Title: Every Time I Breathe, I Take You In
Fandom: Godchild (manga)
Pairing: Riff/Cain
Rating: T
Words: ~3000
Summary: Cain is caught by a murderer, with only a short time before he drowns.
He heard the click. Blindfolds couldn’t stop your ears, and water only muffled them.
He twisted his wrists, but they remained bound behind his back. It had only been a few seconds, yet already he could feel his heart picking up the pace, his breath growing hot in his lungs. His mind knew what was happening, and it told the rest of his body to panic. He forced himself calm through strength of will. If he could somehow reach his ankles while in this thin tank, he would be able to reach the knot binding his feet. From there, he could kick at the glass walls, or try to find some mechanism that would give him an escape. This water tank had originally been used by magicians, after all. There had to be some sort of trick.
Unless whoever had dropped him in here had taken care of that easy escape. In which case, if he couldn’t break the glass, then he would die.
He curled his fingers into fists as he tried to sit on his knees. The glass was only just wide enough to accommodate his efforts; he could barely maneuver his feet, still encased in his oxfords, against one side of the circular case. His knees pressed tight against the other side, his feet trapped heel to sole against the glass. He strained backwards, only to find his arms just slightly too short to reach his ankles. He grimaced. He felt tiny bubbles spurt from his mouth at the exertion. He would have to get his feet higher somehow.
The instinct to breathe rose higher as the seconds ticked by. He could feel his body burn white-hot as his muscles strained, lacking the energy to do as he demanded of them. The blindfold kept him from seeing anything beyond the tank – not that he believed he would be able to; the curtain had likely been pulled back over it, just as the room had been when he’d first entered. He’d thought he was chasing The Magician, his father’s half-in, half-out recruit. He realized now that he would have been so lucky.
His father would not allow him to die. He’d wanted Cain to suffer. To live with the suffering. He wouldn’t let his subordinates go this far. This man, this murderer, had nothing to do with his father.
He supposed he should have been grateful for the reprieve. Seemed silly to order Riff on some harebrained errand now, though.
He tried to force his feet up higher, only to get them more firmly caught. His chest heaved with the need to breathe. He leaned forward, giving up the attempt for the moment so he could think. He was stuck as he was; he wouldn’t get any further, and he hadn’t gotten far enough to grab the rope around his ankles. He needed to rethink his strategy. He clenched and unclenched his fingers.
There had to be something. There was always something.
He struggled back up. It took too long; he was already far too aware of how little air he had left in his lungs, how the water seemed to press around him. He could taste it in his mouth as he shimmied his way down again, this time aiming his knees for the bottom of the tank. He could feel it against the throbbing skin of his back where his assailant had hit him, knocked him down. It lifted his hair from his face, from his neck, as he drifted once more to the bottom, his shoulders shaking as his chest and stomach heaved, bucked, trying to get air that didn’t exist. He finally managed a better position and tried again. His spine bent back, aching, his shoulders taut as he stretched back as far as he could go. It felt like his very skin was pressing against his ribs, as if the ribs pushed into his lungs. He felt more air pass his lips. His chest shuddered.
At first, only the tips of his fingers touched anything, and it was just the back of his feet. He shifted his shoulders back, leaned his head so far it thunked lightly against the glass, and reached again. This time he could barely reach the ends of the knot. He snarled and reached again. Got it! He grinned. His heart pounded so thick he could hear it like waves against the water. He needed to crane his neck back further still, the wet blindfold sliding against the glass, only tightening around his eyes, but he managed to curl his fingers around the knot itself.
He felt it out. He could feel each second ticking away, his chest shuddering every second, his limbs trembling. He felt weak. Time was running out.
Thankfully, the knot wasn’t anything intricate. Simple, something a magician would likely never use. They knew knots well enough to use ones much harder than the simple, traditional knot. He found the edges and traced them back into the thick mass binding his hands. There. There was the weak link. He reached for it.
His mouth opened. His throat bobbed. His body nearly forced him to breathe in. His head fuzzed. He clenched his eyes shut tight behind the blindfold. Just a little longer. He pulled the knot, careful despite the urgency in hi body, pressing his short nails around the edges of the rope, pinching it before pulling at it. It was wet, but rough enough to still grip tightly. Bit by bit, he pulled it free. Once out, he nearly wrenched at the knot trying to get out faster. Instead, as the ropes came loose, he forced himself to search once more, until he could pull the ends apart completely. Then he pulled his legs to either side of the glass, until the rope slid off his ankles and drifted in the water around his knees.
He quickly pulled his spine straight, the movement so fast it nearly hurt. His lungs, feeling a give in pressure, fought once more for something that did not exist. He had to rest his head against he glass to remind himself of where he was. His mind fogged so badly he struggled to remember how to stand up.
