Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

PART I: 1456 BC

The sun was hot, but he didn’t mind--it was normal, after all. The sun was always hot in Lower Egypt, Blessed of the Gods and Land of the Deshret, but that was alright by him. The slave to his left and his right held his canopy as he walked and while he felt a twinge of sorrow that they had to do such a thing, he comforted himself with the knowledge that it wasn’t a very hard job for a slave. He wished they would speak to him, that they would say something beyond “Yes, your Grace.”

He wished for a friend.

As they walked through the marketplace--he amused himself by making up stories of all the people he saw. The old man with the leathery face selling coriander, he was a father to three girls, each more beautiful than Nefertiti herself. The woman holding a baby as she inspected a clay pot--that was her first child, and she had prayed long to Isis to allow her to carry such a miracle to term. Isis is kind, he thought, and sighed. He wondered what his mother had looked like, holding him so before she died. The Queen Mother had told him that she had been one of the most beautiful of all the Pharaohs wives with ebony skin and high cheekbones, and had been her best friend. She had said that she decided to love him because of her friend, but kept loving him for who he was. Would anyone ever feel the same about him, he wondered? Who knew...but he sent a prayer heavenward, just in case, and begged Ra’s kindness for someone to love.

~//~

He was bored, seated next to his mother, the siblings next to him all in similar states of apathy. They were watching the annual presentation of gifts from far-off lands, the wonders and wares brought in the hope of delighting the King of Egypt. Minkhet decided he had seen enough large cats, sharp swords and dancing baboons in his twenty-one years to last a lifetime...until something caught his eye in a flurry of lapis-dyed cloth.

It was a Ghost--but, no. Was it? His skin was pale, paler than the finest goat’s milk as he knelt on the cart, within a crude cage. His hair was the color of gold, and it flitted and floated in the breeze like a butterfly’s wing. Minkhet had never seen skin so white and he straightened in his seat.

“Queen Mother?” He leaned over and gave her his best smile, the one he knew would grant him anything . There were advantages to being the favored son in the royal Harem. “That--the ghost? I want it. Please.”

A single manicured eyebrow rose as his foster mother considered first him, then his request. “Stop.” She called out, then her dark eyes settled on him fully. “You wish him as a pet, my love?”

The idea of a human as a pet made something hot skitter down Minkhet’s spine, rolling around unpleasantly in his head...but he pushed it off. He had learned when to fight back and buck the way of things, and when to simply let it flow over him like the endless tides of the Nile. “Yes, my Queen.” He looked again at the boy, who was now being brought out of the cage by a rope attached to his bound hands. “A ghost must be a more obedient pet than an animal, don’t you imagine? Besides, he will be the most interesting pet in all the kingdom.” She nodded, gesturing to the servant who stood behind them in waiting silence.

“Take the ghost to my son’s chambers.”

~//~

Minkhet could hardly keep from sprinting to his chambers after the procession concluded, but he knew such a thing would never do. So he listened to his half-sisters and brothers chatter about their new sword, or new tiger, or whatever had taken their fancy in the procession as their gift for the year. But when it was over, his mother shooing him off with an indulgent smile, and he nearly bowled over their elderly tutor in his hurry to escape.

The ghost was kneeling in his chambers, guarded by a gaggle of wives and a stony-faced guard. He laughed and tittered with them for a long moment, until they had lost interest and moved on to the feast that was being laid in the courtroom, and he dismissed the guard with a jut of his chin.

Carefully, like he was approaching a wild beast, he moved forward to the ghost, hands held out in case it was easily frightened. The lapis-dyed cloth had been draped over its head like a tent, but he could see the rope snaking behind his back, to where his hands were out of sight. So he was still tied then.  The ghost was moving his lips silently, and Minkhet wondered what God he was praying to...perhaps it was praying to itself? Did ghosts do such a thing?

“I--” He started, but then the ghosts eyes flew open and he fell back on his rear in shock. The ghost’s eyes were pure blue , like Lapis Lazuli, like the waters of the Nile or the sky above both Egypts. They met his and he was shocked to see fear in them, alongside something he hadn’t expected to see in any being whose hands were tied. It was determination and fire, and it made something thrill within him, to see anything but the unthinking obedience nearly every other soul in the palace showed him. Dropping to his knees, he pushed the cloth off the ghost’s head and smiled. “I’m going to untie you, okay?” The ghost said nothing, and simply watched him with wide eyes as he shuffled around to work the ropes free. His hands came to rest in his lap, chafing at the sore and angry red skin, and Minkhet felt his heart squeeze again. Running to his chest, he fetched the tiny jar of ointment that had been scented with frankincense and rubbed it on the ghost’s wrists. They felt like his, softer perhaps, but the same. “Are you a ghost?” The question was out of his mouth before he could question it, but the other just shook his head.

“No, I’m--” He bit his lip as he scrunched his nose. “I’m...Padrig.”

“Pahh--dryyyg.” Minkhet rolled the word around his mouth, feeling the way it echoed without a meaning in his mind and shrugged. “Does that mean ghost?”

The ghost just shook his head and brushed golden hair from his eyes. Minkhet couldn't help but do the same, his fingers lingering on the strands so unlike his own. They were feathery, soft, so different from his thick hair that curled under his headdress, and he shook his head. “Well, we can’t call you that, because everyone will be confused. How is it that you speak our language?”

His ghost pursed his full lips together like he was unsure. “The journey here was long. I listened and...learned.” Minkhet marvelled at that--his ghost must be the smartest ghost in all the world to do such a thing.

“I’m going to call you Moswen, when we’re with other people so they don’t get confused.” He pulled his ghost to his feet and draped the lapis cloth around him like a cape. “But I’ll call you Payydrahhyyg when we’re alone.”  

“Your highness can name me as he wishes. I belong to him now.” He said the words strangely, as if he was chewing a mouth full of rocks as he spoke and Minkhet wondered at it. He filed it away in his mind to ask why it was so, but shook his head.

“No, I--” He reached out and took the Ghost’s hand and something seemed to click into place in his heart when their hands touched. “I don’t want you to belong to me. I want you to be my friend. Please?”

The ghost widened his eyes and stared for a moment, before a light dawned in his eyes, replacing the fire with something that looked kind. Or perhaps it didn’t replace it, Minkhet thought...it shone with it. “I...would like a...friend.” A small smile tucked his plush lips up and the prince felt like cheering. “Moswen.” His ghost said the word in the same way he had said Padraig…like he was trying it on in his mind. “What does it mean?”

“Very Pale One.” Minkhet smiled, scampering to his box of clothing and pulled out everything he’d need to make his new friend look like he belonged. “Mine means Enduring. Kinda boring.”

“Minkhet. My...friend.” The ghost murmured, and he decided he liked the way it sounded.

~//~

The first time he saw the smile light up Padraig’s eyes was when he awoke from the terrible sun-sickness he had fallen into after Minkhet had coaxed him onto the Royal Barge. They had been on the glorious Nile all day, the King and Queen majestic under their canopy with the royal children scampering around, dipping their fingers in the sparkling waters of their source of power, or else making love with their beloved as Osiris had with Isis when she stitched him back together in the back of Ra’s Sun Barge. But Padraig had begun to shake after a few hours, skin turning bright red, and Minkhet had been seized with fear. He had stayed awake all night, watching over him as he shuddered and sweated in Minkhet’s bed, drenching the fine linens when he wasn’t vomiting into a silver bowl. He had tossed and turned, murmuring something in a language Minkhet didn’t know, and he had never been so afraid in his life.

I can’t lose him. He had begged Osiris for mercy, pleading that he take his own life rather than that of his friend, of his ghost, of his Padraig. He had pressed his lips to his skin before settling a cool cloth to it, repeating it over and over again as he tossed in a sleep that Minkhet could not wake him from. So he just kissed him, over and over, breathing against his skin and praying to Ra and Osiris and kindly Isis for mercy.

The next morning, his Padraig had opened his eyes and smiled at Minkhet, except for the first time it had melted into his eyes. There was a new color in them—a warm gold in the centers, flaxen just like his hair, the pure gold of the Sun God—and Minkhet knew it was a miracle. Ra had given him back, he had healed him and made him his own. He had been so overjoyed he had slipped his fingers across burned-pink cheeks, pressing a kiss to the chapped and parted lips of the person he loved most. Padraig had kissed back, trembling against him and holding on like he was going to melt away.

But then his head had lolled to the side, exhaustion making his eyelids droop weakly. Minkhet settled a fresh, cool cloth against his forehead, and his Ghost had breathed out a sigh. “I heard you, you know.” Exhaustion was starting to pull at Minkhet now as he settled next to Padraig, careful to not touch any of his bright red skin, so he just hummed in answer. “Did you really mean that? That you’d give your life for mine?”

Opening his eyes, Minkhet looked straight at the blue-and-gold gaze of his best friend, his love, his miracle, his ghost, and nodded. “A hundred times over.”

~//~

It was, as always, hot as he ambled through the marketplace but he didn’t care. It made him feel alive and powerful, like he could take on the entirety of Upper Egypt himself and unite the Kingdoms together like a hero of legend. Padraig was shuffling next to him, swathed in white garments that nearly matched his still-pale skin but his blue eyes were full of a smile that he knew was only for him. He’d known it since that day he had almost burned his Ghost alive...and he’d learned it over and over as they had laughed and tangled together on top of fine linen sheets in the still, crackling heat of an Egyptian summer. The golden amulet sparkled at Padraig’s throat, the sign of Ka that Minkhet had given him on the first cool evening of the harvest. You’re my soul, the most perfect part of the five...so I want you to keep it. To know that I’m always going to be a part of you, and you’ll always be the best part of me. Padraig had solemnly held it out for him to fasten around his neck, fingers dancing along it wonderingly once it had settled against his fair collarbones. Forever, he had breathed against his lips, just before he kissed him, and Minkhet had felt it in his bones.

They ambled together through the marketplace, with only three manservants following a respectful distance. It is a beautiful day, Minkhet thought and he thanked Ra for the coming of the harvest, for the bounty that he knew would soon fill the Pharaoh's storehouses. Soon, Padraig would begin to gripe about the heat, making the joke for the hundredth time that he wasn’t made for the sun....

But then there was a shout and a bone-deep groan from above them. The archway that they were walking under trembled and a large stone broke free from the tension to hurtle downwards...straight for Padraig.

There was only a split-second to act, half-a-heartbeat to make a decision, but it was aeons longer than Minkhet needed. He pushed Padraig out of the path just as the stone crashed down to pin him to the ground with crushing force.

He felt something warm trickling from his nose as more stones fell...but then a gentle hand brushed his and he forced his eyes open to see Padraig pulling himself through the rubble. There was blood cascading down the side of his head, splashing his pristine white garments crimson, and he felt a stab of terror. He couldn’t be hurt, he couldn’t.

“Minkhet, my love, can you hear me? Please--” Padraig gasped as his hand found Minkhet’s, gripping tight and it was the only thing he realized he could really feel. The glittering gold of the Ka pendant seemed to flash and wink at him in the dusty gloom of his tomb, and he reached up with the last of his strength to brush his fingers against it. They smudged it bloody, but then Padraig grabbed his hand and wrapped both of theirs around the pendant as if it could keep him there.

“I…” He tried to say all the things in his head, all the words that he wanted to shout from the top of the highest temple but had only been able to whisper in the still silence of their chambers. “I love you... Padraig.”

The last thing he felt was his Ghost’s fingers tightening around his on the pendant, its surface seeming to burn into his flesh like a brand.

~//~

Opening his eyes, the first thing Minkhet observed was that he was alone: no cool hand settled on his brow, no attentive courtiers rushing to tell the Queen Mother he was awake. But as his surroundings came into focus, he realized why this was.

He was dead.

The chamber was lit with an eerie bronze light that seemed almost like firelight, except just a shade too bright, too orange. It burned in braziers around the room, each growing brighter as they approached the single dark doorway, hung with a curtain of onyx beads that hid what was beyond. He sat up and swung his feet over the side of the black stone slab, testing each movement and noting with surprise he felt the same in death as he had in life...except his garments. They were a drab gray color that seemed to almost absorb the light from around him, remaining forgettable and wholly un-princelike.

With a shrug, he stood and walked towards the curtain of beads, deciding he may as well get on with whatever was beyond. It turned out to be a long corridor, winding and almost indecisive in its shape...but he didn’t notice that. What his eyes were fixed on as he walked were the hieroglyphs that skittered and moved on each wall...his life in etched rock and paint. He saw a beautiful woman with sad eyes hand him to a young Queen Mother, he saw himself scuffling with his half-brothers and sisters in the harem. He saw the King’s proud smile when he bested them all in wrestling, and then...he stopped. Padraig, he whispered as he reached out to touch the pale representation of his Ghost. But as soon as his fingers touched the stone, the pantomime froze and he stepped back in shame and fear. But as soon as his fingers were no longer touching smooth stone the glyphs moved again...showing him the rest of his life, but as he walked he smiled even larger with each step. Life with Padraig had been good .

It seemed superfluous to offer up a prayer in the halls of the Gods, but he did it anyways, just in case.

Please bless him. Keep him safe. Give him a fruitful life. Let him know I love him.

He reached the end of the hallway, which was crowned with two great black doors inset with diamonds that twinkled like stars. Unable to tear himself away from the final scene, he saw the arch collapse on him as he pushed Padraig to safety...and he saw their hands reach for each other under the rubble, the light of the ka pendant glimmering at his neck. He’s alive ! His heart sang, for surely the glyphs would show him if Padraig had met his end under the stones. But then, like a mist over the Nile in the early mornings, the glyphs melted away…and he was left with the door.

Squaring his shoulders, he took a deep breath and pushed through.

“Welcome, Minkhet, Son of Pharaoh.” Anubis intoned, his voice echoing off the walls, his black skin shining in the torchlight. Peering down at them both from a slight ledge sat Ammit, her huge crocodile’s jaws lined with a hundred razor-sharp teeth. She shook her lion’s mane as he walked forward, as if in anticipation, and Minkhet shivered. He tore his gaze away and looked at Anubis, who nodded his great head at him and commanded. “Now, give me your heart, Son of Pharoah.”

Looking down at his chest, Minkhet hesitated. Surely he couldn’t just—sparing a glance up at Anubis who looked to be carved of stone now in his anticipation—he shrugged again and went for it. To his surprise, his hand dipped beneath his flesh like it was the surface of a pool and his fingers brushed something that moved with a familiar beat...and pulled.

