Chapter Text
act one - for better or for worse
It takes all of Scott’s courage to knock on Jimmy’s door.
That’s assuming he has any sort of courage at all. He could agree, but he knows too well that courage is a thing that’s been burned into his mind. If the nightmares are anything to go by, he would say he does have at least a smidgen of it.
At first, Jimmy doesn’t answer, and Scott lets himself fear that yes, Jimmy hates him now and no, he will not talk to him.
“Jimmy?” he calls. There is no reply.
Scott knocks again. On his third knock, the door swings open, and he nearly smashes his fist right into Jimmy’s nose. Jimmy flinches. Scott steps back, wincing.
“Sorry,” he mumbles.
Jimmy’s face lights up. “Scott!” he says. “You did come!”
“Of course I did,” Scott agrees. He lets a little shiver run up his back and through his wings. He gives Jimmy his most crooked grin. “You’re not going to leave me standing in the cold, are you? Awfully freezing out here.”
Despite the fact Scott is quite literally an ice elf, he will admit it is cold. The last droplets of water on his wings are beginning to freeze, weighing down the dove-white feathers. Deep in his chest, he can practically feel the clock of his heart speed up at both the sight of Jimmy and the falling snow, ticking down ever faster to a doomsday in the not-so-distant future.
Jimmy is speaking again. Scott pulls himself out of his thoughts to listen to Jimmy talk. It’s a nice sound. Jimmy sounds cheerful, happy.
Jimmy blinks at him. “You alright?”
Scott startles. He drops his gaze, pretending he wasn’t staring. “I’m fine. Just a bit cold.” He unfolds his wings for emphasis. The little droplets of ice catch the light.
“Right!” Jimmy yelps. He waves his hands about, looking very much like a fish out of water despite the fact they’re both in Jimmy’s stifling swamp. His fins fan out and fold back in again, over and over. “Come in, come in!”
“The house looks… cute,” Scott says. It really doesn’t, but hey, he’ll lie for Jimmy any day.
Jimmy snorts. “No, it doesn’t.”
Scott doesn’t argue. It doesn’t matter. Scott’s not here for the house either way. He’s here for Jimmy. And because he knows he’s running out of time to visit.
There is a poppy somewhere in this house, Scott knows, one tagged with this feels right in his own loopy script, unless Jimmy has burned it. So he resolutely keeps his eyes on the ground. If there’s anything he doesn’t need right now, it’s to be reminded of the bloody past behind bloody poppies.
“Hey, if you’re going to invite yourself over, you might as well look at something other than the floor.”
Scott’s head snaps up immediately. He looks at Jimmy, almost out of fear, but he’s smiling.
“You don’t have to,” Jimmy says quietly.
Scott chooses to ignore that. “You invited me over,” he points out.
Jimmy flaps his hands, his fins splaying. “Technically, I—” He breaks off with a long sigh, choosing to toss his communicator to Scott instead. It’s already switched to their conversation not a few hours earlier.
“See?” Jimmy says. “You asked to come over.”
Scott had, if he remembers correctly, and Jimmy is clearly trying to show him the evidence on his communicator. He doesn’t look at any of the messages, and throws the communicator back to Jimmy instead.
Scott is pulled down to the floor. He sits down hard.
“So,” Jimmy says lightly. “What brings the king of Rivendell to my humble home?”
Scott doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t, but he also doesn’t want to be reminded he is running away from his responsibilities at this very moment. There is a reason his communicator is tucked away back in his house in Rivendell.
“I wanted to talk to you,” he says. It’s not a lie, but it’s not the whole truth either.
“Go on then,” Jimmy says. He smiles again. It’s soft. “I’m listening.”
Scott opens his mouth, but no words fall out. He closes it again, and he still has nothing to say. There’s no way to say it, no way to tell Jimmy of all people that he’s dying. That by the time winter is over, he will be long dead.
He can’t just say that, but he has to.
All of a sudden, he’s quite glad he’s sitting on the floor, as damp and cold as it is.
Jimmy keeps smiling at him, but it seems more fragile now. Weaker. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
But he does want to. He wants Jimmy more than anything else, and that is the truth that stands between them. He has to tell him. He has to.
“I’m going to die,” he blurts out, and yeah, that was probably the worst way to phrase it. Congratulations, Scott.
Jimmy’s smile doesn’t fade, but it does become more strained. Scott is glad. He’s not exactly sure how he would react if Jimmy kept grinning at him like that. “Well, aren’t we all?”
