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He wakes to a wide sky painted with pastels. The ground under his feet is a silver pool of rippling water that, somehow, doesn’t soak into his shoes. It’s empty in every direction but, for some reason, Crow doesn’t panic. There’s something comfortable about this place that sets him at ease.
Something swirls and solidifies in the distance—a flash of black, red and silver. Crow knows it’s Rean even before the image fully comes into focus. His heart picks up speed and pangs in his chest with each rapid beat, every thump piercing him as deeply as the Vermilion Knight.
Crow wants to sprint toward him. He wants to collapse to his knees. He wants to run away. To hide in shame. But in the end, he freezes, eyes glued to the face of the man he failed as he draws closer.
Rean is smiling. It’s a gentle thing, easy and warm and dangerously inviting.
“I was hoping I’d get to see you one last time,” he says, his voice glowing with adoration.
Crow just barely manages not to wince, though the pain twisting inside him screams. Instead, he just lets out a heavy breath.
“I’m sorry, Rean,” flies out of his mouth. He chokes on something lodged in his throat, something molten hot and covered in rusted nails, and his eyes sting as his gaze falls to their shoes. “I—”
A bandaged hand cups his chin so tenderly that it breaks him. He has no right to cry over this—not after how much Rean has suffered because of him, but the tears come anyway.
“For what?” Rean asks with a small, bright laugh.
“I promised I—” he chokes off, “and I left you. I left you alone and let Ishmelga tear you apart over and over and over,” he gasps for air and nearly chokes on it.
Rean shushes him gently, coaxing him with softly murmured words and soothing touches from the bandaged hand, but Crow can’t bear to look at his failure.
“I know what that’s like—I know, I know,” a high-pitched sound of pure agony leaps from his throat before he can stop it. “When someone’s hurting you and you’re alone.”
Rean pulls him against his chest and holds him close. “Oh, Crow… I knew there were things you never told me, but I never imagined…” he exhales and collects himself. “You didn’t leave me. I let you go.”
“You said—”
“Ishmelga said,” he corrects. “I was in control of our tether. Even without Valimar and Ordine, I could still feel your soul in that dark, empty void. You’d given everything… I didn’t know if our connection meant Ishmelga could—you deserved to be at peace.”
“So did you,” Crow replies with as much force as he can. It’s kind of pathetic, really, but what else is new?
“I don’t know how much time we have here,” Rean says. “I don’t want to spend it on should have’s and guilt. I want to tell you that I love you, Crow. I’ve loved you for a long time. I wish I had said it sooner. I wish I told you back at Thors, when I thought it was just a crush. The more I learned about you, the more I loved you. Letting you go was the hardest thing I ever did. I didn’t know you survived in this world, and I still made copies of you. I think that tells you everything you need to know. Even when my soul was torn apart and corrupted, I still needed you. My love for you was one of the few things even Ishmelga couldn’t change. I love you so much, Crow Armbrust. My only regret is that I didn’t get enough time to show you that I mean it.”
He’s cautious and careful but determined as he pries Crow away from his shoulder enough to see his face. He’s flushed and flustered and raw, trying to hide the tremble in his hands without taking them off Rean, but he stays.
“And the other me loves you just as much as I do. He won’t say it because he knows you still need time to figure yourself out, but I promise that he’ll wait.” He brushes Crow’s hair back. “Try not to keep him waiting too long, all right?”
Crow struggles to find words, a gentle way to tell Rean that he doesn’t deserve to be alive, let alone the honor of Rean Schwarzer’s heart, but it’s all tangled. Verbs and nouns knotted around adjectives so tightly they’ll never come loose, but he clears his throat and tries anyway.
“I can’t—I need to—Ordine and the others… I have to make it mean something.” He inhales sharply. “They died so I could,” he breaks off as his breath hitches and he squeezes his eyes shut against the warm stinging that threatens them. “I need to prove I deserve it.”
Rean leans in to nuzzle his forehead. “They wouldn’t have given you a miracle if you hadn’t already earned it, Crow.”
Rean can feel Crow’s surprise, a small jolt that runs through his body and startles him almost comically. “Huh?”
Rean gives him a smile that borders on laughter but it’s sweet and kind, like sunshine breaking through the clouds on a day when the wind is just sharp enough to bite.
“I’ve got some of the Other Me’s memories tangled up in my head thanks to the assimilation—most of them, actually. And I know it was Valimar, not Ordine, who suggested saving you. Why do you think that was?”