With no pain and only the barest of sounds, his heart slid from his chest and he stepped forward placing it on the scale, shock rendering him speechless as he noted the way it kept beating...slow and unchanging.

“How...how does it still move?” He couldn’t help the words that flew from his mouth as Anubis picked up a feather whiter than the finest linen. The god cocked an eyebrow as his eyes flicked to him.

“It beats with the memories you witnessed.”

Unable to think of an appropriate answer, Minkhet shrugged and nodded his head. Made just about as much sense as glyphs moving, he supposed. But then Anubis was settling the feather on the scales, and he held his breath as he watched the once-empty side begin to tip down...down...down…

“Blessed be Ra, the gracious and benevolent one.” Anubis intoned as the scale dippuued so that the feather rested on the golden surface. “You have been found to be of pure heart.” Ammit set her head on her ponderous hippopotamus hooves and looked displeased. He took the heart from the scale and handed it back to Minkhet, who replaced it as easily as one would settle a lid on a box. “Enter into Paradise, favored one.” He swept a magnanimous hand towards a door at the end of a hallway, set with a golden Sun.

“Thanks.” Minkhet couldn’t think of anything else to say—what does one say to the God who measured your life, and the God who would eat your heart if you failed, after all?—and stepped towards the door, eyes riveted on it and wondered what the Afterlife would be like. A flicker of movement caught his eye, and then he was reeling back, gasping before running towards the left wall of the hallway.

“PADRAIG!?” His fingers collided with something solid and clear but tinged with gold as he reached towards him, towards the endless plains of sand on either side of the hallway. He had thought they were just paintings.  “What—“ He swung back to Anubis, who was regarding him with surprise. “What his he doing here? Why isn’t he in the afterlife?” His head snapped back around, eyes meeting his Ghost’s gold-ringed-blue ones. “Why are you dead!??!”

Padraig shrugged and when he spoke, his voice sounded like it was coming through water but he could hear it—he’d know it anywhere, after all. “When you died, we were all put to death to provide for you in the afterlife.” He shrugged again like it was a trivial fact, but Minkhet’s mind was reeling as he swung back to look at Anubis but still kept his hand pressed as close as he could to Padraig’s.

“WHY IS HE NOT WITH ME?!” A small part of him thought perhaps that yelling at a deity might not have been a good plan, but he pushed that away. His heart had been weighed, what could he do to him?

“He is not a creation of Ra. He cannot pass.” Anubis said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world and Minkhet felt himself begin to tremble. It wasn’t—no, he couldn't, couldn’t go on without his Ghost, his Padraig, who was now murmuring reassurances and pleas for him to go on, to leave him. Something caught his eye on Padraig’s palm, and he slid his hand down he mysterious surface and looked fully at the pale hand on it’s other side.

There, burned into Padraig’s skin was the imprint of his Ka.

He pointed at it, eyes riveted on the pale flesh burned with the symbol of his soul and felt resolve settle into his heart. “He is mine . My ka is burned into him, you must let him through! I will not go without him!” His mind irreverently showed him an imagining of sitting on the floor and glaring at Anubis for eternity and he stamped his foot...but it had no effect on the Jackal-headed God.

“He is not Ra’s. He cannot pass.”

“I don’t want the afterlife if he isn’t there.” Minkhet could feel tears burning at the back of his throat. “He’s mine, and I am his, I won’t be without him. Take the afterlife, I don’t want it without him.  He—” The Sun door flew open behind him and he jumped...but then he was dropping to his knees, noting Padraig doing the same on the opposite side and lowered his gaze. “Lord Osiris.”

It felt like he could feel the steely gaze of the Lord of the Afterlife, and when he dared look up he saw something he wasn’t prepared to see on his youthful green-skinned face. A smile flitted about Osiris’ mouth as he folded his arms over his pure white wrappings.

“You would really sacrifice the Afterlife for this...Ghost?” Osiris’ voice boomed like thunder and he felt his courage quake for a moment in the face of such power...

“A hundred times over.” He stated, proud that his voice sounded stronger than he felt. But he met Osiris’ dark gaze levelly and held his breath. The God’s gaze shifted to meet Anubis’s, and they seemed to have a conversation that he couldn't hear. But then his gaze settled not on Minkhet, but on Padraig, pale behind the clear golden shimmer.

“And you, Ghost? Do you desire the same?”

He saw Padraig’s head nod frantically, the hand where his ka was burned closing into a fist around the pendant that still hung around his neck. “There is no life for me without him in it.” Minkhet felt his heart squeeze...to hear the words spoken aloud in the presence of others—something Padraig had always feared to do—made his heart beat just a little faster. Osiris regarded them levelly.

“Miracles are never exactly what you ask for, young Princeling. Do you understand this?” He gestured at his wrappings. “Even for the miracle of my reassembly, my Isis could not make me whole and so I love her with a wooden cock.” He pulled it aside to show them, and Minkhet could feel his eyes widening for a moment. For all the stories and tales told by the priests, he hadn’t been prepared to gaze at the wooden penis that had given life to the Upper and Lower Kingdoms. But he nodded his head, not caring what the price.

“I don’t care. I want to be with him.”

Osiris let the fabric drop back, covering himself, and nodded with a grave smile. “Very well. Eternal life I cannot grant, only what was given you by Ra. You shall live a hundred lives, each spanning the years Ra blessed you with. You will find each other at the appointed time that Ra ordains, and you will have as many years together until his gift ends, and then you will start again.”

“Wait, what does that mean, start again?” Minkhet felt like the words were flying past him like hailstones, too fast to catch.

“You shall live your Twenty-Nine Years, and your Ghost shall live his Twenty-Five. But—“ He held up a long finger. “Only one of you will know of what happened here. You must prove yourself to each other—and to The Gods—each time.”

“Who will know?” Padraig’s voice was strong through the muffling and Minkhet felt it bolster him up, like wind in the sails of the Royal Barge. Osiris shrugged, a fractional roll of his shoulders.

“That is for us to decide. You must only decide if you accept the miracle as it is given.”

Minkhet looked Padraig in the eyes, and saw the same steely resolve there that he felt in his own heart. Together, they nodded and looked at the God as they answered in tandem:

“Yes.”

“Very well then. Minkhet seems to have been an apt choice of a name for you, young princeling.” Osiris reached out with his many-ringed hand and touched the clear wall. “Hold out your Soul, then, Ghost.”

With a guarded glance, Padraig reached out and unclasped the Ka amulet from around his neck, holding the amulet in his palm...and his hand somehow pushed through the clear surface like it was nothing more than a waterfall. Minkhet tried to pull him through, but his arm was hazy and washed of color...the only thing that was solid was the amulet and what it touched. So he took Padraig’s hand and his Ka seemed to pulse with heat between them. Gently, he pulled until Padraig was standing with him in the corridor, looking like a glyph that was sun-bleached and faint. He kept a hold onto the amulet in his hand, feeling in his bones that if he were to let go something terrible would happen.

Osiris held the Crook and Flail over their heads like an axe and salvation. “A hundred lives you will seek each other, and if your bond is proved true the Gods may look upon your loyalty with favor.” He made a sign over them, complicated and spiraling, and a blinding white light struck them both. Minkhet held onto Padraig’s hand around the amulet with all his strength, and it felt again like it was burning...but his last thought was that he should have asked what happened after the hundred lives.

Art by @the_chaotic_panda

Chapter Text

PART II

~794AD~

He was going to puke.

The boat was bucking through the waves like an unbroken stallion, salt spray heavy in the air when water wasn’t crashing down on them. Patrick fought down another wave of nausea that swelled in his belly, sternly reminding himself that there was a very strong possibility that if he vomited the wind would most likely blow it back onto him. Better to feel it than to smell it, he told himself grimly. It also occurred to him that showing a sign of weakness--any weakness--to his captors would probably not bode well for his future. So he breathed through his nose and closed his eyes, trying to relax…

Inevitably, though, his traumatised brain insisted on replaying the events of the last five hours...or at least he thought that was how long it had been. Five hours since the office of Matins when he had risen from his knees for the short walk to the choir stand and started to sing the appointed hymn, sending a quick prayer of thanks to God that his voice did not sound as tired as the rest of him. He had nearly been through when the doors had been kicked in--a needless act of violence considering they were never locked--and they had rushed into the church, churning up the aisle towards the holy instruments like bees swarming for honey.

Denes.

The ferocious Norsemen had taken the gold candle sticks, the illuminated Bible--anything they could put their hands on. Then their attention had fallen to the monks staring in stunned silence from their knees--one had clubbed Father Paul, the old man crumpling to the floor like a sack of flour. Then a Dene strode over--he was darker than the others, his hair jet black and tightly-curled with several beads glinting on braided strands. There had been something kind in his eyes as he grabbed Patrick, tying a rope around his wrists with strange gentleness...but was it really kindness when he had taken him hostage? Then it had been a mad scramble as four burly Denes had grabbed the four nearest monks, throwing them over their shoulders as the group began to run from the church.

“Patrick.” Brother Amos nudged him, pulling him out of his reverie with brown eyes full of peace that Patrick wished he felt. “Look, the sun rises. It is time for Lauds.”

“Lauds?! At a time like this?!” Patrick couldn't help but screech out his shock before biting his lip--he was still a very, very young monk, after all. Did such a thing matter here though?

“Absolutely at a time like this.” Brother Amos smiled at him and Patrick just nodded woodenly, wondering how they would find a way to kneel tied together in the jumble of knots as they were. The monk next to him seemed to read his mind with a kindly shrug. “I believe our Heavenly Father will forgive our bodily posture, all things considering.” With that, he began to recite the invitiatory, and the words seeped, familiar and comforting into Patrick’s bones as his lips moved automatically to reply at the proper times.

“O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.

(Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil.)

Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children.

(And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us)

Yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.”

Then, with an ease he didn’t even know he possessed, Patrick began to sing,

“Blessed art the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.

Blessed art those who mourn, for they shall be comforted…”

He dimly noted the Norseman who had taken him staring strangely, mouth hanging slightly ajar as he sang. Patrick could feel color blooming on his cheeks at being so openly gawked upon--nobody looked at him while he sang in the monastery--all heads were bowed in prayer. That had been the only way good Father Paul had been able to convince Patrick to even sing at all. But he felt something akin to determination, to pride and courage bloom in his chest as he looked at the maurauding savage who had so cruelly ripped him away from his home. So he straightened his spine, looked the beast straight in the eyes and sang.

Once they had finished the customary recitations, the prayers and benedictions coating his tongue like honey, Patrick felt something like peace settle over him. He settled back against Brother Thomas and closed his eyes again, praying for sleep to take him.

He was back in the Scriptorium at the Monastery, hunched over a sheet of parchment. He could see a rogue hair that had not been removed during the scraping process, so he took the fine pair of tweezers from their drawer and plucked it out. Picking up his pen again, he began to write, the words flowing easy and precisely and he felt his bones settle, his shoulders relax. This...this was what he was meant for.

Brother Francis looked at his work as he passed, giving him a murmured word of praise and Patrick felt it burn bright under his heart. He had never been good at anything before...that had made his parent’s decision to “encourage” him towards a monastic life an easy one. No one had any use for the carpenter’s son who couldn’t hit a nail straight into a flat board, and so Patrick had hugged his mother goodbye and ducked out the low door of their hut--not saying a word to anyone else. What would he say? He was nothing but a disappointment, after all.

Life was hard at Monkwearmoth-Jarrow Monastery...the constant interruption of sleep to pray, the plain food. But most challenging for Patrick was the ease with which it seemed everyone else could glide around the monastery, while he tripped and forgot the words and dropped plates. Father Paul had been endlessly kind, while still firm, he had seen what Patrick had never known about himself. His head had been low when Father Paul walked him down the long way to the corner of the Monastery, to the silent scriptorum and ushered him inside. Fear had seized him at the way Brother Francis had appraised him, looking at his hands, turning them over and examining the lengths of his fingers and Patrick felt certain he would, once again, be found wanting. But no--Brother Francis had thanked Father Paul and swept the young novice along into the world of manuscript-making. They had quickly discovered that he was no good at illumination--drawing beautiful images in the margins to elevate the text--but he had a steady hand and excellent penmanship. Brother Francis had taught him patiently, never raising his voice, but steadily showing Patrick how to write the words quickly, efficiently, beautifully.

He had always been grateful that the Abbot had not seen fit to change his name, declaring that he couldn’t have picked a better or more righteous name...and so, for the first time in his life, Patrick had found where he belonged.

He woke to the ropes binding them together being cut roughly, and then he was yanked to his feet by the dark-skinned Dene that had taken him. Who was this man, that he seemed so focused on one young monk? Patrick hoped fervently as he was pushed towards the main mast, piled high with treasures, that these Norse Pirates really didn’t eat people like the stories said.

~//~

It was a long, long journey over the heaving waves--the endless rise and set of sun and moon marked only by Brother Amos’s insistence that they continue with prayers and Patrick’s grudging acceptance that there really was nothing better to do to make the time pass, anyways. The Dene kept staring at him, and he reflected that this is what the chickens in the yard must have felt like, as Brother Joseph would stare at them to determine which he was going to chase and kill and serve the brothers on Sundays. Praise be to God, his nausea began to subside by the night of the second day, though the dreams remained as vivid as ever. He relieved his kidnapping--for that’s what it was--endlessly, sprinkled throughout disjointed memories of his life. His mother’s smile as she kneaded bread into truncheons, the smell of his father’s pipe as he sat before the fire and relished a rare smoke. The kindness in Father Paul’s eyes as he had listened to Patrick pour his heart out that he was going to fail at being a monk, just as he’d failed at everything else. The cool stillness of the Scriptorum and the rhythmic sound of his pen scritch-scratching across the parchment, the ache in his shoulders at the end of the day as he stared at beautifully-written words that were worth the soreness.

The dark-skinned Dene continued staring at Patrick, sneaking glances when the marauders were huddled together playing some sort of game with small bones, or singing what seemed to be bawdy songs. He noticed that he had a long, thin strap of leather wrapped around and around his right palm. It was strange--none of the others even spared the captives a glance, except to throw some sort of hard bread at them once a day and give them a sip of water. The hunger didn’t bother Patrick, though...perhaps being a monk had made him good at something.

A great shout went up among the Denes one morning, and Brother Amos whispered that perhaps they had reached land. The monk’s assessment was correct, and soon the five of them were being hustled off the boat and thrown on a cart pulled by a stout little donkey. The Norsemen rode horses--great, dark beasts, and while most of them galloped off towards the distant mountains, the dark-skinned Dene and two others stayed behind. To make sure the bound monks don’t escape the locked cart to run to safety in a strange land , Patrick thought wryly. Good job, being such vigilant heathens.

