Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The evening was hauntingly quiet, both Curt and Owen sat down at the table across from one another, eating their dinner in silence. The only sound was the scratching of the cutlery against their plates.

Owen's gaze was fixed on Curt, filled with thinly veiled contempt, while Curt could barely look at him and see what the man he once loved had become— what he had made him.

Owen had made dinner for the pair of them, and Curt would do the washing up afterward— an awfully domestic scene despite the chasm between them. And of course Owen had the time to make dinner, he couldn't leave the house, lest the wolves come after him.

"When are you off again?" Owen asked, breaking the silence. Both men knew the hidden question beneath that one. When will you abandon me again?

"Not for another week at least." Curt replied, the tense smile on his face doing nothing to reassure either of them.

Owen hesitated, half-wanting to beg Curt to stay, to fall on the mercy of the only person in the world he had left. Something deeper within him, the half-dead splinters of his former self, the remains of his pride, and the love that was lost long ago, held his tongue.

"I see." He returned to what was left of his meal, imagining the life he had if he ever slipped a small dose of strychnine into Curt's food.

He'd sit and watch as Curt fell from his chair, convulsing like he did when Owen ran fifty volts straight through him and attempting to claw at his throat as he struggled to breathe or even beg for help.

Curt would try and scream, in a blind panic. Out of all the common poisons, Curt hated the effects of strychnine the most, ever since an unfortunate accident in 1954 involving poisoned soup where he almost died until Owen saved him. But Owen would not save him this time. Never again.

He'd wait until Curt finally went still, either from exhaustion or asphyxiation, it didn't matter, then he'd take the kitchen knife that was waiting to be washed up to Curt's throat to ensure the job was done. The Deadliest Man Alive left no half-measures.

Then he would finally leave this godforsaken safe house in the middle of— well, Curt never told him where— and return to Chimera, ready and willing as ever.

But therein lied the trouble with his plan. Curt had told him that Chimera had declared him compromised and would hunt him down the moment he left. Not to mention several other secret services would be after him for his sordid career with Chimera, ready to kill him at best or arrest him and throw him in a cell to live out the rest of his miserable existence at worst.

Owen would be well and truly fucked if Curt had not kidnapped and hidden him away in the middle of nowhere. But still, a cell was a cell no matter how they dressed it and Curt was effectively his jailer, albeit one that feigned kindness at every turn.

Curt never properly looked at Owen, never took in the scars and the vitriol in his eyes, and he pretended like everything was fine, like his hare-brained scheme to 'save' someone who didn't want to be was actually working. But he protected Owen, never turned him over to anyone, or killed him, even if it was better to cut his losses.

So Owen endured this isolating existence, with only Curt for company whenever he wasn't busy trying and failing to take down Chimera, with no other choice but to stay put and live this false approximation of the life they had imagined together.

"I'm sorry." Curt said. "I wish I could stay."

Then do it. Don't leave. Owen instinctively began to say, but he swallowed his words and finished his pie in silence.

Curt did the same and wordlessly rose from his seat to gather the washing up, moving to the kitchen.

The whole design of the kitchen and dining room felt rather ironic to Owen. The expansive kitchen had a small side room where they had set up their tables and chairs, and the back half-wall of the kitchen had a series of wooden bars running along across it. It was fitting, Owen trapped and confined, while Curt wandered free.

Owen watched like a hawk as Curt stood there, lit by the moon from the window as he washed up the plates and cutlery like nothing was wrong.

Everything is fine, Curt repeated to himself in his head as he scrubbed the dishes clean. You have Owen. He's alive and safe. It's fine.

He couldn't admit that it was a complete lie. He couldn't face that he had failed on almost every count imaginable.

Curt pretended not to notice, but he knew that Owen still hated him, still wanted him dead by his own hand. He saw it in the way Owen's gaze never left him whenever they were in the same room. The voice of delusion optimism in Curt's head insisted that these long looks meant there was something left to salvage, that his betrayal of everyone and everything he held dear bar Owen, was still worth it.

Everything is fine.

Curt scrubbed the plate harder. If he tried more, if he groveled, then maybe Owen would come around…

But Curt knew the kind of man Owen was, and knew how infuriatingly stubborn he could be when he wanted, and at least that never changed.

So, Curt had decided to meet the unstoppable force of Owen's anger with the immovable object of his wilful optimism.

Owen tried to fight Curt? Curt would push back and try and hold him down until he stopped resisting.

