gotmattitude - Tumblr blog

gotmattitude · 5 years

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walking on broken glass

WHO: Santana Lopez ( @trickstersantana ) & Matt Rutherford. With a cameo by Daisy!

WHAT: After avoiding the elephant knife in the room, Matt and Santana finally meet up at Undique to talk about things. Spoiler alert: Things get agitated.

WHEN: August 10th, 2019.

WHERE: Undique.

WARNINGS: Discussions of murder, stabbing, death, discrimination, threatening behavior, violence, and genocide. Lots of heavy stuff.

Matt gets to Undique a little too quickly. Nerves always make him walk way too fast, and fuck, this shit makes him nervous. He books the room and texts Santana the number. As he waits, he considers summoning Sydney to vent before he and Santana actually talk, but decides against it. He wants this talk to be honest, and organic. Not some dumb speech he knows by heart. So he just sits on the floor, and takes a breath.

Santana walks to Undique reminding herself what she has for self defense. Who she has to defend herself against. Everyone who accompanied her to any tortured plane. Quinn, Marley, Kurt, Joe, Brittany, Elliott. And then Matt. The truth was slipping through her fingers and she keep trying to hold it up. But she had to change her strategy. She opens the door to the room. Matt is already there. "Hello Matt. You wanted to talk. Talk."

Matt's head snaps up, but he doesn't stand up yet. "Yeah." He looks back down, and takes a deep breath. "I know I fucked up that day. I thought... I don't know. I thought blind loyalty was what trust felt like. Which is fucked up. And I think I gotta look into that shit. Reevaluate how I see people or something. And, uh... the only reason I backed out of that deal was because I thought I'd get fucked up. I wasn't thinking about you, or why you were so desperate to do it. I--yeah. I'm sorry. I was selfish, and a dick, and I'm sorry." He looks up at her towards the end, and pulls at the hem of jeans, fingers itching for a distraction. "I wasn't sad--I was angry, when you were missing. I was fucking mad that you tried to stab me and I was the one hanging around feeling guilty. And I think that's still in there, or some shit. But I didn't think. Which is bullshit, because I'm always fucking talking about privilege and I--" he shuts his eyes for a second. "That's not the fucking point. Santana, you're--you don't need to be human to... I don't know. To be worthy? I was... wrong. I should have... I'm sorry."

Santana looks unimpressed. "That doesn't sound like blind loyalty to me. You wanted to give it all, but you couldn't." He had to say it. 'Desperate'. 'You don't need to be human when that's not what she wants to hear' .She wants to call him out but she waits for him to finish it all. She waits, getting more and more annoyed. "You're angry. Then don't fucking apologize." She illusions some knife to play with. "What's your fake sorry for? You're 'sorry' this ended up like this. You are sorry you didn't act 'perfectly' just as I wanted. You are sorry so I apologize too. I'm not going to apologize for shit, Matt. I am not sorry." She throws the illusory knife to Matt. "That's still there or some shit, uh? Then fucking get it out. Stop trying to be a good friend and say what you really feel!"

Santana: 1d7 Attack to Matt = (5) = 5

Matt: 1d7 counter santana = (7) = 7

Matt remembers why they're fighting again. Santana can be so frustrating. "No, you're right, it's not blind loyalty to let someone lay you on an illusory magic circle on the floor to achieve a purpose neither of you fucking understand!" He kind of wishes he could just make her understand, but that's not the point of this whole bullshit. It's not. "Oh, yeah, you're right! Because I'm goddamned Tinkerbell and I can't have more than one feeling at a time? And that makes my apology fake!" The knife comes at him, and he throws himself to the side, and his swinging leg hits her as he avoids it. "Fine! You want me to say what I feel? I think you're frustrating as fuck, and I still think you're my friend, and I'm still sorry, and I'm still mad!" He scrambles to his feet, and crosses his arms over his chest. "I'm trying to apologize for being a dick, and you fucking attack me! You tried to fucking stab me, and that doesn't mean I didn't fuck up too! Shit is more complex than me sucking up to you, Santana!"

