There's been a bit of talk about Soap with RSD, but what if Ghost with RSD? It's one of the many reasons why he refuses to get close to anyone. The betrayals just hurt that much worse, so he refuses to put himself in any more situations where he can ever be hurt like that again.
And what if he had actually started to like Graves a little bit, even if he didn't want to admit it to himself. He was nice, charismatic, fun to talk to.. or rather, listen to when he talked to Johnny. He knew betrayal was a possibility, of course. He knew it from the very beginning, but it still *hurt* when it happened. He still berated himself for placing even the slightest bit of trust in him. For letting him get close enough to them that Johnny got hurt, that Johnny experienced that betrayal. He ignores his own feelings of betrayal. Ignores how he lets them bubble and fester into anger and hatred of himself for trusting him. Ignores how it makes him feel like everyone will always leave him in the end and everyone will hurt him.
Marcy could feel it under her shirt; the little lump on her chest, one that you could see glowing if she didn’t wear enough layers. Only a select few people knew of it on Earth, and nearly all of them were named Boonchuy. If anyone else asked why she’d wear a hoodie at ninety degrees, she’d just tell them she didn’t feel the heat that much.
The lump didn’t really phase her too much anymore - it was irritating, but she needed it to live, like a magical pacemaker. It was the other ailment that got her.
It seemed like some kind of hackneyed trope from a bad anime or one of the lesser outings of the Disney canon, but she was literally heartless.
There was some… thing, some contraption built in a lab, and it worked quite well. It kept the blood pumping well, probably better than her old heart, but it didn’t beat, and there was something really disconcerting about not having a heartbeat.
It was late evening, and she found herself sitting at the Boonchuys’ garden table, looking up at the sunset. She could faintly hear the TV inside; Hop Pop had gotten Olivia and Yunan into some kind of British soap opera, and Anne, Sprig and Polly were doing something on Anne’s laptop upstairs, but she’d needed some quiet time. It was weird; she’d been entrapped and alone for so long; why would she crave solitude now?
The door opened, and Marcy turned her head. Mrs. Boonchuy had stepped out into the garden, carefully closing the door behind her.
“Marcy, are you sure you don’t want to go inside?” she asked.
“Are you sure?” said Mrs. Boonchuy. “You’re going to be eaten by mosquitoes.”
Marcy brushed a mosquito off her arm. “It’s okay, I can brush ‘em off. Everything’s good!”
Mrs. Boonchuy pulled up a chair and sat down next to her.
“You know, if you ever need to say anything…”
“No, really, it’s good!”
Marcy forced a smile onto her face.
“I mean, your house kinda got turned into a reptile house, and that’s kinda my fault,” she said, “and that’s because I got Anne trapped in another dimension for five months, you know, also my fault, and now all I do is sit around your house feeling sad because my parents bugged out on me, which is also my fault…”
“Marcy.”
Mrs. Boonchuy put a hand on her shoulder.
“You can’t change what happened,” she said. “What’s done is done.”
“I…”
“And don’t ever tell yourself your parents leaving was your fault,” she added.
“I mean, I clearly wasn’t a good enough kid for them to stay…”
“No.” Mrs. Boonchuy’s voice was utterly firm. “They weren’t good enough parents.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“One day I will find and destroy them,” she whispered.
Marcy looked down at the table.
“I don’t deserve this,” she muttered.
“What?”
“I don’t deserve this!” she threw her arms up. “Why are you forgiving me! Why is Anne forgiving me! I’m the one who caused all this! If I’d never opened the box, you wouldn’t have had to go through losing Anne! Olivia and Yunan would still have jobs! Andrias wouldn’t be wrecking half of Amphibia looking for Sasha! Why doesn’t anyone blame me?”
“Marcy…”
“You should hate me! I want you to hate me!” shouted Marcy. “I just… you keep being so nice to me and I don’t deserve it! I just… I just…”
She clutched the edges of the table, gritting her teeth.
“I just wish Andrias had killed me!”
She slammed her head against the table, clutching her head.
“Marcy!”
Mrs. Boonchuy just about tumbled off of her chair, landing on her knees next to Marcy and pulling her straight into a hug.
“Marcy, no,” she whispered, patting her back. “You don’t mean that, please don’t say that.”
“I ruined everything!” Marcy sobbed. “I ruined everything and everyone’s trying to act like it never happened and it’s not my fault, and I just… I feel so guilty and small and stupid, and every time I try to forget about it I have that stupid lump in my chest and that stupid fake heart and…”
“It’s okay, sweetie, just let it all out,” Mrs. Boonchuy whispered.
Marcy gritted her teeth again, her arms frozen to her sides, wanting to hug Mrs. Boonchuy back but completely paralysed.
“I want you to hate me,” she wheezed. “Why do I want you to hate me? Why am I like this?”
“Because you’re hurting,” replied Mrs. Boonchuy. “And it’s okay. We all are.”
“I… but I don’t hurt?” she replied. “Not physically?”
“You don’t have to get a scar to be hurt, Marcy,” said Mrs. Boonchuy.
She leaned out of the hug, running her hand over Marcy’s eyes.
“You did something wrong,” she said. “But you never meant to hurt anybody, and now you’re working to fix it. That’s all anybody can ask.”
Marcy sniffled loudly.
“I’m a bad friend…”
“No.” Mrs. Boonchuy put a finger to her mouth. “I don’t want to hear you calling yourself bad anymore tonight, okay? Because when you say that, you don’t just hurt yourself.”
Marcy looked down.
“I… I didn’t think about how you’d feel when I said that,” she muttered. “Guess I really am heartless.”
Mrs. Boonchuy gently squeezed her wrist.
“Mrs. Boonchuy?”
“You do have a heart, Marcy,” she said. “Feel it?”
She guided Marcy’s other hand to her wrist, pressing her finger about it. She felt the gentle thump of her pulse - ba-bump. Ba-bump. Ba-bump.
Marcy smiled gently.
“I guess I do.”
She looked up; the sky had darkened, and she could just about see a spattering of stars through the light pollution.
“Didn’t realise how long I’d been out here,” she said quietly.
“Would you like to come inside and help me with dinner?” Mrs. Boonchuy asked.
Loki drags their hands up Mobius’s front, palms flat against his chest, pressing wrinkles into his white shirt. At Mobius’s shoulders, Loki slides their fingers under Mobius’s suit jacket and eases down Mobius’s arms. Mobius straightens his elbows, and the jacket falls unceremoniously to the floor, a dark mark on the beige carpeting. The green tie quickly follows.
Mobius watches Loki with a hooded, passion-filled gaze as their deft fingers open the buttons of his shirt, one after the next, before it too falls down to the floor.
