#aanethe

[tormentum-ab-intra]

When I Am Gone

CWs and general content notes: characters thinking one’s going to die/expectation of death as the focus, (but one of them’s okay with it,) (they’re both really bad at feelings but in opposite ways,) angst with a happy ending, some blood, brief mentions of (unnamed) (monster) corpses, treating of envenomated wounds/brief needle mentions, brief mentions of alcohol (but no actual drinking,) brief references to (fantasy) religion

Word count: 2,423! --

“Ansel?” Aban’s voice carries easily in the stillness, hoarse though it is, close though Ansel isn’t. A town like this is never loud at night. People here rise with the sun, sleep with the sun, and when danger comes creeping in from the neighboring dark, they don’t run, they don’t fight; they hide. Usually it works. Sometimes it doesn’t.

The night is cool and still. Silent, apart from the chirr of cicadas and the fervent prayers in the hearts of the townsfolk; the last of the priory’s bells stopped ringing hours ago. Aban doesn’t miss the melody.

Bells and prayers may work fine to make certain creatures wary, and cantrips at the door may even turn one away for a time, but it won’t stop them once they’re hungry enough not to mind that little discomfort standing between them and a meal.

That’s what guys like Ansel and Aban are for. With the right blade or spell or methods, anything can be put down. Even kings. Even gods. That’s blasphemy, though, so Aban makes the sign of Shoik with one hand and puts the thought out of his mind.

He wonders how much of the town is really sleeping, and how many are lying awake in bed, listening, waiting for the noise to start up again. He wonders if the thing they’re hunting is waiting too, or if it’s creeping closer even now, hungry and soon to strike.

Eyes on the shadows, Aban says Ansel’s name again, but this time doesn’t wait for the response he knows isn’t coming. “Will you be sad, when I am gone?”

Somehow, the next rasp of stone against iron as Ansel sharpens his blade manages to sound annoyed.

“I think you will,” Aban continues. “Without me, who else is going to rush forth to save you in the nick of time, allowing himself to be tragically wounded in your st--”

“You’re not dying, Aban.”

Yep. Annoyed. Aban laughs, and wonders if Ansel cares how weak it sounds. “Aren’t I, though?”

Ansel lowers his blade, and baleful eyes turn to stare at Aban, daring him to say more. He isn’t near enough to smack him though, so dare Aban does.

“I mean, really. When’s the last time you lost this much blood and lived to tell?”

Ansel’s ever-present smile, the one Aban’s never seen him without in all the years they’ve known each other, turns sharp and sneering. “Last week.” Except last week they had Aanethe with them, and his sigils and healing magic did a hell of a lot more for Ansel than these makeshift bandages are doing for Aban. “You’re fine,” Ansel says, the sign of Mascah bending his fingers. He’s praying. He does care.

“I’m fine,” Aban agrees, crooking bloodied fingers to match. Say it, and make it so.

Ansel resumes sharpening his blade. “That’s what I just said.”

Aban takes that for the command to stop talking that it is, worrying at the fraying edges of his torn-shirt bandages with restless hands. He should be out there, searching between all the little shops and houses, hunting down their quarry before it can decide to come hunting for them -- or worse, start hunting townsfolk again. Instead he’s sitting here, worse than useless. Bleeding out. A liability.

Ansel should be out there, too, finishing the job they started. Instead he’s stuck here, sharpening knives that don’t need it. Babysitting. That, or he’s hoping the noise and the smell of blood will draw the thing they’re hunting to them.

Hard to say.

It wouldn’t be the first time Aban’s been used as bait, though it’d be the first he’s been so while too hurt to stand on his own. He wonders if that’s supposed to bother him.

The scrape of the whetstone is grating, but familiar. Ansel knows what he’s doing. Aban isn’t worried.

It’s still warm when Ansel drops it on the headman’s doorstep. Warm and bloody and twitching. Someone cracks the door open to stare at it, eyes damn near popping out of their skull, and it stares right back, stares until the twitching stops and the bleeding slows and its eyes glaze over.

“What…is it?”

Ansel turns to leave, tracking bloody boot prints down the tidy, cobbled path leading up to the house. “Dead.”

“Wait, but --”

“Figure it out!” Diplomacy is Alabastard’s thing, not Ansel’s, and he doesn’t have the time. He ignores the questions aimed at his back and makes for the alley where he left Aban.

The now-empty alley, as ill fate would have it. Where the fuck has he gotten off to?

Ansel draws his blade and stops at the mouth of the alley, eyes roving, tracing shadows, rooftops, and alcoves. “Aban?”

