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Sometimes... Boys die.
Nicholas’ head snapped up from where he was reading yet another one of the endless supply of books that his Mama had been providing him with for the past four hundred years or so. It was about birds. He liked birds. He had liked birds and animals and the nature present all over in the mortal world back when he had been a child, travelling through the countryside with his Mother. An adventure that had seemed to him, slow suicide that it had been in all reality.Agatha.His Mother. His human, witch mother. His human, flawed and dangerous and desperate human, witch mother. The one to carry him inside of her and grow him and raise him and kill to keep him fed. Death’s child. Only death could feed him and he’d been so very small and so painfully young and Agatha had tried to hard to keep him innocent and to keep him as healthy and as strong as possible while he had been actively dying for... Forever. Dying. Because Death’s child needed to be with Death herself before anything else, but Death had loved Agatha so deeply that she had allowed her beloved to keep him for a while. A while longer than he should have been there, in the mortal plain. He was Death’s child. Death’s succesor, should she ever need one, though Nicholas couldn’t truly understand why would his Mama need another to take her eternal place in the order of things.But there he was. All of four hundred years old and barely looking a day over twenty five, though whichever body he wanted, he could construct as easily as he could strike down entire species. Entire nations. Entire continents. Strike down and bring back up. Death’s child. Birth was part of Death herself. Nicholas snorted. He remembered a long forgotten sermon from when he has been human and had sneaked out from under Agatha’s skirts, running towards the one place she couldn’t follow just to escape her constant need to hunt for another coven and another cover and another coven. A church. He’d found hollow and consecrated ground and had stepped inside, happy that it didn’t lead to excruciating pain or him bursting out in flames. And he’d listened to a sermon. He didn’t remember much of it, if anything at all, but he did remember one thing said about what the humans called the Devil. The priest, dressed in all black and with a severe look on his sharp features had called the First of the Fallen the Lightbringer in the same breath as he had called Lucifer the Great Deceiver. He’d not understood then how those two could be used to refer to the same entity, but. But after six years with Agatha and four hundred with Rio, he could see how the duality of one’s actions, thoughts and feelings might lead to such dramatic monikers. Unlike his own. Which wasn’t dramatic at all. Of course not.
The Death Dealer.
He was Death’s child, but his Mama had made him scale the ranks just like any other recruit of the business until his natural talent and his obvious inclination towards being a harbinger of change had made it obvious that he was being wasted down in the trenches with the plagues and the wars and the petty squabbling. Nicholas snorted and focused back on the voice that he had heard. Agatha’s. And on the eyes that he was seeing at the forefront of his mind. Not Agatha’s. Dark and lined with kohl and framed by thick eyebrows and he could see curls and a pale, almost transparent skin. He was hearing his Mother, but seeing what she was seeing.And more. Agatha was a witch and Agatha was powerful and intelligent and Death’s lover and eternal love, but Agatha was just a witch. Rio would have had his head if she would have known what he was thinking of his Mother right then and there. But it was true. It was beyond true. Because Agatha might have known that the young man she was looking at was not exactly who he was looking as, but she wasn’t seeing it. And she wasn’t feeling the pull that Nicholas was feeling to... Oh. It was his Mother’s desperation and his Mother’s love and his Mother’s sole desire in life that, combined with Billy’s earth shattering and life making power that was pulling him towards Agatha.Out of Rio’s domain.And into the mortal plain.And Agatha’s love was immense. The way a mortal loved was utterly different than the way an immortal loved and it was, in the end, what had made his Mother never give up on him. Secretly. In her heart. Agatha had never given up on seeing him again. In the flesh. Not in the spirit. Not after she died and joined him next to Rio’s side. He didn’t even know if Agatha had actually forgiven Rio for taking him from her arms. He didn’t think so, but he was far from being an expert in what kept mortals alive. Far, far from it. He was better at what led to them dying, but also. Also what made them thrive again after tragedy struck. And Agatha had done none of that. She hadn’t died with him. And she hadn’t thrived either. Her obsessive repetition of the song that they had made up together and her need to draw in more and more and more power the same way she had had when she had needed to feed him hadn’t been thriving. It had been stasis. Frozen like a butterfly in amber, his Mother had been. Until that instant when her primal urge to get her son back no matter what and no matter the consequences and no matter nothing at all had managed to overcome her self imposed boundaries and had screamed to the powers that be her true heart’s desire.To have her son back with her. To have her Nicky back in her arms.But he wasn’t Nicky anymore. And he wasn’t six years old anymore. And if he did let himself be pulled from Rio’s embrace and back into a human body. Well.That would be interesting. That would disturb the balance. Rio’s precious balance. It was already fucked, truly. What with Billy existing when he shouldn’t have and what with Billy not dying and what with Billy’s powers waking and how much the young man was able to make life out of pure intent.Nicholas smiled. And nodded, sliding the bookmark into his book and slowly closing it, his eyes taking the time to finish the page. Then.Then he let his soul be hooked by Billy’s power.And flew.
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Except that he wasn’t flying alone.Well. Not all the way. He had passed through his Mama’s realm easily and smoothly and elegantly and he had even waved cheekily at some soul or another and at some reaper or another. They would all report to his immortal parent in an instant or an eternity. Who knew with the kind of beings that dwelled in Death’s kingdom? Who knew what kind of idea of the passing of time did they have? He didn’t. Not always. Rio would know he was gone the very instant he would exit her direct sphere of influence and he cackled at the idea of making Death chase her own proverbial tail. Silently. Or not as silently.Agatha had taught him how to cackle and it wasn’t a pretty thing and it wasn’t meant to be one. It was meant to be triumph and menace and power and he cackled because he knew for a fucking fact that Death’s reach was both infinite and not as omniscient as Rio liked to play it. Because Death also had her blind spots and some of them were self inflicted. Agatha was one of them. And he was half Agatha, but he also lacked all of Agatha’s tell tale signs that made the wickedest witch around so fucking easy to track at all times. For one, he wouldn’t be secretly longing for Rio to come pin him to the closest patch of wet grass. That was definitely a way to keep Death on one’s tail and he definitely didn’t have that kind of relationship with his Mama. And for another, he had way more patience than Rio did about mixing human magic and immortal magic into something new and fresh and fetch. Was fetch still a thing that the kids said nowadays? He’d not spoken to anyone who’d passed in the last decade or so. He hadn’t had any need to do anything of that sort when he had had his hands full with a lot of the many, many, many, many iterations of Stephen Strange and whatever kind of incredible way that man had once more found to die in.But. He was falling. And not alone. And he would have to deploy some of that experimental magic he’d developed to keep Rio off his scent for long enough for him to have some interesting experiences amongst the mortals. And he was falling and he was not alone. Billy had hooked him and was drawing in the fishing line, but Billy had not meant to hook him. No. Billy’s target had been someone else. And Nicholas was staring at the someone else that hadn’t even been in Rio’s domain. Because he’d finally exited her nine levels of penitence and rewards and all of those things that he could see because that was what his mind told him that Death’s realm should look like, not because it truly looked like that. Death had no shape and no physicality and needed none of that, but had come to crave it by living so much around mortals. Wasn’t that funny? How Death had become different because of the souls she had rehomed in her realm? It always amused Nicholas. But that was enough philosophy for his adventure. He would have time to think on things after he would return to his Mama and would be sent to clean the stables or something appropriately hassle full, but that Rio also enjoyed doing so that they might be forced to spent time together and talk. Enough. Enough already.He’d exited and was currently playing a very poor man’s imitation of Peter fucking Pan, floating high above the clouds and hoping that he hadn’t really shown up in the middle of an airplane’s flight path. If he killed a couple of pilots of a fright and downed an entire plane full of souls, his Mama would never let him actually hear the end of it. And they were both immortal and lived in the same area of the realm. He had managed to move out of the palace when he had turned a hundred or so and he liked his relative privacy. He wouldn’t have it disturbed by Rio sending him airplane models or some shit for the next five hundred years. His Mama didn’t think that a joke ever got old.Nicholas turned to the left and then to the right and then looked up and then looked down and he could see that there was a soul there, right next to him and right on top of him and passing through him, which was rude and not done and which gave him the chills and he couldn’t quite lock onto the pesky bastard. They were both being drawn towards where Billy and Agatha were still casting their very long and very intricate web of need and of power and of desperation and Nicholas was annoyed because his travel companion was apparently half way to uncivilised and definitely had not been dead for long. Or. He peered closely as he tried to focus on the speeding and bouncing and apparently fueled by spite and rage and a passion for sugar that Nicholas could understand, the soul had never crossed into Rio’s realm, which until very recently could mean only one thing. A ghost.But that wasn’t a ghost and that wasn’t a seconds old dead person either. No. Because that was the second option that had caused Rio so much grief lately and that she had been so fucking stocked to have put an end to when Wanda Maximoff had died. The soul flying around Nicholas wasn’t one that Rio had ever laid eyes and claw on, not to birth and not to take and that was because it was a new one. A manufactured one. A bright and shiny and without any history one. Wanda’s work. Wanda’s work and the second one of her children. Nicholas cursed. Billy was a Maximoff. Of course Billy was a Maximoff. Of course he had gotten hooked into a Maximoff’s power. Of course. And of course Billy would have been looking for his brother. He sighed deeply and said a quick thanks that it hadn’t been Wanda that Billy had been looking for. That would have truly angered Rio. And then he reached blindly through the air, his eyes completely useless against the sheer speed of the soul circling him, his power flaring around him in a green and violet arch. A net. He had built a net and he had caught a speedster.Tommy fucking Maximoff was his travel companion. Fucking hells.
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Nicholas had his magic wrapped around the soul’s... Entirety and yet, the speedster was still moving. Trembling. No. Not trembling. Vibrating. Battering against the strands of his magic and, without a single fucking doubt in the world, he didn’t think that he could have held Tommy for much longer if and when the utter menace actually figured out that shoving his incorporeal and very fast moving form through Nicholas’s net was absolutely something that the speedster could do. An inhale. An exhale. He didn’t need to breathe, but he needed to think. Wanda’s second child posed a problem he had not considered when he’d decided to take Billy on his offer to come inhabit a body for a few moments. Days. Weeks. Months. Years. Who knew. He was immortal. He knew how to keep out of Rio’s sight and he would absolutely know if Death needed him by her side. He still had friends in her realm that he could contact and ask for updates. The Internet connection was a bit splotchy at times, but they had managed to make it work about a decade back, so he had an email account and a phone number and social media. Death’s progeny was on-line, so keeping track of his Mama wouldn’t be a problem. For him. If he would happen to be alone, out into the world. But he wasn’t. He was right next to one of Rio’s red fucking flags and headed straight for the other one and he was feeling the beginnings of a migraine start right on the outer edges of his brow bone and flare up from there.
His Mama was calling for him.
„Stop fucking trying to escape. You’re drawing her eye to us both and I don’t have enough patience to deal with both you and her at the same time. Tommy. Stop fucking moving.”, Nicholas snarled, his eyes finally managing to lock onto the soul in front of him as his mouth tried to search for something else to say. Because. Oh. Because he’d not considered that Wanda’s kids were... Fucking kids. The eyes he’d seen in his mind and the curls and the cheekbones and the ears, those didn’t belong to a kid. Billy wasn’t the same age as his brother’s soul. No. That couldn’t be it. Billy’s body wasn’t the same age as the soul in front of him and that made a sort of sense. It had been about four years since Wanda had died and souls didn’t age. Unlike him, who had never been just a soul and who wasn’t just a soul in general, most souls simply remained at the age they had died at. But Billy’s magic was that of an adult, if very young and untrained witch. Tommy was not a day over eleven or twelve, at the very most. Nicholas leaned in closer until his nose was right in front of Tommy’s face, hoping beyond hope that he would not be flicked with some of his own magic. The speedster’s eyes were brown. And red. And gold. And something like circuitry ran through them every time the young boy blinked. „How old are you, kid?”„You said a bad word. Twice.”, Tommy said, words rushing out of the boy with something akin to a storm of energy floating around them both. His magic was sparkling with the kid’s raw speed and Nicholas bit down on his tongue to not curse. Again. He didn’t want to say a bad word. Three times. He felt like three times would be more times than Tommy would be able to not charge him a dime or a cookie or something for the bad word. But he could think it. Fucking fuck on a fucking duck of a fuck. „And I don’t know your name. But you know mine. I’m not supposed to talk to people who I don’t know, but that know me. Mama said so. Dada said so. Billy said so too. And Billy is older, so Billy knows best.”Nicholas sighed. There really was no other thing for him to do that didn’t involve ripping the information from the child’s head and also, he truly didn’t mean to be rude and point out that Billy couldn’t have been older than Tommy since they were both quite literally made of Wanda’s grief, at the same time as the bubble that had covered all of Westview. He sighed again. The speedster was eyeing him up and down and probably plotting his means of escaping. He sighed a third time. With how fucking fast and almost out of control Billy’s twin was, Nicholas doubted that even Billy’s very powerful hook could have drawn his younger brother to a body and, particularly, to the body that the son of Death was seeing right in front of them. Well, below them, in a scene that he’d witnessed time and time again, with all sorts of actors. The actions were the same every time and the outcome was generally in favour of his Mama.A bunch of boys, ages seemingly ranging from ten to seventeen or eighteen were roughhousing on the edge of a cliff. The older brothers, Nicholas supposed, were all gathered together somewhere next to the very far edge of the promontory, while the younger kids were playing with a ball further up the rocks. Far from the edge. So far. But so unsupervised and sometimes, boys just died and sometimes, those boys were just too close to the edge of a cliff and sometimes, those boys just slipped when chasing a ball and sometimes, their older brothers jumped in after them. Into the waves, high and crashing and dangerous and frothy and sometimes, out of the two boys of a family, not a single one returned. Because sometimes, boys just died. Nicholas smiled sharply and turned towards Tommy, his long fingers pointing towards the ten year old stumbling over the wet rocks underneath them and plummeting forty or so metres below, in the deadly sea. And. Right on target. His big brother cried out and jumped right into the same waves to save his sibling. And sometimes, boys just died. But not that day. At least not those particular boys. Or, better put, their bodies.
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It had been four years to the day for the Maxwell boys’ return to life. A miraculous return that their entire small, ocean side fishing village located in a very quaint and completely not touristy part of a country that span across a continent was planning on celebrating with a huge, unforgettable and unique party. The ocean had given something back to them and not taken from them. For once, the ocean had been forgiving and understanding and had listened to a mother’s desperate cries and a father’s pained pleas. Martina and James had ran to the shore as news of their boys going under the huge waves had flown through the village and they had done the only thing they could truly do. They had prayed. They had prayed and they had screamed and they had tried to get a boat, any boat, any other boat to take them out there, down to the massive rocks where their youngest had fallen to his certain death and down to where their oldest had taken the plunge to save and die alongside his little brother. Their two boys. Their two beating, living and beloved hearts, raised on the sun and the salt of the ocean and the village had weeped with the Maxwells. They had.They had weeped for two lost souls and they had been right to weep, of course, Nicholas mused quietly as he allowed Martina to fuss over his hair and tug on the collar of his shirt. It was white. Stark white. He didn’t know if he’d ever had anything as white as that shirt was in all of his four hundred and some years of life. Probably not. Back when he’d lived with his Mother, pure white fabrics were not something that people of their social class could afford easily or at all and it wasn’t like he had needed actual physical clothes at Rio’s side. The Death Dealer had been a spectre and he’d rejoiced in that. However. Creature comforts were good to have and he liked spoiling himself from time to time. Also, rewarding himself for saving... Oh, he’d say about three or four lives when he’d pushed himself into Jules’ body as the eldest Maxwell’s soul left it to join his baby brother’s and. Well. When he’d shoved Tommy fucking Maximoff into Chris’ body. The baby Maxwell. Two souls for the price of none, if he was being honest, since neither him, nor Tommy were souls that were supposed to be on the mortal plain in the first place. So. Rio got two for nil and Lady Death had been quiet about it for the better part of the past half a decade. Not that Nicholas had taken any risks, having grabbed a small, broken and jagged piece of rock right after he’d crashed into the the coldest fucking water in the whole world, which he had then proceeded to use to carve two symbols on his own borrowed body and one on Tommy’s first real form. Two symbols for him. To hide him from both Agatha, bless it be her ghostly heart, and Rio, bless it be her eternal grudge holding. One couldn’t out run death, no, but one could certainly hide from it. For a while, at least. And then he’d only carved one symbol on Tommy’s Chris because. Well. Because Tommy only had to be hidden from Rio. But not from Billy.Because Nicholas didn’t know where to find the pair of dark, dark, dark and stormy eyes that he kept dreaming about and those curls and those absolutely killer cheekbones and those lips that he had started to hear speak to him in recent months. In his dreams. Of course. He couldn’t be so lucky as to actually fucking figure out where Billy Maximoff truly was. Not without... Well. Not without alerting the entirety of the two hundred and four people in the village of his powers and of how they worked and of why he needed to be powered by death in order for him to actually have more juice than a two months old orange. He had not considered that when he had embarked in the most particular journey of his life, that he wouldn’t have access to the entire plethora of his abilities. Of his natural born and classically trained fucking abilities. But he didn’t and that had been a rude, rude, rude awakening. But, as Agatha used to say to him at times, bygones were bygones and only those that lost remembered the past. Of course, his Mother was a lying liar that lied, but not all of what Agatha, the witch killer herself, had ever taught him was wrong. And letting go of failures was important, Nicholas mused as he watched his baby brother come down the stairs of their parents’ home with a pout the size of a skipjack.Tommy, also known as Chris and hadn’t that been an adventure in navigating explaining to their parents that Chris hadn’t suddenly developed a desire to be called Tommy au naturel, but rather due to the extreme nature of the trauma that their poor youngest had gone through, was not happy about the party. All in all, Tommy wasn’t happy about a lot of shit and Nicholas was sort of content with that. It wasn’t his problem or his responsibility to make Tommy happy and healthy and help him grow up into a nice, well rounded adult. He’d done his part, he couldn’t deny that, but he’d not been excited about it. Much. He’d never had a little brother and, after having Tommy, he didn’t wish for one either. Though he couldn’t blame the kid for the surliness. Truly, he couldn’t. Tommy had been shoved into the body of a twelve year old and he had been twelve at the time. Technically. Technically. That hadn’t been a real issue for the young Maximoff. No. Oh no. What the real issue had been was that Tommy had been shoved into a real body and one that didn’t have any genes mixing and matching to get Tommy the speed his soul craved. So. Sometimes. Tommy tended to leave his body and go run around. Butt soul naked. It had the tendency to give Nicholas a migraine and he’d been migraining a fucking lot since he’d dragged Chris’ body from the waves with Tommy’s soul inside of it.„I don’t want to go. It’s the same stupid party every stupid year and it’s filled with old people who will keel over and die in a few months anyways. It’s like this whole town is a living cemetery and it’s like you all simply hold a very long stupid memorial service for me and Jules and...”, Tommy began and Nicholas did not suppress his need to sigh. He did suppress his desire to slap the living daylights out of the kid, because it was one thing for Nicholas to understand that Thomas fucking Maximoff had every single reason out there to be surly and to take his time growing up as a regular kid and all that jazz and an entirely other thing for him to actually connect with the need that Tommy had to point out at every single possible opportunity how they were both frauds. Except that no one believed him, of course, and except that the only reason why Tommy hadn’t seen the inside of a psychiatrist’s office for more than regular fucking trauma from almost fucking drowning was because Jules loved Chris and understood his baby brother’s issues and survivor guilt, unexplainable as it was since both of them had survived the unsurvivable, and took care of him. Nicholas, on the other hand, had no familial bond with Tommy and he had definitely considered if it was even fucking worth it to remain close to the kid while he grew up into, Nicholas hoped, a much more pleasant adult than what was currently peeking from underneath a tuft of long, platinum blond hair. Bleached. Professionally, at least.When Tommy had come home from school a couple of months back, his girlfriend in tow and a whole bag full of hair bleaching product and a lot of blond dye, Martina had had a bit of a fit, while James had seemed so terribly out of depth when it came to his odd older son and his rebellious younger son that Nicholas had taken pity on the whole situation. And had donated the whole hair dyeing kit to the local women’s shelter, taking his screaming and protesting sibling by circumstance to the salon two towns over to get Tommy’s hair bleached. Properly. And with amusement, Nicholas admitted, thinking about how one sibling was the sun kissed version of one of those painted cherubs from the cathedrals of Europe and the other one’s skin seemed like it had never seen the sun, pitch black curls spinning wildly around high cheekbones and dangerously intelligent eyes. Not a teenager anymore. Oh no. Not even a little bit of a teenager anymore, Billy was. Sadly. Or luckily, Nicholas supposed, since he had actually managed to be a decent soul brother to Tommy, the son of Agatha, the witch killer, and Rio, also known as Lady Death, had gotten stuck with the cherub and not the reaper of the Maximoff children.„I’ll handle this, Mom. Go ahead and finish getting ready. Take Dad and yourself to the party and we’ll show up right after you two, I promise.”, Nicholas looked down at Martina, Jules’ full lips forming a delicate smile that every single person even remotely interested in men on a fifty mile radius had fallen for more than once in the past couple of years. The son of Death didn’t have a body and had never wished for one after his demise, but if he would have had to figure one out for himself, Jules Maxwell’s body would have been a good fit to the image he had shaped his soul in back in his Mama’s realm. Tall and brown haired, his skin freckled and his eyes wide, with long lashes and thick eyebrows, their colour a pale, almost glass like green. There was nothing special about Jules. Not really. He looked like a million other young men across the world, white and pretty in a very generic way. It would have been more than enough for Nicholas. Oh. It would have been. But he’d not considered how his soul would impact a mortal’s body. He’d not considered a lot of things before he’d answered Billy’s call, quite honestly, but that particular piece of wisdom was too late to apply retroactively. So onwards and upwards all of them had to go, himself and the stubborn Tommy included.„Handle what? I’m not a thing or a situation to be handled and I’m not... No. I refuse to stay here and listen to you or to go anywhere to celebrate some stupid thing that.”, the youngest Maximoff continued as Martins shook her head, went to Tommy and kissed his cheek, hugging him tightly before whispering a low just let your brother soothe your fears, okay? I love you, butter toast. Nicholas smiled serenely and waited for Tommy’s anger to melt away. As it always did. And. There it was. Right on cue. Tommy remembered Wanda and Vision. Of course he did. He remembered Agatha as well, his quirky babysitter and sometimes partner for getting in trouble. He remembered his mother and Nicholas assumed that he also loved his mother. But Tommy had taken to Martina like a baby otter to its first stick to put in a dam and Martina had been crying all over the place for years about how the waves had not only returned her boys to her, but that it had made her baby more loving than ever. If only. But it did work wonders to defuse Tommy’s explosive attitude and to make the young man look at Nicholas with reproach in his crystal clear, baby blue eyes. Martina had gone up the stairs and closed the door to her and James’s room with a quiet snick, leaving Tommy and Nicholas alone. Once more. As they had always been, quite truthfully, for the past four years at the very least. „We’re lying to them. We’re breaking their trust and their hearts with each and every moment in which we stay here, in these bodies and taking advantage of their supposed good fortune. Of this supposed miracle. Jules. It’s not right. You know it’s not right. We need to go, dude.”
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„Don’t call me dude, Chris.”, Nicholas replied evenly, gladder than ever that he had not actually gotten to the point of telling Tommy his actual name. He felt... He felt good about it. He felt like the first living human that had to say his name needed to be the one that called him down in the first place. He didn’t understand why that mattered to him, but he had congratulated himself over and over again about how he’d kept his name private. It had been and still was unfair. He’d known who Tommy was, but he’d never offered Tommy the same courtesy and that might make Billy angry with him in the end. Alas. He had saved Tommy and ensured that Billy’s desire to have his brother in a body would come to pass, which would need to be worth more than his reluctant, but rather respectful relationship with Billy’s twin. Younger brother, Tommy claimed, but who knew. Wanda wasn’t around to tell any of them who she had brought to life first and she hadn’t been exactly good when she had done all of that, so she might not even remember anyways. He tilted his head to the side and remembered some of the Scarlet Witch’s most famous words.
This is me being reasonable.
It would have been a foul move from Nicholas’ part to ask Tommy to be reasonable. To be understanding. To put his morals to the side and just accept that they had nowhere to go where Death wouldn’t follow and, even worse, Tommy himself had nowhere to put himself in, that there was no human body that could support his unique blend of being half organic, half tech and all speedster. There was no such body occurring naturally for Tommy and that Tommy had no fucking chance of being more than a spectre out there if Billy, the actual magical heir of Wanda, didn’t get the chance to make him a body. But for that, Tommy needed to stay put and wait for his twin to find him, which was taking a surprising amount of time. From Nicholas’ perspective, it was taking much more time than he’d expected from a witch of Billy’s power. Sure, Agatha might have been meddling against the twins being reunited, but Nicholas doubted that. The last time he’d laid eyes on his Mother, she was Billy’s ghostly mentor and companion, stuck to Wanda’s son for what appeared to be an eternity and then some. Ironic, since Agatha had been instrumental in Wanda’s downfall and had rejoiced in that a hundred times over. But. Well. In the end, his Mother was just as stuck in her grief over him as Wanda had been in her grief over losing Vision and then her children. Except. Except that Wanda had died and her pain had ended with death. Agatha was still in pain. Nicholas sighed and swallowed the first few things that he had wanted to say to Tommy out of kindness, quite honestly. And out of having intimate knowledge of what being separated from one’s loving and beloved Mother did to a child, himself included. He swallowed again and settled on the couch arm, his form almost liquid with a sort of grace that anyone who had ever laid eyes on a supernatural would be able to accurately say got you, motherfucker. Thankfully, the village they had been living in for the past four years had seen witches and heroes and villains and gods only on television and on the Internet and the grace... Well, it didn’t translate as easily.„Sit, Tommy. Sit and don’t you dare vibrate out of your body today. It would kill them to lose a child again.”, he pointed out and let Tommy frown for a moment and ponder over his words for yet another moment before sitting down on the other end of the couch. Mullishly. Teenagers. He swore he had been far less comfortable with being that obviously rebellious with Rio, but she had also not been the picture of maternal love and care back then. Not that she was any of that currently, but still. She had been getting far better at the whole mothering thing in more recent years. Tommy shoved his foot into Nicholas’ thigh to draw his attention back to the speedster, which made Nicholas’ magic to flare up in annoyance and a pillow to fly from the kitchen bench straight at Tommy’s head. It even hit with a dull and unimpressive thud. Tommy must have been truly distressed for his speed to not have taken him out of harm’s way already. Nicholas glared and slithered down on the couch, shoving Tommy’s socked feet from the plush material with a sigh. He was really tired of being a big brother, but it felt like he might need to keep being one for just a little longer. And he could begrudgingly admit that he loved the kid. Tommy was a pain in the fucking eyeball, but. Well. He was an endearing one. „There’s something else that’s rattled you so hard that you would actually put it into words. Don’t scowl at me. The scowling got old a few years back. Maybe like two years ago. Tell me what’s so wrong that you would spell it out that you want us to leave our parents and our home. Our borrowed parents and our borrowed home, I’ll give you that, but still. Tommy. We saved their lives when we stepped into their dead children’s bodies four years ago. They would not have survived the loss. No parent truly does. Not fully. Something of them always goes when their children go. At least... At least like this, they can get used to their children being different, but still here. It’s mercy, in a way, and hypocrisy, in another way. I know. I admit it freely. But. Tommy. You know as well as I do that we have nowhere else to go. Not yet. Not until it’s safe for us out there and we have a little of waiting to do. I need to gather more power and you need to learn more control. And since I’m not going on a killing spree to power up in a day, we need to wait. But you know all of this already. Tommy. What has gotten you spooked like that?”„You think that was what happened to her? To... To Wanda?”, Tommy whispered and Nicholas wanted to scream. He did. He truly did. He was not equipped to deal with the emotional turmoil of a sixteen year old speedster and he had no clue how to handle such delicate questions with anything else but the truth. Although the truth wasn’t always the correct choice. Or the choice at all.Sometimes, white lies were best because how could he explain to Tommy, who had fabricated memories of his mother, that the stories that the world told about the Scarlet Witch were had been written by those that had won. And that those stories were hardly accurate and that she hadn’t been a monster. Not in any other way that a powerful woman hadn’t already been made into a monster by the ones surrounding her. Oh, Wanda had not been innocent. Wanda had been a killer. Wanda had been just as much of a witch as Agatha had been, but a thousand or a hundred thousand times more powerful than his own Mother. But Wanda, just like Agatha, had not left only blood and tears behind her. No. There had been joy and laughter and love and a brief stint with the Avengers for Wanda. Wanda had been a heroine and had built her own story and had been immensely and impressively competent and she had not given up and she had not backed down. She hadn’t been unreasonable, no matter how much Stephen fucking Strange had tried to make it sound like she had been. But Wanda, just like Agatha, had presented with one crucial flaw that had weighed terribly much against her. She had been powerful and out of the norm. She had been a woman who could have leveled worlds and who could have raised them from perdition and she had been hurt. Wanda had been dangerous. Agatha had been dangerous. And both of them had lost every single thing they had ever loved to the world at large. Nicholas sighed. He did have a lot in common with Tommy and he had to be there for the young boy currently looking at him through those very blond bangs of his.„I think Wanda was exactly as you remember her, Tommy. Exactly like that. Loving. Warm. Careful with you and so attentive. I think Wanda was your mother first and the Scarlet Witch last. I think your mother was Wanda and not the Scarlet Witch. I think... I think she did everything that she could have done in the situation that she had found herself in and I think she protected you and your brother and your father’s memory the only way that she saw fit. I think she loved you, Tommy. And I think you should stop reading all that you can find about her on the Internet and just focus on what you remember of her.”, Nicholas said, voice gentle and low and, he hoped, soothing and caring. Tommy didn’t need stern and hard right then and there. Tommy needed a big brother and Nicholas was the only one that Tommy had. His fingers covered the speedster’s hand as Tommy’s eyes met his own and the teenager chewed on his lip. Anxiety. Tommy was anxious and scared. Or. No. Not scared. Definitely anxious. Definitely. „Hey. Tommy. Tell me what’s wrong. I can’t help you fix it and I can’t prepare for what’s coming if you don’t tell me what’s wrong. Tell me what happened, Tommy.”„I... I. I have no idea how my body works because this isn’t my body. This isn’t who I’m supposed to be. This isn’t what I’m supposed to be. My soul, it doesn’t fit in this body, Jules. It doesn’t. I feel different on the inside than I am on the outside and I feel like I’m wrong for wanting to build myself a body from scratch. One that would belong only to me. One in which I could run. One in which I could know what all the functionalities are and one in which I wouldn’t hate seeing in a mirror.”, the speedster whispered and Nicholas froze. He hadn’t considered that. He hadn’t considered how alien a body that hadn’t been built for those specific powers of Tommy’s might feel to the youngest Maximoff. He should have thought about it. He should have. He should have because he was feeling Jules’ body being not quite right for him either, his soul stretching and pulling at the bones and sinew and muscle and tissue of a mortal’s vessel. He felt it. But it didn’t matter that much to him because he was older and probably wiser and because he just didn’t feel the need to take a certain form. He was the son of Death. He had no form, so one form over another, for him it didn’t truly matter. But. For Tommy, his body mattered. And Nicholas hadn’t noticed. Fuck. „I cut my hair and dyed it blond. And it felt better for a while. It felt like it could look silver in some lights. And it felt like silver was the colour it was supposed to be. I look at my eyes and I see them dark red. Except that they’re not. And I don’t think they’re supposed to be anything but dark red. I feel short. I feel like my soul doesn’t fucking fit into this body. I feel like being out of this body would be better for me. I don’t want to be untethered. I don’t. I want a body. But not this one. I can’t stand being in this one. I need us to find Billy and I need Billy to give me the body I should have. Build me one out of our mother’s powers and our father’s circuitry. I don’t care, Jules. I don’t. I just can’t run from my own image in the mirror anymore. I can’t. So you see, it’s the person in the mirror that has gotten me spooked. There’s no big, magical reason for me wanting us to go. It’s just me. Just fucking me.”
