Hansel: Breathe

He was drowning.

He was too heavy and his lungs screamed for air, and no matter how hard he tried to claw upward, he couldn't stop sinking, sinking into the red eye that gazed up at him from the ocean floor and filled the water with bloody, horrible light.

It knew his name; it bellowed his name. Blood in the water. Blood in the water.

He shuddered, leaning over the side of the wrecked ship, damp and cold, his bones aching. It was dawn. Kheman stood next to him, but he looked wrong -- he was the Kheman Hansel had first met, a decade ago. He shouldn't be here, shouldn't be now. His daughter was too young to lose him.

Kheman looked out over the horizon. “Red sky at dawn,” he said. “That's no good.”

Hansel remembered saying *Can't get much worse*, but he couldn't make his mouth move.

There was a hand on his shoulder and he turned to see Mishka -- Mishka, dripping black from his eyes and his mouth, his arm gashed open and bleeding thick ink. His voice was soft and musical and sweet and he touched Hansel's face and whispered, “Hello, lover.”

The sky opened before Hansel could react, wind and rain tearing at the ship, and he turned to try to grab onto Kheman but he was already gone, and Mishka was gone, and the sky was red, staring down at him alone in the storm.

It pounded in his head like a heartbeat: *kill them. kill them. kill them. kill them.*

There was no one left. He wanted to scream it -- there was no one fucking left, he had already killed them all, he couldn't take anything else from himself. He had nothing left to bargain with. If it wanted blood so badly, why wouldn't it just fucking take his?

He still couldn't speak.

Larkin Basha stood where her father had been, and Nixie was beside her, and the rest of the crew behind them -- all untouched by the storm -- and his head pounded. He wanted to fucking roar, to rage, to deny the voice, to scream that he would die first, but his trident was in his hand. It was already slick with blood. He had already killed Mishka.

The prongs were in Nixie's stomach and she just … looked at him. She just looked at him, so fucking sad and betrayed. If it were Larkin, he thought, she would fight back -- Roddy would run away -- Goro would fight back -- she *should*.

But she just looked at him. The moment was frozen. He was far away and he was powerless under the great eye that knew his name.

“Hansel! Hansel! Fuck -- wake up, you have to wake up --.”

He gasped in a breath as he found the surface again, shoving and scrambling away from whatever was touching him instinctively until his back hit the wall. He needed his trident, needed a weapon, needed something to defend himself with, but fuck, he still had the after-image burning in his head of his crew -- of his hands on his trident --

“I'm awake,” he mumbled. “I'm awake. I'm awake.” Jonn wasn't here to hold him down and tell him, so he told himself. “I'm awake, I'm awake, I'm awake.” He was shaking, his hands fists in the blankets.

“You're awake,” Mishka reassured him, pale and wide-eyed but clearly trying to stay calm.

He was here. That didn't help at first, because it didn't seem real, didn't seem possible. Mishka was here, kneeling on his bed, holding his hands out tentatively. Hansel realized he'd shoved him away in his panic. But his eyes weren't bleeding black, his arm wasn't speared. He was here.

“You're all right.” It was a statement rather than a question, just saying it out loud to make the truth seem firmer.

“*I'm* fine, Hansel,” Mishka said. “Are you … all right now? You were …”

Screaming. He knew. It'd been a while, but he remembered. “Sorry.” His voice was hoarse. Fuck, he hoped he hadn't woken anyone else up.

Mishka just stared at him.

“What if I do it again?”

“It's -- it's okay.” Mishka moved closer, put a hand on his arm. “I'll be here.”

God, that was what he was fucking worried about. Mishka didn't understand -- he didn't know. He only knew what Kheman had been able to tell him. He didn't know about the voice, the eye, the pounding in Hansel's head. He knew that Hansel had killed almost their entire crew and he hadn't even asked about it -- he'd curled against Hansel and gone to sleep. Like Hansel was safe to be around.

*I love you*, he'd said. *I just want to be around you.*

But Mishka said a lot of shit. Not to call him husband. Not to help him. That Hansel didn't love him. That Hansel didn't deserve to be tortured.

“Just breathe,” Mishka told him.

He nodded and leaned his head back against the wall, closing his eyes. He tried to just breathe and not think, not let his mind replay the last moments of the nightmare over and over like it always did. Mishka shifted to lean against his side, his cheek on Hansel's shoulder. Hansel could feel himself settling, his heart slowing.

“Does this … happen to you a lot, now?” Mishka asked.

Hansel hesitated. “Not anymore.”

“Then it used to.”

Should've just said no. It wouldn't have been a lie -- Mishka had said ‘now’. He swallowed. “Every night.”

He wanted to say he'd be fine. It was just a little relapse. Jonn had helped him through the worst of it -- well, dragged him through the worst of it when he'd wanted to just stay there and suffer -- but Mishka wouldn't want to hear about fucking Jonn. God, he didn't even know if Mishka knew the role Jonn had played in what had happened to him. He might actually kill the kid when he found out. Then Hansel would have to figure out how to feel about that.

Too many problems. He felt as if he hadn't slept at all. He realized Mishka had never responded to him, but he supposed there wasn't much to say. He just … wanted to go back to sleep. Specifically, he wanted to get drunk and black out, but he'd already drank everything he'd had stashed on the ship, so he settled for just pulling Mishka back down with him and holding him tight.

That helped.

He could do this. He kept breathing.