#this is it its the last one lads | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

romance-rambles · 13 days ago

Text

au - lads hunter!cael | another happy life

Unable to prevent your death, Cael has returned to the past time and time again. And he will do so until he finds one that ends happily.

1.9k, alternate universe - lads [no prior knowledge needed] + time loops, angst [character death + references to suicide], hopeful/unhappy-ish ending, reader is mc, series: none

IT HAS OFT BEEN REPEATED by those around him that Cael looks stunning in red.

The beginning is marked by lipstick, a bold red that immortalizes your kiss on his cheek. Your words are half a jest; your attempts at wiping away the stain are entirely half-hearted. You give up on hiding your pleased smile before he can call you out on it, and there it stays for the entirety of your goodbye.

In the years that follow, it becomes a tradition that bleeds into their office life—one so commonplace that the teasing glances and thumbs up offered to them by their coworkers become rolled eyes and a fond shake of the head.

But when you kissed him outside your apartment on that snowy December night, had you ever considered that the red you would bestow on him would one day be your blood?

It stains his hands, his face, his uniform.

When he closes his eyes, the faint lavender of his shampoo is overtaken by the stench of blood. He sees you leaning against a tree, your sword held close to your chest the way someone might hold a stuffed animal. When he opens his eyes, he sees red, red, more red—a river of blood bathing the pristine walls of their shared apartment in that infernal color.

A Hunter's job is inherently dangerous. After all, Wanderers are near infinite, in both numbers and form. They're monsters, spreading chaos and destruction wherever they go. Basking in it, even. And Cael has sat through enough funerals to know all of that.

For friends.

For colleagues and strangers.

For you.

A few years ago, when he came across you again, he swore once again your only funeral in this lifetime would be in your old age. A quiet affair, where people would say reassuringly, She lived a long, happy life. And he would know it was the truth from smile lines you wore with pride in all your photos.

But fate does not bow to the whims of mortals so easily.

Another happy life slips through his fingers.

THOUGH THE MEMORY OF FINDING you remains vivid in his mind, the events that follow this discovery are a blur. He knows, with some certainty, that it was Ambrum who found him—and that it was also Ambrum who forced him into the shower and promised him a warm meal.

All roads lead to a fixed destination, and Cael has wandered enough of them to know how this goes. Tonight, he wanders his way into his seat at the dining table, where a bowl of warm soup waits for him. Tomorrow, he will wander his way into your funeral.

The day after that, he will wander into the past. You will smile at him warmly, unaware of what he future holds for you, and he will spend the next few years waiting for the other shoe to drop.

And it always does.

He stares blankly ahead, past even the mural you insisted on drawing above the cabinets that sit behind the table. Its shapes and colors blur into a mess under his unfocused gaze. A flash of teal erupts at his side, Ambrum's chair dragging against the hardwood floor.

His friend sits down quietly.

As he usually does, Ambrum says, "You should drink it while it's hot."

Cael picks up his spoon. Counts the hours until he can see you again. Looks down, ignoring Ambrum's red-rimmed eyes and weak smile. And finally, eats his first meal since he found you on the forest floor.

Ambrum lets out a relieved sigh.

No matter how many times he does this, the guilt of leaving his friends behind never lessens its chokehold on him. Two days after tomorrow will come Cael's funeral and they will bury him beside you, the same way the two of you have always insisted on.

He will leave behind a letter that amounts to Sorry—but he will never know if Ambrum and the others will read it. Does his meddling erase all that unfolds in the future? Does it simply open a different path for everyone in the past, leaving those he's left behind to live their lives out in full?

Are you watching him from afar as he confidently walks to his death?

There are many things Cael does not know.

But one day, you will live to be a hundred years old, and he can worry about it all then.

THE FIRST TIME AROUND, IT is merely a coincidence.

When he walks into that Wanderer-filled zone, his destination is not the past. Cael merely requires a place to rest before he can see you again. The Wanderers have numbers in the double-digits; that, in itself, is ordinary business, as long as no one looks at the ranking they've been given by the Hunter's Association.

He dies holding the cat-shaped tassel you gifted him on their first anniversary.

Cael awakens in the school courtyard, Ambrum by his side. Across the courtyard, you huddle together with your friend, giggling about what he will later learn is Naledi's crush on her future husband. His friend nudges him with a grin on his face and says what he once said a lifetime ago:

"She's cute, isn't she? The one with dark hair."

Up until he falls ungracefully down the stairs in trying to keep up with you during lunch hour, he's convinced he's in a dream. For his troubles, he receives a sprained ankle, and your endless sympathy.

When Ambrum tells you his version of why Cael fell, on the day they all graduate, your sympathy is replaced with relentless teasing. This time, for his troubles, he gets to put a ring on your finger.

