Chapter Text
It doesn’t take Basilio long to realize something’s gone fucked up with the world—in all honesty, it barely takes him a damn second. This is mostly because Basilio wakes up to Del scowling down at him, and the familiar pinprick pain of Del pinching his nose.
“How many times do I have to tell you, Basilio, this isn’t the time to be—”
Which wouldn’t usually be too weird, right? Like, this wouldn’t be the first time. Del’s been dead for over a year by now—maybe even two whole years by this point, Basilio doesn’t keep track because frankly the very reminder is like carving out his heart with bare hands all over again—and Basilio’s always had nightmares; this isn’t anything new for him. He’s seen Del since then. In dreams where Del is always dying, and sometimes even better, brighter dreams like this, where Del is pinching his nose to get him awake and complaining about whatever. Nothing quite as strong as that first raw dream, though, that one right after the end when Louis was magla in the air: that dream, there on those childhood streets, when Del grinned at him with all his teeth and said I told you to protect the weak and you saved the whole damn country, what the fuck, Bas? Like he was proud, like it hurt him, like for the first time since they were kids Del could have cried.
Keep going, Basilio. I’m with you till the end.
That dream, as vibrant and vivid as Basilio’s awakening to the Archetype— yeah, nothing quite like that. But nightmares he's had plenty of.
But there’s sunlight through the window and this room is one he hasn’t seen since Altabury, since Del died and Louis became a stranger to him, and—and fucking Del is pinching his nose shut, and complaining, and there’s shadows under his eyes and the pinprick pain of claws and—
And Basilio’s always trusted his gut, see? Didn’t used to listen to it much, really, didn’t figure out how until Del died and left Basilio to figure out how to stand on his own. But Del died, and Basilio figured it out, and you know what he figured out? His head can steer him wrong, but his heart never strays.
And right now, everything in Basilio is telling him: This is real. This is Del.
“Oh, fuck,” Basilio says, slightly nasally, because fucking Del is pinching his fucking nose and oh, yeah, there’s the tears. “Oh, fuck, Del!”
“What the hell are you—” Del starts, and then yelps when Basilio barrels into him for a hug.
Del being Del, he doesn’t shove Basilio off, but he does punch him a bit before he hugs back. “Belt up, would you?” Del says, even as he pats Basilio bemusedly on the back. “We’ve got shit to do, in case you’ve forgotten.”
His dead brother is real and solid in his arms; the hum of the Charadrius’s engine whirls beneath his feet. The implications of this sink in slowly, and the same instinct that whispered this is really Del comes up to Basilio again, like a cold touch down his spine, to add: This is really happening, and you are so, so screwed.
Del is still talking. The words go in one ear and out the other, nonsense all. Basilio pulls back from the hug, wiping at his eyes, and tries to shake the sudden sense of dropping into free-fall.
“What?” Basilio says, blankly. The joy and grief have hardened into something heavy as stone; it sticks in his throat like a burr. He could almost swear he heard… “Del, I— what did you just say?”
Del scoffs and crosses his arms, which is a sight so painfully nostalgic it hits Basilio somewhere deep in his chest. And then Del opens his mouth and says: “What the hell’s wrong with you? I said, Lord Louis wants us in Grand Trad by the end of the week—you know, King’s funeral, remakin’ the country, all that. You listenin’ to a word I say?”
Lord Louis, Del says.
“Oh, fuck,” Basilio whispers.
*
The thing about watching your older brother die at the hand of the guy you once pinned all your hopes and dreams on—it sticks with you, yeah? The Basilio before that moment and the Basilio after; he’d still been Basilio, sure, but he’d had to find his footing on his own, and he’d had to figure out how to walk on even with the weight of his brother’s absence. It had changed something in him: for better, for worse, sometimes even Basilio doesn’t know. He’d walked into that opera house as someone else, and left it with his heart bleeding out through his fingers.
He hadn’t been alone. Even now he’s not sure if the others even realize just how damn much that meant to him, back then. They gave him a purpose, sure, a chance to get back at the man who took his only family from this world—but they also gave him space to grieve. Lady Junah, she helped bury Fidelio, and she mourned him too, but even if the others didn’t quite mourn the same, they were still there to help him through it.
