Chapter Text
“He’s literally gone radio silent.” Frank paced the Fish Eye before he kicked a table, glasses clattering and falling down. “Where the fuck is he? This is like the VNC tower all over again.”
Lawan shuddered. She didn’t know which VNC tower incident he was talking about: the one where the Nighrunners died or when Aiden climbed it with the Peacekeeper’s Lieutenant Rowe, but she knew how it ended either way - in death.
“That fucker. I swear to fucking hell, if that bitch lays a single hand on Aiden…” She clenched her fists, years worth of anger rising and culminating, all directed at her ex-boyfriend, Hakon, who was currently confronting her crush, Aiden, at a church. “I wish I’d killed him that day.” She hissed, thinking about the time she’d shot Hakon, who’d sent Aiden after her to investigate.
“I’m going to go after him.” She announced. She knew how to act around Frank, he was basically her adopted father. She couldn’t leave this up for question. Frank would do anything to stop her from getting into trouble, even if it meant putting himself in danger. He’d basically killed her after he found out she climbed the VNC tower with Aiden, and he wasn’t going to be any happier about the fact that Lawan was now planning to track him down again, especially since Hakon would be there.
She was expecting him to object, but Frank did nothing. “Fine.” He said defeatedly. “But.. will you kill Hakon?” Something about his voice sounded almost wistful and sad.
Lawan’s blood ran hot. How could Frank, the man that was basically her fucking father, still care about Hakon? The fucking traitor, who’d ruined the Nightrunners. The man who’d stolen her heart and mercilessly crushed it in her fist. The man who was working with the PKs and Waltz in order to destroy them.
“Of course I am.” She said darkly, her voice barely above a whisper. Hakon wasn’t number one on her hitlist for nothing. She would stop at nothing until he was fucking dead, and she was the one who killed him.
She didn’t wait to see what Frank said before she left, running to the roof and deploying her glider in order to get to the Church as soon as possible, flying over the hoards of infected and PKs patrolling the streets.
“Hakon… please.. I don’t want to fight you.” Aiden stumbled back, dodging another swing from Hakon’s fist.
Hakon swung again, snarling. “Too bad, kid. We aren’t friends. Never were.”
Aiden hesitated then. A life’s worth of emotions swept across his face. Pain, rage, anger, sorrow, something… else. Something deeper that felt all too familiar but still unexplainable. All Hakon needed to do in this moment of vulnerability, of weak emotion, was to swing his fist again and use the opportunity to take Aiden down.
Aiden was stronger than him, and they both knew it. It would be a matter of seconds before Aiden could have him on his knees, begging for mercy. Even less for him to end Hakon’s life. So why wasn’t he? Why wasn’t he doing it? Was he keeping Hakon alive to humiliate him? For embarrassment? But it felt like something more than that. This whole time, Aiden hadn’t tried to hit him once. All he did was back away and block Hakon’s blows.
“I thought we were.” Aiden replied. His voice cracked, and Hakon’s heart broke a little. “I thought we were friends. I thought we.. I..” He trailed off. Was that a tear dripping down his face? Did Hakon do this to him?
This entire time, his machete had just hung at his side, doing nothing. He hadn’t been able to raise it against Aiden. Why not? Why couldn’t he?
Hakon’s mind was spinning. He felt dizzy, like he was going to throw up. Everything he’d done… why did he have to do it? Why did he have to fight Aiden? His pilgrim?
And then everything was spinning more. Aiden… his pilgrim. Lawan… his little bird. And everything suddenly made sense, and his heart broke. Why did it have to be that he hurt everyone he loved? He broke Lawan’s heart, and now he was fighting Aiden. His heart panged. Why did he have to kill Lucas? Why couldn’t he and his pilgrim have left Villedor, left this mess, and lived by the ocean together? Instead, here he was, ruining any and every chance he had with the boy he loved, not that he’d even had much of a chance in the first place.
