Mirrors (2P!Axis x Reader x 2P!FACE)

Conflict 23: Antihero

(THIS IS NOT THE AUTHOR TALKING IN THIS CHAPTER, IT'S ONE OF THE CHARACTERS.)

First of all, I know you were probably not expecting to click on that notification or next chapter button and then realize that this chapter is starting like this, with me. You probably wouldn't like this, or maybe you would, honestly, I don't care. I just want to get this off my chest...

   Growing up, I had to rely on Oliver teaching me and reading my textbooks for me, it was annoying, but it was all I had.

   I remember back when I was just a kid, I couldn't go to sleep without having Oliver read me a story. Being the kind of sappy but crazy guy he is, the likeliness of these stories ending happily was fifty-fifty. I hated the stories that didn't end happily. I was a kid. But I had no choice for two reasons. One, Oliver looked so happy telling me his stories. Two, I couldn't read.

   It wasn't because I didn't want to, and it was definitely not because I didn't try. God knows just how many hours I spent trying to finish a sentence in a book meant for toddlers. But anyway, I gave up by the time I reached fourteen in human years, which was also my age when I met James for the second time. (The first time was apparently when we were infants, but the details are blurry.)

   He liked a lot of things I liked. He liked animals, big and small. I liked animals, too. He liked camping and counting the stars quietly until he wore his eyes out. I liked doing that instead of counting sheep inside my four-walled room.

   But he was also unlike me in a lot of ways, he was unlike me more than he was like me.

   He ate meat, he milked cows, he played hockey. He hated baseball, he didn't fool around as much as I did, he grew his hair out.

   And unlike me, he could read. James could read. I think it was one of the things I hated him for, mainly because he had something I could never had. A small part of me loved him for it, too, because that meant somebody else could read to me.

   Having someone read to you is an intimate thing. You let your guard down, you lie and sit and daydream. You're free to roll your shoulders. You can close your eyes and just listen.

   James read, but he didn't do it too often because he was always more of an outdoors kind of person, so when he did, I'd just shut up and appreciate him being there. It was one of those moments when I didn't want him dead, I was happy to have my brother.

   But those times weren't meant for us. Our story wasn't meant for a happy ending.

   Ever since a human team of scientists accidentally discovered the existence of rifts, tears in the fabric of space-time, leaders of nations went banana-shit insane trying to outdo the others in making use of rifts.

   You see, you're one of the so-called lucky ones. Your people survived the first and second world wars. The people in our dimension didn't. I mean, they did, but... the world, our world, technologically advanced as it is, took a hundred steps backwards. Half of the human populations died. Countries fell, but none rose from the ashes. The remaining are barely thriving. Oliver's government prevented anarchy with drugs and brainwashing, but it has taken a toll on him. He was now twice the mad hatter and less the man he used to be.

   But I digress.

   Ever since they dragged her here by accident, I wondered what she'd be like. I brag a lot about my escapades, but after the war, I've never been with a woman again. Not in that way. In our world, there were two types of women like there were two types of men: the brainwashed and the soldier. Both types have been scarred too much to be bothered with something as superficial as a one-night stand.

   I flirted and teased and maybe even bullied her. It was really fun, being with her was being young and carefree again. Being young and being carefree were luxuries hard to obtain, and yet, in the past months we've been together, she managed to give them to me without even knowing it.

   "What?"

   "Read something to me. I want to hear your voice crack"

   She was the third person to do that: make me happy (in a non-sexual way). The first night that she read to me, I decided not to tell her she forgot to put on her bra because I didn't need her acting all flustered and crying. But by the time my coming over to her bedroom and her reading to me became a natural phenomenon, I began to have these... urges. They were different from the ones I had before. Different because, I felt weirdly embarrassed and... ashamed.

   I mentioned not wanting to hear her crying, because I hated crying—I didn't know how to handle crying, all my life temper tantrums and violent reactions were how I dealt with my sadness, but lately I've been having fantasies about what that voice... that voice that reads to me whenever I want—would sound like moaning and gasping and panting into my ears. I pictured what that face that once turned red when I told her I was dyslexic, would look like once she was beneath me.

   And then, she'd say something about me not listening and my eyes would regain focus and I'd have to excuse myself out of her room.

   I've never had a first love, but I think that I had finally met her.

   I knew that for a fact now, because when she escaped, I wanted to throw up so bad for many reasons. She'll get lost. She'll trip and break something and die out there. She'll be found by random men and get raped. She'll die.

   She never trusted me.

   When we located her in an Italian rebel HQ, there were no words to describe the feelings whirling inside me. I was happy and angry at the same time. My heart squeezed and did the cartwheel. In the end, I didn't need to know what I should properly feel, I was satisfied just having her back.

   I gotta admit though, I wished I was the one the Rebel shot. I would've finally had my wildest dreams coming true with her almost-naked body pressing on my bare chest. Okay, so maybe not the wildest (definitely not), but I didn't mind having her so close with her arms around me.

   My jealousy grew when I woke up to find them snuggling unconsciously on the couch. I was ecstatic when she decided to join me to gather firewood.

   The rain kept shifting from bad to worse to bad every ten seconds.

   The dropping of tiny water beads down on the soil was distracting, which was good, because I didn't think I could handle hearing my heart shattering inside my chest and then breaking down in front of the woman I needed to be strong for.

   But in the end, it was no good. The silence she gave me had jaws growing bigger and bigger, stretching before they could snap me in half.

   I'm sorry. I forced out a chuckle and picked up the wood. That must've made you feel awkward... knowing you, you probably feel guilty, but don't. From the very beginning, I already knew...

   That night, I went to her room to tell her it was time for dinner. I knocked twice, waited for fifteen minutes before finally losing my patience and deciding to walk in. I stopped dead in my tracks. She was on her knees, her head on the floor. There was a blood-stained pair of scissors lying next to her.

   I rushed to her side, like the prince in the fairytales Oliver and James read to me.

   "What did you do?" My own words were distant, so far from my ears. The only thing I could hear was sobbing, her voice choking.

   "I couldn't do it... Oh, God, I just want it all to end... but I couldn't" I scooped her up into my arms "I couldn't do it... Oh, God... please... kill me"

   I was running. Her wounds weren't deep, just like she said, she couldn't go through with it. But this can't go on.

   I almost knocked over James on my way to the elevator.

   "Hang in there" I whispered, but she was barely sane at the moment. I doubted she even knew she was out of her room.

   Only heroes...

   I pressed my lips to her sweating forehead "...you'll be home soon"

   ...can have the princess.