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thetomorrowshow · 2 years

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burn a light between

hello all! welcome to this team rancher fic requested by @flyingfish1234 who said:

Oh, yes! I was just wondering if you could write something with either chronic pain as a main point or something. Maybe something double life but idk? Team rancher?

here we are fish my beloved!! this has been crossposted on my ao3 - TheYesterdayShow.

title is from Speedway by Cedar Sigo.

Tango thinks he hides his trepidation well when he wakes up at spawn, Jimmy stirring beside him. He bemoans his mistake, apologizes, agrees to go with Jimmy’s plan.

When Jimmy leaves to see if he can regather his stuff, Tango buries his face in his palms, takes a shaky breath.

No wonder he’d been attacked by all those mobs. No wonder that creeper had turned up out of nowhere. No wonder he’s the first one yellow.

He’s soulbound to the Canary.

He hadn’t realized it until he discovered his soulmate, but he’d wanted it to be anyone but Jimmy. He’d wanted Grian, really, as crazy as the man was—or Impulse, someone he knows well and is decent at surviving. Heck, he’d even have been fine with Scott or BigB, despite barely knowing them—and when it comes down to it, even Scar has a better track record of survival than Jimmy does.

There’s nothing he can do, though. He’s stuck with Jimmy, as much as he doesn’t want to be. And he really doesn’t want to be.

But it’s forcibly him and Jimmy against the world, so Tango gets to gathering materials for their base and tools. His life depends on keeping Jimmy alive, impossible as it seems.

He’s barely cut down a single tree when his knee gives out from under him. He hisses at the pain—it’s not too bad, not like anything that had actually happened to him, but Jimmy must have tripped or something and banged his knee.

Tango balances himself against a tree, takes in a breath. When he feels like he can put weight on his left leg again, he does—but it doesn’t stop hurting. It aches, occasionally stabbing through with pain sharper than he would expect from a single fall. Maybe Jimmy tripped again?

Tango can handle a little pain. He’s died before, he’s been injured before. He grits his teeth and gets back to work, pausing every now and then just to breathe through it. Jimmy must have seriously messed up his knee doing whatever he did. Just more reason to get a hut built. Maybe Tango can convince him to just stay inside for the entire death game, where the only pain will be once-in-a-while singed fingers from poking at the fireplace.

Aw, who’s he kidding? Tango’s stuck with the Canary, of all people. Even if Jimmy stays inside, it’ll leave Tango with some cursed obligation to get them killed, and then they’ll be on Red and who even knows if they’ll be able to keep a lid on the bloodthirst enough to be conscious of their fragility. Tango’s never really interacted much with a Red Jimmy, but he’s probably even more reckless and danger-inducing than usual.

His knee throbs again and Tango bites his tongue accidentally, then curses at the taste of blood. Jimmy will have felt that. Which, now that he thinks of it, is kind of embarrassing. Someone he barely knows is right now aware that Tango just accidentally bit his tongue. That’s stupid. This whole soulmates thing is stupid.

There’s nothing he can do about that, though. There’s nothing he can do about any of this. So Tango goes back to ignoring the pain pulsing out from his knee and continues gathering supplies for their home.

Tango’s building a cow pen when he realizes that he can’t feel his left hand.

He pauses, wipes away the sweat that’s dripping into his eyes, then tugs off his rough leather glove with his teeth (his right hand still holding the fence post in place). At first he doesn’t see any noticeable difference. It looks like his hand, he observes as he turns it back and forth, normal, just slightly buzzing and—is it swollen?

He didn’t think he’d been working for too long, and he doesn’t remember pinching a nerve—and pinching a nerve, while it would explain the numbness and buzzing, does not explain swelling. He holds the fence post with his knees, awkwardly half-squatting to keep it in place (his left knee still aches which doesn’t make that any easier) and pulls off his other glove to compare his hands.

Yep, his left hand is definitely swollen—skin reddened and splotchy in comparison to the right, and the lines of his knuckles are just slightly farther apart on the left. He tries to bend the fingers of his left hand, finds them stiff and reluctant to move.

