#luxmold

(Luca: Luxembourg, Andrei: Moldova)

When it came to the bedroom, there were two options.

Either Luca topped, and they would make love. He liked to take his time pleasuring Andrei, stroking his skin and whispering sweet nothings as he thrust into him with gentle force. These were the nights in which they would lose themselves in the romance. The nights for sensuality, and slow passion that crept up on Andrei gradually. Every moment would be long, lingering and indulgent. Yet Andrei still wished that it could go on for longer. Having Luca ravish him felt so sublime that he wished it could never end.     

Or alternatively, Andrei topped. And whenever Andrei topped, it could only be described as fucking. Raw, dirty fucking. There was a certain look Andrei had in his eyes when he took Luca, something hungry and desperate. He sucked Luca’s neck, scratched his chest, pounded him frantically into the mattress. And God, Luca loved it. He made no secret of that. Not when he was moaning appreciatively. Not when he was begging for more. And certainly not when he threw his head back and screamed Andrei’s name as the pleasure finally overwhelmed him.        

Luca [14:43] Okay, thank you. Should I come over? Or does he need anything?

Unknown [14:44] Nah hes ok. Im gonna tell him to send a message or call when hes out alright

Luca [14:45] Alright. Thanks again!

He decides to add the unknown number to his contact list as ‘Stefan’, just in case. It’s odd, certainly, that Martin would give this man his phone number; they aren’t that close when it comes down to it, but it’s also strangely flattering. Maybe he should let their sister know… Ah, it will be alright. Martin can call her later. It doesn’t seem to be very serious.

Tripped over someone’s dog… How ridiculous. Luca goes back to work.

Later, after dinner, he calls Martin, because Luca hasn’t received a message from him yet and is starting to get a little worried. His brother is not the sort of person who forgets things like that. Perhaps the Stefan person forgot to tell him.

“Luc, hey. What’s up?”

Well, he sounds fine.

“Hello, Martin. I just wanted to ask if you’re alright now. After this afternoon.”

There is a long pause on Martin’s end of the line, some crackling.

“What do you mean?” he asks after a while. “What happened this afternoon? Are you alright? Is Manon alright?”

“What?” Luca shakes his head in confusion. “I’m more worried about you. You were at the hospital, weren’t you?”

Martin makes a confused noise. “No? I was at work.”

This time, it’s Luca who is silent for a while. He absentmindedly pats his dog on the head where she is lying on the couch next to him in a little ball of fluff.

“Do… Do you know a Stefan?” he eventually asks.

“No,” Martin says decisively. “Luca, what’s going on?”

“I am not sure. I’ll get back to you on this, Martin.”

They say their goodbyes, and Luca puts his phone away, then picks it back up.

Luca [22:20] Stefan, how is my brother?

He puts the phone away and wants to start a film, but there is a buzz quickly.

Stefan [22:22] Hes fine why do you ask Stefan [22:22] Did he not send a message Stefan [22:23] What an idiot I told him

Mildly affronted at this stranger calling his brother an idiot, Luca begins to type a reply, then pauses. Maybe it isn’t Martin they’re talking about here. Maybe someone else’s brother was at the hospital, and this Stefan got the wrong number off him… But then how did he know Luca’s name?

Luca [22:25] Which hospital was this, by the way?

Stefan [22:25] HBU hospital Stefan [22:26] He says he did send you a message

That is the hospital in this city. A bit of a mystery, it seems. What is the best way to find out what’s behind this? He chews on his lower lip thoughtfully.

Luca [22:27] Did he also send Manon a message?

Stefan [22:27] Manon? Whos manon should I be jealous hah

Oh. No, definitely not Martin. He would never have mentioned Luca and not Manon, for one, and apparently, this Stefan is far better acquainted with the… Mysterious not-Martin person than Luca previously thought. He would know if Martin had a boyfriend. Probably. Perhaps.

Stefan [22:28] Dra says hes never met a manon and to ask if shes your girlfriend

Luca can’t help himself.

Luca [22:28] Dra?

Stefan [22:29] Luca youre not the only one allowed to call him dra Stefan [22:29] Dont change the subject! Is manon your girlfriend

Luca [22:30] Manon is my sister.

There is a long pause. Luca waits, amused despite himself. He tries to recall if he’s given his number to anyone whose nickname could be Dra, but he’s coming up empty. A Dragomir, maybe? Drake? Unlikely. Then again, sometimes details about his Saturday nights do get rather hazy.

Stefan [22:34] I thought wed covered all the rotarus by now gdi Stefan [22:35] After I met your weird cousins last summer Stefan [22:35] How many of you ARE THERE

It seems to be quite serious between Stefan and… Dra Rotaru, if he has met the extended family already. The name Rotaru rings a vague, distant bell, but Luca isn’t sure where it is. He opens his laptop and types a reply while Facebook loads.

Luca [22:37] Stefan, I’m afraid I’m not the person you think I am. My name is not Luca Rotaru, nor can I recall ever having met anyone by that name.

Stefan [22:37] Hold on WHAT

With any luck… Yes! There is only one Luca Rotaru on Facebook. Biting his lip, Luca clicks on his profile. Lives in the same city as him, check. They’re about the same age, too, Other Luca a year younger than him. On the about page, he finds a Dragos Rotaru among the guy’s family members, but his profile picture is too tiny on the screen to be recognizable, and Luca clicks back, not wanting to be creepy.

Although – guiltily, he selects the Other Luca’s profile picture. The guy seems to be his polar opposite in appearance, with dark hair that falls across his shoulders, obscuring what seems to be a duffel coat. He is smiling widely in the picture. His lower lip is pierced twice, and his eyes seem to sparkle. Is that eyeliner?

Oh, but he’s attractive. Luca swipes his own blond hair out of his face, hand hovering over the touchpad of his laptop.

Stefan [22:40] Luca hey Stefan [22:40] Or not luca idk

Without thinking any more about it, Luca sends his namesake a friend request.

Luca [22:41] My name is Luca, but my last name is not Rotaru. Maybe you should ask Dragos if he’s ever met any other Lucas.

Another long pause. Luca idly refreshes Facebook a few times and scratches his dog underneath the chin. He does hope he got the name Dragos right. It doesn’t seem unlikely that he met the man in question while going out and broke his own rule about not giving out his phone number. If he looks anything like his brother… Even Luca Morgens is not the most conscientious person when he’s drunk enough. That doesn’t clear up why Stefan would mistake one Luca for the other, though.

Stefan [22:44] I love dragos but I also really fucking hate him Stefan [22:45] WHO THE FUCK saves their brother as Poophead in their contacts Stefan [22:45] DRAGOS ROTARU THATS WHO Stefan [22:46] Oh just send Luca a text his number is in my phone he says Stefan [22:46] Im really sorry about this man

Luca laughs at the messages arriving in quick succession of one another.

Stefan [22:46] I mean I thought it was weird that you asked who I was Stefan [22:47] But you know, new phones

At the same time the last message arrives, a notification pops up on Facebook. Biting his lower lip, Luca clicks it, finding that Luca Rotaru has accepted his friend request. His heart rate spikes.

Stefan [22:48] You still there?

Luca [22:48] I am. Honestly, don’t worry about it. Tell Dragos I’m glad he’s alright.

Stefan [22:49] Im gonna tell him to stop being so dumb is what im gonna do

Luca [22:50] That too. Have a good evening, Stefan.

Stefan [22:50] You too luca not rotaru

Luca chuckles, then finally puts his phone away. He watches the message about his new Facebook friend for a few seconds and wants to put his laptop away and start his film after all – a friend from his study wrote it and he promised to watch – when another notification appears. A chat message from Luca Rotaru.

Luca Rotaru you aren’t by any chance the guy Stefan is currently freaking out about, are you? :0

Luca Morgens I probably am.

Luca Rotaru this is fantastic nice to meet you, Luca Morgens! I’m Luca Rotaru :D

Luca Morgens Nice to meet you too! Do you prefer Luca or Poophead?

Luca Rotaru Dragos’ name is my contacts is Shitface, fyi I shall be Luca you shall be Lucao ;) hey holy shit we live in the same city!

Luca Morgens We do, as a matter of fact! Hold on why Lucao?

Luca Rotaru bc Lucao damn B^) good to know my brother has taste in something after all

Luca picks up his dog and muffles an embarrassing sound into her fur, feeling himself flush. Suddenly, he wants to check his own profile page to see if there isn’t anything embarrassing on it. Pelutze wriggles in his arms, and he quickly puts her back down on the couch, patting her head and mumbling an apology.

Luca Rotaru too much?

Luca Morgens No, not at all! In that case, you should be Lucao.

His hands are shaking with nervous excitement. He glares at them. He is a Morgens. He is cool and collected. He does not get flustered over messages from virtual strangers.

Luca Rotaru nope no definitely you hey yr dog is cute! :o

Luca Morgens She is, she is.

Luca Rotaru so fluffy! when do you usually take her out walking? maybe maybe I can come and pet her :00

Luca Morgens It varies. Maybe you should ask your brother for my phone number! That way you can always ask me.

Luca Rotaru hA that’s not happening Lucao maybe you should ask Stefan for mine that way you can always tell me ;)

Luca Morgens I’d rather ask you. You know, on Saturdays, around ten is a good bet. I usually take her to Wildrose Park.

Luca Rotaru :^D I might just happen to be around there tomorrow then to pet your dog

Luca Morgens To pet my dog. She will like that.

Luca Rotaru good to know heh I might just see you then

Luca Morgens You might just, Luca Rotaru.

Luca Rotaru goodnight Lucao

Luca Morgens Goodnight!

Lucao. Oh, that is terrible.

Since when did he get detention? Well, there was that time he turned up to school hungover, forgetting he had a two-hour chemistry lesson about alcohols of all things, and promptly throwing up all over his notes. That had been the grimmest day of his life so far, in all honesty.

But aside from that- !- he’d never gotten a detention in his life- and the previous event had actually resulted in a week’s suspension and a concerned phonecall to his brother anyway, so technically his slate was still spotless.

So why the hell had his form tutor only today informed him of a month’s worth of detentions- starting with this one right here. How? What could he have possibly done to warrant a whole month of his life spent writing lines after school as punishment?

Seriously, what had he done?

It was the art teacher he’d cheesed off, apparently, given that he was now surrounded by drying racks and A1 sized card paintings, mostly depicting detailed and often surreal portraits, and then his own vase of flowers, inspired by the likes of Jan Brueghel the elder and Ambrosius Bosschaert, and others from the Dutch Golden Age. It was with great amusement that he’d linked his brother’s own love of gardening to the Dutch Flowers movement and thus his inspiration for GCSE art- though actually painting in such detail was a challenge he’d not quite grasped until it came to practicing his own paintings. But boy had it been a struggle to finish every little detail in two days.

All in all, Luca was proud of the work he’d put into his final piece, finished only today at the end of a grueling, two-day exam, so why the hell was he here? He didn’t like getting in trouble, not in the slightest, and hadn’t done anything to offend Mr Kirkland. Well, not deliberately.

“The hell did you do?”

The teacher had yet to arrive, and so far there were only three- now four- students waiting for him: Luca, two strange-looking pipsqueaks from a few years below him, and now his mate Tolli. To be honest, they only really talked in the art and history lessons they shared, but the boy seemed nice enough.

And apparently had been discovered to be the one who changed every desktop screen in the graphics design computer room to a picture of Robbie Rotten. Oh well. He’d tried to get away with it.

“I don’t know,” he hissed back as the guy sat next to him, “seriously, what could I have done to tick the fellow off?”

“I don’t know,” Tolli gave a little shrug, “I can’t remember anything ya did… Are you crying?”

“…No.”

“Were ya crying?”

“Maybe,” Luca almost sobbed.

Tolli’s eyebrows knotted together. “You cried… over a detention?”

“That a problem?” Yes, yes he’d cried over his first ever detention, okay? Not only was it a new experience for him, but he’d somehow done something so bad-

How did a person even get a month’s worth of detention? What did they have to fuck up to get that result? Luca was almost impressed at himself.

“What about those two?” Tolli nodded over at the pair of what were clearly future art students- one had tied his hair in multicoloured ribbons and the other somehow had paint on his face. Not that Luca had particularly cared to people watch at that moment in time. They seemed a little couply though, practically on each other’s laps as they cuddled.

“Don’t know.”

“What’re ye in for?” he called to the pair.

“Painting nudes for homework,” paint-face called back.

Okay. Luca was officially done with trying to understand young people. Yes, he was only sixteen but anyone younger was beyond reasoning now. Then again, the inner mechanisms of Mr Kirkland’s mind could be a complete mystery too.

“Oh! I got it!” Tolli snapped his fingers for emphasis, “Luca Rotaru!”

“Morgens. I’m Luca Morgens, remember?” Christ, had Tolli been paying that little attention to his life?

Tolli just raised an eyebrow at that. “No, Luca Rotaru in year nine!”

“Who?” There was another Luca in the school? Now that he thought of it, it was hardly some miraculous coincidence. Luca wasn’t the rarest of names.

“Really?” For some reason, Tolli looked absolutely astounded at his friend’s ignorance. “I barely care and even I know about Rotaru.”

“Why? Is he famous or something?” He either had celebrities for parents or had set fire to his previous school. Luca was hoping for the latter, to an extent.

“Famous for being weird as shit,” Tolli was saying, “he’s that kid who brought in a real live hamster and set it loose in the greenhouse, remember?”

“Oh, that guy.” Nice to place a name to an incident.

Tolli just looked like he was happy to be getting somewhere. “Yes, that guy. The one who drew a pentagram in the gym. That guy. Doesn’t own a pair of underwear guy. Claims his brother knows how to summon Satan guy.”

“He sounds… disturbed.” Maybe he had burnt down his previous school after all, and a hospital, an Aldi and a couple nursing homes. Also what the actual fuck was wrong with this kid?

“He probably is. I don’t think he has parents.”

“Does that really excuse vandalism?”

Tolli just shrugged.

Maybe he had something more to say, but Mr Kirkland’s arrival prevented him from speaking another word, like why the hell were they talking about a wannabe Satanist and how did they get onto the subject?

