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Jimmy promised several things to Scott before the real war started.
They’d been championing their own little war on the sidelines for years, weapons carefully made under Scott’s hands that failed at crucial times, false information fed to the Red Army in whispered rumors, Jimmy at the heart of every lie. It was their microcosm of a rebellion, their subtle fight back, and a fight that Jimmy knew somehow would ultimately result in nothing.
Yet, somehow, it had given them everything.
First Scar with his wicked grin and clever hands, a spark of something violent in his eyes when he invited them into his world. Then the rest of the Alliance, and Grian, and now the carefully coded instructions for the days ahead that rested in his hands.
It wasn’t as if there hadn’t been tragedy along the way. He had been the one to put Joel’s body in the ground— to pick up the mutilated remains of his friend with Cleo’s help and bring him to the grave that Scott had dug with shaking hands. From what little Scott had told him, the man was no stranger to burying bodies.
Then Cleo. Jimmy held Scott through the day and night as his husband wailed his grief, blank eyes red-rimmed from tears, his hands grasping Jimmy’s shawl tight enough to rip it. He’d helped scrub the bloodstains from Scott’s overalls, kissed Scott’s head and told him there was nothing more he could have done.
Jimmy had ignored the nagging voice at the back of his head that said it was himself to blame.
But, that night, as he curled himself around Scott’s shaking form, pressing kiss after kiss to him as he trembled, Scott said something. He’d raised his head from Jimmy’s chest, the halo around his head dim and flickering. Grasped Jimmy’s face in both his palms, leaned forward until their foreheads touched, and closed his eyes.
Whispered, quieter than the wind outside their windows, “Promise me you won’t go.”
Jimmy stopped the soothing motions of his hands along Scott’s back, settling for wrapping them around Scott’s shoulders. “What?”
“Promise me you won’t go out like them,” Scott repeated, drawing back from him. His eyes were steely, determined, deep enough to contain the eternity of the void and all its stars within them. “I don’t care what it takes. You lie, you fight, you do whatever you have to do. But you stay alive .”
Jimmy took a deep breath in. A sudden pang flared sharp and brutal in his chest, stabbing deep into his heart and into his gut. His husband’s words unnerved him— they carried something deeper to them than just grief. There was the slight weight of fate to them. Either some sort of premonition or some strange irony, something that the echoing whispers following him laughed at.
He knew, really, that no matter what he was going to outlive Scott. His beautiful, wonderful husband was reckless in grief or inspiration, much the same way Jimmy was. It was part of why Jimmy loved him.
And, no matter what, Scott was still mortal.
He’d never ask Scott to promise the reverse. It was a promise Scott could never keep.
Amid the initial shock, he registered the fact that Scott’s words came out cracked, broken, still tinged with desperation. It was the plea of someone who imagined a future as a widow, who had watched… everything that had happened to Cleo and Bdubs, and wondered if it could be him next.
He was familiar with Scott’s thoughts, his grief, all his patterns. He could sense the faint concern-fear-protectiveness that flickered around Scott, the war inside him that threatened to spill out at any given time and level the world around him.
So he pulled Scott’s hands from his face, holding the left one in his right.
He pressed a kiss to his husband’s first knuckle. “I will.” Then a kiss to his second knuckle, where an old scar from a weapons misfire showed the very edge of bone. “I’ll keep my eyes open and try to be a bit less of an idiot this time.” A kiss not to his third knuckle, but to the ring on his finger, the half-aged copper covered with carvings of poppies. “I’ll bring down the army and make this right however I can.” His last knuckle. “I’ll keep the shop open every day and make sure the children don’t get in trouble.”
He turned Scott’s hand over, pressing one more slow kiss to his palm. “And I’ll protect you. I’ll keep you safe.”
Scott laughed, weakly, shoving at his shoulder. Jimmy pretended to not see the sheen over his eyes. “I can keep myself safe, thank you very much. I’m worrying about you more often.”
“Well, don’t,” Jimmy returned, letting himself smile a bit. “I’ve survived this long with no problem.”
His husband nodded, slowly, curling back into his side. The blankets were warm, sheltering them from the world beyond, even as the warning of a coming storm rattled their windows. “I just love you. I want you to be okay.”
I’m safer than you’ll ever be, Jimmy thought, but didn’t dare voice the words out loud for the grief they caused him.
Instead, he rolled over slightly on top of Scott, giggling when his husband squeaked in annoyance and slapped at his shoulders. “Oh, Scott, I’m so big and strong, no one would ever dare try and hurt me.”
“Big and strong is right, you fucking lump, you’re going to suffocate me and break all my ribs—”
“Another mighty enemy, vanquished!”
“I’ve changed my mind, I take everything back. You can go off and die in the coup, I don’t even care, I won’t shed a single tear at your funeral. In fact, I won’t be at the funeral because I’ll already have died of asphyxiation trapped under my stupid husband.”
Jimmy roared with laughter, rolling back off of Scott and tugging his husband into his arms, arms wrapped tightly around his waist. Scott chuckled into his neck, scratching his nails lightly against Jimmy’s scalp. Everything was warm and light, and everything felt okay. Scott wasn’t crying anymore. His vows were spoken, sure as the ones he’d said at their wedding.
Well, not quite.
He held Scott a little tighter, hummed some random tune he faintly remembered, and stared at the ceiling while his husband relaxed against him.
They were coming up on the end of all things, now. He’d heard it, seen it, been warned again and again. He’d also warned who he could, but— he hadn’t dared to tell Scott. He wanted his husband to live in happiness, to be blissful and fiery and devoted to his ideals that he upheld so strongly. He wanted Scott to have everything, no matter how long it lasted.
It was just that last bit that nagged him.
However long it lasted. However long they had.
He ran his hands through Scott’s hair, knowing it would be another sleepless night ahead. There was too much to think about. Worrying about the war, and the prophecies, and the way everything was teetering on the edge of crashing down.
Worrying if he could even keep those fragile, hopeful vows he’d given Scott.
It was far too likely the answer would be no.