Santana falls to the floor, but stands up again, stepping down from Matt. "You were the one who didn't understand!" She corrects him. Santana laughs bitterly, after Matt's rant. "Hell, that's more like it! Thats way more real!" She illusions the magic circle under Matt again. "Yes. I did that. Well, I tried more than just stab you. I didn't plan for you to die, or get hurt, thought. I trusted you wouldn't die. I trusted you wouldn't get hurt. It is a trust ritual, you know?" She shrugs and smiles. "And well, if it didn't work... you were a risk I was willing to pay." The illusory magic circle painted on the floor under Matt shines and shadows appear to get him. "You're my dear friend too. Just so it happens that we both are really dangerous when we have to get our way."

Santana: 1d7 Santana attack to Matt = (1) = 1

Matt: 1d7 counter = (6) = 6

Matt throws his hands up when Santana tries to correct him. "You fucking told me yourself you don't know what becoming human means! You're just being stubborn because you want to think you were being smart!" Santana has a fixation with brutal honesty, and if she wasn't fucking attacking him, he'd spend more time pondering it. "I was a risk!" Matt laughs, but it hurts, like speaking too loudly when your throat is sore. "My life was a risk you were willing to take! Because, obviously, a knife in my chest doesn't have the goal of hurting me!" He almost doesn't notice the circle and the shadows, but he steps forwards and shoves her, a little harder than he'd meant to. "Why do you keep trying to hurt me?!" Matt's voice breaks just a little in the middle of the sentence. "Was that what you wanted this whole time? A friend to risk?" His breathing comes in quick, sharp bursts through his nose, and he bites his tongue. "Because I know what I wanted! I wanted to be--I just wanted to be important. Isn't that fucked up? If I was important--to you, to anyone, nothing else mattered! What did you want?"

"On a metaphysical sense! I knew the ritual was going to work" Santana lied. She had to trust it was going to work. "I'm always smart and you know that!" She lies again. Santana can see the word reached him, and yet he pushed it more. "Yes. You are correct. Except in the part of a knife on your chest. I wasn't going for your heart." Then Matt shoves her back, and he's pretty strong. He's an athletic dude and she is a fake illusory body. She steps back. Matt keep asking her questions. And she stops the illusions. She stops any fake expression of superiority. Trying to find an answer to the questions. "Being important? Isn't that what most people want?" She asks back. "For me, being important was always the back up plan. If I can't become human I can always become relevant. Doesn't matter how. As a villain, as a monster. Just being remembered" She admits. "Why do I hurt you? Or people, in general? I don't know, maybe that makes me important to them. Hate runs deeper than love." She walks around Matt. What she really wants. Her goal- She sees all her illusions failing. "What I wanted is to be a real person." She says, making illusions of herself while she walks, some running to attack Matt, others staying, walking around him, so she could get lost on the copies.

Santana: 1d7 = (2) = 2

Matt: 1d7 counter = (7) = 7

Matt wants to fucking scream. "Alright, sure! It was gonna work. Work how?" A part of him realizes she's going in circles because she was really that desperate to have things change. But everything is going so fast that he just wants her to get it. "I don't give a fuck which of my vital organs you wanted to fucking stab! You're telling me you thought a knife in my body wasn't going to hurt me. Just fucking admit--admit my entire-ass life was disposable for you!" He can see the drop in her expression, and his breath catches for a second. Maybe he can get to her, maybe there's something to this, maybe. "I don't know if that's what everyone wants. I want to be number fucking one in someone's life, Santana. Everyone I love has someone they give a shit about more than me. And I--I wanted--I want that. And I--I was almost willing to get stabbed for a mysterious shitty ritual for that shit!" Matt's breathing is quicker, a little erratic. A villain, a monster. He remembers he compared her to the monsters making bargains, and even though he never said it out loud, it's like the memory punches him. "Is that what you really want? To become human? Why did you stop that day? Why were you relieved?" Matt asks, a touch more quietly. "It doesn't. And I--I don't hate you. I just don't get it. You don't have to hurt me. We can just talk." Santana drops a bomb (metaphorically, thank fucking Aether), and then she starts multiplying, and it's almost overwhelming, but he takes a second, and spots the real Santana--he thinks. Wincing, he dashes towards her, and grabs her by the shoulders. His first thought is to shake her, but he suppresses that. "You're a real person, damn it! You have thoughts, and feelings, and yeah, you're right; always fucking smart. You've always been a real person. And I'm really fucking sorry that--that I helped you believe otherwise. But I was wrong. I was wrong."

