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Freed waited, holding his breath as he heard Laxus pausing in the doorway. He could feel the weight of the Dragon-slayer’s gaze and knew that Laxus had to know that he was awake, that he could probably hear the hammer-beat of his heart, panic and guilt making his breathing speed up and he waited. Waited for the quiet murmur of his name, soft footsteps drawing close, and a hand on his shoulder. An anchor, a comfort…a burden. No, not a burden. Laxus could never be a burden. Evergreen and Bickslow for all their incessant fussing and the worry that was never far from their expressions these days weren’t burdens, but they were too much, too present, too forgiving. He could imagine their expressions if he said that, and the lecture that would follow, words that he had heard over and over since he’d first woken in the hospital.
Words that he still couldn’t bring himself to believe.
So, he held himself still, feigned sleep as he had found himself doing more and more often the last couple of days, and hoped and hated himself for hoping. There was a long pause, and then Laxus sighed, and the sound was so heavy and world-weary that Freed itched to open his eyes and reach out to him, to soothe, and his fingers twitched before he could stop himself, but he didn’t move. “You know where we are if you need us,” Laxus murmured, and then he was gone. Freed hearing the front door open and close even as he bolted upright, staring wide-eyed at the living room door, heart and mind taking a moment to catch up with what the Dragon-slayer had said and the fact that he was alone.
No, not alone.
As soon as that thought had passed through his mind, he’d felt it, the skittering across his soul, claws that scaped and tore but couldn’t find purchase. The Demon awake and restless beneath his skin, probing for weakness, angry and bitter and more determined than ever to regain control of him, and Freed quivered at the sensation. For the first two days after he’d woken there had been blessed peace, no thoughts or feelings other than his own, and he’d had more than enough of both, guilt and fear, memories and dreams chasing one another around until he was almost demented with it. And some part of him had desperately, naively hoped that it was over, that the Demon was defeated and locked away, that with the barrier particles and whatever else Tartaros had done to him gone, it was over.
Then the Demon had woken, and it hadn’t been a gentle stirring. It had been bloody and howling and had left Freed writhing on the hospital bed, only held in place by his friends pressing close on either side and Laxus’ hand on his chest. Freed couldn’t blame it, not really, after all, it had tasted true freedom for the first time, free of his control, of his humanity and it wanted it back. There had even been moments. Quiet, stolen moments in the dark of the night, when one or more of the others slept around him, and his thoughts darkened, mired with guilt and self-loathing, that he wondered if it wouldn’t be easier to slip back over that edge and yield once more. Those moments were always fleeting, chased away by quiet voices, gentle touches and reassurances and promises, but they were there, a monster in the back of his mind just as the Demon was a stain on his soul.
He hadn’t yielded yet, at least not to the Demon, and yet it still felt as though he had lost. As though in that brief, terrible time when he had lost control, the Demon had destroyed some essential part of who he was. As though the man he had been had died that day in Yajima’s restaurant, and he was a ghost in the shell of his old life, a will-o-the-wisp leading the others astray, making them believe he was there when really he was just a shade. That was a less fleeting feeling, lingering not just in the quiet moments, but even when he was surrounded by the others, their warmth and love a flicker of heat against the chill around his soul.
Freed pushed himself up off the sofa where he had been napping and then later feigning sleep and almost stumbling, still healing, his body protesting the moment. Porlyusica had deemed him healed enough to return home which had been a blessing and a curse because being in the hospital and surrounded by strangers and innocent people had made him nervous, especially when the Demon had stirred. But here in their shared house, he had no escape, no way to hide from the absolution they were so willing to give him. Still, he was grateful for it now as he limped out of the living room and into the hallway, pausing to breathe in the quiet that engulfed the house, proof that it was just him… just them, before eyeing the stairs and taking a shaky breath before reaching for the bannister.
He was out of breath by the time he reached the top of the stairs, and the Demon was well and truly awake, a constant itch of movement inside him. Go away, he wanted to scream at it. I hate you, the thought followed on. He didn’t say either, unable to bring himself to confront it. He hadn’t spoken to it since it had woken, tried to tell himself it was because it was over and not because he was afraid, but the lie sat heavily even in his own mind because he was terrified.
