Hereafter
Somehow, despite everything, Vale was still familiar. He wasn't sure why – most of the buildings were now ruins, and everything was covered in a thin sheet of snow. But despite that, somehow he could still tell when he first arrived in Vale – a gut feeling, perhaps. Or maybe a thin hope, grasped onto out of sheer desperation, that had ended up proving correct.
In any case, the why of it didn't matter. What did matter was that he was here now.
Snow crunched underfoot as Jaune marched through the city streets. There were still people here, few in number as they were. That was to be expected – the people of Remnant had proven to be nothing if not resilient. They had survived thousands of years of Grimm assaults, and another few of all-out war. Now that the Grimm were gone, he expected humanity to spring back in time. It would be rough at first – like they were rising out of the dust all over again. But they would manage. If even Salem, with all her hatred, couldn't fully stomp them out, then the elements didn't stand a chance.
In the past, that would have brought him some semblance of solace – a purpose to hold onto. But now, it just left him feeling numb.
There was no celebration in victory. Not with everything it had cost to achieve.
Jaune strode through the ruins of what had once been one of mankind's biggest achievements, the whole time aware that the few people he passed on the streets were staring at him in awe. That was understandable, he supposed – most of the world's Huntsmen had died in the war. Seeing one in-the-flesh must have been like seeing a living legend. Not that they would recognize him if they saw him – he had taken care to keep his name and appearance out of the stories he had passed on about Salem's demise.
It wouldn't do for people to recognize their savior as what he truly was. They deserved to think of the sole survivor of the final fight against Salem as a hero, rather than the broken man he had ended up as.
Jaune drew his tattered, stained cloak around him as he walked. He wasn't sure where he was going, or even why he was here – there was nothing here for him, he knew, the same way there was nothing for him anywhere else on Remnant. Salem's final offensive had seen to that – all of the big settlements were now gone, and the people who had lived in them were scattered to the winds, left to scavenge through the ruins like rats and fend for themselves.
Civilization would come back with time, of course. Mankind was as stubborn as it was resilient, after all. Remnant was dying, but not dead, and that was enough for him to be certain that eventually, it would have new life breathed into it, even without the Brothers watching over them.
Out of the corner of his eye, Jaune watched carefully as the shadows shifted, giving way to a gaunt-looking man clad in little more than tatters. He held a rusty, chipped knife in one hand, and his whole body was shaking. It only took Jaune but a moment to look him over to decide the man's fate.
He was desperate, not bloodthirsty. Jaune had spent enough time walking the earth that he knew the difference between the two. They were equally dangerous with the right provocation, but the desperate man could at least be placated through compliance. The bloodthirsty man, on the other hand, lived only for the thrill of violence, and carried on as such until the day he picked the wrong target and found himself in the deep end of a grave.
"The cloak," the man breathed, interrupting his thoughts. "Hand it over."
Jaune stopped. The man's gaze narrowed, and his already-shaky grip became even shakier.
"I said hand it over!" he growled. "Do you think I'm playing around?"
Jaune frowned, then began to walk towards him. The man's grip on his knife tightened, and he stood his ground despite his whole body shaking with fear and adrenaline. Jaune came within a few footsteps of him, and the man's fear and desperation got the better of him. He let out a yell and rushed forwards, the blade leading the way.
The knife impacted point-first against Jaune's aura, and the rusty blade immediately shattered, leaving the man holding little more than a hilt. He stared at Jaune with wide, disbelieving eyes.
"Aura..." he breathed. "Y-you're a-"
"You wanted the cloak, right?" Jaune asked. The man didn't respond, instead continuing to stare at him like a deer in headlights. Jaune didn't wait for him to respond, though – instead, he simply shrugged off the worn cloak, then offered it to the man.
"Here."
His would-be assailant stared at him for a moment, uncertain of what to do. His own desperation won out in the end, and he rushed forwards, taking the cloak and holding it tight against his body, as if he was afraid someone would try to rob him the same way he had just tried to rob Jaune. It only lasted for a second, though, before his wide-eyed stare moved down to Jaune's hip, where one of Ren's machine pistols sat holstered.
Not even Crocea Mors had survived the fight against Salem. The only ones to come out of the wreckage of the castle had been Jaune and one-half of StormFlower.
"Relax," Jaune said. "I'm not gonna hurt you."
The man swallowed nervously. With tears in his eyes, he nodded. "T-thank you..."
