I think by now people can tell that when I get into a fandom all I write for is that fandom and it's usually the same couple of characters so once again welcome to gilgamesh and lancer hell where I focus on two characters who hate each other about as much as I love them together. Warnings for rather grotesque description of bodily injury in two places, and death.
Special thanks to tumblr's eternalswordrain for editing this for me, and to fearthesillypeople for proofreading!
x
x
Red. Blazing sunset red fire consuming all available space behind the golden man. He is made of gold, hard to hit and hard to look at, piercing as the same fire red as the wall of weapons looming over his head. Cold metal wraps around Lancer's limbs, digging in to leave ugly splotchy bruises, chafing sweaty skin, dislocating bones. He laughs weakly, not so much in amusement as in acceptance. It's too late to turn back. There's nothing to turn back to.
He doesn't know how long he has been here. Time no longer exists, it is nothing more than a suggestion offered by the shifting light somewhere in the distance. Blue fabric hangs in tatters, runes scratched out or unwritten, rendering his reinforcements useless. Ancient magic has been erased, much like the imaginary clocks that run this world, reminding him how sore his muscles feel, how much blood he has lost and is still losing.
This isn't for them. That's what he tells himself. Saber and her Master, he isn't doing this to protect them- it's to protect the idea of them, a noble Servant and her naive Master, the boy who reminds him so much of how he was when he was still a sprout, so gullible, so idealistic. He doesn't really care what happens to them, so much as he cares about making a stand. About protecting the honor of a warrior he admires, and shoving Kotomine's orders up his ass. It's about a lot of things: it's about him being a pigheaded dog who is sick of following orders that he doesn't believe in, it's about him getting the adrenaline pumping through his veins one last glorious time before he bites the dust.
The dust is all around him now, settling against the glowing wall of weapons. He is aching creaking pain, ripped tendons and punctured skin, a walking disaster of fractured bones and dangling bits, things that should be inside hanging out, glistening in grotesque glory as he forces his head high. All he sees is red. Red from the blood streaking down his face, from the light flooding the room. It bounces from the corners, blinding and disorienting, casting harsh shadows that scale the walls to hang from the ceiling. He is pinpointed, surrounded by the echoing of footsteps, of all the subtle scuffing and scraping as the man walks forward. Every movement rebounds, bouncing violently back, bringing the walls closer and closer with every step. They are the only two in the room, and yet he feels like he's in the center of the battlefield.
Everything is red, save for the single spot of gold, sneering in his wake.
"I must admit, you lasted longer than I had anticipated…" he muses, the words flowing slow and laborious from his lips. Even his voice, like molten gold, drips with the same precision of each step he takes, closing the distance between them. It's as though time really has stopped, and he's watching everything unfold in slow motion: the way the King of Heroes seems to relish each step, a cruel glint in his serpent eyes.
"However, I have grown tired of our games." The gold falls so slowly, oozing across the ground, a hardened shell with a blinding sheen, utterly unamused. "My bride awaits, and there is no more time for us to play." Time, again. Doesn't he know that time has stopped? It lost its meaning long ago, before his ribs cracked and his organs had decided to evacuate his body. In fact, it never even existed in the first place.
Lancer grins, despite how much it hurts his face. Gold and red, both painfully bright, sear through his eyes as he tries to hold the King's gaze. Somewhere inside of him something feral is stirring, an anger so brutal and animal he is surprised he hasn't noticed it until now. It is clawing at him, hollowing out whatever is left in a frantic attempt to escape- to flee this empty body before it becomes a carcass. He doesn't let it out though, because when it's all over, he wants to be sane. He wants to look his killer in the eyes and tell him to eat shit in his final, dying breath.
He swallows Riastrad down, bottling the fire inside of him. It eats at him, burning all he had left, but he will take it. Even if it lasts eternity, which it will, because time has stopped, he will take it with a smile.
