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By the time Surna came back to his senses, there was the tang of salt and copper on his tongue and blood running down his chin.
Beneath him, Doe was nursing a grisly wound torn across his right shoulder to his neck, and another on his neighboring upper arm.
Doe was pressing himself back against the kitchen wall as though he were trying to get away from something. When Surna recognized his own bloody hands on Doe’s shoulder and wound into his hair, he realized the something in question was himself.
“Zero?” Doe murmured, his voice quivering as much as his hands were around the wound between the junction of his shoulder and neck.
Surna, his throat seemed to itch to correct. Call me by my NAME.
His self restraint had reawakened enough to keep this bit of information locked behind his teeth.
“You’re injured,” Surna said slowly. “I injured you.”
“You attacked me,” Doe hissed, in utter disbelief at what he must’ve perceived as an intentional invalidation of feelings on Surna’s part. “What am I supposed to make of that?”
His memories trickled back in slowly. He recalled the attack; Surna had dropped by his apartment for a surprise visit thinking he’d throw Doe off his guard and maybe get a few more words than usual out of him, but found himself off kilter instead when he was struck by a potent feeling of want.
He’d had passing interest in Doe before, but never the suffocating desire that came over him in that moment when Doe was on his knees with his head lowered and he could see the bruises on them.
Temptations were a distraction, and an unknown feeling this strong was a danger. He was rather in the habit of killing dangerous unknowns—Basara, Nirva, and the like—so he thought he’d tear into this one too.
He’d knelt down, clamped his hand over John Doe’s mouth and bit into his neck. There was this choked screaming that came from Doe that Surna turned a deaf ear to.
Now, Surna tried to remove his hand from Doe’s head, but Doe slumped against the retreat, and it became apparent that Surna was the only thing keeping him upright.
It began to hit them, then, just how hurt John Doe was.
His face was near-white and cold sweat trickled down his neck. His eyes were half-lidded because he was too dazed to open them any further. He had this manner of looking like he wasn’t seeing, and maybe he couldn’t. For all Surna knew, his vision was blurring from the blood loss.
And, god, there was so much of it.
Doe’s shirt had been a spotless white button-up paired with a brown work vest for his college student act. Now the fabric was so soaked in blood from collar to the elbow of his injured arm it was sticking to his skin.
“Did I do something wrong?” came his subordinate’s voice, weak and slurred.
Yes. No. No. A new feeling was clawing its way up Surna’s throat now; a feeling that if he hurt John Doe with an answer of yes he’d never be able to live with himself. There was grief coming up with it, but why? Doe wasn’t dead. Doe wasn’t dead. And he wouldn’t die from this.
The thought that Doe might die filled Surna with so much fear, it scared him more.
“Where are your medical supplies?” He demanded suddenly, removing his own coat and folding it up into a loose pile.
“Bathroom cabinet.”
He laid John Doe down carefully, head on the fabric of his coat to elevate him slightly, and then was gone in a flash.
He came back just as quickly, supplies in hand to tend to the wounds he’d just made. When the feeling of blood on his fingers began to irritate him, he licked the carnage off of his fingers, only to regret it when John Doe withered for fear.
Doe eked out a scratchy, “I’m sorry.”
Surna felt a pit of dread form from the sudden shift to meekness. “There’s nothing to feel sorry over.”
“I’m sorry.”
When Surna partially removed his shirt—just lowering one flap of the collar and tearing open the sleeve of the injured arm—he saw the traces of scars on his back peeking around his shoulders and arms. When he realized they were whip marks a sort of rage surged instead, he put it behind him to focus on the task at hand. But it did make him think: no wonder John Doe’s instinct was to apologize.
“You didn’t do anything out of sorts,” Surna emphasized, as he pressed gauze against the neck wound. “I was being impulsive.”
John Doe might not be lucid enough to hear him, so a part of him anticipated another apology regardless.
A soft murmur fell from Doe’s lips, “Stop.” Then, “Don’t touch me.”
A chill shot down Surna’s spine.
That phrase didn’t have half of John Doe’s ordinary aggression; it was a plea.
Surna hoped it didn’t imply what he feared it did.
The moment Surna was finished tending to him, he disappeared. He needed to kill something. Someone. He needed to kill a lot of people, and he didn’t want one of them to be John Doe.
—
“How’s your wound?”
Those words left Surna’s lips before a hello or good evening or any prior warning that would’ve alerted John Doe of his presence in his apartment before Doe had to turn his head and nearly fall out of his chair in surprise.
He was dressed more casually than Zero Order usually ever saw him; a loose, white t-shirt and brown shorts that ended just above the knee. His neck was wrapped in bandages, which seemed to continue down his collar, and his arm was wrapped from somewhere beneath the sleeve to halfway through the upper arm.
There was fresh bruising along the backs of his arms, perhaps from when Surna shoved him to the ground, and older bruises—a mingle of purples, red, and yellow—on top of bruises all over his knees.
From kneeling, Surna realized.
“Zero Order—Pardon, I wasn’t expecting you.” Doe scrambled out of his seat and, realizing where this was going, Surna put his hand out to stop him.
“Don’t kneel. You’re injured.”
Doe gave him a strange look, which was fair, since being injured had never stopped him before and neither ever implored Surna to make him stop.
“I caused this one. It’s different.”
It took a moment, but Doe did accept this excuse.
Falling back into a manner of cold and curt reports, John Doe informed him clippedly, “The injury is fine. There’s no infection. It’s healing well.”
“That’s good,” Surna said mindlessly as he walked towards Doe. “Did you bill it to finances?”
“I paid out of pocket.”
“Then send the receipt to me. I’ll reimburse it.”
When he got too close, Doe stepped back, which Surna, if he were lucid, might’ve taken as a sign to stop. If.
