Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

You had been in a dark place when you joined the rebellion. Both literally and figuratively, considering you couldn’t actually afford to keep the lights on. But that was what this rebellion was all about, fighting against the upper classes who kept a choke hold over everything and everyone and then blamed those with nothing for not doing the same. Atlas brought people together and made promises, not of a perfect world but of a chance to try. That was enough in those days, it was more than anyone else had ever offered. You had no reason not to throw everything out the window and join him.

Then you met the man.

Not immediately. Sure, he gave you a cheery greeting and a handshake when he was first told you’d joined them, but that didn’t count as meeting him. Not really. That came later. You had a knack for first aid and a fire in your gut, so you’d go on foolish errands and dangerous jobs then patch up your companions at the end of the day. It wasn’t unnatural for Atlas to enter your orbit. He wasn’t one for leading from afar, and he was clearly impressed by what he saw in you.

You also had a habit of watching. Not overtly, you’d long ago learned the art of look busy while keeping an eye on everything happening around you. People didn’t really notice you, but you noticed much more of them than they wanted. It was second nature to do the same to the leader of mythic proportions. Afterall, there was so much hearsay, rumour, and propaganda going around about Atlas that it was only natural for you to want to see what of it was true. So you watched him when he was about.

He seemed to treat everyone on his side as a friend. On the surface. It was a ploy to get them to do as they were told. You started to notice him doing it after a few weeks when the spell had begun to wear off on you. Smiling with the most charming face and charismatic words while he gently made sure everyone did exactly as he wanted. They were all awe struck, hanging on his every word, while also being a little bit afraid of the undertones they didn’t notice their subconscious picking up on. It was a heady mix and made people his puppets. The people of Rapture no less, people hand picked because of their refusal to bow to rules and orders.

You were one of those people of course, and once you’d noticed how he worked you couldn’t let him do it to you. You met his gaze head on, even though it was uncomfortable, and you kept your shoulders square and you chin up. You met his pose with a mirrored one. As equals. Because while he was in charge you were still here only because you chose to be. You were still a free person of Rapture.

He seemed offput by it at first, lingering a moment too long before saying what he’d come to you to say. But you didn’t change your behaviour. You were industrious and dedicated and desperately trying to believe in this cause, with a decent amount of scepticism bleeding through sometimes.

The first time Atlas gave you a real smile, not a fake one to make him seem less threatening but a genuine one when you bantered back at him, you felt like you’d cracked a monolith. And found a man inside.

Eventually he started to feel more like a real friend.

And then something more. Genuine human connection was so rare down in the icy depths. Being able to talk with someone as an equal, as a person rather than a rival, was enough to remind you that all feeling hadn’t left you yet. Your emotions had been locked away for a long time. Atlas found the key. He never let you think the feelings were only on your side. By that point you were too comfortable with him to feel starstruck by that. He wasn’t the near-mythical leader of the only chance for justice anymore. Now he was just Atlas, someone trying very hard to keep things going.

You became his as easily as slipping into sleep. Easier actually, considering how common insomnia was these days.

You never even thought to hide it from the world. Let them see how Atlas cared for you. How you were his friend and his lover and his companion.

You peeled away his layers one crisis at a time, slowly revealing the true nature of the man beneath. As you did, as you exposed flaws and darkness and terrible truths, you began to understand that there would be no going back. You were by his side, for better or worse.

Probably worse.

Chapter Text

The bombs had shaken everything to its core. Timed perfectly for the moment the rebels were gathered to process a new acquisition of supplies. It was an inside job designed to cause chaos.

A noise louder than anything you’d ever heard before rang in your ears. The shockwave sent Rapture rattling far away from the blast. Furniture teetered then crashed to the floor. Unstable pieces of architecture crumpled, blocking off some paths or rooms. Something large and metal groaned and crashed not far away. Beams holding something upright, twisted and no longer suited to the job.

There was awful silence for a moment as every single person tried to understand what had happened.

Then the screaming began, people in pain and others afraid, only to be cut off by a second explosion. It knocked you to the ground in a heap and stole the air from your lungs.

There was no collective pause for shock this time, only shrieks of terror and cries of pain.

One voice stood out among all of the others. A voice that seemed to be able to carry above any din, any crowd.

“Alright that’s enough!” Atlas called, righting a table and clambering up on top of it. “Those who can manage it, get that wreckage moved. Anyone with medical skill help the injured. Everyone else, gather the supplies that can be saved and carry on moving them to the stores. What are you waiting for? Move!”

The rebels were far from a well-oiled machine, but when their leader spoke they listened. The calm demeanour of that one man was enough to bring down the panic of the entire hall.

The ringing in your ears had been replaced by the pounding of your own pulse. You glanced around, getting your bearings and trying to remember where you put your medical supplies. But your thoughts weren’t connecting in that department, so instead you turned your hands to righting the nearest table and gathering a fallen box of protein bars.

“Y/N!”

You span around at Atlas’ voice, looking for the source and noticing him weaving through the chaos towards you. “Are you alright?” has asked as he drew closer. There was real, genuine concern on his face and it shouldn’t have been as much of a thrill as it was to you. He had a hand clutching your arm tightly, a bit too tightly.

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine.”

“You’re covered in blood.”

You looked down, and noticed your clothing had turned red.

“I…”

“Look at me,” he demanded, but your eyes were glued to the warm red soaking you. “Sweetheart, look at me.” He grabbed your chin, dragging your face up to him. “Is it your blood?”

You tried to feel if you were in pain, but you were struggling to feel anything at all with all the adrenaline coursing through your system. The world seemed a little darker than it should.

“I think it might be.”

You didn’t realise the weakness in your legs until his arms were around your waist and pulling you to sit down on one of the benches nearby. Suddenly you didn’t think they’d hold your weight if he let go. He pulled up your shirt and swore, and you weren’t entirely certain he sounded like Atlas anymore. He pushed you hard, shoving you to lie on the bench rather than sit, and he was already balling up his own shirt to press against the wounds, calling orders to anyone he could catch eyes with. When he tried to look into your eyes again they were already closed.

There was a hand clutching yours so tightly it hurt. It wasn’t the only thing hurting, though, and this particular pain came as a comfort. A sign that someone was there. A voice muttered, but you heard no reply. Someone sat by your bedside, talking to themself.

