Emiliano Pavone

This time there was no aching exhaustion when it was all said and done. No wounds to stitch up or armor to put back on, the shared intimacy of two souls rendered bare that he wasn’t left watching slip away like tendrils of smoke from a shared cigarette. Instead it remained as strong and bright as every string they’d tied to each other, reflected in the laughter Emil spilled against his lips as he kissed his mouth, in the way Monty couldn’t stop tracing constellations against his skin. Retracing the story they’d written each other when they’d both chosen to reject tragedy. And if he felt pride when Emil told him yes, it wasn’t out of the smug satisfaction of figuring out a mystery, but for the fulfillment of a promise he’d made so many months ago. 

“I learn from the best,” he said. His thumb catching briefly against Emil’s jaw just to give himself space to say it, but it was far more sincere than teasing when he thought his influence on Montgomery’s life was clear enough. Not just for bending rules or stealing heated moments tucked away in a far too public library, but a thousand other lessons that had taken far longer to sink in. To be selfish without feeling guilty for it, to name what he wanted instead of just what he didn’t. To love himself better, even if he still loved Emil best, and how to be fearless in showing him that outside the walls of their home. Criticism and judgement he’d been terrified of, a risk he’d never been willing to take until it meant settling for scraps, when he wanted to adore Emil with all the shameless devotion he deserved. To kiss him, hold his hand, dance with him, a thousand glittering moments he wanted to share with him.

And if he’d never lingered long on the thought of marriage before, he thought now he liked the sound of husband as much as he did caro mio, Proof that there was always a new piece of him to unwrap in a game of twenty questions, because if he’d taken anything away from it at the end, he thought it was faith, finally settling into his bones that when Emil said irrevocably, he meant forever. That he wouldn’t change his mind tomorrow or a month from now or even a year from now, a love he couldn’t take back, if only because he didn’t want to.

His hand shifted then, fingers tracing a path along his jaw before curving around the back of his neck to draw him closer. To kiss him deeper, with a slow, languid heat, a better end to their game than the first time they’d played it. Full of promise and hope, the things they’d given each other that he thought finally filled in the empty spaces that nothing else had ever touched. Not sex or drugs, not the job he threw himself into like it was a substitute for love and family, or every orchestrated romance Emil had crafted so he never had to feel alone. Gratitude welling bright and warm in his chest even as he kissed him, for all of it, for loving him best, for finding the pieces of Montgomery he’d barely known existed until Emil was holding them up to the light. Appreciation he rarely offered because he never wanted his love to look like it existed just for what Emil could give him, instead of everything he was. A complicated, contradiction of a man.

But the words got lost somewhere between the press of lips and heat of his tongue, sinking into the feeling of being in love and being loved in return. The kind that left him smiling in the fleeting brush of memory, when it was a far more effective way of shutting him up than just holding his hand.

✦

If their first game had been a dissection, Emil thought this one was a celebration. Stripping one another of their armor not to find hidden scars and vulnerabilities, but to better kiss the skin beneath it. Affection he reveled in and returned in kind, slipping two more buttons loose so his fingers could mirror the memories Monty traced across his own chest. He sank into a kiss that bubbled over with laughter and remembered how much he had wanted their first night to end like this.

Yet there was something so distant in that memory, in thinking he could ever settle for this in parts. That he could steal enough warmth in a shared cigarette and the brush of fingers, that he could have his fill between Tuesdays and twenty questions. That Montgomery was a man who deserved to be loved in pieces when he was so much more whole. When he was as relentlessly dependable as he was recklessly stubborn, when his sharply fitted suits kept their color and glitter still lingered in well-kept hair, and when he was brilliant but still his favorite idiot. A complicated contradiction of a man.

So Emil smiled at Monty’s reply, finding it fitting that he’d taught the doctor to cheat when he’d taught him to be honest. Not to win trust, but to earn it. With that came a realization that the first and last person’s trust he’d ever manipulated was his own, convincing himself he was satisfied when he’d only ever been distracted. Ambitions and flirtations that were thrilling but never terrifying, and it was Monty who taught him that vulnerability should be both. That the kind of love he was willing to let hurt was the same kind of love that would stitch him back together, and here, holding the man he loved as he kissed him like a promise he’d never break, Emil had never felt so whole.

It was, in every way, a perfect bookend to a story that would rival the myths painted across the sky. An answer to the questions they’d been too scared to ask the first time they played this game, too busy protecting the secrets they desperately wanted the other to unveil. To know who they were underneath every mask and carefully compartmentalized box. To know if the person underneath was someone worth loving and who would possibly be up to the task. Now the only question Emil had left was why they always painted the most poetic and poignant moments in their relationship against the backdrop of a swamp.

But for him, the bayou had faded from view, eclipsed by the man who had handed him his heart and trusted him to keep it safe. A heart he let his palm settle over now, feeling the beat beneath his fingertips as his own quickened with the spiraling passion of unfettered happiness. A trick to keeping even the most talkative Italian quiet, yet Emil couldn’t help but sneak in a single smug reminder before he let Monty find a better use for his silver tongue. “Definitely a romance.”

It was an expected answer, but it still left Monty studying Emil for a moment longer, soft smile on his lips and wondering if there were enough words or any amount of eloquence that could sum up the man beside him. Or the image he presented now, stretched out in an image of lazy decadence, shirt parted loosely, presenting himself for judgement with all the vulnerability he’d claimed was thrilling and Montgomery had claimed was terrifying. And it was still both, it always had been, but this time he didn’t find himself caught up in the urge to be right, to dig up objective truths about a man who defied so many of them. Instead he was hoping only to be kind, to give him something to hold onto in those moments where his reflection looked fractured and he doubted the presence of his own heart.

“I see a man who’s unfairly beautiful,” he started. A compliment he couldn’t give without a coy curve of his lips, because it was familiar, and shallow, and the only place to really begin. “Every piece of him really. The color of his skin against my sheets, the brightness of his eyes, and don’t get me started on the hair.” Fingers threading through his locks again, thumb tracing a line along his temple before his hand pulled back, propping his head up on his knuckles. “And the way he dresses. Sharp and stylish, with a flair for dramatics that… almost rivals my own.” Even pausing for dramatic effect, but for a moment Monty was thinking of the image of Icarus at a masquerade. “He’s enough of a narcissist that he knows how gorgeous he is, but unfortunately for the rest of us, he even wears arrogance well.”

His free hand settled over his chest again, parting the fabric of his shirt to draw slow, careful patterns over his heart. “Of course he looks just as good wearing nothing at all. Probably one of my favorite looks. He’s amazing in bed, good with his hands, a definite praise kink, and a wonderfully filthy mouth. Though I have to say, he’s not the absolute deviant most people tend to imagine him as.” Praise that had the potential to be immediately distracting, so he did his best not to linger, even if his gaze fixated on his lips for a telling moment. “He has a wicked tongue outside the bedroom too. Just as likely to make me blush as it is to make me laugh, and the fact that he can do both so often is a feat in itself.” 

The kind of teasing he both loved and loathed, embarrassment he’d tried to hide in the back of his shoulder, but was hard to argue when Emil always looked so pleased with himself for it. “I see a man who’s intelligent and insightful, and so, so clever. I really can’t stress that enough, because he’s quick on his feet and quicker in interrogations. And the idea that anyone could overlook it seems absolutely criminal, because I’ve seen just how damn hard he works. This is a man who can take someone apart just by what kind of drink they favor, a man with a silver tongue who is very good at convincing someone that what they want is to give him what he wants.” It was the kind of thing that would’ve made him hesitate months ago, too much mistrust not to doubt whether he didn’t fall under that category too. But now he simply noted it with vague amusement, still tracing new memories and constellations across the bared strip of skin.

His voice grew softer, as if to lessen any hurt the words might carry with them, when hurt was the opposite of his point. But if he wanted to give him something kind, he didn’t want to leave him with the impression that he was blind to any of his harsher qualities. “I see a man who thinks rules are more of a challenge, at best a suggestion. Someone who’s selfish, and somehow makes that seem like a virtue. Because the thing is, he wants what he wants, but I don’t think he genuinely wants to hurt anyone to get it.” It didn’t mean he wouldn’t, it didn’t mean that he hadn’t, but it wasn’t a point Monty thought he had to make to either one of them. “He doesn’t have any taste for violence, not even for those who might deserve it. He can certainly do plenty of damage with a few well chosen words, because he’s witty, and sometimes it’s subtle, and sometimes it’s absolutely scathing. But most of the time, I’ve seen him use those words to try and put someone back together.”  

Montgomery included, gaze wandering briefly at the dock around them as if he could see the ghost of their past selves sitting here all over again. One last question burned to try and seal up the wounds Monty had opened up for him, a confession that had made him ache just saying it out loud, and if he’d pulled back from the gentle hands that had tried to carefully put him back together, he didn’t run from them now. Fingers shifting to trail lightly across the back of his palm and encourage the fingers toying with his buttons as his attention fixated back on Emil. “I see a man who rarely lacks for confidence, self-assured in just about everything he does and what he wants. But every once in a while, I’ve seen when that breaks. When he doubts himself, and whether it’s enough to be nice, and whether he’s even a good person.” 

He let his fingers drift, trailing down the back of his hand and curving lightly around his wrist. Because the first time Emil had tried to open up his chest and show Monty the broken pieces, this was all he’d had. A hand in his, a desperate want to perform a familiar magic trick, to sweep up broken glass and make it something beautiful, but he’d never known how. He still wasn’t sure if he did, but he tried now, trying to press sincerity into every word like flowers on a page. “And in those moments, I see a man who is so much better than he thinks he is. Which is almost funny to say, I know, because most of the time he thinks he’s just fantastic. But when he forgets to play the game, when he forgets to worry about leverage and manipulation, I’ve seen him be effortlessly kind. To his friends, he’s generous and caring, always willing to listen or comfort or find new ways to make someone smile. He remembers their favorite drinks and their birthdays and knows how to make someone feel a little less alone in their own skin. He’s a doting son, who cares about his mother’s happiness more than his own, and loves his family even when they don’t make it easy. And as a boyfriend, I barely know where to start. Because he never needs an excuse to bring home flowers or a cat, or to steal a dance or a kiss. He’s just as happy with an expensive date in Florence as he is laying in a bayou looking at the stars, and somehow he has endless patience for a boyfriend who is nerdier than he expected, always willing to listen to dissertations on cryptids and monsters.”

He couldn’t help but smile at the faintly self-deprecating humor, as if he missed how charmed Emil always looked just to listen to him talk. “I see a man who’s complicated. Occasionally a contradiction. A man who could create different versions of himself for different people, and that used to scare me about him. Because I wasn’t sure who was left underneath every mask he put on, and I desperately wanted to know who that was, who he was.” A subject of his curiosity and fascination, and he’d missed the exact moment that had turned into something so much softer, the kind of love he was willing to let hurt and couldn’t take back. Whether it had been at the bottom of a bottle of whiskey or sitting here on the dock, or maybe just the first moment he saw him, with the same charming smile and the promise of so many secrets hidden behind his eyes. “But I see him now. And he isn’t nothing.” 

He smiled faintly at his conclusion, and if Monty thought he could keep going until the sun rose over the waters of the bayou, for now it seemed the only fitting place to stop. “So I’m going to break the rules, and ask one last question. But you tell me; did I finally figure you out?” 

✦

Monty started in the only place he really could: by telling his impossibly vain boyfriend that he was pretty. Emil thought that would be enough of an answer, a coy joke about the first time he’d let the doctor pick him apart, ignoring all of his keen observations for a single, shallow compliment that was more accident than flattery. Shallow praise he’d offered again and again, sometimes in jest, sometimes to satisfy his goading, and always to bring a smile to his lips. One that came easily now as they revisited one of a hundred inside jokes they’d collected over just as many conversations. And for all the things they preferred to say with their hands, they had built their love with words long before they’d ever touched one another. 

Emil was happy to do both now, slipping Monty’s top button undone to tease his thumb across his collarbone as he listened to him continue his appraisal. A venture into their bedroom and all the places they’d turned into one with compliments that curved the edge of his smile into a more devious grin. “I do aim to impress,” he agreed, taking his generosity with all the arrogance he claimed he wore so well. But as Monty’s description continued on past the shallow and the sensual, he found it harder to keep up the same casual egotism. Because he’d asked to be put in the spotlight, to be adored, even to be picked apart and analyzed, but he’d never really considered what it was to be figured out. To be seen not just in parts, but in whole; a dozen different roles he played all put together to form the kindest version of the man he thought he might be. One that was clever but compassionate, selfish but still generous, and ambitious but rarely cruel. A kaleidoscope of personality that was beautiful instead of broken.

So his cocky smile softened slowly through the rest of the long answer, finding himself endeared to an almost overwhelming degree and he was glad for the hand that wrapped around his. A tether that kept him grounded in a moment he wanted to remember, finding his own fingers curling into the collar of Monty’s shirt when he was far too distracted for buttons. In such a blatant indulgence in nostalgia, it was impossible not to see the parallels. A long, rambling list of all the ways Montgomery wasn’t nothing that had nearly brought him to tears, and Emil realized now that it was an entirely reasonable reaction. A kind of heartbreak not for the loss of love, but for finding one so much better than he’d thought he deserved. A heartbreak for everything that had come before, for all the things he’d called love when they’d simply burned bright and fast enough to keep him warm at night. Love that was vain and selfish, and for all their elaborate flattery, this was neither because it was so much more.

