Music prompt meme!

[carnagecarnival]

It's exactly what it sounds like!
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1) put a header down for your character(s)!
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2) give people any random song you want to!
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3) Rp something together based on that song!
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Bonus: Stick whatever music players you have on shuffle and make it a surprise!

Comments

[gluteus]

He didn't release him. He had held on to this moment for months - it had kept him going even while his body threatened to fail around him. Even Wyatt's rough curses into his shoulder did little to dissuade him - belied by the tight returning embrace. The nurses hesitated, hovering, desperate to care for him but also not wanting to intrude.

"I am later than I meant," Maximus said, his grip tight. "It is a long walk."

[the_marshal]

Wyatt barked into his shoulder, half a laugh, half a sob. His breath washing against Max's skin in a warm wave. Skin that smelled of old blood and sweat. Pus and dirt.

Terrible, and wonderful.

He took a deep lungful, and lifted his head to rest his forehead against Max's. Eyes shining as blue met blue.

"Can't leave ya alone for five minutes," he murmured roughly.

[gluteus]

He finally released his grip - not to let go, but simply to stop squeezing the other man to death. A warm, fond - if tired - smile grew across his face.

"No," he murmured, "You really can't. Best take note, for the future."

[the_marshal]

The future. A future.

He'd been drifting from moment to moment, day to day since waking up in the hospital. After the disbelieve, the anger, and the desperation had drained away.

He'd stopped looking forward. Hadn't wanted to.

But there it was again. A hammer blow in his chest, a ball of heat in his gut. Another unbidden tickle in his throat.

"You'll be lucky for so much," he rumbled, coughing to clear the words from his tightened throat. His hands flexed in the dirty tunic, slowly relaxed enough for him to pull back and press his lips where his forehead had rested a moment before. "I get my way."

[gluteus]

"I'm already the luckiest man alive," Maximus murmured in a near whisper, fingers brushing over Wyatt's shoulder thoughtfully. He meant it utterly and completely.

Behind them, a flustered nurse was desperately trying to get their attention. "Mr Earp, Mr Decimus, I really must insist - He needs to rest--"

[the_marshal]

Wyatt had all but forgotten they were there. The strange, sudden voice was a bucket of cold water, dumped over him.

He pulled back, grip tightening all over again - instinctively, desperately, a part of him suddenly certain that if he left, Max would disappear again, that it would all be a dream and he would be forced to wake up alone again - but, after a long beat, willed himself to loosen it again.

Slowly.

Knowing, deep down, that they were right. That if was all as real as he desperately hoped, they would need to set right the ills he could feel under Max's tunic, taste even in that chaste kiss.

"I'll wait," he allowed, turning a firm stare onto the staff. "But I'm stayin'."

[gluteus]

"I won't stay," Maximus said, firmly, staring the girl down as she shrunk visibly beneath the wait of the stares from the two men.

He turned his head. "We'll take to your rooms," he murmured. "I'll rest there."

"But you... you need to be rehydrated--" the girl half-whispered, vainly.

[the_marshal]

"Our room," Wyatt rumbled softly. A rumbled correction. A low confession.

Still, even now. Even after.

(He hadn't touched anything. He'd left Max's things as they'd been the last time he'd been there. ...Much to the dismay of 13 and all the roommates they'd tried to bunk him with since.

None had stayed long.)

To the nurse he asked, "Can ya do what ya need to from there?"

[gluteus]

"I--" The girl started but stopped, sighing deeply. "... yes. Alright. But this really-- You both should know that this is completely against procedure--"

"I haven't survived this long to get this close and stop," Maximus told her, bluntly, turning his back to her.

"Our rooms," he murmured to Wyatt in reply.

[the_marshal]

"You'd want the same, if it were you an' yers," Wyatt told her, unfazed by her exasperation. Almost daring her to deny it.

He reached for Max, an arm wrapping firmly around the man's waist. Support, to appease the docs; touch, to appease himself.

(Still there. Still real.)

"Come on, Max," he said, looking back, blue meeting blue. "Yer almost home."

[gluteus]

Maximus only nodded, easily following Wyatt's lead as they left the infirmary and the worried nurse behind them. He did not complain about the suIpporting touch - even leaned into it. He had come so far, for so long, and only now was he really beginning to feel the bone-deep weariness.

It felt strange, taking this long familiar path back. He'd dreamed about returning many times - it had been all that had kept him going - and even now, it felt like a dream.

But not one he was going to destroy by doubting.

[the_marshal]

Wyatt felt Max's weight increasing by fractions as they journeyed back to their room, but his support never wavered. His grip only tightening, shifting only closer as Max leaned on him.

He'd missed the moment, there on the battlefield. He hadn't been able convince 13 to keep looking when they'd debated the search.

He wasn't going to fail Max again.

