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endofradio · 5 days ago

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I'm Coming With You

one shot

Remmick x gn!Reader

Synopsis: A long, long time ago Remmick made a deal with something much more ancient than even he. In exchange to become what he is now he offered a soul, he never imagined when the debt came to be collected on that it wouldn't be his. i.e. The Orpheus and Eurydice au

Word Count: 7.5k

A/N: This is heavily inspired by Dónal Finn's cover of Wait for Me from Hadestown, which is phenomenal by the way and if you haven't listened to it you should, but the yearning in that version specifically is unmatched. The other thing I wanna say is that the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice has always held a very special place in my heart, it's a myth that made me fall in love with stories, to be writing something for it really feels like a full circle moment for me.

Warnings: angst, no smut (sorry to disappoint), brief mention of implied stalking, D1 yearner Remmick, excessive use of paragraph breakers, death, bittersweet ending

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A long time ago, in another place and another time, Remmick made a deal.

He walked a long, long way to do so.

At twilight on the night of a full moon he started walking to the middle of the moors, to a lone hawthorn tree, where he waited for something ancient to hear his plea.

The bark dug into his back as he leaned against the tree, and for a moment he thought this had been a mistake. That there was nothing older than him, or his father, or his grandfather, or older than time itself that would answer him. The tied cloth containing wrapped butter, bread and milk felt like stupid weight in his arms.

For a moment he wondered if he should have brought a lamb, his favorite of this spring, true and innocent. If its blood spilled on the roots of the tree would have called upon the thing. If it really was that only more bloodshed would save him.

It was midnight when he pushed off the tree to go, cloth bundled in his arms, defeat heavy on his shoulders.

But just as his back broke from the tree, someone rounded from the other side of it.

It was a man, gangly and tall, too tall, the sort of tall that made you feel trapped, uneasy; and not gangly in the way that implied weakness, he was thin, but there was not doubt in Remmick’s mind that if that man’s hand wrapped around his throat that he would be a goner. He had stark white hair, long and flowing, rusting with the wind, obscuring his face. And his face, it was beautiful, yes, the ethereal sort of beauty that took your breath away, too beautiful for any mortal man.

“Leaving so soon?” The words fell off the man’s lips in a purr.

Everything in Remmick’s body told him he should, the hair on his arms stood up, his ears rang, his mind screamed for him to move, but he stayed in place, desperate and enthralled.

“No,” he said finally, he wasn’t sure if he said it outloud or in his head, but it didn’t matter, the man heard him either way.

“I didn’t reckon,” and the man laughed.

Thinking of him as a man felt wrong, thing felt more accurate, his bones knew just as well as his mind that what he was dealing with wasn’t human.

“I need… I need to be something stronger than meseelf,” it felt stupid to say aloud.

And the thing looked amused, leaning against the tree, a smile tugging onto its face, too large and wide for its skin.

“Why might that be?”

“They… they’re tryin’ ta take me father’s farm… it was his before mine… they’re tryin’ ta kill our way of livin’, no coexistin’ any longer.”

And the thing hums, “and what makes ye think I can help with that.”

“Stories, I heard lots of stories, I— I brought ye things—”

And the thing held its hand with fingers and nails too long out. And Remmick dropped the cloth into its arms.

The creature hummed, untied the cloth and smiled at the offerings, it smelled them, nostrils flaring for a second before tying the offerings right back up and hanging them on a low branch.

“‘M ‘fraid for what yer askin’ for… that won’t be enough.”

And Remmick scrambles, words tumbling out of his mouth in a desperate, pathetic avalanche, “anythin’, I’ll give ye anythin’, please—”

“A soul and song.”

“What?”

“A soul, and you do sing don’t ye? I’d like a song as well.”

And for a moment this sounds like the devil those men speak of.

And for longer than a moment he doesn’t even care.

“Alright.”

Before he sings, Remmick listens. He waits for the wind to kick up and whistle through the trees as an accompaniment. He sings low and mournful. He sings the way begging makes your chest feel: heavy and wistful. His voice haunts and breathes life into the moors, until the grasses, trees, insects and animals sing with him. Until the world doesn’t look like his anymore, when his eyes slip back open mid song the world looks brighter, stranger, like he’s slipping into another realm, he squeezes his eyes back shut. And he only stops singing when he feel the wind tell him to rest.

