Chapter Text
Neil Josten lights his cigarette, and muses at the ingenuity of the human race.
He much prefers cigarettes to pipes, which he had to pack with tobacco himself. And lighters! If Neil had a nickel for every pack of matches he had to throw out because they got too wet to use… Well it might not be that much actually, because he took good care of his stuff, but it’d be at least a couple bucks. Which would’ve gone far fifty years ago, so he feels like the point stands. He flicks his cheap bic lighter again, and lets the cigarette burn down to the filter because in the six hundred odd years he’s been alive he never actually developed a taste for tobacco.
He inhales the smoke, and tries to remember his mother's face. It’s blurrier than the smell of her burning corpse.
The bell over the door of the bar rings, but he doesn't bother turning from the Exy game playing on the television. He's always hated customer service, but it is easier to blend in when he has a job.
He does turn when he hears the footsteps. Heavy boots, confident walk, the phantom sound of feathers. He can't help the smile on his face when he sees his stranger leaning against the bar.
“You're early,” Neil teases.
“I need your help,” says Neil’s stranger, direct as always. His voice is scratchy, like he smokes often or like he talks rarely. His honey gold eyes are flatter than Neil has seen in a long time.
“Yes,” Neil says immediately, not knowing and not caring what he’s getting himself into.
His stranger's face changes little, but Neil has known him so long. He sees the surprise, the relief, and knows he's made the right choice.
The stranger walks out the door without another word, and Neil follows. What's the worst that can happen, really?
It’s not like Neil can die.
𓋹
Andrew first meets Nathaniel Wesninski in a tavern in Poland. He’s there with his brother Desire, who goes by Nicky, and who is very annoying when he wants something. Tonight, what Nicky really really wants, Andrew, please- is to sit and drink watered down ale in a smoky, grimy, stinking room of dirty humans. Andrew can’t help the slight curl of his lip.
A man is loudly complaining about Władysław II Jagiełło who recently became king. A woman is bemoaning her husband. A man is making a dirty joke about a priest. A woman is fluttering her eyes at someone who is ignoring her in favour of a different eye-fluttering woman.
Andrew knows all their names, of course. Their names and the exact moment each of them will die, boring mundane human deaths. He will never understand Nicky’s fascination with them.
Then his gaze catches on Nathaniel, whose hair is darkened with mud, but who cannot disguise the icy blue shards of his eyes, no matter how he ducks his head. He is sitting at a table with two men who call him Piotr, and he is pretending to be drunker than he is.
He’s beautiful.
But Andrew doesn't care about that. Obviously.
Until he hears his name, that is. Well, one of his names. “Death,” Piotr-who-is-Nathaniel says derisively. “I don't think anyone actually needs to die, they just do it because everyone else does.”
One of Piotr’s friends laughs, calls him a fool.
“It’s true,” Piotr insists, “I don't think I’ll ever bother with dying.”
Nicky is admiring a man he will likely take to bed later when Piotr says it, but he cannot disguise the cautious look he sends Andrew in response, like Andrew will ignore the natural order of things to take Piotr's blue blue eyes away to the Sunless Realm right now.
But Andrew hears what all these men are too stupid and too drunk to hear, the irony hiding on Piotr-who-is-Nathaniel’s tongue. The way his eyes dart, linger on doors and windows. And Andrew knows the exact moment of his death, his gruesome violent young death. He thinks Piotr-who-is-Nathaniel knows it too.
Maybe that's why he stands from his table. Maybe that's why he approaches Piotr and his friends. Maybe that's why he speaks.
“Did you just say you would never die?” Andrew says flatly, almost mockingly.
“Brother-” Nicky begins, but cuts off at Andrew’s lazy hand gesture.
Piotr looks at them then, in clothes much too fine for this filthy tavern and features slightly alien to human eyes, and caution steels his face. He checks the exits quickly, then smiles jovially like he is drunk and stupid and agrees that he did indeed say that.
“Very well,” Andrew says. “Then let us meet back here in a hundred years.”
Piotr's baffled laugh is maybe not fake this time. His smile almost certainly is. “I’ll see you in a hundred years then, my lord.”
His friends laugh. Piotr-who-is-Nathaniel does too, because he knows that he will die before he turns twenty-five. Nicky laughs because he knows Andrew is serious.
“Why did you do that?” Nicky asks as they leave.
“I’m curious to see how long he lasts.”
Nicky, who knows every man and their desires, says, “I think you’ll be waiting a long time.”
Andrew doubts that.
𓋹
It is not a hundred years before Andrew next sees Nathaniel-who-is-not-called-Nathaniel. It’s barely five, in fact.
Andrew is back in Poland, working. He is smoking his pipe under an oak tree which will live for another hundred years before being uprooted in a storm, when Nathaniel, his hair still darkened, slides in next to him.
“The funniest thing happened to me,” he begins, like they're old friends. He pulls aside the collar of his shirt to show Andrew the gnarled scar which slashes through the base of his neck. Andrew doesn't react – he already knew how Nathaniel Wesninski should have died.
“I bled and bled, but didn't die. You wouldn't happen to know why that is, would you?”
“You're early,” Andrew responds.
