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Snowflakes drifted gently in the dark sky outside the window, landing on the glass panes. In the dim light, Kurt lounged on his bed and watched them fall. It had been snowing all day, and while the fall was soft now, he had a feeling it wouldn’t be letting up tomorrow.
Perhaps a snowy landscape would make for a good exploratory romp around the manor! While he’d arrived just a few days ago, he hadn’t been able to look around outside much. He had, however, been able to get a good feel for the interior, or at least the part of the interior he and the others were allowed to be in.
The others certainly were a cast of characters. Murro was his main concern: the man was timid and tended to keep away from everyone else. He also tried to bring a damn boar inside, which could be seen as respectable, trying to take care of an animal, but…it was a boar. Those things can handle themselves.
There was also William, who was pretty normal. Not much about him stood out to Kurt aside from this normalcy. They’d only spoken a few times, but he could see them getting along.
And…Naib.
Kurt sighed. He really didn’t expect to see him again, especially not here.
Well, that wasn’t the truth. For a while, he did expect to see him again. Hoped to, even. Over the years, though, that hope diminished, turning into a hollow reminiscence on times gone by. Only in dreams, really, had he let himself hope again.
And then, after a strange letter led him to a strange manor, there was Naib—familiar, yet not at all. He was dressed in clothes that swallowed him whole, with shoes that added a few inches to his height. The bags under his eyes were deeper and darker, and there were creases at the sides of his mouth that weren’t there before. He hunched in on himself, trying to hide in plain sight. He looked exhausted.
The first thing Kurt had said after all that time apart wasn’t “Hello! I didn’t forget you!” or, “I said I’d see you again! I was right!” or even a simple, “Naib?”
Instead—in the present he dragged a hand over his face, grimacing—he’d said “Your hair is longer!”
Naib had, of course, been taken aback. Kurt knew he didn’t look the same as he did when they parted, neither of them did, and it only occurred to him after speaking that Naib probably didn’t recognize him. It then amazed him how he had even realized the other man was his old partner.
But then, Naib had said flatly, “You have a beard.”
Kurt had rushed to wrap him in his arms, but Naib went still at his touch. It wasn’t like when they’d parted, when his arms had been pinned to his sides. He was frozen--Naib was startled by his affection, which in turn startled Kurt.
He’d quickly moved on to talking about the manor, asking if Naib knew who owned it or who the other men were. He’d shaken his head and said little.
So much had changed, and yet it was like nothing had.
Kurt, pulling himself out of his thoughts, sat up on his bed. He was never great at getting himself out of his own head, so why?...
Knocking came from the door. He looked at it. It sounded like they’d been there for a while.
“Who is it?” He asked the door.
Whoever was there made a shuffling sound, and then spoke, and suddenly it wasn’t a whoever.
“You’re still awake?” Naib asked him.
Kurt leapt to his feet and the door was open before him in a second. Naib’s eyes widened ever so slightly at his speed, but quickly went back to their unsurpised state. He’d taken his hoodie off. Kurt had mis-remembered how lithe the other man was.
“What time is it?” He said.
Naib shifted his weight. “A little bit after one. Can I come in?”
“Yes! Sure. Of course.” Kurt dodged out of his way, holding the door open. A weird thing he’d noticed was that the doors in this manor closed on their own, and with a loud thump at that. After Naib entered the room, he made sure to close it gently, as to not wake the other residents.
Although…If he hadn’t been to sleep yet, and Naib hadn’t either, there could have been a chance that Murro & William weren’t as well. The thought that they could be up and about made him shiver, though he couldn’t figure out why.
Naib stood in the center, or at least the closest thing to the center, of the room with his arms folded, taking a look around. He was partially in front of one of the windows--the dark sky and the light snow falling behind him was a sight that made Kurt’s throat close up. His longer hair, down from its ponytail, was really something to behold.
They had only been together for a few months before his discharge. It amazed him that feelings like this, from their early days, could resurface like raging waves in an upset sea.
Naib turned to him, and Kurt remembered it was rude to stare, even if you had been madly in love once. He glanced away to the snow, his face burning.
God, why was he even here?
“What do you think about this storm?” He asked, instead of his previous thought.
Naib looked out the window. “Not much of one. It’ll probably pick up tomorrow.”
Kurt stepped closer to him as he turned back again. “Huh. That’s what I was thinking, but you can never really be sure.”
“Hm.” He cleared his throat. “We haven’t talked. Alone, I mean.”
Kurt waited for him to keep talking, and so he did.
“I wasn’t expecting to see you again.”
“I wasn’t either.”
“And at this manor, of all places.”
“...Truth be told, I don’t think I ever thought I’d end up here.”
“That makes two of us, then.”
“It’s a strange place, don’t you agree?”
“I do. But, Kurt, this isn’t what I wanted to talk about.”
His heart sank a little bit, but he knew that no old partner of his would just stop by to make small talk in the wee hours.
It was like the barracks. Some nights, one or both of their restlessness or nightmares would get nasty. When it first started, they’d check if the other was awake, but as time went on, they stopped checking. It didn’t matter if they were or not, because they were welcome to crawl into the other’s bunk whenever they needed to. Kurt thought it was funny, after he’d realized that the pit in his stomach that formed whenever Naib was around was love, that they didn’t realize sooner.
“Are you there?” Naib asked. He was frowning, which he always seemed to be doing now. This was a different frown, though, more of a sad one than a neutral expression.
“Yeah, sorry,” He responded, softly, “Just thinking.”
“Thinking,” Naib repeated to him. “About what?”
Well, there was nothing to lose, really. “You.”
“...What about me?”
“How much I missed you. It’s been a few years.”
“You don’t think I know?” Naib sighed. “Everything is different.”
“It doesn’t have to be--”
“--Yes, Kurt, it does.” There was something in his voice he hadn't heard since he'd been laying in a field, blood dripping from his head. Some sort of anger, or some sort of pain. “I want so badly for things to be the same as they were, but they can’t.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know.” He gestured to himself, “Me,” to Kurt, “You,” then dropped his arms, “Us.”
“Naib, I really don’t understand.”
There was something he wasn’t telling him on purpose. Realizing that was something akin to being shot clean through. It hurt, it hurt so bad. But he had to keep him here, because he had been afraid this was all a dream and he’d wake back up on White Sand Street, and he’d really never see him again.
Now or never, Kurt thought, because he knew they could talk in circles around something. A bitter thing he’d forgotten--they were good at that. “Why are you here?”
“The manor?”
“No. I mean,” now was his turn to gesture, “Here.”
Naib was thinking. He looked at him, closer to his height in his new platform boots. Where a younger Naib would probably have had tears brimming in his eyes, this Naib had nothing, just the faint glow of the dim gas lamp.
“It’s like you said earlier,” He said, “I missed you.”
“...Anything else?”
He exhaled, making a pwoof sound. “Yeah. Yeah, a lot else. I don’t think you should hear most of it, though. …I don’t want you to.”
Kurt completely understood, but he wanted to know. Something had happened to his partner, and it clearly was paining him.
“I get it.”
“Cool. Alright.” He trailed off, and went back to staring out the window. Kurt followed his gaze, with a sort of hollowness he’d never felt weighing on his heart.
As the snow drifted down, Naib said, “I couldn’t sleep.”
“So you came to me?”
“Old habits die hard, I guess.”
Kurt laughed to himself, which was really more of a huff than anything. “I’d do the same, if that makes you feel any better.”
He glanced over, and thought he saw Naib smile ever so slightly.
“It does.”