Work Text:
SETTING: A diner, somewhere in the American Southwest. A few minutes after 8 am.
A man, pale-skinned with a wine-stain birthmark across half his face, is sitting in a booth by the windows in the corner furthest from the door. He's been here for a while, but the only thing on the table are two cups of coffee in bright ceramic mugs, one of which is untouched. When they come to check on him, he insists he's waiting on someone, and goes back to staring out at the parking lot.
A minute passes. Two. Three. The man flags down a waiter for a refill, and still orders nothing.
Another minute. Another. The sun's starting to peek in through the eastward windows across the diner. Another.
Then, finally—
ENTER: another man, charcoal skin with a mirrored wine-stain; the bell above the door rings as he pushes it open. As he looks around, the man in the booth perks up. Their eyes meet easily, but it's a long moment before the newcomer starts to walk over.
The sound of his steps are loud against the linoleum. Once he's close enough:
STORMZ: You actually came.
The newcomer slides into the opposite side of the booth. Their red-hued sides align.
DUMB: I—yeah.
STORMZ: For a while there, I, uh, kind of didn't think you would show up.
DUMB: (grimaces) Yeah, sorry about that. There was, um, pretty bad traffic from where I was.
STORMZ smiles at him, a small thing tinged blue.
STORMZ: It's okay, you don't have to lie about it. It's—you'd have had every reason to ignore me completely. Late is better than never.
For a long moment, DUMB just looks at him, then glances down at the table. It's answer enough; the sting of it is long since familiar.
DUMB's eyes find the coffee mug at the center of the table; STORMZ scoots it towards him.
STORMZ: It's for you. I don't know how warm it still is, but, uh, yeah.
DUMB, pulling it closer: Is it—
STORMZ: As strong as they can make it, one sugar—real sugar—no cream. (DUMB looks up at him.) I remember. If it—if it hasn't changed, I guess.
DUMB, quietly: It hasn't.
DUMB picks up the mug and takes a sip, expression unreadable. The coffee's perfect, in a way he'd forgotten it could be.
Before the silence can turn aching, a waitress comes up, asks if they're ready to order. DUMB, without looking at the menu, gets a half-stack of pancakes and a side of bacon. Raising an eyebrow at him, STORMZ looks over the menu for the twenty-somethingth time, and orders French toast with sausage and scrambled eggs. The waitress nods, seemingly relieved that she won't have to kick them out for freeloading, and slips into the back.
STORMZ: Since when were you a pancakes guy?
DUMB, snapping: A hundred and thirty years is a long time, Stormz.
STORMZ, hands raised: I was just curious!
DUMB glares at him over the top of his coffee mug, then sets it down and looks out the window.
DUMB: Since I came to America. It's—they don't do waffles the same over here, especially not somewhere like this. It tastes like they put plastic in them.
STORMZ: I wouldn't be too suprised if they actually did, honestly. (DUMB huffs a laugh; beat.) You, um—you stayed in Europe, then? After—
DUMB flinches, tiny thing in the flutter of his eyes and the furrow of his brow, and STORMZ cuts himself off. He doesn't need to finish the sentence, really; they both know what the endings to it could be. Hearing the words out loud feels terrifying, admittance of guilt before the jury, even if they're just here to reopen old wounds in the first place.
DUMB: I... did, for a little while. Belgium, until you two started showing up in the news, then Albania, until you popped up there, too. (His voice gets more bitter.) Fucked off to Thailand in the end. Figured they wouldn't care much about some rich, bootlicking political wannabe halfway across the world.
That one—that hurts for real, beyond the passive ache that made a home in the back of his ribcage decades ago. DUMB grimaces as soon as he closes his mouth, but he doesn't apologize, and doesn't look back from the window.
STORMZ looks down, hands wringing in his lap. He deserves it, he knows. Dolphin had deserved so much worse, in the wake of their own falling out; Stormz had wanted him dead or buried or a thousand meters down in the sea. To think he'd learned, to trust he'd know better, and then to be abandoned despite it--Dumb is allowed to hate him, despise him, grind him under his heel into the dirt. It'd just be the fate he'd chosen for himself, wouldn't it?