Nathaniel-who-probably-isn’t-Piotr-anymore shrugs. “Are you a demon, then?” he asks.
“No.” Andrew doesn't elaborate.
Nathaniel nods. “I was between that and an angel,” he says, “And I thought an angel would be more forgiving of the insult if I guessed wrong.”
“They wouldn't be,” Andrew says, because in his experience angels are a self righteous lot.
“One of the Old Gods then?”
Andrew shrugs. He has been many gods, with many names, for many many years. Nathaniel seems to take that as answer enough.
“Thanks,” he says, and stands beside Andrew until he has finished all his tobacco, breathing in his second hand smoke.
“I will see you in ninety-five years,” Andrew says pointedly. Nathaniel laughs as Andrew walks away.
He has a good laugh.
𓋹
They do meet after the decided hundred years, in that same Polish tavern.
A man is complaining about king Casimer IV. A woman is complaining about her family farm’s subpar harvest. A man is trying his best to seduce a woman who is trying her best to act like she doesn't notice.
Nathaniel Wesninski is already looking at him. His hair is clean and red, his posture easier than Andrew has seen before. His face is scarred now, clean knife cuts next to mottled burns, but his eyes, blue blue blue, are bright.
Andrew joins him at his table, and Nathaniel fills his cup for him.
“You have no more questions?” Andrew says, curious about this bright boy with his bright hair and bright eyes and his dark past.
“Dozens. Will you answer this time?”
“We did have an appointment.” Andrew is still a bit peeved that Nathaniel found him before he should have. He wonders if it was just unlucky happenstance, or if he is particularly good at seeking out death.
Nathaniel laughs at his sour expression. “Why me?” he says simply.
“I was interested.”
“In me?”
“In your experience.”
“What, as an immortal? Aren't you one already?” Nathaniel responds suspiciously.
“I’m curious to see how long you last,” Andrew says again, and doesn't say that Nathaniel is going to be proof that Andrew isn't uniquely weak. That anyone would falter under the weight of too much time and too many grasping hands and too many mouths begging him for things he cannot give.
“So how does this work, then? What do I need to do?” Nathaniel’s voice doesn't dim, but his eyes are sharp, his expression cautious.
“Nothing,” Andrew shrugs impassively. “Live your life as you see fit, and every hundred years we will meet back here.”
“Becasuse you think I’ll break.”
“Yes.”
Nathaniel laughs. “It has been one hundred years already. My father is long dead, and I have no need to run. Already things are better than they were, and in a hundred more years things’ll be better than they are now.”
“I suppose I will see you then.”
𓋹
Andrew does not see him then. In fact, Andrew sees him fifty-three years before then. Andrew begins to think this is going to become a recurring problem, an idea that he hates mostly because he doesn't find it as disagreeable as he feels he should.
Nathaniel's hair is coloured again, and Andrew does not miss the red. Why would he?
Nathaniel’s eyes are flat and angry again, and Andrew does not miss the lightness. This was the whole point of his little experiment.
“Have you come to seek your death already?” he asks boredly.
“Were you so certain you would fail that you felt the need to cheat? Or do you just find joy in tormenting me?”
How dare he? How dare this insolent human pest imply that Andrew would break his word, would act dishonestly. Andrew wants to snarl. He wants to snap his jaws like a wild beast. He wants to scream.
Andrew’s face stays impassive, but his voice is ice when he says, “This can end whenever you choose.”
“Fuck you,” Nathaniel snaps. “I don't want to die. I want to know why my father didn't.”
Andrew rolls his eyes. “Your father died ninety-two years ago. Don’t blame me for your failing sanity.”
“He didn't look dead a week ago,” Nathaniel snarls, pulling up his sleeves to show Andrew the fresh burns mottling his forearms, nestled amongst long healed knife scars.
Andrew pauses, looking at Nathaniel consideringly. He doesn't look crazy, and Andrew doubts he would mistake someone for his father. He doesn't think anyone could be mistaken for Nathan Wesninski. Nathaniel holds his gaze, eyes glacier cold. Andrew breaks first, because staring contests are beneath him, and because he understands Neil's rage.
“Your father is dead. His soul was delivered to Hell. I have no control over what they do with it.”
Nathaniel barks a laugh, angry and incredulous, but then he examines Andrew, like he would be able to see if he was being honest. Then his anger melts to resignation, like he can see that Andrew is being honest.
“What have they done with it then?”
“Nathan Wesninski,” Andrew begins, and Nathaniel flinches like the name has burned him, “Was an agent of pain and suffering in his life. It is not unheard of for Hell to recruit these souls, as emissaries of their behalf on Earth. They are deadmen walking, unkillable except by Hell’s own hands.”
Andrew watches as Nathaniel slumps, the rage and adrenaline which carried him here leaving him abruptly, deflating him. He ignores the brief flash of disappointment – this arrangement was always going to be temporary, but Nathaniel Wesninski is made of strong enough stuff that he thought it would last a few more centuries at least.
Still, he repeats, frankly this time, “This can end whenever you choose.”
Nathaniel rolls his eyes, a slight Andrew would be less quick to disregard if they were not so very blue. “I’ll see you in fifty years,” he says, before turning to leave.
“Fifty-three,” Andrew calls after him. He receives no response.