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Bloodhound had never seen true darkness outside of a cave. When they camped in the night, there were always stars; the points of deer horns, the belts of the gods, man’s chariot, the battlefield of Asar. Guardians of the land beyond the bifrost. They had been many places, many planets, but never one with a starless sky. They’d spent nights in cities, voluntarily and involuntarily, and even then, there was always one or two. And the lights of the city always compensated; they had their own beauty to them, in truth.
Neon, especially. Usually, they were drunk when they made silly purchases, but they were dead sober when they bought the tiny neon sign shaped like a brontosaurus wearing a top hat. They used it as a nightlight when they found themselves in the city, though lately it’d found a more permanent residence on the wall of one Elliott Witt, right below the flatscreen in his bedroom. They had never discussed it, but Elliott always left it on if they spent the night.
It was nice.
He was nice.
You like boys? Then you find a nice boy, Artur always said, a nice, strong boy. And you protect each other. It is even okay if he is not all that strong, but he must be nice.
Boone had been nice, and he had been strong. But it wasn’t the right nice, or the right strong. It was the young and foolish kind. They still fought for his passage to Valhalla, but with years gone it became less about saving a love lost but mourning an end before a beginning. He could have grown older, grown up and became something better than a boy with broad shoulders; they had both been so terribly young, and both so, so selfish. They would still find themself thinking of him on dewy mornings, and often in the chill evenings, when he’d once held them close. They’d been held like that some other times in life, they were only human, but then there had been Elliott.
He’d been so warm and breathed into them such life as they hadn’t truly felt since that first love. And when he held them like that, and he whispered all sleepy-eyed and kissed them on the nose like the face of a dove, they were filled with enough light to outshine that silly little dinosaur on the wall. His arms were as big as his heart, and they were becoming a better person for it.
They were having these various thoughts while petting his head and humming a song older than air, a memory of their mother. Elliott liked when they sang, even though they’d always hated it. They felt their voice was scratchy from the damage to their throat, but he called it “smokey” and would cuddle right up, like he was now, and fall asleep to it.
Heh, it was pretty cute.
They smiled at the little dinosaur. They wondered if they could get another, a companion to sit beside him. I’ve become a sap, they thought before their pleasant mood was severed by pitch darkness. They seized up with their fingers half tangled in Elliott’s hair. They could see nothing; not the neon light, not the television, or the dresser or the door or the man, now stirring, whose warmth pressed into them so deeply. Their breath caught and began to quicken. They reached blindly back for the curtains, grappled them and pulled them to one side, but no light came through. There were no skyscrapers, no hanging signs or corner shops. There were no stars. The entire world had vanished.
“Mmrf, honey?” They felt one of Elliott’s big hands on their side and almost jumped; they’d twisted around to look out the nonexistent window. “What’s…huh, it’s dark.”
“T-There’s no light,” they said. “None at all.”
“Outage,” he said, shifting, sitting up if they were to guess.
They shifted and sat, feeling for him with a hand that was definitely not trembling. They accidentally slapped him in their nervousness, which didn’t exist. “I’m sorry!”
“’es okay.” He mumbled, shifting again, direction unknown.
They swallowed. Their eyes had adjusted somewhat, but they still really couldn’t see anything except the shadow of their own hand when it was almost pressed to their face. Suddenly there was a light-Elliott had a flashlight. They locked eyes.
“Oh, sweetheart,” he said softly, and the tone, the downturn of his lips-they hated it, and for some reason they tried to leave the bed, but he hooked their nightgown. “Hound?”
“I, I am fine.”
“Sweets, you look like an owl.”
They huffed. They were standing, and unhooked their nightgown from his fingertips, heading for the door. They opened it, but beyond the leaking light of the flashlight, it was as thickly dark as it had been in the bedroom. They told themself to step forward, to prove what they didn’t know entirely, but their feet were rooted to the spot.
Elliott sighed. “Babe.”
They stood.
And they huffed.
And they trembled.
