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.

Comments

Same dance, different night.

[peace_inthe_violence]

This time it wasn't Andy who made their way up from the hallway that contained the bedrooms. Nicky had always been a light sleeper, and over the years that had turned into being something a troubled sleeper. Even with Joe's arms wrapped around him, sometimes his mind went to places that left him cold and nauseous.

So, he carefully crawled out of bed, making sure that Joe was curled around Andy and that they were both asleep before he made his way out of the bedroom. His intent was to get a glass of water from the kitchen and maybe something sweet to nibble on. Instead, he stopped next to Booker's elbow and picked up the half bottle from the table.

"You should be asleep with us, not out here alone."

There was no force in his words, however, and he lifted that bottle to his lips, draining it neatly.

[transfuge]

Booker frowned a little as Nicky took his whiskey and drank it all. He wasn't sure if it was to stop him from drinking more or if Nicky needed the drink himself.

"Sometimes I need space, Nicky." Booker did enjoy the affection but when these darker moods took him he didn't want to be tangled up with someone. Not that it worked with these bastards.

Since his confession to Andy they had all kept a close eye on him to make sure he was doing alright. It was very sweet of them and occasionally frustrating.

He gestured to the other empty chair. "Join me?"

[peace_inthe_violence]

"I can understand that." He was there, after all. He'd left behind his husband and Andy in favor of coming out into the main part of the house. The dark circles under his eyes spoke of how little sleep he'd actually gotten that night.

He looked over at the offered chair and nodded, but instead of sitting down right away he grabbed the other empty bottle and headed into the kitchen. A few minutes and a few clanks of glass later and he returned. Not with a glass of water and something sweet to nibble, but instead with two unlabeled and incredibly dusty bottles of wine. One he sat down next to Booker, but the other he took with him to that chair.

"I think I bottled these and put them away to age back in '54? I don't remember and I didn't mark them, so who knows. They could be vinegar. Only one way to find out." He screwed the screw into the cork and eased it up and out of the neck. "Doesn't smell like vinegar."

[transfuge]

Oh, mystery bottles. Booker enjoyed a good mystery bottle. It had killed him in Prohibition but he didn't think Nicky had used wood alcohol or industrial cleaners to make it.

"Bad dreams?" he asked as he yanked the cork out of the bottle. He sniffed at it which smelled like a strong red. He took a drink and it was very dry and very strong. "Not bad."

The complexities of the flavors were lost on him at the moment. He could appreciate that later.

[peace_inthe_violence]

The complexities of the flavor was all Nicky was trying to focus on. The sharpness of the tannin on his tongue, the sharp aftertaste of what he thought was pomegranate. The cloying way it clouded his senses with each sip because he hadn't given it a chance to breath.

He held a bit in his mouth, leaning back to rest his head on the back of the chair, his eyes closed and his hands trembling just slightly. Finally, he swallowed, savoring the smooth slide along his throat.

It was a damned good wine. Too bad his mood was too sour to properly enjoy it.

"Sì." His voice wobbled a little and he gripped the bottle tighter and took another deep swallow. For a man who did his best to not get outright drunk, he was more than well on his way there.

[transfuge]

"I've been dreaming of my son again." Booker rested the bottle on his knee as he considered the sort of nightmares plaguing Nicky. "Or drowning. Depends on the night, really."

And instead of seeking the comfort of his friends Booker was here drinking in the hopes the next time he tried to sleep he wouldn't dream.

"That night Andy dragged me to your bed it was the same." He took another drink and let the warmth of the wine keep his lovely drunk right where it was. "Sometimes I'm just not right, you know?"

He trusted Nicky would understand.

[peace_inthe_violence]

He trusted correctly.

Pulling his legs up so that he ended up sitting cross legged in the chair, he settled the bottle on the arm of the chair. Dressed in just a pair of sleep pants and sleep mussed hair he looked a lot younger than his 951 years.

"I know. I am...also. Not 'right' sometimes. My mind..." He gave up, shaking his head as he took another swig of the alcohol. Words had never been his strong point. That had always been Joe's talent.

The thought of Joe made him wince and he looked away.

"If she dragged you, you shouldn't stay. I want you there, we want you there, but we don't want you there if you will only grow to hate us for making you do something you don't want to do. I know that not all men are as degenerate as I am."

Ahh, yes. There was the alcohol.

[transfuge]

Booker didn't need Nicky to explain. He understood because he lived with it. Sometimes, the mind was simply dark and stormy, full of guilt and self-loathing.

"Well, she partially dragged me because I was very drunk," Booker explained with a playful little smile. It faded quickly though. "But I don't regret the night. It did comfort me."

He frowned a little at Nicky's comment. He had those sorts of thoughts once about Joe and Nicky. He had been wrong.

"Feeling some Catholic guilt about all we've done?" Booker didn't mean just the killing but the sex as well. It had been awhile since he indulged with Joe and Nicky.

[peace_inthe_violence]

His smirk was bitter sweet and he took another swig from his bottle before he pointedly set it down on the floor next to him so that it wouldn't be quite so easy for him to just absently drink because it was in his hands.