Owen threw a scathing comment Curt's way? Curt would let it roll off of his back, not letting Owen see how badly they could hurt him.

If Curt kept that up, continued to love and support Owen back into the shape of the man he once was, then maybe all the late, sleepless nights trying to balance the world on his shoulders would finally pay off.

But the Owen he loved was gone, he died screaming for him in that silo years ago.

Everything is fine.

Curt closed his eyes and kept insisting to hinself that it was all fine.

Owen is alive and safe and he doesn't hate me.

Everything is fine.

It's all fine. This is the happy ending.

My drinking's under control.

I'm fine. Owen's fine.

Owen's happy.

Everybody's just simply fine!

Curt swore as the glass broke in his hand from the sheer force of his grip, letting small red welts of blood drip into the warm soapy water. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to ignore the way his stomach roiled at the image and sensation of his own blood on his hand.

Like a shark sniffing blood in the sea, Owen sprung up from his seat and rushed over to Curt, taking the wounded hand surprisingly gently in his own.

"I lost my grip. I'm fine." Curt said flatly, trying to yank his hand away and fight the oncoming waves of nausea before Owen made this into a bigger deal than it was.

Owen just sighed and began picking the fragments of broken glass out of Curt's hand, like they were still the best spies in the world, and they were patching one another up after the high of another successful mission.

"I said I'm fine. I can patch myself up."

Curt recoiled as he felt Owen's bitter gaze burn right through to his soul.

"I thought we were still pretending all was well, love." Owen said coldly but plainly.

He barely flinched as Curt drew up his uninjured hand and slapped him harshly on the scars across his face, the damaged skin stinging from the impact.

"It is fine." Curt spat back, scowling at Owen's indignance. How fucking dare he insist that this wasn't fine? It was fine! They were alive and safe and fine!

"Injuring yourself and then slapping me is fine?!"

"I don't have to keep you safe, y'know."

Owen did not react, knowing that threat was empty. Curt was too deluded to ever consider following through on letting him go. Normally a source of frustration and resentment, it would work out in his favour just this once.

"You're too delusional to ever let me go."

"Too in love with you." Curt corrected weakly, burying his head in the sand once again.

Curt's hand stayed where he had left it on Owen's face, cupping his cheek gently right where he slapped him.

He kept Owen safe because he loved him. He fought Chimera because he loved him. He cut off all ties to everything else for him.

But the Owen he loved was long gone, he died when Curt abandoned him. The man before him was virtually a stranger, one who wanted him dead.

Owen scoffed, but didn't say a word. Now was not the time to fight, and risk the only thing he had left in the world aside from death or a cold cell.

He saw how tired Curt was of trying, the way he couldn't keep up his facade that everything was just fine all the time and it just broke when he thought Owen wasn't looking.

Owen pitied Curt, the fool wasting his heart, youth and sanity on someone who didn't want to be saved, who couldn't be saved. He made his choice that night on the staircase, same as Curt. He chose to stay with Chimera, to bring about his own vengeance on Curt and MI6 and the world that turned its back on him at every damned opportunity. He chose to kill the part of him that hesitated, that wanted to make that choice.

Curt chose to undermine that very choice, to take him far away and never let him leave.

"Then look at me." Owen took Curt's chin and tried to bring his gaze toward him, to see the scars and the pain and the hate and the pity and the envy.

"I look at you plenty." Curt insisted, jerking his head away, but Owen's grip held firm.

"No, you don't. You cannot stand the sight of me."

The reason why hesitated on the tip of Curt's tongue and then died before he spoke it aloud. Because I can't lie to your face and tell you it's alright. Because if I do, then I'll know there's no hope and it will kill me.

Curt cast his gaze downward, to his injured hand. He welcomed the roiling nausea as he saw his own blood and his face went pallid and slightly green, considering that a punishment for everything that he had done.

Owen's grip tightened painfully on Curt's chin for a brief moment before he let go of Curt entirely, stepping away.

"Will you be drinking tonight?" He didn't look at Curt, didn't want to see his face. Will I be expecting you in our bed tonight, or no?

"Probably." Most likely not.

Owen's footsteps grew quieter as he walked away to the bedroom for a cigarette, a book and his bed.

The washing up was promptly abandoned as Curt went to the bathroom to clean and bandage his injure hand, looking away from it to settle his stomach.

A small collection of glass shards were accumulated on the toilet seat as Curt picked out the fragments of the glass.

Most of the cuts were small nicks, barely drawing blood, but there was a long cut, rough and jagged, across the centre of his palm, which was the worst one.