“Separate tables,” Mr Kirkland growled in greeting, indicating to the pair of now rather dejected duos. Well detention sure sounded fun. Luca wanted to crawl under a pile of paintings and cry.

“Morgens, what are you doing here?”

Being miserable and a little ashamed of himself. “I don’t actually know, sir.” Might as well be honest- and at least this way he could get some answers. Unless Mr Kirkland decided the best course of action was to fly off the rails for no reason, like teachers tended to do.

But Mr Kirkland just ran a hand through his hair with a groan. “That may be because you’re not meant to be here at all.”

“I’m not?” What was this? A song in his heart? A cloud beneath him? A light spring breeze in his hair?

“No, it seems your name must’ve been mixed with another’s at some point.” Mr Kirkland seemed unwilling to name names, but Luca could guess who the real hooligan was.

“So I can take my leave now?” he asked, causing yet another eye roll from Tolli.

“Yes you may; sorry for keeping you, lad.”

…

Well, that was the other Luca, supposedly.

Luca M. hadn’t been too sure what he was expecting, but a scruffy borderline feral fourteen year old wandering about a crowded school corridor seemed about right. Very little of what Luca R. was wearing seemed to be the correct school uniform, but given his track record, that probably wasn’t the school’s biggest concern for once.

Everything about him screamed tryhard, needless eccentricities though, from the necklace made of old Halloween fangs, to the fur coat whose original owner might have had the mange, to the somewhat disturbing lack of shoes. Did he… not come to school with shoes? Did he even own a pair? He, apparently, went out of the way to buy his own miniature hat, so why not even a cheap pair?

Was this even something he could find out? Luca M. couldn’t exactly ask such a thing in polite conversation.

Besides, he had a job to do and should honestly stop staring at the kid from afar because it probably looked creepy.

“Hey,” he called, keeping his voice as soft yet audible as possible, “Luca Rotaru, right?”

Luca R. jumped at that, spinning round slightly and glancing up with a pair of massive doe eyes, like he’d been caught taking ecstasy, or was a cat begging for food. It probably would’ve been cuter if he was a manga character, as opposed to a real life teenage boy.

“Um, yes? Oh gosh, what have I done now?”

“Erm, nothing,” Luca M. replied in surprise. Well, nothing he actually knew of that recently happened. Even the hamster incident had been a month or so ago.

“Oh, hello,” he held out a hand awkwardly, “I’m Luca Morgens.”

The adorable edgelord smiled at that. “Hello fellow Luca!” The way he said that made Luca M. wonder if the kid was about to ask him to join a secret cult of people named Luca.

Could they drink at cult meetings? Because he might consider it (exam season had more or less broken him at this point).

“Well, erm,” he licked his lips trying to find the right words, “your presence is required at… erm, well, detention with Mr Kirkland. For the next month.”

“Oh.” Luca R. seemed to deflate at that, giving a half-hearted shrug that ruffled the remaining fur on his coat. “I suppose I had it coming.”

“What did you even do?” The words were out of Luca M’s mouth before he could stop them. “I mean, if you don’t mind my ask-“

“I tried to make a new mother in art,” Luca R. explained, “and one of the kids in my class called me a dickhead so I punched him.”

“Ah.” Almost cute. If cute was tragic mixed with unnerving.

“Why did sit ask you to deliver the message though?” asked Luca R. as the other Luca turned to leave. Oh.

“There was a mixup,” he explained, “probably something to do with us being the only ‘Luca’s in the school.” Or to his knowledge, at least.

“Oh you didn’t have to sit my detention, did you?” Luca R. looked horrified at the thought, a hand shooting up to cover his mouth.

“Not at all; it was all sorted out fine,” Luca M. tried his best to look reassuring, but wasn’t sure discount Luca actually believed him.

“Oh I’m so sorry.” Now they were holding hands… why? Luca R. sure had a sweet side to him, hidden somewhere under the weird. “Let me make it up to you!”

“Really, it’s-“

“No, I feel really bad about it.” His little bottom lip started wobbling, and Luca M. simply sighed.

“We can hang out sometime, if that’s okay with you.” A rather simple but ingenious plan was beginning to form in his head: if he befriended Luca R, he could buy him a pair of shoes for his birthday.

The woman leaves, smiling broadly at Alin and wishing him a merry Christmas. He waves at her, then shoots a smug smile at Andrei.

“Yeah, you’re amazing and you’re getting married, I know,” Andrei sighs, exaggerating only a little.

Alin laughs. “You’re just jealous.”

“You wish, Mr Borisov!” Andrei laughs too, ducking away when his brother swipes at him and protests something about hyphenating. Some people walking by in front of the stall look at them oddly. Andrei grins at them, shaking his hair out of his eyes.

It isn’t that busy on the Christmas market yet; most people are still at work these days, so they’ve seen mostly elderly people since they opened, and most of them aren’t really interested in the Radacanus’ merchandise. Even though Andrei and Tsvetan managed to convince Alin to leave the oddest things at his shop, the collection of tarot cards and shimmery stones and necklaces and swishy scarves is still an odd one out on the market. Most people sell hats and gloves and Christmas decorations from their little wooden houses, and there are a number of food stalls.

In fact, they’re right next to one that sells waffles, and the sweet smell has permeated everything. Andrei is dying for a waffle right about now. Has been for the past few days.

He pushes a glove down to glance at his watch. It’s almost three. That’s a good time for a waffle, he supposes.

“Do you want a waffle?” he asks Alin.

“Hm? Sure. Are you getting one?” He jerks his head at the side of their stall, where the waffle woman sells her waffles. Alin must have mentioned her name – he has talked to her a few times when they both arrived at their stalls, probably about his wedding – but Andrei’s forgotten. He knows she’s quite tall and usually wears her hair in interesting swirls with headbands that match her dresses.

“Yeah.” He opens the door at the back of the little house. “Do you want chocolate or something?”

“Sugar!” Alin calls after him. And, when Andrei loops back around the front of the stall on his way to the waffles, “I changed my mind, I want chocolate.”

“Are you sure?” Andrei asks, without slowing down. Alin leans out of the stall, but doesn’t say anything. Andrei grins.

There is one other person waiting at the waffle stall, so he gets in line behind her and waits patiently, rubbing his gloved hands together. It hasn’t snowed, but it is cold, so he’s holding out hope.

Quickly, it’s Andrei’s turn, and he looks up at – not waffle woman.

He blinks.

No, definitely not waffle woman. A man, pale and blond, thin eyebrows raised at his silence. He doesn’t look like he should work in a waffle stall, Andrei thinks. He looks like he should be in a fucking magazine, with a face like that, all high cheekbones and faint freckles and full lips. Andrei bites his own lower lip. The man leans forward a little, fine hair falling across one eye.

“Can I help you?” he asks.

“Huh?” Oh, shit. “Yeah, ah— Two waffles, please?”

“Right away,” says the man, smiling faintly and turning to pour batter over the waffle maker. Over his shoulder, he asks, “Do you want a topping? We’ve got chocolate—”

“Chocolate, yes,” Andrei blurts.

“Both of them?”

“Yeah, yeah. Please.” He bites his lip again, trying to calm his heart by taking steady breaths. Andrei knows he is prone to falling head over heels for every other attractive person he sees, and this guy is definitely one of those. It’s nothing to be concerned about. Or embarrassed, or whatever the hell is causing his breath to get stuck in his throat when the man takes his money with long, thin fingers and another faint smile.

“What happened to…” Well, he can’t say waffle woman, can he? He gestures vaguely at the stall. The man looks around.

“Anri?” he asks, and for a second Andrei thinks he just said his name, but he shakes his head quickly, then nods. “She’s just on a break, asked me to look after her waffles. Were you looking for her?”

Andrei shakes his head again. “Not really, no. My – my brother would probably like me to say hi to her or something.”

“Your brother?” the man asks curiously, as he swipes his hair out of his face with an absentminded gesture and picks up the waffles in the same motion. Andrei inclines his head toward Alin’s stall. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see his brother prattling on to yet another old woman.

“He’s right over there with his stuff. He talks to her sometimes.”

“Does he?” The man’s eyes sparkle, though he’s looking down at the chocolate he’s pouring over the waffles. Andrei bites his lower lip again. The man turns to him, reaching over to hand him the waffles. He’s probably not that much older than Andrei, he reckons. Early twenties at most.

“Shall I pass a message?” he’s asking.

“Oh, no, don’t worry about it. I’m sure they’ll see each other around.”

“Well, enjoy your waffle, then, and have a good day. And happy holidays.”

“Same to you.” Andrei grins, biting his lower lip again and glancing away when the man smiles, hair falling back over his right eye. “See you.”

He nods, and Andrei walks back to Alin to get him his waffle.

It is the best waffle he’s ever had.

December 21

Still no snow, and the Christmas music playing at the small ice rink in the middle of the market is starting to irk Andrei, though he thinks that has more to do with Alin’s attempts at karaoke than the actual noise.

Well, he’s stopped now.

He’s stopped. Andrei glances around the stall suspiciously, and sighs. Alin’s gone again, probably out back calling Tsvetan or his man of honor or future mother-in-law or whoever the hell else, leaving him to fend for the merchandise all by himself. He pushes his fingers through his hair, gathering it up in the back as if to pull it into a ponytail, but the front strands escape immediately, flopping into his eyes. He sighs again.

Someone clears their throat. Andrei whirls back to the front of the stall so fast that his hair slaps against his cheek, apologies ready for undoubtedly yet another old—

“Oh,” he says. “Hi!”

The man’s eyes widen, a careful smile edging around his full lips. Andrei sucks his cheeks in and forces his gaze up to the sparkling eyes. This time, he is the one looking down at him. The guy from the waffle stall. If possible, he looks even more handsome than yesterday, bundled up in a long grey coat, with a green scarf knotted around his neck.

“Can I help you?”

“Yeah, I think so. Anri sent me over.” He pushes the curtain of blond hair away with leather-gloved fingers.

“Anri, right, your…”

“Sister.” He smiles. “We seem to be in the same predicament with our siblings.”

“It seems so.” His sister! Score one for Andrei; at least she’s not his girlfriend. For once, he’s hoping that Alin and Tsvetan – or whoever – get into one of those ridiculously finicky discussions about the wedding, about the tassels on the tablecloths or something, and his brother stays out back for an eternity.

“So, your sister, what does she want, then?”

“I’m actually… Uncertain. She was rather unclear, but it should be a gift for a woman.”

That shouldn’t be too hard. Andrei helps the man select a necklace with a nice green stone that, he notices completely on accident, matches not only his scarf, but his eyes as well.

Some other people slow down to look at the merchandise, but no one actually stops, and the man seems to have no compunctions about lingering a bit longer.

“So where is your brother?” he asks curiously, leaning his elbows on the wooden counter.

“Out back. Probably freaking out about his wedding.”

“He’s getting married? Congratulations! When’s the party?”

Andrei leans on the counter too, arms stretched so his feet lift off the ground and he is standing on his tiptoes.

“The 31st.”

“December 31st? New Year’s Eve?”

“Yep.”

“Good grief. I’ve never heard of anyone getting married on New Year’s Eve before.” He looks around at the merchandise, gaze lingering on a moon chart. Andrei chuckles.

“It wasn’t his idea, believe it or not. If it’d been left up to him, they would probably be getting married on a new moon or a full moon or whatever the fuck kind of moon. His fiancé’s way weirder than even I give him credit for. Has to be, to put up with my brother.”

That makes the man laugh softly and turn the green gaze on Andrei.

“It must be hectic.”

Andrei rolls his eyes. “You have no idea. I think he’s freaking out about pictures at the moment. No one wants to work on New Year’s Eve, so they can’t find a photographer. At this rate, I’m gonna have to do it.”

The man suddenly stands up straight and rifles through the pockets of his long grey coat, pulling a piece of paper out. He takes one glove off and smoothes the paper on the counter.

“Do you have a pen?” he asks Andrei, who hands him one curiously. He eyes the glittery purple thing in amusement, but removes the cap and scribbles something on the paper.

“If your brother and his fiancé still need a photographer when he’s done freaking out, you can tell them…” He carefully folds the piece of paper in two and rips it along the line. “You can tell them that my brother is a photographer, and he would be more than happy to take pictures, even on New Year’s Eve.” He looks up at Andrei through pale eyelashes while he folds both pieces of paper one time.

“Oh, really? They’d appreciate that!”

“Good. So this is for your brother,” he says, holding one scrap between index and middle finger. Andrei plucks it from his hand, grinning. Alin will be pleased.

“And this…” He holds the other piece out. Andrei takes it slowly, curiously. “That’s for you. Nice seeing you again.”

“For me? I—”

The man is pulling his glove back on and tucking in his dark green scarf. He picks up the necklace for his sister, putting it in his pocket.

“Thanks again. See you, perhaps. Let me know.”

He disappears quickly into a small crowd that mills by. All Andrei can do is blink after him. Then he looks down at the paper he’s holding, the second piece. Slowly unfolds it.

Grins at the name and the phone number that greet him in elegant glittery purple hand.

Luca Morgens (from the waffles) 24 25 759 39

I’ll be around for a while longer

The door bangs open and Alin strides in, gnawing on his lower lip. Still grinning, Andrei gives him the other piece of paper.

“I found you a photographer.”

December 22

In the end, Andrei doesn’t even have to send Luca a message, because he sees him walking by the next day, hands in the pockets of the grey coat and gaze lingering on the Radacanus’ stall. Andrei is hidden by the scarves, so the man doesn’t see him, but he quickly tells Alin to mind his business and bolts out the back door without paying attention to his reaction.

When he loops back around the front, he hears his brother shout after him, but he grins and dashes after the familiar grey coat. Luca doesn’t seem to be helping his sister today. Andrei catches him by the shoulder.

“Hey!” he says brightly when the man turns around, trying to keep his breathing even. Now that they’re on even ground, Luca turns out to be just a little taller than Andrei. He smiles, turning fully to him.

“Hi! I didn’t see you.” He gestures at the stall, then raises one eyebrow. “Your brother doesn’t appear to be very happy at the moment. At least, I assume that is him.”

