Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“A bit longer, amore,” he murmurs against the juncture between your neck and shoulder. His breath is as hot as the lingering kiss he presses against your skin. “Stay, hm, a few more minutes.”

His grip on your hip tightens, his fingers sinking into the skin firmly but never painfully. You imagine you’re rougher with him than he is with you, but how can you resist when it riles him up so much? 

“You said a few more minutes an hour ago,” you point our dryly but still lean into his burning lips and tongue on your neck with a faint sigh. “Stop trying to distract me,” you force out when he sucks sharply on your pulse.

“But it was an hour well spent, no?”

You can’t disagree with that. 

He is so very good with that tongue of his. 

He chuckles faintly when you tug him back and trace your fingers up his face and into his hair. The strong, dark strands are like silk between your fingers.

Unruly and wild as always. You love him like this. Half-lidded eyes and pink lips and breaths slow and steady. Satisfied but always hungry for more. His touch warm and steadfast and needy. So damn needy. It steals your breath away every time—how much he desires you, how no number of these stolen moments is ever enough for him. It almost makes you hope—

No, it’s a foolish thing to hope for. That this—you—mean more to him than mindless, easy fun. 

He grasps your face between his hands and kisses you, slow and passionate, and your grip on his hair constricts, all your thoughts fleeing. Your other hand traces up his chest, mapping and enjoying the smooth skin there, and your nails sink into his neck, scratching teasingly. He pulls back, hissing lightly, but his eyes rage when they meet yours and he kisses you again, hungrier and harder this time. 

You let him—and yourself—indulge in this passion, in this tiny moment you have stolen for yourselves. 

When you do pull back again—his teeth trying to trap your lower lip for another moment—you suppress a laugh at his disappointed, exaggerated sigh.

“Your father will have my head,” you point out lightly, but you both know that Giovanni might very well do worse if he ever learns just how close you and Santino truly are. “And then slap you on the wrist.”

Santino hums and ghosts his lips over your bare shoulder even as you pull your underwear on. “My father,” he drawls slowly, sounding empty and angry and cautious all at once. “Would never risk losing his prized viper. And I would never let him take you away from me, amore. No one has that power.”

You suppose it should please you, make you happy to hear him declare that. But all your mind latches on is his earlier words.  

Prized viper. 

Yes, that’s all you are. From one leash to another. Tarasov sold you like a broodmare. Giovanni is no better—in many ways, Giovanni D’Antonio is far worse. 

But, but—

Santino wraps his arm around your waist and tugs you back into his lean chest; the gesture reassuring, almost gentle, and you swallow.

“When I’m the head,” he whispers into your ear from behind, and you feel the weight of his accented words sink into your bones like molten fire. “You will be free. I will give it to you as a present. And then you will never have to worry about being late again. Oh, amore, I swear to you.”

Your chest tightens.

“And what will you demand in return?”

He chuckles again and presses a kiss behind your ear, slow and promising a thousand delicious, sinful things. “You,” he exhales with such raw desire ringing through his low baritone your toes curl. “Oh, (Name). Every bit of you, if you are willing to share it.”              

His arms are comfortable around you, secure. And a part of you can’t help but think that maybe—just maybe—that’s a trade you can live with. 

—an AU in which the deal Santino bargained for was successful and Tarasov passed V to Camorra.  

Chapter Text

You don’t remember most of it. 

Not after the taste of blood has washed away all else, leaving nothing behind.

They had come for you. Your idiot friends—family, by Camorra’s standards. By your standards. The Four had found you quickly. But not quickly enough. 

“You still breathing?”

His rough voice makes you recoil and he halts sharply a few steps away. 

Hector was the one who found you stumbling through the tunnels. Covered in cooling blood and delirious, every inch of you bruised and battered, every fresh cut bleeding. All you can remember from your reunion was the sinking horror that it was him. Him seeing you weak—the one man who would never let you live down such a failure. 

You wish it had been Julian or Dario or—heck, even Step would have been better than Hector finding you. 

