Chapter 26
TWENTY-SIX
EDDIE
Eddie stayed with Jett through the good days and the bad. And it was on a particularly bad day that Jett’s temper flared white hot, and he lashed out.
“I’m sick of this shit!” Jett yelled, loud enough that others likely heard him outside. “I’m sick of this room and this ship and everything!”
Eddie froze. His flight response always paralyzed him before he could escape. Trained from a young age that everything was his own fault, he hadn’t trained himself out of the trauma response.
“Love, please—you’ll get to leave soon.”
“And what happens then? Huh? They gonna just drop me back in City and leave me to fend for my fucking self?” Jett glared at him, cybernetic eye flashing black. “What are you going to do?”
Heart lurching, Eddie leaned forward to grab Jett’s hand, but it slipped out of reach and he landed on his knees beside the bed.
Eddie didn’t have an answer for Jett. They hadn’t talked about what came next, what everything meant for them as a pair. They loved each other, yes. When things were good, they were really good. But when things were bad…
“I’m sorry,” Eddie whispered, to drown out his thoughts. He slumped down, palms pressed to the floor, feeling utterly defeated before the wrath of the man he loved.
“W-what?”
Eddie didn’t raise his head to look at Jett, didn’t argue, didn’t cry; he just knelt, hoping against all hope that he could fix what he’d broken. And get his soul mate back.
“I’m sorry, Jett. You were right.” Balling his right hand into a fist, Eddie bit back tears. “About everything; my family, my parents. They pushed me to take the commission and to leave you.”
He won’t follow you. He doesn’t love you.
Those insidious words crept out of the hell of his mind, planted there by his life-long abusers.
“Eddie?” Jett’s voice lacked the anger it had before, but Eddie continued.
“They told me that you not coming to meet them meant that you didn’t love me. Th-that everything was surface level for you. That I’d wasted years chasing a dream I couldn’t actually have.”
His chest hurt and vision swam. He saw his family there, surrounding him with their hate, then switching to praise and love. They molded him in their hands as they’d always done. And like always, he let them.
“I wasn’t strong enough to resist them. I’ve never been strong enough without you…
” Eddie trailed off, uncertain what more there was to say.
He could go into detail, get lost in his own inadequacies and the intricacies of his traumas, but that wouldn’t get him anywhere with Jett.
He just needed to say what was most important.
“Ed?”
He didn’t respond, didn’t move. He was strung taut and anything could rip him apart.
“Eddie?”
A hand swam in his vision, hooking under his chin, pulling him up to meet Jett’s tear-stained face. His eye was a soft white-gold—sadness. Pain had worn lines on his face, had dimmed the spark that was Jett; but he was still there, soft and gentle and beautiful under the scarred surface.
“I’m sorry, Eddie.” He sighed and slid over, patting the mattress beside him. “Come here, Farm Boy.”
“But your monitors—”
“Fuck the monitors, and fuck the nurses.” Jett held out his hand and Eddie took it, pulled himself to his feet. “I need you, Eddie.”
Eddie slid onto the bed beside Jett—cautious, hopeful, hurt—and let the smaller man curl up beside him.
With Jett’s head on his shoulder and arm across his chest, Eddie almost felt at ease.
He’d said his part, but there was so much more that needed to be fixed between them, so many quirks and secrets to share.
He needed Jett to share, to apologize, to trust Eddie after holding him at arm’s length for so long.
Silence settled on them, Jett’s breathing evening out to a soft rise and fall of his chest, the anger seemingly dissipated after Eddie’s outburst.
“Forgive me, Ed?” Jett’s voice was soft, small, barely audible over Eddie’s racing heart and the soft medical beeps and whirs.
“Always, love.”
Jett curled closer, fingers trailing over Eddie’s chest. “Do you want to know what I was thinking about on the ship?”
Eddie shook his head, held Jett tighter. He didn’t know if he wanted to know what went through Jett’s mind on the ship, but if he was willing to talk, Eddie should encourage him to open up more. “Tell me, love.”
“I was thinking about you and how I had to get back to you. How we hadn’t done everything we talked about over the years. Remember how we were going to go see the surface of Mars together? And I wanted you to feel what it’s like to travel through the Astral Gates…” He trailed off, voice choked.
“I kept thinking about you and your stupid freckles and the way your eyes sparkle when you’re happy and how fucking hot the sex is and how much I love you. The way you held me so close when we slept and how you’ve been my whole world for years now.”
Eddie wanted to stop him, to comfort him, reassure him that he felt the same. But Jett continued.
“I thought I was never going to see you again; devastated that all our hopes and dreams were shattered by a piece of glass.” Wet warmth soaked through Eddie’s thin shirt. “Especially because…because…” He didn’t finish the sentence.
Eddie knew what he meant, what he’d wanted more than anything. “Because you wanted to get married.”
“Yeah…that.”
Eddie waited, wondering if Jett would continue.
He knew for years that Jett wanted to get married, that he’d fully given himself to their relationship, dedicated himself to Eddie heart and soul, despite the secrets.
But Eddie had been too scared to make that final step; too anxious to commit himself to another person after the last one had failed so miserably.
But now? He would follow Jett anywhere.
“Move back into our quarters when you can leave here.” The words slipped out without much thought. And for once, Eddie thought he’d said the right thing at the right time.
Jett’s head lifted, pale golden eye turning toward Eddie. “Do you mean that?”
Eddie nodded, leaned down and pressed his lips to Jett’s forehead. “Yes, love. I mean it. You belong there, with me.”
“With you…” Jett smiled, his eye lighting up the dim room. “I’ll never leave your side if I can help it.”
They kissed, soft and tender. There was more that Eddie wanted, more that he needed to hear, to have confirmed. But that could wait for another day.