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His desired was burning for him just over the black horizon, hooked deep in his bones and pulling him closer irresistibly.
Time was meaningless. It passed over him but he didn’t measure it. He didn’t sleep, or eat. Sometimes he would encounter grey blurs, just barely within his perception, and sometimes he would reach for them and hear their brief cries as they tore apart and spilled over. But they were nothing more than insects compared to the thing he truly longed to catch.
Distance was meaningless too. When a faint light came into view, like the first sign of morning, he continued towards it as doggedly as ever. It seemed to his half-aware mind that it was coming to meet him, and oh, that thought made him ache, somewhere under the numbness at his surface. He’d forgotten what heat felt like, but the flames were coming closer and closer.
He had expected the light to be surrounded by its clinging shadows like moths around a flame, always in the way, always between the two of them - but when the light, his light, reached him, it hid behind nothing.
Guts, came a voice that he knew. He knew it so well it was a part of him; the word rang in his head and his chest like the peal of a bell. The source was there before him, as white-hot as a bonfire and so, so beautiful, but the shine stung his eyes and the heat burned. It would be better to crush it in his jaws and snuff it out. The darkness was cold, but at least it didn’t hurt.
He leapt.
Like a fawn to a wolf his prey went down easily. He had his teeth and his sword so he held the latter to the throat bared beneath him, and then, for the first time in his vague memory, he hesitated. It wasn’t supposed to be over this quickly.
“Do you want to kill me?” That voice again. The light dimmed like the flickering of a flame and for a moment he could see naked flesh pinned under his claws and a delicate face, serene and lovely. Something inside of him howled, longing to press himself to those lips, to open his mouth, to rip and wrench and tear until the image in front of him could not be matched to the images inside of him. “Or is there something else you want first?”
The light flared then, burning him from the inside out. It hurt, but oh he wanted it - he wanted everything he could take from this thing beneath him, everything it would eagerly give him and everything it would struggle to escape from. From his cold surface to the depths of darkness inside of him to his core where glimmers of light still shone, he longed for it. For him.
He pressed him down beneath his own weight, pinning him by the neck and chest. He would kill him, this man, this god, this monster, but first he would take what he wanted.
He felt legs spreading enticingly beneath his own, he felt his gaze searing through him, seeing him, and as easily and instinctively as he split men open with his sword, he plunged into him.
Sparks danced from fingertips to shoulder to neck to fingertips, connecting them. The light around him seemed to dim for an instant and he saw a red mouth, opened in a gasp. Another thrust caused the light to grow weaker yet, and the cry that filled his ears nearly undid him in an instant. Again, and he realized the light wasn’t dimming, but rather the darkness in his periphery was greying like a dawn sky, revealing more and more of him through the haze of light. Again, and he wanted more even than this. With his claws he carved into pristine flesh, burrowing and curling and wrenching, like he was grasping for something, something he’d once held so easily in his bare hands.
The dawn brightened further until he could see the figure under him clearly. His face, twisted in pain, was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. His lips were as pink and full as if he’d been kissing him, and parted in an “o” like he was silently screaming, or singing. His hands tore clumps of grass out of the ground. It was green, vibrantly alive.
Had he ever seen colours before? Not colours like these, nothing so bright and vivid.
He pressed one fragile wrist against the soft ground, relishing the sensation of warm flesh in his hand, the brief moment of resistance.
It would be so easy to tilt his head, take that vulnerable throat between his teeth, and tear him open like everything else he’d caught. Spill more red blood, hear wet choking gasps, watch the light in his eyes dim and take the colours and the heat away with it. Was that what he wanted? Or did he want this - this man, this perfect dream from his past, opening for him like a raw wound? He could hold his life in his jaws, never taking it, but always threatening to. They could exist like this, pressed against each other, inside of each other, caught between death and love forever.
“Guts…” Somewhere in the depths of his mind where those thoughts and images lurked, he’d imagined that Griffith would feel like a marble statue under him. As cold as ice, as unmoved as stone, as lifeless as an empty shell without a soul should be. He could drive himself deep inside of him, whether with his sword or his cock, and Griffith would never feel as real, as warm, as human as he would’ve once, back then.
But he did.
Day broke and Guts came with a ragged cry.
“There you are,” said Griffith.
He pressed his lips to Griffith’s desperately as he grew limp inside of him. He needed more, more something, more… Griffith’s mouth opened to his eagerly, and Guts kissed him like he was trying to devour him. He realized his claws were buried in Griffith’s chest when he flexed his hand and felt Griffith’s gasp of pain against his mouth. He couldn’t feel Griffith’s flesh and blood against his palm. There were only two points of heat on either side of a vast emptiness where the rest of his body should be. Was this a dream? Had he awoken from a dream?