When Loki’s hands finally touch bare skin, they are desperate for it. They follow the path made when Mobius was clothed, up his chest, over his shoulders.
“Loki,” Mobius says, voice caught somewhere between a whisper and a moan.
Loki wraps their arms around Mobius’s waist and pulls him closer. Loki is wearing their silk sleep-shirt, but the fabric is so thin they can still feel the heat of Mobius’s skin against their own.
Loki drops a kiss to Mobius’s bare shoulder, a line across his clavicle, and then up the side of his neck. Mobius tilts his head away, giving Loki more access.
Mobius’s fingers dance up the length of Loki’s arms. He clutches Loki’s shoulders a moment, bunching the nightshirt as Loki bites gently at the soft spot behind Mobius’s ear.
“I want to do this right,” Mobius says. “It’s right for me, but is it right for you?”
Loki hums, trailing a path of kisses to Mobius’s lips before claiming them. Loki pulls away too soon, and smiles when Mobius leans forward, following them. “You are doing perfectly.”
Another kiss. Two. “Not too fast?”
Loki pulls away again, only so far as to look Mobius in the eye so he will know the depth of their feeling as they say, “If I do not have you this moment, I will burst.”
Mobius laughs, and Loki’s heart swells with new, unknown feeling - pride, happiness, unconditional affection. Mobius has won startled laughs from Loki many times but never the other way around. Mobius’s eyes sparkle with delight, with interest and joy and some pride of his own.
Loki wonders if this is what love feels like.
“Not too fast then.” Mobius’s smile lingers.
“No.”
“Good,” Mobius says, and gives Loki a shove.
Loki, caught unawares, falls back onto the bed. “Mobius!” Immediate they are on their elbows, watching Mobius step closer, up to the bed, in the open space between Loki’s legs.
Heart racing at the potential, blissful implications, Loki attempts to keep cool and lifts one lone brow. “My soulmate is feeling bold, I see.”
As Mobius’s hands reach for the waistband of Loki’s sleep-pants, Loki gathers all of their willpower not to whimper out, please. Despite their efforts, it still erupts from their throat, a cut off, strangled sound of desperation that makes Mobius’s smile grow into a shark-like grin.
“Your soulmate,” he says, dropping to his knees, “intends to worship their mischievous god.”
Loki has been in many sexy situations across the centuries, but never in their very long life have they ever felt this much longing, this much lust -
No, more than lust. Desire coupled with affection, wrapped up in...
“Mobius.”
At the first whispered touch, Loki’s thoughts frizzle out, and they do not return for a long, long time.
*
The apartment’s dark, lit only from the dim starlight peeking through the sheer curtains and the flashing clock on the microwave that neither of them set properly.
Loki’s cheek is pressed to Mobius’s bare chest, their ear over Mobius’s heart, listening to the strong, steady rhythm. Mobius’s breath is slow and deep; he fell asleep hours ago. But Loki, even with their body pleasantly exhausted and their desire temporarily sated, lies awake.
They count Mobius’s heartbeats, but hold their breath for the space between them. Humans are fragile things with such short lifespans. Fifty seems so young, but for Mobius, that is already over half his life.
“I think I should retire,” Mobius said earlier, over dinner. “I’ve worked since I was sixteen. Saved and saved. I’ve got enough investments to see us through for a good long while.”
“You love your work,” Loki said, half-hoping they hid the hope in their voice successfully enough to appear supportive.
Mobius laughed, happy and fond, which perhaps was a reveal all its own. “If I dropped dead right now, they would replace me tomorrow.” He stabbed his fork through a green bean, but he might as well stabbed Loki through the heart. His gaze on the food, he didn’t appear to notice. “It’s not personal. It’s a good company. They’ve treated me well over the years. But... that’s just how jobs work. I don’t know. I have more to live for now than just that. And we can afford it.” He laughed again, softer and sadder. “I want to at least have a few years where I can keep up with you.”
“I won’t leave you behind,” Loki said, and they could hear their own desperation.
Mobius finally looked up at Loki, and even though he smiled, he could not hide the gentle heartache in his eyes. “I’m no spring chicken, Loki. Eventually -”
“Do not finish that thought, Mobius M. Mobius.”
“I’m just saying that -”
“I know what you are ‘just saying’ and I will not hear it. I will not leave you behind, and that is the end of the discussion.”
Mobius’s brows lifted high, and Loki expected further argument. But per usual, Mobius subverted all expectations and laughed again, as happy and fond as before.
“If anyone can figure out a way to cheat death, it’s you,” he said then.
He snores a little now. His arms clutch Loki closer, even in sleep. And Loki renews their vow, quiet in the dark.
“Nothing will take you from me.”
*
Mobius puts in his two week notice the next day.
The photo of his office building that he kept on the dresser gets replaced with one of he and Loki together - much of the wall space in their apartment does too. Their smiling faces greet them at every turn.
Perhaps it’s narcissistic, Loki wonders, to have that many pictures of them in their own home, but Loki is so unaccustomed to their own happiness, it is like looking at a stranger.
When they tell Mobius, Mobius smiles and kisses them. He doesn’t reply with words, but he does get that far away look in his eye, the one that appears when his joints are too stiff in the morning, or when he wakes up from having fallen asleep on the recliner without having meant to, or when he looks in the mirror at his gray hair and promises Loki, “I used to be blond.”
And though he never says, I want you to have something to remember me by, Loki can hear the words as loudly as if he shouted them.
Mobius taps his finger on the top of the dresser, near the framed photo of his parents. “You know, I only have this one picture of them. Forty years with them in my life, of phone calls and Christmas cards, too few visits. All of it down to one picture and a bunch of fuzzy memories.”
Loki stands beside him, glancing briefly at the photo before staring at Mobius, at the far away look, and the rare-sadness tilting down his mouth. Yet before they can think of something that would bring some measure of comfort, Mobius turns to Loki and says, “Let’s go on vacation.”
Surprise replaces worry, and Loki glances at the smiling photo of Mobius on his jetski. “A lovely idea,” Loki says, and offers a small grin. “I believe I was promised a trip to the ocean as recompense for surrendering dominion over this realm.”
Mobius wide smile returns, and Loki’s grows in victory.
“A man should keep his promises,” Mobius says, and they start making plans.
*
Two weeks pass, and Mobius's last day at work comes and goes.
“You’ll be sick of me in a week,” Mobius says the first day off, but after a week, and then two after that, Loki cannot get enough of their time together.
During the day, he and Loki talk and go for walks and watch the soap operas Loki pretends to only like ironically but secretly loves.
“Is that Georgina or Regina?” Mobius asks.