It left Emil briefly speechless, just staring back at Montgomery with a smile that threatened to break under the weight of so much adoration, nodding before his words followed. “Yea, yea I think you got it.” A laugh that broke the tension of too much joy as brushed Monty’s hair back behind his ear, wanting to better see the face he was so blissfully in love with. “You’re the smartest idiot I know, right? Most perceptive one, too. How could I disagree?” Looking back at him, he was tempted to add more. To pile on equal praise, to pick apart all of the ways that he wasn’t simply his equal, but his better. How he had proven time and time again that he was more than all the pieces of himself the world had tried to commodify, that he wasn’t some great illusion of his own making, but rather a man of his own creation. 

And then he realized he didn’t have to. He didn’t need to peel away his armor because he’d stopped wearing it in front of him, and he didn’t have to reassure him of what was underneath because Monty could see it now too. Self doubt he’d beaten back through too many cruel trials while Emil was busy doing the opposite. Chipping away at his own self confidence when it was a different brand of armor; a bulletproof assuredness in his own self image that he’d finally stripped away. So this time, he was the one who needed the reminder. He was the one who needed to be told he wasn’t nothing when he stopped inventing a version of himself the world might consider nice. That at his most vulnerable and lost, he was better than he thought he was to the only person who’s opinion he cared to trust.

“But I can’t believe you waited until the last question to cheat,” Emil said, laughing into the kiss he pressed to Monty’s lips. For nostalgia and irony and a dozen poetic parallels. For their collective sense of drama and all the silver linings they’d scraped together to make something golden. A love he felt so deep in his chest he knew it wouldn’t simply keep him warm for a night, but for every one after. And if twenty questions had once seemed like too many, it felt like just the right amount tonight to fall in love again with the man he wanted to spend every one of those nights with.

There was easy permission granted in the gentle brush of fingers across the back of Monty’s hand, his own following the line of buttons with slow intention. Slipping each one free with easy patience when he was holding so many bright promises in his hands. That there would be a hundred more nights like these, that he didn’t have to rush to claim and memorize every beautiful part of the man lying next to him, when he’d already promised him forever. And it stretched out before them, a boundless expanse of stars reflecting off the waters of the bayou, even as he wrote stories of love and sacrifice against his skin. His hand slipping beneath his shirt, a soft smile on his lips at Emil’s answer, even if there was something bittersweet in it.

Because even within the bounds of their deal, he hadn’t believed Emil loved him then, or at the very least, that he hadn’t known how. Proof that truth meant nothing without trust, not believing that he would ever swear it so bluntly if he could see Montgomery more clearly, just as uncertain that it would ever be in a way he wanted. Because he thought he’d known even then that he wouldn’t be satisfied with only pieces of Emil, that he wanted all of him or none of him. It just hadn’t stopped him from coming back again and again, the slow torment of hope still worth the ache for those brief moments where he could glimpse something bright and gold.

It was another memory he ticked off along the line of his ribs, skimming across them with much less clinical detachment than trying to tell him if they were broken. But he finally lost track of patterns and memories when Emil was pulling him down to make a fresh one, stretched out against the length of the dock. Monty’s fingers curving around his side and tightening in response to quiet oaths and the way his mouth slanted over his. Getting lost in the simple pleasure of kissing him, lips parting beneath his in thoughtless surrender, a familiar spark of heat racing up his spine and stealing the air from his lungs.

It left his answering laugh faintly breathless when the man pulled away, a smile he pressed against the curve of his neck to imprint it against his skin. “Ti amo follemente,” Leaving it there before he pulled his head back, but it lingered in the bright adoration he looked back at Emil with, fingers dragging lightly through his hair as he considered his last question. A thousand moments to choose from, a past that had been littered with moments both beautiful and agonizing, memories that had left scars that were finally starting to fade, and more that had filled in those fractured pieces with gold.

“To hope,” he finally said, and if he thought he could’ve left it there, there was more that it had always begged for. “And trust. And satisfaction.” 

He closed his eyes briefly, pressing another, softer kiss against his lips when it was one more moment he wanted to hold onto. No longer forcing objective truth between them like a shield, hurt he’d tried to protect himself from, but it had left him with something far too hollow beneath the surface of the life he’d created for himself. Suits that served as armor, everything about him meticulous and dependable because he was terrified of anyone catching a glimpse of what was beyond it. But Emil had never stopped looking, finding new pieces to show him or create for himself. A gift he didn’t know if he could ever fully repay with anything but how deeply he loved him for it, but he tried to now, in a final question that was achingly familiar.  

“So, Mr. Pavone,” he began, something teasing lighting up his gaze and in the curve of his lips, a stolen question that still felt like an echo of another he’d asked almost a year ago. Sitting on a stool in the Voodoo on that first Tuesday, a mystery between them that had always been eclipsed by the man on the other side of the counter. “Do you want to know what I see when I look at you?”

✦

Like everything, they said I love you in a mismatched set; Emiliano promising to love faithfully and firmly while Montgomery promised to love wildly and passionately. Each stealing from the other’s nature to promise what they each needed. Stability and chaos. Apollo and Dionysus. Learning to love each other not despite their differences, but for them. And for that Emil thought he loved Monty better than he’d loved anyone and was loved better by him than anyone had loved him before.

It made his toast all the more poetic; the second half of a much earlier chapter in their love affair. A question about hope and trust they’d dashed on the rocks of cold philosophy when it had been asked far too early for either of them to answer with any satisfaction. Because Monty hadn’t learned that hope was good for more than prolonged suffering and Emil hadn’t learned that trust was good for more than selfish manipulation. But timing had never been their strong suit, and so more than anything, he had learned to be patient. To wait until they could speak the same language. To wait for hope to be proven more than just wasted optimism. To wait for trust to come back in the face of so much betrayal. To wait for the calm after the storm of their lives so they could lie beneath the stars and toast to the liquor of their love.

Emil drank it in now, every touch and taste of the man who curved around his body, who looked down at him instead of up at the stars as if there was no better view. Who punctuated his sentences against his lips and wrote new ones with the fingers he carded through his hair. The only man who could make Mr. Pavone sound quite so devious, and he couldn’t help but mirror Monty’s sly grin as he offered him the same gift he’d once extended to him. 

“Dr. Lacroix,” he started, teasing his hand down to play with the top button of Monty’s shirt as his other settled behind his own head, stretching out in an exaggerated pose of leisure, “I would love nothing more than to hear what you see when you look at me.”

The smile Montgomery fixed on him then was something as proud as it was fond, when the relief settling over him had little to do with shedding his own mistrust. That, he thought he’d put away weeks ago, some last vestige of it that had crept into his thoughts when two members of his own House had helped put his boyfriend in the hospital, and finally killed in an Oleander guest room. Burned away beneath the warmth of tender hands and quiet exploration, and a single promise, that it was all still worth it and always would be. So even if he couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment Emil had finished sorting through his own morality and identity, it was enough to hear him reach the same conclusion now. Faith over skepticism, trust he wanted and now seemed unafraid to hold, and Monty pressed a kiss against the back of his hand just to hear the shedding of that uncertainty and self-doubt. 

There was little protest when Emil settled back against the dock, but this time when Monty stretched out next to him there was none of the same exhaustion dragging him down. Just the same warm nostalgia that felt like liquid gold in his veins, only wondering quietly where they’d be the next time they decided to play. If they would be as far as New York, maybe stretched out on a rooftop that a younger version of Monty had claimed to sit alone and read his books. Maybe a beach much farther south, sprawled out in the sun and the sand and burning questions on playful distractions. Or maybe they would find themselves back here once again, in the middle of the bayou, the rest of the world rendered a distant dream when starlight seemed closer than the glow of bonfires, stranger’s voices a quieter thing than the slow lapping of water against the dock. And Emil’s voice, asking him to tell him about the stars as Monty fell in love with him all over again.

“All of them, caro,” he said. All of them and none of them, when for all their dramatics, he appreciated the quiet moments in between just as much. Lights left on to guide him home when Emil worked late, hazy kisses stolen in the gray morning when he worked too early, the smell of coffee or familiar spices filling their kitchen, but his favorite were nights they could end together, half drunk on Glenmorangie and completely drunk on each other. 

This still wasn’t a moment he wanted to waste, when he loved the way Emil looked when he was telling him stories, gazing at both Monty and the stars with the same kind of wonder. “We could be the story of Orpheus,” he suggested first. “A man far too charming for his own good, still willing to risk the underworld to bring the one he loves back to life. A story of hope against fear, faith and skepticism.” He smiled faintly, tilting his head closer as he lifted his hand to trace the points of it in the sky before he moved to the next. “Or Cygnus. About a bold and arrogant demigod who stole the sun, and the man willing to change his shape just to find the pieces of him when he fell.” And if they were stories he’d told before, they were ones they’d lived before too. “There’s the Northern crown. I don’t think I told you that one. But it was a gift from Dionysus to his beloved, placed in the sky to celebrate their wedding.”   

Then he shifted next to him, propping himself up on one elbow as he turned his attention back to Emil. “But this is my favorite.” Monty’s hand reaching for his again, fingertips starting to trace a new constellation against his. Remembering the way their hands had fit together the first time they were on this same dock, offering each other comfort. Trailing lower, following the lines across his palm and remembering a kiss Emil had pressed against his, the night Monty had realized how desperately he was in love with him. Moving next to the flowers he’d placed in his hair, proof of the sweeter ways they’d learned to love each other, then down across the planes of his face to the curve of his jaw, and then to the soft skin beneath it. One of his favorite places to be kissed, and if he didn’t press his mouth there now, he mimicked the shape of it in the pattern he drew with his fingertips.

“Why did you tell me?” A question that didn’t slow the easy path his hands traveled as he drew his own constellation across Emil’s skin, trailing lower and thumbing open the button of his shirt. Slipping beneath fabric to drag his thumb across his collarbone, fingers skimming across his skin close to where his Icarus had burned for him. “The first time we were here. Why did you tell me you loved me?” Finally stealing a glance at his face to see if he’d stop him when his path moved to the next few buttons of his shirt to slide them free.

✦

While the stars served as a perfect backdrop to his own daydreams, Emil turned to look at Monty instead, fixing him with a wide grin as he claimed all of the stars as their own. It was a fantastically egotistical answer, the kind of selfishness he claimed the Italian drove him to, and he was always glad to give the man an excuse to be more selfish with his life. To see himself in every star when Emil saw the same. Stories of epic romance and ambition and sacrifice that they’d embodied with enough flare for the dramatics to earn their place amongst the myths. He thought even now their stories must be circling around the edges of the bayou, traded as gossip and rumor by bonfires as people recounted what had happened at the Spring Equinox. 

But for once, Emil wasn’t interested to know what the masses had to say about him, captivated entirely by the stories Montgomery offered instead. Painting him amongst the stars in shapes both familiar and new, and if he did his best to catch the outline of each constellation that he pointed out, he found himself far more enraptured by the man himself. A magic all his own when he had an allusion for every occasion, poetry he wove between the words of his favorite authors, and he did so love when he compared him to a Greek god. “You do look very good in a crown,” he noted, looking him over with thoughtful appreciation as he imaged just how ostentatious they could be for their wedding. A star that sat farther out on their horizon, but one he was already looking forward to.

His thoughts quickly shifted from the future to the present as Montgomery began illustrating his favorite constellation, one he drew out across his skin and all the memories he’d pressed into it.  A question of where he most liked to be kissed that Monty took as a challenge, and Emil thought by now he’d succeeded. That he’d anointed every inch of him with his lips, mapped out his body so he could always find his way back, and now his love was simply a chance to revisit his favorite places along the way. Ones he ticked off now with purposeful and practiced devotion, and so he closed his eyes with a pleasant hum, appreciating a story that was told by touch alone.

He didn’t open them again until there was a new question, searching Monty’s expression for a hint of where it came from. Whether it was born of sincere curiosity or just another chance to indulge in sappy memories, but Emil was happy to oblige either. “Because it was true,” he started, tracing a featherlight touch over the back of Monty’s hand, encouraging the distraction more than halting it as the man worked his way down the buttons of his shirt. “Because I knew you wouldn’t believe me.” A skepticism he’d expected yet quietly resented, and it brought him to his final answer. “Because part of me wanted you to anyways.” A faith he’d craved even then, wanting the doctor to think better of him, wanting him to believe he was capable of loving him in a way that mattered. He hadn’t even needed him to love him back; no vanity to be flattered or bed to warm, just a want to put his heart in someone’s hands and have them feel it was still warm.

It was a story both new and familiar at once, the kind Montgomery had told himself based mostly on hope, and evidence he’d scraped together of a crime Emil had committed against both of them. The wreckage of his bedroom, the smell of smoke and whiskey drowning out anything sweeter that might’ve clung to his sheets, the way he’d fractured and broken in his arms, the way he stood on the edge of it a number of times afterwards. But if Emil had tried to mute or brush over how much it had hurt before, he didn’t now, laying it all out with stark honesty. And if Monty could never take any pleasure in hearing him recount just how much he’d fallen apart, there was a cruel comfort in it that he hadn’t recognized he was looking for every time he asked to hear the story again. Proof that it had hurt, that Emil couldn’t simply betray him and break his heart without feeling that same ache echoed in his own chest. 

It was also the kind of proof he hadn’t needed in a while, and this time when he accepted the offered cigarette, the taste of it was far too bitter. Nostalgia that wasn’t pleasant and warm, but painful and cold, a memory of standing on the edge of this dock with him, caught between his own anger and fear and hope and uncertain which would end up winning out. Because the last was a fool’s errand, the kind of idiocy that could only leave him open to being hurt again and again, and he didn’t believe he could survive it a second time.   