"You seem happy. Have you accepted your fate?" the King cocks his head to the side ever so slightly, feathered locks ruffled by the movement. Lancer chuckles. He tastes metal, blood.
"I accepted it the moment I stepped in front of your blade."
That's a lie. He had accepted it long before that, when he was only a child, the day he took up arms and set out to become a hero. To live a life where he would be remembered for something more than just existing- that was what he had wanted. Time had never mattered to him: be his life long or short, he just wanted it to be something he could look back upon in his dying moments that would leave him with a smile on his face. A full life, one without regrets…
There had been mistakes, that was certain, but there was no reason to think of them now. No time, too much time, either way it would only bring pain. And there's more than enough of that to go around right now. No, right now, he is happy. Despite it all he is genuinely happy. After all this time spent as a tool, bending to the wills of his masters, he is doing something that he wants to do. He is fighting for something that he believes in, himself, not the lord that he serves.
He is a stolen light, a flame taken from one candle to burn on another, and it is in this moment that he has run out of wax, breathed his last gulp of air. With a glorious blaze that lasts only an instant, but feels like forever, his battle will come to an end. He is his own man, dying on his own terms, even if it is at the hands of someone else. And so he smiles. He is free.
"I am not sure whether or not that would be considered noble, or just plain foolish." The King of Heroes chuckles, a cat laughing at its delusional prey. Lancer watches as the man shakes his head, eyes saturated with an almost mocking pity, and he knows he is nothing- a gnat just a little too small and a little too fast to be crushed on a whim, but he still takes pride in that fact. That he has lasted this long. Fought 'til he could no longer stand it, 'til his legs just wouldn't move enough for him to get away. He hangs, a pig strung up for slaughter, and still he feels that he has won.
He watches as the King draws his final blade, a spiralled sword emerging from the Gates at his back. It gleams in the blood-stained light, and the wielder admires its shape, gazing at it almost fondly, before turning his eyes toward Lancer. Blood spatters in what he imagines to be a perfect arch as his chest bursts, pierced right through the middle. Gilgamesh doesn't even blink.
Pain. Cold metal shoving brutally through him, and then retreating, screw-like edges scraping against his insides as it pulls back. He coughs. More blood, dripping from his mouth, stunned by a blow that he had known was coming. Time did not exist and suddenly it does again, his eternity has run up and now he's dribbling, leaking and gushing all over the floor, glimmering faintly. He is a dying light.
Lancer looks at Gilgamesh, stunned by the pain, forgetting words. He doesn't remember how to speak, how to express aloud the way that he feels. He is burning, bleeding, ready to crumple and collapse into a pile of bones, of dust. Angry. He is angry, that this is how it ends, that after everything he has put up with, this is how he will die, at the hands of a man who will not remember him, will not view his struggles as anything more than a nuisance to be swat at.
Time exists only for this moment because now it is up, it is up and so is he, he is fading and he has regrets, he has so many regrets that he pretended not to care about, but no, no, no.
They don't matter now. He is here and he is now and even as he disappears, he will always have been here, will always have made this stand. This moment will always have existed, and his actions will remain long after he is gone.
"Tell me, mongrel, why do you smile? What is it you know that I do not?" The King of Heroes questions, and Lancer realizes that he is right- a smile, however tired, remains upon his face. He chuckles, his voice straining but not yet weak.
"No, it's just that… All I wanted out of this war was a good fight, against a strong opponent… and you finally gave that to me." he grins, breathless. It's fading- not the world, he realizes, but he, himself, he is dissipating. Particles of mana sparkling off into the universe, energy for the Grail, one more sacrifice for another person's dreams. He laughs. "Thanks." he says. His voice is stronger than his body, but that's probably because his body is almost gone. Gilgamesh watches him, the cruel amusement from before replaced by the smallest of frowns.
"Any last requests?" he asks. Lancer doesn't know if he's serious or not. Either way, he smirks, with all that he has left.
"Tell Kotomine to look for me in hell, so I can kick his ass."