His battle to free his legs had showed him he had no way of gaining the leverage necessary to break the glass. His main plan had failed before it had begun. That left… what? Searching for a mystery hatch that might have been closed up and hoping that, if he even managed to find it in time, it was still in working condition? Or trying to escape from the top, which had almost certainly been closed up, as well?
He could stand tall now, but he still couldn’t reach the top. Not even his hair brushed against it. He tried to remember how tall it was, its dimensions, its controls, but his mind was just a blank, empty hum. He curled his toes. He could… there was something he should do. He tugged on his arms, only to find them still trapped. Right. Not that. But he needed his fingers?
Toes. He had toes.
He shimmied his shoes off, one at a time, banging against the glass again and again with his knees, his feet, his shoulders. If the killer was still there, the man had to hear what he was doing. But he wasn’t interrupted, and he figured that meant the killer either didn’t care if he tried to escape or wasn’t there. Likely the latter.
Once the shoes were off, the stretchy, wet feel of his socks scraped against the hard surface at the bottom of the tank. He tried to get the socks off, too, but they stuck to his skin like glue and he couldn’t find the coordination necessary to get them off. He had to… something. The lid? No. Kick the glass. Why did he take off his shoes?
Secret exit. Right. Probably… on the bottom? Magicians would use exits to get out. There was probably something that would drain the thing, too. Maybe? Or would at least move an inner portion of the tank so that the magician could get out of his restraints and show up at the back of the audience. There had to be something, probably at the bottom of the tank, because reaching the top with ones hands bound was much more difficult than taking off one’s shoes and finding some tiny lever or button or spring or fastening or…
He felt along the walls of the glass first, his lungs hot as a furnace, his heart in his ears, his throat working emptily. His mouth opened and closed, over and over, even though he didn’t let himself breathe in. Why not? Why not just breathe? He had to. He had to, he needed air!
He banged his temple against the glass. There was none! There was none; that was why he was searching!
Riff!
If Riff were here – if he hadn’t sent the man out, fearful that he would catch the attentions of his father or of Jezebel or of any number of his father’s unknown allies – then this wouldn’t be a problem. Even if one of them was taken by surprise, they would have had the enemy outnumbered. Riff could have just shot the man before Cain was tied up and tossed into the tank. Riff could have gotten him out. The man would have found a way. Riff would have… would have…
He couldn’t feel his feet, or his fingers. He couldn’t feel his nose or his ears. The water was cold, but no more than any other lukewarm water. It wasn’t a chill that brought this about.
He recognized what was happening just as his mouth opened one last time. His lungs, more insistent than his mind, opened his throat and allowed the water in his mouth passage down his throat. He choked immediately.
He felt something against his right foot. Something just off the edge of the smooth surface where glass met metal. He felt it. But his body spasmed, his chest curled inward. Despite there being only water, still his lungs heaved, dragging more and more water down his throat, into his nose, his stomach. He tried to cry out, but there was nothing in him to make sound. His knees banged against the glass, a new shock of pain. It was followed by a slam as his shoulder hit the glass, as well, and then his head. He fell against the tank’s edge. Everything swam around him. His heart pounded furiously, as if trying to make up for his lungs’ failure. The water carried him, drifted him down to the floor. The pounding in his head rose to a crescendo, louder than ever before.
He shouldn’t have sent Riff away. They were better together. They were always better together. Two broken pieces of glass. One stained red, the other bright, bright gold. Apart, they looked like blood and money. Together, they looked like the dawn.
His feet slid across the bottom of the tank. The socks made them slippery. They bothered him, even as the fire grew and the world blanked. They got in-between his toes and stuck to every part of his toes, making it hard to move them. He hated them. He wanted them gone.
He slid his feet, tried to kick out. Nothing lay in his mind but a despite to get away. Away from here, away from the cramped space, away from the awful sensation on his toes. He felt something sharp along the edge of the tank and pushed at it, thinking it might cut the cloth around his feet. It hurt. Everything hurt, but it hurt, too. Everything hurt. He kicked at it again. The world spun, screamed. He couldn’t feel his chest anymore, but some pressure told him it hurt, too. Everything. He bucked, arched his back. His shoulders hurt. He wanted to grab something – his throat, the walls. Why couldn’t he grab anything?
The world moved. At first it didn’t matter. Because nothing mattered. Nothing existed except the press of glass and water and heat in his body. But then it did, because something banged against his head, and he found his body moving as if pulled by a current – a current with something on top of it. Like a ceiling. The ceiling pushed him into a strange, pretzel-like angle, finally tipping him further onto his side, until he was pressed nearly against the floor. The world hissed and buzzed and bubbled, as if the heat in him turned the water boiling. He fell limp against the floor as everything stopped swimming around him. The floor felt heavy. Solid. It was the last thing he noticed before he died.
