"Diana."
Why me?
"Diana."
Why do you always call me out?
"Diana, wake up." The voice calling… soft and gentle… strange…
Diana stirred a little, burying into whatever it was that was so soft and warm and smelled so nice.
There was a shifting beside her and a sudden warmth of a hand on her shoulder.
These… these blankets, they smelled different. Musky.
"Diana…" he was calling again, a little clearer, a strangely familiar voice…
Faint wisps were trickling back into her mind, memories of yesterday were coming back, clouded and dulled by sleepiness.
This… this wasn't her room. Or her bed. This, she had gone to…
"…Varus…?" Diana mumbled, still drifting in murky half sleep.
She tried to lift her arm, pulling the blankets away only to feel the chill rush of cold air across her naked skin, rousing her awake.
Blinking, she looked around.
Her clothes, her armour and blade lay scattered across the floor in disorderly fashion, scrunched and carelessly piled. Trying to slide herself up, she felt his leg against hers and it took her a second to realise they'd been entwined. Jerking, she turned around suddenly, dropping his hand off her shoulder. Varus lay propped up, hand raised warily mid-air as, giving her breadth as if cautious of provoking her.
And rightly so as all of yesterday night flooded back in shameful clarity. She baulked away from him as he saw her realisation and recognition settle in.
"Why…?"
Diana slowly sat up, clutching onto the bunching sheets over her chest. Varus looked away, unwilling to answer.
She looked down at herself, completely naked and completely violated, stripped of certainty under his sheets. Just how exactly did it all come to this? Diana sat there, staring into nothing.
What… what happened yesterday? So many questions flew through her head, no longer under the midnight influence of yesterday's emotions. Did they really…? Why did she let him… why? Why did he…? It couldn't be… Why…
Why did she let him…
"I…" Varus hesitated, not daring to look at her "Last night… I haven't… corrupted you, have I?" he asked cautiously, still averting his gaze.
Diana didn't respond, his voice only seeming to prompt her into movement as she slowly got up, dropping the sheets and getting off the bed as if in a daze.
Why did she let him…
"I'm sorry."
Diana didn't seem to hear him, or at least didn't appear to have. There was a warm wrenching feeling twisting inside her she didn't recognise and it was too distracting, too foreign. Yet it was the same as… as last night's.
No…
"I knew full well that… that it was hard to…" he clenched his fist. Diana turned to stare at him.
"Hard to control my corruption at night, that in the late hours of the night it would take hold of me and make me…" his voice trailed off
"Not myself…" he glanced up to her, eyes full of genuine remorse and there as a soft throb in her chest as she stared into his gaze.
No… no it can't…
"I… I couldn't reign it in."
Diana turned away again, leaving him silent.
It can't be…
Unconciously she flicked her hand out of habit, flipping a blade that was not there. Where was it? Diana looked around, flickering her gaze randomly around the room not really taking anything in. It wasn't until she took a step forward that her foot hit something and she looked down. She bent to pick it up, the rest of the blade sliding out from under the clothes on the floor. Cold steel rested reassuringly in her hand as she stood in the middle of the room, naked with only her blade by her side. It was a familiar thing and it numbed her from thinking too much. She glanced at the floor again. Her clothes were scattered and armour were strewn haphazardly across the floor, like they were tossed there carelessly and in a rush.
What now?
She bent to pick them, giving them a shake and pat.
How does this go on?
Diana bent to pick up another piece.
Varus watched her from the bed as she shuffled around in a trance, robotically picking up her clothes and giving each a pat and a shake.
"Are you okay...?"
Varus' voice hit her like a jolt, bringing her back to reality. Diana froze. Everything's a mess now, nothing was clean cut or defined anymore. This shouldn't have happened, it should never have happened. But it did and what was left…
The reality she didn't want to think about.
"Okay?" he barely heard her, her voice had lost its volume like she didn't know what that word meant.
"Okay?!" her voice rose a little.
"Why wouldn't I be okay?" she spoke louder still, the biting edge sharpening her tone.
Varus pulled away the blankets, getting up slowly as she stood there, frozen like a statue, gripping onto her blade. Her hair was mused, tangled and draped over her shoulders, cascading down her back curled and knotted. Red marks still showed on her waist where he'd gripped her too hard. All reminders of yesterday. Where she had slept. With him.
And she didn't know how to feel about it.
"Diana - "
"Stop calling my name!" she spun around to face him, bare chest heaving.
Varus glanced away in futile courtesy.
The sharpness of the present set her on edge. He was here, she was here, this was his house and she had come here. She tried not to look at him, at his bed, at the floor where her attire was, at the desk where that picture stood, at everything. But she couldn't, her skin still prickled around the red marks and she was seeing it all, it was all real and in the past already.
