Monster Hunters, the end.
Title: Hold my hand
Pairing: Durin/Eban
Rating: PG; some blood
Words: ~3200
Prompt: Hold my hand, in the rain.
Summary: Written for Bwans; Eban and Durin (our boys), long-time monster hunter buddies-turned-lovers... and the end to their story. A future AU that I made sad. Felt like uploading it here.
Eban’s hand was still a little numb from firing his gun, having emptied all his silver bullets into the werewolf that was practically on top of Doven, fumbling to reload. He cussed, the words echoed by Durin, who was still swinging his gun up.
They weren’t young anymore. The two weren’t exactly old men, but they knew they were pushing it, still going out after these bounties on things that could eat them without swallowing. Eban just wasn’t exactly ready to fall to a monster just yet, slapping a cartridge into the gun, raising it frantically.
A shot fired from Emily, Durin’s gun, ended it before Eban could finish aiming. The werewolf collapsed, hind legs twitching as they lost fur and reverted back to human. Eban’s sigh of relief caught in his throat when Durin stumbled back, obviously injured. Durin managed to get a few yards away from the werewolf before he, too, fell.
It was like a horror movie, Eban’s legs not as fast as they used to be. It seemed an eternity before he skidded to Durin’s side, his frantic heartbeat skipping into his throat.
So much blood. So much goddamn blood. It wasn’t bleeding too quickly, but it was so deep. It must have just missed major arteries. Eban immediately whipped out his phone and barely managed to place the call to get an ambulance on the way, mind almost shutting down.
They were so far out here. So goddamn far away. A good hour from town, because it’s not like anybody could actually speed on the roads leading up this mountain. Eban immediately stripped off his shirt to press into the wound, not wanting to look at it, not wanting to acknowledge visually how torn up Durin’s abdomen was.
How dismal it all looked.
Durin coughed, still conscious, way too goddamn conscious, and as much as this was probably hurting, he needed to stay that way. “Durin, I’m gonna need you to count backwards from a hundred,” Eban said, desperate for something. He’d make it. It wouldn’t end like this, not after everything. It wasn’t supposed to ever end.
“Fuck you. If I wanted to do math I’d be an accountant.” The other grinned up at him, struggling for his usual snark. “Give it to me straight, doc. Will I ever be able to have children?”
Eban smiled slightly. “Hopeless. Unless you’ve been cheating on me. Then you probably already have one or two out there.”
“Don’t worry. I named them all after you.” Durin looked up at Eban, face tense with pain even with the smile. “So. Not exactly a mosquito bite?”
It spoke to Durin’s intelligence that his grin didn’t even falter when Eban’s gaze flicked down, and his partner failed to answer.
Durin already knew it was bad.
~*~
Eban was worried. About Durin, specifically. Even more specifically, exactly what the fuck Durin was up to lately. The tanned Southerner was gone before Eban woke up in the morning and came home after the sun had set. He barely made it through hunts now before passing out in the bed.
Obsessed; an ugly word, but there it was. Eban was obsessed. Who was Durin with? The worst was that Durin was getting even tanner. Eban practically glowed next to him, which was quite distressing, but not as much as the thought that Durin had finally caved in and returned to the straight side of the force and was making out with women and. Doing things. To them. With them.
It wasn’t like Eban hadn’t ever been with a woman, in fact Durin was his first and only guy, but Durin had been so much more successful at it, and Eban had seen the kind of women that were easily attracted to his strong, tall, dark, muscular oh God Eban was going to have an ulcer.
This had gone on for nearly two months before the usually calmer individual cornered the sleepy monster hunter. Durin had been acting extra sketch the past few days, nervous and twitchy. He’d been watching Eban a lot. Thinking Eban was suspecting something? Eban had been avoiding confronting Durin, afraid of the truth, but the thought that Durin was actively lying to him-and badly-it made Eban’s blood boil over.
Durin had never been able to lie to him.
He wasn’t about to start now.
It seemed almost anti-climactic when Eban finally snapped and slammed Durin into the wall, pressing an elbow into the other’s chest and immediately going off in the other’s face. Durin looked guilty, sure, but nothing on his face spelled out ‘cheating lying bastard’ and Eban had been hoping for at least one floating neon sign with the word ‘LIAR’ on it.
