Chapter Text
The day Joe died was definitely the worst day of his life.
In retrospect, he would recognize the value in his own actions, that he’d been willing to put himself in danger to help someone else. In the moment, though, lying bleeding on the sidewalk with a boot coming toward his face, he just felt stupid.
He wasn’t entirely sure how to feel when he woke up in the hospital, when the doctors told him his recovery was nothing short of miraculous, when he heard one of the nurses whisper that he’d been dead when the stretcher came in. When he thought of the nightmare that had woken him up - strangers gunned down in a hail of bullets that felt like they were ripping through his own body - he just felt sick.
Two days after he died, after he was finally released from the hospital, was when things started to get weird.
“I don’t need you to pamper me,” he grumbled as Kasper bustled around the kitchen to make him yet another cup of tea.
“You nearly died,” Kasper reminded him. “I need to pamper you so I don’t go crazy thinking about it.”
“I’m fine!” Joe protested. “Twelve different doctors signed a piece of paper saying I’m perfectly fine.”
He really did feel surprisingly good, considering... Well. Considering.
The neurologist had warned him to expect head and neck pain for at least a month, but there was nothing. More than that, all the ordinary aches and pains that had plagued him before suddenly seemed to be gone. The sore ankle that had been bothering him all week was good as new overnight. The crack in his left shoulder when he stretched was silent. Even the persistent itch from his top surgery scars that his doctor insisted was in his head just wasn’t there anymore.
Despite having been beaten to death by a skinhead this week, Joe felt great.
“I know, I know.” Kasper set the two tea cups on the coffee table and settled into the other end of the sofa with a sigh. “I just... If you had...” He cut himself off and closed his eyes. “I can’t even think about it.”
“Hey.” Joe set his hand gently on the back of Kasper’s neck. However weird and stressful this was for him, he couldn’t imagine what Kasper must be going through. “I’m right here.”
“I know.” Kasper gave him a shaky smile. “And a good thing, too, because I am not cut out to be a single parent.”
Joe snorted. “I guess you’d just have to find another hot, gay, trans, Muslim artist to help raise your beautiful daughter.”
Kasper rolled his eyes. “As if you’re not one of a kind.”
Hana, the beautiful daughter in question, was currently fast asleep, tucked up against Joe’s side and sucking intently on her thumb. He might have been chafing a little under the constant attention from his worried husband, but this - a quiet afternoon at home with his family - this was nice.
The sound of the door buzzer interrupted Joe’s thoughts, and he gave Kasper a puzzled frown. Kasper shrugged, getting up to answer. “It’s probably your mother.”
Joe sighed. “I told her to stay home.”
“Since when does she listen to you?”
His mother, understandably, had been very distressed by the events of the past few days and had spent the entire time either at the hospital with Joe or at home with Hana, until Kasper finally convinced her that he was more than capable of caring for both his daughter and husband, who happened to be doing fine. Joe wouldn’t be at all surprised if she’d taken a nice long nap, woke up absolutely certain that her services were still required, and was now here to cook dinner for all of them.
Kasper pressed the button for the speaker, answering politely, and he and Joe stared at each other in surprise when an unfamiliar woman’s voice answered.
“Good afternoon. I’m Inspector Freeman with Interpol. I’d like to speak with Mr. al-Kaysani. Is he at home?”
“Interpol?” Kasper repeated, and Joe shrugged. He’d talked to more law enforcement officials than he could count, so one more hardly seemed strange. Kasper shrugged back and said into the speaker, “Yes, of course. Please, come up.”
Joe hauled himself off the sofa and gently scooped Hana into his arms, careful not to wake her. She grumbled in her sleep, but she settled as soon as he laid her down on her bed. He returned to the living room as Kasper was ushering in their two guests, introducing himself and offering them tea.
One of them, a dark-skinned woman with a beautiful face and short, natural hair, held out her hand to Joe and smiled warmly. “Youcef al-Kaysani? I’m Nile Freeman. This is my partner, Nicky Genovese.”
