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It had been two months since they had left X-Crops, hanging up their uniforms in favour of hiking packs and a vague sense of peace. Vanishing into the wilderness, they trekked through South America and up into the United States, only ever returning to civilization for supplies. It was hard not to resent the entirety of humanity for what had happened. What was still happening, albeit on a smaller scale. The scars were too deep and too fresh.
Two months. They’d had plans to go up into Canada, but the need for some creature comforts eventually got the better of them. Shatterstar was fond of long, hot showers and while making love in the dirt was fun, a bed had its perks, like zero risk of a root digging into your back right when things are getting good.
So for the first time in a long time, Rictor woke up in a soft bed with the sound of the shower running. The air was warm and damp, because Shatterstar always forgot to turn on the fan and close the bathroom door, and Star was humming something that sounded familiar, but Rictor couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
Rictor had gotten as far as putting his feet on the floor when Star emerged in nothing up a towel. Two months of hiking had left Star looking like he did when he first landed on Earth; nothing but lean muscle, barely a scrap of body fat on him. If he weren’t an alien, Rictor might have been more worried, but he knew Star was fine like this and it wouldn’t take long to get some meat on his bones.
“Good morning, my love,” Star purred, and Rictor had been so busy admiring his waistline that he didn’t notice until they were face to face that Star had shaved his beard. It had grown to impressive length and thickness throughout their time with X-Corps, a time when things like shaving didn’t take priority when you were the team's main form of transportation, and then when Star kept it while they hiked he figured it was just the new norm. But no, he was clean shaven again and Rictor was staring. “Julio?”
“Uh- yeah, morning, dude. Can you make coffee? I’ll be right back.” Rictor said quickly, kissing Star’s cheek before getting up. He walked straight out of the cabin and down to the shore of the lake. It was spring; the air off the lake was cold enough to chap his cheeks, and the loons were calling out from the trees.
Rictor felt the rocky sand under his feet, the water lapping at his toes. He breathed in deeply, closed his eyes, and screamed. At first it was just the gutteral, animalistic screams that he had held in his gut since the night of the Hellfire gala, when he had felt Krakoa cry out from Otherworld and then seen the footage of the carnage. When the screams started to die out he changed to cursing. He cursed in every language he knew; English, then Spanish, Cadre and finally Krakoan which he hadn’t heard in so long. And because he didn’t have a voice that could part the sea, he instead dropped to his knees and dug his hands into the sand, lake water swirling around his wrists. An awful, pragmatic part of him knew that he could not crack the lake in half no matter how badly he wanted to, how easily he could, so instead he just turned the placid lake into a heavy swell of waves until the water fowl took off with indignant squawks.
It took the edge off a little, but Rictor still felt that sense of helplessness deep in his bones; it was an old friend, their bitter friendship rejuvenated in the face of what Orchis had done.
Rictor slumped back, looking over his shoulder to see Star standing on the porch of the small cottage they’d rented, two coffee mugs in hand. Waiting patiently for Rictor to finish his tantrum.
“Thanks,” Rictor said flatly as he took the mug offered to him, taking a sip of coffee to soothe his raw throat. They stood silently for a moment, drinking coffee, and then Star took Rictor’s drink off of him and set both mugs down on the patio table.
“What’s happening, Julio?” Star asked as they sat together on the porch stairs. He took Rictor’s hand in his, and Rictor squeezed gently, feeling the callouses that had only softened a little over the past two months. His lover was a swordsman, his hands would never be soft, but they were still strong and sensual. “If you destroy the lake, I don’t think we’ll be allowed to rent this property again.”
It was a joke, at least by Star standards, and Julio did let out an amused huff. He kissed Star’s bare shoulder, letting himself be wrapped up in his lover’s arms.
“It just all caught up with me for a second,” Rictor explained. He reached up to feel along Star’s freshly shaved cheek and jaw, his exposed throat. “You look so young like this… We’re both… so young, Star.”
Star was quiet, one hand still in Rictor’s while the other gently combed through Rictor’s hair. Star had a never ending battle with Rictor’s cowslick, the one that made his hair part naturally to one side no matter what length it was or how he styled it.