“Fuck,” they said, and slammed the door.
They heard him swallow a laugh.
They sniffed. They wouldn’t cry, of course, they weren’t…quite, a child. But they slinked back into bed with their head bowed, avoiding the window, or the dark corners where the light didn’t reach. Elliott pulled them to him. They settled with their head in the crook of his shoulder, hand resting over his bicep. He rubbed their back, adjusting his pillows and sinking back against the headboard. He pulled the covers up; they almost covered their mouth. “It’s just a power outage,” he whispered after a moment.
“There’s…nothing. It is like Fenrir has swallowed the stars.”
“It’s fire season, babe, the smoke dome around the city blocks them out…outages usually they don’t go this far out, but the Duchess is probably just clogged again.”
The dome, they’d forgotten. And the Duchess river, Solace City’s main source of water and power. Safe to drink from after going through the filtration system, but still highly polluted from the planet’s IMC days. They looked where he’d set the flashlight facing upward so it sort of fountained out its light. They let it become blurry in their peripheral, focusing on the steady rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. “And how often d-does that happen, love?”
He angled his head to look at them. His hair was all mussed from them playing with it. Light struggled through the curls and set on the headboard in choppy wiggles and waves. “Six, sometimes nine months.” His lips quirked up at one corner. “So we’ve been dating-“
“8 months,” they said immediately. They both half chuckled. They had stopped trembling.
“It’s a little early, then. But it’ll be gone by morning, swear it on the porkchops in the fridge.”
“Does one not typically swear on their mother?”
“I’m a bit atipipa-atippapa-atypica-different.” They smiled a little, because they both were. “…But the dark…really does bother you, huh?”
They sighed shakily. “Yes,” they admitted, muffled, into his chest. “I never…I’ve never seen it this dark.”
“Mm…makes sense.”
“I’m not afraid,” they said, which was an utter lie and they knew he could tell, he could always damn well tell, “but it…the sky is only supposed to be this dark when Ragnarok comes. And I might have a slight death wish, but I was hoping to spend some time in the hall of the Allfather before we all cease to exist.” They tilted their head up to look at him. “It’s…it’s unnerving.”
Elliott seemed to think a moment. “Maybe he just didn’t account for cities and smog and stuff. Like, he’s all knowing, and he saw the future, but he didn’t see all the future or all parts of the future, right? Like how he didn’t see, uh, like how he tied up, what’s the wolf guy’s name?”
“Fenrir.”
“Yeah, like how he got everybody to tie up Fenrir and the whole hand munching thing, cause uh, cause he knew the dude was his downfall, but he didn’t know that he’d eventually break out, or at least he didn’t know when so like…maybe he didn’t really know cities like this would turn out. The gods really don’t care about Midgard all that much. Right? Please tell me I didn’t just butcher your entire religion.”
They blinked, and they blinked, and they blinked again, because they didn’t want him to realize they were tearing up. They buried their face, smiling against him. “No, that is…. that makes sense. There were no cities then. The ravens could not have told him.”
“Yeah, so, y’know, you don’t gotta worry. Cities just go dark on their own sometimes. Just think about that, uh, if it helps.”
They sniffed, closing their eyes. “Right. They just do that.”
“Yeah, yeah! Hey, you okay?”
“Ja.” They sighed, their body decompressing into the mattress, into his skin. “Just, just tired.”
He leaned over and kissed the top of their head. “Sleep then. Then, boom, when you wake up? Light’s all on, birds singing. Dino-man glowin’. And I’ll make porkchops.”
They giggled, eyelids heavy. “For breakfast?”
“And lunch, and dinner!”
“Mmm, okay.” They said.
Elliott left the flashlight on, soon enough dozing off with soft snores. Bloodhound stayed up longer though, because they couldn’t stop thinking. They couldn’t stop thinking, and they couldn’t stop smiling. Was Uncle Artur looking through the clouds of the Aesir?
I hope you are, Uncle. Because…I think I found the nice strong boy you were talking about.