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A small town. 1743. Naples.
In the brief hours of dusk, when the sun has just set and the darkness of night has yet to fully consume the world surrounding them, the roofs of the city gleam red and gold. They sparkle with windows that illuminate one by one, as candles and lanterns are lit and placed to keep the evening alive.
Summer's grip on the country is tight this season. Nathaniel stretches along the curve of the roof, feels his muscles expand beneath his sun-warm skin.
He has no intention of mingling with the humans, not tonight — not on most nights, not when he can help it — but he always comes to look. The streets below fill with suits and dresses, a shimmer of every color beneath the golden lights, and laughter swirls up to the sky from the alleyways.
None of them look up. Even if they did, he knows they would not see him.
Not even he sees himself. Hasn't in many years, not beyond involuntary glimpses — a shadow on the ground, outlining the curl of horns atop his head. The tail that wraps around him at night, thin, leathery and offering no comfort. The scales that sneak up his forearms, disappearing beneath the hems of his billowing robe.
All the marks of his father. All the marks of a life spent on the run.
He looks up at the darkening sky, the first winks of stars on the gentle blue canopy above. Night will be here soon, and he will fade back into shadows. Daylight is not for him, but neither is the dark.
He pulls himself to his feet, and raises his wretched hands. Scars run across their backs, and claws curl from his nail beds, dark and hard and withered. But there, snug around his pointer finger, sits a small band a few shades brighter than his own hair.
It is the only thing his father could never take from him. The only thing soft and beautiful that his hands retain, after all these years.
A small string leads away from it, falling to the floor and slithering away. It has always been there, and he has never found the end of it. He tried, when he was younger. But it appeared to be endless, and no place it led him to ever held the answer.
Now, though, it's almost taut. It lifts off the edge of the roof in a way it never has before, and leads straight across the road below.
Nathaniel follows it like an instinct. A giddy, childish curiosity reawakens, and he wonders if, for the first time, his indestructible little string has gotten caught on something.
But he steps up to the edge of the roof, and he sees him.
It would be hard not to see him, and Nathaniel wonders why no one else seems to. People pass by him, talking and laughing and fluttering, and not a single one turns around to the glowing man in their midst.
He just stands still, golden hair shining like the sun, fair skin glowing like the moon, and he's looking directly at Nathaniel.
Like he sees him. Like he sees the red string that connects their hands, and probably always has.
-
They meet only at dusk and at dawn, when the eyes of both heaven and hell are obscured enough for their hands to entwine unobserved.
Nathaniel has lived a solitary life, and so has his companion. This is new for both of them, a foreign experience they share, as they learn each other inside out. First with words, tripping over tongues neither of them speak. Then with gentle hands that map faces, bodies, two beings intertwined into one.
It is new. It is beautiful.
Nathaniel never thought he could have anything of the sort. His father made sure to brand him unlovable. But when he curls up with his head in his companion's lap, he feels careful hands run across his scaled back, across the base of his horns. In return, he dances his fingertips across golden cheekbones, rakes them through pale, fine hair like spun gold.
It ends all too soon. Nathaniel knew they could not hide forever, but he still screams until his throat is raw when he wakes on the floor of his room to the shattered remains of his horns, to feathers and blood and golden shimmer on the tiles.
It ends like most things do for Nathaniel: in destruction.
A film set. 1922. Paris, France.
Smoke curls into his nose as he watches clunky equipment get rolled onto the scene. Cameras the size of men, bright lamps, prop pieces to be added to the neatly arranged backdrop. The bustle of a movie set is familiar and bizarrely comforting, even halfway across the world.
Beside him, Jean Moreau shifts and straightens the lapels of his jacket.
"Remember," he says, in deeply accented French. He's from the south of the country, and speaks like it, too. "Let me do the talking. No one needs to know you speak the language."
The director is an equally pompous man with a Parisian accent so thick he hardly has to pretend not to speak French. He just watches as Jean introduces them with a firm handshake, and returns the director's half-hug and cheek kisses.
He hears as the name pearls off Jean's lips. Neil Josten.
Much easier on the French tongue than his real name, and perfectly suited for a rising American star. The director doesn't even bat an eye.
They are waved inside. A clerk takes his coat, another hands him a fresh cigar. No one speaks to him, no one looks him in the eye. Perfect anonymity.
Europe was the better choice, he knows. The states are too drenched in memories, and the risk of recognition is too high. The Moreaus are good at what they do, and no one should be able to trace Neil Josten back to the Wesninskis, but he would rather not risk anyone even trying.
