Work Text:
"Looks like rain," he rumbles, squinting up at the low boil of clouds in the distance. They churn like waves along the horizon, heavy and dark. The sight of them makes something in her chest ache. "We could find an inn," he adds a moment later, voice carefully neutral.
A little shiver of frustration zips up her spine at his words, followed closely by shame. He's offering because it's something they can risk now. Nights are quieter these days, in the wake of Falconia's destruction; sometimes they're even safe. The interstice lingers, but the gods are gone. The brand doesn't ache much anymore.
She should say yes. A hot meal, a roof over their heads, a real bed with a real mattress. One word and she knows Guts will steer them to the nearest inn and hand over the coin without complaint. They'll eat dinner together in companionable silence, and go to bed the same way. Yes lingers on her tongue like a bruise. She can't make herself say it. Her mouth is dry as she swallows against it. Useless. She knows better. Yes, she thinks, holding the word fruitlessly between her teeth, overripe, as heavy and dark as the clouds on the horizon, but she knows how it will go.
One simple word and she'll fall asleep staring at his back, that ache in her chest building until it spills into her throat, clotted with words she can't say, like she's Elaine all over again. She'll wake in the morning with his arms wrapped around her, cradling her against his chest in the soft haze before dawn, and for a moment—
Shame roars through her like a river, cold and cruel. For a breathless moment, she'll rock her hips back against him, choking on a moan as she surfaces from sleep to feel him hot and hard behind her, desire pooling in her belly. Even now she can feel the burn of it, nothing but a memory yet still enough to make her squeeze her thighs together. She hauls in an unsteady breath, the air heavy with the scent of rain, thick in her lungs, and tries—fails—to will away the heat.
He rolls away every time. The quiet suffocates; head hanging down, muscles taut, tension in every line of his body; he leaves her slick and aching, awash with guilt, salt on her tongue from choking back tears.
"Casca?"
Yes, in her mouth and her chest and her veins, thrumming like a heartbeat, relentless despite the shame. She wants him so badly it makes her sick.
No rain yet, but her vision is blurry all the same. She closes her eyes and breathes.
"Alright," she says.
North at the next crossroads, and then another hour of walking. The skies open up with a quiet sigh, rain pattering down like teardrops. They pull their cloaks up and keep going, side by side, step by step. The oilcloth holds up well enough, but she's shivering with the cold by the time they reach the inn.
Six coppers for the room. It's small, slightly shabby, but well-tended all the same. The wood is dry. She coaxes a fire to life in the hearth easily enough. Guts brings up their meal, simple stew and coarse bread. A wedge of cheese; an apple to share; mulled wine left simmering just a bit too long. The spice of it is heady on her tongue, dusty and sharp. Bitter. Guts downs it with a grimace, dragging a hand across his mouth. His lips are red in the firelight.
She looks away before he catches her staring.
"Another two coppers for a bath," he says quietly, pulling her eyes back to him. "We have enough."
"Save them." She aims for soft and lands on brusque instead. "I'm tired."
His mouth pulls in a frown, plush and damnably red. The heat from the fire stings her skin, leaving gooseflesh in its wake. The bitterness on her tongue isn't the wine; it's longing.
"Casca—"
Yes, she wants to say. Yes and yes and touch me, please—
"I'm tired." Softer this time. His mouth softens with it.
"Alright," he says.
The sheets are old, worn thin, but freshly laundered. Homemade soap, lye and lavender. The scent makes her shudder as she slides beneath them, memories of Falconia stirring like monsters in deep water. Sweetness hiding poison. Guts settles in beside her, clove oil and steel overlaid with rain. She breathes in deep, shivering, and can't quite curb the impulse to creep closer.
"Casca?"
He turns to face her, the bed creaking. The straw ticking slopes beneath his weight, pulling her in towards him like gravity. She closes her eyes rather than meet his gaze. He's careful with her, so careful that it makes her want to scream.
She thought it would stop after they had sex, falling into each other at last after weeks on the road. It was foolish of her to think that one frantic evening could ease the tension between them—the years of guilt and fear—but is it so selfish to want things to be easy? To imagine she could have even a sliver of the life they used to live? And it was easy, if only for a moment. She remembers sobbing with relief as he finally worked himself into her, hungry for his touch and horribly, desperately grateful she could bear it without shattering. She'd been Elaine for so long, and then so caught up in memory and fear after that—
The weight of his body against hers, the delicious burning slide of his cock, every ragged sound slipping from his throat; it all felt like a gift. Like a dream, she thought as she clutched at him, gripping him so tightly she left a constellation of bruises behind, dappled dark across his shoulders like stars. But it's real. It's real.
