s first hunt began.

The man was easy enough to charm. He looked like he’d spent his whole life being overlooked — the kind of face that never drew too much attention, the kind of heart that beat steady but unguarded. Percy had watched him linger by the shoreline, hands tucked into the pockets of his coat, eyes raised to the stars like they were the only company he had.

Percy had learned from Nora’s voice, from June’s advice, from Bea’s sharp warning not to sour the blood — and when he walked up beside the man and struck up a conversation, the ease in his voice was almost second nature.

A few compliments, a little laughter, a well-placed suggestion. It didn’t take long before the man agreed to follow him further down the beach, toward the rocky edge where the dunes broke into dark, jagged stone and the sound of the ocean drowned out everything else.

The man stood there, silhouetted against the sea, turning slightly toward Percy when the first pang of hunger surged too sharp to control. Percy’s hands moved before he could think — strong and untrained — gripping the man’s shoulder and pulling him in, fangs sinking deep into his throat.

But the angle was wrong. The hunger was too fierce.

There was a sharp crack as Percy bit down, the man’s body going slack against him, head lolling to the side at a crooked, unnatural angle.

Panic flared in Percy’s chest. The scent of blood filled his mouth, but so did the cold knowledge that something was wrong.

He whispered, almost breathless, “Henry.”

And Henry was there, like the whisper had pulled him through the dark.

His eyes flicked from Percy’s face to the man’s slack, twisted posture — the neck bent too far, too loose. The scent of fresh blood still lingered sharp on the air, but the flow was already faltering.

Henry reached out and gently righted the man’s body, easing him onto his back on the cold sand.

“You bit too deep,” Henry said quietly, no anger, just simple fact. “You broke his neck. He’s not dead yet though.”

Percy’s stomach twisted, the hunger gnawing even harder now with the scent so close.

Henry slid a knife from his coat and cut neatly into the man’s wrist, holding it out toward Percy.
“Here. You’ll waste it otherwise.”

The blood came slow, thick and dark, but enough. Percy sank down, his hands shaking as he brought the man’s wrist to his mouth and drank — the taste was everything they’d promised and more, rich and hot, but even in the middle of his hunger he could feel Henry’s steady presence beside him.

“Listen,” Henry murmured, crouching beside him. “The heartbeat. You drink until it starts to fade — not until it stops.”
He tapped two fingers lightly against Percy’s chest. “It’s a kindness.”

Percy’s head swam, the last few gulps pulling him toward that faint, fluttering end. As the heartbeat stuttered low, Henry gently pulled the wrist away from him.

He then reached for the man’s neck, his hand curling against the broken vertebrae, and with one sharp, efficient motion, finished the job.

“It’s better this way,” Henry said softly, glancing at Percy. “You don’t let them die with their heart empty. You owe them that much.”

Percy sat back on his heels, throat slick with blood, the world sharper, clearer, quieter around him now. The hunger had dimmed but the weight of the kill hadn’t. He nodded, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth, and for the first time that night, he understood the difference between surviving and living.

Henry stood, offering him a hand.
“Next time,” he said, “you’ll get it right.”

The ocean had swallowed the body like it always did — without judgment, without question. The waves pulled it under, the salt washing away the last evidence of what had been done. Percy stood there for a long moment, the last of the blood settling deep in his veins, his senses sharp and sharp-edged and unforgiving.

And then the weight hit him.

His hands, still stained. His mouth, still copper-sweet. The rush of strength, the clarity, the power — none of it could drown out the cold realization under it all.

He’d killed a man. Not by accident. Not by self-defense. Not even out of anger.

Because he was hungry.

His breath hitched and his shoulders jerked like the air had turned to glass inside his lungs. “Jesus,” he whispered, voice cracking, “I killed him.”

Henry tried to reach for him, voice low and steady. “Pez—listen to me. It’s going to be alright. It always feels like this the first time. It passes.”

But Percy stumbled backward, shaking his head, barely able to look Henry in the eye.
“I didn’t want to kill anybody,” he said, voice tight and breaking. “I… thought I was ready…”

And before Henry could stop him, he turned and ran — away from the surf, away from the beach, away from all of them.

Henry stood there, watching the shape of him disappear into the dark, the cold wind licking at the blood drying on his hands.

When he finally walked back to the others, the beach was quiet. Only Alex was there, sitting on the old driftwood log, staring out at the black horizon. The others must’ve gone on, knowing the night was done for now.

Alex looked up as Henry approached, and his face softened the second he caught sight of him.

“What happened?” Alex asked, even though the answer was already written across Henry’s expression.

Henry let out a breath, heavy and tired.
“He panicked,” he said. “The crash hit him — hard. First kill always does. We were waiting for it.”

Alex nodded, like he understood too well. “It’s always the same, isn’t it? The blood settles in, the hunger fades, and that’s when it really gets you. The knowing.”

He patted the space beside him on the log, and Henry sat, the sand still damp on his shoes.

“He’ll come back,” Alex said after a quiet stretch. “It’s not easy. But it doesn’t break you. Just makes you see the world different for a while.”

Henry stared out at the waves, the cold night air sliding sharp along his skin.
“He’s not like us,” he said softly. “Not yet. And I’m not sure if he’ll ever want to be.”

Alex tilted his head, eyes gentle.
“None of us did. At least, not at first.”

And for a long moment, they sat there, the sound of the surf filling the space where words couldn’t.

Alex sat back, arms draped loosely over his knees, the waves rolling in and out like slow breathing. Henry hadn’t expected to say it, but the words tumbled out before he could stop them.

“I wanted it,” he said, voice flat but honest.

Alex turned to look at him, surprised. “You wanted to be turned?”

Henry nodded, gaze fixed on the horizon, as if the dark line of ocean could make it easier to say. “It’s not like you. I wasn’t left bleeding out on some dirt road or turned out of mercy or by accident.” He let out a dry laugh. “It’s tradition. Family.”

Alex furrowed his brow, confused. “Family?”

Henry finally met his eyes. “My whole family — as far back as I can remember — has been vampires. It’s the way it’s always been. You find a partner. You have children. Once the children are born, the elders turn you. You raise them until they have kids of their own... and then you turn them too.” His voice lowered, almost fond, almost distant. “It’s how you keep the line alive.”

Alex blinked, trying to wrap his head around it, shaking his head softly. “So your parents…?”

“In human years, my mother’s not much older than I am. She had me when she was twenty five. When I was ten, she was turned.” His mouth quirked, but the expression didn’t quite make it into a smile. “By the time I was grown, she looked younger than me.”

Alex let out a slow breath, the strange, careful picture Henry was painting settling around them like fog.

Henry leaned back on his palms, glancing upward at the moon that hung heavy and yellow over the waves. “And we don’t live forever, not really. The body gives out eventually, no matter how much blood you take.” His voice softened. “My grandmother is the oldest vampire I’ve ever known. She’s old, Alex. Haggard. You can see it in her bones. The blood... it keeps her going, but it doesn’t rewind the clock anymore. And I know, no matter what she drinks, she won’t see another century.”

The wind shifted, brushing salt and seaweed across the air. Alex sat quietly with that, the weight of it making his chest ache a little.

“I never thought about it like that,” he murmured. “A family tree... like any other. Just with more centuries behind it.”

Henry gave a faint nod, fingers idly twisting at the hem of his sleeve. “It’s not better. Or worse. It’s just... the way it was for me.”

Alex watched him for a moment longer, the glow of the moon washing them both in cold light. The distance between them wasn’t so wide, but it felt like it stretched across centuries just then. And still, Alex didn’t look at him like he was something strange. Just Henry. Always Henry.

And for once, Henry was grateful for the silence that followed.

Alex turned the words over in his mind, slow and careful, like trying to fit together a puzzle where the pieces didn’t quite match his world.

“So…” he started, cautious, “if that’s how it works, does that mean… you have kids?”

Henry’s mouth quirked at the corners, the smallest, wry smile tugging into place like he’d been waiting for that question.

“No,” he said, voice low and even. “Neither of us do. Bea and me — we asked to be turned early. Before we had the chance.” He leaned back on his palms, tilting his head toward the sky like the weight of that truth was lighter now that it was spoken aloud. “Didn’t want to follow the family plan. Didn’t want to get tangled up in it.”

Alex’s brow furrowed, still chewing on the thought. “So... you broke the chain.”

Henry gave a quiet, dry chuckle. “Yeah. We did.”

For a moment, the sound of the ocean filled the space between them. When Henry spoke again, there was something fond and regretful tangled in his voice.

“Our brother, Philip — he followed through. Found a wife. Had kids. Carried on the line. So the family name’s safe. But Bea and I…” He rubbed at the back of his neck, glancing at Alex sideways. “We’re the selfish ones. The duo that broke centuries of tradition. Our grandmother still hasn’t forgiven us for it, not really. Says we got it from our father, this defiance.”

Alex’s throat felt tight at the way Henry said it — not bitter, not angry, just matter-of-fact, like this was a truth he’d long made peace with.

“I don’t think it’s selfish,” Alex said softly. “I think it’s living your own life. That’s not the same thing.”

Henry huffed a quiet breath, the closest thing to agreement he could manage, and let his gaze drift back to the dark ocean.

“Maybe,” he said. “Or maybe it just means I wanted to belong somewhere else.”

Henry let the silence linger a moment longer, the hush of the waves soft against the shore, as if the world was waiting for him to finish the thought he’d never voiced before. His fingers flexed against the sand, grounding himself.

“It wouldn’t have worked anyway,” he murmured after a beat, voice low and even. “I’ve never had any real interest in women. Not the way I’m supposed to, I guess.”

Alex turned to look at him, eyebrows lifting slightly. There wasn’t judgment there — only curiosity, and something quieter beneath it, something like understanding.

“So you’ve always been... interested in men?” Alex asked, careful but not shy.

Henry’s lips twitched into something that wasn’t quite a smile, wasn’t quite a frown either. “Yeah,” he said simply, like it was a fact as old and permanent as the stars overhead. “Always.”

The words hung between them, thick and close. Henry looked at Alex then, really looked at him — the soft lines of his face, the quiet patience in his eyes, the way he always stayed just close enough, but never pushed.

The truth sat heavy on his tongue, sharp-edged and trembling. I’ve been thinking about you, he wanted to say. Ever since New York. Ever since you looked at me like I wasn’t broken. Ever since you held my hand through the dark.

But the words never made it past his teeth.

Instead, he shifted, brushing the sand from his palms, and tilted his head toward Alex with a feigned lightness.

“So,” he said, voice dry but warm, “should we join the Army or the Navy, then?”

Alex huffed a soft laugh, looking out at the waves before shaking his head. “Navy’s too much water for me. I like both feet on solid ground. Army makes more sense. Wanna try my hand at a proper gun.”

Henry nodded, a small sound of agreement deep in his chest.

“Alright then. Army.” He paused, glancing back toward the sea like he could already see the other side of the world. “I’ll make sure we get sent to France first. I want to show you around. There are places there I’ve been going to for a long time. Good places. Quiet. The kind you remember when everything else falls apart.”

Alex’s gaze lingered on him, soft and steady. “I don’t think you’ll get your way that easily with the government, but as far as I’m concerned I’m sure I’d like that,” he said quietly.

Henry looked at him, and for a moment, the unspoken words balanced between them again, close enough to taste.

Henry wasn't going to bring up any idea of a relationship at a time like this. It would have been reckless, even cruel. The war was stretching itself into every corner of their lives, threading uncertainty into every plan, every look, every night spent close but not quite close enough. And Alex — Alex was still talking like someone who believed he could slip into uniform and come out whole on the other side.

They both wanted something to happen. That much was obvious. It lived in the quiet moments, in the way Alex’s hand would linger too long on his shoulder, in the way Henry’s eyes always went to him first when the world shifted even a little. But desire and timing rarely cooperated, and Henry had learned long ago that if you wanted to keep something, sometimes you had to wait.

He knew Alex would never make the first move. Not really. Alex would wait, always wait, for Henry to open the door. And Henry would drag it out, hold back just long enough to keep the dream intact. They’d get to Europe — that was the plan. Henry would guide them through France, through old stone villages and long stretches of countryside where time moved slower. There, maybe, they’d finally get to be something real, away from the noise of duty and the weight of all the words left unspoken.

This time, like all the others, Henry swallowed them down.

Chapter Text

The heat hit them the second they stepped off the transport truck — thick, wet, and clinging to skin like it meant to drown you before the real training even started.

Camp Claiborne was a sprawling patchwork of long, pale wooden barracks and red dirt roads, with the scent of cut pine and motor oil heavy in the air. The place was alive with the bark of sergeants and the shuffle of boots — soldiers running drills, hauling gear, and standing stiff-backed in neat, obedient rows, all under the brutal Louisiana sun.

Henry stood still for a second, taking it all in. The sharp snap of orders, the dull ache of distant engines, the hammering pulse of too many young men thrown into a world they barely understood but had already signed away their lives to. It was just the beginning and he’d watch the light go out of their eyes one by one by one.

Alex bumped his shoulder as he slung his duffel bag higher. “Feel like cattle waiting to be branded,” he muttered, not knowing how true his words were.

Henry’s mouth twitched into the faintest hint of a smile, but it didn’t last long. The line was already moving and they had to get going

Inside the quartermaster’s hut, the air was just as heavy, but sharper — all wool and grease and starch and lack of interest in the personhood of anyone who was waiting in line. They were handed uniforms by the armful: olive drab jackets, stiff new boots that smelled like raw leather, rough cotton undershirts, the standard-issue shape of a soldier’s life. The clerk barely looked at them as he shoved the gear across the counter.

“Bunk house twelve,” he said, jerking his thumb toward the row of barracks out the window. “You’ll find your assignments posted on the board at dawn.”

The barracks themselves were stripped to the bones — two long rows of iron-frame bunk beds, thin mattresses, and lockers bolted to the walls. It smelled like sweat, tobacco, and the ghost of a hundred conversations left hanging in the air.

Alex dropped his duffel on the top bunk near the back, eyeing the space like he was already trying to make it home. His innocence wouldn’t hang on for long, but Henry would bask in in while it was still possible.

“Top bunk?” Henry asked, lifting a brow.

Alex looked over his shoulder, grin slow and sharp. “Yeah, I like to be on top,” he said casually, just loud enough for the two other guys nearby to hear.

One of them — a lanky, dark eyed guy with muscles made from farmwork — snorted into his canteen. The other, broad-shouldered, sweet-faced and scruffy with a Texas drawl, gave Alex a side-eye and a crooked smirk.

“I’m Spencer,” the first one said, holding out a hand.

“Liam,” the other added, nodding.

“Alex,” Alex replied, shaking both hands. “And this here’s Henry.”

Henry nodded to them, tossing his duffel onto the bunk under Alex’s, letting the moment settle.

The four of them didn’t say much after that — not right away, each of them holding their breath while the reality of it sunk in. Henry was the only one who knew what came next and he couldn’t tell if it was a blessing or a curse.

The camp’s soundscape took over: the sharp whistle of drills, the clatter of mess trays in the distance, the low hum of men settling into the same strange, temporary life, outside of the confines of society and yet still very much enmeshed in it.

Henry sat on the edge of the bunk, elbows on his knees, letting the weight of it all settle into his bones. The waiting. The pretending. The long stretch of days ahead before any of it felt real. This was just the training ground, in more ways than one and not every person here would make it over there, where the real war was going to be.

Alex flopped back onto his mattress, hands laced behind his head, staring at the cracked wooden ceiling. His voice was light, but there was steel under it, like he was thinking about the same things that passed through Henry’s mind and, without the benefit of experience, let his imagination fill in the blanks.

“Well,” he said, “here’s to surviving hell, boys.”

Henry looked up, catching the edge of his elbow sprawling over the bed frame and sighed.

Alex didn’t know how right he was to name it that. This was only the beginning.

~*~

The smell of antiseptic and cheap shaving cream hung sharp in the air, mixing with the steady drone of clippers as they buzzed over scalps, one soldier after another surrendering their hair to regulation. Henry leaned against the far wall of the makeshift barbershop, arms crossed tight over his chest, watching as people shed their identity in the hopes of integrating into something bigger than themselves.

Alex was next in the chair.

The barber, an older man with tobacco-stained fingers and a face like leather stretched too thin, gestured him forward without looking up. Alex sat, easy and unbothered, the same way he did with everything. It was only hair, after all, but when the clippers clicked to life and the first lock of his dark curls fell to the floor, Henry stiffened.

It was stupid, really. Curls grew back.

But something about watching them fall — the way the sharp-toothed clippers sheared off the wild, soft parts of Alex — made Henry’s throat tighten. He dug his nails into the sleeve of his coat, jaw locking as he stared.

Alex must have felt it, because his eyes lifted and met Henry’s across the room.

He held the gaze, unflinching, like he knew exactly what was happening — like he knew the small violence of it, the quiet ache rattling under Henry’s skin.

And Henry couldn’t, wouldn’t look away. He’d memorize any and every version of Alex that he could.

The clippers moved over Alex’s head, carving away more and more, exposing the strong shape of his skull, the sharp line of his neck, and still, his eyes didn’t leave Henry’s. The air stretched tight between them, hot and too full of the things neither of them said out loud and that now would have to stay buried for months to come.

Henry felt his heartbeat rattle sharp and aimless against his ribs, something wild and wanting curling through his chest. He wanted to move. To cross the room, pull Alex out of that chair, shove the barber out the door and tell him to take his damn clippers and his damn orders and leave Alex untouched. Because he knew what came after this. He’d seen more war than he’d wanted and men’s heads always rolled, regardless of how their hair looked. He wanted to grab Alex and run off. Fuck history. Ignore history. History was for mortals. They could make their own.

Why were they even here? They could excuse themselves from it and just live outside it. He could take Alex and show him how good life could be if he just stopped pretending that they had to live like the rest of them did. They were above all of this, from the foot soldier all the way to the general, they owed nothing to this country or any other country for that matter.

But Alex just sat there, still and patient, letting it happen. Letting the world trim away the parts of him that didn’t fit into this war. Letting Henry see it.

And the longer their stare held, the more Henry started to wonder if this wasn’t Alex’s quiet way of saying something else entirely. That he was willing to do whatever it took to fit into the narrative of what they wanted him to be. Because he didn’t know any other way to be. Because it had been drilled into him by too many bad experiences.

When the barber finally snapped the clippers off, Alex stood, brushing the loose hair from his collar, but his eyes were still on Henry — sharp, unreadable, and just a little bit daring.

Henry swallowed hard and looked away first.

~*~

The bugle didn’t wake them, but the shouting did.

A sharp, barking command cut through the barracks, snapping every man upright in their bunks like strings had yanked them out of sleep. Boots hit the floorboards. Duffel bags were kicked aside. Shirts half-buttoned, laces yanked tight on the run. The air was still thick with sleep, heavy with that sour edge of unwashed wool and restless bodies.

“OUT! ON THE LINE! MOVE, DAMN IT!”

The drill sergeant’s voice cracked through the night, sharp as gunfire, and no less deadly. Outside, the moon hung pale and high, spilling silver light over the hard-packed dirt as the platoon assembled. Breath fogged in the cold air, boots scuffing, backpacks slung onto stiff shoulders.

Henry pulled the straps of his pack tight, settling the weight across his back. The heaviness was nothing, of course — the burden of the gear barely registered against his muscles — but he rolled his shoulders like it did. He cast a glance at Alex, who was yawning wide enough to pop his jaw, fingers fumbling lazily at his pack’s buckles.

“You think they’ve got coffee at the finish line?” Alex muttered, dry as dust, pretending just as much as Henry was that the weight their were carrying was too much to handle.

“Not unless you run fast enough to brew it yourself,” Henry murmured back, the corner of his mouth twitching.

But when the sergeant blew the whistle, neither of them moved the way their instincts told them to.

The other men started off, feet pounding the dirt, packs jostling, faces twisted in grim, dogged determination. Henry matched their pace easily, muscles coiled, holding back the strength that wanted to devour the distance in a heartbeat. His legs itched to stretch, to run like he’d been born to do, but he kept his stride even, his breathing shallow and human. The steady thuds of feet hitting the ground in unison did bring a smile to his face. There was nothing he enjoyed about war, but the camaraderie that built between the men was a sign that friendship could be found in the lowliest of places. It said something about humanity as a whole, or at least he liked to think it did.

Alex lagged a little, dragging his feet just enough to earn him a sharp glare from the sergeant.

“MOVE IT, TEXAS!” the man bellowed, and Alex gave a lazy salute before jogging up to close the gap.

Henry kept his eyes forward, though the amusement curled low and warm in his chest. Even after everything — the years, the long nights, the slow unravelling of his old life — Alex still had a sharp tongue and no sense of self-preservation.

The pack of soldiers stretched out ahead of them, the line breaking and pulling like an old rope fraying at the ends. Henry kept dead center, steady as a metronome, watching the others, memorizing the way the new boys ran — the awkward swing of limbs not used to this kind of punishment, the weight of the packs grinding them down, the sweat gathering at their collars.

And all the while, the thought ticked away at the back of his mind.

Did Alex really know what war looked like?

Not the stories. Not the posters, or the tidy little columns in the newspaper about boys doing their duty. Real war. Henry had seen it long before rifles and machine guns, back when the scent of iron on the wind came from sword wounds and cannon smoke blackened the sun.

The world had learned new, uglier ways to tear itself apart since then. He wasn’t sure either of them was ready for what was waiting on the other side of this.

They kept running, pretending the weight of the world was heavy on their backs.

~*~

The mess hall smelled like burnt coffee, undercooked eggs, and the kind of bacon that had long since given up on being anything but salt and grease. Alex sat hunched over his tray, the metal fork idly prodding at the rubbery scrambled eggs while around him the low hum of tired voices filled the room.

He hadn’t even broken a sweat on last night’s drill, but he kept his posture slouched, shoulders rolled like they ached, legs stretched out stiff under the table as if the run had rung him dry. Human habits were easy to fake if you paid attention.

A tray clattered onto the table beside him. Liam dropped into the seat with a groan that came from somewhere deep in his ribs, rubbing at his thigh like the muscle had tried to detach itself in protest overnight.

“Christ,” Liam muttered, shoving a forkful of eggs into his mouth without ceremony. “They trying to kill us before we even see a battlefield?”

Alex smirked around his coffee cup, lifting it to hide the fact he wasn’t winded, sore, or even the least bit bothered. “Feels like it,” he offered, voice dry, letting the words sit heavy in the air between them like he was nursing the same ache.

Liam leaned back slightly, stretching his legs under the table, his boot tapping against Alex’s for a second before pulling back. His dark hair was still damp from the cold morning wash, and his face had that bleary, raw-boned look of someone who hadn’t gotten enough sleep and was living off adrenaline and army-issue rations.

“You and Henry,” Liam said after a beat, cutting straight into it like it had just landed in his head, “you known each other long?”

Alex glanced at him over the rim of his mug, keeping his face easy, light. “Since before you were born,” he said, letting the corners of his mouth quirk up like it was a joke.

Liam huffed a quiet laugh, nudging his shoulder into Alex’s with a casual sort of familiarity. But when he looked at Alex, it wasn’t the usual passing glance. It lingered just for a second too long. Just enough for Alex to notice.

“Well.” Liam’s voice dropped, easy, almost amused. “Guess I’ll be seeing you around then. Whether I want to or not”

He stood, tray in hand, the scrape of his chair cutting through the chatter and clatter of the mess hall. Alex watched him go, the easy confidence of the kid’s stride not quite masking the stiffness in his legs from the run.

Alex leaned back, stirring the weak coffee in his mug, and let out a slow breath. Was this not something that was only linked to Henry?

The faint smile on his lips vanished into nothing.

~*~

January, 1942
Camp Claiborne, Louisiana

Dear June,

I figured it was about time I put pen to paper before you go writing me off as a lost cause — or worse, assume I’ve keeled over from exhaustion. You’ll be glad to know that isn’t the case.

Truth be told, none of this training is difficult. Not the marches, not the drills, not the obstacle courses. I could probably run circles around the lot of them without breaking a sweat, but that wouldn’t do me any favours, would it? It’s all about appearances here. Blend in, sweat like the rest of them, and curse under your breath when the sergeant barks. Pretend the boots actually slow you down. It’s easier than standing out. And I don’t mind the act — heaven knows we’ve worn plenty of masks before this one.

I’ve started making friends, too. You wouldn’t believe it, but I like the guys in my unit. Maybe not all of them, but enough to make the days pass easier. Henry’s the only familiar face, and if I’m honest, the only piece of home I’ve got. But I’ve been sticking close to a few others. One of them, Liam, has that easy way about him — the kind that makes people follow him without even realizing it. Maybe the fact that he’s also from Texas bumps him up in the ranking.

I think I’m doing it for them as much as for myself. You need that kind of loyalty out there, June. You need someone who’ll watch your back when the bullets start flying. It’s not the sort of thing you can fake. I’ll be honest but I’m kind of curious to see where this thing goes. Henry and I could be out of here at the drop of a hat, but I want to experience this… Does that make it weird?

Anyway — enough about me. How are the girls? I’m betting they’re using this war as the perfect excuse to avoid the usual matchmaking vultures circling overhead. I can hear it now — “Oh, I’m just waiting for my man to come home from the front”. Sometimes I think the only upside to all this mess is giving everyone an out from having to play the old game of settle-down-and-smile-for-the-neighbors.

Tell them we said hello, and that I expect at least one of them to write me something scandalous before spring rolls around. And you — take care of yourself. I mean it. I don’t want to come back to find you’ve gone and forgotten how to be a troublemaker.

I’ll write again soon.

Yours,
Alex

~*~

The sun hung low in the sky, painting the rough edges of the barracks yard in muted gold. The air was thick with the scent of sweat and dirt, the easy background noise of laughter and scuffed boots filling the quiet space between drills. On a crooked old hoop, nailed haphazardly to the side of a shed, four soldiers were locked in an uneven game of two-on-two basketball.

Henry wasn’t a natural. His hands handled the ball like it was some strange artefact rather than something meant to be thrown, and his form was awkward — all long limbs and too much muscle memory rooted in centuries-old sports that didn’t require a backboard. But for all the lack of finesse, he had resolve, determination and a healthy dose of stubbornness. It kept him running hard for every rebound, it made him throw himself into the game as if sheer will might make up for the gaps in skill.

Alex watched him in that quiet, steady way that wasn’t about the game at all. His gaze lingered too long on the slope of Henry’s shoulders, the curl of dark hair dampening at his neck, the curve of his mouth when he missed a shot but kept his grin anyway. It was a look that softened the sharp angles of his expression, even if his body stayed in motion, chasing after the ball like the rest.

Liam noticed.

It happened between plays, when Spencer fumbled a pass and the ball skidded off across the cracked pavement. Alex moved to collect it, and Liam, laughing at Spencer’s curse, turned his head just in time to catch the look on Alex’s face. The glance wasn’t long — but it was long enough.

And Liam saw it.

Liam’s eyes flicked from Alex to Henry, quick and sharp, but he didn’t say anything. He just turned back to the game like he hadn’t seen a thing, but his smile was a little too even, a little too polite after that.

Alex noticed. Henry didn’t.

The game rolled on, the ball thudding against pavement and palms. Henry called out for a pass, voice light with a playful challenge, and Alex gave it to him — maybe softer than he needed to, like the moment mattered more than the score.

Henry missed the shot, of course. The ball hit the rim and spun away.

Liam chuckled, not unkindly.

~*~

The water scalded its way down Alex’s spine, cutting clean lines through the dirt and sweat caked onto his skin from the day’s endless drills. The smell of metal—of boot polish, gun oil, and the sharp bite of Louisiana mud—finally peeled away, sluicing down the drain in thin grey streams.

God, he needed this more than he thought he would.

His hair, soaked and plastered to his head like a helmet, clung tight, heavy with grit until the water ran clear. The muscles across his chest and arms, lean but well-shaped, ached from hours of restraint—holding back strength that wasn’t meant to be caged by human standards. Every inch of his body was wound tight, pretending at limits that weren’t really there.

The night was quiet except for the distant crackle of cicadas and the echo of voices from the mess hall drifting lazily through the open windows. He should’ve been rushing, should’ve been getting dressed and heading out for dinner with the rest of the company, but human food held no real comfort for him. The pang of hunger curling low in his stomach wasn’t for salted beef or overcooked beans, and that was something he still needed to talk through with Henry.

They’d have to figure out how to feed without drawing attention. They could hold it off for days at a time, but eventually, sooner rather than later, they’d need a plan. The thought hung there, heavy, as he cut the water off with a sharp twist of the knob, letting silence settle over the steam-clouded room. He reached for the thin, scratchy towel slung over the bench and started working it through his hair when a soft shift of sound—water slapping against tile—caught his ear.

He turned, towel hanging loose around his neck.

Liam stood under the far showerhead, head bowed forward under the spray, his hands running slowly through his hair, sluicing away the day’s grime. The water rolled down the line of his back, tracing the sharp definition of muscle, broad shoulders tapering to a narrow waist, and lower still. His body was young, strong, and unscarred—a man built for long, hard labour and war but still untouched by the worst of either.

Alex’s gaze lingered without meaning to. Long enough that something shifted in the air.

Liam stilled as if he could feel it. And then, slowly, deliberately, he straightened and turned to look over his shoulder, water still dripping from the ends of his dark hair. When his eyes met Alex’s, there was no surprise there—just an inkling of curiosity, maybe even expectation. And then Liam fully turned, the last pretence of modesty stripped away, standing bare under the dim lights, the lines of his body cut clean and unashamed.

Their eyes locked, and neither of them looked away.

It wasn’t the first time Alex had stared at another man like this. It wouldn’t be the last. But there was something easy and unspoken in the way Liam stood there—like they both understood exactly what this meant, no need for words.

Alex didn’t look away, but he wondered if he should have.

The night air clung heavy against Alex’s skin by the time he made it back to the barracks, damp from the Louisiana heat even after the cold shower. His boots scuffed against the wooden floor, the dim glow from the bare overhead bulb making the room feel more like a cage than a place meant for rest.

Henry was already there, stretched out casually on his bunk, reading something that looked decades older than the date on the cover. He glanced up when Alex walked in —his eyes catching the restless, jittery energy rolling off him like static.

Alex paced a slow line between the bunks before finally sitting down on the lower one, his leg bouncing, fingers tapping against his knee. “We need to go,” he said, voice tight and low. “Out. For a hunt.”

Henry raised an eyebrow, folding the corner of his book before closing it. It was savage behaviour, Alex thought, knowing how Henry treated his books.

“Now?” he asked. “You know we can’t. Not until the camp quiets down. Too many eyes.”

Alex raked a hand through his still-damp hair, exhaling sharp through his nose. The hunger wasn’t clawing at him — not yet — but something else was. His body felt too small for his skin, too wired. That lingering tension from the showers still curled hot and tight under his ribs, and the longer he sat with it, the worse it got.

Henry sat up, studying him for a long, quiet moment. Then, with an easy glance over his shoulder to make sure the others were preoccupied or out of sight, he reached out and placed his hand on top of Alex’s.

Henry’s hand on his own was grounding — warm and certain in a way that made Alex ache. Ache because he wanted to lean into it fully, let himself fall back into that long-held closeness, and ache because there were things he hadn’t said. Things he didn’t know how to say.

Liam.

The name flared in his mind like a struck match, then dimmed just as quickly.

He didn’t want to lie — not to Henry. But he couldn’t speak it either. Not now, when Henry was looking at him like this, eyes soft, like maybe this war and all the time apart hadn’t changed them as much as Alex had imagined.

He raked a hand through his hair again, still tingling with that unsatisfied heat that Liam had never really cooled. He looked down at their joined hands, then up at Henry, and tried to smile. “Ok,” he said.

Henry didn’t pull his hand back.

“You’re terrible at lying,” Henry said gently, though there was no heat behind it. It wasn’t an accusation, just a moment of observation.

Alex swallowed. “Yeah,” he murmured. “But I’m good at waiting.”

Henry’s brow furrowed just slightly but he didn’t let go.

When the barracks finally sank into silence, the only sounds left were the soft breaths of sleeping men and the distant call of crickets beyond the thin wooden walls. Alex lay still, eyes wide open, staring at the slatted ceiling until Henry gave the faintest push against his mattress from the lower bunk — their silent signal.

They moved like shadows, boots slung over their shoulders until they were clear of the camp’s lights, and then they ran, fast and as free as possible, under the circumstances. The humid Louisiana night rushed past them in a blur of tall pines and dirt roads until the lights of Alexandria glowed faint on the horizon.

They found their mark near a dimly lit back alley, where a man staggered out of a bar, drunk and unsteady, making himself easy prey. The two of them flanked him effortlessly, steering him further from the streetlights, away from the world.

Alex was the one to catch the man first, his hand gentle but firm at the base of the man’s neck, easing him into stillness. He felt Henry slip in close beside him, the warmth of his presence just as familiar as the hunger gnawing in his chest. Together, they fed — Alex tilting the man’s head, sinking his teeth into the side of his throat, Henry catching the wrist, holding it steady.

And then, somewhere between the sharp rush of blood and the steady heartbeat in his ears, he felt it: Henry’s hand sliding against the small of his back. It was a light, barely-there touch, but it anchored him. More satisfying than the act they were in the middle of. More dangerous, too.

Alex’s pulse would’ve skipped if it could.

The closeness between them wasn’t new, but this — this was different. Just him, Henry, and the quiet threading itself between their ribs. It scared him, how much he liked the feeling of that hand there, the silent reassurance of it. How easy it was, how natural it felt even with the copper tang of blood thick on his tongue.

When the man’s heartbeat began to slow, Alex eased back, licking the wound close. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and glanced at Henry, who finished the job with his usual efficiency, guiding the man gently to the ground.

As they stood there, both of them still flushed from feeding, Alex let his gaze linger on Henry for a moment longer than he should’ve.

What are we doing?

The thought sank deep, heavier than the blood in his stomach. They were getting too close. Unbearably close. And soon they’d be on a boat, sailing off to Europe, into the chaos of a war where any weakness — any misplaced attention — could cost lives.

They couldn’t afford this. Not now, when everything ahead of them demanded ruthlessness. Not when giving each other more importance than the men around them could end up meaning the difference between survival and burying someone.

Alex straightened, brushing his hands over his shirt, shaking the thought loose.

But even as they walked away, back into the dark Louisiana night, he could still feel the ghost of Henry’s hand resting on his back, as if it had never left.

Chapter Text

The cold Irish air hit Alex like a slap the second he stepped off the troopship.

It wasn’t the deep, humid warmth of Louisiana, or the dry chill of New York winters — this was different. Damp, heavy, and bone-deep, like it had been here long before the war and would be long after. The sky stretched grey and low over Belfast’s port, the wind sharp with sea salt and coal smoke.

Alex adjusted the pack on his back, squinting against the wind as the line of soldiers moved down the gangway in orderly, shuffling steps. The streets beyond the dock were dotted with locals, some in threadbare coats, some in uniform, others with faces worn tight from years of ration lines and air raids.

Compared to Louisiana, the reception was… muted.

They marched slowly inland, boots echoing over uneven cobblestones slick with mist and soot. The road from the port twisted through rows of soot-stained brick warehouses, their windows broken or blacked out, and the skeletal remains of bombed-out buildings loomed like broken teeth. Crates and rusted drums lined the narrow lanes, and stray dogs darted between alleyways, skittish at the sound of foreign boots. 

Alex glanced sideways at Henry, who walked with his usual, unreadable calm. His uniform was crisp, and his boots were scuffed from use but polished all the same.

“Cold welcome,” Alex muttered, stuffing his hands deeper into his pockets as they crossed onto the street, boots scuffing damp cobblestone. “Didn’t think Ireland would feel colder than the ocean.”

Henry’s mouth curved at the corner — not quite a smile. “The British and the Irish have been at this war for two years. They’ve been rationing and losing people.” His voice was low, steady. “And then the Americans show up. Stomachs full, pockets full, wide-eyed and late.”

A sharp bark of laughter echoed from the side of the road, where two Irish dockworkers leaned against a wall, cigarettes dangling from their mouths. One of them, a man with a hard face and sharper eyes, tipped his head at them as they passed and muttered loud enough to be heard:

“Yanks. Overpaid, over-sexed, and over here.”