She spoke Dutch with a slight American accent, and Joe thought she looked much too young and stylish to be in law enforcement. Her partner, on the other hand, pale skinned and broad shouldered, looked like the kind of man who had been severe and serious since childhood and had probably told many a grade school teacher about his classmates’ illicit shenanigans. His sharp, hooded eyes swept around the room like there might be danger lurking behind every knick knack and family photo. When his stare finally fell on Joe, he paused, apparently startled to remember the reason for their visit was a human being.
It took a moment for Joe to recognize them, but the moment he realized he had seen these faces in that terrible dream, his blood ran cold.
Shaking Freeman’s hand, Joe forced a smile and replied, “It’s Joe, please. Have a seat.” As they arranged themselves around the room, and Kasper appeared with more tea and biscuits, Joe asked, “What is this about?”
Freeman’s smile tightened as she leaned forward in her seat. “It’s about the man who assaulted you a few days ago. We’ve learned that he has ties to a dangerous white supremacist organization, and we’re concerned they may seek retaliation.”
“Retaliation?” Kasper repeated in horror. He had sat back down on the sofa and taken Joe’s hand in his, without pouring tea for their guests. “For what? Joe barely got away with his life.”
“He embarrassed them,” Freeman answered patiently. “A queer Muslim man beating up their enforcer is bad for their image.”
Joe made a face. “I think you’re confused about who beat up who.”
The fight had been embarrassing, alright, but not for the other guy.
To his surprise, Freeman’s partner, Genovese, replied in a thick Italian accent, “That you stood up to him at all is more than such people will tolerate.”
“Which is why we want to put you in protective custody until the threat has passed,” Freeman finished, holding up her hand as both Joe and Kasper opened their mouths to object. “After what you’ve been through, I know the last thing you want is another disruption to your life, but our priority is to keep you and your family safe.”
Joe had always been one to trust his instincts. Instinct had brought him to Kasper, had given him Hana, had led him to intervene in defense of a stranger. Now, his instincts told him to trust these people. His instincts also told him they were lying.
“No, no this doesn’t make sense.” Kasper blinked at Joe in surprise, but Joe just shook his head and narrowed his eyes at Freeman. “What’s really going on, here?”
To her credit, she barely flinched. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I’m pretty good at maths, and this doesn’t add up,” Joe said. “The guy who beat me up was definitely racist, but I seriously doubt he was part of some organized, international terrorist group. Even if he was, and even if Interpol was going to get involved, why not just send some local badges to pick me up? Why send American and Italian agents?”
“Ah. Well, um...” Freeman glanced at her partner, but he was staring at Joe.
Joe stared right back. “Who are you?”
“That man did not only beat you,” Genovese replied. “He murdered you.”
He spoke in Arabic, and Joe was so startled that it took a moment for the words to register.
“He crushed your skull beneath his boot, and you woke hours later, unharmed.”
“How c--” Joe shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Kasper’s grip on Joe’s hand tightened. “Joe, what’s he saying?”
“We are like you,” Genovese went on, as if Kasper hadn’t spoken. “There are others.”
“Listen, I know this is... a lot,” Freeman said gently, moving the conversation back to Dutch. “And I wish we could give you some time to process, but...” She looked at her partner again, and this time, his sharp expression softened. “But there are people after us, and it’s only a matter of time before they come after you, too.”
“People?” Kasper echoed. “What people? I don’t... Joe?”
“This is ridiculous,” Joe insisted. “I hit my head and had some weird hallucinations, but th--”
“You died.” Genovese spoke, and Joe’s stomach dropped like a weight. “You died, and you dreamed of five people: The two of us, two other women, and a man.”
Joe’s heart was pounding, a very real reminder that he was very much alive.. “H- how do you know that?”
“We dreamed of you, too,” Freeman answered. “That’s how we found you.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Kasper’s voice was taking on a frantic edge. “Joe, what’s going on?”
