you spin my head right round

LUSEA

i could recognize him by touch alone, by smell

i would know him blind,

We are going to have a pleasant afternoon picnic, whether he likes it or not.

I forced him to come with me. He's been acting weird, and I bet it's because of that stupid bite and that stupid girl, and I'm over it. We have another chance, another life, another world, as cold and shitty as it may be. There's no way I'm letting him spend the rest of our time together wallowing and whining, especially since I'm perpetually terrified that time is about to end.

So I bully him off into the nicest place I've been able to find in this place, a pretty pond with pretty fish and relatively little snow. It's not a Korofi lake, but it's something, and I just want to have a nice time. I want to relax and laugh and tease him like the old days. I want to fight and fuck and plan how we'll overtake the world. I want him, and I want us, and I want one goddamn thing to make sense.

I got some bread from the local bakery and some meat and cheese and wine, and it's all tucked in a basket along with my rose. When we get to the oasis it's... well, if not pleasant than certainly nicer than the rest of this place, with less snow and more grass and sun peeking through the trees. Finding a dry place beneath a tree, I spread out a blanket for us to sit on and begin to put out food. "You know, I think I could get used to this," I announce, trying to sound playful despite my worries, the lie obvious. "Being all domestic. Taking care of my man. Planting flowers. Just what I always wanted out of life."

i would know him in death,

at the end of the world

SUNJATA

i am the man we both couldn't stand, i can't wash the dirt from my hands

what was it like to feel in love?

It has taken a lot out of him, fighting with his thoughts, the things he’s done, trying his damnedest to not crush the rose she brings. But he tries, for her, despite it notably leaving him irritated. And when she drags him out into the snow, he half tempts to argue, to whine the entire way there. But he stays silent, trembling hands fidgeting in his pockets and bundles of fur.

He has to tell her.

And he has to ask her for forgiveness.

His head throbs by the time they reach the lake, and he manages to pull out a cigarette, lighting it as she spreads out the blanket, a huff of amusement surprisingly leaving him. “Can you? I hate it.” He hums to her, reaching down to pick up a small ball of snow and watch as it melts in his hands before he drops it back.

But no, no time for chit chat. When it’s settled and he situated himself on the blanket, he grits his teeth, the hand with the cigarette reaching up to rub at his temple. The wounds she’s stitched have blackened further, still not healed, and the veins in his eyes have darkened with it. “Luci I… Love you. You know this, right?” He says suddenly, eyes flitting up to look at her. Something akin to regret.

i can't scrub the black from my lungs

SUNJATA

LUSEA

i could recognize him by touch alone, by smell

i would know him blind,

"Sure. You know I always wanted to be a little housewife, pining away with dinner in the oven." The idea is laughable, somehow even better in our harsh and beautiful native tongue, and I grin up at him as he lights a cigarette, the smile not quite making it to my eyes. "Give me a drag, will you?"

He sits on the blanket but it's really not as close as it should be, and his eyes are distant, and his face is grimacing. He looks worse than I've seen him after any fight, black rimmed and bloodshot. What has this place done to him? But his question is more concerning than any physical symptoms, and the color drains from my face as he asks it, dread settling like lead in the pit of my stomach. "What kind of question is that?" Of course I know. It's the only thing I'm certain of, the only thing I've ever been certain of, and he knows this, so why the fuck would he ask?

Something is wrong, and I'm going to find out what it is so we can fix it and move past it and get on with our new lives. I only just got him back, and I refuse to lose again.

i would know him in death,

at the end of the world

SUNJATA

i am the man we both couldn't stand, i can't wash the dirt from my hands

what was it like to feel in love?

As she asks for a smoke, he nods, offering his own and discarding the rest of the pack on the blanket should she want one, the matches beside it. He manages to spark a smile on his face at the comment, imagining should she actually try to, how well it would work. “I suppose I’ll have to get a 9 to 5, huh? Support you in your housekeeping endeavors?” It’s a joke that falls flat, not as his question slips through and demolishes any sort of hope for a normal lunch it might be.

Besides, he’s not really hungry anyway.

But she doesn’t answer him the way he wants her to, and he shakes his head looking away from her, from the scars and the wounds she endured for him, because of him. He chews on his lip briefly, eyes shadowed and haunted. Not the man she used to know, not who he wants to be. “I’m not normal here. The sickness it… It’s fucking with my emotions and thoughts and I haven’t been home and I’m sorry, and I just… I fucked up the other night.” He admits, eyes sliding back over to hers. “And I know you’re going to be pissed at me, I am too. And I’m sorry, first of all.” He pauses, the softness showing in the lining of his eyes that brim with an inky black.

