Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There are two rules constant in life, Jimmy thinks as he stares out from his porch at the ocean beyond, where the sun’s just set. One, the universe can forever be counted on to humble him whenever he is having a vaguely nice time. Two, Scott seems determined to make his life hell whenever he pleases.

Tonight, those two co-exist. 

He turns back to where the previous subject is standing, teal-clad arms crossed over his chest and stubbornness in the jut of his pale chin. The moonlight makes the—startlingly new—antlers on his head glow, his wings shift softly in the breeze, and his skirt fans back and forth. Scott looks pretty, he always does, but most importantly he’s not going.

“I don’t understand why you can’t just leave,” Jimmy says, and he only sounds mildly put out. Mildly.

Scott arches one blue eyebrow at him. “You see, there’s these things called phantoms out there, Jimmy. And they don’t like me very much.” He shifts, gesturing to his wings. “In fact, they like me so little, they tear up my wings. I’m not ruining these; they’re far too beautiful.” 

His tone is patronizing, and Jimmy would probably be grinding his teeth if he wasn’t so damn exhausted. So, instead, he settles for asking in a tired tone: “Haven’t you slept? They’re nightmares, they only come out if you haven’t slept for like… three days, right?” He doesn’t comment on Scott’s wings. Scott is well aware of his own appearance, he doesn’t need Jimmy stating the obvious.

The elf across from him shrugs, but his eyes flick slightly to the side and Jimmy can see him visibly swallow. He looks more tired than usual. It’s a subtle difference, with elves, but his eyes are duller than usual— Jimmy only realizes it looking directly at him. “I… haven’t, really. I’ve been staying awake reading.”

“Must be a lot of reading,” Jimmy replies slowly, walking back off the dock and heading into his house before the telltale screech of phantoms descending can happen. “Three nights worth of it?” 

Scott follows him, still, his footsteps light on the wood. The door opens, and closes, the creak of wood more pronounced than usual. Jimmy should probably replace it. “I’m just sort of going through history. Rereading about the past.”

“You’re an elf. You’ve lived through history.” 

“Not all of it,” Scott says, softer than usual, and Jimmy pauses from where he’s resting his scaled armour on a stand. He turns to look at Scott and finds the elf sitting on the edge of his bed. His shoulders are slumped, odd for how pristine his movements and appearance usually are.

Scott’s always been pretentious and perfect. It’s jarring to see him looking otherwise.

His eyes keep shifting slightly, sharp teeth gnawing at his lip and just the slightest abnormal fidgeting in his posture. Jimmy knows what a man with something to hide looks like, but he lets it go. Scott seems like he needs a break. And besides, even if it’s dangerous, it’s not like Jimmy hasn’t got used to backstabbing on this server.

(There’s only a mild amount of bitterness in that sentence. Just a bit. He tries to look on all the times people let him die with neutrality— he’s never sure if it’s working.)

“That’s fair,” he says instead, offering Scott a small smile. Scott nods in return, and then Jimmy watches as Scott flops back on his mattress and curls up like he’s about to fall asleep. “Hold on, what?”

“I’m tired.” Scott’s response is a literal whine, like a small grumpy child. He could almost laugh, if it wasn’t for the fact that Scott is trying to kick him out of his own bed. “And I’m not letting those phantoms get me.”

Jimmy can hear, just faintly, the echo of screeching outside.

His mouth works before his brain does. “Yes, but that’s my bed, though. You can’t just steal my bed.”

“Share it then, I don’t care.” 

Jimmy puffs up, filled with decidedly righteous annoyance that the man with an abundance of wool can’t simply make a bed of his own and not take Jimmy’s. “Scott, it’s my bed—”

“G’night.”

And then Scott turns over onto his chest, tucks his wings over himself, and Jimmy’s left with empty silence.

“Well, fuck, alright then,” he mutters. He’s tired too, he’s had a long day with fucking Xornoth showing up all day to scare him over and over again, and trying to get his head back, and then Scott showing up. And he’s not handing his bed over to this prick of an elf who thinks he can get what he wants all the time.

He kicks off his boots, and then settles on the mattress next to Scott, determinedly making sure he won’t be making even an inch of contact with Scott’s sleeping form. 

