Adam had long since stopped counting his years. Time had ceased to hold meaning for him. He had existed before writing had been invented, before men had chiseled their thoughts into stone or painted their histories onto cave walls. And now, in an age where language was once again becoming simplified—reduced to pictograms and fleeting digital expressions—he merely observed with quiet amusement.
Humans were peculiar creatures. So fragile, so fleeting, yet endlessly fascinating. No matter how many times he had seen them rise and fall, love and betray, build and destroy, he had never grown tired of them. Or rather, there was one human who had made the world worth enduring.
Gabriel.
Adam’s most beloved. His greatest torment. His only weakness.
The first time Adam saw Gabriel, the Great Library of Alexandria was burning. It was a night of devastation, the air thick with smoke and the agonized cries of scholars mourning the loss of centuries of knowledge. Adam stood amidst the chaos, watching the flames consume history, unmoved by the destruction. He had seen the rise and fall of civilizations before. What was one more tragedy in an endless cycle?
And then—
A figure rushed past him, a young man desperately hauling scrolls and tablets into his arms, his dark cloak billowing behind him like the wings of a restless spirit. Unlike the others who had accepted their fate or fled in terror, this man fought against inevitability, diving back into the inferno again and again.
Adam might have ignored him, dismissing him as another mortal clinging to the illusion of permanence—if not for the moment their eyes met.
It was like a bolt of lightning through his chest.
The stranger’s eyes were deep blue, impossibly familiar, though Adam could not recall ever meeting him. And in that instant, something within Adam—something long dormant—stirred.
Before he could process the sensation, the man was stumbling, his foot catching on a fallen beam. The flames roared higher, and Adam knew—knew with the certainty of someone who had witnessed thousands of deaths—that if he did nothing, this human would be swallowed by fire.
He moved without thinking.
One moment, Gabriel was falling, the fire curling hungrily around him. The next, he was in Adam’s arms, his weight unnervingly light. The stranger coughed, his breath ragged, smoke staining his skin.
Adam carried him away from the flames.
In the days that followed, Adam tended to his wounds. The man—Gabriel, he learned—spoke little of his origins. His grasp of language was odd, as if he understood but could not always form the right words. But it didn’t matter. They understood each other in ways that transcended speech.
Gabriel was unlike anyone Adam had ever met. His wonder for the world, his relentless thirst for knowledge, the way he looked at everything as if experiencing it for the first time—it was intoxicating.
And Adam, for the first time in centuries, felt alive.
They fell in love in that burning city. But one morning, Gabriel was simply gone.
Adam searched for him. Through decades, then centuries, then lifetimes. He scoured every land, every era, never knowing why his beloved had disappeared so completely. He told himself he had been foolish to hope, that Gabriel had been just another mortal who had slipped through his fingers.
And then—
A cold winter in the Appalachian Mountains.
A lone traveler walked through the snow, his cloak drawn tight around his shoulders. And Adam, passing by, saw the familiar tilt of his face beneath the hood.
It couldn’t be.
His heart stilled.
Gabriel turned. Their eyes met once again. And there—on his left arm—the unmistakable burn scar from Alexandria.
Adam reached for him, his mind a whirlwind of disbelief. “Gabriel?”
For a moment, Gabriel looked equally stunned. But then a slow smile curled his lips, something relieved and bittersweet.
"You found me again," Gabriel murmured.
Adam barely remembered breathing. He was afraid to move, afraid to blink, terrified that if he did, Gabriel would vanish once more.
“You disappeared,” Adam whispered, voice raw. “I searched for you. I thought you were—”
Gabriel took his hand, lacing their fingers together. “I was never lost. I was just... traveling.”
And so, in a quiet cabin beneath a sky filled with stars, Gabriel finally told him the truth.
He was a time traveler.
Pulled randomly into the past, never knowing when or where he would land, but always understanding why he was there once he arrived. He could change nothing—history was a force too great to bend—but he could witness, experience, and sometimes, just sometimes, leave behind echoes.
For Gabriel, it had only been weeks since Alexandria. For Adam, it had been centuries.
Despite the impossibility of it all, they found ways to reunite. When Gabriel was pulled into the past, he would search for Adam in history. Sometimes, he would find him; sometimes, he wouldn’t. But when they met, they would steal moments, days, even months together before time inevitably tore them apart.
They left messages for each other in forgotten corners of history. Hidden symbols, letters buried beneath ancient ruins, carvings that would be uncovered centuries later. Adam became fluent in recognizing Gabriel’s marks, his secret language.
For centuries, this was their love story. A series of meetings, of reunions and farewells, of heartbreak and devotion.
But then—
The present.
Gabriel’s twenty-third birthday.
Adam waited outside the café where Gabriel sat with his friends, his heart pounding in a way it hadn’t for centuries. This was the first time they would meet before Gabriel’s travels began.
A cruel twist of fate. A chance to see Gabriel before he ever knew Adam existed.
Gabriel stepped outside, adjusting the scarf around his neck, oblivious to the weight of the moment.
Adam took a slow breath. Then—
“Hello, Gabriel.”
Gabriel blinked. “Hello.” His brow furrowed slightly. “Do I... know you?”
Adam smiled, something soft and sad. “Not yet.”
Gabriel tilted his head, studying him for a moment, before shaking it off with an apologetic chuckle. “Sorry, you just seem... familiar.”
Adam didn’t answer. He simply let Gabriel go, knowing that soon—so soon—Gabriel would be thrown into history, into Alexandria, and their story would begin anew.
And Gabriel, on the night he found himself in the flames of Alexandria, would look into the dark eyes of a stranger who felt like home.
And so it would begin again.
And again.
And again.
A love untethered by time.
