we need a little controversy

There’s something achingly soft about Lazarus, here and now. The way their voice sounds, the way their eyes flutter closed at the gentle touch of Cas’s hand. The touch seems to sooth them, in some small way, strengthen their resolve and comfort them, set them more at ease with the terrifying reality of sharing these difficult to handle parts of themself. Cas aches for them, and feels a strange sense of pride in them in turn. Lazarus’s life –– Jovi’s life –– must have been a complicated, difficult thing. Laz had seemed sure of that, even before they had remembered much. They saw something in Cas’s own pain that they could appreciate, that they could find a kinship in. Cas had been hurt, a thousand times before, and it seemed clear as day to both of them that Lazarus had been hurt too. 

He watches as Lazarus pulls in a breath, readies themself to share whatever this story is. And his heart is already aching all the more when Lazarus brings up the tower. Cas has been plagued, a little bit, by that night, and the knowledge of how hard it had all been for Lazarus. He’s plagued by his own nightmares, his own fears, and the memory of Lazarus covered in blood. But Lazarus had been the one to go through it all, to be hurt –– and apparently to find peices of themself lost among the fray. Cas listens carefully, nods his head along to the mention of Mordred. That was a name that Cas knew, in the vaguest sense. An old hero, an old villian, a trajectory in life that Cas can distantly identify with. But Mordred had looked Lazarus in the eye and seen something worth stopping for, something recognisable. Mordred looked at Lazarus and mouthed a name, and it was something familiar to Lazarus. The idea of it all makes Cas shiver a little, a minute thing, a phantom feeling. He allows Lazarus to take his hand, to play with his fingers, to take whatever comfort they can find in him.

Cas can tell that the part with Mordred isn’t the one that’s been weighing on Lazarus so heavily. There’s something else, something worse, about to come to the surface. He holds his breath, plays at being patient. And he can feel the tension in the air, the mild anxiety growing in Lazarus when he recounts what happened next, the second time that something clicked for them inside the tower. He shifts his hand to twine their fingers together, to hold Lazarus’s own hand in his grasp, gentle enough that they can pull away if they like. He hates the idea of what Lazarus had to do, giving his life force to someone like Flame Thrower, who had always been an asshole, who had never been worth anything he had. A breath punches out of him, at the revelation. Lazarus and Flame Thrower, in the time before, where Lazarus was still Jovi first and foremost. Lazarus and Flame Thrower, dating. The idea makes him feel sick –– not with a distant jealousy, the kind of thing that might have sprung up if it had been someone else, but with an odd kind of worry.

Lazarus thinks it must have been royally fucked up, and Cas can’t argue against that thought. He didn’t know Flame Thrower very well, but he’d run into the man more than often enough to get the vibe. He’d looked in Jase’s eyes, even if he didn’t have the story. He’d seen the way that Flame Thrower looked at people sometimes, during the odd times when Cas had been in a room with him. The fire in that man was all consuming, and he’d always made Cas feel a little sick. It was one thing for Lazarus and Flame Thrower to have hooked up, it was another for Flame Thrower to have known them before, to have been with them before. To have been with them and never said anything, never told Lazarus anything about their life before they died. There are only a few reasons Cas can think of, why Flame Thrower would keep Lazarus in the dark about that. He shivers again, and squeezes their hand. 

“Oh,” He says, useless, a soft word that punches out of him before he can find just the right thing to say. Only he doesn’t think there is a right thing to say to this, to this weighty revelation. He rememebrs Lazarus’s admission, way back in his own home town, once again. The idea that they had been hurt just as badly as Cas had, once upon a time. And he wants to cry at the thought of that. He can feel the panic growing in them, the fear. Cas shifts a little then, sits up so that he can gather Lazarus against him, so that he can cradle their head and run fingers through their hair. So they don’t have to look in his eyes and see the distant anger he feels, the strange desire to find Clint Courtney and kill him. “I’m sorry, Laz. That’s –– You’re right. That’s royally fucked up.” 

He holds Lazarus for a moment, pushing that flare of anger aside, quashing it down. Because now isn’t the time to focus on dreams of death, of making Flame Thrower pay for every might have been. “He’s never said anything about it.” He says, and it isn’t a question. He knows it must be true. He pulls back, after a moment, presses a feirceky gentle kiss to their forehead before he sits back, so he can look in their eyes again, now that he feels more under control. “I’m sorry.” He says, again, because he is. Sorry on their behalf, angry on their behalf. “That must be hard, to remember that. To not even know all the details, I ––” He shakes his head a little bit, lays his hand on theirs again. “I wish I could fix it all for you.” 

...

They wish desperately that things could just be normal with them, that they didn’t have this grand, fucked up, mysterious past that kept rearing its ugly head, ready to keep them from being able to have a quiet, gentle night with anxiety flaring up, keeping them from being able to calm their thoughts enough to just ignore it all in a healthy way for a bit. But they know that that’s not how things can work for them yet. They need to understand their past before they can move on from it, need to know what happened to land them dead in that river, what had led them to their situation with Flame Thrower and how it’s all connected, because they’re pretty fucking certain it is, just from the warnings that Jase has given them, and the feeling in their gut at that memory that had popped up when they’d healed Clint. And the thing is that no matter how hard this is, they know it would be a thousand times harder if they weren’t here with Cas, if they couldn’t tell him this while holding his hand, if they hadn’t started committing to this open honesty, no matter how hard it is, sharing so much with each other, and doing their best to offer support back.

It would be simpler, of course, if the Mordred moment was the only thing the had to bring up that had been weighing on their mind. Hell, if that was it, they probably would have already sought out the answer to those questions already, would have researched who Mordred was behind the name of a traitor, who they were before they were a Guardian even, and how this Maeve person connected it all, why that had made them stop and look at them with recognition, despite being a mindless zombie, and why they had a feeling it was connected to that woman in their memory. They don’t think that part of things would be anywhere near as bad as they’re certain everything they’re doing to find out about their before with Flame Thrower probably is. 

So when Cas intertwines their fingers, they hold on a little tighter, as they explain things, fighting through the urge to shut down, and back away, instead of being honest about this reality, and these fears. Because if anyone is going to understand, it’s him. There’s a reason that they’re both here, after all, a reason that they promised all of those things to him, and they work every day to make sure they’re keeping those promises. They care so deeply for him they’re not even sure they had the right words for it, and so of course, he would be here with them through this horrible revelation. He’s already promised as much, too, after all. And so it’s not really a surprise that Cas does exactly what they need without them even realizing it before he does. He shifts and sits up, pulling them close, holding them there and running fingers through their hair.

And it feels a little hard to breathe for a second, with that out in the open, saying it somehow making it hit them even harder just how real it is, that Flame Thrower has known who they are this whole time, knew that they were together, and has kept it from them. That even before that he was cruel, they don’t need to remember specifics yet to know that’s true. The panic is rising, but they focus on the feeling of Cas’s fingers in their hair, his warmth pressed against them as he agrees with them, tells them he’s sorry that’s what this all is. They close their eyes and hold onto that feeling, push back against the panic and the urge to shut down and run away.

“No, he never said anything about it, so who knows how bad things were before,” Lazarus mutters, before pulling back, too. The kiss is full of tenderness in a way that sends a chill through them, reminds them it’s something they deserve, not whatever it was Clint gave them before. “It is...and I know it’ll be worse when I figure it out, but I can’t not. I need to know, before I figure out what to do about him.” They can’t help the frown that comes with it all, but they need him to know that he is helping, just by being able to talk to him about it all. “Just being here with you...it helps. I don’t think I could deal with it if I didn’t have you to hold onto.”

They fall silent for a second, intertwine their fingers again, and bring Cas’s hand up to their lips, brushing a gentle kiss against his knuckles. “I just wish things could be normal for a minute. In the memory, I was standing there, dark hair, normal clothes, no cracks, no powers, and he fuckin’ took that away,” they say, not really thinking about the words. But something there hits, makes their chest ache in a way they don’t know how to put into words. All they can think is to hold onto Cas’s hand tighter.

She drops down onto the couch beside them as she finished talking, grabbing the vodka bottle from them and taking a swig, gesturing that it’s their turn to break shit if they want to, because she’s still pretty worked up, but venting out all the shit she’s been feeling about White has kind of taken it all out of her for a second. But it feels good to hear Lazarus agree with her, to hear someone else confirm the annoyance she’d been feeling. All of this, on top of what Banshee had told her, it’s been eating away at her a little, a constant annoyance at the back of her mind that she can’t really do anything about.

Because, as stupid as what White had done by leaking the identities of the rogue villains had been, it had gotten the job done: it had sent a message to anyone else who might have any dissatisfaction with White that crossing her had major consequences, that there were no lengths she wouldn’t go to to keep her own place at the top of the food chain. And Catalyst doesn’t have anything else, besides the Collective, no life outside of it. Banshee had at least had somewhere else to turn. Catalyst doesn’t even know people outside of the Manor, really, certainly doesn’t have anyone she could run to. 

And she has too much, here, to risk losing any of it. To lose Danny, or Dark Wing, or any of it… she can’t imagine it. She has no idea what she’d do. 

      “It’s too bad there isn’t anything we can do about it,” she sighs, resigned, slumping back ag against the couch and taking another swig of vodka. “I mean, not that we’d be in a place to do anything even if we could, given we still have no idea what the fuck Judgement’s next steps are, or what he wanted with Dmitri, or where he and the rest of the zombies are now. We’ve lost our inside sources, so we’re kind of shit out of luck now, anyway.”

 .

She takes the bottle from them and gestures that they’re up again, and Lazarus takes the cue, getting up from the couch, holding onto the baseball bat still, and looking around for the next thing they wanna break. After a second, in which they both seem to be considering what this all means, just how much it feels like they’re all just sitting around waiting for more shit to hit the fan, they choose a fancy chipped blue bottle and move a bit away from Catalyst and the couch. Before they throw it and swing, though, she goes on, clearly feeling like there’s nothing for them to do at the moment about any of it, clearly not happy in the least about that fact.