“Reckon I always sucked at bedside stuff. Not had much call for the ‘handholding worrying about someone’ act, but still I feel out of my depth here. I mean, what do you say to someone who’s unconscious? What do you say to someone you love when they can’t hear you? Captive audience of sorts. I could unload everything onto you right now. All my feelings. All my thoughts. Not gonna give you that weight though. You could take it, I think, but I don’t want you to.

“Just wake up, ok? I can’t do this without you. Jesus, listen to me. Someone pretty smiles at me and I… It was never just that. You know that, right? You’ve always been more than just a pretty face to me. You’re the only person I have, I’ve ever had, that I can actually talk to. Just talk. Like me. So just… Just be ok, alright? Just be ok. Just wake up and tell me I’m a fucking idiot and that you’re not gonna leave me.”

It was a voice you knew, but you couldn’t quite place why. Something wasn’t right…

You opened your eyes and saw a face you would have known anywhere.

“I’m not gonna leave you.” It was muttered through uncooperative lips but his face lit up all the same.

“You’re awake! Hey, hi, hey! Thank Christ, you’re awake.”

“Atlas?”

“Hey there, darling.”

When you looked back later, once your brain was free of pain and grogginess, you couldn’t quite equate the man he’d been in that moment with the one you saw every day. All walls had been down. And his voice… It took you a long time to understand what had been so wrong about it.

You tried to move, to stretch a little and relieve some of the tightness in your whole body. Moving only made the pain worse, but you could localise it to your stomach. You couldn’t quite keep back the cry.

“Woah there, easy now, don’t move. You’re pretty banged up, it’s gonna hurt like buggery.”

“You don’t say,” you got out through clenched teeth, but you stopped moving. Mostly. You still managed to wriggle your arm out of the blankets enough to pull them back, exposing your banged torso, taking in the stark white.

“Like I said,” Atlas said, gently pulling the blankets back over you, “pretty banged up.”

“What was it?”

“Shrapnel. Not sure from what precisely. Metal, but that hardly narrows it down. Probably got it in the second blast, it was smaller but closer.”

“I didn’t feel anything.”

“Adrenaline’s a hell of a drug. With everything going on already you weren’t the only one who didn’t notice they were hurt right away. We got it all out and got you patched up. You’ll be fine in a while. Just need time to heal.”

He was holding your hand and it was so tender and soft that you could almost imagine how it would feel to be in a different life with him. A life where you could be vulnerable and supportive because the world wasn’t out to get you.

Almost.

But that was a dangerous thought hole to spiral down, so instead you defaulted to thinking about something other than yourself.

“Did they do much damage?”

He sucked in a breath.

“Not as much as they could’ve. And luckily the exterior wasn’t breached. A few cracks, so our toes got a bit wet, but nothing major. All patched up now. Reckon whoever planted the bloody things didn’t fancy drowning themselves as well as us. But it’s something we could have done without.”

“Who was it?”

His face momentarily darkened, the adoring lover replaced with a man on the warpath. The speed of it was uncanny.

“We’ll find out. Don’t you worry.”

Then the darkness was gone. You were getting used to it.

“You don’t have to stay, y’know. I bet there’s a hundred other things need your attention.”

He was shaking his head before you’d finished.

“They know where I am if anything urgent comes up. We’ve got people on repairs, people on clearing, people looking after wounded.”

“I’m sure there’s still someth-”

He held up a hand and cut you off mid word.

“There has to be some sort of perks to being in charge round here. I wanna be with you. See that you’re ok.”

“I’m alright.” You struggled to sit up, trying not to cry out at the stabbing pains in your stomach.

“That’s a bare faced lie,” Atlas said, leaning across to place a hand on your shoulder without a word about it, holding you down. “But either way, I still wanna be here. You scared me more than the rest of this shit combined.” He grabbed a cushion from his own chair and placed it behind your head, so you could sit up slightly more than you had been.

“Aren’t you supposed to be the great self-sacrificing hero?”

“I don’t have to be that round you, though, do I? That’s why we work so well.”

A wry grin from Atlas and if there’d been any evidence left in your life of any gods whatsoever you would have thanked them for throwing this man into your path; for making sure he wasn’t the selfless hero you thought he’d be. You didn’t want to be alone.

“You had me scared for a while there.” He was holding your hand again, placing a kiss to the knuckles.

He scared the shit out of you almost every day. All types of fear. Of losing him. Of losing yourself to him. Of being used by him. Of not being the person he thought you were.

But now wasn’t the time to tell him that. There probably wouldn’t ever be a time for that. It would be too real and painful to admit how serious you were about needing him. You settled for your usual light banter instead, no matter how out of place it seemed while you were lying in a bed (as you’d grown more able to process your surroundings you’d realised it was Atlas’ bed, the implications of which you didn’t want to consider right now) full of stitches, pain, and likely several kinds of medication.

“Don’t worry, you won’t be getting rid of me that easily.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. You’re a fighter through and through.”

For him. That’s what you were fighting for now. To have more of this. More of him showing you that you mattered. Mattered to him. The morality of everything hardly seemed to matter when you were in pain and he was holding your hand.

“Hold me,” you said, forcing out the words around a sob you were desperately holding in. He didn’t hesitate, slipping under the duvet and gently shuffling you over. You bit back the pain as you moved as much as you could, because it was worth the reward. Once he had enough room to lie in the bed he wrapped his arms around you and the world stopped. Everything but him was gone. You were tired. In pain. But he was holding you and abandoning responsibilities for you and you could feel his breaths as his chest rose and fell against your back.

What you wouldn’t have done for this person. What you would.

You could see why so many people followed him. But only you got to be with him like this.

You felt the tiredness come back in a heavy wave. You were going to be just fine. Atlas was here. How could you be anything else?

Chapter Text

You were banned from doing anything dangerous or physical for a while after the bombing. Not that the ban was strictly necessary, considering you were still healing. But that didn’t mean you were left completely useless. Your engineering wasn’t the best, but your medical skills were a little better than average. There was always someone in need of patching up.

When a group came back worse for wear after an encounter with some less than friendly turrets, you were ready to move into action.

You set up a station, though it hardly looked impressive. Medical supplies were dwindling just as much as everything else. But you had enough. You entered focussed mode, treating a few gashes and setting a few twisted or sprained limbs. It wasn’t anything you couldn’t handle, not after all the experience you’d gained since joining. You started to slow your brain down after that point, as the people were coming with less severe injuries and the pace relaxed.

Atlas knew that was the best time to seek you out, once he could see you were getting control over things. He didn’t say much though, you might have slowed but he was still busy going through everyone and giving them a few words to keep their spirits up. But he found the time to come close, speaking in a low voice.

