"Hey kiddo, you wanna talk?"
Peter lifted his head from his arms.
Scott looked concerned. He always looked concerned these days. Or was it just today? Peter couldn't be sure anymore; he'd had a breakdown at some point when he glanced at a clock and after that Dr. Pym had covered all of them.
Inside the containment cell, there was no concept of time. The month felt as if it should have ended already, but he was sure someone would have told him if Christmas had come and gone. His aunt, surely, would have mentioned it. Had she? He'd spoken to May three times in recent memory. Two of the conversations had been identical.
The S.H.I.E.L.D agents assisting Dr. Pym were also identical, or maybe they were all totally different, Peter couldn't focus on them long enough to tell. Fury and Maria Hill appeared and disappeared in his periphery from time to time, but rarely approached. New monitors had been mounted on the walls, new scanners hooked into place.
When was the last time he'd eaten? Slept? Showered? Seen Quin?
"...Not really." Peter said, finally.
"Okay." Scott exhaled, hands on his hips. "You wanna hear about the first time Hope and I teamed up?"
"Oh here we go again." Dr. Pym grumbled. "Don't believe a word he says, kid, he's all talk."
Hope smiled.
Peter smiled too, faint as it was.
"Yeah. Sure."
Scott grinned and grabbed a chair, dragging it up to the glass so he could begin his tale. Peter rested his chin on his arms and listened with only half his attention.
He wondered if Scott knew this was the third time he'd told this story, or if it was just the third time Peter had blipped his way into hearing it.
Peter was first aware of fluorescent lights above him, then a loud clatter from somewhere to his left. He blinked dazedly up at the dilapidated ceiling and, lowering his gaze, found himself to be in the canned goods aisle of a supermarket.
Quentin Beck stood at the end of the aisle to his left, an upturned shopping basket at his feet.
"Quin-" Peter began, relieved and terrified all at once. His heart leapt to see Quentin again, yet twisted with anxiety when he remembered how their last meeting ended.
Before he could finish his thought, whatever it may have been, Quentin rushed him. There was little for Peter to do besides brace for the incoming impact and hope he wasn't about to have his nose broken. But instead of being punched, he found himself crushed to Quentin's chest.
"You're here," Quentin rasped.
He let go as quickly as he'd grabbed him, leaving Peter in a daze. Shaking hands skidded up his arms, fluttered down his chest and then abruptly skipped back up to his neck. Calloused fingertips skimmed over his face. Quentin's eyes were wide and wild, shadowed beneath unkempt bangs.
"You're here," he repeated, tremor traveling from his hands to his voice. "Oh my god, you're here."
"I- Yeah?" Peter fumbled.
"I thought after everyone- All the dust- Peter, daydream-"
Quentin stopped, his whole body shaking, and then he fell apart. He crumbled to his knees, his head bowed against Peter's belly. A choked sob clawed its way out of his throat.
Peter stood frozen in place, his heart somewhere in the vicinity of his feet.
So this was the world after the Snap.
From the way people talked about it- and they didn't, not ever if they could avoid it -Peter assumed that life had just gone on. He wasn't sure why he'd thought that. Maybe because it was easier. Because otherwise, he had to think about the people left behind.
"Mr. Stark... I don't feel so good-"
There had been this look on Tony Stark's face. An expression so stricken that Peter couldn't bare to think of it. Like the world was ending right in front of him. And it had been. That was the joke of it.
The world had fucking ended and taken Peter with it.
This was what had been left behind. Empty grocery shelves and dead silence. Men broken down the middle, cracked open so only raw wounds remained on the surface.
"You're here."
Only he wasn't. Not really. Peter had known, since the first time he appeared in New York City, that he was out there somewhere. Another Peter Parker, living his life completely oblivious to the future. But not this time.
What was left of Peter Parker was a million miles away on an unnamed planet. A pile of dust.
Quentin didn't know that.
