Billy managed to turn off his alarm before it woke the Italian the next morning, but ended up waking him anyways when he accidentally slipped getting out of the shower. "Shit," he swore loudly, landing painfully on the ground.

"Billy? What happened?" the Italian asked in confusion, waking up from a sound sleep abruptly. He scrambled out of their sleeping space, the darkness disorienting him.

"Don't get up; it's fine," the Kid protested, but Machiavelli had already pushed his way in. He twitched the towel into place, affording him one last scrap of dignity. "I was really trying to let you sleep in."

"What happened?" Machiavelli asked again, still feeling incredibly sluggish after only a few hours of sleep.

"I fell," the outlaw sighed.

"Oh." Now that the Italian immortal was beginning to wake up, he was also beginning to realize that there was very little between him and Billy's mostly nude body. "I can leave." He turned to go.

The Kid reluctantly called him back. "Ah, well, since you're in here, do you think you could help me up?"

"Sure." Machiavelli paused, not knowing where to grab. "How about," he licked his lips nervously, the skin dried and cracked from sleep, "how about, you put your arms around my shoulders?"

"God, that stings a little," Billy mumbled, grabbing up the towel the minute they maneuvered him to his feet. He goose-stepped around their bedroom a couple of times before it seemed to heal up. Not wanting to appear to be watching the other immortal, Machiavelli climbed back in bed, curling up under the covers once more.

The Kid walked around the room, getting dressed. Lying down, Machiavelli could hear the gentle scrape of the bedside table as Billy retrieved all the items that normally went into his pockets- phone, keys, spare change, his wallet, and the sea shell that the American immortal absently put in his breast pocket. Too soon, it seemed, Billy was ready to go.

"Billy, do you really have to go?" Machiavelli asked, watching Billy pull on his boots.

"Afraid so," the outlaw mumbled. He got up and moved over to where the Italian was still lying down. He leaned over the young man, his green-blue eyes studying Machiavelli's gray ones. "I'm not ignoring what you said last night, you know. The fact that I'm going says I'm listening to what you said, I would say."

"How so?"

The outlaw palmed Niccolò's face, tapping his nose with his thumb. "Somebody's got to keep Black Hawk from murdering Quetzalcoatl the minute he steps in the same room as him." He stood up, fixing his belt, but looked down at Machiavelli thoughtfully. A slight frown tugged at the corners of his mouth. "It's going to be hard to convince Black Hawk that we should throw away a chance to be free forever for something that might or might not happen in the future. I can't imagine a time when I'll want to die, Mac. Can you?"

"Yes," Machiavelli whispered, looking back into his eyes. "And when I reach that point, I'd like to have the option still open." He sat up, kneeling on the bed in front of Billy. He grabbed one of the outlaw's hands, shaking it slightly to make his point. "Just keep that in mind," he begged shamelessly.

The American immortal looked uncomfortable with the conversation. "I will," he promised uneasily. "I have to go now, Mac. I'm going to take a plane to where Black Hawk's waiting," he explained, pretty redundantly, considering Machiavelli had watched him book the flight. "You can use the car while I'm away." He leaned over and pecked Machiavelli on the cheek. "Try to get some more sleep, honey. I didn't mean to wake you up this morning. It's still pretty early."

"I don't think I'll be able to fall back asleep," the tactician protested.

"Sure, you will," Billy said cheerfully. "Here, lie back. Go on. I'll tuck you in." He waited patiently for the Italian immortal to settle back. Machiavelli reluctantly laid back down; Billy positioned his arms on his sides, pulled the blanket up around him, and tucked him in. "Get some more sleep," he repeated. "Watch the rest of the movie, if you want. I made some dinners for you, they're in the freezer."

"When did you do that?" Already his eyelids were drooping again.

"I never really fell asleep after our fun last night. I got up a little while later and made some things. I'd just laid down when the alarm started going off." Catching the look on Machiavelli's face, he hastened to explain. "I'll sleep on the plane. It's a five hour ride." He leaned in again. "I'll be back soon. Give you calls when I can. Got to go now, but don't look so sad, Mac, or I'll never get out of here on time."

"Sorry," he apologized, curling up on his side. He pushed his mask on, hiding his emotions behind a carefully blank expression.

"That's not what I meant!" Billy protested. "Go ahead and be sad; I'm gonna be sad being away from you too. Just behave yourself and don't get in any trouble."

"I'll behave," Machiavelli promised, a light smile playing on his features. "I'm going to miss you though. Got used to my cowboy."

"Ha," Billy laughed. "I was a lousy cowboy. Too scrawny. But I appreciate the thought." He hesitated before giving Niccolo a bone-crushing hug. And just like that, he collected up his bag, raised his hand in farewell, and was out the door.

~MB~

Niccolo didn't think he'd fall asleep again after Billy had left, but he did.

When he woke up for the second time that day, he was momentarily confused as to why the other side of the bed was unoccupied and why he couldn't hear anything from the rest of the house. Then realization dawned through and he had to fight down an immense feeling of loneliness, the emotion tasting metallic in his mouth. Billy was gone and he wasn't sure when the outlaw would be back.

