#like Jimmy and the warmth of the ranch

[lunarcrown]

Commission for @13thunluckyjinx of poor poor Tango after he was unexpectedly ripped away and sent back to hermitcraft without even getting to say goodbye to Jimmy in Jinx’s fic RIGHT HERE

He was sooooo alone in his big empty bed WAAHHHHHH

[sunlightmurdock]

Like This Forever | 0.2 | J. Seresin x Reader (18+)

0.1 | Next Chapter | Masterlist

Chapter Two. Drunken decisions in the back room of your favourite hometown bar are a little more permanent than you had intended them to be. Jake leaves home.

Warnings: drunk sex, both parties are drunk during sex. If you’d like to skip this then there is a divider just past that scene. smut. pinv. creampie. this is an accidental pregnancy fic. concerns about passing out. puking. minors dni. wc: 6.2k

Jake’s watching you. The sun’s starting to breach the horizon out there, but not in here. In here, in this dingy excuse for a dressing room it’s still dark and smoky. It smells like Miller Light and cigarettes. It’s funny, or something is, because you can feel yourself smiling back at him as his fingers curl against the inseam of your jeans.

Faintly, you can hear Jimmy Eat World’s debut playing over the speakers. It sounds miles away. Wayne Mayhew’s cleaning playlist is full of dirt rock, it matches the way he has shaped his bar.

Each one of your blinks feels slow, and heavy. Even as Jake shifts forwards and leans in, it feels like everything is in slow motion. His lips press into yours messily, without rhythm. His hand hugs the inside of your thigh. The smell of his body and his cologne as he leans into you.

Your eyes are closed, your lips catch up to Jake’s and the kiss becomes a little less sloppy. For a moment, it’s almost tender. Your mouth moving wet and eager against his, your hands reaching out and pulling him by the back of his neck. It seems to cross both of your minds at once. You’re both wearing far too many clothes for this.

He reaches for your top as you grab at his t-shirt. Moving quickly is when things start to spin, and the alcohol pumping through your system starts to make your heart sound like a snare drum. Those slow, heavy blinks have your vision skewed, but your shirts are both gone before you know it and Jake’s bare chest is pressing into yours, you’re laying back against the red velvet of the couch and swapping spit with your best friend.

Jake isn’t an amateur when it comes to ladies. His hands explore freely over the push-up bra you had worn specifically for your meeting with Stu Adler for a few deep, heavy kisses before he’s snapping open the front clasp with a prowess he’s been developing since the eleventh grade.

Music thumps through the walls as Jake sets one of his denim clad thighs between yours and turns his head, attaching his hungry mouth to the vulnerable spot just below your earlobe. Your hands explore the length of his back, feeling those raw, country boy muscles he’s so proud of.

He spends every Saturday morning complaining about the ranch work he has been delegated, but he hasn’t ever shied away from gloating over the muscles he has as a result. You, however, have teased him about his verging on Olympian physique plenty. That doesn’t mean you enjoy it any less.

His tongue flicks over your pulse point, sucking firmly at your skin, his hands flowing down your naked torso and onto the stiff denim of your jeans, grabbing firmly at your ass. A pleased purr slips from your lips, your breath fanning out across his ear.

In the shadows of the smoky room, Jake’s face is so close to yours that you can smell the post-show joint he had shared with Mickey Garcia — lighting extraordinaire and fun-loving pothead, and the peppermint gum he had been chewing to mask that scent. And then, his tongue is in your mouth. Peppermint and beer, the taste of his tongue. You’d barely even had time to clock the way he was smiling at you.

It’s all so urgent, his tongue licking into your open mouth, massaging against your own. It has the power to press you back, flattening you onto your spine against the worn cushion of the velvety couch. Even so, in the midst of this wet and sloppy mess, you find yourself turning your face into the warmth of his neck. Inhaling deeply.

Warmth and vanilla, the tinge of sweat from the show, the lingering aftermath of the Darkstar’s air. Familiarity to the point that it makes you sleepy, smiling, breathless, against Jake’s skin as he grinds his hips forwards.

“Fuck me.” You pant into the warmth of his throat, trailing your painted nails along the firm planes of his back, hiking one leg up around his hip. One of you moans, you’re too drunk to really know who, but it spurs you on anyway. You lick the vein adorning the right side of his throat, following it from his shoulder to his jaw, nosing at his earlobe. “Jake, fuck me.”

“Yeah?” He breathes back, brows drawn together in focus as he feels your teeth tug softly at his earlobe. “You want me inside you?”

“I want it,” You lean your head back and close your eyes, feeling the room sway like hitting a rough patch of water on an otherwise open ocean. Jake’s mouth is grounding, working steadily down your neck and onto your chest. You push against him, feeling his hard cock straining against his blue jeans. “Mmm… Please, Jake.”

For the first time in a while, you’re not sure how long, or even if time is following the regular rules of operation right now, you open your eyes and watch him pop open the embellished button of your jeans. He must notice, because his focus flickers up to you, and he blinks slowly.

“What are you laughing about?” His mouth twists into a grin as he sits up and leans over you, brows drawing together in playful challenge. You grin up at him dumbly and shake your head. Something makes you lower your voice, but he’s close enough to hear what you whisper anyway.

“You look hammered.” You tell him.

He snorts, then leans closer again, “I look hammered? — I’m not the one who was still slamming back tequila shots an hour ago.”

Grinning, maybe still laughing, you lift your head and kiss him hard. Amusement still thrums in the air, you can feel it buzzing between the two of you, but the laughter is a moment already passed. Your hands are busy again, fumbling open his belt buckle and jeans.

Stumblingly, your cowgirl boots hit the floor and you writhe out of your jeans as Jake clumsily does the same. His knee misses the couch and he just about catches himself before he drops his full weight on top of you, which leads to another bout of breathless laughter.

If Wayne wasn’t busy blasting Green Day, he would surely hear the two of you getting busy in the back room of his bar, and he would march you back to your parents like the stupid kids he remembers you being.

You’re kissing before either one of you are done laughing again. Fighting to catch your breaths, still giggling between every deep pull of a kiss. Your hand dips into the front of Jake’s boxers. You look up at him and find him watching you, not smiling anymore. Instead, his lips are parted and he’s watching your hand stroke his cock.

His eyelids hood the vibrant green of his eyes, he’s bathed in the red light from the exit sign above your heads and the lamp on the vanity. Sweat beads along his forehead and glistens in the ridges of his shoulders. His lips are dark red, swollen from kissing.

Jake pushes his hips forwards, your hand still wrapped around him, letting the tip of his cock rock softly against your soaked core. Mouth dry, he swallows, his adam’s apple bobbing in his throat, a shiver tickling down his back.

“You’re… God, you’re so wet.” Jake groans out, pushing forwards just a little, watching the swollen tip of his cock disappear into you. Even as drunk as he is, he knows better than to just shove the whole thing in. Besides, it’s hot, watching you take him inch by inch. He rocks back and forth in short thrusts, watching intently.

Matching the rush of the dirt-rock drums blaring over the speaker, your breaths are fast and heavy already. Your chest rises and falls with every shallow thrust of Jake’s hips, your tits heaving under the crimson glow of the lights.

Jake sits forwards and covers your body with his, turning his stubbled jaw into the crook of your neck. “Fuck, Sunny, you— agh, you feel so good.”

Your mouth twists at the nickname, almost smiling. You dig your teeth into your swollen bottom lip, ankles crossing behind his back as you clench around him. He grunts against your skin, growing desperate as the silky hold of your walls draws him even closer.

Jake pushes one of his arms under you, enveloping your torso, pulling your chest flush against his as the other finds purchase on the dated arm of the couch behind your head. This couch is just over five foot in length, and Jake is more than a foot longer. It’s awkward and his knees are bent, you’re huddled against him, but the tequila and the beer are doing their jobs and the only thing you can focus on is how damn good he feels.

With the two of you pressed so close, tangled together and pushing impossibly closer at every opportunity, it’s hard to keep track of who is where. It doesn’t matter. You rock your hips, meeting his thrusts as best as you can, panting out into the air with little care for how loud you’re being.

“Oh, oh, oh, oh—“ Each time he fills you, your fingers draw tighter against his back, nails pressing into his skin, your breathing growing heavier and heavier.

Jake pushes your thigh back, angling himself impossibly deeper, growling softly as you squirm against the mind-fuckingly full feeling of Jake inside of you. You wriggle closer, shifting the angle of your hips as Jake bucks desperately into you, seemingly both of you on the same mission to find that one spot that feels as close to God as either one of you has been in a long time.

You’ve found it before, with your legs over Jake’s shoulder in the bed of his truck. Screaming his name into the open sky of the Seresin Ranch’s west pasture. Again, with your face smushed into the pillow of his childhood bed and Jake pressed against your back that one Thanksgiving.

You freeze as you find it again, a soft squeak slipping your lips before your mouth stills, stuck open in a silent oh shape. Your walls pulse around his cock, his knuckles whitening against the arm of the couch.

“Right there?” He pants, his voice growing hoarse.

“Yeah. Right there.” You tell him, grabbing the back of his neck like it’s the only thing that will keep you afloat.

The room fills with the sounds of his skin hitting yours, drowning out the blaring rock on the other side of the door. Jake squeezes his eyes tightly shut, resting his forehead against yours, thanking whatever fucking higher power led the two of you here, feeling this euphoric.

The sounds of your moans only grow, practically being fucked out of you each time Jake thrusts forwards. The harder he drives forward, the tighter that feeling in your belly grows, the angle of your bodies making your head spin. Jake watches, his mouth hanging open, as your hand slips between your bodies and starts to work at your sensitive clit. He slows down, fucking you in long, languid thrusts, watching you bring yourself closer.

He pulls his hand from behind your back and grabs at your jaw, turning your head towards him, kissing you slowly. Dizzyingly. You moan into his mouth, circling your fingers as he slowly pushes into you again.

All you can do is grunt and groan, and moan his name, as you feel him fucking into you. Slowly, with his tongue in your mouth, he starts to pick up the pace once again. Your head falls forwards to rest onto his shoulder and he secures his arm back around your waist so that he can hold you steady but also grab at your breast with the hand that had been on the arm of the couch.

Without him steadying the two of you, you crumble back against the couch, bumping your head into the arm each time he pushes himself deeper. Tequila and beer and the smell of Jake’s body on top of yours, the heat of his skin and the feeling of his mouth on your nipple — it’s a cocktail stronger than anything the Darkstar is legally allowed to serve. You couldn’t care less about bumping your head. You claw at his back with your free hand, desperate for more.

Jake’s breathing is growing harder, more strained. You can feel it in the rough way he kneads at your breast that he’s getting closer and closer, but that’s at the back of your mind. Your own climax is right in front of you, and you’re chasing it like a woman possessed.

You feel yourself tensing in pleasure, mouth hanging open in silent pleasure as Jake fucks into you. You grab at the back of his neck, marking your shoulders with a trail of your nails before you finally let go, cumming hard. Squirming under him, you push your hips into his as your legs go rigid, clenching your walls around him and making him gasp sharply as your orgasm crashes through the both of you.

Jake grunts, grabbing at your hip so hard that his fingerprints might still be there tomorrow, jolting as sensitivity surges through his body. But you feel so good. With a shuddering cry of your name, his fingertips go white against your skin as he fills you with his own release.

Music pulses on outside. The red lights in the room buzz softly. Jake’s breathing fills your ears as he tucks both his arms under you and pulls you as close as he possibly can. Neither one of you has any real urgency to move.

Sweaty, and drunk, and exhausted, you just wrap your arms around him and close your eyes tiredly. Jake kisses the side of your neck softly.

“You’re the best…” He stops, catching his breath, trying to pull together enough coherent thoughts to actually finish his sentence. “This tour, and everything. I appreciate it. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Sunny girl.”

Eyes closed, you just smile and chuckle tiredly at the sappy sentiment. He stays inside you for a moment, still catching his breath; when he finally pulls out, you can feel his cum dripping down your bare thigh. Neither one of you really thinks to care that night.

The two of you take your time getting dressed, and pick up the pace a little when it’s time to sneak past Wayne — who can absolutely never find out that you fucked in his bar. There’s only one taxi company in the town of Driftwood, and it costs sixty bucks to get out to the Seresin ranch — but if Mary-Lynn found out that Jake so much looked at his keys after drinking, she would skin the both of you.

So, he pays the sixty and takes you home with him. Even at your age, your folks hit the roof when you come home this late. Well, early. Early enough that as you’re stumbling into the kitchen, Jake’s father is standing there with a coffee cup in his hand and an unimpressed look on his face.

“Mornin’, pops.” Jake waves, one hand on the small of your back as he pushes you towards the stairs.

“How’d that meeting go with the music guy?” Bill Seresin calls without moving from where he’s leaning against the kitchen counter. He’s got three sons who are married by now, with three grandchildren and another on the way. And one son, who he just still can’t seem to figure out.

“I’ll tell you all about it tonight. I promise.”

The ranch is important to Bill. More important than his wife, more important than his sons. On several occasions, he has made that clear. He’s not a bad man, or a bad father, but he knows that without this land, he’s useless to all of the people he loves. Sometimes, that can make him a little rough around the edges.

Even so, he’s still the same guy who kissed your grazed knee and set a band-aid on it with the softest look in his green eyes when you were little. You learn to love him.

You know that Jake leaving is going to crush him. You also know, as you settle into Jake’s bed beside him that morning, still wet from the shower, that it’s all Jake has ever wanted in life. As you close your eyes, you hope that the two of them can find it in themselves to understand that one day.

Under the covers, Jake’s hand splays across your naked thigh. He squeezes softly, his own eyes shut as sleep starts to cloud his already foggy mind.

“Night, Sunny.”

The first show is in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Saturday the eleventh of March. Jake’s in a pretty good mood, smiling as he carries a box larger than the width of his own shoulders, containing sound equipment, across a parking lot in sunny 68° heat.

Looking at him, you would never guess that he hasn’t spoken to his father in two weeks — and had sworn to never speak to him again shortly before that. Well, you wouldn’t guess that if you hadn’t been present for the argument.

There’s a lot riding on this tour, making sure it’s a success. You’ve spent almost every day for the last five weeks on the phone with venues, and the record label, and fucking Stu Adler to make sure that tonight is the performance everyone wants it to be.

You huff softly as you lift with your knees, hoisting the box into your arms and turning to head for the venue. With lower budget tours like this one, it’s important that the entire crew chips in, which is exactly what everyone is doing. Soundcheck is in thirty minutes, you’re late getting here because of a flat tire twenty miles back, and this is your fifth journey into the building with equipment that rivals the weight of a small baby cow.

After turning away from the bus, you take three confident, long, strides and come to a halting stop. Briefly, your eyes cloud with spots of black and your head spins, your grip on the case in your hands going completely numb.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa—“ Bradley, Jake’s lead guitarist and also the tight end on your hometown football team, is the first person to notice that you’re practically out cold on your feet. He sets his guitar case down and you feel his meaty paws press into your back. “You feelin’ okay, Sunny?”

Jake turns his head, still laughing from his playful exchange with Natasha, his sound technician and also the girl whose father ran Driftwood’s one and only movie theater up until two years ago. He takes one look at the faded colour of your skin, and the confused look on your face, and the way Bradley’s practically propping you up, and dumps his equipment on the floor.

He’s in front of you suddenly, shielding your eyes from the sun and trying to meet your gaze.

“You alright?”

“Yeah,” You brush Bradley off first, Jake’s a little harder to shake. The guitarist picks up his case again and pats your shoulder softly as he steps around you to move on. Jake curls his fingers around your bicep, studying your face. “I’m fine. I’m fine. I just got a little lightheaded for a second.”

“You’re sure?” Jake frowns at you. You pull the box against your middle, securing it in your grasp and brushing your shoulder past Jake’s.

“I’m sure. It’s just hot. I need to take this sweater off.” That’s not the truth. It’s not hot, it’s actually a nice temperature, you would be cold if you took your sweater off. You’ve just been working yourself crazy this past week. You haven’t slept much and your eating has been all over the place because of that.

You just need to rest. That’s all.

“I want to see you drink some water. I won’t quit bugging you about it. You cannot get sick right before—“

“Aren’t you supposed to be saving your voice?” You call back to Jake, bumping the door open with your hip and continuing inside. Picking his box back up from the tarmac, he smiles at the sight of you disappearing around a corner and then shakes his head, following after you.

“Don’t blow me off, can’t a guy be worried about his tour manager?” Jake calls back, craning his neck to see which one of the doors along this hallway you disappeared down. He’s still getting to know the place, but follows the sound of you delegating jobs in your boss voice. “It’s your job to manage me. Without you, I’m kinda fucked— oh.”

You turn your head, pursing your lips as Jake rounds the corner. He stops walking and examines the scene in front of him. You, shaking hands with a sweet looking old lady with her hair in braids and a concerned frown on her face.

“Jake, this is Maggie. As in Maggie’s Bar and Saloon,” You tell him, narrowing your eyes at the idiot you had promised Maggie was a good Christian boy with good morals. Swearing like a sailor right in front of her. “She just wanted to talk to us about some ground rules before your show tonight.”

“Right. Nice to meet you, ma’am,” Jake sets the box down by his feet, flips the toothpick in his mouth and extends his palm towards her with that million-dollar smile of his. “Apologies about my language.”

“That’s no way to talk to a lady.” Maggie scolds, frowning disapprovingly but extending her frail hand out towards him anyway. Jake looks at you as he shakes her hand, wondering if maybe he should mention that you aren’t too much of a lady to start with. He’s seen you bite the cap off of a beer bottle and he knows you could still wrestle him into the mud if you tried.

Still, he nods his head solemnly at the woman in front of him.

“Of course. I’m sorry, to both of you ladies.”

You smirk at him, quirking a brow and pressing your tongue into your cheek, standing just behind the sweet old lady defending your honour. If Jake hasn’t yet figured out how to telepathically say ‘bite me’, he gives it a pretty good try as you watch on amusedly.

“Alright, let’s get to talkin’. They’re gonna want to check how you sound in a little while.” Maggie jerks her head for the two of you to follow and turns around, her yellow dress swaying around her ankles as she moves stiffly. The denim vest she’s wearing overtop is cute. You’ve been looking for something like that.

Glancing down at your watch, you press your lips together. Soundcheck is supposed to start in sixteen minutes, and you’ve got a feeling that Miss Maggie isn’t going to get through this quickly. Jake knows how serious you get about your schedules. He picks up his equipment and starts to follow the old lady, poking his elbow playfully against your ribs as he passes you.

It’s not something out of the ordinary, you’ve pushed him so hard before that he fell head first down a hill — that was an accident — but he doesn’t even jab you hard. And yet, your stomach churns. You swallow, pushing past the hot feeling in your throat and on your forehead as you walk behind him.

Maggie’s rules are pretty standard. It’s all about respecting her property, and her patrons, and the people that live in the surrounding neighbourhood. If Jake plays later than midnight, the venue can fine him. If Jake gets fined on the first night, Stu Alder will pull the plug on this entire thing. The death-stare you give him when you’re explaining this in Jake-friendly terms confirms exactly how serious that threat is.

Jake’s impressed. After your polite way of saying ‘is-that-everything?’ to that sweet, but serious, old lady, you deliver him to soundcheck with two minutes to spare.

“Are you sure you’re feeling alright?” Jake frowns, scrunching his nose as he reaches out to put the back of his palm to your forehead. “You look kind of… sick.”

“I’m fine. Go.” You huff back, grabbing him by his broad shoulders, turning him, and shoving him unceremoniously towards the stage. He grabs his guitar and cranes his neck to peer at you over his shoulder as he walks on, frowning dubiously.

