I think my favorite ship troupe/dynamic is the enemies-to-lovers and friends-to-lovers combination. Prime examples: Sherliam (yuumori), and Nodrian (renegades)
It’s mostly friends to lovers cause they become good friends and then fall in love but the audience knows that they’re also enemies. The characters are enemies when they’re not together, but close friends when they are.
The basic premise is that a character is undercover and that character’s counterpart is trying to figure out their enemy’s true identity, but while undercover they (nova/william) get close to their enemy and develop a friendship.
There’s irony and parallels in each of their interactions which creates this baseline of a complex relationship with risk and mystery. Seeing it develop is beautiful. It’s so compelling, complex, and just so good.
Then the revel happens with Liam and Nova where their counterparts learn of their true identities and they still love them. It’s so heartwarming and Stars Above, I love this dynamic.
From a writer’s perspective, this type of relationship is very tricky to execute correctly because there’s so many different layers to it. When an author is able to develop this type of relationship, I’m left astonished. Enemies to lovers in itself can be difficult to do correctly but adding more layers to it? It’s a great feat.
I adore looking at relationships and the complexities thereof but very few dynamics like this are tried and even fewer are done well. I’m always just left in awe with these types of relationships and My Stars do I love it.
This is fun :): I wrote this as a Christmas present for @obsidianfr3sk (YES DAWNIE KEEP POSTING YOU CHRISTMAS FICS DURING MARCH. YOU GO GIRL) and it’s a sequel to my other fic “through the bleeding shell” where I basically try to save Simon and Hugh from the queerbaiting MM turned them into by adding a certain degree of complexity to their relationship. This is a story about gays, grief and a dead friend + Simon defending Nova bc I don’t roll with Supernova. Hence, I am not morally obligated to obey canon <3
Anyway afgdhjafghsj i don’t think you need to read the first part to understand this, and I hope you like it <3. I don’t want to give much away, but this sort of turned into a collaboration that got out of control and @obsidianfr3sk might write a third part in the future ;)
through the burning shell
“There have been rumors that the public revealing of Agent N is to include a public execution as well.”
Being all together, right there, Simon saw Hugh narrowing his eyes, staring directly at Genissa Clark, formerly Frostbite, now neutralized, along with the rest of her team.
Well.
Almost all of them.
“That’s true.” Hugh started, and Simon couldn’t help but think he shouldn’t have answered. A part of him was getting a pretty bad feeling from this. “For his crimes against humanity, Ace Anarchy has been sentenced to death.”
“Why stop there?” Said Genissa. “I would argue that his accomplices deserve the same fate.”
The same fate.
His brain struggled to make a connection between that sentence and the one Hugh had uttered. At first, he didn’t understand. A couple of fast seconds later, Simon realized that, by saying “fate”, she was referencing something.
She was referencing, more specifically, Ace Anarchy’s sentence.
A death sentence.
Accomplices.
The Anarchists.
“Nightmare deserves the same fate.” Nova deserves the same fate. “Nightmare must die… And I want to be the one to do it.”
Nova must die.
And I want to be the one to do it.
A child killing another child, publicly, with the Renegades’ permission.
A child they had taken under their wing, Genissa Clark that is, killing another child, who had been in Simon’s house, who had touched Adrian’s heart, and who had made bad choices but was still a person. The official version of the events said she had stabbed Max, and Danna claimed she was Nightmare, but they hadn’t taken any declarations or anything, so that story might as well just change.
Simon couldn’t help but feel she didn’t deserve to die.
Maybe because she actually didn’t. It didn’t feel fair.
One thing was sentencing Ace Anarchy, the man who had lifted an entire city, leaving a ridiculously huge number of deaths in the process, who had stolen, broken and burned, who had killed a man (the mayor) and his pregnant wife, who had killed his own brother, sister-in-law and possibly his two nieces...and another, pretty different thing was to allow this 19 year old girl kill a 16 year old one, who had some crimes that could put her into jail for like 3 or 5 years, but weren’t horrible enough to give her a death sentence. She was a minor. She wasn’t yet beyond repair…
And if she was to be executed, then she was still a minor. She didn’t deserve to be humiliated like that. She didn’t deserve her life to be taken away with so little dignity.
Not by Genissa Clark.
Not like that.
And, stars, please, not now.
Not right now.
It was unthinkable, it was barbaric, it was animal, it was almost as if…
A quiet chuckle.