They wound through a track up a rock face and between two mountains, the cliffs sheer and taller than anything Patrick had ever seen on either side of them. After a final turn, their destination came into view: a village like Patrick had never seen. They were pulled out and pushed into a hall that was longer than the whole monastery, fires roaring in great pits in the center lighting up the carved beams high above them. Laughter--raucous, boisterous, cheery--boomed around them, as it seemed sweethearts were reunited and their captors swung children up into their great arms. The small group of monks were herded inexorably onwards to the end, until they were pushed to their knees before a throne covered in intricate carvings and furs the like of which Patrick had never seen.

The Dene who had been watching him said something in a language that Patrick couldn’t understand, laughter bright in his eyes to the man on the throne. A woman stood next to him--her skin darker than anyone’s in the hall--and her wide eyes a luminous amber that seemed to glow in the dimness. The king--if that’s what he was--barked orders and the monks were pulled to their feet and pulled apart. Patrick shouted as his Dene (that was how he had come to think of him) pulled him towards a small set of doors set into the back of the hall. He struggled and tried to see where his brothers were being taken, every foul curse he had ever heard his father use on him, he now hurled at the Norseman. But it was no use--he was pushed towards a small building that looked like a very miniature version of the great hall. The Dene pointed to a huge pile of furs and then pulled his sword from his belt and pointed it at the door, yammering in that inexplicable tongue. Still, the implication was clear--go to sleep, try to leave and the sword would stop him.

Too exhausted to argue, Patrick dropped to the pile of furs and slept. Just before he dropped off the edge, he felt the furs shift as the Dene crawled in next to him...but he decided it just didn’t matter. It was cold and the pile was huge, after all.

~//~

“Do you ever think that maybe you’ve been somewhere before? That this life isn’t the only one you’ve lived?” Peder asked, and Patrick looked at him sideways as they walked through the huge pines laden with gear on their backs.

“No. But even if you did, how would you know? This is the only life you can live, right now.”

“You speak like you’ve been a Vikingar your whole life, Patrick!” Peder remarked for the hudredth time, and Patrick tried to hold back from making a snappish remark back. After he had woken up the first morning in the Viking’s little cottage, the dark-skinned Dene who he now knew was Peder, the Jarl’s son, had pointed at a man who clearly was also not one of the marauders. The man--Felman--explained in blessed english that he had been captured on a previous raid and he was there to teach Patrick to speak the language of the Vikingar. Peder had yammered something insistent sounding before ducking out of the cottage, and Felman chuckled. The Jarl’s Son wishes to be able to speak with you as quickly as possible, so it seems that you’ll be learning from sunup to sundown. And so they had--until Patrick’s head swam with words that his tongue struggled to make sense of...but it had gone well, and quickly. He had picked up Latin quickly when he became a monk, and this wooden Dene-speak was no different.

“Not like you gave me much of a choice, after all.” He groused as he stumbled over a root. Peder’s hand shot out to steady him--the young man had the reflexes of an eagle--and laughed.

“Yes, well, I’m sorry I wore you to the ground learning, but I wanted to be able to talk to you. So much.”

There was something in the way he said so much that made Patrick wonder...but he said nothing, and Peder resumed his normal prattle as they headed deeper into the woods. They talked companionably until they reached a small cabin set back in a copse of birches just as the sun was beginning to set, with what looked like an old pit ringed with stones in front.

“Here we are! Home sweet home!” Peder crowed, and Patrick shook his head.

“I still don’t understand why we had to tramp all the way out here when you have a perfectly good hall right in the village.” Pete didn’t say anything beyond a shrug as they pushed through the small door and they both began to unpack. Furs for sleeping were most of what Patrick had carried, while Pete had carried hunting gear and food, weapons and more furs.

“You’ll see.” He pulled his bow and quiver from the little stack and flashed Patrick a quick smile--one that had become increasingly hard to stop from returning. “Now, can you make a good fire? That way we can cook whatever I catch.” Without waiting for an answer, he scampered off into the woods on light feet, reminding Patrick of the tale of Loki and his mischievous ways. He shook his head fondly as he grabbed the small axe and set off to find firewood, coming back a short time later with a decent armful only to find a large pile already chopped to the side of the cottage. Oh well , he thought and rolled his shoulders.

Nearly a year with the Vikings and he had gotten strong, thickening out a bit with muscle and a layer of fat that Peder’s mother always commented was a good sign. He considered as he stacked the wood and began the arduous task of making that first spark--why would he feel fond over the Jarl’s son? Perhaps it was simply because they were nearly always together, but Patrick had felt like there was an invisible string tied between the two of them, drawing them ever closer as each day melted into night. He no longer cared that Peder twined himself around Patrick at night sometimes, mumbling nonsense into his shoulder about archways and ghosts. He had come to hoard the smiles that Peder doled out like they were pine needles, endless in supply but also endlessly desired. It was madness, the way his breath would catch when they were sparring and Patrick would inevitably fall and Peder would help him up.  He didn’t know how to explain what it felt like...but he shrugged in his head. That was the beauty of it--nobody asked, so he didn’t need to.

Once the fire had started and the logs were just beginning to catch, he went back inside and built a fire in the hearth to start warming the small space and retrieved two furs--one for him and one for Peder. He wrapped one around his shoulders as he sat on the log and stared at the flames. One of the first things Peder had told him that the monks were supposed to all have been slaughtered that night in the monastery, but when he had seen Patrick he had convinced the others to take hostages back as trophies instead. When Patrick had pressed him why, Peder had looked at his feet and shrugged. You reminded me of someone. Someone I lost.

Patrick certainly couldn’t fathom how he could have reminded Peder of anyone--Vikings would often point and stare as they walked through the village--he was the palest of them all, and his hair wasn’t the standard Viking flame-red, or Peder’s jet black. But he supposed that it was something he should be grateful for--God had saved all the lives of the monks that night, and...life in the Viking village wasn’t that bad. Soon enough, Peder came looping back through the dark pines, a brace of rabbits slung over his shoulder and that tooth-bright gleam of his smile flashing in the dimness. He gutted and cleaned them--something Patrick never really could bring himself to do--and as the sun set they wrapped the furs around their shoulders and turned the skewers of meat as night settled around them in uncharacteristic silence.

Patrick snuck a look at Peder as they munched on the finished meat--he was staring into the flames like they held the secret to something, like there was something in them that he needed to see desperately. He didn’t know what it was, but Patrick decided to just enjoy the silence--something that was usually in short supply around the young Jarl’s son.

“Are you happy here?”

Peder’s voice was soft, but it still startled Patrick from his musings. He glanced over to see him still staring into the fire, and that was good--he hated talking to people when they were staring right at him. It made him nervous, like he wouldn't be able to find the answer that would satisfy them.  “I suppose I am. It’s not where I thought my life would be, when I became a Monk, but that’s alright.”

“Do--do you miss your family?”

“No.” Patrick grimaced at the flames, throwing another log on for good measure. “I knew I’d never see them again when I joined the Order of St. Benedict, so...I said goodbye to them long before you took me.” Peder was genuinely shocked at this, and the stars came out bright above them by the time Patrick had finished explaining Monastic life, his family’s disappointment, and his work in the Scriptorum to Peder.

“I still just don’t understand why anyone would not want you to be with them.” Peder nudged one of the rocks that ringed the fire with a foot, like he was knocking it in place even though Patrick strongly suspected he was actually doing the opposite. “I want you with me, always.”

Patrick shrugged with a smile. “Not like there’s many places for me to run away to.” Peder just hummed at that and resumed looking into the flames. He was about to ask, once he had counted an owl hooting four different times, why they had tramped a day’s walk into the woods to sit around this tiny ring of stones, when Peder took a deep breath, turning to look at him straight in the eyes while his fur fell off his shoulders. He reached out and took one of Patrick’s hands in his own.

“Patrick, what if I told you I loved you? What would you do?” His features were cast into sharp relief--dark hollows and ruddy golden crests, eyes shining like the golden flames. He really is beautiful, Patrick thought even as he tried desperately to swallow past the lump in his throat.

“...The Bible, God says that it is a sin for a man to love another man.” He whispered, the words tasting like ash in his mouth as he looked down at their hands.

“But that’s the God of…” Peder waved his hand, “ Eyeland, your land. He isn’t here and this is Odin’s land, it isn’t a sin here.”

Patrick considered the way Peder’s skin looked against his own: sun-ripened grain against cream, mulling the words over in his mind, comparing them against his feelings, against the way his heart seemed to beat faster whenever Peder was near. He brought his other hand up to cover their joined ones in answer, not missing the quick hitch in Peder’s breath over the crackling of the flames as he met his eyes. “I suppose I would say that I loved you too, if you were to say that.”

“Really? Truly?” Peder sounded unsure for the first time, and Patrick chuckled that he had made the Jarl’s Son sound off-balance.

“Really.”

Peder’s hands came up to cup his cheeks, thumbs brushing gently along his chin as he searched Patrick’s eyes like he could ferret out a lie that wasn’t there. “Then...I love you, Patrick. So much.” Somehow, Patrick’s hands had woven themselves into the springy dark curls and he murmured I love you too as he pulled Peder closer, body alight with the desperate need to kiss him, to taste the dark sweetness of his lips and--

A river stretching out as far as the eye could see. A cool hand on his forehead as he tossed with fever. A smile that glimmered at him from beneath fine linen as they rutted against each other in the sticky Egyptian heat. An amulet, heavy against his breastbone that seemed to wink with firelight. An archway, a groaning crack...pain…

His love arguing with a God, for HIM. A glimpse of a wooden penis before the order was given to push the amulet through the clear edge of his prison. A hand--warm and real--taking his, the amulet burning between them as something struck him in a flash of light…

“Minkhet?” He breathed against his mouth, tears mingling on their cheeks as he gasped out his name in the cool night air. “Is it really you?”

“You remember?” The bronze eyes he loved more than anything widened as new tears spilled from his cheeks. “ What do you remember?”

Patrick looked down at his hand, the strange-shaped mark on his palm suddenly making sense as he remembered . He reached out and unwound the leather from around Peder’s palm--and there it was. The other side of the amulet, of Minkhet’s Ka burned into both their palms by Osiris himself as he blasted them from the afterlife. He looked up at his prince, his Minkhet, Peder.

“I’m your ghost.” He smiled through the tears and then they were laughing, crying, kissing and blabbering out exclamations of shock and joy. Peder pulled him to his feet, into the cottage and they were falling onto the pile of furs together, pulling belts and tunics away until nothing was left but them.

~//~

The years flew by after that. Patrick’s hair grew and Peder delighted in braiding it like the Norsemen’s hair, though it was so fine that flyaway strands would always come loose and fall in his eyes. It had been five years since Patrick had remembered, since he had found Peder, nearly six, and they were awash with love as they raided and celebrated around the fires in the Great Hall.

But there was something...nagging in the back of Patrick’s mind. It had been there since the snow had begun to fall, something he couldn’t quite remember. Peder had proposed asking his mother about it, telling her the whole thing reasoning if anyone would believe them, a Moroccan Princess who had been wed to a Viking Jarl would. But Patrick felt some nameless fear at telling anyone...so he simply loved Peder and prayed that it would be enough.

Until it wasn’t.

He had been grabbed by two of the Jarl’s strongest men as he was chopping wood at the start of spring, the old Seer behind them looking at him with sad, resigned eyes. He had fought and struggled, shouting out in confusion and anger...but it was no use. He was tied to the central pillar in the empty Great Hall and left. He bellowed for Peder at the top of his lungs, but no one came...until they all came. The hall filled with all the Norsemen, and Patrick looked up to see the Jarl, his wife, and Peder file out regally from the small side door. Peder wouldn’t meet his eyes, his gaze fixed resolutely on the carving of Baldr above Patrick’s head as the Jarl told all that the Gods had spoken, and that this Angle would be the year’s sacrifice for good harvests and fruitful raids. A cheer went up, though Patrick noted that several faces were slack and full of sadness, and that made his heart lift a tiny bit. Maybe they would say something, he had made friends after all, they couldn’t--

“The Erlendr will be given to the Well tomorrow at midnight!” Peder yelled out, arm raised in triumph, and Patrick thought he saw the sparkle of tears in his eyes...but maybe it was a trick of the light, he realized as his mind whirled. Maybe this had all been a trick. The people began to file out of the hall, a few pausing to brush a hand against his hair, his shoulder, his neck and the Jarl left with his family, heads held high. Something clicked in Patrick’s mind as cold fear swept through him: Osiris had said they would have the years Ra had given them, Minkhet his twenty-nine and Padraig his twenty-five.

His birthday was tomorrow.

~//~

“Patrick!” Cold hands slapped at his cheek, waking him as his name was whispered urgently in the darkness. He opened his eyes to see Peder staring at him with wide eyes, a short, sharp knife in his hand.

“What do you want?” He spat, the fear mixing with anger in his heart. “Didn’t you get enough earlier, telling everyone that you’re going to kill me?”

Peder shook his head wildly, lip bitten between his teeth as he reached around and used the knife to cut away the rope that bound Patrick’s arms around the pole. “I had to do that. They had to think that I--” He took Patrick’s hands and rubbed his thumbs over where the ropes had chafed his wrists raw. “I would never let them sacrifice you. You’re mine.”

Relief filled Patrick’s heart but the fear remained as he shook his head. “No, but Peder don’t you remember? Osiris said we’d only get the years Ra gave us--I turn twenty-five tomorrow.”

Shock froze Peder’s body in the middle of grabbing what seemed to be a large pack, readied for a long journey. His eyes darted up to Patrick’s, full of uncertainty in the low light of the banked fires...but then he shook his head, pulling him to his feet. “No. Not-- no. It doesn’t matter. Perhaps Odin is stronger than Ra, perhaps that’s not what he meant... it doesn’t matter. I’m taking you and we’re going to be together.” He took Patrick’s hand and pulled him into the dim stillness, handing him a second pack that stood waiting by the door as they fled into the night.

~//~

He never should have said Odin was perhaps stronger than Ra. Patrick thought grimly as he watched Peder struggle against the small sail, pulling it in the wind and lashing rain to angle them more sharply along the line of a wave. They crested it, narrowly missing an outcropping of rocks and then it was on to the next maze of wind and water and lashing rain.

