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Rien n'est petit dans l'amour. Ceux qui attendent les grandes occasions pour prouver leur tendresse ne savent pas aimer.
-Laure Conan
[Nothing is small in love. Those who wait for big occasions to prove their tenderness don't know how to love.]
Nile stirs, cotton sheets and warmth cocooning her in the early morning.
"Seb, your dick is digging into my ass," she grumbles, failing to move with the arm wrapped around her waist.
Booker makes a confused sound, one she feels on the back of her neck more than hears. It only takes him a moment to realize though.
"Oh, désolé," he takes his arm from her waist and lets her fall forward so she's on her stomach on the plush bed.
"'s fine," she mutters against the bed and flaps her hand somewhere in the vicinity of his face to pat him reassuringly. Her finger catches onto something soft and then a bit of hair.
"Ow! That was my eye," he complains.
She snorts into the pillow, too mellow to be awake. God, but she loves a bit of downtime.
"It'll heal," she keeps her hand on his face, finds his protruding nose and traps it between her index and middle finger. "Ah! Got your nose!" she exclaims with the enthusiasm of the recently awakened and the tone she'd use on a three-year-old.
"Nooo. not my nose," Booker replies, so deadpan she can't even pretend to keep the giggles inside.
She waves her hand in the air triumphantly, her thumb caught between her fingers. She's too asleep to keep it straight up too long and it's not like Seb is lunging to reclaim his fakely stolen property.
Once she lets her arm drop, it falls on Booker's chest. His t-shirt is soft under her fingers and it expands and contracts with his steady breathing.
They stay like that, savouring the silence and the quiet, breathing in tandem. A bird chirps outside, muffled by the glass of the closed window. It gets chilly at night so that's why they closed it but she finds herself craving the fresh air. She'll get up to open it… in a minute.
"Do you think the rest are up?" she mumbles. They wait in silence, holding their breath to see if any sound betrays the sound of another awakened inhabitant.
Silence reigns.
"I'll get started on the coffee," Seb says like she knew he would and she grins into her pillowcase.
"Thank you," she sings songs in that way he pretends to hate but actually finds charming.
He grunts a displeased sound at her words and gets up to do as he said. In his wake, Nile rolls to his side of the bed where the sun has started to creep in. The sheets are warm with his lingering body heat and she breathes deeply, getting a lungful of his familiar and comforting smell.
Despite the decades and the changes in habits and fashion she can always tell when one of the coats lying around is one of his instead of Joe's or Nicky’s. It reminds her of Andy’s words with the familiar well-worn ache of grief, about how everything is always changing but not worth dwelling on. Joe’s words once upon a time too echo in her mind, about how much changes and how much remains the same.
She turns to her back, green headscarf whispering against the pillowcase and stares at the ceiling, waiting for a grand realization that she knows isn’t coming.
*
"No!" Nile screams. "You motherfucker!" Rage boils inside her, her most desired objective snapped away right in front of her eyes. So close to victory.
"Oh, sorry, did you want it?" Booker asks around his full mouth.
Full of the last pierogi from last night, which she had been looking forward to snacking on after the gruelling mission. For a brief, delirious moment she considers tackling him and getting her fingers on his mouth to pull it out before he swallows. She wouldn't be able to eat it but neither could he.
"Did I want it?" she echoes him, slow and paused. The colour drains from Booker's face and Nile feels a surge of vindication. "Did I want the pierogi I specifically said last night I wanted to save for today?" She raises her eyebrows, staring him down. He's stopped chewing. "That pierogi?"
"I think I was in the bathroom when you called dibs," he mutters in a much more subdued tone and presses his lips together, as if that will hide the bob of his throat as he swallows.
With an unholy scream, Nile launches herself at him. The last thing she sees before she's on him is the white ring around his panicked pupils.
*
"How are you better at this than me?!" she whines, staring daggers at the small grey rectangle that should be activated with her fingertip on the side but is refusing. Or it does when it's Nile on her own free will, but as soon as it's Booker pressing Nile's own finger to the detector it all works perfectly.
"I'm the one who grew up digitally, this isn't right." She shakes her head at the device and life in general.
Next to her, Booker chuckles and shakes his head fondly. They've been over this way too many times.
"At least you're not Joe," he reassures her and Nile bites her bottom lip against the smile that will ruin her annoyed façade. She can't show the neurolink any weakness, it'll know.
"I heard that!" Joe's voice comes from the other room but no sounds of footsteps follow so they figure they're safe. Seb winks her way and Nile bumps their shoulders together.
"Now, show me how to avoid the ads, please."
