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The epiphany comes one day when Antonio is idling in the dining room before a match, peering beyond the curtain to grin at Andrew, letting him know this’ll be an easy day, and he and his friends can relax. That Balsa boy sees him first and elbows Andrew in the side, who isn’t happy about being disturbed until Balsa says something to the grave digger that Antonio can’t make out from this far away. Andrew perks up, eyebrows raising in surprise as he makes eye contact with the Hunter. Antonio cannot hear what Andrew says either, the Manor preventing sound from transferring from Hunter to Survivor, but he doesn’t need to. Andrew’s rarely-seen smile peeks through the hand he claps over his mouth, shy. Antonio gives him a short wave, then ducks back behind the safety of his side of the curtain. He drops into the armchair, drumming his fingers against the arm, thinking about how he’d like to wheedle more rare grins out of Andrew for a long time yet.
He’s sitting there waiting for Valden to finish his glass of wine so they can start their Chinatown game, when he realizes he likes Andrew, plain and simple.
Antonio is infinitely familiar with love, or at least what passes for in it in a world where he’s not afforded the luxury of caring about another person while barely able to care about himself. As long as he tells the right person he loves them, the world is his oyster, even if it isn’t true. It is a transactional provision. A warm body for another warm body. Sometimes money or power factor in.
Sometimes, the entire arrangement backfires, as it did with the Princess. Antonio blocks this one out of his memory. She cannot hurt him here.
He’s loved plenty, if that’s what you call it. But who has he ever
liked,
wanted to spend time with of his own volition? This is a softer relationship, a meet-me-halfway sort of thing, where he can only wait to see if Andrew will close the remaining distance of his own free will. Before he is given more time to process this, his vision blacks out. He comes to near the fountain in the center of Chinatown.
He finds Victor first on a nearby cipher, decoding without a care in the world. Even though he tends to take it easy when Andrew’s present in a match, he has half a mind to smack Victor anyway, just to show that Andrew hasn’t completely defanged him. Just mostly. But he doesn’t, and instead lopes up to Grantz for a perfunctory hello. He’s in the cafe, Victor signs.
“Why do you assume I’m going right for him?” Antonio jokes. “Maybe I wanted to speak to you, Grantz. Would that be so strange?”
Victor stops decoding to respond a little too fast, and his cipher lets out a shower of angry sparks. About?
Antonio snorts. “You win.” He stops suddenly, wracking his brain until he remembers how to sign Thank you, and then wanders off.
When he strides into the Chinatown cafe, Andrew has one leg over the windowsill, the cipher purring nicely. It’s seconds away from completion, and Andrew must have been decoding up until the moment Antonio walked in, the vain hope of finishing just in time keeping him glued to the machine. “As lovely to see you tonight as ever,” Antonio calls, but is unsure whether Andrew actually heard him, because the man is off like a shot. It doesn’t take long to catch him between the tines of a string. When the music goes through Andrew, he laughs like a madman and only runs faster.
To Andrew’s credit, he puts up a wonderful fight for someone who’s already injured, kiting Antonio neatly through four ciphers. If he’d been playing to win Antonio would have been furious beyond belief. Antonio luckily isn’t trying for victory, only to play the macabre little game that’s he and Andrew’s favorite. But sooner or later, Andrew fails, just after the fourth cipher is completed. Antonio brings his bow down across Andrew’s back when he slashes through a pallet, and Andrew drops.
“Nice job.” He rolls over onto his back as Antonio squats down next to him.
“Are you done stringing me along?”
Andrew groans at the lame pun. “I shouldn’t have gone for this one. It’s unsafe. Risking it was a silly idea.”
“Definitely.” He starts dragging Andrew along as the other squirms, and Antonio stops short. “No, no. None of that today, Andrew. I thought we’d head back to that cafe.” Andrew subsequently goes limp and lets himself take a ride along the pavement, making Antonio put in the work to get him back to the tables. He drops Andrew onto a stool. “Coffee?” The Chinatown cafe is disturbingly well-equipped for a place that is supposed to be abandoned. The equipment is well-worn but otherwise clean and in perfect condition, the icebox stocked, as if the proprietors had only stepped outside for a moment.
“Sure.”
“Milk and sugar?”
“None.” Antonio remains silent and stares at him for a moment. He is fond of Andrew, but that man is far too comfortable with privation, to the point where he’ll even enforce it on himself when there’s nobody to do it for him. Antonio knows Andrew better than to think he really enjoys black coffee. Under an unrelenting gaze, Andrew wilts. “…Lots,” he admits. He’s got a wicked sweet tooth when he is allowed, and here he is allowed to indulge; nobody’s going to take it from him, but he still has the self-discipline (or self-loathing) to stick to the basics until pressed. And so Antonio has taken it onto himself to act as the devil on Andrew’s shoulder, pushing him to harmless ends to find a fuller, more pleasurable, existence in the Manor. Who is he hurting, really, if he wants sugar in his coffee? Even if it is in the middle of a hideous death game? As far as Antonio’s concerned it’s only taking lemons and making lemonade.