You don’t feel great, and you’re only starting to feel worse. It’s a hot, dizzy kind of feeling. Then, Mickey walks right by you towards the lights system with a spiced pickle in his hand — and it’s game over. Your stomach churns violently and your body jerks forwards. You slam into Natasha as you turn around, throwing her off of you and breaking into a sprint.

She gasps, staring back at Mickey in shock. Then, she wrinkles her nose and turns after you.

Jake turns his head towards side stage and frowns slightly as he strums a few strings to warm up. One second you were there, now you’re gone. He purses his lips, sighing softly as he steps up to the microphone.

Natasha can hear Bradley starting to play the opening track as she pushes open the door to the backstage bathroom and finds you on your knees on the tile, retching into the toilet.

“Oh — Sunny…” She winces, stepping inside and checking for a bolt on the door. She tries to ignore the sounds of your vomit hitting the bowl as she locks it, then turns around to attend to you, scooping your hair back off of your shoulders. “Are you getting sick?”

“No — I…” You shake your head, trying to breathe deeply, also trying to determine whether or not you’re about to puke again. “I just smelled that pickle and— god, I literally threw up in my mouth. I barely made it here.”

Natasha settles onto her knees as she reaches past you to flush the remainders of your lunch from the bowl, fisting your hair loosely in her hand. She chews at her bottom lip, studying the greyish tint to your complexion. Awkwardly, she tries to laugh. “You’re not like… pregnant, are you?”

In truth, you haven’t given the drunken incident on the couch much thought since it happened. It’s not the first time, and it won’t be the last. Jake’s a good lay, and you trust him. That’s all there is to it. And, with how busy you’ve been organising this whole thing, there hasn’t been time for you to really have gotten any since. Sure, you let an ex go down on you one night a couple of weeks ago, but you’d needed a stress reliever.

“No. I can’t be. We’re on tour for another—“ You sigh, squeezing your eyes shut as a headache ebbs its way to the forefront of your brain. This is the last thing you need. Maggie wanted to introduce you to the security team before tonight.

“Forget the tour,” Nat tells you, raising her brows as she rubs a firm circle between your shoulder blades. You’ve been friends for a long time, she always calls you on your shit, and more importantly, she calls Jake on his. “Could you be pregnant?”

There’s a quiet between the two of you, broken up by the sound of Bob Floyd drumming the intro to South Dakota. Natasha studies the fear in your eyes and lifts her hand to cover her mouth.

“There’s a gas station down the road. We’ll go, we’ll get you some cheap tests and we’ll just rule out the possibility.” She’s trying to soothe you, but the fear in her own voice is just too much of a giveaway. You swallow thickly and sit back against the wall, dropping your head into your hands.

“We can’t both go. You’re supposed to be at soundcheck right now. I have a million things to do.” Trust you to be sitting here on the dirty tile of this bathroom in the biggest bar in Albuquerque, acting rational now. If only you’d been this sensible when Jake had his tongue in your mouth in that dressing room.

Natasha sighs, lifting a hand to card through her silky brown hair. “Well, we’re both going to be freaking out until we have our answers, right?”

An hour later, she’s sitting on the floor outside the bathroom with her head on Mickey Garcia’s shoulder. He bites at his nails, glaring at a stain on the wall in front of him that may, or may not be, piss. One day they’ll be on a tour ten times the size of this one, thinking back to the times they played in dingy dive bars.

“I don’t know why you brought me in on this.” He grumbles, shaking out his heavy black curls and pressing his lips tightly together. It’s bad enough he had to walk all the way to the gas station and back. “You know I suck at keeping secrets.”

“This isn’t a secret.” Natasha tells him, biting off a chunk of a twizzler and offering it across to him. She sits with her legs stretched out in front of her, ankles crossed, both of them blocking the narrow hallway outside the bathroom. “There’s just no point freaking everyone out over a false alarm.”

There’s a brief pause between the two of them as they sit, chewing on the strawberry flavoured candy. Then, they hear something slam into the bathroom door and start to turn, each of their eyes going wide as they hear you scream inside.

“What the fuck?”

“…Sunny…?” Natasha calls out quietly, reaching behind her to knock on the door.

“Alright, man, you ready? — Two minutes to go.” Natasha asks, her face pale as she checks Jake’s soundpack, her features screwed up in something deeper than just concentration.

This should feel electric, a hundred and twenty seconds to go before opening night of his first headline tour. They’ve been crazy busy on the door, the place is packed. Jake can hear the crowd buzzing to his right. He should be ecstatic. He takes a long drink from his beer and passes it away from him.

There are people for that kind of thing now.

This should be awesome. Way better than any of his hometown gigs. These people aren't his parents, or his cousins, or his high-school friends. They aren’t here to wait for his set to be over so they can see the main band. They’re all here for him.

But Jake’s distracted. He lifts his head and scans around the crowd of people backstage, his lips pursing into a disappointed frown. “Yeah, all good. Has anyone seen Sunny yet?”

Mickey glances across at him, then looks quickly back down to the lighting switchboard, chewing at the inside of his cheek. Natasha looks up at Jake, then quickly back down to the expensive equipment she’s securing behind his back.

“She wasn’t feeling too good. I told her to go lay down.” Natasha lies, finishing up and offering Jake a tight-lipped smile.

Bradley frowns at her, plucking absently at his guitar, looking towards Jake and wondering why everyone’s lying. He saw you three minutes ago, sitting outside with your head in your hands. Bob looks between the three people in front of him and then across at Mickey, who’s avoiding his gaze like the plague.

Mickey knows something — he’s terrible at keeping secrets.

“Do you think I have time to—“

“Sixty seconds.” Javy interrupts with a shake of his head, leaning against the soundboard and promptly getting pushed off by Mickey. Up until exactly this point in time, Jake had thought it was a great idea to have a team of hometown heroes. If these people weren’t his closest friends, it would be a lot easier for him to throw a rockstar tantrum and postpone the show for a couple of minutes.

He can’t do that. He can’t fuck up this early on.

“Well… can someone go make sure she’s alright?” He sighs, stretching out his shoulders, then his neck, adjusting the way his guitar strap is sitting and then twisting his in-ear slightly to make it more comfortable.

“Yes, now stop fucking with that or I swear to god, Seresin, I’ll hit you.” Natasha scowls, swatting Jake’s hand away from his in-ear. That’s the last thing he hears before he has been announced, and it’s time for him to get on stage. Bradley takes the right of stage, Javy takes the left, and Bob sits at the drums at the back.

You sniffle back tears, closing your eyes to the sound of tears as Jake takes centre stage. Fuck, you missed his first entrance. You need to pull yourself together, you just have to stop hyperventilating. Sitting on the gravel, you lean your head back and look at the sky.

There aren’t half as many stars as there are at home, which feels a million miles away already. Inhaling through your nose and exhaling through your mouth starts to feel more and more like an old-wives tale. Tears just keep streaming down your cheeks.

The one thing on your mind is Jake’s argument with his dad. Bill has always wanted his boys to take over the ranch. Jake’s argument is that he’s already got three kids doing that. They’ll never see eye to eye on it. But you sat in Jake’s truck with him that night, listening to Jake explain himself through gritted teeth, biting back tears.

He was born in Driftwood, his dad was born in Driftwood, and his Dad was too. There’s got to be something fucking more. He’s so — he’s so fucking mad that I want more. What’s so wrong with me wanting more, huh? — Wanting more than a fucking wife, in this little town, couple of kids. I don’t — he wants that for me. I don’t want that.

It was supposed to be a farewell celebration, they had both had a little too much to drink. Maybe Jake didn’t mean that, maybe he did. You know that if you told him he got you pregnant, he would settle for it in an instant.

What kind of friend would do that?

He’s been reaching for the stars since he could talk, and you’re not going to be the one to stand in his way, right when they’re at his fingertips. Natasha knows, Mickey knows — but they don’t know it’s him. No one ever has to know. You wipe your cheeks and breathe in deep, gravel digging into your palms as you push yourself up from the floor.

“Alright, ladies and gentlemen,” Jake speaks clearly into the mic, smiling out at the bustling crowd. Sweat beads along the back of his neck, and something is wrong with his in-ear. It has been for the first two songs. When he glances to his left, he can see Natasha scrambling to fix it, and arguing with Mickey as she does. “This next one is a little song I wrote about slowing down, enjoying the simple things in life.”

He steps back one pace and starts to strum his way through the chord progression, taking a deep breath in and looking up as the sound finally kicks into his ears. Natasha shoots him a thumbs up, and he sends her back a wide smile as he goes right into the first verse.

After splashing cold water on your cheeks, it’s a little less obvious that you’ve spent the last couple of hours crying. You round the corner and watch Jake from the side of stage. He’s got a huge, dumb grin on his face and his nose is wrinkled as he watches a couple of girls jump and sing in eachother’s faces at the front.

“Got seven women on my mind, four that wanna own me, two that wanna stone me,” He sings out, strumming to the beat of Bob’s soft drumming behind him while Bradley and Javy provide backing vocals to his sides. Caught in his peripheral, Jake turns his head and grins when he finds you there. His cheeks dimple as he shoots you a quick wink. “One says she’s a friend of mine.”

Your breathing hitches as he looks back out towards the crowd. Under the stage lights, flashing that mega-watt smile, he’s glowing. He’s exactly where he’s meant to be. Blinking as hard as you can might not be enough. Your eyes burn with tears threatening to spill through.

Natasha rests her hand on the small of your back and leans her chin against your shoulder. “You okay?”

“Come on, baby, don’t say maybe. I’ve gotta know if your sweet love is gonna save me,” Jake sings on in front of you. He looks so young, and so electric under those lights. It looks so natural. “We may lose, and we may win, though we’ll never be here again.”

“Yeah,” You whisper, barely audible over the noise from the stage and the crowd. Natasha closes her eyes as she hugs closer to you. The ache in your chest feels damn near fatal. “I’m fine.”

…

taglist: @fia-thefirst @daggerspare-standingby @dempy @v0id-chaos @moonlight-addisyn @grxcisxhy-wp @shakespeareanwannabe @coconut152 @330bpm-whiplash @takemetooneverlanddd @princess76179 @loveofvernonslife @averyhotchner @trickphotography2 @sushiwriterhere @the-romanian-is-bae @atarmychick007 @talktomegooseman @xoxabs88xox @thedroneranger @roostersforevergirl @buckysdollforlife @abaker74 @blackwidownat2814 @kmc1989 @whatislovevavy @lonelywriter10 @s-u-t @topguncortez @callsign-joyride @rosedurin @86laura11 @theenorthstar @mygyn @growup-thatbeautiful @percysaidnever @katiedid-3 @its-the-pilot @mrsevans90 @springholland @nani-kenobi @kidd3ath @kissmecaiti @swiftsgirlfriend

[days-until-burnout]

Ranchers (any) Tango doesn't realize how clingy he is, but Jimmy sure does (he has the grass stains and burnt clothing to prove it)

🧍‍♂️ i dont know what happened. i was aiming for something else and then... yeah. anyhow. hey! start of month 3 with some ranchers unrelated, but ambiguous and qpr relationships have been assigned the + symbol. because yes. i am god and this is my playground _____

📧 Day 61 -

Characters - Jimmy + Tango Words - 616 Time 25 mins Content - Double Life and EmpiresxHC Crossover Setting

It starts simple. High-fives, light punches on the shoulders and arm, fist-bumps. Nothing but a quick, fleeting touch that leaves no sign that there has ever been contact. They happen often, Jimmy notices at first. When he finds ores, when he brings cows, when he survives the deep dark and comes home, to the ranch, their ranch with enchanted armor. Tango is more than quick to cheer and whoop, fists in the air as he celebrates their growing resources. Tango extends his fist, fiery tail flickering wildly behind him, looking up at him with lively eyes and Jimmy smiles, makes a fist and that is that. 

It grows from then easily. Walking shoulder to shoulder as they gather logs, when they visit their friends, when they are running away from pesky mobs. He feels the warmth from him, feels the way his body rises and falls with laughter and wheezes and indescribable sounds. He chirps too, startled as they run back to the safety of their walls. The night gets colder, their backs against the cold walls, catching their breaths quickly before they break off laughing. Jimmy says nothing as they walk inside, rubbing sore muscles and shaking off grass from their clothes. Before the lights go off, he glances at his grass-stained sleeves and the little pompom-looking little black mark in his pants with a very faint line that must have been a wiry tail. 

It leaves lasting marks. Jimmy swims up, breaking the surface of the water with gasp. He keeps his eyes closed as water drips from his hair, from his cold skin, and he feels his feathers sticking together. He cringes for another reason, however. When he opens his eyes, flashes of a dark sky appear before him. Black clouds and soot rain, embers dancing down directly into his lungs. There are patches of heat in his body, steaming up with every little movement, the water like sandy heat against his skin. With a blink, though, everything is gone. The sky is blue, the clouds are white, yet his body aches. Despite knowing, he looks down as he raises his arm, red and pink skin, ugly marks in the shape of a clawed-hand, licks of fire on too tender skin. He drops his arm back into the water, splashing his naked chest, and he feels it ever present. The mark of a shoulder against the right side of his collarbone, the length of an arm diagonal from his to his hip, a wire-like mark wrapped around his leg and his wrist, and he feels it all. Tango’s back against his chest, the anger, the rage of the moment in every reminder. It subsides eventually, only three more trips to the river. 

It changes more than he ever thought possible. Under the heat of the mesa, when he raises his hand to cover his eyes, squinting at the horizon. Warm. Hot. His clothes stick to his body with sweat, and his lungs burn with every inhale. The fire in the sky, the heat in the air, the burn of the sand. It all reminds him of someone, a certain someone who sinks boots into sand. Who kicks up sand, who leaves dust clouds in their path. Loud sounds, not even words, a full body tackle of heat. Of fire. Their bodies tangle up, and Jimmy loses his balance, quickly rolling on too hot sand. Red and oranges color his shirt, stain his clothes, he loses his hat somewhere in the excitement. His body aches as his lungs are crushed under weight, he feels it in every exhale, in every joint of his body, a lasso in place of a red string this time.

_____

if we all ignore the 3rd paragraph.... we can all be illiterate and happy together. on the other hand, i was going to dedicate more time because ranchers being clingy? sign me the fuck up. but... well... yeah. yeah. a proper clingy tango for next time i promise

[canarydarity]

(haha happy new year! Heres 6K words of DL ranchers fighting 🤩 [ao3]) dull&slow

There was no feeling like a respawn; it was like jumping off of a building with nothing below to catch you, only to discover you had in fact been fastened into a harness when the bungee cord snapped taut. Except, it also wasn’t like that at all, because the mechanics of respawning—regardless of permanence—did nothing to curb the feeling of death, the actual sensation of dying. All it really did was remove the relief that one might experience had death been final, for what is death but a merciful release from pain? 

Jimmy imagined that there were few things that could even begin to feel like what a respawn did—the simultaneous cracking of all your joints at once in a manner akin to a human glow stick; ice cream that had been left out on the counter to melt but was then shoved back into the freezer again after only making it to that indescribably viscous stage between solid and liquid; a jam in a paper shredder—the kind where half of the page is relieved and sticking out of the top, completely intact and fine, while the rest is in ribbons below, still warm to the touch at the recent dismemberment. 

And that was only the physical aspect—the violent draw of your subconscious from the brink of death to perfect health mid-panic was something else entirely. It never got any easier, no matter how many times he did it (and Jimmy did it a lot). 

This was their second respawn, but it was different in the way that it happened unlike it did the first time: together. It was new but not unexpected to shoot up in bed at the ranch, cows mooing to his left and moonlight peaking through the window to his right. Jimmy heaved some breaths in and out; logically, he knew he was fine, but his body remembered the vertigo of falling. 

Tango was next to him, still lying back in their small bed staring at the ceiling. 

For a few beats, they were quiet, they caught their breath. The buzz of the cicadas outside was heavy in a way, droning alongside the cacophony of cows and the muted clucks of chickens from below ground. 

When his eyes began to itch and dry out from staring at nothing and his heaving sounded more like huffing, Jimmy broke the silence first. 

“I was leanin’ over the edge…why was I leaning over the edge?” His words were incredulous and barely there, only formed enough to actually get them out of his mouth but not any further. Had Tango not been right next to him, he probably wouldn’t have heard. 

Tango sat up, “Jim, hey–hey!” One of Tango’s hands reached behind Jimmy and settled on his shoulder, the other moved across himself to settle on Jimmy’s arm. “It’s okay! It’s only our second life, it was bound to happen sooner or la—”

Jimmy blinked out of his daze to realize Tango was soothing him; It was not shocking in the way it hadn’t happened before—it had actually, in fact, happened quite often—but in the way it was happening now. the combination of noises pushing in all around the ranch, having just lived through dying, again, and Tango’s warmth that he would’ve appreciated any other time, made it all immediately too much. Tango was soothing him—Tango misunderstood. 

It was instinct to throw Tango’s arm off of him, to scatter, to stand and create distance, and had Jimmy been in the right state of mind he would’ve explained that and apologized, but Tango’s shocked offense was the last thing he was focusing on. 

“No, you—why was I leaning over the edge?” 

It was the only thought that had run through his head since he’d woken up and stopped feeling like an egg mid-scramble. Not worry about being on red life, not concern about having been the one to return the favor of killing Tango this time, not upset that things were shaping up like they always did. 

Tango wasn’t necessarily wrong to assume that that’s where Jimmy’s thoughts had gone, as that’s usually where they would have. But this was not Jimmy when he was anxious, when he was guilty; This was Jimmy when he was mad.

He was pacing, but he wasn’t aware when it had started. He was just—he couldn’t stop thinking about fish. Or—no, not fish, parasites; there was this parasite he’d heard about that matures in the eye of a fish but reproduces in the belly of a bird. Jimmy had heard this and thought what a stupid, impossible thing—and he’d thought he had shit luck.  

That was until he’d heard the rest. Under control of the parasite, infected fish swim closer and closer to the surface of the water, leading it to be spotted and picked up by a bird; the parasite ends up where it needed to be all along, and that damned stupid fish is what gets it there. It doesn’t know what it’s doing, it’s not choosing to swim near the surface—by that point, the parasite is choosing for it—but it’s still— 

It just—

The fish gets itself eaten, essentially. The scariest part, Jimmy thought, was that he wasn’t sure the fish even knew. Was it aware it had been infected? Or was it swimming up and up and up and thinking what the fuck am I doing? Was it resting precariously below the surface, watching in fear as the birds circle, knowing all it had to do to avoid being eaten was swim the fuck back down, but for some reason, it just couldn’t?

Jimmy just—why was he leaning over the edge? His hands were wrapped around his stomach, griping his sides, hard. His teeth were grinding together, or he was biting his lip, or he was mumbling nonsense that even he didn’t know what meant. 

The floorboards of the ranch creaked and groaned with his pacing, and Tango remained watching from the bed, his face still painted in confusion. 

A noise—something caught between a whine and a grumble—worked its way out of Jimmy's throat, and more words came with it.  

“I saw them with their bows and arrows out—Joel, Etho, Scott—and I—” He shook his head. “We’d have been fine if I just didn’t peak my head over!” 

Jimmy turned back to Tango and pointed at him; Tango blinked, but the accusation delivered wasn’t for him. “And they weren’t even shooting at Grian, at—why weren’t they shooting at anyone else?”

Tango shook his head a little, opened his mouth to reply, but Jimmy wasn’t done. “I don’t understand—I don’t—” he grabbed at his hair and pulled; he bit into his lip again, not stopping when it started to hurt even though he knew Tango must’ve felt the ghost of it too. Jimmy rocked in place, “I even thought it. I thought ‘what are you leaning over the edge for, idiot!’ And then!” 