“I don’t mind long stories. Especially when they’re about you.” Monty tried to offer a smile back as Emil wound down to a close, but it retained some element of sadness he couldn’t strip away, because this wasn’t some sweet anecdote about sneaking out of his crib as a child. It was a breakdown of the way he’d almost ruined them both, a fear that had lingered longer than teeth marks in Monty’s arm or needles in his veins. A fear that had a telepath crafting an illusion of a bar filled with smoke and rot, stripping away everything good and beautiful about the man sitting next to him. 

Monty hummed quietly at the question, cigarette steadily burning down to the filter in his fingers, but his attention was solely on Emil. “I’d like to think so,” he said, and this time the smile he offered him was kinder than it was sad. “Enough that I bet my life on it. Enough that I’d do it again.” Enough that this time he didn’t ask how to make him feel better, flicking the stub of a cigarette out into the water in the next moment. Hand now free to curve around the side of his neck, head tilting forward to kiss him with the same softness as their first. One he lingered in for a long moment, trying to press something sweeter against his lips. Catching his eyes as he finally pulled away like it could impart all the things language felt too clumsy and imprecise to convey. “Enough that I forgive you. And to hope you can forgive yourself.” 

Monty’s thumb traced a line along his jaw before he let it fall away, fingers lacing with his again and holding his hand in both of his. “You said once that you don’t always hate when I don’t trust you.” The same night he’d forgiven him the first time, one more rejection of the tragic when he wanted something better for them both. “Do you still feel that way?” 

✦

Montgomery was quick to forgive his long-winded rambling, the kind that came out when Emil was trying to be honest instead of charming, but in the next breath he showed just how much could be said in so few words. A reminder of what he’d seen in him and what he continued to have faith in: the best version of himself. It was a version that started to feel less like a mask he put on and more like what was left when he was stripped bare. A mirror Monty held up to him time and time again, and a reflection that became easier to see each time he confirmed he saw the same one. A man he looked at like he was worth saving, a gentle affection he offered now with a kiss that reminded him so much of their first. 

Emil leaned into everything it represented. The other side of hope that had felt too fragile to hold onto in their worst hours. The first love that he was willing to let hurt, the first love that had eclipsed the destruction of his own self-preservation. A chance at redemption, offered like a lifeline they had both clung to when they were falling apart in different directions. A chance to write their own story, a hubris that ripped myths from constellations and made them their own. And for all the violence that had been woven into their romance, Monty kissed him with a softness untouched by it all. A sweetness he returned, holding onto it as he held him, catching one another from the fall when they promised to do better than the gods.

So for every painful memory Emil had pulled to the surface, Montgomery effortlessly soothed the ache of it all. Hand held between his in the echo of a trick he’d taught him, one more piece of him he’d solved with diligence and patience, and he settled easily under his touch. A deep breath taken to exhale the darkness of too many unspoken possibilities and a small nod given as the answer to an unasked question. A quiet acknowledgment that he had forgiven himself too, releasing himself from the anchor of guilt he had once thought might kill him. It had taken him longer than it had taken Monty, but in the end, he thought they had done it for the same reason. He wanted to build their lives somewhere brighter than the ashes of Rome.

 And so his next answer was a simple one, not needing any preamble to explain it. “No, I don’t think so.” A small smile offered to himself more than it was to Montgomery as he considered why. “I think I’ve finally figured out the difference between a smart choice and the right choice.” A battle that had been unfortunately fraught, but he hoped the doctor wouldn’t find himself responsible for babysitting his morality anymore. No need to check his texts or his drinks, conversations that wouldn’t have to become interrogations when they hardly needed games to drag out honesty. A vestige of their old lives they enjoyed only for its nostalgia rather than its utility. “So I’d prefer faith to skepticism if that’s alright with you,” he concluded, returning to the short list of promises they’d exchange like vows. 

With only two questions left, Emil felt none of the same anxiety he had last time. No pressing mysteries clambering to be solved, no weaknesses to needle, and no great wounds to haphazardly sew back up in the final act. There was plenty of mystique and intrigue left between them, but it sat before him like a gift to be unwrapped slowly, to be savored in the lifetime that stretched out in front of them. So he laid back on the dock, coaxing Monty to join him so they could stare up at the stars that had always made for a better backdrop than a bayou.

Emil might have named him a hopeless romantic, but Monty thought he was just as bad, turning soft at the mention of flowers. Gold mimosas he’d set in front of him in a quiet declaration of love, meaning tucked between petals, and an open adoration in the way he looked at him now. The kind Monty could only return before he closed the space between them altogether, tilting his head closer to steal a kiss as smoke slipped between their lips. Leaning back when Emil started to talk, smile steadily brightening when there was little surprise that he’d pick something extravagant and expensive. But he was far more enamored by the few details tied with them, letting light into a home that had been cloaked in shadows and secrets for so long.

His second request didn’t strike him as that surprising either, but it did temper his expression of open adoration, lifting a brow while he waited for some elaboration. And it summoned a small huff of laughter when he did, leaning over to accept the cigarette back. “I don’t see why you can’t have both.” He gave a small shrug, but it was harder to maintain disaffected when his gaze was sweeping Emil’s frame, struggling to keep his thoughts from wandering too far. “That sounds like the perfect way to christen our new home.” 

He took another drag off the cigarette, but if it didn’t little to dampen that quick rush of desire, there was still something more fragile in its place when he handed it back. Hesitating on an offer that felt even more complicated than misuse of his power. “It’s not off the table,” he told him slowly. “A regular threesome. Not without a much longer discussion than this one, and I’d have some ground rules. But we can talk about it. If that’s something you’re interested in.” He suspected Emil might find the words alone surprising when it pushed against boundaries Monty never wanted to see break. But if he still had no desire to share the man, there was plenty he wanted to share with him. 

If it was an offer he struggled to phrase with any kind of eloquence, Emil’s question felt a different kind of difficult, bringing with it a nostalgia that was sharper than it was warm. A confession that had felt like drawing blood the first time he’d given it, that he didn’t deserve his own life when it was based on the lie that he was somehow better than he was. Wondering if it wasn’t a feeling he’d only made worse when he’d been trying to force himself to be someone he wasn’t, and his gaze drifted out towards the water. “I really don’t know,” he said after a moment. “I know it’s a cheap answer, but I don’t. I don’t know what I deserve.” 

It was a line he’d never known how to walk, quietly held ambitions pitted against quieter despair,  but he found with less of the second, he still didn’t know what the answer was. If he deserved his scars, if he deserved Emil’s love, if their victory was well-earned or gained through too much violence and deception. There was no objective truth that he could see, and after a moment he let out a breath. “But I think what I want is to stop worrying about the answer.” 

To some degree it felt like theft of Emil’s answer when he’d asked the same, if he deserved all the hurt and pain brought down on him by three wayward Gifted as repayment for all his sins. So he asked the question he hadn’t asked then as he looked back at Emil. “Why did you write it down?”

✦

It took considerable restraint for Emil not to accidentally waste a question asking what? in response to Monty’s clarification. An offer for one particular sexual exploit that felt so wholly uncharacteristic he was left waiting for the punchline. When it never came, he was forced to contend with the most important rule of the game: no lying. “Every time I think you’re done surprising me,” he said, trailing off with a disbelieving shake of his head. Yet the unexpected flexibility in what he’d previously seen as the man’s firmest boundary wasn’t entirely unexpected. He’d made a concerted effort to ask more questions and make less assumptions when it came to understanding his Dionysian counterpart, and Emil was grateful for every reminder of it. Small compromises and opened conversations that allowed them to be honest about their preferences without unduly hurting each other. And in the end, he found he cared less about what compromises they came to than the simple fact that they were willing to make them in the first place.

If his next answer felt like a compromise though, Emil didn’t think it was cheap. Simply honest and refreshing and a good place to start anew. No grand new revelation of ambition or selfish desire, just a healthy separation from the expectations that always seemed to hang so heavy over Montgomery’s life. From parents and Houses and himself. Privilege and responsibility that went hand in hand, but it felt so much more like a snake eating its own tale. Doubt for what he was owed and too much self-sacrifice to feel like he deserved any of it. So he gave his leg another gentle squeeze, offering a nod of agreement and a small smile that faded in slow degrees at his next question.

“The short answer is because I wanted you to have the information. The long answer is...long.” Stealing the cigarette back to take a slow drag, Emil knew it was too cheap. He still waited for a moment to see if it could somehow be satisfying, taking the time to start putting together enough words to justify the real answer. “I never knew how to tell you my side of things once we started talking about it all,” he said, “I honestly didn’t even know why you wanted to hear it. It felt absurd to sit next to you on the couch and talk about how the month you were being held captive in a prison I put you in was the worst month of my life.” But Montgomery had asked time and again. What had he done? How did he feel? Who had he talked to? Answers he dodged or summarized or avoided altogether when it felt rude to underline any of his pain in a situation he’d created.

“I skipped some parts when we talked, and I’m sure you noticed them anyways. That I’d quit most of my jobs, dropped half of my relationships, arguably developed an actual drinking problem. I stopped bringing people home, stopped calling my mom, stopped having a life.” A bleak picture Emil tried to paint concisely, but this time he didn’t skim over the darker parts of it. A room that reeked of whiskey and smoke when he’d needed them both to get to sleep each night, trying to dull reality into something farther away. A tidal wave that was always a moment away from drowning him if he ever saw how close it was.

“Somehow I had pictured it all going so much more elegantly than it did. That I’d save you and get us answers and set myself up for a promotion all in one fell swoop. Obviously that all went to shit as soon as any of it was in motion. After that, everything that wasn’t helping me fix it just felt...expendable.” Spinning plates he let crash to the ground around him and too many bridges he burned just to build Montgomery one out of the cage he’d put him in. Somewhere along the line Emil realized he’d backed himself into a corner, but he sold himself a lie that it was all part of the plan just so he wouldn’t do anything more drastic to fix it. “So I let a lot of things go, myself included, and by the end of it, I was holding on by a thread. To who I was and what I wanted and if I deserved to get any of it.” 

Taking another drag of the cigarette before he passed it back, Emil didn’t bother to emphasize the point. He knew Monty remembered, knew he couldn’t forget the way he’d broken in his arms at the simplest question: are you okay? The deepest crack he had ever shown in just how bad that month had been and just how lost he’d become. “I was so fucking scared. Of Hugo, of Charlie...of you. I was just waiting to smell the smoke. Waiting for you to come back with Sentinels and Wolves to burn the place to the ground.” His gaze settled back over the lake, looking back on a memory that felt as far away as the distant shore. Something he could see, but struggled to really explain when it felt too extreme now. “But there was something...freeing about it. Because I was done. You’d escaped, you had the information, I’d finished that God awful plan. All I had to do was wait for you to come back and decide if I was a hero or a villain. I didn’t have to wrestle with who I was or what I deserved, I just had to survive long enough for you to tell me.”

For all the honesty he offered now, Emil didn’t spell it out any further. A version of events where Monty took what he was due, where he made the man bleed for him the way he had. Nothing he thought he’d be vindictive enough to do himself, but a retribution he’d fully expected at the hands of his friends. All he had to do was tell them the truth, and the Affiliate expected to be stripped of far more than just his title. But it felt too selfish to hope for the other version, a story where the Head Significant told them a different kind of truth, where he came back to save him from the bullet waiting in Hugo’s gun and the knife he kept taking to his own personality.

“Coming here felt the same way. Terrifying and awful and freeing,” he admitted, looking around the dock and remembering the same smell of cigarettes that he’d burned up on all his anxieties. “I wasn’t expecting any warm welcome. Honestly I wasn’t even expecting you to be here. I figured it’d be Sentinels or Wolves or someone equally uninterested in having a conversation with words. So I wrote it down, in case I didn’t have a chance to tell you.” It was another darker version of events he didn’t dwell on long, teasing out something sweeter as he finally turned back to look at him. “You deserved to know where they were moving so you could get revenge if you wanted it. And you deserved to have that password even if you were too dense to guess it.” A softer smile offered at a sweeter memory. Three little words that had held so much of him together; the same words that had turned their tragedy into a romance.

“I wanted you to have the information, but I didn’t want to have a new bargaining chip. I didn’t want to start it all over again. I didn’t want to destroy whatever part of myself was left in the name of self-preservation, so I wrote it down.” And as their conversations so often did, Emil found this one coming back to the beginning. A question about pain and illusions he had revealed in their first game, a terror that one day he’d destroy too much of himself just to stay alive. To stay on top. Ambition that had always been his greatest strength and greatest enemy when it threatened to be the only thing left when the smoke cleared.

It was the answer to the question Monty didn’t ask that left him smiling softly, sharing in the silence that came with bittersweet memories as he gazed out at dark water. Holding onto that simple declaration that he had saved Emil, even if he didn’t like to think what failure would have looked like. Not when the words felt like repetition of a familiar promise, that it was worth it, that it was worth all the betrayal and broken trust and heartache, because they could stand here for the third time and reflect on the past instead of being chained to it. And he almost laughed, because everything always did come in threes.

There was one more question that came with it, and if he thought there was little point to rehashing everything that they’d done and everything they’d survived, there was one he hadn’t asked. A thing stored quietly away when Emil was laughing, the infectious kind that had an answering grin tugging at his lips. Easy acceptance of the kind of hedonism Monty thought he looked forward to, but no longer needed more than he’d ever cared to admit. A chemical substitute for happiness that had filled a void in his life, but it was a poor replacement for everything better he wanted to claim for himself now. “It’s a date,” he said, grin widening at the theft of a familiar line, before he stole his cigarette with it. “But for tonight, this is perfect.”