The part of Joe that was a logical adult - that paid bills and did laundry and went to parent-teacher meetings - knew that none of this could be real. Resurrection and clairvoyant dreams and strangers with warnings were the stuff of myths and fiction, not reality.
But the part of Joe that knew reality was more than obligations, that people were connected by more than just circumstance, and that he had definitely, absolutely died on that street, knew all of this was true.
Drawing in a deep breath that did absolutely nothing to settle his nerves, he turned to Kasper. “You remember that nurse kept talking about my miraculous recovery?” he asked, and Kasper nodded. “It might have been, y’know, a literal miracle.”
Kasper frowned. “What? No. You were very lucky, yes, but you’re fine. If you’d really been hurt, y--”
“I’m saying I was really hurt, Kas.” As he said it, Joe knew it was true. After two days of telling himself it was all in his head, speaking it out loud was almost a relief. “I died. Not just for a second, and the doctors didn’t bring me back. I mean, I really, truly, kicked the fucking bucket.”
“But you’re fine,” Kasper insisted. “You’re here. You’re alive. How c--”
“He cannot die,” Genovese interrupted. “He will not die for many centuries.”
That was new information to Joe. “I’m sorry, what? I can get my head around spontaneous resurrection, but you’re saying I’m immortal? That you’re immortal?”
“It’s... complicated,” Freeman said. “The point is, w--”
“This is insane.” Kasper gave Joe a pleading look. “You can’t possibly believe any of this.”
Without a word, Genovese pulled a folded knife from his pocket, opened it with an audible click, and dragged the tip of it down the entire length of his inner forearm. The sharp red wound had already begun to close by the time the blade left his skin, leaving only a faint line of blood to show that it had ever existed.
Joe stared, open-mouthed, as Genovese offered him the handle of the knife. “It will be slower, because you are new, but you will heal.”
He started to take the knife, but Kasper snatched his hand back, glaring at Genovese. “It’s a trick. It has to be. It’s a special knife, or fake skin, or... or something.”
Maybe. Maybe it was a trick. Maybe this was all some kind of elaborate scam. Maybe Kasper was right. Joe had to know for sure.
Before anyone could stop him, Joe went into the kitchen and pulled a small paring knife out of the drawer. He didn’t stop to think about how dirty the blade probably was, or that it was pitted and dull and would probably hurt. He didn’t deliberate about where to put the cut or how deep to make it. He didn’t think about what it would mean if nothing happened, or what it would mean if something did. He just pressed the knife into the back of his hand, because he needed to fucking know.
A shallow cut bloomed on his skin, no worse than any kitchen mishap. Hell, he’d cut himself worse than that sharpening pencils. It was just an ordinary cut, right until the moment that it wasn’t.
It happened so slowly, Joe barely noticed until the redness started to fade. He watched the surface of his skin knit back together, one millimeter at a time, until it was smooth again. With cool water from the sink, he washed away the few traces of blood, and it was as if it had never happened.
“Oh my god.”
He looked up to find Kasper standing in the kitchen doorway, a hand over his mouth, eyes wide with shock.
“Oh my god,” Kasper said again. He took Joe’s hand and ran the pad of his thumb over the healed skin. “How did...? How?”
How was just the very tip of an avalanche of questions gathering speed in Joe’s mind, but he put it aside for something more practical.
When he went back into the living room, the two strangers stood, both looking oddly resigned and clearly waiting for him to take the next step.
He let out a long, slow breath. “Alright. What happens now?”
“You will come with us,” Genovese replied immediately.
“No,” Kasper shot back, just as fast.
Joe asked, “What about my family?”
“They’ll be safer once you’ve left,” Freeman said, and Joe’s heart clenched in his chest. “I know that’s hard to swallow, but the people looking for us want us. They’ll leave your family alone.”
“How can you be sure?” Joe asked. “How do you even know they’d find me, at all?”
The two of them shared a glance, and Freeman sighed. “The man who knows about us is former CIA. American Intelligence. He’d find you.”