The storm had come out of the South, a grim angry storm full of lightning and howling winds. Patrick would have guessed, had he been in the mood to place a bet against the Gods, that it had begun as time shifted and moved over the mark of midnight...onto his twenty-fifth birthday. A horrible, heartbreaking idea gripped him, and he reached over to pull the rope from his pack, looping it around him the way he had seen Erik do before setting off on a raid. Peder yelled something, and a rock loomed huge before the bow of the tiny vessel they had stolen, and Patrick knew.

He jumped from where he had been holding the rudder in a white-knuckled grip and threw himself at Peder, arms wrapping around him just as the bow crashed into the jagged rock, throwing them into the sea. Peder held onto him as they were swept as the tide pulled them out...out to the open ocean, and Patrick began to frantically wind the rope around them both.

“What are you doing?” Peder yelled over the howl of the wind, his eyes filled with the realization that this really was the end--they had seen their last sunrise. Patrick shook his head, knotting the rope around their waist as a wave pushed them up, up, up….and just before it reached the teetering brink and crashed them down to the rocks he pressed his mouth to Peder’s ear and willed him to hear him.

“Now we cannot be parted, so no matter what I’ll find you.”

And then the wave thrust them together into the maw of the deep.

~1652 AD~

The sea was calm today, Patrick noted with gratitude. He finished swabbing down the deck, the monotonous motion making him feel just as calm as the ocean on the inside and he let out a sigh. They would reach port in ten days and he was beyond excited to be on solid ground again. Some sailors loved the feeling of the sea beneath them, restless until they returned to it and seeking a salt breeze on their face like most sought a woman. He didn’t see the appeal of either, really--of either the sea or women--but he supposed that was just how life was.

A wail sounded from beneath the deck and his heart skipped a beat. The captain’s decision to bring back a run of slaves had sat poorly with him, but what could he do? He was just a deckmate. Still...they were human beings, tied up below decks next to the cattle, and it was wrong. The sun was nearing the horizon--it would probably be another beautiful sunset, but it was hard to appreciate it when he knew that the slaves below would see only darkness for another two days.

He shook his head--it would be his seventeenth birthday soon, and he would be a man. He could leave this indentured service on the vessel, though he supposed he should be grateful. It was a good skill to know, seafaring...though he had failed to have the salt seep into his veins like so many others. His skin still turned bright red when he left it exposed to the sun, so he couldn’t run about the deck shirtless and tan like his compatriots, no. He was relegated to a life of sweating beneath thick shirts in the relentless sun.

A thin, reedy cry came from belowdecks again and he screwed his eyes shut--it was inhumane. But then his eyes alighted on the water barrel...he hadn’t taken his morning ration yet. Finishing his mopping with renewed vigor, he hung it up to dry and fetched his mug before walking as nonchalantly as he could to where old George was guarding the rations store.

“Hot one, isn’t it?” He greeted as he held it out with as bright a smile as he could muster. Old George just grunted, filling the mug and handing it back before resuming his contemplation of the horizon. Patrick didn’t mind--the less anyone noticed, the better. Taking a quick sip to stave off his own thirst, he hurried to the rickety ladder that led belowdecks. Nobody seemed to notice in the hubbub, and any noise he made was masked by the incessant baying of the livestock. It took his eyes a long moment to adjust to the dimness, but once it did he saw eyes staring at him in the darkness. One set rose and he saw the barest outline of a man step forward as far as his bonds would allow, his stance slightly crouched with his arms held out. Patrick realised with a broken heart that the man was trying to protect the other slaves. From him.

“No, no I--” he held the water out, voice pitched low lest he be heard above-decks. “I brought water? Is someone hurt? I thought…” He felt the words catch in his mouth as he realized his own idiocy. What was the chance that they understood? He was probably just jabbering to himself, an idiot who thought he could help--

“Thank you.” He murmured the words as he leaned into the light to take the cup from Patrick’s hands…

Laughing topaz eyes, blazing sun, crisp white linen, roaming hands and soft lips, whispered words against his skin that drifted through pain, the groan of rocks straining against each other, the sickening crunch of bones breaking, the nascent burn of a gold amulet against his palm that he welcomed because it belonged to….

“Peder?” Patrick gasped, stumbling forward and nearly dropping the cup of water. But the man--he was faster. He saw it now--it was almost as if Peder’s familiar features were pushing through his flesh. High cheekbones, eyes that glinted dark in the darkness of the hold, long fingers scabbed and crossed with cuts. But then Peder was turning away, kneeling to lift the head of a woman who was shaking and crying out, pressing the cup to her lips so she could take a long drink. He passed the cup around to others, meting out sips until it was empty but taking none himself. When it was empty, he stood and held it back out to Patrick with a straight back and an unbroken spirit, eyes filled with pride and sorrow.

But not recognition.

It was too much...the sudden urge to vomit overtook Patrick before he could think of anything to say to the person he loved more than anything. Barely clutching the cup, he threw himself back up the ladder, running to the side of the vessel before hurling up the remnants of a hardtack breakfast.

“Don’t ye worry, Patrick lad.” Old George’s voice was nearly compassionate , it seemed, as he half-scolded, half-consoled. “Ye’ll get your sea legs one o’ these days, by and by.”

Staring at the dark blue water that splashed against the wooden keel, Patrick sincerely doubted he’d be on the boat much longer as scenes from another life--and the life after--flashed through his mind like a flight of seagulls.

~//~

So began a feverish tumult of scheming and bumbling, half-crazed attempts to slip below decks without anyone watching. That night, at midnight, Patrick slipped past the night watch as the bells tolled the change of the watch, scurrying away as the rest of his crew stumbled to their hammocks. He slipped on the bottom rung with a thump he hoped would be mistaken for the fall of a cow’s hoof, and found he could see much easier in the hold now. Peder had risen from the edge of the miserable cluster and stood, wary.

He held out the small medical kit that his mother had pressed into his hands when he left home. Peder took it and smiled, handing it to a large man while speaking lowly in a language Patrick didn’t recognize. Dark eyes met his own again, full of questions and distrust...and Patrick felt the renewed urge to vomit. But he couldn’t--not again. He had to make him remember.  “Do you--do you know who I am?” He asked, almost certain what the answer would be...and yet still felt his heart slump at the way he shook his head no.

“Why...are you help?” Peder asked, suspicion plain on his face, and Patrick decided it would be much better for all involved if he sat down.

“I--It’s wrong, that you’re here. You’re people, not something to be sold.”

Peder nodded his head slowly, eyes never leaving Patrick as he sat cross-legged on the deck, graceful even for the iron around his left ankle. He tapped his chest. “Pilirani.”

Relief seemed to release the stranglehold of panic around Patrick’s heart. He tapped his own chest. “Patrick. How...how do you speak english?”

Minkhet-Peder-Pilirani shrugged. “Master before wanted. I did as he said.”

Mulling this around in his head as he cast back through the memories that had flooded over him as he heaved his guts into the ocean, he felt anger once again seep through him. Damn Osiris that it had to be this way each time...that only one of them knew...but it was worth it, to be given this chance. He felt his heart once again clench as he traced the familiar sweep of his jaw, the slant of his eyes, the shape of his lips. Certainly, his skin was darker, his hair more tightly curled...but he was his.

Reaching forward he took his hand, their fingers twinning in an elegant pattern of pale and dark. Pilirani made no effort to pull away, he only looked at Patrick with a confused look on his face. Patrick squeezed, and felt the words deep within him even as he whispered them in the dark, dank hold.

“I’m going to free you. We’re going to be together.”

~//~

Luck was with him as he tied the rope around Pilirani’s wrists. The captain was checking the teeth of the tall, broad slave at the head of the line and not paying attention to where his smallest--and admittedly least talented--deckhand was securing the final slave. Patrick slipped the tiny boning knife between his bound hands before flashing him a tiny smile. They had talked about it, over and over in the hold--Patrick would give him a signal and Pilirani would cut his bonds, run away to the graveyard Patrick knew was a quarter-mile inland from the docks. The sailors’ superstitions would stop them from searching there, but Patrick and Pilirani had no such compunctions. If all went well, Patrick would be fired (but hopefully not flogged) for the loss of a slave, and he would meet him there.

And--to his everlasting shock--it had gone nearly exactly as planned. He had given Pilirani the signal as they turned a corner and then stumbled, making the long line of slaves stumble and fall...and he had cut the rope and scampered away in the hubub. Patrick had been--of course--blamed for a faulty knot and dismissed from the crew without pay. The captain had backhanded him, knocking him to the ground before landing a few well-placed kicks on his person to assuage his fury, and blood leaked from between his fingers as he limped away. But it had hardly mattered when he spied Pilirani’s bony knee poking out from behind an ornate headstone. He fell to his knees and wrapped his arms around him, unable to help himself and felt something ease in his heart that he had done it.

“You are…hurt?” Gentle fingers wiped blood from his cheek, flitting along the tears in his shirt where the toes of the captain’s shoes had torn through. But Patrick shook his head, not caring at the way his split lip throbbed as he smiled widely in gratitude.

“It doesn’t matter--you’re free. We can be together.” He took off his coat and settled it around the thin, dark shoulders. Patrick could see the confusion in his dark eyes, but he pushed away his guilt. Osiris said they would have to prove themselves to the gods, and he had just freed his love from slavery. Determination filled him as he considered their options--let the Gods watch. He would win Pilirani’s love--he could do anything as long as they were together. “We need to figure out something to call you. Pilirani won’t do--it’s too foreign.”

“You call me... Minkhet ...before?” Patrick couldn’t help the bolt of shock that skittered down his spine hearing him say his own name, but with the strange inversion of not knowing it. But he shook his head...neither name would do in Liverpool, though something warm blossomed right after the shock at hearing it.

“Pilirani...Pili…Peder?” He looked up from their joined hands. “How does Peter, or Pete sound?”

Minkhet-Peder-Pilirani’s lips moved, like he was tasting the syllables. A moment later, he nodded with a small smile.

“Pete.”

~//~

They traveled by night...ambling through the hills and taking shelter under rocky cliffs or fallen trees. Pete was always cold, curling around Patrick at night as they huddled together under the blanket that he had taken from a clothesline with a murmured apology to its oblivious owner. Finally...they were far north, far from the port and any who would recognize Pete as an escaped slave and Patrick felt like he could breathe just a bit easier. They made their way to Wales, up the coast sleeping in barns and against walls, wherever they could find a place, huddled together in the blanket. They scrimaged berries and roots, and Patrick thanked his older brother for all the times he had made Patrick go play with him in the woods and they would get lost, foraging for dinner as they tried to make their way home.

Finally, they arrived--the sleepy town of Aberystwyth exactly as Patrick’s shipmate Llewyn had described it. Cheerily-painted houses bright amongst all the deep green, and the call of seagulls loud over the port.

“Rydych chi'n edrych ar goll mab, ble rydych chi'n ceisio mynd?” A stormwall of vowels and guttural sounds hit Patrick and he blinked.

“Excuse me?”

“Ah--a Saes are yoo? Well you’re lucky you bumped into me since I speak your bizzare tongue, my boyo.” The old man’s watery blue eyes sized them both up with good humor. “You look lost.”

“Yes, I--we--” Patrick realized somewhere between the graveyard and the interminable miles of walking and their arrival at their destination he should have come up with a convincing cover story. “--We’re here looking for work, I’m a deckhand and Pete here does odds and ends.”

“Ahhh, well fortuitous timing you have there. Dyfan was just telling me he needed help mending nets. He’s just down there, straight down and then go right when you get to the water. Red stripe on his boat, can’t miss it.”

“Thank you sir, I--”

“Think nothing of it. Name’s Cadfael, now, I’ll be seeing you both.” And with that, the old man was hobbling down the lane and Patrick looked at Pete with a smile.

“Let’s go...hope you know how to do odds and ends.” He bit his lip but Pete just grinned as he nodded.

~//~

Good luck seemed to follow them like a breeze, though life wasn’t without its ups and downs and difficulties. Cadfael let them stay in the tiny cottage behind his tiny cottage, really nothing more than a roof and four walls, but it was dry and warm when you got a fire burning in the tiny grate. In exchange, Pete did odd jobs he said his old bones were too old to do--cutting up blocks of peat to dry, mending the spot on the roof that leaked when it rained hard from the east, slaughtering a pig and hanging the meat to cure. Patrick worked down at the docks, occasionally going on a short voyage (as long as the destination wasn’t in England), but generally staying put, mending nets, keeping the books, and keeping Dyfan’s business running so smoothly he declared he had no idea what he had done before. The first six months were filled with nearly nothing but work and trying to master the devilish language, filled with sounds that neither of their mouths made easily, both of them trying to cement their place in the community, to earn enough coin to buy those essentials that they lacked.

One stormy September night, Patrick was sitting on the pile of blankets over a bit of straw that comprised his bed and looked at Pete. His eyes were hooded as he stared into the fire, bundled in blankets against the perpetual cold and Patrick couldn’t help it. He tried to remember how Peder had said it to him so long ago, but...in the end, he just blew out a breath and went for it.

“Pete, do you--are you happy here?” He asked, feeling his hands starting to sweat despite the chill in the air.

Dark eyes flicked over to his and he couldn’t help but curse Ra that he had to see those eyes filled with nothing but blankness, not recognition. “Of course. You think I would have preferred to stay a slave?” A slight smile tipped up the corners of his lips, and Patrick straightened his spine and thought brave thoughts.

“No of course not. I--are you happy with me?”

He thought he saw something flicker across Pete’s face, something that looked like tenderness for the length of a breath drawn in, quick and tense to his lungs. But then the flames flickered and it was gone, and he told himself he was imagining it. “Of course. You saved me, you’ve kept me safe and…” Pete shrugged. “I wouldn’t want anything else.”

His limbs refused to move the right way, joints moving with jerky movements like he was being tugged by ropes rather than muscles. But somehow he got up and stumbled to his feet, swaying like he was drunk to fall to his knees in front of Pete. Pete, who said nothing but just watched with dark eyes and no hint of mistrust or disgust on his familiar, beloved features.

Patrick took Pete’s hand and prayed on the back of a held breath to all the gods--Ra, Isis, Osiris, Odin, kindly Baldr, the God of the Monastery and the scriptorum, to the welsh’s favorite Saint David--that Pete wouldn’t run, would hear him out. “Pete, this is going to sound...crazy. But I know you, I’ve known you over and over, through six lives we’ve lived together and...I love you. I’m meant to be yours, and you’re meant to be mine.” The words fell out of his mouth like water spilling from a bucket and he was left bereft, empty...no idea what else to say. Pete was staring at him with wide eyes and Patrick took it as a good sign that he hadn’t pushed him into the fire and ran out into the rain, so he forged ahead. “I’m--can I kiss you? Please?”

