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It’s early in the morning when Papi comes to him with his dreams of escape. Louis looks up at him, startled and shaken from his sleep.
“It’s all about the waves,” Papi says, almost breathless, removing his hand a leaning back a little. He’s practically vibrating with an energy that seems so foreign from the almost wordless and passive silence he’s been holding onto since his return from solitary.
“What. What are you talking about?” Louis blinks up at him, slowly.
“What do you think I’m talkin’ about,” Papillon responds as if it’s obvious. There’s a little smile on his face. And all at once, Louis understands. Maybe it should have been obvious. This is Papillon after all.
No. He can’t be thinking of that.
He can’t be thinking of that.
“Oh, go back to bed. That’s suicide, not escape,” Louis shakes his head, dismissive and firm.
“No, listen. All we need to do is build raft and get it to the ocean.” Papillon continues on, and Louis watches his face as he listens, and he knows in that moment that Papillon has already decided. “The tide will take us straight to the mainland. Just come and see. Come and see!”
Louis wants to tell him to stop this madness, this wild train of thought, but something about the excitement in Papi’s tone has him rising to his feet, and leaving his blanket behind where it falls on the floor. He can’t help but get up and follow after him as fast as he’s able. He limps along behind him, and stands beside him once they’ve reached the top.
Papi throws a coconut into the river, and he grips Louis’s shoulder as they watch it come up to the surface, and float on the ocean. “See! we ride the current to freedom.” Louis can’t help but smile up at him, drawn in by the excitement and the thought of Papi getting away from this place.
Somehow, even in that first moment he feels convinced that he won’t be going with Papillon. It’s a thought he keeps to himself.
Louis has become comfortable here. These past five years he has managed to create a life for himself. It isn’t anything like the life he would have chosen, but it’s a structured routine that fills his days and passes the time. He has a way to create art. It will never feel like home, especially after Papillon leaves, but it has become somewhere he can occupy space and while away the rest of his days without too much unpleasantness.
He would most likely die attempting to escape. Louis has never been strong. Papillon was the strong one.
But there is more to it than that, and it’s the more that really holds him back from committing to the plan in his mind.
Louis feels like he deserves to be here. Maybe he didn’t at the start. Yes, he was a criminal -- a forger. But being here has changed him. There was the one night on the boat: the night when blood covered his hands. He had held that knife and stabbed it into another man’s flesh again and again. He would have just kept going if Papi hadn’t pulled him back.
Stop! Enough.
It had to be done. He knows it. They would both be dead if it hadn’t been done. But the memory of it clings to him and the thought of how easily he would do it again fills him with guilt that he can’t seem to shake.
Maybe he deserved to be here even before. He was here for crimes he had actually committed, after all.
But Papillon is a different story. Papi: the son of two school teachers. Papi: the man who would choose the life of someone he hardly knew over his own.
Papillon is here for a murder he had not committed -- the man who never wanted anyone to die, sentenced for the one thing he never wanted to do, and avoided at all costs.
Papi deserves freedom.
Papi needs to be free.
If I ever get out, I’m going to live a different kind of life.
He decides, as they walk back, that he will go along with this plan until the last minute. He can’t give Papi too long to think about it. That wild, selflessly protective side of him that had seemed so alien to Louis at first would come out. He hadn’t known anyone could have that kind of fierce, wild loyalty for a person before he met Papillion.
Louis cannot give Papi too much time to convince him to come along, either. Louis would be too easy to convince. He can barely let Papi out of his sight as it is.
Louis is scared and he’s filled with a guilt that makes him feel tied to where he is. So he keeps his true plans to himself.
It’s better this way.
---
Papillon is vibrating with excitement as they make their rafts, and Louis can’t help but get caught up in it. The sun has long since set and the fire is bright, casting shadows and light around their little abode. Louis looks up from the fire and the look on Papillon’s face makes him catch his breath. There’s a spark in his eyes that Louis was afraid had died long ago, somewhere among those years in solitary.
He packs things away -- things for Papi to remember him by. He feels like he’s packing a part of himself and the thought is somehow comforting. He wonders if Papillon will remember him, or if the memory of Louis will fade once there is time and space between them, and Papi is living his new life in the free world.