Jimmy spun, but no form of movement could match the direction of his thoughts, the restlessness of his mind. He felt like he was malfunctioning, every action begun and then subsequently aborted in favor of another; as if he could stop it all if he could just get himself to feel physically how he felt mentally, equilibrium a sort of saving grace. 

Jimmy hit himself in the head once like he could knock things back into place, fix whatever was loose in there–get the paper to start shredding again; in pieces, maybe, things would be okay. There was a call behind him of stop that, hey, none of that! and the bed creaked as Tango finally made the move to stand. 

“I don’t understand,” Jimmy mumbled again. They were inside, but his hair still felt the wind ruffle through it as though he were at high altitude; his hands touched nothing, but he could grip the hardwood of the defense tower all the same, rough and splintering. Joel and Etho had stood so far below, looking up, each with a hand up to their eyes to shield them from the sun. Jimmy remembered every detail about that moment—Grian had been leaning over right next to him. “Stupid parasite and it—why weren’t they shooting at anyone else? All I had to do was not lean over…”

Jimmy startled when Tango spoke again, he’d forgotten for a moment he wasn’t alone. 

“I don’t follow—parasite? What pa—”

Right, he wasn’t alone. 

“Gosh, and I’ve killed you, too, we’re–we’re red!” Jimmy said, facing Tango again. “And we’re back to nothing, we’ve lost everything—the horns, they’d have taken them by now, surely.” The anger from before seeped back into his voice, and Tango kept his space; a part of Jimmy felt bad at that, but he mostly felt validated. The guilt would come later, his chest didn’t house the room to feel so many things at once. 

Though space didn’t mean Tango was willing to stay out of things completely. 

“Jimmy, just hold on, I can’t keep up.” Tango was clearly still thrown by the direction things had gone in—he’d been expecting to reassure, not pacify—but Jimmy didn’t have it in him to stop and explain. His hands out like he was corralling a feral animal, he said, “What are you even…? Slow down, alright.” 

And maybe that was the last straw—his soulmate, known for his rage, asking him to calm, to slow down; the stark contrast between the Tango standing in front of him—hands splayed, face confused but determined—and the Tango who’d needed to be restrained as the ranch smoldered behind them; the fact that it was Jimmy who was being looked at like a time bomb with not even 5 seconds left to spare. 

This time, the accusation was meant for Tango, and Jimmy watched him stumble a little in shock when he received it. He threw his hand out like he’d needed that extra strength to pull the question from him, like his throat wasn’t up for the challenge alone, like he had to prove this was something he wanted to start and start now.  

“Why aren’t you mad?”

Tango’s face wound up with disbelief. “What?” 

Jimmy’s voice wasn’t made to be raised, but he gave it his best effort. It hurt, in a way—his throat not used to the coarse delivery; it hurt more for the fact that he’d made Tango the object of its direction. 

“You’re sitting here, and you’re calm,” he spat. “And—and you’re telling ME to be calm! Me!” Jimmy huffed again at the ridiculousness of the entire situation. “Why aren’t you mad?”

This time as Jimmy spoke, Tango wound down; he visibly CTRL+ALT+DLT-ed, a total system shutdown reboot. His hands dropped back to his sides and he stood up straighter. His face reset until he was just blankly watching Jimmy sputter and steam. He was still in a way Tango rarely was.

Jimmy thought it was the most un-Tango-like thing he’d ever seen, and that just made things worse. 

“Because it was going to happen either way, I could’ve just as eas—” its delivery was flat, like Tango knew he was stepping off of a bear trap but onto a landmine; though he did it anyway, and in most circumstances, his dedication to the idea of if at first you don’t succeed! was something Jimmy found endearing. If it wasn’t clear enough already, this was not most circumstances. 

Jimmy made a noise of dissent. This wasn’t—

“No, not—that’s not what I meant.”

A few beats of silence. They argued with the awkward hesitation of two people who’d never fought before and therefore didn’t know the procedure; neither of them had had time to memorize their lines. Fight was something they didn’t do—partially because they hadn’t been together long enough to garner the need, and partially because they got along with a simplicity they hadn’t expected. There was a question in this lapse between one comment and the next, an are we really going to do this?  

Tango blinked at Jimmy. “You don’t mean why am I not mad at you?” 

It would’ve been an easy out if he had. A way to walk them back to familiar ground—the kind where Jimmy was apologetic and guilty and anxious and Tango was steady and reassuring and kind. 

He couldn’t lie and say that wasn’t part of it; he was a liability, and he would never be over Tango being his collateral damage. 

He looked away from Tango, “Well—”

“Jimmy…” Pity was such an ugly, regretful thing. 

“No! No—yes, that’s not what I mean.” And it really wasn’t—at least, not at first, not completely. That was the undertone that would drive all his decisions and thoughts and feelings, it’s true, but this was different. This was—they’d died, Jimmy killed them, and Tango wasn’t upset about it; moreover, Tango was docile, passive. He was—

“Then I don’t understand what you’re asking me.”

—resigned. 

Jimmy didn’t yet look back, because he knew it would be his turn to talk when he did. All that he had to explain lacked the rationale to be said aloud; simply put, he was mad because Tango wasn’t. 

“You’re gonna have to give me something to go off of here, Jim.”

Eyes still fixed resolutely on the wall, Jimmy repeated the only sentiment he really could express at the time. “You’re not mad…” He let the end trail off, embarrassed it was all he had to offer, knowing it was unfair to Tango, knowing a normal person would’ve been able to voice more; just another way Jimmy fell behind. 

“At?”

“At anything!” He was discovering that when he did yell, his voice got high, and he tended to cut off the ends of his words. They shortened, got sucked up into the emotion until they weren’t letters anymore but sounds. “You’re—I had to restrain you, practically, after Scar burned down the ranch! And I wasn’t there, but I heard about last life and I—”

He felt like his sentences were being recorded in takes; start and stop, start—stop, mark! He would sound so much better edited together. He needed a script, surely he’d be able to say the right words had someone else given them to him. He’d do it right then, he knew. Of course arguing, too, was something he wasn’t good at.

Jimmy gestured at Tango, “You’re not mad, at anything, you’re just standin’ here! We’re going to die and it’s like you don’t even…like you’re not upset.” The final clause came out dejected and unsure; it sounded like it belonged to a completely different conversation. If he were reading lines, he’d likely receive notes about consistency and remaining in character. It was hard to do that when he wasn’t sure who he was or was ever supposed to be.

Tango looked no less confused. “That’s how the game works, Jimmy—we’re all going to die at some point.”

“I know that, Tango, I know.” Jimmy bit his lip. “How are you just okay with it?”

Tango’s eyebrows raised in shock, the kind that spoke to his questioning the audacity of something. “Well, I’m not happy about it, bu—”

“You are, though.” 

Eyes narrow, frustration finally starting to seep in, Tango said: “No, I’m not.”

“You are!” This felt more tantrum than argument; more whining about not getting his way than making a point about having been wronged; he wasn’t really sure he had been wronged. At least, not by Tango. But he didn’t know how to rewind, he didn’t think there was a going back. 

“Damnit, Jimmy, I’m not. You think I want to lose this?” 

No, Jimmy didn’t—and that’s why he was so confused. 

“Then why aren’t you angry that’s what I don’t…” This line of questioning wasn’t going to work—he’d already discovered that again and again. He needed to figure out a different direction to head in. “Even now I’m yellin’ at you and you’re just there.”

“So now you’re mad because I’m not yelling at you?” Annoyance, frustration, irritation—they were close, but none of them were what Jimmy wanted. Or—not what he wanted but what he needed. People were mad at him far too often for him to crave it in this uncommon time when no one was, but he needed to know Tango was with him on this.

“No, Tango!” Jimmy whined.

“Well you’re not explaining anything, what am I supposed to think? That’s what it sounds like you’re saying to me!” His voice finally at an above-normal volume, Jimmy shrunk; reality wasn’t ever quite like expectation, was it? The simultaneous relief mixed with the guilt, and everything got worse; he thought maybe that’d been his goal all along, he could see it now that it had occurred. And yet, it wasn’t right; sure, Tango was mad—but he still didn’t get it. Tango kept rambling.

“You’re mad that I’m not mad, and you say it’s not about you, but then you’re also mad I’m not yelling at you—which I have yet to figure out, by the way, and—” 

Following Tango’s wild hand gestures, Jimmy’s eyes landed on their wall of chests, and he knew what he needed to do. He scooted past Tango, who turned to keep facing him, and started rooting around until he found what he was looking for. 

“Oh, and you’re ignoring me too, now, which is neat,” Tango said to his back.

He’d wrapped it in a bundle of spare wool hoping that bed made they wouldn’t need much else and Tango wouldn’t find it on accident, but he pulled it out now and turned back to face Tango gripping it in his hand.

His soulmate shut up immediately, his gaze first on Jimmy’s hand, and then up at his eyes. 

“Where did you get that.” The anger was finally there, but Jimmy didn’t immediately respond. “Why do you have that?”

The golden apple was cold in his hand, colder than he thought it should have been. It glowed slightly in the darkness of the ranch, a yellow hue that spread out in a dim radius; he had the bizarre thought that it would've made a good nightlight had it not been illegal. Jimmy had always been a bit scared of the dark (he’d been pleased, then, when the game had started and he found that his soulmate glowed just the same). He didn’t need the apple sitting on the lid of their chests to provide light—not so long as he had Tango; how ironic then that he only got both or none, that consuming—and therefore getting rid of—the apple would rid him of Tango, too. 

Jimmy didn’t want to be left alone in the dark, but that was sort of why he looked back at Tango and he said, “I think you should eat it.”

“No.” It was both a response and an expression of disbelief rolled into one; a no, this conversation is not happening, not now, and a no way in hell is that thing getting anywhere near my mouth. The stillness was back, but it was more dangerous this time; less resigned, more preparing to strike.

Jimmy repeated himself, lifting his arm and holding the apple between them as he did. “Tango, you should eat it.”

“No.” Tango shook his head. “Jimmy, I said no.” 

“Why not?”

“Why not?” A sardonic, humorless laugh made its way out of Tango, and Jimmy flinched at the sound; a broken echo of their usual selves. “This is a joke, right? There’s something here that I’m missing that makes this all super-happy-funny and we’ll laugh about it in 5 minutes.”

“I’m serious, Tango.”

His hands on his hips, Tango nodded at Jimmy as he said, “you are.” It was deceptively compliant, mockingly understanding. Jimmy was misled often enough in conversation to recognize when he was being set up, but he hadn’t quite yet learned the skill of letting things go; he walked again and again through a door labeled trap! which was how he knew he was doing it now. 

“Yes...” 

“Serious-serious, you’re seriously asking me why I don’t want to eat a golden apple.” Tango doubling down, Tango continuing to misunderstand, the fact that Jimmy couldn’t blame him for any of it, the feeling of everything at once, and the knowledge that all was out of his control; he felt his eyes well up with tears of frustration. 

“That’s what I just said...” Dejected, a clown waiting for the punchline—waiting for others to laugh at his expense; setting up joke after joke, forgetting what it was like to not provide the entertainment. 

“Well I just wanted to confirm before I informed you that that’s the stupidest question I’ve ever been asked in my entire life.” It was at this point that Jimmy let out a breath, and a tear fell with it. “Like, wow it’s almost an accomplishment how stupid that question is.”

“Tango…” He’d plead but he knew he didn’t have the right—not in this conversation of his own devising. It wouldn’t be a lie to say he didn’t know how they got here, but it wouldn’t be the truth either. 

“Really! I’d make you a ribbon to commemorate and everything if we had literally anything to our name at all.”

Catching the opportunity to jump back in, Jimmy took it. “Okay, that—that’s my point.” 

“That I haven't offered to make you a rib—” 

Jimmy cut Tango off again before he could stuff the conversation with more nonsense in defense. “That we have nothing—have had nothing since we started!” 

It was more than just luck—it was design. There came a point where chance ended, a place coincidence didn’t reach. Jimmy had dwelled long enough in the space between unlucky and doomed to know that one was cyclic, intermittent, while the other was ceaseless, fixed. Luck would come and go, but damnation? That kind of fate had been here since before all of them, and would remain long after. 

The subject was taboo, but there wasn’t a single person on this server who was unaware that Jimmy was ill-fated. They poked and prodded him about it, but any level of seriousness to the conversation was buried under veiled laughter and slightly glassy eyes; the kind of sheen to a stare that said even if they tried, they couldn’t know what it was they talked about. To everyone else, Jimmy’s “curse” was a bit they’d overindulged in; to Jimmy, it was a burden he wasn’t allowed to acknowledge. They didn’t let him. 

He’d thought maybe…Tango was being forced to share it; maybe something would click; maybe they’d let him have this for just a few weeks. 

Jimmy didn’t think he could get any more stupid. 

The sarcasm remained equipped, defenses high. “Well, I’m sorry that you think I’m not doing enough to provide for you, Jimmy, bu—”

Jimmy groaned again. “Tango can you be serious for 2 minutes! 2 minutes, please!” 

“No!” Tango was looking at him in a way he never did; a look that conveyed I cannot believe you, the underlying sentiment of dismissal that hurt more for it coming from the only person who’d ever really listened to him without reservation.“You know what, no, I cannot. If you’re going to start a ridiculous argument you’re going to get ridiculous responses—you don’t like it, too bad.”

Jimmy had been involved in a lot of ridiculous arguments before—it came with being a reactive person; he existed with defenses always already half-raised, on high alert for anything that might make him the center of negative attention. 

But this wasn’t one of them. The ranch, Tango, soulmates—they were easily the most valuable things he’d ever had—and that was why he couldn’t have them. He was going to lose it—he was already losing it; it never hurt so much when he was the only thing he had. “Gosh, dont you get it?! There’s nothing we can do—nothing! I’m gonna kill us, you understand?”

It felt good to say it out loud, to watch Tango blink in the face of such bluntness. Somehow his shock betrayed his lucidity, and proved to Jimmy what he’d feared all along: Tango felt it too. 

And that made him circle all the way back to the beginning of this stupid roundabout conversation. Maybe he didn’t know it in so many words, having less time to experience it than Jimmy did but Tango knew—their time was running out; running out in a way it didn’t for anyone else playing these games; running out in a way Jimmy had—until now—never before been allowed to acknowledge. Tango knew. 

And Tango wasn’t mad. 

“Ugh, this is—this is childish, is what it is! I don’t…I can’t believe this is happening. This is—it’s madness.” What did they bother going in circles for if they were just going to end up right where they’d started?

“You’re the one trying to force feed me a golden apple,” Tango grumbled, eyebrows raised and face mocking as he looked at the cows. A few of them were standing against the fence staring back, mooing insistently; a strange audience for a strange night. 

“Because I’m sick of it, Tango!” He was, once again, not the right recipient of this complaint, but what else was Jimmy to do? Seasons of grief built up in one desperate conversation, it was becoming more a list of grievances than a call to action. “Of all of it! Of the jokes, of losing, of—of not being in control of anything, of dying—and you—”

“Me?” Tango huffed, interrupting. “Wow, tell me how you really feel, Jim.”

Jimmy shook his head and looked down, a dismissal; his answer immediate and unhesitant. “No, that’s not what I—” 

Sick of Tango—it wasn’t possible, but he saw in his hands that he still clutched the golden apple, and he was reminded again of all the ways in which he was dangerous; of the ways in which he was the heavy rock tied around Tango’s ankle, sinking slowly despite all efforts. He closed his eyes, tight, hard enough to hurt, and swallowed the bile in his throat. “You know what, yeah. I am.”

He looked up again to look at Tango, forcing himself to look determined, sure. “Yes, I’m sick of you.”

“Jimmy…” There was a warning there, but following warnings was never Jimmy’s strong suit. 

“I am!” He didn’t think there was much of a chance Tango would believe him, but he loved Tango enough that he owed it to him to try. “I’m sick of you and how calm you’re being. We’re losing everything, again, always and you’re just standin’ around and I’m sick of it, Tango.” 

Tango refused to answer, and Jimmy knew to be any convincing at all, he had to commit. 

“I’m sick of this place,” he gestured around the ranch, rebuilt since the fire but still nowhere near as advanced as the other bases on the server; they could try and try and try but they’d never reach that level; they couldn’t be allowed to have an actual chance. “and—and how we built it from nothing and it still didn’t matter. We weren’t even doing that bad, and we’re still losing, and I’m sick of that, too!” 

Tango standing still, Tango with his hands on his hips, Tango refusing to rise to the bait in Jimmy’s words. “I don’t believe you.”

“You don’t believe me? Fine, I’ll just keep going then.” He shrugged, undeterred, glancing around as if he wasn’t bothered—and his eyes landed on the cows in the corner, still watching them as if simply their being awake meant they’d be getting fed. Jimmy raised the arm with the golden apple, using it to point at them. “These stupid cows mooing all the time—the chickens—might as well just kill ‘em all now, 'cause they’re not going to matter either, are they? I’m over this place, and—and everyone else treating us like a joke.”

He looked back at Tango when he’d finished. “And I know you’re sick of it too, you are.”

“I’m not.” This, finally, was familiar ground—Jimmy projecting, Tango reassuring—but for once, Jimmy wished his anxiety proven right, he wished Tango would give in and admit that this wasn’t what he wanted—that Jimmy wasn’t what he wanted; not if it meant the absence of a fair chance.  

“You are, you have to be.” And it was somewhat like begging. Jimmy’s never begged someone to be sick of him before—he was usually pleading for the opposite; how backward, how wrong, everything in him screaming what are you doing?! No one else had ever treated him like Tango did. 

He sniffed once—as he was still crying—and kept listing things; the sort of fears it would kill him if Tango validated, but he said them anyway. If there was any chance it’d get Tango to eat the apple and be safe. 

“You’re sick of having to cater to me, right? Of having to answer a million questions and reassure.” Tango began to shake his head, but Jimmy ignored it and kept going, stepping closer to his soulmate. 

“And I bet you’re sick of losing, too. You don’t want to lose, Tango, not again, right?” It was a low blow, but Tango didn’t look hurt so much as he looked sad; he accepted Jimmy’s meanness as a product of his fear, and he curbed his offense to make room for the heartbreak. 

Figures that Jimmy starts a needless argument insulting Tango endlessly and was still the most pitied in the room. He didn’t know if it was a product of his selfishness or Tango’s altruism, but the effect remained the same. 

Within arms reach at last, Tango raised a hand but stopped it midway between them, unsure if breaching this distance was yet allowed. When Jimmy didn’t do anything about it, Tango lowered his hand until it rested on the front-facing part of Jimmy’s shoulder, eyebrows furrowed, not trusting that this was over.

Jimmy mirrored Tango with his own hand, feeling the warmth of Tango’s vest and above-average temperature below—the heat that’d been keeping him warm at night when they couldn’t splurge on extra blankets or were sleeping in a half-burned-down building or just because. He only allowed himself to feel it for a second before he pushed—not hard, but enough to make Tango take a step back, more because he wasn’t expecting it than due to force. 

“Come on,” Jimmy pled. “Fight back. Get mad, hit me.”

“I’m not going to hit you, Jimmy.”

Jimmy stepped forward and pushed again, both hands; not harder but more firm. “Fight back, Tango, come on.”

“No.” Tango’s face was scrunched together in the most vehement disagreement he could give, and, out of options—out of energy—Jimmy made another noise somewhere between a whine and a groan and raised his hands again, only for Tango to catch them this time and drag Jimmy closer; dropping his hands the second he was within holding distance, one of Tagno’s arms wrapped around him and the other cradled the back of Jimmy’s head as he pulled it down towards his shoulder. Their height difference made it difficult at first, but they’d been practicing for weeks. 