Much like now, he had halted in the shadowed passageway at the sight of you, and his harsh face still covered in the blood of those he had killed cracked for just a second. So tiny, so insignificant, you might have missed it if you hadn’t been frozen in shock and staring at him.

It was a blur after that. You think he carried you, or maybe dragged you. There are brief recollections of others, even Cassian. Then Ares. The horrified silence at the state of you. The unspoken rage.

“Take her,” Cassian’s voice. Distant and rough with anger. “Make sure Santino and Gianna don’t see her like this. Take her to—”

“I don’t take orders from you.”

The grip on you had tightened and a strangled sound of pain escaped you. 

“You’re hurting—hey, you’re hurting her, asshole!” 

Step’s voice followed and there were hands on you—

You had tried to pull away from them and back into the hardness that you thought might have kept you safe. It promised you it would. Or did it? You hadn’t been able to recall but there were hands and they were trying to pull you away and into another embrace, leaving your feet shaking beneath you. A hard tug like when Kishi was about to force you under the water—

A wounded scream had torn itself free from you and you had lashed out on instinct. Tearing, and screaming, screaming—

It took a joined effort of multiple pairs of arms to pull you back and away from Step.

Hector had dragged you away from the scene by force, his powerful arms now inescapable shackles, your back pressed against his broad chest. You lost consciousness somewhere between seeing the bloody scratches around Steps’ throat, shortly accompanied by his devastated, wide-eyed stare and Cassian calling it in that they found you. 

When you woke up next your wounds had already been cleaned and bandaged. 

That doesn’t mean you hadn’t screamed and trashed when you didn’t recognise where you were.

Hector had been there, too. Ready to subdue you. Not your first fit. Or even second, apparently.

No one could approach you without unleashing a torrent of terror and violence.  

“Hey, did you hear my question?” his voice snaps, and you can tell he’s trying to be more…amiable. Perhaps he’s worried you will dissolve into hysterics again and he’ll have to deal with it. “V? Snap the fuck out of it.”

You blink slowly, lifting your head towards him. The slight movement exhausts you. 

He’s fresh out of the shower. He had “clean up” he had to do and returned only 20 minutes ago covered in soot and blood. Even more than you’re used to seeing on him. You had taken one look at him walking through the door and flinched. He had looked furious at your reaction. The weakness, no doubt. You know what Hector does for “clean up” though. You’ve seen him break every finger in someone’s hand for daring to touch him inappropriately once. 

Even if he lacks resources, his viciousness—his sheer brutality—has no bounds.

He’s in a simple white t-shirt, baring the colourful lines of tattoos snaking up his arms and showcasing the mighty wings around his throat. For once, he doesn’t look like a killer. He just looks harsh, restless, like a corned animal but almost normal. His jaw keeps clenching every few seconds and the deadly cut of his jawline only accents his poorly leashed temper. 

“Did you kill them?” you whisper, your voice a croak; distant and strange. 

He takes another step closer, measured, his bare feet appearing in your line of sight. You’ve seen him in far less before but Hector is always an impenetrable wall regardless of his condition. Nothing gets to him. Except now, apparently. This fury is different somehow. 

“You look at me when you ask me that,” he says, his words terse. Your eyes flicker up and meet his piercing pale blue and his lips curl; there’s not even a scrap of warmth to be found in the motion. “You want to know if I returned the favour, sweetheart? Wanna know how I bled them dry slowly? Like pigs? How many bones I broke and how much blood I shed? You really think it will make you feel better?”

You stand to your feet, swaying, but he doesn’t move. He simply watches you, unimpressed. His full mouth is pressed into a resolute, merciless line as he waits for your response.

You nod your head. Once. 

He regards you silently, knowingly. “That’s not really what you want to ask me, is it, V? What do you need.”

The last part comes out not as a question but as an order, and you try to force the thick lump in your throat down. What you need…

“You can—” your voice cracks and you swallow again, focusing on his chest instead, unable to handle his overbearing stare. “You can think I’m…weak. Call me a-anything you…want. But—”

He steps closer this time. For once he doesn’t smell like tobacco mixed with his favourite rich cologne you could recognise anywhere. That musky, heady scent has been replaced by soap instead. “But?” 