“You don’t understand,” Scott says. It comes out much harsher than he meant to. “I’m dying, Jimmy. Dying.”
“No you’re not,” Jimmy says. It’s denial now, he knows it, because it is an echo of his own. “Elves can’t die. Right?”
Wrong.
“Right, Scott?”
More silence. Scott’s never hated it more. He still can’t make himself break it.
“Scott, tell me you’re not dying. Tell me this is a joke. It’s not funny.”
He wants to. He could. Jimmy would be furious, but he would be safe. It’s all just a joke, he could say. It would be good. It would be the right option, the one his parents would have approved of, the one Xornoth would have approved of. Scott could wither away alone in his mountain kingdom, and no one would be hurt. The safe, selfless option.
But Scott is a selfish, dangerous man. So he doesn’t apologise. He doesn’t lie.
“It’s not a joke,” he says instead. “I’m sorry.”
Jimmy closes his eyes, and they both pretend he can’t see the tears. He breathes in. Breathes out. “How long?” he says at last.
Scott blinks. “What?”
“How long have you known?” Jimmy opens his eyes again, but Scott can’t meet them. “How long, Scott?”
“Months,” Scott says quietly, as his hands tear at the fancy Rivendell robes. “I’ve known for months.”
He breathes in again. He doesn’t breathe back out, and Scott would be afraid he was choking, except Jimmy’s head is bowed and his hands are clapped over his mouth.
“How long?” Jimmy asks again. It’s not the same question.
“Not long enough,” Scott says. A bitter laugh escapes him and he can’t even stop it. “I’m running out of time, Jimmy. Don’t you see why I had to come?”
Jimmy dwells on that for a long time. “Who knows?” he demands at last. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I know,” Scott says. “The demon knows, probably. You’re the first one I’ve told. You should be grateful.”
Jimmy splutters. If they weren’t talking about his imminent death, it would almost be cute. “Grateful?” he echoes, incredulous. “Scott! You just told me you’re dying!”
Scott shrugs. “I know.”
Jimmy drums his fingers on his lap as he looks at Scott— really, really looks at him. Scott knows he looks like he already has one foot in the grave. He hasn’t slept properly in weeks, hasn’t slept at all in days. He’s not hungry, not anymore, and the last time he checked, there was blood in his hair.
Scott is well aware he looks awful, thanks. And judging by Jimmy’s wide eyes and the tiny wrinkles of concern, he sees it too.
“Are you sure you’re not dying tomorrow?” It’s a poor, humourless attempt at a joke, but Scott appreciates it nonetheless.
He laughs, also humourless. “You never know.”
Jimmy blinks. “Aren’t you supposed to know? Like, even just an estimate?”
Scott stares at the ground. “It’s not something they can solve,” he says. “They don’t know what it is.” He twists his hands together. “There is no prognosis, Jimmy. I— I had to tell someone, before it was too late.”
“And you chose to tell me?”
He closes his eyes like it’ll block out Jimmy’s stare. Right. He should have known. He should have remembered what’s been ingrained in his mind since the two of them officially met, when he nearly threw Jimmy off a cliff because he looked a little too much like his dead husband. The poppies, the dancing, the marriage— it’s supposed to be dead to the both of them. But Scott remembers, and Jimmy doesn’t.
It should stay that way, he reminds himself. It needs to stay that way.
Scott shouldn’t have come. But he’s stupid, he’s selfish, and he’s been wanting to come back for far too long. To lay down his final secret at his once-husband’s feet, to pretend that Jimmy still cares.
And even now, he keeps pretending.
He exhales, long and tired. “You.”
“Is this about the poppy?” Jimmy asks, hesitant. “The cake? The date? You don’t have to feel obligated to come to me, you know.”
Scott smiles. It’s in his own little bubble of darkness, even though he knows Jimmy can see it perfectly well. “I wanted to come to you,” he says simply. He opens his eyes. “I’ve missed you.”
Jimmy won’t know. He’ll never know if Scott can keep it his way. But curse Scott and his sentimental heart, because Jimmy will find out at this point. He should really keep his mouth shut.
“You’re talking to me,” Jimmy points out.
“Does it matter?”
“No,” Jimmy says. “I guess it doesn’t.”
They’re both silent for a long time. Scott is just about ready to apologise, to get up and leave and never come back, when Jimmy says, “Are you hungry? I would be a pretty poor host if I didn’t ask.”
