Work Text:
You are the Boogeyman .
Ren's mouth felt like he'd swallowed sand. He looked on at the red words before him, a death sentence. To him or someone else, he couldn't tell. Someone would die. He shook his head and a noise somewhere between a gasp and a sob left his lips. He swallowed sharply, but his throat stung. His chest was heavy, though he wasn't sure if he felt the weight in his heart or his lungs. His hands were nearly numb at his sides.
Ren couldn't go red again. He couldn't. Not so soon. He was so close to it already. All his friends were here, his allies…
Though here he was, alone in his tower. Overlooking the world. He looked down from the top of the tower to see Scott's cottage, and when he turned he could see Scar's dirt shack. His hands clenched into fists without him meaning for them to. He didn't notice until he had to pry his nails out of the indentations they'd left behind.
His base was the only one that looked half decent. But it was also the only one that felt like a shell.
He let out a deep sigh, but it didn't settle the anxiety rising in him. It didn't relax him in the slightest. His muscles were all pulled taught, and he didn't have the strength to release them, even though he shook under the weight. He stretched to crack one of the vertebrae in his back, but it just strung them painfully tighter.
He took another deep breath. A sigh. An inhale, an exhale. A cry for help. Though , he thought with a bitter chuckle, who would even hear? His tower, so far off the ground, designed for safety, felt more like a cage than the cobblestone walls he remembered so vividly ever had.
Who was a king without a hand? Who was he without anyone else? It didn't have to be Martyn, though he flinched at the thought.
It didn't have to be Martyn. It could be anyone.
He squeezed his eyes shut. No. No.
It could be anyone. But it wouldn't be.
He sat on the floor slowly and not without a tremendous amount of effort. He couldn't kill anyone. He had to kill someone. He couldn't take a life. He desperately needed a life. He couldn't go red. Not again. Not yet, not so soon. He didn't have friends here yet-
"Allies," he said to himself, almost a growl with the intensity of the words. The phrase felt comfortable in his mouth, almost safe. There were no friends here, he knew that. There were people who would kill you now and people who would kill you later. There were people who would kill you and people you would have to kill. There were people he would pledge his life to and people he would have to betray. They had the faces of his friends, of people he knew, but they weren't those people, not really. The people he knew, the friends he knew, weren't really the people that were here with him. The moment him being alive was a threat to them, they would find him, and they wouldn't be merciful.
Ren couldn't show mercy either. It was imperative that he killed. No, I can't. He shook his head. Yes, I have to. There was no winning without killing. And god , he had to win. He had gotten so close last time, victory nearly within his grasp, and then everything had come crashing down around him. He'd let himself envision it last time. He'd let himself think, what if we make it? And gods , he wanted to think that again. But he was already yellow. He was already half dead.
"Don't think about that," he said, and he dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. They stung like they should have been watering, like he should have been crying, but no tears came. His face was feverish against his palms. "That was another time. Another game. Another life. It doesn't matter."
But it did matter, and he knew it. He remembered Martyn's lifeless body before him, lying helpless in the crops of their own base, their home , as Scar's axe swung down, down, down. He remembered pain, and falling, and the cobblestone walls rising around him and dirt in his mouth. He would like to say he had reached out for Martyn, had tried to tell him it would be okay, that they fought together until the end. But he couldn't say that. He had felt a searing pain across his temple, and he saw Martyn on the ground next to him, and then everything had gone dark.
"No!" Ren said through gritted teeth. He pushed away the hair that had fallen into his face and rubbed the aching spot on his temple. Pain bloomed across the skin, and he growled lowly under his breath again. The scar on the back of his neck hurt sometimes, too, the raised skin slightly crooked where Martyn's axe had come down hesitantly. "No."
He stood up. This wasn't helping. Every deep breath hurt when his chest expanded. He paced for a moment, going in circles around the top of the tower. He felt red. He was too warm and too cold and angry , a rage that he hardly remembered flowing through him, heating him through to his core. He wanted to hurt and he wanted to kill and he wanted revenge . On whom, he couldn't tell. A list of names flashed through his head, but he couldn't get his rattled mind to focus on any one at a time, and they blurred together in a haze. His temple ached. His chest tightened like a vise.