Jimmy went without protest, arms at Tango’s waist, screwing his eyes shut tight enough that he could almost pretend he didn’t hear the I’ve got you’s that he didn’t deserve but Tango was nonetheless whispering to the side of his head. He wanted to protest—or, no, he wanted to want to protest; to keep trying until Tango understood, until Jimmy screwed up enough that Tango got fed up and left the way anyone else would’ve done weeks ago, possibly just upon finding out they were paired. 

“You’re okay—we’re okay,” Tango said. “I’ve got you. We’re going to be okay,” hand steady on the back of Jimmy’s head, holding fast when he tried to shake it and express his opposition. Jimmy didn’t think that ‘okay’ had a place here, not for them, not anymore. 

They were on their last life now, he could feel the effects of being red thrumming through him, though they weren’t as much to blame for the damage he’d caused as he wished; this disaster, like most, was entirely Jimmy’s own. 

Still murmuring and offering reassurance, fingers of one hand still scratching through Jimmy’s hair, Tango used his other to gently pry the golden apple from Jimmy—no longer putting up a fight—and toss it away without looking until it rolled on the wood flooring through the gate of the cow pen. Jimmy watched, head still on Tango’s shoulder, as the cows shuffled around for the lobbed apple, mooing increasingly louder until, after a crunch or two, it was assumed no longer there. 

He felt more so than heard Tango clear his throat, the motion vibrating through Jimmy like a warning. “I am mad,” Tango whispered, voice only half-formed at the low volume. “I am,” he repeated, “don’t think I’m not.” His tone the kind of calm that only gave way to true anger. “But what can we do?”

Jimmy closed his eyes. He didn’t know. 

~-~-~-~-~-~-~

They’re in bed after, facing each other in the dark; Tango watching Jimmy, Jimmy watching their clasped hands between them. Tango’s thumb ran along the ridges and valleys of his knuckles, waiting for something, though he didn’t know what. In his mind, Jimmy was running through all he had to offer—the things he should say, the things he couldn’t voice—but what he kept getting stuck on was:

“I didn’t mean it.”

“I know,” Tango said; not exasperated, not upset, just matter of fact. 

Jimmy raised his eyes to Tangos, shaking his head as much as he could while lying down, not willing to risk any more miscommunication, “I’m not sick of it here.” 

“I know, Jimmy.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Shhh,” Tango pulled their joined hands until Jimmy scooted forward, head under Tango’s chin, all not forgotten but, at the moment, behind them. They were on their red life, after all—there were other things to worry about. 

Jimmy knew that the fact that Tango loved him shouldn’t be one of them, but when it was more than he wanted to live, it was. There was nothing he could do about it now. They would wake up in bed tomorrow and, maybe if they were lucky, the day after that—but there wouldn't be another respawn. They were out of time, out of options—this was it. 

Tango loved him, Tango wasn’t going anywhere. He didn’t need to press his ear further into Tango’s chest to hear his heartbeat—not when it was an echo of his own—but he did it anyway and tried not to number the beats like a countdown, to assign them values and limitations. 

He squeezed Tango tighter, comfort disregarded; it was an offering where words had previously failed him, though there was no guarantee that his message would translate this way either. Physicality was another language Jimmy had never gained proficiency in—pretty much any method of communication verbal or non-verbal was—but he owed it to Tango to try. The trace of his fingers along Tango’s spine said I’m sorry, his breath on Tango’s chest whispered of how he’d spare Tango’s heart from his if he could; forehead to collarbone asked if things could still be normal tomorrow, since there was now a very real possibility that tomorrow was all they had. 

He didn’t bother interpreting the response, focus lost as Jimmy tried and failed not to drift away on the subliminal messaging of his own; that this was his loss, his failure, his fault. 

If he’d tried, maybe he’d have read the brush of Tango’s fingers through his hair as I don’t mind, the press of lips to the top of his head as reaffirming the deliberate choice being made—the decision to stay, to be a part of this. 

But he didn’t. Jimmy was stuck, and not at all like he had thought. Maybe he wasn’t the fish, maybe he was the parasite; the birds were circling and Jimmy could beg all he wanted, but Tango loved him. Tango wasn’t going to swim down. 

Tango wasn’t going anywhere.

[scribbling-dragon]

22 with ranchers? >:)

all my love will be your breath

summary:

The first sign that something is wrong. That something is going to go wrong, is the prickling pain in his hand. Tango flexes his fingers a few times when the sensation reaches him, attempting to shake off the pins and needles as he continues working. The first flash of biting cold has him gasping, hand spasming as the pencil slips from his fingers. It clatters loudly onto the half-finished door he’s using as a makeshift table.

(ao3 link)

(3,085 words)

haha some good ol' ranchers angst. haven't written anything for double life in a hot minute so here you go! this was done for these writing requests - which are still open if you have any (and i am still working on the prompt i have left!!)

The first sign that something is wrong. That something is going to go wrong, is the prickling pain in his hand. Tango flexes his fingers a few times when the sensation reaches him, attempting to shake off the pins and needles as he continues working.

His hands ache, his arms sore from the work he’s been doing all day to fix up their ranch, just a little bit. A significant portion of the nearby forest has been cut down in his efforts to rebuild their farmhouse better than before. The previous iteration had been ugly, but good enough to house them. This new version – one that he’s actually drawn plans and created measurements for – will be better than the previous one could have ever been.

He pauses in his sketching; alterations of the farmhouse had to be made, when he realised that it would be too complex to complete within the time frame he currently has. He wanted to complete it before Jimmy returned from his mining session, wanted to have something to show off to him.

It’s a stupid thing to want, but he wants it nonetheless, and it’s looking good. Like it might be finished before night even begins to set in.

Progress has been helped along by Grian lending a helping hand – a helping axe, rather. It’s obvious what he’s going for, attempting to mend the burned bridges between their pairs. Tango had accepted the help with gritted teeth and a strained smile, willing to set aside his own anger for the sake of finishing the house before Jimmy returns.

He shakes his hand again, the bones in his wrist shifting with the force he uses, hoping to dissipate the feeling so he can return to his drawings. Instead of disappearing, the sensation only strengthens, until his entire hand is numb.

The first flash of biting cold has him gasping, hand spasming as the pencil slips from his fingers. It clatters loudly onto the half-finished door he’s using as a makeshift table. That, coupled with his not-so quiet gasp, draws attention to him.

“You alright?” Grian calls over from beside the log pile. He’s stripping the bark from them, forming them into neater planks than Tango would be capable of making with his own hands. He is not designed for the intricate details that builders manage to achieve, preferring complex and sprawling arrays – who has the patience to make sure every single plank is the exact same size? Grian apparently does, and it’s also why he shooed Tango away, his need for aesthetics overriding any sensible thought of this is someone I might have to fight to the death, why should I be helping him? apparently.

Tango isn’t going to comment on it. Not when it will probably reduce the draught that had forced him and Jimmy into one bed, beneath several blankets, to huddle and conserve warmth.

Simply the thought of that evening of closeness, of the quiet, stifled giggles and curling warmth that had nestled somewhere deep within his chest and not yet left is enough to make him feel warm from the inside out, the ends of his hair curling into small flames.

“I'm fine,” he grits out, registering the echoing silence that has stretched between him and Grian, the way the other still watches him, remaining fixated on the side of his face until he responds.

“Uh huh,” Grian tips his head to the side in a very bird-like manner, a wry smile crossing his lips. “Then why are your hands shaking?”

Are they?

He hadn’t even noticed, both hands beginning to shiver and tremble, phantom pains no longer sparking over the backs of his hands and into the fine bones of his wrists. He flexes them experimentally, coming to the chilling conclusion that he can’t feel his hands at all.

Whatever it is that Jimmy’s experiencing, it’s left him with little feeling in his hands. Something that is beginning to crawl up his arms further. It’s startling and uncomfortable and- and not something that should be happening at all.

He feels out along the bond that tethers him to his other half, feeling along the string that has only strengthened during their time here. He pulses something resembling curiosity and worry along it, transmitting the feelings in the same way a redstone line would transmit a signal.

He still doesn’t understand how it works, and Grian is vague with the details of how it all works.

Tango doesn’t think even he knows, thinks this is all something that has spiralled a little out of Grian’s control, into something that he’s still grasping for, still attempting to regain control of. Either that, or his bond with Scar is frayed enough that he cannot transmit anything at all; his lack of knowledge originates not from a lack of control, but from a place of not experiencing it at all.

He waits a few, tense moments after sending the question across, waiting for a response. Any kind of response.

He crumples beneath the weight of what is returned to him, the sheer panic and pain radiating through to him is enough to make his head ache. He cradles it in his hands, in his numb, cold hands, and struggles not to cry out.

He can taste blood in his mouth, though whether that is his own sensation or something from Jimmy is unknown.

“Woah,” someone skids on the grass beside him, coming to an abrupt halt. “You are clearly not alright.”

“Gee, thanks for that,” he bites back, teeth flashing as he glares up at Grian. “What might’ve given you that idea?”

“There’s no need to be so rude,” Grian bites back, wings ruffling in clear agitation. “Now, are you going to tell me what’s wrong or should I just leave?”

Tango remains silent, staring mulishly at the ground he’s currently kneeling on. The grass is charred and ashy; somewhat of a relief that it cannot catch fire again, with the sparks jumping from his flicking tail.

“Fine,” Grian heaves himself back to his feet, the knees of his jeans stained with ash and soot. He brushes at them a few times, something that Tango watches from the corner of his eye, but only succeeds in smearing the ash further over his jeans and onto the palms of his hands. “I’ll leave you to it. Come find me if you improve your attitude.”

Tango feels regret as soon as Grian starts walking away, dead grass crunching beneath his feet.

He opens his mouth to call out behind him, beginning to rise to his feet before a burning sensation floods up his arms. It brings him low again, down to his knees once more in the wreckage of his home.

He cries out wordlessly, the sound transforming into a snarl at the end of it as he bites down on his tongue, embarrassed and frustrated with his own inability to do anything.

He wanted to fix this, wanted to repair the home that he and Jimmy had begun to call theirs, something that belonged only to them. And yet he failed at that, unable to even lift a pencil to fix this.

The burning fades fast, quick enough that he’s left choking on his own breath, throat constricting painfully as he shoves himself upwards.

His head collides with someone’s chin in his haste, and both of them fall back. He glares at Grian, who winces and then glares right back at him. “I just bit my tongue because of you.”

“And? What were you doing so close?”

“Checking to make sure you weren’t about to keel over.”

“I'm fine,” he sniffs. He stands up slower this time, ears flicking back and forth anxiously. He doesn’t know what it is travelling across to him, only registering the numbing pain that’s beginning to snake up his arms again, biting cold against his skin. But there’s something wrong, that much is easy to figure out. “I need to find Jimmy.”

“Obviously,” Grian scoffs. “Where’d he go?”

“Mining.”

Grian gives him a flat look. “You’ll have to give a few more details than that – where did he go? How long did he say he was going to be? What was he going to get.”

“Why do you care?” he snaps. He turns around then and there, shoving his way through the gate, wood clattering behind him as it bounces back into position from where he shoved it. It clicks open a moment later as Grian follows him out.

“Because I'm going to help you,” he says.

“Oh yeah?” Tango doesn’t even bother to turn and face him, heading in the direction he remembers watching Jimmy disappear in. He’d been walking with a pep in his step, and Tango may have been slightly distracted by watching the way the rising sun silhouetted him, the way it framed his face just so-

Heat lances up his arms again, curling around his elbows, gone as quickly as it was there, as though someone dumped a bucket of water over the burning. The blistering cold returns moments later, hands beginning to tremble once more.

Grian snatches at one of his hands, both thumbs pressing into the palm and forcing his claws to splay out. “Hey!” He attempts to tug his hand out of Grian’s grip, but it just turns bruising in its strength and he halts his struggles as quickly as they had begun. He doesn’t want to cause Jimmy more pain than he’s already experiencing, even if his hand is almost completely numb by now. “What are you doing!”

“You have frostbite,” Grian shoves his hand in his face. “Your fingers are turning purple. How did you not notice?”

“I don't know if you’ve noticed, but my claws are dark anyway,” he yanks his hand free from Grian’s grip, and the other man lets him this time. Allows him to retreat a small distance away and observe his hands himself. He grits his teeth and suppresses a small growl when he realises that Grian is right. He’d just been too stupid to notice it before.

“He’s somewhere cold,” Grian surmises.

“Wow, give it up for the genius over here,” he mutters. He thought it was quiet enough that Grian wouldn’t have heard him, but he still turns on Tango with a furious glare.

“I’m helping you,” Grian hisses out. “Be a little more grateful.”

“You're atoning for your soulmate,” Tango fires back. “Don't make up something when we all know it’s a lie. Why even bother when you're one bad situation away from abandoning him entirely?”

He halts the moment the words spill past his lips, born of frustration rather than anything more malicious. Still, it has the effect he was going for a few moments ago – before his rational thinking and decision-making capabilities caught up with him – and Grian’s face closes off, going dark and angry.

“You don't mean that,” Grian tells him. “And you don't know what you're talking about either.”

“Fine, maybe I don't,” he acquiesces. He won’t apologise, not when Grian won’t accept it from him, but he can still feel a little guilty. “But I also don't want to be stood around chatting about this while Jimmy- dies! Or whatever it is!”

“Freezes to death,” Grian corrects. Then pauses and lights up, turning on Tango with none of his previous anger, an inspired gleam in his eye. “Frozen!” He yells, like that makes any sense at all, gives him any clue to whatever leap of logic Grian just made.

“Uh,” he says smartly. “What?” And winces a moment later, heart thudding hard in his chest as the cold retreats for a moment, before cascading back in like- like snowfall. Like snowfall! “Frozen!” He yells back at Grian, grinning like an idiot before he gasps, chest stuttering with the panic that pulses over to him, flooding his senses with a nervous energy.

“The mountain is this way,” Grian tells him, yelling slightly with the frantic energy that has overtaken the two of them. Tango wouldn’t consider them allies – wouldn’t consider them even friendly after Scar’s little escapade at their ranch, but maybe they could start something somewhat like an alliance after this? Provided they manage to find Jimmy. Provided that they're even right. “Come on, come on!”

“I'm coming, I'm coming!” He breaks into a sprint, even as his chest feels as though it’s being compressed, something heavy weighing down on his ribs and preventing his lungs from expanding properly. The burning in his throat and his lungs only spurs him on further, legs turning numb from both the cold and the exertion as he makes the first leap up the craggy clifface of the mountain.

A blur of colour shoots up past him, Grian splaying his wings out when he reaches the top to slow his descent, touching down delicately as Tango continues his mad scramble up the side. His numb hands falter a few times, but he digs his claws in a little harder as he climbs further, easing himself into it until he’s as familiar with the rocks as a mountain goat.

Grian hops from foot to foot at the top, and as much as Tango wants to haul himself over the edge and lay there for several hours, maybe even a lifetime, he shoves himself upwards onto his feet as soon as he can, ignores the burning of everything. The burning that could be him but could also be Jimmy -wherever he is.

It doesn’t take them long.

Not with the laughter travelling clearly through the cold air, carried to them on a sharp wind. He doesn’t even need to think it through before he veers in the direction of the voices, the taunting that reaches his ears.

He flares so hot that it probably reaches Jimmy over their bond, and clears a circle of snow around him.

“Oh, look who’s arrived!” Joel turns to him with a smile, arms outstretched. “Took you long enough.”

“What are you doing?” He can see Grian backing up from him out the corner of his eye, but can’t find it in himself to care as he flares up. He doesn’t even care if he sets fire to this whole damn forest. All he can focus on is the slight movement of snow at Joels’ feet.

“Nothing,” Joel shrugs. Scar, behind him, at least has the decency to look guilty…Scar?

He whirls on Grian. “You knew?”

“What!” Grian shrieks out, outraged and shocked all at once. “How was I meant to know! Why do you even think I knew?”

“Scar’s here!” he yells, gesturing towards the offending person. “You're telling me he ran off and you didn’t think to check where he’d gone?”

“I was helping you all day! How was I meant to know he came up here to do something like this?”

Tango hisses out a breath filled with smoke and a little flame, uncaring of the way soot coats the inside of his mouth and the back of his teeth. He can scrub the taste away later, when his hands are no longer numb and his heart doesn’t feel as though it’s going to break to pieces.

He surges forward, ducking beneath Joel’s arm when he tries to block him and plunging a hand into the powdered snow. He scrambles around, ignoring the yelling that starts up behind him, grasping and reaching blindly until he finally finds something solid amongst the numbing cold.

He holds on tighter and yanks backwards, using his body weight to pull Jimmy free from the snow. He falls back with the force, when the snow finally releases its victim, allowing him free of the snowy prison he’d been trapped in for however long.

He’s shuddering so hard that Tango’s afraid, for several long moments, that he might just vibrate out of his skin, teeth chattering so hard he might bite off his tongue.

He pays this little mind, pulling Jimmy close to himself and stoking the fire in his core as much as he can, pressing his forehead to Jimmy’s, wincing at the clammy feel of it. He sits there, in his circle of melted snow until Jimmy blinks his frosted lashes open, squinting up at him.

“Hey,” is all he says.

“Don't hey me,” he bites out, frustration from a source of worry and fear and panic and everything but anger, stress making him feel like he’s on the edge of some great drop; any movement would send him over the edge, and then he might do something even more stupid like start sobbing right here. “I didn’t know where you were,” he tells Jimmy quietly. It’s loud enough to carry, now that the yelling behind them has stopped.

Tango doesn’t turn to check on their companions, focusing only on Jimmy, on the way his extremities are no longer purple with cold, returning to a slightly more healthy pink tint, cheeks rosy with the cold.

He steels his resolve then and stands, ignores the small sound of panic that Jimmy makes, the way his cold hands wrap around the back of his neck, as though Tango would ever drop him. His arms are beginning to burn with exhaustion, muscles trembling, but he refuses to release Jimmy. Not when he’d almost slipped away from Tango completely.

He ignores the apologetic look from Grian, ignores the guilty one from Scar. Ignores Joel entirely.

Jimmy presses his face against his neck, speaking words that Tango can only make out because of how close they are. Words spoken so close to his skin that they're almost branded into it. “I can walk,” he says, embarrassment colouring his voice and his face.

“I know.”

“Then…”

“I want to carry you,” a stray feather brushes against the exposed skin of his neck, brushes just below his chin in a way that makes him shiver. “Besides, I think you're quite enjoying this, aren’t you?” he teases, hoping that it might make Jimmy smile, at least a little.

The embarrassment and flustering will keep him warm until they're back at the ranch, where Tango can wrap him in blankets and offer him warm drinks. And maybe he’ll sit alongside Jimmy, within that cocoon of blankets, warm him with the flame stoked somewhere deep in his chest.

Jimmy tightens his grip, though it is no longer from fear of being dropped, and more to press himself closer to Tango. To his warmth.

Despite himself, Tango flushes, and prays that Jimmy can’t feel it.