“Because Millium—”
“They could have brought her back and let you fade away. It wasn’t a two-for-the-price-of-one, Twilight-Only special on miracles, Crow. Besides, Valimar couldn’t have known about Millium’s back-up body. Franz managed to hide that from Alberich. No. When Valimar spoke up, he did it with the intention of saving you.”
Crow works his jaw, but no sound comes out.
“He never would have done that if he didn’t think you deserved it. It’s that simple, Crow.”
“What if he only did it because he knew how you felt about me?”
Rean smiles. “Then the best way to honor him would be to let yourself be with Rean, wouldn’t it?”
Crow swallows, his throat dry. “…I-It’s too easy,” he forces out.
“You died,” Rean answers flatly. “Literally. Sacrificed yourself once and then tried to do it again. People who’ve done far more damage than you ever will have been forgiven with far less penance.” He tucks Crow’s hair behind his ear with his bandaged hand and the way he’s looking at Crow makes his heart feel like a cup overfilling with water. “Just promise me you’ll consider what I’m saying.”
“I… can try,” he answers.
Rean’s smile widens, and a new peace settles over him. “Good. That’s all I can ask for.”
Crow takes the clawed hand in his own, and Rean hesitates, suddenly going shy, but Crow holds on meaningfully and Rean eventually concedes.
“Sorry,” Rean offers self-consciously.
“Don’t be,” Crow says, bringing Rean’s clawed hand to his lips and kissing it gently without a hint of revulsion.
Rean’s eyes go watery, shimmering with unshed tears.
“… What happens to you now?” Crow asks.
Rean shrugs with a small smile. “I’m not sure. But I think I’ll get to be with you again. The other you, the one from my world. Death couldn’t stop him the first time; why would this be any different? I’m sure he’s going to give me an earful because there’s no way he hasn’t figured out what I did. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s been tearing through universes just to find me,” he chuckles, “maybe that’s what made it easier for Elysium: you tearing down the walls between worlds to claw your way back to me like you promised.”
Crow’s bottom lip wobbles. “I hope he finds you.”
“He will,” Rean answers, cupping Crow’s cheek. “You always do.”
Rean’s form begins to fade, slowly losing its opacity, and Crow’s gut lurches as he pulls Rean tight against him.
This is what almost happened to him after the Rivalry, isn’t it? What would have happened at the end of the Twilight, if they hadn’t gotten a miracle.
It’s horrible, even worse than leaving a body behind. To feel someone literally disappear in your arms… Goddess, it’s cruel.
How had he ever dreamt of putting Rean through this?
“Don’t cry, Crow,” Rean says tenderly. “Your Rean is waiting for you. And somewhere out there, my Crow is waiting, too. It’s time we move forward with them. Relentlessly. Without looking back, right?”
He draws back and smiles, his image barely there and fading, fading, fading—
Crow wakes with a start and tears on his pillow. A frantic glance at his surroundings reminds him that he’s at the Hotel Millennium—Speaker MacDowell comped their rooms so they could all be in attendance at the signing later.
His head is a jumbled mess and he’s not sure what’s real and what isn’t, but he knows he needs to see Rean. Needs to confirm that he’s himself, that he’s there. He doesn’t even bother to change out of his sleep shirt; just throws his pants on and beelines for Rean’s room. He’s knocking frantically before he realizes that he doesn’t even know what he wants to say.
This occurs to him when Rean opens the door and he starts with concern.
“Crow—are you okay? What happened?! Is something—did you hear from Jusis? Is his brother—”
“It’s not that—” Crow reassures him. “I mean, I don’t think so, I haven’t heard—” He forces himself to pause. “That’s not why I’m here.”
Relief passes over Rean, though he’s still concerned by Crow’s current state, which is flustered and frazzled, considerably desperate and buzzing with nervous tension he couldn’t hide if he tried.
“Okay,” Rean nods. “Do you want to come in?”
Crow bites his lip. Isn’t this what he came for? Fuck, this was a mistake, a terrible, horrible mistake—
“Y-Yeah, okay,” his mouth says. It takes a long moment, but he manages to put one foot in front of the other and cross the threshold.
Well, there’s no turning back now.
Rean closes the door, then gives Crow a look of even deeper concern. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Didn’t just see it,” Crow mutters. He felt it. He’s haunted by the texture of the bandage against his skin, the leathery sensation of the clawed hand against his lips.