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„Nicholas. My name. It’s Nicholas.”, he replied and Tommy’s eyes widened, a grin blooming over the young man’s face. No. The teenager’s face. Nicholas might have been born back when the ripe age of sixteen and some change made one a young man and ready for marriage and for having his own home and a new life away from one’s family, but that wasn’t true anymore. And it was right. He valued that. He liked that society had evolved in the way of allowing children the space to be children and teenagers the space to discover the world and form themselves and have their troubles and their breaking downs and their issues in a safer space than before. He liked that people talked about things nowadays instead of shoving them away, though people had talked about things when he’d been young too. And children had been children back then too, though sometimes burdened by chores that they would not have in modern times. Alas. Not the moment for a trip down memory lane for sure. But. But he did like Tommy’s look of mischievous glee and the way that lit up the speedster’s face. It made the teenager look lighter. It was good. Lighter for a second was better than not lighter at all. His fingers tightened around Tommy’s hand as he continued speaking, after thinking on his words for a moment. A long moment. It didn’t feel like he could screw up the conversation at hand. „Tommy. Yes. I understand. And we will... I will look for Billy tonight. I will look for him after the party tonight. I will. I promise. Leave everything to me. I won’t let you deal with this alone, okay? Just let’s go to this party tonight and let mom and dad enjoy it with their kids. Yes. We’re not their kids. And yes, my mother is Agatha and your mother is Wanda and they were definitely not fucking buddies at all, but me and you, Tommy, we don’t have any bad blood outside of you being an incredibly annoying and angsty young brother. Sibling? Are we thinking about a change in gender identity as well or just a new body and. Why are you snickering? That’s rude. Tommy.”„You are so fucking awkward, dude. I don’t even know how on earth you managed to sleep your way through this place and the next three towns over. I can’t imagine. You must have more game than what you normally display because smooth isn’t your thing, is it?”, Tommy snorted, but didn’t let go of Nicholas’ hand. Not for a moment. And not even a second later, the teenager was seriously studying him and nodding quietly, chewing down on his lower lip and Nicholas was trying his very best to not start throwing pronouns at the kid for him or her or they or whatever else was out there to choose from. Except that Tommy didn’t seem uneasy with being a boy and presenting as a boy, Nicholas didn’t think so. But what did he know and he definitely didn’t have any right to have an opinion on that. Absolutely not. It would all be Tommy and Tommy alone and he would definitely only nod along and... „No, I’m good with being a boy. Definitely good. I did think on that as well, honestly. When I-i first figured out why I was so fucking angry at everything and at everyone, I did think on that too. What if Tommy. What if Tommy, the way that Wanda envisioned me, what if I wasn’t a boy? Or what if. I don’t know. But no. I don’t care what Wanda thought to make me as, I am definitely keeping with being who I have been for the past several years. Just not in this body. It’s this particular body that’s frustrating me and making me want to crawl out of my skin, not my cock. Was that too crude? Your nose was twitching. Also, what do you mean you’re going to take care of finding Billy after the party tonight? Nicholas.”Nicholas stood up and walked to the bay windows that faced the ocean and that would be absolutely no help in case of a catastrophic hurricane coming their way or if the water levels rose dramatically. Or if they had a rogue tsunami. Or. A thousand other scenarios. A thousand. And one. He’d run all of them through his head at least a hundred or so times over the last half a decade and he’d always shuddered at the thought of having to reveal himself to Martina and James in order to... To what, Nicholas?, his mind mocked him silently. He was the son of Death and he had not touched death in a while. Sure, he had some of Agatha’s innate magic, but he was underpowered at best and useless at worst because he had to feed. And he’d not done so intentionally lately. He was old. He didn’t have the same needs as his six year old self had had. He didn’t have to feed almost monthly and he didn’t have to have a coven of witches to feed from at one moment. But he had to feed still and he’d done so on the low. Because. Well. Because their little town had a lot of older people, well over the age of retirement and even more people who fished out into the open ocean and people died. He hadn’t caused any deaths or accelerated them in any way, but he had fed off them and he had worked tirelessly to providing a safe space for those at the very end of their lives to come to spend their last days in their little town.Safe Heaven he’d named the palliative care center that he had advocated for and actually gotten the local administration to open, fully sponsored by the Stark Foundation because of Nicholas’ special ability to sell a story and encourage a mortal over email and social media to give the center money. Oh. It had been a triumph for their local community and it had created jobs and it had brought specialists to care for the patients and it had brought death close enough for him not to starve. And it had turned Jules into a local celebrity that would have a guaranteed job at Safe Heaven once he graduated from college with his Physical Therapy diploma.It would have been a nice life, Nicholas mused. Quiet. Calm. Away from being the son of Death or the son of the Witch Killer for a while. Eighty years seemed like a good respite. It really did. He could have graduated from college, which he actually had thoroughly enjoyed, even if it was just a small community college about fifty miles down the highway, where he drove to and from every day. He hadn’t gotten an apartment there, in that little college town because... Well, frankly, because he hadn’t wanted to leave Tommy alone with Martina and James. Nicholas sighed. Not because Tommy was dangerous and definitely not because their loving, caring and absolutely devoted borrowed parents were going to be any sort of trouble, but because Nicholas felt fucking responsible for the kid. Billy had been calling for Tommy, not for him. He was a hundred percent sure of the fact that either Agatha hadn’t told the young man that had been casting the tracking spell that she was also wishing for someone to return or. Or.Or Agatha herself hadn’t known how fresh and how alive her love for Nicholas still was. And would always be. So that, well, that had brought Nicholas along for the ride with Tommy and then Nicholas had put himself in charge of their journey to find bodies that they could inhabit and then they had found themselves going through life together. As siblings. And he cared for Tommy much more than he’d imagined he would, even as he had not lied when he’d told the kid that he truly found the speedster annoying as fuck. But. Annoying or not, Tommy was his baby brother from another mother and he would not let the teenager hurt for more time than necessary because he had simply wanted to let Billy come to them. That had been the original plan. He had shielded himself from Agatha and Rio’s sights and he had shielded Tommy from Lady Death. But what he hadn’t done was shield the speedster from his witch brother, hoping that Billy would be able and interested in tracking Tommy and that Nicholas would finally be able to lay eyes on the actual person that had enough power to call the son of Death down into a body.And haunt his dreams. That last part, he hadn’t mentioned to Tommy. Ever. He also didn’t plan to mention it to anybody, quite honestly. What could he have told anyone who asked about what he dreamt late at night, when his eyes closed and his mind drifted? What? That he saw the fair, pale skin of an inner wrist give way for the pulsing vein to throb there as the owner of that wrist moaned in his ear? That he felt like he had tasted those plush lips and that they had tasted like honeyed wine, parting for his tongue and letting out a low sigh of desire? That he had felt those eyes, dark and lined with thick and elegant kohl, trace every single part of his body and look satisfied? Of course, those dreams were definitely a thing of the past year and the fact that he had been able to speak to Billy in his dreams was something even more recent than that, but. Still. He didn’t want to tell anyone that, not even Tommy. Especially not Tommy. Especially not since he had been wondering lately if... If it was only his own imagination that was making him be so hot under the collar for Tommy’s older brother, currently a twenty or twenty one year old and definitely a lot more powerful than four years ago. Nicholas wondered if the connection he felt to Billy ran both ways and if that was why the dreams were so intense. He wondered if Billy woke up shivering and moaning and fisting his own cock like he did and he wondered if Billy had accidentally called someone Nicholas while having sex with them? Like Nicholas had called a guy from school a few weeks ago right as he came. That had been a bit of a bad choice from his part, but he had truly not done it on purpose and it had been a very good orgasm and an honest mistake. Ryan wasn’t talking to him anymore though, which Nicholas felt like it was fair. He sighed.„I. I feel like you should know what our options are for calling your brother and what they involve. Because it’s a lot about you and really not about me, so you should know and we can make the choice that best suits both of our sets of morals, okay? I’m not saying this to make you feel guilty about anything, but rather the opposite. Because. Well. Because I know what it’s like for others to keep essential details of your own existence away from you and shove things that you didn’t want on you. For your own good and all that, but still.”, Nicholas explained, turning to face Tommy, the kid bouncing off the couch the moment he had started speaking again. A door opened and closed upstairs, Martina coming down into the hallway looking beautiful in an autumn dress that fell down to her knees. She looked like Jules. Well, no. Jules had looked like her. Because no matter how much both Nicholas and Tommy had tried to inhabit mortal bodies inconspicuously, there really wasn’t any way for them to be anything but unnaturally graceful, with almost glowing eyes in the right or the wrong light. It just wasn’t possible for them to appear completely human and Nicholas could tell that their parents could tell. Yet. Yet the charade continued unimpended for one more year. He smiled. Martina smiled back. Nicholas knew something that Martina didn’t. Not yet. But she would find out soon enough, he supposed, his senses zeroing in on the fluttering heartbeat that came from the woman’s midsection. Martina was pregnant. Twins. The Green Witch had smiled down on Martina once more. It was to be a blessing for the Maxwells. And a little nudge for him, he assumed. „Mom, you look stunning. I told you that dress would be gorgeous on you. And with those earrings. Absolutely beautiful. Dad will be even more smitten than usual.”Martina blushed and touted something or another at the two of them, pointing out how they only had less than an hour to get to the other side of the town and to the banquet hall. It was to be a theme party and they had needed to hold it indoors because it was October. At the ocean side. It was cold. It was wet. It was windy. There were still fishing boats coming and going and the banquet hall was, most usefully for him that night, only two streets away from the palliative care center. He would need... He would need to feed. He would need to break his own moral code in order to get enough power to actively search for Billy without connecting to Rio once more. And without causing any sort of cataclysmic event. A tsunami swiping the coast would help with his hunger, but it would also not help with the whole keeping away from Rio’s sight thing he had going on. There had been no reapers coming to Slate, his little town on the coast, for the past four years. According to Death herself, there had been no souls to collect. At all. Of course there had been no souls to collect. Nicholas had collected them himself. To feed. Sure, it might look odd to one record keeper or another, but a single human settlement of less than two hundred people not having need for a reaper at all for a decade or so wasn’t unheard of. Not completely. He’d not fed in the larger towns and the city a hundred or so miles away from them. Not there. But Slate was his territory and he had never killed in it. He didn’t want to. He didn’t want to kill where he was supposed to soothe and befriend and love and have some peace. He would have to, though. He would have to if he wanted to help Tommy. Maybe not in Slate. But he would.„We’ll see you in a bit, Mom. Yes, I promise I’ll be there and that I won’t be mad at everyone all night.”, Tommy muttered, kissing her cheeks and walking her to the door much more patiently than the teenager had done anything that afternoon. Oh, the kid was going to miss Martina. And James. And Nicholas didn’t actually think that Tommy wanted to give up on the only parents that had helped raise him since he’d gotten a body all for himself. No. Tommy just wanted to feel good and right in his own skin, which was fair and true and important and Nicholas could and would help with that. The front door of the Maxwells’ house shut quietly and the speedster was right in front of him between a blink and the next. Blood was pouring out of Chris’ nose. The bodies they inhabited truly weren’t made for their powers. He didn’t know exactly how had Billy made his own borrowed flesh last for so long and work so well for him, but Nicholas would have bet his left pinkie that it had to do with the reality bending and creating powers that the young man had. To spare. Tommy’s clever and luminous blue eyes locked onto his and he smiled, but kept quiet. And counted down from ten. Nine. „Tell me what our options are, stop playing coy and mysterious and older than sliced bread. Come on. Tell me, Nickle bunny.”„Do not make me regret telling you my actual name, Tommy. Also, that is nonsensical, I am not playing at being older than commercially sliced bread. I am older than commercially sliced bread.”, he grinned and sat back down on the couch, giving Tommy a wave and the permission that the youth hadn’t actually asked for to leave Chris’ body and relax. Maybe zoom around the room. Or the house. Or the town. Or up and down the coast in the period it took for Nicholas to pour himself some freshly squeezed orange juice from the pitcher than his... Well, that Martina always kept on the table when they were supposed to come back late from somewhere. She said that lukewarm orange juice helped with everything, including nausea or an overful belly. Nicholas was iffy on the idea, but didn’t mind the little quirk. And pouring him and Tommy a glass of orange juice helped settle his mind. A breeze moved past him as the teenager’s limp body was inhabited by a soul once more, making him smile and offer the other glass to his baby brother. Who took it, drank it and then shoved it on the table. Missing the coaster by a mile. And wiping his hands on his pants. Nicholas sighed, but didn’t react further. He knew Tommy enjoyed poking at him. „Now that you’ve gotten that afternoon run out of your system, let me explain what our options are, as I’ve offered to tell you and as you’ve agreed to hearing. And understanding. In order for me to try and look for Billy without bringing my Mama down on us, thus bringing Death anywhere close to our souls which are really not supposed to be on this plain of existence, I need to juice up. I don’t cast spells like a regular witch and you don’t seem to have any actionable magic at all, so we can’t really settle for whatever little telekinesis I can do and your innate connection to Billy to pinpoint his location. Though. We haven’t actually tried it, if I’m being honest. We could try. Tonight. And if it doesn’t work, I. I will go have a chat with some of the patients from Safe Heaven and. And, if they’re willing and if they would like an alternative that might be far faster and definitely without any pain, I could help them along. I’m not starving, since I visit there almost every day and a lot of the people there know or suspect who I am or, better put, what I can do. But I also don’t want to kill someone for you without your knowledge. And it wouldn’t be completely selfless either. I also want to find Billy, but I might have taken the more scenic route there. Tommy. I will not kill anyone unwilling or ready to die. And I have killed before, of course. I am the son of Death. But I don’t want to be Agatha, with her killing to feed me, yet always keeping me in the dark about what she was doing. I need power. This is how I get it as ethically just as I can think of.”
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Tommy hadn’t said no to his sole solution to gathering strength while staying out of Rio’s sight at the same time, but the speedster hadn’t also offered him an enthusiastic yes. Nicholas could understand, or so he assumed, what the train of thought had been for the kid in giving him the resolute maybe, but we try the scrying first thing that his baby brother chose as an answer. Billy was Tommy’s twin, so their bond should have been intense and powerful and primal enough for Tommy to feel his sibling’s whereabouts even when taking into account the fact that the speedster had zero magic. Zero. Minus magic. Nicholas didn’t understand exactly how Wanda had done that and how had she managed to portion out the abilities that the twins would inherit from each of their parents, but. But then he remembered that it wasn’t Vision that was the super fast one in the family and that there had not been a second parent in that mix other than spiritually and that Wanda had simply modelled the twins off herself and her own twin. Which, in any case, should have helped in replicating the same bond that Wanda had had with her brother in her boys.It should have helped. And it had, truly. Billy had been able to find Tommy’s wandering soul and pull it into a body. Sure, the young witch had done so without much finesse or anything else, truthfully, but raw power, but Billy had found Tommy. Once. Logic dictated that Billy would find Tommy once more and with that, find Nicholas, whom Billy was also definitely connected to. In a different way than Billy was connected to Tommy, obviously, but Nicholas... Well, Nicholas wasn’t into lying to himself and had never been. Billy wasn’t an incubus. No. Billy wasn’t drawing power from turning every single one of Nicholas’ nights for the past year into a sexual and sensual frenesy. No. Billy was expending power to reach him and to be with him and they hadn’t talked much until the very last few months. Since the night after he’d driven Tommy to get his hair professionally bleached and dyed, actually. That couldn’t have been a coincidence. Nothing that had been happening outside of the very first moment when he’d been hooked by Billy’s power had been a fucking coincidence. Nothing.He snorted quietly to himself as he kissed yet another matronly cheek for what had to be the fiftieth time that night. There truly were not that many people living in Slate, but the Maxwell brothers were local celebrities and considered a bit of a living miracle after their second coming four years ago, Jules rising from the waves with Chris’ limp, but alive body in his arms. Nicholas thought he might have overdone that, quite honestly. It was too late to change anything about how Tommy and him had arrived in town, though. Quite late. Quite, quite late. So. Well. That had left him and his baby, sweet angel of a brother doing the ball or celebration or whatever the fuck the whole party was for the past three Octobers. Because they were holy around Slate and the little fishing towns near it, everyone coming to see them and touch them at one point or another. It annoyed Nicholas and it was beyond overwhelming for Tommy. He knew that. Their parents knew that. Tommy had told them all multiple times and they had still refused to let the teenager not attend. Nicholas had been furious with both Martina and James the year before after he had spent two hours looking for Tommy, only to find the kid desperately trying to escape the clutches of yet another gaggle of almost worshippers, all of them old sailors and their wives and all of them trying to bask in the presence of one of those rare ones that the ocean had sent back to them. Martina had apologised profusely after the fact and James had grunted a low, but truthful sorry, champ. Tommy had forgiven them easily. Nicholas had not. But. But Nicholas also knew that, up to a point, their borrowed parents also thought of them both as holy and precious and they got a night a year to share their good fortune with others who didn’t have it or, perhaps, would like to have it. Still. He had not lost sight of Tommy that evening yet and they were a good two hours into the party. One more hour and they would be able to slip away into the back of the banquet hall, lock themselves into one of the empty offices and try and scry for Billy.When that would fail and Nicholas did know that it would fail... Or so he assumed, of course, he would need to go to his and Tommy’s plan B. He couldn’t see the palliative care center from where he was standing in front of the large windows of the hall, but he didn’t need to see it. Far from it. So far. He could feel it. Life was slowly pouring out of it and his senses were drawn to it. Life and pain and suffering, but also a sort of peace that came to mortals only when they had managed to find understanding in death. Death was not the enemy of life. No. It was its natural companion. As Rio would put it, death was there for life to be rejuvenated and life was there for death to know that it had something to look forward to. Pretty codependent, the two notions were and, in the end, governed by the same entity. His Mama. And whoever could make life out there, which was also supposed to be only a handful of supernaturals. And Wanda Maximoff. And her son. Billy. Nicholas’ lips twitched at only the thought of Tommy’s older brother. Oh, he could almost taste Billy on his tongue as he sipped the sadly too dry and too warm bubbly wine that was being served around the party. He could almost smell the witch and he could almost hear Billy’s gasps in his ears. It was like Billy was near. Somewhere near them. Somewhere near him.But that wasn’t true. He didn’t think so, at least. Nicholas might not have had a lot of power, especially not without feeding and definitely not without cutting off both of his seals because, as always, a witch’s strenght was derived from their community and their ancestors, scores upon scores upon scores of souls mixing and matching to grant one single individual the ability to call down rain to water some crops. Or the son of Death into a body. But, still, even without access to his ancestors and to his lineage, he did have a bit of magic, enough that he could do some basic spells and enough that he would be able to feel a witch as powerful as Billy fucking Maximoff coming anywhere near him.
In him, well. In him, Billy had already come.
Nicholas giggled into his sparkly wine and decidedly not floated closer to Tommy’s side. His eyes met his little brother’s from across the room and the speedster shook his head. Annoyed, but not scared or sad like the year before. A pass around the banquet hall would be more than appreciated by everyone, he knew. His pass. Tommy was more abrasive and less inclined to be fawned over and Nicholas couldn’t blame him for that. Actually, he didn’t want Tommy to have to go through any of that anymore. Worshipping a couple of boys who’d swam out of the waves wasn’t something that should have happened with the two of them present, but alas. They were... Living saints, perhaps. Living favourites of the ocean for sure. Definitely liars. Both him and Tommy, though he’d been the one to convert the speedster into a lying liar that lied. Absolutely. He didn’t regret that at all, except in the moments when he did regret it, which was a lot of the time. Nicholas sighed and wished, desperately and almost permanently by that point, to be more...More like someone else. He had wanted, for a very long time, to be more like Agatha. But Agatha was hurt and alone and so pained that she had taken to ripping power from other witches rather than having a coven to help her keep herself juiced up. And Agatha was so lost in her grief that she had chosen to remain on the plain that had brought so much harm to her rather than come face Nicholas in Rio’s domain. Oh, he knew about that. He had felt that happening and he had also seen that happening in Billy’s memories. Billy had told him the story of how Agatha had sacrificed herself for him and Nicholas. Well. Nicholas had not believed the young witch at first. But then Billy had shown him and Billy had fucked him through the memory and there was definitely a kink there that might need further exploring. But Billy had lived through an encounter with Death, helped by Agatha battering her life for his. Agatha had died to save Wanda’s son. Agatha had died to save a son. Not her own. Agatha hadn’t been able to save her own son. No. But Agatha had saved Billy.And Nicholas was more than grateful for that. His eyes slid closed as soon as he reached the opposite end of the banquet hall, his mind blanking entirely on what he had said to anyone and everyone on the way there. He simply didn’t remember any single fucking face or any of the words that had to have come out of his mouth. Nobody seemed cross with him. Martina and James were dancing in the middle of the ring, wrapped around each other, their love for one another shining around them as much as it always did. The twins that Martina was carrying, they were a gift, Nicholas knew. He had been under no impression that Rio couldn’t track him down if she so wished to, but she had seemed to grant him his impromptu leave of absence quite gracefully. One could hide from Death, yes, but Death always knew how to find one if need be. It was just... It was just that he had not expected the poke that Rio would give him when the time came for him to move on from being Jules to be so wholesome. Two kids for two kids. Not a deal any parent would make, he didn’t think so, but Rio had different ideas about parenthood and he couldn’t truly fight her on life or death matters. Not if he didn’t want to truly fight her. Still. It wasn’t a call for him to return to her side, just a little nudge that indicated that he had to move on.
Get a leg up in the world. Stop sucking up all the souls that the palliative care center provided for Rio. Find a new place, with new people and maybe find Agatha. Which meant finding Billy.
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„You seem to be in need of company and of more alcohol than that.”, a voice came from his side and Nicholas didn’t bite at the hand that slid between his shirt and the swell of his ass. Underneath his suit pants. Ryan. A drunk Ryan even. He had called Ryan by Billy’s name a while back and they hadn’t spoken since, so Nicholas felt a little entitled to being absolutely startled by having his ex’s fingers fondling his ass. In the middle of a banquet hall. In front of over two hundred and fifty guests. Including his parents. Well. Jules’ parents. And Tommy, who was studying them both carefully and in askance. Nicholas felt a swell of warmth move through him as the speedster didn’t drop his gaze until he nodded firmly, twisting in Ryan’s arms and gently shoving the other man away. Not too far. There was a wall behind Ryan and he wasn’t too steady on his feet. A glass on vodka in the hand that hadn’t been in Nicholas’ pants was probably the culprit for the latter. The groping, though, that felt new. And he was getting glared at. „What? You don’t want to call me Billy anymore? Maybe now you want to call me Ryan? Or whoever else you’re fucking that is not me?”„Ryan, I want to apologise for that. For... For calling you Billy. I’m sorry, that was wrong of me. And it was wrong of me to get to that point, where I called you by another man’s name while we were having sex. Very good sex. Definitely so.”, Nicholas said, his mouth suddenly drying out as he felt eyes on him. Eyes. Tracking his movements. Eyes. He knew that feeling and he knew those eyes. But he couldn’t spot any sort of magical signatures around him. Tommy was practically magically non existent, but the teenager had been born of pure magic, so there was the faintest spike of something coming from the speedster and Nicholas was using that as a baseline. If he could feel Tommy, he could feel every single other magical signature out there that was stronger than Tommy’s. Billy’s would have had to be through the fucking roof of the fucking world. Even cloaked, he didn’t think he couldn’t have picked on the man that had been haunting his every single sleeping hour for the past year, both of them naked and panting in each other’s mouths and moaning for the other to move, please, faster, do it, yes, come, yes.He blinked. Ryan was scoffing at him. He knew why. He had apologised for calling him Billy, not for calling Billy’s name. But it was true. It had been the first time he’d allowed himself to gasp Billy’s name out loud when wracked with pleasure. And he didn’t regret it. He didn’t regret Ryan either, his college study buddy who’d found out that he liked men just as much as women because Nicholas had looked pretty in the light of a low hanging lamp. Ryan was fine. Ryan was fun. Ryan had taken to not being straight as easily as the older than Jules by two whole days man had taken to the study of anatomy, which even Nicholas had to admit that Ryan was superb at. Ryan would make a lovely PT for some very rich people in a very distant part of the country, spending his probably exorbitant salary on what he truly enjoyed in life, which were rare special editions of current best sellers. Ryan would have made Jules very, very, very happy. And Jules would have loved Ryan and they would have been okay. At least for a while.But Nicholas wasn’t Jules, no matter how much he preached integration to Tommy. His smile had sharp edges and his hands were used to having claws and his face felt too full where there should not have been any skin there, but only bone or black mist. His hair was short and soft where it should have been long and flowing and pitch black and his eyes were a pale green when they should have been darker than Billy’s and reflecting the endless galaxies out there. Nicholas wasn’t Jules and Nicholas wasn’t for Ryan. He had slept with Ryan. He could even honestly say that he had been in a relationship with Ryan. They had had fun. He should have made it clear to the other man that he wasn’t looking for a husband, but rather a fling. But that would have not been what Jules would have done, so he’d kept quiet and Ryan had fallen hard and fast and Nicholas wasn’t sure who exactly for. A dead boy or the man currently parading his body around, playing at being Jules. And suddenly, Nicholas felt Tommy’s pain and suffering and understood it intimately. They weren’t these people. They needed to find their people.„You’re not even going to try to explain who Billy is and how he’s a guy on Instagram or something? You really aren’t. Fuck me. This was stupid of me. And you are an asshole and I don’t know what the fuck I should say to you right now.”, Ryan exhaled angrily and Nicholas didn’t try to appease him. There was no point. None whatsoever. The other man tried to reach for him one more time and that, that he denied Ryan by taking a step back and catching his ex lover’s hands in his free one. For a second, there was just them, their eyes locked together and Nicholas wished... Wished he could have been Jules. Wished he could have opened his mouth and asked for forgiveness instead of offering a truthful, if bland apology. Wished he could have leaned in and kissed Ryan and not have compared that kiss to the ones that still lingered on his lips from the night before, the ones that Billy had left there right as they had both fallen asleep. But wishes weren’t horses and they couldn’t run. No. Wishes stayed and grew and turned and were happy or sad or angry or fierce and sometimes they changed. But not always.„You should tell me goodbye, Ryan. And you should go sober up, finish the semester early, as you’d always wanted and as you have the credits already for, then get the hell out of this side of the country and go towards the sun and the crystal clear beaches and the money.”, he offered, prying the vodka glass from Ryan’s trembling hand.Nicholas didn’t have anything more to offer the other man and he didn’t want to drag their postponed break up any longer. He didn’t want to. He didn’t need to. Not when he had woken up that morning with dried cum on his back. He had dreamt of Billy being there with him the night before and he had dreamt of being taken from behind and he had dreamt of Billy pulling out of him and coming on his lower back. He’d dreamt that a hundred times before, always of variation of being with the witch and being so fucking hot for Billy and Billy for him and then spending the hours between the moment in which they had finally exhausted themselves and the dawn looking at one another and caressing one another. Lately, they had been talking. For ages. About everything. About anything. But he had never woken up with any physical remnants of their lovemaking before. Not any that didn’t belong to him. He had that morning. He shivered. Billy was close. But how close, that was the true question of the evening, wasn’t it?
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„Man, if I have to make sure that no one cuts off parts of my clothes or of my hair when I’m not looking one more fucking time, I will fucking scream. Loudly. And then I will go run and not return to this body and they can all fucking mummify it and pray to it or whatever the fuck it is that they all want to do. It’s creepy, Nicky bear. It’s fucking creepy. Even you have to admit that it’s creepy. Though I suppose you’re used to worship? There are people and cults and religions that honour Death, no?”, Tommy whined, dropping down onto the ratty couch that one of the banquet hall backrooms was in possession of and completely avoiding the mysteriously stained armchair that Nicholas had not been aiming for. The kid was good at getting out of every single thing that didn’t suit Tommy’s personal preferences at any given and specific moment in time and he could admire that. Even if it meant that he had to gingerly sit on the very edge of that armchair, cursing himself for not picking up a suit jacket or something from the crowd outside to sit on. He didn’t want to sacrifice his own. But. Well. The scrying might take a while. Or not. Nicholas was far from convinced that they could find Billy. On the other hand, he had washed off Billy’s cum from his lower back that morning, while also feeling the fucking he had taken and seeing the indent of the witch’s head on his pillow. He had bruises on his hips that could only come from Billy’s fingers and he had a bite on his shoulder that was definitely made by Billy’s teeth. They might not be able to find Billy, but Billy didn’t seem to have any problem in finding him. Or so he hoped. „Yo, Earth to Nicky bear. We doing this seance or not? Cara’s waiting for me for like half an hour, but then she’s splitting with her parents and I want to catch a ride with them. See if I can sneak back into her room after her folks have gone to bed and all.”„You know, leaving this body means leaving Cara behind too. Or do you intend on telling her who you really are and what we’re planning on doing? That might be... Unwise.”, Nicholas offered, pulling out a carefully folded map of the world and spreading it easily across the table. Just like the room itself, the couch and the armchair, the table had also seen much, much better days, though none of the furniture was of any significant high quality. It didn’t really matter for the purpose of their devious encounter, but still.There was a spring poking his left ass cheek and it was annoying him. Tommy shrugged and looked down, but not to the side. The kid wasn’t feeling guilty and didn’t look like he’d been caught with his hands in the cookie jar, so Tommy hadn’t told his girlfriend anything. Yet. That was good. He didn’t need Cara, who was a sweet girl and the high school principal’s daughter, caught in whatever shit show them bringing Billy to them might cause. Or him powering up and then pulling Billy to Slate. Billy was a magical powerhouse of the likes that the world hadn’t seen since Wanda had died. And the world didn’t really have a way to understand how Universe shattering Billy’s powers were because the fucking world had understood nothing of Wanda either. Nicholas was angry about how people had treated Wanda. About how his own mother had treated Wanda. About how Stephen Strange had treated Wanda. About how the Avengers themselves had treated Wanda. Nicholas was angry about how Wanda, while the architect of her own demise, had been pushed into it and forced to be the villain in a story where she had been born to be... Herself. Nicholas was angry about how Wanda’s survival had made people mad. Big mad. Wanda had been nice and dandy and sweet while she had stuck to her destiny of being a fucking martyr and the perfect face of a character redemption arc for the ages, but when she had dared to want something for herself. Well. But Nicholas would not let the same thing happen to Billy. Nor to Tommy.„And this isn’t a seance. We’re not trying to talk to the dead, Tommy. Talking to the dead is easy. It’s the easiest thing in the world, actually. You can just pick any spot around you and start talking. I can promise you that a spirit will be listening intently. Talking to the dead is child’s play.”, he continued, shrugging as Tommy grimaced. It was the truth. There were dead with unfinished business everywhere, his Mama’s realm accessible to them at all times. A one way trip, sure, but a voluntary one. Death could take unwilling souls, but she often did not. There was no point and no need. Most, if not virtually all the souls out there, knew when their time was up and didn’t fight the natural course of things. Some might be upset. Some might be angry. But they didn’t truly fight Rio and her reapers. If they wanted to cross that was. If they didn’t, well. If they didn’t, they stayed there, on the plain that they were originally from, as spectres. Ghosts. Spirits. There were a couple in the banquet hall that evening and one of them had even tried to follow him around like a lovesick puppy. It was kind of cute and kind of endearing and kind of unnecessary, quite frankly, so he’d made sure that the room they were in was guarded against any hauntings. From the dead. „Talking to the living, that’s the big bad of the world, isn’t it? We need to find the living. We need to make them listen to us. And we need to get them to understand the words coming out of our mouths. And those things don’t often happen at the same time, do they? Then we need to wait for their response and then we need to talk again and the cycle is never ending. Before you try to nitpick that, ghost can lie. To you. They cannot lie to me. So yes, talking to the living is far more difficult for me than talking to the dead. And you can’t even see the dead, so. For you, the point is moot.”„I can find Cara again once I’m... More myself. Or myself in general. She loves me. She will love me in whatever form I take. I know it.”, the teenager replied evenly and didn’t meet Nicholas’ eyes.It wasn’t like Nicholas knew what to tell the kid. He didn’t think that it was true, what Tommy had just said about Cara and about how she would love him through whatever would come, but he was also four hundred years old and jaded. And he had no ground to stand on when it came to relationships, since he’d only had people he slept with here and there and then he’d spent the past couple of years having dream sex with Tommy’s older brother. Falling for Billy too, hard and slow and deep and Nicholas shook his head. That was not the point. Tommy knew Cara better than he did. So. If Tommy thought that Cara would be interested in her boyfriend even when Tommy wouldn’t look and be Chris Maxwell anymore, then Tommy had every right to believe that. And Tommy might as well be right. Nicholas was simply old and somewhat cynical. Somewhat of a fool too, probably.„Well then, if that is settled for you, let’s try this out. I have a map of the world, as you can see here. I wanted to bring a map of the North America, but it seemed presumptuous to assume that your brother would be here, on the same continent as us.”, Nicholas explained, but offered nothing more than that. It would have been terribly awkward for him to add that he knew for a fucking fact that Billy smelled of cold every time he came to Nicholas’ bed. Cold. Cold like the northernmost parts of their world. Cold like the northern lights. „Or maybe only in the same country as us. Who knows. And, frankly, who cares. If we can find him, we can get to him. Or he can get to us, better put. Because any witch worth their salt would know when they had been tracked down by scrying and I assume you, with your blood connection to him, would be the only one able to pierce through whatever protection spells he might have on. So. Give me your hands. I need a drop of your blood and then you just need to reach out for Billy with everything that you have, okay? We both grasp this five dollar crystal that I totally didn’t fish out of Martina’s jewellery box and we hope that my whisper of magic and your bond to Billy will be enough.”
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It wouldn’t be. Nicholas felt that deeply. It wouldn’t be. If Tommy’s connection to Billy would have been enough, Billy would have shown up on their doorstep years ago. But Billy had stayed away from his baby brother almost religiously. Almost like... Oh. Almost like Billy wanted to keep any sort of attention away from Tommy. Almost like Billy wanted to give Tommy privacy and the chance of a life where Tommy wasn’t the son of the Scarlet Witch and one of the two souls that Wanda had willed into existence. Almost like Billy wanted Tommy kept safe from Rio’s gaze. Because while Agatha had sacrificed herself for Billy, who would sacrifice themselves for Tommy? Nicholas cursed. Out loud. But it was too late to stop the ritual, with Tommy already having sliced his fingertip with the edge of the orange juice glass that the teenager had been holding. An inhale. An exhale. And the speedster’s blood dropped on the crystal. Fuck. Nicholas’ hands grabbed Tommy’s and he hoped, desperately and honestly, for the first time in four years, that Billy wasn’t anywhere near them and that, if Billy felt them look for him. Well. That Billy wouldn’t come for Tommy. For him. Because while Billy knew not to come when and if Tommy found a way to reach out for him, the witch might not do the same for Nicholas’ shout through time and space.
Fuck.
For the first few moments, nothing happened. And Nicholas could breathe in relief. Nothing happened. Nothing happened. He could breathe in relief and swallow his hurt. He didn’t want Billy to come running to him if that meant that Tommy was in danger, but to not even register as a cry in the dark for the man that had spent every single night with him for the past two years? That fucking hurt. It was better if Billy didn’t answer them and it was better if Tommy could simply be persuaded to wait... The crystal moved and Tommy’s eyes, usually blue as the sky on a cloudy morning, turned silver. For just a second. But they had turned silver. The crystal moved and shivered and shuddered and their hands were pulled from left to right and then up and then down and then the map lifted off the table and so did the crystal and Nicholas wanted to scream. He did. He fucking did. Because while it was Tommy’s blood that had opened the connection to Billy, it was his bond to the witch that was causing the crystal to move. It was his heart beating out of his chest and it was his magic, the slimmest and softest mix of purple and green that was infusing the crystal.The path was in silver, in Tommy’s silver eyes and silver hair and silver blood and silver streak through time and space, but the crystal pulsed with Nicholas. With his lust. With his love, fucking fool that he had been until that very moment, falling without realising for a pair of dark, dark, dark eyes and the clever mind of a witch. His witch. His witch and he couldn’t fight the pull of the crystal anymore. He couldn’t. It shouldn’t have worked. He had so little magic and he’d not fed properly in four fucking years. It shouldn’t have worked. Except that it did. It did because he was Rio’s son and Rio had stopped death for Agatha. It worked, because he was Agatha’s son and Agatha had challenged Death herself and had won her love. It worked, because he was in love with Billy fucking Maximoff. It worked. The crystal stopped. And Tommy’s eyes widened.„He’s... But that’s. That’s close. That’s close to here. We need a better map. We need a map that’s of this area and not just a general map of the world. I’ll go look for one. Don’t. Don’t go anywhere. Don’t go anywhere. Do you think he’s coming for me? Do you think he’s finally going to come get me and that I’ll finally.”, Tommy swallowed hard as he stood up and almost sent his glass of orange juice tumbling over the map. Almost. Nicholas caught it and drank it in one go. Billy wasn’t close. Billy was there, with them, in the same fucking room and looking right at Nicholas. Billy was there and Tommy couldn’t see his brother. Or feel his brother. But Nicholas could. And Nicholas couldn’t fucking move and could barely swallow and he had fucked up. He had. Billy was there, cloaked and shielded and Billy wasn’t there alone. Oh. Oh, no. Agatha was staring at him like he’d grown yet another fucking head and Tommy was still talking because Tommy had no fucking magic at all and Tommy couldn’t fucking see the living and breathing witch that was in the room with them. Nor the dead one, quite honestly. „I’ll finally have a body of my own? If he’s coming here, I will, right? I will. Yes. I will. I’ll go get a map. And we’ll go to him if he isn’t moving. Yes. That’s a plan. Yes. I’ll go get a map.”Nicholas didn’t respond. His hands were shaking and he didn’t have enough magic to pull Billy out of the shadows that were covering the witch. He was also busy staring alternatively at both the man he was in love with and at his Mother, whom he had not seen in more than four hundred years. An inhale. An exhale. Tommy had not sped out of the room for the simple reason that he couldn’t leave his body behind. Not yet. But the teenager had left, not even shooting a single glance back at Nicholas. Obviously not. Tommy couldn’t fucking see that something was off and that someone else was in the room with them. Nicholas wanted to scream. Instead, he waited for Tommy to close the door and leaned back into his rickety armchair, suspicious stain be damned. He couldn’t stand up. His legs wouldn’t hold him, not when Billy’s eyes, those fucking eyes he’d seen only through Agatha’s own eyes at first and then only in his dreams, were tracing his every move and drinking in his every breath. He wanted to scream, but he was choking on so many feelings at once that he couldn’t do much of anything. At all. He wanted to scream, but instead... Instead, he spoke. Calmly.„He’s been waiting for you.”, his tongue felt heavy in his mouth and his fingers tightened on the glass that he was still holding until he heard it crack.Billy nodded.
