Raikommst - Heaven’s Gate

He expected it to be serene, but death is urgent, restless. It shakes his body and prods at his limbs and tugs at his clothes when he sputters water, gritty in his mouth, stinging crystals of salt. Slaps his cheek once, twice. Death is irritating. Tarrlok bats at it with his hand, tries to when he realises his body is heavy and barely his, unmoving and uncooperative. What does it want?

"Tarrlok," it says, "Tarrlok, Tarrlok, wake up."

It is only fitting that death has the silhouette of his brother that he manages to see, through eyes heavy-lidded with blurry moisture.

But-

"No," he rasps.

He wants to go under. He wants to sink to the bottom and feed the fish and wait for the seaweed to grasp at his remains. He gave himself over, served himself up and the sea just spat him out. The filth of his father's sins must run that deep in his veins, a pitch black stain that can't be purged. An explosion was not enough, and neither was drowning. And what of it? He'll find a way.

"Don't you dare," he can hear Noatak even through the high-pitched ringing, but it's like he never left the waters, and he sounds furious and scared, "Don't go back there. Come here. Come here-"

_

He doesn't know how much of a burden he is when Noatak drags him offshore and in the following days during which he only wakes up briefly, all of it murky and barely coherent, the angry curses and soft reassurances one single cacophony of noise, and the roots of a large tree, and a cave when it rains, an abandoned cabin with rotting floorboards, none of that a home but the calloused hands that rest over his heart, that set fire, and bend the water out of his clothes, that skin the animals of the forest, a bloody sacrifice for a man who does not wish to live, useless, useless, yes, he makes home in those hands, a home, a grave.

He doesn't survive the explosion. Even when he's able to stand up on his own, when he's able to stay awake for longer that a couple of hours, when his burns scar over under Noatak's bending. He doesn't talk. He could ask where his brother gets the supplies, where he found a change of clothes, but he doesn't care. Noatak leaves him on his own, but when Tarrlok manages to wake up and gather enough energy to wander out, he is already back. So he waits. Unthinking, hollow, passive. But one night he bolts up, wraps his hands around Noatak's throat and squeezes. Tarrlok's hands were different—to start with, never a home (oh, how Noatak rejected them as he left), but they can be, will be, a grave. He's already tried to kill him, what's one more time?

The first sound he makes in days is a wounded howl. Noatak doesn't flinch, doesn't resist. Of course, it's only a way to show how much stronger he is, and it fills him with hatred. His brother's eyes fly open so fast, as if he was never asleep to begin with. Tarrlok relishes the pulse thrumming in his hold, the feel of his skin, and screams, screams in his face, claws at him as Noatak pries him off effortlessly.

"I enjoyed your company more when you were sulking," he says calmly, holding his wrists together and pinning him down to a rotten mattress, "Sleep it off. You're going to hurt yourself if you keep this up."

"Get off," Tarrlok twists and writhes under him, "Get off me. What did you do? Did you resuscitate me? Bent the blood back into my heart?"

"That wasn't necessary. I used the mouth-to-mouth technique."

Tarrlok stills.

"Really. What did I taste like?"

"Burnt sugar."

_

He is feverish with madness. It comes to him sporadically. Noatak takes to hunting and trades game at the nearby village. Tarrlok doesn't believe he's not stealing, there's no way he could have gotten them a room for a temporary stay with just that, and it's something he mocks him for, sneering, scowling, pushing in hopes he snaps.

It happens not long after his second attempt to kill him. Noatak doesn't walk into the room to greet him, Amon does. Tarrlok drives him into the wall before he can realise what he's doing.

"What the fuck is wrong with you? Where did you get it?" He's still too weak to bash his head into the wall, but he tries, hoping the mask will crack from the impact. Imagines it so clearly, the force of it, and the splatters of blood, the skull caving in, pieces of it separating like tectonic plates.

"Get what? What are you talking about?"

Tarrlok feels heavy, suddenly. Frozen to the floor. It hurts, but it's familiar. He accepts it. Sometimes he wishes that Noatak puppeteered his body for days on end, so that he wouldn't have to move on his own accord.

"The mask. This wretched thing. How can you be wearing it now, after all of this?"

Amon releases him quickly after he catches a breath, sighs once, twice, and shapeshifts.

"There is no mask, Tarrlok. I'm not wearing one. It was knocked over, remember? That's why we're here."

_

An icy blade that bit into her skin. The living tide that shielded them both. Rainwater and forest currents and lakes and sweat and blood and marrow and snow which he thought buried him, the day he wandered out, the day Tarrlok came back to his home alone in the miserable shadow of his father who years later succumbed to his grief; the snow that appeared in his dreams for months and haunted his thoughts when he was awake. He couldn't survive in that weather. But Tarrlok wanted to think he could, because he felt each individual snowflake as it landed onto the bed of white, grew better at it day by day, too, and his brother was even stronger than that.

Nothing, now. Nothing at all. A phantom pain, akin to the one where his fingers fused together. He finds a knife, and slices through the marred skin, separating them, but it brings no mobility, and no relief.

Noatak caresses his hair after, holds him for the entire night.

"I'm so glad you survived," He says earnestly, warmly, and Tarrlok swears he hears their mother in his voice, "I'm so happy you're here. I love you. I love you."

She'd say exactly what he wanted to hear. Even when she didn't believe in it, and when she aged faster than most, and when she didn't wish to talk at all, she'd find the strength to placate him with sweetest lies. He inherited it from her, just like he inherited a streak of cruelty from Yakone. His political career would not stand without it. But Noatak? He'd always say what he meant. He could lie, of course, but he always believed in his words. Entirely convinced, devoted to the cause.

That's what gets to him. The kindness. He had no right to be kind, to be loving. No right to want him. Not after he left. Not after he took- after he took his-

"I'm beginning to think," Tarrlok laughs unkindly, "That you're far more deranged than I assumed."

"I can't step away from you for a second, these days," Noatak smiles, "Must've caught it from you."

THANK U FOR REBLOGGING MY FIC I HAVENT FINISHED WRITING IT YET BUT ITS GONNA BE PUBLISHED FULL SOON !!!!!

I’ll be waiting!!! It’s incredible

Patriot is criminally underrated and needs a bigger fandom.

only the OGs know the feeling when you post a fic you’ve come to hate but you spent too much time on to not post. oh, and don’t forget the part when you want it to get feedback but the fandom is dead since like 2012

I love you vita divata

Amon is such a silly quirky guy

just some sketches

easy, love

the winter soldier fanart in 2025? it's more likely than you think