“Probably.”

He nods. “You look a lot like him.”

“So I’ve been told.” Andrei bites his lip. “Don’t pay attention to him. I, ah… So, Luca? That’s a nice name.”

“You think so? Thanks.” The man pushes his hair out of his eyes. “I hope I didn’t… That is to say, I hope you didn’t mind me doing that.”

Andrei laughs. “Do I look like I mind?”

Luca shakes his head, obviously amused – his eyes are twinkling again.

“I’m Andrei,” he offers.

“Andrei. Nice to meet you. Again. Do you have time to walk around the market with me? Your brother seems to be insisting you come back.” He squints past him at the man in question.

Huffing, Andrei waves it away. “He’ll survive without me. Let’s walk!”

And so they take off, past the waffle stall – Luca waves at his sister, who grins at the both of them delightedly – and saunter to the ice rink on a platform in the middle of the square. It’s slowly been getting more crowded over the past days, but the way the Christmas holidays fall this year, most people are still not free from work, so it’s still nowhere near as busy as it could be.

They lean on the wooden banister and watch the skaters stumble and glide. Andrei can’t help but hum along to the music. He sees Luca smiling from the corner of his eye, and grins at the man.

“Do you and your brother do this more often?” he asks. “The Christmas market?”

“Only the second time, this year. It’s fun, though. It’s something different. What about you and your sister?”

He looks down at his gloves, then at Andrei, who leans his hip against the railing, turning towards him. When Luca turns to Andrei too, it brings them well within each other’s space, but neither of them moves back. Score two, Andrei thinks gleefully. This is promising.

“She usually handles it well enough by herself, but I’ve always liked helping her out now and then. As you say, it’s something different.” He slowly wets his lips, gaze flickering between Andrei’s face and the ice rink. “What do you do, usually, rather than sell necklaces?”

Andrei laughs. “I started studying history earlier this year.” He practically sees Luca start the mental math; how old is he? He decides to save him the trouble. “I’m eighteen. I also help Alin out in his shop and I’m starting as a bartender after the holidays.”

“Oh, wow. You’re very busy.”

“That I am.” He bites his lip, smiling lopsidedly. “And you?”

“I’m twenty-one, for starters.” His gaze remains steady on Andrei’s face now, and Andrei can only look back. “And I’m hoping to finish my cinematography study next year.”

“Cinematography? That’s cool.”

He shrugs, looking through his lashes. “I like movies. Say, Andrei, how do you feel about skating?”

With a glance at the ice rink, he replies, “Neutral? I’m not very good at it, but it’s fun! Are you suggesting…”

“We’re here now, aren’t we?” He raises one eyebrow. “Yes? No? I promise I can catch you if you fall. I did figure skating for a while when I was younger.”

Well, Andrei can’t possibly say no that, can he? He doesn’t think he’s ever met anyone who actually did figure skating.

“Yeah,” Luca says, when he asks as they wait in the small queue, “I did all kinds of posh sports as a child.”

“Is figure skating a posh sport?” Andrei laughs. “I didn’t know there was such a thing.”

“Figure skating, hockey, tennis, horseback riding… Oh, I did ballroom dancing, too. Don’t laugh at me,” he adds petulantly.

Andrei laughs anyway, lightly shoving him with his shoulder, hands in the pockets of his big coat. “So would you say that you are posh, or were you faking it?”

“Posh, I don’t know. Rich, yes.”

“Nice,” Andrei says jokingly. Mostly jokingly, anyway. They move forward in line and reach the front, where they can pick out skates their size, put them on, and wait their turn on the ice. Andrei quickly pulls half of his hair into a bun to avoid getting it into his eyes the entire time. When he looks up at Luca, the man nods and smiles, his gaze slowly dragging down to the skates. He meets Andrei’s eye when he looks back up, smiling innocently. Andrei shakes his head, amused.

A throat is cleared pointedly, and Andrei laughs when Luca stumbles and blushes as a woman who is barely stifling her own laughter directs them to the rink. She waggles her eyebrows at Andrei. He quickly turns away before he collapses with mirth.

“Oh, shush,” Luca says when he joins him.

“I wasn’t saying anything!”

“You were thinking.”

“I was, Luca. About a lot of things.” He raises his eyebrows and smirks, then lightly pushes at his companion’s waist. “Well, show me some figure skating!”

“Bossy,” Luca mumbles, but he does loop around the rink gracefully, coat flying out behind him.

“Go backwards!” Andrei yells when he passes by, and he pulls an incredulous face but does. His hair flutters around his face. Andrei holds on to the banister and watches. Eventually, Luca skids to a halt close to him, his breath slightly uneven.

“It’s no fun all by myself,” he says, a twinkle in his eye. One gloved hand reaches out to Andrei. “Come on, then.”

Biting his lip, Andrei takes the hand and finds himself pulled towards Luca, the noses of their skates nearly touching. He clings to the man until his feet feel like they won’t slip out underneath him anymore, then grins up at him. Andrei knows that he can skate, but it’s been a long time since he’s actually done it.

Luca swipes his hair away with his free hand, smiles a little, and turns smoothly so they’re facing the same way. Without further warning, he tugs Andrei along the edge of the ice rink, chuckling when he stumbles at first. However, to Andrei’s credit, he gets into the flow of it quickly, and he probably looks like a bumbling idiot next to Luca, but it really doesn’t matter, because it’s fun. The cold air rushing around them makes his eyes sting and water, but he can’t seem to stop grinning despite that.

His fingers tingle with the warmth bleeding through Luca’s glove. He holds on tighter when the man turns backwards again.

“Oh my god, look out!” he laughs when Luca holds his gaze for a little too long instead of looking over his shoulder, and he’s sure they’re going to crash into the banister.

They don’t do that, but the sharp turn Luca executes does make Andrei’s legs slip out from underneath him, and he takes Luca down in his inevitable fall.

He’s laughing too hard to get up, so he just leans his back against the railing while Luca apologizes, getting up, then seems to realize what Andrei is doing and starts giggling along with him. He sinks back down. His coat pools around him. The ice is freezing through Andrei’s clothes, but Luca pushes at his shoulder good-naturedly, and he barely notices.

They sit there, laughing and leaning on one another, until the woman from before skates over easily to tell them to stop hogging the ice if they’re not going to use it, which results in Andrei having to be hauled up by both of them so they can make a few more rounds around the rink, mostly in companionable silence.

After a while, Luca speeds up a little to a patch without other people on it. Before Andrei can follow, the man’s skates click together, and he makes a small jump, landing on shaky legs but staying upright. He smiles at Andrei over his shoulder. Andrei dutifully applauds, as do a couple standing on the edge of the rink. Luca bows towards them, then skates back to Andrei.

“I’ve never gotten very far in figure skating,” he says.

“Further than I ever will,” Andrei replies, in response to which Luca takes his hand and tries to teach him to skate backwards.

By the time they leave the ice, Andrei has managed to skate exactly zero feet backwards and his ears are burning with the cold. Rather than go back to Alin, he convinces Luca to go and get some mulled wine with him, which they drink cautiously close to the stall where Andrei managed to finagle two cups for the price of one. Luca, he noted, looked duly impressed. He doesn’t know that the guy manning the stall is Andrei’s new boss.

Andrei wraps his fingers around the warm paper cup and inhales the spicy scent of the wine, warming up his entire body.

“This was – is – fun,” Luca is saying softly, leaning his elbows on the high table, both hands curled around his cup, gloves discarded on the table.

“Yeah,” Andrei breathes. The market bustles around them, yet they are caught in each other’s space – Andrei’s gaze lingers on Luca’s full lips as they wrap around the rim of the cup, wine sloshing against them. He blushes when a corner of them tips up and takes a large gulp of his own drink.

“So,” Luca says, and he licks his lips, the traitor, “it would be fun do to it again?”

Andrei grins. “I think it would. You wrote you’d be around for ‘a while’, right?”

“Until the end of the holidays. I live in the next city over, though…” He looks down at his cup, tipping his head back to drain the last of his wine, which reveals a long, pale neck. Andrei glances away quickly, but he still catches a faint smirk.

“So yeah, ah… We can text? Or you can stop by whenever, I’ll be helping Alin for a while.”

“I don’t want to keep snatching you from your brother.” Luca laughs.

Well, Andrei supposes Alin does need him back at the stall, especially if the upwards trend in visitors continues. And, as if on cue, he hears his name being called over the noise of people, and grimaces. Luca raises an eyebrow, but then his mouth opens in a small ‘o’, and he releases a short breath through his nose, as if in a laugh.

“I probably should go,” Andrei says, regretfully downing his own wine. Luca stacks their cups, and they walk to the bin together. Alin’s calling is coming closer, and Luca seems amused.

“I hope I’ll see you around then, Andrei.”

Andrei nods. “I hope so too.” He bites his lower lip and pushes the toe of his shoe against the cobblestones on the ground. When he looks back up at Luca, the man is smiling softly, hands pushed into the pockets of his coat. Andrei huffs at the sudden awkwardness, takes a small, resolute step forward, and stands on his toes to press his lips against Luca’s cheek. It’s burning hot.

When he pulls back, Luca’s once-again gloved hands clasp his upper arms, keeping him close. Andrei looks up at him questioningly. The green eyes are searching and half-closed, and Andrei’s heart beats in his throat when Luca comes closer and closer, and his lips press against the corner of Andrei’s. Andrei spreads his hands over the coat, eyes closing briefly.

“I do have to… Alin’s gonna go crazy,” he mumbles, with Luca’s breath still hot on his chin. His lips were soft, and Andrei can just imagine how amazing it would feel to have them pressed against his own, or all over his body, maybe… He clears his throat and steps back, willing himself to resist the temptation.

“Yes. Well, good luck,” Luca says. “See you.” He runs his hand up over Andrei’s arm and strokes his jaw quickly as he pulls his hand back.

“See you.” He flashes Luca a smile, then dashes off in the reaction of Alin’s voice before he manages to linger even longer.

“Andrei!” Alin yells when he sees him. “Come on, you can’t just run off like that!”

“Sorry, sorry!”

It’s a good thing his brother is so frazzled, Andrei thinks, so that he doesn’t notice Andrei’s perpetual grin.

December 23

Andrei is barely awake yet, and it’s hard to keep track of Alin’s movement through the kitchen. He flits and flutters from here to there, mumbling to himself. On the opposite side of the table, Tsvetan calmly crunches through his cereal while he reads the newspaper. He glances over his shoulder at Alin.

“What are you doing?” he mumbles.

“Have you seen the honey?”

Tsvetan gestures with his spoon, mouth full as he answers, “It’s right there, love.”

“What?” Alin pushes his hands into his hair. Andrei holds the jar of honey up. “Oh. Okay. Thanks.”

He finally sits down next to Tsvetan and restlessly slathers honey on his bread. Tsvetan and Andrei share an amused look.

“I can see you two conspiring against me, you know,” Alin says without looking up. He tugs Tsvetan’s newspaper over, then seems to change his mind and points his slice of bread at Andrei. “Andrei! I meant to talk to you about yesterday.”

Andrei sighs, and Tsvetan raises his eyebrows curiously, pausing in tugging the newspaper back.

“Who was that guy?”

“Ooh,” Tsvetan whispers, and Alin pokes him in the side. He laughs.

“Just someone I met, okay?” Andrei says, rolling his eyes at Tsvetan. “We went for a walk around the market.”

“Someone you met. Okay.” Alin chews on his lip, thin eyebrows knitting together. “I just want you to be careful, okay? How old is he? He looked older than you.”

“Twenty-one, and yes, I’ll be careful.”

“Twenty-one—”

“Alin, come on,” Tsvetan interrupts, amusedly tugging his fiancé’s arm back to stop him flinging honey and breadcrumbs all over the kitchen table. “Don’t be a hypocrite about that, of all things. It’s only three years, they’re both adults.”

“I wasn’t going to – to tell him he couldn’t hang out with him!” He puts his bread down dutifully and points a finger at Andrei instead. “But be careful, okay?”

“You said that before,” Andrei replies. “And Tsvetan is four years older than you.”

“You know what I mean.”

Andrei nods. He knows. He knows Alin gets anxious about being a good guardian for him, even though he has had absolutely nothing to be worried about all these years, and he knows his brother means well. And honestly, he doesn’t mind being coddled a little every now and then. It’s kind of cute, in an… Alin sort of way.

Tsvetan leans over to Alin, putting an arm around his shoulders and pushing his nose against the man’s temple. His dark hair, still sticking up haphazardly from sleeping, pokes into Alin’s eye, and they both laugh. Tsvetan turns to Andrei.

“So obviously, I’ve got no idea what’s going on here, but if you want to hang out with your guy more, I can help Alin out tomorrow, maybe, so you can have some free time?”

“His guy,” Alin mumbles with amusement, pressing his palm against Tsvetan’s chest. Andrei is pretty sure the shirt the man is wearing belongs to his brother, but he’s learned years ago not to pay attention to things like that. It’s very much like thinking about one’s parents having sex to think about Alin and Tsvetan being intimate. In a way, they are his parents, he supposes, innocent childhood crush on Tsvetan notwithstanding.

“Well, I don’t know his name, do I? What’s your guy’s name, Andrei?”

“He’s not my guy, and his name is Luca. And I’d love to hang out with him more.”

Tsvetan grins at him, then kisses Alin’s temple and gets up, putting his bowl and mug next to the sink. “So I’ll help you out tomorrow, Alin. I gotta go get ready now. Good luck at the market!” With a wink, he flounces out of the kitchen.

“Oh, now he proves he has it in him to be romantic,” Alin mutters. And, when Andrei laughs, “That was coming from the man who proposed to me by saying, ‘Hey, don’t you think we should get married?’ over the dishes.”

Still laughing, Andrei says, “I know, Alin, I know.” He’s heard it a thousand times by now. It’s still amusing, though more so when Tsvetan is around to act indignant about his supposed lack of romance.

They eat the rest of their breakfast in peaceful silence. Tsvetan rushes by on the way to work, ruffling Andrei’s hair and kissing Alin, and Alin reads the newspaper while Andrei absentmindedly scrolls through his phone. He sent Luca a message last night, just to make sure he had his number too, but hasn’t received anything back yet.

