you hate my bad behavior

it’d been easier to neglect — to walk away, and push a bandaid over the seeping wounds.

now it is a choice that mórekr has uptaken; to stay before the fallen aki with a nursing hand. funny to see the dark rike dote upon any, for while whispered, hidden affection had once been shared, he’d never been one to heal.

it is why he stands on a thin rope line, a vast canyon below him, daring the wrong step to send him under — yet if he ceases his movement, it would tear underneath his weight, too. a delicate dance.

mórekr loathes it.

it is why he oft spends time away from the cave, lest it be night when the weather is coldest in the northern reaches. the sky is shifting into darken hues, and it is with it, that the ranger brings minger pickings. he drops it a few feet from the broken dove, sniffles and exhales.

ever since his injury, aki has been in-and-out of it — it’s become thus a habit of knowing he won’t have to speak to him anytime soon. the anticipation eventually dies on the tip of his tongue.

the dark male goes about his usual routine the last few days, and approaches aki’s side — lying next to him, shoulder to shoulder to halt the shivers of the broken dove, who’s body seems keen to keep him from moving much.

cast all our sins into the ocean Whatever time passes, whatever events come to be, Falki is utterly unaware of it all. If he wakes in the meantime, he does not remember the next. He sleeps, wakes to pain and shadowy figures, and fights the icy fingers that drag him back under into unconsciousness. They always win. His sleep is not peaceful. He dreams of memories, of stolen kisses and nights. He dreams of a life no longer his - there, he is a different boy with a different name and a different future. But even those memories are now stained, tainted. Red with blood and black with rot. He makes the same mistake over and over, unable to stop himself. Always thinking that it will be different, but it never is. Every time, he is betrayed. Mórekr rips out his heart, holds it up in a bloody paw, and it still beats. (And while trapped in those nightmares, he curls into the warmth at his side, tucking his face into the plush curls, unaware it's the very monster he dreams of). He wakes with a start, a soft hiss of fear escaping clenched jaws. The immediate hiss forces him to inhale, and nothing but one man’s scent invades his brain. Falki lurches to the opposite side, sending signals to his limbs to move and getting only a sluggish answer. The broken lion staggers and gets halfway to his paws before they give in on him, and he crumples into a heap a mere half step from where he began. "Get away from me," he snarls all the same, icy blue eyes glued to the dark form.

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absent to the nostalgic dreams that plague him, mórekr relives them by day instead — mind actively peeling back the pages one by one. a joke to hear the collected rike tremble with whispers of when did this get so wrong?

in the quiet he feels a sense of vulnerability again. denial wears him thin, no matter how strong the armor is, it'll always crack. nonetheless, there is no patching.

mushing paw to cheek, he eventually shifts to rest chin over the edge of a propped leg. sleep beckons, an ache still settles in his bones. an exhaustion that comes from a healing body and a much too shattered heart head.

it's in these moments that he wishes — he feels him lean in, curling close and finding comfort in the tangle of curls. he feels him breath in, savoring the ghost of what could have been.

a ghost of affection lingers on his lips, til the rustle of wings draws forth the broken dove in one fell swoop. the movement sudden enough to catch mórekr defenseless— his body rocks brief in the direction of aki.

he catches himself, as he always does, and peers up at the shaken aki until he falls down in a heap where he'd been. an eyebrow cocks, expression near smug with tired green eyes. "and let you freeze?"

aki would want that.

"you must've forgotten," he says with a sigh, and a lift of his head, "aki, you made your choice." you're mine. you're mine.

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cast all our sins into the ocean Yes, let him freeze. Let him die. But of course @Mórekr wouldn’t let that happen. He was not as surprised as he could have been to wake up alive, breathing. In another man’s possession. Mórekr did not leave him barely breathing and not expect him to have a chance at surviving, however slim. Hazy, unfocused eyes drag heavily back to the black Rike’s frame. "Was not a choice." He insists, yet knows better than to move again. Knows better than to try. His captor does not have to move an inch to keep him; the injury he’d suffered in the fight does that for him. "I’m - " Falki swallows thickly, an internal struggle raging inside. That name is a gut punch to his soul, and hearing it from a murderer’s lips is worse than his sister calling him by it. "It’s not Aki. He died." At your hands.

