REIGN ENDED &. DISASTER FORETOLD

J breathed out softly before walking - not floating, not around Z, not with the implications - to the counter to pour him a bowl. Somewhere in his mind, he had thought….maybe Z would have been mad. For not protecting him, for not coming back for him, even for leaving him behind to come to whatever pocket dimension Solitude was….

He was just glad that it didn’t seem to be the case.

“I missed you, too.”

No, that…..that wasn’t the right thing to say. It was too passive; to say that Z had been missed left unsaid the days, months, years of torment that had plagued J as they tried endlessly to initiate a Scratch and bring him back.  Far more needed to be said than just I missed you.

“I, uh…..I love you.”

He didn’t know if the affection was still returned, after everything that had happened, but it needed to be said. It had been far too long since the last time he could.

There was a beat of silence- one that seemed to stretch on into forever- until Z could finally focus on the words he had somehow always wanted to hear from J.

In a fraction of a second, Z went from standing awkwardly at the door to flying - literally flying - across the kitchenette counter and wrapping his arms around J. He didn’t care about the Lucky Charms that were probably being dumped all over the floor, and he didn’t care that he was wasting his favorite limited edition cereal, the kind with marshmallows shaped as small hourglasses. The only time he needed at that moment was time holding J.

A living, breathing, beautiful J.

“Don’t scare me like that ever again, okay? I told you not to do stupid shit......and that includes dying. Especially when I have to watch.....”

Another beat of silence, followed by Z burying his face into J’s chest.

“Z.”

It was- but he was- J had saw him-

And now J didn’t know how to react. He hadn’t even known that he was getting a roommate, only that the goats had upgraded his pad to a higher one, and he had planned on taking advantage of that by eating breakfast cereals until he puked and marathoning all five hundred seasons of Whose Line on the new TV, but that was before his dead boyfriend had walked through the door.

“Uh…..you want some? It’s the kind with hourglasses. Your favorite.”

“....yeah. That’d be great.”

How had he known....? No, he wasn’t going to think about it. J had always seemed to know too much.

“.....I missed you, you know.”

Z didn’t know what was appropriate to say. He loved J; that much had been cemented a little too late, after everything was already said and done. But whether or not the same could have been said for J was.....well, it was likely, but still debatable.

He had been roomed with J. The person he had been searching for a way to return to for years, now just.....sitting in their living room, eating a bowl of Lucky Charms as if being alive was somehow normal for him.

And Z didn’t know what to say to that at all.

“J.”

                                                                  REASON

to rule by your

                                                                         SIDE;

I may have been the

                                                                    PRINCE

but you were always my