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Agatha gasped and took a step forward towards him before her eyes widened and she simply... Went away. Nicholas’ lips thinned. His Mother. She’d not wanted to cross over to Rio’s domain to not face him. But she had called him down. And then she had run away from him. She was bound to Billy, though, so Nicholas himself wouldn’t need to expend any sort of power trying to track her down. Billy could simply call her back to him with a brush of a thought and the tilt of the other man’s head asked just that.„No. Let her be. By her reaction, I assume you haven’t told her that your spell from four years ago has not only brought your twin down into a body, but her son as well.”, Nicholas said plainly, forcing himself to put the glass down on the currently useless and completely pointless map, the crystal long forgotten and empty of his swirling green and purple magic. Billy’s magic was sky blue. Cold. Like the cold that Billy brought to Nicholas’ bed every night. „Are you going to hover there until Tommy comes back with a map of Slate and finds you here?”„He’s not going to find a map of Slate until I want him to.”, Billy answered and, for the first time, Nicholas heard the witch’s voice outside of his dreams. He was so fucked. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been seeing Billy naked before. Oh no. He’d seen Billy naked more than he’d seen Billy wearing anything, quite honestly. But to have Billy step out of the shadows and walk towards him, those long legs all for him to let his eyes linger and focus on and then for the young witch to then drop his entire body on the couch where his twin had been sitting on just a few minutes before... Fucking hells and all of Rio’s other lands. Nicholas was fucked. Billy was insanely gorgeous. He’d known. He’d fucking known. His tongue was stuck to the top of his mouth and his stomach was doing somersaults. Billy, the absolute fucker, seemed both completely unbothered and perfectly cool as a cucumber. Which. Which Nicholas sort of resented. „I’ve never seen your actual body. Well. No. The body that my spell dragged you into. It was disconcerting for a moment.”„What do you mean you’ve never seen my actual body? But we had sex. A lot. Oh.”, Nicholas swallowed hard and fast and choked on air and startled when Billy offered him a glass of water. Out of thin air. Of course out of thin air. Reality maker. And reality breaker. Or, better put. Reality seeker. Even Wanda, in all of her grief, had accepted the truth of what she had done in the end. Even Wanda had seeked the truth. Billy had never seen him as Jules because he’d never been Jules in their encounters. He’d been Nicholas. Oh. A corner of his mind had always whispered to him that... That Billy might not care for his actual shape if they would meet and if he would feed enough to get his own body formed and brought forth and then he would have to mask some of his traits and features, like Rio did at times. He would have been okay with that. Perhaps sad. But generally okay. But that wasn’t the case. Billy had never seen him otherwise than how he actually was. Death’s son. In his own shape. And Billy had wanted him like that. Oh.„You seem surprised. And I don’t know if I would put it as simply as we’ve had a lot of sex. We did. But I would... Maybe? Refer to what we’ve been doing lately, at least for the past year, as making love? You wouldn’t agree to that phrasing?”, the witch whispered and, for the first time since Billy had showed up in that dingy room at the back of the banquet hall, the young man seemed unsure.Nicholas didn’t like Billy unsure. Nicholas liked Billy convinced of his feelings for the witch and absolutely sure of fucking everything that they had and he had not had a single clue about how much he loved Billy until that very evening, but. But it didn’t matter, did it. It absolutely didn’t and he swore he could feel his Mama snorting, a tendril of poison ivy moving slowly towards Nicholas from the wall that led out into the gardens of the place. He might have been the guilty party in calling the ivy or it might have been Rio. Nicholas had his rune still fresh and intact on his inner thigh, the one keeping him away from Death’s sight, but he could have been tracked through other methods. As he had been. As witnessed by Martina’s pregnancy. And as witnessed by nature slowly beginning to respond to him as it had done before. His Mama was close, but not interfering, which was interesting and worrying and it made him wonder what had Billy traded for such a respite. His breath caught in his throat at the thought of that. He didn’t want Billy in any sort of relationship with Rio. Maybe a pleasant one. Perhaps. But not one that involved bartering of any sort.„You’re here. But so is Rio. And so is Agatha. Did y-you. Does she. Did you offer her something for Tommy’s soul? Is that why you’re here now? When you’ve kept away for so long? My guess. My guess was that you knew where Tommy was from the start, but that you didn’t want to draw attention to him by showing up here. And that you wanted him to grow up being a normal kid. But now you’re here. We did a simple scrying spell for you and one that, for all intents and purposes, shouldn’t have worked.”, Nicholas stood up, the glass of water joining the one that had contained orange juice on top of the map.The crystal was simply resting there, forgotten and empty and cheap looking. It had never mattered. The scrying. It had only been a conduit for catching Billy’s attention outside of the dreams the two of them had been sharing. Billy had always known where Tommy and him had been. Always. Fucking hells. He felt the other man stand up as well and move towards him. Nicholas whirled around and lifted a hand, stopping Billy from touching him. He didn’t know what he would do if Billy put his hands on the body he was currently in, the body that Billy had never touched before. But it was Nicholas inside of it. And Nicholas craved that touch. Welcomed it. Had dreamed about it for years. Had shared dreams with Billy about touching each other and... And about making love. Yes. He’d not answered Billy’s question and the witch looked even more unsure. That couldn’t stand. At all. His fingers moved almost without his accord and caught onto the young man’s wrist, the touch locking both of them to the spot. Frozen.Nicholas gasped, taking in his hand and then turning his gaze towards the armchair and cursing. His body. Jules’ body. It was there. And he was not. He had stepped out of his body and was simply himself. Like Billy knew him and like Billy wanted him and like Billy... Like he had always been when Billy had made love to him. Oh. His fingers were half skin and half smoke, the bones of his hand peeking out of everything here and there, where the skin and smoke wasn’t almost entirely covered in the most delicate of vines. Long and thin and seemingly clothing him even as he was naked, the vines had no beginning and no end and they simply rose from his body and sank into it unbidden, covering him from head to toe in greenery. Leaves. Thorns. Bones. Smoke. Skin. They covered everything and Billy’s touch cleared a path through them to what lay beneath. Skin on parts of him. Bones on others. Pure tendons and muscles in some select areas. And smoke covering most of those unskinned parts. Billy had been seeing all of that for all of the time that they had spent together and had been into him. Fully.„Yes. I agree. With what you’ve said.”, Nicholas’ own voice moved through the room. Soft. Low. Metallic. He didn’t know how to describe it otherwise.Billy smiled and blushed, the colour instantly visible all over the witch’s cheeks. His eyes travelled with the flush, tracing those high cheekbones, the corner of Billy’s lips and the tilt of that proud chin. And then lower. To Billy’s throat and then to the way the younger man swallowed, heavy and dry, underneath his gaze. To the very edge of a collarbone, the only thing visible of Billy’s upper body. Flushed. But Nicholas knew for a fucking fact how low that blush went. Low. To Billy’s chest, which wasn’t so thin anymore. He remembered the first time the witch had taken his shirt off in front of Nicholas. It had been in the dark. Billy had been unsure then too. But Nicholas hadn’t allowed that either, his lips tracing every single part of Billy that night and all the nights since. Lately, though, that chest hadn’t been that thin anymore. Nicholas had noticed and hadn’t done anything different about it. Just kept on worshipping Billy with his lips. Like he’d always done. Kept on telling Billy, in the same tone as always, how beautiful Billy was. And, for the first time, Billy had seemed to believe him. It had been a win.„You’re beautiful. Billy. You’re beautiful. I. I just wanted to say that out loud. Directly to you. Not in a dream, though... Though we weren’t really dreaming, were we? I mean, I figured out we weren’t dreaming anymore a while back, but waking up with your cum on my back this morning, that really sealed the deal.”, he snorted, running a hand over his face and exhaling. Loudly. And with so much relief that he was almost dizzy with it.Billy had known him as himself since the start of their thing and Billy had wanted him like that. Billy had fallen for him in his real shape. His eyes moved from Billy’s form to the table once more and he shook himself. Seeing Jules’ breathing body sitting in the armchair was still weird. But that wasn’t the point of Billy being there with him. It wasn’t them. It wasn’t him that Billy had kept away from, not from how the young witch was leaning towards him right that instant, Billy’s tongue wetting his lips and Billy’s eyes slipping from Nicholas’ to burn a path down his body. His form, better put. Nicholas wasn’t solid. Well, Nicholas wasn’t solid anywhere but where Billy was touching him. It was interesting and he’d expected that, quite honestly.
Reality maker.
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„You need to stop looking at me like that, though. I need to get back into Jules’ body and we have to talk about Tommy.”, Nicholas murmured, trying to gauge if he could let himself touch Billy’s cheek or not and if he had enough control and enough restraint that he might lean in for a kiss, but nothing more. He didn’t. He absolutely didn’t. And Tommy was out there, looking for a map. So was Agatha. Out there. Not looking for a map, but surely causing some sort of trouble somewhere. He closed his eyes and shook his head, tangling his fingers with Billy’s and lifting the witch’s hand to his lips for a single moment, just to let himself feel his lover like that. Awake. And face to face. An inhale. Billy’s. Sharp and fast and sweet and accompanied by a moan. An exhale. His own. Low and soothing and joined by a coo. „We talk about Tommy first. And then we talk about us. Is that okay with you, Billy?”„Nicholas.”, Billy whispered back, his name a prayer on those lips that had parted for him so many times and that had told him so many of the witch’s secrets and that had taken so many of his own in return and mouthed them back at him. Ssfekeeping, Billy had said back then and Nicholas’ name felt like the most precious of gemstones when it was spoken by the other man. He’d never felt what he was feeling for the witch right then. Never. A match. For him. For his power to end worlds. For his power to bring life anew. A match. For his love and lust for living while being the son of Death herself. For his mind, thirsty for knowledge and filled with awe about how much mortals could create in their short lifespans. A match. His match. He nodded and Billy blinked. „Yes, yes. We should talk about Tommy. And about Agatha and Rio. And about us. We should talk about us alone. For the rest, maybe we should also involve them. I would have to be talked about and not invited to sit at the same table.”„Because when you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu. I remember.”, the son of Death smiled sharply and walked back to Jules’ body, sinking into those very young bones for the second time in four years. On the same day as well. Coincidences, coincidences. He saw Billy’s eyes shutter for a second as he didn’t look like himself anymore and his heart soared delicately, Nicholas tucking that piece of information for safekeeping. With a tilt of his head, he indicated the couch from where Billy had risen. The witch smiled back and, instead of sitting back down on the frankly sorry looking piece of furniture, conjured a comfortable looking chair right next to Nicholas’. „I see that you’ve chosen chaos today. The two of us on the same side of the room. A room in which you want to bring Agatha, Rio and Tommy. The three of them together. Rio, who wants your head on a silver platter and who will definitely take your brother just to spite you. Agatha, who I’m pretty sure will not come back to face me unless you force her to. And Tommy, who’s innocent in all of this. Like you are, in all honesty.”„Maybe like I was. Innocent, I mean. It’s been a very long time since I was able to claim innocence, Nicholas.”, the witch replied and dropped into his conjured seat, tucking his long legs underneath himself and offering Nicholas a hand. Oh. That was sweet. Tommy didn’t know about them. But they weren’t a secret. Nicholas didn’t want them to be a secret. Not from Tommy. Not from Agatha and definitely not from Rio. That would be a fun, fun moment of realisation for both of his mothers and one he was willing to go through sooner rather than later. Also, putting both Rio and Agatha in the same room would definitely take some of the attention off himself, Billy and Tommy. Nicholas was under no impression than Rio was anything but still in love with Agatha and that Agatha was still angry at Rio for taking him away. Fun. He took Billy’s hand and studied the contrast between Jules’ tanned skin and the witch’s pale one. He liked it. He wouldn’t be seeing it for much longer, he assumed, but he liked it. „Yes, it looks interesting, no? My skin and Jules’. Well. My skin. This is my skin as much as Jules’ is yours. Though, technically, I did make this body my own in all the ways that mattered. Except looks wise. I didn’t really care much about changing anything with magic and I don’t remember if Wanda made us look a certain way or if that had any sort of meaning, but. Well. This body is mine. I have no desire to go through a whole life changing and soul searching thing to find myself another face. We’re sticking with this one. I think it fits me. And you think I’m beautiful.”„I do think you’re beautiful, but I believe I would think that no matter what you looked like. I think you’re... So much more than just beautiful and we don’t really have the time for me to be as vocally filled with awe about you as I am. Just know that I am. Filled with awe. And with a lot of other things. For you. And now I’m babbling. Just. Billy. Yes.”, Nicholas felt himself blush and allowed his lips to rise in a grin that Billy looked ready to kiss off his face and probably turn all the sounds coming out of his throat into moans.But.No.They had a thing to do. The night had suddenly gotten very interesting and he absolutely wanted to ignore everything and make love to Billy. It was past his usual bedtime, so it was clearly his brain and his body collaborating to get him horny and ready for the witch to visit him and he didn’t need to do that anymore. No. Billy was right fucking there and Nicholas knew that he would have the witch naked and in him by the morning. But not right that instant. He swallowed hard and shook his head, the movement sending a shiver of anticipation down his spine as Billy nodded his understanding and simply kissed his wrist in return. Well. Jules’ wrist. He wanted Billy’s touch on his own skin and bones and sinew and muscle and smoke, as it had always been. Fingertips tracing Jules’ pulsing veins made him flush and harden just fine, but it wasn’t what he craved. Not anymore. Not since he’d realised what Billy had been seeing all along had truly been him.„Understood, Nicholas. Yes. Later, but yes.”, Billy replied and grinned, those dark eyes taking in the room they were in for the first time since the witch had showed up in the shadows. And then the table. And then the map. And then the crystal. And Billy snorted, trying to control a peal of laughter, which Nicholas found both endearing and slightly rude. Mostly endearing, what with how the younger man’s shoulders shook with the effort, which made his curls bounce a little and caused his nose to scrunch up. And he was so in love that Billy could have been jumping on a pogo stick and he would have found it cute. A large hand covered Billy’s mouth, the witch’s eyes sparkling with amusement and locking with Jules’ pale green ones as the young man’s chin pointed to the table and the paraphernalia on it. „You did scry for me! I was debating with Agatha whether what I was feeling was you simply calling for me or whether you were using some sort of actual witch method to track me down. Or to summon me. Scrying for me, with a dollar store crystal. That takes power, Nicholas. A lot of it. Even with the bond we have, which is strong and real and tangible and through which you could have reached for me and I would have come to your side at once, to actually be able to make me feel your scrying and not just have it bounce off my anti tracking shields. Fuck. That takes power. And it’s hot.”„Maybe the power of l-love or something like that because I can barely lift a couch pillow, honestly. My witch magic never got much of a chance to develop and I didn’t reach puberty in this realm, so I didn’t get that burst of power that happens when the hormones just blow up and my Death magic, I cut myself out from it. I have... I have two runes on my inner thigh for that. Well, one’s for avoiding Agatha’s eyes and one’s for staying out of Rio’s sight if she feels like casually perusing the world, like she sometimes does.”, he shrugged, but did take pleasure from Billy’s compliment and from the fact that the witch found power hot. He could deliver that in spades.But it wasn’t what had made the crystal swing. Was it? He had no distinguishable well of power inside of him and he remembered Agatha vividly describing that to him when he’d been maybe five or so, how one couldn’t learn to be a witch because magic was innate and one needed that spark of power from within to pull from in order to cast. Anything. Even what Agatha was doing, which was absorbing other witches’ powers, all of that needed a place to be in. A space. He didn’t feel that space at all. He had assumed, some years after his walking away with Rio, that he would have simply not had any sort of magical prowess as a human, but that had been thoroughly disproven when he’d taken the time to build himself a body. And had been able to wield purple magic. Not much of it. Barely a whisper. But. It had come naturally to him, the magic that Agatha had. Mortal magic. He’d asked Rio about it and she had not... Not offered him much of a response about why he had been able to carry that with him through literal death and into a body that was not, for all intents and purposes, related by blood to Agatha.„As flattering as that is and as true as it really is that I would have come if you’d have simply called to me by the power of love, it wasn’t just that.”, the younger man pointed to their joined hands, letting a faint current of his own blue coloured magic rise from his fingertips. „You say that you don’t have much, if any of Agatha’s power. But I think you’re mistaken and I think your mothers, both of them at that, did exactly what Wanda did for me and Tommy. Except a bit better than what my own mother did, but I’m putting that on Rio being in a much better headspace than Wanda had been at the time of mine and Tommy’s conception. Look. I think your witch magic works exactly like Agatha’s does, except on fucking steroids, I’d venture a guess. I’ll infuse that crystal with a whisper of my magic and fling it at you. Let your instincts do the rest?”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
His instincts. He didn’t know what instincts exactly those might be, but he trusted Billy implicitly, which might not have been the smartest of choices in the long run. However, the witch had never lied to him and had cared for him from the start of their relationship and had wanted him as he was. That was still blowing his mind in a lot of ways, all of them good if he was being honest. Absolutely good. So if Billy told him to let his instincts take over, he... Did. He simply did. The witch’s smile was soft and calm and loving and Nicholas nodded, watching Billy’s magic slither around the young man’s fingers and then move towards the crystal that was simply laying there, on the map, unmoving and completely useless. A frisson passed through Nicholas. A frisson and his eyes followed the magic.Oh. The blue magic was gorgeous. Cold. It felt cold unlike his own Death magic, which felt warm. He’d never understood why mortals thought of dying as a cold and lonely experience when his own experience with it, both from when he’d been a babe and from the other side of the equation was that the death of one person was a communal thing that happened to a lot more people than just the soul that was meant to pass. It happened to the loved ones of that soul. It happened to the mortician that would get to prepare the body for embalming and burial. It happened to the religious figure that would hold any last rites over the deceased. It happened to the clerk that released the death certificate. It happened to the lawyers that took care of any last will and testament that the dead happened to leave behind.Thus.Death was a communal experience.Thus.Death was warm.His Death magic was warm. But his witch magic was cold, like Billy’s. Whatever little he could actually feel out of Agatha’s magic, in whatever body he had found himself in, it had always felt cold. Refreshing. Like an autumn breeze after a scorching summer. Like the coolness of a mountain stream. And he’d not been wrong, it seemed. Billy’s magic was cold. Cool. Refreshing. A tall glass of water. Like Billy himself was. But that might be just because he was gloriously gone for the witch. Maybe. Just a little.The crystal trembled and filled almost to bursting with the blue of Billy’s power. The witch’s dark eyes met his expectantly and Nicholas couldn’t do much but sigh. He had to trust his instincts. Maybe he could trust his instincts better with his eyes closed. Maybe if he held Billy’s hand while trusting his instincts. He reached for the younger man, but stopped mid gesture as his lover shook his head and pointed towards the glowing pendant with a sheepish grin and an apologetic look that Nicholas didn’t quite understand. Being denied Billy’s touch hurt, though. He frowned.„No, don’t... Don’t think I’m rejecting your touch. Though I am. I’m explaining this badly. I’m not explaining this at all, quite honestly.”, Billy groaned and ran that same hand that Nicholas hadn’t been allowed to hold over Nicholas’ cheek, their eyes locking together for a long moment. „Witch powers, they’re inherited, yes? If they are passed down from witch to witch and the children aren’t magicless, the powers are similar from parent to child. And upgraded, generation by generation. Or downgraded if something major happens or if a witch rejects her gifts or whatnot. In your case, I think your witch powers are not a downgrade from Agatha’s. Far from it. I think, and I have enough experience reading other witches by now, that your power is greater and far more precise than your mother’s. Your mortal mother’s, I mean. I don’t know a single thing about how Rio passed down her powers to her Heir. But that is a whole other story. Long explanation short, though. Agatha can absorb a witch’s power if she is hit with it. She could and could not control the transfer. She generally chose to not even try, but she was also not very good at stopping herself in time to keep the affected witch alive. She did it with me. I gave her some of my power and she didn’t kill me. I’m sure you know that. You, on the other hand, I think you can call power to you. Draw it out from other witches without it being sent your way in any manner, be it a friendly one or a combative one. I just think that you don’t know how to trigger that power on command, so I don’t want any accidents to happen, okay? I couldn’t break the link with Agatha four years ago. She had to close it herself. So.”„So you can’t be sure that you could break any link that I might create between us by accident? And that I might syphon all of your power away? No. I’m not doing that. I’m not letting myself pull from that crystal, not when you’re so close to me and not when I’ve never done it before. What if I latch onto you by mistake? What if I can’t control myself after I get a taste of your power? You make me pretty wild with lust and with feelings already, what if I can’t... No.”, Nicholas whispered fiercely, clamping down on the tendrils of purple that had been steadily moving towards the crystal.Drawn to it. Drawn to the magic stored there. Drawn to Billy’s magic. But there was a tendril that had started to move from his fingertips towards the witch. One single tendril. One that Nicholas had not seen before that moment. One that was already wrapping around Billy’s wrist and one that Billy was staring at in utter fascination. One that Nicholas had absolutely no apparent control over. One that he wasn’t able to withdraw. One that wasn’t scaring Billy at all. But what Billy had said. That he might have been able to simply syphon power at will, without it being hurled or offered to him. Just. Why wasn’t Billy scared of that possibility? That Nicholas might be able to take Billy’s power from him? Entirely.„I’m not saying that you can or cannot stop yourself from syphoning all of my power, if that’s... If that’s even possible. But that is a whole other can of worms that we won’t be opening right now. I’m saying that I trust you not to target my core specifically and to focus on that crystal first. Also, I might be just plainly naive and I’m sure Agatha will smack me with a door or something, but I don’t think you’d hurt me. These feelings we have for one another, I think. I think you wouldn’t hurt me, even accidentally. Still, cautiousness is to be exercised, but I think your magic, both the purple one and the green one, I think your magic likes mine.”, the witch blushed hard and fast and it was endearing. It was. It was splotchy and it was very obvious on Billy’s pale skin and Nicholas was in love. So very much in love.His tendril of magic, the purple one that he hadn’t been able to pull back, seemed to brighten just a little and seemed to preen. He snorted. His mortal magic was preening for Billy’s and it was so typical of Agatha that Nicholas rolled his eyes. Mentally. He was definitely Agatha’s son. He was Agatha’s son and he was Rio’s son and they both liked to show off for each other, so he couldn’t have been any diffirent from them, could he? Absolutely not. His Death magic peeked out, curious as a cat on its first adventure out in the world, and didn’t even consider going after the magic stores in the crystal. No. Oh no. The green strand of power wrapped itself around the purple one and then around Billy’s wrist, drinking in the pulse there just as easily as his mortal magic could feel the circuitry of Billy’s abilities throughout the witch’s body. He’d never done that before. He’d never been that close to a living, breathing and not scared of dying witch either. He’d never been that close to someone he was in love with. Not in a body, even if that body wasn’t his own.„I don’t think my magic cares about your magic that is stored over there, Billy. Not when it has you right here and not when you’re so sweet and so beautiful and... How do you know what my mortal magic might be able to do? Is it just a theory or?”, the older man asked, letting his fingers follow the same path as his tendrils of magic had. After a brief, but firm nod from Billy. He was allowed to touch the witch once more and it felt good. So fucking good. So right. So appropriate. „Billy? Did I pull from you before? How did you get to develop this theory? You seem pretty determined that it’s true and it feels like you’ve proven it to yourself, at least. And you also seem pretty sure that I wouldn’t hurt you intentionally or accidentally. Even as you did employ some caution.”„I-i might have experienced some magic draining effects after our more recent encounters. Nothing major. I just assumed that... That, you know, that it’s because I keep coming to you in your dreams and that I might be using up more magic than usually. But I don’t think it’s just that. And it’s not like I had who to firmly confirm it with, though I did present the situation to Agatha and she does agree with me that it’s possible that the sex we’re having. What?”, Billy’s eyebrows rose as Nicholas groaned and ran a hand over his face. What indeed. But he didn’t need to struggle to put anything into words. Billy managed to put two and two together and let out a low snort than quickly turned into a peal of laughter. „Oh my goodness, no. No, no. I didn’t tell your mother that I was having dream sex with her long dead son. Come on, give me some credit. I told her that I knew someone in that pickle. Not with you, of course, but the scenario was similar. I don’t have a lot of self preservation instincts and I do overly rely on the fact that I have a frankly stupid amount of power, but still. I wouldn’t have told Agatha that I was in a relationship with her son. That she’s scared of facing. Which you already know. You don’t seem surprised by it.”„That’s because I’m not. Surprised by it, I mean. I know she chose to not pass to Rio’s lands because she does not want to face six year old Nicholas. I fear that Rio might not have actually explained to my Mother what would happen to me after I would be going with her. I didn’t... I didn’t go to the afterlife. I didn’t die but in the most basic of terms. Just. Okay, we’re not focusing on that right now.”, Nicholas shook his head and took a moment to mull over what Billy had told him. „Sex. I drain magic out of you through sex. But not a lot of it. Just enough for you to feel after a night with me, on top of what you already use to come to me. Also, can we consider that part of our relationship over? The dream part? We’re taking this. Um. Offline? Is that an appropriate term? It has to be.”„Offline. Yeah, you know what. I like that term.”, the witch nodded sagely and continued, shrugging and calling his magic back from the crystal on the table. Nicholas clamped down on his own powers that wanted to go to those blue strands. So pretty they were and his magic did like them and... „Yes, it’s the sex, but I don’t think it’s in an incubus sort of way. It doesn’t feel like an incubus feeding. Yes, I might have run into a couple of those and the sex might have been pretty damn good, though I did sleep for like a week after. Ah, ah, ah. Don’t growl. You were fucking Ryan up until a month or so ago. And we didn’t discuss any sort of exclusivity either. Yet.”„I wasn’t growling. And can we discuss it? Being offline and exclusive? Or, at least, well. Aware of the other’s interest in someone else and discuss it beforehand if one of us chooses to pursue another?”, he stumbled a bit over the last part, but...But it felt like the right thing yo add. He hadn’t ever been exclusive with anyone else and he’d also not really been in a relationship with anyone else and he didn’t really feel ready to share Billy with others, but he also thought about whether he preferred being in a open relationship with the witch over being in no relationship with the other man. And he would always choose Billy. Definitely. Which wasn’t the right mindset for anyone to start or even think about proposing an open relationship to a partner, new or old. Nope. Definitely not. He’d been with and met plenty of polyamorous souls and none of them had chosen a partner or more despite or in spite of something, be that something internal or external. Not... Not if they wanted to be happy. Truly, deliriously happy, like Billy was making him every single night.„No. I take that back. The last part. I don’t want us to start this relationship as an open one. We can discuss that option if and when that becomes an actuality, but not from the start. If... If you agree to us like that and offline, then I’m all yours. But I’d like to be just the two of us. At least for a while. And any experimenting and playing we might do, I’d like to do together, if that is going to be the case. And I’ve probably overthought this, didn’t I? Totally.”, Nicholas groaned and sank into the creaking armchair, a sheepish smile lifting his lips. Billy was amused. Or at least that was what he thought and it wasn’t like Billy was much of a poker faced criminal or anything. No, no, his lover was pretty honest, being better at hiding stuff than at straight up lying. So Billy was amused about his babbling and looking at his lips and they had agreed to not touch each other intimately in any way until they had had their conversation with Tommy, Agatha and Rio. „You want to kiss me, don’t you?”„I want to do some very, very, very not safe for work things to you right the fuck now, but let’s go with yes. I want to kiss you. So fucking much. I also want to get you alone to do said not safe for work things to you as fast as possible, so I will not be kissing you and I will not be touching you more than I already am because we absolutely need to talk to Tommy and to your mothers.”, the witch exhaled loudly and slammed his eyes shut for a long moment, seemingly content to just breathe in and out and in and out and in and out. And then Billy’s features smoothed out. Nicholas smiled. The young man was still a little too close for comfort to jumping him, but the control that Billy had shown right then and there. Well. It was hot. He was really into Billy’s mind, Billy’s body, Billy’s magic and Billy’s control over all of those. He was really into Billy, all in all. And Billy didn’t disappoint then either, their fingers tangled together and clutching at each other as they were. Close. As close as they would get until they actually had the time to be together. „Yes, Nicholas. We take this offline. And it’s just the two of us. For now and for as long as we need and want it to be. I agree. And I agree with discussing things between us. Of course I do. Outside of having dream sex, talking to each other is pretty much all that we’ve done, no? It’s how we built our relationship. And I would like to keep that habit. I like it.”„I mean, the dream sex was pretty damn real last night.”, he poked his tongue out at Billy before realising that... That the witch didn’t know what he was on about.Oh. Oh, he blushed and groaned and snorted and ended up covering his face with a hand and desperately wishing to not be in Jules’ body because he really wanted to touch Billy with his own two hands. An inhale. An exhale. He pulled out his phone from his pocket with just a bit of wiggling and a little cursing, unlocking it with a smile and scrolling through his gallery until he got to the a folder that he’d aptly and succinctly named Dreamsexlustwitch. He’d had a thing for joining words like that a while back and he hadn’t bothered actually changing the name of the file in his phone. Because the name of the file was not important and it wasn’t what he wanted to show Billy. Oh no. It was the pictures inside of it that mattered, the pictures he’d been taking for at least six months, since the very first time he’d noticed that something physical was left behind after his and Billy’s lovemaking. There were more than two hundred photos in that file and he thought he looked pretty hot in all of them. He liked them, anyways. Sure, the marks that Billy had left on him were displayed on Jules’ skin, but still. It was him wearing that skin.„What do you mean... Oh. Oh. Nicholas. I. You. I. You have marks on you? Physically? For how long? Oh. Nicholas, I. Fuck me.”, Billy muttered as Nicholas turned the phone towards the witch and waited. He grinned, nodding and pointing towards the date of the first picture. More than six months back. He gestured for Billy to swipe left and look at the other pictures as well. The witch swallowed hard and blushed, visually checking with him once more that it was okay to snoop around in his phone gallery. And it was. It definitely was. He had nothing to hide from Billy. And he absolutely loved how fucking hot Billy was about seeing those marks on his body. Pupils blown. Flushed. Almost panting. Licking his lips and still coming up dry. „F-fuck me. Nicholas. What. Is that from this morning? That’s.”„Your cum on my back, yes. You pulled out of me and came on my lower back and on my ass. And it’s there. Well, it was there. I had a shower. Though I didn’t particularly want to, if I’m being honest. I liked having your cum on me. In me too, but I never actually... Felt it before this morning. I had some aches and my body was definitely good at letting me know I’ve been fucked and fucked good, but not like this. I’ve never had something from you being left behind.”, Nicholas smiled wickedly, his tongue peeking out and licking at his lips. Billy’s eyes locked onto that gesture and Nicholas wanted to coo. Oh. Oh, the witch wanted him. They had other things to do before they could have each other, but it was absolutely heady to know that Billy wanted him. With certainty. With absolute certainty. It was a superb feeling and one that he wanted to bask in for fucking ever. He allowed one of his fingers to touch Billy’s chin and tip his lover’s head up. Their eyes met. Nicholas’ grin never altered. „And you taste exquisitely, do you know that? You not only fill me up just right and make me come and satisfy me so good, but you also taste exquisitely. My delicacy. That’s what you are.”„And you are going to be the death of me. Pun fucking intended.”, the witch snarled and slammed their mouths together, Nicholas’ entire thought process and offended yelping being completely erased by feeling Billy’s lips on his own for the first fucking time outside of his dreams. „Mine, Nicholas. Mine.”He wanted... He wanted to kiss Billy with his own lips and he wanted to touch Billy with his own hands and he pushed at the witch, straddling his lover in one single, fluid movement that he shouldn’t have been able to do without tripping over Jules’ legs and the chairs and of course he wasn’t in Jules’ body anymore. He wanted for Billy to feel him and to know him, so he’d simply walked out of Jules and into himself and he was smoke and he was solid wherever Billy touched him. No. He was solid whenever Billy touched him. And Billy was definitely touching him and letting those clever fingers trace his muscles and his veins and his skin and the bones peeking through tissue and sinew here and there. He had fully fleshed out fingertips and he was using them to connect Billy’s moles and the little imperfections that decorated the witch’s cheekbones as he pulled back from the kiss. Just a little. Just for a moment. Just softly. He didn’t need to breathe, but the instinct was still the same, even after so many centuries since he’d actually inhaled the air around him. But he could smell Billy’s arousal and it was making him dizzy with want and he was technically and practically naked and his cock was hardening and Billy’s cock was definitely interested and their mouths were back to devouring one another and his back arched and his thighs tightened around the witch’s body. And he moaned. He moaned and he panted and Billy’s hands moved down his spine and cupped his ass. He moaned and he grinned savagely when the witch’s tongue found one of those spots that were nothing more than smoke and bone on his jawline and didn’t fucking hesitate to lick at it for a single second.Nicholas moaned, head thrown back and Billy’s lips travelling down his throat. And then Billy stopped and cursed and soothed both of them and kissed the whine out of Nicholas’ mouth and gently pointed back towards the armchair and towards Jules’ body. With a sigh, Nicholas went. He went, but he protested and, for the first time since he’d made himself into Tommy’s keeper, he wanted to be truly selfish and simply remain there, in Billy’s arms and to sink onto Billy’s cock and to enjoy those lips and those cheekbones and those hands and those eyes and Billy was flushed. And ready for him. He groaned, Jules’ back hurting because he’d sort of left the poor body hanging over the edge of the seat in a really unnatural position.Billy had his eyes shut and his magic pouring out of them, their hands still tangled and his own magic, both the mortal and the Death one, reached out for the witch. Slowly. Tentatively. With a lot more caution than he’d ever exercised in his entire four hundred and change existence, Nicholas allowed his magic, green and purple as it was, to touch another one’s in welcome. In warmth. In love. In understanding. I adoration. He didn’t feel out of control. He didn’t feel anything bad. He felt welcomed. He felt warmed, even as Billy’s magic was cool. He felt understood. He felt loved. He felt adored. He felt like himself in Billy’s presence and that was precious. And he felt... He felt the hook forming. His instinct to pull magic. He felt it. He felt it and he could see it thread itself through the connection he had with Billy. He could feel it grow and become almost indistinguishable from their green, purple and blue strands. It was there. Billy’s eyes widened and locked with his. The witch could feel it too. But Billy was un afraid. Completely so. And Nicholas suddenly understood why.The hook was there, but it wasn’t doing anything. It had simply sunk into the closest source of external magic that it could find and wasn’t really doing anything else. Did it work... Did it work like Agatha’s? Did Billy have to attack him in order for him to syphon magic from the other man? No. Billy’s fingers weaved a little ball of blue sparkles and sent it his way without much forward notice but a small wink and his consenting nod. And. And nothing happened. Billy’s magic bounced off his own and filtered through it, but didn’t get absorbed. Not for a single second. Oh. The hook was just there. He locked eyes with his lover and tugged for the briefest of seconds. Just that. Just one tug. One intentional tug and it made a fucking world of difference. He tugged and Billy’s eyes almost slid shut in pure bliss. Pleasure. He tugged and Billy’s magic went up his own, their strands merging and mixing and Billy being inside of him once. An inhale. An exhale. And he let go.
