#i dont have time for a full fledged fic bc it really would detract from working on my demo which. i desperately do need to go back to LOL

[reapersmarch]

there is thunder in our hearts

The room Bel is confined to could barely be called that—it had four walls, a bed, a small end table. It even had a window that faced the woods and mostly abandoned industrial park. In the loosest sense of the word, it was certainly a room in the crumbling remains of the office building he was using as a base. It was drafty, cramped, and creaky, and couldn’t remotely compare to his apartment, but, again, it had four walls and a bed, and most importantly—it was secure.

Bel would be loath to call it safe. Nowhere was really safe any longer.

That all went out the metaphorical window after the meeting with Hollow Ground.

If he was being honest with himself, it had probably gone sideways much earlier than that. He’d been sloppy. Not with his work, he prided himself far too much to allow himself to be caught that way. He’d been careful all the way through, covering tracks, obfuscating what he could, misdirecting and pulling the strings in safer, subtler ways that would leave his identity completely obscured.

But then he told Argent.

And he was lucky—really fucking lucky. She should’ve killed him, and would’ve been within her rights to, but she didn’t. Who the hell knew why. Respect? Understanding? To pull a fast one on him later? He couldn’t say, but she knew his secret, he knew hers. Mutually assured destruction, should it ever come down to it. He didn’t think it would, but he also didn’t think he’d be brought back from the brink of death—again.

If Bel was being completely honest with himself, the whole thing had been fucked from minute one.

He didn’t want to get involved with the Rangers again. Didn’t want to be a hero, didn’t want to help, didn’t want to see him or talk to him or be near him or—

Of all the places in all the world, why that diner at that time on that day? The worst thing that could’ve happened to him.

The best thing, too.

Bel should’ve said no. He really, really should’ve pushed back harder, been firmer about boundaries, kicked and screamed and tantrumed until Ricardo left him alone. He’d been so careful about keeping a hard divide between his two lives; Entropy could not be Bel, and Bel could not be Entropy. But for every wall he built higher, Ricardo found its weak point, and Bel… God, he wanted to be found.

It didn’t matter how much he fought against it, he wanted Ricardo to find him. Catch him. See him. Save him. The number of times it sat bitterly on his tongue, died in his throat, it’s me it’s me I’m Entropy it’s ME, replaced instead with a tight-lipped smile and a topic change. If he knew, would it have made things easier? Harder? Better? Worse?

Did it matter?

He couldn’t take any of it back.

He’d purposely bared his throat and let the wolf tear it out, just to feel its warmth before he bled out.

“I’m back.”

Bel flinches instinctively as a paper coffee cup settles quietly on the end table beside him. Again. Snuck up on him again. His fingers dig harder into his arm. He pulls his attention away from the window to glance over, trying to will the tension out of his shoulders.

“That’s where you went?” he asks blandly.

“Well, you need to eat.”

“I’m not h—”

“Bel. You need to eat.”

With a frustrated sigh and barely restrained roll of his eyes, Bel snatches the paper bag from the table and picks at the croissant inside, tearing it apart anxiously.

“…Thanks.” 

Ricardo shrugs and pulls a chair over, sinking into it with his arms crossed. It had been like this the entire time since—awkward. Tense. Uncomfortable. Even with things considerably settled from the initial break out, they never got better. How could they? Bel didn’t want to talk, and Ricardo didn’t know what to say. It was a special kind of hell, being trapped in a room with the first and last person in the world you want with you.

Careful what you wish for.

“You know,” he starts, and Bel lifts his eyes to acknowledge the conversation, fingers still moving nervously. “For a guy who can’t go anywhere, I really have to back you into a corner just to get you to talk to me.”

Bel scoffs out a sardonic laugh. “What do you want me to say, Ricardo? What is there to say?”

“What isn’t there to say?” he shoots back. Bel scowls and turns to face the window again. “You can’t keep locking me out, Red. Not again. You told me that I remind you of the worst time in your life, and we’re just not supposed to bring that up?”