It makes them turn over what they know in their mind, the one wild lead they’re still following on the off chance that Doppelganger wasn’t fucking with them and an immortal murderer might be hanging around ready to help them take care of all of this. First, though, they toss the bottle up into the air, and swing hard, shattering it into hundreds of pieces, although it’s not quite as satisfying as they consider that feeling.

Impossible not to debate whether or not they should even mention it, considering the more people who know about it, the bigger the risk and everything, but if anyone deserves to know that they are trying to do something about it still, it’s her of all people. It wouldn’t be a surprise to them if she did know about it already in some small way, but there’s not really a reason to make that assumption and take that chance when they’ve got a kind of concrete way they’re trying to help do just that right now. It’s kind of a buzzkill, but it feels pretty damn important to let her know when she’s the one who brought them all together to pull of the Tower shit in the first place. If they end up having to do something else like that after Lazarus does find Tartarus, then she definitely needs a heads up before they get that far, they think.

“We might be shit out of luck on the Judgement front right now, but, well, Fortune and I have been working on following another lead... Doppelganger threw it our way on that mission, told us if we could find Tartarus, he’d be able to stop all of this shit. I know, it sounds insane as hell, but...” they trail off, shrugging a little bit, as they swing the bat absently, “Well, I guess I’m pretty damn close, just gotta follow one more lead and I might actually be able to give you something concrete we can do about all this shit. Keep it on the down low, though, yeah?”

If Cas had tried to imagine a night like this with Lazarus months ago, he would have had to roll his eyes at himself. He would have called himself stupid, and sentimental, too damn soft for his own good. But now he’s fully entrenched in it, the gentle evening that they’re sharing together. In bed, warm and comfortable, under his fuzzy blanket, his head resting on Lazarus’s chest while something as normal as Kitchen Nightmares plays in front of them. He’s only half paying attention to the show, letting the sound wash over him in the moments where they aren’t fully wrapped up in each other. 

On nights like this, it’s easy for Cas to forget everything hard in the world. His endless exhaustion, the way he feels drained dry and run down and sick with worry half the time. Powers spread too thin, in a way that makes him think Mind Master had been right in the first place, in a way that makes him think he really couldn’t do anything. Even if he wanted to so badly it made him ache. Sometimes, when he’s alone, he feels a little bit like he’s falling apart. But when he’s with Lazarus, everything is a little bit lighter, the dark corners in the back of his mind lighten up. It’s easy to focus on them, to feel like they’re the brightest thing in the world, like nothing bad can touch them. So when they aren’t destracting Lazarus with silly lines of thought, or gentle kisses, he just enjoys the warm feeling of resting against them. 

It’s comfortably quiet, and if he isn’t careful he could fall asleep there, with his head against their chest and his fingers tracing delicate patterns over their arm. Thoughtless motions, relishing in the fact that he’s allowed to touch Lazarus as much as he wants, allowed to drag this night out for as long as both of them can stay awake. There’s a thrill to the fact that anything could happen. There’s a thrill to the fact that they’ve evolved into cuddling in sleep clothes. He shifts just a little bit, when he feels Lazarus pull in a deep breath. It feels like they’re building up to something, like they’re about to say something important. So Cas tries to wake himself up a little bit, gathering all of the energy he has so that he can be attentive and open and listen to whatever it is that Lazarus has to say. 

He’s gotten pretty good at recognising when it’s important to listen, open and patient and careful. 

“Yeah?” He says, and his voice still sounds soft, half sleepy. But he shifts his body, still pressed against Lazarus, so he can look up at their face and look them in the eye. His eyes soften, as Lazarus speaks, tells Cas about something that’s clearly been weighing on them since the tower. A memory, and not a particularly good one. He furrows his brow in a slight expression of worry.

“I’m sorry it wasn’t a nice one, darling.” He starts with, slow, as he reaches up and brushes a stray strand of their hair away from their face. “It might be easier to figure it out, if you tell me. We can work through it together.” Together still felt like a powerful word for them, something to marvel at. Because he really did believe that they could fix everything, if they put their heads together and supported each other. They had promised to try and build a better life, a better future. And working through Lazarus’s past was almost certainly an important part of that. 

...

There’s just something about the gentle lull of normalcy that makes it feel possible to be open more easily. If this were a few weeks ago––and hell, it wouldn’t have even been possible to be lying here wrapped up in a warm, fuzzy blanket cuddling while watching shit reruns a few weeks ago, but the point stands––the moment they felt the urge to bring up something so personal and vulnerable, they would’ve quashed that urge completely. It felt easier to bury things down then, somehow, but they’ve realized just how fucked up that made things not just for themself, but for everyone around them. Lying here, though, it feels not just necessary, but easy to broach a subject that would normally have them shutting down and pulling back.

Still, they hate to ruin the soft, quiet mood they’ve got going for tonight, but it feels too important to keep from sharing any longer, even if it’s not something pleasant to think of. That’s the thing, after all, they’re in it together, even in the difficult moments, that’s what they’ve promised each other. And Lazarus is unfortunately really damn certain that there are gonna be a lot of hard moments as they unravel the rest of their history, given the little bit they know now, the bit they need to tell Cas about tonight. As soon as they bring it up, Cas’s attention shifts wholly to them, and they can tell that he’s making the effort to listen carefully, that he’s already concerned about what the memory was, already ready to do what he can to help ease the pain. It makes their heart ache, in a good way, that sort of silent support offered to readily.

“It’s okay, they can’t all be nice ones, all things considered,” Lazarus mutters, letting their eyes flutter closed for a moment with the feeling of Cas’s hand brushing their hair out of their face. It’s a soft touch, gentle as Cas always is with them, something that they’re still in awe of no matter how much they’ve gotten over the past few weeks, and it’s something that bolsters their resolve. His words, too, just make them all the more certain it’s important to talk about this, because he’s right, it might be easier to figure it out if they actually talk through it with him, if they have him to hold their hand through the painful memories and revelations they’re certain are going to come from this. And just as important as figuring everything out is being able to share it with him, this is just another part of what they promised to give each other.

They take a deep breath in, figuring there’s no use in beating around the bush with it, wanting to get it out in the open now, see what Cas thinks about it all, if he might see something they haven’t yet. “It happened twice in the Tower. The first time wasn’t so bad...it was Mordred, there was this strange moment of clarity where they just looked at me, and it was like they recognized me somehow. They mouthed the name Maeve, and for some reason I think it’s connected to that woman I saw in the other memory, the one where I was down in New Orleans,” they explain first, because that part feels easier, even if it makes much less sense than the other part. Lazarus pauses for a second, though, taking Cas’s hand to absently play with his fingers, as much for support as distraction from the rest of it. 

“The second time, though...” Lazarus continues slowly, even as they can feel their own anxiety rising thinking about Clint, “When I had to heal Flame Thrower so that he could walk out of there, I got hit with a memory. I was with him in some coffee shop or something, and he grabbed me by the arm, was leading me out of there. And I just...I fuckin’ knew, Cas. The moment I saw it, I knew that it meant we were together before...I was dating Flame Thrower before I died, and he knows it’s me. And I don’t think it was a good situation, Cas...I actually think it might’ve been royally fucked up, from what Jase has told me about his brother.” There’s panic just beneath the surface, that urge to close off and shut down, the urge to run, but they push through it because this is important.

She spins around, giving a dramatic little flair of a bow in their direction and beaming at their applause. Easy as it is, to break a bunch of glass, it’s fun to get to feel like she’s showing off. And it’s funny, how much more glamorous it looks than the actually hard stuff—like holding up an entire collapsing skyscraper, which had been probably the least glamorous thing she’d ever done with her powers, and yet had left her wiped out for almost a week. She’s been thinking, ever since her conversation with Epoch, about how much of what RESCUE did was the kind of shit she used to want to do—and about how after the Tower, she’s pretty sure she’s not cut out for that stuff in the long run. How much easier it is to break stuff.

     “Ugh,” she replies, picking up another piece of garbage — an old soda can, this time, the aluminum pliable under her fingers. She’s willing to bet she can make it pop like a balloon if she tries hard enough. “She didn’t say she’s pissed off, directly, but you know how she gets. All cold and disappointed. Like a fucking school principal in a bad high school TV show. And I maybe kind of almost shouted at her, which I think probably didn’t help anything.” 

She tosses the soda can, along a similar trajectory to the glass bottle she’d just thrown, watching as it hits the very top of its parabolic arc in the air and then, with an explosive noise, shreds apart into a half dozen strips of thin metal.

     “As if this whole thing wasn’t her fault in the first place. Like… yeah, okay, you want to be mad at me for cleaning up the mess you made just because you wanted it cleaned up a different way? Maybe if you’d picked up the fucking mop in the first place, none of us would be having this problem.”

In all honesty, she’d been too rattled by what Banshee had told her to even feel badly about disappointing White the way she might have even a week, but definitely a few months, before. She used to hold a lot of stake in what White thought of her, because she’d been a dumb kid who had joined the Collective at an impressionable age where having older role models approve of her actions had held any stake for her. 

      “Honestly, kind of makes you wonder if maybe V and the others weren’t right, you know? Not about trying to blow up Guardian Tower but with the vote and everything. I don’t agree with their reasons, but… I wish I’d realized what a fucking snake she was a little sooner.” 

...

Shit like this is a relief after so much serious business lately, so many life or death situations they’re all having to face. The simplicity of just smashing shit to pieces and blowing shit up is exactly what they need, no surprise. It’s especially needed as they do finally get back to the subject of White, and what her reaction to all of this has been. For their part, Lazarus hasn’t had to face her down luckily, and they don’t think that she could really stand to tell them off for their part in things, given that their power is the reason they were able to get so many of the zombies back in their graves where they belong, and give those poor families some peace. They’d tell her as much if they did have to talk to her, but so far, bigger fish to fry, which they don’t mind one bit, planning to do even more she probably won’t be happy with, after all, in their search for Tartarus. 