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It was Agatha whom Billy brought back into the room first and foremost, which wasn’t something that neither Agatha, nor Nicholas were truly ready for. Not really. Nicholas felt somewhat caught by surprise by his Mother’s vehemence to not meet his eyes no matter what he did and... And he also felt a bit hurt by it. Sure, he’d went with Rio back then and he’d only given his Mother one single kiss on her cheek and had left without much of a goodbye, but he’d been all of six years old and he’d not really known what else to do.Rio had always felt good and kind and warm to him and he had always called her Mama and he’d always called Agatha Mother and he’d had two parents. One of them just came to play with him while he slept and the other one would help him create songs when he was awake. He’d left with Rio and it had been the correct choice for him. For all of them, quite honestly. He was the Heir of Death herself and he wouldn’t have thrived as a mortal, no matter how many dead witches would be strewn across his and Agatha’s path. And there had been a lot of dead witches, Rio had informed him casually at some point. She’d been pleased and chuffed with the lengths that Agatha had gone to to feed him and he’d been less than amused. Rio hadn’t exactly scoffed at him, but she had rolled her eyes discreetly when he had refused to acknowledge Agatha’s actions as anything but desperation and a bit of naivety from both of his mothers’ parts. That last part had definitely not amused Rio, but he had yet to take it back. And he probably never would because he didn’t think he was wrong.„So your theoretical situationship with the dream sex was him?”, Agatha scowled, glaring daggers at Billy and probably trying her very best to not bring the ceiling down on the living witch’s head. Not that Billy would allow that, not with Nicholas in the room and not that Nicholas himself would allow that, not with Billy in the room, but still. He admired Agatha’s newfound resolve to be less murderous. Or her new way of troubleshooting that didn’t involve dead people. It might have been a direct result of Agatha herself being very dead, but Nicholas would take it. Definitely so. Agatha had not taken a seat and had not come any closer than the far wall, but moved almost faster than Jules’ eyes could track her across the floor, her long and pointy nailed fingers shoved in his face as she continued to scowl. Fiercely. „My son?! You’ve been sleeping with my son for the past few weeks and you didn’t think to mention that to me? You also didn’t think to mention to me that my son was also in a body? My son. Here. On Earth. In a body. And you knew. For weeks. You knew and you didn’t tell me. Billy fucking Maximoff. You’re exactly like your fucking mother.”„Well, it’s nice of you to finally acknowledge me as your son, Mother.”, Nicholas own voice rose from his throat as he gave up the pretense of Jules’ body and stood, his hand never leaving Billy’s and his flesh not translucent at all as long as his lover kept touching him. He was taller than Agatha by more than a head. Hells, he was taller than Billy in his actual shape, which was probably due to how restrictive an actual, physical body was. But. He digressed and Agatha was gearing up for her second most favourite way of being, which was coniving. He loved his Mother. He did. He loved Rio too. He was their son. But he was also truly over both of them in a way that he’d not anticipated before the last four years and before living as Jules and before taking care of Tommy and before Billy. „Look at me. Look. At. Me. Agatha. Look at me and call me Nicholas. I am your son. I am the one you didn’t want to cross in order to not meet. I bet you wish you had crossed now, don’t you? Look at me. It’s me. It’s Nicky, Mother.”„N-no. No. You’re not Nicky. You’re not... He wasn’t. He wasn’t this. He was a baby. He was my baby. He was. Rio. Rio took him when he was barely a babe. Six years old. You’re. You’re my son. But you’re not my son. What happened to you? Who are you? Why are you my son? Is this a trick of Rio’s?”, she whispered, face falling as she whirled towards Billy once more, throwing the entire table at the still seated witch. Nicholas snarled and let one of his vines catch the table’s leg, as well as the two glasses that had went flying when Agatha had decided to go back to her primary modus operandi, which was fucking open hostility all around. She gasped and flinched away from him when his fingers wrapped around her wrists. Of course she did. He wasn’t supposed to be able to touch her. She was a spirit. A ghost. Immaterial. But he was the son of Death and she had forgotten that. Or simply didn’t believe it. Not yet. He let her go and sat back down in Jules’ body. It was giving him whiplash and he was getting tired of it, truly. His Mother, on the other hand, had not been detered much and went back to getting into Billy’s face with just as much gusto as before. „Is this the trade off you made with Rio? Drive me insane with this thing that only feels like my son, but isn’t my son and you’ll what? Get to keep Tommy all for yourself? You think she won’t turn on you a thousand times? Is this how you repay me for dying for you to live, Maximoff? How fucking ungrateful can you be?”„Well, even if any of what you’ve just said would have been true, which it isn’t and you know that I don’t have that kind of mind for underhanded strategy, I am going to say, Agatha, about as ungrateful as you’ve always thought I was, no? Right about the same level of ungrateful as you are, Ag. Or do we assume that you contributing to getting my mother to dismantle Westview and then go on the run and then get killed and then you trying to get myself killed too while also trying to pull your usual tricks and treacheries on a coven of witches and then getting sort of bested at your own game and falling into yet another Maximoffs imaginary, but very real world from which you tried to exit stage left, pursued by bear is you being grateful in any way? Perhaps that’s you being... What did Strange tell my mother. Oh. Yes. Reasonable. Was that you being reasonable and grateful, Agatha? Because I think that was you doing what you do best and what you’ve taught me to be proud of, no? You survived. And so did I. So even if any of what you’ve said were to be true, Agatha, and it fucking isn’t, would you truly call me ungrateful and not a survivor? Has dying changed your perspective on living that much? Or is it simply your grief that is keeping you from seeing things rationally?”, Billy replied, voice even and soft and Nicholas wanted to flinch with every single word coming out of the witch’s mouth.And they weren’t even addressed to him. But they were to his Mother, whom he loved and whom he treasured and he was angry with Agatha. He was. And, for all intents and purposes, Billy knew Agatha much better and for far longer than he did. But. Still. His Mother. He tugged on Billy’s magic as soon as the young man opened his mouth again, eyes locked with Agatha’s furious ones and definitely ready to throw down with his Mother once more. Billy ripped his gaze from Agatha’s and turned it to Nicholas, the expression on that beloved face a soft one. He didn’t want to have to say it out loud. He didn’t want to have to beg for Billy to understand that Agatha was all pain and rage when it came to him and that he was hurt by her, but that she had so much to heal from Rio taking him from her that it might never be possible. And that Agatha would always strike first, fists and cleverness and power and words her weapons. All of them her weapons. And cruelty to mask and bury the heart that she’d given to Death herself and to him. To the Heir of Desth. He... He wanted Billy to understand that ripping into Agatha at her provocation was still playing into her pain and into her way of punishing herself for her imagined slight of losing him. Because if she hadn’t been able to hold onto her son, why would she be able and worthy of a coven or of a friendship or of something akin to another son, like Billy was to her?„I am your son, Agatha. I am. Look at me, Mother. Look at me and know. Don’t... Just stop trying to avoid being mad at me and just let yourself be upset with me for going with Rio and with Rio for taking me from you and just fucking look at me. It’s me, Mother. It’s Nicholas. Nicky. I am Nicky.”, he sighed, his tone low and Jules’ body once more forgotten on the armchair.
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He really needed to get back to something that he wanted to be in and not the flesh and bones that had been found for him by Billy’s wild and uncontrolled magic four years back. Agatha’s eyes widened and she took a step back, moving through the table that she had tried to throw at Billy a few moments before. Nicholas froze to the spot. He wouldn’t corner her. She would come to him or not and forcing their meeting like that might not have been the best of things. Billy had asked him if he wanted to see her right then and there, but had not offered his Mother any sort of context and Agatha needed some space to process everything. At least he thought so. He went back to stand behind Billy and to simply let his hands cup around his lover’s shoulders. It would be better like that. Agatha would get some time to mull everything over and then they could talk. Properly. Calmly. Softly. They could, maybe, even find some way to one another once more. Him and Agatha, maybe, creating another song on their own, down another forest road. That would be fun. Perhaps.„Bring Tommy, please. I think this conversation with Mother is done for now, Billy. And bring Mama too? Though I don’t know why exactly you wanted Rio here, but. Well. Since she’s here and all.”, Nicholas exhaled, his whisper soft words fluttering through the room. Agatha shivered. He supposed it was just a soul’s natural reaction to being so close to Death’s Heir and to his real voice, the one that all of the creatures in Rio’s lands were said to know instinctively. Some of them might not have recognised the Reapers or even Death herself, but they all recognised him. The Heir. Rio had made sure of that. His fingers traced the seams of Billy’s tshirt. It was a black one. Billy always wore black on black on black clothes and Nicholas couldn’t truly complain about that. His lover looked... Delectable. Lithe and elegant and definitely awkward and all limbs and he loved Billy just like that. Nicholas smiled as Billy tipped his head back to catch a glimpse of him and nuzzled his belly, where one of his lover’s curls might have gotten stuck in one of his vines. It was adorable. It was endearing. Nicholas swore he heard Agatha coo.„You’re not new lovers. You don’t act like new lovers. You know each other intimately and this isn’t what two weeks of having sex brings. How... How long? Billy? How long have you and m-my son have been in a relationship? A honest to whatever fucking god a Maximoff can believe in relationship. Billy. How long?”, Agatha murmured, looking just a bit too lost for it to have been an act.Nicholas ached to go touch his Mother and couldn’t think of one single reason why he shouldn’t do something like that. He had wanted to hug Agatha one more time for four hundred fucking years and he’d made Rio swear that she wouldn’t make his Mother go through any trials before getting to him. He’d just never imagined that it would have been Agatha herself that would have chosen to not cross over just because she didn’t want to face him. Just because she couldn’t face him. She thought... She thought, even after all of the centuries that had passed, she still thought that he blamed her for something. What something, Nicholas had never been able to figure out. Or maybe she still blamed herself. For having him. For loving him. For loving Rio. His feet carried him to Agatha before he could think things through properly, one of his vines and two strands of his magic still connected to Billy. He was solid. Agatha was not. He didn’t really want to sever his connection to his lover, but he had to. For a brief moment, he had to. He had to touch Agatha and he had to hold her and he had to get her to listen to his heart, like she would often do when he was a babe. She would recognise the truth of who he was like that. She’d know his heartbeat out of thousands, his Mother had once said to him. Maybe she would.„Don’t... Don’t come closer. Please. Even if you are who you say you are and who my ghostly senses tell me that you are, please. Please don’t come any closer. I can’t. I. I can’t do this now. I can’t. I. I need to leave. Billy. I will leave now. I don’t care about meeting with Rio and I don’t care about figuring out how you can save Tommy from Rio or whatever other bullshit. I just. I will leave.”, she turned around from Nicholas one last time and he felt his heart shatter.His heartbeat, the one that she had said so many times that she could pick out from the noises of a thousand forests, slowed down to a crawl and he froze to the spot, wishing he could have been swallowed up by the ground. There was greenery coming up from the sides of the building and moving towards him. He could feel it. It was responding to his sheer hurt. He was tired. He’d gone through a lot of emotions that night and he’d need to go through a few more. Billy’s eyes drilled holes into his back, but he couldn’t take his eyes off his Mother. Not when she was leaving. He’d left first, he was aware of that, but she was leaving him on fucking purpose and it made him bleed. A snap of his lover’s magic and Agatha was untethered from Billy, a free ghost to roam the plains. She would leave. And she would, perhaps, return to Billy and to that magic that seemed never fucking ending inside the witch. But would she... Would she come back to Nicholas too? Her skirts rustled for a moment as her hand hovered above her heart and her eyes met his for the briefest of seconds.„I’ll not... I’ll not be gone for long, N-Nicholas. I want you to know that. I’ll come back soon enough and we will talk then. We will see each other sooner than four hundred years. Much sooner. I swear. A witch’s vow from Mother to son. I will return to you in less than the time it took y-you to compose your song. Yes? I swear it.”, her fingers tapped the rhythm of that song on her chest and Nicholas nodded. He couldn’t do much more than that. He couldn’t speak when all the words felt like ash in his mouth. He couldn’t reach for her again when she’d asked him not to. He couldn’t do any of that. He simply couldn’t. But he could nod, so he did. Her eyes swung from his to Billy’s and that look that they exchanged was half storm, half companionship and fully the kind of drama he had come to expect from his Maximoff lover and his Mother. „You, Billy, will have a reckoning to deal with when I return.”„I await it with pleasure and anticipation, Agatha.”, Billy replied, rolling his eyes so hard at Nicholas’ Mother that he could swear that the young man must have seen some of his own past lives at the back of his head. Or something. And. Of course. There it was, Billy being a Maximoff until the end and all. „Oh, and Agatha? It’s two years. Your son and I, we’ve been lovers for two years. I didn’t tell you and it was a conscious choice, though not exactly one I made on my own. I knew you couldn’t see him and I wasn’t sure why at first. And when I knew why, I didn’t want to... To be the one to tell you, quite honestly. So I didn’t tell you. I’m sorry it’s hurting you, but I don’t regret it. Not for a moment. It was Nicholas’ decision to hide from both you and Rio and I didn’t want to interfere with that. He knows his own mind and he wanted time to explore his new reality. Away from your prying eyes and from Rio’s everything. I respected that decision first and foremost and I would do it again. No questions asked. You should be aware of that before you come back here and rage at me. I respected your son’s decision about himself.”
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Tommy came next and Tommy was... Less human and more blur as soon as he stepped through the door. And Tommy stepped through the door because Nicholas had made sure to impress on the teenager how damaging running at his full speed would be on the body he was currently inhabiting, not that Chris’ bones and muscles and tendons and organs could actually help Tommy get to what his usual pace normally was. Faster than an F1 car, they had reckoned, simply because Tommy had gone from zero to a hundred miles an hour in less than two seconds. Nicholas might have helped with that experiment and it might have been terribly thrilling and it might have helped with his understanding of how much a body like the one that Tommy was inhabiting was impeding the teenager from growing into the speedster of everyone’s dreams. Or nightmares. Depends on where and for what one might use such a speed, of course. Tommy was, after all, practically invisible with the naked eye. Tommy had also, Nicholas realised with an amused snort, never seen him or Billy before. And Tommy could see Nicholas, which was even more interesting. The kid really had zero magical signature, but. But the speedster was still Wanda’s son, even so.„You... I. You. He’s dead? Is he dead? You’re. Wait. No. Stop smirking like the fucking Cheshire cat. You’re Nicholas. I could recognise that fucking smile anywhere. Smug and conceited and self sufficient.”, Tommy rolled his eyes quite similarly to Billy and Nicholas had to admit that even if the twins weren’t really twinning, they were definitely related. Absolutely so. No doubt about it. The speedster dropped the currently useless map of Slate on the table and walked towards Nicholas, stopping in front of Billy, who was still seated and looking at his younger brother with a lot of interest. And love. That was love that Nicholas was seeing in Billy’s face. It was love and he smiled at the two siblings, his witch standing up to look down at Tommy. Who was a whole head shorter than his brother and who, at least in Chris’ body, would never actually get to Billy’s height. Tommy’s hands rose to rest on Billy’s chest and Nicholas wanted to coo. He didn’t. But he wanted to. „Billy. Finally. Billy.”„Tommy.”, Billy exhaled his twin’s name with such rawness that it took Nicholas by surprise. It shouldn’t have. Not really. Billy’s whole thing with calling Tommy down into a body was the reason why Nicholas himself was there in the first place. His lover had looked for Tommy and had found Tommy and had... Had gone through a magical awakening and transformation to get to call his twin back to him. Billy’s arms went around his baby brother and Tommy’s face disappeared into the witch’s chest. Bright blond hair was the only thing that Nicholas could see of the shaking and shivering speedster and he wanted to help. He did. He knew that Tommy got some mild anxiety attacks sometimes and that the teenager could get very touch starved at times. He wanted to help, but he didn’t want to interrupt the Maximoff’s reunion. Billy’s eyes met his over Tommy’s head and Nicholas smiled, offering his support and his encouragement to his lover. He knew that Billy would be better at reuniting with lost family members than Agatha had been. „Tommy. I. I love you. I’m here. I’m here, Tomtom. I’m here. You’re shaking. Let’s sit down, yes? Come on, let’s sit down. Water? A sandwich? Sugar? You’re shaking, Tommy. And blurring at the edges.”„Let me help?”, Nicholas offered, waiting for Tommy to nod and to actually... Oh, Nicholas’ dark, dark heart was about to explode with how endeared he was because Tommy had actually reached for him. One hand on Billy, one hand reaching for Nicholas and it was sweet. The teenager had never really strayed far from him, but had also never truly been loving and touchy, so to see Tommy trust him like that. Yes. It was heartwarming and he walked closer to the siblings that had managed to find the edge of the rickety table and the disgusting armchair, respectively. „Tommy, what do you need, sweetheart? A little bit more space or a little less? Do you think you can control your vibrating? Or do you need some grounding?”„G-grounding, please, Nick. G-grounding. I-i didn’t w-want this to be the first things you see of me, B-billy, not after so many years a-apart.”, the teenager’s teeth were clacking loudly and Billy was shaking his head, whispering a low it’s okay, it’s all okay, I’m here and I’m not leaving and I’m not letting you go ever again, it’s okay, just tell me how to help. Nicholas’ vibes wrapped around Billy’s wrists and brought the witch’s hands higher on Tommy’s body as he sat down next to the speedster on the table, silently praying that it wouldn’t break underneath both of their combined weights. Though he was mostly plant and smoke, so. Anyways. He hugged Tommy tight to his chest, wrapping his arms around the teenager’s body as Billy’s hands held his twin’s face in his palms. And they inhaled. And they exhaled. All three of them. Tommy was still a little bit blurry at the edges, but not as much as before. Breathing and helping Tommy feel himself weighted down helped. A lot. So did letting Tommy be snarky and a bit of an asshole, apparently. „You have vines, Nickieboo? Why have I never seen the vines before? And what’s with the smoke? Let me see. Let me see or I’ll poke at it... Oh. Oh, it’s bone. Like actual bone. Your bones are exposed like this, Nickiebear? No? And the. Okay, that’s not something I wanted to see. I skipped most of tenth grade biology for a fucking reason, Nickster. I did not need to see muscle and tissue and whatever the fuck is that. You go around like this? Cells out and flapping in the wind?”„If you would stop calling me all of those awful nicknames, Tommy, we would all be much, much happier. Me, in particular. Just call me Nicholas. Or Nick, if you must. Nicky, at most. Just not anything else you might come up with, teenager menace that you are.”, he sighed and rubbed at his eyes with his vines, slapping Tommy’s curious fingers away from actually moving through the dark smoke and touching his insides.There was only one Maximoff that he wanted in on his innards and it definitely wasn’t the youngest one. Billy’s eyes were tracking his and Tommy’s every move as the teenager’s breath settled and the speedster wasn’t threatening to burst clear apart, Chris’ body an unfit house for him during those moments. And, as it had become increasingly clear in the last few hours, during all moments from them on. Tommy needed another body. A body of his own. A body that would be able to suit his needs and his image of himself and a body that Billy could, perhaps, provide his baby brother with. Tommy relaxed into Nicholas’ chest and locked eyes with Billy once more, pulling his big brother into a hug over the awkward space between the little table and the armchair. Billy exhaled and Nicholas shivered, the witch’s left hand covering the side of his neck as the three of them sat there, not sobbing. At least he wasn’t. Billy might have been a bit misty eyed and Tommy. Well, Tommy might have been crying and clutching his brother’s shirt and probably snotting all over the black fabric, but Billy didn’t seem to mind it at all, which Nicholas wasn’t surprised by at all. He’d cried plenty of times in Billy’s arms before and after making love and the witch had been excellent with soothing him, so for that patience to extend to Billy’s actual blood, that felt natural. And true. Not that he’d cried about the sex they were having, absolutely not. But he’d cried over other things, like about how his life had gone and how much he missed his mothers and about his friends being away from him and about how lonely he felt at times and Billy had been good with him. Calm and kind and loving and caring and attentive. Just like the witch was with his baby brother, though with a different kind of flavour of all of that, of course.„You work with them? With the Avengers? I’ve seen you. Not that I knew that you were my twin, but I’ve seen you with them. They never mention anything more but your codename, but I would recognise those curls anywhere. And you have... I can see it, at least. The tiara. Like mom had. Like W-wanda had. Yours is black. Hers was red. I watched a lot of footage from Westview and from her fighting with the Avengers. And with Strange.”, Tommy whispered, pulling back just enough to look at Billy and to not let go of either his big brother or Nicholas. Both of them were Tommy’s big brothers in a way and that was just the way life fucking worked at times. He could read the tone of the speedster’s voice or the haunted look in Billy’s eyes and he’d never brought up his lover’s superhero alterego, though he’d known for quite a while. Billy hadn’t hid it from him either, but they hadn’t really found the need to discuss it urgently. Two years into a relationship and it seemed like urgently might mean something different for the two of them versus what it meant to the rest of the world. Perhaps. „You’re him. You’re Wiccan, aren’t you?”
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„I am. I am Wiccan. And I am working with... Some of the others out there, yes. You’re thinking that I’m working with the people that cast our mother aside and that didn’t help her, aren’t you? The people that used her and her powers and then mocked her grief and turned her into a monster for the world to fear.”, the witch made a low sound and one that Nicholas didn’t like to hear from his lover. His hand lifted from Tommy’s waist and covered Billy’s, their eyes locking together as he tried to offer as much silent support to Billy as possible. He had heard that argument from the witch himself more than a couple of times and he’d walked through all the sides of it with Billy, trying to help his lover get to a conclusion that wouldn’t be detrimental to Billy’s own heart and morals, but that would also allow him to do the most good that he could. Out there. In the real world. Because that was where Wiccan worked and that was where Billy worked too. „Tommy, it’s not like that. I don’t think so, at least. I’m trying to make the most of her legacy. Of what she really wanted from life, not what they all said she did. I’m trying to help the people, not the Avengers. I.”„I know. I saw... I saw you speaking to some reporters at some point. And I saw how frustrated some of the others are with you for not playing ball with them. Someone called you not a team player for not giving up on shielding the civilians of the fight that had broken out.”, the younger Maximoff nodded and shrugged, dropping his eyes to Billy’s multitude of jewellery. Earrings, necklaces, bracelets, rings. The hand that Tommy could hold was almost fully covered in a henna tattoo that Nicholas knew Billy had gotten quite recently. He loved it. It went well with the black, metallic nail polish that the young man still preferred and with the rings on his long, elegant fingers. „You’re very shiny. Not in a bad way, mind you. But very, very shiny. And you’re holding hands with Nicky bear here. I need an explanation for that and I need you to not. To not leave, Billy. I need you to not leave again. I need other things too, like for us to have a relationship and for you to tell me that you’ve not ignored me for the past four years because of some misguided attempt at keeping me safe or some other bullshit like that that I know for a fact is true, don’t even try to deny it. But I mostly need to not be separated from you again. And I know that we did everything at the speed of light because of our mother’s powers, but still. I want you to not leave me behind. Please. And I want you two to spill the tea.”„I was trying to protect you, but not from... Not from anyone in particular, baby brother. Not from any of our mother’s enemies and not from anyone who would want to cage us and dissect us, though that’s an actual concern that we do sadly have and one more reason for my working with the Avengers. Exposure means that I can’t disappear into thin air because I won’t be missed. People know me. Regular people love me because I keep them safe. So.”, Billy shrugged, the gesture so similar to Tommy’s even when the twins definitely weren’t inhabiting their original bodies that Nicholas had to smile. Subtly. But he had to smile.They were definitely siblings. Twins. Fraternal twins, but definitely twins. And they had shared Wanda’s body, even as they had been created out of her grief and not through any sort of biological process, so they were siblings in blood as well, not just through magic, though what kind of biological process would have made the Scarlet Witch have children with Vision, who was all machine, wasn’t one that Nicholas was familiar with. Once more, of course, things went round and round and round to how similar the process of Agatha getting pregnant with the cosmic entity that Death was to the process of Wanda fucking Maximoff having children with Vision. His Mama was a bit of a hypocrite, wasn’t she? Death. The ultimate hypocrite, it seemed.„But I could have protected you from all of that. What... What I couldn’t have given you and what I think you managed to sort of have with being in this body and having parents and whatnot is a way to grow up rather normally. You have friends. You have a girlfriend. You dyed your hair. You went to concerts. You went to school. You had a big brother, even if it wasn’t me at that moment in time. And I had some of that too when I landed in this body. I took over this boy’s life and I grew up with people that loved William. And that got to love me too. I wanted you to not be an orphan, Tommy and to not have to live with me and fucking Agatha, whom I love to pieces, but who’s not exactly the picture of maternal instinct. Sorry, Nickie bear.”, the witch continued and Nicholas snorted.He couldn’t deny that about his Mother, though, all in all and for the time period and the constraints of him being a soul that consumed his own flesh faster than Agatha could feed him more and more death, Agatha had been a loving and caring parental unit. So had Rio, for all that she was made of star dust and the very fibers of the Universe itself. He loved his parents and they loved him. And so had Wanda loved her boys and so had Billy loved Tommy so much that he’d made the decision to get his baby brother a stable home in which to grow up in. Without him. That decision might prove to come back to bite Billy in the ass and not in a fun way if Nicholas was to take Tommy’s expression into account. Oh, he was definitely taking that into account.„But I am an orphan, William and you leaving me here, with these strangers that I didn’t know at first and that kept calling me Chris and with Nickiepoo, who was a grumpy asshole most of the time and only slightly a comparable in quality older brother than you had ever been didn’t fucking help. Asshole. I can’t believe I’m actually the living, breathing embodiment of the for your own good trope. I wasn’t unable to think for myself, Billy. I might have even fucking agreed to be placed with a family, which sounds so much better than what actually happened, which was me and the son of fucking Death herself highjacking the bodies of these people’s dead fucking children to use for our own nefarious purposes.”, Tommy growled and started to vibrate once more out of his Chris’ body, Nicholas giving up trying to hold the speedster at bay. It felt useless to attempt it and he gestured for Billy to back off as well, giving Tommy just enough space to drag his body to the couch before abandoning it there to phase straight through the wall and out into Slate for the span of a few blinks.Nicholas inhaled, exhaled and debated on whether to go back into Jules’ body or not, but there wasn’t really any time for him to move much, not with how fucking fast Tommy was. Fast and furious, apparently, because the teenager slammed bodily into his big brother, sending Billy sprawling over the armchair and straight into denting the wall behind him. Impressive, since Tommy was, technically at least, a soul and nothing more. But the speedster was also Wanda’s son and very, very, very fast and Nicholas sighed, pulling his vines from where they had formed a soft cushion for Billy to not be actually knocked out by his brother’s anger. Which. Nicholas couldn’t deny Tommy had a right to be upset. He also wouldn’t allow that upset to turn to more physical blows that it already had. He should have seen it coming, truthfully, though Tommy didn’t have a thing for violence. The kid had never thrown a punch at anyone in his life. Maybe thrown a backpack after an asshole who’d tried to grope him, but that was fully warranted and Nicholas had thrown a punch on his behalf that time. Still. Throwing shit at Billy or throwing Billy at shit wasn’t something that he would tolerate, no matter how angry Billy seemed to make everyone around him. It would be... Interesting to see what reaction his Mama would have to his lover. However. Until they had to cross that bridge and all, he helped Billy steady himself and frowned at Tommy until the teenager stopped hopping all over the place and went back into his body to sulk from the couch.„You’re making it your purpose in life to get everyone angry at you at a first glance? Is that a Billy thing or a Maximoff thing? Actually, no, don’t answer that. I’ve met your brother. It’s definitely a Maximoff thing.”, Nicholas muttered, turning towards Tommy as soon as it became more than obvious that Billy was fine and that not even the witch’s pride had been injured in the whole incident. Well. Maybe his lover had allowed the hit that had come from the speedster just to get it out of the way. An inhale. An exhale. Nicholas remembered a clip he’d seen all over social media and that fit the situation he was currently in with his boyfriend. Though he was four fucking hundred years old, so maybe boyfriend wasn’t the term he would like to use for Billy. Partner. No, that sounded way too serious and like they had been in a real relationship for two decades or something like that. Lover. Yes. He liked lover. He’d have to ask Billy what he preferred, but lover felt good to him. Anyways. His eyes moved from one Maximoff brother to the other and he sighed, sitting down primly on the rickety table and crossing his legs. „You know, Billy, I would take a bullet for you. I would. Though why would anyone try to shoot a reality bender like you, I don’t know. But still. I would take a bullet for you. But you would totally be the reason why we would be getting shot at in the first place, lover mine.”„Lover yours? How? He’s never set foot in Slate before today. I would have felt him somehow. I don’t know why I’m so sure of that, but I am convinced I would have. Sit, Billy, stop hovering, it’s getting annoying and it’s also making me anxious. And you might just be right, Nickieboo, he will get you shot. Lovingly, I assume. How. How did you two happen? Why didn’t I know anything of this? You were talking to my brother all this time and forgot to mention that to me? Really? Fuck me, I’m so very angry at both of you right now. So very fucking angry.”, Tommy hissed and Chris’ light blue eyes burned almost silver for a second. Nicholas swallowed hard and looked at the witch, who was walking towards him and placing his hands on his shoulders, their position a mirror image of what Agatha had seen when she had left. For not so long, his Mother had promised. He would believe her. He would. Long fingers snapped in front of his eyes, Tommy leaning in and peering at him through delicate and almost transparent eyelashes. Silver. Everything about the speedster was slowly turning silver, whatever colour Chris had at some point disappearing with each of the seconds in which Tommy inhabited that mortal body, in Billy’s presence. Oh.
Interesting.
„We haven’t been speaking much, honestly. Not at first. And we’ve never met physically until tonight. We... I sort of played incubus to Nicholas and. Well.”, Billy offered and didn’t actually blush or stutter, which made Nicholas bite down on his lower lip and smile shyly. He hadn’t expected the witch to deny their relationship, but he’d also not expected for their conversation about whatever they were to have gone so smoothly and for them to have established that they were exclusive already and for Billy to tell both Agatha and Tommy about the two of them so eagerly. And openly. And proudly. Like the witch was preening. Preening because of him. Because Billy had gotten him, Nicholas, out of the whole mess. Oh. „After we did start talking, I asked about you and I realised that you did have a fairly normal life and it was a good thing that you did. Don’t throw anything or yourself at me again, I will pin you in place and you won’t like it, speedster. I can make your speed go fucking poof. Be nice. Don’t make be the mean one again.”„You’re an utter fuckwad. I want that noted.”, said speedster replied and flipped off his big brother, Nicholas sighing and tsking at the two siblings. Twins. Definitely twins. Not that he had siblings of his own to judge the Maximoffs’ relationship to one another, but still. Definitely twins. And he did have siblings. Tommy. Which was weird if he thought about it too hard, because he was also fucking Tommy’s twin, but he wasn’t really related to the speedster. Much. Only by heart. Definitely not by blood. „This is weird, I want it noted. It’s like figuring out that your parents are having sex. Honestly. It’s strange. You and Nicholas. Nicholas and you. Not that I think you’re my parents, but still. Also, what do you mean by incubus? Like the sex demon or the band?”„I... Didn’t consider the band when I told you that. The sex demon definitely. Though, honestly and more than technically, I think it’s Nicholas who’s been playing incubus to me. I might have been visiting his dreams and getting him laid, but he’s the one sucking magic out of me. And sucking me off, but I don’t think it’s just that that makes my magic flow to you, lover mine.”, Billy continued, not even bothering to not flip off his baby brother as Tommy made a slow gagging sound and groaned when the witch mentioned some of their late night activities. Well, Nicholas would have to be filled with extra details about sex when talking to Tommy from that moment on, just for the fun of it. The speedster was already rolling his eyes at Billy and him and it was both endearing and a little disrespectful, though he realised that sixteen year old Tommy might not appreciate the power behind him and Billy. Together.
Oh.
Tommy might not appreciate the relationship between the Heir of Death and the Heir of the Scarlet Witch because of teenage ennui, but others might not appreciate it because of how fucking dangerous they were together.
Oh.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
„And we will be discussing that later on, when we’ll be alone. But for now, you two need to... You know. Figure out what to do about Tommy’s issue.”, Nicholas murmured and relaxed back into Billy’s body, the witch solid and firm behind him.Fingers were tracing his collarbones and dipping underneath his vines and into some of the smoke around his upper chest, which was interesting and utterly inappropriate with Tommy sitting right there, on the couch, not even an arm’s length away from the two of them. His hands rose from his thighs and caught Billy’s, bringing the witch’s knuckles to his lips for a delicate kiss before tangling their fingers together and catching his lover’s eyes for a split second. Billy was scared. Of what, he couldn’t tell. Their bond wasn’t telepathic in any way, but his two strands of magic responded readily to his lover’s need for support, rising out of his skin and sinking into Billy’s through their connected hands. The witch’s eyes snapped closed as a soft smile played on Billy’s lips. Tommy gagged once more and probably flipped them both off again, but Nicholas couldn’t have possibly given less of a fuck about the teenager seeing his siblings be affectionate with one another. He could, however, understand why Tommy found that part awkward and it wasn’t because they were both men, himself and Billy. More like. Yes. It was definitely about how Tommy thought of both of them as his siblings, who were apparently fucking.„Yes, we need to discuss that, Tommy. Tell me... Tell me what you want exactly. From me. Outside of me not leaving you again, which I won’t. I swear it on our mother’s grave, I won’t leave you again. I’ll move here, if you. No. You can’t leave. Your parents. Chris’ parents. They won’t let you leave, of course not. You’re sixteen. I’ll move here. I’ll keep a low profile. I’ll be nowhere further than a few minutes down or up the road from you at all times, unless I’m working with the Avengers. I swear it, Tommy. Please look at me.”, the witch begged, voice low and broken as Billy moved to sit next to his twin on the couch. Nicholas felt like he was intruding, but Billy was holding onto his strands of magic pretty tightly, so all the privacy that he could offer to the Maximoffs was him turning to stare at Jules’ limp, but still breathing body. It was odd to say the least, to be looking at what had essentially been himself for the past four years from the outside. Not using a mirror. No. Just. Like that. With his own two eyes.„But I’m not their son. Their son is dead, Billy. And I know that they raised me. I know. I’m grateful for that. I love them. I love Martina and I love James. I love them. They love... They loved Chris and I’m pretty sure they love me. I’m also fairly convinced that they know I’m not their youngest. Maybe Nicholas has done a better job at pretending to be Jules, but I woke up and started screaming that I couldn’t run and then had flashes of being in whatever soup souls that don’t cross over go when they don’t have bodies anymore. I wasn’t fooling anyone, no matter what Nickiebear here was trying to make them believe.”, the younger Maximoff sighed, leaning back into the couch and catching his brother’s hands in his. Silver lined every single one of Tommy’s movements, even as the teenager seemed oblivious to that. Billy wasn’t. Billy’s eyes tracked that literal silver lining and them met Nicholas’ gaze with a question written all over them. Did he see the same thing?, his lover asked silently and he nodded. He saw. He didn’t know what it meant, but he saw. „I’m not their son, Billy. They can’t keep me here. And I can’t stay here either. This body. It’s not mine. It’s. It’s not. It’s falling apart, I think. I. This is embarrassing. But trust me, my body, it’s not reacting properly anymore to anything.”„Your body isn’t reacting properly anymore? I. You have no magic. But that doesn’t mean that you’re not made of magic. The speed you have, it’s also magic, just a different kind than mine. And none of it is magic, as in unexplainable or anything of that sort. We both use energy, just in different ways. You can’t manipulate it, though. You only run through it and, I’m guessing here, through time too, not only through space. No. Tommy. I can see your mind spinning. You cannot change the past. The past is done. Changing the past is a very bad thing and we are not going to do that. Wanda herself didn’t attempt it because it is futile.”, Billy explained patiently, his eyes never leaving Tommy’s. Patience was what they needed for sure with the teenager and patience was what Tommy also needed to have with Billy. Because Nicholas understood what Billy was saying, but Tommy might just run fast enough to turn back time and try to influence things from back then and that would be a horrible, horrible mistake. „Look at me. I know what you mean by your body not working properly anymore, but it’s not that. I. After I walked the Witches’ Road with Agatha and the coven, my powers woke up fully. Or, better put, I started to use them consciously and with real intent. That’s when I became Wiccan. And after the Road, my body, this body, malfunctioned too. But it wasn’t malfunctioning, Tommy. It was adjusting. I. Look. Look at this. Look at how your own body is reacting to my proximity. And I’m sure you’ve experienced some of the same things that I have as well. Like you get cold sweats and you wake up in the middle of the night, magic swirling all around you. Or, in your case, you’re out of your body, no? And I couldn’t eat anything for like a week after the Road. Oh, yes, and the sex afterwards, it was different. I couldn’t get hard for like half a year. It was like my body poured all of that teenage sexual energy into everything else. I was fine afterwards and my boyfriend at the time was a saint and I loved him dearly, but still. My body. William’s body. It changed on its own. My organic body turned partially not organic. I think yours is doing the same.”Nicholas hadn’t realised that. In all the time that Billy and him had spent naked and sweaty and panting into each other’s mouths, he’d not realised that parts of his lover were circuitry, he guessed. Not organic. The witch was at least partially made of liquid metal and processors and whatever Vision had been formed out of, though he hadn’t been able to tell. And. And it made sense. Billy’s body, the one that he had touched in his dreams, it might have been as much of a construct as the one that Wanda had given the twins back in Westview, a simple projection of what his lover looked outside of their shared mental space and it might have contained all of what the younger man needed and wanted to show him, but not... Not Billy’s circuitry, it seemed. Or had he been completely blind to it and, by ignoring it, he’d managed to make his lover think that he found that part of the witch unattractive and undesirable? He gasped and felt his magic slither out of him and crawl all over the floor and straight to Billy, Tommy’s eyes wide and startled as Nicholas’ strands, green and purple mixing together, wrapped around his big brother’s waist and lifted Billy’s shirt almost all the way to the witch’s collarbones, exposing that taught and lithe chest to their eyes. And the fucking circuitry there.
Oh.
