Work Text:
i.
you blink.
you touch your hand.
you’ve grown a mile.
that’s what it feels like-
five thousand two hundred and eighty feet
have crammed their way between your
own two feet and the crown of your head.
you blink.
you touch your hand.
your bones feel stronger.
that sounds fucking dumb and you know it,
but your bones feel stronger,
like you’ve been standing on infirm ground
your entire life and it’s only just now
you know how to stand properly.
well.
your spine never was much for
sticking up straight,
so maybe yeah.
maybe you are standing properly
for the first time in your damn life.
you blink.
you touch your hand.
your skin is tighter, warmer,
better.
everything about you is better,
and while you’re so goddamn grateful
to breathe without the threat of a lung giving out,
you have only ever had the one body.
what do you do with a new one
when the old one was yours
and this one is the property of the
United States Government with a capital g?
well.
you blink.
you open your eyes.
you see color,
vivid blue and red and green and
the world is bursting with so much
that you never really missed
because those eyes were the only ones you had.
your left ear is working,
and the feeling is so strange that
you start to cry.
it’s stupid.
you blink.
you shut your eyes tight,
squeeze them until all those colors
burst on the inside of your eyelids.
ii.
you blink.
it is today.
today, today.
today that was unthinkably far in the future
to the old you with a spine that wouldn’t work,
a whole fucking body that wouldn’t work.
you close your eyes
and try to find the warmth of familiarity.
it does not come and it does not come.
new things will have to do.
maybe that’s why you were given this new body:
so you could come to tomorrow and to do
the same things you’ve always done,
just with new people.
the new things are your home and your friends
and the food and the people and cars and
internet- that’s a fun one-
and
everything is new.
iii.
you blink.
your mouth forms the only word
you will cling to after the universe stops expanding.
you blink.
he remembers.
he doesn’t.
you blink again and again,
willing the years to catch up
to the both of you.
you blink.
he touches your hand.
this is what this body was made for:
loving him.
the old body and the new one
met in a single purpose,
spinning on the axis of one man;
the sun, the moon, the ground beneath your feet.
you breathe.
he blinks.
yeah.
this is it.
this is the beginning and end
of everything you have ever cared
to hold close to your aching heart.
he says your name,
the only voice you have ever turned to
because you know it like you know your own life.
he’s the reason you’ve always lived.
no, that’s wrong.
reason implies that there was a choice,
a causation behind loving him.
you laugh.
you touch his cheek.
it was.
it is.
you are.
you are his,
as surely as the clench of his jaw,
the jut of his nose,
the smirk in his eyes,
and he is yours.
that is the only truth.
he is your greatest weakness
and only source of strength.
the alpha and omega of your own damn alphabet,
like he’s got some freaky powers
to make your heart thud in your chest
even though your heart rate rests far lower than the average human.
he doesn’t have any of that though.
he’s just got the same truth as you do.
you blink.
you run your thumb along his cheekbone.
he says something, and it means nothing-
absolutely goddamn nothing
in the face of his skin touching yours.
you kiss him.
yeah. that’s it.
that’s what this body was made for.
you met him in the face of all impossibility
because soulmates don’t exist,
but you love him, and that’s enough to rewrite the universe
so you could meet him again.
you kiss him. again.
again you kiss him
and he kisses you and
this is what you were made for.
warmth floods your veins,
spiralling gold of summer afternoons
and winter evenings spent huddled together.
he says something,
and you listen this time,
with both of your good ears.
“i can’t believe you, punk,”
he says,
and you start crying.