[M] I threw us into the flames

Ezekiel de le Poer · 06-28-2012, 06:11 AM

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Before, and during the war, Ezekiel would have ripped Sirius’ still-beating heart from his chest. He would have dug his hands into his belly and found whatever blackened part of his soul remained and swallowed it. There was no fight left in him—he had given it all in that last great battle, when a sword had found home in his chest, when a shield had crushed his ribs under that madman’s weight. Sirius had saved his life when he had driven his blade deep between the wolf’s shoulders. Maybe that was why he had come to him; he could have fled, silently, into the night and instead he was here. He was looking for some sort of punishment, some answer, someone to tell him that he was wrong and selfish and confirm everything he already knew.

He knew, deeper than this, that nothing would change his mind.

The rage left Sirius and a lesser, though still brilliant, fire took its place. Ezekiel saw but did not comprehend it at first for what it was. Then, gradually, as he felt hands around his face and in his hair he realized what he should have known a long time ago. His eyes closed and he leaned into the warmth of the body next to his. He began to laugh again, but the laugh died in his throat in a strangled, choking sob.

The end of the world came in a quiet flood, and it sought to bury him.

Ezekiel clung to Sirius because he could not control his body anymore. Great, heaving sobs escaped him as his legs gave out under him. There should have been words. There should have been something he could have said, something he could have done, but he didn’t know what was left to be said. His body spoke in ways he could not, betraying him as it trembled and held onto the only real thing it still believed in. Beyond duty, beyond family, beyond the demons, beyond even God, he believed only in what was real and it was this man, now, this man who he was betraying even now as he called upon him for strength.

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