They can imagine it all too well, though, even if their own interactions with White have been few and far between. She’s got that sort of vibe, a disappointed school principal, a way of making you feel shitty without even having to say it all outright. And it’s clear that she’s cold as fuck, kind of in a scary way, considering what it is she was willing to do to the people who were rallying the vote against her all to get them off of her back and to make them seem like enemies of the Collective. They’ve got a feeling whatever she does next isn’t gonna be pretty for any of them. 

And Catalyst’s point is true; it’s White’s fault that it got this far in the first place, because of how she decided to handle things. Her words are punctuated with the toss of a can, giving way to an impressive expansion then explosion that has them letting out a low whistle, even as they nod. “Yeah, she fucked up big time in the first place to get us all to this point. I think it’s, like, that old school mentality. Guess she didn’t stop and think that supervillains aren’t all about backstabbing and blame shifting nowadays,” Lazarus reasons, taking another swig of the booze. 

It might be simplifying it a little, but they think that’s probably the big overarching issue, if anyone thought about it deeper. Medusa’s said as much before, after all, just how different things were in her time, how much more vicious things were. Kind of feels like White’s been operating under that mindset, despite being in an age where even supervillains are more human. Not to say they agree with how things have shaken out with the rouge villains, but they feel the same as Catalyst about it now.

"t’s almost like having two old timers at the head of everything, with no say from the people who do the real work is a bad idea. Bad execution, bad reasoning, but yeah, I feel you, they might’ve been onto something with that call for change.”

He’s glad Lazarus doesn’t state it outright, the idea that Jase might help with whatever they end up planning to do, if they ever get the full story of what Clint did to them and decide they want revenge. Not as directly as Night Hunter had, at least. It means he doesn’t have to turn them down, and feel like a fucking coward in the process. He knows Lazarus deserves revenge. He thinks he probably does, too, has enough distance from everything to believe that, though maybe not enough to seek it out. Or maybe it’s just that he knows he couldn’t kill Clint if he tried—his powers had never had much of an effect on his brother. Lazarus probably stands a better chance at that than he ever would have—and, he thinks to himself, they probably stand a better change at killing him than Night Hunter does of persuading the adoring public that Clint is a monster. 

Either way, it doesn’t matter right now. He’s warned Lazarus, done what he came here to do, made sure they were fully aware of what they were getting themself into, or maybe what they were already in, whether they liked it or not. What Lazarus decides to do from here is their business, not Jase’s, and something about passing off that responsibility to someone else feels like it takes a weight off his chest.

He’s never pretended to be a good person. 

And with that weight off his chest, he managed to choke out a laugh at Lazarus’ next comment, their attempt to lighten the mood a little bit. And he picks his hoodie back up as he does, pulling it back on, tugging the sleeves down to his wrists again, back where they belong.

      “I’d imagine that would depend on how dead the priest is,” he replies. “I don’t know much about religious doctrine, but I’d assume that give the proximity to historical resurrection, a priest is probably the easiest kind of dead person to bring back.” 

It’s not much of a joke, but it’s all he’s got in the tank right now, given the circumstances. And it gets the job done, shifts the conversation away from Clint, away from revenge, away from everything clouding the air between them, and moves things along into conversation that doesn’t make him feel like his throat is closing up in panic quite so much. And when Lazarus offers him their hand, he takes it, shaking it and nodding.

     “It’s a deal.” 

...

It’s kind of a weird thing to feel connected to someone that they only just met, to be honest. They haven’t done a very good job at making friends over the past five years, even if they’re glad to say they do have a nice, small group of people they can count on. After all, they only just started the emotional vulnerability thing recently, and it’s an adjustment to say the least, but it’s clear that it’s a good thing all around, even if it fucking hurts sometimes. Because, yeah, this conversation was royally fucked, and the fact that they’re all but certain that Clint hurt them in some way or another when they were together before they died is even more fucked, nearly as fucked as everything Jase has gone through maybe, it’s good that they had it. They’re glad that Jase chose to reach out to them, to give them that honesty, and they feel good about being honest with him in turn. 

And it feels good to end it with a little laugh, even if it’s strained, considering how heavy things are. It’s something, though, especially knowing this is only really the beginning in figuring out what their own part in this shit is.

“Maybe you’re right, I never really considered there might be levels to it. Guess that means I need to try it on a layperson as a control first, then,” they say, with a huff of a laugh. It’s a joke, yeah, but they can’t help but wonder if it might be true to some extent. With how wild their powers are anyway, and how they were immediately drafted into being a cult messiah by said priest once they woke up, they wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if there were weird caveats about how hard different resurrections would be. It makes them think about the offer they gave to Captain Covert, if something strange would happen resurrected a glorified Moses or not. Still, they think they could manage Jase’s burn scars, no matter how bad they might be under his clothes, but that’s a consideration for another time.

For now, they’re kind of weirdly grateful for him stopping by and giving them more of a warning, inadvertently triggering that feeling in their gut that makes them all the more certain they need to figure out what their past with Clint was, and fast, before anything else can happen. The handshake feels like it seals some kind of bond there, horrifying as a bond it is, to have to come together because someone’s tried to control then both, hurt them both, but in a weird way, they’re glad to know whatever they find out, they won’t be dealing with it on their own, even if Jase doesn’t join them in revenge. They nod, giving his hand a squeeze, before letting go, the temptation to offer a little healing now too deep to hold on for too long.

"I’ll, uh, let you know when I figure things out...I appreciate you coming to talk to me, not everyone would do something like that,” Lazarus nods, shifting a little. “I’ve gotta go see a ghost about a secret identity, though, so I’ll see you around, yeah?”

Nights like these are something entirely new for Lazarus, and something they kind of wouldn’t mind having almost every single night for the rest of their life. It’s nothing special, which is what makes it so meaningful somehow. Just them and Cas lying in his bed, already in pajamas––although they’re likely to lose them at some point before going to bed, they know themself well enough to be sure of that––under one of the ridiculously fuzzy, soft blankets that Cas has, halfway watching old reruns of Kitchen Nightmares, absently talking about whatever comes to mind, the memories that the ridiculous show conjures up, or just silently cuddling. It’s fucking nice, is what it is, something that just feels normal. 

And they’re finding that bits and pieces are coming back to them about their old job catching the pieces of the show they do when they’re not too distracted by Cas, which is most of the time, of course. They remember what the kitchen looked like, they remember being the one doling out orders, taking control of the service. It makes them all the more certain that they’ll be able to cook well when they finally have the time to gather some ingredients and get down to the kitchen to try cooking something out. It still feels distant, like it wasn’t really their life, the same way that the name Jovi still doesn’t feel entirely like theirs, although hearing Cas say it in those private, quiet moments they share is helping it feel more real somehow. 

The thing is, though, that with the few memories coming back, they can’t stop thinking about what happened in the Tower, of that memory, and the memory before then that Mordred seemed to be trying to tell them something about. It’s been on their mind, of course it has, especially after their conversation with Jase and the instinctual realization that came with that one. There’s still so much shit to go through, so much shit to deal with in the grand scheme of things that they haven’t had a chance to dig deeper into who Maeve is in relation to Mordred––hell, they haven’t even had a spare moment to go down to the graveyard and see what Mordred’s real name was to start doing research––and they’ve had even less of a chance to figure out what the fuck they’re supposed to do about Clint and the revelation there, how to figure out more.  

They hate that it’s like this, that even in a moment of peace and quiet, something rare the past few months, their mind refuses to chill the fuck out and relax fully, instead ready to get that anxiety going in full force as it likes to do too damn often. And they don’t want to ruin the mood of the night, the soft coziness that they’re lying it, with Cas tucked against their side, his head resting on their chest so perfectly, an arm curled around him, the silence that’s fallen between them something comfortable and nice for now, but they also know that this honesty thing has been working out for them pretty damn well so far, and tonight shouldn’t be any different.

So Lazarus takes a breath, tries to push past that feeling of anxiety threatening to bubble up thinking about how fucked up the memory they got suggests things were in their before, and swallows hard.

“Hey, Cas?” they start quietly, before they can back out of it. “There’s something I need to tell you about...something that happened at the Tower. A memory that came back to me. One that’s not as nice as cooking in a fancy kitchen. And I haven’t really known what to do with it...”

Every time Lazarus says his name, it feels more right. It feels like a hook, clawing into his heart, making sure that he’ll never want to pull away from Lazarus. It feels so different, somehow, than when anybody else says his name. Maybe it’s because for some reason, they withheld these things from each other over the scope of their relationship. Daydreamer was stronger, in his head, and better equipped to deal with everything. Being called Cas made him feel softer and more vulnerable, so far from the benevolent God he liked to pretend he could be. Cas was just a man, after all, and one who loved too deeply and too quickly. It was easy to give that kind of thing to someone like Kaz, who had basically adopted him from the first moment that they met each other. But him and Lazarus used to hold so much back, used to keep a distance even when they were pressed so closely together. 

Giving Lazarus his name felt a lot like giving them his heart. And he was glad to do it, glad to let it be theirs. He would never get all of it back, he knew that. Even if they fell apart, even if this didn’t end up working, part of him would always belong to Lazarus. To Jovi. And that thought was a curl of pleasure in the back of his mind. He had part of them too. He had their name, a tiny scrap of their past, and the power to make them like it just that little bit more, the power to make them feel like Jovi was someone real, made of flesh, the same skin as them. And he has these feelings too, the ones that Lazarus is skirting around. The mutual admission that their affections for each other go above nad beyond every other feeling that they’ve ever had. 

He’s never felt this way. And it should shake him.