"This is the role," Jean promised him weeks ago, with an audition sheet in his hands. "This is what you need."
Neil Josten hardly needs anything, and the director seemed to agree. His natural talent for acting landed him the role almost immediately, and he has a backstory prepared for any possible situation. He can make the switch in an instant; from an up and coming American actor trying his luck in Europe to a young French artist to an Englishman with too much inheritance to waste. His accent switches with him, skipping from one personality to the next.
It is exactly why he is here now, in the greatest film studio in all of France, a cigar between his lips and a pretty French man at his arm. Not that he cares for that sort of thing.
He cares for one thing only, and that is the past he leaves behind.
Now he is an American movie star, and his first role will be in a French film that no one will ever see. And none of the people here will ask questions beyond what they will read in the file provided by one Monsieur Arnaud Moreau. The only thing that old motherfucker is good for, really.
Neil takes a drag of his new cigar at the same time that Jean leans down to say, "There is another American."
Smoke billows out of the corner of Neil's mouth, hard. He's not surprised — the director seemed like the kind of man too excited by foreign talent for his own good. The kind of man who, in five, ten years will board a ship to greater things, and never return to his country.
By then Neil Josten will be long gone. He does not worry about it.
"Who?" he asks, tilting his head up towards Jean just-so.
An odd expression crosses Jean's face, a purse of his lips followed by a frown that creases his perfectly smooth forehead. "Not a big name," he says, then, "But the man he's here with is."
On cue, like a perfectly timed scene, a door opens across the room. Two men enter, in much the same fashion as Neil and Jean did just ten minutes prior — a tall, dark-haired man followed by a much shorter one.
"Kevin Day," Jean says, like it's a name that's supposed to mean anything to Neil, and then a jolt goes through him.
"What?" Neil asks. But he turns towards the newcomers, and forgets any question he was going to ask.
The short man at the door is blonde and pale, but otherwise starkly dark — from his crisp black shirt to his neatly cut suit to his pointed boots, there is not a single speck of color to be found. Barring the bright red thread that falls from his left pointer finger, and connects directly to Neil's own.
Neil gulps a breath. He has never been a man of faith.
"Who is he?" he asks Jean, who blinks at him as if startled.
Splotches of red have appeared across the tops of Jean's cheekbones. It's an unusually disheveled look on a typically so well put-together man. He clears his throat, collects himself, before he says, "Andrew Minyard. Rumor has it Day picked him up somewhere in the south of Germany, but he speaks barely a word of German and calls himself an American." His perfectly straight nose wrinkles. "You two would get along."
The last part comes out as exasperation, and not at all like he has noticed anything. No one has ever been able to see the string tied to Neil's hand, of course.
Neil watches as Kevin Day crosses the room to the director, Andrew Minyard a shadow at his back.
As hands are shaken and cheeks are kissed and rapidfire French is exchanged, Minyard looks over. The distinct boredom in his eyes, which are half-lidded and dark, does nothing to distract from the way his gaze immediately falls to Neil's hand.
Their eyes meet again. Across the room, a tiny, golden spark lights in Neil's chest.
-
In a dark bar across town, their paths cross again.
Neil is here only because Jean is, and Jean is here only because he has to be. They sit in a row with an array of differently suited men, all drinking the same type of whisky from the crystalline glasses in their palms.
Neil has not touched his drink. He watches, instead, as people filter in and out of the room. A woman is singing at the back of the bar, her dress swinging around her calves, and men fill up every seat at the tables, at the bar, exchanging cheers and talking business.
In an ideal world, Neil would be in the cozy room the Moreaus rented for him, or exploring the alleys of the city. He's spent most of his time in France down in Marseille, and Paris is delightfully worse in many ways.
He is saved from stewing in his own boredom by the string around his finger going taut. His head snaps towards the door at the same moment Andrew Minyard walks in.
He is shadowing Day again, pale and blonde and dressed in all black. Like he's mourning, or trying his best to blend into the dark.
His eyes lock on Neil almost immediately. With a glance at his companion, he abandons Day to the bar and makes his way over.
Neil slides off his stool. The little red thread around his hand has bugged him all his life — invisible to everyone but him, the source of hours of wandering whenever he was observed as a child. Now that he's finally found the other end, when he least expected it, he cannot resist following it to its finale.
Minyard leans against the bar beside him. He does not look over, but raises his hand — the one with the string — to flag down the barkeep.
Neil watches as he orders his own shot of whisky, and knocks it back almost as soon as the glass is in his hand. Only then does he turn to face Neil.
