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It takes Kitten longer than he would have liked to get home.
The time between when he had gotten the phone call from Door and when he had finally reached the house itself was achingly, disgustingly long. He had been pouring over ancient texts in yet another fruitless fit of research in the Arcanum’s brimming library for a solution, any solution. When he would reach home, it was after racing through English back country roads with enough speed that the poor Golden Goose’s frame groaned and shook from trying to keep its decrepit form together. The minutes stretched and stretched into hair thin strands, and Kitten was terrified they would snap at the merest glance their way.
It takes Kitten longer than he would have liked to get home. But to be fair every second spent not with Marckus, beside Marckus, at Marckus’ side for the rest of their wretched lives so help him God, was a second wasted in the race towards the end.
With a jagged breath inward, Kitten reminded himself to focus his eyes back on the road blurring by him, to not get too lost in the recesses of his mind. Nothing would be helped by him causing a car wreck on top of everything.
Kitten tried to ground himself to what he could feel around him- his gloved hands grasped in a vice grip around the bus’ steering wheel so tight his knuckles ached; his foot not pressed on the gas pedal bouncing up and down in nervous, repetitive attempts at self soothing; his eyes vaguely damp with tears that had been brewing ever since the call from Door letting him know what had happened back at his house.
Or more precisely, who had happened back to the house, despite all odds. Despite the seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, longer than one whole year itself spent so alone the cold threatened to fill in the empty spaces in Kitten’s heart, Marckus had found his way back.
That brilliant man, his brilliant man, of course he had,
and despite everything, that thought brought a subconscious smile to Kitten’s mouth.
At long last, the house broke through the tree line and the road came to a twisted stop in front of the immaculate lawn. Door was the type to turn his agony into productiveness, to no one’s surprise. The breathtakingly perfect exterior of the house spoke volumes as to how he had been doing while his brother was missing.
Kitten barely had the wherewithal to yank the Goose’s gear shift to park with a high whine before he flew out its doors. He nearly got caught up in his own feet and narrowly avoided plummeting face first down the bus’ steps. Likewise, as he threw himself out the doors that had barely folded open enough to leave space for him, Kitten’s shoulder caught on the Goose’s frame and throbbed dully with a painful thump.
From the heart pounding adrenaline consuming him, Kitten felt no pain. How could any pain compare to the thousand centuries of hurt that was life without Marckus these past months?
The dash through his front yard was simultaneously over in a single breath and too fucking long. Why was everything, even Time itself determined to keep him and his love seperate?
Leant against the wall next to the front door of the house was the patriarch of the family, Sir D’s face hidden from Kitten’s view where it was buried in the neck of Horse. As Horse whinnied softly and brushed against his father’s hands, Kitten briefly considered saying something to Sir D, but his mouth had barely opened before it clicked shut. Him and D had not been on speaking terms in quite a while, their last conversation an explosive screaming match that ended with Kitten borderline tearing the older man’s skin off with sharp words: “Maybe if you had loved Marckus as a father should love his son and not as a child loves their toy, you could have kept him safe!”
As Kitten careened into the front door and fumbled with shaking hands to grasp at the handle and yank the damn thing open, Sir D hummed to clear his throat and spoke absentmindedly without ever turning away from Horse’s fur to face his son-in-law, “Y’know, all I ever wanted was to keep Marckus that same child I raised. So bright, so wonderful, so… happy.”
Despite every fibre of his being screaming to not delay for a second, Kitten tensed every muscle in his arm to stop his stammering hands and listen to the older man.
“I knew the world would take that from him, would take away everything that made him my son,” Sir D continued his stream of rambling with a thick voice, and Kitten knew without seeing that Horse was probably covered in the tears of his father. “My perfect, perfect son. My boy. I just… wanted to protect him, do my job and protect my boy. Keep him the same. Heavens above, how I failed. He’s so different. I don’t know who’s inside this house, but that’s- That’s not my son anymore.”
It took Horse snuffling and stamping his hoof, bending down even lower to nuzzle Sir D to snap Kitten out of the hypnotic trance the man’s words had caught him in. Finally the door knob turned beneath his hands, and without another glance to his father-in-law, Kitten darted into his house, letting the door slam shut behind him.
