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driflew · 10 months ago

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im talking abt witch au in a server so im posting another scene from it. this time Ren fuckign dies.

Martyn hears the fuss before he sees it. He’s looking for Ren—the dog ran off, but the sun has broken through the trees, so Martyn figures it’s not the dog he’s looking for anymore. Ren’s probably sitting naked in the forest somewhere, and as treatable as it would be, Martyn plans to find him before he catches a cold.

“Don’t let him up—you saw how big his claws were,” says a voice Martyn only sort of recognizes, though what he says is…

“I’m not stupid. I’m not taking any risks with this thing—I’m not catching whatever he’s got,” another voice, even less familiar.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” this voice, Martyn cannot mistake—Ren.

Martyn steps a bit closer. He’s just outside the edge of the clearing, ducking behind a tree. Not immediately obvious to anyone in the center, though Martyn can see Ren from his hiding place. He’s surrounded by a few men—Martyn doesn’t know their names, but he knows them to be some of Ren’s neighbors. Most of them steer clear of Ren, but one has his boot on the back of Ren’s neck.

Ren’s hands are muddy. There’s dirt under his nails and across his stomach. Hair falls around his face, and blood stains his teeth and chin. He looks like an animal, and Martyn’s heart hurts looking at him.

“Must be full from whatever you already ate, you piece of shit,” the first voice says, and Martyn hears Ren make a choked noise of pain—the man must be increasing the pressure. “Whose blood is that?!”

“No one’s!” Ren’s wheezing, just a bit, “I caught a deer, that’s all.”

“A deer never satisfies a thing like you.”

Ren is caught and there’s no doubt about it, and that means there’s nothing left Martyn can do for him. His cloak is dark, and though the rising sun means it won’t help him hide as well, it’s still effective. If Martyn slips away now, he’ll… he can…

“My cousin had a wolfman in his town. He said it didn’t stop hunting until it had found a man big enough to chew on until the sun rose again.”

“I didn’t! I wouldn’t,” Ren insists, “You know me, I’ve lived here since I was born. I wouldn’t. You know that!”

Martyn tugs his hood on, biting the inside of his mouth. He needs to leave, but leaving Ren is…

“Oh, sure,” scoffs someone else, “And I knew you were human, too. But you’ve turned, and you can't trust a wolf.”

Ren actually whimpers, a sound Martyn has only ever heard him make as the dog. It hurts to hear, but it has Martyn taking an uncertain step to the side, unsure if he wants to run away.

He threw Ren to the wolves the first time Ren came to him in order to protect himself—he could have cured Ren, but he didn’t, wanting to keep from the magic he’d have to use for a cure being discovered and reported.

Ren wouldn’t have reported him. He knows that now. If he’d cured Ren, this wouldn��t be happening.

…But it is. Ren is doomed, and what can Martyn even do? He’s not a hero. He’s barely—

“Hey!” someone calls. Martyn’s head snaps up, and he locks eyes with the owner of the voice. “There’s someone else there! Who are you?!”

Martyn takes a step back, but the nearest man grabs him by the arm, yanking him into the light. Ren twists his head under the boot on his neck, and his face pales as Martyn is dragged into the light.

“Christ, do you mind?! Jeez!” Martyn says, shaking the man’s hand off. He brushes his sleeve, annoyed—he’s doing his absolute best to play the part of a random passerby, “What on earth is going on here? I came out to collect some medicinal herbs, and you’ve got some guy under your… is that Ren?”

“Used to be. Wolf’s curse has him now. Who knows how long ago he turned,” someone says, “Dunno if you’ve ever really met Ren, Doctor.”

“You’re collecting herbs, you said?” another says, “Why don’t you have any in your basket?”

Martyn looks down and bites back a swear. All he brought was food, water, and a cloak and some loose pants for Ren—obvious ties, and a clear contradiction to his alibi.

“Yeah, just woke up and came out for them, though I haven’t found any,” Martyn says, “Easiest to look for by sunlight.”

“You know, Doctor, I heard something weird about you,” says the one with a shoe on Ren’s neck. Ren lets out a choked noise, another pound of pressure on his spine. “I heard you were seen with the wolf a few months ago.”

“What? Like, Ren?” Martyn asks, playing innocent, “Sure, Ren comes to my stand, but I thought he was sick…?”

“Not at your stand. In the night,” the man says, “I heard you’re fraternizing with rabid animals. You’re a witch.”

