If the world was ending you’d come over, right?

[Marguerite De Silva]

Marge slid around the counter that separated the kitchen from the rest of the living room. "Hey. New kid." Raphael flinched; he'd been in the process of describing... teacups to Bray, who was also somehow listening with rapt attention like he both understood this fascination with them and maybe shared a similar hobby of collecting them.

"I need you to help me with something." She patted him on the back lightly. "It's ah. Something only a Fallen would know, and I just need you to step out with me for a few minutes."

Her gaze slid over to Jack meaningfully. Marge raised her brow, then nodded very slightly toward Brayden--that was Jack's cue to remove Brayden from the situation. "And I think Jack, you had something you needed to tell Bee? Right? We'll be just across the courtyard--"

Ignoring Brayden's questioning, puzzled look, Marge took Raphael's arm. She hauled him to his feet and smiled at him again. "Don't worry honey. We'll be back in no time. If you really want us to protect you, you have to help us, right? That's how it works."

"...oh. Yes of course. I'll do anything I can, but--"

"Good!" Marge talked over him. "Come on then. Jack. Be back soon."

[Jack Ripley]

"Right."

He took his cue naturally, slipping his hand into Brayden's, then looking over at Brayden with a smile. As if what he had to say was something good. Honestly, he didn't feel great about any of this. All he wanted to do was open his heart to somebody who needed help. Clearly, he needed help. At least, that was what Jack thought. Now he couldn't help feeling... tricked. And there was always the fear that Keith somehow wormed his way into his home. It made him feel unsafe to be here.

"Come on, B," Jack said, as he got up, tugging him up along with him. His other hand swiped his phone off the couch and stuck it inside his robe's pocket.

Trusting Marge with the situation, he led Brayden back down the hall and into the bedroom. Oddly, what Marge said actually felt real. He hadn't noticed it in the moment--could he notice anything except Brayden and the moment of love they shared?--but now he felt it. Magic. It was everywhere, strong. He could almost see it. And it came with a scent. Not like sex scent, either. Did magic always have a scent? Was this some sort of awakening? It smelled... clean, of fresh snowfall, woodsy--of cedar or pine, crisp--of apple.

Jack looked over at Brayden, confused. "Did you light a candle or something?"

[Brayden Smith]

Things were happening that Bray couldn't comprehend. One moment he was chatting with Raphael about teacups—of which Bray was quite fond, as he had inherited a lovely set from his grandmother—and the next he was being led away. "I-I'll show you the teacups later!" He called to Raphael who was being borne away by Marge, looking distinctly terrified.

Rightly so. If Marge was going to continue from where she left off in the kitchen...

Oh, dear.

Bray turned to Jack as they made their way back to the bedroom—why the bedroom? Why not the bedroom?—but Jack asked him about candles and Bray blinked. "Nooo..." he said slowly, glancing around as if candles were to be found in mid-air. "Did—did you want me to?" Bray hovered closer to Jack as he gently closed the door behind him. The room was infused with love. He could feel it.

Ah. Yes. Love's protection. And they had made love here not long ago, hadn't they? Bray smiled as he dared to pull Jack closer, to slip his arms around Jack's waist and rest his head against his chest. "Your glamor's fading," he said softly as his hands locked behind Jack's back. "Raphael was right. I'll have to teach you how to cast another one." Bray looked up with a small little frown. "I didn't want to show him my wings, Jack. And I didn't... I didn't want him to be the first to see yours, either."

Bray wanted that honor.

[Jack Ripley]

"No..."

It was just a sense, he supposed. A newfound sense. Or one he never realized was there all along...? He thought back to Keith, about that dark sense of... oiliness about him. Was that the same sort of thing? So many questions; he thought he was intelligent, that he knew the world but now he felt like a child again. Everything was so strange and new.

In some ways, he felt a little like he must have knocked his head on something and this was all some vision as he died. Or that he was stuck in a dream world and he just wasn't aware of it. Pinch me, he wanted to say. Pinch me and tell me it's all real.

He did want it to be real, didn't he? Some of it, yes. Some of it...

