Work Text:
i.
You have been here before.
There are your brothers, and there are your men, and there is your father, standing taller than everyone, his eyes bright as flame. In front of him is a man you know is dead, because you were there when he was shot mid-sentence, and afterwards you helped strip the corpse of its knife and its water flask, its boots and its purse.
(You disliked this man, when he was alive.)
(You felt guilty for it, when you saw him die.)
This time, he feels you watching him as he shouts about madness and not fit to lead and certain death. He turns away from Athair, turns to face you. You want to flinch, but you don’t. Instead, you reach slowly for the gun at your hip. His face is just as you remember, sunburn-red and sagging where jowls used to be, his dark beard unkempt, sweat running down from his receding hairline.
Doomed,
the dead man says, and he is looking at you.
Your gun isn’t there, and your fingers close on empty air.
He is still staring at you, but he stretches his hand towards your brothers and on instinct you step in front of them, even weaponless as you are. The dead man grins a grin that doesn’t belong to him.
I will teach you something you do not want to know,
he promises you, and your heart begins to beat faster, because you—you hate him, this man who looks at you with eyes gone amber, gone almost yellow in the moonlight as he reaches for your brothers and—
Don’t follow him,
this man warns you. His voice is still the sheep-farmer’s voice you remember but his face is now someone else.
Behind him you see Athair raise the gun, and you don’t move, your heart racing fast with what must be hatred, and then there is the crack of the shot and his face is—in a burst of blood his face is—gone—
The desert sun goes dark like a lantern blown out.
ii.
You stand in a long, dark hallway of unfinished stone, and there are no doors, no windows to show you the way out. Blind, you call your brothers’ names, and they do not reply. You lost them as you always lose them, between the desert and this place. A familiar feeling of failure rises to choke you, and you force it down like you force down your dread, biting the inside of your mouth to feel the pain that comes, and swallowing fear and blood together.
In the dark, your father comes to stand behind you. You know it is your father, because his hand rests reassuringly on your shoulder and you can feel the clever craftsman shape of it, and the cold band that is his wedding ring, on his fourth finger. He is pushing you forward gently—insistently—because where there was moments ago that wide desert there is now only this hallway, quiet as a tomb, so long you cannot see its end. You try to turn back against his grip, because your brothers, where are your brothers, but—
Maedhros,
says a voice that must be your father’s, close beside you in the quiet. You realize you are panicking, and try to force yourself to calm. Athair helps you by stroking you soothingly on your shoulders, your neck, his hand cool against the side of your jaw. Your father’s unwonted tenderness hits you like a blow; you stagger with the weight of it, one step forward into the endless dark, your limbs trembling.
Your mouth is filled, still, with the heat of your own blood.
Maedhros,
Athair says, his hand gentle in your hair, his voice kind in your ear:
My boy: If you would?
iii.
(What would you do for him?)
(Anything.)
i.
You have been here before.