Loki, an expert after weeks of indulgence, can easily identify one twin from another. “That’s Georgina. Regina has the beauty mark above her lip.”
During the night (and sometimes during the day too), they lose themselves in each other. Without draining himself at work all day, Mobius has more energy to properly worship his mischievous god, and though Loki will never admit it aloud, they do some worshiping too, of their foolhardy mortal.
Their precious, fragile human.
The longer they are together, the more perfectly matched they seem. And Loki, who has never been in love before, begins to allow himself a moment of soft wonder.
Loki remembers their first touch, the spliced visions of their future, and the way Mobius said, I love you. Again and again, a thousand times in one moment. Loki begins to wish for that... to crave it.
Sometimes they wonder what Mobius saw during the vision. Did Loki say it to him?
They have no idea how to ask without giving themself away.
*
The night before their trip to California, Mobius and Loki pack clothes into a pair of suitcases. At first they had attempted to share a single suitcase, but quickly deemed that an unwise decision.
“I don’t understand why you need so many clothes,” Mobius said, as his ‘half’ of the suitcase shrank down a considerable margin. “Can’t you just magic your outfit whenever you want?”
“You always wear that same drab suit, despite all the others we procured for you, despite no longer being required to wear it for work,” Loki replied. “Surely that portion of the suitcase is enough for one suit.”
Mobius looked down at the brown suit he currently wore, and though his smile remained, a small line formed between his brow. Loki knew instantly they had pushed too far.
So they cleared their throat and said, “Or perhaps I am doing my best to ensure you spend most of the trip naked.”
Mobius laughed and his brow smoothed out. “Alright, alright. I’ll get another suitcase,” he said, without further prompting.
Now, Mobius carefully folds yet another white shirt as he lowers it down onto the perfectly aligned pile of five exact copies. “I’ve been thinking.”
“A dangerous prospect,” Loki says, tossing a few shirts into their own suitcase. “One that usually ends in anxiety for me.” They say it as a joke. They do not expect Mobius’s quiet in return.
Worried there might still be lingering hurt from the suit remark, Loki shifts all attention to Mobius, and finds him a tangle of tension and uncertainty.
“Mobius?”
“Maybe it’s not a good idea.” He unfolds and refolds the same shirt. Twice. “Forget I said anything.”
Loki reaches out, takes the shirt from Mobius hands, and lowers it. Then they take Mobius’s hands and turn him toward them. When Mobius’s gaze drifts off toward the kitchen, Loki laces their fingers together and squeezes his hands gently.
“Good or not, I should hear your idea,” Loki says. “I enjoy knowing all of your thoughts.”
Mobius shifts his glance briefly to the photo of his parents on the dresser. “Even if it’s something that might cause you anxiety?”
Loki traces their thumb over Mobius’s. “I believe not knowing would be substantially worse.”
Finally, Mobius looks at them. “Yeah, okay.” He presses his lips hard together as he studies Loki’s face.
The longer the silence lasts, the more worry coils around Loki’s chest until they feels as if they might explode just from anticipation of -
“I think we should invite your family to our vacation.”
Loki blinks. Waits for the punchline.
For surely Mobius is jesting.
Instead, Mobius winces. “Now that’s a look.”
“You... aren’t jesting.” Loki tries to imagine Odin standing on a sandy Californian beach, but the image is so outrageous, their mind cannot conjure it.
“Look, I know it’s a bad idea. And we can go ahead and never talk about it after this, but...” He glances again at the photo of his parents, and the heartbroken look returns to his eyes. “Too few visits.”
Only one picture.
There are no pictures of Loki’s family. Mobius offered to print a fuzzy photo of Thor from the internet but Loki refused.
“I’m not saying we invite your dad, I know that’s...” Mobius gives Loki’s hands a gentle, supportive squeeze. “But what about Thor? I promised him a jetski ride.” A pause, then softer, “What about your mom?”
Loki can imagine Thor acting a buffoon on a sandy beach - building a sand-Asgard (or attempting to - Loki’s would be infinitely better), racing Mobius on jetskis, swimming out too far and having to use Mjolnir to fly back to safety.
Oddly, Loki can also imagine Frigga, perched on a lounge chair under an umbrella, flipping through pages of a book. She would be the judge of their theoretical sand-Asgard competition and would undoubtedly deem them equal, regardless of actual merit.
“There’s that smile,” Mobius says, drawing Loki back to the now, away from the beach and to their small apartment in Dubuque. “Maybe not such a bad idea after all?”
Hope burns hot in Loki’s chest, even as they say, “They’d never agree, even if we could find a way to invite them.”
“I don’t believe that,” Mobius says, and his confidence further brightens Loki’s hope. He tilts his head. “It’s okay if you don’t want to. I’d never complain about having you all to myself.” He surely aims for a smile, and he gets one. “But... would it be okay if we tried?”
They’ll say no, Loki knows. They’ll never show. But blind hope has them nod their head, just once.
“Great.” Mobius lifts one of Loki’s hands and kisses the back of it. Then he releases them both and steps into the middle of the apartment.
“What are you doing?” Loki asks.
Mobius winks, then lifts his gaze to the ceiling. “Um, hi?” He furrows his brow and glances at Loki. “What was his name again? The guy who’s always watching? Helmdell?”
“Heimdall,” Loki says, “But I’m not sure he’ll appreciate playing messenger for such a silly request.”
“Come on,” Mobius says. “Guy is probably up there all day dealing with huge crises. He might appreciate something lighter for a change. Plus, if anything goes wrong, we can just blame the ignorant human.” He points his thumb to himself.
That this silly human man is so casually willing to bother a god with a party invitation has Loki want to hide their own face in embarrassment and also cover Mobius’s in kisses.
What an impossible fool.
“Mister Heimdall, sir?” Mobius says to the ceiling. “I’m sorry to bother you, I know you're busy. But if you could please let Loki’s mom and brother know that they are invited to come to our vacation in Malibu tomorrow? For a week? If they want to? I’d appreciate it. Uh, thank you.” He lowers his head, frowns, and lifts it again. “You can come too.”
“Mobius,” Loki hisses.
“He can come,” Mobius tells them as he returns to their side. In a whisper, he says, “We can’t be rude.”
Only the most extreme level of willpower keeps Loki from rolling their eyes. “If you were worried about rudeness, you should have invited my... the All-Father.”
Mobius’s smile slips. “No.”
It’s such a sudden turnabout that Loki’s brain goes quiet a moment.
“I’m sorry, Loki. If you want him there, of course, we can invite him, but listening to you talk about him. Even right now, did you hear yourself? You called him ‘All-Father,’ not Dad or Pops or even Odin. So formal. And look at you.” He grabs Loki by the elbows and jostles them a bit, and Loki realizes how tense they’ve been. “Coiled up like a spring about to pop. If this is what just mentioning him does to you, I don’t want that guy anywhere near you.”