Lips.
Lips, and the press of something heavy. It seared into his lungs. They burned hotter than fire. He lurched where he lay, felt wetness on his tongue. He was turned quickly to his side, and his stomach roiled. He vomited. It tasted like lava. His throat burned, scorched into ashes. His body heaved, over and over, endless amounts of bile and water. Tears streamed down his face.
“Lord Cain!” A hand on his back. He coughed and sucked in air, his body greedy, even as it struggled to expel the fluid he’d swallowed. Someone hovered above him. “You’re all right,” Riff said. He seemed to be trying to convince himself.
Blindly, he reached back. His arm flailed out for only a short moment before Riff gripped it. He clenched his fingers around the man’s, even as he still coughed. His entire body wracked in reaction, every muscle torn and burnt to ash. His chest felt like nails had been placed within, replacing the water with heavy stabs of pain. Still, it was air. He was breathing. Riff had come for him.
They lay there for who knew how long, Cain attempting to hack up his lungs while Riff hovered over him, a platinum-haired angel watching over its charge. When finally Cain’s coughing stilled to a shuddering halt, when his stabbing gasps for air finally quieted – when finally he was able to put effort into something more than trying to survive – then he managed to look around.
It was dark, where they were, with dust motes sifting thickly through the lines of air slitted above them through the gaps in the wooden floor. He’d been in the back rooms of the showroom floor when he’d been hit. Now, he was underneath. He saw light in one large column, but it shifted and bubbled like water. He heaved in a few more breaths, leaned up on his elbows. The light shafted through the water in the tank, he realized. He could still see it, even from down here.
Where was down here?
He looked around. The area was dusty, knotted with cobwebs and years of neglect. He and Riff lay on musty stone, worn smooth by design more than time. He ran his fingers along the floor. It was soaked, just as he was soaked. But beneath that was the forced-smooth feel of something cut into compliance. The foundation of the theater, most likely. He looked up again. A round hole in the floor. This showroom, this building, had been specifically designed by the magician from whom it got its name. He would have created this hole. To practice in.
Cain looked down. The bottom of the case – the bottom he’d known, back when he’d been looking around the room for signs of the murderer he’d known had been there before – sat on the stone floor directly beneath the tank. He squinted his eyes, looking for that which he’d felt what felt like lifetimes before. And now that he was concentrating, it seemed so obvious; a small lever, heavier than it looked, sat up against the edge of the tank. He struggled up.
“Lord Cain.” Riff’s hands hovered as Cain stood.
He knew the man wanted to order him to rest. He also knew Riff wouldn’t actually order him to do anything. It was what made him pause. He looked at the man. “How did you find me?” he rasped. His voice sounded like an old smoker’s.
Riff finally placed one hand on his shoulder, the other on his back. Steadying him. “I returned when I found no evidence in Grayson’s rooms,” he said. Cain could hear the soft censure in that voice. It was the only hint he got that Riff was displeased with Cain’s decision to send him away. It would be harder, next time, to keep him back when things got dangerous. “But when I arrived, I couldn’t find you anywhere. The lights were off.”
But Riff hadn’t left. He’d known how doggedly persistent Cain would have been. He wouldn’t have left until he’d found what he’d come for or… He swallowed. Looked up into Riff’s eyes.
“I heard you. Inside the tank. I tried to get you out, but…” Riff’s fingers tensed along his back and arm, pressed wrinkles into the ruined fabric. Pressed into his skin. “You set off the hidden latch, and I ran down here.”
From there, Cain could guess the rest. He’d likely fallen from the pedestal to the stone below. Riff would have found him, chest still. He could only imagine what Riff had thought, seeing Cain trapped in the tank, having to race off, find some exit that would lead him down here. Needing to lose sight of Cain in order to do it. Cain’s heart tripped at the thought of having to do the same for Riff. It made him tense. “I know who it is,” he said. And he did. He looked at Riff. “I know who killed the baron.”
Riff nodded. He didn’t say a word. Instead he took off his coat, wrapped it around Cain’s shivering frame, and turned them both back through the dark expanse beneath the showroom floor. Cain dared lean closer. Riff hugged him tight.
“I knew you would come for me, Riff,” he said, once they’d left the shimmering light from the tank behind. He leaned his head on his servant’s shoulder. Riff’s fingers curled tight around his body. For a moment, he thought he felt Riff turn his head to look at Cain. Those lips pressed against the top of his head.