And the thing claps when he finishes, opens its horrible mouth when it grins now, teeth jagged and sharp, smile splitting the false skin at the seams.

The thing moves too fast, grabs his arm and pulls him in, breath licking at his ear as he speaks, voice raspy and inhuman, “ye will taste the sweet pain of death, it will consume ye, rot ye from the inside out, and trap ye here. There will be no more sun, no more silver, the land of the livin’ is no longer yers. Ye will feed on carnage and bloodshed, but ye will outlive the men who made ye find me. Ye will live for an eternity.”

And the thing says it like a promise, a terrible, horrible, true promise.

Remmick’s screams echo across the moors when the thing bites the junction between his neck and shoulder, tearing and ripping flesh. And it smiles at him as he claws at its chest. Its eyes black, red staining the long length of white that is its hair, it smiles at him, teeth serrated and full of gore, and then it drops him to bleed against the moors.

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The creature didn’t lie to Remmick, it made him something stronger, something inhuman.

He learned the rules of being what he was, no sunlight, no silver, blood is all that would sustain him.

In the end he didn’t need to bring his favorite lamb to the thing to slaughter, he did it himself in a fit of hunger and frenzy. He cried when he held the drained corpse.

He cried when he held a lot of corpses for the first time.

Killing the bad men helped, made the guilt feel less consuming.

He stopped crying over it eventually. He wasn’t human anymore, predators do not weep when they kill their prey.

But the bad men kept coming, and it felt like there were always more. No matter how many he cut down. No matter how many he bled dry.

Cut off the head of a hydra two more will grow.

The land he knew, the land he loved, became unrecognizable.

And so did he.

He was no longer a storyteller. He became a story. A ghost story at that. The man with red eyes who haunted the moors. When foreigners screamed “animal attack”, the locals knew.

And when the world changed too much, and no matter where he looked he couldn’t remember what once was, and the people he knew were long buried in the ground, he left. He wandered a long, long way. The way the world evolved his only clue to tell him it’d been years and not hours.

Eventually he crossed the sea, wandered himself down south, and that’s where he met you.

You, the thing that put time back into perspective for him. Made it all slow down. Made him feel human again.

He met you in the woods, just after nightfall, when the dark was still there, but the sun still peeked out over the horizon in dark purples and burnt oranges. You’d been sitting by a stream, wearing white, watching this deer, a fawn, just starting to learn how to stumble along. You were humming some soft, lonely tune to it. It didn’t frighten when it heard you, just stared and tilted its head, cautious, but not scared, just curious.

It only startled when it’d looked up and seen him, looming some ten feet behind you. You watched its head raise and fix on the sight of him before scrambling back off into the woods. You’d turned too, startling at the sight of him behind you, scrambling to your feet yourself, posture defensive, prepared to run.

He raised his hands when you looked frightened, told you he meant no harm, just heard a beautiful voice and followed, said he had to come see who was humming so pretty that the animals had stopped and to listen.

You thanked him, messed with the hem of your clothes, but you still backed away, bare feet dropping into the water.

He asked to join you, you said you should be going, he said another time, you said maybe and scampered right off.

But he kept coming back to find you.

At first you’d run right off like you did that first night. Always home before the twilight was over.

Some of those nights you’d swear while tossing and turning in bed that you were being watched. Red eyes imprinted themselves on your dreams. You couldn’t tell if the figure you saw outside your window was a dream or real. You told yourself it was a dream for comfort, same with the eyes, but lord they felt awful real.

You stopped running after a while.

The first time you stayed he’d been whistling as he walked up. A tune long older than you, a tune old enough the stream babbled along to the melody. It was the first time you’d said something before him.

“What’re ya whistlin’?”

And he stopped, grinning ear to ear, body humming with excitement when you spoke first, you swore his eyes flashed red for a moment, but he spoke like nothing happened, “somethin’ my mama used to sing me.”

You nodded at that and that night you stayed just a little longer, if for nothing else but to hear his music.

The next time he brought his banjo, said he had something to show you, you stayed even longer that night.

Time after that he walked up singing, you stayed even longer than the night before.

He never could remember his best song so he could sing it to you. He traded that eons ago to become what he is now.

But he still lured you in with a siren’s song and waited till he got you hooked on everything else about him too.

You fell in love with his music before you fell in love with him.

But you fell in love with him all the same.

Seven years.

That’s how long the thing gave him with you.

Two to fall in love.

Four to build your lives together and around each other.