He braced himself on his palm as he leaned back, taking a long drag as he considered the question. “Let’s see,” he said, offering it back. “Mostly I think it’s just places I want to go and things I want to see. Like the Sedlec Ossuary in the Czech Republic and the catacombs of Paris. And I want to see the Northern Lights. I want to see strange old places. Even one of those strange roadside attractions where they put a cow fetus in a jar and call it an extraterrestrial.” He grinned a little brighter, teasing both of them when Emil had already admitted his boyfriend was nerdier than he’d expected. “I want this trip to the Caribbean and I want to spend a week just day drinking and having sex. Maybe we can explore this pirate roleplay kink of yours.”

It was already a longer list of wants than he would have named with so much certainty a year ago, but now he found himself wishing he had more to add when he loved the way Emil always looked a little proud when he showed more ambitious colors. “And I want a tattoo from Isabel,” he said, and if it came out abruptly it had lingered in the back of his mind since a conversation in his bed room, Emil tracing his scars. “Flowers, I think.” He hummed in consideration before turning it on the man next to him. “What do you want for your birthday?” 

✦

Emil took the cigarette as it was handed back to him, taking a leisurely drag as he listened to Montgomery list his bizarre kind of dream vacation. It included far too many crypts and cow fetuses for his personal taste, but it only left him fondly shaking his head. “Sei così strano,” he teased with nothing but affection, adoring how much of the man’s personality was set free in his company. An obsession with the obscure and undiscovered, with every unsolved mystery of the world whether it was real or comically fake. Truly the Apollo to his Dionysus, making their bucket list of vacations oscillate wildly between the strange and the luxurious. “And it’s hardly a kink,” he denied, giving him an appreciative once over, “I just think you’d look good in a poet’s shirt.” 

The last item on his list didn’t garner any teasing though, finding it both slightly unexpected and entirely fitting. Another way to reclaim a piece of himself, to paint his romanticism on his skin when tragedy had already left too many marks on it. “Flowers,” he repeated, tempted to ask which ones he’d pick. The blue forget-me-nots tucked behind his own ear now or the pink mallows he’d placed in the same spot months ago. Mimosas and gladiolus’ almost as golden as their love or the vibrant array in the crayon drawing’s on their fridge. Perhaps he’d make a mosaic of them all or choose something entirely different, and Emil decided he would rather be surprised. “You look very good in those, too.” In crowns and elegantly embroidered shirts, but mostly in the way his eyes lit up every time he looked at the spot of color sitting on their kitchen counter. It was the same way Emil looked at Monty now, imagining a new bright spot of color to let his eyes wander to every time he looked at him.

He gave a long hum of consideration at his next question, indulging extravagance when he already had everything he wanted. “Hm, well since you missed it last year, feels only fair to ask for something a little bigger. How about a house?” he proposed as if it was a small thing, casually handing back the cigarette. “You can still get one with all those windows you love them, but maybe something with a bit more color. Maybe one of those built in bars. Oh, a patio, too. Then when we lounge around all day reading, we can still get some sun and grace the public with our good looks.” An image of their life that was in contrast but not contradiction to the one they’d led in Asphodel. A love that no longer needed to be defined by secrets and survival, and for all his love of nostalgia, Emil was ready to write new memories on fresh walls.

“If that’s a little much though, I’ll settle for a threesome,” he decided, as bluntly salacious as ever, but he was quick to correct the insult he expected Monty would take. “With you and you of course. I’ve been thinking about it, and I believe with some...creative use of Gifts we could pull it off. Or at least have fun trying.” An abuse of power Emil constantly encouraged, even before he’d been the one sharing the doctor’s bed, and he thought they had plenty of great and terrible ideas still left to try out. A thought he mulled over with a mischievous smile, leaning back on his palms as he looked out over the water, simply soaking in the satisfaction of having so much of what he wanted beside him or before him.

Emil’s immediate answer wasn’t surprising, sating Monty’s curiosity whether his opposition was not now or not ever. It was his elaboration that caught Monty off guard, an unexpectedly definitive solution that drew the doctor’s gaze to study him anew. There was a sweet addendum somewhere in the mix, that he might consider if it was something Monty really wanted, but it sat as a counterpoint to just how selfish the man named himself. It left him quiet for a long moment, a careful self-inventory as he tried to determine if it left him with any disappointment or longing for a different vision of family in the future.

“Well,” he started. “I do appreciate you telling me.” A degree of hesitation in Emil even offering it that spoke enough to some form of uncertainty, one he did his best to soothe now. “I did like mentoring. I like helping teach and train and being a veritable step-father to wayward Gifted.” A title he had jokingly claimed that had also carried plenty of truth. “I also like going home at the end of the day and having time to myself. And I think this is the first time in my life I feel free to do whatever the hell I want.” A fondness in the smile he gave Emil afterwards when he blamed him for that more than anyone else. “So no, I don’t have any burning desire for children. I don’t expect that I will. And no, I don’t have any desire to stop sleeping with you.” 

Monty drew to a stop when Emil did, letting his gaze drift over the familiar dock before his gaze settled back on the man who’d brought him here. Stalling them another moment when his fingers caught his chin, kissing him with soft affection, an unspoken answer to a memory he imagined they were both lingering in. The first time he’d told him he loved him, and if Monty had been certain it was some maneuver in whatever game they were playing, it didn’t explain how Emil had looked at him then, gaze charged with dangerous hope.

It was the simplest answer to his next question, one that almost made Montgomery laugh when it seemed somehow longer ago than their first foray into the bayou. Fingers lacing together, turning backwards to tug him along down the length of the dock. “Hope. Idiocy. Willful ignorance. It’s all the same really.” It was a question he’d asked himself too, plenty of times that night and plenty of times after, and he ran through all of them now. “I needed to see you. I needed real answers. I needed to know I wasn’t crazy, that I’d been right about every sign and hint I thought you were giving me. And if I was, I very much wanted to tell you how fucking stupid your entire plan was, but you beat me to it.” He paused briefly, the next answer only more proof of hopeless romanticism. “And you said you loved me. I still wanted to know if that meant something better than every definition you’d given me so far.”  

Vanity, pain, sacrifice, all of it some proof that hope was nothing but prolonged suffering, and maybe he’d just been desperate for some better answer. “But you know me. Terrible hero complex. I thought you were in too deep. I thought I could save you.” His steps slowed as they reached the end of the dock, letting go of his hand as he settled himself on the end of it. Far less exhausted than he’d found himself the first time, but he still found himself holding onto the heavy weight of the past, wondering if there was any point trying to tear it apart once again. Because every hypothetical he imagined ended somewhere worse than here, and he’d lost track how many times they’d both walked through it all, with each other, with therapists, in interrogations both harsh and kind. 

“Okay Dionysus,” he said abruptly. “Would you ever want to take ecstasy with me?” 

✦

“Thank goodness, I was looking forward to that later,” Emil replied, humoring the most shallow of Monty’s kind answers. As if their continued sex life meant more than the honesty he offered. An assurance that this wasn’t a conversation they needed to navigate with complex consideration and compromise, for once merely on the same page. Plenty of joy found in being a doting uncle or dependable role model without needing to tie themselves down too tightly to any one place or path. It was a freedom he was looking forward to taking thorough advantage of, having relegated his hedonism to the backseat when his ambition required more work than play. So he suspected it would be a long time before they ran out of personal pleasures to fulfill, too many of Monty’s deferred over the years and plenty of his own set aside amid crisis and chaos. 

Now they had time to slow down, a point Monty made in the kiss he offered, a moment taken to savor both a memory and their distance from it. To enjoy the other side of so much deferred hope, and Emil gladly leaned into all of the romanticism of it, letting him lace their fingers back together as he tugged him down a dock, listing all the ways he’d chosen a better version of their story. It was the same version he’d chosen, the one he fell into far too early in a game that was meant to be executed by a businessman, not some star-crossed lover. Because it had been a smart plan for his ambition, but an awful one for his heart, and he thought he’d nearly lost both in the process. 

“I was. And you did.” Emil gave the solemn agreement as he settled beside Montgomery, gratitude offered in a light squeeze of the leg brushed up beside his. Because if some part of the plan had always been to save the Head Significant from a crueler fate, he’d been the one who needed saving in the end. Masks and master plans crumbling at the end of the dock, and Monty had been the one waiting with all his terrible heroism to pick up the pieces. It left him settling into a quieter, more bittersweet nostalgia until the man offered a question as shallow and absurd as his curiosities about the Italian’s mafia ties.

The surprise of it produced a laugh before an answer, but it wasn’t a question that required any long consideration. “Sure, why not,” Emil agreed, still chuckling when it felt almost juvenile to plan an ecstasy trip with his boyfriend when he had once been his dealer. “A love affair with the world, right? I wouldn’t mind sharing that with you.” A quick peck stolen as he mentally added it to the long list of impulsive things he wanted to do with the man, and it felt less like the emotional escapism he used to sell him when it was something they could share. A thought that had him producing another cigarette, handing it to Monty as he pulled out his lighter. “I even know a guy that could get us some for a decent price, but right now, all I have is this.” A cheeky smile offered as he lit the cigarette, lazily pondering his next question when he realized they were dwindling.

If Monty had to bury his embarrassment a moment before, in the next he found himself trying to temper a smile. Lips pressing together and his best attempt at casual, some poorly feigned attempt to pretend it didn’t matter to him either way whether Emil called him boyfriend or husband or tesoro, as long as he still called him his. And to some degree it was true, but he still appreciated the subtle assurance offered in a single joke. “Consider it a deal,” he said. Terms still vague, but one he was satisfied with when there was little need to rush now. Time a luxury they’d rarely had before, barreling through boundaries with reckless disregard for pacing, and too much they’d had to survive just to get to where they stood now. The chaos of their lives something he was happy to let settle before either one of them started picking out new rings.

Proof enough in Emil’s last question and his answer to Monty’s, a sprawling extended family an ocean away that knew only bits and pieces of his life and didn’t know Monty as anything but his American friend. A title far simpler than the one Emil worked through aloud, and a distant guilt that was smothered just as quickly under sweeter oaths, that he loved him, that he was proud to be with him, the other side of a promise he had never pressed him to return. Because he understood how complicated family could be, and Monty imagined he’d only brushed the surface of it in a single holiday visit. Subtle judgement woven in between familial warmth, and he had to stop himself from apologizing when he didn’t want to be one more source of division. But Emil’s came first, one he smothered just as quickly.

“You don’t need to apologize. I want that for you.” His free hand moving to hold Emil’s in both of his, pulling his knuckles to his lips in a familiar motion, pressing a kiss and a smile against his skin in the same motion. “I don’t care about the drama. I’m happy for you. Whatever else comes with it, I told you, I want you to be able to be whoever you want to be to them and whatever parts of your life you want to share.” And he wished he could offer his assurances as promises instead of hopes, that his mother would be accepting and loving, an open door and an open heart like she’d offered Monty for his Gift. But he could give him this, his hand in his, and the unspoken assurance that he would be there to offer the same whenever he needed it. 

“Ideally?” It was almost frustrating, that it was the question that stumped him, aware when he’d come to Asphodel that he wanted some version of family to call his own. Something better than what he’d had, somewhere he was valued, even if he wasn’t loved. But given the freedom to tell Emil exactly what he wanted that to look like, there were few things he could name with certainty. You,” he said, when that was the first. “Stellina of course.” And that seemed just as obvious. It was anything after that he found himself hesitating on, when he knew only the vague shape of it. “Ideally, I’d like to be some part of yours. Whatever holidays you want to spend in Italy, I’d like to be there too. I’d like your mother to still welcome me into her home, and visit your aunt and uncle in Florence. I’d like to talk to Marcella about all those terrible nerdy things you judge me for. Without an interrogation. I want to be someone Rosa or little Vincenzo can call for advice or support about their Gift.”

It was purposefully selective, the pieces of Emil’s family he was looking forward to instead of the parts that worried him. “I’d like to come back here and visit. And I’d like you to eventually meet the rest of my family. Even though we’re not all that close.” It was a decision he came to almost abruptly, little thought usually spent on relatives he hadn’t seen in years. “Beyond that… I don’t really know yet. And I don’t think I mind figuring it out as we go, as long as you’re a part of it.” 

It was an effort not to steal another question, curious what Emil wanted it to look like, but he settled for the part he was most uncertain of. “I’m sure you’ll hate this question as much as I do, but do you see yourself ever wanting children?” 

✦

“Trust me, you will care about the drama,” Emil corrected, “But thank you for putting up with it anyways.” A blank check of support that he expected but was no less grateful for, especially when it came to dealing with a family that was as big as it was complicated. One he wanted to know if Monty was becoming acquainted with out of interest or obligation, and he offered plenty of insights in a list that was surprisingly long. Uncles and cousins and nieces all individually considered for how they might weave into the fabric of their family, one that started with each other but extended in ways that left him quietly relieved. Not wanting to cut off his roots completely when there was still something worth loving despite the distance and drama.

“I’d like that too,” he agreed, “All of it.” Trips to Asphodel and Arezzo and Boston, keeping old ties, making new ones, and figuring out the rest along the way. Emil wanted it all as long as Monty was there, and it left him with a full and satisfying image of what family could be for them. Young nephews and nieces and initiates to spoil, friends and cousins to keep in touch with, and mother and grandmothers to indulge when they offered superstitious charms and rituals for their health. A tapestry that once seemed stitched together in place of something lost, but was now its own perfect picture. One that Emil didn’t see a need to complicate with a question he should have expected more than he did.