Eupha, the first to drag him back, and the first to sit with him in careful, comforting silence all those bitter nights after. Strohl, awkward but well-meaning, training with him on the deck and helping him upkeep the weapons, company in the only way he knew how to give it. Neuras, always willing to take the runner back to the grave whenever he needed it—Hulkenberg, who was unyielding and firm in always reminding Basilio he had to eat too. Even Heismay, who Basilio still hadn’t quite got along with until that final fight against Louis, had treated Basilio with an understanding that left Basilio feeling less lost in his grief than before.
And their captain, their king— Will, he’d been the most determined outside of Lady Junah. Always there if Basilio needed an ear, or a shoulder, or just someone to sit with. He’d listen to all of Basilio’s stories, every treasured memory Basilio ever gave him, and tuck it close by his heart like it was a gift. Del, he’d always been baffled by the guy; called him mental, and a dreamer, and a fool. But sometimes—and Basilio never mentioned it—but sometimes, ever since that fight at sea, Del would look at Will almost like how he looked at Lady Junah. Like he was something dazzling, and too bright to hold.
Hadn’t ever happened, hadn’t ever gone anywhere. If Del ever had the chance to feel about Will the way he did Lady Junah, he never lived long enough to realize it. But that little handmade flute had hung clipped at Will’s belt from that dark night at sea all the way to that final fight with Louis, and then on to all the rebuilding after.
Del’s memory, carried with them. It had lightened the load of grief just enough to let Basilio breathe, and it had beckoned him forward until he’d learned to live with it.
And maybe it was that, of all things, that changed Basilio—not the loss, but the lack of loneliness; the finding, together. When Basilio stood with the others in that final fight with Louis, he looked his brother’s murderer in the eye and his voice only shook a little bit. He raised his blade against the guy he’d once pledged blood and body to, and saw Louis as he was: the same person Basilio had always known; a monster, a man, and yet another bleeding victim of this ugly world and its hatred.
That calm, it wasn’t a one time thing. Basilio found his footing, and with it he’d found a steadiness. It had carried him all the months after that final fight—and now, in this nightmare of a situation with Del alive and the Charadrius flying and Louis in the same damn ship as his brother—it is this calm, hard-won and shaped from shared grief, that keeps Basilio composed enough to pull back from his brother and say, “Sorry, Del. Guess I—had a weird dream, I suppose.”
“One weird dream isn’t a reason to go mental,” Del retorts, but lets it go with a shake of his head. Basilio’s gut churns. He thinks he might be sick. “Whatever. Hurry up and get dressed; Lord Louis has a job for us.”
Lord Louis this, Lord Louis that. Basilio tries for a smile (ends up more a grimace, but what can ya do), Del gives him a look like if Basilio doesn’t get his head on straight he’ll threaten whatever the truth is out of him (not happening, and only partially because Basilio has no damn clue where to begin), and Basilio keeps a tight grip on his calm right up until Del leaves the room, and then drops his head in his hands.
Del, some part of him is shrieking, that’s Del! That part’s still there, and still plenty loud; Basilio doesn’t see this changing. But there’s another part now—steadier, and colder, forged in the ashes of Del’s death—that whispers back: What about the others?
“Maybe I’m dreaming,” Basilio tells himself, but even as he says it he kinda doubts. His heart never strays, after all, and right now his heart is plenty certain. Besides which, Basilio’s dreams don’t tend towards realism or realization; vague colors, shapes and spaces, disembodied voices and logic that only ever makes sense in a dream. This, this is more like he opened his eyes the way he always does, only the reality he woke up to changed somewhere between when he slept and when he woke.
And—
He’s missing the scar.
It’s not a bad scar. It’s not—obvious. But, like, it’s been almost two years, yeah? He’s been growing out his hair, he’s traded up a shoe size, he got a matching piercing with Hulkenberg one night when Eupha and Neuras tried to cook a cake together and ended up with a delicious dessert that also got them all roaring drunk. But that scar, that’s what he’d noticed the absence of first. That thin slice up his arm, from that final fight with Louis—he’d kept it, refused to heal it, and even now some part of Basilio isn’t sure if that was him making a point or him just—grieving the guy, in the only way someone can grieve his brother’s murderer. Doesn’t matter much, Basilio supposes.