Pete just stared, but he didn’t say no . So Patrick reached up gently with shaking hands and cupped his cheeks in his palms. He felt tense, poised for him to run away, on edge like he was reaching into a cage to pull out a feral cat...but Pete just stayed still, not moving, not running as Patrick pressed their lips together.

He felt Pete shudder against him, felt him gasp and push Patrick away and he felt his heart sink. But his hands stayed on his shoulders, gripping hard as he stared at Patrick as he heaved in a breath.

“Padraig ?”

“Yes, yes , I’m--”

But he was cut off as Pete hauled him up onto his pile of blankets, sealing their mouths together as he pressed him down. He felt tears hot against his cheeks, and didn’t know whose they were...and decided it really didn’t matter when Pete tangled their legs together, his body blanketing him and strong, calloused hands pressed into his hair.

“It’s you, it’s you.” Pete gasped between kisses, and Patrick nodded, gasping back yes, yes it’s me as mouths pressed wet and greedy against skin, as Pete pushed his threadbare shirt from his shoulders and Patrick was pushing away blankets, unwinding them and pushing the jerkin off his lean frame.

“I love you.” Patrick gasped out as Pete leaned up over him, firelight painting him into onyx and gold as he ground their naked hips together. “I love you, I love you, I love you .”

“Never stop saying it.” Pete whispered as he pressed kisses to Patrick’s neck, hand reaching down to wrap around his cock and Patrick cried it out to the ancient stones, to the smoke-darkened rafters and to the storm above. Pete’s hand worked him into oblivion, sweat-slick and needing and as he came he swore he saw the shimmering ribbon of the nile and pyramids, the glitter of Pete’s eyes under a blue Egyptian sky. He blinked back to Pete staring at him, rapt with his mouth hanging open wetly as he tugged on his cock and Patrick reached down to wrap his fingers around it, cupping his balls the way he knew he liked...and Pete was coming with a wail, body locking up as he stared into Patrick’s eyes with a shocked expression that was quickly overwhelmed with bliss.

He tumbled down, the hay rustling under him as he curled up around Patrick and stared at him like he was seeing a ghost...which, Patrick decided, perhaps he was. He pressed a soft kiss to Pete’s slack mouth, huffing out a smile when his hand snaked down to cup his ass cheek and give it a gentle squeeze.

“I can’t believe you found me.” Pete whispered as he brought his hand up to flit sticky fingertips across Patrick’s cheek. Patrick grinned so wide he felt certain it would crack his face, just like his heart felt like it was threatening to beat out of his chest.

“I’ll always find you.”

Viking Peterick by the_chaotic_panda!!!!

Chapter Text

~1726~

“How many times do you think we haven’t found each other?” Pete murmured as he traced patterns across the smooth skin of Patrick’s back.

“What do you mean? And why are we whispering? It’s not like he’s gonna wake up.” Patrick lifted his head to look down at his companion with a grin. The blacksmith was dependable in two ways: he would never say out loud that his apprentice was competent, and he would never not drink himself into oblivion each night.

“I don’t know. It feels…safer.” Pete answered, before pursing his lips and answering Patrick’s earlier question. “Like...what if I hadn’t come to this blacksmith’s shop looking for work. What if your parents had apprenticed you to a cobbler. There are so many ways it could have gone and we never would found each other in any of them. I never would have seen you and remembered. You never would have kissed me and remembered.”

Patrick’s toes curled a bit at the memory. They had gotten truly wasted on a bottle of mead Pete had found somewhere... and he hadn’t been able to help it. He would have had to be an idiot to not notice the way the new hired man looked at him...but at first he had mistaken it for dislike, the intensity of his stare making Patrick think he hated him. But then he had realized it was the exact opposite; Pete couldn’t stop looking at him. It had made something curl in his gut and the mead sparkling gold in his bloodstream had made him bold as they lay on their backs on the roof of the smithy and looked at the stars. He had thrown the empty bottle off the roof and they had both dissolved in ridiculous, drunken laughter as it shattered below. And then Patrick rolled over and captured Pete’s lips in his own, just to see how they’d taste.

The torrent of memories had undone them both...and his life had never been the same after that. Well, not that any of his lives had been anything different...at least that he knew. Now that Pete brought it up, how were they to know that there hadn’t been ten lives between now and the last time they found each other? Ten lives where they never saw each other. Ten lives where one of them hadn’t gasped in recognition as they saw the other and a torrent of memories dammed by the ancient Gods of the Upper Kingdom was let loose...but only for one of them.

Oh, he remembered the lives where Pete had never known who he was. He remembered acutely the pain of seeing Pete across a Moorish battleground, remembering who he was only for him to be swept away in battle, never to be seen again. Patrick had prayed breathless prayers to every God who would listen as he threw himself with reckless abandon into every battle, every skirmish, trying to find him again. But as a lance sink into his chest ten days after his twenty-fourth birthday, he couldn’t help but feel a sense of relief. Maybe in the next life, the Gods would allow them to find each other in time.

But who was to say how many lives there were in between where they both remained blissfully and heartbreakingly unaware? He shook his head, realizing he hadn’t said anything in answer. Shuffling closer, he pressed his lips against Pete’s, needing to feel them. Needing to assure himself he was real.

“I don’t know.” He whispered when they broke away for air, but decided the best answer was the most obvious one. He climbed on top of Pete, bracketing his beautiful burnished body with his own pale one and shook his head. “But I found you.”

Pete hummed in the familiar argument of who had really found who this time around, and smiled as he pushed Patrick’s sleep shift over his head. “Remind me.” He whispered, and once again Patrick asked himself why they were being so quiet in the tiny loft...but he decided it didn’t matter. They were the only ones in the world tonight, or at least that’s what it felt like.

He slid down Pete’s body, biting and kissing and sucking as he went. Like every time, he couldn’t help but brush the scars gently, the marks of Pete’s life under a cruel father as a child. But he didn’t linger, just loved them the same as he loved all of Pete. He sucked him down with a wet sound and savored the shuddering gasp that he could feel under his hands as he worked him over, rolling his own aching cock against the blanket an excellent idea took hold in his mind. Pulling off, he grabbed Pete’s hand and placed it where his mouth had been. “Watch me.” He murmured, suddenly feeling the need to be quiet himself. Like if he was louder the whole world would intrude and want Pete for itself as he rolled to his back and reached for the little pot of oil they kept tucked in then corner, under the lose board.

Hand moving at a slow, deliberate pace, Pete’s eyes widened as Patrick rolled to his back next to him and sunk two crossed fingers into his body, savoring the stretch and burn. He could feel Pete’s eyes on him, almost like his gaze was burning everywhere he looked—the way his back arched as he breached his body, the tightness in his throat as his body protested then relented. The way his hips rose off the blanket as he began to open himself up, working smoothly against his fingers and unable to help the way his mouth fell open with the pleasure.

“So beautiful.” Pete whispered as his hand wrapped around Patrick’s cock and he couldn’t help but cry out, stifled with his own hand clapped over his mouth at the way it made the fire in his blood roar up to meet its own crest. He was close, he could come just like this…

But no. He pushed Pete’s hand away, pulling his own free from his body as he slicked his fingers once more and coated Pete’s straining cock with oil as he fumbled up to straddle his hips again. “I love you.” He whispered into the dimness, the guttering flames in the hearth far below lighting their skin with a copper hue. Placing his hand over Pete’s heart, he sunk down slowly, slowly….relishing the way Pete’s eyes scrunched closed as he threw his head back and writhed beneath him. Like he was the one who was being fucked...and Patrick couldn’t help but smirk a bit even as he gasped at the feeling of fullness. Maybe he was.

“ God.” Pete hissed as Patrick settled down against his hips, both of their breaths coming in gasps and heaves as they waited for their bodies to adjust...and Patrick decided he had had enough adjusting. He ground his hips, rocking them and brushing that place inside his body that made him gasp and arch his back, seeking it again with every slide and every thrust. Pete’s hands were gripping at his hips, opening and closing like he could dig channels into the skin and his mouth was open, wet, wanting. Patrick needed, so he hauled him up, pushing them both back against the wall and fucked down into him as he kissed him deep and wanting, demanding with his mouth even as he demanded with his hips. He could feel the pressure building within him, a torrent of need as he moved and fucked down on Pete’s cock, swallowing his little mewling cries. He was close, he was so, so, so close, it wasn’t a matter of getting there anymore it was a matter of holding on until—

“Patrick.” Pete moaned his name out like it was painful, like a prayer and a vindication as he started to tremble, body chasing release like a dog chasing after a fallen bird. His hands tightened on Patrick’s hips as he bit down on his lip and jackknifed his hips with a final, heroic thrust and came with a muffled cry. Beautiful, Patrick thought as he pulled away just a bit to watch, hand flying over his cock once, twice— there.

Chest heaving, Patrick shuddered and slumped and started to shift…but then Pete’s hands were there, gentle and strong as he guided them down to the blankets. He laid them both down, curling up around Patrick and when he opened his eyes he was surprised to find the sparkle of tears on Pete’s cheeks. Raising sticky fingers, he wiped them away before pressing gentle kisses where they had been and he felt Pete take a deep, shuddering breath. He blew it out and smiled that beautiful smile that Patrick had never failed to look for…perhaps even when he hadn’t known he was searching.

They lay there in the dark—the fire had gone to burnished coals—and listened to each other breathe for a long time. Patrick felt peace fill him and he realized it was a good feeling, something that was sorely lacking most times. The endless clang of the blacksmith’s hammer, the belching smoke and the sparks and steam erupting from the quench barrels…it was noise and heat and chaos. But this…this was peace.

Sweat cooled on their skin and Patrick shifted, grabbing Pete’s grimy shirt to wipe them clean. “That was my last clean shirt.” Pete huffed as he pulled the blankets up over them and Patrick grinned in the dark.

“None of your shirts are ever clean, we work in a smithy.”

Pete hummed, a contented sound full of good humor and fucked-out grins and Patrick let sleep whisk him away.

~1801~

Ships, Patrick thought grumpily. Why do I always have to find him on a goddamned ship?

There had been nothing but storms for the first two weeks after leaving England and Patrick hadn’t been able to help but feel nothing but laughing derision at the way people cried as they lost sight of land. England had been nothing but misery and bad luck for him, his whole damn life. His parents had died, the factory foreman would beat them for even the smallest mistake, his sister had miscarried twice for hunger and now here he was, being transported for being caught stealing. It was worth it , he thought—he had stolen the purse of some terribly stuffy-looking gentleman and tossed it to his brother-in-law just before the coppers’ had caught him. It had felt heavy enough to contain enough silver to keep the three of them fed for a while and he breathed a prayer that she would be safe.

But now, he considered Pete’s face from across the dark hold, just visible by the beam of light that shone through a chink in the wood. How had Ra engineered so many endless strands of lives that would brush together so that they would find each other? He didn’t know, but he didn’t need to ponder it too deeply—this was their lot and he wasn’t going to complain. Pete was all that mattered. The question now was how to get over to him in the dank hold, convince him for the fourteenth time to let Patrick kiss him…and watch the memories wash over him. Watch his eyes come to life.

The fact that they were in the hold of a ship, on the way to the savage Americas, crammed with a hundred and fifty souls all locked behind the bars that sectioned off half the belowdecks for the undesirables , made that a bit complicated. He didn’t imagine being caught with his tongue down Pete’s throat by the burly Twins that had declared themselves “in charge” would really help his life. The others whispered that they were being transported for murdering three women and he had no desire to highlight himself to them. But how, how to declare his love in a smelly, fetid hold?

~//~

There was a noise that was somewhere between a cry and a gasp, a tiny, scared sound that jarred Patrick out of the doze he hadn’t meant to fall into. He had decided the cover of night, when most of the prisoners could fall asleep as the coolness descended on the hold, would be his best chance. But as he waited for them to all settle down…he must have fallen asleep himself. Looking over, he saw Pete’s face scrunched up in something like pain and he made his decision after a quick glance at the Twins. Fast asleep, good.

Standing as silently as he could he picked his way over to Pete, stepping over sleeping forms and trying to not make too much noise. He hoped that it would look like he was just getting up to shush the noisemaker if anyone noticed. Finally, he made it, easing himself down next to Pete’s curled-up form and shook him gently. “Hey, it’s okay. Wake up.”

Pete’s eyes sprung open and Patrick felt his heart break at the fear in his eyes right alongside the total lack of recognition. It’ll probably always hurt, he told himself before taking a breath in and pushing the stabbing pain away.

“Who are you? What are you doing?” Pete whispered and Patrick noticed his hands were shaking—in fact all of him was trembling. “Help me, I have to—I have to get out, let me out I can’t breathe.”

Now this Patrick had seen before, his friend George had panicked once when he had to crawl down a pipe to fish out something that had fallen in the factory. They had pulled him out sweating and shaking, skin deathly pale before he had vomited up his lunch. He couldn’t help it—he reached out for Pete’s hand and gripped it tightly. “You’re fine, I’m here with you, you’re good.” Pete’s eyes were squeezed closed as he curled up around his hand and shook and Patrick did the only thing he could think to do. Easing just a bit closer, he ran a gentle hand through Pete’s hair and started to sing a song that he barely remembered. He thought perhaps his mother had sang it to him, it was twined with his few memories of green hills and the lilting Irish cadence, before everything had gone wrong and they had gone down to England looking for work.

“Of all the money that e’er I had, I spent it in good company, And all the harm that I’ve ever done, Alas it was to none but me. And all I’ve done for want of wit, to mem’ry now I can’t recall, So fill to me the parting glass…”

He sung the gentle words, and felt just a bit of tension slip away from Pete’s death-grip on his hand. The tempo of his breaths changed and he could hear him start to breathe through his nose…and he just sang, low and soothing, as the moonlight shone through the cracks of ancient wood.

~1912~

“Now this is fun.” Patrick grinned as he took a sip of his ale, watching the raucous singing and dancing below them, an endless tableaux of sound and color and movement. He itched to throw himself into it, but he didn’t know what to do, didn’t know the steps…plus, standing next to the handsome young deckhand was fast becoming his new favorite pastime.