“No,” he answered plainly, not needing any time to debate it when he’d already thought it through quite fully. “I know I’m supposed to follow that with some concession that I can’t really know yet because I’m not even thirty and maybe I’ll change my mind, but unless you have some burning desire for kids, then I don’t think that’s going to change for me.” It wasn’t a door he wanted to slam shut when he could only guess at Montgomery’s preferences, but it wasn’t one he wanted to politely toe around either. It left him pausing slightly before deciding to offer up one of the few secrets he hadn’t already divulged to the man. “I got a vasectomy when I was twenty. Which I’ve only told one person before and they promptly stopped sleeping with me, so please don’t do that.” A mostly teasing addendum to a confession that had gone very poorly the first time around, coming off as short-sighted or paranoid or simply ‘fucking weird’ as his college hook-up had described him. So he’d learned to keep his own personal form of birth control to himself, happy enough with the peace of mind its gave him that he wasn’t going to accidentally get anyone pregnant.

“I’m only telling you so you know I’ve had to think through what I will and won’t want and convince a doctor I knew what I will and won’t want. And the truth is I know I will always want a lot of things.” A self-proclaimed hedonist who had never shied away from claiming the title, and it made him laugh as he listed all his best and worst vices. “I will want lots of sex and money and liquor, I will want to take risks and bend a few laws, I will want to be self-indulgent, to be impulsive, to jump on new adventures. I want to get you a cat without thinking any of it through and run away to Vegas or some tropical island.” It was a list that could easily keep going, all the many ways he enjoyed flying in the face of austere Catholic values, but he knew Montgomery didn’t need much to remember the Dionysian he’d decided the date. “I am incredibly selfish, and I quite like that about myself, and in some ways that means I have no idea what I will want in the future because I want so many things. But I know selfish people shouldn’t have children, especially the ones who don’t want them in the first place like me.”

Emil reached the conclusion as they reached a familiar destination, the start of an old dock, tucked out of the way behind overgrowth that all but covered the ‘Private: No Trespassing’ sign. Something ironic in it when he thought they’d both trespassed into one another’s privacy at its end, and he paused to offer Monty a smile. The memory of promising his definition of love was more than just vanity, a confession that was true mostly in the way he loved him. A blind, wild thing that snuck up on him amidst games of theories and questions, and he’d only fallen in love with him more holding his hand on this old wooden dock beneath the stars. “Why did you come here?” he asked, looking down the end of the dock before looking back at Monty. “When I texted you after everything, why were you crazy enough to come meet me here alone?”

It was the kind of hope that felt both old and new at the same time, something Monty had put aside when the reality of his life had settled in, and one he’d only just begun to consider was still a possibility. And it seemed ridiculous even to himself that there were still nerves that came with that, for all the reasons Emil named, love that felt real and binding without any legalities or traditions declaring it. But he still felt the persistent flush of embarrassment thanks to the amusement he could see the man barely stifling, humor that hovered on his lips even if he did Monty the courtesy of never laughing outright. Somehow managing to answer the same question without ever really answering it, a maybe the only conclusion he could draw from it.

It had a sigh escaping him, hand pulling free from Emil’s as he wrapped arms around his waist instead, hugging him from behind so he could hide the lingering heat in his cheeks against his back. Pressing a kiss against his shoulder before he propped his chin up on it in the next moment. “You’re cruel and unusual, caro mio.” 

He turned his head, planting one last kiss against his neck before settling back at his side, the moment stolen if only to give his face time to return to its natural shade. “But yes, I think we’ve fulfilled our quota for the year.” Near death experiences he greeted now with dry humor, and it felt easier than dissecting just how much a wedding really mattered to him. “And I suppose it’s understandable,” he gave after another moment. Lacing fingers back together, unwilling to genuinely argue the point when it was a feeling Emil had expressed before. Disinterested in letting ancient dead men dictate the shape his life was supposed to take, and that included who and how he should love. “You weren’t wrong to say the Houses and the church share enough similarities.” 

And if they weren’t entirely comparable, he thought the weight of expectations could be a heavy one. The kind he brushed against in the next moment with a question that felt far more fragile, leaving Monty quiet for a moment while he considered it carefully. Because he wanted to have the right answers for him, even if he’d sworn he never expected the same. “Well,” he started slowly. “If you’re asking what I would say to you, I would tell you to be patient. Your mother loves you. It doesn’t take any great deal of insight to see that. And I don’t really believe she would choose archaic beliefs over your happiness. It might just take her a while.” 

A light squeeze of his hand when he doubted that would be easy to take either way, a love that was obviously returned and a desire already voiced to prove himself a good son. “If you’re asking what I would tell her… I would tell her that you’re happy. That you have everything a mother could want for her child, even if it’s not in the way she hoped. I would tell her that you love someone with your whole heart who loves you the same, and that should be celebrated, not condemned.” Giving Emil a soft smile before he repaid him for all his teasing. “And you could certainly do worse for yourself than a handsome, successful doctor.” 

Unspoken was the hope that he wouldn’t need to tell her any of it, that maybe she could accept it with the same grace she’d welcomed his Gifts into her home, but he thought it was already a shared one. “Would you want the rest of your family to know?” he asked. “Hypothetically.” 

✦

“And you’re too easy to tease, tesoro,” Emil replied, letting Monty bury what was left of his blush in the back of his shoulder. His embarrassment, however, wasn’t the only thing he seemed to be trying to hide, a faint touch of disappointment woven between words of understanding that the Italian was quick to subtly correct. Because if he wanted to wait for a wedding, he hated to leave him with the impression he didn’t want one at all. “We’re in agreement then,” he declared, “Not a church wedding.” After all, he had much better taste in romantic backdrops, and he thought they could find something far more poetic and fitting that an old austere church to renew vows they’d already made.

Monty offered a similar repetition now, words of comfort he’d given him over the phone, but ones Emil wanted to hear again in person. Needing his plain logic to cut through all the emotional baggage of coming out to his Catholic mother. A thing that shouldn’t be so intimidating when she had always showered him with an excess of love, but it was that same affection that left him scared of disappointing her. A point Montgomery refuted just as reasonably, reminding him that he was happy, he was loved, and he was in love; all of the things his mother wanted for him, even if they came in an unexpected package. And if Monty thought it was easier to come out with an attractive boyfriend, Emil thought it would be easier to come out with a boyfriend his mother already liked. Books and vegetarians recipes sent along periodically and a constant badgering question of when the fine young man would be visiting again.

“You’re right, the doctor bit should sell her on it if nothing else,” he replied, good humor easy to come by when Monty had a knack for saying the things he needed to hear. “But thank you,” Emil added with more sincerity, returning the light squeeze of his hand and a soft, hopeful smile, “Hypothetically.” Teasing at his own expense this time when he was sure the doctor could see through the thinly veiled theory. One that had become less a question of if and more a question of when. Something he thought they could put off until after they sorted out their jobs and place of living, but maybe a conversation that should happen before their next family Christmas. A scenario Monty painted with an extra layer of complexity he honestly hadn’t thought fully through.

“If I wasn’t more creative, I’d just ask you the same question,” he started, wondering if Monty could tolerate his entire family’s bigotry any more than he did. Enough skepticism thrown at him purely for being American, another level that would be added when they found out he was Gifted, and a heaping more when they added gay and atheist to the list. “The simple answer is no, I don’t really want to put up with whatever comments they throw my way, and I’m even less interested in hearing any directed at you.” A protectiveness he suspected would turn them both into less polite versions of themselves, and a holiday season they had mostly survived by keeping the majority of their secrets close to their chest. “But I don’t want to hide you. I love you and I’m proud to be with you. Nothing my aunts or uncles or cousins say will change that, it just might change who’s at the table for Christmas dinner.” A rejection that wasn’t unfamiliar when there were still some family events he wasn’t invited to, but it was an exclusion that still ached to imagine anew. 

“So want? That’s complicated. Will I tell them anyways? Probably,” Emil concluded. “I do apologize in advance for the inevitable drama that will bring, but let’s be honest, we both know how well my mom keeps secrets. And I do want her to know, even if I’m indifferent about the rest.” A commitment he finally stated firmly when it had meant so much to hear Monty say the same. A decision to come out to the community he was just as scared to face rejection from, but weathered it for the sake of being able to hold his hand in public. It felt only fair to do the same when he wanted the man to be a part of his family, whatever shape that took when all the chips finally fell. 

It brought Emil to a fresh question, one he rephrased twice in his head when it was hard to capture his meaning quite right. “With the cards we’ve both been dealt, what does your ideal version of family look like in the future?” He didn’t want to envision what their lives would look like with less absent fathers or more loving mothers, he only wanted to know what Monty’s version of family was now. Whether he wanted a sprawling mix of Italians to join on the holidays, if he wanted to pick his family by bond over blood, if he ever wanted children to call their own, or if he was satisfied with a cat who curled up between them most nights.

The answer made Monty smile, as much for the familiarity as it was the thrill of being a distraction to someone who was professionally distracting. But it dissolved into a quiet sigh of pleasure when Emil’s mouth moved to his neck, an instinctive tilting of his head at the feel of lips and teeth moving over his skin with practiced familiarly. Long since memorizing his favorite places to be kissed, and it had his grip tightening around his suspenders as he let the man mark him with new memories. A growing regret as Emil pulled away, self-satisfied smile on his lips and heat lingering on Monty’s throat where he could still feel the imprint of his mouth.

It left him with a faint regret, even if it was to continue their favorite game, biting back any accusations that he wasn’t playing fair when he never did. Instead stealing one more kiss and an unspoken promise of later that he held onto as tightly as he did the man’s hand, letting him drag him back onto the path, a familiar destination waiting ahead of them. 

He didn’t, however, expect the question that came next, even if he was the first to mention the word. Surprise he was usually better at obscuring, almost escaping with something as thoughtless as a simple what? that had burst from him once before. Possibly in the same spot, but it wasn’t a thing he wasted his attention on when his gaze was shifting immediately back to Emil and trying to keep from wasting a question. “Is this- tell me you aren’t proposing to me in a swamp.“

It was a suspicion he soothed after a moment, before Monty had to put real thought into what his answer would be. But he imagined his attempts at trying to maintain composure were all too transparent to a man who knew him so well. Lips parting before he closed them and then tried again. “No. Not just someone,” he corrected first, almost petulantly. “It’s hardly a necessity. And not for politics or genetics. Unless you really do get desperate for a green card. But… yes. I think so. At some point.” And if the initial question hadn’t made him blush, he found his own answer did, attention shifting back to the path instead of the man next to him. “As you said; hopeless romantic.” 

Said with plenty of self-deprecating humor, like that could ease whatever embarrassment came with that truth. Little care for religious traditions, and an inherent, logical skepticism that knew forever wasn’t anything either of them could really promise. But he thought he wanted it all the same, a romantic notion he’d tried and failed to fully put aside. “Though hypothetically, I thought we already were. We did exchange rings and vows,” he said, before returning the question. “Do you ever want to get married?”

✦

If keeping a stoic expression might better sell the bit, Emil couldn’t help but crack a smile at how immediately flustered Montgomery became. Stumbling over words he tried not to form into a question and losing all his usual eloquence in the face of all that hopeless romanticism he insisted he wanted. A decision made then and there that if he did ever propose — an uncertainty only in who would pop the question first — he would be sure to have entirely to much fun with it. “Please Monty, I have far better taste in romantic backdrops than this,” he assured, having blamed him entirely for this being the spot of their first kiss even when he was the one who kept dragging them back to it.

When the doctor did finally sort out an answer, however, Emil listened with sincere interest, finding it adorable how skittish he was to admit to his own wants, as if it was the height of embarrassment to be a dash cliché. So he did his best to tamp down his own amusement, not wanting to have too much of it at Monty’s expense. Instead he brought their linked hands up to thoughtfully inspect the pair of rings they had, neither on the right finger and only one on the right hand, but an exchange he thought meant more than most. Both wild leaps of trust, one smuggled for freedom at the height of betrayal, a gamble that could have easily killed them both, and the other offered as a bridge to soothe it. A key to more than just a house, both rings standing as a testament to the hearts they placed in one another’s hands. Broken and scarred but trusting one another to take care of them.

“That’s one,” Emil started, reminding Monty he could only steal two more of his questions, “And unless you’re proposing to me in a swamp, then that answer depends.” Letting their hands drop back down between them, he sorted through the most generous answer he could offer. “I was never particularly enamored by the idea of marriage because marriage in my family has always been very...Catholic.” A concise way to summarize the traditionalism that surrounded marital expectations, ones that came with a complicated history of his own mother’s failure to ever attain such a status. A black spot on the family tree that left him unsure if his spouse would even have a surname to take from him. “Legal or not, marrying a man was never an option I thought I could take. And marrying a woman came with several other expectations I wasn’t comfortable with.” Future grandchildren his mother cooed over every time she conjured them into a conversation, and it would be harder and harder to ignore his disinterest once he tied the knot.

“I have considered it though. Mostly for green cards,” he added, spoiling the sweetness of it as quickly as he offered it. “Figured I could sort out a mutually beneficial deal with a decent actress or a very generous friend. Get mia mamma and the U.S. government off my back for a few years.” Nothing he’d put too much time into thinking about, just lingering on his mental to do list on the days Liliane left him doubting his job security. “I’ve considered it with you, too. Because on one hand marriage somehow feels small compared to everything else we’ve done. The rings and vows and several near death experiences.” A tendency to take everything entirely too fast that left the steps feeling out of order, like they’d sped past a wedding and were already planning the honeymoon. “But on the other hand, you’re the only one I’ve ever wanted to do all of that with. The rings and vows and...well maybe not the near death experiences. Let’s try to keep those to a minimum this year.” It was an answer he left incomplete, trailing off with a joke instead when he hated to entirely ruin the surprise of it.