But he can’t look at her and tell her, instead his head drops to his head that shake and tremble uncontrollably. “I let Phoebe out of the jail and went home with her that night.”

i can't scrub the black from my lungs

SUNJATA

LUSEA

i could recognize him by touch alone, by smell

i would know him blind,

Yeah, there's something wrong. I stare at him as he looks away, his head shaking as though I haven't answered correctly. What does he want me to say? I haven't seen him like this before, and it's honestly got me a little rattled. "Can't be worse than getting me killed," I try to joke darkly, but my heart's not in it. "Look. Whatever it is, we'll get through it. I'm planting fucking flowers for you."

But my voice is a little unsteady, and he'll be able to tell how scared I am. I just got him back. I just got my life back - literally. What if this is all some horrible dream, or a hell sequence, and any moment it'll be ripped away from me and I'll realize that no, actually, everything is terrible and I am in fact dead?

And then there it is. My heart stops at the words, and I don't look at him, my face a mask of quiet stone. It's an expression he'll know, one I used to reserve for the worst news about the resistance, for the nights when the bloodshed below the bar snuck upstairs and struck us back. "And?" I don't need to hear it to know, but I need to hear it, for him to own up his mistake. Only then will I be able to figure out how I'm going to respond to the thing I don't want to know happened.

Only then will he know how fucked he is.

i would know him in death,

at the end of the world

SUNJATA

i am the man we both couldn't stand, i can't wash the dirt from my hands

what was it like to feel in love?

Her joke doesn’t help the situation any. And while this is relatively small in comparison to that fact, he’s never done anything like this before. Not with any of the women that were a part of the resistance, no matter how hard they had tried. And here he was, fumbling, drifting, confused, sick and somewhat lonely throughout it all. He reaches, while she takes the cigarette, for his own – fully expecting to find the lit end of it on his skin at some point, while he fumbles through the words and trembles to light his own.

She tells him she’s planting flowers for him, and it sparks up that small amount of rage he’s tried to keep tied down. And he swallows hard against it, running his other hand through his hair. But when her voice hits him, he grits his teeth. And he can’t, can’t look at her with the sound, with the idea he can imagine her face is, how she had worn it before time and time again with bad news and terrible things. “And” She asks, and he grits his teeth further. “And what do you think?” He snaps suddenly, before he realizes it, shutting down after like he’s already been reprimanded.

But he has to tell her, that’s the one thing he can do. And even if he fucks everything else up, he couldn’t fuck this one up. He takes a deep drag from the cigarette, exhaling the plume of smoke, before he looks to the food between them on the blanket to avoid looking at her face. “I drank a bit, the blight, I guess, acted strangely with it. And I panicked, I told her about the trial, about Korofi, and she gave me a tonic of sorts for the panic.” He pauses, eyes shutting slightly. “And then, when it began to work, and I calmed down, I… Slept with her.” He knows it's his fault, he knows the blame sits on him. But he had to be the one to tell her. It was better to do it this way than to leave it a secret, aside from the way it would bleed into him day after day, tiny barbs attacking with every shaking breath.

He leaves himself open for any form of retaliation, fully deserving of it. Whatever she wants to do, he will let her, because it’s the only way that he knows how she can deal with it. To fight. And he can take it, if only to prove to her how sorry he is in the end.

i can't scrub the black from my lungs

SUNJATA

LUSEA

i could recognize him by touch alone, by smell

i would know him blind,

Um, no. I'm not going to say it for him, not gonna give him the easy way out. He wanted this, he did this, and he gets to live with the whole damn thing, to spell out the sordid details of what he's done, to admit to his fucking weakness.

That's right, weakness. He's soft- this place, that girl, they've made him soft, but I'm still made of steel.

The thing is, I don't expect hearing him say it to hurt as much as it does. I don't know why- of course it hurts, to learn that even after dying for him and then fucking coming back, I am somehow not enough. That he would drag his sick and sorry ass off to her, when I'm the one who's stitched up every wound. That years of loyalty apparently amount to nothing when a pretty little blond gets involved.

"And how was it, hmm, screwing the midwife? Was it incredible? Mind-blowing? Earth shattering? 'Cus you'd better believe it's changed your fucking life."

