Work Text:
Cold dread fills Azune as he watches Orus break that the spell glyph to active the spell. He feels for the one in his pocket, the one he took from Thjazi’s
– body. It is still intact. How would Thjazi know that this spell glyph was a dud, if he didn’t break it? What happened? Did he not –
He takes the glyph out and shows it to Murray.
“Through the seam that’s at the centre of this,” he thumbs the crease in the glyph, “that’s the part – It’s there so it’s easy to break.” It takes all his focus to form the words and make them leave his lips. It feels like he’s choking on them.
Focus.
“Right,” Murray replies, brows furrowed.
“He didn’t break it,” Azune continues, his voice sounding as hollow as he feels.
“I didn’t go to the execution, based on principle alone. What did you see?” she inquires, trying to piece together what Azune is getting at.
“I saw him, uh,” his breath catches, “he gave a speech, in a way, and he looked up and then – I kept waiting for him to disappear, and it never happened, and the next thing I know, I see him hanging.
“Why wouldn’t he try to break it?
“I need to talk to Hal, uhm, and I need to talk to that guy that they’re talking to that we just saw break – “
“Well, why don’t we see if we can bring this guy upstairs? He seems like he could be a good ally, but we shouldn’t talk about it down here,” Murray interrupts him before he can spiral further.
“No, I – I don’t want to be seen down there. There are too many people that are noble people that aren’t normally here, I don’t want to be seen by them.” He takes out the other glyph; the one Thimble was supposed to deliver to Thjazi. Before he continues, he clears his throat multiple times, trying stop the thoughts running through his mind so he can sort through them, but it’s to no avail. After a pause that’s just a bit too long, he rasps out, “I need him to take a look at both of these, please – please get him up here.”
Murray nods, squeezes his shoulder and makes her way downstairs.
The rest of the evening passes him by in a blur. Convincing Orus that Azune isn’t a threat to him, trying to make sense of the information they get from him, Azune’s barely holding it together, he can barely remember anything of the past hour. The others are getting up and starting to move out of the room. He should follow them, needs to follow them. He gets up slowly. After one step he freezes, feet rooted to the floor. What where they saying? Orus said the glyph appears to be breakable.
He didn’t break it. Didn’t break the glyph. He didn’t – why didn’t he – What if he didn’t because – No. None of this makes any sense. Did he explain it to him properly? Did he tell him to break it?
Azune tries to think back to the moments before the execution, the last time he ever spoke to Thjazi. It can’t be right. How could he never talk to Thjazi again now? He should have told him so many things, he should’ve broken the glyph right then and there himself on Thjazi’s body, and then, when it wouldn’t have worked, he could’ve done something to get Thjazi out of there. The cost for it would have stayed the same anyway. He wouldn’t have minded. He would have gladly given –
“Azune?”
Something gently touches his shoulder. His awareness slams back into his body. A body that’s trembling, gasping for breath, a body that is falling apart without his permission. He clutches at his arms, clawing at his skin, each sharp pain allowing a breath to enter his lungs. His chest is burning, the world spinning around him. What’s going on? Why can’t he breathe?
“Son, you need to slow your breathing. Don’t pass out on me here.”
Hal?
“I will take your hand and put it on my chest. You’re going to focus on its movement, alright? Just like we used to. You can do it. Breathe.”
Azune can feel the last word reverberate through the base of his skull and with it the feeling returns to his hand, he can feel the coarse fabric of Hal’s shirt, rubs it between his thumb and pointer finger. The ringing in his ears dies down a little, sounds from his surroundings start to filter through.
“Can you tell me five things you can see?” Hal asks.
Azune opens his mouth to reply, but there’s no sound coming out. First, he falls apart in front of all of them and now he can’t even follow a simple demand? It’s unbelievable. It’s just a word. Just say it. He just needs to say that he can see the orange of Hal’s shirt. It’s a word it’s not that fucking hard. Something akin to a sob breaks out of him as he shakes his head violently, failing to form the word. He clutches tightly at Hal’s shirt, silently pleading for him to not be mad at him, to not leave him here like this.
“Alright, no talking right now, that’s okay. I’m here, not going anywhere. Take your time.”
Azune wants nothing more than to collapse into Hal’s arms, to give away the weight on his shoulders that’s threatening to crush him. But he needs to hold onto the last shred of his dignity after falling apart like this already. He mustn’t make it worse.
It’s been years since Hal last had to hold him together like this. After Thjazi dropped him off at Hal’s, it was an almost daily occurrence. He was a sixteen-year-old boy who knew nothing but war, and the first person to have looked after him, after he had to leave his parents, left him behind with a mind full of horrors Azune didn’t know how to deal with.