The first few made Monty laugh, even if he thought Emil was the only one who’d ever called him rebellious. The mention of their sex life made his ears burn, a warm flush on the back of his neck and a strong suspicion that he wouldn’t easily be able to look Rebecca in the eyes for the next few days. But true to the first quality he named, Montgomery found himself melting under the sweetness of it all. All the ways their lives had woven together, even the slow building threads between himself and Emil’s family, the ways the man loved him and the reasons he felt loved in turn. Safety that Monty wanted him to feel, even when it left him bruised and bloodied instead, notes he left in margins and in text messages, because he was still the first one he wanted to tell when he thought of something he found interesting or clever.

And flowers that he was just as happy to give as he was to receive, focusing on them now as Emil pulled him off the path. Temptation promised in just a look and the lingering scent of smoke around them like a secret sin, but there was sweetness beneath the bitterness and a softness to the way Monty’s fingers lingered on blue flowers he’d tucked in Emil’s hair before threading back through dark locks. His other hand settling on his hip as he pressed him back against the tree, kissing him back with the same slow heat. Because for once it was a moment they didn’t have to steal, tucked in between tragedies and pending emergencies. Responsibilities and obligations might always be waiting somewhere behind them, but it might’ve been the first time in his life he didn’t feel chained to them, a hope for the future that burned bright between them.

“Waste of a question,” he murmured, a smile brushed against his lips before he kissed him again, when it felt worth the time to answer a different one. The kind he’d been afraid to ask, one he’d only voiced after a few too many glasses of whiskey, sitting in Emil’s bar and telling him he didn’t know what his life could look like on the other side of those secrets he kept so close. Afraid of the answer, afraid of the risk, afraid he would find nothing underneath but all the ways he failed to be anything that anyone really wanted, including himself. But here he was, and this time when Emil listed all the things he thought he was, all the things he saw and all the things he’d told the people close to him, it didn’t leave him half in tears. A different kind of ache left in his chest and a spreading warmth, endlessly grateful for everything they’d survived, everything Emil had given him, and the chance to love him back with as much fierce devotion. 

It was a moment he lingered in, savoring the way their bodies fit together and the magic of a love that lit up brightly beneath the stars. Even after he broke from the kiss, he couldn’t get himself to pull away. Hand shifting to trace the line of Emil’s jaw with his thumb, gazing back at him with the same open adoration. “You know,” he started, interrupting himself just to kiss him again before he let his forehead rest against Emil’s. "I think I fall in love with you a little more every day.” With every new piece of him, every new memory, and if it was a love that had been built up on the ruins of a broken heart and broken trust, he thought it was more beautiful than he’d imagined it would be. Flowers growing from the ashes. 

A soft sigh escaped him before he finally pulled back, fingers trailing the line of his suspenders before settling against his chest. “Ready to continue on?” 

✦

Emil was all too glad to see the creep of a red coloring Monty’s skin, another objective truth of their relationship. That no matter how intimate they became with one another, he would still always find a way to make him blush. But for all the joys of catching the doctor by surprise, inching or barreling beyond the bounds of pure professionalism to prod at his modesty, he found he much preferred the man when he was just as bold. When he strayed from the path with him, hand finding familiar purchase against his hip with a rush of memories. Of bars and hotels and the walls of their own home, the same hands that pressed him back against countertops and couches, boats and bookshelves. Each imprinted with proof of his devotion, proof of temptation gladly taken. And if he was meant to be Dionysus tempting Apollo to abandon his pedestal, Emil thought Monty was just as much to blame, critical distance burned up in the space between tenderness and passion.

It was a space they lived in, defined by the way Montgomery kissed him now, and if hope begged for satisfaction, Emil thought this was it. The pleasure of not only being wanted, but of wanting someone just as shamelessly in return. A man he adored in more ways he could ever explain to any one person, so he told them all pieces. A hundred different ways he was perfect, and he thought he could recount just as many by touch. The way his smile felt against his lips, the warmth of his body pressed close to his, and each familiar path their hands drew as they recounted old memories and made new ones. An affection Monty put into words before he could do the same, and he offered him a familiar response. “Good.” Because he was more than happy to be the object of his desire, no more doubt about what love he did or didn’t deserve. Only a joy to find countless new ways to love and be loved by a man he refused to let go of.

“Hm, in a minute,” Emil answered, stealing both Monty and his words as he pulled him back into a kiss, one against his lips and two more down the line of his jaw. “I’m busy.” Words mouthed against the side of his neck as his took the proper time to find his favorite spot, one Monty had shown him in a far shorter game of questions on his couch. Soft skin teased under teeth and lips when he’d long since had permission to leave marks, and he wanted a souvenir from this particular game. One he smoothed over with a final kiss before pulling back, resting his head back against the tree trunk with a satisfied smile. “Alright,” he sighed, “If we must.” As if continuing on with a game he’d proposed was suddenly a large inconvenience.

But if now was not the perfect time to get lost in touch and taste and temptation, Emil still kept a tether of physical affection as he let his hand slip back into Monty’s, lazily wandering back to the path they’d abandoned along with a game of questions he took a moment to get his bearings in. Like most of his questions, his next one was plucked from a previous answer, listening to the story of how Monty had envisioned his life before he feared his own sexuality would rob him of it. And if there were several more innocuous ways to word the question, the bartender, as always, chose the most provocative one. “Do you want to get married?”

Monty couldn’t call it a surprising answer, especially from a man who loved testing his patience in every way he could find. Heat and smoke caught between them, lips close enough to steal his breath but never quite closing the distance, and it left Monty’s eyes narrowing after he pulled away. But there was a separate kind of relief in it, glad to know that for all the things Emil took away from his religion, a persistent Catholic guilt wasn’t one of them. 

“Well. You might have a point,” he said. An easy concession when the rest of it carried a sort of sweetness, the man just as enamored by magic when it took the form of miracles and saints. A different version of religion than he thought anyone in the Vatican would really approve of, but it was the kind of blasphemy he was always happy to indulge in with him “The Bible is just Catholic mythology after all. And I fully maintain that Jesus was one of ours.” But while he was sure he was being baited, he couldn’t help but protest the lines Emil drew between all three. “But they’re not the same. Science is religion and magic explained. It’s provable fact. Objective truths. And we’ve discussed this, denial of objective truth is called delusion.“

Despite the accusation, there was too much warmth in every bit of nostalgia, his teasing falling apart beneath a quiet laugh as he shook his head at Emil. “But I love you too.” The man’s question one that had him raising a brow, briefly confused why he would think Monty struggled with religion, before he clarified.

It stripped plenty of levity from the moment smile softening into something quiet and distant as his gaze shifted away. Following the path in front of them, the moon lighting it up in a silver glow. “I struggled,” he gave after a moment, but found himself just as caught up on the answer. Honesty came easier between them now, but trying to process old hurts and fears didn’t feel any simpler, and he leaned over to steal the cigarette back before continuing. “I was nineteen. And I really don’t know how to describe for you what life was like for me then. I was… lost. And terrified. All the time. I felt broken. I thought I was broken. Sex and sexuality were just as indecipherable to me as everything else.”

He took a heavy drag before he passed it back, along with a history he’d given in bits and pieces and tried to lay out better for him now. “When I realized I was gay… it was a relief until it wasn’t. Until I realized exactly what it meant for me. As you’ve so kindly pointed out, I’m a few years older than you. At the time, gay marriage wasn’t legal yet. At least not nationwide. People still used gay to be casually insulting. And in New York’s grand Gifted society, it was, and likely still is, essentially irrelevant. As you’ve noticed, a large percentage of them still married for politics or genetics. Rarely for love. So it felt as though whatever possibility there had been that I could have that, the kind of life where I could fall in love and get married… it was gone. Before I even knew I wanted it, it was gone.” 

A romanticism he hadn’t known he was capable of until faced with the fear that he would never have any of it, and for all the gifts Emil had given him, hope should’ve been at the top of that list. “I don’t know that I’d say I’m ashamed of being gay. Not inherently. But I hated the thought of what other people would say about it, and I hate that feeling, of being something wrong. I dreaded the thought of telling either of my parents.” He let out a breath along with the thought, and even if it was all but irrelevant now what either one of them would say, it was the same longing for acceptance he thought he’d brought with him to Asphodel. “It was a little easier not to care when I was in med school because it was farther away from Endine’s main chapter, but it was harder when I came here. I wanted them to accept me, I wanted some place I could call home. So it became one of those things that was just easier to keep secret, rather than take the risk.” 

Everything that came after, he thought Emil already knew, that some secrets were kept so long they became a part of him, and that they were easier to shed when there was someone holding his hand and exchanging cigarettes and secrets alongside him. “What do you say about me to other people?” he asked abruptly. It felt like a page out of Emil’s book, some shameless bid to soothe his ego, but on the heels of a more painful confession he found himself aching for something kinder.

✦

“Denial of objective truth is the embrace of the subjective one. Not everything is waiting for science to come and explain it,” Emil replied, finding the return to their most classic argument to be an amusing one. “Some things are just waiting to be understood, not simplified into a single truth.” It was a point he thought was proved almost immediately, listening to an explanation of Monty’s struggle with sexuality that couldn’t fully be put into words. No single truth to what made it so hard when it was too many things. Expectation and fear and loss, a hope for future happiness that was dashed before he had a chance to reclaim it, and if it was impossible to truly explain it all, why some secrets simply became a part of you over time, Emil thought he understood the sentiment perfectly well.

“I tell people you’re a hopeless romantic,” he replied, taking advantage of a question so clearly posed to soften the last. “I didn’t realize just how long you’ve been this sappy, but I know you melt for flowers and dancing and have spent a very long time crafting your definition of love.” An effort Emil had learned never to casually dismiss when it had been a far longer and far more difficult path than he’d first guessed it to be. Love he craved in the absence of any bright examples, in the absence of acceptance, and too often, in the absence of its return. If it made him angry for all the people who had failed him in his past, it made him all the more grateful for every chance he had to write a kinder future.

“I tell people you’re more rebellious than they think,” he continued, handing back the cigarette like proof, “And I tell them you’re so much nerdier than I expected.” A love for cryptids and dead philosophers, a man who did research for fun and envied field trips to dusty old archives. “I tell Andre you are far too pretty for me to ever leave his shop without looking sharp enough to match. I tell Baz you’re strong, that I know you’ll never let someone hurt me. I tell Osun you’re honest, and you call me on my shit almost as much as they do.” A self-deprecating smile given with a huff of laughter, appreciating the friends who cut down his ego even when he begged them to flatter it. 

“I probably tell Becks more about our sex life than you want me to, but someone has to know how good you are in bed. And at least she knows how to keep a secret.” One he returned with a tight lid on every story she told him in return, a certain Head of House that found her way into her Advisor’s room for more than just advice on more than one occasion. Emil suspected Monty would find the entire exchange bizarre, too much overlap between past lovers and present ones, but it was what he appreciated most about his friendship with Rebecca. A disregard for the boring tropes of jealousy to indulge in their favorite pastime: gossiping relentlessly.

“I tell Marcy you’re almost as clever as she thinks she is, I tell her about the way you write in the margins of all your books and save your favorite parts for me when I come home. I tell my mom you’re a proper gentleman, that you take care of the people in your life, and that you’re getting better at making good coffee.” A hundred little anecdotes carefully spaced across each phone call, because if Emil hadn’t quite figured out how to explain his life and his relationships to his mother, he still wanted her to understand them. To know who he filled his time with, to know about the good people who surrounded him, even if she didn’t fully know what they meant to him.

“I tell Isa you’re learning to love yourself almost as well as you love me,” Emil said, winding down a list that could go on forever. Because he loved to talk, and he loved little more than to talk about the man who he looked at now, gaze bright and adoring as he listed all the ways he shared little pieces of him with the world. It was perhaps the most obvious way that Montgomery was different, because so many of Emil’s relationships had been the subject of rumor, not open adoration. Nothing quite so secret as Monty’s own complicated history of romance, but a carefully crafted veil of mystery. A reputation for being a perpetual bachelor, no matter how many people he courted in private. It was a reputation he’d discarded completely, evidenced by his final conclusion. “Mostly I just tell people how stupidly in love with you I am.”

Emil doubted he really needed to tell anyone, plenty of proof just in how often the doctor came up in conversation, how many times he was reminded of something witty he said or some strange piece of trivia he’d told him. Plenty of proof in the way he always gravitated towards him, craving a brush of lips or fingers, and right now he wanted both. Stealing back the cigarette, he took a final drag before flicking the burned down stub into the waters of the bayou, freeing up his hand to curl into the lapel of Monty’s jacket instead. “So,” he started, pulling him closer as he stepped off the path, letting his back hit one of the trees that lined the edge of the bayou as he drew Montgomery in for an indulgent kiss. Taking his time to prove just how stupidly in love he was, and remind him what the other side of so much fear and loss could look like. All of the things he had been scared to hope for, and all of the things he could claim for himself now.

Whatever retort rose to Monty’s tongue, it was forgotten with the press of lips against his neck and warm arms around him. His thoughts turning briefly back to a memory of a Valerian library, even as he tried not to lose the thread of their favorite game. So he turned as Emil pulled away, hand slipping beneath the edge of his jacket to catch at his suspenders and pull him back against his side. head tilting to press an answering kiss beneath his jaw. “Don’t start distracting me,” he said lowly, placing another kiss just below it. “It’s far too early and we’re not even halfway done.”