The other man snorted, and Alex felt the corners of his mouth twitch despite himself.

“Well,” he said under his breath, nudging Henry with his elbow, “he’s not wrong about the second part.”

Henry’s gaze flicked toward him, dry and sharp. “You’ve barely been here an hour. Try not to live up to the stereotype before we’ve even unpacked.”

But Alex could see the glint of amusement under the words, and for a brief moment, the tension of the Atlantic crossing, of the months of drills and waiting, eased.

As they neared the city center, the street widened into a long stretch of cracked pavement flanked by sandbagged corners and boarded-up shopfronts. The storefront signs were faded or gone altogether — a butcher’s with blacked-out windows, a tobacconist shuttered behind corrugated metal. Posters peeled from the walls: enlistment notices, ration reminders, warnings about spies. Children watched from doorways, unsmiling, their eyes old in a way that made Alex's stomach tighten.

The trucks waited near a church turned supply depot, their engines rumbling low beneath the drone of distant patrol planes.

The crowd thinned as they filed toward the vehicles, and Alex looked around at the grey streets, the unfamiliar faces. The war felt closer here — heavier — and for the first time since boarding the ship, it settled in his chest that this was no longer preparation. It was the threshold.

Henry walked beside him in silence, his long stride easy and unhurried, as if the weight of the coming months hadn’t quite caught up with him yet. But Alex knew him well enough by now to see the difference in his posture — the way his shoulders squared just a little tighter, his gaze stayed sharp and searching. He had seen so much, that he wouldn’t be caught off guard, regardless of how familiar the terrain was for him.

And Belfast, it seemed, was not going to be a gentle place for anyone.

~*~

After the first couple of weeks — all drills and barked orders meant to hammer the Atlantic crossing out of their bodies — the rhythm began to shift. The days had been a blur of shouted cadence and stiff backs, officers testing the edges of discipline, testing if the Americans could hold a line on foreign soil. There were route marches through the outskirts of Belfast, familiar drills run over unfamiliar ground, and hours spent standing in fog that seeped through wool and skin alike.

But then, slowly, as if the landscape itself exhaled, the urgency ebbed. The drills became routine. The shouting quieted. They still ran manoeuvres and cleaned rifles, but the panic of arrival had dulled into something slower. The camp began to move with its own kind of clockwork.

The quiet rhythm of camp life — that lull between formations, meals, and light’s-out — returned, mirroring the easy equilibrium they’d once known in Louisiana. The late winter sun hung low and pale over the barracks, casting long slats of light across the churned-up grass, the dirt paths rutted from marching boots, and the ever-present mud caked to everything. Boots were lined outside doorways in soggy rows, steam rising faintly from wet socks pinned to windowsills. Smoke coiled from chimneys in thin, half-hearted plumes, curling toward a sky the color of worn tin.

Alex wandered past the stacked crates and duffel bags along the edge of the yard, the chill biting gently at his cheeks, until he spotted Liam. He was seated cross-legged on an upturned supply box, bent low over a scrap of paper, a stub of pencil pinched tightly in his fingers. His jacket collar was turned up against the wind, his hair ruffled from the breeze, and his brows drawn tight in thought.

The hush over camp was rare — no boots stomping, no shouted orders or clipped whistles. Just the occasional caw of a distant crow and the soft rasp of Liam’s pencil scratching across paper. Somewhere a kettle hissed. The whole place felt wrapped in gauze.

Alex eased down onto the crate beside him without a word, shoulder nudging into Liam’s as he leaned in to peek.

Liam didn’t look up. “You’re nosy, you know that?”

Alex grinned, catching the edge of the paper before Liam could pull it away. The handwriting was tidy, cramped but clear, marching down the page like soldiers in line.

He read aloud, voice colored with amusement:

“‘Boy, Alden, as long as there is an Ireland, I won’t have to worry about being a bachelor.’”

A chuckle rumbled low in his throat. “That’s one way to put it.”

Liam huffed, leaning back on his palms, watching Alex skim the rest.

“‘The air raid shelters sure come in handy when you are courting a girl,’” Alex continued, raising a brow. “Charming. And here I thought they were for safety.”

“Priorities, man,” Liam said, a dry smirk curling his lip.

Alex’s eyes crinkled as he reached the last part.
“‘It might not be my personal charms that keeps the ladies attentive because they’re mighty fond of the chewing gum and the candy.’” He laughed, quiet and warm. “Well. At least you're honest.”

A soft breeze tugged at the page between his fingers, and for a moment, neither of them moved. Around them, camp breathed in soft rhythm — the rattle of a pot being stirred, a distant thud of someone chopping kindling, low voices trading gossip or jokes.

Alex shifted, lowering his voice as he leaned in closer, this time pressing his shoulder more intentionally into Liam’s.
“So,” he murmured, half-teasing, half-curious, “how many women have you been with?”

The question hung in the stillness like a leaf caught mid-fall — light, unhurried, but undeniably deliberate.

Liam’s mouth quirked, sharp and knowing, eyes still on the horizon. “Just because the genders are reversed doesn’t mean I haven’t had fun.”

Alex blinked, surprised by the ease of the reply. Then the grin came, slow and wide, curling up unbidden. He laughed, quiet and genuine, more to himself than anyone else. The sound settled in the hush like something fragile.

For the first time since setting foot on Irish soil, Alex felt warmth, not from the wan sun or the rare lull in orders.

~*~

The rain had been coming down steadily all morning, turning the dirt paths between the barracks into rivers of mud, the kind that clung to boots and refused to let go. Henry stood under the narrow eave of the supply shed, watching the grey sky leak across the camp, the sharp smell of wet canvas and diesel hanging heavy in the air. He spotted Alex a few paces away, hunched against the cold, arms crossed, staring out past the rows of tents like he wasn’t seeing any of them.

Henry stepped up beside him, quiet at first, before clearing his throat.

“I found him,” he said.

Alex blinked slowly, dragging his focus back. “Found who?”

“My brother. Phillip. He’s in Liverpool.” Henry watched the way Alex’s jaw tensed at the name as if the words had slipped under his skin and caught. “I thought maybe you’d want to see him.”

Alex’s mouth twitched at the corners — not quite a smile, not quite anything decipherable — and he shook his head, a dry laugh slipping out.

“Henry,” he hissed, “we’re in the army. You can’t just stroll off base and hop across the sea whenever you feel like it.”

Henry waved a hand, brushing the excuse away like it was a stray leaf on his shoulder.

“This uniform’s just a costume, Alex. You and I both know that. If you want to leave, you leave. They won’t stop you.”

Alex’s face darkened, the sharp edge of reality flattening the moment.

“I have no intention of being shot for desertion,” he said stiffly. “Not over this. Not over anything.”

Henry tilted his head, eyes narrowing with a faint, dry smile.

“They wouldn’t find us,” he said simply. “Not if I didn’t want them to.”

But Alex didn’t take the bait. He stayed rooted, steady as the rain around them, and after a pause, he added, softer now, “I’ve made friends here.”

The weight of it hung between them, the word "friends" dense and layered, more honest than Henry expected. He arched an eyebrow, quiet for a beat before asking — casually, but not without sharpness, “Liam one of those friends?”

Alex’s gaze flicked to him, caught off guard but not enough to hide the flicker of something deeper. His voice was flat, almost cold.

“Yeah,” he said. “Maybe. Why not? I’m allowed to make friends.”

That small flash of hurt, that twist beneath Alex’s words, hit sharper than Henry wanted it to. He nodded once, forcing his expression into something neutral, then stepped back.

“You are,” he said, voice low and even. “Of course you are.”

He gave Alex a faint smile — brittle and brief — before turning away, hands shoved deep in the pockets of his greatcoat, already planning the night ahead. They had never agreed to anything, and while Henry was certain he could feel Alex’s need as much as Alex could feel his, neither of them had dared to speak it out loud, so maybe it was all in his head.

Wallowing in it wasn’t going to make it go away any faster. A drink, a quiet bar, and someone — anyone — to take his mind off all the things he couldn’t have was what he needed right now.

He’d find himself a man and get fucked, and maybe for a few hours, it wouldn’t matter that he’d wanted Alex’s name to be the one he’d moan out loud.

~*~

The barracks felt unusually quiet that afternoon, as if even the walls were holding their breath, waiting for something to break it. The moment weekend passes were handed out, most of the guys had scattered — off to pubs, off to chase Irish girls, off to anywhere that wasn’t here. They all knew they were on borrowed time so if they had to shovel 10 years worth of living into 3 days then by God they were going to give it their best shot.

Henry lingered by the door, gloved hands tucked into the deep pockets of his coat, eyes flicking once to the overcast sky outside, then back to Alex, who hadn’t moved from his bunk.

“I thought I’d head out toward Enniskillen,” Henry said, almost casual, but not quite. His voice had that measured evenness it always carried when he was trying not to push. “Keane never finished the Necarne renovations before I left Ireland. Figured I’d see what the old bastard finally made of it.”

Alex tipped his head back against the bunk’s iron frame, watching Henry from under his lashes. The man looked like he was halfway out the door already, like the place didn’t sit right with him today. Maybe it didn’t. Henry had always had the look of someone who belonged anywhere but here.

“Go on, then,” Alex said, shrugging a shoulder, ignoring an invitation that hadn’t been uttered. “I’m not in the mood for castles.”

Henry’s gaze lingered on him for a beat longer — searching, maybe, for why Alex wouldn’t want to join him. It was cold and rainy, but they were in Ireland, so it was par for the course. This couldn’t have been the reason, but Alex didn’t offer anything more, just kept his expression frustratingly unreadable, letting the silence between them settle like dust.

“You sure?” Henry asked, softer this time, but the question didn’t sound like it was about the castle anymore.

Alex nodded. “Yeah. I’ll stay.”

Henry didn’t argue. He just gave a small, almost imperceptible smile and nodded once.

“I won’t be back late,” he said, turning toward the door, the heels of his boots making barely a sound against the worn floorboards. “Don’t get too bored without me.”

Alex huffed out a quiet laugh, but the sound felt thin even to his own ears.

When the door swung shut behind Henry, the room felt colder somehow. Alex stared at the space where Henry had stood, chewing the inside of his cheek. He told himself he wasn’t disappointed. Told himself he liked the quiet. Told himself he hadn’t wanted to ask Henry to stay, even if his throat had gone tight with the urge to.

He lay back on the bunk, arms folded behind his head, and listened to the rain start to tap against the windows, wondering what it would’ve felt like to have asked Henry to stay, and have him say yes.

The run had been Liam’s idea. A way to kill time, to burn the restless energy that came with the empty barracks and the quiet absence of orders. The roads were mostly empty, the sea air sharp and cold against their faces as they jogged the winding path toward the sea.

By the time they reached the rocky shore, their breathing had evened out, the sun — rare and pale — breaking through the clouds just enough to paint everything in gold. They’d dropped onto the stones side by side, chests rising and falling in rhythm, eyes half-lidded against the glare.

Neither of them spoke. The silence felt easy, stretched thin between the crashing waves and the distant caw of gulls.

At first, it was small — the brush of fingers against his thigh, so light Alex almost thought he imagined it. He didn’t move. Didn’t look. The air between them shifted, heavy, when Liam’s hand settled there, warmer now, certain.

Alex’s heartbeat was slow but heavy in his chest. His muscles were loose from the run, and his mind was strangely clear as Liam’s fingers moved higher, tracing his shape through sweat-slick fabric.

It was clumsy and quiet, and Alex didn’t kid himself into thinking this was anything other than what it was. He’d felt this kind of touch before, and he knew it wasn’t about romance or connection — it was just need, sharp and simple. Alex let his eyes fall closed, his breath shallow as the moment unravelled around him, as if staying silent meant it wasn’t real, meant it couldn’t follow them back to the world waiting beyond the shore.

No one could follow him in the privacy of his own thoughts, so as Liam’s hand pushed under his pants and started setting a lazy pace along the length of his dick, he thought of Henry and then, when he came with Herny’s unspoken name on his lips he denied it even to himself.  

When it was over, thankfully, Liam’s hand slipped away, and neither of them said a thing. They sat in the hush for a moment longer, the sea breeze cooling the sweat on their skin, before Liam stood, brushing the dirt from his palms like it had all been nothing.

The jog back was the same as it always was — two soldiers moving in step, side by side, their pace easy, their conversation light. Liam didn’t mention it, didn’t so much as glance at him in a way that suggested anything had changed.

And Alex kept running, like the sun-warmed stones and Liam’s quiet touch hadn’t happened at all.

~*~

The door to the bunk creaked open, and Spencer stepped inside, shaking the rain from his sleeves like it was just another drill to be endured. His boots were still muddy, his face flushed from the cold, but his eyes were sharp with the kind of news soldiers passed around like spare cigarettes.

“Word’s going around,” he said, dropping onto the edge of the nearest bunk. “We’re moving out. In a month.”

Alex, who’d been stretched out on his back, one arm slung lazily across his forehead, cracked an eye open. “Moving where?”

“Eisenhower landed in London last week.” Spencer leaned forward, lowering his voice though the room was mostly empty. “He’s pushing to get us to Africa. Rumour’s solid — they’ll ship us out in a few weeks. They’re sending the Battleaxes with us, and the RAF’s covering our heads.”

The air in the room shifted like someone had opened a window that wasn’t there.

Henry, who’d been sitting on the lower bunk across from them, stiffened at the words. His jaw locked, the tension rolling off him so thick Alex could feel it from across the room.

Alex sat up, glancing over. “What’s wrong?”

But before Henry could answer, Liam came around the end of the bunk, dropping onto the bed beside Alex, close enough that their knees brushed.

Henry’s mouth had been half open, words poised and ready, but the moment froze — sharp and brittle. His eyes flicked to Liam, to the way he leaned toward Alex, easy and casual but close enough to count.

Whatever Henry had been about to say died somewhere in his throat. He closed his mouth, swallowed once, and then just shook his head, the lie obvious in the tightness of his jaw.

“Nothing,” he said quietly. And then he pushed up from the bunk, grabbing his jacket from the post. “It’s nothing.”

The door swung shut behind him, leaving Alex sitting there with the weight of his unfinished sentence still hanging in the air.

Liam nudged him lightly, like he hadn’t noticed anything at all. “Guess we’d better enjoy this place while we’ve got it, huh?”

But Alex wasn’t listening. His gaze stayed fixed on the closed door, and the shadow of Henry’s absence pressed down harder than any war rumour could.

He hoped, at least, that Henry was willing to come back.

Chapter Text

The sea off the Algerian coast was the colour of iron beneath the dull, early morning sky. The boats pitched hard, heavy with the scent of diesel and sweat, the sound of boots scuffing against metal decks muted only by the crash of waves against the landing craft.

Alex stood shoulder to shoulder with Henry, his rifle slung tight to his chest, the stiff fabric of his uniform damp with salt spray. He could feel the weight of the coming hour settle low in his stomach, heavy and unyielding, but it wasn’t fear, not exactly. Not with Henry there, close enough that their sleeves brushed every time the boat rocked.

“That’s a beach alright,” Henry muttered, glancing toward the dark smear of land growing larger on the horizon. “Charming, isn’t it?”

Alex huffed a breath, too tense to smile. “Looks like a nice place to get shot.”

And, sure enough, the moment their boots hit wet sand, the sky split open with gunfire.

Vichy French defenders, startled but dug in, rained bullets down from the coastal batteries and machine gun nests hidden behind the dunes. The whine of ricochets sparked around them, chewing into sandbags and steel, the ocean wind carrying the sharp scent of gunpowder and salt.

Alex ducked low, feeling Henry’s hand at his shoulder for the briefest second — steadying him, pulling him down, anchoring him there. The world shrank to the space between them, the staccato of gunfire, the thud of mortars hitting too close, the barked orders half drowned by the surf.

They moved together, crawling, running, taking cover against the low dunes as the American and British forces fought to gain footing on the beachhead. The skirmishes were short but sharp, Vichy forces holding ground with more resolve than the generals had promised. A bullet split the air near Alex’s ear, close enough to sting the skin, but Henry was there, pulling him down before the next could find its mark.

Neither of them spoke, not even when the first white flags began fluttering up the shoreline. They just moved — always within arm’s reach, an unspoken promise neither was willing to break. They didn’t make it this far just to have it all disappear in the flash of a muzzle.

By the time the beach was secured and the gunfire thinned to isolated pops, the sun had risen high and hot over the Mediterranean, painting the wet sand gold. Henry stood beside Alex, boots soaked through, both of them streaked with sand and sweat, untouched except for the ringing in their ears and the way their breaths came in physically painful gulps.

Alex slanted a glance at him, letting out a breath he’d been holding for longer than he cared to admit.

“Not bad for our first invasion,” he muttered.

Henry looked out over the water, the faintest, worn-out smile tugging at his mouth. Alex’s mouthy demeanour had a way of bringing tensions down. “You didn’t think I’d let you get yourself shot, did you?”

Alex’s fingers twitched at his side, the unspoken answer caught between gratitude and something else entirely.

“No,” he said, voice low,“I didn’t.”

~*~

The air in the field hospital was thick with the scent of blood and iodine, sharp and suffocating beneath the canvas tarps that fluttered weakly in the Algerian breeze. Alex moved shoulder to shoulder with Henry, both of them hauling Private Jenkins between them, his uniform soaked through and clinging darkly to his side where the bullet had torn into him. Jenkins was still conscious, mumbling curses under his breath, and Alex kept his jaw locked tight, trying to focus on the sound of his voice rather than the pulsing heartbeat he could hear drumming beneath the soldier’s skin.

When they reached the triage station, the medics swarmed in, pulling Jenkins from their grasp with quick movements. Blood splattered warm against Alex’s cuff as the stretcher bumped past him. He stared at it for a long, taut second, barely able to tear his eyes away.

Henry’s hand landed firmly on his shoulder, grounding him. His voice was low, steady. “You feel it.”

Alex nodded, throat dry, swallowing hard against the rising hunger that twisted sharp and greedy inside him. He could feel the shift in Henry too, the way his pupils had darkened his eyes to black and see it in the tense line of his jaw as another wounded man was carried past them, blood leaving bright trails across the dust-caked ground.

“This is going to be a problem,” Alex muttered under his breath, watching the medics vanish behind the tent's flapping doors, the scent still lingering.

Henry’s mouth pressed into a grim line. “We’ll need a plan. We can’t let this control us.”

The night air, warm even in the deepening dark, offered no relief. The faint sounds of gunfire were still scattered across the distant hills, the dying edge of the skirmishes, but here the world had slowed to the ache of moans and shouted orders. The two of them stood still, shoulder to shoulder, the craving clawing at their insides like a second heartbeat.

If Henry had kept a plausible distance once the idea of Liam burrowed between them, this thing, this hunger they both shared, was the one thing that kept them sticking together.

“We’ll find somewhere,” Henry said at last. “Away from camp, away from the wounded. Maybe the docks. Or a quiet corner of the city. But we wait until it’s safe.”

Alex exhaled slowly, nodding. “Yeah. Safe. Right.”

Henry glanced sideways at him, the flicker of concern breaking through the usual sharpness in his gaze. “I won’t let you lose control. You won’t let me, either.”

It wasn’t a question, and Alex didn’t answer like it was. He just nodded once, firm, glad to have Henry by his side regardless of the circumstances that brought him there.

As another stretcher was rushed past them, both men stood unmoving, the hunger coiling in the space between their ribs, quiet but relentless.

They would hold out.

They had to.

~*~

The sky over camp was a dark sheet of navy, the last embers of sunset already burned out over the low hills beyond Algiers. Most of the men were finishing their rounds, settling into the soft shuffle of boots and muted talk before lights out. Alex, restless and sharp-edged, wandered the narrow paths between tents until he spotted Henry.

He was sitting alone on a supply crate near the edge of the camp, his back to the scattered light of the fires, elbows resting loosely on his knees. His rifle lay across his lap, untouched. He wasn’t cleaning it, just staring down at it like its weight meant something more than iron and wood.

Alex walked over, scuffing the dirt a little with his heel so Henry wouldn’t be startled.

“You look like hell,” Alex said quietly.

Henry glanced up, and in the dim light, his expression looked far too old for his face. “I’ve looked worse,” he replied, his voice flat and dry.

Alex didn’t push at first. He just sank onto the crate beside him, close enough for their shoulders to brush, and stared at the night. The air smelled of gun oil, sweat, and the lingering sharpness of spent shells. Too many memories for one day to hold. He hoped they’d drift away from him as he got older.

After a long pause, Alex tilted his head toward him. “What’s eating at you?”

Henry’s fingers twitched slightly against the stock of the rifle, the only sign of hesitation. Then, without looking away from the horizon, he spoke.

“I’ve seen this before,” he said softly. “The faces. The fear. The way men look at each other when they realise they’ve got seconds left.” He swallowed like the words didn’t fit right in his mouth. “I was there when the French fought their umpteenth revolution. The weapons change. The uniforms change. But the look on a man’s face when he’s shot at—” his voice dropped lower, “—it never does.”

Alex blinked, his throat tightening. Henry rarely talked about the long, slow centuries that stretched behind him, like he was keeping a locked room sealed tight. Hearing it now, its heat felt hotter than the North African sun ever could.

He looked at Henry’s profile and thought about all the things a person would have to carry, living that long, watching war after war grind down generation after generation of wide-eyed young men into corpses.

“It’s different this time,” Alex said, though he wasn’t sure if he believed it. Had no way of knowing, comparing. They’d left the country, split up from their family, their friends. It took an ocean to get to June and half of another one to get to Percy. Was it really that different from how it used to be? “We’ll make it different.”

Henry let out a quiet, humourless breath. “We’ll try.”

The silence settled back between them as the night stretched on. Alex didn’t move away. He just stayed there, shoulder to shoulder with him, until the final bugle call sounded and the last lights flickered out.

Henry’s gaze stayed out on the horizon, but his voice softened, touched by something almost like nostalgia.

“You know,” he said after a while, “I was there. When the U.S. declared itself a nation.” His lips quirked, just barely, like the thought still amused him even now. “The general mood in Britain wasn’t exactly… optimistic. Everyone thought you lot would burn yourselves out in ten years. Couldn’t imagine a country so new lasting the century.”

Alex let out a dry chuckle, shaking his head. “Yeah, well. We’re stubborn like that.”

Henry tilted his head, finally glancing at him sideways. “And now here we are. Fighting alongside each other. Wearing the same uniform. Shoulder to shoulder against the same enemy.” His voice lingered, thoughtful and distant, like the world around him was shifting and he still hadn’t decided whether it was for better or worse. “History always loops back around, doesn’t it?”

Alex let the silence sit for a second. The weight of it felt strange — like he was sitting next to someone carved out of history, not just the man he’d crawled through trenches with, slept beside in cold barracks and shared blood-soaked nights with. He always seemed to forget how old Henry was, and there was never a moment when he could casually start the conversation, like it was just a passing thought he needed to satisfy.

“Funny,” Alex said, trying to keep his voice steady, “how people think everything’s brand new. Every war. Every fight. Like it’s never happened before.” He turned his head to look at Henry, studying the faint crease at the corner of his mouth. “But you’ve seen it. Over and over.”

Henry’s throat moved in a slow swallow. “And it never gets easier.”

Alex sat back slightly, hands bracing behind him on the crate, the dry night air cool against his sweat-damp shirt. “You ever think about leaving?” he asked, quieter this time. “Just… walking away from all of it? From history itself? You could. No one would stop you.”

Henry’s mouth pressed into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “I’ve thought about it,” he admitted. “More times than I can count. But wars always have a way of catching up. Doesn’t matter how fast you run.”

Alex looked at him, steady and unflinching. “Well, you’ve got me now. You won’t have to run alone.”

They were here because Alex had refused to desert. He knew that much. Now, with the bullets overhead, he swayed between staying and going. Between the men and Henry.

Henry’s voice broke the quiet again, softer now, like the thought had been circling in his head long before he spoke it aloud.

“What would that even look like?” he asked. His eyes didn’t meet Alex’s this time — they stayed fixed on the ground, like he couldn’t quite bear to lift them. “Running away together. To where?”

Alex didn’t answer because the question didn’t feel rhetorical, but it didn’t feel like it needed an answer either. Henry let out a quiet, humourless laugh.

“I had this stupid dream once,” Henry went on, the words steady but slow, like pulling threads loose from a knot. “Going to Spain. Showing you Italy. Maybe even finding my mother, if she’s still in France.” His mouth pulled into a faint, sad smile. “But how would that work? You’re not going to leave the troop. You have Liam. And I wouldn’t—” He stopped himself, swallowing the thought down, and when he spoke again, it was quieter. “We wouldn’t turn him. You and I, we’re not that kind of monsters.”

Alex sat there, staring at him, the weight of Henry’s honesty pressing down on him harder than he expected. It knocked the air out of him a little, because Henry had always known him too well. Sometimes better than Alex knew himself.

He wanted to say it, clear the air, and tell him that Liam didn’t mean anything. He’d been open to trying something, and Liam had been there, willing, and easy. But it wasn’t about Liam. It never had been. It was about testing. Understanding if this thing he felt was … normal. He’d been thinking about it for a decade.

Alex rubbed his palms against the rough fabric of his trousers, restless, unsure how to begin. He wanted to tell Henry how after that night at the party, after that kiss, he hadn’t even looked at another man. He left New York with a mess in his head, a knot in his stomach and a whole bunch of questions that he didn’t know how to answer. He hoped that having Henry back, warm and safe on the west coast, would give him some answers. But his throat locked shut every time he wanted to broach the topic.

“Henry,” he started and then stopped, the words crowding his throat. “Liam... it’s not what you think. I was just—trying.” He exhaled sharply, forcing a humourless grin. “You know me. I don’t always get it right. And I didn’t want to... mess this up. Us.”

Henry’s head tilted, the faintest crease between his brows, but he didn’t speak. He waited like he already knew the rest.

Alex shrugged, eyes flicking away to the dark outline of the tents beyond the campfire’s weak glow. “What was gonna happen, huh? If I let it go somewhere. It never lasts. Not with me.” His voice went quieter. “And I didn’t want to ruin what we’ve got. Because if I lost you, I wouldn’t know what the hell to do.”

There was a beat of silence between them — heavy but not uncomfortable. Just two men sitting under a foreign sky, with too many unsaid things hanging around their shoulders.

Henry’s voice came softer than before, so quiet Alex almost didn’t hear it. “I wouldn’t let you lose me.”

And that was it. No grand declarations, no promises. Just the quiet, stubborn certainty of a man who’d lived longer than most, and still chose him.

Alex felt his chest loosen, just a little. The world outside the camp still roared with the mess of war, but sitting there beside Henry, it felt like he could breathe for the first time in weeks.

~*~

The desert wind came bitter and sharp, sweeping up dust and the scent of hot metal, like the world itself had been stripped bare. They’d marched into Sidi Bouzid at dawn under a sky too blue for what was about to happen, the ridges around them crawling with German positions that were too quiet, too still.

It didn’t stay quiet for long.

The first shells hit the sand before the sun had climbed its full height, turning everything into smoke and chaos. Alex stuck close to Henry, the two of them moving as a single shadow through trenches that barely deserved the name. The 34th was green to this — most of them had never seen real battle until Tunisia, and the reality of it was nothing like drills in Louisiana.

"Incoming!" someone yelled, and Alex dropped into the sand, his helmet ringing from the concussion of an impact too close for comfort. When he raised his head, Henry was still there, crouched beside him, dirt smeared across his pale skin, lips drawn thin. They didn’t speak, didn’t need to.

The next few hours blurred into shouted orders, deafening artillery, and short sprints across open ground. They were pinned down more often than not, and every time Alex looked, Henry was at his side, moving with a steady, almost unearthly calm that didn’t match the panic around them.

When the gunfire eased, Alex heard it — Spencer’s voice, ragged, sharp with pain. He twisted around just in time to see Spencer crumple, clutching his arm where blood was soaking through his jacket. Liam was already there, hauling him up, gripping under his good shoulder.

“I’ve got him!” Liam called out. “Medic, now!”

Alex caught his eye for a split second — fear, determination — and then Liam was moving, dragging Spencer out of the kill zone as fast as his legs would allow. Henry’s hand gripped Alex’s arm, pulling his attention back.

“We’ve got to move,” Henry said, voice low but firm.

But fate wasn’t going to let them both walk away clean.

The shot cut through the noise sharper than all the rest — not a heavy thud of artillery, not the wild spray of machine gun fire. A rifle. Close.

Alex heard the sound and felt it in his bones a second before he saw Henry stagger, a sharp, strangled breath leaving him as his leg buckled. For a moment, Henry didn’t fall — he stood there, blinking like the world had tilted sideways, one hand pressing instinctively to his thigh as blood spilt hot and fast through his fingers.

And then he dropped.

Everything around Alex slowed to a crawl. The sun, the smoke, the screams from across the sand, the distant bark of commanders — it all fell away as he dropped to his knees beside Henry, hands hovering, useless, desperate. He pressed his palms over Henry’s wound, feeling the sticky warmth pulse through his fingers like time itself was running out between them.

“Henry—” His voice cracked in a way it hadn’t since he was a boy. “Don’t you dare.”

Henry tried to smirk, tried to say something sharp like he always did, but the strength wasn’t there. His skin was already leaching to a grey, hollow shade. His heartbeat, weak as it was, barely fluttered against Alex’s fingers.

Alex had known fear before — the sharp, animal ache of it — but this was something else. This was terror. Cold and choking. The kind of fear that knotted his gut and made his throat too tight to swallow. The idea of Henry dying, of being left behind, wasn’t just impossible. It was unthinkable.

Not Henry.

Not him.

Henry was the constant, the fixed point Alex had tethered himself to since the moment he’d accepted what he was. To see that falter, to see him slipping away, was like watching the ground disappear under his feet.

He couldn’t lose him. He wouldn’t.

He ripped the sleeve of his shirt like it was made of paper and tied it around Henry’s leg so tightly that the blood flow slowed to a trickle.

“Hold on,” Alex whispered, voice shaking now, panic breaking through the practised calm they all wore like armour. “I’ve got you. Just hold on.”

When Henry sagged harder against him, lips pale, barely conscious, Alex acted on instinct. He sliced his wrist, pushed the bleeding wound to Henry’s mouth, and tilted his head back so the blood could slide past his lips.

“Drink,” he urged, fierce and low, willing him to take it, to stay. “Take it.”

The sound of the battle drifted around them like it belonged to someone else’s life. All Alex could focus on was the faint, almost absent swallow of Henry drinking, the smallest sign that he wasn’t going to slip away. Not yet.

When the colour returned to his cheeks — barely, but enough — Alex let out a shuddering breath, the ache in his chest loosening but not vanishing. Relief didn’t come easy. It was fragile, sharp-edged. He still felt the fear pressed tight against his ribs, refusing to leave.

“Don’t do that to me again,” he said, quieter this time, the words almost lost in the wind. “You don’t get to leave me.”

And Henry, weak but aware enough, met his eyes for just a moment before he sagged back, letting Alex pull him to safety.

The night in Sidi Bouzid hung heavy, even the desert wind seemed to still, as if the earth itself was holding its breath. Alex wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, tasting iron that wasn’t his own, the scent of blood and smoke still thick in the air. His boots slipped slightly in the dust and gravel as he pulled himself away from Henry’s side.

For an instant June’s face flashed into his mind, numb and weak, also laying in the dusty, sandy earth.

Henry lay slumped against the cold stone of an abandoned farmhouse wall, his face pale, skin almost translucent in the moonlight. His leg wound had closed, but the blood loss had pulled him dangerously close to the edge. Alex could still hear the sluggish beat of Henry’s heart, but it was barely strong enough to hold on to.

“I’ll be back,” Alex whispered, though he wasn’t sure Henry was conscious enough to hear it. His throat tightened around the words like a noose.

He took off at a sprint into the broken skeleton of the village, the shadows stretching long around him. The hunger clawed at him from the inside, sharp and wild, mixing with the panic that had settled deep in his bones the moment he’d seen Henry drop to the ground. His mind raced even faster than his feet — if he couldn’t find someone, if he were too late, if the blood wasn’t enough — the thoughts gnawed at him relentlessly.

The distant sound of footsteps over rubble caught his attention. A lone Italian soldier, separated from the others. Alex’s body moved before his mind could catch up. The soldier barely registered his presence before it was over — fast, efficient, quiet. When Alex straightened, his hands trembled, but the dull ache in his chest lessened, and strength returned as the warm blood settled into his system.

But the dread didn’t leave him. Not until Henry was safe.

He sprinted back, breath sharp and ragged. The sight of Henry still slumped in that same spot — head tilted, lips pale — cracked something open in Alex. He slid to his knees beside him, shaking hands pressing against Henry’s jaw, feeling for any flicker of life.

“Come on, Henry,” he muttered, voice tight, almost desperate.

Without hesitating, he lifted his wrist again, the skin already marked from before, and tore the wound open with his teeth. He pressed it to Henry’s lips.

“Drink,” he whispered. “Please.”

It was slow, but then Henry’s throat moved, swallowing instinctively. The faintest spark of life flickered behind his closed eyelids. Alex let out a sharp, shaking breath, some part of his body finally unclenching.

He stayed like that until Henry’s colour returned, until the heartbeat grew stronger, until the pale blue of his eyes blinked open, unfocused but alive.

“You’re alright,” Alex murmured, brushing a dirt-streaked hand against Henry’s face, marking him. “You’re gonna be alright.”

The relief nearly swallowed him whole.

Henry blinked again, his voice barely above a rasp. “You found someone?”

Alex nodded, jaw tight. “Yeah. I did. Had my fill, now you have yours.”

They sat in the dark silence of the ruined building for a long while, listening to the distant sounds of war still rumbling on beyond the hills. Alex leaned his head back against the wall, his shoulder pressed lightly to Henry’s, anchoring himself there. The fear still hadn’t left — it hung in his chest like wet cloth — but Henry was breathing, and that was enough for now.

The night settled around them like an old blanket — worn, threadbare, heavy with all the things it had witnessed. The longer Alex sat there, shoulder pressed to Henry’s, the more the fear inside him took on a new shape. Not sharp anymore, not frantic, but deep and dull.

Henry’s breathing had steadied, slow and even, but the panic hadn’t trickled from his body. Alex’s gaze drifted over his face, the streaks of dirt, the smudges of dried blood. Even pale and half-conscious, Henry looked like himself — that quiet stubborn strength, like nothing in the world could really shake him.

But it had. And that scared Alex more than any bullet ever could.

He leaned his head back against the cold stone wall, staring up at the hole-riddled ceiling, and for the first time since the fighting started he let the thought settle in fully. He was young, he had never seen another one of their kind die and he didn’t even know if they could, but even with all that uncertainty he had to ask himself: What would I do if I lost him?

The answer came fast and certain.

He wouldn’t.

Life without Henry wasn’t a shape his world could take anymore. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone a day without hearing his voice, or felt truly at ease unless Henry was somewhere close. All the other soldiers had become routine, background noise in the days of marching and gunfire, but Henry — Henry felt like the only real thing in the middle of all this.

No one else could make him laugh like that, even in the ugliest places. No one else could cut through the silences between words and still understand him, more than any mortal ever had, or could.

Alex looked down at his hands, the faint smear of dried blood across his knuckles, and then back at Henry, slumped against him in sleep. His throat tightened. He hadn’t realized, not fully, not until tonight — how much space this man had quietly taken up in him.

The realization hurt. But at the same time, it felt right. Like he’d known all along.

His hand lifted almost without thinking, brushing the dirt off Henry’s cheek. He leaned forward slowly, barely breathing, and pressed a kiss to his mouth — soft, almost weightless.

And then Henry stirred.

Alex felt the shift in him before he saw it. Henry’s lips moved beneath his own, slow at first, but then stronger, awake and deliberate. The kiss deepened, pulling him in like the tide, until the world around them fell away — the war, the blood, the ruin. None of it mattered, not here.

When they finally pulled apart, neither of them spoke for a long moment. Henry’s hand settled at the side of Alex’s neck, his thumb brushing lightly against the skin like he didn’t want to let go, and Alex leaned into it, eyes still closed, noses squished together.

They stayed that way until their lungs burned for air, and even then, neither of them wanted to move.

