Work Text:
1924.
Peter thinks too much.
He thinks so much the thoughts pile up against his skull, get stuck there, crash into each other, refuse to budge. Lock him into place, sit just behind his teeth, drilling holes down into his tongue.
He thinks of can-bes - will-bes, perhaps, the future staring him down. He thinks too much of will-not-bes, nothings, nots. He thinks a lot about he-wishes-could-bes, and those sting, because they won’t, they can't, but he—
He wishes anyway.
But… what he can have, what he wants, and what he needs do not necessarily overlap.
They do not even often overlap, unfortunately.
…And he's been thinking of himself as Peter lately. Which is a good example of that, unfortunately. What he wants and what he has. You'd think a man could have his own name. You'd think wrong.
But hell. There's no use in dwelling on spiderwebbing futures that he has no business thinking and dwelling on. He’ll only make himself miserable, and he does that often enough anyway.
But…
He is anyway. Dwelling.
He should be happy with Pete, really. It's at least unique. At home whenever mom says Peter it's a tossup to if she means their father, or Peter his brother. At least he's not part of that roulette spin.
But Ignatius calls him Peter-with-an-R,
And Peter likes his name on Ignatius’s tongue.
It's his for once, when Ignatius says it. He's his own, for once, when Ignatius looks at him.
Ignatius….
Speaking of him. Peter’s laying on Ignatius’s slightly too-hard mattress, legs bare and slightly chilled against night air. Ignatius has stolen the blankets again, as he is apt to. He twists in circles all night, Ignatius. Pinwheels the fabric around his legs to such a degree it is both miraculous the man wakes up having not cut off all blood to his feet in the night, and entirely improbable to requisition back blankets without being kicked in the process.
Peter’s not sleeping yet anyway. Perhaps when the insomnia lets him he’ll attempt to retrieve them.. But not yet.
The curtains are open, across the room, the moon hangs above the window line, but only just, and as he shifts his head, its pale white glow burrows into his eyes. He would go close the curtains, but… it is at least something to look at, the moon betwist tree branches.
Ignatius is a fixture in futures nonexistent. The he-wishes-could-bes. In so many he-wishes-could-bes.
Peter (his brother Peter, not him Peter) married Mary. Mary Walter. And Mary Walter has naturally taken his brother's name.
Mary Walter sleeps in his brother's bed.
Mary Walter has a new Walter inside her, currently, and Peter, his brother Peter will soon be a father, and—
And Mary went from Mickelson to Walter.
Mary Walter nee Mickelson.
And,
Well,
Peter Becile is not a name he will ever have.
(It is perhaps a name he wishes he could have.)
Can-bes, will-not-bes, he-wishes-could-bes.
Peter Becile
It has a ring to it.
He writes it, sometimes, on journal paper. Practices the loops in the B, the E into C. Becile is fun to write— more swooping than Walter. Ignatius caught him once, writing Peter Becile down into line after line, had stolen the paper from beneath him as Peter squawked up at him for his notebook back, Ignatius held it just out of reach laughing up at it, (he's so damnably tall, Ignatius) before turning towards him, turning around, and he'd—
Ignatius had been smiling.
Ignatius had taken his chin, then, pulled him into a kiss that turned quickly into Ignatius painting bruises with his lips down his jaw, turned to Ignatius reaching for his pants buttons, and then they—
Well,
Peter loves him.
Peter has maybe always loved him. Since the moment Ignatius called him Peter.
It would be poetry to call what is between them making love. He feels rather more like Ignatius is coining the concept of love with how much noise he can wring out of Peter's lungs these days.
But even so.
That was earlier, now, by a factor of hours, and Peter has not fallen asleep. Even if he thought, after all that he might be tired enough to.
Ignatius is asleep now, probably. Probably at least. Presumably asleep.
Peter can't truly entirely tell with him. Ignatius tosses and turns all night long. Truly a somewhat comical amount, frankly. Hence the blanket dilemma.