He was lowering himself down the ladder before he could remember moving his legs to get there. His palms were slick with sweat, but he couldn't find it in him to be worried about it. His grasp held firm, and his boots met the hot stones of the base of the tower before it even registered that he was really on his way down.
His feet trudged through the grass as he walked. It was almost comforting, for a moment, to be in nature. And then his chest tightened, and he coughed, and it tightened again.
The trees rose up around him, and a hot rod of anxiety pierced through him. His chest settled uncomfortably. He didn't want to think about people hiding in the trees, waiting for him. The thought wasn't too terrible when he realized he would have an opportunity to rid himself of the burden of the Boogeyman. He shuddered. Since when did he think like this? Since when was he looking forward to killing people?
He took comfort in the fact that it wasn't really him.
A stick cracked somewhere in the woods. The trees were an oppressive force around him. He could hear the creek behind him. His heart was in his throat and his lungs were full of sand. He couldn't feel his fingers.
He was already fighting his instincts. He didn't have to fight this one, too.
He turned, and with as much dignity as he could muster, he ran.
The world was eerily silent, like it was waiting for the second shoe to drop as intensely as he was. He still had an entire week to get a kill before the server…
He shook the thought from his head, ignoring the aching in his chest, the twinge in the back of his neck, the sharp spike behind his eyes. He wouldn't be red again. He would not go red. He wasn't angry like this last time, and he was going to use it .
He regretted running aimlessly through the world when he heard the voices. They were far away still, but they were getting closer, quicker than he would like. His mouth went dry and he plastered his back to a tree, trying to calm his rapidly quickening breathing. It was fine. They wouldn't know it was him. They wouldn't know he was the Boogeyman, and they wouldn't try to hurt him. He would be safe. He would be okay.
He needed allies.
He counted off everyone on his fingers. He grimaced as he realized there were only a handful of people that didn't already have any distinct alliances.
"Lizzie, Joel, Scar…" He swore under his breath. Even BigB had allies this time, and he did not want to get on Cleo's bad side. He didn't know Lizzie, but he wasn't particularly inclined to team up with Scar or Joel after what had gone down last time. And, very quickly, it seemed, he was out of options. Either team with people who probably still hated his guts, people he killed , or someone he didn't know in the slightest. He sighed, and his chest ached, and the world was closing in.
There was a voice in the distance, the snap of a branch, the rustle of leaves, and Ren's heart shot into his throat. They're not going to hurt you, they have no reason to , he tried in a desperate act to bring his mind back out of the red haze that was falling over it, but it was to no avail. His blood ran hot. His mind misfired wildly. Everything was going red, and he was becoming helpless to stop it.
No, those were his friends!
No, they were not .
He pushed his hair out of his face again. His forehead was slick with sweat and burning hot. Already? Bdubs had seemed fine when he had been the Boogeyman. Or, at least, he managed to keep it from Etho after spending nearly the entire week in the mines with him. Bdubs had said it was like an itch. Ren was suffocating. He was sure his body would snap in half if he didn't kill someone in the next hour.
And that was how he knew he wasn't thinking right. There was no way he would have ever thought to kill anyone this way, not even as a red and certainly not where he was as a yellow. Something was wrong. His blood shouldn't have been this red hot, this angry , after only a few hours with the curse over him. Bdubs… he had been fine nearly the whole week. And, generally, Ren thought himself emotionally stronger than Bdubs. Physically stronger as well, certainly. How was he… how was he fading already? How was the curse already overtaking him?
The voices were louder. Closer. He was going to kill them.
Why stop at one? His own thoughts crowed. Win right now. With this rage, this power, you could take them all out today.
"No," he said through gritted teeth, though it was hardly a whisper. His heart was in his throat. His lungs were full of sand.
The red was sinking in, and he pushed away from the tree. He took very deliberate steps through the leaves on the ground. His hands shook. The voices were closer now, and he wished they weren't. Their footsteps were louder than his. The Southlands , he thought, but the words were buried in the red fog.
"No," he growled out, and it felt like it was the only thing he knew how to say. " No ."
With whatever strength he had left, he pulled his ears close to his head and moved his feet as quickly as he could manage towards his tower.
The top of the tower didn't feel as lonely this time. Or, well, it did, but it was better that way. It was better if there was no one here, because they all knew that loyalties were not stronger than the curse. His burning head rested on his forearms, if he could call it resting. He could imagine himself killing his friends, one by one. He knew how he would do it. He would cut Scar's head off, blow Grian up, set a pack of wolves on Joel, drown Cleo, shoot Bdubs. The scenarios played in his head until he couldn't tell them apart from his own thoughts.
