#forged divinity

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dunno what I'm doing here but I had fun making these. Leannan waking up! after getting his head bashed in

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I revamped my Leannan portrait because that first one was.... eugh. I like this a lot better!

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Forged Divinity Unnamed Sequel: Chapter 6

444 words

CWs: just emotional whump I think! Very light mini chapter.

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~~~

Leannan didn’t understand what was being offered to him at first.

“She heard that you – you were having trouble,” Siobhan said, a hand on her little girl’s head, “And she wanted to give you her bunny.”

The child stood, arms outstretched, holding the stuffed toy. Her lips were parted and her brow furrowed with determination. Leannan blinked, slowly catching up, and gently took the toy bunny into his own hands. The little girl jumped back, pressing her cheek into her mother’s side. Something in Leannan’s mind clicked into gear.

“What’s it’s name?” he asked. He didn’t like the way his voice sounded.

The girl’s big eyes rolled up towards her mother, then flicked back to Leannan as she spoke in a whisper.

“Bunny.”

“Bunny,” he echoed, “Okay. I’ll look after Bunny.”

“No,” she straightened, gaining some confidence, “Bunny will look after you. She keeps nightmares away.”

“I’m sorry,” Siobhan was murmuring to someone, “She overheard us talking and just…”

“It’s fine.” The tall woman was there, setting a hand on Leannan’s shoulder. He cringed away, hugging Bunny to his chest. The hand lifted. The little girl stared.

The whispers grew. They were always talking about him, he could tell, muttering and glancing and keeping things from him. He looked down at the stuffed toy in his lap. It was fuzzy, and brown, and had glassy black eyes that struck him as very honest. It was a little lopsided from always being hugged the same way, and its yarn whiskers were worn down to nubs.

The whispers stopped. Leannan looked up, and found himself alone, in his little room, sitting on his little bed. He’d wanted to thank the girl. He felt awful that he hadn’t. Wasn’t that just the way when you were small: always being told to say please and thank you but no one says them to you. It made him want to cry. He was so tired of feeling small.

He looked down at Bunny again.

“You wouldn’t…” he started, but God, are you talking to the fucking walls again? You’re fucked in the head, you know that?

Leannan’s shoulders jerked up and his hands tensed, closing around the stuffed toy, squeezing it, crushing it – and the moment he realized what he was doing the guilt and fear that crashed over him was so intense that he dropped the bunny to the floor.

“I’m sorry!” he sobbed, “I’m sorry!”

He pressed his hands to his face, his shoulders hunched, anticipating a blow that never came. It was a long time before he was able to uncoil, to pick up the bunny, to look into its eyes.

