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kybercrystals94 · 1 year ago

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Everyday We’ve Got

By KyberCrystals94

Read here on Ao3!

Whumptober 2023|Day 16|Prompt 16: “Don’t go where I can’t follow.”

Rating: G

Words: 696

Summary: Hunter wonders what will happen to Omega when they’re gone.

“She’s going to be alone someday.”

Echo’s awareness is ripped out of report he was reading. “What?”

Hunter doesn’t look at him, his eyes fixated on the little girl chasing Wrecker through the tall grass, their laughter floating over the clean, clear air. Hunter’s face is drawn, and he absently kneads his right thumb into the palm of his left hand. “How long do you suppose the Kaminoans planned for clones to live? Naturally, I mean. If we weren’t killed during the war.”

“Honestly, I don’t think the long necks thought that far ahead,” Echo says.

Hunter nods. “Tech said that the average human lives to approximately 75 standard years. But for us that would be halved, since clones age twice as fast. So, if we’re lucky, we might live for 35 standard years.” Hunter clears his throat, but doesn’t say anything else.

“And Omega will still be a young woman,” Echo finishes for him.

Hunter nods again, jaw tightening.

“For what it’s worth,” Echo says, “I don’t think Omega will be ever alone. That kid has got a good head on her shoulders, and an affinity to finding friends in the strangest places.” Echo breathes a laugh, but Hunter only smirks grimly.

“Well, that affinity also gets her into trouble,” Hunter mutters.

Echo chuckles. “She’s still a kid, Sarge. But she’s still got us.” Echo nudges Hunter in the shoulder with a fist. “She’s still got you.”

A shrill, delighted squeal pierces the air, and the two men see Wrecker scooping Omega up and throwing her over his shoulder like a sack. He starts walking up the hill toward the tree Hunter and Echo have been sitting against the past half hour while the two of them played.

Echo continues before the roughhousing duo are in earshot. “Supposing you’re right, and we’ve got 35 years in this galaxy…that means we have a little over twenty years left, right?”

“I suppose.”

“Then I say,” Echo says, keeping his voice low, “that we make the most of everyday we’ve got with her.”

Hunter is looking at him now, the sadness still lingering in his eyes. But there is an edge of hope that wasn’t there before.

That’s the moment Wrecker lumbers up, a giggling Omega still draped over his shoulder.

“Look what I found! A wild Omega,” Wrecker crows, “You know they’re rare in these parts?”

“Put me down!” Omega squeaks out through her breathless laughter.

“Mouthy little thing,” Wrecker goes on, “Can we keep her?”

Hunter cracks a smile. “I don’t know. Tech doesn’t like pets on his ship.”

“Hey!” Omega cries, wiggling around in Wrecker’s grip so she can turn her head to see Hunter.

“I think he’d like this one,” Wrecker says. “She’s pretty smart.”

“And the Marauder could use a mascot,” Echo puts in.

“Guys!” Omega whines good-naturedly.

Wrecker laughs and swings Omega off his shoulder, setting her gently on her feet. She smiles brightly up at all of them, but her focus hones on Hunter. “I like this planet! How long are we going to stay?” she asks.

“Probably only until Tech is done with inventory,” Hunter says.

“Can we stay through the night cycle? We can have a campfire!” Omega bounces on her toes, and she reaches out to grasp Hunter’s hand. “Wrecker told me all about campfires, and they sound like the best thing ever!”

“Yeah, Hunter, can we?” Wrecker asks, sounding, if possible, more hopeful than their sister.

Hunter exchanges a glance with Echo, and Echo grins and shrugs. “It is a nice planet. Might as well make the most of it,” he says.

The Sergeant keeps his gaze for only a moment, a silent acknowledgement, before he looks down at the golden-haired child in their care. “Sure, kid. A campfire sounds like a good plan.”

Omega gasps delightedly. “Thank you, Hunter! This is going to be so much fun!”

Later that night, around a crackling, roaring campfire, Omega falls asleep tucked into Hunter’s side, and Hunter holds her close. “Someday,” he whispers, “I’m gonna go where you can’t follow…but while you’ve got me, little one, I’ll protect you to the ends of the galaxy. I promise.”