Later, back at the market and drowning in the smell of waffles and a wave of tourists, he feels his phone buzz. He surreptitiously checks it, grinning when he sees it’s a message from Luca.

[Luca] Sorry for the late reply! I’m not around today, maybe tomorrow? If your brother doesn’t mind that is :)

Full sentences, too. That makes perfect sense for some reason. Andrei checks that Alin is still occupied and quickly types a message back.

[Andrei] np! I told alin i wouldn’t run off today :U [Andrei] but his fiance promised to help out tomorrow so we could hang out then : O

He puts his phone away when his brother glances at him suspiciously, and doesn’t take it back out, despite the buzzing that he feels, until Alin allows him a break.

[Luca] That would be great! Should I just stop by the market

[Andrei] yeah i think that’d work!!

A reply follows quickly. Andrei wipes some breadcrumbs from his screen to read it, and grins.

[Luca] Around noon, then? Maybe we can have lunch somewhere

[Andrei] waffles?

[Luca] Please not : \

[Andrei] I was joking don’t worry : DD i know a few places!

[Luca] Great! [Luca] Your brother didn’t give you any trouble did he?

[Andrei] he doesn’t really do that [Andrei] he did say thanks for recommending the photographer btw : O [Andrei] even if he didn’t know it was you who did that

Andrei glances over at Alin, who’s nearly buried in his blanket of a scarf embroidered with constellations. Really, he sometimes thinks he doesn’t show his brother enough just how much he appreciates everything he’s done for him. Given up for him. He waves when Alin looks up.

[Luca] Good to hear

[Andrei] I should get back now [Andrei] but I’ll see you tomorrow!! : D

[Luca] Go then! :) See you soon

[Andrei] bye :00

“That your guy?” Alin jokes when Andrei returns to the stall, glancing at the pocket of his coat where he keeps his phone.

“Who knows,” Andrei says, tucking his hair behind his ears and biting his lip. “He just might be.”

December 24

The whole town is covered in a blanket of white. Andrei and Alin had a snowball fight in the backyard before packing up and going to the market for their second-to-last day of manning Alin’s stall. Sales have been picking up with the arrival of more and more younger people, and Alin is expecting good business this Christmas Eve.

The Christmas market itself goes on longer, but Alin and Tsvetan want to use the last days of the year to finish preparing for their wedding. Andrei’d had no idea how much work it was to get married. Or perhaps the two of them are just making it into that. They do tend to do that.

Whatever the case, Tsvetan shows up around eleven without a scarf, in reaction to which Alin yanks one from the rack and knots it around his neck before even kissing him in greeting.

“Wow, hello to you too.”

“Can’t have you showing up to your own wedding sick, Borisov,” Alin says, and Tsvetan shrugs at Andrei, who’s trying to stifle his laughter into his coat. Rather unsuccessfully.

The snow on the square has turned sludgy by the time Luca shows up, red nose tucked over the edge of his own scarf.

“Is that the guy?” Tsvetan asks, eyebrows jumping. “Not bad. Is it a family trait to have good taste?”

“Oh my god,” Alin exclaims, slapping the man’s arm while he laughs. “You’re fucking terrible, why are we getting married?”

All three of them are laughing a little hysterically by the time Luca reaches the stall – all the other visitors seem to be giving them a rather wide berth all of a sudden.

“Uhm,” he says.

Alin is the first one who manages to collect himself. He rakes his fingers through his wispy hair, then leans forward, thrusting his hand out at Luca, who shakes it with a small smile.

“Luca, right? I’m Alin, Andrei’s brother.”

“Pleasure to meet you.”

“Yes!” Andrei interrupts. His breathing is still uneven, but at least he isn’t laughing anymore. “And that’s Tsvetan, Alin’s fiancé. I’ll come around the back, okay?”

“Sure.”

Alin hugs him before he leaves, as he tends to do, and Andrei can hear Tsvetan starting up one of those awkward conversations he excels at with stranger, so he hurries around the row of stalls to save Luca from that.

They walk away from the Christmas market silently, feet dragging through the watery sludge. Then, Luca huffs. Andrei looks up at him imploringly, and he shakes his head.

“I think your brother was just about ready to give me a shovel talk.”

Andrei groans. “He wouldn’t!”

“I wouldn’t mind. It’s cute. He’s very protective about you, isn’t he?”

“Hmh.” Andrei leads them both to a less crowded part of the old town center, where the streets are narrow and dark, but magical covered in barely-disturbed snow. The river is still rushing in the distance, closing this part of the city off from the young districts with its towering buildings. Andrei often thinks this town itself, his hometown, is what made him interested in history to begin with.

“Do you… Do you live with him?” Luca asks, obviously curious yet unsure about the question. Andrei can’t say he doesn’t understand. It’s an unusual situation he grew up in, he’d be the first to admit that. And not only because, well, Alin is an unusual sort of person.

“Alin raised me,” he says quietly, “since I was seven.”

“Oh,” Luca breathes, breath clouding. He bumps shoulders with Andrei as they walk close together in a still alley.

“I’ve never known my mother.” He licks his dry lips. “And my father died then. Alin was only nineteen.”

“Really? Wow. I can’t even imagine.” Their arms brush again. This time, Andrei feels the long fingers curl around his wrist and slide down to his palm. He looks up at Luca, who opens his mouth as if in question. Before he can say anything, Andrei tangles their fingers together, and Luca smiles beautifully, casting his gaze down.

“I have so… So much respect for Alin,” Andrei says. And that’s all he really wants to say about the matter right now. Luca seems to understand this, because he only nods.

They cross the river and pass the old bell tower standing on the banks of it.

“So where are we going?” Luca asks eventually, and Andrei grins.

“To get lunch! And maybe I can show you Alin’s shop, he’d probably like that. Did your sister like that necklace, by the way?”

He huffs. “I’m not sure. She only asked about you.” He raises a surprisingly eloquent eyebrow at Andrei when he looks up. “Yes, it appears we have been set up, Andrei.”

“I’m not complaining,” Andrei decides.

“Nor I. Where are we going for lunch?”

“Just let me show you, yeah?”

And so they end up in a small, cozy café near the edge of the old town, tucked away in an alley hidden behind the weathered gate. Andrei found it by accident a year or so back, and has since become a regular with his friends from university. He’s slightly anxious about what Luca thinks, because he might have said he wasn’t necessarily posh, but he still exudes an air of calm confidence that, in Andrei’s experience, only comes with the knowledge that one is provided for, and the café is a little… Eccentric.

“Oh!” Luca says when they step inside. He practically lights up in the Christmas lights, eyes sparkling again. Andrei instantly forgets he was worried at all. “This is such a nice place!”

“Yeah?”

“Is this where you’re going to work too, or…”

“Oh, no. This is just a place I like, I guess.”

Luca smiles brilliantly. “Yeah, I can see why. Although,” he adds, now smirking, “I have yet to taste the food.”

Andrei laughs and tugs him to a table in the back, hanging his coat over the back of the scaffold wood bench. Luca is, for some reason, framing the café between his fingers.

“Cinematography,” he mumbles when he catches Andrei watching with bemusement, and blushes. He’s wearing a rich blue turtleneck sweater underneath the coat, which looks just as fantastic on him.

Lunch is great, and afterwards, they wander around the city for a while longer. Everything looks different in the snow, soft and inviting but also harsh, unforgiving, at the same time. Andrei scrounges up some anecdotes from the history of the town, which goes back a long way but isn’t very exciting for most of it, and shows off Alin’s little shop. Luca talks about his study, and his siblings and parents and their Christmas traditions, and before either of them knows it, it’s turning dark and they’re finally back on the Christmas market.

The square, too, looks different in the snow, sludgy as it now is, especially coupled with the rapidly falling evening. The Christmas music doesn’t seem so bad anymore, and everything appears to smell sharper. The spiced wine and cider, wafts of sausages and burgers, the sweet smell of waffles and hot chocolate surround them like a blanket. Luca squeezes Andrei’s fingers and smiles.

Tsvetan is alone in the stall when they get there; he waves.

“Alin’s getting dinner,” he says. And then, as an afterthought, “Hi! Did you guys have fun?”

“Yeah,” Andrei replies, grinning. Luca nods.

“Luc! Is that you?” a woman’s voice calls. Andrei realizes it’s Anri, Luca’s sister, when he smiles and waves at the waffle stall. He does the same, and Anri beams. She has the same eyes as Luca. It’s busy in front of the waffle stall, but Anri’s hair looks as curly and impeccable as always, not a single strand escaping from her hairband. Maybe it’s a family thing.

“Do you need a hand?” Luca asks.

“Oh, well, ah…” She holds up a finger and pours some batter over the waffle maker. “I wouldn’t want to keep you from your…” She gestures at Andrei, who feels himself blushing and hears Tsvetan laughing where he’s now helping a customer.

Luca looks down at him, and Andrei shrugs.

“I had a fun time, but if you wanna help your sister, that’s fine by me.” He bites his lip. “I wasn’t expecting to stay out this long, really.”

He nods and holds a thumb up at his sister.

The two of them walk around the stalls to the dark back. They linger between the doors to the Radacanus’ stall and Anri’s. Luca’s eyes glint in the gloom, blond hair backlit by the fairy lights strung up everywhere. He looks angelic.

“I had a fun time too. I can’t come by for long tomorrow, probably only to pick Anri up for Christmas dinner…”

“That sounds fun. Christmas dinner. Not the fact that I won’t see you much.” Andrei tentatively reaches for Luca’s coat, curling his cold fingers into the lapel, and smiles when Luca wraps his own hands around his wrists, holding him there as he steps closer. “I would like to see you more.”

Luca nods. “I would like that too.” He shakes his hair out of his face. “We’ll figure something out, I guess. Right?”

“Yeah.” Andrei smiles. He moves his hands up, stepping more into Luca’s space, touching the tips of their shoes together. “Bye, then.”

In response, Luca leans forward and presses his lips to the corner of Andrei’s mouth again, but he lingers longer this time. He smells sweet and fresh, reminding Andrei curiously of the summer even though his lips are freezing. He doesn’t move back when he removes his mouth, and only smiles when Andrei turns to him, eyes half-lidded. Andrei swallows and pushes their lips together, tugging on his Luca’s collar.

Luca’s mouth opens a little, softly catching Andrei’s bottom lip between both of his. His hands slide into Andrei’s hair, and he tilts his head, cold nose pressing against his cheekbone. Andrei can’t help but smile as his heart beats overtime, stomach churning with butterflies.

When Luca makes the tiniest noise in the back of his throat, Andrei gasps into his mouth and pushes tighter against him, sending him stumbling back into his sister’s stall.

They separate, laughing breathlessly, but Luca looks more amazing than ever before, flushed and happy, so Andrei can’t help but kiss him again. Their legs lock together. Andrei clasps Luca’s hips.

When they finally part again, Andrei spreads his hands over Luca’s chest, feeling it rise and fall under his touch. The man’s eyes twinkle.

“Yeah, bye,” he says, and Andrei laughs, reaching up to kiss him again, briefly.

“Say hi to your sister from me.”

“I will,” Luca laughs, disentangling their legs slowly. “I should…”

“Yes.” Andrei steps back to let him go. “See you tomorrow, maybe.”

He smiles, opens the door of the waffle stall, and steps in with a small wave. Andrei drags his hand over his burning face, leaning back against his brother’s stall and grinning into the dark.

“I take it you had fun?” asks Alin, out of nowhere. Andrei jumps.

“What—”

His brother saunters into view from the shadows, wearing a lopsided grin. He’s carrying a plastic bag, which Andrei supposes holds the dinner Tsvetan was talking about.

“I thought I’d wait to come back until you’d said goodbye to your guy.”

“Alin!”

He laughs. “Don’t worry, I didn’t look. Wouldn’t want to, come on.”

Andrei pushes his hands through his hair, catching his fingers on some stubborn tangled strands. Alin pats his shoulder as he passes by, opening the door to the stall.

“Come, I’ve got dinner for you too if you want it.”

He does, so he follows his brother back into the stall, blushing when Tsvetan winks at him. Alin only laughs.

December 25

True to his word, Luca only shows up briefly on Christmas Day, when evening is already falling. It’s busy on the market, but Alin doesn’t protest when Andrei leans out of the stall to haul a laughing Luca in by his green scarf and kiss him while Anri is locking up the waffle stall. He does tsk when Andrei almost knocks a stack of cards over, but Andrei only flashes him a grin, unable to feel bothered by it.

“Luca, I wanted to ask you something,” he says, still leaning out of the stall, elbows on the counter.

“Oh?”

Andrei glances at Alin, who nods encouragingly.

“Yeah. I, ah… We won’t be here for the rest of the market because Alin’s getting married, and I was just…” He bites his lip, and Luca raises his eyebrows. “Would you like to come to his wedding with me?”

His eyes widen. “To… Isn’t that…” He looks at Alin, then back at Andrei. “Isn’t that sort of a big thing?”

“If you’re the one getting married, yes,” Andrei says, laughing nervously. “It’s only as big as you make it.”

“I suppose.” Luca presses his lips into a tight line, eyebrows knitting together.

“You’re very welcome,” Alin puts in, and Andrei feels a wave of gratefulness towards his brother.

“But if…” Luca stalls.

Andrei smiles. “If we don’t work out, I hope it’ll just be a good memory. It’s not our wedding, Luca.”

“Well, I suppose you’re right about that.” He opens and closes his mouth a few times, then turns to his sister, who just walks up and is smiling brightly as she always seems to do.

“You should definitely go!” she says. “He’s right, weddings are good fun.” She slings an arm around Luca’s shoulders, and he sighs but smiles.

“Okay.” And, in reply to Andrei’s grin, “Yes, I’d love to come to your brother’s wedding with you. Let me know when and how.”

With a nod at Alin and a clumsy kiss for Andrei, Luca leaves, trailed by his sister, who wishes the Radacanu brothers a merry Christmas and a happy New Year over her shoulder. Andrei and Alin wave, and then Alin slings an arm around his shoulders.