He would burn Etho. No. He would push Lizzie into lava. No! He would take an axe to Martyn-
"No!" He shoved his face into his hands. His temple ached. The scar on the back of his neck burned hotter than the rest of him, a red nearly as angry as the curse that weighed on his chest. His lungs burned, though they had no reason to. Sitting down, he was gasping in air until it was the only sound filtering through his attuned ears.
His muscles were so tense, and yet sleep would not take him. The evening breeze was warm, and he shivered in the heat. He had pulled his hair back at some point, though he couldn't remember when. How did Bdubs do it? Had he felt this terrible? It felt like he'd gotten ill, like he'd come down with something. But he didn't have time to recover from it, not when he had a deadline.
He moved his hands off his face and instead wiped away the sweat that had dripped down his temple. The discolored skin flared hotter than the rest of him. He had never properly seen the scar there, but he knew it was ugly. The skin would have been as mangled as the one on the back of his neck, if not more. Martyn had at least tried to get it over with quickly. The familiar mark of the axe. He remembered Martyn's hand on his face there, rubbing a warm, thoughtful thumb over the untouched skin. He remembered the cold metal of Scar's axe there, the searing heat of his own blood there.
Ren shivered. The heat was overwhelming. The heat in his mind, the heat on his skin, the heat in his lungs. Even as the sun set across the horizon, a dark breeze coming over the night, he gasped on hot air. His temple ached and his chest burned . That sandy feeling was back in his mouth, weighing him down and making him gag.
His vision turned dark, though he wasn't sure he closed his eyes. He tried to open them, but they wouldn't, and the world was black. He couldn't see. He couldn't breathe. He tried to swear, to call out for help, but no sound would come out. He couldn't breathe .
He hoped someone, somewhere would take mercy on him.
But there was no one.
And the world was gone.
Ren's consciousness was as slow to come back to him as it was quick to leave him.
At first, all he felt was the heat of the sun on his skin. Before he could even conceive the idea to open his eyes, he could see the bright orange of the backs of his eyelids. Even the filtered light was too much for him, and the ache in his temples rapidly grew into a piercing pain that radiated through his head. He groaned, though there was no one to hear it.
He forced himself upright, though he could only see through eyes squinted to slits. He moved back until his back hit the supporting beams of his tower. He let his head fall back onto the smooth wood, and the pressure in his head peaked. He let out a labored breath and tried to keep his palms flat against the floor. Though tears pricked at his eyes, he kept breathing, kept inhaling as deeply as he could, and the sharp pain dulled back to a low ache.
He needed to kill someone.
It was the only clear thought in his head, the only thing cutting through the fog.
"No," he managed, though it was weak. He could hardly convince himself that he shouldn't kill. He wasn't sure he could manage a week in this state. How had Bdubs lasted as long as he had? There was no way it had been this bad for his friend. Bdubs wasn't weak, not by any means, but if Ren couldn't handle a week of this, then Bdubs surely wouldn't have.
He tried to sigh, but his head became fuzzy. He was suffocating. His mouth was endlessly dry and his chest endlessly heavy.
He took another effortful breath. "I need to kill someone." He coughed. His throat scratched against itself, both from disuse and from the abuse his body had been taking. "I- I need to kill someone."
He pushed himself to his feet. Power surged through his weak body. A foreign feeling settled into his bones. His fingertips tingled, this time not from lack of oxygen. He set back his shoulders and stood as tall as he could manage. His hands still shook as he searched through his inventory for his axe, and it very nearly slipped out of his grasp when he held it out in front of him, but he tightened his fingers around it as best he could and lowered himself warily down the ladder.
The trek down his mountain was an uneventful one, though he was on edge the entire time. His ears were normally more sensitive and attuned than a normal human's would be, and with the Boogeyman curse over him, his senses were turned up well past ten. Every crack of a branch, every distant voice had him twisting around to find a threat, even when there was really no danger. And besides, he was looking for those voices, he needed them. He needed to find someone to kill and soon . He didn't know if the odd supernatural strength he had gotten would last. He could already feel the bone-deep ache through his body coming back, and it hadn't been more than an hour since he'd started searching for someone.