But right now, it only makes him feel more certain. More devoted. More determined to do his best, to not fuck this up, to prove to Lazarus that he is someone they could be happy with, someone they can trust. Cas wants this to work so badly, but he knows it’s not something he can wish for. It’s an honest emotion that he has to keep admitting every day, the slow build of trust. And Lazarus is doing the same for him. It can’t be one sided, they have to fight for each other. And they are. Lazarus promised him, all those weeks ago, to try. And now they’ve come so far, it feels like the entire landscape of their lives has changed. He could have never imagined that being with Lazarus, really being with them, would feel so good, feel so right. Maybe it was foolish, maybe he should have known that no feeling would be able to beat this. They’ve always been drawn to each other, like a gravitational pull, like the draw of a higher power. 

“I know you would.” He says, voice whisper soft. Because he trusts that Lazarus will sooth away every ache in his body, will take away every hurt. Even just being with them now makes any pain feel secondary. He relishes in the feeling of their fingers in his hair, the soft touch of a lover, the kind of thing that makes him feel weak in the knees every time he’s given it. “You always take care of me.” And that was a little raw, a little wonderous. Because it was true. Lazarus indulged far too many flights of fancy, sentemental notions, ever whim. When Cas wanted to pamper them, he was allowed. When Cas wanted to kiss them for hours, they would induge that. Being allowed to take care of Lazarus, sometimes, made Cas feel more safe and more cared for and more valued than he would have with anybody else. 

She arches her eyebrow at their mention of the Tower—she’d gotten a briefing from every pair after she woke up from her extremely long and much-needed nap, but she hadn’t gotten all of the details, there hadn’t been time for that, and so whatever personal traumas Lazarus dredged up in the Manor are a mystery to her, but that’s not what this hang out sesh us for, unless they decide they want to unload all of it once they’re sufficiently drunk, so she doesn’t push it just yet. 

     “I think I deserve a fucking fully funded vacation to the Bahamas, honestly, but White doesn’t seem to think the same,” she replies, shrugging as she pushes herself up and hops down off the back of the couch. 

She doesn’t bother taking the bat from them, seeing as she has a much more exciting way of breaking shit than by pretending she’s playing sports. Instead, she picks up one of the glass bottles in her hand, weighs it for a second, getting a feel for the material, for the molecules that make up the glass, for the weak spots in it.

It’s nice, to stretch her powers in little ways like this. She hasn’t used them for anything, really, since the Tower; the first few days after, she’d been too exhausted to do much of anything, and since then she’s had too much going on here to sign herself up and head out of the Manor again. But like remembering how to jog again after running a marathon, she figures she has to start soon and start small. So she focuses on the glass of the bottle—and glass is not a material she has a ton of experience with, so easy to shatter with normal human force that it’s rarely worth bothering using her powers to break it—and begins to agitate the molecules in it, accelerating their lazy movement until, a moment later, she throws it as hard as she can out towards the empty field, watching as it shatters into a couple hundred shards high above the ground. 

     “Fuck yeah,” she says with a grin, watching the grass rain towards the ground, a safe distance away from the both of them. “She’s still got it.” 

...

They flop down on the couch, letting the bat rest across their lap, thoroughly ready for the show they know she’ll be able to provide with her powers. Picking up the bottle of booze, they open it again, and take a long drink, more than ready for the pleasant warmth of a buzz to set it. They haven’t really had time for their usual fuckery lately. Surprisingly enough, between getting back to the grand hunt at hand to stop even more shit from going down, going over their own new history, and being with Cas, their evening spent getting thoroughly fucked up have dwindled. It’s definitely for the best, yeah, but that doesn’t mean they don’t wanna let off steam every now and then still, especially right now.

That earns her a scoff of laughter. “Yeah, well, I can’t offer a Bahamas vacation, but once this shit is all over, I talked to Jet and Dark Wing about going down to New Orleans to dig up my dirty past. I was thinking we could make a grand vacation of it, you all can get shitfaced, while I figure out who I am,” they laugh, but they are serious about it. The idea of going down there with other people makes it feel less daunting to face the past, and they know they’d all have a hell of a good time. The part about White, though, they figure they’ll come back to once Catalyst has had at least one turn at letting off a little steam of her own.

It’s honestly just as fun watching Catalyst blow shit up with her mind as it is to actually break the shit themself. She looks at the glass bottle she’s chosen for a second, before finally throwing it out towards the field, where it shatters into a bunch of shards in the air. There are a lot of cool and terrifying powers in the Collective, but they’ve gotta admit that Catalyst’s got a power they’ve love to try out themself, if they could. Blowing shit up, being able to mess with things on a molecular level or whatever sciencey bullshit it technically is, is a hell of a lot better in their humble opinion than their life force shit. At least she doesn’t have to hurt herself to help anyone out, unlike them. 

“Now that’s how it’s fuckin’ done,” they call, giving her a round of applause, even though they know it’s probably mostly effortless on her part, using her powers to shatter something like that. “What about White, though, how pissed off is she about it?”

Cas is still reeling from the weight of the word on his tongue. It’s such a simple thing, just a word. But names will always be more than that, more than the scatters that build them up and make them into sounds. And Lazarus’s name feels intimate, when it comes out of his mouth. It feels like a prayer, it feels holy, it feels like a gift. It’s another way to know them, another facet of their identity that Cas gets to tuck away in the back of his mind, gets to cherish for as long as he’s allowed to. Jovi. He really meant it when he said that it was the most beautiful thing that he had ever heard. It should have been an exaggeration, it should have been something silly to say. But he hasn’t been able to fuck with Lazarus with more than light, mindless teasing, over the last few weeks. 

It feels like Lazarus is the whole world, right now. Which might be the addrenaline crash talking, which might be how exhausted he is, even with the thrumb of his power loosened up and ready to serve him whenever he needs it. It still hasn’t settled, still doesn’t feel quite right. He can still feel Kaz feeding off it, the split where his power is focusing on one of his other-halves. Maybe it will settle with time. He’s praying it will settle with time. But right now, he doesn’t worry, because Lazarus lets him pull them into a hug and holds him close, holds him steady. He knows that at some point he’s going to have to let Lazarus go, that they’re going to need to go and help with everything that’s going on. The sooner the zombies they brought out get put back in the ground, the better it is for everyone. Especially for people like Medusa, whose long lost loves need to be returned to their resting places. He doesn’t know how she’s managed all of this, because if it had been Lazarus, if his role had been swapped with hers… he probably would have lost his mind. He probably would have blown up again. He probably would have killed anyone who saw fit to do this. But he’s lucky, because Lazarus is right here, alive and well. He knows he’s going to have to let them go soon, but he doesn’t have to do it yet, they’re allowed to linger in this moment for as long as it might take until they feel prepared to let each other go. 

And at the end of the night, he might get lucky, and Lazarus will come back to him and hold him close again. He thinks that would be nice, to be able to clean them up and get into bed with them, fall asleep in the safe and steady embrace of their arms. They have good arms, strong and sure. “I think so,” He says, a soft agreement, letting his eyes slip closed in something like bliss, when Lazarus runs a hand through his hair. Every touch feels like a blessing, and it has for ages now. He wonders if that will ever calm down for him, if being touched by Lazarus will ever stop being notable, will ever be ordinary, something he takes for granted. He doubts it. He doesn’t think they’ll ever stop being so special to him. And he’s blinking his eye open again, just when Lazarus pulls away to look at him. He meets their gaze and smiles a little bit, a shakey and emotional thing, something full of all the affection that won’t stop swelling in his chest. 

“Don’t stop saying it,” He half demands. “I like the way you say it.” They really shouldn’t be able to keep taking his breath away, but their words leave him breathless, floundering with the intensity of the emotions in his chest, with the slightly faster beating of his own heart that sounds like drums in the back of his head. Lazarus, admitting that they feel something for him, something so much better than he really deserves. More than they’ve ever felt for anyone. It’s shockingly intense for him, even without some kind of lofty declaration, even without specific words. And he’s so grateful he could cry, because they feel the same way. Cas has never felt like this about anyone. He thought he loved people, in the past. He thought he knew what it felt like, but if that was supposed to be love, he doesn’t know what this would be. This feeling, so much more intense than anything else. “I’ve never felt like this before either. Not with anyone, not with –– You’re so much more than everyone else.” He leans forward, to ghost a gentle kiss over their lips, just a soft shadow of a thing. He lets it linger, but he doesn’t push for more than the kiss, doesn’t deepen it, because there’s so much going on right now. It’s better to get lost in a slow lingering kiss that put more of himself out there, right now. If he had allowed himself to keep talking, he probably would have said too much. They might be embracing the weight of their emotions, but he can’t throw words like love around at a time like this. 

That word deserves a better place, and he shouldn’t feel even a hint of hesitation when the time comes. And he knows, with utter certainty, that the time will come. Someday, not now, but sooner than he ever would have expected. He lingers for a moment, before he pulls away, before he looks at them and tries to soak up the look on their face, right now. He tries to commit them to memory.

“I feel kinda like crap,” He says, in answer to their question. He could have lied, but he likes the honesty thing he has going with Lazarus, he doesn’t want to sully himself with a half truth. But he’s steady as he says it, looking into their eyes, leaning into the touch of their hand on his forehead. “But I felt like crap before too. You didn’t take too much, I promise. I –– I’d give you as much as you needed, any time, always.” He squeezes their hand, holds it, brings it up to press a kiss to their knuckles. “I know you have to go, soon. But will you… will you find me after, when you’re done? I want to be with you, tonight. I don’t want to have to let you go.” 

...