It was this thought that brought Peter back into focus. All that separated this from their prior meetings was the knowledge that his existence here was a contradiction, and since when was that a revelation? Peter wasn't meant to be in any of the times he had been. Each time they found their way back together, it altered a pre-existing reality. Maybe not to this extreme, but it did.
So the Peter Parker of this time had been erased, so what? Peter was here, now, and so was Quentin Beck.
"Quentin..."
He sank to the floor and wound his arms tightly around the trembling man.
"It's okay. It's okay, I'm here." Peter turned his face into Quentin's unwashed hair, hushing him softly as a violent sob wracked his frame. "I'm here, baby. I promise I'm here."
Eventually, Quentin's trembling subsided, but not before tears were shed and bruises gripped into Peter's sides. He didn't mind. Each time Quentin pressed his face to his neck to muffle a sob, he pulled him closer and fluttered kisses against whatever skin he could reach.
They clung to each other, heedless of the passage of time, until they found the strength to part. In silence they collected both themselves and the discarded basket of groceries at the end of the aisle. Not much was in it. A few soup cans, a box of pasta, and a bag of mixed nuts. Peter frowned at the meager assortment, then took Quentin's hand and set off down the aisle.
Sparse offerings lay scattered across half-empty shelves. No one had bothered to straighten anything, there wasn't enough left for it to really make a difference. Peter found a dented can of peaches next to two cans of baked beans and tossed all three into the basket.
The next aisle wasn't much better. A box of saltines, a can of salted peanuts, and a lone box of graham crackers. The aisle after that didn't have anything in it at all.
Peter had once gone to a twenty four hour grocery store with May when they'd taken a very rare road trip upstate. He could remember how unreal and eerie it felt to be walking through a mostly empty shop, standing under the too-bright fluorescent lighting at almost midnight. This, currently, was somehow more unsettling than that.
It wasn't just the barren shelves. No music played to fill the silence. Mist sprayed over a produce section devoid of any produce. There were no carts with squeaky wheels or children throwing tantrums; only the half-stocked freezers made a sound.
Piles of American cheese lay strewn in the refrigerated dairy section. Not stacked or neatly piled, but dumped into the lowest shelves in a disorganized mess. There was nothing else, just American cheese, and it was so fucking bizarre that Peter just stood and stared at it for a solid minute before taking two of the packages.
Only one register bore an open sign. A gray-faced cashier manned the till, her whole body slumped weirdly. She scanned their items mechanically and placed them gingerly in bags, her gaze unfocused and distant.
Peter felt fingers tighten around his palm and turned to look up at Quentin.
He looked... wrecked. Aside from his limp hair, his beard was overgrown and in desperate need of a trim. There were dark smudges under his sunken eyes, giving his face a hollow cast. His clothes were painfully casual, wrinkled and disheveled beneath a heavy coat which he hadn't bothered to close.
It hurt something deep in Peter's chest to see him like this. An invisible weight had settled on his shoulders, sloping them downwards with none of the proud posture he was used to seeing. None of the confidence and charisma Quentin exuded was present now, just a heavy melancholy that hung like fog about him.
No words could do justice to the raw pain Peter saw in his eyes. One look at Quentin told him that there was no measure for the devastation that the Snap had left in its wake.
The cashier may have read their total aloud, but her voice was so quiet it hardly registered. Peter stood on his toes and kissed Quentin's smileless mouth. He didn't kiss back.
They collected their bags, paid with a card, and left at last. If Peter had been hoping for some relief from the oppressive ambiance of the decrepit grocery store when stepping outside, his hopes were thoroughly crushed. Beyond the automatic doors lay a world that reminded him strongly of what purgatory may look like, if it took the shape of New York City.
In the way that hotel rooms all appear identical, yet slightly different from place to place, this New York was the same as he remembered while still being horrifically different. People drifted along the grubby pavement like ghosts, skirting around each other without ever acknowledging another living soul. Rusted bikes clung to signposts by fraying chains; abandoned cars sat awkwardly in the street, half-parked or crashed into other vehicles.