And one extra to make sure the love was real enough that the loss would hurt.

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The thing came back on a Sunday.

Remmick had built you a little house deep in the delta. Where the woods would shield you both from the outside world and the river and stream would sing you to sleep. A buck, one getting up there in years now, with moss hanging off its antlers and gray in its fur, would come and linger outside the porch when you hummed, even stay to hear Remmick sing now that you’d made him human enough again that animals thought him to be safe. And you filled that home with music, and joy, and warmth, and laughter; you filled that home with the sound of being human.

Remmick was singing to you when the thing came. It was a new song, one he’d written just for you. It was slow and tender, the words hung true, heavy and permanent as love does. The strings of the banjo felt like kisses brushed against your skin, and his voice was sweet as honey in your tea.

The creature had the decency to let him finish before it knocked on the door.

The second the sound echoed you both thought you were hearing things. People didn’t wander this far out, that was the point of living here.

Then three more knocks came.

“Somebody prolly sellin’ somethin’,” Remmick said slowly as he stood up and made his way to the door.

But even as he said it, and you peaked over the back of the couch to watch him, neither of you believed that.

“Can I help y—” Remmick swung the door open and his world tilted on its axis.

There was that thing parading as a man from centuries ago. It was smiling at him, bored and languid.

“Ye came a long way from home, Remmick.”

“Get off my porch,” and even Remmick, old and brutal as he was, couldn’t stop the shake in his voice. “I gave ya my soul, I gave ya a song, I gave ya what ya wanted—”

And the thing holds its finger up and tuts, grinning that all familiar, wrong looking smile, “ah, I said I was lookin’ for a soul not yer soul.”

“What,” and the realization hits him like a freight train, “no, no—”

“oh yes,” and the thing draws out the “yes,” smiling closed mouth and tight, the kind of smile that doesn’t reach the eyes, “taken ye plenty long ta find someone for me.”

“No, no, I didn’t know that part—” he’s shouting now, claws and teeth bared, shaking the foundation of the house, making you stand and come up behind him, curious and tense.

“Ye knew plenty well, just assumed it was yers, that’s yer fault” He reaches forward and taps Remmick’s chest, “yer soul is trapped right in there— oh,” and the thing grins with teeth now, eyes lighting up with delight as he glances behind Remmick to where you’re standing, “this yer little songbird ye’ve grown so fond of?”

His head whips to you faster than you’ve ever seen before, “go—”

And the creature rolls his eyes, “please, that won’t stop me, ye know it—”

But you dart back out of sight and he slams the door all the same.

Not even ten seconds pass before you both hear the door creak on its hinges.

The thing sounds bored, “I don't have the same rules as ye, Remmick.”

Remmick has always been fast. Unnaturally fast. Fast enough to get to you. Always.

Remmick is only fast enough to hear you call his name and to catch your body before it hits the floor.

He catches you from behind, arms sweeping under yours to wrap around your middle.

He doesn’t even realize you’re gone because the thing is smiling at him, he realizes because he can’t hear it. The beating of your heart. The sound that grounds him in everything. A constant that’s suddenly just gone.

The sound he makes can only be compared to a wounded animal. Agonized and mourning. He sinks to the ground with you, clutching you and whispering into your hair like that’ll bring you back.

The creature tapping him on the head is the only thing that brings him back to the present. His eyes are wild, darting around, jaw clenched and trembling.

The look it gives him is almost pity, almost, “yer debts paid, Remmick, ye can get on with yer eternity now.” And it steps over him and your body like it’s nothing and waltzes right towards the door.

“I want to make another deal,” it comes quietly first, a choked sob of a sound, “lemme, lemme make another deal… please.”

He’s stroking your hair while he talks, just like he used to when you were sleeping, and for a moment he thinks: please, please just be sleeping.

The quiet thud of its footsteps drags Remmick’s gaze away from your body again. One of its too long fingers tilts Remmick’s chin, “oh Remmick, ye’ve got nothin’ left to offer me.”

And then it drops his head and walks right out the front door.

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Remmick holds you for hours. Until that bleeds into days.

He holds you till the rot starts to take you and the air feels poisoned with it.

When he starts choking on the air is when he finally moves, he picks up your body gently as one handles glass and lays you down in bed. He lays you down with a bouquet of dried flowers you once hung in the kitchen and spreads petals from more of them around you. He holds your hand till nightfall, kisses your forehead soft and slow, like he’s saying goodbye, he slings his banjo over his shoulder and hesitates by the door for only a moment before he walks into the night.

