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— ☾ —
Torch’s eyes are the color of Trench.
Clancy’s stared into them long enough to know for certain, long enough to spot the flecks of gold that stand out in the pool of brown, the green hue that gets more pronounced the closer you look to the center.
Torch’s eyes are a vortex he can’t look away from. He mourns every time Torch blinks, weeps every time he sleeps. Nightmares are the bane of his existence, but he doesn’t mind waking up in the middle of the night if it means he gets to see Torch resting beside him, smiling sleepily, blinking the colors of Dema from his mind and filling the tent with the colors of Trench, golds and greens and yellows.
He’d never had a staring problem before. Now, he was so obvious that the other Banditos knew about it, traded hushed murmurs, quiet whispers, shot pointed looks his way that he’d always shrugged off. If Torch didn’t ask him to stop, he wouldn’t, and he certainly hadn’t.
He’s staring now, as they sit on the grass in the field. For once, he hadn’t even had to drag Torch away from his work; the other had ran up to him— practically bounded across the camp to the log where Clancy’d been sitting, perched on the right, forever saving room— and declared that there was a full moon and that the clouds were finally receding to where it was visible.
“Come on,” he’d called, breathless and flushed from exertion. “The storm could roll back in, and then the clouds could block it. We have to go now if we want to see it.”
It’s the most urgent he’d sounded since the fights ended. ‘We have to go’, but they didn’t— they wanted to go.
Clancy’s hand was already half extended by the time he’d seen Torch’s twitch towards him, half poised to stand when Torch made his way over.
“Lead the way.”
Torch grinned, turned, pulling Clancy along. He didn’t turn to make sure Clancy was following. They both knew Clancy would.
The moon is pretty— Clancy could acknowledge that much— but selfishly, he’s not looking up. He’s staring at the side of Torchbearer’s face, painted in the pale glow of the light, and he prefers his view by a mile. It’s not even a close contest for who he prefers— the moon, beautiful as she was, had been the first thing he’d missed when he’d looked up from the fire. Nothing compared to the radiance that Clancy was met with when Torchbearer smiled, or even simply met his gaze.
Torchbearer isn’t doing any of that now— he’s staring up at the moon, lips moving in words Clance doesn’t catch— but Clancy is. He always is. It’d be embarrassing in other circumstances, but not now. He has to make sure Torchbearer is still there. It’s a need as simple as water, for him, a reflex that comes as easy as breathing.
The thought of losing him makes him want to vomit, or cry, or follow him, because Clancy would follow him anywhere. He wouldn’t survive that kind of loss; the loss of the brightest star in his life, the thing— no, person, because his Torchbearer could never be just some silly thing— wouldn’t just make the world go dim; it’d plunge Clancy into a darkness he could never escape from. He almost didn’t make it before— he knows for certain that he couldn’t, now.
Torch’s voice— low and smooth— fills his ears, chasing away the thoughts with the same golden haze they always carry, the only word remaining in his hand being his name— or title, he supposes. Torchbearer. Maybe Clancy will ask about his real name, someday. Maybe one day Torch will tell him and he won’t have to, because he can’t reciprocate with an answer.
Torch points at something, and Clancy tries to follow his hand with his gaze, but he can’t bear to tear his eyes away from his face, not for any longer than blinking forces him to.
He’s staring. Goddess help him, Trench smite him down, he’s staring, not paying a word of attention, and it’s probably really creepy, but he can’t bring himself to look away. Torch is saying something about the moon, or stars, or something spacey, but nothing registers over the sound of his heart pounding in his chest. He feels like he’s falling. He doesn’t know if he ever wants to land. Why would he, when the air rushing around him feels like it’s cradling him gently, brushing the tears from his face?
He traces the slope of his nose with his eyes. He wants to kiss the bump that rests halfway down, he wants to press their faces together and see if they fit. He hopes they do. He’s kissed him enough to know their lips fit perfectly, noses never bump. They’re good at it now— they weren’t before. Clancy had gotten too excited and panicked and moved at the same time Torch had, and he’d ended up making Torch miss his bottom lip entirely. Torch had laughed and told him to “stay still”, and Clancy knew in that moment he’d never move again if that was what Torchbearer wanted from him.