He thought about getting up, but decided against it, burrowing back into the covers. For a while, he lay in the silence watching the sunlight lengthen on the ceiling above him. The patterns in the whitewashing distracted him slightly. He could tell that it was a nice day from the sheer amount of light spilling into his room and a traitorous part of him felt his mood lift.

Looking at the little clock on Billy's bedside table gave him quite the shock- it was already past noon. This was the final push he needed; pushing back the covers, he swung his legs over the edge of the bed. He stayed like that for a minute, the motivation he'd just seized already ebbing. He pulled himself up before he got stuck there for another hour or longer. "I'm going to buy a bunch of suits and throw out all of his clothes," he mumbled to himself, thumbing through their shared closet. "That would teach him." But he felt no inward malice towards the other man and instead pulled on one of his pullovers. The fabric was soft and comfortable between his fingers; it reminded him of the American.

Machiavelli wandered around the apartment after he got up. Now was his chance to really inspect this place, outside of Billy's supervision. Part of him wanted to check out the boxes the American immortal had unceremoniously brought upstairs, but the other part of him was more interested in connecting with the artifacts that reminded him most of his friend. He looked at all of the pictures on the walls. Sometimes it was just a page the American had pulled from a magazine. He seemed to favor National Geographic, Machiavelli observed, though a few scantily clad girls had made their way up on the wall.

Walking over to the desk in the room they had watched people passing by from, he hesitated only a moment before he began rifling through the drawers. His initial instinct to not mess with other people's possessions was overcome by his innate curiosity.

In the desk, he found the level of disorganization that he had been expecting the whole time he was in the house. His initial surprise at finding a rather uncluttered house was justified by the contents of this desk and its drawers. It would appear that anything the American immortal hadn't found a place for otherwise, had made its way here. It reminded him of the room below, but more congested.

There was a jumble of old bills, with some postcards mixed in. Coming across some old bubblegum cards gave him some pause, but he set them on the top of the desk and continued to explore. He decided he'd better begin to organize the contents of the desk. Old photographs went in one pile, bills more than forty years old were automatically recycled, toys, paperclips, and rocks (rocks? he questioned) were carefully placed in their own piles to the left.

In the bottom drawer of the desk, he found a collection of well perused adult magazines. He froze, not really sure what to do with them. Part of him considered trashing the desk again so that Billy wouldn't know he'd seen them. Other parts of him were curious about what were in these magazines that Billy had obviously been interested in at one point. Unsure of what to do, he set some aside and left the rest of them in the drawer, before continuing his foray into the desk.

Billy didn't have any cleaning supplies up here, it would appear, so instead of going down to the basement, Machiavelli wet a face cloth and wiped down the flat surfaces as best as he could. He left the drawers open so they could dry out.

Wandering into the bedroom, he decided he'd better make the bed for real this time. The first night they'd arrived, Billy had just stripped the bed of its dusty bedclothes and settled Mac in. For the past week, they'd been too busy doing their errands to bother putting a lot of effort into making the bed. Still, Machiavelli preferred to sleep with sheets neatly on the bed. He folded up the blanket Billy had spread, and put it on the armchair by the window, glad that Billy had thought ahead enough to buy a bedding set for the bed before leaving him. He really had no intention, himself, of taking Billy's car out to look for a department store.

Making the bed took a little more effort than he had thought it would. Before this, his cleaning service had always done up the bed for him. He wasn't very good at judging which side of the sheet went where. Once he was finally done, he sank onto the bed and lay back.

Cleaning the house had kept him busy for most of the day, but now, as his work was coming to an end, he began to feel the telltale signs of loneliness come welling up again.

He walked down the stairs to the kitchen and glanced over the holdings of the cabinets. Billy had tried to get him a few things he could make himself- mac and cheese in a box, pasta, some Asian foods, and half a dozen cans of soup. When he opened the fridge he found some yogurt and fruit. A note on the freezer told him again that there were several meals prepared for him there.

He spent much of the day wandering through the house, not quite sure what to do with himself now that he had all of this alone time.

It wasn't until he banged his knee against the desk on the far wall that he remembered Billy's magazines. Glancing around furtively (for what, he wasn't sure), he snagged the top ones, tucked it under his arm, and padded across the hall to the bedroom again.

He glanced at the clock on the bedside table and decided there was enough time before dinner to mess around. He undid his pants and flopped on the bed, opening the magazine on top. The first one was actually rather tame, he mused, looking at some of the various pinups from what was apparently a World War II rag. He smiled at the antiquity of the imagery.

The next magazine he opened was far more risqué. On the fifth page, he found a red head wearing an apron that covered just barely enough. Flipping to the next page, he found the same woman, but from behind. His stomach dropped a couple inches, a weak fluttery feeling blossoming in the region of his naval. Turning on his side, he slipped a hand under the elastic of his boxers and pushed down with the base of his hand, a small groan escaping his lips.