Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“You’re like a brother to me!” 

Owen paused in his steps, the grip on his weapon loosening as he stared at Apo, the other staring shakily into his eyes. Apo was breathing heavily, and, now that Owen was truly looking at him, looked worse for wear. 

Apo had lost his horns. The horns Owen was always so fascinated with but he never truly knew why, and now that he knew why, he couldn’t help but feel sick. His clothes looked taken care of, but Owen could spot the stains that no one in the clearing, much less the maze, would be able to get rid of. He didn’t look threatening, and if Owen didn’t know any better, if Owen didn’t know Apo as well as he did, he would say he wasn’t. 

Apo took a step forwards, towards Owen who was threatening to kill him less than five seconds ago. Owen didn’t understand why, Apo had every chance to run and he should have. Not only was Owen threatening to kill him, Owen had hurt him, made Apo run away so he had to live in the maze. Owen mirrored his step, taking a step back instead of forward.

“I-I don’t know what happened before you came into the maze, before you were forced into the maze, but that person wasn’t you.” Apo took another step forward. Owen took another step back.

“My friend, my best friend, is that man I met from the elevator, the same man that I would joke around with, make cheesecakes with, and… a different man I hurt is now standing in front of me promising to kill me.” Apo took another step forward. Owen took another step back.

“What happened to you Owen?” Apo asked, his steps now paused as he realized he was growing no closer to his friend. And… wasn’t that the question Owen wanted asked the whole time?

Owen wanted a chance to let it out, to express himself, to choose what he wanted to be instead of what his dad decided he should be. The weapon in his hand felt oddly heavier, and the anger towards Apo slowly started to melt.

“Owen…” Apo started, looking right into his eyes. Owen wanted to squirm, he wanted to scream, he wanted to fight, he wanted to hunt. And yet… “I’m just guessing, and let me know if I overstepped but… did you ever get to choose who you wanted to be?”

“I wanted to protect people.” Owen spoke, the answer slipping out of his mouth before he even had time to process it. Almost as if it had been rehearsed before. His voice was shakier than he would have liked, as his grip on his weapon tightened considerably, to the point he almost could have sworn the wood was going to shatter. Apo shook his head, as if he knew something Owen didn’t.

“Did you? Or did someone else want you to?” Apo asked.

Owen didn’t realize he was crying, or that Apo had gotten so close, until he felt a familiar hand wiping away the tears that were now trailing down his cheeks. He looked at Apo, who was simply smiling at him. Apo looked so kind up close, and Owen mourned that his friend lost his horns.

“I think you would have been a baker.” Apo said. Owen found himself laughing, his voice wet with the tears that were now falling freely down his cheeks.

“A baker?” He asked, his voice slipping into the tone he had been using earlier, no longer the deep voice he had to put on to intimidate his enemies. Apo seemed to realize this, as his a grin appeared on his face

“Yeah! With how quickly you picked up making apple pies and cheesecakes, I really think you could have been an amazing baker.” Apo grinned, making Owen laugh and smile with him. Not a big grin like the other had on, but a nice, simple one.

“You said it wrong.” He said, watching as Apo’s face morphed into one of confusion. He thought back over his words but eventually shook his head

“I don’t think I said anything wrong.” He stated, genuine confusion rippling through his voice. Owen couldn’t help but laugh. He glanced at the weapon in his hands and ended up dropping to the floor with an angry clatter that made the both of them wince. He couldn’t find it in him to care though, as his body surged forward and wrapped his arms around Apo tightly. 

“Apo pie.” Owen said, his voice a little muffled by Apo’s shoulder. “You said apple pie. It’s Apo pie.” 

Owen felt as Apo processed the words. He felt as Apo’s hands raised and gently pressed into his back, hugging him as close as he possibly could. The hug was gentle, but the longer time went on, the more desperate it became. Owen gripped onto Apo’s jacket, sobbing into his shoulder as Apo did the same to the green shirt Owen had been given to wear to the hellhole he was in. Apo sobbed, louder than Owen, but he found that he didn’t mind.

Owen wasn’t sure how long it took until someone found the two, still gripping onto each other and sobbing like they had both found someone they so desperately lost, but he knew they were found eventually. He knew that he never let go of Apo, and Apo never let go of him. 