A quiet chuckle that, suddenly, interrupted his train of thought and, with all the pain in his heart, he was able to recognize in a blink.
Evander was chuckling.
Genissa Clark, nonchalantly, was blackmailing them. She was trading her silence for the legal permission to kill someone, in front of a crowded arena. And Evander was chuckling.
Genissa Clark wanted to murder Nova, and Evander was chuckling.
“Is that all it will take to quit their complaining?”
What else did he want?
“Works for me.”
Simon almost flinched to the audacity. To the severity of the implication. To the way he was saying it. So smug. So relaxed, so….Evander it almost made Simon mad.
That was so Evander lately.
Because, lately, Evander didn’t understand anything. Not even because he had a pregnant wife waiting for him at home. There was life inside that woman. Life that had come from him.
How couldn’t he understand?
How could somebody be so cold?
“These are lives we’re discussing.” Simon reminded him, shooting a look in his direction.
“Villains’ lives.” Evander responded. “Nightmare doesn’t deserve mercy any more than Ace Anarchy does. She was the one who neutralized them, so it seems fair to me.”
Villains’ lives were still lives.
Nova was a person.
Nova was...Nightmare, but before Nightmare, she was Nova, and Hugh and him had met her personally. Adrian had met her personally.
And, besides, with this logic, then all the Renegades were to be executed.
After all, Agent N was meant to be used by Renegades. They were the ones who were planning to neutralize people when they felt threatened. But when Nightmare did it, then she immediately deserved the death penalty.
Hugh would understand that. Everyone would understand that, just like Simon did.
They had to understand it.
Hugh had to understand it.
-.-
Yet, he didn’t.
Some time ago, Hugh had pledged to understand. Not directly per se, but he had pledged it in the name of his cause.
He promised he would understand.
And then, when he needed to understand the most, he didn’t.
He said he would.
Then he fucking didn’t.
“How can we run a city, much less an entire world, if we’re busy dealing with every trivial bit of bureaucratic nonsense that comes up?” He said.
“This solves two problems at once.” He said.
And he said that to Adrian’s, their son, face. Their son, who was just trying to help, by questioning how morally correct was to do something like that, just like Tamaya, Kasumi and himself had done, being ignored in the process.
“We need that right now. And we need to be united in this decision.”
“And why’s that, exactly?” Adrian asked. “Do we not want the world to know this is actually a dictatorship?”
In that moment, Simon knew Adrian had never spoken to Hugh like that. He had always been a pretty calm kid, who liked to question their decisions sometimes because, as a Renegade himself, of course he would feel uncomfortable or have doubts sometimes. But never had he called Hugh out. Not in that tone. Not with that entire bottle of venom flowing out of his mouth, melting his teeth, and mixing with his boiling blood.
Simon felt unable to tell him to stop, after his own voice had been ignored, and Hugh pretended Evander was the only one who mattered in the team. And it wasn’t that Evander didn’t matter.
It was just that he was wrong.
Besides, harsh as that sounded, Simon still couldn’t believe that those stinky, rotting, putrid, nauseating words had come from Hugh’s mouth. His Hugh. The man he had decided to marry, because he loved him so, so much, for him had been able to see him even when he was invisible. Literally.
Right in front of his eyes, Hugh morphed into a caricaturesque villain. His hands, which Simon had held so many times, were suddenly covered in both dry and fresh blood, red as an apple, but smelling like death.
Death.
The same death that was living like a parasite inside of his eyes, the only place that other people could harm. And the parasite was traveling through his system, all the way to his brain, spinning it around like a mirrorball, and eating from it like he was nothing.
Hugh’s hands were tied, too, and the strings were made of rope, a material he could easily tear apart, but seemed to have forgotten about that.
He was like a puppet, as the press, as society, and as tons and tons of eyes pulled from the ropes.
And nobody knew how to free him, not even himself.
“Do we not want the world to know this is actually a dictatorship?”
Adrian’s voice haunted him for days. The way in which he said that haunted him for days, and after a while, Simon just accepted he wouldn’t be able to get rid of it. It had become another one of the wounds he carried, open and bleeding, through life. The worst part of it all, was that Simon knew Adrian was right. That, at this point, everyone but Hugh, Evander and Genissa Clark were right.
But if he knew where had they gone wrong, and if he knew he didn’t agree with this monstrosity...why did it hurt so much?
