AN: Thanks to everyone who leaves private messages or reviews. It really does make me feel better, getting feedback on my writing!
By the end of Friday, Machiavelli was ready for some company.
He'd spent the day doing two things.
First, he'd devoted a large period of time to making some final changes before Scathach arrived. He figured to himself that if he was ever going to get used to using his own bedroom instead of continuing to skulk about in Billy's, he'd better put the Shadow up on the top floor.
To do this, he felt that he should probably make the room less of man's room. Truthfully, Scatty probably wouldn't like it to be covered in flowers, but he still felt that he was obligated to make it a little nicer. Thus he found himself in a home decorating store, getting hopelessly taken advantage of by a clerk with an eagle eye. "I think I'll shop by myself for a while, thanks," he said finally, politely, but firmly dismissing her.
Free at last of his captor, he walked up and down the aisles, trying to keep himself under control. In the end, he exited the store with a queen sized memory foam mattress pad, a new bedding set, sheets, and a laundry hamper. He loaded these carefully into Billy's baby. At the last minute, he decided he'd better buy a new set of pillows; those he and Billy had been using were almost completely flat. He ran back in and after buying these and several smaller items, finally drove back to their apartment, loading what he could into the dumbwaiter and levitating the bigger boxes up the stairs ahead of him.
Upstairs, he debated whether or not to put the bed set tonight or wait till the next morning. He decided to put it off until morning knowing that he was going to want to stay one more night in the upstairs bedroom.
Wandering across the hall to the study, he sat down at the desk under the window. He fingered the bottom most drawer and after his initial hesitation, he pulled the drawer open and pulled out the album. This, he placed on the desk before him. Glancing out the window, he wondered about himself and what he was doing.
He shook his head.
And flipped open the book of pictures. It didn't feel like quite as much of a punch in the gut as it had the day he first found it, but he still felt an awful sinking feeling in his gut, looking at these pictures. He flicked ahead, looking and finding the page where Billy was. These two pictures, he took out, and slipped into the breast pocket of his shirt. He couldn't explain it but while these pictures upset him more than any of the others, he didn't want anyone else to see them, not even Scatty.
Closing the book again, he hid it under the magazines from before and went down a flight. The pictures, he put in his bedside table, figuring he'd find a better spot later. His glance lingered over the sepia longer than he felt was probably appropriate and he tore his eyes away. Closing the drawer, he wished for the umpteenth time that he knew where the key to the drawer was so that he could lock it.
Satisfied that he'd completed his responsibility, he focused on what he'd really wanted to do today. Going all the way down the stairs and out into the backyard, he collected several items, imagining that he probably looked a little strange, but not really caring. He shoved a couple of leaves in his pocket, took up some pebbles, plucked a long strand of grass and headed back through the house, retracing his steps to the study. There, he pulled a piece of chalk from the top drawer and pausing thought about what he wanted to do.
It had been a long time since he'd really done any alchemy and he wanted this to be something special. Idly, he scrawled a circle with the chalk, adding detail and flourishes, sometimes erasing with the outer edge of his hand and correcting it. Across this circle, he put the strand of grass bent into the shape of a small circle, the shiniest of the rocks, and a rhododendron leaf. He placed both hands outside of the circle on either side. His aura sparked, then lit up, almost blindingly bright.
The circle he'd drawn was gone, but in its place was a ring, dark and dotted with emeralds. It didn't fit his finger, but then, he hadn't intended on it fitting him. Smiling, he set it aside, putting it in the top drawer next to the box of chalk, for safekeeping.
He was glad to find that his aura was still working fine- almost, if not completely, as strong as it had been before. The color did seem slightly different though, he reflected. Perhaps it was because he'd gone a couple of months without using it regularly, but it seemed to him that his aura had been a grayish white before and now what he was producing was almost purely white. He tapped pointer fingers together and watched the crackle of energy flow between the two. It probably hasn't changed, he thought stubbornly, auras don't really change colors. Scents change, but not the shade or manner.
