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strawberrypinky · 3 months

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can't catch me now. - a. sharp x reader

i'm in the trees, i'm in the breeze my footsteps on the ground. you'll see my face in every place, but you can't catch me now. through wading grass, the months will pass you'll feel it all around. i'm here, i'm there, i'm everywhere, but you can't catch me now.

aesop returns to the place of your demise and the source of his everlasting guilt.

prompt fill for sharpuary no. 8 'scarborough'

A/N: Here we go! I'm kicking off Sharpuary with my take on the "Scarborough" prompt! Big thanks to @ynyseira and @gufu-vire for publishing the prompts ahead of the month!

Throughout the month I'll be publishing the prompts 'Portrait', 'Valentine', 'Gherkin', 'Mirror of Erised' and 'Slytherin'. I wish I would've had the time to do more, but alas these are the ones I have queued up. If inspiration strikes and I find the time, I might publish some more.

This one shot was loosely inspired by the song "Can't Catch Me Now" by Olivia Rodrigo & takes places in Aesop's early years, only shortly after the events of Scarborough. I am aware that Aesop tells the player of the battle taking place on a ship, but I am bending the story slightly aka taking some creative liberties 😗✌🏻

CW: Major character death, (auditory) hallucinations, overall angst

Word Count: 3.8k

Link to AO3 Version: can't catch me now.

Scarborough was decidedly one of those infernal places which seeped with indulgence and détente at every corner yet truthfully simmered with wretched delinquency and bitter peccancy enshrouded in its shadows.

At least if one were to ask Aesop Sharp what he thought of the place.

The town on the northern coast of Yorkshire was a far cry from how Aesop remembered the place. The last time he had stepped into the place, the air was cold and frigid, and the streets barren of any human soul, safe for the few lingering locals that stayed even when the travellers left. Scarborough was the epitome of splendour and abundant leisure, the upper class spending their summers far away from the sweltering and stifling heat of London and its boroughs and trading the sheer endless days of summer for the gentle breeze and wide horizons of the English coast. Aesop supposed that perhaps, in another life, he might have enjoyed the place himself, a life in which he had not stepped into the town as an Auror but as a traveller himself. Perhaps, he glaringly thought as he stood atop the hill bearing the ruins of the medieval Scarborough Castle, and his gaze swept across the vast horizon of the coast, he might have stayed with the upper echelons at the Grand Hotel himself, instead of the seedy tavern you and he had spent your final moments together.

Cursed be the Ministry and the Department of Magical Law Enforcement for ever sending the two of you to the forsaken town at sea. And cursed be the Ministry and the Department of Magical Law Enforcement for asking him to come back - to return to the scene of the end of one life and the eternal damnation of another.

It had been 178 days since that day.

178 days since he had last heard your voice, last seen your smile, last shared the quips you and he shared.

It had been exactly 178 days since your life had ended, and his had forever been changed.

Growling, Aesop turned away from the sun, his newly cursed leg starkly protesting the movement as he limped himself into the shadows of the castle, searching for just a semblance of respite from the stifling August heat. The damned thing ached beyond belief as if a million knives pierced his skin over and over again at his hip and spread down to his leg. It was a persistent reminder that the night you had lost your life happened, though the scar his soul bore was infinitely more agonising than his leg would ever be.

Glancing at the watch in his pocket, Aesop noted it was a quarter past three, his former supervisor late to their agreed-upon meeting and he had half a mind to apparate out of Scarborough and drown himself in firewhiskey in his home as he had done past 100 days since his release from St. Mungo's. Yet as he glanced upon the ruins once more, he recalled why he had come in the first place, the Ministry intent on gathering any intel from that night as they had yet to capture those who had slaughtered you in cold blood and thus Aesop stayed - he owed you that much.

You.

You had been a rather annoying thorn in Aesop's side from the second you had stepped into the Auror office, sauntering and high-strung with a burning thirst to do good in the world as you threw yourself into cases headfirst with reckless frivolity. Sometimes, he had wondered how you had passed the initial training stage at all, your hyper personality a stark contrast among the serious and battle-worn officials that littered the office. It was a personality beaten out of recruits over the lengthy training period, and while Aesop was a mere five years older than you had been, he doubted that you hadn't been exposed to the cruel realities of war and crime as any other recruit had been. You were an oddity - an eclectic fireball among the burnt-out personalities that were Aurors and Hit Wizards, and Aesop had loathed it.

When he had first been paired with you a mere two years before, he had all but begged his supervisor to reconsider, to pair him with anyone but you, but they had insisted.

"She's a promising young soul," the words echoed in Aesop's mind. "You will make a fine pair."