“I mean… Star, do you even know how old you are? How old I am? Between the time traveling and how long we’ve just been fighting for the right to survive– and this isn’t even my original body anymore!” Rictor could feel himself getting hysterical, the way his hands trembled as his powers swelled with his emotions. Star lifted Rictor’s hand from his lap, gently swiping his thumb over the smooth inside of his wrist. Flawless. Wrong. For as long as Star had known him, Rictor had had scars on his wrists. It was no secret that they were the result of an attempt on his own life, one of many, and maybe it was meant to be a kindness that he was reborn without them, or maybe The Five just hadn’t known they were there in the first place, or maybe bodies couldn’t have been made with scars in the first place but—
“It may not be your original vessel, Julio, but I would take these inconsistencies over losing you any day.” Star said, his voice even and still faintly accented; when he’d come back from Mojoworld it had been thick like when he’d first arrived and it had taken years to soften all over again. He leaned down and kissed Rictor’s wrist, a gesture that might have made Rictor cringe if he was still covered in scars, but now it felt more like… An offering. A way to honor what was missing. “Human years have always been somewhat confusing to me, anyway, so no… I don’t think I do know how old I am, but I know that time has touched you because you’ve only grown more beautiful with it… But it’s the fighting, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Rictor swallowed around the lump in his throat. “I’m not like you. I…I’m tired, corazón, tired of always fighting. I’ve been fighting since I was fifteen, just trying to find my place in the world. Some peace. But every time I’ve found it, it’s been ripped away from me. From us.”
“I am warrior born,” Shatterstar started, gently tipping Rictor’s head up with a finger under his chin. “I was raised in the slave pits and given my name in the arena. I was the alliance champion, sent to this world as a last hope… The last hope to end the war. To bring peace. I joined Cable to bring peace to Earth’s future. You say you are not like me, Julio, but our goal has always been the same– peace. I have not always been willing to put down my blades, but that’s only because for so long, that was all I knew. But Julio, to be by your side during peace times… That is all I want now.”
“But what happens when it comes crumbling down again? I can’t…”
“I will take up my sword for you, my love. While fighting at your side is exhilarating, I would gladly fight on your behalf, also.”
The thing with Star was that he meant everything that he said. If Rictor lost all will to fight when the next battle came around, Shatterstar would step into the fray alone to keep him safe. Rictor might not know how old he was anymore, but he knew that Shatterstar had done a lot of growing up from when they first met; he no longer needed constant stimulation, whether that be a fuck or a fight. He didn’t need them to be on the verge of breaking up all the time to find their relationship thrilling. His last time in the Mojoverse had changed him at his core; he’d tasted loneliness after knowing what it meant to be loved by others, by people who saw him as something more than a weapon. His entire world had been recontextualized, and Mojoworld had revealed itself to be festering in an entirely new and awful way.
Then he was freed, and welcomed into a paradise, and Rictor was returned to his arms and the only fighting Shatterstar did for a long time was to bring peace to places like Otherworld, an alternative dimension that he loved rather than endured. And then he had fought for survival, but as soon as the battle was over, he had put down his swords. He didn’t need the battle anymore.
“Te amo, mi estrella brillante,” Rictor sighed, leaning up to kiss Star softly.
Later, after coffee and breakfast and love making, Rictor lay tangled in the sheets with his head on Star’s chest. Star was humming again, the same song as that morning. It itched Rictor’s brain- he was sure he knew it, but couldn’t place it.
“What is that? That song?”
“It is a druid lullaby,” Star explained, his voice syrupy and slow. His fingers stroked along Rictor’s spine, slowly over each bump.
“A druid-? Why do you know it?”
“They taught it to me,” Star continued with absolutely no hint of urgency, even when Rictor squirmed and shifted against him, pushing up onto his elbow to look Star in the eye. “Their culture fascinated me, and they worship you the way that I have always worshiped you. We had much in common in that regard.”
“But… A lullaby?”
“I told them that you did not sleep well at night,” Star said, and then a grin slowly crept across his lips. “I did not tell them that that was often to my benefit.”
“Dios mío, Star!” Rictor huffed, which only made Star grin wider and when Rictor made some sorry attempt at fighting him, Shatterstar instead wrapped him in his arms, pinning him to his chest. He kept fighting, until the humming started up again. Rictor relaxed gradually, his ear pressed to Star’s chest so that he felt the first rumbling of words rather than heard them. And while Rictor had always found the lyrics of lullabies strange and unnerving, in Shatterstar’s low, calming voice, he found his eyelids growing heavy, and the feeling in his chest lightening.
My child, when I first met you I noted your form
Fingers and toes all accounted for
Skin soft and whole,
Eyes bright, cry strong.
And I watched your mind quicken
Into a curious thing
A thing that wondered for the uncertain
More than it craved the safety of firelight.
But when you wander past the light
Into those beckoning circles of flora
When you choose the thrill of the hidden
Above the safety of my arms
You are your own until you breach the circle,
Until you breach the places where the world grows thin
And your skin slips from you like your birthing caul
From there, I cannot promise
That if I call your name, you will answer
In the land beyond this one
When you become your own.