#the face scar was a desperate swing from rosa and the hand scar was a split second defense

[chainsawworld]

Lil peak into the future

[Rosa: he/it, walt: they/them]

[elsaclack]

59 for jake/amy!

baby BABY baby!!!!!!!!!!!!!

this is…….a fresh contender for the angstiest thing i’ve ever written straight up oops

trigger warning for graphic depictions of violence and injury!!!!!! this got REAL dark guys i’m SORRY

59. “Don’t touch me.”

Darkness descends rapidly over Brooklyn, plummeting Jake’s apartment into powdery, faded shadows and a bone-crushing silence.

Jake sits alone in the center of his couch, staring at a spot just beyond the far left corner of his coffee table that he can no longer honestly comprehend.  The smell of stale beer and old laundry permeates the stillness around him, enveloping him in a sort of cocoon of anxiety spurred on by the latent adrenaline still humming through his body.

The solution to this, of course, would be an easy one.  It’s not like this is the first time the aftershocks of a particularly gruesome case followed him home.  It’s not like he doesn’t have coping mechanisms (whether they’re healthy or not is a decision to be made by him and him alone, regardless of what the crackpot precinct shrink says when he’s forced into mandated therapy sessions).  There are eleven more beers in his fridge, ready and waiting for him once he polishes off the last few gulps of the open bottle before him.  There are shitty nature documentaries to pretend to watch.  There are video games collecting dust on the bottom shelf of his TV stand.  There are unopened bags of potato chips in his cabinet (also stale, probably).  Solutions are all around him, readily available, patiently waiting for him to blink the initial shock away and make a decision.

The beer bottle’s label - long since peeled away from the amber glass - is damp and disintegrating between his fingertips.  He’s tangentially aware of it in the same way that he’s aware of the fact that he’s thirsty for something more substantial than old beer.  It’s there, it’s a concern, and it may even be valid, but it’s nothing more than a violently-rocking buoy struggling to remain upright in a tsunami.  He could throw the label away and wash the water-goopy paste off of his fingers and order a meal and throw on a movie, and he could spend the rest of the night pretending like he’s okay.  He could idly scroll through his Instagram feed and pretend like he isn’t waiting, hoping for the call or the text he already knows will not come.  He could turn the television on and studiously avoid the local news channels until he finds something stupid and funny and safe to focus on until the rest of his thoughts retreat to the sealed compartments in the furthest corner of his mind.

He could do those things - any of those things - but he doesn’t.

He can’t.

He’d told himself, way back at the beginning of his beat cop stint, that he’d never let himself be vulnerable.  His job can’t allow it, he’d reasoned.  Vulnerability allowed for weakness and weakness meant disadvantage and disadvantage meant death.  His job is too important, his perps too ruthless.  He’d find other ways to be vulnerable, other groups of friends to allow beyond the towering walls of false bravado and showmanship.

Within two years, and for four more after that, he had no notably close friends to speak of.

Until Amy.

And Charles, and Rosa, and Gina, of course.  But Amy - stupid, perfect, brilliant Amy - was the only one who wormed her way in without his express knowledge.  He still can’t remember, exactly, when the shift between annoying know-it-all partner and close confidante and friend happened, but one day - one day -

She was there.  Right there, right beside him.  Full of understanding and patience and gentle advice that left him feeling warm and safe in a most peculiar, unfamiliar way.

(Beyond that, he’s not sure when the shift between close confidante and friend and girl of his wildest dreams happened, either, but right now that seems neither here nor there.)

So it makes sense, then, that the masochist within him insists that he deserves this torture, in some way.  A fitting price for a most egregious error in judgement that ended with her name being added to a long list of victims.

She’s luckier than most - something he keeps reminding himself, the only tattered rope keeping him from sinking into a bottomless abyss of regret and shame.  Ernie McMahan simply did not leave survivors, and yet - survive, she did.  Of course, nothing about tonight’s situation followed protocol, even by McMahan’s standards.  The series of events that unfolded between 6:14 and 6:38 PM only unfolded by sheer happenstance.  It’s not like Amy fit McMahan’s type - nothing about her screamed leggy blonde - and it’s not like he sought her out and preyed on her like all of his other victims.  Hell, he’d only attacked because she got too close to finding him, but.

But.

The guilt sinks in a little deeper, soaking through his bones.  Objectively speaking, it wasn’t expressly Jake’s fault.  Like, sure, he wasn’t where he was supposed to be - where she told him to be - but in all likelihood, even if he was where he was supposed to be, it probably would have only meant he would have gotten to them a few seconds earlier.

He would have gotten to her a few seconds earlier.

Not huge in the grand scheme of things.

But insurmountable tonight.

The guilt crawls like a living thing through his belly, slimy tendrils licking up his skin, and when he closes his eyes he sees it all again - late evening sunlight spilling tangerine through the cracks between wooden boards haphazardly nailed over warehouse windows, illuminating the edges of a silhouette knelt over a writhing mass on the floor, muscled arms swinging and swinging and swinging.  He can hear it, too - sickening sounds of knuckles pounding against bone and flesh, gasps and yelps and grunts of her in pain and fear, desperately fighting to escape, sensible rubber heels scraping uselessly against the dusty floor and fingers scrabbling at the butt of her firearm, lying six inches away, as his knees pressed against her chest and her left arm to keep her pinned.

He’d sprinted, flown, not sure if his feet were actually touching the ground, and tackled him off of her.  On a kind of primal autopilot, he’d punched McMahan in the face so hard he’d knocked a tooth out before roughly rolling him to his belly and snapping handcuffs over his wrists; when he twists his own wrist now, he can see the angry split between his knuckles, already scabbed over, darkened red skin around it only just now curdling into what he’s sure will be a gruesome bruise.  There will be more on his shoulder, and another on the right side of his forehead from where he’d hit the floor at an angle as he tackled McMahan.  Something he’d usually be stoked about - nothing said badass cop more than battle scars.

Now, though - now, he can’t stand the talismans of his own failure.

Distantly, through his cracked open window, Jake hears a forlorn siren wailing.  It fades into the night as quickly as it came, and he buries his face in his hands, gingerly scrubbing the heels of his palms over his eyes in a doomed attempt at drowning everything out.  It wasn’t enough, being forced to stay in place to keep McMahan subdued while Amy slowly writhed in excruciating pain a mere six feet away.  No, it wasn’t enough - because the angle afforded him the perfect view of her bruised and bloodied face contorted in an utterly terrifying portrait of agony, the way her entire body seemed to shudder and tremble with each labored, rattling breath in, and - most nauseatingly - the way her clothes hung tattered and ripped around the seams.

