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Larson limped blindly forward, towards the light. He sure as hell hoped it wasn’t the light at the end of the tunnel. The wounds on the left side of his torso, deep punctures where the beast had grabbed him with its teeth, were still bleeding.
The darkness was falling fast, now that the sun had set, and so the only light source shone brightly to his unfocused vision. He hissed in pain as one step on uneven ground made him stumble and pull at his injury.
But he couldn’t stop. He had to go inside the creepy sparkly door. He had to find Pierre. If Pierre had confronted Lara alone, he could be…
No. Larson would find him and get the damned Frenchie back to their hotel room, they would get through this, even though they definitely lost the Philosopher’s Stone. Whatever. Larson just needed Pierre alive.
He stumbled through darkness and through light, something shimmered and the air became colder and more humid. The ground sloped down, down, down a little and then– Larson hardly focused on the fact that he was sliding down at high speed because of the pain that blossomed sharply at the movement, gravity uncaring of his wounds.
Thump. He landed. And groaned.
There were flickering blotches, everywhere he looked. Dark, light, colourful… oh yeah he was dizzy. He stayed there, lying on the ground, and breathed deeply until the pain subsided a little and his eyes started recognizing shapes.
He was in a cave. Better illuminated than the courtyard outside, somehow.
Larson pushed himself to his feet with a grunt and stumbled forward, one hand on his bleeding torso. Pierre was up ahead, somewhere deep down there, he just knew it. He couldn’t stop until he found him.
It was a hazy mess, stumbling around, slowly but without stopping because Larson wasn’t sure he had enough energy to start moving again if he took a break now. His free hand traced the wall, it felt like stone but sometimes too smooth to be natural.
Something was lying ahead – a body? Larson blinked rapidly to clear his vision, there was a humanoid shape on the ground, sprawled and unmoving and…
Larson was hardly breathing when his vision finally cleared enough, but then he breathed a sigh of relief, tears sprung into his eyes from the jolt of pain as his lungs expanded and aggravated his injury. Whoever this had been, it wasn’t Pierre. The corpse looked like a – a gladiator? What the hell? And was there a dead lion over there?
Larson shook his head to clear it. He had to focus. Who cared about these corpses, they weren’t Pierre and Larson’s legs were buckling slightly – oh no, he’d stopped.
He gritted his teeth and forced one leg to make a move forward. There. Then the other. Alright. Soon the sluggish rhythm returned, he was moving forward again.
Until he stumbled and fell to his knees. He saw white and he gasped through the pain, eyes closing involuntarily. He started crawling. He saw little, he heard little. He could no longer hold his wound as he needed both hands to move forward, and the deep ache in his side was the clearest sensation in this all-encompassing haze.
Sometimes he rolled down a steeper path, sometimes he had to turn away from a wall. But he went on, almost in a trance. There was just pain and the moving of his limbs. One, two, three, four, all were working and that was enough.
And then he fell.
He stayed there forever. He was just lying, his previous injuries joined by the pain in his whole skeleton. He probably hit his shoulder and head and ass and everything else. He saw darkness and there was ringing in his ears and humming and mumbling. The ground was cold and just a little soothing, maybe he could keep lying there for another forever.
If only that mumbling didn’t intrude on his wallowing under a thick blanket of pain.
The mumbling sounded familiar – in a good way.
What was the voice saying?
He listened.
“-on.”
“-on.”
Something touched him?
“-on!”
“-arson!”
Was that…
“Larson! Are you awake? Larson!”
...Pierre? “Pi…” That was Pierre. “...erre?”
“Oui, oui, it’s me,” Pierre sounded frantic but a little faint. Was he alright?
“Y’alright?” It was dark. Black. Where…
“Hm, probably better than you.” Assessing, serious. Still couldn’t see him. But he was here. Alive.
“Came… save you,” Larson explained.
Pierre laughed. What a nice sound. And coughed a bit. “Silly you, in this condition?”
“M’fine.”
“Let me be… the judge of that,” Pierre tsked, he talked slowly, probably to make sure Larson understood with his mind still a little hazy. Hands roved over Larson’s body and he hissed when they touched the puncture wounds.
“Y-you are bleeding!”
“M’not fine,” Larson admitted.
“I can see… nothing in this darkness… we need to get out.” Oh. So it wasn’t Larson’s eyes. “Only… I don’t think we are… able to.” There was shuffling. Fabric?