Terrified of the Demon.
But, even more so of himself.
Of what he had become, and what he might become again.
He knew the Demon had felt where his thoughts had gone, could feel it coiling closer, so tight now that he wasn’t sure where he ended, and it began, and he could practically see it’s grin, triumph and mocking all at once. “No…” He said it aloud, to the empty house, as though his voice would be enough to banish the thoughts, to ground him in the present, but his voice was small, the protest lost to the pounding of his heart and the silence of the house. No…
Once he was confident that his legs weren’t going to dump him on the ground, he made his way to the bathroom and slipped inside, eyes fixed on the ground as he turned and locked the door behind him. Faltering for a moment, hand on the lock, breathing shakily, his heart a staccato beat in his chest and the Demon waiting and watching from within. Slowly, he turned and limped to the sink, eyes still lowered, and hands trembling as he reached out to grip the basin, not liking just how much he needed the support. For long minutes he stood like that, head bowed, just trying to breathe and not think about anything. Not about the stirring in his mind, the prickling against his skin from within, or about the pain that throbbed with each unsteady breath.
It didn’t work, it never did, his mind refusing to allow him that escape even if the Demon would, and slowly, reluctantly he lifted his head to stare at his own reflection in the mirror.
A stranger stared back at him.
No, not quite a stranger. Freed managed to unclamp a trembling hand from the basin and lifted it to cover his right eye, hiding the miscoloured iris from sight. Like this, he could almost pretend nothing had changed. That the man in the mirror was the same one who had stood in this very spot the morning before they had gone to the restaurant. Almost, because as he shifted, the light moved too, catching the subtle play of scales that ran down the side of the hand and wrist he’d lifted to his face, and a low noise that wasn’t quite a sob rose in his throat as he let it fall away. Staring into his face, attention riveted on the eye that hadn’t regained its original turquoise like he’d hope, stomach rolling, as he imagined that he could see the Demon staring back at him, seeping through the purple veins that cracked the black.
He’d hoped – they’d all hoped – that it would disappear with time, but there had been no change, and Porlyusica had quietly, almost gently told him that it was unlikely to now after he’d been discharged. They weren’t the only marks he bore from what had happened, having gained several new scales from the fighting, but those were different, that was the risk of fighting, a sign that the others had never given up on him even when he had lost faith in them. He could look at those scars, touch them without flinching, and with time they would be more bonds tying them together. But his eye and the patches of pale skin that weren’t quite skin were different.
He was marked.
Tainted.
Cursed.
Even if he never lost control again, the Demon had left an indelible claim on him, one that couldn’t be hidden from the world. His teammates insisted that it changed nothing, that he was still Freed, and that it was proof that he had survived and come back to them, and Freed knew that they meant it. However, he also knew that it still made them uncomfortable. Could still remember the moment Laxus had spotted the changes for the first time, and even though he had missed the reaction at the time, barely conscious, he had replayed it a dozen times since and seen the minute flinches, the hesitation. His mind noted it all, the double-takes, the hesitation they couldn’t always hide when they met his mis-matched gaze or when their fingers brushed skin that wasn’t entirely smooth anymore, and he couldn’t change it, couldn’t fix it.
Mine… The whisper slivered through the air, and Freed jolted back away from the mirror and spun, around. Half-expecting to find that the Demon had manifested or that he was back in that dark place inside where he had come so close to losing himself. There was no one there, and his legs collided with the edge of the toilet, and he stumbled and fell forward, landing hard on his knees, as he felt the sensation of ghostly fingers from within ghosting around his miscoloured eye and across the skin where the scales were most pronounced. It will always be mine now. It was the first time the Demon had spoken to him since it had been driven back, and its voice echoed as though from a great distance and Freed took a shuddering breath. Fighting against nausea and terror, and the wish to just disappear back into the quiet place he’d drifted in before the others had called him back.
“I’m not yours.” It would have worked better if his voice hadn’t cracked and broken in the middle, a child shouting that they weren’t afraid of the dark even as they huddled under a blanket and clutched a torch to their chest. Only he had no light to protect him, no blanket to protect him. He was alone and cracked wide open, and they both knew it, the Demon grinning. “I’m not.” I am, the traitorous part of him that had flourished in the dark moments whispered, insidious and inescapable, as dangerous as the Demon pushing back against him, searching for cracks.