He released him just as swiftly as he’d reached for him, a breath leaving him along with it as he tried to take his own advice. Instead holding onto the pleasant nostalgia of a lit cigarette and the fingers that laced back between his in the next moment. A harsh counterpoint to a question that couldn’t have been easier, one he listened to quietly and without judgement. Merely nodding his head at his assessment of Harper, but taking the cigarette readily when his thoughts turned to Kaia. A woman he couldn’t get himself to pass judgement on when he thought they would all be too harsh. Maybe harsher than she deserved, because he’d lost the thread of what was justified and what was unforgiveable when he’d had to watch bruises fading into sickly yellow on Emil’s skin. 

It made the man’s conclusion a kinder one for it, and for all his questioning whether he was really a good man, Monty thought he was right, and it wasn’t for lack of empathy. Only what he chose to do with it, and this time he was choosing to try and forgive someone that Monty didn’t think he ever could. Giving his hand a faint squeeze and a soft smile, letting him steal back the cigarette. 

But his brow furrowed at the comparison between Emil and the man who’d scarred him, one he wanted to argue and found himself stalling out on almost as quickly. Plenty of truth in just how complicated trying to forgive him had been, choosing to believe in better intentions while trying to compartmentalize the hurt of everything that had happened in his house that night. A memory of an empty glass and a broken heart, trust that had shattered so violently he’d been cut open on it, scars he thought he would always carry. “I don’t think either of them are cruel by nature,” he finally said, because if the comparison stood, he included Emil in that too. “But I think it’s alright if you can’t forgive them right now either.”

On the heels of that, his next question felt unexpected, pulling a short laugh from him as he shook his head. “No,” he said immediately and thoughtlessly, until a glance over made him realize it was a genuine question. Humming in quiet thought before he stole the cigarette back, taking a long drag as he considered. “There are aspects of Catholicism that bother me. Genesis is a truly terrible origin myth, and the denial of scientific fact in favor of obscenely antiquated beliefs is baffling.” A quick smile and a flick of ash off the end before he returned the cigarette, but he doubted Emil was looking for an academic discussion of it. “Sometimes it makes me uncomfortable, because it’s not exactly a religion known for being… accepting. Even if I don’t burst into flames walking into your church some people look at me like they wish I would. And I worry what your family would think of me. Or how they would treat you.” 

Phrased as carefully as he could, when he didn’t want to call out Evelina specifically, not only because Emil had warned him of it once, but because he genuinely liked her. And no desire to hold it as an expectation that they would ever know, when it was Emil’s decision how and when and if he came out to any of his family. “But you being Catholic doesn’t bother me. And I would never try and take away whatever it is you get from it, whether it’s community, or comfort, or familiarity. Or if you really believe there’s some singular higher power with a grand design, that’s… well, as long as you never genuinely try to convert me. That’s fine.”

It was both teasing and serious, but he was left wondering afterwards what the answer was, what Emil got from it or if it was that faith that kept him going back. Because if it he found himself trying to ignore any shame or judgement directed his way just by visiting a church, he imagined it was as complicated for Emil as going home was. “Is that…” He paused, trying to sort out his thoughts into the shape of a question, stealing the cigarette back in the next moment as if inhaling smoke might help. “Do you ever struggle with that contradiction between your church’s beliefs and your own?” 

✦

If Emil hadn’t asked for it, he still appreciated Monty’s permission to stay bitter a little longer. Like a pact they’d made on their couch, letting themselves curse the sun and not the man who’d flown too close to it when wounds were still raw. And if the worst of his burns were fading scars by now, the memories were fresh enough to still sting. The kind he was sure would be soothed with time and a few more cigarettes shared in the night. 

It wasn’t until Montgomery took another long drag from the cigarette they shared now that he properly answered his question, discomfort he parsed out honestly after so casually dismissing it. Emil was glad to hear it wasn’t his personal religious tradition that bothered him so much as the Catholics that surrounded him. Family and friends and simply fellow parishioners who had given them some healthy side eye last time they’d been at church together, whispering promised sins to one another in the privacy of their own pew. It was an anxiety he was familiar with but one that he had long since learned to not only ignore, but callously fly in the face of, leaving him just as surprised to realize Monty’s returned question was a genuine one.

“No,” he replied with a slight chuckle, shaking his head at the thought of some deeply hidden religious trauma. It had been there once perhaps, hounding him in his private school days when he condemned boys to burn with him in Hell for the chance to taste forbidden fruit, but Emil felt no need to hold onto it as tightly as the church clung to their antiquated beliefs. “I struggle with the people sometimes, same as you, but I’m under no delusion that God wastes any time on the particulars of my sex life or my professional one. And if They do, well then They’re clearly just as depraved as I am.” A devious grin curling around his features as he plucked the cigarette directly from between Monty’s lips, leaning close enough to breathe in the smoke he exhaled before releasing it back out into the warm night air. 

“You know you talk about religion like it’s something you’re completely unfamiliar with,” Emil continued, a thought he mulled over with some private amusement as he set the poison back between his own lips. “For me, it’s the familiarity and the comfort and sometimes even the community, but mostly it’s just the first kind of magic I ever saw.” A love for which he’d tried to put into words one night over the phone, explaining why he had been drawn to America and the Houses in the first place. It wasn’t a parallel he suspected Montgomery would immediately understand, so he did his best to elaborate. 

“It’s all miracles and resurrections and invisible forces. Faith in things you can’t see, just things you can feel. And yes, it’s surrounded by an organization, so of course it’s deeply flawed, but it’s not all that different from the Houses. I’ve watched more ancient rites and rituals under Oleander’s roof than I ever did under my own, and they’re hardly the only group obsessed with making babies to pass on their traditions.” A pointed look given in Monty’s direction when he was certain there was just as much pressure to be someone he wasn’t when the matriarchs and patriarchs of the Gifted community so often tried to matchmake their children for power. 

“Science, religion, magic: they’re all the same thing with a different perspective. And they’re all just as likely to be an excuse for judgement and exclusion as the next. Some Christians hate science, some scientists hate magic, some Gifted hate religion. That kind of rejection comes from people though, not God or gravity or Gifts.” It felt like the debate on trust and truth they had last time they were here, a vastly different belief in the power of the subjective and the objective that Emil assumed Montgomery would argue now so he made a quick addendum. “And no, this isn’t me trying to convert you. I love you for the heathen you are.” A teasing grin offered alongside a cigarette he passed back to him.

Monty smiled faintly, a purposeful attempt to find more amusement than frustration at just the thought of Nita trying to learn any of those lessons. But it faded in slow degrees just at Kaia’s name, guilt he tempered as much as Emil was holding back bitterness. A sense of responsibility he couldn’t entirely shake, but one that promised at least some small vindication in the thought that the two he’d trained were at least trying to make amends. Because Khalil’s name was conspicuously absent, apparently no apology offered from the man who’d likely done the most damage. Burns that Emil had hidden away, drawing into himself and shielding himself with soft sweaters and closed curtains. So maybe it counted for something, he just wasn’t sure for how much, and if it led him to his next question it was one he hesitated on for a long moment. Wondering if it wasn’t some other version of asking him what he deserved, one Emil had abstained from answering so Monty had instead.

But what he did or didn’t deserve hadn’t changed how much anger and bitterness they’d both nursed alongside wounds, the week after his assault spent quietly hating the world. “Does it count for enough?” he asked. Glancing briefly at him, because it wasn’t quite the shallow nonsense he’d promised him. “Do you forgive them?” 

It was the marked enthusiasm for his last question that had Monty breaking into a laugh, something far more affectionate than judgmental as he turned to press his lips against Emil’s temple. A list that might always start with just how pretty he was, even if he’d never really believed that was where the man’s worth stopped. “There’s my vain idiot.” A smile that softened into something purely thoughtful as he listened to the rest, skills that had leant themselves to both kindness and manipulation, support and solace he was just as skilled at offering as he was collecting leverage and blackmail. Different versions of him that were still the same, the capacity to be whoever it was he wanted to be, and he thought the most complicated of those was named in the next moment. To be a good son, a good man, the kind who knew the kitchen was the heart of the home and used matchsticks to press blessings into coffee grounds.

“I think you are too,” he offered, with a light squeeze of his hand. Assurance he didn’t think Emil was asking for, but he gave all the same, if only because just gotten done promising him his faith. Faith that came easy when he’d seen just how much he cared about her, a home he’d gifted, and even in the lies he told, intentions he couldn’t fault even as he hoped for a future where Emil could be honest with her without shame. 

Emil’s next question was a familiar one, and Monty found himself stealing a familiar answer. A coy smile that still carried far too much sincerity. “You,” he told him. “A moment ago.”

But after he said it, he found himself stalling out, when it was still the most honest answer. Promises that filled in plenty of the cracks he’d always tried to obscure behind the well-tailored vests Emil had once praised him for, making himself someone steadfast and dependable as if to distract from the quiet terror that he was fundamentally broken. Someone barely a person, but if he trusted anyone to see deeper than both his armor and his fears it was Emil. And he’d only just gotten done swearing that he was as interesting as he’d named him then, and that he would always love him for it.  

It was nothing he thought needed words to describe either, something imprecise about language when the brief look he cast at the man next to him probably said enough. It was one he held for a long moment before tilting his head back to give him something more. Because this time, the problem wasn’t trying to find one memory that fit, but trying to choose. “If you want things, there’s a set of gold sashes I enjoyed immensely. I don’t know that I’d call Stellina a thing, but our little star has certainly earned her name. A set of old Italian books your mother gave me. Oh, a garden of stone monsters. Absolutely on the list.” 

He nodded his head sincerely, a collection of memories attached to everything he named, lines between them that he thought drew a constellation of their own design. One more added onto the end, almost an afterthought, but it was one of the freshest memories. His back still a mess of bruises and cuts, his stomach the only comfortable place to lay, and even then it ached. But it ached a little less when Emil’s fingers were threaded through his hair, his voice a welcome comfort as he read to him. “And Dracula.”

✦

If there was an impatience to it, Emil was glad Montgomery asked his next question before answering his own because it gave him longer to mull over the answer. One he hadn’t fully formed yet and one he readily deferred to soak in easier affirmations and affections. Vain idiot a title he accepted with pride and good son one he tried to remember. He thought he might also be able to add decent boyfriend to the list when Montgomery’s answer was filled with memories they’d made together. Each one was punctuated with a different kind of smile, a dozen definitions for true happiness he’d found in place of none.

Emil remembered them each fondly. The heated, teasing grin that had curled up his features as he slid golden silk between his fingers and the adoring smile he gave Stellina before she even had a name. A gift Monty admitted was probably too much, yet it was old, dog-eared novels that had melted his smile into something soft and warm, a contrast to the bright and effervescent one he wore in a garden of monsters, looking so much like a child at an amusement park with a world of joy laid out at his fingertips. Adventures both grand and homely that Emil would never tire of creating for him, across the ocean or just in their own bed. Anything to bring a new kind of smile to his lips, savoring the one he offered him now in a long look. Something playful yet utterly genuine, and he mirrored it with quiet pride, utterly enamored to see all the pieces of his heart Montgomery had reclaimed for himself.

“You and your monsters,” Emil teased, trying and failing to cushion all the sickly sweet sappiness that was strung between each glance. Another look that had him caving, giving into the temptation to adore him as he wrapped his arms around Monty’s waist, hugging him from behind as he returned a kiss to his temple. “But I love you. And whatever weird vampire kink you have,” he added, trailing two more playful kisses down his neck to prove his point before sliding his arms free. 

Briefly, Emil busied his hands with a pack of cigarettes instead of Monty, pulling out a single one to share when that had always been the point. A chance to brush fingertips and taste some small piece of him, and it hardly mattered that it was a redundant bit of intimacy now, fingers lacing back between his as he put the cigarette between his lips. He didn’t entirely need the comfort of nicotine to consider the next question either, but as he breathed in the first lungful of smoke, it did feel fitting. “I already forgave Harper,” he started, blowing out smoke in a long sigh. “Giving into peer pressure is cowardly, especially when your peers are pressuring you to rip memories out of a guy they’re beating the shit out of, but it was their idea, not hers. And she never touched me.” She’d only given the other two the green light to take out all their righteous anger. A guilty verdict she pulled out of his own mind that wasn’t entirely a lie, only a very complicated kind of truth, but it was still easiest to forgive the person who hadn’t left any scars.

“Kaia, I don’t know.” Another pull from the cigarette between his fingers before he passed it to Monty. “When I asked Father Rosario about it, he said forgiveness doesn’t have anything to do with absolving someone of the wrong things they did, it’s just about believing they can do better.” Advice that Emil had held onto when he had needed it, and it felt only fair to extend it now to Monty’s young student. “I want to think she can do better. That there’s good intentions behind all that violence and anger. The alternative is to say I deserved it or that she’ll always be cruel by nature. You already told me one of those isn’t true and the other one sounds a lot like a tagline Hugo would spin. So I think I’d rather forgive her, too.”

Emil started thinking of his next question, leaving his answer there, but he realized there was an obvious piece missing after a moment. “Khalil’s complicated.” Another pause before he stole back the cigarette, the smoke tasting too much like a memory he couldn’t extricate the Valerian Sentinel from. There was something unfair in his lingering hatred for the man, scars he thought he might always blame him for and fear that still burned in his gut at the sight of open flames. It was a sense memory that Harper and Kaia escaped purely by the dint of their respective powers, and so he tried to offer the same chance at redemption to the pyrokinetic, separating him from the ability he might always loathe. “But I imagine I was complicated, too, and you managed to figure it out. So...eventually. I’ll forgive him eventually.” A promise for the future he gave himself the grace not to be able to do now.

