Chapter Text
Five Years Later
The fog was heavy that day.
Watching it roll in over the water, thick and impassable, blocking out all but the most determined rays of sunlight had always brought René a sense of peace.
They were alone out here. Alone with the green, rolling hills and the rocky shores. An island in an ocean of fog. It should have been terrifying, the notion of isolation. Of being all alone in the world. But he found it comforting.
The coffee in his hands was enough to keep him warm on the chilly summer morning, combined with the heavy blanket thrown over his shoulders. He sat on the front porch, as he always did, watching as the world around him disappeared in a haze of grey.
Erik was still asleep. René had left him in bed, letting him catch up on the rest he'd denied himself for too many nights.
This home was still strange to them. Three and a half years of living on the run, never staying in the same place for longer than a month, crossing borders and state lines in the dead of night, taking turns keeping watch, all of it had taken a toll on them. To be settled down somewhere, to not have to run at the slightest sign of detection was a relatively unfamiliar concept. They'd lived in this house for over a year, and René was only just being able to call it home.
Erik was becoming restless. He never said anything, of course, but René knew him well enough.
He was treating this life they had built as temporary. A façade to be dropped at a moment's notice. He made breakfast every morning and read the newspapers and answered house calls, keeping on friendly terms with their few neighbors. He had infested the house with a new flock of doves.
And yet, René knew about the bag in the bottom of the wardrobe, stuffed full of spare clothes and money and passports for the both of them.
He took another sip of coffee and sighed to himself. The fog had moved up the shore now, obscuring the small, smooth stones beneath its bulk. It crept ever closer to the porch steps, and the swinging bench on which he sat. Soon it would encroach all around him, swallowing the house and the surrounding hills.
René shrugged the blanket from his shoulders and stood, rolling out the stiffness in his joints. He was forty-five now. Practically an old man. There was more grey in his hair than black these days and he was starting to feel the years. In his back especially. And in the fine, treacherous lines around his eyes and mouth. Wrinkles. Traces of time that touched only him.
Erik was the same. Unchanging and enduring.
He drained the last of his coffee and took another glance at the fog before turning to head inside. A small sound by his ankles made him pause.
The cat was small and brown, a scrawny tom that must have crawled up from under the porch while he wasn't looking. It wound between his ankles, looking expectantly up at him.
“Hello, Chat,” he said simply.
Chat, as far as René could tell, had come with the house. He had no collar or tags and no one in town seemed to know anything about him.
But he would not leave René alone.
Erik disliked cats. He disliked anything that posed a natural threat to his birds. He shooed the cat away whenever he caught sight of it, screwed up his face into a frown as he picked the cat hair off of René's shirts. His disdain seemed to suit Chat just fine. He only had eyes for René.
He humoured the animal at first, amused by its attachment to him. He scratched its head when he could convince it to draw near, which soon moved to rubbing at its fluffy belly. Against Erik's wishes he started leaving out cans of fish, and then started buying proper cat food from the little shop in town. Erik was the one who suggested he name it. Chat simply seemed appropriate.
“Are you hungry?” he asked the cat, who mewed again in response. René let his lips twitch into a small smile as he pushed open the door. “I'll be back in a moment.”
The house was not large. It was a modest enough home, single story, two bedrooms, one bathroom, a nice sized kitchen and sitting room. The spare bedroom was used as a shared office space for the two of them, not that they ever did much paperwork. Occasionally one of the neighbors from town would come to the house complaining of one ailment or another and Erik would lead them back there, letting it double as a sort of examination room. Those instances were few and far between, however. Both of them discouraged people from thinking of their home as a sort of free clinic.
René set his empty mug in the sink, leaning back to look down the hall when he heard the running water. So Erik was awake after all. So much for letting him sleep in.
He went to fetch a bowl from the cabinet and smiled when he noticed that the toaster was in use. Erik rarely ate breakfast. And if he did it was on special occasions. Sausage and eggs, omelets, big sit down meals that let him work up an appetite while he cooked. But the toast wasn't for him.
He still wasn't used to this. This simple domesticity.