Remmick walks down the path and through the woods and bayou surrounded by memories of you. He walks with his heart sinking deeper and darker with each step. He walks by the stream where you first met and he lingers like the croaks of the frogs will fade into the sound of your laughter. But the sound of you never comes, so he forces himself forward.

He walks till the woods leave him and there’s nothing but tall grasses and fields for as far as the eye can see.

He walks.

And walks.

TIll he stumbles on just what he was looking for.

A crossroads.

He walks right to the center of the crossroads and drags one foot till he makes a circle, then he steps out of it. He walks back exactly seven footsteps, foot to heel, reaches into his pocket and tosses three gold coins, the only ones he has left, from his time and place into the circle. And he waits.

Nothing comes for a long time. He can see the beginnings of dawn cracking out over the fields. He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t bolt. He plants his feet right where he’s standing and waits.

Then time seems to slow, not stop, just slow, like the grasses blowing in the wind aren’t blowing as fast as they should, the morning bird’s chirps taking too long, the air feels stiffer, like it’s baiting its breath.

He sees it then, a spirit, crawling right out of the earth, limbs clawing their way out, moving unnaturally and wretched.

“I can’t figure why yer callin’ on me,” the voice that comes from the spirit is beautiful, sugary as honey in sweet tea, “ya ain’t no mortal man.”

“‘M not.”

“So why ya callin’?” The spirit smiles at him, and that’s the first time Remmick fully looks at her.

She’s beautiful, the kind of beautiful that makes your breath hitch, all things you make deals with are. She’s tall, dark skinned, hair done in short waves, with a smile that shines like pearls.

“I need to make another deal.”

And she laughs incredulously, “I can’t unmake ya.”

“Not what I need.”

And she hums, leans her cheek in her palm and smiles at him like she's amused, “oh? Then what is it ya need.”

The purple of dawn hits his shoes, creeping up on him, “yer world, I need to get to it, I need ya to let me in.”

And if her last laugh had been polite, the laugh that echoes from her throat this time is anything but, “now ya tell me why on earth I would go on and do that.” She walks forward in the circle, out of the middle of it, coming right to the edge, and Remmick swears he can feel her even seven feet back. “Spirit realm ain’t for things like you, what could ya possibly need from there.”

“I need…” and he hesitates, but he spills his soul before the spirit all the same. “I need to get someone back…”

There she goes laughing again, like Remmick is the funniest thing she's ever seen, “well, I’ll tell ya I’ve never seen nobody manage that.”

“Let me be the first.”

“Ya really are funny, ya should forget all bout this, go on the road, tell some jokes.”

“What do I have to give ya?”

“Ya ain’t gonna let this go huh?”

“Not this, no.”

Dawn is creeping up his pant legs, he can feel the burn starting to set in, but he doesn’t move, not an inch. She watches for a moment, waits for his eyes to dart around, look for a place to take shelter, but he never moves.

She hums, turns the coins over in her hand again, lets them clink together, “this ain’t gonna buy ya a ticket to the afterlife.”

“I don’t got much else to offer,” he swallows thick, the oranges and yellows of daylight are peeking over the horizon, the sunlight will be unbearable soon, he knows it, “but I’ll give ya anythin’.”

“I want a song.”

“Got alotta those, which one ya want,” he slings the banjo over his shoulder, plucking the strings a few times.

“One of theirs, that lover of yours, make me get why ya followin’ em.”

And she waits. Lets him think about your smile, your laugh, the way the moonlight hit your eyes, how you fixed the broken parts of him and made him whole, the way your humming made the world fall back into tune, back into time, the way the flowers seemed to bloom brighter around you, his whole world did.

And then he starts strumming the strings of his banjo. He looks out at the horizon for a moment as he finds the tune, and he sees the sun peeking over it, it’s the first time he’s seen that sight in centuries, and even as the heat starts on his skin, a reminder that death is close, he thinks it must be the beginning of a beautiful day.

He trades the first song he sang about you to save you.

A song that he never told you was about you, but you knew.

