Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He is notorious criminal. Or at least that's what they call him.

A mass murder. A surplus of incriminating evidence. The perfect plan.

Despite what the records all say, Sean McLoughlin is not a murderer. He was framed.

A grudge against a man oblivious to it all. Unwarranted bloodlust. Nothing to lose.

He has a family that won't even look at him anymore. A home that he can no longer return to. A life that was unjustly taken from him.

Needless to say, the heathen got away with it.

Sean

He has no idea how he managed to make it out of there. It was total chaos.

Luck must be on his side... but for how long?

The heavy smell of wet dirt and trees fills his senses as he continues to run forward for as long as his aching legs will take him.

He can tell that he's far from in the clear. He knows that they are after him, intent on taking him back to the prison in which he was wrongfully incarcerated.

The moonlight is his only guide while he ducks and dodges and jumps obstacles that hinder him from his success. His presentable liberty.

Adrenaline floods his veins and his heart beats rapidly in his ears. The brunette's lungs are on fire despite being filled by cold spring air every time that he takes a breath.

Sweat makes its way down his forehead and into his left, blue, eye, making it burn like a flaming fireplace. His legs are weak and shaky, stumbling with every step.

The Irishman is exhausted. His blurred red vision and lack of general awareness makes that obvious. If he doesn't stop soon then he'll surely pass out from fatigue, but if he doesn't continue moving then it's very likely that the police will catch him.

Out of energy and out of breath, he slows to a stop, leaning against the nearest tree for support. He has never felt worse in his life than in this moment.

Not even ten seconds later, he hears something that makes his heart race faster, if that's even possible at this point. "There's the psycho! Get him!"

He catches a glimpse out of the corner of his eye of several dark figures in the distance, one of them is holding a flashlight pointed directly at him. He's up and running once again in less than a second.

By now his body is probably on the verge of falling apart but that's not something that worries him anymore. It's merely an afterthought. His main focus at the moment is getting away.

Sean shakes his head. He swears that he can hear a river of blood flowing in his ears,  roaring loud and mercilessly. Or at least that's what he thinks.

A few seconds later he is met by the edge of a fast-moving river, forcing him into an abrupt stop. He has not even a second to think before an ear-piercing explosion of sound fills the air. A split second of pain in his shoulder occurs.

The next thing he knows he is embraced by a cold wave and is out cold within a moment's notice.

Time Skip: Sean's POV

I feel myself being slowly lifted from unconscious. It's feels like  crawling out of a deep hole after a long, long time.

My everything hurts. I can't move. I can't even open my eyes.

All of the memories of what happened are slowly coming back to me. I wonder what ended up happening.

Despite all of what just happened to me, I feel oddly safe. I feel warm despite my memory of falling into the icy river.

Maybe I'm dead. Perhaps I didn't make it and am currently on my way to the afterlife.

Nah, I dont think so. I can still feel myself alive.

In fact, I hear something.  It's... breathing. Light even breaths, and they're close by.

I try to open my eyes, but I only manage to for a second, getting blinded by a bright light in the process.

After a couple of seconds I try again, this time successfully keeping them open.

As they begin to focus, something begins to come into view. That something quickly becomes a masculine face, staring at me in surprise.

I jump back in surprise at the sudden development. Or at least I try to before wincing and releasing a moan of pain from the feeling of rapid movement.

"Be careful, you shouldn't be pushing yourself with the injuries you've sustained," Warns a melodious, baritone voice.

I open my eyes to see the man from which the voice came from.

He has rich, Brown, almond-shaped eyes. His features are strong, especially his jawline. Lots of facial hair covers his face in a messy albeit attractive style. His hair is Raven-colored and he has on a pair of glasses with a cracked lens.

It takes me a second to realize that he is embracing me, and then another second to realize that I am wearing nothing but a large jacket that isn't even mine.

I let out an embarrassed and surprised exclamation as I attempt to back away from him, doing my best to ignore the pain that gripped all of my body.

"Before you accuse me of being a pervert or a creeper something like that," he begins, his arms out in a defensive gesture, "hear me out. I'm only trying to keep you alive."

I give him an unconvinced and enraged look.

"I found you at the edge of the river. I thought you were dead but when I checked, you had a pulse. You seemed almost frozen, and with good reason too. That river is freezing and the air temperature here is low as all hell. You see were I'm getting with this, right? "

A sit silently for a second.

"So you got me out of my wet clothes, dried me off, put your jacket onto me, and then began to warm me up using your own body heat?" I ask skeptically but a lot less aprehensively.

He gives a shy, ashamed nod. A light blush forming on his face.

I don't even realize when I suddenly throw my arms around him and bring him into a tight, grateful hug.

Chapter Text

"What do you mean you 'don't know'?"

I couldn't understand what he meant when he told me that he didn't know what his name was. It couldn't possibly have been that hard of a question to answer.

He just looked at me and gave an unfazed shrug, letting his eyes wander away from me.

"I guess I just can't remember it."

I gave him an uncertain look. Did he have amnesia? Come to think of it, why had he even been this far out in the woods? The nearest town was about 50 miles away, if I recalled correctly. The nearest people were the ones in the prison I had been in just a few hours prior.

"Can you remember anything?" I questioned, giving him a worried glance.

He shook his head, still looking forward.

By this point we had been walking through the woods for a few hours. We still hadn't made any obvious progress.

"Not a thing," he admitted. "I don't remember anything that happened more than an hour before I found you. I don't even know where I am."

This information was a little devastating. I thought he'd been leading me to safety.

That thought lead to an obvious question. "If you don't know where we are, then where have we been walking to for the past couple of hours?"