They did not get a chance to speak on set the other day. Neil itched for it, though — he has always preferred his anonymity, and has intentionally kept his circle of contacts small, but something quite literally bound him to this man. No matter how hard he tried, he could not resist the temptation of getting closer, of finding out what this all meant in the end.
"Neil Josten," he introduces himself now. Rather unnecessarily, judging by the eyebrow Minyard raises at him.
He taps his finger against his glass, jostling the thread between them, as he considers Neil. It does not tug, and appears to adjust its length to the distance between them. Neil does not have the mental fortitude to grapple with the implications of that.
He looks at Minyard's face instead. The smooth planes of his cheeks, illuminated in fiery golden light from the sparse lamps along the walls. His eyes, nearly the same color.
"I do not believe in fate," Minyard says. He's spared their connection not a single glance.
Neil is beginning to wonder if he, too, is perhaps blind to it. If it is something else entirely that has drawn him to Neil. The way Minyard twirls his finger, the thread wrapping around it, disconfirms that theory, but it still leaves him vaguely warm beneath his clothes.
"Neither do I," he hears himself say. He raises his glass to his lips for the first time all night just to have something else to do with his mouth.
"Good we established that," Minyard says. The set of his jaw is different now. More relaxed. Almost amused. He continues, "I also do not spit an opportunity in the face when it presents itself."
Neil has no idea what he means by that, but he supposes he is bound to find out. He takes another sip of his drink, and leans in closer, emboldened. "Neither do I."
-
They go back to the room Minyard rents, in a gilded building just a few streets down, and Minyard kisses him with whisky-warm lips against the back of the door. They fall between the sheets together, tangling until Neil no longer knows which way is up.
His head is clear the whole time, even though he has no idea what he is doing.
He wakes some hours later, to a dark, quiet room. Minyard — Andrew — is fast asleep beside him, and Neil feels no remorse as he crawls off the mattress. He knows this was a mistake, knows Jean will have his head if he finds out, but he cannot quite get himself to regret it.
He collects his clothes off the floor, and dresses as fast as he can. On the mahogany chest beside the door, he spies the silvery ring Andrew wore on his finger at the bar. On an impulse, he picks it up and slips it into his pocket before he leaves, with all the intention of returning it the next time he sees him.
Instead, he enters his own room to find Jean sitting on the low couch, his eyes bloodshot. He is in too much turmoil to even ask where Neil has been, simply gets to his feet and seizes him by the shoulders.
"We have to get out of here."
Just days ago, Neil would have followed him anywhere without question. Now, he hears the "Why?" drop from his mouth before he can think about it.
Jean shakes his head, says, "My father, they got him. They'll get all of us if we don't get out of here."
A foreign type of desperation claws at Neil's throat, but he knows he will not succeed here. If the Moreaus are down, they have all been doomed. Jean is right — fleeing before the reckoning is their only option.
They have passage on a ship bound back towards the States the same afternoon. They leave nothing behind, not even a letter explaining their absence to the director.
Neil sits in their cabin and clenches his hand around the ring in his pocket.
-
He never sees him again.
Little Foxes Day Care. 1988. California, USA
Nathaniel has made it up to the top of the monkey bars and back down three times, and he intends to make it at least another three before playtime is over.
A few of the other kids are watching. They're probably jealous of how fast he can climb, but Nathaniel pays them no mind. His focus is limited to the bars ahead of him, how to fit his hands around them to pull himself up, up towards the top. He practices every day, spends his time here every afternoon until mom picks him up.
He still doesn't understand why mom brings him here every day. None of the other kids talk to him. They think he's scary, or that his dad is scary, or both. Some think his mom is scary, too, even though she's really nice.
But he deals with it. He practices on the monkey bars instead of sitting next to the other children in the sandbox or waiting for the swings to be free. The monkey bars are his territory, and he doesn't like to share.
He's so focused on his climb that he doesn't notice the teacher coming outside until he's sitting at the top. From up there, he looks over to the door and sees the nice teacher, Bee, with a boy Nathaniel doesn't recognize on her hand. He's small, and very blonde.
There often are new kids. Nathaniel doesn't usually care about them any more than the ones that are already there. It's just that this boy has the exact same string around his hand that Nathaniel does, and they connect in the middle between them.
The boy follows the string with his eyes, and looks up at Nathaniel. He tilts his head.
Bee bends down to say something to the boy, and he nods at her. She lets go of his hand to pat his head instead, and he wanders off into the playground.
Nathaniel begins his descent, and by the time his feet touch the ground he can no longer see the other boy. He could follow the string to find him, but he's too focused on his climbing to make time for that.
