Chapter Text
This is not how the night was supposed to go. It was a routine assignment, a politician whose plethora of armed guards had been child’s play to Yor to dispose of. She’d been in a hurry, more ruthlessly efficient than usual, anxious to get home before her absence exceeded a length suitable for the excuse of a work event she’d used to justify her late night out. The assassination of the target had gone smoothly, but one of the guards had managed to activate some kind of alarm system that had the place swarming with reinforcements within minutes.
Yor sighs in annoyance, glancing at her escape route. The guards have all seen her, so it’s safest to get rid of all of them. It feels like a waste of time and energy, since the assassination is already done anyway, but she slashes at one after the other, golden thorns dripping with blood, glinting with each swing.
Suddenly, the men around her all don masks, as if responding to some unseen cue. The room rapidly fills with some kind of gas, clouding her vision and filling her senses, and all at once everything is a lot less distinct than it was a moment ago.
Caught in the visual and mental fog, she fails to evade a shot from one of the masked men ahead, and the bullet hits her square in the shoulder, knocking the breath out of her. She snarls at the pain blooming in her shoulder, quickly slashing at her assailant with her thorn. Once he's out of her way she stabs through the crowd of still gathering guards, towards the window she’d planned to leave through. Forcing it open, she lets herself drop through, narrowly dodging another shot and disappearing into the darkness.
Hurrying out of the compound, she takes deep gulps of the fresh night air, trying to chase whatever’s left of the mysterious gas out of her body. Her shoulder burns, and she presses at it with her hand, trying to stop the bleeding. Right now her primary objective is to get rid of her blood stained clothes and get the wound treated. There are Garden safehouses that have first aid kits - she'll go to the nearest one, get clean, and take a dozen painkillers to get rid of the ache in her shoulder. Then she'll go home, and everything will be fine.
The street lamps blur, and the world wobbles dangerously as she melts into the shadows, making her way towards an increasingly indistinct cluster of buildings in the distance. Her head is light, and her footsteps uneven, and she realizes with a distant panic that she’s inhaled more of the gas than she’d thought. Everything is muddled, and she shakes her head, trying to remember what she has to do. This disorientation is dangerous, she’s still covered in blood, and carrying a pair of equally bloody thorns. She hurls the weapons into the bushes, though a faint voice at the back of her head screams at her that that’s not what she’s supposed to do with them.
Her shoulder hurts, and the corners of her vision are blurring. Shaking her head to clear it, she tries to focus on where she needs to go, somewhere where she can get help. Changing course, she hurries through the back streets of the city, dodging behind walls and trash bins that all look the same, driven by sheer adrenaline. She’s losing blood, and it adds to the haziness. She stumbles blindly, carried by her instincts, until she reaches her destination. Fumbling with her dress, she realizes that she doesn’t have a key. Her shoulder twinges, and she crushes the door lock with her hand, pushing into the room-
-only to be met by a very startled Loid Forger. Her first reaction is confusion - as glad as she is to see him, what’s Loid doing in a Garden safehouse? She looks around and realizes that this isn’t a Garden safehouse at all, this is her literal house. And that is her husband, staring at her in her bloody dress with the most bewildered expression she’s ever seen him wear.
She doesn’t have time to parse the implications of the fact, as the adrenaline wears off and leaves a sudden bout of dizziness in its wake, causing her to pitch forward. Strong arms stop her from hitting the ground, and she finds herself in Loid’s hold. She winces as he touches her shoulder, and he shifts, supporting her weight against himself.
“What happened, Yor?” His tone is commendably even, save for the slight breathiness in the way he said her name.
“‘s nothing,” she mumbles, grimacing. He’s warm and solid in front of her, and she clings to the sensation through the haze in her mind. “Just my shoulder…. 's been shot.” She frowns at the memory. She hates getting shot. It’s such a hassle.
Loid doesn’t say anything more. She shifts so that she can see his face. He’s got that expression that he dons when he shuts everything out so that his mind can work at a mile a minute to find the solution to a problem. The sight is oddly reassuring in its familiarity, despite the alarm bells going off somewhere in the back of her head.
Loid seems to have come to some internal conclusion, because his face goes carefully blank, and in one smooth motion, he scoops her into a bridal carry, moving towards their bedrooms.
She distantly registers him opening a door, and then she’s sitting on a bed, back against the pillows. She recognizes the place, it’s her room. Vaguely, she hopes that Loid doesn't check the drawer where she keeps her poisons, then wonders what reason he would possibly have to do so.
