Archive of Our Own

War was a funny thing.

In every battle, there had been losses that were, in the end, fruitless. One side gained a short-term advantage, while the other side crumpled to its knees. The other side would beg for mercy, beg for a painless, quick death, if only for a brief sign of weakness.

It wouldn’t take long for that same side to rise back to its feet, clutching weapons like lifelines and hacking down its enemies in a massacre.

It wouldn’t take long for the temporarily-winning side to be pushed onto its backs like helpless turtles, wind stolen from its lungs. It took less time for it to feel the weight of swords and arrows in its chest, in its abdomen; it took lesser than to realise that death’s embrace held it in her merciless, cold arms.

Impulse wasn’t privy to death in the vain that some may be, even in these games. He wasn’t a fighter and anyone who had known him longer than a day would come to conclude that. He knew his way around an axe or a bow, but he would never use it to spill blood. He would never use it to harm someone, even if it cost him his life.

And maybe there was a flaw in that belief; some flaw that he had failed to realise, only to see when death’s glorious, unreadable eyes were locked with his.

“—ulse! Imp, hey, hey. Can you hear me?”

An avian, with a heart of strong, malleable gold; with dark, beady eyes that studied over his paling skin in panicked darts. Grian’s hand finds his face easy, his thumb brushing under the demon’s chin and shuddering at the crimson that stained the pad of it.

“G- I got them good, didn’t I?” Impulse chokes out, blood bubbling in the corners of his lips. “We got them- hah- p-pretty good. Th’y won’t recover from this. They won’t win —”

Grian hushes him.

“You’re right. They won’t, not on our watch,” he says, voicing breaking. He glances down at the arrow conveniently impaled in Impulse’s heart, spurts of blood staining the black shirt he wore.

Impulse pauses for a moment. He glances down at the arrow, a huff of a laugh escaping him.

“Right. I’m- out of the equation I suppose, huh?” He swallows, the thick scent of copper filling the close air between them. “G, I don’t- I don’t want to die.”

“I know.”

“Grian, I-” He chokes, wincing in pain. His fingers latch around the shaft in his heart, hissing as the metal tugged further into his weakening heart. “Was I a- a good right hand?”

There’s a pained noise from Impulse, and the avian realises that the demon is crying. Soft, dimming eyes, blurred by tears.

“You were the best,” Grian whispers, no longer fighting back his tears. His head hangs low, salt pecking his lips as he lets out a choked sob, his hands cradling a man who didn’t deserve to die. Grian tenses for a split second as a hand settles on his cheek, leaving a streak of blood against his freckled face.

Impulse is smiling.

“Come on, I don’t- want the last thing I see t- to be you cryin’,” Impulse whispers, voice raspy. Through weakness, his clawed thumb brushes away new tears, leaving soft red beneath Grian’s eye.

“Grian, hey.”

“I’m right here. I haven’t left.” I’m not leaving you. I’m not letting you die cold and alone. Not here.

The avian flinches as the demon presses his forehead against his. A finality. A silent goodbye.

The hand against his cheek goes limp, and Grian screams until his voice gives out into raspy sobs.

♥

The Southlands were in ruin. It wasn’t safe since the war began. Grian thinks, absently, it had never been safe. The life trading worked for only a few weeks before it turned into a massacre. There was an unease from the get-go, one that knew that this wouldn’t last.

One that knew that, in the end, they would kill each other.

It feels wrong to leave Impulse laying in the grass. It feels wrong to be digging his grave with a half-broken, wooden shovel. It feels wrong to lay his body under six feet of dirt, and for a brief second, Grian panics, thinking Impulse would suffocate under so much dirt.

And then he remembers.

Grian shuffles over to a broken crafting table, fixing a fencepost from the few pieces of wood he had, tying a stark, yellow bandana to the middle of it. There was a black, lowercase ‘i’ on the side of it, and Grian smiles slightly at it.

Right above the demon’s head is where the fence sits, beside buttercups and the head of a sunflower, already wilting from being decapitated from its roots.

Ironic, how beheading is so common in this world, yet it makes Grian’s stomach churn.

He finds a blank, somehow untouched sign in a chest after realising there was no indicator as to who lay in that grave, save for the bandana. He scribbles down Impulse’s name through trembling hands, forcing it beside the fencepost.

It was a poor excuse for a grave.

“I’m- sorry,” Grian chokes out, holding his small frame tight. “I wanted to make this better for you, but. Well.” He gestures to the rubble around them. Around him, he amends. He sits crisscrossed in front of the disturbed dirt, tired eyes studying the sight.

At the very least, he’d tucked in a gold coin that he used to carry on him. Good luck, for when he did eventually die, he could tip the ferryman.

It was funny how he would watch Impulse be taken across the River, and he would only watch. He was meant to do so in the beginning, anyway. It was funny how, despite everything, it would come full circle.

“You’ll wait for me, won’t you?” Grian shyly asks. The only answer is the howling wind, accompanied by the distant sounds of an explosion.

“Please do. Please. ”

Grian knew Impulse would wait. Impulse was loyal even in death. Impulse had stayed by Grian in the heat of battle, in the peace of their towers; Impulse had provided him supplies even when he’d been green, and Grian had been trapped in the vice of red life; Impulse had tended to his wounds before his own, apologising when Grian would hiss in pain.

Impulse — sweet, loving, beaming with a heart of gold — was dead.

And Grian had nobody but himself to blame for it. He’d been the one to suggest summoning a wither. He’d been the one to suggest the BEST castle. He’d been the one to arrive just when Scott, Pearl, and Cleo had gotten there. He’d been the one to instigate a fight with Martyn. He’d been the one to shoot Scott first.

He’d been the playing hand in the cards that spelt out Impulse’s name in death’s writing.

Maybe Impulse would be right to move on, to venture across the River Styx without his commander. Without his king. He had to have by now, reuniting with Mumbo and Jimmy — three of the five Southlanders, leaving the River behind them and dashing into a bright, carefree afterlife.

Grian crumples at the thought.

He would die alone. That was what the universe had written out for him. He would die, cold and alone, with only the knowledge that, even in the afterlife, he’d be stuck on the other side of the River Styx. He would watch with dead, dark eyes, as Impulse moved on. As Impulse forgot him.

He should have stayed watching. He shouldn’t have gotten involved.

He should have known heartbreak would be his ruin, and yet he still loved.

He was a fool. And Impulse was a genius who let him love him, even knowing he would die. That they would both die.

Grian walks away from the grave, leaving his love behind him. With it, his final farewell to the demon who lay below.