Just a second alone wasn't easy to come by.
The portal hallway stretched endlessly and endlessly on both sides. The stairs were the only perpendicular outlet for miles. and miles and miles and miles.
Harper and Ivor were chatting like old friends with the more familiar of the two looking as bashful as a teenager. Petra, a loner at heart, had seated herself elsewhere, polishing her sword. Armor was strewn on the ground in favor of comfier civilian clothes.
they can afford a break like this, Lukas thinks. Home is just right there. It isn't going anywhere. Hopefully.
In better words, they needed a break like this. Tensions were running high. they have been for a while. It was a wonder to think that just this morning Petra was at Jesse's throat like a scared animal: tired, restless, and running out of hope.
Of course Jesse talked her out of it. Stepped aside, and followed her straight into the portal Petra had placed all her bets on.
Jesse was the leader, she was sure of that, and still she passed around the role like a toy, intent on letting everyone have a turn if they fancied one. Even him. Even at his worst.
The whole ordeal in the End would have gone a lot smoother if he had trusted her.
Speaking of whom,
Jesse wouldn't do anything alone if she could help it. She was a firm believer that no one else should, either. It was her checking up on people. It was her assessing the situation. It was her providing the pep talks.
So to see her, wordlessly, sulk down the depths of the hall and run her hands through her mess of hair,
(the hair that wouldn't hurt from a little bit of care, from him maybe, so his hands wouldn't ache so much when he saw her tangles)
and leave them there, tugging on her locks for support;
Something in his heart just lurched at the sight. He followed her quietly.
She got to the side of one of the portals, a lovely thing to lean on for some rare privacy, and slumped. The tension vanished and he could just feel it in her sigh.
"Jesse?" he whispered, but she jumped anyway.
"Lukas-! Oh, gosh. Hey." Those hands found her hair again. He started thinking about his own arm, crooked and pained from being broken all that time ago.
He never told them.
He didn't have to. Jesse never said no to a break if she could help it. If he took longer than usual trying to maneuver one arm around then no one had anything to say about it. Not without a dirty look from Jesse, at least.
There wouldn't be a single thing different about her behavior if he came clean. Jesse was just like that. Always accommodating.
"Lukas, are you feeling okay?" She examined his face for a moment and was suddenly reminded of soulless red eyes. "You know… I know it wasn't you fighting me. You would never. And don't feel bad for what PAMA made you do. I totally kicked you around a bit."
He smiled, a wordless quip to himself, like I'd mind, and rubbed his jaw where she definitely popped him.
"I'm just glad you were able to. If it was you with those red eyes… Jesse, I'd be a goner."
Jesse laughed as if it weren't true.
"Well, I did miss your eyes, y'know."
She was doing that thing again. Dropping comments that'd dust his cheeks with redstone that she didn't even think twice about.
"I missed them and all their… blue-ness."
A smile took hold of him and the blue eyes she was beholding crinkled a bit. Amidst her exhaustion, there was pink on her cheeks.
He stepped around, facing her, leaning on the parallel portal.
"You don't mind, right?"
"Mind what?"
"Well… I didn't know if you wanted to be alone or not. I get it-"
"No." She blurted, a hand slightly reaching out of instinct to keep him in place before withdrawing. "If you want to keep me company, you can. I know we… don't get many moments like this."
It's true. For better or for worse, the group had to stay inseparable. It got frustrating but at some point they were a routine. A part of him.
"Even you need a break sometimes, Lukas."
if there wasn't something so pitiful taking a hold of his heart right now he would have laughed.
Jesse? telling him to take a break? The Jesse?
What would it take for him to convince her that he could never get tired of her? Ever?
But those words never made voice. They were scribbled in his journal so he could remember it forever, on the very back pages that he'd rip out and hide once he got home, sometimes smack-dab in the middle, if he was feeling inspired.
It was an adventure journal through-and-through. Sure. Wonderous things were documented there, like fire squids and strange Nether forests, beautiful descriptions of the Mesa, and its heat and wind that whooped around their leader's mane that made her look like a desert mirage; an oasis. and her lush green eyes that stood as a stark contrast to the parched ghost-town that something called a "computer" had ravaged….