Torch is still talking, and Clancy’s still staring at the side of his face. He’s close enough to count every tiny freckle that dots the bridge of his nose, scattered across his face, few and far between. He wants to kiss each little star that dots the constellation of his lover’s face.
Lover. The thought of the word is enough to bring the smallest of smiles to his face, but his gut twists. He can feel it starting: the familiar prickle of tears at the corners of his eyes, the lump in his throat building as he forces himself to remember that this is real, that Torch is his, that he’s someone Clancy gets to keep. He can’t believe it, even now.
Torch glances over at him, eyebrow raised. “Clancy?”
Oh. He flushes under his imploring gaze, caught red, red handed, red-faced. His mouth opens but he doesn’t speak. He doesn’t think he can- too many words build in his throat, lodge themself in. His heart thumps once, painfully. He’s terrified. He shuts his mouth with a click before the sob can break free, but his shoulders lurch once anyway.
Torch either doesn’t notice or doesn’t ask, just stares at him, eyes narrow, searching. He burns bright beneath them. “You’re not even listening, are you?”
Only after he shakes his head does he realize he could have lied, could have spared him the indecency of the truth, could have spared himself from having to explain what he’s thinking. Torch is as stubborn as he is. He loves and loathes him for it in equal measure. (He says this, but he knows he could never truly loathe Torch. As much harm, as much cruelty as he’s capable of, he knows deep in the part of his soul that belongs purely to him that he could never do that.)
The lump in his throat only builds as his head keeps moving, side to side. He grips the grass with one hand and forces himself to still. “Nope.” He pops the p, tries to sound casual. His voice is shaking. “Not even a little bit.”
Torch sighs, but his lips are twitching, and fuck, now he’s staring there now too. They’re chapped, little bits of skin paler than the rest. He wants to kiss them until they’re red and swollen. That’s followed by the sudden, fleeting thought that he wants to bite them, the same way Torch does when he’s thinking, or worried.
Fear creeps into the back of his mind, vision blurring around the edges. He’s scared; he’s going to cry. He can feel the burn behind his eyes, and for the sake of his pride, for the sake of not freaking Torch out, he closes them and prays Torch will still be there when he looks again.
Torch stays. “Hey,” he whispers, lifting a hand to Clancy’s cheek. His eyelids flutter and he looks up, watches Torch’s face blur. “Enlighten me. What’s goin’ on in that pretty little head of yours?”
Clancy nearly chokes on the word. Pretty. He’s not— at least, he doesn’t think he is, but he’s also not sure. He hasn’t looked in a mirror since everything that happened with Nico. He can’t bear to. The reflection he gets when he looks into Torch’s brown-green-gold eyes is enough for him, and he can hardly stomach even that, knowing something as ugly as him can be seen in something so beautiful. He ruins it, like he does everything he touches, and though he knows logically that he’s not even touching Torchbearer, he knows the desire to be doing so constantly, to burrow into the perpetual warmth of Torch’s ribs and live there forever, is just as powerful.
“Clancy?”
He shakes his head again, only once, left-right. “I don’t think I can.”
Torch blinks. “Yes,” he whispers, “you can.”
“No, I—“ his voice breaks, his hands fisting in his lap. “I don’t know how to word it.”
Torch doesn’t say anything to that, for a moment, but Clancy knows he hasn’t let it go, that he won’t let it go. Finally, he just exhales. Clancy nearly whimpers as his thumb brushes under his eye. “I need you to try.”
Need. Clancy’s always functioned on need. Survival over pleasure. Looking down over looking up. Eat as little as possible just to get through each day. He’s getting better about that— his old habits from Dema are finally bleeding out of him, slowly and painfully, a cut that opens every so often and drips down his arm until he wraps it up again.
