Oh, take me back to the night we met // [Mace/Temple/Enzo]

"The future can't
be real, I
barely know how
long a moment is"

Do you think they'll actually let us go?

He can't stop himself from thinking it, can't get anywhere near close enough to ask it. Temple and him stand damn near statuesque- if they'll move, they'll be caught. It feels like he's trespassing into someone else's shoes, fingers shaking in his pocket and his eyes look nowhere but the floor number as it rises. 

And so it goes, from the vault and up. Do you think Mace will be there? He doesn't dare look at Temple, not until the floor hits ten, and not until the door opens, and not until he sees fuckin' Mace Emberstatt- or Saffron, or their stylist or hell, even creepy fucking Ansgar will work. Anyone that resembles anything close to home, anything that looks like it won't kill Temple or him, he can't look away until then. 

As he stares, he knows the gamemakers watch him back. Somewhere, somehow, cameras record the two of them and their escorts and every bit of the reactions in this elevator will be projected onto their graves. 

There's a second part,
a second twist
there's always another goddamn stop in this elevator. 

But eventually it dings, and he can't pry his eyes open, can't force himself to do it. Lorenzo hears the door open, metal sliding back into place and the tension of the elevator leaking out. It's all the same cold.

It isn't until he hears Temple take the first step does he opens his eyes, and he starts running immediately, before he even registers the man waiting for them. Holy shit, holy shit- Temple we might just fucking make it, and Mace pulls him in before Lorenzo can react. Always a kid in motion, stuck and sobbing in Mace's left arm, this can't be real- it's just a game. It's just Temple and Lorenzo and this can't be real; it's all he can think until he hears his voice. 

Registers it, understands it, he barely can between his own fat sobs skidding against his cheek and the leather of his mentor's jacket: I ain't ever gonna understand. And that may be true, for him, for Temple, for Lorenzo, they may never understand why they're allowing this. But we're here, "... an' that's all that matters to me." Lorenzo feels Temple squeezing around his back, being pulled in on his right. She cries too, and Lorenzo's lost track of the amount of times they've seen each other crying. 

God, as cynical as it sounds, he hopes it never ends. If it's a shitty life he lives out where he never stops crying, at least it's a life, at least he'll die of drinking rat poison on accident or something stupid. And at least he'll have Temple and Mace. Lorenzo pulls his tiny arm free and pulls his district partner closer, too. 

We're actually here.

Cowboy squad for life, partner. 

[ dars ]