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He grabs a picture frame, glass cracked and wood worn: “Is this you and Zane?”
Cole leans over, stopping from pausing through old boxes of outgrown clothing to admire the old photograph. Despite the ruined visage, he takes in the old imagery with some elated, nostalgic undertone. His puffy cheeks, Zane’s old non-robotic appearance, that baby fat that still seem to hold onto their teenage cheeks. He grins, closing up the box he was looking through and coming over to Geo’s side.
“Yep, that’s us. Man, I had a wicked haircut.” He puts his hands on his hips, leaning in to take the details of the faded picture, “We had to have been what… sixteen, seventeen? This is definitely from before Lloyd, I can tell you that.”
Geo hums, thoughtfully. He turns over the old frame in his hands, looking at the scribble handwriting on the back and taking the date: “Geez, I knew you’ve been out this for a while, but I don’t know it was that long.”
And Cole laughs a little at that, rubbing at a spot under his eye before saying: “What can I say? I was a teenage ninja prodigy.”
Geo rolls his eyes a little with that, huffing at the humor of the tone. If Cole’s previous words or anything to come by, it wasn’t that much of a title to be proud of. Not the age they had started, no, not when things got serious and took a turn for the worse. That wasn’t much to dwell on now, though.
He hosed his hand over the cracked glass, the spiderweb pattern that must’ve formed sometime during the merge and gone forgotten when Lloyd had put it back up on a desk. He let his fingers glide over the texture, feeling a bit of energy direct from the palm of his hand over to the gaps. The holes fill, replaced with elemental energy and pieced back together.
Cole makes a noise, a mix of a hum and elation as the photo becomes as good as new, “Do you know that I love you?”
“I do.” Geo holds it a good foot from his face, shining it against the light and making sure the cracks were totally invisible. He hands it to Cole, and he takes it with some dumb grin on his face.
“I can’t believe it. That we used to look like this, that we were so young ”—He thumbs over the corner of the frame, paying careful attention to not smudge or leave any marks in the glass—“I’lll have to show Zane. He used to look so simple, with his dark eyes and more blonde hair. Man, I never got why he switched the white.”
“Or stopped... having skin?” Geo incredulously asks, a brow raised and voice high as he motions toward the photograph.
“Oh.” And Cole snorts a laugh, “That too. Man, he’s so weird.”
“I think he looks nice,” Geo adds, standing a bit awkwardly as Cole reminisces, “Then and now. I think. He does look young though, both of you. I could never understand how you could just toss yourself in the battle.”
He adjusts himself, going on: “Didnt you get scared? I feel like sometimes Spitz is afraid of his own shadow.”
Cole laughs a little, at that: “Well, we weren’t ten.”
And then he twists his smile, staring at the photo with a furrow of his brow. Cole sets the photo down on the tabletop, leaning back to stare at it from afar. Geo shifts his weight between his feet, “But we were kids.”
“Geez,” and he leans forward in that uncomfortable, gut twisting way, “This was probably only what, a year? A year and a half?—before the Overlord.”
“Before Zane, he died .”
“Oh.” And Geo almost feels bad, if it wasn’t for the state of things now. Cole stands a bit straighter, tossing a tentative glance in Geo’s direction before pulling himself back to the image. He blows some hair out of his face, and uses a free hand to tuck some behind his ear.
“I wouldn’t call it fear, I don’t think,” he starts, making some small motions with his hands, “I think it was recklessness, for a while. I don’t think I felt scared until we failed, in a way. Until Zane died, and I realized some things.”—“Until I turned into a ghost, or we lost Lloyd. It was kind of easy to forget, when things were happening , you know?”
And Geo nods, leading them off to sit in some loose, dust covered chairs. The photo stands as a backdrop on the desk, a centerpiece tantamount to something more.
“And then something would happen, you know how it was. Someone got hurt, really hurt and suddenly the future was uncertain and we all argued too much,” He takes a breath, a bit watered and waved, “I loved to run away, but I don’t know if it was fear, maybe I’d call it that now.”
“Lord.” He huffs a wet laugh, looking off to the side and glazing his eyes over the photo, “When I turned into a ghost, I really thought it was the end.” — “I wouldn’t wish that sort of thing on anyone, not on kids, especially. We had such big responsibilities, and the consequences followed and popped up when we least expected.”
He points up to the ceiling, the planks of the basement’s top making some old and worn scene: “I think out of all of us, Lloyd’s been hit the hardest by it all. I got depressed, really depressed, but I got help. Things worked out for me, in the end, I guess.”
Geo pulls his lips into a tight frown, finding himself in the picture.
“I don’t know.” He shrugs, letting the words and feelings fall of his shoulder in waves, “I’m happy now. I wouldn’t take it back, I don’t think but .. it’s hard to not think about what ifs now. I’d never want to put our kids in that situation.”
“We”—and he points to the photo—“Me and him, we’re too far gone to turn back now. You know? It’s become us.”
And he coughs, and Geo reaches out to put a hand on his arm. Cole maneuvers and takes his hand into his own, letting Geo’s reassuring squeeze take him somewhere else.
“Thanks for fixing the photo. It means a lot.”
“I know, Cole.” He pulls the other into an odd little side hug, facing them to the wall of littered photographs and old art. Cole hitches a breath at the sight, the wall of memories facing them now, and Geo simply mutters out into the space, “You’re welcome.”