Fingers scraped gently against his scalp and Guts broke the kiss and leaned into his touch, clutching at sensation like the edge of a cliff. He breathed, taking in the rusty scent of blood as he pulled his hand - it was the metal one, the false one - away from Griffith’s torn chest. Griffith’s blood. Griffith’s life. Griffith…
“Why?” he asked. It was the first word he’d spoken in a long time, he realized. His other fist was closed around something. His sword? No, Griffith's wrist. He squeezed, lightly enough that it didn’t shatter.
“Because you wanted this. And I don’t want to fight you.”
Guts pushed himself up. He was still covered neck to toe in armour. He felt it in his head, retreating into the edges of his consciousness even as it reformed over his exposed flesh when he pulled the last of himself out of Griffith’s body, like water flowing into a depression.
When Guts released his arm Griffith didn’t move; he lay there in the grass as Guts looked down on him, chest rising and falling heavily, white as cream and flavoured with slices and smears of deep red. He looked debauched. That very first fight flashed to his mind: Guts straddling him, one or two hits landed before he’d made the mistake of standing up so he could kick instead. He’d lost that fight, and never once regretted it.
Griffith was looking up at him and Guts felt their eyes meet with a jolt. His bright hair formed a perfect halo around his head, and there were twin trails of dusty white flowing from the corners of his eyes and into his hairline. Guts jerked away like he’d been hit. “You -” he began, but trying to speak was like swimming in full armour.
“Do you still want to kill me?” Griffith asked in a tone that was no more than curious as he sat up, leaning with his palms in the dirt behind him. Blood dripped from five gashes on the left side of his chest. Guts had done that. There was a glistening smear of come on his stomach, and Guts had done that too.
The beast stalked deep inside of Guts, teeth bared but wary. Hesitant. “Yes,” he said, shoving the word out of his mouth. His sword lay only a few feet away, dark against the grass; it didn’t gleam in the sunlight like metal should.
Griffith saw where he was looking, but made no move to stop him from reaching for it. He only said, “If you force me to fight, I’ll win.”
“Your chest,” Guts said. “The brand.” He could no longer feel it under the seal, but it was still there, and it meant he could kill him. Maybe. He remembered… Danann had said… or the Skull Knight… He felt like he’d been asleep for days, and his mind was casting around for something to latch onto, to make sense of the waking world.
“I allowed this.” Griffith plucked a long blade of grass and examined it. He used to make whistles with them sometimes, when they were all sitting around the fire, and talk of battle plans had ebbed into companionable chatter. After a moment he let it flutter gently to the ground.
Guts knew he meant more than just the wound on his chest - he’d been waiting for him. “Why? Why didn’t -” The words were so hard to find. Maybe he was still half-beast, trying to understand a world that was simply beyond him.
Griffith looked up again. “You don’t really want to kill me. All your righteous anger has drained away. Somewhere in the darkness of your mind, you know. We’re the same.”
“No,” he said. They weren’t the same. Griffith had made sure of that when he’d sold him out to become a monster, when he’d left with Zodd and deserted him on that cold hill for his dream. They would never be the same. Not really - not the way they could’ve been.
If his blood burned with the lingering sensation of pressing himself inside and feeling like a part of him, it had to be the beast - a corruption of the real thing which had once lived between them, in their silences and their glances and the way Guts had wanted so badly to be his friend. Like Griffith now, this aching, physical longing was nothing more than a mocking husk of the past. Had to be.
“Where are your friends?” Griffith asked, as though he was genuinely curious and not baiting him. Guts’ hands shook as he closed them into fists.
“They were… the island. Elves. They’re safe.”
Griffith laughed. Not scornfully, no, but lightly, and as musical as chimes. Like they were kids and Guts had made one of his typical sardonic comments. A gnawing pit gulped open in his stomach. He cast his mind back, trying to reach something before the long, long night.
The island. The child. He’d had so much hope when Casca had returned, when she’d smiled with the others, even if she couldn’t smile at him. And then Griffith had been there, and a scream had cut through the night like a sword, and hope had been torn out of him.
He remembered. “She accepted,” he whispered.
“She didn’t even try to resist the blood lust that followed, did she? And neither did you. You played so neatly into Danann’s hands.”
“Dan- the Elf King…”
“You’re the result of her attempt to fashion a weapon against me.”
Bile rose in Guts’ throat. “Where is she? Where’s Casca?”
“You were indiscriminate in your rage. Your companions were little more than acceptable sacrifices.”
Naked against the grass and bathed in sunlight, Griffith seemed to glow a little in a suggestion of the overwhelming light he’d seen through the beast’s eyes. There was still something childlike in the faint smile he wore as he spoke the words that sent shockwaves through Guts’ core.
