( some soldier she is — alina's throat spasms in dry-heaving spurts as if she's still a green at the gills rookie, falling from omnipotent god to helpless girl between one second to the next. at her fingertips, her power sparks and flickers into nothingness, a dying lightbulb, an off switch in the scar tissue lining her knobby wrists, where paul's thumb presses and presses and presses.strong, paul had called her, what everyone calls her now — alina proves it wrong as she sags under the pinning weight of his body, exsanguinated of any fight. ever the perfect sacrifice, waiting for the knife to bleed her out, always meant for a violent end. this is a reminder, fate tells her: saints were never meant to die quickly and quietly. )
Let go.
( through the blurry field of her tears, paul's dark curls are indistinguishable from danny johnson's, the outline of a wraith in the dark, the bite of his fingertips indistinct from the loving kiss of a knife sinking into the soft give of her flesh. twisting in his grasp only sparks the same rope burn in her wrists, his strung-up effigy, wrapped up in his spider-webbed weaving. unable to move. unable to run. the endless feedback of pain and rabbit-hearted panic only worsens it, sensing the supernova-burn in her chest as if it were her own, a sickness that's his and hers and theirs. alina retches on spit alone and tastes copper instead, kicking out weakly. her foot bumps up against his kneecap with the same, ineffective struggle of a trapped animal, unable to accept its inevitable death. )
Let go. Let go, let go.
( more the mantra of a terrified plea than command, now, choking on it like a final breath. gasping at lungfuls of air doesn't help — every inhale is smothered by the smell of charred flesh and the sweet decay of death in the air. rotten, like bruised fruit waiting to drop on the vine. like the night air of the maze, thick with the stench of her blood. martyrs don't beg, at the end of their short lives — because death tastes just like freedom, alina's learned, right up until the point you make the mistake of having too much to live for. )
cw: ptsd 😔 references 2 gore also i guess
Let go.
( through the blurry field of her tears, paul's dark curls are indistinguishable from danny johnson's, the outline of a wraith in the dark, the bite of his fingertips indistinct from the loving kiss of a knife sinking into the soft give of her flesh. twisting in his grasp only sparks the same rope burn in her wrists, his strung-up effigy, wrapped up in his spider-webbed weaving. unable to move. unable to run. the endless feedback of pain and rabbit-hearted panic only worsens it, sensing the supernova-burn in her chest as if it were her own, a sickness that's his and hers and theirs. alina retches on spit alone and tastes copper instead, kicking out weakly. her foot bumps up against his kneecap with the same, ineffective struggle of a trapped animal, unable to accept its inevitable death. )
Let go. Let go, let go.
( more the mantra of a terrified plea than command, now, choking on it like a final breath. gasping at lungfuls of air doesn't help — every inhale is smothered by the smell of charred flesh and the sweet decay of death in the air. rotten, like bruised fruit waiting to drop on the vine. like the night air of the maze, thick with the stench of her blood. martyrs don't beg, at the end of their short lives — because death tastes just like freedom, alina's learned, right up until the point you make the mistake of having too much to live for. )