It's like he wanted everyone else to fall in love with her too. Maybe then it wouldn't hurt so bad.
"I'd say the same thing to you, Jess. You're looking a little… you know. How are you holding up?"
Jesse laughed, and the pang in his heart when she looked up almost killed him.
"I'm just so glad you're alive. I'm looking at you right now and I can't even believe it. Lukas—you—it's like, you die everytime we go through a portal! I can't keep losing you like that, man."
"Aw, Jesse—"
But he stopped when he saw her eyes, tired, but shining like his own. His hand was floating just above her shoulder.
"And everyone… I'm so scared of losing everyone. Sometimes I wonder if I'm really leading you guys home or…" she squinted, trying to find the right words or so, but soon snapped to attention when she realized what had slipped.
Jesse didn't get scared. You went to Jesse to not be scared. There was always some awareness about her that everything would be okay no matter what the circumstances. She was utterly tireless in dissipating the anxiety of her friends.
Lukas wasn't phased by the not-so-new information. He was even wearing a smile, a tiny relieved one, that said, finally, you admit it.
It was going to be okay, Jesse. There would be no mutiny or group-wide hysteria. Didn't she know him better than that?
"Jesse, I'd follow you anywhere."
And he would.
The entire journey there was some guilt in the back of his mind that was quite gnawing: the guilt that he really just couldn't be upset about their predicament as everyone else. Like he was out of the loop. Like he had to pretend he was just as upset about being lost as everyone else.
The truth was that he was completely fine as long as she was around. His muse.
The relief was instantaneous. Her face softened, then curled, an appreciative yet unconvincing smile, like she was fighting back tears. Lukas weighed his options for a moment. He put an arm out, beckoning her in, and she barely had a second thought about placing her forehead between his collar.
Jesse was too tired to cry. He knew that. Instead he felt a great big sigh leave her core that he felt in his bones. Her arms went around his back and Jesse felt like she was embracing a bed after a sleepless night of fighting mobs.
"Even if you… decided to settle down in that fire-squid dimension. I'd be right there."
She didn't say anything at that. Just a tiny chuckle breathed against his skin. He closed his eyes against her hair, running his nails up and down the shirt on her back, underneath the straps of her overalls that somehow served to make the moment seem more sacred, hot against his fingers, trailing her spine. He imagined her shiver.
"I'm just glad you still believe in me." her voice was so small against his chest.
"Jesse, if it weren't for you—" She noticed the hitch in his words and pulled away to really look at him, and he wished she didn't, because right when she did he felt tears rimming his eyes under the intensity. "We all believe in you… no matter how tired or freaked out you are. I believe in you—I always have—"
She spared him the sob and crushed herself against him, arms completely encircling his slender torso. Lukas squeezed back, bunching up the hair around her neck, wetting her scalp with tears.
I love you.
The words were just on the tip of his tongue.
I love you.
They were dying to get out, desperate as the group was to escape the portal hallway, they screamed against his bared teeth.
But they wouldn't come. Not yet. Soon they'd be put to paper, so he can look back and reminisce, remember how much he loved her and how much he ached. A sick pastime.
Eventually she let go. They were still holding each other; her fingers had dug into his biceps like he would be swept away if she loosened her grip. His forearms rested heavily on her shoulders like armor.
"Yeah, sorry for getting all sappy on ya', Jesse. Today's just been… a rollercoaster." He sniffled.
"No, don't apologize. We needed that."
"Yeah."
Something about their connected gaze was refreshingly draining. His throat was sore. His eyes were thoroughly flushed, and he saw every bit of solidarity and agreement plain on her face before they were intertwined again. He rested his cheek on her head. Jesse had properly gone limp. He had started the gentle pets on her back before his hands just slid down and rested in the little hammock her overalls made. For a while he humored the idea of falling asleep standing up.
He could have.
His head pooled with poetry of his own, of words and phrases unique to comfort and adoration and whatever was going on here. If being around her made entire paragraphs swim throughout his brain like beautiful flowing fish then he was sure he could write a thousand loving sonnets about this single moment.
They'd go in the margins of his book, never to be seen.
If there was a concerned glance passed their way, they didn't know it.
Suspended in comfort, their eyes stayed shut.