The point is: that scar isn’t there. His hair is shorter. He’s no longer got that matching piercing. And it’s just—
He sits there, staring up at the ceiling, and for the first time a creeping fear overcomes him. Basilio, here, only a few months out from the worst moment of his life, Del bloody and smiling and still.
Basilio, alone.
*
Thirty minutes later, Basilio is dressed and ready for the day—except he totally isn’t actually, because Del and Louis and the King’s fucking funeral is playing on head on loop and oh, shit, oh shit, oh shit! What the hell is Basilio supposed to do here? Where the fuck is Strohl when you need him!?
Basilio can’t meet with Louis. He’s barely keeping his composure around Del right now and Louis is infinitely more complicated for Basilio: worse case scenario, the guy says something mildly cryptic and Basilio immediately throws all sense out the window and tries to kill him. Best case scenario, Basilio says something that references knowledge Basilio-of-now should not have, and then everything falls apart anyway. Can’t happen! He’s not going there!
Del knocks on his door, calls him a slowpoke, tells him to hurry the hell up. Basilio doesn’t burst into loud tears again, but it’s near thing. Fuck, Del. It’s Del. It’s his big brother, alive and breathing and—and isn’t it awful? Isn’t it just the worst? Basilio hadn’t known he’d started forgetting his brother’s voice until just now when he finally heard it again.
God. He doesn’t want to be alone here. He can’t do this alone. Eupha, Will, even the old man— either old man—
Junah.
His heart wrenches. He can’t tell if he’s hopeful or just nauseous at the thought. Lady Junah! Whatever the hell is happening, Lady Junah was around here then too. And yeah, okay, that is a comfort—just knowing she’s out there, somewhere within reach—but is it his Lady Junah? Not just the girl who was his friend, but the girl who helped him bury his brother?
“Bas!” Del snaps from beyond the door, finally losing patience with his dithering. “Pick up your feet before I break ‘em!”
“That don’t make any damn sense, Del, how am I supposed to move faster if you break my feet?” Basilio replies, on absolute autopilot, and then presses his eyes shut against a wave of dizziness, and breathes past the sudden, sharp catch of a sob in his throat. Damn, he thinks. Damn it all, it’s really Del.
The others aren’t here. Lady Junah may not even be Lady Junah anymore—or at least not the Lady Junah he’s come to know. But for a moment Basilio can almost make believe, with his eyes closed and his breathing all unsteady in his chest, that he isn’t alone here after all. Can almost see his king standing there beside him, close enough to touch, close enough to feel the nearness of him. Watching and waiting, the way their Captain was always best at. There when you were at your lowest and at your best, and never sneering at you for any of it.
If the Captain were here, Basilio knows, he’d probably say: If nothing else, Basilio, you have to try.
“Basilio!”
“Calm down, Del, I’m comin’,” Basilio says, and props open the door, pulling his tie loose around his neck. “Just thinkin’, like, we sure we’re all set with those flowers Lord Louis wanted for the funeral? And where’s Lady Junah, is she gonna be there?”
Moving on autopilot, leaning on his own nostalgia. Maybe he says it a little wobbly and maybe Del gives him an incredulous look for talking like Basilio ever gave a damn about whether they had the flowers or not. Doesn’t matter. Try, their Captain would say, and Basilio isn’t planning on letting his king down just yet.
Del walks down the hall, complaining and chiding in turns; Basilio waits until his big brother takes a breath to speak. “And Lady Junah—”
“Lady Junah this, Lady Junah that, we have bigger problems—”
“Aw, Del, I know you wanna see her too, no need to be shy, like.”
“What daft idea have you got in your head now? Anyway, Lord Louis wants her on the Charadrius at least during the funeral, keepin’ all the important folk out of the Church’s reach; we’ll see her soon enough, yeah? So quit your yappin’ already.”
