Work Text:
Jimmy looked around the quiet compound - a waterfall by the entrance, ivy wrapping around the eroded rocks of the hobbit kingdom.
This place was different. But it was beautiful.
It was overgrown but in the most perfect way, an aesthetic that Jimmy knew Scott would have appreciated. Just the thought brought a tear to his eye. Where was Scott?
He’d pondered over his own existence - was this heaven or hell?
An infinite purgatory, alone with his thoughts and memories of being forced to abandon his husband on the battlefield.
Or an endless paradise, the perfect picture of happiness and peaceful retirement for him and Scott, once fate cuts the final strings and rips Scott from the living world.
A stone underfoot presses into the delicate skin of Jimmy’s bare feet, sending him barrelling into the loneliness of his new reality. The first to lose all lives. Alone until another suffers under the choking hold of a final death just as he had.
The path was neater than the one on Earth; crisp edges, alongside the lake. An invitation running between the hobbit holes that Jimmy always jumped at, an excuse to sit and listen to his platonic husband rant on about anything as long as Scott was happy.
Jimmy’s body ached and begged for mercy as he walked away from the steep staircase up to Scott’s hobbit hole. He wasn’t going home - not now. Not yet. Not without him.
The small base that had come to be a place of safety felt foreign and cold without the warmth of Scott’s laughter from across the way. The material item out of place in the whole room was a wall mirror cracked down the middle, leant against the counter.
Jimmy’s reflection was broken but he couldn’t help but stare at the shell of a man that stared back at him.
He looked exhausted. He looked guilty. He looked miserable.
His store-bought captain suit, too small for his growing frame, the sleeves riding up his arms in their shortness. Only then did he notice the bright red arrow wound over his heart, bloodied but not hurting. The suit was torn around the entry wound and the tight material frayed as it pulled away from the skin. He raised a hand to it but it did little to calm his nerves.
The pale of his hand was covered in winding lines of scars, as if the skin had been sewn back together. Things started to settle in for Jimmy. His second death had been at his own hands when trying to disarm the bombs outside of Dogwarts. When he lost a life and took down two others in trying to save everyone. He remembered the way the choking scent of gunpowder filled his nose and a blinding light crossed his eyes before he woke up back in his bed, ears ringing.
That night was difficult. More difficult than when he scorched his feet, desperate to get those boots as a gift for Scott. He glanced down at his feet. The dark night sky had offered little light to guide Jimmy outside, but in the glowing lantern lights of his hobbit hole, he saw blotchy dark red scars across his feet.
Scorch marks littered the hem of his trousers, where the fire licked at his ankles, agonising pain he forced himself to endure, just for Scott's happiness.
Jimmy loves Scott.
He missed Scott.
It hurt like hell, losing his first life. Scott knew it would. He heard as Jimmy cried into his chest after he lost his first life, as he whimpered about the lava that hurt more than a final goodbye.
He watched as Jimmy stood forwards and tried to help everyone. The smell of burnt skin lingered in the air as the dust settled after the bombs rang out, and Scott ran home to find his husband curled in a ball on his bed, pressing his hands to his ears, shaking. It was terrifying, seeing the man he loved and cared about in such a debilitated state.
Scott tried not to scream when he saw what was coming. He didn't want to scare anyone, or worry anyone. Etho was an excellent marksman. He never expected the arrow to pierce so sharply into his heart.
He jolted upright in bed, his head spinning, his chest a dull ache. He needed to get back. He needed to see Jimmy, check he was still alright, still alive. So, despite the pain that shot through him, he pushed himself up and headed back out to the desert.
A battlefield turned peace treaty. Clothes stained red and dusted gray. Nostrils filling with the metallic scent of blood.
Quiet. Everything was quiet. But the silence spoke volumes.
Skizz had let go of his arrow and watched as it embedded deep into Jimmy's chest. But the man did not disappear. He did not vanish into nothing to respawn again, he collapsed to the floor, the arrow stuck out of his chest.
Jimmy's chest rose and fell slowly and everyone stopped to watch.
The air across the battlefield became thick with confusion and then grief at the realisation. Jimmy's final life was being taken away.
