Work Text:
Nate's five when he meets Princess Clarke for the first time. Prince Kyle, six, already regal and imposing, on the rare occasions when he wants to be, but still Nate's best friend, brings the small, golden-haired girl over and says, "This is my sister. You can't tell anyone."
Nate's dad is the head of the royal guard; his family is trusted with royal secrets. He knows he has responsibilities, to protect the crown. He knows this is a great honor.
It still feels like almost too big a secret, this princes no one can know about.
"They're going to say she's Lord Marcus's daughter," Kyle goes on. "But she's my sister, and we need to take care of her."
Clarke is only three. She's half-hiding behind Kyle's leg, and she has her fist stuck in her mouth, but she looks up at Nate with the fiercest eyes he's ever seen. She's never going to need anyone to look out for her, but that just makes him want to do it more.
Nate doesn't have a sister of his own, but from that day on, he has Clarke, and he doesn't think he could love a real sister more.
*
When the curse happens, Clarke acts like it's all her fault, like she's the only one to blame, which is bullshit, but it's hard to convince Clarke she's wrong about anything, ever.
Nate and Kyle are there when she makes the agreement, and they both approve Clarke's plan to get herself turned into a weapon, albeit grudgingly.
"I should do it," Kyle says.
"No, you shouldn't," Clarke snaps. "If you turn into a monster and I claim I'm a lost princess and ask them to follow me, what do you think is going to happen? Even if people believe me, it'll be chaos, probably anarchy. I should do it. I have the same ties to the royal blood you do, to the land, but if something happens to me, no one will know they lost a princess. I'm the best option for this, and you know it, Kyle."
"You're not," Kyle says, but he doesn't have an actual argument.
"She's right," Nate says. "I don't like it, but she's right."
Lexa, the witch, is watching impassively, arms crossed over her chest. She doesn't look like she cares much, as long as she gets to turn someone into a monster today. Nate's never been particularly fond of her, but she does love Clarke, and they're out of other options. Their army is gone, their King and Queen are gone. Nate doesn't know that his father is dead, but he knows he's not here, and he's probably never coming back.
"Fine," Kyle says, finally. "You'll turn her right back?"
"When it's done," Lexa says. Her people have suffered too, driven out of their own homes a generation ago by Tempestia's need for clean earth and water. Nate knows she wants revenge, that he would too in her place. But he can't shake the feeling it's going to go wrong.
"Good," says Clarke. "Do it."
Nate expects something big, smoke and fire and flashes of light. But Lexa twists her hand and there's a rose in it, blue, the same shade as Clarke's eyes. She offers it, and Clarke accepts, winces as a thorn catches her finger, and then, she's a monster.
"That's actually really awesome," Nate says, examining her wings.
Clarke grins at him, like a drawer full of knives. "Try not to be too jealous."
The army at their gates gives her no trouble at all, but it's not just the army at their gates. It's a lot of people, people who have no home and are fighting for one, women and children and all, and Clarke may be a warrior at heart, but she's not a murderer.
"I doubt I could do it either," says Kyle, petting her head.
"I have to, though."
"We could try to get an army together," says Raven. Nate's never seen Kyle so relieved as when he found out she survived the attack. Most of the other knights and squires of the kingdom were killed in the first wave; Raven's leg was hurt, hurt badly, but she claims she's too stubborn to die. Nate even believes it. "Humans against humans feels like a fairer fight."
"You're not fighting on that leg, Reyes."
"You got a better idea, Wick?"
"Stop," says Clarke. "We all know the best plan. I just have to--" She nods, decisive. "I just have to do it."
"Clarke--" Kyle starts.
"I'll do it."
There's a knock on the door, a relief to everyone, and when Nate opens it, their other squire, Lincoln, is there, with a girl.
"Who's that?" he asks.
"She says she's from Tempestia," says Lincoln. "She--"
"From Tempestia?" Nate asks, hand going to his sword. "Why's she still breathing?"
"I have information," says the girl. "You need it."
"Prince Cage made himself into a monster too," says Lincoln. "And he's coming for us."
"You believe her?" Raven asks him.
"Yes. She risked a lot coming here, to tell us this, with nothing to gain by lying." He pauses, but then adds, "And I haven't seen the witch recently. If they made promises about sparing our people--"
Lincoln is from the same tribe as the witch, Nate remembers. And it's true, he hasn't seen her, not since Clarke defeated the Tempestian army. He and Kyle both glance at Clarke, but her face is unreadable now, foreign and unknown.
