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The streaming rays of the setting sun drift delicately; turning the air golden and thick. The tiny specks of dust motes accumulate through the slanted afternoon light that cuts across the floorboards. A copious amount of empty healing potions lay cluttered by the nightstand, most opened and toppled over in an almost desperate manner. Their contents long since dried into a sticky residue that pooled at the top and along the sides.
The sweet, medicinal smell of the concoctions hung heavy in the air, mixed with something earthier, the lingering scent of Nether ash and charred netherrack. A cup of water settled by the bedside, its pinkish hue sitting still, a used wash cloth drapes over its edge stained with old blood. These were the only reminders of what had transpired in the aftermath of your venture into that hell-scape, aside from the bruises and blemishes that scattered across your body like a violent constellation.
You stir, the immediate pain searing out through your whole body, aching and hot, like embers burning and bubbling beneath your skin. You groan, the sound scraping raw from your throat, wincing as you ever so slowly sit up. Your muscles protest every movement, stiff and reluctant, feeling like you haven't moved in days. You exhale shakily, grinding your teeth subconsciously as you focus on the simple task of getting your feet planted on the ground. The wooden planks are cool against your bare soles, a sharp contrast to the feverish heat still radiating from your injuries.
A shadow abruptly casts itself over you, obscuring the sun's warmth from your person. Standing directly in front of you, arms positioned on either side of where you sit, not touching you, but there, caging you in like a safety net.
The Knocker.
The entity in question was someone who'd become a source of endless annoyance, a thorn in your side that you couldn't seem to extract. You had shown him kindness, extended an olive branch even! In spite of that, he returned that gesture by burning your house down to its foundation; destroying what little you had left of your found family. The only thing remaining was an old, burnt photograph you'd managed to scavenge after the flames had diminished and your tears finally ceased.
"Don't touch me," you hissed, the words sharp and bitter on your tongue. You're still seething, the memory of watching your home disintegrate into ash still fresh and vivid. The anger burns hotter than any of your wounds.
He doesn't budge. Don't step back or give you the space you're demanding. Only frowns, (or what you assume to be a frown, his permanent empty black smile never wavers) his features creasing with something that looks almost like... worry? Concern?
It only makes you angrier.
"I said--," you try to push against his chest, but your arms are weak, trembling with the effort. The movement sends another wave of pain rippling through your ribs and you gasp, the sound edged and involuntary as you double over. Fuck, that hurts. You can feel every single injury now, the tight, tender skin pulling with each breath you take. Your hands shake as you brace them against your knees, trying to secure yourself.
His hands hover closer, uncertain and hesitant. As if he's fighting every instinct in his body not to reach out and steady you, to catch you before you suddenly collapse.
"Why are you even here?" Your voice cracks despite your best effort to sound strong, trying to maintain that wall of anger between you. The question hangs in the air, flat and hollow. You watch as his jaw tightens visibly, the muscle jumping beneath his ghostly white skin. His hands curl and uncurl in a repetitive motion, restless, agitated. There's something perplexingly off about him, something you've never seen before. Something... broken in the way he's looking at you. Or rather, not looking at you. His gaze keeps sliding away, flickering to the side, to the floor, to the window, literally anywhere as a desperate escape from your gaze. Like he can't quite bring himself to maintain eye contact, like the sight of you awake and breathing is too much to bear.
He gradually sits himself at the edge of the bed, his dark eyes ultimately fixating on you with an intensity that makes your skin crawl--not with fear, but with the weight of being seen so completely. The shadows of his hood concealed most of his face, but those dark eyes gleamed in the dimness like polished obsidian. The sudden profoundness makes you audibly swallow, shrinking slightly under his unwavering stare, but your [eye color] eyes fiercely peer back.
"Three... days," he rasps. His voice sounded like grinding stones, unused and painful, scraping its way out of his throat with visible effort. You could see the way his jaw clenches, the tendons in his neck standing out with the strain of speech. He leans in closer, his shadow stretching over, the faintness of his breath grazing against you, its cold, pleasing to your flaring skin. It sends a tingle up your spine but you don't dare falter.
"Three days," he repeats, with more urgency, his eyes switching back and forth in between. He lifts his trembling hand, a microscopic shake that he couldn't hide no matter how hard he tried to steady himself. His gloved index finger traces the faint burn line along your jaw, the touch feather-light and frigid. The wound was still tender, and you jerk slightly at the contact, but he didn't pull away. He follows the line from your ear to your chin, as if he's reliving a memory you don't share.
