☆ thrice the bell tolls
{☆} characters neuvillette
{☆} notes cult au, imposter au, villain au, drabble, gender neutral reader
{☆} warnings minor angst
{☆} word count 0.9k
"Get in the water."
There is no trepidation in the voice of the Sovereign as he speaks, only pure contempt that bleeds into the very air until it chills their lungs – there will be no penance here. No redemption. He stands before them with apathetic indifference, and with his hands he shall draw judgement upon sinners without a shred of mercy, so heavy his gaze they cannot move. This land shall become the grave of gods – no, not gods, Archons. Transcendent..and fallible.
Horribly, humanly fallible.
What a cruel thing to be – neither god nor mortal, in the end. Their Authority a stolen, coveted thing, so easily taken in a blaze of fury that singes them to the bone, in winds so harsh it tears the breath from their lungs from the sheer pressure, in the way their hairs stand on end as if lightning shall smite them for their arrogance. Judgement has come for them, in the end, and no plea nor bargain can save them from it's justice – they shall be judged and they shall be sentenced.
"..I was willing to put aside your past transgressions – forgive your thievery of the Authority that is not your own – to see Their vision of harmony come to reality." He speaks with nothing but clarity and calmness that unsettles – as gentle as the serene pond illuminated by gentle sunlight, ducks drifting across its pristine surface and creating faint, brief ripples. Calm as the tide as it recedes from the shoreline. His eyes speak of the tempest – the raging winds and the harsh waves that will crash and break and ravage. There is a fury so turbulent it makes the wind go still, the earth erode and the water recede. "You do not deserve repentance when Their body bears the marks of your transgressions," There will be no mercy. They try to plead, to beg and bargain but they cannot speak – their cries go unheard just as Theirs were ignored. A horrifying irony.
"Self proclaimed Acolytes, all, yet you bathe in Their most divine blood and call yourselves Saints," He breathes in, taps his cane against the hardened earth, and holds his head high as he meets their eyes unflinching. Mercy, they think, for we are innocent – we did not know. "Sinners, to the very last. You tear at the flesh of the most Divine like wild dogs to sate your own hunger, for you know nothing else."
His voice is the toll – it echoes like the ringing of a bell, calling them to the water like a siren. It beckons, it demands, and it will not wait. The water recedes and he stands like a beacon among the shores – a bastion of light where it has been snuffed out.
His eyes witness their sins – heavy a burden he bears as he witnesses that which they must atone for. The cruel hand of an Archon as it spills the Divine blood of the very earth beneath their feet. He sees Their agony, feels it to the last. Every bolt of wind, every jagged rock, every bolt of lightning. Every single one he feels until he weeps – for Them, he weeps.
His left hand renders judgement – guilty. Their transgressions are grave, and no redemption can be found for such horrors they have inflicted upon the mortal vessel of the Divine. They have felt their sorrow, have felt Their pain, and he has found them guilty.
And with his right hand..he enacts justice.
"Let your sins be your anchor – let your sins weigh heavy upon your shoulders so that you may feel a brief flicker of the agony you have inflicted upon Them," He lifts his cane with a solemn resolve, tears staining the scales upon his cheeks. "I shall weep for you, too, for no other shall do so in my stead. Return, wretched beasts, to the earth and let it nourish Them where you did not."
And at his call, the waves devour.
Entire cities, entire nations – those who bear the sin shall drown in it's wake, dragged to the lowest depths where even the sun cannot breach. It takes and takes, claws and tears and rips at the bodies of the damned – it devours the world, impartial and unrelenting in it's judgement.
And Neuvillette alone weeps.
◇
"Neuvillette? Are you..crying?" Their voices makes him startle back to awareness, the briefest flicker of shame welling up in the empty space of his chest as he wipes away the tears that roll down his cheeks like drops of rain.
"It..appears so. Forgive me, most Divine, it seems I had a brief lapse in focus." He clears his throat, straightens his back, tries to ignore the pit in his stomach as he watches Their lips pull into a smile all too happy. He..he should be happy too, shouldn't he? He should. If They are happy, so should he be. His lips curl into a smile that doesn't feel like it fits on his face, but he delights in the way They smile wider when he does.
They approve, and that's all that matters, isn't it?
"It won't happen again, I assure you."
Their approval is all that matters.
So why does his chest ache so badly? He did as They commanded, he removed the stain upon Teyvat and ensured Their safety.
So why does he feel such sorrow?
The thought gnaws at him like the tides erode at stone, yet he cannot bear to burden his Creator with such..nonsense.
He will bear this weight alone until the day the waves come to claim him, too.
"Shall we visit the gardens today, Divine One?"
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nowhere without you
rating: t ♥️ cw: post-final battle, hurt/comfort ♥️ tags: established relationship, hurt/comfort, BIG emotions, even BIGGER love, as in: soul-deep love, softness; happy endings always ♥️
for @steddielovemonth day eight: Love is the heartbeat I can feel when I hug him
(also probably the humble love-soaked endlessly-devoted beginnings of the rockstar!husbands in je ne regrette rien)
The weirdest part is how, in the aftermath, Eddie doesn’t speak. Like, at all.