Messing around now, he cupped his hands together and, letting his aura run over his fingers, formed a ball of energy. Moving his fingers gently over the surface of the sphere, he began to trace different colors over the pulsing energy. Beads of sweat formed on his face as he pushed himself, stretching the ball into a different shape now, now forming a light, now making the ball of energy jump from hand to hand…
Really, he was hoping that Billy would call soon. It had been three days since they'd talked last and he remembered the American immortal had said he would call. He continued practicing his aura in the meantime, but his attention was far away.
He ended up jumping a bit when the phone actually buzzed. His auric ball dropped and shattered into dozens of marbles which rolled in all directions. Surprised, he knocked the phone on the ground in his haste to pick it up and cursed a little as he bent down to grab it. "Hello?" he said, answering it without looking first.
"Mac?"
"Billy." Machiavelli's heart leaped into his throat.
The Kid seemed to be holding his breath; for a minute, there was a silence. Not for long- "Is this a bad time, Mac?"
"No," the Italian assured him. "No, I've been hoping that you'd call soon."
"Oh. Why didn't you call me? I would have loved to have gotten a call from you…"
"Billy, you're in the middle of a dangerous mission. I didn't want to call you and distract you at a critical juncture," Machiavelli reasoned.
"Oh, well, yeah, that makes sense. Anyways, I'm glad we can talk right now. I've been missing you."
Niccolò closed his eyes; a smile lighting up his features. "You shouldn't be lonely. You've got a lot of friends with you."
"I do like my friends. But it's not quite the same. You know, Mac, any," Billy paused. He seemed to be struggling to find the right words. "Any day I don't talk to you, it's just not, it's not right. Like something's missing and at the end of the day…" Machiavelli waited, but the outlaw seemed unable to complete the thought. He gave the other man a minute, hoping he'd say what the Italian wanted him to say, but Billy just coughed delicately.
"Is this adventure like the ones you used to have?"
He could hear the Kid relax once more. "Kind of. But not really. I don't have the same relationship with them as I once did… it's strange, isn't it Mac? When I was a Regulator, I couldn't see two years into the future and I thought I'd spend the rest of my life with them…"
"Why don't you tell me about your friend," Machiavelli suggested, feeling a little depressed himself now; he'd hoped that the American would cheer him up, but Billy was in a mood of his own.
"Which one? Fred?"
The Italian wondered what it would be like to have so many friends that you didn't know which one someone was referring to. "Si. The other Regulator. Were the two of you close?"
"We were a long time ago…" Billy trailed off. He seemed deep in thought. "Fred was a few years older than me. I looked up to him. But I got closer to my friend Tom. Thomas O'Folliard," he clarified.
Machiavelli nodded slightly. He remembered that name; Billy had mentioned him before.
"It's a little strange now though."
"Cause you've spent so much time apart now?"
"Well, that. Definitely, yeah. But also because Fred's much older than me now. Practically twice my age. He didn't become immortal until he was 42. We don't- I don't know what to say to him or how to act…"
Billy sounds upset, Machiavelli realized. Why didn't I realize that earlier? "Billy, I'm sure you'll figure it out as you spend more time with him," he said soothingly. "I was well over twice your age when we met and we became really good friends. And now look at us, we're- we're-"
"Best friends," the Kid supplied and Niccolò could hear the smile in the other man's voice. "I guess so, Mac, it's just that we've spent the last week together and it hasn't gotten any better. I feel so very different from him; we used to get in such messes and it was frightening, but also a lot of fun and he was wild and so was I…"
"Have you considered bringing it up directly with him?" Machiavelli suggested. "I'm sure he feels it too."
"Yeah, I might." Billy coughed slightly. "Did I ever tell you about the year I turned forty?"
"No. What happened?"
"Well, I turned forty! What else needs to happen?" The Kid tried to sound happy, but Machiavelli knew that he wasn't nearly as cheerful as he sounded. "I got a little depressed when I turned forty, or when I should have turned forty anyways," he admitted to the Italian. "Cause I got to thinking, what are the things that you should have by now and where are all your friends? And half my friends had died, so long before, and I was just the same as I'd always been except that now I was truly alone for the first time…"
"Caro, don't be so sad," Machiavelli begged. "I've never heard you sad like this before and I can't do anything about it. And I want to make you feel better!" He wanted to say so many things that he couldn't; that he loved Billy; that he wished he could go back and protect him from all the sadness in the world.