The next ten minutes are spent staring at the ceiling and simmering. Eventually, Scott shifts slightly next to him, making a low discontented sound, and Jimmy gives a long sigh and rolls over on his side. He won’t be finding sleep anyways. He finds himself staring at Scott’s head buried in pillows, his hair messy and wings spread out over both of them. 

Scott shifts again, and the edge of his wings brush Jimmy’s face.

Jimmy reaches up, without thinking, and rubs his thumb along one of the gold-tipped feathers. They’re soft, and prickle his hand just slightly. They don’t feel metallic at all, which is odd. He kind of expected them to.

Scott stops his slight tossing and turning, then, and Jimmy wonders if the touch is calming. He keeps fiddling with the feather, but doesn’t dare do it for too long in case he accidentally pulls it out. Scott would never forgive him for messing up his wings. Jimmy’s not sure he’d forgive himself for it.

All the rest of them have elytra, of course.

But Scott was born with these wings. Great white-blue-gold bird’s wings that stretch out twice the size of him and shine in any kind of light. Elegant as the rest of him, and twice as intimidating. He’s ridiculously proud of them. 

Jimmy runs his hand along Scott’s left wing, the one now draped over him like a makeshift blanket. The feathers and bones shiver under the touch, but Scott doesn’t jerk awake and slap him, so Jimmy figures it’s okay. He fiddles idly with the feathers, strokes his palm along the ridges of skin and bone inlaid with gold. They’re more powerful than they look. 

They’d have to be, though, to get Scott off the ground. He’d never really considered it because Scott made it look easy, but they don’t run off of magic like elytras do. That was Scott alone.

“You’re pretty amazing, Scott,” he mumbles under his breath, quieter than the distant mobs outside. 

Scott doesn’t respond, thankfully, because Jimmy clamps his other hand over his mouth two seconds later as what he just said sinks in. It’s a lucky thing that Scott can’t hear him, because, well— Jimmy respects Scott more than he will ever admit at this point. Likes him, even, always drawn to him like he was at the start of the server.

He’s pretty sure Scott burned the pufferfish (pufferish, rather). It doesn’t matter, though. It was just a funny joke, a name that came to him in the moment and seemed to have some greater weight behind it.

He tried, for a long time, to be Scott’s friend. Now they fight, they argue, they don’t talk or they show up at each other’s houses and antagonize each other for hours. They trade occasionally. They have their good moments occasionally. 

(A poppy sits in a flower pot on his windowsill. If Jimmy walked over to it, he could still see the tag that reads this feels right. ) 

(Out in the mountains, though he doesn’t know it, his name is marked down with cyan wool. Not enemy, not ally. Too confusing to truly be either.)

They don’t often get along.

But somehow, for some stupid reason, Jimmy likes him anyways.

He keeps talking. “I mean, like, you’re a prick and all. You’re a massive prick and you’re snobby and I feel like I can’t ever get you to like me. But you’re really sweet sometimes. You’re really cool. And a good guy and all that, too. I don’t understand you at all and I don’t think I ever will.”

He takes a deep breath in, trying to shake off the faint sense of familiarity that always follows him in regards to Scott. “You’re… older than I am. A lot older. You’ve had time to be good at things. I’m just… trying my best. You know? But you all show me up so easily.” He keeps running his hand along Scott’s wings, his shoulder blades, his neck where slight pinfeathers stick out. “I wish you’d be kind to me. I swear I’m trying.”

Scott shifts slightly, and Jimmy holds his breath, but there’s no indication Scott’s awake.

“And I just— I don’t know. I like that you’re here, but I don’t. I should probably hate you, but I don’t. I still like you. I can’t stop thinking about you sometimes.” He knows he’s rambling by now, but he doesn’t stop. “You’re just… stupidly pretty. And you’re nice when you try to be. And I think you hurt a lot more than you show, and I probably caused some of that, and I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I like you, Scott.”

He admits the next words quietly to the open air. “I like you too much. I don’t know what to do with that, really, can you believe it? It feels like I don’t deserve to feel that way, or I shouldn’t. But here we are. And you’re… you can’t even hear me. So I guess this doesn’t matter much. I just… I can’t pull myself away from you.”

There’s always been this push and pull between them, as if they always have to come back to each other.

(We’re opposites, you and I, he would say, if he didn’t feel like at the core some part of them has always been the same.)