Scratch that: it’s the weirdest and the most concerning part. Eddie makes noise, mostly pained kinda moans that make Steve’s chest clench, ache more the admittedly-decently-deep wounds slowly—but reliably, like, consistently—stitching themselves together, and Steve begs him to get looked at again, because something has to be wrong to cause those kinds of sounds but Eddie doesn’t even shake his head, doesn’t really move at all save that sometimes he trembles, and it’s…
It fucking breaks Steve’s heart.
He’s almost gotten used to stroking Eddie’s hair in silence—so wrong; worthy Eddie that’s just so wrong—and working any tangles out so, much as it’s getting a limp and greasy with days of neglect, at least it’s smooth; but he’s almost resigned to this for the long haul because he’ll weather anything he has to for Eddie and they’ll work through this, whatever this is, they’ll worth through it together and—
“How did you stand you it?”
The sound is more a scratch than anything, glass on sandpaper, and it’s down to Eddie lying where he hasn’t left for the last four, going on five days—as in, not once while Steve’s been awake has he existed without Eddie’s weight situated just so against his chest, sinuous and deliberate in where he presses against, careful as a rule of Steve’s worst injuries and delicate about how he rests against Steve’s body, but not…hesitant.
More, kinda…kinda desperate.
So it’s down to him being pressed so close and sure and unwavering that Steve feels him speak more than anything, matches the motion of his lips against Steve’s gown to words rather than the wind, or something outside his door to the halls of the hospital beyond; it’s down to the tension in the whole of him, the all-too-present shaking that Steve matches the scrape of the question to a hurt that’s…that maybe Steve doesn’t wholly understand just yet, but that really and truly does cut him deeper and closer and more critical at the core of him than the Upside Down ever could have clawed in: Eddie lives in him, nothing else can really…ever hope to be deeper.
“How are you,” Eddie rolls gravel across more words, and Steve’s missed his voice so fucking much, he didn’t realize how much until it’s here again for him to hear and hold but, Jesus fuck, it’s like…it’s like it’s drowning; like Eddie is drowning and then his breath is hitching, and oh, god, that voice is cracking around the edge of a sob, watery and wavering as he damn-near close to begs:
“How did you survive it?”
Steve feels it clench in his ribs, because he thinks he…he thinks he’s putting it together. The strain, the agony in that voice, that voice he loves so fucking much, from this man he loves with everything, but then—the way Eddie presses into him. The force, and the position, and the pattern. The way he’s been quiet, unfailing, but never…never seems distant, seems the opposite: seems focused; intent. The way Dustin had come in and caught him upon the things he’d missed in one of the almost-nonexistent windows where Eddie sleeps, hand lines alongside his sternum and head curled in the most uncomfortable pretzel Steve can imagine, forehead all scrunched and eyes squeezed shut so goddamn hard, looking like any sleep he manages is nothing close to rest by any measure: but Dustin had came in and told him Eddie was the first to him; Eddie ran faster than he’d seen a person run; Eddie’d looked devastated, broken when they’d caught up, and they’d been so afraid, feared the worst, and—
Steve’s starting to fit the pieces together. Maybe.
“No,” Eddie whines, pitchy and fervent and almost ear-splitting, like a wail of sheer gut-wrenching pain that Steve can’t find the reason for in the here and now because it’s just them in a hospital room, they’re okay, and his hand presses heavy, gentle around his wounds still, always gentle and so, so careful and Steve doesn’t know what’s caused the reaction, but then—
Then he can feel his fucking heartbeat for how hard Eddie’s pressing. It’s weird, how it makes him feel…strangely alive, the sensation of it kept and held like that, specifically in Eddie’s hand. And he’s not paying attention to the monitors really, tuned them out as quick as he could but when he listens, okay. Okay, maybe faster than normal, but Steve’s fucking worried, okay, he’s—
“Fuck, no,” Eddie moans and twists his head, no, not just his head, his ear and leans harder into Steve’s chest, his breathing shallow and Steve hates it but he doesn’t know what to do, how to help, what to fix because he’ll fix it if he knows, he’ll climb out of this bed and crawl on the goddamn floors of he has to, but he doesn’t know where to go, what to find, what demon’s left to slay—
“I’m just, I’m grateful you did,” survive, Steve survived…
He survived, like, now?
“But grateful’s such a weak word, it doesn’t,” and Steve takes a breath, and reaches, rests his hand on Eddie’s wrist just to see: his heartbeat’s somuch faster, it’s like a flutter of a flutter felt strong enough to break through skin, it catches in Steve’s heart just to touch—
“You’re so much stronger than I could ever, like,” Eddie’s going on, still breathless and fuck, Steve can see why; “fucking hope to be.”
Shit, but that’s…he wasn’t stronger, fuck, Steve wasn’t stronger than Eddie, Eddie nearly got eaten alive, Steve nearly couldn’t staunch enough of the bleeding, he almost lost—
Eddie keens, horrible and hurting and Steve stills: the monitor. The thundering of his own pulse at the memory.
