Chapter Text
The village burned.
Smoke coiled in the air, thick and choking, sinking into Andy’s lungs until every breath scraped like gravel. Sparks spat off rooftops and drifted down into their curly hair, searing tiny pinpricks into their skin. The stench of ash and blood mingled into something sharp and suffocating, something that clung to their clothes and skin until it felt like they’d never be rid of it.
Shouts rose through the haze - Taylor’s voice, rough with strain, barking orders from the wall. Rachel’s reply, quick and cutting, followed by the whistle of an arrow slicing through the air. Somewhere else, Ashlyn’s triumphant yell, Eli’s muttered swearing, the pounding of hooves as another ravager broke through the chaos.
Andy didn’t care.
They welcomed the noise. Welcomed the clash of steel, the reek of iron on their tongue, the burn in their muscles with each swing of their axe. Every strike was heavy and brutal, sending shockwaves up their arms until their shoulders ached - and still, they pressed harder, faster. If they kept moving, if they kept hitting, maybe the hollow in their chest wouldn’t have time to swallow them whole.
A pillager lunged. Andy met him with the full weight of their axe, splitting the man’s guard and dropping him to the dirt in a spray of sparks. Another came, then another. Andy didn’t retreat, didn’t dodge - their grin widened as the tide rose against them. The harder it pushed, the more alive they felt.
“Oi!”
The voice cut across the chaos like a blade. Ethan.
Of course it was Ethan.
Andy shoved their axe free from a fallen raider’s chest and turned just as Ethan stumbled into view, sword slick with blood and eyes narrowed in anger. His face was smudged with soot, hair sticking damp to his forehead, but that didn’t dull the sharpness in his expression.
“Are you trying to get yourself killed?” he shouted, breathless, furious. Andy let their grin sharpen into something brittle. “Relax. I had it under control.”
“Under control?” Ethan barked a bitter laugh. A ravager thundered past behind him, shaking the ground with its weight. “You’ve got half the horde chasing you and blood down your arm. That’s not control, Andy, that’s suicide.”
Andy followed his glance to their arm - the gash along their forearm, still weeping sluggishly. They hadn’t noticed. They didn’t care. “What do you care?” The words slipped out sharper than they intended, but they didn’t take them back. Better sharp than soft. Better anger than pity.
Something flickered in Ethan’s expression, just for a heartbeat - frustration tangled with something Andy couldn’t name. Then it hardened again. “Because I don’t feel like digging your grave tonight,” he snapped, stepping forward to deflect a blow aimed for Andy’s ribs.
Andy’s grip tightened on their axe. The hollow in their chest gaped open, dragging everything inward, twisting. They quickly forced it into a grin. “Glad to know you’d miss me.”
Ethan’s jaw clenched. “Don’t flatter yourself.”
They fell into rhythm without meaning to. Ethan with his steady guard, and Andy with their reckless strikes. They never fought well together - too much pride, too many barbed words - but in that moment, the dance held. Andy swung wide, Ethan filled the gaps, and the raid began to crumble beneath them. By the time the last horn fell silent, the ground was littered with broken steel and bodies. Smoke thickened in the air, clinging to Andy’s skin, their throat raw from breathing it in. The village smoldered, torches guttering, but it still stood.
Ashlyn whooped from across the square, staggering with soot streaked across her cheek. Her laugh rang too loud, too sharp, as though she didn’t know what else to do with the leftover adrenaline. “Told you I had it handled!”
“You nearly died three times,” Eli muttered, tugging her back to check her bruises. His voice was flat with fatigue, like he’d used up all his panic already. Rachel stretched her arms overhead, bow slung across her back. Her smirk wavered at the edges, but she still forced the words out. “If we’re alive, it’s because of me. You’re all welcome.”
Taylor rolled their eyes. “Yeah, keep telling yourself that, Rachel. Maybe it’ll stick if you believe it hard enough.” Their tone was lighter than their expression, jaw still tight.