Joe wanted to argue, wanted to scream at these people to get out of his house and leave him alone, but he already knew he was going to leave with them. He would do whatever he had to do to keep Kasper and Hana safe. Hell, he’d hand himself right over to this ex-CIA bad guy, if that turned out to be the best way of protecting his family.
He and Kasper shared a look, and he knew they were thinking the same. Whatever they wanted, whatever felt right, Joe had to do what was best for Hana.
Before he could make himself answer, Genovese spoke gently, again in Arabic, “You have a thousand questions. Every moment that passes, you think of a thousand more. I know. We will answer all that we can, but for now, we must go.”
There was something strange about the way he spoke that Joe couldn’t put a finger on, something familiar, brushing lightly against a place in his memory he couldn’t name. A puzzle for another time.
Joe ground his teeth and closed his eyes. “Fine”
Beside him, Kasper made a small sound of anguish, then let out a low sigh. “I’ll pack for you.”
“Kas...”
Kasper was already moving toward the bedroom door. “You should say goodbye to Hana.”
Joe’s heart felt like it was collapsing, crumpling into uneven segments like a cardboard box being shoved into a bin. “Yeah,” he murmured. “Yeah, I know.”
It was hard enough to wrap his own head around anything that was happening. How was he supposed to explain it to a five-year-old? How was he supposed to tell his child he was leaving and didn’t know when or if he would see her again? He’d promised to buy her a new outfit for his gallery show next week and had agreed she could wear something bright green and sparkly, but now Kasper would have to take her shopping. Unless they cancelled the show, which they would probably have to, without Joe there, but that would mean waiting another year for an opening in the gallery schedule, which m--
Joe shook his head. Not important. None of it was important. Not right now.
Hana’s room was directly across from Joe and Kasper’s, with a painted wooden rainbow on the door. She stretched and grumbled when Joe came in, apparently ready to wake up from her nap.
“Hey, there, sunshine,” Joe said softly, kneeling on the floor beside the bed. “Did you have beautiful dreams?”
With a big yawn, Hana gave him a sleepy smile and nodded. “Worms.”
Joe couldn’t help but laugh. “You dreamed about worms?”
She nodded again. “Big purple worms. We were riding them.”
Kasper liked to joke about the things Hana picked up through osmosis while Joe was pregnant, and he wondered idly if he’d happened to watch Dune. Probably not. “That does sound like a beautiful dream.”
Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, she blinked at him, now much more awake, and grinned broadly. She planted a kiss on her own finger, then touched it to the very tip of his nose, and Joe didn’t know how he could ever be expected to leave her. His whole entire heart was right here, in those big brown eyes and those soft black curls and that honey-sweet smile. How could he be expected to just walk away and keep living without his heart?
“Listen, sunshine, I, um...” Joe swallowed hard. He couldn’t cry. Not now. “I have to take a little trip for a... for a bit, and, uh...”
“Where are you going?” Hana asked, her little brows furrowed in concentration. She reached out a hand to tug gently on one of Joe’s curls where it fell over his forehead, and another piece of his cardboard heart tore away.
“Oh, all over,” he said. It seemed safe to assume that being on the run meant they would also be on the move. “I’ll bring you something nice.”
It was a useless bribe. Hana had inherited Kasper’s innate disinterest in trinkets and baubles and would not be distracted by the promise of something shiny. “When will you come home?” she demanded, wrapping her fingers around Joe’s hand as if she might be able to make him stay.
“As soon as I can,” he promised. “I don’t know when, exactly, but the second....” The second it’s safe. “The second I can, I’m gonna run right back home. I swear.”
She wrinkled her nose and frowned. “But when?”
It took everything Joe had to wrinkle his nose right back at her. “Soon.”
Teasing was good. Teasing was normal. It would help her deal with what was happening, even if it felt like the hardest thing Joe had ever done in his life.
Hana pouted. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are you leaving?”
