Malta

[peace_inthe_violence]

This is a fairy tale of blood and bullets
It is the story of three men and three women and a small island between Italy and Africa.
This is a story about tragedy and pain, about healing and hope, but mostly it is about
love.

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[orgilotes]

Three in the morning wasn't time for much but leeping, and Andy would have been asleep soundly at this hour had she not rolled over and felt a cool spot where she should have felt Booker's warm solidity behind her. It got her up and out of bed to go look for him, pausing in the doorway when she saw him and the whiskey bottles.

They all drank: it was a hazard of their age as much as their occupation. She watched Booker drink, and sighed softly, padding over to his chair and letting her fingertips drift over his shoulder. It would take time for her to slip back into being overly demonstrative in her affection, though she hoped by now the others were secure in the knowledge that she loved them as dearly as she knew how.

"Book," she murmured quietly. "What's wrong?" Why wasn't he in bed, why was he drinking alone, sitting alone in another room without them: all the questions rolled into one, leaving Andy concerned and settling into a crouch by the edge of his chair.

[transfuge]

He should've known she would wake up eventually. Andy slept just about as poorly as he did. He rolled his head back against the chair, fingers still idly moving cards around.

For a moment he thought about lying to her. Booker could do it. He was a very good liar, a very good conman. If needed he could slip into a personality as easy as breathing. But maybe it was the alcohol or the lack of sleep but he just didn't have it in him.

"Do you ever... want to not wake up?" He glanced at her from the corner of his eye and then away. He felt... weak. Ashamed. Catholic guilt was in there too. "When I go down... I don't want to get back up."

Booker would like to stay down and... be dead. He really wanted to be dead so no more dreams, no more guilt, just... no more.

[orgilotes]

Andy sighed softly at the question asked in return, and she didn't bother asking this time before she sank down on the arm of his chair. "More then I've ever told you," she answered gently, reaching with remarkably steady fingers to cup Booker's chin and turn him towards her. "Why didn't you tell us, Book?"

The sudden sharp shock of hearing him say he wanted to die shouldn't have been a stunning blow, but it was. And it sent a frisson offs frightful wonder up Andy's spine: how close had they come to a breakdown on his part? How had they not noticed? She held her hands out to him, welcoming and absolutive though she was hardly saint enough to properly give it. She could offer, would offer, anything she could give to any of them: they were family. The only tie she still had left to this never-ending world.

"We need you here. I need you here." Andy couldn't do this alone, couldn't keep wandering from fight to fight and war to war without the others to keep her steady and sane. If she could have let him rest and end this endless curse that kept them all alive, she would have. But she couldn't

[transfuge]

“I didn’t want to be a burden.” They all carried so much and only had each other to help. Booker couldn’t put his death wish on them. It would only make things harder and none of them needed that.

He leaned his head forward and rested it on Andy’s thigh. God, he loved her. It was a fierce loyalty and strong friendship and deep understanding. And he still felt awful for putting his grief on her.

“And I can’t die. What’s the point of saying it when it won’t happen for another thousand or more years?” True, he might not get up next mission but Booker didn’t think Fate that kind to him. It hadn’t been kind his entire life. “Might as well just... march on.”

And let the others have their moments of happiness and peace. Let Joe and Nicky be in love. Let Andy lean on him when she couldn’t be strong. Support the others while he drowned in flask after flask of whiskey or vodka or whatever he could get.

[orgilotes]

"You're not," she said softly, but quickly--quickly enough that there could have been no hesitation in her vehemence. "You're not a burden to us, you never were, Booker."

She stroked her fingertips over his hair when he laid his head on her thigh, brushing the pad of her thumb over his ear gently. "None of us know when it will happen. But that doesn't mean you have to suffer like this," she murmured, watching him and feeling her heart ache over how far the rest of them had let this get. "I don't want you to think we don't care, Book. You're our family."

[transfuge]

Booker knew they cared. They were all they had in the world so of course they cared and they loved him. He didn't doubt that. Was he worth it? Probably not. Booker didn't feel worth the effort.

"I don't think you can stop my suffering either," he said as he turned his head to look up at her. "We're not helping. We're just throwing ourselves at endless conflicts. I... I'm a coward. I never wanted to fight especially endlessly. Especially when it does nothing."

If he was cursed with this immortality why throw himself at nothing. At pointless things? Booker couldn't wrap his mind around it. The whiskey might be helping with that. It was a little hard to think through the haze.

"But I don't want to send you to fight without me just because I'm a fucking coward."

[orgilotes]

Andromache let out a soft breath, shaking her head wordlessly but fondly. "You should let us try, Book. You're not a coward, not any more than Joe and Nicky are or I am. Not wanting to do this forever doesn't make you one."

She was how many dozens of times over his age, and Andy couldn't contemplate it sometimes. It was why they'd all come here to begin with. "Come on. Talk to me, Sebastien. Let us take care of you for once."

[transfuge]

"Talk to you about what?" Booker didn't know how to put his grief into words that would make her understand. None of them had lost children. None of them had watched their child die while they had the power to save them if they could just figure out how to share it.

None of them chose to go back to their family and watch them die one by one. The memories haunted Booker. And then two hundred years of dreaming about Quynh on top of that it was a wonder he was still sane.

"The happiest I ever was... was being a father. No parent should outlive their child. I lost all three because I couldn't give this to them." It should have been his sons, not him, that had this. They would've done more. "I can't remember my wife's face clearly anymore. I can see Jean-Pierre but only while he's cursing me. My other sons are vague. It hurts."

[orgilotes]

She listened, still and serious. What he was saying was important, and Andy would listen without interruption: he was right. None of them knew what it was like to lose a child, but Nicky and Joe had lost enough being what they were and who they were to each other, and Andy had lost Quynh, and Lykon, both of them supposedly immortal the same as she. Neither of them she'd expected to part with, much less so permanently.