“He’s a good guy,” he says, gesturing in the direction that Luca disappeared. “Tell him to wear something red, remember?”

Andrei grins and tells Alin he will.

December 31

Andrei’s best-laid plans about getting some homework done in the days between Christmas and New Year’s Eve have all proven in vain by a combination of Alin ramping up the restlessness and Tsvetan slowly joining him, and by texts from Luca at inopportune moments. Or opportune moments. It kind of depends on how you look at it.

Whatever the case, the Radacanu-Borisov – or Borisov-Radacanu, depending on who you ask – wedding is imminent. It’s already late in the evening; Andrei has been tasked with greeting the guests along with Alin’s best friend, and so he is lucky enough to be the first person to see Luca Morgens walk in, wearing a fitted dark red jacket with narrow lapels over a crisp white shirt. The man smiles when he sees Andrei, eyes flitting over his own outfit.

“You’re here,” Andrei says dumbly.

“I am.”

“You look amazing,” he breathes, dragging his fingers over Luca’s jacket. He hears Alin’s friend chuckle darkly somewhere behind him, but doesn’t pay attention to the man.

“You’re not so bad yourself,” Luca says, smiling and straightening Andrei’s red bowtie. He kisses his cheek quickly. “How is your brother doing now?”

Andrei grimaces, and Luca laughs softly.

“He’ll be fine later, I’m sure,” Andrei says. “Anyway, ah… Let me show you to your seat!”

He does, and he and Alin’s friend join the guests not long after that. It isn’t a big gathering – neither Alin nor Tsvetan has a large family, but Andrei is seated next to Tsvetan’s mother, who keeps drying her eyes with a handkerchief Luca offered her earlier from Andrei’s other side. Andrei is still trying to get over the fact that the man was carrying a handkerchief when the ceremony starts.

He turns his attention towards his brother and… Soon-to-be brother-in-law, although Tsvetan feels like so much more than that. He and Alin have known each other for years, since before Andrei’s father died, and Andrei has had to watch his brother pine after his best friend for what felt like ages. He honestly couldn’t think of anyone better for Alin, and finds himself unable to wipe the grin off his face.

Mrs Borisova clasps his knee when her son says his vows. Andrei pats the back of her hand. He wonders what his own parents would have thought of Tsvetan, but he quickly shakes the thought off. It’s no use speculating about that. All that matters is that Alin loves him.

Before he knows it, it’s time to fulfill his role as ringbearer, which he manages to do without accident. Alin flashes him the brightest smile Andrei has ever seen on his face, rust-colored eyes shining. He begins to understand what Mrs Borisova’s deal is with the crying and quickly goes back to his seat.

The most exciting part is, of course, the reception.

Alin and Tsvetan, being the absolute idiots that they are, show up late to their own party, suspiciously ruffled, but it’s not yet midnight. With all the guests bundled up in warm coats and gloves, they go out into the cold night, which is luckily dry and clear. Andrei grasps Luca’s hand to pull him along to the front of the crowd that quickly gathers around the grooms.

Andrei doesn’t know whose idea it was – most people would bet Alin, but they don’t know that most of the crazy ideas actually start with Tsvetan, who is the worst enabler in the known universe – but instead of a traditional cake cutting, the two of them decided to set off a bunch of fireworks at the stroke of midnight to celebrate the beginning of both the new year and their marriage. It’s ridiculous, and exactly like them. Andrei loves it.

“What’s going on?” Luca whispers in his ear, wrapping an arm around his shoulders.

“Wait and see,” Andrei teases, and the man squeezes his upper arm.

“It’s almost midnight!” Alin says loudly. “Which means the new year is almost here! And also the end of our wedding day.”

The guests laugh.

“I know, I know. We’d like to end both with a bang, and start the new with a flash!”

Amid excited murmurs from the curious guests, Alin joins a grinning Stefan, and they poise their hands, clasped together, over a button. Ten seconds from midnight, a countdown starts, and everyone loudly starts counting along.

On the stroke of midnight, Alin and Tsvetan press down, and the fireworks go up. Illuminated in blue and red, they kiss with their hands tangled together, and Andrei bites his lower lip hard, unexpectedly overcome by emotion. His brother deserves all the fucking happiness in the world, and he looks happier now than Andrei has ever seen him. The photographer – Luca’s brother, who has absurdly spiky hair – weaves through the people with surprising ease for a man his height and takes pictures from every angle imaginable.

Luca clasps him tightly, and he rests a hand on his coat, hooking his fingers into the collar.

“I think your brother might be a little crazy,” the man mumbles. Andrei laughs.

“He is, and I love him for it.”

January 1

When Alin is finally done hugging everyone and watching the fireworks outside, everyone traipses back in to have pie and champagne. Lots of champagne. Andrei has never seen so much champagne in one place before.

He and Luca have both had their fair share of it. Andrei is feeling slightly unsteady but wonderful, and Luca is grinning.

“You wanna dance?” he asks, wiping his hair away from his face. “I told you I did ballroom dancing, right?”

“Luca, I’m a fucking awful dancer.”

“I don’t believe that for a second, Andrei. You look like you’ve got a good pair of legs.” He pats Andrei’s ass for emphasis. Or something like that, he supposes.

Somehow, they end up dancing anyway, or what passes for it in Andrei’s case. He didn’t lie. He really is atrocious at it, but it makes Luca giggle in the most adorable way, so he doesn’t feel all too bad about it.

He doesn’t feel too bad about much of anything at the moment, in fact, even tripping over Luca’s legs and almost falling face-forward into Mrs Borisova’s lap. He just laughs it off and resumes his flailing around.

He dances with Tsvetan too, and the man hugs him embarrassingly tightly before he manages to escape.

“I feel like I should be jealous,” Luca mumbles. “As your… As… Am I your boyfriend?”

Andrei grins broadly, pressing both hands against Luca’s chest. “If I can be yours too, then yeah.”

“That sounds reasonable,” Luca says sagely. Then he laughs, slides his hands into Andrei’s hair, and kisses him deeply, tongue tracing his lips and hooking behind his teeth. Andrei arches into him, curling his arms around his back underneath his jacket.

A throat is cleared, and they pull apart slowly.

“Oh!” Luca says. “Adriaan! Merry New Year – I mean…”

The tall photographer, whose name is apparently Adriaan, raises his eyebrows.

“Happy New Year to you too, Luca. And you. Andrei, right?”

“Yes, that’s me!” Andrei grins at the man. He’s handsome, he supposes, in a rougher way than Luca is, but they are obviously related.

“Nice to meet you.” Adriaan taps at the camera thoughtfully. “That’s all I really wanted to say. Maybe I’ll see you around then, Andrei.”

“Who knows!”

When his brother is gone, Luca resumes kissing Andrei as if nothing has happened, but Andrei pulls back – albeit with difficulty.

“Hm?”

“We should…” He gestures vaguely at the room, then at the door, but Luca seems to understand what he means.

They’re out in the snow in no time, and into the hotel next door even quicker, kissing all the way up in the elevator and almost missing their floor. Andrei fumbles with the keycard to the room Alin has so thoughtfully booked for him so that no one has to go home drunk, and it doesn’t help that Luca plasters himself against his back.

Once inside, Andrei presses his boyfriend up against the closed door, pushing them bodily together, all warmth and movement and hands scrabbling at his back, dipping underneath his shirt. He tries to unbutton Luca’s shirt while kissing him, but his fingers feel uncooperative and the buttons are so tiny, have they always been so tiny? That’s just unfair. He’s on the verge of ripping the whole thing open, because how ridiculously hot would that be anyway, when Luca shoves him towards the bed and yanks both shirt and jacket over his head.

Andrei has a vague thought about coats, but Luca is coming at him with intent, face flushed and hair messy, and all rational thoughts flee his mind.

They press together, and somehow Andrei’s shirt is gone too, how did that happen? When he falls backwards onto the bed, the world spins for a couple of seconds, and he closes his eyes.

When he opens them, Luca is looking down at him with dark eyes, and their chests press together. Andrei grabs the man’s shoulders to pull him down, kissing him as if he’s starved for it, nails scratching over his shoulder blades. He rolls his hips up urgently, groans when Luca does the same and heat shoots through his body.

There are hands on his hips and lips on his neck, and Andrei blinks at the ceiling.

“Luca,” he breathes. And then slightly steadier, pushing at the man’s shoulders, “Luca.”

He looks up. “Hm?”

“We’re—” He looks up at the ceiling again instead of down at his face, tries to control his breathing. “We shouldn’t do this. Now.”

“What?” he mumbles. The tips of his fingers stroke absentminded patterns into the skin of Andrei’s hips. Andrei swallows heavily and sits up a little straighter. Luca, to his credit, lets him.

“We’re drunk. ’Least I am.” He pushes the heels of his hands against his eyes. “Doesn’t seem like a very smart idea.”

Luca sits back on his knees, licks his lips, and smiles slowly, lopsidedly, nodding.

“You’re right. You’re… Yes, you’re right.”

“It’s ‘cause I’m a fucking genius,” Andrei giggles. “Always know when I’m drunk.”

Luca nods sagely. “So then we just sleep? That sounds good too.”

“Sleep,” Andrei confirms, still giggling.

And so they do, tangled up together and without taking their pants off.

Next morning is hell. They decide not to talk about it.

January 5

Alin and Tsvetan take off on the third day of the year for a week’s holiday together, to celebrate their marriage. This means that Andrei has the house to himself. He takes advantage of this fact by a) not wearing pants, and b) inviting Luca over on the fifth.

To Andrei’s credit, he does do his homework on the two days between those dates, even if he isn’t wearing pants.

Luca looks around the house curiously, poking at Alin’s occult trinkets, asking Andrei to explain what their meaning is, which he does happily. It’s great that he seems so genuinely interested in Andrei’s life.

“I hate champagne right now,” he says, late in the afternoon, reclining on the quilt-draped couch with a glass of red wine. “I’ve had enough of it until next year New Year’s Eve. Or this year, I suppose.”

Andrei laughs but agrees with him. He has draped his legs – he is wearing pants at the moment, though only sweatpants – over Luca’s lap, and the man has been absentmindedly stroking them for a while now. It’s very comfortable. The radio is on in the background, and it’s snowing again. It feels safe, like this.

“How do you feel about cocktails?” Andrei asks.

“Hmm. I do like those, yes.”

“Good.”

He chuckles softly. “Is that so?”

“Yeah! You should stop by the bar where I work sometime, I’ll make you a cocktail. I’m pretty good at them.”

“That does sound tempting.” Luca’s long fingers drag over Andrei’s shin. “I can take the train from my home, it’s barely twenty minutes.”

Andrei grins, tilting his head back to rest it on the armrest of the couch. They probably should decide what they want out of this when they both start school again.

“And,” Luca adds, “you should come over to mine too. I want to get to know you better.”

“You’ve seen me throw up,” Andrei mumbles, and yelps when Luca pinches his foot. “I know, we wouldn’t talk about it! Sorry!”

“I’m sure we could make it work though, right?” Luca asks, voice wavering. He’s taking a rather large gulp of his wine when Andrei looks up at him, cheeks flushed. He sounded so vulnerable.

“I think we could,” he says. He sits up a little straighter and picks his own wine up from the coffee table. “Clink on it?”

Laughing, Luca clinks their glasses together.

When the wine is gone, Andrei stands up and goes to the kitchen to make dinner. Luca wanders in after a while, asking if he needs help with anything and drinking water from his wine glass. He slices tomatoes dutifully and gives Andrei a leg up to the highest cupboard when he can’t reach a bowl.

Well, a leg up. He wraps his arms around Andrei’s ass and lifts him up, which does cause him to have to make an awkward twist backwards but works.

Instead of putting him back on the ground, Luca lowers Andrei to the kitchen counter, dragging his hands back to his hips, where his sweatpants are slung low and a patch of skin has become visible due to his stretching. He runs his fingers over the skin, looking up at Andrei with twinkling eyes.

Andrei quickly puts his bowl aside and scoots forward on the counter so that he can wrap his legs around Luca’s hips. The man smiles. Andrei smirks down at him in response, dragging him against the counter to kiss him.

It starts slow, just a meeting of lips as Andrei cards his fingers through Luca’s soft hair, but Luca makes that small noise again when Andrei tilts his head, like a tiny moan in the back of his throat, and his fingers clench on the skin of Andrei’s hips. He tastes like tomatoes when Andrei’s tongue meets his.

One of Luca’s warm hands drags up over Andrei’s back underneath his shirt, which makes him shiver and tighten his legs. The other hand slides down to his thigh and hooks behind his knee, dragging them even closer together. Luca gasps beautifully when Andrei bites his lower lip, and in response lavishes kisses down his jaw and over his throat. Andrei throws his head back, groaning.

“Andrei,” Luca whispers, lips still against his throat. “I want to…”

“Yes,” Andrei breathes back. “Fuck dinner.” And then, when Luca tries to drag him off the counter, “Oh no, no, I can walk, you’re not gonna carry me.”

If Luca’s legs feel anywhere near as shaky as Andrei’s, it’s probably for the best.

They’re kissing again in Andrei’s bedroom, stumbling this way and that, Luca’s hands both underneath his shirt and Andrei’s fumbling with the buttons on his.

“Must you wear these fancy things?” he grumbles. Luca laughs against his lips.

“I enjoy making life hard, Andrei.”

The way he says his name sends a shiver through Andrei’s body. He pushes the shirt up, and tugs his own off and their chests press together. Andrei kisses down Luca’s throat, drags his teeth along the man’s collarbone, delighted with the sounds that coaxes from his red lips and the fingers that clench in his hair. He’s especially pleased with the way Luca’s hips twitch against his own when he drags his thumbs over his nipples experimentally.

“Andrei.”

“Yes,” he breathes back.

They stumble towards his bed. Andrei somehow ends up on his back, with Luca kneeling over his legs and fumbling with the buttons of his own fitted pants, apparently frustrated. Andrei laughs.

“Oh, shush.”

“I didn’t say anything!”

