[ TAKE ]: sender takes a hit meant for receiver. (pulsefire :) )
NONVERBAL PROMPTS | @essence-flux-primed
Maybe there are always things that are destined to happen. And you simply can not out run them, no matter how hard you try. But oh— they will always try.
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“Are you a fool?!” Yasuo screams the words in a rasp with such anger, such fear as he lay on the ground after Ezreal had pushed him out of harm's way. All the feelings he thought he’d killed a long, long time ago resurfacing in an instant. A hollowness clawing out a home in his chest, an ache so painful it reminds him of when he lost him the first time. His Ezreal. Haunted by the way he reached out to him, the fear in his eyes, all of it flashing right before him again as he stared at Ezreal’s unmoving form.
It’s happening again but the only thing is this time it isn’t so sudden. No, this time it was a shot to the shoulder, too close to his chest for Yasuo to kill the doubt in his mind that it wasn’t anything lethal. But it’s enough that he can pick himself up and force himself forward through the shots that followed and hold him. Yasuo struggles but still tries to rush to him after the blast by those damned chrono-law enforcers that had sent Ezreal flying backwards. The moment he’s perched near him Yasuo musters up as much strength as his tired body could and cuts his blade through the air one handed, dragging the wind itself along with it to send a massive tornado toward their assailants. Leaving enough of an opening for Yasuo to drag Ezreal with him somewhere they can stay hidden.
Perhaps he never should have grown attached to the blond, again but different, knowing what had been the fate of his Ezreal in this timeline. Maybe he thought it’d be different. But so it seems that every Ezreal had trouble following them. Trouble just bided its time when it came for them and this one’s time was up. And yet, knowing the fate of his timeline’s Yasuo—
“You’re just as reckless as the day I met you,” he starts, clutching Ezreal close to him like he was the only thing in the world. And he was, he always was. Yasuo couldn’t bear the sight let alone the thought of losing him again. His voice shook as he spoke, “You. It could have been my time, not yours— why?”
His grip on Ezreal tightened, hand trembling while trying so hard to put pressure on the wound on his shoulder to stop the bleeding, tears spilling over and down his cheeks. With each passing second Yasuo held his breath, looking for any sign of life: a twitch in his brow, a groan, that damned half smirk he’d been so fond of for years, anything. And each agonizing second plucked every last bit of hope out of his heart, carving it out and enveloping him in a despair he had once been so familiar with years ago. It tore through every healed wound, every fading scar; tore through everything Yasuo had tucked away after ruminating for years of what would have happened to Ezreal if they had switched places, if it had been him. A sob chokes him as blood stained his fingers, the realization setting in his world is falling apart around him again and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
“Why?!” Yasuo grabs a fistful of the charred, bloodied fabric while he weeps, pressing their foreheads together in a feeble attempt to get any reaction out of Ezreal. A shaky exhale and another sob rattles him as he squeezes his eyes shut, as if it’ll make it any less real. “—I can’t lose you again. Ezreal, please.”