So she didn't answer immediately, bending down to press a soft kiss to Booker's head, taking a deep breath in and out, ruffling his hair the way her nose was pressed against it. "You're all we have, too." Andy could haul him out of the chair, and walk him upstairs, fingers twined with his as they made it to the bedroom Joe and Nicky occupied. The bed was big enough for the four of them if they were tight. And they would be.

"Nicky," she murmured, just enough to make sure they wouldn't get summarily stabbed for tumbling into bed without warning. "It's us. Scoot over."

[transfuge]

He was reluctant to get up and go with her but it was almost instinctive to follow her. Where she went, they followed. That was how it was for decades for him. Drunk as he was Booker barely swayed on the journey.

At first, he wasn't sure where she was taking him. Somewhere private to talk? That didn't make sense because they were the only ones up. Everywhere in the house was private.

The others made sense, Booker supposed, since this was too much for her to take on. Fuck, he was a burden anyway. Joe and Nicky were sleeping. He shouldn't bother them with this. They had their happiness. He shouldn't taint that.

"Go back to sleep..."

[peace_inthe_violence]

Three in the morning was a turbulent time for any of them. It was a toss up as to who was awake and who was asleep, and on this particular night Nicky had managed to win the exhaustion lottery. It helped that they'd been here for a bit, the memories of what had driven them there to begin with starting to dull around the edges. Joe's arms around him, his breath against his shoulder, and Nicky was dead to the world.

Until the bedroom door opened. He was sitting up and snatching the gun from his bedside table without really focusing, but it never really managed to get aimed before Andy's voice cut through his sleep haze.

"Andy? Booker?" He was confused, but he had absolutely no second thoughts about dropping the gun back on the night stand and shifting to give the other two room on the bed. He knew without having to think about it just the right places to put his fingers to urge his husband to move over without disturbing him too much. "Vieni ora, spostati..."

[nicely_tousled]

Joe was out cold, he had been since shortly after Nicky had finally slipped off to actual sleep instead of the light doze that tended to plague all of them.

The sound of the door opening and the voices weren't even enough to wake him, mostly because even deeply unconscious he knew they were safe here, and if that weren't the case, he'd have had far more warning. It was enough to draw him a little closer to wakefulness, but not enough to actually wake him, which was why he only grumbled and shifted over at Nicky's urging.

One arm was still folded under the pillow under his head, but he reached out with the other to tug Nicky -or, really whichever body happened to be closest- back in to where he could give his impression of an octopus again.

[orgilotes]

"Not letting you torture yourself alone," Andy murmured, voice soft even when she wrapped her arms around Booker to squeeze tightly. He wasn't the most physically demonstrative, and neither was she, but being surrounded by the rest of them might help. Just to know he wasn't alone, even when he felt hopeless.

"Family time. Be with us." She'd fit in next to Booker wherever he found space, in whatever arrangement they all fit into: it wasn't the first time they'd all shared a bed, not by a long shot. "Let us help."

[transfuge]

Booker found himself pulled down between Nicky and Andy. Nicky against his back and Andy pressed against his front. He rested his chin on top of her head and closed his eyes tight against the almost overwhelming wave of emotion.

He loved them all so much. He wished he could let go of the grief that dragged him down and be happy. He wished he could embrace the love they gave him fully.

“I love you too,” he said softly. He didn’t want to wake up Joe and Nicky who were sleeping so peacefully. “I know you love me. Don’t doubt that, okay?”

[peace_inthe_violence]

Joe wrapped him back into his arms and Nicky smiled as he was pulled back into the family warmth of his husband's chest. Trust Joe to not wake up even with the shuffling of additional bodies in their bed.

Booker ended up against his chest and while he had no idea what was going on, he knew that heavy tone of Andy's voice. Something was off and Booker was trying to pull away from them again. He wrapped his arms around his wayward brother, pulling him tight so he could press sleepy kisses along his shoulder.

"Shh, it's time for sleeping, not talking. Talking can come in the morning. Close your eyes, Sebastien." His accent was thick with sleep and he pulled on Booker's shirt until he was pressing his palm against the bare skin of the younger man's stomach. "Let us keep you tonight."

[nicely_tousled]

If there had been any hint of danger, Joe would have ...well he would have at least mostly come awake, but as there were only familiar voices, there was no reason to, just settling again as soon as Nicky was pressed against him again.

He grumbled something that probably wasn't even meant as words as much as noise, burying his face into the crook of the other man's neck again, sighing contentedly and settling back into a deeper sleep once more.

[orgilotes]

"It's okay," Andy murmured, settling in after she'd kicked off her boots, face tucked into Booker's collarbone and pulled tight against his front. It would be a long trek to getting him comfortable, where he didn't feel the weight of things past on him constantly, but they'd manage. Tonight was just the first step. "We're here."

Over the hours until dawn--and if the others had much say in it, probably a few hours after that--Andy somehow twisted and moved until she was touching all three of them, tangled in legs and arms and utterly comfortable. She could sleep in just about any place or position as long as she felt secure. That Nicky and Joe and Booker were there meant she felt safe and loved, and woke with a soft hum and stretch, instead of a start while reaching for a weapon.

[transfuge]

Booker stayed up for awhile. It was hard to fully let go of the thoughts circling around his head. But it was also hard to deny he was loved and cared for when so many warm bodies were pressed against him, unwilling to leave him struggling alone.

But he felt drained after facing so many deep pains and heavy guilts. The large amount of whiskey didn't help either. Sleep basically dragged him under. He was lucky that he didn't have another nightmare.

This wasn't the end. He knew his friends would make sure he wasn't still struggling and they'd probably hover like worried grandmothers but somehow that didn't feel as suffocating as before.