Three days. The words settle over you, hauntingly so, a dull twang of guilt inhabiting your chest.
"I carried you," he whispers, the words fractured and halting, as if each one costs him something dear, "Through the fire. You were--" His voice cracks, and he had to stop, inhaling a sharp breath to gather himself before he persisted, "So still. So quiet. I thought I was... too late."
The irritation is instantly snuffed out, replaced by that familiar ache of remorse that comes in waves--rolling and relentless; threatening to pull you under. Your mouth goes dry, tongue sticking to the roof of your mouth like parchment paper. Your lips part as if to speak, to say something, anything, but no words spill out. Your mouth continues this cycle. Part. Shut. Over and over in a helpless rhythm as your brain struggles to catch up with what was heard.
When you finally have the courage to let your eyes linger on anything that isn't his excessive stare, you realize with a jolt that reverberates through your entire body that you are in your house. The wood doesn't match the original structure. Oak planks peek through among the spruce like patches on well-worn clothes, lighter in color and different in grain. The contrast is stark in the fading afternoon light flowing through the windows, windows he must have rebuilt, the thought makes you feel dizzy.
He fixed what he broke.
The realization hits you like a physical blow, stealing what little breath you'd managed to recover. Your throat tightens, constricting painfully. Your eyes burn with the telltale prick of tears you refuse to let fall.
Because now you can't even hold onto your anger properly. Can't wrap yourself in it like armor the way you want to. Not when the evidence of his desperate attempt at atonement is literally surrounding you, sheltering you. Not when you can see the rough edges where he clearly worked too fast, too frantically. Not when you notice the small details, a window placed slightly off-center, a door that hangs just a little crooked...
He'd built this alone. While you were unconscious. While he was terrified you might never wake up; using whatever he could find because he couldn't bear to leave your side long enough to gather matching materials.
"You..." You have to stop, the words catching like thorns in your throat. You have to swallow around the sudden lump that's forming there, thick and painful threatening to choke you. When you finally manage to speak again, your voice comes out softer than intended, barely above a whisper. Fragile and coarse, "You... rebuilt it. And saved me."
Each word is carefully crafted, deliberately measured, because you're balancing on a knife's edge right now. Too much emotion and you'll shatter entirely. You can already feel the way your chest is tightening, the way your eyes are burning with unshed tears. One wrong move and you'll break down sobbing, and you're not ready for that. Not yet. Not here, in the house he destroyed and painstakingly rebuilt with his own hands.
"I don't..." You struggle to find the right words, your thoughts tangling over themselves like knotted thread. Nothing feels adequate. Nothing captures the sheer confusion, hurt and reluctant gratitude warring inside you, "I don't understand any of this. You burned my house down. You stood there and watched it burn. You destroyed almost everything I had. Why would you care if I lived or died? Why would you spend three days watching over me? Why would you--"
"I didn't know!"
It bursts out of him like a dam breaking, like something that's been held back under impossible pressure, buckling and finally giving way. The words are frantic, desperate, scraped up from somewhere deep and painful inside him. His hands clench into fists at his sides, trembling visibly with the force of whatever emotion is tearing through him.
"When I burned it, when I watched it fall--," His voice cracks, splintering like dry wood, "I didn't--I didn't understand what I was feeling. I just knew that you were kind to me. That you smiled at me. That you offered me food, shelter and basic decency and it made me feel--," he makes a frustrated, anguished sound deep in his throat, something between a growl and a groan. His head drops, features twisting with self-loathing so intense it's agonizing to witness.
"I didn't know what to do with it. With you. With the way you made me feel things I'd never--" He cuts himself off sharply, one hand coming up to grip the back of his neck hard enough to leave marks. "So I just... I destroyed it. I burned it all down. Because that's what I know how to do--,"
He didn't know how to handle developing feelings for you. Didn't understand what was happening inside him. So he did the only thing he knew how to do.
He's an idiot. A destructive, emotionally-stunted idiot.
But...
