Work Text:
If I Knew You…
He was floating. At least, it felt that way. The first thing he ever noticed was a strange weightlessness, when once his unconsciousness had been undisturbed.
His mind sank again.
***
When he resurfaced, it was to a feeling of comfort and security. He could feel that his body was moving, but he wasn’t the one moving it. He was leaning against something, held secure against it.
As his mind struggled to make sense of his circumstances, it was the piercing silence that startled him enough to open his eyes a sliver. The light poured in, and he shut them again quickly. Still, he listened hard. There was the crunch of whatever it was that was moving him against the ground, but otherwise, the world was silent. He curled up in distress, scared by the unknown nothingness. Burying his face into the soft wall he was cradled against, he let himself open his eyes again. Perhaps because his face was stuck to it, all he could see was black. He turned his face slightly, so an eye could peek out, and he saw on the edges of his vision, a black clad hand. The placement of the hand suggested it was his, but he felt no recognition or attachment to it. Experimentally, he curled his fingers, and the hand responded. So it was his.
He let himself stare at the hand for several minutes, just watching it, without any real thought or meaning behind it. When he felt ready, he slowly unburied the rest of his face, but kept his cheek against the wall, and looked out. Beyond him was red ground and metal as far as he could see. He watched the scenery pass him by, looking at the rusted metal as though he were just as empty and broken. Maybe he was. He felt… nothing.
Things stayed this way for a long time, until he felt something slide against the top of his head. He reached up and grabbed something, but with the gloves on, it was impossible to tell what it was. He tried to crane his head back, while giving a yank, only to see a face above him making an upset expression.
“That hurts, damnit.”
Trailing his eyes further up, he realized he was holding onto black strands of hair which had fallen out of the face’s messy ponytail.
He let go with an “oops, sorry.” He made his voice sound apologetic, even as he continued to feel nothing but the faintest of curiosity. He observed the person—the man—holding him, taking in the scar and golden eye, the black hair and hollow cheek in his line of sight.
The man snorted and promptly dropped him.
“Ow!” He scrambled up, rubbing his tailbone.
“If you’re awake, you should walk yourself.” But there was a gleam in the man’s eye that suggested to him that the man had done it purely for payback.
The man crossed his arms and causally stood, as though he hadn’t been a weight at all and the man didn’t need to stretch his arms after carrying him all that way.
The man asked slowly and strangely deliberately, “What do you remember?”
“What do you mean?” He replied, confused.
“Do you know where you are? ...Do you know who you are?”
“No.” He answered immediately, helplessly. He inwardly braced himself to feel panic, but the panic never came.
“Do you remember…” The man trailed off, the unspoken word hanging in the air between them.
“Do I… know you?” He asked the man, hesitantly, squinting at him, as though that would help jog his memory.
There was a pause. The man looked at him, and he felt naked under the man’s intense scrutiny.
“No,” the man finally answered, softly. “You don’t know me.” The way the man said it, it sounded like a lie.
The man shook his head once, as though to clear it.
“Come on, time to go to the Castle and get your name.” The man waved a hand, and some sort of blackness was conjured up. “Let’s go.”
He wondered, but didn’t ask out loud, if the man had been able to teleport away from here, why had the man walked while carrying him for so long?