After the first time something like this happened, he couldn’t speak for a week. It’s like the fear wraps its icy hand around his throat, squeezing and choking him, with no chance of any word escaping. The harder he tries, the worse it gets.
He takes a deep breath and only now realises that he’s kneeling on the floor. His knees are throbbing. Did he fall?
He furiously drags a hand over his face, trying to clean off the tear tracks quickly.
Fuck.
“Are you back with me?” Hal asks, gently, like when he talks to a hurt animal without wanting to scare it off. Azune isn’t much more than that, is he? He follows orders like an obedient little dog, and that little dog has now lost its master. He needs to be talked down like a feral animal that’s never known any peace. And what is he, besides his ability to fight and serve? Nothing.
He shoves those thoughts away and nods stiffly. His head is pounding. The ground still feels unsteady, even though he's kneeling on the floor. But he can breathe again. He’s fine.
He tries to tell Hal that.
Again, the words stay stuck in his throat. He lets out a frustrated growl. He’s a grown man. He should be able to do something as fucking simple as talking.
“Don’t force yourself to speak, it’s okay. We’ll just stay here for another minute, yeah? Come, sit,” Hal says and pats the floor next to him. Azune shuffles over to Hal, leaning against the wall next to him.
They sit together in silence, side by side. The warmth radiating off of Hal is as much comforting as it is unsettling. He shouldn’t let other people get this close. He knows better.
He pulls his knees up to his chest and squeezes his eyes shut tightly.
“I’m sorry,” Azune forces out in a whisper, almost too quiet for Hal to hear. Almost.
“There is no need for any apology, son,” Hal replies resolutely.
“They are needed, so many of them,” he forces out, “it’s all my fault.”
No matter how tightly he squeezes his eyes shut, the tears spill over again, nonetheless. He swallows around the lump in his throat.
“I should have noticed something was wrong, before it was too late. That was my job. It was my job to get him out of there safely.”
“It’s not your fault, Azune.”
Hal’s voice wavers. It’s all the proof Azune needs. He’s lying. Of course it’s his fault. Whose fault else could it be? He was the one to scan for the glyph. He missed that it wasn’t real. And there’s only one reason he can think of why Thjazi wouldn’t have even tried to break the glyph.
“Not you. Anyone, but you.”
He didn’t understand then. He thinks he does now.
“Do you think Thjazi didn’t break the glyph because of what would have happened to me once he got out?” he asks, sounding oddly detached. He doesn’t think that he would have that much meaning in Thjazi’s life to cause such a drastic change of mind and Thjazi letting himself be killed because of it, but he can’t think of anything else. There’s no other explanation.
“Because that would make it my fault. My fault, because I didn’t notice that the glyph was full of the wrong magic. My fault, because he didn’t even attempt to use it. If I would’ve noticed that the magic was wrong, I could’ve at least still fought for a way out for him–”
“They would have killed you,” Hal interrupts, panic colouring his voice.
“Doesn’t matter. It wouldn’t matter! They would have killed me anyway, whether Thjazi would’ve escaped with the glyph or with me physically paving the way for him. The outcome would always have been the same, was always meant to be that way. But the way it is now, it’s wrong. I could’ve –”
His voice breaks off as a sob wracks his trembling frame.
“I could’ve finally paid back all your kindness by giving you your brother back. There was never going to be a way out for me, but I was fine with that, I was ready for it, we need Thjazi to be alive, you need him alive. Nobody needs me here. It’s not fair! I just wanted to give him back to you, I’m so sorry,” he cries, burrowing his face in his knees. He doesn’t stop repeating the apology over and over and over again.
Hal wraps an arm around Azune’s quivering form and pulls him into his chest, tears steadily rolling down his cheeks.
“We love you, do you hear me, son? You’re family. There’s nothing you need to repay, least of all with your life.” Hal pauses a moment.
“And yes, it isn’t fair. We don’t get to choose who lives and who dies. We did our best. And in the end,” his voice catches,” it was his decision to not break the glyph, whether it was real or not. His decision. It’s not your fault. I would never blame you and neither would he.
The blame needs to be placed on the people responsible; the Chamber of Lords-Advisory to the Revolutionary Council and the Sundered Houses. Not you. Never you.”
“I miss him so much,” Azune sobs. “No matter how horrible the day was during the Rebellion, he never lost his spark. He took care of me when no one else would. I owe him my life and now I’ll never get to repay that debt. My life makes no sense now. My whole purpose with the Revolutionary Guard was to be able to help him. What am I supposed to do now without an assignment? I don’t even know how life works without one.”
“We’ll make sure to find your place in the world. I promise. There is nothing you need to do to earn your right to be alive. We’ll take it one day at a time and go from there. We’ll hold up his beliefs and work to make the world a better place. We’ll keep him alive in our hearts and maybe one day down the path we’ll meet again.”