Lovely Bastards (BxB) (MxM)

Extra (Spoilers) - Postcard

A/N: This section contains spoilers for the story Badass Omega. So if you haven't read it and would like to, I advise you to do that before you read this. 

As Kit straightened his bowtie on his wedding day, he glanced over at his worn, battered shoulder bag, smiling ruefully.

He wasn't going to wear it at the ceremony, but he had to have it with him today, even if he no longer used it regularly. They'd been through a lot, that bag and him.

Crouching before it inside the small, empty 'getting ready' tent, he flipped it open and reached inside. 

Beyond the first two compartments - now containing little except for some old medical supplies - just below the abused lining where he used to keep his IDs, there was a flat, near-invisible pouch that closed with a metal zipper. 

It held only one thing. And even if Kit had lost every single other item in his canvas bag, he would have come back for the contents of this one small compartment. 

Inside, there were two old photographs tucked into a protective plastic covering. 

Kit drew them out carefully. It had been a while since he'd seen them - hadn't wanted to ruin the paper by touching them too often, and these days he had copies at home. 

Unfolding the plastic, he held them up before his face.

One was an old, worn postcard, showing a picture of Kit as a baby together with his mother, young and smiling. The one Charlie had given him so long ago. 

The second showed Charlie and Amos on their wedding day, in matching, tailored black tuxedos, holding glasses of non-alcoholic Champagne and laughing at something cheeky Kit had said just before snapping this photo, their eyes warm and fond. 

Kit remembered their ceremony - bringing an old gramophone to City Hall to play their favourite song on a vinyl record, their friends gathered in eccentric finery to meet them, a wedding photographer zipping around and tripping over everything. After that, the reception with a live band and dessert bar, dancing and singing far into the night. Watching them cut their huge tiered cake and getting buttercream absolutely everywhere. 

Two large, silent tears rolled down the werewolf's cheeks and he smiled, wiping them on his sleeve. 

Even though it was daytime, he wore something similar - only dressed down - to what they had chosen back then. A black suit and bowtie, and a simple, white and green boutonniere. 

After he lost his family, Kit had existed in a fog of grief and desperation, clinging to his fury.

Pushing the tears and guilt down, self-hate eating at him until he just wanted to start screaming and never stop, he had quit his job to manage Amos's bar, hiring a private detective and channelling everything into his quest for vengeance.

Nothing else mattered.

Knowing that Charlie had always preferred justice over revenge did not deter him. Because his uncle - and his adoptive father, the only two truly good people in his life ever - were gone. Gone. Gone. 

And he had needed to annihilate the person responsible, regardless of what it cost him.

It was the only thing Kit'd had left to cling to.

He'd had no contact with Zach since the other man's marriage and was too stubborn to call him. Zach didn't matter compared to his grief, his revenge - if his 'cousin' didn't care enough to get in touch, then fuck him.

Fuck them all.

Kit had gone alone to meet with Devlin Novák, not certain and not really caring if he came out of the warehouse with his life.

Then, after he went underground...contacting Zach had never crossed his mind, not once.

It was like he was a different person, unable to touch anything from before. It was too far away, separate from who he had become. Besides, no matter what had gone down between them - he would never have risked bringing a murderous mobster to Amos's nephew's doorstep.

Any contact with people from his previous life was out of the question.

The werewolf had only found out much later that one of the private bounties out for finding him when he disappeared was from Zach. So he had cared - a little.

But Kit had stayed missing, and he suspected that Zach had been secretly glad when nothing turned up. With the younger man gone, there was one less thing to mar his new public image - one less person who knew of Zach's wild past. He was now a straight family man and a (not so) upstanding citizen, as far as the werewolf knew. 

He had sent a card to congratulate Kit on his engagement, after the werewolf's name had been cleared. Kit hadn't responded, preferring to draw a line over that part of his past. His time with Zach seemed distant and faded compared to the agony that had followed it.

They would always be with him.

His uncle, his chosen father, his mother.

Everywhere he went, he carried his family with him, forever - Kitty, Charlie, and Amos. And now: his pack and soon to be husband.

Him most of all.

He only wished he could have introduced his two families to each other on this special day. Had them all here with him. 

Seen them smile. Even just one more time. 

Kit looked down at the pictures in his hands again.

To think that it had already been over two years since he lost them... Sometimes it felt like yesterday. He still missed them terribly. 

But Kit had to try and live his life, or he would drown in grief. He had to leave the sadness behind. 

Today, he embarked on a new life. Never forgetting his old one, but letting go of it's pain. That was okay. It was okay - to move on.

It's time. 

The flap of the little white tent opened and Kit felt strong arms come around his waist, gathering him up in a warm embrace. He leaned his head back against a broad, solid chest, sighing contentedly.

Two large, calloused palms cupped his own small hands, cradling them. Carefully, they helped him ease the pictures back into their protective plastic, and tucked them into the front of his black suit jacket. Safe.

Just over his heart.

"Ready?" his mate murmured into his hair.

Kit could smell his comforting scent over the strong whiff of wild grass and ponderosa pine that blew in with the fresh autumn air. He was glad now that he'd agreed to a small mountaintop ceremony with their closest friends and family, instead of eloping to Vegas - which had been his first suggestion. 

Letting his wet cheek rest against soft, midnight blue wool, he breathed in deeply, sending one more thought to the people he carried with him in his heart.

"Yes," he said simply, turning around to wrap his arms around the love of his life.

Together, they walked up the aisle to their future.