Plots of empty dirt sat forlornly between plots of dead flowers and wilting trees, seasonally barren, but without the hope of spring to come. Now and again they'd walk past random items left to decay on the concrete, innocuous enough if not for the knowledge that their owners had not dropped them willingly. A cell phone, a book, the shriveled remains of a bouquet, a child's moldy stuffed rabbit.
The world was grayer, dulled through a sepia filter. Even the winter wind gusting through the desolate streets seemed melancholy. Stubbornly, a single bookshop they passed had chosen to erect their customary holiday decorations despite the state of the world. The vibrant colors and glistening baubles all fell flat, despite their excess.
Five years from now, Peter would be coming back to a fucked up world. An Earth in shambles, unsteady on its own feet, But it wasn't like this. This was fallout on such a massive scale that it transcended the physical and carved its way into the very souls of humanity.
The world had not just been halved, it had been utterly broken.
Peter kept his head down and tried very hard not to think of his Aunt May, out there somewhere in Queens, alone. If he just found a subway, he could hop trains until he got to his neighborhood and go see her. He could promise her he was coming home. But that would change the past, and who knew if the trains still ran?
Quentin lived in an apartment building with a doorman. Or at least with the counter where a doorman should have sat and a guestbook with a half-filled page of names. There was no doorman and the dates in the guestbook were likely long past.
A sleek black cat with a notch in one ear greeted them at the door. She mewed once, wide green eyes affixed on Peter, who was granted a cursory sniff before she rubbed the length of her body against his shin. He was then promptly abandoned in favor of Quentin, whose legs she wound herself between continuously as he made his way down the hall. This must have been a common occurrence, because he didn't so much as break stride.
The essence of Quentin Beck spilled across the apartment in old movie posters and a living room furnished for entertaining large groups. Moody photographs and eclectic artwork hung in thematically appropriate frames, bunched together in carefully arranged exhibitions. Records and CDs lined shelves alongside books of all shapes and sizes, interspaced with sculpted bookends and the small knick knacks collected in a life thoroughly lived.
In defiance of the bright, creative spirit which clearly inhabited the space, the apartment was gloomy. Thin curtains remained drawn despite the afternoon sun and dust collected atop the keys of the baby grand piano in the corner. Frames had been laid face down on shelves and against the wall, as if Quentin could neither bear to look at nor get rid of their subjects.
Peter dumped their hodgepodge groceries onto the kitchen counter, then opened the cupboards and fridge. All were almost bare, which was probably the only reason Quentin had bothered to go out today. Thank god he'd blipped in then and filled the shopping basket to brimming, because he wasn't positive the kitchen would be any better stocked if he hadn't.
"Do you care where I put things?" he asked, fairly certain the answer was yes.
Quentin paused, one arm still in his coat, deliberated, then shrugged. Peter swallowed a bubble of frustration, rolled up the sleeves of his sweatshirt and got to work.
Negotiating a meal out of the odds and ends they'd purchased shouldn't have been difficult, except that Peter was limited by his own cooking skills. If he ever made it home, he resolved to improve on that in the future. For now, he focused on putting away groceries and running through the short list of meals he knew how to make.
Technically, soup wasn't on that list, but canned soup didn't count, it just needed to be reheated. And while shopping he'd found a lone loaf of bread, the good crusty kind that needed a bread knife. It was a little stale, but Quentin had butter, and Peter could make a mean grilled cheese. Not the most sophisticated meal in the world, but it was going to be warm and filling, which was good enough.
Into a pot went two cans of tomato soup. Peter found a bread knife and sliced thick slabs from the loaf, buttering each individually with the half-stick of butter that was left. He was aware of Quentin at the small breakfast table, watching him. His coat hung from the back of his chair and when he glanced over, Peter was struck by the memory of Quin on the night they'd met.
