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“Flow. Flow. Are you awake?”
“Hmmm?” Flow blearily wrenches his right eye open, trying to focus on the blurry image of his wife wriggling his way into the crook of his neck, Sharp’s long blond hair tickling his chin. He doesn’t know what time it is exactly, but it’s definitely late. They’d had a long mission today— there hadn’t even been time for either of them to change into sleep clothes after the bloodshed that had occurred earlier. Flow’s pretty sure that his hands are still stained with their target’s blood, actually. Did Sharp have one of his nightmares again? “Whas… wha’s wrong, baby? Bad dream?”
Sharpness is quiet for a moment, shuffling around under the covers as he tries to readjust himself in the small space they’ve made for themselves on the king sized bed. If they were at home, this wouldn’t have been such an annoying predicament— but they haven’t been home in a while. They haven’t had one in a while.
Not since Jude died.
“Tomorrow. When you go to the end rings…” Sharp murmurs quietly, “I’m coming along with you.”
“What?” Flow opens both his eyes properly as he pulls away from Sharp for a moment, frowning as he takes in his beloved’s expression. His eyes soften as he traces his hand over the dried tear tracks on Sharp’s face, taking in his amore’s dull green eyes. “Sharp, what do you mean? I thought we agreed that you’d stay back?”
There’s no answer for a moment. Flow’s almost afraid that Sharp might’ve fallen back asleep, but when he tilts Sharp’s head up, he sees the cloudy jade eyes that he so adores, looking downward at the amethyst-embedded ring clutched in Sharp’s hands.
“I know. But… what if you die, too?” Sharp asks quietly.
…Well. Geez. What’s he supposed to say to that? “Sharp, mi amore, you know I’m the most cracked player on this server. None of those baconator chungies could even dream of touching me,” Flow tries to go for a joke, only for Sharp’s expression to scrunch up as he burrows himself closer into Flow’s neck.
“Flow, I’m serious.” Oh, fuck, and now Sharp’s voice is wavering and Flow’s so scared that tears are going to start spilling over— “You can’t leave me too. Please. You know I can't do it alone.”
“...I know, baby. I know.”
And he does.
When the news had come to them of Jude’s… passing, (it was murder and he’ll never forgive Proper, he’ll never be able to look at him in the eye again without wanting to break his arms and legs and neutralize him so he can never hurt Flow’s spouses again—) Sharp had nearly killed the soldier who had come to tell them. He would’ve ripped him right in half, had Flow not caught him around the waist, securing Sharp’s shaking hands to his side.
He almost wishes now that he had let Sharp kill the informant.
It was one of Proper’s, so it really wouldn’t have been of any substantial loss— but the fact that Sharpness, their sweet princess, the mediator of their little ragtag family, had been the one who had nearly ripped a man apart for revealing the circumstances of their husband’s death…
Flow has never forgotten that all encompassing grief, even as the days pass into weeks into months and their soldiers start to stare at Sharp with the sort of caution one would afford a ticking time bomb instead of one of their leaders who can stand firmly on his own two feet.
There hasn’t passed a single day since Jude’s death that Sharp hasn’t mourned for their husband. Even now, late at night, in the bedroom of the poor soul that had challenged Sharp to a duel, Sharp still clutches the half of Jude’s ring that he wears around his neck in a vice grip. Flow would be concerned, perhaps, if he hadn’t borne witness to the more destructive displays of Sharp’s grief.
And it was that grief that had Flow reconsidering the solo mission, despite Sharp’s injuries.
Tomorrow’s mission wasn’t going to be hard. All Flow was to do was to finish Midnight’s job— find the bridge to Death’s prison and let him free. If Evourai wasn’t almost guaranteed to be there in their way, it’d be a thirty minute mission at most. Even with Evourai there, Flow didn’t think it’d take more than an hour's time. Sure, Evourai had killed Midnight (and he’d led to Jude’s death, he had led their husband right into Proper’s clutches, was the reason why they were even here to begin with instead of back at Jude’s base, bickering and laughing with him)— but he was the weakest of them all anyway, brought into the fold as a show of kindness by Proper. He wouldn’t stand a chance against Flow, and he knew it, but…
The thought of something— anything— going wrong and forcing Flow to leave Sharp behind as well… he couldn’t bear to imagine it.
He knows Sharp wouldn’t be able to stand it, that he would run himself into the ground trying to bring both him and Jude back. The only thing that had kept Sharp together when Jude had died was Flow’s steady presence, unwilling to let Sharp fall apart as well. He can’t let that happen— he can’t let Sharp run off again and throw himself into every fight he can find. But he also doesn’t want Sharp fighting tomorrow— not in the least because of the injuries he’d sustained, but because he doesn’t want his wife to come face to face with Evourai as well.
It’s an irrational fear. Obviously. Proper isn’t even an admin anymore— the power he had once been free to flaunt over them despite his own inadequacies, stripped from him within a fraction of a second by the First Owner. There’s nothing to fear with letting Sharp see Evourai, except there is— because Jude had told them about Evo, about the stupid little chungy he’d chained up and locked away in a cell, laughed with them over dinner about it and told them all about the roulette game he wanted to play with him—
And the very next day, he was gone.
Just like that, the third piece of their puzzle had disappeared, leaving nothing behind but the imprint of his presence in their lives, and Flow would be damned if he let that happen to Sharp, too.
But his amore is above all, stubborn. They all were, really. If Jude were still here, maybe it would be easier to convince Sharp to stay behind, but… now, Sharp stares up at him with determined eyes, unwilling to let the topic drop until he gets what he wants. “…Are you sure? That Iron Hammer guy did a number on you, amore. And Evourai has his spare Breach mace, apparently. Not to say that he can actually use it, but…”
“I’ll stay away,” Sharp promises, sincerity brimming in his voice. It doesn’t ease Flow’s anxieties, but it does make his heart melt at the show of trust. “I won’t interfere in the fight or anything if you’re doing well, I just… need to be there. Just in case.”
“You promise?”
“I do,” Sharp says. “And I want to be there for when we free Death, too.”
“…Alright. Fine. We’ll go together.”
Sharp smiles at him when he says that, sweet and gentle— and for a second, Flow could almost fool himself into thinking everything’s right again. That they’re not two when they should be three, that they’re not lying on a dead man’s bed in his house and rather at home, in Jude’s stupid gaudy treehouse, in the nest he made, big enough for three. But then he catches sight of Jude’s ring, cleaved in half and hung on his and Sharp’s matching chains, and the tear tracks that still stain Sharp’s face to this day, and the way the bed feels all too big for the both of them now, without their third to keep it warm.
“When we get Jude back,” Flow murmurs as he readjusts their position, running a hand through Sharp’s loosely braided hair, “Everything will be okay again. We just need to get him back.”
Sharp hums, his hands coming up to fiddle with his rings, taking Flow’s left hand as well to trace his hands over their combined bands of lapis and redstone. “And then we’ll be okay again.”
“Mm.” Flow presses a chaste kiss to Sharp’s forehead, before he closes his eyes again. “G’night, mi amore.”
“Goodnight.”
Everything will go right tomorrow, and we’ll finally be whole again.