How did you speak to a person who didn’t want to listen?
And, most importantly: Where were you supposed to get the courage to do it from?
-.-
Nova had spent seventeen days in Cragmoor Penitentiary when Adrian said he wanted to see her. He had been so mad at her, that it caught Simon off guard.
Not that he wasn’t able to understand it.
Adrian had had a couple of girlfriends and boyfriends throughout his life but, from what Simon could see, Nova was by far the one he had been the most serious about, to the point it almost seemed she was the one who would stay. Simon would’ve wanted to see his partner too, no matter how mad he was at said partner, if he knew they had been sentenced to death.
As fast as they could, knowing they were facing an authority (Adrian had asked them to be with him in the room), the wardens brought her right away, in a matter of minutes.
Through the glass, Simon saw her, on the metal platform, with her arms and legs being held, tightly, by braces, which were equally made of metal. For the look in her eye, Simon could almost hear her desperate begs for her visitor not to be Adrian. Yet, he had been, and he wasn’t alone, which, if anything, only made it worse.
Simon, from his part, was staring at two different glasses at the time. The one that divided them from Nova, and Adrian’s glasses, which revealed the pain he was penetrating Nova’s soul with, and also the rage he was entitled to feel.
But Nova looked small.
She, in fact, looked as small as she actually was.
She was almost a kid. She hadn’t yet started living. Yet, she was locked up here, and would only be taken out to be killed.
Nova’s body was shaking, just like Adrian’s. Her chin was quivering so much it almost seemed like she was cold, and Simon felt a twinge in his stomach. He felt nauseous and dizzy. And so evil and so guilty.
For some reason, he pictured a child, because Nova had been a younger child once, full of joy and innocence.
He pictured a child. Just like that.
Maybe she was wearing pigtails, had a gap between two of her teeth, and bruised legs, because she liked to play outside with her friends. Maybe, before she became Nightmare, she had something else to hold on to. Maybe she, like many people out there, had hoped for the Renegades to come, and when they didn’t do it, something became numb, and cold, and she started freezing to death, just like she would remain freezing, suspended in History, as the interrupted life who was the proof the Renegades had become the one thing they promised they would never be.
And Simon didn’t want to be part of that, yet he was still here.
He was still here, thinking about how fortunate he was that Nova wasn’t staring back at him, but at Adrian instead, as selfish as that might’ve sounded.
Simon felt he had lost the right to look her in the eye, having been the one who promised her, on several occasions, that she could look into theirs.
With each one of his limbs becoming tense, Simon took a deep breath. His mouth tasted like bile, and his whole body was pounding along with this heart. It felt like one of those times when you were almost a hundred percent sure you were having a heart attack, despite knowing that, if that was the case, you would already be on the floor crying for help.
Next thing he felt was the sudden and strong urge to speak.
He would’ve liked to talk to Nova, but through this glass, she couldn’t hear anything.
Besides, Simon knew that this moment wasn’t about him, or Hugh. They were involved in it. They were carrying it in their backs like a cross, but it wasn’t about them. It was about Nova and Adrian. There was glass between the two. They could press their hands together through it, but they couldn’t touch the other’s skin. They couldn’t feel the air the other breathed in the short distance. They couldn’t kiss. It was scary. It was sad. And it wasn’t awfully familiar.
But it wasn’t about Simon or Hugh.
“Do you need some privacy?” Simon asked, perhaps to both of them, knowing one wouldn’t be able to hear him, even if she tried.
In response, Adrian turned his gaze away from Nova, staring at Simon instead, nodding.
“I think that would be nice.”
Before Simon could say anything else, Hugh reached for his son’s shoulder, and once he touched it, he caressed the fabric, and the skin beneath the fabric, briefly.
“We’ll be in the lobby.”
Adrian nodded again and then, after gulping, he said:
“I love you, okay?”
The weird thing was, he didn’t look them in the eye for much. He did, but he turned his gaze away pretty fast, barely leaving time to process his own words. For that reason, nor Hugh or him responded.
They left right after that, leaving Adrian alone inside the room.
With Nova, but alone.
-.-
They dropped Adrian at the hospital once they left Cragmoon. There was barely any sound throughout the whole ride, except when Hugh asked if they wanted something from the store, and when they said goodbye to Adrian.
