with empty hands /eden + avriel

He watches the glaive push through Eden's chest and the world flickers, then goes pitch black.

He stands there in it, in the black. Hard to see like that, world gone dark. There's no light, no sound, not at first. The air pricks his skin, the cold pushing in like hundreds of little needles, drawing blood and the pain is so intense that he can't breathe. Then there's sound, a roar. At first he thinks that it's waves on a distant lake, cutting at the hull of a little wooden canoe. Then the sound cuts abruptly and he realizes it was voices.

At least a couple hundred.

All watching the match, cheering.

He blinks and when Avriel opens his eyes, he's staring at Eden's body laying in the dirt. He didn't hear a cannon but the dark must have taken it. It always takes everything, heavy, a predator chasing him always no matter where he goes and now it's eaten Eden.

The medics pull Reldexx up and away to treat her but they leave Eden there like he's trash. Avriel stares at him, at his body, motionless, blood pooling beneath him and he tries to understand but he can't. There's still blood in his nail bed from yesterday afternoon, still a heartbeat under his palm even where it's resting on the railing.

He lifts a foot, heavy, cement blocks, walk into the lake. He lifts his other foot, held on by tape, it hurts, why does he even want to live? Blade, Ariel, Areto, Eden. One, two, three, four. Feet heavy, he walks into the ring and it's as if with every step his body becomes heavier.

He doesn't want to see those eyes, once so expressive, gazing empty but part of him has to. Part of him has to kneel in the sand and cradle him and pretend that he hasn't lost them all.

Eden's a blurry spot on his horizon, it feels like it takes Avriel years to get to him and in those years he loses something vital. He's eroding again, crumbling, he makes a trail through the forest.

And lands on his knees beside Eden.

He hooks his arm under his neck, eyes on his, watching as the light drains from them and he thinks about how the sunlight fell through the canopy in the woods in nine in the summer and shone gold down on the ivy undergrowth. His other hand finds his cheek, his fingers run down it, then to the wound on his chest. It's hot. Blood pumps and Avriel can hear his heartbeat without touch, the wound is so close to his heart.

He raises his hand and it comes away bloody.

And he opens his hand until it's spread out, like he's telling Eden to stop.

"Five more minutes," he whispers.

Avriel can't think, each process stopped in its tracks, all he knows how to do is kneel there with Eden in his arms.

The world moves around them but the people in it don't matter to him, they're just watchers all of them, vultures. They don't help, none of them do. They're just here to see tragedy. Kneeling here, body stuck with sorrow or kneeling on the shore of a lake or kneeling beside a dying fire, it doesn't matter. They don't help.

Feeling overwhelms him, short circuits his senses and he doesn't know how to handle it. He wants to cry but it feels like he can't, like he'll never be able to again. This can't be real. This must just be another dream, Eden can't die because it doesn't make sense.

A hand balled up in his shirt, Avriel lets Eden tug him down, and he hears his breathes rattle but he's breathing. It means nothing, not all death is instant, sometimes it takes years.

Eden's hand dances, brushes against Avriel's jaw and he catches his fingers, reigns them in and takes Eden's hand. "It's okay," he says. It's not okay though, his fingers are slippery with blood, his hand already going cold. Avriel takes it and he places it against his own chest where his own heart beats as if Eden can learn from its steadiness.

As if Avriel isn't watching him die.

The medical team had taken one look at Eden and moved on. The kid who'd done this to two others, maybe they thought he deserved his fate but Avriel knows he doesn't. A knife that's only ever been taught to cut is only ever going to get sharper.

It's not fair.

Numbness creeps over him, apathy with it, none of it matters anymore if Eden leaves him too and he doesn't have the brain power to consider why that is. The boy he barely knows, the misfit lion with eyes that hold worlds in them. The calm and the quiet in him, a gentleness he's never seen in a career, the boy to be alone in the woods with.

Who is there to catch him when he starts to fall. A hand around his wrist, hanging over empty space.

"Save him," he commands himself softly, "Save him. Get up." Eden bleeding out in front of him and Avriel can't make it out of his own head. He's useless like this, pathetic as the rest of them.

He shifts, takes Eden's hand and presses it against his own wound. "Eden, please," he says, "Don't go, don't." Then Avriel slips his other arm under Eden's knees and lifts him, eyes scanning the edge of the ring for the medics. People mill, some stare but no one lifts a finger to help. Eden's just another career, a replacement with his next in line already picked out, but not to Avriel.

"It hasn't been five minutes yet," he says.

He vaguely remembers passing first-aid yesterday when he followed Eden down the hall but Avriel's arms are already starting to burn. Months of listlessness catch up so quickly. He ignores the pain and adjusts his grip, always so stubborn, and goes.

Blood bubbles over Eden's lips and Avriel decides that it doesn't.

Part of him still doesn't want to understand what is happening, none of this feels fair. He's barely let Eden in and he's already slipping through his fingers. Except that stubborn piece of him that keeps trying when it'd be so much easier to give in holds firm. This can't be happening because they promised Avriel that he had won, that he was a victor.

No matter what he does, he keeps losing.

Some days make it feel like everything he's been through was worth it, it's not always bad. Those times are rare, it's impossible for him to go a day without thinking about the arena and even in a new house, he sees blood under the floorboards.

He doesn't have a lot of people that he cares about for a reason, he knows how quick he can lose them. Eden somehow wormed his way in, those steady hands holding him still in the moments where all he can do is shake. Avriel wants to regret him, how far he let him in, but he can't.

He just doesn't want to think about a world without Eden in it.

When he glances down at him, the other boy isn't looking where they're going, Eden's looking up at him. His gaze is worried, there's that same gentle concern that Avriel saw a year ago on that balcony. Eden should be worrying about himself, not Avriel.

And he doesn't know if Eden can even hear him anymore through the pain so he tries something else. Even though his eyes ache and they threaten to overflow, he smiles down at him, mouth trembling. All he knows how to do is play pretend in the end. It's better to hide the ache than to share it, better to hold it all close because then he can lie to himself too.

They reach the long hall and Avriel slows to a walk, his chest heaving from exertion. A woman in scrubs brushes past him, clipboard in hand and Avriel watches her turn down another hall. He follows, shoes squeaking on linoleum and sweat drips down his forehead. "Hey," he calls out, "HEY!"

The woman turns, looks them over, "Oh," she says, tone casual, "Take him in there." She points at a set of double doors at the end of the hall, "The surgeon's on standby."

Avriel doesn't question it, just picks up speed again. His vision tunnels and the hallway seems to grow longer but something in him unfurls, a pain that has gone unsolved for so long laid bare. In the arena all he could do was sit there and hold his loved ones as they faded but out here there is a chance and Avriel took it.

He has the power to save the people he loves.