“What is going on?” he yelled. “Who is the other person? And don’t call me crazy, you’re the worst sneak ever. You go off doing God knows what during the day, you come home and go straight to sleep-are you even in my life anymore? If you’ve found someone else and don’t want to bother spending time at home anymore, I can start packing.” Eban was on such a rant that he nearly jumped out of his skin when Durin’s hand slapped his hand across the other’s mouth.
Durin’s words tumbled out of his mouth so quickly it was like they were all connected, his nervous habit of a thickening Southern accent making it all the harder to comprehend. “Ya ‘ave it all wrong Eban, I want t’spend all th’time wit’ you, the rest of my life please marry me.”
Even Durin seems startled, Eban totally freezing. And totally ashamed when the other backed away, mouth hanging open. “Naw! Ah mean yes but! Aw fuck, Ah fucked it up.” He slid from the wall, looking a little pissed with himself. “Eban dun answer that, Ah need to do this… better, Ah’m gonna do it better and if ya answer that question right now Ah swear to God Ah will punch you in the face.”
Eban watched, mouth hanging open, as Durin shot out of the room and returned with a small box. “It’s been an okay huntin’ month but Ah didn’t wanna use our money on this cuz Ah wanted it t’be mine, so Ah started taking up work again on th’streets, just construction stuff and-well, um. Supposed to be two months of yer salary.” He stared at Eban blankly, obviously not having thought this part through. “Sit down.” He herded Eban into one of the dining room chairs, standing by his side awkwardly for a few quiet seconds before dropping to one knee.
“Uh. So y’know Ah love you an’ junk. And Ah figure I’ll die in m’thirties, so it’s like spendin’ th’rest of my life wit you, and Ah dun like it when girls hit on you ‘cause yer kinda dumb and flirt back which is okay because you’ave no idea what yer doin’, but you get angry at me when I deflect them by makin’ out wit you in public. And I figure a ring is goin’ t’get them to get th’fuck off yer back and besides, I want you ’wake up ever’day knowin’ how happy you make me and um. An’ I dun think much’ll change for us except this ring which was way more espensive than Ah thought. Eban, will ya make th’next four to five years of m’life just a bit happier and wear this fuckin’ ring?”
The box was opened to reveal a simple, gold band, looking like twisted rope that had been flattened out. There was no diamond, but Eban wouldn’t want a rock anyway. Which was good, because if Durin had to work for a few carats Eban might have left before they had this talk.
Durin was expecting one of several answers, including ‘yes,’ ‘no,’ ‘maybe,’ or ‘are you out of your fucking mind.’ He wasn’t totally expecting for Eban to pretty much fall forward and tackle Durin to the ground, burying his face in the tanned Southerner’s neck.
“You’re an asshole,” Eban mumbled, voice muffled a bit. “I hate you sometimes. You made me worry so goddamn much and I really ought to smack you some but yes, you jerk, I hate you and yes.”
~*~
Durin smiled up at him, the expression weak. “I’ve never gotten a fatal wound before but it turns out, you know when you have one.”
“Shut up. Just shut up. Help is on the way.” It wasn’t. It wouldn’t get here in time. But Eban would say anything for Durin to stay with him. “If you just hang on a few more seconds there’ll be an ambulance filled with hot nurses and cold compresses and you are getting so many stitches I’m going to call you Patches.”
“Only in bed,” Durin mumbled, fighting to keep his eyes open. “I fully expect you to trail off at the ‘aaaaaah…’” His own voice faded. “Fuck. Dying really isn’t all that pleasant.”
“You shut the fuck up,” Eban snapped, his voice cracking. “If you make another joke you’re not going to see any of the hot nurses because I’m taking you to a cliff and pushing you off.”
A wet spot appeared on Durin’s cheek. The hunter frowned, bloodied hand reaching up, stopping short of Eban’s cheek when the man’s streaming tears were joined with more of the same rain. “God please don’t be crying,” Durin growled, voice tinged with desperation. “I don’t want this to be our last date. Kind of a dick move, Eban. ‘Last date I had with a guy I made him cry. He was really hot but I think I blew it. Definitely didn’t score.’ Selfish of you.”