"When's he coming?" she asks the girl.
"He can't be far behind me. I ran the horse nearly to death."
"Then we'll meet him," she says.
Kyle goes out first, Raven leaning against Lincoln, but refusing to stay behind. Clarke follows behind them all, her brother's pet monster.
It happens very quickly after that. Prince Cage is massive, a great black dragon, lungs full of fire and death, and he destroys a whole wing of the castle in his first hit. The rubble falls to the ground, and Clarke and Nate both jump to get Kyle out of the way, but neither of them reaches him quickly enough. The rubble hits him, half-trapping him, and Clarke's howl of fury is the worst thing Nate has ever heard.
The dragon doesn't stand a chance.
Raven's next to Wick, checking his injuries, the closest to frantic Nate has ever seen her, while he and Lincoln shift the rock, get him free and upright. Raven can't help, not with her leg, and her frustration is written all over her face.
"Think anyone's left in the infirmary?" Nate asks Lincoln. Most of the staff fled days ago; it looks like all those who remained have come outside to watch the fight. Stupid of them, and dangerous, but Nate has more important things to worry about.
"I know a little about healing," says the girl from Tempestia. "I'm apprenticed to our town doctor."
"We don't even know your name," Raven snaps.
"Maya. I wasn't lying about the dragon, was I?"
Nate and Raven exchange a look; Raven raises one shoulder. Nate nods. "Let's get him inside," he tells Lincoln. Clarke will save them. They just have to save her brother.
One of the court ladies, Harper, is waiting at the door, looking anxious. "I thought I might be able to help," she says.
"Clean water," Maya tells her, less meek with something to do. "Hot, if you can."
"I'll go and see if anyone's left in the kitchen."
She comes back with two boys and hot water, and Nate thinks they might be the only people left in the entire castle.
Then the curse hits, and he discovers he's right.
*
"Healed my stupid leg," Raven observes. Her voice is the same, even if she's an insubstantial shadow creature. At least they'll still be able to recognize each other.
"And my stupid everything," says Kyle.
"Don't sell yourself short, you've still got plenty of stupid." She looks up toward the east tower. Clarke is just barely visible, still a griffin, curled in on herself. "You think this means we won or we lost?"
"Won," says Nate. "She'd be dead if she lost."
"Yeah, she'd go down fighting," says Kyle. He rubs his face, and then makes a frustrated sound. "That did not feel like anything. What the fuck even happened? Is this the witch?"
"This isn't our magic," says Lincoln. "Not like any I've seen."
"It's ours," says Maya. "It has the feel of our magic."
"Great. I guess if Clarke ever comes down, she can tell us exactly what happened."
Harper and the two kitchen boys went to scout the perimeter, and they show up again, looking worried.
"We're not in Arcadia," says one of the boys. "I don't know where we are, but the castle grounds go to the gates, and outside is somewhere else. I think we're in the mountains? No idea what country. And we can't leave." He glances at his two companions. "At least, none of the three of us can."
"Great," says Kyle. He extends his hand. "Well, I'm Prince Kyle, but you should probably call me Wick."
"Why?" asks the same boy. Nate decides he likes him. He sounds like he has a healthy amount of skepticism. He likes that in a person.
"Someone's going to come investigate eventually," says Kyle--Wick. "I think we'll be better off if no one knows the Prince of Arcadia is--whatever this is."
"Yeah, you're right," says Raven. "I'm Raven. I'm a squire. Lincoln's a squire too."
"I'm Monty," says the kitchen boy. "And this is Jasper. We work in the kitchens. And I used to work in the garden, so--we should have food covered."
"You think we eat?" Wick asks. "We don't have mouths. How would we eat?"
"Clarke probably eats," says Nate. The kitchen boys are looking at him, he thinks, so he adds, "The griffin. Her name's Clarke."
"What's your name?" asks Monty.
"Nate," he says, automatic, and then corrects to, "Miller."
"Which one?"
"Miller," he says, firm. "I'm in the guard." It doesn't sound very useful, so he adds, "I can take care of the animals."
"I'm going to go see how bad the damage to the castle is," says Raven, jerking her head toward the battlements. "Maybe get started fixing it up. I was a blacksmith, before I was a squire. I've got this."
"I'll check inside," Harper says. "There's a lot of rubble in there too."
Maya volunteers to help her, and Lincoln takes off for parts unknown. Lincoln always seems self-sufficient.