René had played the domestic game before. He'd played the role of a doting husband, of a hopeful newlywed, of an overtaxed family man. Those types of jobs were never his favourite, but he was good at them. But still, they were jobs.
This was not a job.
There was nothing scripted or rehearsed about the way they fell asleep in each other's arms. Nothing forced about the comfortable silence they would find themselves sitting in, each tending to their own little projects, merely enjoying the companionship of being in the same room. René didn't feel like he was playing a game or a character anymore.
He felt loved.
They didn't say it often – the words themselves brought a certain tightness to Erik's smile, which René had taken pains to understand and forgive – but then they didn't need to. It was things like the toast. The next book in the series he was reading being set out on his bedside table. The way Erik's eyes would close and he would hum, ever so softly, when their lips met.
This was real. Realer than anything he'd ever felt before. And better than anything he'd ever known.
He couldn't stop smiling as he pulled the milk from the fridge and poured a dash of it into the bowl. He opened the front door again and set the dish outside for the impatiently waiting Chat, patting it fondly on the head as he so. And by the time he closed the door again, his toast was ready.
“Is there any hot water left?” he asked, when the bathroom door opened. Erik stepped out in a cloud of steam, towel wrapped low around his hips, using a washrag to dab at the thick stubble on his jaw.
The beard was also new. René couldn't entirely say he approved, but it was very good at its job of making the doctor unrecognizable.
“Ja” Erik said, shaking his head to clear the water from his ears. “But not much. I would wait an hour or so if you want to shower.”
“I was just curious.”
Erik merely nodded and headed back into the bedroom to get dressed for the day. He didn't bother closing the door behind him.
“Did I hear the front door open?” he called out into the kitchen. René barely bothered to pretend he wasn't peeking.
“I was feeding the cat,” he called back, taking a bite of his jam and toast. He'd found the newspaper from the day before and was taking his time to leaf casually through the pages. Down the hall, he heard Erik snort.
“You really shouldn't encourage that pest, you know.”
The tell-tale fluttering of wings was all the warning he had before a dove plopped itself on the table, fixing its beady little eyes on his bread crusts. He quickly lifted his plate.
“Speaking of pests...”
“Menaechmus, nein.” Erik bustled quickly into the kitchen, clad only in socks and a pair of modest cotton shorts and scooped the offending bird into his hands. “What have I told you about begging?”
“Quite a few things,” René quipped, quirking an eyebrow at his lover. “Or were you speaking to the bird?”
“René, I just got out of the shower.”
“That's never stopped you before.”
Behind the beard, he couldn't tell if the doctor was frowning or smirking. He opted for the latter.
“Do you need anything from town?” he asked, raising his newspaper to block Erik from view. His bare chest – bare almost everything, really – was becoming very distracting. The man really hadn't aged a day in the last half a decade. His arms were still strong, his legs were still magnificent, and the hair on his chest was still both thick and dark. René could only hope to look that good when he was pushing a hundred, mummified in his grave. They both kept up their own rigorous fitness routines, determined to stay in fighting shape should the worst occur, but one of them was working significantly harder at it.
“You're going shopping today?” Erik asked, heading again into the bedroom, taking the troublesome dove along with him.
“Oui. We're running low on milk-”
“-Because you keep giving it to that verdammte cat-”
“-as well as the good wheat bread, and hand soap. I want today's paper as well.”
“See if they have any more of those little cream pastries as well.”
René snorted.
“Alright, I will see if they have your pastries. Anything else?”
“Nein, danke. Are you driving or walking?”
“Walking today, I think.”
“Hm.”
René let his newspaper drop, just in time to watch Erik pulling up his trousers.
“What was that?”
“What was what?” Erik said, purposely not looking at him.
“That noise. You disapprove.”
“I do not.”
“You think I should take the car.”
“I think you should do whatever you want, schatz.”
“Why do you think I should take the car, Erik?” he asked, ignoring the warm, fluttery feeling he got in his chest whenever he was addressed by that particular nickname. They were bickering. This was no time for casual affection.
“When did I say that?” Erik challenged, pulling an undershirt over his head.
“You didn't have to, I could hear it in your tone.”