The sight of Doe’s blood flashed back into his head again, and this sick feeling of guilt he hadn’t felt this strongly in centuries was cropping up with it.
He knew remorse. He’d learn too much about humans not to know of it. But it was always like a form of white noise; a background buzzing, put off to deal with later and pay for with his death. It wasn’t supposed to be the stomach-churning thing that made his fingers tense that he was currently feeling when he looked at the bandages peeking out from beneath Doe’s collar and down from his short sleeve.
He cornered Doe against the wall, and reached for the injury site on his arm. His fingers grazed the edge of the material, and when Doe shivered he withdrew his hand, mistaking it for pain initially. Then he realized he was probably just unused to being touched by Zero Order.
His hand drifted up to cradle Doe’s jaw, and the other tangled into his hair.
“Is there something wrong?”
“I don’t know,” Surna breathed. He was pressing against Doe’s skin with the pads of his fingers as though he were afraid what his own claws might do.
Locked behind his teeth: I don’t know why, but I have the oddest feeling that if I let you out of my sight you’ll disappear. I think of loss when I think of you. I don’t get it. You’re not fragile. Why do I keep thinking any manner in which I touch you is going to leave a scar?
“Zero Order—I’m alive.”
Of course he was. His skin was still warm. Did Surna ever know a time when it wasn’t?
“I uh, seem to be causing you some sort of grief. I should go—”
His fingers tensed. “Don’t.”
It must’ve yanked on his hair because John’s expression fractured with pain and Surna dropped his hands back down to his sides.
No blood? No, none. That was good. Surna eyed the side of John’s face and then double and triple checked and still no blood. Good. Good.
“What do you want me to do?” John asked.
“Sit down,” Surna managed to say, somewhat evenly. “Somewhere I can see you. Or stand. I don’t care. Keep yourself busy.”
“Do you… not trust me?” John didn’t sound like he believed himself, which was for some reason a relief to Surna.
“That has nothing to do with this. Just sit.”
Surna took a step back, allowing John Doe to duck his head and make his way to the dinner table, looking as though he were guilty. Surna hadn’t been planning to stay necessarily, but he could.
He withdrew a couple reports from Nikolai he’d been meaning to get through from the confines of a spatial magic spell, and took a seat across from his subordinate.
He loitered for as long as it took for his anxiety to simmer and the itch in his skin finally went away.
(According to John Doe, when they’d discuss this months later, this lingering lasted fifty-four hours.)
—
Surna’s feelings for John Doe had changed to such a degree he was beginning to wonder if someone had poisoned him.
It used to be mere interest; John was an entertaining subordinate, and he took pain well. He could send him on mission after mission and Doe would never complain.
Time and time again, Doe was always falling down at his feet and staying down. He would sit in silence at first order meetings regardless of the abuse hurled his way unless Zero Order gave him explicit permission to speak. It always made him want to see just how far the man could be pushed before he snapped.
After the incident at the apartment though, that had all gone down the drain. A new fear had wormed its way into his chest, presumably awakened by having very nearly killed the man himself. And more than that, this suffocating feeling of guilt was now hanging over his shoulders whenever he looked at Doe. Now when he saw injuries crossed along Doe’s skin, he felt uncomfortable, and nearly afraid.
This, frankly speaking, was annoying.
Surna no longer wanted to send him on any mission he found too dangerous. At first he could justify this with Doe’s injury, but then when that healed he was out of excuses. He tried telling himself John Doe was a good subordinate, and it would be costly to replace him, but that would only make sense if Surna had been giving him an opportunity to act as a subordinate in the first place.
He checked up on John Doe now and again, who seemed to be growing increasingly anxious. In one occasion he asked if he was being fired, and Surna shot him down so harshly his posture became withdrawn for the remainder of the meeting.
“There’s nothing for you to do right now, so just stay here and idle,” he sighed towards the end of their conversation. They were sitting down at the dinner table in Doe’s same apartment. The bloodstain in the kitchen had been washed out and painted over, but Surna still found it hard to look in that direction without being reminded of what he did.
“But, uh, how am I going to get paid, then? If I don’t work?”
Surna blinked. “Pardon?”
“I have to pay for the apartment? Food?”
Right, those. Surna had forgotten the details amidst his already impulsive, irrational decision to not send him out on missions in the first place. “I’ll arrange payments for the apartment. How much do you need for everything else?”
“A hundred for the week?”
“Are you asking me or telling me?”
“I could make do with less, I think.”
“Don’t. I’ll leave,” he paused, “a hundred. If you need more in the future, come and meet me. I’m sure you’ll have no issue tracking me.”
He nearly committed to giving five times that, but that would give them less excuses to meet.
“And, I emphasize, John Doe, when you need more money, come and find me. I’ll give it to you willingly. Take it as an order, if you must.”
“I don’t really understand.”
“Then don’t. Just do as I tell you.”
The chair creaked against the floor as he stood up.
“And, call me Surna.”
Whatever follow-up questions John Doe had, Surna did not hear, because he teleported away the moment those words left his lips.
—
John Doe did not come back to visit as soon as Surna would’ve liked.
When he did, his expression was hard to read. The fact that he had his head lowered as he knelt before Surna made it even harder to get a good look at the already impeccable mask he’d perfected.
“You came back later than I anticipated,” Surna said. “You told me you needed that for a week’s expenses. It’s been two.”
“I spread it thin.”
“Don’t do that. Must I order you explicitly to return weekly?” Surna let a bit of his irritation bleed into his tone, but a part of him did regret it when Doe seemed to freeze up.
“My apologies, sir.”
“I told you to call me Surna.”
“Apologies, Surna.”
Surna sighed, and got up from his desk.
Without being given the order to rise, Doe stayed down, which was what Surna wanted in this case.
He knelt in front of him, and then bid, “Lift your head.”