Eban choked out a laugh. “Can’t imagine we’d be skipping through fields anytime soon.”
“Especially as I can’t feel my legs,” Durin offered helpfully, hair sticking to his forehead.
“I ought to smack you in the wound.” Eban’s hand fluttered along Durin, leaving his cheek to his arms to his hands back to his face, cupping it. “God. I really wish not all of our outings ended with you covered in blood.”
“From the very beginning,” Durin laughed. He tilted his head and kissed Eban’s palm.
If Eban had been teetering on the edge before that, that motion kicked him over kicking and screaming and sobbing.
~*~
Eban raised an eyebrow as his sister plopped a clean shirt down in front of Durin. “…where did you get that?” he asked. He supposed he meant the shirt, though the boy was a close second.
“Your closet,” Mia replied nonchalantly. “Didn’t think you’d mind terribly.” Eban’s other eyebrow raised, which was responded to with an eyeroll from his sister. But she stepped aside with him so they could talk quietly.
“So I love the fact that you are willing to sacrifice the sanity of some poor worker to save your new shoes but really, bringing him home?” Eban planted his hands on his hips. “What were you thinking? I don’t care about how interested he was in all of this, he’s just so…”
“Tan?” Mia supplied, following his gaze to the worker, who neatly stripped off his shirt so he could get a better look at the ruined fabric. This was the first time Eban had heard of Mia paying someone to do the easy but dirty part of vampire hunting, but he wouldn’t be surprised if Durin was just the only one he’d seen. “…chiseled?” she added. “Really really cute…”
Eban stared at her. “…ew. Oh god ew.”
“It’s been a dry spell,” Mia confessed, to the further horror of her little brother. “But, if you really want to call dibs…”
“EW,” Eban protested, pulling a face. “Mia! Stop being gross!”
His sister smiled, draping an arm around his shoulder as the siblings went to watch Durin tug his shirt on. “Come on. I talked with him. He’s a cool guy… just a little lost. Trust me, he’ll grow on you. Show him the ropes.”
Eban looked at her, then back at the new guy, who was grinning a bit at how tight the shirt was on him. He was young, about Eban’s age. Eban could see it-that he was a little lost, a little sad. He’d peg him as someone with a bit of a drinking problem, even if he wasn’t of age.
“…I’m not going easy on him,” Eban grumbled.
“Mmm, please don’t,” Mia laughed. “Might want to make your move, little bro. If Mom doesn’t cut it out with these damn blind dates I will steal him from under your nose for a bit of meaningless fun.”
“EW MIA.”
Durin’s gaze swung up, startled by the outburst. He broke easily into another smile when all attention was on him; Mia’s return grin was bigger. Eban suppressed a groan. He knew how this would end. It just seemed easier to give up.
~*~
The drinking wasn’t a big problem. Sure, Durin would occasionally disappear, and when they met up to talk about finding bounties, he smelled of cheap booze. Sometimes he would smell of cheap booze and expensive perfume. Eban just silently switched their schedule to do mostly night cases, and subsequently discovered that Durin had at least enough class to not drink before 5 pm, especially not if he’d show up to work drunk. He never talked about his life before this town, but Eban decided he didn’t need to know. The alcohol was going away. He could ignore everything else just as easily and it would go away, too.
When he was sober, Eban was startled to find that Durin was a lot of fun to be around. Hell, tipsy Durin was a hoot, but sober Durin was charming in his cheerfulness. Mia warmed up to him a lot faster, but Eban was the one to invite Durin to find a place to live together. The one to get a new best friend, eventually.
Maybe Eban was startled the first time Durin kissed him, especially since it was so out of the blue, and maybe it took a while for him to realize it, but at least a year later he got it. It was inevitable. Even someone as straight as Durin couldn’t deny it.
It’s just, sometimes, as cheesy as it sounded, soulmates came in all genders.
~*~
Eban’s fingers traced the lines beside Durin’s eyes, his own red, ignoring the line of red streaming from the side of the Southerner’s mouth, which was easy as the rain kept washing it away. The rain smoothed out Durin’s face, making him… passably young. “You’re an old man,” he said. “Really old.”
