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It’s the middle of night when he makes up his mind. It’s been plaguing him for weeks, haunting what little sleep he manages. He’s going to get her killed, he’s going to hurt her, and he knows he already has. He’d known being on the run with him would be bad, but he’d never expected the price to be so high.
She’s lost the spring in her step, the sassy smile that drew him in and left him with butterflies in the gut. The once defined features are now too sharp, cheek bones high and dangerous below eyes that no longer sparkle. She’s given a lot for him, sacrificed it all, but he won’t watch her wither away.
She’s finally asleep, curled up on her side and impossibly small. His hands shake as he studies her, tries his best not to shatter the vials in his hands as he organises his pack. He won’t take much, just enough. He can see her ribs, it’s only a little but he of all people knows what malnourishment looks like. Her hips stick out a little too much, giving the illusion that they’re wider than they are, that she’s more like her twin but it’s wrong. It’s not healthy.
Alessandra is dying and he’s finding it hard to keep himself together because he did that, he broke her.
He’s not quick enough, he’s no rogue, and she’s stirring before he can disappear into the night. The shadows cast over her features by the fire are ugly, claw up her pale skin like poison. Their eyes meet and something inside of his chest tears.
“You’re leaving.”
It’s not a question. Alessandra isn’t stupid, she knew this day would come, she had simply hoped it was a nightmare and she’d wake up to him snuggled against her back, that silly blonde hair in his face.
Anders inhales slowly, looks to his feet because he can’t look at her like this, can’t watch the hurt flood her eyes. He wishes he had been lying when he’d told her he would hurt her, but he wasn’t and it eats away at his insides until he’s nothing but hollow and broken. He doesn’t understand how she’s not glad he’s leaving.
Her movements are weak as she stands, too little sleep, too little food and too much burden. A lesser woman would shatter under the pressure but Alessandra won’t allow herself to break, not now, not with him standing before her. Not with him looking at her with something akin to pity. Her head spins, her vision fades, but she forces herself to face him, to see him. He’s been planning this for a while and it hurts to know she’s been played, allowed herself to be played.
She tells herself she’s not a silly little girl when tears sting the backs of her eyes, when the words she desperately wants to say swell in her throat, choke her and leave her gasping. It’s like she’s swallowing hot coals but this is worse, much worse, because it’s her heart that’s burning and it’s the voice in the back of her head that’s telling her she should have known better, that she never should have followed him at such a cost. Morrigan is gone, and Alessandra’s left alone with a man who’s happy to toss her aside now that he’s gotten what he wants from her.
The voice is full of hate, a bitter set of claws in the back of her mind; the voice is Sebastian, and if she focuses enough she can picture the look he gave her when she chose Anders over her own twin. He hates her too, and somewhere down deep she thinks she deserves it.
“You’re better off without me.”
The skin of her knuckles splits when she hits him. Blood wells up around the wound and smears his cheek, trickles down her fingers as the tears spill, as her heart rips itself apart.
“You selfish bastard!”
It echoes through the woods, bounces off trees until it returns to her and cuts into her hearing. She doesn’t recognise her own voice anymore. Anders has the good grace to keep his head down, tilted to the side from the hit. She hates him for that too and slaps him instead, screams at him when he does nothing but let his head roll back, his eyes going to the sky. Her chest hurts, her face heats and she’s screaming so loud she thinks they might both go deaf.
Anders doesn’t dare touch her, doesn’t dare move, but she’s hyperventilating in front of him, falling to pieces and he wants nothing more than to wrap her in his arms and accept her harsh words. He hates himself for putting her through this but he can’t stay, he can’t keep chipping away at her resolve the way he does. He’s made her give up too much, and while there’s no hope for him, he knows Morrigan would take Alessandra into open arms and mend her.
Morrigan would be the rock Alessandra deserves, not the sea that slowly but surely erodes her foundations.
When she crashes to her knees, her fingers digging into the dirt as she lets it all go, Anders loses his resilience. He drops his bag to the side and kneels in front of her, edges closer ever so slowly, carefully, as if any sudden movement will startle her and send her running. He touches her cheek, and his chest tightens when she wails all the louder and pulls away from him as if he’s struck her. He stares at his fingers, sees the tears on his calloused skin and sucks in his breath. He’s destroyed the strongest person he knows, the only woman who ever stood by him no matter what.
He started a war and she took his hand.
Anders is a fool.
It’s not the broken way she speaks, or the tears that stain her face. It’s not the frightened way she looks at him or even the words themselves. It’s the honest fear behind them, it’s the fact that he knows she believes what she’s asking.
“Did you ever even love me?”
Their eyes meet and he’s mortified. She’s a broken doll, tossed aside by a careless child. His eyes widen ever so slightly, disgust in himself boiling over. How could he ever justify hurting her? The noise she makes when he tugs her to him, engulfs her body in his arms is pained, a deep whine in the back of the throat that slices through his defences. He tightens his hold, presses her to his chest and tells himself it’s okay to cry into her hair, to show weakness, to fear.
He is weak, he does fear, but it’s for no other reason than knowing she’ll die without him as surely as he would without her. Good intentions have never worked in his favour.
Her fingers press into his back, her nails dragging at his coat and she wails openly, lips parted and heart bleeding. He’s desperate to drag her closer, to banish the devastation he watched bloom in her eyes, seeds he sowed. The fire splutters behind them, ignored, just as the rain that starts to fall is ignored. They’re quickly soaked but neither moves, neither notices.
They are broken, shattered things. But together, they are whole, no longer shadows, no longer lost.
Anders presses his lips to her hair, doesn’t notice his own tears slipping free to blend with the rain that saturates them. Desperation burns too hot under his skin, melts his veins until he’s pushing her back enough to look at her face, hands shaking as he tucks the black strands of her hair behind her ears. The heartache hits him harder than any punch ever could and he can’t take it. He can’t see that look on her face, not her, not because of him.
When he kisses her she does nothing, she’s still against his touch and it hurts, it frays his already fragile strength. He kisses her again and she cries, eyes slipping closed as her lips part and her anguish is given volume. She’s too small in his arms as he wraps them around her, drags her against him fully and takes her mouth the best way he knows how; hot and raw and full of the love he can’t believe she doubts.
Her skin is cold beneath his touch, her cheeks blooming with a flush that isn’t warm. He doesn’t know if it’s from the cold or the pain or the kiss, but he pushes it down and loses himself. His breath is heavy as he struggles to warm her, his touch frantic. She’s lost to him for only a moment before she kisses back and it almost ends him.
It is rough and desperate, burns hot in the blood. The kiss is salty from the tears Alessandra continues to shed, but it’s a reminder that they’re human, that they feel. When he pulls away, when he runs his lips down her throat and locks away the sounds she makes for later, he keeps her close, keeps his hands on her, keeps his hold strong. She’s weak to his desire and it heats in his belly to an extreme he hasn’t felt in longer than he can remember. Her fingers curl against his back as she gasps, keens under the way he sucks at her skin, bites just a little to mark her as his.
She’s breathless when he licks up her throat, pants against her ear ever so slightly as he runs his hands up her spine. The touch is electric and she whimpers in a way that shouldn’t arouse him but always has.
“I have never not loved you, Alessandra.”
They don’t talk about it again, not as they lose themselves in each other as the fire dies, as the rain falls all the harder. They don’t speak of it when they rise in the morning and continue on their journey. They don’t speak of it, but the fear is always there, a dark cloud in the back of both of their minds.
They’ll kill each other, whether they stay together or not.