He did, obediently, but he refused to meet Surna’s eyes until Surna seized his chin and forced the right angle.
He swore he was not imagining that brief crack in John Doe’s facade; briefly widened eyes, and the faintest—quickly gone away—dusting of pink.
“If you’re so lacking for things to busy yourself with, fine.” Surna released him. “You can accompany me to Eutar, where I intend to interfere a bit with their civil war.”
“On the side of the rebellion?”
“Yes. Machiavelli has been a helpful addition to them, but they’re still falling behind. I need to ensure that the rebellion wins.”
A brief flicker of excitement caught in John Doe’s eyes, which Surna might’ve been happier for if he wasn’t stuck on the realization that John recognized that name, Machiavelli.
That, in itself, wasn’t entirely strange. John had to be a well-informed person for this line of work. But what was strange was that his lips twisted upwards when he heard that name.
“Do you know Machiavelli?” Surna asked before he could think the better of it.
Doe looked abashed to have been caught. “I know of him.”
“You seem to have plenty of personal feelings about him.”
“Well.”
“Tell me, now. That is an order.”
“It’s nothing that threatens your goals!” Doe defended. His first order mask was slipping and the softer John Doe Surna met before he learned to act violent was showing through the cracks. “I just—he’s.”
“He’s what?”
“He’s cool,” Doe stammered. Surna blinked.
“…I beg your pardon?”
John Doe, no longer making any attempt to put on the cold and ruthless act, blushed and buried his face in his hands. “I really admire him. He’s so—wherever he goes, he always stands out. He makes waves. He’s so compassionate about it too and I swear he can get anyone to like him.”
“Yes? I don’t see your point.”
John continued to prattle on and on one hand Surna was happy to hear him speak more than two non-work-related sentences in a row for once in seemingly forever. On the other hand, why did it have to be about this subject?
Something about seeing John Doe only light up when this one person came up rubbed him the wrong way. Maybe it was because Machievelli—or Heathcliff, rather—himself somewhat disturbed him. It was hard to articulate that instinct Surna got about him, but something was tugging at the back of his head, trying to tell him that this person was incompatible with John Doe’s existence. To have one was to lose the other, and the thought of losing Doe made Surna want to tear his own heart out to get rid of the ache.
“Have you met him?” Doe asked, turning the question back on Surna.
“Likewise, I only know of him. He’s integral to my plans due to his birth rights.”
“You know his original identity?!” Doe’s lips broke into a smile. He tried to contain it once he realized it, but found that too difficult and clapped his hand over his mouth instead to hide it.
“Yes,” Surna said tersely. He wasn’t trying to be aggressive but Doe was so attuned to him he wilted, and forced his expressions back into something neutral.
Surna cursed himself for ruining his joy and then cursed Heathcliff for making this situation happen in the first place. What was it about Heathcliff that could make Doe talk so eagerly to him? In terms of strength, magic, and learned experience, Surna trumped him without question. If it was a personality thing, why was he following Zero Order in the first place?
He’d expected John Doe to remain silent, like always. Never speak unless spoken to, and all. But somehow something about this deplorable prince of Lumensis was so compelling to him, Doe mustered the courage to ask, “Can you tell me his given name?”
“No.”
Surna pushed himself onto his feet and turned away sharply so he wouldn’t have to see Doe’s look of disappointment. He withdrew the stack of cash from his desk—five hundred in the form of low-value bills—and passed it over to Doe.
“Spend that as you like on whatever supplies you need to prepare, and meet me here at eight tomorrow. We’ll discuss what paperwork and IDs we need to arrange and when to set out for Eutar.”
“Understood, Zero Order.”
“It’s Surna.”
“Right. My apologies. Surna.”
“Just go.”
John Doe left through the door as swiftly as he could physically manage to, leaving Surna alone with his annoyance and newfound desire to cut Heathcliff open and gut him.
If he wasn’t so important to his plans, Surna would’ve killed him. And even then, he was still considering it more than he ever thought he would.
—
Surna found he enjoyed the Eutar arrangement much more than the apartment situation.
They shared the same cabin as a home base of sorts. They met there to exchange information, deliberate, and plan their next move. John Doe slept in the building’s one bedroom and Surna mostly occupied the living room.
They saw each other more often, like this, which Surna leveraged as an excuse to have John Doe simply ask him for however much money he needed for whatever given moment.
“With all due respect, sir, would it not be more convenient for you to just give me a stipend for expenses?” John Doe asked him once. Surna looked at him and Doe dropped his gaze in deference.
“I’d prefer to know what you’re buying.”
Doe’s expression pinched. He frowned at the floor. “Do you not trust me?”
“Again. That is not what this is about.”
“Then what is it about?”
“My curiosity,” Surna said, because that was less shameful than admitting John Doe wouldn’t talk to him if Surna didn’t force it. “What constitutes necessary spending for a human escapes me.”
Again, Doe didn’t look like he quite believed him, but the explanation at least placated him. Surna hummed and took a step towards him. John Doe tensed in a certain way that had him putting his hand up as a signal to stop.
“Stop kneeling. For the duration of this mission.”
“Sir?”
Surna shot him a cold look.
“Surna.”
“What?”
“Have I offended you recently?”
“Your loyalty is excessive, at times,” Surna scolded. “In a situation where we see each other multiple times per day, I don’t need you falling down at my feet each time.”
Doe’s face took on a withered look. Surna clicked his tongue in frustration, which only worsened his subordinate’s expression. His need for Surna’s approval had always been an intoxicating power to wield over him, but now Surna didn’t want to hurt him, he was finding it too easy to.
Surna shut his eyes, and dredged up a small concession of honesty. “I worry about you, John Doe. That’s all.”
When he opened his eyes, Doe’s expression had completely been taken over by confusion and surprise. Surna warped away before he could be asked to explain himself.
