Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

‘Why are you being so nice to me?’

Tropy has to awkwardly feign ignorance. ‘What? Who, me? I- I don’t know what you mean.’

He’s usually so much more eloquent than this. It’s a good reason for N. Gin to be wary, and he narrows his eyes in suspicion. ‘You’re planning something, aren’t you?’

‘No, I just thought-‘ He places his palms together. ‘Well, Doctor Cortex has been awfully rough on you lately, I was thinking you deserved a little… something. And- I mean-‘ He rubs his neck with his hand, suddenly warm. ‘You need some time off every now and then, to defuse. De-stress.’ He leans down a little, he towers over the smaller man. ‘Come on, you’ve earned it.’

Letting out a whining sigh, N. Gin seems to relent, but is still a little wary. ‘Fine. Okay. Where do you want to go?’

‘No, no, your choice. It’s your… special day.’

Gin makes a sound like a door opening in a haunted house, a noise of contemplation. ‘How about… the a-’

‘The aquarium it is, come on, let’s not dawdle, the bus leaves in-’ He checks his wristwatch, so quickly Gin isn’t sure it was possible he could have been able to read it. ‘Four minutes and thirty-two seconds. Come on!’

The aquarium is thrumming with the low murmur of filters and rising bubbles and conveyor belts and employees but there are very few people around. Silvery-scaled fish swim in a shoal by the glass and in the light they come to life in a rainbow. It’s childish but N. Gin feels excitement boil within him, seeing the dancing fish, weaving eels, a skulking hammerhead, days before flashing in his head, the old days when he and his mother could get away from that tyrant of a dad- clownfish ripple in arcs across a blue beam of light and play around an artificial reef, a castle under the sea.

At one point, out of excitement, he accidentally grasps for Tropy’s hand and realises when Tropy flinches. He pulls away, embarrassed, a white smoke pluming from the rocket’s base, but after a moment’s hesitation he feels Tropy’s gloved hand close around his and his heart flutters.

They even get ice cream afterwards. How did he know? That was exactly what Gin used to do, as a child. The same flavour, too. Before he can tell the cobalt clocksmith his order, Tropy’s already rattled it off, almost off by heart, to the vendor. One scoop honeycomb, one scoop raspberry ripple, with strawberry sauce, a pink and gold tower dripping with what would probably come out of a care bear if you shot it. He didn’t remember telling Tropy about it.

Maybe in a different life.

The next day, Tropy does almost exactly the same thing. Gin’s more than a little suspicious but after the day at the aquarium, after the past week of compliments and praise and favours – god, Tropy’s been sucking up to him, is he this nice to everyone else? – he finds it hard to refuse. Insecure about going to the aquarium twice in a row, what will the employees there think?, but before he can say that the museum of science sounds good, Tropy’s seemingly read his mind and is already booking tickets on his phone.

It is certainly a treat of a day out, but Tropy seems almost rushed, as if they have to see the entire museum under strict time constraints, and there’s an overwhelming air of anxiousness about him, even as he puffs out his chest and clasps one hand behind his back, looking down his nose at the exhibits, all of which N. Gin examines with adoration, arrays of cogs and wires, squinting to read the plaques, the history, before he’s rushed on. There are huge working models, posters, ink sketches from before the camera was invented, a timeline of physics, and the only moment N. Gin feels anything but euphoria is when he makes a joke – ‘I bet you were there when that was invented’ – and Tropy’s reaction is delayed; he ignores it at first, or doesn’t hear him, but then he realises the joke and laughs, awkwardly, as if he’s trying far too hard to sound sincere, and a moment of insecurity occurs to Gin but it’s gone by the time they head out again.

After the museum they head out for pizza. N. Gin isn’t sure if it’s a coincidence that the pizza Tropy orders is his favourite. Gin’s favourite, not Tropy’s; Tropy hates pizza and it’s painfully obvious by the way he looks to be forcing down each mouthful with disgust, grease dripping down his chin.

