"I'm grateful, in a way, for Julia." John says, at long last, breaking the silence between them. He's twisting the leaf in his fingers, and he's not looking at Merle. "I almost wish I could have met her then."

"Don't even really think she was alive yet." Merle responds, automatically. "Never met her til I got here either." He thinks about it, head tipping sideways. Beside him, Merle can spot John turning to look at him, at three quarters profile, just listening. The green of the lilies reflects off the silver sand and it's thrown across his face like a stripe of pale sun. "Magnus loved her, still does, more'n anything else I suspect, and that must mean she was just as good then as she is now."

John's expression folds, but only by a fraction. His forehead wrinkles in thought, and he closes his hand around the leaf. "She's kind to me, the way the others, your friends, seem to hesitate on."

"Well, that's Lucretia for you. That girl could hold a grudge longer than I can."

"You can't hold a grudge at all, Merle." John responds, and Merle is more surprised than anything else that John has the beginnings of a smirk crossing his face. He bites at his lip, trying to hide his own smile at the thought of that, and dips his chin down close to his chest.

"Guess that's just my nature, huh?" Merle says, quietly. He gives John the briefest look, and catches the human studying his expression. "I'm only surprised about Magnus. He's got a heart bigger than his head. Figuratively, I think. Do we still, technically, have hearts anymore?"

John opens his mouth to speak, but honestly, Merle figured John knew about as much as he did on the metaphysical aspect of the Astral Plane. This isn't exactly his forte.

Instead, Merle changes the subject. The silence was deafening, the roar of the Sea raging against the silver sand, the wind blowing like it always did, and Merle and John at the eye of it, surrounded by storm on all sides. "Did you arrange the planter, inside? On the window in the kitchen?"

John falls silent. That's a guilty enough answer, and Merle knows he has him. "What kind of flowers are they?"

"Scorpion grass. Myosotis sylvatica ."

Merle looks at him funny. "Is that what you call them on your plane?" He lets out a soft bark of a laugh. "They're forget-me-nots. You gave Lucretiaforget-me-nots . You know, those are her favorite flowers?"

"I," John begins. He flushes, and Merle thinks he rather likes the way John looks like that. "I recognized them from her needlepoint. Thought she'd like them."

"And you recognized them from the seed alone? Wow." Merle huffs, "You really know more about your flowers than you've been letting on." He leans his elbow on the deck railing, and John glances back at him. "Where has this been hiding?"

"What do you think I did with my life?" John asks, suddenly, and his gaze becomes distant, fixed on a point far off. He closes his mouth, and the corners of his mouth turn down. "The plants weren't anything you'd be familiar with, but I began to study them," he takes a step toward Merle, and Merle gives him a laugh, off balance in a way he can't otherwise replicate, hand outstretched halfway down the length of the railing. It's as far as he can reach. John doesn't seem to mind.

He sounds relieved in a way; "Man, I should be flattered, but you know what. I'm surprised. A guy like you, with a green thumb? Green eyes maybe. Back then too. You weren't, you know, literally green-eyed, but there was a touch of jealousy there."

"Oh, and there was no jealousy on your end?" John asks, and he takes another step, his stride long, and somehow he's not anywhere closer than he'd been. It's a slow slinking move to the side, and John slides his arm up the railing. His fingers just about brush Merle's and it's electrifying. He doesn't pull away this time, and John takes another step. It brings him right to the bottom of the stairs, and Merle inches toward him, tips of his toes hanging over the edge.

Merle's face screws up in a grin, and he's closing the distance between their hands. "Oh, what did I have to be jealous about?"

"Your friends left?" John asks, not answering his question, and he's casting a sideways look toward the shore, toward the dock. Their footprints stop a few yards before the shore, as if they just evaporated.

"Yeah, they had some big job to do somewhere out there." Merle says, and gives a shrug, mouth still pulled into a smile "Guess they can't be too close to the house to get out of here."

John doesn't move, and Merle wonders if he's worried about the Reapers coming to get him again. He doesn't bring it up, and somehow he feels like that might be worse than asking would have been.

"There's some kinda teleportation spell blockage surrounding us." Merle adds, and watches John's expression twitch. He knows. He must have tried it once. It strikes Merle as odd that no one's used magic here before, but also that he doesn't know whether John had his own source of magic before everything, or also technically, after everything too. His smile fades at the realization.

"It's to stop the dead from escaping," John says, flatly. "You should have asked your friends about that."

"Would they have said anything, or would they have assumed I'd know?" Merle asks, with a cock of his eyebrows. "Magnus and Julia don't know or use magic," he gestures to the cabin. "Maybe that's intentional."

"Mm." John grunts an affirmation, and Merle has never heard him without a quick retort, or even without a response at all. "The only things allowed in the Astral Plane to have magic must be under the Raven Queen's control."

"Huh. You kept those plants alive with your own hard work." Merle says, and he sounds surprised. It feels like a fist has clenched somewhere in his guts, and it keeps tightening, especially when that thought flits across his mind. "Forgive me for being shocked."