„You... I. Did I see these before? I didn’t. I didn’t see these, did I? I didn’t ignore them. I don’t think they’re wrong or weird or whatever else. Billy, I love you, I wouldn’t ever ignore this and. I.”, Nicholas’ words burst out of him before he realised what he had said and he ignored the shocked gasp coming from Tommy to keep his eyes locked with Billy’s. He wasn’t lying. He’d never seen that obvious circuitry glowing blue underneath what felt like the first layer of his lover’s skin. He ached to touch the witch and to see if he could feel any difference in texture or in heat level on Billy’s body wherever that liquid metal seemed to exist, but he wouldn’t really reach out and let his fingertips get acquainted with his lover’s real form. Or. Better put. With Billy’s magic shaped body? Instead of the body he preferred for himself? Did Billy like the body that he’d shown Nicholas in their shared dreams better or was that just the easiest shape to translate to a sleep state or. Lips on his. Billy’s lips, of course. Lips on his and Tommy groaning and letting out a low I’ll give you five minutes or maybe ten before exiting the room. Left. As if pursued by bear.And that was the last thing that Nicholas saw before being pulled to the couch by Billy’s hands and magic and before being straddled by the witch, their lips still pressed together and his hands locked onto his lover’s waist. An inhale. Billy’s mouth opened for him and he kissed the witch with all that he had, his lips half smoke and his jaw jutting out from underneath his vines almost fully on his left side, the young man’s fingers tracing the bone there lovingly. And elegantly. And with familiarity. Billy knew what he looked like. Obviously. He, on the other hand, had apparently missed a lot of what his lover really looked like and it was bothering him. A little. Maybe a little more than a little. But his mouth was busy and his hands were being dragged to Billy’s chest and he gasped, pulling his lips away from his lover’s to simply look at the witch in wonder. And explore. Just a little. Just a lot.„This is gorgeous, Billy. You’re beautiful. You’re... You’re amazing. I’m in awe of you. I. This is. I am.”, he stuttered and grinned and licked his lips and lowered his head to taste one of those circuits that spread from Billy’s left nipple to the witch’s collarbone and then probably over the younger man’s shoulder. Cold. It was cold. It was cold where the rest of Billy was warm and Nicholas’ eyes rose to meet Billy’s because he’d felt that cold before. He’d felt it. He’d just not seen it. The cold of what he’d assumed was the arctic circle was not that. No. It was liquid metal moving underneath his lover’s skin and he adored it. He adored Billy. He loved Billy and he had highjacked Billy’s moment with his brother and he tried to pry himself away from his lover, but it wasn’t fucking working. His fingertips were finally tracing the contours of the circuits that framed Billy’s chest and he could indeed feel a difference in texture wherever he touched. It was like. Oh. „They rise out of your skin? Billy? I’m not imagining this. I can feel their shape.”„They don’t. They’ve never done that before. I suppose they were just as eager for you to meet them as I was? And. Nicholas.”, Billy’s fingers caught his chin and lifted it, locking their eyes together yet again, his fully black and star dotted ones meeting the witch’s dark and blue speckled, almost liquid ones with curiosity. And lust. And a bit of apprehension. But there was nothing amiss in Billy’s gaze and Nicholas exhaled. He didn’t need to breathe, but fuck if that hadn’t felt freeing. He nodded. Billy continued speaking, voice soft and easy and caring. „You’ve not seen them before. Which is on me. Not on you. Categorically not on you. I didn’t know how to introduce you to the fact that I was partially machine, I suppose? And not even. Um. The fun parts? My cock is fully organic as far as I can tell. So not even the fun parts are sort of machine? Just some of my other essentials bits, like my chest and my back and my shoulders. The back of my head too, but you can’t see it much because of the hair. Also. Say that again. Quick, before Tommy comes back.”„Say what? I. Billy.”, Nicholas mumbled and blushed, though on his pale skin that might have just made him glow in the fucking dark with how red he had probably turned. He did miss Jules’ tan and how he could get away with practically everything in the older Maxwell’s body. And he’d not blushed that much while being Jules. He had had no reason to. It was Billy that was making him blush and it was an endearing quality that the witch had. Or an endearing effect on him, better put. He loved it. He loved how his heart went thudthudthud faster and faster as Billy’s eyes widened and filled with mischief and he loved how the younger man grinned and he loved... Oh. That. „I love you, Billy. That’s what you wanted me to say again, no? I love you, if that wasn’t patently obvious thus far. I love you so much that I can’t imagine what I have been before you. I love you and I’ve fallen in love with you for the past two years, every single night. And every single day, when I was looking for you in all the others I met. I love you, Billy. William Maximoff. No, that sounds strange. Don’t scrunch your nose at me. Billy. We’ll stick with Billy.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
„We’ll definitely stick with Billy. I don’t think Wanda ever named us William and Thomas, honestly, that’s why it’s so off sounding for both Tommy and I. And William is the poor boy who died and in who’s body I landed, so. Yes. Billy. Let’s stick with Billy.”, the witch replied, their lips meeting again and again and again and Nicholas was addicted to Billy. He was.He’d been craving Billy for years and he’d been discussing the world and all of its bits and bobs with the witch for so long that even if he had laid eyes on Billy for the first time that evening, he... He knew the witch. And he loved Billy. Physicality mattered, but it was the very least of their ways to connect, though hells if they didn’t fuck each other’s brains out very, very, very fucking well. They did. They so did. But. Billy. Circuitry. He wanted to lick the resistors and the capacitors and the diodes he could see flaring up from underneath Billy’s skin and he wanted to nuzzle them and he wanted to understand them. They must have meant something. They were all pulsing and feeding into a main processor that was located right above Billy’s sternum. Embedded in it. It wasn’t Billy’s heart. He could hear that beating and it felt fully organic. He’d figured out the difference in sound between his lover’s electronic bits and Billy’s organic ones and it was quite telling. Billy’s fingers carded through his hair and tangled in his black, smoky strands as their eyes met. He blinked. Once. Twice. And Billy smiled, delicate as the first rays of sunshine after a long storm. Nicholas breath caught in his throat. Beautiful. His lover was beautiful.„I love you too, Nicholas. I’ve loved you for a while. I’ve known that I loved you for a good while. Your mind. Your eyes. Your lips, the way they part for me and form my name. The way you tell stories. I could see how Agatha passed on her conwoman skills to you, but... But how you turned those into storytelling and poetry. And I could see your kindness and your mercy and you’re a cosmic entity. I know you know that. I hope you realise how different you are from your Mama. And from your Mother. From both of them. You’re the half human son of Death herself. And you’re the half eternal son of a witch like all others. And you’re so much more than the sum of your parts. Half this, half that. But the whole of you? It’s hot and sexy and smart and soft and kind and loving and so fucking understanding of the flaws that all creatures possess that I just had no other option but to fall for you. Head over heels. And you can fuck me so deliciously that my toes have been curled in my shoes since this morning.”, Billy confessed, tangling their fingers over his heart. Organic heart, covered in an impenetrable layer of the finest tech that Stark Industries and Asgard could offer, all mixed and mashed together by Wanda and Billy’s reality making powers. Incredible was for Billy as cereal was for milk. The Spanish language had an untranslatable word for that. Imprescindible. Essential, but not really. Inseparable, but also not really. More like part of, without doubt and without argument. Yes. He liked that word for Billy and all of the hyperbole out there. Imprescindible. „Like me. You’re like me. We’re both impossibilities happening because our parents loved each other so much that they changed the fucking world around them to make us real. The fabric of the universe, in both our cases, was remade to fit us. You and me. And Tommy, but we’re going to focus on the two of us for now. You and me. The Heir of Death and the son of the Scarlet Witch. What were the chances of us ever meeting and ever being on the same side, Nicholas? But. But we did meet and we did fall in love and now. Now we’re two impossibilities that found each other. And I’m not letting go of you, lover mine. I’m not.”„Let go? No. No letting go of me. I won’t let go of you. And we will figure out what we are to the world because we already know what we are to each other. We do. We are us. We are the impossible made flesh and we have found one another. Life. You. Death. Me. Life. You. You’re also a cosmic entity, aren’t you? Wanda is too. Wanda was. No, that is wrong. Wanda is a cosmic entity, so Wanda is... Alive. Because life stems from her and from her fingers and from you and from your fingers as easily as it does from mine and Mama’s. You and me, Billy, we’re mirror images of each other, aren’t we? Rio and Wanda are too, but they’re distorted somehow. By Wanda’s human life and the pain in that. By Rio’s completely inhuman life and the lack of understanding in that. But the two of us, we’ve found our way to one another differently. We’re the two sides of the same coin that Wanda and Rio were supposed to be.”, he exhaled, his mouth finding Billy’s once more. And once again. And a final time before pulling back and looking over Billy’s shoulder at hopefully the last guest of the evening. His Mama.Rio. Enter Death.But not only Rio. Oh no. That would have been easy. Simple. Nicholas was tired of complicated and Nicholas was tired of being thrown into the middle of his parents’ relationship, with its ups and with its downs and Nicholas was tired of having to put himself bodily between Agatha and the innocents out there and between Rio and the innocents out there. Or in the room. He stood up in a flash and shoved both Billy and Tommy, who had decided to rejoin the party apparently, behind him as Rio’s fingers glowed green and Agatha chose that precise moment to float back into the room, elegant and cold and determined. It was a standoff. And Nicholas was tired of standoffs. So. Fucking. Tired. He’d been the tug of war between Agatha and Rio for all of his life and...„You had him with you all along.”, Agatha said, voice low and soft and so fucking dangerous that even Rio flinched, which wasn’t something that Death ever did. But Agatha. Oh.Agatha was Rio’s heart, hissing and spitting and blackened and so fucking huge that Nicholas wanted to shout at both of them to stop being so stubborn and to simply accept that love was meant to be eternal for some of them, even if they had hurt each other beyond comprehension at some point in life. Just. He trembled. Billy’s blue flames wrapped around him and Rio snarled, taking one step towards him and the Maximoffs before Agatha barred her way. His Mother had seemed to find out that she had some fucks left to give, after all. Agatha’s fingers caught Rio’s chin and Death’s skin sizzled with the cold touch of a ghost. Unnatural. Just like Billy and Tommy and Nicholas himself, but far lower on the disturbing the balance of the universe scale, ghosts were unnatural. Lost souls that had or didn’t have a good reason to be stranded on the mortal plain, they weren’t Death’s favourite thing in the world and Rio had made a point of forcibly encouraging them to cross whenever she encountered one or two or three. But. As always. Agatha was the exception. Nicholas snorted. Billy tapped his shoulder and he let his vines retreat from where they were keeping the Maximoffs safe.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Technically. Billy, as Wanda before him, didn’t need to be kept safe from anything else but his own heart and that wasn’t Nicholas’ job to do, no matter how much he adored the witch. And Tommy. Well. Tommy could probably outrun Rio for so long that she would simply get fucking tired of chasing after him. Perhaps. No, she wouldn’t. But she would be pissed off for a good, long while about it and then maybe she would befriend Tommy, since the younger Maximoff seemed to also be a cosmic entity. That had to be how that worked, no? His Mama had had him with Agatha. Wanda had had the twins with a dead Vision. The cosmic entities made more cosmic entities by putting parts of themselves into mortal bodies and watching them grow. For the sake of growth. From one very clinical point of view, they were cancerous cells. From another, they were pure and undiluted life. But they had all come to be the same way. Because their mothers had wanted them more than anything in the world. More than sanity. More than the balance of the universe.„What? Agatha. Step aside and let go.”, Rio murmured and twisted her wrists to bring roots flying out of the floors and...Nicholas hands lifted and his vines tangled with the wooden roots that his Mama had brought forth, suffocating them in greenery and making them so heavy that they had to collapse and shatter in a thousand pieces. The look on Rio’s face could have frozen a hundred hells over if those had ever been hot to begin with. They weren’t. There was no such thing as an eternal damnation spot for souls that had broken whatever random commandments one god or another had thrown their way. There was something that would forever hold those that were beyond redemption and that would choose the same life of moral putridity, but it wasn’t a hell as the mortals understood it. And it wasn’t a place one ever came back from.„I will fucking not and you will look at me, Rio. Now.”, Agatha’s last word shattered the windows of the little backroom and blew out the door, the wood splintering in a thousand pieces and Nicholas fervently praying that the music was loud enough at the party that no one had heard that explosion. Or that everyone was drunk enough. Also an option. So much of an option that he wanted to laugh histerically. His eyes caught onto the phone that Tommy had left on the table when the teenager had taken off for the second time that evening. Midnight. The witching hour. Billy’s powers didn’t wax and wane with the moon phases or with the time of the day because Billy wasn’t a witch. Not really. But Agatha was. And Agatha was furious. Once more, Rio flinched and, for the first time since he could remember, Death refused to meet anyone’s gaze. More than that, Rio lowered her eyes to somewhere close to Agatha’s collarbone and winced. Agatha hissed. „Coward. I asked you, Rio. Over and over and over and over again. I asked you for him and I asked you about him. Do you remember what you told me, my love? Over and over and over and over again, Rio, you said that he is where he should be and that you don’t know anything. I asked you, Rio, if you had plans for him that I should know, since he is our son and I’m not just the mortal that had to bring Death’s Heir into a body. You swore to me that you weren’t using me like your own personal version of the Virgin Mary. You swore it on our love and on our son. You swore that you would tell me what things I needed to know about him, Rio. You swore. And you lied. You had him with you this whole time. Four fucking hundred years. Rio. I said look at me, fucking hells.”„What would you have me say, Agatha? The truth would have...”, Death started, then snarled and turned on the spot, putting her back to Agatha and to Nicholas, but keeping Billy in her sights.Interesting.Nicholas’ eyes kept track of his lover’s movements and smiles. Curious. Billy wasn’t scared of Rio. Billy hadn’t been scared of Rio for a very long time. Rio’s anguish didn’t entertain the witch either, but Billy wasn’t using the fact that his Mama was distracted to shove Tommy in another body or to hide his brother in an interdimensional pocket of time and space that Death could not access because there was no life there either. No. Billy was simply walking to his conjured chair and sitting down, both legs thrown over the left armrest and head held up by his palm, the witch’s black painted nails peeking from between those curls. Languid. Billy was in control of himself, at the very least.„The truth would have what, Rio? Come now. Tell me everything. You’ve made it so fucking clear, over and over again, that Billy wasn’t my son. You stood there, looked me in the eyes on the Road both of us knew what a Maximoff creation and you made it a fucking point to cut me down to the marrow of my bones and tell me, with all of the words that you could find, that Billy wasn’t my son. You said, Rio, that my son is dead and that he’s not coming back and that you knew what I felt for the teenager who had created a whole fucking world out of nothing but his own imagination and the need to untangle his powers enough to find his twin. You said, Rio...”, Agatha chocked off one last sound, struggling to breathe through the anger and through the pain. Nicholas wanted to go to her. He wanted. He needed. He wanted to touch his Mother and he wanted to hold her head to his chest and he wanted to catch Rio’s wrist in his fingers and he wanted to shake both of them and tell them to stop.Stop hurting one another. Stop lying to one another. Stop avoiding one another. Just stop. They both needed to stop and Nicholas was done letting them tear each other to shreds. He’d lived through that over and over again and he’d lived through it in the worst possible way. He’d lived through it as the reason for their pain and the seed of their discord. He was the centrefold of their issues and the core of everything that had gone both right and wrong between Agatha and Rio. Their love, incandescent and beautiful and pure in the way only a soul who’d never loved before could feel for Death herself, had been tainted by their hatred of each other. Except. Except that Rio had never touched another after Agatha and except that Agatha had walked the mortal plain alone after Rio and except that Nicholas existed and that was proof enough of the melding of their souls. Nicholas existed as half witch, half cosmic entity and that wasn’t in the original plan. He snorted and stood up, letting his magic, violet and green reach out for both of his mothers. For their souls. For their hearts. For their love for him, as he was their love made real.„You two are fools.”, Nicholas whispered, the room turning towards him as one while his magic lit up as it touched both Agatha and Rio at the same time. Oh. He could feel their connection. He smiled, lips simply peeling back from his teeth with absolutely no feeling behind them. He smiled, but felt nothing but exasperation and a thin sheet of icy anger that threatened to break and let out a whole deluge of white cold fury. Their four hundred years old back and forth had kept him separated from Agatha for not a single good fucking reason and had kept him at arms’ length from Rio because of guilt. And they were both so in love with one another that they had chosen to take all the guilt of the other on themselves and simply drown in it. They were free to do so. They were. Or they would have been free to ruin each other’s lives if he would not have been the main casualty. And if their own hearts wouldn’t have been saveged by their own actions. He shuddered. „Tell her the truth, Mama. All of it. Tell her. And you, Mother, you will listen to Mama. And you will take your sweet time figuring yourselves out and finding a way back to one another, if that exists. Because I am done with having two parents that I cannot get in fucking touch to, even as they are standing right in front of me at all times. I could see you, Mother. I could see you, after I left with Mama. I could see killing, over and over and over again. I don’t want to assume why you kept doing it, but. But you know why and I know why and we both know why you never gave up on me. Why I lived in you, for centuries on end. Just. For once in your endlessness, Rio, speak the truth and nothing but the truth. And I will untie you from one another if that is what you wish at the end of it.”„The ties that bind. Don’t look at me like that, Agatha. Incomprehensible I am not and neither are you. I’m a cosmic entity. You are mortal and a witch with a quirk. I’ve always known you would come. I’ve watched your line for centuries. Millenia. Who even knows. Who even cares.”, Rio murmured, letting her long, dark claw like fingernails caress the magic strands that Nicholas was weaving between her and Agatha. She added her own green magic to the mix and sighed when Agatha’s simply jumped up to meet hers. Nicholas wanted to smack their heads together. Maybe. He also maybe wanted to rage at them and maybe elope with Billy for a century and never see another person as they got to deepen their bond even more. Just. Fucking away from everything that was to happen and from everything that had happened. He simply wanted Billy. He walked towards his lover and gestured for the younger man to let him... Yes. That. To let him plop himself into Billy’s lap. He did. Rio rolled her eyes at him, but kept quiet about it. She truly didn’t have a single piece of high ground to stand on when it came to falling for an impossibly smart and wicked witch. Absolutely no ground to stand on. None whatsoever. Rio was still digging her own fucking way to the center of the fucking planet when it came to Agatha, so. Nicholas smiled. Rio let her eyes find Agatha’s and she continued speaking. „I needed to have an Heir. I needed a mortal to provide a body for my Heir, for their soul to actually catch onto something in the mortal plain and for them to have a connection to you. To all of you in general, I mean. I was distant and I was not good enough to guard the balance of the universe. I could sense something coming. Soon. Something that would make me an answer to a question posed by another. Death, the answer to Life and not Death, the Green Witch, the eternity of Life. No. I could sense Wanda coming and I could sense my need to have a deeper connection with the mortals that the Scarlet Witch would rise from.”Nicholas knew all of that. Not clearly. Not in as many words as that, but he’d known. He had, at the very least, suspected that his Mama had went out into the mortal world, built herself a body and chose a mortal to carry him. A mortal. Whichever mortal she would find useful and whichever mortal could fulfill some of her desires in a carrier for her offspring. Except. Except that Death had not known mortals that up close and personal and except that Death had not expected Agatha. He knew what Rio thought of Agatha and he knew how deep his Mama’s consideration for his Mother ran. Deeper than Death’s love for Agatha even and that seemed endless. Rio hadn’t just fallen head over heels for a witch that she’d found suitable for her plan, but she had also gotten a lesson in the actual importance of human life and on how strong and powerful mortals could truly be and how no one put Agatha in a corner and lived to tell the tale. No one. Not even Death.Rio had fallen hard and fast and without reservations and had touched Agatha first in a meadow somewhere in the Massachusetts, right on the edge of what was the very recently founded Harvard University. Close to Salem. But far enough that Agatha had been able to pass as nothing more than a seamstress and not the Witch Killer herself. There had been a time when his Mother had feared discovery and when Agatha’s biggest nightmare had been using her powers. The Salem Seven had been hunting for her back then too. But then Rio had come to her in a dream. Nicholas snorted. It ran in the family, it seemed, finding one’s lover in dreams.„We are not having this conversation here. Either we leave or the boys leave. This... This is a matter of me and you, Rio. The peanut gallery is not necessary and our story doesn’t concern them. Billy. Leave. I’ll know where to find you all, don’t worry. Or Rio will.”, Agatha said, low and fast, her fingers snapping at Billy as if he was still seventeen going on a hundred as the eldest Maximoff had been four years back.Nicholas snorted, slightly amused at his Mother’s audacity, but also a little bit insulted on Billy’s behalf. Also. On his own. Because Agatha might think and be justified in believing that Tommy and Billy had nothing to gain from learning about her ancient history with Rio, that was patently untrue for himself. He stiffened. Billy rolled his eyes at Agatha and flipped her off before running an elegant, warm hand over the knobs of his vertebrae, some of them perfectly visible through his vines and through his smoke. An inhale. His own. An exhale. Agatha’s. Rio was watching the entire scene in a haze of not understanding what was happening, which Nicholas recognised from a thousand miles away. While Death loved Agatha and him to pieces and far more than the balance of the universe itself should have allowed, Rio had very little actual experience with mortals and their emotions. His Mama had spent less than six months with Agatha back when Nicholas had been conceived and then had promptly disappeared while his Mother carried him and raised him. And then. Well. Then Rio had raised him to the best of her abilities, but they had definitely clicked better the older he got and Agatha was definitely not willing to educate Rio about the finer details of emotions and of human interactions anymore by that point.„Oh, Agatha. Don’t be an ass. Well. More of an ass than you normally are.”, Billy threw out there and let the words simply exist between the five of them, Tommy supremely awkward and absolutely wanting to get the hell out of there and Nicholas simply not clawing at the armrests next to his lover’s thighs out of sheer will. Rio was taking everything in and Agatha was quietly seething. And Nicholas wanted to know what she had to say, but at the same fucking time, he also didn’t want to know. He didn’t. He didn’t, because his Mother had a way with words and had called him the peanut gallery and he wanted to howl at her. But he had no voice. There were no sounds coming from the center of his chest and he simply stood there, on Billy’s lap, and waited for his lover to finish speaking. „Yes, yes, cosmic connection, you two and Rio and Wanda if they would have met under better circumstances and me and Nicholas certainly and while your ancient history means absolutely jackshit to Tommy and I, it means pretty much everything to Nicholas. Which you two seem to have conveniently forgotten all about in your quest to scratch each other’s eyes and hearts out. Agatha. Don’t do this. Don’t have more mercy and more understanding for me than for your own son. Don’t do this. Don’t put your pain over losing Nicholas over him being right fucking here, no matter how and why and where he’s been so far. As for you, Lady Death, we’ll discuss the terms of our own parlay later on, no? You seem to be otherwise engaged. At the moment at least.”Rio snarled. Agatha paled and reached for Nicholas, who drew back from her touch and stood up, moving towards the splintered door to look out into the hallway. It was quiet. He listened carefully and exhaled, thankful and pleased that his Mama hadn’t made everyone silent forever on a whim. Not that she was prone to those, but still. A cosmic entity when provoked and all that jazz. But the party was still there, though separate from them. Billy’s doing, he realised. Death didn’t have that ability to separate herself from her surroundings, not if she wanted to interact with them. So the quiet of their little encounter and its internal explosivness had been kept apart from the innocents out there by his witch. Billy. His witch. His man. His lover. And his heart.„Nicky, I-i. You. You should stay and we should talk and...”, his Mother began, voice shaking and somewhat unsure and he inhaled. Deeply. He could have cut her to the quick and he could have made it hurt. She had hurt him. The conversation that Agatha and Rio had to have, finally and for fuck’s sake, was not one that concerned only the two of them, but he could see how it would have to start with the two of them and then continue with him and them. Once they would be done ripping each other’s throats out and all that. Perhaps. Still, Agatha including him in her very expressive peanut gallery remark didn’t sit well with him. He exhaled and Agatha seemed to have found some more words. „Nicky. Nicholas. Please stay. Or let’s all go together and discuss this, whatever this is. I want to know the truth. All the truth. And it is apparently ready to be said. So please, let’s just be together for this.”„It is not ready to be said. It has been made ready to be said. There’s a difference, Mother.”, Nicholas offered, his fingers catching onto Agatha’s elegant sleeves, the dress she was wearing a deep, deep green.He wanted to laugh. His Mother was wearing his Mama’s colours and she had been doing that for quite a while. Not right after she’d died and turned into a ghost by refusing to cross over, but soon enough. Billy had been generous with his descriptions of a shenanigan or another that involved himself and Agatha and Agatha’s passion for anything green. Or purple. Or glamorous in any way. Or flamboyant. After all, Billy had taken a ghost to the last four Pride parades in Los Angeles and Agatha had taken fashion inspiration from certain outfits. It was endearing. His dark and pupilless eyes locked with his Mother’s as he leaned in and kissed her cheek for the first time in four hundred years. She stilled, holding herself perfectly firm and tensing up just a little bit more when he pulled back, but forcing herself to not hold onto him. Nicholas was grateful for that. He wouldn’t have been able to give her and Rio the privacy they might have needed, even if they might have also not deserved from where he was standing. A four hundred year old tug of war that he was caught in the middle of because Rio had not been fully honest from the start with the mortal she had fallen for. And then his Mama had not taken the fucking time to explain everything to Agatha once everything had snowballed all the way to any and all supposed hells and back.„You two should take the evening and maybe tomorrow as well and discuss this. Properly. Mama, don’t... Don’t assume anything. Just start from the beginning and lay everything on the table for her to see, understand and, hopefully, accept. Mother, anger is good and it should be purged, but storming off in the middle of a sentence that you don’t like the first two words of isn’t it either, okay? I don’t want to keep parenting my parents. Please. Both of you.”, he sighed and walked to Rio, wrapping her in a physical hug that she didn’t react much to at first, but then laid her head on his shoulder and her palm on his chest, exhaling shakily and whispering in the space between them a low and clear I’ve missed you, my boy. Nicholas nuzzled her hair and pulled back, kissing her forehead and her cheeks before looking at both her and Agatha critically for a long second. „I’ve missed you both. And yes, I’ve seen you, Mama, far more recently than you, Mother, but it’s a different sort of ache. I’ve gotten used to missing you, Agatha. It is what it is, I used to say to myself. I was in a realm where you couldn’t follow, Mother, and that was it. And I was loved and cared for and cherished and Mama took good care of me. I promise. And I missed you, Mama, much more acutely because I was used to simply reaching out of you and you would have been there. Until I was here and it was your turn to not follow me. It seemed that no matter what I did, I was left without one parent or even without both of them. But now you’re both here. And the peanut gallery and I will go and leave you two to talk. You. Um. Know where to find us. Agatha can definitely find Billy at all times and I’ll cut off the runes that I have carved on Jules’ thigh so that you can both track me at all times. We’ll talk, Mama. Later. I know that you want me to move on from the Maxwells and from Jules, if not return to you. But we’ll talk later, I promise.”„Agreed, we’ll discuss everything later. And we will also discuss your taste in lovers. Really, Nicholas, a Maximoff? That Maximoff? Why is it always a Maximoff that is right fucking there to get on my last fucking nerve?”, Rio smiled coldly, eyeing Billy with something close to disdain, but still not putting her back or even her side to him. Death wasn’t scared of anyone, no, but Death had a healthy amount of respect for the one to inherit, develop and grow Wanda’s powers. And Billy was irreverent enough to probably piss off Rio majorly, though it wasn’t like his Mama was one much for authority. No, what annoyed Rio the most was, most likely, that Billy was exactly like her in some ways and that she could see herself in Billy far more than she could see herself in Nicholas himself. Perhaps. He grinned and nodded, laying yet another kiss on her forehead and stepping back towards his lover and Tommy, while Rio continued to eye the three of them carefully and somewhat suspiciously. Nicholas smiled softly and Billy grinned. Tommy was just hiding behind them and peeking at Lady Death from behind their shoulders. „Don’t go anywhere too far, Maximoffs. I’ll be back for you both. To talk, of course. To parlay, Wiccan. And I know what I want. Won’t that be fun for you?”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
„Um. What do we do now? I mean, I’m still in Chris’ body, though it is going through something you said. And Nicholas is back in Jules’ body and you’re looking at him funny, Billy. And what do we do? We just show up with you at our side back at the house? And you’re who? What do we say? Hi, mom, here’s Billy? He’s... My twin? Jules’ new boyfriend? Guys. You’re making cow eyes at each other and I’m having a bit of a meltdown here. Help. Me. The. Fuck. Out.”, Tommy whined and poked at Billy’s side while trying to grab onto Nicholas’ shirt and failing miserably since he was already used to the speedster’s maneuvers when Tommy wanted attention.And.Well.The teenager wasn’t wrong about anything much. They didn’t have how to explain a suddenly appearing Billy other than to say that he was Jules’ new boyfriend. And they were making eyes at each other. He resented the cow eyes expression, but if the shoe fit and everything. He also wanted to be alone with Billy. And himself. And that meant that they had only one shot at dealing with both Tommy and the Maxwells in one swift move for the evening. Which was selfish. Maybe Billy wanted to cuddle his little brother for the night and Nicholas... Nope. He recognised that look on his lover’s eyes. Billy wanted to do right by Tommy and Billy would. But. In the morning. Tommy’s body was changing because of Billy’s proximity, which was interesting and important and would take time. Not a lot of time, that was for sure, because Tommy did everything at the speed of light and even more so, but it wouldn’t be an instantaneous process either. Which meant that they all needed time. A little bit of time. An inhale. An exhale. Billy’s eyes followed his two threads of magic that were still wrapped around the witch’s right wrist and sinking deep inside of his chest. He didn’t have much of an idea about how to pull them back and Billy didn’t seem hindered by them, so they stayed there, connecting the two of them for as long as both of them were in agreement. Nicholas smiled. Billy nodded. They turned towards Tommy at the same time and hugged the teenager together, pulling the speedster between them in the middle of Slate’s empty Main Street.„Guuuuys, come on, this is not cool, man. Not cool. I don’t need to be seen hugging my big brother... Brothers in the street. Though nobody knows about you, Billy. Just about you, Jules. And you might want to not look as much as yourself if you’re planning on sticking around, twin of mine. It’s not like your Wiccan suit has a mask or anything and not everyone is as uninformed about the lives of our superheroes as Nickiebear here is. You’ll be recognised.”, the teenager pointed out quite sensibly, but Nicholas didn’t like that. He really didn’t like that. He wanted Billy to look like himself at all times and to not have to hide, but Tommy wasn’t wrong. Once more. Maybe they should call Tommy when they might need a reality from then on. Perhaps. The speedster also ate pizza with mango and chilli flakes, so perhaps not. Though there was a difference between common sense and a reality check. Definitely so. „Yo? Dream team? What do we do now? Can I go over to Cara’s? She’s cool. She won’t be all in my face about why I’m suddenly a bit more silver than just ashy blonde. I think. She’s cool, Nicholas can vouch for her. I’m going to ask Martina. She’ll say yes. And then I’m going to Cara’s for the night and you two can deal with Martina and James and with explaining how Jules managed to bag Wiccan of all people.”„Aaaand he’s gone. You think she’s going to say yes to his request? She will. Got it. Do we... Like. Give him condoms or something or why are you laughing at me, he’s sixteen, I was having so much sex at sixteen, Nicholas. Jules. Nickiepoo? Jules. I’ll call you Jules when you’re wearing Jules. Hopefully. Fuck, I have to remember to call you Jules. Anyways. Yes. Sex. A lot of it. Condoms. I never caught an STD and I didn’t get anyone pregnant either. Not that I had sex with a girl or with anyone who could get pregnant in general so far. Still. Does he have condoms? He better have condoms.”, Billy mumbled and spun around to look after the literal trail of dust that Tommy’s departure had left on the pavement, Nicholas’ hands wrapping around the witch’s waist and pulling him closer to his chest. An inhale. Billy smelled like cold. Like the liquid metal running through his body. Which Nicholas wanted to explore. Thoroughly. Hands found his own and the younger man turned to face him, a soft smile blooming across his features. „Do you have condoms, Nicholas? And lube? And a room that you don’t share with my baby brother? Because I would absolutely love to play with you. Naked. Soon. As in right now. I can teleport us to your house if you just think about it and you let me pluck the location from your mind.”„Or. Alternatively. We can drive so that I don’t leave my car here and then have to walk all the way from down by the beachside to here. It’s a half an hour walk. Let’s not.”, he snorted, his lips tracing Billy’s forehead and the top of the witch’s cheekbones before placing a delicate kiss on his lover’s upturned nose. A giggle came from Billy as their lips met once and then once more and he liked kissing his lover as Jules. But. But he would kiss Billy as himself that night, though making love to the witch with Jules’ body laying on the floor or something would be weird. Still. He would. Perhaps Billy could offer his magical services to stash Jules away until the morning and all that. Nicholas pulled back and looked at his lover for a long moment before gesturing towards the building in which Tommy had disappeared a few minutes back. „Martina will let him stay with Cara as long as Cara’s parents are home. He has condoms and he had the safe sex speech a thousand and one times from both Martina and James and even from me one memorable time. His girlfriend sleeps in the same room and in the same bed sometimes with her little sister. Kid’s like four or something. Tommy usually sleeps on the couch, in their living room. They’ll be fine. He’s smart. Cara’s smarter. None of them want to be teenage parents. I trust them. Now. For me. I do have all of the above as well. Condoms. Lube. A room that I don’t share with Tommy, thank fuck. That was an experience. And a desire to make love to you. How about that?”„That sounds like the most brilliant thing you’ve ever said to me and you’ve said a lot of brilliant things to me in the past two years. I remember when you recited that entire Sumerian love poem to me. The love song for Shu-Sin. It was gorgeous. In the original language too. I think that’s when I knew for sure that I was in love with you, even as we hadn’t yet laid eyes on each other and I was still... Witholding stuff from you. Not because I didn’t want to tell you, though. Never because of that. More because I.”, the younger man shrugged, dropping his gaze to Nicholas’ shoulder for a moment before looking back up at him. In Jules’ body. While if he would have been in his own, he would have been the one to look up at Billy. The change in perspective was so odd. „More because I didn’t know how to tell you that I travel the world with your ghostly mother, picking up lore and magic rituals and bits and bobbles to see if I can bring back my mother, who both of your mothers absolutely hate and whom Agatha actively tried to kill, while also working with the very organisation that did kill Wanda. And Peter. And Vision. Sort of. So my entire blooded and circuit family was murdered, in one way or another, by either the government or the Avengers and I’m sort of working with them all. Oh, yes, and that I moonlight as a superhero? While doing an art degree and not scamming tourists, as Agatha has advised over and over again. Not anymore. We had a rough time there when I turned nineteen for a while, since I dropped out of the school that my parents chose for me to go to Iceland for like six months and meet with some witches there. That was fun. I did scam some tourists then.”Nicholas snickered. He did. He snickered and he leaned in to kiss Billy once more and then again and then he spied movement with the corner of his eye and not the kind of movement that indicated Tommy speeding past them. Oh. No. No, no. That was Ryan coming out of the bushes somewhere to their left and heading straight for them with a murderous expression on his face, which didn’t make the man any less handsome. Or any less drunk off his ass. Ryan was a guy that knew his worth. It was the alcohol that was making Nicholas’ ex so determined to be angry at something that had gone so fucking wrong from the start. Nicholas was to blame. He’d never been Jules. And Ryan was perfect for Jules. He was. But not for Nicholas. And Jules was dead, sadly. Billy turned in his arms the second he felt Nicholas freeze, eyes wide and curious and fingers sparkling with magic. Blue flames. Nicholas’ hand closed over the witch’s and, for a brief moment, their gazes locked again and Ryan was forgotten. An inhale. An exhale. A shoe came flying towards them from Ryan’s general direction and Billy startled, sending a spark of his magic towards the projectile and turning it to bits. Quite literal bits.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
„I... Didn’t expect to throw a shoe at you, honestly. I don’t know what got into me. I. I sobered up. I. You. You’re Billy. You’re the guy he cheated on me with. Though, I suppose, we had not discussed any sort of exclusivity thing between us, so maybe I was the one who wanted too much out of a situationship.”, Ryan snorted, standing on one single leg and hobbling towards the largest remaining part of his left shoe. He had flamingo socks on and Nicholas found that exquisitely funny, though the entire moment was definitely leaning more towards tragic than towards funny. Perhaps. Nicholas had fucked up. Billy was being quite calm and definitely far better at the whole meeting an ex than the older man had expected, quite honestly, but Nicholas had fucked up. Absolutely so. Ryan was just staring at his shoe pieces in despair, sighing and running a tired hand over his face. „And you’re a super of some kind. I never thought I’d live to see the day when a super would set foot in Slate. I have never seen you around before today, though. I’d have remembered you for sure. You do look familiar somehow, but I’m still a little drunk and I might be imagining things. But did you have to explode my shoe? Really? How am I supposed to get in my cab now? I don’t think he’ll take me shoeless.”„You did throw it at us, though. And. Technically. If you want to split hairs, he didn’t cheat on either of us since, as you’ve said, neither of us had discussed anything of monogamy beforehand. Him and I, we discussed it now, so there’s that. I heard he ghosted you a month back, which... Rude, N-Jules. You should have simply explained the situation to Ryan here and Ryan would have understood and thrown a shoe at you back then. And not now. When I exploded his shoe.”, Billy snickered, having way too much fun with the entire situation if Nicholas did say so himself. And he did. He was trying to find something to offer to a very dejected and looking like a kicked puppy Ryan, but he shouldn’t have worried about that either. Oh no. His beloved had him covered, through and through. He was going to make Billy sleep on the couch. For a month. Oh, who was he kidding. He was, at most, going to make Billy get him breakfast in the morning. Naked. Fuck’s sake. „How about this instead of the mopfest you’re doing and instead of Jules vibrating out of his skin with embarrassment and awkwardness? I get your shoe back in order, you put it on and we drive you back to your dorm. Just to make sure you get there fine and that nothing happens to you, since you’re not fully sober yet. And if you want to hit Jules with the shoe again, I’m sure that can be arranged, but I must advise against it. I don’t like it when people try to hurt him in any way. And if I see anything at all flying towards him again, I might disintegrate it again. Permanently, this time.”Ryan’s eyes widened just a fraction before the other man nodded firmly and gestured towards his remaining shoe, the expectant look on his handsome face bringing out a snort from Nicholas. Oh. He knew that look. He’d been on the receiving end of that look many times. Well. Jules had. It was such an interesting way thing to be able to separate everything and everyone so clearly inside of his head. Everything and everyone fit in two categories. Jules’ people and stuff, the ones Nicholas needed to have in order to perform correctly as the Maxwells’ eldest son. And then Nicholas’ people and stuff, like Billy and his own body and, apparently, Tommy. Tommy who was also Chris, but who was definitely not just Jules’ person. It was just easy for him to think of the world like that and for him to not feel guilty about stringing Ryan along when he’d been definitely in love with Billy for quite a while. He inhaled and didn’t moan out loud when his witch’s fingers twirled and twisted and Ryan’s shoe was there, brand new and absolutely pristine looking, floating silently towards the stunned young man who had not actually believed that Billy could do it. Nicholas wanted to crow about how astonishing his lover was and about how putting back a twenty dollar shoe from the strip mall wasn’t even pinging on the scale of things that Billy could do without even breaking a sweat, but. Well. He reconsidered his audience. It would be in bad taste to brag about the man he was in love with to his ex. Truly. In such poor taste. However. He took advantage of Ryan bending over to slip his shoe on and moulded his lips to Billy’s ear. Sexily. But also.„What exactly is it that we’re doing here, Billy? Why are we suddenly going to drop Jules’ ex at his dorm, which is, might I add, about thirty miles in the completely opposite direction of where we were initially going? Down the highway and not towards my bed, where we could get naked and I could ditch this body and we could touch while awake for the first time ever?”, Nicholas asked, his fingers tangling with Billy’s for a few moments and his eyes mesmerised by the rise and fall of the witch’s chest. As well as by the glimmer of all those rings that Billy was wearing. One on each finger. And on some fingers, two or three. Lovely. He’d not paid a lot of attention to what Billy sounded like when walking, but Nicholas would bet that the younger man jingled. Well, that was if the witch didn’t have a sound dampening charm or rune on himself, which would be a sad, sad thing. He wanted to hear Billy’s jewellery move with his lover. So much. Wicked eyes, contoured with the perfect line of kohl or liquid eyeliner or a bit of both really, rose up to meet Jules’ pale green ones. Oh, Billy was in so much trouble with him. And so much trouble for him. „Well? Lover mine?”„You’re different.”, Ryan said, approaching them carefully and on slightly steadier legs than before. The shoe explosion must have really sobered him up, Nicholas mused. And Jules’ ex was a smart guy. Very smart. If Ryan said that he was different, then Nicholas was definitely doing something out of character for Jules, which didn’t bode well for any of his next day interactions with the world. But he didn’t know exactly how to ask Ryan to explain what that meant and... He didn’t have to. Ryan was looking at him and at Billy with an open sort of interest that had Nicholas tighten his arms around the witch and not snarl at Ryan out of sheer will. Except that he hadn’t done such a good thing hiding that last part of his reaction, apparently, because Ryan burst out in a quick laugh and shook his head, running a hand over the front of his own shirt. „Damn, tiger. You never did that with me. You are different with Billy. Smoother somehow. Like you’re not cracking at the edges with him like you were with me. I bet you even fuck him better than you fucked me. Don’t look offended, it wasn’t like you couldn’t bring me to the big O or anything. You know you did. But you lacked spark most of the time. Interest, I suppose. I assumed it might have been me you weren’t interested in physically that much. But I don’t think that’s true, is it? It wasn’t me. It was literally you. You weren’t into me because you were into him all along. Let me guess. You two had a complicated situationship that you have just barely figured out and I was the simple way out. Fuck me. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. That’s me alright. And no. Thank you. I’ll call a cab and go to my motel. I actually came to stay the night, hoping I could figure you out, Jules. And I did, so mission accomplished. Don’t. Don’t apologise. I wouldn’t even know what to do with your apology. Probably something rude, like shoving it up your ass.”„That’s fair, Ryan. I won’t apologise then. Just. I won’t apologise, but I am sorry for trying with you when I shouldn’t have strung you along at all. I tried. I promise you that I tried. I promise you that all the good times we had, they’ve been real. I wasn’t pretending and I was happy with you in those moments. If that helps any.”, he replied, softly and calmly and desperate to apologise. He’d not been allowed though and he understood why. He did. Billy nudged him and flashed some of his blue sparks towards him, trying to tell him something, which. Didn’t fucking work. Because Nicholas wasn’t a mind reader and. Oh. He wasn’t a mind reader, no, but Billy was a reality maker and Nicholas suddenly had the image of Ryan stepping through a portal to his hotel room door burned into the back of his mind. With a lot of oomph. He winced. Billy patted him hand. They would have to learn how to calibrate that for sure. His eyes returned to Ryan’s just as the other man was pulling out his phone to call for a ride and he sighed. Loudly. Billy would so be getting him breakfast naked. From Paris or something. „Look. Um. Would you like for Billy to portal you to your motel? Just to save you the trouble of the taxi and everything? This is awkward. So awkward. Please say yes.”Ryan said yes. Thank fuck. Ryan said yes and Billy’s fingers flew up, the witch gathering power from within himself to simply weave it into strands that cleaved the fabric of reality in two. A split, like on the back of a broken plush toy, appeared right in front of Ryan, the other man startling for a second before reaching for the glimmering surface of the portal. Blue. White. Black. Whatever colour that was, Jules’ human eyes couldn’t actually pick it up properly. Maybe because it wasn’t meant to be analysed by a human at all, Nicholas mused quietly, then proceeded to feel speciest about the thought and sighed. Billy let out a low sound that stopped Ryan’s fingers from actually skimming his almost mirror way home as the witch moved just a tad closer to Jules’ ex, his magic swirling in a little compact ball between his elegant and wickedly powerful hands. Ryan’s eyes locked onto that display of might and Nicholas had to admire the other man for the courage it took to not run when a Maximoff was pointing some magic at one. Not that Ryan knew who Billy was. But still. Billy was smiling. Even sincerely so, as far as Nicholas could tell. It was fair to Ryan, though, for Billy to be honest with him. None of what happened was Ryan’s fault. It was all Nicholas’ fault up to a point and no one’s fault after that. Billy was a good person.„I wouldn’t step through that just yet, Ryry. I need to see where you have to go. Let me... Allow me to look into your mind and see your motel, please. It’s the only way for the portal to have a direction and not just spit you out at the bottom of the ocean or on another planet or something like that. I’m very good at this whole instatravel shit, but not without an end point. So? May I? Look inside your head to see your motel?”, the witch held out his hand to Ryan, who Nicholas was pretty sure was crushing hard on Billy. Once more, that was fair. Billy was sex on legs and absolutely amazing as a person and definitely sort of raised by Agatha. Nicholas could see it in the way his lover talked and in the way Billy moved at times. Sideways. Billy preferred to circle his target instead of going at it straight. Which. Agatha had once told Billy that if he wanted straight answers, he should ask a straight witch. Very nice wordplay, he’d give that to his Mother. But, as far as Nicholas knew, there were very few straight witches out there and that was just a fun fact he and Rio had collected over the years. The queers were literally magical. He snorted quietly and waited for Ryan to nod silently, the man’s eyes taking Billy in hungrily. His lover smiled softly, separating the sparkly tangle from his palm into two very similar strands, dark and velvety blue magic wrapping itself around Billy’s fingers as he approached Ryan once more. And lifted his hands to Ryan’s temples. Like Wanda used to do. Nicholas shivered at the picture that his witch offered him, slender and dressed all in black from head to toe, Billy’s fingers glowing blue and strands of his magic penetrating Ryan’s mind. Slowly. Purposefully. Pointedly. Searching. „There. I see it. Thank you for opening up your mind to me. Not everyone would be willing to have a witch digging through their head. You’re a very polite and well mannered guy, aren’t you, Ryan? You are. If it’s any consolation, I don’t think Jules could have made you happy in any meaningful way and I say that with the full knowledge of what he is. And of what you want from a man and from your life. Side effects of letting a witch inside your head is that I know that now. Just. I know it should have been your choice to either end your relationship with Jules or keep it going. I know. Him taking that choice from you isn’t it. I understand. And I understand that you’re within your rights to not believe me or to think that I’m being high handed or whatever other thing you can think of me and maybe you wouldn’t be wrong. But. I don’t want you to think that he’s the one that got away. He’s not. I promise you that. I promise that there’s someone that will be the one you’re dreaming of. It’s not Jules. Forget about him. Pretend he’s dead. And you’ve got a great ass too. Now go. The portal is all yours.”„You are high handed and presumptuous and Jules did decide for both of us without actually informing the other party, also known as me, that our mutual relationship was fucking over. But.”, Ryan looked carefully from Billy’s black eyes to Jules’ pale green ones, shaking his head after getting to whatever conclusion there was there to get to. Nicholas didn’t know what that was and didn’t think he had a right to ask. Most definitely not. He wasn’t even allowed to apologise to Ryan, so asking what the other man thought about him and Billy was both pointless and cruel. He didn’t want to be cruel. Ryan had been good to Jules and Jules, had Jules been alive still, would have been good to Ryan. But Jules was dead. And Nicholas was in love with a witch that could destroy worlds. And create them anew. „But I don’t hate either of you. And, Jules. I know there’s something different about you. I’ve always known. I was hoping you would tell me at some point and that we could go from there, but I also understand that we needed to get to that point and that we didn’t. I understand. I don’t want to see either of you again, but I also won’t spit on your shoes if we do run into each other again. It’s a small community here and I don’t want you to not feel welcomed at Pride or in any of the restaurants and bars. And I don’t want to feel unwelcome either, so there’s also that. Just. Goodbye, Jules. It was interesting meeting you, Billy. Hope to never see you two again. Have a good night.”