[ween-kitchens]

the sims 4 horse ranch pack has reignited my insanity over these two <3

“hey darling.” jimmy looks up, a smile already working its way onto his face. “hi tango.” “what’re you doing out so late?” tango asks, leaning against a beam. “I know you like to get up early.” “I was waiting for the sunset.” jimmy says, warmth in his chest. god, he loves this man. “I haven’t seen it in a while.” “it’s a gorgeous day for it.” tango says, walking over to press a chaste kiss to jimmy’s lips. “not as gorgeous as my rancher, though.” he adds, looking far too pleased with himself. not that jimmy’s complaining. “you sap.” jimmy says, entirely endeared by his husband’s antics. “what are you doing out late? I know you can’t be without your beauty sleep.” he teases. tango turns a little pink as he sits on the bench next to jimmy. “if I told you that I can’t sleep without you,” he starts, grinning shyly. jimmy laughs and puts his arm around tango. “you’re so cute.” “oh, shush.” tango says, leaning into him. “besides, I haven’t seen you much today. how was lunch?” “chaotic and dumb as ever.” jimmy says fondly. “joel’s horse—you know sage?—just had her foal.” “aww!” tango exclaims. “yeah! he showed me photos of her, she’s adorable.” jimmy says. “her name is onion.” “onion?” tango frowns. “yeah, like sage and onion.” jimmy grins. “lizzie had a couple rabbits way back and that’s what they were called.” “oh, that’s so sweet.” tango says. “we have to visit now, I need to meet her.” “that’s what I said.” jimmy agrees. “and grian. we’re scheduling dates to go over.” “I hope i’m coming too.” tango says eagerly. “of course!” jimmy says. “I couldn’t let you miss that, honey.” tango’s smile softens, and jimmy’s heart soars. man, tango is just beautiful. “‘honey’?” tango says, almost shy, and jimmy realises that’s the first time he’s called tango that out loud. “I- have I not said that before?” jimmy says. tango shakes his head, still smiling. “I like it. a lot.”

“that’s good then,” jimmy leans in so his nose barely brushes tango’s. “honey.” he says deliberately, watching with utmost fascination and adoration as tango’s composure crumbles completely. “oh my god.” tango drops his head onto jimmy’s shoulder. “you’re so mean.” “you said you like it!” jimmy says, stifling a laugh. “you’re mean, and horrible, and i’m divorcing you tomorrow.” tango mumbles into the fabric. “I love you.” he adds, quieter. jimmy presses a kiss into tango’s hair. “love you too, hon.” “you hate me.” tango says, muffled. “that’s what this is. it’s an elaborate scheme.” “for what?” jimmy strokes tango’s hair, amused. there’s a long pause. “I don’t know.” tango finally admits, looking up again. jimmy takes this opportunity to kiss him, and, judging by tango’s response, he’s quite happy with this decision. “you come here often?” jimmy jokes as they pull away. tango rolls his eyes, endlessly fond. he cups jimmy’s face in the palm of his hand, tracing his lips with his thumb. “you’re so handsome.” he says, almost absentmindedly. even after all these years, jimmy can’t help finding himself speechless at the look tango is giving him—appreciation and love and curiosity. in his defence, tango is an extremely pretty person. it’s all too easy to be mesmerised by him. “I love your freckles.” tango says, almost to himself. “they’re like galaxies.” it’s all jimmy can do not to melt into a puddle of mush on the floor. “you’re- you’re not too bad yourself.” tango blinks, apparently processing what jimmy just said. “oh.” he grins, and jimmy thinks he isn’t in for a treat. “are you embarrassed?”

“no.” jimmy huffs. “I have a very pretty man complimenting me, i’m flustered.” “yeah, you are.” tango leans in. “it’s cute.” “you’re being mean now.” jimmy says. he can feel tango’s breath on his skin, they’re that close. “my turn.” tango winks, and kisses his nose. “tango-“ jimmy tries to say, when tango starts to pepper kisses across his face. “hm?” tango says, lips pressed against his cheek. “what are you doing?” jimmy smiles. “i’m kissing all your freckles.” tango says, leaning back for a second to grin at him, before resuming. “you dork.” jimmy says, blushing with pleasure. “that’s me.” tango says cheerfully. jimmy is in love.

[hopepetal]

Ranchers fic! It's close to my birthday so I thought "why not write a birthday fic?"

--

For the first time in months, Jimmy woke up cold.

Tango was Netherborn, his body temperature running a little higher than Jimmy's on average. It wasn't unpleasant, not at all– the warmth reminded him of summer, of flower fields, of love and the ranch and nights spent in the arms of his soulmate. It was a little shocking to wake up without Tango in the bed, because last time he checked, Tango was most certainly not a morning person.

Nor was he a cook, judging by the faint acrid smell of food burning, and yelped swears as– and Jimmy could picture it so vividly, even with his eyes closed– as Tango likely grabbed whatever was burning off the pan with his bare hands.

Welp. That was as good of a wake-up call as he'd get.

Sliding out of bed (totally not struggling for a moment with the tangled sheets, not at all) Jimmy stretched, yawning as his joints popped and cracked. Feet bare against the cold wooden floors, he slowly slipped downstairs, yawning loudly again as he entered the kitchen. “Mornin', sunshine– what in Void's name is that?!”

Tango held out a paper plate decorated with blackened bacon and overly fried eggs. “Breakfast. Tango edition.”

Jimmy hesitantly took the plate, offering Tango a strained smile. “...thanks...?”

Tango deflated. “Yeah, it's awful. I don't know how to cook.”

Jimmy laughed softly as he took the plate to the garbage and dumped it. “You tried your best, I'm sure.” He grabbed another pan, placing the used one in the sink and putting a bit of water in it. Placing the clean pan on the stove, he turned the heat on and grabbed some of the bacon Tango had been about to cook. “So,” he began, oiling the pan, “what... prompted this, exactly?”

Tango plopped down at the table with a loud sigh, resting his elbows on the table. “I wanted to do something special for you. Y'know. You're always making me breakfast and I thought, *hey, this couldn't be that hard, I'm a genius redstone engineer!' but no! Turns out cooking's a lot harder than it looks.”

Jimmy laughed as he set the bacon in the pan, hearing the satisfying sizzle as it began to cook. “It's a science. Takes a lot of practice. Trust me, I burnt my fingers so many times... though I guess you wouldn't have that problem, would you?”

Tango smiled sheepishly. “You know it.”

“Love the apron, by the way.” Jimmy cackled at Tango's face instantly turning beet red. “The frills suit you. They do!” He turned the bacon over, before walking over to give Tango a kiss on the forehead. “And 'kiss the cook'? Don't mind if I do.”

Tango buried his face in his hands with an embarrassed wheeze. “You're awful.”

“Thanks, babe.”

It was silent for a moment, save for the sound of popping bacon. “Sooo...” Tango looked up, leaning forward in his chair. “Is there anything you wanna do today? Go out? Prank someone? Build something? Learn some more redstone?” He fidgeted nervously. “I didn't really plan much.”

Jimmy glanced over at Tango as he transferred the bacon onto a paper towel and cracked a few eggs into the pan. “Sorry? What's all this about?”

“Today's your birthday, isn't it?”

Jimmy froze. “...oh my gosh. It is. I completely forgot.”

Tango almost fell out of his chair from laughter, clutching his stomach as he howled. “Jimmy!” he wheezed, “oh my god! I can't– I cannot believe you, and here I was so stressed–!”

Jimmy flushed a bright red. “Okay, look! ...I got nothing, yeah. Okay. Oh my gosh, stop it, stop laughing, it's not that funny–”

Tango did fall out of his chair then, smacking his head against the table. “Ow! Oh, man, that hurt!”

“I have no sympathy for you,” Jimmy huffed, transferring the eggs to a plate. “Absolutely none.”

“You're so mean,” Tango complained, picking himself back up. “I'm going to have a bruise.”

Jimmy plated the bacon and eggs, turning off the stove before walking over to the table. “Here.” He set the plate down in front of Tango before gently pressing a kiss to his head. “All better.”

Tango blushed. “Thanks, Jimmy. And happy birthday.”

Jimmy sat down next to him with a smile. “Thanks, Tango.”

[anxietygremlin7]

The Void

Jimmy and Tango angsting(that's a verb now, you're welcome) in the afterlife/void after Double Life. (Have fun, this one hurts) (Enchanting Table text translations at the end) (This fic is loosely based on the song Canary in a Coal Mine by the Crane Wives (their discography is literally just the life series at this point)) 1.4k words

AO3 link if you prefer:

—

Before the pain even fully fades away, while red still stains his eyes, and the cracks in his bones are still healing, Jimmy is already shouting.

“It’s all my fault!” His voice is loud, ringing out through the dark emptiness of the afterlife. The darkness steals the sound, traps the song of anger in its blackness. 

“Why!” Jimmy shouts. He turns his eyes up to what must be the sky, though everything around him is the same pitch-black, life draining, darkness. “What did I do this time!”

He hears nothing back from the abyss, he wasn't expecting a response anyways. The Watchers never explain themselves, they’re above that, above the players of their death games, their coal mines, above their Canary.

“It wasn’t just me this time!” He’s louder than before, angry, red, red like his love, like the fire of his soulmate. “Tango too! What did he do to deserve this…” Jimmy trails off, pausing for a moment as the darkness swallows his cries, “What did he do to get me as a soulmate?” He asks this more to himself than any ethereal being currently watching him. 

Why was such a beautiful, fiery, loud, smart person, paired with this little Canary? Why did the fire burn brighter? Why did the Canary learn to sing a song of heat, pain, death…warmth, love, beauty? Why did the Canary fall for the fire, its warmth, its heat? Why put that fire in the coal mine? The Canary was bound to sense it soon enough. Bound to die, warning the others. This was bound to end in pain, in heat, in fire. The coal mine was bound to burn, killing everyone in it.

Jimmy takes a breath.

And then he breaks.

Some part of Jimmy, right then and there, finally cracks, and unlike his bones broken by the Enderman, this isn’t going to heal through the magic of a respawn. 

He crumbles, falling to his knees in the soul-draining darkness.

And then he cries.

He cries for his soulmate who doesn’t know why they died. He cries for the Ranch and all of the animals that now must fend for themselves in that unruly world. He cries about the unfairness of it all. He cries for the taste of a happy life with his soulmate he got to live for only a few months. He cries about the Watchers and their death games, which time and time again, take everything from him. And last of all, he cries for himself, Canary in a coal mine, always destined to die first as a warning to the others, for what’s about to come.

Jimmy cries for a long time. It could be hours, days, months, even years, time is irrelevant in this place. His tears do nothing to bring him back, back into the warm arms of his soulmate, the oak walls of their Ranch, the heat from the sun in their fields, the company of his Rancher. He’s stuck. Stuck in a world of darkness and misery and abyss. A world that steals his song, that takes his flight, that takes all of him, and sucks it into darkness for fun.

And it hurts. It hurts more than any of the other death games he’s been a part of. Because this time he knows he caused another's death, someone who he loved not just because of the physical tie between their souls but because of the tie created between their hearts. It hurts because Jimmy loved Tango, and somehow, in some strange twist of fate, Tango loved Jimmy too.

That's the worst part, isn’t it? That somehow Jimmy managed to find someone who loved him with all of their being, someone who wasn't afraid to show that love, someone who didn’t make fun of him or goad him, someone who Jimmy loved with his whole heart. And because of Jimmy, and because of the bond between their souls, that someone is dead, Tango is dead. And Jimmy has no way to see him ever again, not until the next death game.

—

Before the pain even fully fades away, while red still stains his eyes, and the cracks in his bones are still healing, Tango is already looking.

“Jimmy?” He calls into the soul-draining darkness. The sound seems to get absorbed into the void, stealing it from his lips the second he opens them. Tango hears no response, barely even hears the words leave his own mouth. 

Tango takes a step, the void under him acting like a floor should, despite the lack of an actual floor. He steps again, more confident now. He’s going to find Jimmy if it’s the last thing he does.

“I’m comin’ for ya Rancher Buddy,” Tango mutters. He continues to walk, not going any faster for the fear of somehow misstepping and being forever lost to the void. 

He walks for what could be hours, days, months, maybe even years, time is irrelevant in this void of nothingness.

But then he hears it, cries in the distance. He could recognize the sound of his Rancher anywhere. 

And Tango runs.

“Jimmy!” Tango shouts once he spots him curled up on the floor. Jimmy looks up, eyes watery and tear-tracks on his face. Despite his disheveled state, Tango's first thought, as it always has been from the first moment he saw Jimmy, is, ‘He’s beautiful’.

“Tango?” Jimmy asks, voice sounding absolutely broken. He sniffs, tears still falling down his face.

“Hey Rancher Buddy.” Tango kneels down on the floor. 

“What’re you doin’ here?” Jimmy asks, still in disbelief.

“I came to find you.”

“Why?” Jimmy’s voice breaks on the word. The one question he’s been wanting to ask for months. It’s more than just this moment, it’s more than just today, it’s the whole time. Why did Tango stay with Jimmy even though he knows that Jimmy always dies first? Why did Tango build a life with him? Why did Tango choose him?

“Because for some stupid reason that I don’t understand, I love you,” and Tango means it, Jimmy can tell. And for right now, that’s enough, just to hear it is enough. 

And Jimmy crumbles again except this time, he has his Rancher to fall into.

Jimmy falls, and Tango catches him, holding him in his arms. Jimmy clutches Tango, burying his head in Tango’s shoulder and crying. And Tango just holds him, wrapping his arms around Jimmy’s shoulder and putting his head on top of Jimmy’s.

And as Jimmy continues to cry, Tango begins to as well. This is the last moment he’ll get with his Rancher before they’re separated for who knows how long. This is the last moment where they’re the Ranchers. The last moment where they’re Jimmy and Tango. The last moment where they get to be in love.

—

From the darkness They watch. It’s in Their name afterall, the Watchers. They watch two boys, nothing but children in the mass expanse of the universe, hold each other and cry. And They feel nothing. They were made to feel nothing. They were just made to watch. And watch They do.

They watch for a while, soon growing bored with the lack of death and hurt, bored by dullness of comfort.

“y𝙹⚍ '∷ᒷ still dead,” They whisper into the darkness, the sound carrying through the void.

The two boys look up. The boys don’t know much about Them, the boys are scared, this makes Them happy.

“||ᒷ!¡.Still dead,” They say again, voice(s) still carrying through the darkness.

“!¡ᔑリᓵᔑꖌᒷᓭ!” They shout. The boys look confused at this, seeing as there are no words in the language the boy’s speak. The speaker of the word, part of Them, is scolded for the outburst.

“You’re still here?” They ask the boys, voice(s) booming in the silence.

“It’s over. y𝙹⚍ '∷ᒷ 𝙹⍊ᒷ∷.” They’re right, it’s done now. There will be another death game, They enjoy it too much for this to be the end, but this game, this pair, it’s done now, it’s over.

“Go home.” It’s whispered, Their voice(s) still loud in the deafening quiet of the void.

“Go. wᒷ'ꖎꖎ ᓭᒷᒷ ||𝙹⚍  ᔑ ⊣ᔑ╎リ ᓭ𝙹𝙹リ.” And with that, the boys begin to fade, still clutching each other, still hoping for some twist of fate to keep them together for just another moment.

“Jimmy,” begins one, “I love you, remember that…please...for me.”

“I won’t forget Tango, my Rancher, my soulmate, I love you too…don’t forget that either.”

And then they fade, returning to their disconnected lives, not knowing when they’ll see each other again.

—

Hopefully you enjoyed that cause I enjoyed writing it :) (What are characters if not vessels for me to write heartbreaking angst?) (I swear I can actually write happy things, I will eventually)

Enchanting Table Text: 1. You’re 2. Yep 3. Pancakes 4. You’re over 5. We’ll see you again soon

Anyways, see ya when I see ya!

[aquaquadrant]

Deciding to live write (react) (?) this as I'm reading this new chapter (two parts WOW, double the angst) (so part one out of two, hope that's cool). If something happens my therapist WILL be hearing about you.

The title already I'm sobbing /pos

I HATE THE WATCHERS SO MUCH OMMMGGGGG, leave them aLONE

It's very Jimmy to not like crying, I love to see it. I love when fanfic writers don't like him crying, ty.

Tango :( The RANCH, it was THEIRS, my HEART These Watchers ugghhHHHH Jimmy immediately defending Tango, please nothing else happen to them, PLEASE

Every time the watchers speak, my want to punch them grows The explanation paragraph, ugh something about it, how Jimmy doesn't immediately try to blame Tango, or just understands it well. Just bjhebwg

Bdubs being so worried for Tango, please, JUST LET THEM BE HAPPY

JIMMY DEFENDING TANGO NUMBER TWO, hate me them

Watchers ugghhe

HERMITCRAFTING BEING HIS HOME UGH IM JUST POINTING OUT EVERY LITTLE DETAIL BECAUSE THEY'RE ALL SO

DELIGHTFUL, I LOVE THE WAY YOU WRITE SO MUCH

Okay, therapy time <3 (yes I did actually read this before my therapy appointment, this was /srs and not /j)

Therapy break over, BACK TO ANGST

Awww, Jimmy not believing Tango is evil. Love to see it.

UH OH, NOT THE TIMMY ALLUSION

Nvm not alright, Watchers need to Watch their mouths

"Pity is a suitor that won’t take a hint, no matter how many times Jimmy turns it away." Is SO good???? Excuse me??? Pity x Jimmy real ship of the htp au?? /j

Maybe I hate the watchers more than I hate Atlas, hm.

I like that they all still keep an air of lighthearted-ness about, even with Tango in such critical condition, they still are friends :)

Jimmy being okay with a scar to the face if it means Tango doesn't have to unnecessarily respawn :( /pos

This description of Tango has me thinking about that kinda old drawing that lunarcrown did of Tango back when he was chained up. Like, it's literally the first post that shows up when clicking on the chronological timeline, yeah that one, it reminds me of that one.

UGGGHHHH THE HAND ON THE CHIN GETTING A RESPONSE, NO, BAD AQUA, BAD. SOMETHINGS ARE BETTER LEFT OFF IN THE ASKS RESPONSES

WATCHERS ARE NOT HELPING (x2)

Still love Jimmy calling for SOS, like yes, smart move. I wish we could've seen what it was like for the other DL to see chat and immediately go "oh shit ???" and then see the SOS and go "OH SHIT ???"

I love Impulse <3

Ooooo, getting some more cases of this fantasy (racism? Bigotry? Bad stuff) worldbuilding

"I don’t believe that just being from there would automatically make someone evil." Nature vs nurture <3 Maybe all Bravo needed was two minutes with Impulse god DAMN

Sleepy time <3

Okay, don't like the Watchers, but the "Round two!" was funny, I'll give em that

"(You cannot sleep, there are monsters nearby.)" I- I- STOP I CAN'T LAUGH BUT OMFG

Rancher :((((((

HIS RANCHER

Let me at these Watchers, LET ME AT EM

Ugh, disassociation. As someone who's dealt with this during panic attacks, it totally tracks and breaks my heart :(

These Watchers gotTA BACK OFF, LEAVE TANGO ALONE GOD DAMN

No way Tango is tryna pull the "I'm fine" card rn, AFTER ALL THAT LMAO

Jimmy is very pretty TO ME

The collar dampening Tango's fire, metaphorically and literally, is just ugh. What's more is Jimmy likes Tango's fire, he likes the warmth Tango produces physically, and he likes the sparks of creativity and burning passion of Tango's metaphorically. And they took it away! Both ways to Sunday!!!

Na because crying on someone is such an intimate gesture. To let your heart pour out of you, no one does that to just anyone. What makes this even more important is how Jimmy cried on Tango's shoulder last chapter, and now Tango's crying on Jimmy's shoulder this chapter. They are each other's soulmate, they are their each other's ranchers. They are so important to one another and soo ughguew

Not gonna cuss this Watcher out, I'll let this sweet dreams comment slide for now.

Oooo, a peak into how they reacted to everyone joining. AND we get a look at Atlas' full username <3 Love it.