“No,” he breathed. “You’re lying. I didn’t -” But there were shadows in his memory, small ones, and he’d ripped them apart so easily. The ground dropped out from under him, leaving him behind, floating weightless. Nothing to grasp, nothing to hit, no way to fix this. He wanted the armour, he wanted the numbing cold and mindless hate. Why was it only now, after days or weeks blanketed in that darkness, that the beast fled him?
He could still feel it lingering on the edges of his mind. He could call it back.
Griffith had begun this. It was because of him that Casca had opened the behelit.
And because of you that Griffith opened his.
Then this was the solution. Kill Griffith or die trying. He reached for his sword and then stood, unsteadily. His legs, probably nothing more than splinters of bone by now under the second skin he wore, still supported him..
“After all this time, you’ll choose to throw your life away?” Griffith asked. He sounded disappointed.
“Not the first time. Maybe it’ll finally stick. Or maybe I’ll get lucky.”
The armour was not as eager as it had been once, but it stirred, answering to the surging hatred inside him.
“Do you know,” said Griffith, and Guts didn’t want to listen, but the words filled his ears and his chest and he drank them in. “That day on the hill, among the swords… I wasn’t entirely honest with you.”
“Shut up,” he said.
“I’d hoped after Casca sacrificed her child… well, it doesn’t matter. I was wrong. Flesh and blood betrayed me.”
“I said shut up!” The darkness spreading into his vision shied away. Instead he thought of tear tracks, and his name on Griffith’s lips, calling him back. He shuddered, nearly swaying. He could face a thousand men, a thousand monsters, but Griffith… how could he face him?
Griffith rose to his feet, as beautiful and graceful as the unicorns on that fucking island. His hair fell around him like waves trailing a ship, and blood coated his chest, over his heart.
Guts swung his sword.
The air felt charged and electric for a moment, black briefly swarming around Griffith like a fading afterimage. His blade stopped a hair from Griffith’s neck, as solidly as if Guts had aimed straight down into the hard ground. He was almost surprised he didn’t hear a thunk with it.
“We could be fifteen again,” said Griffith.
What if I win?
“We can’t.” He swung again. His arm felt weak under the armour, but the metal had a strength of its own and carried him through. Again, his sword hit hard against nothing.
“You could join me. Take your revenge on Elfhelm. Exorcise everything through that sword. Or through me, if that’s what you want.”
Taking him again, tearing him up and bruising and biting, blood and semen, flesh and bone - he did want it.
“You’re not even human,” he ground out through clenched teeth. “You’re not real.”
“We’re all human, Guts.” The gentle breeze blew his hair lightly into his face, one long strand caressing his lips. Guts remembered a day, long ago, when he’d felt the urge to brush his hair back for him.
He swung; again his sword fell short. Maybe he just didn’t have the strength to defeat him anymore.
“You say we’re the same, but we’re not. You’re still out of reach. You’ll never have an equal.”
He swung once more, overhead this time. His blade stopped again, pressed against Griffith where neck met pristine shoulder. As Guts watched, a thin line of red worked its way down to collect in the dip of Griffith’s collarbone.
“What is equality?” asked Griffith. “Is it power? Status? Perspective? Emotion? Need?” His voice was calm, but there was something building behind it, like a cloud bank. “When you left to become my equal, wasn’t I already kneeling at your feet? And you’re still too arrogant to consider that you might be wrong.”
“This is nothing like that!” He pulled his sword back and let it drop, point resting heavily on the ground. The blood overflowed its little pool and trickled down Griffith’s chest like a mountain stream. He fixed his eyes on the blackened iron of his blade instead of the red and white of Griffith and drew a deep, shaky breath.
Griffith was silent for a moment, as though waiting for Guts to speak again. And he did. “You traded me for your kingdom. Tell me I’m wrong.”
“I would have traded you away for nothing at all,” Griffith answered. Guts snapped his head up, a fresh wave of anger rolling through him, but Griffith wasn’t finished. “I would have killed you myself to deaden my own heart. I thought I had, for a time.”
“Then try again.”
“Stubborn.” The subtle fondness in Griffith’s voice made a bruising ache rise in Guts’ chest and throat, made him long again for the simplicity of the beast’s black rage. He still felt that rage, or an echo of it, but there was so much more than that coursing through him now, and all of it hurt.
“Why don’t you?” he asked again, knowing it sounded like a plea. Maybe it was.
“Because I realized that I still want you.”
His words hit like a knife. Guts took a ragged breath as the ache in his chest grew, threatening to overtake him. What would happen if he lost control? Would he scream, or attack again, or just fall to his knees and cry?