“Yer not okay,” Larson accused and squinted his eyes to try to see at least some shapes in the dark.
“Non, I’m afraid,” Pierre admitted, holding something to Larson’s side, adding pressure. “I fell a long way,” he paused, breathed in and out shakily. “Both my legs are broken… and probably some more bones.”
Larson jerked up, hissed at the shot of pain flying through his body, but stayed sitting. “Broken?!”
“Hmm,” Pierre agreed, but he sounded more annoyed about it than worried. Well, Larson was worried now.
“’S not good,” was all he managed, still slurring a bit. He reached one hand to touch Pierre’s face. There was something wet and sticky at the corner of his mouth. Bloo-
“Yes, well… I was not sure… I would survive this fall,” Pierre leaned away from the touch, speaking almost guiltily. “This is…” he coughed again. It sounded wet. “This is good enough. But your wounds...”
“Ah survived too,” Larson pointed out, feeling around again, this time to take Pierre’s hand into his. Pierre had been expecting to die! Well, Larson wouldn’t let him.
“Yes, but we should… treat your wounds. I heard you fall. You… must have broken something too.”
“I’m guessing so, sure all my bones rattling.”
Pierre moved even closer, Larson still saw nothing but he felt it so clearly he could imagine every part of Pierre’s body, his arms and rough hands, his wide shoulders and that neat beard, his-
Larson swooned, and it wasn’t thanks to his Pierre-filled imagination. “Ah feel kinda...”
“Oui?” Pierre mumbled.
“Uh,” Larson’s head was floating, where was up and down? “Hmm…”
“Larson,” Pierre rasped, so worried, and Larson wanted to reassure him, but it was hard to find him through the haze and pain and his head flying all around. Pierre coughed again, and a few droplets fell on Larson’s burning skin. He tried to touch his face, what was it, it didn’t feel like rain, but before he could raise his hand–
Something warm and heavy fell on Larson, frightfully silent, but he had no time to think of it more because he passed out.
He was cold. And warm. The bed was hard. He tried to reach for the blanket. No blanket. Body. Warm. Ahh, Pierre. Larson would keep lying there, even half-cold and on a horrible bed, but something was wrong. It was stinging at first, then the pain registered. Shit, pain in his left side, was he hurt?
Those monsters!
Larson’s eyes shot open as he remembered. He was in a cave, less dark than last night, he could see well in the half-light. There was Pierre, sleeping on top of him. He looked well.
Che, Pierre always looked well. But now that Larson’s brain played over their reunion the night before, Pierre’s clear skin and no visible injuries were a wonderful surprise. He was sleeping with a relaxed expression and Larson swept a lock of brown hair to the side, grinning at the sight.
But the pain grew steadily, his side was throbbing and hot. Damn, he hadn’t treated the wound at all, they both fell asleep. Yeah, that was weird.
Pierre stirred. Larson stayed where he was, waiting, not rushing Pierre to wake up faster.
Finally the beautiful brown eyes opened, blinked a few times and focused on Larson. A tender gaze and a small smile whispering good morning, before his expression sharpened and Pierre glanced around. He must’ve remembered where they were too.
“Oh Mon Dieu!” Pierre hissed, straightening and he sat up, and then stilled. He glanced down at his legs. He touched one, hesitant at first, then flexed it and then the other.
“Larson!” Pierre exclaimed as he looked up. “Our injuries-” His face fell.
“Not mine,” Larson smiled through the growing pain, but even though the sensation twisted his lips, the warmth of happiness was spilling from his chest at seeing Pierre healthy. He couldn’t remember much from last night, it had been pitch black, but there had been signs that were, in hindsight, pretty bone-chilling.
But thinking of bones… those hurt less. Larson moved his left hand, he was sure he’d broken his wrist yesterday when he fell here. But there was nothing.
“Huh…” he only said, but it turned into hiss as Pierre uncovered his wound.
“I will do what I can before we try to find our way out,” Pierre announced, his voice strong and steady. He was okay, he was taking charge and making a plan. Larson was falling in love all over again and held onto his feelings as Pierre cleaned and dressed the deep puncture wounds with practised moves, as much as his small emergency medipack allowed.
Then Pierre left, briefly and not far, but the loss ached no matter how necessary it was. They disliked to be separate in unknown places when one or both were injured. But Larson should avoid moving more than necessary, so it fell to Pierre to explore the place and find the best way out.