A lifetime had passed since then. Peter knew that for him it hadn't yet been a month, but he felt as though he'd spent years with Quentin, always two steps behind whatever suffering he had to endure. And it wasn't fair, watching the spark burn out inside him without being able to do anything about it.
Peter dropped two pieces of buttered bread into the hot pan and tore open the American cheese with slightly too much force.
The reality was that the future was fast rushing to meet him. Or was it the present? He didn't know. Worse, he wasn't really sure what would happen when time aligned itself again. Dr. Pym kept frowning and making notations each time Peter noted a blip, but no one ever told him what any of it meant. If he blipped forward, into his own time, would he cease to blip backwards at all? Or would something more cataclysmic, more fatal, occur?
The faster he vibrated, the easier it became to slip through time, and the less stable his temporal being was. When that stability disintegrated, would he simply cease to exist? Or would he be trapped both in and out of time, alive, but incorporeal throughout every era?
It was as these thoughts began to consume him that arms encircled his waist. Peter melted almost instantly. He sagged against Quentin's firm torso, an eye on their sandwiches, but his focus on the length of the body now pressed to his back.
"I missed you." Quentin murmured, his lips brushing the shell of his ear.
If possible, Peter would have melted even further, but his full weight was already resting in the arms around him.
"I missed you too, Quin." he sighed, touching a hand to Quentin's jaw. He turned his head, laying a tender kiss on his cheekbone.
The black cat, whose name turned out to be Rosemary, joined them in the kitchen when it was apparent no one would be coming to give her attention elsewhere. She sniffed at an offering of cheese and chirped, stretching up and hooking her claws into their jeans until someone dropped a hand to scratch between her ears.
Peter stood with Quentin's breathing on his back and Rosemary's purring against his thigh, and was suddenly very glad for the cat's existence. He wasn't sure why, but he got the sense that without her, he may not have met Quentin again at all.
They carried plates of toasty sandwiches and bowls of piping hot soup into the living room to eat. Quentin hunched over his meal and began wolfing it down as though he hadn't eaten in days, which for all Peter knew, could have been the case. He tried not to think on it.
He shucked off his sweatshirt once he was sitting and tossed it over the back of the couch, where Rosemary promptly sat on it. Peter watched in bemusement as she settled herself and extended a hand. She sniffed his fingers, then rubbed her cheek against them, apparently deigning them acceptable petting instruments.
As he scratched under her chin, Peter's eyes were drawn to the mantle behind them. In the center there sat a menorah, candles unburnt. A photograph of Henrietta Beck rested beside it in a simple, age-worn frame.
Henrietta was smiling brilliantly at the photographer, her cheeks flushed with joy. She was wearing a sunhat and a floral dress, on the backdrop of a park at the height of summer. The weariness Peter remembered her carrying was gone and she radiated a warm, feminine beauty that made him ache for a home he'd never known.
"I wish I could have said goodbye to her." he murmured, truthfully.
"She liked you."
Peter turned his head swiftly, startled by the admission.
"She did?"
Quentin glanced up at him.
"Yeah." he said after a moment, before his eyes fell back to his plate. "She worried, after you left. Wondered where you'd gone."
White hot guilt lanced through Peter's chest.
It had been out of his control and he knew that, but there would always be some part of him that wished he could open his eyes and see Quin's star-speckled ceiling again. Just the same as there would always be a piece of him left behind in that hotel room in the middle of a snowstorm.
"I'm sorry." Peter said.
Quentin's broad shoulders rose and fell in a limp shrug. When he spoke again, it was a mumble.
"I worried too."
They ate in silence after that. The cushion's worth of distance between them became a canyon, which Peter was too apprehensive to cross it.
Words unspoken hung like a guillotine above his head. It would be so easy to tell Quentin everything; explain the Snap, the blipping, the future yawning cruelly before them. He couldn't do anything for Henrietta, or A.R.I, or Quentin's job at Stark Industries, but maybe he could fix this. All it would take was risking the fallout of altering a timeline already riddled with holes.