Wait Tyrannicide and Phantonym joined too?? Huh, thought as scientists they would've stayed behind. Cool to know!

I can see now why you needed all those usernames lol.

JOEL THIS IS NOT THE TIME TO LAUGH DAMNIT

Hmmm, love Scar immediately jumping into action. Oop and ofc the two scientists head out first lmao

ATLAS, WHEN I CATCH YOU ATLAS, NOT BIGB NOOOO

ATLAS, WHEN I CATCH YOU ATLAS, NOT PEARL NOOOOO

Actually really funny that ATLAS got the most kills from the Hels cast. Like, damn, pop off???? Man did more work than the ppl hired to actually do the dirty work lmao.

Wonder how difficult it was to keep up with all the names, who died then got back in, who killed who, etc.

Oop, Jimmy also noting Atlas is smarter than the average bear.

This whole paragraph talking about Bravo, yes Jimmy, drag that man. Loving how he immediately is like "dude is just like a hels player" and scoffing at the nerve of Bravo to claim to be his actual soulmate. Yes.

Head in hands, Watchers about to catch these hands.

Tango immediately wanting to get this all over with hurts. Damn, wonder if he just wants to get it over with cause he thinks they all want him gone.

"I mean, everyone knows I’m a vicious monster but I don’t have to look it, right?" UGH, Aqua you're lucky I already did my therapy time BEFORE this part, UGGGHHHHHH. I need to go back rq just to tell her this god DAMN

Welp, on to act two! Thank you so much for the wonderful reading material :)

TLDR: I hate the Watchers with a burning passion.

-🍌

what’s this?? a DETAILED LIVE BLOG of my writing for ME to read??? don’t mind if i do…

ok first off, thank you SO MUCH for taking the time to write down ur thoughts and share them with me. it’s truly one of the greatest joys of being an author, and the closest i can get to experiencing my writing as if i wasn’t the one who wrote it. NOW let’s get into it…

the overarching watcher hate is so justified and hilarious, they really just exist to be the most obnoxious and toxic livestream chat ever. at least, the ones who hang around jimmy are LMAO

AHA i’m glad u liked the part abt jimmy not liking to cry, i’ve been told he’s got a bit of a prideful streak in other series that didn’t come thru as much in his double life run, so that was a little nod to it.

the ranch could not escape its destiny of being tragically burned down 🫡

(omg the therapy appointment interlude. i remember when i’ve had to pause while reading a fic to address real life business and now someone’s doing that for MY writing…. :’))) i hope the appt went well!)

this chapter was a lovely opportunity to really show jimmy stepping up for tango, with both verbal and physical reassurance. he may not know everything abt the hels situation but he knows he loves tango <3

AND YEAH YEAH THAT FIRST ART MEL DID. definitely throwing back to that w tango’s disassociated state and the collar. nice catch ;0

the chin-hand response was another throw back to old mel art, isn’t that fuuuun? ;000

IMPULSE WAS THE MVP OF THIS CHAPTER 💪😤👏

ok the watchers do get their funny moments in here and there HAH

phantonym and tyrannicide did come along! they might be scientists, but they’re as nasty as any hels player (dr l8r_h8r did, in fact, stay home to monitor the portal. he’s kinda over the whole ‘violence’ nonsense.) tango actually targeted them first bc of their lab coats.

and YUP i got a lotta good username ideas from those suggestions. and it WAS very difficult to keep track of them all thru the chat backlog. i don’t know how long i spent going thru each player’s sequence of events, one by one, JUST to make sure i hadn’t forgotten to have someone die for the last time, or show up again without a new join message.

and unfortunately for jimmy he made the classic error of “typo in the group chat.” joel did what he had to 🫡 (buuuut once he saw how serious the situation was, he decided not to push it anymore)

atlas is a clever bastard and i love that yall love to hate him 🙏 he saw a virtual ocean of wolves storming down the hill and was like “ok clearly i’m not dealing with that, so let’s see where my efforts can be better spent.” the hired grunts don’t possess that kind of critical thought 🎻

i’m SO glad you enjoyed it!! thank you again for this lovely feedback <3

[majickth]

Future-Tense Ghosts • [1] [2] [3]

Jimmy is the canary in the coal mine.

No matter the game, no matter the circumstances, he is fated to be the first to die.

He only wishes that, even for a moment, he gets a chance to live.

—

Death never comes easy.

Sometimes it’s quick, there and gone before he can even notice; most of the time, if he’s unlucky — which he often is — it’s slow, grueling, painful. Regardless of how it goes, Jimmy can no longer bring himself to be surprised.

He’s the cloud on the horizon, the albatross hanging from the mast, the domino pushed by a knife.

Jimmy Solidarity is the canary in the coal mine, and he will always be the first to die.

He finds no exception when the enderman takes off after him in a flurry of purple sparks, claws digging into his back and sending him crashing into a tree. A part of him is resigned to his fate (no food, no armor, no shield), but he still fights. He fights.

Because this time he’s not alone. This time, he actually has someone to come back to, to keep safe, to hold onto. He has an actual chance —

Until the enderman’s claws find purchase, and Jimmy is falling, falling, falling once more.

—

“You know, bar our arsonist neighbors and the constant threat of death, I could get used to this.”

A light rain covers the ranch in petrichor and mist. From the furnace, a tea kettle, bruised and battered from being bartered around, whistles until Tango plucks it up from the stovetop. For the first time in a long time, it’s calm. No threats of their house burning down, no stolen animals, no fights.

The view is nice from where Jimmy sits by the window, and Tango is quick to join him with two mugs of piping hot dandelion tea. It’s not much, more so hot water with hastily gathered flowers from the nearby woods and bits of leaves still floating on the top, but it’s warm and it’s pleasant and it’s a reminder that he’s being taken care of.

It’s nice.

“I wish I could stay here forever,” Jimmy murmurs. He catches Tango’s expression and quickly adds, “I mean, the ranch. The view. This…whatever this is between us. Not this, y’know…death game.”

“Don’t worry. I know exactly what you mean.” Tango matches Jimmy’s smile with his own toothy grin. “It’s nice having a buddy around for once. It makes all this less lonely.”

“Mate, you’re just being too nice.” Jimmy shakes his head and lifts the mug. It’s too hot to drink, but he enjoys the warmth regardless. “I just wish I could be a better soulmate.”

It’s a quiet remark, meant more for himself than for his partner. But he doesn’t need to lower the mug to notice Tango’s expression. Worry, concern, a strange veil of determination. Those red eyes burn into Jimmy’s chest, and he keeps the mug up a little while longer.

“You,” Tango speaks softly, “are the best soulmate I could’ve asked for. And I wouldn’t ask for anyone else.”

“Tango—“

“Jimmy.”

And Jimmy’s chest clenches. Tango slips his hand into Jimmy’s, squeezing ever so gently. He’s warm. Warm like the tea, like the fire in the hearth, like the twin heartbeats beating in Jimmy’s chest. Jimmy squeezes back.

“I’m glad that I have you,” Tango says, and he means it. “And I know that, no matter what happens, we’re gonna make it out of this together. Alright?”

Jimmy wants to warn him. To pull away, to whisper prepared apologies, to bury himself because he knows. He knows, he knows, he knows.

Instead, he leans into Tango, enjoying the presence of someone at his side even if it’s for a moment, ignoring the death knolls ringing in the back of his head.

—

It’s not fair.

Nothing is fair.

He was so close. He had friends. He had Tango. He was happy.

Is it crueler if he wasn’t?

He doesn’t care. It’s fate, destiny, the universe. Its very strings are of the same kind that stitch hearts together, that weave in hues of green and yellow and red. It binds him, chokes him, drags him down into the depths of evermore.

He is inevitable. This was always meant to happen, regardless of what he wanted. It was always going to end up this way.

It only hurts more knowing that he took someone else down with him. Not just someone — Tango. His friend. His soulmate.

A necessary sacrifice. He had his own role to fill. Two birds, one stone.

He didn’t even have the chance to say sorry. He didn’t even get to say goodbye.

Better off that he didn’t. It’s temporary. All of this wasn’t meant to last. Just another rule in a game that always changed.

He can still feel the string winding itself into his very being. Bits of his soul pulled apart, threading the universe’s needle, and seamlessly wrap around another. It’s a stitch held together by pressure, but at the slightest tug—

He feels it unraveling. He feels the threads pulling, unwinding, gently guided back into place by a steady hand. The secondary heartbeat, so intertwined with his own, grows so faint.

It’s not fair.

Jimmy wants to scream it. The universe thrums with gentle sympathy, but it’s not enough.

It’s not fair.

The threads keep pulling, pulling, pulling—

Until Jimmy grips the thread and pulls back.

”This isn’t fair.”

The thrumming, once gentle like a mother’s embrace, immediately stops, and all too suddenly he is far too aware of how cold this inbetween place it. Not physically, but metaphysically, seeping into his very being. Pins prick into his soul.

“I just want to be happy.”

Jimmy holds fast and pulls and the thread grows taut.

“I don’t want to be weak.”

The string will not break. Jimmy knows that fate, destiny, the universe — whatever — wouldn’t allow it. So he keeps pulling. Until the needles pierce his soul, until his spirit is frayed, until he is finally happy. Jimmy pulls—

“I don’t want to die!”

And for the first time, the universe gives.

—

In some ways, it’s like falling backwards. Only you’ve started from the ground, and the only way now is to go up, up, up—

—

—and crash into noise with the velocity of a falling star.

”Do something!”

”Do what? I don’t know what to do!”

”Get them! Don’t let them get away!”

“No—“

He’s running.

Why is he running? Why is he yelling, cheering, roaring with a sourceless bloodlust?

Why is he—

Warm. He’s warm. And his heart beats in unison with something very present and real and alive.

Jimmy is alive.

It’s not like waking up from a dream, so much as it’s like being forcibly grabbed and _yanked_ through a window. Sudden and loud and there’s a rush—

“—my, are you there, man? Jimmy?”

And there’s people. And he’s standing still. And he’s not yelling or cheering, but just standing at the precipice of a crevice, eyes blankly staring at what essentially amounts to a pit trap. He barely even registers the sounds of a hundred mobs, let alone Ren nudging his side.

“I—Huh?” Jimmy blinked hard, his awareness trickling in bit by minute bit. “Uh, sorry, I’m just…I’m great! I’m doing perfect fine!”

“Fine? You should be feeling more than fine!” Joel isn’t as gentle as Ren, the shorter man practically scrambling to join them at the crevice. His laughter, high and mocking and sharp with malicious delight, grows only as he slaps Jimmy on the back and peers down at the mobs below. “Grian and Scar are gone, which means no greenies left. It’s easy pickings from here, boys!”

A cheer raises up from the gathered band of red-named hellions, but Jimmy stays quiet.

He stares down at the hole, at the monsters lurking below, at the scattered items left behind by their formerly green victims, and…and he knows this part. Knows the adrenaline rush, the pride before the fall. He knows his inventory lacks food, his shield is barely held together with duct tape and hope, that his soulmate is elsewhere completely oblivious. He knows precisely what’s going to happen next with startling vividness because he’s lived this, and the deja vu is enough to nearly knock him off his feet.

The only difference now is that he’s not going to die.

“Oi, idiot.” Joel’s snide remark doesn’t even bother him, not this time, as he’s nudged on the shoulder. “You alright? You’ve got this funny look in your eye. You’re not pulling a Pearl, are you?”

Jimmy is slow to smile, and when he does it’s as fractured as the earth below him. “Didn’t you hear me, Joel? I’m fantastic. In fact…I’ve never felt more alive.”

[bidoofenergy]

i'll go to you without a second thought

Tango has no memories of Hermitcraft—the name alone fills him with warmth—and only flashes of previous Death Games. When the games start, he’s a shell of a man and there’s only one thing he knows for certain: sooner or later someone will betray his trust. for alico also on AO3 (1193 words)

Tango doesn’t remember anything from the previous Death Games. He has flashes of faces and ramshackle buildings and bright burning emotion. He exists outside of the Death Games. He knows this, knows he has a giant castle he’s working on and a dungeon underneath, but he knows this intellectually, instinctually, the way he knows how to build a hopper clock—hopper, hopper. comparator, comparator. block, dust. block, dust. sticky piston, sticky piston, redstone—

Tango has no memories of Hermitcraft—the name alone fills him with warmth—and only flashes of previous Death Games. When the games start, he’s a shell of a man and there’s only one thing he knows for certain: sooner or later someone will betray his trust.

It sounds dramatic when he thinks like that and it’s hard to feel dramatic right now, repairing on the roof of the ranch. The afternoon sun is warm and he can’t see it but he knows his hair is flickering, tall and happy—he knows because jimmy keeps looking looking looking is he afraid—

It sounds dramatic and, when he and Jimmy curl up in their one bed and share a scratchy warm wool blanket, he could almost ignore it. Almost, except that whenever he sees Bdubs, he thinks of a map and deepslate bricks and an axe in his back—

It sounds dramatic and Tango doesn’t know much of himself but he knows he’s a practical person. He’s an engineer, with redstone dust permanently in his fingernails and circuit diagrams constantly crisscrossing in his brain. He’s practical, pragmatic. And practical, pragmatic people look at his hazily-recalled trail of unfinished business and old, boiling anger at half the server and draw reasonable conclusions: the only way this ends is with a blade in his back.

Tango’s trying to keep it to himself, to hide, and let Jimmy be happy and hopeful and trusting. But something must show in his face when Jimmy joins him on the roof, rambling on about the cows and the chickens and dinner. He pauses, looking down at Tango kneeling and surrounded by building materials.

“What’s wrong?” Jimmy asks with a little furrow of his eyebrows.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Tango lies, bright and strained smile on his face. Jimmy’s frown deepens.

“You can tell me, you know,” he says. “We’re a team, right?” He sounds a little disbelieving, and something in Tango flares up. Maybe it’s that it’s evening and he’s hungry. Maybe it’s that he’s been on the roof half the day. Maybe it’s that he can hear the warden (his failure) down in the ravine, snuffling and pacing and roaring. Something twists inside him like a knife and he twists away from Jimmy, staring down the gentle slope of the roof to their wheat field that everyone else keeps picking over.

“Team,” he repeats, scoffing.

For a moment, Jimmy doesn’t reply. Then, carefully choosing his words, he says, “We’re in this together. You can tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong.” Tango repeats. Maybe if he says it the right way he’ll believe himself.

“It’s okay if something’s wrong.” Jimmy says, coming to stand half a block away. “Everybody feels a little off in here,” he says, like it’s supposed to be comforting, and Tango can’t stand it.

“I feel like a different person in here!” Tango yells, running his hands through his hair. “I basically am a different person in here—I don’t remember anything, I get so angry, and I’m all—” he gestures ineffectively with both hands around his head.

“Tango…” Jimmy starts.  

“I don’t remember a lot,” Tango says, cutting him off, and he’s not sure why he’s talking about this. No one brings up their memories of the other Games. “But I remember the only way this ends for most of us,” He glares up at Jimmy and Jimmy looks sad—knowledgeable and sad.

“How?” he asks, like he already knows and he doesn’t want to hear it.

“A sword in your spine,” Tango growls.

The dusk air hangs heavy around them for a moment.

“Don’t say that,” Jimmy finally says, soft and shaky. “We don’t know that yet.”

Tango laughs and falls onto his back. The oak stairs eat into his spine, but at least he doesn’t have to look at Jimmy’s wide eyes and too-honest face. “What do we know?” he asks the sky, orange and blue and purple. A few clouds are drifting slowly overhead and the false-peace makes him feel brave enough to say, “All I know is that I never get to finish what I want.”

“I know you.” A pause and, like Jimmy knows that isn’t enough, he’s on his knees next to Tango as he continues in a rush, “I know you’re smart, and funny, and on Hermitcraft you’re building an amazing castle, and you’re good with the chickens and—” He’s gulping, gasping for air now, and Tango can’t help but look at him. His brown eyes are shining, threatening to spill over. Despite himself, Tango’s heart clenches and his gut twists guiltily.

“—and you’re kind to me,” Jimmy finally says, tears finally spilling over. His voice wobbles but his gaze stays firmly on Tango. “I’m sorry I get—that I’ll probably get you killed. I’m not trying to, I promise—I want you to win but I won’t—I can’t—” Somehow their hands have found each other. Tango squeezes and Jimmy squeezes back.

Jimmy wipes his eyes with the sleeve of his free hand, takes a deep breath, and asks, “What if it’s enough that we know each other?”

Tango feels the world spin out from under him, his only fixed points Jimmy’s hand in his and the edge of the stairs under him. He can’t escape Jimmy’s gaze, doesn’t want to look away, even as his anger is spun away from his grasp. He feels like gravity’s changed directions on him and he doesn’t know how he knows what that feels like.

“Wha-what about winning?” he asks, lost. “You said—you keep saying you wanted to win.”

“And when we don’t win?” Jimmy grabs Tango’s other hand. “I’ll be glad to have been your soulmate.”

“I won’t remember you next time.” Tango admits. There are tears on his cheeks that he didn’t notice crying and he can’t wipe them away without letting go of Jimmy. He lets them stay, sliding down to his chin. Despite everything, he won’t let go of Jimmy.

“I’ll remember for both of us.” Jimmy promises urgently. “I remember everything else—I’ll remember for both of us.” He moves closer, a little hesitant, and Tango leans into him.

“I’ll find you, after,” he blurts. It surprises him a little, when the words leave his mouth, but it doesn’t feel like a lie. He knows it the way he knows how to build a hopper clock: he’ll die and wake up in a castle he can’t remember and he’ll find Jimmy again. He has no idea how he’ll do it, but he wants to promise Jimmy this.

It’s worth it, for Jimmy’s watery smile in return. “Come find me again.” he urges.

There’s so little Tango knows. “Without a second thought,” he promises.

[days-until-burnout]

What about a angst fic with Tango x Jimmy in Double life with arguments? :D

one rancher with a side of angst coming right up! _____

📧 Day 53 -

Characters - Jimmy/Tango Words - 952 Time - 30 mins Content - Canon-divergent Double Life

Jimmy looked at his right hand, soot covered fingers wrapped around his wrist, ashy skin on scorching marks. It’d been a couple hours now, and no matter how long he submerged his hands, his arms, his body in the cool river, the heat remained blistering on his skin, marking him all over with licks of fire. He applied pressure on his wrist until he hissed, then again to suck a breath in. There were feelings rushing through him, mixed up in a mess of flames and sparks, a connection of heat under his skin, in his muscles, in his bones—not his own, that was all he knew. 

“I should’ve,” Tango muttered to the side, prompting Jimmy to look up at him, his eyes glossing over the burnt remnants of the Ranch. Charred walls decorated with charcoal, black like the void against the birch planks. His eyes drew to the holes where the moonlight seeped through, where the late afternoon wind snuck in, where their torches light and warmth escaped them. It was a tragedy, a broken foundation. “...killed him. I should have.”

“Tango? Rancher?” Jimmy called with a swallowed shiver, unsure if it was the creeping breeze or the smoldering burning under the soulbound. 

Slowly, Tango turned to him, eyes red like fire, just like earlier but controlled. Jimmy instinctively straightened, still damp wings fluttering behind him as he swallowed again. He squeezed his wrist one more time, a reminder of where Tango had grabbed him, someone out of control, tightly and burning claw-marks into his skin. There had been fear after, when everything died down and they were alone, just the two of them, and Tango had looked sad, horrified even. But expressions weren’t needed, not when their tied-up souls let Jimmy know everything. 

“We should’ve killed Scar. He burnt the Ranch. We should have killed him.”