"One day I will leave this world and on that day I will leave Yusuf at the Gates as I fall. And it will be for many, many reasons. Not just who's cock has been inside me."

He was quiet for a moment, picking absently at the seam of the upholstery.

"I've done things that would make you hate me, Sebastien. Things that, if you knew them, you'd weigh me down and throw me in the ocean yourself."

[transfuge]

"Don't you have a papal dispensation?" Booker mused as he considered the bottle of wine. "For being in the Crusades. I thought that absolved you of every sin from then until eternity."

He was a well read drunk. One of the other places he found peace in were the pages of a good book, fiction or non-fiction. That included the history from before he was with the them.

"I doubt that." He took a drink because it was great wine and he liked being drunk. It was as simple as that. "I'm not scholar of the Crusades but I'm not ignorant. Haven't tried to throw you in the ocean yet. It was bad, yes. I wouldn't call that you a good man but you're not that bastard anymore."

[peace_inthe_violence]

He grinned, and the expression was all teeth.

"Sì. I do. Nothing more than a man promising pretty babbles to peasants if they murder in his name. I doubt God will have much mercy on my soul even with such a flimsy promise."

He sighed, closing his eyes as he leaned back, face tipped towards the ceiling. He hated nights like this. Nights were his dreams were full of screams and smoke and every time he closed his eyes all he could smell was the acrid stench of burning flesh.

"That me and this me are the same me, Booker. There is no divide. I did those things, not some monster wearing my face but separate from me. I murdered hundreds...and not all were armed men who stood facing me."

Which wasn't exactly true, but it was true enough that Nicky still hated himself for it.

[transfuge]

"God isn't merciful. We're Catholic."

Though Booker was more than lapsed. He hadn't even been to so much as a Christmas Mass in decades. He had no faith in a God that would make a father watch his son die unable to give his immortality away.

What a fucking miserable creator that was.

"There's a change, though. You gave up your zealotry. You learned to love your 'enemy." Booker rubbed his hand over his face as he tried to remember the Bible verse he wanted.

Drunk, he couldn't think clearly enough to do it. "Yes, you did them. But you regret them. A monster wouldn't regret them. A monster would celebrate it."

[peace_inthe_violence]

That startled a bark of laughter from him, shaking him loose of the spiral that had started to set it's talons in him so completely. It wasn't gone, but it was once again only scratching at his skin instead of digging through his flesh.

"'God isn't merciful. We're Catholic'. I like that. I should get that made into a t-shirt."

He reached down, picking up that bottle for another drink. For a moment he considered leaving it on his lap, but in the end he settled it back on the floor.

"Sometimes I wonder how he can look at me without driving his blade through my heart and just leaving it there."

[transfuge]

Booker was always quick with a good quip when the situation called for it. It was also very true. He remembered Mass being very damning. They were all sinners doomed to hell and they could try good works to save themselves but, well, it wasn't likely.

"Love is a very powerful thing." Booker tipped his head back against the chair and smiled sadly at the ceiling. "My wife... when I was arrested the second time I thought she would be furious. My sons were. She held me and promised me it would be alright."

He sighed heavily and took a very long drink. Booker missed that love. "He's not blind to your crimes but he loves you anyway. What a hell of a powerful thing that is. What a gift."

[peace_inthe_violence]

He was quiet for a while, letting that sink in through his alcohol soaked brain. He could still smell the smoke at the end of each breath, but it was further away now, over shadowed by the image of Booker with a woman's arms around him.

Nicky had never met Booker's wife. He'd spied on her from afar while he'd been keeping an eye on their reluctant new member, but he'd never actually introduced himself. From everything he'd managed to collect over the last two hundred years, however, she seemed like a wonderful woman.

But she wasn't the only one who loved Sebastien like that. And Joe wasn't the only one who loved him. It wasn't the exact same, but it was still close enough that he finally picked his head up from his knees and focused his gaze on the man in the other chair.

"Thank you for that gift, Sebastien. For knowing my crimes, but loving me anyway. I love you, too. All of you."

[transfuge]

Back then Booker had done all he could to keep the others away from his family, to keep their message of "leave them" behind. After war and death all he wanted was to be with them. It had felt so healing at first until it all fell apart.

"You're an easy soul to love, Nicolo." He had slipped back into his native tongue, that's how drunk he was. It was turning into a better drunk than before, less dark and stormy.

He still held his love for his wife deep in his heart. A first love, a first true love like that could never fade. Just like the love he felt for his sons.

But he still loved all of them. How could he not? They had put him back together after Jean-Pierre's death and never left his side all these decades.

[peace_inthe_violence]

A first true love could never fade. Not even in their extraordinary lives. But the heart wasn't something that could be quantified. It wasn't a finite boarder of 'One can only love this much'.

There was no limit. No overflow cap. It was a well that kept on filling, no matter how many cups you passed out.

Nicky smirked at his own analogy and, for once, the expression wasn't just poorly veiled bitterness.

"You are not, but only because you try so very hard to make us not love you. And yet, I do. I love you very, very much." Oh hey...look at that. He'd also given up on English.