—
It was hard to describe, much less explain why, the anxiety he felt down to his bones seeing John Doe and Heathcliff in the same space. Like somehow this was a terrible omen, and he had to keep John Doe away.
He knew it was inevitable, yes. They were going to Eutar where Machievelli was. Where the only person who could ever compel John Doe to speak before spoken to was known as a war hero. Surna hadn’t ever really thought it possible that Doe wouldn’t rush to meet him.
Still, it hurt seeing it.
They were standing out in the snow: Heathcliff decked to the nines in mercenary gear and various optics to better his aim with his sniper rifle. He had his gun at lower-ready while John, still dressed in mountaineering gear, chatted his ear off about his accomplishments under the guise of being one of the many civilians who felt inspired by him.
Doe had posed as a local and professional ice climber, who offered to aid the resistance by leading Machiavelli and his troops through a little known and hard to traverse passageway through the Aret Mountains. This way, they would be able to loop around and attack the Prince’s forces from behind.
Neither act was necessarily a lie. John was actually a former ice climber, which Surna only learned in the deliberation before this mission, and he was sort of born local; he just lived on the Exilon side of these Aret Mountains, not the Eutar one. He was a fan of Machiavelli too, just not for the set of reasons he was leading Machiavelli to think.
Now, they’d reached the part of their destination John was meant to take them to, and Machiavelli was simply having his troops rest before they began to move closer for the attack. Surna was only here, waiting it out, because he was supposed to meet with Doe after this to chart their next move.
John spoke to Heathcliff with awe in his eyes and a helplessly adoring smile on his face. Heathcliff looked flattered by the attention, if a little embarrassed. John Doe was very good at giving compliments though; the kind that made you feel like they were actually meant, and that you most wanted to hear.
Surna wasn’t good for John Doe, that much he knew. But something in him, like an omen, screamed that Heathcliff couldn’t be let near him either. Heathcliff might not kill him directly, but being near Heathcliff at all would kill him all the same, and Doe would never see it coming. Because he never saw anything coming when it came to danger from people he admired. If he did, if love didn’t blind him as it did, he’d have run from Surna a long time ago.
“Would you come have tea with me sometime?” Doe asked. Surna’s skin itched. “I’ve perfected a rose kind recently. Much better with milk added, if you’re alright with that. I’ve got to show it off to someone.”
Surna was going to rip out Heathcliff’s throat if he said yes, and then maybe Doe’s afterwards.
Perhaps he was making excuses. Maybe he was so deranged in his need to monopolize John Doe’s attention he was making up danger where it didn’t exist.
Heathcliff smiled. It was just a hint of the expression, but an upward tick of his lips nonetheless, that quickly disappeared as he tried to force stoicism back to his face. “After the war.”
Oh where hadn’t Surna heard this narrative? A knight coming home to his dear partner; the dinner made and said partner leaping into his arms for the joy of seeing him. John probably would do all of that too, given how excited he was just to be in Heathcliff’s presence.
Surna stepped out of the fog, materializing himself behind the cover of a few trees around the campsite. He shouldn’t have been in view, but Heathcliff’s instincts were just sharp, because he turned toward Surna anyway.
Surna stepped out from behind the trees and called out, “Cervidae. Your friendliness borders on liability.”
Cervidae was Doe’s fake name for this operation; the scientific name for deer. Doe turned. “Huh?”
Surna addressed Heathcliff, making no attempts to hide his disapproval. “My companion extends unnecessary courtesies. I hope you’ll forgive that.”
Heathcliff drew back, and tightened his grip on his gun. Surna took a step towards Doe and Heathcliff moved in front of him unconsciously, as if to protect him from Surna. “Who are you?”
Right, Surna remembered belatedly, only John Doe was supposed to infiltrate. They’d dressed Surna in a disguise that altered his hair and eye color just as a precaution, but he didn’t have a set story, and he certainly wasn’t supposed to know Cervidae.
And maybe he could come up with something, and Doe’s good acting could save them both, but that would require a lot more thought than Surna was capable of when he was seeing red.
They could think of him as an abductor, if they wanted to.
“Cervidae, do you know him?” Heathcliff asked.
“I don’t think—“
“He knows me better than he does you,” Surna interrupted. John Doe’s nervous confusion in this moment was most likely genuine. “So I don’t know why he’s so eager to invite you in.”
Surna’s form flickered away into fog just before he reappeared beside John Doe. Heathcliff whipped around, stepped back and began to raise his gun as Surna grabbed his subordinate by the arm and yanked him into himself, muffling anything he was going to say. Other soldiers raised their guns and he saw magic rifles flicker to life, preparing to fire.
“If you come to see him again, I’ll have to rethink how I feel about your continued living.”
He faded out into a purple fog before the strike of dark magic he cast could hit, and took him and Doe back to the cabin.
With Doe’s forearm in a death grip, Surna forced him against the wall. Wrist against the plaster and Surna barely restraining his strength enough not to bruise the fragile thing between his fingers.
With the breath knocked out of him, Doe slumped forward, winded, before Surna yanked him back by his hair.
Demanded, “What do you want?”
Doe blinked, dazed from the violence, then stammered. “I-. Huh?”
“Is it money? Attention? Flattery?“ Surna guessed, then bit down his words. “No. Pardon me. I would be insulting you to reduce your motives to something so base. What do you like about him?”
“About Machievelli?”
“Yes. That—dredge.”
Why did that name make him feel so sick? It tasted like loss and incompatibility, as though a world with him was that invisible, nonsensical world from which guilt and grief surrounding Doe was pouring out. Why? What world was Surna trying to remember?
“What does he have that keeps you running back to him?” He hissed. His tone came out weaker, more desperate than he wanted it to. Weakness wouldn’t keep his subordinate around.
