Work Text:
And in that long second, it hurt.
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There was hot pain, fire, rising, building up from his chest as he slowly realised.
He grasped the surroundings and quickly muted them out as a blur.
He did it, didn’t he?
Then why did it hurt? Why did it feel wrong? Like he had not accomplished anythi
anything
worse.
Like he failed.
Like he could have, but he-
He didn’t.
He had a chance to end this all, to finally get revenge, to save heroically, to do something good and final.
And he came so close.
And he failed.
He did not want to deal with another failure. But it wasn’t about his wishes, was it?
No, it’s all wrong.
No, he pushed the responsibility on luck, the playful, sadistic forces of the universe.
But the truth was - it was all his fault. The perfect oppoturnity. So close. Every move he made to this moment was nearly perfect.
And now the pawns were lying across the floor.
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They confirmed what he was struggling to realise, but knew already.
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He could hear his breath and focused on that.
Registered a scream. As he brought himself to think, was that his scream?
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The longest second in history.