Basilio doesn’t know when the hell he is; the royal funeral could be tomorrow and he wouldn’t have a damn clue. He takes that thought and lets it drop, focuses on the part that’s most important. “Could see her sooner,” he needles, and this time when Del glares at him, Basilio grins back, like he’s asking to be an annoying snit of a younger brother and not because if he doesn’t see Lady Junah in the next three hours he might lose it.
“Shut up,” Del tells him, but there’s no bite to it; just that usual annoyance, the exasperation of an older brother, the faint flush to his face Del always got whenever Bas ribbed him over that unspoken and way-too-obvious crush he had. But he doesn’t say anything more, and when he turns back to lead the way there’s some faint something pinching at his brow, so Basilio knows his big brother is thinking on it too, now, is considering how long its been since the last time and whether she might need a guard or two before that big day of crashing the funeral.
Del leads the way down the hall. Basilio follows after, same way he’s done for all his life, and tries not to think too hard on the way they’re stepping out of sync, the two years without his brother already leading Basilio down, down, down, onto a path of his own making.
Try, their Captain would say. We have to try.
Basilio sure is fucking trying.
*
Basilio gets lucky: he doesn’t see Louis until the evening, and when he does, it’s with Lady Junah hanging off his arm.
The whole day is like a blur to him: Del leads, and Basilio tries to remember how to follow, has to bite back his tongue to keep from interrupting Del when he’s passing down orders and the like. One guy picks a fight and Basilio lays him out flat; offers him a hand up, and gets strange looks from everyone for his trouble, even Del.
The whole thing ends up making him feel right rotten inside—he doesn’t think he’s changed so much, yeah? Surely he would’ve offered before, right? But this is Lord Louis’s world, after all, and his world’s a rough one. Maybe Basilio wouldn’t have. Maybe he forgot how, those years on the Charadrius, and only got it back once he had to find his own path forward.
Dark thinking, that; Basilio shakes it away.
If this morning felt like a fever dream, the day feels like a nightmare. Hits him odd, to see the faces of soldiers he knows he’ll never see again; hits him worse, to see the faces of those he does know. Those folk who joined up at the Brigade, and ended up doing a lot more good for the world. He keeps having to hold himself back, from clapping one lady on the back for her good work, or from scolding another for their cruel tongue. That tastes right rotten too.
But maybe it’s all for the best: like bracing yourself for a blow. By the time evening rolls around Basilio is all braced for it, has taken the bitterness and steeled himself to swallow it anyway. So when the door opens, and Louis walks in—
He’s braced for it, and that’s the only reason his vision doesn’t go white with fear.
Funny enough, he doesn’t even see Louis at first: maybe that saves Basilio too. Because the door opens, and everyone’s eyes turn, all keyed up waiting for their lord and savior and mass murderer or whatever, and Basilio looks too. And the first thing he sees is Lady Junah.
Lady Junah, in that polka-dot dress she just constantly re-orders from a tailors instead of getting any new style of travel dress, with that too-big shoulder guard and her hair a waterfall behind her. Missing the Mage Academy’s mark, missing that wide-brimmed hat she’d been delighted to have an occasion to wear; missing, most alarmingly, that little spotted cat she picked up from the ruins about a year back and never let leave her side since. Lady Junah arm in arm with someone utterly unimportant, because right now she’s the only one that matters.
“Lord Louis!”
Salutes all around. Lady Junah giggles and waves and then turns her face up to speak to whoever escorted her down—which is when Basilio sees the white clothes, and that familiar face, and those false horns like a crown in gold hair.
Louis.
Everything stills in him. His breathing goes quiet and cold in his chest, his heartbeat fills his ears like the beat of drums. It’s all so stupid: it’s not like Basilio’s forgotten. Where the Charadrius flies, Lord Louis is never far behind. Soon as he woke up here, he knew what that implied.
Somehow, even braced for it, he still isn’t quite prepared to see Louis in the flesh.
Maybe it’s just—how familiar he is. Sickeningly, painfully familiar; not just his face or his clothes or the presence of him, but everything: the way he stands, the careless movement of his hand. The unreadable expression that was never all that unreadable, not to those who knew him; the way he’s half-angled towards Lady Junah, visibly humoring her; the anticipation in his eyes, untempered; the leashed violence in the way he crosses his arms. If Basilio hadn't already known this place was real and not a dream, then he thinks Louis alone would have shattered any last doubts.
