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Four years.
Henry stared at his shaking hands. He’d been in this loop for four years, four whole years, and wasn’t planning on leaving. He almost couldn’t believe he made it, that he was… happy?
They’d been on another mission, yet again chasing Toppats that were in other divisions unknown to man until they destroyed the damn Station, now stalking through thick woods and tunnels in a half underground complex. He’d known about it all, of course, he was their Leader once, but not like he could go spilling insider intel from another timeline to his employer or his partners. Despite the glamor, comfort, and the ability to keep stealing and plundering his way along the world, he could never settle into leadership- and so had chosen this timeline over any other when it came time to settle.
And, of course, he got his cute pilot in this one too. There were plenty of timelines where he could have Charles, plenty where he could have Ellie, but only 2 where he got both. And the other wasn’t exactly ideal, a pardon was a very different thing to being able to work alongside Charles- he’d tried, and inevitably he and Ellie had lapsed back into crime within a couple months without a paycheck. Not that he was opposed, morally speaking, but that dashed whatever chances he would have had of putting his ideal group together.
He tried not to think about what he’d done to all the Toppats, all of his allies in other worlds he’d cast aside. Being Leader was a nightmare, and ended bad half as often as it did good, but being a recruit with his Rose was fun for months. He’d even gotten into the early dating stages, before one government facility raid, and a few bombed helicopters, reminded him of what he was really after.
Some disasters, many heists, plenty of good laughs, even more terrible deaths, allies, enemies, but this was it.
He had made it to his thirties. He spent so long looping around, he only remembered the date from looking in his file one quiet night on the base. He hadn’t told them. Why bother, when you’d loop again?
But he wasn’t going to loop again. Fuck, he wasn’t going to loop again!
Finally, he zoned back into his surroundings. He was slumped into his chair, tucked into the back of the cockpit of Charles’ helicopter. Ellie was but a flash of red hair peeking above the copilot's seat, and they were both unusually quiet. It had been a long day, but he wasn’t… sleepy. She hadn’t used her telekinesis, either, so it wasn’t a migraine. And Charles wasn’t even humming away!
“...What’s the problem?” He messily unbuckled himself to lean over the seats, hovering his claws above their shoulders. Charles’ face was scrunched in concentration, and snow battered the windshield as the dark and foggy night gave about enough visibility to blurrily see the nose of the helicopter, “Ohhhh.”
“I don’t think I can- uhh, fly, like this.” Charles admitted as Ellie snorted, baffled such a thing could even come out of his mouth, “You guys don’t mind- me just… landing, and then we can snuggle in the back or something? I’ll let the General know, if my radio can even pierce this blizzard.”
Ellie leaned back in the chair and crossed her arms behind her head, doing her damnedest to make a serious face. “Hmm… hard bargain. Sell me on the snuggling, ‘copter boy,”
Considering Henry had just lived through them all crashing to their deaths horribly due to visibility issues a few hours ago, he was quick to add, “Sounds good. I call dibs on being in the middle.”
“Jewel, love, you’re always in the middle,” Charles’ voice was overpowered by the whirr of the helicopter as he descended through the darkness, and a sharp look from Ellie compelled Henry to scramble back to his seat. He tried in vain to peer over the seats out the window of white, but his height was doing him no favors.
Henry silently prepared himself to reset again, wondering if there were still thick pines below that would lead to disaster. However, the landing was bumpy, but not atypical for the Triple Threat. The blades spun up snow around them in an almost enchanting, glittering sight, as Charles powered the thing down. There was only a slight rumble of the engine, probably for heat reasons. He found it a little funny that the bajillion dollar marvel they worked in could idle like a car.
The snow, Henry realized, had been kicked up just to fall back on their helicopter.
“We’re gonna get snowed in,” Ellie beat him to the punch, sighing.
“You could always clean it off with your telekinesis-” Henry suggested, struck with familiarity by the view outside
“If you have enough Advil to sedate an elephant, with the migraine I’d get from that, then sure, Hen.”
Charles stood up and peered out the window. He still couldn’t see shit, even on the ground, “I can go outside and surveille the area. My jacket’s good enough to go a bit out there.”
“And let all the heat out? Hell no!” Ellie stood up, stepping towards the back door that led into the body of the heli, “You figure out our rescue mission, I’m gonna go sulk about the Wall. This place is too damned similar,”
Ah, that was it, “The Wall, yeah,” Henry blinked, “It’s been- 3 years, Ellie. You were there for a day,”
“God knows how long I spent knocked out.” She gestured with exaggerated fury, “The motherfuckers used chloroform , for fucks sake!”