It was the first thing he ever sang to you. The first song that made you fall. He’d been singing it when he walked up, and the stream sang right alongside him and those banjo strings, the frogs croaked and the cicadas hummed. And even here at the crossroads, far away from all those things, Remmick swears he can hear them playing right along with him. And the spirit hears them too. And alongside the stream, and the croaking frogs, and the cicadas, the wind has started whistling too and the grasses rustle with the tune. The song is rougher this time, like he’s singing with his throat and heart bared and raw. For a moment, as he sings through the dizzying pain of heartache and sunlight, that spirit blurs and he thinks he sees you there instead. That’s what keeps him singing. Remmick sings even as his skin starts to burn and blister with the slow creep of the sunrise. He doesn’t stop, not once, he sings right till the song is over, doesn’t stop a moment before or sing a moment longer.

And the song slips quietly from his mind never to be remembered in the mortal realm again.

The spirit looks over her shoulder for a moment, quick, like she’s looking for someone, just like he is. The only thing she can even think to say is: “you a madman in love, huh?”

And he laughs, the sound sputtering with his own sorrow and pain, “don’t think there’s nothin’ that makes you madder.”

She nods like she understands, like he made her remember something from long ago, someone she’d long forgotten about. So, she outstretches her hand and he doesn’t hesitate for even a second before taking it.

And the whole world blurs.

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You don’t know how long you’ve been here.

Not really.

You don’t really know who you are anymore either.

This place, whatever it is, makes everything in your head so hazy.

You remember sounds and moments ripped from memories.

You don’t know anymore.

You remember this stream, and the sound of the water, how the dirt by it felt on your hands. You think there was a little deer that came to see you, even beyond that stream.

But you don’t know why any of that’s important.

And you’re not even sure what a deer really is anymore.

You remember a house, wooden you think, with a little porch, your name was carved into the beam.

What is your name?

And you remember someone. Someone you think scared you at first, till you loved them too hard for fear to intercede. Someone always by your side, face turned to you, but you can’t remember what he looked like. And the memories of him feel so important it makes you want to scream because you can’t remember.

You think you do scream, but nothing comes out.

What you do remember, clear as day, is singing.

Not yours. You think it’s the person’s, your someone’s voice.

A voice like crackling fire and the slow pour of whiskey. Warm and soothing, but still with an edge.

The place you’re in, wherever this is, is so loud, so goddamn noisy, head splitting and mind numbing noise that allows no room for thought.

But that voice always cuts through all of it.

Through the mist and fog of your memory. Always solid and tangible. You feel that voice in your bones, vibrating in your ribcage trying to rebuild you into something more than this thing you’ve become.

There are lots of things like you here. Things that must’ve been people once upon a time. They still look like people, but they’re not all there, there’s this misty look in their eyes, like they’re searching. It scared you when you first got here, at least you think it did, you don’t remember that much anymore.

Your eyes are misty too now after all.

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When Remmick arrives in the spirit world he’s standing in water. Not much. Just ankle deep. That spirit that got him here is nowhere to be seen.

So he does the only thing he can do.

He walks.

A long, long way.

He doesn’t leave the water, he wades through it, never once does it get deeper than his shin. Everything feels different here, when he’s in the stream he can feel the water around his feet, but the second he lifts his foot out to take a step it’s dry. The trees are too tall here, soaring into the endless sky. And here the sky never seems to change, always daylight, soft and steady, not the kind that beats down on your skin. And it doesn’t burn Remmick, never once makes his skin blister or itch or ache. And even if it had he wouldn’t stop, not for anything in the world, except you.

He knows he’s being watched at every moment. He can feel the eyes of spirits on him, some that were human once, ones that never were. And the whispers are so loud they’re a song of their own, following his every step and swirling around him. Because they know he is not one of them, not just spirit, he is soul and body, something that hasn’t touched this place in a time that any of them could remember.

When he does find you, you're at the bed of the stream looking out at it like it will tell you secrets older than your family name. Knees pulled to your chest. Your eyes have that cloudy look he’s seen on so many faces and he lets it break him as he sinks to his knees in front of you.

When you first see him, he’s nothing more than a blob of shape and color in front of you. For a moment you think he’s that great old buck that used to come to you, here to take you away to somewhere better and kinder than here. But then that mass of color and shape sinks to his knees and comes into focus, taking your hands and his.

And as the first tear rolls off his cheek and hits your palm all those clouds clear out of your mind.

“It’s you,” you say it so sure of yourself, because it's the only thing you’ve been sure of since you got to this place, “Remmick.”

His head snaps up to you the second his name passes through your lips.