I don't look at him. I don't give him that. But if he looks at me he'll see me smiling, feral and shattered, teeth bared behind a curled lip despite the tears in my eyes.

i would know him in death,

at the end of the world

SUNJATA

i am the man we both couldn't stand, i can't wash the dirt from my hands

what was it like to feel in love?

He knows it’s going to hit her hard, he knows he’s going to regret it further as the words slip from his lips. All he can do is draw his knee up, rest his forearm along it, and rub at the side of his face. And had she told him, her thoughts on it, that he had grown weak, he would agree. There is no steel, there is no strength to him now. Aluminum foil and tape stitch up the broken man before her. Had he always been this way and she the steel? Or had her death and the years after changed him in a way where he doesn’t know how to handle anything anymore?

While she doesn’t expect the words to hurt as deep as they do, it cuts him too. And he takes a deep breath, eyes closing against the words that leave her. And he knows, knows how shit it had been. He doesn’t know why he did it, why he claimed he didn’t care what Lusea thought. The woman before him was his whole life, the flame to his flood, and here he was throwing it all away. And for what? Because he’s confused, broken, sad, soft? Sick? Incapable of making his own decisions?

“I know.” He tells her, gravely, their native tongue slipping from his lips with an ease to convey the emotions he feels within. And he spends a moment to break through the clarity, of the results of his actions, eyes drifting to look at her, to see the battle she wars with herself. Does she blame herself? That she’s not enough? He doesn’t know, but he knows that it’s not her. It’s never been her. She is everything he could dream of, and here he is throwing it away.

Against his better judgement, he leans toward her, reaching for her. He had expected retaliation before, but this hurt worse, and he almost hopes she fights him back. “Luci, I’m sorry.” He manages, hoarse and exhausted. “I don’t know what came over me. I fucked up.” What else can he say? He doesn’t tell her that Phoebe had asked him to choose her over Lusea, he doesn’t tell her his decision. Because he’s here now, despite a night of weakness and impaired judgement. There’s no excuse for it, not even as the arm that reaches for her is veined with black, like the veins in his eyes.

i can't scrub the black from my lungs

SUNJATA

LUSEA

i could recognize him by touch alone, by smell

i would know him blind,

I fucked up.

"You fucking think?" My voice is a tight, choked almost-laugh, anger blistering underneath the steely composure. I lean away from him, because if he touches me I will touch him back, and in in a fun and kinky way. "What came over you, Sunjata, is that you were horny. You were horny and scared and weak and instead of coming to me - who you profess to love - you went running to the arms of your little blonde plaything." She's nothing more than a plaything to him, I know this.

I think it.

I... thought I knew it, anyway.

And then, suddenly, I spin around to face him, my hands reaching out to grab his collar, to try and push him back while pulling him to me at the same time. "Tell me, Sunny, what did she do for you that I can't? What did she give you, that you can't get from me? I've watched you fall apart and put you back together more times than I can count- must be some kinky fucking shit. Did you like it? Did you love it?" My face is inches away from him, close enough to kiss- or bite. "Do you love her?" There's a feral edge to my wolfish grin, and maybe I'm a little manic, but I think I'm allowed. Dying, coming back to life, reuniting with who you thought was your one true love, being cheated on...

It's enough to drive anyone a little crazy, don't you think?

i would know him in death,

at the end of the world

SUNJATA

i am the man we both couldn't stand, i can't wash the dirt from my hands

what was it like to feel in love?

The problem, is that he wasn’t thinking. Not clearly, not straight, and he finds it burrows deep within him as she reacts. Her voice like barbs while his hand falls flat, reaching and coming up with nothing. Like all those years he had yearned for her and she was gone. Yet she’s here, breathing, and he’s managed to go and ruin it all. She says his name, not Sunny, not anything else but his full name and he can’t help the shudder that courses through his spine.

“I do love you.” He tells her, steel eyes hopelessly falling along her face as she fights back with words and phrasing, ones he deserves but it doesn’t keep it from hurting any less. “I don’t know, it just… it just happened.” It’s shit of an answer, but it’s something, and he goes to move back, to give her space. But then his flame is there grasping at his collar, and gives him a good shake, eyes seeking out her own as his lips form a tight line.

He does nothing back, letting her do whatever it is she wants to do. Because he deserves it, he deserves everything that’s coming to him. He doesn’t even know what to say — the two of them are so different, and where he has Lusea as a flame, a partner in crime, Phoebe has been a crutch for him. So he grits his teeth back, as the blight courses through him and he nearly bares his teeth at her before she pulls him closer — “Do you love her?”