He spent himself inside her, face buried against her neck, tears trickling out hot against her skin, and it felt like coming home.
But then the evening slipped away, and when night bled into morning, Guts could hardly look at her. She woke to find him sitting stiffly beside her, armor on, knuckles white on the hilt of that monstrous sword. He held himself like he was bracing for a blow, already resigned to the pain; some terrible emotion was splashed across his face, stark and vivid as blood. It was days before she realized it was shame, and by then it was too late.
He travels with her without complaint. His sword never falters. He walks beside her every day and sleeps beside her every night, but he's as far away as he's ever been. He never touches her, not really. Not the way she wants him to.
Perhaps he can't stomach it. She's not the same as she was before. Even now, with her mind restored, she flinches at odd moments. Cries at night. Sometimes she screams. He's never said as much, but she's not a fool. She's woken with her throat raw and her skin slick with fear sweat enough times to know. She's Casca again—no longer Elaine, no longer the broken doll in her terrible coffin—but she's not the woman he remembers. She's not the woman she remembers. Just because she wants the same things doesn't mean she can have them.
Tears sting her eyes, welling up hot and sharp. She ducks her head and tries not to think. Falconia is too close. Guts is too close. She can hear his heart, beating steadily in the cage of his ribs, feel the heat rolling off him like a bonfire, warm enough that the chill of the rain is a distant memory. Her palms ache, nails biting deep as she clenches her fists. He's so close that she can feel his breath slipping soft over her skin, ruffling her hair, and still not close enough at all.
"Casca?"
Her name sounds precious in his mouth. It sends the tears spilling down over her cheeks. A hand drifts down, resting gently against the crown of her head.
Outside, the rain keeps falling. It pours down in torrents, a muted roar against the thatched roof. If she keeps her eyes closed, she can almost pretend they're somewhere else. A cave in the woods. A clearing beside a waterfall. Safe in the past, skin to skin, far away from all the pain that haunts them now.
She falls asleep like that, heartsick, clinging to memory so she doesn't reach for Guts in its stead.
Memory gives way to dreams.
She expects a nightmare, but the world is quiet. The sky is clear and blue, and the breeze is soft. There's a figure in the distance, coming closer, stride after stride. Dark armor over broad shoulders; a ragged cape flaring in the wind. Guts.
The berserker armor should unnerve her. It doesn't. There's no fear in this dream, not even a hint of the worry she feels when she watches him don it in the waking world. It drains him, gnaws at him like a beast with a bone, leaves him scarred and shaking, and yet she's never quite been able to hate it. Wretched as it is, it's seen him through battles that should have killed him.
She can't hate anything that keeps him alive.
The world is quiet. All she can hear is Guts, breathing steadily behind the fierce maw of his helm. Her heart beats in time with the sound. There's blood splashed across his face, red and fresh, but his gaze is clear when he looks at her, no madness in it. No shame.
She takes a step towards him. He cocks his head, waiting. She takes another step. There's a sly tilt to the smile that steals across his lips. A familiar pulse of heat blooms low in her belly at the sight. She wants to kiss that crooked grin, wants to lick into his mouth and hear him groan with it.
"Casca," he says, her name a heavy rasp in his throat, dark and hungry. It sends her jolting forward another few steps. He's looking at her like he can see every part of her, every secret, every shameful hunger. All of her, straight down to the marrow. She wants to touch him so badly she aches with it.
She half-expects the dream to shatter, but it doesn't. There's no sickening red sky, no field of horror below— just the two of them and the fragile quiet, just the stinging anticipation in her veins. They're so close now. Close enough to touch.
Please, she thinks, and then the heat in her belly roils and surges as his hands come to rest heavy on her hips. The sharp edges of his gauntlets dig into her skin, and she can't help it. She yanks him down until his mouth crashes over hers. He tastes like metal and blood. His hands are going to leave bruises. Casca moans at the thought and presses closer, desperate for more. Please, she thinks again, half-wild with need. She licks into his mouth, all sharp canines and slick hot tongue, and then they're lying together in the long grass, Guts looming above, armored shoulders broad enough to blot out the sky.
"That's it," he growls, lips at her jaw, her throat, the brand at her breast. The helm is gone. There's a dull murmur in the distance, like rain falling somewhere far away. "Take what you need."