Hakon didn’t know if he fell, or if Aiden had finally hit him back, but suddenly he was down, on his knees, feeling sticky, hot tears trail down his face. Aiden stood above him, his fists curled into tight balls. Was this it? The moment he died? For a second he felt unrealistically calm. If he had to die, he was glad it would be like this. He was glad the last face he’d ever to get to see would be Aiden’s, because then at least he could die happy.
But instead Aiden’s face was across from his.
“Hakon? Hakon? Are you crying?” Aiden whispered. He lifted his hand up to Hakon’s face, gently brushing away his tears.
Hakon laughed bitterly. “Seriously, kid? I just tried to fucking kill you, and you’re worried about me?”
“Of course I am. I..” Aiden hesitated. “I’m worried about you. I still care about you. Even after everything. You saved my fucking life, Hakon.”
Hakon smiled. “And you saved mine. So we’re even.”
Aiden put his hands on Hakon’s shoulders, but then moved away. Hakon wished he’d kept them there. “Hakon?” He questioned. His voice cracked again. “Did you mean it? When you said we weren’t friends?”
Hakon hesitated. There was so many things he wanted to do right now… hug him, comfort him, fucking kiss him even. Instead, he just put a hand on Aiden’s shoulder. But that was all Aiden needed, before he was hugging Hakon, sobbing into his shoulder, running his hands down his back, through his hair, touching him in a way that someone who was just your friend would. And Hakon’s heart was going a hundred miles a minute, faster than it’d ever gone before, even when his 3rd wife proposed.
“Aiden…” He whispered, pushing the Pilgrim back, placing his hands on his face, tracing it delicately. “Can I tell you something that sounds unbelievable?”
Aiden nodded, touching their foreheads together.
“I love you.” Hakon admitted, and then they were kissing, Aiden pressed between the floor and Hakon, their hands trailing down each others bodies, Aiden’s legs wrapped around him, his hands playing with Aiden’s hair and Aiden’s hands sliding under his shirt, up his back.
This was everything he’d wanted and nothing he’d deserved all at once. It was heaven and hell and the best thing ever happening to the worst ever man. Did he really deserve this? Hakon, the betrayer, the murderer, the traitor, the heartbreaker, kissing the best person the world had ever seen, the man he’d just tired to kill, the Pilgrim that was now touching him like he’d die if he stopped?
And Aiden’s face was on his neck, and his lips were on his ear and he was whispering, “I love you Hakon”, “I love you Hakon”, “I’m sorry”, “I love you” and “Hakon” and everything Hakon had dreamed of hearing and everything Hakon wanted to hear and he was melting and maybe he could have this, maybe just this once, he could have his Pilgrim and his life by the beach and learn how to surf.
“Aiden, I love you. I promise, I love you. After everything that happened, I still love you. I’m sorry and I love you and I’ll do anything, everything to make it up to you. I need you, Aiden. My pilgrim...” Hakon croaked.
Aiden started laughing and Hakon’s heart dropped, wondering did I fuck up even more? , but then Aiden grabbed his face and said “Just promise to kiss me more. And teach me how to surf when we move to the beach.”
And then Hakon got to kiss his pilgrim the way he’d always dreamed of.
Lawan crept through the rotting walls of the church, her heart pounding. It was quiet. Too quiet. She expected to see something, Renegades, infected, PKs, but there was nothing there. The only noise was the blood rushing through her ears and the only things she could see were her hands in front of her as she grabbed onto the scaffolding of the building. She slowly crawled through a hole in the wall, emerging out into a balcony overseeing the main area of the church. Her heart plummeted. There was blood. Evidence of a fight here. Her heart started racing. She ran to the edge of the balcony, grabbing the crumbling wood with a killer grip, causing it to crumble, falling to the ground below.
But the two men before her were too preoccupied to notice anything. Hakon and Aiden were… her stomach lurched. She wanted to throw up, jump down from the balcony and tear Hakon apart. That fucking creep… How could he? How could he take advantage of Aiden like that? Her blood ran hot. What was this emotion? Was it jealously? How could Hakon take fucking everything from her, take the Nightrunners from her, take happiness from her, and now take Aiden?
