it occurs to me that i am america.

"Haven’t you ever wanted to start something? Something that will grow beneath you until everyone, everyone in the whole world knows your name?" Gellert raises himself up to get a better look at him, knees digging into the rug, and Albus smiles. He has never met anyone like this boy before, and it still sends static through his skin every time they speak, small thrills of familiarity. They are kin, bloodless kin, and he has been waiting his whole life for someone he can really speak to.

"Of course." he replies, honestly, pulling up his legs without being asked so Gellert can climb onto the bed and fall down gracefully at his feet, legs stretched out until they graze the floor. His pale hair falls carelessly in his eyes as he glances askance at him, smiling back with just enough teeth.

"Then we’ll do it, eh?" An easy shoulder presses against his knee, warmly. "Together."

"Yes." Albus agrees, heart swelling. "Together."

*

There are papers covering every surface in Albus’s bedroom, sheets and sheets of parchment stacked up on his desk and hidden under his mattress and tacked to every wall, and Gellert spends more time here than he does at his own home, and he doesn’t mind a bit.

"I don’t know why we’ve stayed in hiding all this time." Albus frowns at the floor for a moment, then throws his gaze up to where Gellert is sprawled out on his stomach across the bed. "If we had just started relations between muggles and wizards thousands of years ago, than it would have to be better now. We could even live together."

"Of course." There is something new to Gellert’s voice, though, a sharpness that wasn’t there before. "But it’s too late for that, isn’t it? If we tried to make peace with them, they wouldn’t be able to handle the fact that we have abilities they don’t. They’re greedy, Albus. They’re not like us."

Us. A thin hand snakes down to rest on the back of Albus’s neck, gingerly, and he can’t make himself ask whether Gellert means the entire wizarding world, or just them. The question catches in his throat.

"You understand that we’re above them, because of our magic. I know you do."

And Albus nods.

*

Gellert doesn’t like his family, and, sometimes, Albus doesn’t like them so much either, but he tries not to think about what that means. He spends so much time hiding with him, talking about the future, about their future, away from all of this. And he feels guilty, not focused entirely anymore on making the present better for his siblings, but they are so close to better things that Albus can ignore when Aberforth gets into fights with boys in the town, can sometimes forget how frail and sad Ariana looks.

Aberforth had said something to Gellert, while Albus was upstairs, and he steps into his bedroom with a bloody nose and a smirk.

"Your brother doesn’t like me." he says, and folds himself onto the bed, dabbing delicately at his nose with a blank sheet of parchment. Albus watches as the blood blooms across the white, turning it red then black, finally, and he sighs. He has nothing to say that would be of comfort, and knows that his friend has never needed comfort, anyway, but he knows he must say something.

"He doesn’t matter."

Gellert looks up at him, oddly, then beams his approval.

Nobody else really matters anymore.

*

The first time Gellert kisses him, it is in the town, and it is night. The stars look like they’ve been plucked from the skies of a painting, individual lights pinpoint and perfect shining down on them. The wind is just enough to chill, just enough for Gellert to slip one arm in his and move closer to share the warmth of his coat.

The street is quiet and still, everyone in their small world asleep. They’ve never been so alone before. They’ve never been so free.

"I wish it could always be like this." Albus whispers, and Gellert slides a hand across his cheeks and leans up to kiss him, once, like it’s something they do all the time.

"I prefer some noise." he murmurs, close by, but Albus had expected this. It is one thing that he knows for certain: of the two of them, Gellert is more likely to end with a bang, while Albus can only imagine his own death a whimper.

*

They grow in some ways, over those two months, into the traits of adults much bigger than those who move through quiet lives around them.

Gellert stops taking sugar in his tea and starts talking about the early witch hunts, the lengths that muggles took to rid their lives of magic. Albus tries to make sense of everything, but the more he thinks about it, the more confused he becomes. He wants to believe his friend implicitly, yet something tugs at his heart whenever he hears him speak of his (their, he tries to think, but he can’t, he can’t) growing plans. He takes papers down from his wall and stacks them neatly, sliding them into desk drawers.

"Making some order." he says.

"I’ll take them, if you don’t mind." Gellert says, voice distant, and Albus steps aside to let him gather all of them and slide them into his bag. He leaves, a few minutes later, with lips on his cheek and no words at all, and Albus doesn’t try to stop him. He can’t bring himself to do anything other than move to the window to watch his back as he disappears down the street.

He doesn’t know what’s happening to them.

*

Albus shifts against the weight of the smaller boy on top of him, moaning softly at the feel of their skin sliding and sticking with sweat.

Even though he never says so, he knows that this is the way Gellert likes him the best: helpless, bare, sprawled on a pin. Hands slide up on his shoulders and push against him, forcing him further into the mattress as he presses and grinds and Albus chokes back a cry. Ariana and Aberforth are asleep just downstairs (he checked twice before) and they don’t know about this. No one knows.

"Scared?" Gellert asks, like he can hear what he’s thinking, and he sits up to slowly slip one hand on the curve of his hip, the other brushing his thigh as he urges his legs open. Albus moans quietly with every touch, feeling every inch of him burn, like he’s nothing but tight skin and open nerve endings.

"Very." he whispers.

*

There are words said, and Albus knows that none of them mean it, not really, but then Aberforth’s face twists and he can hear Gellert gasping, shocked, almost frightened. And then there is nothing but light and curses, red and bright gold but not green, please not green. . .

*

When he wakes up, he can see dust floating through the almost-night air above him, dark blue sky through the open windows. Behind him, close by, someone coughs. All of his limbs feel heavy and damp as he sits up.

"Your friend ran off." his brother says, distantly, curled up around himself. His pale eyes are stained red, all around. "And I can’t wake Ariana up."

Albus finds her sprawled with white limbs loose on the carpet, her young face drawn and careless, calm for once. He touches her wrist, the side of her neck, her forehead. And he knows.

*

Gellert doesn’t show up at the funeral.

Afterward, Albus waits on the street outside until nightfall, until he sees a familiar figure loping towards him against the sunset. A soft hand slides against his cheek, pulling him into softer lips. He swallows whatever words he had to say and kisses Gellert back, tugging gently at his curls.

"Good bye." Gellert whispers, into his mouth, tongue close to his teeth.

Albus doesn’t answer him.

He doesn’t have anything left to say.