Work Text:
The leather had begun to taste of copper, Ned biting down so hard that his teeth hurt.
He was halfway. He wasn't going to fucking pass out now.
"Ned, please," Richie pleaded next to him, but when Ned glared and demanded the scalpel back, Richie nodded and obeyed, as he always did.
·
·
·
"Maybe I'll drag you to the chapel and make an honest woman out of you," the captain threatened as he held Ned tight to him, cock twitching within Ned's cunt.
"Fuck you," Ned spat, the captain's belittling laughter ringing around him, before he threw Ned onto the bed, one hand pressing into Ned's back as the other reached for the discarded belt.
Ned screamed into the mattress as the captain beat him. "I like a mouth on my whores, not so much on a lady." The monster of a man took a pause, throwing the belt down next to Ned. He reached down, tracing fingers over Ned's cunt as the boy shook. The captain thrust two fingers into Ned, grinning wolfishly as Ned started to sob.
"Going to behave yourself, now? I won't let you pass out again."
Ned turned his head and spat at him, and the captain reached for the belt once more. Mercifully, Ned's body gave out before the captain was through.
The man, with hair kissed by fire, leaned in, taking him unconscious.
·
·
·
Viscera and tissue was carefully carved from the inside of Ned's chest, but Ned didn't make a sound. He'd learned; learned how to withhold, and make it more effort than it was worth. In the back of an opium den, the skill was serving him well.
The lines were misshapen; jagged. Let them be. The simple minded wouldn't understand what a clean pair meant to begin with; a jagged scar spanning his entire chest would garner no questions.
·
·
·
Months passed in the wolves den. Wild hair grew longer, until Ned looked in the mirror and no longer recognized himself; recognized a phantom of the past, back to haunt him.
Ned ran his fingers through long hair, and realized the roots had gone gray.
Gray, as it turns out, was a stepping stone; by the time Ned and Richie escaped the ship, the color had disappeared entirely.
·
·
·
Ned groaned through gritted teeth and leather, as the last piece of breast tissue tore and separated, Ned pulling it free and throwing it on the floor, forgotten.
He panted with the effort. He had lost a lot of blood. Richie stared at him in terror, and Ned wondered if Richie would survive the winter, should he die for this.
Who was he kidding? He didn't wonder. He knew.
·
·
·
Richie barged into the room, shutting the door behind him. Ned sat up from the bedroll, alert. "What is it? Ned asked, and Richie looked up at him, terrified.
"Addie. We have to go. Now."
"Hold on—" Ned started. The brothel where their mother worked had been a dangerous place to grow up, but a sharp knife and a short cut of hair—one that suited him just fine—had kept the vultures away.
"They know," Richie said. "That you've bled early." A sick feeling sank into Ned like oil, as Richie whispered, "I saw. What they do. I saw it. Mother—"
Richie breathed, slow, and when his eyes opened again, they were certain. "I won't let that happen to you."
Ned looked at Richie, sickly and trembling, resolute in getting himself fucking killed. "What can you even do? You're weak, you'll always be weak."
Richie smiled back at him with that never happy smile, and said, "I know. That's why we have to go."
·
·
·
"Hold still, brother," Richie whispered in that calm, gentle tone that he saved for Ned, and Ned tried to focus on the love he heard there; a love he'd had his entire life, that none had been able to take from him.
Ned was cruel to his brother. He knew that. Forcing him to help—to stain his soul with the sight of Ned's agony—was the smallest of his sins in that regard.
But that was okay; Richie would forgive him anything.
Ned felt a soft hand trace the hair out of his eyes, and he shut them tight, dreaming of happy days that never were, but someday might be.
·
·
·
They were on the road, and Ned stopped. Richie glanced back at him—it was him, now that they had begun to travel, and Richie was still trying to understand it. "What is it...?"
A name unspoken; a name unknown.
"I'd like to be Edward, now."
Richie seemed to consider this, then asked, "Can I call you Ned for short?"
·
·
·
Ned panted with the effort of staying conscious; of guiding Richie through the last careful stitches.
Ned stared down at it; at the discarded refuse of a life that was never his to live.
The scars would need a tall tale, but they would cloak him all the same; earn him a place among the wolves, so that he would never be the lamb again.
Ned started to consider the persona he would craft; the image that he would wrap around himself like armor.
·
·
?
Ned remembered when Richie brought him flowers for the final time.
Or had this not happened yet?
Yes—he hasn't lived this yet. He knows that now, and yet he remembers.
"Look, Ned!" Richie called after him. He held the bouquet out, hand-picked wildflowers in bloom. "I found the white ones you like."
Ned turned sharply towards Richie, anger thinly veiled, and slapped him, heads turning in interest. Richie fell to the floor, a trembling hand reaching to his cheek.
"You're pathetic," Ned spat. "Don't bring me into your fairy games."
The first tears fell down Richie's cheek, and Ned chastised himself for the sudden, desperate urge to reach out; to care for Richie the way Richie had always cared for him.
He had deserved it, after all.
When the onlookers scoffed, they scoffed only at Richie, and Ned knew he'd done what needed doing. He was a wolf, now, but barely. He had no room for them to question.
They might want to harm the lamb for his weakness, but the wolf would wrap these bruises around them both like armor.
?
?
?
"It's okay. It's okay, Ned. I forgive you."
"Stop talking—stop fucking talking—" Tears slipped down Ned's face, and when Richie's hand reached out to him, Ned took it.
"I love you, Ned," Richie whispered. Ned watched as the light started to fade, but when he tried to wrap his throat around the same words in turn, it closed instead, protecting him from the wolves around them.
Ned watched the light go out, as he had a thousand times before.
This armor,
that had bled Richie dry,
what had it been for?
?
·
·
That wouldn't come to pass for years yet, though.
Today, two brothers sit in a dimly lit room, on the precipice of everything, hoping for happy days that never are.
·
·
?
A few years from now, Ned becomes a captain.
He steals the fine fabrics of the wealthy and wraps himself in his stolen prizes, like the leathers from a good hunt. Beside him, Richie withers on the vine, long before a knife wielded by Ned would kill him.
Ned looks into a mirror, and no longer recognizes himself.
He's staring back at a phantasm, here to haunt him forevermore.
?
·
·
Ned still remembers that day: his nameday, a dozen and more years ago.
Richie had asked if he could call him Ned. Richie had always liked 'Richie' more than 'Richard', after all; had wanted for Ned the small joys he had for himself.
Ned had glanced back at him, and under the waning sunset, he'd smiled. "Sure, sprout. Whatever you like."
Perhaps it had been a good day, after all.