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confusedraven1 · 1 year ago

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also. crowley was so incredibly brave for just going for it, telling aziraphale everything he was gonna say even before he began breaking his heart. a lot of stories don’t do that— if the person with the bad news goes first, a lot of times the other person will hold in their love declaration. but crowley just kept going, which made it so much more heartbreaking. at that point, he probably just felt so sick and felt like he was losing a piece of himself, so the declaration became that and more: a plea, a bargaining chip, a way to say, “i’m RIGHT HERE, i thought WE were what you wanted. THIS is what you’re going to lose if you choose this, because this is where i draw the line.”

#good omens season two #good omens #good omens spoilers #crowley #aziracrow #neil gaiman #terry pratchett #david tennant #michael sheen #aziraphale #love declaration #angsty #don’t leave me #don’t go where i can’t follow

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quietlyimplode · 1 year ago

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the language of flowers and silent things

Whumptober 2023: Day 16 - Don’t go where I can’t follow

Warnings: whump but nothing explicit

Word Count: 2k (gif not mine)

Summary: Yelena sends a coded message, a trap or askance for help?

A/N: <3

Masterlist

Whumptober Masterlist

‘Meet me in Stockholm. Come alone.’

The coded message bypasses Tony’s AI and Natasha feels it could only be Yelena.

The message is accompanied by coordinates to a café and time.

Natasha smiles at the old language and tries to explain to Clint, that the coordinates and time are wrong.

By swapping the second number and reversing it, you get the true coordinates and time.

It’s not Stockholm.

It’s Rome.

Not 1pm but 4am.

The date reads for the next day.

She still thinks the ‘come alone’, still stands though.

There’s a distinct happiness and apprehension that comes and Natasha pushes the feelings down, she can’t afford hope.

Not just yet.

Clint is adamant on coming, but Natasha worries that if he does, it’ll spook Yelena into leaving, and when he puts it to the others she finds that Tony also wants to help.

Steve stands back and watches the arguments unfold until she explodes at all of them.

“Likely we have one chance at this. You,” she points to Clint, “don’t need to come, you do however need to broker peace with Fury, so on the off chance she does want to defect we have a place for her. Shield may be gone but he can still pull the strings. And you,” she points to Tony, “can do the behind the scenes setting everything up. If she comes here, can you find her a place to stay? Somewhere near mine or Clint’s apartment. She probably won’t stay there but maybe the offering of it, could entice her to come. Pepper knows what I mean, there’s money in my bank account to lease it; just use that?”

Natasha puts her hand up as Tony starts to protest, “just use the money? It’s not like it’s my only bank account.”

She smiles.

“And you, Captain, sorry, I don’t think symbolism of America is quite what I need right now.”

He nods back.

“It’s fine, Sam and I have a lead on Bucky anyway, you don’t think it’s all connected do you?”

She shrugs, stepping towards him.

“Where’s the lead?” Clint asks.

Steve looks at Tony who makes it appear on the screen.

“It actually is in Stockholm, Tony’s AI picked him up in the Vasa Museum and tracked him to Strotorget where it lost him. The main square was too busy,” he tells her.

She looks to Tony and nods.

“I didn’t know you were helping?”

Tony gestures around.

She shakes her head, cutting off his cocky retort.

“No, you follow your leads and I’ll follow mine, hopefully both of us will get some answers.”

She can feels Clint’s gaze on her.

“I’m coming,” he tells her, “whether you want me there or not.”

Rolling her eyes, Natasha nods; “fine but you’re coming to talk to Fury with me.”

The train station in Rome is busy, like the airport.

Clint climbs up the rafters dressed as electrician and hopes that he’s been inconspicuous enough that no one has noticed his ascent.

“Nat, I have eyes on you,” he tells her, “three exits and a café to your right.”

He uses the sight to look at the furthest exit.

“Do you think she’ll come as herself?”

“Blonde hair and all?”

Clint knows she can’t answer, but he likes to talk all the same.

“What’s your opener going to be?” he wonders, out loud.

“How’s it going? Long time, no see?”