She keens at the press of his teeth, a sound like a sob caught high her throat. She's staring down at him now, grinding her hips against the thick weight of his cock, so empty it very nearly hurts.
"Casca," he says, that same low rasp, hands skimming over every bit of her he can reach, desperate, like he can't get enough. "Casca—"
The sound follows her out of the dream, a rough noise that sets her blood alight. Casca blinks in the bruised light, the darkness hazy and gray as dawn approaches. Sleep has stolen all her good intentions; there's no space between them now. Scarred skin beneath her fingertips, the metal of his false hand warm and heavy on her hip, one leg thrown over his. They're tangled together like lovers. Her chest aches.
"Please," she says before she can stop herself, still caught up in the fragments of her dream. His hand tightens on her hip as she grinds against him, wet down to her thighs. Her face burns, but she can't make herself stop. The world is so quiet, and he's so warm, and she's so close—
Another rough sound.
"Casca," he breathes, voice thick with sleep. The hand on her hip flexes once, twice. She needs to stop. She tries—desperate to gather up all the helpless want that lives inside of her and hide it away—but instead his palm flattens out, fingers spread wide, digging deep into the meat of her ass, urging her to cant her hips. The shock of it tears through her like lightning, but the pressure is intoxicating, hot and sharp and so blisteringly good that it knocks the breath from her lungs. It has her clenching around nothing, her whole body a wild, trembling flame.
"That's it," he says, just like the dream. She can't help it: her hips jerk, shuddery and sudden, and she closes her eyes and burns.
He holds her as it rages through her, cradling her close as she blinks away tears. Her hand slips down across his chest, every muscle in her body gone loose and pliant even as Guts is tense beneath her. He lets out a sharp breath as she looks up at him, pulse jumping, stuttering as he clenches his jaw. The crooked smile is gone. A dream, she thinks dully, staring at him with mounting horror. It was never there at all. Surely he'll pull away now, roll out of bed and find some excuse to leave the room. His lips flatten into a thin line, dipping low. Shame bubbles up in her chest, crowding into her throat until all she can taste is blood and rotten fruit.
The heavy length of his cock presses into her belly, hard and hot even as his frown deepens. The remnants of pleasure spark across her nerve endings, shimmering in her blood. She still wants to kiss him. Fresh tears slip down over her cheeks, the salt stinging like acid. His lips part, canines a sharp glint even in the weak light, and she knows—knows—that whatever he says is going to change things between them.
The pressure on her hip eases, hesitant now, and she can't stand it.
"I'm sorry," she gasps out. The words are choked, mangled, but it's too late to call them back. She doesn't even try. "I'm so sorry." Casca clutches at him, terrified he'll pull away. She should let him, but even with the dream in pieces around her, she's selfish. He closes his good eye, lid fluttering down, frown still carved deep. Please is back on her tongue. She swallows it down before it can escape again. Ducks her head, wills herself not to shake.
It doesn't work, but he doesn't pull away. A sigh rattles through him like a rush of wind, low and wounded. He strokes his hand up her back and gathers her close, closer, and just holds her. They stay like that for a long time, twined together in the predawn light, the silence thick and heavy between them. Around them, the inn rouses itself from sleep; voices murmuring in the distance. Footsteps in the hallway. The smell of baking bread.
Outside, it's still raining.
They separate eventually. Guts slips downstairs to pay for another night. He comes back with fresh water and another simple meal. Casca coaxes the fire back to life, then settles by the hearth to oil her sword. The blade gleams red-gold in the firelight, rippling like water. It fits in her hand like it's always been there. She sets it down with a pang and moves on to her armor, then to his collection of daggers. The berserker armor she leaves untouched.
The Dragon Slayer never seems to lose its edge. Guts sits beside her all the same, drawing a cloth along the length of the blade. His gaze is somewhere far away. The silence is heavy, but she doesn't break it. What would she say?
Foolish, she chides herself. She has the words; she just can't bring herself to say them. The distance between them makes her ache, throbbing like a wound that won't heal, but she can live with it. The thought almost makes her laugh. She asked for a wound once, didn't she? She wonders what that Casca would think of her. Even as memory crowds close, even as dreams dog her every step, her past self is foreign and strange, a skin she'll never live in again.
Rain drips down the warped glass of the room's small window. The world is nothing but water; nothing but Guts breathing beside her; nothing but clove oil and steel and the fire flickering in the hearth.
