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When Nile gets back from the grocery store, Booker is sitting on the steps to the house smoking a cigarette that looks like it was rolled before 1815. Andy is leaning against the side of the steps, her head even with Booker’s hips. She has her arm slung over her eyes and looks like she’s trying to nap. Of all the things that don’t make sense about immortality, Andy’s sleep schedule is the biggest mystery.
“You don’t want to go in there, ma chère,” Booker sneers.
“Why not?”
“Trust, him, Nile,” Andy mutters without raising her head or moving her arm. “I wouldn’t recommend it in any situation except this one. Trust. Him.”
“What’s going on? Is someone hurt?”
“Just don’t do it,” Booker continues, “there are things in there you can’t unsee.”
Now she’s worried, imagining gruesome deaths and dismembered bodies. Booker catches the concern on her face and flashes a grin paired with a wiggle of his eyebrows.
“What could possibly be happening in there that I can’t handle? Are Joe and Nicky doing it in the middle of the kitchen?!” she asks in mock horror.
From under her arm, Andy groans, “it’s so much worse.”
Nile rolls her eyes, gingerly side-stepping Booker as she moves up the stairs, but making sure the grocery bag gently whaps him in the face as she passes. She marches determinedly through the door and toward the kitchen, when Billy Joel’s voice reaches her ears from the record player that sits on the border between the kitchen and the living room.
But then if you're so smart, then tell me
Why are you still so afraid?
From where she’s standing, Joe and Nicky could have become one person, as if the regrowing powers had gotten horrifically, if understandably, confused. They might have once been dancing, but now all the tension that dancing requires has fled. Joe holds Nicky’s left hand in his right, fingers intertwined, hands dangly by their sides. He presses close to Nicky, quietly drifting his other hand up and down his back.
But you know that when the truth is told
That you can get what you want or you just get old
Nicky’s free hand grasps at the back of Joe’s head, his face buried in Joe’s neck, their shoulders exactly even.
It’s not like she hasn’t seen them tangled up before. Even after easy deaths - Jesus, has she already started to think like that - Joe clings to Nicky like he’s drowning and Nicky’s a door too small for two. But that’s not what this is. They’re not holding on, they’re just holding, swaying slightly to the music like it’s an after thought to whatever is passing between them now.
Too bad but it's the life you lead
You're so ahead of yourself that you forgot what you need
Realizing that she has been standing watching them unnoticed for far too long, Nile lightly drops the grocery bags on the floor, announcing herself with a gentle thud.
Nicky raises his head and smiles at her full are warmth, no shame or embarrassment anywhere to be found. He disentangles himself and announces “Niles' home,” like she’d been gone for years and traveled miles, instead spending a half an hour at the corner store.
When will you realize, Vienna waits for you?