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Carter senses the golden glow bathing his bedroom before he’s fully awake and he fights to keep his eyes closed because he knows what will be there when he opens them, he knows. But there’s no use, there never is; he’s not really awake after all, the dead-eyed control he’s clung to in his waking life has no power here. His eyes open of their own accord and his head turns like it’s being pulled on a string, Carter fighting the whole useless time because he knows what he’s going to see.
And just like always he sees Kent standing there behind that magic golden shield, less than an arm's length away and impossible to reach. Carter always expects to see the dry, cracked deserts of Khandaq and sometimes his mind does serve up that nightmare, Kent dying, Kent burning, but much more often his mind shows him this: Kent trapped behind that shield, or more accurately Carter trapped behind it, Kent's whole side filled with water. Kent’s cape and hair drift free but he’s not floating, his feet anchored to some indistinct ground like he’s weighed down. His face is calm as he watches Carter through the magic screen, serene, that same twinkle in his eye as when Carter got there just in time to see Kent take off the helmet but too late for anything else.
It would almost be okay, if it were just that. But it never stays in that moment, Kent watching him calmly behind his own magic; the seconds tick by and Carter sees strain in Kent’s jaw, in the muscles of his neck, sees his throat work as Kent fights to hold his breath. Carter's own lungs burn, he sees spots in front of his own eyes; Kent places one hand against the screen, not struggling or fighting just…reaching. The force keeping Carter pinned to his bed releases and he stands in front of the screen, touches his own hand to Kent’s through it. The magic between them is so thin, like spider silk, like a breath, but Carter can’t punch through it with all of his Hawkman strength because God only knows he’s tried so many different times.
Like he’s hearing Carter’s thoughts Kent’s blue tinged lips tip up, the soft creases around his eyes deepening. Carter’s tongue is dead in his mouth but he tries to talk anyway, tries to tell Kent how many nights he’d spent lying awake wondering what it would be like to kiss those lines at the corner of his eyes, how distracting seeing Kent smile always was because it was the only thing Carter could ever think about.
But Carter’s missed his chance to say anything to Kent. All those thoughts could pour out of him like a faucet now because Kent can never hear them, and all those justifications Carter spent most of the past decade building up like bomb shelters to hide in when things got too much are all the company he'll have . And that’s fine, he deserves it. A coward’s heart doesn’t deserve consolation.
What Carter gets is to watch Kent’s body spasm in his water prison as his dying body tries to force him to breathe. Kent presses one hand over his mouth and nose, trying to stall the inevitable, but Carter knows that’s only going to buy a few seconds. Then Kent will finally be forced to heave in a breath, and Carter will be forced to watch as water floods his lungs, his eyes wide with panic and pain. Seconds.
Carter wakes up gasping in his own bed, soaked in sweat like he’s the one who was just drowning. It’s the third time he’s had that particular dream this week.
He knows he should be grateful the dream always ends before those final few seconds, that he never actually has to stand there and watch Kent drown, but he knows it doesn’t matter. Drowning or burning, he’s seeing Kent Nelson die every time he closes his eyes anyway.
*
Carter’s never been…skilled at meditating. Some versions of him have been, so he knows he’s capable of getting there if he tries, but there’s too…much. Too many voices, too many versions of him, he gets in too deep and starts losing his own edges, too many other thoughts start sliding in and out of his head. Kent had laughed when he’d told him that. Oh, well I can certainly help you there.
The memory of Kent’s laugh warms him as he lights the incense and places it in its holder, letting the scent fill the room. He’d grudgingly promised Kent he would work on this years ago and keeping that promise now seems as likely a way to get his grief-seized mind to shut the fuck up for a few minutes as anything else he’s tried.
You have to stop worrying about everything or this will never work. Carter lets Kent’s ghost scold him as he rolls some tension out of his shoulders; he’d been such a brat when Kent started giving him these lessons, backtalking him at every opportunity because having to look at the inside of his head was such a terrifying thought. It’s a wonder Kent even stuck it out that first year with the Society, forget coming back after successfully walking away.
I can’t do this without him.
Carter clamps down on that thought and pushes it far away. That briefing feels like lifetimes ago, a poisonous rock in his shoe. The very first thing he did after getting back from Khandaq was burn the suit he’d worn while signing Kent’s death warrant. He lets out a deep breath and imagines Kent laughing at him, taking both his hands the way he always did when Carter was wound too tight to shut his mind up. Honestly Carter, sometimes I wonder if you want this to work.