[transfuge]

They could have a whole conversation in six different languages if they wanted. Booker still followed though the translation took his brain a minute.

He couldn't argue with Nicky's statement though. Booker could be very difficult when he was in the right mood. Or the wrong one. It made him feel a stab of guilt. He had once been very charming and not a bastard.

"You know how the darkness messes with your thoughts. Sometimes I don't feel worthy of that love so..." He gestured to the bottle in his hand. "And distance. It's a struggle."

[peace_inthe_violence]

He nodded, his translations a little faster, though not by much. If they were less drunk, they could have this conversation in the language they both shared from their pre-death days, but if they were a little less drunk, translation time wouldn't have been an issue.

"Yes, I know this feeling. That is why I stopped trying to kiss you." He smirked again, reaching back down for his bottle for another long pull from it. "I figure that you had decided that we weren't enough for you. I don't understand why Joe- He is the sun after a winter's storm- but I don't blame you for not wanting me anymore."

[transfuge]

"I don't even want myself." Booker let his eyes close smiling a little though it was sad. "Had nothing to do with you or Joe. It's very hard to believe you wanted me when I can't stand to look at myself in the mirror."

Ah, the self-loathing he felt sometimes. Booker didn't always hate himself. He didn't always feel the weight of guilt and grief with every breath but the feeling was more and more common. It wasn't yet a constant state and it was the presence of these people that kept it from happening.

"There are times I can enjoy life and believe me I enjoyed those nights we spent together but... then guilt hits. How dare I be happy when my son died? When I couldn't save him? And I just... " He sighed. Lord he was a disaster of a person wasn't he?

[peace_inthe_violence]

Uncurling himself from the chair, Nicky strolled over the couch, moving far too gracefully for someone who had that much alcohol in them. Apparently, he was of the 'loose limbs and liquid muscles' types of drunks. Setting his bottle down on the coffee table, he moved over to Booker's chair and bent to grab the other man's hands.

"Come. Sit with me. You are too far away to touch and I am drunk enough to let myself be upset by that. Come." He tugged until he got what he want, guiding Booker the few feet over the couch so that Nicky could sprawl out and lay his head on Booker's thigh.

"You are too hard on yourself, my friend. You are immortal, you are not God. None of us are. All we can do is live our lives and find the love and the purpose in them. You will rejoin your family one day and they will love you, but in the meanwhile you are loved just as much right here. And you know what? You're allowed to be."

[transfuge]

While rather heavy Booker didn't fight against being moved. He didn't exactly help that much but he let himself get pulled over to the couch. He sprawled a little but let Nicky's head rest in his lap.

Seconds later he started running his fingers through his hair out of habit more than any real thought.

"I had my purpose though." His family had been his purpose. Booker wasn't sure immortality had given him a better one. "There's nothing wrong with what we do and it does some good but... it feels a bit pointless when the world keeps falling apart, no?"

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"It does." He sighed, a depressed sound that was half just an exhale. "It is hard sometimes, this life. The day to day of it. You are not the only one to lose their way."

He closed his eyes, calmed by the fingers in his hair. He really was like some feral cat that had just adopted people as his own. Booker was his, so therefore he was allowed to touch him. Simple as that.

"Do you remember the village in Gabon? The school we built? I know we do not do things like that very often, but they are nice when we do, yes? I want to do more like that. Not stop what we do, of course, but maybe...add to it sometimes." He smirked, and then actually laughed.

"They were so scared of you at first, until they figured out how much of a teddy bear you are. I thought that little girl was going to try and hide in your bag when we left."

[transfuge]

"I don't like the violence." Booker's fingers went still for a moment and then got back to work. It was the second time he had confessed that. First was to Andy the last time he got this drunk. "I never wanted to be a soldier. A warrior. I never sought out a fight. But I won't stand back while you all fight."

Oh, he was good at it. Napoleon made sure he could march and shoot. Andy made sure he could fight and be brutal. Booker never asked for those things though. He never wanted to fire a musket or wield a sabre.

Children were always his favorite. Booker knew how to handle them unlike the others who could get overwhelmed sometimes. "She was a good girl. Maybe we take years like this and do works like that instead. Until it's time we move on before it gets too dangerous."

He would like to build another school and read to children.

[peace_inthe_violence]

He was quiet for a while. Long enough, in fact, that Booker could be forgiven if he thought that Nicky had fallen asleep in his lap. He hadn't, but he was thinking and that could take a while when one had so much alcohol in their system.

"I did. I told myself that I went to save my soul from the sin of lusting after another man, but the truth was that I went because I was angry. The world had not been a nice place to me. I hated myself for not being able to control my thoughts, no matter how hard I punished myself for them. I was...not a nice person. By the time the call came to march, I was nothing more than a coil of white hot anger.

"I wanted to go.

"I..am not like that often, anymore. Yusuf has tamed me, it would seem. But the idea of people out there, hurting people? Like I was hurt?" He looked up, and there was no warmth in those sea colored eyes. "I cannot stand by while they are allowed to roam the lands.

"But that doesn't mean that you have to come with us, Sebastien."