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„Got any more exes that will come out of the bushes around here?”, Billy asked, amused and genuinely curious and Nicholas grinned, his previous decision to make the witch fetch him breakfast naked, from a far away land like Europe or Asia, already forgotten under the sheer power of his lover’s smile. The sun. Billy was the sun. No. Billy wasn’t the sun. Billy was the moon. No. That neither. Billy was a star, in the most cosmic sense of the word and in a way that terrified the Heir of Death. But. But that also made Nicholas shake with the need to be devoured by all that power brimming right underneath his lover’s skin, the blue filaments rising gently from everywhere, Billy’s body seemingly glowing from within. He smiled and let Jules’ nose trace the sides of Billy’s jaw and then follow one of those strands of magic towards the witch’s earlobe, letting his teeth bite down on that sensitive spot behind Billy’s ear. Oh yes. A moan. Fingers catching onto his shoulders. „Nic-Nicholas, bed. Bed. Take me to bed. I’m not letting you fuck me in the bushes. From where your ex came out, a shoe flying towards us. Bed, Nicholas. Now.”„Bed, Billy. Got it. Bed. And he’s not... He’s technically not my ex? He’s technically Jules’ ex? This is too morally complicated for how fucking horny I am, I swear. You make me very horny. I’m four hundred years old. I don’t think I should be able to be this horny. Actually, no, that’s bullshit, I’m horny and you make me horny and hot and I love you and.”, Nicholas groaned, Billy’s lips finding his and Billy’s tongue licking at the seam of his mouth and he opened for his lover. He did. He liked kissing Billy. He loved kissing Billy. He was getting all hot and hard and his hands were definitely slipping from the witch’s chest to Billy’s waist and even lower, to the curve of that ass that he really, really, really wanted to see with his own two eyes and that he really wanted to lick at and bury himself in and probably bite at. Definitely bite at. He wanted Billy. And there was something vibrating between them. No. No more interruptions. First it had been their families. Then it had been Ryan and Billy’s peace offerings, which had worked splendidly, actually. Nicholas was a bit in awe of that. But. But Billy’s phone was vibrating in the man’s front pocket and it wasn’t because the witch was happy to see him for sure. Fucking fuck. Billy sighed and pulled away from the kiss, pouting and dropping his head on Jules’ shoulder. An inhale. An exhale. „You have to answer that?”„Probably, yes. I don’t want to, though.”, the witch rubbed his eyes with the back of his hands and looked around for... Oh, for Nicholas’ car. He pointed towards a dull red sedan parked at the end of the cul de sac in which the banquet hall was located and found himself being pulled in that direction by both Billy’s hand and Billy’s magic, his eyes tracking everything about the witch. The way Billy moved. The way Billy blushed. The way Billy smiled. The way Billy almost stumbled over a sharp edge of the sidewalk. The way Billy’s curls seemed to wrap around the man’s very round ears and give him an air of mischief even as Nicholas knew for sure that everything about Billy could and would turn deadly in the blink of an eye. The son of the Scarlet Witch. And, reluctantly so, an Avenger. Also known as Wiccan. Which was how Billy answered his sleek, definitely Stark made phone as soon as they were ensconced safely in his car, their seat belts on and everything. He inhaled Billy’s scent and put the car into drive, watching the road around them for any stray cats or whatever. There definitely were no other cars in sight. And Billy was either mad or very much done with the person on the phone. „Wiccan. No. Yes, I left. It was a beaurocratic meeting that didn’t even need to be an email. I am your damage control, Stinger. If that’s Strange in the background, muttering and trying to scry for me, tell him to fuck off and mind his tone. No. Is there a mission I’m not aware of, Kate? Because if there isn’t, I will go get fucked into the mattress and you will not call me unless there is somewhere I need to be to keep some civilians safe from those that are supposed to save them. Bye, Kate. Bye. Bye bye.”Billy’s fingers tapped a complicated code on the screen of his apparent work phone before sinking quite a vast amount of his magic into it and turning it into... A brick, essentially, Nicholas surmised as he merged onto the main road of Slate, the little community nothing more than two parallel streets and more boats than humans. Definitely more caught fish and crabs and sea creatures. Definitely a lot of dead people. He smiled and waited for Billy to finish whatever the witch was doing, be it being silently angry about the Avengers calling to admonish him for bailing on a debriefing, he assumed, or maybe weaving a sort of protective spell around both of them. Maybe against Strange’s scrying. The fact that that particular magic user had an Infinity Stone had never sat well with Nicholas and it didn’t sit well with Rio either, but. Alas. It was what it was. And Billy seemed to be doing just fine in keeping Strange away from himself and from Nicholas and from Slate. And from Tommy. Especially from Tommy. Strange wouldn’t fuck around with Nicholas. They had met before. They had not liked each other. But Tommy. Tommy was a relatively easy target for a magical user of Strange’s ability, not minor at all. He grumbled. He didn’t like doctor Stephen Strange. But then again, he was in love with another witch, just as or more powerful than Strange himself. Different kind of person, though. So different.„You want to tell me... Tell me about the Avengers and your work with them until we get to my place? Which, I have to admit, it’s Martina and James’ place as well, so we will have to be moderately quiet, though mine and Tommy’s rooms are on the top floor and their room is on the ground floor and to the side. So. Some privacy is guaranteed. But not all of it.”, Nicholas explained, fingers curling around Billy’s as the younger man opened his palm on the middle console of the car, waiting for him to grab it. And hold it. He did for a few moments, suddenly very grateful that he’d opted for an automatic car a few years back when Martina had decided that her driving him to college every morning was a hassle that nobody needed anymore. Billy smiled and sighed and dropped his head dramatically to the side and then glared at Nicholas for a moment before shrugging. And not saying no. But also not really hurrying to tell any outrageously dangerous and classified stories about wherever Wiccan had been spending his days. Not his nights though. Or. Maybe. „Did you ever come to me when you were awake? And fighting? I can’t believe you’ve only fought during the daylight hours so far. It seems a bit far fetched that the only issues that an Avenger can solve are happening during business hours.”„Oh, Nicholas. I’ve come to you from another fucking planet and from another fucking timeline. More than once.”, Billy lifted his eyes from where his black nail polish shone almost dully in the low light of the street lamps all around them, the car stopping rather smoothly at a red light. They were the only ones on the road, sure, but Nicholas didn’t really want to run the stoplight. There was no reason for it and Billy looked gorgeous next to him, all dark, dark curls and that cut on his eyebrow that looked like half affectation and half actual scar tissue that wouldn’t allow for his hair to grow back there. Gorgeous. Pouty. Those lips. He leaned in and sucked on Billy’s lower on, pulling a gasp and a moan from the younger man. The witch drew back after a few moments and looked at him softly, eyes hazy with need and desire. Beautiful. „I don’t really want to talk much about being Wiccan, especially not in relation to the Avengers, but... But I’m good at what I do, which is safeguard lives and property from the big movers and shakers and their saving of the planet over and over again. This planet or another planet or another universe altogether. There’s always heroes and superheroes and there’s always collateral damage to them saving the world. Wanda. My mother. She has been collateral damage in a powerful man’s war. I don’t want anyone else to be that and the heroes don’t often stop and consider the consequences of one blast of plasma or another. As long as their current nemesis is dead, the damages are being waved away by governments and the dead are being chucked together as casualties of the other super’s lapse in sanity. But. I’m sure I’m preaching to the choir here. You understand what I mean. People like getting Captain America to come save them, but they would also appreciate not having to bury their friends or their families in the process. I provide the coverage for all of that.”„Yeah, I’ve collected quite a lot of souls from confrontations between superheroes and their nemesis of the month, a vast majority of them innocent. I. Billy, I wasn’t the one to collect Wanda’s soul. Or Vision’s. I don’t know what happened to them and I have never spoken to any of them. I just... I wanted you to know that. I think Rio went to Wanda herself, honestly.”, he whispered, his left hand tightening on the steering wheel and his right one clammy underneath Billy’s.He didn’t know why he’d said that, but he had felt the need to. Just. He’d never met Wanda face to face or, better put, soul to soul and he didn’t even know if she was anywhere in Rio’s many domains. As far as Nicholas could tell, a witch of Wanda’s powers and abilities couldn’t die in any of the classical senses of the word. She just couldn’t. And he didn’t know if Rio had Wanda’s soul trapped somewhere or if his Mama didn’t have the Scarlet Witch at all and was just letting everyone think that Billy’s mother was dead. At least for a while. Though. No. Nicholas didn’t believe that. No. Wanda was gone. At least for a while. Wanda would return. At least after a little while, though that little while was difficult to quantify for the ones that were gone. Rio knew where Wanda’s soul was because Lady Death disliked Wanda and Wanda’s powers very fucking much, mucking with her precious balance as they were. Billy’s quick smile and the gentle movement that the younger man used to caress his hand settled Nicholas. He hadn’t crossed any invisible lines. No. It felt like he might have helped Billy somehow and he was good with that.„I love how you didn’t even hesitate to include Vision’s soul into everything. To factor it in. I’ve found... I’ve found that not many understand that Vision wasn’t just a machine. That he wasn’t just parts of code and, later on, of metal strung together by Tony Stark. That there was a ghost in the machine and that that ghost was a soul and that Vision loved Wanda just as much as my mother loved him. I don’t think that Wanda could have done all that she did, create the anomaly and create myself and Tommy, from a delusion. No. She loved Vision so deeply and he loved her and that’s why I exist. That’s why Tommy exists. Like this, like we are. Part her, part him. There’s no way to put rhyme or reason to the fact that I am partially inorganic in this body that’s not even mine if it wasn’t that my soul was made of two pieces of souls. Hers. Wanda’s. And his. Vision’s.”, Billy offered and Nicholas understood what his lover meant. He did. He also knew it to be true. Rio had said so at least, having mentioned it in passing at some point after the whole debacle with Wanda that she had made sure that Vision was well taken care of and that he would be seeing his wife soon enough.„I can see it, you know?”, Nicholas replied, smiling softly as he lifted Billy’s knuckles to his lips and kissed them, counting down the minutes until they could be alone, behind a closed door. Preferably warded too if he had anything to say about that and he would.He was back in Jules’ body, so neither Rio, nor Agatha could actually track him down, but he wouldn’t be staying in Jules’ body for longer than a few minutes after they would get back to his place. So. Wards. And Agatha was definitely tied to Billy as his familiar and as his mentor and... Rio was absolutely keeping tabs on the son of the Scarlet Witch. Thus. Fucking wards. He would just need a bit of blood and some magic and he could probably let Billy do that, but he wanted to and he had sort of fed from the witch back there and he was sort of still drawing from Billy, though not much. Just. A whisper. Still. He was taking Billy’s magic and even as it seemed to be infinite, Nicholas knew that it wasn’t. Nothing was. Or, better put, the physical manifestations of concepts weren’t. Rio wasn’t infinite. Death was. Wanda and, therefore, Billy weren’t infinite. Life was. Or, better put, reality was. Nicholas had a hunch that Wanda and Billy’s powers were just a tad different from one another, but he didn’t want to bring that up right then and there. Not yet.„What do you mean? What can you see?”, the witch asked, peering curiously at him, his dark eyes luminous in a way that Nicholas knew for a fact screamed magic. Just. Just that. Pure magic. He grinned at Billy and pointed to the middle of the younger man’s chest, Billy’s eyes widening as he understood, lips forming a soft oh. „My soul? You can see my soul? Of course you can. I knew that. I mean, I definitely suspected that, not that I knew for sure. There isn’t like a book on you or on Rio, though that would be fucking useful. I’d know. I spent the past four years both dodging Strange, who’s looking for any reason he can think of to put me down like he did my mother and trying to find a way to connect to Wanda somehow. An ouija board doesn’t work, let me tell you that. And so, I looked for books, scrolls and any sort of knowledge, even if it was through folk songs or oral stories about Lady Death. There’s a lot of them. About Death. Not so much about Rio herself and the witches that do know some stories about her, they all know of her through knowing about Agatha and her. Which. I didn’t expect, honestly. Agatha is pretty hard core to have fallen for Death and gotten Death to love her back.”„Unlike you, who have fallen for the son of Death? And gotten said son to love you back? Or like you, Billy?”, he teased, his fingers pointing to a white, one storey house that he could barely make out with Jules’ eyes. He didn’t appreciate that part of being housed inside a human body, that was for sure. His sense were dulled somehow. He was weaker and he got sick like when he had been a child and he didn’t like it. But. Alas. Sometimes one was the son of Death and sometimes one had snot coming out of every possible nostril. Ever. He hated those moments. „That’s the house, the one at the end of this side street. I’ll park inside the garage and it will annoy Martina to no end, but it will also be a sign that I have a guest over. We worked this one out a few months ago, with Ryan coming over and her finding him naked in my room because she wanted to rant at me about parking the car in the garage. In her spot. It was a whole thing.”„Got it. Car in the garage. Nice metaphor there. Car parked in garage. I’m busy parking my car in someone else’s garage.”, Billy snickered, tossing his head back and trying to stifle a peal of laughter at Nicholas’ suffering expression. Trying. And failing. Miserably. The witch cackled loudly as Nicholas contemplated whether he could get away with making Billy walk all the way back to his house and if that meant that he wouldn’t get laid that night or not. He could live with that. He could. He’d just gotten laid the previous night and every night for the past two years. He could go one night without Billy’s dick. Billy was definitely a dick all on his own and one with a very special sense of humour and living with Agatha had probably not helped with that last part, but still. Well. The younger man was beautiful and warm and Nicholas grumbled, but didn’t kick the witch out of the car. He wanted to, but didn’t. That deserved a bit of a prize, he was sure. That kind of restraint in the face of such terrible puns. Billy’s laughter tapered off into a few giggles and then into the witch kissing his palm as they waited for the garage door to open and then into a question. That Nicholas should have expected, truly, but that still managed to catch him by surprise. „What does it look like? My soul? Any soul, actually, but particularly mine and Tommy’s? Since we’re not all organic.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
„That’s not the correct question. Or, not in the way you’re asking. Your soul, to me, looks like familiarity and like warmth and like love and like home and like sunniest of winter days and like the coolest of summer mornings. To me, your soul is you and you are your soul. It’s not a ball of sparkles or anything, though it can be that as well. Not for you and not when I’m looking at it, but it can be.”, Nicholas said, pulling the car in and killing the engine. An inhale. Billy’s eyes were wide and shy and sweet and Nicholas exhaled. „Tommy’s soul is slick. Silver. A streak. Vibrant. Other souls... I don’t know, what I see isn’t what anyone else would see. The way one perceives a soul depends on one’s relationship with it. It’s a subjective thing. Rio just sees flickers everywhere, by the way. It’s just Agatha’s and my souls that she sees as fully fledged balls of light.”Billy smiled. And nodded. And stepped out of the car with an ease that made Nicholas smile and nod himself, happy that the witch had taken his answer at face value and hadn’t wanted more explanation or more poetry spoken about his soul. Which was beautiful and made Nicholas’ own soul ecstatic, but he didn’t really know how else to describe something that was so intrinsically his experience and his alone. Just. He saw souls based on his relation to them. He didn’t collect many souls. In fact, he didn’t collect souls at all. He consumed their last dying whimpers to feed himself and then he dispatched of them in the very unconventional way of opening a portal to their final, unwavering destination, where they were to wait until they were to be reincarnated. When he fed, there was no ritual to death. Or by Death. There were no Reapers and no long and significant road to anywhere and anything at all and there were no flashes of the life that the soul had lived before that moment. The Death Dealer. His name. Dramatic, perhaps, but fair. He didn’t deal death, though he could also do that. He just preferred not to. But he did deal in death. And he did offer deals in death. No ceremony and no suffering, but also no chance at a penance and at forgiveness if a soul agreed to feed him. The end of the line came far faster with him than with a Reaper. But.„This way, no? The other door seems to lead to a shed of sorts. I hope you don’t want us to have sex in a shed. I’m not really into power tools of that kind.”, Billy said, voice carrying all the way through Nicholas’ musings and the older man sighed, dropping his forehead to the steering wheel and inhaling deeply before also stepping out of the car. To join his lover. Who was bouncing off the walls. Just a little. But definitely bouncing of the walls. Billy’s curls were going to be the death of Nicholas, he was convinced. The curls. The crooked smile. The high cheekbones. The lips. Fuck, those fucking lips and that fucking mouth. And those eyes. Dark. Deep. Slowly glittering with a discreet strand of ice blue that spidered through them from time to time. Circuitry. Like the one on Billy’s chest and back. „What? You’re staring at me like you want to eat me whole. And I would like to be eaten whole, don’t make any mistakes, but I would also love a shower to ensure that I’m clean for you. Or. Wait. Does your actual body work in water? You never seemed to sweat or anything, so I never thought to ask and it was all in our dreams anyway. So. Um. Can you take a shower with me? Or will you leak water everywhere if you do?”„I don’t know if I should be amused about the fact that you just called my body holey or if I should inform you that I am technically dead, so I don’t really sweat or anything that I don’t want to. Coming is definitely a thing I want to do. So is crying, salivating and bruising. Which one can actually see even on my real skin. And I kind of loved seeing your fingers on Jules’ body too. Right here. All ten of them. Five on each side. Absolutely perfect. Left here, on my hips, as if by magic. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”, he asked, Billy blushing hard and fast and it was a fascinating thing to watch. Circuitry. More of it. He beckoned for the younger man to come closer to him and he wrapped his arms around the witch’s waist, letting his lips touch the brightest spot of electronics that marked the hollow of Billy’s left temple. „You’re not masking your real looks at all either, are you? You have... You have an entire mesh of conductors right here, underneath your skin. It wasn’t there before. Or you weren’t showing it to us.”„I. Yes. Maybe. I don’t always have the ones on my face and the ones in my eyes. I always have the ones on my chest and my back, but not often these that you’re seeing now. And the... Did you ever see me as Wiccan?”, the young man turned his head to the side and kissed Nicholas’ cheek, letting the corners of their mouths to touch. Softly. Once. In the garage.They really needed to go into the house and up the stairs and into the bathroom he shared with Tommy. Who was, thank fuck, not home. They could take a long, lazy shower. Exchange blowjobs. Handjobs. Or just touch each other to take the edge off. And he wouldn’t leak. His body was perfectly insulated, thanks very much. He wouldn’t leak. Not water anyways. Precum was an entirely different story. But Billy wanted to show him something else and was, once more, shy about it. Which was cute. And unnecessary. Because Nicholas’ own body was made of vines and literal bones and the smoke of the outerworld and he was covered in tiny leaves that rose from his skin with every move that he made, so. Whatever it was that Billy wanted to show him, he could definitely one up the witch in not human. Not that either him or Billy were human. But his lover had asked something and he’d been lost in Billy’s eyes and hadn’t answered. Had he seen the young man as Wiccan? Probably. He wasn’t terribly interested in superheroes and his personal antipathy for Strange didn’t lend itself to looking at the news too often, lest he spot the man. Again. And again. And again. So he wasn’t absolutely convinced he could pick Wiccan out of a bunch of Avengers related people. He shook his head. Honesty was the way to start their relationship proper. He had no idea what Wiccan looked like, but he wanted to know.„Oh, that’s refreshing. When Tommy said that he knew that I was Wiccan, I assumed that you would have already known, but that you didn’t care mostly. And you really don’t care mostly. It’s definitely refreshing, though I have to admit that I did pick up men by admitting to not only looking like Wiccan, but to actually being Wiccan. However. Focusing back on our conversation for the moment.”, Billy grinned and his eyes flashed pure blue white for the span of a single breath. And before Nicholas stood Wiccan, leather suit on and red and blue cape donned and a crown. No. Not a crown. A tiara. One laying low on Billy’s forehead and slipping underneath the man’s curls on the sides and even twisting and turning around the witch’s ears. Blue. Smoky, dark blue, like his lover’s magic and both geometrical and exquisitely fluid looking. Made of... Precious stones and spun metal. Or not. It looked like Wanda’s blood red one, but unlike the Scarlet Witch’s tiara, Billy’s seemed to be protecting something and not just there for the aesthetics. Or for intimidation purposes. Nicholas’ fingers lifted to the very bottom of his lover’s headpiece, tracing the edges of it from one of Billy’s ears to the other one. And he gasped. Billy shrugged, both curious and a bit apprehensive of his reaction. „Neat, no? It’s not decorative. It’s. Um. You know. Me. I know that Wanda’s wasn’t part of her and just another costume piece. Her Scarlet Witch uniform and all that. But mine isn’t. And I can obviously let it rise from my forehead at all times, but it’s usually when I’m dressed as Wiccan that it feels the most natural to have it out. Also, I don’t know if I can walk around a big city with this on. Someone might try to rob me or something and that would be tragic.”„What... What is it? And where is it when you’re not letting it be where it’s supposed to be? There’s no need to hide it when we’re alone, I promise. It’s beautiful. The suit is very intricate too, but it’s also. Is that blood on your cape? You are not dragging that all over Martina’s living room carpets. She will murder all of us in our sleep if we get anything so hard to clean out of her white carpets. Trust me. James and I, we had to hide Tommy for half a day after he spilled cheesecake on a corner and Martina lost it.”, Nicholas explained, giggling as Wiccan became Billy once more or, better put, as Billy vanished Wiccan’s uniform, but not the blue tinted tiara. It was a piece of jewellery, no doubt about that, but it was one that was embedded or growing from Billy’s forehead. From underneath his lover’s perfectly shaped curls. So fucking gorgeous. He was mesmerised. „I. The tiara. Is it made of something inorganic? A sort of mix between Wanda’s fashion preferences and Vision’s abilities to make just about anything a reality, as long as it required code and metal? Because this is exquisite. And obviously real. It’s not an illusion. And it’s not a costume piece either. These stones, they’re the actual deal. Billy. You’re growing diamonds, lover.”„Technically, I’m growing a large topaz and some aquamarine.”, the Witch kissed his cheek and pulled them both towards the house, easily unlocking the most definitely locked and alarmed side door that led straight into James’ favourite room of the house. The kitchen. Nicholas took out his phone and input the alarm code as fast as possible, before having to explain to Jules’ parents and to a couple of the security firm people that his witch boyfriend had simply opened a door that should have needed a code and... Well. Billy stopped. The stairs were right there, but the younger man stopped and Nicholas almost ran straight into the witch’s back, stopping on sheer instinct and with a bitten curse. He huffed. Billy turned back to him and pouted. „You’re taller than me like this. In Jules’ body. But you’re shorter than me as yourself. And I wanted to carry you up the stairs while also kissing you and hopefully using a little magic to keep both of us from breaking our necks while doing that. It seemed sexy in my head. But you’re taller than me and these stairs have carpet on them and there’s pictures of Jules and Chris as very young babies on the walls and they’re dead. Which is ruining the vibes here. So. Well. You know.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
„Billy. You’re ridiculous. And very hot and sexy and I’m already all hot an bothered on my own and did I say hot enough times? Walk up the stairs, darling. On your own two feet. Or I will carry you up like a sack of potatoes and you will be very salty at me and... Billy. Billy, are you running up the s-Billy. Left, go left.”, he snorted and launched himself up the same set of stairs as his lover had, taking them two at a time and catching up with Billy at the top, grabbing the witch and throwing him over his shoulder. Which did make Billy yelp and curse out loud and definitely kick at Jules’ arms wrapping around him, but Billy was also lithe and compact and unless he used magic, there was very little chance of the witch managing to wiggle out of his grasp. Billy laughed and giggled and let out a few more muffled curses, but was eventually set down in Nicholas’ bedroom. Well. Jules’. No, definitely Nicholas’. Jules had been more of a teenage heart throb and had had the aesthetic to match that, while Nicholas had filled every available shelf space with books about nature and every available surface with sketches of flowers, trees, animals and insects. He liked to draw. He liked to paint. And he’d drawn Billy too. Which. Of course. Of fucking course that his lover would spot that exact black and white pencil drawing underneath a few others in aquarelle. „I. Yeah. It’s you. Though you’re definitely missing the electronics and the crown. I really should have seen you in a crown before. It suits you.”„Did you just quote Billie Eilish to me? You little Gen Zer. You’re four hundred years old and yet being here, in the body of a guy born this century, you’re actually quoting Billie Eilish to me. And Royals. That’s adorable.”, Billy grinned and pulled the drawing out form underneath where it had actually been, tucked away safely and...Maybe just staying there until Nicholas felt like it was good enough to show to other people. Maybe not to show Billy himself, who was so much prettier in real life, but apparently, well. Apparently Billy got to see it first and gasp at it and grin up at him and he really wanted to ditch Jules’ body. Really, really and the witch traced his pencil strokes so fucking sensually and Billy was really stroking his own sides and the top of his thigh and the swell of his ass and of course that Nicholas had drawn his lover naked. It was a drawing just for himself. He hadn’t asked permission for it and that might have been something that he would need to apologise for, but no one but himself would have seen that drawing. And it was the only one he had done of Billy naked. And he sort of loved it, even as he didn’t think that he’d captured exactly how fucking gorgeous his lover was. He swallowed hard.„This is how you see me?”, the young man asked him, voice tight and low and cheeks flushed. Nicholas didn’t know what to make of the question and of the fact that it both resembled a trap and was definitely not one. But. But he couldn’t figure it out, so he decided to simply go for honesty and nodded. He felt like opening his mouth and actually telling Billy how fucking beautiful he thought the witch was might get them to spend the night locked in that exact position, with him reciting poetry about the younger man’s looks. And heart. And soul. And power. He was in love. And a bit ridiculous about it, but he didn’t care. He’d never been in love before, so he would bask in it, especially since he was loved back pretty fiercely. „I cannot be this beautiful. No. Just. I know I’m not bad looking and I know that my powers are a sort of magnet for everyone around me, whether they want to fuck me or feed me, but. Damn. I never looked into a mirror and saw that. That. What you’ve drawn there. Never. It’s. Yeah. I. Nicholas.”„Billy. Yeah. It’s exactly how I see you and it’s exactly how you are, I promise. How beautiful you are. Though no circuitry and no crown. And I’ve worked in a fast food restaurant, of course I’m quoting pop divas to you. Obviously. I’m also queer, so yes. I’m quoting pop divas to you. Reductionist stereotype and all, but that’s the correct box for me, thank you.”, Nicholas grinned and sat down on the edge of his bed, stepping out of Jules’ body with ease. And there the poor man’s soulless flesh went, thunking loudly on the mattress. Damn. He was floating slightly above the flooring, which only made him even taller than Billy, who was looking at him and at Jules with amusement clearly written all over his gorgeous face. „You think you can do something about Jules’ body for the evening? I would like to be with you as myself and rolling him under the bed feels... Disrespectful. So. Maybe. Let’s not? Also, I am definitely not fucking with him on the bed with us or with him on the chair there. It’s weird. Why do I get myself in all sorts of weird shit like this?”„Have you met your mothers? Seriously. Have you? Because I have spent a little bit of time with Rio on the Witches’ Road and... Man. Do I have some news for you. She’s awesome, don’t get me wrong. But man. Also. Agatha. I love Agatha, no matter what our current relationship is and no matter how much she threatens me or has threatened me before or will threaten me in the future. We’re kind of stuck with one another for eternity, but such is life. And I also have the same kind of news about her too. Man, they’re both a pair for sure. I can totally see what they saw in one another.”, Billy snorted and shook his head, magic flaring to life as it engulfed Jules’ body. And then there was no more body and the strands of blue circled Nicholas’ wrist just as his own purple and green ones latched into Billy’s magic. And held onto it. He was solid. His lover was fucking powerful and Nicholas didn’t know if that turned him on too much or just enough or. Or if it didn’t matter, not when his arms wrapped around Billy’s shoulders and not when the witch grinned and then Billy was naked. In his arms. Within the blink of an eye. „And I broke you. Didn’t I? I did. Hey. You’ve seen me naked before and you’ve ridden me and I’ve been dying to get you to fuck me, but you were so enjoying getting fucked that I never actually got to asking and. Shower. I know that look in your eyes. You want my cock. And I do sweat and I’ve been fighting with the Avengers earlier today and I took like a five seconds shower back at headquarters. Shower. We can have all sorts of fun in there and you can tell me how pretty you think I am. And how much you love me. And how adorable I am. Because I am adorable and cute and you think I’m that level of hot and wow, would you draw me in colour? With my circuitry and with my tiara thing and with. Oh. I could put on some more colourful eyeliner. The nail polish stays black though, it’s the only colour that’s not patchy when I do it with magic.”„Absolutely fucking hot and adorable and pretty and I need you to either walk back with me towards the bathroom or just... Yes. Or that. Hello, lover.”, Nicholas purred, his lips quirking up as Billy, taller than him in his current and own shape, jumped in his arms and wrapped his legs around his waist, hands tangling in his long, pitch black hair and fingers caressing his scalp.He moaned as his lover found that exact spot where his skull peeked through his skin and where smoke curled lazily around the very edge of his bones. It felt good to be touched there, right where his skull met his spine. Billy smiled sharply and dove for his mouth, smashing their teeth together and licking greedily at his exposed mandible. Fuck. He was hard. He wasn’t hardening anymore, he was fully fucking hard and he was naked because of course he fucking was, he hadn’t put clothes onto his own body for centuries and his vines were slithering alongside Billy’s calves and he pulled back from the kiss to stumble to the bathroom. Sort of. He took a few breaks. One happened when his witch found his earlobe and bit down on it, the sensation doubled by the fact that Billy was fucking rutting in his arms, that absolutely delicious cock that his lover definitely knew how to use rubbing against Nicholas’ abdomen and. Fuck. A break was needed to keep his footing. His vines caught Billy’s chin and turned the witch’s face towards Nicholas. An inhale. Fuck, Billy was gorgeous. Dark haired. Milky white skinned. Wide, expressive brown black eyes. Thick eyebrows. The scar crossing Billy’s left brow. The cheekbones, flushed and sharp and definitely fit to cut glass. And then those lips.Fuck, the lips. He started walking again and stopped once more as he fumbled with the handle of the bathroom door. He inhaled. He exhaled. Billy smirked and leaned in, skimming his mouth with those fucking lips that would drive Nicholas out of his mind pretty soon, he was absolutely convinced, and then licking down his neck. And scratching at his shoulders. And biting down on his collarbone. And fuck, Billy was flexible and Nicholas was barely holding everything together and the two of them standing and they sort of crashed through the door and into the shower, where the witch was promptly cornered and where Nicholas continued his fumbling with the faucets. To turn on the water. Hot water. Billy moaned as Nicholas dropped his legs to the tiles and lowered himself to reach that cock that wouldn’t be kept from him anymore, not when they were being actively pelted by water and not when the witch was showing soap and a loofa at him. Well. If he was already kneeling and all that, he could wash Billy.He did. Fuck. He did. He settled on the tiles for a long moment, his ass on his heels and his fingers framing Billy’s abdomen and cock and thighs and his eyes locked with his lover’s darkening ones. Gorgeous. The tiara was glittering and the circuitry in Billy’s chest was fucking glowing, the spot where the witch’s heart was flickering wildly. Following Billy’s pulse. If Nicholas didn’t have Billy’s hard and leaking cock right next to his lips, that flicker would have laid his lover’s desire out into the open for him to see and to analyse. And to offer his own right back. He let his nose bury in the dark and neatly trimmed curls at the base of Billy’s cock. An inhale. Sweat. Salt. Male. Hot water. An exhale. Billy’s cock jumped and Nicholas grinned, squeezing some shower gel onto the loofa that he was still, by some miracle, holding. An inhale. An exhale.And he started with Billy’s feet. The left one first. He lifted it to his thigh, cleaned it carefully, then laid a kiss on the top of it. The right one afterwards and the another kiss. Then to Billy’s calves, tight with a wiry sort of muscle that had Nicholas drooling already, as he had been doing for the past two fucking years. Then Billy’s thighs came next, which parted easily and naturally for him and he spent some time running the loofa all over them and waiting for the soap to clear off with the water before licking and biting his way to his lover’s cock. But also to his witch’s balls and also, as he turned Billy around to do his back too, to Billy’s ass. Delicious. Taught. And perfect to bite into. He massaged the muscles there as he washed his lover carefully all over, dropping the loofa to the tiles and burying his tongue into Billy’s hole. First, around it. He swirled. Billy moaned and whimpered and braced against the wall, pushing his ass into Nicholas’ mouth. An inhale. An exhale. The sounds his lover was making.