"I know you didn't," he said, because he knew Brayden well enough by now to know that he wouldn't want to show his wings to just anyone. Especially a stranger. As for Jack... He looked down at Brayden and his cute little frown and he kissed him. Right on the frown.

"...how do I show you?" It was just the two of them now, after all... and who knew how long that would last?

[Brayden Smith]

Bray shut his eyes reflexively as he was kissed right between the eyes, where his brows met in a frown. Ahh... Jack and his silly, sweet, oddly placed kisses. Bray's frown dissolved and he smiled despite himself and despite the gravity of their situation. It wasn't bad, really. Not all bad. They were together; they were in one piece, whole, happy.

And Jack wanted to show him his wings. That was a great privilege, to be privy to another fae's wings. Bray was taught that, anyway--he couldn't show them to just anyone. He could only use his powers in times of great danger. Slowly he disengaged from Jack to give him enough room to work.

"Imagine your glamor like a shroud. Like something covering you from head to toe, a veil. Now imagine shrugging it off. Envision yourself taking off the veil and letting it fall..."

[Jack Ripley]

"All right."

Sounded simple enough. Jack was accustomed to shedding clothes. In fact, since he was only wearing a nice silk robe at the moment--and nothing else... nothing else--it was pretty simple to imagine that he was just... shrugging it off. Jack closed his eyes. Actually, he might have shrugged the actual physical robe from his body. It helped with the immersion.

But as he did so, it felt like something else was happening. When he opened his eyes, it felt... like he was seeing the world with brand new eyes, as if something had been blinding him for all those years of life left in his past. The world seemed brighter, more colorful. There was actual magic in the air, like... pretty little glittery dust particles and they were everywhere, all around them. Like flakes of gold.

Jack stared. It was... amazing.

And Brayden... Brayden, Brayden, Brayden... dear sweet Brayden. He was more beautiful than Jack had ever seen him. With those golden flecks in his eyes and that purity about him. Pure magic? Pure love? A mixture of the two?

"...did it work?"

Wings

[Brayden Smith]

Ooh. Aah. The robe came off, sliding effortlessly away from Jack's body, and Bray half-averted his gaze. (The other half caught a sneaky little peek at his lover's body, in all of its naked glory, and it was pleased beyond measure.) He really... ought not act like this. But Bray was such a proper person, he wasn't accustomed to seeing people in a state of undress every day.

And Jack was so beautiful that it... it felt almost a touch dirty to see him naked because the sight of him made Bray think very, very inappropriate things.

He was more beautiful without his glamor, though. Even Bray could see the magic in the air--that was... that was powerful magic. He couldn't do it with his own abilities, and he was supposedly royal. Jack, though, made the air shimmer and glimmer, as mana seeped into the room all around them. And his wings. Bray couldn't help but stare, feeling strangely proud--strangely choked up. It was like listening to an unexpectedly beautiful piece of music, or seeing a magnificent sunrise. The emotions welled up and choked him just at the back of his throat, a little bit.

"It--yes. Yes! It worked!" Bray stepped forward to touch him, at the side of his arm. And he felt the magic even more strongly than ever, felt it flowing into his own fingertips. It dissolved his glamor--that was unexpected. Bray didn't try hard to hold on to it, letting it fade away so that he could stand before Jack in his own natural form. He didn't know it for a fact but... he felt as if that was what his other form wanted. Strange to feel that way when he controlled it but the fae side recognized Jack's fae side, too.

Somehow it seemed appropriate. "You're... royalty too," he whispered in awe. "You-you have to be, Jack. There's too much power here."

[Jack Ripley]

It worked! It worked? Jack tried to get a peek at his own wings but all he could see was some kind of iridescent color of blue and gold in his peripheral vision. Knowing what they looked like wasn't nearly as important as Brayden's touch to his arm or that look of pure awe on his face. Jack spent his entire life longing for more than he had. And when he was old enough, when he went off to college, he preened like a peacock, a prince, a dandy. He made himself the life of the party, the center of attention.

But it never seemed as important as it did in this moment. What Brayden thought was essential. Crucial. He needed Brayden to love him--to still love him--no matter what lay beyond his so-called glamor. And part of him did worry that Brayden would not like what he saw, that there would be some flaw in his magic, in his fae form, his wings. Something to put Brayden off.

