there is a pull to this place, steady, thrumming. so often alastor thinks he might just be able to wash his hands of this and walk away from whatever bleeding thing lies on the ground between them. but he always comes back here. and when he walks up the low hill he can’t even pretend to be surprised that evan is already waiting.
he pauses for a moment, eyes closed against the sound of the sea. alastor had strained to hear it so many times during his confinement, sat and imagined this place. he knows evan is watching. ❛ you can’t hear it, ❜ an answer to an unasked question - an offering to that morbid curiosity he is sure evan fosters for that place. on a rock in the middle of the sea and not even the breaking of waves against stone, it isn’t the kind of thing you realize until you try to listen for it. he opens his eyes again and doesn’t feel any differently for having been seen. there is blood on their hands and so much owed that has yet to be paid, but there are no threats to make good on here. no scores to settle.
he sits beside him.
* alastor ft. evan ( @griefswar )
evan knew he would come. it was the only reason he waited for him in this place all this time. or perhaps he had hoped and he hadn’t been willing to give up on that hope. it was a question of sorts and he isn’t exactly sure if he will like the answer; he isn’t even sure which answer he wants. his gaze never wavers as alastor walks up to him or when he closes his eyes breathing in the salt air. it is the sort of stillness only he had ever been witness to, the sort of stillness he had only seen here. evan’s gaze is steady but there are no words for the war in his head: the hope this is the end. the hope its the beginning of something else entirely. and then, alastor sits down next to him and he has his answer.
it is a heady thing: to be seen for the terrible thing he was and still be wanted, still be chosen. it is why he will test alastor’s devotion over and over again — if only because evan knows his is endless. if only because he will never get used to it. it will always be like this very first time: the sort of thrill that is unmatched, that makes all his blood seem like a small price to pay if it means having this for whatever is left of his short life. that’s all azkaban ever was. alastor might have already known but there was a world of difference in knowing and being confronted by it and oh, evan knows he will pay for this and more. but not now and not here. never here.
“you’re here now,” his words followed by the slightest of laughs, low and breathless as he leans back on his hands, his shoulder brushing alastor’s. he turns to look at him, “i had to know. if you’d still come. once you know what i am.”