“It’s me.” And he breaks out into this helpless grin, dragging you into the water with him, just to hear your laugh, he kisses you over and over, all over your face, repeating your name with the same reverence one would scripture.

“I called yer name before—”

“I know,” his forehead knocks against yours, “I’m so sorry, all this, ‘s my fault darlin’—”

“How the hell did ya get here—”

“Walked a long ass way.”

“But how’d ya get here—”

“Traded entrance fer a song, somethin’ that made the spirit understand why I came all this way.”

“I remembered yer voice,” and you’re laughing, helpless, relieved and teary eyed as you look into his eyes, “even when I couldn’t remember nothin’ else, I remembered yer voice.”

And he makes some choked sound, half laugh, half sob, and then he cups your cheek and kisses you deep and slow, he kisses you the way people write songs about, all devotion and relief and love, so, so much love.

“Come home with me.”

You’re smiling at him, “I—”

Nothing good lasts forever, does it?

Just as quick as he had you back in his arms you’re wrenched right from them all over again.

That creature has you by the wrist, pulling you out of the water, even as you fight and yell.

It’s no use really, even as Remmick lunges for you that creature has already moved you to a different spot.

Round and round you go, it taunts him, keeps moving just to watch Remmick struggle to get to you, splashing through the water, it could end this at any time and Remmick knows that just as well as it. But by god that doesn’t mean for a second that he’ll stop trying.

“Oh Remmick,” and the world seems to swirl and bend till there’s no more stream. Suddenly there you are sitting at the foot of this massive throne, made of moss and stone, a great hawthorn tree making up the back of it. A sea of stairs keeps you from Remmick. You can see him there at the base of the steps, impossible for anyone to climb, he’s a speck, just a silhouette. “Yer not the strongest thing anymore, not here. I never make my monsters stronger than meself.”

And despite the distance you can hear him clear as day, “what. can. I. do.”

And you know that creature, that beast in the shape of a man hears him just as well as you can, but it just grins, tapping its fingers on the armrest even as the torment of Remmick’s voice bleeds into both of your ears.

And on instinct you look right at him, reach for him, but the thing’s hand slides in front of you, blocking you from throwing yourself down those stairs right towards him.

“Ah,” it tuts, before removing his hand and settling back into its chair.

“I have nothing to offer ya.”

And when Remmick speaks that time it actually pulls a laugh from the thing’s chest, “I know, I’ve told ye this.”

“Nothin’, but a song.”

It laughs again, harder, “ye’ve already given me one of those.”

“It wasn’t finished yet.”

And that doesn’t draw a laugh from its throat. It makes the creature pause, still in its seat.

And then the strum of banjo strings comes, reciting a tune the wind hummed once, long ago.

And the thing is shooting right out of its seat, “how’d ye remember that melody—”

“Let him finish,” a woman’s voice cuts him off, a spirit. Not one you’d recognize, but one Remmick would, she’d been who’d brought him here after all.”

And that makes that beast stop dead in its tracks, even as the spirits start to circle to the sound of Remmick’s strings, even as this world seems to fall back into tune, it's frozen there staring at her, “it’s ye…”

And she keeps her gaze on it level and measured, she nods once, “‘s me…”

And she takes a few steps forward and plants herself in a second throne you hadn’t noticed before, if the creature’s throne had been the branches of the tree, hers had been the roots.

She speaks for them both as it makes its way back to its own throne, eyes never once leaving her, “go on then.”

Remmick breathes only once before continuing, just long enough that his eyes can drift up, not to focus on the rulers of this realm, but on you. And that one look at you is all that soul trapped deep within his ribcage needs to find the tune, and the world finds it right with him.

Out of his mouth comes that honey soaked voice, rasped with whiskey, that you’d fallen in love with seven years ago. And in this world that is not like your own, the sounds of the mortal realm still find this song from forever ago. The wind whistles alongside him and his banjo, picking up right where they’d left off all those centuries ago. The rustle of the leaves in trees hums with him. Every blade of grass, tree, animal, insect and stream that had ever sang alongside him finds its way right back to his voice.

In the mortal realm there would be a night that people would talk about for years to come, a night where it felt like the whole world sang. And when grandchildren generations later asked their grandparents what they were humming, they would tell them the story of that night they woke to the voice of a man, low and mournful, but so full of yearning it made them wake weeping. Like there was a grief and love they could feel so deep within their soul that they felt everything right with this ghostly voice.