Luca just shakes his head at him, and finally succeeds in getting his pants open. He settles over Andrei on his hands and knees, kissing him again and letting Andrei push his pants away, which he does delightedly, palming his ass as he goes.

Andrei’s sweatpants come off a lot easier, and then it’s just the two of them pressing, slip-sliding together, Andrei’s hands dragging over every part of Luca’s body he can reach, Luca’s lips everywhere at once, legs interlocking. Andrei’s pushes himself up against Luca, hands curled around his shoulders from underneath his arms, tucking their noses together. Their lips barely-touch. Luca’s long, clever fingers wrap around both of them, and his green eyes are dark and steady on Andrei’s.

Andrei is unsure which of them comes undone first, only that it happens quickly, and he arches his back while Luca pants against his throat, his breath searing hot.

They’re both quiet for a long while, lying in a sweaty, tangled heap on top of the sheets. Andrei strokes Luca’s hair where the man rests his head on his chest. He giggles when Luca loops a finger around his belly button.

“Are you ticklish?” he asks gleefully.

“Not much.”

“I will put that to the test later,” he mumbles.

“Later,” Andrei echoes. He props himself up on his elbows, and Luca sits up, looking at him curiously. “Yes. Later. You’ll have lots of time, I hope.”

He smiles softly, and his eyes twinkle. “I hope so too.”

They just look at each other, but when Andrei wants to lean forward to press a kiss to Luca’s lips, his stomach ruins the moment by grumbling loudly. Luca laughs.

“Dinner?” he asks.

“Sounds good,” Andrei confirms.

Mentally, he fills in, “We’re in an abandoned lodge in the middle of nowhere! Sure, you’re totally right, nothing bad could ever happen here.”

It’s too bad there’s no reception here whatsoever, or Luca could have let his translator app speak for him. There’s an old-fashioned landline, but that’s not especially useful for that. He just runs his fingers through his long hair now and looks at his distraught companion.

So here they are in a lodge in Sinaia with no languages in common, amid a snowstorm and rapidly falling darkness. Luca has to admit it’s not how he imagined his trip would turn out – the first one without either his parents or his brother – but on the bright side, they’re safe in here, there’s warmth and some food stocked and all. They’ll survive. (Plus, the view isn’t all bad either, he reckons, glancing again at the man on the couch, who’s all lean lines now that he’s taken his bulky ski clothes off.)

“Hey,” Luca says, and the guy looks up. “What’s your name?”

He frowns.

“Your name,” Luca enunciates, hoping it sounds somehow familiar. Then, he points at himself. “I’m Luca.”

“Oh. Noah.” He repeats it surrounded by something that does faintly sound like ‘my name is’.

“Nice to meet you,” Luca says. Then, smiling faintly and holding a thumb up, “Good.”

Noah replies in kind, the word he uses almost identical to Luca’s Romanian one.

“Where are you from?” he tries next, taking care to separate the words in case one of them rings a bell.

“Onde?” Noah echoes the word ‘where’. “Lëtzebuerg. Luxemburg.”

“Ah! I’m from Moldova.”

“Moldova. Okay.” He intones something like a question next, gesturing around at the dark wood of the lodge, the darkness outside the windows. Luca supposes he’s asking something about how long they’ll be stuck here, so he shrugs. He was just here to snowboard; there are no snowstorms in Moldova.

When that makes Noah sprawl on the worn leather couch again as if he’s a damsel in some old-timey novel whose corset is on too tight, Luca decides to go to the kitchen and find something to eat, pulling his hair back up into a ponytail as he goes. (Don’t chase after the thought of him in a corset, Rotaru – too late now. Is it okay to objectify people you’re going to be stuck with for at least a few hours? Probably not, Luca decides.)

Luckily, he’d been wearing track pants underneath his ski suit. Although they’re a little tight to be wearing with nothing overtop them, he could at least take the cold, wet suit off earlier. It’s now drying next to Noah’s clothes by the fire he started first thing when he realized he was stuck.

As he rifles through the rickety kitchen cupboards, which contain mostly canned things and some dried stuff, enough for a long time, Noah shuffles in as well, looking over Luca’s shoulder before spotting the electric kettle and smiling faintly.

Something warm does sound tempting, Luca reckons.

“Tea?” he proposes, having found a box of teabags. He holds them out to Noah, who nods.

“Téi,” he announces, shaking one tea bag. Luca nods, amused. That must be… Luxembourgish, then. They’ll teach each other some things yet.

Considering they’re in Romania, it wouldn’t be so bad for Noah to pick up some Romanian. For when they get out of here.

While they wait for the water to boil, Luca finds some packages of instant noodles that are only just past the best before-date, which he holds out to Noah as well and which are accepted with a smile that speaks of mild disgust but more curiosity.

Well, he’s obviously quite wealthy – his skis alone must have cost more than Luca’s entire holiday – it might be that he’s never had to make his own instant noodles before. The thought makes Luca grin. This all sounds like one of those shitty novels his brother likes to read and pretends he doesn’t. ‘Snowed in with a Billionaire’.

Noah asks a question, sounding amused as well.

“Huh?” Luckily, that’s a universal sound.

He gestures at Luca’s face. “Tu. Rire?”

“Me?”

“You!”

“Why am I laughing? Is that what you’re asking?”

A blank look, then Noah reaches out and pushes a long finger against Luca’s face, pulling at a corner of his mouth until Luca chuckles and pushes his hand away. That earns him a lopsided, slightly mischievous smile.

“I’m laughing because you’re funny, Noah.”

The man’s eyebrows leap, at least the one not hidden behind a curtain of dirty blond hair does. Noah has green eyes, an unusually bright color Luca would love to paint, and a smattering of freckles across the sun-tanned skin of his face. There really would be worse people to be stuck with, Luca decides, as the kettle clicks off and Noah turns to find some mugs and puts the water and teabags in.

He hands Luca the kettle when he’s done, and Luca busies himself reading the instructions – only in Romanian and Hungarian – on the noodles and pouring hot water over them.

“Good,” Noah says when Luca hands him a paper cup.

“Ah, see, I knew you really did speak Romanian,” he jokes.

“Merci,” he just replies, which is a word Luca actually does know.

“You’re welcome.”

They go back to the living room to eat the noodles, Noah hilariously fumbling with the chopsticks that come with them on the couch, the cup clamped between his knees. His fingers look quite dainty, with well-groomed nails and no obvious calluses; this opposed to Luca’s own rough hands. But at least he can hold things.

“Do you need any help?” he quips, because he is already done and is now just watching his previously so graceful companion, sitting cross-legged with his elbows on his knees and his chin in a hand.

“Fuck off,” Noah replies, which comes through loud and clear, but he’s laughing helplessly, so Luca decides to stand up and go lend a hand anyway.

He sinks down maybe a little too close to Noah’s side, but it’s cold and he gets the feeling it’s alright. He would be more cautious, maybe, if he were Moldovan or Romanian, but Noah only chuckles low in his throat when Luca crooks his fingers in the direction of the chopsticks, and hands them over, so that’s all fine.

They fumble with the things for a while, fingers sliding together, Noah leaning into Luca more than in any way necessary. His hands are unfairly soft for a man’s – and how old is he, anyway? Mid-twenties? It doesn’t matter. He can’t be that much older than Luca’s twenty.

That mischievous, lopsided grin keeps returning, alongside long looks that go from barely there to very unsubtle, very fast when Luca tries to communicate how receptive he is to them. Effectively, it seems. He is not complaining.

Is this as bold a move for Noah as it is for Luca and his Moldovan values? Luxembourg… He really doesn’t know much of anything about the place – the only connotation that immediately comes to mind is rich, but that might just be him generalizing.

Whatever the case, Noah finally finishes his food and they drink tea and watch the fire burn. Luca’s phone has died, and there doesn’t seem to be any kind of charger around. It’s a wonder there’s a phone at all, he thinks, even if it’s a rotary one that most likely doesn’t work anymore. Upkeep of the lodge itself is evidently not a priority.

Noah, for his part, fishes a portable charger out of his pristine white coat and plugs it into his phone with a faintly apologetic look his way, as if to say, “Sorry, I only brought one because I wasn’t planning on spending the night with a Moldovan guy in abandoned lodge in Sinaia.”

While he comes back from freshening up in the green-tiled bathroom, Luca just shrugs in return. One can hardly be expected to be prepared for that possibility.

As soon as Noah’s done that, he wanders off to the bathroom as well, and Luca ambles to the bedroom.

Where he leans against the doorpost with his thumbs hooked into the waistband of his track pants.

Oh, this is definitely turning into one of his brother’s shitty books.

The door of the bathroom opens and closes behind him, and he looks over his shoulder at Noah, who raises his eyebrows and asks something, a single word that sounds like what. Luca steps aside, letting him see into the room.

He hums, amusement coloring his voice, when he’s right next to Luca, smelling of the bar of soap from the bathroom. The very tips of his hair are wet.

“Ah,” he says, and then there are soft fingertips at the small of Luca’s back, resting on his t-shirt.

Luca looks up at Noah, parting his lips. Noah, for his part, bites his own lower lip and looks through pale lashes in a way that spikes through Luca’s chest and has his breath hitching. After opening his mouth as if to say something, Noah frowns and closes it again, maybe remembering Luca won’t understand anything he says.

In lieu of trying to find his own words, Luca turns to him fully and touches his own fingertips to his chest. Noah looks down at his hand, then pulls at his waist to bring them flush together. His heart beats fast under Luca’s fingers and his breath is quickening as well.

Luca grins, catching the tip of his tongue between his teeth.

“There is only one bed,” he says, nodding at the piece of furniture in question.

“Bett?” Noah asks, and Luca nods – the word sounds alike enough – then yelps a little when Noah steps forward, pushing his back up against the doorpost.

He arches his back involuntarily, and Noah’s eyelids flutter. He’s very warm, his fingertips burning through Luca’s shirt.

“Bett,” he repeats, those green eyes dark, and Luca nods again, then pushes against him in turn, walking him backwards into the cramped room with the dark wood paneling on the walls, the snow piled up in the small window.

When the back of Noah’s knees hit the edge of the bed, he lets himself sprawl backwards on the old-fashioned duvet with that same grace as earlier, his fingers slipping off Luca’s waist and his shirt riding up to reveal the sharp cut of his hips.

Even more than that – admittedly mouth-watering as the sight is – the sharp smile he sends his way has shivers tingling up Luca’s spine.

Noah says something Luca doesn’t understand, but the tilt of his head is clear as anything.

“Okay,” Luca replies, and he hops up on the bed, leaning over Noah, who pushes his hands flat against his chest and lifts his head, his eyes searching on Luca’s face.

Although his heart beats in his throat with nerves, Luca leans down and kisses him, relaxing into it the instant Noah shifts his hands to his back, one sliding up to his hair, to the base of his ponytail, and the other creeping underneath his t-shirt. He leans on his forearms himself, smiling against Noah’s soft lips when the man tugs at his hair slightly as if wanting to pull it free.

“Hm?” he asks, not quite parting from him and gently catching his full bottom lip between his teeth straight afterwards. Noah gasps and arches his back beautifully but also does keep tugging at the elastic in Luca’s hair until he gets it out and a curtain of dark hair spills down around their faces. He immediately buries both his hands in it and pulls Luca even more down, deepening the kiss and wrapping one lean leg around Luca’s thigh.

They haven’t even closed the bedroom door, and the thin curtains over the windows aren’t drawn, and when he realizes that, Luca is only turned on more – he pushes his hips down and when Noah gasps into his mouth, he pulls away to rain kisses over his jaw and down his warm neck.

“Fuck,” Noah breathes when Luca reaches the hollow of his throat, where his pulse beats like a drum under his lips. That’s a pretty universal word too, it seems.

Even more universal is the way the man’s hands are suddenly on his ass, pulling at him with those long fingers curling into him.

“Okay,” Luca says again. “Okay, okay.”

He sits straight up and yanks his flimsy t-shirt over his head as he straddles Noah, his hair flying everywhere until he shakes it out of his face and over his shoulders, but while he does that, Noah has already got his hands on his chest again, sliding them to his hips. His eyes are blown wide, his lips alluringly reddened in the low light.

Because Luca can’t tell him how fucking hot he looks, he just rocks his hips instead, as he pushes Noah’s shirt up as well until he struggles out of it. He has tan lines on his chest that Luca can’t help but trace his fingers over, which makes him chuckle and squirm ever so slightly. Luca grins, and Noah rolls his eyes.

He says something that sounds amused but that Luca can only understand contains his name. It doesn’t seem to matter what exactly it was, because in the next instant, Noah is pushing himself upwards, the muscles in his stomach tightening, until Luca is sitting in his lap. He smiles that lopsided smile and grabs Luca’s ass again, rolling their hips together and kissing him intermittently, his breath hot into Luca’s mouth.

Already, Luca feels like he’s on the edge, and he’s not about to let that happen, so when Noah starts wriggling his fingers underneath the waistband of his pants, he shoves the man back down, which earns him a delighted smile as he bounces on the creaky mattress.

He asks something that sounds a little like ‘what are you doing?’ Luca holds a finger up, and Noah smiles curiously, watching him jump off the bed and rapidly work his track pants off before turning back to him, starting to tug at his pant legs. Noah lifts his hips with a dark look, and – oh. There’s nothing there now.

“Well, you must have been cold,” Luca says faintly, and Noah replies something amused that contains the word ‘thermo’, but he isn’t really paying attention because it’s much more interesting to lean forward and taste, pushing his hands down on his hips.

With his hands in Luca’s hair, Noah gasps beautifully under him. Sometimes, the gasps take the form of his name, sometimes of words he doesn’t understand, but it’s the thought that counts.

And the thought is good, has heat rocketing through him.

Eventually, the words resolve into a gasped, “Stop, stop.”

Luca sits back up, concerned, but Noah just tugs him up and kisses him hungrily, their mouths colliding in a right mess. Noah’s hands are everywhere all of a sudden, in Luca’s hair and on his back and his thighs and then underneath his boxer shorts, and the man is groaning in apparent frustration while Luca laughs.