How did you survive it?
Losing. Almost losing. That’s…that’s what it is.
That’s why Eddie’s pressed against his chest, his his head and his hand have been a fucking frame, goddamn, like, parentheses surrounding Steve’s beating heart, proof of life, Jesus—
“But I need to be,” Eddie’s voice is quiet, but steadier, and his chin dips like a nod to himself; “I need to learn how,” he’s firm with it; “for you.”
Oh, god. Oh…oh Eddie.
“I can’t ever lose you, Steve,” Eddie presses trembling lips to Steve’s chest and then presses close again, so close and oh: he wasn’t just intent where he’s been silent so long.
He was listening.
“Never ever,” he breathes against Steve, hot and damp; almost kinda breathless again, or still: “never ever.”
“Eds,” Steve begins, not even entirely sure where he plans to go, just knows he needs to do something, say something, but Eddie’s turning Steve’s hand in his, where he’d circled Eddie’s wrist; he’s turning it and mirroring the hold, gripping Steve’s wrist in kind.
“I couldn’t find it,” he gasps, and the sound makes the sob clear before Steve feels the wetness soak through to his skin; “I couldn’t feel it at all, you were, it,” he presses his fingers in hard, squeezes so goddamn tight, and Steve can’t…he doesn’t want to imagine what Eddie had to do, what Eddie found and felt, he doesn’t but he can, because he remembers the mirror image so stark, it took him so long because he couldn’t find a pulse either, he’d had to press on Eddie’s heart at the source and even then—
“I couldn’t feel you.”
Oh. Fuck. He—
“Oh, baby,” Steve’s elevated enough at an angle that he can at least kiss Eddie’s hair, barely brush his scalp but it’s enough, for the breath that punches from Eddie against his chest it’s at least something; “that’s…”
“I won’t survive that again, Steve,” Eddie sucks in, unsteady and drenched with tears, with sorrow, but also…also more than anything else, they’re filled up with so much love.
A love big enough to hurt that hard.
“And I can’t…” Eddie gasps, breath catching; “I can’t handle not feeling it,” and his fingers tighten; his hand on Steve’s chest and his cheek across from it press down that extra little bit so Steve knows his own heartbeat in those moments full and deep.
“Have to feel it always,” Eddie whispers like he’s telling himself, and Steve, and Steve’s heart through flesh and bone, some cosmic secret no one else can know: too sacred. Too precious.
“You can feel it any time,” Steve lets his hand fall from Eddie’s to cover the hand Eddie’s got splayed ln his chest, counting time; holds him there almost protectively: “all the time,” and he slips his fingers between Eddie’s and shifts his palm close to the beating, so he can still feel what he needs as he murmurs with his heart literally in Eddie’s hands, with his entire goddamn soul:
“All of me. It’s yours.”
Unshakable fucking fact. He doesn’t even have to will it, or hope for it; his heartbeat knocks that heavier against their hands for those words like it knows.
It knows.
“Don’t leave me,” Eddie bursts out, begging; almost something primal, and Steve can feel the tremoring of his lips where they drag against him; “please. I’ll do anything, I swear it, just don’t—“
“Be you,” Steve braves the whimper that comes from untangling his hand from Eddie so that he can reach for Eddies cheek and cradle him in closer, and oh, fuck, thank god: something in him sighs out and loosens, ever so slightly—finally.
“Everything you are,” Steve presses on, runs his thumb back and forth through Eddie’s drooping curls; “let me love you, past living and dying,” and Eddie’s breath catches, for that, but Steve holds him tighter for it, drowns him as best he’s able in the proof he needs so bad; “don’t leave me,” and Eddie huffs a little for that, like it’s beyond believing, impossible, and Steve smiles to himself for it, tries to lean enough to press the grin to Eddie’s head, hopes he manages as he murmurs there close:
“That’s it, Eddie,” and he lets his fingers spread wider, cradle Eddie all the more: “that’s all I need.”
“That and more baby,” Eddie answers him between the double-beat of his pulse, immediate; “you’re the music and the rhythm,” he nuzzles a little against him, and Steve smiles a little wider for it; “you’re the reason my heart beats,” and Steve finds that heartbeat for himself at Eddie’s jaw, now; a little calmer. Not much. But: something.
It’s a start.
”I don’t have a reason without you,” Eddie exhales, vehement; “I don’t want a reason, without you.”
And Steve should maybe push on it, or be scared by it: but neither seem right, not for this.
Not for them.
Steve just holds Eddie’s pulse under the pressure of his touch, and holds Eddie’s cheek closer still into his chest as he breathes:
“You’re my whole heart, Eds,” and he lets a second pass, and then another, for that heart of Eddie’s to pump evidence unshakable against him, to play the song and rhythm straight into his waiting ear:
“Was never going anywhere without you.”
♥️ ao3 link here
tag list (comment to be added): @pearynice @hbyrde36 @slashify @finntheehumaneater @wxrmland @dreamwatch
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