14. Chapter Fourteen #2
Nicholas laughed into his pint. They drank and ate to the bard’s song and the patrons’ laughter. The evening was fun, normal, so William lost track of the drinks, thus spending more time there than they should have.
By the time they left, William stumbled outside with a bottle of rum in hand.
A carriage rustled down the street. The driver snapped the reins, and the horse galloped.
William saw the puddle before the wheels hit, but nothing saved him from the murky water dousing him.
The carriage passing left him drenched and Nicholas bone dry.
The fae snickered, then snorted, then howled.
“This isn’t funny,” he said.
“It is terribly funny,” Nicholas countered.
The chilled water made his coat heavy. He tore himself free of it, but his shirt had been dampened, too. Nicholas stared.
“Stop gawking,” he said, feeling a blush form from head to toe.
He hadn’t received attention like Nicholas gave since, well, Nicholas. He found a partner here or there, those curious about his affliction. They were less interested in him than the questions they could ask. To be admired so openly, he missed it, though knew not what to do with it.
“You ask too much of me.” Nicholas stepped around him toward the road. “How about I make us even instead?”
Nicholas fell into the puddle, resembling a child playing in the snow. He rolled, then hopped to his feet, now equally drenched and grinning impishly.
“There, we match,” he declared.
William bit back a laugh when a clattering noise nearby frightened him. He pivoted, attention darting about, searching for a threat. A black cat leapt out of an alley with a rat in its jaws.
“You remain jumpy, even full of alcohol,” Nicholas said. He followed, though William knew not where they were heading. He walked with no destination.
“We’re in dangerous territory now that a shadowed disciple is involved,” he countered.
“That isn’t it though, is it?” Nicholas challenged. “You have a knife secured beneath your desk.”
He took a corner too quickly, resulting in his elbow scuffing against a building. “I have much in my office of monetary value that someone may steal.”
“Yes, you do, and you refuse to let me turn a corner before you.”
His teeth ached from how hard he was grinding them. “You may miss something I would notice.”
“You’re making a lot of excuses trying to hide what I have already guessed.”
“I don’t want to talk about this.”
“Why?” asked Nicholas.
He took a long swig of his drink, then spat, “Because it won’t change anything.”
“Does that matter? I want to listen.”
“I’ve told people before.”
“Have you?” Nicholas challenged, taking a step ahead, so William saw the accusation in his eyes long before he said it aloud.
“Or did you sit at Charmaine’s side in silence because you knew she went through the same?
Did you lie to your parents about what you went through and tell yourself it was fine?
Who truly knows all you have done and all you are feeling now? ”
Himself alone because—he couldn’t explain why.
Matilda and Robert were his parents. He wanted them to be proud.
Arthur, Richard, and Henry were his brothers.
He didn’t want to worry them. Charmaine was his best friend.
She shouldn’t have to take care of him. His doctor tried to see through him, but even he knew so little about the new sciences of the mind, picking and prodding and sometimes making William feel worse.
So he smoked, and he drank and he worked and he ignored because nothing more could be done. But there Nicholas waited, a bottomless pit to fill, and he saw William in ways others didn’t. In ways, he couldn’t deny or continue pretending it wasn’t true.
“I’m a black mood no one can dispel, an anger that cannot be doused, a fear that cannot be quenched.
My eyes and thoughts deceive me. I see Fearworn with my waking eyes and I hear him call my name.
He’s dead, and I’m home, but I’ve never felt so far away, and I don’t know how to change that,” William growled, for his sorrow sounded of anger always, as if that emotion alone had wound tight around his heart and mind, refusing to let go.
“I don’t know what to do when I am not busy because when my mind is quiet, I think horrible thoughts.
Sometimes, the castle burns with the king inside and I savor the thought of his screams. Sometimes, I take a blade to end it all and think of how simple it would be to sleep.
” And he couldn’t breathe a word of that to his family, who waited so long for him to return.
He knew the pain that would leave upon them, but they didn’t understand the pain he felt every day.
“What is wrong with me?” he whispered as his footsteps echoed through the sleeping city. Windows and doors had shut, and the residents slept. Flames flickered upon lanterns lining the streets leading to Brandy Bridge ahead, where the water roared.
“You are William Vandervult, the man I love, that your family loves, a doctor, a soldier, a great many things, none of which define you entirely, so this,” Nicholas laid a hand over William’s heart, “these feelings do not define you, either, even when they burden you.”
He knocked the hand away and walked faster, as if he could outrun Nicholas. “But all I feel is burden.”
“Then perhaps you should ease that burden, as you are now. Is there anything you wish to tell someone other than me?”
“My father,” he answered immediately. He recalled how his father couldn’t meet his eyes, how they tiptoed around one another. “He blames himself for my enlistment. He struggles to look at me, for I am not the son he wanted to return home.”
“Did he say that or do you believe it?” asked Nicholas. He rolled his eyes, but Nicholas caught up and held a finger to his lips. “He did not say so, therefore you do not know.”