He tried to talk to her between snarling at McMahan to shut the fuck up and calling for backup on his radio.  He tried to get her to speak, to look at him, to respond in any way, but all he got back were bone-chilling moans and heels still scraping uselessly against the ground.

Cops raided the scene before the EMTs - Jake scrambled toward her the second he was sure the beat cop had a solid grip on McMahan’s wrists.  He’d crawled, ignoring the sting in his hand and the uncomfortable grit of the ground beneath his knees, reaching for Amy before his consciousness could catch up.

And the moment his fingers brushed against her arm, her eyes flew open, glassy and unseeing but fixated on his face.

“Don’t touch me!”

He’s in no way a wordsmith - has never claimed to be - but even if he was, he’s sure there isn’t a single word to fully encapsulate the raw, feral force with which those words left her.  He didn’t know, before tonight, that she was even capable of making that kind of sound.  It’s like the words were wrenched out of her chest, ripped out of her by some demonic force, sending him falling backwards and scrambling away from her on instinct.

Her eyes hadn’t followed him.

He’d stayed nearby, hovering, useless, until the EMTs rushed in.  He’d watched them kneel down beside her, one speaking to her in a loud, calm, slow voice.  He’d watched her wordlessly shriek again when their hands touched her body.

He’d closed his eyes and turned his head away when her shriek immediately transformed into a harsh, punishing sob as they lifted her onto a gurney.

He’d followed them out into the parking lot, biting down hard on the inside of his cheek as tears dripped down his face, only stopping when Rosa stepped between him and the ambulance.  Go home, she told him.  I’ll stay with her.

He wanted to fight her.  He still wants to fight her.

But Amy’s words were still swimming through his mind, etching themselves across every available surface where he’s certain they’ll stay for the rest of eternity.  So he didn’t fight her.  He just nodded, cast one more glance at the ambulance, and forced himself to walk away.

Because it’s not his fault, but it is his fault, and even though realistically speaking his following her instructions to a T might have changed things just a little, he’d find a way to forgive himself for not.  But what happened after…he exacerbated her pain and distress and fear, he made things so much worse, and he’s not sure he’ll ever be able to forgive himself for that.

Amy’s felt a lot of things toward him - he just never imagined fear would be one of them.

The sound of his ringtone cuts sharp and shrill through the air around him, and he starts, blinking for the first time in what feels like a very long time.  Rosa’s name shines bright at the top of his screen above her contact picture - her scowling at the camera in front of the dartboards at Shaw’s six years earlier - and he struggles to remember how to swallow as he taps the answer button.

The word hello sticks in his throat.

“Peralta?”

Her tone is as flat and monotone as usual, but he senses the weariness beneath the surface.  He clears his throat, forces himself to swallow, and hears her breathe in loudly through her nose on the other end of the line.  “Hey,” he finally manages, wincing at the way his voice cracks from lack of use.

“How fast can you get to the hospital?”

Dread floods his belly at once, ice cold fear in an empty cavern, and he’s on his feet before he’s aware of his own actions.  “Why?” he asks, not bothering to mask the fear in his voice.  “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, nothing’s wrong, she’s fine,” Rosa assures him - and the fear subsides a notch or two.  “She’s fine - well, she’s gonna be fine - she’s awake and aware, and she just gave Charles a statement on what happened.”

Jake nods, momentarily forgetting the fact that she can’t see him.  It’s strange, the knot of jealousy forming in his throat.  So Charles was allowed to go to the hospital, but he wasn’t?

“She wants to see you,” Rosa’s voice breaks through his momentary spiral.  “She won’t stop asking for you.”

Something about the reproach in her voice tells him that this is probably an argument Rosa’s been having with Amy for a decent amount of time; a small smile erupts across his face in tandem with the undeniable affection throbbing in his chest.

“I told her I’d call you to see if you were still awake.  I can’t lie to her, mostly because she knows my tells, but - I don’t know if you coming up here is the best idea.”

He frowns as he pulls his closet door open and reaches inside for his sneakers.  “Why?” he asks as he drops to the edge of his bed.

“She’s still shaken up and super emotional, and I don’t know if - if seeing you is gonna - y’know - make it worse.  She cried when she woke up and saw me, and then she cried again when she saw Charles, and we weren’t even on the scene with her - it’s obviously your choice, I can’t tell you what to do, but I just don’t want her to go through any more emotional trauma than necessary tonight.  Okay?”

He lets out a breath as his heel slips inside his sneaker.  Rosa’s not wrong - just like she wasn’t wrong when she sent him home at the scene.

But.

“She wants to see me,” he mumbles, bending to slide his other foot into his shoe.  “I can’t - not come.  I owe her that much.  If she wants me to come, I’m gonna come.”

He hears Rosa sigh, her breath crackling against the receiver in a way he thinks might be harsh under any other circumstances.  “Fine,” she says after a moment, “but change your shirt before you get here.  You had bloodstains at the scene.”

He glances down at his chest, eyes automatically drawn to the red smears over the left side of his chest he hadn’t noticed until that very moment.  He has no memory of when they got there, no idea whose blood it may be - with a grimace he clears his throat, and mutters “will do.”

“Presby.  Get here soon.”

Twenty minutes later finds him standing at the sign-in desk of Brooklyn Prebyterian Hospital’s bustling emergency room, casting furtive glances through the receptionist’s window to the doctors and nurses rushing to and fro as he fills in the sign-in sheet.  Amy’s still in a high-priority observation room here, according to Rosa’s text, though not for much longer - she’ll be moving to a trauma specialist wing as soon as the room there is ready for her.  Her stay will be short-lived, provided her concussion proves to be a grade two, as the doctors currently suspect.

The nurse receptionist pulls the clipboard down to her desk when Jake slides it toward her, and after a moment of typing information into her computer, she reaches beneath her desk and produces an adhesive visitor’s sticker with his name and driver’s license photo.  “Keep this on at all times,” she instructs as she hands him the sticker.

He nods, pressing the sticker down over his heart, and follows her directions through the doors and into the interior of the emergency room.