Then, he can only gasp breathlessly when he’s flipped abruptly to his back, his underwear is tugged off without ceremony, and Noah is over him and they slide together. He wraps a leg around the man’s thigh to give himself leverage, to make the slide that much more pronounced.

Noah’s lips are on his neck, on the edge of his jaw and behind his ear seemingly all at once.

The springs in the probably ancient mattress creak and groan under their combined weight and the rhythmic movement of their rocking bodies, and the wind still howls outside, slapping snow against the window.

When Noah has reached down and curled his long fingers around them, it doesn’t take long before they both start breathing irregularly, hips bucking against each other. Luca claws at Noah’s sweaty back, arching his back when he comes undone with a gasp that’s mostly the man’s name. Noah follows suit, burying his face against Luca’s neck.

“Good,” he gasps, and Luca laughs at the ceiling while Noah rolls half off him, leaving their legs tangled together.

“Good,” he agrees, and as they slide under the covers, they both quickly drift off to sleep.

In the morning, the wind has died down, and after a shower that turns giggly and longer than intended – and also more pleasurable – they decide to go and try to find the way back to civilization.

In the village, they find a group of people who are apparently friends of Noah’s outside the police station of all places. He’s almost instantly swept up in a chatter of Luxembourgish, and no one seems to notice Luca at all. He half-expects Noah himself to do the same in an instant, forgetting all about him, but as his – also obviously rich – friends traipse off into the streets, he stays behind, shouting something at them, and looks around until he finds Luca.

“Hey,” he says, smiling beautifully. Luca’s heart leaps.

“Hey.” He watches the man pull his phone out of his pocket and tap away at the screen with curiosity, then grins when the screen is turned to him, and it’s a translator app.

The bottom line reads in Romanian that’s ever so slightly off, I'm having fun. I'm still on Sinaia for two weeks. Can we meet again?

Luca makes grabby hands towards the phone, and Noah hands it to him.

He types, I had a lot of fun too. I’ll be here for six more days. Where are you staying? and hopes it comes through.

Noah reads, smiles up at him, and types something back.

I’ll show you.

And he does.

His friends almost call the police after all when they don’t see him for five more days.

The regular crowd is already there in the dim, smoke-filled room, and some of them grunt vaguely in Luca’s direction as he walks to the bar, its greying wood a comforting sight.

“Evening, Rotaru,” the barmaid greets. “The usual?”

“The usual,” he confirms, smiling faintly at her. It’s refreshing to see her patched-up, low-cut dress after a whole day of looking at the upper class with their colorful ruches and shiny fabrics up to their chins, all the while feeling horribly out of place. He thanks her when a drink appears in front of him, and spends a while nursing it, looking at everything and nothing and thinking about much the same.

His glass sparkles in the low light of the gas lamp behind the bar, the candles elsewhere in the room, and it’s the only thing there that does. The drink is disgusting. It always is, but it’s cheap.

Somewhere behind him, the door to the bar opens and closes, and a curious hush settles over the crowd. Luca blinks his hair out of his eyes and turns to look, and then inadvertently catches the eye of the man by the door, the one who must have come in seconds before. It’s piercing across the room. With a shiver, Luca looks away. Then back at the man.

He’s dressed in dark colors, but the fabrics shimmer, silk and damask and a watch chain running to the pocket of his waistcoat. His hair is blond, maybe light brown, underneath a felt hat, and absolutely immaculate; so is his facial hair. Rich, undoubtedly rich. What in the world is he doing in this part of the city?

Luca quickly turns back to the – equally perplexed – barmaid when the mysterious man starts making his way through the bar, in his direction. Conversation starts up again when he’s passed, and Luca can’t help but look through his own messy hair when he gingerly sits down on a stool only one or two down from Luca’s own. He leans forward to order something from the barmaid, who thrusts her cleavage at him to no avail. She shares a bemused look with Luca, who shrugs helplessly.

Then widens his eyes when she puts a glass in front of him filled with – it looks like wine, but not wine Luca can afford.

“I—” he starts, but the barmaid interrupts him.

“Rich fellow insists. Says he’ll take your tab.”

Luca jerks up and looks at the rich man, who catches his gaze again and holds it while he puts his hat down. His eyes are light, but rimmed with dark circles that stand out in his pale face.

“Alright,” Luca says absently, unable to look away. He hears the barmaid snort in the background before she shuffles away.

Well, if there ever was a reason to run up a tab, it’s this, he decides. Vaguely, he wonders if the man wants anything from him – nothing comes without a cost, in his experience, and he can’t imagine this does – but he’ll get around to seeing about that. Eventually.

For now, he drinks the wine, which is rich and much better than anything he’s ever had before, and orders another one. He can feel the mysterious man’s gaze on him almost continuously, but it doesn’t feel so bad, all things considered.

After a while and a couple more drinks, he turns to the man. It’s late, and more people are at the bar now, so Luca moves over a stool, settling right next to his benefactor.

“So, what do you want from me?” he asks, leaning an elbow on the bar. His sleeve sticks to the wood.

The man looks at him intently. He even looks rich when one doesn’t take the clothes into account. Although he is pale and obviously tired, he is also undeniably well fed, and his narrow nose and high cheekbones all scream aristocracy.

“What makes you think I want anything from you?” he eventually asks, arching his brows. “Perhaps I’m just a bit eccentric.”

“In this city?” Luca asks cynically. To his surprise, the man actually quirks a smile at that, even if it is a rather wry one.

“Good point.”

“I’m very smart.”

“I see, I see.” He frowns slightly. “I’m Noah Krier, and if you’ll listen, I have an offer for you.”

Intrigued but wary, Luca motions for him to continue. Even his voice is aristocratic, all perfect pronunciation and careful vowels. It’s almost too perfect, almost as if it’s a learned thing, as though he taught himself how to fit into the elite like Luca can’t even be bothered to try.

“I am in need of a… Someone to keep me company.”

“And by company, you mean…”

“Nothing vulgar,” Noah Krier hurries to assure him, although his light eyes blaze a curious path down Luca’s body that might suggest otherwise, so quickly that he’d have missed it if the man weren’t so damn interesting. “Just friendly company around the house. Someone who will accompany me when I leave the city for a few days.”

“I can’t do that, I’ve got work to do,” Luca tells him.

“I will cover your expenses,” Mr Krier interrupts, carefully enunciating each word.

He’s weird, he’s so obviously weird, but Luca can’t help but be curious.

“For how long do you need a friend, then?”

Mr Krier huffs. “Four months, until the end of August. I have other plans after that.”

“How often have you tried this?”

“This is the first time, I assure you.”

Luca smirks. “I’ll bet you tell all of them that.”

A dismissive hand gesture; the glint of silver on his fingers, maybe even some precious stone.

“Unimportant. Are you willing to keep me company?”

Luca thinks about it. What has he got to lose? He has no family left, not for several years now, and his life is a boring monotony of working and drinking – and eating something other than potatoes if he’s lucky.

“Alright,” he says, “I’ll do it.”

“Excellent. What is your name, might I ask?”

“Rotaru, Mr Krier. Luca Rotaru.”

“Luca.” He smiles now, ever so slightly, then holds out his long-fingered, ringed hand to him. “Please, call me Noah. We’re friends now, after all.”

This should be interesting, Luca thinks as he shakes the cold hand. Good.

Noah’s house, as it turns out, is a massive mansion on the outskirts of the city, in the hills near the river, where the air is clear and the landscape sprawling.

Once he’s there, after a carriage ride that seemed to last hours and hours in the early morning bustle of the city, in the narrow and filthy medieval streets and alleys, Luca decides he’s made a good decision by accepting the weird offer. Even if Noah Krier turns out to be a murderer – at least he will die happy, knowing that he won’t rot away in the attic where he lives or out on the streets like a rat.

He decides not to tell his new ‘friend’ this. Few people appreciate his morbid humor. Luca is always surprised by that. Why make the city worse by always being so serious?

Noah opens the door himself, now dressed in more color. He still looks pale, though, and the veins in his face stand out starkly, blue and nearly black. Maybe he’s sick. He’ll tell Luca if he deems it important, he supposes.

“Good morning,” the man just says now.

“Good morning,” Luca returns. He shuffles his scruffy boots on the white stone steps leading to the door.

“Well, come in. I’ll show you around.” Noah steps back to him into the large hall, then ambles in turns ahead of and next to him while he shows him his house.

Luca has been in the halls and drawing rooms of many a rich person’s house in the city, but never has he actually had the opportunity – or inclination – to explore any further. Noah’s house is fascinating, though. He has a flushing toilet, and even a room with electric light, while the rest of the rooms are lit with gas lamps. Luca usually counts himself lucky if he has a candle.

As it’s almost summer, none of the fireplaces are lit, and it’s remarkably, pleasantly, cool inside. Flowery wallpaper greets him everywhere. The wallpaper on what Noah says can be his room is a slate grey. It matches his eyes.

“Wait, my room?”

“Whenever you wish to stay,” Noah explains, brow furrowing. “Unless you don’t like it. I think the Yellow Bedroom would also—”

“No, it’s – I adore this room, Noah, I just…” He looks into it again, past the four-poster bed and through the gap between the heavy blue curtains into the large garden. “I can’t possibly repay you if I stay here.”

“It would be enough if you did stay,” he says. He’s leaning against the doorpost when Luca looks at him, remarkably casual. “I understand that I’ve put you in a strange situation, Luca, but I honestly am lonely. I want company, that’s all, and I think the very fact that you are here means that you want the same.”

Luca chews on his lower lip, thinking. In a way, he knows Noah is right, but admitting that to him is another matter. Despite everything, he still has some sense of pride. So he walks to the window instead, trails his dirty fingers along the soft fabric of the curtains and looks at the sunbathed flowers and hedges below. The sky is a stark blue. No one is in the garden. Now that Luca thinks about it…

“Don’t you have any servants?” he asks, turning back to Noah, whose green eyes are intent on him, but his gaze flits away when he replies.

“Not anymore. It’s a long story.”

Luca lets go of the curtain and walks back over to him, stopping too close. Noah looks down at him, although surprisingly not that much. Somehow, he seems much taller from a distance than he is up close, and Luca never unfolds himself fully. He thinks of it as a form of protection, and is aware he looks younger than his years.

“You’re a peculiar man, aren’t you?” he asks Noah. It might be the end of this all if he takes it as an insult, or…

Noah laughs drily. “Thank you, Luca.”

Or it could be the start of something interesting.

“I’ll stay when I can,” Luca promises, and he has to look away when Noah’s pale face lights with something like relief.

It’s surprisingly easy, when Luca thinks about it, to spend time with Noah Krier in his empty mansion or its gardens, or even on day trips to the river where he wears straw hats and gets mud on his shiny shoes.

It turns out that they both don’t know anything about plants, and the lack of gardener means the beautifully trimmed hedges and rosebushes are getting wild. They dedicate some less hot afternoons to trying to remedy that. Luca doesn’t know if they quite succeed, but he does know it’s both strange and rather nice to see Noah looking less than perfectly composed as usual, even if he’s obviously not healthy. The veins on Noah’s arms stand out against his skin, paler there than on his face.

On a few occasions during May and June, Luca even manages to talk him out of his waistcoat. It’s immensely satisfying. He looks handsome no matter what he wears, but that is another topic entirely. Mostly.

On a particularly hot day, when they are both sweaty, Noah refuses to let Luca have dinner until he draws himself a bath and washes. It’s been ages since Luca has actually had a warm bath, let alone one with nice soaps, so he luxuriates in it, all the while mildly in wonder about the realization that Noah must draw his own baths as well. He doesn’t have anyone here to do it for him, after all, and Luca knows he cooks and cleans for himself.

After dinner, while Luca is still in the dining room – one of three dining rooms in the house – he asks about that. For a second, Noah gets a closed off expression on his face, as tends to happen when Luca asks something that is apparently painful to remember, which most notably includes the topic of his siblings. Luca still isn’t sure whether they’re still alive or not.

A moment later, though, the man seems to shake it off and smiles at him.

“I wasn’t always so…” He gestures around, at the flowery wallpaper and the unlit chandelier and the polished dark wood of the table.

“Rich?” Luca suggests.

A huff. “I was going to say fortunate, but I suppose the difference is not that great. We weren’t always poor as I grew up, but sometimes, yes… I’ve never forgotten how to take care of myself.”

“What happened?”

“To me?” He scratches at his small beard, brown streaked with blond. “I was lucky. The rest of my family less so.”

Luca is silent for a moment, watching the evening sunlight play with the contours of Noah’s face. At this angle, the shadows under his eyes are nearly invisible, but Luca knows they’re there. He could trace the veins with his fingers, could smooth the tired lines around his mouth but also the crinkles of laughter, rarer a month ago than now. Against all odds, Luca has grown rather fond of the madman who decided he needed a friend.

“Sometimes I doubt you take care of yourself,” he says softly, turning to him.

Noah raises thin eyebrows.

“I just mean…” Cautiously, Luca reaches a hand to his face, smiling when Noah goes nearly cross-eyed trying to follow its path and then sighs in something like resignation. He touches his fingertips to the man’s cheekbone. Slides them ever so lightly to his jaw, over the visible veins. Noah is still enough that Luca can see when his breath stutters, just a little.

“That’s different,” he says. “It’s…”

His brow furrows while Luca drags his fingers across his jaw, warm skin and short hairs and solid bone underneath. It isn’t an angry furrow, though. More like a saddened one.

Not even thinking about it, Luca reaches up and smoothes it out with his thumb. When Noah laughs a startled laugh, he realizes how wildly inappropriate he’s being and quickly draws back. He’s always been someone who touches others a lot. It isn’t usually appreciated; apparently, it isn’t seemly.

“Sorry,” he stutters. “I’m—”

“Don’t be,” Noah interrupts. “Luca, I promise I’ll tell you – everything you want to hear. But not yet.”

“Then when?”

“Let me worry about that,” he replies. And then, while he hesitantly reaches out to touch the angle where Luca’s jaw meets his neck, “Let’s have drinks.”

He goes, in a whirl of flower-patterned green waistcoat and pristine white silk, leaving Luca with more questions than answers.

Nevertheless, drinks are drinks. He follows.

