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Kite wakes up with Jem clinging to him just days after they rescued him from the sea.
He is shaking with fear. Kite feels guilty, like it’s his own fault in some way that Jem is ashamed of his dread.
Kite wants to tell Jem that he is sane and brave and how he couldn’t do it if the places were reversed.
The closest Kite can come to that is admitting how he first thought The Kingdom was some biblical creature, a divine messenger sent to strike them all down. A signal of the end. If only he knew then how many sins he had yet to commit to give credence to such a theory. How there would be so many days when he’d wish his original assessment was correct.
He wants to tell Jem that it will be alright.
It will be alright because I’ve got you.
*
Kite thought that the distance and the time would quash his greedy heart and desperate thoughts.
Out of sight and out of mind.
But having Jem this close again after years apart, with the lamplight splashing shadows across his fine features, Kite is lost. He is careless. He drinks too much and lets himself lean against Jem, soaking up the heady mix of tobacco and warm linen. The feel of Jem’s hand, heavy on his thigh, anchors him to the chair. The back and forth of Jem’s thumb keeping time with the thrum under Kite’s ribs.
He refuses Jem’s offer to share a hammock because he’s sure that Jem is just being nice and Kite doesn’t want nice . He wants so many more unspeakable things. He wants to run his fingers along Jem’s collarbone, exposed by an extra undone button. He wants to put his lips to the bead of sweat on Jem’s jawline.
‘No,’ he says, to Jem as well as himself. He shakes his head and feels it buzz from the combination of wine and love and denial.
Kite decides that he is sparing Jem from his own awful, ugly heart. And when the cannon rips through the ship he takes it as a sign that he was right.
His ears are ringing and there is smoke and the copper tang of blood in his nostrils but all he can think is thank God he didn’t give in.
*
Kite takes him to a doctor. Jem’s eyes are glassy from the tears he’s trying to hold back and Kite has to stop himself from reaching out to take his hands.
The full force of his panic finally sets in when M. Saint-Marie ushers him out. It’s a shock to his system and he wants to forget the same way Jem has forgotten. He yearns for his own clean slate, to be someone who doesn’t have to sit in a jail cell for two nights ruminating on what he should have done differently. But he is not so lucky.
Kite sends the postcard out of grief. He has never had a way with words and is paralyzed with the knowledge that Jem will receive an envelope from a stranger, regardless of what he writes.
In the end he lets his hopelessness speak for him.
He writes Dearest Joe, Come home, if you remember. He tries to infuse the ink with his longing. Because he can’t say ‘I love you. I miss you so desperately, like a phantom limb. I wish I’d said it so that at least you knew. Even if you forgot.’
So he says, ‘Come home,’ and signs it only M .
He is sure it won’t make a difference, but he will wait anyway. He will wait for as long as it takes, forever.
*
Kite feels like he is moving in step with but just outside his own body when Joe gives him a tour of the lighthouse.
Joe asks Kite if he’s a ghost and he recalls the night they brought Jem aboard. When he’d asked Kite the same question. Perhaps he should change his answer. Come clean about all the blood on his hands from every slip-up in battle. How death clings to him, follows him like a shadow. Confess that he’s been bound to his regret all these years, a restless spirit haunting his own mind.
There are certainly ghosts here but not the kind that Joe is worried about. Kite has to remind himself that he’s called Joe now.
And so he lies next to him, just inches away and resolves that he will do one good thing in his life.
The next morning he takes Joe to the pillars and tells him there is a war going on and it is horrible and bloody and there is sand on the deck.
Kite pleads with him. ‘Don’t make me take you there’. I can’t do that. Because I love you.
He tells Joe to go back into town, sparing only a passing glance at the names written on the stone when he leaves him there.
*
Kite leaves his hair down most days. Sometimes he manages to tie it back.
Joe asks him, ‘Why don’t you wear it in a braid anymore? Like you used to.’
And it’s still jarring when Joe says things like that. When he reminds Kite of all the different lights that shift within him. It’s a strain on Kite’s own mind to know that he has always just been the same dreadful version of himself for years upon unending years, while Joe has had entire, separate lifetimes that bend and change and rework themselves. Variations of a man that has lost and lost, yet always keeps getting better. Always good.
Kite shrugs, embarrassed. He explains that his arm sometimes hurts when he tries to lift it up long enough to braid it.