Basilio’s first thought is: I have to kill him. Hysterical, panicked; Del is right there and Louis is just across the room and if Basilio doesn’t strike first then Louis will kill them all. In that heartbeat of a moment this feeling is like pure fact to him. After all, it’s already happened once before.
His hand is halfway to his axe when his second thought hits, however— What the hell is Lady Junah doing!?— and what Lady Junah is doing is laughing, leaning close to whisper something to Louis, her mouth hidden behind her hand. Conspiratorial, deliberately flirtatious, ignoring the way half the people in the room who’d kill for a glance from her all deflate. That old, almost forgotten game she used to play, walking around and talking like she and Louis were banging each other on the nightly when the reality was Louis barely let her take his arm. (Barely let anyone touch him ever, really, and that was with all those clothes on.)
It’s been two years since he’s seen that game. She never played it with the others; they’d never quite played along to her liking. Just another one of those little, useless things Louis forced them to bury alongside Del’s cold corpse; all those years of little games and late-night whispers and favorite fucking foods.
Lady Junah plays that same old game; Louis plays along as he always does, by not reacting at all. It’s so familiar that Basilio almost thinks he might choke on it.
But it does ground him, also. Shocks him out of that instinctive fury. He lets his hand drop half-way to the axe, limp by his side and curled to a useless fist. Try, their king would say. Across the room, Lady Junah laughs. It echoes in his ears like a scream, like Lady Junah pouring cheap beer over the wall, the most disrespectful respect for the dead she’ll ever do, saying good riddance like her throat wasn’t choked up with something torn between grief and rage.
Louis speaks. Del is smiling that sharp little smile his big bro always reserved for the plans that struck him as vindictively just. Lady Junah stands by Louis’s side, and the smile on her face is so serene and composed you’d never even suspect she was a spy.
Basilio doesn’t hear a damn word. He stands there and tells himself try, and patience the way the old man would say it, and do not throw your life away, those long-ago words Eupha once used to drag him back sharply from the edge of that cold Opera House stage. Braces himself through every nonsense word his brain just can’t pick up on, that crawlingly familiar voice he once would have followed to the end, and tries to forget the way Louis screamed when he was human and dying and refusing to accept, even then, that all he’d done was for nothing.
“Oi, Bas. The hell is wrong with you?”
Basilio blinks, and the speech is over. Lord Louis, vanished out some hallway door. The men all heading back to their posts. He’ll probably regret zoning out there; he can’t find it in himself to care. He sees a flash of purple hair and a lone clemar horn, and watches distantly as Zorba ducks out of view around a corner. That stabs too, deep down in his chest. He’d never liked Zorba. Never really known him. His eyes linger on his retreating back.
“Basilio.”
Ah, all sharp-like now. He’s worrying his big bro already. Basilio watches a waterfall of iridescent hair turn for a far door, and says, “Gimme a second, Del, gotta ask Lady Junah about somethin’ real quick-like—”
“What the hell—!?”
“Don’t you follow me or nothin’, Del, I’ll be right back!”
“You stupid lout! You better not be late!”
Late, late for what? It doesn’t matter. “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Basilio replies, and elbows his way through the crowd, chasing after that familiar figure.
She’s hard to catch—slippery, too used to ducking out of sight. Probably what makes her such a good spy, Basilio realizes, two years late, and pushes the thought away to forge onwards. He knows Lady Junah, anyhow; even back then, in this time-that-isn’t, he knew her better than he thought he knew anyone, other than his brother and Lord Louis. The extra two years of grief and rebuilding don’t change much about the knowing; mostly they just added context.
Another flash of her hair. “Lady Junah,” Basilio calls, mindful of his volume—no need to send every fanboy scurrying over here—and quickens his pace. “Oi, Lady Junah—”
“Basilio?”
There’s something strange in her voice, but as he turns the corner—she’s stopped and waited for him, thank goodness—he can’t tell if it was just a trick of sound or not, no sign of it showing on her face.