Santana is getting angry with these questions she pretends she has an actual answer for. "Magic, jerk! What else!" She can admit it. That was the whole deal. Of course he was disposable. She doubted. C'mon, just fucking admit it all. Throw all the salt to the wound. All of it. "Of course you were disposable." Geez why do I feel bad about this? This was what she wanted to say. This was what she wanted Matt to know. Why is she even feeling guilty about? The goal is to make Matt angry about it. Whats the problem? That Matt is going to be sad about it? She is getting angry and impatient. "You should give a fuck! You can live with a kidney less but you can't with a heart! Is not like I planned to kill you. I would rather keep you alive." She knows is super bullshit so she decided to make it all worse. "Number one uh? Well, just so you know, you weren't even my first choice for this. What's even your problem, Matt? That's so fucked up. Is that what our friendship was? Just you wanting to be number one for anyone, no matter who? Then are we so different? We were just using each other to get what we wanted." She smiles, trying to get back on a closed off attitude. She gets annoyed. Why did she stop? Why was she relieved. "Is what I really wanted. Yes. And I don't know, maybe I just got paranoid it won't work with you because all our fucking conversations of you saying you're not fully 'human'" She remembers with annoyance. "Geez, Matt, what's wrong with you? You don't hate me, and what? You don't hate Yeyun either? Are you going to tell him to talk next time you see him?" She judges him. Matt then picks the real her and grabs her. She steps back again. "Oh, really?" She says, serious. "Am I a real person? Then, let's see. You found the real Santana between illusions. But can you pick up the real Santana now?" She says, turning into her animal form at the same time she summons Daisy and uses illusions to make the whole fucking zoo around Matt.

Santana: 2d7 This is not an attack. This is too see if you can recognize who is the real Santana = (4+2) = 6

Matt: 1d7 Animal recognition = (4) = 4

Matt wants to throw something. “‘Magic,’” he says adding air quotes around the words, “is not a fucking explanation. That’s like saying it was just gonna work because you believed really hard. And that’s some... sad as fuck bullshit but it’s still bullshit!” He knows she’d seen him as something to use, but the confirmation still feels like a blow to the pit of his stomach, and he lets out a sharp breath in response, like maybe it would help it sting less. “People are not paper cups, Santana,” he says, but he can’t fully suppress the wavering in his voice. “You can’t just take what’s inside and dump them where someone else will deal with them! I’m real fucking sorry that you had a shitty family, but you don’t get to do that shit and get away with it! I’m not—I’m not disposable, recycled, a piece of fucking trash!” Or maybe he is. He tries to shake those thoughts away. “Why would you rather keep me alive? To harvest more of my organs?” He doesn’t get it, he doesn’t get it at all. What is she saying? “Shut the fuck up, you know I didn’t do that shit. I fucking liked your company! I think you’re a fucking cool person! How goddamn terrible of me! If you were using me, then don’t project your motives onto me!” Matt remembers the humanity conversation, and now it’s obvious the ritual was what it was aimed for. “That’s bullshit. You could’ve stabbed me and made sure it didn’t work. That’s bullshit. If you didn’t think it was going to work, and I wasn’t even your fucking first choice, then why me?!” Matt asks, and Aether, what he would give to actually fully understand what Santana is thinking, for once. “You didn’t join an organization whose only fucking goal is to murder a group of people, including people I care about! But you know what? I don’t hate him,” he says, and as he says it, realizes he really, really doesn’t hate him. “Maybe that makes me a dumbass. But I don’t hate you, and I don’t hate Yejun,” his voice is thick with emotion towards the end of the sentence, and he kind of hates himself a little bit for it. Santana asks a much harder question, and Matt doesn’t know what to do. He knows Daisy, at least, and in the chaos of the animal illusions around him, he considers picking her because familiars are part of you, and all that shit. But this isn’t the time. “This is a neat trick, Santana, but how do you expect me to know you if I’ve never seen you like this?” AKA: I have no fucking clue. He stands with his arms crossed, looking at the floor and not at any of the animals around. “Hey,” he greets Daisy, tired and sad, and kind of wishing this conversation will either end or resolve itself magically. “I just want to understand you, Santana. That’s what I want right now.”

