Fire — Hadrian & Alessa (Patreon)

Fire.

Everything feels slow. Even pain. You feel it far away, but you know it's coming — like the slow start of a summer day, it crawls on the dawn of your consciousness. But it comes.

There's movement everywhere, heat and dust, but the only noise you hear, despite all this chaos, is breath.

Your own.

A pained inhale.

A muffled exhale.

Darkness invades the outer edges of your vision, the black creeping closer to the center. Fire burns from all sides, red and angry, and pain... pain is coming.

Your fingers lose strength, and something drops beside your feet. But it isn't alone for much longer because your knees buckle, and you don't hear yourself fall; you just suddenly taste the ashes from the ground, spreading like wildfire down your throat.

A pained, gargled breath. Blood mixes with the cinders on your tongue.

A barely-there exhale.

Darkness creeps in, and you can barely see now. Just a wall of crimson flame. Pain is closer. You feel it sparkling at the center of your chest.

A pained inhale.

You don't think you can make the next exhale.

Should you close your eyes? Or wait for sight to be taken too?

"NO!"

A shout pierces the bubble surrounding you, the only noise you hear, for you stop breathing. And from the slit of vision you have left, you see a shape just beyond the wall of flame.

- - -

It's tall and broad and so familiar that pain finally gets to you in the form of heartbreak. "Ha—" You half-exhale his name. You wish you could say it one last time.

Hadrian jumps through the flames, landing down with hard, heavy feet. He has his black sword clutch in one hand, and his armor is stained with sot and blood and singed from the heat. His hair is soaked in sweat, and his cheeks are splattered with red.

His green eyes look around wildly, and never before have you seen him like this. Hadrian's teeth flash in desperation, in wrath, in supplication. You try to speak but find that you cannot. You try to raise a hand, but you'd sooner move a mountain.

You want to get to him. You want to so bad.

But alas, you cannot.

"Ha...."

Hadrian's eyes lock with yours. An infinite pause, and he yells your name. How broken it sounds, coming from his lips. His sword falls to the ground as Hadrian starts running.

But he runs as if he’s moving against a current. Slow. Everything is slow inside your bubble.

He's running with an outstretched hand, and your name falling again and again from his lips. There's no mistaking it now: Hadrian begs his God.

You don't remember if you should inhale or exhale, but it doesn't matter. Your lungs stopped working.

Hadrian is close. He´s a few feet away from you.

But darkness finally reaches the center, and the world turns black before you can see him bending down and taking you into his arms, yelling desperate pleas for someone to help. By God in Heaven, please, someone help.

You're far from that. You escape the pain of mortals to plunge into the still, silent waters of the beyond...

Only to be stopped at the gates. NOT TODAY, CHILD OF CHAOS.

A voice reverberates from all sides, from inside your skull, from the bones of the earth, and then, you're pushed, and you're falling.

.

.

.

Light.

Warm sunshine glints past a clear window. Little specks of dust dance within its beam, and for a moment, you're mesmerized by them. Your eyes feel tired, and the effort to keep your eyelids open is only eased by the moistness at the corners. You can feel dry tears on your cheeks and your body...

You don't want to think about your body. Pain, you have found, can be avoided if it's ignored. For a little while, you want to ignore it.

Because you hear breathing and it's not your own — it's his. His darling, precious breaths. You turn your head on your fresh, plush pillow to find Hadrian slumped over your bed.

The small bench he dragged next to you is too short for his long legs, so they're tucked awkwardly beneath it, at an odd angle that must be uncomfortable. His broad shoulders slouch so he can rest his elbows on top of your linen and lay his head on his forearms.

His back moves up and down with each inhale and exhale.

His hair is in as much disarray as before but is clean now. His closed eyes have deep, sunken circles beneath, and his skin is paler than usual. He looks thinner than usual. His clothes are tossed as if put on in haste, and a large, purple bruise blooms from the side of his jaw up to his cheekbone. As Hadrian sleeps next to you, one of his hands loosely holding your gloved one, he's the perfect picture of exhaustion.

Your dry tears are replaced with fresher ones, and you swallow the sob that makes a knot in your throat. You don't want to wake him to misery, you want him to wake to love.

His skin is warm and rough, but his hand holds you gently. Even as pain shoots up your side, fast and swift like lightning, you raise an arm to sweep your fingers through his hair. Affection warms your chest as your nails drag along his scalp, and slowly, you feel him stir. Hadrian blinks, lips moving to soundless mumbles as you sweep a strand of brown hair from his temple.

And suddenly, green eyes are shining at you.

You look at each other...

And Hadrian bolts upright, nearly falling as his eyes widen beyond belief. "You're awake," he whispers as if sound could break you. Hadrian stares at you, his whole body frozen.

You try to smile, but what comes out is a grimace. "Barely," you rasp out, the words scratching the walls of your throat. You can still taste ashes.

Hadrian slowly rises to his feet. He starts breathing harder, and there's so much emotion on his face. His dear, precious face. "Hadrian," you're finally able to say. "Hadrian, you saved me. I—"

Your vision turns dark once more when Hadrian's arms come to circle you. Your head is in his chest, and he cradles you as tenderly as he can. Hadrian tilts your chin, and you feel his lips kissing your tears away. You cling to him, overwhelmed by emotion, ashamed as a sob bursts through, but Hadrian doesn't seem to mind.