He looks at the the other exits, not seeing anyone matching Yelena’s description.

A young girl approaches Natasha and immediately she stands.

Clint’s heart sinks, of course Yelena would be underhanded and use little girls to lure Natasha.

It’s effective.

He watches her move, following the girl.

“Nat, stop, no, don’t follow her,” he huffs, adjusting his potion and tailing after her from above.

The second exit, he thinks.

“Natasha, do you hear me? Don’t be a fucking idiot and get played,” he tells her.

He reaches a dead end from above and is forced to just watch as she makes her way to the exit. He races back the way he came, hoping she takes small steps as he loses sight of her.

He hasn’t even seen Yelena.

“Nat. No. Don’t got out, don’t go where I can’t follow, slow down I’m almost there, just wait,” he swears almost out of breath, as he hurries down the ladder.

By the time he reaches where he last saw her, she’s gone.

“Can you help me find my sister?” the little girl asks Natasha.

“I lost her and I can’t find her.”

Natasha’s heart sinks, as openers go, it’s a pretty good one she’s got to admit.

“I’ll help you find her,” Natasha replies.

“That’s what she said you’d say,” the little girl smiles.

“Follow me.”

Natasha stands, hears Clint’s warnings, his panic, as the little girl moves seamlessly through the crowd.

If she stops, she knows she’ll lose her.

“She wants to see you alone, she says your boyfriend can’t come,” the little girl says, eyes following Natasha as she walks backwards and then forward.

“Follow me.”

They exit through a news agency, the girl nodding to the owner as she leads Natasha through.

The exit leads behind the shops, into a thin corridor the girl running down so that Natasha has to hurry to catch her.

“Follow me,” the girl giggles.

And then, she disappears.

Natasha turns where she did, and comes face to face with Yelena.

“Hello, big sister,” Yelena says, gun held at Natasha chest.

“So easily you fall into a widows web,” she taunts, and then, pulls the trigger.

Clint calls Tony, he has no idea what to do.

They’ve disappeared and whilst he knows how absolutely flawless Natasha is at running and hiding, he feels they should have planned this better.

He knows she is compromised when it comes to Yelena, but he didn’t think she would be stupid.

“Can you get a live map or the area?” he asks in greeting.

If Tony is put off by it, he doesn’t say, he just sends Clint a real-time map on his tablet and tells him to swipe through the cameras and exits.

“Can you track where Natasha went?” he asks, looking at all the available ways of exit.

Tony does so, far quicker than Clint knows he ever would, and then sends them back to overlay the camera.

“Car park,” Tony surmises, “or basement, is there a basement?”

Clint growls in frustration, “which one!?”

“Car park,” Tony tells him, “I think.”

Clint runs, heading to the endless car park, and the rows of cars outside.

“Which one!?” he asks, “where do I look?”

Tony doesn’t answer.

“You can’t find her can you?”

He starts with the first row, then down the column and feels the desperation bubbling.

“Nat, you idiot, why did you have to be such an idiot?” he mutters to himself, “not compromised, my ass.”

“I’ll run the full diagnostic,” Tony promises, “we’ll find her, I swear.”

“Wake up,” Yelena says, wafting smelling salts underneath Natasha’s nose.

“Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey,” she smiles, squatting in front of Natasha.

“Isn’t that what Melinda used to say to us?”

Natasha opens her eyes and watches Yelena pace.

Her arms tied to a metal chair, knotted into her legs as there’s no movement in either.

Yelena stops and looks.

“Are you going to kill me?” Natasha asks bluntly.

Yelena rolls her eyes.

“Isla came to see me, was that you?”

Not answering, Natasha tries the restraints again.

“I think it was. It’s what Isla alluded to anyway. The tracker, you disabled it, and now they just want me back. The thing is, I like being free. It’s only been months and already I know. I have this headache, and it’s like I’m forgetting something- I can’t concentrate- that I need to do something.. But the only thing I can think of is you.”

The pause is large as Natasha waits for her to continue.

“I don’t know whether to forgive you or kill you and if the thing that I need to do; the thing that will set me free, is something that they’ve programmed in my head. A fail safe, for both of us. I kill you, then I kill me,” she holds the gun away from both of them, and places it on a chair opposite Natasha.