Leaning against the couch was Door, who hefted himself into a heavy stance upon Kitten’s entrance. The past months had drained Door, brought forth wrinkles and eye bags that had previously gone unnoticed. The man gave a rough nod to Kitten, jaw tight, though Kitten still noticed the red in his eyes.
”He’s up in your room, getting cleaned up,” Door explained, practical as ever, arms crossed. “He was in a significantly compromised emotional state when he had approached.”
Kitten swallowed thickly and tried to speak, his first few words dying on his tongue as they tried to escape his tight throat. “Is he… Sir D said something about him being ‘not him.’ Is he?”
A grimace crossed Door’s face. He subtly shifted his weight onto one leg, a break in the man’s usually immaculate posture. “I don’t know what my brother did to get away from those wolves. Or what those wolves have been doing to him this whole time. Something’s changed. Things are… different. You’ll feel it. But if he’s not our Marckus? Captain, he came home to us, to you, despite the impossible odds. And if that’s not exactly what Marckus would do in this situation, I don’t know what is.”
Awfully enough, Kitten’s lip began to quiver at his brother-in-law’s words. He worried his bottom lip between his teeth to keep some composure, and at the same time a small force thumped against his legs.
Glancing down, Kitten was met with the sight of Boy hugging him around the legs and leveraging all of the might in his little twelve year old body to try and push Kitten towards the stairs. Boy’s wild untamed hair was reaching unbearably long lengths, brushing against his shoulders and blinding his eyes. His father had tried everything to get Boy to cut his hair even a little, but when Boy had loudly proclaimed- “I want the same hair as Uncle Marckus! So when he comes back, I can say we’re twins, and he can laugh!”- what was Door to do besides leave him be?
”Go, go to him, he’s up in your room, you need to go see him!” Boy cried, bordering on sobbed, as he shoved at Kitten, and Kitten would have found the attempt amusing if not for the circumstance. “He’s been waiting for you, and you’ve been waiting for him, and- and- and I missed hims so much, but he won’t be him without seeing you!”
Kitten blinked and turned to stare helplessly at Door. Huffing, Door strode forward to pick up his wailing son and hugged him with the gentle hands of a soldier that usually broke wood, armed mines, and welded metal; but were now the gentle hands of a father that rocked his son back and forth and soothed his cries. Looking to Kitten, the red in Door’s eyes was now unmissable.
“He’s waiting for you. You’ve been waiting for him. No more waiting.”
And with that final word from Door, Kitten’s numb legs carried him up the stairs. Each step a pound in Kitten’s heart, a thrum through his veins of worry, of grief, of loneliness.
Because each step was another closer to Marckus:
His fiancé was upstairs waiting for him. The ten year boy he had met on the playground who had asked if they could take turns playing with Kitten’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figure was waiting for him. The twenty two year old man who had embraced Kitten like no time at all had passed after they met again was waiting for him. The thirty year old hunter who had been through what every person and book told Kitten was unsurvivable circumstances was waiting for him.
And despite his yearning, an awful part of Kitten didn’t want to make it to the top of the stairs, because so long as he hadn’t seen whoever was in their room yet, that person was still the same Marckus he had fallen in love with.
Eventually Kitten’s feet had carried him up to his and Marckus’ bedroom door, the room that- up until half an hour ago- had only been used by Kitten for far too long.
Closing his eyes for a moment, Kitten allowed one final breath to himself alone, cool air rushing through his nose, filling his chest, and escaping through the mouth, carrying all his painful dreams with it.
”Marckus,” Kitten tried to call out, though it came so breathy and weightless the word could hardly be heard.
He pushed the door open with a soft creak.
He entered the room,
And sat on the edge of their bed, absentmindedly pulling on one of Kitten’s oversized hoodies, was Marckus.
Kitten’s pounding heart in his ears quieted, so quiet he wondered if it were even beating at all, but of course his heart couldn’t be beating in his chest, his heart was sitting on the bed in front of him, finally in front of him.
Upon the door opening, Marckus rose to a stand. Hungry eyes began tearing across Kitten, reading through every fold of clothing, every minute twitch like Marckus had been drained empty and even just the sight of Kitten was filling him back up.