Peter himself just doesn't sleep.
And yes, Ignatius’s inability to lay still for longer than perhaps twenty minutes doesn't particularly help the insomnia. Oftentimes it leads to him nearly finally drifting off, only for Ignatius to suddenly kick him in the shin with his frankly demonically sharp toenails. But, well, nothing has ever helped the insomnia.
At least here he isn’t left entirely alone with his thoughts all night.
Like he is at home.
Well— no, that's a cruel way of framing it. Peter (The Second, not him,) if he’s too upset at night will still sit with him, but Mary is in fact, rather very pregnant, and she would perhaps finally snap and stab him if he woke her up.
And getting Peter-his-brother-Peter to stay with him usually involves waking her up. No matter how quiet he tries to be.
He knows Mary is sick of him. But he’s been sick of her since the second letter Peter mentioned her in in 1917. So he’s only returning the favor, honestly.
At home, at least, he can work himself to a stupor, or pace the demons out of his brain to make himself sleep.
Here, well. Here Ignatius always tempts him to bed somehow, and slipping out of bed to work with Ignatius asleep beside him seems…
Ludicrous, perhaps.
Laying sleepless is perhaps boring, though.
Peter would much rather Ignatius be at least slightly awake for conversation.
Or to hold him.
Or something.
…He feels jittery, maybe, laying here, unheld.
Isn't that silly? Being irritated that Ignatius isn't holding him while he is asleep. He truly is a lost cause.
Peter —his Peter, his brother— once while he was talking of Ignatius asked him to pause, a moment, while he went to fetch a mirror. He had, confused until Peter returned, only to hold up the mirror only to ask if he himself looks so besotted when he talks of Mary.
He had wanted to break the mirror.
Peter had only laughed at him.
…but he doubts his brother is wrong, truly, when he would in a heartbeat marry Ignatius. If it were possible.
Peter (Again, his brother— he wishes, he wishes virulently he could just take Becile and be done with it, Peter W, Peter B, it would simplify everything, every conversation to ever happen) had called Ignatius his lover, soon after, in that conversation and that's—
Lover is a very loud word.
And it is, perhaps, a very correct word, too.
As dread as it is to say aloud. Lover is... A kind word for it. For them. For what they are.
Ignatius is his affair, his paramour, his…Well, he’s a sodomite, an invert, a homosexual if you want a politer word for it all, lover is a far too kind word for what he is.
Peter (His brother, Peter) says it all the same, freely, calls Ignatius his lover, as if there was anything polite about it all.
…And there he goes again.
Thinking too much.
This is why he still can't sleep. This is why he never sleeps. He gets too caught up and away with his thoughts to make it there.
He curls his fingers through his hair, curls over his forearms, draws his knees to his chest.
He..
What does he even want?
Sleep will only bring more nightmares. His limbs are too heavy to pace with. And Ignatius is still beside him.
He..
He would rather like some attention, perhaps.
“‘Natius?” Peter says, dimly, softly in the dark, rolling towards him in the bed, away from the window, “Are you awake?”
And to his surprise, Ignatius hums, quietly, sort of vaguely says something Peter can't quite parse with how mumbled it is.
“....I'm restless ” Peter says, perhaps a little too loudly for how heavy the night is, “I— are you..?”
Ignatius’s eyes flicker open, green in the dark, slightly brighter in ambient reflection than they should be, as Ignatius looks across at him.
“...Peter,” He mumbles on the R a bit, and Peter nearly feels guilty for waking him, but only nearly. “If I lit the lamp, Peter, to look at the time, would I kick you to the spare room?”
Which is perhaps a fair point.
He doesn't know how early it is, but it feels well past midnight.
Instead of answering, Peter shifts across the mattress, so he's closer, reaches at Ignatius’s arm.
“I can't sleep.” He admits, there are plenty of things that keep him up at all hours. Ignatius knows plenty of them.
Tonight it's a little less blood and bullets and broken robots than usual, though.