(I think I might be in love with you, he doesn’t say. It’s not the time for that. It never will be.)

He turns to look once more at Scott’s pale blue hair, at his crumpled cloak and beautiful wings and the golden bangles decorating his neck and wrists and waist. An elven king, asleep in Jimmy’s thin blanketed bed as if he has no cares in the world. As if, for all their bickering, he wouldn’t mind after all if Jimmy spent the night beside him. 

Jimmy settles back down, laying down on the pillows where he can look at Scott’s turned head. He feels suddenly exhausted, an ache deep in his bones and behind his eyes. This server is so much. Scott is so much. He’s not sure how, if ever, he’ll untangle all the feelings there.

He reaches out, rests his hand on Scott’s wing, and lets his eyes close. “Maybe I can tell you for real one day, when I’m a bit less of a coward.”

An hour later, the clock climbs to three am. The phantoms have finally left the house alone.

Jimmy’s fast asleep. Sometime in the night, he’s shifted unconsciously so that his arm is around Scott’s waist and his head buried in the covers. All is still, all is quiet. The moonlight climbs past the windows and promises dawn soon.

Scott still hasn’t slept.

Chapter Text

Jimmy wakes up more content than he’s felt in a long time, and he doesn’t realize why at first— just that there’s a familiar body next to him. He curls into the touch (not warm, too cold, he thinks somewhere in the back of his mind) and gives a low sigh. He feels, for once, safe.

Then he wakes up a little bit more, and realizes he is currently cuddling Scott Smajor. The high Elven king, constant thorn in Jimmy’s side, and—

( husband, a quiet and tiny part of his brain whispers, fading to silence in seconds.)

What, Jimmy thinks distantly, slowly untangling himself from Scott’s sleeping form (his arms ache, a little, as if he’s walking away from something he shouldn’t), the absolute hell.

He can’t find himself to get out of bed, yet. The covers are warm and Scott’s wings still blanket him, and Scott’s breathing slowly in his sleep, and it feels so content that Jimmy just… can’t leave. So he stays there. He can still feel the weight on his arms— one around Scott’s waist, the other trapped beneath his shoulder. Cuddling had not been his intention. It was the last thing he could have possibly intended.

Well, it felt nice, but that’s beside the point.

Scott doesn’t stir, so eventually, Jimmy forces himself to get up.

He turns at the doorway to his shack. Scott’s pale skin is warmed and golden in the early sunlight, the gold jewelry covering him glinting in the sun. He’s fast asleep, his wings tucked over himself. 

(He’s beautiful.)

Jimmy turns around and leaves, though his heart gives one last attempt to tug him into staying.

He wanders his way into the kitchen area of his storage room, fiddling around in the numerous (now slightly unorganized) barrels to find eggs and wheat and milk. There’s granite in the meat barrel, for some reason, and a random item frame on his stove. He never can keep his space completely neat. Scott always complains about what a mess the area is, every time he comes over.

Right now, the thought of Scott inexplicably warms his heart. Which is odd, because Scott usually makes him want to punch something. Usually that “something” is his pretty face. 

He shakes his head.

Scott’s a mystery to him, sometimes.

And then, speak of the devil, he hears soft footsteps behind him and a sleepy groan. He turns to see the winged elf in rumpled clothes and obviously still half asleep. “Good morning, Scott,” he says, and he smiles despite himself. He’s in a good mood, and Scott has bedhead, and this feels alright for once. 

Scott, however, gives him a withering look that could fell a god. “Shut up.”

The sharp comment feels like ice water being thrown in his face, breaking him out of whatever happy haze has clouded over the morning. Scott’s face is red, and dark as a thundercloud, and he’s glaring daggers at Jimmy, and does Jimmy snore that much in his sleep? Is that what he did wrong?

“I’m sorry?” he asks, blinking at the elf.

Scott levels another scorching look his way. “You should be.”

Jimmy just stands there, mouth open and his words dead on his lips. He blinks, then blinks again, and watches without another sentence as Scott takes off in the sky back towards his empire.

He stays there, staring, for a long minute. Then he robotically goes back to the baking he was previously doing.

Well. He definitely fucked up something, then.