The wind rustles through laden clotheslines. Shutters rattle. Nothing breathes.

“If this is your idea of a joke, Aban, I’m going to stab you in your fucking neck when I find you.” Ansel’s eyes catch on fresh blood on some of the alley walls. It’s there, and on the ground, and about a dozen other places besides the spot where he left Aban. Crates, neatly stacked last he saw, lie smashed and scattered.

Dammit.

Looks like the job isn’t finished yet after all. It’ll be extra for the second problem the headman forgot to mention, and if he has to spend it all on rites and booze for Aban’s fucking funeral…

“Dumb bastard,” he mutters, advancing slowly. “Hang on. I’ll find you.”

He finds Aban clear on the opposite side of the block, in some random house’s garden, lying pinned beneath a corpse. Not a moving one, thankfully. Ansel can’t decide whether to be annoyed that Aban’s singing or just glad he still can. “New friend of yours?”

The singing comes to an abrupt stop, and Aban beams at him through messy hair and grit and blood. “Oh, yes! We’ve come to an agreement!” The creature’s teeth are still embedded in his shoulder, the hilt of his blade sticking out from its back. “Never did catch her name, though.”

“I told you to stay put.”

“My new friend had other plans.”

Ansel laughs in spite of himself; sharp, and derisive, because if it weren’t it’d be fond, and Aban would never shut up about it. “Whatever. Let’s get you out of here.”

This corpse is heavier than the last, and Ansel doesn’t bother dragging it all the way back to the headman’s house. Someone will find it in the morning. Aban’s only half as heavy, but twice as clingy. Cold fingers hook into Ansel’s shirt. A cold face burrows against the side of his neck. Ansel allows it, just this once, and wastes no time in carrying his friend back to safety.

“Ansel?”

“Yeah.”

Their room at the inn is dark, save for the candles standing lit on the table. Ansel gives the needle a sharp tug, pulling the thread taut, and lays a heavy hand on Aban’s shoulder to keep him steady. The skin around the wound he’s stitching looks mottled and clammy, and the booze he poured over it for want of an antiseptic smells like a wasted buzz and a headache in the making. Boiled water would’ve been better, but this room doesn’t have a stove.

“I think --” Hissing, Aban shifts restlessly beneath Ansel’s hand. “You must want to kill me faster.”

“Oh, yeah? Why’s that?” Ansel jabs the needle through skin again and pulls.

“You’re not --” Another hiss, then something closer to a whimper that Ansel refuses to feel guilty about. “You’re not being very careful.” Aban’s fingers dig into Ansel’s knee, but his grip’s so weak it barely hurts.

“Yeah, well, I’m not a damn medic, Aban. Suck it up. You’ll get over it.”

“Just like you’ll get over it when I’m gone, hmm?”

“When y -- would you stop that?!” Ansel bangs his fist on the table, fixed smile stretched thin, patience stretched thinner. “You’re not fucking going anywhere!”

Aban looks at him shrewdly. “You don’t believe that,” he says softly. He’s right. “So when I am gone, do you want my things?”

“No.” He’s going to finish making sure Aban doesn’t bleed to death in the next few hours, then they’re going home, and Aanethe will take care of it. That’s how it always works. That’s how it has to work. Aban will keep his things, and Ansel will keep trying to steal them when he isn’t looking.

Aban sighs. “Alright,” he says. It’s appeasement, not agreement; he’s just too tired to argue. He still wants Ansel to have his things, and Ansel will sooner bury another teammate than give them to anyone else.

“Ansel?”

“Fucking -- what!” Aban’s fingers are shaking where they cling to Ansel’s shirt, and for once Ansel almost feels bad for snapping. A little softer, he asks, “What now?”

“When I am gone, will you take care of Asa for me?”

Gritting his teeth, Ansel pulls the cloak around Aban’s shoulders a little tighter, urges their horse to run a little faster. “No -- okay, fine. Yes. Whatever.”

“And Abra?”

“Yeah.”

“And --”

“Just -- stop. Shut up. I’ll take care of your stupid cats. But you’re fine, alright? You’ll be fine.” Or all his efforts to keep Aban alive will have been for nothing, all the time they’ve spent together up ‘till now will have been for worse than nothing, and the day they first met will be his greatest regret.

“If you say so.”

“I do.”

Aban lets his head drop against Ansel’s shoulder, watching the landscape blur past. “You’re the boss.”

After that, they ride in silence.