“I’m glad you didn’t come with us today.”

“I’m grounded, remember?”

“Yeah, but… Look, I’m just glad you weren’t there.”

“You ok?”

He looked pale. Shaken, even.

“Yeah, sure. Today was a closer call than I’d like, is all.”

You put a hand on his shoulder.

“I’m just grateful to be able to help in some way, and that everyone came home.”

“Yeah. Just… It’s good to see you.”

“You’re going soft on me, Atlas.”

“Don’t let word get out, I’ve got a reputation to keep up.”

He gave your shoulder a squeeze and smiled slightly before walking away, looking something close to his normal self again. You turned to the woman who had just sat in front of you, and the nasty gash on her shoulder. It would heal just fine without the need of any of the more elaborate health items at your disposal, items increasingly difficult to acquire, so you decided to simply clean and bandage it. You took up a cotton pad, dipped it in water, and got to work.

“He’s a wonderful man. We could never have done any of this without him,” the woman said, gazing after Atlas. You paused your work, looking at the retreating figure as he strode causally through the group, one hand in his pocket as he called out encouragement to people he passed.

“He’s a born leader,” you agreed.

“You have his eyes.”

That stole your attention from Atlas and back to the woman in your chair. You didn’t know her well, but she’d always been quite kindly.

“What was that?”

“You and Atlas, you have the same eyes.”

“I… We’re not related.”

“I know, but you have them all the same. He gave them to you.”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean,” you said, turning your attention to look her over for head wounds or difficulty focussing. Nothing apparent, so you got back to dabbing the damp cotton pad onto her shoulder, wiping away the blood. She didn’t react to the sting, but reached up with her good arm to gently stroke your cheek, speaking a little dreamily.

“You’re each saying the same thing in your gaze. Telling the same story.”

She was probably in some sort of shock, you reasoned. It would explain the slightly strange tone to her voice. Or maybe the ADAM was finally sinking too deep into her brain. You dropped the cotton pad into the dish of water, discarding it, and took another which you lightly coated in antiseptic, using as little as you could as you cleaned the wound and mentally noting to keep a closer eye on her over the next few days.

“And what story is that, Winnie?”

The awe dropped from her face, replaced with sadness as she let her hand slip back down to her lap.

“Trying to be someone else. No doubt trying to be someone better.”

“We’re all trying for something better, aren’t we? That’s why we’re here.”

“That’s true I suppose. But there’s something behind his eyes that screams it. He tries hard to believe everything he says. He doesn’t always manage it.”

False. That’s what she was trying to say, even if she didn’t realise it. They were the eyes of a liar.

“How did he give those eyes to me?”

You picked up a bandage and a wound pad, covering the gash and securing the dressing in place.

“When you first joined us, dear, you were like the rest of us. Beaten down and angry but hopeful for change. Then he took an interest in you, and you changed. He looks at you now and you mirror him, like you’re trying to take on his struggles too. And it just makes me wonder who it is you think you’re trying to be, and who it is you’re trying to escape being.”

You tied off the end of the bandage and took her hand for a moment.

“You’re tired Winnie. We all are. That’s all. Get some rest.”

In truth, you just needed her to stop talking. To stop seeing so far into your soul. So you left her there, taking your supplies to the next person who needed a hand.

You picked up details of what had happened while talking to those of your patients who were up to it. Nothing exactly unusual, at least compared to what you were all used to, but it had been a close-run thing. General consensus was that it wasn’t a targeted attack, but it had come close to killing a few people. Including Atlas, who had only narrowly avoided getting shot.

When you were finally done you went to find him. It wasn’t a long search. He wasn’t in his office, which meant he was in his private room. Most people didn’t get more than a mattress or a sleeping bag, but the burdens were heavier on the head of the rebellion. It seemed fairer that he had a real bed, and real walls to hide behind at the end of the day.

You knocked on the door.

“Come in, sweetheart.”

You pushed the door open, finding a room in something close to darkness, lit only by a screen in the corner showing nothing but static. Not exactly cosy, but you were well used to this space by now. Atlas was sprawled out on his bed, cigarette hanging limply from his lips, but he still managed to crack half a smile when he saw you.

“How’d you know it was me?” you asked, shutting the door and letting your eyes adjust to the gloom.

“It’s always you.”

You had to give him that, considering it was probably true.

“Yeah, well, I heard you almost got murdered again. You alright?”

He chuckled. It was like he opened a seam in you and drained the tension out.

“Almost getting murdered is just part of the schedule these days. It’ll take more than that to shake me up.”

“Sure, that’s why you’re smoking alone in a dark room.”

“And drinking. Don’t forget that one.”

He dropped his hand off the other side of the bed, bringing up a bottle of cheap whisky and giving it a slight shake to illustrate the point.

“Well I can’t have you doing that alone.” You flopped down on the bed beside him, taking the bottle from his hand and giving it a hearty swig. You lay in quiet for a while, bodies pressed close. Sometimes you needed a physical reminder you still had him. You weren’t alone anymore. Winnie’s words went round and round in your head.

“I know I’m not looking my best, but you’re looking pretty drained yourself. Plus I can practically hear that brilliant brain whirring away. Something on your mind?”

Atlas noticed. Because of course he did. You were constantly reminded how difficult it would be to hide anything from this man. How privileged you were not to need to.

You took another slug of whisky before handing it back to him.

“Nah. Nothing new, at least. Just something someone said when I was patching them up. It’s got me wondering, that’s all.”

“About what?”

“If I’m still on the right track.”

“Life in the rebellion not living up to expectations? Sorry about that, I’ll have a word with the staff.”

It wasn’t an attempt to brighten the mood so much as a reminder that you were with someone safe, someone willing to make things feel brighter.

“No, that’s not it. I came here with no expectation, you know that.” You took his hand for long enough to squeeze it before letting it drop again. “More like wondering whether or not I’m who I thought I’d be.”

“And who’s that?”

He pushed the bottle back into your hand.

“I dunno, I… All I ever wanted was to be a hero,” you admitted. “Not sure if it was always for entirely moral reasons, but it was what I wanted.” You swigged at the whisky and wished it was something altogether less cheap in the bottle. “Sometimes it’s a little difficult to pretend I’m better than I am.”

“You seem pretty heroic to me. Patching up our injured fighters, going out on foolish missions. Comforting your poor, disillusioned hero. The picture of a perfect rebel.” His crooked grin suggested he was teasing. You didn’t mind. you preferred him like this, relaxed enough in your company to mess around.