Martyn laughs, a touch nervous, “A witch? No. I’m a great doctor and all, but I’m not magic.”

“You were commanding the wolf-thing, making it obey you. Only a witch could do that,” the man insists, “Joseph’s wife saw you. She looked out the window at the awful beast and saw it knock your hood down before it submitted to your command.”

“That’s— your friend’s wife must have mistaken me for someone else,” Martyn says.

“My wife knows what she saw!” says a man who must be Joseph, not that Martyn cares to turn around and check which one that is.

“You’ve been spending time with him even when he’s not in the form of a monster,” someone says, and Martyn sweats. He should have kicked Ren out, he should have decided not to check on Ren that night, he should have—

“Martyn’s helping me with the other symptoms,” Ren’s voice cuts through Martyn’s spiraling. Martyn’s head snaps down to watch as Ren attempts to look up at his captors. “I didn’t tell him about my— my curse. He didn’t know. I didn’t tell him.”

“Doesn’t make him not a witch.”

“He’s not!” Ren insists, “He’s a friend I lied to. Nothing else.”

“The witch was commanding him,” says another man, taking a step closer to Martyn. There’s an axe in his hand, still clean. “He must be commanding Ren now. Why else would Ren defend him?”

“He didn’t do anything!” Ren insists, “I swear. I swear, Martyn hasn’t used any magic. Please leave him alone, please.”

Martyn looks down at Ren begging on the ground and his stomach turns with nausea. Ren isn’t prideful, exactly, but like this he seems to have no pride at all.

It shreds Martyn inside to see him like that. Even now, it’s not his own life he’s begging for—Ren wants to protect Martyn. Christ, and Martyn had been about to leave him.

Martyn knows how it’ll make him look, but he pulls the cloak out of his basket and steps toward Ren.

“I’m not going to do anything,” Martyn says, holding up the cloak to show the men, “But c’mon. He’s not an animal. Ren’s always been a good man. Let him have some semblance of his dignity before you kill him.”

“Careful,” the man with a foot on Ren says, “This isn’t Ren anymore. If you’d seen the claws on him…”

“I’ll be careful,” Martyn says, “Just let him up a second. He’s got no claws anymore.”

The man with a foot on Ren’s neck stares, then releases their hold on him. Martyn only hesitates a moment before kneeling in front of Ren, throwing the cloak over him like a blanket.

“Sit up,” Martyn whispers, dropping his hand to Ren’s hair. He threads his fingers through for barely a moment before removing them, “Don’t die lying down in the dirt.”

Ren does as he’s told, sitting up and pulling the cloak around his front. He doesn’t look much better—he’s still dirty, with a bloody chin and knotted hair—but at least he can claim some small piece of pride.

The way he looks at Martyn is devastating. This close, Martyn can see the sad, guilty eyes, the defeated hang of his shoulders. Martyn may have known he was doomed when he saw him here, but it’s another thing to see defeat so obvious on the face of someone so stubborn and headstrong as Ren.

Martyn actually gets up and takes a step back—he can’t be that close to Ren looking at him like that.

The man who had been standing on Ren earlier drops his sword down, holding the edge below Ren’s neck. Ren doesn’t flinch—less an admirable display of courage, and more a simple acceptance of what’s to come.

“So, Doctor, why did you have that with you?” the man asks, “You’re already wearing a cloak. You wouldn’t carry it unless you knew someone would need it.”

Martyn looks at his basket. There’s still a pair of pants in there, making his alibi tricky.

“I did know he’d need it,” Martyn admits, quiet.

“I told him. I asked him to bring it. I didn’t tell him why,” Ren lies again, fingers tight on the edge of the cloak.

“Like hell! He was with you, wasn’t he?!” the man says.

“The wolf defending him is proof. He must be brainwashed by the witch’s magic,” another man says.

“Monsters have to stick together. Just get rid of them both!”

“No,” Martyn says, “Look, Ren, I appreciate you lying for me, but you don’t have to. I did know about Ren’s affliction, but we were treating it as just that—an illness. I’ve been trying to help him treat it for the past few months. I never commanded him, never spent a night with him, but we’ve tried a few medicines to lessen the effects of the moon on him and keep him in check. I knew, but not because I’m a witch. I’m a doctor, and Ren came to me as a patient looking for a cure. That’s all.”