It's only later, when the teachers call them back inside to clean the group room, that Nathaniel sees him again. He's sitting by himself at the crafts table, putting other kids' crayons back into the box. Nathaniel sits down next to him, and grabs a handful of crayons for himself.
The boy looks up at him, and then down at the string between them. Then back at Nathaniel.
"Hi," Nathaniel says. "I'm Nathaniel."
When the other boy opens his mouth, Nathaniel sees that he has a small scar on his chin, but his mom says it's rude to ask about that sort of thing, so Nathaniel doesn't.
"I'm Andrew," the other boy says, and nothing else.
"You've got the other end of my string," Nathaniel points out. He's never been able to find that end.
"No," Andrew says. "You've got the other end of my string."
Nathaniel puffs his chest out. He's pretty sure it's his string. It's always belonged to him. Not even his mom could see it when he tried to show her, and his mom says she sees everything.
"Our string," Andrew says, before Nathaniel can complain.
Nathaniel blinks. He hadn't thought about it like that, but he likes it, so he grins. "Okay. Our string." He thinks about it a moment longer, then adds, "I'm pretty sure that means we're supposed to be friends."
Andrew nods. "Okay."
And that's that. Nathaniel has never had a friend before, and it's already so much more fun than climbing all day by himself. He says, "Do you want to see something cool?" and Andrew nods again.
He would show him how fast he can climb, but they're not supposed to go outside without the teachers. He will have to show him tomorrow, then. That's okay. Instead, Nathaniel pulls his necklace out of the collar of his shirt, and shows Andrew the ring that hangs on the chain.
"Cool, huh? I asked my mom for the chain!"
Andrew stares at the ring for a few seconds. Then he blinks, and looks at Nathaniel again. He looks a little shy now, his lip wobbling like he's about to cry. "Where did you get that?"
Nathaniel shrugs. He doesn't want to make his new friend cry, but he doesn't even know why he would cry. "I don't know. I've kind of always had it. My mom says she doesn't know either, and my dad definitely doesn't know."
Andrew nods. He doesn't cry, but he also doesn't look happy.
Now that he thinks about it, Nathaniel doesn't even know why the ring is so important. Or why he thought it was cool. He never shows it to anyone except his mom, and he doesn't know why he wanted to show Andrew. He tucks it back beneath his shirt quickly, feeling hot in the face.
They pack up the crayons together. When they're done, Nathaniel asks, "When is your mom picking you up?"
Andrew shakes his head. "I don't have a mom."
"Oh." Nathaniel tilts his head. He's never met anyone who doesn't have a mom. But he also hasn't met a lot of people. "When is your dad coming to pick you up, then?"
Andrew shakes his head again. "I don't have a dad."
"Oh. Hmm. Who's picking you up, then?"
Andrew shrugs. "I'm living with Mrs Graham now. She drove me here."
Nathaniel doesn't know who Mrs Graham is, but if she brought Andrew here she would surely also pick him back up. He nods. "Okay. Then when is Mrs Graham coming to pick you up?"
Andrew shrugs again. "Probably when all the other kids are getting picked up."
Nathaniel nods. That makes sense. They continue tidying up the crafts table until the first parents arrive, and then Nathaniel drags Andrew over to put their coats on. Andrew's coat is way too big, and Nathaniel laughs when he zips it up.
When his mom comes to pick him up, he waves. "Bye Andrew!"
Andrew waves back, shyly, and doesn't say anything.
-
He sees Andrew every day from then on. He shows him how fast he can climb up the monkey bars, and even shares the whole thing with him when Andrew also wants to climb. When it rains, Nathaniel shows him his favorite coloring books in the crafts table, or his favorite car from the toy box.
Andrew picks his own favorite car. It's a little black one, with two doors and a silver fork symbol on the front.
For half a year, Andrew is his best friend in the entire world. Is his only friend.
Then, one morning, Nathaniel bounds into the group room in search of Andrew, and finds his usual spot empty. He waits for him by the crafts table, but he doesn't come.
When he asks Bee if Andrew is sick, she looks at him with such sad eyes that he almost starts crying before she's even said anything.
"Oh Nathaniel," she says, one hand coming up to wrap around his head. "I'm so sorry. Andrew had to go live with a different family. He moved to another city. I'm afraid he's not coming back."
Nathaniel turns away before she can see the fat, hot tears that roll down his face. He didn't even say goodbye.
He never sees him again.
A downtown block. Present Day. South Carolina, USA.