But reality always came back. The faint sound of distant orders being shouted, the crackling of the military radio static drifting through the walls of the ruined house.

Henry let his head fall back against the stone with a soft, dry laugh. “We should go before they mark us as dead or AWOL.”

Alex nodded, throat still tight, his voice quiet when he finally answered. “Yeah.”

They both stood slowly, brushing the dust from their uniforms, the moment still lingering in the air between them. Neither of them said what had just happened out loud, but it didn’t need to be said.

As they made their way back toward camp, sticking close, steps in sync as always, Alex kept glancing sideways at Henry, the edges of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth despite everything.

They’d figure it out. Somehow.

Because the alternative wasn’t an option.

Chapter Text

The camp outside Sidi Bou Zid was quieter than it should have been when Alex and Henry finally made their way back, long after the sun had crept high into the sky and the worst of the chaos had settled into an exhausted lull.

The dirt tracks leading between the tents were trampled flat, and the usual idle chatter was missing, replaced instead by the low murmurs of medics and the sharp, painful grunts of wounded men. What struck Alex first was the space — the absence of bodies where, only days before, their fellow soldiers had crowded. The missing faces hung heavy in the air, more deafening than any sound.

Henry walked beside him, his limp mostly gone but his pallor still a shade too pale for a man who should’ve been whole. His expression was a quiet, careful mask — they got used to wearing it when the world demanded them to blend in. Alex had seen it before, but never with the same weight behind it. They’d ignore the blood on his pants, Alex’s torn-up shirt, the bullet hole in the fabric, and hope the daze of fighting would make men not pay attention.

They crossed the last stretch of dirt, boots scuffing dry earth, and headed straight toward the cluster of officers gathered near the communications tent. The moment their sergeant caught sight of them, the man’s face darkened — not with anger, but something closer to grim relief.

"Where the hell’ve you two been?" the sergeant barked, stepping toward them with the briskness of a man who’d been preparing a casualty list all night.

Alex straightened his shoulders and answered first, steady and clear. "Got cut off, sir. When the shells came down, we lost track of the line. Found cover in a half-collapsed farm building east of the ridge. Stayed low till the shooting stopped."

Henry, to his credit, nodded right on cue, letting Alex carry the weight of the lie. His voice, when he added to the story, was hoarse but convincing. "Couldn’t risk moving until the dark, sir. Too many German patrols sweeping the area."

The sergeant’s eyes swept over them both — mud-caked boots, torn sleeves, streaks of dirt and sweat painting them like any other soldier who’d seen the worst of it. He let out a slow breath, rubbing a hand over his tired face. He didn’t have the headspace to remark on any of it anymore. They were alive, and that was all that mattered.

"You’re lucky," he muttered. "Plenty of boys weren’t."

Behind them, the medical tent stretched wide, and Alex’s stomach twisted at the barely visible sight of cots lined up side by side, men draped in bandages, some staring off into nowhere, others too still for comfort. The air reeked of antiseptic and blood, sharp enough to make his throat tighten for reasons that had nothing to do with hunger.

The sergeant waved them off, telling them to get themselves cleaned up and counted, and Alex turned toward the barracks with Henry at his side. Neither of them spoke as they walked past the dog tags of men that would never answer at roll call again, past the faces of the men who’d made it back — barely.

Henry’s shoulder brushed against Alex’s just once, a quiet tether between them. There was no need for words. Both of them knew the lie had worked. Both of them knew it wasn’t over.

And both of them knew the cost of making it back.

The blood on Henry’s uniform had long since dried, dark patches stiff against the fabric, but it was enough to catch an officer’s attention as they reported in. The order had been simple — get to the med tent and let the doctors clear him for duty, no arguments. Alex stayed close, walking beside him without being asked.

The path to the medic station was littered with the detritus of battle’s aftermath: discarded helmets, empty stretchers, and the faces of men who’d seen more than they’d signed up for. Henry moved stiffly, not from injury — not anymore — but from holding himself together under the watchful eyes of the living.

As they neared the canvas stretch of the medical tent, Alex caught sight of Liam. He was sitting on the edge of a stretcher, his head slightly bowed, one hand wrapped around Spencer’s — pale and bandaged but still, thankfully, attached. Spencer lay unconscious, his face drained, the steady rise and fall of his chest the only sign he was holding on.

Liam lifted his head at the sound of approaching boots, and his gaze met Alex’s. For a long second, neither of them said a word. There was nothing to explain, and no room for pretence. Liam’s expression softened slightly, something like understanding flickering behind his eyes. He glanced toward Henry, and then back to Alex.

They both knew. And it wasn’t anger or jealousy between them. Just the simple, resigned truth of it: you stuck close to the ones you couldn’t afford to lose.

The army didn’t ask, and they didn’t tell — not about this, not about anything that would mark them out more than their dog tags already did. Whatever feelings lay beneath the surface, they had to be buried deep, beneath dirt, sweat, blood, and brotherhood.

Liam gave Alex a slight nod, barely there, and Alex returned it before following Henry into the medic station. His chest felt tight.

The medic barely looked up before waving Henry toward a cot, reaching for his clipboard.

“Jesus, son. You’re a mess.”

“Not my blood,” Henry answered, dry and distant. But Alex could see it — the pallor hadn’t faded, the hunger still clung to him under the surface.

Alex stayed nearby, leaning against the tent post, arms crossed, his eyes fixed on Henry as the medic began the usual routine — checking his pulse, inspecting the blood-caked patches, asking questions that Henry answered in clipped, practised tones.

Outside, the muted sounds of the camp moved on — orders barked, boots scuffing against the earth, the low murmur of men trying to make sense of survival.

And somewhere in all that noise, Alex let the moment settle. Henry wasn’t going anywhere — not yet. And as long as that was true, the world could keep turning, even if it felt a little off-balance.

The doctor flipped a page on his clipboard, glancing over Henry’s pale face again, before his attention dropped lower.

“Right then,” the man said, his voice brisk but not unkind. “Let’s see for ourselves. Drop the pants, soldier. Can’t sign you off without checking.”

Henry’s expression didn’t so much as flicker — the perfect soldier’s mask — as he undid his belt and pushed the blood-stiffened fabric down over his hips. The room was dim, lantern light catching on his skin, and for the first time in a long while, Alex saw more of him than any uniform allowed.

His legs were a map of old wounds. Pale scars like faded threads stretched over his thighs and knees, some narrow as paper cuts, others wider and more jagged. There were too many for one war, too many for even one lifetime. They told stories Alex had never heard; ones Henry had buried beneath charm and wry smiles.

But one mark stood out — the faint shadow of a bruise darkening the side of Henry’s hip, the kind that only fresh impact could leave, like he’d been thrown hard against something unyielding. And just above his knee, where Alex remembered seeing blood the day before, the skin showed nothing but a thin, almost invisible line. The doctor prodded the spot and let out a low, puzzled sound.

“Hmph. Looks like an old scar, healed over clean.” He scribbled something on the clipboard, glancing at Henry one last time. “You’re clear. Get yourself cleaned up and get some rack time.”

Henry pulled his pants back up, nodding in acknowledgement. The moment the doctor dismissed him, he moved for the tent’s flap, and Alex followed right on his heels.

Neither of them said a word as they walked the dirt path back toward their cot. The camp looked different in the fading light — thinner, somehow, like the space between them and the world had stretched since the battle. Too many empty beds. Too many silences.

When they reached their own corner of the barracks, Henry sat down heavily on the lower bunk. Alex didn’t sit. He stood there, hands in his pockets, staring at the man he’d almost lost, trying to shake the picture of those pale scars from his mind.

The hunger still pressed against his ribs, but it was buried under something else entirely. Fear, maybe. Gratitude. Whatever it was, it knotted his throat too tight for words.

Henry finally glanced up at him, and the slightest tilt of his mouth passed for a smile.

“Guess I’ll live,” he said softly.

Alex only nodded because he couldn’t trust his voice not to crack. And he wasn’t ready, not yet, to admit out loud how much he cared that Henry would.

~*~

The next day, the barracks dimmed with the last light of the day, the air inside thick with the scent of sweat, damp earth, and the lingering iron tang of old blood. Alex sat on the edge of his cot, elbows on his knees, staring down at his boots without really seeing them. Henry sat a few feet away on his own bunk, his posture rigid despite the exhaustion pulling at his limbs.

A shadow stretched across the floor, the heavy steps of their commanding officer stopping at the end of the row.

“You two,” the man’s voice barked, worn thin but still sharp. “Get your heads down early. You’ll need the rest. We’re moving at dawn.”

Alex looked up, Henry’s gaze lifting beside his, both of them silent as the officer’s meaning settled in. Kasserine Pass. The name alone left a cold weight in Alex’s chest. No one in the camp was naive enough to think the next engagement would be easy — the last few days had made that clear.

The officer moved on without waiting for a reply, his boots grinding over the dirt as he headed for the next row of cots.

The moment the man was gone, Alex let out a quiet breath and leaned back against the wall, glancing toward Henry.

“I’ll go find something,” he said, voice low. “You still need more. I’ll bring it back.”

Henry’s brow furrowed, and he sat forward, his leg clearly still stiff even if his expression masked it well.

“I’m coming with you,” he said, leaving no room for debate. But his voice lacked its usual sharpness, and Alex could hear the strain beneath the words.

Alex shook his head, keeping his voice even. “You’re still too weak. You barely made it through the day upright.”

Henry’s mouth pressed into a thin line, jaw tightening, but Alex could see the crack in his armour. The near-loss still hung heavy over both of them, and neither one seemed ready to let the other out of sight. Henry pushed up to his feet anyway, wavering for the briefest second before finding his balance.

“You can’t carry the risk on your own,” Henry said quietly, not looking at him at first. “Not this time.”

Alex stood too, stepping closer, his voice softer now. “I won’t be gone long. You need the rest more than I do.”

“We’ll be quick,” Henry muttered, as if the words alone could guard him from anything going wrong.

Alex sighed, decided not to argue anymore and gave a small nod, lingering a second longer before heading for the flap of the tent. As he stepped out into the cooling night, the weight of Henry’s gaze followed him like a tether stretched tight between them.

They wouldn’t take long. Not with morning looming.

The night stretched wide and silent as they ran, the world slipping past in a blur of shadows and muted sound. The boots hardly made a noise against the earth, the hunger sharpening everything until even the air seemed to pulse with it. Neither of them spoke as they crossed the low ridges outside camp, cutting across no-man’s-land with predatory ease, eyes scanning for a straggler.

It didn’t take long.

The German sentry barely had time to register the flicker of movement before Alex had him pinned, one hand fisted hard into the man’s collar, the other pressed firmly over his mouth to stifle the noise. The soldier thrashed for a heartbeat or two, panic wild in his eyes, but Alex held him tight, firm, unyielding.

“Go on,” Alex murmured, voice flat and distant. “Take what you need.”

Henry stepped forward, pale even in the dim light, his gaze locked onto the steady pulse in the man’s throat. The moment his lips touched skin, Alex felt the shift. The sharp precision of Henry's restraint — the way he drank deep, but never messily, never hurried. His cheeks, hollow and bloodless only hours ago, began to flush with life again, colour returning like ink bleeding into water.

Alex stood frozen, holding the dying man steady, but his gaze wasn’t on the soldier. It was on Henry. There was a kind of beauty to it — to the control, the centuries of practised, polished survival wrapped around such a brutal act. But beneath the fascination, a flicker of something unfamiliar stirred in Alex’s chest.

For the first time since he’d known Henry, he felt a sliver of fear.

The man he knew — sharp-witted, steady, sardonic Henry — wasn’t here in this moment. Only the hunger was. The red gleam of his eyes glowed faintly as they flicked up, meeting Alex’s gaze, and something in that look shifted. As if Henry had felt the weight of his thoughts, and invited him closer rather than pushed him away.

Wordlessly, Henry’s hand lifted, fingers curling around the collar of Alex’s jacket, tugging him in toward the soldier’s slackening body. His meaning was clear.

Your turn.

Alex didn’t resist. His mouth found the opposite side of the man’s throat, the blood still hot beneath the skin, the life already fading. The hunger hit sharp and fierce, but not stronger than the pulse of emotion that hummed beneath it — the awareness of Henry’s hand still resting lightly on his shoulder as they fed together.

When the soldier finally sagged limp between them, Henry let go, exhaling a breath so soft it barely stirred the air. His face was flushed, his strength returned, but his eyes still lingered on Alex.

They didn’t speak as they wiped the blood from their mouths, tearing up pieces of flesh for more sustenance, leaving the body behind and disappearing back into the dark. But the silence between them wasn’t empty.

They didn’t head straight back to camp.

The body left behind in the dark was cooling, the night wind already scouring away the scent, but Henry stood still, boots planted firm in the sand-streaked soil, his face pale in the moonlight, the flush of fresh meat just beginning to warm his skin.

Alex turned to leave, but Henry caught his arm — not roughly, just enough to stop him.

“Alex,” he said quietly, voice stripped of all its usual sharpness. “You kissed me last night.”

The words hung in the air like an accusation, though his tone wasn’t angry. Just... searching.

Alex let out a slow breath, the cool night brushing over his face. He tilted his head, the usual cocky smile absent, gaze locked on Henry’s. “Yeah. I did.”

Henry’s eyes flicked over him, waiting, needing more. Needing to understand what it meant.

“It means,” Alex went on, voice lower now, “that nothing changes. Not here. Not while we’re still in uniform.” His throat worked around the words, tight but steady. “You know as well as I do, the army’s not going to stand for a couple of poofs running around the battlefield like they’re in a goddamn romance novel.”

Henry’s expression didn’t shift much, but something in his posture softened — the barest lowering of his shoulders, a sigh that was more tired than surprised. “That’s an easy discharge, Alex.”

Alex huffed a short laugh, more bitter than amused. “Yeah, it would be.” His eyes flicked away for a second, to the distant, silent outline of camp lights. “But I’m not running. Not unless the whole regiment pulls back. I’m not leaving them behind.”

For a long moment, neither of them moved. The night wrapped around them, cold and sharp-edged, and the distant sound of the sea whispered against the shore.

Henry didn’t argue. The fight had gone out of him — or maybe the hunger had taken too much, or maybe he understood, as he always seemed to, that Alex’s mind was already set. Instead, he reached out and found Alex’s hand, threading their fingers together like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Alex looked down at their joined hands, a little stunned by the gentleness of it. Henry lifted his palm, pressing a kiss to it — a promise more than a gesture.

“I’ll respect that,” Henry murmured against his skin. “Your call, your terms.” His lips lingered for a moment longer before he let Alex’s hand drop. “But you need to know — if anyone so much as gets too close, if anyone tries to take you from me... I’ll tear them apart.”

Alex blinked, surprised by how steady his heartbeat stayed at the threat. He tilted his head, a small smile creeping to the corner of his mouth.

“You know I can protect myself,” he said.

Henry nodded, but didn’t say anything.

And deep down, under all the worry and the heavy ache of battle and hunger, Alex felt something warm settle in his chest. The certainty that Henry meant every word. That for all the walls they’d both built, Henry would burn the world down before he let anything happen to him.

Without another word, they started back toward camp.

~*~

The morning air was dry and sharp, the sun already glaring hard against the slopes of the Kasserine Pass. Dust clung to every surface, caking the seams of uniforms, the cracks in dry lips, the hollow of rifles. For Henry and Alex, the heat wasn’t the worst of it. It was the tension in the air — brittle and taut, like the earth itself was waiting for the blow.

They’d been dug in with the rest of the 34th, part of the battered American forces trying to hold the mountain gaps against Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s seasoned Afrika Korps. Tanks rolled like iron beasts in the distance, and the sound of artillery wasn’t a sharp boom, but a low, ceaseless growl that rattled through the chest and bones.

When the Germans came, they came hard.

Panzers led the charge through the pass, their iron hulls shrugging off the pitiful American anti-tank fire, while waves of Wehrmacht infantry moved like clockwork precision through the rough scrub and rock. Henry and Alex moved with the rest of their platoon, rifles at the ready, keeping close to cover. Liam was on their flank, sweat streaking the dust on his face, jaw set tight but determined.

It was chaos from the start. Shells punched craters into the dry ground, and machine-gun fire chewed through the brittle brush and scattered stone. The rookie Americans, barely two months off the ship, found themselves breaking rank under the assault. Not Henry, not Alex. Not Liam. The three of them stayed locked together, covering each other, moving as one when orders barely reached over the din.

They saw men fall. The smell of blood was everywhere, and for Alex and Henry, it took discipline older than the men around them to keep focus, to clamp down the ache that bloomed in their chest at the scent.

Alex stuck close to Henry’s side, counting every shot, covering their path as they scrambled from foxhole to foxhole, moving behind tanks and along the jagged limestone ridges. Henry’s leg — still stiff from the wound he’d taken back in Sidi Bou Zid — was slowing him more than he’d admit, but he kept pace. If the gunshots weren’t ringing overhead, Alex might have joked about how he moved like a human.

At one point, the three of them found themselves pinned behind a wrecked M3 half-track, the sun glinting off the twisted metal. Liam’s cap was gone, his hair damp with sweat and dirt, but he grinned over at Alex — sharp, tense, the kind of grin you only gave when death was pressing close but hadn’t landed yet.

“You ever think this isn’t worth the uniform?” Liam shouted over the gunfire, breathless but laughing.

Alex didn’t answer. His eyes were on Henry — on the tightness in his face, the way his hands trembled not from fear, but from hunger. The longer the battle dragged, the worse it got. Henry was running on empty, the last drop of blood shared between them long gone.

A shell landed close enough to make the ground buck under their feet. Dirt rained down, and the shockwave left Alex’s ears ringing. When the dust cleared, Henry was still there, crouched and steady, but his skin was pale beneath the grime, the dark circles under his eyes deeper than ever.

The line broke in the afternoon. Under relentless pressure, the American defence folded, and orders came to fall back across the pass. Liam shouted for them to move, and the three of them ran together — boots pounding over the rough ground, ducking under withering fire. Alex kept his body between Henry and the worst of it, even as they moved, until they found cover behind the wreckage of a Sherman tank.

The battle would rage on for another day before the Axis forces finally relented, but for Alex and Henry, the fight narrowed to the space between heartbeats. Henry slumped against the hull of the tank, teeth gritted as he fought to stay upright. A bullet had grazed his arm, and blood was oozing onto his sleeve.

“You’re going to pass out,” Alex hissed, low and sharp enough that Liam wouldn’t hear.

But Henry only shook his head. “Already healed... mostly,” he muttered. “Just... haven’t got enough left.”

The truth sat heavy between them — the ache of hunger and the exhaustion of fighting a war with two faces: the one the world saw, and the one they kept hidden.

Liam circled back, checking on them both. His gaze lingered on Henry, but he said nothing, just nodded once before turning to cover the next stretch of retreat.

When the three of them finally made it back behind the American lines that night, the count of the missing was brutal. Spencer was lucky he stayed in the sick bay. Others weren’t. Rows of stretchers and makeshift medical stations lined the bare desert like a graveyard-in-waiting.

Henry and Alex stood side by side, silent, watching the bodies being carried in. No words passed between them — not about the battle, not about the hunger, not about the future that felt, for the first time in a long time, painfully uncertain.

~*~

The barracks smelled like boiled cabbage, burnt coffee, and the heavy iron scent of men who hadn’t had the chance to wash in days. The long wooden table was crowded, but the four of them sat pressed together, bowls in front of them — pale stew that barely passed for dinner, thin slices of bread stiff with dryness, and black coffee that could burn through the lining of a stomach.

Alex sat shoulder to shoulder with Henry, and across from them, Liam and Spencer. Spencer’s right arm was wrapped tight in a field dressing, the white of the bandages already smudged with dirt and sweat. He was pale but grinning, because the painkillers had finally taken effect, and he was grateful to still be breathing. If he played it right, it would be his ticket out of here. By the way he looked at Liam, it seemed that he wasn’t too keen on leaving him alone.

They ate slowly, each bite a mechanical process more about keeping their hands busy than feeding any real hunger. Conversation drifted around them — other squads counting their losses, voices low and grim, some trying for levity that didn’t quite land. The gaps at the table were hard to miss. Men who’d been there the day before, now gone, their cots stripped bare.

Liam broke the silence at their table, his voice quieter than usual. “Reckon we lost nearly half the company.”

Henry’s spoon hovered above his stew for a beat, then he dropped it back in, the metal clinking softly against the enamel. He didn’t answer. Neither did Alex.

Spencer shifted, flexing his fingers around the tin cup in his good hand. “Won’t be long before it’s our turn,” he muttered, trying for lightness, but his smile didn’t meet his eyes. “The odds are starting to stack.”

Alex’s voice came out steady, a little too steady. “We’re not going to die.”

That pulled Spencer’s gaze up from his bowl. He let out a short, dry laugh, the sound more bone-tired than amused. “You got a plan for dodging artillery, then?” he asked, tapping his bound-up arm against the edge of the table. “Shells don’t give a damn how sharp you are. When they drop, you’re gone. Might want to start writing letters home while you’ve still got fingers.”

Liam let out a soft snort, pushing his stew around with the back of his spoon. “He’s not wrong.”

Alex’s jaw tensed, the retort perched right at the back of his throat. But before the words could form, he felt it — Henry’s knee nudging against his under the table. A simple, firm pressure. It wasn’t a warning, more like a reminder: don’t say anything you can’t take back. Not now.

Alex shifted his foot slightly, brushing back against Henry’s in acknowledgement, and dropped his gaze to the steam curling off his bowl. The conversation rolled past him, Spencer moving on to talking about some half-remembered joke about home, and Liam chiming in with his dry wit. But the tension stayed curled beneath Alex’s ribs, sharp and coiled.

Henry didn’t say anything for the rest of the meal. He just sat there, close enough for his shoulder to press against Alex’s, steady as stone — like that alone could hold both of them together.

That night, the barracks were quiet in the uneasy way that follows battle — a silence thick with exhaustion, pain, and the weight of names not spoken aloud. Most of the men slept like the dead, sprawled across their cots, boots half-off, shirts stained with blood and dirt, too tired even to dream.

But Alex lay awake, eyes fixed on the ceiling, heart pounding with a kind of stubborn, rising panic. Henry had looked strong at dinner, but Alex had seen the tightness in his jaw, the strain in his shoulders, the too-pale set of his skin. He was running on empty.

It was nearly 2 a.m. when Alex sat up. The air was cold, seeping in through the canvas walls and biting at his arms. Across from him, Henry lay curled on his side, facing the wall, jaw slack in sleep.

Alex slipped from his cot and crouched beside Henry’s, whispering low. “Hey.”

Nothing.

He reached out, touched Henry’s shoulder. “Henry. Wake up.”

Henry stirred slowly, brow furrowing as he blinked into the dark. “What? What’s wrong?”

“You need to drink,” Alex said, voice barely audible over the soft snores and shifting bodies in the dark.

Henry groaned and rolled onto his back, eyes half-lidded with sleep. “Alex—”

“I’m not asking.” Alex’s voice was sharper now, but still low. He glanced around. No one stirred. “You got hurt days. I don’t care how careful we have to be. You need it.”

Henry stared at him. Even in the shadows, he looked torn, like it physically hurt him to consider the offer.

Alex didn’t flinch. He just lifted his hand and pushed the collar of his shirt aside, exposing his neck. Then, realising how it would look if they got caught, he brought his wrist up instead and offered it, pulse fluttering under the skin.

Henry sat up slowly, the cot creaking under him.

There was a beat — one long, fragile second — before Henry took his wrist gently, reverently, like it was something sacred. And then his mouth was on Alex’s skin, teeth sinking in fast and clean.

Alex’s breath caught.

It hurt, at first. A sharp flash, electric and raw. Then it shifted into something else — dizzying and warm, like his blood was being drawn out but something deeper, more intimate, was being left in its place. His other hand gripped the edge of the cot to keep steady. It was a maddening feeling and he never wanted it to stop.

Henry drank in slow pulls, careful, controlled. Not enough to weaken Alex. Just enough to take the edge off, to rebuild the strength that had been wrung out of him in the Kasserine sand.

When he stopped, he let go of Alex’s arm gently and leaned his forehead against Alex’s shoulder, breathing hard.

“You didn’t have to do that,” he whispered.

Alex let out a shaky breath. Maybe he didn't need to part with his blood, but he needed to feel close to Henry in a way that humans wouldn't understand. “Yeah, I did.”

For a long moment, they just stayed like that — close, quiet, the war held at bay by the thin walls of the barracks and the press of their shoulders in the dark.

“Next time,” Henry murmured, voice thick, “you ask first.”

Alex huffed a laugh and whispered back, “Not if you look like death again. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

Henry didn’t answer, just rested his hand on the back of Alex’s neck, a silent thank you carved into the warmth of the gesture.

~*~

The days bled into each other, marked only by the light rising and falling over unfamiliar skies and the endless, rattling churn of trucks rolling out and boots hitting dirt. Battle after battle — there was no counting them anymore. No clear line where one ended and the next began. Just the same dust, the same smoke, the same aching pull of exhaustion that buried itself deep into muscle and bone until it felt like they’d been born with it.

Each skirmish played out like some cruel loop. The sharp crack of rifles, the rattling roar of machine guns, the earth-shaking thud of artillery. Orders barked over the din, the ground torn open around them, and always — always — the scramble to survive the next minute, and then the next.

Spencer and Liam wore the toll of it plainly, more with each passing day. Dirt packed into the lines of their faces, the bruises deepening under their eyes like shadows that no amount of sleep could ever erase. Their bodies stiffened from muscle strain, limps growing more pronounced, scrapes turning to scabs that barely healed before new ones replaced them. Bandages and bloodstains became as much a part of their uniforms as the Red Bull patch stitched to their sleeves.

And through it all, Alex and Henry moved like twin phantoms. Always near. Always watching. Alex would spot the danger first more often than not — a glint of light off a sniper’s scope, the telltale pitch of incoming fire — and Henry would be there a heartbeat later, dragging Spencer behind cover, tackling Liam out of the way before the worst of it hit. They moved through the chaos with ease, sharp-eyed and sharp-minded even when the world frayed at the seams around them.

But the cracks were there, too. Bullet wounds that stitched burning lines across their skin, knives that found flesh, blunt force that bruised and shattered. They bled. They stumbled. They hit the ground hard enough to knock the breath from their lungs, but they always got up.

The others didn’t always. The barracks emptied out, one cot at a time. Men vanished into the dirt, or the medical tents, or just into thin air.

And still the four of them remained.

It became something unspoken. A pact, invisible and binding. Alex and Henry shadowed Liam and Spencer across every battlefield, not because anyone ordered them to, but because the thought of coming back alone was unbearable. They fought because they had to, but they guarded because they wanted to — and in the end, that was the only thing that seemed to matter in a world where life wasn’t something they could count on.

The battles blurred into one long, violent breath. And every night, when the guns fell quiet and the ground stopped shaking, the four of them sat shoulder to shoulder, staring out at the dark. Silent, except for the occasional crack of knuckles or hiss of a cigarette. Counting their luck. Counting each other.

The barracks had gone still after a day spent dancing too close to death. Bodies shifted in sleep, breaths rose and fell under thin blankets, and the air hung heavy with exhaustion and sweat. The scent of old gunpowder still clung faintly to their clothes, even now.

Alex lay awake, staring at the darkened ceiling, listening to the soft, unsteady breathing all around him. His body ached in the dull, distant way it always did after a fight, but his mind refused to quiet.

His hand drifted across the narrow gap between the cots. He barely thought about it, not until his fingers brushed against Henry’s — and then the weight of it hit him. Henry’s hand was cool, resting palm-up like he’d been waiting, even if Alex knew he hadn’t. Their fingers tangled together, easy and natural, and Henry’s thumb gave the faintest, slow press against his knuckle in answer.

They’d gotten so used to covering for each other, shielding one another from shrapnel, bullets, and sharp-eyed superiors. The way they moved through battle hadn’t changed. But the feeling nestling inside Alex had.

Since Henry had been shot — since that night in the abandoned house, watching the colour fade from his face—something new had rooted itself in Alex’s chest. It was deeper than the instinct to protect, heavier than any hunger, sharper than the thrill of the fight. It was fear. Real, suffocating fear.

He didn’t want to be left alone in this world. Not the way he’d been before Henry. Not after knowing the sound of his voice in the dark, or the feeling of his hand gripping his shoulder, steady and sure, when everything else went to hell.

Alex lay there, their hands linked in silence, and let the thought creep in — the one he hadn’t let himself fully acknowledge before.

They could leave.

Desertion had always been a word that tasted like shame. Cowardice. A mark you didn’t wash off. But now it was just a shape in his mind, clean and tempting. He could picture it: slipping away with Henry, leaving the cots empty, walking out into Europe’s endless roads, finding somewhere the war wouldn’t touch them. France, maybe. Or Italy, like Henry once said. Somewhere quiet, somewhere far from gunfire and dirt and death.

He didn’t need much — just Henry.

He squeezed his hand a little tighter, not enough to wake him, just enough to know he was still there. And for the first time since the war began, Alex didn’t care if it made him selfish.

He couldn’t lose him. Not Henry. Not the one person in all this madness who saw him, knew him, and never looked away.

Not now. Not ever.

~*~

The barracks were thick with the sound of sleeping men — the low, restless shuffle of limbs, a few quiet snores, and the occasional shift of someone turning over on their cot. The air smelled like damp wool, boot leather, and old sweat. Somewhere, rain ticked faintly against the canvas roof, soft and steady, and Alex lay on his back, staring at nothing.

Henry’s hand was still in his, warm now, the way it always got once he’d fed enough. Alex hadn’t let go since the moment he’d found it in the dark.

His voice was barely a whisper when it broke the quiet.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said. The words felt foreign, even to himself. “About leaving.”

He didn’t look at Henry, but he felt the slight shift, the way Henry’s fingers stilled in his. God, it was insane how much he’d be willing to do for this man.

“Leaving the army?” Henry’s voice was low, worn thin with exhaustion, but sharp at the edges.

Alex nodded once, small and sure, eyes fixed on the barrack’s shadowed ceiling. “If we don’t… if we stay here long enough, one of these days it’s going to be you. For real. And I’m not going to sit through that.”

Henry was quiet for a long stretch. The rain filled the silence between them.

“I’m scared, Henry,” Alex said. The words lodged in his throat, but he pushed them out. “I’m not afraid of the war, or the fighting. The only think I’m afraid of is losing you.”

Henry’s hand tightened around his. “You’re not going to lose me.”

“You can’t promise that.”

“No,” Henry admitted softly. If Henry knew more about what it took to lose someone of their kind, then he kept that information close to his chest. “But if we wanted, we could be gone. You and me. Tomorrow. No more battlefields. No more waiting for the next name on the casualty list. I’ve been telling you this for so long now…”

Alex closed his eyes. He wanted that more than he’d ever wanted anything. But the world wasn’t built for that kind of easy choice. His voice dropped even lower.

“And Liam? Spencer? They wouldn’t make it out here without us. You know that.”

Henry didn’t argue. He knew it as well as Alex did. The silence stretched, heavy, until Alex broke it, the faintest wry smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“You’ve ruined me, you know that?”

Henry huffed the smallest laugh. “You were already ruined long before I got to you.”

Alex let his thumb drift across Henry’s knuckles, slow and absent. “When this is over... I want to go somewhere quiet. Just us.”

Henry nodded, the motion barely a ghost. “We will. I swear it.”

A sharp voice sliced through the dark, jerking them both upright. Their superior officer’s boots thudded down the aisle between the cots.

“Lights out, all of you. Prep starts at first light — we’re moving north. Bizerte.”

The words were met with the soft ripple of groans, mumbled curses, and weary sarcasm from the cots around them, but the officer had already turned on his heel and left.

The quiet returned, even heavier now. Henry’s hand was still in Alex’s, and neither of them let go.

Henry’s voice came again, so quiet Alex almost didn’t hear it.

“We’ll be out of Africa by June. I’ll make sure of it.”

Chapter Text

The news of the Axis surrender in North Africa spread through the camp like wildfire. By the afternoon of May 9th, word had settled in — Major General Omar Bradley’s II Corps had finally cornered what remained of von Vaerst’s battered 5th Panzer Army. The war wasn’t over, not by a long shot, but the North African campaign had ended. Alex could feel the shift in the air, could see it on the faces of the men around him: the disbelief, the exhaustion, the grim satisfaction.

For the first time in months, the horizon felt open.

Later that night, with the barracks quieting under the low hum of soldiers trying to sleep, Alex sat on the edge of his cot, staring at the dim line of moonlight cutting across the floor. He felt Henry settle next to him, close enough that their shoulders touched.

“You’ve heard,” Henry murmured, voice barely above a whisper. “Italy. That’s next.”

Alex nodded slowly. “Yeah. There’s always the next place, isn’t there?”

Henry let out a quiet, dry chuckle. “For us, there could always be another place. But if you wait until Italy, it’ll be easier. The chaos of a landing, troops stretched thin. We can slip away without anyone noticing.”

Alex didn’t answer right away. His throat tightened at the thought. Running sounded easy when it was far away, but now it was creeping closer and felt sharp-edged. He’d made friends here and couldn’t leave them behind without guilt gnawing at him.

Henry seemed to sense the hesitation and leaned in slightly. His voice softened, tinged with a hint of something almost tender.

“Have you ever seen San Fele?” he asked. “The waterfalls there. Cold enough to make you curse the earth, but clear as glass. Or Monte Vulture — the old volcano, green as any place I’ve ever walked. Lago di San Pietro, too. The water’s so still at night you can see every star twice. The whole expanse of the universe at the tip of your fingers. It’s impossible not to want to jump right in and bathe in the infinity.”

Alex’s chest ached at the way Henry spoke of it, like he was painting a future with his words. Not promises, because he didn’t dare to do that just yet, but possibilities. Henry tilted his head, voice dipping lower, private, to a volume no one but the two of them could hear.

“I want to see you there,” he said. “I want to push you under those freezing waterfalls, just to hear you complain about it. I want to walk the mountaintops with you at night, with no war at our backs, no rifles, and no marching orders. Just us.”

Alex swallowed the lump forming in his throat, his heart pounding hard enough to drown out the silence around them. Henry’s voice grew even quieter.

“I want to wake up next to you. Somewhere safe. Watch you, when you’re rested and sated, and back to being the most stubborn pain in the ass I know.”

Alex let out a breath, half a laugh and half a sigh, and for a moment, the war faded away. He reached for Henry’s hand, lacing their fingers together, gripping tight.

“Let’s make it to Italy first,” Alex whispered. “Then we’ll figure out the rest.”

Henry squeezed his hand back. “We’ll make it.”

Alex’s fingers tightened around Henry’s, grounding himself against the sharp ache swelling in his chest. The world had only offered them scraps here — stolen moments between battle drills and gunfire, glances that meant more than words, touches hidden beneath the thin cover of exhaustion. Now, sitting there in the quiet hum of the barracks, the weight of possibility settled heavy on his shoulders.

He turned his head just slightly, enough to catch the faint outline of Henry’s face in the dark. His voice came low, raw, edged with something new — not just hope, but hunger for a life he’d never let himself imagine.

“You know,” Alex murmured, “you keep talking about Italy like it’ll be the end of the world, but I should warn you.” He paused, swallowing hard. “Once I’ve got you, away from all this... away from the army, the rules, the eyes always watching — I’m not sure I’ll be accountable for what I do.”

Henry’s brow lifted in the dim light, but he didn’t speak. Alex shifted slightly on the cot, leaning in, his voice still hushed but firm.

“It’ll be the first time I’ve ever had you all to myself, without anyone telling us to keep our distance. No patrols, no barracks, no partygoers to avoid, no June, no Nora. Just you, me, and no one to stop me.” His voice dipped lower, a quiet, earnest rumble vibrating from the depths of his chest. “I might not let you leave the bed, you know. No telling how long I’ll keep you there.”

Henry let out a soft sound — half a laugh, half something deeper, and Alex could feel the sharp thrum of tension that almost made them feel human again.

Alex rested his head back against the wall, eyes distant now, as if he could already see the life he was describing taking shape.

“We could find some old house,” he went on, voice almost wistful. “Something forgotten, tucked away in the hills, where the world can’t touch us. Let it fall apart around us for all I care. It’d be ours for as long as we want it.”