That can’t be right. Tango’s built dozens—if not hundreds—of bases and farms in his life, and he’s never seen anything like this happen from the exertion of the task. The longer he stares, the more the numbness gives way to a slow aching pain spreading through his entire left hand.

What on earth—

Right. Jimmy.

Jimmy’s out doing something—looking for a horn, maybe?—and he must’ve, like, dropped a cobblestone on his hand or whatever. Not that Tango can come up with any reason as to why that might have occurred.

He flexes his fingers again, watches as the movement meets even more resistance than before. This sucks. He doesn’t think he’ll be able to grip anything with his left hand at this rate, and he doesn’t even know why.

It hurts more, now, in an almost tingling way, like brushing a collection of needles across his palm. Jimmy’s got to be doing something idiotic—but there’s nothing he can do about it on his end, except growl in frustration and slap some ice on the offending hand. Which he does, even though it only helps marginally. It at least brings it closer back to the numb state it had started with, so after ten minutes of icing, tapping his foot impatiently as he sits on the steps that lead into their shack, Tango ties the ice onto his still-sore knee and returns to work.

As soon as Jimmy gets back, Tango isn’t letting him out of his sight until he figures out what he’s been doing to injure himself in such inconvenient ways.

When Tango wakes up in the morning, it’s not just his hand and knee that are bothering him (though they still are). It’s also his hip—and it hurts. A lot.

He gasps a little when it shifts, grinding against the joint, as he tries to sit up. Usually Tango would chalk that up to age and not staying young forever, but he hadn’t felt any sort of warning that this was coming. His joints ache now and again, but it’s always achiness that vanishes quickly and only bothers him when it’s cold out, and that is not what this is. This is bad. This is worse than anything so far in this game. This is—well, if he didn’t know any better, he’d say this is his hip dislocated.

It’s not—he can move it well enough, he can feel his leg below it just fine, but it hurts so terribly that it has to be something bad, doesn’t it? He doesn’t remember sustaining an injury, but he must have for something this awful.

Tango does his best to work around it for now, rolling out of bed and limping to where he’d thrown his clothes the previous night. They need to get some sheep, get a change of clothes spun. It’s been a couple of days, and despite the cleanse of the respawn, his usual outfit is becoming a bit ripe.

His hip screams at him, and he only gets his shirt pulled over his head before he has to stop and check it over, probing figures searching for the injury.

There’s nothing.

The fingers of his left hand pulse from where he’s grabbing his leg, and he watches as they turn red and begin to swell again.

Right. Soulmates. Jimmy.

A quick glance around the shack tells him Jimmy’s not here. He must’ve already headed out for the morning—something that worries Tango, mostly because of the pain that’s sure to be coming his way.

But he also kinda just wants Jimmy to be okay.

He hadn’t known Jimmy but by reputation, and it’s so terribly strange actually living with the Canary. But . . . not in the way he’d expected.

Jimmy jokes around and gives Tango praise for the bare minimum and always has a smile. He’s really a nice guy when it comes down to it, and Tango’s genuinely a bit surprised that he hadn’t known that before. Everyone who had teamed up with him in the past only proclaimed his faults.

What’s probably the most gut-wrenching to learn about Jimmy is that he cares. Jimmy cares a lot—he takes the time to name each of their cows, he insists on carrying Tango through the door of their house bridal style when it’s first complete, he extends offers of friendship and trust to anyone he meets. Just yesterday, Tango watched him cradle an armful of chicks on his knees, pure adoration beaming from his face, as if it was the first time he’d even seen a baby chicken.

Tango can’t imagine how much it must have hurt for Jimmy’s former allies and friends to loudly shout his mistakes and ignore everything great about him. Tango’s not even known him for a week and he’s already coming to terms with the fact that Jimmy is more than his legend, is more than what everyone says. Jimmy’s a person, a kind if often misguided person, and Tango definitely still doesn’t want to be soulbound to him but he can at least show him the same kindness.

Jimmy’s a good friend. He deserves some happiness.