"Clarke?" Nate asks Wick and Raven, low, as everyone else disperses. They're the ones who know her best.
Wick looks up at the roof again, frowning. "If she's not down in two days, we'll go get her."
*
Nate's in the yard, seeing which animals ended up coming with them, when someone approaches him. He thinks it's one of the kitchen boys--it doesn't move like Wick or Lincoln, and it's tall to be a woman--but he hates the way he can't be sure who's coming yet. He likes knowing who he's dealing with.
"Nate, right?" asks Monty. There's an edge in his voice, like he's daring Nate to tell him it's Miller.
"Yeah," says Nate.
"I wanted to check on the animal situation," he says. "Cats are carnivores, we're going to need to keep her in meat somehow." He pauses and then adds, "I'm also trying to figure out who she is."
Clarke's identity was something of an open secret among the nobility. She was never called Princess, never official, never mentioned outside of the palace, but most people knew. And--they're all stuck here together. It seems like a secret that will get out.
Mostly, he has a good feeling about Monty. Nate doesn't get that with a lot of people. He tends to trust it.
"The princess."
"Huh. That makes more sense than what I came up with."
"What did you come up with?"
"Personified spirit of the country who rises up out of the land in times of greatest need to smite our enemies."
Nate snorts. "Not that far off, honestly."
"So, Pri--Wick has a secret sister?"
"Yeah."
Monty nods, leaning down to inspect the chickens. They have a lot of chickens. "Has she always been a griffin?"
He laughs outright at that, and decides that, yeah, he was absolutely right about Monty.
*
After two days, Clarke still hasn't come down, so Nate and Raven decide to go after her.
"I should go," Wick says, arms crossed. Nate can't see his scowl, but he can picture it. "She's my sister."
"If you fall and break your neck, we're down a prince," says Raven. "It's our job to protect you, your majesty."
"Fuck you, Reyes."
"Anyway, we're going and you're not," says Raven, with a motion like she'd be tossing her hair, if she still had hair. It's hard to break these habits. Nate keeps trying to roll his eyes. "End of discussion."
"I'm with Reyes," says Nate, when Wick turns to him. "You're not coming."
"You guys better not get yourselves killed," Wick finally says. "You still need to marry me, Raven."
"I'd rather fall off a turret," she says. "Come on, Miller."
They're halfway to the tower staircase when Monty calls, "Nate!"
"Nate?" asks Raven, low.
"It's my name," says Nate. He turns and waits as Monty hurries toward them.
"Can you carry this?" he asks, holding up a basket.
"What is it?"
"Food. We don't get hungry, but I bet she does."
"Good idea," says Raven. "Thanks--"
"Monty," say Nate and Monty, at the same time. Nate tries to smile at him, but he doesn't have a mouth, so nothing really happens.
"Thanks," he adds, instead.
"Good luck," says Monty, and melts into the shadows down the hallway.
"Nate?" Raven asks again.
"He decided to call me Nate."
"Huh." She looks at the narrow, dark spiral stairs. "This is actually the best part of where we're going," she remarks. "The roof's way worse."
"Yeah," Nate agrees. "Let's do it."
It's a good thing they don't have bodies anymore, because if they did, Nate would be exhausted and starving by the time they make it to the tower. She's always loved exploring unused and unfamiliar parts of the castle, liking places as secret was she is. So she knew exactly what place would be hardest to get to. He'd hate her, if he wasn't so fond of her.
She's lying where they saw her last, head resting on her large paws, eagle legs tucked in under her. Given the choice, Nate probably would have chosen to be a griffin over a shadow, but Clarke doesn't seem thrilled with it.
Nate puts the basket in front of her and then sits down on the roof. Raven stands, arms crossed, ready for a fight.
"We brought dinner," he says.
"I'm not hungry," says Clarke.
"You're moping," Raven snaps. "It's not helping anyone. Cut it out. We still don't even know what happened. You got us all cursed."
Clarke looks at Nate, doleful, but Nate just shrugs. "She's not wrong."
"I killed everyone I could find. Set fire to the land. I didn't--it wasn't just soldiers. It was everyone. None of them could live there, and they had nowhere to go unless they fought us. So I killed them. And I didn't even--I didn't hesitate." She noses the basket, almost reluctant, and Nate opens it up. He can't smell it, but it looks like the kind of thing he'd love to eat, if he had a mouth and a stomach. "The king cursed us before he died."