He studies the lines in Papi’s face when he isn’t looking, and the softness of his graying hair. He knows he will never forget.
—-
The night before, Papillon surprises him by laying down beside him. Louis puts a hand on Papillon’s arm, feeling the warmth of his skin beneath his fingers. It’s been so long since he’s touched anyone.
“What will we do, when we’re away from here?” Louis asks, voice so quiet in the still night air.
Papillon takes his hand, and curls their fingers together, pulling their intertwined hands to his chest. “We’ll find new names. Be new people. Live a different life,” his voice is dreamy and tired with sleep. “We will live somewhere quiet and safe. You’ll paint, and have a garden, with chickens running around.”
There’s something about Papillon assuming that they will stay together after they make it out of here that makes something swell in Louis’s chest, and he knew it’s what he wanted, but hearing that Papi wants it too is an entirely different thing.
He has never pictured them together after this. He always figured Papi would be finished with him after they were done here.
“We’ll be together?”
Papi looks down at Louis, “I want us to be together. I thought you wanted that too, but maybe I’ve misjudged. Do you?” His voice is calm and quiet, his face serious.
If Louis says no , it will make tomorrow easier for both of them, but he nods yes, because it’s the truth. He untangles his hand from Papi’s and lifts it to his cheek, caressing it and tracing the line of his jaw. Papillon shivers under his touch.
“What will you do?”
“I’ll write.”
“About?”
“This,” Papillon says. “You. Julot. Maturettte. Everything.”
He should probably tell Papillon now that he doesn’t plan on going along -- about the guilt and fear that plague his mind and make this plan feel impossible to go along with, but he can’t bring himself to open his mouth and say the words. Once he does there will be no taking them back. Instead, Louis squeezes Papi’s hand and curls his body into him, counting his breaths until they are both asleep.
---
He almost thinks he won’t say it until the words are out. He keeps thinking he can hold the thoughts inside and take the leap until the thinks of the guilt and the fear and then all at once, the words are out. They are standing there in the sunshine with their rafts. The sound and smell of the ocean is all around them.
He swallows, and looks at Papi, and he says it: “I need to stay.”
Papillon looks back at him, so confused, and questions him, as if he has said something completely nonsensical: “What are you talking about?”
Louis takes a breath. “I need to stay. For the same reason you have to go. I belong here.”
It’s a lie -- he doesn’t belong to this place. He belongs to the man in front of him, a man with eyes still full of life, despite everything. The man who chose Louis’s life over his own more than once -- who said he would leave with or without Louis and then came back for him.
No one had ever cared for Louis that much, and no one ever would. He didn’t even know that kind of love existed until he met Papillon.
No, he will never belong to this place, but this is where he should be. This isolated island offers a routine, and a kind of safety. He can survive here.
Louis deserves to be here.
“It’s okay; it’s good,” he continues, in Papillon’s stunned silence, and that’s when he finally moves. He reaches for Louis and he pulls him in and Louis can feel the tight grip he has on his shoulder, and he hears his sobs, and then all at once he’s crying too.
Louis looks down and away when they break apart, unable to look straight at Papillon, because if he does he will take it all back and grab him and never let go. “Go on now, you don’t want to waste any more time.”
Papillon makes no move to get the raft. It’s like he’s frozen in his spot, his eyes flickering up and down Louis’s face, and Louis wonders what he sees, other than the deep scar on his cheek and tears that he hasn’t even bothered to wipe away.
“Dega -- Louis, you don’t belong here,” is all he says.
“But I do,” Louis counters. “You should have never been here in the first place. I’m here for something I actually did,” he swallows, and looks away, thinking of the knife and the blood, and the way Papillon had to pry the knife from his hands. “I’ve done worse since I’ve gotten here. I’ve done the thing you didn’t do.”
This is what separates them, in his mind. He had done what Papillon hadn’t -- what he had tried to avoid at all costs, so many times.
No one dies.
No one needs to die.
Papi sucks in a breath. “You...you saved my life that day. You saved both of our lives. You did what you had to do. If you didn’t, he would have killed us, you. I wouldn’t be here -- you wouldn’t be here.”