Your eyes meet briefly. His expression says that he already knows. But he will still make you say it. Normally, you might have felt resentful about him being such an asshole even now but…

“If you don’t hug me right now I think I might fall apart.” 

It’s such a pathetic string of words. They tumble from the tip of your tongue and you feel tiny for saying them. For wanting comfort from him of all the people. But you’re…scared. Just so scared and it hurts—

Hector doesn’t reply. He simply gazes at you, his large hands unmoving by his sides. 

Finally, he drawls out a low, “You sure it’s not Santi you want for comfort cuddling, sweetheart? Maybe that chicken shit Step, huh?”

You should have known better. 

What were you thinking? That Hector will have some shred of empathy in that crevice where most people have hearts? You’re murderers. Both of you. Camorra’s deadliest, most proficient. Practically Giovanni’s pride and joy. 

You move past him but his arm snaps out suddenly, grasping you by the back of your head as he tugs you close. The motion is harsher than he likely intended it to be and it’s clear that he’s never done anything like this before. Your forehead cracks against his collarbone and you release a breath. And then another. 

Hector holds you to him by the back of your neck without a word. The rest of him hasn’t shifted so much as an inch. 

You haven’t realised how badly you’re trembling till his fingers flex against your skin. “I’m not kind enough to kill them, sweetheart. They suffered.”

Coming from him, you can’t even begin to imagine what he put them through. 

You bury your face in the soft cotton of his t-shirt, and can’t help but feel oddly at ease despite every hard edge of him not being made for kindness or comfort.

Monster. Demon. Giovanni’s most bloodthirsty and loyal hound. 

Your arms wrap around his waist even though you know he will hate it, even though he has told you plenty of times how he doesn’t enjoy it when people touch him without his expressed permission. Old hurts, you know as much. Gained from a darker time before Camorra. Before he was respected and hated and feared. 

He lets you cling to him. 

Doesn’t so much as shift in his spot. 

If it weren’t for the strong beat of his heart against the flesh of your cheek, you would worry that he’s not real. That maybe you’re still back in that pit and saving yourself had been a wistful dream. 

Your shallow, uneven breaths are the only sound in the otherwise silent room. 

“I saw what you did to that fucker,” he voices eventually and you pull your face away from his chest, your eyes snagging onto the wet patches on his shirt. Tears. So that’s why your cheeks sting. Your head tilts away from his, ashamed, but his fingers squeeze against the back of your neck, stopping you before you could move away. His pale eyes are two slits, his stare icy and unforgiving. “You did good. Went right for the jugular. The bastard didn’t stand a chance.” 

His words are a low rumble but he sounds…proud, almost. 

Such a contrast to the disgust you feel. The awful, animalistic thing you did and felt good doing. Killing can be clinical if you do it long enough. It becomes dull and repetitive with time, easy to digest. But what you did to Kishi—

Your head spins and you sway slightly, Hector’s hand snapping upwards to grip your forearm. He leans over you and scoops you up into his arms with startling ease. You groan softly, a flare of pain shooting through your body at the handling but don’t protest. Once you might have punched him right in the teeth but now you just…

You want to fade away from here for a bit. Disappear.

He moves you from the lounge and into the adjoined bedroom. His steps are slow and steady as he walks, and you can’t help but wonder just how much strength truly lives inside his body if he makes carrying you seem like he’s carrying a pillow.    

“Why are you doing this?”

He glances down at you after a beat—as if he’s just remembered he’s carrying you in the first place.  

“Figured finding you with a cracked head on a hotel room floor is on no one’s to-do list right now, sweetheart.”

Asshole. 

He lowers you onto the bed with surprising care, pulling back the covers with one arm and holding you up around the waist with another. Despite your spark of annoyance at his typical cocky bullshit, you cling to him, leaning into his shoulder. Your eyes snag onto those mighty wings around his throat again, and you don’t know why it’s this specific tattoo from so many others that never fails to capture your attention.   