The room was as it was the day Max had left. As if he'd merely been gone for moments, rather than months. His sparse belongings still mixed with Wyatt's upon the small shelf. His little alter untouched.

Even the bed looked unslept in.

Wyatt helped him ease down on it and reached for him. Squeezing his shoulder firmly before drawing reluctantly back just far enough to left the nurse slip between them.

[gluteus]

The nurse worked quickly - the IV was rolled in beside the bed, and Maximus seemed much more inclined to follow instructions now that he had sunk back into his own - their own - bed. He didn't notice that nothing had changed. (It had been just the same in his dreams, after all.)

The nurse puttered around, sticking the IV in his arm (a torture he had gotten used to, after being in the future so long), instructing Wyatt how to use it and how to change the bag, as well as giving instructions on what to feed Maximus and when, and how to make sure he didn't over feed him. After she was completely satisfied, she left, and Maximus let out a long sigh, looking at the tube coming out of his arm.

"Is this really necessary? I haven't lost a limb--"

This time.

[the_marshal]

Though Wyatt found all the instructions a little funny - Max wasn't some pet that needed minding - he still intended to follow them to the letter. He wasn't going to risk it.

It might all be a dream, but he wasn't going to let it end if he had any say.

"Humor 'em," Wyatt murmured, moving back to sit on the edge of the bed beside Max. Looking down at him, gaze fixed on his face. Drinking in the sight of him. "They'll let ya alone faster."

[gluteus]

"Can't say that particular part of this place is what I was looking forward to finding again," He admitted quietly, reaching out to take Wyatt's hand in his and squeeze it - causing the IV to shake ever so gently.

"... I was half afraid you had left, in the meantime. Retired to a farm it would take me months again to find."

[the_marshal]

"Without you?" His fingers found the space between Max's and an answering emptiness behind his ribs closed. Long open wound finally stitching. "I couldn't do it without ya."

He'd only ever begun of it as home because Max would be there. Without him... it wouldn't be anything but dirt and walls.

A tomb, bigger than this one, but no less haunted.

He swallowed thickly, the small twitch of his mouth only half-humor.

"I don't know a damned thing about wheat."

[gluteus]

Maximus chuckled, completely oblivious to the ghosts in Wyatt's words, squeezing his hand fondly again. "I'm sure you would have managed," He told him, smiling.

"Or someone would be able to rustle up some cattle, for you. Regardless - I am glad you are here. It makes this journey considerably shorter."

[the_marshal]

"Maybe," he allowed quietly. "But they wouldn't'a been you."

He'd meant it, all that time ago, when he'd said this was it for him. That Max - that they - were it. His heart - his soul had spoken - and Wyatt Earp wasn't one for going back on his word.

"...They told us you were gone."

[gluteus]

"Hardly the first time my death has been celebrated," Maximus said wryly. "I woke among the dead, so I am hardly surprised that I was counted among them."

He ran his thumb over the back of Wyatt's hand lazily. "But fate did not see fit to take me. Not yet."

[the_marshal]

"Celebrated ain't quite the word I'd use," Wyatt replied, a touch wry.

It had been months, but he could feel it as if had been only days ago. Had been living with it, under it, every moment since.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there, Max. I still ain't sure what really happened. We were there,... an' then we weren't." He'd been told after that he'd been hit, but he didn't remember it. The faint scar like someone else's.

[gluteus]

Maximus shook his head slowly.

"I of all men know the chaos of the heat of battle," He said in a low voice, a rumble over the stones in his throat. "I do not blame you, Wyatt - I couldn't. It is enough - it is more than enough - that you lived to return."

[the_marshal]

"An' you."

One of his hands twitched, hesitated, and then settled gently on Max's chest - carefully, as if he expected the man to up and disappear, to drift away like smoke from under his palm.

"I'll admit, I ain't sure this ain't all a dream. I've had it, a few times."

His fingers splayed, a warm weight over the steady drum of Max's heart.

[gluteus]

He raised his own hand to press against Wyatt's - to hold it firmly against his chest.

"And so have I," He murmured, "But I am no phantasm, Wyatt. Not this time. I assure you."

[the_marshal]

Wyatt felt no shame in how much comfort that simple movement brought him. How nice it felt.

"Better not be," he replied with a coughed sound that might have been a laugh, squeezed through the stones blocking up his throat. "Heaven er no, ya wouldn't like it much when I got there an' kicked yer ass for ya."

[gluteus]

Maximus kept his hand there, pressing firmly but gently, the warm smile sliding across his lips.

"I'm not sure if that is meant as a threat," He said, "As I would very much like to see you try." His mind could quickly conjure up images of what would really happen if they would wrestle. Or what would have happened, months ago. It didn't seem like much had changed, but that was still a good deal of time.