Archive of Our Own ^beta

he's been twitching all day.

aphmau always notices when laurance has days like these- bad days, where his hands twitch and his eyes can never seem to focus, where everything he says is faraway.

if she had to take a guess, it might be that it's related to him being a shadow knight. she doesn't know the full extent of it, but maybe it has to do with what he said about his brain working differently since his ritual; like those are the days his urges are strongest. aphmau thinks about asking a lot, but there's always something holding her back- the fear of prodding at an open wound, she guesses, of making him feel worse for something he can't control.

but today is the worst one she's ever seen.

it's aphmau's nature to worry- she worries about everything, really; she worries about her kids, and she worries about phoenix drop, and she worries about her guards. it's kind of just who she is- and, well, watching laurance today has been making her worry.

not that she can be blamed. that morning she watched him sit on his bed and pick at old scars on his arms, has spent the whole day watching him stare off into space and mutter to himself, listening to him whisper nervously under his breath like he's afraid.

and to make it worse, it's a travelling day- they've been staying in a nondescript village on their way to another, bigger village they're trying to recruit into the phoenix alliance, and it was an unfortunate coincidence that their plan was to take off that morning; slightly less unfortunate was the sticky heat that the day brought, although that was the least of her worries, more concerned with laurance's condition. each 'are you okay?' has been met with an insistence they keep going, vague dismissiveness and reassurances that aphmau doesn't quite buy into.

still, as the day lazily fades into hazy afternoon, aphmau has tired of watching him stumble, fighting to keep his balance as if he's dizzy; she's about to insist they stop and rest but just as she opens her mouth to speak laurance suddenly wavers and falls to his knees in the grass, like an invisible rug has been ripped from beneath his feet- he reaches out to brace himself and is left on his hands and knees, swaying and breathing heavily.

aphmau is at his side almost instantly, dropping to her knees and reaching out to rest her hand on his shoulder. up close she can hear him muttering, fast and desperate; she can't hear what he's saying, speaking incomprehensibly and too quickly, and her heart is beating in her ears.

"laurance?" she asks, squeezing his shoulder. "laurance, can you hear me? are you alright?"

he doesn't respond, and a pit forms in her stomach. "laurance, answer me, are you okay?"

aphmau retracts her hands, about to go retrieve her pack full of medicine, when she blinks and suddenly finds herself staring laurance in the eyes- they've turned blood red, narrowed and imbued with such anger his gaze feels like fire eating at her very soul. a wave of dread crashes over her that is so intense she scrambles away across the grass and forces herself to her feet, where she stumbles further back.

her hands are shaking as she pulls her dagger from its sheathe- laurance tracks the movement with his eyes, watching her with an unnerving intensity. aphmau watches him back, trying to keep her breathing under control, mumbling his name nervously as he slowly stands up- clad in his shadow knight armor, so dark she can see her own reflection in it, tall enough that she has to tilt her head back to look at him.

his mouth is moving and aphmau realizes he's still muttering to himself; she can't hear what he's saying over the sound of the blood rushing in her ears and her ragged breathing, though, and nausea is building in her throat as she tightens her grip on the handle of her dagger and takes a staggering step back. laurance mirrors the movement, holding his own greatsword, the red material glinting eerily in the sunlight.

aphmau has never seen an injured predator, but she imagines laurance must look just like one, angry and terrified all at once.

she's also never seen a predator hunt its prey, but that's what she imagines is happening- she pictures a small, injured rabbit backed into a corner by a wolf that's foaming at the mouth and she has never related more to a rabbit in her entire life.

laurance raises his sword and aphmau flinches, raising her dagger above her head; the forces which with their weapons clash forces the edge of her blade into the palm of her hand and she cries out, struggling to hold back his greatsword- she puts most of her energy into keeping her arms held out and the rest into breathing, the air burning as it enters her lungs.

"laurance, stop!" she pleads, tears brimming in her eyes, "please, what are you doing?"

he looks at her with something she doesn't understand on his face, something angry and something terrified and desperate, and he is speaking incoherently and too quickly for her to absorb anything other than 'can't take it' and 'out of my head' and she supposes it doesn't quite matter what he's saying anyway.

aphmau doesn't know how long they stand there, frozen in that moment- it feels like an eternity and a single instance all at the same time and she doesn't know how much more she can take, standing there and pleading with looks, legs trembling and breathing sharp and uneven; just as her muscles are about to give out a searing pain rips down her back, and it takes a hidden strength she didn't know she had to dig her feet into the ground and force her arms to not go slack, tears rolling down her cheeks and more forming immediately to take their place.

she's about to give in to the pain when suddenly it disappears, gone as quickly as it arrived, and her vision is suddenly overtaken by a bright white. as it fades aphmau blinks away spots at the edge of her vision and finds the two of them bathed in an ethereal light, casting a glow across the glade they're standing in.

laurance stares at her in shock then takes a step back, and aphmau realizes it's coming from her, emitting light that illuminates the trees and defines laurance's face- it takes her another moment to register she's also floating off of the ground, as if being held up by some invisible force, realizing it when he turns his head up to follow her movements.

huge wings on her back stretch outward and stray feathers float through the air as she tilts her head down to look at him, her eyes narrowed as she watches him, and he watches her back with eyes so wide she thinks they must take up about half of his face; she stares at him with a clarity that lets her see beyond the anger and she sees fear and hurt and raw, raw pain- it is like she's looking into his soul, like she can feel everything he is, and it is so violently negative and nauseating and she feels like it is eating away at her.

and then suddenly it doesn't feel like she is feeling everything at once, replaced by some kind of serenity that is undercut with sorrow that cuts deeper than any blade could; tears slide down her cheeks as she slowly reaches out, movements careful as she cups laurance's face and brushes it with tender hands. she tilts her forehead against his and looks into his watery eyes, watching as they melt from an angry red to pale, soft blue; like the sky, like sorrow and like peace all at once.

with the blood red goes his shadow knight armor, melting away as he sinks to his knees in the grass again; she lowers down, relishes the feel of the ground beneath her feet for a split second before her knees go weak and she drops in front of laurance- she is wearing a long white dress that she wasn't before, and it pools around her legs as she leans forward, holding his face in her hands as he cries.

after a long moment she pulls him into a hug, her wings enveloping them like a blanket; laurance mutters incomprehensibly, frantic and tired and scared, rambling indiscernibly in between "im sorry" and "it hurts", dropping his head against her shoulder and hiding his face against it. he grabs at her dress like he's afraid she'll run away, looks up at her with bleary eyes through his mussed hair.

"im sorry." he whispers, his voice raw and his lips cracked as his chest heaves. "im sorry, i don't want to hurt you, i just-" his speech is broken by a broken sob, squeezing his eyes shut and gripping her dress tighter, "i just want it to go away, aphmau, it- it hurts so bad." he fights against his own body to breathe, struggling on each inhale, his body trembling. "i just want it to go away."

aphmau brushes the hair from his forehead and cups his face again, like her hands were meant to sit there- like she was meant to hold him in her hands. she thinks that's why her hands are shaped the way they are; to hold him, to comfort him.

"it's okay, laurance."

she leans in, tries to pour every emotion she can't speak out loud into a kiss, tender and long and soft; she tries to relieve him of every bad feeling he's ever had, tried to heal his wounds and piece him together all at once, and then she pulls back and wraps her arms around him, rests her head against his shoulder and tucks her nose into his neck.

she does not speak but she thinks he understands, thinks he shows it in the way he returns the hug with such force it punches the air from her lungs and buries his nose in her hair.

they sit like that, silently crying and tangled together until the dying light fades and they are alone under a web of distant stars in the dark night sky.