“Why wouldn’t you just report him?!”

“Like I said,” Martyn says, taking another step back, “Ren’s always been a good man.”

Someone grabs Martyn’s arm, stopping him from moving any further back.

“Good enough to make yourself this damn suspicious for?” he asks, “Because the way I see it, you protected him ‘cuz you’re a witch, and he’s your bitch.”

Martyn resists the urge to cringe at the taunt, trying his best to maintain that aloof doctor facade he’s been wearing so effortlessly for years. He scoffs, folding his arms.

“No one is good enough to make myself this suspicious over. Especially not some wolfman I just met,” Martyn says, “But could you imagine how much money I’d have made if I’d actually cured him? There’s no one else in the world who could do that. I could charge anything I wanted for it. I saw the chance and I took it, but clearly, it hasn’t paid off.”

Ren says nothing, face unreadable, and Martyn scrambles to make it clear he’s lying.

“Hell,” Martyn adds, gesturing one arm at Ren, “I could charge Ren anything I wanted. He couldn’t not pay what I asked—at best, I would stop trying to cure him. At worst, I could report what he was to everyone. Shame it had to end this way, though.”

“I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you,” Ren whispers. There’s a venom to it Martyn has never seen from Ren before, far more convincing than Martyn expects. Ren’s head snaps up, and the pain in his eyes has a fire behind it now, “You were supposed to help me!”

“I would’ve! But I don’t want to be a small town doctor forever,” Martyn says, “The city’s much nicer. I almost have enough to open my own practice, and a few more, er… we’ll say treatments for you would have helped a lot. Especially if any of them had actually worked.”

“Is that all you wanted from me? My money?” Ren asks.

“I mean, sure. What’s a wolfman need with money, anyway?” Martyn asks, “Your lot never live long. Do you mind if I collect your estate after this? It’s not much anymore, but it’d be really nice to sell the rest.”

“Bastard,” Ren spits.

“That doesn’t sound like a no,” Martyn says, and Ren bares his teeth into a snarl. Almost immediately, the sword at his neck cuts into his flesh, turning his growl into a sound of pain.

“Stop riling him up,” the man says, “We don’t know what he’s capable of.”

“Right,” Martyn says, putting up his arms and taking another step back. If they knew Ren like he does, they’d know the answer is nothing. Ren wouldn’t hurt any of them.

Not that Ren defends himself. He keeps glaring at Martyn, and though it hurts, it’s better than the despair.

“We need him dead. We’ve stalled long enough already,” the man holding Martyn’s arm says.

“Just run him through already!” says someone behind him.

“Drown him, wolves can’t swim,”

“Yes they can! You have to burn them.”

“That’s witches, idiot!”

Ren seems a bit paler as they argue. Martyn can only imagine how he feels—these are neighbors he’s known all his life, and now they’re debating his manner of death right in front of him. It’s the end of the line, and a gruesome one at that.

“No! All of you are wrong. You have to cut its head off,” someone else yells, “Wolfmen are sturdy, they don’t die any other way.”

“Hey, Doctor,” the man with the sword says. “Do you ever treat animals?”

“Occasionally,” Martyn says, unsure if he likes the question.

“Have you ever put down a dog?”

“What?” Martyn asks. His callous costume slips for a moment, though he’s quick to put it back on. “Sure, once or twice. I don’t usually bother with treating dogs, though.”

“You bothered with a wolf.”

“A lucrative wolf. People don’t pay as much for dogs as they would themselves,” Martyn says, “Medicine doesn’t generalize that much, you know. I don’t know how to treat anything on an animal beyond stitching up a wound.”

“Sure, sure,” the man says, “But everything dies the same. Even wolfmen. Even witches.”

Martyn narrows his eyes. “I’m not a witch.”

“Prove it, then,” the man says. He pulls his sword away, offering it to Martyn. “Kill the wolfman. If he really means nothing to you, it should be easy. Otherwise, I’ll assume you’re a witch in league with him.”

“I don’t even know how to, to— what do you even want me to do?” Martyn asks.

“You’ve chopped firewood, haven’t you?” the man asks, “It’s probably like that.”

Martyn stares at Ren a long time, but Ren isn’t looking at him. His knuckles are white, and at the hem, his hand shakes.

If Martyn can do nothing else for Ren, he can at least make this quick.

“If it’s like firewood,” Martyn says, “Give me an axe.”