That doesn’t excuse all the hurt he’s causing Tango.

Jimmy may be a good friend, but he’s a terrible soulmate. He keeps getting hurt in some stupid way, leaving Tango to limp across their one room hut to the furnace just to try and warm up his terribly aching body. Not that it’ll help much, knowing that it’s Jimmy’s pain and not his own.

Now, he is a little bitter over it. He grumbles a few curses under his breath as he stretches, trying to pop the joints of his left knee and hip as if it’ll ease the pain. He massages the three main points of pain as well, his response to pain so deeply ingrained that he can’t help but try to soothe it, even if it isn’t his own. He’s not sure where Jimmy is right now, but he is sure that there’s no way the man is walking.

Maybe it’s Tango’s responsibility as his soulmate to go find him. Then again, maybe it’s Jimmy’s responsibility as Tango’s soulmate to be more careful about his health.

There’s nothing he can say for it now. Jimmy’s out and about getting injured, so Tango ought to get that farm started that they’d discussed last night. He takes another moment to just breathe, the pain settling into more of a pulsing ache, then hobbles out of the house, more than a little unhappy with Jimmy.

He doesn’t see Jimmy all day. All day, he continues to hurt.

It’s still dark out when Tango wakes, an agonized moan escaping his lips.

He can’t move. The entire left side of his body radiates with fire, from his jaw to his toes, leeching any coolness from the right side and leaving him sweaty under the blankets he can’t move to get out from under.

It hurts, it hurts so much worse than Tango could have ever imagined, it feels like axes splitting open the skin of his side and fishing hooks caught in his knee and white-hot razors along his arm and hand and back and gravel in his hip and a porcupine nestling his foot. Everything hurts so, so bad, and it’s everything Tango can do not to burst into tears as a choked cry squeezes past his clenched teeth.

“Oh—Tango! Did I wake you up?”

Someone’s speaking to him, he doesn’t know who so he can’t tell them what’s wrong, that’s just common sense, can’t be seen as weak on this world—

But there’s something right about their voice, something that, deep down past all the layers of torment, pulls at his soul.

Jimmy.

“Hurts,” Tango manages to wheeze, and there’s a moment of nothing but suffering before there’s a soft glow beside him and he focuses on Jimmy’s clear brown eyes, his brow wrinkled in concern.

“Oh, gosh, you’re all sweaty,” Jimmy murmurs. “Do you want the blanket off?”

Tango nods, gasps when it sends shooting pain up his jaw. Blurrily, he sees Jimmy slowly pull himself up from his knees by gripping the side of the bed, then place his lantern down.

Moments later, gentle hands are tugging the blanket off of him, wrapping it up into a ball at the foot of the bed. Tango takes a shuddering breath, cursing raspily when he feels a tear trickle down his temple.

“Oh, gosh. Oh, geez,” Jimmy mutters from somewhere beside him, then there’s a large hand shifting under his right shoulder, another holding his right hand. “I’m about to help you sit up, all right? It helps, I promise.”

Tango nods almost imperceptibly. He’s practically lying in a puddle of his own sweat, and despite the terrifying pain crashing wave after wave into his body, he feels as if he might be more in control while sitting up.

Jimmy counts to three, then heaves him up so quickly Tango’s almost too shocked to feel anything. Almost.

Because as soon as he’s sitting up, all of the worst spots—his hand, hip, knee, jaw, foot—scream at him in one huge burst. His right hand somehow finds his pants to grip hard, reassurance that he’s here, he still exists, even when his world feels like nothing but endless shards of glass being hurled at him.

It takes Tango too long to realize that Jimmy’s sat beside him on the bed, both arms clutched around his middle. A sob tears from Tango’s throat at a pulse in his left hand, and as he turns his head ever so slightly, he sees Jimmy wince in time.

Right—Jimmy’s feeling all of this as well.

How in the world had he been able to walk, let alone help Tango sit up?

More importantly, Tango hadn’t done anything dangerous in his sleep. This pain doesn’t belong to him. Jimmy had been awake already—had he left the house, had something bad happened to him?

