Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Peter didn’t expect it. Of course he didn’t. Sure, people go missing every now and then and Hatchetfield is a weird place but as dull and ignorant as it sounds, the disappearance of loved ones is something that Peter always thought only happens to faceless strangers on the news, not to him.

He’s not going to deny that it does happen but it always seemed so unreal, so impossibly cruel. Now that he’s facing the harsh reality of it all, he does, of course, realise how naïve and stupid that was. Just because it never happened to him, doesn’t mean he’s immune to the horror stories he listens to on his favourite true crime podcasts.

If you think about it, all of the people, the victims mentioned in those stories were probably just like him, ignorant and thinking they’re save somehow. That means until they or their loved ones got murdered and cut into pieces. Peter used to find it fascinating, the things human beings do to others, never quite able to grasp the reality of it all. The stories he listened to felt like stories, just that. Too brutal to be real but too real to be boring. They were real though and now one of those stories hit Peter himself and there he is, feeling like he should have seen it coming.

It’s a Tuesday afternoon when Bill calls. Peter just got home from school and his dad is still at work. The phone is already ringing when he unlocks the front door.

He quickly drops his backpack and slips out of his shoes before he hurries to the phone and picks it up.

“Hello, Peter Spankoffski speaking”, he answers, still in the process of peeling himself out of his jacket.

“Hey, here’s Bill …Woodward. From Teds work. And Alice’s dad.”

“Hi”, Peter says, unsure what he’s supposed to say.

He knows Bill, obviously. Alice is his friend and aside from that, Ted mentioned him every now and then. But Bill never called them. Peter didn’t even know he has his dad’s landline.

“I’m calling because I wanted to ask if you or your dad have seen Ted? Or heard from him?”

“What do you mean?”

“In the past days. Have you seen him?”

“No. Why?”

“He hasn’t been to work at all this week, but he didn’t call in sick either. I’m- Mr. Davidson is worried. He asked me to call around a bit.”

“Have you tried calling Ted?”

“Of course, I did. He’s not picking up.”

“Okay. …I’m sorry, I don’t know anything.”

“Okay, it’s… Can you ask him to call me back if you hear from him? Please.”

“Sure.”

“Thank you.”

“Hey, when was the last time you saw him?”

“Last Saturday on Paul’s and Emma’s wedding. I haven’t heard from him since.”

“Do you think he’s okay?”

“I don’t know. I hope so.”

“Okay, well I-”

“He can’t just be gone, right?”

“I don’t know. No.”

“Maybe you can ask your dad too, yeah? Just… ask around.”

“Of course.”

“Thank you.”

“Thank you for calling.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Okay, well, bye?”

“Bye Peter.”

Bill hangs up and Peter stands there with the telephone in his hand, feeling weird. Not weird in the way he feels on a daily basis, he feels weird like a scared-weird. Like something is terribly wrong.

He hears his dads key turn in the lock and looks up now.

“Oh, hey, you’re home already”, his dad notes, as he comes in.

“Dad, have you heard from Ted recently?”

“How recently?”

“The weekend?”

“No, why?”

“Bill from his work just called. He hasn’t been there since Monday and he didn’t call in sick either.”

“That’s weird.”

“Can we drive to his apartment and see if he’s there?”

“Did you try calling him?”

“Bill did.”

His dad pulls out his phone and types in a number before he holds it to his ear. It takes about ten seconds before he frowns and lets it sink. “Straight to the mailbox”, he mumbles.

“So?”

“Do you still have the key he gave you?”

Peter nods. “I’ll go get it.”

He finally puts down the telephone and runs up the stairs to his room to get the key to Teds apartment.

Ted gave them to him a few years ago, so that Peter can come over whenever he feels like it. Their parents were in the middle of their divorce and apparently Ted noticed how much of a toll that took on Peter.

He even bought an expendable couch around that time. He said he just did it because it was on sale and it’s very useful to have, besides, his old couch was already getting kind of uncomfortable. Peter knows that Ted bought it especially for him, no matter how else he tried to explain it, and he appreciates it.

That was four years ago and Peter is already sixteen now, but he still stays over at Teds place every now and then, even if he doesn’t do it as often as he used to when he was twelve.

It’s silent as they drive to Ted’s apartment. Peter is worried and even though his dad is the kind of guy who doesn’t like showing his feelings, Peter can feel that he is worried too.

“What do we do if he’s not there?”, Peter asks after a while.

His dad shrugs. “Go to the police? Report him missing? I don’t know.”

Peter nods lightly. He’s not sure if going to the police is that much of a good idea. Mostly because he knows for a fact that Ted used to have an affair with Sam’s wife Charlotte and he’s pretty sure Sam knows about it and hates Teds guts.

Peter jumps out of his dad’s car as soon as he pulled over in front of the apartment building and sprints towards the front door. He rings the doorbell first, then he quickly unlocks the door, too impatient to wait for Ted to open it for him, if he even is inside.

He can hear his dad come up the stairs behind him but doesn’t wait for him, he’s already through the door.

“Ted?”, he shouts into silence. He already knows Ted is not there. If he were there he would have already come into the corridor to see who just came into his apartment uninvited.

His dad came in by now too. “Ted?”, he also asks.

Peter throws open the door to the bathroom, then the living room, the kitchen, before he stops in the bedroom, out of breath now and feeling lost.

“He’s not here”, his dad says, entering the bedroom behind him.

“But he has to be.”

“Maybe he’s…” His dad stops talking and just makes a vague hand gesture that he reveals that he has no idea where Ted could be. He’s just trying to calm Peter down.

He slowly leaves the bedroom and goes back into the kitchen, leaving Peter alone there.

Peter can hear him rummage through the kitchen cupboards and decides to do the same thing, to investigate.

He goes for Teds nightstand table first, looking through it before he checks his closet. He doesn’t know what exactly he is looking for but he doesn’t want to just stand around doing nothing. It’s only when he’s going through Ted’s dresser that he finds a drawer that attracts his attention.

There’s nothing special in it, nothing creepy like a gun or a dead body or anything. There are just clothes, normal human clothes. But they’re not Teds. Peter knows that because he knows Teds clothes and he knows that Ted doesn’t wear shirts with any pattern on them, even if the pattern is just boring plaid on beige. Ted doesn’t wear short sleeved dress shirts either.

So, this means that Ted cleared out one of his drawers for someone else, a man. Ted is seeing someone and it’s serious enough that he let him have a whole drawer. If Peter can find out who it is, maybe he knows something, maybe Ted is with that man. Maybe they went off together, maybe they eloped. Peter will admit that that doesn’t sound like something Ted would do but Ted is also not the kind of guy who gets into a committed relationship so maybe he changed his mind on things.

Besides, the idea of Ted running off to Las Vegas or god knows where with someone he loves sounds a lot nicer to Peter than the thought of Ted laying dead in a ditch somewhere.

“We should go to the police”, Peter’s dad says in that moment and Peter flinches a little, because he didn’t hear him come back from the kitchen.

“Okay”, he says. Because even if a man has a drawer full of clothes in Teds apartment, the possibility of Ted laying dead in a ditch is still very much there.

So he follows his dad outside and he tells a bored police officer everything he knows.

Then they’re driving back home and Peter stares out of the window, for some reason hoping to just see Ted there, sitting in a coffee shop with a mug filled with tea and a man in a plaid shirt.

But Ted is not there.

“What if I went to Teds work tomorrow?”, Peter asks.

“Why?”

“Just to ask around.”

“Don’t you think you should leave that to the police?”

“Pretty sure Ted had a thing with Sams wife and Sam knows it, so…”

“What?”

“It’s just… I don’t trust the police.”

“Me neither”, his dad admits, “But I don’t want you walking around here on your own anymore either.”

“What?”

“From now on you only go to school and come straight back home, alright?”

“I‘m grounded?”, Peter asks. He can’t really believe it because his dad never did anything like that. He’s the more laid-back parent, which was one of the reasons Peter chose to live with him and not with his mom in the first place. That and when Peter came out, his dad was way cooler with it than his mom, he even helped Peter pick the new name.

“No? Sort of”, his dad answers.

“Dad!”

“I don‘t want to lose you too. You can go out if you‘re with someone okay? But not alone.”

“With friends is fine?”

“Depends on the friends. If they know how to defend themselves…”

“I know how to defend myself! You made me do kick-boxing for five years, do you remember that?”

“What if the guy has a gun and is shooting from afar? There might be a murderer on the loose.”

Peter hesitates for a moment. “You think Ted’s dead?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You kind of did.”

“I just said we need to be careful. I’d rather keep you close for a few weeks, okay?”

“Well, you have to be careful too then.”

“I will. Promise you won’t walk around alone, okay? Especially not at night.”

Peter nods lightly. “Okay.”

“I love you.”

“Love you too”, Peter mumbles and focuses back on the street, on empty coffee shops and all the people who are walking there but aren’t Ted.

Chapter Text

Peter really did plan on keeping his promise. But then his afternoon class gets cancelled on the following day and if that’s not the perfect opportunity for him to ride his bike to CCRP and ask some questions, then he doesn’t know what is.

Besides, he tells himself, he won’t be alone there and there are plenty of people on the street on the way from his school to the CCRP technical building. If you think about it, Peter is keeping his promise, kind of.  

There are some police officers coming out of the front door when Peter locks his bike to one of the trees in front of the building, but the office is quiet when he finally steps out of the elevator.

No one even pays attention to him except for Bill who just stepped out of the break room with a cup of coffee and immediately spots Peter standing there.

“Peter”, he says, “Hey, did you hear anything from him?”

Peter shakes his head. “No. We were at his apartment but he wasn’t there.”

“Oh.” The tiny amount of hope that had formed on Bills face immediately melts away again and turns into sadness. “What are you doing here? Can I help you with something?”, he goes on to ask.

“I just wanna ask some questions, do my own research. I wanna find him.”

“Oh. Okay. Go on then. I don’t think Mr. Davidson is going to mind.”

“Okay. …Thank you. Is Paul here?”

Bill nods and points towards one of the cubicles. Sure enough, there Paul is.

Peter goes to him and stops behind him, clearing his throat to get his attention. Paul turns around.

“Oh, hello Peter!”, he says, “Can I help you?”

“Hey, can I ask you something?”

Paul nods. “About Ted? I already told the police everything I know.”

“Bill said he last saw him on your wedding, so I thought… You must have seen him too, right? Did you talk to him? Did he say anything?”

“Yeah, I, uh… I sent him away around midnight.”

“Like sent him home?”

Paul shakes his head. “I sent him here.”

“Why?”

“He was irritating my guests. And Emma and him don’t get along, he actually wasn’t even invited because of that, you know? Now I feel really guilty about it though.”

“Okay, but why send him here?”

“I thought that was the most efficient way to get him to leave. I asked him to print something urgent for me. Everything was sitting in his printer on Monday, I told the police that too. He was here and printed everything but then… left I guess.”

“And you said he left around midnight?”

“Yes. A little before midnight. 11:45 pm, something like that.”

“Okay. Do you know if I can go into his office?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure the police cleared everything earlier so feel free.”

“Thank you.”

Peter already turned to go when he remembers something. “Hey Paul?”

Paul turns back to him, abandoning his computer once again. “Yeah?”

“Do you know if Ted was seeing anyone?”

“Romantically?”

“Yeah.”

Paul frowns lightly and shakes his head. “I don’t think so. We are talking about the same Ted, right?”

Peter nods lightly, knowing very well how absurd his question sounds. Ted did build up quite an image, he supposes.

“Never mind”, he says, “Thank you.”

On his way to Teds office, Peters eyes drop on Charlotte and he decides to ask her the same questions he just asked Paul. It’s always good to get some more perspectives on the situation, besides, they were close, Charlotte and Ted. At least for a while. Maybe she knows if he’s seeing someone. Maybe she even knows who it is.

She’s on the phone but hangs up just seconds before Peter reaches her table.

“Hi Charlotte”, Peter greets her.

She looks up and gifts him a smile.

“Hello Peter, how are you, love?”

“I, uh…” Her question catches him completely off-guard, somehow. He wasn’t prepared to think about his feelings. He’s feeling horrible but he doesn’t have time to cry right now so he supposes it’s better if he just doesn’t think about it.

“Fine, I guess”, he quickly answers, “Can I ask when you last saw Ted? Or heard from him?”

“On Pauls wedding, like all the others. He was acting normal. He was very drunk but aside from that I didn’t notice anything strange.”

“Do you…”, Peter sighs quietly before he finishes his question. “Do you know if he was seeing anyone?”

She shakes her head. “Considering the way he behaved on the wedding, I would hope not.”

“What did he do?”

“Oh, he flirted with everybody. Even with me, despite the fact that we stopped our affair months ago and Sam was at the wedding. Like I said, really very drunk.”

Peter frowns. “Oh.”

Maybe they had a fight. Ted and the man with the drawer. Or maybe the clothes were Teds after all. Maybe Peter should forget about the stupid drawer.

“Thank you”, he mumbles.

Charlotte nods lightly and gifts him a sympathetic smile before she focuses her attention back on her computer.

Peter decides to make his way into Teds office, mostly to be alone. He feels like crying and he doesn’t like doing that in front of people, especially not in front of people he doesn’t know very well. 

It’s quiet in there, of course, and it smells like paper and printer ink and coffee. The office looks rather empty and Peter concludes that the police must have taken a lot of Teds stuff. Peter slowly lets himself sink on Teds chair, defeated.

What was he even doing? He’s not a detective, he’s not going to figure this out all by himself. He may be smart but not like this. Being good at math and chemistry isn’t going to get him anywhere here.

He doesn’t know how long he spent sitting there and crying silently when a knock on the door frame pulls him out of his thoughts.

He looks up to find Bill standing there, holding up a mug. “I made you a hot chocolate.”

“Oh”, Peter says, surprised, “Thank you.” He quickly reaches up to wipe the tears off his face.

Bill just comes in and places the mug on the table in front of Peter.

“It’s okay to cry”, he says.

“Yeah, I know.”

“Do you want to talk?”

Peter shrugs. Something about Bill is so soothing. His presence alone is enough to calm Peter down a little.

He never really understood why Ted doesn’t like him. Maybe it’s exactly this, maybe it’s how nice he is. Maybe Ted doesn’t get that. Ted doesn’t trust people, especially not nice people. He once told Peter it’s because the really nice people always have something terrible to hide.

Peter doesn’t believe that. He believes that sometimes people are just nice.

Bill sits down on the wooden stool next to Teds big bureau chair.

Peter reaches for the cup of hot chocolate and warms his hands, breathing in the sweet scent.

“We were in Teds apartment yesterday”, Peter starts, having decided to tell Bill about the drawer. He can trust him, right?

“Yeah, you said. Did you find anything?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Well, if you need help, I’m sure I can-”

“Bill, do you know if Ted was seeing someone?”

“What? What do you-… Why?” He looks completely overwhelmed by the question and Peter almost feels stupid for even asking.

“You have to keep this to yourself, okay? I don’t know if he was okay with anyone knowing and…”, he starts to explain nonetheless.

“Okay.”

“I think Ted is seeing someone.”

Bill stays silent, so Peter adds: “Romantically. Like… he has a romantic partner. A man.”

“How do you know that?”

“He gave him a drawer in his dresser. There was a drawer full of clothes from someone else.”

“Peter-“

“I know it doesn’t sound like a lot but maybe they had a fight! Charlotte said he was flirting with everybody on the wedding. Maybe they had a fight and… something happened. Or maybe he’s just with that man. Maybe he’s okay and just …eloped or something.”

“Yeah… maybe.”

Bill looks so confused now. So overwhelmed.

“Sorry, I’m probably losing my mind”, Peter apologises quietly.

Bill shakes his head. “You aren’t.”

“If I could find that man, maybe I could find Ted”, Peter mumbles, more to himself than to Bill.

He looks up to find Bill staring at him, the look on his face utterly unreadable.

“Shit, sorry, you probably have to go back to work”, Peter remembers and sits up now.

Bill nods, slowly. “Yeah… you’re going to be okay?”

Peter nods as well. “Yes, don’t worry.”

“Okay, I should…”

Bill slowly gets up and goes for the door. He stops in the doorway and pauses for just a moment, in a way that makes Peter think he’s going to turn around and say something. But he doesn’t turn around. A few seconds later he’s gone, the door shut behind him.

Peter stays in his seat and sips on his hot chocolate. He doesn’t know what to do, he just knows that he doesn’t want to go home yet.

He’d feel so useless at home. If he just keeps sitting in Teds office, he can at least pretend that he’s helping. He can trick himself into thinking that he hasn’t given up hope yet.

About two minutes later Bill comes back.

“He didn’t elope”, he says immediately after coming in. He looks like he cried.

“What?”

“He didn’t elope. He’s not with the man.”  

“How do you know that? Do you know who it is?”

Bill hesitates. His eyes skip from Peter to the door. Then he steps inside and carefully closes the door behind himself.

“There’s something I should tell you.” He looks guilty and very nervous.

“Did you see something?”, Peter asks.

“No. I just-… You really don’t know who it is that he’s seeing?”

“No, you do?”

Bill slowly comes over again and sits back down. He opens his mouth to say something but stays quiet. That’s when Peter’s eyes fall on Bills dress shirt. Short sleeved and a plaid pattern.

Peter frowns. This is not possible. As far as he knows, Ted and Bill don’t even like each other.

He looks back up when he hears Bill sniffle and clear his throat and he finds that tears formed in Bills eyes.

Peter doesn’t usually spend time with Bill but he has never seen him like this, he has never seen him this nervous.

“It…” Bill looks helpless as he struggles to find the words to admit what Peter just figured out himself.

“It’s you”, Peter whispers.

He tries to catch Bills gaze but Bill looks away, staring at the keyboard of Teds computer instead.

“You were right, we had a fight that night. Before the wedding”, he just says.

“You-… what?”

“That’s why he got drunk and… I didn’t hurt him though. I swear I don’t know where he is.” His voice breaks a little as he says that.

“I didn’t think you hurt him.”

“It’s always the lover though, isn’t it? This makes me the prime suspect.”