He knew that he brought Apo to his home, and he placed a red sleeping bag down right beside his bed. He knew that neither of them had talked, both knowing that they wouldn’t be able to say anything other than apologies. Owen still held onto Apo’s hand, as both collapsed into their respective beds, and Apo never voiced any feelings about letting go, so it seemed as though neither would

“When we wake up,” Apo eventually spoke. “I think we need to discuss what… Uhm…” Apo trailed off, and Owen simply sighed and nodded, burying his face into the pillow.

“I mean, my own subconscious did tell me I needed to talk more.” Owen mumbled, and lifted his head when Apo gripped his hand harder, confusion on his face when Owen glanced over.

“What??” Apo asked, and Owen couldn’t help but laugh and tighten his hold on Apo’s hand

“You uh, you missed a bit. I was out for like, at least a month because I got stung by that thing. The monster.” Owen offered some sort of information. But the second he said it, Apo simply shook his head and struggled a little, but eventually got his blanket to cover most of his body.

“That's tomorrow Apo’s problem.” He grumbled, and Owen couldn’t help but laugh and agree

Despite the issues swirling in his gut, despite all the pain and anguish he had experienced, Owen knew he had found a family again. And sure, it may have been someone who was the same race as the people who killed everything he had ever known, but as long as Apo was by his side, Owen could feel some semblance of peace

He stared at their intertwined hands. His hands were covered in marks, marks that proved he was a soldier. Yet, Apo held them so gently, as if his hands could shatter at any moment. 

Owen had a smile on his face as he fell asleep. And while he heard screaming, voices he remembered now calling him a traitor for daring to call the enemy his brother, they didn’t feel quite as suffocating as before.

“Goodnight Owen Keldor.” He whispered, before finally allowing sleep to consume him

Chapter Text

“My name is Owen. And, a couple of years ago now, I woke up in an elevator to be sentenced to death.

My father had raised me to kill, to hunt down monsters known as Demons. I remember that when I was young, I didn’t want to kill. I had to shoot one for my test, and I remember the way it he looked into my eyes as he told me his name, and told me he was alive.

I didn’t want to be a soldier. My mother was more accepting of that. Yet, one day, both her and my father were slain by a raid. 

I ended up doing some inexplicable things, things I will attempt to document as I attempt to remember. The story below is his story, Owen Keldor’s story.”

Owen stared at the book in his hands, staring as the ink dried and imprinted itself onto the pages. He placed his pencil down and took a deep breath, running his hands down his face as he leaned back in his chair. His hands just fell to his lap, and Owen didn’t bother looking at them, knowing all he would see was blood.

When Owen and Apo had woken up, neither really wanted to stay apart for a long time. Magic had come in, along with Soup, to make sure the two of them were okay, and were unable to get the two to stop literally hanging onto each other. Magic offered some food, and was willing to tell them what had been going on since the two got back. As Owen suspected since he woke up, Magic was the one to find the two after looking for Owen and noticing his lever was down. She was thankful they weren’t too far in since according to her, neither him nor Apo were able to do much more than let a sob come from their throats. 

Magic distracted the others along with Graecie, which Owen was thankful for, and the group came to a small agreement for the time being that Apo would stay with Owen, and that the two of them would be on constant watch from at least one other person. Owen thought it was a bit much, but then again, he was a mass murderer so he supposed it was fair.

After Magic and Soup’s visit, Owen and Apo tried to talk about what Owen had found out about himself. Owen found that any words he tried to say were caught in his throat. When he talked about his dad, his back would be rippled with pain, the pain that felt way too familiar, when he talked about his time as a war criminal, his heart would hurt and his throat closed up, and when he tried to explain his reasons, why he had hurt Apo so much, it didn’t work. Apo had told him to write down what he knew, and that when he did, the two would talk

Apo was still nearby, Owen could hear them talking to people outside, which was reassuring, but being alone to bite the skin off his lips as he wrote about a past he was seeing way too differently than he did years ago was not doing his mental health any favours. He heard them talk, heard how they yelled at Apo and how every part of him reached for the weapons that lay just a few feet away. 

He took a deep breath and looked at the blank pages ahead of him. Internally, he wondered if there would be enough pages by the time he was through. He glanced over to Puddy, who was happily dancing in his little pen, and smiled. He took a deep, shuddering breath as he turned back over to the book and picked up his pen.