“I would do it again,” Louis says. “I would kill, again. In the same situation, I would do it again. I wouldn’t hesitate.” He can still feel that savage furvor that drove him that evening. He knows it would come back.
“I would too,” Papi tells him, and Louis shakes his head, ready to protest, but Papi holds up a hand: “I mean it. I would. If it would save you, I would do it. I’d protect you. That’s what you were doing: protecting me. ” Louis looks back up at him and meets his eyes and Papi stares right back. Louis feels selfish for the thrill that goes through him at the words -- for knowing that it’s true, without a doubt. Papillon has done so much for him -- suffered so much for him. Papillon would do anything for him, even the thing he hates the thought of most of all.
It’s completely overwhelming.
In all of his guilt over what he had done Louis had never really thought about what had happened in the way that Papillon described it. He had never thought about the difference between motives and the reason behind what he did, and what had made him feel that wild and desperate. The thought of anything happening to Papillon had driven him on that night. He would have done anything.
Louis had never cared about anyone like that: so strongly that he would do anything to protect them, making him abandon all fear and restraint. He had never had anyone care for him that much either.
It’s strange that he had learned of such things here, of all places.
Papillon continues, interrupting his thoughts. “You forged documents. You may have earned your spot here for a time, but it’s not worthy of being here forever. You don’t belong here. You don’t .”
“Maybe not,” Louis says. He looks away to the water. “But I wouldn’t make it. I’m not as strong as you.”
“You’re stronger than you think,” Papi says. “You made it all that time without me. We’re both survivors,” Louis looks back at him and finds him looking at the waves below. “We could both die, but we could also live . We could get to have a life ,” his voice breaks as he looks back down at Louis. “I don’t want to go without you.”
Louis can feel the tears returning to his eyes, but maybe they’ve been slowly falling for a while now. “Don’t tell me you won’t go without me.”
Papi shakes his head, and his eyes are so sad that Louis can hardly look at him. “I won’t. I’m going either way.”
Weirdly, this is comforting: that Papi doesn’t want to leave without him, but he will -- that they both want the same thing. It’s Louis that is denying both of them. It’s this thought that makes Louis feel like maybe he can give himself a chance to have what they both want.
Louis breathes a shaky breath, and reaches forward, taking one of Papi’s hands, holding it to his chest, for strength. He's not strong, but Papi is.
“I’ll have a garden, with chickens,” He says.
“Yes,” Papi breathes, quiet and apprehensive.
“I’ll get to paint.”
“As much as you want.”
“You’ll write.”
“I’ll write.”
Maybe this isn’t what he deserves, but it’s what he wants, and he’s scared to death, but he decides he’s going to take it.
He’s never been a risk taker, but maybe he can take a risk, just this once.
He’s probably going to die.
He squeezes Papi’s hand even tighter. “Okay. Okay.”
Papillon grins, that free and open smile. He pulls Louis in and kisses him, and they’re both breathless when they break away but Papi breathes: “Okay.”
They throw the rafts over, and Papillon takes Louis’s hand. “We jump together," Papillon says, and Louis looks at him and nods.
He feels Papillon’s hand warm in his. Alive.
They run. They jump.
And somehow, he is not afraid.
---
The chickens crowd around Louis as he wanders through the garden, chattering amongst themselves in their own language. There’s rows of vegetables in the gardens, grown to sell and to eat, but he can’t help taking up a good part of the garden with flowers.
He loves filling his world with beautiful things.
“See you later, girls,” he tells them, as he picks up his basket of eggs and heads off towards the house. When he’s inside, he drops the basket off on the table before walking over to where Henri is sitting at his desk. The window is open behind him, and the breeze ruffles through the pages scattered on the desk’s surface.
“I think I’ve finished it,” Henri says, as Louis walks close, and bends down to kiss him. He takes Louis’s hand when he pulls back. “Sit down and I’ll read it to you.”
There was a time when Louis would have said no, back in those first days when it felt like this life could slip away and the wounds were still so fresh. But now, he feels the breeze from the open window, and hears the birds outside, and he feels Henri’s hand in his -- reminders that this is real. He looks at Henri and his sweet, familiar face that he now knows just as well as his own. Henri, so full of life, right in front of him. He takes a breath and he sits and he listens.