Quentin forewent a spoon and lifted the bowl to his mouth, drinking the last of his soup. Peter watched him, unfinished meal cooling on his plate. What appetite he'd had was gone.
"I've got it." he said, before Quentin had even finished putting his bowl down.
He carried their dishes to the sink, disposing of his unfinished meal as he passed the trash. New York taps always took a little while to warm up, so he stood with his hands braced on the rim of the sink, looking down into the swirling drain. Waiting. How was it that he always felt like he was waiting, even though he never stopped moving?
Peter ran through the motions of washing dishes on automatic, his mind elsewhere. He understood now what Dr. Pym meant about temptation. The risks of altering the timeline just barely edged out the rewards by a paper-thin margin. Self-preservation wasn't stopping him, for all he knew he was bound for non-existence with each additional blip.
The future was, by many accounts, bleak. But what if in trying to fix things Peter only made them worse? He knew himself and ultimately, he didn't have the stomach for the potential consequences of such decisions. Did that make him a coward?
Peter dried his hands and turned back to the living room, where Quentin sat unmoving on the couch. His expression was foggy, eyes glazed as some deep mire of sadness dragged him from the waking world. The sound of Peter's footsteps seemed to rouse him from his apathetic stupor and he looked up, meeting his eye.
The eyes he adored weren't bright anymore. It was like staring into the sea, all froth and gray skies overhead. They could still drown him, but it wouldn't be half as enjoyable.
"You're going to leave, aren't you."
Quentin's words cut through the air and grounded themselves painfully in Peter's heart. That they were a statement, not a question, twisted the invisible blade deeper between his ribs.
Denial sat heavy in the back of his throat, but he couldn't bring himself to offer that much false hope. At that moment, looking at Quentin, he wished more than anything that he could say "no." No, he would say, I'm not going anywhere. I'll stay here with you.
Oh, god.
Peter inhaled sharply.
He wanted to stay.
The realization gripped him and dragged him across the room, until he had Quentin's head cradled between his palms.
"Not yet." he assured fervently. "I'm not gone yet."
"But you will be."
Peter made a wounded noise and pushed into Quentin's space, sinking down into his lap. He kissed him, fingers pressed to his scalp and palms against his cheeks, trying to convey every word he couldn't say aloud. Again and again he kissed him, heartbreakingly tender, the full weight of his body leaned against his. A tear slid down his cheek as finally, finally, Quentin kissed him back.
Perhaps Dr. Pym had been wrong and he wasn't vibrating through time, but through realities. Maybe this New York in all its wrongness wasn't really his New York at all. It would make sense, if only to explain how the man in his arms could possibly become the vengeful spirit haunting his memories.
Huge hands slid up his back, palms hot through his thin shirt. Quentin held him like if he squeezed too tight Peter might shatter in his arms. His gentility was almost painful. If time was to be believed then those same hands would orchestrate a symphony of lies and agony which would linger in his psyche. A constant reminder of his own weakness.
Quentin sighed into his mouth and kissed the tears from his cheeks, touching their foreheads together before he kissed him again. Peter breathed "Quin..." between their lips and was rewarded with arms tight around him. Beck held a gun to his head, finger on the trigger. They couldn't be the same man. They couldn't be.
But what if they were?
Overwhelmed once again by the concept and magnitude of the future, Peter locked his arms around Quentin's shoulders and pressed his face to his neck to weep. He wished that this would never end. Not this specific moment, with it's tears and uncertainties, but this. Quin in his arms, the both of them safe within the four walls of his Manhattan apartment.
Much like his crying spell, it couldn't last.
Peter lifted his head and wiped his eyes.
"How about a shower?"
Quentin made a non-commital noise. I don't want to leave you, he said without words, and Peter heard him anyway.
"C'mon." he prompted gently. "We'll take one together."