His voice softened even more.

“We’d call the girls, too. Let them find their way to us eventually, once we’ve had a taste of life together. Then it would be worth it again. No more hiding, no more pretending. Just us, and them, and whatever the hell kind of freedom we could scrape together.”

Henry was quiet for a long moment. Then, slowly, he leaned his head against Alex’s shoulder, their joined hands resting between them.

“That’s the first time you’ve talked about the future like you believe it,” Henry whispered.

Alex’s throat tightened, but he managed a faint, lopsided smile. “It’s the first time I’ve wanted to.”

~*~

The roar of naval artillery barely dulled the hum of nerves under Alex’s skin. His boots were soaked through before he even set foot off the landing craft, seawater splashing over the gunwales as the Higgins boat pitched toward the Salerno coast. Around him, Henry, Liam, and Spencer crouched low, helmets tipped forward, rifles clutched tight, faces pale but set.

The beach wasn’t empty. The Germans had been waiting.

The ramp dropped with a mechanical clatter, and the world became a blur of smoke, sand, and bullets. Men leapt forward into knee-deep surf, boots dragging in the waterlogged sand as the first shells landed too close, flinging mud and shrapnel. Alex hit the shore running, sticking close to Henry’s shoulder, never more than a step apart.

The beachhead was chaos. The Germans, dug into the hills and fortified among the olive groves, rained mortar fire and machine-gun bursts down on them like clockwork. For every few feet they advanced, a man went down — some screaming, some eerily silent.

Henry fired controlled bursts from his M1, his jaw set, expression blank, like every shot was just another chore. He didn’t flinch when mortar fragments tore up the dirt inches from his boots. Alex knew that calm. He wore it too. But it was a mask, and under it, his mind was grinding through one thought: stay alive, keep the others alive.

Liam and Spencer fought shoulder to shoulder, pinned behind a half-collapsed stone wall that barely held against the machine-gun nests peppering the beach. Spencer, already favouring his bad arm, reloaded with clumsy fingers slicked in sweat and dirt. Liam was barking directions, pulling him out of the worst of the fire.

When the order finally came to push forward, Alex and Henry didn’t hesitate. They climbed past the dead, the groaning wounded, weaving between craters and shattered equipment, until they were belly down in the sharp grass beyond the shore. The four of them regrouped behind a rusted anti-tank barrier — breathless, bruised, but alive.

The ground never stopped shaking, not for hours. The sky stayed thick with smoke, the sun cutting through it like a blade. The hills behind Salerno were still swarming with German infantry, and their counterattacks came fast and brutal. The 36th Infantry had taken a beating, and the 34th — their unit — was no less battered. Bodies littered the earth like broken scarecrows. Men who’d been joking over coffee that morning were now hunched over, clutching wounds, or lying still with blank, unblinking stares.

Through the haze, Alex kept catching Henry’s eyes. A glance was all it took — they stayed tethered, even as the world unspooled around them.

They pressed forward as the battle raged, cutting through one German defensive line only to meet another. Henry’s leg buckled once on the churned-up earth, the lingering weakness from his wounds threatening to drop him, but Alex was there — steadying him before either of them could fall. It wasn’t a conversation. It wasn’t even a thought. It was instinct.

By nightfall, the worst of the German counterattack had relented, and the battered remains of their unit set up a defensive position inland, close to the tobacco fields. No one said much. Some men cried when they thought no one was listening. Some just sat still, their rifles resting across their knees, staring off into nothing.

Alex sat shoulder to shoulder with Henry, and across the fireless gap, Liam helped Spencer wrap a strip of cloth around his wrist, where the recoil from his rifle had opened raw, red welts.

The fighting had dulled into silence, but the battlefield wasn’t quiet. The air hung heavy with the scent of churned earth, blood, and the oily tang of spent shells. The four of them sat huddled against the base of a crumbled stone wall just outside the battered village perimeter — scraped, dirty, bruised, and bone-tired.

No one was unscathed. Some had wounds you could see. Others were building of the kind that couldn’t be washed away.

They ate cold rations in the dark, listening to the occasional crack of distant artillery. No one talked about the number of men they’d lost. No one counted.

Alex was rubbing the grit from his hands when Liam’s voice cut through the low rustle of men settling into another cold, sleepless night.

“Alex,” Liam said, nodding toward the far end of the wall. “C’mere a second.”

Alex glanced at him, then at Henry, who sat only a few feet away with Spencer, who showed the kind of tired that settled behind the eyes. Henry looked up as Alex stood, but didn’t say a word. He could have eavesdropped if he wanted to, but Alex knew he wouldn’t.

Alex followed Liam out of earshot toward a patch of earth still damp from the sea breeze. The moon was low and bright in the overhead sky. Liam stood there for a long moment, hands shoved into his pockets, eyes flicking to the bright horizon like he was trying to find words.

“Don’t get yourself shot,” Liam said finally.

Alex blinked, confused. “I wasn’t planning on it.”

But the way Liam looked at him told him it wasn’t just about bullets.

It sank in slow — the weight behind those words. Liam knew. Maybe he hadn’t said anything, but he’d seen it in the way Alex had started watching Henry like a man watches the last good thing in a world gone rotten. Liam was aware of the plan, or at least enough of it.

Alex let out a slow breath, the corner of his mouth lifting, barely there. “Come with us,” he offered quietly. “There’s room for more than two.”

Liam’s answer was immediate, quiet, but firm. “I’m not leaving him. Not like that.” His gaze flicked back toward the wall, where Spencer slumped against Henry’s shoulder, both trading quiet words like old friends. War had a way of creating camaraderie out of thin air.

Alex followed his gaze, the sight warming something in his chest even as the distance stretched wide.

He reached out, offering his hand, and Liam shook it without hesitation.

“See you around, then,” Alex said, voice soft but sure. “You’re not allowed to die out here.”

Liam’s mouth twisted into something that might’ve been a smile. “Right back at you.”

They stood there a second longer, not needing to say anything else. Then they turned, walked back to the wall, and sank down beside the men who anchored them to this grim corner of the world.

There was still a battle waiting beyond the next sunrise. But for now, they sat shoulder to shoulder.

~*~

The moon hung sharp and thin over the Italian hills, cold and pale against the ink-black sky. Their boots pounded the earth, step after step, as Alex and Henry pushed through olive groves and dry brush, away from the flickering glow of campfires and the distant thunder of artillery still rolling along the front.

Neither of them spoke for miles. Breath came hard and fast, and adrenaline kept them light. The sound of war had thinned into the night air, and the only thing left was the quiet rustle of wind over the countryside and the crunch of their boots on gravel.

It was Henry who finally slowed, a hand gripping Alex’s arm to pull him off the path and into the shadow of a crumbling stone wall. Alex doubled over, hands on his knees, and let the air burn through his lungs. For the first time since they’d made the decision — the silent look across their cots, the nod, the slip into the dark — the weight of it settled onto his shoulders.

They were deserters.

Henry leaned back against the wall, head tilted toward the stars, and let out a breath that was somewhere between laughter and exhaustion. “Well,” he said, “that’s one battlefield down. Muro Lucano’s just another waiting for us.”

Alex blinked at him, chest still heaving. “What the hell does that mean?”

Henry tilted his head and gave a lopsided smile, sharp and fond all at once. “History, darling. Italians are good at piling their corpses on the same patch of dirt. Romans, Normans, French, Germans. You name it, someone’s died there.”

Alex huffed a breath that might’ve been a laugh if it hadn’t been so bitter. “They didn’t teach us that in school.”

“I know Americans are uneducated,” Henry said, shoving off the wall and starting forward again. “You prove it to me every day.”

They moved at a slower pace now, weaving through the silent streets of a village that couldn’t have held more than a few hundred souls. Windows were dark. The world was shuttered and still.

They found the shop at the end of the square, the kind that might’ve sold everything from nails to neckties. Henry was the one who jimmied the lock, and Alex followed him inside. The shelves smelled like dust and old cloth.

They rifled through the racks, peeling off their blood- and dirt-stained fatigues and pulling on local clothes — simple trousers, worn shirts, woollen jackets that hung stiff on their shoulders but disguised them enough. When Henry held up his dog tags in the half-light, the clink of the breaking chain sounded louder than it should’ve.

Alex caught the gesture, mirrored it. He held the cold metal in his palm for a second longer before slipping it into his pocket. They couldn’t wear them anymore, but he wasn’t ready to let go.

When they finally stepped back out into the night, the air was different. Softer, less heavy with the smell of gunpowder and sweat.

They walked, side by side, down the old road leading out of the village and toward Muro Lucano, the hills wide open and waiting for them. The night air was thick with the scent of wild rosemary and distant woodsmoke, and the stars above burned quiet and endless.

And for the first time in months, Alex let himself believe there might be something more than blood and bullets waiting at the end of the road.

He reached for Henry’s hand—warm, familiar, already halfway open like he’d been waiting—and halted his steps. The gravel crunched softly beneath their feet as the silence stretched.

Then, in the hush of the night, Alex stepped closer.

His eyes searched Henry’s face—lit only faintly by moonlight—taking in the furrow of his brow, the curve of his lips, the set of his jaw, and he couldn’t imagine living without this man.

With a breath that trembled more than he wanted it to, Alex leaned in and kissed him.

Their mouths brushed more than met, a whisper of warmth, a meeting of breath. But Henry answered it instantly, tilting his head, closing the distance, his hand rising to cradle the side of Alex’s neck. His thumb traced the edge of Alex’s jaw like he was learning it by touch.

The kiss deepened—tentative becoming certain, gentle becoming urgent. Their mouths moved in sync, a rhythm neither had rehearsed but both knew instinctively. Lips parting, breaths catching, teeth grazing just barely. Alex pressed in, one hand resting on Henry’s waist, the other sliding to his back, pulling him in like he never wanted to let go.

Henry made a quiet sound—half relief, half hunger—and it nearly undid Alex. His whole body hummed, lit from the inside out, like something dormant had just remembered how to feel.

When they finally broke apart, foreheads pressed together, breath mingling, neither of them spoke right away.

It was the first kiss of their lives as free men.

And it tasted like promise.

Chapter Text

The sun was still low in the sky, casting a soft, peach glow across the valley as Alex drove another stone into the wall with the heel of his hand. The rocks were rough, uneven, and the mortar they'd mixed from ash, sand, and spit-dry cement wasn’t setting evenly in the cold late winter air, but the wall was beginning to look like a wall again. Not a ruin, not the aftermath of artillery — a wall. Something solid. Something that said home. His hair was tied back with a strip of old linen, curls more unruly than ever now that there was no regulation army barber to tame them.

Henry crouched nearby, sleeves rolled up past the elbows, drying mortar streaked along his forearms and under his nails to mark a full morning’s work.

“I think it’s slanted,” Alex said, squinting at the row of stone they’d just added.

Henry looked up from where he was mixing more mortar in a rusted tin basin. “It’s rustic,” he replied, as if that explained everything.

“It’s going to fall on us.”

“Not if we sleep in the other house.”

Alex leaned back and looked over his shoulder at the second structure. It stood a few meters away, connected only by a patch of worn earth where they sometimes laid out laundry on stones to dry. Smaller, with a better roof but a cracked window and no working fireplace. They’d fixed it up just enough to pass as occupied — blankets thrown on the bed, an oil lamp by the door, a few pots on the shelves, filled with nothing.

Plausible deniability.

Just two men, staying nearby. Just neighbours. Nothing strange about that.

After a winter spent squatting in empty houses, too close to humans for comfort, too easily spotted to ever feel at peace when they went to sleep in borrowed beds and borrowed sheets, they’d wandered about to find something more secluded. They’d found it on a late winter afternoon, sheltered between a barely travelled road and a grove of trees, more crumbled than standing, but perfect.

He turned back to the wall and ran his fingers along the seam of stone and fresh mortar. “Think anyone’ll come asking questions?”

“If they do, I’ll charm them,” Henry said with that same wry grin he wore in foxholes and bloodied fields. “Tell them you’re my simple cousin. Took a blow to the head in Naples. Doesn’t speak much anymore.”

Alex gave him a sharp look. “I speak just fine.”

Henry shrugged, completely unrepentant. “Only complete nonsense most of the time.”

They kept working, trading tools and quiet barbs, occasionally wiping sweat from their brows with dust-caked sleeves. They could have finished it in days if they had wanted to, but there was something about taking their time and being human about it that was needed to shed the thoughts of war. The longer it took, the farther away the fighting was, the more they could imagine something else taking its place.

The midday sun was warming now, and the birds had returned to the trees above them, calling and rustling like a symphony they hadn’t heard in months.

“I was friends with Mary Astell, you know,” Henry said suddenly, like they hadn’t spent the last few hours in silence.

Alex blinked. “Who?”

Henry smiled faintly. “Mary Astell. Brilliant woman. One of the first English feminists, though we didn’t call it that at the time. Clever as all hell. She had no patience for men unless they listened properly. I adored her.”

Alex raised an eyebrow. It felt like such a weird thing to say right now, but Henry sometimes did it. Like a toddler, testing the limits of what it means to let someone in.

Alex never missed an opportunity to learn more about Henry before they met. “You? Friends with a woman? In public?”

“I wasn’t always skulking in the shadows, love,” Henry said, laughing softly. “In 1700s London, I had a townhouse and a name people remembered. I could go to parties, salons. Mary and I met at a small literary gathering in Chelsea. She was holding court among a bunch of powdered fools who were trying to silence her. I remember thinking she could dismantle a man with a raised eyebrow.”

“And she let you stick around?”

“I listened.” Henry shrugged, his smile gone wistful. “That’s all they wanted, most of them. Someone who took them seriously. God knows the 1750s weren’t easy on women.”

“They’re so much better now,” Alex interjected, voice dripping with sarcasm. Henry ignored him.

“If you had ideas—real ideas—you either married them into silence or argued your way into obscurity. We started gathering in secret. I helped her find like-minded women. Called ourselves the Blue Stockings Society. Mostly a joke at first. Then it stuck.”

Alex leaned back on his palms, eyes narrowed. “You’re telling me you just hung around a bunch of smart, opinionated women for the fun of it? God, you’re queer queer.”

“They were a pleasure to be around.” Henry turned toward him, expression soft. “No need for masks. No posturing. Just honesty. It was rare, even then.”

Alex snorted, imagining the group of women… and Henry. “So how old does that make you, exactly?”

Henry tilted his head, the sunlight dancing in his pale hair. “Old enough to remember powdered wigs and corsets. Young enough to still want you.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“No,” Henry said, grinning. “It isn’t.”

They lapsed into quiet again for the next few hours before calling it a day and moving into their house.

Alex poked the low embers, shifting them until the fire cracked and started roaring. Outside, the hills of Muro Lucano were black and still.

The quiet had taken getting used to. At first, it made Alex twitchy, like the distant silence was waiting to explode with gunfire. But now it was different. Now it settled in his bones.

“We need to fix up the other house properly,” Alex said.

Inside the main house — their house — there was barely enough to live on. There was no stove, just a stone hearth where he liked to light a fire at night. A few scavenged chairs. A cot pushed against one wall, a second laid out on the floor beside it.

“Always willing to work on a home,” Henry straightened, stretching his back until it cracked, then looked at Alex, “But everything I want’s in this one.”

Alex didn’t respond at first. He just looked at him — at the smudge of white dust on Henry’s cheekbone, the fire catching the edge of his profile, the way his eyes had softened since they’d escaped the constant bombing.

It felt like they were still holding their breath, still unsure how long they had. But for now, the wall was rising. The house was holding. And Henry was right there, the same man who'd run through fire beside him, now wrestling stones with him like it was all he’d ever done.

Alex brushed his fingers against Henry’s wrist. “Still,” he said quietly, “we should keep it looking lived in.”

Their hands lingered, frozen in the fear of freedom. Without anything holding them back, they only had themselves to rely on, and Alex, for one, was terrified of what it all meant.

“As long as we don’t go into the village, they won’t bother us. War makes people keep to themselves, and it’s the people that are always the problem.”

Alex smirked. “We could do that,” he said, not intending to follow through.

Henry chuckled. “God, I love domestic bliss.”

Alex didn’t say it, but he did too. Even here, among broken walls and half-starved cats that passed by their door every morning, begging for whatever scraps they had to share.

Even if it wouldn’t last forever, even if what they were building was crooked, he’d figured they’d earned this.

~*~

Muro Lucano, Italy
Sometime in the summer 1943

June,

Hey. I know it’s been a while, and I’m sorry for that. Things got… messy for a long time. But I’m writing now to tell you that I’m safe. Henry is, too.

We’re in Italy. Muro Lucano. It’s this quiet town tucked into the hills that looks like it’s been carved out of the mountain itself. Not too many people around. The young ones are off to war, and the old ones don’t take kindly to strangers. We’re keeping our heads down. And so far, no one’s given us trouble. No questions. They just let us be.

I don’t think we’ll leave. Not for a while, anyway. The war’s still going, but I’ve done enough of it, and I’m done watching him bleed. So we’re here, lying low, and I plan to stay put until it’s all over. I hope that’s soon.

How are you? How’s LA treating you? Are you still sneaking into clubs with Nora and pretending you’re younger than you are? Tell Bea I said hi and that I’ll send a postcard if I find one without Mussolini’s face on it.

This place is something else, June. It’s gorgeous. Olive trees, flowers that grow out of cracks in stone, little streets that go nowhere but always give you a view. We’ve set up in this old house just outside town—two buildings, which works for appearances. We’ve been fixing it up ourselves. Hard work, but it keeps us steady. Keeps our hands busy.

Henry’s been here before. Years ago. He tells me stories about every hill and town square we visit. Ancient empires and crumbling castles. He knows the shape of this country like it’s part of him. I listen, mostly. Sometimes I ask questions just so he’ll keep talking.

I want to bring you here. After the war. I want you to see it. I want you and the girls to stay a while and sit out on the hills and feel like everything ugly is far, far away. I think you’d like the quiet. And I think you’d like seeing me happy, because I am. I really am.

Write me back if you can. I’ll try to find a place that doesn’t mind receiving letters from ghosts.

Take care of yourself. Stay safe.

Love you.

 
—Alex

~*~

The bucket hit the ground with a hollow thud, the splash of water still echoing in the early evening air. Alex ran a hand through his dripping hair, his head tilted back, as the cold of the well-water chased away the heat and dust clinging to his skin. The rivulets streamed down his neck, soaking the front of his shirt, making it cling to his chest and stomach in dark, transparent patches.

Henry had been stacking stones into a pile for later use, but his hands had gone still.

He stood across the yard, gaze locked on Alex like he’d forgotten how to breathe. The sunlight caught in the wet on Alex’s skin, turning each drop into liquid amber. His chest rose and fell slowly, water slipping down his ribs and into the waistband of his trousers.

“Jesus,” Henry muttered, voice hoarse and too quiet for anyone but Alex to hear.

Alex looked over, caught the stare. For a beat, neither of them moved.

Then Alex straightened, his hand dragging down the side of his neck to wipe away the excess of everything he’d been holding back. He didn't break eye contact.

“I’ve been good,” he said, voice low but steady. “I’ve been real good. Because I didn’t know how to start this.”

Henry didn’t move, but his fingers flexed, jaw tightening.

“But I want to kiss you very, very badly. And I want…” Alex drifted off, catching himself before uttering everything he wanted from Henry.

The tension in the air shifted, tightened, coiled into something nearly physical.

Henry’s tongue darted across his bottom lip, slow, almost absentminded. “You think you need to start something?” he said, like the words were being pulled from somewhere deep in his chest. “You think it hasn’t already started?”

Alex took a step closer, drops still trailing from his hair onto his shoulders. The heat between them had nothing to do with the sun anymore.

“I don’t want to scare you off,” Alex said, quiet now. There was no point in keeping up a calm and collected appearance when the past few months had done nothing but build up want in him. “Didn’t want to screw it up by rushing.”

“You think you could scare me?” Henry’s voice was barely above a whisper.

Alex smiled, small and a little nervous. “No,” he admitted. He knew Henry could be the monster in other monsters’ nightmares. “I think I could lose you.”

Henry closed the distance in two strides, mud on his boots, hands streaked with dust and lime from the wall, and then he reached up and curled his fingers into the wet fabric of Alex’s shirt, pulling him forward.

The kiss wasn’t soft. It wasn’t tentative. It was months of fire held too tightly under skin and teeth and silence, breaking free all at once.

Henry tasted like salt and sweat and the herbs they’d grown in their garden. His hands moved around Alex’s back, gripping like he was anchoring himself to solid ground for the first time in days. Weeks. Maybe longer.

Alex groaned softly against his mouth, one hand sliding into Henry’s hair, still dusty, still damp. His other hand found Henry’s hip and held him there, thumb dragging a slow arc against his side.

When they finally pulled apart, breath short and lips red, Henry leaned his forehead against Alex’s and just breathed.

They stood there for a moment longer, wrapped in each other, soaked shirt pressed against dusty skin, the countryside around them humming with life, but blissfully unaware. The war was miles behind them now, and for the first time in what felt like forever, there wasn’t anything else demanding their attention.

Just the smell of stone and earth. Just the warmth of a shared body. Just the quiet, slow breath of something blooming between them.

Henry’s hands were still on Alex’s hips, his breath steadying, though his eyes were far from calm. The kiss had left a charge in the air, something that felt like a spark after a long dry season, the kind that could burn down everything in its path if they weren’t careful.

Henry smiled softly, thumb brushing the hem of Alex’s soaked shirt, delaying Alex’s hopes. “Let’s take it slow.”

Alex tilted his head, teasing grin already forming. “Slow like… walk-through-the-fields-and-hold-hands slow, or slow like write-me-a-sonnet-before-I-get-to-see-you-naked slow?”

Henry chuckled, and the heat of his breath bounced off of Alex’s skin, and there was nothing in the world more maddening than having him so close but still not able to have him. “Slow like... I don’t want to miss any of it. I want the whole thing. Every look, every word, every stupid, lovesick moment. I want to live through all of it with you.”

Alex leaned back just enough to see his face, genuinely surprised. There was no mockery in Henry’s eyes—only that steady, old kind of love that made you believe someone like him had seen the world ten times over and still wanted to start again with you.

It did nothing to still the pounding in Alex’s chest.

“Damn,” Alex said, kissing Henry again before gathering the strength to pull away and say. “I guess I’m gonna have to start wooing you proper.”

Henry let out a soft laugh, a bit breathless. “We can skip the flowers and candlelit dinners, maybe. But the rest? I’d like to earn it. Every bit of it.”

Alex was quiet for a second, the teasing fading into something more settled. “You know,” he said slowly, “I don’t think I’ll be able to fall asleep anymore without hearing you breathe nearby.”

Henry looked up, surprised at the sudden shift in tone.

“So,” Alex added, “how about we start with sleeping in the same bed?”

There was a beat—Henry’s brows lifted slightly.

“I mean it,” Alex said, hand sliding down Henry’s arm and stopping just above his wrist. “Sleep. Like, actually sleep. Just—next to you. That okay?”

Henry studied him, then gave a slow, warm nod. “Yeah,” he murmured. “I’d like that.”

Alex grinned. “You sure you won’t regret it when I steal the blanket?”

“I’ve survived worse.”

They both laughed, the tension breaking into something easier, something that Alex would dare to have christened ‘their rhythm’. The sun had dipped lower, painting everything gold. Around them, the countryside felt still. Safe. For once, it felt like time was theirs.

Hand in hand, their hair still dripping, they walked up the hill from the lake they’d entered, making their way toward the house. The day’s heat clung to their skin, and dust was in their boots, but their hearts were lighter. There was nothing urgent about it—just a sense of quiet promise, like two people settling into the first true night of the rest of their lives.

The late afternoon light filtered in, warm and honeyed through the open windows of the small living room, spilling across the uneven terracotta. Outside, the hills rolled lazy and green beneath a sky beginning to blush toward sunset. A soft breeze carried in the scent of herbs from their garden—rosemary and sage and the sharpness of crushed tomato vines. Inside, everything was still.

Alex and Henry sat tangled together on the faded sofa pushed up against the back wall, just beneath the largest window. A newly scavenged decoration that they were making good use of.

Alex’s legs were draped over Henry’s lap, his socked foot lazily bobbing in time with the creak of the shutters as they shifted slightly in the breeze. A half-empty mug of strong, too-bitter Italian coffee rested in Alex’s hand, steam curling up into the air. Henry had one arm around Alex’s knee and a book propped up on the other. It was an old paperback, pages yellowed and creased, the title too faded to make out from the cover alone. The inside, however, was unmistakably Italian—and not beginner-friendly.

Henry squinted at a particularly tangled paragraph. “I’m fairly certain this sentence just called me a donkey,” he muttered.

Alex smirked into his coffee. “Depends on the context. It could’ve called you a mule.”

“Ah. Comforting.”

Alex leaned over to peer at the page. “You're skipping half the words.”

“That’s because my Italian is approximately eighty years out of date.”

“Then it’s time for a tune-up.”

Henry gave him a mock glare. “You don’t have to suffer through this with me, you know.”

Alex shrugged. “We’re in Italy. I might as well lose the Texas drawl—don’t think it pairs well with pasta and poetry.”

Henry snorted, resting the book down on Alex’s thigh and giving it a light pat. “You’ll always sound like a cowboy, no matter how many tenses you conjugate.”

Alex raised an eyebrow. “And you’ll always sound like a pretentious Oxford ghost, so I think we’re even.”

“I am not pretentious.”

“You corrected that store clerk’s pronunciation yesterday.”

“I was helping!”

“You ordered wine with a Shakespeare monologue.”

“That’s because wine should be ordered with reverence.”

Alex laughed, tipping his head back and resting it against Henry’s shoulder. “God, you’re exhausting.”

Henry smiled into Alex’s temple, brushing a thumb against the inside of his knee where it rested in his lap. “You love it.”

“I do,” Alex said it so quietly that it almost got lost in the creak of the house settling around them. But Henry heard it. Of course he did.

They sat there for a moment longer, the only sound the rustle of a few pages turning and the soft slurp of Alex finishing off his coffee. The hills outside deepened to a dusky blue. Somewhere in the distance, a church bell tolled six times, echoing down the valley.

Henry closed the book with a sigh and leaned his head back. “Maybe we can find a teacher in the village. Or a child. They’re ruthless tutors,” he said, as if they would willingly spend more time with humans than was necessary.

He sold his baked goods in the village, made money for clothes and building material, allowed himself the indulgence of a glass of wine for concept more than utility and then he headed home. Alex, in turn, would do the same in the village nearby. They rarely appeared together, because people didn’t need to know, and they shouldn’t start talking.

“Let’s start with that,” Alex said. “Then maybe we work our way up to you ordering wine without turning it into a one-man play.”

Henry grinned. “You’re asking too much.”

Alex set the empty mug on the windowsill beside them and turned into Henry’s side, arms wrapping lazily around his middle. “Then it’s a good thing I’ve got time.”

Henry looked down at him—messy curls, sun-warmed skin, mouth curved in a tired, happy sort of way—and nodded.

“Yeah,” he murmured. “It really is.”

The air in the house had gone still, thick with the quiet of nightfall. Crickets chirped beyond the stone walls, and the wind rustled through the fig trees outside the bedroom window. A candle burned low on the dresser, casting soft, flickering shadows over the modest room. The cot—battered wood frame, uneven mattress, patchwork quilt—took up most of the space, and the two men hovering awkwardly on either side of it looked more like schoolboys at summer camp than the blood-soaked immortals they were.

Alex ran a hand through his hair, restless and unsure, watching Henry fidget with the edge of the sheet like he was debating whether or not to dive beneath it or bolt for the hills.

"This is ridiculous," Alex muttered, grinning in spite of himself. "We’re like a pair of blushing brides. Doesn't quite match the amount of murders we’ve got going between us.”

Henry snorted softly, eyes flicking up. “Murder I know how to do. You’re a different puzzle altogether.”

“You really know how to sweet-talk a guy before bed.”

Henry smirked, but there was a tension in his shoulders, a stiffness in the way he moved. He walked to the far side of the bed, peeled back the covers, and sat down with more ceremony than necessary. Slowly, he lay back, shifting to one side, and turned toward Alex. The candlelight made his eyes look softer than usual, shadows filling the hollows beneath his cheekbones. He held the quilt open.

“Well?” he said, low and steady. “Coming to bed, darling?”

Alex rolled his eyes, but his heart gave a strange little lurch.

He padded over barefoot, pausing at the edge of the bed. “Just so we’re clear—I like to be the big spoon.”

Henry’s brows rose. “Tough luck. I’m older, I get seniority. Now shut up and let yourself be held.”

Alex huffed a breath that was dangerously close to a laugh and slid under the covers. The bed creaked as he shifted closer until Henry’s arms wrapped around him from behind—one slipping beneath his head, the other curling around his chest with an ease that felt both foreign and devastating.

Henry was warm. That was the first thing Alex noticed. He was warm and solid and somehow both comforting and terrifying all at once. The intimacy of it, the sheer vulnerability—it hit him all at once like a freight train. He’d had people in his bed before, but not like this. Not where every inch of him felt seen. Not where stillness and silence felt heavier than noise. Not where he could hear someone else’s heartbeat so close to his own.

He swallowed hard, tried not to let it show, but his breathing gave him away.

Henry didn’t say anything. He just held him tighter.

Alex exhaled, shaky and soft, and let his head rest back against Henry’s shoulder. He couldn't remember the last time someone had kept him so close. Not like this. Not with care.

The candle burned lower. The shadows on the wall shifted like they were pulling guard.

And in the dark, Alex finally let himself sleep.

~*~

The morning light was faint, just beginning to trickle through the shuttered windows in long, golden lines that cut across the stone floor. Dust swirled gently in the glow, undisturbed. The quiet hum of rural Italy—the distant crow of a rooster, the soft rustle of leaves in the wind—filled the air, slow and calm. Peaceful.

Alex lay still on the creaky mattress, the old quilt bunched at their waists, his eyes wide open and fixed on the wooden beams above. Henry’s head rested on his chest, light hair a tousled mess, lips slightly parted, breath warm against Alex’s skin. His weight was reassuring, heavy in a way that felt anchoring.

Alex didn’t dare move. Not because he couldn’t—he could roll out from under Henry if he needed to—but because part of him was terrified that the moment might vanish if he did. Like some delicate spell that would shatter with a single shift.

But his mind… his mind was far from still.

Keep him safe.
The thought looped over and over in his head like a mantra, low and steady, a quiet pulse just beneath his ribs. Keep him safe. Keep him hidden. Keep him yours.

They were out. They’d made it. No more officers barking orders, no more maps or missions or body counts to wake to. But the world outside their little house hadn’t stopped burning. The war still raged, even if the hills outside their window didn’t show it. And Henry—Henry with his pale skin and English tongue and ridiculous insistence on taking strolls like a damn poet—was a walking target in a country barely held together by fear and blood and suspicion.

Alex's eyes traced the faint outline of Henry's shoulder where the sheet didn't quite cover it. The scars there—ancient and fresh—felt like they told a story he still hadn't heard all of. Would he ever? Did he want to?

How do I keep him safe if he won’t hide?

Alex exhaled silently. His fingers, careful not to move, itched to reach for a pen. He needed to write to June. He needed to tell her everything—that he was alive, that he’d left, that he was staying. That this place wasn’t just a hideout, it might be a home. That he wasn’t coming back. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

She’d understand. Or at least, she’d want to.

He thought about the town, about learning the language, about how American he sounded with every clipped consonant. The drawl he hadn’t even realized he’d carried with him across an ocean and into hell. He’d need to smooth it out, round off the edges, learn to disappear into the crowd.

Would getting a job even make sense?

He wasn't sure. Maybe if they stayed long enough. Maybe if they stopped running. But could they? Could he?

They were still in occupied territory and patrols still passed through the countryside. People still talked. Strangers still raised suspicions. Two men, living alone on the outskirts, far from family, with foreign accents?

We don’t need more attention.

He looked down again at Henry’s hair, gently rising and falling with every breath. Too light. Too fine. It would take a miracle to make Henry blend in.

And what if someone came looking? Not from the Army—no one cared enough to look for two ghosts in the Italian hills—but someone else. Locals. Soldiers. Partisans. Nazis. He couldn’t risk it. Couldn’t risk Henry.

But even thinking that made him feel like a monster. Could he ask Henry to hide, to silence himself for the sake of safety? Would Henry see that as protection, or a prison?

Alex swallowed hard, throat tight with the weight of all the questions he couldn’t answer. His chest rose, just a little. Henry stirred against him, murmured something unintelligible, and nuzzled closer.

Alex closed his eyes for a moment and let himself feel it—really feel it—that weight, that warmth, that impossible comfort.

He wanted this.
He wanted him.

And he'd burn the world down to keep him.

~*~

Los Angeles, California

Alex,

Well, well, well. Look who decided to stop being a ghost and actually write his sister.

First of all—thank God you're safe. And with Henry. I read your letter three times before I let myself breathe properly. I showed Nora and Bea, and they both just sort of stared off into the distance like you were a radio broadcast from another planet. You might as well be. Italy! A mountaintop town! Manual labour! Alex, you used to complain about hauling dinner up the stairs. And now you’re rebuilding stone walls like some kind of wartime domestic icon. The baby brother I knew is gone.

I wish you'd take me with you... I’m still caught in the glittering teeth of the propaganda machine. Hollywood’s churning out war films like they’re candy bars. I can’t keep up with the number of requests for army uniforms. Realistic cuts, they say, like any of those pretty boys know what sweat smells like.

If you can find a cinema tucked somewhere in your picturesque little hillside, go see Sahara. It’s my only reference to what you must have gone through, because they sure as hell aren’t showing us the reality of it all. Even I know that Humphrey Bogart with his shirt open and defying death in the desert isn’t the representation you’d be keen to see, but maybe it’ll bring out a laugh?

It’s good to hear that you’re holding onto something good. That you have each other. I can’t say it fully makes sense to me, staying out there, pretending to be shadows—but I understand it. I do. You’ve fought enough. If this is your peace, then stay in it. We can wait.

Tell Henry Bea is going to write him next and yell at him for not writing first. I’ll yell at him for stealing you away. Then I’ll thank him for keeping you alive. All in the same breath, probably.

I miss you like hell. Write again. As soon as you can. I want to hear more about these olive trees and your humble Italian domestic bliss. I want to hear Henry complain about how you probably leave coffee grounds in the sink.

With all the love in the world.
June

Chapter Text

They fell into rhythm the way people do when the world outside stops pressing in on every side. Quiet, slow, and without the need for spoken agreement.

Each morning began the same. Before the sun fully crested over the hills, with dew still clinging to the grass and the stones cold underfoot, Alex rose. Sometimes Henry stirred when he did, sometimes not, but the routine was steady. The soft rustle of worn clothes pulled on in the dim light, the clink of metal on ceramic as Alex prepared coffee for himself and tea for Henry, both brewed over the old iron stove that hissed and groaned like it was trying to stay alive just a little longer.

By the time the first streaks of pale orange brushed over the valley, Alex would step out the front door with two chipped mugs in hand, steam rising into the crisp morning air. Henry would be there already if he weren’t still tangled in the sheets, dragged from bed by the promise of warmth and company. They’d sit on the low stone ledge that framed the front of the house, shoulder to shoulder, the sleepy haze still clinging to their limbs.

Without fail, Alex would set the mugs down between them for a moment and reach for Henry’s hand.

It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t even romantic in the way books wrote about romance. There were no confessions, no desperate declarations. Just the quiet insistence that this, this space between them, this simple act of connection, mattered to Alex more than he could put into words.

Sometimes Henry teased him about it, rolling his eyes as if to say you’re being sentimental again. Sometimes he resisted, only to let Alex find his fingers anyway, winding them together with a sigh and a shake of his head. But most mornings, he offered his hand before Alex even reached.

They drank like that, in silence or with half-muttered comments about the chill, or the way the fog hung low in the olive groves. The scent of rosemary wafted in from the patch they’d coaxed back to life beside the porch. A bird or two might call out, and Henry would occasionally try to name them, even when he was wrong. Alex would smile behind his coffee.

In those moments, the war felt like a rumour. The world they’d left behind was a memory with softened edges.

Alex liked that.