‘You have- ehe, a little- let me get that for you.’

Gin reaches over. With a white handkerchief, he dabs away the shining grease from Tropy’s strong, prominent chin, and his eyes widen, as if he’s realised or remembered something, and Gin withdraws, feeling silly, and the rest of the date- no, not a date, a dinner, nothing more than just an outing between colleagues – continues in relative silence.

Back at Gin’s door, because Tropy insisted on walking him home, Tropy breaks down, apologising for the evening, berating himself viciously, and Gin has to stop him. When asked why he’s being so hard on himself for the slight awkwardness of the dinner, he replies:

‘I just- I want it to be perfect, for you, N. Gin.’ He lowers himself and takes Gin’s hands. He’s still taller than him, kneeling. ‘I want this to be exactly what you want.’

‘But- it’s perfect, it is! I haven’t been to the aquarium in so long, and the museum was…’

He trails off when he sees Tropy’s long face melt into a sorry look of self-disappointment and concern, resignation, as if there were something N. Gin just didn’t know and N. Tropy couldn’t tell him, as if there were an answer that’d explain it all but he just couldn’t say it and it was torturing him inside, but he just had to wait.

The next day, Gin tries avoiding Tropy, just to see what happens. Pretends he can’t hear him when he comes to the door. He can hear him pacing, muttering, but he can’t hear what he says. After a while, he disappears, but that afternoon he’s back, and Gin relents; before he can say that he really doesn’t feel like going out today, Tropy’s inside his home. ‘That’s fine,’ he says, as if this is all accounted for in his master plan, ‘Take a look at what I brought.’

He does. It’s a box set. A documentary on the history of warfare.

Gin was wanting to see this. How did he know?

The word snuggle feels inappropriate but he really doesn’t have a better word for what they were doing on the couch. The epitome of a lazy day, Gin’s in pyjamas and Tropy’s without his coat and the taller man is folded double to fit on the small sofa. They watch the entire box set in one sitting, and it’s only by the fourth chapter of the documentary that Gin realises he’s leaning on Tropy, he could’ve been leaning on a cushion or a corpse, he’s so cold. That’s what time travel does to you, I guess, he thinks to himself, and he’s about to correct himself when Tropy slips an arm around his shoulder.

The movement is so strikingly seamless that Gin initially thinks he was just reaching for the remote to pause the film and get up, but the arm doesn’t move. The pressure on his side, of the time traveller leaning on him, doesn’t leave. He looks up, shaky, and Tropy looks down at him, and smiles gently.

‘Are you alright?’

‘Y- yes.’

Tropy’s arm rubs Gin’s shoulder as he pulls him closer.

It was either that the joy made him faint, or that the narrator’s droning voice and the warmth just coaxed him into a light sleep. When he awakens he’s in his bed, Tropy having carried him there, and said doctor is kneeling next to his bedside, placing a glass on his bedstand and twisting open a pill bottle.

‘Good morning, Sleeping Beauty,’ he says, in an unsettlingly proper tone, the words of a lover in the voice of a sergeant or headmaster, ‘Would you be so kind as to take your medicine?’

‘I don’t need reminding.’

Tropy doesn’t say anything. Gin takes the pills and washes them down with the water, slightly warm but not by any means hot, just to help them down his throat. The headaches have been worse lately. He can’t identify why.

‘Where are you dragging me today?’ he says, mostly joking.

‘I’m not dragging you anywhere you don’t want to go. How does the ballet sound?’

‘Excellent.’

‘Then don’t dilly-dally. Get your good shirt on. The one without the bullet holes.’

There’s a pause.

‘Cover the bullet holes with a jacket, then.’

Another pause.

‘Let me buy you a new jacket.’

‘Oh, that’s not-’

‘I’m already having one tailored for you.’

‘… But… how did you know I…?’