While the cafe’s good condition is odd, this wonderfully maintained bar setup allows Antonio to make two steaming cups without any trouble, both drowned in sweetener and cream. His hands are weak on the moka pot, slipping off of the handle, and he would have been unable to pour it properly were it not for a strand of his own hair winding around the handle for additional support. His grip fails on his own cup, spilling a bit on the counter, but he doesn’t bother to clean it. The bar is always returned to its same frozen-in-time state whenever he returns again for a new match. He sits across from Andrew, legs folding awkwardly.
Andrew takes a long sip. He must find nothing wrong with it because he drinks again. “Why the domesticity today?”
Antonio does not blush. He is unable; there is no blood in his body that would flow to his cheeks and make him go pink. He considers this quite a blessing in times like this, because while he can speak without a quiver in his voice, he knows he’d go blotchy red the minute Andrew looks at him. “I was only feeling sentimental,” he says, brushing it off.
“This is good. Thank you.”
They lapse into silence. The emptiness between words is never fearful when Antonio spends time with Andrew, which marks this particular void as suspiciously uncomfortable.
“Antonio,” Andrew says suddenly. His tone is always the same. He doesn’t emote much, which makes it hard to tell whatever Andrew is really getting at before he decides to reveal it himself. It’s not out of any talent for deception, Andrew is honest to a fault, but that’s just the way he is. “I’ve been thinking lately.”
Antonio has to bite his own tongue when it registers in his head. No normal conversation starts with those words. Do you already want to separate when we haven’t even been together for long? he wants to ask. It is not a logical conclusion to draw, but I’ve been thinking is a dangerous way to start, and his mind jumps to the worst possibility. He had only just started to drop his guard around Andrew, and it had better not all come crashing down now. He smiles, but it’s thin. It fades quickly. “Most people do.”
“Well, I think there’s something you need to hear.”
Antonio wants to grab Andrew by the shoulders and shake while he cries for Andrew to get to the point already. If his heart still beat, it’d stop here. “And what would that be?”
“I’m sorry. This is hard for me to say, but I’ve been talking with… some of the others, and… I don’t think I say this enough.”
“For my sake, spit it out. You’re scaring me.”
“Well… Antonio. This is not very easy for me to get out, if I am being honest. But you deserve to hear it.” Andrew takes in a brief puff of breath. “I enjoy spending time with you. Deeply and genuinely.” And all the imaginary blood-flow in Antonio’s body resumes its flow from where it has stopped dead in its veins now that he’s no longer in jeopardy. “I think you’re a whole lot smarter than I am. Things that take me forever to grasp come so naturally for you. Others gravitate to you. Rooms light up when you enter.” Antonio does not think this is true, but Andrew is not the type to stop once he has begun. “And you always know what to say when I don’t, and nothing seems to faze you, and you’re so funny, and I think… I think I am made a better person by spending time around you. I have never understood what you see in me.”
Antonio almost laughs. How like Andrew to cap off such heartfelt words, delivered as they are in his characteristic monotone, with a self-deprecating comment, hedging it all in his own chronically low opinion of himself. But this isn’t the time for humor, and Antonio shifts in his seat, crossing one leg over the other. Anything he says here is only a response, and he will be breaking no new ground. It’s much easier to be the I love you too than the I love you, and by taking the leap, Andrew has taken the harder step, met Antonio much further than halfway. He is on the defensive, Antonio thinks, before stopping himself. This is not a battle of seduction like his affairs in the past. Andrew is not doing this to see how Antonio will respond. He is only saying this because he wanted to, and there is no defensive here.
“A-and sometimes, when I wake up, I find myself wishing to be put in a match, just so I might have the chance to see you.” adds Andrew. His grip on the cup in hand is tight. The milky coffee winks up at Antonio as the dim light in the cafe shop darts across it like a mirror surface. It’s rare to catch Andrew with his shields down. Antonio’s mind races. He has been blindsided.
“…Andrew, I thought you were going to tell me you wanted to split up,” says Antonio suddenly, and Andrew’s jaw drops.
“Why?” he cries.
“When you—“ and here he must pause to giggle nervously. It’s an awkward sound coming out of something his size, but he cannot help the habits he developed while still alive. “When you open a speech with I’ve been thinking, that is traditionally how you open a— a breakup.”
“Why would I want to—?”
“I don’t know, but you scared me.”
“If anything, I would think you’d be the one cutting things off with me,” murmurs Andrew. He looks askance and drains his cup of coffee.