“Forgive you, or kill you,” she repeats, “but to be honest, I don’t think I can do either.”

She moves slowly around, the cadence of her voice slow.

“I had to see you, to see if I could perhaps do both, maybe one and then the other and maybe this headache would go away.”

She picks up the gun and sits on the chair.

Natasha hesitates.

“What do you think now?”

Yelena stands, emptying the bullets, placing them in front of Natasha.

“There is a part of me that angry. So angry and confused. I want them to tell me what to do. Tell me what my next mission is, give me some structure to my life. There’s nothing. Just endlessness,” she pauses.

“Is that what life is? Is it what freedom is?”

“But no, you’re not the one that needs to die,” she finishes. “I see that.”

Natasha feels the adrenaline fade and the drowsiness of the drug run through her.

“Your people will be coming soon,” Yelena says, not moving.

“You can come with me, with us,” Natasha offers.

“If you wanted too, of course.”

She pauses in the offer, trying to gauge Yelena’s reaction.

“You could be a freelancer within the remnants of Shield or under their employ. Defection,” she offers.

“Or, you could just be here, with me,” she says softly.

Yelena stands.

“You left me,” she says off handed, “you didn’t come for me.”

The words hold such sadness that Natasha doesn’t know what to do with them.

“I’m sorry,” Natasha repeats, unsure what else to say.

“I don’t want your apology, not now, but I do know, I maybe, I think I know why. I think…”

Pacing, Yelena holds the gun.

“They’ll be here soon,” she repeats, still not leaving, perhaps wanting to hear what Natasha is saying.

“There’s an address in my top left pocket,” Natasha tells her, “it’s your apartment if you want it. Leased under Fanny Balankov.”

Yelena’s small smile at the name and the inside joke gives Natasha hope.

“There’s money, passports and an offer of defection, or if it feels better, freelance supports, it doesn’t offer the same protections but it does give more options and no full debriefing that usually takes months.”

Natasha feels like she’s doing this wrong.

Clint should be here. He did it for her, he knew all the right words to say, all the ways he could give her hope.

Right now it just feels like she’s failing her sister again.

“They’ll be coming for you,” Yelena repeats, sitting down.

“Yeah,” Natasha replies.

“They are.”

Clint finds her in the basement, tied to a chair.

Gun raised he points it at Yelena.

“Hello,” she says casually, “you must be Clint.”

If he’s surprised, he doesn’t show it.

Yelena holds her gun away and shakes her head.

“Put it away, we’ve called a surrender,” she smiles.

He does as she asks, but only because there’s no way he’s going to be responsible for taking down Natasha’s sister, he doubts they would get close anyway.

Yelena turns to Natasha.

“Be seeing you,” she nods, and then sets the smoke grenade off, forcing Clint to rush to Natasha.

By the time the smoke clears, Yelena is gone and Natasha is untied.

“What happened?” he coughs, leading her to the exit.

Natasha is silent until they reach the car.

“I don’t think I did a good job at convincing her,” she whispers.

Clint half hugs her as he opens the passenger door.

“Maybe you did better than you think,” he consoles.

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raigash · 1 year ago

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Gone Cold

Whumptober 2023 Days 16 (Don’t go where I can’t follow.”) and 30 (“Not much longer…”)

It’s been a long time since I’ve written, and even longer since I’ve posted, but this piece has been haunting me for a good little while now. Allow me to more formally introduce you to Robbie, my roaming Professer with a bleeding heart, and many, many millennia beneath his belt. All those years don’t make saying goodbye any easier

Despite his best efforts, Robbie cannot stop his hands from shaking as he takes up the whistling tea pot from the stove. The coughing from the bedroom, brittle and thin though it may be, thunders through his chest like an earthquake. He feels like a building condemned, ready to let nature have its way. To give in to the tremors and just…allow himself to collapse back into the sticks and the dust. But he can’t.

Not yet, anyway.