"Who has my stuff?" The silence was broken. Scott. He was back.
But no one responded.
"Hello? Anyone?" Scott mumbled, confusion laced within his words.
No one would dare answer.
Not until Skizz did. Eyes vacant, a hand still wrapped loosely around his bow. "Scott...I had no idea...I'm so sorry…" Skizz finally spoke, voice barely above a whisper.
Scott frantically searched the scene, looking around. No one could meet his eyes. They all stared at a point closer to the bunker.
It was Jimmy. He was on the floor, unmoving.
Scott tried to smile. He looked almost peaceful. Like all those times Jimmy had fallen asleep in Scott's house, but he didn't have the heart to wake his husband and move him. It was like he had no worries left in the world.
But he did.
Jimmy's chest didn't rise and fall like it should. The man's breathing was shallow and his chest jutted in and out roughly as he desperately tried to inhale.
Scott collapsed to his knees beside the body. "J-Jimmy?"
He pressed a hand to the wound, the arrow still protruding from his chest. Scott pulled his hand away, staring at his hand, almost bleached red with Jimmy's blood.
It's too late. Scott knows it's too late but yet he can't help himself. "No...nonono, Jimmy! Jimmy, get up! You idiot, we have to go home...we have...to go...h-home..." His voice cracks and his eyes brim with tears as Jimmy's chest stops moving.
Grian placed a single hand on Scott's shoulder, silent condolences passed from one man to the other.
"You." One word, that again broke the silence. A word almost growled, spoken so sharply, nothing has ever sounded more dangerous. It was Scott.
He raised his eyes from Jimmy's peaceful form. Scott already had gunpowder smeared across his nose. His hand had not been wiped from pressing it to Jimmy's fatal wound.
A sword sat stabbed into the sand, a few inches from Jimmy's body where the man had fallen to the ground. Scott reached his hand around the blade, his shaky hand smearing blood across the hilt.
It was like Scott saw red. He looked straight into Skizz's eyes, seeing fear reflected in them.
Skizz won't fight. It's a battle he knows he won't win.
Ren suggests his army retreat, and they do so, everyone still too stunned to continue the fight.
Silent grievances are passed between all soldiers, both sides of the fight. No one knows what to do with themselves.
Except for Scott.
Scott considers running after them, killing every single member of Dogwarts until only Ren is left and he can take out the Red King himself, all in Jimmy's name. But he doesn't have the energy.
He watches as they all leave, grieving Jimmy's loss. But none of them would hurt as much as Scott. None would hurt as much as the man who had lost his husband.
He can't help but pry his eyes away from the members of Dogwarts, his gaze settling back on Jimmy. And he does the one thing a newly widowed man would do. He cries. He let the sadness consume him as he sobbed into the bloodied ground surrounding his husband.
The fights were unrelenting after Jimmy died. Battle after battle, people on their third lives, risking everything to fight for Dogwarts. Word spreads fast in the small world. Cleo was killed by Skizz after she went solo in trying to kill the King. Everyone knew it was stupid, she didn’t stand a chance. But when the redhead had slumped forward after a sword slit through the back of her throat, it didn’t make the grieving any easier.
The next fight was a 3v1; what should have been an obvious reason for backing down, Martyn still put his foot down and fought. He was weakened. Scott, Scar, and Grian chased the man through the forests in the night, a mistake that cost Martyn his first life, after he came face first with a skeleton.
But it wasn’t enough. Scott’s blood lust, driven by the grief of losing Jimmy has not been satiated. So, he tried something else - property damage.
The newly abandoned but flammable castle. Etho needed to pay. He took Scott’s first life. A life that could have been used to prevent Jimmy’s untimely death. He pulled a flint and steel from his pocket and ran through the castle, sending sparks towards every surface he saw.
Scott ran through the halls until the flint was too small to safely strike anymore. He watched as his handiwork tore through the wool, Etho’s hard work lost. He heard as the dogs whimpered and whined before silence fell across the fires and the stone supports that remained. “I promise this isn’t it Jimmy - I’ll avenge you. But for now? Etho needed to pay for what he did and nothing says payment like arson.” A dark smile crossed Scott’s face, seen by nothing but the flames that danced across his skin.