Santana makes illusions of her voice echoing around Matt, so he doesn't know where it comes from, while the circle of animals keeps circling around. "Please, like I could explain how I do illusions any different. They just work" She illusions a bitchy laugh. "Hahaha...Am I not getting away with it, Matt? Are you sure? What are you going to do to stop it? Tell people?" She laughs again. "Are you going to tell Elliott? Blaine? The Cardines? Don't you think I have something worse to say about you?" She thinks of how to attack next. Throwing illusory knives out of no where. "I don't need more of your organs! Well, maybe I like your company too, and think you're cool too. But that is not going to stop me." She makes her own voice sound mad. Sounding angrier and angrier. "Why you? Not hating? Yes, Matt, you are a fucking dumbass. Stop this! You are not going to understand shit" Not even she understands it. "What? Why aren't you attacking? I though with this body it would be easier for you to hate me out of survival. Isn't that what happened at Brownstone? Why is this any different?" She says, this time with her own voice, breaking, vanishing the illusion and turning back into her human form. "What the fuck is there to understand, Matt?" She asks, and she can't manage to sound angry anymore.

Matt shakes his head. “Not the same thing. Your illusions might work because of magic but you control them. You’re throwing me illusions that serve your fucking purpose! You don’t just sit there and hope fucking God or some shit sends the right images into people’s heads to help you fight!” The voices echoing around him are kind of creeping him out, and he shoves his hands in his pockets. “You know what? I’ve been fucking blackmailed by someone a lot more dangerous than you! And you fucking scare me, but not as much as he did.” Matt tries and tries to spot her, but he can’t remember anything she’d ever said about her animal form. “I didn’t mean it like that, anyway. The justice system—it’s—that’s not what... You use people, and eventually they get fucking tired and fuck off! Is that how you want to live? With a never ending cycle of people you use and throw away?” Knives come out of nowhere, and he lifts an arm to cover his face on instinct, but when he lowers it, the illusions are fading before they even hit him. A spark of hope lights his chest. “What does that mean? Stop you from what? Luring me in with friendship and goddamn support just to ditch me if you fucked up and killed me?” He squeezes his eyes shut and lets out a breath. “I don’t mean that. I think you didn’t really want to do it. But fuck. How long would it have taken anyone to fucking notice I was dead? Did you think of that?” Part of him really wants to know; maybe she had a spare healing potion, or maybe she wouldn’t have freaked out if he summoned Finn as he bled out. But part of him just wants to believe she didn’t mean to leave him there, bleeding to death in a room that wasn’t really home. “I guess I am a dumbass then! But when I care about someone, I keep on caring about them even when they abandon me, try to kill me, or decide I’m fucking expendable! So why don’t you fucking try me?” Her questions hit him hard in the pit of the stomach, and when he speaks, his voice is heavy.“I don’t hate you, and I didn’t hate them. I was—I just wanted them away from me. And I-I fucked up. But I won’t fuck up like that again. I don’t think... hurting you will stop you. I know better. I just want to talk. I just want to talk.” His muscles release when the illusion does, and his throat tangles into a knot. He has to swallow to level his voice. “You, Santana. I just want to understand you. Because you’re a fucking person, and we’re complicated as fuck.” Matt wants to say how much she’s meant to him, but the words get stuck in the knot that’s tightening back up in his throat.