“Should I get—”
“No,” he says quickly. “I just… I’m a mess, Rean. I’m an absolute, certified disaster of a human being and I don’t think I deserve to be here—not yet, at least. I need to earn it. After all the shit I pulled, I need to—I need to pay for it, but I don’t know how.” He sounds more desperate than he wants to, like he’s begging Rean for an answer he knows the man can’t give. It’s pathetic, but what about him isn’t?
“Crow, you literally died. You’ve helped save the world twice now. You’ve done more than enough.”
Crow manages an unsteady chuckle and runs a hand through his hair. “Goddess, the two of you really were the same person,” he mutters. “Why should I get everything I want when the people I hurt—killed—can’t have the same chance?”
Rean is quiet for a moment, his face gone serious as stone. He’s searching for something—no, he’s found what he needs; it’s just hard for him to dredge up. “You know that my job was to prevent casualties during the Crossbell occupation, right?”
Crow isn’t sure where this is going, but he’ll follow Rean until he gets to the point. “Yeah. And you did it so damn well nobody died.”
Rean tries for a smile and fails. “That’s true. But it’s not the whole story. Nobody died, but I’m sure some of them wish they had.”
“What?”
Rean exhales. “Lechter kept the injury reports from me, but he couldn’t stop me from visiting the hospitals. It… it wasn’t pretty. You don’t survive your tank exploding unscathed, you know? One soldier lost everything. Arms, legs, hearing, vision… he’s just trapped in a body that won’t die. Don’t get me started on the hundreds of thousands lost on the first day of the war I set into motion. I’ve been asking myself the same question as you for a while, wondering whether I deserve to be happy after all the lives I’ve ruined.”
“Rean, none of that is your fault,” Crow tells him.
Rean shrugs. “Somehow, I doubt their families see it that way.” He tilts his head and manages a wan smile. “The road to hell is paved with good intentions, right?”
Yeah. Crow gets that a little too well.
“Anyway, what I mean to say is the whole thing with Ishmelga Me made me realize that I can’t make other people happy unless I let myself be happy, first.” Rean makes a fist and places it over his heart as he draws in a breath. “I owe it to my friends and to the version of me who didn’t make it. I think it’s the same for you, Crow. It doesn’t matter what you think you deserve. If you want the people you care about to be happy, you need to give yourself permission to do the same.”
“… What if that’s not enough?” The question slips out with no warning, his voice too vulnerable, too frightened, too honest for denial, and he hates it. “Valimar and Ordine—the others, too, the Divine Knights that didn’t even know me and died for me anyway… what if it’s not enough for them? I let down everyone who ever depended on me for anything and I—this is too big a deal to fuck up.”
Rean gives him a soft smile. “You have never let me down, Crow.”
Okay, he knows Rean has feelings for him, but this is ridiculous.
“I mean, yeah, you definitely surprised me a few times, but I can’t say I’ve ever been disappointed in you.”
How the hell can Rean say that with a straight face and mean it? Love makes people blind to a lot of things, but this… Crow doesn’t even have a word for what this is.
“And we know that wherever the Divine Knights are, they aren’t dead,” Rean continues. “We fought with them yesterday. Did you get the feeling that they regretted their decision?”
He didn’t, but it’s not exactly like he had time to ask. He wishes they had. Then, maybe he could have gotten some fucking clarity.
“They wanted you to be alive, Crow. It’s not any more complicated than that.”
Of course it is—it has to be. You don’t just forfeit your existence for the sake of some idiot kid who ran off and started a war for petty revenge.
“Did you trust Valimar?” Rean asks.
Why wouldn’t he? “Yeah.”
“Then trust him now. All he wanted was for you to be happy. I know Ordine did, too.”
Crow hates the way he feels right now. Tied in knots and pulled apart at the same time, twisted up and stretched out so he’s fraying and ready to snap.
Rean touches Crow’s face and he can’t make himself pull away. It’s just some fingers brushing over his cheekbone, but it steals the air from his lungs and holds it ransom with no demands.
“Maybe it’s selfish, but… I want you to be happy, too.” He takes a breath, looking awkward and shy and so like he did the night of the bonfire that it nearly stops Crow’s heart. He looks young for a moment—not that he’s old, but two wars and two friends dying in his arms have aged him well beyond his years. All that is gone now, chased away like it was never there as Rean looks at him with a warm expression unspoiled by grief and guilt; it’s impossible and beautiful and so goddessdamn hopeful that Crow knows he’ll do whatever Rean asks if it will preserve this small ember of the fragile brightness that used to bathe him in its glow. “Even more selfishly, I’d… like the chance to make you happy. If you’ll have me. When you’re ready, of course.”