Carter takes a deep breath, letting the incense fill his lungs. Kent had found it for him in Cairo years ago, at a stall promising their blends had been unchanging since the New Kingdom, and maybe that was even true because it had been a kick in the head the first time he’d tried it. Carter listens to his heartbeat slow, a steady thu-thump, thu-thump, thu-thump, lets it pull him down into the darkness of the past.
He opens his eyes and finds himself in a shadowy version of Cairo – but Cairo as it had been thousands of years ago when a past version of Carter had loved it beyond almost anything. Indistinct shades mill around him, vaguely familiar faces he sometimes sees in his dreams. He stands in the center of his mind’s reconstruction of an ancient marketplace and waits for one of those faces to turn toward him, to smile with recognition – he doesn’t know what meditation looks like when Kent does it but he’s always imagined the time Kent spends communing with Nabu or other magic forces might feel something like this. He knows he’s not actually speaking with the past, that’s something you need Dr. Fate juice to pull off, but if he does it right he can pull one of those past lives out of his head, make that man or woman he'd been once live again and give him some damn perspective. Remind him how tiny he truly is, make him see that whatever catastrophe he’s been obsessing over, something like it has happened before. Sometimes he can even learn from his own mistakes.
The last thing he expects is to see Kent across the martketplace, full color and real as life, watching him with that tilt to his head that means he’s pleased that Carter’s figured something out. Kent shouldn’t be here living in his head; only his own past should be here and Carter just stares in dumbfounded joy for a few seconds.
The helmet, he finally realizes. He wore that cursed thing, even if only briefly, and that must be enough to connect him to the impression of Kent’s mind the helmet holds onto even though the rest of him is gone. Carter walks over to him, the crowd parting like the ocean; up close Carter can see that whatever bit of Kent his mind’s grabbed isn’t distinct enough to touch so Carter can’t hug him the way every cell in his body screams at him to, so Carter just stands in front of him and smiles so wide his face aches. “Fancy finding you here.”
Kent’s answering smile is smaller, secretive, that puzzle Carter has always loved trying to solve. “You’ve fallen off your meditation practice.”
Carter feels his heart climb into his throat; if he’d known meditating could let him talk to Kent he would have done it until he starved. “You know me, Kent. No discipline at all.”
Kent’s smile turns warmer for a moment, those tempting lines around his eyes deepening. “Only when it would vex me.” His eyes search Carter’s face like it’s a document he’s trying to decode, his smile fading. “Can you forgive me?”
Carter can only blink at the incomprehensible question. “Feels like that’s something I should be asking you.”
“I know my own mind and came on that mission of my own accord.”
“Doesn’t change what I feel.” He looks Kent over; he’s in the Dr. Fate gear he died in, which strikes Carter as strange when he thinks about it; the recent night terrors aside Carter always pictures Kent in his suits, tries to separate him from Dr. Fate as much as possible. “What could I possibly have to forgive you for, Kent? I’m mad as hell that you died, but I’d be a hypocrite if I was blamed you for how it happened, I would have done the same thing if our positions had been reversed and I think we both know it.”
There’s something desolate in Kent’s eyes that stops any more words before they can form. “I forced you to watch me die.”
Carter frowns, his mind rerunning the battle to see if there’s any possible thing he could have missed the last thousand times he’d obsessed over it, because Kent isn’t making any sense. “You fought a god one on one, even you couldn’t keep that shield up right until the very end.”
“You think me a much braver man than I actually am.” Kent’s tongue slides over his lower lip, a nervous gesture Carter can’t remember ever seeing before; he feels something cold and looks down to see that water has risen halfway up their shins. “I let the shield drop,” Kent says, like he’s confessing to some dire crime. “I wanted....” His eyes fall closed for a moment, pain creasing his face. His hand drifts up to where Sabbac tore into his gut. “I wanted to see your face again. I knew doing so would cause my dearest friend incalculable pain and I did it anyway.” The water is up to their waists now. “I....” He takes a deep, pained breath, like he’s already having a hard time breathing. “I knew Sabbac would not be...be gentle, with me.” His eyes are so wide; Carter pours every ounce of his will into making Kent solid enough to grab him, anything to make him stop talking, to keep him from reliving the hell of his own death.
But it seems like Carter’s been just failing at everything lately. “Kent, please.”