He shakes his head. He’s never hungry, not anymore.
Jimmy doesn’t ask again.
Jimmy gets up and leaves at some point. Scott offers to go, but he just shakes his head. “I need to clear my head,” he says. “I’ll be back. Don’t leave. I want to talk to you.”
So Scott doesn’t leave.
He sits there for what feels like hours. It could reasonably be ten minutes, but he doesn’t count. Jimmy’s house is quiet, the silence pierced only by the ticking of a clock in the distance and his own slow, measured breaths.
The seconds drip away slowly. Scott has enough time to run his fingers over every crack and groove in the planks, every mismatched piece of wood that’s never there in the elegance of Rivendell.
It feels like home.
The seconds turn into minutes. They’re long. They don’t stop. They drag on and on and on, leaving him waiting and waiting. He contemplates leaving, but he’s come so far. He can’t stop now. So he waits, until the minutes turn into hours and the winter sun begins to set.
For a moment, he lets himself wonder if Jimmy is going to force him to leave, that he’s bringing Lizzie over right now.
No. If this Jimmy is anything like the one he knew before, or even the Codfather as of the past few years, he wouldn’t do that.
The front door creaks open. Scott pretends not to notice.
He doesn’t know how long Jimmy stands there staring at him, but he refuses to be the first one to break the silence.
Scott doesn’t turn to look at Jimmy, no matter how much he wants to.
“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” Jimmy asks, unusually quiet.
Scott shrugs. He had no reason to tell Jimmy earlier. He doesn’t seem like he remembers, so why should he care? Their date was nothing more than an alliance, the flowers a passing gift. There’s no reason for Jimmy to have expected it earlier.
Unless…
Could it really be?
He hears Jimmy come up behind him, footsteps soft and heavy. “I know our… date was nice, but me? Why me? You have Katherine, Gem—”
“It was nice,” Scott agrees. He’s trying to pretend. The old Jimmy would have called it deflecting, or something similar. Can he pretend this is only a crush? That he’s come to Jimmy because he’s not sure he has any other friends? “I’ve missed you. We’re friends now, yeah?”
Jimmy doesn’t answer, so he has to rush in to fill the silence.
“Friends miss each other, I think,” Scott says lightly, as though each word isn’t crushing him bit by bit. “Did you miss me too?”
A long moment.
Scott holds his breath. He doesn’t mean to.
“Yeah. I’ve missed you too, petal.” The words are stilted and awkward, but Scott stiffens up anyway. In surprise? Shock? It doesn’t matter, because it doesn’t last long before Jimmy coughs. “Cod, I swear I didn’t mean to say that. But can I? Petal? Can I call you that? Do you even know it?”
Petal. Petal.
For the first time in years, too many years, Scott lets himself hope.
He’s stunned into silence. He opens and closes his mouth, enough time for Jimmy to blurt, “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it, I swear! You probably didn’t know, right?” He chuckles nervously. “It’s a term of endear—”
“You remember?” Scott chokes out, cutting Jimmy off. He whips around to stare at Jimmy. There’s a poppy in his hands, held out like a token of apology. “You remember me?”
Jimmy rubs the back of his neck. His face is bright red. “Guess we’ve both been keeping secrets, huh?” A pause, then, “Please don’t try to throw me off the side of a cliff again.” Another pause. “You remember too, right? I didn’t make a fool out of myself for nothing?”
Scott’s too frozen to speak.
He remembers. He remembers. Jimmy, the husband he thought he lost forever, remembers. Scott can feel himself freeze, little bolts of lightning crackling up and down his body.
Scott gapes at him, vaguely aware that he probably looks like a fish. “Petal,” he says, tasting the word on his tongue. It feels good. “You remember.”
Jimmy beams. “I wouldn’t forget.”
There is absolutely no thought between one moment and the next, because one moment he’s watching Jimmy’s smile, and the next he’s wrapped up in his husband’s arms. His husband. His Jimmy.
“I’ve missed you too,” Jimmy repeats into Scott’s hair. He’s still that little bit taller this time around, and Scott lets himself tuck his face into Jimmy’s shoulder. His hands are clasped in Jimmy’s. This is home. This is safe when nothing else is. If he knows nothing else, he knows it. He knows Jimmy.
He feels the poppy get tucked behind his ear. It smells like home. He’s missed it, missed this.
Scott’s tempted to kiss Jimmy right then and there. His husband stops him first.