“What else am I supposed to do? I can’t just disappear among the crowd anymore. You put an end to that the first time you singled me out in front of the others.”

“Ah but you liked it at the time.”

“Hell yeah I did.”

Neither of you said anything for a moment, lost to thoughts. To memories of a celebration, cheap booze and loud music, and the leader of the rebellion sweeping you up in his arms and kissing you for the first time. Neither of you had ever looked back.

Atlas looked at you.

“If you’re the hero, what does that make me? The villain?” The grin he shot you was almost animal. It sent a shiver down your spine, glimpsing into the calloused and world-hardened man behind the charisma. Once upon a time it would have spooked you.

“Thought Ryan was the villain here.” You offered him the bottle. He shrugged, as much as a man half-reclining on a rickety old bed can.

“Does there have to be only one?”

It was not the first time you thought you were seeing a side to Atlas that was carefully hidden from the world. The more you got to know the man the more you understood. Atlas was, obviously, not his real name. He was someone else. Someone darker. You were allowed to see that in these private moments when you watched his shields come down.

“No one thinks they’re the villain in their own story. But sometimes we have to be the villain in someone else’s.” It was your way of giving him an out, of excusing him for what he’d done in the name of something good.

He refused your verbal lifeline.

“God I wish it were that simple.” He took the bottle from you and swigged the whisky. “But down here nothing’s straight forward.”

And what could you say to that? To something that was, ultimately, a core truth of your existence. Nothing in Rapture was simple, not even at the beginning, let alone now.

“I know I don’t exactly go all in with emotions,” Atlas said after it became clear you weren’t going to say anything, “but having you around, by my side, makes every day easier to face.”

It was true that Atlas didn’t express himself all that freely. Sure he did a great line in charisma and revealing just enough to make others feels he was in it with them, but you were far closer to the leader than anyone else and you got to see just how closely he guarded his true feelings. The admission, small as it may have been, reminded you that you were both relying on each other.

“When all of this falls down around us,” you began, feeling in the mood for declaration, “because I have no doubt it one day will, I’ll still be by your side when we crawl out.” It was an oath the kind of which people didn’t make anymore. Not in the brutally individualist Rapture, and not in the bleak horrors of a fallen society. But you’d said it anyway.

He looked at you with so much softness that you wanted to melt. It was not a usual look on the man.

“Even if I’m its architect?”

“Are you planning on being?”

Silence spoke more than novels. You nodded, understanding. The closer you got to Atlas the more you realised he wasn’t the enigmatic underdog hero he portrayed. It was all an act. Which made sense, he had become a figure of mythical proportions. No one truly good existed in Rapture anymore. If they ever had.

“I’ll still be by your side,” you repeated as a reply. An oath. This was the man you had chosen to follow, and you would go with him into the depths of hell. Better that than not believing in anything at all.

Atlas stubbed out his cigarette in a dirty ash tray on the bedside table, placing the almost empty whisky bottle on the floor with its lid back on. When he leant back onto the pillows it was with an arm held out.

“C’mere.”

You didn’t need any more encouragement, lying down against his chest, his arm wrapped securely around you. It was becoming more and more difficult for you to sleep if you were anywhere but in his arms. You placed your ear against him, slowing your breathing and listening to his heartbeat. It proved to you that, whoever this person you had come to care for so much was, he was still real.

You woke up some time in the middle of the night, though it was always impossible to tell anything close to the time down in the depths of the sea. Atlas’s arms were still around you even as he slept. You looked up at him in the faint light of the screen still spewing static in the corner. You were still growing to know that face. Every detail. Every dent and mark and scar. You trailed a finger across his skin, tracing the shape of his jaw.

Atlas’ eyes opened, still full of sleep, but he smiled when he saw you looking up at him.

If only time would speed up. Let you arrive at the moment when you knew this man completely, inside and out. Where knowing him was easier than knowing yourself.

If only time would freeze. Pause this moment and never move on. Let you lay in the darkness and trace his features forever, never needing to leave that room. Leave those sheets. Let you live in a second when the outside world didn’t exist. When all you had and all you needed was him.

Time did neither of those things. It kept going at the agonizing pace that it does. Altogether too fast, but too slow at the same time.

Your hand moved from his face to his hair, dragging through unwashed strands and gently rubbing his scalp. Tension drained from him as you did. That would do for now, feeling him melt under your touch. Feeling him heal just a tiny bit for having met you.

There was a bump under your fingers. A line. You’d felt enough scars in your time. Too many. This one was straight and clean. Surgical. It wasn’t the first you’d felt on Atlas. You didn’t bring it up. Why bother? They weren’t unusual things. You were all covered in them. Inflicted by accidents and surgeries, by fights and weapons and even sometimes by the person bearing them. Scars weren’t unusual down here. You were all patchwork.

You didn’t let your fingers pause for long, resuming your gentle circles on his scalp. His eyes drifted closed and, once you were happy he was asleep again, you allowed yourself to follow.

Chapter Text

Quiet moments were difficult to find in Rapture in the days of the rebellion. They happened so rarely, days when you could forget it all and just pretend life was normal. Atlas insisted on making the most of them, doing as little as possible and being seen to do so. He said it was important that people still knew how to relax, and he had to lead by example. So he took you and a book each to sit somewhere quiet, letting everyone else see that today was a day to take a breath.

It was nice, moments like these. So rarely did you get to be so publicly calm with Atlas. Normally the sentiment was reserved for hiding from it all behind closed doors.

But the quiet was also a sign to your mind that it could turn to some of the work it wasn’t doing when you were busy. Processing some of what you’d been through.

There wasn’t any real way to know what triggered it. Could have been a sound, a smell, a thought. Could have been nothing but your own subconscious gently chugging away in the background, holding onto so much trauma that sometimes it overflowed. It built slowly, feeling just like having a bad day even though nothing had gone wrong, until suddenly you were either going to faint or die and you couldn’t quite tell which it would be.

You knew those thoughts and what they meant. It was almost like you were watching yourself, the logical bit of you detached from the rising tsunami of panic, quietly diagnosing it while your body prepared to fight for your life and you scratched at your chest, busying hands that felt useless.

“Atlas?”

You voice was so quiet that you weren’t sure he was going to hear, but you couldn’t draw in enough breath to be any louder. Ordinarily he wouldn’t have looked up, content to vaguely hum in response until you said something more substantial. But your tone said more than the one word, and you had his complete attention immediately.