She leads him through a winding series of hallways, lined with glass walls and patients in varying states of distress, but Jake doesn’t absorb any of it; his focus remains on the back of the nurse’s head and on trying to regulate his breathing.

He spots Rosa first - wild curls unmistakable despite the distance.  She’s got her back turned toward the hallway, facing the bed against the south wall, concealing the vast majority of the figure laying in said bed.  Jake’s heart is in his throat.

The nurse stops five steps from the doorway to her room, gesturing toward it wordlessly, stepping aside to allow Jake to move past her.  And it’s like his vision has tunneled - all he can see is Rosa’s torso and the legs stretched across the mattress to Rosa’s right, all he can hear is the quiet voice of his partner, his friend, his everything.

(Uh-oh, he thinks.)

He must make some noise there in the doorway - perhaps an unintentional rap of his knuckles knocking against the doorframe, or a strangled sound from the base of his throat - but Rosa turns toward him sharply, brow furrowed, shoulders tensed.  She relaxes marginally when she seems to register who she’s looking at; slowly, she leans back, and Jake catches his first glimpse at Amy.

Angry, mottled bruises paint a vicious portrait across her face, accented by a swollen split to her upper lip and a truly alarming amount of swelling around her left eye.  She’s looking at him standing in her doorway and all he can do is breathe, breathe, because she’s alive and he knows that but he’s never seen her like this before and it’s tearing something vital out of him, destroying him from the inside out.  He releases his breath slowly, raggedly, letting his nails bite into the unrelenting metal doorframe to keep from releasing the sob expanding dangerously in his chest.

The room is quiet, disturbed only by the distant sounds of the ER behind him and Rosa standing, chair pushed backwards by her knees.  “I’m gonna go get you another heated blanket,” she murmurs to Amy, before moving toward Jake.

She pinches his upper arm as she passes him, and the pain of it is almost enough to shock him out of his trance.

“Jake,” Amy murmurs - and that’s it, that’s what shakes him free.  He moves toward her at once, forgoing Rosa’s chair to kneel beside her bed, overly cautious to keep his hands pressed to the mattress despite the consuming urge to touch whatever parts of her she’ll allow him to touch.

Don’t touch me.  Don’t touch me.  Don’t touch me.

Neither one of them speak for a moment - he’s only partially aware of the tears wetting his face, far too distracted by the relief drowning his fried nervous system.  Her left arm is stretched across the mattress at her side, her still-shaking fingers rising and falling erratically in a way he thinks probably isn’t entirely voluntary; deep bruises dance across her skin here, too, splotching around her elbow, traveling all the way up beyond the edge of her sleeve.

“I’m so sorry,” he breathes, and her brows knit together.  “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry -”

“No,” her voice rasps, and he squeezes his eyes shut, the memory of her guttural shrieks echoing in his mind.  “Don’t - no, Jake, no sorries -”

“I should have been there with you, I was supposed to follow you through that doorway but I kept going down the hall -”

She shakes her head, a grimace momentarily contorting her features at the movement, and her hand leaves the mattress altogether before flopping back down again.  “Stop, stop, please.  It’s okay.  I - I know.  It’s okay.”

He drops his forehead to the mattress for a moment, trying to draw in a steady breath, and feels another weak thump against the mattress near his head.

“Jake,” her voice is higher, now, warbling at the base, and he springs up to find her eyes shining with tears.  Her lips part to draw in a shaking breath, and he’s about to come out of his skin with a bone-deep desire to do whatever it takes to make everything okay for her again.  “Jake, I - I’m sorry.”

Tears streak down both of her cheeks in tandem, but bewilderment falls like a wet blanket over his instinctive sense of alarm.  “For what?” he asks in a strangled whisper.

“I screamed at you,” she mumbles, head lolling to one side.  “You were trying to help me and I screamed at you.”

“I scared you,” he protests, “I touched you without any warning and - I mean, I know better than that, we both do, we’ve gone through the same training courses and we know - Amy, honey, you were in so much pain and you were also in shock and I scared you.  I deserved a hell of a lot worse than you screaming at me.”

Her chin quivers as she lifts her hand again, managing to keep it aloft a little bit longer than before.  “I didn’t mean it,  I didn’t, I - when I woke up and you weren’t here…”

Her fingers weakly curl into the folds of her blankets as her voice trails off, tears streaming down her face in earnest.  “I thought I would make things worse,” he admits softly.  “I thought - I just wanted you to feel safe.”

She sniffles, her good eye wide, and her fingers flex again.  “Will you please hold my hand?” she whispers.

He scoops her left hand up immediately, covering it with both of his own, pulling it up closer to his face to press his lips against her fingertips where they protrude between his palms.  Her eyes flutter shut and she sniffles, returning the gentle pressure as best she can.  She lets out a breath, releasing a quiet hum from the back of her throat; the noise, so little, settles like balm across his aching heart.

“Thank you,” she murmurs, good eye fluttering open.  He nods, gently caressing the soft skin of the back of her hand with his thumb.  “Jake, I - I, um.  I need - I need to tell you something.”  He shifts a little closer, ignoring the stiff protest in his knees, and she studies his face for a long moment.  “I don’t know how to do this,” she admits after a moment.

“Okay,” he shakes his head, flashing her an encouraging smile, gently squeezing her hand.  “You don’t have to tell me right now.”

“I want to,” she says earnestly.  “I just - when I was - I thought, for a second, that - that I wasn’t gonna - that -” she stops, clenches her jaw, and he finds himself steadying her hand as a tremor works down her arm.  “I was scared,” she says after a moment.  “And I had this - this thought.  That I wasn’t…that I might leave things behind.”

He stares at her for a moment, before understanding hits him with all the indiscriminate force of a careening freight train.

“I’ve been living my life with all of these compartments,” she continues, seemingly oblivious to the vice squeezing the air out of his lungs.  “All of these neat little black and white boxes, and I’ve been ignoring the grey.  Because it doesn’t fit, Jake.  The grey doesn’t fit.  And I’ve never been good at handling things that don’t fit.  I just - if I can ignore it, long enough, eventually, it goes away.”  She wiggles her fingers in his grip - not enough for him to loosen his own grip, but enough to draw his attention to the fingertips still peeking out at him.  “I thought if I ignored this long enough, it would go away.”

He returns his eyes to her face to find her looking at him - looking at him, all of him, piercing right through to his very soul - and his heart shoots directly into his throat.

