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he starts as gavin.
he starts in an orphanage, with blonde hair that’s almost brown and two dull green eyes and skin so caked with mud it wouldn’t matter in any way.
he dies when he is 15, because he starves in the bottom chambers of the master’s house.
someone tells him before he is gone that he has to keep looking.
she wakes up in someone’s arm as elizabeth- that’s what the stranger is calling her, anyways, and distantly she thinks this might be her father.
she is very young, maybe two or three, but in her mind everything is clear as day like she is 15 and gavin again- but her hair is red and her skin is pale.
the man’s name is geoff and his arms and face are ghostly and his eyes are clearest blue, and his hair is dark so maybe they aren’t related, but even as small as she (he?) is elizabeth knows she trusts and adores him.
she is four when she leans against his side, bubbles of disgusting shit on her skin and loud raucous coughs echoing in their dirty alley, and he presses a kiss to her head and whispers ‘i love you, kiddo’ as she slips away.
he wakes up a third time and is promptly named david.
he has black hair and blue eyes, and geoff flashes in his mind’s eye. it’s painful in many ways but comforting in others.
he makes it to 17, this time, and when he goes to the house for help, there is a doctor. her name is jack and her hair is a maroon red. she is kind, and gentle, and strong and caring. she stitches his wounds, but cannot disinfect them in time, and when she recognizes this, it is too late.
jack presses watered clothes on his head as his fever boils and says she’s sorry she can’t help more. ‘good luck, david,’ she says, pressing a kiss to his hand.
he laughs as he passes and squeezes her hand, briefly.
this is not new to him.
he wakes up again, with dark hair and dark eyes, named gawain- if he wasn’t a baby, he would have laughed.
he is born into a kingdom, a child of a maid who dies in labor, and when he is 10 he meets the prince- james ryan, ryan, with blue eyes that are softer and lighter than geoff’s were, and wavy blonde hair, and a laugh that leaves gawain breathless.
he is 16 when ryan says he loves him, and he says it back, and he has his first real kiss in his four lives.
he is 16 when a crossbow bolt meant for the newly crowned king pierces him instead.
ryan mourns, but gawain never sees.
this time she is a girl, her name is grace, and when she is 18 she shaves her head, breaks her nose, pays a doctor and joins the army.
her best friend is a boy named michael and he has bronze curls and freckles and a temper that god would run from, and she gets along with him just fine.
they kill a lot of people, because a war is a war, and surprisingly enough she makes it to 25 with him, and then she gets shot.
'why is it always me,’ she dazedly asks him as he drags her towards cover. he grunts.
'don’t leave me now, boi-’ michael huffs, covering her wounds with his hands (the name started when he hadn’t known she was a she. the name stuck even after he knew.)
'sorry, michael,’ she laughs. blood bubbles between his fingers. he’s very warm.
she doesn’t hear whatever he says in response.
her name is taylor, she is bright blonde, and her eyes are brown.
this time she is 22 and she meets a short man in a barfight in the prohibition.
his name is jeremy and he does anything she says- not because he loves her, not like that, but he insists she’s the most fun he’s ever had in what feels like a millennia. (there’s a knowing glint in his eye when he says that. she never presses it).
of course it’s a fight again, someone pushes her off the harbor as she’s knocked unconscious, and jeremy is screaming for her as she sinks and then floats.
his name is gavin.
he’s dirty blonde, his eyes are a muddled green, and he ends up in a shitty criminal run town on the west end of america- and he finds them all again.
and they found each other, after hundreds or thousands of years, and he found them, he found them-
but they have never known gavin.
they have known elizabeth, and david, and gawain and grace and taylor but never gavin.
he knows them, but they don’t know him, and every starting interaction with them is awkward and he hates it.
so should he make this home?
of course he will.
of course, of course, in every life, this is home.
they are home.
he comes home.