There was no resentment there.

~~~

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Taglist: @angst-after-dark, @sunshiline-writes, @flowersarefreetherapy, @thecyrulik

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My dear Leannan!

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Forged Divinity: Masterlist

It's the distant future. The civilizations we know are long gone. The majority of what was once the US is now a nigh-unlivable desert. The remaining northeastern population clusters around the shrunken St Lawrence River. Christian fanaticism runs rampant.

Leannan is a concubine descended from a fallen angel, the last of his kind, immune to disease and not quite human, tasked by the will of God to serve his masters and bring them pleasure.

So he thinks, anyway.

Phineas is an accomplished bounty hunter with a rare gun and a rarer streak of luck. They steal Leannan, and see in him their ticket to power - but not before getting attached.

One dead king later and Leannan thinks he's scored big by becoming the whore-on-call for a dictatorial Council, but Phineas' plans don't stop there.

Will Phineas achieve their lofty aspirations? Will Leannan survive the Council to see them? And when things go wrong, will anyone come to save them?

Forged Divinity is a 53.9k word original fic. Blanket warnings for religious themes, institutionalized slavery, eugenics, abuse, noncon, dubcon, and an open/downer ending. And Google Translate.

Completed!

As a final note, Forged Divinity is very... uh... different from what I've put out previously. If it's not for you, no sweat!

Part 1: We Have a King to Kill

Chapter 1: Phineas Acquires Leannan

Chapter 2: Phineas Kills Some Bandits

Chapter 3: Phineas Strikes a Deal

Chapter 4: Leannan Talks Back

Chapter 5: Leannan Falls in a Hole

Chapter 6: Leannan Has Some Thoughts

Chapter 7: Leannan Meets an Old Master

Chapter 8: Leannan Has a Time of It

Chapter 9: Leannan Meets James

Part 2: This Place Was Supposed to be Perfect

Chapter 10: Leannan Meets Jeanette

Chapter 11: Leannan Hears a Book

Chapter 12: Phineas Plays With Leannan

Chapter 13: Leannan Befriends Maeve

Chapter 14: Enjolras Shows Up

Chapter 15: Leannan Breaks a Vow

Chapter 16: Enjolras Interrupts

Chapter 17: Leannan Learns the Plan

Chapter 18: Phineas Fucks Everything Up

Chapter 19: Leannan Gets a New Name

Chapter 20: Leannan Has a Panic Attack

Chapter 21: Leannan Makes a Choice

Part 3: Welcome to Goat Island

Chapter 22: Enjolras Puts Everyone to Bed

Chapter 23: Enjolras has a Misunderstanding

Chapter 24: Enjolras and Leannan Chat

Chapter 25: Leannan Comes Home

Chapter 26: Leannan Learns the Truth

Chapter 27: Leannan Fucks Everything Up

Chapter 28: Leannan is Miserable

Chapter 29: Phineas Makes a Threat

Special thanks to @angst-after-dark and @sunshiline-writes for beta reading!

SEQUEL:

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Additional links:

Esperanto to English

Picrews

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Forged Divinity Unnamed Sequel: Chapter 2

1446 words

CW: dead body, like a real nasty dead body, dissociation, memory loss, amnesia, anger issues, past TBI

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~~~

Enjolras decided, since Leannan was catatonic, that she need to investigate the body. Some sick, sorrowful part of her needed to know how Phineas had died, and Leannan wasn’t about to tell her. She took one last breath of fresh air before ducking back into the shack.

She avoided the body at first, opening a cabinet on the far wall. There were a couple small sacks of oats, but little else. She grabbed a handful out of one sack, letting it run through her fingers. It didn’t look contaminated, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t – Leannan’s Iowan immune system could handle a lot more than Phineas’ could have.

She cupped a hand under the tap of their water barrel, and dribbled some out into her palm. It looked clear. She couldn’t smell it, though, not with the overpowering stench of the corpse filling the room.

She tipped out the water and wiped her hand dry on her pant leg. Finally, reluctantly, she approached the corpse.

The bloat and maggots told her it had been around a week since Phineas had died. She couldn’t imagine what Leannan had gone through, how thoroughly he must have been in denial, to live next to a corpse that whole time.

She carefully pinched the blanket covering the majority of Phineas’ body and pulled it back. She immediately spotted what she was looking for.

Cloth bound their chest flat, as usual, but more strips were wrapped around their waist, strained dark with old, dried blood. Phineas had died of an injury – a slash or stab to the gut.

Enjolras threw the blanket beck over the body before she could digest any more details – the flies, the maggots, the no, don’t look – and covered Phineas’ mutilated face with it as well. Then she turned, and fled, stumbling out the door and gulping down fresh air, tears stinging her eyes.

If Leannan had been able to bandage up the injury while Phineas was still bleeding, still alive, that meant Phineas hadn’t died immediately. They had died slowly. The thought, the sight, the smell, it all made her nauseous.

Phineas was still a part of her, as horrible as they were. Rapist, arsonist, murderer, yes. Her little sibling? Also yes.

Her eyes settled on Leannan where he sat on the ground, and she quickly brushed away her tears. She couldn’t spare the time to mourn right now. She needed to get Leannan home, before anything else went wrong.

“Leannan?” She touched his shoulder. He was still… gone, his empty gaze resting on the ground. She scooped her hands under his arms and lifted him to his feet, then led him by the arm over to the pickup truck. This, finally, seemed to rouse him.

“Are we leaving?” he asked.

“Yes,” Enjolras said.

“Is Phineas coming with us?”

Enjolras’ heart sank. Something was really, really wrong with Leannan.

“Uh… Yeah. They’re riding in the back. Can you get in?” She opened the passenger door for him.

“Mhm.” He climbed into the cab, and Enjolras shut the door. Then she looked back at the shack.

A part of her wanted to do something – to bury Phineas, maybe. But the ground was dry and hard-packed, and full of rocks, and she didn’t have a shovel anyway. It didn’t feel right to just leave them there, to be scavenged by animals, but there was nothing she could do.

Then she remembered the gun.

She steeled herself, and went back into the shack and looked around. It wasn’t immediately visible, but there were only so many places it could hide. She found it soon enough, tucked behind the cabinet: the Barrett M95 sniper rifle. She slung it over her shoulder, not bothering to search for the ammo. She just wanted to have it, not to shoot it.

It was Mom’s. She couldn’t leave it there.

She stashed it in the bed of the pickup, and glanced back at the shack one last time.

She wished she could make it right. But things had gone wrong a long, long time ago.