The worry was for naught; Brayden looked at him like he was really looking at the stars he loved and coveted so much. It made Jack's heart beat faster. It made him smile, too, because just like that, Brayden dropped his glamor, too. His soft, pretty wings, that fae version of Brayden that not many laid witness to. Jack reached out, touching Brayden's face.

"...I can't be," he said. Jack? Royalty? Jack, the kid who lived in squalor? Whose own mother hated him, whose father left him? Where was that royalty coming from? Were they not his real parents? He was finding he knew less and less about himself as events unfolded before him.

"Wouldn't we be related?" They couldn't be. Jack couldn't bear the thought of it. "We're not... are we?"

[Brayden Smith]

"Oh but-but you are. You are, Jack, I feel it."

Jack's magic was like theirs--his parents'. There was a similar feeling that seeing his true fae form evoked that Bray had never felt from anyone else before, not from other fae, not from any other being. It was uniquely royal. Jack didn't know it because he didn't know any other fae save for Bray, perhaps, so there was no frame of reference for him.

But the magic in the air. The shape and color of his wings and the magic emanating from them, it was unmistakable. Bray's head tipped into his hand, into his touch. he stepped closer to Jack too, until their bodies met, until their lips met. The thought of them being related--not brothers but perhaps cousins?--was painful. To have found love and then to have it be... some sort of taboo or unacceptable union, it was too painful to entertain.

"I don't know." His words were whispered against Jack's lips, meant only for him. "I don't think I care very much, Jack."

Bray couldn't--he couldn't live without Jack. All of those years waiting, yearning to be a part of something bigger than himself... It couldn't end here. It couldn't end now, just when they were beginning to taste happiness and togetherness. Bray kissed him again, a more desperate kiss, a deeper, more sultry, intimate kiss. Not the kind of kiss cousins shared. The kind of kiss lovers shared.

"You're mine. I have you and-and I won't lose you."

He twisted his head and took in a swift, deep breath. Brought his lips to Jack's ear. "You're mine. And I'm yours." There was... no hesitation in him. For once, Bray didn't even have to think. He whispered his True name into Jack's ear, a wisp of sound like the caress of a butterfly's wing. "I'm yours to keep."

[Jack Ripley]

"...I don't think I do either," he admitted softly in return. It wasn't as if they'd lived their life that way. Never raised together, never knowing one another until now. And now... Now they were totally and absolutely vulnerable in front of one another. Jack in every sense of the word, as if giving himself wholly to Brayden. Which... he was. He was and it felt right.

For a long time, Jack never would have allowed himself to be this vulnerable with anybody. It was one thing to be naked in front of another man--he was quite proud of himself, his body, he felt no shame in sharing it with his lovers. But it was another to show him his every fear and flaw. He even told Brayden his very worst secrets... even if only to find they weren't his at all.

But he had shared them; he shared the worst part of himself with Brayden. Oh, he tried to hide it but they were too close. Jack could never keep the truth hidden from him, not for much longer. Something about Brayden coaxed it all out. Everything he wanted to hide about himself. All that pretty armor, fallen away and revealing somebody smaller and less bombastic than he presented himself.

Brayden still loved him. Like he always knew what was lying beneath. Or embraced all of him, flaws and all.

Jack leaned into the kiss, hands sliding up Brayden's waist, holding him close. No, that was definitely not a familial kiss. It was the kind of kiss that ignited passion and swept the feet right out from under him. Jack stayed close even as the kiss ended, his eyes closing as Brayden whispered into his ear. It wasn't just the sensation of warm breath ghosting against his skin. It was the words, too. Mine and yours. Normally, such possessive words would have him twisting away and running for the hills. It was different when it came from Brayden.

Something swept over him, a familiar... language, a familiar thread of magic. It was as if when Brayden spoke his True Name, it threaded itself into Jack's soul, embedded on his heart, imprinted on his being. And without knowing how or why he knew, Jack whispered something back to Brayden, like a deeply buried secret that not even Jack knew that he knew. It felt so right when he whispered it. Some old, ancient language, a name less ominous than Ripley, less common than Jack.