“So,” Jimmy says softly, tangling and lacing their fingers together. “I would hate to ruin the moment, but I need answers, Scott. Please? For me?”
Scott swallows. He knows Jimmy can’t see his face, but he blinks away the tears all the same. “Yeah. That’s fine. My flower husband has to know me, doesn’t he?”
He can feel Jimmy laugh. He hums in agreement, gently pulling him away until he’s lifted onto Jimmy’s bed. A familiar weight settles against him. It’s warm.
“How?” Jimmy asks. It’s softer, less raw. It’s mostly for Scott’s benefit, he knows. “Elves aren’t supposed to die.”
Yes, they are, Scott doesn’t say. From swords, from arrows, from curses, from grief. Age, too, if they last long enough to manage it, because their time must run out eventually. Elves live long, but it makes their ends all the more painful. And it seems that Scott is dying from all of them at once, old wounds of a life long gone, a blessing-turned-curse, a husband he’ll never get back again, not really.
Elves lead long lives, but the very fabric of the universe itself is against their existence. It will snuff them out, crash their souls into the ground until they finally shatter, until they burn. It makes sense that Scott, bane of the universe, bane of the Watchers, would be struck by its might far too soon.
“We can,” he says. “I can.”
Jimmy tilts his head away from Scott’s. His arms tighten around his chest. “How?”
“I don’t know,” he admits. It’s not a lie, but it’s not the full truth either. Scott really doesn’t know, but that doesn’t mean he can’t have suspicions. And oh so many suspicions he has.
He pins most of the blame on Aeor, on the cursed blessing that was becoming the stag god’s champion. That certainly hasn’t failed to haunt him. He should have known that the might of a god was always far too powerful for a mortal soul like his, even if he wasn’t human. He should have known that sealing the demon away to die would have repercussions, especially with them so intertwined— by Aeor, there are warnings of such a thing as far back as the birth of the stag gods themselves.
There’s some blame on him too, Scott supposes. When the first memory had returned to him, he had been ignorant to believe he could keep it to himself. But as time has shown him, that is clearly not the case. Elves are fragile beings. The universe hates him, and if a grief can pierce deep enough to shatter him, the universe will ensure that it does.
The Watchers have cursed him. He is their star, and he must dance as his night begins to fall.
“Okay then,” Jimmy says. He’s taking this remarkably well. It almost warms Scott’s heart, if only he wasn’t terrified that warmth will turn its back on him. “What do you want to do?”
Scott blinks. “What?”
“A bucket list!” Jimmy says confidently. His hands are waving the air again as he pulls away from Scott in his excitement. “A list of stuff you want to do. We’re going to make sure you do them, and I’m going to be right here with you.”
“I don’t have a list of things I want to do,” Scott says. He pulls Jimmy closer to him. “I only want you.”
He shouldn’t be saying that. He can’t have Jimmy, he knows. He would only ever hurt him, through his passing or through whatever side effects this curse has yet to present. But Scott hurts now, and why can’t it just let him have this one thing?
It’s a curse on his life. There’s no other way to describe it.
And Jimmy’s a part of his life, of all his lives, whether he likes it or not.
Jimmy splutters, loud and embarrassed. Scott only has time to see his face blush bright red before he is pulling him in again.
“Oh Cod,” he hears Jimmy groan. “What will I ever do with you, petal?”
Scott pulls away just a bit, just enough so he can look up at Jimmy. He smiles as mock terror spreads across the other’s face. “You could kiss me,” he muses. Can’t he be selfish just this once?
“I could,” Jimmy agrees. He leans in a bit closing, hands curled around Scott’s all the while. He feels himself tip back, just a little, but he trusts Jimmy. He trusts him more than anything else in the world.
Scott smirks. “You should.”
So he does.
Jimmy kisses him, soft and gentle and sweet. It’s only for a moment, but it’s enough to send little fireworks racing up and down Scott’s skin. Warmth blooms from where their lips meet, one that doesn’t leave and makes his home inside his heart, quelling the bone-deep chill when nothing else has.
He knows his face is going red. “There we go,” he manages. “That’s more like it.”
He’s never going to get over how good it is to kiss Jimmy, it appears. Whether they’re husbands in a flower field or kings in a swamp.
Jimmy laughs. It’s the sweetest sound in the world, and he would die a thousand times to hear it for the rest of his life.
He leans in again, and for one moment, Scott lets himself forget.