Tropy claps his hands sharply. ‘Chop-chop! Out of those pyjamas! The ballet starts at nine, but our reservation for dinner is at six, which gives us time to pick up your jacket, come back and change, and-’

Gin rubs his head. The medication hasn’t kicked in. ‘What time is it?’

‘Four minutes past two,’ Tropy says, immediately, as if it’s a number he’s committed to memory, ‘You were asleep for thirteen and a half hours.’

He didn’t even check his clock.

The jacket fits like a glove and covers the spatter of holes in his shirt; he almost spills wine on his front (Tropy catches his cup before it falls) at dinner but he doesn’t let it ruin his evening. The ballet is exquisite. He finds himself crying at the end. Tropy gives him his handkerchief before the tears even begin to fall.

It’s just so beautiful.

The next day, or, rather, the next afternoon, after Gin had had time to slowly recover, Tropy picks him up. He’s not in his labcoat; he’s in a white button-down and shorts, socks that almost go up to his knees, and he runs a hand through his hair. There isn’t a clock on his body but he has a bag slung over one shoulder. They’re going on a walk. Gin’s not entirely fond of hikes, but apparently, the view from the end of the trail is captivating.

After hours of trekking through the wooded trail, sun dappling through the leaves as it slowly slunk behind the horizon, squirrels and woodland-birds dancing between the branches as they laughed and joked and offered to carry each other, they reached the end of the trail: a clearing on a cliff, secluded and silent, overlooking a sleepy city that’s preparing for bed as the sun continues to sink, turning the sky a vibrant red and pink. Tropy whips out a blue blanket from his shoulder bag. The two sit.

They sit in silence for a while. Gin’s too anxious to do anything. What if he rebuffs him? He wants so much to touch him. The setting sun brings a glow to that angular blue face and oh god he noticed him staring. Gin’s face goes pink and Tropy’s hand covers his and he smiles warmly, but there’s still something there and Gin’s trying to identify it as anything other than a desperate resignation, an apology, a sorry, but there’s nothing else I can do, a doctor giving his patient less than a week to live.

‘Isn’t the sunset beautiful?’ Tropy says, gently, although he isn’t looking at it. His hand clutches Gin’s, and Gin stammers for words, a white plume raising from the rocket, and he leans in, and his face grows warm-

And he kisses him.

Tropy initiates at the exact perfect moment. One second he’s leaning in, eyes slightly hooded, the next he swoops in like a vampire and his cool lips are pressed to Gin’s, his hands are on Gin’s hips, shoulders, in his hair, he peppers kisses over his cheeks before returning to those lips, parting slightly, the scent of his sweat, the heat of his breath, the tremble of his hands, the salt of overwhelmed tears. Gin reciprocates awkwardly, lips on teeth on gums on skin, hands in hair, on his forearms, gripping the other man’s hands, his heartbeat racing.

He pulls away for a breath and Tropy is still ravenous, burying his face in the crook of his neck, again, like a vampire, as if he’s trying to drain all of his blood. The two-pronged snaketongue of Tropy’s beard brushes Gin’s shoulder. He feels a hand caress the rocket, slip down to the place where the metal mask doesn’t quite cover his jaw.

It’s too perfect.

Too perfect.

‘You’ve been practicing,’ he says, half-jokingly, breathless, ‘You’ve done this before.’

Tropy flinches.

He’s acting strangely and Gin can’t bear it. There’s something wrong. Something very, very wrong. Just a hunch. He can’t let it go. He has to stop.

‘Nefarious, stop, wait,’ and he pushes him away with both hands, detaches him from the spot on his neck he was so yearningly laving at, and he stares at him with all seriousness, furrowing what parts of his brow that will furrow, ‘Something’s not right.’

‘No, N. Gin, everything’s fine. We can stop. I brought- I brought some-’ He turns away to root in his shoulder bag for something else, change the subject, but Gin grabs him by the shoulder and turns him back.

‘Nefarious,’ he says, seriously, ‘I mean it. You’ve been acting weirdly all week- all month-! And you’re not like you, you’re- fussing over me, you’re being too nice, it’s almost like you’re trying to get something from me!’