"What about you?"
Machiavelli blinked. "What about me?" he echoed.
"You sound a little funny too."
Do I? "I'm just a little sad," he said, trailing off. "I'll tell you what's bothering me if you tell me what's bothering you."
"Will you really?"
"No."
The Kid laughed a little. "Well anyways, I'm okay really," Billy said, but his voice had a scratchy quality to it. He cleared his throat. "I want to hear about you, Mac. What'd you do today?"
"I've been getting the house ready for Scatty to come. I'm making your room a little nicer for her to stay in." Billy murmured his agreement. "And then I did some alchemy today. I made a ring for Scatty."
"You can do that?" The Kid sounded excited and Machiavelli nodded, edging around the marbles on the ground and heading for the other room. He flopped back onto the blankets.
"Of course. You can do almost anything with alchemy that's why it was such a sought after skill. I was never as good as Nicholas though," he added hastily.
Billy seemed to ignore that. "Are you going to teach me alchemy? When you teach me the other stuff?"
Machiavelli was surprised. He agreed without thinking about it, caught off guard by Billy's request. "I could. Do you want to learn alchemy?"
"Yeah," the Kid said readily. "Nicholas was teaching me a little before when we were in Montana. He was trying to teach me how to make precious stones, but it wasn't working very well…"
"Gems are hard to make… I'd start with something easier if I were you," the Italian cautioned.
"I mean, I kind of made it change a little, but not very much." There was a whooshing sound; Billy must have exhaled onto the phone. "You know what, Mac? If you can make rings and I can make gemstones, we could go into the jewelry business!"
"Out of one cut throat business and into another," Machiavelli surmised, laughing a little. "We could at least- how would you say it- bling ourselves out." He scowled a little. "Why are you giggling at me?"
"It's just funny when you say really modern words like bling," Billy told him, sounding much more cheerful. "Did you know that you almost always proceed the word with 'how would you say'?"
The tactician chose to ignore that statement. "You know when I was using my aura, I could have sworn my aura was a slightly different color…"
"Like orange, now?"
Machiavelli actually blew a raspberry at that. "I said slightly, William," he repeated, exasperated.
"So, what color is it?"
"Well, it's kind of whitish and I know my aura has always been kind of a dirty white or a gray, but this seems a lot brighter and… Well, when you come back, you can take a look. I'll need the second opinion. I'm beginning to think I'm going crazy."
"Hey, if you're going to change your aura color, you should make it manly like mine."
"I don't think a solferino aura suits me the way it does you," Machiavelli objected, leaning back. He could almost hear the question on Billy's lips before the man even asked it. "Solferino's a region in northern Italy, but also a deep reddish purple color."
"Oh. I didn't know there was a word for it."
"There's a word for everything, Billy."
"You're going to have to teach them to me, then. I feel like I'm not half as smart as you." Before Machiavelli could say anything, the Kid quickly changed subjects. "Do you miss the others?"
Machiavelli nodded slightly, then realized Billy couldn't see him. "A bit," he admitted cautiously. He stopped himself from saying anything else; he felt that he was complaining too much.
"A bit," Billy sighed. "So that's not really what's bothering you then…" The Kid continued to mumble. Feeling his hand begin to ache a little from the effort of holding up the phone for so long, Machiavelli switched hands. Now cradling the cell phone in his left hand, he rested his right in his pocket as he wriggled around to look up at the few stars in the sky he was able to see. "Is it something I did?" Billy interrupted his thoughts.
"Yes and no."
"Mac! That's not helpful in the slightest!" And Machiavelli had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing; he did feel slightly bad. He'd obviously troubled Billy now.
"Sorry, Billy. Why don't we forget about it? I'm feeling better now; maybe I just needed someone to talk to," Niccolò rationalized. "By the way, we have a crazy neighbor- did you know that?"
"Did you find something of mine that upset you?" Billy cut in shrewdly. Machiavelli felt his blood run cold; he hadn't really expected the outlaw to pinpoint what was troubling him and not so quickly either… but if Billy remembered he had the album, he'd know that he had been snooping through his things…
"Yeah, I found something," he admitted reluctantly.