And all those spirits listened until his voice stripped away their misty eyes and their voices joined his. A chorus of sorrow until it became a choir so filled with hope it felt like you were already home in his arms.

And for a moment, for the minutes or hours or days he sang, because for those moments time felt infinite, Remmick was not the monster he’d made the deal to become, he was just a man in love. Just like he was all those centuries ago. Back then it’d been with the land and the way the world had been, and now and forevermore, it was with you. Because only love, the truest and most human thing of all, could make a song that would cause the spirits to fall to their knees and weep.

And suddenly that creature lost all its beastly qualities and was only a man, looking back at that other throne to make sure the woman he loved was still sat in it. But you never see him look back, because you never looked back, too focused on your own love in front of you.

Remmick had been right, the song wasn’t done when he’d traded it that night in the moors, it could only have been completed after he loved you.

The woman speaks first, her eyes never flick to you, never flick to Remmick, they stay soft and stern all at once as they focus on the man, “let em go.”

And he swallows, eyes never leaving her, “I’ll let them try.”

And he stands and walks to the edge of those stairs and makes them shrink till there’s no more steps, no more impossible feat separating you from each other. The man doesn’t stop you when you run into Remmick’s arms, just lets you hold each other.

“Go, walk back the way ye came, lead them out.”

And you both look back at the man, eyes wide as saucers, voices overlapping.

“I can take them home—”

“I can go with him—”

He interrupts you both, “but ye,” his finger falls on Remmick as he points, “ye lead, and do not look back at them, not once, or else they come back to this place.”

You both look at each other one last time as the world shifts once more, the path Remmick had taken to get to you opening up again. His eyes fall back on the man and he nods, your breath hitches, but so do you.

He kisses you just once, just to be sure you’re real and with him.

“I’ll get us home.”

“I believe ya.”

And the journey begins.

The creature and spirit watch until they can’t see your backs anymore.

The woman’s voice comes first, “do ya think they’ll make it?”

“I don’t know.”

“I hope they do,” her hand finds his, “I remember that, being young and in love once.”

And he looks at her, “I still remember it.”

She doesn’t say anything to that, just squeezes his hand tighter.

And they wait for whatever is to come hand in hand.

⋆ ݁. ˖ 𖠰 ݁↟ ݁↟𖠰 ˖ . ݁⋆

The journey didn’t start out difficult, it was just back the way he came.

He knows the path. Even if he hadn’t memorized every stone, branch and root he passed to get to you, he’s sure his soul would lead him out. Lead him out of this stream back to the one in the mortal realm. Lead him back to the home you shared.

At the beginning he feels the eyes of spirits on him. Not like he did when he first came to this realm. Their eyes aren’t misty anymore. They’re so filled with hope. Hope that he’ll succeed and get to bring you home.

With the footfalls of so many spirits around him at first, he doesn’t realize the awful truth. Which is that he can’t hear yours.

There were enough to distract him at first. But the further out he gets the less there are, and the silence is overwhelming. He shifts that banjo over his shoulder again, plucking at the strings to fill the void, trying to find the rhythm and tune.

But those things are difficult to find without the muse.

You’re only a couple steps behind him, eyes locked on his back, “yer not alone, ‘m right behind ya,” but you realized after the first few times you’d spoken with no reaction that he can’t hear you.

But you still spoke like it might reach him, ‘m comin’ with ya.”

Remmick’s thoughts were swirling with every step.

He’d fight them off. When he couldn’t hear you he’d tell himself that this world was playing tricks on him. That he shouldn’t have anticipated this to be easy. But no matter what he told himself it didn’t make any of it less difficult.

Because who is he? Some man who’d made a foolish deal he didn’t even understand centuries ago.

And that creature, that man, had outsmarted him once, he could surely do it again. Who was he against him? Why would he let him win?

And where was the sun that had beat down on him all before this? It was dark, so, so dark, even with his eyes it was hard to see more than five feet in front of him.

And it made perfect sense to Remmick to think the man would deceive him, even after everything, and make him leave alone.

It was a trap. It all felt like a trap. A trap to keep you here, keep you away from him.

Doubt wriggled into his chest like a worm, and it spread like a disease, blossoming out and spreading through his entire body till he was shaking with it.

But through all that doubt, never once did he doubt that you would follow him if you were able, even through this cold and dark. He knew you loved him as he loved you, with an intensity worth piercing the veil for.

