Work Text:
It’s Thursday evening again.
Chosen casts a glance at the clock and then checks the coffee. It’s been percolating for a while now, so it’s nice and black.
Chosen gets two sturdy, plain mugs out of the cupboard and puts them on the scarred wooden table. Usually there are three mugs, but Orange is out of town tonight with Lime and the kids, visiting Lime’s parents. So tonight, there will be only two.
Once, that would have made Chosen feel panicked. Then, later, he would have felt grimly resigned. Now he feels…accustomed. It is a restful feeling.
Chosen sits down at the table, arms folded, to wait.
The apartment is quiet, the humming of the appliances barely a whisper. Outside, the sun sets in a blossom of flame, and the windows are open to let in the last rays of falling sunlight that pierce the grayness of the shadowed apartment. A soft breeze whispers through the sky. The curtains sway at its touch.
Light glints off the picture frame on the wall. It had taken…a while for him to put it up. He’d been scared that it would hurt too much. But Orange had encouraged him. And now…seeing it up feels good. It hurts to remember, but it also helps to remember.
So many memories are bad. But not all of them.
The sun’s dying heart paints the sky with streaks of crimson and orange and gold. Chosen watches as its light is slowly swallowed up by the towering skyscrapers and the distant horizon. Finally, when the last sunlit ember flickers out, he gets up to draw the curtains.
The picture is crooked. Perhaps it had been blown askew by a draft. Chosen rights it and rests a gentle finger on Dark’s grinning face before he goes to turn on the lights.
A warm glow bathes the apartment now, filling every nook and cranny and banishing the shadows. Chosen returns to his post and checks the clock.
He cocks an eyebrow. His visitor is late. That’s unusual.
Finally, several minutes later, Chosen’s keen ears detect a creak on the stairs. He stiffens, tensing, before he recognizes the light tread of his visitor.
There’s a rap at the door. Chosen opens it.
Vic and Chosen look each other in the eyes. They exchange a nod.
The greeting is terse, and silent. But it’s also important. The first few years they did this, both Chosen and Vic spent the entirety of their visits locked in an intense staring contest with whatever inanimate object was most convenient. Now they can maintain eye contact.
They’re improving.
Chosen opens the door further and gestures Vic inside.
Vic cocks an eye at the table. Two mugs.
“No Orange tonight?”
Chosen shakes his head. “He’s out of town with Lime and the kids.”
Vic snaps his fingers. “Ah, right. Forgot.”
Chosen goes to grab the coffeepot, and when he returns, Vic is sitting at the table. A short time later, they’re both sitting, mugs of strong black coffee cradled in their hands.
They sit like that for a while, in silence. Sometimes they spend their whole visits like that, just drinking coffee in the quiet.
Sometimes, they listen to music. Classical pieces, usually, as they provide a safe neutral ground. While Chosen’s and Vic’s tastes in music are actually very similar, most of their favorite songs are…a little too on the nose to listen to. Not in each other’s company.
Sometimes, they actually talk. They’ve discovered that Vic’s inventions are a good topic. Vic’s passion for his work is strong enough that it bleeds through even the stiff phrases and awkward pauses, and Chosen has heard enough of Dark’s rants to be able to nod intelligently along when Vic touches upon the intricacies of wiring or coding or whatever. Chosen doesn’t mention that to Vic, though. Dark…Dark is not a good subject to talk about with Vic.
Chosen’s honestly not sure if he will ever be.
Sometimes Vic mentions Mitsi or Mercy, random, everyday pieces of information—like Mercy lost a tooth, or Mitsi decided to plant angelique tulips in the backyard. Sometimes Chosen talks about Orange, sharing what he can remember of what Orange was like before Vic met him.
Sometimes, very rarely, one of them will have a particularly bad day. A day where the PC traps them again, even if only in their minds. A day where the phantom image of a cursor hangs heavy on their memories, a cursor that nobody but them remembers—because nobody else but them knew, really. Because the cursor has changed now, and nobody else has the experience of what it used to be like, but they do.
And that means that they understand each other—even if just a little bit—in a way no one else does.
They don’t really talk about it, when that happens. A few clipped sentences at most. But they know. And they understand.
They’ve both been there. Noogai3 has broken them both.
They’re not easy, these get-togethers. Conversation is never easy, hard to maintain and even harder to initiate. It’s easiest when Orange is there to initiate it for them—he can keep up a steady flow of words for minutes on end, drawing Vic into the conversation and even getting Chosen to offer some remarks.