— — —

They set Ren up on an old stump. It’s a bit too tall, and the position he takes the lean his neck against it is awkward, undignified. Most of what they do leading up to his death is—letting him keep the cloak is the only reprieve they afford him. No one lets him wipe the blood from his mouth or pull the twigs from his hair. He’s barely even let off the ground to move to his chopping block—it would be too easy to run on his own two feet, and so he’s made to crawl.

Martyn is the final person willing to even to use Ren’s name.

“Part your hair, Ren,” Martyn instructs, “I don’t want to miss.”

Ren is allowed to do that, at least, pulling his hair away to clear up the skin there. Martyn tugs down the back of the cloak himself, letting his fingers linger at the base of Ren’s spine, looking at what, exactly, he’s about to do.

His throat is pressed against old bark, putting him at an odd angle. Martyn says nothing, another of many decisions he’ll come to regret.

“Okay,” Martyn mutters, lifting the axe, “Any last words?”

Ren closes his eyes. “I’ll see you in Hell, Doctor.”

It should sound like an insult, but Martyn knows it isn’t. It doesn’t make it any easier.

Martyn swings. The angle is crooked, diagonal against Ren’s bent neck. Martyn knows he’s fucked it when he hears the sound Ren makes: a choked scream, loud enough to startle the birds and as pained as it is wet.

Martyn rips the axe out of his flesh. Blood streams down the blade and onto the cloak, but Martyn ignores it. Ren begins to sag and Martyn panics, slamming it back down. This angle is worse, and Ren cries a second time. His body shudders, patches of hair appearing on his shoulders and down his arms. There’s shouting behind Martyn, but he doesn’t process the words.

Ren is in pain. The wolf has only ever wanted to protect him, to soothe him. He’s scared and in pain and the wolf wants to help and it’s Martyn that’s causing it.

Martyn slams the axe down a third time. Ren makes no noise, at least, or maybe it’s drowned out by the splatter of blood, or the axe hitting bone, or bark snapping under the grip of Ren’s claws.

Martyn’s hands and chest and legs are covered in it. He’ll probably never feel clean again.

Rip. Raise. Swing. Rip. Raise. Swing.

It takes a total of five blows before Martyn hits wood, Ren’s head falling away onto the dirt.

His body slumps against the wood, leaving blood smeared all down the bark. Like a spider’s legs curling in death, the claws and fur retract as the life leaves him. He looks smaller like that, crumpled against the ground.

He’s dead. Ren is dead, and Martyn murdered him.

Martyn processes very little about the next few moments. He’s only seen a few bodies in his life, but this is the worst yet. Ren had been kind beyond anyone Martyn had ever met, and Martyn had killed him. If Martyn had cured him, if Martyn had sedated him, if Martyn had stepped in and saved him, if—

“—tor, Doctor!” Martyn snaps back to attention. The man with the sword is in front of him, and he actually looks concerned.

“He’s— I’m so, you—” Martyn doesn’t know what he’s saying. Ren is dead and he wants to apologize and he wants to curse this man’s entire bloodline to ends twice as gruesome and violent. He feels small, smaller than Ren against that stump. He feels like a kid again, trying not to sob as he’s carried away from Jay’s smoldering house. His vision is blurring already, and his hands are shaking so bad that he can barely hold the axe.

“Jesus, you look like you’re going to be sick.”

“I am,” Martyn says, honest. He hears the axe fall to the ground, though he’s not aware of letting it go.

“Haven’t you, like, done surgery?” the man asks.

“That— it’s, not like that,” Martyn says, “They don’t— they don't bleed that much. They’re not— they don’t feel— they don’t make noise.”

He hears someone behind him say something like ‘can’t be a witch with such a weak stomach.’ Jay had a weak stomach, too. Was no good at hurting anyone, not even if he wanted to. Not even to defend himself.

Just like Ren. Not like Martyn.

Martyn had always thought, if he’d only had the power he has now, he’d have leapt to Jay’s defense. He’s always told himself he’d have saved the only person who ever loved him, comforted himself with versions of the world where he and Jay escaped.

Ren didn’t love him, but Ren had made himself the only other person who’d gotten so far as to like him. And Martyn hadn’t just let him die, no—Martyn had killed Ren himself.

What was the point of all this power if Martyn is still a coward? How did he let it happen again? When did he lose sight of what he’d gained it all for?

What can he do with it now?