Jaune expected him to take off running, but he didn't. Instead, he looked back into the shadows, then beckoned someone to come out. To Jaune's surprise, a little girl – no older than ten – came softly creeping out of the shadows, shivering with every step. He watched as the man moved over to her, then threw the cloak around her shoulders and fastened it tight. The man gave him a thankful nod, then he and the girl began to retreat back into the shadows.
"Wait," Jaune said.
They both froze, then turned back to him. Jaune reached for StormFlower, and both of them tensed, only to calm down when he ejected the magazine and began to push bullets out of it into the palm of his hand. They watched in awe as he removed bullet after bullet, with the desperate man finally drawing closer to him to see how many he was removing.
"Are you sure…?" he asked.
Jaune said nothing. Instead, he continued removing the rounds, only pausing when he reached the last bullet in the magazine. He hesitated for a second, then pushed the mag back into the gun and holstered it. With the weapon secured, he offered the desperate man – the father, he amended in his head – the palm full of ammunition, minus one round.
"Take it," he said.
The man hesitated. "T-that's… I can't-"
"I insist," Jaune said.
"But you're a Huntsman. What good is a Huntsman with no weapon?"
"What good is a weapon with no Grimm to fight?" Jaune asked. "Please, take it. She needs it more than me."
He motioned to the little girl, who was staring up at her father with wide eyes. The man still seemed hesitant, and Jaune's eyes narrowed.
"Take it," Jaune repeated. "Take it and don't even think of robbing anyone ever again. The next person might not be as nice as me, and there are enough people without fathers in this world already. Do it for her, not me."
That seemed to do it. The man let out a choked sob as he pocketed the loose rounds, then reached in and wrapped his arms around Jaune in a thankful hug. It lasted for just a few seconds before Jaune pulled away.
"Keep it hidden," Jaune warned him. "Most people would kill for those. That's enough for you to trade for food and water through the winter, or for you to pull the Dust and use it for fuel."
"I'll keep them hidden, I swear!" the man promised. "Y-you… how could I possibly thank-"
"Thank me by living, and by keeping her alive." Jaune motioned to the girl, who had finally settled into the cloak and stopped shivering.
The man nodded, then wiped grateful tears from his face. "Why did you come to Vale, anyway?" he asked. "There's nothing here. Where are you going?"
It only took Jaune a moment to consider his answer. He turned and looked off in the horizon. Through the thin veil of falling snow, he could see the tower, half-collapsed but ultimately still standing, the petrified corpse having long since faded away.
"Home," he answered.
The walk there was uneventful. True to the man's word, there was nothing in Vale – even the truly desperate men seemed to have fled the city, leaving the few who stayed purely out of sentimentality. He was no exception – sentimentality was what brought him here.
Ultimately, sentimentality would make him leave here, too.
Jaune approached the rusted front iron gate, pausing when he got close enough to look around. Even with all that happened, the battle scars from the White Fang's assault all those years ago still remained. Broken-down machines littered the campus grounds – destroyed Paladins and airships and fallen Knights still laid there on the ground, frozen in time. They had been stripped of anything usable, of course, but the cybernetic corpses were still there, half-buried in the falling snow.
And there were other corpses, too – macabre reminders of the tragedy that had officially kickstarted his war against Salem. They were all little more than bones now – their uniforms and bodies had been eaten away by decomposition, and their armor and weapons had been taken by desperate scavengers long ago. He couldn't even tell who was White Fang, who was Military, and who was just a student.
The White Fang had attacked Beacon in the name of equality. In a way, they had gotten it.
"At the end of the game, the king and the pawn go back in the same box."
Jaune couldn't help but furrow his brow as his headmaster's words crossed his mind. How appropriate that the old man was the first thing to cross his mind upon stepping foot onto Beacon's grounds. He let out a small sigh, then continued on his way.
Jaune wasn't sure what he was looking for. His first thought was to find his old dorm room, but it hadn't taken him long to realize that the building didn't exist anymore – either the elements had taken care of it sometime after the war or it had been destroyed long ago.
Denied even that sense of closure, then. He would have called the trip a waste of time, but ever since Salem had been defeated and the Gods had left Remnant, his time had been nothing but wasted.
With nothing left to do, Jaune decided to turn back. He passed through what had once been Beacon's gardens, the flowers having long since withered and died, eventually finding his way to the courtyard, where the big statue once stood. And upon arriving, he paused, his eyes going wide with shock.