Someone to kill , he reminded himself, and it took effort not to flinch, so he flinched. Some part of him was excited at the prospect of killing someone, at taking a life, at quenching the thirst of the Boogeyman. But he was almost certain that the part of him that was excited was the Boogeyman. He wouldn't let himself think about the alternative.
There was no alternative. He wasn't going to kill anyone he didn't need to kill. Once the curse left him, content with the blood spilled, he wouldn't want to kill anyone anyway.
Not yet…
He shook his head lightly as if it would disperse the voice. He was gentle with himself, moving as quickly as he could manage without his head exploding again. His chest was still tight, even with the strength flowing through him. He took shallow breaths, much shallower than he liked.
Voices.
He stopped on a dime, raising one ear towards the sounds. The crunching of leaves and grass underfoot. Running water from the salmon river. Voices overlapping, then splitting apart. One was nearer, one was farther. The pounding of his own heart in his chest, and the steady beat of another. The two synced for a moment, intertwined in the ambient silence, before the other sped up. There was a gasp. More footsteps, heavier breathing. Someone was running. Someone was afraid.
His ears twitched. They weren't running from him. They were still relatively far, right on the edge of his perception. There was no way they knew he was there.
There was no way they knew he was there.
He drew his axe. He'd managed to scramble enough diamonds together to forge himself a diamond one. As long as they didn't have strong armor, this would be quick for them.
His chest contracted painfully. He took small breaths as he stared at the ground. They probably wouldn't hear him as sharply as he could hear them, but he wouldn't take his chances.
Ren started moving.
Each step was more calculated than he would like to admit, especially considering he was essentially chasing someone. His pulse stayed uncomfortably strong as he weaved carefully through the underbrush. He felt dangerous. He felt ravenous. He felt angry , though at what he couldn't quite tell. Something was angry, and he was pretty sure it was him. This poor person would be at the brunt of it either way.
He stopped when the footsteps did. They grew less careful as he got closer, but not much quicker. He was gaining, and fast. The forest wasn't that big, but Ren felt like it had to be. The trees rushed past him as he dashed through it. There were voices far to his right, a cacophony of them, but they were far away enough that they were nearly nonsensical. He focused his hearing back on the frantic footsteps, the hectic heartbeat only a handful of meters away.
Ren looked up properly for the first time. He nearly stopped running when he saw the head of cyan hair and familiar green halo ahead of him.
Scott. It had to be Scott.
Scott still hadn't turned around. He seemed to be running somewhere now, Ren came to realize. Scott had managed to finally control his breathing and properly equip his shield. He'd only worn half iron armor, and his chestplate had a deep crack coming down one side.
Ren put away his axe.
"Scott!" Ren called out before he could stop himself. He tried to push away the red that had managed to work its way up his throat, and based on the shocked smile that came across Scott's face, he must have been doing a decent enough job.
"Ren!" His smile was wide but didn't quite reach his eyes. His eyes looked almost shockingly blue against his flushed face. He reached for his shield and adjusted the strap while still holding Ren's gaze. "Didn't even hear you there. What brings you here?"
"Got a bit lost," Ren replied with a shrug. He tried to pretend the lies weren't coming as easily as they were. He chuckled a bit and took a few steps closer so they weren't an awkward distance apart. If this was going to be a conversation -- or a confrontation -- then he was going to let it be one. "Saw you through the trees and was hoping you might help me out?"
"Sure," Scott said, and though the tightness in his eyes hadn't faded, his smile wasn't quite as strained. "Uh, where…where are you headed?"
"Anywhere." Ren coughed as his chest constricted suddenly, then left just as quick. "I-I was just wandering, sort of, before. I'm kind of all on my own right now so I was just…looking for people, I guess." He had to put a conscious effort into not wringing his hands. They twitched at his sides, almost longing for the grasp of his axe between them. It was a comforting weight in his hands that he lacked, still somewhere in his inventory.
Scott looked…confused, mostly. Which was good, Ren supposed, because that meant that he hadn't entirely caught on.
And then Ren thought about what his plan really was -- to kill Scott -- and his stomach sank through the ground. He couldn't kill Scott. He'd already killed Scott enough. He'd killed Scott…more times than he would like to admit.