“We already talked about this. It wasn’t worth it. You could’ve—”

No, Tango growled through the bond, disagreement unspoken as his face twisted. Something dark, something angry. Eyes with too small pupils, white breath turned smokey with every word, every exhale, claws digging into his palm and Jimmy’s. The ghost feeling. It was all there, on the table, for Jimmy to see.

“You– Tango, are you even listening to yourself? Don’t– Don’t be influenced by Scott and Cleo! They don’t care about, or us, or the Ranch! They– They just want drama, don’t you see it?!”

“No,” Tango shook his head, another stream of smoke escaping the sides of his mouth, “they knew what had to be done. They were right. They were right.”

“No, they were not! I know Scott! And– And you should know Cleo. They get into your head and– and, and they mess with you!”

“Who cares what they want!” Tango slammed his fist into the wall, snapping his head towards it. Another wave of heat. Suffocating. Scorching. Tango tightened his fist, Jimmy winced, quickly looking at his palm fearing pierced skin. He found a soot covered palm, black smudges against pale skin, trailing down to his wrist and his arm where touches of fire remained. “Scar deserved it. Scar had to die, for what he did. He had to! We had to kill him. We should have killed him!”

“He probably didn’t mean for it to get this bad, Tango, he’s your fri—”

Tango scoffed. Jimmy shut his mouth. He felt it, something ugly settling deep in his soul, an intruder making a home in his heart. 

“I get it now,” Tango laughed bitterly, lips twisted into a joyless and cruel smile, “I really get it now. Why everyone picks on you. Everything is water under the bridge for you, isn’t it, Jimmy? You think we can all get along after these games, don’t you?”

“I didn’t—”

“Scar meant to do this,” he continued, smile quickly wiped off his lips. There were thoughts running through his mind, ones Jimmy couldn’t tap into, ones far too dark, too far from Jimmy. His heart ached, feeling the distance ripping their souls from within. He didn’t even know that could be possible. “Scar isn’t stupid. He meant to do this. This wasn’t an accident, and right now, he is not my friend. No one is. There is no friendship here, no—”

“What about me? Am I nothing to you?”

Tango blinked at him, turned his head slightly and their eyes met again. This wasn’t Tango in front of him, he wasn’t sure who this was, but all he knew was that this wasn’t his Rancher. It couldn’t be. Their souls were tied still, tied with a knot rather than a union. When had it changed? When did he lose him? 

Did he lose him?

“What’s it matter what you are? We are going to die first anyways. We lost our home, and we will lose our lives. What does it matter?”

“Then why do you care what Scar did?!” Jimmy got a little brave, squeezing his fists as he took a step closer. He was angry, a by-product of Tango’s anger that he made his own. “You got us killed first, so you don’t get to whine about dying! That’s what happens in these games. Get over it!”

Something hollow sunk between them. Enough to make Jimmy gasp and stumble back, suddenly breathless, and he looked at Tango in a panic, every ounce of anger turned into worry. Desperation in his eyes, searching for the reason. His lips parted with questions, then it clicked. The too hot warmth under his skin, following Tango’s eyes down to the claw branding in his wrists. 

It hit him hard. This version of himself. Jimmy could do nothing but watch the flames die in his eyes. 

_____

*evil gremlin laughter*

[canarydarity]

Tango wasn’t delusional; he wasn’t naïve or careless or just plain stupid, even. In fact, he liked to think he knew a lot. He wouldn’t say he was the best or anything, but he knew redstone—you needed a farm built and he was your guy. And troubleshooting, he was good at that, at working backward from a problem to a solution (something he’s had a lot of practice with). He knew how to play the game; he knew the probability of what spawned where, which circumstances caused which phenomena, the distance needed to go from threat to safety (even if he sometimes forgot to keep that last one in mind). He knew these things made him a not-completely hopeless player when it came to the games, regardless of his chances in a fight. 

He knew for some damned reason he kept signing up for them anyway even though decent chances still meant the likeliness of ending up with a sword in his back was high. He knew that good start, bad start, it didn’t matter—not really, not here. He knew he went out cursing himself every single time, evidence of his last mistake coloring every word. 

This time was different because he didn’t have just himself to consider, and also because it just was; don’t ask him to explain that part, he couldn’t tell you what he meant. It was more a feeling than a fact. 

Different or not, he knew these things to all be true—but there was also more; more, things he knew with the same amount of certainty, though he didn’t know where or when he’d obtained the knowledge. 

He knew that Grian had given him a horn early on before he’d died and lost it, and he knew that kind of camaraderie faded and faded quickly when his match became common knowledge. He knew that when the others caught him out doing something alone and brought up Jimmy, it wasn’t good-natured or checking-in, but something more unpleasant; he knew they were inviting him to rag on the guy, to join them in their mocking and tell them of the awful time they thought he must be having. He knew that Jimmy was holding his breath, running the numbers and trying to understand why Tango was still there, why he hadn’t left yet, and if not yet, then when—as if Tango wasn’t the one to hurt them first. 

And he knew that from the moment they’d spawned in they were doomed to burn bright and burn fast; their cards didn’t call for anything besides an ending.

But he also knew that these were all things Jimmy didn’t know. 

He wasn’t being mean or unsympathetic or anything but practical when he said it. All emotion removed from the situation, it was a statement of fact that whatever chance Tango had in these things was probably over double that which Jimmy was stuck with. 

It didn’t take Tango long to learn that Jimmy just possessed a completely different set of knowledge; he couldn’t help that it was one most would consider wholly useless. 

Jimmy knew when one of the animals on the ranch wasn’t feeling well with a swiftness and surety that at first made Tango actually stop to consider if he could…speak to them, or something—just for a second, it was ridiculous, he knew it was, but he’d never seen anyone do that before, not confidently. Jimmy knew the signs the weather was about to turn and in what way. He knew how to take a hit like no one Tango’s ever seen (though Tango staunchly avoided letting himself wonder why). Jimmy knew how to pick himself back up, even when Tango was sure most people would’ve long ago stayed on the damned ground; it wasn’t resilience—because that implied a not-letting-things-get-to-you that Jimmy certainly did not possess—but perseverance, persistence. 

It’d taken half a day of Jimmy’s warmth—of his laugh—for Tango to succumb; it hadn’t even taken a week for him to forget, even momentarily, where they were. He’d gone to grab a nametag from Etho for some mischief-causing plans and had been met with a joke about him being done playing house. Was that what he was doing?

Tango thought about Jimmy holding his arms up high, a bundle of wheat in his hands, laughing amidst a couple o’ cows that he’d managed to bring home for them, moving this way and that to keep the bait out of reach from searching mouths. Tango wasn’t a builder, but it’d taken little to no convincing for him to build them a home; it wasn’t much and it definitely wasn’t pretty—no matter what Jimmy said to soothe Tango’s ego—but he was oddly proud of what he was able to make them in a way he wouldn’t have been had it been for just him. He thought about cold shoulders being made better by warm nights in close quarters, being comfortable and being known, the kind of companionship that had never before come so easy.

Tango thought about Jimmy’s odds, his track record, his so-called friends. 

He could leave if he really wanted, save himself. It wasn’t like he didn’t have options. Etho would take him in if he asked, or Bdubs and Impulse; he knew Pearl was looking almost desperately for a friend. If not, he’d be fine on his own—he’d done it before; he knew what he was capable of, he’d have a decent enough chance, even by himself.

Tango thought about the way Jimmy doubled over when he well and truly laughed; his penchant for sticking his hands in front of tango like he was a garbage can fire and it was under 20 out, with only a mumbled you’re warm and a slightly red face as explanation; how he’d talk to the cows in full conversations like they were people when he thought Tango couldn’t hear him. 

He closed his eyes and pictured Jimmy, his smile. Bright and fast. Tango wasn’t delusional, he knew how this would end—he likely always has. It was just that: he wasn’t really sure he cared.

(bright & fast) (or, I read this post, blacked out, and then woke up 2 hours later to this in my google docs <3)

[autocrafted]

Fictober 2023:

Day 3: "Okay, show me." - Jimmy is offered a glimpse in the life he could have had.

Fandom: Double Life Relationship: Team Rancher

Rating: G

Warnings: A little angsty

Word Count: 1K

------------------------

Jimmy sat alone in his dimly lit home, the weight of his curse pressing down on him like a vice. The room was filled with the haunting echoes of what could have been, memories that danced in the corners of his mind like elusive phantoms. It had been months since he'd seen Tango, the one person who had truly understood him, the one who had loved him despite the curse that clung to his every step. To say he missed him was the understatement of the century.

He clutched an old journal in his trembling hands, the pages filled with snapshots of happier times. The times of them laughing together, Tango's arm draped around Jimmy's shoulders, their smiles genuine and full of promise. But now, the journal felt like a cruel reminder of a life that had slipped through his fingers like sand.

The room suddenly grew colder, and a whisper of wind rustled the pages of the book. Jimmy looked up, his heart pounding, and that's when he saw them – the Watchers. They were shadowy figures, their eyes like voids, their forms shifting and changing.

They had been a constant presence in his life, mysterious beings who seemed to have taken an interest in his mere existence.

One of the Watchers, a tall, slender figure with a voice like a distant thunderstorm, spoke to Jimmy, their words sending shivers down his spine. "You have strayed from the path we set for you, Jimmy. You were meant to embrace your curse, to accept your fate. Instead, you have clung to the past, to a love that was never meant to be."

Jimmy's voice wavered but he replied with venom, "I can't help it. You knew he was everything to me. And you still took him. What am I supposed to do with that?"

The Watchers exchanged glances, and then the one who had spoken extended a long, shadowy hand toward the journal. "Very well, Jimmy. If you truly wish to see what could have been, we will grant you that opportunity."

Jimmy's skepticism grew as he stared at the outstretched hand of the Watcher. His heart ached for a chance to relive those moments with Tango, to feel his warmth and love once more. But he couldn't shake the nagging doubt that lingered in the back of his mind.

"Why would you show me this?" Jimmy asked, his voice laced with suspicion. "What's in it for you?"

The Watchers shared an enigmatic glance, their forms shifting in response to Jimmy's question. The tall, slender figure, who seemed to be their spokesperson, leaned in closer, their dark eyes locking onto Jimmy's. "Because you want it," they whispered, their voice still carrying the distant rumble of a thunderstorm.

Jimmy's longing for Tango surged within him, overpowering his doubts. He hated how easy it was to convince him. "Okay," he conceded, handing over the old journal. "Show me."

The Watcher flipped through the pages. Suddenly, the room began to shift and blur, and Jimmy found himself transported to a different place, a different time. A different reality.

Jimmy stood in the sunlit kitchen, his heart pounding in his chest. It was cozy, it reminded him of the ranch. And Tango was there, looking just as he remembered, with a warm smile that made Jimmy's heart ache. He was busy flipping pancakes on the stove. The smell of breakfast filled the air, and for a moment, it was as if time had rewound, and he was back in the life he had lost.

"Babe? You're home early," Tango said, his voice filled with affection as he stood looking ethereal, despite wearing an apron and holding a spatula.

Unable to contain his emotions any longer, Jimmy rushed forward, closing the distance between them in a few quick steps. He reached out to embrace Tango, who turned with a surprised expression.

"Woah, everything okay?" Tango asked, his warm eyes filled with concern as he gently held Jimmy closer.

Jimmy's heart swelled with love and longing as he held Tango, his head buried in the crook of Tango's neck. He wanted to savor this moment, to feel Tango's heartbeat against his chest, to breathe in the scent of his skin. Tango stayed quiet as he drew comforting shapes into Jimmy’s back, just like he used to.

After a long, quiet moment, Jimmy finally pulled back slightly, keeping his arms around Tango. He looked into the blaze’s eyes, so real and vivid that he could hardly believe it. His voice was filled with emotion as he spoke, his words soft and trembling. "I miss you," he whispered. "I wish they had let me choose you."

Tango's brow furrowed in confusion. "What?" he said, his voice soft and puzzled. "Choose me for what? You're not making any sense, birdy."

Jimmy held Tango even closer, his grip on him almost desperate. "I just want to be with you, Tango," he said, his voice breaking. "But I know this isn't real."

Tango's eyes widened in concern as he looked around the kitchen, trying to understand what Jimmy meant. "Jimmy, what's going on? Why are you saying this?"

Jimmy couldn't bring himself to answer, the weight of the situation pressing down on him. He held Tango tighter, his heart aching with the knowledge that he would have to let go of this beautiful illusion.

Reluctantly, Jimmy released Tango from his embrace and turned away from the illusion, his heart heavy with longing and regret.

Tango reached out, grabbing Jimmy's wrist, his eyes desperate. "You could have this. We can be together, Jimmy." The illusion was crumbling.

Jimmy carefully removed Tango's hand, his heart shattering. "I love you."

But as soon as the words left his lips, the room began to dissolve once more, the illusion shattering like glass, and Jimmy found himself back in his dimly lit home, the journal still in his trembling hands.

The Watchers had shown their power, but they had also reminded him of their true nature – manipulative and deceitful. Jimmy was determined to find a way to break free from their curse and reunite with Tango on his own terms, without sacrificing his principles. He had to.

“I’ll find you,” He whispered to himself, clutching the journal.

[roxie-roo]

Emptober Day 29: Stars

The rift would be opening soon, with Grumbot's connection in both this world and the other. That meant the hermits would be going home. That meant Tango would be going home. He and Jimmy both knew that.

So, the two of them resolved, they would spend as much time together as they possibly could. He finished that big project for Fwhip, he had nothing else he really needed to do.

That night, the two of them laid on the sands of Tumble Town, within the rocky bowl surrounding it. Hand in hand as they stared up at the night sky. Of course, it wasn't as comfortable, or as easy to see, as it was on the roof of the ranch. Then again, it also wasn't as dangerous. No matter how different, it felt right.

"-it took me like twenty times to get it!" Tango rambled, gesturing wildly with one hand while Jimmy did his best to understand. In truth, he didn't know the first thing about redstone. But Tango was so passionate about it, and machinery. It was adorable.

"Sounds like you had a busy afternoon." He laughed softly and shook his head with a little smile.

"I did!" Tango huffed, his hand falling back against the sand with a soft thud. "It was real busy... but I'm done, and I'm glad to be home now.."

"Yeah." Jimmy looked up at him and grinned. "Home..." the grin faltered a bit, remembering that Tango would have to go to his real home soon. "But.. this ain't your real home.. we both know that."

Tango paused. He knew that he lived mostly in the Deep Frost Citadel. That was a house. And sure, he missed it. He was kind of homesick? But that's not how he'd describe the feeling. Being in this new world was just overwhelming.

Then there was Jimmy. There was a reason that the ranch always felt like home. That was because Jimmy was there. The ranch was just the house.

"House.." Tango settled on correcting. "The citadel is just my house. The place I live."

"Ain't that a home?" The sheriff tilted his head. Void, he was so fucking cute.

Tango shook his head and laughed. "No, silly.. Home is where the heart is. You're my home. Wherever you are, that's home."

Jimmy felt his cheeks heat up with bright red. "Oh.." He pulled his hat down over his face to try and hide it. "Oh... Tango- that-"

"I mean it, Jim." Tango sat up properly, facing him with the warmest smile that Jimmy had ever seen. Even with the frost taking over, rather than the flames, Tango still had a brilliant warmth, that made Jimmy fall in love all over again. "You're my homestead. Sure, ranches are nice and all.. but you're what made it better."

"Oh.." Jimmy said again. Honestly, he felt rather stupid, only being able to say that. Which he'd already said twice, now three times. He really should come up with something else to say. Something maybe that would make Tango not feel like he's regretting his words.

"Jimmy?" Tango snorted quietly. "You alright, bud?"

"Y- Yeah!" Jimmy squeaked. "Perfectly! I- I just-... I wasn't expecting that.."

"Like I said, it's true. You're my honest to void home."

"Y-.. you're my home too,, Rancher.."

"I would hope so." Tango grinned, pulling Jimmy to sit up with him and kissing his cheek. "Now,, let's enjoy the rest of the night, yeah?"

The stars remained forgotten between the two of them as soon as lips connected to cheeks, along jaws and foreheads, and the corners of mouths. Eventually coming to rest, connecting to each other and between fits of breathy giggles and playful jabs. Comments of "your hands are cold!", and "you're so boney!", rang through the otherwise silent desert night.

They wouldn't have it any other way.

They were home.

[solsearchingnights]

Thinking about early iitv chapters. Anyone want Jimmy's Double Life flashback? Because its below the cut since I giggled reading it again.

Through chance alone he had ended up sharing the life and pain of a man who was easy to fall for. Tango just hadn’t been interested in catching him.

Jimmy remembered one night, sitting beside a campfire and looking over the ravine. Cleo, Martyn, and Scott were with them, neighbors sharing a starry night. Tango was treating them once again to a retelling of his mission to surface their Warden. He was a captivating storyteller, and every time he’d recalled the harrowing adventure, there was a new close call, another daring escape. Jimmy trilled when his man wrapped a nametag around the warden’s neck, and gasped as Tango misstepped, straying from the wool path and only a breath away from oblivion as he was chased into his hastily made tunnel. When he described the splash of the warden entering his waterway, Tango kicked up sparks from his toes.

Their neighbors, having only heard the tale once or twice before, were appreciative of the theatrics. Appropriate cheers and exclamations danced around the fires of the circle, and the flames of Tango’s hair.

“And now,” Tango’s tale came to a close, “our sweet baby boy is free. Swimming to his heart’s content and able to kill all the fish he wants!” He stood on the edge of the ravine, arms spread wide, and took a bow.

Jimmy’s heart skipped as he saw just how easy it would be for Tango to be pushed slip and perish on the rocks below. Without thinking, he lunged forward, wrapping Tango in a hug and pulling him back to solid ground, to safety. He laughed, trying to play it off as no big deal. “My soulmate, everyone! Bet you wish yours was as brilliant!”

Tango beamed, hugging him back. His warmth was impossible not to relax into. “I had to avenge the Ranch! Now everyone knows not to mess with us.” He announced it to the dark night, but met Jimmy’s eyes. 

The moment was over far too soon, but it left Jimmy breathless, spinning.

“So now I just have your grudge under my base for the rest of the server?” Martyn grumbled, but it wasn’t serious. “I can hear that thing when I’m trying to sleep. It’s terrifying.”

“Good!” Jimmy and Cleo quipped in unison.

Cleo giggled as Jimmy continued. “Serves you right for building that hideous thing on our doorstep.”

Wisely, Martyn didn’t try to defend himself. Instead, he stood and stretched. “Gonna go treat myself to some nightmares, then. You all have a good night!” As he left the ring of firelight, he disappeared into the blackness. There was a distant sound of rattling bones and a yelp to mark how far he’d made it. Cleo flinched and rubbed her arm, but rolled her eyes when Scott tilted his head in question.

“I’m gonna head to bed, too.” Tango rolled his shoulders, then waved to the campfire. “Y’all are welcome to stay as long as you like.” And he started towards the main house.

Jimmy hummed for a moment, considering.

“Go on.” Scott teased. “He’s getting away.”

Jimmy smiled at Scott, appreciating the encouragement. While their own relationship status was constantly breaking the dial of, ‘it’s complicated,’ Scott and Jimmy were happy to see each other happy.

Cleo snorted, “Though if you want to cuddle with this one sometime I wouldn’t mind the break.” She elbowed Scott in the ribs.

“Hey!”

“Jimmy, you could have warned me he’s clingy.” She leaned forward, mischievous smile on her lips. “Though I have on good authority that Tango’s an excellent little spoon, so you might be set.”

Blushing furiously, Jimmy coughed up a chirp. “I’m sure he is, Cleo. Now if you don’t mind, I’m gonna— I’m just gonna go.”