"What, though?" Billy muttered and Machiavelli felt his pulse normalize as he relaxed. "I'll think about that. Okay, Mac, distract me with your tales of our neighbor."
"Ah, well, I'm beginning to think that there is more to your theory about me and women than I originally thought. The other day, I went out to our backyard, just to look around, and…" he described the situation as it was unfolding, "…and I practically had to shut the door in her face, she wouldn't leave," he ended helplessly.
"Aw, Mac, you've got an admirer," Billy crooned on his end. The Italian immortal could hear the suppressed laughter in his voice.
"Admirer, she'll be digging through our garbage next. I asked Scatty to come visit, just to have a woman around me regularly."
"You're going to pretend Scatty's your girlfriend?" Billy said, sounding very interested. "And she's agreed to this?"
"I didn't really frame it that way, at least initially," Machiavelli mumbled, wishing he'd picked a different way of distracting Billy. "I just told her that I was having trouble with a neighbor and it would help me out if she'd come… Oh, William, stop laughing," he begged.
"Scatty's going to be pissed as fuck if she realizes that you're using her as your girlfriend," Billy advised him through the occasional hiccup. "You two will certainly make an interesting couple," he added thoughtfully.
"Then we have your blessing?" Machiavelli asked acridly.
"I will be the best man at your wedding," Billy promised. The Italian immortal scoffed. "Seriously, mi hombre hermoso, you should work on doing some things of our list with her. We never got around to doing half of them."
"I thought that you wanted to do those things. I thought that was the point of you making the list."
"Yeah, but there's a few things on there that are time sensitive. Like going apple picking," he pointed out. He sucked in air in a swell of excitement. "Mac, go apple picking, get me a lot of apples and when I come back I'll make you a pie. Don't sleep on this now."
"Do either Scatty or I seem like the people who would go apple picking?" The tactician's protests fell on deaf ears. "I'm not even sure I could convince Scatty to go," Machiavelli tried.
"Well, try. I like to use Cortlands for baking, but Macs for eating. The apple, that is. I wasn't planning on eating you." Somewhere in the bottom of his torso, Machiavelli imagined that his stomach had just done a few loop de loops and imploded. "You know, I'm glad Scatty's coming to visit you. I didn't like leaving you alone. I felt so bad the day I left you," Billy chattered. "Fair warning though, Scatty and Billie don't get along."
"Have they met?"
"Just once. And it didn't go well…" Billy stopped talking. "I've got to go now, Mac. Our group is on the move again."
"Where are you going?"
"We're dipping back down into Texas. Uh, yeah, I'm coming, of course I am…" Talking to Machiavelli again, Billy's voice rose. "Listen, Macklemore, I've got to go. I'll talk to you again soon."
"Wait, Billy, who's Macklemore?" But the Kid just barked a laugh and hung up. "Damn. I hate not knowing things." He snagged the American's laptop on his way upstairs. "I'll look it up," he mumbled.
Tossing the computer onto the bed, he firmly closed the shades before undressing. He booted it up on one pass between the bed and the closet and punched in the password he made Billy put on the computer on his next pass. While he was waiting for the computer to go through all of its necessary startups, he completed his nightly routine.
"Finally," he mumbled when it finally was completely started up. Tossing a pillow from the head of the bed into the center of the space, he laid on his stomach and began typing into the search engine. "Who is this guy?" he asked himself, scrolling through the results. He hovered over some of the links and decided to wait for the outlaw to come back, feeling a little overwhelmed by the sheer volume of results.
He tapped his fingers lightly on the keys. He wanted to… he wasn't quite sure what he wanted to do, but he decided he'd start by finishing an article he'd been reading the other day. Clicking on the history tab, he sat up abruptly. The computer's search history… why hadn't he considered this before? He hesitated. It's wrong to snoop into other's people's business, he told himself.
Still, though… "When have you ever stopped yourself from snooping?" he said aloud, bringing up the search history and hastily scrolling through the first couple of pages of results, which were his own. "This is exactly the immoral, poorly planned activity that got you down at the beginning of the week," he argued. "And you talk too much to yourself!"
But he was in his element at last. Getting tired of scrolling through what was largely his own history, he typed in the date of the first time they spoke, only months back though it felt like much longer, and was presented with a long list of results. He scrolled through.