Kitten did the same- cast his desperate searching gaze on Marckus and realized that indeed many things had changed. Marckus’ once thick head of waist length hair has been choppily hacked off in a jagged shoulder-length cut. Long, gaping, painful scars of various ages painted across Marckus’ face and neck. One pulled the right corner of his mouth into an uncharacteristic frown; one cut through his left eye, leaving it sickly milky white; one dragged horizontal through the midpoint of his neck, making Kitten wince at what undeniably had caused the wounds. How long must it had to have been since the wounds were afflicted for them to now be dried, raised scars? Dark shadowy bruises sat heavily under Marckus’ eyes, though Kitten knew not if they were from black eyes, exhaustion, stress, or a little of everything. Marckus’ cheeks, usually round but with sharp cheekbones, were now empty and hollow, and the skin between the scars was dull and pale. The hoodie should have been too tight around Marckus’ impressive shoulders and back, but instead it hung loosely off his starved form.
In most conceivable ways, the Marckus in front of him was entirely different and unrecognizable from the Marckus who was pulled into the portal.
And to Kitten, he was still inconceivably perfect.
Licking his dry lips, Kitten admitted in a near whisper, “I feel like I must be dreaming. But my dreams have not nearly been this sweet since the moment you were taken, so I can’t be.”
Nearly falling forward, Kitten stumbled up to where Marckus stood. Marckus stayed completely still, almost unsettlingly so as not even his chest moved to breathe, save for those grasping eyes that traced every step Kitten took.
Once Kitten was close enough, merely a breath away from his love, his nimble but clumsy fingers pulled his gloves off to drop them haphazardly on the floor. Calloused hands with a warm tan reached up to dust across Marckus’ dark circles under his eyes, the many scars tracing across his skin, the jutted bones that now stuck out, all so unfamiliar to Kitten but still so warm.
Upon the first glance of Kitten’s skin making contact with his own, Marckus’ eyes fluttered shut and a shuddering gasp escaped him, like he too had not been able to breathe in the months since he had been taken. Beneath his fingertips, Kitten felt Marckus subconsciously lean into his soft touch.
Up close, Kitten could see all the less physical ways Marckus had changed. A strange magic hummed just below his love’s skin, crackling beneath the surface. Marckus’ eyes were clouded by torment Kitten could only guess at, and his now lithe frame stood like it was near ready to collapse under the weight of whatever horrors from his captivity haunted him.
As Kitten’s hands drifted downwards to trace the paths of the scars on Marckus’ neck and across his prominent collar bones, Marckus’ own hands- shaking rapidly- darted up, and his long fingers wrapped desperately around Kitten’s wrists. The hold was so tight Kitten swore he could hear the sound of the bones in his wrist creaking, but he dared not say a word. Where their joined hands sat hovering above Marckus’ chest, Kitten could feel every trembling heave of breath Marckus laboured through.
Finally Marckus spoke, in a rush that broke apart in awkward places- like Marckus was utterly unused to speaking anymore, a fact that made Kitten’s heart clench, “My love. I am… I am not the man you fell in love with. I am not- god, I am not kind or gentle or any part of myself you fell in love with anymore. I’ve done some awful things, things that if you knew, you wouldn’t dare touch me like I am something worth loving. And I’m so fucking sorry I kept you waiting this long just to hear that, but-but if you let me, I would love to try and be something again, even if it’s not the same anymore.”
Moving slowly- from both shock and in an attempt to not shake Marckus more then he already was- Kitten adjusted their hands so they instead were clasping each other, both holding each other so tightly extracting one from the other should have been impossible, so tight Kitten could feel the metal of Marckus’ engagement ring cutting into his palm. As Marckus’ hands trembled, so did Kitten’s.
”What kind of things did you do?” Kitten asked, trying to maintain eye contact with Marckus through the balaclava and goggles, though Marckus’ eyes had found rest staring anywhere but Kitten, guilt growing thick in them.
First laughing bitterly, raggedly, Marckus then began ranting in a quivering voice, “Something inside me burnt, has been burning for years I think. And all the blood they spilled- love, it was so much blood, my blood- was kindling. There was a spark, a light, and I had been cold for so long, hidden in the dark for so long, I hate the dark now. So I grabbed the spark, and it set me ablaze. I was a forest fire, I was the fire, and I was the forest burning down, and I was just watching it.”
