"Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart."
- Marcus Aurelius
"Mix," Earth shook Mix in his arms once again, but Mix wasn't responding, his body was like a puppet, allowing Earth to move it however he wanted to.
It was alright, everything was alright. Mix fainted because he experienced a shock-Mix thought that Earth was dead. It was understandable that Earth suddenly appearing in front of Mix would be a hard pill to swallow. That was why he fainted. Earth just had to give Mix a few minutes and then Mix will open his galaxy eyes like he always did, and look at Earth with youthful curiosity and love.
Earth slid his hands under Mix's legs and lifted him up, realizing that it was way easier than it used to be only days ago. Earth's worries got even bigger when he laid Mix on the sofa and took a good look at him. Mix looked skinnier than he normally was. Just a little over a week ago Mix's body was glowing with health and beauty. Now he seemed like he haven't eaten anything for days.
Earth kneeled in front of Mix, stroking his sunken cheek with his thumb, "please, tell me you ate something, angel." Earth leaned in, pressing a kiss on Mix's forehead and holding his hand tightly, "I'm here now, it's going to be alright, I'll take care of you."
Minutes were passing and Mix was still not opening his eyes, and Earth was having a bad feeling that Mix was having a fever. His body was too hot on touch and Earth could see tiny droplets of sweat on Mix's forehead.
On the other hand, Earth was shivering. It must have been only a few degrees warmer in the cabin than it was outside. Earth looked around himself, his chest tightening with every next glance he took. No fire in the fireplace, Christmas lights turned off, Mix's bags packed next to the sofa, the painting Earth gave Mix for Christmas—laying on the table; Mix was ready to leave.
And Earth understood, he would do the same if it was the other way around. He didn't think that he would be strong enough to stay at the place that would remind him of Mix every second of his life.
Earth would leave and never return back.
He turned back to Mix, his shoulders falling when there still was no sign of Mix waking up. He patted Mix's hair and whispered, "you don't have to leave anymore. I'm here with you. I'm here."
Watching Mix for a few more seconds, Earth stood up and made his way towards the fireplace. The ashes were already cold, meaning the fire wasn't on for a while already. Earth shook his head, grabbed some wood and lighted a fire, praying that the wood would catch on the first try.
Minutes later, calming sound of crackling fire spread through the hostile cabin. Earth smiled with hope and went to turn on the Christmas lights, hoping to create a nice and cozy atmosphere for Mix when he, hopefully, soon wakes up.
After everything was looking nice once again, Earth sat on the floor next to the sofa, his fingers running gently through Mix's hair. "Mix, angel, you can wake up. Please, wake up, you are making me worried."
Earth was really starting to consider different ways how to take Mix down to the town for a doctor to see him when he caught a movement in the corner of his eye, followed by a faint mumbling. He immediately rosed to his knees, leaning closer to Mix. "Mix, can you hear me? Open your pretty eyes for me, please, Mix."
To Earth's relief, Mix's eyes slowly fluttered open, only now Earth caught the dark circles under them. "Thank God. How do you feel?" Earth whispered, somehow his voice refusing to get louder.
Mix was looking at him with so much disbelief it was breaking Earth inside.
"Why are you here?" Mix's voice broke.
"What?"
"You are gone. Why? Why are you trying to stop me from leaving? I can't stay here. I can't!" Mix shouted, tears rolling down his face.
Earth shook his head and wrapped his arms around shaking Mix, "I'm not gone. Do you hear me, Mix? I'm alive, and it's because of you. No one but you."
"Stop. Stop lying to me!" Mix pushed Earth away, causing Earth to fall back, almost hitting the table. "You are dead, really dead! You disappeared right from my arms—I saw it, I felt it!" Mix's voice was shaking so much, his sobs were making it hard for him to breathe.
Earth stood up, quickly without any warning and took Mix's hand, pressing it on his chest, right where his heart was beating in a fast and stable rhythm, pumping blood through his veins, doing what it was supposed to do. "Can you feel it, Mix? Tell me, can a dead person have a beating heart?"
Mix was looking at his palm on Earth's chest, Earth's fingers firmly yet gently wrapped around his wrist, and Earth's chest which was in a slow steady rhythm moving up and down. Earth was breathing—that was the first realization that hit Mix. He closed his crying eyes, focusing his all on Earth's heart.
There, under his palm, Mix could feel it, Earth's heart—its fast and strong beating, confirming Earth's words. Mix chocked out another sob, looking up at Earth, "are you really here? Are you real?"
"I was never more real than I'm now," Earth gave Mix a soft smile, hoping that Mix was starting to understand their situation.
"Never more real than now?" Mix repeated with so much hope in his voice that Earth almost started crying too. But he couldn't. He didn't want to disturb Mix even more. So instead he only nodded.
"You are alive?"
"Yes."
"It worked?"
"Yes, it worked angel. Now, please stop crying. It hurts, seeing you like that," Earth pulled Mix towards himself, swaying their bodies in a soothing way, drinking in the sweet peachy scent of his love.
"I can't believe you are here," Mix sniffed, boring his head even deeper to Earth's neck. "You disappeared right from my arms. You left me; I couldn't save you."
"You did. You did save me. I'm here because of you," Earth held Mix's head in his palms, making Mix look up at him. "I'm back and I'm never leaving you again, I promise."
"I'll kill you, myself if you break this promise, Pirapat!" Mix said with a pout, the tears were starting to dry on his face.
"Noted," Earth chuckled, and pressed a long kiss on Mix's forehead, hugging him tightly.
When Earth's lips left Mix's forehead, they were pressed firmly to each other as Earth was scanning Mix's red face. "I think you have a fever."
Mix frowned, clutching onto Earth's sweater, "it's nothing. I'm more than fine now when you are here. I promise."