Up, they coaxed themselves, meandering from the couch and down another hall where an open door led into a dim bedroom. There weren't any National Geographic cutouts tacked along the walls of this bedroom, but there was still a table against one wall covered in the intricate pieces and delicate tools used to craft models and miniatures. A skeleton of some unfinished project laid there, collecting dust, the penciled outline annotated by Quentin's own neat writing still beside it.
Peter could have lingered, eyes drifting across the minutiae of Quentin's private space, for hours if left to his own devices, but didn't. The state of the room spoke too loudly to the landscape of its owner's mind and though by now he understood, without the words ever being said, just how hollow Quentin was inside... He didn't need to see it spelled out before him. Not more than it already had been.
Both closet and bureau stood mostly-opened, door ajar and drawers left only sort of pushed in, as if closing them fully was too much effort. A flash of red peeking out from the back of the closet caught Peter's eye and he stepped around Quentin to look more closely. He shoved aside the other garments and pulled a familiar hoodie free of its hanger.
The logo had faded over the years and the fabric was softer, more well-worn than Peter remembered it. But it was the same hoodie. The one Henrietta Beck handed him to change into, the one she'd bought her son because she was positive he'd be going to MIT. He probably had. He'd probably worn this hoodie on campus and thought of his mother.
Maybe once or twice, he'd thought of Peter too.
He thumbed the old hoodie fondly and glanced up.
"Do you mind if I...?" he asked.
Quentin shook his head.
The bathroom had two lights, one bright and the other a more ambient gold. Peter chose to leave only the second on. He stripped down as Quentin shut the door and shuffled over to the claw foot tub, beginning to fuss with the knobs until water spilled from the wide showerhead. Soon, steam billowed from the cascading waterfall in great clouds, muddling the air with thick haze. Peter tugged the hem of Quentin's shirt upwards and helped him undress, though he could have done it on his own.
It's a scalding shower, the best kind to take on a chilly day when the world is colder than temperatures alone. With the shower curtain drawn, the world shrank to a dim bubble, lit by faint amber from behind the curtain and the city lights sparkling through the frosted glass window on their right. On the window ledge were bottles and soaps, a washcloth and two loofahs.
For a moment, Peter just watched the water pouring down over Quentin's body. He had lost some of his muscle definition and hadn't bothered to groom his body hair recently, but he was merely unkempt, not filthy. And despite the physical signs of his emotional decline, Peter still thought he was beautiful. In all the ways that ruins of temples and cracked artifacts were; broken and forgotten, but still there.
Still alive, with a heart that thudded beneath the palm Peter laid against his chest. On another day, in another year, standing in this shower together would lead somewhere much different. Passion would burn his fingertips, like electrical currents running along his nerves each time he touched Quentin's skin. The water would be their sheets and the steam, incense; the slick tiles a cool balm on their backs as their body heat rose.
Peter ran his hands down the length of Quentin's torso, palms flat and fingers splayed. A spark of desire fluttered in his belly, but was left only to flicker without becoming a blaze. He wanted him, in that he was fairly certain he would always want Quentin Beck; just not in this moment.
The soap Peter picked up smelled like oatmeal and honey. Quentin reached for the washcloth, but it was snatched away before he could pick it up. Peter guided him back, fingers on his ribs, until they were both beneath the falling spray. He pressed the soapy washcloth to the curve where Quentin's shoulder met his neck and began to rub in small, gentle circles.
The circles traveled down across the strong line of his clavicle, over each of his shoulders, and widend purposefully across his chest. Water ran in rivers down Quentin's body, washing away the sudsy trail left by Peter's ministrations. He paid special attention to the forest of dark hair on his torso, trailing down his belly to his pelvis. Quentin lifted a hand, but without the conviction to follow through whatever action he'd started it only hovered. Peter kissed his shoulder. The hand dropped.
Peter lathered the washcloth with soap again and continued down, following the trail of fur between his legs to stroke over his flaccid cock. A shaky exhale shivered from Quentin's chest. Peter kissed his neck, pressing his nose to the tick of his pulse. Words rested heavy on the tip of his tongue, but he swallowed and caged them between his ribs before they could fracture the fragile present.
