#for once I'm sad I don't do my research notes on Tumblr bc this assumes some amount of reader knowledge of Antonio Salieri's existence as an | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ziracona · 3 years

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Got to the next bit, which I was very excited to write. : )

The Kid (pt: 1, … 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, ?) [Fate Grand Order AU]

Mnng… ahh. W..? what…? …where… a…

Oh. Oh dear. I am…still here…

This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening. I choke on the way that desperation feels. It has been. so long. since… since I really felt. …fear. It.

I…

I whimper and shut my eyes against the darkness. There’s nothing good to see. The stone floor is cold, and I am bolted to it with shackles at my arms and ankles, stuck on my side, curled up painfully and at awkward angles. It. It makes the pain all so much worse.

So much worse so much worse. Help. God, please, help me. help me.

I haven’t felt like this. I…I never wanted to feel like this again.

What’s going on what’s going on; I don’t understand! Why! It’s not possible it’s not possible.

Was all of it a dream? Did I never really die, and everything I remember since, the throne, summonings, friends—was it all just fever dreams? It can’t be.

It can’t be.

I keep my eyes shut tight. It can’t be. Or where is Sophie? Where is Constanze? Where is… where is…

I try not to cry. It feels so awful. I’m dying. I’m dying and it’s not injury pain, it’s the awful broken pain of your body failing. It’s the fear in every dream when your teeth fall out, or your scalp peels back with your hair, and you want to scream, because it cannot be fixed. Only it’s real and it’s me, and it’s my whole body, and I can’t save myself. Nobody can save me. I’m going to die again I’m going to die.

My arms and legs, my stomach, my face, my hands and feet. They are all so swollen it hurts to not move, it hurts to move, it hurts to look at them. The metal pinning me down bites into my skin unforgivingly. I open my eyes for a moment to look at them, picturing how horrific I seem, remembering how I looked before. Rash all along my skin, little bumps. I’ve vomited, and it’s on the floor and on my face, on my skin and in my hair. My organs are shutting down. I’m dying, but it won’t end. I’m pouring sweat, and it’s disgusting, and broken, and I am broken, and I am dying, and my horrible Requiem in D Minor is playing. It has been playing for hours, for days. Haunting me, killing me again. It won’t end. None of it will end, and I don’t want it to. I don’t want to live, but I am terrified to die.

Please. I shut my eyes again, feeling the sting of tears. I am not used to feeling afraid, I am not used to feeling serious, I am not used to feeling hurt. I can’t go on. I can’t make it stop.

There is a sound.

A door? A loud thud of some kind.

Praying for hope, for rescue, anything, I open my eyes and look up.

I see the man in grey. His coat, his mask, his long cloak.

Death. My death.

I feel my heart lurch and terror fill my veins.

“Oh God,” I choke out. I’m starting to cry and I can’t stop it. Feverishly weakly, I try to move—get up, or recoil, and I am not strong enough to break the shackles, I am not even strong enough to drag myself back the inch I might have been able to with them on. I can’t run from him, I can’t hide, or fight.

He steps into the room, cloak billowing behind him in the darkness, and Dies Irae starts to play.

Wrath is coming for me indeed. I can feel his hate, his rage, seeping into the room, into me. The intent to kill.

There is a corpse already slung over his shoulder, and he looks at me, then picks the limp body up off himself and sets it on the ground and moves forward. He comes for me.

“P-please,” I whisper, “No. Please. Please don’t—please.” I shut my eyes and start to shake. It’s too much; I feel myself splintering.

The footsteps stop.

Still shuddering and crying, I open my eyes again, and see he has stopped, close above me. I am staring at his shoes. I am afraid to look higher.

“Amadeus.”

I am shaken by the voice. I know it. It sounds mournful, and like a ghost itself, like the word was hard to say.

It does not sound like the man in grey should.

“What have they done to you?”

I make myself look up at him. Shock and something else I haven’t understood yet in my chest. I know the voice.

He’s looking down at me, brows knit in worry and pain. Wait.

There is no mask. He has a face. I can see his face.

I know his face.

“Salieri?” I ask. My voice is such a whisper I barely hear it, but I know he does too, because he almost smiles for just a moment, and he nods.