Standing there, on the other side of the statue, was another person. Clad in a tattered black cloak, the hood pulled up to cover her head and hide her face. Jaune opened his mouth to say something, but she beat him to it.
"Of course it had to be you," she noted, melancholy seeping into her voice.
Instantly, Jaune scowled. "Cinder."
He would recognize her anywhere, of course, for a variety of reasons – the two of them had tried to kill each other plenty of times during the war, after all. And, of course, she had tried to kill his friends, and had succeeded in killing Pyrrha, setting the spark that would turn Ozpin and Salem's cold war with each other into a raging inferno.
In another place, in another time, he would have struck her down. But he held himself back this time – she had earned at least that much after ultimately betraying Salem and getting Beacon's Relic for them. She wasn't his ally, but she wasn't his enemy, either.
A small part of him cried out for retribution for Pyrrha, but he silenced it almost as quickly as it came. Pyrrha's retribution had come in the form of his sword through Salem's heart, over and over again, until the blade snapped in two.
As far as he was concerned, nobody else needed to die today.
"Why are you here?" Jaune asked, crossing his arms.
Cinder hesitated, then reached for her hood with her one remaining, non-Grimm hand, and lowered it. Instantly, Jaune was taken aback. Cinder had been drop-dead gorgeous in the past, before her fateful showdown with Pyrrha and Ruby atop Ozpin's tower. There was still a hint of it now, of course, but her natural beauty was tarnished by her battle scars, and by her gaunt, sickly appearance. Her ivory skin, once downright beautiful, was now pale, and stretched just a bit too tightly across her face. There were bags under her one remaining bloodshot eye, and her hair, now long enough to be tied back in a low ponytail, was fraying at the ends.
She was dying, he realized.
"I'm here for the same reason you are," she said. "To relive the past one more time."
"How long do you have?" he couldn't help but ask.
"A few weeks, at best," she answered. "Probably less, more realistically. When the Brothers wiped the Grimm from the face of Remnant, that included the one Salem had implanted in me after my ill-fated attack on Beacon. The Silver Eyes did much more damage to me than you might think – if it weren't for that Grimm, my body would have shut down with time. And now that it's gone-"
"You can't do anything but wait for time to catch up with you," Jaune finished.
Cinder nodded solemnly. "Yes." She motioned to herself. "My body will continue to deteriorate over the coming weeks. My aura is doing its best to repair the damage as it comes, and for awhile it was enough, but aura has its limits – the loss of the parasite is too intense for aura to ever fully repair. Soon, my organs will start to shut down. It's not a matter of if they'll go, but which of them will go first. If I'm lucky, it will be my heart or my brain, and death will come quickly and relatively painlessly. If I'm unlucky, it will be my lungs – still quick, but much less painless. If I'm really unlucky, it will be my liver or my kidneys, and I will waste away slowly over several days."
Jaune hesitated. "I'm sorry," he offered.
She stared at him. "Why would you be? Ultimately, this is a hell of my own making. You should be overjoyed that the person who killed your partner is dying a slow death from her own actions."
"I don't take pleasure in watching people die," Jaune emphasized.
Cinder's gaze traveled to StormFlower, still attached to his hip. "More sentiment, then, is it?"
Jaune didn't answer her question. "So, you're dying," he acknowledged. "And with what little time you have left, you decided to… what, relive your past at Beacon?"
"What else am I to do?" Cinder questioned. "I have little else to reminisce on. My time with Salem is not worth reliving, as you can imagine. My time before her is even less so. Where else, if not Beacon?"
"Come to reminisce about past conquests, then?" Jaune asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Do you truly think that little of me?" Cinder said.
"Why wouldn't I? Beacon was your crowning achievement, really. Your plans went off without a hitch," he pointed out. "You won. You outsmarted Ozpin, and Ironwood, and all of us, and crushed us in a single night. You got everything you wanted – all that power."
"And look what that power has brought me," Cinder lamented. "I am standing here, in the cold, my body slowly but surely shutting down, and talking to someone who used to be a sworn enemy of mine, because there is nothing left for me, if ever there was in the first place."
For the first time, Jaune noticed that she was shivering. Her torn cloak, coupled with her fast-approaching mortality, had likely left her more vulnerable to the cold than even the little girl from earlier. It was through sheer willpower that she was talking to him now, despite the fact that the cold was almost certainly killing her faster than the loss of the Grimm parasite was.