“I don’t need your pity,” you breathe as he lowers you onto the pillow and his mouth twitches, an eyebrow arching. “Nor do I want it.” 

He chuckles; a cold, rough sound, lacking joy as usual. “Do you really think I’m in the business of pitying others, huh?”

He isn’t. 

You know that. But—

You didn’t know his hair curls at the edges after it gets wet. 

He drags the covers over you harshly, uncaring, completely focused on his task. Menial as it is.  

You exhale quietly, watching him through bleary eyes. “You’re being…nice.”

The word almost chokes you. 

This time he’s all teeth, clearly amused, and glances at you. 

“I don’t do nice, sweetheart,” he reminds you and you both know he’s right again, but you’re not sure what else you can class this as. Hector shakes his head once and drags the warm covers up to your chin. “You can go back to hating me tomorrow morning if it makes you feel better.”

Blinking a few times, you frown faintly, “I don’t hate you,” you whisper quietly and he stills—a second, a breath, you would have missed if he wasn’t a hand reach away—and feel a brittle smile appear. “I just figured you would be happier without me around.”

His eyes drag up to you, and the dark circles under his eyes appear like two sunken black holes. If it weren’t for the iciness of his stare, he would be a devouring dark that eats away at all else. 

He leans closer, his stare flat. “That so?” he mocks softly and clicks his tongue. “Nah, Camorra would be pretty fucking boring without you around, wildcat. Sleep tight.”

He leans back with that but you speak before he can walk away. “You’re really…not going to call me weak? For failing?”

You had expected him to. Maybe he’s waiting for the right opportunity to do so—to make sure that it truly hurts, truly stays with you. A chance to rub your failure into your face the same way he has always done with you and others. 

“You’re the furthest fucking thing from weak, sweetheart, you got that?” he snaps and the venom in his voice—the rawness there—surprises you. He doesn’t look at you when he says it but when his eyes do find yours in the darkened hotel room you suddenly find it harder to breathe. “Never say that self-pitying shit to me again.” 

Trying, and failing to find an appropriate reply to that, you choose to remain quiet instead.

He turns to head towards the door, the ripple of his tightly coiled back muscles giving away his lingering wrath. You’re not quite sure at who exactly it’s directed at.   

“Sleep. No one is getting to you now. Others will not allow it,” he calls out and pauses by the door, his hand gripping the doorframe. He hesitates again. “And they’ll have to go through me,” he adds, the promise of bloodshed, of pain, clear in his deep baritone. 

It shouldn’t be comforting. Not when coming from him—a man you can barely tolerate on a good day.

But it is.  

Chapter Text

“Ah, the woman I have heard so much about,” a silky, accented voice purrs from the folds of the shadows. “They say molten poison flows through your veins, Vipress. They say my kind finds that poison irresistible. Their sweet undoing. Hm, such a shame. They did not tell me you were beautiful, too.”

Such flattery. But vampires often have silver tongues. Some can bewitch mind and body with nothing more than a few carefully measured, enticing sentences.

A flutter of air against the curve of your neck and you spin. Your blade—holy and blessed by Winston himself, bestowed with all the divine power the old man believes the Holy Rite grants—hisses against that golden skin.

He is not what you expected.

You’ve heard tales of the D'Antonios before. The oldest vampire family in the world. The purest, most potent blood flows through their veins. The power that comes with that is indisputable. Terrifying. 

Camorra is an empire of the supernatural world. 

Many seek shelter under Giovanni D'Antonio and his endless, ancient power. 

Few are ever granted it, and even fewer survive the pit that is Camorra. Even the supernatural are not immune to eternal death.

Vampires, werewolves, wraiths, fae—they’re just some of the creatures said to dwell in Camorra’s ranks.  

The vampire prince before you looks like a golden dream, however. 

Unlike his father who carries darkness in his every step, even unlike his sister who is a seductive, cold princess of the undead, Santino D'Antonio looks like he belongs in the light. 

His skin is sun-kissed, his eyes vivid green and his dark hair curly and wild. 

