Return of the one long gone

The sacrifices we make for forever

Night had fallen hours before, yet Jimmy and Scott had still persisted to try and make a good dent in Scott's paperwork. It was a massive feat; Jimmy wouldn't have wanted to help but he needed Scott to take a break.

It was evident the King of Rivendell was slowly losing himself again, similar to when he first returned. He was less open to talking or hugs, instead hiding away in his office, labouring through months of files that his advisors were pressuring him to finish before the wedding, even though Scott wasn't attending.

They wanted him to. Jimmy had heard them chastising his fiancé to be finished by the wedding so he could go, show his face and be polite. They didn't care that Scott was just being used as their pawn to efficiency. They hardly did anything when he came home, throwing the already tired royal straight back into his old routine like it was normal. Like he had never not been there.

They didn't react to Scott's pleading either. Didn't care he almost died or that he had a brief period of mourning for the Xornoth he remembers. The brother who he adored and would never had killed if it weren't his only choice in the moment. 

So Jimmy sat, writing until his wrist refused to function as it should, and allowed Scott to be left with around a dozen files that weren't needed until after his sister's wedding. It was rewarding as well, to see the look of utter relief on Scott's face and the small, inappropriate gesture he sent towards the advisor quarters where they would be sleeping at that moment.

That was the Scott Jimmy knew. The defiant, loud, charismatic Scott who was unapologetic and brutally honest. The Scott who had begun to take a stand against his advisors, telling them no and refusing to do certain things he didn't agree with. 

- - - -

It was morning by the time Scott was fully conscious of what he was doing. He vaguely recalls moving away from completed paperwork to his bed, curling into Jimmy and falling asleep almost immediately. Said Cod-hybrid was still in bed with him. He was sat up, awake, carding his fingers through Scott's hair carefully, mindful not to mess it up or wake his sleeping partner up. Scott's head was in his partners lap, or what he presumed was his partners lap; Scott's duvet and a pillow was under his head. 

He had always enjoyed waking up after Jimmy, because he did this every time. Mindful not to wake Scott, but still making him comfortable. It was one of the many things that Scott had fallen in love with. 

"Morning sunflower." Jimmy's smile was contagious as he said it, looking down at Scott like he was the Earth, moon and sun. Like he was the only person in the world, Like he deserved every good thing. Like he deserved Jimmy.

He didn't deserve Jimmy. The blonde was a fire on a cold night. Cozy and homely, filling the silence or quietening the raging sounds in Scott's head when he loses himself. He is part of how Scott found himself again. How he fought against the person his advisors had built. How he finally took a stand, how he kept going when it would have been easier to submit to whatever fate Xornoth had planned for him.

"Morning petal." He smiled back. Because if he didn't deserve Jimmy, Jimmy deserved everything. Jimmy deserved the world. He deserved care and love and everything the blonde may ask for. The least he could do was smile back.

"I know it's early and you don't have to give an answer. But we finished the paperwork. Please come to the wedding. If not for Lizzie and Joel, for me? You said the day I proposed you would do everything and anything to make me happy because that's what I do for you."

And how could Scott refuse or deny that. Those were his exact words, because they were, and still remained, true. If going to the wedding would make Jimmy happy, Scott couldn't not make him happy. He has done too much of destroying that.