‘The….after the burns…it’s…’ he trails off, motioning with his elbows and turning away.
‘I’ll do it then,’ Joe suggests, as if it’s that simple.
Kite wants to shrink back but then Joe takes his shoulders and turns him around.
Joe runs his fingers through Kite’s hair. He separates the strands and begins weaving them together. And Kite remembers Jem, when he first knew him, how adept his hands were at everything. He learned to tie knots effortlessly within the first few days on The Defiance . He learned everything effortlessly – the absurd watch hours, sewing the holes in his clothes, tattooing on his first try – not the least of which was living a century displaced.
Kite is vaguely aware of his jealousy but doesn’t want to name it. Jealous that his hands are clumsy where Joe’s are clever. Jealous that every part of himself that he hates is exactly the same part where Joe is perfect. Where he feels unsure, Joe is confident. Where Kite has always been harsh and blunt, Joe is, in every iteration, easy and charming.
But, if he’s honest, he’s not really envious of that ability. He just always wants to be the one basking in the light of it. Resentful of others who it’s directed at. And that feels like a weakness in and of itself but he can’t deny its truth. He always wants to be the one Joe cares about, holds, and confides in. The one who gets all of his care. He wants to lose himself in the meditative back and forth of his fingers, the heat of him so close.
Joe ties off the end of the braid and touches Kite’s back gently, to tell him he’s finished. Joe kisses the back of his neck and Kite can feel the smile of his lips there. And he says ‘Thank you’ instead of ‘I love you.’
*
Kite watches from the door as Joe situates the blankets around the twins. Tucking the covers exaggeratedly under each of their tiny bodies and they all laugh, pretending it is some great feat for him to do so.
Joe leans back in his chair and sighs. ‘Which story will you have then?’
He waits patiently while Bea screws her face into a mask of deep thought. And then she says, ‘Kite.’ A rare instance where she speaks up first, louder, very sure of herself.
Joe looks confused for a moment before turning to face Kite in the doorway. ‘You want Kite to tell the story tonight?’ he asks.
‘Kite,’ she confirms and Joe slaps his thighs, smiling as he gets up.
Kite is terrified. He has often felt unsure with children who aren’t his responsibility to order around the ship. It has always seemed nonsensical to him when adults adopt a voice and speak to them as if they're pets with no understanding of their own feelings or the world around them, just because they’re small. He has never felt the urge to do so and so far it has not gone horribly awry.
Still, he feels self conscious. He still worries about his scars and his brusqueness scaring them, but Joe smiles at him intently and raises his eyebrows in confident expectation. So he moves into the room and takes the chair Joe abandoned. Kite clears his throat nervously, spares one last pleading glance at Joe and marches on.
He tells them a tale of the gods splashing champagne – because he can’t very well tell them that it was originally blood, can he? – on a ship as a tribute to the sea. And how, perhaps, one day they will christen and sail aboard The Beatrix. The most magnificent ship to ever grace the seas. She smiles contentedly and he feels a tug on his heart, watching her try to keep her eyes open.
They close the door as quietly as possible once the twins are asleep.
Joe looks at him fondly, wrapping an arm around his waist and pulling him close. ‘I told you they’ve adopted you. They love you.’
Kite shakes his head and looks down, feels the flush rising in his cheeks and can’t meet Joe’s gaze.
‘And so do I,’ he finishes.
Kite tries to think if he’s ever actually told anyone in his life that he loved them. Ever said the words properly. Probably because there’s barely ever been anyone he’s felt that way about. He knows he loved his sister because he misses her with a fierce, unabating longing every day. He constantly finds himself drifting toward the infirmary, aching to ask her a question or tell her something she might find amusing before stopping himself once he realizes she won’t be there. But it never felt right to tell her such a thing. He never wanted to disappoint her with such vulnerability.
Kite has learned Joe doesn’t think that way. He swallows and looks up. ‘I love you,’ he says and Joe smiles knowingly, brings a hand to his cheek and pulls him in to kiss him. Joe hugs him and Kite can feel the warmth of his breath, sighing against his neck.
Maybe Kite was once a ghost, adrift and shapeless, existing only in the foam of the ocean and the spray of blood upon the deck.
But Joe has given him form and solidified him. When he paces now, it is rarely to retrace old patterns and regrets. If he is a spirit, it is one that will always be tethered to another.