#fun fact is echo was actually made of bronze/copper like he looks like hes made of

[spinchip]

Love Like This

A/N: Bring Echo home please. 1.2k words.

Echo has never known love like this.

Fingers trail his jaw gently, tilting his head to the side, and Zane runs a cloth over his face in tight circles. The white towel is turning a rusty brown and fat blotches of red, like blood almost, stain the corners. He is being as soft as possible, fingertip trailing along the worst of the rust to inspect it, his mouth tightening into an unhappy line when his nails catch on patches of damage that's grown thick with neglect. Echo has rarely been treated so delicately, each touch warm and kind, and when his brother turns away to get a new cloth he rests his palm against the mechanics in his neck in a way that leaves him aching. Touch-starved his mind supplies, now that he’s connected to the internet. No one has ever loved him enough to hold him.

“You’re angry.” He observes in the cloying silence.

“Yes.” Zane says stiffly, refusing to look him in the eye, scrutinizing a stubborn patch of rust on the curve of his jaw, “I am not angry with you.”

“I know.” Echo says, and that is also a love he has never experienced- that deeply protective fury, the way Zane’s voice had cracked so sharply when his friends had revealed that they’d left him behind, how he wouldn’t even let them in the room to help repair him. “...I’ve hurt your trust in your friends.”

“No.” Blue eyes snap to meet his, and they’re brighter than the sunniest, most cloudless sky, “They hurt it themselves. They should have told me,” His expression grows darker, “You did not deserve to be left behind.”

Echo doesn’t know what to say to that, feeling suddenly too exposed. The little room they’re holed up in looks like a nurses office, maybe, and Echos sitting on this little raised cot, legs dangling over the side. Zane is sitting on a rolling stoll between his knees, all his attention focused on Echo- no one has ever looked at him like Zane looks at him, when the anger wanes- there’s the way he crinkles his eyes like Echo is the best thing since sliced bread. Little brother, Zane had called him, standing still half in the stairwell back in the lighthouse with this watery shock that left tears in his eyes. He’d held him, then, unflinching from how his imperfections left ugly streaks of pale yellow across his white uniform. He had felt small, next to him, all shiny and new.

Father had built him to fill some hole in his chest, old and lonely and missing someone, and when Echo was too unique, he’d shut him down.

Zane moves on to his hands, gently tugging them apart from where he’d had them clutched together. He passes a wire brush over the worst of it, a patch spanning a good portion of his wrist that made it lock up sometimes. Despite the tension in his shoulders and the way he blinks, as if willing away tears, Zane is never rough with him, and he never rushes. Each movement is purposeful and steady, he will take care of him if no one else will.

“What do you like to do, Echo?” Zane asks, glancing up at him before going back to his work.

He hums a little bit, “I do not know.”

Zanes hands falters for a second, pausing, “You don’t know?”

“There was not much to do, trapped in that lighthouse.” There is no need to pad the truth with pleasantries, so he says it outright, “All I could do was wait for Father to return.”

Carefully, Zane sets aside the cloth and the brush, and then he stands and hugs Echo again. As if that was what he was waiting for, Echo finds himself clinging to him, twisting his fingers in the fabric of his button up so hard he threatens to tear right through it. Zane allows him to hide his face against his chest, drawing his fingernails through the hair at the base of his neck in a soothing gesture. The temperature in the room has dropped, but he doesn’t mind.

When his brother pulls away, he cups Echos face and sweeps away tears he didn’t realize he was crying, “I’m sorry you were alone for so long.” He hugs him again, and Echo finds his wrist moves much easier now, “I would have taken you with us, If I had known.”

“I was not alone. I had Tai-D.” Echo offers weakly as Zane pulls away, and he wants to chase the contact, he wants to be held.

Zane picks up the cloth once more, sitting down he goes back to clearing away the signs of neglect, “...And Jay and Nya.” he notes, almost to himself.

“I do not remember that too well.” Echo admits, “Bits and pieces. I’m not angry with them.”

His brother purposefully stays quiet, expression twisting before he sighs deeply. Echo watches the rust vanish bit by bit, “What do you like to do, Zane?” The name felt so foreign in his mouth despite the fact it was his, too, not that long ago.

“I like to cook.” He looks at Echo with a critical eye, “Are you able to taste things?”

“Yes. but I have not tried much.” Just different kinds of teas, really.

“I will cook for you tonight. A welcome home dinner.” Zane decides with a nod, a faraway look in his eyes as he evaluates the best dinner to make.

Echo can’t think past that word, trying to wrap his head around it, “Home?” He asks finally, wincing at how quiet he’d become, how hesitant.

Zane gazes up at him, expression flashing too quickly for Echo to catch any of them. He settles on uncertainty, as he sets his tools aside once more, rubbing at his hands nervously as if worried Echo will turn him down, “...Yes, that is… if you want to stay here… You have a place.” he’s unsatisfied with that, staring at a spot on the wall and putting his words in proper order.

He reaches out and clasps Echo’s hands, looking up at him seriously, “For a long while, I had no home, and I thought I had found one at the Monastery with Sensei Wu and the others. When the Monastery burned down, I believed that I had lost the only home I had ever known… but I didn’t. My home was not burned with the fire, but preserved in my friends and family. You have a place here.” he lets go of Echos hand to thump his fist against his chest, where his heart would be, “If you choose to stay or if you choose to go, this is your home.”

The lighthouse had been no home, Echo knew that, had even reconciled that he’d never know what it felt like to belong somewhere, wholly and completely. When Zane had held him for the first time, standing on the highest floor of that prison, Echo had known truly how empty his life had been, slotting into his arm like he was made to fit there. He wanted that, to belong, more than he thought.

Echo has never known love like this. He feels like he’s been left floundering more than once during all this, unequipped with the emotional experience to bear it all, overwhelmed with how unconditional it all was. There are no expectations behind Zanes offer, there is no way for Echo to fail in his eyes, there is no catch.

“A welcome home dinner...” He says with a large smile, struggling to keep his voice even, “I would like that.”

Zane's grin matches his own.