Archive of Our Own ^beta

The first time you saw him, you barely saw him at all. He was a blur, a series of images, moments, composited in your mind.

You pieced it together bit by bit—the slash of a sword, the flash of pink. The warmth of arms around you. The crackle of a fire. You pieced it all together and this was what you came up with: saviour. Guardian.

And the story went like this: there was barely any story at all.

Your first meeting defined the rest of them; you would catch moments together, brief interludes and respites, then the world would call you both back to do its bidding.

The first nights, you dragged yourself back in the pitch darkness, away from the prying and cold eyes of the villagers. He was already—you hesitated to call it home , but it was close, and you were wishful. He was curled up in one of the seats by the dining table, deep asleep and unnervingly still.

You didn’t like the setup, but to wake him was a far larger sin. You took to the bed with unsteady steps.

You were not still when you slept; peace evaded you, even in unconsciousness.

From then on, you resolved to get home earlier, to make every stroke and stab and shot faster and more efficient so when you came back, bloody and tired and in the spotlight of the entire town, it would be to an empty house.

You pulled out a chair and collapsed into it, and waited for sleep to claim you.

It did not. By the time he entered the house, quieter than you would've expected for such an imposing presence, you were still shifting and aware.

You were aware of him pausing beside you, watching over you in your feigned sleep.

He said, “I know you're awake. Take the bed,”

You gave up the act. Eyes still closed, you said, “Nope,”

“You need it more.”

“Liar. We both need it,”

He paused. You felt yourself pause as well, your whole being waiting, hinging on his next words.

“Then let us both have it,” he said, and you opened your eyes.

His helm was still on, and he was indiscernible. He read you with such ease, but every moment spent with him, to you, was rocky, unfamiliar ground.

It was... unfair. You didn’t—you thought you didn’t really feel things, concepts, like unfair anymore, any sense of true justice stamped out of you, but here you were. Here it was, the strange feeling unfurling inside as you sat on a kitchen chair and stared down an almost stranger.

Gracelessly, you picked yourself up out of the chair and moved towards the bed. With your every step, you kept your eyes on him. You thought you were wary, watching for the moment he would change his mind, take back the offer, but all he did was watch you and wait.

And then, when you arrived, he stepped over to stand beside you.

There was a space left between you. As always, as ever, you were conscious of the emptiness.

You stared at him.

You wanted to know him. To understand. Outside of this room, he was the protector of the people, the statue standing tall against the elements. You wanted him—inside this room at least, because you understood the perils of putting down the mask and letting down your guard—to be free from that.

You were a legend, a cautionary tale. He was an icon, a figurehead. You both understood that repute brought you nothing. You… you shared that understanding.

Perhaps it wouldn’t be too hard, to share other things.

You threw yourself onto the bed with an exaggerated groan, sighing as you stretched out your back, and you thought you could see him almost smile. It was a start.

You met him in the middle of the battlefield, conscious of eyes watching you. You were always being watched, you thought, but to have the dark smudge at your periphery was something else.

You only had a moment. He was already holding out a map, barely winded from the fight of a few seconds before. Your first meeting characterized the rest of yours in this way too; blood and guts surrounded you as you stood and accepted his gift.

You fought for, and won, bloody moment by bloody moment with him.

“You need to go,” he said, urging and gentle.

You knew this. He didn’t have to tell you. He told you anyway, and you lingered anyway.

“Wish me luck?” You asked.

He had become easier to read over time. Now, you could tell from the way his shoulders shifted and his head tilted, that he was amused.

“I don’t think you need luck,” he replied.

“No,” you agreed, “I don’t. But I want it. If it’s from you.”

An exhale. The shadow at the edge of your vision shuddered. You wished, viciously, that it would fuck off. You thought it might be able to tell because the darkness grew a little more imposing. You did not care. You were not afraid of anything that it could inflict on you, death or life or in-between.

“Good luck, then. Come back tonight,”

“I will,”

You parted ways, and another moment was lost to the past.

You both hid your sickness from the other.

It didn’t make any sense, because you both knew, and you both knew the other knew, but you did it anyway.

You woke up in the middle of the night and crawled out of bed, leaving the house to hack out your lungs in the silent black. The splashes of pink, in the overwhelming darkness, reminded you of something you didn’t want to remember.

You thought if you could, you would hide this sickness from yourself.

When you returned, he was awake.

“Hey,” you said.

He seemed to find more meaning in that word than you had meant to be there, considering how long he mulled over it.

He looked vulnerable, just a little, sitting in the bed with the covers pulled around him and stripped of his armour. You realized you probably looked vulnerable too, and wondered when you had gotten to this nebulous stage of being around each other.

“You don’t have to do that,” he said, eventually. “Hide it,” he added, as if you needed clarification.

The not from me at least was implied. A lot of things were, between you two.

“Neither do you,” you replied.

After that, you were both waiting. You had built up a truce, an unofficial silence, on the topic, and to breach it was a dangerous, unsteady act.

You—because for all of his magnificence and strength and stability, you were the chosen one—said “You don’t like to see me in pain,”

“No,” he agreed, sounding gentle. “I don’t. And you for me.”

You nodded. “But the pain is still there.”