“You’re gonna die way older so really, I win,” Durin murmured. Those dark brown eyes were closed, and for some reason nothing Eban did was enough to make him open them. “Dylan’s gonna call you Granddad and you’ll smell like old people and your pants will be pulled up to your chest and you’ll have enough nose hair to braid…”
“You’re still a jerk,” Eban laughed, a broken sound. “Will you hurry up and die already?”
“I’m trying, stop pressuring me,” Durin whispered. “Eban?”
His voice sounded a little lost, so Eban’s fingers tightened on Durin’s skin a moment. “I haven’t gone anywhere. You can look and see for yourself.”
“Do something for me.”
“Not exactly the time or place. If we get naked you’ll catch your death.”
“Live the shit out of life.”
Eban froze.
“There are so many goddamn people out there and you are not going to lock yourself in your room. After I’m gone you can’t not enjoy things.”
“Durin, god, you don’t know what you’re saying,” Eban sobbed, feeling his breath freeze in his throat. “You asshole, you can’t think I can just… It’s not going to be that easy…”
“Sh-shut up and hold my hand,” Durin snapped, eyes flying open as his hands scrabbled. Eban moved to catch them and felt their weight in his own, still warm although much had seeped out. Still so present. Their gold bands clinked together, and somehow that slight sound carried over the pour of rain. The chink was somehow oppressive.
“Durin, if you leave me… I can’t just pick up and move on. You’re a part of me. I know I only signed a contract promising until death but Durin, I can’t just live without you, I can’t, I don’t know how.”
Those eyes caught his own, Eban trembling when it was Durin dying. “If I was in your place I’d feel the same but you… make it to be old and smelly. Take care of JC in her old age. Love Dylan and fail to flirt with people and… live.” Durin’s eyes closed. “Fucking promise me or I’m demanding you bury me with all our shit.”
“I’m not promising jack, you bastard,” Eban shouted, feeling something deep inside break. “How dare you fucking leave me! You get to go on to wherever the hell and I’m stuck here alone! You’re leaving me! You’re not allowed to leave me!” He collapsed against Durin, body wracked with full shivers. “You can’t leave me Durin. You can’t.”
Durin’s hands squeezed Eban’s. Hard. “Dumbass.” Eban looked up. “Not like I won’t wait,” Durin added with a smile. “You’ll always have me anyway. I’ll live in your heart. Or your liver. Some major organ. Brain. Something. I mean, I was around you for like twenty years. Something’s gotta stain.”
Eban managed a smile, even as it felt like his chest was collapsing in on itself. Maybe he should feel lucky that he was getting this chance to say goodbye… and yes. This was a goodbye. “Durin. I’m going to miss you.”
“…yeah. I’m kind of awesome.” Durin’s smile faltered, and something in his eyes switched off. “Eban. I love you.”
Eban felt the fingers loosen around his hand. “Durin, I love you too, Durin I do…”
He didn’t let go, he didn’t stop repeating those words even after that glow that made his beautiful boy so unique vanished.
When Mia arrived, half an hour before the ambulance, he hadn’t moved.
~*~
The guy was a Southerner, that much was obvious. He was trying to hide the accent and failing horribly. He was sitting at Mia’s table and drinking tea and looking very out of place next to the neat floral tablecloth. Mostly because his white shirt was mostly splattered with blood.
“None of it is mine,” he stammered at Eban, looking faintly shell-shocked. Eban averted his eyes, not wanting to laugh at the boy. …a boy, even though they were most likely the same age.
“Don’t put your elbows on the table,” Mia snapped, coming into the room, shirt in hand. “You’re going to get vampire on the cloth.” She paused, seeing Eban standing there. “Oh hello, little brother. Meet Durin. I gave him a twenty for staking a guy for me.”
Eban’s blue eyes swept over in time to catch Durin’s. For a second, as he met the other’s gaze, he couldn’t help but think that something in the other’s face held a spark of something beautiful, and if he could have it to himself forever, he’d be counted the luckiest man ever.
“Name’s Eban. You got jipped, the bounty is way over twenty.”
“Awesome. Hey. Show me this monster thing. Looks like fun.”