They wish that they were back at the manor already, that they could share this moment with Cas, and then immediately pull him into a warm shower with them. They can’t help but imagine the feeling of his hands washing their hair gently, the little chill it sends down their spine, how cared for he makes them feel. And they’d like to wash his hair, too, massage away any of the lingering tension brought on from the chaos and danger of tonight, before getting out and changing into clean, cozy clothes, and falling into bed together. But this is enough for now, knowing that there’s still work for them to do before they can go back to the manor and have any of that. Having a moment that feels this intimate, private even in a room full of people, is something they haven’t felt before, after all. None of it is like anything they’ve had before, the sharing of life force, the exchanging of names, how deep that feeling of care goes. More so than all of it, maybe, knowing without even having to put it into words that Cas feels just as much, has felt it longer than Lazarus let themself realize.

There’s a moment of peace they fall into here, holding onto him, keeping him steady and upright, hand brushing through his hair. It feels like there’s no one else around then, that this is their own private world, just for the two of them, and it’s kind of a wonder to have that feeling to sit in. It makes them want to keep him close, but that’s not a new feeling, either, it’s all been here already, they think it was maybe just waiting for the right moment to make itself fully known to them, waiting until they felt comfortable enough not to run away from feeling so much for someone, being ready and willing to put their trust so wholly in someone else’s hands. But they are, and they’re grateful to have that here with him, with Cas. Cas. He tells them not to stop saying it, and they’re glad because they don’t think they could, when it means so much to them, when it sounds like something angelic in the air, brings them comfort they didn’t realize one word could. 

“Good, because I won’t. I’ll never stop saying it. Cas, Cas, Cas,” they hum, a small smile spreading across their lips as they get used to the feeling of his name on their tongue, the taste of it something special. And they can tell that he gets it, that he understands what they’re saying even if they don’t fully get the extent of it themself, maybe, for how foreign it is to feel so much for one person to them. They can see it in his eyes, even before he says the same thing, too, confirms that he’s never felt so much for anyone else, either, when he says that they’re so much more than anyone else. It leaves them a little breathless, makes their heart race to think that he feels that for them, and to know that he’s being honest, an honesty that makes them believe it wholly, believe that it’s possible they could deserve this, and that they could be enough to be what someone as perfect as Cas deserves, too. They’re glad that he kisses them before they can say anything, because they’re pretty sure they’d say something stupid, overwhelmed with so much feeling, head still jumbled from everything. So instead they lean into the gentle kiss, keeping it soft as Cas does, memorizing the slow tenderness of it, something utterly beautiful. When he pulls back, they just look at each other for a moment, and they think there’s so much there in that silence that both of them know.

“I’ll help you feel better later. I know you’d give me as much as I need, and I’d give you just as much back, always, too,”  they say, brushing their fingers back through his hair, despite themself. They wish they could go get cleaned up now, wash the blood off of their hands, out of their hair, off of their face, so that they could touch him properly like they want to, a compulsion they have no intention of not following through on, especially as he squeezes their hand, and brings it up to his lips, presses a kiss to their knuckles. They feel a little like a damn school girl, with the way it makes their heart flutter, makes the heat rise up the back of their neck for how tender the kiss is. 

“You’ll never have to let me go, Cas. It won’t take long for me to take care of the zombies, make sure they’re all given that peace again. I’ll find you as soon as I’m done. We’ll head back to the manor, I’ll get myself cleaned up as fast as possible, so we can get into bed, and rest,” they say, voice soft. And they can’t help but lean forward and punctuate that with another little kiss, something light and chaste, but with that deep care behind it still. They don’t have the words to say it yet, what this feeling is in the center of their chest, an unimaginable warmth that comes with thinking about Cas, with kissing him, with knowing that after this, they’ll be able to fall asleep together with their arms around him, but they think that it’s pretty damn clear for the time being. They can make it a little clearer, though, before they have to head back to their mission. “I promise I won’t be long. I wanna be with you every night, if that wasn’t clear already.”

     “Look, I’ll be the last person to try to stop you if you decide you want to kill my brother,” he says. He’s not sure if that’s what they’re thinking they’d do—though, given their powers, it seems like, and it’s an option that feels somehow more feasible than Night Hunter wanting to expose Clint and his dad for who they really are. Clint might die a hero, if Lazarus went after him, but at least he’d be dead. At least he wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone anymore. And Jase would be the last person to mourn him. “But I’ll tell you what I told Night Hunter already: if you try, and it doesn’t work, you won’t be the person he comes after when he wants his revenge. Do what you need to, just… know what and who you’re putting in the line of fire when you do it. That’s all.” 

He doesn’t mean it as a discouragement, he really doesn’t. And maybe what he means it as is an excuse, for why he’s spent almost twenty years running away instead of doing something about it. For why he’s never taken the fight back to Clint. But Jase has never been one to consider himself brave, anyway. Virtues like that were for heroes, and so he’s always figured they were kind of useless to him.

Charitable and self-sacrificing had never been on that list either, and so he’s surprised, by the offer Lazarus makes. He knows enough, from Daydreamer, and from Catalyst’s plan, about Lazarus’ powers to know that they aren’t the same as Nightingale’s. That they have to give something up, some of their own life force, in order to heal others. And even if they’ve pulled all of the life force from the zombies that had been rounded up during the attack on the Tower, it still feels like an unbelievably generous offer. 

He wouldn’t even know where to start, if he could get rid of the scars. Sometimes he feels like so much of him is scar tissue that if you took it away, he’d just be a skeleton underneath of it. Sometimes he feels like all he is is a man made of scars, and the memories that come with them. 

     “I don’t know… I think it would take a lot of work, to make a meaningful dent in these,” he answers. His arms aren’t the worst of it, unfortunately, even if they’re the most easily visible. Some days, he hardly notices that they’re there; others, he keeps himself so covered that he can pretend they aren’t. And it’s hard to say whether it would make a difference or not, whether being free of some of the scars would actually lift any of the burden of feelings associated with them, or whether it would just be a cosmetic difference. 

He doesn’t know. There’s no way to know, unless he tries it. But he’s never been one for trying things unless he knows they’re going to work. 

     “I’ll tell you what,” he adds, a moment later. “If you manage to drain all the life force out of Clint, I’ll take you up on that offer.”

...

They’re not necessarily surprised by the warning that comes along with Jase giving his approval to kill his brother if it comes down to it, but it’s still something that catches their attention in a different way. To hear that he already gave the same warning to Night Hunter about whatever plan she came up with to give Clint back even an ounce of what he did to her––which they have to assume doesn’t necessarily involved the bodily harm that Lazarus has on their mind––says something important. There’s a real fear there, a fear that comes from experience, knowing what Clint does to the people you care about if you’re caught making a choice he doesn’t think you should be making. 

And they get it, they do, but they also know the people they care about deeply enough that Clint would be inclined to go after if they tried and failed at some kind of revenge, and they know that those people wouldn’t ask them to not do something they needed just because it might bring danger down on them, too. They don’t have any desire to put anyone they care about in danger because of their own choices, but they can also practically hear Cas’s voice in their head if they said any of that. Hell, he’d be ready to help them go after Clint if he knew that he had hurt them somehow, he wouldn’t want them to stop searching for closure just because of the risk. And they’re pretty sure that the other people they care for like that would think the same way; Kaz, Dark Wing, even newer friends like Fortune or Grizzly. Maybe it’s selfish, and dumb, but they’ve never really pretended to be anything but just that.

“I understand. I’ll keep that in mind...And I’ll let you know, too, if I find enough reason to go after him myself. Just in case you end up wanting in, too,” Lazarus says carefully, hoping they’re not overstepping a boundary by saying something like that to him when they literally only just met. But it feels like that’s fair to offer, fair to acknowledge that it’s clear he hasn’t made the choice both they and Hunter are ready to jump at, considering how much they’ve shared with each other over the past ten minutes. If anyone has the right for some kind of revenge, it’s clearly Jase, even if they understand why he hasn’t tried for anything of the sort since he got away from his family.

So it’s equally not much of a surprise when he hesitates to take them up on the offer of healing some of his burn scars. They get that, too, even if their own scars are strange, and a lot of the worst ones are more metaphorical at this point, the cracks in their skin just accepted by now. Hunter had seemed a little hesitant, too, when they offered the same, even if she did ultimately let them do it. That kind of shit runs deeper than the skin, after all, and there’s no way to say if getting rid of any of it would help or make it worse somehow. They’ve tried to imagine themself without all of the black cracks, too, and it just doesn’t feel real.

“Would take less work than it did to resurrect a dead priest, though, I bet,” they hum, only slightly joking, even if it is the truth, feeling the need to get a little lightness in considering how heavy all this shit is. “Alright, though, I’ll hold you to that then. I’ve always liked a bit of poetic justice anyway.” And they hold their hand out for him to shake, an acknowledgement of something shared, maybe, as much as a promise.

He forgets that Lazarus is in the room, as his attention shifts fully to Ziggy and the decision made. Ziggy’s touch his rougher than it used to be, but he doesn’t have to reach out and search blindly where he wants to place his hand, even though Samir’s invisible, he still seems to have every inch of him memorized to the point there’s little guesswork in how to reach out to him. Even when he dips his head down for a rough kiss to his head, he lands precisely in the square middle of his forehead, in a spot Ziggy had often pecked a kiss on before. 

Saying goodbye to him now wouldn’t be as hard as it was the last time, that he knew. Even though Ziggy looked younger, with seemingly another life ahead of him, the Ziggy he knew was still missing. And he still wouldn’t risk bringing that Ziggy back, not when he couldn’t know for certain just what kind of impact that would have on him. He didn’t want to give him the same terrible sentence of never aging, like he had, even if they were to carry that sentence out together. Ziggy had lived a full life, despite the struggles they both faced, and he deserved to have his peace. 

“Until we meet again, hayatım“ he says to him quietly, stroking his hand across his face one last time as he looks into his eyes. 

Leaning forward, he brushes a soft kiss against his lips, soaking up every bit of this second goodbye of theirs while he can, before finally looking back over to Lazarus. 

