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The sounds of battle fell away, the air ringing with the resulting silence. Fit stood, back straight despite his injuries, clutching his scythe. He wasn’t too badly hurt, all things considered. Alligator skin was generally damage resistant, especially after almost a year without the necessary hacks to hide his hybrid traits. It was really only Fit’s arm giving him trouble now. Ramón panted nearby, eyes sharp, teeth bared the way Pac bared his own when adrenaline had him in its grasp. His beautiful baby boy sighed and turned to Fit, swinging his little sword idly.
“Home?” Ramon signed with his free hand. He preferred writing, but his hands shook violently. He wouldn’t be able to write anything legible this soon after battle. They had a couple hand signals worked out between the two of them, things that didn’t need much finger precision.
“Yeah, kid,” Fit sighed, “let’s go home. Do you want to go to bed? Or do you think you’ll be up for a bit?”
Ramón shifted his weight from leg to leg as he thought. Fit leaned back on the heels of his feet, tilting his head back to take in the blue sky as he relaxed. He should be on alert. He really should. The moment after a battle was the best time to strike. But Ramón was safe. Fit was alive. Fit could afford a minute or two to bask in the languid post-fight content.
Fit looked back down at the sound of footsteps. Ramón settled down on the ground next to him. He took out his notebook, braced it against Fit’s tail, and started writing. Fit rolled his eyes, but held his tail very still for his beautiful baby boy. What else was Ramón supposed to place his notebook against? The ground? Where it would get dirty? Fit’s tail was fine, even if it was bumpy.
Ramón lifted the notebook up towards Fit’s face. It said, im tired.
“Yeah, alright,” Fit said, “let’s go home. Do you have your warp stone?”
Ramón nodded. They teleported back to the shitshack. Ramón immediately went inside, dropping his armor with an eerily familiar exhaustion. Fit lingered on the balcony, surveying the landscape. It wasn’t Philza’s wall and Bobby’s City inching closer and the distant clamor of the Tubchunk, but it wasn’t bad. A nice, quiet place for his still-growing son. His eyes caught on a flash of blue amongst the oranges and browns and greens. A smile rose unbidden to his face.
“We’ve got company, Ramón,” Fit called into the house as he took the ladder. His left arm burned as he climbed down. He shoved away the pain, walking out to the gate to wait for his Brazilian boyfriend to arrive.
“Oi, Fit!” Pac yelled, waving as he sprinted towards him.
“Oi, Pac!” Fit called back, raising his good hand. Pac crashed into him. Fit let Pac topple him over into the dirt, clinging to Pac as he went. His head thunked against the dirt. “Excited to see me, aren’t you.”
“Yes, I’m always excited to see my American boyfriend,” Pac said cheerfully into Fit’s chest. He stood up a second later, helping Fit up off the ground. His smile turned sharp and interested as he took Fit in. “Oh, you’ve been fighting. Did you win?”
“Obviously,” Fit said, “I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t. Come on up, come on up.” He gestured towards the ladder. Climbing back up so soon after going down was a mistake. He grit his teeth against the wash of pain. He just needed to get a potion in him, then he would be alright.
The instant they arrived at the top, Pac swept Ramón up into a hug. “Ramón! Fit told me you had a fight. How was it? Did you guys do a dungeon? Did you find anything cool?”
Ramón nodded eagerly. They were at home now, so instead of needing to use Fit, he pressed his notebook up against a wall as he started writing out his response. While he did that, Pac turned to Fit.
“What’s wrong? You keep, um, flinching,” Pac said quietly, reaching out for Fit’s arm. He didn’t touch it. Instead his hand lingered a couple inches away. “Did you hurt your arm?”
“The prosthetic got wrenched out of alignment while we were fighting,” Fit admitted with a little sigh, matching his volume so Ramón wouldn’t hear, “I had to jam it back in. I was just going to wait for Ramón to sleep to fix it. Don’t need him worrying about me more than he needs to.”
“Can I remove it?” Pac asked.
Fit nodded. He trusted Pac. This wasn’t even the first time Fit had let Pac examine one of his prosthetic arms. It was just bad luck Fit and Ramón got caught by mobs while Fit wore the fancy one Ramón made him instead of the shitty one that Fit made himself. If Fit had damaged the arm Ramón gave him here, before they had access to Create materials, he would never forgive himself.
Pac undid the clasps holding the arm in place. He carefully removed it from Fit’s bicep and didn’t comment on Fit’s little grunt of pain. Fit rolled his shoulder at the sudden lack of weight. Pac inspected the prosthetic – he would understand how it worked better than Fit would be able to.
Fit rolled down the glove that covered his stump with a little hiss that made Ramón pause in his writing just long enough to glance back for any danger. The skin beneath the glove was red and irritated – the scaled skin and glove both had torn in one area. Fit rolled the glove back up and pretended that leaving his arm off didn’t make dread trickle down his spine. If he had been wearing his shitty prosthetic this would never have happened.