John doesn't respond, but that's fine enough. Merle's hand closes around his own, and the twisting in his gut tightens painfully. It takes him a second to catch his breath, and he's just there, beside John, who doesn't seem to have realized what kind of hell Merle is in, and he sighs, once, softly. "I'm kidding, you know."

John's hand relaxes in his, and he gives it a squeeze, flat against the railing. "I've changed for the better since I've known you." Merle can't find the words to say to that, but his chest fills with heat, and he's finding it hard to breathe again. When John looks at him, his expression tightens, and for a second, Merle can almost know what he's thinking, but when Merle tries to speak, all that comes out is a choked breath.

John is just, staring at him, almost worriedly. "Need a minute, Merle?" That gets a hesitant kind of smile to cross his features, and Merle hazards a thought about when John's smiles became less a threat and more genuine. Genuine enough to almost send him into cardiac arrest, or at least what feels like it. His chest still aches, even after Merle's lips quirk up in a half hearted copy. "I'm not going to kill you, you know."

"I figured." Merle answers, his free hand pressed to his chest. He gasps again, incorporeal ghost lungs filling with much needed astral oxygen or whatever it is they breath now. He heaves another breath, grateful for the sea air, even if it's tainted by the burning ozone smell of souls. He never really figured souls have smells, til he got here. Now it's all pervading, sneaking into the cabin. One gets used to it quickly out here. The green cuts the silver in half, and Merle finds it incredibly grounding. He doesn't get as dizzy when he's standing in between the plants, when he can tell where the sky ends and the island begins. He wishes it were the same with John.

Merle wishes he knew what John was thinking. He wishes John put him on equal footing from the beginning, figuratively, at least. He still wants to kiss John, but the sensation is ebbing. His fingers twitch, toward John's, but he doesn't move an inch. Maybe he's waiting for John to close the distance, or maybe for the sun to set. He thinks about it. No sunset here. Just the rest of forever. Merle thinks about kissing John. He thinks about what could have happened if he kissed John then, how it could have changed. He thinks about what could have been, if he had taken the plunge and kissed him before he vanished forever.

"Merle?" John asks, and he's got one knee up on the next step, leaning in. That brings him up close to the dwarf. His voice is husky, hoarse in a way Merle thinks he remembers, on the day of Story and Song. His hand, coarser than Merle thought it'd be, but just as cold as it's always been, cards through the dwarf's hair. "Wasn't the fields of asphodels you'd been expecting, was it?" John asks, and his voice is soft. That calming cadence is back, and when he looks at Merle there is an adoration there the dwarf doesn't manage to spot.

"What kind of afterlife doesn't have asphodels?" Merle grumbles, and lets John reel him in. He's laughing, and Merle is caught staring up at him. His long long arms enfold around him, and he's engulfed in the heat of his embrace. The smooth side of his neck, where the crux of his throat meets jaw smells like sweet cologne, and Merle briefly wonders where he got that from, before his hand curves up across the plane of John's bristled cheek. That's a pleasant surprise, the casualness of it, not unkempt the way John was when he was afraid, but in an uncaring of outward appearance relaxed way, and a heat thrums through his gut. He smells so good, the warmth of him and the cologne and the barest hint of green, of chlorophyll, and it's making Merle's head swim. His hands loop around John's neck, and he's breathing the human in. The brush of his cheek scratches in the best way, more pepper than salt, under Merle's fingers when the pads of them swipe up across John's cheek.

"I don't think it matters to me what the Astral Plane holds." John admits, and his too-green eyes are focused on the middle ground between them, and if Merle's not mistaken, there's a heat there too. It's radiating off him like the sun, and Merle finds he wants to kiss him now more than ever. "As long as you're there."

"Uh-huh. Big words from the guy who made the cabin just as homey with all the plants. Not my doing there, bub."

"You made them grow-" John begins to say, and Merle stops him in his tracks by taking his face in his hands, and looking into his perfect green eyes.

"No, John. You made them grow. You brought them up, instead of just letting them wither and die." His brow knits, and an expression John has trouble reading crosses his face, and he gives John a tentative little smile. "You really have changed since I've saw you last, John."

In an instant, John is closing the distance between them, mouth slotting to Merle's like it belongs there, like it fits, perfectly. Merle is hauling him in, fingers grasping at the rough planes of the human's face. His touch is feather light, like he'll disappear if he kisses too hard, and he has to have noticed.

"Merle?" John asks, the second they pull apart, his nose brushing the tip of Merle's, and his voice betrays him. It cracks, in a way that feels unfamiliar but aches just the same. Merle doesn't know if he likes the feeling, but when John's hands ease around his back and his mouth slots so perfectly to Merle's again, he relaxes in the human's embrace. Merle's hand comes down to his chest, circling his collarbone, thumb brushing the hollow of John's throat, and he's seeking some kind of heat in the sweet corners of the human's mouth, and Merle finds he tastes something like honeysuckle, and a hunger rises in him, ravenous, that's gathering Merle upright onto the human's knees, and crushing John's mouth to his own, and climbing astride him so he can taste and touch and love more of him. Merle's other hand climbs his shoulder and curls around the back of his neck, fingers twisting in his hair. He's ravenous for the touch, the surging heat that slugs through him, and John is just as eager to give it to him.

