Everything that you were born to do -- you don't have to do it. Someone else was born to do it too

[out_of_realm]

The rain, at least, had become a familiar constant. Everything else might be shaky, sliding into the mud, but the rain came and kept on coming and Tom let it bead up and roll off him. There wasn’t really anything else he could do

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[m_pinocchio]

"They never made it there." A little of the feeling has faded out of his legs, so he's just standing, looking down, waiting for it to return. He knows this isn't held against him, this above all other things, but his stomach still clenches with guilt at that dull sparkle.

All the things he'd thought he'd never have. The good life that Tom had left to come to Hell and harrow it for them all. And he hadn't known. He'd just kept trying to go back. So some of it had been a kind of nasty, instinctive jealousy. A desire to drag him down to the level of everyone else. And a horror at having even tried.

"Remember? They all got picked up after. I tried to get it back for you. But I couldn't find it." Lost, taken by the Guard, traded for something else, who the fuck knew. He clears his throat, deeply uncomfortable. "I'm sorry."

[out_of_realm]

"Yeah, I remember," Tom said, looking up at him through a veil of rain. That compound, Sophie's failed rescue, the start of everything and the end of something else.

"Wouldn't have done us much good," he said softly, almost inaudible over the noise of the rain. "A few months of gas at the most."

[m_pinocchio]

He laughs softly, because that wasn't the point and because Tom knows that, and even then, if he would have gotten it back, he would have handed it over without a word and said nothing else about it.

He reaches down and lays a wet hand on Tom's equally wet shoulder. "We did okay anyway."

[out_of_realm]

Tom grinned and leaned back into that familiar sturdiness.

"Yeah. We did, actually." They'd even found that much gold and more, in the end.

He sighed, water seeping past his lips and into his eyes. Little rivers formed on his waterproofs and ran out onto the boardwalk. He felt like he'd been squaring his shoulders for days.

"I've really fucked things up," he said softly, an admission.

[m_pinocchio]

He laughs again, drops down and pulls Tom against him, one arm hooked around his shoulders. Everything's going to be fine, he thinks, and it's not as though he ever really believed it wouldn't be.

"Yeah," he says, "you have. But you're not the first one who ever did."

[out_of_realm]

"Yeah," Tom coughed, leaning back into Mike for the first time in what felt like a very long time. He closed his eyes. "That much is true." He looked back over his shoulder at him, smirking a little.

"I just...what the hell do I do now?" he asked, hands working nervously over the band. "How do I fix it? I don't even...Christ." He slipped his hand down his face. "At least I can punch you and not feel too bad about it, you know."

[m_pinocchio]

"You could start by getting outta the mud," he says, giving Tom a gentle tug. "And then, I dunno, you could talk to him. I know it's a radical idea, but I think it's just crazy enough to work."

He reaches out, closes his hand over Tom's and the ring and squeezing. "He's scared that you want him to be someone he's not. I know that's not true. But if it's not, you gotta tell him that."

[out_of_realm]

"That's stupid," Tom insisted stubbornly, but he had already closed his eyes, he was already listening. Somewhere along the line, Mike had become a source of wisdom when he'd needed it most, although the brand of wisdom had changed in recent years.

"It's not true," he coughed out, "I'm not looking for -- I want him, who he is, and if he doesn't think I know what that is..." He trailed off.

"Just because I never watched some stupid movie..."

[m_pinocchio]

"Is that part of this?" He turns Tom in his arms, one hand reaching up to touch his jaw, everything slick with the rain and slightly muddy. "Is that I saw it and you didn't?"

Because he's never assumed that it was. But now that he thinks about it... he's not sure how he really could have missed the possibility.

[out_of_realm]

"The two of you...fit," Tom said with difficulty, leaning into the touch shamelessly. "You get him when I -- when I can't."

He looked up at him with a pained half smile. "Sometimes it's hard not to be jealous."

[m_pinocchio]

"We're both really fucked up," he says simply, meeting Tom's gaze, and part of him loves that he can just say that now, no flinching, no shame. "It's not something I'm happy about. But that doesn't mean you and he don't fit. Doesn't mean you and I don't fit."

His fingers move, tracing over the line of Tom's jaw, a tiny line of a scar that no one but him and Neil would even know is there, it's so small and faint. He remembers how that scar got there. He knows the provenance of most of them.

"There's a difference between seeing and knowing."

[out_of_realm]

"No," he said, shaking his head. "You're not fucked up, don't say that kind of thing. This whole places is fucked up. That doesn't matter anymore."

He leaned into the touch, remembering. The water was working its way inside his collar and down his spine.

He sighed softly. "It shouldn't really matter," he murmured. But he knew that Neil was relieved that he'd never laid eyes on it, and somewhere, deep down, it made his chest twinge.

[m_pinocchio]

"But you gotta let me say that kind of thing," he says gently. "It doesn't matter, but it's true. It's okay, but it's still true. You gotta be able to look at it and not look away or try to pretend it didn't happen or it isn't there. I'm fucked up, he's fucked up, and it's okay."

He pauses, leaning them together in the rain, hands in Tom's wet hair. "That's what he needs. He needs for you to just look at it, look at... at him... and be okay with it, without trying to push it away."

[out_of_realm]

Tom hunched and looked away, water trickling down his hairline and to the corner of his mouth. He'd spent so long as a savior that it was hard to see the pain and the imperfections without having to fix it. Without someone expecting him to.

"I didn't mean it like...like I love him less or -- or think he needs to be different, I just..." He grunted, rolling his shoulders. "I don't know what I thought. Nothing needs to change."

[m_pinocchio]

"I don't think this is even about him," he says, his voice dropping, barely audible above the hum of the rain. "I think this is about you. You look at him sometimes, and you remember how he got hurt, what happened to him... and all you want to do is take that pain away. I know. And you can't. But you don't have to. "

He reaches down and takes Tom's hand again, lifts it, holds it against his own face, his blind eye, the faint scars over and beside it. "You don't need to save us from ourselves, Tom. You already have."

[out_of_realm]

"I didn't think it would be that easy," Tom said, laughing. Really, he didn't know that it would be so hard.

"I don't know what I'd do without you," he said, quiet, hoarse, not trusting himself. "I can't -- I can't imagine my life without you anymore, Pinocchio. I hope you know that. I hope you know what that means."