*
"Andy and Nicky will be worried if we don't check in," Nile frowns at the passing cars. She used to be able to recognize the models.
"Let's hope Booker charms them well, then."
"Is it hard?" she asks, mind far away from their current lack of funds and means. Or rather acutely aware of it from another angle. She swallows as Joe gives her an inquisitive look. "To love Nicky when we live how we live, doing what we do. Especially after Quỳnh."
They're waiting in a park while Booker gets them a pair of burners from a shady store. They need to contact Andy and Nicky before the sun sets and they start worrying but they lost their encrypted phones during their escape earlier.
The park in front is pretty deserted for the beautiful day it is. There are concrete stairs down the side, with plateaus with built-in tables and chairs for people to sit on. Some are plain and some have checkered surfaces.
At one of them there's a couple of old men sitting and playing chess with no hurry.
"It's not always easy, I won't lie to you about that. We get worried, we get upset, but sometimes it's just that," Joe says and leans against the chainmail fence next to her. It makes an odd squeak in contact with his leather jacket. He jerks his head towards the old men. They're both playing with one hand because the others are linked and immobile on top of the table, keeping a steady point of contact.
"Someone you can spend time with, who makes your life easier with their existence." He gives her a happy grin that she shares. "Nicky and I, we started rough," he chuckles, as if saying understatement of the millenium. "But it just comes down to that, whether you see them in your everyday life for however long you live. Granted, for us that's a bigger consideration but we didn't know that when we got together. It was only when we met Andy and Quỳnh that we learned we weren't ageing. The result is the same, though," he shrugs. "A lot of things change, domesticity remains the same." His eyes get lost in the distance. In the match, the man playing whites takes the black tower and pulls it to the side with the rest of the pieces with a smug grin. The other man rolls his eyes but his gold wedding ring glints in the sunlight when he squeezes his husband's hand.
"That's nice," she mutters, lost in thought.
"Got 'em!" Seb's voice cuts through the relative quiet. "Green for the mademoiselle," he says when he reaches them and hands the phone to her with a flourish. "And purple for the occasionally decent citizen."
"Fuck off, Booker," Joe says but he's grinning. He gives Nile a look she can't quite decipher as she starts bitching about how to work the thing and Booker offers to help her but doesn't say anything.
*
Nile's on her phone, checking news, one cup by her side, another already served and steaming on the counter.
"Hey," Seb snaps her out of her concentration when he greets her with a nod, lips curling softly on the side as their eyes meet.
"Hey," she echoes and nods back. She raises her eyebrows at the smile on his face, questioning in a curious but happy way.
Instead of replying, he nods back, a little sharper than he did before. A question and challenge of his own. Nile lets the hand holding her phone go slack as she squares her shoulders, dark brown eyes glinting with amusement as she jerks her chin higher. He puffs up his chest in retaliation, chin almost to the sky with how he's angling it up. He walks closer in tight posturing steps, hips stiff and shoulders tense to emphasize his big frame.
By the time he makes it to her side, he can't quite look at her, head towards the ceiling. She laughs first, which means she lost but it's worth it when Booker relaxes and leans back down to drop a kiss on her forehead, soft and breathy around his own chuckle.
"Bonjour, mademoiselle," he greets her, all posturing melted at the warmth shining in her gaze.
"Bonj-," her soft greeting gets cut off into an indignant squeal as she realizes the arm going in front of her is not going around her waist but swiping her coffee cup. Booker backs away fast, already taking a big gulp. "Hey! That's mine, you French fuck!" Her phone clatters on the table and she scrambles to follow him. She can't understand how he keeps the hot coffee from spilling while laughing and dodging her but there had better be some left when she reclaims it. "Why do I bother making you a cup if you're gonna steal mine?" she demands in a grumble.
"What can I say, yours has the sweet taste of victory, love." Blue eyes glinting he starts chugging it, batting her hands away and making use of his taller frame in the most unfair way.
*
They're doing surveillance from a bench across a restaurant they believe is a mob front. It's chilly and Nile is studiously ignoring the voice that sounds suspiciously like Joe's about the jacket she refused earlier. Booker is on his phone or whatever it is that passes as a phone nowadays and doing a remarkable job of appearing uncaring of anything but its contents.
Nile shifts in place, dares take out a hand from the meagre cosiness of her hoodie's pocket and pokes him on the side. Booker grumbles, makes a disgruntled sound but otherwise doesn't move. She tries again. And again.
"Bah, merde! Qu'est le problème?" he finally turns to her, a frown on his forehead. Okay, maybe he wasn't pretending to be engrossed. He stares at her, waiting for her explanation.