‘Gin, please, that’s ridiculous, I- I- I just think you deserve to have a good time.’ He’s sweating, stammering, as if something is going wrong in his plan. N. Gin relishes in it.

‘It’s all just out of nowhere.’ He releases his grasp on his arms. ‘I’m suspicious. I don’t know what you want from me. I’ve had a good time, but with how you’re acting, I can’t help but feel like I’m being…’ Emitting a wheeze as he hunts for the right word, he meets Tropy’s eyes. ‘Manipulated.’

Tropy’s face twists into a look of horror, confusion, terror, his lip quivers as he struggles to hunt his formidable brain for an excuse. He has every explanation but what he needs is an excuse. Gin’s half-furrowed half-brow, the hurt in his eyes, the crease of his frown, it stabs his heart and he opens and closes his mouth as he fails to find the words to say. After a moment he just says, tense, helpless, ‘Let’s just watch the sunset.’

Gin hasn’t the heart to argue. His features quiver for a moment like a house of cards but they stay solid and set in a concerned frown. He turns to watch the sky, crimson ripples and thin, white clouds, when he hears Tropy speak, detached, like a ghost, like an out-of-body experience.

‘If you knew,’ he says, ‘that something terrible was about to happen. And you had the ability to do anything, to try and stop it, would you?’

‘… What?’

‘I mean, if… if you knew that something just… catastrophic was going to happen, and there was even the slimmest sliver of a chance that you could make things happen differently, would you try?’

After a long pause, frowning in confusion, Gin replies. ‘I- yes, I would…? What does that have to do with-?’

Tropy cuts him off, voice audibly choking, as if he has to get all of this out before he starts to cry.

‘But you keep going back and no matter what you change, it still happens.’ He stresses the last word, hissing, almost. ‘And you have to watch yourself fail over and over before you realise there’s no way this could be different. It has to be this way. It tortures you, but it has to be this way…’

‘What has to be this way?!’ He’s getting agitated. ‘Nef, I don’t understand-’

He cuts him off again, holding out a hand, flinching very visibly as if he’s about to be sick. ‘Don’t. God, not now.’ The nickname is too much. He’ll never know how much this hurts. He has to detach himself. Become totally apart. That’s the only way he’ll do this without collapsing under his own weight.

Gin stares at him, mostly hurt. Nefarious opens his mouth for another analogy and it trembles as he fights for words.

‘I’m only trying to help you,’ he manages to say, and he tilts his head up, lip quivering, unable to say anything else.

‘Help me do what?’ The look of pained confusion turns to concern. ‘Nef, what happens to me?’

He breaks.

His mouth opens to speak, dig himself further into the hole, but all that comes out is a choked sound, and then another, and his shoulders heave, and within seconds he’s wracked with sobs, loud and ruthless, chest spasming with each heaving cry, fat tears rolling down his long, gaunt face and falling from his chin into his grasping, clawing hands. They grip at his hear, pull, tear; Gin frantically tries to console him but all he can do is pull the taller man into a tight hug, hold him as tremors of grief run through his whole body, howling mournfully as if trying to bring down the forest, then the tremors turn into twitching aftershocks, then nothing.

Gin holds him for a while, swaying, feeling his heaving back, before finally saying,

‘How does it happen?’

Drained, Tropy replies in a mournful monotone, ‘The rocket.’

He knew it.

‘How long do I have?’

Muffled by his consoler’s shoulder, he says, ‘Barely a fortnight.’ And then he wraps his arms around N. Gin tighter, the tremors return, as he sobs, ‘I’m sorry. Oh, god, I tried to help you, but I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.’

He’s almost whispering it by the last repetition. Everything begins to click into place.

