#h0dgep0dgee

Auspicious

first He tells you He’s been having nightmares

(you have those - bodies and bullets)

(oil caked in layers on your hands)

“about the War?” you ask, you ask, because you can only assume He fought, was drafted, but He shakes His head, harsh, and you pry His fingers from His palms, where His nails crowd crescents into His skin,

“No, Peter, no, not the war,” He manages once you’ve linked His hand in yours, you don't know how else to make Him stop short of forcibly cutting his too-long nails in the midst of whatever this is, “I was hardly in it,”

and you can see the way His shoulders are shaking, and you wonder if peter felt like this whenever you pounded on his door in the night,

(you would,

you would do that,

too often, perhaps,

you would pound on peter's door, until the he swung it open,

until peter stared at you, blocking his room,

you could always still see his mary staring at you from peter's bed, her hair done up in curlers, livid again at you,

for doing this again,

again,

you keep doing this,

and peter would have to walk you back to your room as you shook,

as you couldn't stop the words pouring from your lips, peter the only thing holding you up as you legs threatened to give beneath you,

and peter would have to sit you down on your bed, stay there until you remembered how to breathe around the gunsmoke that never really left your throat,

he’d need to hold your sobbing body against his, and you’d just wish he could stay, stay, stay like you used to when he was young and couldn't sleep, stay like you did when you’d stay in his bed and fight his dragons with wooden swords until the sun rose,

but once he was sure you weren’t going to collapse in on yourself, he’d leave, he’d always leave, leave you, return to his room with you in the dark, for mary, mary, mary,

you wonder if this is how peter felt.

when you did all that)

“yeah?” you say, as Ignatius looks at you with wild eyes, wet eyes, cornered,

“I was raised by my aunt, Peter, because my father was killed by his—” Ignatius stuttered, as He spoke, then,

(and, you know now, you know and this is the last time you could have backed out,

and you should have, you should have,

but instead)

you hold his hand as tight as you can, as he leans into you, shaking like the winter has wormed into His bones,

and you

knew then

you knew, as you exhale, sharp, panicked,

that He trusts you

“I don't— he’d said she was his wife, Peter, he’d said she was his wife, my mother- was dead, by then, a fever, years prior, I was young, perhaps five, six, but— he’d—”

and you knew, as you pulled Him against you, clumsy about His elbows, awkward, you’ve never held anyone, peter never needed to be held, never since he was small, and you’re out of practice,

but you knew,

you trusted him too

(you held him, then

that night,

you held him,)

“She was tall, too tall, Peter, my father was short, Peter, but she was— she towered, beside him, and her hair was brown, matted, like a— like a street dog, all— it was falling out, manged, and her hands— he was holding one of hers, as she stood there, it was too long, Peter, and her eyes were wrong, all green, there was only green, I don't know what he did, Peter, but he’d— there was something wrong with her.”

He’d fallen against you then, clawing with His free hand at your back, shuddering,

and you are all He has, you think

you are all He has,

“I don’t know what I saw, Peter, I don't, I was too young, I think, but she— he took her out of the basement, of that house, he had then. I was never allowed down. But Peter—”

and His voice breaks, shatters like a splintering piece of wood, cracking, “He called her his wife, Peter, and her face it— cracked? twisted?”

“Ignatius,” you say, and you don't know what to say, but He’s shaking and you—

what would peter do? you think, hate yourself for it, that even now, you look to him,

but you don't know how to help, you don't know what to do other than keep His hand in your own, than to wrap your other arm around Him,

“Peter, no, listen, please,” and He’s shaking, “Tell me I'm insane, if I am, Peter, he called her his wife, and she turned, more- more than something living can, it was when he said wife, and her eyes, Peter, I remember seeing his shadow on the wall, the light from them was so bright as she— reached into him? and pulled— out his heart, Peter, his blood, Peter, it— the woman, the thing, it drank his blood, it ate his heart, it— if I am insane Peter, tell me, please, and then it looked at me and it—”

He's looking at you, now eyes wide, hair a mess, shaking, shaking,

“I was sure it would kill me, too, but it dropped him, my father, as it saw me, and— I don't— I don't know, Peter, I-”

but you know.

you know.

your father told you as much

what green matter does to those who it infests

(and you know, looking back now, at this moment, you chose what would happen from here,

you offered him the apple,)

“your father was thaddeus becile,” you say, as He shudders there, in your arms, “and— Ignatius? I think I have a rather certain idea, what that was,”

(you offered him the apple, and with desperation he bit into it.)

Spectant

“‘Natius?” Peter says, dimly, softly in the dark, rolling towards him in the bed, away from the window, “Are you awake?”

And to his surprise, Ignatius hums, quietly, sort of vaguely says something Peter can't quite parse with how mumbled it is.