“Oh, it’s just some magic quest thing.” He waved his hand absently. “Terribly dull.”
“Baba.” Hana sat up in bed and crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m serious!”
“Nice to meet you, Serious. I’m Joe.”
“Baba!”
“Okay, okay. Serious faces. Okay.” Joe cleared his throat and sat on the bed next to Hana, who stared up at him with big, dark eyes. She’d looked at him that way the day she was born, too, all shining brown irises and long black lashes, and she owned his heart even more completely now than she had then. “So, um, you know baba got into that fight a few days ago and got hurt?”
Hana nodded. “Daddy was worried.”
“I... I know. And I don’t like making daddy worry, but...” He took a deep breath and tried to sort out the tangled mess in his head: the insane truth, the only slightly less insane cover story, and how to make any of it make any kind of sense to a five year-old. “Something... happened. I don’t really understand it yet, but some very nice people are going to help me figure it out.”
A little crease appeared between Hana’s brows as her frown deepened, a feature she had inherited from Joe. “For how long?”
“I don’t know, sunshine,” he answered, honestly. “It could be a little while.”
She sat quietly for a moment, apparently processing the information, and Joe ran his fingers gently through her wild curls, giving her time and wondering if this might be the last time he would ever see his daughter.
Finally, she asked, “Can me and daddy come with you?”
The one thing Joe had been continuously grateful for in all this was that neither Kasper nor Hana had been with him when he... when he died. Even in the moment of dying, frightened and alone, some part of him gave thanks that he’d chosen to run this errand on his own. If they wanted bad memories of him, they could think of times he’d been angry or depressed or the one time he had pneumonia and was an absolute baby about it. Hana never needed to see him beaten and bloody.
“No, sunshine. I’m sorry. You and daddy have to stay here and take care of each other.”
Her little brows furrowed tighter. “But who’s gonna take care of you?”
A couple of unkillable badasses, apparently. “There’s two very nice people here right now. Would you like to meet them?”
Hana nodded, and Joe stood, taking her hand to lead her into the main room. Freeman was on the phone with someone, speaking what sounded like French, and she flashed a bright smile and a wave at Hana. Genovese was looking thoughtfully around the room, but when he saw the little girl, his demeanor changed completely.
From one moment to the next, all his severe intensity vanished, and he sank to one knee, near enough that he could speak softly but not so close that he could touch Hana without warning. In a warm, gentle voice, he said, “Hello, little one. What is your name?”
Like any parent, Joe was suspicious of strangers being overly familiar with his daughter, but Genovese seemed oddly genuine. Hana, direct and unabashed as ever, simply replied, “You sound funny.”
Joe sighed. “This is my daughter, Hana. We’re working on social skills.”
Genovese just smiled up at him and turned back to Hana, switching to Arabic. “Do you know Derja?”
Hana looked just as startled as Joe had been, and she looked up at Joe as if asking what she should do. Joe told Genovese, “She’ll understand if you speak it to her, she just doesn’t really like speaking it around... um...”
“White people,” Hana supplied, helpfully.
Joe just sighed again. “White people.”
To his surprise, Genovese snorted in amusement. “I don’t really like speaking to white people, either. Is it alright if I talk to you this way? Is this easier to understand?”
Only then did Joe realize that the reason Genovese’s Arabic had touched something in his memory was that it sounded like his grandfather’s, like the easy speech of a native, like someone who had spent a lifetime between the rocky sands and blue skies of Tunisia.
Not for the first time, Joe wondered who the hell these people really were.
“I’m Nicky. That’s Nile,” Genovese told Hana gently. “Did your baba tell you what’s happening?”
Hana tightened her grip on Joe’s hand and answered in Dutch, “He said he has to leave.”
“That’s right.”
“Are you gonna take care of him?”
“Yes. Nile and I are going to bring him to stay with our team in a safe place. He will be like part of our family. ” He glanced up at Joe with a strangely soft expression. “I will defend him like he is my own brother.”
“You promise?” Hana pressed, and Genovese nodded solemnly.