Kent raises one hand and Carter realizes that golden wall of magic is threading itself into place between them. “I thought I could bear it if I could just see your face.” Kent takes a desperate gasp of air as the water rushes up over his head
Why does this keep happening? The water is above Carter’s head too but he can breathe like it’s air; he watches Kent’s hand go to his throat as he struggles for each second, his agonized eyes locked on Carter’s face. Carter knows a few moments more and he’s going to watch the life fade out of those eyes again, he’s going to watch Kent die in unimaginable pain again and there is not a damn thing he can do about it. He puts his hand against the wall the way Kent does in his dreams and Kent matches the action, the corners of his eyes creasing. I’m so sorry, he mouths to Carter, shaking with the effort to hold his breath.
Carter feels something crack deep inside that Kent feels the need to apologize for anything. “Kent, I can’t forgive you because there’s nothing to forgive. Do you understand me?”
The corners of Kent’s eyes crease again, that same small, sad smile, and Carter knows that Kent doesn’t believe him.
Carter wakes up on the floor, the incense burned down to a stub and his face wet with tears.
*
This would probably work better with a pigeon, Carter thinks.
He hasn’t slept since the meditation session two days before, his mind too on fire to let him sit down for more than five minutes, let alone sleep. At first he’d been too busy dwelling on the horror to focus on anything else – he’d tried hard not to think about how afraid Kent must have been facing Sabbac; Dr. Fate or no Kent was human and Carter has faced death enough times to know that no matter how prepared you were that fear always grabbed you by the throat at the end. But to hear from Kent’s own lips that he’d dreaded the pain, that the reckless, triumphant smile had been a mask so that Carter wouldn't have to carry that memory too, Carter feels like he’s cracking up if he even looks at it too closely. Kent being terrified of anything except maybe Nabu feels like waking up and discovering the sky is yellow or that the earth is a cube, it’s something that feels incompatible with reality. Carter’s always been so grateful that he had seen Kent right at the end, had even flattered himself that it had been his own doing. To find out that Kent had wanted him there, had engineered it because he knew Sabbac would make it hurt and he hadn’t wanted to be alone -- Carter feels his eyes burn and puts the implements down, blinking until he has himself under control. It’s never good to be emotional when you’re about to summon a god.
Well, not summon, commune, but the ritual is surprisingly similar, both in the methods and in the danger. He kneels on the floor, the priest’s vestments that belonged to the man he’d been so long ago feeling strange on his current body. He takes a moment to stretch out his neck; he’s had the armor and wings on for almost a full day, longer than they were really designed to be worn for all they were so light, but them and the priest’s skirt and the sandals, even the bracelet around his bicep, it all needs to be just so. Gods can be very particular about these things, no matter how long someone has served them.
He really should have found himself a pigeon to sacrifice though, as much as the thought makes his skin crawl. A beef heart, even. He reminds himself that it’s not the material substance of an offering that matters, it’s what the object means. When the custom was born a pigeon represented a wages that could have been spent on food, a steer more wealth than some would see in a year. As long as something is precious, irreplaceable, Carter knows a sacrifice doesn’t have to be blood.
At least Carter hopes so, Kent will be real pissed off if he kills a pigeon for him.
And anyway, what he’s thought of is more precious than any prized bull. He slides the single sheet of paper out of the folder it’s lived in the past few years; Kent liked to handwrite letters, it was an old habit he never bothered to shake, and he’d kept the habit up even after he’d retired from the Justice Society and Carter had bought him a damn cellphone already. Not on a regular schedule, not even more than once every couple of months or so, but it had always made Carter’s day to find that heavy paperstock envelope with just his name handwritten across the center, no address because whatever system Kent used to send the things didn’t need one. He’d thought at first to choose the last one Kent had sent, half full of thoughts Kent had while watching the sea birds at the Cape and half his frustrations about a magic chest he’d been trying to unlock, but realized just in time that was too obvious a choice.
No, if he’s going to take up a god’s time Carter knows he’s going to have to flay himself open for the privilege. The letter’s he’s selected is very short, by far the shortest in his small collection, a single sentence of Kent’s elegant writing across his custom stationary, and was the first letter he'd received after Kent retired from the Society.
Dear Carter,
I sensed you might need the reassurance so in case there was any doubt in your mind: while I may have stepped back from the Justice Society, I would no more step back from my friendship with you than I would choose to cease drawing breath.
