Outis x Reader
Pronouns: Gender Neutral
Warnings: Descriptions of fire and burning
A soldier leaves her beloved, one sunny, heartless day. Standing in the hallway, hand in her pocket, casual and tense. Her eyes sharpen into points at the corners, all angular and amber brown turning fiery as dusk dawns. Yet so soft, regarding you with nothing but tender resignation. Everything is ready. Her clothes, neatly folded, waiting by the door. The forms, inked with perfect penmanship, folded in her pocket. Her watch, ticking smoothly, strapped onto her wrist. Everything is ready.
Everything but her heart.
She stands behind, resting her head on your shoulder as her arms wrap around your waist. A delicacy in the motions, calloused fingers pressing gently against skin with a soft sigh. You won’t look at her. Won’t hardly speak to her.
“…You know I have to.”
Your hands pause in silken thread. “…You don’t.”
“I do.”
“You don’t.”
“I should.”
“…”
Your fingers curl in the fabric, smooth and black and hemmed for another. “…I hate it.”
“I know,” her voice is a sigh, stroking a hand over your hair. “I’ll be fine. I’m a soldier.”
“You’re a medic.”
“I’m both.”
“I know. Just…”
The bite falters in your voice, shoulders slumping. “I can’t help but worry. You know that. And it’s so- so far away, not like all the other times…”
“…Hey.” Her hand slides down, cupping your cheek and tilting your head to meet her eyes, glimmering and sparking so sweetly. “I’ll be okay. I’m trained for this. I promise, I’ll come back.”
“…” You stare, smoky citrine and two rings of gold in her ear, mirroring the matching set on your shared hands. “…You better keep that promise, Odysseus.”
She just chuckles softly, expression crinkling and brightening around the edges. The same way you smile, in all your genuine delight that you kindly share with a nobody like her. “Of course. Just wait for me. I’ll be back before you know it.”
Her thumb traces gentle circles over your skin, a murmur of touch. “Wait for me. Wait under the olive tree. That’s where I’ll be, okay?”
Your own fingertips ghost across her watch, the fragment of time you wrapped and tied with a ribbon just for her. “…I’ll wait. For as long as I need to.”
“And I’ll come back, no matter how long it takes me.”
A smile tugs at the corner of your lips, leaning your head against hers and pecking the bridge of her nose. “I love you, Ody.”
Odysseus smiles back, gentle and open, only for you. “And I love you, my muse. For eternity, on the open sea.”
A sinner taps her foot impatiently, staring out the window with a pinched brow. Finally- finally. It’s been far too long, too many years and too many stops on this wretched vessel of a bus. All the people, her “coworkers”, matter little to how long she’s waited and yearned to return.
The long route home. She huffs, a bittersweet smirk flashing and fading within a blink. Useless, all of them- including her. After all, who needs medical skills when a clock can turn back time and heal all wounds without a trace? All that’s left is military training, enforced internally to the highest degree. She has to be useful. She must.
She needs to survive.
The devilish thing carries her and the others who exist very little, down winding, twisting roads that all look the same. So, so close. She’s waited this long, hasn’t she? So very long. Ah, but some have waited longer, in their immortality- she doesn’t care. They can all go hang. All that matters are these familiar streets, the remnants of smoke floating in the air.
A hand presses to her chest, dizzy and fluttering and so, so hopeful.
The bus slows, gently. She’ll admit that child is an exemplary driver, sometimes. A firm ticking noise, too loud for her liking, and with a wave of a hand and the hiss of the doors they all disembark once again.
A routine, at this point. Not the type she enjoys, not something quiet and soft and enjoyable in its repeatability.
She marches, as usual, posture stiff and unyielding. For once, her attention is not on the clock-headed Manager, or supervising the others in their idiocy. Her gaze strays, raking over houses and landmarks, pebbles dotting the sidewalks and grass grown far past its prime. Watching for that glowing branch, she snaps to the rest of them, glaring in that familiar way.
A lie. She’s grown into the role, every word a lopsided truth or construction. Soon, soon she’ll be back where she never has to lie, needs only to speak the sweet, lingering truth, murmurs of I missed you and I love you.
The air sticks and burns the back of her neck as the grip on her kopis tightens into a vice, buildings and walls looming around her before she spots it and her heart gives a sudden jolt- there, that path, that little path she made just so life would be easier, the ghost of these very boot soles still upon them. Her eyes widen, breath hitching in her throat and veering to the side, away from that group and the golden shine.
A chorus of confusion and anger rings out behind her, hands reaching out to grab her wrist. Her head tilts back briefly, and she sprints.
Traitor. Deserter. Backstabber. Those words mean nothing, and never will.
The blackened soil crumbles beneath her steps, shoving dry, weeping branches aside with a brilliant smile she had nearly forgotten.
“I’m home! I’m-”
The words die in an instant, acid in her throat.
Ash covers the pavement, coating it in smears of charcoal and dust, the stones cracked and worn. The gardens you so deeply adored are gone, rotted and burned away, the windows you sat by while weaving shattered into twinkling specks. The house you built together, her hands and yours, crumbled, disintegrated, consumed. Falling apart at the seams, the wood a fragile, hollow skeleton of a structure and scattered with unidentifiable debris- a dull shine, a flash of color, that could have been both a sword or a tapestry, crafted by pairs of familiar hands.
There’s nothing left. Hasn’t been, not for years.
Dread pools in her gut, icy fragments littering her spine as her feet carry her, trembling, towards the back. Towards the tree you insisted that you plant. It would provide shade, see. Somewhere to sit, to eat and drink together. Somewhere safe and comforting and smelling of her and you.
“Wait for me, under the olive tree.”
The branches twist upwards and out, bare and black and dead, seeping some foul, corroded secretion, thick as tar and twice as molten. Nothing, no one, waits for her, apart from acrid piles of soot and decay, the bark crumbling into dust beneath a desperate touch.
Her hand creeps up, shaking violently, covering her mouth as bile rises in her throat.
“No… I promised… you promised…”
Needle-thin fractures spread across the surface of her watch as she stumbles and collapses, its blissfully soft, gentle ticking coming to a halt.
She could vomit. It burns, aches, a hand wrapping around her heart and crushing it, blades upon blades through her chest.
Vaguely she hears footsteps run up behind her through ringing ears, the quiet, distant gasps of horror, and the sinner merely weeps harder. All her efforts, all her suffering, the time wasted and lost for naught, swept away like the ashes and wind beneath her knees.
No one to welcome her home. No one to curl up against in the dead of winter. No one to hug, to kiss, to shower with all her gentle affection, to bare her heart to. No one, for you perished, awaiting her return in your lonesome.
Did it hurt, she wonders, as you burned to death?
Tick, tick. <Outis…>
No one to call her Odysseus anymore, in that sweet, wonderous tone.
No one to love her. No one to pass on with.
Leaving nobody but Outis behind, to drown in the bitter cold ocean.
And Outis, the sinner, the failure, clutches her head and screams.
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