#b4ttl3

heidi.

mutt stops mid-pace. from the back, the livewire of his shoulders tightens. he did not expect that. nicky has that way about him. some muscle flutters and tenses in his throat, pitching up against the sides like a wild thing fighting to get out. it feels not unlike missing a step at the bottom of a stairwell.

he turns. his arms hang loose at his sides. eyes wide and chest sore. brittle ache in his throat.

he wants to throw himself against nicky. to wrap his arms around him and never relinquish his hold. leave a mutt-sized imprint on his front, like flowers pressed into a book. nicky seeing him, seeing and knowing and understanding his heart even through all the bullshit—that’s the bruising, coiling thump in mutt's stomach. the now prickling behind the dark of his eyes.

he looks at nicky. away, up. at nicky. his nicky. there is a part of him that'll always come back. he quickly closes the space between them, like he really is going to try. he stops short in front of him.

the hungry tide.

"oh, but i do." her smile's a little lax, a little hazed around the edges. comfortable, not concerned with any act. "you used your handsome wiles to get this for me. oughta show my appreciation."

it isn't often she gets one over anthony. she hasn't felt him in her head for a couple days. she could keep this secret away from him until they reunited. she imagines the reverance in his broad palms when he receives the poetry volume, knowing it came from her and a friend thoughtfully considering him.

his old words come to her then, spoken to her over a hundred years since. one takes on others as family and continually reshapes that meaning. but you do not break blood ties. we may not wish to live together at all times, but we will always be with each other. seon has been good to them. she wonders if he would like to be one of theirs. there would still be the loyalty to the one who made him, but she is almost childishly hopeful in wishing it.

worlds intersecting always thrilled her.

heidi.

a challenge writes itself into the searching, wolfish tilt of mutt's head. "even you?"

it does not occur to him to say me, us. the truth remains a faint ache pressing between his eyes and inside his skull. it all still feels so foreign. something that he will not fully comprehend until he feels himself rush back to life after dying another time. he's been lucky enough to avoid that mess after the first so far. no true deaths. half-deaths? only a few tests. close calls, self-inflicted.

"even now?" like it happened to nicolò yesterday and he were also adjusting. not centuries, if he is to believe andromache and yusuf. and maybe he will find it disrespectful, and scorn him for the insinuation that they might be above god. god is a neither here nor there sort of fellow in mutt's life. it isn't his intention, even if it sounds like it.