“But what if I’m right? I don’t want to hear it. I can’t.”
“You aren’t.”
William came to a halt upon the bridge where the churning river below kept the stones eternally damp. “You are stupidly confident.”
“No, I trust you,” Nicholas argued and the words, so simple, warmed him. “The stories you shared of your family, I don’t need to spend time with them to know what they think of you. They care for you, even this version you so despise, that you believe is so changed.”
“I have changed.”
“All things change,” Nicholas continued. “Transformation, remember? You are kind, even if you believe you are not. You love your romance books, even if at times you find them silly. And you cannot help but garner the attention of a certain troublesome fae.”
He leaned against the bridge. “I suppose that will never change.”
“It will not.” Nicholas hopped onto the parapet. He swayed, then steadied, walking with hands outstretched. Then he fell on his butt to let his legs sway. “Join me,” he said, patting the stone beside him.
“So you can push me?” He asked.
“I already saw you wet today, my wicked. The next time I want it to be under different circumstances. Now, come here.”
Warmth spread behind his cheeks from far more than the rum. Taking another drink, he swung onto the parapet where Nicholas tugged him closer so they were arm to arm. Their legs dangled above the river, the water sprinkled with feathered white lights of the stars.
“You were calmer than I expected today,” William said.
“Was I?” Nicholas knocked his heel against the stones. “I suppose so. My head is clearer than it has been of late.”
“Does that happen often?”
“Every few days, I think. Before, when the change began, I had episodes of delirium, you could call it. Now, I have less clarity every day.”
He lost more of himself every day, but he wouldn’t say that. William didn’t want to hear it either. Words carried strength. To hear the truth aloud solidified it, made it less bearable, made the future feel inevitable.
“Sometimes, like right now, I think I’m able to grasp my situation.
I know I’m growing more erratic, that my thoughts can drift with such ease and I’m not entirely in control.
” Nicholas’ smiles once belonged to one who didn’t know love and did their best to mimic the emotion.
But that had changed too because when William looked at him, he felt full.
“I’m a danger to myself, but most of all, you,” Nicholas continued. His words faltered. He faced the river. “You’re all I can think about most days, all I can dream about, and that has me making less than spectacular decisions.”
“You don’t say,” he teased.
Nicholas nudged him. “Don’t mock me when we’re having such a serious moment. We won’t have many more in the future, I imagine.”
That sobered him up quickly.
“It isn’t just you, though.” Nicholas held out his hands, touching fingertip to fingertip. “Before, I knew I was strong. I felt a power in me no other mimicked, but now? William, I can’t explain it.”
He stretched his fingers over the river and the water rippled, as if Nicholas willed the river itself to bend to his will. A wave surged to lick their heels, then settled as if the water fell asleep.
“I feel as if I’m connected to everything, that I’m absorbing the energy from the stars themselves.”
Nicholas was strong before. He stood against Fearworn. He battled shadowed disciples and monsters, but this felt different. William tasted it in the air, sultry and sick.
“You’re stronger than ever,” William muttered, wondering what more Nicholas could do, what he may do in the future.
“Undoubtedly, but I don’t know how to utilize this strength or what would happen if I tried. In a way, I’m grateful you’re all I think of, otherwise I could so easily follow in Fearworn’s footsteps.”
“Don’t say that.”
“It’s true. I could tear this city apart if I really wanted, if you asked it of me.” Nicholas caught him by the chin, forcing their eyes to meet. “You understand that, don’t you? That from here on out, you can order anything of me and I’d obey.”
He liked Nicholas’ touch, the brush of his fingertips and the sound of his voice and how close they were. Nicholas’ warmth bled deep into his bones, where he wished it to stay forever.
“I tried ordering you to leave earlier and you wouldn’t,” he said.
Nicholas gave him a stern look, so unlike him. “Experiment all you like, but I fear there is nothing to be done. I will worsen until I don’t have moments of clarity at all, until I forget everything about myself.”
William finished his bottle, focusing on the burn in his esophagus rather than the tears in his eyes.
Nicholas laughed. “Aren’t you a fine drinker? Will I meet a drunk William tonight?”
“Looks like it,” he replied.
“I will take advantage of this moment entirely.”
“I would expect nothing less of you.”
Nicholas smiled, crooked and sweet. In his eyes, a faded hue of pink fought to show itself. This was the real Nicholas, William’s troublesome bastard.
“Kiss me while you still remember yourself,” he whispered, knowing full well it wasn’t the rum talking, although he’d let anyone else believe otherwise.
Nicholas shouldn’t be the person’s whose lips felt like home, but William understood he fell in love not for the right reasons or moral ones, but because he found someone who felt as wrong as he did, who saw the darkness within and didn’t try to bring it to light, but let it exist as it was without shame.
He wasn’t sure what peace felt like anymore, but he’d like to think it felt like Nicholas’ mouth on his in the cold of night.