Andy tuned them out. The noise felt muffled now, distant. The hollowness in their chest yawned wider, swallowing the fire they’d felt mid-battle, leaving only the ache behind. Their fingers dug restless patterns into the grooves of their axe handle, tracing the worn wood until their knuckles went white. Their legs wavered beneath them, but they quickly straightened, shoulders squared, grin in place.
No one saw the crack. No one ever did.
Except Ethan.
Andy could feel his gaze like a weight, heavy and unrelenting, even as the others bickered and laughed. He stood a few paces off, sword still drawn, grime clinging to his face. Watching. Always watching.
Andy tore their eyes away first, jaw tight. If Ethan had seen the tremor in their hands or the hollowness in their grin, he’d keep it to himself. He always did.
And that, somehow, made it worse.
✶✶✶
The village was quieter now. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that rang in Andy’s ears, filled with ghosts of screams and steel. Every sound carried sharp through the haze: the hiss of water as Eli doused a burning roof, the creak of wood groaning under its own weight, the faint clatter of Rachel gathering spent arrows from the dirt.
Taylor had collapsed against a charred fence post, rubbing sweat from their brow, chest heaving as they tried to catch their breath. Ashlyn sat nearby, humming tunelessly while Eli fussed over the bruises blossoming down her arm. For all their bickering, the group looked - if not at ease - at least alive.
Andy kept moving.
Their legs felt heavy, every step like wading through mud, but still they crossed the square, stooping to drag a pillager’s corpse toward the edge of the street. The body was limp, heavy, leaving streaks of blood across the cobblestone. Their arms ached, their cuts burned, but they clenched their jaw and bore it. Anything was better than standing still. If they stopped moving, the quiet would catch up. The hollow in their chest would catch up.
“Andy.” Taylor’s voice came soft from behind, careful, like they were trying not to spook them. Andy didn’t turn. They tightened their grip on the corpse’s arm, jaw aching from the force of their teeth grinding. “You should sit down. Eli’s got bandages.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not,” Taylor said. “You’re bleeding badly, and you look half dead.” Andy glanced down at the sluggish line of blood curling from their forearm, already sticky against their skin. They snorted. “Barely worth noticing.” The body hit the dirt with a heavy thud as Andy dropped it, dust puffing up around their boots. Their chest heaved once, sharp, before they straightened, shaking out their arms like they hadn’t just nearly staggered.
Rachel’s voice sliced in next, sharp as an arrowhead. “You’re not invincible, you know. Charging at a ravager like that? Idiotic.” Her mouth twisted, words sharpening to a point. “If Ethan hadn’t-”
Andy cut her off, cracking their knuckles one by one, the sound loud in the uneasy quiet. “Well, he did. So here I am, aren’t I? Still breathing. Still swinging.” Their eyes glittered as they spread their arms, mock-grandiose. “Congratulations - you all get to enjoy my charming company yet another day.”
Rachel’s mouth pressed into a thin line. She looked like she wanted to argue, wanted to push, but Taylor touched her arm with a small shake of their head. Rachel rolled her eyes skyward, muttered something under her breath, and stalked away to collect more arrows.
Andy flexed their fingers around the haft of their axe as they bit the inside of their cheek, a small hole forming that was sure to blister later. The hollow in their chest yawned wide, aching, aching, and they swallowed hard, forcing air past the tightness in their throat.
“You’re a terrible liar.” The words came low, close. Too close. Andy stiffened.
Ethan leaned against the blackened frame of a house just paces away, arms crossed loosely over his chest, sword still hanging at his side. His face was still streaked with grime, sweat matting his hair against his brow, but his eyes - steady, unyielding - pinned Andy in place. Andy scoffed. “And you’re an annoying bastard. We all have our flaws.”
Ethan didn’t so much as blink. He pushed off the wall, steps deliberate, each one dragging the scent of smoke closer until Andy could taste it in the air between them.