He stared into Doe’s wide and confused eyes. His mouth kept opening with words he couldn’t fully form until he finally.
Surna hated being made to wait, and then he hated his hatred.
“Surna,” he said, slowly and softly, “I’m not going anywhere.”
That one statement snapped Surna back into awares. He looked up at where his hands were; the aggression with which they’d pinned Doe down like he was liable to sprint free. He loosened his grip on Doe’s arm, but couldn’t bring himself to let go. His other hand, he detached from the tresses of Doe’s hair—finding his grip had loosened a few; that must’ve hurt him— and hit the wall to support himself.
His knees felt impossibly weak. He wanted to collapse at Doe’s feet and he wanted to stand tall and scare him into staying. There were ways to lock people up—Surna would know. He could keep him forever like that, and make sure nothing ever hurt him. He wanted to free Basara just to rip out his heart and make a half-immortal, half-human amalgam of Doe that would ward off mortality. He wanted to lay the world at his feet. For some reason, it felt like John Doe was owed that by him. Like Surna had a gaping debt he could never repay, but had to try anyway.
Doe wrapped his free arm around Surna’s back, and set his hand on his shoulder, rubbing circles against the fabric of his sleeve with his thumb. Surna found the last of his strength draining away, and he dipped his head into Doe’s shoulder; burying himself in his scent. There was a faint trace of warm vanilla lingering on him from the hair products.
When Doe spoke, Surna felt the vibration of Doe’s throat before he heard the voice, “Can you just tell me what you want?”
What singular set of sentences could possibly express all of the want Surna had? It was always bubbling up behind his throat but never coming up as words in any language a human would understand. He wracked his mind for words in this limited language that could get close to expressing what he meant.
Kiss me. Stop talking about your idol. Keep talking, I want to hear you. Go out with me. Hold me. Forgive me. I want—
“I want to be your boyfriend,” he suddenly settled.
Was that the right set of words? Boyfriends, to humans, were partners, yes? There were rights you got to someone as their boyfriend. Surna never felt particularly like a boy but that wasn’t what he meant anyway. Doe would understand, wouldn’t he? He always did.
Foreign anxiety trickled into him afterwards. His hand tensed around Doe’s arm. He didn’t know if he wanted to bury his face in Doe’s neck and hide or pull away and look at his face.
“Oh, Surna.”
Doe made the decision for him when he pulled Surna against him with his arm and leaned his head against Surna’s; deepening the embrace.
“You could’ve said that forever ago.” Doe’s voice cracked as he spoke, sounding, somehow, relieved. “I’ve loved you for years.”
There it was again, that familiar sense of regret clawing back into his chest. Why, why couldn’t he or Doe have said something sooner? He should’ve said it at the apartment, I want to be your boyfriend instead of trusting something like money to keep him running back.
Surna murmured, “Don’t you love Machiavelli? Your idol.”
Doe’s fingers carded through his hair. “An idol is an idol. I admire him. But I love you.”
“Why didn’t you ever talk to me outside of work contexts?”
“I didn’t think you’d want to hear me.”
Why, why, why? There was no other first order whom Surna visited so often, and certainly no other whom he’d share a living space with.
Surna bit out, “You only sounded happy when you were talking about Machievelli.”
“You never asked me about anyone else except him.”
“But you were so reclusive and quiet. I thought if any subject could make you want to talk about, it would be him.”
“I would’ve been happy to talk to you about anything.”
Surna pushed against the wall and effectively pulled himself out of the embrace, allowing him to take in Doe’s expression again. There was a pink blush dusted along his cheeks, he smiled and his eyes cricked gently around the corners with his joy. Surna brushed a lock of hair behind Doe’s ear with one hand and took his chin with the other and kissed him.
Doe was better at this sort of thing than Surna was; he pulled Surna in by tugging on his collar and shut his eyes as he leaned into the motion. He was the first to break it too, so that he could kiss along Surna’s jawline and then by his ear. He pulled away just to press their lips together for a brief, chaste moment, and then relaxed back against the wall. He smiled, as though waiting for his due words of approval.
“Tomorrow? I’ll take you somewhere,” he asked, because he thought it might get across the feeling of warmth and appreciation building up behind his ribs.
“You can just say, ‘I love you’ next time.”
“I love you.”
“Then yeah,” Doe giggled, “tomorrow’s great.”
Tomorrow. Tomorrow. When was the last time he ever looked forward to any tomorrow? When was the last time he felt alive? When he wanted a tomorrow to come not so he could run away from today, but because something good awaited him there.
Surna kissed him again, and he realized maybe tomorrow could wait a bit. John Doe would be there yes, but he was here now, too, and that was all he wanted to think about for now.
—
The rose tea offer was apparently not mere lip service, as Surna found out when John Doe offered it to him a few days later. They were sitting adjacently on the couch of Surna’s apartment with John’s head laid against his shoulder and a copy of The Handmaid’s Tale in his lap. Two cups of tea sat out on the table, steaming.
Surna asked him where he found the time to work on his tea ceremony skills, and Doe pointedly reminded him of the two weeks for which Surna stopped sending him out on tasks, which apparently left him rather bored.
Nowadays, Surna just took him wherever he was going.
“I was surprised when you said ‘I want to be your boyfriend’,” John teased. “I mean, with that aggressive look on your face, I think most people would expect you to demand me to be your boyfriend.”
“Is there a difference?”
“Kinda.“
Surna ruminated over his words. Be my boyfriend was like saying be mine. Unnecessary. Doe already was his; loyalty on a platter and eager for attention. I want to be your boyfriend was an expression of Surna’s part of the wanting, and perhaps, if he was being honest, his desire to displace Heathcliff’s role in his heart.
“Penny for your thoughts?”
“Nothing important.” Surna pressed a kiss against Doe’s hair. “Go back to your book.”