He feels out of breath, and it’s not from the run. Fear and hope like a flutter of wings beneath his skin. He breathes in, as if to speak, and yet all he does is heave a huge sigh, and lean over his knees like he’s fighting for air. “Finally,” he wheezes. “Sorry, Lady Junah— I just—”
“Basilio,” she says, again. “Oh, love, did I make you chase after me? I didn’t realize you were looking for me!”
“Nothin’ so official as all that, Lady Junah,” Basilio replies, half on automatic. Even as he speaks he finds himself straightening up, scanning her expression, desperately trying to find… to find…
He’s not sure what he’s looking for. He’s been staring at her for far too long regardless. Lady Junah blinks back at him, unconcerned, but he knows her tells too well now after battling with her back to back, and the way she holds herself is—
Bracing.
He just can’t figure out what the hell she’s bracing for.
Basilio stares at her. Lady Junah stares back. There’s something fragile about her expression, something thin in her usual perfect mask, and for a moment he just—considers leaving, actually. Like fuck this, right? She’s clearly having a bad day, and the Junah of this time wouldn’t—he doesn’t—what if she doesn’t remember? What if it’s just Basilio? Just Bas, and his brother, and this girl who loves them but can’t trust them, and all the fuck ups of the looming future that Basilio doesn’t know how to face alone. Doesn’t want to face alone.
But that’s fear too, isn’t it? Anxiety, churning in his gut like a boiling sea. There’s nothing wrong with fearing it—but if he turns away now, Basilio knows, he’ll be giving in. And he can’t do that. Not to Del, alive and breathing—not to Lady Junah either, whether she’s the almost-friend of this time or the blood-forged ally of his own. She deserves better than this, than Basilio turning away and giving up on her.
So Basilio straightens up and clears his throat. “Sorry if this is a bad time, Lady Junah. I just had a—uh—just somethin’ I wanted to run by you, like, see if you knew anythin’.”
“Not a bad time at all, Basilio, go ahead,” Lady Junah replies, all warm and laughing like he’s being silly and worrying over nothing. It’d be a hell of a lot more convincing if she had her face on right, but her smile doesn’t quite reach the eyes—always her worst tell, not that Basilio’s gonna be the one to say it. Del took that secret to his grave and Bas will too. “You know I’ll always have time for my best fans!” Cue the wink.
Basilio musters every inch of Berserker strength to smile back. “Yeah… haha… it’s uh—I was just wonderin’—I uh, was readin’ some… stories… and I just—just wanted to ask if—”
Her brow is starting to furrow. Basilio’s heart is like a stone in his chest.
“If you’d, uh, ever heard of… an Archetype?”
Dead silence. Basilio curls his hands to fists by his side and tells himself he’s not gonna cry about it, damn it, especially not right here.
And then Lady Junah’s whole face falls, smile gone like a mask discarded, her eyes wider than ever. “Oh,” she says, blankly. “Oh, fuck.”
Which isn’t a very clear answer, actually, and Basilio is just about to say so, when all at once Lady Junah moves. Between one blink and the next, Basilio goes from standing stock-still in the hallway to catching an armful of songstress, bony arms around his neck and her pointy chin digging into his collarbone, Lady Junah clinging to his neck in that comical way that leaves her legs dangling over the ground, six-inch heels and all.
“Fuck,” Lady Junah is saying, all muffled and choked up by his ear. “Oh hell. Oh my god. Basilio. Basilio!”
Basilio’s eyes are burning—but this time the tears are something warm and full. He presses his hand against her back and can feel the humming-bird beat of her heart. “Lady Junah,” he says, and damn, he supposes he can’t make fun of her for this, because all of sudden his voice is all choked up too. She’s warm and she’s real and she’s cussing into his shoulder. His Lady Junah.
For the first time since he woke up to his dead brother’s face, something in Basilio finally clicks into place. Something a little bit like hope, taking flight, unfurling like a flower to the sun.
“Lady Junah,” Basilio whispers, voice thick with tears, and his smile stretches trembling and bright across his face. “You came back too.”