“….I'm restless ” Peter says, perhaps a little too loudly for how heavy the night is, “I— are you..?”

Ignatius’s eyes flicker open, green in the dark, slightly brighter in ambient reflection than they should be, as Ignatius looks across at him.

“…Peter,” He mumbles on the R a bit, and Peter nearly feels guilty for waking him, but only nearly. “If I lit the lamp, Peter, to look at the time, would I kick you to the spare room?”

Which is perhaps a fair point.

He doesn't know how early it is, but it feels well past midnight.

Instead of answering, Peter shifts across the mattress, so he's closer, reaches at Ignatius’s arm.

“I can't sleep.” He admits, there are plenty of things that keep him up at all hours. Ignatius knows plenty of them.

Tonight it's a little less blood and bullets and broken robots than usual, though.

Tonight he is just…

He's… just restless.

Ignatius exhales, beside him, a lot tired, a little annoyed.

“You never do sleep, Peter,” Ignatius mumbles, though he’s urging Peter closer, guiding him to his chest, “Not once have I known you to lay down and sleep in a straightforward manner, always walking circles around closing your eyes.”

He tucks Peter's head under his chin, kicks the blankets out of his feet before dragging the blankets atop of both of them.

“What will I ever do with you?” Ignatius purrs into his hair.

Peter starts to say something, or starts to formulate a response grander than ‘I do sleep, you wretched man,’ but Ignatius draws him closer, buries a collection of kisses somewhere beyond his hairline.

And Peter melts.

“And is this better?” Ignatius asks, and he’s so very tired, Peter can tell, as Ignatius's head falls sideways to the pillow, “Are you attended to now, Mr. Walter?”

He smells a bit like electricity, a bit like smoke, a lot like him.

“Yes.” Peter says into his neck, and Ignatius’s kisses taper off as Peter settles against him.

Ignatius squeezes him.

“You are ridiculous.” Ignatius mumbles, though his hands curl around Peter's back, “Keeping me up at all hours. I have business to attend to, and… work, presumably, in the morning, Peter, and yet you insist yourself upon me,”

He presses his face into Ignatius’s chest. Ignatius curls around him.

“You have the poorest survival skills I can imagine,” Ignatius continues, pausing only to press another wayward kiss to his temple, “Can't sleep without me. You'd simply… I don't know, Peter, shrivel up and die, and I can't be having that. I'm much too fond of you.”

Maybe he can get a little sleep.

“I love you.” Peter says, and it's far from the first time he’s said it, but he hears Ignatius laugh, fond, low in his chest.

“Go to sleep, Peter.”

Maybe, he..

Ignatius is warm. The blankets are heavy.

He’s always slept better when not alone.

“…Don’t kick me in the dick again while you thrash, Ignatius,” Peter mutters, “I won’t forgive you a second time.”

“It was one time.” Ignatius mutters into his hair.

“It was twice.”

“The first one hardly counted.” Ignatius’s hands curl into the fabric of his nightgown, holding him close.

“Yes. But thrice is a pattern.” Peter points out.

“You are dreadful, Peter Walter. Waking me up only to complain of my charity of holding you. I am a generous man, you know,”

“Generous with the gouges you leave in my shins kicking the blankets to and fro.” He mumbles.

“I will turn you out to the cold.”

“You will not.” Peter argues, pulling away from him an inch, to glance up at his face.

Ignatius, the wretch, is grinning at him, doubly so as pulls the blankets off of them, and he is terrible. Peter reaches backwards for the quilt, but Ignatius has flung it out the other way, out of easy reach, the petulant bastard.

“Ignatius.”

“Not very tended to now, are we, Peter?” Ignatius raises an eyebrow, in the dark, and Peter squints at him.

“I was comfortable.”

“Yes well, so was I, before you woke me up, darling,”

Peter just turns his face back down and into Ignatius’s chest.

“Are we going to be nice now?” Ignatius’ fingers card through his hair, and—

He loves him.

He loves him.

“I thought you were generous.” Peter complains, “Let's revisit charity for me?”

“Are we being nice now?”

“I’m cold.” Peter complains, though he’s not actually, only slightly, but Ignatius sighs, dramatic, weary and played up as he swings the blankets back over the both of them.

“You’re quite lucky I am generous, Peter, elsewise we’d be at an impasse."

“You’re just petty.” Peter mumbles, eyes tired, for once.

“You’re just tired, Peter,”

And maybe he is.

He didn’t particularly sleep last night, either.

Ignatius wraps them both up, tucks the blankets under both their feet, holds him.

Holds him.

“….I love you too, Peter.” Ignatius says, soft, “More than anything.”

Peter squeezes him back.

“Forever, Peter, I love you.”

He knows.