maybe tomorrow

[scubatankfilledwithfarts]

When he’d been buried [coffinless as always] beneath those bodies he’d seen white behind his eyelids—both of them, even the one long dark. One eye on the future, one lost to the past—

It had terrified him. Given him one moment of choked clarity, of fright caught in his throat before he knew no more. So different than the times he’d awoken these countless years, and bodies, counting off the list of what’s happened and what’s to come, who he is today.

Today is a new dawn [and oh, hadn’t he shied away from its light for so long his shadow is bigger than his heart these days]. One of the blinds is broken so it fully blasts him right in the eye—there is no chance to go back to sleep, not when the cheery sun greets him so eloquently.

Xigbar-Luxu-Braig-Apprentice-Jester-Traitor scrunches his face to the light, inhales deeply before his single eye opens. As countless times before its where: his condo. When: the night after his return from the dead. When the 2nd: Too early. He’s lying sideways on the bed, his back is killing him like a real old man.

Groaning softly, he pushes a package of opened marshmallows from his face, lifts his head and pauses when the end of his long ponytail snags on something.

Annoying. Did they bring a paperweight back or something? Xigbar twists his head slightly, expects to see a paperweight or a random vacuum cleaner—what he doesn’t account for is the teenager with equally sticky fingers clinging to his ponytail like a lifeline. His hair’s curled around scarred knuckles like a string of fate. After his very own black heart.

Don’t get attached. They’re just variables to the plan. Where’s the plan now in this vast place of disordered order? Badou sleeps on, his soft breaths sway his own red locks across his mouth, and Xigbar has had many existential crisis over the many years but not this time.

[when’s the last time someone had cried for him? Centuries, lifetimes he can no longer remember, faces blurring together into unrecognizable lumps but not a boy pleading not to be left behind again]

His mind’s made up. Xigbar nods to himself and curls an arm around Badou’s side, tugs him close. The boy snuffles and sniffles but doesn’t wake. His fingers tighten in his hair, and he’ll absolutely tease him about it later but for now—

Now, he’s warm, and he may shy away from the dawn, but an orange sunset in the shape of this stupid boy is okay for now. They can talk about how there actually is a vacuum cleaner on the other side of the bed later.