Loid dips out of the room, returning a moment later with the first aid kit and a glass of water. With mechanical precision he pulls a few things out of the box, and moves over to her side. He holds two pills and the glass of water out to her.
“Painkillers,” he says simply, and she pops them into her mouth, gratefully accepting the water once her hand is free.
Loid stands by the bed for a moment, looking at her contemplatively.
"I’m going to treat the wound," he announces, clearing his throat. "Is it ok if I undo the neck part of your dress?"
Yor nods her consent, still trying and failing to clear her thoughts and pinpoint what exactly is causing that distant feeling of alarm that clangs noisily in the back alleys of her mind. Loid stands for a moment longer, as if gathering courage, before slowly moving to undo the halter neck of her dress, gently moving the fabric down from her shoulders. Refocusing on the wound, Loid wipes her shoulder with what’s probably some kind of antiseptic, given how it stings. Then he presses gauze to the wound, and she hisses at the sudden pressure.
“It’s to stop the bleeding,” he says, and his tone is both tense and soothing all at once. The shoulder is not the worst place to be shot, but it’s still risky. To distract herself, Yor mentally lists the major arteries that pass through the shoulder. She’s lucky that it doesn't seem like any of them were hit.
Loid wraps a bandage around her shoulder, holding the gauze in place. “That should be fine for a now,” he says quietly, moving to stand at the foot of the bed, almost awkward now that the initial shock has passed. There’s a tension to his posture though, and his blue eyes seem sharper than usual in the half-light. Yor looks at the blood on his hands, her blood, then down at the blood covering her own hands. A sudden spike of guilt and fear pierces through the imprecise jumble of her thoughts, making her shudder. The cause of the previously distant alarms leaps to the forefront of her mind, and she’s suddenly short for breath.
It is very, very suspicious to come home in the middle of the night covered in blood. Normal wives do not come home in the middle of the night covered in blood.
And yet here she is, practically bleeding out on her bed, as if to announce to the whole world that she’s an assassin. As if to carelessly reveal the one secret she’s worked so hard to keep to the one person she’d wanted to keep it from the most, the person who is currently standing at the foot of her bed with her blood on his hands.
She does not regret her work. But she does not want it to damage the family she has come to cherish. Finding out that your spouse is an assassin is something that would shake even the most long-lasting and stable of marriages. It’s a failure as a wife, on a scale most people wouldn’t even think possible. Mentally, she curses herself for getting mixed up, for allowing this brush between the carnage of her work and the comfort of her home.
She can barely bring herself to look back at Loid, but she chances a glance up at him anyway. His gaze is contemplative and shrewd, and her internal panic grows. There’s no way he isn’t suspicious. He’s always been extremely alert, and there’s nothing subtle or discreet about a wound like this. Dread pools in her gut, and she swallows harshly. Loid figuring out she’s an assassin would make him a risk to Garden, a target. She would never forgive herself if Anya lost her papa because of her.
If only she'd gone to the Garden safehouse like she was supposed to. If only her usually infallible instincts hadn't somehow guided her back home in the midst of the mental fog. Then perhaps she wouldn't be sitting here in front of her (fake) husband, risking everything. Yor tries to breathe deeply, willing whatever had been in that disorienting gas from before out of her system. It’s too late now, she thinks as the room swims before her eyes.
She doesn’t dare look at Loid again, leaning back and closing her eyes to avoid having to see the distrust that has no doubt found its way to his face by now. She hears him mumble something about cleaning off the blood, then there's the sound of steps heading back out of the room.
Exhaling shakily, she opens her eyes and stares at the ceiling, marveling at his lack of reaction to her coming home covered in blood, past midnight, with a gunshot wound on her shoulder. Maybe he's just sparing her the inevitable, being polite until she isn't on the brink of bleeding to death. Maybe he’s too shocked to process the gravity of the situation right away.
Either way, she knows that everything will need to be addressed eventually. And then he will figure out the truth about her work, and he will recoil in fear and disgust, and she will either have to return to a solitary life of office work and murder or become a target of the SSS. Or she will have to kill him. Yor isn't sure she could.
Loid comes back, distracting her from her thoughts. He’s got a basin of water and a cloth, which he sets down on her nightstand, pushing the lamp atop it aside. He studies her for a moment, eyes calculating in the dim light.