Yours,
Kent
Kent’s letters always had the uncanny way of appearing exactly when Carter needed them, because had he ever needed to read those words that day, when he’d felt like the whole team had been slipping through his fingers.
Carter looks over the letter one last time, then pricks the tip of his finger and spots just a drop of blood first over his own name, then over Kents (okay, so there usually does need to be at least a little blood involved, all gods seem to be big on that for some reason.) He folds it up, taking care with the creases; he’s never been much of a hand at origami but he thinks it passingly looks like an anatomical heart, at least if he squints.
He puts the folded letter into the center of a brazier the British Museum is going to be very upset to find missing when they do their next accounting, but too bad, it had been his first a hundred or so lifetimes ago. He sits cross-legged on the floor, stubbornly keeping his eyes open even when the smoke begins to sting.
He and Kent are so alike. If the inside of his head didn’t feel like it was full of jagged glass it would almost make him laugh, the absurdity of it. He’d been so misled by the trappings, his awe at Kent’s magic, his own concern with trying figure out who the hell Carter Hall was this time around. But deep down under the magic and the wings and the code names, their hearts beat the same, two old men who should have figured all this shit out so many years ago, one just looked it more than the other.
You think me a much braver man than I actually am. Carter wonders how many nights Kent had walked the floor thinking of the things he hadn’t been able to force his lips to say. What had been left unsaid in the blank spaces of that letter, because a lot of little things made sense now. Carter should have seen it. Carter should have....
Carter presses his lips into a grim line. Carter should have been a braver man than he actually was and let himself see what was in front of him before Kent had to plainly tell him the only thing that let him stand being eviscerated by a god was a glimpse of Carter’s face.
The winged carvings on the brazier light up with a faint golden glow and Carter smiles. He’d bet none of those pushy docents at the British Museum knew about that. Carter kneels up and takes the biggest lungful of the smoke he can manage.
Carter opens his eyes and finds himself in a dim stone chamber, hieroglyphics lining the wall so old that even Carter can’t read them all. A slanting shaft of sunlight illuminates a golden throne and the humanoid figure sitting on it, clad in gleaming white linen with accented with gold and studded with jewels. When his eyes adjust he’s surprised to see the figure is that of a human looking woman, holding a scepter and sickle and wearing a headpiece decorated with a high black throne. “My lady Aset,” he says, lowering his eyes again.
“A name that has fallen out of favor,” she says, amusement shaping the syllables.
He smiles; Isis is the more commonly known name now, he knows, but it’s never felt right in his mouth. He wonders if she’s deigning to speak English to him or if his mind is automatically translating the language so old he’s not sure any humans ever fluently spoke it. “I...I didn’t expect you to be the one to answer, my lady.”
“But you put forth so much effort.”
Oh, he’s so out of practice at this. “I only meant that I expected Horus, he’s the one the ritual names.....”
“But your question is much more under my purview, I believe.”
Carter swallows down the dread he’s reasonably sure she’s not evoking on purpose; he’s met more than a few gods as part of the Justice Society and while in his experience they’re always capricious, simply because their perceptions are so different from a mortal’s, the Egyptian ones with a few exceptions at least aren't generally malicious like certain Greek ones he’s had to hit with a mace. “I seek the soul of Kent Nelson, recently fallen in combat with the demon Sabbac. I don’t...I don’t know where he would be, which underworld, but my lady, you would.”
She stares at him as cool and detached as any statue. “I cannot.”
It is very bad to get a straight-forward answer from a god. “Why...why not?” he asks, forgetting that questioning divinity is the kind of thing that gets people turned into spiders. “I know he was not a...a follower, but that shouldn’t mean....”
“I cannot guide you to him because he is nowhere.”
Carter feels ice spread through his veins inch by inch, rooting him to his spot on the stone floor. “What do you mean? My lady,” he adds, just at the last second. “I saw him. I saw him die.”
“Slain by a god who was then slain,” Aset says, a bored air to her voice now.
“So where is he now?”
“Where could he be?” she says, hostile now. Angry at her time being wasted. “What underworld could he enter? What god would claim him? Who prepared the body? Who performed the burial rites? Who ground the herbs and the grains to pay for his entry?”
Carter’s mouth feels packed full of ashes, because he knows full well who would know to do those things. “There…there was no body,” he whispers, the feeblest of arguments. He sees Kent burning again, Sabbac’s fire consuming him from he inside out, Kent feeling every second of it. “There was nothing left.”
