A/N: Like everybody else, at the end of Jyu-Oh-Sei, my beta and I turned to each other and let out a big old "WHAT?"
So I fixed it. Set in the final episode of the anime and beyond, beginning at that exact moment on Hecate where Third has fallen, and Thor has caught him. Spoilers for everything!
He knew what was going to happen the instant Third pulled his gun.
He saw the muzzle press to Third's temple, the tightening of his finger, the quick jerk and the blood and the way Third's eyeballs rattled in their sockets. The way his smile went limp and his hand tightened, then released with a heavy slackness.
He wouldn't let it. He was through with being the person everyone else died around. The ultimate prize, the one for whom everyone else sacrificed. What good was the salvation of the human race if every other goddamn person he cared for was dead?
In the old tragedies, it was only once the Hero's beloveds had passed could he transcend. Or die among them.
Thor kicked. It was vicious and poorly aimed, with almost no momentum. His foot connected with the side of Third's hand, knocking the gun against his head and then away. The shot went wild, grazing Thor's thigh.
As the blood seeped from the wound, Third stared, then swore. He clambered up Thor's body like a monkey, hauling him onto the platform. Thor shuddered, his arms limp and weak, and forced himself to roll, pinning Third under his weight.
Though Third had been combat trained, though Third had a good decade on him, a good half a foot and thirty pounds, he just lay there and let Thor hold him down.
"You are still my Third," said Thor, his shoulders trembling. "Whether you like it or not."
"You need to get out of here. You'll be caught in the blast if you don't move," said Third.
"You're coming with me."
"No. I'm not."
Thor put his hand in the center of Third's chest. "Yes. You are."
Third's eyes narrowed, glittering pale green. "I don't feel any regret about killing her," he breathed.
Thor's chest tightened. "That doesn't mean I want you to die!"
"You killed Blanc Ro over her. Why not me?"
"He's not dead! I never finished him. He's not -"
"You realize I've been manipulating you since you met me. Every word, every action, they were all to make you Beast King. They were all in service to Odin. I molded you into the perfect savior." Third smiled, and it was different on pale lips than brown. His skin seemed fragile, translucent, pink with his blood.
"Every semblance of affection I gave you was a lie. You know that, don't you? I had to make you trust me, and you're such a sweet boy at heart."
Thor shook his head, exhausted with confessions, feeling his throat close. "Nobody can lie for that long."
"I can and I have. If we're being honest here, I hate you. Thor Klein."
Thor shuddered. The words sank into him like blows. He was the reason Third accepted the mission, for a prize that no longer existed. He used years of Third's life to become Beast King, and Third had been denied his recompense.
But the ground beneath them was shuddering, the temperature rising. And he could feel the hard, cold detachment in Third's voice like a veil.
He took Third's hand and put it to the edge of his wound, the burning slice the bullet had carved up the outside of his thigh.
"You should have known this wasn't actually life-threatening. A scratch, nothing more," he breathed, leaning forward. "That I could have pulled myself up on my own if you had let go."
Third dug his fingers into Thor's leg. Thor hissed as sharp, bright pain blossomed at his touch.
"You need to get out," he said.
"You need to come," said Thor. "You are my Third."
"I gave my life to you," said Third. "And you still want more? You selfish brat."
Thor winced. He grabbed Third by the collar and got up, hauling him to his feet. He looked up into those green eyes, which were once such gentle brown. "I always thought you were crazy. For supporting me. You betrayed me so often, in so many little ways, I began to think a bigger one wasn't possible. You scared me into believing in you."
Third grinned. He took a step backward, so Thor's arm extended.
The first blast shook the building, and Third bolted forward, catching Thor in the chest and barreling him toward the exit.
Thor realized too late that Third was shielding him, that the heat he felt on the back of his neck was mitigated. That the smell of cooking meat was coming from Third.
The rest of the crew was waiting. They grabbed at him, and Third, pulled them up and darted out of the blast range.
Above the roar of the propellers, Thor could hear the crew screaming at one another as they tended to Third. But he could only watch as Third's eyes took a dull sheen, and fluttered closed.
Even his eyelashes were pale.
Once, Thor had nearly died. Third had revived him, compressed his chest, beaten his face until he'd started to breathe.
That was how Third worked, compassion and violence entwined, like every man that survived more than a season on Chimera. He could talk smoothly and make anything sound like truth. He could have had any woman he wanted, even if he hadn't been handsome.
Had he fathered a child, however, it would have been far too pale. White as snow. White as Thor. The controversy would have been worse than the responsibility.
Thor looked down at his own hands and was startled to see the darkness of his own skin.
Wryly, he smiled. A fine time for him to adapt to the place he'd decided would be his home. He could have used it, in the previous hot summers under unforgiving sun.
He looked at his own hands instead of Third. The smell of meat and blood was almost overpowering, and he didn't want to see those green eyes go gray and dry.
Thor let someone take care of his bullet wound. It had already dried, the skin knitting together. The hands applying the bandage were methodical, efficient.
Time passed in tiny moments. The glimpse of the stars outside the window. The shuddering stop as they docked. The smell of circulated air, so neutral, so sterile.
The sound of Tiz's voice in his ear, the smell of her breath, the warmth of her skin. Asking him to come be with her, to finally make their family.
He closed his eyes and knew she was gone.
"He's going to make it."