Obviously, Adrian couldn’t get close to Max. Not if he wanted to avoid being neutralized by him, but sometimes, according to Adrian himself, he liked to stay in the waiting room, and help the staff with whatever they needed, for he liked Max to know he came to visit often, and that he wasn’t alone, even if he couldn’t touch, or be in the same room with him. So they just allowed him to stay in the hospital as much as he needed. After all, it’s not like he was hurting anybody.
After that, everything was silent, all the way home, because, instead of driving towards the Headquarters, Hugh drove towards the mansion, leaving Tamaya in charge, under the excuse they would take a two hour break to have lunch together at home. She wasn’t so happy about it, but agreed anyway, because it’s not like Hugh had given her an option in the first place. He had just notified her. At this point, Hugh’s volume was getting the tiniest bit loud. And Simon wasn’t talking about his voice.
Upon arriving into the house, Hugh threw the keys by the entrance’s table and proceeded to walk all the way towards the living room, to lay on the couch, one arm covering his eyes, without even taking his costume off. He didn’t have a reason to, because they were supposed to be back at the Headquarters in two hours and, besides, the elephant in the room was making it cold. Maybe he felt his armor would protect him from what they were doing, and from what they were still doing.
Sadly, the fabric of Simon’s costume wasn’t as warm. And as he took his mask off and placed it next to keys, he felt nothing but cold wind. He was back again at being Simon, and Simon only, without anything protecting him, in the same room as the husband who rarely ever kissed him anymore.
There was an elephant in the room, and it was killing both of them, though Hugh looked like he was already dead.
Simon tried not to pay attention to him, but when he was crossing to the kitchen, he couldn’t help but ask, in an unintentionally harsh tone:
“Are we going to have lunch or did you just want to make Tamaya more stressed?”
Hugh lowered his arm, staring at him with an arched eyebrow, lifting his neck just a little, to have a clearer view. Simon was starting to feel bad for having snapped at him, but not enough to take it back.
Sometimes you had to do the right thing, and sometimes the right thing was not taking it back.
His husband, from his part, looked rather confused, as if he couldn’t recognize the person in front of him.
“Are you feeling okay?” He asked.
The question caught him off guard.
Was he okay? Simon wasn’t sure, nor did he want to answer. In times like these, Hugh wanted people to answer him what he wanted to hear and, sadly, this time Simon didn’t have any answer he would like.
“Did you take your pills, Si?”
Something inside of his body turned into a tight knot, and Simon turned his gaze towards him, in a violent act. He frowned so deeply he felt his skin itching, and though he knew that, under normal circumstances, he would’ve just interpreted this as a routinary question, this time it wasn’t the case at all. This time it felt like an attack. Like something Hugh had to take back immediately because it was not his place to ask it, that is: a question he always asked anyway.
But not this time.
Because ,this time, he wasn’t okay.
“Don’t pull the anxiety card on me, Hugh.” Saying that left a bitter, disgusting firm on his mouth, right under his tongue, which was dry. He felt like he had just chewed on a pill.
“The anxie--” Hugh narrowed his eyes, shifting into a sitting position. “I’m not pulling that card on you. I’m just asking a question.”
“Then don’t ask that question.” Simon snapped again, heading towards the kitchen to get a class of water. His feet were making too much noise when in contact with the floor, and his mouth was too dry. It was making him crazy.
It was only then that he realized they still had something else pending, and for some reason that was enough to make him stay. Simon spun on his toes, facing him. Hugh was breathing heavily, and his brows were almost touching each other.
“You didn’t answer my question, though.” He told him, in a dry tone. “Did you want to have lunch with me or did you just think taking a break while Tamaya loses her mind would be fun?”
“If Tamaya didn’t want to be in charge, she would’ve told me, and you know that.”
“Tamaya talks back when she is given a chance to.”
An empty feeling of freedom filled Simon’s body, pushing his way into the hollow all his mixed feelings had been carving at the center of his stomach.
And it wasn’t just about Tamaya, really. It wasn’t just about how lately none of her ideas were taken into consideration. Rather, it was about how nor were Kasumi’s, or his own ideas, when they tried to speak up. It was about how things were getting weirder and weirder as time went by, to the point where Simon would see a very pregnant Tamaya in the hallway, apparently fine, but stating she didn’t know if her water was breaking or if she just really needed to use the restroom (the restroom where she didn’t fit in); it was about how everyone knew damn well that Kasumi wasn’t good at public speaking and that, if anything, it just worsened her selective mutism, and yet many important speeches were given to her; it was about how Simon felt like he was talking to a wall, and how that made him feel, suspect, even, that Hugh was back to being trapped in a closet he was already too big for.