He liked the stillness. He liked the weight of Henry’s hand in his. He liked that no matter what dreams had come in the night—whether they were good or the kind that left a man breathless and shaking—this was how the day began.

With warmth.

With quiet.

With Henry.

By the time the sun climbed high enough to burn away the last mist over the hills, they had already gone their separate ways—each tending to a different kind of survival.

Henry, with his sleeves rolled to the elbows and a wide-brimmed hat someone had left behind in the house years ago, crouched in the patch of land behind their small stone home. The soil was rocky in places, stubborn in others, but he was patient. He worked with a steady rhythm, digging out roots and weeds, turning over the earth, coaxing life from it. His plan wasn’t small. He wanted tomatoes and basil, peppers and wild greens. He talked about figs and grapes like they were already growing, and kept muttering about whether the rosemary had enough sun or the onions were spaced correctly. They weren’t going to eat most of it, but the intoxicatingly sweet smell alone made it worth the effort.

There was a peace in it that Alex liked seeing. A softness to Henry's movements, so different from the soldier he’d been, from the creature that fed on blood and carried centuries behind his eyes. Here, he was just a man covered in dirt, swearing under his breath when a stone chipped his trowel, humming when a beetle landed on his knee and just stayed.

Alex left shortly after their would-be breakfast, armed with nothing more than a worn map he was filling in himself, and that ever-present sharpness in his gaze.

He wasn’t looking for trouble. He was just making sure he’d know if it ever found them.

He moved like a ghost through the hills, memorising the terrain, noting which paths were well-worn and which were newly cut. He counted livestock in pastures, watched the rhythms of shepherds and farmers, and waved at children when he had to. He studied the way the sun hit the rooftops of the nearby village, how sound travelled in the valley, where a man could hide for an hour or a day.

He knew where the nearest water source was. He marked houses that looked unoccupied, barns that might be useful in an emergency. He took note of who came and went on the single road that wound down from Muro Lucano.

He learned faces. Names. Who had sons at war, who kept to themselves, who smiled too easily, who watched him too closely. It was all filed away—neatly, carefully. A map built not just of geography but of possibility.

It wasn’t paranoia. It was preparedness.

They were safe for now, but Alex knew better than to count on that lasting forever. The war was still tearing its way across the continent, and deserters—even if they looked like harmless men tucked into a quiet hillside—didn’t always get to live out quiet lives.

By midday, the sun was blazing, and he found himself at the edge of a small orchard, resting in the shade of a crooked olive tree. He watched a hawk circle overhead, and for a moment, let his thoughts drift to Henry. To the man with dirt under his nails and a stubborn streak a mile wide, who somehow believed in a future with roots, vines, and hand-built garden walls.

They were building something here. Slowly, quietly.

And Alex would know every inch of the land around it to keep it safe.

~*~

In the soft golden haze of late afternoon, the warm light spilt through the crooked windows of their hillside home, catching on Henry’s hair as he leaned over a battered book open on the kitchen table. Alex sat across from him, brow furrowed, squinting at the looping, melodic language etched into the yellowed page.

“Repeat it,” Henry said gently, tapping a line of text with one flour-dusted finger. “Vorrei un bicchiere d’acqua.”

Alex mimicked the phrase with a thick, slow drawl, mangling the vowels. “Vor-ray... un bich-kee-air... dack-wa.”

Henry snorted, turning from the table to knead the focaccia dough resting in a wide ceramic bowl near the stove. “Close. Try it again, slower. No one’s going to shoot you for sounding like a Texan, but you’ll scare the language right off the page.”

“I’m tryin’, professor,” Alex said, feigning offence as he leaned back in his chair, arms folded. “Maybe I just need a better incentive.”

Henry turned his head slightly, a smear of olive oil glinting on his wrist. “You’ve had plenty of incentives. Your accent’s just terrible.”

“Harsh,” Alex muttered, but he smiled through it, watching as Henry pressed his fingers into the soft, elastic dough with the ease of someone who’d done it hundreds of times before. “Alright. One more time.”

Henry wiped his hands on a tea towel tucked into the waistband of his pants and returned to the table, leaning close again, voice low and lilting. “Vorrei un bicchiere d’acqua.”

Alex’s eyes flicked from Henry’s lips to the phrase on the page. “Vorrei... un bicchiere d’acqua,” he repeated, more deliberate this time.

“There you go.” Henry gave him a quick, approving smile before moving back to the counter. He dimpled the dough with his fingertips, then drizzled olive oil across the top. The scent of rosemary and crushed garlic wafted up from the small mixing bowl beside him.

Alex watched from his seat, the corner of his mouth twitching upward. “You always this domestic when you’re teaching?”

“Only for hopeless students,” Henry said, tossing a few cherry tomatoes into the dough like punctuation. “Keeps my hands busy so I don’t throttle them.”

“You’re very charming when you’re smug,” Alex replied, standing now to join him at the counter. He plucked a sliver of rosemary from the bowl and rolled it between his fingers. “How long’s this got to rise?”

“It doesn’t. It’s why I’m giving you 15 minutes,” Henry said, glancing up as Alex came to stand beside him. “Then we bake. You’re not getting out of conjugating verbs just because I’m busy making money for us.”

Alex smirked. “You say that like food isn’t your most effective teaching method.”

Henry pressed the dough into its tray, covering it gently with a cloth. “I say that because you retain grammar best when it’s served with protein. Of the raw, red kind.”

Alex reached past him, brushing their arms, and stole a tomato from the bowl. “You’re not wrong.”

Henry didn’t move away. He looked at Alex, just for a moment longer than necessary, before returning to the book still open on the table. “Alright, back to work. Page thirty. Let’s see if you can survive the past tense.”

Alex sighed theatrically but followed him, snagging the chair closest to Henry this time. The kitchen filled with the sounds of conjugated verbs, quiet laughter, and the soft thrum of the eternal back and forth between them.

The lesson stretched for another hour, interrupted only by the occasional pause to insert and extricate the focaccia from the oven and maybe to sip tea. Henry’s fingers brushed lazily across the back of Alex’s hand, and the olive trees rustled outside.

When the last of the daylight faded and the air cooled, a hush settled over their hill. That’s when the hunger stirred.

They dressed in dark clothes. Alex tugged on his boots, watching Henry lace up beside him. They slipped into the dusk like they belonged to it, shadows flitting through the trees, leaping down rocky slopes with inhuman grace.

Henry delivered his order, knew the money would wait for him in the morning, and followed Alex into the night.

They ran for miles, beyond the reaches of any town that might come looking, deep into valleys where the war barely whispered anymore. Villages with poor roads, no electricity. Places where a stranger's disappearance might pass without too many questions.

They found a man walking alone down a dirt path, old enough to be alone without being missed quickly. It was fast. Alex held him firm, and Henry drank cleanly. No mess. No lingering.

They didn’t feed greedily anymore. They couldn't afford to. One life a week—that was their limit. Enough to survive, not enough to cause alarm. When Henry pulled back, wiping the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, his colour had returned, eyes cleared.

Alex stepped in without needing to be asked. He finished the job, ripped thin slabs of meat to store for the morning, and then he buried the body beneath loose stones. Henry stood watch, silhouetted against the moonlight, every line of his frame tense and quiet.

They ran back together in silence, the hills rushing by, cool wind brushing against their skin like the night itself approved of their presence.

When their home came into view again, Alex slowed. Henry matched his pace. Their fingers brushed, then tangled, the only sound their steady breaths in the dark. They were monsters, maybe. But they were monsters with each other.

The days were slow, sun-drenched, and filled with an intimacy neither of them had ever had the luxury of before. Between rebuilding stone walls and weeding rows of sprouting vegetables, there were quiet moments where Alex dared to press closer.

A brush of fingers at the small of Henry’s back as he leaned over the garden. A kiss pressed to the curve of his shoulder while they shared a blanket on the small sofa in the evening, the radio crackling soft music in another room. Alex didn’t say anything about it, just let those gestures linger—little claims staked over time, nothing rushed, nothing pushed. Henry would respond in kind, firm hands settling on Alex’s hips when he passed behind him in the kitchen, holding him there for a second longer than necessary. A murmur in Italian against his collarbone. A lingering look over coffee.

It was slow, careful. Their rhythm wasn’t built on urgency but on understanding. They had all the time in the world now, and neither of them wanted to waste it by fumbling through something too fast, too reckless. But desire was a quiet thing between them, patient and coiled, waiting for its moment.

That moment came quietly, without any grand declaration on a random day in a random week.

The fire in the hearth had burned low. Rain tapped lightly on the windows. Alex sat sunk into the couch cushions in their living room, arms stretched across the backrest, a blanket pooled in his lap, a book ignored on the table beside him. He’d been thinking of Henry all day—the closeness, the pull of him, the weight of being near someone who made the world feel less monstrous.

Henry came into the room barefoot, hair still damp from the makeshift shower he’d insisted on self-rigging outside their home, wearing a worn shirt and sleep pants that hung a little too low on his hips. Without a word, he walked over and gently climbed into Alex’s lap, settling across his thighs with a soft sigh. His hands found Alex’s shoulders. His head dropped to rest against Alex’s temple.

It was only after a long breath that they both realised how they were sitting. The air stilled. Henry hadn’t meant to straddle him—at least, not consciously—but now that he had, he didn’t move.

Alex didn’t either.

His hands lifted slowly, settling on Henry’s hips. His heart thudded heavily in his chest. Henry’s breath caught.

Then Alex leaned up and kissed him.

It wasn’t the drunken stumble it had been their first time. It wasn’t steeped in paralysing fear like the second. No, after many days to practice, time after time of it starting easily and stopping frustratingly just at the edge of his want, it had turned into something deep and slow. A dragging kind of kiss that carried months of restraint and want that Alex prayed Henry would see. When Henry let himself melt into it, his hands tangling in Alex’s hair, holding on like he was afraid the moment might pass if he let go, Alex allowed himself to hope.

Alex tilted his head, pulling Henry closer, and their bodies slotted together like puzzle pieces long overdue to meet.

The rain kept falling, the fire gave off a low heat, and in their small, stolen home, the space between them vanished completely.

Henry’s breath was warm against Alex’s lips when the kiss broke, both of them hovering there in the charged quiet, foreheads nearly touching. The firelight played off the sharp line of Henry’s jaw, his flushed cheeks, the stormy eyes that were fixed entirely on Alex. There was a weight in the air that dragged on both of them.

“I want to touch you,” Alex whispered, voice rough and low, teetering on the edge of pleading. “It doesn’t have to be much. I just... I want to feel you.”

Henry’s eyes flickered, something tender and knowing sparking behind them. He gave the smallest nod. “Okay.”

Such a small word to bring Alex to the brink.

It was quiet, but not still. The fire crackled softly in the hearth. Outside, the wind rustled through the trees. Inside, only breath and heartbeats were heard.

Alex peeled off Henry’s shirt as if it were something sacred, revealing pale skin and the scars that lined it—marks of war, of years survived. His hands hovered a moment before settling on Henry’s chest, warm and firm under his palm. He felt the quick beat of Henry’s heart. It matched his own.

Henry’s fingers found the hem of Alex’s undershirt and pushed it up, palms skimming over taut muscle and faded bruises.

Neither of them looked away.

“Can we take this to the bed?” Alex asked, forcing himself to speak in a slow, deliberate tone. Gone was the smooth talker that charmed his prey with fast witty retorts. Henry had reduced him to a quivering, hopeless mess, a blushing schoolboy allowed a glimpse of something he’d dreamt about for years.

Henry nodded and pulled him into another kiss. Alex swallowed down a groan and laced his arms around Henry’s hips, gripping him tight before lifting him off the sofa and walking them towards the bed.

When Alex’s shins hit the edge of the bed, he leaned down and placed Henry on the rough woollen sheets. The bed frame groaned under his weight, but Henry didn’t wait for it to settle—he just reached for Alex, fingers curling at his thighs to pull him down, drawing him close until their bodies settled into place, limbs folding together like they’d always been meant to find this shape.

The firelight flickered, painting gold against bare skin, and for a long, still moment, they simply looked at each other—chests pressed close, the warmth between them building, aware that this was crossing some kind of threshold that would tip them into uncharted territory.

But everything was uncharted territory with Henry, Alex thought as he dipped down and bit into Henry’s bottom lip. He drew blood and a moan, and Henry’s hands wrapped around his shoulders, pulling him down, and it was too much to take in. It was too much to process. Alex needed to move, or he’d go insane with the sensation of it all. He kicked off his pants with little grace, ripped them off of Henry until he could feel all of him, naked and willing and inhumanly gorgeous in the dim light.

He tore a gash in his palm, watched the red liquid coat it, watched Henry’s pupils glow red at the sight of it and bit back a cocky grin.

He didn’t know much, but he knew how to get Henry’s attention, and he let his palm drip a crimson trail along the length of Henry’s lips before his hand slid between them, slow and deliberate, wrapping around them both with a careful, confident grip. Henry’s breath stuttered out in a gasp that spilt against Alex’s collarbone. His hips jerked forward reflexively, already seeking more. Alex pressed his forehead to Henry’s, eyes fluttering shut as he began to move, measured strokes, steady and grounding. He needed it to be good for Henry. He needed to watch Henry writhe beneath him, needed to see how he came apart.

Each movement was a confession, quiet and intimate. I see you. I want you. I’ve waited so long for you.

Henry’s hands clutched at Alex’s shoulders, his body tense and trembling as he tried to keep himself together and failed. The small choked out gasps at the end of every stroke made Alex go insane. Henry buried his face against Alex’s neck, mouthing kisses to the damp skin there, his lips brushing over every inch they could reach—his throat, the curve of his collarbone, the edge of his jaw.

They rocked together slowly, their rhythm unhurried and gentle, at striking odds with the blood that slipped between Henry’s thighs and stained their bed.

Alex was going insane with the self-imposed slowness of it all, and yet he didn’t rush. He didn’t give in to his impulses. He listened to that small voice in the back of his mind telling him not to make a mess of it. Henry was too important.

When they finally came, it was quiet. A soft moan swallowed in the other’s skin, a shared exhale, a muffled whimper, a mix of red and white between their navels, that spoke of death and lust and mutual possession.

The world returned in pieces afterwards.

Henry’s head rested against Alex’s chest, their legs tangled beneath the blanket, their breath slowly syncing again. Alex reached up, fingers drifting gently through Henry’s hair, pressing soft, grounding kisses to his temple. Henry’s hand rested on his waist, unmoving but firm, like he couldn’t bear to let go.

“You okay?” Alex asked softly, the words brushing the crown of Henry’s head.

Henry nodded, the slightest movement against his chest. “Yeah,” he whispered, voice thick with emotion. “Better than okay.”

They stayed like that until the fire burned low, wrapped around each other, the outside world pushed far, far away.

~*~

Muro Lucano, Autumn 1944
Dear June,

The war's still moving, but slower now. It feels like it’s winding down, like some great machine finally losing steam. You can hear it—or rather, you can’t. No more distant gunfire echoing in the hills, no planes overhead, no barked orders from passing soldiers. But it’s more than that. There’s a quiet here now that settles in your bones, that makes you breathe differently. People are planting trees and painting their houses instead of watching the sky like it might fall on them. They’re thinking of the future again.

It’s strange. The quiet isn't just the absence of noise. It’s the way the town moves now, a little lighter, a little less wary. Don’t get me wrong—we still keep to ourselves. We have to. But people know we’re here. They nod at us when we pass through the market. The tailor gave Henry a discount last week, said he liked the way he dressed. The woman at the fruit stall gave me a second basket of pears for free.

They don't invite us to gatherings. Not the weddings or baptisms or those strange little town parties they throw on feast days. But that’s alright. It’s better this way. I don’t think it would be wise to make friends—not the kind who might start asking too many questions, not when we’ve worked so hard to disappear.

Henry doesn’t mind. He has his garden, and it’s become his whole world. I swear he talks to the beans more than he talks to me some mornings. There’s a stubborn peace in that, watching him plant things instead of dig graves. I go with him sometimes, when I’m not roaming the hills. Still keeping watch, still keeping track of who passes through and who doesn’t. Old habits die hard.

Speaking of strange habits—I heard through someone (Bea via Henry, probably) that you did a few pieces for Judy Garland? June, that’s incredible. I don’t even know how to picture that. What was she like? Was her waist really that small? Did she smoke like they all do? I want to hear everything. I miss your stories.

There’s a little cinema—underground thing—two towns over. Someone said they’re going to screen The Wizard of Oz. Henry doesn’t know it yet, but I’m going to take him. I don’t think he’s seen it yet, and I want to see the way his face looks when the world turns to colour.

Write back when you can. Tell me about everything. And June, when this all ends, you’re coming here. You and Nora and Bea, if she’ll have it. I want you to see this place. I want you to see what we made with nothing.

Love you always,
—Alex

Chapter Text

By the time the sun had dipped low and the shadows had stretched across the fields, their lessons faded into comfortable silence. The notebooks were closed, pencils tucked away. The real hunger had begun to settle into their bones.

As night thickened around them, they left the house behind like whispers on the wind—fast and focused.

They ran through the hills and along dirt roads that twisted through olive groves and abandoned paths, moving farther each time. They never fed close to home. That was the rule. Always far enough away that no connection could ever be drawn. It wasn’t just about survival; it was about decency. They took only what they needed. One person, once a week, no more.

It made them weaker than they could be—Alex knew that. They were always hungry, always holding back. But restraint was the price of the life they wanted. And Henry had reminded him once, quietly, in the middle of a blood-soaked night: We aren’t monsters unless we act like them.

They moved like shadows through a small, half-abandoned village two valleys over. A man alone at the edge of a crumbling stone house—a deserter maybe, or someone trying to disappear, just like them. It never felt good. But it was cleaner this way. No panic, no mess. Just quiet hands, a fast feed, and the lingering grief of what they had to do to survive.

When they were done, they left the body somewhere peaceful. Always somewhere peaceful.

Then they ran again—through the wild brush, up the hills, across shallow streams and groves until their home was in sight again, its silhouette resting quietly beneath a blanket of stars.

Neither spoke as they returned. The silence was part of the ritual, part of the grief that came with every week.

But as they climbed the stairs and undressed in slow, weary movements, Henry reached out and touched Alex’s hand, just for a second. It was enough to remind them both why they were doing this.

It was for a life that mattered. A life that still had joy in the mornings, laughter over coffee, and the hope that maybe—just maybe—they’d get to keep it.

~*~

In the soft glow of the afternoon sun, Henry spread out a few tattered notebooks across the worn kitchen table, one hand wrapped loosely around a chipped pencil, the other motioning for Alex to sit.

“Come on,” he said, tapping the page. “You’ve got to stop calling the neighbour’s donkey a ‘woman with a sad face.’”

Alex, still dusty from his scouting, flopped into the chair with a smirk and leaned in. “It does have a sad face.”

Henry didn’t fight the grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Sì, but unless you want a village of angry farmers chasing you with pitchforks, maybe learn the word for donkey.”

They spent the next hour stumbling through basic phrases, their voices mingling with the chirping of cicadas outside. Henry spoke slowly, patiently, repeating the same words until Alex stopped tripping over them. Alex, determined but easily distracted, kept making up nonsense sentences just to hear Henry laugh. He hunted for the way Henry’s eyes crinkled the moment before the stern professor's look disappeared.

“Sono un cowboy triste con troppi segreti,” Alex declared with a straight face.

“You’re impossible,” Henry said, trying not to laugh and failing. “And you just told me you’re a sad cowboy with too many secrets.”

Alex winked. “Not far off.”

Henry shook his head with a laugh and reached for the book again, flipping through the pages with deliberate fingers. “Let’s try another,” he said, adjusting to sit closer, their knees brushing. “Something a little more advanced, maybe.”

He tapped the next paragraph and read aloud, slow and clear, “Mi piace toccare le cose belle, soprattutto quando nessuno guarda.”

Alex raised a brow. “I like to touch beautiful things, especially when no one’s looking?”

Henry nodded, then hesitated. “It’s just an idiomatic phrase. Descriptive writing. Sensory language.”

Alex tilted his head, eyes gleaming as he looked at Henry. “Right,” he murmured, gaze sharp now, “sensory language.”

He leaned in just slightly, letting the weight of his voice settle in Henry’s ears. “Mi piace toccare le cose belle…” he echoed, slower this time, tasting each word deliberately as he reached out and traced a finger along the line of Henry’s jaw. “Especially,” he added, “when no one’s looking.”

Henry flushed, pale skin betrayed him instantly. “Alex…”

But Alex didn’t stop. His hand dropped, knuckles grazing down Henry’s arm, trailing warmth. “This phrase,” he said, tapping the page lightly, “I think I’m finally starting to understand it.”

His hand moved lower, brushing against Henry’s thigh, resting there with an almost innocent stillness that buzzed beneath the surface.

Henry exhaled sharply, barely a sound. “You’re making it very difficult to focus.”

Alex turned fully toward him, lips close enough to feel the edge of Henry’s breath. “I don’t really want you to focus.”

His fingers curled, slow and deliberate, just above Henry’s knee. “Let me do it,” he said softly, voice low, coaxing.

Henry swallowed hard. His eyes flicked down to Alex’s mouth, then back up. “It’s not exactly academic…”

“No,” Alex agreed, his palm inching upward, warm and steady, “but you’re not grading me anymore, professor.”

Henry didn’t move for a long moment, caught somewhere between breath and surrender. Then, wordlessly, he let the book fall from his hand to the table with a soft thud. The cicadas still sang outside, and somewhere in the distance, a dog barked once—mundane life carrying on.

But inside, in the hush of the late afternoon light, everything in Henry seemed to tip forward. Toward Alex. Toward want.

He leaned in, brushing his lips against Alex’s in a kiss that was hesitant at first—testing, like the edge of a dream—but deepened quickly as Henry’s fingers tangled in Alex’s shirt.

“Have you ever done this before?” he managed to ask between Alex’s assault on the length of his collarbone.

He hadn’t, but there were only so many times he would be able to handle Henry naked beneath him without doing it.  

“How hard can it be?” Alex mumbled against the reddening skin, hand moving to undo the buttons of Henry’s pants. “And you have a mouth, don’t you?” he asked, kissing it for good measure. “You can shout out instructions if it all goes terribly wrong.”

 The book lay forgotten, pages fluttering in the breeze from the open window, the words between them shifting from study to something far more fluent.

Alex was nervous, even after all this time, about not making it good for Henry. He calmed the tremors in his hands as he pulled Henry’s pants off and stilled the whirlwind in his brain as he focused on the task at hand.

He dropped to his knees against the hard floor, pushed the discarded fabric out of the way and pressed his fingers into Henry’s thick thighs, spreading them.

There was only so much he could lean on restraint when he saw Henry exposed in front of him, half hard and twitching in anticipation.

Alex’s gaze was caught by the place just above Henry’s hips — that subtle dip of skin where muscle curved inward. His skin there was pale and smooth, save for the faintest scar low on the left side, half-faded with time. Alex touched it gently once, fingertips brushing over bone and warmth, and Henry stilled — breath shallow, gaze heavy — like he felt the weight of it too. He inched in closer to the trail of hair that usually vanished beneath the waistband of Henry’s trousers and kissed it.

“You’re too fucking gorgeous for my own good,” he whispered against the edge of Henry’s hip. “There’s my restraint gone,” he added, looking up into those mesmerising deep blue eyes as he took Henry’s entire length in his mouth.

Henry gasped and twitched at the abrupt change. Alex coughed but didn’t move, trying to keep his breath steady, his throat relaxed. It took him a few moments before he was able to move.

He guided himself by the sounds escaping from Henry’s lips.

“So good... keep going.”

He bobbed his head like he was ready to swallow Henry whole, grabbing his thighs for leverage, using his contractions to feel what was good, what was bad, what needed improvement. It was sloppy, and messy and the spit pooled at the edge of the chair, dripping onto the floor, coating Henry’s dick, Alex’s lips, jaw and neck, but as long as Henry kept asking him to go on he wouldn’t dare stop to clean himself.

Watching Henry’s lose himself was the greatest privilege a man could be given and he’d be damned if he were to miss the slowly increasing trembling in Henry’s legs for something as trivial as cleaning himself up.

The put together man that he knew and lived with would melt away in moments like this. There was a raw edge to Henry’s movements, a tight grip that sunk too deep, left possessive marks on Alex’s body and Alex lived for it. Lived for the moment when Henry stopped being polite and started taking what he wanted and deserved.

The taste in his mouth changed as Henry’s soft words of encouragement became incomprehensible babbles and he knew, before Henry even told him, that he was close. Henry’s hand in his hair kept Alex in place, as if he’d ever want to pry away from this. As if he’d give up the opportunity to taste every last drop of Henry.

Henry’s hips bucked up when he gasped and Alex choked for a moment before gulping him down fully, pressing his nails into the sides of Henry’s thighs, keeping him in position as much as he was keeping Alex.

He waited until he felt Henry soften in his mouth and then pressed a kiss to the damp inside of his thigh.

“Passable?”  

Henry bent down and pulled him into a kiss.

“Passable.”

~*~

Henry leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed loosely over his chest, watching Alex pull a battered canvas bag down from the top shelf of their wardrobe.

"Are you going to tell me where we’re going?" Henry asked, an edge of amused curiosity threading through his voice.

Alex flashed him a quick grin, the kind that promised trouble and adventure in equal measure. "Nope. Not yet."

Henry huffed, half exasperated, half fond. "At least tell me what to wear."

Alex slung the bag over his shoulder and turned to face him. "Dress for a city," he said simply. "No need for anything too fancy—just good shoes. We’ll be walking most of the night."

Henry's brows knit together slightly. "Walking overnight? And you’re being cagey about where?"

"You trust me, don’t you?" Alex teased, coming over to tug gently on the front of Henry’s loose shirt.

Henry caught Alex’s wrist before he could step away, holding him there for a moment. "Of course," he said, quietly, seriously. "You know I do."

Alex’s expression softened. He leaned in, brushing a kiss over Henry’s knuckles before pulling back. "Then just go with it. I promise it’ll be worth it."

Still sceptical but smiling, Henry turned and started gathering what he needed. A plain white shirt, trousers that wouldn't draw attention, a sturdy pair of boots worn soft from years of use. As he dressed, his gaze flicked toward the window, out toward the hills and the edge of the tiny house they had built.

"I hate leaving it alone," he admitted, voice low. "Feels...wrong somehow."

Alex paused, slinging a jacket over his arm, and crossed the room to Henry’s side. His hand found Henry’s wrist again, thumb brushing over the bone there in soothing strokes.

"Our home managed to survive without us before," Alex said, voice steady. "It’ll survive a few days without us now. Besides, we’re not abandoning it—we’re just stepping out for a bit."

Henry searched his face for a long moment, finding only certainty there. His shoulders eased, just slightly. "Alright," he said finally. "I’ll follow you."

Alex beamed and leaned in to press a quick, impulsive kiss to Henry’s temple. "Good. 'Cause it’s gonna be a long night."

Henry chuckled under his breath, finishing lacing his boots. He grabbed a small bag—just the essentials—and slung it over one shoulder. Together, they stepped out onto the worn stone path leading down from the house, the sky above already starting to blush purple and gold with the setting sun.

As they walked, Henry kept sneaking glances at Alex, wondering just what he had planned. But he said nothing, let the excitement bloom quietly between them, let himself enjoy the simple pleasure of moving forward, side by side, into the unknown.

Wherever they were going, he knew it would be good—because Alex had built it just for them.

The first steps away from their little stone house felt like a secret unfolding between them.

They set off just as the last blush of sun was slipping behind the hills, leaving the sky a deep, bruised blue. Alex led the way, his strides confident, the canvas bag slung over one shoulder. Henry followed close behind, the faint sounds of the countryside — the low whir of crickets, the soft sigh of the wind through olive trees — filling the growing silence of evening.

They wound their way down the familiar hills of Muro Lucano, boots crunching softly on dusty trails and crumbling old paths. The houses and scattered farms thinned behind them, swallowed by the rolling fields and gnarled woods. The air grew cooler with every mile they walked, the lingering heat of the day giving way to the sweet, damp chill of the coming night.

Alex kept glancing back over his shoulder, checking on Henry without a word. Henry would answer with a small smile, a nod — I’m fine, keep going.

They crossed old, half-forgotten roads, passed crumbling stone walls swallowed by wild grasses, fields of barley that rippled like golden water under the evening breeze. Once, they cut through a patch of thick woods, the trees so dense the moonlight barely touched the ground. Henry caught the scent of damp earth and wild herbs crushed underfoot, heard the low squeak of a bird in the dark. Alex’s hand found his briefly in the shadows before they pressed on.

Hours passed like this, measured only by the steady rhythm of their footsteps, the occasional murmured comment from Alex pointing out something in the distance — a ruin on a hill, a flash of water in the valley below.

In the darkest hours of the night, when the world felt suspended between exhaustion and dream, they paused on the crest of a hill to catch their breath. The land stretched wide below them, a patchwork of sleeping farms and distant lights. In the far, far distance, Henry could just make out the faint shimmer of the sea.

"We're getting close," Alex said, voice roughened with tiredness but bright with excitement.

They pushed on, walking through the hours when most of the world slept. Morning was beginning to edge into the sky when they reached flatter ground, the fields growing greener, richer, threaded with small canals and orchards heavy with fruit. Henry could smell salt in the air now, faint but growing stronger.

At last, as the sun began to break over the eastern horizon, staining the world in molten gold, they crested one final low rise — and there it was: Trani.

The old city glowed under the early light, its stone buildings honey-coloured and luminous. The grand cathedral, stark white against the blue of the Adriatic Sea, stood like a beacon at the edge of the water. Fishing boats bobbed in the gentle harbour, and the air was thick with the mingling scents of salt, stone, and the first bread baking in morning ovens.

Henry stopped in his tracks, breath caught somewhere between awe and disbelief. Beside him, Alex grinned wide, proud and pleased.

"Told you it’d be worth it," Alex said, nudging Henry’s shoulder.

Henry shook his head slowly, smiling despite himself. "You’re impossible."

"And you love it."

"I do," Henry admitted, his voice soft as he turned to look at Alex, the city stretching out behind them, the sea gleaming in the distance.

Together, side by side, they started down the hill toward the waking city, the rising sun casting long, golden shadows behind them.

Trani willingly unfolded before them — narrow streets paved in worn stone, walls brushed the colour of warm sand, balconies dripping with green vines and bursts of bougainvillaea. The sea shimmered at the end of every alleyway, the scent of salt and fresh bread curling together in the soft morning air.

They wandered aimlessly for a while, letting the city lead them. Henry watched Alex out of the corner of his eye, noting the way he drank it all in — the architecture, the sounds, the way the fishermen called to one another in quick, musical Italian. There was something in Alex's stride, a kind of loose, contained excitement, like he was holding onto a secret.

It wasn’t long before Alex slowed in front of a trattoria tucked into the corner of a sun-bleached piazza. The place was already stirring with a few early patrons, the smell of roasting coffee beans spilling into the street. Wicker chairs sat around iron tables, bright tablecloths catching the sea breeze.

“Let’s stop here,” Alex said, flashing him a grin full of mischief and fondness. “You know. Pretend we’re human. Do the whole thing. Sit, order something. Drink coffee we don’t really need.”

Henry laughed softly, the sound rumbling from his chest like the sea behind them. “If we must suffer for the experience, so be it.”

They picked a small table near the edge of the piazza, where creeping ivy shadowed the wall behind them and the sun cast the warm gold of late afternoon across the cobblestones. The square was lazily alive with clinking glasses and low conversation, the smell of baked bread and lemon oil hanging in the air.

A waitress approached, middle-aged and sun-lined, with a hand on her hip and the practised smile of a woman who knew how to get customers coming back. “Buongiorno, signori. Posso portarvi qualcosa da bere?”

Before Henry could string a greeting together, Alex leaned forward, elbows resting on the table, relaxed as anything. His Italian came out smooth, warm, like he’d been speaking it his whole life:

“Sì, grazie. Ci porta due cappuccini, per favore. E… un cornetto semplice e uno con marmellata, se ne avete.”

The woman’s smile deepened with approval. “Subito, signore.” She nodded and disappeared toward the café’s small kitchen.

Henry blinked, looking at Alex like he’d just started glowing in the dark.

“You—” he began, then shook his head. “Since when do you speak Italian like a native?”

Alex didn’t look at him. He was watching the boats bobbing in the marina, a lazy hand tapping rhythmically against the table. “I love you,” he said casually. “But, cariño, you’re so easy to fool.”

Henry stared harder.

Alex finally turned, smirking. “How could you possibly believe that a native Spanish speaker would need that long to learn Italian? The languages are practically cousins. I had it in a month. Maybe less.”

Henry narrowed his eyes, but there was more amusement than annoyance in it. “…You let me correct you. Constantly.”

“I liked it when you leaned in close,” Alex said, voice dropping a note. “Said words slow, like you were trying to teach them right into my mouth.”

Henry huffed out a laugh despite himself, his cheeks going slightly pink under the Mediterranean sun. “You manipulative bastard.”

"Effective," Alex corrected, lifting one eyebrow.

The cappuccino arrived then, tiny porcelain cups clinking down onto the table, rich and bitter-smelling. Alex tossed Henry a wink and clinked their cups together lightly before taking a sip.

Henry stared at him for a moment longer, this man who had somehow tricked him not into humiliation but into intimacy — into slow mornings like this, into laughter and secret jokes, into a life he hadn't even realised he was still allowed to want.

"You’re lucky I love you," Henry muttered, smiling into his coffee.

Alex leaned across the table, voice low and wicked. "I’m banking on it."

The city bustled on around them — a fisherman shouting, a church bell calling the hour, the steady whisper of the sea — but for a while, it was just the two of them, folded into a small, sun-washed corner of the world they had carved out for themselves.

The evening pulled its slow breath over Trani, bleeding the colours from the sky until only the richest blues and deepest purples remained. The sea stretched out before them like a sheet of shifting glass, dark and endless, breathing in and out against the stones.

Alex and Henry sat side by side on the worn edge of the Molo di Trani, their boots abandoned a few feet away next to their bag. The cool water licked the stone under their dangling feet, the breeze from the open sea tugging playfully at their clothes.

No one was around. The city had curled inward, leaving only the two of them under the growing scatter of stars.

Alex shifted closer without a word, slipping an arm around Henry’s shoulders and drawing him in against his chest. Henry leaned into it with a quiet, trusting exhale, his temple pressing into Alex’s jaw.

Alex tilted his face down slightly, breathing in the familiar salt-and-warmth scent of Henry’s skin. He tightened his arm, pulled him in a little more, and then, unable to resist, he turned and kissed him.

Alex's hand slid up Henry’s spine, anchoring him in place, while Henry’s fingers dug into Alex’s shirt, pulling him closer with an urgency that left no room for doubt.

Their mouths moved together, hungry and unguarded, until Henry gave a soft, helpless noise against Alex’s lips—a small, wrecked sound that did things to Alex that he wasn’t willing to admit.

The kiss grew heavier, deeper, and Henry’s hand fisted the fabric at Alex’s waist, as if he couldn’t bear to let him go. Alex’s hands roamed now, reckless, tugging Henry impossibly closer.

When Henry finally tore himself away, it was with a breathless, ragged laugh. His pupils were blown wide, his cheeks flushed.

"You're going to get us arrested," Henry said, voice rough and sweet with barely checked want, like being arrested was going to be anything more than a temporary hitch. What Alex wanted, what Henry wanted too, that was more important than a momentary run in with the human law.

Alex huffed a crooked grin, already chasing after another kiss, but Henry held up a hand to stop him. His eyes glittered mischievously under the starlight. Wordlessly, he began stripping, shedding his shirt first, then his trousers, bare and pale in the moonlight.

When he stood there, naked and shameless, he crooked a finger at Alex.

"Come on," Henry said, the words low and wicked. "No one's watching."

Alex blinked, momentarily stunned by the sight of him—gorgeous and unafraid, the silver light catching in the sharp lines of his body, the restless water behind him like some ancient painting. Then Alex laughed, full and wild and so full of love it hurt.

He stripped off his own clothes in a messy hurry, not caring where anything landed, and sprinted after Henry.