No. No, no, no, no no. This couldn’t be right. It couldn’t be. Aiden would never do something like this. Aiden would never love someone like that. Aiden was too perfect to be kissing someone like Hakon the way he was now.
Lawan swallowed. It had to be. There was no way Aiden could consent to this. She raised her crossbow, steady her hands. She was saving him. She was helping him. She pulled the arrow back, adjusting her shot, aiming for Hakon. This was right. She was right. She was doing what was right, and she always would be.
She let go of the arrow.
This was right. The entire time he’d been in Villedor, Aiden’s heart had been torn. What was right, and what was wrong? Constantly having to choose between the PK or the survivors, the fate of a city he’d barely lived in resting in his hands, everything since arriving in Villedor had been a constant moral dilemma weighing him down. But right now, doing this, being here. This was right.
Aiden and Hakon, Hakon and Aiden, whatever they were, when they were together, it was right. It was like he’d been made to follow in Hakon’s strides, like Hakon could just reach inside his brain and find him. Like Hakon was always meant to be the brains behind their plans while Aiden was meant to be the brawn, bursting in and taking care of issues he couldn’t otherwise. Aiden was only half of who he was because of Hakon, and Hakon was only half of Aiden. Everytime he’d faced a moral decision, even after finding out Hakon had murdered Lucas, he’d thought to himself not what decision he would make, but what Hakon would do in the situation he was in. Even when he was angry at him, he found himself mindlessly reaching for his radio whenever he was alone, his heart begging to hear Hakon’s voice just once more.
And now he was here. With Hakon in his arms. And everything, anything that’d happened, before Aiden arrived or after, none of it mattered anymore. None of it mattered to him. The only thing that mattered now was Hakon, and who they would be. Who they would be together. Saving Villedor, finding Mia, defeating Waltz… none of it would be possible without Hakon by his side. And now he had him, finally, after hurting for so long, Aiden had Hakon right here with him, and he never had to leave, and they would be together forever, and live by the beach like he had promised and-
Hakon screamed. He grimaced, biting down on Aiden’s shoulder suddenly, harshly, anything to alleviate the sudden pain rushing through him.
“Hakon?” Aiden moved his shoulder back, blood leaking from the area where Hakon had bit him. But nothing about Aiden mattered, not when Hakon’s blood was pooling on the ground, rushing out from the place an arrow had pierced through his coat, buried deep into his skin, so that only the shaft remained. Aiden’s heart stopped. An arrow… something so similar… back when….
“Hakon. Hakon. Please. Hakon.” He stuttered, shaking him. “HAKON.”
Hakon was breathing heavily, his hand moving to the middle of his abdomen, his fingers gripping at his flesh. “I’m fine, kiddo-” He sputtered, between heavy gasps of air. There was a leak in his lungs, so that no matter how much he tried to breath in, it kept on escaping. “I guess- I finally got what I deserved-”
“No. Don’t say that. Please, Hakon. You deserve so much better.” Aiden grabbed his face, trying to get him to respond, but Hakon barely reacted. His skin was pale, as pale as a corpse, and his eyes were dilated so much you couldn’t tell brown from black. “Hakon. Shit. Hakon! Don’t die. Please. Hakon. I love you.” Aiden sobbed, pressing his lips against Hakon’s face, trying to keep him responsive. “Hakon! For god’s sake! HAKON!” He shook him, grabbing the arrow lodged in Hakon’s back, trying to pull it out.
“MERDE! Oh, merde, merde, merde…” Hakon finally responded, cursing in his native tongue. “Aiden, what the hell?” He groaned.
“Hakon, stay alive, for fuck’s sake. Stay awake.”
Hakon took another painful breath. “I’m trying.”