“We aren’t married so don’t call me spouse, significant other sounds like a bunch of snooty bullshit and partner sounds like we are starting a business together.”
I'm on mobile rn so no read more but here's an idea that's been in my head for a day or two I wanna note down, I'll reblog some jjba to cover it up Before the whole Ildento thing happened on anym, the empire used red as its main colour. After what happened, red became the colour of evil and hate, and purple the colour of good and justice. The rebellion didn't forget about the empire using red, and uses that fact against them in pep talks and recruitment drives. The empire covers it up, instead associating the rebellion with red and themselves with purple. It also didn't help the greyskins. Darker greys and blacks became stigmatised along with red, while lighter greys and whites were revered. That just helped the empire try and pin the blame for everything on greyskins and put brownskins in a better light.
OC rambling under the cut bc i’ve been thinking about this group a lot recently
i love all of the main characters in the Anym resistance you have no idea
kievan is a poor child - hes the only one who remembers when his mother was alive and misses her dearly. he still cares for inju and mikva but can never see them as parents. he still sees milau and axil as his lil bros tho. hes really anxious and introverted, which made him best to be a stealth tactician. he gets taken by the empire and is broken, used against riffael and is manipulated into jumping off a building in front of his family - that results in riff and vitani’s capture as well. i love kievan he didnt do anything wrong and yet there he is. suffering. also he’s acepan - he’s sex repulsed and panromantic
vitani is kievan’s lil sister and shes lovely, she’s a mechanic and works with the main ships. she loves her family a lot and is scary sometimes, and she was the first one marx came out to. she doesnt remember her mother at all but she knows that she was very important, and defends her honour and the rest of the family. thats why she goes straight for psnyma when kievan dies - shes so broken by kievan being taken and then dying right in front of her eyes that she goes for the prize, and manages to take out psnyma’s eye before she’s detained and eventually killed - you know that scene in the sherlock holmes movie with the pig carcass saw thing? yeah, they make riffael watch her go through that. its not pretty, and they dont turn off the saw at the end.
marx is the littlest Talus (the family name) but he’s great omg. he’s trans, and comes out to vi before anyone else, and she’s the one who encourages him to come out to riff. marx is a weapons specialist, mostly working with big launchers. he also fixes up smaller ones, recycles parts, and makes new stuff - hes really smart but often gets overlooked because he’s the youngest. he’s the only talus that survives though lmao, and the resistance elects him leader once the fighting is over and they’ve won
riffael is the leader of the resistance for a long time, and grew up alone without anyone around him. he was in an imperfect poly relationship with the mother of his children, sari, and his best friend enmy. he and enmy cut it off after suoma died after having marx, and remain close to this day. riffael later got stranded on Roma and met mikva and inju, who he later married in a perfect poly relationship. he leads the resistance with lots of input from the other members, and is just. a very good leader and a very good father. he dotes on his kids. he loses it when kievan dies though, and ends up having to watch vitani die as well, and is then locked in an oxygen chamber - his species is allergic to it, and he dies.
enmy is riffael’s best friend and his pilot - he transports the taluses and the weapons they use to different places throughout anym. he’s an albino greyskin, which makes him almost legally blind, but riffael made very strong glasses to help a little, and his hearing is naturally very good because of their species as well. hes just. very over the top. hes very dramatic, flirty, and very loud. i like enmy a lot. he ends up as one of marx’s advisors at the end.
fyrin is another member of the resistance, though she was part of the empire at first. she’s trans and helps marx out a LOT. she fled the empire’s forces after she got sick of being closeted, and began to question why she was fighting for the empire. she’s a brownskin, so she’s part of the race seen as superior and that has the most power, but because she’s also trans she was forced to endure misgendering and stuff like that every day before she left. she was interrogated very harshly when she tried to join the resistance, and though they accepted her they kept an eye on her. she also becomes one of marx’s advisors, and ends up with enmy at the end.
the empire is kind of interesting too i guess??
psnyma is the empress, and she’s a royal douchebag. she inherited the position from her mother when she died, and she’s just. an ass. i love her but she’s a racist, homophobic, transphobic asshole. she wants brownskin supremacy, and for everyone to be cishets. she doesnt have many insecurities - she was raised to think she was perfect and that noone could argue with her. she’s a douche.
alyxun and tynus are childhood friends of psnyma, and twins. they’re also brownskins, but are pretty neutral when it comes to opinions on the war. they act as her body guards, and dote on her - tynus dies trying to protect her when marx kills her, and alyxun is imprisoned and questioned relentlessly until he is executed. not much to say about them, but they exist.
i havent got many other characters in the empire for now - the story is mainly focused on the resistance,,,