She wasn't his enemy anymore, and Jaune was too decent to let the cold do her in. Nobody deserved to freeze to death, least of all someone who was already on her way out.
"Come with me," he said. "Let's get out of the elements."
He approached and offered her a hand. Cinder stared at him, bewildered, but ultimately accepted. Jaune gently took her hand in his, and then the two set off, leaving what remained of Beacon behind them.
They found shelter not far from campus, in what had once been a bar. All the liquor had since been looted, of course, but the roof was still there, so it made for good shelter in a pinch. Jaune had ripped up some of floorboards and placed them in a pile, and Cinder had used her Maiden powers to set them alight, giving them some warmth. They set across from each other, warming themselves by the fire. For awhile, none of them spoke, until Cinder broke the silence.
"I wasn't there for the final fight," she mentioned. "I provided the Relic and then got away."
"I know," Jaune said. "I don't blame you for it. Knowing what she was actually capable of… I understand."
"All my life, I was obsessed with power," Cinder admitted. She stared into the fire as she spoke. "Ever since I was a little girl, it's all I wanted. Do you know why?"
Jaune shook his head. She pursed her lips. "Because it's something I never had," she admitted.
"Is that supposed to justify it?" Jaune asked.
"No," she said, shaking her head. "I am… venting, I guess. Getting things off my chest that I have kept secret. I intended to take them all to the grave with me… yet I am finding that more difficult, now that I'm already three feet down, so to speak."
"A confessional, then?" Jaune asked. "Am I meant to provide you with some form of absolution in lieu of a genuine priest?"
"My sins are too great for absolution," Cinder said, her voice blunt.
"The true penitent still seeks absolution despite believing he is unworthy of it," Jaune replied. "My father once told me that."
"Are you speaking from experience, too, by chance?" Cinder questioned. "How great is your sin, Jaune?"
StormFlower suddenly felt heavy on his hip. Jaune exhaled softly. "...Let me ask you something," he began.
"Yes?"
"When did it start?" he asked. "All of it – the violence, the hatred, the lust for power. For as long as I've known you were working with Salem, I've wanted to know why. What set you down this path?"
"Is it truly that hard to believe that I was simply born this way?" Cinder replied.
"Even Salem wasn't born evil," Jaune reminded her.
Cinder looked away from the fire, staring him in the eyes. She exhaled softly. "...I was an orphan," she began. "In Atlas. I never knew my family. My earliest memories are of the orphanage. I don't know if they died or simply gave me up because they didn't want me. The other children didn't like me, for whatever reason. I was nice back then, or at least I tried to be. I thought that if I treated them kindly, they would treat me kindly in turn." She shook her head, a scowl crossing over her face. "Children are cruel, of course. They interpreted my kindness for weakness. I'm sure you can imagine what happened next."
"I can," Jaune interjected. "I was bullied myself, once."
"Truly?" she asked.
He nodded. "It lasted until I saved the ringleader from an Ursa. We were never friends, of course, but he at least left me alone after that."
"It ended happier than my story did," Cinder lamented. "I stayed in that orphanage for years until finally I was adopted out. A woman came and took me. She was the owner of a boutique hotel down in Atlas – The Glass Unicorn, it was called. For just a moment, I thought that my life was going to get better once I had left the orphanage. My hope lasted until she slipped the shock collar around my neck."
Instantly, a scowl crossed Jaune's face. Cinder paused, staring at him with surprise. "You are disgusted," she noted. "Why?"
"Basic human decency demands I be," he replied, his voice low. "I assume you got your revenge?"
"Eventually," Cinder said. "Though looking back, I can take no pleasure in it, knowing what it led to. I killed the Madame, and her two teenage daughters – all my tormentors, done in with the blades a Huntsman had been so kind to provide me with. He thought he could take me under his wing in secret, prepare me for the time when I would be able to leave the hotel and set out on my own, perhaps following in his footsteps..." She shook her head. "He was foolish. When the time came, he hesitated. I did not. The rest, you can imagine – I fled from Atlas, running and hiding through Remnant like a rat, until one day, Salem found me."
"And you traded one hell for another," Jaune finished.
Cinder nodded. "Yes." She crossed her arms. "Well? Was that what you expected?"