Santana scoff because Matt is using logic and facts. "Oh, Puck? I can beat his ass just fine!" She knows that is not what matters. "I know that! Then why aren't you tired already?" She shouts, still a bit angry, but her anger drowning out. "Of course I don't fucking want to live like this, dick! I want to change! But doesn't matter how much I try! I just can't" She complains, walking with secure steps in Matt's direction. But he just keeps talking. She covers her ears for a moment. "Shut up shut up shut up!" She uncovers them and looks at Matt. "Luring? I told you! You weren't my first choice! I didn't saw you and said 'Oh, yeah, it would be that fucker!' You didn't seem that easy at all." Of course she didn't think of that. She would leave those problems for later. Her human her would deal with that. He keep saying he cares. "Shut up! Stop this bullshit! Talk about what? Do you think there is a explanation you would like? Do you want a fucking good excuse to keep hanging around? I'm bad, I hurt everyone and I'm going to keep being like this! Forever! I'm not going to change. I can't change, Matt!" She starts tearing up. "Not even... with...fucking...magic." That was it. That's the limit. Magic can do everything but that isn't it. That's why there is not a single instance of the ritual working out. Not on the book of Hamlet. Not on history. Never but in rumours of delusional tricksters.

Matt sighs, blood rushing in his ears. He is tired. But he's not tired enough yet. "Because you're my friend! Because you've been there for me through fucking everything! Because I hurt you too!" But it can't just be that, right? A person can't be doomed to never be better, can't be doomed to use people to her advantage for the rest of her life, right? Maybe they can be doomed to not be forgiven by one or two people, but... Not to be stuck. "Well, then there's something you're doing wrong! Something you're not seeing!" Aether, he really is tired. He's breathing like he just ran a marathon, his muscles shaky and weak. "Then why me? Why me, Santana? Why not anyone else?" If he's so disposable, he has to wonder who was even more disposable than he had been. But when Santana goes on her last tirade, he stops himself from speaking. He wants to yell, to ask her questions, to fucking get some answers. But something feels different, so he holds his breath. "Santana..." he starts, and stops to swallow, to try to collect his thoughts. "You're not... you're not bad. You just... you fuck up. But you didn't... you didn't stab me. You stopped. And you're... you're you. You're different, and strong, and you're my friend. And fuck--you can't change? What are you, God?" Matt tries for a small smile. "Are you telling me you've been exactly like this from the beginning? You've never changed your mind, or stopped feeling one way about something, or decided you were wrong about a choice you made? You can change. Fuck, you are changing. And it's--I just--yeah. Isn't it part of being friends? Changing together? Growing or some shit?" Matt really doesn't know what he's saying. He should probably shut up. "You're my friend, and I still--I still give a shit about you. I just wanna be sure you won't try to stab me again." Jesus fuck, why doesn't he just shut up?

Santana laughs, bitterly, cleaning some tears on her eyes with her hand. "I'm doing something wrong...clearly...ah...so simple"She frowns. That isn't new. That's not useful. "Just do things right...uh...why you? Well, it had to be a relationship build in trust, and when I tried with my 'ex' I got interrupted and I went to NYADA. Someone got ahead of me and tried to do the ritual with Blaine before I could, Ryder got into fucking werewolf camp, Mike died, Tina ended up being a selfish distrustful bitch, Kurt would never fall for it, and it's not like I can stab Elliott, you know? Who else but you? I trust you, Matt. And you trusted me." She smiles, sadly, touching Matt's face with her hand, giving him a soft, harmless slap like she was reminding something to a kid. She genuinely laughs at the god comment. "Ha...I don't want to be god." She is so tired. "Friends? Why do you keep saying that? Don't you have better friends? That's so sad, Matt...ah...change..."She Ieans on him, like she couldn't stand and let Matt hold her weight."...I just really gotten better at pretending..." She hugs him with one arm. More than that, she's using him as a weight to grasp. "If you keep doing this, I'm going to end up bringing you down with me."

