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There were 1356 photos and 35 videos in Pac's comm.
Fit knows the numbers by heart now. Had read and reread the little grey numbers beneath the albums for what felt like hours before finally clicking into them.
1356 photos and 35 videos archiving a future Fit didn't know and had a hard time believing even with all the details Pac and Mike had given him. A future where he was out of 2b2t, where he had friends, where he had a son, where he was safe.
A future with Pac: his boyf- his-.
His basemate. Roommate. Whatever.
Even in the solitude of his own mind he flinched away before he could actually say it, a tremor of fear shaking through his body at the silent sound of it bouncing around between his ears. His eyes flicked back up to his room from where he sat with his back to the wall, taking in the tightly drawn blinds, the firmly locked door, even the darkened lights. He had gone through the motions of locking down the room on auto pilot, Pac's comm burning a hole through his front pocket. Fit couldn't quite believe that he had actually asked Pac to give it to him, much less that the other man actually had given it, and for nothing more than Fits word to give it back in three days, sealed with a pinky promise.
He had spent the entire ride back to base berating himself for how stupid he had been to ask for it, how weak and transparent he was around Pac. Nothing at all like the veteran leader that he was supposed to be. He had survived years in the deadliest server in the world, had killed and maimed with glee, had gone days without food or water, and somehow all it took was a few minutes with Pac to reduce him to a bumbling idiot who couldn't deny himself the simplest of temptations. The walls of a two decade strong keep crumbling pathetically in the wake of a pretty smile and warm black eyes.
He just. He just had to see it.
He just had to see the future that Pac and Mike told him about, that they were so desperate to return to. Had to see this place that sounded so impossible to a poor chump who had been stranded in a wasteland hell his whole life.
He had to see what he was like. The other Fit, that Pac had been and still was so desperate to find. The him that had lived to 34, that had a son, that was safe, that had a boyf- that had Pac. Someone who was good enough to warrant all the effort Pac and Mike had gone through to try and find him.
Fit almost expected it all to be some hilarious mix up when he finally clicked into the photo album, that the two time travelers had got the wrong guy and he'd be met with a face that wasn't his own when he finally looked at the photos. Some part of him is still clinging to the hope that this whole future thing was some bizarre ploy.
That wasn't... far off from what he found.
The first few photos meant nothing to him, strangers and places he had never seen before, all smiling and laughing. There were a few selfies of Pac or Mike, making silly faces at the camera that had gotten Fit to crack a smile despite the dread and anticipation that was thrumming through him like a live wire. He almost swiped past the first picture that actually had himself in it, in the end it was only the clothes that made him realize it was actually his face that was laughing along to something a blond man with dark wings next to him was saying. The picture was taken from a slight distance away, the rubble of something metal littering the ground around the two men that the camera was focused on. Fit and the blond man seemed to be unaware of its presence as they joked with each other.
Apparently Fit had somehow been able to survive to 34, but at the cost of his hair. It was unexpected enough to startle a laugh out of him, Pac and Mike hadn't mentioned this little detail when they talked about the future. There was a large burn scar on the left side of his head that reached from the back of his ear to the back of his head and out of sight. Fit touched the area on his own head lightly, wondering what could have happened to give him that.
The next thing that caught his eye was the arm.
It was a dull silver, shaped to match the hard lines of muscle in his other arm. The metal of it disappeared under the sleeve of his t-shirt and Fit wondered what his shoulder looked like under there. How thick and gnarled was the scar tissue that attached to the metal; how much of it was beyond saving and had to be cut away to be replaced; how badly was he hurt? Fit wasn't a stranger to prosthetics, plenty of people had them on 2b2t, it was inevitable with how dangerous the world was, but it was still jarring to see himself with one. And it was definitely a 2b2t prosthetic, while Pac's leg was a sleek black blade, this was a dull, slightly dented metal arm with a utilitarian, bulky design that spoke of something that was made because it was needed now and didn't need to be pretty. In a way they matched, in a way they couldn't look more different. Fit just hoped he did it to himself, took the other guy down with him.
There were more photos like that for a time. Photos taken of him from a distance, sometimes he looked at the camera with a smile and a wave, sometimes taken seemingly without his knowledge. In some of them a kid - that Fit assumed was his supposed son Ramón - could be seen hanging around Fit. He couldn't look at those pictures for very long. The sight of this little half dragon, no taller than his waist, looking up at him or holding onto his pant leg like Fit was someone safe or worthy of being a role model made a queasy feeling of guilt and unease stick in the back of his throat. Poor kid. Poor, stupid, unlucky kid to be stuck with someone like him.
Fit couldn't tell when the shift started to happen, when more and more of the camera roll started to get taken up by his future self's face next to Pac's, but he could tell you that for every inch of distance between the two his heart picked up in response. Some awful voyeuristic mix of fear and excitement took hold of him as he swiped, knowing he was watching their progression towards a relationship that seemed just as dangerous as it was impossible to him.