Do you remember it? she wants to ask. The bonfire of dreams. So much has changed, but I still don't know what you dream of. I don't know what you want.
Guts still has that faraway look on his face.
His hands are still now, cloth abandoned, fingers loose as he stares at the play of firelight on the blade. There are no more daggers to hone. Her own hands are empty. She turns away, eyes finding the dark maw of his armor. A shiver of unease crawls through her, but the dream is still so close— the sly curve of his smile, the warmth of his mouth when she kissed him. The heavy weight of those gauntlets against her skin. She swallows, compulsive.
It should scare her. Disgust her, at the very least. Instead, a heady pulse of want throbs through her. She swallows again. Guts finally looks up from his sword, turning to follow her gaze. The armor stares back at them, black and forbidding.
"Does it bother you?"
"What?" The question startles her.
"The armor," he says. "What— what it brings out in me. What I've done." His voice doesn't shake, but she can tell it's a near thing. The shame is back, dripping from every word, but when she turns to peer at him, he doesn't look away.
They've never talked about it. Everything moved so quickly after Falconia—after Griffith—and someone else was always there. Schierke, Farnese, Luca. Even Puck. That's half the reason they set out alone together, but maybe that was a mistake. It was easier to fall into old rhythms than it was to say anything. It still is, she realizes, that familiar ache back in her chest.
The rain beats endlessly against the roof, streaming down the windowpane.
"It should," she says. "Maybe it does. I dream about it sometimes."
The admission falls into the silence like a stone into water. The fire hisses and snaps.
"I dreamed last night," she says, soft, and he makes a sound like a wounded animal. "Not— not that. Just the armor," she continues. "Just you."
"Casca—"
"You let me touch you," she finishes in a choked whisper.
He stares at her as though she's speaking a foreign language. "You don't need a dream for that," he says, voice rough. "You can always touch me."
She almost wants to laugh.
"Can I? You always move away."
"Casca," he tries again, but the guilt in his voice makes her sick. The heat of the fire is suddenly oppressive. The rain is still pouring down. The world is so small like this, just her and Guts and everything that's wrong between them.
"Every time!" she snaps. "You wrench away like you're ashamed of me. I'm not who I was, we both know that, but I thought you still wanted me. Was I wrong?" The words hurt, thorny and sharp, edged with shame and veined with an anger she's been trying for months to ignore.
"No," he bites out, voice still so rough.
"Then why?" she asks, as ragged as he is, throat clotted with tears. "What—"
"You screamed." The silence bleeds between them, heavy and dark. "It was a nightmare. I knew you still had them, but you were in my arms, screaming, and all I could see were the bruises." Firelight flickers over his face, burnishing him red, gold. His hands are shaking. "Bruises I put there."
There's a bruise blooming on her hip right now, his fingerprints on her like a brand. The thought shouldn't make her ache, but it does.
"I left bruises on you," she counters, but it's not the same thing at all.
"I hurt you," he says, and he's not talking about the marks on her hip. She can't argue it. He did, and they both know it. He finally looks away, scrubbing a hand through his hair. "Someone told me things wouldn't be the same," he says quietly, "but I didn't think it would be like this."
She closes the distance between them without thought.
"Guts," she says, firm. "Look at me."
He obeys. The shame in his gaze is devastating. It makes her want to hide, or weep, or hit something. She spent so long worrying about what sex would mean for her—whether she could ever handle another intimate touch, if she'd shatter, if she'd fall back into Elaine—that she never stopped to think of what it would mean for Guts. Selfish, she thinks now. Stupid.
She remembers his hands at her throat, and the horror on his face in the aftermath. The awful detached way he cried, tears dripping down his cheeks as if he couldn't even feel them, and then, worse, the shocked disbelief in his eyes when she held him.
How foolish; they both have wounds. They've had them from the start.
The fire keeps flickering. This isn't the cave; isn't the waterfall. They're hidden away in a dusty room in a tiny inn on the road to a nowhere town. Falconia has fallen. Griffith is dead. They'll never go back to what they were, either of them, but she wants him still, wants him so badly she thinks it might be killing her. She gathers up every scrap of courage she can find, and when she speaks, her voice doesn't shake.
"Do you want me?"
Even now? After all the pain, all the wounds we've left on each other?
"Casca—"
"Yes or no," she says. "That's all I want."
"Yes," he says, hoarse and immediate. It sounds like relief; like dying; like coming home.