Loki loosens as Mobius trails his hands to their shoulders.
“He may be displeased at not being invited,” Loki says.
“We’ll deal with that rainbow bridge when we cross it.”
Mobius rubs Loki’s shoulders, and Loki closes their eyes, putty in his hands.
“You cause infinite trouble for me, soulmate,” Loki says.
Mobius chuckles. “Yeah, but you like trouble. Keeps things interesting.” Mobius’s fingers dig into tight muscle, and Loki lets out a soft, relaxed sigh. “That’s why Regina’s your favorite.”
Loki’s eyes snap open. “She is not.”
“She’s the mischief-maker.”
“No, I assure you, she is far from my favorite. Her plans are so poorly executed that even Claudio, besotted as he constantly is over Georgina, catches wise of her almost instantly. She insults the name of mischief.”
“Maybe. But they wouldn’t have a show without her. She’s the only one who does anything.”
“No, you simply have not watched enough episodes...” Loki stops themself short and stands suddenly taller. “I know what you're doing.”
“Oh?”
“You are attempting to distract me.”
Mobius hums, and his little smile turns 100% smug. “It worked too, didn’t it?”
It did, and Loki is both infuriated and endeared at once. “How do you do this to me?”
Mobius shrugs. “You’re pretty easy to rile up.”
“That’s not what I mean, I -” They stop themself again, realizing they were about to admit to... feelings. Dangerous feelings. They swallow down the words they want to say, and say instead, “You infuriate me, Mobius.”
“Yeah,” Mobius says, “But you like that too.”
Loki does. All powers in the cosmos help them, they absolutely do.
They are as besotted with Mobius as Claudio is with Georgina. No, more so.
Mobius is so earnest and good and kind, and cares so much about Loki and Loki’s happiness, that even though Loki is annoyed, they still lean forward and kiss Mobius quick on the mouth.
Mobius closes his eyes for the kiss, then takes his time opening them again. He looks at Loki like they’re the brightest star in the sky, and Loki, chest swollen with an unfamiliar emotion that washes away all annoyance, even the faked kind, pulls Mobius into their arms and kisses him again, more properly.
Overwhelmed with warmth, Loki swoops Mobius up into their arms, mouth pressed against Mobius’s laugh, and carries him to the bed.
In the end, both suitcases end up on the floor, overturned, contents spread out all over, Mobius’s many shirts no longer perfectly folded. The one he was wearing will need some serious mending, buttons all ripped off. The pants are too torn to be salvageable.
Mobius holds Loki close and places soft kiss after soft kiss along their hairline. The space between one and the next lengthens until eventually they stop altogether.
With Mobius’s breath slow and steady in sleep, Loki leans to Mobius’s ear and whispers, “I think that I... I love you.”
*
“They aren’t going to come,” Loki says in the taxi cab to the airport.
“They surely have other matters to attend to,” Loki says at 30,000 feet.
“I cannot imagine them meeting us,” Loki says on the Californian tarmac, even as they do imagine it - the four of them with multi-color drinks topped with sliced fruit, curly straws, and tiny umbrellas.
Mobius has not released their hand the entire voyage. “You never know. Stranger things have happened.”
“Stranger than two gods vacationing with their delinquent adopted relative?”
“Sure,” Mobius says with a shrug. “You hear the one about the gorgeous god who found their soulmate in a folksy dope of a human?”
A small measure of Loki’s anxiety melts away. “You are referring to when the realm’s bravest human opened their heart to a broken god?”
“Mobius,” Loki starts, but in a flash, Mobius easy smile returns.
“Come on. Let’s hit the beach.”
Loki bounces their leg the entire taxi drive to their beach-front hotel. Their suite is large, upgraded last minute at surely no small expense, to a set of three rooms, just in case Thor and Frigga decided to arrive. They change into swim trunks and descend the staircase off their balcony down to the sand. The hotel arranged a series of lounge chairs and umbrellas that Loki is eager to claim, but Mobius pulls them down to the water first.
“We’ve been in Iowa too long. We have to at least touch the ocean.”
Loki accommodates him enough to step into the water, ankle-deep. Mobius splashes in all the way. He dips below the surface, then reappears, drawing closer, soaking wet.
“Do not even think of -” Loki says, knowing what’s coming. Mobius allots them plenty of time to move if they wish, but they do not. Though they do groan in dismay as Mobius wraps them in a damp hug.
“Kiss me,” Mobius says, bright as the sunshine and laughing. “I taste like the ocean.”
Loki does not bother to stop their rolling eyes, even as they indulge him with a kiss. Hm, he does taste a bit salty. But it’s still Mobius underneath.
“Perhaps you are part fish,” Loki offers, teasing.
Mobius’s eyes light up. “Do you think mermaids are real? Mermen?”
Loki, watching Mobius’s youthful glee, has no desire to quash his joy, even slightly. “Perhaps?”
“Oh, man. How great would that be?” Mobius says and releasing Loki, flops back into the water.
Loki can’t help their smile. And they don’t want to either. Mobius makes them feel young again too, full of hope and possibilities. Like they could accomplish anything.
Like defying death.
Their smile slips, but they struggle to hold onto it, not wanting to ruin Mobius’s fun.
But even this trip carries the weight of Mobius’s unsaid wish, I want you to have something to remember me by.
“We will remember together,” Loki says under his breath, as Mobius jumps into a wave.
Then, like a boom of thunder across the beach, roars a voice, “Brother!”
Loki turns to see Thor in bright-colored shorts and a too-small white tank top walking toward him. Large sunglasses hide his eyes, and a swipe of white sunscreen streaks his nose, but his wide smile leaves no argument to his expression. And beside him...
Frigga wears a long, floral sundress and a wide-brimmed hat. Where Thor barrels forward, oaf-like, she moves like the water itself, each step on the sand fluid and careful.
Reality flashes through Loki, stealing his breath. When last she saw them, they were... not...
They have no idea what their relationship could be now.
This was a mistake.
Loki has to run.
They look at the water, but Mobius is too far out.
For Loki to run, they would have to leave Mobius.
Indecision roots them. To stay or to go.
But no, Frigga would not wear a sundress if she had meant only to renounce them. She would not dress as though she intends to stay.
And Mobius...
Loki steels their resolve. How tightly had Mobius held Loki after they fought about his job and he thought Loki gone forever? How many whispered promises had he made since then, of their staying together?
No. Mobius would not leave them.
Loki will not abandon him either.