During the next weeks, Luca manages to get in more mostly-innocuous touches. He makes it into a game of sorts, whereby he awards himself points every time Noah touches him back.

The balance shoots up rather quickly. Luca attributes it to the fact that Noah apparently wasn’t raised in the stiff environment of the elite of the city, cared for by governesses and private teachers. He must have joked around, played with his mysterious siblings as Luca had done with his brother in better days.

When, at the end of the second month of his friendship – now genuine – with Noah, the man starts initiating touches, Luca decides to abandon his point system altogether and start worrying instead that he has let himself get carried away. In more ways than one. He’s missed days of work already, isn’t sure if he will be able to pay the due rent for his draughty attic room.

He also wonders about Noah, and the terrifying fact that he knows exactly what he wants the man to be to him, and how completely unacceptable it is. Never mind that Noah seems… Susceptible to the feelings, that it sometimes seems as though…

It must be wishful thinking, Luca keeps telling himself.

“Luca,” Noah says, coming down the main staircase. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

He looks gorgeous, as always, even if he’s obviously just had a bath and his hair is still damp, falling across one eye in dark blond strands, and he’s grumbling at his sleeves, which remain unbuttoned. Luca smiles at him, then quickly looks away.

“It’s good that you’re here, though,” Noah continues, halting close to Luca at the foot of the stairs. “Might I ask a favor of you?”

“Of course.” Curiously, Luca lifts his gaze again, keeping it somewhere around Noah’s mouth – no – his forehead.

“Would you mind fastening my sleeves for me?” he asks, thrusting one arm forward. Silk slips down his wrist. Luca looks at that, then wordlessly nods and sets to work fastening the row of tiny buttons at the end of the sleeve. Noah is warm, and he smells nice, and his breathing is steadily ruffling Luca’s dark hair.

When he’s done with left and moves on to the right sleeve, Luca makes the mistake of looking directly at Noah. He’s been trying to avoid that for days. He knows his fellow errand boys are gossiping about what he gets up to already. There’s no need to – well, anything.

“Luca.”

His jaw clenches. “Yes?”

Softly, Noah asks, “Will you stay?”

He says it as if it’s important, as if it isn’t a question he’s asked many times before.

“I don’t know,” Luca replies. He hasn’t stayed in the Blue Bedroom for a week now.

“Luca,” Noah says again, and now he raises his free hand and runs his long fingers across the short hairs on Luca’s jaw, brushes his thumb over the corner of his mouth. Luca looks at his throat where it disappears into his collar as he continues, “Please stay.”

“I need to do my job,” he tells the pressed corners of Noah’s shirt. The fingers are still on his face, tracing absentminded patterns into his greasy skin. Noah smells like soap, and he’s too close.

There are more reasons why he can’t be that to Luca, why he couldn’t be even if he were a woman. Luca is an errand boy. Almost two and a half of the four months he was promised have already slipped by, and then what? Will he return to the city when Noah gets on with his mysterious other plans?

“Then stay longer,” Noah says in a near-whisper, and Luca can’t help but look up at him, let himself be caught in the green gaze. “Don’t go back. We’ve got a month and a half.”

“I can’t – I…” Luca squeezes his eyes shut. He’s still holding Noah’s sleeve, half the buttons done up.  Warm skin under his fingertips. “Why?”

“Do you really want to know the answer to that?” asks Noah. He looks mildly pained, but his fingers skim across Luca’s neck softly.

“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t.”

Noah is still for a long moment, eyes searching on Luca’s. His left hand turns over, fingers on the inside of his wrist. Then, he moves, slowly, until all Luca can see is him and all he can think is yes so insistently that it drowns out the no at the back of his mind.

He pushes forward himself, and then he’s kissing Noah Krier, pressing them together even as they both pull back as if startled, noses bumping and breath irregular just from that short touch. Luca’s heart beats in his throat.

“Luca,” Noah says. Luca reaches up and wraps his shaking arms around the man’s neck.

“I’ll stay, then,” he says, because all things considered, it’s much better here than it is in the city center. Noah kisses him again, hard but with a smile on his dry lips.

They have drinks to celebrate, Luca wakes up to the green of Noah’s bedroom, and he thinks that even if none of this holds up outside the walls of the Krier mansion, it will have been worth it.

“Those four months,” he asks Noah from time to time, “what happens at the end of them?”

And every time, he receives the same answer.

“I can’t tell you yet.” Noah says now as well, even as he arches most gracefully under Luca’s touch and he wasn’t making many comprehensible noises seconds ago.

“Why not?” Luca leans forward and presses his lips to Noah’s chest.

“It’s something that – something – I promise I’ll tell you, but don’t stop doing that.”

He can live with that.

The days pass by, the end of the summer approaching fast. It’s beautiful out here, quiet and peaceful. Luca takes many walks on the estate, with Noah and without him. He cooks, because it is actually an enjoyable thing to do when one has the ingredients, and Noah attempts to teach him to play the violin, which is nothing short of a disaster but more of an opportunity than he’s ever had.

They don’t go out, building a small world of their own on the grounds Noah owns, only interrupted every once in a while by people delivering necessities to the house. Luca can’t help but laugh when he realizes that Noah pretends to be one of his nonexistent servants when he answers the door, tugging on an old coat over his immaculate clothing.

This, in turn, somehow leads to Luca being clothed by an amused Noah, who ‘accidentally’ stabs him with a pin more than once as he attempts to make his own clothes fit better on Luca’s body.

“You’re not that much taller than I am,” Luca protests, looking over his silk-clad shoulder. Noah just pats his lower back and shushes him. “You’re a strange man, Noah Krier.”

“You like that about me,” he says. “And you look amazing in blue.”

Luca has to admit he does both those things.

Still, as the end of August nears, he notices that Noah seems to become paler by the day. He seems anxious as well. It’s nearly the end of the four months. Luca has to know, although he feels as though he probably doesn’t want to.

After a search across the grounds after dinner, when they often go their separate ways for a while, Luca finds Noah in their bedroom, sitting on a chaise longue with his back to the unlit fireplace, looking out of the window at the setting sun. His mind seems miles and miles away, and he only looks up when Luca sits down next to him. A faint smile tugs at his lips when he presses a glass of wine into his hands.

“It’s time,” he says, then takes a large gulp.

“Time for what?”

“Do you know what the date is?”

“August 25,” Luca replies. It’s a date that’s etched into his heart forever, but he doesn’t think Noah knows that.

“It is.” Noah looks at him with tired eyes. “You always ask what happens at the end of the four months, and I owe you an explanation that’s long overdue. I didn’t think… I never thought it would be so difficult.”

Luca waits, sipping his own wine slowly. Perhaps he should have chosen something stronger.

“When I was seventeen, I lost… Everything,” Noah starts. “There was a fire, in the city. Many people died that day.”

Luca’s breath stutters, but he nods. Taking another large gulp of his wine, Noah continues as he stares out of the window again.

“My brother and sister, our parents, they were all lost.”

“But you survived,” Luca says, reaching for him. When Noah’s gaze meets his at last, it’s filled with sorrow.

“I didn’t. Or I shouldn’t have. I don’t know what happened, Luca, but I remember being in my childhood home. It seemed like a dream, and it was empty but for a man I didn’t know. He gave me a choice.”

Noah swallows, and Luca reaches for his free hand, terrified of what he is going to say but knowing he needs to hear it.

“I could go back and he would grant me anything I wanted. For a price.” He bites his lower lip, and his eyes shimmer with tears. “I was so stupid, Luca. I should never have…”

“What did you choose?” Luca asks. “You lived.”

“I lived, in a manner of speaking, but instead of bringing my family back with me, instead of saving everyone who lost their lives that day, I asked for fortune. I shouldn’t even be alive, and all of this…” He shakes his head and gestures with his glass, spilling droplets of wine on the floor and the chaise longue. “It’s worth nothing.”

Luca is shaking, clenching Noah’s fingers. “What was the price?”

“I, Luca, please know I’m not— I wouldn’t—”

“What was the price, Noah?” he snaps.

A deep breath. “I would get ten years on earth, and at the end, I was to compensate by paying with my life.” He pauses, and Luca thinks that perhaps that’s all, but then he finishes, “Or – or the life of someone else. Someone I care about. An equal exchange.”

He looks down at their intertwined hands, tears now streaking down his face, clinging to pale eyelashes.

“So that’s what I am?”

“No, Luca, that’s not what you are.” With visible difficulty, Noah wrenches his gaze back up, flinching at the coldness he must see in Luca’s eyes. “It’s been ten years since that fire, and I haven’t been truly happy during all that time, until I met you. I didn’t deserve to be, and you – you were meant to be nothing more than a barter chip, because that’s what I’d been planning, but, Luca, I… God, I love you.”

“Don’t tell me that,” Luca spits, standing up. His glass shatters on the floor, spilling shards and red liquid over their feet. “You don’t have the right, Noah Krier, when you traded money for your siblings’ lives. For so many lives.”

“Luca—”

“My brother died in that fire! You don’t have the right.”

Noah crumples at that, all light leaving his eyes. Luca bites the inside of his cheek, clenches his fist, but he can feel the tears welling in his own eyes.

“I’m still so selfish,” Noah says, falling off the chaise, dropping to his knees in the mess of glass on the floor. “I didn’t want to tell you because I knew you’d leave. And you should. Just go, Luca. The end of this day will be the end of me, and you should go.”

He wants to. A very large part of him wants to leave Noah to wallow in his selfish misery, but—

“Where would I go?” he asks. “I have nothing, Noah. You’re— All I’ve got now is you. I was twelve when my brother died. I haven’t had anyone since then, and when I think I do, when I finally think that maybe I’ve got something, you take it away.”

“I’m sorry,” Noah whispers. His hair falls into his face; he probably hasn’t had it cut in months. He just looks sad, sitting there with his white pants stained, wringing his hands.

“Was— Was this real?” Luca asks. “Are we—”

“Yes,” he says decisively, looking up. “More real than anything in the past ten years has been.”

Suddenly exhausted, Luca lets himself fall down on the chaise longue, putting his elbows on his knees and resting his face in his hands. He sighs, pushes his hair out of his face.

“I don’t like you right now,” he tells Noah, who nods in understanding. If he has a shred of decency, he probably doesn’t like himself much either. “But I – Noah, I do love you. God help me, I do. I just wish we had more—”

The door to the bedroom bursts open, slamming against the green flowers of the wallpaper, and they both jump.

There is a man there, in the shadowed hall, or at least something that carries the suggestion of a human form. He – it – shifts before Luca’s eyes, it seems. All the evening sunlight bends around it in ways it shouldn’t be able to do. Noah swears under his breath and scrambles to his feet. Luca stands up as well, staying by his side against his better judgment.

“Noah Leclercq,” the figure says, and Luca glances at the man in question with one eye. “Oh, no, it’s Krier now, isn’t it?”

There is a flicker where maybe his face is, like an ice-cold grin. Luca shivers. Involuntarily steps closer to Noah.

“I have come to collect my due reward,” the figure continues. Luca grabs Noah’s arm when it seems as though he wants to take a step towards it. Noah looks at him, gratitude in his eyes, although mixed with surprise.

“And who is this?” the voice, at once grating and impossibly deep, soothing and terrifying, booms.

Holding Noah’s gaze, Luca replies, “I am Luca Rotaru.”

“Luca,” Noah whispers, as if he knows something that Luca is only half-aware of. He reaches up and kisses him once, quick but deep and trying to ignore the looming presence by the door. Noah tastes like salt and wine, and Luca makes up his mind. He swallows and turns to the figure.

“I want to make a deal,” he says. Noah inhales sharply, steps yet closer to Luca, long fingers on his waist.

A sound that could be a chuckle emanates from the shadowy presence. Luca clenches his jaw.

“You want to make a deal?” the maybe-man asks.

“I do.”

“I assume you’ll want me to forfeit my right to Mr Krier’s soul.”

“Luca,” Noah says, “don’t, please.” Luca ignores him.

“I want you to give him time. Give us time.”

“Time, yes.” The figure glides further into the room. Somehow, it seems familiar, looking – feeling – like people Luca has known over the years. Like his boss, the barmaid, like his brother. He tries not to look directly at it. “You think I would do that? I came to burn Noah Krier’s soul as it should have ten years ago.”

Noah makes a small sound of distress.

“Like I burned – oh, like I burned your brother, Mr Rotaru. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have him back than this liar? Pride and gluttony are some of the worst sins, you know.”

“I’ve lived ten years without my brother. I’ve had longer with him.” Luca takes Noah’s hand. “I’ve had scarcely four months with Noah, and I need time. We have things to do.”

“How sweet. You understand the terms, don’t you, Luca Rotaru? Your soul, in exchange for the simple commodity of time.”

“Yes,” Luca says. He looks up at Noah, whose fine hair seems gold in the last remaining sunlight, his eyes made brighter by the green of the room. Despite everything, he looks nearly angelic; a light counterpart to the shifting, shadowy figure by the door.

Noah looks at him too. “I love you,” he whispers.

Luca smiles faintly. Kisses him. Then, he turns to the figure, who’s far closer now, having moved soundlessly. The air is unnaturally still around it.

“Then, it’s time,” it says, with the same lisp that Luca’s brother used to have, “that we shake on it.”

A shape with the suggestion of a hand extracts itself from the main shadows, long and dark and somehow cold. Gritting his teeth, Luca holds his own hand, cleaner than it has been in years, out. He tries to concentrate on Noah beside him, on his breathing and his warmth. They need time. He needs to tell this man he forgives him.

“More time,” says the man-figure, “for you, Luca Rotaru, and for Noah Krier, and then I will burn both of you.”

The ‘hand’ closes around Luca’s in an icy grip.

“Done,” he says, other hand warm in Noah’s.

“Very well. There is, however, one flaw in this plan, Mr Rotaru.” The fireplace lights with a whoosh behind them, and the figure shifts erratically until it seems to take up all the space in the room, soaking up the light and dragging them both in. Luca can’t move. Noah seems to be trying to crush his fingers.

He realizes his mistake at the same time the figure tells him in a thousand voices at once.