“I swear on my life.”
Somehow, Joe knew that he meant it.
Hana and Genovese stared at each other for a long moment. Finally, she held out her hand, and he gave it a firm shake, like they had come to some kind of agreement. His hand looked big enough to crush her tiny fingers, but she gave no sign of intimidation. Instead, she released his grip and turned to march back to her bedroom with purpose.
Genovese stood, watching her with a faint smile.
“You have kids?” Joe asked, not sure what answer he was expecting.
What he didn’t expect was for all the softness to evaporate from Genovese’s expression as if it had never been there, replaced by something cold and sharp and distant. “Not anymore.”
For half a second, the meaning of that didn’t fully register, and when it did, Joe felt it like a punch in the chest. He was already holding himself together by such a thin thread, that he put the thought immediately out of his mind, unable to consider any circumstance where he might no longer be a father. Joe suddenly felt a deep stab of empathy and kinship for Genovese.
Before Joe could say anything, Hana returned carrying a plush dog Joe’s mother had given her when she was still a toddler. The toy was small and usually sat on Hana’s nightstand, its ragged ears and scuffed plastic eyes hanging on by just a few tenacious threads. Without a word, she offered it up to Joe.
“Oh, no, sunshine. I can’t take Buqea.” He crouched down next to her and ran his hand over the scruffy dog’s head. “You need her to keep you company.”
Hana shook her head. “You’re gonna be lonely without me and daddy.”
She pushed it toward him, and he took it, cradling it against his chest. Hana had been only a little bigger than this when she was born, just a tiny bundle of warmth and soft noises, the most fragile and precious thing he had ever touched in his life.
Nope. No. Not now. If he thought about any of this now, he’d cry until he couldn’t breathe.
“Thank you, sunshine.” He pulled Hana into a tight hug and kissed her head. If a few tears escaped his eyes, they were lost in the soft tangle of her curls. “I love you. You know that, right? I love you so much.”
“I love you, too, baba,” Hana sniffled. She pressed her face against his neck, and he could feel the dampness spreading from her eyes, could feel her starting to shake in his arms as sniffles turned into sobs.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. It’s alright. Everything’s gonna be alright,” he soothed, rubbing circles on her back. He could hold it together just a little bit longer. He could pretend to be okay so his baby could cry.
He didn’t know how long he stayed there, just holding Hana and promising it would all be alright. His knees had started to ache by the time Freeman said softly, reluctantly, “We need to get going.”
“Right. Yeah. Okay.” Joe cleared his throat and gently pulled away from his daughter. Her beautiful little face was twisted into a tight scowl, and he ran his thumbs over her wet cheeks, smoothing away the tension and brushing away the tears. “I love you,” he whispered, one more time, and kissed her forehead.
He lifted Hana in his arms and went into the other bedroom, where Kasper was putting neatly folded clothes into his large camping backpack with a tight jaw and shaking hands.
“Kas?”
“I packed the clothes I got you for hiking,” Kasper said without looking up. His voice was quiet and steady. “I know you don’t like how they look, but they’re comfortable and they’ll hold up well if you have to wear them a lot. And you should take the boots you got for your birthday. I already put the new insoles in, and they’ll fit better once they’ve broken in.”
Joe sighed. “You don’t have t--”
“Yes. Yes, I do. I always pack. You’re useless at packing.” A tremor crept into Kasper’s voice as, but he kept placing things carefully in the bag. “You always forget something. You never bring enough socks. That vacation in Reykjavik, you forgot to bring anything for your hair, and you had to use my shampoo, and it was....” He stopped. “Shit. Shit. You’re almost out of hair oil.”
“Bad word, daddy,” Hana chided softly.
That wrenched a startled laugh out of Joe. To Kasper, he said, “It’s okay. I can pick something up if I need it.”
Kasper shook his head and turned to the nightstand, pulling things out at random before he seemed to realize it was his side of the bed, then went around to Joe’s and did the same. “No, no, no. They’re going to take you to some awful little place full of awful white people who’d take a bottle of almond oil and try to cook with it.”