Thor reaches them first. “Good to see you again, Loki. Heimdall sends his regards, and his regrets. He could not get away.”
“Oh... uh, of course.”
“Where’s... oh!” Thor looks out at the water. “Mobius! My brother! Stay there, I will join you!” Then he trudges into the water, each step a large splash.
In his place, stands Frigga. Loki stands tall, bracing themself for perhaps-deserved condemnation.
But then their mother lifts a hand and places it softly to their cheek.
“My beautiful child,” she says, and it is enough. It is everything.
Loki falls into open arms, feeling much like a youth again, safe and protected in their mother’s embrace.
“Thank you for inviting us,” she says as she cards her fingers through their hair. “It was a most pleasant and unexpected surprise.”
“It was Mobius’s idea,” Loki admits.
“Your soulmate knows your heart well,” she says, kindness warm in her voice. “It brings this mother peace to see her child so happy. Especially after such a long period of distress.”
Loki closes their eyes and bites back their bubbling emotion. To have their pain acknowledge is almost too much. As to, is having the reaffirmation that they are her child, even now, even after everything.
Loki realizes too late that they are still wet from Mobius’s hug, and pulls away sharply. But Frigga keeps her arms on their shoulders, her smile ever-soft, ever-patient. She holds no harm for them, only kindness. Only joy.
Mobius approaches slowly, kicking gently through the water, creating only minimal disturbance to the water’s surface.
He looks first to Loki, as if studying their face. Loki knows he is searching for distress, that Mobius will rise to their defense with nary a moment’s notice. But he mustn’t see that, because a smile breaks wide on his face as he turns it toward Frigga.
He holds out his hand, dripping wet with saltwater. Frigga glances at his hand, then ignores it and pulls him into a hug, too.
“Thank you,” she says, voice nearly lost among the shift of the waves and the loud beating of Loki’s own heart.
“You don’t have to thank me.” Mobius’s voice is much stronger. “You’re always welcome to... oh.”
She says something else, something Loki cannot hear, something that makes Mobius’s smile soften and his eyes search out Loki’s over her shoulder.
“You don’t have to thank me for that, either,” Mobius says. “Loving them is the easiest thing I’ve ever done.”
Loki’s whole world goes very still.
The sun shines. The waves continue to pound the sand. Somewhere, Thor calls out for them to join him. Mobius looks away from them, back to Frigga.
Loki just stands there, a single word, echoing loud in their head.
So I recently read that absolutely incredible amazing fic where Jun Wu causes Hua Cheng to believe Jun Wu is his beloved.
And now am absolutely having that problem where - I want more, I want more with the concept, I want things, but - that’s the fic - it’s this fic and it has what it has (and what it has is amazing of course!) -. And have all these thoughts and stuff. (And in specific I really want more interaction between that Hua Cheng and Jun Wu.)
And then also was reading another (wonderful!) fic, and there’s a line there where Hua Cheng is thinking - (there’s a specific line that caught me but I’m going to paste a few more for context and highlight the one):
Hua Cheng would burn the very world to the ground, and all of heaven with it, if it meant keeping his god safe. But he knows such a thing would only make Xie Lian miserable and he will never allow himself to be a direct cause of such a thing. The whole worthless lot of them should be kneeling at Dianxia's altar in supplication every hour of every day in gratitude for their continued existence.
And this caught me and it hit my thoughts about the Jun Wu taking Hua Cheng fic because - Jun Wu? He would want something like that, he would want that.
()I was talking to my queer platonic person about this, and it helped me get some thoughts more pulled apart and together, where - there’s kind of a few dynamics.
- Hua Cheng is - easily considers it absolutely correct and fitting to think about himself as nothing and less than nothing, as an unworthy servant, to think of his beloved as everything, to find himself graced by any attention he’s granted, by anything asked or demanded of him, by any treatment, by any decision. He will find correctness in it, and he will find satisfaction in it. This is very much there in the fic - this is the state he lives in, with Jun Wu - but it’s also I think something we can see lots of places - this is what draws him to dark!Xie Lian, this is I think clearly an urge he has toward Xie Lian, even as Xie Lian usually doesn’t want this from him.
(And this is something I’ve seen and like seeing explored in general in fics a lot, and I’ve seen explored in a lot of ways, that there’s actually some of a tension here, where there are things Hua Cheng would easily, absolutely offer, and (depending on the exploration) would find satisfying that Xie Lian (depending on the exploration) - doesn’t want, and wouldn’t want, and in some cases is distressed by the idea of).
- Hua Cheng very much yearns for - love and kindness and affirmation and care. That’s a very large part of the fic, I think, that Xie Lian keeps trying to be good to Hua Cheng, as much as he can be in the circumstance, and Hua Cheng feels it and it catches at him and it pulls at him and he wants it, on a level, even when it feels like it’s pulling against his core. And this again I think is something that’s very much there in general - he doesn’t think he should dare ask for it, he doesn't think he should want it, but he wants it, deeply, very much, and it means incredibly much, it does incredibly much when he is given it.
And again the fic works a lot with the second of those, and shows us the first with Hua Cheng before Jun Wu.
- And then this other piece, which is a sort of mirror twin of the first - as the first said, to Hua Cheng his beloved is everything. He is - well, the very opposite of unbiased. And again there is satisfaction in him for the idea of laying anything at Xie Lian’s feet, of Xie Lian having absolutely anything he wants whatever it means for literally anyone or anything else.
And again, this is very often something that Xie Lian - doesn’t want, and wouldn't want (and depending on things could be distressed about!).
(And this makes me think of another thing I think about, which is how Hua Cheng fell in love with Xie Lian because Xie Lian is kind, and shows people (and showed Hua Cheng) concern and care - and what this means and how fits with the first thing and the third.)
And so again the first fic I’m talking about does a lot with - Hua Cheng very much being in the first thing, while having this underlying yearning for the second.
And this line I found is making me think of the third, and how that fits into a Hua Cheng with Jun Wu dynamic.
And anyway I don’t think I have these thoughts all together yet at all but here I am having them a lot.
Finish your work, Fox says to his brain. It’s due tomorrow, he says. Just finish it now.
You’re a piece of shit, his brain responds. I’m tired and I’m not doing that.
Then sleep.
You don’t deserve it.
“No, I don’t,” Fox sighs to himself, scribbling his name across the top of another worksheet. “No, I fucking don’t.” He knows it’s not the healthiest mindset to have, but generally the people telling him it’s unhealthy and untrue don’t understand what a spectacularly lazy shitbrick Fox is, so he forgives them for missing the mark.