~~~

Leannan slept as they drove, leaning his head against the window again. Enjolras couldn’t help but glance at him constantly, trying to take in every detail while still watching the road.

He still wore the clothes he had taken with him when he left Goat Island. They were weathered and dirty now, and too big on him. The scar on his left temple looked like a gnarled lightning strike or tree branch growing out of his hairline. The soles of his boots were peeling away from the uppers. He was tanned and freckled, and his hair was sun-bleached even paler than it had been when they first met. There was dirt under his fingernails, and crusted into the lines of his face.

They had been driving for about two hours when Leannan awake with a small yelp, and started looking around frantically.

“Hej, what…?” Enjolras started.

“Where’s Phineas?” Leannan demanded.

Enjolras couldn’t answer. She kept her eyes on the road, her jaw clenched.

“Where’s Phineas?!” shouted Leannan.

“They died, Leannan,” Enjolras said quietly.

“No! No, you left them behind! You left them behind on purpose!” Leannan was working himself up into a frenzy, “You promised! You promised they could come with us! You lied to me!”

“Phineas is dead.”

“Fuck you!” Leannan shrieked, with a level of vitriol Enjolras had never heard from him before, “Fuck you! I hate you!”

Without warning, Leannan grabbed the steering wheel and yanked it to the side. Enjolras slammed on the brakes to keep them from careening off the road. While she was occupied getting the car back under control, Leannan flung his door open and jumped out of the slow-moving vehicle.

“Leannan!” Enjolras shouted. She finally got the car to stop and threw it into park, then jumped out to follow him. He was running back down the road towards where they came.

“Leannan!” She caught up with him easily, between her taller height, better nutrition, and better shoes, and grabbed his arm. “Leannan, stop!”

He swung around and punched her in the face. It was a pretty weak punch, but it surprised her nonetheless.

“I hate you!” he screamed, twisting in her grip, “You always ruin everything!”

Those were Phineas’ words. Enjolras would recognize them anywhere. She pulled Leannan close and wrapped her arms around him, pinning his arms to his sides, his back to her chest.

“I’m sorry, Leannan, but I need to take you home!” she said through gritted teeth.

Leannan screamed wordlessly in return, struggling like a wild animal.

“Don’t you want to see Shannon again?” Enjolras coaxed.

“Not… without… Phineas!” Leannan insisted in between attempts to twist himself free. Enjolras held him tighter.

“Leannan,” she felt a lump rise in her throat, “Phineas is dead!”

Leannan paused his fighting, panting hard. Enjolras could feel his thin body swell and deflate in her arms with each breath, rife with panic and anger. She felt the anger fade.

“I didn’t mean to,” Leannan whimpered.

Enjolras carefully loosened her grip.

“Didn’t mean to what?” she asked softly, already anticipating the answer.

“I just get really angry, sometimes, now, and I don’t know why, and Phineas was being a real jerk, and I just wanted them to stop…” Leannan’s words dissolved into soft, hiccuping cries.

“It’s okay. It’s not your fault.”

“Yes, it is!” Leannan wailed, “It’s always my fault!”

Enjolras released him fully, turning him around to face her.

“When did you start getting angry?” she asked.

“When I got hit… in the head,” Leannan gulped, his hand going to the scar on his temple, “Phineas says it made me stupid and weird.”

“Do you remember what happened?”

“No,” Leannan shook his head miserably, “Phineas says it was an accident.”

Enjolras tallied up the symptoms. Memory loss. Mood swings. Disorientation. A bad enough head injury, combined with some psychological trauma, would certainly explain everything.

“Leannan, I promise it’s not your fault.”

Leannan frowned up at her.

“You also promised you’d take Phineas with us!”

Enjolras sighed.

“I would have, I really would, if Phineas had been alive. But they’re not, they’re dead, they couldn’t come with.”

Leannan’s red-rimmed eyes drifted to stare past her. For a moment Enjolras was afraid that had dissociated again at the mention of Phineas’ death, but then he spoke.

“What am I supposed to do now?” he whispered.

“Come home with me,” Enjolras offered, “We’ll take care of you.”

He slowly shifted forward and, to her surprise, leaned against her, resting his forehead against her shoulder.

“You’ll take care of me?” he murmured, muffled by her shirt.