How do you know if you’re ready for something like that? Crow grew up too fast but he’s still a child in so many ways—he understands the ugliness and cruelty of the world, knows it like the back of his hand, but he struggles to comprehend mercy as anything but a trap.
Probabilities and permutations spiral infinitely, unfolding outward as his brain tries to calculate the best course of action, the decision that will yield the most favorable outcome. But Crow Armbrust is hardly Elysium, so it just leaves him stranded in the philosophical abyss where the metaphorical cat is both dead and alive for those impossible, magical seconds between the idea and the reality. The place where a poet he distantly remembers once said, “falls the shadow”.
This is neither math nor poetry nor philosophy and Rean is so close and so, so beautiful. Crow’s hand is cradling Rean’s cheek before he can even contemplate the action, and Rean’s smile is so warm that it warms Crow, too.
“I’ll wait for as long as it takes,” Rean explains.
“... the other me loves you just as much as I do,” the Other Rean says in his mind, “He won’t say it because he knows you still need time to figure yourself out, but I promise that he’ll wait. Try not to keep him waiting too long, all right?”
“… What if I never get myself figured out?” Crow asks.
“You come back to me,” Rean says, “because I’ve always known exactly who and what you are.”
“Tell me, then,” spills from a mouth gone dry as bones bleached by the desert sun.
Earnestness burns in Rean’s eyes. “You’re the man who traveled across the country when his ARCUS stopped working just because he promised to call. The same as you were when you found me unconscious in the Eisengard Range, and when I transformed in the old schoolhouse. It’s who you’ve always been, even when you were lost in anger and pain.” Rean brings a hand to Crow’s cheek. He touches Crow with slow caution, first testing with the tips of his fingers and then his palm. He’s not wearing gloves, so his skin is warm and calloused and the pillar of Crow’s resistance crumbles to dust. “Kind.”
Crow leans into Rean’s touch like he’s made of nothing but longing.
“… I still have to go back to Jurai and see things there through, but… I guess I could give Stark a ride back to campus when we’re done. Maybe hang around a while and give you a hand if you need it.”
Goddess, in every universe, Rean knows exactly how to break him down, doesn’t he?
“I’d really, really like that,” Rean replies with a bright, sweet grin. “And you can stay for as long as you want, Crow.”
“We’ll see if I don’t make you eat those words after a week,” Crow snorts.
“I’ll play those odds,” Rean replies with a small laugh that slides into an easy, devastatingly handsome smirk. “In fact, why don’t we bet on it?”
Crow raises an eyebrow, then squints at Rean like he’s examining a suspicious bug. “Are you sure you’re my Rean? This isn’t another alternate-you situation, right?”
“I’m definitely your Rean,” he says with so much meaning and affection crammed into those last two words that it spills over into the silence and Crow drowns in the weight of his own phrasing—yet somehow, he keeps drawing air as Rean continues. “I always have been. Always will be.”
Crow swallows.
“Despite my best efforts, you’ve made me a bit of a gambler, after all,” Rean explains with a casual sigh as he turns the tone back to their playful banter. “And it’s hard to turn down a bet so clearly rigged in my favor.”
“Oh I wouldn’t be so sure,” Crow hums with a smirk of his own as he finds his footing again. “I can be pretty damn irritating.”
“Believe me, I know,” Rean laughs. “I fell for you anyway.”
“Ah,” Crow nods, feigning illumination. “See, I always figured you were a masochist.”
Rean shrugs. “I don’t have the experience to confirm or deny that. But I wouldn’t be opposed to finding out with you eventually.”
Crow’s brain shatters and Rean has the nerve to laugh about it like it’s the funniest fucking joke in the world. Crow blurts out a series of distressed noises that only make Rean laugh harder.
“You’re so cute when you’re flustered,” Rean says, and he’s wearing this affectionate little grin that melts Crow’s insides.
With anyone else, he’d play it off or even play into it: push it further, see just how shameless they’re willing to get before they crack—but it’s just posturing and bluster. The thing with Rean is that he's joking about it in the context of being in love with Crow, and that’s something Crow just doesn’t know how to deal with.