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“was not a choice.”

who are you trying to fool, dear aki? mayhaps it is that silly sigrún god — that bitter bile fills at his throat; mórekr pouts, an overgrown child testy that his naptime has been interrupted with Discourse of all things. he will not have it.

“then,” he drawls out, germanic accent kicking in full display when typically the dark rike man does everything possible to hide it. “why approach me, aki?” did you think i would roll over and die? do you think i would beg you for forgiveness for what i’ve done? you, of all people, know who i am.

the dove’s name, however, is the piece that grinds the open wound — is what reflects what aki wants to disregard. if mórekr were a better man, he would respect that, but he isn’t.

“on the contrary, aki is alive, albeit a mess, but alive.” and likely torn between digging himself a hole in the ground and punching mórekr’s lights out.

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cast all our sins into the ocean Cold, hollow eyes regard the dark raven as he drawls, denying every twisted word Falki tries to defend himself with. So easily he parrays, deflects. "To kill you." He admits without regret, without hesitation. "Or die." Either way - this result had never occurred to him as a possibility. Both of them breathing, neither trying to slash each other’s throats. Falki, only because he physically cannot move. But why, why has Mórekr allowed him to live? He knows why. "No, you killed him." The broken lion insists, giving in to the weight of his skull and letting his chin on the ground. A pathetic sight, he’s sure. But he has done worse, been worse, for Mórekr. "I’m Falki." A name not connected to the Sigrun or Aki and the foolish, dead boy’s mistakes. He had tried to live a new life, and this is where he has ended up. Back where he started. The lion shivers, rolling onto his side, facing away from the Rike.

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the grumpy, suicidal baby throwing a temper tantrum. mórekr rolls his eyes. sulk all you want, broken dove, you know what you did. denying it goes a two-way street.

although mórekr has little doubt that aki would chose to kill him, it is what sigrún default to — it is what they are amassed to do, just as rike are to eliminate them.

“if you are this… fálki, then fálki would have no reason to kill me, or to die by my hand.” mórekr points out. aki wants to leave his life behind yet pulls himself right back into the midst of it. time and time again, the ranger has given him all he needs to run.

a fever dream that he could never accomplish.

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cast all our sins into the ocean Much as he would like to run, it gets him nowhere. Like a nightmare, no matter how far or how fast, Falki always ends up right back where he started. He exhausts - nearly kills - himself for the chance to escape. And it never works. While Mórekr tries to use his own logic against him, Falki merely growls. "You don’t know me." Not anymore. Not for a long, long time. He adds then, bitterly, "If you did not kill his brother, I would not have to avenge them." Not that the Rike cares, of that he is sure, but he cannot help but explain himself... even if he isn't sure why he must.

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“oh, i know you plenty.”

and aki, in turn, knows mórekr. or should, you would think. yet the raven is often unpredictable, even for those of rike standards, and he? rare would he make such a miserable mistake as he once had, in allowing another to know his secrets.

the falsities the broken dove goes forth to accuse lack among the pile of said secrets.

“i did not,” he corrects — stern with the confession, for it would sting to any rike to deny the death of a sigrún. thus he speaks it true, even if fannar had wronged him.

aki with his back to him, and he, staring at the blood soaked blond of his mane.

“ich habe es nicht getan.” his tone was without the mock that usually decorated mórekr’s voice.

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cast all our sins into the ocean Yes, they do know each other. It is his greatest shame, that he let the Rike weasel his way into his heart and then eat it whole. He is not sure he knows Mórekr at all - if any had been real, from whispered promises of running away together to hushed affection, words of endearment, nights spent alone. Perhaps none of it was real, perhaps all of it was. It doesn’t matter - it ends the same way regardless. Fannar dead, Aki a traitor alone. Mórekr denies it. He denies it. Nothing compares - every venomous word and every claw and tooth dug into flesh, ripping his tail and ear away, leaving him a broken, bloody mess for a stray woman to find - nothing compares to the pain of fining his brother dead by his lover’s paw. It was Mórekr. It had to have been him. "Don’t lie to me!" The lion turns and stumbles to his paws, heedless of the way he sways so unsteadily and barely manages to stand at all - turns back to the bastard Rike on the ground, so calm and collected as always. "You killed him!" Is it a shout or a sob? A choked noise that could be either strangles him, and Falki sinks to his knees before the murderer.

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