When Orange was still living with Chosen, he was a constant fixture. He was the one who got them through their appointments, back when all Chosen and Vic could do was grip their mugs tensely and eye the exits, prepared at any moment to throw their mugs and bolt. They’re past that now, and Orange’s presence has become less frequent as the demands of a wife and children take up more of his time. As it should be.
Even Vic and Chosen can’t always make it to the rendezvous—sometimes Chosen has to work unexpectedly, sometimes something comes up and Vic is needed at home or work. But Vic and Chosen both try hard to be here, at Chosen’s apartment, every Thursday night. Even when all they can do is sip their coffee in tense silence. They both know that this is something that they need to do.
Chosen and victim…won’t ever be completely fine. Not really.
They still have nightmares, occasionally. Sometimes Chosen looks at Vic and feels like he can’t breathe, invisible noose tightening around his throat. Sometimes Vic looks at Chosen and only sees a fireball coming to destroy everything he loves most.
Sometimes, Vic still tugs at his sleeves even though they can’t go any lower, and Chosen occasionally rubs his ankle even though there isn’t a manacle there anymore.
It’s hard to move past it all. And they won’t ever be wholly rid of their pasts, or their trauma, or the horrible things that they have both done and borne. None of that can ever be truly erased.
But.
They made a choice. To put that all behind. To move forward. To, if not forget, at least try to forgive.
Forgiveness has been slow. Healing has been long.
It has been a gradual process, years in the making.
But…they keep at it.
Because they know it makes Orange happy. Because Vic knows Mitsi approves. Because they both feel that they owe it to each other.
Because sometimes, being brothers is about sitting your dang butt in a chair and drinking outrageously black coffee in hideously uncomfortable silence.
Finally, Vic clears his throat.
“Traffic,” he explains.
Chosen nods in understanding.
There is a pause.
“Construction?” Chosen finally asks. It’s a safe bet. There’s always construction in Stick City.
“Yeah. Purple keeps telling me I should learn how to use an elytra. Says it would make getting around a lot faster. Construction almost makes me want to consider it.”
For a moment they both brood on the troubles of transportation.
Chosen swirls his coffee. He’s thinking now about elytra. And the sky. And the freedom and the elation that he feels when he’s flying. How the wind streams around him, running through his fingers like water. How the world looks so peaceful, laid out below him like a patchwork quilt.
Dark always loved to fly, too.
Chosen wonders if Vic would feel the same about flying. He thinks maybe.
“You might like it,” Chosen comments.
Vic nods and doesn’t say anything, but he looks thoughtful. He takes another sip of his coffee.
The conversation continues from there. It’s slow, and there are a lot of pauses. They painstakingly enquire after each other’s work. They chat about Red and Magenta, who are expecting twins. Chosen shares a recipe he recently found for a new kind of stir fry. Vic mentions a fishing trip he and Agent took last Saturday.
It’s all painfully normal.
Time passes, and the coffee pot gets emptier and emptier. Finally, the hour is up.
Chairs creak as Chosen and Vic rise. Vic heads for the door, and Chosen follows. Right before he leaves, Vic turns.
Vic sticks out his hand.
It’s something they first did years ago, when they made their agreement.
You put up with me. I’ll put up with you.
They repeated it again, a couple years later, when the whole Thursday nights thing was established. Orange had been pushing for more regular meetups, and Chosen and Vic had reluctantly agreed. That first Thursday, when Orange was in the kitchen grabbing more coffee, Chosen and Vic had renewed the agreement.
You put up with me. I’ll put up with you. Just more frequently.
For Orange.
Over time, it’s become a habit. A reminder, a constant renewal of an old promise. A moment of contact to ground their covenant in reality.
Chosen takes Vic’s hand.
They pump their clasped hands up and down in a firm handshake, before quickly releasing.
Vic turns to leave, but then Chosen finds himself saying something he’s never said before.
“Thanks for coming by.” Chosen says gruffly.
Vic looks over his shoulder, startled. Chosen and Vic stare at each other for a moment.
An unreadable expression crosses Vic’s face. Then his lips quirk up, into what might be the beginning of a faint, tiny smile.
They exchange another nod before Vic slips out the door, closing it softly behind him. Chosen dumps the coffee grounds in the trash and puts the mugs in the dishwasher. There’s no point in washing the coffee pot; he’s going to brew more coffee in just a minute anyway.
Chosen’s phone rings, and Chosen knows who it will be even before he picks it up.
“Hey, Chosen!” Orange’s voice beams at him through the phone. “Just thought I’d check in. How was Coffee Thursday?”
“It went well,” Chosen says.