‘It all had to be perfect,’ he says, ‘But don’t worry. I can go back. I can make the dinner go better. I won’t- I won’t make a face when you wipe grease from my chin.’ He pulls away for a moment, wiping a tear from his face with his sleeve. ‘God, I’m sorry, it’s so hard. It’s so hard. I didn’t want you to know. I can go back. I can stop myself from telling you.’

Gin can’t speak.

‘It gets harder every time.’

‘H- how so?’

He manages a weak smile, for a second. ‘Every time, I learn the patterns, I learn more about what you like,’ he explains, and that explains the ice cream, and the pizza, and the finishing his sentences – ‘But every time, I… I…’

‘You what?’ Spite cuts through his tone. He’s not angry. He’s scared. Oh god, he’s so scared.

‘I fall in love with you more.’ Tears begin to fall from his quivering red eyes again. The lower corners of his mouth twitch. ‘That’s what makes it hard.’

For a good three seconds, Gin manages to hold it together. Then his breaths get uncontrollable, he’s heaving as if he’s about to turn into Edward Hyde, his teeth grit and his eye glistens and he grabs a tight fistful of the fabric of Tropy’s shirt in his hands, pulling him closer, blazing, terrified.

‘You bastard!’ he cries, spittle flying from his lips and tears flooding down from the one eye that still produces them, ‘Why is now the time that you want to tell me that?! What good is knowing that now that I know I’m going to die?!’

‘I tried to keep it from you,’ Tropy says, making excuses again, hands on Gin’s frail wrists. ‘ I tried to hide it, but…’

‘No.’ He shakes his head, limp ginger locks pasted to his forehead, then, more forcefully, ‘No! Why the fuck would you tell me this?!’

‘I- I-’ Nefarious is struggling for an answer again, when Gin looks up at him with eyes full of heartbreak and says:

‘I loved you too.’

And seconds after he says this he loses control, heart pounding, head pulsing, screaming, cursing, sobbing, crying, and Nefarious holds him as he crumbles, rubbing his back, inhaling the scent of rocket fuel and smoke from his hair.

‘Hush, hush, hush. It’s alright. It’s alright.’ He buries his face in his shoulder, rocking, consoling him. ‘You’re going to be alright. I’ve got you.’

But it’s not. He won’t be, and he hasn’t.

‘How many times have you been back?’ he says, when he finally composes himself.

‘More times than I can recall,’ he replies, shuddering.

There’s a long, long silence.

The sun has long disappeared from the sky.

After the city’s light dims to a faint glow, Nefarious withdraws his arm from Gin’s shoulder. He doesn’t want to stop holding him. ‘We should go home.’

Gin doesn’t speak. He only stares. Not at the starlit smoky sky, not at the city or the violet horizon, nothing. He stares at nothing.

‘It’s okay. It’s okay. I’ll go back and- and-’ He runs a hand through his hair, sweeping it from his tall, damp forehead. ‘-I can stop myself from doing this. I can make it as if this never happened.’ He wraps up the blanket, puts it back in his bag, turning his back on the silent N. Gin. ‘You weren’t supposed to know. But it’s alright, I can go back, I can make amends.’

‘Nef?’

His voice is small, or maybe just far away.

‘Yes?’

He’s wrestling with the blanket, stuffing it back where it came from. His back is turned.

‘Don’t come back for me again.’

The sound of grass shifting. Earth underfoot.

His heart goes funny for a second. A jolt. Like a clock almost falling off the wall, but not quite.

‘What do you-’

And Gin is gone.

There’s a white plume of smoke leading up, and for a second the image occurs to N. Tropy, the mental image of N. Gin ascending into heaven, angelic, ethereal, away from here, far, far away.

Then there’s the explosion, and the image is shattered to pieces, the clock falls off the wall, the earth rumbles and he’s knocked back and falls on his ass, there’s a bright flash as if the sun has exploded and then only darkness as, dazzled, his vision is forced to adjust. Nightbirds erupt from the trees, crying out like fire alarms.