[Brayden Smith]

"Ah..."

Jack's True Name.

It had a familiar ring to it, as if... As if he had heard it before? Bray's eyes slid closed slowly and he let the words sink in, deep, deep, deep into his soul. There it rested, safe, forever imprinted. Had he heard this name before? He felt as if he had, but not... Not in this body. In another body maybe. In a different time, in a different world. In different worlds. Different settings. But he knew the name, he was sure. He didn't know how, didn't know he knew it until Jack whispered it to him but it was familiar. It had been entrusted to him before, once, twice, a hundred times, countless times.

"Jack? Have we... met before?" Bray didn't open his eyes. He held on to Jack, hugging him close. He loved him so much that it couldn't be accurately described. Even love didn't feel strong enough a word for the depths of his feelings and emotions. And so it sounded like kind of a stupid question to ask now, but he wasn't talking about the present. Not even this... time line?

Did Jack feel it too? The way the words and names were all-too-familiar? It was like a whisper of a familiar strain of song or a line from a favorite movie, recounted so many times that it was committed to memory. To himself, in the privacy of his mind, he repeated Jack's True Name and his eyes opened. "We've met before." More conviction now in his voice.

"We... we are related." Not by blood--by fate. By history.

[Jack Ripley]

Jack didn't even know it until he knew it. Until Brayden whispered his True Name... somehow, his own was connected to it. Like the beginning and the ending of a sentence. They went together, connected in just the same way as their bodies did, as their hands did. It just felt so... right.

And he was glad for it. More grateful than he could ever express. It felt like such a long, arduous road to get here--to stand here and now, with Brayden in his arms. Once, nothing felt right. Now it all made sense, why it didn't feel right, why it could never feel right. Jack was missing key components of himself. His childhood wasn't just unhappy because he didn't have a family to connect to, who loved him, who supported him--although that was definitely a part of it. It was because he didn't know who he really was.

Now he felt it; a step closer to self actualization. True actualization, not the kind he joked about with Brayden once upon a time. And he had all the love and support a person could ever need.

"...have we?" Jack thought Brayden meant now. Or rather, at some point their current pasts. Did they meet as children, he wondered, struggling to remember. But Brayden was here. And Jack was all the way in Boston. Jack didn't even leave Massachusetts until he graduated from Harvard. He doubted they met but Brayden sounded absolutely certain. Jack blinked. Looked down at him, then...

"What?" He took an involuntary step back. "We are? We're actually related?"

He knew he said he didn't care but...

[Brayden Smith]

"No—no, we're—"

How could he explain it? Jack didn't seem to realize it, or he didn't feel what Bray did, not only in his heart but in his soul, in the marrows of his bones. They had known each other in another life. In other lives—not only one, but countless ones. They existed in different bodies, in different times, but they found a way to be together somehow, across time and across vast distances.

Bray blinked. "Oh. No Jack." He followed, drawing Jack down to sit on the bed with him—though not after sweeping up the robe... to place over Jack's lap. He was still so naked, and that was still so distracting. Bray held his hands as he gazed off somewhere into the closet door, trying to formulate his thoughts. How did he describe that feeling? It couldn't be accurately relayed.

"We... I think we. We're related by. Marriage?" That didn't sound quite right. Bray shook his head slightly, half laughing at how ridiculous he sounded. "I just feel like maybe this... isn't our first... life that we've lived together? I mean maybe in another life... we were together too."

[Jack Ripley]

Was it his... wings? Did they look like something Brayden had seen before? His parents? Jack had a number of things swirling around in his head about how they might be related in some way. Did it matter? He tried to tell himself that it didn't. Did it? It wasn't as if he could stop the way he felt about Brayden because of this new information. And they already had sex... so...

But Brayden was saying no.

Jack sat down beside Brayden on the bed, though he looked quite pointedly at the robe placed in his lap. Again... Brayden seemed ashamed by it. Except maybe this time, he had a reason for it. With a sigh, Jack stood back up to slip the robe back on, cinching it at the waist before he sat again. Fine, fine, he was covered up.

