Chapter Text
Of course he wouldn’t know, his brain is the size of a baby apple, but I try asking him anyway.
“Are you aware of the multiverse theory?” I look up at the ginger’s many freckles and try to recount every type of constellation I have found on them. Pico looks down with a confused look on his expression. We’re on the couch, somewhat. I lay on the floor with a pillow to rest my stiff neck, feet on the couch, assuming a shrimp position. Between my legs are Pico’s, stuck in a tight clasp I refuse to let him out of. He slumps down on the couch, blankly staring at the ceiling, or so he wants me to think. His eyes are stuck in a state of perpetual expressionlessness–God is that even a real word or am I starting to stoop to Pico’s level of using the urban dictionary–a white void the cornea seemingly keeps from tearing into our world. I do not need to be as smart as I am to know that no matter how hard that lazy bastard tries, I can feel the way he stares at me from the edge of his periphery. I furrow my brows and can’t stop the warmth spreading in my cheeks.
“You mean, like, the comics? The multiverse sagas everyone and their mom is shitting out?” God, what an idiot I have for a boyfriend. He’s dead serious, too. His expression doesn’t change when bewilderment plasters my face. Somehow it makes me blush even harder, a blue hue contrasting my strange purple skin. How can he be so, so cute when he’s dumb?! Pico raises a brow at me. Whatever cosmic forces that live within the universe, kill me now and save me from this embarrassment. Pico grins. I hate it when he grins. “You’re looking a little blue in the face, doc.” Pico teases. Well, I can’t help but smile at that. “Doc” refers to my continued studies in medicine to control my own abilities. That isn’t to say I am perfectly capable of controlling them, but… better be safe than not sorry, sorry than safe, what the hell is the phrase Darnell needs to hear in his life more often?
“Way off the mark. Once again your intelligence knows no bounds.” I scoff, rubbing in my superior intellect, as usual. It feels good to be the one with the pants on in the relationship, until Pico yanks them off, that is. With great effort I kick at his tiny little brain inside his head. Pico tries to kick me in the stomach in return, but he’s gotten far too predictable with his methods of attack. I easily anticipate this and stop his foot mid-stomp with my telekinesis.
“That’s cheating.” Pico grumbles.
“Since when were there rules?” I shoot back. We laugh it off. His laugh is contagious. His soul burns with a great blazing fire when he lets out his hearty laughs and shakes off the cold-blooded persona he dawns for his targets. I can feel it brightening up the space around us, warming my very skin and the blood running underneath. He’s gorgeous as is, but when he’s happy? Dare I say I’m helpless when he fills the room with an ecstatic, encompassing aura of joy. I levitate my glasses off my face and onto the glass table behind me to keep Pico from breaking my sixth pair. “As I was saying. The multiverse theory is an idea proposed by Hugh Everett the Third. It wasn’t actually called that until modern day. It’s normally seen as the many worlds interpretation, popularized by Bryce DeWitt in the 70s. Back to Everett. His wonderful thesis, I would love to read it to you someday-”
“Pass.”
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that. His thesis in 1957 at Princeton proposed the idea of quantum mechanics factoring into events that happen in our world. For every event that happens, it is not the only outcome. If another outcome was possible, there likely exists a different world where it occurred, because every possible quantum outcome is realized. The measurements of quantum outcomes are always correct, but we only see one result as opposed to many results. Hence the multiverse. Every choice creates a branch that splits in multiple directions. There might be a world out there where I’m green instead of purple.”
“Is there one where the incident never happened? One where Cassandra never shot up the school?” My pointy ears perk up at Pico’s question. I should’ve expected it, but nonetheless I did not anticipate it. I let go of Pico’s legs to crawl onto the couch and sit beside him. He’s still staring at the pillow on the ground, as if I never left that spot, frozen in time. I gently touch his shoulder; he flinches, then grabs it with one of his scarred hands and gives it a tight squeeze.
“I’m sure there is, yes. Anything is possible in quantum mechanics.” I say this softly, treading this uneasy ground carefully. We both can never forget. I shut my eyes each night and remember the way he held me amidst the lifeless bodies. “Don’t go saying that’s your fault.” I tell him, reciting the words he told me when he spared my life, freeing me from Cassandra’s manipulation. I never saw her again. She better pray I never do, if she isn’t busy walking the seventh layer of hell.
“I wasn’t, I was just thinking.” Pico turns to me. “After everything happened and I broke up with Boyfriend, I came to you. I got together with him ‘cause I needed someone who knew what I’d been through. It led me back to you after years of drifting apart. Do you think, if it didn’t happen, we wouldn’t be together?”
“What are you saying, Pico?” I knew what he was saying, but I allowed him the chance to explain himself.
“Say your theory is true. Would we never be together if I didn’t break up with BF and come to you? If I never had a reason to date BF in the first place?” Pico gags on his words. Poison laces each toxic word he’s forced to spit out. “Without the shooting, where the hell would we even be?” I shake my head immediately. No, I won’t dance with these horrible thoughts.
“I’d follow you in every universe, Pico. No matter what. Your trauma doesn’t dictate who you are or what you will be. The same can be said for the scars I’ve never had fully heal, inside and out. Pico, Pico.” I cup his cheeks. I lie in his lap and plant a kiss on his forehead, and then another, and then another. I move my expertly done kisses to his cheeks, decorating his cheeks with lipstick, drawing the constellations on his face with a marker of love. “We’re meant to be.”
“You think so?” Pico whispers, perhaps afraid of a world more miserable than ours somehow eavesdropping on the conversation.
“I cannot be certain. We will never know our own identities and fates beyond the world we live in. I can guarantee you this, though. I am a lamp-”
“You’re a lamp now? Need me to screw in a bulb with my-?”
“Shh! Shhh! Let me finish, jerk!” I clear my throat to hide my beaming smile, illuminated by his own. “I’m a lamp, and you’re my light. Where I go, you follow. I will lift you up so you can shine, and in turn you do the same for me. We are bound to be together. I can feel it.” I jab a finger at his heart. I hear the way it reaches out to me in excitement. “In here.”
“Oh. Shit that’s- that’s actually really sweet, man.” Pico takes a long, deep, steady exhale. I allow him to scoop me up as he lies with his back on the couch, hugging me against his chest. I purr in his grasp while he plays with my hair. We don’t stop gazing longingly at each other, imaging worlds upon worlds of lives we must’ve already had with each other. I can picture it, how bright we shine together. “Wanna play, ‘Guess what the other Als and Picos are like?’”