Love isn’t something he deserves—but a part of him that sounds too much like Rean with an echo of Stark argues that Crow didn’t deserve the shit that happened to him, either. He was a perfectly normal kid until his life blew up along with the railroad tracks.
Maybe that part wasn’t his fault, but how he dealt with it sure as hell was.
And so it goes, over and over, this endless, churning spiral he can’t break free of. It’s exhausting and he’s tired of it, but he can’t seem to stop himself from getting pulled back into the current.
He just wants to know that what he’s doing is right. Something so simple, so fundamental, shouldn’t be this hard.
He wishes he had Rean’s moral compass.
“I hope I didn’t make you uncomfortable,” Rean says with concern, drawing him out of his thoughts.
“Nah,” Crow answers, shaking his head. “Just… don’t expect that kinda stuff from you.”
“You were the one who complained about my ‘prudish tendencies’,” Rean reminds him.
As much as he hates being thrown off his game, he can’t say it’s all bad—not when Rean’s got that playful smile on his face and his eyes are glimmering with uncharacteristic mischief.
“So I was,” Crow answers in concession. He shifts his weight and sighs. “Sorry for storming into your room like this. I should probably let you get back to bed. You can still get a couple hours of shut-eye before you really gotta get up.”
“I was already awake,” Rean explains.
“Nightmares?” Crow extends the courtesy of asking, though he already knows the answer.
“Mostly just restlessness. It was a little hard to settle my mind after… well, everything,” Rean replies. “I ended up with some of the Other Me’s memories from after he died thanks to the assimilation. I know those things never happened—not to me, anyway, but… it was still real.”
He’s trying to keep his smile, but he can’t hide how raw he is, and Crow hates that he can’t fix it.
“And I keep telling myself I wouldn’t let you go like that, but,” he bites his lip and draws in a sharp breath, then lets it out, defeated, “I couldn’t let Ishmelga torture you. He was right to do what he did, and I hate it. Every time I close my eyes, I feel you slip away from me.”
Crow takes Rean’s hands. “Try it now.”
“Huh?”
“Close your eyes.”
Rean hesitates for a moment, but he ultimately lets his eyelids fall shut.
Crow squeezes his hands firmly. “I’m still here, Rean.”
Rean opens his eyes. “Would you mind if—could you stay with me… just for a little while?” he asks, like there’s even a chance Crow would deny him anything he wanted.
Crow nods. “Yeah. Sure. That’s—yes. Yes.”
He feels like an absolute idiot, but it makes Rean smile, so he counts it as a win.
Rean releases his hands and pulls back the covers, then climbs into bed. Crow takes a deep breath, and though the instinctual part of him shouts for him to abort the mission, one look at Rean silences it. He’s not doing anything special. He’s just sitting up in bed, holding the covers open and waiting for Crow to join him like it’s the most natural thing in the world, and suddenly, Crow doesn’t care about fear or regret or what he deserves.
He just knows he wants to see this every day.
He shakes himself out of it and gets into bed beside Rean. Rean lets the covers fall over them, and he adjusts himself until he’s on his side, laying with his head on Crow’s chest. It should feel awkward, should make Crow’s breath catch, but it doesn’t. It just feels comfortable. The first thing that’s felt right in a long, long time.
“Is this okay?” Rean asks.
Crow wraps his arm around Rean’s body, lets his hand rest over the one Rean laid on Crow’s chest, and closes his eyes. “Perfect, actually.”
When Rean opens his eyes, he’s somewhere else. His surroundings are greener, earthy and thick with foliage, in juxtaposition to the ocean sunset he just left. It’s warm and bright, golden light dapples the mossy forest floor where it peeks through the canopy of leaves overhead.
His heart sinks when he finds it empty. Not a soul in any direction.
It’s not so bad, though. He was the one who chose loneliness—chose to leave his friends and family behind. Despite what happened, he doesn’t regret it. He meant what he said to his other self: Ishmelga will creep back into the world wherever it finds a foothold, and with people being, well… people, he wouldn’t be surprised if it’s already found some dark, silent place to slither in and sink its teeth.
The corner of his mouth twitches upward at the edge despite his initial cynicism. As long as his other self has Crow around, there’s nothing he can’t do.
He hopes they’ll be all right. Hopes Crow will listen to what he said and let the other Rean love him. He chooses to believe they’ll figure it out.
At least one version of him gets to be happy.