It wasn’t just about that, in conclusion.
It was just the tip of a bigger and more messed up problem.
“Well, if you want Tamaya to go bathe in her Greek goddess shower-pool-whatever that thing is, then fine. I’ll call her, I’ll tell her to take the day off, and we go back to the Headquarters.”
“That would be great, actually!” Simon laughed sarcastically. “But you know what would be even better?”
“I don’t, Si. You tell me.”
It was a rhetorical question.
The nerve.
“That we would act like a team. That we would stop lollygagging around and take realistic turns to have our breaks, because each one of us have lives, and we’re not the only ones who have needs.” And that was about Kasumi feeling like she couldn’t do it today but having to anyway; it was about Tamaya crying in the BBQ Sunday, explaining to her husband how she wanted her baby to be with her, as a baby bawled into her arms, trying to reach for his father, because she spent so little time at home her youngest son wouldn’t recognize her sometimes; it was about Evander claiming Sandy didn’t feel like being alone with her baby bump today, but showing up at work anyway.
And yes, they had pledged to do this, but they were supposed to be in it together.
“But how should I know?” Simon hissed. “It’s not like we’re a Council or anything.”
The bile was all over his mouth now, and Simon felt possessed. He didn’t know how to stop it, and the words just kept coming, and coming and coming, as Hugh stared, half-startled, half mad.
Simon felt like he was a loaded gun that was ready to kill everything that moved, for a reason and a cause.
All those repressed feelings. All those things he desperately wanted to say but never could. The anxiety. The desperate, insatiable craving for a touch that never came. For a kiss. For anything. For a sign. A sign of whatever. One single sign, that would just let him know Hugh was still here.
“It’s not like you needed the majority of us to agree to sentence that minor to death.” He let it go, and all the air, along with his soul, left Simon’s body. “It’s not like Evander and you needed such thing, did you?”
Hugh’s confusion frown suddenly shifted.
Then, all Simon saw was the embodiment of anger, with his cheeks becoming flushed, and his knuckles becoming yellow.
“So that’s what this is all about.”
There was one word to describe that tone, and that word was condescension.
To Simon, the gut-wrenching feeling of frustration that caused him was indiscriptable, and he didn’t wish it to anybody. He would’ve preferred Hugh to scream at him, or just refuse to answer at all, because he couldn’t take it.
He had had people talking down to him his entire life. He wasn’t willing to keep tolerating that.
And in the moment he stared into Hugh’s blue eyes, Simon knew there was no turning back. Because sometimes the right thing to do was not taking it back.
Others, it was not holding it back.
“No. In fact, it’s not about that.”
“WHAT IS IT, THEN?!”
“YOU TELL ME!” Simon howled, getting one step closer to him, and all the memories started flowing...more likely, overflowing, including that time when he had talked to Kasumi and Tamaya in the living room, just like as if they were teenagers, instead of grown ass people, about how Hugh was leaving, even though he was still right there.
Right there, looking like a corpse.
A blue, stiff corpse.
“Why don’t you ever kiss me anymore?” Simon asked, and his voice sounded way less threatening than he had intended. “Why?”
“Are you really going to pull that card on me?”
“I am going to pull it because I want to know!” Simon barked, pointing at his own chest, which was getting tighter and tighter with every second. “Why don’t you ever touch me anymore? Why am I always invisible to you, even when I’m not? Why are you so fucking cold all the time? Why won’t you tell me what’s wrong?!”
Hugh wheezed, maybe pretending it didn’t make sense, or maybe pretending he hadn’t understood at all. Still smirking, he ran his fingers through his hair, and stared at Simon, scratching his chin, and clicking his tongue.
“So...Sex.”
Simon’s heart was pounding.
“Yes, sex!” He yelled, shameless. “And kisses, and hugs and my husband! That is what am I asking for!”
“WHAT DO YOU EXPECT ME TO DO?! WE’RE BUSY!”
“WE’RE NOT BUSY NOW!”
“SO YOU WANT TO GET LAID NOW?!”
“I’M NOT GETTING LAID WHILE THINKING ABOUT HOW A CHILD WILL BE EXECUTED BY ANOTHER CHILD BECAUSE I WASN’T ALLOWED TO DO ANYTHING TO STOP IT FROM HAPPENING!”
