Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Why didn’t you go when I told you to?”

Andrew stares at Eric’s back, he was looking out the hospital room window, had been for the past five minutes while he flipped through the discharge papers and directions to care for somebody with a concussion.

He doesn’t need to ask him for clarification, he already knows exactly what Eric is asking him. Leaning back in his own chair, Andrew tries to figure out what to say, when he knows there isn’t a right answer to this. It was, after all, the very same moment he’s played over and over in his own mind for days.

“That wasn’t rhetorical,” Eric whispers, turning his head slightly, but still refusing to look at him. “Why couldn’t you just-” his voice breaks. “Why?”

Andrew considers lying, telling him that he didn’t know why he didn’t just walk out that door, can’t quite bring himself to say the words. Instead, he watches his husband closely, offers the only thing he has to give, “I was going to,” he knows Eric doesn’t remember this. “I opened the door, I had Wen in my arms, and I think we might have made it. I had every intention of running to that truck and getting the fuck away from that place,” he pauses, remembering the sound of Eric’s head cracking against the floor, pushes away the nausea. “Then I saw you go down and that woman hovering over you – I couldn’t do it Eric, I couldn’t just leave you there on the floor and abandon you.”

His husband turns fully back toward the window, his hand shakes a little where it dangles at his side, “Wen should have been the priority, she should have been your only priority.”   

Running a hand through his hair, Andrew doesn’t dare argue that point. He wants to lash out though, wants to point out that he’s never been able to choose between him and Wen, that it was a grotesque parody of the hell they’d just been through for Eric to bring this up right now, to tell him he chose wrong.

Then again, if their situations were reversed and Eric ignored him when he told him to run and get Wen to safety, he’d be saying this very same thing. “You’re right. I should have gotten Wen somewhere safe, before coming back for you.”

He watches his husband carefully, sees the way Eric’s shoulders droop, head lowering a little like it’s too heavy to keep up. Without thinking too hard about it, Andrew stands and limps his way around the hospital bed, pauses when he gets close, before reaching out to snag his hand, the one that is still trembling just a little. He wouldn’t have been surprised if Eric pulled away, but he doesn’t, he lets him take his hand without complaint – still hasn’t bothered to look at him though.

“I think if I hadn’t have gone back for you – I wouldn’t have ever forgiven myself.”

Eric doesn’t react, is probably thinking the same thing he is, which is at least Wen would have been safe, at least she wouldn’t have seen any of the things she did. Andrew tries to think of what else there is to say, discards the idea of pointing out he and Wen wouldn’t have gotten away regardless of his decision to stay with Eric.

The tires were slashed after all and carrying Wen through the forest would have slowed him down enough for the others to catch them. Even if he tried to get the gun instead, the chances of his succeeding were slim to none. Andrew knows all this, because he’s been thinking about it obsessively since they’d reached the hospital and he’d had time to breathe again.

Knowing it wouldn’t have worked doesn’t make it any easier for either of them.

“I’m sorry,” he startles at Eric’s voice. “I shouldn’t be – I understand why you came back, it doesn’t matter anymore, I just-”

“Can’t stop thinking about it.”

Andrew is ridiculously relieved when Eric finally looks at him, his expression twisted into something fragile and regretful. He can’t stand it, so he tugs him closer and into his arms, is gratified when Eric wraps his own around his waist and it’s right there in the silence – forgiveness.

It’s just another stone on a very long road, Andrew knows this, but he still takes pride in it all the same. Although he doesn’t want to think about it, he knows that should they end up in the same situation again, he would probably make the same choices.

He thinks about the horror of Wen’s nightmares, he thinks about the ache in his knee, and the cracks in his heart whenever Eric flinches at the light, thinks about how there might have been nothing he could have done to make it better, but it could have been so much worse.

Tears prick his eyes, which he quickly blinks away in favour of pressing a hard kiss to Eric’s forehead, “I love so much, and I love Wen more than life itself – the only choices I’ve ever had was keeping you both safe.”

It sits on the edge of his earlier thoughts, about how he couldn’t choose when it was demanded by the people who attacked him, and he couldn’t choose right then either. Eric could get offended by the implication, and he wouldn’t blame him, but he doesn’t.

“I know. All I wanted was for you two to be alright,” Eric’s arms tighten around his waist. “I’m sorry.”

Andrew knows that the apology is for those final moments when he’d been willing to die to save the world and to save Wen and him, he knows that moment will haunt them for a very long time to come. Swallowing thickly around the swell of emotion, Andrew tries to make him understand, has been grappling with the words to use since they stepped away from the cabin, “how could you ever expect me or Wen to be alright without you?”

He’s known that for a very long time, there was no world in which Andrew could have killed Eric and survived the fallout, he’d have gotten Wen somewhere safe and followed him right after without a second thought.

As if he can hear those thoughts, Eric’s hands curl into fists at his back.