Salieri. Salieri—god. But then.

“You aren’t here to kill me?” I make sure, my voice shaking. I had forgotten. That he…is…

He stoops, and I shudder involuntarily. I see agony on his face in response. “Please don’t say that to me,” he begs me quietly, looking away.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, letting my eyes shut, “I’m dying. I am not very much myself.”

By way of answer, Salieri reaches down and closes his fist around one of the shackles, and it cracks and disintegrates beneath his touch. I look up and he looks back at me and smiles, a weak, weary smile.

“I knew you were here,” he tells me quietly, “I could feel it—for days now. I kept forgetting, but I knew. I’m sorry. It took so long…”

“Where are we?” I ask him.

“I don’t know,” answers Salieri. He takes another shackle in his hands and shatters it carefully, “But I’m getting us out.”

Relief fills me, and I close my eyes and let out a breath. God, thank you. I can’t believe it.

“Okay,” I say, keeping my eyes shut.

I sense him move, and feel one of the shackles on my ankle beak, then he stops moving, so I look up again.

“…Can you survive?” Salieri asks me, “Without a master—how long?”

How long? I swallow, thinking. “I’m not sure,” I answer honestly in a quiet voice, thinking about that. My odds are terrible.

He flexes his fingers, agitated. It looks horrifying, because the way he is now, his gloves are like claws, and the action seems menacing, but I know him. I remember it—a little warmup, to keep blood flowing in a pianist’s hands. How little he must have changed. In spite of everything. …That…I…

…caused…

“I can do it.”

I focus on him again, confused.

“I can anchor you. A little. I can…I can pass on enough mana to keep you material until we can find a real anchor,” he says. I’m not sure if he can or not, looking at him. I’m not sure if he knows.

But he meets my gaze then, and he is determined. It’s so odd to see his eyes red now. They used to be brown—a kind of almost golden brown. Otherwise he looks very much the same, even if his hair is now more white than grey.

“Okay,” I whisper.

He holds my gaze a moment, making sure I believe him, and then he snaps the last shackle. Immediately, I feel like my little remaining energy is sucked out of me. I think I I’m going to lose consciousness…

I’m looking…at the far wall, dazedly. I…I think it’s only been seconds. I’m not sure. I did black out?

I’m…confused. My head aches, my body aches. I want to cry. I am staring at my swollen hand, so big it could never play right on a piano. Then there’s a body in my line of sight. I make my eyes shift up and focus and register Salieri is here.

Oh. Yes. He was… he…

He reaches out a hand and places it on my chest, and I feel a strange sensation, almost like something has snapped—it’s a little scary. But with it, I feel energy return. A small burst of mana.

Salieri is looking at me hopefully.

“It worked?”

I nod. “I…I think.”

I feel my body ebbing into unconsciousness again and my eyes start to shut. Salieri puts a hand out beneath my cheek and tilts my face up a little, trying to hold my consciousness.

“Easy,” he says worriedly, “Try to lay still.”

“Okay,” I whisper, remembering to not nod this time.

He lets go of me. I shut my eyes and lay still. I know he’s still there—I can sense him. I don’t know what he’s doing though. I can’t remember what he said he’d do.

I get scared. I feel like throwing up again, and I think I might. My limbs ache. Breathing hurts. I don’t remember why I’m here, or what’s going to happen. I might still die. I don’t want to. I don’t want to die alone. I…

Blindly, I move a hand, feeling for Salieri, and I find his own and limply close my fingers around his wrist like I might have the strength to keep him here.

He stops moving, and I can sense him looking at me.

“Stay with me?” I plead, forcing my weak eyes open so I can see his face.

“I’m not leaving you,” he says, and I know immediately how absolutely he means it. He puts his other hand on mine, gently, and gives me that sad, sorry, affectionate smile he has again. “Did I leave you last time?”

I smile weakly back. No, you didn’t. You stayed with me until the end. You loved me, even though I was never sure if you ever liked me.

Feeling safer, I shut my eyes again and lay still, and after a moment he lets go of my hand and returns to whatever he’s doing.

“I’m sorry,” I say through weak breaths, smiling sadly to myself at the thought, “You have to see me like this. I know it’s terrible…”

He almost laughs. There’s quiet for a moment, and then he says, “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”

That’s true. I looked at least this horrible the last time.