He had doubted it then, obviously. Denied any possibility of someone like you - skittish and genial - ever being a perfect match for him - staid and austere. Your first mission together had been a complete and utter disaster, for what should have been an easy arrest of a reprobate had turned into a full-blown battle you had fearlessly and recklessly charged into.

"Come catch me," you had giggled before abandoning all rules of basic Auror training and charging into the unknown.

While you had successfully apprehended the suspect and turned him over to the Ministry, the battle had commenced in broad daylight and enlisted five Obliviators to manage dozens of Muggles who had witnessed a heated exchange of spells and curses and had confined the two of you to desk duty for more than three months. Aesop had been seething with rage, desk duty the most mundane and imbruting tasks one could ever sentence an Auror to. He was a soldier, a shining paragon of honour and defence - not a desk clerk. It was a speck of dishonour among his otherwise pristine rise among the Aurors and it had all been because of your extroverted, verging on effusive personality.

You had not minded, of course, even making a joke of the situation and blathering on with what you thought droll jokes and enthralling stories, and Aesop had more than once snuck alcohol into the office, unable to take your disposition any other way. It had been freeing to return to active duty once more three months later, even if the task of simple observation had been mundane and hackneyed - at least it had been a change of pace.

It had seemed, at least, that you had at least learned after your idiotic endeavour, no longer charging into situations unknown but awaiting his command, for he remained your superior. Your demeanour had not changed otherwise, but at least he could count on a partner slightly more conscientious in the field. It was a win he did not relinquish, and your entire company seemed a little more bearable from that point on.

It hadn't been until one night of observation, eight months after your initial pairing, that he had been privy to see another side to you.

"You're quiet tonight," he had remarked as your gazes meticulously observed the seedy establishment where allegedly all sorts of prohibited deals and Faustian bargains were closed. "Oddly so."

"Sorry," you had mumbled in a half-hearted apology, your eyes not meeting his. "Long day."

"That's never stopped you before," he had snarked cruelly, the week long and tedious.

"Sorry," you had all but whispered again, shrinking slightly under his scrutinising glare. "I'll be sure to be less bothersome in the future."

"You are not -" he had begun to argue, stopping himself mere seconds later, for he was many things, but Aesop was not a liar. You had been bothersome.

A bitter laugh had escaped your throat, the sound paradox coming from you, of all people, when all he had seen of you was a person as jovial as someone drunk on Alihosty. "Exactly."

He had later found that your father had passed a mere fortnight earlier, and the burial had been that day. He had felt like a grand arse, swallowing down his pride and openly apologised for his behaviour and offered you a shoulder to cry on, though you had never actually taken him up on the offer. Instead, you had smiled gratefully before burying your grief beneath the infinite layers of frivolity and mirth he had grown accustomed to, and Aesop finds himself seeing you with the depths of your soul and all its paradoxing contrasts and within seeing you, he is falling for you.

It had been a slow realisation at first, from noticing how, instead of vexation, your laughter and stories brought a comforting sense of familiarity to laughing manically alongside you, confusing his colleagues, for nobody had ever seen Aesop Cyril Sharp smile that much.

You had slowly yet surely crept into his mind and heart, your being a beacon of amenity and Aesop was powerless to do anything but surrender to the shining light that was you.

The amicable partnership that had been between you blossomed into a bountiful and fulfilling romance, and with each passing day, it became more challenging to maintain a facade of his characteristic stoicism and the carefully curated illusion of mere friendship. Your superiors had been correct in their assumptions after all: You made a fine pair. It went unspoken between you that your romance could never see the light of day, the sheer scandal of a workplace relationship enough to silence even you, though Aesop yearned to show off how deeply you loved the longer it went on. Your blossoming romance transcended into your professional lives, too, the pair of you rising through the ranks and taking on more complicated and intricately woven cases as you helped bring justice to the Wizarding World.

Your keen and genuine yearning to bring goodness into a world littered with hardened criminals and devilish syndicates is nothing short of inspiring, and while you had never truly ceased to be slightly more reckless than you perhaps should have been, your prowess in battle was unmatched as no onslaught of chaos or destruction could hinder your sheer determination or force of will.

"Come catch me?" you had jokingly asked before each and every battle you and him found yourselves in, alluding to the disastrous first case, yet then Aesop found the words comforting rather than infuriating. It was as if you were making a silly game of a perilous situation, and while he had initially been hesitant to follow your jubilance, it had quickly become addicting.

"Come catch me?" had been the final words you had uttered to him in the place he now stood, the desolate ruins of a formerly stately palace cold and unforgiving as the bitter February winds had whisked along your heads and you had thrown yourself into a battle you'd never emerge from. The seedy smugglers you and he had been trailing for weeks had seemingly finally slipped; a contact Aesop had acquired telling him of a supposed incoming shipment of shrunken heads which was to be traded in the ruin of Scarborough Castle and then taken to over parts of the country via the port of the city. As Aesop reminisced on the minutes preceding that fateful battle, he only realised how foolish it had been to expect the man to have been working alone; how foolish it had been to expect a sudden contact was telling the truth. The arrogance with which he had displayed confidence, further emboldened by every battle you and him had won, was the beginning of the end.