Peter tilts his head. “Bill you couldn’t even hurt a fly.”

Bill shrugs lightly.

He frowns and blinks, his eyes still focused on something on Ted’s table.

“You deserve to know, so… it’s me. But he’s not with me. I wish he was but he’s not.”

“What happened? Bill?”

“I should have walked him home.”

“No, hey…” Peter shakes his head, still trying to make sense of what happened.

“You really didn’t know?”

“What do you mean?”

“About Ted and me? He didn’t tell you?”

“No, he never said anything. How long have you been together?”

“About five months.”

“Five?”

Bill nods. “I was sure he had told you. I mean, we agreed to keep it a secret but you guys are close, so I thought... Besides, he wanted to tell people since the beginning.”

“He wouldn’t tell people if you agreed not to.”

“I know. I know, I just… I still thought he might do it. It’s not on him, it’s on me, I’ve always had a hard time trusting people.”

“So it is a secret? No one knows?”

Bill nods. “I wasn’t ready to tell everyone so soon after the divorce.” He shrugs. “He always said he’s okay with it but… You probably know that Alice moved in with me last week and well, Ted asked if we’re going to tell her and suddenly we had this huge fight about it. I didn’t want to tell her yet and he said it’s been five months and there has to be another reason that I wanna keep it a secret. He thought I’m embarrassed of him. And then I felt like he lied to me all those times he said he didn’t mind and it was this whole thing. We drove to the wedding separately and he got drunk, worse than I have ever seen him. I should have made sure he’ll get home safe, but I didn’t and now he’s gone.”

Peter frowns. “But it’s not your fault.”

“If I had just walked him home-”

“We don’t even know if he disappeared that night.”

Bill nods lightly. “You’re right, you’re right.”

“Can I… Charlotte said he was flirting with everybody on the wedding?”

Bill nods lightly and smiles a pain-filled smile. “Yeah. I think that was his way of holding up his reputation in the most obnoxious way possible and simultaneously showing me how stupid he thinks it is that we still lie.“

“And then he left?”

Bill nods. “I called him the next morning, he didn’t pick up. I should have known then that something is wrong. We had fights before but we always talked about it afterwards. All of those fights were a lot smaller than this one but he wouldn’t just ignore me, that’s not who he is. If he had been fine, he would have picked up.”

“Yeah, he would have”, Peter quietly agrees. “But maybe he’s just… maybe his phone is-…” Peter gives up. He knows exactly how stupid he sounds.

“You said you wanna look for him, right?”, Bill asks.

“Yeah, I don’t have a plan though. My dad said I should just leave it to the police.”

“I don’t trust them.”

“Me neither.”

“But he’s right, this is probably dangerous. I shouldn’t pull you into this.”

“No, I want to find him just as much as you do.”

“If anything happened to you, I could never forgive myself. Ted would never forgive me either. Peter, I think-”

“Please, Bill! Promise you won’t do this alone.”

“I can keep you updated, if you-”

“No, I’m not going to just sit around. Either we do this together or we both do it alone but I’m not going to do nothing.”

Slowly but surely, Bill gives up.

“Okay”, he says.

“Okay.” Peter nods and holds out his hand to shake Bills. After a moment of hesitation, Bill takes his hand.

Chapter Text

The next day in school, Peter can barely concentrate.

He has to do a presentation in chemistry and even though it’s usually his favourite and best class, he can’t help stumbling over his words and losing his train of thought multiple times.

His teacher stops him after class, and asks him if everything is alright at home. He manages to stutter a quiet excuse but he doesn’t tell her about Ted. He doesn’t want to and he doesn’t think he would be able to do it without crying anyway.

“If you want to talk about something, you can always come to me”, she offers, and Peter just nods and thanks her, knowing very well that he’s not going to take her up on the offer. Talking isn’t going to help. Talking isn’t going to bring back Ted.

Tears are stinging in his eyes again after he left the room and he ends up locking himself into the gender-neutral bathroom for five whole minutes until he manages to calm down.

He really wishes people would stop asking him how he is. It just makes him feel worse and he doesn’t want to talk about Ted, he doesn’t have time to keep crying so much.

He needs to concentrate now, he needs to be okay so he can concentrate on finding Ted.

He’s still in the process of splashing cold water into his face to make his eyes look less red when there’s a knock on the door.

“Other people need to piss too, you know?”, a voice sounds through the thin material. “And if you’re smoking weed in there, then I want some.”

Peter sighs and quickly dries his hands and his face before he puts his glasses back on and opens the door. Ziggs is leaning against the wall next to it, looking annoyed, though their expression changes as soon as their eyes fall on Peter.

“Shit dude, are you-”

“I’m fine”, Peter mutters and leaves as fast as he can without breaking into a run.

He goes for the cafeteria and sits down at one of the empty tables after he got his lunch.

He half-heartedly begins to eat his fries while he tries to arrange all of the information he collected by now in his head so it finally starts making sense.

He doesn’t even really manage to plan anything, he just keeps thinking about how Ted and Bill are in a relationship and how they somehow managed to keep it a secret for five whole months.

Did Ted drop any hints?

Bill was right, they’re close, they usually tell each other everything. Or most things, at least.

But Ted didn’t say anything, as far as Peter remembers. Peter supposes he really must love Bill a lot. He’s good at keeping secrets if the person asking him to means a lot to him.

“What are you thinking about?”, Deb asks.

Peter flinches at her voice. “Hm?”, he makes, before her words managed to fully reach his brain.

“Is it Danny?”, she asks, as her and Alice sit down.

“What?” He can just feel the heat make its home in his face.

“Ooh, you did think about Danny.”

“Shut up, no I didn’t!”

“What’s with me?”, Danny asks in that moment. He pulls over a chair to sit down right next to Peter and Peter is so overwhelmed that he just freezes completely and stares at Alice in fear, looking for help maybe.

“Nothing”, Alice says.

“Huh. Thought I had heard my name.”

He sat on his chair the wrong way around and his chest presses against the backrest when he leans forward and reaches out to steal a fry from Peter.

He smells like weed and deodorant and Peter can’t help but admire the way he smiles at him when he pushes the fry into his mouth. It’s almost enough to make him forget about Ted for a few seconds.

Peter just slides his plate of fries towards him. “You can have them, I’m done.”

Dannys face lights up. “Are you sure?”

Peter nods. “Yeah.”

“Thank you, you’re the best.”

Peter gifts him a smile and sinks back into his thoughts when Deb and Alice start talking about the upcoming weekend.

“Pete, what are you gonna do?”, Deb asks after a while.

“About Ted?”

“No, on the weekend. What’s with Ted?”

“Oh.” And slowly Peter remembers that none of them know about this yet. He should probably tell them. They're his friends, he can't just not tell them. “My, uh, he…” How is he supposed to say this without crying? “He’s missing?”

It’s quiet at the whole table for maybe a minute.

“Like missing-missing?”, Danny asks.

Peter nods.

His eyes fall on Alice’s shocked face. “Your dad didn’t tell you?”

“No, he knows?”

“Well they’re coworkers. He called me when Ted didn’t come to work.”

“Shit Pete, I’m so sorry”, Deb says.

“Are you okay?”, Alice asks.

Danny just reaches out and places his hand on Peter’s back, rubbing over it while looking at him in a mix of compassion and pity.

“Can we- can we not do the pity thing? Please?” Peter only manages to make it through half of the sentence without his voice breaking.

Deb nods and Danny quickly drops his hand from his back. “Sorry”, Danny whispers.

“I don’t want to cry right now”, Peter explains, “And besides, it’s fine. I’m fine. I’m looking for him.”

“Have you found anything?”, Danny asks.

Peter shakes his head. “Not really. We’ve been to his apartment. And I asked around at his work but no one knew anything.” Except for Bill, he thinks. But he can’t say that.

“Since when is he missing?”, Deb asks.

“The last time anybody saw him was on Paul’s wedding last Saturday.”

“I can’t believe my dad didn’t tell me”, Alice mumbles, “But this explains why he’s been so weird this week. I thought it was just him getting used to me moving in but…”

“Yeah I’m sure it must have been a shock. Having your …co-worker disappear.”

Alice nods.

“Do you need help? We can help”, Deb says.

Danny nods enthusiastically. “We will help you look for him”, he decides.

Peter opens his mouth to protest because this could be really dangerous, but on second thought he really does need help. Bill and him alone aren’t going to be able to work this out, are they? The more people the better.

“It might be dangerous though”, he says.

“One more reason for us to help”, Danny notes, “We can’t let you do this alone. It would really suck if you ended up being the next missing persons case.”

“Okay”, Peter mumbles, “Thank you.”

“We can meet at my place after school”, Alice offers.

“Yeah?”, Peter asks.

She nods. “Yeah, then we can brainstorm together. We’ll find Ted.”

Peter calls his dad while they walk to Alice’s place and lets him know where he is and that he’ll be home late but he’s not out alone so it’s fine.

His dad begrudgingly agrees and tells him to be safe.

Then they arrive at Alice’s place. It’s quiet when they enter, Bill must still be at work.

“Let’s go to the living room, I’ll get my laptop”, Alice says, before she takes off into what presumably is her own room.

Deb leads Peter and Danny into the living room and they all sit down on the couch. Peter fumbles his notebook out of his backpack and gets a pen, having decided to write down everything he knows and everything they're about to find out. Everything but one small detail about his brother and Bill. As far as he knows, it doesn’t really matter for the research they’re about to do and he figured it’s better if he lets Bill tell Alice himself whenever he’s ready.

Alice comes back and then they sit there, scrolling through articles from that night and the days after, trying to find anything that might seem relevant.

They don’t really get anywhere and after about an hour, all Peter wrote down is:

Wedding -> leaves at 11:45 pm -> CCRP (~12:00) -> prints Pauls stuff -> leaves CCRP ->

“Maybe he got mugged on his way home”, Danny says, while eyeing Peter’s notes.

Peter shrugs. “Maybe. It must have happened somewhere between him leaving CCRP and Monday morning.”

“So that’s a window of over 24 hours.”

“Yes.”

“Well, shit.”

The key rattles in the lock of the front door and all of them stop and wait for Bill to come in.

He stops for a moment, after he spotted them all in his living room and he quickly forces a smile. Peter isn’t sure if the others notice how exhausted and sad he looks or if it’s just him because he knows the reason for it.

“Hey!”, Bill says, clearly trying to sound cheerful but he doesn’t really manage. “What are you guys doing?”

“Looking for Peter’s brother”, Alice answers.

Bills eyes fall on Peter, a questioning look in them. Maybe he’s trying to find out if Peter said anything about Ted and him. Peter lightly shakes his head.

“Did you find anything?”, Bill asks. He comes over and sits down on the couch next to Alice.

Peter hands him his notes. “No”, he says, while Bill looks over it all.

“Maybe we should trace his steps”, he says, after a few seconds.

“We?”, Alice asks quietly.

“You’re right”, Peter says, “If it happened on his way from CCRP to his apartment, we might find something on the way.”

Bill nods.

“I brought some of Teds stuff.” He gets up and disappears in the corridor, before he comes back holding a cardboard box full of documents. “Maybe there’s something in here.”

“Okay, I think a few of us should stay here and look through that and the others should go trace his steps”, Peter says, while he’s already in the process of getting up.

“I’m with Pete”, Danny blurts out and gets up too.

Peter blushes, he thinks. It did catch him a little off-guard, Danny volunteering. They’re friends, kind of, but he’s just as much befriended with Deb and Alice as he is with Peter, so it does feel special that he’d pick him. Maybe he just wanted Deb and Alice to be able to work together, that might be it. Or maybe he just didn’t want to go through all those documents, that’s the most likely option actually, now that Peter thinks about it.

“Okay”, Peter fumbles out, “Danny and I will go then.”

“Are you sure? I could come with if you-“, Bill starts but Peter waves him off.

“We’ll manage. I think it’s best if more people stay here. That looks like a lot of stuff.” Peter points at the box.

Bill nods.

“Okay well, see you”, Alice says.

Deb nods and waves. “Don’t get kidnapped.”

“We’ll try”, Danny says.

“You can call if you need anything, yeah?”, Bill asks.

Peter nods. “Okay, thank you.”

“Be safe”, Alice says.

Peter nods again. “Sure.”

He looks for Danny but he’s already making his way to the door, so Peter quickly follows him.

They walk in silence at first.

“Weird how Bill just jumped in to help”, Danny says after a while.

“Huh?”

“Like why would he be so invested in looking for Ted? Why would he bring all the stuff from his office?”

“He offered to help when I was at CCRP. He’s just being nice”, Peter says. It’s not a lie, he’s just leaving out some details, right?

“Super suspect, if you ask me.”

“He’s not capable of hurting anyone.”

Peter looks up to see Danny smile.

“I didn’t say he hurt him.”

“Then what did you say?”

“I think they’re boning.”

“What the fuck? No?” Maybe if he acts shocked and horrified enough, Danny will let it go and not realise that he’s on the right track.

“Do you know anything?” Danny raised an eyebrow and Peter quickly looks away.

“Like what? About them? This is ridiculous, you’re ridiculous.”

“You always get super flustered when you’re lying, so you’re either lying right now or you have a huge crush on me.”

“What? No? Neither. You're so wrong about everything right now.”

“Am I?”

“Even if there was something between them, how would I know?”

“Well, you and Bill did exchange that weird fucking look earlier, like you both knew something that the rest of us didn’t. I think he told you.”

“We didn’t exchange anything.”

“Mh-hm.”

Danny keeps staring at Peter and it’s slowly but surely making him nervous.

“I don’t have to tell you anything”, Peter says.

Danny nods, like Peter just confirmed everything. “They’re boning”, he mumbles.

“Shut up, no they aren’t”, Peter says, and he nudges Danny away.

“Come on, I won’t tell anyone, I won’t even let Bill know that you told me”, Danny says.

Peter smiles. “Just stop.”

Danny pouts. “Okay”, he says, and finally looks away.

“Thank you”, Peter says.

“But I’d love that for them”, Danny keeps going, “I think they’d be great together.”

“I’m not telling you anything.”

“You don’t have to.”

They finally arrived at the CCRP technical building. They both stop and stare at it for a while.

“Maybe we should go inside and check out his office again”, Danny says.

“I was in there yesterday”, Peter notes, “The police took almost everything.”

“Ugh.” Danny starts to walk again, examining the building now. “Which window is his?”

“It’s in the back.”

Danny goes around the building and Peter follows him.

Danny is a little faster than him, so he’s the first one who sees the homeless man try to climb up the building into the window.

“Hey!”, Danny shouts.

The man flinches and backs away from the wall.

“What are you doing?”, Peter asks.

He doesn’t answer, he just stares at Peter in shock.

“Sir?”, Peter asks quietly, the courage is already leaving him. He takes a step towards the man and as he does, he can feel Danny get a hold of his wrist.

Peter gently shakes him off and steps closer to the man. There’s something about him that seems so familiar.

Peter frowns when he sees that there are tears in the man’s eyes.

“Did you try to break into the building?”, Peter asks.

He opens his mouth but he doesn’t say anything.

“Hey, uh… you’re around here a lot, right?”, Peter keeps going, “You know, my brother went missing last Saturday night. He worked in there. He was here around midnight. Did you see anything? He’s white, brown hair, moustache, about this height.” Peter holds up his hand to show him how tall Ted is. “He was here.”

The man nods lightly. At the same time a tear slips over his cheek.

“Are you okay?”, Peter asks.

The man says something. He says his name. “Peter.” His voice breaks as he says it and his tone is so familiar.

Peter stops. “What? How do you-“ He frowns. He takes a step closer to the man and scans his features now. Why does he look so much like Ted? He looks older than him and the beard and the outfit aren’t Ted at all but his eyes are Teds, and he has the Spankoffski nose.

In a sudden rush of adrenaline, Peter grabs his left hand and turns it so he can see the back of it.

There it is. A little patch of a burn scar, reaching from below Ted’s thumb to his index finger.

It happened when Ted was thirteen. He tried to cook pasta but when he poured the hot water into the sink, the pot slipped from his grip and some of the water hit his hand.

Peter doesn’t remember it, obviously. He wasn’t alive when it happened. But Ted told him about it at some point and Peter knows the scar well enough to know that this is the exact scar.

He looks up at the mans face, Ted’s face, and finds him staring back at him in a mix of misery and love.

“How?”, is all that Peter manages to ask.

Ted frowns and blinks, like he’s trying to blink away tears, even though they are already tumbling over his face anyway. “I’m sorry”, he whispers.

“What?”, Peter asks.

“I’m so sorry, it’s all my fault. I fucked up. I didn’t mean to stay there.”

Chapter Text

Bill sighs, as he puts down yet another document that had no answers. They nearly made their way through the whole box by now and they didn’t find anything useful.

He’s beginning to think that what they’re doing is actually for nothing. It probably is. But at least they’re doing something, right?

He rubs through his eyes in an attempt to keep his eyelids from feeling so heavy.

He’s exhausted. He spent the past few nights laying awake, thinking about Ted and crying as he blamed himself.

If Ted was dead, they would have found a body by now, he keeps telling himself.

But what if Sam did it? He’d be able to hide the body with all his police friends helping. Ted told Bill that Charlotte ended their affair because Sam found out about it, so he would have a motive too. 

Bill empties his coffee again. He doesn’t want to think about all that but he can’t help it. Maybe Ted is okay. Maybe he’s okay and just somewhere else.

Frankly, the idea of Ted leaving him without saying a word still sounds a lot nicer to Bill than Ted being dead. It would hurt, sure, but at least he’d be okay.

“Hey dad?”, Alice asks.

Bill looks up. “Did you find something?”, he asks.

She shakes her head. “No, just a question. Why are you so invested in this?”

Bill hesitates. “He's my… friend.”

“No he isn’t? You don’t even like him. You were always complaining about his loud mouth and how he’s sleeping around with married people.”

“Yeah. …yeah. People change.”

“That’s all? ‘People change’?”

“What do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know. But I don’t buy this.”