“You’re fucking kidding me.” The door to Aban’s room shuts with a soft click, and just like that, Ansel’s locked away from what may very well be his teammate’s final moments. “You’re fucking kidding me.”

Aanethe stands between him and the door, unimpressed. Bored. “I don’t see why you’re making such a big deal of things. Don’t you hate the guy anyway?”

Ansel doesn’t have an answer for that, mostly because any other day, Aanethe would be right. On some level he’s aware he’s being irrational. Today though, he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care how annoying Aban is, or how many times he’s wished to never see his stupid face again. He needs to be in that room. He needs to know what’s going on.

Mind made up, Ansel takes a step forward, but Aanethe does the same with a hand out to stop him, more exasperated than anything else. “We told you, we need --”

“Yeah, absolute focus, I got that part.” The sigils inked on Ansel’s hands and forearms burn with uncast magic, the heat rising along with his anger until his sleeves begin to smolder. “I’m not a fucking child, Aanethe. I can sit quiet and give you your space, or whatever.”

Aanethe’s raised brow and the glance he casts at Ansel’s hands say he doesn’t believe him. “Then you can sit quiet and give us space outside this room.” Aanethe waves a hand dismissively. Ansel wants to strangle him.

“And if he dies? I’m supposed to just wait out here then, too?”

Aanethe shrugs. “Yes. But, but, but, I’m told you’ll have first pick of his belongings! Silver linings, hm? Yes?” He smiles, like that’s supposed to be reassuring.

It isn’t.

“If you don’t save him,” Ansel bites out, sigils smoking, nails biting into his palms, “you’ll be next. You, then Ambrose.”

“Is that supposed to be a joke?” Aanethe peers down at him through the spectacles perched on the end of his nose, eyes blank, lips twitching at the corners, like he’s trying to decide whether it’d be appropriate to laugh or not. There’s blood -- Aban’s -- on the hand he raises to pat Ansel’s cheek. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he says, genial. “You can’t kill us, little slayer. Don’t you think we’re just a bit above your paygrade?”

Fucking jackass.

Ansel stalks off without another word. If he stays he’ll start swinging, and Aanethe has better things to be doing with his time than getting his ass beat. Namely, fixing Aban.

At this point, a drink seems long overdue.

Ansel ignores the creaking of floorboards behind him. He isn’t in the mood for another of Alabaster’s pep talks. He isn’t in the mood for anything, really, not since being sent away by Aanethe. They won’t let him see Aban, they won’t let him ask questions; all he’s been doing for three days is wait. All he can do now is wait. “Not now, Alabastard. Save it for the funeral.”

“Really? Who’s died?”

Ansel stiffens, breath caught in his throat, pulse tapping in his ears, as footsteps cross the veranda towards him. The voice isn’t Alabaster’s. He’s hearing things. It’s Alba playing tricks. It’s his imagination, projecting to fill a void that shouldn’t be.

“Nothing to say?”

Not to you. Not if you’re…

Ansel stays looking out at the courtyard, willing the ghost to disappear. It isn’t real if he doesn’t acknowledge it. He isn’t gone until Aanethe declares it.

Not until Ansel sees a body.

The thing wearing Aban’s likeness stops just behind him. “I’m disappointed!” it says. “I thought you might have missed me a bit more than that.” It sounds just like him, somehow. Maybe it really is Aban’s ghost, here to sit with him one last time. It might stay to haunt him if he ignores it, so he won’t turn to face it just yet.

Except the warmth at his back feels real. The arms wrapping around his waist feel real. Weight settles on Ansel’s shoulder, hair brushing the side of his neck, and Ansel holds his breath. He’s waiting for the ghost to dissipate, or for their poltergeist to start laughing, to change back, to go away.

It doesn’t.

“You were right,” Aban says, and his arms around Ansel’s waist wind a little bit tighter. Ansel traces familiar scars with his fingertips, and those feel real, too. “Now you don’t get to have all my lovely things. Are you disappointed?”

With not quite a laugh, not quite a sob, Ansel closes his eyes, fingers bent in prayer. “Angry, too.” His voice sounds strange in his own ears. Strangled. “I should kill you myself.”

“Ansel,” Aban murmurs, soft, almost coaxing. “Don’t cry, Ansel. It’s…weird.”

“I’m not.” He’s lying, of course; his shoulders are shaking. The courtyard’s gone blurry, and his words still sound choked and thin. He still can’t turn around; not because it’s a ghost, but because it isn’t.

“Alright,” Aban says, still holding him. Appeasement, not agreement. “I understand. I missed you, too.”