From the second you had stepped from the shadows, you were ambushed by what seemed like an army of reprobates and scoundrels, lunging at the two of you with cruel precision in the pandemonium. The ruins of the castle upon the rocky promontory, once a symbol of royalty and defence, had been transformed into a brutal battlefield with colourful hexes and curses illuminating the night.

Aesop had scarcely been granted a second to draw upon his Auror badge, a clever charm allowing him to call for backup.

It was the first time he had felt genuine and true terror as he continued to fight alongside you, his feelings for you at the forefront of his mind as his role had turned from Auror to protector among the assailment of spells hurled your way.

As the seconds ticked by and it became more evident that the battle you were fighting was a losing one, Aesop had all but hoped you would retreat and run as far as you could, but he should have known better. You never backed down from a fight.

All too late, he had noticed the witch sneaking up on you with impeccable stealth before she drew upon her wand as your back was turned to hers, engaged in a duel of your own, and uttered the words which would void you of any life.

"Avada Kedavra."

You had fallen to the ground within a second, your body plummeting into the dirt as the witch cackled in sadistic delight upon having ended a life with a mere flick of her wrist, obliterating any future you might have had. Aesop could not recall what had transpired next, unadulterated mania consuming his body as he fired curse after curse at the witch who had taken you from this mortal coil, which she deflected with tantalising ease. His love for you, which had translated into his rage, had been his second mistake that night, and though now he wished it had meant the end of his life, it had allowed another to sneak up on him, uttering a strange curse and aiming at his leg, damning it to the pain he now felt with every step.

Aesop was unsure what happened after; the rest of the night, a blur of colour and shapes and overwhelming sentiments obscuring his memory before he awoke in St. Mungos again, and 178 days later, the memory of the night seemed far away as the sun illumed the grassy patches and rocks, and a gentle breeze carried the scent of summer instead of the fetid stench of decay.

Half past three, Aesop noted as he glanced at his pocket watch once more. Resigned, he sighed as he leaned against the cool stone, closing his eyes as he desperately tried keeping the weight off his bad leg as it spasmed and the pain etched itself into his very core. Damned be the blasted thing, and Aesop had no one to blame but himself.

A gentle breeze passed him by, the scent strangely familiar as it passed in a second. Aesop scrunched his nose, hoping to catch it again to identify the source, but all he got was a strange sound instead - a near-mocking giggle reaching his ears. His eyes shot open once more, the sound too close for him to be comfortable, yet as he searched the place, there was not a single soul in sight. His hand strayed towards his concealed wand, ready to fight, yet the place was quiet again, merely the breeze enveloping him in a cocoon of familiar and comforting smells. All too late Aesop realised that the scent was you, the tantalising allure of it nothing but a distant memory that continued to fleet the more seconds passed.

The giggle sounded again, his ears perking up as a presence clouds over him like a paradoxical embrace both chilling and warm, a gentle voice accompanying it.

"Come catch me."

Your voice hauntingly sounded around him, though there was no source to be determined. The words struck him like a hot iron, piercing his soul as Aesop feels as if he were struck by a physical blow. He blinked rapidly in almost visceral disbelief.

Had he just heard your voice? Aesop shook his head, trying to convince himself his mind was simply playing tricks on him, the proximity to the place of your demise aiding in his delusions. Another resigned sigh escaped him, deciding that if his superiors did not arrive within a minute or two, he would disapparate and schedule the meeting for another day, even if he was not terribly keen to return to Scarborough either way.

"Come catch me."

And there it was again, a sanctimonious sound ringing in his ears as your voice penetrated his senses and twisted his mind. It had to have been a trick - a cruel diversion. Yes, that must have been it. Aesop's mind was twisting and turning, forcing itself to remember that you couldn't be there. A shaking puff escaped his lips, air filling his lungs with a semblance of clarity as the echoes of your voice faded once more and all that was left was the gentle breeze and the rustling leaves with the chirping birds off the coast.

Enough was enough, Aesop determined, unwilling to wait a single second further in this forsaken place of demise and terror and anguish, his rickety leg carrying him through the wading grass before his mind could think of it any further and convince him to stay any longer. Damned be the Ministry - may they reach out any other time or kiss his arse, but to torture him with this was asking too much. How dare they ask this of him after all the months, wasting time and efforts when your murderer was still on the loose and -

Aesop stopped dead in his tracks, feet frozen to the ground as a surge of consternation and terror courses through him at the picture he was faced with.