Taking frequent breaks so he wouldn't vomit everywhere, Curt cleaned and bandaged the wound, ensuring that it would heal as best it could.

"Heh. At least I can patch myself up." He muttered bitterly to himself.

He then made his way to the couch, stopping along the way to grab a bottle of whatever whiskey he bought the other day. The brand didn't matter, he just needed to feel numb and cloudy, if he couldn't keep up the optimism that kept him going.

Tomorrow would be a new day, but it would be the same as this one, and the day before, and so on as the misery and loneliness compounded day by day.

Chapter Text

Night fell and Curt and Owen were still arguing, having been teetering on the edge of this argument for weeks. Then earlier, while getting ready for bed, Curt had to open his stupid mouth and say the wrong thing and then Owen snapped, acting cold and distant.

Then it devolved into being snippy with one another and it was a mess.

Curt pinched the bridge of his nose frustratedly, his head pounding from annoyance and too much alcohol to numb himself to the misery around them. "Let's just go to bed."

"Yes, sir." Owen marched over to his side of the bed and grabbed his pyjamas, acting spitefully deferential. "You are always so kind to me, I am honoured to be allowed to share your bed."

"Don't start this again, Owen…" Curt flopped down onto the bed.

"I'm not starting anything, sir." Owen turned away as he buttoned up his shirt. "Just expressing my deep gratitude for being allowed to breathe the same air as you."

"Quit being a dick."

"Of course, sir, at once, sir." Owen bowed, enjoying how his exaggerated deference was getting Curt angry, breaking his vehement denial that everything was wrong. He needed this, needed to watch the mask slip and break so he knew he wasn't alone.

"You're not a fucking prisoner, so stop acting like one!" Curt grimaced, his head pounding from all the stress and the alcohol.

"Don't you see that I am?!" Owen snapped, dropping everything in an instant. "This cell may be a house, but it is still a bloody cell at the end of the day. I cannot leave here and you cannot let me go."

Curt closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep, shallowing out his breathing so Owen would just shut up about his misery and his headache would just go away. Nothing was wrong here. They were happy and fine here. Owen was forgiving him for the accident…

Curt wanted to cry, wanted to melt into the bed until he disappeared entirely. Why couldn't Owen just play along and let everything be just okay?

This would be so much easier if he just gave in and stopped fighting.

"Fucking listen to me!" Owen yelled angrily. "Your delusion makes this worse! Because I am utterly alone in this world and you pretend that I'm something I am most certainly not, which makes me feel even more alone."

Curt screamed on the inside, begging silently for Owen to shut up and join him in this fantasy that all was well. He wouldn't be as miserable, and he wouldn't be fighting alone anymore.

Owen complained about being alone? Curt felt like he was the only one trying to fight for any semblance of what they once were, even though their love was most likely gone forever now, a rotten, bitter fruit that they both kept eating, even though the poison seeped through their veins.

Owen sighed and dropped onto the bed next to Curt, judging by the way the bed creaked and groaned.

"I know you're faking." He whispered into Curt's ear, a perversion of the silly, intimate talk they used to share in their bed, but they were both different men back then, lighter and full of love.

"I have nothing to say." Curt turned his face away from Owen.

"You never do." Owen replied and turned away as well.

Owen grumbled, with the last few poisoned kernels of love he still had to soften it. "Delusional idiot."

"Hateful bastard." Curt replied, with as much love as he could muster, which wasn't a lot, but he hoped it was something.

That was the closest thing their broken, weary hearts could say in terms of an 'I love you'.

They laid there in silence, unable to sleep. Owen stewed in his loneliness and anger, feeling the chasm between them as keenly as his chronic pain.

Curt stared at the bottle he left on his nightstand, hating how much he needed to drink, just to survive.

His stomach roiled with guilt and revulsion, he knew he should be better than this, not a man who lied to himself, lived a lie. Someone who had to hurt the man he loved just to protect him. Curt didn't mean to hurt Owen, he just needed to listen and co-operate.

"…I'm sorry." He said quietly, tears making his throat tight. "I never meant for all this to happen. I love you."

Those three words broke Owen's heart, as he knew that wasn't real.

"You loved the version of me you abandoned." Both of them ignored the addendum Owen wished to add but didn't The version of me that loved you. "I'm not him anymore, stop trying to force me to be. It will never work and it is killing us both." Owen said, tossing and turning until he laid on his back.