“Could you.”
“Yes. And I'm going to take the car.”
Erik took a moment to hastily button up his shirt, glaring at the floor as he did so. René folded his newspaper, creasing it a bit more crisply than necessary before laying on the table. He got up to put his plate in the sink.
“You don't have to take the car,” Erik said primly, walking out into the kitchen. “If you would prefer to walk I'm not going to stop you. It is completely up to you, and I don't think-”
“Why is it so important that I take the car?” René asked, his voice rising. Bickering had moved dangerously close to arguing. They'd argued over smaller things. Mode of transportation seemed almost reasonable by their standards. He turned around, leaning back against the counter and crossing his arms over his chest, waiting for the other man's rebuttal. Strangely, he seemed almost reluctant to speak.
“It's not important, and may I point out that I still haven't said that I don't think you should walk, that is merely an inference on your part, schatz, not that it really matters either way-”
“Do not speak down to me like a child, cher,” he said sourly. “It clearly matters, the fact that we're still speaking about it means that it matters-”
“You're the one who brought it up, all because you think I made a noise-”
“You did make a noise!”
“-which you chose to interpret as disapproval-”
“I know you, Erik, I know your noises.”
“Don't be ridiculous.”
René's nostrils flared as he took a deep, angry breath. Oh, he was being ridiculous? This was his fault now?
“Tell me why you don't want me to walk,” he demanded, balling his hands into his fists. “Stop dancing around whatever this problem of yours is and tell me why this matters so much.”
“It doesn't m-”
“Finish that sentence and I will be taking a room at the inn.”
Erik closed his mouth.
It was a low blow and a petty threat, but one that he was not above using. He'd done it before. Well, not gone to the inn, but he'd refused to come to bed and instead slept on the couch for days. It made Erik miserable. It made them both miserable. But if it meant he would win this argument, then he would feel perfectly justified in curling up on the sofa for the foreseeable future.
The doctor's lips pressed into a thin, tight line. An acknowledgment, finally, that this had become more than simply picking at each other. This was a fight now. One he stood no chance of coming out on top of if he didn't change tactics. Preferably by coming clean and admitting his fault.
“It's cold outside,” he said tightly, as if that explain everything. René raised an eyebrow.
“And?”
Now Erik was uncomfortable. Discomfort was written in every line of his posture, in the way he flicked his eyes briefly to René's chest, the way he did when he was steeling himself for a disagreement. It was an unfortunate side effect of his years of espionage that René was able to pick these things up and decipher them, giving him an unfair advantage in the world of domestic arguments. He crossed his arms over his chest again, blocking Erik's eye line and forcing him to look up. To say what he had to say.
“And I don't want you to catch a cold,” the man said, his posture rigid. “I just didn't want to say as much.”
“It is so difficult for you, showing that you care,” René snapped.
That was a very low blow and he knew it as soon as it left his mouth. Too harsh. Too close to home. Erik's eyes flashed as he took a half step forward.
“I do care,” he said. His voice had dropped to almost a whisper. “And I was not going to say anything because in the past you have been very sensitive to any comments concerning your health or well-being, particularly coming from me. I was not going to say anything because I understand that this is a sensitive subject for you. I wasn't going to say that I think you should take the car because I am worried about you becoming ill. I did not want to start another fight, René, but it seems as though that option has passed by us, ja?”
René could feel the flush in his face. Anger and embarrassment and a little humiliation, all rolled into one to bring that traitorous red into his face.
“Is that what you think?” he said. “That I am too sensitive?”
“That isn't what I said and you know it.”
“That I am so fragile a little inclement weather will be enough to do me in?”
“René-”
“I will be fine,” he hissed, putting both hands to the doctor's chest and shoving. Erik didn't so much as budge, but it made him feel better. He stormed past him out of the kitchen, toward the door again. His coat was hanging in plain view from its hook on the wall but he ignored it, instead grabbing his wallet and keys from the bowl on the table beneath it.
“Bread, milk, and soap!” he shouted, yanking the door open. He caught a glimpse of Chat's tail as he bolted beneath the porch again.
“And the pastries-”
“Fuck your pastries!”
