#this is very vaguely inspired by wearing thing by sparxwrites

[mosscloakenthusiast]

Treebark Week day 6 - win/lose

It doesn’t hit either of them what has happened when Ren kills Grian. 

It doesn’t hit them as they walk back to Dogwarts to regroup and plan their next move.

It doesn't hit them as they realise how late it is and settle to rest in the cave under Renchanting. They sleep in shifts. Because it hasn’t hit them yet.

It hits Ren when he checks his comms to see who’s left. Martyn is asleep. He could kill him, he’s asleep, can’t defend himself. He doesn’t. He doesn’t share with Martyn his realisation.

It hits Martyn when Ren starts acting more relaxed, more domestic, working beside him rather than insisting that one of them stays on watch. He wants to pretend it hasn’t. Let them live like this forever. He knows he can’t.

—

They both realise that the other knows. They both wake up each morning to the sounds of the ghosts on the wind, begging for a fight. They try their hardest to ignore it.

Without people to rule over, Ren slips from The Red King back to Ren, who happens to be red. Without a king, Martyn loses his position as The King’s Hand, becoming Just Martyn once again. It does very little to appease the red in both of them, but it is nice to just be Ren and Martyn, who don’t have a banner or domain or title, just each other and the fast-setting sun.

Ren and Martyn love each other more than they could ever properly express. Ren and Martyn don’t have to worry about keeping their people safe, or making deals, or Grian’s hidden bombs. Ren and Martyn are a single togetherness against the echoing empty world.

Not a word is spoken when they start sleeping in the same bed. It’s for warmth, for protection, nothing more, they tell themselves. They both know it isn’t true. They both keep it to themselves if they notice how inseparable they become, rarely in separate rooms, knees touching under tables, holding hands and not letting go. It’s so they know they haven’t lost each other, they say.

At some point they feel able to talk about what has happened again, talking of wars and scars and beheadings. They realise that, if they’re honest, it was never The Red King’s kingdom. It was always Ren and Martyn’s. Always.

When they kiss it feels as easy as breathing. As if they’d always done it, just off-camera. They stop making excuses for not crafting an extra bed and always holding hands and wanting to be so close. They feel almost at peace. They get better at ignoring the ghosts.

They tell eachother everything, pretty much. Loud stories told under a burning sun as they replant their crops, confessions whispered in the dead of night. They forgive and they hold each other close and they repair anything broken from the times they found the hardest.

Ren doesn’t tell Martyn that with each day that passes he feels the scar on his throat grow larger, threatening to rip open. He doesn’t tell Martyn he’s been killing small animals to keep the bloodlust at bay, that the red in him begs for a death, even if it’s his own.

Martyn doesn’t tell Ren the eyes he feels settling on his face, the force pulling him to Watch. He doesn’t tell Ren about the part of him that cleans his axe every day, practices the motion of bracing to be killed.

— 

It hits Martyn when Ren takes his hand and pulls him outside to the Altar.

It hits Ren when Martyn hands him an axe and kneels.

It hits them that this always had to happen. They’ve both been preparing for this, without telling the other.

It hits them when they’re both begging the other to kill them that they were never going to get away with living.

They argue. They scream at each other. Sit softly and hold hands and the axe lies between them like a promise. 

Martyn caves. Part of him knew this would happen, he will always do what Ren asks. He thinks, he hopes, that death is better than winning and being left alone. That Ren forgetting he exists is better than remembering he no longer does.

Ren feels familiarity kneeling on the Altar. He doesn’t feel afraid. He has been ready for this for a long time. It’s even the same axe.

Martyn hates himself. But he can’t let Ren down.

—

It hits Martyn that Ren is dead. And he is alone.