‘Verse: Resistance Story: Unlikely Salvation, co-author @whump-sprite Timeline: Arc 5, Ariadne has been rescued from interrogation
Home Again, pt1 [ First | Prev | Next ]
Reyan is invisible until the door closes behind him. As soon as she lays eyes on him Ari tries to get up. Relief and fear blur into each other, coming together as a hot, unnameable spike of emotion behind her sternum.
She wants to go to him. Reyan will protect her – from the feds, from Dev, from the world.
But her ankle blazes with pain on pain and she cannot make it take her weight, not for all the will in the world.
"Hey," Reyan says to her. "Let's go home." His smile is worried and gentle.
Shame closes over Ariadne like thick, filthy swamp water, and she can't breathe.
It takes all the will she can muster not to hide her face in bandaged hands. She hugs her elbows tight against her body, ignoring all the places that hurt to move.
“‘kay,” she manages, in a very thin, strained voice.
Reyan moves a hand as he approaches. Ari can’t look at him but she glimpses the faint glow that trails behind his fingers. She expects a spike of irrational panic – and when it doesn’t happen the feeling is like missing a step.
She sits frozen, paralysed between the need to pull away and hide, and the shame of being seen to react so childishly. When Reyan reaches down to her, she very stiffly gives him her less-bad arm.
She’s been picked up with magic enough times to recognise the buoyant feeling as it takes most of her weight. She feels too dirty to touch, but her ankle doesn't give her much option but to fall against Reyan as he pulls her upright.
His body is warm against hers. The steady support makes Ari's heart ache. She wants it. She can't stand it. She doesn’t deserve it. She needs it.
Reyan knows better than to put an arm across her back, and she’s pathetically grateful for that.
“Take care of yourself out there,” Dev tells her at the door, “I’d hate to see all my hard work go to waste.” “Thank you,” Ari answers softly. “For… all the help.” She means it. She hasn't forgotten screaming and begging for them, but it feels… distant. This time, they have been good to her, and she needed it so badly.
Reyan makes it easier for her to walk than it ever was leaning on Dev. She's lighter, and the splints don't dig in the same way, the breaks – all the breaks, ankle and feet and arms and ribs – don't shift as painfully with every step. She can only guess that Reyan's magic is wrapped invisibly round her broken limbs, keeping them steady. She’s grateful for that, she’s intensely grateful.
(Would he still expend that energy on her if he knew the whole truth?)
A thought tries to form, while the elevator goes down and Ari has a chance to catch her breath, about what kinds of faults Reyan would or wouldn't judge her for. But then they’re moving again and she loses the idea, loses everything but the narrow focus on keeping her balance and forcing her limbs to move.
When they get to the car – not a vehicle she recognises, doesn’t matter – she all but falls into it. She would fall, and probably hurt herself worse, if not for Reyan’s magic. Instead she’s lowered carefully onto the back seat. “What’s easiest for you?” Reyan asks. “Want to lie down? Sit sideways?” The car isn't wide enough to lie full length. She doesn't want to fold her bad leg up, but if she sits sideways how will she brace herself against the movement of the car…?
She almost starts crying again just trying to figure it out. Sharp humiliation cuts inside her chest and behind her eyes.
“Just… just the normal way?” she wavers. Her back is all tightly wrapped in Dev’s neat bandages. Maybe resting it against the car seat won't be so intolerable. It's a less terrifying prospect than being thrown around on every turn.
She doubts her decision as soon as she leans back.
Reyan watches her with concern in his eyes as she tries to settle. His hand rests briefly on the front of her shoulder. The simple gesture sends a fresh lance of guilt through Ari’s heart. “I’m sorry,” she blurts out, only barely remembering not to sir him. “They – got everything I know, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
Reyan leans a hand on the roof of the car. He's trying to make eye contact but Ari can't lift her gaze from her lap. “Most of what you knew is no longer true,” he says. Ari clings to the assurance like a lifeline. She told herself the same, in the long hours between tortures. Tried to hope that they’d treat everything she knew as compromised. “They have mindfuckers,” Reyan says. Yes, Ari tries to confirm, but she’s choked up and it comes out as a tiny croak of an “‘s.” “We knew it.”
Tears are spilling uncontrolled down her cheeks again. Reyan shifts stiffly as if to get into the back seat with her, so Ari – a little bewildered – shuffles over to make room. Anders sits carefully on the edge of the seat beside her, takes her arm, and pulls her in close.
Baffled, Ari is pliable in his hands. He guides her – not forcefully, almost hesitantly – to put her better arm across his chest, and lets his hand linger on her upper arm. His other hand goes to the back of her head, fingers sliding carefully through her hair.
A sob wells up in Ari’s chest, then another. She buries her face in the crook of Anders’ neck and clings as the tears overtake her.
“I’m sorry,” she cries, over and over. “I’m so sorry, I’m sorry.” “It’s okay,” Anders repeats in answer, over and over to match her apologies. “It’s okay.” Slowly, almost cautiously, his hand moves across her scalp, stroking through her hair as Ariadne weeps wretchedly into his shoulder.
She’s seen him throw lightning from those hands. She’s been pinned beneath them while his magic cut into her mind. Some part of her thinks that she should be scared – but she isn’t. She has nothing to hide, not from him. If he hurts her, it will only be because she deserves it. She trusts, absolutely, that whatever he chooses will be right.
And he’s choosing to hold her.
He knows what they took from her and he still wants to hold her. She’s still worth something to him. She still deserves comfort.
Slowly, she’s able to stop putting voice to the apologies.
The tears take longer to stop. She sobs long enough and hard enough that she can scarcely breathe through the stabbing pain of her broken ribs. Anders doesn’t let go. His hand rubs gently up and down the back of her head, not pausing, not changing pace, until the sobs tail off gradually into sniffles, until the shaking stops and at last even the tears run dry and Ari starts to almost fall asleep on his shoulder.
She startles a little when he moves. “You’re okay,” he tells her gently. His hand on her arm guides her to sit up, and reluctantly she does. “Let’s get out of here, shall we? Alex will have my head if I don’t bring you back soon.” Ari nods, perhaps a little too sharply. She wants to ask how Alex is. If he’s been hurt, if he’s been overusing his magic, if he’s okay. She wants to ask about Taryn, and Peyroux, and everyone else.
But she can’t find the words. There are none in her head. All of the energy has drained out of her with the tears, leaving her exhausted and empty, thin and grey and dried up inside.
Reyan closes the door on her and lets himself into the driver’s seat, and Ari sits silent and passive in the back where he left her.
His driving isn’t kind on her back where her weight presses it against the seat. But even the pain feels somehow irrelevant, faded and far away like everything else. The world slips past outside the window. Ari’s gaze slides aimlessly over the buildings but she doesn’t see any of it, and she doesn’t think anything at all.
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