He pulled the door shut with a resounding slam and set off.
His pace was brisk down their muddy driveway. He was wearing the wrong shoes for the two mile walk into town, but there was no way in hell that he was turning back now.
Sensitive about his health.
The phrase ate at him as he squelched along, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his trousers. He was not sensitive about his health. There was nothing to be sensitive about. He was perfectly healthy. He exercised almost daily, he ate well, he only drank in moderation. He was no longer being killed or shot at multiple times a day. They weren't living out of a shoebox anymore, hunched together beneath a bridge, scavenging bandages and antibiotics from wherever they could get them. He was healthy. There was absolutely nothing wrong with him.
By the time his foot hit the asphalt of the road, he was winded.
Merde.
The cigarettes. Of course.
He'd been smoking since he was twelve years old. He was forty-five now. His lungs had been replaced several times – years ago, before he and Erik had become close – but those were also the days when no damage sustained to his body was permanent. Respawn or the Medigun would patch him up at the end of every battle. Combined, they took care of every injury, every ache and pain, every minor fault in his body. Including the damage to his lungs.
Those days were over now. The years were catching up to him.
He crossed his arms tightly over his chest, tasting bitterness at the back of his throat as he coughed. Damn him. Damn him for all those years of scolding, calling them vile, calling them “death sticks.” Damn him for being right.
René was trying to quit. It was easier when he was on the run and simply couldn't get his hands on the things. Now, knowing they could be obtained in any corner store within a very short driving range, the temptation was back in full force.
Perhaps he would pick up a fresh pack from the shop. Out of spite. Just a special little something to help hurry him toward the grave.
A shiver passed through him that had very little to do with the cold.
He knew what Erik had meant. Why he came off as sensitive about his health. He was sensitive.
He was dying.
Slowly, day by day he was aging. His skin was sagging, his hair was graying, his organs were becoming less efficient at their jobs. He couldn't really feel it happening, but his imagination was bad enough. Especially in comparing himself to Erik.
Erik. Beautiful and unchanging Erik. He really hadn't aged at all, not a single day in the last five years. It was almost laughable now how worried he'd been. How afraid that his great experiment had failed, that he might have to go back and beg for scraps of Australium to begin again. There was no need. It worked perfectly, of course. He was perfect.
He was going to live forever, hearty and hale, while René was going to waste away to sagging skin and rickety bones until he eventually keeled over and died.
That was the ugly, unspoken truth between them. That was what the fight was about.
René slowed in his steps, still breathing too hard. The town was in sight now. He didn't want to be seen like this, huffing and puffing after a brief stroll.
And he was cold, too. His thin sweater wasn't enough to guard him from the chill, and he could see clouds gathering in the distance. If he got caught in a downpour and actually did catch cold he'd never hear the fucking end of it.
Gritting his teeth and pulling his sweater closer around himself, he picked up the pace again.
“'Mornin', Johnny!” the man behind the counter called as soon as he set foot in the store.
“Good morning, Brian,” René replied, with forced cheer. The false name he'd chosen when they arrived in this town was Jean. It had been tragically misinterpreted as John, and he'd had to live with the consequences ever since.
“The Doc not with you today?” Brian asked, peering over the counter top as though he might be hiding Erik somewhere behind him.
It was hard to say what exactly the people thought of their relationship. They'd done their best to keep it private, for their own protection. As far as everyone knew, Erik – known to all as Dr. Braun – was a retired physician and René was his assistant. No one had confronted them or given them any trouble, but he'd caught the odd look thrown in their direction, or the whispers that started as soon as their turned their backs. Perhaps it would be good to move on from this place soon.
“Non. Only myself today.”
“Need help findin' anything?”
“I believe I know where everything is, thank you.”
His voice came out sharper than he meant it to. He softened it with a small smile, but nothing more came from the man behind the register. That suited him just fine.
He went for the bread first, took his time picking a loaf that wasn't squashed. He grabbed a fresh quart of milk before going for the soap. They didn't have the specific scent that Erik preferred in stock, but he settled for something similar. On the way back to the counter he passed the baked goods shelf.