“It didn’t,” she murmurs.

He clenches his jaw, briefly squeezes his eyes shut, forces himself to inhale and exhale through his nose.

“It’s becoming more and more of a problem,” she continues after a moment.  He keeps his eyes closed, focusing on her words until the rest of his surroundings fade away completely and it’s just her hand in his, her voice, and the unforgiving floor against his knees.  “And I’ve been thinking - I’ve been dreading this, because I knew I was gonna have to tell you one way or another, and for once in my life I had no idea how you would react.  I was so scared - it seems stupid, now.”  He snorts involuntarily, dropping his head to press their hands against his forehead, and somewhere to his right he hears her let out a quiet laugh.

“Amy…” he murmurs when she doesn’t immediately continue.

“Hang on,” she says softly, and he nods.  “I just want to get the words out.  I like you, Jake.  A lot.  Too much, probably.”  Another laugh escapes her chest - this one airier than the one before it.  “I don’t expect you to say it back or to feel the same way - I hope you feel the same way,” she adds, and he bites down on the inside of his cheek at the undeniable longing punctuating each word.  “But I know it’s been a while, and…you said, that night, that you’d pissed at yourself if something went down and I didn’t know how you felt.  And that was all I could think about earlier.  How angry I was going to be if you didn’t know.”

She huffs out a breath, fingers rippling against his palms.  Slowly, he lowers their hands and opens his eyes; she’s watching him again, pursed lips moving slowly as she nibbles at the inside of her lower lip.  He has this absurd desire to pull her lip away from her teeth with his thumb, to gently caress her chin, to cup his hand beneath her jaw and hold her head in place while pressing chaste kisses to her lips -

“You’ve had me for a long time now, Ames,” he admits, surprised at the emotion rasping in his voice.  He reaches up with his right hand to gently, gently touch her face, smiling when she turns her head automatically to nuzzle further into his touch.  “It’s - only ever been you.”

The smile that lights her face is genuine and soft, small and shy, and Jake finds himself thinking this - this is what I’ve been looking for.

“When you get outta here - when you get better - can I take you to dinner?”

She nods, smile growing, and he gently runs the pad of his thumb over her cheek.

“Are you guys done being gross?”  A voice behind him asks.

He cranes his neck around, hands never leaving Amy’s body, to find Rosa leaned against the doorway, a light blue hospital-issued blanket folded over her arm.  She’s got one brow arched, a distinct scowl across her features, but there’s an unfamiliar warmth to her gaze that makes Jake want to hug her.  “Hi, Rosa,” he says instead, returning his attention to Amy’s face.  “You can come in, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Rosa harrumphs but steps over his legs without further comment, unfolding the blanket and draping it over Amy’s legs.  Amy’s eyes track Rosa’s movements, a thankful smile briefly splitting her face when Rosa makes eye-contact.  “Okay,” Rosa says, “seems like you don’t need me here anymore.  I’m gonna head home.”  Jake feels a solid thump against his shoulder; Rosa’s looking at him very seriously when he turns to meet her gaze.  “Call me if she needs anything, any time.  ‘Kay?”

“Thank you, Rosa,” Amy says as Jake nods.

“Get better soon, I hate sparring with Charles.”

Amy laughs, and Rosa cracks a small, genuine smile.  She pats Amy’s ankle twice, shoots Jake another nod, and then shuffles back out the door.

“You should get some sleep,” Jake tells Amy softly.  She blinks at him slowly, something like serenity softening the features of her face, and he traces his thumb over her forehead, his touch featherlight.  “Sleep, Ames, you need it.”

A crease appears between her brows as her throat works against a swallow.  “I don’t want to miss anything,” she whispers.

“You won’t,” he assures her, “I promise, you won’t.  I’ll be right here the whole time, I’ll be here when you wake up again.  Sleep,” he urges her softly, ignoring the rush of pride he feels as the crease between her brows smooths out again.  “We’ll keep talking when you wake up.”

“Promise?”

He nods solemnly, lifting her hand to press a kiss against her fingers.  “I swear.” he murmurs against her knuckles.

(He keeps his promise, for the record - he’s there when she wakes six hours later, and the next morning, and the morning after that, and the morning after that, and pretty much every morning that follows.)

[alvaar-aldaviir]

Movement: Nocturne 1/2

Time Frame: Shadowbringers MSQ. Spoilers accordingly up to Holminster Switch.

Notes: Grief and angst and a whole lot of comforting the best girl. Platonic SFW cuddling and comfort with an older Alisaie. Second chapter incoming.

Cross-posted to Ao3.

-

On the eve of Holminster Switch, Alvaar just wants to get some sleep on the first proper night he’s had in days. But there’s no rest for the wicked, and it’s more than worth staying up to comfort the person who needs it most.

Handling loss and grief is starting to feel old hat to him anyway.

-

With a fresh breeze from the first night sky over Lakeland in 100 years, Alvaar figured he was long overdue for some sleep. It didn’t make it any easier to find, especially when he knew Alisaie likely still grieved for Tesleen at Holminster’s Switch. In fact, he’d rather hoped to abate some of that unease with one of his old late-night talks with Alphinaud, but the Scholar had dismissed himself shortly after they’d arrived at the Crystarium.

He didn’t like leaving Alisaie behind, but he understood her request to be alone. To grieve in solitude as she had likely done many times before.

So he’d had a nice chat with some hunters in a bar, had a few ales, listened to Ardbert be suitably cryptic while he shrugged out of his gear and cleaned it, and fallen face first into his bed in little more than his boxers.

Perhaps it’s the stress of a foreign world that has him sleeping too hard to rouse at the light rap at his door. The faint creak as the door swings in stirs him just a little, ear twitching but writing it off as unimportant. It’s only when the chill of slim fingers settle to his chest that he blinks awake, tense and still as someone burrows in against his back in silence.

How he didn’t come awake swinging is a whole other mystery... But it’s the cursory glance at well-kept nails that has him speaking with certainty instead of hesitant question. “Alisaie? You’re cold, dear.”

He doesn’t receive a response, though on some level he didn’t expect her to. It’s not the first time she’d handled her grief in the quiet or the silence, but he supposed it’s the first time she’d invited herself into his bed. Briefly he ponders the scandal of it, more from not wanting to upset her brother than anything else, but for everywhere the chill clings to her it’s the hot press of her face against his back that quiets it. That has his hands slipping over hers and vainly trying to warm them up.