He doesn’t see Scott for a while after that. He wouldn’t be surprised if Scott has been purposely avoiding him. The regret stings at him every time he sees Scott in the chat, every time he wanders into his shack and looks at the poppy Scott gave him. It hurts deeply, wondering what he did wrong.

He debates reaching out to Scott in whispers but decides against it. He’s kind of busy building up the Wall of Cod, and planning for his empire, and trying to get rid of some of the corruption tentacles sticking up from the ground. He has little success with the last one.

Jimmy’s up late one night, when it’s climbed towards two in the morning. He’s been working on the towers of the Wall of Cod for hours. The repeated placing of cobble and spruce has worn him out, and so with a resigned sigh he flies down from the wall and walks towards his shack to get some much-needed rest.

Then he hears the screech-swoop of phantoms overhead, and stops right where he’s standing. That doesn’t seem right. He slept just yesterday, there should be no reason for phantoms to be spawning. So how…?

He finds his answer to that question when a white-winged form careens down from the sky and onto his roof. 

“Hi, Scott,” Jimmy says, slowly. 

The elven king looks up from where he’s collapsed, dragging himself onto his forearms. Jimmy can see blood dripping from his wings, and oh , that’s not good. “Oh. Hello, fancy seeing you here. Didn’t really want to.”

And they’re right back to being hostile. Alright then. “I live here, Scott. This is my house, in my empire.”

“Irrelevant.” Scott slowly rises, stumbling on his perch. “Can I go inside?”

“You just insulted me—”

“And I’m bleeding, and have phantoms out for more of my blood. And I—” Scott pauses, and his shoulders slump. “I’m tired.”

Jimmy hears the phantoms about to descend. Scott’s eyes are dark and shadowed, his posture weak and wings dragging, and he’s covered in dust and rainwater from Jimmy’s roof. 

He makes his decision then, and nods. “Alright. Come quickly, then.”

Scott chuckles a bit as he jumps from the roof, and Jimmy pointedly ignores the flush that rises to his face. Scott’s always so dirty-minded. It’s infuriating. It’s funny, sometimes. But mostly infuriating.

He shuts the door behind them, and strides over to shove Scott into sitting on the bed. He roots through the few personal chests he has in his shack, and then tosses a bucket of water and a washcloth in Scott’s general direction. “Should probably clean the wounds. And get some sleep.” 

(Jimmy doesn’t— he isn’t bothered. Scott just looks like he’s in pain, and Jimmy would rather see him not be.)

There’s silence, for a while, as Jimmy sits on his jukebox and stares out the window. Then he hears the covers shift, and a soft, “Thanks.”

It takes him a minute to reply too, and when he does, it’s just as quiet. “Of course.” 

About an hour passes by, and Jimmy’s so exhausted he aches. He has to get some sleep too— but it didn’t work well last time— but he’s so tired. He can barely think. 

And so, think he doesn’t, and just collapses by Scott’s side in the bed. He firmly resolves to try his hardest not to snore or toss and turn this time, and promptly passes out.

And then the kicker is, Scott keeps coming back.

A late-night trip to get slime slime blocks that he didn’t have time for during the day, which ended in him stealing Jimmy’s covers a third time. Jimmy gave up on arguing that time, and decided if Scott didn’t want to sleep next to him, the elf would just have to live with it.  Then another, when Scott came to talk diplomacy with FWhip in tow. FWhip had headed home. Scott hadn’t. 

They argue quite a bit, still. But they fall into a sort of rhythm— they clash, verbally or physically, and then they don’t talk. Then Scott shows up with a gift, or Jimmy drops something off at Scott’s house, and things go back to normal. Then the whole cycle repeats again. 

So Jimmy's well used to it by now.

Tonight, Scott shows up for no particular reason. He sits on the dock and stares out at the sun over the sea (oddly reminiscent of the first time this mess started, Jimmy thinks as he looks over from where he’s harvesting wheat) while it slowly sets. His boots kick up a spray of water every so often. His brow is knitted, but his shoulders are relaxed for once.

He replants the seeds, and then walks over to Scott. “Everything alright?”

Scott gives a long sigh. “I don’t know, Jimmy.”

“Alright,” Jimmy replies, slowly. Carefully. “Well, I’m here for you.”