There’s only darkness. Only a dark crater, and a shape, scorched metal, exploded outwards like a blossom, the trees at the cliff’s bottom smouldering and flattened. Smoke rises in a column. The ringing takes a while to subside.

Something terrible has happened here.

Tropy feels his arms get weak. He knows he shouldn’t look but he can’t help it, clinging to the precipice, the brink. He wishes he hadn’t.

He wishes he hadn’t told him.

Chapter Text

He’s never been as far as the funeral before. Usually he just gets to very last night and then resets, makes a note of what he could do better. Take it slow; coming on too strong scares him away. Takes his coffee black. First day is always aquarium. Don’t let him know anything. He burns the notes, he doesn’t need them anymore.

You said not to come back, so I won’t.

It’s closed-casket, obviously, they couldn’t scrape enough of him together, he was in such a state. It’s small. Only a few friends- colleagues. He doesn’t have much of a family. There’s someone with his eyes who could’ve been a cousin. Cortex is the one who has to do the eulogy. He hears it was short, but he doesn’t stay around for it. The pictures are too much. The only reason he isn’t doing the eulogy is because somehow, everyone seems to know that he wouldn’t be able to hold it together.

There’s an old photo, blown-up, framed in gold with looping silver ribbons. Before the accident. No rocket.

It’s too much, it’s too much, god, it’s all too much.

After wading out through the sea of black, he breaks down in the bathroom. He sees his face in the mirror and can’t hold it together. He still remembers how that limp ginger hair felt in his hands, how his skin felt under each kiss, he wants to throw up, he wants to scrub himself clean, he wants to curl up into a ball and weep.

There’s silence, not even a tick.

It seems every clock he owns has stopped.

Nobody hears anything from him for a week. Eventually, after drawing straws, Brio’s the one who’s forced to go to his house and see if he’s still alive. He’s still wearing black. Black boxers. Black vest. Black hair, glistening with oil, falling in strands in front of his face. Dark purple rings around his eyes. A grey stubble stains his chin.

Brio’s instincts kick in and with all of the insistence in his meek little body he’s forcing the time master to sit down, eat, drink something that won’t end up making him pass out. The man looks like a walking corpse and won’t look him in the eye. Brio is stern but he cares, and his shaking hands massage Tropy’s tense shoulders.

‘You need t- to- to- shower, Ne- N- Nefarious, you’re not- you’re not in a good way.’ And you reek like the aftermath of a college party, he adds, mentally, but he doesn’t say it, he can’t bring himself to.

Nefarious lets out a groan. He’s still very much hungover.

Still wittering, Brio drapes a blanket over his shoulders, then sits next to him, still rubbing his back, allowing N. Tropy to lean his head on his shoulder.

‘The- th- there, th-there. You’ll be a- alright.’

‘I won’t,’ murmurs Tropy, ‘I won’t. I can’t.’

‘There was n- nothing you could d- do.’ Gently, he pulls him closer, unsure of what exactly to do but let him be consoled. ‘It’s okay. H- hah- it’s okay. You t- t- tri- tried your best.’

Tropy tries to talk but it comes out as an unintelligible moan of pain.

‘I know,’ says Brio, empathetically, rubbing Tropy’s arm, comforting him. ‘We all m- m- miss him.’

‘But you don’t-’ He’s cut off by a sob. ‘You don’t understand. You don’t understand how- how- how hard I tried- I tried, I don’t know why I c- couldn’t-’

‘Th- the mi- m- missile in his head w- was going to k- k- hah- kill him one way or the other.’ He’s trying to supress the jolts, caffeinated, be calm. ‘I’m s- so- sorry, Nefarious, but th- that was the truth.’

‘It didn’t have to be.’

‘He w- wouldn’t- w- w- want you to be b- b- be- beating yourself up like th- this.’

‘He didn’t want to die.’ He’s overcome by sobs again, wracked, exhausted, ‘He didn’t have to. Dammit!’