“Your dress is covered in blood,” he says slowly. “Would you like to take it off?” She blinks, looking down at her dress. It’s got more blood on it than usual, likely because there had been so many guards. Some of it is probably also her own blood. It’s not unfamiliar to her, but the scent of blood hanging so thickly in her room, in the sanctity of their home, feels wrong. So she nods, too tired to be truly embarrassed.
“Does it have a zip?” he asks, and she nods again, gesturing towards her back. He hesitates for a moment, then reaches out, gently supporting her as she leans forward, giving him access to the zip. Despite the storm of dread brewing in her chest, she’s at least grateful that the excuse she’d given for her late night outing justified the dress. An unexplained and bloody late night return in a dress like this would have been the final nail in her secret’s coffin. Not that that coffin needs any more nails at this point.
A lump forms in her throat at the thought, and she tries desperately to think of something else, refocusing on getting out of the dress. One of the many good things about her Thorn Princess dress is how easy it is to get out of. The zip goes all the way to her lower back, and she could probably get out of it fine by herself without overexerting her arm. It's convenient when she needs to change quickly after a job, and this time it's saving her from having to further inconvenience Loid by asking him to help her out of the dress.
Her head is still heavy and her thoughts are still racing, but she manages to shimmy out of the dress without too much trouble, Loid only helping get it free from her legs. She feels exposed without it, sitting in just her underwear, like her last defense has been stripped away.
“I’m just going to get the blood off, okay?” Loid says softly, and she nods shakily. The bed dips with his weight as he settles next to her. He wipes the blood off her legs first, and she relishes the feeling of being clean. He covers her legs with a blanket, and moves on to her arms and neck. His touch is light and careful, and she watches, unable to speak, as he gets rid of the traces of her targets, like he understands how much it worries her when they cling to her no matter how much she scrubs.
He pauses momentarily when he's done, eyes unreadable and somber, before reaching out to wipe the blood off her face. She starts at the touch, but quickly relaxes into it, savouring the warmth of the water against her skin. It's soothing, and gentle, and so much kinder than she deserves, and suddenly she feels tears spill hot and ashamed over her face. It’s suddenly hard to breathe, and she forces herself to inhale and exhale shakily, vision blurring.
Loid pauses his movements, withdrawing his hand, and for a moment she thinks she sees sadness in his carefully schooled expression.
"It's ok, Yor," he says, softly. "You're safe now."
The reassurance only makes her feel worse. She's put him and Anya in danger by coming this close to exposing herself as an assassin, and Loid is still the one comforting her. The thought of Anya makes her throat constrict, choking the sobs that wrack her body. The movement hurts her shoulder, but she can’t bring herself to care, not when the memory of Anya’s earnest wish to stay with her parents forever hurts far more.
"Yor, please don't cry," Loid says, and there's a helplessness to his tone that is almost unbearable. Her mouth is dry and her head is spinning, and her heart feels like it’s made of lead, sitting heavily in her chest.
She doesn't dare look at him, and distantly she can feel her hands shaking. It’s too much all at once, and she buckles under the looming knowledge that soon he will know, and she will lose everything.
It feels like drowning, gasping for air that isn’t there, and her head spins. Visions of Anya and Loid looking at her in horror flit through her mind, and her heart twists in her chest. Distantly, she hears Loid calling her name, but she can’t focus on the sound, can’t focus on him or herself or anything-
“Listen to me, Yor,” Loid’s voice permeates through the fog, firm and pleading all at once. His hand comes to rest atop hers, and she realizes belatedly that she’s been gripping her hands together, nails digging painfully into skin. “I need you to try to breathe deeply. Inhale, then exhale.”
She fixates on the sensation of Loid’s hand over hers, trying to force air into her lungs at a more regular pace.
“That’s right,” Loid says, gently prying her hands apart, clasping them in his own. “It’s okay. No one will hurt you here.”
Yor feels her heart sink at the words. He doesn’t see that she’s the threat, that she’s the source of the hurt. Her throat tightens, and she chokes out a painful cough in a futile attempt to force more air into her lungs.
“Yor, it’s alright. Concentrate on your breathing.” Loid’s voice is low and soothing, and Yor squeezes her eyes shut, trying to focus on the sensation of his hands caressing hers. She inhales in time with the rhythm of the movement, willing herself to calm down.
Yor doesn’t know how long they sit there like that for, her hands in Loid’s, his low soothing voice murmuring reassurances until her breathing starts to smooth out.