“Yeah, and we kicked their shit in. Fair trade,” He assumed it would be a lot more scarring for someone who wasn’t entirely assured they would be able to escape. His powers were, sometimes, a gift. Death or endings like rotting in a jail cell weren’t really possible for Henry Stickmin. Well, once or twice, but it didn’t stick and he woke back up again in West Mesa, “And you met me, so-”
“The snow here is worse than the flurries up there,” Charles interrupted, lighthearted but strained, as he fiddled with the radio. All he got was a deafening burst of static, and Ellie quickly clapped her hands over Henry’s sensitive ears as he flinched away. He turned it down just as quickly as he’d turned it on, “Comms are shot. Seems like we’re- uhhh, stuck…”
Henry blinked at him. He went for his pockets, before realizing he wasn’t in ‘mission-mode’ anymore.
“Three sexy government operatives," Ellie began, a grin pulling up across her face, "snowed into a helicopter in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. Nobody can hear a sound… and they have to stay warm…”
It took them a moment, but Charles burst into laughter the moment he understood, and Henry’s face turned a brilliant red. His tail puffed up like a cat’s, which made Ellie dissolve into giggles too.
“Not tonight, I’m too damned sore from the mission,” He waved one hand while covering his flushed face with the other, only making them laugh harder.
“Getting old, huh?” Ellie poked him in the side and he jumped.
Henry’s thoughts from earlier sprung up on him, and he quickly blurted, “I turned 30 yesterday.”
His stomach sank into a pit as he realized what he said, meeting his lovers’ blank stares.
“You- what?!” Ellie started.
Charles followed up, “And you didn’t tell us???”
“You didn’t tell us for three years?”
“I- uh-” Under their intense gazes, he crumbled, “I only found out a few months ago. I checked my file.”
More concern laced their faces, “...You didn’t know before?”
“You know, uhh- my bad memory-” He hated lying to them. He should reset right now and do a solo route and never bring his stupid fucked up self around them again, “-I never thought I’d get this far anyways.”
That was clearly the wrong thing to say, as their faces lit up with alarm and they seemingly coordinated a hug attack, enveloping them in his warmth. In a way, he’d rather break the window and flee into the snow to die, and hopefully wake up again before he’d said anything. He could force a reset, if he really tried, but the feeling of a Fail hadn’t shot down his spine, either. He was along for the ride.
The way that Charles cupped his face and made him meet his big, green, sympathetic eyes is immensely grounding. The reality feels worse than the floaty panic in his head, “Love, what would make you think that?”
“We wouldn’t have let you die that easy,” Ellie’s hands found their place looping around his back, secure as her voice was teasing but filled with an intensity he recognized as her compassion.
What kind of lie would he come up with this time? He’d never gotten this close to spilling the beans, never stayed long enough for it to even be a possibility.
The thought of being known and seen within the hell of his curse plagued his every waking thought, but all the scenarios he’d thought of and all the words he’d spun didn’t materialize in his head. He’d had 2, maybe 3 decades of looping around, and- this was really going to be it.
Henry didn’t know what to tell them anymore. Suddenly, he pushed Ellie away, barreled through Charles, and stalked into the back of the helicopter. He curled up into a crumpled space between some crates, hiding, trying to ignore the footsteps scrambling after him. “Henry?”
“Space-” He curled up even tighter as they approached, closing in-
In an instant, they backed away. He guiltily stared at Charles’ outstretched, gloved hand, avoiding looking him in the eyes.
With the way Henry’s lives had been, every moment of fear came with a surge of boldness in equal measure.
“Sit down.” He started, words tumbling out of his mouth. “I have so much to tell you.”
He had their full attention, as they practically collapsed to the smooth floor of the helicopter. Not wanting to be above them, he slinked down the crate to be on their level. There was so much love in their eyes as they looked up at him. He thought of the hatred in Ellie’s- and the flash of fear he’d once seen in Charles’. It was so disingenuous, as he prickled with self loathing.
Henry sucked in air through gritted fangs. “I’ve died over a thousand times. Four times, just earlier today. You got a couple in too. I just remember.”
There was a long, awkward moment of silence. Nothing but the droning of the engine and the sound of wind and snow outside.