Quentin turned around with little prompting. Tension coiled tight in the muscles of his back, locking him into his listless posture. Peter dug his thumbs into the base of his skull and dragged downward, pressing hard between his shoulder blades. He followed the flow of his spine, then fanned out, applying pressure and kneading muscle until it began to loosen. He felt Quentin's chest expand and contract with little breaths and sighs, but the sound was lost beneath the fall of water on tile.
Washing Quentin's hair brought other noises, ones Peter heard over the shower. A throaty rumble and a breath shaped around his name as he scraped his nails against his scalp. He coaxed the tangles from his hair as he worked conditioner through the thick locks, marveling at how long it had gotten. As Quentin rinsed, Peter pressed fond lips to the space between his shoulder blades.
The steam began to clear once they shut off the shower and stepped from the tub onto a soft bath mat. As he toweled off, Peter checked the shelf above the toilet and the medicine cabinet for shaving cream and a razor. He found them, set them out by the sink, then hopped up onto the counter beside them. He beckoned Quentin over, spreading his knees to make clear where he was meant to stand. Even though he knew he would come, rest hands on his thighs and stand unquestioningly right where he wanted him, Peter's heart still soared when he did it.
Ned's father was the one to teach him how to shave. It was one of those little things that were meant to be passed from father to son ( or uncle to nephew ) that Peter lost with his family. Mr. Leeds never made a point to specifically include him when he showed Ned, it was just that Peter was there, because he was family too.
The skin of Quentin's neck was still warm and damp. Peter pressed his thumb to the dip just below the sharp curve of his jaw and he tipped his head back, offering his throat. A dizzying pulse of want and affection blistered through Peter's chest. It had never occurred to him how trust could be an aphrodisiac. He steadied himself, breathing deeply, and slid his hand back to cradle the nape of Quentin's neck. The trimmers in his other hand began to hum when he switched them on.
As a sculptor shaped marble with a chisel and hammer, Peter carved away the excess to reveal Quentin's striking features beneath. First the corded tendons of his neck, his full adam's apple. Then his jaw, shaped with only enough curve so that he was not made purely of jagged lines. His cheeks, less full than Peter remembered, now marked with prominent cheekbones.
He set aside the trimmers and rubbed his thumbs over the short bristles left on Quentin's jaw. Their eyes met and for the first time, Peter saw a glimmer of the man he knew in his gaze. Just a faint sparkle around his irises, breathing enough life back into him that it was impossible to look away. Blindly, he reached for the taps on the sink and turned them until the water ran hot.
Peter lathered gel into foam between his hands and smoothed it over what scruff was left. He rinsed his hands and shook them dry, then returned one to the back of Quentin's neck. With the other, he lifted the slim razor. The head rested against the base of Quentin's throat, a whisper of danger in the small blades pressed to bare flesh. Peter drew them up, held the blade beneath running water, then pressed the razor to his skin again.
Each stroke became slow and purposeful, as careful as if the wrong touch could truly slit his throat. The razor posed no more danger than a papercut, yet Peter felt the weight of it as a knife held to vulnerable flesh. He treated it the same.
A hand towel hung from a small hook in the wall. Peter took it and wet one corner to wipe away the excess foam, then used the rest to pat the skin dry. He curled his fingers under Quentin's chin, quietly thrilled when he was permitted to turn his head this way and that without resistance. Peter smiled with satisfaction; he had been thorough and not missed a single spot.
He let go Quentin's chin, only to reach up with both hands and push the damp hair back from his forehead in a facsimile of the combed back style he preferred to wear it. Without his beard, with his hair back, he looked younger. Livelier.
Peter smiled.
"Hi." he breathed.
The corner of Quentin's mouth ticked up.
"Hello."
Peter wasn't sure who kissed who. It didn't matter.