The ambush was meant to kill the bad guys. There was little planning between the three but as long as Scar backed off if he got too injured, he should live. To Grian’s pleasure, he did.
As Scott ran forward, his sword outreached, he looked straight into Impulse’s eyes, confusion staring back. “For Jimmy,” he growled, as the blade sliced through his stomach, Impulse’s body disappearing. Scar tried not to scream as he turned to face Scott, a bloodthirsty glow in his eyes. "I've got a husband to avenge...I know what I'm doing," smirked Scott, Grian and Scar only nodded, swiftly leaving the underground base, Scott close in tow.
And then, the battle of the Crastle. As the day got late, soldiers continued to fight, until Dogwarts gave up the distance and got too close for comfort. Skizz ran in first. His mistake.
Flaming arrow after another, pinning the man to the wall. Scott leaned in close, a dangerous smile on his face. "You killed my husband and hurt me more than you could imagine. So, now it's your turn to hurt," and Scott stepped back to let Grian plunge his sword through Skizz's stomach, his unmoving body stabbed into the wall. "I did it," Grian whispered, surprised at his own strength.
"Yes, you did," Scott growled, placing a hand on his shoulder. Grian would be lying if he said the man's voice didn't make his blood run cold.
Skizz woke up confused, the ground hard beneath him. He felt light. Like the weight of consciousness had been lifted off his shoulders.
“I should return to the Crastle soon.”
“The war could end any moment now - you deserve to be the one there to meet your husband…” The voices were distant but familiar and Skizz took comfort in the hushed tones.
He pushed himself off the grass, the feeling all too real under his hands. He recognised the small lake as one he had been told stories of - a place where everyone came together to fight off hordes of phantoms as everyone danced to the same tune.
He saw a man whose smile was tired and who’s blue suit frayed at the seams. He saw a woman whose hair was as bright as her smile and whose head adorned a decaying flower crown. The man had an arrow wound on his chest and the woman had a nasty slash across the back of her throat. “Cleo? Jimmy?”
The new voice made the pair jump and they turned to see fate’s third victim. “Skizz, sad to see you here...though you had been on your third for a while, hadn’t you?” Cleo spoke softly, understanding that the calm nature of this world could scare any newcomer.
“You,” Skizz whispered, “You’re the reason I’m dead, Jimmy.”
“That would be impossible-”
“I was being ambushed by Scar, Grian and Scott, Grian took me out, but I’ve never seen Scott fight so fiercely. Man really misses you, he’s been taking so many lives trying to avenge you. I’m almost glad he didn’t get me.”
Cleo continued chatting as Jimmy took the option of turning in early. He wandered through the mobless nighttime woods, the moon above the trees casting suspicious looking shadows Jimmy had already learnt to ignore. Scott cared. He was still alive and healthy and he cared more than anyone. He let the water of the waterfall splash his ankles as he passed, mind too occupied to feel the cold.
One skilled arrow after another, Scott perched on the walls of Dogwarts and shot towards Ren and B, the only person with 3 lives left.
Arrows turned into a foot chase, Scott desperate for that taste of blood once more. That feeling of exhilaration as a weapon pierces skin. The beautiful feeling of revenge for a love he would never get back.
He watched as BigB took shelter in his house, but Scott only burst through the window, Joel and his pack of wolves on his tail. He was cornered. He could only watch terrified as a smirking Scott hitched another arrow into his bow and let it fly, B closing his eyes before the impact.
It was just another death to his counter to Scott. But still, he stuck around, checked BigB was alright, but at the end of the day, he didn't care. Why should he? This world had taken his husband from him, what was left he needed to care about?
Scott tried not to tunnel on taking someone's life. He knew it could be detrimental to his own. But with Martyn right there, Scott felt the bloodlust run through his veins.
Trying to run and dragging his leg behind him, Martyn thought he was going to die, Scott's burning blade slicing through his skin.