"I expected some kind of catalyst," Jaune admitted. "Something to prove you weren't simply born evil. If it's any consolation, I don't believe you were, no matter what you've done. The world just kept beating you down until you had enough and lashed out."
"And look where it got me," Cinder said.
"It got you here, with me," Jaune insisted. He motioned to himself. "Look at me. I made what anyone would say were the 'right' decisions, and yet here I am, sitting across from you in a dead city, in a dying world, with nothing left. Funny how that works."
"Is it?" she snapped. "My life is funny to you, then?"
Jaune stared at her for a moment, then shook his head. "I didn't mean it like that, Cinder. There's nothing funny about what you went through."
"What is it, then?" she demanded. "If not funny?"
"It's sad."
"It's-" She paused. "...What?"
"It's sad," Jaune repeated. "Your life has been nothing but sadness from day one. You've never known what it's like to not be afraid, or lonely."
"Are you psychoanalyzing me, now?" she said with a scoff.
"Believe me, you're not that hard to get a read on, now that I know what you went through."
"Humor me, then," she demanded. "Where did it all go wrong? What could I have done to make things turn out differently?"
"I don't think there's anything you could have done," Jaune retorted.
"What, then? So you're saying that it was hopeless from the beginning? Perhaps I really was simply evil all along."
"You misunderstand," Jaune insisted. "There was nothing you could have done, because it was all out of your control. You know what I think? I think all of this – Oz's war with Salem going hot, Salem decimating the world, my friends all dying, you ending up here with me – could have been avoided if someone had simply done one little thing at some point in the past."
"And what would that be?"
"Loved you."
Cinder instantly paused, her voice catching in her throat. She stared at him with confused, wide eyes. Jaune didn't back down, though. Instead, he leaned in.
"Tell me I'm wrong," he insisted. "If someone – just one, single person – had loved you, do you think you would have gone down this path, Cinder? Because the way I see it, all of this can be traced back to the fact that nobody ever bothered to even try. None of the orphans did. The Madame and her daughters didn't. Salem certainly didn't. Hell, even that Huntman who helped you out did so more out of pity than anything else. But if you'd had someone who genuinely cared… what would you have done?"
Cinder didn't respond. Instead, she looked back into the fire, thinking to herself for a moment.
"...I don't know what it feels like," she admitted. "You're right about that. The closest I've come is physical attraction, but even that was fleeting."
"Attraction?" Jaune wondered. "To who?"
She blushed. Cinder Fall actually blushed, and Jaune knew, then and there, that he had his answer.
"...Why?" he asked, out of genuine confusion. "I mean… really? Back when we were at Beacon?"
"...I dreamed about you," Cinder admitted quietly. "Once."
"...Just once?" Jaune couldn't help but ask.
"...Believe me, I was just as confused as you are," she said. "But… you were attractive, you know. You still are, if I must admit."
Jaune fell silent. His mind was running a mile a minute as he tried to comprehend what she was telling him. After a moment, he spoke up again.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly.
Cinder was taken aback. "Why?"
"Because if I had known you felt that way, I would have done something about it back then," Jaune promised. "And if I had… maybe things would have turned out differently, for both of us. But mainly for you. If you'd actually had someone who loved you, then maybe things wouldn't have turned out like this."
Cinder frowned, looking back into the fire. "You're right," she acknowledged. "But I suppose it's too late for that."
"Is it?" Jaune asked.
She turned towards him, surprised. "What?"
"Is it too late?" he asked.
"Of course it is," she insisted. "Unless you can go back in time somehow."
"I can't do that, obviously," he said. "But… I can do something that should have been done a long time ago."
"And what would that be?"
"This."
He got up and moved over towards her. Cinder tensed, but didn't pull away, even when he bent down and wrapped his arms around her. She stiffened when he pulled her into his embrace, and he could tell that she didn't know what to do.
It was a small gesture, yet he could tell that it meant the world to her. It wasn't being done out of pity, or remorse – he'd meant what he'd told her, about everyone deserving love. The least he could do before she died was let her know what it felt like.
Somehow, against all odds, his heart was breaking for Cinder Fall.
"...What are you doing?" she asked, her voice shaking.
"It's called a hug," he explained. "People do it when they love each other."
"I know what it is, idiot!" she snapped. "I meant… why? Why are you-"
"Everyone deserves love," he insisted. "Even Salem was loved at one point. But you weren't. Not yet, at least. And that's not right. I can't fix the world, or rewrite your childhood to be less cruel, or bring my friends and family back… but I can do this. I can show you what it feels like to be loved, Cinder. The way someone should have shown it to you a long time ago."