Torchbearer is his exception, the one need he’ll never satiate. He needs Torch like he needs air. Clancy’s heart beats in the space where Torch’s doesn’t— it wouldn’t know how to beat without Torch’s showing him how. That scares him enough on its own.
Even more terrifying, he wants Torch. Wants him in a way he’s never wanted anything before, wants him in the desperate way that a dog chases a rabbit, in the way the rabbit runs. Wants him in the way the marigolds want the sun. Craves him in a way that scares him, because Torchbearer is attainable. He can reach out and touch the rays of light; Torchbearer is gracing him right now and he knows it. He waits for the clouds to come to block his way, but the moon is shining and Torchbearer is staring his bright, sunny, perfect stare.
The sun is still beaming down on him, still waiting for his answer. Torch doesn’t ask for anything he doesn’t need, yet his mouth opens, “Please, Clancy,” and fuck, he can never deny him anything. Torchbearer could stand right now and he’d follow, could ask Clancy to draw a blade and slit his own throat (though Clancy knows he’d never), and he’d reach for the nearest knife. He asks for the truth, and Clancy knows he has to give it.
He sighs, reluctantly tearing his eyes away and looking up to where the stars twinkle in the sky, down to where the marigolds color the grass, their own constellation. He swallows hard and finally chokes out: “I’m scared.”
Torch sucks in a breath, and it’s the worst word choice he could’ve picked. Scared is a pathetic word, and while Clancy is certainly that— pathetic— it feels too minor for everything he’s feeling, too small to encompass the swirling storm in his brain.
Torch finally speaks. “Of what?”
He can’t answer, but his eyes flick back up, and Torch’s eyes widen just a little and he knows that he understands. Torchbearer always understands, and Clancy tries to know him just as well, even when Torch can’t speak, and when Clancy can’t open his eyes to see his hands. Clancy can hear the gears turning in his head, can feel Torch’s gaze burning into his temple as he keeps looking. “Of me?” he finishes, and Clancy chokes on the exhale that leaves him at the way the sentence quivers.
Yes. No. He’s never been less scared before. He’s terrified.
His silence is answer enough, and Torch exhales— a sharp huff, like he’d been punched. “Clancy…”
He waits for Torch to finish, but he doesn’t. Just leaves his name there like an offering, trembling in the space between them before falling into the dirt. He swallows, blinking tears back, opens his mouth to speak— what he’d say, he’s not sure, but he has to fill the silence somehow, before Torch can leave— but Torch beats him to it.
“Is it ‘cause we…?” He trails off again, and Clancy’s stomach drops straight down to his boots. He freezes, because if he moves, he’ll step on it, and the acid will melt the Earth, and he can’t bear to harm Her.
“No!” He rushes out, eyes wide. “No, it’s— it’s not that. That was—“ he laughs, wetly. “That was amazing, Torch.”
It was better than amazing, he thinks, but he’s self-aware enough to know that now’s not the time to gush. That’s what it would be: gushing. The first time they’d ever gotten intimate— truly intimate, not just fleeting kisses, stolen moments in the dark— was the best experience of Clancy’s life. Torch had sworn up and down that they didn't have to do anything Clancy didn’t want to, that they could stop at any time if Clancy wasn’t comfortable, but he couldn’t bear to. The rush of pure euphoria he’d felt had overwhelmed him to the point of tears, ones he’d let spill for the sake of unclouding his vision, free them from his eyes so he could see Torch’s face.
“You’re crying.”
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t have to be.”
“I am.”
“Do you want to stop?”
“No.”
“Clancy—“
“Don’t stop,” he’d gasped, “please.”
Miraculously, Torch hadn’t, and so the rush of bliss had continued, leaving Clancy laying on their mattress, a whole galaxy behind his eyes. He couldn’t move— he was utterly worn out and jelly limbed, utterly floaty. But when he thinks of it, he remembers curling up in Torch’s side after, feeling yet again like he was falling, but feeling so completely and utterly loved that he didn’t quite mind.
