The two boys were up until the early hours of morning, eating junk food and playing games. Long before the sun came up, it began to rain. It was to a gentle tapping sound that they eventually fell asleep, Machiavelli in his bed and John on an air mattress that Billy had dragged out of the storage area. The rain continued throughout the night and on into the morning.
"Do you think it's weird for me to hang out with John?" Machiavelli asked as they drove back to the cabin after dropping off the skinny boy the next morning.
Billy shrugged. "I don't know, Mac, the kid needs a friend. You're kind of a little boy right now. And I think it's good for you to have someone in your life that isn't immortal and isn't tangled up with that mess we dealt with last month." He turned into their driveway. "If you think it'll help, perhaps you should explain to him what's really going on."
"You really think he'd believe it if I told him the truth?" the Italian questioned incredulously.
"No." Billy chuckled at the expression on his face. He shrugged and pulled Machiavelli out through the driver's side door so that they both had complete benefit of the umbrella. "He might not believe you at first," he admitted, "but he's bound to notice you getting bigger every week."
Machiavelli stopped and Billy came back to him. "I didn't even think about that," the Italian whispered, thinking hard. He pulled open the door.
"Well we don't have to figure everything out right now," Billy told the European immortal. The other immortals looked up at that, but the American shook his head subtly and they all went back to their individual activities. Machiavelli picked up on this and glanced suspiciously back at Billy, but the young man just shook his head and mumbled, "Not now."
Machiavelli squinted at him, but decided not to address the issue until Billy was ready. He helped the American set up the chessboard in between them. "Billy? How long are we planning on staying here?"
"I actually hadn't planned on staying here this long, but we're having fun here and I want to work out the thing with John before we go anywhere else." Billy opened by moving his king's pawn and Machiavelli countered with the Sicilian defense maneuver that he had come to love over the years.
"What do you think we should do, Nicholas?" Machiavelli asked the Frenchman. "Billy thinks we should tell John who we really are. Isn't that dangerous?"
"No, it's absurd," Billy broke in.
"I'm not sure I understand you," Machiavelli told Billy.
Nicholas smiled blithely at the American. "I think what Billy is saying is that we stand no real harm because it's so strange that nobody would believe him if he tried to spill our secrets."
Billy cut in. "But if he does believe us, we have a chance to really help him. And I want to help him." He captured the Italian's knight, but lost his rook to the Italian's next move. "Listen, Mac, I understand you more than you think. You feel bad because John is missing his father and you're thinking about how you were never around when your kids were growing up. But they're not necessarily the same thing." He castled.
Machiavelli accidentally knocked down the rook he was reaching for. "How could you possibly know that?" He trapped Billy's queen in the upper corner of the field.
The American skillfully out-maneuvered Machiavelli's tactics. He sighed. "I've been on both sides of it before. My father left long before I could remember him and then I was never around for my girls." Billy's smile was soft and sad. "I understand both sides now."
Machiavelli didn't know what to say. "Check." He was closing on Billy's king with his two rooks. He looked over at Nicholas for help. "What are you reading?" he asked him.
"Cancer Ward, by Solzhenitsyn." Nicholas's gray eyes sparkled. "I've gone into semi-retirement for a little while, after all the running around we did last month. So now I have plenty of time to reread some of my favorites."
"I enjoy Solzhenitsyn, but I like Matrayona's House better because- what do you mean, checkmate?" He looked over at the grinning American.
"I mean, I won," Billy said happily. He got up. "Listen, I'm going to make lunch and then you and I are going to have to go shopping. You're growing out of your clothes."
"Okay." Machiavelli got up out of his seat and climbed onto the arm of the Perenelle's chair. "Will you read to me?"" he asked her curiously.
Perenelle looked a bit surprised. "You want me to read to you?" she repeated back to him, making sure she had heard right.
Machiavelli nodded, grabbed his book, and tumbled in next to her on the loveseat. "Billy and I read the first chapter the other night. Felicity and her family just moved to Midnight Gulch, Tennessee and she found out that there might still be magic there..."