STORMZ, despite himself: I'm sorry.
DUMB: It doesn't matter.
STORMZ: I'm still sorry.
DUMB's jaw tightens, and he doesn't respond.
He's silent until their food comes. STORMZ doesn't have it in himself to try and break it; forcing conversation seems like a bad idea, anyways.
When their waitress comes with their food, DUMB shoots her a smile and thanks her, ever pleasant and polite despite the tension in his shoulders. STORMZ echoes him faintly, and tries not to shrink in on himself when Dumb's eyes catch on his, knife-edge sharp.
For a long time, they just eat, silence sinking like thorns into the space between their ribs.
Then, still leaned over his plate and half-murmured in a way that makes Stormz almost miss it:
DUMB: Was it worth it?
STORMZ looks up from his plate, then straightens and leans back into his seat, hands fidgeting.
That is the question, isn't it? Always the question, words reiterated so often he hears them in the space between breaths. Was it a worthwhile trade, losing his best friend for a bit more power, for the chance to build a throne so frail it'd fall quicker than it rose? Did that decade make up for the ghosts that haunted him through the halls of every palace they ruled?
STORMZ, with certainty and low-burning regret: No. No, it wasn't. (DUMB huffs, spiteful.)
DUMB: Could've told you that much.
STORMZ, quietly: You did.
DUMB: What?
STORMZ: You did. In the spring, before...everything. I'd come back from another dead-end meeting with him, feeling like I didn't even know who I was anymore, and you told me that he'd just drag me down. You told me to—to cut him off, focus on what I wanted.
For a long second, DUMB just looks across the table at him, gaze intense.
DUMB: It sounds like you think about it a lot.
STORMZ, voice breaking: I have.
DUMB: You regret it, then?
STORMZ: More—more than you could imagine.
DUMB considers this, poking at his food. He's finding his appetite is waning.
DUMB: I did, too. Sometimes.
STORMZ's eyes shoot up to him, shock painted bare on his face; his mouth is full, but the question is clear.
DUMB: I kept wondering if I could've saved you. If there was something more I could've done. (DUMB glances away.) Maybe if I tried harder to convince you to stop obsessing over him, if I had taken your dreams of an alliance with him more seriously before it was too late. It's-- I dunno.
DUMB: I knew from the moment he shunned me that he was irredeemable, and I couldn't get it out of my head that maybe it was my—my duty, or something, to get you to understand that, too. And I failed. And I had to watch you lose yourself because of that.
DUMB looks back at Stormz, and he's—he looks devastated, is really the only word for it. As though he'd never considered that beyond the brutality of the betrayal itself, the grief would kill Dumb in ways he never could've been prepared for.
It makes him a little envious. Oh, to only realize the full fallout of your actions so far removed from them that the knife to the heart is just the dull ache of a scar. How peaceful it must've been in comparison, to not have the cracks behind your sternum taunt you with every what-if and could've-been. How much thinking about it did he even do?
And yet—
STORMZ: You—you didn't fail. It wasn't your realization to have. I don't know that you ever could've changed my mind, not to...not in any way that would've changed things.
STORMZ: What's the saying? You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink? It was all right there in front of me—you put it right in front of me, but I was too blinded by my...reverence, I guess, of him to actually see it.
STORMZ: I know it's coming a century and a bit too late, but for what it's worth: you couldn't have saved me. You don't—you shouldn't have anything to regret other than trusting me in the first place.
DUMB, immediately: I would never regret trusting you.
STORMZ makes a face at that, disbelieving.
DUMB: Stormz, we were friends, not just— political allies, or whatever the fuck. I liked being around you, keeping each other sane through all of it. Some of my best memories from that time are just being with you, doing whatever stupid shit we felt like. I miss it more than anything. I could never regret trusting you, or believing in you, or knowing you, or any of it.
Beat. STORMZ is staring at his coffee cup, face unreadable.
STORMZ: It's more than I deserve.