Kevin lifts the last box out of the trunk of his car, and Neil slams it shut behind him. There's really only three of them — one for Jean, one for Kevin, one for Neil — and the duffel slung over Neil's shoulder. Kevin made sure the room had at least some bare bones furniture, and Neil will go out later to buy some essentials, but this is all he owns for the moment.
He makes his way down the narrow hallway behind the two of them.
He's been here a couple times since Jean and Kevin moved in, but never upstairs. A creaky set of wooden stairs leads up towards what is now his own room, adjacent only to a tiny hallway and a tinier bathroom.
They set his sparse belongings down. Neil would get started on unpacking immediately, just to get it over with, but they somehow manage to lure him back downstairs into their own room, with tea and sandwiches from the kitchen. Their room is much larger than his own, large enough to fit a small living room setup alongside their bed, which is where Neil has spent most of his time at this house.
He's known Kevin most of his life, and Jean almost as long. He wasn't around when they met each other, but they accepted him back when he left the FBI and everything to do with his father behind, and he somehow was not at all surprised when he found out about them.
One of their housemates moved out just as Neil was looking for a more permanent place to stay, and the opportunity was just too good to pass up.
Jean gets up to refill their mugs when they finish their tea, and on his way back Neil hears a door open, and Jean say, "Oh. Hi Andrew."
Neil looks up almost automatically. Andrew is their elusive other housemate, who occupies the second downstairs bedroom and was always either working or asleep when Neil visited in the past. He apparently signed off on Neil moving in, but they had yet to meet.
Neil sees him now as he shuffles down the hall towards his room.
A jolt of surprise goes through him even before he notices the ominous red string on his hand following Andrew. The feeling in his chest is not quite recognition, but still an eerie sense of familiarity, and it intensifies by a million degrees when Andrew looks up and meets his gaze through the open door,
He has never met this man before. Yet somehow, he could swear he's spent a million lifetimes chasing this face.
He reaches, almost subconsciously, for the ring he's worn on his left hand for as long as he can remember.
Andrew moves on down the hall. The moment passes.
"Neil?" Kevin is looking at him with his forehead creased in a frown when he looks over.
Neil shakes his head. "Sorry," he says, though he has no idea what for. "Got distracted. What were you saying?"
He only half-listens as Kevin resumes his story about the local sports club, and is still kind of zoned out when Jean presses a hot mug of tea into his hands. The porcelain clinks against the familiar metal of his ring, and Neil wonders, for the first time, where he even got it from.
He spends the evening unpacking his few belongings, and falls into his newly bought sheets still thinking about the face in the hallway.
-
It's the next morning, while he's waiting for his water to boil in the kitchen, that Andrew steps in beside him. The room is small, and Andrew makes no move to indicate he had a purpose here other than to stare holes into Neil's back.
When Neil turns to face him, the string between them goes taut.
Andrew raises a brow, and the shift of his expression shatters something in Neil's chest. He rubs his thumb along the silver band on his finger, and it draws Andrew's gaze to it.
He doesn't say a word, but he turns his back on Neil and walks back out. Neil follows, despite the lack of invitation. Andrew holding the door to his room open is the only confirmation he gets that it was the correct choice.
Inside, Andrew's room is clean and neat. Carefully arranged for both maximum comfort and maximum style, though Neil has no real idea what that means. Most of his furniture is dark, but the decor is dotted through with the green of plants and a few silvery accessories.
On the shelf next to the bed, Neil spots a little black toy car, with a tiny silver symbol on the front, and nearly doubles over.
It all comes rushing back to him so fast his head spins.
A forbidden lover in warm nights, hands and bodies wrapped around each other beneath the moon. A gentleman beside him at the bar, a hand against the small of his back as they walked through the rainy streets of Paris. A best friend in childhood, tumbling on the monkey bars and a matching set of toy cars. A housemate, now, standing in front of him with the exact same expression.
A soul to match his own. A face he's been missing all his life, and before that too. A lifetime of memories spent with a man he met yesterday.
Except this time, it might actually work. Neil is a free man now, and he has no intention of leaving this place. If Andrew lets him in a final time, they might finally get this to last until their souls depart this world for good..
It's too much. The string between them is tauter than ever, drawing them together by sheer force.
Neil draws a breath. His heart is racing in his chest, but he forces himself to say, "Hi."
Andrew tilts his head, but something twitches at the corner of his mouth. "Hi."
"I guess it's best if we start at the beginning," Neil says. He extends a hand. "I'm Neil."
Andrew takes the hand, and presses his thumb right up against the ring on Neil's finger. Another memory. His touch is almost electrifying.
He says, "I know."