“Still,” I say tiredly. I open my eyes and look at my swollen hand, try to move my fingers. It’s agony. I feel like the water in them will burst any second, my skin feels so tight.

Salieri’s frame shifts into view again, and he slides his arms beneath my shoulders and knees and lifts me easily. I stay limp. I don’t have the energy for anything else, and this is the safest I’ve felt in a long while anyway.

After going a few feet, over closer to the door he came in by, Salieri stoops again. He lays me back on the floor but keeps my head propped up in his lap and takes a handkerchief out of his pocket and reaches down, using one hand to hold my face steady, and the other to wipe old vomit off. He moves gently. It’s almost soothing, and it feels so good to have that foul stuff coming off. I look up at his face, curious with what little energy I have left. I haven’t seen him since I died. It’s been a few hundred years, and I know what they did to him. I wasn’t exactly sure what he’d still be like. But I feel silly for having worried. He still seems to be Salieri.

Looking down, he sees me watching and smiles. “Did you really think I would care about that?” he replies to my earlier comment as he carefully cleans vomit out from along my hairline.

No, I think, smiling up weakly at him, I didn’t. You’ve seen a lot worse. And you never were the kind to.

I relax, and shut my eyes again, let myself go limp, and Salieri support my head. I know what he is. I know what they did to him. We know, often, about other spirits on the throne. A little, anyway. I knew what happened to him. In some ways I watched it happen.

I feel guilty for that, though I’m trying not to. It’s not like I wanted it to happen. I try not to think about how he must be feeling, and how painful this must be. He seems so calm right now. I can almost believe he’s not fighting back the urge to run me through on his sword.

I know he must be, though. It made him an Avenger.

But I’m not afraid of him.

You have seen worse. And I know how you handle things.

I smile to myself a little.

I …I think I’m sad.

Sad? …

“…Salieri?” I ask weakly after a moment, eyes still shut.

“Yes,” he replies.

I don’t know what I was going to say. My head is foggy again, and weak. I think I was going to say I’m sorry, but I can’t say that to him. He would hate that. I don’t want to make him think about it any more than he must already be anyway. I don’t want to think about it. Usually I’m. I’m so good…at…at ignoring this kind of thing. It must be because I’m so…feverish. That I can’t stop thinking. …But. ..I…

I open my eyes and look up at him, and I think he sees it. He must see the guilt in my eyes, at least. I am sorry—I didn’t do it, and I can’t say it, but I am. And I’m worried. I’m…

He looks sad. Swallows. Then shuts his eyes and sighs, then looks off at nothing for a moment.

“Salieri?” I say again.

He looks back down at me.

I try to move my arm again. It’s hard, and he notices and I think for a moment he will stop me, but he doesn’t, and with immense effort I drag my hand along my torso until I find his wrist again. I can’t get my arm any higher, but he lowers his hand so I can reach it. With all the frail strength I have left, I weave my fingers around his. He watches that, then looks at me, an expression on his face I wouldn’t know how to begin to describe beyond frail itself, but in a very different way.

“Thank you,” I say.

I manage a smile.

I mean a lot more. I hope he can tell. I think he can.

I. I hope he can. …

I don’t have more to give. I let my eyes shut again, and I think this time with the energy I’m losing, I might not wake up again.

That would be alright.

No, I think, He promised.

He did.

I lose track of time a little, but after a minute I feel him lift me again, and I let myself lean limp against his chest. I think it will be okay.

It doesn’t matter that he’s supposed to kill me. He told me he wouldn’t, and he has a plan, so I will probably wake up again. I’m safe.

I’m safe. That’s right.

I smile, and let my consciousness go. I’m safe now. He’s staying with me. I’ll be safe.

#fate go #fate grand order #fate go au #the kid (fic)#the kid #fate salieri #fate go salieri #fate mozart #fate go mozart #for once I'm sad I don't do my research notes on Tumblr bc this assumes some amount of reader knowledge of Antonio Salieri's existence as an #Avenger and how it relates to Mozart. I hope it is close to as enjoyable even if not. And if you don't know and want to know I am happy to #give a breakdown

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