Chapter Text
It was hard to forget that month spent in a cement cell.
Hell, there was something about calling the block of time they were there for as simply 'a month' that made it seem so much shorter than it had felt. Scott would always remember it as an eternity, and he would bet good money that Pearl and Jimmy remembered it as two.
He wished he had any right to think like that, like his time there was anywhere near as bad as Pearl's or Jimmy's. Like he didn't spend half of it unconscious, sleeping through their tortured screams. Scott wished a lot of things really, shuddering slightly in his bed at the thought of how they echoed against the walls. He sighed as he shot a quick glance down to the other person next to him.
He wished he could forget no matter how stupid the sentiment. He, of course, was not granted anything near that luxury. He seemed cursed to remember some of the things Pearl had forcefully ignored to the point of non-existence. Her cold voice and her habit of meditation, a futile forced calm before the storm. Her cruel form of kindness that kept them all sane.
He remembered his perpetually burning arm and hazy sickness from a fever, and then infection, and then fear and defeat and guilt. He remembered the skipped meals and sleeping curled up as a group of three and waking up when the trio would become a duo in the middle of the night. How he was never the one to be leaving.
Scott remembered Jimmy.
He remembered closing his eyes against the man's screams in the same way he would with Pearl's, silently hating how he was slowly beginning to learn how to drown out the noise (and how he refused to let himself do so once he’d actually figured it out). He remembered sobbing, and broken fingers, and frantic whispered words with a desperation that couldn't have been an act. He remembered the dull hazel eyes that glimmered in slated moonlight and dried tears on an already dirtied shirt. He remembered a red dot in an open palm and how it looked more like salvation than anything ever had in his life. He remembered an embrace and an utterance of his own thoughts from split and chapped lips.
Scott physically shook his head, like the memories were bugs that he could dissuade from bothering him, still careful to not wake the person curled into his side. Neither of them needed to be awake, not while in the safe house, but if one of them was going to be, it should be Scott. It was the least he could do.
The memories were a foolish thing to dwell on, to think that any of it mattered when really, it was both more and less complicated than that in a way that made it all amount to nothing more than a fluke. A bout of shitty luck where they all leaned on the only marginally stable thing there was. It just so happened that that thing was each other.
It was a foolish thing, and so Scott ignored it, danced around it, avoided it outright. He tried to let it go.
Scott was only ever partially successful because while the sting may have lessened, he never could manage to forget. Not when he found the listening device in his and Pearl's safe house and he gave himself a single second to ponder more than one possibility as to why it might be there (he ignored it then). Not when he and Pearl were dancing at a gala they were set to steal from and saw the blonde man, a moment of brief eye contact being the only communication they had all night despite living in each other's peripheral vision’s the entire time (he danced around it then, both literally and not). Not when he woke up gasping from nightmares he couldn't recall, and Pearl was off to his side telling him to rest- he couldn't tell if she was aware in those moments or if she was stuck in her head the same way he'd been just moments before- an order he complied with, hoping she'd forget by morning (he outright avoided it then like the coward he was).
Scott definitely remembered when he turned away from a party and back towards his hotel room door to find Jimmy with a gun trained on him. Cement and tossed cyanide and screaming were the only things Scott could think of while he offered Jimmy his one chance to bail through thickly veiled double-speak and questionably deadly intent (an open and closed hand as a sign of faith unanswered for a month straight, muffled cries into a pillow without a case, arms around his waist as a shallow comfort they all came to rely on, a fractured "I think I'm going to break" and an ice cold "don’t you dare", and on and on it went).
None of it made Scott’s unwilling and unrelenting attachment to the past any less foolish- though, maybe it made it worth it- because none of it had been real, not truly. That had been desperation that gave way to emotions they didn't have the time to act on, not in any way that was fair to them or to Pearl.
But this wasn't any of that.
(“Scott?” and the man in question startled only slightly as he was yanked from his thoughts. He was greeted by the quite frankly beautiful sight of a very bedraggled Jimmy rubbing sleep from his eyes, seeming far more aware than he probably should have been for having just woken up. “Everything alright?” he asked, voice still rough regardless.
“Yes,” Scott answered simply. He brought a hand up into Jimmy’s hair, running his fingers through the strands instead of bothering to apologize. They both slept far too lightly, and this had happened often enough that any guilt had long since faded. “Just thinking.”
Jimmy hummed, turning more into Scott as his eyes closed again at Scott’s ministrations, melting into the absent touch. “About?”
“Depressing shit.”
Jimmy gave a short, snickering sort of laugh. It was a luxury that was only found when they were alone and Scott relished in being able to openly enjoy instead of faking vague amusement.
“Fine then, keep your secrets.” The blonde mumbled and Scott could only chuckle in return, knowing that Jimmy was only letting it go because he knew it was partially true.
The constant presence of a double meaning in their conversations was almost funny. To any other pair, it might be an intimate thing, but with them, it just was. It would do more harm than good to try and change that.
Scott continued to stroke Jimmy’s hair until both of them were close to sleep. He pressed a short kiss to the side of Jimmy’s face- closer to the corner of his eye than his temple- and let emotions that he could admit he was wary of roll over the both of them. He thought he heard Jimmy say something else, but it was lost on Scott as his eyes finally slid shut.
He didn’t think to ask about it in the morning. He probably wouldn’t have, even if he did.)
This, the present, was a faked death and the promise of refuge with the offering of something more. It was the breaking of tension through long rough kisses and clothes tossed to the floor and hands on skin at the earliest opportunity. It was Pearl’s incessant teasing over shared meals that acted as a sign of acceptance, and Scott could wonder if this was what forgiveness looked like- not just from Pearl and Jimmy, but maybe from himself as well- with a smile on his face.
It was as close to vulnerable as either of them could afford to get- or knew how to be- and for now it was enough. Because when Scott woke up, he could feel Jimmy's head on his shoulder while an arm was thrown across his torso. Because he could smile down at Jimmy's sleeping form with something dangerously fond on his face and not worry that he'd go missing between one blink and the next. It was everything the cell wasn't- because he remembered what it had been like and he could see, and hear, and feel the differences and for once, maybe he was glad for the memories, if only for the chance at reflection- and for that it was perfect.