eternal flame | tartaglia x reader

Chapter Sixteen

"I can help, but you need to talk to me. I need the whole story."

"Okay," Ajax starts. "When I was fourteen, I didn't only go missing for three days. For me, I was gone for three months."

You push down the wrenching feeling in your gut and ask, "How does that work?"

"I fell through a crack in the ground into a place called the Abyss. Time passes differently there."

You can't help but frown at the explanation. That can't be possible, can it? This has to be a lie, a twisted joke of sorts, Ajax has never once been fully honest with you in the past six years, so why would he start fessing up now?

When you take a moment to inspect Ajax's expression, the answer is clear.

There's nothing but despair on his face. He's telling the truth because he's at rock bottom. He has nothing else to lose.

"The Abyss? Like, an Abyss Mages?" you ask after your pause.

Ajax chuckles dryly, "An Abyss Mage is no more bothersome than a butterfly compared to the monsters that you find in there. I woke down there with nothing but a shortsword and a vision that I had no control over. I was a dead body walking- I still don't feel like I should be alive today. You don't, can't, you can't come back from that."

You pull a chair up to sit across from Ajax, taking his hands in yours and squeezing in encouragement.

"I was so young back then, it really fucked with my head," Ajax confesses.

"You're still young now," you tell him.

There's a beat of silence before he replies, "I suppose that you're right."

"Is that why you uh- fought so many people back in Morepesok?"

Ajax shrugs, "More or less. It was hard adjusting back to normal life, and I was still so scared. In there, I was worse than the scrawny shy kid, I was a sitting duck waiting to be killed. I didn't really feel like I had a choice but to hurt those bullies and shopkeepers, anyone who could harm us."

Harm us. It echoes in your head the moment he speaks those words. After all these years, he still insists on considering the both of you. It's like you're still a duo in his mind.

"I understand why you did it," you assure him. Really, you did. "Why didn't you talk to me back then?"

For the first time in the conversation, Ajax takes a moment to think before he speaks, "They're unspeakable, the things I saw there. I couldn't put that on you. I've never even- even told anyone that I've spent time in the Abyss until right now."

Once again, you're his first. Ajax's first friend, first love, first person-he-told-about-falling-into-literal-hell. You can't bring yourself to give a verbal response to the confession, opting instead to nod your head and squeeze his hand a bit tighter.

"I didn't make a lot of friends during my days in the Fatui. I was kind of favoured by a harbinger since my recruitment, so not a lot of people wanted to get close to Pulcinella's new toy. I only had to stick with that reputation for a few years, though. A few days before my eighteenth birthday, Her Majesty informed me of my promotion to be her Eleventh. I was allowed to go back home for a day, because she knew I wouldn't get to go back for years, probably."

Ajax's expression lights up a bit when he mentions Her Majesty The Tsaritsa. You knew that he was loyal to her, as any Snezhnayan would be, but you had no idea that he held such a deep admiration for her as well.

"You really grew up in those four years. I actually thought that you were Alec when I saw you for the first time," you admit.

Ajax smiles at the thought. "I had no idea. It must have been a shock."