You die a few days shy of your twenty-sixth birthday, and that is the first time he tests the limits of his abilities. It does not matter who kills him. It only matters that he dies.

And so, he develops a craving for death.

IN TIME, HE LOSES COUNT of all the ways you die. The various gruesome scenes he's watched over and over again superimpose over one another, leaving behind a hideous amalgamation to haunt him.

But there are some memories that peak through the curtain of death and destruction.

Once, he leaves behind the Hunters' lifestyle—and with that, you as well. He damns himself to a near lifetime of vigilante business, hoping that this time, all will be well. You will have no rival to compete with, and it might spur you into retirement.

He underestimates you once. It takes him a while before he learns his lesson.

Seven years later, the headlines talk of a mother who sacrificed herself for her child. A brave Hunter, off-duty, who fought off a hoard of Wanderers all alone.

In this lifetime, he lives to be ninety-five. Cael raises a daughter who looks like him but has her mother's smile. He does not have to bury her before her time. She lives an ordinary life and marries an ordinary man and they both teach at an ordinary elementary school.

When he closes his eyes for the last time, he is given the farewell that you have always deserved, but never received. When he opens his eyes again, he is once more in the school courtyard.

Another time, his daughter grows up with both her parents from the start. She's a curious little thing, always with cheerful smile on her face—a far cry from the solemn girl he raised before. But he is still a Hunter, and so are you.

It does not matter how many times he hopes to dissuade you from your path. You are destined to be a Hunter, and it is a destiny you're better off following. The skills learned from the Hunters' Academy at least afford you a chance at survival.

In this lifetime, they leave behind a daughter on the cusp of turning eleven.

As a rule, they avoid taking the more risky and time-intensive missions. Where once their priority was giving it their all, it is now to be able to come home to their little girl. But there is an ambush. They are surrounded.

For once, he goes before you do.

And there is one other memory that stands the test of time. A single thread ties all three of them together—the existence of another girl he would turn back time for. This time as well, he goes first, to an ambush of Wanderers.

This time as well, he fights not to.

This time as well, Cael wants to live. He wants to go home to you and their daughter, and continue the dream-like days that might escape him at any time. Three days shy of their tenth anniversary, time rewinds, bringing him back to his high school's courtyard.

The friendly smile you offer him, once you notice him staring, is once more devoid of the affection he's grown to expect.

FAMILIAL TIES ARE FEW AND far between for the both of you.

The summer before their last year in high school, your mother falls ill. By the time graduation rolls around, it's been a few months since she's passed on. Three years later, his own adoptive mother dies in an unfortunate case of being at the wrong place at the wrong time—an explosion occurs at the shopping street she's at, just as she's about to leave.

A few days before the eighth anniversary of your mother's death, your cat passes away from old age. You commission a pair of cat-shaped tassels in Beanie's honor and so he stays with you both even in death.

Even so, neither of you have ever been lonely.

In the years since high school, those in their friend group have scattered across the country. But the distance has never affected their close bonds. Every year, they reunite in the big city that they grew up in and chat about big things and little things and nothing at all.

This year, they reunite for your funeral.

They take their places beside him, staring blankly at the dressed-up corpse resting peacefully in the coffin. Their red-rimmed eyes speak of their sorrow; the hesitation in their eyes before they greeted him speak of their concern.

They offer none of the platitudes that everyone else does—neighbors, acquaintances, friends of friends.

"She was gone too soon."

"She lived a good life."

"She's in a better place now."

Cael only nods, his mind somewhere far away.

Whenever a Hunter falls, whether in the line of action or outside of it, the Hunters' Association handles the funeral proceedings. They add the fallen hunter's image to a long list on their website, dedicated to mourning the fallen, and offer a substantial package for the family they left behind.

Beyond that, there's not much of a buzz generated for such an event. A Hunter dies every other day—the reminder of their mortality, say the ones in their giant offices, will only dampen the people's spirits.

The state of things has always bothered Cael, even before Death began to hunt those close to him. Most people will never know of the sacrifices that have made their day-to-day life possible.

These days, he no longer cares. He no longer has the energy to.

Instead, he looks at his watch and counts down the hours until he can do this song and dance all over again.

— happy (very belated) birthday to the talented @paintersknife!!

#fics by aya #lovebrush chronicles #lovebrush chronicles x reader #for all time #for all time x reader #cael anselm #cael anselm x reader #lovebrush cael #lovebrush cael x reader #lbc cael #lbc cael x reader #rambles from here on ->#shout out to that one line from qixi cael in the date screen #about how he looks good in red #also ive been playing lads a lot so i defaulted to it for the au in question #i think its very cool that the outfit was dyed bcs blood #what if the blood is mc's. hehe #also im sorry for how long this took ajdjjdjd #this last scene. gave me SO much trouble

24 notes · View notes