He goes to set his pen to the paper and work out the first equation, but the rest of the sheet catches his eye. Twenty-four questions. Twenty-fucking-four. It’s going to take him an hour. He looks at the clock. He’s got fifty minutes, fifty-five if he speeds a bit and sixty if he speeds and doesn’t dawdle in the locker room.
Oh, God. He’s going to hockey practice after this. His head spins at the thought. His speed’s been going down and he can never focus like he used to and he’s going to be nauseous all practice again.
When does this stop?
97 days. You graduate in 97 days.
If you think this is hard, try real life. You’ll fall flat on your lazy ass.
Forty-eight minutes until he has to leave for practice.
A bottle of Jack Daniels in one hand and a baseball bat in the other, I stagger away from the bonfire party in the park to the edge of my high school campus. I turn left, ignoring the administration building before me, and the classroom building to my right. Only when the stadium looms over me, I slow my pace. I stop nose to nose with the bronze statue out front.
“You think you are so perfect,” I tell my bronze reflection, sans nearly ten years. It stands as tall as me though, eight year old me posing atop a decapitated dragon head. Bronze-me holds a sword straight up, a real sword. The one I’d used that day. Above the sword, written in big metal letters screwed to the side of the brick stadium entrance, reads, Home of the Hunters.
Eight year old me, there, labeled not just as a dragon-hunter, but as a symbol of one. My bronze face is proud, eyes up, smile open-mouthed, awed. It was never like that. It’s never been like that. It’s sure as hell not like that right now.
I take a swig of Jack. It burns the whole way down, then churns in my stomach. I’m not a drinker, my body reminds me. I’ll be sick later. I’m pretty sick now.
“So damn perfect,” I growl at the statue, throwing as much alcohol as spit. I really don’t want to swallow any more of this stuff. I take another sip for more venom. It dribbles down my chin and drips onto my Varsity Hunter t-shirt. “You’re a liar.”
I scream it. “Liar!”
I swallow. It burns.
A sniffle escapes me. When did I start to cry? Am I crying, or is it just the alcohol making my eyes water?
It hurts to think this hard.
I drop the bottle. Enough of that. And grip the baseball bat with both hands.
I want to bash my smug, bronze face in. I cried that day. I threw up in the bushes. I wasn’t a hero, or an example of a hunter. This is a fraud. I am a fraud.
I wind up for a swing.
“You’re going to break your arms.”
Bat still raised, I swivel on my heel, ready for hell.
Sebastian Grimes isn’t hell, but damn if he isn’t close. Standing in half shadow, he looks like he’s there too. The bonfire from the party is too far away. The only light between us is the tungsten fixture high on the stadium wall. It flickers now and then. Bugs fly around it. Some adventurous ones drop down to me, but who cares about bugs when my whole world is one swing away from crashing down. God, I want it to crash.
“The hell you want, Grimes?” I snap. Leave me and my misery alone.
Sebastian unhooks his crossed arms to scratch at his chin. “If you hit that statue with that bat, you’re going to hurt yourself.”
I snort. “Since when does Sebastian Grimes given a shit about what I do.”
“The community might be upset to see how far their golden boy has fallen.” Face as impassive as ever, he shrugs. “I’m part of that community.”
“Community service, then, huh?” It hurts more than it should. I hadn’t been expecting any comfort from Sebastian – the guy has had it out for me ever since he transferred in two years ago – but I thought that maybe watching someone fall apart might garner a little sympathy. No one gave a shit for their golden boy, not really, outside of wanting me to exist. A nice little trophy.
“Something like that,” he says, but it’s different. He’s looking at me. He never looks at me. Not like this, right in the face. His dark eyes are veiled in shadow, I can’t see them clearly, but I feel them on me like a butterfly touch. For a moment, fear shoots through me. If I move an inch, that butterfly will startle and fly away.
Embarrassed by my own thoughts – comparing Sebastian to a butterfly? Really? – I duck away first. My head hurts. My cheeks burn. I shouldn’t have come to this party. I should have just gone home.
I can be their golden boy. I can match their expectations. I can meet all the labels they have in their heads about me. I can be good, and strong, and proud, and relentless, and… brave. I can be anything but honest. That’s my curse.
Sebastian walks toward me. He moves with elegance, a perfect coordination that I’d never be able to match, even if I lost 30 pounds to be as rail thin as him.
I think he’s coming for the bat, and my grip tightens. But he doesn’t take it. Instead, he stops at my side and looks at my statue.
“How much of the story is true?” he asks.
A bug lands on my bronze-nose. My throat tightens. “It’s all true,” I lie.
Sebastian laughs, and my anger flares. He doesn’t trust me? Everyone else trusts me! I’m totally trustworthy.
Except I’m not. At all. I cool my defenses with a deep breath. Soft as a ghost, I whisper, “Don’t tell anyone.”
Sebastian’s laughter dies. “No one would believe me anyway.”
I drop the bat first, then myself into the grass. It’s cool and wet on my butt, certain to stain my jeans. I don’t care, especially when Sebastian joins me.
The light flickers and goes out. We’re alone with the bugs and bronze-me, barely visible in the dim starlight. The moon’s already come and gone. Stupid moon, always leaving when things get tough.
“Still, it comes back every night anyway,” Sebastian says, and I realize I said that out loud.
It’s intimate out here in the dark. Alone with Sebastian, the boy I’m supposed to hate, who says he hates me.
I don’t hate him though. He’s the only one who’s ever critical of me.
He’s the only one who really looks at me and sees me. Not the golden boy. Not the perfect lie. Me.
“I really hate this statue,” I tell him, just a little secret, one he probably already knows.
“It does make you look like an asshole, but that’s not hard.”
I groan and lower my back into the grass. I don’t even want to look at the thing anymore. My stomach churns.
Sebastian asks, “What do you hate most?”
Where to start? The happy expression, the hero pose, the gruesome details of the dragon head. All of those are terrible things, but the worst is… “That damn sword.”
“The sword?”
My tongue wants to talk so I let it. “My grandfather’s. Grandmother tells everyone he gave it to me. He didn’t. I stole it. I wanted him to stop hunting. He was gone all the time. I barely knew him.”
My eyes water again. Damn alcohol. “He died without it. When they attacked.” A small breath. “Grandmother said it saved my life. My grandfather, she said, would have easily chosen to give his life for mine. Well, he never really had a choice.”
A rustle in the grass. “If I get you that sword, what would you do with it?”
“I don’t want it,” I say. “I never want to see it again.”
A loud clank echoes, then a wooden bat thrown, bouncing against sidewalk.
“Grimes?” I stumble to my feet. In the dim light, it almost looks like…
He didn’t. He couldn’t.
You’re going to break your arms.
My bronze arm is bent. The hand is missing at the wrist.