Panic drowns the pain, and Tango releases his pant leg and turns properly, using the low light of the shuttered lantern to examine Jimmy for injuries. There’s no blood or bruising that he can see on Jimmy’s exposed left arm, but the sleeveless white undershirt he wears to sleep obscures his side and the lighting is too dark to see his legs properly—

Jimmy carefully uncurls Tango’s questing right hand from where it’s wrapped around the hem of his undershirt, pats it. His face twists guiltily when he speaks. “I’m so sorry, Tango. I have a pan of water boiling for tea, it’ll help if you feel like trying it.”

Tea. Tango’s never been much of a tea-drinker, but it actually sounds . . . really nice. The pain is severe enough that his stomach is rolling, so at the very least, something to calm that would be great. A warm drink could ease the aching a bit too. He nods agreement, winces when it sends another jolt down his neck.

His knee and hip begin to hurt exponentially more—at levels he didn’t think were possible—when Jimmy stands and crosses the room, leaving his line of sight. Tango breathes in through clenched teeth, then out. Again. Again. He’s not going to cry, he tells himself despite the tears already falling. He can breathe through the pain.

A flash of something hot—stinging—burning hits Tango’s right arm just above the wrist and he jerks, hissing when the jostle just exacerbates everything. He looks to his left—Jimmy’s cursing over and over, balancing a very full pan of sloshing, steaming water. The light of the furnace is brighter than the lantern, and Tango can see a light red burn spreading across his right arm. A glance down at his own arm shows the same mark.

“I’ll rub some ointment on that in a sec, just gotta pour the other cup—”

That cup presumably goes smoother, because soon enough, Jimmy’s limping over with a cup for him. Jimmy presses it into his hands with instructions to let it seep, then goes back for the medical supplies. After several minutes of the cup warming Tango’s hand, he feels the burn on his arm cool, and though it’s only a marginal improvement in the grand scheme of his body, Tango’s grateful for it.

“Stupid Grian and his stupid no-potions rule,” Jimmy grumbles as he gingerly sits beside Tango again, sipping at his own tea. It’s not instant, but Tango feels his body relax slightly without his own input.

He lifts the cup to his nose, sniffs it. It smells almost woody, and while that’s not usually something he goes for, preferring a sweet drink, he tastes it anyhow.

It’s . . . well, it’s strange. It’s quite a bit saltier than he expected, and the woody flavor is very present—almost as if biting into a piece of driftwood found on the beach. He’s not sure he likes it.

He can’t deny it’s helping, though. It still hurts, a lot, but the tea cuts through the fog of pain in his head and relaxes his tensed muscles.

“Better?”

Tango nods, breathing a sigh of relief when the motion only twinges. “What . . . where’d you learn to make this stuff?” he rasps, shaking the mug for emphasis.

“Lizzie taught me, actually. I’m not sure if she invented it, though. It probably came from Ocean tradition.”

Tango chooses not to ask about that. Instead, with a slow wave of pain cresting, he takes another sip and brings up the obvious.

“You’re hurt.”

Jimmy winces. “No. I’m not.”

Tango croaks out a laugh, despite there being nothing funny about any of this. “Oh yeah?” he challenges. “Why’s it hurt, then? I’ve been feeling it all week. What’s going on?”

The hunch of Jimmy’s shoulders is despondent, his gaze into the tea guilty once again. “I’m not—I haven’t been getting injured,” he begins. “Well, except for just now, with the boiling water. But this—” he gestures vaguely to the left side of his body with his cup— “this is just the way it is. It always hurts.”

That’s not possible, though. Jimmy’s young, and he runs around and farms and keeps up with everything, and with this level of agony Tango doesn’t think that would be possible for anyone, no matter how young they are.

“Is this—is it a Canary thing?” asks Tango, trying to work it out aloud. “Like, the curse is already trying to kill you, and it just hurts until—”

“No,” Jimmy interrupts quickly. “It’s not—it’s nothing to do with—that. It’s—look, Tango, do you know what chronic pain is?”