Fuck.
Nicholas was hard. Sure. He was. But it didn’t matter. Not right then. Not when Billy was cursing and spitting and scratching at the tiles and pushing into his tongue and not when he breached his lover’s hole. An inhale. An exhale. He curled his tongue just a little and then pulled back, letting his teeth bite down on the very top of Billy’s ass, one of his fingers playing right where his tongue had been a few moments before. An inhale. An exhale. Billy was shuddering. Begging. Begging for what? He would give his lover anything. And he could give his lover quite truthfully just about anything. Fingers reached blindly back towards him. Towards his hair. He smiled. He knew what Billy wanted and he went easily and gladly. His tongue. Billy’s hole. He wanted to eat his lover out and he wanted to make Billy come just like that and he was being held there by his witch’s left hand, while Billy’s right one tried to wrap around his cock. But Nicholas wanted to do that. He did. He licked. He batted Billy’s hand away, grinning when the witch cursed and dropped his head to the tiles. And then, well. Then Nicholas’ hand found Billy’s hard, hard cock and Nicholas’ tongue was buried in his lover’s hole and he feasted like he’d been starving for years and not only since the night before.
Fuck.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
And then he lost himself in Billy. In Billy’s moans, in Billy’s shouts and in Billy’s pleading. Billy was loud and sharp and demanding and, at the same time, considerate and needing him so much. So fucking much. Billy needed to come and he’d told Nicholas as much and Billy conjured a bottle of lube right into his hands. Nicholas snorted and licked at his lover’s hole one more time, letting his tongue flatten over the rim and enjoying that wickedly sharp exhale that he’d managed to pull out of the witch all by himself. And with his tongue. With his tongue and with his fingers before. And with his cock next. He knew what Billy wanted. People from fucking Mars probably knew what Billy wanted and Nicholas agreed. Oh, he would fuck Billy. He’d even do it in the shower. Perhaps. Or perhaps not. Perhaps he felt wicked and perhaps the corners of his mouth lifted in a grin that brought out a moan from the younger man’s throat when Billy noticed it reflected in the glass of the shower. And perhaps he threw the lube in the sink with exacting precision, over the top of the shower panels and through the fog that had obscured everything and perhaps he went back to washing Billy, no matter how much the other man whined and moaned and rubbed against him and Nicholas laughed low.Billy cursed. Of course Billy cursed. Billy was hard and probably leaking, though Nicholas couldn’t tell with the curtain of water still beating down on them as he pushed the witch to his knees. The young man went willingly and gladly and opened his mouth. His lovely, lovely mouth. So eager for Nicholas’ cock. His lover’s mouth. He’d dreamt of it for so many nights and he would spend himself in it. Oh. He would. But not right then. He grinned down at Billy and allowed the witch to nuzzle at his chest, his belly and his hips, to bury his face at the base of Nicholas’ cock. Bare. He had no body hair to think of. He couldn’t even grow whiskers and he was more than glad that the body that he had been able to form had eyebrows. And actual hair on his head, even if it was not exactly hair and more like smoke. Silky smoke, though. However. He didn’t have the luxury of getting distracted by Billy. Not yet. Nicholas grinned sharply and gestured for Billy to turn around and face the wall once more. The witch pouted, but shook his ass, hoping that he would get fucked. Billy wouldn’t. Not yet. Not in the shower he wouldn’t. Nicholas’ hands sank into the wet curls on Billy’s head as his fingertips pressed down on the witch’s scalp, the younger man letting out a low and deep moan of satisfaction. Pressure points. Nicholas knew all about those. And he also twisted a couple of locks in his left hand, bringing Billy head flush against his abdomen and meeting the witch’s eyes. Billy was below. Nicholas was on top. For then.„I want to wash your hair, darling. I want to do it properly. I don’t suppose you have something in particular that you use to keep these curls well taken care of? You must have something special. You do. Good. Conjure it for me, please.”, Nicholas said, voice low and rumbling from deep in his chest and he was pretty sure that Billy mostly read his lips to understand him. The water was loud and starting to turn just a shade less hot, which meant that they had maybe fifteen more minutes before they would have to exit the shower. He could definitely rock Billy’s entire universe in fifteen minutes, but he also needed to brush his teeth and get the other man back to his bed. He grinned. Two bottles appeared on the shelf in front of them, right at Billy’s eye level. Nicholas leaned down, his tongue catching onto the very rounded top of the witch’s right ear, and whispered. That, he was sure that Billy heard. „Good boy. Get the shampoo, baby. Open the cap. Pour some out of for me. Here. In my palm. Is this a leave in kind of shampoo? Do I need to turn off the water?”The witch shivered underneath his words, eyes closing slowly and body swaying from side to side for a moment. Just that. Just a moment. Then Billy’s lips formed a perfect no, it’s regular, the shampoo opening without much of a fuss. Except that the bottle was being uncapped by magic and except that the very right amount of shampoo was being brought to Nicholas’ palm by a strand of royal blue energy and except that Billy’s eyes didn’t open as he let his hands show the witch how much he cared. So fucking much. Easy touches and gentle caresses and he smiled, allowing all of the day to wash out of himself as well. Not just... Not just the past few hours. No. Just the entire day. It was gone. Billy was there. Billy was gorgeous and kneeling in his shower and letting him wash those pretty, pretty curls and purring for him and being so hard for him. His mouth watered. The witch wanted him to sink his cock into that delicious hole of his and Nicholas was in full agreement. But. Billy’s cock. Fuck, he wanted it inside. He did. He moaned, his cock twitching eagerly at the thought. Still. He inhaled. He exhaled. He rinsed the shampoo out of Billy’s hair and repeated the procedure when he simply found more shampoo in his palm. A second time was necessary, apparently, Nicholas snickered softly to himself. And another rinse. The conditioner came next and that was a leave in, apparently, so Nicholas took advantage of the two minutes that process took to quickly finish showering himself while also somehow always keeping a part of him attached to Billy, which was interesting. But thanks to Tommy’s ability to lose everything, always and anywhere, at least one for the shower cubicles was stocked with disposable toothbrushes and travel sized toothpaste, so he also brushed his teeth. He wouldn’t kiss Billy after eating him out. It wasn’t hygienic in any way. He grinned.He grinned, he blinked and they were out of the shower, the curtain of water gone and Billy still kneeling on the thick bath math that Martina had insisted on having in front of all of the shower cabins from the house. Nicholas was glad for that particular fussing right that instant because he would have hated to have the witch kneel on the cold tiles. Naughty, naughty witch, though. He growled under his breath and pulled the young man’s hair just a little, bringing their eyes to meet once again. Billy smiled innocently, water droplets dripping from his wet curls and down those fucking sinful cheekbones and gathering in the corners of that mouth that would absolutely kill Nicholas at some point soon. And he inhaled, burying his nose in the crook of Billy’s neck as he pulled the younger man to his feet. Unsteady. Billy’s knees were trembling, but Nicholas’ shoulders were wrapped in a very all encompassing hug and then he lifted his head. Eyes met eyes once more and lips met lips and he tapped Billy’s waist, gesturing for his lover to jump in his arms and wrap those long, long legs around him. He could carry Billy easily. He was shorter and seemed to be just about as lithe as the witch was, but he was not human and he also had all sorts of other appendages. Vines. Smoke. Bones. Well, he couldn’t grow more bones than he already had, but he could definitely supplement any lack of physical strenght with the rest of his abilities. He felt Billy smiling against his lips and then the witch simply walked them back two steps, sitting down on the sink counter for just a moment. A moment. Just that. Just what Billy needed to open his legs, lift them, frame Nicholas’ waist and cross those delicate ankles at his lower back. Oh. He’d not considered that.„You have too much faith in my ability to jump in your arms and not topple both of us. And break something in the process. So let’s not. Now you can carry me to bed, if that strikes your fancy, as it seems to be doing.”, Billy half panted, half moaned in his ear, biting down on his earlobe and making his breath hitch. Nicholas was getting high on the sounds that his lover was making. He already knew that he absolutely adored how Billy sounded when in the throes of pleasure, but getting to hear the witch without the muffling of their shared dream state. Well. Fuck. Fuck indeed. Billy’s body arched into his as his hands slipped underneath the witch’ strong thighs and lifted him up, holding the other man close to his body and steadying them both for a second. Just that. An inhale. An exhale. And it was his turn to curse because his lover was wicked and so fucking unrepentant. Fucking hells’ bells. „Oh. And Nicholas. You will fuck me. No more delaying. You will take me to bed, put me on all fours and fuck me. Or slip a pillow underneath my ass and fuck me face to face. Or put me on the edge of the bed and fuck me like that. I don’t care, Nicholas. I don’t. I do care about having your cock in me. Right the fuck now. How about that, lover?”„All about that, lover. All of it. Fuck, your mouth. Fuck.”, he whispered before slanting his mouth onto Billy’s once more and grunting, not under the weight of the other man, but with the effort it took to keep both of them standing when the witch was trying his very best to crawl inside of Nicholas’ skin. Arching against him. Moaning. Begging. Rubbing their cocks together, one of Billy’s large hands holding both of them and offering them a sheath to fuck into. While walking. He stumbled. Only a little. Billy gasped out a laugh and scratched at his shoulder, coming off with some of his leaves and some skin cells probably, playing with the smoke rising from his spine. Fuck. He swallowed hard and tried for harsh. „Sit. Still. For. A. Moment. Or I will trip and we will fuck on the floor and your will be salty at me for that, you creature of fucking comfort. Sit still. Billy.”Billy smirked. And didn’t sit still. And Nicholas somehow managed to not send them both plummeting to the ground and they made it to his bed. They were dripping wet, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care right that instant. He couldn’t. He would be grouchy afterwards, he was sure, but not right then. Fuck no. And the sheets would have to be changed anyways. They would make a mess of them. They were already making a mess out of them. Billy’s conjured lube smacked him in the chest as he dropped the witch down to the mattress. To the side of the mattress. He wanted to see Billy and he could fuck into the man comfortably from that position, with him kneeling on the carpet and Billy’s thighs draped over his arms. Or over his shoulders. He grinned and grabbed the bottle of lube, uncapping it and dropping a good dollop in his palm. He had half a mind to see how loud Billy would yelp if he didn’t heat it up at all, but the glaring that his lover had currently going on told him that he’d not been as discreet about his intentions as he’d originally thought. So. Better not. Definitely better not.„Condoms. I have them. I need to... Okay, your conjuring business is very fucking useful. Can I do that? Probably not. No. Billy. We’re not theorising magic right now, not even mine. No. We’re fucking. Remember? You asked to be fucked.”, Nicholas said, voice soft and calm as he used two of his fingers to enter Billy’s hole, soaked in lube and. Yes. There. His fingerpads found what he was looking for and Billy’s mouth opened in a soundless moan, the witch’s body arching off the bed. Floating. Oh no. No floating. Nicholas snorted and pressed a palm on Billy’s belly, pushing the other man back down to the mattress. „Nope. I’m not up for aerial sex yet. The bed will do for now.”The witch nodded and didn’t float up anymore. At least for a while, Nicholas wad convicted. Billy was smiling and rolling his hips into Nicholas’s fingers, mumbling something along the lines of the bed willdefinitely do for right now. But. But the pouting and the unholy glee in Billy’s eyes at the mention of aerial sex was something to be taken into account, Nicholas absolutely sure that they would be fucking and quite literally floating on pleasure and sex and hormones and love soon enough. He couldn’t fly. But Billy could. And Billy would have them make love while very close to the stars, he was convinced. Soon. Soon enough. He shook his head and bit down on Billy’s left inner thigh. The witch had poked his head. It had been rude. He’d only been a little bit distracted by the idea of having sex in the air with Billy. He hadn’t even stopped pumping his fingers inside of the young man’s body. One. Two. Three fingers. He was doing good work. He pouted and Billy moaned as he delicately ran his nails over that bundle of nerve endings that made the witch... Scream. Loudly. He grinned and let his lips close over the head of Billy’s cock, just like he’d wanted for the past fuck knew how many hours, days, months and years. Fuck. The other man’s taste exploded over his tongue and he growled. Hunger. He felt hunger deep within his bones and he felt need and he felt desperation and he wanted to never be without the weight of Billy’s cock on his tongue and he also wanted to never take his fingers out of the witch’s hole, hot and velvety and tightening as it was around them. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.„Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me. Please, Nicholas, please, fuck me. With your cock. I want to come on your cock. Nicholas. Please. I love you. Please fuck me.”, Billy pleaded and he swallowed the witch’s cock until his nose hit the curls at the base of it, grinning around the hardness in his mouth as Billy arched off the bed, fingers scratching at his shoulders and panting so hard and so fast that Nicholas could bet no cardio had ever made the younger man do. Sex. Sex was awesome, especially with the person that one chose and had a delicately flaring connection to and especially with Billy. Fuck. Panting. Begging. Pleading. He pulled off Billy’s cock. „Fuck, fuck, fuck, Nicholas, fuck. In me. In me. In me, please. Fuck. Please.”Nicholas spared a single thought to how Billy was screaming his name and Jules’ and to how the house wasn’t exactly soundproof, though it didn’t suck at it too much, but all of that got completely obliterated from his mind as he rolled a condom on his cock. And had to pause, inhale and exhale three fucking times and take in the picture that his lover was offering him. Gorgeous. Beautiful. Sexual. Sensual. All long body and lithe muscles. Legs parted for him and wrapped around his waist as he’d straightened himself to reach for the condom packet. Hands scrambling between wrapping around his shoulders and trying to find purchase on the bed. Billy was flushed a deep red and panting and sweating and that cock of his, long and curved towards the tip, was hard and leaking. Calling for Nicholas. As were Billy’s balls, full and tight against the witch’s body and then there was that hole that was swallowing up three of Nicholas’ fingers. Three. He could be a horrible, horrible tease and he could be cruel and he could sink a forth finger inside of Billy. Make that hole loose. Sloppy. Make his lover desperate in all the right ways. Make Billy truly beg. But he didn’t have the patience for that right then and there and Billy was trembling. Sweating. Still cursing. That mouth of his witch’s. That fucking mouth. He moaned. He let got of the base of his own cock and pulled his fingers out of Billy’s hole. An inhale.He lined the head of his cock with that gaping entrance. An exhale. Billy was pushing himself towards Nicholas’ cock. It was endearing. And it was making Nicholas hot. Hotter than ever. He grinned, catching Billy’s eyes and mouthing a slow as mollases bear down for me, gorgeous. An inhale. Billy obeyed. Easily, elegantly, sexually, sensually, Billy obeyed and Nicholas pushed through that ring of muscle. An exhale. A shudder. His own. Billy whined for him to move, but Nicholas needed a moment. Fuck, he desperately needed a moment or everything would be over before he even got to bottom out in Billy’s body. Fuck. An inhale. An exhale. And he rolled his hips, punching a loud sound out of his lover’s chest. An inhale. An exhale. Billy’s thighs tightened around his waist and his hands grabbed at his witch’s hips. And inhale. An exhale. He pushed inside Billy again. In one single smooth move, he found himself almost completely sheated inside. Fuck. Almost. Billy was so open for him, but still tight and hot and he rolled his hips again. And again. And again. And then he felt himself bottoming out. And leaned over, biting down on Billy’s collarbone to keep from screaming. Fuck.Fingers clawed at his shoulders, a sea of deep scratches already forming and healing with every single breath he took. Billy was moaning and whining and begging and he continued to sit still and to nuzzle and bite and lick at his lover’s throat and chest. And jaw. Such a defined jaw. And then his lips found Billy’s and his body couldn’t take the stillness anymore and he moved. He moved. He pulled back almost entirely and he buried himself completely once more. He didn’t allow Billy’s mouth to part from his, swallowing his lover’s sounds. All of them. He moved. His hips snapped. He moved. Billy moved up into him and their bodies made music. Music and a sexual sound that he could get drunk on. Fuck. He was drunk on that. He was. Billy whined. Nicholas grunted.More and more and more and closer and closer and closer and their magic was going wild around them. He could see it. His eyes were closed, but his senses were fully opened and Nicholas could smell the scent of their lovemaking. He could he could also hear Billy’s pleas, curses and whimpers. He could also feel the witch snapping those hips up to meet his downward thrusts and he was so fucking close to coming that he needed... He needed to stop for a second. He needed to. He did. But Billy would whine and shiver and fucking himself on Nicholas’ cock and he growled, pushing the witch back into the mattress and moving once more. Their magic. Their magic was rising from their bodies and from their mouths and from their lips and from their fingers, where they tangled on the sheets, over Billy’s head. Sweat ran down his lover’s temples, the witch’s curls damp and plastered to Billy’s skin. Fuck. So fucking gorgeous and so fucking flushed and so fucking ready for him and Billy’s cock was hard and trapped between them and Nicholas knew he could get the witch to come untouched. He knew. But he found that he didn’t have the fucking patience for that and he didn’t think that Billy did either and he didn’t want to torture the two of them like that for much longer and he couldn’t hold back anymore. He would come. He could come soon. He would come in a few moments and in a few thrusts and he needed Billy to come first. Fuck. He needed to see his lover’s pleasure first hand. He needed to hear Billy gasp and stutter and arch his back and go slack in his hands and underneath his body. He needed to. Fuck.He growled low in his chest and caught Billy’s eyes, whispering a deep and firm keep your hands above your head, little witch, which he hoped his lover would obey. He hoped. He inhaled, exhaled and shuddered at how loose and relaxed Billy had went in his arms the second that he’d issued that particular order, though it was still a fifty fifty chance of the younger man actually doing what he asked or not. Brat. He smiled. No. Not a brat. Not exactly one. Not terribly so. Billy obeyed, but his obeying had to be earned and earned well and truly and Nicholas grabbed the witch’s thighs, lifted them up to his shoulders, bending the witch in half. Quite literally in half. And then he moved. He moved and he was hitting that exact fucking spot inside of Billy and Billy was slack with pleasure and with need and his lover’s eyes were wide. Wide. Wide. Panting. Both of them were panting, Nicholas slipping a hand between them and circling Billy’s hard and leaking and angry cock. Close. So fucking close. They were both so close and Billy was being so good for him, hands held above his head and fingers digging into the mattress and then Billy’s entire body arched off the bed as the younger man tensed, muscles locking in place and ass tightening around Nicholas’ cock. And Billy let out a low moan, chanting his name and his name alone as his hand moved in the same rhythm as his cock inside of that tight, tight, hot and velvety hole and.Whiteout.Billy came, spilling all over their chests and on Nicholas’ face and shoulders and hair and he stuttered, rutting into his lover once. Twice. Three times. And then he shuddered, shouting Billy’s name and coming, body trembling with the need to collapse and cover his witch. Cover Billy. Cover Billy and keep Billy apart from the world and protect the witch from everything and everyone and he exhaled, dropping Billy’s thighs from his shoulders and letting his elbows rest on the mattress, his forehead finding Billy’s chest. They were both short of breath. Billy was sweating and covered in cum. He needed to... He needed to pull out and take off the condom and dispose of it. And clean them both. And he simply shivered, hands scrambling to touch Billy’s cheekbones and cock still sort of half hard inside of his lover. Billy’s mouth had not yet closed, nor had his lover’s eyes moved from that one spot on the ceiling that Billy had locked onto as he’d came. An inhale. An exhale. His thumb gathered some of the cum on Billy’s chest and sucked on it. He moaned. Billy’s eyes snapped to his and the witch smiled lazily, looking dazed and satisfied and soft and warm and deliciously tightening once more around his cock.„Again. Fuck me again. Fuck me again. Now, when I’m loose and sloppy from your cock. Fuck me again.”, Billy asked, voice raw and breathy and Nicholas swallowed hard, feeling himself trying to harden once more.Fuck. Condom. His fingers flew to hold onto the base of the condom he was wearing as he pulled out, rolling it off him and tying it between one breath and the next before letting his tongue lick the cum from Billy’s chest and cock and from Billy’s nipples. And from the underside of Billy’s jawline. And his fingers found the witch’s hole and sank inside. One. Not enough. Billy snarled into the kiss they were sharing and pushed against his hand. He knew one was not enough. Two. Another snarl and Billy’s hands grabbing his hair and twisting, the witch’s teeth catching onto his lower lip and biting down on it. Hard. Two weren’t enough either. Three. Three was better. Three was definitely better. Billy hissed and fucked himself on Nicholas’ fingers hard and fast and so fucking wild that their magic twisted and turned around them at a breathtaking pace. And then three weren’t enough anymore either. Four fingers or his cock. He was rock hard again. He snarled. Billy demanded more. Billy wanted to be satisfied. Magic pulsed in the air around them, heavy and thick and he rolled another condom on his cock, panting and not hesitating for a single second to slather himself in lube and push back into Billy’s hole. A gasp. Billy screamed. He moaned and sealed their mouths together.And then he moved.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
„What does my mother want from you? What’s in this parlay that you two are planning on?”, Nicholas asked, his fingers moving slowly across Billy’s chest as the young man laid on his newly changed sheets and on his mountain of pillows, purring like a very large and very dangerous wild cat. Oh, the witch was exhausted. Nicholas was exhausted too. They had been making love for a good two hours at that point and they were both tired and had been soaked in cum, sweat, lube and tears by the time they felt like they couldn’t possible come one more time. He’d carried Billy back to the shower and had helped his lover get clean again before going to get them some food. Which. Which had involved getting back into Jules’ body and hadn’t that been a trip and then he’d met a very amused and very tipsy James in the kitchen and things had gotten a bit awkward there for a moment, but nothing that wouldn’t be solved if Billy stayed for breakfast. Which. Billy would. Billy had blushed when Nicholas had asked him to, but had nodded a bit shyly and had snuggled into his arms quite eagerly, Jules’ body once more banished to a pocket dimension or something like that. The situation with Jules was getting weird and slightly unmanageable, but it was what it was for that moment in time. However. „No, don’t pretend to fall asleep on me. Tell me. Billy. Tell me what does my mother want from you?”„Oh, Nicholas, you’re going to be far more specific than that, dearest. Because you have two mothers and they both want shit from me. And I’m sort of contractually obligated to at least listen to them and to their demands. Sort of.”, Billy snorted and scratched at Nicholas’ scalp, fingertips playing with the both his hair and the slowly moving dark smoke that covered some of his skull. It responded to his lover, which was cute and sweet and sometimes, like right then and there, completely distracting. Still. He lifted his head and glared at the witch, who giggled and pulled him up for a kiss. By the nape of his neck. Fucking delicious. Nicholas might have whined, but alas. He’d already made all the sounds he could ever imagine making during sex with Billy, so. A little whining never hurt anyone. But he did manage to pull himself back and pout on top of the glaring. Billy melted. „You are a danger to my self restraint and to my ability to say no to a lover. To you in particular. To you, definitely. Anyways. You are truly going to have be more specific. Mostly because Agatha wants what Agatha has always wanted. Power. Control. You back with her. And she is really pissed at me right now because I brought you back, but I did it without her power and outside of her control, so she now owes me something that is comparable to her giving her life to save mine from your other mother four years ago.”„Ah. That makes sense. A twisted sort of sense, but I’m sure to keep her from scratching your eyes out. Much. You two can deal with each other the way you usually do, I’m convinced. Now stop stalling and tell me about what Rio wants from you in exchange for Tommy’s life, Billy.”, he grinned, straddling his lover in one smooth move and planting his palms on Billy’s chest. An inhale. An exhale. And he waited. They were naked, sure, but there was a sheet between them and they were very much sated, so the most seducing that the witch could do to keep him away from the subject at hand was a bit of eyelash batting and a bit of pouting, both of which Nicholas had already deployed in getting Billy to that point. He wouldn’t give up. He would know what was that Death wanted from the son of the Scarlet Witch and he would do so with a smile. And a shake of his ass. And Billy’s complete cooperation. His lover had not told him to fuck off yet, so the witch was only stalling a little. Coyly too. Nicholas kept on grinning and waiting. He was good at that. He was. He was warm and he had Billy with him physically and he had come a lot and he had made Billy come a little bit more than a lot and he was a bit high on pleasure, so he had patience to spare. And there were still a lot of hours in the night.„You are utterly incorrigible and I hope I used that word correctly. Your mother likes to tell me how I should read more than spell books for my intellectual enrichment.”, the witch rolled his eyes and rolled both of them to their sides, tangling their legs together and smiling softly. Billy’s curls caught the low light of the bedside lamp that Nicholas had left on throughout their entire night so far. He liked that it made his lover look almost ethereal. Almost. Billy was flesh and bones and circuitry and real in the same sense that he was. Real and magical all at the same time. „I know what Rio wants. I’ve known for a while. I can’t even blame her for wanting it, honestly, but I don’t know if I am the person to get it for her. And she can’t keep Tommy hostage any more than she could keep me now. I’m pretty sure she can’t even keep Wanda with her for much longer. I think... I have a theory that it’s Wanda’s grief that is keeping my mother dead. Or not here, better put. Anyways. That’s not what you asked. Yes, Rio can make Tommy’s life quite difficult and I don’t want that for him and I don’t want all of his friends suddenly dropping dead because your mother is trying to get her pound of flesh. So I will listen to her request and hope that she actually has a plan to go along with that request. She wants Strange’s Infinity Stone. And I don’t think she’ll stop there. I also don’t have a clue as to what Death would do with the Time Stone.”„Well, I didn’t expect that one, honestly.”, Nicholas snorted, letting his fingers trace Billy’s forehead decoration, which... Which he found was actually sensitive to a certain point and which made the witch shiver, shudder and moan if he ran his fingerpad just the right way and just like that around some of the crystals there. Oh yes. His lover’s eyes flashed with the circuitry inside of them, the electricity there bright and bold and sort of distracting. He wanted to play with Billy until he figured out exactly what made the younger man tick and how to distill all of that into a potion of pure lust that only he would know the formula to. He wanted Billy. For his own. For good. Forever. He’d not spent the past two years sleeping with and talking to Billy every single fucking night when he fell asleep to not know what the witch was for him.
His.