“Come on now dear, I’m not going anywhere,” he chides, the words long familiar as he whispers them. Repeated often in the Rising Stones as the months passed, uncertain for the fate of the others. In Ishgard after he’d finally felt the despair from his own intimate loss... “Let me up, I should really grab a shirt and get off this blanket. You’re freezing.”

Instead she shakes her head, fingers clutching a bit tighter against his skin and he blows out a sigh.

This long and still so much pride... they really are too alike.

“You took your boots off at least?” he asks gently, fingers soothing over hers for heat. Again, no response and he gives a theatric huff. “Stubborn.”

It isn’t hard to free himself, pushing himself up to grab the blanket still folded at the end of the bed and glancing into the room. He’s much too used to the shade of the Shroud, and he spots her sword and focus on the table and boots next to a chair in the moonlit dark easily. He’d always been rather at home in the night... It was what made that blanket of stars a relief to see again even after his brief time on the First in the blistering sands and on still watered shores.

Shaking out the blanket, he fusses it up over the both of them.

“You’ve handled your sword and focus?” he asks again, and this time he gets a small nod. “Good. A Warrior should always look after the equipment that looks after them,” he murmurs, tone quiet and soft.

Distraction. Speaking of mundane simple things instead of the more difficult situations that made the mind withdraw. He was familiar with it. He could recall the times Haurchefant had done the same for him, distracting him with easier things until his mind could unwind from whatever dark place it had been. The patient chatter that at least said you weren’t alone.

Slipping an arm under the Red Mage, he pulls her closer to the center of the bed with him before curling up around her protectively. Tucks her under his chin and holds her close, petting soft white strands idly a moment before resting his palm over the chilled length of an ear.

It takes a few moments for her to move. To shift closer and slip an arm around his back and bury her face against his chest.

“I’ve got you,” Alvaar murmurs softly. “Whatever happens, you’ll always have me. That’s a promise.”

It’s quiet between them, silence creeping into the shadows of the room as the Bard waits patiently. Let’s her warm up steadily from the chill.

Even waiting for them, her words catch him by surprise.

“It never gets easier... does it?” Her voice is soft in the quiet, hollow and sad, and even speaking the words she doesn’t move further. Merely waits for his reply and he can feel the expectation of it.

And for a moment, he almost wants to lie. Wants to offer some false hope or comfort. But he knows in these times of hardship and trial, truth is more important between them, no matter how painful it might be.

“No. It never does,” he sighs finally, squeezing her a bit tighter for a moment. “It hurts each time. The guilt tears into you each time. It rips and bleeds and hurts, every time. .... And... I hope it never stops hurting each time either.”

At that he feels her flinch, tilting her head as if to hear him better. He doesn’t need to see her expression to know the puzzlement and loss.

They’re old words. From distant memories. Standing at a different gravestone next to the faceless memory of the woman who had raised him. Rosa’s words. As he’d knelt in the dirt and asked her how to handle the pain. How to handle the loss and the heartache. Why bother loving anything when it hurt so much to have it taken away?

Words that were no less painful to remind himself over the last few years.

“For myself,” he starts quietly, taking in a steadying breath. “I hope it never gets easier. I hope it hurts. I hope it aches. I hope it tears me up inside. I hope each person lost lingers on me like a scar so I never forget it. I hope I never grow numb to what those people meant to me. I hope I never stop reaching out to others anyway, even knowing it might hurt. Even knowing that one day it can all end in tragedy. .... I hope I never stop trying to love and care about people.

“This world can be so cruel, Alisaie. This world will always seem to try and tear you down. And if you close off your heart to protect yourself, then that’s all it will ever seem. If you close off your heart to the pain, then it’s like you’re closing it off to all of that good too. Blocking yourself off from that joy and love in the world, no matter how brief it might be. So... don’t be afraid of that hurt. Don’t be afraid of what makes you human.

“.... I want it to hurt. I want that pain to make me strive harder to protect those beside me now. And I want it to linger and remind me of how beautiful the times I had with those lost were.”

Nuzzling into white hair he held tight for a moment. “It never gets any easier, but we can make it mean something. The ache of loss stays the same but carrying the weight of memory gets easier. Each voice, each scar, layering over into our personal song. ... I don’t ever want to forget a single part of it.”

A soft bitter snort left her, fingers gripping a bit tighter against his skin. “How like a Bard... you almost make it sound like some romantic notion and not an aching reminder of my failures...”

Alvaar falls quiet, unwilling to protest out of reflex and further unwilling to gloss over her own pains when he knows it will do no favors. But there’s a weight in the silence that follows, the faintest shift of her jaw that says she needs him to continue. That she wants to understand this curious belief he’s fostered through years of hardship.

“The very first Bards found their magic because of such things, Alisaie. From having to stoically watch as their comrades fell around them in battle, the first echoes of Bardsong came on the ringing of a bowstring instead of a harp. Hoarse voices rising over the sound of slaughter to give flight to that feeling of helplessness. Burning such awful memories into our hearts, harnessing that emotion to give strength to our comrades, carrying the burden of all that bitter agony with a compassionate heart and holding it as close as we do all the joyous memories we cherish... That is what makes a Bard.”

“And another lecture,” she murmured, tone empty of what was usually a teasing note but Alvaar didn’t take it to heart regardless when he can read it for what it is. “You speak as if you were there. Like you’ve heard it...” she continues softly.

Once more silence ranged between them for a few beats before he offered a simple reply. “Because I have.”

The Red Mage goes very still in his arms for a moment before tilting her head up slightly, “How so?”

Again, there’s a pensive pause. Alvaar was hardly one to speak about himself and his past, even as keen as he was to talk about Bards and their histories. Another deep sigh left him before he began. “The first Bardsong I learned is the Mage’s Ballad. A song given to me by the crystal I carry, ‘The Soul of the Bard.’ But the first song I learned myself was The Warden’s Paean. A song that allows you to aid others in time of need and safeguard them from future danger temporarily. And I learned it by putting the restless souls of the fallen to their eternal rest.

