#APOLGIIES IF THIS SEEMS RUSHED in truth from tomorrow on i am so busy!!! so so busy!!!! so i was like i gotta finish this before then or my | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

codes-and-stuffs · 9 months

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thinking so hard abt tangtho and ITS ALL YOUR FAULT!!!!!!!!!!!!! you should write smth with them or honestly anyone you want im just biased that's like. a Reunion. whether they thought the other was dead or they were separated for a rly long time or ANYTHING at all that comes between them for a long while, you should write a scene where they meet/find each other again and its just that sense of overwhelming gratitude and /relief/

hiiiiiii aly sorry this took so long i have been a busy bee irl but i have had this fic open and mid writing for so long :D

ao3 link HERE! fic below cut:

Tango was tired. Really tired.

It’d been a few weeks since he was anywhere he felt safe to rest, and even just sitting down for a few hours let the strange monsters following him get close enough to begin their whispers again. That was the worst part, really. All those creepy whispers, sounding so close even though he knew the creatures had never gotten closer to him than a few hundred metres away.

One thing that had always struck Tango as odd had been the language that these creatures spoke. At first, it all sounded the same: ominous, terrifying and in a strange tone that he’d never heard before. He had assumed it to be equivalent to the roaring of lion - that is, something he wouldn’t be able to understand, something inherent to the nature of the beast.

But it was, indeed, a language.

It was Etho who had first pointed it out - and goodness, did Tango miss him dearly - when two ice creatures had hissed at each other a little before seeming to decide upon which would go after which of the two humans. Their body language had been too minimal for their words not to mean anything. Since then, Tango had been keeping an ear out, hoping to pick up what he could to use for their survival.

Well. His survival.

Because he hadn’t seen Etho in nearly a month, and in a world like this one, his first guess was that the other was dead. Etho wouldn’t fall so easily, of course - if anything, it was Tango who often found himself the weaker link in terms of fighting - but Tango had very little reason to believe he would see him again. He’d been running on his own for too long. And -

The whispers struck up again, incomprehensible and threatening, and Tango got back up to his feet.

He had a long way to run.

Etho had been having some very mixed luck.

For one, it was a stormy day. Rain hurled itself down upon the paved slabs of the walkways, puddles forming in large gaps along the side of the paths. Most people here had decided to stay inside, gathered together by the small fireplaces in their dorms or training in the halls, but Etho found that he couldn’t quite settle. It looked like a dangerous storm to be out in alone.

But it did mean that the grounds were clear, which was what he’d been waiting for for quite some time, and so he donned his thickest coat and picked out his sharpest knife and headed out into the cold air of the morning.

The unit he was staying at was surrounded by a large rectangle of barbed wire, the fence tall and imposing and, altogether, likely useless against most of the threats that might arrive. Still, they kept out most of the nearest forces, and at least added to the overall atmosphere. It would probably be harder to convince themselves they were fighting if this place looked like the sanctuary he’d been at long ago.

He’d been having mixed luck for a while.

He was alive, for one, which was pretty lucky on its own. Statistically, he shouldn’t be. But here he was, and he hadn’t even had to survive those hardest first few months alone, and now he even had a solid place to stay. Besides all that, he’d found one of his friends, too: Doc, who ran this entire campus. And that was good. It was good that he’d gained someone by his side.

He didn’t really feel like ruminating on the things that had gone wrong.

As he approached the single gate in the fence, he pulled his coat just a little at the edges, as if somehow that might keep out the rain any more. It was particularly heavy at the moment, slamming down from the skies and shaking the fence minutely. Etho unlocked and unlatched the door with bare hands, watching as if from outside of his body as his fingers fumbled with the lock.

The gate opened and then shut behind him, and he began to make his way down the slope before him. He didn’t want to go far; he just needed to get out of the brighter lights here, to remember what it was like to know peace. He hadn’t appreciated it enough when it was there, and now…

Now he was here. And, despite having found one of his old friends, he still felt utterly alone.

A movement on the next hill over from him caught his eye. It was likely one of the very creatures he was meant to be keeping himself safe from, but something about the lack of fences around him and the sheer power of the storm bolstered his confidence. Besides, he knew he could fight. He understood his own strength. Whatever it was that was out there looked small enough to crush pretty easily.

Slipping his knife out, Etho began to make his way up the hill, eyes still tracking where the tiny movement had come from. It was still moving, he realised, though just barely, as if whatever it was had shallow breathing or was fidgeting where it sat.