You inhale slowly, calculating, feeling the air fill your lungs--grounding yourself in the silence that stretches between, heavy and expectant. Your fingers find the edge of your shirt almost subconsciously, worrying at the hem, twisting the fabric in a self-smoothing fashion. You can feel your expression crumbling despite your best efforts to hold it together, the weight of everything--the house, the Nether, his confession, the complicated mettle of emotions you don't know how to name--it's utterly suffocating.
A puff of smoke breaks you out of your spiraling thoughts, the dark wisps curling through the air near the bed.
Before you could move away, before you could even fully process what was happening, the air behind you seemed to ripple and distort like heat waves over sun-baked stone. The temperature plummeting with shocking suddenness, dropping so fast that it steals your breath. The warmth of the afternoon leaches from your skin in seconds, replaced by genuine cold, not the pleasant coolness of the shade or evening breeze, but the kind of cold that came from somewhere deep, dark and weightless. The kind of cold that exists in places that have never known the sun.
In a blur of dark fabric and shadow, the Knocker vanished from the edge of the bed and reappeared directly behind you. No footsteps. No sound. Just the sudden, overwhelming presence of him at your back, solid and immovable.
His long arms wind firmly around your waist before you can react. His grip is secure, but still somehow careful--elegantly mindful of the healing bruises that still mottle your ribs in watercolor shades of purple and green. You can feel the way his hands splay across your stomach, fingers spread wide, holding you but not squeezing. Just... holding. Anchoring.
His height makes you feel small in a way that should probably frighten you but somehow doesn't. His presence wraps around you--protective, possessive, desperate. The cool press of his body against your spine is a stark contrast to your own warmth, and you can feel it seeping through the thin fabric of your shirt, spreading across your back like the chill of deep water.
He leans down, his movements slow and deliberate, and buries his face into the crook of your neck. His features fit against the curve of your shoulder like they were made to rest there, and you can feel the solid weight of his head as he settles into place. His breath ghosting across your skin in uneven waves--crisp and cool, like touching morning mist or standing near a cave entrance. The sensation raises goosebumps, sending shivers cascading down your spine that have nothing to do with the cold and everything to do with the sheer intimacy of the gesture.
He began to walk backward, his movements fluid and calculated, effectively dragging you with him. It wasn't a struggle; he was simply reclaiming you, escorting you back to safety. Your feet barely touch the ground as he moves, supporting most of your weight effortlessly--just as he had when he carried you home.
Guiding you back to the edge of the mattress, pulling you right along with him until you were tucked securely against his side, his arms never once loosened their hold; if anything, they tightened fractionally, as if even this distance was too much. You let out a soft "oof" as you landed against his chest, and he immediately adjusted, positioning you so your head was resting right over his heart. The steady thump-thump-thump thrummed beneath your ear, strong and calming.
He locks his arms around you in a silent, stubborn embrace, while pulling a heavy quilt over both of you, cocooning you together in a pile of warmth. One hand came up to cradle the back of your head, petting you adoringly, holding you in place with a tenderness that contradicted his earlier urgency.
Gradually--oh so gradually you almost don't notice it happening--his grip begins to relax. Not releasing you, never that. His arms remain wound around your waist, present and persistent. The hold shifting from the grip of someone terrified of losing something precious to simply... protective. The embrace of someone who's finally, finally starting to believe that you're not going anywhere. That you're real and warm and alive in his arms, and you're going to stay that way.
His breathing slows incrementally, each cycle becoming deeper, longer, more measured. The ragged, uneven rhythm that spoke of barely-controlled panic gradually evens out into something that almost resembles peace. You can feel it in the way his chest expands and contracts against your--steadier now, calmer.
He was exhausted. You can feel it in every line of his body, in the way he's practically melting against you now that the adrenaline has fully drained away. Three days without sleep, three days of watching and waiting and fearing, finally catching up to him all at once.
You shift slightly in his arms, mindful of your healing injuries, and snuggle further into his chest. The movement is small, a silent communication that you're not trying to escape, that you're choosing to stay here.
You let your eyes drift closed, feeling the weight of exhaustion settling over you like a heavy blanket. Contemptment blooming warm in your chest. There's only the steady rise and fall of his breathing, the cool press of his body against yours, the secure circle of his arms, and the profound relief of simply being alive and safe.
You can discuss everything later. The house. His feelings. Your feelings. The elaborate mess of hurt and forgiveness and whatever this thing between you is becoming. All of it can wait.
Right now, you both need this. A good, well-deserved rest. Together.