"Marriage," he said, trying to follow Brayden's line of thought and finding himself only mystified. Related by marriage? Jack's mother never married. His father left them--he didn't have to divorce officially because they were never married officially. And the "step-fathers" that came in afterward, they weren't official step-fathers either. Just a name they wanted to be called because it gave at least one of them some perverse pleasure.

Which was probably why Jack stepped away at the thought of the two of them being related. Even if they weren't related by blood, those men... Jack toyed with the sash of his robe. Lying back in his luxurious bed, he looked up at Brayden, who seemed to be struggling with his explanation.

"In another life?" He laughed it off with a little wave of the hand, brushing it against Brayden's back. "Is that a thing fairies do, too? Reincarnate? Like re..."

He trailed off, his gaze turning inward.

"You didn't!" a familiar voice said, trying to sound shocked but clearly, he knew him far too well. He looked... like Brayden but his hair was tied up in a bun, his clothes foreign. Something loose but modest, a bit like a tunic, actually.

"Oh yes, I did," Jack said from where he sat cross-legged in front of a fire, with a sleeping baby cradled in the crook of one arm. He poked at the fire with his other hand to stoke it.

"Wait." Jack sat back up.

BANG!

The door that he was pressed against was caving in, dust stirred up by the enemy, attempting to get inside. It was the cellar--Jack didn't know how he knew it. It was a cellar somewhere. Brayden--this time he looked so young. Couldn't have been more than twenty years old. But Brayden, he was on his knees beside an older woman. His... mother? A thin trail of blood ran down her chin.

"Behind the--behind those casks," Jack said, and he could feel the moisture on his face and the heaviness in his chest. Brayden argued with him but Jack cried out hoarsely, "Get behind them! Now! I can't--I can't hold this door anymore..."

And not a moment later, the door exploded inward, taking Jack with it. He flew back and as he hit the stone floor, the back of his head smashed like an egg against the sharp edge of a nearby table. The last thing he heard was Brayden, calling out for him.

"I think I'm having those vision things again..." Jack pressed a hand to his temple, then over his eyes.

Brayden stood with his hands in her hands. Jack stood at the very back of the cathedral, his hand shaking at his side before his fingers curled inward. The two were pronounced husband and wife and Brayden... he stepped forward with his beautiful smile and his beautiful eyes on somebody else. And she was smiling, too, right before they kissed. Jack's mouth was a thin line before he looked away, hair in his eyes.

As the audience clapped for the newly wed pair, Jack turned and left the chamber.

"Not always..." he said, feeling his chest squeeze tight with the realization that there might have been a timeline when his feelings were wholly unrequited. "I don't think we always made it together."

[Brayden Smith]

Wh-what? Why did Jack always Look at him a certain disapproving way when he tried to help him cover up? Granted, Jack was comfortable with nudity, Bray sensed, but other people—other easily distracted people who hadn't had a proper lover in three years—maybe needed a bit of protection. As if nudity could be used as a weapon... But if anyone could do it, it would be Jack.

Bray sighed and as Jack laid back with an airy, disbelieving laugh, he shook his head. He was serious here! They—

Visions. Vivid, colorful visions flashed before his eyes. Bray laying down on a small cot cradling a baby in his arms, while Jack busied himself stirring the fire of their tiny hut. Jack with long hair, laughing in that carefree manner of his as their ship skimmed the turbulent waters, while Bray clung to the bow and tried his best to stop looking as green as he felt inside. A cave, its interior marbled by the reflection of light off of the surface of a deep, icy pool and two young men holding one another in the throes of passion...

Lives past, lives that they shared with and without each other, played out in front of him. Bray gasped and hunched forward with his head held in both hands, inundated by visions. It was too much—there was an overload of... of everything. Memories, scents, sounds, sensations. "St-stop! Jack!" He cried out, shaking and curling in on himself as if to protect against the onslaught. His wings folded around him like a cocoon too, but the visions didn't stop. They kept swirling around and around in his mind, overwhelming him with pain and pleasure and happiness and despair, defeat, fear, anger—so many emotions, too many to be named.

"Jack!"