#fortunefavour

         “oh, plenty,” the warlock replies without missing a beat. “not from me of course. as irksome as human intrigue and curiosity can be when i’ve lived long enough that the charm of it  has worn thin, to punish you would only further provoke you. am i wrong?” 

         he doesn’t wait for an answer. he doesn’t need it. the book in the teen’s hands is flipped open with a mere wave from magnus. the thick paper, kept pristine, reveals her secrets in the form of old text and drawings. all known languages to mankind compiled together in the margins and blank spaces.

       “it’s real, if you were wondering. which i gather you had to have been considering you were two seconds from putting on a charming smile and walking out of here with it,” a knowing look is leveled at nate before it weathers out. magnus grins. “ask. i’m sure you have questions and i have answers, nathan morgan. i was around when that book was carved first into stone and then transcribed on to papyrus. was it papyrus first? details, they’re fuzzy,” they’re not, but magnus loves a good show.

     it isn’t fair. nothing about this is. nothing about this has been fair since the day cassandra willfully took herself from her family and felt as if there were no choice. finding the boys again had felt like a pipe dream. a series of dead ends and dead names and a trail of myths and hearsay. and now alex is here. now he’s here looking at a young man in the making. a young man he had nothing to do with since the boy was five. in a lot of ways, he looks unrecognizable. in still more, he looks exactly like his mother.

     alex feels that twinge in his chest times two. guilt feels like a battering ram against his ribcage.

     “hey, i know how this looks,” there’s the easy pull to one corner of his mouth, but it isn’t out of humor. nerves, perhaps. more like. “guy shows up out of the blue and lifetime would have you believing in miracles. i’m not ... i’m not asking for anything, nathan. just a few minutes. just to talk, that’s it.” and he means it. even if he wants more, he can’t expect anything. so he doesn’t.

         “is it?” the way roman’s cleaning off the machete laid across his lap is almost methodical. a futile process given how gored up it would be in a matter of minutes. he doesn’t glance up at the kid. at least, not until the rag in his hand is tossed up over his shoulder, dark red blotches and bits of meat all across it, and he sets the machete down. the blade’s rounded tip digs in to the floor when the handle spins in his hand.

     "y’know,” sam grunts, half - smoked cigarette between his teeth, hefting a piece of wreckage up with the kind of effort his lungs really don’t like, “for all of avery’s ostentatious b— ah, shit,” he almost drops the chunk of splintered wood and throws nathan a pointed glance. nathan, who has to chuckle before moving to help. 

     “for all of his what, now?” 

     “i was just gonna say,” another grunt, “for all the decorum, you’d think he could’a invested a little more in the craftsmanship.”

     “maybe he had a lazy contractor.”

     “yeah, maybe the foreman cut corners ‘cause he skipped leg day.” 

     “you think libertalia had a gym?” 

     “wouldn’t surprise me.”

     “nothing surprises me anymore.” 

     they manage to get the path clear, or clear enough to work through. sam straightens and rolls his shoulders. he ashes the cigarette, quirks a brow like he wants to say a whole lot more than he’s willing to.

     “what,” nathan sighs. 

     “nothin’.” 

     “o-ho, no, it’s never ‘nothing’ with you. what is it, sam?” 

     “just got me curious, is all.”

     “about — ?” 

     sam’s shoulders roll again, this time in a shrug. things between them have never been easy, but it’s all starting to look like picnics in the park compared to how it is now. fifteen years of accumulated resentment. fifteen years of lost time and he’s just a bitter old son of a bitch who still cracks the same jokes that made him snicker in high school, and he isn’t much interested in playing catch - up. nathan’s already been there, done that. practically a household name in certain circles, and he did it all alone. 

     you and me, together. that was a good spiel. sam was proud of that one. too bad it amounted to about as much as he did. 

     “about why you’re here,” sam finally lands on, and flicks his cigarette into a nearby patch of stagnant water pooling between fissured cobblestone. 

     “is this — are you serious? sam, i’m here because if we don’t find this treasure, alcázar’s gonna gut you like one of these colonists. and that’s only if he’s feeling charitable.”

     “is that it?” 

     “wh— the hell d’you mean, ‘is that it’? what, that’s not enough for you?” 

     “nah, i’m just — i wanna make sure i’m readin’ it right. so you wouldn’t be here at all otherwise, is that what you’re saying?”

     “sam, c’mon —”

     “jesus, nathan, tell me how you really feel.” 

     he shakes his head, scoffs under his breath, paces off a semicircle to kick at the handle of a broken cutlass near the skeletal arm of some poor dead bastard. behind him, nathan hasn’t moved. he can feel the weight of his brother’s gaze but he doesn’t turn towards it. 

     “what are you doing, man?” nathan asks, and he scoffs again. 

     “what am i doing?” now, his head turns so their eyes catch. “i’m finishing what we started, nathan. what we started, more than twenty goddamn years ago. this ain’t just about some debt to a drug lord, ‘n you know it. so, i guess the real burning question is, what are you doing?” 

     nathan damn near flinches. “... look, if you’re worried i’m not gonna see this through, don’t be. i’m here. we’re gonna finish this, alright?”

     “sure. come this far, we might as well. y’know, if you’d forget about goddamn alcázar for a sec and maybe, actually, try to find some enjoyment in all this.” 

     “we have come far,” nathan says. he’s all sentiment and earnestness and it’s giving sam a headache. 

     “uh - huh.”

     “we have, sam. and i think we’ve broken everything but a record, at this point.” 

     sam holds his gaze for a second, then snorts. 

     goddamn it. 

     “— you do have a knack for that, i’ve noticed.” 

     “must run in the family.” 

     there’s plenty more to say, plenty of fingers to point and baggage to unload, but sam reins it in for a later date because they’re on the cusp of something real and whatever lies he built to get them here in the first place, at least they’re here. at least there’s that. you and me, together. we’re gonna go far. 

     “c’mon,” nate repeats, this time a gentle prod. “let’s keep movin’, huh? that watchtower can’t be much farther.” 

     sam spreads his arms, sweeps one in an after you gesture. 

     everything else can wait.