Green. 

You’re so used to seeing that muted, rusted red in every vampire’s stare that for the briefest second it gives you a pause. 

“Do you think you can kill me, bella?” he wonders softly, mockingly. “You are…tempting but I am not so easily swayed.“ 

The silver blade, etched with holy runes scorches against his skin but the vampire prince only grins; a caress, sensuous and slow. His eyes drag over your features. 

“I could care less about your pride, vampire.”

He leans closer and your knees tremble. He’s strong. So strong that he makes your strength seem slight by comparison. But you are far from helpless. 

“I wonder,” he hums quietly, leaning even closer and you jerk back but his next words still tickle against the curve of your cheek. “Do you taste as delicious as they say, hm? Perhaps one of your holy blades would be a worthy price to pay for a…taste.”

Your foot drives into his knee and you swipe another blade free, aiming both towards his chest but he catches your arms in a deadly grip, pulling you closer. A snarl bubbles at the back of your throat. 

“If you kill me, you’ll have Johnathan Wick to deal with.”

The deadliest Holy Hunter there is. 

Even shadows fear and hiss his name in terror. 

The Boogeyman. 

The one individual every dark thing fears. 

Santino D'Antonio’s quick, long fingers brush away a strand of loose hair from your cheek and he chuckles. The sound is unfriendly, but it still manages to feel like a stroke, like those elegant fingers trailing down your senses. 

The blood in your veins—that honeyed poison the prince spoke of—hums and hums and hums at his presence. It hums whenever any vampire appears close but with him….it’s a roar. Such a loud one it takes substantial effort to focus. 

“Ah, yes, Johnathan,” the vampire before you speaks, letting go. A blink and he’s gone from sight. It’s a game to him, you realise. He finds entertainment in this little chase. You imagine eternity can get pretty boring. You’re unsure how old the prince is but you know he’s the younger of the two heirs. “I had the displeasure of encountering him several times over the last few decades. Not one for chatter. How unfortunate. Such stories about you two though.“ 

Your head snaps behind you and you find the vampire prince lounging on the sofa, his legs crossed and expression bored. He inspects his nails, golden Camorra ring gleaming on his hand. Every inch of him reeks of arrogance. 

His head lifts, slanting, and his lips quirk upwards. It’s a tickle of a smirk but it’s laced with fine cruelty. Scorn, even. 

“Some say you are friends,” he continues easily, but something dark lingers across his features. “Others say you are lovers. Which is it, hm?”

Your feet sound dull against the cold cobblestone as you stalk closer towards the vampire, ignoring his question. 

His eyes flicker towards you, and there is hunger there. You know you appeal to him. That’s the whole point of you. You exist to lure them in and kill them. Prince or not, D'Antonio is still driven by hunger, by instinct. 

He can’t hide it from you. 

“How did they make you, I wonder?” he murmurs and his voice is lovely if you are to allow yourself such a kind thought. “To make you so deadly? What wretched things did they put you through to make sure you can hunt that which does not die? I bet it hurt, no?”

He’s chatty. Most of his kind would be spitting curses and trying to kill you by now. Half-boredom and half-arrogance. You suppose he doesn’t get a chance to converse with your kind often. If at all. You’re food. The enemy. 

“I had the Holy Text etched onto my back when I was twelve.”

You have nothing to hide. It had made you what you are. It’s what gave you that pull, that poison, that courses through you. It’s what made you special just like Jardani. Two of a kind. Best of the best. 

The vampire stills. 

It’s that unnatural, stifling kind of stillness that no living thing is quite capable of. 

“What?”

A soft, cutting knife. The spark of shock—fury—that glints in his eyes for just a second surprises you. Why would he care? 

At the church, they called it the Making. 

When the High Priest deems one worthy of ascending into the Hunter ranks, they are taken to the catacombs below the Holy Church and laid on their stomach where every priest lays a blessing on their skin by cutting into it with wax and ink and knives. 

Those too weak to bear it die right after. 

If you survive, you become a Hunter. Tasked with only one thing: eradication. 