He stared at them. At the little cream filled ones that Erik could eat an entire package of in one sitting. After a moment of angry deliberation with himself, he swiped them off the shelf and went to pay.
Erik was waiting for him on the porch when he got home.
René expected some snide remark about how cold he looked, or a comment on the six inches of mud staining up his pant legs. But nothing came. He noticed the steaming mugs in Erik's hands.
“I made tea,” he said quietly, as René walked up the steps. “We could drink inside or outside, if you'd prefer.”
René took a moment to scrape the worst of the muck off his shoes.
“Inside.”
Erik dutifully followed him indoors, settling at the kitchen table as he unpacked the groceries. He didn't comment on the pastries.
“Thank you,” René said, pulling his cup toward him once he sat down. They were across from each other, mirroring each other's posture as they often found themselves doing. If either of them moved their feet, they would be touching.
The tea was hot, but a bit cooler than he usually preferred. Erik must have estimated the time it would take him to get back and tried to brew it accordingly. He wasn't going to complain, though. It was made just the way he liked it. And it was the thought that counted.
“How was your walk?” Erik asked, sipping from his own mug.
“Cold,” René admitted. “Brian asked after you.”
“Who?”
“The man who runs the store.”
“Ah. That was kind of him.”
They both paused to drink at the same time.
“I'm sorry,” they said, at the same time.
René raised his eyebrows and closed his mouth. All the way home he'd been steeling himself, plotting an apology, trying to find the words that would convey his feeling without starting another argument. He'd worked himself up under the impression that he would have to go first. Not so, it seemed. He wanted to hear this.
“I'm sorry,” Erik said again, more softly, when it became apparent that he must be the one to start. “For behaving as if you did not know what is best for yourself. And for speaking to you the way I did. I made the situation worse than it needed to be, and for that I apologise.”
Well. That was more than he expected, honestly. René cleared his throat.
“I'm sorry as well. I... may have overreacted. Blown the situation out of proportion. And I- I'm sorry for what I said to you. You didn't deserve that.”
Another beat of silence passed between them.
“Apology accepted,” Erik said at last.
“As is yours,” René replied.
They smiled at each other as they finished the rest of their tea.
The rest of the day passed uneventfully.
They both made efforts to be around each other, to further apologise and make up for that morning.
Erik cleaned the large roost for his birds, which took up almost an entire wall of the living room. René grudgingly stuck around rather than finding a reason to excuse himself. He read, flipping through the latest issue of GQ while the temporarily homeless birds edged boldly closer to him. All he had to do was shift and they would all take to the air. He shifted frequently.
He ran a load of laundry while Erik tidied the office and finished up some of his paperwork.
René prepared a light lunch for them both, which they ate in relative silence. Erik got into the pastries.
By the time the sky was darkening, they were both hungry again. They cooked together, as they sometimes did. The good doctor was set to the task of chopping vegetables while René manned the frying pan, making sure the meat browned thoroughly. They were elbow to elbow, sleeves rolled up, laughing and smiling and trying to keep the mood as light as possible.
He liked it when things were this way. When they were simply a couple spending time together. Two men in love, and comfortable with themselves. No thinking about the past, no letting their own emotional baggage drag them down. These moments passed between them less often than he would like. They were few enough that each one was to be treasured and enjoyed while it lasted.
The onions were finished sauteing. René was just getting ready to add in the peppers when something nearby beeped loudly.
It was a curious sound. Light and whimsical, but with a shrillness to it. It was a sound he'd never heard before.
“What is that?” René asked, looking around. He thought at first that it was the smoke alarm. But the food hadn't burned, and they were standing right beneath the thing. Nothing else in the house would make that sound. The television and radio were switched off, and the phone had a very distinctive ring of it's own. This was something else. He looked to the doctor, to see what he made of it all.
Erik was staring toward the back of the house. His expression was cold and guarded, and more intense than René had seen it in months.
He knew what the sound was. He understood something that René did not, and he didn't like it.
“Erik,” he said, turning to face him fully. He set the spoon on the counter top. “What is that sound?”
Erik didn't answer him. He was already walking toward the bedroom.