He crested the hill and ducked behind a large, crooked tree, silently praying that it wouldn’t attack him while he took shelter behind it. Now that he was closer, he could hear the panting, the quiet muttering, the -

The world froze and then skittered forward jarringly as realisation set in. Etho knew that voice. He knew that presence . Heart almost beating out of his chest, he peered around the tree, eyes wide, searching desperately so that he could confirm that his mind wasn’t betraying him.

Sat on a rock, head bowed down against the heavy rain as he painstakingly wrapped his hand with a strip of pale cloth, was Tango. He looked exhausted, judging purely by his stance, but his breaths still stayed short as if he was in the middle of running from something. Etho watched him for a moment, almost disbelievingly. He was right there. He was right there .

And then his brain caught up with his body, and he near-stumbled out from behind the tree in his haste to catch Tango’s attention.

“Tango!” he half-shouted, half-whispered, still wary of the threats that were likely lurking nearby.

Tango’s head shot up to look at him, before his mouth fell open with surprise and he lifted himself to his feet.

“Etho, is that you?” Tango said. His voice came out as a rasp, like stone against stone, but he barely seemed bothered by it. “No way - there’s no way -”

Barely even registering what he was doing, Etho stepped out across the short distance between them, arms opening just enough to catch Tango as the other took off towards him as well. He was warm and solid and real in his arms. His head was tucked securely over Etho’s shoulder, and the rain felt a thousand miles away.

“I thought you were dead,” Etho murmured into Tango’s hair, and the other laughed wetly.

“I’m not that bad at surviving, give me some credit,” he said. Arms moved across Etho’s back slowly as Tango returned his close hug, his tone still purposefully light. “I don’t know how you found me, though. Even I didn't know where I was. Or where I am now.” Tango pulled back a little, just enough to meet Etho’s eyes. “Hey, Etho, where are we?”

“We’re - uh, we’re next to where Doc’s been hiding, actually.” Etho glanced back to where the fence was barely visible against the dark horizon. It was no wonder that Tango couldn’t see it; it looked as if it was part of the sky.

“Oh, you found Doc?”

“Doc found me,” Etho said with a small grin.

He paused for a moment, hovering on the edge of whether or not he should give himself away. And then Tango tilted his head a little curiously at his hesitant expression, and Etho was suddenly reminded of the long weeks he’d had to spend without him. Maybe he could allow himself a moment of weakness - just a moment. Just for Tango.

“I don’t know what I’m doing anymore,” he admitted softly. “I thought I was fine to just look for everyone, bring them all together, but - I don’t know. I don’t know.”

There was a pause as Tango tried to scrutinise him, squinting through the rain. “You always give so much of yourself to everyone, Etho. You should let yourself have something.”

He had this sort of soft look in his eyes - the kind of look that made Etho feel like something loved. Something precious. Within that moment, Etho felt like the only thing he really wanted to have was this: the world for themselves, and Tango held safely in his arms.

He took Tango’s face in his palms, compelled mostly by affection and somewhat by instinct, before pulling them back sharply when he felt how cold it was.

“You’re freezing!” he admonished, unzipping his coat already so that he could throw it over Tango and try to warm him up a little. “How long have you been out in this storm?”

Tango gave him a tired smile and a nudge. “See, this is exactly what I mean. Never thinking of yourself, always others.”

“You’re avoiding the question.” Etho zipped the coat up and turned Tango around so that he could coax him over to Doc’s place. “We’re going to my room to warm you up, okay?”

“Oh, you have a room and everything!” Tango said. “Sounds like a great place, whatever it is.”

Etho huffed amusedly as they began their descent of the hill. He let the relief of having found Tango fade into a fuzzy warmth at the centre of his chest, glowing and warm in the cold night air. “Well, you say that now…”

Tango was tired. Tired beyond words - beyond even emotions, if he was being honest with himself.

Yet tonight, for the first time in weeks, he had a shelter to stay in. There were fences - terrifying and tall and functionally useless, but they were there . And somehow there was someone pressed close to him, re-wrapping his hands as he leaned against his chest and listened to his heartbeat, steady and present.

He was sure he could still hear the echoes of whispers in his ears. He still felt strange, letting himself curl up and lie comfortably. It didn’t matter so much, though, when he had Etho right here.

Shutting his eyes against the rest of the world, he bid his muscles to relax, and let himself pretend that it wasn’t the end of the world.

#APOLGIIES IF THIS SEEMS RUSHED in truth from tomorrow on i am so busy!!! so so busy!!!! so i was like i gotta finish this before then or my #ao3 draft will get voided #anyway !!!! hope u enjoyed :D love u lots aly!#codes does writing

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