They splashed into the cold water together, gasping and laughing, the sea swallowing them whole. The salt clung to their skin, the night wrapped around their shoulders, and for a while there was only this: bodies twining under the surface, lips finding each other again, and the endless, endless stars wheeling above.

Chapter Text

They emerged from the sea dripping and breathless, hair plastered to their foreheads, teeth chattering as the night breeze skimmed over their wet skin. Alex reached for Henry’s hand as they waded onto the rocky shore, their footsteps echoing in the silence, water dripping onto the stone like the ticking of a slow clock.

Henry glanced over his shoulder, smiling crookedly, and gave Alex's hand a tug. "Come on," he said, voice hushed but warm. "There’s a place I saw—just up the road. It doesn’t look like it’s anything fancy, but we won’t be disturbed."

Alex wanted to say he had something arranged, something that was away from the centre of the city, but a single look from Henry was enough to make him forget everything he’d ever known.

They moved quickly through the quiet streets, clothes clinging damply to their bodies. The town was mostly asleep now, its narrow alleys dim and fragrant with late-blooming flowers and briny air. The small house was tucked behind a row of shuttered shops, its inhabitants away for the day, or week, or month. It looked like the kind of place where the bedsheets smelled faintly of lavender and old sun, dusty, but not dirty, secluded but not alone.

When they stood in front of it, Alex could tell that it was the kind of house that Henry hoped to live in, if nothing could have stopped him from choosing what he wanted.

They didn’t say much as they entered the room. The door clicked softly shut behind them. A single lamp cast a golden pool of light across the wooden floor, and the window was opened to the breeze, letting in the low murmur of the waves below.

Henry peeled his shirt off first, dropping it with a quiet squelch onto the floor. He shook his hair out, beads of water catching the light like glass. Alex watched him, his eyes tracing the familiar lines of Henry’s body, still amazed that this— this man — was his.

Alex stepped forward and reached out, brushing wet strands of hair away from Henry’s forehead. Henry tilted his head into the touch. His eyes searched Alex’s face for a long moment—gentle, questioning, and then he stepped back toward the bed. He sat down on its edge, the mattress dipping under his weight. The lamplight made his skin look burnished, pale and gold at once. He looked up at Alex, lips parted slightly, breath unsteady.

"If you want..." he said, voice quiet, careful. The words hung in the air.

Alex stood frozen for a moment, heart slamming in his chest, realising what Henry was saying. Then he nodded once, slowly, and crossed the room.

“I want.”

The kiss came gently, but there was a tremor in it, like something deep inside them both was straining to hold steady. Alex wrapped his arms around Henry’s waist and pulled him closer, feeling the steady thud of his heart.

“I want, I want, I want,” he said like an incantation, pulling off fabric from the white skin, tracing every inch of marble with the tip of his fingers.

“You’re cold,” Henry huffed against his lips, angling his body in line with Alex’s movements.

“I am,” Alex said, lips dipping to the nape of Henry’s neck, tracing a line down to his shoulder. “I should find a bed, get someone to press up close to.” The scars crisscrossing Henry’s body all deserved his attention, and he was not shy in giving it.

Henry gasped at his touch, the way the featherlight fingers worked around the pale lines that left such vivid traces of his past. He didn’t shy away from them, and even if he never asked, Henry could tell Alex was curious to know where they came from. One day soon, when Henry finally gives in to the idea of happiness, he should share his stories with him.

Alex wondered if all the other men shied away from touching Henry the way he was doing now. If they took what they wanted and left Henry unsatisfied. He raged at the made-up selfish lovers in his head and made a point to show them how it should have been done.

“I’m cold too,” Henry said, trying to be playful, trying to say more, but losing the battle against Alex’s lips.

“That I can fix,” Alex said, sucking at Henry’s bottom lip.

Henry turned him around and pushed him on the rickety thing before straddling him.

“Hey,” Alex began protesting, just for a moment lost in the unfairness of it all, before Henry pulled Alex’s shirt up and licked a clean line from his navel to his sternum.

Alex clawed at his shirt, trying to pull it off, but Henry pushed his hands away.

“No, keep it on.”

Alex stilled at the instruction, hands dropping to the side of his head.

“Let me,” Henry said, hand already pressing between Alex’s thighs, blue eyes never leaving the amber, “do what I want.”

Alex nodded. How could he ever deny Henry anything? How could he deny himself the pleasure of watching Henry watching him, still clothed, still very much hard with a hunger that he’d never shown before.

Henry looked at Alex like he was there for one reason and one reason only – to bring Henry as much pleasure as possible – and he was right.

Alex nestled his hands behind his head, a quick way to make sure they wouldn’t wander where they shouldn’t, and sat back to watch Henry, naked and beautiful, work up a blush and a sweat as he grinded along the length of Alex’s thigh. Angling against the rough fabric of Alex’s pants, his hands on either side of Alex’s hips, he steadied himself with each tentative thrust, eyes closed in concentration, mouth quiet but half open.

Alex wanted to shove his thumb in between those lips and hook into the inside of his mouth, drag him into a kiss and scrape his canines against that wet, plush tongue.

But Alex didn’t pay heed to those thoughts. He wrung his fingers together in his best attempt to follow instructions and kept on watching as Henry lowered his pants just a few inches, enough to give him access to Alex’s cock.

“He seems excited,” Henry mused, grabbing it and giving it a light squeeze.

Alex’s groan caught in his throat. Henry took it as a challenge and bent down.

Before Alex realised what was happening, Henry took all of him in his mouth and hummed, and if Alex were a lesser man, he’d have wrapped his hands around Henry’s throat and kept him still, lest all of his be over before it began.

Alex didn’t do any such thing, though, merely closed his eyes and counted down from 10 with the most focus he’d ever expended on anything in his life.

Henry must have noticed because he took mercy on him for all of 5 seconds. By the time Alex reached ‘2’, he felt a sleek, oiled-up hand replace Henry’s mouth.

He opened his eyes just in time to see Henry turning around, hand still firmly slicking up Alex’s dick before impaling himself on it.

“God, fuck,” Alex moaned unceremoniously, hips pushing forward as his body urged him to chase the feeling.

“Let me do this,” Henry said, turning his head just enough to expose the clear line of his neck, like that did anything to calm Alex down. “I know what I’m doing.”

“I never once doubted that,” Alex said between half-swallowed gasps, unable to sit still, not allowed to move. “You’re going to kill me.”

“God, I hope not,” Henry said, leaning forward, flexing his thighs as he moved up and down. It was so slow, so much, that Alex was sure he was minutes away from passing out.

God, he’d thought about this for so long, he’d dreamt about it, wished for it, but nothing his brain came up with was as good as this. The sight of himself disappearing inside Henry, the slight whimper that vibrated through Henry’s body every time he rolled his hips, the light drops of sweat snaking their way down his back, the tension of his arms as they braced against the bed, trembling from focus, from pleasure, from exhaustion.

And through it all, Alex just stood there, watching it all happen to him and praising every god he knew. Like he was worthy of it.

He couldn’t process that thought. He couldn’t process any thought, but that was the one that felt important. Henry, seeing him as worthy of all of this, felt important.

Henry, using Alex’s body for both their pleasure, was important because Alex wanted to spend the rest of eternity doing nothing else.

“Please,” he said, after what might have been a millennium.

Henry was stubbornly refusing to move any faster, and at this point, Alex was sure this was a torture method.

At the sound of his voice, Henry stopped altogether, and it took all the strength in Alex’s body not to cry out in disappointment.

“Please what?” he asked, half turning to look at Alex again, profile sharp and flushed and oh, so perfect looking.

“Please let me,” Alex said, tentatively resting his palms on the sides of Henry’s hips.

“Let you what?” Henry grinned.

Under normal circumstances, Alex would have wanted to be stubborn, would have wanted to deny Henry this little pleasure, but when Henry circled his hips in emphasis, Alex gripped them tight and held him still.

“Let me fuck you,” he begged, composure tumbling out the window into the waves beneath.

Henry chuckled at the request, and it vibrated down his body. Alex got up, buried his face between Henry’s shoulder blades and groaned.

“Please let me fuck you,” he muffled against the damp skin, breathing in the scent of Henry’s body, sweat and sex and bergamot, sea salt and sand all mixed into a potion that made him want.

“You want to fuck me?” Henry asked, dragging the moment.

Alex nodded against his back.

 “Then make it good.”

He had been coiled up so hard that permission felt like a gunshot to the chest. His mind must have blanked for a moment, because quickly and without realising exactly how, he was now kneeling behind Henry, grip tight on his upper thighs, slamming into him so hard Henry had to moan into the sheets to muffle the noise.

Fuck, that was the best sound that Alex had ever heard. The hoarse breathing, the way the squeaky, rolling sound at the back of Henry’s throat engulfed the air around them. Alex took it as a challenge to drag those sounds out however he could. Because if this felt half as good for Henry as it did for him, then it was bliss.

Without breaking contact, he pulled his shirt over his head and pressed his chest against Henry’s back.

“Is it good enough?” he asked, wrapping his arm around Henry’s neck, pulling his head out of the sheets and forcing him to face the room’s cool air.

Henry nodded, throat too busy panting to utter any understandable noise.   

Alex saw to that, as he almost pulled out and waited for Henry’s response.

“This is, ah, very… fucking good,” Henry said, trying to push back, trying to get more of Alex inside him.

“You’ve got too much fight in you,” Alex said, holding him still. He licked a line down the side of Henry’s neck and grinned. “Gotta suck it out of you.”

Henry gasped when Alex’s teeth pierced the soft skin of his neck. Almost instantly, as if some long-forgotten survival instinct kicked in, he went limp in Alex’s arms as Alex pounded into him and drank.

This wasn’t going to last, Alex knew, his mind drunk on the taste, the smell, the sensation of Henry letting him take whatever he wanted, enjoying it while it happened.

“Yeah, baby, just like that,” he thought, as the entirety of his desire concentrated to a red-hot point between their hips.   

Henry must have felt it because he shifted in Alex’s grip and bit into the soft flesh of his forearm.

The feeling of it all pushed Alex over an edge that he had been circling since they left the waterside, and he moaned against the hot, coppery taste of Henry in his mouth.

He must have blanked out because when he came to, he turned to see Henry lying on his side, one arm tucked beneath his head, the other resting on Alex’s chest. Alex ran a thumb over the back of Henry’s hand, grounding himself in the quiet.

Henry looked sated, the ghost of a smile playing on his lips, the deep breaths that preceded sleep taking over the shallow ones.

It was all so close to perfect that Alex was scared. Nothing came to him easily, so why should this?

~*~

Alex woke first, still tangled in warm sheets that smelled faintly of sea salt and the lavender-scented soap from the place’s tiny bathroom. The room was dim, sunlight just beginning to filter through the open shutters, casting golden lines across Henry’s bare back. His hair was mussed, his face turned toward Alex in sleep, lips slightly parted. Peaceful.

Alex propped himself up on an elbow and just looked for a long moment. He thought of how far they’d come — how far they’d walked, run, bled, hidden — and somehow, after all of it, they'd landed here. Whole and together.

He leaned in, pressed a kiss to Henry’s shoulder, and whispered softly, “Happy birthday.”

Henry stirred, a quiet sound escaping him. His eyes fluttered open, and for a heartbeat, he looked confused. Then he focused on Alex and blinked.

“What?”

Alex smiled, brushing his fingers gently along Henry’s temple. “It’s today, isn’t it? The girls told me. June wrote it in a letter, and Bea confirmed it. The big 250,” he said, as if that was a reasonable thing to come out of his mouth.

Henry blinked again, then laughed — a low, husky sound from deep in his chest. “Well, now I need to screen all of your correspondence for further insight into my personal information.”

“I didn’t plan on much,” Alex said, nudging closer. “Just… this. A bed. A place where no one’s chasing us. Some food and a swim at night. I wanted to give you a day that didn’t feel like hiding. Best I could, you know, given the circumstances.”

Henry was quiet, his expression unreadable. He looked down at their hands, at the way Alex’s thumb was tracing soft lines across the back of his.

“Did... did you like it?”

Alex tried his best, but the need for reassurance spilt over.

“This is the happiest I’ve ever been,” Henry said, voice rough. “I didn’t think it was possible anymore.”

Alex’s throat tightened. “Well,” he said, trying to keep his voice light, “you’ve got a very stubborn boyfriend. And he’s not planning on letting you forget how good life can be.”

Henry reached out, curling his fingers around the back of Alex’s neck and pulling him in for a slow, quiet kiss.

When they pulled apart, Alex pressed his forehead to Henry’s and whispered, “Happy birthday, love.”

Henry smiled, eyes still closed. “Best one in 250 years.”

They stayed like that, wrapped around each other in the pale morning light, letting the world stay quiet a little longer.

~*~

They headed home before the sun was high in the sky. Alex wanted to wait until nightfall, but Henry was eager to get back. A homebody through and through, it was impossible to convince him that nothing could have happened in the two days they had been away.

Alex hated the sun, though, and the trip back took longer than expected. Maybe he was trying to make the moment last, maybe the adrenaline that had fuelled his body for years had finally dissipated.

Either way, Henry didn’t seem to mind. As long as they kept putting one foot in front of the other, he wasn’t going to ruin the moment by asking to run back home.

There was a hum in the back of Alex’s mind, however. Something that scratched at him like a premonition that would soon come to pass. He kept it to himself, though, because he would not be the one to wipe the smile from Henry’s face.

As they got closer to home, however, the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Something was wrong.

They reached the ridge just as the light broke open across the valley — soft and gold, the kind of morning that should have brought peace. But the smoke was already in the air, low and biting, the scent of char and ash clinging to the back of Henry’s throat.

He stopped walking.

Alex did too.

The breath went out of Henry’s chest like a punched lung. Below them, their house — their quiet corner of the world, the place they’d made with care and love and stubborn hope — was unrecognisable.

The main building was wounded, sagging inward like something had driven a stake into its heart. One of the stone walls had collapsed completely, a gaping hole where the front room used to be. The roof was torn apart, half of it caved in, exposing the rafters like broken ribs. Shards of glass glinted in the grass from the shattered windows, and the front door hung crooked on one hinge, as if it had tried to hold firm and failed.

The second building, the decoy, was gone. Not damaged. Gone.

Charred beams curled in on themselves like bones turned to coal. Smoke still rose in thin, bitter curls from the blackened wreckage. The ground around it was scorched, pockmarked by what looked like pickaxe strikes, as though whoever had come had done it not just to destroy, but to punish.

Henry’s legs moved before he realised it, slow and uneven as he stumbled down the hill, boots skidding on loose rock and ash. Alex was behind him, silent but near.

The garden came next.

What had once been neat rows of green lettuce, beans, and tomatoes was churned mud and broken stalks. Someone had pulled up the plants by the roots and flung them aside like garbage. The vines had been slashed, the trellises kicked down and snapped. His herbs — the rosemary he’d coaxed through frost, the basil he’d taught Alex to pick — were trampled into the earth, indistinguishable from the dirt. A half-grown sunflower lay decapitated, petals crushed under a heelprint.

The olive tree was the worst.

They had planted it together — a promise for years they hadn’t dared to hope for. Now, it lay split in half, the trunk hacked through with something crude, an axe or a saw, the cut uneven and violent.

Henry fell to his knees in the dirt. They had only been gone for two days. How could all of this have happened in only two days?

He wanted to pretend this was just his imagination, but he knew better than that. He’d been around long enough to know how much could change in just a day.

He stared at the ruin — at the place they had built from nothing — at the smouldering remains of what he’d hoped was going to be a quiet existence, and something in him cracked.

“This was ours,” he whispered.

Alex said nothing.

Henry touched the ground with both hands, palms spread wide. Then he curled his fingers into fists and slammed them into the soil, again and again, until the pain became white noise and the world narrowed down to grief and fury.

“This always happens,” he said, through gritted teeth. “I build something. I love something. And they find it. And they break it. Because they can’t stand it — the idea that something like this could last. That we could be happy.”

He looked up at Alex. His voice was raw, stripped bare. “I should be used to it. After all this time, I should know better.”

Blackness engulfed his eyes. His fangs were out.

“I’m not. I still thought we could have this. That maybe this time was different.”

His hands trembled as he stood. The fire in him had turned — molten now, violent. His vision went red at the edges.

“They came here,” he said, voice low and shaking. “They came to our home. They did this. Because they think we’re wrong. Or monsters. Or because we dared to love each other too openly.”

He looked toward the village, down in the distance, so picturesque, so small. A cluster of tiled roofs and quiet windows. But he could feel it now — the threat simmering beneath the surface. The malice that was growing with each passing second.

“I’ll kill them,” Henry said, voice barely more than a growl. He wasn’t threatening; he was stating the facts. He had no use for self-restraint anymore. What had self-restraint gotten him in life? “I’ll burn it to the ground. I’ll make them pay for this.”

Alex stepped beside him, breathing heavy.

Henry had never let Alex see this side of him, and for a moment, he wondered if Alex would run away. Away from the ancient monster with a thirst for blood and vengeance.

Instead, Alex set his hand on Henry’s shoulder and said, “I’ll help you. If you want me to.”

Henry looked at him, eyes black, fangs drawn, fists clenched... and nodded.

What followed was a storm.

They didn’t move like men. They moved like vengeance made flesh — a blur of shadow through the village’s crooked alleys. Doors split open at their passing. Wood cracked, shutters flew from windows, and when frightened hands reached for crosses and prayers, Henry ripped them away with a sneer.

They didn’t drink.

They didn’t speak.

They weren’t there for hunger — only retribution. Every face that had once turned cold at the market. Every whisper, every sideways glance, every silence from neighbours who’d smiled and nodded but looked the other way when the fires were lit — they all paid for it.

The village that had tried to erase them was left in silence, terrified, as if the ghosts they’d made had come back to haunt them.

He had spent centuries surviving. Hiding. Running. But none of it had ever mattered the way this did. Not until Alex. Not until there was something — someone — worth staying alive for, worth killing for. The idea of that being threatened again made something cold rise in him. And something else, hotter, meaner.

He would burn the world down if it meant keeping Alex safe.

Not because he was reckless. But because he’d lost everything before, and he wasn’t going to do it again.

That smile. That home. That life.

Anyone who tried to take that away again wouldn't live long enough to regret it.

Henry would make sure of it.

His heart thumped to the rhythm of broken bones, his eyes gleaming as blood sprayed from every tear, every cut, every rip that he was passing out through the villagers like deadly presents.

And when it was over, Henry and Alex stood at the edge of it all, their hands stained, their chests heaving.

“We need to go,” Alex said softly.

Henry looked at the smoke curling over rooftops, the ruins of cruelty repaid. His hand found Alex’s. He was right, they couldn’t stay here. He didn’t want them to stay here anymore.

They needed to hide from humanity. Run far away to a place where no human has ever set foot, because that’s the only place where nothing would ever touch them.

“Then let’s go,” he said. “Somewhere they’ll never find us.”

Chapter Text

They didn’t speak for the first two nights.

Their boots sank into soft earth and old leaves as they climbed into the hills, Italy slipping behind them in quiet fragments. Ash still clung to their clothes, though the blood had long since dried. Smoke lingered in Henry’s hair. The silence between them was not angry — it was hollowed out, worn like bone.

Henry didn’t ask where they were going. He barely looked ahead. His eyes stayed on the ground most of the time, scanning out of habit, watching for twigs or glass or signs of someone else’s path. But it wasn’t direction he was seeking — it was distraction. He needed not to think, not to remember the feel of his fists against the ground, not to remember the sound of splintering wood, the quiet thump of bodies dropped in anger. Maybe he should be used to it. Maybe this was the world’s way of telling him he was unwelcomed, now and forever. The only way this would stop is if he would, and while the thought had crossed his mind in the past, he couldn’t imagine it now that Alex was by his side.

Alex took the lead.

He didn’t tell Henry they were going to France, to La Garde-Freinet, to the hills near the coast where Henry’s mother might still keep her ancient estate, quiet and hidden. It felt like the only place left. Somewhere with memory older than him, older that the nebulous concept of ‘them’.

Somewhere Henry might feel rooted again.

He kept his eyes forward, hands in his pockets, guiding them up steep mountain paths and through forgotten forests. Henry didn’t ask questions. The space between them was bruised but not broken and while Alex felt guilty for leaving their house, he knew Henry would never blame him.

They walked as one, just not close enough to touch.

The going was slow. They stuck to deer paths, dry riverbeds, and wooded ridgelines where the moon could guide them, and the trees would shield their silhouettes. They didn’t dare sleep in the same place twice. When dawn came, they slipped into abandoned barns or collapsed chapels, curling into corners like animals, too exhausted for words. Sometimes they shifted, just to move faster, just to disappear a little more into the world. Henry as a hawk or hound, Alex a lean black dog with amber eyes.

In the shape of beasts, they didn’t have to look at each other.

Alex felt it tightening in his chest, night after night — this thing they were doing to survive. Shrinking. Vanishing. Layer by layer, like peeling the skin back from a life they'd built with care and fire and laughter. Now they were crawling over the Alps again like ghosts, hunted by all sides.

It didn’t feel like freedom. It felt a lot like erasing yourself.

There were moments — sharp, fleeting — when Alex almost stopped. When he saw lights flicker in the valley below and longed to walk into town, to be seen even if just for a moment. To sit at a café. To tell someone his name. But he didn’t. He knew better. The wrong glance, the wrong shadow on the wrong wall, and they’d be right back where they started — or worse.

He didn’t know if he could live like this forever.

He wouldn’t say it now — not with Henry so quiet, so tightly strung that a gust of wind could snap him. But someday soon, when they weren’t being hunted by their own shadows, when they weren’t breathing only in fear, Alex would have to tell him: I can’t do this anymore. I can’t keep cutting pieces of myself off just to survive.

There had to be more than this. There had to be a way to be what they were, fully and freely. Humans were never going to let them live the way they wanted, Alex thought, his mind a mess of tangled thoughts. They needed to find others. Vampires who would understand. A community that wouldn’t flinch, where they wouldn’t keep hiding every part of themselves. A coven was the only safe place.  

And maybe in France, in that sun-worn village with the sea just beyond the pines he’d find the part of Henry’s family that would give him the community he needed.

~*~

The mountains east of Nice were turning lavender with dusk by the time they stopped. The wind whispered low through the pine trees, and the sun was bleeding out across the horizon, a streak of fire over slate-colored ridges. They found a hollowed rock shelf high above the valley, holding up a stone shed that was far enough from any footpaths or villages. It wasn’t safety, not really, but it felt like it. In the end, they could always rely on their strength.

Alex didn’t ask why Henry had stopped walking. He just settled down next to him, back against the cold stone, and waited.

Henry stared out at the horizon, arms draped loosely over his knees, his expression unreadable. The quiet stretched between them until he broke it with a voice frayed around the edges.

“My father died in 1782,” Henry said, breathing in the courage to carry on. “I was barely fifteen.”

Alex blinked, turned slowly toward him. He hadn’t expected to hear anything of the sort coming out of Henry’s mouth.

“We were in London for the week. My mother took me and my siblings to meet some of her friends who were completely unaware of her... state. Keeping up appearances was paramount, and she played the game well. We did that trip regularly, though I barely remember it happening, being the youngest and all. My father stayed behind at the house.”

Henry swallowed hard, jaw tight. He didn’t meet Alex’s eyes.

“He liked the quiet, the solitude. He agreed to be turned because he had fallen in love with my mother and would have done anything to keep her.” He sighed, as if that was the best reason to choose a life like this. “My grandmother waited until we were all born, made sure the lineage was safe and turned my mother. She never cared for my father. Let my mother turn him, if she wanted him so badly.”

A long pause. The light in Henry’s eyes flickered, as if telling the story would extinguish it for good.

“They lured him out. A group of villagers. One of them let himself be seen drunk, staggering down the lane near the edge of the woods. My father went to him. Thought he was being careful when picking out his meal. But someone stabbed him from behind.”

He exhaled roughly. “I don’t know what happened after. We came home to smoke in the distance and the house half burnt. My mother never explained much. Said we were still too young to know what the world did to people like us.”

Alex didn’t interrupt. Just reached for his hand and held it.

“She was right,” Henry added bitterly. “Humans destroy what they fear. They’re terrified of what doesn’t follow the rules of their world. So, they burn it. Rip it apart. Pretend it never existed.”

“My brother blamed them,” Henry said. “He started killing. Anyone who crossed our land, anyone who looked at us the wrong way. Not feeding. Just punishing.” He swallowed hard. “I never understood him.”

There was a long silence.

“Until now.”

Alex closed his eyes briefly. He knew what was coming.

“When I saw what they did to the house—what they did to us—” Henry shook his head, his voice dripping with pent up fury. “That was the same rage. The same kind that lived in me when my father died. I hadn’t felt it since.”

He looked away, toward the ridge. “I can’t lose you too. I won’t. We need to disappear, Alex. Forever. Erase every trace of what we are. Hide. Stay hidden.”

Alex let the quiet hang there a moment. The fire crackled softly between them.

“No,” he said, simply.

Henry turned back sharply. “No?”

“I can’t,” Alex said. “I won’t keep tearing myself into smaller and smaller pieces just to fit into a world that hates us. That’s not surviving — it’s vanishing.”

Henry’s jaw tightened.

“I love you,” Alex said, steady and fierce. “But I need to exist. Not just breathe. I won’t be a shadow forever. We need community, Henry. People that know what it’s like.”

The fire danced between them, casting long, strange shapes against the cave walls.

“I know you’re afraid,” Alex said, quieter now. “So am I but there has to be another way. When we were back home, in America, in the 20s. We were... happy, right? The girls were happy, we were happy; it was a good arrangement. We need something like that again; we’ve been alone for too long.”

Henry didn’t answer. He stared into the fire, eyes bright with something between pain and defiance. The sun fell beneath the horizon.

“I won’t leave you,” Alex added, his voice cracking at the edge. “But I won’t disappear into the night either. Not like you want to.”

The sky was beginning to darken above them, the promise of many stars strewn ahead.

Henry reached for Alex’s hand again. He held it tight. But he said nothing.

~*~

The shed was dim in the morning light, the wooden shutters barely cracked, letting in thin slants of silver. Smoke from the night’s fire still lingered faintly in the air, mixing with the sharp scent of pine and old stone. Henry stirred first, shifting under the thick wool blanket, breath fogging slightly in the cool air.

Alex was curled beside him, still half-asleep, one hand tucked absently over Henry’s spine.

And then—

A presence.

Henry’s eyes opened fully.

There was someone in the corner of the room.

He bolted upright, breath catching in his throat. The makeshift blanket of stolen wool coats slipped from his shoulders, pooling in his lap. His voice rasped, disbelieving.

“…Catherine?”

She stood still, as if she had been there all night, a figure half-sculpted from the shadows. Her clothes were as elegant as ever — a deep navy coat with embroidery at the cuffs, perfectly tailored, as though not even a day had passed, let alone a century. Her hair was drawn up, her face pale and still, and her eyes—those same sharp, unreadable eyes—watched him without flinching.

She looked the same. Exactly the same. Not a day older than when he’d seen her last.

Alex sat up beside him slowly, eyes narrowing on the figure in the shadows. “Henry?”

Henry didn’t move. “She’s not supposed to be here. She doesn’t… she hasn’t—” His voice caught again.

The woman tilted her head slightly, her gaze sliding to Alex.

She looked at him — looked through him — and then down to where his hand still rested gently against Henry’s back. She didn’t speak. Not a single word.

Then, with preternatural grace, she turned to the door. Her heels made no sound on the stone. She paused only to glance back once and tilted her head toward the path outside — a silent command to follow.

Henry stood, frozen in place.

“She didn’t even say anything,” Alex mumbled, touching his arm lightly.

Henry turned to him, brow furrowed, voice low and shaken. This was impossible. How had they run into her? She was supposed to be …

“Where are we?”

Alex exhaled. “We crossed into France last night.”

Henry’s expression twisted. “You brought me into France? Without—without telling me?”

“I had to,” Alex said, voice calm but steady. “You weren’t thinking straight. We needed to get out of Italy.”

Henry leaned back, breath sharp, realization hitting him with so much force he felt unsteady on his feet. “You planned this.”

Alex said nothing.

Henry looked toward the open door, where his mother had disappeared into the trees. Then he turned and strode out after her, the heavy sound of his boots on stone the only thing left behind.

Alex lingered for a moment. The scent of burned wood and the weight of whatever unspoken history had just entered the room pressed down on him.

Then he followed, heart thudding, eyes on the path ahead.

This was going to be a long morning.

~*~

The house appeared as if conjured from the mist itself — a manor nestled in the hills above La Garde-Freinet, half-swallowed by cypress and stone. The road curved steeply up through the trees, revealing slivers of ochre walls, iron balconies laced with ivy, and shutters faded by centuries of sun and salt. It stood tall and narrow, draped in the memory of another age, a place built when silence and shadow were a kind of wealth.

The estate had no gate, only an arched threshold of mossy stone, and a gravel path that crunched underfoot. Vines clung to the sides like veins, blooming with small, stubborn flowers in defiance of the season. The air smelled like rosemary and old rain. It reminded him so much of home he had to shake the memories loose before they overtook him. He was so goddamn sentimental…

When the door opened, it was not his mother who answered, even if she had been the one to lead them to this place, but a man in trim, tailored clothes, black haired and bearded, neither surprised nor curious.  

“Mr. Fox,” he said nodding in acknowledgement. The efficiency in his words, his movements, practically dripped off him. “My name is Shaan Shrivastava, I work for your mother. She’s expecting you,” he said, and stepped aside.

Inside, the house was cavernous and dim, all velvet drapes and tall ceilings. Gilded frames lined the walls, their canvases cracked with time: portraits of long-dead nobles, some of whom Henry recognized. Candles flickered along the corridor, scenting the air with beeswax and orange peel. There was no dust. For that he had to commend Shaan. Or his mother. Or one of the myriad of people running around the place like they had to make it ready for the King’s visit.

Then she appeared. Now, in the clear light of the large space, he was positive that she looked the same as the day Henry last saw her — untouched by time, unwilling to surrender to it.

Her gaze fell on Henry first, studying him with cool intensity now that he had had the opportunity to dress. He wore whatever Alex had packed for him. Maybe they were even Alex’s clothes, the way the hung off him in places. She did not smile, nor reach for him. Then her eyes drifted to Alex, lingering just a moment longer than expected. He wished he could have read her mind. Understood what laid under the lingering glances. He wanted so badly not to need her approval. He searched for it though, relentlessly, even after all this time.

“My darling,” she said to Henry at last, her voice as smooth as lacquer. “You smell of smoke.”

Henry opened his mouth to respond, but she lifted a hand to cut him off.

“Later.” She turned, already walking away. “Take them to the blue room,” she told Shaan. “And yes—” She glanced back, not at Henry, but at Alex. “He may stay with him. That much, at least, is obvious.”

Then she disappeared into the depths of the house, her heels clicking faintly against polished stone.

Shaan gestured for them to follow, leading them past wide staircases and arched doorways, past a grand piano and a fireplace that had been burning low since dusk. Henry walked in silence. Alex’s hand hovered at his back, trying to steady him.
Henry was sure it helped in some fashion, but he felt as if he was standing on will alone.

~*~

At daybreak, Henry stirred from sleep, leaving Alex nestled in the warmth of their shared bed. He pulled on yesterday’s clothes, knowing it would displease his mother, and not wanting to wake Alex up. He knew that if Alex were to wake, then he’d be a guard dog throughout the day. One word from Henry and Alex would try to rip the whole place to shreds. For a brief moment, Henry was tempted to see how far Alex’s allegiances ran, but quickly dismissed the idea.

The manor was cloaked in a serene hush, the first light of dawn casting gentle hues across its ancient stone walls. Descending the grand staircase, pulling his shirt over his head and listening to the sounds of the house, he entered the drawing room, where his mother sat poised with her morning tea. Her silk nightgown was peeking from under her house robe, both black, both lavish, both too large for the seemingly frail body. She looked older somehow, even though he knew it couldn’t be true. It was just his perspective of her that changed once his mind had caught up with everything that had happened.

Shaan entered silently, placing a fresh tea service before Henry. He poured himself a cup, the aroma rich and comforting. God, he wished he could still taste it. Sipping, he remarked, "This is the best smelling tea I've had in decades." He didn’t know what else he was allowed to say.

Catherine's gaze lingered on him, noting his dishevelled appearance. "You've become quite unkempt," she observed. "Do you spend all your time roaming the mountains with that boy?"

Henry's jaw tightened, the warmth of the tea contrasting with the chill of her words. He didn’t appreciate the way she dismissed Alex. "We weren't roaming," he replied, his voice steady. "We were running. For our lives."

Catherine's expression remained unreadable and the silence between them stayed thick and dismal. He didn’t try to broach it again. She could stew in this uncomfortable silence for as long as it suited her. It meant nothing to him.

The morning light filtered through the tall windows, illuminating the distance that years and choices had carved between mother and son.

Catherine rose from the sofa like smoke, trailing silk and stillness in her wake. She had always been graceful, but Henry had forgotten it. She drifted to the tall windows, pale fingers resting lightly on the frame as if steadying herself against memory. Morning had just begun to spill across the hills—an old gold light, soft and low, settling in the folds of the valley below. Shadows clung to the forest like ghosts reluctant to leave.

Shaan entered without a word, the clink of porcelain the only sound as he gathered the tea service. He did not look at Catherine, and Henry wondered if she had allowed him to in the first place. How long had he worked for her like this? Was this a happy arrangement? For either of them?

Henry watched them both, curiosity picking at his resolve to sit in silence, Alex’s influence be damned, then said quietly, “Did you turn him?”

Catherine didn’t turn from the view. “Shaan has been with me for over sixty years. He asked, I obliged.”

Shaan paused at the door and looked back at Henry, calm and certain, his gaze carrying no regret—only quiet loyalty.

“I wish more people were as dependable as he’s been,” Catherine said.

He knew she didn’t mean it as a stab at him, but he still bristled at her words, then swallowed the fear bobbing up in his throat.

“How did you know where to find us?”

At that, Catherine finally turned. Her eyes, pale and sharp, met his like a mirror catching moonlight.

“I always feel you when you’re near,” she said, voice cool as water. If Henry didn’t know any better, he’d say she was hurt by the fact that he’d ever doubt or question it.  “Even after all this time. I can feel all of you,” she said, not uttering his sibling’s names. “And Beatrice wrote,” she added as a caveat. “She said Alexander might try to bring you here. So—I waited.”

The wind stirred through the open window, carrying the scent of pine and cold stone.

Catherine stayed by the window, her eyes unfocused now, her figure gently traced by the backdrop of the fog coming off the mountain in touchable clouds. Her voice came soft, dulled at the edges, almost remorseful, but not quite reaching it. “I never meant to vanish from your life. I thought… if you needed me, you knew where I was. I haven’t moved in over sixty years. Not one step. The house, the land—unchanged.”

Henry didn’t move. He stood like he was bracing himself against some incoming tide. “And when I left for America?”

She turned then, her face unreadable in the morning light. “You could have come to say goodbye.”

There was a long pause. Dust swirled in the windowlight between them.

“But I understand why you didn’t,” she said finally. “I probably wasn’t easy to leave, but I definitely wasn’t easy to stay with either.” She folded her arms loosely, as if holding herself together. “I don’t have the capacity to hold any of you. Not you, not Beatrice, not Philip. I’ve known that for a long time.” Her lips curved faintly, but there was no joy in it. “Maybe I should have written. Said it. Maybe that would have helped. But I didn’t. And now… what’s done is done.”

Henry’s jaw tensed, his face the stillness of someone who had spent centuries trying to teach himself not to feel when it mattered most. “We won’t impose,” he said, glancing toward the stairs that led to the bedroom. Alex still slept; he could hear it. “We just need a few days. Then we’ll be gone before the week’s end.”

Catherine nodded once. “As you wish.”

He turned away before she could say anything else, before the quiet ache of disappointment cracked further down his chest. He told himself it didn’t matter, that they didn’t need her. But his hands were trembling.

~*~

Alex paused mid-step, one hand resting lightly on the carved frame of the doorway. The late sun fell through the tall windows of the sitting room, catching dust in soft spirals. Catherine sat with a book open in her lap, its spine curled from age, her posture poised but not stiff—like she’d always been waiting for someone to interrupt her.