“The pain is still there,”

The lesson to be learnt was that no matter how hard you tried, how much you ignored, how much you accomplished, the pain was still there. The disease was still there. The world would keep on turning, waiting for the inevitable conclusion, and all there was left to wonder was if the world would fall first or you would fall first.

You couldn’t hide from it.

He said “Pain shared is pain better dealt with,”

He was right. You couldn’t think of a single thing you wouldn’t want to share with him, even the rot inside of you.

“Then tell me where it hurts,” you requested of him. Ever patient of your demands, he obliged.

He put a hand over his heart, and while you ached in your throat, in your stomach, in your limbs, you understood keenly what he meant.

“Where do you live?” You asked your sour companion, sitting next to him on the steps of the town. He wasn’t the greatest company, but he would talk to you, which was more than most of the other people around here.

Besides, you could understand him.

“Over there,” he said, pointing his bottle in the direction of some houses. “Drop in if you want. I won’t be home,”

You snickered. He seemed a little more enthused, a little more alive, now that somebody was genuinely responding to him. Setting the bottle down, he asked: “You live with him, right?”

You nodded. There was only one person who would be spoken of with such reverence.

“You’re lucky. The people here, they won’t touch you. Not with him around,”

“He protected you,” you stated. You knew it had to be true.

Your companion nodded, his hand straying towards the neck of the bottle again. “He did. But he wasn’t always around,”. He sounded resigned, just straying into regretful.

You didn’t feel sympathy, because you weren’t built for it, but you understood. You hid your face for a reason.

“It won’t happen with you though. You’re different,” and then your companion turned his eyes on you, gaze alight with something you couldn’t understand. “What you have goes beyond protection,”

It was a strange thrill, to have anything at all, but especially anything from him.

You flicked off the light when you left every night, just because he tended to leave the light on for you at night. It was nice, mundane, unbelievably simple; you would leave a dark house, and return to a lit one. It reassured you like nothing else.

He had taken to waiting with the lights as well, waiting for your return. You had turned the darkness into your friend and every night it ushered you home, hiding your wear and tear and blood and bruises, back into the view of a gaze that could see them but wouldn’t pry.

And it wasn’t like he didn’t have marks of his own, anyway. Your lives took their toll on the both of you. The world could not be saved without some sacrifice.

“Do you know how to play soccer?” You asked him.

He looked up from where he was sitting at the table. You were both at home during the day, for once; last night you had driven your sword into the heart of the Hanged Man, and the future could wait.

“Yes,” he answered, as steadily as ever. You heard the underlying question. You weren’t about to admit that you were being bested by a child, both for the sake of your pride and because he was going to find out anyway.

“Teach me,” you said.

So he taught you.

It was past the end of the world; it had ended and was waiting for salvation, and you found yourself standing on a soccer field. The child had happily given up his ball for an hour, content to watch and laugh at your attempts to play.

You stared down your opponent with fiery intensity. You were not used to losing.

On the other side of the pitch, he was almost smiling.

“Good luck,” he said. You wouldn’t pretend that you didn’t need it.

Halfway through the practice, it struck you, as hard as an arrow, sharp as a sword. You remembered that life used to be different; you had fought a war and lived an eternity and drifted through space, and you had executed every move and moment with cold efficiency. You had been made and given a purpose.

And now here you were, at the end of the world or past it, with a more pressing cause than ever. Here you were, with a home carved into your heart and attachment pressed into your skin.

Here you were, learning how to play soccer, building whatever a life you could scrape together. It was a terrifying thought. It was a liberating one.

“You’re getting better,” he told you during your break. You were sprawled out on the grass, eyes to the sky, and he was sitting beside you.

“You’re a good teacher,” you said.

“You’re a fast learner,” he replied.

Adaptability was built into you. It was no surprise. You felt warm from the praise regardless.

There was a long silence, after that. You were content to let it lie over you, bask in it like the sunshine and the cool breeze.

Then, he said “I once taught soccer to my child,”

You forced yourself to stay still.

“He died, from this. My wife too,” He didn’t sound sad. He sounded resigned. You wondered if it was a trait found in every drifter, that grand, encompassing resignation. You wondered why you didn’t have it. You didn’t resign yourself to any fate, any loss; you thought it might be because you had none of either.

“You had a family,” you said quietly.

“I did,” he said. “I do.”

You looked at him, and he looked at you.

You wished that the world would wait.

When you finally cleared the last area, stabbing your sword into the ground with a vehemence you didn’t realize you could feel, there was only one thought on your mind.

You had turned the light off at home.

Underneath the ground, you had seen the echoes of your past, of your future. You had suffered and strained, and you were closer than ever to absolution. As you made the weary trek back to the town, you thought of the light. You thought of him. You thought of home.

You thought of the end.

When you arrived, he was waiting for you.

The town was deserted now, save for you two. You stood in the centre of it and stared at him, at your personal absolution. He was tall and imposing, a shadow against the sun.

“Will you come with me?” You asked, even though you knew he couldn’t.

“No,” he replied, gentle. He smiled at you. “You do not need me.”

And that was the truth; you didn’t need him to save you, because he already had. Now, all there was to do was accept it. Your first fate. Your first loss. You resigned yourself to going at it, and going at it alone.

“Good luck,” he said. “I will be waiting for you on the other side,”

“Alright,” you said simply. “I’ll be there.”

And then, you descended into the darkness, with hope for light at the end of it all.