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It’s not really inciting a revolution, but it feels like it. Gathering so many people--ability users and ordinary men and women and everything in between--in one place to tell them what they need to do to take out the evil of the rich man feels like something Twain would have watched in a dumb dystopian movie. This could be the Hunger Games; the world isn’t too far off from it anyway.
He first gets the call when he’s in Florida. Twain likes to pretend he’s broke, but he has more money left from the guild than he knows what to do with, and some of it is going to his phone bill, hence why he’s even able to get calls at all. Steinbeck is saved in his phone under the name ‘tree boy’, but since it’s an unknown number Twain doesn’t know it’s him, figures it’s a spam caller.
He answers anyway. Steinbeck’s voice greets him, sounding urgent.
“Twain,” he says, like he’s relieved Twain picked up at all, “Oh God. I’m glad you picked up.”
“Steinbeck?” Twain asks, after a couple seconds of silence. “You still out doin’ your thing with the remaining guildies? The number’s Japanese. I’m surprised you haven’t left yet! What’re you up to?”
Steinbeck laughs, but Twain really understand why. “Hey, any chance I could ask for a favor from you?”
Twain wonders how long it’s been since Steinbeck last saw his family. The man he sees standing next to him everyday whether they’re making plans or taking a break from whatever it is they’re doing is not a man who’s doing this for family. Sometimes that makes Twain’s grin falter, seeing how different Steinbeck has become. Seeing how he himself has stayed the same despite it all.
It’s not like he’s even on Steinbeck’s side. Not completely. He would have gone to Fitzgerald just as readily had that man called on him first.
For reasons Twain himself doesn’t know, he rises up the ranks almost immediately when he agrees to join the remnants. When he first arrives, Steinbeck looks at him with a soft smile that Twain recognizes from his past ramblings about his family, and it nearly makes him squirm uncomfortably. Then a few days later, Steinbeck says, “I want you to be my second in command. I don’t think I trust anyone else.”
And there’s not much Twain can say but yes, so that’s what he does. He says yes because Steinbeck asked him to and they’re friends, and he’s used to being high up from his time as a Fellowcraft of the guild anyway.
He knows in his heart he’s a rotten person to trust. Eventually, his motivation to help Steinbeck will run out and he’ll get antsy, he’ll run. But there’s been trust placed in him and he intends to prove, at least for now, that Steinbeck isn’t making a mistake by placing him so high.
Back before all this, they used to talk together a lot. Steinbeck had trouble sleeping at night and Twain had trouble staying still enough to sleep, so they’d find eachother outside of whatever guild-owned hotel they were staying at and walk for a little while. And Twain would drag Steinbeck sometimes on his little day-to-day adventures; Steinbeck had a nice singing voice, he’d discovered, after a night of karaoke.
Sometimes, all the time, he misses the days where it was that simple. Where they were just two people who killed other people and sometimes found a friend in the other. It’s not that Twain really minds revolting against their former boss--any place he can have fun is nice, and Twain’s not the picking sides kind of guy--but somehow it was nicer to be around him when neither of them were really responsible for anything.
They got coffee together once. That wasn’t fun, but it was nice.
There was nothing weird about getting responsibility, but there’s something weird about the way Steinbeck treats him. Everything and anything goes through Twain--there are things he expects, like plans and new recruits, and those aren’t weird because he’s Steinbeck’s second in command so of course they’d go through him. But then sometimes Steinbeck will open up, talk about how stressful this is or how some member of the remnants is pissing him off and Twain doesn’t really know how he’s supposed to respond to these things, but he tries his best anyway.
And then there’s everything else, the way Steinbeck looks at him and the way he’ll pat Twain’s shoulder and let his hand rest there longer than it has to. There’s the way he sees Steinbeck flinch away when someone taps him but he’ll sit so closely to Twain they’re touching and he’ll look more relaxed than ever.
He knows, of course, what Steinbeck is playing at. But somehow thinking about it makes it more real. Twain has been in relationships before, but it’s always been him having feelings, him being the one making advances, him leaving when he gets bored. But this is Steinbeck’s court and he’s playing whatever game that guy is trying to initiate and he’s not sure if that’s exciting or terrifying.
He’s not sure if he can play with Steinbeck’s feelings by leaving. But he’s not sure if he knows how to stay.
In the future, they lose the revolution they’ve worked so hard on. Steinbeck doesn’t go back to his family. He runs away with Twain, and they fall asleep together in train cars full of cargo and in trees and in shady-looking alleys that people have dumped spare mattresses in. It’s not the way anyone could ever imagine themselves living, but it’s nice.
“Hey, Twain,” Steinbeck murmurs one night, the moon making him seem like he’s glowing, the wind that hits them on the roof blowing longer-than-usual hair into his face.
“I know,” Twain responds. Simple as that. He can tell what Steinbeck is going to say and that seems to surprise him for a second, but then he smiles like Twain knowing him so well is something he likes. He’d never pegged Steinbeck as the kind of guy to want to feel vulnerable.
“Well?” Steinbeck asks him. “How do you feel about that.”
Twain’s gaze doesn’t leave him, but he reaches a hand up to cup Steinbeck’s face as if he were being loving. But he’s not, because he doesn’t--
He doesn’t love Steinbeck.
Not yet, anyway. But they’ve got a while, right?
The day after they fail, Steinbeck and Twain sit next to eachother behind bars and Twain has the audacity to laugh even though everything they’ve worked for is over. He laughs until he can’t hold himself upright and then he falls over to lean his weight on Steinbeck. And his smile seems infectious, too, because the sound of Steinbeck’s laugh echoes through the cell.
Twain takes his hand when he can contain himself enough to sit up straught. His laughter fades, but his smile remains.
“Let’s get outta here,” he says, the twinkle in his eye saying everything for him.