Which he did. Not a path exactly, but not an outright climb up the steep wall either. They shuffled and clambered up a rocky slope, through a narrow passage and finally out – out of the pit at least. Standing on a level ground with very well-preserved stone tiles, taking a break mostly for Larson’s sake, they heard noises. Human steps with rattling metal. Then a gladiator marched from behind a corner, to make it very clear they they were not out of trouble yet.
They shot him until he was dead, before he got too close.
“Where did that guy come from?” Larson grumbled.
“He looks the same as some I saw yesterday,” Pierre assessed, “though I left none I encountered alive. There must have been more around.”
Around. Larson looked around. Was it the same place he saw yesterday, with the dead gladiator and the dead lion? They were gone now.
They went on, slowly, Pierre was supporting Larson with his own body, but soon they had to pull apart again to shoot – a lion.
“There were lions yesterday too,” Pierre mumbled, and his frown was the intensely thinking kind. He also took a look around. “I believe… I was here yesterday.”
“I was too I think,” Larson said.
“But one man and one lion should have already been lying dead here,” Pierre continued, taking in the room in every detail. “Something is wrong,” he turned on his heel quickly and marched back to Larson, “let’s get out of here, tout de suite!”
So they continued. They encountered a few more gladiators and lions, flesh and blood and simple – if not always easy – to kill. Larson caught Pierre staring at his own legs several times, a calculating stare that he was starting to understand.
Pierre had broken his legs. Pierre had killed the gladiators and lions. But now it was as if nothing had happened. Larson’s broken wrist was also nothing but a memory. This place was way too pretty in places, Larson had seen many old tiles and walls and how they looked after centuries exposed to air and moisture and hard-working arachnid decorators.
All of this seemed too new.
He couldn’t think for a while when they reached the last climb, not too steep but fairly smooth, so they had to focus on where to catch themselves so they wouldn’t slide back down. Larson’s wounds stretched painfully, but they were almost out of this damned place, and he even caught Pierre once when his partner misjudged his grip and almost slid down.
“Phew,” Larson half-sighed half-laughed when they reached the top. “I ain’t gonna repeat that anytime soon.”
Pierre snorted, head down and turned towards Larson so that his hair fell into his eyes, messy in a way that only happened during their adventures. Larson loved the neatly combed hairdo, but heck, he loved this look even more. “I will make sure,” Pierre said in amusement and then raised his head to look forward. “Just a few more steps.”
Larson also looked forward. There it was, the weird, glittery entrance, and the grassy courtyard was visible beyond, distorted by the wiggly air. “It’s safe, right?”
Pierre looked back, to the far wall above the slope. Larson followed his gaze and saw strange yellow veins on the wall – was that gold? They stretched and forked from one black dot in the middle. A hole maybe. A-
“That’s where the Stone was?” Larson asked bitterly. He’d known they lost it, but the proof of it stung anyway.
“Yes,” Pierre answered plainly. “And she is not here, so she had to exit this place – probably through the same entrance.”
Larson nodded. There went nothing. They pulled themselves to their feet and walked through together.
Larson gasped and heard Pierre do the same. They stood outside, unmoving, just breathing as they leaned into one another. There was… so much. The air ruffled their hair, the sound of birds and distant rumble of the city teased their ears, the grass and soil smelled fresh and only a little dusty. It was like their senses had gone dull down there and they hadn’t noticed until they emerged again.
“What in tarnation,” Larson frowned, but it didn’t feel bad once he got used to it. It felt right.
“Inside,” Pierre only slightly turned his head to indicate where they walked out from, “everything that happened inside disappeared. Our injuries, the men and lions’ deaths…”
Your death, a terrifying addition crossed Larson’s mind and his whole body went ice cold. He gripped Pierre a little tighter to feel the warm body, strong and alive.
Pierre paused, tightened his grip too. Larson wondered briefly, still shaken, if Pierre was aware of that last night.
“That place must be… in some sort of stasis. Or a time loop. We did well to get out of there before it reset again, who knows if it would have moved us back into the pit too,” Pierre finished his thought, his voice a little strained.
“I’m glad we stayed for one loop,” Larson said before he could stop himself and felt his stomach drop at voicing some of the truth from last night out loud.
Pierre breathed out slowly, carefully, and gave one tiny nod. Did he know then–
Larson thought of no more as Pierre turned to him fully and they embraced each other with a desperation of someone who could have lost this forever. They held each other for dear life, soaking in the knowledge that there were here, together, safe, alive.
Alive.