His eyes widen and he exhales a laugh, smoky and breathless against her face. “I love you.” He tells her, firm demand in his voice, though his blighted brain isn’t so sure. “You and only you.” He manages, though his breathing shakes as his hands try to find her shoulders, and with the blight it causes them to shake and tremble uncontrollably. He knows he’s in no position to make demands, but gods does he want to. “And I’m sorry. She… brings out that child in me and it’s been getting harder and harder every day to keep it away, to be who I was after the trial.” He finally admits, eyes lining with the black from the blight. “I’m changing, and I hate it so fucking much.”

i can't scrub the black from my lungs

SUNJATA

LUSEA

i could recognize him by touch alone, by smell

i would know him blind,

Gods, what a stupid answer. It just happened, as though this sort of thing can just happen, as though it doesn't take two to tango and there aren't a series of choices leading up to it. Blight, panic, tonics, confessions. His collar is still in my hand, and I could bite him if I wanted, or kiss him, or shake him- something, anything, to wake him the fuck up from whatever stupor he's fallen into in this place.

Then he laughs, the brat, and promises he loves me, and fuck but I want to believe him. It hurts so much, not knowing if it's real- if the only thing I still had faith in is just as fragile as anything else. I shove him back as he reaches for my shoulders, throwing him onto the blanket and hovering dangerously over him, as though I can't decide if I should punch him or not. "Fuck you, Sunjata," I hiss in a furious whisper, teeth bared and expression agonized. One fist flies, landing hard, just to the right of his head. "How dare you." How dare he say he loves me, how dare he apologize, how dare he change when I'm still the same.

The thing is, I'm scared. I'm scared of this new Sunjata, and this new world, and I'm scared I don't have a place in it. "Why did you go to her, if you were sick? Why not tell me?" I could have helped. I would have helped. I would have done anything.

And I would never have fucked someone else's man while doing it.

i would know him in death,

at the end of the world

SUNJATA

i am the man we both couldn't stand, i can't wash the dirt from my hands

what was it like to feel in love?

She’s shaking him, or is she shaking herself? All he knows is that he trembles too, from the blight, from the weight of her eyes, from the shot to his gut. He can see the panic and the fear that linger in her eyes and he hates it. He hates himself for it. A brand new world, a different version of himself, and she’s still the same – waltzing into the world mere seconds after he had last held her, when he had spent years drifting from place to place, fighting back and taking, and leaving far too many beds to count.

He certainly doesn’t tell her that bit.

But the blight courses through him, causing him to laugh before he professes his love for her, once again. But does it even mean anything anymore? He could tell it to her over and over again, through the rooftops of their ransack home, but would it ever mean what it did before? When his loyalties and eyes were only for her, when he had proven it over and over again. He is turning into his father, with the mistakes he’s making here, and he can’t fight it as those thoughts take over.

His flame pushes him back, avoiding his trembling hands, and as imbalanced as he is, his spine meets the blanket atop the snow – steel eyes looking up to her as she hovers above him. ’Good’, he thinks to himself. He wants her to act out the aggression, he wants to feel something else other than the pain of what he’s done. She curses him, an arm raised for a fist, and for a split second he doesn’t think she’ll do it. But her eyes show the intensity beneath, how terrified he is, and he’s distracted by it when her fist connects.

He’s forgotten how hard she can hit, having watched her do it a million times before to everyone else but him, and it rattles him – enough to split his lip that he has managed to bite briefly before impact. Blood bubbles up to the surface, crimson laced and edged with black, trickling to the side of his mouth as her voice shakes and he grits his teeth. But the blight within him has activated further, with the punch, and the mood swings shift and take over as he uses his strength – far more than she has, to flip them so she’s underneath him.

“I went to her to see if it would be gone soon. People have said that they’re getting better, and I’m getting worse.” He hisses, his own teeth bared. The unblighted version of himself would’ve never done this, but he can’t help himself as he drifts closer to her. “The midwife has the blight, I went to see if she was getting better, if there was hope for me – for us.” His hands pin her on either side. “Those wounds you stitched up? She gave them to me. She said things I didn’t know she meant or not. She used my mother against me, against us. I went to also see if that was true.” He spits back, the odd colored blood drifting down his chin.

i can't scrub the black from my lungs

SUNJATA

LUSEA

i could recognize him by touch alone, by smell

i would know him blind,

In a surprising show of strength and dominance he flips me onto my back, and honestly? I don't hate it. It's good to see a little bit of fire, to have him fight back, especially after he took my blow so easily, his lip splitting in a cascade of blood. Black blood, and it just isn't natural, but at least it's tinged with a little bit of red. A little bit of him beneath it all.