Scott looks up at him, and gives a small smile. Shadows cut deep under his eyes now. Jimmy’s not sure what true happiness would look like on him now— he always seems deeply sad somewhere under it all. It must be the death of the dragon, but neither of them have talked about the elephant in the room there. There’s no point in it now.

He offers Scott a hand up. Scott takes it. “I’m stealing your bed again.”

Jimmy gives an aggrieved sigh. “When will you bring your own bed?”

“I like yours better. So, never.”

“Your empire has much better fabric—”

Scott gives him a stubborn look, chin high, as he folds his arms over his chest. “Yes, but it’s not your bed. Yours is better.”

“This is the most ridiculous argument ever,” Jimmy says, feeling a smile rise at the edge of his mouth. As they walk up the familiar criss-crossed wood of the dock, a sudden urge tugs at his fingertips to reach out and grab Scott’s hand with his. He isn’t sure where it comes from and quickly decides against it. But the pull doesn’t quite go away.

(He’s definitely in love with Scott, by now. Despite everything. Jimmy isn’t sure what emotion the thought brings up.)

They go through the same routine. Door shut, windows closed, Scott burrowing under his covers and tucking his wings over himself. Jimmy waters the poppy, hangs his cod head on an armour stand. Then he curls up next to his already asleep companion. (Scott practically collapses, every night. As if he can barely stay on his own feet.)

Tonight, he hears Scott give a quiet, contented hum. And he reaches out, and lets his hand rest on Scott’s shoulder. He hopes the comfort helps Scott, even if it’s just a little.

He wakes to an empty bed, this time. The sheets are cold, and he immediately feels cold as well. The sun is higher in the sky than usual, and Scott might be gone all the way to Rivendell by now. He hopes not.

He groggily rises from bed. Everything looks slightly blurry and too bright. 

Still rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he wanders out of his shack, and sees Scott walking through the little pond area where Jimmy’s cod statue used to stand. Now it’s just a lava-covered red mess. No wonder his empire’s magic has felt weak lately. 

Scott turns to look at him, and he gives Jimmy the soft edge of a grin as Jimmy stumbles over. “You look like hell.”

And, well, Jimmy feels as if he’s half another person right now. As if when he woke, he was in a different life where everything is domestic and Scott always gives him that slow smile. His mind is clouded over with sleep, but there’s a pleasant feeling of oh, you again when he looks at Scott.

He steps forward, still attempting to shake off the shroud of exhaustion, and presses a kiss to the edge of Scott’s mouth like he feels he’s done a hundred times before. “Morning.”

Scott freezes, goes completely still as Jimmy wanders his way down the path.

Then what he just did sinks through the sleepiness, and Jimmy freezes too.

Scott’s the first to speak, his voice hoarse and stilted. “What the hell, Jimmy?” The words are flat, and Jimmy flinches, slowly turning back around to face Scott again.

“I, um. I didn’t mean to… that. You were just… very…” he pauses, watching a pink flush crawl across Scott’s cheeks and his expression seems to war between flustered and indignant. “Pre—no. Sleepy. Well, I was sleepy. And I didn’t really. Think?”

“You rarely do,” Scott replies, his voice as cold as frost.

“Look, Scott, I’m sorry, it was a mistake—”

(It felt right, but there’s no way Jimmy’s saying that. He doesn’t even want to think about it.)

“I figured.” Scott looks about ready to leave, and the words are said like a challenge, an insult .

His own embarrassment fades, replaced by the familiar rush of defensive anger Jimmy knows well, waking him right up. “We can talk about it, alright?” Jimmy crosses his arms over his chest. “About the… everything. You know, why you keep showing up here even though you keep acting like you hate me? What all… this means? Look, I’m sorry, alright? I don’t know what came over me. But we can just talk. ” 

Scott’s eyes bore into his, almost terrifying in their intensity. “I’d rather not.”

Something else wells up beside the anger, something that aches deep in his chest and cries out don’t do this, please . Jimmy knows he’s practically royal champion of missteps and fuck-ups. This is only enforcing it. He finds himself shaking, just a bit. “Scott—”

But for the second time, Scott takes off into the sky away from him with icy anger across his face. Last time, Jimmy just stood there and watched, but not this time. He grabs and equips his own elytra, flying after Scott towards the distant snow-capped mountains of Rivendell.

