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Nicholas looks just like in the pictures.
Well, not completely--the kind, familiar, less shy smile is gone, replaced with shock and relief and guilt and wonder--
It's strange, seeing him in person, Curtain thinks. He looks the same as he did. He looks like a warped reflection. He still doesn't tame those curls.
Nicholas looks at him, eyes wide and a little wet. "Nathaniel," he breathes, and Curtain hasn't heard that name spoken aloud in a very long time.
"Nicky," he bites out, raising an eyebrow and relishing the flinch it garners.
And then--Curtain registers it before Nicholas does, he steps forward and--
Nicholas crumples, eyes fluttering shut, and almost on instinct, Curtain steps forward to catch him, just in time.
...
Oh.
He's. He's holding his brother.
He'd gotten used to catching Nicky when he fell asleep--their narcolepsy developed around the same time, but presented differently. And Nicky helped him remember what happened when he blanked out, while Nathaniel caught him when he fell.
Nathaniel had gotten better at "giving him naps" too--jokes that made him break from the restrained giggle to a full, undignified cackle, until he collapsed into his brother's arms and woke up confused but grinning. He still had less fun "naps", caused by anxiety and stress, but Nathaniel was never too far to help.
They'd been a pair, taking care of each other. But things had gone wrong at some point.
...For a moment, he is not LD Curtain, headmaster of the Institute.
And the man in his arms, limp and asleep, isn't Mr. Benedict, his enemy.
For a moment, they are Nathaniel and Nicky: brothers, twins.
(He was warm, and alive, and obviously he had known that, but seeing it for himself, feeling it--it was strange. He'd been bitter and coldly angry for so long, past worry that his brother may have gotten hurt and into the rage at being abandoned, that it was incredibly strange to feel... relief. He'd missed him. He'd missed him.)
Nicholas twitches in his arms and begins to stir, and the moment is gone.
Curtain waits a beat before shoving him off, just in time for him to wake up and stumble slightly--as if he'd only nodded off for a second, rather than more like a minute.
It didn't matter who he was. No one could get in Curtain's way--the Improvement must go forward, and no one, especially not Nicholas Benedict, was going to stop him.
Seeing him from a distance and seeing him like this, up close and in person and looking at him, were completely different things.
He looks... healthy. Okay. Alive. So achingly familiar.
"Nathaniel," Mr. Benedict breathes, and his brother--his brother, god, it really is him, he'd known it was but seeing it--
his brother says, cold and mocking, "Nicky."
Oh. Oh, he hadn't heard that in--in a very long time. He hadn't heard his brother's voice in a very long time, not really, even though the ghost of it lingered every time he spoke aloud.
Mr. Benedict blinks, hard, and his brother steps forward and--
...
He wakes up to the fleeting impression of warmth, just for a moment, and then he's shoved and he stumbles back and manages to right himself and looks up--
His brother.
His brother, standing in front of him, who just--had he--?
Nathaniel looks at him coldly, no sign of any emotion or affection on his face.
And yet no bruises, no ache, no waking up on the floor or tied to a chair or something... how long had he been out...?