They redressed in comfortable clothes; sweatpants and a loose shirt for Quentin, the hoodie and a pair of shorts for Peter. If the hoodie hadn't still been so big on him, it would have been obvious how the bottoms hung low on his hips.
A thought flitted into Peter's mind as they made their way to the bedroom. He exclaimed "oh!" and squeezed Quentin's hand, halting them both.
"The menorah," he said. "We should light it, right?"
That seemed correct, though his knowledge of Hanukkah was admittedly limited. He became less sure of his question when Quentin stared at him blankly, blinking without comprehension. It lasted all of ten seconds before the hand in his clenched down, then loosened.
"...Yeah. We should."
So, they did.
There was a pack of matches beside the menorah, which Quentin used to light the centermost candle. He paused then, fingertips barely brushing the waxy base, and stared at the flame. Unsure what to do besides be there, Peter rested his cheek against his shoulder and watched the flickering light with him.
After a pregnant moment, Quentin sucked in a shuddering breath. Then, he opened his mouth and started to sing.
It was soft, not in nature but by the virtue of how quietly Quentin sung. The melody wrapped itself around harsh sounds from the back of his throat at the end of words pulled from time-honored traditions. Peter understood none of it, he didn't need to. He could hear the sorrow tingeing the edge of Quentin's voice and feel the weight of years he'd spent reciting this same song as he lit the candles.
Each wick took the flame, passing its brightness unto themselves until three more candles burned brightly on the mantle. The fourth returned to its place at the center of the array, where it burned brightest of all. Quentin sang and squeezed Peter's hand, and Peter tried to remember how to breathe. Henrietta smiled at them from her photo beside the menorah and for a moment, the world felt safe.
They left the candles to burn themselves out and finally returned to Quentin's bedroom.
It was dark enough by then that Peter could only make out shapes and shadows as they settled into bed. He saw, or at least thought he saw, the outline of the Millenium Falcon mounted on a shelf not far from Quentin's bed. Curiosity tugged at him. Could it be, maybe, that it was the same Falcon they'd built together all that time ago? Did Quentin keep it close, even now?
He didn't ask. The bed was warm and smelled of Quentin, coaxing Peter down amidst its pillows and downy comforters. Rosemary leapt lightly up onto the bed, watching them patiently until they arranged themselves, before prowling the edge of mattress in search of her desired place. She pawed daintily at the spot she selected, just behind Peter's shoulders, and curled up with her tail over her nose.
Quentin coiled his arms around Peter tightly and tucked his face under his chin, breathing in against the hollow of his throat. Peter tossed a leg over Quentin's waist and curled himself around him, as if he could shield him from the world just by holding him close enough. His fingers worked into his hair, still a little damp, but silky enough to slip his fingers through now.
They laid in silence for a while.
"You used to have stars on your ceiling." Peter murmured.
Quentin hummed.
"I liked them a lot. I wish..."
He trailed off.
It wasn't fair.
Falling asleep beside someone you cared for was meant to be warm and happy, not feel like a knife twisted into your heart. It was almost cruel of him, it felt, to let them both drift off like this. Quentin would wake up alone, Peter gone, and they would both ache with the memory of this embrace. Wasn't that why he had left, last time? To spare them from this?
Damned if they did, damned if they didn't. Damned if they kept hurtling towards the inevitable, one of them all too aware how awful the collision was going to be.
Peter pressed a kiss to the crown of Quentin's head and squeezed his eyes shut. He willed himself to sleep, yearning for a dreamless slumber.
He woke in the lab, staring up at the impassive ceiling.
"Welcome back, Pe- What are you wearing?"
Dr. Pym sounded baffled, and behind his question came others from Scott, and Hope, and Janet. Other voices Peter didn't recognize spoke as well, or maybe he did know them, he couldn't be sure. It all blotted together into a tangled mess of words and white noise.
A tear rolled down his cheek. His breath hitched.
Peter rolled over on his side and curled his arms around himself, clutching at the fabric of the old, worn out MIT hoodie, and cried.