"What's the curse?" Raven asks. "Can we break it?"
"I can," says Clarke, but she sounds more miserable than ever. "I just have to experience real, pure happiness."
Raven swears, and Nate only barely resists the impulse. Clarke isn't someone he'd call a happy person, even leaving aside the guilt she clearly feels. It's not as if she's miserable, but she's focused and smart, driven. He's not sure he's ever seen her happy, let alone truly happy.
She lets out a small huff of laughter, and does eat the meat Monty sent. "Yeah," she says. "I have six years. My twenty-first birthday. If it hasn't happened by then--"
"That's plenty of time," Raven says, but he can tell she doesn't really mean it. "First step to happiness, fly us down. Your brother's worried, and I don't want to take the damn stairs again."
*
"How's the princess?"
"We're calling her the griffin," says Nate. The stables are on the way to the greenhouse, and Monty has gotten in the habit of stopping by on his way to tend the plants. They don't really have any use for them right now, but not keeping busy is worse than doing pointless tasks.
"How's the griffin?" Monty corrects himself, amiable.
"Same as ever."
"True happiness just doesn't seem that hard."
"You're a happy person," says Nate. "Clarke's better with--fixing things. Not fixing herself."
"You've known her for a while," Monty observes.
"Twelve years. My father is--" He pauses, makes himself say it. "He was the captain of the royal guard. I've always known Wick and Clarke."
"Huh," says Monty, like he's filing it away for later. "So, we're going to be like this for a while, you think?"
"Yeah," says Nate. "Get used to it."
*
They do get used to it. Nate misses his father (and eating, he liked eating) but--that's honestly about it. He's never had that many friends, just Wick and Clarke, really, and they're still here. Clarke still spends most of her time on the roof, high above where anyone wants to go with any regularity, but she isn't gone all the time. Sometimes, she'll land near him, curl up and pretend not to be amused that the chickens aren't afraid of her. Sometimes, she'll talk to Raven and Wick.
"You trying to be happy?" he asks her, one morning, a into after the curse.
"I'm working on not being miserable first," she says. "It's a process." She ducks her head, which is absurd every time. Embarrassed griffins. "Sorry. I know this is awful for you guys."
Monty stops by to collect eggs. "Morning, Clarke. Morning, Nate." He tosses Nate an apple. "For the horse."
"It's not all bad," Nate tells her , and she butts her head against him.
*
"You think she'll break the curse in time?" Monty asks. They're sitting in the ruined north wing, which Raven has been slowly repairing. The wall and ceiling of the room are still gone, so they can stretch out and look at the stars. It's something he never did before, but he found out Monty likes them, knows constellations, planets, stories. He doesn't know where he learned all that yet, but he's going to find out. He's got time.
"I dunno," says Nate. "I try not to think about it. The more we ask her, the less happy she's going to be. She's probably driving herself crazy, feeling guilty about it, you know? On top of everything."
"Yeah," says Monty. "Glad I'm not the one who can break it. Just being cursed is way less pressure." Nate snorts, and Monty's quiet for a long minute. "I wish I remembered what you looked like," he admits. "I barely saw you."
Nate is quiet too, because he's thought the same thing, more than once. He wishes he'd known he'd only have a few minutes to look at Monty, so he could have really focused, appreciated him. He can tell now, he's sure, when Monty is smiling, when he's frowning, when he's worried, and he wants to know what that looks like. He wants to have those expressions, stored away, kept in his memory. He wouldn't mind never seeing them again, if he'd just seen them once.
"I'm pretty dark," says Nate, shifting a little closer. Monty isn't warm, doesn't feel like much of anything. Being close doesn't mean anything but proximity, but he still likes proximity. "Black hair, brown eyes. Neat beard."
"Nice smile?"
He laughs. "Only when I use it."
"You'd use it for me," Monty says, sure, like he should be.
"Yeah. I would."
*
The girl who steals the rose isn't the first one to come to the castle--in the first year, there were plenty of visitors, curious locals, lost travelers, hopeful thieves, until they got their reputation built up--but she's the first one who steals a year of time to break the curse. Nate's the one who finds her, and he hauls her onto the grounds, locks her in the shed, and goes to get the others.
"We have to do something," says Raven. "We lost a whole year."
"Are we sure?" asks Monty. "What's the exact wording?"
"When no roses are left on the bush," says Wick. "I asked Clarke like five times. I figured it would be good to know if it sped up or slowed down." He rubs his face, a habit, because of course he can't feel it. "Fuck. A fucking year."