“Yeah,” she patted his back, “We will.”

~~~

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Taglist: @angst-after-dark, @sunshiline-writes, @flowersarefreetherapy, @thecyrulik

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Forged Divinity Unnamed Sequel: Chapter 1

I only wrote a couple chapters and then I got stuck, dunno if it’ll ever go anywhere so have these!

2434 words

CW: major character death, dissociation, dead and decaying body, interacting with that body, like it’s real nasty

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~~~

“The desert is a nice escape

“The desert is a nice escape

“You want to know if you can always count on me

“Honey, I wish I knew how to leave”

“You are listening to WUMB, listener-supported public radio, broadcasting out of Old Boston from the Yumas convent. Please consider donating water, food, or bartering chips to keep us on the air, keeping you sane! My name is Dusty Engels, and I have a great lineup for you this morni-”

Leannan clicked the radio off. Phineas was asleep. They weren’t listening.

He got up off the mattress on the floor of their one-room shack, his bare, calloused feet shuffling across the dirt to the cabinet in the corner that served as their pantry. He opened it and took out a small sack.

He’d make oatmeal. Maybe Phineas would eat today.

He poured some oats into a metal pot, then opened the tap on their water barrel and dampened them down. The he tentatively shook the barrel, listening to the water slosh within.

Not a whole lot left.

He returned to Phineas, sitting down on the mattress, careful not to jostle them – they hated being woken up – and set the pot on the floor. He hugged his knees to his chest and stared at it.

The water would soak into the oats eventually. He just had to wait.

Leannan had gotten good at passing the time doing nothing, especially since Phineas had gotten sick. He liked to imagine stories in his head. Possibilities. His current favorite was imagining what would happen if Phineas met his old master, Queen Killia. They would be the best of friends, Leannan thought. They could all live in Killia’s castle together, and eat good food, and Phineas and Killia would take care of Leannan. Killia used to brush his hair – maybe Phineas would do that.

Killia was long dead, of course.

A fly buzzed a circle over Phineas’ face, and Leannan swatted it away with a sudden burst of directionless anger. He took a breath, unclenched his jaw, and settled back into his fantasy.

~~~

“Phineas,” Leannan gently shook their stiff shoulder, “Phineas, wake up, you need to eat something.”

Phineas hadn’t eaten properly in days. Leannan had gotten water and broth into them, but not much else. He reached out and gently squeezed Phineas’ face, prying their jaw open. He lifted a tiny spoonful of oatmeal to their lips and tipped it in.

They didn’t choke, at least. It seemed to go down. Leannan sighed with relief and fed Phineas a few more spoonfuls.

Maybe that would help them get better.

~~~

They were running out of water. Phineas was getting worse, and they were running out of water.

Leannan paced, rubbing the scar on the side of his head. He desperately wanted to curl up on the mattress next to Phineas and retreat into his dreamland, where things were happy and safe and everything turned out fine, but Phineas was sick and his daydreaming wasn’t helping anything.

He’d had an idea, that had surfaced a few times, but he’d always dismissed it. Now it seemed like the only option.

He had to get to the Yumas convent radio station, and radio La Libera. Maybe – just maybe – Enjolras would come and help. Not because of Leannan, of course, he had burned that bridge, but Phineas was still Enjolras’ sibling. She couldn’t want them to waste away.

He knelt next to Phineas and took their hand, puffy and swollen from whatever disease wracked their body.

“Phineas?” he said softly, “I have to go get help. Will you be okay? For a little while?”

Phineas didn’t answer. That was okay. They were probably tired.

~~~

Leannan walked beneath the bright stars. He’d been to Old Boston with Phineas before. He was pretty sure he knew he way.

Desertous hills swelled around him, rocky and gray. The plant life was few and far between, scraggly bushes and stubborn brown grass. He walked all night, and reached the ruins of Old Boston as the scorching sun rose.

The occasional scavenger was trawling pointlessly through the crumbled buildings, and Leannan asked each he passed the way to the Yumas convent. Most knew, and pointed him onward. The terrain grew flatter and the air salty as he neared the ocean. The ocean wasn’t a point of fascination for him, anymore. He’d seen it enough times.

Soon, he spotted the radio tower. The literal beacon drew him in, until he was standing in front of the impressive surviving building. It stood long and wide, three stories tall, all brick and concrete and large boarded-up windows. Atop it all was a skeletal, hodgepodge radio tower, built up over the years in order to broadcast ever farther and farther.