“Their regrets, potent enough to chain a soul to its remains for years after death, have marked upon my heart and soul and found resonance. I have felt that fervent wish, that desperation, that wailing cry of torment... from in life and from the hereafter. I know that song and its rhythm as intimately as my own heartbeat, Alisaie, because I have also lost everything that I held dear to me. Because I have lain mired and heartsick wishing I had done something to stop it. A Bard cannot sing of anything but a heartfelt truth if they wish to use their magic. The words, the notes, those are of no consequence. But it’s the underlying sincerity in that feeling which remains the same and lets us channel Bardsong.”

Alvaar hears the soft huff she gives, knowing he’s gone on long enough. So he heaves a slow sigh, squeezing her again briefly. “I know. It will all sound flat and hollow. It won’t sound like the pain that you feel, and frankly, I wouldn’t insult you by saying I know what you’re feeling... It’s yours Alisaie. It’s a feeling that is yours and yours alone. For now, just grieve, I’ll be here with you for as long as you need. Tonight, and tomorrow, and all the days after if you require.”

There’s the faintest twitch of her fingers against his back, the lightest drag of nails as she balls them into a fist and her arm tightens about him with more strength than he remembers. Again, there’s a grim reminder of the time that has passed. Months in a foreign land, and a wiry solidness to her slightly taller frame that’s new and wholly her own. She’s familiar but changed, forged further in the flames of conflict and heat of desert sands.

The choked sob that leaves her shuddering frame, however, is something he knows from experience.

“I loved her...” The words are strained, warped with tears and grief as she buries herself against his chest and finally cries. The sort of deep and broken sobs that sound a little different from this side of them.

It’s not something that catches him by surprise. At least, not right now. When he’d first heard the few lilting notes of a familiar flute after he’d reunited with Alisaie in Amh Araeng he’d been puzzled but brushed it off as not his to question. The music he occasionally heard that accompanied people, his gift as a Bard and perhaps as one blessed with the Echo, could sometimes give him clues to things. Personalities, quirks, and even what he hazarded as commonalities.

For the longest time he’d heard the same somber but dignified tune between Alisaie and Alphinaud. Something they’d shared with Louisoix. Some weird quirk he’d chalked up to common blood and legacy. The drive and sense of duty to continue what their beloved Grandfather had started. In the years since he had heard the changes and nuance they gained, as each sibling grew with their experiences. Still not far removed from that canticle, but altering and molding through it, separate unique takes to a theme.

And so had this instrument woven its way, subtle and soft, into those somber notes of Alisaie’s song. Something warm, gentle and loving. The quiet solo that had whispered to him as he’d walked with Tesleen to the Inn at Journey’s End in harmony to the hiss of sand underfoot. A song that had reassured him there would be no trap waiting for him, but an important answer he sought.

The difference a few months could make on someone... in a foreign place at the edge of a world on the brink of desolation and destruction. The final resting place for those lost souls forsaken and beyond saving...

He would have fallen in love too. The same way he had fallen so hopelessly in love when his own sad and weary heart had learned such gentle kindness from a loving soul.

“I...” He wants to apologize for the world’s cruelty. To say it will be okay. But he knows himself how little, how hollow their meaning and sound. How cruel they are even as a perceived kindness...

“I’ve got you,” he repeats instead, the words finding their way with her next pained sob. “I’m here. You don’t have to keep it all locked up inside, Alisaie. I’m here for you.”

They’re words that had shattered him like glass years before in the Falling Snows. And though it’s hard to stay still and silent, to listen to the cries and offer what weak scraps of comfort he could, he doesn’t flinch from it. Because loss and heartbreak are an awful and terrible storm, but as weak a comfort as it may seem companionship through it means everything. And though he doesn’t have the gift that Haurchefant had, the ability to say the most comforting things when they needed to be heard, he does his best with what he has. And Alvaar had, for most of his life, used music where words had failed him.

He begins to hum, something quiet, something soft. So unobtrusive she doesn’t really hear it until her tears have finally stopped. When she’s sniffling into the handkerchief he’d offered, summoned from whatever small pocket space he kept his things, and the slow notes filter through.

“Alvaar?” she asks at length, voice harsh from tears but otherwise quiet.

“Hm?”

“Is that,” a pause as her words crack to clear her throat tiredly, “the song you were talking about?”

“For Warden’s Paean? Yea.”

“... I’ve never heard it before.”

“Well... it’s my take on it. Something personal to me. Not all Bards need sing the same song for the effect,” he murmured.

“It’s... gentler than I thought it would be,” she mused softly. “Almost like a lullaby.”

“Different rendition. Don’t get me started, you know I’ll wax poetic all night and bore you to t-... sleep.” He gives a slow faintly pained sigh at the blatant adjustment. Thankfully, she doesn’t seem bothered.

“... Would it... be alright if I didn’t talk about it right now? Later... I think. Just not right now,” she murmurs.

Ruffling her hair gently he hums in agreement. “Whenever you like or even not at all. You don’t have to explain yourself to me. Just... know that you can talk to me about it. Any of it. Even if it’s just memories or something unrelated.”

Alisaie nodded slightly, again her fingers shifting against his back and tightening subconsciously a moment before her next question.

“Would it... may I stay? With you I mean... like this...” It’s hesitant, a touch wary. A fear of rejection he’s familiar with. The tension in her shoulders eases as the Bard gives her a reassuring squeeze of the arm around her back.

“If you wish. Just maybe let me get dressed. It’ll be a bit more comfortable for me that way.”

There’s a pause of silence where she shifts back to look at him in confusion before glancing down at where her hand is pressed to his chest. “Oh.” Another beat. “Oh! Yes of course!”

Alvaar at least manages not to laugh at her as she quickly scrambled out from under the blanket and sits up on the edge of the bed, shoulders hunched in embarrassed mortification. Instead he hauls himself up, a brief flicker of light and whisper of aether in the dark as he summons in one of his thinner tunics and tugs it on before doing the same with a worn pair of cotton pants. Slipping to the edge of the bed, he pauses to ruffle her hair fondly before rising to his feet. “Need a change of clothes? I don’t recommend sleeping in one’s battle attire, but I won’t judge either. Done it plenty myself.”

She lifts her head at that, staring into the room blankly a moment before sighing faintly. “I likely should. I have something in my kit...” Her words trailed off; expression pensive in the silver edged glow of the moonlight reflecting off the floor. “... I should take a bath too I suppose.”