"I'm bored," she replies, with the sweetest, most doe-eyed look she can muster. He's always such a sucker for it.
As expected, he sighs but the frown melts off his forehead and with a grumbled complaint that loses all heat with the way he's biting down a smile, he digs into his pocket and pulls out a familiar pair of headphones.
"Love you," she tells him as she takes the little things from his slack fingers and preemptively dances in place.
"Yeah yeah, just don't miss anything, we still have two hours of this before we can call this a bust."
Accompanied by music, the two hours fly by. She keeps a mental tally of comings and goings but most seem like normal patrons out for a bite. A little boy comes out with gloves clutched in his little hand, excitedly chattering with his father. It's so cute she pokes Booker again so that he'll see it too. His expression softens in that way it only does when kids are in sight and she grins before turning back to the job at hand.
She's scrolling through her music library, tapping and swiping with increasing frustration as no move reveals the specific album she's searching for when Booker tugs on one of her braids.
"Ouch," she complains even though it didn't hurt and pouts just so see him roll his eyes.
"Let's go, if the boss didn't arrive by now he's not coming today."
"Nicky won't like this," she grumbles. He's infiltrated the organization and is hating every second of it. They have to hurry before any of the criminals get on their heads that he should be initiated before climbing any more ranks.
"There's always the Andy way," Booker muses as they start down the street, one arm around her shoulders, his big frame shielding her from the cold.
She snorts, the air coming out in a cloud as the temperature drops .
"She'd love that, but Copley would kill us," she counters.
Booker squeezes her shoulder in acknowledgement of what she isn't saying, that she wouldn't like it either. Besides, coming in and offing everyone in the building hardly dismantles the wider network of crime and exploitation actually in place.
"We'll get them soon. With a team like this, how couldn't we?"
*
Booker is standing in front of the bookcase, scanning titles for something to read or perhaps for his most recent hunt for a first edition. Nile comes out of her bedroom and takes a moment to just stare at him for a second.
He's grown out his hair and beard, which has driven her to make many outdated jokes about him being a bohemian white boy.
He's sporting a tan now from the summer in these parts. It suits him, makes his crinkles more pronounced and his blue eyes all the more prominent. They're not sad anymore, something that never fails to make Nile happy too.
Seized by an overwhelming surge of happiness and giddiness that these people are in her life, she comes forward and as she passes him, reaches out and pinches his side. Hard.
The break is instantaneous, Booker lets out an ow! and she squeals as she dodges his first sweeping hand.
"Fuck that hurt!" he starts after her. Nile laughs loudly as she vaults over the couch.
"It's healed, don't be a baby," she needles him from behind the desk.
"Is that how it is?" Booker crouches to wait, ready to lunge at whichever side she goes for. He raises his eyebrows in a challenge.
"Yeah, baby, that's how it is," she shoots back. Her grin is wide and carefree.
He catches her on the left, her shorter steps still no match for his long legs. She squeals and laughs in his arms and they wrestle for the upper hand, using any and every dirty trick they know.
He wins because Nile is too ticklish and his fingers are clever.
*
Andy's skin is papery under her fingers, the blue veins visible and dotted with liver spots. Her grip remains strong as ever.
"Nile," she grins and Jesus, past the wrinkles, it's the same smirk she gave Nile at the top of Merrick’s tower, decades and so many of Nile's lives ago. "Listen to me, life–," she starts and Nile can't stop her eyebrow from raising. Andy sees it and rolls her eyes, waves her hand in between them, dismissing her unspoken smart-ass comment about Andy and her life lessons. "Don't get cheeky," which of course is a great opening for Nile to wink her way, dimpling her extremely cute cheeks. "What I was trying to say is that life sometimes is much easier than it seems. There's no need to overthink everything, yes? Change happens all the time, even when we think things are staying the same." Her pale eyes are serious now on Nile's and she frowns, trying to parse what she means. "If it feels right, it probably is. And if you're wrong, well, there's very few things that time can't heal." She looks over Nile's shoulder then, towards the kitchen where Quỳnh is making them tea and the boys are lounging at the table, stealing the pastries behind her back. Nile wonders if they realize that the knife holder in front of Quỳnh is reflective and the game is more about whether she'll call them out on it or not.
"Most things happen while we're looking the other way," Andy keeps going so Nile turns back to look at her. "While we're busy with other things."
"Alright," Nile acquiesces, unsure whether she got everything she meant.
"Things will be busy, Nile. Always. You know that by now. And they'll get worse for a while." She squeezes her hand and Nile feels a lump in her throat. The prospect of her death has been touched many times, but the way you'd get a hot pan out of the oven with a wet rag: fast and always misjudging how much it burns. "So just, don't think too much."