It was a conclusion that carried the same bittersweet ache, a short list of needs that Emil was still willing to put aside as long as Monty loved him. So he was just as quick to correct him, shaking his head before he’d even finished speaking. “Stop. It’s yours. I promise.” One he sealed with another kiss, and he couldn’t help but think how close his second request was to a promise he’d made before. To figure him out, to see him, beyond any shallower versions of himself he decided to play, or any of the crueler ones. To still have faith in him when everything in front of him swore he’d poisoned him and betrayed him for power or money or prestige. And if it was a faith he sometimes faltered in, it was a lesson to do better, to keep trying to give him the kind of love that put the gods to shame. 

He broke into a laugh along with Emil, accepting the critique with an easy smile, and he thought that alone was proof that they could survive plenty together. Too irreverent and too stubborn to stay forever pulled under by tragedy or even their own penchant for dramatics. And he was just as glad for the outlet to every bit of happiness that was too bright to contain, left holding onto that promise of Emil’s and how thoroughly it contradicted a message he’d never sent. Certain the man could change his mind about him whenever he wanted, that Monty would be the one left ruined, and it rarely ever crossed his mind that the reverse could ever be true. 

“My apologies,” he said. Letting Emil pull him further down the path, one last kiss pressed against the back of his hand. “I’ll try to ask you some suitably shallow nonsense next.” 

Emil’s didn’t feel quite so simple, but Monty had an immediate answer that he doubted would come as a shock. “Consequences. Empathy. It’s the same answer really.” There was something awful and twisted in that, an empath for a mother but it was one of those early lessons he’d been lacking. Rarely recognizing his own emotions, let alone processing any from those around him, but it might have been the same reason he tried harder when feeling started filtering in. “My father was very good at teaching me discipline and control, but his reasoning for why that’s important was never born from any sense of altruism. He wanted me to be better, I want them to know who gets hurt when they’re not. And to your point, I think it fits in nicely with correcting those blindspots when it comes to Nulls.” 

And true to his word, he didn’t think there was anything all that heavy about his next question, instead offered like repayment for the last two and too much amusement in the look he cast him. “What are your favorite things about yourself?” 

✦

Emil smiled against Monty’s lips, finding it harder to tease him for all his dramatic tendencies when he was far too endeared by them. Because it was a promise he knew he would hold on to, the kind that could help smother his own doubts, one he would lean on through whatever big or small argument came next. The kind that not even Cecilia could break down with all her skill for manipulation and penchant for destruction. So he tucked the memory away with far more care than his cavalier tone betrayed, knowing he would come back to it as often as he did so many others they had made here.

If his next question was an easier one, Emil still listened just as intently, finding Montgomery’s solution to be an elegant one when it required only a slight change in purpose rather than an overhaul in practice. As an Affiliate, he had always quietly hated the entire training system, seeing little reason to mold Gifts to the shape of violence, whether offensively or defensively. Yet he was alive today because of that training, quick reflexes and a carefully honed power that Monty had used to fend off everything from errant food carts to black market thugs. Culminating in a battle that had nearly split Main Street down the middle, and he couldn’t help but think that was the reason they had won: because they knew who would get hurt if they lost.

“You should sign Nita up for that class,” Emil commented, sarcasm tinged with a drop of sincerity. A thorn in Monty’s side they had never had time to properly dissect, but one he may finally have the authority to handle. After all, it was the kind of case that often landed at the Magistrate’s feet, and he wondered for all the influence he might lose in Endine House if he wouldn’t gain a chance to teach sorely missed lessons to the most complicated individuals. “Maybe Kaia, too” he continued, tempering the bitter scoff that usually followed her name. “You know she sent me a letter. Harper too. You’ll never guess which one is better at writing an apology.” 

It had taken him well over a week to even look at them, both shoved unceremoniously into the back of a drawer filled with far more welcome letters of well wishes and condolences. But eventually some brand of curiosity won him over and he’d taken the time to read each, including all three pages of Harper’s painstakingly typed, rambling mess and Kaia’s half page of smudged notebook paper. “I’m pretty sure Kaia’s was part of whatever twelve step anger management program they shoved her into, but it still counts for something. And I think your lessons did too.” It was something Emil suspected was hard to believe from the events that had unfolded. An abject disregard for both consequences and empathy in the bloody interrogation the trio had presided over. But for all the anger he had held onto, Emil could still recognize real regret when he saw it. The kind that came from two young women who had been taught better and had fallen short of their mentor’s expectations even when they were fighting on his behalf.

It was a topic Emil was glad to put aside for a question that made him light up in excitement, beaming at the welcome indulgence to list his favorite things about himself. “Well for one, I’m very pretty,” he started, both shallow and all too honest. Looks he’d carefully curated and used all his life, and a vanity that had been sorely bruised by the one individual who hadn’t written him a letter at all. “And I’m clever,” he continued, stealing more of Monty’s compliments, “And perceptive. Mostly about what people want. I haven’t always liked how I’ve used that information, but I think it takes a certain degree of empathy to know it in the first place.” To see the parts of people they were sometimes afraid to see themselves. The loneliness Athena tried to hide under professionalism, anxiety Baz obscured with humor, or soft romanticism Rebecca walled up behind bitter cynicism. The parts of people that were rarely even that hard to see, so often screaming to be heard and validated but the lie of who they pretended to be was always so much easier to manage than the truth. So people bought it willingly, and then marveled at his ability to turn down the same, cheap bargain.  

“When it’s true, I think my favorite thing about myself is that I’m a good son.” It was the most vulnerable admission, the kind that only Monty got, because it came with a lump of sentimentality he might find embarrassing in other circumstances. A soft spot for his mother that sat at the center of every home-cooked meal and weekly phone calls. The one that kept him coming back to a church he barely believed in and back to a home he didn’t always fit into. The one that made him want to find a way to be a little more honest, to share the parts of himself he barely hid behind white lies and euphemisms. To share the life he was making with a man who was much more than a friend from work. “I think most of the time it’s true,” Emil concluded, saving Monty the effort of assuring him he was doing a good job when he’d already helped inspire him to do a better one.

“You could’ve just picked one. It’s hardly my fault you like to hear yourself talk.” It was a criticism that still came out too fondly when Monty could feel the warmth from a simple look, biting back a grateful smile. Holding onto the answer for a question he’d been too terrified to ask, unwilling to consider what else would be lost if his Gift never came back. Just as glad that Emil hadn’t said it before, when fear and despair were already an anchor making it harder just to drag himself out of their bed. 

It was a warmth he held onto as long as he could, because he could feel it start to slip away at Emil’s answers. The first two understandable, but the last had an anxious twisting in his gut, a familiar fear any time they touched the topic of monogamy. It felt unfair to him every time, defensive insecurity always rising too quickly, and too often harsher than Emil deserved. So he tried to listen now, just as guilty of making assumptions and coming to his own conclusions. A faint smile when his palm was settling against his cheek and lips against his, but after the man pulled away he thought he could feel his heart breaking in turn. A future that seemed contrary to the one he thought they were just getting started writing, and it left him quiet in the wake of it all, trying to think through his words just as carefully. 

“Well. I’m worried about Cecilia too. I don’t know if fear’s the right word, but I hate the idea of her anywhere near you again.” A brief glance at Emil, when he wondered if it was something he dreaded just as much, but they’d already decided that was a problem for later. “I’m worried that the Institute’s technology is still out there, and we don’t know who got their hands on it before we shut them down. And I’m scared that if I step down as Head Significant, I’m throwing away a chance to teach all of those Initiates and Sentinels better lessons than I was. Maybe I’d always be a glorified babysitter, but I could still use that to change things. Even if it’s just one House. And I’m scared of that as a whole. That nothing will ever really change.” 

He let out a breath, a short list of anxieties that still paled next to the one he was scared just to touch. It struck him as almost funny sometimes, that he could face down death and rogue primes with less cowardice than a conversation about their relationship. “And I don’t know that the things I’m scared of when it comes to us is so different from you. I’m scared I won’t always be what you need. I’m scared I won’t be enough, that you’ll get bored, or get restless, or just need something more than I can give you. I’m worried you’ll get sick of monogamy.”  

There was one more fear on his list, scared of the simple fact that Emil was already thinking about this ending, and one that was better left off when he didn’t want to make him feel guilty for saying it. A rationality that he couldn’t fault, but a future he didn’t want, and he turned to face him in the next moment, stopping their path through the bayou with his hands taking his. “But I don’t really know what it is you think I’ll need from you that you haven’t already given me.” He drew his hands to his mouth, punctuating it with a kiss pressed hard against his knuckles before he focused on him again. “I don’t need you to always be desirable. You could have the flu and be sick and gross on our couch and I’d still love you and I’d still take care of you. I don’t need perfect dates or perfect gifts. Our imperfect ones have always been better anyway. And I don’t need you to always know the right thing to say or have the right answers. I’m sure we’ll have miscommunications and misunderstandings. Maybe we’ll get angry with each other and say things we don’t mean, maybe we’ll fight, maybe I’ll be the one sleeping on that couch for a night. But I’m not afraid of that. I’m not afraid we won’t find a way to fix it.” 

He let out a breath, a gentle squeeze of his hands, and if  he often struggled to name exactly what it was he wanted, this time it was right in front of him. “Love me. Be faithful to me. Keep choosing me. That’s what I need from you. If you can promise me that, I promise I won’t ever stop loving you. Because right now, I can’t imagine anything else we can’t figure out together.” It was a thought he barely wanted to entertain, that after surviving evil corporations and deadly Gifts, they would fall apart in the usual ways. A future he didn’t want to speak into reality, but one he didn’t do either of them the disservice of ignoring. “And if I’m wrong, if we find out we just don’t work, you’ll still always be my first real love. Maybe I won’t always love you the same way, maybe you won’t be my person anymore, but I think I’ll always be at least a little bit in love with you. And you’ll still be the one that anyone who comes after will have to try and live up to. I don’t know about you, but I don’t envy anyone that role.”

It was his best attempt at a joke, a faint smile on his lips and something painfully true about it all the same, trying and failing to imagine anyone ever really taking his place. “I told you what I need, but is there anything you need from me?”  

✦

“I think she has a lot more to lose than me this time around,” Emil replied, finding the feeling was mutual. A fear not so much of Cecilia but of what damage she might do to Montgomery when she’d already had a chance to do too much. So there was a very similar part of him that wanted to do the work himself. To make sure she faced all the consequences she deserved for all the things she’d taken from the man he loved before he had a fighting chance to claim them for himself. The kind of power only a parent has in those formative years, and it seemed only fair that the Head Significant was scared about giving that power up. The chance to influence the bright and powerful young Initiates and Heirs of Endine House, to teach them something more than fear and violence and relentless loyalty. The kind of lessons he ran in the Pit with a mess of leftover furniture and stories that made the bartender smile.

But if so many of their fears were the same, Emil didn’t think their relationship anxieties lined up as well as Montgomery suggested they did. Not when Monty’s brand of self doubt had an unfortunate tendency to sound more like a doubt in his partner. Fear that Emil may simply be too mercurial to settle down for a long-term commitment because he was restless or bored or done with monogamy. It was an old sticking point that was hard to bristle at when it was soothed just as quickly, a kiss pressed to his knuckles before every bit of confidence was impressed upon him after. That they could be imperfect and messy and still come out alright. That failure could be temporary and that they had solved enough complicated problems before to show proof that they could do it again. 

And if Emil was worried he might fall short of what Monty needed and, more importantly, what he deserved, the list he gave was almost laughably easy. Listing what the doctor might prefer to call objective truths about the world. Because he would always love him, he would always choose him, and faithfulness was a low bar to prove both of those points to be true. A love Montgomery promised in return that was perhaps an objective truth as well, but he still felt a tight squeeze in his chest to hear it offered so plainly. A selfish comfort to know that he would always be a little in love with him no matter who was in his arms when it was a fear he’d never put into words before. That Monty couldn’t be forgotten, but maybe he could forget Emil. So he smiled at the bittersweet joke, a quiet good offered as he nodded to the words before trying to determine how to return the same sentiment

“Well first off I need you to understand a few things,” Emil began, slipping one hand from his to hold up a finger as he started counting them off. “One: I’m absolutely dashing when I’m sick, thank you very much. Two: I’m never going to get bored of you. Last time we were here, I said you might be the most interesting person I’ve ever met and my only addendum to that is now I know you are.” It was an attempt to lighten the mood and offer sincerity at the same time, reassurances he would always readily supply when Monty was so quick to doubt whether he was worth his time. A fear that he wasn’t as interesting as he pretended to be that Emil had tried to soothe last time they were here, and a fear he was ready to spend the rest of his life proving wrong. “And three: I can promise you that. Gladly,” he concluded, a deal he sealed with another kiss. 

Emil thought that might be all he really needed, just the promise of Monty’s love in return for his, but it felt an awful lot like a one word answer. So he took another moment to pause and find something of equivalent exchange. “Love me. Have faith in me. Keep coming back to me. That’s what I need from you.” A short and familiar list, but one he thought honestly encompassed what he wanted to ask for. Because he relied on Monty to believe in a better version of himself than he saw some days, and some of their most contentious arguments had come when he didn’t. Doubt that Emil was quick to internalize when it was always waiting in the wings, the kind he put on a show to cover up. To prove he could be nice, to prove he could be loyal, to prove he could be worthy of the kind of love Monty offered now. And it was that love more than anything that he wanted, but he wanted the man to live long enough to give it to him. A tendency to run off and play hero that he couldn’t rob him of, but he could be the voice of caution in the back of his mind. The one to remind him that self-preservation was a victory, especially when you had someone waiting for you to come home every night.

“I’ll never stop loving you, whether you promise me that or not, but I might love you a little more if you do.” Because loving Monty was an objective truth, and all he wanted was a way to be sure he always had a chance to show him.