—
In another future before this:
Ludger came to him after Noxanna went back to her slumber and the dreamland collapsed, and said that Noxanna had let John Doe have one final dream before he died. In that dream, he wrote all his thoughts into a diary, and buried it beneath a tree.
“I’ve already grieved him, Ludger,” Surna snapped. John Doe had been a dead man in his head since a year before that train incident. He’d grieved then, for the loss of a loyal and forgiving subordinate. He’d grieved while looking John Doe straight in the eyes and telling him to go infiltrate Ceoren. To go to his death.
“I don’t think you’ve grieved him enough,” Ludger shot back, scowling.
Surna frowned, and said, sharply, “I didn’t realize that one conversation you shared was enough for you to consider him a friend.” You don’t care about him either. Not enough to save him. No one did. Don’t pretend to.
“I don’t need to be his friend to have some basic compassion for him. You would understand why if you would just listen.”
He said she was so struck by his dreams she turned his words into stars and ribbons and marriage rings and all manner of pretty and soft things and pasted them all over dreamland in honor of his memory, which only she would ever remember.
But apparently that was too tragic for her, because when she saw and decided to trust in Ludger, she recited one page for him and asked him to transcribe it.
“‘Give it to the orphaned apostle. The one that dear child adores’, was what she said,” Ludger explained, “I presume that’s you.” There was an undercurrent of bitterness in his tone and demeanor as he handed over the paper.
Surna was going to unfurl it then and there, but Ludger snapped at him to do it in private, so he went away back to one of his temporary apartments and opened it there.
When I realized Zero Order intended for me to die, I was so relieved. I don’t think I could’ve ever known peace, thinking my incompetence trampled on his plans. I’ll probably never forgive myself for my conception, but with this I can at least forgive myself for my death.
I hope he gets what he wants. I hope he has found me a pleasant subordinate and that Ludger is a better one. I hope he kills whoever else he needs to get his way. I hope I initiated enough violence in his stead that it took some of that guilt off of his hands and replaced it with deniability. I hope he finds a way to live with himself, but if he cannot, I hope his Loved One embraces him in his death.
While I’m waiting for him in the life after earth, I’ll think about how best to tell him why I love him.
—
Surna had developed a plan to force Heathcliff under a false identity of a Ceoren professor, and then froze for the fear of it.
He was sitting at the dinner table of John Doe’s apartment. Doe was swirling a cup of tea and taking intermittent sips over on the couch as Surna agonized in front of a spread of papers, maps, and notes.
He’d known for a while that he would need Heathcliff’s strength and commitment to gathering the relic for his own plan, but now as they were coming closer to the end he needed to keep him where they could communicate with one another. That is: he needed to bring Heathcliff into Black Dawn, even if by deception.
Relevantly, he wanted to take John Doe out of Black Dawn—or at least out of the vitriol which the identity of First Order John Doe accrued. He’d long stoked the flames of Nikolai’s envy towards John Doe, and found it entertaining to see them fight over Zero Order’s attention, but now he saw it as too much of a danger.
Then the solution came to him that he would swap their places. Doe could fake his death and leave the mantle of John Doe to Heathcliff, who would take on the identity out of convenience. This would allow Doe to effectively disappear from his enemies’ radar, while giving him an excuse to communicate with Heathcliff.
He would ask John Doe to create an identity similar enough to Heathcliff’s undisguised form to be mistaken for him, then get through the Ceoren professor application process with it. Then, they’d book a train ticket to Redelberke under that identity, which would be the same as Heathcliff’s route from Eutar to Exilon.
Nikolai, once hearing John Doe would be vulnerable as he passed through the Aret Mountains, would attack the train in search of him. He’d arrange for the attack to damage Heathcliff’s disguise and force him to throw it away. This way, when the knights came to resolve the situation, they would mistake Heathcliff for the professor identity, and Heathcliff would go along with it for the cover it provided.
He summoned John Doe over to the table and divulged to this him slowly.
“With this in mind,” Surna said, stifling the sense of anxiety he felt in his gut, “I want you to craft a fake identity for him to pose as, and pass through Ceoren’s hiring process under that name.”
There was one glaring issue with his plan, and by the look of soft concern on John Doe’s face, it seemed that he’d seen it too.
He smiled, and said, “You’re talking around it, but you need me to get on the train myself. I’m the only one with enough skill to stage something like this without drawing Machievelli’s suspicion.”
“You can’t,” Surna said before he could think, and then he wondered why and found that his throat had been seized by a crushing sense of fear.
“Oh dear,” John Doe laughed. “Another one of your hang ups about my safety?”
“I’m not putting you on a train where I know someone means to assassinate you.”
“You didn’t seem to have a problem making him want to assassinate me last year,” Doe quipped over his tea. Surna twitched.
“That was before—”
“Before you tried to kill me and then suddenly had a miraculous revelation that you didn’t actually want to do that. I know.”
Surna put his head into his hand. Right, that would be what it looked like from an outsider’s perspective.
He paused.
No, that was just what actually happened.
“I’ll ride the train with him. I can even arrange to book the same train car,” Doe said. “And then I’ll fake my death in front of him. He’ll be led to believe that my identity died there unexpectedly.”
It took a moment to calm his nerves, but Surna eventually accepted this with a nod. “You’re a good actor. I’m sure you can stage something like that without getting hurt.”
“Ahah, about that…”
“What manner of harm are you dreaming for yourself now?”
Doe smiled wryly. “Machiavelli’s really shrewd. I don’t want to give him any clue that we wanted this switch to happen, otherwise he’ll feel no pressure to pose as John Doe,” he explained. “So, selling the idea that I really did die an unexpected death is gonna require me actually getting injured. I’m thinking of letting a suicide bomber blast me off the train.”
“Absolutely not.”
Just thinking of that possibility dredged up every fear he had towards Heathcliff and magnified it tenfold.