“When I was a child, I was trained for a war that hadn’t even started yet.”

———

“And now I find myself torn. I do know I no longer wish to be Owen Keldor, and instead, I simply want to be known as Owen.”

Apo looked up from the book, looking up at Owen who was biting at his lip again. It was an ugly habit, one Magic had tried to get him to stop after he had made himself bleed one too many times. He tried to focus on his hands, instead of his best friend (were they still friends?) sitting in front of him. 

“Owen..” Apo placed the book down on the table, a fake set up Magic had set up when she realized Owen would be incapable of doing something himself without spiralling into a deep pit of his own mind. Owen looked everywhere but Apo, feeling oddly open and vulnerable to someone his body still thought was his greatest enemy.

“You didn’t deserve that. You know that, right?” Apo asked, offering one of his hands. Owen looked at the hand and shakily grabbed onto it, ignoring how his mind screamed and cried for him to simply kill Apo and get it over with. He sniffled and rolled his eyes, pressing his other hand to his eye so he wouldn’t cry again.

Owen nodded at Apo’s words, but when he looked up at Apo he only saw how the man shook his head and smiled at him again. He felt Apo squeeze his hand tighter, and also felt as Apo moved his other hand to place it on top of Owens. 

“Can you speak right now?” He asked gently, and Owen felt his throat tighten. He couldn’t speak , just like before. He felt more tears fly to his eyes and he frantically tried to wipe his tears away. Apo squeezed his hand again, the pressure feeling more assuring each time.

“Hey, hey, it's okay! That’s perfectly normal Owen! With the amount of trauma you have, well, everything about you makes a bit more sense. And based on what I read, of course your voice shuts down when you try to talk about things like this. It’s perfectly normal.” Apo’s voice did more to calm him down than anything he was doing did. He nodded and slowly lowered his hand from his eyes, looking at his best friend. Apo seemed to calm down at this, as his shoulders that were previously raised with the tension of the room fell.

“Of course, what you went through doesn’t eliminate what you’ve done. But… after all this time in here, after everything you have been through, I think you at least deserve another chance. And if, no, when we get out of here, the world doesn’t believe that, I’ll still stand by your side.” Apo smiled at him, and Owen felt more tears appear in his eyes. This time, he didn’t attempt to wipe them away and simply allowed himself a moment to sob, allowing himself a moment to be vulnerable in front of his friend.

Apo moved, Owen wasn’t sure when that happened, but he did, because all of a sudden Owen felt Apo hug him very gently, not at all like the hugs they had before. Owen wasn’t really a hugger, guess he knew why now, but the hug just felt so, so nice and Owen really, really wanted a hug. So he sobbed gently into Apo’s shoulder, and Apo gently ran his hands through Owen’s hair. 

“I told Graecie what happened. At least, a little. If you want anyone to know, that's for you to tell. No matter who turns against you, you’ll always be my best friend, my brother. ” Apo said, whispering it so gently that the words could have easily been lost had Owen’s house been just a little thinner. Owen buried his head in Apo, no longer wanting the world to see how the soldier crumbled to a sobbing mess from someone who was supposed to be his enemy.

The two sat like that for a while, and when Magic knocked on the door to check on them, she simply rolled her eyes when she saw the two basically on top of each other all over again. She closed the door and called to someone else that they were fine, and Owen couldn’t help the relief when he realized no one would be entering again.

“...Thank you.” Owen eventually said, and he couldn’t help the smile that appeared on his face when he felt Apo get excited over the two words. He laughed when Apo pulled back to look at his face, and laughed even more when Apo cheered at him being able to speak.

Owen glanced over to the book and smiled to himself, letting out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. That book held his story, and yet when he wrote down everything that had happened to him, it felt more like a story of someone else. After everything that had happened, simply falling back to old habits felt… wrong. He didn’t feel like a Keldor anymore, he didn’t feel like Owen Keldor anymore. So when he looked back to Apo, he gave him the biggest grin he could manage. 

“My name is Owen, brother to Apo. And I am going to get us both to freedom if it’s the last thing I do.” He spoke. And when Apo simply gave him a grin and nodded in agreement, Owen felt the voice screaming at him stop.

It was silent now, with only laughter and brief words being the only thing to break the deafening sound in Owen’s head.