He would’ve been content dying then and there, if it’d meant he’d be able to die feeling like that for the rest of his afterlife. But he couldn’t die, because then he’d be leaving Torch, and he can’t bear to do that. Could never. And he hadn’t been scared at all. Even when they’d started, even when he’d been so overwhelmed. He hadn’t been afraid.
“No,” he repeats, firmer, more certain, “it’s not that.”
Torch’s shoulders sag— he can see the relief in his eyes, in the way his teeth relax where they’d been biting his lower lip. There’s a slight indent. Clancy wants to know if his own teeth fit.
“Then what is it?” He whispers. “You just told me you’re scared of me, Clance. I— I never wanted—“
He breaks off, and he’s pulling his hand back, pulling a strangled gasp out of Clancy’s throat. The cold wind that whips Clancy’s cheek is enough to elicit another whine, needy and pathetic. He reaches up and grabs Torch’s sleeve, because he can’t touch him if he’s pulling away, he can’t make Torch stay, but he needs him to. He can’t push him away, even if he wants to. He’s weak. He doesn’t care. He can’t— should, won’t— let Torch go.
“I’m not scared you’re going to hurt me,” he breathes. “It’s not that. Never that. I know you won’t.”
Torch’s eyes search his face, softening as he hears the truth in them— or maybe it’s the desperate way Clancy’s still clinging to his sleeve.
“I said it wrong,” he pleads, wide eyed, tears blooming anew. His throat aches, strained with the restraint of not breaking fully. “Please, let me try again.”
Torch’s hand slides, gently prying Clancy’s shaking fingers off the fabric and lacing them in his own. He’s shattering under the gentle touch and he’s terrified the pieces will cut Torch.
But Torch is nodding, eyes softening gently. “You can always try again,” he whispers, and Clancy coughs on the laugh that leaves him. It’s such an utterly Torch thing to say that he can’t help it— he’s smiling faintly as he goes quiet again.
Finally, blissfully, he’s able to force the words out into the open. “I wouldn’t be here without you, y’know,” he chokes out, and Torch stills. It’s far from the first time he’s thought it, but he hadn’t said it aloud- at least, not the way he’d wanted to. Not yet, anyway.
He risks a glance back up at Torch’s face, heart thumping painfully as he sees the stunned expression on it. Stunned, like Torchbearer can’t possibly believe it.
He keeps talking. “You’re the thing that keeps me going. The only reason I wake up. The only reason I can see the beauty in the world.” He sniffs. “I can see it ‘cause you light it up.”
He’s being cheesy, but Torch is staring, wide-eyed and shocked. “Clancy,” Torch exhales. Clancy leans forward, inhaling the breath as his own. He can see the realization dawning in Torch’s eyes as they gloss over, tears shimmering, catching the reflection of the stars, a thousand glimmering dots. He wants it to spill over, bottle the mixture of stardust and tears and inject it into his veins, drink a cup of it with every meal.
He feels exposed as he meets Torch’s gaze. “I think part of me is waiting for you to say I’m not worth it and leave,” he whispers. “If I lose you, I don’t know what I’d do with myself.” He smiles, or tries. It’s wobbling and he feels the tears blurring his vision as they crinkle, but he smiles. He tries.
“I love you so much it terrifies me. I need you, and it scares me, because I can’t believe you stay, and I don’t expect you to.”
His mouth opens to say something else, but then he shuts it. What more is there to say? There it is, the brunt of everything he’d been trying to choke out ever since he’d laid eyes on Torchbearer for the first time. Explaining the lengths of his devotion— an arbitrary term, as far as it goes; Clancy has seen no end to his feelings yet, and he doesn’t plan to— would take all night, all morning, and from the look on Torch’s face he doesn’t even have to. He knows. They both know.
Torch’s face is doing something complicated; half twisted, half crumpled, painfully soft. His lower lip wobbles as he breathes, the sound shuddering in the quiet. The expression on his face can only be described as devastated, a mix of awestruck and disbelieving, a quiet shock that breaks Clancy’s heart in two.