And yet, Doe’s smile told him that on this point, he wasn’t budging.
The discussion that ensued lasted an hour. At times Surna’s tone would grow too harsh and John Doe would flinch, and Surna would curse himself and wonder if it would just be less of a headache to well and properly cage Doe.
“Surna, you have a goal outside of me. Don’t make your delusions about my fragility be the reason why you don’t achieve them.”
“They’re not delusions.”
Doe shook his head. “I’m still the first order you hired. Taking one hit that I’m fully prepared for isn’t gonna kill me.”
And yet Surna’s gut was screaming that it absolutely would.
“Don’t get me wrong, I much prefer being protected to being thrown into the line of fire just for the sake of, but ah,” Doe laughed. “In this case, can’t you let me do something for you for once?”
“More than you already do?”
John blinked. “Well I don’t do much.”
“I beg to differ.”
“Regardless, I can’t allow you to make me the reason you can’t achieve your goals.”
Surna frowned. “Is that what’s given you the spine for all this back talk?”
“Yep.”
Another half hour of deliberation ensued, until John Doe had well and truly picked apart any logistic reservations he still had. They settled on having Doe inscribe defensive spells onto the underside of whatever clothes he was going to wear that day, and working on cutting down his cast time for the defense spell he’d be using.
Once that was over and tension lingered in the air, Doe dispelled it by allowing his expressions to light up with excitement. “But ah! I’m glad you proposed something like this. Now I get to design an act for him. I get to pick the subject taught, the name, design the room, establish the personality. Oh this is perfect! I know him! I know what to do. There’s this demeanor he always acts as: graceful, harsh, distant but compassion and warm. He’s good at formulating magic so I should apply to teach manifestation.”
He devolved into such a rapid chattering it became hard to follow. Still, Surna found it endearing.
Doe rattled off little details he’d noticed about his dear idol: the furniture he liked, the unique manner in which he used magic, his mannerisms and speech patterns. It hit Surna then that maybe the reason he found Doe’s taste in interior design exceptional was because he deliberately catered to Surna’s tastes.
Surna shook his head, and found that his lips were bent into a fond smile.
“Don’t say his name so much. I’ll get jealous,” he said, without any heat. John laughed and Surna felt a warmth in his chest swell.
“Is that a promise?”
“I wasn’t aware you wanted it to be.”
“If I really hated being forced to ask you for money all the time, I’d have gotten my own second income elsewhere.” John Doe leaned his chin into his palm and winked.
“Oh love,” Surna crooned, rising from his own chair and rounding the table. “You should’ve said something sooner.”
“Yeah?” Doe pushed his seat back a little and turned in it so he continued to face Surna. “Don’t tell me you were holding yourself back on my account.”
Of course he was. He hated anyone that was ever reflected in Doe’s eyes, because John Doe was someone whose instinct was to analyze and that meant some nobody was taking up space in his head for that moment.
If it was up to Surna, and the human psyche wasn’t so feeble, John Doe wouldn’t go out without him at all. He would be there when Surna returned home, and then Surna would take him anywhere where people weren’t.
Instead of scaring his poor, sweet lover off with those thoughts, though, Surna smiled, kept his lips pressed together and his words locked away, and brought one of his knees to rest on the chair seat, beside Doe’s legs, giving him the necessary support to lean down, cradle his cheek in hand and slot Doe’s lips against his.
Unlike their first kiss, this time Surna took it slowly and lazily. When Doe leaned into it or tried to pull him, became too eager, Surna held him back with a gentle tug against his hair, and advanced at his pace, which only had him pressing properly into the kiss when Doe’s eyes were going dazed.
When Surna pulled away, Doe’s breath became heavier from the lost oxygen, and just to be mean Surna kissed him again anyway, dragged it out for a few moments, then released him with a grin.
“I am holding back,” he said ambiguously. But before Doe could formulate some retort, added, “When you’re on the train with Machiavelli, I’ll book one of the neighboring cabins and monitor that everything runs smoothly.”
Still dizzy and red, it took Doe a moment to rearrange his expressions into a weak pout. “Do you think I can’t handle it?”
“You can, but I want to be there to ensure your safety personally,“ Surna said easily. He paused, considered himself for a moment, and then with a faint smirk tacked on, “and, because I’d be a fool to leave my boyfriend alone with my only viable competition.”
Doe rolled his eyes. “He’s not competition. I love only you.”
“He’s competition to me,” Surna hummed. “I do trust that you mean that, though. Don’t worry on that front.”
“Good. I don’t need you redeveloping old insecurities right now.”
“I won’t.” He tipped Doe’s chin up and dragged his hand through his partner’s hair. “But it does upset me that your mind will be preoccupied with him as you craft him an identity.”
A hint of mischief bled into Doe’s smile, and his eyes curved with mirth. “Well,” he remarked as he slipped his hands onto Surna’s shoulders, “you’re more than welcome to distract me.”
Surna supposed this was what humans would call an invitation.
Humans bruised too easily. He always had to be careful when handling the other. That applied to now, especially, when he wasn’t sure he actually wanted to be careful.
You don’t know what you’re asking for. I want you to forget his NAME.
—
At the end of another time:
Humans have a tradition of wishing on shooting stars. Surna wished upon the streaming bolt of magic that shattered the sky at the end of their fight with Salesin.
It was pointless to regret things now. What was done was done, and had gotten him everything he wanted. But when he lost his balance and fell and Arkensis caught him, he found John Doe’s words came back to him.
I hope his Loved One embraces him in his death.
It seemed like every wish in that letter had come true. So if wishes had worth Surna might as well return the favor.
I hope there’s a life in which I loved you without killing you.
Because if he was being honest with himself, he was sure a part of the reason he killed John Doe was so he could stop wanting him.