“Well, to be fair...”
“I swear to fuck, Youcef, if you say you can cook with it...” Kasper trailed off, tears welling in his eyes, brandishing a small vibrator angrily in Joe’s direction.
Six years of marriage, and Joe still felt absolutely awed by how much he loved this man. “Hey, hey. It’s alright.”
Setting Hana down on the bed, he pulled his husband into a tight embrace. There was enough difference in height between them that Kasper could easily rest his chin on top of Joe’s head, and his long arms and soft belly always made him seem vast and encompassing, like a great valley formed to cradle Joe’s body in its gentle slopes. Now, though, as Joe wrapped his own lean arms around his husband, Kasper felt small and fragile, like all his solid earth had suddenly turned to sand and was crumbling away. They’d always carried everything together. How the hell were they supposed to function alone? How was Joe supposed to function without Kasper to take care of him?
The sob tore its way out of Joe’s throat before he could stop it, and Kasper’s hold on him tightened, trembling.
No, no. If Joe started crying, then Kasper would start crying, then they’d just be a puddle of emotions on the floor, and Genovese would have to carry him out of the apartment, wailing like a baby.
Joe drew back, trying to make his breathing even. “Hey, now. You, uh... You saw Freeman, out there. You really think she doesn’t travel with something for her hair?”
Kasper made a choked sound that might have been a laugh. “I suppose not.”
“They’re gonna take care of me,” Joe assured him gently. “I’m gonna be okay.”
Kissing him softly on the forehead, Kasper sighed. “Just come home as soon as you can? Please?”
“I will. I promise.” Surely, when things had settled, he’d be able to come back. Hopefully. He pressed back into Kasper’s warm chest, trying to absorb all the comfort he could.
The two of them had been friends for nearly a year before they got together, a result of mutual acquaintances and the interconnected dating pool that often came with queer social circles. For Joe, what had marked the moment between casual friendship and something else was the first time Kasper hugged him. His strength and warmth, the smell of dish soap and sugar that lingered from an evening in the kitchen, and the way he hugged with his whole body, wrapping around Joe like a big blanket, had given Joe such a sense of peace and safety that he never wanted to leave.
“If I don’t come back, though...” Joe murmured. Kasper whimpered, and his hold tightened. “Ask Minke about her friend, Tam.”
Kasper drew back just enough to frown at Joe, his eyes red-rimmed and wet. “What?”
“He’s the only other hot, gay, trans artist I know,” Joe explained. “He’s Jewish, but...”
A choked-off laugh wrenched its way out of Kasper’s throat. “That’s not funny.”
“It’s a little funny.”
“It’s really not.” Kasper pressed his lips against Joe’s temple and sighed. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.” The words weren’t big enough, had never been big enough, but they were the only words Joe had ever had. “It’s gonna be okay, Kas. We’re gonna be okay.”
Kasper straightened his back, sniffling as he wiped away tears. “Just be careful, yeah? No more daring rescues, or anything, just... just be careful.”
“I will. I promise,” Joe said, and he meant it. He pulled Kasper down for a long, slow kiss and tried to pour every promise, every hope, every bit of love that was inside him into that kiss, but it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.
When he returned to face his new companions, he was a little surprised to find Freeman watching with a soft smile and Genovese turned away like he couldn’t stand to witness the farewells. Without another word, he followed them out of the flat and onto the street.
Years later, Joe would think that he should have turned around for one last look, should have committed every detail of his departure to memory, should have taken a picture of the street so he could paint it later, but he didn’t. It would be even more years after that before he learned that Nicky had turned to look, had taken note of the flowers lining the sidewalk, the color of the sky, the sound of music through an open window, the hint of summer approaching in the air. When Joe began to forget, he found that Nicky remembered everything for him.
But that was still some time away, and Joe didn’t notice when Genovese took a long look behind them.