So he simply clutches the heated porcelain tighter in an effort not to drop it. The pressure, the burning against his palms brings unnamed nausea welling to the surface. Old scars crying out to be recalled in the looming shadow of a bloody and inescapable sunset. Their screams are muted, though, as he goes about preparing the cup to steep, and twists the fox-shaped kitchen timer to the correct time absentmindedly.

Nothing is as loud as the coughing. Not even his own heartbeat, thumping cruelly in his ears.

It feels as though it takes hours for the chime to go off. While he waits, Robbie finds his gaze lingering on the chipped blue porcelain of the cup, and his aching heart and mind drift. Fifty five years, seven months, two weeks, and three days ago, that cup found a home in their pantry. An anniversary present, handmade and hand painted, and cherished day after passing day.

What would become of it now? Would it, too, be shattered and lost amongst the pile of shards that makes up his world?

When the shrill sound finally pierces the momentary silence, Robbie jolts, smacking a hand down on it harder than he meant to. He winces at the resulting thump, closing his eyes tightly for a second to take a deep breath. He has to get himself together. Now is no time for him to act a fool.

Now is no time at all

He draws a steadying breath, trying to bind his splintering pieces back together with sensible words as he removes the apple shaped tea infuser and sets it aside. This day was always going to come. From the very first time he caught those beautiful amber eyes gazing back into his own, Robbie knew he would one day have to say goodbye to them.

That doesn’t make moving his feet any easier. They feel as though they’re made of lead. All of him does, in fact, and the task of walking around the cluttered little island to make his way out of the kitchen feels Herculean.

As though he’s the one whose soul is slowly peeling away from its mortal husk

After far too long and all too quickly, all at once, Robbie finds himself at the doorway to the bedroom. The curtains have been pulled back to allow the sunlight to fall upon the bed where his husband lay, nestled in blankets and cushions to ease the encroaching chill. Bathed in golden hues and paling in life’s twilight hours, Silvio looks absolutely ethereal. Beautiful, always, in every way.

He has very little time to observe this scene before his presence is noted, and that gentle smile knocks him off his feet the way it always does. Even now.

Especially now.

Far too soon, that smile is disrupted by a rattling cough that shakes his beloved’s shoulders, and leaves him gasping for air. When he regains his composure, he is still calm, but there is an air of somberness that has returned to him. Truths are truths, no matter how painful they are to learn.

“Not much longer, mi corazón,” Silvio murmurs softly, face drawn into a gentle frown as pulls himself into a sitting position. He is a haunting sight, thin and sallow against the plush bed they had shared for years, and Robbie feels the claws of darkness digging into his lungs voraciously. It was cruel.

This was cruel

His eyes suddenly burn with the tears he had been fighting off since they had realized that today would be the day. Trembling fingers clench the innocent saucer with a punishing grip as he closes his eyes against the coming flood, turning his head in shame. He should be better at this. Silvio is looking at him as though he’s the one dying.

I am. I die every time. I will die with you, too.

He should be better at this, but he never is. And the guilt at his ineptitude wracks him alongside the tidal waves of grief threatening to drown him. But then a rattling wheeze reminds him that he is wasting precious time. Priceless time. So Robbie opens his tear-filled eyes and turns back to meet his heart’s worried gaze. Just watching, never pushing, even with so little time left. There is pain written in the deep lines of his aged brow, and there is a creeping dullness overtaking the once vibrant gold of his all-seeing eyes.

What will he do, without those eyes to see him when he can’t seem to see himself? What will he do without those hands to hold in the darkness? Forever, as it always does in these moments, feels like a twisted joke. What is forever without the man he wants to spend it beside?

He doesn’t realize that he hasn’t responded until Silvio prompts him again, this time with a pat of his hand against the empty space on the bed. “The tea, cariño. You know how I hate it to go cold.”

And just like that, in a burst of painful light, his beloved pierces the night hovering heavy above them. A laugh, true and desperate, bubbles up from Robbie’s lungs as he shakes his head. His northern star always, a light in the dark and the shadows he was so prone to wander through. The black hole will devour him, soon. But for now, there is still warmth and light to be found in Silvio’s smile.