Not that Fit wasn’t grateful for the arm Ramón made. It was a good arm; Fit could hold stuff other than totems with it, could bend his elbow and do fancy things like hold Ramón’s small hand without worrying too much about crushing it. The thing was just that it was heavy. It weighed down Fit’s shoulders and fucked with his balance. He tried not to wear it if he knew he would be fighting, and even then he tried to stick to ranged attacks – like his old dumpster diver. He never thought he’d miss a potato canon so badly.
“I don’t think you broke it,” Pac said, hugging the arm to his chest as he looked up at Fit. “Let’s put Ramón to bed. I can take a closer look afterward.”
“No, no, I’ve got him,” Fit said. Ramón gave Pac the entire notebook and smiled at Fit. “Ready for bed, Ramón? I’ll sing your lullaby. Will you be up tomorrow? Or do you think you’ll need the extra sleep after that fight?”
“Sleep,” Ramón signed, since Pac held his notebook. “Next next.”
“Day after tomorrow, got it,” Fit said. Ramón nodded. He stepped around Fit to hug Pac tightly.
Pac immediately hugged Ramón again, squeezing tightly and planting a kiss right in the center of his forehead. Ramón didn’t even pretend to be grossed out by the affection. His cheeks went red and he smiled shyly at Pac. “Good night, Ramón! If you wake up, I’ll be around for a couple hours with Richarlyson probably. And Mike is awake. So if you wake up, you can come join us, ok? We’re just going to be doing quests for the eggs.”
Ramón nodded and stepped into his house. Fit sang him to sleep. Then he stopped and looked at Ramón. At his beautiful baby boy. The best thing that had ever happened to him – though Pac was a close second, of course.
Then Fit headed outside. Pac sat on the floor, the arm’s armor plating open and parts of it resting on the wooden planks. The setting sun lit streaks of gold through his black and blue hair. Fit sat beside him. Pac offered him a potion bottle without looking up. Fit took it, uncorked it with his teeth, and chugged half.
“Thanks,” Fit said. He took off the glove and started to pour the rest directly on the irritated skin. He bit back a hiss of pain.
“Do you want me to do it?” Pac offered. He put down the chunk of Fit’s arm he was holding.
Fit almost said no, but. . . but it was Pac. Fit offered him the potion. Pac wiggled closer, poured the potion onto his hands, and started gently massaging it into Fit’s scaled arm.
Fit trusted people, sure, he trusted Philza and Mike and so on and so forth, but not with this. Not with this ancient war injury. It was one thing to trust someone with his back. It was another entirely to trust someone with his arm.
Pac hummed to himself as he worked, some jaunty tune Fit half-recognized from the Brazilian songs Pac e Mike had recommended to him. Fit slowly relaxed.
Fit had seen Pac kill things. He’d seen Pac on the warpath, he’d seen Pac covered in blood and gore. He’d seen Pac’s muscles strain as he carried building materials around the Murder Mystery Arena, he’d seen Pac literally move mountains. It almost hurt how gentle he was as he put Fit back together. Each touch of his fingers was white-hot against Fit’s skin. The potion went into effect, easing away the sharp pain in his shoulder, sewing shut the various cuts and scrapes he’d gotten in the fight.
He was sure if he looked at his arm, the angry red beneath his scales would have faded. He was also sure that Pac’s fingers were no longer slathered in the health potion. Fit didn’t say anything about it. If Pac wanted to keep his hands on Fit for a little longer, who was Fit to deny him?
This was probably what it felt like to be one of Pac’s buildings, Fit thought nonsensically, this must be what his axe felt like when he held it.
“That looks a little better,” Pac said, “you probably shouldn’t – shouldn’t put your arm back on for a bit. The potions help with healing, but it still needs time, you know?”
“Right,” Fit said. He made himself open his eyes. The sun was long gone, replaced by the silvery light of the moon. How long had they been sitting there?
“I usually have to take a couple days when I hurt my leg,” Pac said, gesturing to his own prosthetic, “even if I take a potion and it heals.” Fit took him in; the blue streaks in his hair, his relaxed posture, his wide smile and thick eyebrows and brown eyes.
Then Fit remembered he could kiss Pac.
He leaned over and did just that. Pac grinned into his mouth, immediately responding. Fit didn’t know what to do with his left arm; he placed it on Pac’s shoulder and left it there. His other hand came up and tangled in Pac’s hair. Pac hummed into the kiss, pushing into Fit’s space, kissing him and kissing him until Fit’s back was flat to the floor. Then Pac leaned away, licking his lips attractively.
Fit’s heart burned in his chest. He didn’t let Pac go too far. He tugged Pac back down for another kiss, and then another, and then another, letting the stress of the day fall away.