„I mean, it’s true from what I’ve gathered from one drunk Reaper here and another Hell Hound there and from some death mages and then from some vampires too. Those dudes are old as fuck and they have issues that I can totally fix. Sort of. It’s interesting that I can help vampires sire other baby vamps. Did you know that they had thought that Death had punished them for overdoing it a couple of millenia back and that that was why the Big Bads out there were... Sterile? Is that even a word that one can use for already dead creatures? Yeah, let’s go with that. Nicholas, you have fucked my eloquence out of the bottom of my soul. My fucking god. Anyways. Vampires. I had a thought process there. Stop wiggling.”, Billy groaned and grinned and cursed and straddled Nicholas once more, which the older man couldn’t truly understand how it would help in the whole thought process processing thing, but. Alas. He was actually listening. He was. Billy was gorgeous and he was vaguely distracted, but getting hard once more for the evening was more of a pipe dream than anything else and he was very, very satisfied. So was Billy, Nicholas knew. He’d gotten to know his lover’s body very well over the past two years and he would continue to do so for as long as Billy would have him. Though maybe asking for the witch’s hand in marriage was a bit premature, especially with how all of their mothers seemed to hate each other’s guts for one reason or another and maybe Rio’s were rooted in the universal balance or something, but who even knew why Agatha did some of the things that she did. An inhale. Fingers snapping in front of his eyes. He growled. „Well, aren’t you a little vampire all on your own, baby shark? Or is that baby kitty? What’s the growling for? I was giving you scoop on others that have managed to cheat your divine mother’s domain and that is how you repay me? Rude.”„Vampires aren’t cheaters of death, little witch.”, he half grinned, half snarled once more, lifting himself up on his left elbow and drawing Billy down to him with his right hand, their mouths tangling for a few moments. A few. And then a few more. And then his eyes slid shut and he fell back to the bed and Billy came with him. And then they lost themselves in one another for some extra few moments. At last, Nicholas pulled back and poked Billy’s nose with his finger, smiling widely as the witch sneezed delicately at the touch. It might have been some of his vines or maybe the smoke that covered a good part of his left pectoral. Well. One couldn’t be unblemished after all. Billy’s lips found the top of that smoke and sank into it elegantly, licking and teasing over that part of him that wasn’t tissue or bone or skin, but that was eternity, in a way. He tapped the witch’s cheekbone and Billy’s eyes met his as the young man gestured for him to continue. Speaking, Nicholas assumed. Or maybe kissing. No, definitely speaking. Maybe a little kissing. But speaking first. He sighed. „Vampires are made of Death magic through and through. They’re not exactly my Mama’s creations, but she’s not repudiating them either. Vampires are not children of death, they’re the result of a a desperate and sometimes cursed desire to live and overcome everything in the face of adversity. Like weres are born out of the exhaustion that a lack of physical or mental strenght brings onto an oppressed individual, vampires are just another aspect of that same feeling. A lot of these creatures, be they nocturnal or diurnal, are the mortals’ answer to injustice and to hatred. A sort of. I don’t know.”„You want something to hate, I’ll give you something to hate kind of situation. Yeah, I can relate to that. Fuck me. So much. I mean, yes, fuck me very much, but also fuck me, I can relate to that kind of impotent rage and to that sort of feeling of being hated simply for being other.”, the witch shrugged, pointing at his painted nails, at his multitude of rings and bracelets and at the circuitry in his eyes. At the crown too. Nicholas frowned and wanted to offer to bury someone under a lot of ice, but the ice caps were melting and maybe a volcano might actually be considered a better choice for murder. Yes. Quick death, though. Maybe something else. He’d think about it. He wasn’t the Heir of Death for nothing. „Easy there, darling. Now, don’t look at me like that, I can totally see what you’re thinking about it. It’s plain as day, written on your face in all caps. There’s no need to start committing more murder than usual, that’s for sure. And if you want to end someone, maybe not a kid that I’ve already scared half way to death by sending him a magicked video game that switches to that little girl from The Ring in the middle of a combat sequence. I heard him scream two houses over. It was glorious.”„Wicked, wicked, wicked Wiccan, aren’t you? So wicked. That is a very clever way to fight back to a bully that cannot be traced to you and that no one would believe. You managed to make him think that he was losing his mind, didn’t you?”, Nicholas smirked and shivered, Billy’s fingers playing along the very edges of his exposed final two ribs. If his lover wanted to take a closer peek right then and there, the witch would be able to easily see his heart beating and even to feel it. With those deadly fingertips of his. Nicholas was tempted to bring that to Billy’s attention, slowly and surely, towards that exact spot. Because. Well. Because the witch already his heart in his talented hands indeed, at least metaphorically, and that was far more dangerous for Nicholas than Billy actually holding his heart. He grinned and kissed the younger man deeply. Once. Then nipped at Billy’s lips and laughed delightedly when Billy snarled as Nicholas rolled them around and almost dropped them off the bed. He was still not convinced that the witch hadn’t stashed Jules’ body underneath the bed, so he wasn’t terribly keen to get on the carpet and figure it out. And then, well. Then he pulled back from where he’d nestled between Billy’s parted legs and eyed his flushed and completely debauched lover. They had so much to talk about and most of those things were definitely very important and extremely serious, but he also wanted to enjoy their first night together in person as much as they could. Coming for two or three hours straight had helped with that for sure. But. Well. „Want to hold my heart in your hands, lover mine?”„I mean, you’ve already declared yourself to me, so I’m pretty sure I’m already holding your heart in the palm of my hand and... You don’t mean it literally, do you? You do mean it literally. Nicholas, what? How? I don’t want to hurt you and. Okay. I’ll shut up now, your eyebrow game is fierce. Agatha’s genes are strong in you, even sort of half green as you are. Which is lovely. All of you is lovely. Do you really want me to hold your actual heart in my actual hand? Not like in a metaphorical way.”, Billy asked, eyes almost comically wide and glittery crown minutely vibrating. And distracting Nicholas for a second. The witch giggled, which brought his attention back to his lover and made him roll to his knees and face a quickly moving Billy, who matched his position in the blink of an eye. They were facing one another and they were both kneeling. Nicholas thought it appropriate and he nodded. Just that. Billy swallowed heavily and closed his eyes for a second. „I can’t kill you if I do that, can I? It’s like thinking anyone could ever kill Rio or that anyone in their right mind would consider Death’s destruction as a good thing for anyone. Please tell me that I can’t kill you in any way. I don’t want to be able to do that. I trust myself and I trust my love for you and I trust your love for me, but I’ve also met your mothers and my mother and not a single member of our families seemed to have it easy in love. I don’t mean to say that I would kill you if you left me. No. Nicholas. I’m serious. Don’t smile at me. If our relationship ends, it ends and that’s it. I love you for now and now, it feels like I could love you forever. But. But if that doesn’t happen, I won’t go after you in any violent way. I don’t want to be that person. I don’t want to be like that. I’m not like that. I don’t want our relationship to be a prison for either of us, but rather a sanctuary from the demands of the outside world. Just. Okay. I wanted to say that. Can I hold your heart in my hands without killing you or hurting you, Nicholas?”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
„I love you too, Billy. And I promise to be better at this whole relationship thing than my mothers? That feels like a bar. I don’t know if it’s a low one or not, honestly, but at least there is a bar. Right. Yes, you can hold my heart in your hands and I won’t suffer. I won’t be in pain. I won’t be hurt. And no, you can’t kill me like that. This, all of me, is a body I designed for myself and I am the son of Death, so killing me is... Frankly, a task that I don’t know who could undertake. Sure, there are ways to take Rio or me out, but to take both of us out at the same.”, he stopped, mind moving faster than his mouth was. Take Rio out. Take him out. At the same time. „Time. You’re saying that Rio wants the Time stone. To take myself and Lady Death out of the game at the same time is impossible. I’m a failsafe. I’m her failsafe. All that she told Mother is true, she wanted to be closer to the mortals that she couldn’t understand before Wanda showed up with her Aether magic and with her Universe creating abilities. Sure, that’s the truth. But it’s a truth. There’s more to my conception than just a heart of gold and Rio growing a conscience suddenly. Not that she was ever evil or that she is or will be. She’s Death. There’s no evil to her. There’s no good to her. She’s neutral. Anyways. Not the point. I’m Rio’s replacement. Her eternal replacement. If anything happens to her, I am it. Tag. It’s on me. The balance of life and death and of nature, it’s on me. But nothing would halt to a stop. Not really. I know what to do. She trained me well. I want to do it. I understand why she had me and while it’s not the most heartfelt of reasons, she was and is a good parent to me. There’s worse reasons for having a child than making sure to preserve the future of the universal balance. Just. Time. If one had the Time Stone and knew how to use it.”„You think that someone wants the Time Stone for themselves. To use. To make you and Lady Death scarce at the same time. But that cannot be Strange. He’s a pompous and arrogant asshole and he has a mean streak a mile wide, but he is not that powerful. He is barely powerful enough to be a nuisance to me and I don’t have even half of Wanda’s power. At least not yet. And none of her training. I didn’t go on any mystic trips like Strange has either, so that also helps him keep the upper hand so far. Anyway. Not the point.”, the witch offered and lowered his eyes to the middle of Nicholas’ chest. An inhale. An exhale. Billy’s fingers traced the exact spot where Nicholas’ heart was beating inside of his ribcage and he smiled. It was sweet. The older man assumed that Billy had figured out how exactly he could be holding Nicholas’ heart in those clever hands of his. Yes, the witch had figured that one out. Billy’s thumb moved to touch his left side, where his skin was gone and his smoke would retreat easily, leaving his ribcage open to the elements. And to Billy’s fingers. Nicholas shuddered, but Billy didn’t push inside of his body. Not yet. „I. Who? And why? And who would have the power to take down both you and your Mama? It’s ridiculous. Without Lady Death, life becomes superfluous. Uncontrolled growth is...”„A cancer cell. Or a triumph of life. Depends on what kind of uncontrolled growth you’re talking about, no? If you want to put it that way, all of us, you, me and Tommy, we’re not supposed to exist. We’re not created from life, by living, but rather by either desperation or a mission. By your mother’s arrival and by my Mama’s desire to counter that kind of instability.”, Nicholas snorted, pressing Billy’s hand to his ribs and gesturing for the young man to look inside. Which was odd, he realised, but he’d been the son of Death and her Heir for far longer than he’d been human or had any kind of human sensibilities. The past four years had been interesting from that perspective because he had gotten to understand a lot about how mortals viewed death. And their own bodies in death. And he didn’t look human in the least and Billy did look at least somewhat prettily alien and... Fingertips slipped on the inside of his lowest rib. He exhaled sharply and tried to not shiver uncontrollably. It wasn’t pain that he was feeling. It wasn’t pleasure either. It was a mix of the two that didn’t make sense to anyone else but him and he hadn’t ever felt it to that intensity. It spiked through his body, the feeling that Billy’s fingerpads moving softly across the back of his ribcage brought out. „Fuck. Up. No. Down. You’ve hooked your fingers between my ribs. To get to my heart, you need to go down first. Underneath my ribcage. And then up. And then you’ll have it. My heart.”„In my hand. Oh. Your smoke. It can eat away at your skin and tissues.”, Billy murmured and Nicholas couldn’t do much more than nod and hope that he didn’t get hard while his lover was searching through his chest cavity. For his heart. To hold. In Billy’s palm. Fuck, that was heady. His body, it was all by his own design, but he’d never imagined such a use for it. Or such a need to arise, for him to want to hand his heart to another. Quite literally. He shuddered. And bit down a moan as Billy’s palm slipped right down the lower edges of his ribcage, touching him tenderly and elegantly and he keened, dropping his forehead on his lover’s. Billy’s hand stopped and they both breathed together. He didn’t need to, no. But. But he needed to match his witch’s patterns. He needed to. It grounded him. Billy’s right hand, the hand that wasn’t in his chest, moved to the back of his neck and squeezed there for a moment, helping him settle. An inhale. An exhale. He nodded. „You’re good? Yes? Okay. You tell me if you want me to pull out and I will. Just. Slowly. Relax for me? Thank you, lover. I love you. I love you. I love you.”With each of those I love yous, Billy’s fingers touched another part of his insides and crawled ever so slightly up. Up. Upwards towards his galloping heart. There was no reason for his heart to beat. None whatsoever. There was no reason for blood to flow through his body and there was no blood flowing through his body. Technically. He did have some physiological functions going on, but that was because he’d chosen them. Like crying. Like getting hard and feeling pleasure and coming and he wasn’t going to reproduce by any classical means, if at all. He was sterile. Technically. Like everything about the body that he’d constructed for himself, technicalities abounded. An inhale. An exhale. And he hadn’t expected to have put any pleasure points inside of his fucking ribcage either, though he supposed that Billy’s touch wasn’t what was making him so shivery and so needy and so utterly and undeniably hard. No. It wasn’t that. It was the intimacy of everything, one single moment at a time. He shuddered. And then Billy’s fingertips traced the very tip of his heart. Electricity shot through him at the speed of fucking light, his back arching as he pushed into Billy’s hand. He had to get his heart closer to that skin that he loved so much. He had to. He had to. He had to. He simply had to. Fingers spread into a palm and his eyes shot open, locking with the witch’s wide and wondrous ones. In awe. Billy was in awe of him, gaze moving from his lips to the space where his living, beating heart could be seen through his ribcage, held in his lover’s palm. He whimpered. Billy flushed hard.„Y-you. I. Y-your heart. I. Ni-Nicholas, I can feel it beating. In my palm. I. It’s moving. Your heart is moving. It’s keeping you alive and I’m holding it and. I. Nicholas. I.”, the witch stuttered, mouth opening and closing more than once, lips forming words that Billy never spoke out loud.But.But Nicholas knew what those words were. He could feel their shape burning into his heart as the younger man’s fingertips moved to caress his heart. Once. Twice. Three times. A thousand times. Billy was telling him everything about himself, about their relationship, about their love, about how the witch connected to the Universe through the primal magic inside of him and through Wanda drawing from the Aether, about how their future, Nicholas’ and Billy’s would shape up in the witch’s vision of it and about... About life in general. Nicholas could see souls. Billy could see the space where a soul was needed and, perhaps, fill it up out of what seemed like thin fucking air. He could understand so easily why was Rio so troubled about the balance of everything when a power like that shook the core of what had once been the law of the Universe. That law had gone to shit when Thanos had tried his mad experiment, Rio having to hold in limbo so many souls. So many. There was no point to that many dead. There was no point to so little life. Rio had raged. She had cried. She had cursed. And she had hated Wanda more for the ability to create life out of nothingness because life was fragile and at the whims of anyone who could take it apart. And it wasn’t hard to do that.But.But Billy’s magic wasn’t chaotic. Oh, it was Chaos magic alright. No doubt about that. But it wasn’t a cancerous growth, a plague on the normal that had to be excised. Billy and, thus, Wanda were not parasitic creatures. They didn’t simply add to the population because they had a whim one morning and decided to do it. Nicholas could see it clearly right then and there, with his heart in Billy’s palm.„I can see inside of you. Like this. When I hold your heart. I can see what you were like as a boy. I can see what your Mama, what Rio saw the first time when she laid eyes on you. I can see how Agatha pulled you out of her body and I can hear you cry for the first time. And for the last time, through Agatha’s eyes. I can see you grow. Inside of her. I can see Rio. I can see Rio through Agatha’s perception of her and I can see Rio looking out into the Universe. I can travel through your connection to them wherever they have ever went. In the past. In the present. In the future. Oh. I can see myself. In your eyes.”, Billy murmured and blushed. Blushed more than he was already blushing. Nicholas had not thought that possible. He smiled. His heart thudded and his fingers went to Billy’s wrist, locking the witch’s hand inside of his ribcage for a moment longer. Just a moment longer. Just an eternity longer. Just. Just that his magic jumped and looped around Billy’s, who rose up to meet it happily. Easily. Naturally. They tangled together and all that Nicholas and his witch could do was smile and let their combined magic do whatever their combined magic wanted to do. It played. It pulsed in the same rhythm as his heart and as Billy’s own heartbeat. And then it followed the witch’s hand into Nicholas’ body. And it wrapped around Billy’s fingers and then around Nicholas’ heart. And then it sank straight into that beating muscle.Stopping it.For a second. For an hour. For a day. For an eternity.Billy gasped, eyes wide with the cool blue of his circuitry, but also with Nicholas’ green and purple magic. A whimper. His own. Another whimper. Billy’s. A panicked one. No need. He didn’t live through his heart and his heart wasn’t the one keeping him alive. But. But his heart had stopped when their tangled up magic had entered it. And then he felt Billy’s fingers tighten on the muscle there. Once. Twice. Thrice.And his heart started right back from where it had seemingly left off a few moments that. He exhaled. Billy was pale underneath all of that blushing. Their joined magic still pulsed all over them and they were... Well. They were floating. That was on Wiccan himself. Nicholas grinned. Billy frowned and slapped his shoulder with the hand not still holding his heart. Nicholas laughed. The witch gifted him with a delicate, but mischievous smile and with a look of love and understanding like never before. Billy could see inside of him. Could see him. Could see his lineage, short as it might be on Rio’s side and treacherous as it definitely was on Agatha’s. And Billy had not run for the hills. But the younger man did seem to want to withdraw his hand from Nicholas’ chest. Which was fair. Maybe. He liked having Billy’s fingers wrapped around his heart. It was warm. Still. He nodded. Billy leaned in and kissed him as he let go of Nicholas’ heart and pulled his hand out. An inhale. An exhale. Nicholas tangled their fingers and kept kissing the witch. An inhale. An exhale. They tumbled back to the bed, Billy’s legs parting easily as Nicholas sank between them, moulding their bodies together and never letting their mouths part. Never. Magic glowed around them, but their eyes were closed and their moans filled the air. Lazily, they moved. Just that. They just moved together, harsh and slow and delicate and rough. They moved and they breathed each other in and they moved and they breathed each other out. They moved and they came. And then Nicholas lowered Billy’s arms from where he had held them above the witch’s head. His eyes roamed across all of Billy. And stopped on that hand that had been inside of his ribcage, turning it around to kiss. He gasped, eyes widening and lips parting in surprise. Oh.
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„That’s an interesting tattoo you have there, Billy. On your palm. I didn’t even know people had tattoos on their palms. Like on the inside of it and so detailed. Right in the center too. Damn. I. What is that exactly? Can I take a closer look? Jules, you never said your boyfriend has such an interesting tattoo.”, Martina winked at Nicholas over a plate of over easy eggs and some crisp bacon, taking Billy’s hand and studying the witch’s palm calmly and... Well. Quite honestly. There was no irony in Martina as she took in Billy’s tattoo. Which. It was. And it wasn’t. He didn’t know what it was. Billy didn’t know what it was. They knew when it had shown up. And why. Probably. But what it did. Well. Maybe Rio knew. Maybe Agatha knew. They didn’t. Billy and him, they just thought it was pretty and pretty important and hadn’t worried much about it. Martina gasped. „James, come here. This looks like a flower, doesn’t it? But from below. Like how the kids used to sit underneath that glass coffee table when they were really small and look at the cat walking all over it. Remember? We would sit with them. Remember, Jul?”„Yes, Mom. Of course I remember.”, Nicholas replied dutifully, voice low and warm and eyes tracing Billy’s features.His lover was patient and even a bit shy. It was understandable. Billy didn’t know Martina or James and he had sort of come out of nowhere to spend the night at their place, while Jules’ more well known partner, Ryan, was nowhere to be seen. Ever again, maybe. But Jules’ parents hadn’t treated Billy poorly. No. Not at all. They had asked what the witch wanted to eat for breakfast, had made sure to check in about allergies and stuff and had even made the younger man perfectly fluffy toast. With milk. Nicholas was slightly jealous and very amused. Martina had given him a thumbs up over Billy’s shoulder, mouthing a silent gorgeous about his lover, which had brought out a blush onto Jules’ skin. Sun kissed skin, though, so definitely not as visible as if he would have been in his own body. One blessing that was. One blessing. Some curses. Like how he was back to being Jules and Billy was actively hiding his crown and his circuitry, but not the flower in his palm. That, interestingly enough, had not wanted to be hidden away, no matter what the witch tried. And it wasn’t a flower. Oh no.„That must have taken hours. With that level of detail, I mean. And it looks expensive too. How much did that run you for, Billy?”, James asked, flashing the sleeve of tattoos that he had on his left arm, from his knuckles all the way up to his shoulder. Nicholas knew that Jules’ father had plans to start on a very large back and chest tattoo as soon as Chris would be off to college and out of the house. Because. Well. James had drunkenly confessed to Jules a few months back that he wanted to get something that went all the way down to his buttocks. And that required airing out the areas at times. Nicholas still cackled at the memory. It was endearing. „This was about eight thousand, but it was done like ten years ago. I didn’t keep up with the price points nowadays. I’m scared to even look.”„That’s a gorgeous sleeve, James. Damn. Hey, Jules, think you should get one too?”, Billy’s eyes filled with mischief for a few moments before the witch burst out in a quick laugh, cackling only slightly. Nicholas rolled his eyes, but continued blushing and maybe even casting a bit of magic on the dropping flowers on the table. Nothing much, but he could totally spruce them up a bit. Billy coughed suddenly as he overdid it and the flowers grew a few inches. Hopefully no one would actually notice. Ooooops, Nicholas mouthed silently as Billy turned back to James and spoke smoothly, steering the conversation elegantly and efficiently. Like Agatha did. Conman, his lover was. But his conman, in the end of it all. Or maybe at the beginning of everything. „Oh, this tattoo was a gift from someone I love dearly. They just wanted to give me their heart. That’s what it is. I’m sorry, Martina, but it’s not a flower. It’s a heart. Well, it’s a sliced heart. It’s a heart sliced in four and displayed on a platter. Sort of. It’s a little gruesome, perhaps, but I’ve never been one for picture perfect imagery. And I love it. And the person who gifted it to me. Makes me feel special and warm. And fuzzy.”„So that’s where your last couple of paychecks from the hospice have been going towards, huh?”, Martina teased Jules with a smile, tossing a balled up napkin at him.Nicholas grinned. That was definitely not where those paychecks had gone to, but he wasn’t going to explain all of that to them, not right then and there. Or not at all. They didn’t need to know that he’d been renting the world’s tiniest studio apartment five towns over and that he’d turned that place into what had to the Fort Knox of magical safety for the simple reason of maybe getting Billy to come to him physically at some point. And Billy was there. With him. And with his heart. Quite literally too. There was nothing beating in his chest anymore. His heart was on Billy’s skin. And in Billy’s hand. The irony of having the Heir of Death fall in love with the son of the Scarlet Witch was lost on no one. For that very son of the Scarlet Witch to physically have the heart of the Heir of Death in his very skilled hands. Well. Whatever that meant in the grand scheme of things, Rio would either throw them both a wedding party or dig two very shallow graves. Maybe throw both a wedding party and a fit. At the same time. His Mama could definitely multitask.„I have paid all of my dues to you, mother and father mine. What I do with the rest of my money... Well.”, Nicholas poked his tongue out and winked at Martina, hoping that the cheekiness of everything might just keep James from hounding him about the tattoo artist that could work a needle so fucking well to put that kind of ink to someone’s skin. He would have to come up with something pretty damn soon, but maybe not that morning exactly. Nicholas was still a bit high on the happy of having made love to Billy, having slept next to the witch and then having woken up next to the younger man. Who had still been snoring quite loudly in his ear. Like a tractor. Or maybe like an old flour mill. Billy had surprisingly strong lungs for someone so lithe and the witch wasn’t afraid to use those lungs for a long session of snoring. Endearing, but definitely interesting. Still, it hadn’t bothered him and it gave him something that made Billy less than perfect and that wasn’t a sort of moral failure in any way. It was just snoring.„Fair enough, fair enough. You don’t even eat more than a little birdie here at home. I can’t believe that what you get at palliative care center for breakfast and lunch is enough for you, but... Alas. It seems to be. Can’t complain too much, Chris is eating everyone out of house and home, I swear. I fear that his girlfriend’s parents are going to start charging us for groceries soon enough.”, James muttered, shoving another plate of yet more bacon and maple syrup filled pancakes onto the table, from where Nicholas dutifully picked it up and brought it closer to himself. And to Billy. Who was smirking. „You two are cute together. Where did you two meet? And how long ago? Tell us everything.”„Dad. If you sit down with your chin in your hands and start gazing at us with hearts in your eyes, I will walk out and return in a week, I swear.”, he snorted, but gestured for Billy to explain to Jules’ parents how they had met. It was Agatha’s protegee that was the con artist out of the two of them and they had not really discussed any practicalities until they got summoned for breakfast or else. And. Well. Nicholas had been lying to the Maxwells for the past four years. Billy could lie for a change. Billy was also glaring at him from underneath his dark as night curls. No eyeliner, though. That one, the witch hadn’t added back on that morning. Nicholas sort of missed it. „Billy tells it better than I do. And he’s way funnier.”„You want it honest or you want it polite?”, the witch asked pointedly, his tone pulling smiles, smirks and a loud peal of laughter from Martina, who sat down next to Nicholas and gestured for Billy to continue speaking, murmuring a low always with honesty, dear, always. Billy cackled. „Okay, honesty it is. I definitely summoned this gorgeous soul that resides in your son into my life with the help of a higher power and some of my own magic. And then we spent a couple of years dancing around one another and having some very hot... Dates. We get along. Splendidly. So we’re going to try the monogamous, relationship thing, which should be more than worth it, since I’m very much in love and want to make this work. Before we do go forth and try it out, I feel like you should know my last name, though and what I do for a living. You might object to me dating this pretty, pretty soul here.”„Oh, that’s very poetic and all. Is that code for we met online on a dating app and then had a lot of dates in a very short amount of time? It is. I knew it. Honey, pay up. You owe me a hundred bucks.”, Martina grinned, whooping as her husband sighed heavily and simply handed her his wallet, from where she selected five crisp twenty dollar bills that elegantly disappeared in the folds of her dress. Nicholas could admire that slight of hand just as much as he could admire how much Billy had absolutely not lied to neither James, nor Martina, while actually keeping his cover intact. It was impressive. Agatha was a hell of a con woman, but Billy had some natural talent of his own. After all, it was the confidence in the truth being as bendable as any lie that made a conperson what they were. Good or bad. And Billy was excellent. „As for who you are, Billy, we know. Chris has had a superhero phase until a few months ago. Well, maybe he still has it, he’s just calling it journalism now. But we know. Let me guess. My older son had zero clue who you were when you two first met face to face, Wiccan?”„Quite literally true, Martina. Quite literally. So then, hi, I’m William Maximoff, but everyone and their mothers call me Billy. And some people like to call me Wiccan. You good with that? Dating me, especially officially and all, might bring some unexpected tourism to the area. To your front porch even. I’m not that much of an Avenger or have a lot of... Fans, maybe. But there are people who will come and be very inappropriate with everyone associated with any single one of the Avengers, new or old.”, Billy explained plainly. It was an unnecessary precaution in the broadest sense because Nicholas was perfectly capable of feeding on anyone’s soul if they got deadly towards Jules’ parents and, especially, towards the twins that Martina was carrying. But. But he liked that Billy had taken that into consideration. Also, paparazzi weren’t something that Slate was ready for. And they weren’t ready for investigative journalists either. The Maxwells’ sons’ miraculous return from the brink of death might be proven to be too miraculous by an intrepid reporter and the last thing that Nicholas wanted was to deprive Slate of the palliative care center. The Stark Foundation could afford the scandal, sure, but it would have been best if it could be avoided from the start.„Ah, we don’t really have or want to have much say in who our children date. We never cared either way. Though I do have to say that... You know about what happened to our boys, no? Yes. That. Before the accident, I would have swore that they swung the exact opposite way. I thought that Chris was definitely going to be into boys, if he wasn’t already and I had never even seen Jules look at anyone else but a couple of girls here and there. And nothing serious. I even considered that my eldest here might be asexual or demisexual. We spent some time researching all of that when Jules was fifteen. We wanted to be ready for any conversations that might arise. And we wanted to not say something insulting or bigoted when the time came.”, James shrugged, making Billy coo a little and Nicholas wince. Yeah, the Maxwells were good people and Nicholas and Tommy were not their children. Still. Martina and James loved them just as they were, even as they didn’t really resemble the kids they had before the incident. The drowning incident. Where their children had died and where Billy had shoved Nicholas and Tommy into the Maxwell brothers’ bodies. A hand clasped his shoulder and James leaned in, kissing his forehead loudly and patting his cheeks. Billy laughed. Martina giggled. It was a good morning, all in all. „But, you know, kissing boys is just as fine as kissing girls or not kissing anyone at all. I still want to know who did Billy’s tattoo. That’s talent right there. I want a sleeve from this person.”„Will totally give you this dude’s contact information. Sure. No problem.”, Nicholas grimaced, glaring at Billy, who was busy smiling like a complete angel at Martina and conning her for some more breakfast pastries. The eggs and bacon, the witch hadn’t touched and had piled onto Nicholas’ own plate with so much skill that it seemed like they had been there from the start. Oh, yes. And Billy had also given his palm to James to study in detail, which was definitely making Jules’ father a bit too interested in the whole thing. Nicholas’ eyes caught James as the older man tried to touch the very edge of the tattoo. He froze. Billy’s entire demeanour shifted in the blink of an eye and the room stopped. Nothing moved. Nobody was breathing. Well. None of the humans were, at least. „You stopped time, Wiccan?”
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„I panicked. You looked ashen there for a moment and then I felt a spike of apprehension coming from the middle of my chest. I had no reason to feel anything like that, so it made sense to have come from you. Because James was about to touch the tattoo. So. I acted. They’re not... I didn’t stop time. I just separated me and you from the two of them. They’ll not notice. Their minds will simply fill in the gaps and we’ll slide right into their imagination once we’re done talking.”, the younger man explained simply, dropping down from the bar stool that Billy had taken for his own and coming towards Nicholas. Elegant and lithe and gorgeous and wearing that silvery, dark blue tiara, the witch was beautiful. And had some chocolate on his upper lip that Nicholas bent down to kiss away. After a moment, Billy pulled back and cupped his cheek with the hand that held Nicholas’ heart. „Tell me. Nicholas. I’ll wear a glove on this hand at all times if you want me to. If you need me to. I anyways generally wear fingerless gloves to not touch everything. I get impressions of things if I do and I don’t need to be assaulted by all the lives of everyone, all at once. But still. Tell me, please. Lover mine.”„I love you, witch.”, he whispered and kissed Billy’s slit eyebrow, nuzzling the younger man’s curls for a long moment before sighing and rubbing at the middle of his chest. „It’s yours. My heart. It’s yours. Quite literally, too. But I don’t know. I don’t know... I don’t know what will happen when someone else but you and me will touch this. It feels a little like someone walking over my grave, I suppose. Not that I actually know what that is, because I was never really there to experience it and I’ve never gone to visit my grave, but still. It’s cold. Eery in a way. I could feel James’ fingers getting closer and closer and closer and I didn’t know what to do. So I also panicked. I panicked. You panicked. We panicked. I think we need a test subject. Like James. He’s harmless. He’s a tattoo junkie too, so he’ll anyways be fascinated with every single line of that, but also he’s scatter brained enough that he won’t notice me reacting into much of a way. We can test out my theory, I guess. At least this one. The other one. Well.”„The other one, we might get a chance to test out sooner rather than later. Strange is really trying to get into contact with me and he’s very annoying as a general rule. I need to turn on my work phone.”, Billy rolled his eyes and cuddled Nicholas for a moment longer before nodding and allowing his royal blue magic to unwrap itself from the room. And the humans continued doing whatever it had been that they had imagined doing while Billy and Nicholas talked. Mind altering, Wanda’s power had been. Billy could do it too, Nicholas surmised. He wasn’t a fool and he wasn’t so in love with the witch to simply ignore how fucking powerful Wiccan was. Powerful and dangerous and deadly. And all his, of fucking course. He smiled and waited for Billy to... That. The phone seemed to drop out of thin air into the witch’s hand, pulling a little yelp from Martina and a surprised grunt from James. Billy flushed. Well, no. Billy played at flushing, the perfect blushing boyfriend to a perfectly dotting son. Fucking hells, his lover had definitely been his Mother’s best fucking pupil. Billy was playing everyone like a fiddle. And enjoying it tremendously. „Sorry about that, didn’t want to startle you. Just need to turn on my phone and take a work call. May I use your office, Martina? Please.”Martina nodded, amused and a bit too entertained by the fact that Nicholas got up from the table and followed Billy into the only room in the house that did have soundproofing without much more than a simple wave from the witch. Honestly, Nicholas couldn’t blame her for the reaction. He would have followed Billy to the ends of the earth and beyond, into the Universe at large, if the younger man just said the word. Or made a gesture of approval. Or really maybe just thought about it. He was definitely willing to go to any lengths for Billy. And then the witch shoved him down onto the couch in Martina’s home office, closing and locking the door behind them beforehand. Nicholas grinned. Billy dropped in his lap, purring as his hands wrapped around those slender hips naturally, but also sighing and turning on the sleek and dangerous looking phone that the witch had not, shockingly, thrown out the window the previous evening.„Oh, great. Fifteen texts. And one missed call. I suppose Strange got annoyed about being physchically ignored and tried to contact me through all the means possible. Your mother sent me a text too. Your Mama. Rio. What? I have her number. Agatha had it in her old phone and it’s not like she was using it for much. She’s a ghost. By choice and all. She forfeited her right to touching solid objects.”, the witch shrugged, showing Nicholas the increasingly tetchy string of texts from Strange and the single one from Rio, indicating a time and place to meet. Tommy was still MIA, but Billy didn’t seem concerned about his baby brother, so Nicholas wouldn’t be either. After all, all he had to do to locate Chris was to ask Martina about him. She would remember that it was already past eight in the morning and her youngest hadn’t come home to collect his book bag. „Nine thirty for a meeting with Rio and Agatha. Ugh. Why are your mothers like this. That wasn’t a question, don’t answer. Also, it’s too early to deal with Strange’s bullshit. And the Avengers. Ugh. Fine. Let’s call the mighty Stark-lite.”„I bet he loves you, doesn’t he? Not only you’re the son of the woman he killed, but you also have all of her abilities and absolutely zero respect for him, the Avengers’ mission statement and he can’t hold shit over your head.”, Nicholas snickered, counting on his fingers the ways in which Billy was Stephen Strange’s personal fucking nightmare. „Oh, yeah. And you’re more powerful than he is. That’s got to sting with the kind of ego he has.”Billy smirked. Of course that Billy smirked. There wasn’t much else to do for Billy but to look smug and wait for Strange to notice that he was online. And. There it was. It hadn’t even been thirty fucking seconds and the Wizard was calling. Video calling even. Nicholas gestured for Billy to stand up as he stepped out of Jules’ body, his lips lifting in a discreet sort of amusement when the witch’s smirk turned feral at the sight of him. And then Billy swiped up and Strange’s face came into view, the man going from annoyed to so fucking shocked he had gone speechless. It was Nicholas’ presence that had caused that incredibly rare and unnatural event and Nicholas. Well. Nicholas couldn’t have been happier about it. He brought Billy close to him and smiled softly as the witch’s chin found his shoulder after long and elegant fingers had moved his hair to the other side. Sweet.„You. And you. Of course.”, Strange recalibrated quickly enough, his face a picture of exasperated anger. And a single, almost expertly hidden flash of fear. Oh yes. Tommy might not have thought much about the Heir of Death and the Heir of the Scarlet Witch being a couple, but Strange certainly did. And the Wizard of Oz over there saw it as an issue. Because it was, Nicholas knew. He just didn’t fucking care. Neither did Billy. He could feel it. He could feel it before what they had done the night before, but ever since his heart had been imprinted onto Billy’s palm, things had been so much smoother between them. A bond. And a binding. That was what the tattoo meant. He couldn’t imagine that it would have done that if they hadn’t been so in love with each other as they were, but still. „There has been a spike. I need you to come back and cast for it. Urgently. And alone.”„Do you have food poisoning or something? No? Then why can’t you cast for it, Stephen? I’m off until at least next Monday. That’s in the schedule. The one that you made. That’s in the contract I have with The Avengers Inc. You drew that one too. So why are you in need of my services now and willing to pay my overtime fee?”, Billy asked, voice low and mocking and attention completely on Nicholas and on their joined hands and on how their magic pooled together in Nicholas’ palm. And on how it pulsed from the centre of Nicholas’ heart and on how that centre was the middle of Billy’s palm. „Well? Either give me a very good reason to come or fuck off. I’ll be on call from next Monday on.”„It looks like Wanda’s signature.”, Stephen replied evenly, fingers steepling underneath his chin, the goatee making the Wizard look... Outdated. Nicholas snorted. He was four hundred years old and he thought that Strange’s facial hair made the other man look outdated. The fact that he also thought that Strange was a prime category asshole didn’t help much either. But. Alas. The Wizard had the Time Stone. That was worth something to someone. Not to him. But definitely to Rio. And definitely enough that Rio wanted Billy to take the Stone from Strange. Curious that. Billy hadn’t reacted to the words that had come out of the older man’s mouth, so Nicholas assumed that his lover had heard them before. And that it hadn’t been true. „William. She’s your mother. You can.”„I swear to fucking Circe, Stephen, if the next words out of your mouth are reason with her or a variation of those, I will break my own vow to myself to not kill you yet and just fucking do it now. Right where you stand. Do not fuck with me and do not think that your precious Time Stone can save you.”, Billy snarled, the room around them flooding with blue. Blue and green and purple.Nicholas wanted to cackle. Billy was pulling on his magic as well as using his own. Fucking hells. And it was a two was street. Billy was filling Nicholas’ own reserves of magic with that good blue thing and it felt smooth. Soft. Sharp. Deadly. Vicious. Like Billy himself. Nicholas shuddered. Strange didn’t look scared, but he also didn’t look smug anymore. It was a good assessment of how Dr. Stephen Strange viewed Billy’s abilities. Dangerous. Too dangerous. But not something that couldn’t be fought. After all, the good doctor had taken down the Scarlet Witch herself and had lived to tell the tale. Or so Stephen told the tale, for sure. Nicholas remembered it differently, of course, but he’d not been the one to collect Wanda’s soul, if that had ever happened. Rio was tetchy and touchy about the subject and Nicholas hadn’t had any reason to push. Not then.„Calm yourself, Wiccan. Magic requires discipline and focus and control. You, child, lack all do those. Your amount of power won’t replace any of that and...”, Strange started, eyes widening and lips parting in a silent shout as his fingers tried to reach for his necklace and the Time Stone. Tried. The doctor never made it. Billy’s magic had risen from the very ground that Strange had been standing on. In a garden. Such a pretentious fool. Of course, it had been the correct choice at the time and with all of the variables that Stephen had had at hand, to set himself apart from anything metallic or anything that might have involved circuitry of any kind. Obviously, Strange wasn’t stupid. But Strange was vain. And the vanity of it all had made the Wizard careless in his middle age. Nicholas grinned as Strange suffocated slowly, but very surely, his sigils uselessly bouncing off Billy’s magic. „B-Billy, st-op this. D-death. I.”„Discipline.”, the witch grinned, letting his fingers twist and twirl and spinning Strange and his little cape around just enough to draw someone’s attention, that was for sure. Nicholas waited. They couldn’t be hard go track, not with the call still ongoing and not with how much magic Billy was expending to fuck with Strange. Someone would come for them. He grinned. Oh, he wanted someone to come for them. He’d not been in any amount of good fighting for literal decades. An inhale. An exhale. „Focus. And control. All of those things that you have, no? Stephen, Stephen, Stephen. You have those things and Wanda didn’t, right? That’s what you’re implying. Wanda had impulsiveness, but lacked focus and had no control over her magic. Like me. Ah, ah, ah, Stephen, sweetie. You said that. Literally. About me. Oh, is that your favourite side kick trying to burst through my shields, Stephen? What should I do then? Go take care of the man enabling you all along or let Nicholas do it? Oh. Interesting. You’re actually afraid of my boo.”„Ah, if only. I think Dr. Strange has fooled himself into believing that him being the keeper of the Time Stone and of the secrets of Kamar Taj made him somehow able to fight a cosmic entity and live. But that’s neither here nor there, dear heart. He’s not afraid of me, though he should be. He’s afraid of the bond between us and the fact that you’ve managed to trap him with vines and trees and absolutely no metal. Because that’s your magic. Boosted by my powers. And that makes Dr. Stephen Strange fucking terrified.”, Nicholas interjected and tilted his head to the side, listening in to what was happening outside of their little bubble. „Tommy’s here, love. How about I stay here with Stephen and we catch up for a moment while you go and send his buddy back to the Avengers compound? Yes. That sounds like a plan. Don’t worry. I have him.”