"Mix, you are burning," Earth said, worried. "Lay back on the sofa. I'll be right back with some hot tea and I'll try to get your fever down."
"No," Earth could feel Mix's fingers curling over the hem of his sweater. "Don't go."
Earth stroked Mix's hair, "angel, I'll be only in the kitchen—you'll see me from the sofa."
"Don't," Mix tugged on Earth's sweater even stronger, frowning.
"Mix," Earth signed, "I'm not going anywhere. I promise."
Mix looked up from under his long lashes, his eyes were glistening with unshed tears. He said nothing but the pleading look he was giving to Earth could be hardly mistaken for something else.
"Okay, let's do it this way," Earth stretched his hand to the sofa, getting ahold of their favourite blanket. He wrapped the blanket around protesting Mix, who was trying to shake the blanket away, whining that it was hot.
"It's not hot, Mix. On the contrary, I had to light the fire because I was freezing here." Earth held Mix's shoulders, stopping him from unnecessary movement. "You have a fever, that's why you are hot. I don't know about you but I'm having a deja vu."
"That time it was your fault...this time it's only mine," Mix said, lowering his eyes from Earth's face to his chest.
Earth put a finger under Mix's chin, lifting it up a little so that Mix would look at him again, "It's no one's fault, alright. You'll be better soon—I'll take care of you." Earth put his palm on Mix's back and lead him to the kitchen, where he helped Mix to sit on the kitchen counter. "Here you go," he smiled at Mix and ruffled his hair. "Are you comfortable?"
"You are asking as if I was about to sit here the whole day. It's only a few minutes, until you make the tea," Mix said, his voice getting stronger and more confident once again.
"Wrong, you'll be sitting here until I make tea and something delicious for you to eat."
Mix shifted a little, "I'm not hungry."
"Yes, you are. You need to eat, angel. I don't want to assume anything but...have you eaten anything while I was gone?" Earth asked with a gentle voice, that spread a warm, sweet feeling through Mix. God, Mix missed it so much.
"I—I did," Mix answered, focusing on the bag full of groceries, that Earth picked up from the floor and put on the kitchen counter. Suddenly the bag was really interesting. Were those bags always brown when sheriff LeBlanc brought the groceries? Did even Earth have those things from the sheriff?
"Mix," Earth grabbed Mix's head in his hands and turned it the way that Mix had no other choice just to look at Earth. "How much did you eat?"
Mix was feeling like a complete failure, he knew that the answer would hurt Earth, but he didn't want to lie to him. "I'm sorry. I had an apple and a bowl of cereals."
Earth was looking at Mix, waiting for him to continue naming the kinds of foods he had but after thirty more seconds of complete silence Earth had to ask, "that's what you had today?"
Another awfully long silence followed where at the end of it Earth breathed out a quiet, "Mix," and connected their foreheads together.
"I'm sorry, I just—I couldn't eat," Mix whispered so quietly that it was hard, even for Earth to hear even though they were that close.
Earth hugged Mix tightly, his fingers gently stroking Mix's neck. "Shhh, don't apologize for this. I'll make sure that what I'll cook will be so delicious you wouldn't be able to say no. Do you have anything in particular in mind?"
"No," Mix mumbled into Earth's shoulder.
"Me neither, but once I'll check what's actually in those grocery bags—I'll do some magic." Earth stepped away from Mix and started unpacking the bags, "I'm hungry too, you know?"
That's right. Earth was alive again, he needed to eat too. Mix was shivering and his body was aching, but he could swear he was never happier as right at that moment, watching alive Earth dancing through the kitchen and preparing food for both of them as if it was the most ordinary thing ever.
Or maybe it was, or it could be from that moment on, this picture right in front of Mix didn't need to leave. It would be there, every single day. Mix's lips curved into a careful smile. Was it real? Was Earth truly there with him? Alive and well, with a beating heart and lungs that after all those years were in need of constant oxygen again?
Earth turned to Mix for a second, probably to check on him, and smiled at him with a bright, reassuring smile, before turning back, being careful not to burn the onions.
And Mix was hardly surpassing another waterfall of tears erupting from his eyes, but this time it would be tears caused by an overwhelming feeling of happiness. Right when he thought that he lost Earth forever, right when he was about to give up on them, Earth came back. He returned back to Mix.
There weren't words to describe how Mix felt. All the colours that were gone from Mix's life the moment Earth disappeared from his arms, returned back and were more vivid than ever before. And Earth—Earth was beautiful. He was finally there with Mix in his true form, fully alive, with no chance of getting see-through or disappearing.
His caramel skin was glowing under the afternoon sun that was inviting itself in through the window and his dark brown hair was cascading down to his focused eyes—he was gorgeous. Mix couldn't believe that the man in front of him was his.
Mix was starting to think that maybe Earth wasn't there after all. Maybe Mix just went completely crazy and was imagining all of it to somehow cope with the grief he felt.
But then Earth turned back to Mix again and walked towards him, stopping in between his open legs, hands gently rubbing Mix's thighs, "the chicken will take at least another thirty minutes to cook. How about I make the tea now and you go rest in bed?"
Mix shook his head, wrapping his arms around Earth's neck, basically covering Earth in the blanket too.
"If not the bed, then sofa?" Earth tried again, despite knowing that his stubborn boy won't move from the kitchen as long as he was in the kitchen too.
There was something strangely familiar on Earth, and it wasn't Earth himself. Mix was looking at him, with narrowed eyes, biting his lower lip, trying his best to figure out what it was and then he figured it out. Instead of answering Earth's question, Mix had one question for Earth.
"Is that my father's sweater?"
To be continued...
P.S. I don't know about you all but I'm sooooo happy to have the fluffy boyfriends back 🥺🤎❤