Billy found that he couldn't muster the energy to get out of bed the next morning. Thoughts of the previous day kept rattling around in his head so that even though he woke before any of the other immortals- and he knew this by the general level of silence around him- he stayed lying on the uncomfortable mattress of the fold out couch long after movement was heard from other areas of the hotel room.
Next to him, Black Hawk was snoring loudly, great sawing noises coming from the back of his throat. Billy could feel his hot breath hitting his left ear; it didn't bother him, but it distracted his already woebegone mind.
Shifting his legs around he tried to decide what he wanted to think about first- what they had found on the battlefields or what he had done with Machiavelli in the backseat of the rental car. A little snort on his left decided it for him. If he was going to think about his boyfriend, he'd better do it now before the others woke up. He closed his eyes and tried to remember the sensations from the previous night, what it had been like to kiss Machiavelli in the dark, what it had been like to touch him in places that no one else ever would.
He groaned just slightly, slipping his hand under the elastic band of his underwear. 'Think of something else, anything else. This was a bad idea. Think of… tax forms. How many deductions I took out on my w2 last year…' It wasn't much use. He glanced over at Black Hawk again. Mercifully, the bulky immortal had turned on his side, facing away from him now, and he turned away too so that they lay back to back. He decided to be quick about it. 'But when we get home, I'm going to have a fucking time with Mac,' he thought, feeling a little bitter about being over a hundred and fifty years old and still having to quietly wank in the early morning hours so as to be unobserved.
Licking his palm, he began to rub, concentrating on the area where tip met shaft. He could still remember the way Machiavelli had tensed, the soft sounds that had fallen from his mouth, and the way the muscles had moved under his touch. He suppressed a groan, tightening his grip, and moving his hand faster up and down, occasionally licking his palm as the spit became tacky.
Finished- remarkably quick too, he thought- he rolled over onto his back again so that he was now facing the ceiling. He looked up at the patterns in the white plastering; it reminded him of snow. Snow... His thoughts drifted back to their terrible excursion last night, terrible because they had exerted themselves for hours and had seemed to get nowhere.
This time he did groan out loud. He glanced back again at Black Hawk, afraid that he'd woken the other man up, but so far, there were no movements. He rolled around on his back, stretching out a kink in his back. His foot tingled unpleasantly and he knew his aura was still working to fix the damage he'd done earlier in the week. He wondered how Langston's back was feeling…
They'd parked the cars out of sight, hiding them behind boulders that the ice age had long ago deposited on an otherwise relatively flat landscape. It had been the six of them- Machiavelli, Black Hawk, Fred, Langston, Perenelle, and him, Billy. He could remember watching his boyfriend- that word still sounded funny for Mac, he was going to have to come up with a different word- and Langston walking back towards them, and he'd wondered what they were talking about. He had looked at Machiavelli, trying to elicit answers, but Machiavelli had brushed him off with a slight smile and a shake of the head.
He remembered having been surprised when the tactician had reached out for him, but Mac just wiped some snow off his shoulders.
The snow. It had been a surprise. They'd watched the weather carefully, and there had been little to no chance of snow and yet it had snowed, not much sure, but enough to make the ground very slippery and the air cold and hard to breathe.
Closing his eyes, he let the rest of the night play out like a film reel in the back of his mind, projecting the events onto the backs of his eyelids. His breath came in slow and deep, but his brow furrowed.
~MB~
They moved away from the road, afraid that someone might come to patrol, even just to pass by the park, who would see them and report them. It would be awkward explaining what they were doing and, also, Billy wondered, would they see the spirits in the field after Perenelle revealed them? He could see them and he didn't have her… gift. 'And how much of a gift is it?' he added silently.
They'd gone off the path relatively quickly with just one flashlight lighting their way. The ground dipped down just slightly past a certain point and they felt that once they were there they would be out of sight of the road.
Still, it had felt stupidly out in the open. They clustered around Perenelle, instinctively shielding her from sight as though she was the one that was about to give off the white light Billy had come to expect, as if they could blot her out from sight when in moments- Billy's skin crawled- there were going to be hundreds if not thousands of spirits walking among them, pearly white and opalesque.
Perenelle's eyes had glowed white, her pupils disappearing as her aura flared up. Grimacing at what was about to happen and remembering the spirits they'd seen in the basement of the house on North Main St, Billy had moved closer to Fred, bumping shoulders with him. Across from him, Machiavelli stood with his hands shoved deep in his pockets.