She takes another step toward him and he meets her halfway. Stands, steps away from the fire, away from his sword, and into her arms. She breathes deep, clove oil and metal, sharp enough to sting her nose but a comfort all the same. Clings, like if she just presses hard enough, she can crawl inside him and live there. She kisses his neck, soft, tongue dipping out to lave the brand that nearly ruined them.
He shudders at the touch. She drags her tongue over the scar again, want simmering in her blood as he chokes on her name.
"Feel like a fucking animal," he groans, deep and rough. "Want you all the time."
Her cunt throbs like a bruise.
"Then have me." She can't hide the tremor in her voice now, but it doesn't matter. They're both shivering, holding each other through the ache.
"I want to be good to you," he says, more growl than speech. It should scare her. It doesn't.
"You will be," she says, low, husky. She rolls her hips against him, rocking into the heat of his body, and nearly whines as he crushes her to him, his cock thickening against her belly. "Just…" she trails off. "Touch me, Guts, please—"
He does.
Afterwards, Guts slips downstairs once more.
Two coppers for a bath; he hauls the tub up himself, empties steaming buckets into it until it's full. She sinks in up to her collarbones, letting the hot water soothe away a hundred little aches and pains. He scrubs down while she soaks, perfunctory even as she watches him, eyes hungry for every shift of muscle, marveling at his size, his strength.
He grins a little, but he doesn't tease her. Maybe one day he will. For now, things are still fragile, wounds just beginning to heal. The sore, frantic knot of pain that lived in her chest for so long has eased a fraction. She doesn't mind waiting.
Soon enough he's kneeling beside the tub. The crooked smile fades into something softer, almost rueful. She reaches out to cup his cheek, and he leans into the touch, lingering for a moment before he threads his fingers through hers, drawing her arm out so he can draw a clean rag across her skin. Arms, legs, chest, belly. He dips between her legs, breath leaving his lungs in a shaky gust when he meets the mess he left behind. She bites her lip, fighting down a moan, and after a moment he continues on. Soft strokes, careful enough that they make her shiver.
I want to be good to you.
She wants to let him.
"Cold?"
He knows she's not. She shakes her head anyway, and is rewarded with another half smile. The soft drag of the cloth feels good; the slick slide of his skin against hers would be better. He keeps going until she's clean twice over, until she she's shaking, flushed red from the heat and desperate for his touch.
Eventually, he abandons the rag, fingers trailing gently over her breasts. She arches into the touch, chasing after the rasp of callused skin, and he must be full up on gentleness because the moment she does, he abandons that too. He hauls her out to straddle him, water sloshing in her wake, cascading over the edge of the tub to soak the floorboards as they clutch at each other.
They both groan as he works himself inside her, short, rough thrusts, painfully slow until at last she's taken him down to the root. He's so deep like this it feels as if she can barely breathe. It gets worse when his hands finds her hips, fitting themselves to the bruises blooming there. He presses deep, no hesitation at all, and the ache of it makes her whine, high and sharp. It pulls an answering sound from his throat, a guttural snarl that sets her whole body aflame. She can feel herself fluttering around him as she scrabbles at his shoulders, nails digging deep. He lifts her up and slams her back down, thrusting up to meet her, all that monstrous strength brought to bear. Another whine. There are tears in her eyes, coursing hot down her cheeks as they crash into each other, pleasure burning in her blood, hot and dark and fierce, so acute, so brutally good she can't bear it.
She peaks around him, biting down on a cry, but he doesn't stop. He fucks her through it, relentless, curling over her to lick at her tears, to kiss her until she's dizzy with it, until he's straining against her, until they're both trying not to howl, until, until, until—
"Looks like rain," he says later, miles and miles away from the inn, clouds gathering in the distance, bruise-dark against the fading blue of the sky. The air smells like cloves and metal, like leather and blood. No hint of rain yet.
"Yes," she says, the word sweet on her tongue. The sky could be clear, but she'd say it anyway.
Guts crowds close, shoulders broad enough to blot out the horizon.
"Yes," she says, lips against his. He kisses her like he never wants to let her go, animal-rough but tender all the same, sweet beneath the fierce. No pretense about it. She winds her fingers tight in his cloak, drawing him in until there's no space between them.
Yes, she thinks again, pressing it into his mouth, home in every way that matters, yes, yes, yes—
Far away in the distance, the storm breaks and rain begins to fall, hard and cleansing, borne onward on the cool sigh of the wind.