Matt realizes how stupid what he said is when Santana starts laughing, but he still can't let go of the thought. There's something there. Something she's missing. Something he's missing. But he doesn't know what it is, so he just doesn't say anything about it. What really surprises him, and what leaves him blinking wide-eyed, is when she really starts talking about her entire... process. He starts ticking off people in his head, and each name she says sends a fresh jolt through his stomach. Those were mostly people that he didn't even know she was close to at any point. He makes a mental note to ask about Tina later on. Who else but him, in the end? A small, but sharp intake of breath keeps his tight throat at bay. "You trust me?" After everything, she trusts him? After what he did? Is it the blind trust she wanted from him that day? Or is it something else? "I still trust you," he says, and surprises himself. "Maybe not in the same way. Not that blindly. Not that... idealizing bullshit. But I haven't lost that." He flinches a little bit when she hits his face, softly as it is; he hadn't expected her to touch him. At least not without hitting him for real. "I don't want to be God either," he says, a side smile tugging quickly at his lips before fading. "It doesn't stop being true because you don't believe it," Matt says with a shrug, stumbling to one side when she starts leaning on him. "Are you okay?" He doesn't believe her. People change. It just takes a different kind of energy to be able to change for good, and not just in reaction. She grasps him, and his own muscles start shaking with the effort. "Santana?" Matt puts an arm around her, and tries to hold her up.

Matt tossed a coin and got TAILS!

The strain on his muscles is just too much, though. He gets down on one knee, first, and then the next, trying to bring her down carefully, panting for breath. "We'll just... we'll just stand back up in a sec, okay? I just--I just want to catch my breath." He lies flat on his back, and closes his eyes. "I just wanna breathe."

Santana laughs at Matt's response. "Really? That's what you ask? Oh man...still?...you have a huge problem. God... this is so fucking ridiculous." She says, looking at Matt. "What the fuck is wrong with you? Are your abandonment issues THAT strong? Geez." She looks at him smiling at the minimum show of unhostility. Asking if she was okay. And tries to hold her up, and fails. She stands up with no problem. "I told you." She says, not sure what she is feeling right now. Worry, pity, anger. It was beginning to be uncomfortable. She mutters some swears in spanish. "You are fucking ridiculous! I can't believe this!" She says, starting to get away from Matt. "Fine! I'll let you lose this time, if you want it SO bad." She says, looking back at him. She was annoyed."At risk of repeating myself: This is not going to end well for you Matt. You can trust on that. But I hope it doesn't. Now what? Stand up! Do I have to bring you to the fucking hospital even when you dodged every attack?"

Matt stays there on the ground. Everything sounds sort of far away now, and Santana just keeps saying the same thing over and over. He's wrong, and he's got problems, apparently. "I don't have abandonment issues," he mutters, pushing himself up to his elbows. "I just..." he doesn't know how to end that sentence, so he just plops back down to the floor, shaking his head. "And what is, Santana? What is going to end well for me? I'd love to know that shit." He sighs, but now he just feels uncomfortable. Watched. "I'm being fucking dramatic. I'm fine. You can go, if you want. I'm good." He stares at the ceiling. "I'm tired, and a fucking disaster. I'll get going in a sec."

Santana gives Matt a smile with complicity, after hearing the total denial of an obvious reality. "Hey, people are shitty, we act as we can after all the bullshit, I guess." Matt asks what is going to end well for him. But he is just like her of course. She has no idea what's going for him, or what did he wanted. She always thought he'll got it easier. He'll got a chance, he's a doppel, please, that's basically a witch. He got a job. She always thought the lowest Matt could go could be the higher a trickster could go. Man, look who is envious of people who are also fucked up. "Ha...yeah, things are getting worse and worse. I guess we really are in the same sinking torture boat." She stays there. "Ah, I don't want to go now. Figures." She gets a bit of distance, leaning on a wall next to the door to get out of there, looking at Matt. "Hey, dramatic disaster. I love you too."