"What" she flung out her blade in an accusatory sweep, gesturing at her attire strewn on the floor and his disheveled bed.
"What was…" she struggled to find the word for it, to pin it down. It wasn't anger, it wasn't betrayal, no there was more to it. It was…it was… this… why… She'd found something she didn't want to find, didn't want to know, didn't want to exist.
And just how she wanted to hate him for unearthing it.
"Last night. You." She pointed to herself.
"This." Varus looked at her.
"What was I to you?!"
Varus stood silently, bowing his head as he looked away.
Diana snapped her head away when he didn't reply, stooping to grab at her things scattered unceremoniously across the room. She hastily put on her clothes not caring as her escaped hair fell across her face in a snarled mess.
"I'm sorry."
Diana threw her hair behind her but more fell into her face and she swiped at it.
"What is there to be sorry for." Roughly she ran her hand through her hair and tugged at the knots when it wouldn't part, stubbornly yanking and ripping at them even when it pulled out hairs and tugged painfully on her scalp.
"It's in the past already and it's not like it was your fault." She threw his words right back at him accusingly.
There was a shuffle behind her and she flinched at the touch of his hand, gripping her hand from pulling.
"Don't…"
Diana stiffened as he gently but firmly unclasped her hand, reaching up to slowly untangle the strands of her hair. She turned her head, not willing to watch.
"I… I know I said that… that it was the corruption, that it wasn't … me…" he trailed off, parting and separating out her hair as he carefully and gently combed out the tangles.
"But you… I really…" Untangling the last of her hair, he gingerly turned her around to face him. That expression haunting his face. She knew what it was, what it meant.
"I lo-"
"No." she cut him off, looking up into his eyes.
"No, you don't. You were thinking of her," Diana jerked her head in the direction of the propped picture frame. "and I was just… convenient for you." She held his piercing gaze.
"What was I to you?"
"No, you're not her. It wasn't… I…" he opened and closed his mouth like the words had left him, softly shaking his head as he struggled to get her to listen. Diana turned away.
"You don't, it was just a heated moment of delusion." She picked up her hairband, straightening it as she slid it smoothly into her hair.
"You are like her but that doesn't…" He reached out to grab her arm, turning her back around to face him again.
"I wasn't… I wasn't using you, Diana. Please understand. You… you really do mean s-"
Diana threw off his hand.
"I don't care. I don't want to hear it. I am nothing to you." Reaching down to pick up her arm guards, she clasped them on and adorned the rest of her armour.
"But I do, I care. About you." He gripped her shoulders trying to get her to look at him and she tried to shake him off again but his grip was firm and unyielding.
"You… you aren't nothing." Varus brushed away the hair that had fallen over her face, tucking it behind her ear.
"You were everything I'd thought I'd never see. Beauty and carnage in a single being. You defied the odds, fought to live. The day you came to the league…" he smiled faintly.
"You were the one shining light in the sea of drab champions. Cold fire burning bright. And marked for death." He gently ran a thumb over the symbol on her forehead, tracing it.
"So was I. Both of us. But we're not broken. They could not break us." She felt his soft hand running down her cheek, faintly warm and unknowingly familiar. Diana closed her eyes briefly, allowing herself to commit just this one feeling to memory.
"You mean something to me Diana. More than just something." He tilted her head up to face him. She caught his gaze for a second before glancing away again, unwilling to look at him. Reaching up she cupped her hand over his for a second before gently sliding his hand away, an echo of his warmth still lingering on her cheek.
"Why won't you believe me?" his voice was quite, ashen.
She shouldn't have been surprised at the raw pain in his voice but she was shocked by the way it pierced through her.
"Because it wasn't real."
"It was. It is..." Diana shook her head. She looked into his eyes, afraid of what she'd find. This shouldn't, can't, go on this way.
"I don't like it. Not knowing where I stand." Her voice was barely a whisper.
"Because you can't… you can't possibly love me."
She wrenched herself from him, throwing off his hand. Diana stopped by the door, resting her hand on the door handle, the word 'love' leaving a strange taste in her mouth.
"I… I really do, Diana. I- "
"Just…" Diana struggled to finish the sentence, turning to leave. Her whole world was tilting on its axis and she didn't want to think about it.
Varus opened his mouth to speak.
"Goodbye… Varus."
She wrenched open the door, her hair trailing out as it slammed shut.
He stood there in empty silence, staring at the door as her footsteps faded away.
"…I love you…"
I did tell you it was going to be a short fic didn't I? Sorry there wasn't more development between them for those who wanted to see more, this was how I'd imaged it'd end. I hope it didn't seem too much like an abrupt ending.
But...