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“Oh no” Rewind sighs sympathetically almost as soon as he walks in the door, “Did it happen again?”
Chromedome whips around, the confusion at his fiancé’s words doing nothing to assist the agitation already boiling under his skin. “Did what happen again?”
Rewind bites his lip and waves his hand a little, more like a twitch than anything, “You know… The thing. With your bladder.”
Ah. The incontinence. The incontinence brought on by being fucked like an animal by too many men than he was old enough to be able to count (fuck, he remembers being taught how to write the number three in the same year he remembers getting raped and sold out like some object).
“Yes” He says, sarcasm the only intonation he can summoun to cover up the pain in his heart, “It did happen again.”
His teeth are gritted a little bit as he says it, the embarrassment already blazing within him rising again, brighter. A full adult and still pissing his pants like a fucking baby, like some sort of piss fetishist.
Rewind’s face practically shatters with sorrow, but he pieces it back together fairly quickly. “Oh, Chromedome… How are you holding up?”
“Fine” He lies, shrugging forcibly. “It’s just a thing. I’ll do the laundry tonight.”
Anyone else would take the bait – Chromedome’s gotten good at this whole inflection and expression thing.
But Rewind isn’t everyone. He carries a camera around his neck with a thick black strap everywhere he goes to ‘record history as it happens.’ He’d follow a man with a black mask on and a barely concealed gun on his back into a dark alleyway if he promised to give him primary sources to some niche historical event for it. He wears his heart on his sleeve, on his face, on his voice…
And he’s Chromedome’s future husband.
If I’m lucky, he remarks, which going by how the rest of my life has gone, I’m gonna guess that I’m not.
Even if we do get married, we’ll probably get divorced in a few years. Maybe we’ll have kids by then and it’ll be a total shitshow. Or maybe it’ll be a total shitshow anyways. Who knows?
“Chromedome” Rewind calls with that sort of soft firmness that he somehow has, taking fearless strides from the bedroom doorway to his fiancé on the bed, “You’ve got that look in your eye again – that one where you’re being super pessimistic.”
“And that’s different from my normal expression how?”
Rewind ignores him, “The one where you’re being super pessimistic about your… childhood.”
“Which part?” He inquires sarcastically.
Rewind, being Rewind, answers in grim earnest without the slightest deterrence, “The sexual abuse.”
“Ah” He nods slowly, suddenly aware of every motion of his body as he carefully pulls up what little of a mask he can shamble before his beloved Rewind. “The ring.”
“The ring” Rewind confirms, settling down beside him on the bed and looking at him with those wide, loving eyes that seemingly couldn’t bear to bare judgement.
That’s my Rewind, he thinks affectionately in spite of himself.
“Do you want to talk about it?” His fiancé asks softly.
Chromedome takes a deep, trembling breath, like his therapist taught him to, like Rewind taught him to.
“I was thinking about you, actually” He murmurs. “Sort of. I-I don’t know. I was thinking about the ring and then you came in and I was thinking about you.”
“About how I’m going to leave you?” He inquires gently, like he’s picking up a baby bird with a broken wing.
Chromedome nods. “It’s scary,” He admits, “This… This whole thing. It’s scary. I’m not… I’m a lot, Rewind.”
“I know.”
Chromedome pulls his hands into each other, wrapping his fingers around a hangnail and pulling. “But forever? Rewind, you’re-”
Rewind pushes his own hand over Chromedome’s, separating his fingers from the hangnail their tearing at to take the offensive hand in his grip.
“Sorry,” He apologizes once he’s got Chromedome’s hand in his, “You were hurting yourself. Please continue.”
Chromedome squeezes his hand as he takes another deep breath.
Rewind squeezes back without hesitation.
“You’re a good person, Rewind. You’re so smart and kind and determined. You’re the best archivist this world has ever seen, and I’m… Anyone would give anything to be with you, Rewind. I don’t believe you’d pick me.”
“Well, I did, and I pick you again every single day. I picked you this morning and I pick you now.”
Rewind reaches a slow hand up to take Chromedome’s face in his warm hand, making sure he’s looking at him as he says; “It’s you, Chromedome. It’s always going to be you. I want you. I love you.”
“How?” He rasps. He’s a broken shell of a man, the battered remains of an abused child formed of nothing but teeth and blood.
“Because you’re amazing” He replies, and he looks like he actually means it. “And I can’t wait to tell you that everyday for the rest of my life, even after you start believing it.”
A part of Chromedome jumps to crack a dry remark, but most of Chromedome is staring into Rewind’s eyes, eyes overflowing with love and honesty, and eyes that have never failed to draw even Chromedome out from his pessimistic shell.
He squeezes the hand in Rewind’s again, “Okay.”
Rewind squeezes back, and smiles, “Okay.”