Matt shrugs. "Yeah, I guess." He doesn't know what that means, not really. Maybe it means he's not actually that great at knowing people or their intentions. Everything just gets worse and worse. Probably even him, too. He hums in agreement. "Hope there's a lifejacket on this boat, 'cause I don't swim," he says bitterly, less tense. Matt glances back at Santana from his spot on the floor. Why wouldn't she want to go? Oh. There it is. It's kind of bizarre to hear, after everything that just happened, but it draws a small smile on his face as he looks away from her. "Cool."

Santana smiles a bit, still a little...sad? Confused? She isn't sure, and shakes her head. "No no, you have to learn to swim on this bitch of an Earth. Most of it it's fucking water." She still feels weird with everything that happened, for many reasons. And walks to Matt to give him a hand to stand up.

Matt nods, feeling like the energy had been sucked out of him by a necromancer again. "People drown anyway." He stares at Santana when she approaches, taking a moment to take her hand and pull himself up to his feet, and another to look at her, letting the silence stretch. "We should go. I need... a snack and a nap."

Santana looks at him "Then we'll put on a fight before that." She is actually a bit surprised he accepted the help. "Let's go. See you around, Matt."

#trickstersantana #para: walking on broken glass #para: 044 #para: all #para: trickstersantana #trickstersantana: all #cw: murder #cw: genocide #cw: stabbing #cw: violence #cw: gore implied #cw: discrimination #cw: death

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gotmattitude · 5 years

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don’t know what i’ve been chasing

WHO: Matt Rutherford & Yejun Kwon 47.

WHAT: In the chaos of evacuation, a familiar face promises Matt something he just can’t refuse.

WHEN: August 24, 2019.

WHERE: The ruins of Saltus Forest.

WARNINGS: Blood, violence, injury, and discussions of murder, terrorism and genocide, mentions of nausea/vomiting.

"Rutherford. If you want answers, catch me."

Matt runs. There is a moment after seeing him, hearing him, where he doesn’t move, but when his brain notches itself back into place, he runs. He thinks he shoved someone’s ribs in his frenzy to reach him. There’s nothing else to see but Yejun, who is getting closer and closer as Matt pushes faster against the ground; Yejun is probably built for endurance, not speed. That, or… With a jolt, Matt realizes that he wants to get caught.

Matt loses Yejun for a moment, just as he goes into what used to be the forest, and this is so fucking dramatic that painful laughter begins to pull at his lungs. What the fuck is he doing? What does he even want to achieve by chasing him? Yejun steps out from behind a dead tree, cutting Matt off, and his feet kick up the soil underneath as he comes to a stop. Yejun stares at him, breath quickened and eyes wild. The look he’s giving him drives a cold pen up Matt’s back, makes his neck hair straighten, and for a completely bizarre second, he worries about him.

“You came after me,” Yejun says, and the manic smile on him distorts the cool, collected image Matt has always had of him in some corner of his mind.

“Yeah, I…” Matt looks down, his heart pounding in his ears. “I don’t-You said you had answers,” he says.

Yejun starts laughing, and Matt’s gut twists. Is this how widespread terror makes him feel? Giddy and amused? But the laughter stretches a touch too long, and Matt really can’t shake the thought that it holds a manic edge to it, especially towards the end. “This. This is what happens when you stay in this fucking school. Any idiot can hold power over you by promising… anything.”

It could be the perfect time to punch someone in the face for the first time. Making Yejun the one to bleed, for once, sounds a little too tempting. But Matt clenches his jaw shut and uses one of his thumbs to crack the knuckles of the same hand. “Fuck you. Fuck you.” He bites down hard on his tongue, but the words come dripping out anyway. “Then what are you doing here, huh? Is luring one guy out into the forest really holding power over my fucking head when you could be out there… brutally fucking murdering the goddamn terrified crowd?”