“What’s wrong?”

You were shaking your head, unable to say precisely what the problem was, only that it was bad and it was now. Panic rose in your chest and the idea you might faint was beginning to feel likely.

“Not here. Not here,” was all you would say. He was concerned, but not panicking. It would be impossible to show him a single mentally healthy person in Rapture. He could tell the difference between a physical crisis and a mental one.

“Alright, come with me,” and he took your hand, book forgotten on the ground beside him, guiding you away from public and all the way to his rooms, the only place he was sure you’d be left alone. You felt the panic come and go as you walked, thinking you had a handle on it one moment only to find yourself crying and shaking the next. All you wanted was to be safe again.

The door shut behind you and you felt the moment you lost the battle against the panic. You fell against the wall, sinking to sitting and curling up to feel small, to feel protected. Atlas placed himself right in front of you, making sure you were looking at him.

“I need you to talk to me darling. I can’t help if I don’t know what’s wrong.”

“I… I think I’m having a panic attack.”

“Ok, ok, that’s fine. You’re safe here with me. Try and breathe. I know it’s hard, but you’re safe and you need to try and breathe slower. I don’t want you to faint and hurt yourself.”

You tried but it was impossible, your hands were still roughly massaging your chest, as though trying to reach the panic inside you.

“Hey, hey, look at me. Look at me. Is it alright if I touch you?”

You could barely speak, but nodding was something you could manage, giving him permission.

“Thank you. I’m just going to take your hands and put them in your lap, alright? You’ll hurt yourself.”

He gently pulled your hands away from your chest, placing them in your lap and then moving to place his hands on the tops of your arms. He held you tight but not painfully so; eyes locked with yours.

“It’s ok. Just breathe with me darling. In,” a pause and you tried your best to do the same, “out.”

He was so worried about you and so focussed on getting through this that other things started to slip. His voice was… It was still his voice, still twinged with that Dublin accent, but something else was bleeding through. Not all the vowels were hit the same way, his accent slipping away and showing hints of another one.

Beneath the panic attack, in the part of your brain that was disassociated from it all, you noted how odd that was. But that part of your brain was locked away from everything else, and you were still mostly trying to control your breathing and keep looking at Atlas.

“That’s right, sweetheart. That’s right. You’re doing really good. Just keep breathing. You’re safe here with me.”

You did your best, intently following along with the exaggerated breaths Atlas walked you through. All that mattered was his words and his breaths and his hands gently rubbing up and down your arms. The surge of panic began to subside, replaced with an all-consuming tiredness. Atlas watched the fear leave your face, feeling the moment your relaxed. His arms were ready for you to sag into them. He stroked your back and you sobbed out the last of the fear.

“I’m sorry,” you muttered into his chest.

“Shhh. No, you don’t have anything to be sorry for.”

“But I should be past-”

“Hey. No.” His voice was stern but full of emotion and it snapped you right out of your sentence. “We all have these moments. All of us. It’s not a sign of weakness. Never. So much in this world is awful and dirty and terrifying, especially down here. And you are so strong all the time. You take everything the world and Rapture and I throw at you without even flinching and… and to break sometimes it’s…” the fact that he was struggling to come up with the words might have helped more than even what he was saying, it served to prove his point. “It’s a sign that you’re still sane. That you’re still alive. That living is so important to you that you’re scared about losing it. There’s so much fight left in you. I know they feel awful, they feel like death, but the fact that you’re scared of that means you still want to be here. And that is a beautiful, sacred thing. Something even the darkest of days will not pry from you. Fear is not a weakness but a sign of loving something enough to be scared of losing it. Don’t you ever let this world teach you any different.”

Love. It crashed over you so hard you almost choked on it. Maybe it was life you loved. Or maybe it was him. Maybe it was having this person with whom you could exist in all of your possible states without fear of judgement. But what he was saying, and the kind, empathetic way he was meeting your gaze… You felt ok. Despite it all you felt ok. Or like you would be.

But you were tired. So tired. Like you’d run a marathon. And his arms were holding you so closely. He felt you relax, felt you sink into him arms and give in for the night. He rubbed a hand gently over your back.

“Time for sleep, hey?”

“Mmm.”

“Alright.”

He helped you out of your clothes and into some more comfortable ones and you sank onto his mattress, cuddling up against Atlas and feeling grounded by the familiarity. He turned out the lamp and the only light was a line creeping in under the door.

“Thank you,” you whispered to the night. He just held you a little tighter and pressed a kiss to your lips.

Chapter Text

Morning came. Or something you could almost call morning, when the daylight started to slowly drip down from the world so far above. It felt close sometimes. If only the world knew you were there. So close that boats and planes were drifting overhead. If only they knew so many lives were tilting on the edge beneath them. Would they rescue you?

“How are you doing?”

It wasn’t clear what it was. Many things, probably. His accent was the last piece, the way it had changed when he’d been worried about you, but it wasn’t that alone. Many things, details building up in your head for so long, lined up. And at last you couldn’t ignore it anymore. Your brain put the pieces together quite against your will. You looked at him and you knew. Knew just who this man was.

Somehow, you weren’t afraid.

“I’m good,” you said with a carefully constructed smile. It was almost true. Just as anyone who said they were good in Rapture was only ever, at best, almost telling the truth.

He kissed you and you wished you didn’t understand things now. Wished for a moment he was still a mythical figure.

“I have to go, but you can stay here if you want.”

“There’s probably something I should be doing.”

He grinned. Was that really the man you knew, or just a show?

“There’s gotta be some perks to shacking up with the guy in charge.”

He left you with those words and a final kiss. You stayed in bed longer than you had in a long time. Thinking. Going over all the evidence you had and all the explanations and coming up with the same answer no matter how you framed it.

How long could you sit with it? Live your life with all of this knowledge? With that one name ruling over your thoughts.

Not long. Two days, it turned out, and that was just because Atlas got busy suddenly with half-formed plans he hadn’t shared with you yet and you found you only ever had half his attention, and no real desire for the rest of it. The truth was still settling with you. All its implications and complications.

Come the next evening you knew you’d already sat with it for too long. Knew you were going to blurt something out to anyone but the right person unless you did something.

So you went to find him, huddled up and muttering things with a small group. He saw you coming and smiled reassuringly, but you didn’t feel particularly soothed. You came up close to him and muttered low so that only he could hear what you said.