“Don’t make such a lovely speech and start talking down on yourself while the notes still hang in the air!” chides Antonio. “It’s my turn now. I listened to you. Now you have to listen me.” Andrew chokes on his last sip. “I hope you’ll forgive me for being a little shorter-winded. Words aren’t my specialty so much as music. So I’ll be direct.”
“I need no response,” he asserts. “I did not speak for hope of reciprocation. I only said what was on my mind.”
“I want to give one. You wouldn’t deny me, would you?”
“…Fine.”
“You pretend to give a shit about nobody but yourself, but your actions and your words so rarely match up there. I hear stories from the other Hunters of the saves you pull when you don’t think anyone is watching. You care so deeply for the other people around you, Andrew. I can only watch. I lack the sheer selflessness that you have.” And now it is Antonio’s turn to take the floor, and Andrew’s to listen, folding in on himself. “I am a believer in quality over quantity. One person who’s good to me is worth more than any amount of others I have known in the past. You’re singular, Andrew. I don’t have to second-guess anything you say. You’re honest and direct. There are no little mind games to play with you. And when you tell me you love me, the damnedest thing is that I believe you.”
“Ah,” comes Andrew’s flustered response. He has been growing increasingly pink the entire time Antonio was speaking, sinking lower and lower onto his elbows like he’s trying to become one with the table. Now that Andrew has ran off the edge of his prepared script, it’s clear that he no longer knows what to say.
“Sorry to take you off topic from what you rehearsed.” It’s not pejorative to make that assumption; Andrew is anxious as they come and does not like to be caught off guard. As a result, he practices talking about things like this with friends before he actually breaches serious topics. Antonio doesn’t begrudge him for it. Were Antonio less sure of himself, he would do the same.
“I did not rehearse!”
Antonio is too amused to push any further. Andrew is easy to rattle, but Antonio feels no need to bring him to amiable pieces today, still warm with the timbre of Andrew’s words. “If you insist.”
He still feels he’s explained himself rather inadequately, but Antonio cannot bring himself to say anything else for the sake of his pride as a man. Still, the thoughts linger in the corners of his mouth: it feels like that piercing red stare of Andrew’s goes right through the showman’s persona. Antonio finds he does not mind being seen for once rather than heard.
Andrew suddenly goes upright, whipping around to look at something unseen through the walls. His eyes narrow. That must be Valden, Grantz, and Balsa, communicating through their mysterious channels that the last cipher is primed for completion. “Almost time for me to go.” remarks Andrew.
“Stay a while. We can find the Dungeon,” he responds. What he’s really asking is Spend a little longer with me. It’s just part of the game-within-a-game that he and Andrew play, where there is no real threat in the match and this is as close to a date as they can go on while trapped in the Manor’s form of purgatory.
“I’ll tell them they can leave.” A tacit acceptance.
The other three must have been waiting on tenterhooks for a response, because the moment Andrew gives them the okay, sirens blare overhead to signify the match is coming to an end. Antonio’s vision hazes over, and his head pounds with Detention, his own dead heartbeat audible in his ears. Andrew stands, crosses to Antonio’s side of the table, and rubs circles into Antonio’s back as they wait for the mental fog to lift.
Andrew does not even pretend to be interested in leaving through the Dungeon when it is located underneath the bridge on the far side of town. He observes the open hatch, wind roaring out of the hole in the world, from afar with the clinical gaze of a scientist. “Are you going?” asks Antonio, but he knows the answer.
“I don’t think so. Come out the gate with me instead.”
What else can Antonio do besides acquiesce?
Whenever they walk out hand in hand, it’s a coin flip whether the Manor spits them out on the Hunters’ side or the Survivors’ side. hile neither option is bad so long as it means he gets to spend more time with Andrew, he prefers emerging onto the Manor he considers home. Most of the Hunters ignore occasional Survivor visits, but this does not apply to if he were to visit the other side. Nobody says anything to him or Andrew, though he is aware his presence unnerves the other Survivors, even if he doesn’t care to antagonize anyone outside of the times he’s obligated to. It’s just terribly awkward to sit in on the still-living humans like he belongs there: hello, nine-foot-tall possessed zombie who attacks me and my friends, would you please pass the butter? No, much easier to avoid the situation entirely and just spend time together in his own room.
Antonio cannot pretend he does not love to gamble, and sometimes it pays off— they emerge into the Hunters’ side of the manor, immediately identifiable by its dimmer, dustier, halls. He leads Andrew through the twisting corridors, only interrupted by a pacing Joseph who is interested in nothing more than a polite greeting. It doesn’t take long to come to his own room.