A woman sat on the cracked stone stairs up to the entrance, reading a bible. She set it down and picked up a club instead, standing to stare down at Leannan.

“Got a donation?” she asked harshly.

“I need to contact someone. Please,” Leannan said.

“That’s not free,” she replied.

“Please,” Leannan begged, “I’ll do anything.”

She squinted at him.

“They’ll hold you to that, you know.”

“I’m good for it,” Leannan said.

~~~

“Oh, no,” Dusty Engels said, in her perfectly smooth voice, “I’m not letting that filth near any of my equipment.”

“Please,” Leannan clasped his hands, “My mas – my, my friend is dying, I need to contact someone with La Libera.”

“Trankviliĝu, I didn’t say you couldn’t, just don’t touch anything!” Dusty folded her arms, “Who do you need to contact?”

They stood outside the broadcasting room in the hallway, amidst peeling walls and decrepit linoleum.

“Enjolras. Enjolras de la Glavo.”

“Oh, diable, her?” Dusty raised an eyebrow, “You wouldn’t happen to be Leannan, would you?”

Leannan hesitated to answer. The world thought that the final Iowan had been taken by La Libera and killed, joining the rest of them. Phineas preferred to keep it that way.

“Is she… looking? For someone named Leannan?” he asked.

“Yeah. Real frantic. Is that you? Or your friend?”

Leannan took the plunge.

“I’m Leannan. I really need to contact her.”

“Alrighty then,” Dusty clapped her hands, “I’ll make some calls.”

~~~

Enjolras lay on the ground in the shadow of her solar-powered pickup truck as it charged, trying to sleep through the pain in her joints and the thoughts in her head.

She had enough food and water to keep looking for another few days. After that she’d have to make the day-and-a-half drive back to Niagara to restock. She couldn’t buy more supplies out here – even if she wasn’t down to her emergency stash of bartering chips, there was hardly anything being sold.

Every time she returned home without Leannan, it felt like a new failure. Every time she had to pause the search, it felt like she lost ground. It had been almost a year and a half now, and she barely felt any closer than when she started.

She knew they were somewhere around Old Boston. She’d found eyewitnesses who’d described Phineas and Leannan in detail, with some disturbing new additions. Leannan was thin, now – she didn’t like the thought – and he had a large scar on his temple, pushing into his hairline. None of it boded well.

Her radio crackled to life.

“Enjolras de la Glavo, you still on this frequency? This is Dusty Engels, calling from the Yumas convent. Enjolras, do you read me?”

~~~

Leannan sat on the station steps, his head nodding with exhaustion. He hadn’t gotten to talk to Enjolras, but he’d been told to wait outside, that she would be there in half an hour. He was skeptical, that she just so happened to be so close. It might not even be real. Dusty could be conning him.

The security guard sat on the other end of the steps, reading her bible. Leannan mustered his courage.

“Would you mind… reading it aloud?” he asked.

She stared at him coldly for a moment, before shrugging.

“Alright.”

~~~

She’d made it to Revelation 17 when they saw the truck approaching. She stopped reading, her mouth falling open slightly.

“Is that a fucking car?”

Leannan stood. He hadn’t seen a functional car since the Desert Conquerors – they’d had a whole collection.

The pickup rolled to a stop in front of them. It would have been white, if it weren’t caked in dust. Solar panels perched on the roof of the cab. The bed was securely covered, protecting the contents from dust and thieves.

Leannan found himself preparing to run. It might not be Enjolras who stepped out – and even if it was, he wasn’t sure how she would feel about seeing him again. He’d let her get stabbed, after all.

The door swung open, and a dusty boot landed on the street. Enjolras climbed out of the cab slowly, painfully – then rushed to Leannan, throwing her arms around him.

Leannan stood stiffly, unsure how to react. He wasn’t really enjoying the hug. There were more important things to worry about.

“Leannan…” Enjolras started.

“I think Phineas is dying,” Leannan rushed out, “I need your help.”

Enjolras stepped out of the hug, her hands on Leannan’s shoulders and her eyes darting over his face, drinking him in.

“Leannan…” she seemed at a loss for words.

“I know what you’re going to say,” Leannan folded his arms, “That I should leave Phineas, and go back with you. Well, I’m not doing that. I won’t go anywhere with you unless you help Phineas first.”

She blinked at him.

“Are you saying you’ll come home with me if I help Phineas?”

Leannan chewed his lip. That hadn’t been quite what he meant, but he decided to roll with it.

“If you help Phineas, and Phineas can come with us, then I’ll go with you.”