“I’m glad you’re enjoying it.” Pete grinned at him, all dark eyes and a flash of white teeth and Patrick felt his insides tremble once again. Why did he have to be so pretty? Not that he was complaining, oh no. He had thought this voyage would be a terrible bore—he had been tired of it before he even stepped a foot aboard. The Titanic, the most elegant ship to cruise the ocean his mother had gushed over and over, flitting around their London home like she would fly away with the excitement. She packed and re-packed, picking dresses before throwing them to the floor with a huff and the proclamation that nothing would do and she simply had to go shopping, otherwise she would be naked on the Titanic, and they couldn’t have that now, could they?

He had never been fond of ships, and never could say why. At the advanced age of nineteen, he’d never been on a ship before but he just knew that he didn’t like them. Something about them made him restless, made him feel like he was unmoored and incomplete, though he supposed that was the point. So when the great ship had pulled away from its moorings, he let out a gusted sigh and resigned himself to a week of boredom and his mother’s tireless excitement.

But then, then, he had met Pete one morning when he had woken up early, and unable to sleep, had gone up to watch the sunrise. Pete had been cleaning the tables of the salt scum that seemed to settle on everything and Patrick had been struck with a rare moment of friendliness. They had talked as the sun rose and he learned Pete was a scullion who washed endless piles of dishes in the kitchen, and Pete had offered to bring him down for a dance after Patrick had bemoaned the stuffy, endlessly proper evenings on the ship. So here they were and Patrick felt more alive then he ever had before. The music beat through him and it made him feel reckless, feel daring, feel brave. He moved just the slightest bit so that his arm brushed next to Pete’s on the rail and held his breath…hoping, hoping, hoping.

He heard Pete pull in a breath and he felt his heart sink: he had been wrong, he had miscalculated and now his only friend on this accursed boat would—

“Patrick.” There was something raw and needing in Pete’s voice as he took his hand and pulled him away from the railing, tugging him out of the huge hold and into room with endless bunks nearly piled on top of each other. Pete pushed him into a chair and knelt at his feet, taking his hands and staring at him with wide eyes full of some emotion Patrick couldn’t identify. He wondered what this was, if he had caused such offense or if he was about to get a stern lecture on the sin of buggery…

“Patrick, listen to me. This, this is going to sound crazy but I know you. It’s a long story and I swear I’ll tell you all of it if you’ll let me but I know you and I—I love you.” Pete seemed to gasp around the words, like they were choking him as they clawed their way out of his lungs. “You’re, you’re mine and I belong to you, just you forever and I just need you to please, please just let me—“

Something seized him then—that same reckless abandon that had made him want to throw himself down into the dancing—and he grabbed Pete by the wrinkled collar of his shirt and sealed their mouths together with flutter of breath dancing along his lips.

And he saw.

Pyramids, battlefields, ships, so many damn ships—in an instant he understood the restlessness he’d always felt when he thought about them—he saw it all. He saw Pete’s eyes shining under a thousand stars against craggy snow-capped mountains, the fire in front of the viking hall casting sparks into the air. He saw the rolling green hills of Wales and the claustrophobic, filthy streets of London through a smithy window. He saw them both stepping foot off a ship onto America condemned to fourteen years of indentured servitude and them both knowing neither of them would live that long. He saw Pete smiling at him, he saw Pete laughing and loving him…

Before he knew it, Pete was underneath him on one of the bunks and their clothes were falling away in the warm silence of the deserted room. They were kissing and kissing and kissing, mouths searching and finding, mumbled sentences pressed to skin, Pete whispering it’s me, it’s me, I found you and Patrick painting his neck, his collarbones with I remember, I know you, it’s really you, I remember!

Then they were finally, blessedly, perfectly naked and Patrick was gasping into Pete’s neck as his calloused hand found his cock, feathering and moving just the way he knew would drive him crazy. He was seeing stars and sunrises behind his eyelids but he shook his head, desperate and mad for him.

“Please, please please can I have you? I need you, you’re—“ He was babbling but Pete was nodding with a manic light in his eyes as he shifted his shoulders, digging into a bag under the bunk and coming out with a small, round tin of lotion and pressing it into his hand.

“I need you.” He slicked their fingers with the greasy, thick salve and together they worked him open, moving in tandem inside his body and Patrick could do nothing but listen to Pete’s gasping cries, take in the way his jaw slackened as they found that spot and his hips jolted. It was dirty and it was obscene and he couldn’t get enough as they carefully made room for one, two, three fingers before Pete pulled his own out to grab at Patrick’s cock, to slick him up as they both gasped out at the torrent of ecstasy. “Now, now now now, please .” He pushed Patrick’s hand away, out of him as he wrapped his legs around Patrick’s hips and pulled him down.

“Are you sure, I—“

“Don’t give me that, you know I’m ready.” Pete smiled up at him and Patrick saw unnumbered times they had done this over countless lives—Pete smiling up at him from a bed of furs, from blankets over hay, from grass under an oak tree—and he nodded, biting his lip as he slipped his cock between his cheeks, felt him tremble and knew he was doing the same. Gently, gently he slipped inside, pushing past the tight ring of muscle and Pete let out a gasp as his back arched beautifully as Patrick just kept moving, kept going as he watched his face for any sign of pain because he knew, he knew Pete hated it when he stopped.

They both blew out gasping breaths as his hips pressed to the plush softness of Pete’s ass and he caressed his cheek with gentle fingers before ducking his head and capturing his mouth with his own. Pete moaned into him, hands coming up to bury in Patrick’s hair as he kissed him like he needed the air from his lungs to breathe as he trembled beneath him. Ignoring the way Pete dug his heels into the small of his back, Patrick just stayed still, hands caressing his face, his thighs, his neck gently as he waited, waited for his body to adjust even though he knew Pete would never ask for it. If Pete had his way, he’d be fucking into him without pause, but that wasn't his way. He couldn’t bear the thought of Pete limping the next day, even though it seemed to delight him. He couldn’t bear the idea of hurting him.

So he pressed nipping, teasing kisses to his neck, relishing the way he could feel the muscles and sinews working beneath that incomparable copper skin. Only when he was gasping beneath his mouth, body slack against the thin mattress did Patrick start to move, gentle movements that kept him buried deep. He rocked his hips, pulling out just barely an inch before pushing back--the kind of fucking he knew Pete would feel through his whole body, until it felt like he was choking on it, on him .

“God , you feel--” Pete’s words stuttered as he gasped when Patrick brushed that place deep inside that made him arch his back and moan out low and sinful. “Yes, just like that, please.” And Patrick felt like crying, like laughing and pulling him close all at once because yes. He would give it to him, just like that. Because he was here, they had found each other, it was all going to be alright. Instead, though, he pressed his face to the sweat-slick curve of Pete’s neck and pushed his legs higher, up against his chest as he started to pound into him in earnest, hips battering him like the waves against the Titanic’s great iron hull.

“Love you, love you so much, please I--it’s been so long, I need you.” He twined his fingers with Patrick’s, holding him down and close as he threw his head back and keened. Working one hand free, Patrick took hold of his cock--hard and weeping between them and began to rub his thumb beneath the head. The familiar weight and heft of it loosed his tongue and he began to whisper, to plead himself.

“So good, God so good I--you’re perfect, so perfect let me see you, please--” He grabbed the side of the bunk to give him better leverage and slammed into him again and again, pinning him down except to plumb his body, the body he knew so well and loved best. He was close, he was painfully close to exploding into nothing but flesh and bones jumbled together in a heap of ecstasy...but he wanted . He wanted to see Pete come apart first, just for him. So he told him, murmured disjointed pleas and gasped prayers as he watched with rapt eyes. “Come for me, my love, just for me, you found me now let me have you, my lovely. Let go …”

Pete’s hand slid up into his hair, tangling into the fine strands and he was curling up, muscles in his stomach working beneath sweat-shined skin as he bent inwards like he was bracing for the storm to crash through him. Blown brown eyes met his, and Patrick saw the little hut in Wales, the dusty garrett in Virginia, the red dirt of the African battlefield. Pete’s eyes held it all and he thrust home one more time, hips angled and hand stroking upwards...and Pete fell apart, throwing his head back as his back arched like a bowstring being released. White, hot slickness coated Patrick’s hand as Pete bellowed out his name and he fucked him through it, hips thrusting forward once more as he emptied into Pete’s body, into perfect tight heat as his vision clouded over and his body locked up in pleasure.

With a moan, he tumbled to the hard bunk, slipping free and they both shuddered with it. Pete arched his back again and rolled into him, sweat-slick skin sliding together as Patrick pulled him close, breathing hard and open-mouthed into the close-shorn black curls as his legs trembled and his arms twitched.

“Found you.” Pete whispered after a long moment, fingers brushing over the fine hairs over Patrick’s heart. He lifted his head and dropped it to his chest, ear pressed where his fingers had been and closed his eyes. “I tried to remember it, you know? After I saw you. I would lay in bed and I swear I could still hear your heart beating.” Words seemed wholly inadequate for the feelings in his heart...so Patrick ran his fingers down each notch of Pete’s spine and tried to breathe him in. “But...’m scared. I can’t--I can’t keep losing you.”

“Don’t afraid, my love.” Patrick pushed himself up on an elbow, tipping Pete’s chin up until he could look him in the eyes. There were tears sparkling there in their depths, and it made something dark and desperate claw its way into his throat. He rolled them over, pinning Pete beneath him and bracketing his face with his palms. “We’ve found each other so many times, you’re--you’re all I want, ever. In this life and all the others.”

“I think it’s...it’s breaking something inside me. Sometimes I wake up, and I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t know why until I saw you and….I was so afraid. I was so afraid you’d slip away and I’d never get to...that we’d be alone. That I’d die alone.”

“You’re not alone.” Patrick ducked his head and pressed a deep, searching kiss to his lips, thumbs sweeping across his cheekbones. “I’m--I’m always there. I’m always looking for you, even when I don’t know it.” A thought pushed its way to the surface of his mind as he pulled away, something he had brought up several hundred years before but Pete had scoffed at. “I--you won’t remember me next. I could...I could not tell you. Let you live in peace, if you’d like.”

But just as before Pete shook his head firmly, brows knitted together in anger. “ Don’t you dare. You’re mine, and I’m yours. I’ll--no matter what the cost, I’ll always look for you, and you have to find me.”

“If it’s hurting you, though--” Patrick began, but Pete cut him off, covering his mouth firmly.

“No. Promise me. Promise you’ll find me.”

A sigh escaped Patrick’s lips, his heart breaking even as he said the words, as he saw the determination in Pete’s eyes. “When haven’t I?” He pressed another kiss to his lips, this one gentle and soft, whispered against them I promise.

After a while, he felt goosebumps prickling his skin and Pete pulled the threadbare blanket over them both and burrowed into his chest, wrapping his arms around Patrick’s middle. It was perfect, it was safe and calm and easy and he couldn't help but murmur out a final positive thought with a smile. “At least we know we’ll have until we reach New York together. The Titanic is unsinkable, after all.”

Pete hummed and pressed a kiss just above his heart, and they slept, tangled together under a threadbare sheet. A distant shaking roused Patrick for just a moment, but he simply scrunched his nose and buried his face deeper into Pete’s neck.

Until water rushed against his bare skin, shocking him awake so suddenly and so rudely that he couldn’t help but yelp. “ What—“

“We hit something.” Pete gasped, eyes wide in the dim light of the high oil lamp bolted to the wall. “My God, it--c’mon.” He grabbed Patrick’s pants as they floated towards him, already pulling on his own that had been wrapped around the bunk’s cable and struggling to get his shirt over his head. “We have to get above.”

“We’re by the engines, though aren’t we?” Patrick argued as he pulled his clothes on with shaking hands, already soaked. “Maybe something exploded, maybe something fell. It can’t be that bad...it’s still so quiet.”

Pete just shook his head. “Just...just come on.” He grabbed his hand and half pulled him towards the door, the water high enough that it was almost like swimming. Smoke billowed up from the bowels of the ship, and Patrick couldn’t help the twinge of fear in his heart. The ship was unsinkable ...that’s what everyone had said.

They made it to the third hatch door, racing the water that was rushing and gurgling below, chasing them like a deadly game of tag, and broke into the cold night air.

“My God…” Patrick’s voice sounded calm to his own ears, and he marveled that the panic wasn’t coming out at all. But Pete’s fingers tightened around his as they surveyed the scene...the way the deck was tilted at a sharply unnatural angle, the lights of the lifeboats winking across the water. A flare shot out, briefly illuminating the scene with a flash of blood-red light before the dark settled back like ink.

Someone ran by and Pete’s hand shot out, grabbing what turned out to be a small boy, a deckhand by the looks of it, by the collar. “What happened?”

“We hit an iceberg, mister.” The young boy gasped out, lip trembling. “They’re loading women and children on the lifeboats, but I heard the first mate say there isn’t room enough for everyone.”

“There’s room for you, if you hurry.” Pete’s features were grim as he let go of Patrick’s hand and squatted down. “You listen to me, now. You go right to the lifeboats, and don’t stop for anything. Push your way on if you have to, do you understand?” The young boy nodded, and Pete stood. “Do you remember what time we hit it?”

“Just after midnight.” The little boy’s features looked a bit more composed, like he had taken Pete’s admonishment as a challenge. Nodding, Pete pushed him gently towards the lowering lifeboats and Patrick could see his throat working as he looked at them for a long moment. Looking down at his wristwatch, Patrick took a deep breath and tried to calm himself: 1:55am. Surely, surely they could get to a lifeboat if it really came to that, but it wouldn’t. The Titanic was unsinkable, besides it’d already been nearly two hours and it hadn’t gone down yet.

“We—should we go to a lifeboat?” His mind flashed to his parents and he felt a brief stab of panic for their safety, but pushed it down. His mother was an incredibly light sleeper—no doubt she’d felt the tremor of the crash and had pulled her father out of bed and to safety. At least he hoped.

“There...there aren’t enough.” Pete’s voice was brittle, tense like a string wound too tight as he turned to face him. “I heard a few of the boys down in the engine room talking earlier. There aren’t even enough for the women and children, I don’t think, much less the men.” He was staring after the boy and Patrick felt something rise up in his throat, something like panic and fear but also like resignation as he wondered if this was it. If the gods had decided to sink the unsinkable ship to send them both to another watery grave.

The ship tilted sharper under their feet, throwing Patrick against the bulkhead door and Pete against him. Finally, Pete met his gaze and there was fear in his eyes. “I love you, I love you so much. Promise. Promise you’ll find me.”

“I promise.” Patrick whispered, the words drowned out by the sound of the Captain’s voice bellowing out over the loudspeakers.

“Every man for himself!”