And so he does as he’s bid, crossing the room to stand at the bedside of the man holding the entirety of his brittle heart in cooling hands. Offering the cup quietly, his eyes mindlessly find a spot on the wall to latch onto to stop them from endlessly tracing the lines over tired skin. He doesn’t look down when the tea is removed from his hands, or when the first sip is taken.

It’s not until a hum of approval reaches his ears that he gives in to the gravity pulling at him, and turns his gaze downwards. Silvio is smiling, his eyes closed to savor the taste the way he always does with his first sip, and the sight tugs at the swiftly unraveling strings of his heart. This will be the last time he sees this in anything other than the theater of his mind, and he doesn’t know how to cope with that.

This is the last time he will serve his beloved the tea that he drinks more frequently than water. The last time he will cross the threshold of their bedroom to find him strewn across the bed in the light of the sun. The last times their hands will brush as he hands off the cup he may never have the strength to drink from again.

The last time for so many things, and he hadn’t even bothered to look.

The last time. His lungs feel paralyzed, his chest tight as a bowstring. A small sound escapes him as he tries to find words, tries to find breath, tries to find purchase. But everything is pitch black, and slick with blood still yet to be shed, and he keeps slipping back down the slope of despair he’s trying so desperately to climb.

He can’t do this.

A gentle clank tells him that Silvio has set his cup down, and his unconscious assessment is proven right when gentle hands find his arms and guide him down to sit on the bed as well. The intensity of the emotions coursing through him makes him shiver, and he hates how pathetic he is right now. But he is given a hand to hold onto, and is pulled close to the thin frame of the man he must soon say goodbye to.

The gasps of anguish wrenching themselves from deep within his chest have no words to them. Just a dark, nebulous pain that aims to swallow him whole. He thought he was ready. He thought he could do this

He can’t. He can’t do this. He’s never been able to do this. He feels like he’s crumbling apart from the inside out. And even when he’s broken down to the foundations, he won’t be free from time’s cruel procession. He will be stuck, nursing the wounds left behind by a soul he would have followed into the darkness, if only he could. It’s not fair.

“Don’t go where I can’t follow you,” the brokenhearted Professer sobs without thinking, clutching the hand of his fading lover like driftwood in a hurricane. He knows it’s unfair, knows his husband has no way of granting him this relief, and guilt grips him even more tightly once the words have passed his lips. He tips his head against their joined hands, unable to look into the eyes that have always seen him far too well as he tries to get himself back under control.

It’s no use. Even behind closed eyelids, Robbie can feel that knowing gaze settling against his skin. Silvio gives him a moment to collect himself, but when it’s clear his partner doesn’t intend to pick his head up, he clears his throat gently. It’s a frail sound, and doesn’t really get the attention he’s looking for. But he doesn’t stop there.

“Robito,” that frail voice chastises, cutting through the storm clouds once more, and drawing him back to the ground. That stern gentleness finally forces Robbie to open his eyes once more, only to have his breath stolen away by what he sees. He can feel the night falling over his lover’s soul. The song it sings is ebbing away to silence faster than he can prepare for.

But in its wake, Silvio is radiant. Eyes shining with depth of emotion and understanding no longer barred by mortal perception, skin standing strong and defiant against the march of decay. It is in this moment that Robbie remembers why he cannot stay away, no matter how much it breaks his heart.

He will remember this for the rest of his days. The miracle he witnessed deserves nothing less.

When their gazes meet, both so tired, there is a lifetime in the lines between. His beloved smiles, fond and longsuffering, and reaches across to brush an errant tear from Robbie’s cheek. The touch lingers, and he can’t help but lean into it for what may be the last time. There is apology and gratitude, joy and desolation coursing between their skin, unspoken, but ringing loud as a bell.

And then Silvio begins to speak. The lecture is soft, and interrupted by spells of damning, rattling hacks that force him to begin again no less than three times, but it rings with truth so profound that Robbie is left speechless for one of the few times in his incredibly long life.

“How many times have you traveled where I could only dream to have gone? How many stories of your roaming have we shared? You have given me longer than a lifetime, mi amor. And in all things, you have taught me, above all else, to look to the future with excitement.”

Robbie can tell the effort of keeping himself from coughing is winding him, can see it in the fluttering of his chest peeking out from beneath his nightshirt.