He kisses all your tears. One after the other.

"Thank you," you say when you can finally speak. You dig your nails into his arms. "Thank you, Hadrian."

He cradles your cheeks and kisses your lips. "Thank you. Thank God, you're awake." Hadrian breathes out, his voice so tight, it seems the air is being torn from his lungs. He squeezes you, and it hurts, but you have never felt a better pain. "Thank God."

You lift your chin to press a kiss under his jaw, and he falls silent. You have so much to say to one another, but neither of you can find your voice right now. Right now, you can only cling to each other.

You pull him faintly, and Hadrian understands the request. He climbs into your bed, carefully slipping behind to hold you between his arms. His chest rises up and down, his breathing rasping the skin of your ear, and is with its rhythm that you're pulled into a gentle slumber.

Quiet and close and so warm that it makes you forget the coldness of near death.

- - -

It's lithe and nimble and so familiar that pain finally gets to you in the form of heartbreak. Alessa. "Ale—" You half-exhale her name. You want to say it one more time. You want her to hear you for a final time.

Alessa emerges through the flames like an arrow. She lands on this side with light feet, uncurling to her height with her knives clenched in both hands. Her hair was tied into a ponytail, but it spills free now, the brown strands alight with the heat of the flames. Her leather armor is cut in places and burned on one leg, and it's too far to see those freckles, but a splatter of red covers her cheeks.

Eyes the color of frozen water look around. They're sharp, and so often you've seen them intense, but never before have you seen them like this. Never have you seen Alessa like this. There's no control. There's no coldness in her. Alessa burns as bright as the flames around her, her face like a bear whose cubs are in danger.

Alessa burns like an angel of death, shaking from anger, shaking, too, from fear. "Where are you?" she yells — yells, the sound sinking into your heart. "Where are you?"

You wish you could answer. You try to raise a hand, but you can only move your fingers. You drag them across a ground marked with ashes, reaching for her. "Alessa..."

She shouldn't have heard you. It was so faint, but Alessa spins, and blue eyes find yours. Time is slow. Slow, too, is the way your name falls from her lips. Slow and desperate. Alessa lets go of her knives as she sprints towards you, but it seems as if she's running underwater.

You don't remember if you should inhale or exhale, but it doesn't matter. Your lungs stopped working.

Alessa is close. Her outstretched hand is almost on you.

But darkness finally reaches the center, and the world turns black before you can feel five sharp nails closing around your wrist. You don't feel them pulling you into a pair of arms, nor can you hear her shout for someone to come. Someone hurry, and darling one do not give up. Do not fall. I cannot take it if you fall.

You're far from all that. You escape the pain of mortals to plunge into the still, silent waters of the beyond...

Only to be stopped at the gates. NOT TODAY, CHILD OF CHAOS.

A voice reverberates from all sides, from inside your skull, from the bones of the earth, and then, you're pushed, and you're falling.

.

.

.

You wake to a cold beam of moonlight pouring in from an open window.

Stars fill the night sky, and your vision blurs as you try to count them. There are so many, and they're so bright, and you feel a knife twitching in your throat, because you've never realized how beautiful the night sky is.

You drag your eyes away from the window to inspect the room you're held in. It's cold and bare, but you're grateful for the absence of candles or a lit fireplace. You don't want to see flames for a while. Your head throbs and pain shoots up your spine when you try to lift your arms, so you end up flapping pathetically back onto the mattress. At least the pillow is fluffy, and the bed sheets are clean.

But as minutes drag by, the silence becomes too much. You would yell for someone if your throat didn't feel like a desert under the midday sun. You consider trying to move again. Maybe if you start with your feet...

The door slides open, and a shadow slips inside. Your eyes are used to the gloom, but the quick way it moves is hard to track. It comes closer to your bedside, and now the pale moonlight shines on soft brown hair and fair, smooth skin dotted with as many freckles as the night sky. But this one is a constellation that you've often contemplated its beauty. As equally beautiful as the pair of blue eyes that flash down at you and make you thank the heavens you get to live to see another day.

Thank nameless, forgotten gods you get to see her. Alessa stares down at you with an expression carved from stone as shadows make a home of her face. You stare back into the freezing depths of those eyes.

“You have awakened.” Comes her low voice, as beautiful as it is feeble. So unlike her.

You try to reach for her, but your whole body is in agony. "I had to," you rasp from bleeding lips. "I had to see you."

Alessa drops to her knees, and cold fingers ghost over your cheek, tracing your jaw, coming to hold the back of your neck. "Darling one," she breathes by your lips before pressing hers softly against yours. "I thought you would not awake."

You close your eyes, pressing your forehead to hers. "How long has it been?"

"Too long," Alessa answers, and you snap your eyes open because she weeps. Tears fall down her cheeks, gathering at the corners of her trembling lips. You don't care about pain — you envelop her, holding her as hard as you can as Alessa collapses against you.

You feel the desperation in her nails as they cling to you, in the tightness of her arms closing around you. Your broken ribs holler in pain, but you don't care. You hold on to her as her shoulders shake and sobs tear from deep in her chest. You hold on, wordless, and let her express all she held tight inside.

Because you almost died, but she was the one who had to deal with the consequences.