Twice. Ren had killed Scott twice before. He remembered what it was like to have Scott's life in his hands. He remembered what it was like to see Scott at the end of his sword, at the dangerous end of his bow. He remembered Scott's cries when he'd lost Jimmy, the way he'd trembled on the battlefield. Somewhere, somewhere in the very back of his mind, he remembered Scott coming back for Jimmy's belongings. Ren remembered giving them to him. He remembered taking the light out of Scott's eyes not days later, making sure it would never come back.
And here he was, face to face with a man he already killed twice over. There was something to be said for karma.
His temple ached. He could see a nearly matching scar on the side of Scott's face when he turned his head. That was his doing. He would shudder if he wasn't suffocating.
"Yeah, I think my base is over here. Mine and Pearl's." Scott stepped and Ren stepped after him. Okay. This was happening.
Pearl had a ton of lives, right? He could just kill Scott, take him to yellow, and then Pearl would give him another one. Right?
Ren didn't have the courage to do it. Or the anger, he supposed. The desperation he had, he was sure, but it had to take him more than just desperation to kill him in cold blood. It…it had to take more than that.
And the curse flared inside him. The sandy feeling in his mouth drained, though he hadn't even realized it had been filling in. The ache in his chest faded, as did the tightness across his neck where the scar tissue had gathered.
Oh.
This was it then.
"Scott, wait," Ren said, faking a panting breath. He might have needed it moments ago, but the supernatural strength had washed away his aches. "I…"
"What is it?" Scott's voice was tighter than his expression. He looked…apprehensive. His eyes darted from Ren's empty hands to his face and then back to his hands. He shuffled on his feet but didn't take a step back. His mistake. "Do we need to slow down?"
"I just…" Ren took a breath. His face twisted into something he hoped was sympathy. Maybe it was pity. He needed to get this over with. Stop dragging it out. It's just going to hurt more that way. He'll never look at you the same. Don't make it worse . "I'm sorry."
Scott's face morphed back into confusion, and he realized just a moment too late. Ren held out his hand, thinking as precisely as he could, and his axe materialized in it not a second later. Scott yelped, but Ren was already there, already on him, already swinging.
The first hit was the worst. The plated diamond of the axe cracked through the chipped iron armor and embedded itself into Scott's chest. Scott let out a warbled cry, and it was all Ren could do to mutter, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," as he pulled the axe away and pulled it down again, hard.
Scott grabbed onto the handle after the second swing, and Ren met his eyes, incredulous. He survived two hits? Tears just spilled over Scott's eyes. They were cold and angry and they bore right through Ren in a way that made him want to curl away like he'd touched hot coals. Instead, he pulled the axe away with hands that may as well not have been his, and he ignored whatever sounds Scott was making. Hearing them wouldn't have helped, so he didn't hear them. Or rather the curse didn't.
Scott's eyes were still on his. Ren couldn't look away. He wasn't sure where he ended and the curse began. Scott's legs shook, and he stumbled backwards into a tree which he slid down. Scott's mouth was moving, though no words came out. Until they did.
"Third time's the charm?"
Ren's axe came down a third time, squarely over Scott's heart. It didn't really matter who was wielding the axe anymore.
Ren always hated the way he could hear a heart beating to a stop. His senses were dialled up too high and, under the influence of the curse, he couldn't bring them down. He felt , more than heard, Scott's final breath leave him, and his own cursed strength followed with it. He fell onto his side, an arm's length from Scott. The axe fell from his hands, both equally stained red. Both murderers in their own right.
He would have closed Scott's eyes if he could have. But, as it was, he couldn't move. His body was a dead weight, and before he could even think about finding the energy to lay the body to rest, it burst into a cloud of ash. Ren had to make an effort not to breathe it in--effort he couldn't afford to give.
He heard voices again, and every instinct in his body told him to RUN . He frantically tried to pull himself up, but his arms collapsed under him, and his head hit the ground with a thud that had him seeing stars. He blinked once, twice, but the spots in his vision didn't clear.
His heart beat almost painfully in his chest.
He took a breath as deep as he could manage, resigned. He'd taken a life. If he died… so be it. It was only fair.
His eyes closed and they didn't open.
If it had taken Ren a long time to wake up before, it truly took an eternity for him to come back to his body this time. He hadn't really had to come back to his body, he realized slowly, thanking whatever gods were out there that he hadn't died. He had been unconscious in the wilderness, and he was still alive. It had to have been some kind of miracle.