“I—“ his voice breaks, and Torch, for once, doesn’t try again. He lunges forward, grabs Clancy by the front of his sweatshirt and presses their lips together. One hand lands on his cheek, the other stays fisted in his shirt. Clancy gasps into it— more from the suddenness of the movement than the action itself— and his hands fly up: one settles on Torch’s hip, the other finding a home in the dark expanse of his hair. It’s a practiced position, though seemingly more heated— he can feel Torch’s desperation rolling off him in waves as he presses further.
Torch makes another small noise, the only warning Clancy gets before he kisses him again, harder. Clancy whimpers, a small noise in the back of his throat that he’s not even sure if Torch can hear. It’s salty and warm and Clancy can’t breathe. He doesn’t want to.
Torchbearer pulls back— Clancy whines, but Torch just sniffles, huffs out a shuddery exhale that was probably supposed to be a laugh, but didn’t make it there.
Clancy finds himself slowly being pushed down onto his back, settled gently onto the expanse of the grass. He shifts, tries not to crush any of the flowers, but Torchbearer doesn’t seem to care. His lips follow Clancy all the way down as their angle changes. Tears drip down onto his cheeks, mingling with his own.
“Torch—“
Another quick peck to the lips shuts him up. “Clancy,” Torch rasps, and Clancy swallows the word with a small, needy noise, muffled by Torch’s mouth on his again, traveling down to his neck.
Torch’s voice is right by his ear. He presses his lips to the spot right under it and he whimpers.
“Still scared?” he breathes, eliciting a shiver. Torch shudders too.
“Terrified,” Clancy whispers, but his lips are tilting up, and his eyes are wandering.
Torch hums, gently, and it sends a ripple of butterflies through his stomach. “Yeah,” he breathes. “Me too.”
Clancy looks up at him, eyes burning, and he doesn’t want to cry again but he can’t close them. “Of me?” he whispers, and Torch smiles.
“Same thing you are,” he whispers. Clancy’s eyes widen. “You’re the best thing in my life, Clance. I can’t imagine my life without you.”
He opens his mouth to speak, to deprecate— for how could Torch love him the same, when he is so dirty, so tainted?— but Torch just presses his lips back against his, and every coherent thought leaves his head. He nips lightly at his bottom lip, just like how he’d wanted to, trying to keep Torchbearer there. He fights back another noise of disappointment as Torch pulls back.
“Shhh,” he murmurs, and he does as he requests. He always will. “Let me appreciate you.”
Clancy blinks. Torch presses a kiss to the scar on his lip. “I have loved you through every version of yourself. Every version of you I’ve lost, I’ve loved. It’s easy for me to.”
A kiss to his cheek. “You’re brave. A little self-sacrificing, but brave.”
A kiss to his forehead. “You’re kinder than you give yourself credit for.”
A kiss to the bridge of his nose. “You make me happy. Happier than leading the Banditos ever could.”
A kiss to his lips, the words spoken just above, Torch’s breath warm on his face: “You’re my favorite person, and I can’t believe I get to keep you. Sometimes, I’m scared I’ll wake up and find you gone.”
Torch stares at him like he expects Clancy to laugh, but he just whimpers again, sobs, lifts his head to press his lips to Torch’s, just briefly. “I’m never gonna leave you,” he breathes, and he has half a mind to laugh at how the roles are reversed, but the only noise that leaves is a strangled cry. “You’re never gonna lose me. If I don’t lose you, you won’t lose me. Deal?”
Torch laughs, quietly. “Deal,” he whispers. “No leaving each other. No losing each other. Nothing to be afraid of.”
Clancy nods, exhaling shakily. Torch brushes a tear off his cheek. The tears in his eyes reflect the glow of the moon, Her Grace smiling down, watching the two of them with a single wide eye.
Torch is pretty, beautiful, glowing, and he’s his, and Clancy has never been less afraid in his life.
He smiles, and Torch’s Trench-colored eyes find his again, as their lips find their way to each other, he closes his eyes and basks in the glow.
— ☾ —