“Can we talk?”

He picked up on your energy quickly. He always did. He kept his response casual, even though nothing fun had ever come out of a request like that.

“Of course, I’ll only be a minute.”

You hung back and let him finish his conversation. He wrapped things up quickly, stepping out and nodding his head towards his private office. Somewhere you would never be disturbed. He shut the door and you drew in a breath. Before you could start anything however, he held out a hand to stop you.

“Based on that look on your face, I’d wager this is the kind of conversation that goes smoother with a drink. Am I right?”

The idea of taking the edge off had a certain appeal.

“Probably, yeah.”

He moved to a framed poster, moving it aside and revealing a hollow in the wall, pulling out a bottle of wine. It had a cork rather than a screw top and was decidedly fancier than the usual stuff, but knowing how things worked down here that didn’t matter. You took what you could get, and it seemed in this case it was fancy wine. Atlas pulled the cork and then swigged straight from the bottle before offering it to you. The wine was cloying and syrupy. Not your preferred but there was no chance of you turning it down. You took a breath, trying to get some words out. Atlas just watched you with unwavering eyes.

“I’ve been thinking.”

“Always a dangerous pastime.” The retort was shot back with no hesitation or humour. It was an attempt at keeping things at least jovial in appearance though and a wave of guilt hit you. Did you really want to do this? To put all you had, as little as it was, on the line. And for what? Just to let him know you knew? Why were you doing this?

The name sat on your tongue again and you remembered. You’d go mad without asking him. So you forged onwards.

“Remember when I got hurt? After the bombing.”

His eyebrows drew ever so slightly closer together, clearly that wasn’t what he’d expected.

“Course I remember. Think I’d forget a thing like that? You got blood all over my best shirt.”

“This isn’t a joke, Atlas. I’m serious.”

The fake smile he’d plastered on vanished.

“I remember.”

“Well, when I woke up, or rather as I was sort of almost waking up, you were talking. Not to me, and not to anyone else. And, well, I guess you didn’t realise I could hear you because you were talking and it was you all the way through, but something was off. And yesterday when you were talking me through everything I heard it again. You’re good at it, you’re really good at it, but when something takes your full attention your voice slips and someone else comes through…

“And I know Atlas isn’t your real name, and hero maybe isn’t your natural state, but to lie about your accent. Your voice. That’s something fundamental. Something at the core of you.”

“We’ve all been through a lot. No one’s who they used to be. What’s your point?” He was being defensive. You couldn’t blame him. This was, after all, an attack of sorts.

“You have scars, too. Lots of them.”

“So do you.”

He would not let you forget that he knew every inch of you. You felt the hairs on your arms standing up and desperately fought back the shiver you felt building in your chest and threatening to travel your body. You would be strong. You were strong.

“Not like yours. They’re not from wounds, they’re from a scalpel. Carefully made and hidden. Behind your ears, in your hair. Tiny little scars concealed from view. The sort of places only a lover would ever find.”

“What are you saying?”

“You didn’t always look like this, did you? You weren’t born into this face. It was made for you. To disguise who you were. Are.”

He didn’t say anything in reply, which in itself said a lot. It meant you were onto something. Something he hadn’t prepared a lie to cover. You took a deep breath, prepared to tear down the only pillar you had left in this life. Because even if you were wrong there would likely be no coming back from this.

“You asked me once if you were the villain in this story.”

“I was joking.” It was a quick deflection made in a flat voice.

“No you weren’t. But I let it slide because that’s just how we work. We let things slide between each other, because it’s hard keeping up the act of being good all the time. And I know that. But you’re someone you don’t want us to know about. Someone we know as a villain. And if you’re not Ryan…”

“There’s a lot of villains down here, love.”

“So which one are you?”

An enigmatic grin and you remembered what it felt like to be on the receiving end of the full Atlas act, all charisma and promises, back when you were a new recruit and he didn’t know your name yet.

“I’m Atlas. That’ll do, won’t it?”

“Not anymore. There’s too many pieces to the puzzle now and there’s just one name I keep thinking over and over.”

All real emotion was gone from his face, he was entirely fake calm and you hated it. Like looking into the eyes of a mask. You had to pretend you weren’t shaking just to be able to summon the bravery to keep going.

“And what name might that be?”

It was there. On the tip of your tongue. Right where it had been for almost two days. You could feel it, taste it, all you had to do was get it out.

“Well, Y/N?”

“Frank Fontaine.”

A brief moment when something flickered deep within his eyes, but the façade never faltered.

“Frank Fontaine’s dead, remember. Got shot.”

“That’s what we were told. Who’s to say it was true, though? It’s easy enough to fake a death when you’ve got all of those resources. To have a doctor rebuild your face. Lord knows there were enough down here with loose enough morals to do it. Then you just gotta put on an accent and say the right words.”

“That’s one hell of a theory. Wild, even by my standards.”

“If I was losing a war with Andrew Ryan then I’d want to find a new way to tear him down. An angle he never saw coming. It’s a long con, but while this rebellion is good for the people it’s also good for anyone who wants Ryan gone. Who wants to build a power vacuum and step right into it.”

Atlas just looked at you. If you were to name the look on his face you would have called it admiration. Even love.

“You really are brilliant, y’know?”

It wasn’t Atlas’ accent he used.

“So I’m right, then?”

“Course you are. You know that.”

Blatant. He hadn’t even tried to pretend otherwise. This was Frank Fontaine, alive and well and alone in a room with you. This man you had grown so very close to, in the quiet moments when it seemed all masks were put aside and you were each allowed to be exactly as broken as you really were. You weren’t afraid though. You had made peace with the possibility your theory was right before you’d even considered asking him.

Silence stretched out, each of you trying to think what this meant. What the next move would be. You scuffed the toe of your boot up against a table leg rather than look at him.

“Were you ever gonna tell me?”

“I thought I just did.”

“Don’t play with me, Frank. I mean without me forcing your hand.” It was odd how easily you’d switched to calling him Frank. It felt right somehow. To finally have a name to call him. A real name. He sighed and took a long draught on the merlot. It was something like a comfort to know that you’d unsettled the man who was never rattled.

“I dunno. Probably not. Least, I didn’t plan to. But… Well, you’ve always had a way of making me loosen my tongue. There were a few times I reckon it almost slipped out.”

“Are you mad at me, then?”