He’s nowhere near as fast as Scott. Elytra are like beetle’s wings, flimsy and made of otherworldly… Jimmy doesn’t really know what they’re made of. But they tear easily, even with enchantments, and Jimmy only has his rockets, not true wing power. Scott, meanwhile, has wings like that of an angel.

Even so, he reaches Rivendell fairly quickly— the massive structures of cyan roofs, white walls, and spruce timber towering up almost to his flight level. The corruption hasn’t touched the kingdom itself, and Jimmy feels a slight pant of envy. His own kingdom is crawling red and nowhere near as beautiful. 

But that’s not what’s important here. Scott’s house looms next to the church that definitely wasn’t there the last time Jimmy stopped by, grand and intimidating and somewhere Scott would go to sulk.

He touches down with a decent amount of grace on the patterned roof, and as he predicted, sees Scott striding down the garden path with his shoulders high. He doesn’t seem to have noticed Jimmy yet.

So Jimmy flies down, directly in front of him, and watches Scott startle back.

“I’m not letting this go,” Jimmy says, chin held high.

Scott arches that damned eyebrow at him, and then storms past him. Jimmy gives a sigh of frustration and moves to follow again.

They have their little chase like that for quite a while, down the pathways of Rivendell and across the river to a flat expanse of land, overlooking Scott’s grand empire and lacking any marks of building. It’s quiet save for the wind, and poppies wave in the long grass. It snags at his ankles, and Jimmy feels tired again . Scott seems determined to give him the cold shoulder no matter what. But he flew all the way here to Scott’s house in Rivendell, and he has no plans to give up now.

“Would you just stop running away from me?” he demands, grabbing Scott’s arms and pulling the elf back to face him. Scott’s face darkens, but then his face smoothes out and goes perfectly neutral. Jimmy wants to smack him.

The smallest edge of a smile curls at Scott’s mouth. “You’re getting a little handsy, Jimmy. I like that development.”

Heat rushes to Jimmy’s face, and he lets go of Scott’s arms quickly, stepping back. He knows he’s probably turned the same shade as the corruption surrounding them, if not redder, and he feels like he’s squirming under Scott’s self-satisfied gaze. Scott just says things.

“That’s not— would you make up your mind if you hate me or you want to get in my bed?” Jimmy snaps, frustration rising alongside whatever thrill’s still tracing along his spine. “Because I’m really getting some mixed messages.”

“Can’t it be both?”

Jimmy only just manages to resist the urge to bare his teeth. “The jokes aren’t funny, Scott.”

(It stings somewhere deep to imagine Scott truly hating him. After everything.)

“I don’t know if it’s a joke,” Scott replies, and his voice goes soft and gentle. His eyes lower, just slightly, and Jimmy realizes in that instant that he and Scott are both guilty of wearing different kinds of masks. He’s never seen Scott look… so open. “I think I hate you sometimes because I want you. But I keep coming back. Aeor save my soul, Jimmy, I hate you and I love you too much.”

It takes a long minute for the words to sink in. “Oh.” He takes a good long look at Scott. “You love me?”

“I let you kiss me, didn’t I?” 

“I—” Jimmy flushes again, rubbing the back of his head. “I just… it was a mistake, I thought you were angry with me afterwards.”

Scott pauses, and then his face sinks just slightly. Jimmy feels a sudden pang in his heart, resisting the urge to reach out and grab Scott’s hands with his, to wipe away this uncharacteristic sadness that seems to linger in every fiber of his being. Then he watches Scott’s mask go back up— his features smooth out, his eyes raise again. His voice is a hollow sort of teasing. “Well, if it was just a mistake , then there’s no worries—”

“That’s not what I— that’s not,” he stumbles over his own words, tripping over his tongue and the words catching in his chest. He curses his unruly brain, his foolishness, and his evident complete lack of good communication, “what I meant, at all. I just— oh gosh, I’m bad at this— I… I like you. Love you, I think. But I can’t… say. Anything. I never was able to.” 

He’s definitely red as a beetroot now. Damn feelings— couldn’t they be even slightly kinder to his already quite poor communication skills?

Then, strangely, Scott laughs. Jimmy can’t even remember the last time he saw Scott laugh. His face is transformed by joy, from something vaguely stern and teasing to something that glows like the gold covering his body. He looks so alive, suddenly. Not a cold mountain ruler at all. 