“I’m a smart boy, I can figure it out,” Tango says drily, then more seriously, “like arthritis?”

“That’s one kind, yeah. It really just means a pain that you’re stuck with for life. And that’s . . . that’s what this is.”

“Yeah, but arthritis isn’t—isn’t this,” Tango protests, biting back a gasp as his elbow flares. “It’s—it means that sometimes you need a cane ‘cuz your knees are tired. This—”

“—isn’t arthritis,” Jimmy finishes. He looks tired, more than anything. “It’s called Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, or CRPS. You ought to look it up when this is over, not too many people know about it. And arthritis can be a lot worse than you think, you know.”

CRPS. Tango rolls the letters around his tongue, takes another sip of his tea. The pain is definitely more manageable now, seeing as he’s not clenching his jaw so hard he’s afraid of cracking a tooth. “So . . . what, you just woke up one day like this? Or were you born with it?”

Jimmy frowns. “Neither, really. It—well, some years back, my hand just . . . stopped working right. Temperatures were all wrong, it got all swollen sometimes. All that. And ever since, it’s just . . . it’s spread.”

Tango takes a moment to process that, as well. It’s a little difficult to wrap his head around: Jimmy’s been feeling this pain for years, and it’s only gotten worse as time passed. Like dementia, his mind supplies randomly. At first it’s just little things here and there, then it builds and then one day you wake up with everything wrong.

“That . . . that sucks,” Tango says vehemently. “You just live like this? All the time?”

“There are good days and bad days,” Jimmy shrugs. Tango swallows back the pain that rolls through his left shoulder at the motion. “This is—this is a bad day. I pushed myself too hard this week.”

“Is there anything that helps?”

Jimmy raises his mug. “This stuff. Stretching and sleeping well and all those healthy lifestyle things. But potions don’t touch it, and neither does a respawn, so.”

That’s a disappointment for sure. Tango had been about to ask Grian to lift the potion restriction for Jimmy alone in light of this information. If Jimmy’s right, though, and there’s nothing that really relieves this pain. . . .

“How are we going to survive?” he mumbles to himself. If they’re both in constant, mind-numbing pain, how will they ever be able to stand up to the other crazy pairs on the server? How will they be conscious enough to even recognize threats?

“Sorry,” Jimmy says quietly, and Tango doesn’t realize until he glances over that Jimmy’s face is shadowed in guilt.

“Hey, no—that’s not your fault, dude! Why would you ever think it’s your fault?” Tango may still be fairly irritated (or a lot irritated, with this revelation) about Jimmy being his soulmate, but Jimmy’s his soulmate and he won’t stand for that kind of treatment of his soulmate.

Jimmy shrugs again. “I’ve always sort of—dragged everyone else down, you know?”

“What? No—”

“C’mon, Tango,” Jimmy says, fixing him with an exhausted glare. “I may be dumb, but I’m not stupid. I know what they call me. I know what they think when they see me. I know what you thought when you realized that I was your soulmate—you didn’t want me. I could tell. I’m—I’m not meant to be happy, I’m not meant to win anything, and everyone knows and makes it their life mission to make sure I’m alone in that.”

It’s not the words that worry Tango the most. It’s the matter-of-fact tone, the clear belief that these thoughts are universal and unshakeable, that really bothers him.

“That’s not true,” he automatically responds. Jimmy just shakes his head.

“Grian won’t give me a horn because he thinks they won’t be fun when I have one,” he counters. “Martyn kicked me out of the Southlands and Grian voted to keep me out twice. Everyone I’ve met since the start of this world has been grateful that it wasn’t me they were stuck with. The last server I was on, everything was taken from me and I was exiled. I’m the Canary and my life is supposed to suck—whether it’s death or destruction or my own body fighting me, I’m supposed to be alone, so that if I die from the fumes no one else will!”

Tango’s not sure how to respond to that, so he doesn’t say anything. All he can think is those sound like a lame excuse for friends.