Pete’s eyes were wide as his thumbs traced Patrick’s cheeks, like he was trying to remember what was right before him. “Stay with me, as long as we can.” He breathed and Patrick couldn’t help but roll his eyes as he felt the ghost of a smile quirk his lips.

“I tied us together when we were trying to escape the Jarl’s mob, remember? I’m not going anywhere.” Pete nodded, and Patrick shrugged as a calm he couldn't quite explain but was happy to keep settled over him. “I love you so much and, at least...at least I get to hold you this time. We’ll be together when we go.”

A choked sound escaped from Pete’s lips, but he nodded again, frantic and sharp as the bow shuddered and an awful crack sounded through the night air. The ground seemed to fly out from under their feet as they tumbled against the hard outer hull, and the gurgle of water rushing from belowdecks turned to a dull roar.

“Patrick .” Pete gasped his name as he wrapped his arms around Patrick’s waist. It was familiar, it was beloved, it was his. But all he could do was hold him tight, bury his face in the crook of Pete’s neck and breathe him in—a single point of warmth as the icy water rose around them, higher and higher.

~1963~

In all the lives they’d lived together--so many he nearly lost count of them although he knew the number was nearing fifty--nothing had prepared him for this .

There was an oak tree that clung to life amidst the parkway grass, gnarled and looking like it may have been struck by lightning once upon a time. Someone had tied ropes and a board to an uneven branch to make a crude swing, and Pete was pushing a little girl with curly pigtails gently. Their laughter rang around him as he stood, rooted in shock with his arm clutching the paper bag of groceries like it was a liferaft. The girl was kicking her feet, tiny hands holding tight to the weathered rope, until she neared Pete. Then she would freeze with a ridiculously overwrought grimace as he would pull her close--swing and all--and press a kiss to her cheek before letting the momentum carry her away again. Her skin was dark--the color of chocolate and fine leather--but he’d know the tightly-corkscrewed hair anywhere.

A lilting voice called from an open window, and he couldn't help but turn to see a beautiful ebony-skinned woman waving from the first floor window. The girl returned the gesture with that sticky-fingered grace of the young, before Pete swung her up into his arms, pressing a kiss to her cheek and laughing out words that broke Patrick’s heart.

“Is Daddy’s favorite baby girl hungry? Let’s go see mama!”

~//~

It was said that time healed all hurts, but Patrick found the opposite to be true. He wasn’t sure if it helped the sharp, stabbing pain under his ribs when he lay in his empty bed at night and thought about Pete. When evil, jealous thoughts twisted his mind as he cursed the universe for not only withholding his soulmate from him in such a cruel way...but also for parading in front of him the one thing they would never have, could never have. A family, the freedom and understanding to hold each other’s hand in public, to press a kiss to Pete’s cheek as they walked out of the grocer’s. Such luxuries would never be theirs.

His nails dug bloody crescents into his palms as he felt hot tears slide along his cheeks. He had been hiding in his tiny apartment for several days after seeing Pete, the memories and the longing washing over him in endless waves as he had sobbed into the thin pillow and wrestled with what to do. Did he tell him? Did he ruin the bliss he’d so obviously found with his tiny, beautiful family? Oh, he hated him with an anger black and hot for a long moment. Hated him for finding someone, for not waiting for him, for casting him aside so thoughtlessly for a cheap hussy--but then he had gasped out a wail as his heart righted itself, as a voice he thought was his conscience reminded him Pete didn’t know . He didn’t know he had a soulmate waiting for him just a floor above. He didn’t know that the ancient Gods of Egypt had blessed them--though it felt like a curse right about then--to find each other over and over. He didn’t know that a brush of Patrick’s lips would unleash memories of countless lives spent finding each other, loving each other.

He didn’t know.

Mind whirling with self-reproach, he had bit his lip and tried to cry silently. Of course Pete had gotten married to a lovely lady...he was older after all, why wouldn’t he? Of course they had a beautiful daughter--what was to stop him? What was to hold him back? Certainly not a love he didn’t even know existed.

After the shock and heartbreak had subsided, the question stared Patrick in the face as he cooked himself a lonely dinner for one over the tiny stove. What should he do? Everywhere he looked, all his mind’s eye saw was the freezing darkness of the Titanic’s deck, a moment before the water rushed up to claim them both. Pete’s eyes wide and afraid, begging him even as his hands tightened against his arms like he could physically pull the words free.

Promise me you’ll find me.

Oh, but how could he? How could he rip away one love just to give Pete another? How could he hope to put the happiness back into Pete’s eyes when he realized, when he understood that he had promised himself to not just his wife in this lifetime, but to Patrick for all of them?

I think it’s...it’s breaking something inside me. Pete’s words echoed in Patrick’s mind as he had crawled into bed and pulled the blanket up over his head, and he felt his heart shatter anew. The raw pain in his eyes, the haunted fear...he curled up into a ball and gasped as the truth struck him like a train, terrible and inescapable yet he knew it was his only choice. He couldn’t tell Pete, he couldn’t make him remember, not this time. The pain of choosing between his family and Patrick--not that he’d ever make him pick a side but he knew there would be no easy solution, he knew there would be no merging of a love like theirs with morning coffee and feminine scents wafting with the early breeze. He couldn’t put Pete in that position, couldn't ask him to take back one promise in favor of another.

“ Forgive me.” He breathed to the image of Pete behind his eyelids, stinging with tears, and made up his mind.

~//~

“You...you really didn’t have to come, you know?” Pete said as he raised a concerned eyebrow. “I get it if you want to leave, it’s not exactly--”

“Are you saying I don’t blend in?” Patrick asked with a wry smile that he hoped managed to hide the hot stab of heartbreak. “I’m not totally incognito?” He pointed at the signs, words proclaiming Equal Rights and Jobs NOW , and In Freedom we are Born, in Freedom we must Live. When Pete had told him about this event, that there was going to be a Great March on Washington...he hadn’t expected this . There were more people then he’d ever seen in his whole life gathered in one place.

“Not quite.” Pete grinned back as he surveyed the gathered protesters, but gave a shrug that held all the ease in the world. “I’m really glad you’re here. I just don’t want you to feel obligated.”

“Nothing’s an obligation when it’s for a friend.” Patrick rasped out, throat constricting as the overwhelming pain of being so close to the person he loved best shot through him anew. He turned away, coughing and surreptitiously wiping tears from his eyes as he tried to pull in a deep breath when he felt a gentle tug on his coat.

“Mister Patrick? Are ‘oo otay?” Nellie was looking up at him with concern plain in her dark eyes, the words tangling around her missing front teeth. Patrick nodded, crouching down to give her a gentle hug.

“I’m fine, Nellie-girl, thank you. It’s just my asthma, you know. Nothing to worry about.” He gave her the brightest smile he could summon as he stood up, looking around as the crowd began to surge around them.

“C’mon baby girl! Up you go!” Pete swung his daughter onto his shoulders, before the remaining members of their little group a wide smile. “Here we go!”

He fell into step next to Pete, Ida on his other side and they began to walk with the crowd. Patrick shook his head a bit, giving another cough as he felt fresh guilt roll over him. He had hated Nellie and Ida in the beginning...red, raw hatred that left him shaking and white-knuckled. They were standing in the way, they were the ones who were keeping Pete from him. He would force a smile whenever he saw them in the yard tending the little garden patch, forming his features into the least grimace-like expression he could manage until he was out of sight. The crumbling drywall on the stairwell that led upstairs to his tiny apartment bore the scars of what happened when he released the smile.

One night, though...he had come back to see Pete sitting on the front steps of the building, a lit cigarette between his fingers and a half-empty bottle of whiskey next to him. His eyes had lit up when he saw Patrick...urging him to sit and at least share the good stuff with him, if he couldn’t smoke due to his ailment. Instead, Patrick had sat down and gotten to know his love all over again. Listened to the story of his growing up to poor parents who had worked so hard to give him a decent start. Of meeting Ida and thinking she was pretty, and his terror when she told him she loved him, and that she was carrying his child. He had married her because...that’s what he was supposed to do, wasn’t it?

I don’t know sometimes. Is that horrible? I look at her, and I think I love her but I don’t feel anything. I think I’m just...I want to love her, I do. But sometimes I wonder if I really even know what love is, if I’ll ever find it. He had stayed silent at Pete’s admission, throat tightening and eyes burning with tears he prayed to every god in the sky that he could keep at bay. If he opened his mouth...he’d tell Pete everything, he’d press him back against the worn stone steps and kiss him until he stole the last breath from his lungs if he had to...so he bit his lip until he tasted the sharp tang of copper-bright agony and listened. I do know what love feels like, actually. You know who I love? Nellie. She’s...she’s the best part of me. She’s everything good about me that I wish I could show everyone, she’s...she’s amazing. I love her so goddamn much.

Hearing Pete’s slightly-slurred protestations...Patrick felt shame curl through him, flaming his cheeks with pink that he hoped nobody could see in the darkness. How could he? How could he hate Ida and Nellie? They had done nothing wrong, none of them had done anything wrong. It was just...luck, in this case, spectacularly bad luck that he hadn’t found Pete in time. It was nobody’s fault...least of all beautiful little Nellie who just wanted to crawl in Patrick’s lap and have him read to her.

A woman old enough to be his grandmother stumbled in front of him, jarring him from his thoughts. Reaching out, he caught her arm, righting her before slipping her hand around his elbow like they were going to a dance.

“Why, thank you, young man.” She smiled at him from beneath thick glasses, patting his hand and straightening like they were walking down the aisle. “Glad you’re here.”

“Me too.” He murmured and smiled at the look Pete gave him. Up ahead, someone began to sing “ Swing low” in a deep baritone, and Nellie clapped from Pete’s shoulders and began to sing along in her precious and totally off-key way. Soon they were all singing, the words sparkling out like an endless wave as they marched towards the Capitol.

~//~

Something pulled Patrick from sleep. He wasn’t sure what it was...he was warm, the world was still dark behind his eyelids. Rolling over, he pulled the blanket up over his head and tried to drift back under...and then it hit him. The smell. Throwing off the covers, he fumbled for his glasses as he jerked his head around like a Labrador looking for the scent. It was unmistakable now, and growing stronger every second.

Fire.

Shoving his glasses on his face, he slipped into his house slippers as he yanked his robe from the foot of the bed. Throwing open the bedroom door…he pushed out into the tiny living room, the smell growing stronger. Reaching the front door, he grabbed the door handle, before shooting back with a yelp—it was white hot. He pulled the sleeve of his robe over his hand and turned the knob quickly, door blowing backward with the force of the heat blast.

The corridor was a mass of roiling black smoke and flickering orange flames as he stumbled from the doorway. It hit him like a wall of choking fumes and he ran, eyes streaming and lungs seizing within him. Thundering down the rickety stairs, he ran to Pete’s door and pounded at it, punching and kicking as he screamed as loud as he could. When the door suddenly flew open, he fell inside as the wood was no longer under his fists.

“Fire.” He gasped, coughing from his knees as Pete pulled him up with wide eyes. He heard him point at the bedroom, heard him yell to get Nellie and get her out while he got Ida. Heart in his throat, he watched Pete run towards the bedroom door but he pushed the thought away as he stumbled to Nellie, pushing open the door and scooping her from the bed. Pete was emerging from the bedroom with Ida in his arms, her bandaged foot stark white in the gloom. She cut it open , his brain reminded him uselessly as he followed Pete from the apartment, smoke thick in it already. The building creaked and groaned above as they ran towards the doorway, to the outside.

Crash!

Something hot and horribly heavy caught the back of Patrick’s head, shearing along his back and knocking him down. Heart in his throat, he called out Pete’s name as he threw Nellie as far from his body as he could as he tumbled down, towards the door and away from the burning wreckage. A whisper of hope that she would be fine from the fall and far enough away fired through his brain as he hit the ground, whatever had hit him tumbling to pin his legs. Burning alive will be a first , he thought darkly as he dimly felt something like an iron, his legs growing hotter and hotter and he prayed that his lungs would give out first as he gasped for air and came away choking.

But then hands were grabbing his own through the smoke, his head came up to see through tear-filled eyes Pete’s determined grimace as he yanked him free from whatever had fallen on him. He opened his mouth to tell him to go, to leave him--but the smoke filled his lungs and he could do nothing but cough and gasp as Pete threw him over his shoulder and ran from the burning wreckage of their home.

The grass was cool against his legs as Pete lowered him down. Something was moving behind his head, and Patrick realized that it was the swing in the parkway tree. The swing he had been pushing Nellie on the first time he’d seen him in this life.

“--coming, I can hear the sirens Patrick, hold on.” Pete’s face was stricken, covered in ash with tear tracks making dark lines across his cheeks. He realized with a resigned sort of surprise that his rapidly closing airway must not be the most damaged thing about him...but it wasn’t like this was the first time, after all. Nellie’s little face appeared next to Pete’s, and his heart seized with panic. She shouldn’t--this wasn’t something he wanted her to remember for the rest of her life.

“...Take her...away. Shouldn’t...see…” He rasped out, air leaving his lungs and the cool air trying to refill it made his throat give a mighty spasm. Pete looked up at someone and Nellie was gone, secreted away he hoped to not have to see his end.

“You saved her, Patrick. I don’t--I never should have, I’m so sorry--” Tears were streaming down Pete’s cheeks, washing away some of the grit and Patrick was seized with the need to make sure he knew. He had kept his promise, after all.

“I--I found you.” He gasped, the air whistling out and he knew it was close to the last that he’d draw a breath in this lifetime. “I promised... always .”

There was so much more he wanted to say, to reassure him that it would be alright...but he had borrowed the last of the air. His throat worked a final time before sealing shut, the fumes damage to compromised tissues irreparable and final.

Blackness began to creep from the edges of his vision, Pete’s tear-stained cheeks scrunched with agony as he shouted something Patrick could no longer hear over the thundering rushing in his ears. He felt Pete squeeze his hand...and he tried to squeeze back as the darkness took him.

Some Pop!Pete to make you smile after that, created by the AMAZING @the_chaotic_Panda!

Chapter Text

PART III: 2001

Whoever this kid was, Pete swore to god, he’d better literally be made of gold. Like we’re talking gold chains, gold grill, hell, he’d settle for gold letters on his T-shirt if it meant their half-formed idea of a band was going to go somewhere. He’d taken the El over on impulse, figuring he could get Joe to give him a ride home when they were done. The sun had felt good on his face as he had walked to the address scrawled on the back of what seemed to be a ripped-off portion of a safe-sex pamphlet. He had such classy friends.