Enjolras hesitated, but nodded.

“Alright, I can work with that.”

“No, you have to promise,” Leannan insisted, “You have to promise Phineas can come with us.”

“Yeah, okay, I promise!” she relented.

The security guard cleared her throat.

“About payment…”

“Right!” Enjolras went to the back of the pickup and unlocked it with a set of keys, folding back the cover over the bed and opening the tailgate. She started unloading jugs of water and crates of food – only a few, but when she looked to the guard for approval she nodded.

“That’ll do.”

“Okay!” Enjolras re-secured the truck bed, “Leannan, let’s go!”

~~~

Enjolras didn’t like how quiet Leannan was.

He leaned his head against the window, staring blankly out. Enjolras had tried asking him questions at first, as she drove: had Phineas hurt him? How’d he get that scar? When was the last time he ate anything? But after a couple noncommittal, single-syllable answers he’d stopping responding. He watched, unseeingly, as the desert passed by, only occasionally stirring to point the way.

Enjolras couldn’t shake the feeling that something was very wrong. That feeling only grew when Leannan finally sat up straight and murmured, “We’re here.” Enjolras slowed the truck to a stop, looking around; the only building in sight was a dilapidated shack.

“There?” she asked, but Leannan was already climbing out of the cab. Enjolras parked and powered off the truck as Leannan hurried over to the shack, nearly running. She started to follow him more slowly, not looking forward to seeing Phineas again – but then a shout of alarm from Leannan inside the shack made her spring into a run.

“Leannan? What – ah!” she jumped back as a trio of raccoons sprinted out of the shack, dodging around her ankles. Shaking off the shock, she rushed to the door of the shack.

The smell hit her first. Putrid, foul rot, an utterly overwhelming scent that made her eyes water and her stomach turn. She could hear Leannan crying, and against her gut instinct she stepped forward into the dim room.

The source of the smell was obvious.

A bloated, leaking corpse lay on a dirty mattress on the floor. It was covered up to its shoulders with a blanket, but black ooze crept out from underneath, staining the mattress. Its eyes leaked pus, and its mouth was a gaping, writhing mass of maggots. Strips of flesh had been ripped away from its cheekbone, and Leannan – poor Leannan – was frantically trying to press them back into place, hyperventilating.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, we can fix this, Phineas, it’ll be okay…”

Despite the heat, Enjolras felt a chill down her spine. This was Phineas. Phineas was dead – long dead, by the looks of it – and Leannan… didn’t realize. His efforts to replace the flesh half-eaten by the raccoons was only making things worse, his pressing and prodding causing the whole side of Phineas’ face to start separating from the bone and sloughing away.

“Leannan,” she stepped forward and took his shoulder, “Leannan, stop.”

“I shouldn’t have left!” Leannan wailed, “I shouldn’t have left, Phineas is going to be so mad when they wake up, they’re going to be so mad!”

“Leannan,” Enjolras couldn’t stand the smell or the sight any longer, “Come outside with me.”

“No, I have to fix this, I have to…” The flesh of Phineas’ cheek finally gave way, peeling off, revealing Phineas’ molars and sending maggots cascading onto the pillow. Leannan sobbed harder. Enjolras dove in and grabbed his wrists before he could cause any more damage.

“They’re dead!” she hissed, harsher than she meant to, “Phineas is dead!”

Leannan fell silent, staring down at the wriggling maggots for a moment.

“But you can still do something, right?” he asked tearfully, looking up at her.

“No, Leannan,” Enjolras said, “There’s nothing anyone can do.”

Leannan looked back at Phineas, and his face went slack. Enjolras waited a minute for him to say something, but he just stared numbly. She gave his wrists a gentle shake.

“Leannan? Let’s go outside, okay?”

Leannan didn’t respond.

“Leannan?” Enjolras breathed. She realized that Leannan was somewhere else. He was completely dissociated, lost to this world. This wasn’t something that she’d ever seen him do before, and it scared her.

“We’re going outside,” she declared, and she hauled Leannan to his feet and walked him out the door. He complied, but still didn’t awaken. She sat him down in the dust, then went to the back of her pickup and opened it. She wetted a rag and returned to Leannan, cleaning his slimy hands off.

“We’re going to get you home,” she said, “We’re going to get you home, and then…”

She couldn’t bring herself to say ‘everything will be okay.’

~~~

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Taglist: @angst-after-dark, @sunshiline-writes, @flowersarefreetherapy, @thecyrulik

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Leannan <3

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