“SHE TRIED TO KILL ME! SHE TRIED TO KILL MAX!”
“FIRST: AN ATTEMPTED ASSASINATION IS NOT ENOUGH TO GIVE SOMEBODY A DEATH PENALTY, AND, SECOND: THAT’S WHAT GENISSA SAID!”
“ISN’T THAT ENOUGH?!”
“THAT’S NOT ENOUGH!” Simon screamed, covering his ears with hands.
He didn’t know why, specifically, the ears, knowing that, in reality, his eyes were the problem, because every time he closed them, he saw Nova in that chair, like an animal. And he saw Genissa standing in the lobby, playing with them like puppets; he saw Evander’s despicable smirk when he told Genissa to go ahead; he saw Adrian’s furious eyes as he called his own dad a dictator; he saw Hugh.
Mostly, he saw Hugh, and the caricaturesque villain version of him, which Simon despised with every inch of his being.
Then he was back at the beginning. At Nova.
Nova, who had tan skin, pitch black hair and slanted blue eyes. And Nova, who looked familiar when she smiled, because she looked similar to that man who had come to the Headquarters asking for help, whose smile looked similar to the other person who carried their blood.
And Simon couldn’t help but consider it as a real possibility. And if he happened to be right, then they were failing her.
For the second time.
“It’ll never be enough, Hugh.” He declared. “Because she…”
Simon’s internal knots became tighter, to the point they were suffocating him.
“How do we know who this girl is?” he questioned. “How do we know it isn’t her?”
“Her, who? What are you talking about?”
“Her. The one we failed to protect.” Simon felt a tear slipping from his eye, as he became closer and Hugh walked backwards. “Uh? How do we know that? How do we…?”
But something stopped him.
And that something was Hugh’s eyes, turning grey as chromium.
He was breathing fast. Faster with every second, and where maybe he saw anger, Simon saw nothing but deep, stored pain, flowing out of him like sweat, or like the tears that weren’t there.
There was Hugh’s bleeding shell again, protecting him like he was a small child curled up on the floor, in a ball, through a polarized surface where Simon and him couldn’t touch, and where nothing could hurt him, while everything could at the same time.
There it was.
The despicable, horrid, bleeding shell.
Except this time it wasn’t bleeding. No. No.
This time, the dense, bubbling blood was falling off it, reaching Simon’s feet, and the shell was in flames. Tall, untamable flames, that were burning the roof and everything surrounding them.
The shell was burning, while Hugh was inside of it, and nobody could get him out before he was burned to death.
Why didn’t he let anyone help him?
Why did he insist the flames weren’t there?
Why couldn’t Simon hold his hand?
Why was he so far?
“We didn’t fail to protect her. She died.” Hugh declared, and when Simon saw his lips quivering, he realized they weren’t talking about Nova anymore.
“She didn’t fail. She died. “ Simon saw the silver painting Hugh’s fingertips, as tears started rolling down his face. “She died! SHE DIED, WHEN IT SHOULD’VE BEEN ME, SIMON!”
The bleeding shell was burning, and Simon still couldn’t find his way in.
“IT SHOULD’VE BEEN ME! AND SHE DIED! SHE DIDN’T FAIL TO PROTECT ANYONE! SHE DIED! IT SHOULD’VE BEEN ME! SHE DIED, SIMON! SHE DIED!”
Their eyes met for a couple of second, and the connection vanished after a blink.
“IT’S NOT HER FAULT SHE DIED, IT’S MINE!”
Hugh was sobbing, like a small child, and Simon was too.
“...It’s...it’s mine, Simon. Always has been.”
And they were so far, despite being so close, that they were left with holding themselves tight.
Because there was no way to get into the burning shell, for Hugh, strangely as it sounded, had never said those words out loud, because he thought the picture on the wall behind him, the one with the woman wearing a floral pink dress with their son -who was also hers- sitting on her lap, would hear him and that would make her sad.
Yet, Simon knew she wasn’t sad at the moment.
He knew her well enough to know she would’ve been disappointed, instead.
Anybody would be if they had to see their family kill the one thing they had died trying to protect.
“No.” Simon declared, calmly. “But I’m not going to go and try to convince you otherwise because I know it’s not the right time.”
Hugh started shaking.