“Easy for you to say,” she jokes, thick with sarcasm and Andy grins, wrinkled but as bright as ever.
*
Booker is on the couch, sitting rigidly and staring down a full, unopened bottle of bourbon on the table. It's late and Nile woke up after a dream where she was Dizzy and her brother was her when she got his throat cut. Except he didn't get up.
She tried to fall back asleep but the longer she laid in bed trying to forget, the harder her lip wobbled and the tighter her throat got. Even now her eyes are still burning in the darkness.
She must make a sound because Booker turns towards her. His eyes are bloodshot and her chest aches in a new way.
"I hate jobs with kids, is that a bad thing to say?" she asks the air, not expecting an answer. She loves to save them, of course she does, but they remind her of her little brother so much. All it takes is one look for them to burrow under her skin past all her barriers and awaken that fierce need to protect ingrained in her. It drives her to her best work but when they lose one, it just hurts so much.
"Je comprends," Booker mutters, eyes straying from her and getting lost in his own personal hell. His is more tangible than hers, Brandon is alive in Chicago, married and with kids close to having kids of their own. Booker's kids died hating him.
On the couch he shifts in place, not overtly but enough for her to get his invitation. She comes near immediately. The glass of the bottle glints in the moonlight.
She climbs to the couch and curls on his side, winding her arm around him as he does the same with her.
"He always separated his Oreos, first ate the cream and then the cookie," she tells an indistinct point in the middle distance. She doesn't need to say who he is, Booker knows. "I wonder if he misses them now that they've been discontinued. I do. As stupid as it is to miss a brand."
"Jean-Pierre hated the beach. A bad trait in a port city."
And that's how they continue throughout the night, exchanging facts and anecdotes. They grow parched but the bottle remains unopened. It's an exercise in memory for both of them.
Here's a piece of my history, please keep it safe. Don't let me forget the people that loved me and shaped me and I won't forget yours.
Nicky finds them awake and wrapped around each other in the morning. He greets them softly, offers coffee which they both accept and kisses them both on the forehead on his way to the kitchen.
*
Nile stumbles into the kitchen, balance shot as she uses her hands to untie her nighttime headwrap. The green fabric unwinds with an ease that doesn't belie the relief it is for her. She makes a happy sound at the release of pressure and the heady smell of coffee reaching her nostrils.
Booker is leaning against the counter, looking at her with sleepy eyes and happy crinkles around his baby blues. Just as she knew he would.
"Bonjour," he greets her and she hums in reply, not feeling up to words.
The sunlight streams through the windows onto the floor, heating the arch of her foot and she flexes her weight in a stretch, popping joints and relaxing into the warmth.
Once she opens her eyes, Booker is holding out her cup. It's steaming and she takes it from his warm fingers, coming close and remaining there. She takes a sip, closes her eyes at the taste, coffee that isn't quite as bitter as she remembers from her teenage years so it has less milk and sugar.
"Parfait," she praises, eyes barely open as she leans forward and drops a kiss on Seb's lips.
They're warm from his own coffee as he kisses back. The beard he keeps now, only a little longer than when they first met, prickles her skin. The sunlight envelops them, his t-shirt is soft under the pads of her fingers. His hand is warm on her waist, a familiar and always welcomed contact.
She draws back, lips stretching into a grin that will stop being sleepy in thirty minutes and meets his half-lidded eyes. The sun lights him from behind, turning his short blond hair into a glowing aura.
"Merci, Sébastien," she whispers in the close space between them.
"Bien sûr, pas souci," he mutters back and guides her gently to lean on the counter next to him. They sip their coffee in silence, leaning against one another as they have done for countless mornings.
The sun warms her back and Booker drops a kiss on her head.
She burrows into his big frame, earning a chuckle.
"This still doesn't pay the ransom on your nose," she warns him, raising the coffee in explanation.
His eyes crinkle at the corners. His chest rumbles underneath her and makes her burn her lip when she goes to drink.
When the laughter dies down, he turns towards her, his nose grazing her ear.
"That's okay," his hand curls more around her midriff, pinky finger dipping lower. "I can think of some other forms of payments."
Nile wants to laugh, she does, but all her attention is zeroed in on that wandering digit.
"You're so cheesy," she snarks, far breathier than intended. His chuckle brings goosebumps up all over her warm skin.
"Je suis Français, mademoiselle."
Her exasperated groan turns into something else as he kisses her neck.
Yeah, she could get used to a few millennia of this.