In the last several decades, you and Jardani have been the only ones to survive the Making. Only ones blessed with skills that rival the dead and the undead, the foul and the dark.

You don’t remember much from your Making. Just screaming and the heat and stench of sweat and blood. And through it all, Winston’s fingers gripping your own even though he’s not supposed to, and his quiet promise that it will be over soon. 

Fortis fortuna adiuvat. Jardani’s words. Fortune favours the brave. 

Under the vampire’s harsh, disbelieving stare, your own words seem to itch. 

Ego sum qui ferrum mundum emunda. Your clothes scrape against your back and the vampire stares at you like he can see right through you. I am the blade that will cleanse the world. 

“Is that what your church does?” the vampire demands and his stare is terrible, furious. “Carves up little children so they have a slight chance of opposing my kind? How pathetic and desperate you have all become. Accept your place in the world, bella. This scrambling is ceaseless. No matter how many you save, I will kill a hundred more. For every divine deed, a thousand more unholy, sinful things will be committed. It will never end. And you will be dead. Sooner or later, hm? It shall all end the same. And it will be as if you never existed.”

He rises to his feet, all ethereal grace but deadly intent, and your fingers around the twin blades tighten. You tell yourself that a shiver that races down your spine and the knot that forms in your chest has nothing to do with his words and everything to do with the fact that you can feel his poorly leashed power rumbling through the air instead. 

“Do you think your church will remember you? Thank you? Do you?” he demands, his tone cruel, and he moves towards you slowly even though you both know how fast he can be. He doesn’t want to hunt you. He wants you to hear him, you realise in a daze. “Do you believe that they will erect statues in your name and call you a Saint? No, amore mio, they will not. You are a tool and those are easily replaceable. You have no idea of your potential. Do you think you’re powerful now? Imagine what you can do with a gift of eternity.”

He comes to a stand before you. His green eyes glow in the dusky light and you hate yourself for the fact that you hesitate. 

Hesitate because you, too, have considered it before. Even mentioned it to Jardani in the past. 

Imagine if we were like them. Imagine us then. No one could stop us. 

Jardani’s eyes had dimmed then, his rough fingers against your cheek but the look in his eyes cautious. It is unwise to speak of such things, (Name). We are trying to hunt them, not become them. Do not speak of this again, especially around the priests. Or they will banish you. 

The glow in those green eyes, however, says that you could have it all and then some. 

You go straight for his non-existent heart. 

His fingers latch around your own, your blade scraping against his shirt, his chest. 

Santino D'Antonio grins; a crooked, sly thing. It kills some part of you that he looks knowing, wisely interpreting your hesitation for what it is: lack of certainty in your current path.  

He jerks your hand down and tugs you close, his cold breath a whisper against your clammy skin, “Think on my offer, amore,” he purrs, his words silk. “You do not have a bearing of a woman who settles for scraps when she can have the world.”

You blink and he’s gone. 

Chapter Text

You inhale deeply, letting the dry desert air sit at the back of your throat for a moment, savouring the slight ache that comes with it. Your mind is still chaotic despite the calming lull you try to force yourself into.

Setting rays of the sun warm your cheek though you feel the dip in the temperature already.

You shift again, restless.

Why is meditating so damn hard?

“Soothe the flame,” a calm voice reminds you as quiet footsteps approach the spot you are sitting at. “Let it rest. You are safe here, allow yourself to feel it.”

Your eyes crack open, your head tilting towards the figure who comes to a stop beside you. The man lowers himself opposite to you, his robes rustling in the slight breeze, and you watch the distant speck that is his camp over the curve of his strong shoulder.

The Elder regards you with that calm, steady look he always bestows you with. Searching for something you still haven’t been able to figure out.

“I’m trying,” you say for the hundredth time since you‘ve come here. “I’m not very good at lowering my guard.”

“More so than usual today,” he counters at once, and those dark eyes appear lighter—almost golden—in the setting sun as they journey over your features. “Is something troubling you?”

“It’s nothing.”

That’s a lie.

It’s Winston’s birthday today if your math is correct.