“If you like. I’ll wait for you. Otherwise I’ve got a wash basin you can use,” he offered, long strides already seeing him across the expansive room. Casting a glance back at her and the listless stare she was giving at nothing, he frowned faintly. “Maybe that. It’s been a long day.” Gripping the water pitcher, he tapped a finger against the ceramic, setting a steady quarter time.

The faint vibration that started to build in the air wasn’t lost on him. In the still and quiet he could feel the faintest pulse of wind currents against his skin as he started to hum softly. A soft but loving piece, the flicker of flames and a grief-stricken firebird in his memories. By the time he’d returned to the bedside with pitcher and basin both, the water he poured into it was steaming in the cool air.

He missed Alisaie’s puzzled expression, but not the inflection of it on her words. “I thought you said you were aether inept?”

“I am. A little less so with your tutelage... but don’t fret a Bard for their tricks. Lavender or rose?”

“What?”

“Which do you prefer? Lavender is better for sleep they say but I like roses myself. Very classic.”

“I... lavender I suppose. ... Wait, you carry around bath oil?” she asked after a moment when he summoned in one of his packs and pulled a bottle from it. Giving a measured splash into the basin before stashing it back and swirling the contents nonchalantly.

“I’m a fop at heart Miss Leveilleur. You don’t think I step off the battlefield looking this sharp because of Hydaelyn’s blessing, do you? Because I assure you... it does nothing. Beauty is pain,” he remarked lightly, waving a fresh washcloth at her before holding it over. “Here. I’ll take your gear to the mender. I noticed a few tears in that jacket of yours. A lady needs her privacy after all, so take your time.”

Taking the offered cloth after a moment she heaved a slow but grateful sigh. “Thank you. I... would it be too troublesome to take my dress too? It would be nice to get it cleaned and repaired.”

That drew the Bard up short a moment before he nodded. “Sure. I’ll keep my back turned. Blankets behind you for modesty,” he replied, quickly doing an about face to stand at attention and huffing when she snorted out a soft laugh.

“Thanks,” she murmured, this one a bit more heartfelt as she pressed the fabric into his hands that were resting behind his back.

“Of course. I’ll be back,” he returned, quickly excusing himself and grabbing her leather jacket and boots up as he left.

Shutting the door behind him he had all of a second to be puzzled by the white glow and luminescent fur of a rather large carbuncle sitting outside his door before he noticed Alphinaud standing farther behind it. A moment of equal surprise passed them both with the distant sounds of revelry still echoing through the Pendants. The Scholar stared at him silently in confusion before his gaze flicked down to the clothes in Alvaar’s arms.

When the deep blue of his gaze locked back on the Bards face, a flicker of something protective and angry that he hazarded was rapidly approaching murderous, it resonated in an actual bolt of fear piercing the Warrior of Lights heart. He’d fought on three war fronts in the last few years with a staunch and unwavering conviction.

And in the face of one Alphinaud Leveilleur, who was already settling a hand on the tome at his hip, he immediately put his hands up in surrender. “I can explain.”

“Start.”

[blue-echoinglights]

Sky to ground, a careful creature

made friends with even opposites of the earth......

There’s something strangely hypnotic about fire, you think.

It’s not alive, but there is a certain spirit to it. It dances, teasing a flick of heat into the night air, shifting to tiptoe across the logs you’ve built it upon. It sways with every breath of the wind, and if you didn’t already know that it was soundless besides the occasional pop or crackle, you’d assume it would sing.

Finally moving your eyes from the flickering of the fire to the wisps of ascending smoke, you trail your gaze into the heavens. The night is still young, and the stars are beginning to breach the tree line. With the west wind comes a sense of cool freshness, but you can’t help but feel a bit lost. Directionless.

You’re broken out of your musings by the hesitant warmth of a canine tongue on one fingertip. The pup is looking up at you with eyes that seem too old, too knowing of the emptiness that seems to be emanating from your chest. But, in a blink, the look is gone, replaced with its regular playful wolfishness and a slow tail wag.

You give him a small smile, and begin to scratch under his muzzle, the spot that makes his leg thump in a pleased rhythm. You hum. “You always seem to know when I’m getting too lost, huh, boy.” More scratches. The wind shifts direction, and the smoke swept into your face makes your eyes sting.

You sigh, and take a moment to lose yourself in the warmth and flickering flames of the fire before you. Through the waves of heat, you see the telltale red leather of your notebook tucked innocently amongst your bedroll. You stare for too long, eyes unseeing.

The water pooling in your eyes is not from the smoke, but you shift positions anyways.

“I think it’s time for a little night stroll, wha’dya think?” Your canine friend tips his head with bright eyes, tail scratching arcs into the forest floor. There’s an excited woof, and you laugh. “Ok, let me grab my coat, and we’ll go for a little adventure.”

The notebook remains carefully on the edges of your vision as you ruffle through your pack and shrug on your coat. You pretend your hands aren’t shaking. You are running, you coward. Just like you always have.

There’s flashes. Faces, open and free in a laugh, in horror. A cry of joy, a cry of agony-

Hyeong-jun

Navi

Mia

Luke

Tao

why did you - should -have  - you must go - i won’t just abandon - there’s a thundering in the ground, the rumbling of artillery - the walls are cracked and worn, and the bloodied hand that reaches to caress your face is just as scarred - there’s a horrible keening, straining your throat and echoin-

“Jeremiah.”

A hand scrubs frantically across your cheek, and you resist the urge to check if it’s stained red. You know it won’t be. The phantom warmth of viscous liquid remains, sunk into your skin.  

There’s a claw digging into your knee, and a whine that cuts through the haze.

“Oh, hush, Jaq, I’m coming. Just got.....lost.” Jaq barks and pushes off his leg to bound toward the treeline, slobbered tongue flopping without dignity. You huff, “You mutt! Wait for your old man.”

Despite the hour, the trees are easy to navigate in the starlight. It casts an eerie glow, but you can’t help but feel relieved. Worse things had happened in broad daylight, anyways.

I told you to go! For once in your life, listen to your commander!

I can’t ju-

Please! If not your commander, listen to your father.

p l e as e just-  

I-

-Go.

Jaq is barking again. You’re choking on a sob, hands fisted in the pine needles splayed out on the forest floor. You don’t remember sinking to your knees, or feeling the now sharp sting behind your eyelids.

You are a soldier, you think. You knew it was going to be difficult. You grew up as the son of a military family. You had gone to more funerals by age ten than most civilians had by age 50. You knew.

