#and felt the giddiness rising n putting me on the verge of explosion

[maroonmused]

if life had no rules or structure or barriers i’d spend it never shutting the fuck up about Fighting Back from marvel’s spider-man 2’s soundtrack

[allofthisnonsenseplease]

R76 Ficlet: Glow

A/N: It’s another fluffy AU with Jack and Gabe ‘cause that’s kinda all I’m good for. :D

Gabriel Reyes had been dying when he entered Faerie for the first time, a soldier on the verge of bleeding out who had accidentally cheated death by slipping through the wrong veil.

Decades later, it was the human realm that felt foreign to him; devoid of magic, unbound by rules. His body was no longer human, warped by the clash between fae magics and the touch of iron when a healing had been laid upon his shrapnel-riddled body. Time and immersion in Faerie had only changed him further, wakening traces of the old blood that hinted at things in his ancestry only described in folklore. He had magic of his own now, and age did not wear him down so readily...or perhaps time only held meaning for him outside of Faerie.

The price of his life was the severing of his ties to the human realm. Visitations were permitted him, a few hours every evening in the summer months. The veil thinned for him while the fireflies danced in flares of grace amid the gloaming shadows. It would have been an easy enough price to pay, except that he left his heart behind every time Faerie called him back.

Jack Morrison had been younger than him by a handful of years, a determined soldier serving under Gabriel's command. After the explosion that had ripped Gabriel away from his life, Jack had searched the field under cover of darkness for three nights, desperate for a sign of his missing commander. His persistence had paid off with what he had at first assumed to be a hallucination...or a nightmare. He had seen Gabriel, unable to breach the veil so soon after his healing gone awry, fruitlessly trying to claw his way back to the only reality he had known while his body flickered between the death of iron shrapnel and the life of fae magic.

When Jack had reached out for him, the tenuous connection between the realms had shattered. It hadn't kept Jack from coming back night after night, trying to find him again. He had only stopped when the company was given orders to move out. Jack had no choice but to go. He'd had only that single glimpse of Gabriel, enough time to call out to him, enough time to lose him again.

It shouldn't have been enough to bring him back—that nightmare vision, that inexplicable vanishing—and yet Jack returned. Once the war had ended and he had served the term he had enlisted for, Jack went back. Late in spring, he found the field, overgrown and only barely recognizable. He set up camp and he waited. Something had happened to Gabriel Reyes, and he was determined to discover what...even if in the end all he could do would be to say goodbye.

Gabriel returned with the fireflies to find Jack waiting for him. The soldier he had known had been a fresh-faced teenager taking on a harsh burden. The person who awaited him that cool, early summer's eve was a man, scarred and grown and changed in subtler ways than Gabriel himself. Neither of them had been prepared for the flood of Jack's relief, for the crushing hug, for the tears that couldn't be held back even as Jack grinned through them.

“I knew you were alive,” he kept repeating. “I knew it. I knew you couldn't be dead.”

They had precious little time, and it was hard for one to tell his story without the other interrupting with questions. Over the course of the summer, a few stolen hours at a time every night, they shared their doings over the past several years. Respect forged on the battlefield kindled into an easy friendship, and both were sorry for the summer to end, leaving the veil closed to Gabriel.

They promised to meet again in the coming year, and so it went, year in and year out. Decades passed. Jack grew older as Gabriel grew more fae, and still their bond held and strengthened. The price of his life weighed ever more heavily on Gabriel every time he had to leave Jack at the end of the season. His heart felt torn in two. Faerie, with all its wonders, began to feel like a cage. Unlike in the stories, love was no salvation, only bittersweet summer evenings and the pain of separation.

Gabriel did not speak to Jack of his feelings. Once a year, at the end of their time together, Gabriel offered to try to bring Jack across. The magic pulling him back to Faerie was strongest then, strong enough, he believed, to allow him to bring someone else along. Jack always refused, however. His ties to the world held him back. He couldn't give it up and allow himself to be bound as Gabriel was, and both were certain that three seasons would be time enough for Faerie to work its way under his skin. So they parted, year after year, and Gabriel held the secret of his love close. After all, what sort of future could they have together, tied to different worlds?