Oh? Then why are you here, and not with them?
“Because…” Freed faltered, a lump in the back of his throat. Because…why am I here? He had been overwhelmed by everything, by the changes to his own body, to the darkness that wound close even now, by the forgiveness that everyone had shown him. Even the guild members he’d thought had sought him out while he’d been in the hospital, wary but telling him that he was forgiven, that it hadn’t been his fault, as though he hadn’t almost killed them. As though he hadn’t gone against everything Fairy Tail stood for.
Fairy Tail…
The guild was gone, not just the building, but the family and home that he had finally allowed himself to be part of, disbanded while he had unconscious. Dust scattered to the wind. Another blow, another loss, and he couldn’t help but wonder if he had contributed to that – although Laxus had emphatically told him to get that thought of his head. But how could he? He had fought his own guildmates again, and worse he had fought the Raijinshuu, Laxus… and he had broken his word, he hadn’t brought them home, not really, hadn’t done the job that Laxus had tried to convince him that he had done because the guild was gone, and all they had was this house that Freed felt like a ghost in.
It was all too much, and Freed didn’t know what to do now, for once not having a goal, a purpose, a path that could quell his uncertainties. He didn’t even know who or what he was any more. A stranger in the mirror. A ghost in his own life.
Mine.
“No.” Freed hadn’t meant to speak, didn’t recognise his own voice, although it sparked something. Like a flicker of candlelight against the looming night, and he felt the Demon recoil as though startled. No, not startled, but wary. There was a watchfulness to the presence now that hadn’t been there since before this mess, and Freed blinked and took a deep breath in the space that had opened between them, took another and held it, before letting it out. “I’m not yours.” His voice didn’t waver, didn’t crack or break, as sharp and precise as the sword that lay untouched in his room. Why? He paused, considering his own thoughts and feelings. It wasn’t that the doubts or fears had gone, he was still lost, drifting in the confines of his own life, but… he did know what he wasn’t, and he didn’t belong to the Demon, not anymore, not ever.
No, he did know one thing about who he was, what he was, one thing that the Demon, despite its best efforts, hadn’t been able to take from him.
“You were fighting for us”, Laxus had told him when Freed had slowly, haltingly told them about what had happened in that dark space, the moment that he had given up, fierce and determined in the face of Freed’s fears. “Not the Demon. Not Tartaros. But for us, and maybe it did not always look or feel like fighting, but that’s what it was.”
“You were always our Freed,” Evergreen had informed him, sharp with relief, her voice softened by the tears in her eyes before she’d pulled him into a tight hug. “You will always be our Freed”. The ‘no matter what’ had been unspoken, but as warm as the words as she’d whispered in his ear as she’d held him close.
“You know what hasn’t changed”? Bickslow had asked the first time he’d caught Freed staring haunted at his own expression, stepping into his space and not letting him flinch away as he’d done too often, as though afraid he would hurt them just by being there. The taller man had pressed close and reached out and rested a hand on Freed’s chest. “You’re still you inside, your soul isn’t marked, it hasn’t changed.”
“I’m theirs.”
It came out as a whisper, but there was strength in the words. A strength he hadn’t thought he had anymore. It wasn’t a sword polished to perfection, not yet, and maybe it wouldn’t ever be, the edge chipped and worn by everything that had happened, the battles he’d fought, both those he had lost and those he had won. And he had won, he realised. Not alone, not without cost or without scars, inside and out, but he was alive and healing, and...
“I have them… I have Evergreen, Bickslow and Laxus because you couldn’t take that from me, because they wouldn’t let you,” Freed wasn’t smiling, wasn’t sure that he had that in him yet, but there was something painfully close to hope rising in his chest. Giving him strength, letting him suck in a deep breath and find his way back up on trembling legs, feeling as unsteady as a newborn fawn as he wavered and then straightened, lifting his head to meet his own gaze in the mirror. Staring into his own eyes, one human one demonic, but both his, unflinching as he reached up to press a hand to the same spot that Bickslow had touched during their conversation. “And because of them, I still have part of myself that you will never have.”
For they make me human…