Aiden grabbed his radio, dialing Lawan, the person he could trust most other than Hakon. “Lawan- to the Church, please come, it’s an emergency-”
But he just heard his own voice echo across the room. He slowly looked down at the arrow, the identical arrow to the first time Lawan had shot Hakon, and then he moved his head, feeling like he was moving through molasses, until he saw Lawan, standing on the balcony, staring at him with an empty expression, his voice cracking from the radio strapped to her thigh and her shaking hands holding the crossbow that had just launched an arrow into the only person Aiden loved.
“Aiden..” Lawan started, desperate to explain, rationalize everything, stop him from hating her.
Sometimes, she and Frank would be at the radio station together, trying to hack into different frequencies in order to find leads on Waltz and the Renegades for Aiden. And whenever they did this, they would always hear them talking about a monster. The Renegades whispering about a barely human man with a mask and cold blue eyes that would walk into camps and take down 25 people at once without hesitating even once. A monster who would stop at nothing to get what he wanted, one who would start chases with the most dangerous infected for seemingly entertainment, a flash of lightning jumping from building to building, leaving a trail of death in his wake, an addict who would break into the most contaminated GRE facilities in order to take a single dose of a drug that killed everyone else that took it. They twisted what Lawan assumed were urban legends about Aiden, her Aiden, the kid she’d kicked on top off a roof top and that had chased her through a subway tunnel. And she never believed any of it, because she thought he was too good to do something like that. Too good to leave such a merciless trail of destruction everywhere he went. Lawan never saw the monster that the Renegades witnessed, the monster that anyone who crossed his path died at the hands of.
And now she realized that the monster who killed humans and Infected alike was very real, that the entire time she’d known Aiden it’d just been locked under the surface in a cage, and now she’d shot Hakon and let the monster free.
Aiden grabbed his radio with trembling hands, his grip barely managing to not crush it. He switched the frequency to Frank.
“Aiden- Oh my god, are you alive? You fucker, is Lawan with you? Is she okay?” Frank immediately started yelling through the radio.
Aiden stared blankly at Lawan. “Come to the Church now. Bring medical supplies.” He ordered. His voice was unsettlingly calm considering the look of pure rage he had locked onto Lawan.
“What? Is Lawan hurt? Oh god-”
Aiden wasn’t having it. “Lawan’s well being purely depends on how fast you come to me, and how good you are at treating arrow wounds.” He hissed. His voice was dangerous, dripping with bloodlust and barely contained rage. Frank tried to speak again, but Aiden simply turned off his radio, throwing it to the side with inhumane strength.
Was this how Lawan was going to die? At the hands of a fucking monster? The monster who stood where Aiden used to be? She couldn’t let it end like this. Time felt like it was slowing down. Was she destined to have her heart broken by pretty boys who ended up being assholes? The betrayal she felt was something more painful than the day Hakon broke up with her. It was so, so hard to fall in love again, and she did it, and now the person she’d fallen in love with was kissing the person that ruined love for her, protecting the person that ruined life for her, and now he was standing at here, glaring at her like she was a raw piece of meat on a shelf and he was a starving animal.
He gripped the gray machete at his side, raising it like he was going to use it, like he was going to kill her, and then he froze, like he was arguing with himself, Aiden and the monster, trying to decide whether to kill Lawan or leave her alive.
He dropped his weapon to the ground, finally looking away after keeping her locked in eye contact combat for so long. She expected him to say something, anything to her, to explain why he was here, why he was protecting Hakon, why any of this had even happened, but he turned away from her, and back towards Hakon.
She closed her eyes, feeling her stomach churn once again. She tried to pretend that she was still back at the Fish Eye, that none of this had ever happened, but the harsh smell of Hakon’s blood and Aiden’s broken voice echoing through the Church as he begged Hakon to respond to him kept painfully returning her to reality.
“Hakon, Hakon, please… I need you, Hakon.” He was crying. She didn’t think someone like Aiden was capable of crying, but he was, and it was because of her.