The glass erupts in a fountain of shards. Brio recoils, going a little green, heart beginning to pound until Tropy’s anger dissolves into a wash of tears and then silence as he runs out of energy, becoming compliant. As Tropy, willingly guided to the shower, washes the past few weeks’ sweat off his body, Brio solemnly sweeps up the remains of the glass that he broke in his fit of rage.

There’s really no helping him. He just has to heal.

That night, once Brio’s left, Tropy’s up late, at the time twister, unstable, near-defunct, wrapped in gold warning tape and the gauzy glow of the floodlights. He drove all the way here when he couldn’t sleep. There was nobody else on the road. Good. He’s more than slightly drunk.

Pulling a heavy lever towards him to power it up, he takes a few tries to punch in the coordinates. The portal flickers to life in a dull blue bulb. The light’s a little harsh on Tropy’s eyes, but they accustom, and he basks in the glow. He tweaks a few dials, plucks a few strings, smiles, feels his chest tighten.

He doesn’t have to go through the portal. He doesn’t want to. If he does, he has to go back, he has to do it all again, he can’t, he can’t, he just couldn’t put himself through it. He couldn’t lose him again.

It was easier before the funeral.

Why did he have to go to the stupid fucking funeral?

He doesn’t have to go through, though, that’s the point. He can watch. He can stare through the portal and just watch.

Gin, only a few weeks ago, working on his robot. Mechanising. Burying himself in the overwhelming metal chest and ripping out parts that didn’t belong, replacing them with parts that might, shaking dust and oil from his hair as he withdraws from it, the lights overhead illuminating his face.

Tropy smiles, fondly.

He goes back further.

Gin, months ago, from a distance this time, silently working his way through a stack of paperwork. Through a window. As if the portal is a pair of eyes, watching from a street, an opposite building, the sky, nowhere at all. He sips from a mug. He touches the rocket. It aches, he knows, it’s heavy.

He wants so much to reach in and touch him.

He goes back further.

Gin, years ago, being barked at by Cortex. He can’t hear the words, only a faint hum of animosity, he feels his fists ball up. So rough on him. N. Gin, in the portal’s faint blue glow, cowers, nods, smiles anxiously, sneers, once, when Cortex isn’t looking, N. Tropy smiles, forcing down the lump growing in his throat.

Further.

Decades ago. No rocket in sight. Working on something large. Pristine white labcoat. Pristine peach face. Eyes aglimmer with hope. He sees a future ahead of him and it doesn’t involve a rocket to the head, it doesn’t involve losing his sanity, it doesn’t involve an inevitable, untimely death at the hands of someone else’s accident.

It doesn’t involve him.

Tropy feels his heart ache.

No, he has to go back. Just for a second, he swears, just for a second, he just needs to confirm.

---

The sun is slinking slowly behind the horizon. N. Gin hears something but doesn’t assume anything is wrong. Probably only a trick of his mind. He looks to his side and sees Tropy, sitting there, and he could’ve sworn he was in a button up before, but oh, well, maybe he changed, maybe he had that black vest on under it and felt too warm.

‘Isn’t the sunset beautiful?’ Tropy says, gently, staring into the horizon.

 His hand clutches Gin’s, and Gin stammers for words, a white plume raising from the rocket, and he leans in, and his face grows warm-

Tropy doesn’t kiss him, this time.

Gin doesn’t know why but somehow this seems… wrong.

‘Gin, I want you to tell me something. Answer a… mite of a queasy question for me.’

‘I- eh- go ahead, what’s wrong?’

‘Nothing, just-’ He struggles for the right words, then sighs. ‘What would you do, to live a normal life?’

‘… What do you mean?’

‘I mean – what would you give- or- what would-’ He grunts, tired, frustrated. There’s a five-o-clock shadow on his face that Gin is surprised he didn’t notice before. ‘If you had the chance to go back in time, and prevent this-’ He emphasises by placing a hand on the rocket. ‘From ever happening, would you?’