In the long-ago times when Spencer was still coming to terms with everything that happened, he hadn’t even needed to think about manifesting, most of the time. He had done it unconsciously, before he even realised that he was dead and buried six feet under ground. His memories had been spotty then, when it came to the circumstances of his end. And he had been able to fuel himself on everyone around him. His powers didn’t die with him. And he could project, manifest, be almost as solid as a living thing. People had been able to see him, talk to him. They could look into his eyes and smile. They could squeeze his shoulder in a comforting grasp. They could hold his hand and help him feel like he was no longer alone in the world. If it hadn’t been for the aching lingering cold, the stain of the dark, he would have felt almost entirely alive in those days. It was easy to feel vital and real and compelling when you were solid enough to be loved. 

The creeping reminders of his death had come in slowly, for him. He wasn’t sure why he could be touched, but part of him wondered if it wasn’t a trick of the mind for everyone involved. They knew what a touch was supposed to feel like, he knew what a touch meant. He could remember being touched and feeling the warmth of other people’s skin. Maybe he had been telepathically projecting it all the time, the phantom feeling, the sense-memory. But when he tried to smoke the cigarettes that The Kraken gave him sometimes, his lungs wouldn’t take in the smoke. He didn’t need to eat, he didn’t need to drink. He didn’t need to do any of the things that meant you were really living. No matter how badly he wanted to feel the sting of smoke clouding his lungs, the fact of the matter was that he didn’t have any. Nothing to inhale with, nothing to sting, nothing to breathe out plumes of smoke with. 

He hasn’t used his powers to delve into someone else’s mind fully in a long time. It must have been decades. He barely even did it back when he was alive. He was too afraid of himself. It had too large an impact on him. He had been plagued by stray thoughts for years, before he learned to build a barrier for himself. Hearing so much, feeling so much, and they said it made him crazy. But he wasn’t crazy, he was just powerful. Powerful and misunderstood, and so damn scared of being overrun by everyone else. But he knows that delving further into Lazarus will help him create a link, something that will help him manifest more truly in the world. So he’s glad that Lazarus agrees to it, agrees to let him in. He would never connect with someone who didn’t want it, no matter how badly he needed it. No matter how much he wanted someone to be able to look into his eyes and see him. But Lazarus takes it in stride, and agrees to connect. Spencer lets out a small sigh of relief, when the words come out of his mouth, smiles a sad smile. Because no one has been around to want him there in longer than he can even comprehend. It’s just been him and Clarissa, trapped, leading these half-lives. 

“It won’t hurt,” He promises, whispering quietly. “It won’t even feel cold.” And he hopes that last part is true, hopes that Lazarus doesn’t have to deal with more death, compounding on top of the trauma that’s already sitting so heavy on their chest. He doesn’t want to hurt them any more than they’ve already been hurt, and doesn’t want to make them feel the sting of it again. But he should be able to protect Lazarus from any of the cold, and the dark. 

He closes his eyes, when he starts to try. Reaching out with the weak tendrils of his power, of his own mind that linger in the air. He remembers connecting with other people, tries to remind himself how it works, how it feels to be lingering half inside someone else. He thinks about letting his mind brush up against Ramses, tucking himself close against the bright bloom of Eurydice. And the warmth of the memories helps him, when he feels his mind brush against Lazarus. It makes him imagine sitting with Lazarus in the attic, but the attic of his own childhood. So warm, and so bright, and so cosy. The corner where The Kraken and Yperite used to hide away to have those conversations of theirs, the places that he had made his own, the floorboard that Miss Mayhem carved her name into so all the world would know she was here, that she existed. He can feel Lazarus then, so bright and so intense, with the cold that goes along with them as well, the clinging remnants of their own traumatic death. He tries to envelop Lazarus in the warmth of his memories, to protect them from it, but it might be a fool’s errand. He can’t be sure. 

But he opens his eyes, to look at them, and lets out a soft sigh of a gasp, feeling stronger already. He feels like he has a better grasp on it all, on the world, on them. “You’re looking for something,” He says, knowing it almost as soon as he connects, saying it almost against his own will. “Something more than just an old ghost.”

...

This makes them wish they’d probed a little harder with Captain Covert, asked a few more questions about who, exactly, Phantom was before he was Phantom, because they have to assume that he was apart of the Collective under another name before that, especially knowing that there had been another Phantom decades before him even. They wouldn’t feel quite so nervous about whatever it is he’s going to do to them to try to manifest himself if they knew what his powers were, are, or had some kind of idea about how things worked back then when he was still able to seem like a living, breathing human, despite being dead and gone, according to Cap. But it’s much too late for that now, and they think that they can’t really blame themself when it had been such a delicate subject, and they hadn’t really anticipated feeling some kind of connection with a long dead ghost who they were searching for just to find the answer to an even more expansive problem. 

They hear the sigh of relief when they agree, and that’s enough to make them even more certain they’d pretty much let him do whatever he needed to make it happen somehow. And Spencer promises it won’t hurt, that it won’t feel cold, which makes their heart speed up just a little, maybe slightly more terrified with that warning than it all being entirely unknown, because it makes it sound like it’s possible whatever he needs to do might be both of those things. They’re not afraid of pain, but the unknown has been haunting them for the last five years, it’s only fair to be a little afraid of it at this point, especially when it comes to another mystery entirely. 

It’s a few seconds before they feel anything at all, and they realize what his powers must be, because it’s a familiar feeling in some ways, familiar in ways that are just a little terrifying, not because of Spencer, but because of their own mind. It feels a lot like their heart is trying to beat out of their chest, as they realize he’s some kind of telepath, and they consider how fucked their mind got when the last telepath stepped into it, the way their mind had clearly tried to fight back against Mind Master in the end, enough to fuck him up a little it had seemed. They know that they need to relax, that relaxing will make it easier, make it less likely that something like that happens again, but they’re not so worried any longer about Spencer accidentally hurting them or anything, they’re more worried about their mind hurting him. 

But it’s not the same, Lazarus can feel that almost as soon as the panic starts to rise. They don’t know if maybe his telepathy is different than Mind Master’s, or if maybe he’s just better at this sort of human to human contact than the asshole is, more empathetic than him, but it doesn’t feel the same at all. It all feels strangely warm, the feeling of him stepping into their mind in some way. It’s more sensation, less actual images, but they can feel abstract things like friendship, like love, the sort of care that blossoms just thinking about the people in your life, something familiar attached to the echos of names they don’t recognize. It’s enough, they think, to keep their mind from lashing out, from doing something weird again like it had with Mind Master. As much as they’d love another memory to hit that would tell them who that woman was and what her warning was about, how the Maeve that Mordred tried to communicate about is related to her, they have business bigger than their own mess history here right now.

And it seems like Spencer knows that immediately. It’s weird, slowly seeing someone start to appear in front of them, but they get distracted by the way he gasps, then speaks, the guilt for their mission coming back all over again now that he’s brought it up. “Yeah, I am...I’m sorry, I wish I could say I was just here to help you, but...I need your help finding someone. It’s complicated, and fucked up, but I hoping that once I get what I need from him, I can give you, and everyone else who he hurt, some sense of peace. Or at least I can dole out some retribution,” they explain, a little breathless with it, the feeling still there in their mind. They figure there’s no use beating around the bush, though, if he can read their thoughts anyway.

cw: burn scars

Lazarus is silent for a long moment, and then they’re moving, walking away, opening the window, and he can imagine what they’re feeling, the suffocating panic of it; he’s felt it far too many times himself. And as sorry as he is to drop this all in their lap, the reaction’s enough for him to tell that his hunch was right, that they need to hear this, that Jase needs to be here. That what Jase saw at the Tower was only scratching the surface of what’s going on between Lazarus and Clint, what’s gone on between them. 

And what they say next all but confirms it: not reading between the lines and acknowledging the all too obvious truth that he’d been hurt, but the next part, the memory of theirs. And Jase finds himself inhaling sharply at the implications there: that Clint and Lazarus had been together before Lazarus had died and come back to life, and then Clint had found them again afterwards, tried to recruit them to the Guardians while they had no memory of him, was still trying to use everything he had over them now… 

     “Fucking christ,” he mutters, shaking his head. “Yeah, that… that sounds like him.” And the fact that Lazarus doesn’t remember any of it feels dangerous, but it also sounds like it might be a little bit of a mercy. Not that it makes them any less wrapped up in this bullshit, but Jase thinks that if he could forget everything Clint ever did to him, he’d probably take that offer up in a heartbeat. Knowledge is power and all of that shit, sure, and Lazarus needs to know as much as they can to protect themself from Clint moving forward, but… god, he thinks, how nice it would be to be able to forget. To not have it weighing him down all the time. To not feel the panic rise in his chest every time somebody gets too close, or the temperature around him gets a little too warm. 

He shrugs his hoodie off, after a second, tossing it onto the empty bed that must belong to Lazarus’ roommate, so he’s left in just his t-shirt, his arms bare for Lazarus to see them. He doesn’t say anything, but he thinks it probably speaks for itself, the crosshatched burn scars scattered across both arms. His mom had designed a costume that covered his hands to hide the scars Jase’s powers gave him; the fact that it covered his arms too had been a convenient side effect for Clint. And they’re nowhere near as grotesque as the hand-shaped scar that Ian bears, but the sheer number of them tells its own story, especially when his arms aren’t the worst of it. 

     “I don’t think there’s a limit to the lengths he would go to, when he thinks something belongs to him,” he says, after a moment. Restraint has never been a word Clint knew the meaning of; he’d gotten that from their dad. “I don’t want to say you’re probably better off not remembering, but if that’s true, you’re definitely better off staying as far away from him as you can get.” 

...

For a second, they can’t do anything but nod vaguely, trying to slow down their breathing, keep that panic from making them shut down entirely. It’s even harder to face it head on, though, especially with so much still utterly unknown. There’s a difference between knowing the details, and knowing with a strange certainty that their mind has memories of that possessiveness it’s not letting them access, that they have no idea how they can get those details about what the fuck they had with Clint.  And seeing Jase take his hoodie off, eyes immediately drawn to the numerous scars on his arms, burn scars, makes it feel all the more real.