He doesn’t comment on it, though. His mouth feels sewn shut. As if sensing the avalanche of emotion within his husband’s chest, Silvio uses his free hand to take one of Robbie’s, and to hold it tight.

“And so I do here, too. And I ask you to do the same for me. You cannot follow me on this journey. But one day, I will see you on the other side. And then for once, I will have a story to tell you.” The ending is delivered with a gentle humor that breathes air back into his lungs, and pulls from him a little sob of a laugh. He has to close his eyes for a second against the stab of pain in his chest, waiting for it to fade, to mellow out into a deep-seated ache that he will nurse for years to come. He cannot follow Silvio into the veil. But he can carry their memories for the two of them, until they meet again.

A gentle kiss from chapped lips placed on his forehead stirs him to reopen his eyes again, and to take in his lover in full. Stronger and wiser than he could ever be, with so little time. He’s such a fool in comparison.

How am I going to do this without you?

Slowly. Painfully. Unendingly. This unbearable ache will dull into a scar just as memorable as the ones scored across his skin, and he will remember it for the rest of his days. He will go on limping into eternity through every broken heart and broken bone, because he has to. He has no choice

As if sensing the dark spiral in Robbie’s head- as well as the encroaching exhaustion in himself, Silvio gives their hands a little squeeze. “One more story for the road, mi coraźon. Will you read for me?” It has the intended effect of spooking the despondent professer out of his own mind and back into reality again, and with a smile, he can’t help but admiring just how handsome his husband really is when he’s distracted.

They are lucky to have found each other in this life. He can only hope that one day their paths will cross again.

“I…can do that, my heart,” Robbie replies after a moment, having to swallow around the lump in his throat. His heart is beating faster as he feels the change coming on, another cruel irony to dig claws into his flesh. The book is where it always is, and he pulls it from the nightstand drawer full of prescriptions that rattle like requiem bells. Night is falling. And it’s time for one last bedtime story.

He takes his spot half-sitting on the bed, pulling on the little lamp that sits beside them for extra light. His heart feels like a stone suspended in his chest as he opens the book, trying with all his might to tame his sorrows before he has to speak aloud. Once, then twice he clears his throat, until his beloved turns worried eyes up at him, and he wants to kick himself. He opens the book, and feels the worn leather crease beneath his fingertips.

Only one word leaves his lip before a cool hand touches his writs, gentle and plying. He can’t look away from the page, or he’ll start to cry again. Luckily for him, Silvio seems to know this. And he doesn’t wait for an acknowledgement before he speaks once more.

“Take the time to say goodbye to me properly before you run, Conjejito. Take with you what pieces of me you need, and give the rest of me back to the world that you love so dearly. Allow yourself to weep, my love. But smile, when your eyes are dry. Tell me goodbye. But remember to tell me hello again when the sun rises over the grass. I will watch you from the skies, and hold you tight through the wind’s embrace. I will never leave you, My Robbie. And you will never be apart from me.”

This…does not help his attempts at keeping his composure. But Silvio does not mind, laying back against the pillows arranged for this purpose. The soothing timbre of Robbie’s voice carries him through the worst of the aches as he feels sleep tugging at his weakened bones. He closes his eyes, and allows himself to smile as he fades into a final dream.

Robbie is not brave enough to look down for a long time. He continues to read and sob simultaneously, one story becoming two, and then four, until his hands are shaking so bad he drops the book on his lap by mistake.

The dam breaks as the silent stillness of the bed registers to him at last.

Later tonight, he will dig a grave under the willow tree near the lake where they first met. Tomorrow, he will clean the house, and begin to stitch up his shredded heart.

Right now, Robbie cries himself to sleep holding the cold hand of a lover he could not carry with him into his inescapable forever. On the bedside table, the chipped blue mug sits silently, lavender tea long since gone cold

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#whumptober 2023 #no.16 #no.30 #Don’t go where I can’t follow #Not much longer…#my characters #original content #Raigash writing #fic #original characters #character death #grief #immortal whumpee #mortal partner #emotional whump #Robbie is not having a good time #but he will survive #he always does :)

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