Pausing, Gin snickers incredulously. ‘Of course I would! What kind of question is that?’ Tropy opens his mouth to speak but he continues talking. ‘Live without this – clunky thing in my head? Heh- no more headaches? No more- no more worrying that the next tap is going to- going to blow me to kingdom come? I’d give anything, Nef.’

And there’s a sincerity in his eyes that Tropy can’t argue with. He just nods, murmurs ‘I see,’ and holds Gin’s hand tighter, silently allowing the night to draw in.

Of course it takes longer this time. Gin lasts the entire fortnight. He’s in the laboratory when it happens, the place looks like a bomb was dropped in it, and in a sense one was. The funeral is the same. Closed casket. Cortex’s short eulogy. The maybe-cousin. The tall photo from before the accident. Tropy doesn’t break down in the bathroom, this time, though. He leaves with the procession, the tallest black umbrella in a midnight sea.

He knows what he has to do this time.

Brio doesn’t have to visit him this time and he’s glad. The man’s so neurotic. He can only imagine what’d happen if he fell for him instead of Gin, going back in time, over and over, to prevent his premature heart attack from all the goddamn stress. No, this time, before the others can get worried and send Brio to check up on him, Tropy heads straight for the time twister, black coat billowing in the wind.

---

There’s a clang, but nobody suspects it. They’ve been hearing clunks all week. Damn shitty launchers. Damn budget cuts. Everyone’s been working for weeks without sleep, it’s only a matter of time until…

Until a disaster.

The prestigious Doctor Gin, clipboard under his arm, is examining the new model when the commotion breaks out. Screaming, shouting, calling for him to move, the sea of scientists parts and he only just turns around when the rocket, with a thud, embeds itself in the wall, without a bang or a boom, only that dull, empty thud, brick shrapnel scoring his cheek but otherwise leaving the good doctor alone.

Doctor N. Gin feels his forehead, instinctively, he doesn’t know why.

If the trajectory of the missile had been even a little different, if that launcher had been facing even an inch closer to his direction…

He can’t bear to think.

He looks through the smoke and the sea of concerned coworkers to tell them that he’s fine, he’s not hurt, well, he’s not hurt badly, talk about a close call, ha-ha-ha, when he sees it. A shape. A tall, black shape moving past the laboratory door. The shape of a man, and there he goes, he’s gone, a pang of recollection twists in Gin’s head but he… he can’t make anything of it. As soon as it comes, it’s gone. He moves to clean up the mess.

Elsewhere, N. Tropy can feel the future steadily change. It’s quiet, but palpable, like the bassy heartbeat of music in a different room.

Gin never receives a rocket to the face.
Gin never goes insane reconstructing it into a functioning life support system.
Gin stays in the mainstream industry for defense, becoming one of the world’s most renowned physicists, inventors, engineers. His name becomes synonymous with genius.

And he never works for Cortex.

And he never meets N. Tropy.

And he never meets N. Tropy.

This is how it had to be. Even if they’d never even meet. Even if Gin would never know his name. Even if he’d now go through his life never knowing the man who, in another time, another possibility, had loved him so dearly.

There was an exhibit on him in the museum of science, but Tropy never went to see it. It hurt too badly. It was bad enough hearing his name. It wasn’t as if the decision hadn’t tortured him, because of course there was the alternative: let the missile hit him, let him go insane, let him join Cortex, then they’d meet, they’d love, he’d die, inevitably, invariably, after a miserable life lit up fleetingly by a brief romance he’d die.

He deserved better than that. He loved him, so he knew, he deserved so much better than that. This was how it had to be.

This was the only way.

This was what N. Tropy told himself as he returned to the time twister every night, even as vines began to overwhelm its massive structures, even as sand began to pour in and cover some of the cracked and rusted platforms, as he stood there, in front of the only portal that mattered, watching a possibility, a flicker, a memory, slip away from him, as he cradled a relic, a memento, a flower of burst metal in his arms, only returning home to drift unwillingly into a dreamless sleep.