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[guinegreer]

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text — un: LITTLEPRINCE

[hymen]

Greer. I need you to listen to me.
Don't go to Ash's body. Just wait. He's coming back.
I don't want you to see what was done to him.

[guinegreer]

[ on one level, she understands. some nights, the memory of ash's prone form, that knife handle sticking out of him like a protruding bone, haunts her mind's eye until she's tossing restlessly, losing sleep to it. ]

What did they do, Embry?
Tell me. [ a pause, and then: ] Please.

cw gore

[hymen]

[ as much as he wants to spare her from this, he can't. she'll go looking otherwise. looking for her husband. ]

He bled out. They stabbed him. The wound is eerily fucking similar to what happened before.
He was nailed to a door. And there was something else.
They knifed him. From his bellybutton pointing down to his dick.
I think he was dead before all of that. Dead from the stab wound.

[ he has no idea if that's true. but he has to say it, to give greer something. ]

[guinegreer]

[ it hurts to read it. all of it. but greer forces herself to, more than once, until the ache in her chest is like a phantom pain, an echo of what ash might have felt. ]

So the rest of it... was just to what? Send some kind of twisted message?
He told me, before this happened, that he was going to protect us. And all I keep thinking is that he must have put himself in the way to keep us safe.

[hymen]

[ a long silence. ]

I think Danny did it. And I think he did it because of me.
I don't have proof. I'm going to ask him, when they let him down from the cage.

[guinegreer]

You're going to ask him?

[ with an unspoken that's all? layered in. ]

[hymen]

[ he hears it. ]

What do you expect me to do, Greer? After this?
You both expect me to be someone that I'm not. I'm not like Ash. He can take the high road, but I want to drop a bomb on Danny every day for the rest of his goddamn life.

[guinegreer]

I'm not saying you shouldn't.
Let me come with you.

[hymen]

What the fuck, Greer? No.
There's more.

[ a guilty lapse of silence. ]

If anything happens to Danny, then Jem's threatened to come after you.
I asked Homelander to keep you safe. So no, I don't want you anywhere near this goddamn mess. I'm the one that fucked up. I'm the one that has to fix it.

[guinegreer]

What will it really fix, if something happens to Danny?
You could be giving him exactly what he wants by confronting him alone.

[hymen]

[ you dare talk reason to him ? ]

I can't just not do anything. I can't.
When Melwas took you, all I wanted to do was burn Carpathia to the ground. I wanted to make him suffer. Rotting in a prison somewhere isn't enough.
It's not enough for Danny.

[guinegreer]

I know. And I would have let you.
But there's only so much you can protect me from.

If he killed Ash to get to you, to make you come for him, you'll be playing right into his hands.

[hymen]

[ the truth of that sinks in like a knife, just as painful. that he can't protect greer, or ash. that the only two people keeping him afloat could be taken from him at any time, because the shield he wants to be for them isn't enough to keep out a world that seems intent on destroying them. ]

Will you forgive me, Greer?
How much would you forgive me for?

[guinegreer]

Please, Embry.
Nothing you've done could ever keep me from loving you.

But we already know we'll have to live without him.
I can't lose you, too.