“Fuck,” they breathe, looking at his arms in shock, wide-eyed, thoughts racing just as fast as their heart at this point. It’s fucked up beyond belief, that he did that to his own brother, over and over again, did it to people Jase cared about to some extent, too, and has never actually suffered any of the consequences from it. It goes so far beyond Clint just being an insufferable asshole that they feel shocked that they didn’t know before just how bad it was, just how evil he is. It makes them wonder, too what he might’ve done to them when they were together before.

They feel sick to their stomach thinking of what Jase has had to go through, the scars physical and mental that shit like that leaves behind, thinking that there’s a very real possibility they share even a minuscule part of that, in their own way. The warning is clear as day, and they wish they could be satisfied with having no memory of it, and staying away, but they know themself.

“I wish I could say I can just let it lie, but I’ve realized lately as much as I tried to deny it, knowing my past is important, even if it comes along with pain. I get it now, though, I’ll keep the fuck away from him. For now. Once I find out what he did to me, I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to keep from giving him back whatever pain he caused me, I hope you can understand that,” they say seriously, frowning back at Jase. If he asked them not to, they think they would be willing to reconsider that instinct, despite only just meeting him, but there’s something in the pit of their stomach that tells them that whatever situation they were in with Clint isn’t one they’re going to be able to move away from without some kind of resolution. Hell, even if Clint hadn’t done anything with his possessiveness over Lazarus, no, Jovi in the before, they’d still be tempted to go after Clint just seeing what he did to Jase, but they know it wouldn’t be their place then. It’s different when it’s a deeply shared pain.

There’s something else that they can offer Jase, too, though, in return for sharing something so deeply personal that they hate they might have in common, and the very real warning behind it all. They still feel in top shape from all the zombies’ life force, after all, they might as well ride that high while they can, offer what little bit of comfort they might be able to provide here in a situation they weren’t expecting to be in today. 

“If you ever want to get rid of any of those scars...well, you’ve got another option of a different kind of healing now...I already did a little work on Hunter’s from the same source, so I know it’s possible...”

It shouldn’t be that big a deal, to hear Lazarus say his name. It isn’t as if he’s overly deprived of it. There are more than a few people in the manor who use it on occasion. Kaz defaults to it fairly often, because they’ve always been closer than most people here, because they’ve always trusted each other with the dark corners of each others lives, with the soft and squishy parts of themselves that might get hurt. But it’s different, to hear it come from Lazarus, wrapped softly in the sound of their voice. When all he’s been yearning for lately is to be as close to them as possible, to wrap himself up in the, to crawl under their skin and find himself safe and at home there. Lazarus says his name, and it means so much more than anyone could have expected. Lazarus says his name, and it feels far too much like coming home. They sound like they’re in awe of him, as if the word itself is a prayer or a psalm. 

Lazarus says its perfect, and Cas believes them, Cas smiles, delicate and slow. He wraps the feeling of it around himself, and knows that it will be worth whatever pain comes when Lazarus takes some life from him. “I picked it myself.” He says, a whisper, half-vulnerable, half-joke. Becoming him was the best magic trick he had ever done, the best thing the universe had ever allowed him to do. A way to claim his life for himself, and it was something that no one could take away from him, no matter what they tried.

He lets out a soft sound, at the feeling of Lazarus’s lips against his forehead. A blessing, before they begin to take the life from him. The pain, the burn, the loud thrum of it through his body. Lazarus healing, delicately slow. It hurts like hell, even more than he had really been prepared for. But it’s a comfort to know that with every second of pain, Lazarus is starting to feel better, that for them it’s all being washed away. And he thinks the universe would give him endless life force, if it meant that he could do this for Lazarus, he thinks that they could extend this for as long as they needed. He can’t help but feel like he’s doing something right with his life, even as his breath gets caught up in the swell of hurt. He can tell, even through it all, that Lazarus is being gentle with him. They’re not taking too much, they’re not abusing the power that Cas has give them over him. Even though they probably know he would let them do anything, let them take anything and everything that they needed. Their hand is careful, the swell of their power doesn’t consume the whole of him. 

And they’re paying careful attention, that much is clear. Because the moment that Cas starts to lean on them too heavily, he can feel them pulling back. He would give them more, he would extend it for another while, if it meant that Lazarus would be healed more fully. But he knows that they would never go for that, their hesitance to hurt him being far too strong a force to face against. And this is the best of both worlds, he imagines. They’ll be strong enough to do whatever needs to be done tonight, to right the wrongs that have been plaguing some of the Collective since the Morrigan raised the dead. There are people who are counting on Lazarus now, and Cas has done all that he can do to help, save for stay there by their side while they go through it all, while they fight to fix the things that they can.

Cas is letting out a shaky breath, looking up at Lazarus. And even as he opens his mouth to say something, to check if Lazarus is okay, they’re leaning in and kissing him. Being kissed by Lazarus will never stop feeling magical, Cas thinks. He’ll never get over it. It’s soft, and tender, and full of emotion in a way that’s just a little bit alien with them. More intense, even in it’s gentleness. He doesn’t know how Lazarus keeps finding ways to surprise him, to make him feel like the luckiest person to ever walk this earth. Yet here they are, doing just that, over and over again. 

“Jovi.” He breathes, and now it’s his turn to sound worshipful. It’s the most beautiful word he’s ever heard. Because it belongs to them. It’s their name, something that Grizzly had thankfully been able to give them, after so long fo not knowing. And he aches for them, the way it doesn’t quite feel like theirs. But it feels right, when Cas says it. Jovi, like a prayer. It feels familiar in a strange way, like he’s heard it before, like it’s the only thing he should ever be calling Lazarus. “It’s beautiful.” He says, and it sounds… like he could drown in how much he cares, for them. 

He smiles, and it feels like a delicate thing, and then he shifts close again, to pull them into another hug. It isn’t too tight, not forceful. Just a gentle thing. “I like it, I––” He could say so much, about how much he cares, about how important Lazarus is to him. But those things can stay unspoken. Laz knows enough. Jovi knows enough. They have to know that Cas wouldn’t be standing here, if love didn’t keep piling itself up in his chest, waiting to be showered down on them. “I think it suits you. Jovi.”  

...

It’s never been like this before, in all of the times they’ve taken from someone else, or even the times they’ve given. It’s never felt nearly this intimate before, this personal. It’s always been a thing of necessity, something that they had to do for one reason or another, because of obligation or because they needed it to keep going. They don’t really know if anything else will ever compare now, and they’re not mad about it in the least. That’s the thing about Cas, they’ve realized, somehow he just keeps giving them things they hadn’t even been aware they were missing. The gentleness, the tenderness, the acceptance and willingness to give them time. And now a sort of intimacy they hadn’t really considered could come from their powers, but now that they’ve felt it they don’t know how it’s not something they ever thought of, even when they considered how serious the power of life and death is. Because being willing to give someone a bit of your life to heal them is pretty fucking huge in their eyes. 

And they get it, because they’d do the same for him, too, would be happy to take any pain they had to if it meant that he could feel less of it. Which they will, later, once they deal with a few zombies, feels well enough to handle giving up more without falling on their ass. They think that’s a pretty damn good analogy for all of this, a give and take, something they hadn’t really let themself do before now, everything a little too selfish. The kiss they share says as much, or at least they try to put that feeling into it, that emotion behind it.

It sounds different when he says it, sounds much more like a name, their name, than a weird, foreign word that they honestly think might be a little too ridiculous to be their real given name. He says it sounds beautiful, and they’re inclined to believe him, because that’s what they give each other honesty, so if he says it’s beautiful, that he likes it, that it suits them, then it must. They feel that newly familiar tightness in their throat springing up again, and it feels dumb to be so damn emotional over names, but it feels important in a way they can’t really put into words. Cas sharing his, a name he chose himself, a name that gave him the freedom to be who he is, and Lazarus giving theirs, too, a name that doesn’t feel entirely their own, but means fucking everything after five years of knowing nothing about themself. 

They hold him up when he pulls them into another hug. It’s gentle, full of so much care they can hardly handle it. It’s easy to forgot for a moment that there are dozens of people around, that there’s so much going on still, still things they need to do before the night ends, when they have their arms around Cas. “You think so?” they ask quietly, with a grin, hand moving to his hair, stroking gently. They pull back just enough to be able to look at him, to see all of that emotion behind his eyes, to know just how deeply that care runs between them, even deeper than they think they fully realized. It’s kind of a revelation, this whole night, in a dozen different ways. “It sounds better when you say it. Feels more like maybe I could be Jovi. Thank you...for everything, Cas. Cas. Fuck, I don’t think I’ll be able to stop saying it. I’ve...never really felt so much for someone else, even before I think.”

There’s a compulsion here to tell him everything about what they experienced in the Tower immediately, but they don’t want to taint this moment with any of that right away. This moment is about them, together. It feels like they’ve inevitably taken a step forward in things just now, without planning it, just something to come naturally between them, sharing life force, sharing names, making it clear suddenly just how deep things run between them. Because it’s true, they don’t think they’ve ever felt this way about anyone before. They certainly didn’t feel this way about Matteo, and they know on nothing more than a feeling in their gut that they didn’t feel this way about Clint in the before, that strange thing they still don’t fully understand after the memory hit them. It makes them all the more grateful for Cas, for all he’s given them, that he was willing to let them try again, to go through the difficult moments hand in hand, find a way through. It makes them want to give just as much back. 

“How do you feel?” they ask, after a moment, hand moving to his forehead, brushing the hair back there, touch full of tenderness. “I hope I didn’t take too much.”

Once Lazarus starts getting themself ready for the whole breaking-shit bit of this night out, she grabs a pair of safety goggles from off of the couch and slips them on, then takes a seat up on the back of the couch, her boots on the cushion in front of her. Lazarus may be able to heal themself whenever they want, and she’s not terribly precious about getting a few cuts and scrapes here and there, but she’d prefer to keep her eyes firmly in place and in tact, thank you very much. 