Not wanting to think about those tendrils of light forming in his peripheral view, Billy focused on Machiavelli. He was suddenly struck by how handsome the other man was, a light wind blowing Niccolo's brown hair about, and he felt a warm flash of love fill him up. At that moment, he didn't care anymore about the snow or the spirits or even about finding out about his father. So long as he had the Italian immortal, he felt he could be happy.
"There are a lot of them," Langston said from his other side and he heard a note of unease in the poet's voice that he felt himself. He had a sudden vision in his head of Langston as he had been when they first met, just a kid who was a bit lost, and an overwhelming urge to shield the other man came over him, as strong as it had felt when they had first met.
"They're not so bad," he lied, stepping away from Fred. Throwing an arm around over Langston's shoulder, he pulled the youngest immortal- thankfully not him at this moment- and pulled him over to where Machiavelli had been waiting for him. "They can't hurt you." He couldn't help it; he kissed Langston on the temple, feeling relieved that he wasn't the only who was nervous. He thought he saw something flash across Machiavelli's face, but he couldn't interpret it and then it was gone; the mask that the tactician sometimes put up was back in place.
Linking arms with both men, he pulled them in one direction. "Guess we're going to go this way," Langston called back to the others. "What do we do?" he added in an undertone to the other two men. "Just walk up to them and start talking?"
"Uhm, basically," Billy agreed. "They can't do anything to us. Right, Mac?"
"Yes," Machiavelli concurred, speaking for the first time in a while. "You don't have to worry." He seemed to be speaking to both immortals and Billy had the feeling that the older immortal knew how both were feeling at the moment. "Your father would have been most likely known by a New York or Indiana regiment," he reminded Billy. "We should look for flags from those units."
"We don't really know that anyone my father knew will be here," Billy said, feeling doubtful.
"Um, is it just me," Langston interrupted quietly, "or are most of the soldiers here black?"
"This was the site of the Baxter Springs battlefield," Machiavelli said back, even quieter. "I was reading about it. Most of the men who died here were from African American units."
"Ah, well, we have to start somewhere. We might as well ask one of them." He approached a group of three men, who watched him approach. "Hello," Billy said nervously, puffs of air rising in front of him. "I'm looking for someone who knows my father. I was told that he might have passed through this area."
"Your father was a soldier?" one of the men asked, his eyebrow raised. His tone suggested that he thought Billy must be joking and the Kid felt a flash of impatience.
"Yes," he said, trying to inject some patience into his speech that he didn't feel. "His name was Michael McCarty. I've got a picture of him." He fumbled in his breast pocket and pulled out the picture he'd been looking at over and over again recently. Spreading it out, he held it in front of the three men. "See a man like him?" he'd asked.
"Crap, crackers all look the same."
Behind him, he could hear Langston snicker a little. He wanted to feel indignant but despite himself, he felt a smile cross his face. "Yeah, I know." He offered them a lopsided grin.
They seemed to warm up to him. Stepping forward, the quiet soldier- the one who hadn't spoken yet- leaned forward. "That's an Indiana flag on his shoulder, that is." His accent was soft, like leather that had been worn down. All the syllables of Indiana were stressed individually. "We know a guy that came down from Indiana. Don't we?" He looked at the others. "We don't know him," he said, tapping the corner of the photograph. "But I can show you where to find the guy who might. If you want?"
"I'd appreciate that."
The next spirit they talked to didn't know his father either however, nor did the one after that. They were passed through the lines, some spirits more helpful than others, but most of them curious about the living beings in their midst who could see them and talk to them. Billy still felt like shuddering, knowing these spirits were everywhere, just waiting to be seen, but he was glad to find that most of them weren't in any way threatening, regardless of the side they'd been on in the war.
All the while, the snow was piling up. Billy felt miserable- his boots weren't meant to keep out snow and they didn't offer the traction needed to scale up half frozen inclines. He was cold all over. When Langston, who got more determined as the night went on, went off to interrogate a couple of soldiers from a Pennsylvania unit, the Kid hung back to talk to the tactician.
"You're quiet tonight, Mac."
Machiavelli gave a start. "Just a bit sleepy, I suppose."
"I thought maybe I said something wrong before," Billy commented, glancing over at the Italian immortal. "You looked… I don't know. But you know that you're my favorite person, don't you?"
"Am I now?" Machiavelli said with the flash of a smile. The Kid nodded, giving him a disbelieving look. "Ah, well good. You're mine."