Bill sighs. What is he even doing? Why is he still keeping up this stupid secret? It’s the reason Ted is gone, isn’t it? If Bill had just agreed to tell Alice, they wouldn’t have had the fight and they would have left the wedding together and Ted would still be there.

There’s not even an actual reason that Bill didn’t tell Alice yet. He supposes he was just nervous. He really likes Ted and telling his daughter about their relationship felt like such a big deal that it made him panic every time he thought about doing it. He just wanted them to like each other.

He kept thinking about maybe marrying Ted someday and if Alice and him hadn’t gotten along, it would have really screwed things up. Bill didn’t want to destroy his daydreams. As long as he didn’t even give them the opportunity to dislike each other, everything was fine. That was so stupid.

It’s not even like Alice would have been mad, she would have been happy for him, probably. Her and Ted would have gotten along because they’re both wonderful people.

Bill frowns lightly and tries to concentrate on the document in his hand again when the tears sting in his eyes. Crying in front of his daughter and her girlfriend is the last thing he’s going to do. He already regrets how emotional he got in front of Peter. The kid is 16, he shouldn’t have had to console a grown man.

“I’m going to make myself another coffee, anyone want anything from the kitchen?”, he asks.

“No, thanks”, Deb says and Alice shakes her head, so there he goes. Right after he left the room with his mug, the doorbell rings.

Bill hurries to open it, hoping that it’s Peter and Danny and they’re back because they found something.

He’s right about it being them, he notices, as soon as he did open the door. And they sure seem to have found something. Or rather someone. The homeless man is with them. Bill doesn’t know his name but he has seen him around town every now and then.

“Hello”, Bill fumbles out, looking at Peter for answers.

“We found Ted”, Peter says.

“What?” Bill can feel his heart beat faster, all hopeful.

Peter points at the man behind himself.

Bill frowns. ‘That’s not Ted’, he wants to say, but before he can open his mouth, the man speaks up.

“Hey Bill”, he says in a voice that sounds very close to Teds. It’s a little thicker, more awkward. It sounds a bit how Drunk-Ted always sounded but in a broken way. 

Then it’s silent.

Bill feels disoriented, as he clings to the mug he’s still holding.

He can’t stop staring at the man and the longer he does it, the more he feels like he recognises him. His hair is a lot longer and uncombed and he has that beard, that hides most of his face. But his eyes. Bill knows those eyes, he has stared into them for minutes, hours even. They look broken and sad now but they’re still the same.

“Your hand”, Bill fumbles out.

The man wordlessly holds it towards Bill, showing him the scar on the back of it.

“Why? How?”

“Can we come inside?”, Peter asks, “We’ll explain.”

Bill nods and holds open his door.

They all step inside and go for the living room.

The mans – Teds – eyes meet Bills when he passes him, and it almost feels like it happens in slow motion.

Bill stops in the doorway to the living room, still trying his best to make sense of everything.

“This is Ted?”, he hears Deb ask in disbelief and he slowly manages to put his focus on their conversation.

“His office is a time machine”, Peter explains.

“What?”, Bill hears himself ask. It’s more of a whisper but loud enough for everybody to hear.

“I jumped into the past and got stuck there because I went too far and the time machine doesn‘t exist yet in 2004”, the man explains.

“2004”, Bill repeats.

The man’s eyes, Teds eyes, meet his and there is so much regret in them, it makes Bill feel nauseous.

“I’m going to…”, he starts as he looks for an excuse to leave the room for a few minutes, “make tea. Does anyone want tea?”

Danny is the only one who nods but Bill ends up leaving the room anyway. He goes for the kitchen and he stops there and tries his best to keep breathing.

He stumbles over to the kitchen counter and leans onto it. The surface feels cold underneath his hands but it’s still not enough to bring him back into reality. This feels like some kind of fever dream.

He can hear them talking in the living room, he can hear the kids ask question and he can hear Teds voice answer them.

But that’s not Ted, it can’t be Ted. Bill has seen that man around town so often, he would have said something, right? If that was Ted, he would have done more than ask for some spare change.

He has Teds scar. How likely is it for someone to have the same scar and the same eyes and the same voice as someone else? More likely than time travel?

It must be Ted and he must be saying the truth because every other scenario sounds even more bizarre.

Besides, he said he jumped to 2004 and Bill knows for a fact that something happened in 2004 that still haunts Ted. Bill knows, because Ted told him. He knows about Jenny, Teds first love. He knows that Ted never got to tell her about how he felt because someone else did it first. He knows that Ted wishes he had told her.

And it’s so stupid but a part of Bill is actually hurt that Ted would jump back in time to her.

Maybe Ted actually did decide to leave him after their fight, after the wedding.

Bill takes a deep breath, before he finally pushes himself up and goes for the kettle.

A part of him wants to scream.

“Hey.”

He flinches, when the man comes in, the older Ted.

“Hi”, Bill manages.

Ted hesitantly leans against the kitchen counter next to him. He used to do that a lot, the old version of him. Sometimes he sat on the counter too. Sometimes they kissed like that, Ted on the counter and Bill standing in front of him, right between his knees.

“You’re really him”, Bill says. It’s not a question, not really.

“What’s left of him”, the older Ted quietly jokes but neither of them laughs.

Bill tilts his head. A part of him wants to reach out and touch Teds arm, just to make sure he’s really there.

“2004?”, he asks instead.

Ted nods lightly, misery forming in his expression.

“Why?”, Bill asks. “Were you that mad at me that you thought…?”

Ted shakes his head. “No.”

“Then why would you leave?” God, he’s so hurt. He hates how much this hurts him.

“I was going to come back”, Ted says, “I wasn’t going to leave you, I was going to be back by morning.”

“If you still loved her, that’s fine, just-”

“No Bill, I loved you.”

“What?” At first Bill is sure that he misheard it. Not because he thinks Ted doesn't love him, it's just that Ted didn't say it yet and Bill didn't expect to hear it anytime soon. He especially didn't expect it in that moment. 

“I loved you back then. Or... right now, I guess. He loves you. Even I still do. I know I haven’t said it yet but I was going to. I wanted to call you the next morning. I wanted to apologise and I wanted to say it. I had all the words laid out in my head.”

Bill frowns when he can feel the tears sting in his eyes again. He sniffles and starts to fumble with the kettle, but the first tear is already falling down his cheek.

“You didn’t have to jump into the past to say that.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Ted, what were you doing?”

He shrugs and sniffles now. “At the wedding, I had this vision that it was our wedding”, he says, “It felt so real and it felt good. And suddenly it was all gone and there was this thing. Like a man but with hooves and a goat mask. He laughed at me and- After I jumped through time the first time, he appeared again, he told me I can fix it. He made me believe that the vision will become reality, if I get that thing with Jenny right, if I become a better person. So I went back to 2004. It was a trap.”

“The first time? You jumped multiple times?”

He nods. “The future first, it was an accident. CCRP was so fucked up. There was this robot guy and he almost killed me. And then I got this thing, that-…”

He mimics holding something in his hand and clicks it with his thumb. “It took Jenny. It killed her.”

“What?”

“That device, it turned her into ash.”

“Ted-”

“I know how this sounds but I’m not crazy! He’s been following me.”

“Okay. Okay, I believe you.”

"Okay." He nods and then he frowns. "Thank you."

"Are you-... How are you?" 

He shrugs lightly. His eyes got all glassy and right as he starts to speak, a tear tumbles down his cheek. “I’m so sorry, Bill.”

Bill shakes his head. He wants to object but his throat feels dry.

“I need you to know, that I never meant to leave you”, he goes on, “I was planning to come back, I wanted to be better for you.”

“Ted-”

“I wanted to get it right. I didn’t expect to still be with her or anything today. She would have obviously broken up with me after a year or so. But I thought maybe getting that moment right would change who I am today. I wanted to be a better person for you. So you could have someone you can actually tell people about, not this pushy asshole.”

Bill shakes his head again and frowns. “I love you exactly the way you are.” 

“I’m sorry.”

“I want you back”, Bill whispers, “I miss you so much.” He can feel another tear roll down his cheek but he doesn’t reach up to catch it.

He takes a step towards Ted and reaches for him, touching his chest first, then slipping his hand up to his shoulder, his temple. Teds skin feels rough and his beard is all tousled, but Ted leans into his touch and closes his eyes for a moment. "I miss you too."

“Do you want to stay here?”, Bill asks.

Ted shakes his head. “I can’t. I don’t want that thing to hurt you too.”

“It already did by taking you away from me.”

“I mean it. Don’t fall for it. Don’t jump through time, that’s how he gets you.”

“Stay anyway.”

“Not like this. You deserve the old me at least, not what’s left of it.”

“Where do you go then?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been trying to get it right, I’ve been trying to get me back, I just need access to my office. I didn’t believe me when I tried to warn myself but maybe if I follow myself into the future, I can convince myself to not go back to 2004.”

“I can get you in”, Bill says.

“Yeah?”

Bill nods.

Ted smiles lightly. He looks sad, broken somehow.

“Thank you.“

“But if you ever do need a place to sleep-“, Bill starts again. 

“I’ll be fine”, Ted promises, “but thank you.”

Bill nods. “You can come here anytime”, he still offers again.

“I’ll get him back for you”, Ted says, “I’ll get this right, I promise.”

“Okay.” Bill nods and reaches up to wipe the tears off Teds face. “When you see him, tell him I miss him. Tell him I’m sorry and I’m okay with us telling people. I’m going to tell Alice, okay? I’ll tell her.”

“You’ll tell Alice?”

Bill nods again.

“You don’t have to. It’s okay if you’re not ready yet”, Ted protests.

“No, I want to. I want to tell the whole world. This is horrible. Mourning and not being able to tell anyone why.”

“Okay”, he whispers, “I’ll tell him. I’ll make him come back.”

“Thank you.”

Ted gifts him a smile, then his eyes fall on something behind Bill and the smile drops slowly. Suddenly his whole expression turns into fear.

“No”, he whispers. He reaches for Bill and pushes past him, to shield him from god knows what.

Bill turns around but when he follows Teds gaze, there’s nothing. But there can’t be nothing, Ted is shaking.

“I need more time”, Ted says, pleads. Not to Bill, Bill figures. To someone else, or something.

“No, hey wait!” Ted reaches out and his hand closes around nothing but air.

Bill reaches for his shoulder, in an attempt to bring him back into reality.

Teds eyes flicker to Bill and his expression drops from fear to worry.

“I need to go.”

“Now?”

He nods. “I don’t have much time left, I need to fix this.”

“What does that mean? Time left to do what?”

“To live, I think.”

“What?”

“The box, he will… Bill I need to leave.”

“I’ll help you.”

Ted frantically shakes his head.

“I can’t let him get you too. Or Peter, or… I can’t let him do that.”

“And I can’t let him take you from me again.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll bring him back.”

“Ted-” But he’s already stumbling towards the corridor.

Bill gets a hold of his wrist and pulls him back. He reaches for Teds shoulders and keeps him in place.

Ted looks scared, terrified even.

“Please let me help you”, Bill whispers.

Ted shakes his head. He sniffles and frowns. “I’m sorry for leaving. I’m not going to hurt you anymore, I promise.” 

Bill pulls him in a hug. He can’t help it, really. Ted freezes for a moment, but then he slowly relaxes and sinks against Bill. He feels frail in Bills arms. A part of Bill doesn’t want to let go ever again.

“Just come back to me”, Bill mumbles into Teds hair.

“I’ll try my best.”

Bill nods lightly and pulls back, just enough to look at Ted. He reaches for his face. He just wants to hold him one last time, remember his eyes in case he doesn’t make it back. He didn’t get to say goodbye during the wedding night. He didn’t even look at Ted when he left the venue.

“Sorry”, Bill whispers and sniffles as Ted’s face turns into a blur behind a net of tears.

Ted shakes his head. “No, I’m sorry.” Ted wipes the tears off Bills cheeks. “I have to leave now."

“I’ll see you?”

He nods, then he shrugs. “I hope so.”

“Okay.” It’ll have to do.

“If I don’t make it, please let me go, okay? And take care of Peter for me, will you?”, Ted asks.

Bill shakes his head. “Don't say that. You'll make it.”

“Just check up on him every now and then.”

“If I jump back to the wedding and I walk you home-”

“No. You have to promise that you won’t jump through time, okay? Promise.”

Bill hesitates. “Why?”

“Please just promise. He’ll trap you in the box too and then- Please, Bill.”

“Okay”, Bill gives in, when he sees the look on Teds face. "Okay. I’ll look out for Peter.”

“Thank you.”

He hugs Bill one last time before he leaves. Bill can hear him talk to Peter in the living room. When he leaves the kitchen, he sees them hug in the corridor. Peter is crying.

Ted says his goodbyes, then he’s gone.

It’s silent in the apartment, as soon as Peter, Danny and Deb left.

Alice went to her room and closed the door, meanwhile Bill is still trying his best to work up the courage to knock and tell her about his relationship with Ted. She deserves to know. Besides, he wants her to know.

His heart is beating a little too fast when his knuckles finally hit the cold wood.

“Yeah?”, she asks.

“Can I come in?”

“I guess.”

He opens the door and pushes himself inside.

“Hey Alice.”

“Hey”, she answers. She’s sitting on her bed, with her laptop in front of her.

“I wanted to talk. There's something I should tell you.”

“Okay.” She looks up at him and suddenly he lost all the words he laid out in his head.

He walks over to her and sits down on the edge of the bed, maybe to stall for time or maybe so he doesn’t have to look her in the eyes.

“Is this about Ted?", she asks.

He nods. "Yes."

"Are you going to tell me that you're dating him?”, she goes on.

Bill hesitates. "Yes?" He throws a glance at her after he answered. She doesn’t look surprised. 

"Okay." 

“How do you feel about this?”, Bill asks.

“About you and Ted?”

“About me seeing someone new so soon after your mother.”

“Well mom didn’t even wait a week. Dad it have been seven months, you’re allowed to move on.”

“I’ve been seeing him for five of them.”

“Five months?”

Bill nods. “I’m sorry, Alice. I should have told you sooner.”

She shakes her head.

“It’s fine. You probably had your reasons.”

“You’re not disappointed or sad?”

“No, I’m happy for you. Or I would be if he wasn’t missing.”

Bill smiles, a sad smile. He wishes Ted was there now. He wishes he could invite him for dinner so him and Alice could meet for real.

“How do you feel about Ted?”, he asks.

She shrugs. “I barely know him. Peter’s cool.”

“Yeah. …yeah. Ted’s cool too.”

“He’ll be back, right? He’s still alive, so he’ll be back?”

Bill shrugs. “I hope so.”

She climbs past her laptop now and goes to hug him. Bill doesn’t remember the last time she actually hugged him. He hugs back, wraps his arms around her and pulls her close.

“He’ll be back”, she says again.

“Yeah”, Bill says, “Yeah, he will.”

Chapter Text

Ted does not come home that night.

He said he would, when Peter asked him to.

“There’s something I need to get right first but I’ll be there. Either me or the younger me”, he had said.

Peter lays awake all night, waiting for a knock on the door or on the window but there’s nothing.

He doesn’t even want to go to school the next morning because he desperately wants to be there when Ted comes home. Then he’s in school and he can barely concentrate. A part of him keeps expecting his dad to call, to tell him that Ted came home.

Peter takes the long way home after school and looks out for the older Ted. He rides by all the spots he always used to see him in but he’s nowhere to be found.

Ted isn’t waiting for him at home and he doesn’t come home for the whole rest of the day. He doesn’t come home that night either.

Peter is late for school on the following day, because he couldn’t sleep all night and didn’t hear his alarm after he finally did manage to fall asleep.

He’s all out of breath, after five minutes on his bike, pedalling like his life depends on it. He stops near a red light and decides that being late for school is okay, because he’s not going to be there faster if he passes out. Doing all this in a binder and with low blood sugar was probably not the best idea.

His hands are shaking when he reaches for his backpack to get a chocolate bar and his water bottle.

He sits down on a bench and eats the bar and drinks some water. He sits there for about two minutes until he calmed down enough.

Just as he’s about to get back on his bike, his eyes fall on the newspaper racks in front of a small kiosk.

He sees the picture first. Police officers and medics standing by the Nantucket Bridge.

Then he reads the headline and his heart sets out for a moment.

“HOMELESS MAN FOUND DEAD”

Peter hears his bike clatter to the ground before he realises he let go of it. He doesn’t pick it back up, instead he moves over to the newspaper rack, almost in a trance.

He picks up one of the papers, needs to feel the material in his hands to make sure this is real and not some kind of nightmare. Maybe he did pass out, maybe he’s just having a really bad dream.

He tries to read but his thoughts are all over the place and now the tears are stinging in his eyes again. He feels dizzy again, shaky, but this time not because he’s low on blood sugar.

“They pulled him out of the river”, someone says.

Peter looks up to see the lady that owns the shop, leaning next to the door and smoking a cigarette.

“Poor guy got stabbed three times before they threw him from the bridge”, she goes on.

“Yeah?” He can barely hear his voice over his own heartbeat. “Can I have one?”

“Sure, I don’t care.”

Peter rolls the paper up in his hand and stumbles back to his bike. He stuffs it into his backpack, feeling numb. He probably shouldn’t have gotten back on his bike, crying like that, but he can’t think straight.

He starts to pedal, not to his school but towards CCRP. He needs to show Bill. He needs to talk to Bill.

He can’t see through the tears and he can barely hear through the heavy beating of his heart. He gets very aware of that when he rolls onto the street without looking and hears the squeaking noise of a car hitting the brakes. He only realises that he’s been hit after he lands on the ground. It doesn’t even hurt at first, he’s in such a state of shock. He reaches for his bike and pulls it onto the sidewalk along with his body and then the pain really hits.

His vision is all blurry and it takes a while for him to realise that that’s not just because of the tears, he also lost his glasses.

He looks up just to see the car drive off.

“Fuck you”, he mutters, though he knows that he’s very much at fault for this too.

Whoever that was didn’t have to drive off though. Now he’s all alone. The street is completely empty, except for Peter. He looks down to his arm, because that’s where it all hurts the most, and he sees that blood seeped through his white shirt.