       “Cas is under strict orders that I do not want to hear about any of the smushy stuff that goes on between you two,” she says, waving a hand in their direction. She loves him to pieces, but she knows that if she lets him start rambling about how cute and romantic the two of them are now, she’ll end up hearing way more about the both of them than she can stomach knowing, because the boy is a darling, but he has absolutely no filter. She can be very happy for the both of them without hearing any stories about their romantic bathtime or whatever else they get up to in their free time. 

Cas hadn’t need to intimate out loud that Lazarus could use a little stress relief; she could just tell, from talking to him. That, and she knows how badly she needs it. Thinks probably everyone in the Manor does just about now. She reaches down, picks another glass bottle up off the ground, and lobs it into the air in front of them.

     “Nope, turns out I’m just psychic. I could feel your aggressive aura from clear across the building and knew there was only one thing that would satisfy it. Like any sane person, the only solution was smashing shit to pieces.” 

She grins, after a beat. She can already see that they look a little less tense than they had when she’d first shown up at their door, where they’d been tense and clearly expecting anyone other than her to show up and ask them for some favor, or deliver more bad news. She knows the feeling. And she feels a bit better already, too, as she grabs the bottle of vodka to hog for herself while they’re taking their turn doing the breaking.

     “Nah, I just figured you and I are enough alike that it might be a good time to blow off some steam, and a good way to do it. I needed it, and I figured you were probably the person most likely to enjoy it with me.” 

...

It’s probably not the most responsible thing they’ve ever done, smashing shit to pieces without any sort of protective gear, but it’s definitely not the least responsible thing they’ve ever done, either, and maybe there’s some part of them, that fucked up self-flagellate part left over from their years leading the cult, that won’t be too bothered by a few scratches, or pieces of glass stuck in skin. But they’re not really here to dissect their mountain of trauma right now, anyway, so they let that one lie. This is about breaking shit with Catalyst.

That gives them a laugh, though, hearing that she’s made it clear he can’t tell her about the details of what goes on between them. Probably for the best for her sake, after all, considering they know full well that, Cas being who he is, at least a few people in the manor are bound to end up knowing the intimate details of their relationship, because that is what it is even if they haven’t really had a full sit down DTR or anything. They do still want Catalyst to be able to look at them without throwing up, especially now that she’s decided to let them out of the dog house, so they’re glad Cas hasn’t told her everything.

She throws a bottle their way, and they swing, and hit it, smashing it to pieces easily. “Hm, maybe my sport was baseball,” they mutter, a little interested. Still doesn’t feel exactly right, but their aim with a bat is pretty fucking good. But they think their aggressive aura, even as a joke, probably rules baseball out. “Listen, Mercury is probably in retrograde, or some shit, it’s no wonder you can feel it all the way across the manor. Not my fault the shit I had to deal with in the Tower hit like five separate pieces of my mysterious traumatic backstory.”

It’s teasing, but it’s true, really. They still haven’t full faced what all of that means, what the fuck Mordred could have been trying to tell them about this Maeve person, and what the deal with Clint was. There’s still too much going on to spend a lot of time on their own personal quest, after all, they still got a ghost to talk to first, and a murderer to hunt down.

“Yeah, well, no shit. You deserve to blow off a hell of a lot of steam after everything you did to make that shit happen smoothly. Glad you know I’ve got good taste when it comes to getting that aggression out, too,” they say with a nod, before pointing at her with the bat, and heading back to the couch to sit themself. “You’re up, I’m hogging all the fun.”

Ziggy in the state he is in now, is still something he’s getting used to- not that he much wanted to get used to him this way. There were remnants every now and then, of something sparking vaguely behind his now glossed over gaze, but they were just remnants- pieces left behind but nothing more. When Ziggy does finally step out of the hallway he braces himself for whatever reaction his undead partner may have to seeing him and Lazarus in their living room. He figures after everything that had happened the night before, the chances of him either manhandling him in front of their guest, or turning on Lazarus and ignoring him entirely, were about even. 

Neither ends up happening though, fortunately for Lazarus in both regards. He sticks close to Ziggy though, once he takes Bastet from him, and he doesn’t swarm Lazarus with one of his stomach turning plagues. Resting one hand on his shoulder, he uses the other to lightly scratch behind Bastet’s ear as Lazarus speaks. He was expecting them to start going on just how they planned on doing this- but instead their words take a turn which immediately pulls his attention from Ziggy and the cat in his arms, and back to Lazarus. 

He’d be lying if he hadn’t considered- no prayed that such an option would exist. That Lazarus’s powers would work both ways, and that they could just as easily return life, real life, to someone just as they could take it away. And he nearly jumps into sputtering out a thousand yesses, because of course he’d want nothing more than to have Ziggy back fully, and not just this shell of who he was that was standing next to him. 

Just as quickly as the urge to say yes comes though, his face falls, because things were never that easy. Life couldn’t be given without some kind of a price, and what that price could be for either Lazarus or Ziggy would be his fault alone. If that price meant that Ziggy would never age, or die, he could never do that to him, even though he was living through a much similar life sentence. If Ziggy were actually there, he knew he’d tell him to go with it, to fuck what costs he might have to bear, because being together again was worth it. And Samir is glad, for once in his life, that Ziggy wasn’t actually standing there beside him. 

“I…” he starts before stopping again, giving himself one last chance to back out of the choice he was about to make, before he decides to go on with it. When he speaks again his tone is far more somber, a far cry from the light and boisterous air it usually carried with it. 

“I would assume that you’ve never done that before, yes?” He asks quietly, although he didn’t really need the answer he was certain he already knew. His hand that had been on Ziggy’s shoulder, has moved up to the back of his neck now, where he lightly scratches at the hair he finds there. 

“Since that offer was never made to the others, or to me earlier when I told you about Spencer, it seems a fair assessment it was because you hadn’t considered it until this moment. And that should I be correct, you also aren’t sure just what kind of effect that process would have on either you or him?” 

He’s showing his years, he realizes. He may sound like someone in their early thirties, but in reality he was just over a hundred, with a life’s worth of some hard earned wisdom that came with it. 

“And if all of that were true, and I wasn’t simply jumping to conclusions….” he sighs before glancing back up to Ziggy and that piercing gaze of is, his hand moving to trace against the stubble along his jawline as he does, “then I would imagine you’d understand, why I’d have to decline the gracious offer, no matter how much I’d like to do the opposite.” 

...

There’s a moment where Lazarus thinks he’s going to say yes immediately, the way the hope springs up on his face clear as day, and they can feel their heart racing with it, ready to go ahead and jump into it before they can think the better of offering something like that themself so easily. Better to do it as soon as possible; Ramses might be docile enough now, with the cat in his arms, and Cap’s hand on his shoulder, seemingly keeping him in check, but they’ve seen enough of Morrigan’s resurrections before to expect the unexpected when they’re not under her control any longer. They’d rather they go ahead and take whatever pain they’ll face from resurrecting him fully, and meet the man they have a feeling they’d get along with pretty well, than risk being covered in blood again or worse killed suddenly because they accidentally look at the cat the wrong way.

But just as quickly as they think he’s going to agree, they watch as his face falls, as it seems he thinks more about what that has to mean for all of them, if Lazarus was to do it. And they know that there are a hell of a lot of unknown factors here, that even they can only really guess at what will happen to both of them if they go through with it. It’s not like anything they’ve done before, after all, or they probably would’ve considered it before now, before seeing the way that Cap looks at him, before seeing where they made their life together, the old pictures of them so clearly happy and in love.

When he finally does answer, his tone has changed entirely, and Lazarus finds it impossible not to grow somber, too, frowning as he poses the question to them. They frown, nod lightly, as they watch Ramses lean into the touch as Cap’s hand moves to the back of his neck, like a damn cat himself, especially with the little half growl, half purr he lets out, clearly satisfied with the feeling. It would be an oddly amusing sight if it weren’t for the way Cap’s questioning keeps going. This time, they don’t even try to answer, just keep watching with a frown, considering the question themself, the potential consequences of doing something like that, without knowing what’s going to happen, the potential pain that might come, if they have to ultimately undo it again, because of the effects. They don’t care what happens to them, they’re confident enough about this that they know it won’t kill them, especially with how full up on life force they are from last night with the other zombies, but it’s true they don’t know what state Ramses would be in. 

He comes to the answer with a sigh, as Lazarus watches the way the two of them look at each other, the sadness they can see in Cap’s eyes. They’re silent for a moment, frown deep, wishing that they could answer differently, say that they know how it would be, could guarantee it would be alright, but they could never lie about something as serious as life and death. They watch, as Ramses’s free hand moves to Cap’s neck, a little too rough maybe, but they can tell it’s just a side effect of operating on pure id, before pulling him down a little and pressing an also slightly too rough kiss to his forehead. And, fuck, if they don’t with there was anything they could do to guarantee the fears were unfounded.  

“Yeah, you’re right... I understand, of course, I do...” they swallow hard, looking down at the floor, still frowning. “I haven’t done it before like this. I’ve resurrected someone from death before, and I know what effects that had. It didn’t kill me, and he’s still alive and well out there, five years on. But you’re right, it’s all unknown. I don’t know what happens to me or him when I resurrect someone who’s already been brought back to a sort of half-life. So I understand, too many unknown factors to risk it, when you love someone that much.”

They let out a sigh, before looking back at Captain Covert, maybe a hint of determination in their eyes now, though, knowing the other thing they can offer is a hell of a lot more dangerous to them, but also a hell of a lot more certain for the person on the receiving end. “It’s...a standing offer, though. In case you change your mind, even after he’s back in his grave. I’ve done grave robbing with Morrigan before, and I know what happens when I bring someone back from complete darkness.”