Finally he came across a set of photos that made him pause. It was a collection of five, all taken at the same time, of just future Fit and Pac. They were sitting in the grass somewhere, under the shade of a tree. It was such a domestic, simple scene, like a calm moment that had happened naturally. Future Fit had a content, easy smile on his face, his shoulders relaxed where he lay in the grass, his eyes were bright and happy where they gazed at Pac. Fit almost couldn't recognize himself as he stared at the pictures, this happy stranger that shared his face, and somewhere deep in his gut a slow drip line of jealousy was starting.
The first three photos of the set were just different angles of them laying on that perfectly green grass, either smiling or laughing at the camera and each other, but the fourth and fifth sent that slow drip line into a torrent inside of him. The fourth was a picture of Pac leaning over to kiss future Fit on the cheek, the man obviously caught off guard and shocked at the display of affection with his face bright red and wide eyed. There was a hint of panic in that expression, a hint of automatic guardedness, that made future Fit look more familiar to him than any of the other photos of him covered in monster blood. The fifth photo shot bloody holes through that familiarity until it was entirely unrecognizable. The fifth photo was blurry, like Pac couldn’t quite hold the camera steady where he was crushed into future Fits chest in a hug, laughing into his chest like he felt safe in the other man's embrace. Fit himself had buried his face in Pac’s soft looking black hair, but the crinkle that showed at the corner of his eye and around his mouth made it clear that he was smiling just as wide beneath the still bright red blush.
Fit exited out of the album and turned off the comm for good measure, only to immediately turn it back on again and type in Pac’s code. Breathing heavy in a mix of panic, jealousy, and something else Fit didn’t allow himself to think about, his finger hovered over the photo album that hid those damn pictures. He didn’t need to click on it to see them though, they played through his head like a taunting slideshow, burning themselves into the backs of his eyelids whenever he blinked. His stomach turned and his throat was dry. Future Fit’s smiling face stared him down in his own mind.
It wasn’t fair.
It wasn’t fucking fair. None of this. Future Fit didn’t get to just have that. All that. Happiness; love; not having to hide; a life without fear or hurt. And Pac didn’t get to just come crashing into his life so long before he became the man Pac was actually looking for and give him such tantalizing tastes of it all. Only to rip it all away from him and return to someone who he had a hard time believing was actually the same person. And Fit didn’t even get to remember the scraps he was being given. Didn’t get to remember the way it felt to finally meet someone like him, to finally feel like he had someone who wouldn’t kill him when they got a glimpse of the sick broken part of him because they were sick in just the same way. It felt like relief under all the fear. It felt like hope.
It was a dangerous feeling; hope. Fit wasn't stupid, he knew that people had caught on to his interest in Pac. Thankfully most had written it off as the academic curiosity of a historian towards an odd new spawn and his insane weapons and supposed dupe, but Fit knew that he had to be careful to keep people from catching on to the true depths of his interest. Because if they even got a hint that Fit was disgusting and sick like he was, it would all be over for him, the meagre scrapes of safety and power he had managed to claw together would be pulverized under their heels as they hunted him down and left him hanging bloody against the walls of the base he had helped create. Hell, they might even burn the whole base down once they strung him up on it, not wanting anything tainted by his hand to survive. This hope, that flicked in his chest like a weak flame falling in the void, just made him more careless, more likely to slip up and do something that no one would ever forgive him for. He had to run, had to rip himself away from Pac, from where he had started to sew his heart to the man's sleeve. He had to bleed himself of this addiction. He should throw the whole damn comm out the window of his tower, let it crack and break against the stones.
But then, on the other hand, Fit couldn’t bring himself to give this up. He tightened his grip on the comm in his hand at the idea. He couldn’t. He couldn’t. Pac, and to a lesser extent, Mike were like an oasis in a desert and he was a man dying of thirst. He didn’t want to turn away from the two time travelers, let them disappear back to where they came from and take that oasis with them, leaving him alone and clinging to life in an unkind wasteland once again.
A drop of water landed on his thumb where it was still hovering over the photo album, the screen now going dark at the lack of activity. Fit tapped down subconsciously to reawaken it and accidentally opened the photo album again, displaying the picture that had sent him on this spiral in the first place. That wasn’t what he was focused on now though - no - his eyes were locked on the small droplet of water balanced on his thumb. Numbly, he reached up to his face, dragging his hand underneath his right eye.
A single trail of moisture, left in the wake of a single tear squeezed out of tightly closed eyes.
Fit dropped his hand, not really thinking about anything, not really feeling anything. Not letting himself feel anything, and swiped to the next picture; 143 down, 1213 to go. Nothing to do but keep going. Like a march to the gallows, like every walk back to base from a fight gone bad, like every single day of his goddamn sorry life.
Fit just hoped there would still be something left when Pac came to get his comm in two days, though whether he was talking about himself or the comm, he didn’t truly know.