“And what does that mean, my ancient champion?” she says, full of contempt. “You know the words. Until entry is bought and provided for this Kent Nelson of yours is always dying and never dead, there can be no rest for him. It is not possible.”
“I need to find him. I need to find where he is, he....” He shuts his eyes, feeling the muscles in the throat constrict around words that refuse to come out. “He died thinking his last act harmed someone he....” Carter shakes his head, because he still can't make his mouth form the words. “His last thought was that he’d committed grave offense,” he says, the formal language making it easier. “You can’t die like that. You can’t have your last thoughts be that. If he is wandering, how do I find him?”
“Cut out your own heart and throw it into the Nile,” she says, with more bored contempt.
Carter watches her expression shift as he holds her unblinking gaze. “Do I need a special knife or will a regular dinner one do the job?”
To his surprise Aset breaks into a broad smile. “My poor champion,” she murmurs. “Can your heart never be still?” She descends the broad steps of the dais, her cool hand finding his shoulder. “The last time you cried out to me in such pain it was in vengeance for the slayers of you and your beloved. Can you never be satisfied?”
Carter feels his eyes burn, because being touched by a god and then asking for more is the kind of ingratitude that most don’t get to survive. “I was rash then. I’m not interested in vengeance any more, I just want....” He closes his eyes, the memory of that sad, disbelieving smile on Kent’s face is too much. “I need to find him. Wherever he is, especially if he’s wandering. He can’t....” He swallows hard. “Someone can only wander for so long.” He takes a deep, bracing breath. “I called out to you, but he’s calling to me. I need to answer. You created me to answer.” Something clicks into place, a thought so impossible it makes him shiver and he sets his jaw. “My lady, I ask for your help but if what you say is true I will find him without it, and if at all possible I will bring him back with me.”
She scoffs, but not unkindly. “You would do a thing even I could not accomplish fully?”
Carter dares to looks up at her. “But like you just said. He’s only dying still, not dead.”
She smiles at him again. “There is my clever, clever champion. I have been waiting for your despair to break.” Her brows draw together, and a part of him appreciates how she’s trying to approximate human emotion for him, it’s a sign of great favor. “But all of this for a mortal who’s already walked far beyond his allotted road. What would your finest success even be? A decade. Two at the most. You will lose him again in an eyeblink.”
The idea of ten more years of Kent giving him shit and scaring the life out of him seems so impossible Carter can’t hold the entire thought in his mind. “I would do it for ten days. My lady, I would do it for ten minutes.”
“Rise, then, if you are so committed.” Carter rises unsteadily to his feet, instinct telling him to cower even in face of friendly divinity. She holds out her hand. “If you dare take this step, then take my hand, but know there is no way back.”
Carter takes her hand with the first real smile he’s managed since Kent burned. “My lady, you know my heart. Leading me to Kent is leading me out of hell too.”
*
“Oh, so you were serious about that heart thing, huh?” Carter says, looking over the banks of the Nile.
“You used to speak to me with much more formality, Prince Khufu,” Aset says. He’s not sure if she’s teasing him or warning him and figures it’s probably both.
“Carter, please,” he says.
“I will grant you the favor,” she says, staring out at the suspiciously empty water.
“Shouldn’t there be...a lot more people around?”
“We are existing out of time, as you would consider it,” she says. She holds out a golden hilted dagger, the blade gleaming with what he knows is Nth metal before even touching it, the shape of it an ornamental S shape instead of a functional straight edge. “And you will in fact need a special blade.”
Carter wets his lips as he presses the impressively sharp tip to his chest. “So...do I cut across to do this, or down, or....”
She very gently lowers Carter’s arm. “You will know the time.” Aset gathers her golden cloak around herself, still looking out at the water. “Know that if you falter, if your courage fails, I will not be able to intervene. There will be no further lives for you.”
Carter nods. “Fair enough. If...if do fuck this up, though, please....”
“I will escort him into the underworld myself.”
“Good. Good.” Carter rolls his shoulders under his wings; he’s always been much more comfortable bashing enemies with his mace than the more esoteric side of being Hawkman, but he feels electricity under his skin now, it’s all he can do to not dive headfirst into the river. “My lady, I’ve said some...ungrateful things over the years about...;” and he gestures at the wings and armor, “but today I am truly indebted.”
“Make me a sacrifice when you return,” she says lightly. “Go.”