Jimmy’s shoulders are shaking and he sniffs, runs a hand under his nose. “I’m sorry that the universe—or whatever higher powers there are—stuck us together, Tango. I really am. If I’d had any idea that someone else would be feeling . . . this, I never would’ve agreed to come on this round. We can talk to Grian, arrange something, take me out of the game. I’m sorry I’m here. I’m sorry you’re with me.”

And then he hunches over into a miserable little heap, one that sends pulsing aches through Tango’s bones and his heart.

Because Jimmy’s right. He had been upset, angry even, over being paired with Jimmy. Ever since he found out, he’d been bitter—never to Jimmy’s face, but clearly his efforts to hide his true feelings hadn’t been enough and Jimmy had noticed.

And now that he knows it all—or at least, knows as much as Jimmy felt like telling—those feelings have completely vanished in an instant. Instead of resenting Jimmy just for the chance of being stuck with him, or getting angry at how he seemed to be getting hurt all the time, Tango just feels so much love for Jimmy it hurts.

He may not know the guy very well, but he knows by now that he struggles to even stay on his feet on a daily basis. He knows that he’s world-weary, tired, exhausted. He knows that he must feel like everyone has abandoned him for a chronic condition that he can’t control just because it tends to lead him into death a bit easier.

And maybe Tango is still angry, but not at Jimmy. He’s angry with Jimmy’s so-called friends for abandoning him to a world of nothing but pain.

“You’re amazing,” Tango tells him, and he hadn’t realized exactly what feeling those words were going to be imbued with when he said them, but now he knows and his heart is singing in admiration. “Jimmy, you’re telling me that you deal with this every day, and you’re still an incredible player? That’s—you’re amazing,” he says again, and this time, Jimmy lifts his head up.

His eyes are dry, surprisingly, but he only offers a disbelieving smile. “You think?” he asks drily.

“No, really—how long did you say this had been going on?”

Jimmy bites his lip. “Five years or so? I don’t remember.”

Five years. Five years of this all-encompassing pain, the pain that just minutes ago Tango had been certain he was dying from. And nobody had ever even noticed. He’d somehow hidden it.

He’d hidden it from Tango, too.

“I wish you’d told me earlier,” Tango says. “I wish I’d known.”

“Yeah, sorry. I didn’t know you could feel it, otherwise—”

“Not for my own sake,” Tango interrupts. “I wish I’d known so that I could help you be more comfortable. It’s not the whole, feel-each-others’-pain thing. It’s about how you’re my friend, and I want you to feel better. For you, not me.”

Jimmy doesn’t believe him, he can tell. Tango’s not surprised after what he’s said. He takes Jimmy by the shoulder—the right one, of course, slinging his arm around Jimmy’s back to do so—and gently tips his head so that it’s leaning against Jimmy’s.

“I wouldn’t trade you for anyone else on the server,” Tango says, doing his best to rub Jimmy’s shoulder comfortingly. “Who cares if we die first? You’re my soulmate, dude. What’s important is that I got your back no matter what.”

Jimmy bumps his head lightly against Tango’s, lets out a shuddering sigh. “You sure?” he asks, voice so terribly small and achingly vulnerable.

“No doubt about it. And if any one of the others says anything about you, just let me know. I'll make ‘em regret it.”

“You can’t kill until you’re on Red,” Jimmy points out. Tango grins.

“There are a lot of other ways to ruin their lives,” Tango threatens ominously. Jimmy snorts out a laugh.

He’s still in severe amounts of pain. He still barely got any sleep. Somehow, though, Tango feels motivated. Motivated enough to help Jimmy understand that he’s willing to learn to be better.

“So what’s first?”

Jimmy shoots him a confused look. Tango takes another sip of tea before continuing.

“You said this tea stuff helps. What else? Should we take the day off, or power through it? Is there more to do to make it better? What do we do?”

“You—you really want to stay?”

“What, like you expect me to leave you to deal with this alone?” Tango scoffs. “No way. I’m here to support you, man. I want to stay.”

Jimmy nods several times. “Okay. Okay. Um, there’s a few chores we’ll need to do once the sun actually rises, but other than that we’d probably ought to take it easy. Um, ice might be good? But that’s mainly just to numb it enough to get through the chores, it’ll probably be worse after because it hates extreme temperatures. Other than that, we just need to . . . ride it out, see how it goes.”