“You’re safe here,” he says softly. “It’s okay.” She swallows harshly at the words. Despite everything, she does feel safe here. Even with the scars that her job left on her, emotionally and physically, she’s always felt safe here, with Loid and Anya. Even now, as she sits on her bloodstained sheets, Loid’s calloused hands over hers are the greatest comfort she could hope to have.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, putting all the things she wants to and can’t say into the words. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” he says. “You haven’t done anything wrong.” She desperately wants to believe him. But she knows that, were it to get out, the damage her secret could deal to her family, her safe haven, would be the greatest wrong she could ever fear to commit.
She can’t help the sobs that follow the thought, the tears causing her view of Loid to blur into indistinct flashes of the sandy blond of his hair and the white of his t-shirt.
She feels his hand cup her face before she sees him put it there, palm warm and soothing against her skin, thumb wiping at her tears. His other hand stays in hers, a solid and comforting presence. The action grounds her amidst the tears that just won’t stop, and she blinks up at him, once again overwhelmed by the tenderness of his touch, even in a situation like this.
His expression is pained, and his eyes are such a nice shade of blue. A peaceful colour, unlike her blood red. If she looks into them for too long she feels like he’ll see right through her, straight to the thorns in her heart. She averts her eyes, fixing them on a spot somewhere behind him.
“I’m a terrible fake wife,” she mumbles, before she can stop herself. “What kind of wife comes home after midnight covered in blood?” She was never cut out for this. She’s sorry she ever approached him, dragged him so close to the tangle of thorns that protect her secret. It was selfish. An arrangement of convenience, for an education for his daughter and for a cover for her assassin work. Looking at it now, the imbalance in motive is striking.
And yet, deep down, she truly cares about them. This family based on a premise of lies and facades has become her everything, irresistible warmth and a refuge in the turbulence of her double life. The thought of losing it is unbearable.
Loid’s hand guides her face so that she’s looking at him again. His expression is calm, the bags under his eyes and the set of his mouth the only signs of his less than composed state.
“We’ve been over this, Yor,” he says, kindly but firmly. “You’re doing fine, and it wasn’t your fault you were shot. It’s alright now, I’ve got you.” His thumb strokes her cheek, a calming rhythm in the midst of the cacophony of her emotions. Despite it all, she wants to savour this. It’s selfish, but she relaxes into the touch, nodding minutely.
They stay like that in silence for a while, until her tears subside, and the weight on her chest lifts just enough for her hands to stop shaking. When he seems satisfied that she’s calmed down, Loid wipes away the rest of her tears, hand moving back from her face. She almost follows the withdrawing touch, missing the comfort of it already. He gives her hand one last squeeze before letting go of it too, turning to the basin by the bed.
She’s suddenly very, very tired. Her shoulder aches, a dull and consistent thrum of pain, a physical reminder of her mistake. Her heart aches too, thumping weakly in her chest, trying to cope with her current loss of blood and the imminent loss of her family. She strains to keep her eyes open, focused on Loid, like he’ll disappear in a puff of smoke if she looks away.
He’s rinsing out the cloth he’d used to clean off the blood, the lines of his face paralleling the exhaustion she feels, highlighted by the bedside lamp’s soft glow. She forces herself to look at him, to commit the angles and slopes of his features to memory, the grey-blue of his eyes and the tousled blond hair that falls into his face, in case this is her last chance to see him like this, here in their home, just the two of them. When he’s done he turns, as if to leave. The panic is sudden and sharp, and Yor is reaching out before he can stop herself.
Her hand grabs his, holding him back. He turns to look at her, something unreadable brimming in his eyes. She doesn’t want him to leave. She doesn’t want this to be the end.
“Please don’t go,” she mumbles, through the tiredness. Everything is blurring again, and she clings to him like her life depends on it. He’s still for a moment, then he lets out an almost imperceptible sigh, shoulders slumping. He’s saying something, and she tries to focus on the words, but the exhaustion is winning its battle against her consciousness.
She doesn’t let go of his hand, a lifeline in the flood of sleepiness that seems intent on claiming her.
Distantly she feels the bed dip, then she feels him next to her, warm and solid, her head resting on his shoulder. It’s bittersweet, but she can’t help but savour the rays of contentment that stream through the dread of what is to come.
She vaguely registers the feeling of being shifted around, and then nothing.