“I can’t help that, Ricardo.”

“Neither can I, Bel.”

“I don’t want to talk about this.” “Well, I do! Bel—” Ricardo cuts himself off with a sigh, running a hand down his face. “We can’t just… I don’t know. Leave it there. You said—”

“I know what I said,” he interrupts lowly. “You don’t need to remind me.”

“Apparently, I do, because you act like it isn’t true.”

Bel scrubs both hands over his face before burying it in them completely for a moment. When he lifts his head again, eyes glassy and red, it’s to stare at the ceiling. He exhales, long and slow, then turns towards Ricardo again.

“Okay. Fine. Let’s talk.” Bel tosses his hands in the air. “Let’s start with the elephant in the room,” he continues. “I am in love with you, and that’s terrifying. Okay. Talk over.”

Ricardo groans, waving a hand dismissively. “Oh, Bel, knock it off and be serious about this.”

“What else can I say? Ricardo?” Bel laughs mirthlessly. “Do you want me to lay it all on the table? Play therapist for a minute? Okay, fine. Let’s lay it out then.”

He sets everything aside to sit up properly.

“I’m in love with you, and that’s terrifying for so many different reasons. Should I list them? How about, ‘I don’t know if I’m allowed to be’? How about, ‘I don’t count as a real person, so what reason would you have to be with me’? How about, ‘I knocked the shit out of you’?—sorry, for that one, by the way.” Ricardo actually manages a snort at this. “Ric, I’m not… I was never supposed to be one of you. I’m not one of you. It doesn’t matter what you insist on, I’m a fucking… this!”

Bel yanks his sleeve up to his elbow, revealing rows of orange against pale skin.

“I’m not supposed to do or say or be anything other than what I was expected to be, and that’s—do you know what that does to you? To question every day if this is all manufactured or genuine? And that is nothing to say of—” he taps a finger against his temple. “I wish I could predict you. I wish I knew what you were thinking, but I like that I don’t. That’s the oxymoron of it all,” he says. “I just… hate that it feels like a threat.”

They sit there, staring at one another for a moment, silence stretching between them for an eternity, like a taut rope waiting to snap. Their contest drags out for a few seconds, and then a few seconds more, before Bel tears his eyes away to return to staring out the window, deflated. The treeline wasn’t very interesting, but it was better than dealing with this.

When they go to speak again, they start at the same time.

“Listen—”

“Look, I—”

A beat.

Then, “What do you want, Bel?”

Bel turns back, brow furrowed in annoyance. “What?”

“What do you want?” Ricardo repeats. He uncrosses his legs and leans forward, elbows rested on his knees. 

“That’s a loaded question if ever I’ve heard one.”

“No, it isn’t. Don’t think that hard. What do you want?”

The laundry list of things Bel wanted was extensive—functionality of his legs again, for one. A cigarette, for two. A stiff drink, a hot shower, a bed that didn’t feel like a stone slab. A bullet to the head.

That collision should’ve killed him. It would’ve been easier than this.

“You, you fucking moron,” Bel grits out instead. “I want you.”

“Then stop fighting me, Red.”

Ricardo’s hand hesitantly moves towards his, then stops, fingers folding in on themselves. It’s as though he’s not sure if this is allowed. Is he allowed to reach out like this, so familiar as you once were? Does he have any right? The bed shifts as Ricardo settles carefully next to him instead, shoulders grazing, and this close, Bel shatters. His head lands heavily on his shoulder, face still turned toward the window. 

“I don’t know how,” he says quietly. His entire life, Bel has been in a constant state of fight or flight, backed into a corner with a kind of prey animal rage just to survive. Survive, by any means necessary. Survive, even if it costs you. Survive, because you can’t die until you’ve lanced the pus filled boil that’s spent seven years growing.

You might die in the process anyway, but at least you went down swinging.

“I already lost you once, nearly lost you a second time,” Ricardo tells him. “Don’t let me lose you a third time.”

“I’m not in the business of making promises I can’t keep.”

“Try.”