…Where was he? He realized with a start that he was in a bed. It wasn't terribly comfortable, and he was shivering on top of the covers. His back ached like he hadn't moved in quite a while. He opened his eyes and strained against the light; he was in his tower. The spruce roof was certainly familiar, considering he'd placed it himself only a few days ago. He turned to his right, and there was a lantern directly at his bedside. He squinted and reached for it clumsily, managing to turn it off but nearly knocking it down in the process.
The room was shrouded in darkness. It was comforting against his tired eyes. With the brightness of the lantern, he hadn't realized it had been night. That was comforting too, the fact that he hadn't been unconscious all the way until the next day. The sky outside was that blue-purple that comes right after the sunset. At least he knew what time it was now.
He turned his head back and let out a groan he couldn't bite back as a spike of pain shot through him. His eyes snapped closed and his ears flattened to his head. He heard something to his left, but he couldn't move even if he wanted to. He grit his teeth.
Then there was a hand on his forehead and a voice in his ear.
"Hey, hey, it's okay. Calm down, you're fine, you're fine." He knew that voice. If there was nothing else he knew, he knew that voice. "It's gonna be okay, Ren, just calm down."
"Martyn?" His voice was shaky and gravelly from disuse. He swallowed sharply, and it felt like he really had been choking on sand all that time. He pushed himself up onto his elbows. His eyes still wouldn't open. "W-what-"
Martyn shushed him and gently pushed him back into a lying position. "You need rest."
Ren reached one hand up and rubbed at his eyes. He reached for Martyn's arm with the other, pushing him off and pulling himself back up to sit. He opened his eyes, a bit starry from where he'd rubbed them, and finally looked up at Martyn.
Martyn was sitting in a chair he'd very clearly made incredibly hastily at Ren's bedside. He had leaned over the bed. His pockets looked light. He hadn't expected to leave for a while, Ren deduced, and there was a pit in his stomach. Martyn leaned over and pressed his cool hand to Ren's forehead again. It all felt hellishly intimate in a way that Ren didn't want to think about. His chest was tight for a variety of reasons already.
"Are you okay?" Martyn's voice was soft, like he knew Ren's ears were still sensitive. If there was anyone who would know, it would be him. He pulled his hand back. Ren nodded. "Do you want to talk about it?"
Ren hesitated. This was…not an ideal situation. The last time he properly saw Martyn had been when they were fighting and dying next to each other. And then Martyn had found him half-dead and cursed and covered in blood, and now he was going to talk about it. He cringed internally. He was going to talk about it. He couldn't say no.
"I was the Boogeyman." His voice crackled and warped. He coughed once, twice, then kept coughing. Martyn put a cool hand on his back. He continued, making sure to look down at his hands: "And it was…it was terrible. It felt like I was dying. Like I was burning alive, like I was suffocating. I couldn't find anyone the first day anyway. I don't know how Bdubs did it. I thought I was going to die."
Martyn made a sad sound. He wanted to hug him, wanted to be hugged. But he couldn't initiate that. He couldn't. That wasn't how it worked. His hands were still red with Scott's blood. Maybe some of his own. Hopefully not Martyn's, though he couldn't really tell for sure. His claws were sharp, and he had no real way of knowing what he'd done while he was unconscious. He hoped it was just his own.
"I guess everyone knows now, huh? That I killed Scott?" He looked up at Martyn, who nodded. He smiled, jokingly, but it fell almost immediately into a sort of grimace. He looked back at his hands. Red. So red. "I didn't want to."
"You did what you had to do." Martyn's voice was even softer. It was almost timid. "And, yeah, everyone saw the death message. But they won't hold it against you. You did what you had to do."
Ren swallowed. He waited. He had to ask. "Why did you help me?"
Martyn looked…confused. He took a number of breaths before he answered. "All you do is help people. You need people to help you, too."
Ren put his face in his hands. Blood red. He did that. He killed Scott. All he did was get people killed. This had been the third time he'd killed Scott, and this time hadn't even meant anything. Before, at least he was protecting people. Now what did he have to protect? Himself? It was disgraceful.