As the years bled into one another, however, his resolve began to weaken. He became painfully aware of time. Wrinkles creased Jack's once smooth skin. Silver frosted his hair. He was aging, while the years left Gabriel practically untouched. His invitations to Jack became pleas. His feelings and fears danced on the tip of his tongue, and it became harder and harder to swallow them back. Some nights, it almost seemed as if Jack felt the same way—nights when the way he looked at Gabriel seemed too soft even beneath the sweet haze of moonlight, nights when they sat close as lovers and watched the stars without need for words to pass the hours, nights when Jack's wistfulness as they parted made it so very hard to slip away without pulling him close for a kiss. Whatever it was Jack felt in their bond, however, it wasn't enough for him to take Gabriel's hand at the end of summer.

It hurt, fading away with his hand outstretched, empty where hope kept him waiting for the touch of Jack's fingers against his. It tore at him like a grenade, shredded his heart, and left his body untouched. Tired of torturing himself, Gabriel swore off returning more than once. Yet every summer, as the first firefly lifted from the grass and shone brightly in the blue shadows, he found himself watching Jack once more as he stepped through the veil.

He knew how it would all end, but hope was hard to kill. He understood now why it had been trapped with all the other evils Pandora had released. Hope was his own personal demon.

The summer passed by too quickly, as it always did. Jack's sight had gotten worse. His hair was as colorless as starlight. Gabriel loved him and ached for him and savored the time they had together.

As they watched the stars one evening, sitting shoulder to shoulder, too hot to be comfortable but unwilling to move apart, Jack sighed and cleared his throat. He had been pensive most nights, dwelling on thoughts he hadn't shared. Gabriel looked at him, but said nothing. Jack already knew he had Gabriel's full attention. He would speak when he was ready.

The question, when it came, startled Gabriel.

“Will you ask me to go with you again?” He was staring up at the stars, squinting a bit the way he always did nowadays when he wasn't wearing his glasses.

“I always do.” Hope, that undying bird, flapped its wings, and Gabriel's heartbeat sped up.

Jack nodded absently. It was confirmation of something he already knew.

“I put my things in order before coming out here this time. There isn't anything I want as much as I want....” He paused, looked down a moment, then raised his head and cast his gaze back up to the stars. “When you go back, I want to go with you,” he said quietly. Then, quieter still: “I love you, Gabe.”

Something broke. Staring at Jack's profile, seeing in his weathered, lined face echoes of that determined eighteen-year-old who had followed him into battle, Gabriel felt something within him crumble away like a sandcastle in the surf. Before he knew what was happening, he was falling in on himself, breaking up into a thousand points of joy, alight with the words he'd yearned to hear for years. Jack was turning to look at him, face a mask of shock that faded quickly to wonder, and still Gabriel broke apart and rose up, body transformed into a roiling storm of tiny wings, a swarm of fireflies.

He flew up, exhilarated, giddy with relief, with love, with his hopes made real at long last. Swooping, he danced through the air, orbiting Jack in a shifting trail of flickering lights. Individual fireflies lit upon Jack, kissed him with their light, and were off again. As Jack spun in place to follow the main body of them, his smile grew like the rising sun, and his eyes were wide with delight. Lit by moonlight and the there-and-gone streaks of light from the thousands of fireflies circling him, he was the most amazing sight Gabriel had ever seen.

Jack. Love you, Jack. So much. Love you so much.

Jack's laughter was rough and warm and perfect. “Gabe! Pull yourself together so I can kiss you!”

The fireflies twisted in midair, coalesced in front of Jack. They were a tickle on his nose, his lips, and then Gabriel was pulling himself together, emerging from the exultant lights to take Jack in his arms. They fit together with such a feeling of coming home that tears stung Gabriel's eyes. He smiled helplessly even as they threatened to overflow, and from the way Jack was hugging him so tightly, it seemed likely that he felt the same.

Their lips met, clumsy and rushed with excitement, huffs of laughter interrupting the kiss and breaking it off far more quickly than Gabriel would have liked. He contented himself with the heat of Jack's body against his, the tightness of the embrace, the knowledge that they would have plenty of opportunities, the promise of an untold number of tomorrows to explore together.

“Take me with you,” Jack murmured against his lips. He lifted his chin, leaving a line of kisses from the tip of Gabriel's nose up to his forehead. “Show me everything. I want to see it all with you.”

“I want to watch the sun rise together,” Gabriel murmured. Such a simple wish. As he caught Jack's lips in another kiss, he had no doubt that it would be worth the wait.