“That you figured it out? Not really. Can’t say I’m surprised, I kinda knew this was coming. You’re too observant for your own good sometimes. I should probably have been putting you to better use than I have been.” He should have been angry. Or something worse. He wasn’t. It would have been easier if his voice showed anything other than the boundless affection and awe that laced his words.

“I’ve got better access to you than anyone else. You could hardly keep the act up flawlessly when we’re sharing a bed.”

“It wasn’t sharing the bed that was the problem. I’ve shared more of my thoughts than was sensible.”

That was true enough, but you didn’t want to say anything, lest you somehow taint the idea that your evenings speaking so candidly together were anything less than a saviour to both of you.

Silence again. It was as though you were both battling to prevent the conversation moving forward because you didn’t think you’d like the conclusion.

“Y’know…” Frank began slowly after the pause, “you’ve really gone and fucked up everything for me.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that.”

“No you’re not.”

“No I’m not.”

“So if you’re so smart, what am I supposed to do now?”

You shrugged, plucking the bottle of wine from his hand and swigging, trying to calm yourself.

“Keep going. Plan hasn’t changed. And even if it has, it’s a shitty plan if it can’t handle adaption. You’re in way too deep to back out now.”

“And just let you wander around with a ticket to destroying me? Sounds careless.”

“I have no intention of tearing you down, my dear. I’m in too deep for that. No matter how messed up it seems it’s becoming, I still care about you.”

“I thought you had your own agenda. Being a hero and all that.”

“That’s not been the plan for a while now. I’ve just been going through the motions. What I need is something to believe in, and a long time ago I decided it would be you.”

“No you didn’t, love. You believed in a cause. In the man leading it.”

The wine was passing between the two of you almost with every sentence. Back and forth, like a lifeline. A single piece of proof you were each as unsettled as the other. You were each still human.

“And then I kept believing even when I knew there was something darker in those eyes. I made a promise to you, to be by your side even through our downfall. I didn’t do that lightly.”

“You promised Atlas,” he pointed out mildly, but you shook your head.

“I promised the man behind Atlas. Whoever he was.”

If he kept looking at you like that – like you’d hung all the stars in the far away sky – you knew you’d never leave him.

“Do it with me,” it almost sounded like a plea.

“Do what?”

“Everything.”

You thought about it. Only seconds passed but you thought about it all. Thought about the rebellion and all the good causes you could fight for. Thought about every single time you’d ended up with nothing. About who you’d been; who you’d thought you wanted to be; who you’d become. About good and bad and the reality of trying to exist in the face of both.

About what you wanted.

You locked eyes with him.

“Alright.”

His lips on yours were as gentle and loving as you’d ever felt them. He pulled you into his arms and curled you up there.

“You’re trembling,” he murmured against your neck.

“I just accused you of being a well-known dead criminal. Excuse me for being worked up about it.”

“And here was me thinking it was my raw sexual magnetism.”

“When you’re having a good day.”

The joking eased the tension from you. Things felt more natural again. You had a moment to think.

“I’m not sure I’ll ever get my head around you being Frank Fontaine. I reckon I can live with it, but it may never quite settle with me.”

“Give yourself a chance, sweetheart. It’s only been a few minutes.”

He was slowly walking out of the office, through the adjoining door to his bedroom. You were following, holding onto his hand.

“But Fontaine is some mythical figure. Big and martyred and out of reach. You’re… you.”

You could tell by the amicable quiet that he was thinking about teasing you, but a slow exhale and the idea had left him. His mood was quieter, tamer. He was guiding you to sit on the edge of the bed. This wasn’t how you’d expected this conversation to go. But being with him was so easy and living was so difficult sometimes. And he made you feel cared for.

“I wasn’t always him, y’know.”

“No?”

You were too drained to summon any real emotion about that. Frank slowly traced his fingers across your scalp and you settled deeper into comfort, sinking back into his arms. Into the bed. How could loving this man be monstrous when lying with him made you finally feel safe?

“Nah. Frank Fontaine was just some guy who looked like me and had an in where I wanted one.”

“What happened to him?”

“Nothing good.”

You nodded, understanding enough not to ask any more questions in that vein. Life was dirty. Always had been.

“So who were you before?”

“Just another name that wasn’t really mine. Had a long string of those.”

“Ok, let me rephrase. Who were you before you were anyone else? Who were you first?”

“Who were you?”

You bit your lip. Hypocrisy settled on you like guilt. No one was being entirely truthful down in Rapture. Frank noticed your expression and relented.

“Sorry, that was unfair of me. Truth is I didn’t much like who I was born. Wasn’t worthy of anything but pity and charity. So I’ve spent all my days trying to build up something better. Prove I ain’t that same damn kid.”

You couldn’t imagine Frank Fontaine as a kid. He was as you found him before you, and imagining him to be anything else felt alien. You curled up further into his side, and Frank held you tighter on instinct.

“Have you managed it yet?”

“I think I went beyond that a long time ago. Don’t remember who I was trying not to be or who I rightly am.”

“Is your name really Frank?”

“Yeah, yeah that one’s true. The only thing I’ve brought with me all this time.”

“Then you’re Frank. My Frank. That’s all I need you to be.”

“I think I can manage that one.”

You hummed in reply, pleased and sleepy. He said nothing more and you finally let it all go and slipped into sleep.

Chapter Text

As much as Ryan had wanted Rapture to be just like a ‘real’ city, there were some things that could never be the same living deep beneath the ocean. The one you’d never considered before being faced with the reality of it was looking out the window. Not just the view, either, because somehow that never got old. It was more the windows themselves. The glass was good, but ultimately it warped everything just a little bit. It was a little bit too much like living in a fish bowl. If you saw someone looking out from somewhere else in Rapture, looking back at you, they would never quite look human. Everything was slow and alien.

What better way to try and readjust to life knowing what you did now than to watch it all go by?

The window you now looked out of was so large it was more like a wall, designed to make sure you could never forget just where you were. You were enjoying the solitude, pretending for a moment it was just you and the fish.

You could never escape anything in Rapture.

“There you are. Thought you’d run off on me for a second.” You turned to see Frank, wandering towards you, hands shoved casually in his pockets.

“Never,” with a smile was all the reply you gave. That was enough. He took up vigil beside you, picking up on the mood.

You stood there for a few moments. Watching the neon signs, flickering now and then but still proudly bearing the name Fontaine. Now that you knew who Frank was you were feeling close to crushed by his presence. You couldn’t escape who it was you were devoted to. Billboards and signs and fliers and bright lights drilling his name into your mind. Fisheries. Department store. Futuristics. Home for the poor. Everything imaginable had a variant with his name stamped on it.