Ok this was supposed to be a quick draw and a description to go with, that blew into a full chapter and now it's also on Ao3 SO happy reading ig idk
I never see Shane works that don't go all in for romance nor explore the more realistic ugly parts of recovery, and I kind of crave That TM. So let me have at it too with the self-insert whump mumbo jumbo; no romo version.
Set post-8 hearts event, Farmer Uidelsib is two years or so in, full house built and married to Emily. They/them pronouns, same as me.
Diverges from then on, Shane-centric from an outside POV for the most part.
[[MORE]]
Take that can away if you can.
Gulp it down. Chapter 1/2/3/4
There's a few to-know to survive life in society, in the valley; there's no good way to comment on the age nor weight of both resident housewives, you can't say no to Evelyn's homemade cookies- and why would you, you fool-, you do not fight at the Saloon or you'll get no cheese anymore on your pizza and only sparkling water for drinks, and-
And you don't mess with Shane's alcohol related ritual.
Except I did, that night, because you do that, when your two-years long friendship with the guy taught you better than letting his impulses overcome yours, when your buddy is trying to recover from teenage long-lasting into early adulthood, trauma-enhanced heavy addiction, and you know, you know tomorrow he'll feel like absolute shit and question his right to therapy the moment he'll stop his pounding skull from splitting. Wonders what a three-dosage paracetamol can do.
At least he doesn't drink it out anymore.
So yeah, when you're in my shoes, you get that Joja store-bought crap out of Shane's hand, and you brace yourself for the incoming lash out.
The first fractions of seconds are always those to look closely into most. It's only a glimpse, but before the scowl slips on like a well-worn boxing glove ready to strike, there is always this open page I learned I needed to decipher as quick as I could.
Tonight, it's heartbreaking. When I peck his forehead- doting big sibling habits die hard, even when you're actually the youngest of the pair- the eyes I catch looking at me are so confused and bare of any emotion, except for the sorrow that goes beer-soaked tears, it pangs. I get used to the breakdowns, working in the fields I do when I'm off the farm's, but it's not the same when it's a friend.
When I straighten back, offensive beverage in hand, it's already gone in a flinch, away from the empty space behind the chair and onto the table, as he snarls.
"Wha- giv'me back- 's mine!" I don't know how much he drunk before he met up with me, but from the slurring, it's a Lot. A season and a half into sobriety. That's harsh.
I ignore him and walk behind him, pondering where to put the beer for now.
"Y-you can't just do that! It's my booze I got with m'money, not some- who d'you think you are?-" He sputters indignantly, angry tears fewer than the sad ones but still there. He tries to turn around and grab behind his back, but the wild movement is way off and only gets the chair to nearly topples down. I rush in time to stabilize it, and profit off the moment to set a strong hand on his shoulder.
"I can just do that, 'cus it's my house I got with my money, and I think I'm your pal who knows when you've had enough. Dude, I trust you to be an adult, but minutes before, you were already so torched I had to keep your neck upright so you didn't faceplant into the table, and you nearly just kissed my floor good evening. Not to mention you clung to my arms the whole way from the little entry stairs to the kitchen because, quoting, 'If I don't I'll fall in the hole and won't get up'."
I turn to the fridge again, going to open it, before I think better of it. Likely enough, we'll both forget it was there in the first place, it'll stink up my fridge- it's Joja's- and it'll be money out of Shane's pocket for nothing. I set it on the counter, with the rest of the pack. He'll put it to cool down when he's back to Marnie's. Or he won't, probably.
That's not a worry for now.
When I caught up with him, it was a few feet below my doorstep; he'd probably slipped up trying to climb the three steps up to it, and settled for it. He was nursing that same can, muttering to himself, head down, curled up on himself. Except for that leg sticked out, he probably hurt it when he fell, I'll have to look at that and work on it if it's too swollen. Hopefully that'll spare us from a visit to Harvey's.
Bad memories. Not mine, and it's warm and not raining outside, but. Déjà-vu.
Anyways, he looked the picture of "help I've fallen and I can't get up- and even if I can I won't because Fuck You", and it's been a hassle to have him cooperate. But when I asked if he wanted to leave, he shook his head with a fervor no somnolent drunk should have. That resulted in a lovely streak of vomit down the wall right next to the door. That's also for later. If Eryza doesn't lap it up. Ew. This cat's never predictable.
Now, he's staring at his hands, sitting at my table, contemplating something too far down for me to see- or maybe just zoning out with a sleeping brain. Then he mumbles. "Sorry."
I get back to the table and sit at arm's length across of him. "Nah, 's okay. I don't mind being a helping hand or touchy-feely, must be the frog-eater in me. Not for the helping part." I'd chuckle but my quip falls on deaf ears.
I go to put my hand over his. When he doesn't blink at it, I try and shake a reply out of him, gently. He startles and hawkeyes our joined fingers. When he's finally looking at me, I raise a single eyebrow. He doesn't say anything, but when he pulls back his arm, I let him. We both straighten up, and it's hard to keep up the eye contact.
"So…" There's a heavy air on us. Suddenly, like the last year didn't happen, we're sitting a stride away of each other, and yet it feels like he's all the way back to the forest, looking down at waves.
"Do you want me to do something?" I bend myself a little closer to him, not moving otherwise.
He puts his head in his hands, shivering. Can't tell if it's the AC or his system kicking the alcohol out, or itself, in stress. I think I hear something, but it might as just be his shuddering breath.
"Shane" I insist, voice level, not pressing. "I need words. I want to help, I truly don't mind, but I need words to know what to do." He's never shown signs of going nonverbal before. If he does, I'll improvise. Until then… I need words.
Time ticks slowly as we wait. Then, with great effort and deep fatigue, he drags his palms up from under his nose to his temple, spreading some snot and wet tears across his face from his scrunched shut eyes. Lips trembling but finally showing, that attempt to let out a sound that's not too garbled. He coughs, sniffles a bit, breathe in again, sounding like a sick dog, and blows through gritted teeth before his jaws go slack. Eyes still closed, he whispers, and I have to lower myself some more toward his crouched form to catch it.
"Can I get something to drink…?" His voice is hoarse.
The demand could be comical, if we were into sour humor. And we usually are. But right now, we're not finding the joke in the lines. I stand silently, and as I walk to the fridge again, I let my hand brush his shoulder- same spot as before.
I take a minute to choose, look into the pantry. When I'm back at the table with my items of choice, he's still sitting there, his cheek is cushioned on his arms, face hidden from view. His shoulder, except for the occasional tremor, rise and fall in rythm with his snores. Breaks my heart to interrupt that, but not really. Hangovers are mean bitches with the sharpest nail art on the blackest of boards.