He cleared his throat and made a move to leave. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to— I can give you space.”

“You can stay,” she said without looking up. Her voice, like everything else about her, was elegant but sharp. “You’re not a ghost. No need to act like one.”

Alex hesitated, then stepped inside. He didn’t sit—only crossed to the far side of the room and glanced out the window. “Henry went for a run,” he said after a moment. “He… couldn’t stay inside anymore.”

Catherine hummed faintly, turning a page. “No. He never could. Always needed to outrun something.”

It felt weird to hear her say this. Henry ran, sure he did, they all did when the energy was too overwhelming and they needed something to do with it all, but in Henry’s best moments, he was sitting on the sofa, tea in one hand, book in the other, curling around Alex the moment he entered the room. This wasn’t him.

He wanted to point it out to Catherine, but the silence held between them for what seemed like hours.

“He didn’t know you were bringing him here,” she said finally. It wasn’t a question.

Alex shook his head, still not meeting her eyes. “No. I didn’t tell him. I thought… I thought maybe if he had a place like this again, it would feel like some part of him could come back.”

Catherine closed the book, her fingers brushing over the cover. “And did it?”

He couldn’t put it into words, the fear, the sadness, the terror, the mix of everything he’d felt the moment he saw their house, saw Henry crumble in front of it. Henry was a master killer, that much was obvious, they all were, but seeing him mow down an entire village, maim and kill anyone he could get his hands on, that was a side of Henry that he hadn’t experienced. Maybe he could have accepted it, gotten used to it, but his dull eyes, empty and lifeless as they made their trek up Italy, those were not something he could live with. He had made up his mind as they were walking, and he hoped it would make sense to Henry once they were here.

He didn’t think to ask about what it might stir in him once he arrived.

“I don’t know,” Alex said quietly. “He’s not saying much. Hasn’t since we left … our home. But it’s better than hiding in ruins.” He had to believe that or else all of this would have meant nothing.

Catherine’s gaze flicked to the window now, to the pale hills stretching beyond her ancestral walls. “This isn’t sanctuary,” she said, not unkindly. “But I suppose it’s not ruin either.”

Then, more softly, looking him up and down, “You love him very much.”

Alex looked at her then, steady and unflinching. “Yes,” he said. “I do.”

Catherine studied him a moment longer, her eyes the same as her son’s—quietly intelligent, difficult to read. She set the book aside on a small table, the soft thud of it closing marking a shift in tone.

“Be careful,” she said, her voice almost too gentle to match the weight behind it. “Henry takes after me more than he knows.”

Alex furrowed his brow. “What does that mean?”

She exhaled, just once, and looked out toward the golden haze of late afternoon. “It means we both disappear when things get hard. We retreat. Shut doors, close windows, bolt the soul from the inside out.” She turned back to him. “It’s a flaw dressed up like composure. And it’s not always something a partner can follow through.”

Alex leaned against the window frame, arms crossed. The words hit somewhere beneath the surface, where his quiet worries had been pacing in circles for days. “I don’t think I’m good at hiding,” he admitted. “Not for long, anyway.”

Catherine smiled faintly. “No. You don’t seem the type. That’s why I’m telling you—talk to him. Before it becomes silence. Before you mistake one another’s fear for indifference.”

Alex nodded slowly, feeling the weight of her insight settle in his chest. “I will.”

~*~

Alex barely heard Catherine excuse herself from the room as he turned at the soft creak of the front door opening. Henry stepped inside, slow and quiet, but the scent of blood hit before the sound of his boots did.

By the time Henry reached the threshold of the bedroom, Alex was already there.

“Jesus,” Alex breathed, reaching for him. “Are you hurt?”

Henry glanced down, as if only just noticing the crimson that streaked his collar and soaked into the front of his shirt. “No,” he said quickly. “It’s not mine.”

“That’s not an answer,” Alex snapped, eyes scanning him head to toe for wounds. “Did someone see you? Did someone try to—,” he started and then stopped. He took a step back and furrowed his brows, like he couldn’t believe the thought that was passing through his head. “Did you kill—”

Henry cut him off with a tired look. “It was just feeding. I was reckless, that’s all. I let it get messy. But no one saw. I made sure.”

Alex took another step back, putting as much distance between them as his overthinking mind would allow. His jaw tightened. “We haven’t fed separately in years, Henry. Not when we could both—”

“I know,” Henry cut him off again.

That wasn’t enough. Of course, he knew. They never talked about it, but an unspoken understanding was just as good, wasn’t it? Especially about something like this.

“Why would you—”

“I just needed space,” Henry said, voice a little hoarse. “It’s not about you. I promise.” He stepped closer, placing a hand on Alex’s shoulder, stained fingers grazing against the bare skin of his throat. “Come take a bath with me.”

Alex didn’t move at first. He stared at him, at the fine tremble of Henry’s hand, at the damp, red-streaked edge of his shirt. He could feel the apology hanging unspoken. The guilt underneath it. The fear, buried even deeper. But none of those things were an excuse, not as far as he could see it.

Finally, he nodded, tight-lipped. “Alright,” he said. “But we’re not done talking.”

“You never are,” Henry murmured, and led him toward the bath.

Henry stood just behind Alex, silent for a breath too long. Then, with a quiet motion, he stepped forward and rested his hands on Alex’s hips.

“Let me,” he murmured, voice low, rough with the wear of the day.

Alex didn’t move. Just nodded, his jaw tightening as Henry’s fingers slipped beneath the hem of his shirt and lifted. The fabric dragged slow across his skin, sticky with dried sweat and the scent of the road. Henry’s knuckles brushed the curve of his spine as he pulled the shirt over his head and tossed it aside. For a moment, he lingered, hands splayed flat on Alex’s back, thumbs pressing lightly into the space beside his spine.

Alex exhaled slowly. “You don’t have to—”

“I want to,” Henry said, and turned him gently to face him.

He undid the buttons of Alex’s trousers next, careful and methodical, like he was undoing something sacred. His knuckles brushed skin. Alex’s breath caught.

Then it was Alex’s turn. He reached out, tugged Henry’s shirt up and over with a little less reverence, but his hands slowed once they touched bare skin.

Henry leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Alex’s shoulder.

The water in the tub was hotter than Alex expected, perfumed faintly with lavender and something older, darker—like moss or crushed herbs. The tub itself looked older than America: all heavy porcelain and clawed bronze feet, a basin large enough for two to stretch out, surrounded by pale marble veined in rose-gold. Only old money or older immortality could afford something like this.

Henry stepped in first, slow, careful, the water slipping red from the places where blood still clung to his skin. Alex followed, settling opposite him, their legs tangling automatically under the surface. The warmth helped, but it didn’t calm the storm rattling through Alex’s skull.

He couldn’t stop looking at Henry’s face. At the tension in his jaw, the way his shoulders hunched like he was still running. His eyes were lowered, lashes wet, expression unreadable.

Alex reached for the soap, lathered it quietly between his palms. He didn’t hand it over. Instead, he leaned forward and started gently scrubbing Henry’s arms himself. Neither of them spoke.

Don’t pull away, Alex wanted to say. Don’t go somewhere inside yourself where I can’t follow.

But what he said was, “You didn’t have to go alone.”

Henry exhaled, a low breath that curled against the steam. “I didn’t want you to see me like that.”

“Like what?”

Henry didn’t answer. Just watched the way Alex’s hands moved over him. It made Alex ache. He’d seen so much of Henry, understood so much, how could Henry think that this, this was the straw that broke the camel’s back?

“Your mother said you’re alike,” Alex continued softly. “You and her. That you run from things. When it hurts too much.”

Henry’s mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. “She would know.”

Alex shook his head. “I’m not her, Henry. I won’t guess what you’re feeling. You have to tell me. Or I’ll fill in the blanks myself. And you know I always imagine the worst.”

Henry met his gaze finally, and the look was raw, bare in a way that startled Alex.

“I was angry,” he said. “And I didn’t want to bring it into your space. Into us. I thought if I fed, if I took control of something—anything—it would feel better. It didn’t.” His voice cracked slightly.

Alex’s hands stilled. “Don’t do that again. Don’t shut me out.”

Alex leaned forward until their foreheads touched, until the water was rippling gently around them. “I need to know we’re still in this together,” he whispered. “Even when it’s ugly. Especially then.”

Henry’s hand found his under the water, laced their fingers tightly.

Henry didn’t answer with words. He just moved forward until their lips met, slow and tender, and held him there as if that alone might steady the ground beneath them.

The kiss deepened gradually, water lapping against porcelain as they shifted closer. Henry’s hands, once tentative, now moved with purpose, one slipping around the curve of Alex’s hip beneath the surface, the other resting lightly at the back of his neck. The tension between them, taut as piano wire, began to loosen with every brush of skin.

Alex exhaled into the kiss, one hand gripping the edge of the tub, the other threaded through Henry’s damp hair. He wasn’t thinking anymore—only feeling, letting himself be pulled under by the warmth, the quiet insistence of Henry’s mouth, the press of his chest. The steam curled around them like a veil, softening the sharp edges of everything else.

Henry drew back slightly, just far enough to look at him. His thumb brushed over Alex’s cheekbone, then down to his mouth, following the shape like it was something he needed to memorize. He leaned in again, pressing a kiss beneath Alex’s jaw, then lower—shoulder, collarbone, chest.

Alex shifted to draw him in, legs curling around Henry’s under the water, their bodies fitting like they’d been carved that way. The water sloshed gently, scented steam rising between them, and the sound of breath and skin and affection filled the small, echoing space.

Alex threaded his fingers deeper into Henry’s wet hair, tugging just enough to draw a groan from his throat. The sound reverberated through Alex, raw and low, and he felt it echo in his own body. Henry’s hands roamed slowly up his back, fingertips dragging trails of fire through the slickness of skin and water, before settling firmly at his waist, grounding him. Alex pressed closer, chest to chest, heartbeat to heartbeat, until he couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.

His hips shifted instinctively against Henry’s, the friction amplified by slick skin, the heated water, the ache of wanting that had been building for weeks. Henry groaned into the kiss, fingers tightening at Alex’s waist before sliding lower, guiding, pressing him closer.

Alex broke away just long enough to gasp for air, lips parted, water dripping down his jawline. “I can’t—” he started, then cut himself off with a shaky laugh. “I can’t think when you touch me like that.”

“Good,” Henry murmured, voice low and deliberate. His hands slipped beneath the water, circling him, steadying him. “Don’t think. Just—feel.”

And Alex did. He let himself sink into it, into the press of Henry’s body, into the heat curling low in his belly as their movements found a rhythm. The tub sloshed with every shift, water spilling over the sides in waves that neither acknowledged. Henry’s thigh pressed firm between Alex’s, and Alex ground down helplessly, a choked moan tearing from his throat, searching for that delicious friction.

“Henry—” His voice cracked, his head falling back, curls plastered wet against his temples.

Henry’s mouth was everywhere then—kissing his throat, biting lightly at his shoulder, soothing the sting with his tongue. His hands never left Alex’s body, holding him in place, guiding him with a patience that was somehow more overwhelming than urgency.

The world narrowed to breath and skin and water, to the intoxicating slide of their bodies. Henry’s chest was slick against his, their heartbeats a frantic echo in the small tiled room. Every brush of Henry’s lips against his skin, every whispered encouragement, pulled Alex further under until all that was left was sensation.

Alex buried his face against Henry’s neck, muffling the sounds spilling from him as his body trembled with the build. Henry held him through it, strong and steady, pressing kisses to his temple, his cheek, his damp hair.

“Let go,” Henry whispered against his skin, and Alex did—shuddering apart in his arms, clinging to him like he was the only solid thing in the world.

Chapter Text

The garden was quiet in the mid-morning haze, a soft mist still clinging to the edges of the hedges. Wild rosemary and lavender pressed in thick along the gravel paths, and a breeze moved gently through the olive trees above them. Henry walked beside his mother in measured silence, hands deep in his pockets, the collar of his shirt open to the spring air.

Catherine stopped near the stone sundial and ran a gloved finger over the moss-softened edge. “Still accurate,” she said absently.

Henry looked at her sideways. “What have you been doing all these years?”

She didn’t answer at first. She let the question drift into the garden, dissolve somewhere between the lemon trees and the sky. Then she turned to him, eyes cool and tired.

“Stop trying to avoid the real conversation, Henry.”

He raised an eyebrow, feigning ignorance. “What conversation is that?”

Catherine’s gaze sharpened. “The one about Alex. About how he’s walking around wound tight as a watch spring, because he can feel something’s shifted in you.”

Henry let out a quiet, humorless laugh. “This is how I’ve always been. You know that.”

“I do,” she said softly. “But I know you better than he does. And I know what it looks like when you start folding in on yourself. You go quiet. Careless when feeding. You sleep less. You run more. You start to vanish in pieces.”

Henry looked away, toward the valley. “I’m fine.”

“No, you’re barely getting by. And it shows.” She took a step closer, her voice lowering. “When I started doing that — hiding from pain, hiding from the world — I thought I was keeping myself safe. But the world didn’t stop hurting. I just stopped letting anyone in. And now… look at us.” She swept a hand across the garden. “A house full of ghosts. My children, strangers. What relationship I had with any of you—fractured beyond repair. You think that didn’t cost me?”

He didn’t answer. He couldn’t.

Catherine reached out and laid a hand lightly over his heart. “You still have time not to take my path. He’s still here.”

Henry stared at the horizon, jaw tight, something behind his eyes threatening to break. He knew what she meant. He, Alex, as opposed to your father, didn’t go somewhere you can’t follow. He’s still here, you didn’t lose him like I lost your father, and you don’t get to ruin it with your overwrought emotions.

She let him stand in silence for a moment longer, then dropped her hand and turned toward the house, her voice quieter than before. “Whatever this is, don’t make him pay the price of your silence.”

And she left him there, in the garden, the scent of lavender heavy in the air.

Henry remained by the sundial, fingers drumming lightly against his thigh, gaze never quite settling. The quiet of the garden seemed heavier now, as if it were waiting on something. He took a breath, then said, not quite to her back, “We’ve been here too long.”

Catherine paused, but didn’t turn. Her voice drifted over her shoulder. “You may stay as long as you wish.”

“That’s just it,” Henry said. He stepped forward, hands loose at his sides now, his expression unreadable. “I don’t wish. I’m not planning to hide away from Alex… I’m planning to hide away with him.”

At that, Catherine finally turned to face him, her brow arched delicately. “Does he want to hide too? Or are you just assuming that if you disappear, he’ll disappear with you?”

Henry’s jaw tightened, but his voice remained even. “He wants to be with me.”

She looked at him for a long moment, as if reading between the folds of his certainty, and something — perhaps worry, perhaps disbelief — flickered in her eyes. But she didn’t press it. She only gave a small, almost imperceptible nod.

“Well then,” she said, brushing invisible dust from her sleeve, “I’ll be out tonight. Feeding.”

Henry stilled. That, he knew, was her way of giving them space.

She turned and began walking back toward the house, the hem of her dress whispering over the stones. “Talk to him,” she added, her voice fading into the trees. “Don’t make plans and expect him to agree.”

Henry stayed in the garden a while longer, surrounded by blooming stillness and too many thoughts. When he finally turned back toward the house, it was with the weight of something long avoided — and a decision to stop running, even if it meant standing still.

~*~

The light in the salon was long and golden, afternoon slipping into the velvet quiet of early evening. Shadows gathered in the corners like watchful ghosts. Henry paused in the doorway, one hand curled loosely around a book he no longer remembered fetching.

There, in front of the ancient upright piano, was Alex.

He sat on the bench with a thoughtful frown, his fingers pressing carefully at the keys — a slow, faltering melody, uneven in rhythm but unmistakable. Satie. Gnossienne No.1. The air trembled with it, tender and fractured.

Alex didn’t notice him at first, his brow creased in concentration. When he finally glanced up, catching Henry's reflection in the dusty glass of the picture frame above the piano, he grinned sheepishly. “It’s the easiest one I found in the pile your mother dumped on the floor. Or so I hoped.”

Henry stepped forward, resting a hand on the back of the bench. “You’re not wrong. It’s one of the simplest… and strangest.”

“I don’t know,” Alex said, shrugging. “It feels like a dream you almost remember.” He tapped a few more notes. “I was thinking maybe I’d buy a piano. Learn properly. We’ve got time, right?”

Henry’s breath caught in his chest. The casual way Alex said it — like forever belonged to both of them now, like it wasn’t something fragile or forbidden — twisted something tender in his ribs. He smiled slowly. “I could teach you.”

Alex scooted to the side of the bench, thigh brushing Henry’s. “Then teach me.”

Henry sat down beside him, slid his fingers over the keys. The first note bloomed beneath his touch, clear and low. Then the next. And the next. He played without glancing at the yellowed sheet music propped limply above them, the melody unspooling like silk, full of longing and space.

Alex watched him in silence, not just the movement of his hands, but the tilt of his mouth, the faraway focus in his eyes.

Henry’s hands stilled on the keys, the last note of the Gnossienne trembling in the air like a held breath. He didn’t look at Alex right away. Just sat there, spine straight, eyes fixed on the worn ivory beneath his fingertips.

Then, softly, almost without inflection, he said, “We need to leave.”

Alex turned to him slowly. “What?”

Henry finally looked up, his expression unreadable. “This place. My mother’s house. We’ve been here too long. It’s not safe. I’ve been thinking… the war’s done. Soon there’ll be too many eyes, too many movements tracked. We should go north. To the UK.”

Alex blinked at him, caught off guard by the sudden shift, the quiet urgency under Henry’s voice.

“I know the isles,” Henry continued. “There are parts of Scotland where no one goes, where even the war barely left a mark. I know how to keep us out of sight. We’ll move every few weeks — ferry across the Hebrides, circle remote towns, stay in crofters’ cottages. I’ve done it before. We can feed discreetly. No one ever notices.”

Alex stared at him, lips parting as if to argue, then hesitating. “Henry…”

Henry leaned forward slightly, tone resolute. “I’ve thought it all through.”

Alex shook his head slowly. “You’re talking about vanishing again.”

“It’s the only way to live and be safe while doing so.”

“No,” Alex said, voice firmer now. “It’s the only way you know. But I don’t want that. I’m tired of hiding. I’m tired of disappearing every time something goes wrong. I don’t want to keep living in corners of the world, always a few steps ahead of discovery.”

“You’d rather what?” Henry asked, and there was a quiet, trembling fury in his voice. “Wait until they burn the next house down? Until they drag us out and stake us for what we are—or what they think we are?”

“I’d rather try,” Alex said, quieter. “Try for a life that isn’t just surviving. A life that’s ours. Not one borrowed from shadows. Italy was wonderful. Every single day was better than the last and I’m not going to give up the possibility of years of happiness just because of how it ended.”

Henry looked away, jaw tight. Silence pressed in between them again, not empty this time but full — of memory, of ghosts, of the ache of wanting two things that refused to coexist.

Henry’s hands curled into fists in his lap. His voice, when it came, was low and sharp, like ice cracking over deep water.

“You still don’t understand,” he said, staring ahead, not looking at Alex. “They will kill us, Alex. If they knew—if even one person guessed—we’d be dragged into the daylight and burned. Not just for being together. Not just for what we are to each other. But for what we are, full stop.”

Alex stood, pacing a short distance from the piano, breath unsteady with something close to fury. “And your answer to that is to run? To keep running? We’re supposed to be immortal, Henry. Ancient, terrifying creatures, aren’t we? So why are we spending our lives like mice—hiding, skittering between walls, hoping not to be seen?”

Henry stood too now, the piano bench scraping violently behind him. “Because that’s what survival takes! Because I won’t lose you. I’ve lost too much already and I refuse—do you understand? Refuse—to stand by and let some fool with a match and a cross take you away from me.”

Alex’s eyes flashed. He didn’t mean to raise his voice, but he couldn’t control it. This was insane. “And what if the price of keeping me safe is never letting me live? What then? Do you think I want to be a ghost in someone else’s attic for the next five hundred years?”

Henry didn’t answer. His chest was rising and falling too fast, as if breath had become irrelevant. His jaw was clenched so tight the bone jumped beneath his skin.

Alex stepped closer, voice quieter but no less fierce. “I didn’t survive all this time just to be afraid forever. I love you, but I won’t spend eternity pretending I don’t exist.”

Henry’s eyes flicked to him at that—pained, wild, desperate. “Then what do we do, Alex? Tell me. If we stay out in the open, they will kill us.”

Alex didn’t look away. “Then maybe we find the ones who won’t. Maybe we build something better. Together. We’ve had friends in our lives. He have friends. Family! You have to stop pretending that loving me means hiding me. Or yourself.”

Henry flinched like he’d been struck. Like they weren’t speaking the same language.

“I won’t let you hide me, Henry. I’d leave before you even tried.”

The words dropped like glass.

For a moment, he wasn’t the centuries-old creature who had outlived kings and watched cities crumble. He was just a man—struck silent, hollowed out.

“You don’t mean that,” he said finally, voice raw. It wasn’t a question.

Alex didn’t look at him right away. He stood, arms crossed tightly, eyes fixed on the long windows draped in fading gold. The light caught on the pale of his skin and the sharpness of his jaw, and Henry thought—for a moment—that he had never looked so far away.

Henry stepped forward, slow, hesitant. “You said you’d stay with me. Through anything.”

“I did.” Alex turned now, and his eyes were shining—not with anger anymore, but something deeper, more wounded. “But maybe I was wrong. I who thought love could fix everything. And maybe it can, but only if we’re both willing to fight for the same version of it.”

Henry’s throat worked as he tried to speak, but nothing came.

Alex shook his head and looked down. “I’m not asking you to walk into fire for me, Henry. But I won’t bury myself alive for you, either.”

Silence fell between them again, brittle as frost.

Then Alex turned, walked away from the piano, and out of the room—his footsteps fading into the long, aching hush of the old house.

Henry didn’t follow. He couldn’t.

~*~

1954

The headquarters of ONE, Inc. in 1954 was a modest, bustling space in Los Angeles, filled with the fervor of activism and the clatter of typewriters. Stacks of papers teetered on desks, and the air buzzed with the energy of writers and editors racing against self-imposed deadlines. In the cramped office kitchen, Helen and Chuck huddled over coffee, discussing the unsettling news that the U.S. Post Office had deemed their magazine obscene and was refusing to distribute it—a decision that threatened their mission and livelihood. “Did you hear?” Helen said, leaning her elbow on the doorway of the cramped kitchen. “The Post Office might pull the whole January issue. Obscene, they say.”

Chuck looked up from his mug. “Obscene? For what? That poem on page four about holding someone’s hand?”

“They think it’s coded sex,” Helen muttered, not hiding her disgust.

That’s when Alex walked in, windblown and bright-eyed, like he’d just argued with the morning sun and won. “Obscene?” he echoed, catching the tail end of the conversation. “Well, it’s about time someone noticed we were dangerous. I was starting to worry we were too subtle.”

Helen laughed, short and dry. “You’re not subtle, darling. You’re practically neon.”

Alex gave her a wink. “I need to introduce you to my friend Percy. If you think I’m neon then he’ll blow your head clean off your shoulders. And yet somehow still tasteful.”

Chuck rolled his eyes but grinned into his coffee. “You’re late.”

“I’m charming. It balances out,” Alex replied, tossing his coat on a chair. “Besides, I brought the reworked editorial.”

Helen took it from his hand and scanned the top lines. “You’re always writing like you’re in love with someone and you won’t say who.”

“That’s because I am,” Alex said, matter-of-factly, with a smile that didn’t ask permission. He grabbed her hand, got down on one knee and pretended to pull out a ring.

The guys laughed, Helen swatted him away—half exasperated, half fond—and they went back to their deadlines. But there was a recognition to his actions, to the way in which none of the people here their joy for granted. They all carried risk in their bones and still, still constantly, daily, chose joy.

Later, when the newsroom quieted a little—just the clack of typewriters and the low hum of stubborn hope—Alex found June by the window, watching the light catch on the dust in the air like it was trying to find a way out.

“Did you hear?” he asked softly, pushing into her space like he was used to doing. “Tommy’s Place got raided last weekend.”

June didn’t turn around. “That’s nothing new.”

Alex waited, but the sharpness in her voice cut through the quiet like a snapped wire.

“Anyone you know?” he asked, gently now.

June finally turned. Her eyes looked tired, like she hadn’t blinked in days. “I know everyone in this damn town,” she said. “So yeah. Probably.”

She crossed her arms. “I just wanted to take Nora out for a drink. Hold her hand across a sticky bar table. Maybe dance. But if we do that, it’s a promise that some cop with a badge and a grudge will shove us against a wall and call it justice.”

Alex’s throat tightened. June didn’t shout. She rarely needed to. And she didn’t need to tell him about cops. About what they did when they took the girls away. June would be safe, Nora would be safe, but they didn’t all have the option of slaughtering their way out of a station.

“I thought things would get easier after the war,” she said. “All that sacrifice. All that service. I thought maybe—just maybe—women like me would get a little more room to breathe.”

Alex looked at her, at the fury simmering just below her skin. She was asking for a conversation, he could tell, so he obliged. “And instead?”

June laughed, bitter and low. “I wake up every day and fight just to be allowed to survive.”

Alex stepped beside her and leaned on the windowsill. “Then let’s make survival loud,” he said. “Let’s make it bright and stubborn and so goddamn beautiful they can’t look away.”

June exhaled slowly, the corner of her mouth twitching. “You always know how to say it.”

“Someone has to,” Alex said. “Until they listen.”

For the briefest moment, the thought of Henry crossed his mind. He pushed it away, like he had done for years now, but he knew why it had sprung up. This was why they’d split up. This is why Alex chose America, in all its messiness. He wasn’t going to be able to find everything he needed, but he built a community where he could. Because he needed it in a way that Henry would probably never understand.

The door clanged as Bea walked in. The clicking of her heels muffled against the linoleum. Her dress was a vibrant mustard yellow, cinched tightly at the waist, flaring out into a full skirt that swayed with each confident step. The scent of buttercream trails behind her as she beelines through the room.

Alex watched her approach and understood why June was so protective. Bea carries herself like someone who knows she doesn’t belong in the spaces she walks into—but she’s going to walk in anyway, box of cupcakes in hand, eyes locked on what matters. It’s what Alex loved about her. But he knew that other people saw it and thought differently. They were wrong, and their minds needed to be changed, and if he could work towards that then God damn it he had to try.

“Want to start a women’s group?” June asked as soon as Bea came in to peck her cheek.

Alex, ever the one to be bursting through walls, thought that maybe Bea needed some more information, but she proved him wrong when she read June’s gaze and nodded.

“Not just women. Not just lesbians. Not just white people, either. I want something for all of us. I’m tired of feeling like we’re always borrowing space in someone else’s story.”

Alex looked at her with something like awe for having gotten all of that from one look at his sister. He toyed with a cupcake before eating it whole. “You want to start something?”

“Maybe,” Bea said, biting the inside of her cheek. “But I don’t want to do it in LA anymore. It feels like I’ve been holding my breath here for a decade. Maybe it’s time to exhale somewhere new.”

June met her gaze, thoughtful. “San Francisco?”

Bea gave a small shrug. “It’s not perfect. But maybe we could make it ours.”

Alex smiled, something sparking behind his eyes. His first instinct, as it had been for years, was to turn around and tell Henry. But Henry wasn’t there. Henry was in a cave in Europe somewhere, pretending that living in the shadows was a life, pretending that immortality was a gift to be squandered in dark forests and unkempt moors.

It was very romantic of him, Alex thought, not unkindly, to waste away while writing poems, afraid to come out into the light lest it burn him.

He wanted to move on. Forget and start over, but the pesky idea of Henry never went away. He wondered if it ever would. He wondered if he ever wanted it to.

Chapter Text

The light was soft and cold, just barely spilling through the gauzy curtains when Henry woke. Paris in early winter had a hush to it, like the city itself was trying not to stir too loudly. He blinked up at the faded ceiling, the faint groan of the radiator the only sound in the apartment.

A warm arm slid over his chest. Behind him, the man shifted closer, face nuzzling into the space between Henry’s shoulder blades.

“Mm. Stay,” he murmured, voice still husky from sleep.

Henry turned just enough to press a light kiss to his forehead. “Can’t. I’ve got a reading this morning,” he said softly. “I need to shower, get ready.”

A groan. The arm tightened around him briefly before withdrawing. “Writers,” the man muttered, burying his face into the pillow. Henry couldn’t tell if it was said in a good way, but he also knew it didn’t matter. The man would be out of his life in a bit. Maybe there would be a halfhearted attempt at another meeting. Henry wasn’t sure he’d accept.

He slipped out from under the blanket. The hardwood was cold against his feet. He crossed the room, rubbing his eyes as he passed the cracked mirror and walked toward the bathroom.

At the doorway, he turned back—watched the way the morning light caught in the curls of black hair on the pillow. Messy, soft. Familiar.

Henry swallowed.

How long, he wondered, was he going to keep fooling myself with men who, in the evening light, vaguely looked like Alex?

He turned and went to shower.

In two hours, he found himself standing near the small fireplace, a copy of his book held lightly in one hand, the other resting at his side like he wasn't quite sure what to do with it. The room was warm, cluttered in that particular Parisian way—wood-paneled walls lined with books that had seen better centuries, the scent of tobacco, wax, and worn velvet thick in the air. The crowd was modest—no more than thirty—but attentive, leaning forward on tufted chairs or perched along the narrow staircase that coiled up to the second floor.

His voice, when he read, was quiet but steady. Unhurried. He’d been thinking about this moment for a very long time, so he had no qualms in dragging it out.

“We’ve walked through centuries, learning over and over that love is the first thing we’re told to be ashamed of. And still, somehow, it remains the most honest thing we ever do.”

A pause.

Then: the soft shuffle of breath as the room exhaled together, followed by a scattering of applause that grew into something warm and full. Henry smiled—small but genuine, his eyes catching the dim chandelier light. From the back, Bea grinned widely and clapped harder than anyone else. Percy gave a low whistle, shaking his head in admiration.

Two people from the front row came forward—an older man with ink-stained fingers and a younger woman with sharp green eyes. They took turns shaking Henry’s hand, murmuring their thanks.

« Merci pour vos mots. Ils m’ont rappelé des choses que j’avais oubliées. »

« C’était vraiment beau. »

And for a moment, Henry looked younger than he had in weeks. Not because he was pretending—but because he looked proud. Seen.

« C’est vous qui rendez ces mots vivants. Merci de les avoir reçus avec tant de cœur. »

Bea was the first to reach him, threading her way through the scattering of chairs and whispered congratulations like she owned the room. “You beautiful bastard,” she said, throwing her arms around Henry with a laugh that carried enough pride to fill the salon. “That was actually incredible.”

Percy followed at a more leisurely pace, his coat slung over one shoulder, and raised an eyebrow as he approached. “You’ve been hiding some very pretty words in that quiet mouth of yours, Henry.”

Henry gave them both a tired smile, the kind that hinted at nerves still humming just beneath his skin. “Thank you,” he said, genuinely. “Come on, let’s go get a drink. Les Deux Moulins?”

Percy scoffed, amused and appalled. “You want to celebrate the first public reading of your first damn book at a café that smells like cheap frying oil and disappointment? No. Absolutely not. We’re going to the Café de la Paix. If you’re going to be a Parisian author, we’re doing it right.”

Henry gave a breath of laughter. “Café de la Paix?” he echoed, bemused. “You think we’ll run into Ginsberg there?”

“Maybe,” Percy said with a shrug. “And if we do, maybe he’ll help you break big in the U.S.”

Henry shook his head, half-smiling. “I doubt Ginsberg has any interest in helping someone who might actually find favour with the literary establishment.”

Bea looped her arm through Henry’s. “Then let’s toast to that. To books, to poems, and to giving the establishment just enough charm to keep them guessing.”

Henry let them lead him toward the door, the afternoon outside stretching wide and shimmering with cold.

The wind tugged gently at their coats as they walked, leaves scratching across the cobblestones in brittle spirals. Paris in early winter was a painting smudged at the edges—branches nearly bare, the sky a soft iron grey. The bouquinistes were packing up their stalls for the night, and the Seine shimmered dimly beneath its bridges. Henry couldn’t remember the last time he’d walked this long without thinking about where he was going. He loved this place. Loved the solitude it gave while hinting at the chance for something more, should you want to reach out and grab it. It was a perfect place to feel lonely.

Bea talked most of the way, recounting some absurd story about her landlord’s cat and a broken chandelier, and Percy cut in now and then with dry commentary, his hands stuffed deep in his pockets. Henry listened more than he spoke, nodding, smiling, letting the rhythm of their voices guide his steps. He felt warm in a way he hadn’t expected—not from the weather, but from the closeness of it all. His sister. His oldest friend. The sound of their laughter rose like heat into the Paris evening.

By the time they reached Café de la Paix, the gold lettering above the doors glowed in the gaslight, haloed in mist. They were offered a table tucked into a corner, bracketed by long mirrors that caught the light in slanted glints, reflecting their faces back at them, pale and thoughtful and alive.

They ordered something vague—onion soup, a plate of bread and butter, things that could be rearranged and nibbled at for show. Percy ordered the champagne with a grin that dared the waiter to question their credentials. When the bottle arrived, frosted and sweating, Henry filled the glasses and raised his.

“To words,” he said, and tapped his flute gently against theirs.

The bubbles snapped cold against his tongue. He didn’t like the sensation—never had—but he smiled anyway. He liked the feeling. The fizz. The illusion of celebration. For a moment, the clatter of cutlery, the hum of soft piano from the corner, the distant sound of traffic—all of it faded. There was only Bea’s familiar voice and Percy’s dry laughter. And a sense, small but insistent, that maybe he hadn’t been forgotten by the world after all. Despite how much he had tried to disappear.

Maybe that mean Alex hadn’t forgotten about him either. Even if the years slipped by and he made no attempt to send out word of where he was. He felt like his mother...

Bea caught his gaze across the table and smiled, her eyes crinkling. “You look like you’re thinking too much.”

“I usually am,” Henry replied.

“But tonight, try not to,” she said.

He nodded, but couldn’t do as he was told.

Henry looked away from Bea’s knowing smile and let his gaze drift over the café. The world beyond their table moved gently, like a stage play he’d forgotten he was part of. A couple in the corner leaned close, their foreheads almost touching, speaking in the hush of people who’ve decided, quite suddenly, that they might be in love. A server with a tired gait adjusted the silverware on an empty table, humming along with the piano. Near the window, a man in a wool coat scribbled into a notebook, pausing now and then to glance out at the rain-streaked boulevard.

Henry watched the man’s pen, the little curve of his fingers, the furrowed brow. He wondered what he was writing. He pictured himself in that man’s place, writing a letter to Alex, explaining himself, his life, his whereabouts, asking in no words at all for Alex to come see him.

He pictured Alex now, somewhere far away, coffee growing cold beside his hand. Hair longer, maybe. Still folding the corners of pages he meant to return to.

Something pressed sharp and quiet in Henry’s chest. He sipped his champagne again, hoping the fizz might lift it. It didn’t. But he stayed with it anyway.

~*~

Henry stared down at the magazine in his hands, fingers brushing the corner of the soft matte cover. The Ladder. He took in the pale illustration—two figures seated at the foot of a ladder, their bodies quiet but poised. Waiting. Ready.

Bea said nothing as he flipped open the cover. She had walked into his apartment that morning and dropped this in front of him without so much as a hello. Now, she just watched him with that familiar expression of hers—gentle, patient, with a glint of mischief tucked behind her calm. Henry turned a few pages until her finger stopped him at the masthead.

There it was.

June Diaz, printed in clean serif letters under Editorial Team.

“No,” he said quietly, as if the word might change it.

Bea only nodded. “Yes.”

His hand closed around the magazine as though it might vanish. “How long have you had this?”

“Yesterday’s post,” she said. “But I’ve known about it longer.”

“You’ve kept in touch?”

“I never stopped,” she said softly.

Henry’s eyes remained fixed on the name. The sounds of the street faded again, lost behind the swell of something wordless inside him. He wasn’t sure if it was joy or sorrow. Maybe both.

“I didn’t know she was still writing.”