Thor blinked, looking up at a white-coated medic. "He's -"
"Heather. He's going to live."
"I want to see him." Thor rose to his feet, sorrow and hope mingling in his gut.
The medic nodded, and led the way.
"It was a lucky thing they got him here so quickly," said the medic, sounding easy, conversational. "It's much harder to revive someone who has given up. Human will has always been a doctor's best tool."
"Human will?" echoed Thor, the phrase heavy in his mouth. He was the Beast King, of a planet with a moral system that was in the process of collapse.
The medic hummed, "Yes. But he should be up and about in no time."
Thor had his doubts, his mouth and nose still filled with that smell. The thick knowledge that Third had his flesh burned away.
But when the medic brought him to the viewing window of the ICU, Third lay on his stomach, the skin of his back as clean and pristine as it was the day he was born.
Thor pressed his hands to the glass and shuddered out a breath, creating a circle of fog. He recognized all of the machines around Third, had nearly forgotten about them in his years on Chimera. How primitive they seemed, compared to replicators that could grow new skin in minutes from the patient's own cells.
"How long?" he murmured.
The medic looked over. "You think I haven't heard about you, Mister Klein?"
Thor turned, frowning. "I'm taking him."
"I'd prefer you didn't steal him before we have a chance to make sure his body doesn't reject the artificial proteins," said the medic mildly. "And if you'd be so kind, don't tell me you're going to take him. Plausible deniability."
Thor's frown deepened. The medic murmured, "He's still enlisted. He's military property. The authority of the Beast King doesn't override the bureaucracy that supports Chimera."
Thor pushed himself away from the window, his hands closing into fists. "You will tell me when he can be moved."
"From a purely medical standpoint, of course," agreed the medic, tucking his hands behind his back. "If you were to guard him, here, you wouldn't be disturbed."
The medic, easy as anything, turned his back on him and walked away.
Thor narrowed his eyes, but turned back to look through the glass, watching Third breathe. Even, measured, albeit shallow. He could see the moisture from Third's breath on the inside of the oxygen mask. Third was warm. Third was always warm. The challenges he'd stared down at Thor were always undercut with a hint of heat. Desire for power, for success, for order. It would have been easy to mistake it as desire for touch.
Third could have fathered a child with any woman he wanted. But he abstained, for the mission. For Thor. Thor had his douts that Third would have become a father even without those directives. Certainly not on Chimera. Perhaps, if he could have, on Earth.
Thor didn't know how long he waited, watching Third breathe, but he was jolted out of his meditation when a group of medics walked by, led by the one that had talked to him before.
He managed to catch him saying, "Well, now he's stable enough we can move him to a regular bed. But let's wait until morning, just in case."
Thor felt the adrenaline rush through him, down to his tingling fingertips.
He counted to a thousand. Then to two thousand. He waited in the white noise made by constant whirring machinery, the noise he'd tuned out as a child, the noise that had made the silence on Chimera thunder through him.
Then, alone, he crept into the ICU and began to unhook the machines, carefully turning them off so they wouldn't sound alarms. Up close, the new skin on Third's back was even paler than the rest of him, almost blue. The scars on his sides stopped abruptly at the borders of his new flesh.
Thor lifted him gingerly, almost expecting the new skin to slide away like a sheet. When it didn't, he wrapped Third in the blanket, balanced Third over his shoulder and walked, calmly, to the elevator.
He knew it was foolish. He knew he should have been stopped.
But he wasn't.
On the descent, Third moaned.
"We're going home," said Thor firmly.
"You son of a bitch," breathed Third, his breaths shallow with pain.
Thor hummed. "You never knew my mother."
Third laughed, rough and wry. "Put me down."
"Can you stand?"
"Does it matter? I'm not letting anyone see you carry me like this." He hissed as Thor lowered him. "You didn't even get me a coat. It's still f-freezing down there."
"Use the blanket until we can find you something better. I'm carrying you out. You're barefoot." Thor lifted his chin.
Third eyed him, hunching. He wrapped the blanket tightly around himself and winced. "Fine. Ow, hell."
Thor rolled out his shoulders. "You realize what I've done?"
"You've damned me to this miserable planet," breathed Third, closing his eyes. "And you're probably going to die before I do. But first I'm going to have to line up every woman on this rock for you to fuck."
Thor grunted, looking away. "I'm not going to force you do that."
"Aren't you? You're it. The perfect specimen. You are going to make babies until you're as dry as a reed." Third straightened, groaning, and tilted his neck until it cracked. "And I know that. You've got to propagate the species. A race that can survive on this plant-infested rock."
"You feel that responsibility?"
"I've borne it since I took the mission, Thor. It's like an old glove now."
The elevator doors opened and the cold rushed in. Thor lifted Third and put him back over his shoulder. Unresisting, Third only grunted.
There were a lot of questions to meet them. Some mistook Third for Thor at first glance. Only then did he realize his hair was going dark at the roots.
Under his breath, he said, "I'm turning into you."
Third smirked, and hissed, "You miss me already."
"You are my Third," said Thor, "Whether you like it or not. You have a new mission, now."
Third ran his hand down Thor's leg, to the bandage. He squeezed. It didn't hurt like it had before, only a dull ache under Third's touch.
"Until death, my Top," he breathed, beginning to shiver.
"That," said Thor, "will be some time still."