Cinder didn't say anything. He could tell that she was trying to speak, but it wasn't coming out right – rather, every time she opened her mouth, it came out as a choke. Her shoulders heaved slightly, and Jaune said nothing; instead, he simply held her there.
"...Thank you," she managed to choke out. "But I… I don't… why? After everything I've done… you should hate me, and yet-"
"I did, at one point," he admitted. "Back when you killed Pyrrha, and back when we were still fighting against you. But that's changed. I hated you back then, but I don't right now, and I don't think I ever could again. Not after learning the truth."
Cinder didn't respond to that. Instead, she hesitantly raised her one remaining arm, and as gently as she could, like she was afraid he'd pull away if she was too sudden, she returned his hug.
The two stayed like that until the fire started to die. Only once the flames began to dim did they separate. Cinder stared at him for a moment in awe before speaking again.
"...Will you stay with me?" she asked, almost pleading. "Until the end."
Jaune nodded without hesitation. "I will."
"And after that?" she muttered. "What will you do when I'm gone?"
Jaune hesitated for a second. "...There's an old Huntsman saying," he replied. "About what to do in the event that you were taken by a Grimm, to spare yourself from being eaten alive."
"What is it?"
"Save one bullet."
Cinder fell silent. Her gaze traveled to StormFlower, still on his hip. Slowly, she reached for it. Jaune didn't stop her as she ejected the magazine and stared at the one bullet nestled in between the feed lips. Her gaze rested on it for just a moment before she pushed the round out of the mag with her thumb and held it between two fingers.
And then, before Jaune could react, she threw the bullet into the fire.
"Cinder!" Jaune shouted, immediately jumping up to try and retrieve the round. "What-"
He was too late. The round went off, the flames detonating the primer with enough force to fire the bullet, but not enough to do any real damage. The bullet impacted against a nearby wall, digging itself a few centimeters in before stopping. He stared at the hole it left for a second, then turned back to Cinder, confusion and anger etched across his face.
"I used to think that hell was physical," she said, interrupting him before he could speak. "But now I can see that I was wrong. All the beatings, all the shocks, all the torture… none of that hurts as much as finally knowing what I was denied my entire life. And… I can't let you take that away from the rest of the world, Jaune."
"What are you saying?" he asked.
"Live," she commanded, with tears in her eyes. "Please, live. Love the rest of the world the same way you just loved me. You have so much love to give – more than I could ever truly comprehend – and I can't just let you throw it all away because it hurts, knowing what you've lost."
Jaune fell silent. His shoulders slumped. "...I don't know if I can," he admitted. "It just… not having them around anymore, it hurts. Even you won't be here soon, and then I'll be truly alone."
"If you could prevent another Cinder Fall, would you?" she asked. "That's what I'm asking you to do, Jaune – help make a world where people like me won't exist anymore. Would you do that for your friends?"
Jaune considered her words for a moment, then slowly nodded. "...Yes," he said. "For them, and for you."
She was confused at first, before it gave way to another emotion – joy, he realized. It was subtle, but it was there. She relaxed, a relieved sigh escaping her. "...Thank you, Jaune."
She reached out and took his hand, and together the two of them watched as the fire flickered and died.
That night, for the first night since Salem had been defeated, Jaune's thoughts were of the future rather than his friends.
And as he drifted off to sleep, Cinder's hand still gently holding onto his, he felt content for the first time in a long time.
You can all thank Sunset Hunting for getting me hooked on Jaune/Cinder. I've always been a sucker for hero/villain pairings, but they were the catalyst that really pushed me into fully embracing Knightfall as a pairing. Hence why this fic was made – I wanted to write something Knightfall-related to test the pairing out, and ended up throwing this together over a few hours, stream-of-consciousness style. Not my best work, obviously, but I felt it was worth posting, both because I want to play around with Knightfall and because I've been meaning to write more one-shots.
I really want to come back to this pairing, by the way. This was a good way of dipping my toe in the water and trying it out, and I kinda like writing it – I think these two really work together well. Expect to see more of me messing with this pairing in the future, because it's something I'd really like to do.
Anyway, I'll see you all next time. Not sure what I'll be writing for next time just yet, but whatever it is, I hope you enjoy it.