The smile, the laughter, the security, all of it seems to crack for a split second, giving way to anger, before Yejun composes himself again. “ ’Terrified crowd’. So sweet, so empathetic. But that’s you, isn’t it? Always suffering one way or another about other people. Guess what? Witches are nothing more than sacks of meat and blood carrying stolen magic. They’re stains in our society. And we wipe that stain away.”

“People are not stains.” Until someone turns them into a literal one by violence, his brain adds helpfully. But he doesn’t voice that thought. “You’re killing people. You’re killing people because someone up there in the ladder told you that you were helping other people. How fucked up is that, Yejun?”

His expression has changed, and the chill that goes up Matt’s spine feels different. It’s like he’s being studied… seen. “You have a lot of gall. I know you, Matt,” he says his name mockingly. “You have blood on you. Or did you ask me to learn how to fight metaphorically?” Yejun pauses and takes a step closer to him. “Are your hands clean?”

Matt’s heart drops heavily into his stomach, and he stumbles two paces back. “W-what?”

A switch flips, and a horrible smile exposes a row of Yejun’s teeth. “You heard me.” His gaze bears down at Matt’s hands, and he instinctively holds them closer to his body. <<Those fucking hands have blood on them. I can see it from here.>>

As soon as Yejun says the last word, dozens of tiny, sharp knives start carving at the skin on Matt’s fingers, his palms, and he cries out, drawing them backward to try to avoid whatever had fallen on them—but he can’t. Angry red spots burst under his fingernails and vibrate under his skin before the blood is forced out. Warm, red liquid runs down his forearms. “Stop!” Matt yells and resists the urge to clutch his bleeding skin. It hurts. “Stop.” His head is spinning, and nausea wraps itself tightly around the pit of his stomach. He can’t hold himself up for very long. Matt’s knees buckle underneath him, and he clenches his eyes shut, breathing hard to try to stop himself from puking everywhere.

“You’re right,” he says, doesn’t try to stop the thickness in his voice. The blood is dripping on his jeans now, and he really doesn’t want to explain it to anyone if Yejun lets him go alive. Shit, that really doesn’t matter right now. “I’ve—I value my life over other people’s. I hurt—I’ve k—” Aether. The words get stuck in his throat, and Yejun kneels down to look him in the eye.

“You fight,” Yejun says. “That’s what you do. You fight to survive, and I,” he grips Matt’s forearm and squeezes, catching a dripping cut, making Matt wince, “I fight so we can live.” And fuck, if Matt didn’t know what his people had done, the emotion in the words might have swayed him.

Matt looks up at him, eyes bright and voice shaking. “Fuck off. Fuck you, Yejun. I was fucking literally being evacuated away from fucking bombs when you found me. I don’t even know if my friends are alive! You’re fighting just so you can fucking kill.” There’s so much more he’s thought of saying, if he’d ever see Yejun again. But he just can’t stop shaking, can’t stop thinking about the sting in his hands.

Yejun lets go of his forearm, draws a breath, and stands back up. He holds still for a long moment. “It’s not Yejun. It’s 47.” Matt’s brow furrows. What? But before he can even think about speaking out loud, Yejun has turned away. It seems like he’s going to say something else for a moment, but he doesn’t. He runs, leaving Matt sitting on his knees, trying not to puke, bleeding onto his clothes. He stays there for a long time, barely registering the explosions, the screams that come from far away.

“Oh, God.”

Let this be a nightmare, please, please, please.

#cw: blood #cw: injury #cw: violence #cw: murder #cw: terrorism #cw: genocide #cw: emetophobia #para: self #para: npc #para: don't know what i've been chasing #para: 043 #para: all #//A MONTH LATER HELLO #//but u know what its DONE

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