DUMB: Well, fuck what you deserve, then. God knows I haven't given you most of what you do, and, honestly, I don't really want to. It's—
DUMB takes a breath.
DUMB: Despite everything, I've never stopped caring about you, y'know?
STORMZ, whispering: I know. I know. I didn't, either.
Grief pushes through the words like a flood, century and a half of sleepless nights and unsent letters and ache filtered into simple language. Stormz considers telling him all of it, about the dozens of journals full of apologies and prayers, of the fact that he wore the bracelet Dumb gave him before it all went wrong for decades until it broke, but it feels redundant. On the other side of the table, Dumb is running a thumb over the bones of his wrist, same bad habit as all those years ago, and he's here, in the flesh, a breath away. Stormz called, and he answered. What else is there to say?
STORMZ takes a breath, shaky in his chest.
STORMZ: Can we— can we start over?
DUMB looks down at his lap.
DUMB: I don't— I can't forget everything that happened, not with everything it's put me through, but... we can try again. Yeah. We can try again.
Looking back up, DUMB finds Stormz smiling at him, eyes shining in the reflected sunlight. It's obvious he's holding himself back from full-on grinning; despite everything, Dumb finds himself smiling back.
DUMB: Dude, you're like a puppy about this.
STORMZ: A hundred and thirty years is a long time, Dumb. (DUMB rolls his eyes.) I missed you.
DUMB: Whatever, man. (Beat.) I missed you, too.
At that, STORMZ's grin breaks through, radiant, and—well. Dumb finds he missed that most of all.
DUMB's grin falters.
DUMB: I should—um.
At his serious tone, STORMZ lets his smile fall as well.
DUMB: It might take me a little while to...be normal again. About us—about you. It's—that shit hurt a lot for a really long time, and I can't just get over that. I don't hate you anymore, but sometimes it still feels like I do, and I need you to be patient, I guess, while I...figure that out.
Pain flashes behind STORMZ's eyes, but he nods immediately, with a vigor that says he means it.
STORMZ: Of course. Always. I'd—I'll do anything if it means having you back.
DUMB blinks. It's unexpectedly raw, bearing his ribcage wide; Dumb had forgotten how honest he can be when it's just them. It's nice, to leave behind the detached political PR jargon he'd been hearing his best friend filtered through for decades.
Huh. "Best friend." He turns the phrase over in his mind, and finds it still fits.
DUMB: Thank you.
Beat.
DUMB: Did it even work? His plan, I mean, in the end.
STORMZ scoffs.
STORMZ: Not in any way that mattered. He was too power-hungry to actually distribute it once he had it, and I—um. (He grimaces.) I wasn't exactly in the position or the right...mindset to force him to. I wish I hadn't trusted him. I shouldn't have, with everything he'd done to get to the top, but, well.
STORMZ: I ran and cut him off before he got overthrown, but from what I heard, it was ugly.
DUMB: Serves him right.
STORMZ: (laughs) Yeah, I guess it does.
DUMB: Did you ever—no, that's gonna make me sound insane.
STORMZ: I already think you are. (DUMB glares at him.) Tell me anyway.
DUMB: Did you ever, like, carve his face into a tree or sketch his face and pin it to a training dummy and pretend you were killing him?
DUMB cringes as soon as he finishes talking; STORMZ laughs, and nods enthusiastically.
STORMZ: All the time, dude. Right after I left, whenever I would get angry at him, I'd put articles about him from the newspaper up on the wall and throw knives at it until it made me feel better. It got even better when they started printing pictures on a regular basis.
They fall back into banter easily, even if friction catches on unhealed wounds and jagged edges every so often. It's just good to have him back, to hear his voice again outside of nightmares and whispers of grief, and it doesn't need to be pretty to start patching up the hole in his chest.
As the diner fills up, they remain, talking deep into the morning. A hundred and thirty years is a long time, after all. There's a lot to catch up on.
Memories don't leave, and neither are sure history's ghosts will ever truly stop haunting their quiet moments, but as the sun spills through the windows and paints their red eyes a vermillion that glows like embers, they smile at each other and think—
Maybe there's still time for the scars to fade. Maybe there is.