Work Text:
When Minerva growls, Gerome wakes in an instant.
The canvas flap of his tent rustles, and he automatically reaches for his axe, feeling his hackles rise even as the first stirrings of adrenaline bubble under his skin—
--but when he recognizes the figure that slips inside, he exhales a messy breath, weapon thudding back onto the ground beside his cot.
“Inigo,” he says, simply, voice betraying nothing of his temporary unease.
Inigo stills for only a moment before his footfalls are audible again, silhouette drawing ever closer to where Gerome is now sitting up.
“Idiot,” Inigo whispers, and then he’s close, unbearably so, knees thumping into the mattress on either side of Gerome’s legs. “You’re an idiot.”
Gerome’s shoulders sag, but otherwise, he doesn’t respond.
“You could’ve been killed.” Inigo continues, hands finding Gerome in the soft darkness—they’re shaking and warm, fingers barely visible where they clench into his shirt. “You could’ve—you could’ve—you had to go and play the hero, you with—with your mask, and—you had to go rushing in, didn’t you?” he’s rambling, nonsensical sentence fragments blending into a tempest of raw emotion.
He’s crying, Gerome realizes with a start.
Fat tears drip onto Gerome’s hands where they’ve settled in front of him, pale and still against his scratchy wool blanket. The knuckles of one hand are wrapped in bandages, stained with dark crimson and dirt, and they wind all the way to his shoulder and then to his chest. It aches.
“I had to.” Gerome says. It comes out gruffer than he’d meant it to.
The Risen had swarmed them all, flooding from the trees like a river. They were all fighters, they could all hold their own, but—then Brady was caught by a wayward tomahawk, then another, and Gerome saw death open its empty maw and before he could think he was urging Minerva downwards, wind screaming past his ears, axe held high----
“What if we’d lost you both?” Inigo answers hoarsely, head bowing. He settles close, forehead thudding against Gerome’s. For a moment, they’re both silent, save for the occasional hiccough of Inigo’s breath.
Inigo is warm in his lap, trembling ever so slightly, and Gerome lifts a hand, tentatively resting a palm at Inigo’s waist.
He’s still not good at this. Inigo had always been an enigma of smiles and flirtatious charm, wrapped so tight in his own emotions that he would oft trip over them. In the hopelessness of an ending world, he was warm, sun in his eyes when there was none in the sky.
Gerome had never meant to grow close to him.
“You didn’t lose either of us.”
Inigo sniffles, fingers unclenching, palms sliding down Gerome’s chest. Gerome can feel his breath splash over his nose and cheeks, sensation hindered only by his mask.
“I know.” Inigo whispers, helplessness creeping into his tone. “I know. But—“ he shifts, cot creaking ever so slightly under his weight. “It was so close.” His voice breaks, then, expression visibly crumpling.
Gerome’s chest begins to ache dully, heart thudding against his ribs. Images of pink hair and delicate limbs flash through his mind’s eye—he knows Inigo is thinking of Olivia, of his father, of the things he’s already lost.
He grits his teeth as his thoughts wander to his own mother’s kind smile, the flash and gleam of her axe, Minerva’s glittering scales—
“Inigo.” He says roughly. With a sudden movement, his hands clench into Inigo’s shirt where it rests at his hips, fierce and grounding. “I’m here.”
Inigo exhales.
“I’m here.”
And then Inigo is really crying, shoulders shaking with the force of it, desperate hands finding Gerome’s biceps, his shoulders, his throat, his face. Gerome allows it—allows trembling fingers to wind through his hair as Inigo pulls himself close, allows the press of Inigo’s lips against his forehead, his cheeks, his mouth.
His face is wet with Inigo’s tears. There’s a hollowness in his stomach, pain blossoming and expanding to his chest.
“I’m sorry.” Inigo says, voice thick with tears. He presses another kiss to his temple, then to his cheek, then to the corner of his mouth. It’s all fervent, desperate, like this is the last time he’ll ever kiss Gerome.
And perhaps it would be. Tomorrow could spell out death for either of them.
The uncertainty seizes Gerome in an iron grip, and he doesn’t answer, instead choosing to tug Inigo down for another kiss. And another, and another, holding him impossibly close with hands fisted into his shirt.
It’s a mess, a mess of teeth and tongue and tears until Inigo slides a hand into his hair, tilts his head and kisses him deep, dizzying and wet, every sharp inhale one of the shared and scant air between them. Gerome groans low in his throat, feeling Inigo warm against his front, in his lap, under his palms, solid and real and alive. He’s alive. They’re both alive.
Each wet and muffled sound, the catch of Inigo’s teeth against his lips, the slide of his tongue is dizzying and intoxicating, not enough, not enough to satiate the yawning emptiness in either of them.
“Gerome,” Inigo breathes against his mouth, “Gerome,” again, like a prayer, fingers cupping his jaw. He kisses him again, gently. There are still tears rolling down his cheeks, but they’re slower now. Their dampness drips onto Gerome’s hands.
There’s silence again as Inigo’s body sags, seemingly exhausted, forehead dropping onto Gerome’s shoulder. Gerome slides a palm under the hem of his shirt, calloused hand smoothing up the curve of Inigo’s spine.
“I don’t want to lose you.” Inigo finally says. It’s quiet—almost quiet enough that Gerome misses it, but it reaches his ears nonetheless. His fingers curl into a fist, bandaged knuckles pressed against Inigo’s spine.
It hurts. All of it hurts—what little emotional intimacy they share, their kisses, Inigo’s tears. The axe wound marring his arm. The hopelessness of a reality on the edge of collapse.
Inigo sighs against Gerome’s shoulder, long and shuddering.
Inigo is real. He’s here, breathing steady in the dark, hands pressed flush against Gerome’s skin. He smiles for Gerome, dances for Gerome, fights and cries and breathes for him. He touches Gerome skin to skin.
Gerome shifts suddenly, pulling his hands back. Inigo slowly sits up, eyes red and puffy, hands now hesitant where they curl against Gerome.
“Should I go--?”
“No.” Gerome cuts his question off with a shake of his head.
Inigo falls silent, shoulders slumped as Gerome sits, still and unspeaking for several moments.
Slowly, carefully, Gerome reaches up into his hair, for once-unsteady fingers finding the tie that holds his mask against his face. Inigo’s mouth shapes into an ‘o’, for once without words as the mask comes undone.
Gerome lifts it from his face and casts it aside.
The mask is off, and Inigo crumbles like cliffs into the sea, fresh sobs sending trails of tears down his face. He throws his arms around Gerome and pushes him down against the cot, kissing him like he never wants to stop, kissing him like he loves him, like he wants to do it for the rest of his life.
In the dark of the tent, the mask flutters to the ground, resting silent against the hard earth.