“Si…”
“And I won’t be a part of this, either.” Simon declared, firm, still staring at the picture through the corner of his eye, yet still fully focused on Hugh. “From now on, all you’ll get from me is silence in regards to the issue. I’m not willing to be a part of it. I don’t agree with this. I will never agree.”
“You don’t understand.”
“And I’m glad I don’t. In fact, I hope I never do.” Simon wiped his tears with his palm, and before continuing, he tried to find his Hugh one more time.
He was still there.
Simon hadn’t yet given up on him, but he didn’t feel like telling him that at the moment.
For some reason.
“If Adrian wants to see me, tell him I’ll be at Kasumi’s.”
“Simon.” Hugh grabbed him by the wrist, and a simple wave from Simon’s hand was enough to get it off. Way too easy, for a person who happened to have super-strength. “Simon, please. Don’t do this again. Please. SIMON!”
But Simon did it again anyway.
Later, he wondered what Adrian had felt when he abducted Max from the hospital and left a note for them.
He also wondered what everyone else had felt when the real Nightmare showed up.
I heard it’s somebody’s birthday today afsghadfsghafsgh
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, @lethughandsimonkiss-official ! <3 There you go <3!
It’s kinda short, so, I’m sorry about that :’) I’ve been extremely busy with school and stuff :’) but still, I hope you like it, and, most importantly: I hope you have an EXCELLENT birthday! <3 You’re super talented :3 always remember that.
Happy birthday, again!
“You deserve better, you know?”
As Simon’s eyes found him, Hugh realized he had never said that out loud.
He had thought it many, many times before, but he had never said it. At all.
Now it was a very cold December night, and Simon was too cold to move. He was already wearing a long-sleeved shirt, a thick sweater, pants and socks, yet he was still freezing.
This is why Hugh liked cold better than heat, because when the weather was hot, it was almost impossible to sleep this close, let alone intertwine.
Good thing it was an awfully cold night, and good thing Hugh was a human furnace who could do his best to keep his boyfriend warm. Good thing he was his boyfriend. Good thing Simon Westwood was a person that existed, and was great at doing so.
Simon’s hands were always cold like this winter night, but he still managed to take a piece of the sky every time he moved. Every time he blinked. Every time he did anything.
Sometimes Hugh just stared at him, because seeing him exist never failed to give him a strong feeling of peace. And something to hold on to. And a reminder there was still something worth fighting for.
Hugh held him tighter, and Simon took a deep breath. For his part, Hugh could still feel his fingers wrapped between his hair; Simon often told him he needed to sleep more, as if that was even an option in the first place. And he knew that Hugh liked when he played with his hair, so that’s what he was doing at the moment, although he seemed to be falling asleep faster than Hugh himself.
Besides being an awfully cold night, it was an awfully calm night too, and they were surrounded by nothing but the walls of the apartment, and an odd type of silence that didn’t feel awkward at all. Almost as if the storm was already over. Almost as if they were already there.
But there was still a long way to go, and he knew that.
They both knew.
“You deserve better.” Hugh told him again, sighing. For a second, Simon stopped running his fingers through his hair. After a second, it seemed like he might continue, but then he didn’t and, instead, his hand started moving down, until it laid on Hugh’s chest, like dead weight he was willing to carry with no hesitation.
In fact, he didn’t mind to carry all of that at all.
“You deserve better than all of this.” He whispered, calmly. “Than this shitty everything, and it’s not fair, Si. You deserve better. You’ve always have.”
Simon’s brown eyes found him in the darkness, and they were lit up like stars. Simon’s entire being was a constellation, and they knew the sound of each other’s hearts.
“You’re my fight.” Hugh declared, pulling himself closer, until their noses were touching. “You’ll always be.”
Simon chuckled mildly, and as they pressed their lips together into a very brief kiss, their noses still felt closer to the other. It was as if they wanted to become one single entity and become suspended in time, forever.
“You’ll always be my fight, too. “ Simon declared, firm. “And never forget you deserve better too. Because you’re wonderful.”
“And you’re handsome.”
“And you’re strong.”
“And you’re smart.”
“And you’re everything.”
Simon laughed again, and Hugh touched the spot above his lips. There was still a fresh wound there, from when he had shaved.
“….And I love you.” Simon told him.
“And I love you too.” Hugh responded, no hesitation. “Let’s save the world, so we can both be in it.”