All the spirits' eyes lingered on him. He noticed that. He noticed that they never once fell on anyone walking behind him. They always stayed trained on him.

Where are you?

“‘m right behind ya, have been all along,” and when that didn’t work you tried humming, humming that tune you had been when he found you that first time by the stream. The tune that made that fawn stop. The tune that made him stop.

But there was no change in how tense his body was. He kept plucking at those strings, songs lost on him.

Was there something he missed in that conversation with the man?

Was there some secret meaning between the lines that he missed?

Where are you?

Where are you now?

You see it there, close now, that bridge between realms, swirling, unnatural light in the stream ahead.

You’re so close.

So fucking close.

And you feel it in your chest, the anticipation, the relief, “Remmick, are ya listenin’? It’s right there! We’re almost there—”

And he turns right at the edge of worlds.

There’s nothing to say when you make eye contact.

There’s no wind, no whispers of spirits, for a moment neither of you even breathe. There is nothing but horrible, wretched silence.

He doesn’t tell you that he never doubted you for a second. That he only doubted this world, doubted the game you both had been playing. You smile because you know.

It’s not him who breaks the silence, it’s you.

With a tortured and teary smile you say: “yer early.”

And he chokes on a sound, half sob, half laugh, “I missed ya.”

You aren’t wrenched from him quick and violent. It’s slow. It’s worse.

He has the time to pull you into his arms, feel you there one last time, and then you fade quietly from them, not even the ghost of your warmth there anymore.

⋆ ݁. ˖ 𖠰 ݁↟ ݁↟𖠰 ˖ . ݁⋆

He walks home from the crossroads in the early morning, before dawn has even cracked over the horizon. He doesn’t play his banjo, he doesn’t hum. There are no frogs, no cicadas, no rustling of leaves to fill the quiet. The world has gone silent, mourning with him.

The walk back feels longer than the walk to you.

All hope has been lost and squandered.

You made him see the way the world could be, brilliant, bright and beautiful.

But now the way it is without you is all he sees.

When he gets back to that home you shared, that old buck of yours is waiting, like it’d expected him to return with you. When it sees he’s alone it bows its head in mourning.

Remmick sits down on the porch, makes no complaint when that old buck lays right at his feet and sets its head in his lap. For a moment it looks up at him, like it’s asking for a song.

But Remmick has no songs left to sing.

Remmick threads his fingers into the animal’s fur, focusing on its heartbeat to ground him. The same way he used to focus on yours. He feels when its breathing slows into nothing. He lets it pass right there in his arms.

He makes no move to drink from it, it had been far too precious of a memory, and there's no hunger left in him anyway.

When dawn creeps towards his boots, he looks back at the door to go in, but then he looks down at that deer, his last piece of you on this earth, and he plants himself right where he is.

He doesn’t flinch when the heat comes, it makes him think about when he had come to find you the first time, when he’d traded a song for entrance. A huff of a laugh leaves his lips at the thought. He need not do that this time. Death would come as an easy ticket to you.

His death is not quick and quiet like yours. The sun scorches him, eats him alive. But he still makes no move to run from it. He lets it happen. Even when he screams out in agony and the flesh melts and burns till there is only the blur of fire, he withstands it, steady as a rock.

When that house was discovered by people who wandered too far years later. The sight was eerie, but beautiful. Someone’s old remains laid gently on the bed, dried and brittle flowers placed delicately on their chest, forever guarded by loyal ash and deer bones.

⋆ ݁. ˖ 𖠰 ݁↟ ݁↟𖠰 ˖ . ݁⋆

Remmick woke in the same stream he found you in. To a world much less loud than he remembered it. He was greeted by the babbling of the brook, the rustling of leaves and humming.

And there you were, sitting on the bed of the stream, just like last time, smiling at him like you’d been waiting.

You both stand at the same time to meet each other.

And just like last time, it’s you who breaks the silence.

“Yer early.”

He doesn’t choke on a sob this time when he speaks again, just smiles like he’s finally found that peace he was looking for.

“I missed ya.”

⋆ ݁. ˖ 𖠰 fin 𖠰 ˖ . ݁⋆

A/N: As always I hope y'all enjoyed. If you like Hadestown I'm sure you caught many nods to it in this, if. you caught them an extra kiss is getting blown to you. And another shoutout to my moots and friends who I pitched this idea too, I hope it lived up to yalls excitement <3

#remmick #fic recs

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