But he should have known better. He shouldn’t have doubted his king’s power, when an arrow settled into the ground next to him, and he turned just in time to see Scott bleeding from the shoulder before he disappeared.
Scott had lost his second life at the hands of the Red King.
“Martyn, you can’t hurt me - not unless I hurt you first!” A fairly loosely guarded rule of the world, but a rule nonetheless. For the first time since Jimmy died, Scott felt scared.
With Martyn’s voice chasing him through the woods, Scott tried to breathe. The way Jimmy had always told him too when he got anxious.
“In through the nose, out through the mouth Scott.”
“Well, thanks for telling me, I’ll try to remember next time I’m panicking,” Scott bit back sarcastically. Jimmy took his hand with a smile, “So long as I’m around, I’ll be the one to remember.” Scott went to bed smiling that day.
“Fight me Scott - I know what you want! I see that damn look in your eye! You’ve had it since the Battle of the Desert, haven’t you? That bloodlust - that willingness to let someone die by your hand - it’s because of Jimmy, isn’t it? The moment you lost that sad, pathetic excuse for a man that you called husband-"
"Shut up about Jimmy, he is dead! You do not talk about a dead man in such a way!" Scott shouted, pushing his sword to Martyn's neck, both men panting softly and Martyn flinched against the tree he'd been pinned too.
"Do it Scott, I know you want too. Want to send another innocent life to wherever it is that your husband rots in." But he can't. Blinded by fury, Scott can only push his blade further against Martyn's throat. He revels in the terrified whimpers of having the sharpened blade held to Martyn's throat, the man in question all bark and no bite.
"I'm sorry Martyn." For a brief moment, the man had thought Scott had apologised. The blade did not move from his throat. Not until a sword, forged in the flames of the Red Winter, sliced through skin, the burning scent filling the air.
Ren couldn't have arrived sooner, as he cut an 'X' into the back of the blue-haired man. The bloodlust that ran through Scott's veins, the anger, and fury filled agony flooded from him. All that remained was the fear of dying but the happiness of maybe seeing Jimmy again. "I'm sorry I got you killed Martyn...but I'm sorry I didn't do it a second time." Ren looked like he wanted to stab Scott again, but for once, Martyn raised his hand to tell him to stop. Martyn felt a smile dance on his lips and he knelt to his knees, beside where Scott had fallen. "Say hi to Jimmy for me," was the last thing the man heard as his head spun and the world went dark.
Where am I? Scott panicked, cold water chilling his torso. He was up before he'd answered his own question.
He knew this place. It was familiar.
It was his dream. His unfulfilled retirement plan.
If only he had more time.
Vines hung too low for comfort, and the water that Scott woke up in and began to chill his skin.
He needed to get inside. He needed warmth. He needed fire.
A small campfire sat in front of Jimmy's hobbit house, and he approached cautiously, looking at the still glowing embers.
"I'm sorry I don't really want visitors at the moment," a tired voice called out from behind Scott.
He turned and there he was. Just as they'd last seen each other. Except there was no arrow protruding from Jimmy's chest, it was just injured with no signs of healing. It took Jimmy a moment to realise what was happening.
He was there. Standing in front of his eyes was his husband, the man he swore he'd love until death ripped them from each other's grip. But he had died and he knew looking at the confused man in front of him that their love could transcend death.
Scott broke. A small smile from the man he thought he'd never see again was enough to send him to his knees. He cried. He sobbed and mumbled incoherent apologies, claiming that Jimmy deserved better.
Jimmy crouched next to his husband and kissed his forehead, taking a hand in his. "You did so well Scott, you fought so well. I'm so proud of you."
"I couldn't save you-"
"But you did everything you could to avenge me, and I couldn't have asked for more." A silence passed between them as Scott took in the surroundings.
"So, what is this place?" Scott finally asked.
"We've been calling it 'The After.' Everyone that's lost their third life has arrived here," Jimmy answered, running his fingers through Scott's hair. "This is the end, Scott."
The man looked around the compound, his perfect vision of retirement. "It's home?" Scott asked hesitantly.
"Home," repeated Jimmy, pulling his husband into him for a hug.