He sobs. Both, from the pain and because he lost his brother again. He just sits there on the dirty ground and cries for what feels like forever until: “Peter?”

Danny kneels down in front of him before he can look up.

“Fuck Peter, what happened?”

Peter tries to answer but all he does is sob.

“Did you slip with your bike?” Danny’s eyes fall on his bike, the twisted wheel and the scraped metal frame, and he frowns. “Did you get hit by a car?”

Peter nods.

“Where is it?”

“Drove off, I don’t know.”

“Did you break something?”

Peter shakes his head and reaches for his backpack. Despite the pain in his arm, he manages to pull out the newspaper. He just hands it to Danny.

Danny stares at it for a moment, then he frowns.

“Shit.”

Peter sobs.

“Fuck”, Danny goes on, “Come here.”

He pushes himself closer to Peter and hugs him carefully. Peter sinks against him. “Sorry, Pete”, he whispers against Peters head and that’s about when Peter loses the whole rest of his self-control and completely breaks into that messy gasping-for-air kind of crying.

Danny holds him like that for minutes, crouched there on the asphalt.

“Don’t you have class?”, Peter asks after a while, as soon as he calmed down enough to speak.

“Just PE. Haven’t gone all year, it’s fine.”

“Okay.”

“What about you?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, fuck that, just skip.”

“I’ve never skipped.”

“About time then.”

Danny pulls back from the hug and wipes the tears of Peters face, even if there are new ones following almost immediately.

“Where are your glasses?”

“I don’t know.”

Danny turns around. Then he gets up and walks onto the street to pick something up.

“I don’t think you can wear them anymore.”

“Are they broken?”

“Yeah, looks like someone drove over them. Sorry.”

“Okay”, Peter mumbles. Frankly, this isn't even the worst thing that happened that day and he can’t really find it in himself to care. He already hit rock bottom minutes ago.

“Can you walk?”, Danny asks.

“I think so.”

“Okay, come.”

Danny shoulders Peters backpack, then he reaches for Peter and helps him up.

Pain shoots into Peters ankle when he puts pressure on it and it’s almost enough for him to drop down again.

“Are you sure you didn’t break anything?”

Peter looks up to find Danny really close and it takes him a while to figure out that it’s his fault, that he clung to Danny like his life depends on it when his legs gave in.

He quickly lets go, careful not to put any pressure on the hurting leg.

“Yes, pretty sure”, he says, “It would hurt more if it was broken.”

“Okay.” Danny picks up his bike, then he’s back with Peter and wraps his arm around his back.

“Where do we go?”, Peter asks, because it seems like Danny has a plan but Peter doesn’t feel like he can walk that far.

“My place, it’s just around the corner. I should be able to patch you up.”  

“Okay, sounds good.”

They don’t talk after that for the rest of the way. It’s not like Peter can talk anyway, he’s way too focused on walking. His ankle hurts like shit and at some point he finds himself almost completely carried by Danny in the way he’s depending on his support.

When they finally reach what is supposedly the house Danny lives in, Peter has to let go of Danny for a moment, while he parks Peters bike behind the fence and unlocks the door.

Then Danny is back and together they manage to manoeuvre Peter through the door and to Danny’s room.

Danny sets him down on the edge of the bed and then it’s quiet.

“We made it”, Danny whispers, in a composed cheerfulness.

Peter smiles at his attempt to cheer him up.

“Okay, wait here, I’ll get some stuff.”

Peter nods but Danny is already leaving.

Peter has never been in Danny’s room before. He didn’t even know where Danny lived until five minutes ago.

Danny was always just Debs friend, they always smoke together, behind the school by the trashcans. Peter doesn’t smoke and neither does Alice but for some reason Danny still started tagging along with the group when Deb and Alice started dating.

Peter and him have never been close but Danny has always been nice to him and maybe Peter has been thinking about asking him out every now and then. He never did ask him out, obviously, but still. Ted always told him he should.

Dannys room is exactly how Peter always imagined it to be.

A lot of band posters decorate the walls, all of them bands that Peter listened to at some point, after Danny mentioned them or wore a band shirt.

His walls are a dark green and there are some plants decorating the window sill. They look nice, though Peter has to admit that he doesn’t know much about plants, he has never been good with them. He had a cactus once but it got all wobbly and mouldy for some reason. Ted told him it’s because he gave it too much water but Peter isn’t sure about that. Ted was never good with plants either.

Danny comes back in, carrying a very professional looking medical case.

“Are you a doctor?”, Peter quietly jokes. He doesn't really manage to make it sound like a joke because he's still all sniffly with puffy eyes and he doesn't even manage to get the smile right when he attempts one. 

Danny smiles lightly, while he unpacks the case. “No but both my moms are. We have a lot of this stuff.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” He sets the case down on the bed next to Peter and opens it.

“Did you land on the arm?”

“Yes. I think.”

Danny reaches for Peters wrist and unbuttons the button of his shirt sleeve. “Let’s see”, he mumbles, while he tries to roll the sleeve up to Peters shoulder. He only gets to his elbow before he gives up.

“Would you be okay with taking it off?”

“Oh. Oh, uhm”, Peter starts, just a little overwhelmed.

“No?”, Danny asks.

Peter slowly shakes his head. “I’m not really wearing anything but my… I’m not comfortable. With my chest, you know, I-“

“Oh! Okay wait here.”

Danny gets up and grabs a loose t-shirt out of his closet. “How’s this?”

Peter only manages to nod.

“Okay here you go.” Danny hands him the t-shirt. “I’ll give you a minute, so you can get changed.”

“Thank you.”

Danny gifts him a smile and leaves the room once again.

Peter slowly takes off his bow tie and slides the suspenders off his shoulders before he starts to unbutton his shirt. It hurts a little, to slip it off the wounded shoulder, but he makes it after a while.

Then he puts on Danny’s t-shirt, all careful. He tries his best to make sure that it doesn’t touch his shoulder, he doesn’t want to get blood on it. He rolls the sleeve on his wounded arm up over his shoulder and tugs a piece of it underneath his binder, so it doesn’t slip back down.

It’s a nice t-shirt. It’s a tie dye shirt, like most of the shirts Danny seems to own. The fabric feels nice and soft on Peters skin and maybe if he didn’t feel this shitty in that moment, he would lose his mind at the prospect of wearing something that belongs to Danny.

There’s a knock on the door just after Peter finished folding his own clothes.

“Can I come in?”, Danny asks through the door.

“Yeah”, Peter answers, while he stuffs his clothes into his backpack.

Danny comes in, holding a mug of what looks like hot chocolate with whipped cream on top.

“You like hot chocolate, right?”, he asks.

Peter nods.

“Okay, then this is for you.” He sets the mug down on the nightstand table next to Peter and goes back to the medical case. “Okay, let’s do this.”

“Have you done this before?”

“On myself, yes, but my mom told me what to do while I did it. I’ve never done it alone but it’s not that hard, you just have to clean it first and then it’s whatever.”

“Okay. Well, go for it then.”

“It might hurt a little.”

“It’s fine.”

“Okay.”

Peter reaches for the sleeve of the shirt and holds it up to give Danny some space, then he mostly just sits there and concentrates on not looking like he’s in pain.

He is in pain though, Danny didn’t lie when he said it might hurt.

“What were you doing there earlier?”, Peter asks after a while, to distract himself.

“By the street?”

“Yeah, when you found me.”

“There’s a park a street further, I was going there to smoke.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Good thing I found you though.”

“Yeah. Thank you.”

“Of course.”

“No, really. Thanks for being there and doing all this.”

Danny looks up and gifts him a smile, a sad smile, a “you lost your brother twice this week and I’m so sorry that happened”-smile.

As soon as Danny finished cleaning the wound, he carefully starts to bandage it up.

“Your ankle?”, Danny asks, once he's done with the shoulder.

“My what?”

“You were limping.”

“Oh. Yeah. I think I probably twisted it.”

“My mom should be home in ten minutes, maybe she can take a look at it.”

“Yes? I mean, sure. If that’s okay with her.”

Danny nods. “Of course.”

“Okay.”

Peter reaches for the cup of hot chocolate and takes a sip. It’s a really good. It’s almost enough to make him feel a little less cold. A little less like he’s going to break down crying again at any moment.

It’s awfully quiet in the room. Danny packed up the medical case again and sat down next to Peter, before he dropped onto his back. Now he’s laying there and staring at the ceiling.

“Do you wanna go into medicine too?”, Peter asks after a while, just to ask something.

“I don’t know”, Danny says, “It’s cool I guess. My moms would love it.”

“But?”

He shrugs. “I’d like to be a photographer.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“What do you photograph?”

“Anything. Nature, buildings, people. But I like weird stuff.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like pictures that kind of look like they were made on another planet. I really like making collages because of that, because you can combine things that usually don’t belong together. I like when pictures are so weird that you can't look away. You look at them and you’re like ‘Huh’. Boyd Webb did some cool stuff like that. He actually didn’t start out with photography, you know? He was a sculptor but he didn’t have enough space for all his stuff so he decided to document his sculptures in photographs before he disassembled everything again and he ended up building these dream landscapes in his pictures. You should totally check him out if you-” He stops and his eyes skip from the ceiling to Peter. He sits up, he seems almost embarrassed. “Sorry, I talk too much, I didn't mean to... you know.”

Peter quickly shakes his head. “No, I liked that. I like it when you talk.”

Danny smiles lightly. “‘Kay.”

“I’ll check him out.”

“Yeah?”

Peter nods.

“You know, maybe I could photograph you some time. If you want.”

“Because I’m weird?”, Peter jokes.

Danny rolls his eyes and shakes his head but he also smiles. “No, because I like your face. You’re really handsome.”

Oh. Okay.

“I get it though, if you don’t like being photographed. I don’t like it either.” He lets himself fall back onto the mattress.

“No, I’m fine with it. Let’s do it sometime.”

“Really?”

Peter nods. “Sure.”

“Okay, cool.”

“Okay.”

Peter lets himself sink onto the bed next to Danny. He’d never do that with anyone else, he thinks. Not the first time he’s in someone’s house anyway, he would sit on a chair, all stiff and unmoving instead. But with Danny, he’s comfortable somehow.

“How is your arm?”, Danny asks quietly.

“Fine, I think.”

“Your ankle?”

“Still hurts but it’s okay if I don’t put pressure on it.”

“You?”

Peter hesitates, then he shrugs.

“Is there anything I can do for you right now?”, Danny goes on to ask.

Peter turns his head to look at him. Danny’s eyes are brown and gentle. Danny really is so comfortable to be around, Peter thinks. Danny is so caring. Peter wishes he could tell Ted about him, about this. 

“No”, Peter admits. He wishes there was something Danny could do. He wishes there was something either of them could do to undo any of the stuff that happened. “But thank you for everything you’ve done.”

“Do you want a hug?”

Peter nods, before he even processed the question. But he does want a hug, he really does want that so bad. He needs a hug, more precisely.

“Okay”, Danny whispers, before he rolls over and wraps his arms around Peter.

They lay like that in silence for a while. Peter tries his best not to cry again, though it probably doesn’t matter anymore by now. What is he even hiding? Danny found him full on sobbing earlier.

“Do you think we should put ice on your ankle?”, Danny asks quietly after a while.

“I don’t know.”

At the same time, the sound of a key turning in the front door lock sounds through the corridor.

“That’s my mom. Wait, I’ll get her.”

He lets go of Peter and gets up.

Peter feels cold, suddenly. Danny’s body was all warm, Peter barely noticed that when Danny still held him but now with Danny’s absence, he finds himself shivering.

He sits up and shortly afterwards, Danny and his mom come in.

“Hey, you must be Peter!”, she says, “I’m Penelope.”

“Yeah, hi”, Peter answers. For a moment he thinks about getting up but he gives up on that almost immediately when he remembers his ankle again.

“Danny said you twisted your ankle?” She’s already pulling Danny’s desk chair to the bed.

Peter nods. “I think so.”

“Which one?”

“The left one.”

“Okay, let’s see.” She carefully lifts Peters foot onto the chair.

“Do you have any pre-existing conditions?”, she asks while she unties his shoe and slips it off.

“He has hypoglycaemia”, Danny answers before Peter can.

“Yeah, some blood sugar issues”, Peter verifies, "and i broke my leg once but that was the other one." 

“Okay.”

She rolls down his sock and takes a look at his ankle before she sends Danny off to get an ice pack and an elastic bandage.

“You might wanna use a crutch for a while”, she says while they wait for Danny.

“Okay, I will.” The crutches from his broken leg should still be in the attic, maybe he can ask his dad to get them down for him.

“And I recommend that you elevate the ankle at night. Try to keep it above your heart.”

Peter nods. “Okay, thank you.”

She gifts him a smile.

“It’ll be fine again in just a few weeks, don’t worry. Just make sure you don’t put weight on it if you can help it.”

“Okay, I’ll try my best”, Peter says.

Then Danny comes back with the elastic bandage and the ice pack and Penelope bandages Peters ankle before she props it up on the arm rest of the chair and puts the ice pack onto it. She tells Peter to rest his ankle as much as he can one last time, then she leaves the two of them alone again. 

“Are you cold?”, Danny asks when he sees the goosebumps on Peters arms. 

“It’s fine.”

Danny already got up and plucked a sweater out of his closet. He throws it at Peter.

“There you go.”

It’s tie-dye, exactly like the t-shirt and it makes Peter smile for a moment.

“You really like tie-dye, huh?”

Danny smiles and shrugs. “It’s cool.”

“Yeah, it’s very you. I like it.”

“Mh-hm. I like your bow ties and suspenders." He gently nudges Peter. "Very you.”

Peter smiles. “Ted always says to pick a look and own it. I can’t grow a moustache yet so next best thing.”

“Well, he’s right.”

“Yeah, he usually is.” Peter catches himself smiling at the memory of Ted for a moment. Then another memory catches his train of thought and his smile fades away.

Danny seems to notice because he immediately changes the topic again.

“Hey do you wanna stay for a while? We could watch a movie.”

Peter nods. He’d love a distraction. He doesn’t want to go to school or even less home, where he’d have to explain to his dad what happened.

“I can drive you home later”, Danny then goes on.

“You don’t have to, it’s okay. I can just ask my dad to come get me.”

“Well. ...Can I drive you home?”, he asks, in a way that makes it sound like he desperately wants to and is just begging for Peter to let him.

Peter smiles and nods. “Okay. Yes.”

Chapter Text

The next few weeks are a blur.

Peter feels empty. He feels nothing and everything at once. It‘s too much and at the same time not enough. He’s not doing enough, he feels like he should do more but he’s so overwhelmed, so burned out. Any minute he spends distracting himself is a minute he later spends feeling guilty.

Nothing feels real anymore. Everything seems to happen behind a thick fog of sadness and meaninglessness.

Peter floats through his life like a puppeteer, his body moves around but he‘s barely focused enough to be in charge. He gets up every morning and he goes to school and he comes back home but it doesn’t feel like he’s the one doing it, it’s just his body, doing it for him. It’s like it all happens on autopilot and his brain is just riding along.

Peter didn’t tell his dad about Ted being the homeless man. He didn’t explain anything about the car accident aside from that he drove onto the street and the car came out of nowhere.

His dad was worried, of course. He still is. He keeps asking Peter if he wants to talk to someone, if he should make an appointment for him at a therapist. Peter said no repeatedly, even though he probably needs it. It’s just that he’d feel weird to start his healing process already. He doesn’t feel ready to heal, it would feel wrong, it wouldn’t feel fair towards Ted to move on already. He needs to keep mourning.

Ted has been gone for four weeks now. They put his disappearance in the newspaper a week ago, asking for possible witnesses. Peter didn’t have the heart to tell his dad that Ted isn’t there anymore, when he showed him the page. He feels horrible for not having said anything yet. His dad keeps on hoping but they’re not going to find him, not even with more witnesses because he’s gone.

Peter talked to Bill once. He seemed just as lost as him. He looked like he hadn’t slept for days and spent all that extra time crying instead.

They thought about following Ted into the past, Bill and him. But Ted told both of them to not jump through time under any circumstances and they both promised him they wouldn’t.

Maybe it’s just a matter of time until they both break completely and change their minds but for now there’s nothing they can do.

Peter spends a lot of his time in Teds apartment these days. He still has the key and the temptation to drop by after school is too much since his dad isn’t driving him anymore.

He did drive him to school and back home in the past weeks. He said it’s just because of Peters twisted ankle but Peter knows that he also did it because he’s worried.

But now Peters ankle is better and he knows his dad doesn’t really have the time to keep driving him, so he talked him into letting him ride his bike to school again. Or his dads’ bike, since his own is still damaged.

It’s the third time he went to Teds apartment after school now.

It’s almost on his way home, it’s too easy to just pull into Teds street and stop by for a while.

He always used to do that when Ted was still there too. Ted always cooked for him. He was a great cook, even if he always pretended that he doesn’t enjoy it as much as he did. He loved cooking though and Peter knew it.

The first time Peter was there, three days ago, he cleared out Teds fridge. There were leftovers that had already started to mold, and eggs and milk on the verge of expiration. It sucked, clearing out Teds fridge. Not because the mold was disgusting but because it was another sign of Ted being gone, another remembrance.

Peter is laying on Teds couch now. He closed his eyes when the tears came again.

It’s weird, how it all still smells so much like Ted. It’s like he was never gone at all, like he should be coming back any moment.

Peter rolls onto his side and pulls one of the pillows against his chest.

Usually, he just stays for about half an hour, not longer. He doesn’t want his dad to have to worry when he doesn’t come back from school for too long.

But that day he does stay longer because that day he falls asleep.

He wakes up to the sound of the front door opening. For a moment he’s sure that he made it up, that it’s still part of his dream-stricken imagination.

Then there are footsteps.

Peter frowns and opens his eyes while he pushes himself up from the couch into a seating position.

“Hello?”, he asks into the direction of the corridor. He doesn’t really dare to get up. What if it’s a burglar? Or a murderer?