"I already killed him. Before. Last time. Twice." His eyes stung but no tears came. He was almost grateful. If he cried, maybe that meant he was still human. "Three times now." He turned the hem of his shirt over in his fingers, then yanked a stray string off. It felt good to do something purposeful. He didn't look up at Martyn, and that was on purpose, too.
"Hey," Martyn said, but Ren didn't look up. He was being difficult, he knew, but it would take away some sense of control he had already been rapidly losing. Martyn's hand came to brush stray hairs out of his face. It was intimate in a way that made Ren want to claw his eyes out. Or maybe just hug Martyn. Either one worked if he was honest. He didn't move.
"You did what you had to do."
Martyn said it with such a firmness that he wanted to believe it. He wanted to believe that he took no joy in taking Scott's life, that no sick part of him was glad it was him that Ren had to kill. But he wasn't sure. He wasn't sure where the curse ended and he began, and he wasn't sure it was that simple anymore. The curse had lifted, he could feel it in his bones, that was simple enough. But he didn't know how much of it had stayed with him.
It was almost poetic. Ren had taken three lives from Scott, and so it was Ren's turn to die. It made sense. Even if it hurt, it didn't hurt as much as everything else did. If it was nothing else, it was fair.
"Stop." Martyn grabbed Ren's chin with a gentleness that made Ren's chest hurt again as he forced their eyes to meet. His eyes were fierce, even if there was no malice in them. It was almost too much. His hand fell to Ren's shoulder. "Whatever you're thinking, I need you to stop it, alright? Because it's not helping you, and it's not helping me, and we're way past helping Scott. Okay?"
Ren nodded but Martyn shook his head. "No, I need you to say it. You did what you had to do, and it's okay."
Ren nodded again and swallowed. "It's okay."
Martyn narrowed his eyes ever so slightly, but he took his hand from Ren's shoulder and leaned back. He looked like he wanted to say something, but he closed his mouth decisively before Ren could push anything.
It was almost nice, just the two of them sitting there. There was a slight chill in the breeze that carried across the tower that cooled off his burning skin nicely. And for a moment, Ren was content. He hadn't felt content like that for a long time, and it had been even longer since he'd felt like that in the presence of another person. But, just for a moment, everything was okay. It would be better if he didn't think about killing Scott or being the Boogeyman or how he and Martyn and all their friends would be dead in a handful of weeks. It wouldn't be more than…what, two months? Maybe a little longer?
"You're thinking again," Martyn said, though when Ren looked up he had his eyes closed. Ren opened his mouth, but Martyn beat him to it, nearly smirking. "Your thoughts are insanely loud. I could hear it from here without even trying."
Ren opened his mouth, then closed it, then swallowed and opened it again. "You can read my thoughts?" He tried not to sound as confused as he was. His brain was moving especially slowly.
"Might as well be able to, with how easy you are to read."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Martyn just smiled and tucked his arms behind his head. He looked more relaxed than Ren had ever seen him before, and it was sort of jarring. If anything, Martyn was usually the anxious one, the one on edge, the strategic one. It had taken weeks to get him to even take his armor off in front of Ren. Though they had hardly known each other then. They certainly knew each other now.
Only because they knew each other, Ren saw the way Martyn's lips pressed into a line that meant he wanted to say something but wasn't going to. Ren wished he would say it. He was tired of not talking. He wanted to tell Martyn so, but something stopped him. Something about the way Martyn looked disgustingly at ease in a way that made Ren's chest tight. He was almost expressionless in the chair, save for the tiny little smile he had.
The night was dark around them, and Ren knew he would be dead on his feet if he tried to get up. So he laid back down, on his back and then he turned to his side. Facing Martyn. Ren took another long stare at him, wishing that they could both be that blissfully content. And he knew it wouldn't last. But for a moment, Ren swore he could reach out and touch it.
Ren reached out before he could stop himself and lightly touched Martyn's knee. He wanted to say something, like thank you or I'm sorry or any of the dozens of things that ran through his mind. But none of them fit right, and so he met Martyn's eyes with his mouth opening and closing like an idiot, and Martyn just smiled at him. He brought his arms down from behind his head and settled his hands on his knees, one right on top of Ren's hand. He was warm in the night breeze, and Ren finally felt like he wasn't baking alive.
He reached out. And he touched.
And he was going to survive. They both were. Ren was going to make sure of it.
He slept like the dead.