As Marckus continued, his wavering turned into painful whimpering, sobs he didn’t try to tamper down because they rushed from him in a torrent he was hostage to. ”And those werewolves had hurt me, tore me to shreds, down to my bones, but no one deserved what I did to them. How they howled, how they screamed, how they did both all at once. How they burnt, how they cooked, how their meat sizzled and their bones popped and their flesh charred away into nothing. I made them from something into nothing, and I loved it.”
Kitten’s mind reeled, running in incoherent circles around the Marckus standing in front of him. The magic that he had sensed beneath Marckus’ skin roared to life, swimming beneath the surface like a shark sensing blood in the water. A slight breeze ghosted through the room, and the lightbulb above them flickered like a warning.
Still Marckus continued, and to Kitten’s horror, Marckus dropped to his knees with a heavy thump. Bowed in front of Kitten like he was praying towards him, hands still grasping now above Marckus’s forehead, Marckus pleaded, “But all of it was to bring me home to you. Never once did you leave my mind, even for a moment, and that’s fucked up to say about the mass murder I committed but it’s true! I can’t take any of it back, now that the fire’s been lit I don’t think I can put it out, don’t know if I want to, but please don’t leave. Please find the good in me. Please accept my version of love. Please accept me as the monster I’ve become. Please”
Trying to breathe despite the unsettling atmosphere in the room pressing suffocatingly against his rib cage, Kitten considered his next move carefully. Pulling away from Marckus, untangling their hands despite the animalistic, wounded noise that scraped Marckus’ throat, he took a step back.
With a voice carefully made even, one that he hoped betrayed none of the storming turmoil brewing inside, Kitten asked, “If all that’s true, can I ask you a favour?”
”Anything! Anything to ease your mind!” Marckus exclaimed, eyes wide and bordering on manic.
Pursing his lips, Kitten nodded hastily. Unzipping the jacket he wore slightly, Kitten reached into the clothing to pull out the cold metal chain he wore around his neck that contained his engagement ring. Unclipping the clasp behind his neck, Kitten pulled free the necklace and held it up for Marcus to see. The silver ring glimmered in the light.
“Could you get rid of this ring for me? I have no need for it anymore,” Kitten shrugged, though even the thought of the ring being out of his sight sent hysterics thrumming through his veins.
Where Marckus knelt, the man’s eyes were still widened, though this time in shock. Panting like he had been physically hurt, he sputtered in absolute betrayal, “How could you? How dare you fucking say that? I crafted those engagement rings by hand from the old iron fence in front of the playground we first met in. I inlaid it with silverware from the pub that hosted the gaming tournament we reunited in. I spent a year handcrafting these rings to perfection before I even dared to propose.”
Scrambling to stand up, Marckus paced in circles in near hyperventilation, his hands coming up to tear into his uneven mane of hair.
So lost in his own panicked thoughts, he didn’t even notice Kitten stepping towards him as Marckus stormed, “After everything, even I’m still wearing my ring, because it’s a symbol of our love and commitment to each other, because it’s apart of who I am, because I made it specifically from iron and silver to keep the monsters away-“
Taking his chance to rescue his love where he had failed before, Kitten saw his moment to throw his arms around Marckus’ heaving chest in a clambering hug, dragging his pacing to a halt. “If it’s meant to keep the monsters away, and you’re still wearing it, guess that means you’re not a monster!” Kitten proclaimed, muffled where he had his face pressed as close to Marckus’ ever warm, ever beating heart as he could.
Marckus stammered for a moment before taking a second to come to his senses. His arms moved from his sides to pull Kitten into a tender hug as well, melting into Kitten like ores into an alloy.
”Love, I-“
Before Marckus could continue, Kitten interrupted in a desperate rush, “If the ring is a part of who Marckus is, and you’re still wearing it, guess that makes you still Marckus. Still my Marckus.”