The pseudo soulmates chuckled as he left them behind. 

He caught Tango tugging a sleep shirt on, back turned to the doorway. Jimmy felt his ears burn and feathers puff as he averted his gaze. “Um,” he coughed, “anything I can do to set up for the morning?” He ruffled a hand through his hair, trying to self-soothe and relax his tattling feathers. “Anything you have planned I can help with?”

Tango smoothed out his shirt and turned to grin at Jimmy. “Nah, we’ll see what tomorrow brings, but I don’t have any plans.” He scooped a blanket off a shelf and tossed it over his shoulder. He started to make his way to the ladder. 

“Yeah, okay, cool.” Jimmy winced at his words. “So I wanted to thank you.” He stepped the rest of the way into the room, raising his voice to make sure Tango wouldn’t have to stop to listen to him. “What you’ve gone and done with the warden, it's really incredible.” He busied himself pulling his own sleep clothes out of storage.

He could hear the ladder creak as Tango began to climb. “Of course! Anything for the Ranch!” The creaking stopped, too soon for him to have reached the second floor. “And thank you too, Jim.”

Jimmy, his shirt half-removed, froze.

“Just look what you’ve built here, all while dealing with my less-than-stable reputation.” Tango chuckled. “A warden loose on the surface is the least I could do for you.” The creaking resumed, and soon there were footsteps on the second floor.

Jimmy exhaled a shaky breath. Trying so hard not to overthink his next steps, he dressed for bed, and followed Tango up the ladder.

The blaze hybrid was laying in his own bed, smiling idly at his communicator.

“Tango?” Jimmy begged his voice to sound stronger than he felt.

“Mmh? What’s up?” His eyes flicked off the screen to peer at his soulmate.

Jimmy took a step forward. “I’m really glad we’re soulmates. Getting to know you has been such a blessing.” He tried not to cringe at the awkward wording. It sounded as if he hadn’t spent weeks figuring out how to say this. “Every moment I spend with you I’m finding more ways to appreciate you, and if you’ll have me, I’m committed to being whatever kind of partner you want from me.”

It didn’t matter if the silence lasted seconds or minutes, it felt like a lifetime to Jimmy.

When Tango exhaled a laugh, Jimmy jumped.

“Sorry, I just didn’t realize how much I needed to hear that.” Tango put down the communicator and sat up.

Jimmy’s heart stuttered.

“Jimmy, I don’t know how obvious it is, but I’ve been torn up with guilt for our first death.” He rubbed the side of his neck, where Jimmy knew a faint scar from the blast marked his flesh. “Learning you’re stuck with me like that? With me proving I can’t protect us? Absolute nightmare!”

Jimmy clicked in protest, then realized Tango might not know what it meant. “Not at all, Tango! I’m the cursed one, it was probably somehow my fault on a big ol’ universal level or something.” He wasn’t sure where his soulmate was going with this response, but despite his better judgment, he was hopeful. “And I don’t care about all that, you’re more than worth an accidental death or two.”

Tango grinned. “So we’re officially putting that behind us? Gonna take on the world baggage-free?”

“Of course!” Jimmy’s brow furrowed, trying to parse what was happening. “What part of me pouring my heart out in confession makes you think I was holding a grudge?”

The communicator pinged and drew Tango’s gaze for a second. He returned to Jimmy and tilted his head. “I don’t know if you know this, Jimmy, but you’re a super nice fella. Something tells me if you actually loathed me, I wouldn’t have any way of knowing until a moment like right now.” The comm pinged again and Tango’s hand drifted to it.

Jimmy could feel the blush return. “Right, I mean, I definitely don’t hate you.” The conversation was still very positive, complimentary, and so confusing. “Tango, I’m confessing my–” Don’t say ‘love’ that’ll scare him off for sure. “That I’m quite taken with you, here. I’m not sure you’re following.”

When he laughed this time, Tango’s sharp teeth and inhuman eyes sparked instinctive fears of being devoured. Jimmy shivered and couldn’t tell if he liked the thrill or not. “Sorry, you’re so right. I’m gonna stop overthinking it.” Tango threw his arms wide, clearly inviting a hug. “Of all the people in this crazy-ass server, I’m glad I got to be soulmates with my new best friend. Things could have been so much worse!”

Jimmy didn’t have the time (or the willpower) to stop himself from falling into the offered hug. By the time Tango had shut the iron door in his face, locking it by naming him ‘best friend’, Jimmy was tightly wound in his soulmate’s arms. He was sure Tango noticed him stiffen, positive the blaze had heard his breath catch (their faces were next to each other, how could he not?). And when Jimmy only offered a shallow laugh as a response, there was no way Tango didn’t hear the color of hysteria dancing through each sound. 

But whatever should have come next would only be that: ‘should’.

The communicator pinged. It was wrapped in Tango’s hand, resting right on Jimmy’s neck. The sound may as well have been a shard of ice, cutting through the warmth of Tango’s arms and directly through Jimmy’s heart.

Tango huffed a laugh and detangled from the hug. “Sorry, Zedaph got a link through the server and I’m just getting the chance to catch up on his messages.” He leaned back on the bed, tapping at the screen with one hand and patting the mattress next to him with the other. “We’re probably gonna video chat in a second if you want to meet him? Impulse will be on too.”

And there it was, the proof Jimmy needed that he had overstepped. The warning laced in with the invitation, that there were others already filling the role in Tango’s life that Jimmy had found himself imagining he might–

“No, I’m okay, thanks.” He stumbled back. He coughed. “Actually that reminds me, we left Cleo with a lit fire next to our wooden ranch.” He rubbed his hands up and down his arms.

“Oh, I suppose we did!” He craned his neck around, peering out the window. “You think they’ve put that phase behind them, orrrrr…?”

“I’m gonna go check on that.” He tripped over his feet to get to the ladder. “I’m suddenly very unsure about a lot of things.” At least that was true.

When his feet hit the first floor he chose not to hear Tango’s excited greeting as the call connected. Jimmy made for the front door and shut it gently behind him.

Eyes closed, Jimmy let himself fall back against the rough hewn wood. He had no idea what came next. He wanted to be numb, to be lost for any feeling at all. But instead his brain was fully engaged in reliving everything he had missed, every sign he had misread. He had bombed the most basic test of their relationship and failed to notice that there were hard limits in place.

He wanted to sob. His chest was so full of emotion that there was no room left for even the heartbreak.

A laugh fell from the window above and repelled Jimmy like a cannon blast.

He stumbled away from the house, blindly moving down the hill and towards the point of light on the edge of their territory. Desperate to ignore one source of merriment, he found another. As he approached it was clear Cleo and Scott were preparing to leave. 

They were talking in low but energetic voices, laughing and enjoying the night. Scott was using his sword to spread apart the logs on the dwindling fire, and Cleo was gathering the remains of roasted apples and campfire-boiled tea for disposal. Still too far to make out their words, Jimmy caught Scott throwing some remark over his shoulder, and Cleo responding by throwing a half-eaten apple at his back. Their laughter was the first clear bit of the exchange he heard. Jimmy wished he had the capacity for envy at their easy camaraderie.

“Oh, Jimmy! Welcome back!” Cleo was the first to spot his approach. “Are you doing okay there, bud?” Goddamn his friends for having empathy and being good people. It would be so much easier if they were selfish and unaware of the feelings of others.

“Oh, you know,” he gestured to the sputtering fire, “thought it might be a good idea to put the fire out, what with the Ranch’s recent history.” It was close enough to the excuse he gave Tango that it felt consistent.

Too bad it wasn’t particularly believable.

“Jimmy.” Scott’s voice was a familiar chide.

It only took a few seconds of silence for Jimmy to lose composure. There was barely a sound associated, it was a quiet cascade of tears.

There were hands on his shoulders, gentle shushes and kind words. His head was pulled down to a shoulder in a protective embrace; the familiar texture of Scott’s denim overshirt pressed against his face. He felt his cheeks burn in shame. Here he was, crying over the rejection of one man while in the arms of another he still loved. And Cleo. Cleo was there. 

“Jimmy, can I touch your feathers?” Scott’s question was gentle, non pressuring. If Jimmy said no, everything would be okay.

And if it were anyone other than Scott the idea would have disgusted him. As it was, nothing sounded more right. He managed to release a chirp of affirmation, and was immediately rewarded with soft fingers on the back of his neck.

Cleo asked something, but he couldn’t hear through the growing haze behind his eyes. He just nodded, trusting that his friend wouldn’t be asking him to agree to something harmful. A second later and he was being lifted, scooped up like a sleeping child. He chirped in surprise, but a hand behind his ear and reassurances from above quelled any real protest.

She carried him through the darkness. He had enough wherewithal to marvel that she was unbothered by the act of carrying a man taller than her over rough terrain in the middle of the mob-filled night. Jimmy knew he should be insisting on his independence, that they would be mocking him as soon as they knew he was losing him marbles over an unrequited crush. But even more, he knew he should appreciate the affection while he could. His friends might be insufferable, pranking, bloodthirsty, bastards, but they took care of their own.

It took no time at all for them to be on a wooden porch, Cleo carefully setting his feet on the planks. Jimmy blinked up at the building and recognized Scott’s house.

“I’ll be just over the bridge if you need me, ya’hear?” She gave Jimmy’s shoulder a squeeze and walked away.

“Come on in, Jimmy.” Scott laid a hand on the small of his back and urged him through the open front door. “Is this a ‘give it time’, or an ‘eat our feelings’ kind of cry?”

Jimmy tried to laugh but just hiccuped.

Scott stepped past him, moving to start the furnace for light and warmth. “Pick one, the couch or the bed. I’m fine with each and I’ll not leave you alone either way.” The elf’s ear twitched as the flint and steel sparked loudly.

The practical man inside Jimmy said, “couch.” The active, sad, and needy Jimmy set his sights on the bed and made his way over to it.

“Extra blankets?” They both fell into each other’s habits so easily.

“Yes please.” Jimmy’s voice was small, but he knew Scott heard as the sound of a chest opening was followed by the overencumbered grunt of the man.

Several pounds of wool and cotton landed in a mound in front of Jimmy. “I’m going to get some hot cocoa, you arrange the bed.”

It was natural, being in Scott’s space and making it shared. No matter what else was happening in his head, Scott had a way of making him feel grounded, safe. At home, his mind supplied. As he folded and unfolded blankets, pretending not to notice how nest-like the arrangement was, Jimmy listened to the familiar sounds of Scott’s tuneless humming from the kitchen. It soothed something deep down, spreading a sense of ‘rightness’ through his bones.

Of course that didn’t mean he wasn’t still an absolute wreck. Jimmy would have to call his emotional state in that moment, “complicated and unfair.” Most overwhelming, as he fluffed a pillow and cast a critical eye over his work, was the emptiness of disappointment. It was coming from all directions. He was disappointed, of course, that Tango didn’t return his feelings. That was the easiest to understand. But even more than that was the self-loathing disappointment in himself for letting these feelings fester and embed themselves in him in the first place. He had no right to Tango’s affections, so why had he been so set on claiming them?

He warbled, a sound of frustration and mourning. Scott, accustomed to translating such sounds, called out.

“I’ll be just a moment, Flower. Trying not to spill.”

And wow, it had been a while since he’d heard a pet name. It sent a wave of warmth down his spine, fighting back the chill of sorrow. Either Scott was really tired, or he was presenting as very pathetic right now. Jimmy suspected he knew which was the culprit.

Scott came in, mugs in hand and another blanket draped over an arm. He settled the cocoa on the bedside table, and nodded appreciatively at Jimmy’s achievement with the bedding. “How bad we talking? You want me in first?”

Jimmy blushed. Why yes, he would like Scott to get in first so that he could tuck the man in and reassure himself that everything was perfect. But he was embarrassing himself enough without fully reverting to their old relationship habits. Resolutely, Jimmy climbed in first, deciding not to care that doing so messed up the blankets folded at the edge.

And this was a problem he hadn’t maintained the bandwidth to consider before this moment; the bed smelled like Scott. Cleo too, it was obvious she had spent time over, cuddling and scheming. But Jimmy hadn’t been prepared for how his fragile emotions would handle being sat in the middle of a fortress of blankets that smelled like his best friend.

He tried so hard not to fall into the stereotypes of hybrids. He kept his vocalizations to himself and his most trusted friends, covered his visibly inhuman features, and suppressed every urge to treat his friends to songs and shiny objects. But sometimes it was too much.

Right now it was too much.

The crying began anew and Jimmy threw himself into the bed. He buried his face in a soft blanket, letting the tight weave soothe his skin and the scent of Scott soothe everything else.

Fuck it was so hard to be over Scott when everything about him felt like home.

The bed dipped next to him and a hand ghosted up and down his back. Giving up all pretenses of dignity, Jimmy turned his body to face the elf and made grabby hands to Scott.

“Just a second, Lily.” Scott brought a hand to Jimmy’s chin and eased their eyes to meeting. “There’s something I need to know first, okay? Everything else can wait and you don’t have to tell me anything more than this.” The green crystals dancing around Scott’s head were soothing, like visual white noise, scattering the intense troubled thoughts.

Jimmy nodded. “Anything.”

Scott leaned down, foreheads nearly pressing together. “Jimmy, did Tango hurt you?” His eyes were hard, searching for a true answer and ready to act when he got one.

Jimmy’s own eyes went wide. “No! Not at all! He would never.” Not in the way Scott was asking, not on purpose, not cruelly.

For a few seconds, Scott��s eyes stayed on Jimmy’s face, waiting for him to change his answer.

“Really, Scott, it's nothing like that.” He leaned forward, nuzzling his forehead against Scott’s cheek. “I swear to you, Tango hasn’t hurt me.”

Scott hummed, then nodded. He wrapped one arm around Jimmy and reached the other back to the bedside table. “Thank you, I just had to be sure.”

Comfort fought a hard battle, but curiosity won out. Jimmy lifted his head up to see what his bedmate was doing. He was slightly annoyed to see him typing on his communicator. An indignant click left Jimmy’s throat and Scott responded with a grin.

“Believe me, Flower, you want me to send this message. I’m just letting Cleo know we’re good and that she shouldn’t go kill Tango in his sleep.”

Whatever sound Jimmy was trying to make turned into a choked sputtering.

Scott laughed and set down the device. “Now do you want to talk about it? Or should I just make you forget about everything for a while?”

His feathers freshly ruffled, Jimmy leaned into Scott with a groan. “I don’t know. I feel like an idiot and I only have myself to blame.” His hand shot up to cover Scott’s mouth when he felt the retort coming. “Let me be sad, Scott, don’t tell me how typical this is.” He was melting down, his face pressed into Scott’s neck. He felt the Scotsman’s laugh more than heard it.

“Okay, okay. Sheesh.” He pried Jimmy’s hand off his mouth. “How about I preen your feathers and you decide if you’ll tell me anything substantial.”

Jimmy considered. “Do I have to move? Because you’re very comfortable.”

“If you still trust me to do this while I can barely see what I’m working on? Sure.”

And with how busy all the feelings in his head and heart were, Jimmy found he was happy to let trust win out for this. “Go ahead, Petal.” If he didn’t mention the pet name, maybe Scott would pretend he hadn’t heard.

If his smug laugh was anything to go by, he wasn’t going to pretend any such thing. But without comment he slipped his hands under Jimmy’s shirt and carefully worked it up and over his head.

The air in the house was warm, thanks to the shared body heat and the furnace, but Jimmy still shivered. Blankets pressed into his skin and air snuck under his feathers. Soon, practiced hands scratched small circles onto his flesh. Jimmy melted further. 

“Oh Jimmy, you haven’t touched these in ages.” Scott’s voice was mournful as his hands pet down the feathers on his partner’s back. “I thought you said you were taking care of yourself?” Fingertips wove through the yellow and white down, meeting the sensitive skin below and lighting Jimmy’s brain on fire.

He gasped, unable to hold in the expression. “I– I am. I get what I can reach.”

Scott’s fingers stilled and Jimmy tried to control his pout. “Poppy, most of your feathers are back here. You’re telling me you’ve only been cleaning your shoulders for the past, gods know how long?”

Indignant, Jimmy corrected, “And my arms! And those bits on my scalp.”

Scott snorted. But much to Jimmy’s relief he resumed the light scratching. “I’m not sure I should be doing this, lovely. Are you sure you don’t want a professional to take a look?”

Jimmy’s arms pulled Scott closer. “Frankly, I’m still not sure how you ended up doing this. If I weren’t heartbroken right now, those dumb things would be out of luck for much longer.”

“I am,” he began carefully picking debris out of the fluff, “deciding which part of that to focus on right now.”

Sensing his mistake, Jimmy decided simply not to care. It was Scott. He would have gotten the answers from him one way or another.

They cuddled in silence for several minutes. Jimmy was still too wound up to be at risk of falling asleep, but he was content with the current arrangement. Scott was focused, his humming rumbling against Jimmy’s ear and punctuated by little tugs on his feathers.

He hadn’t realized how uncomfortable his back had been until this moment. Every tiny, sharp pain of irritated skin and embedded dirt was being knocked away, one by one. Whenever Scott smoothed down an area and moved on to the next, Jimmy could feel the way the skin was settling after being angered for so long. There was some part of his mind that seems to have been screaming at him to take care of this for a while, but he was only now able to acknowledge it as it was calming down.

“Jimmy?”

The spoken word stirred him. “Mmmhm?” He should get a prize for his eloquence.

“It’s okay to be disappointed. I’m sorry Tango didn’t reciprocate, but I’m proud of you for shooting your shot.”

Goddamn Scott and his goddamn paying attention to the words he said.

“Can I tell you a secret?” Scott kept at preening as if he wasn’t stirring the pot of Jimmy’s emotions. “I’ve been missing you.”

And that was acknowledgement of a whole set of circumstances Jimmy had thought he’d squarely sorted out.

“And I don’t want to be a scumbag and take advantage of your distress, or heaven forbid make you think I’m celebrating this in any way.” He smoothed down another patch and moved along. “But if you’re out there being vulnerable you deserve to know. I miss you, but I’ll be happy as long as you’re happy.”

“Scott,” his mouth was dry and he wasn’t sure why, “I thought we were over? I thought that’s what you wanted?” He shook his head, what little he could pressed into the other body. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

The laugh carried a warmth through him that Jimmy could pretend was a purely platonic appreciation for friendship. “Honestly Jimmy? I don’t know. I’m not…good, for you. That hasn’t changed. I can’t say that I would be any closer to something you deserve if we were to try again. But like I said, you deserve to know.” One hand moved off the feathers to rub circles on Jimmy’s lower back. “I’m truly happy to be your friend, even if it means I’m nothing more. Tango is missing out on a genuine, beautiful partner by turning you down, and I hope that he sees that before this is all over.”

“Pretty words, pretty man.” Jimmy grumbled into Scott’s neck. “I’m not in a headspace to know what feelings are the important ones, so I’m not gonna make any declarations.” Instinctively, he kissed the soft skin in front of him. “But thank you.”

To his credit, Scott stuttered in his motions for just a second. “You want that cocoa before it gets cold?” As Jimmy started to protest, Scott continued. “I need you to move anyway so I can get at that other shoulder.”

So they drank cocoa, and groomed Jimmy, and cuddled like there was no outside world waiting to take this momentary peace away. And nothing was decided, no problems were solved. But as Jimmy slipped out of bed in the morning and brushed cyan hair out of Scott’s face; as he delivered a chaste kiss to the elf’s forehead and silently latched the door behind him; as he got an early start feeding animals and tending crops with the sunrise coming to meet him; he was content. Things would get better. They would be worse. But there was a wordless determination to see it through staked into his heart.