"Psst, dude. C'mon." I rustle his hair backward. He hates when I do that, says it tickles, and it makes him sneeze. So I obligatory do it once a day if I can. Let's say today's my late quota for the last four days I haven't seen him.
He gruffly tells me to kindly refrain from such pleasantries, and raise bleary eyes back up at the table. I can also guess he tried to bat a hand at me, but his coordination is off and he slaps himself lightly on the ear. Then he glares bewildered at his hand for a few seconds, obviously insulted. I profit of this moment to grab a small basin from under the sink, on second thought.
When he brings his attention back to me, I'm sitting again. Between us, a jug of fresh milk from this morning, a small sack of peppers, and a juice carafe sit aside a green glass bottle. There's also some bread, mostly for me to munch on. Because, hmmm dough. He squints at it all, especially at the bottle. Probably trying to read the label.
"Yeah no, didn't get you one of my best wine, not sorry."
"Hot pepper… juice?" He looks at the actual peppers next to it. "With actual peppers?" And then I get the squint too.
"Hmph, I know you like your elongated hell tomatoes, man, what can i say."
At that, a feeble snort.
I decide that it is the highlight victory of my soirée.
"Welp, have at it." I gesture to the half-liter liquor glass right by his left.
He fumbles with the drinks and some splashes around, but I lay back on my chair, arms crossed, letting him do his thing. While I don't hold back from growing downright doting on him when I got to- or even when I don't- I don't see how more devotion right now would be not smothering. He can break my fancy glass cups if he wants and spill my milk, so long he doesn't cut himself or cry over it.
Now, you could be thinking that plain water would have done the trick just fine, if not better, in rehydrating him. Here's the thing, though; going from booze to tasteless liquid, for Shane, that's a sure way to puking his heart out. And I'd rather not have us deal with an acid bile throat burn on top of near alcohol poisoning. Sorry to not spare you the squeamish details, but his oesophagus is pretty sensitive ever since that stomach pumping back at the clinic. Hot fiery hell fruits he can do just fine, with relative moderation and hydratation- hence the milk and juice- but liquor bursting its way back from his guts? Nuh uh.
It had taken lots of coaxing, but he'd explained the plain tastes, or lackthereof, were very hard for him to deal with, especially when contrasting with strong ones like beers and whiskeys. I'd shackle it to gustative hypostimulation, but I don't know enough about him that way to say. He'd said sparkling water was a good compromise.
But I don't have sparkling water, because I do not like suffering.
I might buy a pack for when he visits though.
And I do know a handful about him already. Shackle that to perceptiveness and a stubborn streak on top of a year and so long camaraderie.
And having a certain uncontrollable fear of failing to act quick the next time coped with by accumulating information and patterns compulsively.
I shake my head to focus on the present again. He's switched from juices to soaking bread in milk to eat it small portion after small portion. He pauses in mid-bite when he catches me staring. He's still hunched on himself and red-faced and a tad bloated. His cheeks are drying and he's blown his nose. I smile calmly. Worst of the storm passed, unless I screw up and blow it.
"Ywou wan' chom'?" He offers a dripping piece of bread. In moments like this, when he's sobering but not quite, the resemblance with Jas are unmistakable. The glint in his reddened eyes that open wide, and his blank-but-not-quite wondering expression, it's all here to paint a scrutinizing but vulnerable picture of tired but bright minds.
"Nah thanks. You done with that milk?"
"...Sure." He eyes it, wary. He knows where this is going, and he doesn't like it. I take the drink off the table, and his gaze follows my movement until I bring it to my lips.
He frowns. A silent warning.
And as I lock onto him with a dead stare, not blinking a millisecond, I down the rest of the 2 liters jug in three, five gulps. I even take the time to lick my new mustache away, and close my mouth with a click of my tongue.
His expression is the macabre marriage of beffudled horror and pure affliction, disgust if you will. The face of someone who doesn't hate milk, but has grown out of it enough to not be able to live off the stuff like the brave souls I'm apart of. And probably with reason, as I actually can't, like most 20+ years old, digest the liquid in large amount. But I smile like a smug cat, perfectly content.
Cats really can't digest milk once adults, it's all social mythos.
We silently judge and fuck with each other like that for a while more, as more time passes, until the room's elephant gets it all humid with its prancing around. Enough that tears and nervous sweats start again, for no apparent reasons but the residual anxiety from the whole chain of events that led to this.
Bucky’s in bed, and it’s one of those blah days where he’s not sure if he should get up and keep trying or hide under the covers forever and wait for the world to finally suffocate him.
He’s staring out the window, at the blue cloudless sky he can see through the curtains. And he’s wondering why a world so beautiful gave him a second chance, of all people, with so many more deserving.
A knock sounds on the door frame and he doesn’t have to look to know its Steve. On a better day, Bucky would make some quip about how Steve doesn’t have to knock to enter his own bedroom, but today, those words seem so far away. Like something he would say in a dream. Or a different life.
Steve takes loud steps across the room. He stands by the bed, back to the window, and the morning light glows around his bedhead like a halo.
He’s smiling, but it’s a little too wide. There’s a worry-line between his brow. “I made pancakes,” he says, hitching his thumb toward the door. Pancake batter speckles yellow across his white t-shirt.
He looks like an angel.
“Steve,” Bucky starts but isn’t sure what to say after that, so he lets it hang. Such a short name, but somehow strong enough to hold so much, all of the weight of Bucky’s love.
Bucky’s chest aches for how much he loves this man. How much he doesn’t deserve him. Or this happy, fragile thing they have. Or the pancakes possibly burning in the next room.
“Steve.” The name’s still strong, but Bucky’s voice breaks around it.
Steve sits on the edge of the bed. He takes Bucky’s hand, the one of flesh and bone, and holds it in a solid, steady grip.
“I can make something else,” Steve says, still smiling but softer now. He’s deflecting, giving Bucky the out. We don’t have to talk about this. We don’t have to talk about anything.
“No.” With the blood on his hands, Bucky’s the last guy in the world who deserves a soft bed, a kind hand, Steve.
But God help him, he’s selfish, too. He wants this so much, he’d die for it.
No, dying is too quick. Too easy.
He wants this enough to live for it.
So he pulls himself upright, hooks his chin over Steve’s shoulder, and wipes away a smudge of batter from Steve’s cheek. Steve doesn’t even wince when the metal grazes his skin.
Bucky says, “I like pancakes.”
“Okay.” Steve looks at him sideways, unsure at first, but whatever he sees in Bucky’s face soon has that fake smile shifting to a real one. “Good.”
Leaning in, Steve kisses Bucky on the corner of his mouth. Bucky can feel his own smile against Steve’s lips.