A little bit of crimson hope.

He has me pinned, but I'm not scared. The most obvious reason is, of course, because I can easily slam a knee into his balls if he decides to try anything I don't like. But more than that, glaring up at his black rimmed eyes, I simply cannot find it in myself to be afraid of him. Afraid for him? Yes. Afraid for us? Absolutely. But I know - I know - deep down below it all, beneath the trauma and the fury and the hurt, that he would never have wounded me without a reason. That if he were himself, this never would have happened.

Which begs the question: is this the Sunny I know and love? Is that man - that radiant, spectacular, furious, rebellious, brutally strong mess of a man - even still alive?

"And is there hope for us, Sunjata?" It's a snarl, low and dangerous, rough and rolling in our native tongue. Is there hope for us- or does he still yearn for her, ache for her, lust for her? I can feel my expression becoming vulnerable, anger taking the place of steely cool. There are tears in my eyes, and I press against him, a feeble attempt to set myself free. "I crossed death itself to find you, and now I don't even know who you are. Where's the hope in that?"

i would know him in death,

at the end of the world

SUNJATA

i am the man we both couldn't stand, i can't wash the dirt from my hands

what was it like to feel in love?

How many times can he say he doesn’t know what’s overcome him before he believes it himself?

He’s flipped her over, pinning her down as the ferocity of the blight takes charge and control, his teeth baring as he speaks to her. Perhaps Lusea should be afraid of this new version of him, the part that had shifted and changed upon her death until now, through the tribulations and frustrations that had accompanied his escape and drift toward Dorobo, for the tattoos that had been adjusted and added. The old him, who had done everything for her or her memory, gone in the blink of an eye for the creature that hovers over her, predatory, and wrong in not the right places.

His larger frame blocks her from any attempt to move as she snarls to him, asking him if there’s hope for them, and it’s enough to give him pause – to give him a small amount of clarity through the blight rage that’s overcome him, from the blood that drips from his lip down his chin while he stares at her, both seeing and unseeing all the same. But it’s not so much the words that get to him, it’s the change in her expression. The fear, the tears, and while she tries to remain strong he can see her crumbling beneath him, and he can feel the inky blackness rise to the waterline of his own eyes.

He’s never wanted her to be afraid of him, afraid of what he could do – because she was the one that had most seen what the man before her could do, what he had done before.

Instead, she tries to break free and he doesn’t let her. He seeks her vision, seeks her out as a place to steady himself, to grip back onto the truth. As if the blight had created an entire illusion out of her and his mind. But no, that wasn’t true, because Phoebe had referred to her. She absolutely was here…

Wasn’t she?

She asks for hope again, and he softens again, as if the rains to his floods had stopped and it’s a moment of peace before the dam breaks. His voice is softer now, gravely, thick with the accent and language of their home, and it breaks when he finally speaks. “I don’t know who I am anymore either.” He admits, feeling at the end of a rope, burnt at both ends, uncertain where to go from here. But he needs her, because he can’t imagine what it would be like to lose her again. But for the worst of it, to see her with someone else –

He fucked up immensely.

He searches her gaze, shadowed and haunted silver eyes like the storms of Korofi scan her face, scan the scars she had endured for him, and he exhales, steeling himself. He wants to tell her that Phoebe had asked him to choose the midwife over her, and how he didn’t… But that’s not entirely true, because he had chosen her that night. And his stomach begins to tie itself in knots. So he opts for a different approach, reaching up to wipe the black and crimson blood from his face, smearing it along his cheek with the back of his hand. “I love you, Lusea Kotze.” He tells her, nothing but a vowed promise beneath the tone. “Until death and whatever comes after, in the old version of me and whatever this is. You. There is hope in that, for me.” His own voice shakes with it. “If you can forgive me – not now, not soon, I know. But at some point. I will do anything for you.” And he means it. He'd walk through fire and flame, drown in the oceans, endure what she had endured for him, for her love for him, for his love for her. Whatever she wants.

i can't scrub the black from my lungs

SUNJATA