Work Text:
Ninler has no reason to live.
There never was one. Surrounded by friends, under a scattering of stars, with blood on his hands and in the smoke of battles, the very fact of Ninler's existence didn't carry and doesn't carry emotional value, and this indisputable fact has been unshakable for years. Ninler is an empty shell, a shadow of memories; he is a faded reflection on a dagger and extinguished coals in a fire, but not a friend, not a brother, not a son, or a loved one, and he has come to terms with this reality long ago.
That is why, when Anmicius pulled him out of the wreckage of the spaceship, bandaged his wounds, and looked anxiously at his face, searching for an echo of pain, worried, giving meaning to his existence, Ninler only wanted to die on the spot in a second, so that the vomiting would stop rising in his throat at every touch. Anmicius is too alive, too warm; he makes a lot of noise, he burns with touches, he glows from within until eyes burn and lungs are stuffed with words like thick cotton wool, not allowing one to breathe. Anmicius rings in the skull with a deafening pain; there is too much of him; he makes Ninler's head spin, and Ninler silently looks at him, listening and wincing, holding his breath and suppressing nausea, and he feels bad and bitter in every cell of his immortal body. This feeling burns, poisons, and spreads like mold patterns from within, and the longer they are together, the worse it gets, because Anmicius is a savior, but not Ninler's savior, and this fact presses on his brain with hot needles to the point of agony every time he thinks about it. Anmicius is kind to everyone, shines with everyone, and his smile is equally radiant and dazzling for everyone, and that is why it is so sickening, so bad, so unbearable that Ninler's heart still trembles every damn time involuntarily, even if his entire being screams loudly in his consciousness that there is nothing more beyond this.
Ninler doesn't exist. There is only his immortal body for orders, a vessel for communication with God, but nothing inside except for a boundless and devouring emptiness, and therefore for Ninler there is no love and happiness in this world. Ninler has no value. And when a chance is given, when a choice arises between the living and the dead, between the all-consuming warmth and the bottomless cold, he doesn't think for a second. Because Ninler is not held by anything and no one, and he can give his life in exchange for someone else's if it means that he will finally die with benefit. And he probably doesn't even feel the pain when the blood fills his lungs and his back hits the stones with a crack, because the ringing in his head suddenly disappears, there are no hot needles and no mold anymore, extraneous sounds disappear, and in complete silence and a frozen world for a few seconds before his eyes only the frightened, full of anxiety and fear face of Anmicius, so beautiful in the streaks of blood and running tears, in dilated pupils only his reflection, and the whole world narrowed to the size of only the two of them, and Ninler smiles wearily.
Ninler had no reason to live, but he had a reason to die.
At least so that these eyes, even for a few moments, would look only at him.