Carter walks into the unnaturally chilly water, far colder and clearer than the actual Nile would ever be. He shivers at the sense of déjà vu as the water rises up to his shins, to his waist. Suddenly the ground gives way beneath him and Carter drops into a crystal blue abyss, the normally light Nth heavy as boulders. He gasps on reflex but finds he can breathe as well as he could on the ground; when the descent finally ends Carter looks around, trying to get his bearings. For a moment he thinks he’s already done something wrong, there’s nothing but endless dark water above and below him, but then he feels the faintest motion in the water below and to his right; he looks down and clenches his hand so tight around his borrowed blade that his bones ache. Far below, sinking so fast Carter only gets a glimpse he sees Kent being dragged into the darkness by Sabbac’s corpse, his golden cape billowing out around him. Carter sets his wings into a dive like he would from the air, stabbing the enchanted blade into Sabbac’s dead fist. It takes a few more tries but Carter finally pries Kent free and he barely lets himself notice as what’s left of Sabbac get swallowed up because Kent is real and solid in his arms.
And furious. Real and solid and furious at him for being here; Carter thinks Kent would cast something at him if Sabbac letting him go hadn’t overcome him with a sudden need for air. Carter wraps one hand around the back of Kent’s head and presses his lips over Kent’s in a tight seal to breathe as much air as he can into Kent’s lungs; it’s not the way Carter’s always dreamed of this happening but Kent needs air and Carter has it, nothing for it. Although the astonished way Kent looks at him after, that’s pretty good, Carter has to admit.
Kent releases a ball of light that rises far, far above their heads; Carter tries to follow it but the wings are heavy again, Kent’s heavy in his arms, he doesn’t know why but he’s not as strong as he should be. He watches the ball of light disappear from sight and doesn’t know what he’s doing wrong, why he’s failing. The breath he gave Kent is running out and Carter doesn’t think he has enough left to give him another; Kent gently tries to push him away, to get him to save himself in classic Kent Nelson fashion, and Carter feels everything snap into place. He shakes his head, mouthing Not this time. If he’s going to watch Kent die again, watch him die all the way, at least he’s not doing it helplessly from twenty feet away. He kisses Kent again, just a light one the lips, kissing him just to kiss him, and that does feel exactly the way Carter has always thought it would. Staying right here.
Kent is still furious but he’s also so---so grateful that Carter is there, as if Carter would leave him by anything short of magical compulsion, which thankfully Kent doesn’t have enough breath for. And Kent doesn’t know the deal he’s made, hell he may not even think this is real, so he’s not fighting Carter as hard as he definitely would be. He just...curls into Carter, a little bit, his face against Carter’s neck, and lets Carter hold him; it’s plagued Carter every second that Sabbac was the last thing to touch him, that the last thing he felt was pain.
Cut out your own heart and throw it into the Nile.
Carter almost laughs; all those lifetimes and it still takes him so long to figure these things out. He wraps Kent up as tight as he can and says “I love you,” right into Kent’s ear with all the breath he has left.
The knife in his hand glows. His arm raises of its own accord, slashing through the water like it’s made of paper; the gash glows along the edges, the same glow as the hilt of the dagger, and a force wraps around he and Kent, dragging them through.
*
The next thing Carter knows he’s soggy and shivering on the riverbed, still wrapped up with Kent; for a second Carter thinks he took too long, Kent is so still, but when he tries to roll him over Kent starts breathing and coughing and if this is a dream Carter knows he won’t be able to handle waking up. Kent finally gets his breath back and blinks up into night sky. “What just happened?”
“Ta-da,” Carter says, feeling breathless and frankly a little delirious. “Bet you thought you were the only one who could do magic, huh.”
Kent just stares at him, which is fair because Carter knows he’s not making a whole lot of sense. “I died. Sabbac....”
“Not…all the way,” Carter says, laughing to himself. “Only mostly dead. Oh my God, I don’t believe that worked.” He reaches out to touch Kent’s sodden hair.
He feels Kent’s eyes on him; Carter knows he’s dropped weight and he’s let the beard go more than he should. “How...long have I been ‘mostly dead’?”
“Two months. Two very, very long months, God Kent, I’ve been dying every day.”
Kents brows pull together. “I saw you. I thought it was a dream, or…delirium. An occurrence at Owl Creek.”
“I assume that’s something you’ll be on me to read, but yeah. That was real.”
“Oh.” Only Kent could come back from literal death and be mortified over something five seconds later. “Oh, I said too much, then.”