The house, when he arrived at it, was simple; nothing that screamed either wealth or disrepair but just seemed ordinary . Middle class, average care taken of the yard, and there was a peony bush just starting to bloom in the front. The sweet smell wafted up to meet him as his battered chucks climbed the three brick steps, and he knocked twice before sneezing. Fucking flowers .

There was no sound from inside the house for a while, and he was just fishing the paper out to be sure he had the right number--dyslexia is a real handicap, thankyouverymuch --when he heard a stumble and a thump and a muffled sound that may have been a curse word. The door opened to reveal a trucker hat knocked low over scruffy dirty blonde hair, and Pete could feel a mocking remark about the kinds of people who wore argyle when the hat was tipped back to it’s normal place and their eyes met.

They were eyes he had seen a hundred times over, eyes he had known filled with confusion and anger, eyes that had once been pure blue until a miracle colored their center’s gold with Ra’s burnished light. Eyes that he had not known until the moment he did , eyes that he had searched for a sign of recognition again and again, only to turn away from their heartbreakingly empty gaze each time. Eyes he had seen open next to his, eyes he had seen close for the last time nearly more times than he could count.

“ Patrick.” He breathed out and vainly hoped in the familiar pattern that it hadn’t come out too familiar. If he knew who Patrick was then that meant Patrick didn’t know him --

“Pete? Is it really you?” The question interrupted his mind desperately trying to reset, to recalibrate, and he felt like his brain hit a brick wall as the implications of those four words struck him like a lead weight. A question he’d never heard from Patrick’s lips in uncountable millenia.

“You— you know who I am?” He gasped out, shock making his spine feel like it was conducting a thousand volts straight to his beleaguered brain. This had never--it was a trick, it had to be some sort of hoax or misunderstanding--this kid, his Patrick had come to one of their Arma Shows that’s how he knew him, maybe he was just easily impressed by shitty bass playing and mediocre screaming, he--

“Minkhet. Pilirani. Pete .” Patrick’s eyes were wide, full of shock as he reached a pale hand out, like he was testing Pete in some way. Like perhaps he was a ghost and wouldn’t be able to touch...at this point, Pete would have believed he’d lived his whole life as a ghost, that it had all been a dream up until now. But then his hand was settling into Patrick’s, fingers sliding against familiar calluses and it lit him up from the inside out--memories and heartache, pain and joy crashing against him as he gazed into the eyes of the one he loved best.

“ Padraig.” He breathed as Patrick pulled him in, wrapping his arms around him as Pete buried his head in his shoulder and smelled home . He knew there were tears in his eyes, he knew they were probably smearing his eyeliner but none of that really mattered. Words burned in his brain, swirling around like water and he couldn’t help it. Pulling away, he held Patrick out by the shoulders and looked at him, eyes roaming over features that he knew better than his own. “ How?”

Patrick shrugged, hands coming up to wrap around Pete’s wrists as he bit his lip and shook his head. “I--I don’t know. Maybe...maybe this is the hundredth? Could that be it?”

He could feel his eyes widening as he shook his head, lives pouring through his mind like a waterfall. “Maybe? God, I don’t even…” He closed his eyes and tried to push against the flood of memories, of lives that suddenly sprang into existence in his memories.

“Hey, hey--” Patrick’s thumbs were brushing against his cheekbones, hands bracketing his jaw and holding him steady. He hadn’t even realized he was trembling. “It’s okay. Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out together, we always have.”

Pulling in a good breath the way his therapist had told him to, he swallowed and tried to slow his pounding pulse. “What do you remember? Egypt? Isandlwana? Virginia? The Titanic? ” Something flitted across Patrick’s eyes, a split second of pain, but then it was gone and he was nodding with a smile.

“You thinking you could sail through a gale after saying Odin was stronger than Ra? Wales? That creaky floorboard under the bed in the smithy?”

It felt like warmth surged up from some place in his heart that he hadn’t realized had cracked under the strain and Pete was laughing. Gleeful, braying laughs that shook him from his toes to his artfully-straightened hair as he pulled Patrick close and sealed their mouths together. Someone kicked the door shut, someone’s shoulder knocked something decorative from the wall with a muffled crash, someone tangled their feet in piles of laundry...but for his life, Pete couldn’t have told you how any of that came about. All he knew was he was  in a cramped upstairs room against worn sheets and his Patrick was under him, kissing him like he needed oxygen to breathe. Clothes fell away easily--and when they didn’t, Patrick made quick work of them, literally ripping the neck of Pete’s admittedly too-tight t-shirt and attacking his neck with bites and nips that drove him crazy . Shuddering, he pushed away, slid down Patrick’s body until he reached creamy hips and groaned as he sucked him down.

“Jesusfuck!” Patrick cried out and Pete groaned again at the sound, needing more, needing everything . His fingers found Patrick’s testicles, tucked tight to his body as Patrick’s hands wound into his hair, pulling just the way he liked as he bobbed his head and delighted in the taste of him. Slick, sweet, needing and everything he knew and had wanted through lives untold coated his mouth and another need gripped him as Patrick huffed out whining cries as he rocked his hips. Pulling off he bit gently at the line where his hips met his body, the way Patrick’s thighs trembled lighting a fire deep in his belly.

“God--wanted to do this so bad last time.” He mumbled. “Can’t believe the damn thing sunk before I could.” He pushed Patrick’s legs up and ignored the choked gasp from above, nose trailing across his taint as he spread his cheeks wide and buried his face against him. Closer, closer, closer his brain beat like a skipping drum as he licked and sucked, fingers flitting deep inside as he opened him up and slid his tongue between them. Patrick was writhing, gasping curses in English, Welsh, Egyptian and who knew what else between hoarse cries as he worked his own cock--Pete could feel the motion of it, could feel the twitches of powerful muscles as they worked him over in time. His own hips rolled against the mattress, spine going shock straight as Patrick cried out his name as he pressed his fingertips against that place deep inside.

Pulling free, he surged up the bed and captured his mouth, tears stinging the corners of his eyes and he didn’t care. “Please, pleasepleaseplease .” He gasped out against his mouth and Patrick shifted, arm moving and then a bottle of lube was against his chest as Patrick shoved him to his back with a possessive light in his eyes. He didn’t speak as he slicked him up, just bit his lip and grinned at the way Pete’s hips arched up off the mattress as he coated his cock in lube, fingers lingering against the head and that spot just beneath it that drove him wild . But then he was sinking down, tight heat enveloping his dick and he felt like dying as Patrick gasped and rocked his hips. He felt his own thighs trembling as Patrick rode him, thrusting down with their fingers laced together as he fucked him down into the mattress. Something about it though...Pete wanted to be closer , nearer, needed it like he needed music and light and air. “Wait.” He gasped, and Patrick’s hips stilled immediately.

“What’s wrong? Are you--”

“Nothing.” Pete shook his head, pushing him off and scrambling up to kneel behind him. “I just--I need you closer.” Spreading Patrick’s legs, he lined up and eased in, relishing the tremble that shook Patrick’s spine as he bottomed out. He wrapped his arms around the love of every life he’d ever lived and pulled him down to rest against his lap, burying his face in his neck and holding him close. Patrick gasped as he began to thrust, gentle, shallow movements that kept his cock deep inside and that he knew would make him see starlight behind his eyelids.

“ Pete .” Patrick gasped out as he wrapped an arm back, pulling him closer as his hips began to roll with him, knocking the breath from Pete’s lungs as he mumbled iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou over and over into his neck as he slid his hand down from bracketing his hips to wrap around his cock. Patrick grunted, groaning out Godyesmore and Pete felt the end hurtling toward him as he thrust harder and tried desperately to keep time between his hand and his hips. The room seemed to close in around them both, time slowing and liquifying as Patrick’s back arched and he shouted out his name. His hips jolted once, twice as his cock pulsed in Pete’s hand and he ground down as he came wet and endless, body constricting and pulling the infinite ending from Pete as he thrust a final time.

He didn’t remember pulling out, or wiping them clean, or laying down...but somehow, his face was pressed to Patrick’s neck and strong arms were wrapped around him. His toes curled as he felt the way his body trembled in the aftermath and couldn't help but smile at the way Patrick’s chest was heaving under his cheek. Tangling his fingers in the silky, sweat-damp hair curling at the nape of his neck, he pressed a gentle kiss to whatever skin he could reach.

“I fucking love you.” He whispered and Patrick hummed, pressing a kiss to his forehead as he murmured the words back. Sleep tugged at him and he fought, pushing it away as he squeezed his eyes shut and squeezed Patrick tighter...but it won, carrying them both away until a grating, annoying digital tone jolted them both awake. Patrick grunted and rolled over, grabbing at his pants on the floor until he pulled free a battered cell phone and squinted at the screen, tapping something before throwing it on the floor and rolling back to Pete.

“Joe says I’m an asshole for leaving him on the doorstep.”

“Shit.” Pete mumbled, wondering how many texts he’d find when he found his own sidekick. “What did you say?”

“I told him that my mom got sick and I had to drive her to the ER.” A mischievous smile flitted around his lips as he shrugged. “We should be good now.”

Pete nodded, eyes roaming over this Patrick and an errant thought struck him, so ridiculous that he snorted. “Oh my God, is your mom going to come home and accuse me of taking your innocence? Are you old enough for--”

“I’m seventeen, dickwad.” Patrick rolled his eyes and pinched his side, laughter in his eyes as he pushed Pete’s head down to bury into the bed as he tugged the covers up over them. “Plus, I don’t think the law was written for someone who’d reincarnated a billion times.”

That seemed reasonable, when Pete considered it...but the mention of it made his mind begin to spin again as he unburied himself and laid his head on the pillow. “Do you...do you really think we hit a hundred? Is that why we both remember?”

“I don’t know.” Patrick whispered. “I mean…I guess we’ll find out, if neither of us die when you’re twenty-seven.” Pete nodded--that seemed reasonable. But there was something in Patrick’s eyes, something in the set of his jaw that told Pete he wasn’t done thinking. Sure enough, he was right. “What’s...what’s the last thing? Like the last time you remember us?”

“The Titanic , duh.” He smiled ironically. “What is it with us and boats?” Patrick shook his head, lip bitten between straight, white teeth and Pete knew that look. Knew what those creases between his brows meant. “What?”

“You...you don’t remember the March? Living in Maryland?” Patrick asked, hesitance plain on his face when Pete shook his head no. “Do you remember Ida?”

“What are you talking about? We never lived in Maryland.” Pete felt ice trickle down his spine, that twitch of fear when you wondered if the floor was about to drop out from under your feet. He pushed himself up onto his knees, skin vibrating out of time with his heart as he realized Patrick wasn’t meeting his eyes. “ Patrick , what are you talking about ?!”

“...You had a wife, and...a little girl named Nellie.” Patrick rasped, tears thick in his throat as Pete reared back, pulling the sheet up to cover himself in a bizzare, misplaced gesture of modesty.

“ What the fuck ?!” He pushed back, back slamming against the wall as he scrambled away from something he couldn’t imagine, a past he didn’t remember and couldn’t stomach. His mind whirled, wondering how many other times he’d fucked up, how many other lives that he had failed so completely and left Patrick...His mind screeched to a halt, skidding up against a memory of rising water and warm arms around him as he took his last breath. “On the Titanic . You--you promised, you promised you’d find me. You promised.” He realized he was shouting, voice scratching and screeching as he felt betrayal so black and bleak wrap around his lungs like tar. “ You fucking promised!”

“Pete!!” Patrick was kneeling in front of him now, hands on his shoulders and heartbroken fury blazing in his eyes. “Listen to me, asshole. I found you when I was almost twenty-four. We would have only had a year together, and for what?”

“--For what?!” Pete screamed, vision churning red. “Is that what this all is to you? Do you think this is all a waste--”

“ Nellie would have lost her father twice!!” Patrick bellowed, pushing him back against the wall and shaking him, red-faced fury incongruous with the tears streaming down his cheeks. “Think about it, you asshole. If I had convinced you to kiss me, then what? You stay with them and be miserable because you made a perfectly reasonable choice? Or if you left them for me--Nellie would have lost you, and then you would have died a year later .”

The truth of it hit Pete like a ton of bricks, vision of a daughter he didn’t remember but somehow still loved wavering through the tears in his eyes as Patrick’s words settled under his skin, seeping in like ice. He closed his eyes, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth, reaching for the calm his therapist had always encouraged him to find.

“I’m--” Patrick coughed, the sound phleghmy and full of heartbreak. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t ruin her life, and your wife’s. I knew they’d have to live with losing you--I couldn’t do it to them twice.” Opening his eyes, Pete unclenched his fingers from the sheets, wincing at the ache as blood flowed back into the joints, and settled his hands on Patrick’s thighs, finally daring to meet his eyes.

“What did you do?”

Patrick closed his eyes and his nostrils flared as he breathed in… “I had the apartment above you guys. We...I just tried to spend time with you as much as I could.” His eyelids flickered open and blue eyes filled with steel met Pete’s. “I promised that I’d find you, and I kept my promise.”

Blowing his breath out, Pete nodded...mind racing but he couldn't argue. “I--I’m sorry.” Patrick’s hand came down to twine with his, and saw forgiveness in his eyes. “I guess we should like...write down what we each remember, huh?”

That was how Patrick’s mom found them...sprawled in the basement with Pete’s notebooks strewn around them with disjointed poetry scribbled on creased pages. Patrick had tucked away the notebook where they were writing down all their lives, standing with a smile and introducing the potential bassist of their potential band to his mother. Pete had stood and surreptitiously wiped his eyes, hoping they weren’t still red and gave Mrs. Stumph his best smile as he realized this was the first time he’d ever gotten to meet a relation of Patrick’s. She had, of course , invited him to dinner and he had rubbed his foot against Patrick’s calf the whole time...just to make sure he was real.

“What do you want to do? I mean, if this really is our hundredth life...this could be it.” Patrick asked him that night, Pete tucked into his twin bed after sneaking back in after bidding them goodbye with promises to come back for the neighborhood barbeque. “This could be all we have.”

Shaking his head, Pete pushed up to his elbow to look down at him. His mind flashed with all the lives they had lived--a hundred lives full of love and loss--and smiled. “Hey, don’t look at it like that.” He brushed a gentle kiss to his lips, full of apology and the full knowledge of the hundred lives they had lived together. “This means we can do anything .”

The final, AMAZING piece by @the_chaotic_panda! I seriously cried when I saw this, if I could have a book cover for this story, this would be it!