It bothers you that you’re not there for it. It bothers you a lot more than you would care to admit and you’re not sure why. You like it here—perhaps even more so than you should after these long months—but that weight, anchor, won’t drop away. Like an itch under your skin that never leaves.

He knows you’re lying. His expression doesn’t so much as twitch but you have both become rather good at reading each other. It’s almost troubling just how good.

The man before you extends his hand towards you slowly, seemingly aware of your caution even without words, and you stare down at it.

“Give me your hand.”

You hate the swell of suspicion at once. This is hardly the first time you’ve touched each other but it’s these moments that tend to bury under your guard the most. You know he knows that, too.

“Why?”

His lips twitch, his head titling. “Have I not earned your trust yet, viper?” he wonders softly.

“I don’t trust easily.”

The slight smile grows, just a touch. It’s a rare thing. To see him smile. He rarely does it around the camp. The few times you have seen it has been in the midst of his people, surrounded by those he trusts.

You wonder if he considers you as one of his own, too.

Ignoring the tingle down your spine that thought sends, you stare at him silently, expectant.

“I am aware,” he notes, a touch amused. His hand reaches further almost next to yours now as they rest in your lap. “But I would ask for five minutes of your trust. Should you find me unworthy, you are free to walk away.”

Always with the choices. But you hold no illusions about his power or about those choices.

He knows that, too.

Always the knowing gleam. Always pleased with a challenge.

You place your hand in his. It’s warm and dry but there is strength there as he folds his fingers slowly over yours.

“Close your eyes.”

You scowl. His lips twitch again. “Let me in, viper. You can shut me out later but let me help now if I can.”

He seems to glow in the golden rays of the sun. Somehow otherworldly, transcendent.

Your eyes flutter shut.

You don’t bother telling him that he’s already inside.

A lot deeper than you would like him to be.

“You’re thinking too much.”

“Is there another way to be?” you counter immediately, by now used to your rapid-fire conversations. “Thinking keeps you alive.”

He doesn’t reply and it makes you crack one of your eyes open. He always has a response when you speak. You enjoy that the most about him. The fact that not one conversation between you—no matter how routine—is ever boring.

The electricity you feel in his presence—the challenge—hums under your skin as you sit in silence.

Something stills inside your chest when you realise the man before you isn’t looking at you.

His attention is focused solely on your hand in his. On the way your fingers look placed between his. His head is lowered so you can’t see his eyes very well but you can feel the intensity in his regard. There is a distinct feeling of heat, of something, that lives between your joint palms and you exhale, your fingers twitching.

You shut your eyes at once, feeling him shift, and breathe calmly despite the tight coil you feel inside your chest.

“Calm your mind,” he says once again, his voice gentle, almost a soothing lull with his accent. Seemingly against your own volition, the painful tension in your limbs ebbs. Your shoulders droop and you let his low voice sink into you. “Let that flame rest, viper, don’t burn too brightly or you will burn up.”

“It’s the only way I know how to keep safe.”

Keep everything—everyone—else out.

It slips out without you meaning to say it. Always fighting, always clawing for more, more, more.

Your freedom is the only and most important goal. The only one that matters.  

You will never let anyone else in the way you let John in. Will never allow yourself to hurt like that again, not after you’re finally finding the strength to get back up. To step forward and move ahead with your life.

You’re crawling out of that pit and have no intention of looking back.

“I told you,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper. “There are other paths open for you now.”

A soft flutter of his thumb against your knuckles and you almost jump. Your grip on the Elder’s hand constricting briefly before you pull away, your eyes opening.

The sun has almost disappeared behind the massive dunes, shadowing his features, and the man before you watches his now empty hand thoughtfully.

A solitary man. Despite being surrounded by many, you’ve wondered for a while now if he feels just as alone as you do.

If this odd bond between you is forged out of that.

Desire to be understood. Challenged. Spurred on.

But you do have that.

With people who…

You already have a home.

You stand to your feet, your armour slipping back on, and walk away with a polite nod of your head.

He doesn’t try to stop you.