But you could not have known. No human could truly know this sort of agony, until they had experienced it themselves firsthand.

You recognize that your throat is burning, that your shouts and cries are ripping apart the hushed tranquility of the darkness around you. You scream, It’s not fair, they should have taken me instead, it’s not fair it’s not fair I would rather just have died myself then live with out you-  nobody could have known I just needed more time its not FAIR -

Jaq is there, pushing his weight against your torso and grounding you to the dirt, the dirt you had wished had just taken you instead. He’s pushing his muzzle against your sore throat, and your unsteady hands grip his fur with desperation. Spit bubbles on your trembling lip, the fury from before long dissipated. Your voice drops to a whisper. “How could you have gone without me?”

The forest does not answer.

But the wind whispers, and the stars blink high above, persistent in their gift of sight. The tear tracks on your cheeks glisten like rivulets of silver.

“Dad, why do the stars blink at us?”

You’re six, the age of big questions and an even bigger world. You’re swinging your feet at the kitchen table, and your father is cleaning one of his pistols. He picks up a rag, freshly oiled, and begins to work it between the engraved ridges of the metal. He lifts his gaze up, eyes distant, but still playful. “What do you think?”

You always liked that about dad. He never did the hard work for you. He made you think. “Well.....I always thought they was like eyes, b’cus- sometimes they cry. Right? The rain?”

“’Were like’.” He corrects, gently. He’s set the pistol down, and his eyes have settled on his scar again. The one that ran past his thumb, curling around his wrist like a snake. He never talks about it.

He huffs a laugh, gaze finally lifting, and drops next to you at the table.

“Well then, whose eyes are they?” You know that to anybody else, they would think Dad is mocking you by asking. What soldier cares about the stars? But you know, no. Dad does. Dad always cares.

You frown and tilt your head, thinking. “I  think...I think that ey’re are all the people who love us, but can’t see us on earth no more, So they blink, so we know they see us.” Your eyes light up, lit with an epiphany. “Like a night light!!”  You turn to look at your father, and startle to see the full focus of his gaze on you. The scar soon takes his attention again as he leans back with a chuckle, voice a little too hoarse and eyes distant again. He hums, in thought.

He quirks his mouth in a slight grin, and his gaze softens as it lands on you. “Well, then maybe I’ll be up there too someday, and I’d be proud to be your nightlight.” He stands and presses a quick kiss to your forehead, laughing as you squirm.

“But don’t worry, I won’t leave just yet. I have a little kiddo to tease first.” The soft look is gone, replaced with his trademark mischievous grin.

You’re instantly on the defensive. “I’M NOT tic’lish! I promise!”

He laughs, a full sound that fills the too-empty house. The stars blink through the window, ceaseless in their provided light.

You realize that the forest has gone silent again. Jaq is still lying in your lap, and the chill of the late hour has started to seep into your bones. You’re still staring into the heavens, watching the pinpricks of light shift in their positions.

Your gaze finally focuses, and know what you must do.

.

You had taken this trip in the hopes of escaping the people, mostly. They had congratulated you, speaking of honor and bravery and sacrifice and most of all, ‘heroism’. You had felt like laughing in their face. War doesn’t make you a hero. War makes you a murderer, and at best, dead. 

How could you say you were honorable when those names lay listed in your notebook, crossed about and never to be spoken again? When you had to face a teenager’s mother and practically say, “I’m sorry for your loss, your son spent his last moments vomiting his intestines and praying for me to forgive him?”

They worshiped the heroes, singing praise about ‘patriotism’ and ‘fighting the good fight.’ How the people who go to battle are deserving of respect, and love and support.

There is none left for a soldier who returns from war. There is no good fight. There are no heroes. Only broken men. And people would rather live in a daydream than acknowledge they were sending their sons to die.

.

Your footsteps make no sound as they cross across the pine needles, and Jaq has returned to his favored position alongside your left leg. His presence is a constant reminder that even in this mundane task of walking, you still have a willing friend.

The fire has been reduced to embers since your walk, but it doesn’t take much to pile on more logs and light the kindling with a small match. You shake your fingertips to rid them of the match’s sting, and stand back to watch the flames grow.

There is one more task you know you must do. Eyes flick towards your bedroll.

Hesitation.

This is childish, you think. Soldiers don’t believe in the stars. There is nothing pure on this Earth that soldiers believe in, not really. You stand there, breathing in the smoke, letting the weight of that thought settle in.

Then- But I’m not a soldier.

Mind made, you take a step towards your notebook. I am a brother in arms. Another step. I am a fighter, step, a lover, step, a man, step, a friend. When you’ve reached the notebook, your shadow darkening it’s soft leather cover, you take a breath.

I am a son.

Your fingers grip the red leather, darkened already by consistent use. It takes more effort than you’d like to admit, to flip that first page. You may have done it hundreds of times, but this time is different than the rest.

1/03 Nick

1/22 Hyeong-jun

2/ 02 Alex

4/04 Navi

9/15 Mia

10/22 Luke

6/ 24 Rosa

8/25 Yijun

The list stretches for several pages, names of people long gone. Some older, some newer, but of the same pain and longing nonetheless.

As you flip through each page, each memory, the pain in your chest tightens. There, at the final page, scratched with innocent blue ink, sits one final name.

_/_ Jeremiah

No date, but you knew it was coming. You had waited for the day you knew you were going to die, for the date where someone would finally lay you to rest.

With trembling fingers, you rip the section from the page.

Jaq noses your leg, giving wet kisses of reassurance. You grin weakly as you stand, tucking the torn paper in your pocket. One last thing, you think, staring at the notebook held loosely in your fingertips.

It takes a step to approach the fire, the flames still dancing lightly as they were before. With heart held in your throat, your fingers reach and let go.

The notebook burns just like anything before it, unknowing of the weight it had carried. With every wisp of paper that drifts into the air, the tightness in your chest loosens. Each name grays, cracks, and swirls within the fire, becoming one with the waltz of heat and flame.

As they swirl into the night, you realize that this is what breathing feels like.

Maybe it was a childish fantasy. Maybe the stars truly do not provide sight. But just this once, you think, and smile up into the night.

Maybe they’ll see better from up there.

.

Behind your back, a single star blinks brighter, ever vigilant in its careful watch.

.

.

.

End