Sighing and shuffling back, not out of the hug but enough so that he could look up to see Marckus’ face and Marckus could see his own, Kitten expressed every thought he had tucked away in his mind since the day Marckus was taken, “If you were a different person then who you were before, of course I would fall in love with you again. Of fucking course. But you’re not. I don’t care what’s happened, what’s changed, what time has passed, what place we are in, I. Don’t. Care. Because you, Marckus the hunter, Marckus the prodigal son, Marckus the gamer, Marckus the lover, are mine. So no one gets to tell me you’re not the same person, when I know what it feels like to hug my fiancé, and it feels exactly like this, and all I’ve wanted to do since that bloody day in the Arcanum is hug my fiancé, and I’ve been waiting-“
(Dealing with bureaucratic bullshit from the Coalition who moved so achingly slow despite the fact that the world was ending, Kitten’s world was ending, because Marckus was gone.)
“ -and waiting-“
(Making amends with Grimaline and finding no soothing ache in any of it, because the person who would be most proud of Kitten finding the peace was unreadably far away.)
“ -and waiting-“
(Finding no more happiness in discussing hunter theorem with Sir D, just overwhelming burning anger over this man who dared think he was better then Marckus, when nothing was better then Marckus, nothing could be better without Marckus.)
“ -and waiting-“
(Sitting silently next to Door as the man tore through projects around the house to keep his worried hands busy, finding time between the busy to talk about all they missed about Marckus and how Door missed being an older brother most of all.)
“ -and waiting-“
(Holding Boy late at night after days of distracting both of themselves with Mario Kart tournaments, rocking Boy to sleep to try and keep the nightmares of what may be happening to Marckus at bay.)
“ -and waiting-“
(Lying alone in their bed, the space where Marckus should be lying next to Kitten unbearably cold, only warmed by the tears collecting from Kitten’s eyes onto their pillow, the only part of Marckus left to hold at night being the engagement ring around his neck.)
“ -and waiting,”
With this final declaration, Kitten reached up to yank his balaclava and goggles off. Staring up at Marckus in adoration, the sight of Marckus staring back blurred as the tears that had been collecting in Kitten’s eyes since the phone call with Door finally fell. Marckus’ hands cupped Kitten’s face, thumbs wiping away the burning wetness collecting on Kitten’s lower lashes and cheeks. For once, Marckus was not shaking, and the magic quieted enough for Kitten to hear Marckus’ heart beat again.
What a beautiful heart for Kitten to have chosen as his to share.
Between tears, barely above a single breath, Kitten professed, “I have been waiting for you. No more waiting.”
And without another word needed, like two interstellar bodies caught in each other’s gravities, a force greater than every other in the vast Universe, the two lover’s moved forward to collide their lips together.
With every breath they exhaled, so the two lovers breathed together- with every beat of one’s heart, the other matched until they were one heart glowing in two different chests.
The salty taste of tears, the sobbing noises from the back of Marckus’ throat that Kitten soothed, the hands that grasped onto any piece of clothing they could find, the crashing as the two fell into a heap onto the floor but cared not, because they were together, every part of the reunion at last was messy and broken and painful but so perfect.
Kitten felt something jagged and sharp in his soul knit itself back together at last.
After long enough that the two only broke apart to catch their breaths, Kitten gasped for air but smiled tearfully and content nonetheless. They were now a tangle of limbs on the floor, Marckus lying on his back with Kitten across his chest. Marckus’ face crumbled in agony as he too smiled at Kitten so beautifully, a pinnacle of light in such a dark world.
Shuffling to lean his forehead against Kitten’s, Marckus somehow pulled Kitten even closer against him, with no plan to ever separate from Kitten again if he could ever help it.
“How long has it been?” Kitten sighed. He knew the answer, had measured how long the stretch of time had been dragged on.
Basking in the warmth he had been denied for so long, Marckus rasped, “A year and a half. Twenty months… too long.”
And with the sunset beginning to peak its golden rays through the room’s sole window, the couple was lit ablaze in a fire that blanketed them both. There didn’t need to be any more special words between Kitten and Marckus, no grand dramatized proclamations of love. They both knew everything the other person would say, as one did when they spent a decade together.
“I love you.”
”I love you too.”
Instead, a simple hug, a kiss, sufficed, was more than enough.
And that was all that was needed. Everything felt right, because there was no more waiting- just their unbreaking, unflinching love.