Ellie’s mind was quick, though, and she quickly interjected into the silence, “How- why? ”
“I wish I knew.” Henry thunked his head against the crate behind him, “You know- your Chaos ability- your telekinesis? Mine- It goes farther than the pocket dimension, goes further than my animalistic traits-”
“My ‘luck’ is an illusion created by waking back up again when I fail or die. I just keep trying and trying until something sticks.” He spoke flatly, holding back a waterfall of angst and hurt behind shut eyes. He couldn’t meet their gazes, “I’ve tried countless- ‘endings’- before this one. Decades worth, of joining The Toppats, lone wolfing, thieving, making friends, betraying them, being betrayed, launching the Orbital Station, robbing it, destroying it, fucking stealing it, once- and then I get bored, and one day I sigh and press that button and wake up again in my prison cell. This is the only timeline I’ve stayed in for more than two years.”
“You chose… this?” Charles gestured to their predicament, more lost in realization than making a genuine point, “-out of every possible option?” That was not the question he was expecting from his pilot, and opened a can of emotional worms that there was no hope of closing.
“I chose you.” Giving up on his desire for space, Henry slouched forward, knowing they would catch him. They held him as if he would break, and never in his wild lives had he felt more vulnerable. He buried their face in Ellie’s chest, holding Charles just as close. In this moment, everything melted away besides the three of them.
The snow beat at the windows.
“Fuck, I only chose this because of you two. I’d rather be here, snowed in in the middle of nowhere in your arms, doing the government’s dirty work, than king of the world in the Orbital Station with all of the worlds’ wealth at my fingertips.”
His throat was dry as he cried. Henry didn’t cry often- the last time was a blurry memory. He tried to focus on the two heartbeats around him- he could hear the wonderful motion inside their (intact!) chests, could hear words he couldn’t make out. Someone was rubbing circles into his back, another petting his hair. He knew the differences of the hands, intellectually, but all that fired between his neurons was the feeling of love.
“I’m sorry for dragging us through hell,” He spoke up, interrupting whatever worried conversation they were having, “Again and again.”
To what end?
He wanted to loop, right now, loop back to West Mesa and redo this all again if he had to- but something compelled him not to.
“You have nothing to be sorry for-” The words whistled quickly through Charles’ chest.
“That-” Bless Ellie’s heart, she was not good with big emotions, “That sounds like hell.”
He coughed, almost convinced there was iron in his mouth, “Would you forgive me, if I recounted all the times I betrayed you? For jewels or power or-”
“ Stop it,” She forced out between her teeth, “You’re hurting yourself.”
“Hen, what an alternate you did to alternate us-es in timelines we can’t dream of doesn’t matter.” Charles was trying, too.
“But it wasn’t an alternate me, and oh- I dream of it every damn night I hold you and pretend I’m not a monster-” Henry tried to get up for a moment, a thread of anger tied to his fear, but they had enough sense to hold him down.
Ellie was silent- of course she took betrayal to heart- of course she would take such a statement seriously. He knew what she could do if crossed. He’d been at the bad end of it before- his mind was racing, racing-
“But you chose to stay here.” Charles was the more forgiving type- always had been, always would be prepared to pick things back up on a new leaf. Was that a virtue, or something he needed to work on? Maybe it would have been better to just stay away from thieves-
“I did.”
“...And you do… this… timeline- stuff, to protect us?” Ellie tactfully overlooked the betrayal part. Typical. Maybe she’d force the story of the Civil War out of him some other time.
“All the time. Almost as often as when I die, myself.”
“Then we’re good.” She continued to speak, and a squeeze to his hand- When had Charles grabbed his hand?- signaled an agreement.
…That was too easy. That was too fucking easy.
Henry had foreseen an explosive fight, maybe even physical- or perhaps a cold silence that froze his bones. No, this silence was so, so warm, and alive with breath and closeness and snow.
“We’re good,” He echoed, not knowing what to say.
“We can- we can figure this out tomorrow, okay?” Charles patted his back with his other hand, “Just rest. I’m so grateful you told us.”
“We wouldn’t be a very good team if this could tear us apart,” Ellie added, playful but soft, as she pulled his head closer into her chest and kept ruffling at his short white hair.
Taking their advice, he let himself drift away.
For once, in twisting timelines and endless deaths, he had no dreams of another life stalking him into the night.