He reaches for his phone, slowly. He’ll call his dad, he’ll call for help, it’ll be fine.

The door to the living room swings open but the scream gets stuck in Peters throat when he sees who came in.

“Peter?” Ted frowns and his lips curl into a warped smile. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m…” Peter just stares at him. There he is, in one piece. He’s alive. He’s okay and alive and he’s smiling at him.

“Are you real?”, he fumbles out. Maybe he’s still dreaming. He must be dreaming.

Ted laughs quietly. “Why would I not be real?”

Peter feels himself getting up. He moves towards Ted and falls into a hug. Teds body feels soft in his arms, like a rag doll. Soft and cold.

“How did you get back?”, Peter asks.

“What do you mean?”

“Did he make it?”

“Who? Make what?”

“The homeless man- You. Did he send you back here?”

Ted smiles, confused. “I’ve been here the whole time, silly.”

“No, you-” Peter frowns, when he sees that there’s something wrong with Teds eyes. The white part turned yellow and slowly but surely, his pupils warp from their round form into long, thin slits.

Peter wants to step back but suddenly Teds grip on his wrist is strong, too strong.

“What are you?”, Peter blurts out when the panic arises in his throat.

Ted laughs but he’s not Ted anymore, instead he’s a man with the face of a goat. The goats jaw is slack and its teeth are crooked. Spit drips from the long tongue when it laughs at Peters despair.

“You’re wondering where he is?”

The goat man points at Peters hand and Peter lifts it up to find himself holding a golden cube with a bizarre pattern.

“What is this? The time machine?”

“It’s where I keep all my little toys.” He laughs again.

“Ted”, Peter whispers.

“He’s there, yes. In there and back in time as well. And his time is running out, tick tock, tick-fucking-tock.”

He laughs again.

Peter tries to pull his wrist out of his grip, screaming now.

He closes his eyes in an attempt to wake himself up from the nightmare he’s sure he’s having. The laughter dies and suddenly there’s a ringing noise.

Peter opens his eyes and sees that the monster is gone. He’s alone in Teds apartment and his phone is ringing. He quickly goes to pick it up.

“Dad?”, he fumbles out.

“Oh, thank god. Where are you?” 

“I’m…” Peter’s eyes fall on the clock on Teds wall. He slept for two hours.

But he’s not sure if he really was sleeping the whole time. He stood right where he was standing in his dream when he woke up.

“I’m at Teds place”, he finally answers.

“Oh.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to stay so long, I didn’t mean to worry you.”

He sniffles now.

“It’s okay. It’s okay, I’ll come get you, yeah?”

Peter nods. “Yes, okay.”

“Okay.”

His dad hangs up and Peter is alone again. He checks his hand for the cube first, then he turns to investigate the rest of the living room. No Ted and no goat man either.

Peter steps into the corridor to check the front door but it’s still closed.

He goes back to the living room and slowly sits down on the couch again, while he waits for his dad.

His heart is still pounding heavily in his chest.

In there and back in time as well. And his time is running out. What does that even mean? That there’s still a way to get him back? This is what Ted warned him about, isn’t it? Don’t fall for it, he said.

Peter takes a deep breath. “Don’t fall for it”, he whispers, “It’s a trap. …It’s a trap.” He nods lightly and sniffles again. He reaches up to wipe away the tears but soon gives up and lets himself cry.

It takes about ten minutes for his dad to arrive at Teds apartment. He tilts his head and raises his eyebrows when he finds Peter crying on the couch.

Then he’s with him and he pulls him into his arms.

“Hey”, he whispers, “come here.”

Peter sobs and lets himself fall against him.

“They’re looking for him. Maybe they’ll… maybe they will find him. They haven’t found a dead body yet, that’s good news”, his dad tries to calm him down.

“I miss him so much”, Peter mumbles, instead of clarifying that no, they won’t find Ted, they can’t find Ted because Ted is in another time.

“I miss him too.” His dad cries as well. And for a while they just sit there and hold each other in an attempt to feel a little better about everything, together.

Peter dreams about the goat that night. He wakes up drenched in sweat. 

On his way to school, he keeps imagining the goat man, following him just in the corner of his eye.

Every time Peter turns around, he‘s not there. Standing there instead is a stranger in a yellow coat or it‘s a yellow poster, pasted clumsily to the wall.

Peter spots Deb and Alice on a bench when he finally arrives at the school.

Alice waves at him and Peter goes to join them, ignoring the feeling of doom deep in his belly.

Just when Peter is about to greet them, someone bumps into him. 

Peter opens his mouth to apologise but when he looks at the person, all he sees are yellow eyes and a long sloppy tongue just inches away from his face.

He flinches away and stumbles back. The person disappears in the crowd. 

“Pete?”, Deb asks, “You okay?” 

Peter hesitates. He stares at her, then at Alice and tries his best to convince himself that Debs eyes weren’t just glowing yellow.

What if it gets them too? What if that thing really is following him and it’s going to take everybody Peter loves away from him? 

“I should head inside”, he fumbles out. He can’t let that thing get them too. He needs to isolate, so it won’t know who to take from him. 

“We’ll come with you”, Alice says and Peter quickly shakes his head.

“I want to be alone”, he mutters.

Alice frowns. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing! Nothing. I just… need to talk to a teacher and… yeah I should go.”

He flees the situation after that. They don’t follow him, he thinks, either that or he somehow manages to disappear in the crowd fast enough.

He spends the day alone. He has been rather quiet for the past weeks anyway, sitting in class without saying a word and his teachers have been rather nice about it all. They all read about Ted in the newspaper, so they haven’t been bothering Peter aside from gifting him these sad, sympathetic smiles.

Peter didn’t push away his friends though, not until that day and so when the lunch break hits, he finds himself a little lost, standing in the corridor with nowhere to go.

Eventually he ends up behind the school, eating his lunch on a lonely bench.

It’s better this way, he tells himself, because the goat man feels too real to be merely in his imagination and Peter can’t let him get to the others too. 

He sits there long after he finished eating and he stares at the trees and the empty parking lot.

He keeps turning around, just to make sure the goat man isn’t lurking right behind him.

He flinches when he hears the backdoor clicking shut.

It’s not the goat man though, it’s Danny, joining him on the bench.

Danny wasn’t there earlier, Danny doesn’t know that Peter needs to be alone. Peter sighs at the prospect of having to send Danny away now. 

Danny gifts him a smile, after he sat down. 

“Hi”, he says.

Peter hesitates, when he struggles to find a kind way of telling Danny to fuck off.

“You avoided us today”, Danny notes, when Peter doesn’t answer. 

“Yeah”, Peter admits quietly.

“Do you want to talk or…”

Peter shakes his head. Tears gathered in his eyes again and he hates it.

“I’m here for you, you know?”

“Okay.”

“The others too.”

“Danny-”

“Listen, I know you want to be alone, the others told me, but I don’t think that’s good for you.”

“Don’t act like you know what’s good for me.”

“I mean it.”

Peter notices something yellow in the corner of his eye and he flinches and turns to find a yellow leaf, tumbling from a tree to the ground. 

When Peter turns back to Danny, Danny looks concerned.

Peter wants to get up, to leave, but before he can act on it, Danny reaches for his hand and keeps him in place that way.

“I don’t want to fight with you”, Peter notes.

“Good because I don’t want to fight with you either. But I’m not going to leave.”

“Okay, then-”

Peter gets up and tries to pull his hand out of Danny’s grip but Danny just holds on tighter. 

Peter doesn’t want to look at him, he really doesn’t. He doesn’t want Danny to see him like that, all scared.

Peter does look at him though.

“Danny, please.”

He shakes his head. “Sit down.”

Peter looks around to make sure the goat man isn’t watching, before he slowly lets himself sink back onto the bench.

“What do you want?”, Peter asks.

“I just want to sit with you.”

Peter rolls his eyes to hide how much this makes him panic.

He wouldn’t know what to do if Danny disappeared too. He doesn’t think he would be able to handle losing someone else. 

Danny’s thumb starts to caress the back of Peters hand. Peter pulls his feet onto the bench and wraps his arm around his legs as he rests his chin on his knees.

He doesn’t want to admit it, but aside from the fear it all ignites in him, it actually feels good to not be alone. Danny still makes him feel safe, at least a little. 

“Do you wanna tell me what’s going on?”, Danny asks after a while.

Peter shakes his head.

“It’s not just Ted though, is it? Something new happened.”

Peter nods.

“But you don’t want to talk about it?”

Peter nods again.

“Do you want to listen to music together?”

Peter shrugs, so Danny fumbles out his phone and his earbuds and he hands one to Peter. “There’s this song I’ve been wanting to show you.”

“Okay”, Peter whispers, and takes the earbud from him. He puts it in his ear and rests his head on Danny’s shoulder when the calming melody sets in. Danny rests his head on Peters and then they sit there.

“Play it again”, Peter quietly commands when the song fades out and Danny puts the song on repeat.

Peter isn’t sure how long they sit there and whether or not he’s missing class for this but he doesn’t really care.

Peter started to cry again, because he likes Danny so much, it scares him. He can’t like people anymore because that thing will take them from him and then it will laugh at his despair.

Peter closed his eyes and when he opens them again, he sees him.

He’s standing in the parking lot, the dirty yellow fur bright against the grey and black metal of the cars.

Peter quickly pushes himself away from Danny.

The goat man smiles and glances past Peter at something behind him. Peter turns to see the big clock hanging on the brick wall of the school building.

When he turns back around, the goat man is gone. 

Peter pulls the earbud out and hands it back to Danny before he rips his hand out of Danny’s grip and gets up. He quickly stuffs his things back into his backpack, his water bottle and his empty lunch bag.

Danny turns, trying to find out what made Peter so anxious, before he gets up too.

“What happened?”

“I have to leave.”

“Class only starts in ten minutes, you have time.”

“No, I don’t have time, there’s no time”, Peter mumbles, before he even realized what he’s saying.

Danny frowns, then realization dawns on him.

“It got you too.”

“What?”

“The thing Ted mentioned. The man who’s a goat or whatever. The thing that was haunting him through time.”

Peter wants to answer but looking over Danny’s shoulder, he sees him again, standing right behind Danny. Drool drops from it’s tongue onto Danny’s sweater and Danny doesn’t even notice.

He doesn’t see it.

Danny turns around when he notices Peters gaze and the goat man disappears.

“Peter?”, he asks.

“I can’t let it take someone else from me”, Peter tries his best to explain.

Danny shakes his head. “We won’t let it.”

“You can’t promise that.”

“No, I will promise.”

Peter just shakes his head. A sob escapes his throat when the fear gets a hold of him again. Danny pulls him into a hug.

“What if it hates me personally?”, Peter whispers against Danny’s T-Shirt.

“What do you mean?”

“What if it’s going to take everyone I love away from me until I have no one left? Ted made it sound like it’s targeting him only but what if it’s punishing me?”

“Who do you think it wants to take from you?”

“I don’t know. You?”

“Me?”

Peter hesitates, when he realises what he kind of confessed.

“I mean-… I keep seeing it. It was standing right behind you just a minute ago.”

Danny turns his head to look at Peter and his nose bumps against Peters forehead.

He reaches for Peters face and carefully wipes away the tears.

Peter gets caught in Danny’s gaze and then it’s quiet while they stare into each other’s eyes up close.

After a while Danny clears his throat and looks away.

“Sorry”, he says. “Didn’t mean to do that.”

He pulls away from the hug, holding on to Peters shoulders for a moment before he lets go of him completely.

Peter doesn’t know what to say, so he just stares at Danny, confused and surprised and scared and in love.

“It’s not like I don’t like you”, Danny quickly explains, “Just… this doesn’t feel like the right moment to confess that kind of stuff and-”

“What?”, Peter interrupts him as soon as he managed to process his words.

“You were just crying and we’re being hunted by some sort of time monster, so…”

“No, I meant the other thing you said.”

“Hm?” Danny looks at him again, like he didn’t just say all that.

“You said you like me?”

“Yeah?”

“Like you wanna be boyfriends or… like you wanna hang out more, I don’t know, do you-”

He nods. “Yes, both.”

“O…kay.” Peter doesn’t even know how to process that in that moment.

“Sorry, I wasn’t going to tell you”, Danny quickly goes on, “Or I was going to tell you but not like this and not now. I was going to ask you to prom or something, not… almost kiss you out of nowhere. You said the thing is going to take everyone you love away from you and apparently I fall into that category and you probably didn’t mean it like that but I …really like you.”

Peter fully wipes the tears off his cheeks now. This isn’t exactly how he always imagined this to happen. But if he’s being honest, he didn’t expect it to happen at all, outside of his daydreams.

But then again, if he’s going to lose everybody he loves, he might as well say how he feels out loud at least once before it happens.

“I really like you too”, is all he manages to say in the end.

“Yeah?”, Danny asks.

Peter nods and hesitantly pushes his glasses back up after they skidded down a bit.

What happens after they both said it? In movies they always kiss afterwards. He’s not ready for that, he realizes.

“I’ve never kissed anyone.”

Danny smiles lightly. “Me neither. It’s okay, we don’t have to.”

“It’s just that I’m all red from crying and-”

“Pete, it’s fine, I’m not ready either.”

Peter nods. “Okay.”

“We don’t have to do anything about it, I just wanted you to know.”

“Okay.” Peter nods again. “Thank you for telling me.”

“Well, thank you too.”

Peter can’t help but smile now. He glances behind himself to make sure they’re alone, before he hugs Danny again.

He finally manages to calm down a little, in Danny’s arms.

“I’m thinking about following Ted and getting him back”, he admits quietly, into the soft fabric of Danny’s T-Shirt. It’s the first time he’s admitting it to himself too. He knows he promised Ted not to do it but he misses him so much. 

Danny pulls away. 

“Bill too”, Danny says.

“What?”

“He’s thinking about it too. Alice told me earlier. She told him not to do it but…”

“Oh.” Maybe Bill saw him as well. The goat man, maybe he’s not just tormenting Peter maybe he’s also haunting Bill, lurking just in the corner of his eye.

“I need to talk to him”, Peter decides.

“Okay”, Danny says.

“Okay?”

“Yeah, sure, let’s go there right now. I’ll text Deb and Alice.”

“Okay.” Peter nods. “Yes, let's go there.”

Chapter Text

Bill looks… unwell.

Peter expected it to be bad but he didn’t expect him to look this broken.

He was going to find him at CCRP before Alice informed him that he’s working from home right now. Apparently, Ted being missing affected him so much that even his boss noticed and took pity.

He’s not working, when they arrive at Alice’s place. It looks like he’s working, the way he’s sitting at the kitchen table, sunken into whatever he’s looking at on his laptop.

As soon as Peter gets a glimpse of Bills screen, he sees that he’s actually doing research on time travel instead.

Deb, Alice and Danny leave him alone with Bill for a moment and Peter pulls out a chair to sit down.

Bill watches him, hesitant.

“I think that thing is following me”, Peter says. “I thought it’s just my imagination but…”

Bill frantically started shaking his head so Peter stops talking.

“It’s not your imagination, I’ve seen it too”, Bill explains.

“Oh.”

Bill lowers his voice. “I want to bring him back”, he whispers, maybe so Alice doesn’t hear.

“How?”

“I’ll follow him to 2004. I just need a time machine that’s carriable to bring us both back here.”

Peter lightly shakes his head.

“Why not the wedding? Why not just make sure he gets home safe without going to CCRP first?”

“Because I tried that already.”

“You- What?”

“Sorry.”

“You jumped already?”

“I tried.”

“What do you mean you tried? If it didn’t work, how do you know it will work when you try 2004?”

“He was there”, Bill says, “The goat man. He was the one who kept me from doing it, he told me he’s not going to make it this easy for me. He’s not letting me go to the wedding. To 2004 however…”

“It’s a trap.”

“I know.”

“And you still want to do it?”

Bill nods.

Peter shakes his head again. “I can’t let you.”

“Maybe he won’t expect me to bring my own time machine. Maybe he thinks that I don’t know I won’t get back from there, like Ted.”

“He’s not that stupid, is he?”

“I need to try.”

“I miss Ted too but I can’t let Alice lose her dad!”

It’s quiet after that, Bill froze.

“I’ll do it”, Peter says.

“Absolutely not.”

“Why not?”

“Because I promised Ted that I’ll take care of you.”

“You can’t do that if you’re stuck in the past with him though.”

“I’m not planning on getting stuck.”

“Neither did he. Bill, this is suicide.”

Bill shakes his head. “I just need a time machine that’s carriable.”

“And where would you get that?”

Bill hesitates, before he clicks on something on his laptop and turns the screen to Peter.

The screen shows the page of a Professor Hidgens. A physicist specialized in time travel, based in Hatchetfield.

“No way”, Peter mumbles.

“He lives here in Hatchetfield, I could…”

“I mean visiting and asking doesn’t hurt, right?”

“That’s what I’ve been saying.”

“What have you been saying?”, Alice asks, coming in again.

“There’s a time travel specialist right here in Hatchetfield”, Peter explains.

“So, are we visiting him?”, she asks.

Peter throws a glance at Bill, who slowly nods. 

“I think so, yeah.”

The doorbell is so loud that it’s audible all the way through the thick wooden door to the outside where the little group gathered.

“Who is it?”, a deep voice then sounds through the intercom.

“Uh, we’re looking for Professor Hidgens”, Peter says, before anyone else can answer.

The door buzzes and Peter quickly pushes it open. An older man comes towards them through the corridor. He’s white with thick white hair and he’s wearing a brown suit over a black turtleneck.

“Why?”, he asks.

“My brother jumped through time and got stuck in 2004 and we want to bring him back”, Peter tries his best to explain.

“Oh.” The man sighs. “You’re looking for my husband then. He’s the one studying time travel, I’m a biologist.”

“Okay… is he here?”

“No.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean he’s currently sleeping somewhere else.”

“Shit”, Danny says from behind Peter.

Professor Hidgens nods. “Shit”, he repeats, “Love is a losing game young man, let me tell you that.”

Danny’s eyes drop on Peter and shortly afterwards Peter can feel Danny’s hand bump against his before he reaches for it to hold it.