It was impossible to miss once you started looking. And you couldn’t stop looking now.

“You used to own this place. Half the city was yours.” You couldn’t tell if awe or fear came over most in your voice.

“It was never enough though, was it?”

“But… Frank, you had everything”

“Maybe.”

You could just make out the shapes of people moving in a tunnel a little below and opposite. Splicers probably, but the warping made it hard to tell. Everyone left in Rapture teetered on the edge of monstrous.

“Do you ever think maybe we’ve been gone too long?” you asked.

“Gone from where?”

“From the world. Up there. I’m not sure I’d recognise it if we went back up. Maybe we’re better off down here, cockroaches in a sinking tank.”

“That’s a mightily depressing speech, love.”

“Sorry. Just sometimes this place… it gets to me. The weight of all that water above us, crushing down. We’re so far away from everything. I don’t even know if I remember what the sky looks like.”

He put his arm around your waist, gently urging you closer to him.

“We’ll be ok. I’ve got it all planned out.”

You pressed a kiss to his shoulder, taking a deep comfort from feeling how sturdy he was when you felt like floating away.

“Are you lying to me right now?”

“I’ve always lied to you, remember?”

He turned to give you a grin, somewhere between joking and façade. Trying to comfort you. You watched a shoal of fish glide past the window and felt a sense of calm. For a moment you weren’t trapped beneath the waves in a twisted version of one man’s dark vision, you were just at the aquarium with your lover.

“Why’d you do it?” you asked, casual tone not really reflecting the serious question.

“Which part precisely?”

You trailed your finger across the glass, tracing the path a squid took in your line of sight.

“The bit that came before this moment but after you faked your own death.”

“And which fake death was that?”

He was deliberately avoiding the question but you sensed it wasn’t because he was unwilling to answer. Almost the opposite really. He was letting you know, in a gently indirect way, that his past was far more complicated than you could know. How many lives had this man lived? How many people had he been before he was Atlas? Before he was nothing but your Frank.

“Your death as Frank Fontaine.”

He rolled his shoulders back, trying to loosen them as he was reminded of the weight this venture had placed on him. None of this was ever supposed to happen.

“Ryan was breathing down my neck, never giving me a moment’s peace. I couldn’t back down, but I also didn’t see any other way forward.”

“Seems a bit extreme if you ask me.”

You refocussed your eyes from the water outside to the reflection of you and Frank in the glass and watched him shrug.

“Ryan and me have been at war for so long and neither of us was gonna win if we kept playing like we were.”

“So you became a hero instead?”

He scoffed.

“Took on the role of one I s’pose, but I’ve never had a heroic bone in my body, not really. Ryan neither, I’d wager. Not sure which one of us was ever the good guy in this fight.”

“Maybe there isn’t one. You know what they say about war,” you said, catching eyes with Frank in your reflections.

“Ain’t good for nothing?”

“Well, that too. But I was gonna say that it doesn’t determine who’s right.”

“It determines who’s left. Yeah I’ve heard of that one,” he finished for you.

“I don’t know about you, Frank,” you said it quietly, conscious of using his real name in the open, but the way he smiled when you did was worth it, “but I’ve put in far too much effort not to be one of the ones left.”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

The sounds of raucous partying drifted through the empty corridors, filling the quiet between you. People taking a moment to forget about all the horrors and the hardship. People given a glimpse of hope by the man beside you. A poster gently peeled on the wall: Fontaine’s Helping Hands. The metaphor was a little too on the nose.

“Y’know, for someone who refuses to be a hero, you’ve done a hell of a lot of good down here.”

“For all the wrong reasons.”

“Still did it. I don’t think it matters to them what was going through your head at the time.”

“Maybe. I’ve done a hell of a lot of bad, too, though.”

“We’ve all done things we aren’t proud of.”

He grinned, pulling out a cigarette and holding it between his teeth.

“Never said I wasn’t proud of it. I built a hell of an empire from nothing. Stepped on a lot of people to get there, but that’s just the game.”

“And yet here you are at the bottom with me.”

“Ain’t nowhere I’d rather be right now.”

The sentiment hung in the air for a moment, each of you happy to sit in the thought of wanting to be together. Unwilling to let the genuine feeling go and return to the conversation.

Frank was the one who broke it.

“All this talk of heroes and villains and what we’ve done… You’ve gotta stop trying to save me, sweetheart. There’s nothing but blackness in this soul and I’ve no intention of changing.” He offered you a cigarette but you declined. Rapture air was foul enough already.

“Didn’t ask you to. But if I’m with you to the end then I’d rather you remember that you’re just as human as the rest of us. You’re no angel, but you’re not a monster either”

Fontaine looked back out at the dingy ocean before you. The neon light of his old assumed name casting an eerie glow on his face.

“You’re my only saving grace, d’you know that? I didn’t have any before you, it made doing whatever was necessary so much easier. But now… I didn’t ask for that.”

“Yeah, well all I asked for was a scrap of hope in this life, I didn’t sign up to fall in love with you.”

“You love me?”

There was no real sense of surprise or shock in his voice. He didn’t look away from the watery world passing by in front of you, bright lights occasionally flickering somewhere in the gloom as Rapture went in and out of power cuts.

“For my sins.”

Neither of you looked towards the other, but Fontaine reached down and took your hand. Smoke from his cigarette gently swirled around you both.

“Only reason I know I still have a heart is because it belongs to you.”

That would do. In all the darkness and the horrors of this life you’d ended up living, that one fact would be enough. To know that this man was yours. That he loved you. Frank took the cigarette from between his lips, puffing a cloud of smoke in the opposite direction, before turning back and kissing you.

Your hand stroked through his hair while he held you to him.

Yes, this would do.

Rapture was designed to prevent closeness between people. Everyone down here came because they believed a society with no rules and no responsibility to anyone else was somewhere they could thrive. You’d certainly believed enough in individual merit that you’d thrown all you had into this hell hole. Or, at the very least, it had been a different enough promise to bet your life on.

And yet still here you were, fighting a war to try and make things better. For everyone.

You’d decided you wanted to be better than you were. And you were trying. Teaching yourself, one choice at a time, how to be a good person.

Somewhere along the way you’d found yourself really caring about someone else for the first time in a long time. And he cared about you. It was so completely against the ideals of this city, and yet you were doing it anyway

And that felt like more of a rebellion than anything else you’d done.