He has Merle wedged between his chest and the top of the steps, and it's only when he draws back to breathe, Merle catches a glimpse out of the corner of his eye, of the rest of the cabin's occupants rushing from the window to hide the fact they were watching. The telltale back and forth wave of the curtains is evidence enough that someone has hidden from view behind them. Merle checks to see if John has noticed, but he's distracted enough, mouth so close to Merle's. His nose brushes Merle's cheek, and he's breathing slowly, steadily. And his gaze is heavy in a way the dwarf doesn't know if he could match, or if he already is .

His hand is warm all of a sudden, inviting, curling along just at the nape of his neck. John is pulling him in in an instant, bringing his mouth to Merle's.

"Wait-" Merle glances down and John's arm, just under his, tenses. This feels familiar, this crescendo building higher and higher, in a way that chokes the breath out of Merle, a grief too deep to name yawning wide in him.

"I just." Merle says, to break the silence, a shaking fist twisting John's lapel. He eases in, eyelids half closed, and tips his head to the side. Merle's voice is something shy of a whisper when he puts his lips to John's. "Want it on even footing."

John grunts a reply, something monosyllabic not even worth wording, and Merle presses in once more, mouth meeting John's. His head tips, and John plunges his tongue into his mouth. He freezes for a split second, mind reeling, willing himself to relax, his heart to stop pounding like it's liable to explode at any second. All at once it hits him, the memory of Davenport. It threatens to swallow him whole and he's teetering there on the edge for what feels like forever, and a small part of him feels like it's betraying the gnome, memories flashing before him, in his mind's eye. He fights the feeling, but it's getting the better of him. Merle's eyes clench shut. John's knuckles brush his cheek, and it snaps him out of it. He covers John's hand with his own and pulls it to his mouth, lips pressing to his knuckles. A laugh bubbles out of him like an ache, and he drops his forehead to John's shoulder. The human's arms don't even twitch away, even after Merle's fingers release his hand. John lets his hand drop before lifting it once more, and tucking the bruised leaf behind Merle's ear.

"I like it better when you're covered in foliage." John says, and it takes Merle a second of staring at him to realize it's a joke . That nearly gets his heart to stop in his chest. There's something in the way John looks at him that makes his chest tighten, and for a moment Merle wishes he had something he could talk about easily. He thinks about the locust tree somewhere behind them, and how the heady scent of the blooms is carrying through the breeze all around them, much stronger than it had been moments ago. Even so, the cabin blocks the worst of the wind from hitting them. That's good, in a way, even if Merle does enjoy the windblown look John seems to be sporting any time he's outside, which is more often than not anyway.

John is handsome , Merle knows, but it's when he smiles that Merle discovers he truly is in love. The way his green eyes sparkle, only so rarely, the seriousness giving way to a kind of mischief that Merle finds irresistible. The red wind chapped strip of flesh that dapples across John's nose and cheeks is inelegant in its way, but it suits John, and it makes him look more alive, and the irony is not lost on Merle. He loves it, the way he finds he loves the rest of John's features. The heaviness of his brow, and each line where his forehead knits, and the way his hair, dark and full, falls across his forehead, almost over his eyes. It never used to do that. Impeccable, perfect John would never have let a single hair be out of place, but now, but now , this man was as far flung from the Hunger as he could possibly be. The five o clock shadow that's growing, casually, the way one would when they intentionally want the look, the beginnings of a beard, the unshaven lines of his face, it's all so endearing , and Merle finds he loves him for it.

The curve of his mouth would be labeled bitter by anyone who didn't know him, but Merle knows, and Merle can see the unhappiness dissipating, the way it's melting from his mind and body, ever so slowly, leaving hollow points that Merle is intent to fill with love, to fill with warmth and happiness and whatever else John needs or wants to be filled with.

It's like Davenport in a way, except with him there were sharp edges to be sanded down and hard places to be softened. John needed so much rotcleared out and replaced with fresh green new life. His hard places needed to be broken down, built back up. Again, the irony of that statement strikes Merle.

John doesn't have a response, instead tipping his mouth to the side, and capturing Merle's lips with his own. Merle's hand cups his jaw, and when he opens his mouth to it, he's seeking out the soft places that will make John gasp. It's almost muscle memory that leads him on, except this is wholly new. Merle's breath comes in short bursts when he pulls back. John's fingers are entangled in his beard. He doesn't want to pull too far away, in case this moment ends and he wakes up.

A small voice in his head asks about Davenport, but Merle squashes it down, pulling John to him once more, the howling of the wind around the cabin that shields them nearly drowned out by the blood rushing in his ears and the pounding of his ghost heart.