“Can you call him?”, Bill asks, “This is kind of a life and death situation.”

The Professor nods. “Yes, come in.”

They settle in the living room while the Professor fumbles around on his phone and eventually puts it to his ear.

“Is it that Ted that was in the newspaper a few days ago?”, he asks Peter, while he waits for his husband to pick up.

Peter nods.

“My condolenc- Yes, it’s me.” He must have picked up now. “Yes, obviously I remember.” The Professor rolls his eyes. “You said not to call again, yes, but this is a life and death situation.”

Peter is still holding Danny’s hand in his and starts to fiddle with it now, tracing the soft lines of his palm, when the nervousness gets a hold of him. Bill looks nervous too, though he also looks like he’s trying really hard to hide it.

“You remember that man that went missing?”, the Professor goes on to explain, “Ted was his name, yes. He time travelled and he’s stuck in the past, 2004 to be clear. Do you think you could help- Okay see you in ten minutes.”

He hangs up and let’s his phone sink. “He’s coming”, he announces. “Does anyone want coffee? Tea?”

Everybody shakes their heads so he nods and sighs and eventually he leaves them alone in his living room.

They hear a car outside less than ten minutes later and Peter as well as all the others immediately get up.

Someone unlocks the door from outside and Peter hears the Professor greet his husband, with a: “They’re in the living room.”

“Good to see you too, Henry”, a new voice answers.

Then the door to the living room bursts open and the person who the voice belongs to steps inside.

He seems to be about the same age as the other Professor Hidgens, either a little younger or he aged less visibly. Short grey streaks curl into his black hair and the soft wrinkles on his dark skin are barely even visible.

He smiles brightly, when he sees them.

“He’s stuck in time?”, he asks, “Oh, this is so exciting!” He slaps his hands together. “What’s the plan? How did he get there?”

Peter just stares at him. How can he be so excited?

“You’re Professor… Hidgens?”, Bill asks.

He nods. “Call me Chad, otherwise this might get complicated. Two Hidgens, both Professor. We should have thought about that before we got married and did the whole name thing but you know…”

“Okay… Chad.”

“So, what happened? How did he do it?”

“His office is a time machine”, Peter explains.

“Okay”, Chad says.

“You just sit down in the chair and think about the time you want to go and it happens”, Bill goes on.

“Interesting.”

“His office only becomes a time machine years after 2004 though, so…”

“To get him back you need something you can carry with you, I understand.”

Bill nods.

“There’s this monster”, Peter chimes in.

“What?”

“Like a goat man? It’s yellow and it was haunting my brother before he died. It’s haunting Bill and me as well now.”

“Who’s Bill?”

Bill slowly lifts his head.

“You’re talking about T’Noy Karaxis then.”

“What?”

“I assume someone tried to unlock his power. Don’t worry about it, he won’t be able to destroy my time machine unless he kills us all.” He laughs, like any part of what he just said was funny.

“You have a time machine?”, Bill asks.

“Not yet but I will.”

“So, you can do it?”

He nods. “I’ll need to see that office though. And I’ll need something from that Ted. If it’s in his office, I figure he’s bound to it all. I’ve had this theory that temporal rifts are strongly linked to genetic codes. I always thought it’s the lords but if this one is linked to Ted, maybe I can… You said he died, am I correct? You don’t happen to have a blood sample from him lying around?”

“No, we don’t have… He died a few weeks ago. The version of him that was in the past and lived from then until today, he- the homeless man? That was him.”

“Oh! I read about that.”

“Okay. Well can we do it without a blood sample?”

“We can try.”

“I’m his brother”, Peter quietly volunteers, “Maybe my blood would do?”

Chad scans him for a moment, then he nods lightly. “We’ll try that later.”

They don’t finish the time machine on that day, they don’t even come close, but they do make a lot of progress. It might be a week or a month before he finishes the time machine, Chad said. A month feels so horribly long to Peter, but at least he can hope again.

Danny walks him home, Peter pushes his bike along.

“This is good news right?”, Danny asks after a while, “Like I don’t want to get too hopeful but this is good?”

“Yeah”, Peter says. And for what feels like the first time in weeks, a smile spreads over his face again, a genuine smile. “This is good.”

Danny smiles.

“Do you want to go out after this?”, Peter then asks. They ended their conversation about whatever it is they feel for each other way too abruptly earlier and he just needs to pick it up again, needs to make sure it was real.

Danny looks up. “After he’s back?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah.”

“Like we could go to prom together or to the movies or-…”

“Yeah, I’d love that.”

“Okay.” Peter bites down on his lip to hide the grin from his face.

Danny reaches out and Peter switches from holding his bike with both hands to holding it with one, so he can hold Danny’s hand in the other.

About five minutes later they made it to Peters place and they have to say goodbye. 

“See you tomorrow in school?”, Danny asks.

Peter nods.

“I can come get you, you know?”

“From school?”

“No, here. I could come here and we could go to school together.”

“Oh, it’s… it’s fine, you really don’t have to”, Peter fumbles out, blushing harder than he’d like to admit.

“It’s just with that thing following you around and… I just want you to be safe.”

“I’ll be okay.”

“You better be.”

Peter laughs and Danny smiles brightly.

“We’re going out”, he adds, “Don’t leave me hanging.”

“I won’t. I’m looking forward to it.”

“Me too.”

There’s a moment of silence while they both just stare at each other, smiling.

“Okay, I should…”, Danny then says, and points behind himself.

Peter nods.

“Yeah, me too.”

“Okay, uh…” Danny leans closer for a moment, then he hesitates, so Peter settles the question by pulling him into a hug.

He turns his head to Danny and places a kiss on his cheek before he pulls away again. “Thank you for walking with me.”

Danny smiles, his hand flying up to his cheek where Peter just kissed him.

“Any time”, he mutters.

“Good night, see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, see you. Text me, if you do want me to pick you up tomorrow.”

“Will do.”

“Okay.”

“’Kay.”

“Good night, Pete.”

“Night.”

Danny turns to leave. He walks for about ten feet before he stops to cross the street, turning back to Peter with a big dorky smile on his mouth once more.

He waves lightly, before he checks the street and crosses it. He disappears behind a building and Peter slowly starts to maneuver his bike through the little gate.

His dad is waiting for him in the corridor when he comes in and Peter slowly remembers that he totally forgot to text him that he’d be home later.

Peter slowly fumbles his phone out of his pocket to find five missed calls.

“Sorry”, he immediately says, “I forgot.”

“Peter, I was worried sick!”

“I’m sorry.”

“The school called and told me that you skipped your afternoon classes. Where were you?”

Peter swallows. What is he supposed to say to that?

“I grounded you, why do you keep ignoring that?”, his dad keeps going.

“You said I can still see friends, I was with friends.”

“Who? That boy out there? I don’t know him.”

“He’s-… that’s Danny. He’s my friend.”

“Your friend, huh?”

Peter blushes. “I’m sorry, I should have texted you.”

His dad sighs.

“I’m just glad you’re okay.” He slowly makes his way over to Peter. “I was worried, that’s all.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay. I’m sorry for being so strict, I’m just-… I don’t want to lose you.”

He pulls Peter into a hug.

“I’m being careful, I promise”, Peter says.

“Okay. Just text me next time you’re out with friends, okay?”

Peter nods. “I will.”

“Okay.”

“So you’re not grounding me again?”

His dad shakes his head. “It was nice to see you smile again. Besides, he walked you home, so… I like him.”

“Okay.” Peter smiles.

“Are you hungry? I made some soup.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, come on”, he says, and leads him into the kitchen.

Chapter Text

Bill is going to do it.

It’s been a little over four weeks but Chad made it. They tested the machine and it works. They jumped forward ten minutes first, then an hour, then a day forward and a day back.

And today is the day, the machine is set to October 17^th 2004.

Bill thought about not doing it, for Alice’s sake. In the end it was her who did convince him to do it.

“The future you from the past didn’t come here to warn us yet so how bad can it be?”, she had said. And they’re so close, they already have the machine, Bill can’t let that chance go to waste and he can’t let Peter do it, though he did volunteer multiple times. It’s too dangerous for Peter, Bill decided. It’s probably too dangerous for Bill too but he’s the adult so he’s doing it. Besides, this was Bills idea in the first place.

He hugs Alice one last time. “I’ll be back, I promise”, he says.

“You better be”, she mumbles against his chest, “I’m not moving back in with Mom and Alan.”

Bill chuckles. “You won’t have to.”

“Looking forward to meeting your boyfriend”, she goes on.

Bill smiles. “I’m looking forward to introducing him to you.”

“Alright”, Chad says, coming in from the side with a backpack and a folder.

“These are copies of my notes”, he explains, holding the folder up. “If anything goes wrong, feel free to find the past version of me and give him this, he will fix it for you.”

Bill nods. “Okay, where were you in 2004?”

“I think right here. We were just moving in, right Henry?”

Henry doesn't look up, too focused on his own work, but he answers. “Yes, we had just gotten engaged.”

Chad nods and turns back to Bill. “You should find us both here”, he says, “You should be landing in this house anyway, so we might meet if everything goes right too.”

Bill nods, slowly. “Okay.”

“Ready?”, Chad asks.

Bill nods again and turns to Alice one last time.

“I’ll be back”, he promises again.

She nods and gifts him a smile.

“See you, dad.”

Bill doesn’t really dare to open his eyes. It’s quiet and a cold breeze is making him shiver.

He didn’t land in Chads and Henrys house, that’s for sure.

He slowly opens his eyes and finds himself in an empty alleyway. He checks his watch, before he remembers that it won’t change according to when he is. He pushes the time machine, a chunky, weird looking clock, into the backpack to the folder and zips it shut, before he starts to walk.

He needs to find someone, anyone who can tell him what year it is, what time.

He steps onto a street, it’s a little more crowded than the alleyway he landed in. Bill recognizes the street, though it does look a little different than he remembers.

“Hey”, he turns to a woman who was just about to pass him.

She looks up. “Hey?”

“Sorry, can you tell me what day it is?”

“It’s Sunday.”

“No, I mean the date.”

“October 17^th.”

“And the, uh… the year?”

She frowns. “2004. Sir, are you okay?”

“Yes! Yes, thank you so much.”

He pushes past her and makes his way to the CCRP building. He needs to get to Ted before he gets to Jenny.

He starts running, when the fear gets a hold of him, fear that he’s too late and that he won’t make it and Ted will get taken from him again.

When he’s almost there, he rounds a corner and crashes into someone. He nearly falls, pulling the person down with himself but somehow, they manage to not land on the ground.

“Woah, watch out”, the man says, in a way too familiar voice. Bill looks up and their gazes meet and it’s silent. It’s not just them, igniting the silence, even the noises around them seem to pause for a moment. Bill froze, caught in between disbelief and relief.

He’s right there and he’s alive and he’s still holding onto Bill.

Ted frowns, confused. “Bill”, he chokes out in a whisper.

Bill slowly straightens up from his position in Teds arms. He can’t help but smile when he loses himself in Teds eyes, in his nearness. His skin is warm and his breath is forming little clouds in the cold air and he’s there. He’s right there.

“Yeah”, Bill manages to answer.

“Wait, who- you’re my Bill?”, Ted goes on.

Bill nods. “Yes.”

“From the future?”

“Yes.” Bill laughs, relieved. “You’re okay.” He reaches for Teds face. “You’re okay, you’re really here.”

He pulls him close and rests his head against Teds, closing his eyes while he tries his best to take it all in. Ted lets his hands slip from his grip on Bill around his back and he pulls him close. It feels too good to be real. A part of him is genuinely scared that it’s another trick, the goat man pretending to be Ted to drive Bill insane.
He’s too scared to check, so when Teds nose bumps into his, he allows himself to kiss his partner. It feels like it always did, Ted is still Ted and he still kisses Bill so sweetly, his lips soft and warm against Bills. Bill missed it so much. He kisses Ted again and again, until Ted pulls away to look at him, out of breath and blushing hard.

“I thought you’re mad at me”, he says and Bill slowly remembers that this is still the Ted coming fresh from the wedding. The taste of alcohol on his tongue should have probably made Bill remember sooner but his thoughts were somewhere else entirely when he kissed Ted.

Bill shakes his head. “I missed you so much.”

Ted frowns and smiles. “Why? We just saw each other a few hours ago.”

Bill hesitates and the smile slowly leaves Teds lips. “Right?”, he quietly adds, “We were just at the wedding, so…”

He stops talking when Bill shakes his head.

“You followed me here”, Ted then realizes.

Bill nods.

“Because something happens”, Ted goes on.

Bill nods again. “Yes.”

“And it’s …bad.”

“You’ve been missing for weeks.”

It’s quiet after that. Ted stares at him with wide eyes.

“It’s okay though”, Bill tries his best to calm him down, “I’m bringing you home.”

“How did you know where to find me?”

“You told me. The- the older you, before-… You told me.”

“Before?”

“Nothing. Never mind.”

“What happens to the older me?”

“…You get murdered.”

“I get- What the fuck?”

“I don’t know who did it, they pulled you out of the lake, you got stabbed.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah.”

“…I planned to come back.”

“I know.”

“I was going to be at your door in the morning and I would apologize and-… How long have I been gone?”

“Around two months.”

“Two-… Two months.” He takes a breath, letting his hand run through his hair now. “Are you okay? I mean- shit, Bill.”

Bill hesitates. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay, you’re here now, so…”

“And Peter? And my dad? Is Peter okay?”

Bill nods. “He’s… he’ll be okay. He misses you a lot, so…”

“Okay. Yeah, we should go. We should go home.”

“Yeah, okay, let’s go.”

Ted reaches for Bills hand and starts going back to CCRP.

“Ted, dear, wait a second.” Bill gently tugs on Teds hand to bring him to a stop.

“What?” He turns back around, confused.

“The time machine in your office doesn’t exist yet.”

“What do you mean?” 

“This is why you got stuck in the first place.”

“How do we get back then?”

“I have a time machine.”

Ted smiles. “You have a time machine”, he says, “Just happened to carry one around, huh?”

Bill chuckles.

“Come on, let’s go somewhere less crowded.”

“Lead the way.”

Bill guides Ted away from the crowded street into an alleyway, before he unshoulders his backpack and fumbles out the time machine.

“This is it?”, Ted asks.

“As if your office chair was more elegant.”

Ted smiles. Bill can feel him reach for his elbow, holding onto it while he sets the right time on the clock. Teds fingers rub over his arm and it’s enough for Bill to stop for a moment, just so he can lean over to Ted and kiss him again.

“I should go missing more often if it means you’re going to kiss me like this”, Ted comments afterwards, a dreamy smile on his lips. 

“Don’t you dare, this was hell.”

“Don’t worry babe, not planning to.”

“Kiss you like what?”

“Hm?”

“I mean what’s different?”

Ted smiles.

“I don’t know. It’s just really intense.”

“Really intense”, Bill quietly repeats, his focus back on the time machine now.

“Really hot”, Ted adds.

Bill smiles. “Well, I missed you.”

“I missed you too.”

“You just saw me a few hours ago.”

“Felt like a lifetime. I didn’t even get to dance with you.”

Bill places one last kiss onto Teds lips before he pulls back.

“Okay, hold onto me.” He reaches out to take Teds hand but before he can actually get a hold of it, Ted already stepped closer and wrapped his arms around Bill like he’s riding along with him on a motorcycle. This works too, Bill supposes.

“Okay”, Bill whispers, “ready?”

“Yes.”

Bill clicks the button but nothing happens.

Maybe he made a mistake, he thinks. So, he sets the time again, step by step, time, day, month, year, click. Again, nothing.

Bill looks up and spots a figure down the alleyway, yellow fur and a long tongue gliding over the big grin, like he’s ready to feast.

“Are you seeing that?”, Bill immediately asks.

“Hm?”, Ted makes, his head is still resting on Bills shoulder.

Bill points down the alleyway but the goat man is gone.

“Come on”, Bill says. He grabs Teds hand and starts to pull him out of the alleyway. They need to go to Chad.

“What’s wrong?”, Ted asks, “What happened?”

“It didn’t work and we’re being followed.”

“What?”

Ted turns, probably to find out who’s following them, but apparently he finds nothing because shortly afterwards he turns back to Bill.

“Where are we going?”

“To the man who built this.” Bill lifts up the time machine.

“Good call.”

Bill turns to Ted for a moment. “We’ve got this, yeah?”

Ted nods, though he does look a little panicked by now. Bill can’t deny that he’s panicking too.

It’s almost a forty-minute walk to Chads and Henrys house, all the way on the outskirts of town.

Bill regrets not having put on a thicker jacket. Ted isn’t wearing a jacket at all and Bill can see him shivering. Bill completely underestimated how cold Octobers can get.

When they finally make it to the big house at the edge of town, it’s already getting dark.

The lights inside are on and that’s a relief.

Bill rings the doorbell and it doesn’t take long until someone opens the door for them. It’s a rather young version of Henry Hidgens, thick brown hair and only slight hints of wrinkles around his eyes.

He smiles.

“Hello, how can I help?”

“Uh, hi, is Chad here?”, Bill asks.

Henry nods and his smile grows a little brighter.

“My fiancé? Yes, indeed. Wait here, I’ll get him for you.”

He leaves and less than a minute later a young Chad appears in the doorway.

“Hello?”

“Hey”, Bill answers, still not sure how he is supposed to say this. “This might sound crazy but we’re from the future and we need your help”, he then carefully starts.

Chads face lights up. “No way”, he whispers.

Bill lifts up the time machine. “You build this but it’s not working to bring us back and you said to go to you to get it fixed if anything goes wrong. Do you think you can fix it?”

He nods lightly, before he turns back into the corridor.

“Henry, my love, you’re not going to believe this!”

Shortly afterwards Henry comes back into their field of view. “What is it?”

“They’re from the future! I sent them, I made it!”

Henrys jaw drops to the floor. “No way”, he mutters.

Chad turns back to Bill. “Did I give you anything aside from the time machine?”