"What's she like?" asks Raven.
"Like?"
"The thief. Is she pretty?"
"I guess," says Nate. "You know girls don't really do it for me, but, yeah, sure."
"So, let's keep her," says Raven.
"What?" Monty asks, somewhat scandalized.
"We can't just keep people," says Maya. Nate wonders if she feels kept; he's heard, from Monty, that she and Jasper are getting close, but they aren't her people. She tried to do the right thing, to warn them about her prince, and got cursed for her trouble, stuck in a castle full of strangers.
"Two years," Wick says. "That's how long we've got left on the curse now, right? We keep her for two years. None of us are doing Clarke any good, maybe someone new will."
"You cannot seriously be suggesting we steal a girl," says Monty.
"I'm with Raven and Wick," Nate says, after a pause. "Tell her she's got to come back. Work off the debt."
Monty grabs his arm. "You're not serious," he says again.
"Nothing else is working." He pauses. "You know Clarke. She'll probably feel so bad keeping the kid, she sends her home in a week. But this is our only shot. Clarke needs something we can't give her."
Clarke needs someone who doesn't make her feel guilty every time she looks at them, and they don't have a lot of ways to get someone like that.
"If it doesn't work, we'll send her home," says Nate.
He wishes he could see Monty's face, wishes he could figure out what he was feeling. But all he says is, "Fine."
*
A week later, Nate's in the yard, trying to convince cattle to have sex, which--not something he ever planned on, but this is how his life is now, when the girl comes back, with a man.
The man is tan and dark-haired, attractive, although not really the kind Nate goes for. He was not part of the deal.
Raven meets him on the way to the door.
"What the hell," she hisses.
"Maybe we're not as good at kidnapping as we thought," says Nate. He stands up as straight as he can, tries to look intimidating. For a weird shadow creature. "You were told to return alone," he says. They're trying out this thing with the girl where they act magical and mysterious. There's no way it's going to last. He feels like an idiot.
"I'm her brother," says the man. "I'm here to take her debt."
"It is her debt," says Nate. Raven bites back a snicker, but he doesn't think they notice.
"She's sixteen. The age of majority in Tondisy is eighteen. She cannot have her own debts. I'll take it. I'm an adult."
"This is not about law."
"Tell your master I'll stay for as long as he likes. Four years. Five. I'll stay forever, if he wants. I'll take the debt."
Raven pulls him back and aside. "What is the voice you're doing?" she asks.
"Shut up. Do we take him instead?"
"He's pretty cute."
"He's for Clarke, not you," says Nate. "Does she even like men?"
"Yeah, she likes both." She pauses. "Go get Wick, he can do the tour. He wants to say he's the butler, he can deal with this. I'm taking the deal. He likes saving pretty girls."
"You better be right," says Nate, and goes to tell Wick, and then goes to tell Monty.
"We're taking the girl's brother instead," he says.
"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"
"He volunteered to take her place," says Nate. "That's got to be something, right? We're not stealing him quiet as much."
"We might be stealing him more. He's just doing it to save his sister. From us." He pats Nate on the shoulder. "Sorry. Not buying it."
"Yeah," says Nate, with a sigh. "Neither am I."
*
Clarke doesn't notice for a week, like Nate predicted, because she's too busy moping and not paying any attention to the castle. During that week, Bellamy makes himself at home. He helps Raven with the roof, and, when he gets tired of helping Raven, comes to Nate instead.
"I took care of our animals at home," he tells him. It's actually disconcerting, to be looking at another human. His face is so expressive, and he's barely even doing anything with it. He's not what Nate likes at all, as men go, but he still feels almost hungry, looking at Bellamy Blake. He didn't realize how much he missed being human, until he saw one again. "Can I help?"
"Sure," says Nate, and the two of them clean the stables and take care of the chickens while Bellamy looks vaguely afraid of the horse. It's kind of fun, honestly.
"It's nice to have someone to cook for," Monty admits. "He really likes food."
"I miss food," says Nate.
"I missed guys who look like that," says Monty, and Nate snorts.
"Yeah, that too."
*
When Bellamy leaves to visit home, Clarke comes to sulk with Nate.
"I couldn't just keep him here," she says, sighing. "Not if he doesn't want to stay. I have enough people who are forced to be here with me. I just--I was hoping he'd want to stay."