Suddenly, there’s a strange sound from behind him, something like thick canvas tearing down the center, and Rean watches in awe as the fabric of the world splits down a seam in the middle of the air just a few arges away. Gleaming, gold light scintillates from the rupture, spills over him as the gash widens.
Hands grip the edges of the tear and pull apart. It barely gives at first, but then the edges of the world ripple, then warp and twist as the hands pry it open with a more determined effort.
Rean watches in a combination of shock and disbelief as a gasp forces its way out of his lungs but he doesn’t dare breathe for fear it might shatter the image of Crow, his Crow nearly tripping over himself in an effort to close the distance between them.
Tears well in Rean’s eyes and spill onto his cheeks, his heart clenching painfully in his chest.
“… I knew it.” It’s soft and breathless, barely audible as it falls off Rean’s lips.
Shaking hands hold his face between them. “Rean?” Crow asks desperately, eyes going misty and his lower lip trembling. He examines Rean for a moment and releases a small, relieved sob. “Oh Goddess, it’s you.”
Then Crow’s arms are around him, pulling him in like he wants to fuse the edges of their beings together. He sniffles as Rean holds him just as tight.
“I looked everywhere,” Crow says. “You asshole.”
Rean laughs, pressing his face into the curve of Crow’s shoulder and drawing in a breath.
“I’m sorry,” Rean manages. “I didn’t want—I didn’t want Ishmelga to hurt you, too.” He pulls in a sharp, piercing breath. “We were still connected, and I thought—”
“Idiot,” Crow chastises without malice.
He’s not sure how long they hold each other. Maybe whole lifetimes pass before they’re ready to let go—it’s not like time means anything here.
Even then, they don’t leave each other’s orbit. They pull back far enough to take each other in, then close the gap between them with a kiss.
They kiss, and they don’t stop kissing. Life forms climb out of the primordial soup and walk upright, civilizations rise and fall, whole universes are born, live, and burn out before they finally stop.
At least, that’s what it feels like to Rean.
“How did you find me?” Rean asks when they break apart.
“After I disappeared, I ended up in some other plane of existence—I guess ‘cause of the whole Awakener thing. Fie’s dad, the Lance Maiden, and Osborne were all there. They wanted to walk into the light or some shit, but I said fuck that. I was waiting for you. I wondered why you were taking so long and played back everything in my head, and that was when I realized that Ishmelga probably still had you.”
He exhales, self-reproach etched into his features. Rean doesn’t like it. He reaches out and touches Crow’s face, leans in and kisses him until he smiles again.
“Anyway,” Crow continues, drawing in a breath. “Long story short, we fused part of their souls into my saber so I could cut through the borders between worlds. I’m not sure how my saber ended up in the afterlife or how the soul thing worked—Osborne figured that out. Was the least he could do if you ask me. But yeah, I’ve been looking for you ever since. There are a lot of universes out there.”
“I ended up in one, too,” Rean tells him. “Another universe. One where both of us survived—even Millium.” He tucks some hair behind Crow’s ear. “They’ve got a long road ahead. Something’s coming—something big. Bigger than Osborne’s war was going to be. And they have no idea.”
“I guess we gotta go save our own asses, don’t we?” Crow sighs.
Rean laughs. “I don’t think the universe likes that too much. We’d just end up assimilating with our other selves. Might cause more problems than it solves.”
“So let’s find a universe where neither of us exists. Settle down in a little house in the middle of nowhere and just live for a while.”
“Crow, we’re dead,” Rean reminds him.
“Exactly. Ghosts don’t need mira. We’ll just haunt the shit out of some rich asshole’s summer house till they leave us alone.”
Rean laughs. “I don’t think the Goddess would look too kindly on that.”
“I doubt she’d let me bend the rules like this if she didn’t think we’d earned a little time to ourselves.”
He tries very hard not to laugh again and fails. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Okay, we’ll find a rich asshole with their own private hot spring,” Crow tries.
Rean would like to pretend he’s not actually considering Crow’s proposal, but the gleam in those bright ruby eyes tells Rean he’s not hiding anything.
Besides, if someone is rich enough to have their own private hot spring, they’ve probably got multiple residences. It’s not like they’d be putting anyone out on the street.
Rean sighs and shakes his head with a smile. “Well, you followed me long enough. I don’t mind if you lead for a while.”
Crow smiles. “Ready for one last adventure, partner?”
“Do you even have to ask?”