"Then what do you suggest I do? Leave you to face the consequences?" Curt sat upright, unable to hide his hurt.

"I… I don't know." Owen admitted shamefully. "Just stop pretending like this whole situation isn't right royally fucked up and stick with me through this isolation. That's all I ask."

Owen sat next to Curt, finally meeting his gaze. Curt wanted to look away, to bury his head in the sand again and pretend that Owen was not miserable and it was all okay.

Curt forced himself to look, to see the desperation and the hurt and the scars as Owen laid himself bare in front of him. He saw Owen's loneliness, and his broken, wounded heart.

"You are all I have left, Curt." Owen said. "I have nowhere to turn to except you. And you won't even acknowledge how trapped and broken and lonely I am."

The silence stretched between them, slowing time down until seconds felt like hours.

"…Could you ever forgive me?" Curt asked despite himself, managing to catch himself before he asked the question that would destroy him.

"For the abandonment or the kidnapping?"

"Both, I guess."

"I don't know." Owen replied, turning himself away once more. "I know you want me to, and part of me wants to, but I just don't have it in me."

Curt fell silent, curling into himself like he was protecting his wounded heart.

It hurt more than losing Owen all those years ago, knowing that the man he loved, the version of Owen sank his all into trying to bring back for was gone for ever. It could never go back to the way it used to be, the easy cameraderie and love they once shared turned to ash and poison in their veins, killing them slowly day by day.

They had no choice but to keep choking on the ashes of their long-dead love, feeling the hate and the loneliness stab their hearts like knives.

Owen could run, could leave all this behind, but he'd face punishment for his crimes, sooner or later, from Chimera or from multiple governments, who ever caught him first. Curt and this damned relationship was the only thing keeping him alive and relatively free, so he stayed, dreaming of what he could have had.

Curt could turn Owen loose, could kill him then and there, putting them both out of his misery, and they'd both be all the better for it. Owen's restless, weary, angry soul would finally know peace, and Curt could have a fresh start, leaving the past buried behind him. But Curt knew he could not live with himself if he killed Owen twice, part of him stubbornly, unwisely still half in love with the man that he used to be.

That's why he dove headfirst into fighting Chimera, into staying away more often than he was present. If he didn't look, he could pretend like the Owen he left for dead was still waiting for him when he returned. But he wasn't, the Owen hidden in this house was a stranger, filled with hate and pain, the love rotten to the core. It was the Owen who wanted him dead.

Curt felt sick as he realised he had genuinely considered killing Owen for the first time, tying off the final loose end. His stomach roiled as that thought settled uncomfortably in his heart and mind.

He almost wanted to rationalise it, knowing he'd be better off not clinging onto the broken shards of the past, that Owen would finally be at peace when his body and spirit finally rejoined his heart, that he'd do it swiftly and painlessly, a mercy compared to what Chimera and the governments who had warrants for his arrest would do to him.

But he didn't have the heart to. Owen had nothing in the world left but him. Everything and everyone wanted him dead. Curt kept him alive, so he couldn't betray his trust like that.

That didn't mean he had to keep putting all that wasted effort into trying to bring a man back that existed no longer.

"…There's a guest room down the hall." Curt said quietly, grappling with the weight of his decision to cut out all the emotions from this situation. "Do you want it or are you staying in here?"

Owen harrumphed and loosely pulled the covers over himself by way of an answer.

"Alright." Curt got up and started to move toward the door. "I'll move my shit out in the morning."

Owen nodded and Curt lingered by the door, heartbroken and empty.

"Are you happy now? You got what you wanted, right? Me being miserable and broken, too?" Curt said coldly, finally as bitter as Owen.

Owen did not dignify that with a response, instead disappearing beneath the covers, hoping the darkness would take him to sleep.

He heard Curt's footsteps as the man he hated and needed to survive walked away, the soft thud against the carpet fading away as Curt left.

Owen knew he should've been playing nice, trying to keep Curt on his side. But he was far too hateful and tired to care at this point.

Curt went into the guest room, feeling empty and broken after doing the hardest thing he ever had to do. Giving up the hope that one day, the Owen Carvour he knew and loved would return to him and that he could fix everything, broke him. He no longer had armour to hide behind, or a reason to stay and keep trying.

He decided that he would still be there, existing in the same space as Owen, but he wouldn't reach out, wouldn't let the heart that screamed to keep trying get hurt again. He was tired of fighting for something that didn't exist

Owen and Curt would just live together, forcibly bound for eternity, unable to leave the hell of their own making.