One day he found John Doe injured behind a convenience store, bleeding out from gunshot two wounds in his leg and side. The fear that caught in his throat at that moment, the desperation with which he picked Doe up and teleported to the nearest hospital under Black Dawn control, frightened Surna so much all he could think to do about it was to kill the source before it could tempt him to stray from his goal.
He should’ve kissed him at least once, before they both went out.
—
When they were discussing the matter of the explosion and Surna was trying to shoot down the idea of him taking an actual hit, Doe just laughed and said that if he was so worried he should come find and take Doe to the hospital afterwards.
Really, John Doe asked for too little. When came the time, Surna didn’t even let him hit the snow.
The moment the explosion went off, he warped outside and caught him midair—the heat of the explosion still clinging to his burnt skin—and brought him to the medical tent they’d set up in the mountains for this moment.
Now, it was merely a matter of waiting. Still wearing the mask of Zero Order, he sat down on the tent floor beside the mat Doe was recovering in, and paged through a dissertation John Doe had recommended to him. Reexamining the battle between the devil and saintess through the lens of magic archaeology.
Seemingly, it addressed the yet-unexplained matter of why no life could grow in the crater left behind by that battle, and posed the idea of third party involvement, which Surna gathered was as close as one could get to questioning that old tale without getting drawn and quartered by the Lumensis Order.
Doe being better prepared to defend himself from the explosion, even if poorly, minimized his injuries. Surna suspected he might’ve intentionally taken on more of the hit than he had to, in order to sell the act. The burns weren’t entirely superficial, but they wouldn’t scar.
When John Doe finally woke up from the sedatives that he’d been put under while doctors operated on him, Surna let him adjust and sit up before he took remarked, “I can’t let you out of my sight for a moment, can I? If this is what you go and do.”
Doe rolled his eyes. “Nagging hospital patients is kinda rude, you know.”
“Hardly the worst thing I’ve ever done.”
“I’m literally fine, so I don’t know what you’re on about. All my wounds are superficial. You just insist on thinking of me as fragile.”
“I was under the impression that you quite enjoyed it,” Surna teased, but he was partially serious.
He didn’t know the full of John Doe’s past, but it seemed he’d grown into independence sooner than most human children. He never called his mother neglectful outright, but he did say that one of the first things he did after receiving his paycheck as a first order was go to a good doctor, who told him that childhood malnutrition and severe stress had done permanent damage to his brain. He would never be able to retain memories as well as he should, and his reaction time would always be delayed.
The lash marks along his back and canings along his calves didn’t speak too kindly of his life after that, either. And Black Dawn was not a place for anyone to be vulnerable.
When Surna held him like he was liable to break, Doe tended to relax, or perhaps merely resigned himself to Surna’s whims. He could run his hand through Doe’s hair and take him by his arm with the light sort of pressure you’d use when handling glass, and Doe would just laugh and go along with the motion as a dancer does to a beat; with a desire to perform to it.
Like this, Surna indulged in the delusion that he was someone gentle enough to be good for someone as thoroughly hurt as John Doe, and Doe could pretend he was what he might’ve become had he not been forced to turn himself into a shape-shifter to survive.
Doe always seemed to feel guilty for enjoying things, though, which Surna supposed was why John Doe broke eye contact, and refused to entertain the topic.
“Regardless.” Surna took Doe’s uninjured hand, which was so untouched because it was his casting hand and therefore where the shield had done the best job of protecting, and pressed his lips against the back of it. “You are mortal, and several ranks below me as a mage. I’ll always see you as some gossamer ephemera. A spider’s web, of sorts.”
That was to say; strong relative to himself, but liable to break with just a swipe of Surna’s hand.
John Doe flopped back down against the bed, and sighed. “Now how did we get from you wanting me to wander back to you injured, to here?”
Surna’s smile wavered. “I’m going to be paying for that sin for the rest of my life, aren’t I?”
“Did you expect anything else?”
“No, no. I was acting spoiled for a moment. Pardon me, I’ll rephrase.”
Surna leaned forward, supporting himself with one palm beside the mat Doe was laying on, and brushed back the hair that was stuck to his forehead by sweat. Doe looked at him, blank-eyed and curious.
“I would like to spend the rest of my life paying for it.”
A slow blush spread across Doe’s face. With a groan, he threw his hands over his eyes and cheeks to hide it. “Fuck off. It’s too early to flirt. I just woke up.”
Surna laughed, and found it so much easier to maintain his smile. The John Doe of last year would never have cursed him, much less to his face. Whether it was a sign he was growing some sort of spine, or that he was finally becoming more comfortable around Surna, Surna wasn’t sure, but either way it was progress, wasn’t it?
“Yes, yes, poor you. Go back to sleep.”
“Well I’m awake now. You practically proposed to me.”
“Hmm. You’ll manage. Sweet dreams, love.”
John Doe muttered a string of Quoden expletives, and Surna went back to the dissertation.
He’d always planned to die to Lumensis, but where would that leave John Doe when he was done? Surna wasn’t good for him by any means, but he was what John chose. If Surna went and died, Doe might still have Heathcliff, but he’d still be aimless.
Normally such a delusional thought would be something Surna wrote off as some attempt by his mind to somehow combat the irrefutable fact that he did not deserve to live, but in this case, there was a bit more to it than that.
There was this line, actually, ringing in the back of his head in Doe’s voice, even though he’d never said it outright.
I hope he finds a way to live with himself.
Though, John Doe didn’t really need to say it explicitly for Surna to see that sentiment in his actions, so perhaps that was why Surna dreamed it.
Surna put that out of his mind for the time being, and elected to, at least for now, enjoy the newfound weightlessness upon his shoulders.
The phantom guilt, wherever it came from, hadn’t gone away entirely, but it had receded like a monster appeased, and for the first time in months he laid down and felt at ease.