“Take a seat, man,” the man says, and Martyn shakes his head—if he sits now, he’ll never get the nerve to move again.

What can he do with his magic? There must be some way to fix this. Martyn is a healer, better than any other. There must be some spell for sutures or blood or bone, something that could fix this, something that could bring Ren back to h—

…Something that could bring Ren back.

Martyn looks up, finally meeting the man’s eyes. He’s still shaking, but he gathers what determination he can.

“Let— let me bury him,” Martyn says.

“What?”

“Let me,” Martyn tries again, trying to keep his voice from trembling, “Let me bury him.”

“Why the hell would you bury a wolfman?”

“So he, his body,” Martyn’s determined, but the adrenaline in his body has him scrambled. It’s hard to think, to speak, “It’ll infect the, the wolves, if— if they eat it, the local wolves, they’ll, if we just—”

The man raises a hand, cutting him off.

“So we’ll burn it,” the man says. Martyn shakes his head.

“I need to, to be the one to,” Martyn says, and when he can’t explain himself, he tacks on the one bit of magic even humans recognize: “Please.”

“No graveyard will take a wolfman,” the man says.

“I’ll bury him out here,” Martyn says, “Please.”

“Why does this matter so much to you?” the man asks, “Don’t tell me you feel guilty.”

“I’ve never— I’ve never lost a patient before,” Martyn says, almost a whisper. The man’s face actually softens. He believes Martyn to be a human doctor, after all, simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. He sets a hand on Martyn’s shoulder, sympathetic.

“I know he looked human, but that thing wasn't human anymore,” he says, “You don’t have to feel bad. It was us or him.”

Martyn doesn’t want to be us with this man. Being safe with these people isn’t worth this. It wasn’t worth Jay. Martyn has paid so steeply for this safety and belonging, and it was never worth a goddamned thing.

“Ren’s always— always been a good man,” Martyn says, “Just— I need to do this. Let me do this. Please.”

The man sighs, squeezing Martyn’s shoulder. “If this is what you need to sleep tonight.”

It isn’t. If only it were so simple as ever sleeping again.

“Thank you,” Martyn says anyway.

— — —

The first thing Martyn does is close Ren’s eyes.

He doesn’t look at them. He has no idea what Ren’s expression looks like because he doesn’t want to know. He doesn’t check, instead focusing on picking him up.

He picks Ren’s head up first, gentle, respectful as he can be. He doesn’t take Ren by his hair or hold him by the face, instead cupping Ren’s chin in his hands. Ren’s hair cascades down his arms unobstructed, wet strands and the drenched wound coating Martyn’s sleeves in even more blood.

Next, Martyn empties the basket. That’s careless—Martyn dumps everything on the ground without even looking. The only thing he picks back up is the pants, which he lays down on the base of the basket, just to give Ren a bit of a cushion when he rests him inside.

Martyn sets his head down gently, leaning on his cheek. Though he tries to put Ren’s hair inside the basket, plenty of it spills out over the edges.

Once Ren is secure, he sets the basket in the crook of his arm, and he moves to the rest of him.

Ren’s body is still curled against the stump. The bleeding has slowed, but it hasn’t stopped entirely.

First, Martyn lays Ren’s body on his back. He covers Ren as best he can with the cloak, wrapping him carefully in the dark fabric. It’s difficult to see blood on, at least, though his stained neck is impossible to miss. Martyn has to be careful as he bends down, hooking his arms under Ren’s knees and back without tipping Ren’s head out of his basket.

Ren is light when Martyn finally stands. Martyn’s already exhausted—staying up all night hadn’t done him any favors, nor had his awful morning—but he notices that. Ren had been a lumberjack before he… got sick. He must’ve lost the muscle at some point, though Martyn hadn’t noticed.

Martyn rubs his thumb against Ren’s shoulder through the fabric of his cloak. His body is still warm.

“It’s going to be okay, Ren,” he whispers, unable to care about being overheard. “I’ll take care of you. I’ll fix this. I’ll fix everything. I promise.”

He doesn’t apologize—as much as he wants to, Martyn holds his tongue. Now isn’t the time for apologies.

Martyn will save it until Ren can hear it.

#lew writes #witch au #traffic smp #(if youre wondering who the other character Martyn mentions is. oc dad character)#(server in question already knows who he is but just trust me)#(just rlly love that robot dad from the hero villain fic okay--)

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