It is his voice that finds you within the darkness first.

His touch is a burst of color against the stillness, too bright to be processed as anything but pain, and you whimper, feel as your body flinches against it, the swell of fear that engulfs your heart then, the all-consuming thought that he has come back for you, come back to steal the breaths that still linger in you, somehow easier than they had been when he left. For moments you lay still, trying to find the courage, the strength in all of your exhaustion, to fight back, to flee, do anything besides succumb to the panic clutching at your heart. If you were less occupied, less numb, perhaps you would notice the softness of the touches, the wetness of tears among the drying blood, the way that he has pressed himself so close, the frantic beating of his breaking heart. It is only as he speaks that your terror slowly subsides into relief, and that relief sinks into sorrow as all of his suffering becomes too painfully clear.

It fractures something within you that you didn't even know was there, and your entire body shudders against his. It is obvious now, the gentle pressure of his weight against you, as comforting as it is heart-wrenching as your mind pulls from its haze, the unevenness of his breaths as he weeps. You cry out softly as you finally pull your head up, squeezing your eyes shut until the dizziness subsides. Seconds pass until you find the bravery to look at him, afraid of what you will find, to see the aftermath of all your stupidity. You want to ask him why, why he would be here, want to tell him to leave, to send him away but you know you need him to stay and before long the words, tangled with all your selfishness, die on your tongue.  

‘Who did this to you?’

Your heart drops through to the very bottom of your stomach.

Out of all the things he could have said, could have asked, for as well as you know him, you did not expect that.

You only shake your head, looking down, away from his angled face wet from tears, from the edge in his voice, from all the anger blooming in his heart, that terrible need that you understand too well, fear too much. Even if he had been more than a shadow, ripped and bleeding, than that smell of ocean and pine so preciously (sickly) familiar to you, you would not tell him. Would not tell him of all the things he had said and how that voice will always haunt you, the ways that he had touched you and how your skin crawled underneath his sticky breath, how you can feel him there even still, the why of how he had left you, of the anger that smolders quietly beneath it all, the regret and bitterness that it had been him that found you, him that sits beside you now, trembling, crying, because he had seen it all before.

“I’m okay,” it is the only thing you can think to say as you press your nose to his cheek, knowing that it is not enough for what you have put him through, wanting to hold him, to comfort him, pull him from his too-bold promises, from his own self destruction, and back to you, to feel something besides the sickness that still clings so tightly to you. “I’m okay,” you murmur, your breath hot as it radiates across the dampness of his face. “And that’s because of you, you know.” You force the smallest of smiles as you pull away from him despite the sting of it, of your stupidity and all the dumb reasons you had been here and how he shouldn’t have had to find you in the first place. “I…” Apprehension grips tightly at your throat, your heart caught between wanting him to know just what he had done, to grasp how lost you had been without him and being too afraid that it would push him over some unspoken edge, anger him when all you want is for him to grasp just what he saved you from.  

“I had thought that I wouldn’t ever see you again, Erebos.” It finally comes as a quietly shaking confession, and all of the strength that you had feigned begins to crumble as your heart throbs with the words, as all of your fears (in truth, your selfishness) are laid bare for him and only him. “That Etziel… that he would be without me, as much as he thinks he wants that now,” you pause, laughing without smiling, your brows furrowing, a cold and consuming hurt slithering through your veins. “He would be alone.” Your voice gives at the word, tears that are so familiar to you anymore clouding your vision as they swell and tumble down your cheeks, your stomach twisting itself in knots. He would always have Erebos, you know, and friends that you can only hope that he will surround himself with someday, but to be without, to lose, a mother, a father, is an emptiness you know as well. But you shake your head, pushing away the inevitability, unable to cope with it just yet.  

“That his would be the last face I saw, that I would die, and no one would even know—and that, maybe, no goodbye would be better, for Etziel and for you.” It is unspoken, the name, the face, that flickers for a fleetingly painful moment before it is forced away, buried beneath your anger, your regret. He had chosen abandonment, to be without; chosen to say goodbye before even realizing all that he had given up. Even when you had found him along the shore and he had seen his child, his son, for the very first time, it had felt so forced, so terribly disconnected. You didn’t understand then, and you still don’t now, though you only feel bitterness where it had hurt in the months before. You shift against yourself, against the strained memory, eyes lifting to find the northern blue of his again as you smile softly, sheepishly.  

“I’m sorry, it’s selfish, all of this, I know,” there is a flicker of doubt within you then, a worry that forces your tired heart to skip a beat. Had you simply said too, too much? In trying to comfort him, to open him up to more than his self-doubt, that streak of youthful vengeance he holds to too tightly, had you only pushed him further away?


“But I’m glad that you are the one that found me—saved me—you that’s with me now.”

If only to show him he is not tethered to only being not enoughs, to failures, to disappointments.  

To show him that you meant what you had said about Arwen, and that he would have saved her if he had ever been given the chance.

That there is more than just the revenge that he craves.
(If only you knew how desperately.)

enna & erebos

for you, just you