Carter shakes his head. “Well, I spent way too much time not saying enough, so let’s call it even, okay?” He reaches for Kent’s hand, upset they both still have their gauntlets on. “Look just in case you didn’t hear me down there, I love you so much, and have for so fucking long. And I am so sorry for waiting until almost the last possible second to say it.”
“I heard you.”
Carter pretends he doesn’t notice that Kent’s eyes are wet, God knows he’s not doing any better. A sudden rush of understanding hits and Carter is so glad he’s already lying down. “Oh fuck, that was a vision. That’s why I kept seeing you in the water, because I was going to find you there. Motherfucker.” Kent’s back to looking at him like he’s insane, which again, fair enough. “I used the helmet,” Carter explains, putting aside how Kent’s eyes go wide with horror. “It was after you...after, I know I shouldn’t have but the situation called for it, and at that point I didn’t care what happened to me. It was only for a minute but I guess that was enough.”
“Unpleasant, aren’t they. The visions.”
“Tell me about it. Or don’t, I know way more than I ever wanted to. I always thought they were more…literal? Than that was?”
Kent’s recovered enough to smile at Carter the way he loves to puzzle out. “Not always. And they especially weren’t at the beginning.”
“Well, I only had that one about you, so hopefully that’s the end of it.” He lets out a long sigh. “If some Egyptian god shows up at the Estate calling in a favor, that’s on me though, sorry.”
“I’ve owed favors to worse.”
“Now that’s a story I’ve gotta hear.” Carter’s never been so happy but so exhausted in his life, only the mosquitos could keep him from spending the rest of his life on this river bank. “You ready to go home, Kent?”
“When I’m ready to move again, yes.” Kent’s breath hitches and Carter gives him his full attention. “When you....” Kent give him a rueful smile. “When you kissed me,” he says, as if he’s still not convinced that happed, “I wasn’t...I wasn’t in the position to fully appreciate it.”
Kent is blushing, Carter can barely stand it. He pulls Kent back close and gives him a slow, careful, deep kiss, until he feels Kent sigh and lean into him. “Gonna do that so much that you’re gonna get real tired of it, I promise you that.”
“I truly doubt that.” Carter smiles and taps the communicator built into his armor, thrilled when after everything it crackles to life, credit to Waller’s tech goons on that one. “Hey Smasher, you on comms?”
Carter strongly suspects that crash he hears is poor Al falling backwards in his chair. “I…yes? Mr. Car-I mean Hawkman, is that you? Did you leave the Estate? The jet’s still here.”
“Yeah, I know, I need you to pilot it, I need a pick up.”
“You want me to pilot the jet?” God, the kid’s voice cracked.
“Look, is Cyclone around?”
“No, no, I can do it! She’s off duty today.”
“Maybe call her in anyway, she’s got more hours.”
“Yes, sir. Where, um...where are you?”
Carter shrugs, even though he knows the kid can’t see it. "Egypt, somewhere.”
“EGYPT? Without the jet?”
“Yeah, on the banks of the Nile somewhere. Look, just track me, okay?”
“Yes, sir. On my way.” Carter sighs and switches the comm to track mode before lying back on the bank.
“I see you’re keeping the children properly terrified of you.”
“One of ‘em, anyway. Cyclone’s gonna have my job someday.”
“You don’t sound very upset at the prospect.”
“When she’s ready she’s welcome to it, if she wants it. Justice Society would be in good hands.” Carter laces his fingers with Kent’s. “Can’t wait to see their faces when they see you.”
"I was wondering why you were leaving that bit out."
"I want you to myself for as long as I can have it, sorry if that sounds selfish." Carter spots Kent shivering and pulls him closer, making Kent laugh. “I’m not cold, I’m…still a little disbelieving.”
Carter hesitates for a moment, knowing it’s the last time in his life he ever will, then kisses those laugh lines in the corner of Kent’s eye, just making them deepen as Kent laughs again with surprise and, to Carter’s delight, blushes again. “Let’s just agree that we’ll say the right amount of things to each other from now on, okay?”
Kent nods, those keen blue eyes studying his face the way they always did in Carter's dreams, then Kent kisses him, the first time he’s done that, the careful way he does it telling Carter everything he needs to know about how long Kent’s thought about it. Carter kisses him back, pulling him tight against him with one hand in Kent’s hair and the other a tight fist in his golden cape, and listens to the sound of the water.