“Yeah, a folder.” Bill fumbles it out of the backpack and hands it to Chad.

“This is so you to give him a folder”, Henry mumbles, “They must be telling the truth.”

Chad nods, already thumbing through the pages. After a moment of him reading through his own notes and Henry reading through Chads notes over Chads shoulder, Chad lets the folder sink.

“Okay, I think I can do this. Come in.”

Chad took the time machine and the folder and disappeared in the lab in the basement of the house. He warned Ted and Bill that it might take him a few hours, maybe even a day, and him and Henry decided to clear the guest room for them to stay in until the time machine is fixed.

It’s around midnight now and Bill and Ted decided to go to sleep, because it doesn’t look like the machine will be fixed any time soon.

Ted is on the balcony when Bill comes back into the guest room from the bathroom. He’s leaning on the railing and he’s staring into the night.

“Are you alright?”, Bill asks, as he joins him on the balcony.

Ted looks up.

His eyes are a little teary, but he’s not crying, not yet at least.

He nods. “Yeah.”

“What’s up?”

“I’m just… I’m so sorry.”

Bill frowns. “It’s not your fault.”

“Yes, it is! I came here because-… I came here and now you’re stuck here with me.”

“It was my decision to follow you, remember?”

Ted nods lightly. “Still.”

“And I don’t regret doing it, for that matter. It feels really good to see you again.”

Ted smiles lightly but at the same time a tear runs over his cheek.

“You know I didn’t come here to… to Jenny to leave you”, he says.

“I know.”

“I don’t have feelings for her anymore or anything like that.”

“It’s okay.”

“When I was on Paul’s wedding I had that… it was like a vision? Like a vision that it was our wedding. We were so happy and it felt so good. And then it was all gone and there was this… man. But not a man, he had some kind of goat mask on. He laughed and said… said some stuff and after I jumped through time the first time, there he was again, telling me that I can fix it, if only I fix my past. I just wanted to be better for you, I wanted to be someone you don’t have to be embarrassed of.”

Bill lightly shakes his head.

“I’m not embarrassed of you.”

Ted sniffles. “Sorry”, he mutters, “I just thought… if I fix this, I can fix me, I thought-”

Bill shakes his head. “There’s nothing wrong with you. No need to fix anything.”

Ted sobs and Bill pulls him close. Ted drops his head into Bills shoulder. “I’m so sorry”, he mutters against his shirt, “I wasn’t leaving you, I swear I wasn’t going to leave you.”

“I know. It’s okay, I know.”

“And I’m sorry for putting so much pressure on you. If you’re not ready to tell people, that’s fine, it really is. I’d wait years for you.”

“Ted-”

“It’s on me, not on you. I’ve been hidden away and lied about in my past affairs so much that it started feeling suffocating and I-… but none of that is your fault! And I’m really really okay with waiting because-”

“I told Alice. …and Peter.”

Ted pulls away from the hug to look at Bill, surprise written in his reddened eyes. “What?”

“I told them about us.”

“Oh.”

“It’s… Peter somehow found out you’re seeing someone so I told him it’s me.”

“I’m sorry.”

Bill quickly shakes his head.

“No, it’s okay. It’s okay because I wanted them to know.”

“Sure?”

Bill nods and let’s his hands slide around Ted’s waist again. “Yeah, I want the whole world to know what you mean to me.”

His fingers dig into Ted’s back as he tugs him against himself. Ted leans into him, lifting up his hands to rest them on Bills shoulders.

“Can you imagine what it was like?”, Bill asks, as he leans his head against Ted’s, “Not being able to tell anyone how much I’m grieving? No one knowing why you being gone hit me like this?”

“I’m so sorry you had to go through that. If I could undo it all, I-”

Bill shakes his head. “It happened, but it’s over and we made it, right?”

Ted nods lightly, then he tilts his head. “You made it”, he notes, “I just got here, I didn’t even go to Jenny yet.”

“It’s probably for the best if you keep it that way with her.”

“You’re not jealous, are you?” Ted smiles.

“Ted you-… Just trust me on this. Don’t go to her.”

“I wasn’t planning to anymore but now I’m curious. What do I do? Does she reject me?” He gets a little more serious when he sees the look on Bills face.

Bill shakes his head. “Let’s go inside, it’s really cold out here”, he changes the topic. He reaches for a flabbergasted Ted and pulls him back into the guest room.

Ted just stares at him while he closes the door to the balcony behind the two of them.

“Bill?”, he then asks.

“Mh?”

“What happened to her?”

“Nothing. Nothing will happen because you’re here now.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound terrifying at all.”

“Where do you have that device that can turn someone into ash?”

Ted reaches into his chest pocket and fishes out what looks like a flat rectangle with a big red button on top. “How do you know about this?”

“You told me. Do you want to put it somewhere safer?”

“Like where?”

“Like not in your chest pocket where someone could accidentally click it.”

It’s silent, while Teds expression goes through multiple stages of grief. Then, just a whisper: “I killed her.”

“No”, Bill lies.

“Oh god.” He puts the killer-rectangle down on the dresser and rests his hands on the dark wood.

“Ted-”

“Why would you come get me? I’m literally a murderer.”

“Pretty sure it was an accident.”

“Maybe I deserve to be stuck here.”

“Hey.” Bill comes next to him and reaches for his arm to turn him around. He gently pushes him to lean against the dresser before he takes his face between his palms. “For what I know, you were tricked into this, okay?”

“It feels like I came here on my own will.”

“That’s what he wants you to think. He plays with your mind.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because he played with mine. He’s been following Peter around too.”

“He’s been following Peter?”

Bill nods.

“Do you… We need to destroy him, right? Just getting back won’t solve it all.”

Bill hesitates. He didn’t even think that far yet.

“I don’t know if we can destroy him”, he then admits.

“When I was in the future, there was this guy and he said I’m the key. If I’m linked to it all, if my genetic code is the secret to his power, maybe I can do …something.”

“Maybe, yeah.”

“I mean I have this thing that turns people into ash.”

“That’s a start, yeah, let’s try that.”

Ted nods enthusiastically and Bill smiles at that.

“We’ll go home”, Ted says.

Bill nods.

Ted rubs his forehead against Bills and lifts his chin, so their noses brush against each other. Instead of kissing him, he continues to whisper quiet promises.

“We’ll go home and I’ll make this right again, I’ll fix it.”

“You don’t have to do it alone. I’ll help you.”

Ted closes his eyes and nudges his head closer to Bills and Bill closes the last of what was left of the gap between them and kisses Teds warm lips.

“We should probably go to sleep, hm?”, Ted then asks quietly.

Bill nods. “I’m kind of scared to do so”, he admits.

“Why?”

He shrugs. He’s not sure. Nothing can happen, really. And still, he’s so terrified that that thing will come and take Ted away from him again. 

“I’m scared you’ll be gone when I wake up?”, he says. “I’m scared he’ll take you away somehow, I’m… I don’t know.”

“Maybe we just have to hold on to each other very tight then.”

Bill smiles lightly. “Maybe we do.”

Ted does hold on to him very tight, even after he fell asleep.

Bill can’t sleep, Bill is wide awake. It’s one am by now and the old Bill, the Bill that existed before his boyfriend went missing, usually never even lasted until after 10 pm.

This new Bill, however, hasn’t slept well in weeks, his body got used to being awake in the middle of the night. Usually he cried, alone at night. But now he’s not alone so all he can do is hold Ted close and hope that no one rips him out of his grip again.

Ted is breathing slowly and it’s calming. Maybe not just how slow he’s breathing, how peacefully. Maybe it’s that he’s breathing at all. He’s alive. Bill can feel his heartbeat too. A part of him still can’t believe that Ted is really there, flesh and bone, breathing and existing in the same room as Bill. The other part of Bill feels like Ted was never gone, too used to holding Ted like this. They’ve done it hundreds of times by now.

He wants this to be his normalcy again. He wants to get so accustomed to Ted in his arms that his arms start feeling empty whenever there’s not Teds warm body wrapped in them.

He wants to go home and he wants to introduce Ted to Alice.

He wants Ted to stay over on weekends, he wants to wake up next to him and he wants to eat breakfast with him and Alice. He wants to stare at him over his morning coffee while they listen to Alice talk about the play she’s working on.

He wants to cook dinner with him while Alice and Deb and Peter are in the living room, playing card games.

He wants to live again and he wants Ted to be a part of that life.

Eventually Bill does manage to fall asleep and when he wakes up, Teds head is still resting safely on his chest. Ted is already awake, caressing Bills arm with his thumb.

“Morning”, Bill whispers.

“Hi.”

“How did you sleep?”

“Alright, I think. You?”

“Yeah. A bit better than I did in the past two months.”

Ted nuzzles his face into Bills neck and Bill pulls him close.

They lay like that until there’s a crash downstairs, followed by two gunshots.

They freeze at first, then they look at each other before they make a decision and quickly get up.

They run down into the lab and find Chad and Hidgens there.

Hidgens is holding a shotgun in his hand, but he’s standing in front of Chad, whose arm is bleeding from what looks like scratch marks.

“What happened?”, Bill asks.

They look up.

“T’Noy Karaxis appeared and tried to harm me. Henry shot at him and he dissolved."

“It can’t have been that easy”, Henry mumbles, still clinging to the shot gun like he’ll have to use it again at any moment.

“He got you?”, Ted asks, pointing at Chad’s bleeding arm.

Chad waves him off.

“He just scratched me. I think he tried to destroy the machine.”

Bill frowns when he notices how tired they both look.

“Have you been up all night?”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to stay awake”, Chad says, “It’s just that this was so exciting and when I get all consumed in my work it gets hard for me to take a break. Good news is, I think I repaired it.”

Bill just stares at him, feeling guilty for having slept suddenly.

“Don’t worry, he does that sometimes”, Henry chimes in now.

“Well, uh… I don’t know how to thank you two.”

Chad waves him off as Henry makes his way over to get a little first-aid kit.

“Thank us? This was the highlight of my year, I’ll have to thank you.”

“This was the highlight of your year?”, Henry asks, as he sets the first-aid kit down on a table next to Chad.

“One of the highlights, the other was getting engaged to you.”

Henry smiles. “Mh-hm. It’s fine.”

“So it works?”, Ted asks now, “The time machine?”

Chad nods. “Yes, I think that might have been what made T’Noy Karaxis panic.”

“You should go get dressed, then we’ll send you home”, Henry notes.

Bill nods. “Okay. Again, thank you so much.”

Chad gifts him a smile and waves them off with a “We’ll see if it works in a few minutes”, when Ted thanks him as well.

They quickly get dressed. Ted packs the killer rectangle too. “If he attacked Chad, he might wait for us in our time too, right?”, he says, and Bill agrees, so Ted puts it safely into his wallet.

“What do you know about that thing?”, Bill asks.

“This?”, Ted lifts up his wallet, “I don’t know, it turns people into ash if you click the red button.”

“No, the… T’Noy Karaxis? Is that what everybody calls him?”

“Oh. I don’t know. Not much. I think CCRP did it, actually, tried to unlock his power, which is why it happened in my office. He’s some kind of evil god, bastard of time and space or something like that. The robot guy called him Tinky, so maybe he knows him and is on some kind of first name base.”

“Okay.”

“Do you think I’m cursed now?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve been touched by it, right? The guy said I’ve been aborted from the flow of time and now I’ve become the time bastard, whatever that means.”

“That sounds eery.”

"I mean it. What if something's wrong with me now?”

“If you're cursed because you jumped through time then we're definitely in it together now." 

Ted smiles. 

"What?", Bill asks. 

"You're the only one I'd wanna be aborted from the flow of time with." 

Bill laughs quietly. "Let's just go home." 

Ted smiles and nods and presses a kiss on Bills cheek before he opens the door to the corridor. "Let's go home." 

When they come back down to the lab, Chad got out of his sweater and Henry is in the process of patching up the wound.

Ted steps closer, examining the bloody cuts.

“Shit, I’m so sorry. Does it hurt?”

“It’s alright, it’s not your fault”, Chad quickly says.

Ted doesn’t look convinced but he stays silent.

“Is there anything we can do to thank you before we leave?”, Bill asks.

“Oh, no. I wouldn’t dare ask about our future.”

Probably for the best, Bill thinks. They look so happy right now. He’s still not sure why the older versions of them even fought to the point of Chad temporarily moving out but they don’t need to know about it.

Henry finishes up on the wound and Chad gets up again and slips back into his sweater.

“Ready?”, he asks.

Bill nods and looks at Ted to find him nodding too.

“Alright then. I don’t know when exactly you need to go so…”, Chad hands the machine to Bill for him to set the right time on it.

Bill makes sure to set the time exactly to the time he departed, so Alice and Peter won’t have to wait so long for them.

“Okay”, he says, once he’s done. He checks on Ted to find him already reaching out to hold onto Bills arm.

“Again, thank you.”

“Thank you”, Chad says.

Bill smiles.

They say their goodbyes, then Bill presses the button.

Bill still clings to Ted after they landed.

He opens his eyes and recognises Teds office, just when Ted says: “We’re in my office.”

Bill nods.

“What time is it?”, he asks.

Ted lets go of him and makes his way to his computer to check the date.

“May 23^rd 2019, half past six.”

Bill can’t help but smile.

“We made it.”

When Ted turns around to him, he’s smiling too.

He takes a few steps towards Bill, presumably to give him a celebratory hug, when a sudden appearance in the room makes both of them shiver and stop in their tracks.

Tinky looks all rotted, somehow, half crouching in front of the door like he’s wounded.

Bills eyes fall on his belly and he sees blood where Henry must have shot him. It’s almost relieving, to see that he’s capable of bleeding.

He doesn’t seem as sure of himself as he used to be. He’s not laughing at them, not delighted at their pain anymore. He’s the one in pain now.

“You have to go back and kill Jenny”, he says.

“What the fuck”, Ted whispers. He reaches for Bills hand and gently nudges him behind himself.

Bill eyes the wallet in Ted’s back-pocket. The thing is in there, the rectangle with the red button.

“You can’t bend time like that, don’t you understand?”, Tinky goes on. He sounds distressed. A little scared, even.

“We just did. Who’s going to suffer from it?”, Ted asks.

Tinky hesitates.

“Is it you?”, Ted adds. “Is it just you? Because that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.”

“I’m not letting you leave this office”, Tinky growls and all at once the door behind him catches fire.

“Then we’ll kill you.” Ted sounds so sure of himself.

Bill watches in shock as the fire spreads from the door to the wall and down over the carpeted floor. They need to get out of there before they all burn alive.

Ted let’s go of his hand and reaches for his wallet as he makes a step towards Tinky.

At the same time, Tinky manifests a golden cube in his hand.

It has a rather entrancing pattern. Bill can feel himself get lost in it the longer he stares at the fine golden ornaments, curving around and into each other.

He only manages to rip his eyes away when Ted falls to his knees in front of him, gasping for air.

Bill watches in shock as the mocking smile makes it back on Tinkys face.

“I already caught you in here, did you forget?”, he asks. “I have your mind trapped like a toy.”

Bill spots the fire extinguisher underneath Ted’s table.

Tinky is too focused on delighting himself in Ted’s suffocation and pain to notice Bill swinging it at his head.

It cracks a little, when the metal meets whatever his head is made of.

Tinky drops the cube and Bill is at it immediately, kicking it out of Tinky’s reach before he falls to his knees next to it and starts to hammer on it with the fire extinguisher.

He can hear Ted fight to breath on the ground beside him as the fire spreads further and fills the room with smoke.

He sees the golden ornaments around Ted’s throat, choking him like a necklace getting tighter and tighter and Bill hits the cube harder in a panicked attempt to make it all stop.

His arms go numb but the cube started to bend and shatter so he slams the fire extinguisher down on it again and again and again until there are only tiny golden pieces left.

Ted gasps for air next to him and coughs. The ornaments crumble off his skin as he reaches for his neck to peel them away. They left red marks with the same pattern.

Relief fills Bills chest and an exhausted smile makes its way onto his lips. He reaches for the fire extinguisher again, this time to use it for actually extinguishing the fire. He doesn’t get far because right when he’s about to get up, something hits him on the back of his head.

It’s not hard, not hard enough to knock him out, but still he lands on the floor. He manages to turn on his back right before Tinky lands above him.

“What have you done?”, he shouts. 

Spit drops from his long tongue onto Bills face when he screams in agony, a pained, inhuman scream.

Bill wants to lift up the fire extinguisher and smash it at Tinky to get him off but it’s so heavy and his arms feel so weak by now.

He watches in fear as the room gets darker with smoke and the fire spreads further and further. The smoke scratches Bills lungs as he leaves the fire extinguisher and tries his best to push Tinky off himself with his hands.

Tinky doesn’t move, instead his claws sink into Bills shoulder and Bill hears himself scream, both in shock and in pain.

Tinky pulls the claws back out of Bills flesh in a long and painful process. Bill turns, trying to find Ted and shout for help but the smoke is so thick, it feels blinding now.

Bill closes his eyes when he sees Tinky reach back, surely about to strike again.

Instead of drowning under the pain of being ripped apart, Bill hears a gasp.

When he opens his eyes, he sees a tiny red dot on Tinky’s chest, smoke emerges from it.

Then, before Bill can properly work his brain through what happened, Tinky crumbles in on himself and after less than a few seconds, all that’s left is ash and dust.

Bill looks at Ted, right next to him now, and finds him holding the flat rectangle in both hands. His index finger is still placed upon the red button and he’s staring at Bill in shock.

Bill slowly manages to sit up.

“You just killed a god”, Bill whispers.

Ted nods lightly.

“Thank you”, Bill adds.

Ted coughs. His eyes are already a bit reddened and Bill slowly remembers the fire, the smoke.

“We have to get out of here.”

“The door is blocked.”

Ted drops the rectangle and gets up. He pulls Bill up as well and into his arms.

“The window”, Bill coughs, pulling Ted towards it. The fire follows them as Bill opens the window and looks outside.

He reaches for Ted and pushes him towards it to climb out first but Ted lifts him up instead and pushes him towards the fresh air.