There you were, standing in the clearing between the crumbling castle walls and the remains of the barbican, as if you had always been there. You were a shining beacon, seemingly untouched, with your clothes pristine and your countenance not cadaverous but as full of life as Aesop fondly remembered in his darkest nightmares and most precious dreams. A strange look had clouded your features, though your smile was as warm and familiar as it had always been. Aesop shakingly exhaled, his eyes not leaving yours as they held your gaze in sheer disbelief and poignancy he was unable to describe.

You stood as still as he as if awaiting his movements, though Aesop remained motionless - stunned by your sudden appearance. Was this a cruel trick? Or was it a gift from a deity pitying the man? Aesop would have described himself a Nihilist, yet there was no worldly explanation for this otherwise.

His mouth opened, then closed before a single sound could leave him, his chest constricting the more he gazed upon your frame, and he felt his heart beating erratically. One step forward, he told himself, his agonising leg a mere afterthought as he stumbled towards your vision, which stayed unmoving. Another stumbling step forward, hands reaching for the silhouette etched in his mind; a body so familiar to Aesop, like a painting whose lines he had drawn over and over - all your strengths and vulnerabilities - and he held onto your gaze fiercely, afraid that when he let go, so would you. Like a man possessed, he staggered through the grass, fearful that you would vanish if he did not reach you, as he imagined you retreating to a place he could no longer reach you.

Aesop's mind was a hollowed place filled with a cacophony of screams, mindlessly scrambling for answers - for reason. He wanted to scream, demand answers he had been searching for since that harrowing night.

Come catch me, he could hear your voice ringing in his head.

One more step. Just one more, Aesop told himself.

A second more, but before his hand could reach for yours, a firm hand clamped around his shoulder, grounding him to the spot. Aesop whipped around, hand on his wand and ready to fight as a piercing pain shot up his spine, shooting him down, hissing and groaning.

"Bloody hell, Sharp," Aesop could hear the deep timbre of Eleazar Fawley, his former superior, as he knelt on the ground, pain flooding his system as he groaned in an effort to suppress the screams at the back of his throat. His vision blurred as he focused on the ground, the viridescent grass beneath him soft between his fingertips as it ground him to the earth.

"What the fuck, Eleazar?" Aesop hissed after a while, still feeling the pressure of Eleazar Fawley's hand as he slowly raised himself, further suppressing the screams which threatened to escape his throat as his blasted leg ached and spasmed under the pressure, having been used far more in a mere two hours than it had been in the last couple of months passing him by. Aesop turned to face Fawley, a man of unimpressive stature or height, with a face marred by years of brutal combat, though his presence was imposing nonetheless. The man's most extraordinary edge had always been his unremarkableness; many a foe underestimated him and paid the price with a one-way ticket to Azkaban. Aesop glared at him, though Eleazar Fawley remained unimpressed, if a little leery in his questioning gaze.

"What the fuck is an apt sentiment," Eleazar Fawley mused as he removed his hand from Aesop's shoulder. "Because why the fuck do I arrive to you staggering through these ruins like a man possessed, ashen like a ghost? Are you out of your mind?"

Aesop flouted the man, turning around to where you had stood as your voice had finally ceased to echo in his head, only to realise the spot was vacant once more; any trace of your phantom vanished as if it had never been there in the first place. His mind reeled, void of anything but you and your ephemeral vision.

"Sharp?" he heard the questioning tone of Fawley again. "Is everything alright?"

Aesop looked around once again, his eyes sweeping over the place, desperately looking for only a hint of you or even a testament that you had been there, but the place was void of any other soul but him and Eleazar Fawley, leaving nothing but a lingering feeling of mournful longing and haunting despair in its wake.

"Yes," Aesop hesitantly mumbled after a while, returning to look at his former boss. "Everything is perfectly fine."

The man in front of him nodded, and though the disbelief was evident in his eyes, Aesop gratefully noted he refrained from prying any further, though whether this was out of the goodness of his heart or genuine disinterest, Aesop did not know. He stood up straighter, though he scarcely reached Aesop's shoulders and let out a huffing breath before his gaze hardened once more and became the picture of collected lassitude Aesop was accustomed to.

"Right then," Fawley cleared his throat, turning around to walk away. "Then let's not dally any further and get this over with."

Aesop nodded in compliance, slowly forcing himself to follow as your voice rang in his ears once more.

Come catch me.

Once more, he looked over his shoulder, hoping to see you smiling at him with the familiar impish glint your eyes held before you charged into battle, yet the fields stayed clear, and Aeosp bitterly realised that nothing remained of you but your shadows haunting the ruins of Scarborough Castle, tormenting his mind as he would forever be unable to catch you now.

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