"Of course I love you most of all. You're my boyfriend. And I took care of you all summer."
"Do you miss that?"
Billy hesitated. "Sometimes. But- uh- well I like you like this too so it's difficult to say. I just like having a kid around, you know? I wish that we could have a baby." He turned red in an instant, especially since Machiavelli froze mid-step. "I didn't mean you and me specifically," he added quickly. "Just all of us immortals. I gave away my mortality when I was twenty-two. Twenty-two year olds don't think about how much of a void it might be, to not have a child someday," he said earnestly.
"On the other hand," Machiavelli said quietly, "you don't have to know how painful it is to fall in love with your babies, only to have them grow old and pass you by either." He tried to be gentle. It seemed important though, somehow, to cut this fantasy off quickly before Billy put too much of his hopes into it. It seemed unlikely that they could ever have children. He tried to move the conversation forward. "Maybe you should do some mentoring with children. You were really a good father figure."
"You think so?" Billy said doubtfully, feeling like he wasn't a good mentor to anyone.
"I do. I wouldn't say so if I didn't mean it.
The Kid had too many thoughts in his head to sort out what it all meant. "I liked taking care of you. It's nice to have someone who needs you."
"I need you, Billy."
He beamed. "Do you really? I need to be needed, you know. I feel like I have all this love in me that I've been bottling up. I'm going to adore you for the rest of our lives."
Machiavelli smiled. "That's a long time."
"I mean it," the outlaw argued. "You're my favorite," he repeated stubbornly. "You don't have to be jealous of anyone else either," he added, getting a sudden insight to what his Italian might have been thinking before.
Machiavelli gave him a sharp look. "How could you possibly know that was what I was thinking?"
"I just know you really well," Billy said happily. "God, I want to get out of Kansas, Mac."
"I think everyone feels that way."
"It was when we lived in Wichita that my mother got sick," Billy said to Machiavelli, squeezing his hand. "We don't know if she contracted it in the city or if she was just a longtime carrier of the disease, but there was a lot of reasons to leave. Wichita was dangerous when I was growing up there- seems funny to say now but it was- and her doctor recommended that we move to a warmer client. My stepfather didn't want to leave so soon, so we moved ahead of him."
"He didn't want to move, even to improve the health of his wife?" the Italian asked incredulously.
The Kid shrugged. "He had just started a farm and he saw the move as very inconvenient." Lowering his voice conspiratorially, he added, "I was hoping that he wouldn't find us again. I told my mother that one time. She got pretty pissed at me. It was one of the only times she's ever smacked me."
"She probably was just under a lot of strain," Niccolo said swiftly. "Being a parent isn't the easiest thing to do under the best of circumstances…"
"Sure," Billy agreed. "I never-" But he was cut off at that moment by a sudden cry of pain and they both looked around in some alarm. "That sounded like Langston," Billy said, wheeling around. "Over here, come on." Machiavelli followed the outlaw, who took off at a fast clip in the direction of the poet's voice. They could hear him swearing.
"What happened?" Machiavelli called, as they skidded to the side of the poet, who was lying on the ground at the bottom of an incline. "Did you slip?"
"Yeah, I was looking at that guy," Langston jabbed his hand at a spirit who was watching them, "and the next thing I knew, I was lying here."
"It's quite the incline," Machiavelli said.
"I've got you honey," Billy said, leaning down. He wrapped his arms around Langston's hips and pulled him to his feet, setting him upright again. "You feel alright?"
"It twinges a bit. I'm fine though."
"Are you sure? Why don't we give up for the night?" He felt very defeated.
"Um, sure. But give me a minute. I want to talk to that guy." Moving stiffly, Langston made his way over to the soldier that had caught his eye. They spoke for several minutes; Billy and Machiavelli waited indecisively on the trail, gradually being joined by Fred, Black Hawk, and Perenelle who looked frozen.
Finally, the poet came back to them. He shook his head when asked what he had talked about with the spirit and said he'd talk about it after they warmed up.
Billy felt his spirits sinking as the night faded into obscurity. They'd found nothing out. He didn't want to leave just yet, despite what he had told the others; he kept thinking that there must be something they'd missed, someone who would know his father. But there was no one they hadn't tried. It was truly a dead end.
He felt someone take his hand. Machiavelli gave his hand a quick kiss, his eyes ahead of them on the others. "Thanks," he said softly. "I just, I want…"
Machiavelli nodded.