“Oh, Jimmy,” Scott says, a smile lighting his eyes. “Why are you like this?”

“What did I do?” Jimmy squawks, puffing up with very righteous indignation, thank you very much. He’s actually communicated with Scott instead of rambling to his sleeping form at night. He's moved past his anger. He’s taken initiative.

Scott shakes his head and leans up. Jimmy feels his lips settle against his cheek, and the soft brush of a kiss against the scales on his cheekbone. He shivers, despite himself. 

A soft laugh echoes against his ear, and cold air ghosts against the gills there when Scott speaks. “I’ve been a fool, Jimmy. You see, you were right. I run away from everything. It’s, ah… a bad habit I’ve gotten into over the years. I’m a coward.”

Jimmy blinks, reaching out and grabbing both Scott’s hands like he wanted to earlier. None of this quite feels real. “I always thought you were brave.”

Scott leans back, shaking his head with a soft grin touching his mouth. “And I thought you were biased, and not always very bright.”

“Well, I always looked up to you. And I thought I’d never be good enough for you,” Jimmy returns, letting his fingers lace with Scott’s, the touch grounding him here. “I never worked up the courage to say it when it mattered, though.” Those words come out more hesitant, a reinforcement of, well, his own failings.

“It did matter,” Scott replies, and his eyes are steady when they meet Jimmy’s. “I promise it did.”

Jimmy blinks, for a moment, and then it clicks. “You heard. That night.”

He hoped it doesn’t come out as an accusation. 

But Scott just nods, slowly. “I never could say anything afterwards. Cowards the both of us, perhaps. But you’re braver than I am.”

“I respectfully disagree.”

Scott gives a heavy sigh and a rather dramatic eye roll. “And I disagree with your disagreement.”

“Well, I disagree with your disagreeing with my disagreement.” Jimmy almost giggles towards the end of the sentence, but he manages to keep his dignity intact. “And before you start, I’ll disagree with your disagreement of my—”

Scott laughs again, beautiful, blinding, brilliant. “God, Jimmy, you’re so… kiss me on the mouth.”

Jimmy freezes, just slightly. “Can I?”

“I just said— Aeor, I’ve fallen for a numbskull. Come here.” 

He has time to grin again, and then Scott’s lips press against his— cold as mountain air, but soft, and he can feel Scott’s smile against his mouth. One kiss, gentle and brief, not even enough time for Jimmy to kiss back. So, with a resolute grumble, Jimmy pulls him back in.

One kiss, and then another, and another. Pauses for laughter, the brush of Scott’s icy fingers against his cheek as he lifts Jimmy’s cod mask fully from his face. He traces his hands, slowly, down the ridges of feather and bone that make up Scott’s wings, and gets to feel Scott shudder. 

He kisses clumsily, really, and Scott tells him as much in between breaths—“could use a little improvement.”

He stops that comment with another attempt, and soon Scott isn’t complaining about much at all. 

“I love you,” he breathes, softly, abandoning the light pecks on Scott’s lips to trace a path along Scott’s jawline, the side of his neck. Scott releases a shaky breath and his hands clench on Jimmy’s shoulders. He smells vaguely like mountain wildflowers, Jimmy realizes. Metallic copper and warm earth and flowers, always flowers with him. He kisses Scott’s throat. “I should have said it sooner, damn me. If I’d known I could’ve had this…” 

“Well, you have me now,” Scott replies, and there’s a lilt of joy in his voice. Jimmy thinks his heart might burst. “My poor, silly, brave Jimmy. Couldn’t even realize I had feelings for him when I ran away after cuddling with him for a night and then ran away again when he kissed me.”

“To be fair, that really is the opposite— oh, okay, you’ll have to teach me how to kiss like that—of a display of interest. I thought you were going to declare war on me for snoring or something.”

Scott’s laugh echoes to the treetops. “Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy.” He thinks he could get used to hearing his name in Scott’s mouth, spoken with so much love. “We’re a pair of fools, aren’t we?”

“A pair of bloody fools,” Jimmy agrees, and leans up towards Scott again. “Bloody fools in love.” 

And he presses one more kiss to Scott’s mouth, and for once, he feels as if everything’s right in the world.