“She is,” Bea said. “And fighting. She’s got fire in her still.”

Henry exhaled slowly. The ladder on the cover seemed taller now. The two people beside it more familiar.

He looked up. “Thank you.”

Bea reached across the table, squeezed his hand once. “She didn’t forget you, you know.”

He didn’t answer. Just held on tighter to the magazine.

"I cannot tell you what a source of both inspiration and pleasure The Ladder contained for me within its pages. I, as an invert, can only know of what momentous importance such a movement as yours can mean, for the ultimate good of all of us.

"Like so many others ... I am living a completely repressed existence, sublimating my nature, whenever possible, in my profession.

"One of the insertions in The Ladder caught my attention and I could not help but muse over it with some irony. The part about 'Come out of hiding'. What a delicious invitation, but oh, so impractical. I should lose my job, a marvelous heterosexual roommate, and all chance of finding work ...I would be blackballed all over the city.

"I am interested-very much interested in becoming a member of the Daughters of Bilitis. Although at present discretion prevents me from making any moves to help the cause ... there is one very effective weapon we, who must fight from a hiding place, still have--the fountain pen and the typewriter."

Henry lowered his gaze to the magazine again, though the words were already blurred by the weight in his chest.

“The homosexual cause,” Bea said, the phrase both light and deliberate. She said it like a promise, not a scandal. Like it was one last attempt to make Henry understand something that everyone around him already knew. “It’s a cause now.”

He laughed softly, but it was a laugh without humour. “It always was with them.”

He’d said ‘them’, not ‘her’, and he knew Bea understood the names that were hidden behind that word.

Henry leaned back, letting the chair creak beneath him, eyes drifting to the reflections caught in the mirrored panels around their table. So many versions of him looking back. All of them alone.

He set the magazine down, slowly, carefully, like it might bruise if he wasn’t gentle. “I never stopped thinking about him,” he said, the words sandpapered and low. “Not a day. Not a goddamn day. It didn’t matter who I met, or what city I was in, or whose bed I was lying in. He was always there. He’s still there.”

Bea placed a hand over Henry’s.

“It’s a privilege to yearn after your own memories,” he said, his voice as smooth as the jazz that once filled his bar.

Henry swallowed, but the ache stayed lodged in his throat. “I can’t see him.”

“Why not?” Bea asked, not with judgment, just plain curiosity, like she was peeling back a page he hadn’t dared touch.

Henry looked up, eyes raw, and shook his head. “Because I don’t know how to come back from the way we ended. I don’t know what I’d say.”

“Why do you think he wouldn’t want you back?” she asked.

Because he remembered how Alex had looked that last night—full of fire, full of grief, refusing to choose a life lived in hiding. Because Henry had made the choice for both of them.

“I don’t know,” he said finally, and for the first time in a very long while, he looked like a man who wanted to hope.

~*~

San Francisco, 1958:

The office was a disaster. Piles of press kits leaned precariously against the windowsill, threatening to avalanche at any moment. There were at least three coffee cups in various stages of abandonment across Alex’s desk, and a hardback biography of a long-dead poet balanced on top of his laptop like a paperweight. None of it bothered him, usually. He liked the chaos—it made things feel lived-in, in motion. But today it just made him restless.

He was supposed to be outlining a feature Nora had pitched the night before, a human interest story about a couple who had fallen in love while working in the factories during World War 1. It should’ve absorbed him; he liked outlining these things. It had every ingredient he liked: nuance, stakes, old couples that knew each other inside and out. But his focus blinked uselessly against the blank document, and all he could think about was Henry. Couples knowing each other inside and out.

Years and years apart, and now he was in the same city. The same time zone. Breathing the same rain-heavy air.

Alex leaned back in his chair, rubbing the bridge of his nose. His heart had been ticking faster than usual since June told him over dinner that Henry had shown up at the reading—quietly, like he hadn’t crossed a continent to be there. Apparently, he hadn’t said much, just watched, smiled once or twice, and left before the lights came up.

Alex wasn’t ready.

He wanted to leave work early. Wanted to go find Henry now, to see if the version of him in his memory still matched the real thing. But he knew himself too well. If he went now, nerves jangling, brain on fire, he’d say something stupid. Or worse—say nothing at all. He had to pace himself. Let the moment breathe.

Still, the questions came anyway, tumbling over each other.

What would he even say?
Hi. You look the same. No, you don’t. I memorized your face too early and for too long.
Or maybe: Sorry, I never wrote. Sorry, I didn’t know how. Sorry, I left and then kept leaving.

Or even worse: But you didn’t say anything either, and I wasn’t going to be the one to bend my morals for you. I miss you, but I’m not crawling back just because your eyes are the first thing I think about in the morning and the last thing I remember before I fall asleep.

His stomach turned.

There’d been letters in his head, over the years. Words he never sent. He’d imagined this moment so many times that it no longer felt real. Would they shake hands? Hug? Laugh nervously and pretend they were fine?

Alex glanced at the time. Four-thirty. He could go. Technically. No one would stop him. The thought of seeing Henry again made his palms sweat, made the room feel too small.

He stood abruptly, grabbing his coat from the back of the chair, his keys jangling in his pocket. The article could wait. So could clarity. What mattered now was the simple, impossible truth: Henry was here.

And Alex wasn’t going to let the moment pass him by.

The clang of cups and the low hum of chatter rose like music from the Caffè Trieste, windows steamed with breath and afternoon fog. Alex stepped inside just before five, the fading sun glancing off his coat sleeve as he pushed through the door. He spotted Henry instantly, half-hidden behind a newspaper, seated at a corner table like he'd always belonged there.

Alex stood for a beat, letting the sight of him settle. Ten years was a long time. Henry looked older only in the stillness — in the quiet, bruised edge of his posture, in the way he held the paper like it might shield him. He shouldn’t need shielding from Alex. Alex would be gentle.

“Everyone’s speaking Italian,” Alex said, sliding into the chair across from him, breath caught somewhere between his ribs.

If he pretended all of this was easy, then maybe his body would catch on and act like it.

Henry smiled, a small, reluctant thing. “San Francisco,” he said, his first words to Alex in such a long time and Alex almost startled at the sound of his voice. “Little pocket of Naples on the wrong side of the ocean.”

“You still speak it?” Alex asked, teasing.

Henry gave him a look over the rim of his glasses. “I was born to speak it,” he said, rounding his words in an exaggerated British accent.

Alex turned toward the counter, called out to the barista in smooth, confident Italian, “Due cappuccini, per favore.”

Henry blinked. “You do know it’s the afternoon, don’t you? No Italian worth their salt drinks cappuccino after noon.”

Alex shrugged. “We’ll be forgiven. We’re uncultured Americans. Besides, money is money.”

Henry laughed, short and low, but his eyes lingered on Alex’s face. They both stared for a while—cataloguing the changes. There were barely any to be seen. Alex’s curls were shorter and Henry’s face had softened in the jaw but sharpened in the eyes. But it was still him. His eyes still made Alex want to jump across the table and kiss him until he was out of breath.

When the silence stretched, Alex reached out and let his fingers brush Henry’s hand on the table, a familiar gesture from another life.

Henry pulled away—just slightly, but enough.

Alex’s face clouded. Was this never going to be different?

“I want to,” Henry said quickly, softly, voice splintering at the edges. “Just… not here.”

Alex nodded once, lips pressed together. He folded his hands back into his lap. “Alright,” he said. But his eyes stayed on Henry’s, searching for the next thing unsaid.

And then, between them, the cappuccinos arrived—thick foam, cinnamon on top. A little warmth, even if it was the wrong hour.

Alex downed his cappuccino in two swallows—still hot enough to bite a little at the roof of his mouth, sweet enough to soften the ache in his chest. He set the cup back in its saucer with a clean clink, eyes never leaving Henry.

All the things he wanted to say were rattling in his head, fighting each other for dominance. It unnerved him, being so silent for so long, but he couldn’t prioritize the mess that came with being in Henry’s proximity again.

So, for lack of a plan, he sat and watched the way Henry twiddled with his drink, the way he fussed around it, while never actually touching it, hoping that Henry’s uncoordinated efforts were a sign of the thoughts he was trying to order as well.

“Come walk with me,” he said, because standing still was tantamount to death as far as he was concerned.

Henry hesitated only a second. “Where to?”

Alex slid a dollar across the table, enough to cover both drinks, and rose to his feet. “Somewhere quieter.”

Henry stood too, cappuccino untouched, chair scraping gently against the tiled floor. He looked once more at the cup, at the swirl of cinnamon and steam, then left it behind.

Outside, the afternoon leaned toward evening, San Francisco glowing gold and gray all at once. The wind off the bay tugged lightly at their coats, and without needing to discuss it, they fell into step—Alex on the left, Henry on the right, the space between them small, but ever present.

There was a comfort in it, that easy rhythm. Feet moving in sync over sidewalks scuffed by decades of city life, the familiar murmur of languages trailing from café doors, the scent of roasted almonds and old books hanging in the wind.

Henry glanced over, just once. Alex’s hands were in his coat pockets, head tilted slightly forward, like he was walking against a thought he hadn’t figured out how to say yet.

They turned the corner onto Columbus Avenue, and there, across the street like a quiet beacon, was City Lights.

Henry smiled—small, unguarded. “Of course,” he murmured.

He’d heard about it from the people who clung to him in Paris, from Percy, who recommended it before he’d left the old continent. He didn’t think Alex would bring him there, but thinking about it longer, he realized there was nowhere else Alex would have brought him. Because Alex knew him well enough to understand that this was somewhere he’d want to visit, and soon.

Alex looked up at the windows lit warm behind old glass. “Seemed right.”

Henry exhaled, slow. He wanted to run his hands through Alex’s hair and get tangled in it. “It does.”

The bell above the door chimed as they stepped into the bookstore, and the warmth of the shop hit them like a held breath released. Paper and dust, ink and late afternoons lived between shelves—it smelled like thought made physical.

They hadn’t made it five steps in before a blur of motion came at Henry from the side.

“Oh my god—Henry!”

Nora all but launched herself at him, arms looping tight around his shoulders. He froze, shocked, then instinct kicked in and he folded her into a warm, startled hug. Alex stepped back slightly, watching the reunion with a flicker of amusement softening the tension behind his eyes.

Nora pulled back, beaming. “You wrote a book and you didn’t tell me?!” she said in lieu of ‘hello’. Percy must have informed her, because he had kept the information close to his chest.

Henry’s ears turned pink almost instantly. “I—well, yes. I mean, kind of. It’s just a limited print. France. Small salon thing. Nothing big.”

Alex blinked. “You wrote a book?”

Henry glanced at him, suddenly sheepish. This was turning into a scene, and he felt uneasy being at the centre of it. “It wasn’t meant to… go anywhere.”

Nora rolled her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous. Do you have a copy on you?”

“I—uh—no. I didn’t bring—”

“Then mail it!” she ordered, looking at Alex for reinforcement. He nodded vigorously, because of course he did. “Find one and send it to me. I’ll show it to Lawrence. If it’s good—and I bet it is—he might pick it up. It’s exactly the kind of stuff he’s looking for lately.”

Henry laughed, a little breathless, caught between disbelief and embarrassment. “It’s not even in English.”

“That’s what translators are for,” Nora said, eyes glinting. “Henry Fox, published American novelist. Doesn’t that have a nice ring?”

Alex was still watching him, quieter now, something unreadable flickering through his gaze. Henry didn’t meet it just yet. Didn’t know how to.

But he smiled—genuine, if small—and said, “Maybe. British though.”

“I’ll have none of that dirty talk in the presence of this young lady,” Alex said, grabbing Henry by the shoulders. “Go take a first look around,” he said, knowing full well they’d return again and again for as many times as Henry wanted. “I’ll wait for you here.”

Henry gave a playful salute and disappeared deeper into the shop, eyes already flicking over the shelves with something like reverence. They watched him go for a moment, the way his fingers hovered just above the spines, not touching for fear of ruining him. Then Nora leaned toward Alex, voice low.

“When did he come back?”

Alex rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know. I just met up with him an hour ago. I… I couldn’t… haven’t had the chance to ask him about anything.”

Nora raised a sceptical brow. She tilted her head, studying him. “Do you know what’s going to happen next?”

“I have hopes,” Alex said, his voice gentler now. “But I’m not willing to believe in them yet.”

Nora followed his gaze to Henry, who had paused at a display table stacked with translations of poetry—Rimbaud, Lorca, Hikmet—and was thumbing through a thin volume with careful hands. He glanced up, as if feeling the weight of their attention, and his eyes locked with Alex’s for just a breath. Not long. But enough.

Nora caught the flicker in that look, how it held more than it said aloud. “Whatever your thoughts are about where this evening is heading,” she murmured, “Henry’s having the same ones.”

Alex didn’t answer. His jaw twitched, his shoulders eased. He looked like someone who had just been told the answer to a question he didn’t dare ask aloud.

After he’d said his goodbyes to Nora, promised to visit her and June as soon as he got his feet back on the ground proper, he looked at Alex and silently told him he wanted to leave.

“You knew I’d want to come here,” Henry said without looking, following Alex outside the bookstore.

Alex shrugged, a half-grin playing on his lips. “Seemed right.”

And this time, when Henry looked back at him, the look lingered, eyes full of intent. And then they crossed the street together.

The apartment was just off Shrader Street, tucked into one of those faded, narrow buildings whose bay windows peeked toward the Panhandle like curious eyes. Henry stepped inside, the floorboards giving a soft groan under his shoes, as though they hadn’t borne a guest’s weight in months. Alex held the door open a second longer than necessary before easing it shut behind them. The scent of old pine floor polish and tobacco clung to the air, threaded with something warmer, something distinctly Alex—his cologne, maybe, or simply the lived-in scent of a space stubbornly claimed by one man’s rhythms.

The place was small, maybe three rooms in total, and sparsely decorated, but it bore the quiet weight of being lived in. The 1950s touch was everywhere: the linoleum in the kitchenette with its teal-and-cream checkerboard pattern, a slim Formica table crouched beneath a frosted glass lamp. A low bookshelf, metal-framed and scuffed at the edges, sagged beneath paperbacks with cracked spines—Baldwin, Highsmith, a stack of poetry collections leaning sideways. On the couch—a dusty rose vinyl number, clearly secondhand but neatly kept—a folded throw rested like a half-hearted attempt at domesticity. Across from it sat a Zenith television, squat and proud, perched on a milk crate disguised with a hemmed piece of fabric.

Above the mantel, a single framed photograph commanded the wall: Ocean Beach at sunset, waves caught mid-crash, frozen and eternal.

Henry lingered in the middle of the room, letting the details sink in. The faint hum of the radiator filled the silence, steady as a heartbeat. The blinds were drawn halfway, strips of pale city light carving the walls into alternating bars of shadow and gold. The place was modest, a little worn, but every corner whispered of Alex. Quietly stylish, practical, stubbornly intact.

“You live here alone?” Henry asked softly.

Alex shrugged out of his coat and hung it carefully on a bent brass hook by the door. “Yeah. The girls needed their space. We have enough interest built up that we can afford even more than this, if needed.”

Henry’s eyes flicked to the ashtray on the sill, the ceramic mug holding three pens beside a half-finished crossword, the shelf stacked with novels carrying the weight of old hands. Every small thing was proof of life, proof of choosing to endure. Given what he knew of Alex, the place was almost startlingly clean.

He cleared his throat, his voice gentler than he meant it to be. “It suits you.”

Alex’s smile was quick, deflecting. “It’s not much.”

“No,” Henry said, still taking it in. “It’s exactly enough.”

“It’s the only way to keep it from being a total mess.”

Alex’s tone was light, but as he stepped closer, his movements shifted—slow, deliberate, like he was approaching something sacred he’d waited too long to touch. The air between them thickened, charged, the warmth rising off Henry’s skin like a memory recalled too sharply.

Henry didn’t move. His gaze held steady, something flickering in it—tender, raw, open in a way that scared him. Alex stopped when their chests almost brushed, and for a moment, they just breathed each other in.

Alex raised a hand, touched Henry’s jaw with aching reverence, thumb grazing the line beneath his cheekbone. His voice was barely a whisper. “You’re here.”

It was inevitable. Henry knew it. They were inevitable.

And then Alex kissed him.

It wasn’t tentative. It was heat and memory, the ache of years condensed into a single press of lips. Their mouths found each other with a quiet urgency, parting, testing, remembering. Henry sighed into him, soft and unguarded, and Alex caught the sound like a confession. His hand slid into Henry’s hair, the other around his waist, tugging him close until there was nothing left between them but want.

Henry melted into the touch, his hands curling into Alex’s shirt. Every brush of lips, every stuttering breath, felt like reclamation—like something sealed and long denied breaking open again. They could talk it through in the morning, use coherent sentences later. Right now, he just needed.

When they finally broke apart, foreheads pressed together, Alex’s eyes shone with something fierce, something grateful. “You still taste like bergamot,” he murmured.

Henry huffed a laugh, low and wrecked. “You still kiss like you mean it.”

Alex grinned, brushing his nose against Henry’s. “Oh, believe me baby, I do. With you I do.”

He nudged Henry gently, hips brushing, guiding him back toward the bedroom. The narrow doorway gave way to dimness, evening light slanting through half-closed blinds, painting the bed in fractured shadow. The room was as sparse as the rest of the apartment—quiet, unassuming—but the charged air made it feel like a shrine.

As Alex backed Henry toward the bed, he tugged at the hem of his shirt, pulling it over his head in one smooth motion. The fabric landed forgotten near the door. Henry’s eyes swept over him—broad shoulders, lean muscle, the faint stripes of scars crisscrossing his body—and he had to stop, just to look.

He swallowed hard. “How is it you still look so perfect all the time?”

Alex smirked, half shy and half knowing. “Gotta look good for you,” he murmured, reaching for Henry’s buttons with deliberate patience. Each slip of fabric dragged slow across skin, leaving goosebumps in its wake. Henry’s breath hitched, chest rising unevenly, but he held still—let Alex set the pace. The shirt fell open, slid from his shoulders, baring him in the last of the twilight.

For a moment, they simply stood there, skin to skin, hearts thudding unevenly. Henry’s hand found Alex’s waist, grazing the curve of his hip, and Alex leaned forward until their foreheads touched.

“I missed this,” Alex said, voice rough.

Henry lay back on the bed, the mattress creaking, and Alex followed, stretching out beside him, weight settling just enough to anchor. Their limbs tangled loosely, breath syncing slowly, and the quiet between them was thick with history, not emptiness.

Alex skimmed a hand along Henry’s chest, palm flat over his heart. Henry’s hand covered it, holding it there.

“You’ve changed,” Alex whispered—not accusing, just noticing.

“So have you,” Henry replied softly. “I don’t think I know what you like anymore.”

Alex kissed him again, light then deeper. “We’ll figure it out.”

There was awkwardness—a wrong angle, a missed beat—but then Henry shifted, thigh sliding between Alex’s, and something clicked. Alex’s lips trailed down his neck, slow and sure. Henry’s fingers threaded into his hair, guiding him wordlessly.

The rediscovery was slow. Almost overwhelming. Alex traced every familiar ridge, relearned the sounds Henry made, the way his body arched, the way he gasped when Alex lingered in just the right places. It felt like coming home, and Alex nearly cursed at the sheer relief of it.

Clothes tumbled away, laughter breaking between kisses when Alex lost balance in his haste. But soon Henry straddled him, poised, knowing, and the fidgeting stilled. Alex wasn’t above begging—his parted lips all but did. Henry understood, gave him what he asked for with a lazy swirl of hips that had Alex biting blood into his own lip.

“Where?” Henry asked, hand closing firmly around him.

Alex choked out a sound, dizzy with the edge of it. “Oh…god.”

“Where?” Henry asked again.

Alex motioned clumsily toward the bedside drawer. Henry leaned, muscles taut and gleaming, pulling out a jar of Vaseline. “Stop squirming,” he ordered.

“Easy for you to say,” Alex muttered, eyes shut tight, trying not to shatter too soon.

Henry licked the blood from his lip, and Alex groaned, pressing shamelessly against him for more.

“I need…” Alex stammered.

“I need it too,” Henry whispered, guiding him inside, inch by delicious inch.

The sensation was overwhelming—immediate, full. Henry exhaled sharply, fingers tightening against Alex’s shoulder, not in pain but in sheer closeness. Alex held still, digging his fingers into Henry’s hips, waiting for approval, and when Henry nodded, he stopped holding back.

Every shift of hips, every drawn breath was a rediscovery of what they were. It wasn’t perfect, but it was so damn near close to it that Alex could reach out and grab it. The way Henry’s body moved on top of his, the way the silence between moans and whispered names coaxed Alex closer to the edge.

This was it for him. This would be it for as long as he drew breath. There was no escaping the maddening heat of Henry, no way to keep his sanity without having this man in his arms for as long as there were days left to live.

He grabbed Henry and turned them over, needing to press him into the mattress, to shield Henry’s body with his own and show him just how much want had built up since their last encounter.

Their bodies shifted closer, breath catching in their throats as skin pressed to skin. There was nothing rushed in the way Alex touched Henry, in how he waited—watchful, asking without words, until Henry nodded, his breath soft against Alex’s cheek.

Then and only then did Alex dig his knees into the mattress and stop holding back. The soft moans turned into grunts, the light touches into bruising grasps. Alex fingers sunk into the sides of Henry’s hips, knowing that he’d trace the blue marks in the morning.

Henry didn’t shy away from it though, as his nails scratched long deep lines into Alex’s back, hands grasping at a body moving in strong, determined thrusts. He moaned into Alex’s ear like a promise, and Alex took it as a challenge.

“I want you with me,” he managed to huff out between grunts and bed creaks.

“I’m right there with you,” Henry assured him, angling his head to press into the nape of Alex’s neck. “I’m right here with you,” he said again, licking off the gleam of sweat before biting in.

It was too much. The thought of Henry taking him in every way, the feeling on Henry’s tongue lapping at his neck as he coaxed the blood out of him. It pushed him over the edge. And when Alex finally stilled, half-draped over Henry, his head tucked into the crook of his shoulder, he lifted Henry’s wrist to his mouth and bit in. The first puncture was delicate, almost tender, and then the taste flooded in — rich, copper-sweet, layered with memory.

He heard the soft moan it elicited from Henry as he pulled away from Alex's neck and let his head lull over the side of the pillow. His pulse thudded against Alex’s mouth, steady and trusting, not a drop of fear to be tasted.

Henry moaned softly, blood-drunk and smiling. “You gonna suck me dry?”

Alex pulled back, lips stained. “Oh, you’ve developed a sense of humour.”

Henry dragged him down into a kiss, tasting himself on Alex’s lips.

~*~

The room was still except for the radiator’s hiss and the city breathing beyond the cracked window. A neon sign blinked red, then dark, then red again, painting Alex’s shoulder in pulses of colour. The sheets clung low to their hips, warm with the mingled scent of sweat and skin.

Alex sprawled across Henry’s chest, one leg hooked over his, fingers tracing lazy circles beneath his collarbone. He pressed his ear against Henry’s chest, listening to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat—proof he was here, real, not some dream dissolving with dawn.

Henry stared at the ceiling. Half a century of knowing this man, and still, never enough. The years apart had been torture, every night a pale imitation of this—the weight, the warmth, the certainty.

“Did you miss me?” Alex’s voice was small, tentative, betraying more than he wanted.

Henry’s hand brushed down his spine. “This isn’t the time for questions,” he murmured.

Alex snorted, chin resting over Henry’s heart. “When have you ever known me to not talk?”

Henry smiled faintly. “Never. And it’s always gotten you into trouble.”

“Only the good kind.” Alex kissed his jaw, slow and fond. “Are you planning on staying?”

The question hung raw.

“I’m not sure of anything anymore,” Henry admitted. “Being next to you is… terrifying. And wonderful. It hasn’t faded. That’s what scares me. Nothing lasts for me. But this—this is getting too big.”

Alex nodded slowly. “So we scale it down. Make it simple. We date.”

Henry barked a laugh, disbelieving.

“I’m serious,” Alex said. “We go back to New York. Get our own places. Make our own rules. Merge when we want.”

“You want to date,” Henry said flatly.

“Figured it’s about time we did it properly.” Alex flopped back with a dramatic sigh. “I want to be wooed.”

Henry laughed. “You what?”

“Flowers. Candy. The whole nine yards. Movies. Milkshakes.”

Henry groaned. “This television thing has ruined your brain.”

“Am I not worth it?” Alex teased, though there was something real in his eyes.

Henry looked at him, saw the truth behind the joke, and muttered, “You’re infuriatingly worth it. But if you think I’m buying carnations—”

“Peonies,” Alex said smugly. “And dark chocolate.”

Henry groaned again, pulling him close for a hard kiss.

Chapter Text

It was a warm, sticky afternoon, the kind that made the city feel like it was sweating along with everyone in it. The kind of heat that clung to skin and turned every stairwell into a punishment. Alex hated it. Every step up the narrow four-story walk-up felt like a declaration of war against gravity and reason. The bannister was slick beneath his palm, the stairwell thick with the trapped smell of dust, old paint, and too many summers. Moving a three-person sofa—wide, unwieldy, and unforgiving—only made things worse. He could’ve handled it himself, honestly, but there were guests. Witnesses. Friends.

The girls had arrived in a flurry of chatter, arms weighted with two giant bags of ice that sweated down their legs as they climbed, and behind them came more people, drifting up as though they’d been magnetised by the promise of a rooftop. Within the hour, twenty bodies had collected above the Charles Street walk-up, perched on tarpaper softened by years of weather, drinks clinking against mismatched cups and bottles. Music crackled from someone’s speaker. The laughter was even louder.

Alex peeled off his white tank top, soaked through from the ordeal, and tossed it toward a sagging lawn chair. His shoulders gleamed in the late-afternoon light, sweat catching the orange shimmer of the sun. A ripple of wolf whistles rose up from the crowd—some genuine, some exaggerated—and Alex grinned, flashing teeth through the sheen of heat. He snapped open a cold beer, beads of condensation sliding down his wrist, and lobbed another one across to Pez, who caught it one-handed with theatrical flair.

Pez was sprawled like a sultan on a rickety plastic lounge chair Nora had dragged up, one ankle crossed lazily over the other. He tilted his sunglasses down with two fingers, peered out over the crowd, then shoved them back into place with a sigh that carried all the grandeur of a Shakespearean death scene.

“God, I can feel my muscles evolving,” Pez announced, flexing a bicep that glistened more with sweat than strength.

“Yeah, into something useless,” June shot back, perched like a sparrow on the edge of the roof, her sneakers dangling off the ledge. She sipped from a Coke bottle that almost certainly didn’t hold Coke and nudged Pez with her toe when he offered her his sunglasses.

“We were moral support,” she added, wry and proud.

“Very important work,” Nora agreed from the shade of an old patio umbrella someone had leaned precariously against a chimney. She was barefoot, curls piled on her head in a haphazard bun, her grin as wide as ever. She cracked open another can and handed it backward into the crowd without turning. “I supervised the sweat levels.”

The rooftop thrummed with lazy joy. Plastic cups clinked, someone shouted about tequila, and the sun dipped lower, stretching the shadows of nearby buildings into long slants of amber. The air smelled of tar warming underfoot, cheap beer, and the faint sweetness of wine bottles swimming in melting ice.

The door creaked open, and Henry stepped through.

He was backlit by the yellow stairwell light, edges softened by the haze of heat. His black shirt fluttered faintly in the rooftop breeze, half-tucked into dark jeans cuffed above sneakers scuffed enough to prove he had walked, not been chauffeured. He looked annoyingly effortless—the kind of cool Alex would’ve mocked if it didn’t make his stomach tighten.

Henry’s gaze found Alex immediately—shirtless, glistening, beer in hand—and his cheeks colored hot, a blush that had nothing to do with the weather. Alex’s grin widened, wolfish, and before anyone could say a word, he crossed the rooftop in three strides and kissed Henry full on the mouth.

The crowd erupted. Whistles, cheers, someone hollering, “Get a room!” followed by another chiming, “Or don’t!”

Henry laughed against Alex’s lips, pushing him back with mock indignation, but the curve of his smile gave him away.

“You’re disgusting,” he muttered, eyes bright despite the flush creeping down his neck.

“I’m festive,” Alex shot back, slinging an arm around his shoulders like Henry had already belonged there. He steered him toward the centre of the rooftop, radiating triumph.

“Hope the bed’s big enough,” someone called from the crowd—a redhead with a mischievous glint, lifting his beer in salute as he passed Henry a cold can.

Henry rolled his eyes, but he accepted the drink with a small huff of laughter. “These people cannot be subtle.” He slipped easily into their orbit, sinking down near the cluster of sun chairs where Pez, June, and Nora were holding court. He leaned to hug June, dropped a kiss onto Nora’s forehead, and collapsed into a chair with the grace of someone who intended to stay.

“I guess I’m too late for the theatrics,” Henry said, cracking open his can.

“Oh, you missed everything,” Pez groaned, draping himself across the chair like a war casualty. “The pain, the glory, the raw heroism of moving that beast of a sofa. My very soul has been altered.”

“Heroism?” June snorted, tilting her Coke bottle. “You nearly dropped it on Alex’s foot.”

“Collateral damage,” Pez shrugged, squinting at the skyline as though reliving his ordeal.

“We were supervising,” June said with a sage nod. “There was a lot of grunting. Very manly.”

“Alex’s shirt came off at some point,” Nora added brightly, eyes glinting with mischief. “That really boosted morale. At least three guys offered to bathe him.”

Henry’s lips twitched as his eyes slid back to Alex. Across the rooftop, Alex was bent over the cooler, laughing with someone about bottle openers, sweat sliding down the length of his back in a slow trickle. Henry’s gaze lingered—then flicked briefly toward the tall, black-haired man hovering at the fringe of the party, whiskey glass in hand, eyes fixed in Alex’s direction.

“Maybe as a toy,” Henry murmured under his breath, grinning when the man caught his eye and flushed.

Alex returned just then, wiping condensation from his can with the back of his hand. He followed Henry’s glance toward the lurker, one brow arched, and smirked.

“We source food elsewhere,” Alex said dryly, lifting his beer in a toast to the small circle of knowing smiles.

~*~

Later that night, when most of the party had quieted into soft laughter and drunken yawns, Henry laced his fingers through Alex’s and tugged gently.

“Walk with me,” he said.

They slipped out of the rooftop unnoticed, trailing down the echoing stairwell, their hands still intertwined. The air on Charles Street had cooled just slightly, enough to lift the heaviness of the day. The pavement was still warm, humming with the memory of sun, and the streetlamps cast soft halos over the sidewalk as they strolled past sleepy brownstones and blooming window boxes.

Neither of them spoke at first. The rhythm of their steps, in sync and easy, said enough. Henry’s thumb traced absent circles on the back of Alex’s hand.

When they reached the corner, Alex nudged him with a grin. “You sure you want to go walking around like this? You’re going to make people jealous.”

“I’ll risk it,” Henry murmured, nudging him back.

They turned onto Greenwich, the city quieting around them, with only the occasional honk in the distance, or a bar letting out patrons with lazy, wine-slow laughter. As they passed a deli closing up for the night, Henry pulled Alex a little closer. The summer night wrapped around them like velvet.

They were halfway down Sixth Avenue, streetlight glinting off glass storefronts, when the sudden blare of a police siren made both of them flinch.

A cruiser screeched to a halt at the curb, tires shrieking loud enough to make heads turn half a block away.

The doors slammed open almost before the car stopped rolling. Two cops spilt out—stocky, broad men with sweat-stained uniforms clinging to their shoulders, faces flushed beet-red from the late-summer humidity and the glow of neon bleeding off the storefronts. Their batons were already out, clutched in thick hands like they’d been waiting for something—someone—to swing at.

“Hey!” one barked, jabbing a finger toward the sidewalk. “You two—what’re you doing out this late, huh?”

Alex didn’t flinch. His body moved without thought, a subtle half-step in front of Henry, shoulders squared. “We’re walking,” he said calmly. His eyes didn’t blink. “Is there a problem?”

“You tell me,” the second cop sneered, lips curling. “Holding hands. That how you get your kicks around here, fairy?”

The word dropped heavy, like a stone hurled into still water. The ripples spread.

Henry stiffened beside him, jaw tightening.

Alex’s smile faltered, his teeth showing for just a flicker of a second. “You might want to watch your mouth.”

“Or what?” the first one said, taking a swaggering step closer. He tapped his baton against Henry’s chest—not hard, but sharp enough to sting. “Gonna prance away, sweetheart?”

Alex moved back a fraction, hand brushing Henry’s wrist, pulling him with him. His voice was quieter this time, measured. “C’mon. This isn’t worth it.”

“Yeah, you better run,” the second one jeered as they turned away. “Couple’a freaks.”

They ducked into an alley, narrow and sour-smelling, lined with dented trash bins and broken fire escapes that groaned overhead like rusted skeletons. A single streetlamp flickered weakly at the far end, throwing everything else into shifting shadow. The air reeked of piss, sour beer, and old grease.

Alex released Henry’s hand, shoulders rolling like he was shrugging off a heavy coat, or a second skin. He exhaled slowly, but his eyes were sharp.

Then came the sound they'd been waiting for: the echo of boots behind them, slow and deliberate.

The cops had followed, their laughter low and cruel, bouncing off the brick walls.

“Where do you think you’re going?” one called, voice oozing. “Thought we were just getting to know each other.”

Henry and Alex stopped walking. The alley stilled around them, the hum of the city muffled by the walls closing them in. They didn’t turn. Not yet.

“What’s the matter?” one of the cops taunted. “No more kisses for us?”

That was when Alex turned. Slowly.

His smile came back, but it wasn’t kind. Something ancient flickered behind it, something that had been waiting to bare its teeth. “You’re right,” he said softly, almost tenderly. “We were just getting to the good part.”

Before the words finished leaving his mouth, Henry pivoted beside him. His usual softness—the hesitation, the quiet restraint—bled away. His eyes glowed faintly, like moonlight rippling on black water, pupils swallowed into pale silver. His lips curled back in a smile too sharp, too red.

The first cop raised his baton, but Alex was already there, moving too fast for the human eye to track. His hand locked on the man’s collar, dragging him close, breath mingling for a second before fangs slid into view. The cop’s protest caught in his throat, choking off into silence.

The second one managed a step backward, baton clattering to the ground, but Henry caught him by the belt as if he weighed nothing. His grip was unyielding, graceful, inescapable. He leaned in with a shuddering inhale, and his fangs pierced with a precision that was both brutal and intimate. The man sagged instantly, blood rushing out faster than his body could understand, skin paling as his heartbeat stuttered twice, then stopped.

The alley filled with sounds that were worse than screams: gasps, the scrape of shoes dragging across pavement, the hollow thud of wood on concrete, the wet pull of mouths that were not quite human.

And then silence.

When it was over, Henry stood with his chest heaving, his face streaked, his mouth smeared red. His eyes dimmed back to blue, though the glow lingered faintly, like embers refusing to die. He looked at Alex, a little dazed, a little wild.

“Too much?” he asked, voice rough.

Alex wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, tongue flicking over a crimson smear. His grin was wolfish. “Not enough.”

They hauled the bodies toward the bins with no ceremony, letting them slump into the shadows. The city would take care of them. Tomorrow, there would be whispers, theories, excuses—cops killed in the line of duty, an unsolved attack pinned on the usual suspects. New York devoured the inconvenient dead quickly.

Alex tugged his shirt back into place. Henry didn’t bother with the buttons. They stepped out of the alley shoulder to shoulder, back into the golden spill of the corner lamp. Their hands found each other again, as natural as breathing. To anyone watching, they were just another couple out late, wandering home.

Because to them, that was all this was—just another night in New York.

“Want to walk over to our old place?” Alex asked, pressing a quick kiss to Henry’s lips.

“That’s miles away,” Henry murmured, leaning into his chest, his voice lazy and sweet again now that the hunger was quiet.

“Nothing I’d rather do than spend my time walking around with you.”

Alex kissed him again, pressing their noses together until Henry laughed softly.

“Sure,” Henry said. “Let’s see if there are still some bones on it.”

He laced his fingers through Alex’s, and together they strolled toward the glow of the Williamsburg Bridge, shadows stretching out long behind them.