Tonight he is just…
He's… just restless.
Ignatius exhales, beside him, a lot tired, a little annoyed.
“You never do sleep, Peter,” Ignatius mumbles, though he’s urging Peter closer, guiding him to his chest, “Not once have I known you to lay down and sleep in a straightforward manner, always walking circles around closing your eyes.”
He tucks Peter's head under his chin, kicks the blankets out of his feet before dragging the blankets atop of both of them.
“What will I ever do with you?” Ignatius purrs into his hair.
Peter starts to say something, or starts to formulate a response grander than ‘I do sleep, you wretched man,’ but Ignatius draws him closer, buries a collection of kisses somewhere beyond his hairline.
And Peter melts.
“And is this better?” Ignatius asks, and he’s so very tired, Peter can tell, as Ignatius's head falls sideways to the pillow, “Are you attended to now, Mr. Walter?”
He smells a bit like electricity, a bit like smoke, a lot like him.
“Yes.” Peter says into his neck, and Ignatius’s kisses taper off as Peter settles against him.
Ignatius squeezes him.
“You are ridiculous.” Ignatius mumbles, though his hands curl around Peter's back, “Keeping me up at all hours. I have business to attend to, and… work, presumably, in the morning, Peter, and yet you insist yourself upon me,”
He presses his face into Ignatius’s chest. Ignatius curls around him.
“You have the poorest survival skills I can imagine,” Ignatius continues, pausing only to press another wayward kiss to his temple, “Can't sleep without me. You'd simply… I don't know, Peter, shrivel up and die, and I can't be having that. I'm much too fond of you.”
Maybe he can get a little sleep.
“I love you.” Peter says, and it's far from the first time he’s said it, but he hears Ignatius laugh, fond, low in his chest.
“Go to sleep, Peter.”
Maybe, he..
Ignatius is warm. The blankets are heavy.
He’s always slept better when not alone.
“...Don’t kick me in the dick again while you thrash, Ignatius,” Peter mutters, “I won’t forgive you a second time.”
“It was one time.” Ignatius mutters into his hair.
“It was twice.”
“The first one hardly counted.” Ignatius’s hands curl into the fabric of his nightgown, holding him close.
“Yes. But thrice is a pattern.” Peter points out.
“You are dreadful, Peter Walter. Waking me up only to complain of my charity of holding you. I am a generous man, you know,”
“Generous with the gouges you leave in my shins kicking the blankets to and fro.” He mumbles.
“I will turn you out to the cold.”
“You will not.” Peter argues, pulling away from him an inch, to glance up at his face.
Ignatius, the wretch, is grinning at him, doubly so as pulls the blankets off of them, and he is terrible. Peter reaches backwards for the quilt, but Ignatius has flung it out the other way, out of easy reach, the petulant bastard.
“Ignatius.”
“Not very tended to now, are we, Peter?” Ignatius raises an eyebrow, in the dark, and Peter squints at him.
“I was comfortable.”
“Yes well, so was I, before you woke me up, darling,”
Peter just turns his face back down and into Ignatius’s chest.
“Are we going to be nice now?” Ignatius’ fingers card through his hair, and—
He loves him.
He loves him.
“I thought you were generous.” Peter complains, “Let's revisit charity for me?”
“Are we being nice now?”
“I’m cold.” Peter complains, though he’s not actually, only slightly, but Ignatius sighs, dramatic, weary and played up as he swings the blankets back over the both of them.
“You’re quite lucky I am generous, Peter, elsewise we’d be at an impasse."
“You’re just petty.” Peter mumbles, eyes tired, for once.
“You’re just tired, Peter,”
And maybe he is.
He didn’t particularly sleep last night, either.
Ignatius wraps them both up, tucks the blankets under both their feet, holds him.
Holds him.
“....I love you too, Peter.” Ignatius says, soft, “More than anything.”
Peter squeezes him back.
“Forever, Peter, I love you.”
He knows.
He knows.