“To what? To fuck you, or fight for you, or -” he cut himself off as Griffith smiled, the echo of his words eight years ago striking both of them. The memories came so easily, like sparks burrowing into his chest and heating him from within.
“Either. Both. Anything. I intend to destroy Elfhelm - maybe that would appeal to you now.”
Guts barked out a bitter laugh. “You want me to help secure your kingdom. Everything comes back to that. Nothing’s changed, right?” He shifted his grip on the hilt of his sword. Maybe he had enough strength to force Griffith to kill him, and finally end this charade.
And then Griffith nodded - but not in agreement. It looked like acceptance. “Nothing has changed,” he agreed. Where his tone had once been as cold as steel, now it was rueful. “I’ve come to understand how true that is, since we last spoke. You must understand that the point was never to rule - it was to create. Once I remove those few beings remaining who have the power to destroy my empire, I can leave it behind to flourish without me.”
“Bullshit.” Suddenly Guts’ heart was thudding so hard he could hear it, louder than his own words. “You’d never give it up.”
“But as long as Falconia exists, I’ve fulfilled my purpose. When its enemies are dead, I will no longer be necessary to sustain it.”
“It’s - no. You’re lying.” But what he said made sense. Didn’t it? Or did he only think that because it was what he wanted to hear? Nothing made sense, none of this conversation, not a minute of his life in the last four years made sense. It had turned upside down and nothing would ever right it again. “You’re still that demon.”
“It’s a part of me, just like yours - and the stains on your hands are fresh. You’re still wearing its skin.”
Guts felt it as he spoke: the metallic numbness where his body should have been, where only agony would be if he tore the armour away from muscle and bone. He could feel it in his head too, pacing slowly and without immediate intent, but waiting. He looked down and flexed his claw-like hand.
“I can take the armour off,” he said, but he knew it was a lie even as he spoke. The armour hadn’t created the beast. He’d hurt Casca before he’d ever worn it.
Maybe Griffith wasn’t wrong. Maybe they were the same - maybe he’d created this world for people like them. They fit right in with the dragons.
“What would we do?” he asked, his voice so low he didn’t know if Griffith would hear him.
Griffith shrugged, but, belying the casual gesture, his gaze was so intense that Guts could feel it on him even without meeting his eyes. “Anything you want.”
He’d wanted to move on. He’d tried so damn hard just to stop feeling so much - to fill the aching hole in his chest with anything else. New companions, new goals, new distractions. It had been like slackening his thirst with salt water.
He only remembered glimpses of what he’d done inside the armour. The wet tearing of flesh, punctuated by snapping tendons and crunching ribs. Distant screaming. If he couldn’t remember, didn’t that mean it wasn’t really him?
No. He knew what he’d done - a part of him, a part he’d known existed in him since he was eleven, had wanted to destroy his companions. He’d given that part of himself strength; he’d coaxed it out believing he could leash it and tame it. He’d ignored the warning words and signs; over and over he'd dismissed the power his own rage held over him.
Why? Why had he been so careless when he knew how easy it was to destroy what he loved?
He looked at the drying blood tracing a thin line from Griffith’s shoulder to the bottom of his ribs. He remembered rivers of blood flowing from his eyes, and from another wound in his shoulder, down the length of his arm. He remembered stopping his sword before it could draw blood and then walking away.
Maybe one day Griffith would let his guard down, and then they could finally destroy each other for good. It would be only fitting, wouldn’t it? Didn’t they both deserve to die now? Didn’t they both deserve to land those final blows?
Didn’t they deserve each other?
Griffith’s clothes and armour lay in a neat pile under a tree, a few lengths away. After a beat he noticed his sword too, propped up against the trunk; it was dull in the shade.
“All right,” Guts said. “We’ll be fifteen again. Nothing but our swords.” He raised his. “If I win, I put a hole in you the size of this.”
Griffith’s expression shifted a little. Anyone else would’ve missed it, but Guts knew his face so well, even after all this time. His painting-perfect smile hadn’t changed, but now it looked real. Eager. “And if I win?” he recited.
“I’ll finish the battle I started all those years ago. I’ll help you secure your kingdom. And then we’ll leave it behind.”
It wasn’t a proposal that favoured Griffith, to lose his life or his crown, and yet - “I accept,” he said.
Griffith forwent the armour, redressing only in ordinary cloth, so reminiscent of those past fights. Guts met Griffith's bright eyes, and recalled the easy arc of his sword when he'd cleaved Griffith's in two. He remembered the crunch of snow beneath his boots as he'd walked away. The last time they’d fought, he’d won.
Today the breeze was warm as it caressed Guts’ face and pulled Griffith’s hair along in its wake. The grass was soft and springy under his heels. He swung.