Andrew hangs his coat up by the door, toes off his heavy boots, and leans his shovel against the wall. He’s been here enough that he does not feel shackled to his role as a guest, and makes himself at home without any prompting. There are even a few outfits of his own mixed in with Antonio’s things, a testament to just how much time he spends here. He leaves to take a bath. While he is gone, Antonio takes the time to change into a nightshirt and place his violin reverently in the case on his desk. It cannot be past eleven o’clock, but Antonio has nowhere else to be today, and so he waits for Andrew to finish while idly sipping at an only slightly overfilled glass of whiskey; it’s enough to be satisfying, but not enough to get him drunk. Only a nightcap.
The other man returns with damp hair, changed into a set of charmingly pinstriped blue-and-white pajamas.He folds his balled-up dayclothes, hangs them over the side of Antonio’s wooden desk chair, and finishes off the arrangement by laying his gloves one after the other on top of the laundry pile. When he is done, he wordlessly gets into bed. It occupies the center of the room, bracketed by a pair of windows, and Antonio draws the curtains so the sun will not wake Andrew up come morning. Andrew is severe in his usual dress, but out of his heavy dark clothes he goes from austere and stark as a cliffside to pretty in a washed-out sort of way, his white hair and pale skin softly backlit in the low glow cast from the lamp on Antonio’s bedside. What a vision. Andrew wastes no more time in worming himself properly beneath the sheets, adjusting Antonio’s million pillows into a more pleasing arrangement, and Antonio is inclined to join him. Their legs tangle together as they slot against one another in familiar positions. Andrew smells faintly of floral soap.
This is unfamiliar, but not unwelcome. Just… going to sleep together. Antonio is used to a more figurative definition of sleep with. There is no need to perform here in the narrow valley between his body and Andrew’s own. He’s not expected to do anything besides be a comforting weight at Andrew’s side. He can simply be.
He is in a committed relationship that has him in bed by midnight, the antithesis to a life spent getting into as much trouble as possible. If Antonio’s past self could see him, he’d scream. He’s been domesticated, and the worst—best?— part is that Antonio finds he doesn’t mind it. They do more than go through the motions and roll over to face away from each other afterwards. Has he domesticated Andrew in turn? Has he changed the way Andrew lives, too? This cannot have been something that, a year ago, Andrew ever would have thought is possible. The thought makes Antonio brighten. When he died the first time around, he left a legacy, but now, he has done something even more profound: he’s made at least one person on this earth happy.
“What are you thinking of?” whispers Andrew. One pale hand reaches across the gap between them both, coming to rest on Antonio’s cold cheek. Antonio holds it there. His thumb strokes at Andrew’s own.
“Nothing important.”
It does not take much longer for them both to fall asleep like this, Andrew’s hand still held to Antonio’s cheek. Antonio has always been a light sleeper (out of necessity if nothing else), but finds that he sleeps like the dead when Andrew is next to him. His fraught sleeping patterns come in handy when Andrew stirs in the morning.
Andrew must return to his side of the Manor. This is one of those rules that, like it or not, neither of them can break. But maybe Antonio lingers at the door, watching Andrew tiptoe down the hall in the morning light, for longer than is strictly necessary. If he does, that’s nobody’s business but his own.
Antonio is dizzy when he returns from walking Andrew to the boundary between places. His room is cluttered but not messy, and he sets about cleaning in an uncharacteristic fit of activity before he catches himself. The nervous energy that arcs through him is uniquely charged, and there are better things to direct it towards than straightening up. His fingertips itch. He feels light-headed. He wants to write something.
Antonio has not come up with anything new for a long time. He has enough of a backlog of music written while he was alive, and pieces by other artists too, that he has felt no need to put pen back to paper since arriving at the Manor. The mental muscles are rusty, so to speak, and it will take quite a bit of re-greasing the wheels to get himself back into proper practice. His technique remains perfect as always, but playing and composing are two different skills. Music theory has never been his strong suit. Whatever he makes will be inferior to past work, the deficient skill having only atrophied further from disuse. But then, he realizes, a solution so simple he can’t believe it never crossed his mind before: It doesn’t have to be good. It only has to be true.
He need not show it to anyone. It can be his secret, something he composes and never performs for another person. A private letter in the only language where he can write properly, stuffed into the sides of his violin case or folded in his breast pocket and kept near his heart, not for performance or publication or consumption. It’s only his. He might not even put it to paper so it can come out a little different each time it is brought alive again, a breathing work, growing like a living thing, changing as he does. Antonio always does his best work under stress, song exploding out of him like a steam engine once he hits a breaking point, but this is new. Something borne not of fear of what is behind him but of desire for what is in front of him.
Maybe he’ll even play it for Andrew sometime without sharing the name of the piece. He will know why the song was written, and for whom, something he will have and no one else, a private expression of devotion where every time he performs it again, Antonio will be re-affirming the I love you, I love you, I love you, that drove him to create it in the first place. Like wearing a locket beneath the shirt collar, warmed by the body. Antonio sits on the corner of his bed and reaches for his violin. He already knows what to title it.