“I’m right behind you”, he says, and Bill trusts him as he lands on the fire ladder.

Ted does follow him, coughing and weak.

Somehow they make it to the ground.

Ted’s legs give in, as soon as they hit the asphalt.

Bill catches him and sinks down on the ground with him. It’s all wet from the rain but Bill doesn’t mind as he pulls Ted close against himself.   

Ted coughs against Bills chest. “Sorry”, he whispers.

“What’s wrong?”

“It took me so long to get him off you”, he says, his voice all raspy and weak, “my hands were shaking and I couldn’t get it out and I couldn’t see because of the smoke and-”

“It’s okay. Hey, it’s okay, you did save me.”

“You’re hurt.”

Ted reaches up to Bills bloody shoulder.

“It’ll heal”, Bill says.

Ted pulls himself closer to Bill and buries his face in his neck now. “Hey Bill?”

“Yes?”, Bill asks.

“Bill.” He mumbles, letting the name glide over his tongue like it’s his favorite thing to say. He smiles.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I need to-… I love you. I love you, Bill.” He coughs again.

Bill smiles. “Can you breath?”, he still asks.

Ted nods. “We made it and I‘ve been meaning to say it for months.”

“I love you too.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t say it back the first time you said it, I was so terrified.”

“It’s okay, I know.”

“You knew?”

Bill nods and laughs and sniffles. “You sure looked terrified after I said it.”

Ted laughs quietly and ends up coughing again. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. It’s not like I didn’t know you love me. There are other ways of showing it aside from saying it out loud and you did show me every day.”

“I tried my best.”

Bill rests his forehead against Ted’s and smiles. “I know.”

From afar, they can hear sirens, making their way through the streets towards them. Someone must have seen the smoke and called for help. They’re safe.

Chapter Text

Peter is nervous, sitting in the back of the car with his chin resting on clammy hands and his leg bouncing a little too fast.

He keeps leaning forward to catch a look out of the windshield, but there’s nothing to see, they’re not that close yet.

Peter has no business being nervous anymore, Ted and Bill are back and apparently they’re okay. Bill said everything is fine, when he was on the phone with Alice. He said they made it back but Teds office burned down so they’ll have to stay at CCRP for a while longer. He said they’ll come back soon.

Neither Peter nor Alice wanted to wait for them to come back to Chads and Henry’s house and everybody else agreed, so now they’re all in Chads car and they’re driving to the CCRP technical building.

“How long do you think they will take?”, Peter had asked Danny, minutes after Bill left and about half an hour before Bill called Alice to let her know they’re back and alive.

“An hour?”, Danny had answered, “I don’t know. I mean it can’t be that long, right? All Bill has to do is find Ted and that’s it.”

Peter had nodded and hoped that it will be that easy. He doubts it was easy by now. Teds office burned down, so that can’t have been nothing. The only reason they were back so quickly was that they jumped back to the time Bill left, which, honestly, that makes sense and Peter should have seen that coming.

Danny rested his hand on Peters back, probably in an attempt to calm him down a little. Peter takes a deep breath and leans into his touch, just as Deb points out of the windshield. “Do you guys see that?”

Peter leans past the driver’s seat immediately to catch a look outside. Behind the buildings in the sky is dirty grey smoke, climbing up into the clouds.

“Shit”, Danny comments quietly.

“They’re okay”, Alice says immediately, “My dad said they’re both okay.”

Peter nods. They are. Hopefully.

Chad steps on the gas and about a minute later they’re in the right street.

Peter fumbles off his seatbelt and reaches for the door when Chad slows down near the curb on the opposite side of the street.

There is an ambulance parked square on the CCRP parking lot as well as two police cars.

Peter spots Ted, talking to one of the officers, and he’s out of the car before it fully stopped rolling.

Peter runs over the street without looking which is, in hindsight, was a horrible idea, but thankfully the car screeching to a stop right next to him doesn’t hit him this time.

“Sorry”, Peter fumbles out, even if the driver doesn’t hear him, and he hurries towards the parking lot. He’s just about 30 feet away from Ted when he gets stopped by a police officer.

“That’s my brother, he was missing!”, Peter blurts out before the woman can say anything. “Ted!”, he shouts, “Ted!”

The woman lets go of him when she sees Ted turn to Peter, the look on his face before his feet set into motion and he hurries towards him.

Peter is in Ted’s arms before he even managed to process that it’s really his brother, right there in front of him.

“Pete”, Ted mumbles against his head. “Hey. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Peter pulls him closer. He doesn’t want to let go, too scared that Ted is gone if he does, too scared that it’s not Ted but the yellow monster instead.

But it is Ted. It is Ted because he smells like Ted and he hugs like Ted and he feels warm and human in Peters arms.

“Are you okay?”, Ted asks.

Peter nods and finally lets go of Ted, to look at him properly.

“You?”, he asks.

Ted looks tired and sweaty. There’s a bit of soot on his cheek and his hair is all out of shape, not as neatly combed back as he usually has it.

“Breathed in some smoke but I’m fine”, Ted says, “My office burned down.”

Peter looks up to Teds window and sees the black soot on the wall, still imitating the shape of the flames coming out of the window, though the flames are long gone by now.

Peter nods. “Yeah.”

“And Bill is-”, Ted points towards the ambulance, “Bill got hurt.”

“Badly?”, Peter asks, looking for Bill until he finds him seated on a bench next to the ambulance. His shirt is unbuttoned and it looks like they’re treating a wound on his shoulder.

“He said it’s fine”, Ted says.

“What happened?”

“Tinky came and tried to make us go back.”

“And then?”

Ted hesitates. “He’s dead now. It’s okay, you’re safe. We’re safe.”

Peter nods lightly. “Okay.”

He looks back at Bill to find that Alice made her way out of the car and past the police to her dad. Bill got up and they’re hugging now, laughing and crying.

“Are you really okay?”

Peter nods.

“How’s dad?”, Ted goes on.

Peter hesitates, then he shrugs lightly. “Worried? He thinks you’re dead and a murderer is on the loose, so…”

“You didn’t sneak out to be here, did you?”

“I’m not grounded.”

“Sure?”

“I’m allowed to go places as long as I’m with friends.”

Ted smiles. “What friends?”

“Shut up.”

Ted nods lightly. “How about I walk you home?”

Peter nods. “Okay.”

“Let me just talk to Bill real quick.”

Peter nods. “I’ll say goodbye to some people too.”

“Your many friends?”

“Stop it.”

“Let’s meet at the entrance.” 

Peter nods and Ted makes his way over to Bill.

Peter finds Chad first.

He’s on the phone, so Peter decides to wait, so he can thank him again and say goodbye for good.

Chad looks up and gifts him a smile, before he lifts his hand, gesturing for him to wait.

“I didn’t say it’s boring”, he says, “I said it’s a little bland! And it is, Henry! I still think a change of scene would be nice, at least for the second act! You can’t have them sit around on the football field for two hours, love.”

Peter tries his best to spot Danny and Deb and finds them eventually, leaning against the fence a few feet away. The police probably didn’t let them pass. Peter thinks about going to them and coming back to Chad later but quickly drops that thought when he hears Chad say his goodbyes.

“Yeah, alright, I’ll come home, give me half an hour. Yes, see you dear, I love you.”

He hangs up and slips the phone back into his pocket.

“Sorry. Everything alright?”

Peter nods. “Yeah, just wanted to say thank you. For driving us here and everything else.”

“Don’t worry about it. How is your brother?”

“He’s alright, thank you.”

“Well, I suppose I’ll see you around?”

Peter nods. “Yeah, maybe.”

“Do you need a lift home?”

Peter shakes his head. “It’s not far from here, Ted will walk me.”

“Alright. Feel free to call if you ever do need anything.”

“Okay, I will. Thank you.”

Chad waves him off, smiling brightly. “I’m just glad it all worked out.”

Peter catches a glimpse of Danny over Chads shoulder and before he can start to excuse himself, Chad already stepped aside to let him through.

“Bye, Peter.”

“Bye, see you around”, Peter says, before he makes his way towards Danny.

Danny smiles, when Peter reaches him.

“Everything alright?”, he asks.

Peter nods.

“Yeah, it’s all good now.”

“Okay, then I guess I’ll see you tomorrow?”

Peter nods lightly. “Ted will walk me home now.”

“Okay.”

“We can walk you too, if you want.”

Danny waves him off. “Alice is probably going home with Bill so Deb and me are going to hang out for a bit.”

“Okay, see you in school then.”

Danny smiles. “See you in school.” He goes for a hug and Peter pulls him close. He can feel Danny press a kiss on his cheek and smiles now.

“Can’t wait to go out with you”, he quietly admits.

Danny chuckles. “How’s this weekend for you?”

“This weekend sounds perfect.”

“This weekend it is.”

“Okay.”

Danny’s eyes drop on something behind Peter and he slowly lets go of him.

“Alright, see you then.”

“See you”, Peter says, as he turns around to find out what caught Danny’s gaze.

Ted is standing there in a safe distance, pretending to look anywhere but at them.

“Okay”, Peter mumbles again, “Bye.”

Danny nods and smiles. “Bye, Pete.”

Peter goes to Ted and tugs on his arm for them to leave.

Ted smiles, as soon as they walked a few feet. 

“Can’t believe you got yourself a boyfriend while i was missing.”

“Oh, shut up.”

“Come on that was your guy wasn’t it?”

“He’s not… what do you mean?”

“Danny. The one you always go on about.”  

Peter smiles. “I guess.”

“So he is your boyfriend?”

“I think so? I mean we’ll go out. We said we’d go out after this so… yeah.”

“Cool.”

“Yeah. …Can’t believe you’ve dated Bill for seven months without telling me.”

“It was five- ...Shit, it really is seven now, isn’t it?”

“Mh-hm.”

“But I was missing for two of them so that’s hardly my fault.”

Peter smiles. “Sure.”

“I wanted to tell you, you know?”

“I know. It’s okay that you didn’t. I get it.”

“Okay.”

They walk in silence for a while, until: “You killed him, didn’t you?”

Ted frowns. “Bill?” 

“No, the thing. The monster.”

“Oh.”

“You said he’s dead, so…”

“Yeah.”

“What was it like?”

“Killing something?”

“Yes.”

Ted shrugs lightly. “I didn’t really think while I did it. I saw him hurting Bill, I panicked, I pushed the button and then he was dead.”

Peter watches him, while he fumbles with the sleeve of his dress shirt. A spark from the fire must have landed on it because there's a little burn hole right below the elbow. 

“Not eager to do it again though", Ted concludes. 

“Are you alright?”

Ted looks up and nods, gifting Peter a smile.

They arrive at the house soon after and Peter carefully opens the gate leading into the garden.

The light in the living room is on when Peter unlocks the front door and they step into the dark corridor.

Peter can hear footsteps, coming through the living room towards them. 

“Peter? You’re home late, is everything-” The light in the corridor switches on and their dad stops in his tracks.

“Hey”, Ted says.

Their dad doesn’t say anything, he just stares at Ted in a mix of surprise and disbelief. His eyebrows shoot up and he hesitantly makes a few steps towards Ted. Ted is the one who ends up closing the last distance and he pulls their dad into a hug. “Sorry, for making you worry”, Peter hears him whisper.

“Where were you?”, their dad asks, as soon as he found his voice again.

“It’s, uhm… It’s complicated”, Ted says.  

“Come… come on in, come in”, their dad fumbles out and he leads them into the living room, where they settle down and Ted and Peter try their best to explain what happened.

Their dad doesn’t really get it and in the end he settles on accepting that Hatchetfield is a weird place and at least he has his son back.

“You can stay the night, you know?”, he says, when they settle on calling it a night.

Ted shakes his head. “I promised someone else to drop by”, he says, and then eventually he leaves, after promising to come back for dinner the next day.

Chapter Text

Ted spends the night at Bills place.

Bill didn’t want him to be alone and Ted didn’t want to be alone either. Besides, Alice knows about them now, so it’s not like they need to hide anything.

She’s already asleep when Ted knocks on Bills door. Bill is in his pajamas when he opens and they quickly settle on going right to bed, even if they technically only woke up a few hours ago. Killing a god is tiring after all.

Neither of them falls asleep right away, instead they lay there and hold each other, somehow still afraid to let go, even for a moment.

Tinky is dead but who knows if there are more like him? How are they supposed to know for sure whether or not they’re safe? Besides, what is safety, truly?

So, they lay there and they hold each other close.

“Thank you”, Ted whispers against Bills shoulder after a while.

“Hm?”, Bill quietly makes.

“For saving me. And… you know. Not just leaving me there.”

Bill turns and pulls him into a kiss. He rests his head against Teds and closes his eyes for a moment, before he answers.

“Believe me when I say that it was a very selfish decision. I could barely exist without you.”

Ted smiles lightly, sad and touched at once. He pulls Bill closer, letting his hand cup the back of Bills head as he presses a kiss on his forehead.

“Do you think you’d wanna get married again?”, he asks.

“Are you proposing?”

“No, I meant someday. To me.”

“Yeah.”

“Really?”

Bill nods. “Yes, sure.”

Ted thinks for a moment, before he goes on speaking. “I never wanted to get married until I met you. I always thought that’s not me, you know? But I can’t stop thinking about it, since I had that vision on Paul’s wedding.”

Bill smiles against Teds collarbones.

“You’re not over marriage, are you?”, Ted goes on to ask.

“What do you mean?”

“Like you just got divorced last year. You’re not… You’d do it again?”

“With you? Yes. Not the part with the divorce though.”

Ted smiles.

“Okay. I’ll ask you. Someday I’ll ask you to marry me.”

“I’ll say yes.”

“I hope so.”

Bill laughs quietly and Ted grins.

“I love you”, Ted says and Bill reciprocates his words by pulling him into a kiss.

Bill wakes up to Ted gone.

It makes him panic, for a moment, then he hears voices in the kitchen.

He pushes himself out of the bed and makes his way there, to find Ted and Alice right next to the stove.

There’s a pan and one fried egg already sizzling inside while Ted explains to Alice how to crack open an egg with just one hand.

“If you can open an egg with one hand, you’re the coolest person in the room”, Bill hears him say, while he picks an egg out of the box and shows her how to hold it. She copies him, having picked up an egg herself.

Bill stops in the doorway and watches, while Alice gives it a concentrated try and nearly manages. A single piece of shell lands in the pan along with the egg but Ted smiles. “That’s fine, we can just fish it out”, he notes, after congratulating her for making it on the first try. Bill finally moves to join them in the kitchen. He places a kiss on Teds neck and another one on top of Alice’s head before he moves on to the fridge.

“Morning”, Alice says, already focused on the next egg.

Ted takes his time to look up at Bill and gift him a smile, just in time to miss it when Alice cracks the second egg perfectly without a single shell sneaking into the pan.

“Did you see that?”, Alice asks immediately.

Ted quickly looks back at the pan. “Yeah”, he lies, “You did it!” They high five, before Ted places the egg he was holding back into the box and makes his way over to Bill. He hugs him from behind and presses a kiss on his shoulder.

“I promised Alice that we’d drive her to school on the way to work, is that alright?”, he asks quietly.

Bill smiles, and nods. “Yeah”, he says, “Yeah, we can do that.”

Bill settled into his cubicle right after they arrived at CCRP, though he hasn’t gotten started on actually working yet. First because him and Ted had to answer a lot of questions, and then Ted got called into Mr. Davidsons office and Bill has been waiting for him to get back since, unable to concentrate.

Ted comes out of the office about ten minutes later, a smile on his lips. Bill shoots him a questioning look, but Ted doesn’t answer and before he can reach Bill, he passes Paul and stops at his cubicle instead.

Bill can see Ted say something. Paul answers, smiling all polite, but Ted frowns at his answer. He nods lightly, before he leaves and finally makes his way towards Bill.

Instead of coming for Bills cubicle, he rounds it and settles into the one next to Bills.

“What’s going on?”, Bill asks.

“You have a cubicle neighbor now.” Ted gifts him a smile over the plastic wall.

Bill smiles. “Really?”

“Yeah, but I’m going to have to warn you, Mr. Woodward, you can’t just stare at me all day, you’ll have to work too”, Ted teases him, while he boots up the computer.

“Oh, shut up”, Bill mumbles. “You’ll be the one not getting anything done.”

“That might be true.”

Bill smiles.

His eyes fall on Paul again, typing on his laptop, and he turns back to Ted.

“What’s with Paul?”, he asks.

“Hm?” Ted doesn’t look up, as he is currently in the process of climbing underneath his table to rearrange some cables. 

“Paul. What did he say?”

“Oh, he just… you know, threatened to murder me.”

Bill frowns. “What?”

Ted finally comes up from under the table again and looks at Bill.

“Emma’s a robot”, he says.

Bill pauses for a moment. “She’s… a robot?”, he then slowly repeats.

“Yeah, I saw it when I was in the future. So I went and warned Paul about it because honestly what the hell, right? And he said that he knows and if I tell anyone he’s going to have to kill me again.”

“Again?”

Ted shrugs. “Yeah. I mean, he was just kidding… I think.”

“Well let’s hope so. I’m not losing you again.”

Ted smiles. “You won’t get rid of me that easily.”

"Not planning on getting rid of you, love", Bill notes. 

"I'd hope so. I mean you did just jump into the past to get me back, you really are terribly in love with me." 

Bill smiles. "I suppose that secret's out."

Ted gets a bit more serious now. He leans closer to Bill over the thin wall dividing their cubicles and lowers his voice. "By the way, are you sure you're okay with the office knowing? We didn't explicitely tell anyone here yet, so if you changed your mind..." 

"I'm sure." 

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, why don't you meet me in the storage room in five minutes so I can show you how sure I am?"

A smile spreads over Teds lips. "Yeah, I think a demonstration would be nice." He checks his watch. "Sucks that I don't have a time machine office that can bring me five minutes into the future."

Bill smiles and rolls his eyes, before he gets up. "Come on, let's go. Five minutes passed."  

"Did they?" 

"Pretty sure, yeah." Bill leaves for the storage room and about ten seconds later Ted gets up to meet him there.