Tango can do that. He trusts Jimmy knows what he’s doing. “I can handle most of the chores—we’ll both feel better if you stay in bed, I think. I can go get some ice from the icebox to start.”

Of course Jimmy protests. For some reason, none of the others had ever talked about how adamant Jimmy could be about his own capabilities, how desperately he wanted to help. And as the morning goes on, maybe Tango relents a little bit when the burning under his skin gets the better of him—lets Jimmy feed the cows while he pulls weeds out of the garden, lets Jimmy cook up something for lunch while he collects eggs and feeds the chickens.

And if they both sleep the rest of the day (Jimmy tells him they’re out of ‘spoons’, something Tango’s never heard before but is willing to accept), nobody comes calling to find out.

Tango knows Jimmy’s exerting himself when the ache in the bones of his left leg jumps from a 4 to an 8 on a 1-10 scale of pain. He’s learned by now that it’ll just trigger a chain reaction and soon his entire body will be on fire, so he packs up his hammer and nails and throws a tarp over the section of roof he’d been redoing. He leaves the ladder propped up against the house, sets his toolbox down just inside the door, and starts a pan of water boiling.

Jimmy stumbles in twenty minutes later, just as the pain in his upper back crescendos.

“Sorry,” he gasps, shucking off his chestplate that Tango notices now has a very glimmery effect to it, “went down to the Deep Dark. It’s—it’s something else down there.”

“That’s incredible!” Tango exclaims, and he helps Jimmy with the rest of the armor, biting the inside of his cheek to keep from making a noise at the spikes of agony shooting through him. Jimmy smiles proudly, the only indication that he hurts at all the pinching of his forehead and the lines around his eyes.

Jimmy willingly gets into bed while Tango finishes up the tea—a sign of how exhausted he is, really. Tango’s learned over the past week that Jimmy does not like giving up, even at the expense of his bodily functions. It’s another thing about him that, for some reason, had never been touted by his so-called friends.

When the tea is done and they both have their mugs, Tango gingerly clambers onto their pushed-together beds and kneels beside the face-down Jimmy. “Is it all right if I touch you?” he asks, suddenly anxious. Jimmy’s back tenses; Tango’s own back seizes in pain.

“Wh—how so?” Jimmy asks cautiously.

Tango works his hands absently in the air, miming his intended actions to no one. “Like, a massage. I thought it might help to loosen the muscles up or something.”

Jimmy’s quiet for a moment. “Maybe. I’ve never had anyone willing to try.”

Tango swallows back the anger at how lonely Jimmy sounds and gets to work, starting with both hands, switching to just his right when it proves too painful to be continuing with the left. He massages up and down Jimmy’s back, then his left leg, all while Jimmy presses his face into the pillow and is silent.

It doesn’t really help. Tango only feels marginally better, although that may be more because his body is less tense rather than any actual pain relief. But when Tango lies down properly, gritting his teeth at the spasms of pain trailing up and down his body, Jimmy turns to rest his cheek on Tango’s shoulder.

“Thank you,” he whispers, sniffling a bit. “Not just—but for everything. I don’t deserve you.” Tango shifts so that his arm wraps around Jimmy, holding him close to his chest. Despite the stinging at the motion, Jimmy melts into him, and Tango wonders just how long it’s been since Jimmy was properly hugged.

Jimmy may be the Canary, but Jimmy’s his Canary. And Tango’s going to make darn sure that he’s always got someone to hold him when the pain won’t relinquish its grip. He’s going to be here for Jimmy until they both die first, and even beyond that.

Tango’s going to do his best to prove to Jimmy that his pain does not make him a burden. It does not make him unworthy of love.

And maybe Tango will learn a few things along the way, about chronic pain and disability, and how unfair the world is for those who need help. For now though, he’ll just hold Jimmy tight until they both fall asleep, and hope that Jimmy will begin to understand just how amazing he is.

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