“You fought like you wanted to die,” he said. Not loud, not sharp. Quiet enough the others wouldn’t hear. The words landed like a blade pressed to their throat. Andy’s chest went tight. Their tongue felt thick, clumsy. A laugh clawed its way out anyway, brittle and ugly. “Don’t flatter yourself. Not everything I do is about you.”
Ethan’s jaw tightened, his gaze unwavering. “Then prove it. Stop acting like your life’s worth throwing away.”
Andy’s breath stuttered. Their grin faltered. “Go bother someone else, Ethan.”
For a heartbeat, Ethan just stared at them, unblinking. Then, with a sharp motion, he shoved his sword into its sheath. The sound of steel scraping against leather cracked through the quiet like a verdict. His jaw worked once, twice, as if holding back words that threatened to spill, and then he stayed right where he was - silent, unmovable.
Andy was the one who turned away first, hating how much heavier the silence felt with him in it.
✶✶✶
They waited until the others were distracted - until Taylor was fussing with Eli over rations, until Ashlyn was laughing about something that wasn’t funny, and until Rachel’s sharp voice carried across the square about patrol shifts.
Then they slipped away.
The village gates hung battered but standing. Andy pushed through them and let the forest swallow them whole. Out here, the air was cooler, wet with the scent of moss and scorched pine. Smoke clung to the canopy in gray wisps, caught in the branches like ghosts that refused to leave. Their boots sank into soft earth, crunching over damp twigs. Every step away from the fires left the silence heavier, thicker, until it pressed on their shoulders like a weight. It pressed against their ribs until their own pulse sounded louder. Each inhale dragged the damp scent of moss into their lungs, sharp and earthy, almost enough to drown the lingering tang of smoke.
They walked until the ache in their arm forced them to stop. The cuts burned hot and sticky, their muscles trembling with every movement, and their legs threatened to buckle. They leaned back against a broad oak tree, bark rough and ridged against their spine. It scraped through their shirt like teeth.
For the first time since the raid began, Andy let themselves breathe. The air was sharp with sap, tinged with the copper tang of blood still crusted on their skin. Their chest heaved, once, twice, before the weight pressed down so heavily they folded in on themselves, curling their good arm tight around their ribs. Their hands trembled, their teeth dug hard into the inside of their cheek to hold the sound in. No one could hear this. No one could see.
Only the trees.
Andy tilted their head back against the bark, throat raw. The canopy loomed above, brown branches clawing at a sky still streaked faintly red from firelight.
“You saw, didn’t you?” Their voice came out hoarse, breaking in places. “Saw how they looked at me. How he looked at me.”
A crow shifted somewhere overhead, feathers rustling like the turn of pages. The silence felt thicker than the battle noise ever had - no shouting, no steel, only the faint drip of dew from the leaves. Andy shut their eyes, forcing words past the lump in their throat.
“I had it under control. I did. I… I don’t need their help. I don’t need-” Their voice cracked. They scratched their nails into the knuckle on their thumb until blood welled fresh, a sting to anchor them. “I don’t need him. He’s wrong.”
The forest gave no answer but the whisper of leaves. Andy let out a bitter laugh, breath shuddering. “Figures. You’re the only ones who don’t argue back.”
For a long moment, they just stood there, back pressed to the tree’s rough bark, breathing in the damp, earthy rot of moss and smoke. The battle’s echoes still rang in their ears - Ethan’s voice, sharp, unrelenting: You fought like you wanted to die.
Andy’s hands tightened against the bark until the ridges dug painfully into their palms.
“He’s wrong,” they whispered, too quiet for anyone to hear. “He has to be wrong.”
But the hollow inside them didn’t ease, and when they finally pushed away from the oak, dragging their mask back into place for the walk back, Andy felt the weight of Ethan’s gaze still clinging to them - even though he wasn’t there.