Nate pats her head, and she huffs and leans against him, like a giant house cat, hungry for affection. He scratches her until she falls asleep, and wishes Bellamy had never come.
When he comes riding back in a week later, Nate welcomes him home, tends to the horse, and then races to the kitchen as fast as he can go.
Monty looks up from the stove when he comes in, alarmed. "What? Is everything okay?"
"I want to be here for this."
"For what?"
"Bellamy's back."
"Oh," says Monty. "So you think--"
"Yeah."
But nothing happens. Nate sits in the kitchen, waiting to change back, but they never do, and finally he says, "If that didn't make her happy, nothing's going to."
"We've still got almost a whole year," says Monty. "And he did come back."
"He did come back," Nate agrees.
*
Clarke's as confused as he is. "I've never been so fucking happy in my life!" she says, stalking around the paddock, scaring all the animals, except the chickens, which still think she's a friendly bird, not a deadly cat. Or they're just too stupid to realize they should be afraid. One of them is trying to roost on her. "I saw him and I just--that's happiness, right? How is that not happiness? He came back, and he brought me a stupid ribbon, and I just want to be human again so I can--" She breaks off, and looks away. "Anyway, yeah. How was that not happiness?"
"You know he's happy to see you too, right?" asks Monty. He found a hurt rabbit the other day and has been helping Nate nurse it back to health. The company's nice. The rabbit's kind of cute too. "That helps, if you know that."
"I'm a monster," Clarke mutters. "He's not happy to see me like I'm happy to see him."
"This is your problem," says Monty. "He definitely is."
When they're walking back inside, he says, "You're not as stupid about this stuff as Clarke is, right?"
"Huh?"
"I would have come running for you too, you know."
"Oh," says Nate. He feels warm, somewhere deep. Maybe that's true happiness. He doesn't know. He doesn't have a curse to tell him. "Yeah. I know."
*
When the curse breaks, three things happen, very quickly.
The first is that Nate becomes aware of all the things he didn't have before and does now, sensations like smell and touch and taste, the ones he'd lost, as a shadow.
Then, he realizes the curse is broken, and starts for the greenhouse.
Then he hears someone say, "Where did you come from? Identify yourselves!" outside the gate, and he looks through the bars and sees his father, and his father recognizes him in the same instant, and he realizes they're back in Arcadia, and his father is alive, all at once, on top of everything.
"Dad," he says, just a breath, and when the gates open, the first thing Nathan Miller feels in five years is his father's arms around him, warm and solid and real.
Wick and Raven come down about ten minutes later, and his father is distracted dealing with official matters, like leadership of the kingdom now that Wick isn't presumed dead, and explanations for why the castle disappeared with the prince inside it, instead of being utterly destroyed, like they thought.
Nate sticks around long enough to make sure Clarke's okay--and she is, of course, she's fucking happy, and he's going to be happy with her, later--and then he excuses himself and goes to the greenhouse. He runs into Octavia, who just smirks and tells him Monty's in there, and Lincoln, whom he directs to Wick and his father, and then he's at the door, and Monty is inside.
He registers the feel of the door under his hand, cool and hard, just one more familiar texture he's relearning.
Everything feels new.
He knows the shape of Monty already, the rough outline of him, and that's all the same, all familiar. But he didn't know the way his hair falls in his eyes, or the way his sleeves are a little too long, covering up almost to his fingertips. He didn't know what Monty would look like when he turned and saw Nate for the first time, the way his eyes would light up and his smile would grow until it took over his entire face.
"Sorry," says Nate. "Got held up."
"That's okay," says Monty.
"We're back in Arcadia," he says. He's moving closer without quite thinking about it, without needing to. How did he not remember Monty's face? How did he not look at him the first time and know? "My dad's here."
Monty somehow smiles even wider. "He is?"
"Yeah. He's dealing with Wick."
"Better him than me," says Monty, and wraps his hand around the back of Nate's neck, pulls him down for a kiss.
He tastes overwhelming, after so long tasting nothing at all. There's dirt from the flowerbeds and something fresh, like things growing, and something warm and golden, like morning sunlight. There's everything, and Nate's hands find his waist, feeling the rough fabric of his trousers, and then sliding his thumbs up to skin, sensation sparking at every point of contact. He's alive again.
"Okay," says Monty, finally, resting his forehead against Nate's. "That was worth stealing someone." Nate laughs, and Monty pokes his cheek. "And there's the smile. I knew I'd get it."
"Yeah," says Nate. "I knew you would too."