Phan/Doc, “El deseo de convertir zafiro a rubí”Stretched too thin, spread too wide. The nearby catastrophe left no choice but to divide their squadrons and trust in their ability to rendezvous. Even then, it falls back to the Doctor and his bodyguard to clean up the checkpoint for arrival tomorrow.

One man with his shadow, and the puppetmaster pulling at his strings from atop.

“Second floor. 2 crossbows. One caster.”

The doctor’s voice crackles through the transmitter as his cape billows silently in the shadows, fading in favor of the slightest drag of boots against gravel as he takes a running start into the abyss.

Phantom extends his limbs as he jumps off the building, but gravity has no true hold on him even as it attempts to drag him down.

One floor.

The cold air stings his face but not his eyes, protected as they are by the bone white mask that obscures his features, blade glinting with the speed of light reaching its surface.

Two floors.

The crossbowman closest to the sheet of glass has finally noticed him but it is too late-curling his body as he crashes into the window, an explosion of sound dizzying them for a crucial few seconds.

"Sing for me."

His voice reverberates in the demolished room unnaturally for the briefest moment-before it is replaced by the sickening squelch of pierced flesh, the gurgle of failing lungs, drowning in blood.

The silica dust has not even settled when the last of the bodies slides to the ground, still writhing in the throes of death for a moment, hands futilely scrabbling at the deep slice in their throat that bleeds them dry.

He does not linger for the body to stop moving, drawing the black cloak tighter against him, descending the stairs at a lightning speed as the Doctor talks into his ear.

"That must be the last of them, good work Phantom. Let's find the rendezvous point-"

It is the moment he steps outside through the ground floor back door that his ears catch the briefest click in the still air.

“”

It does not echo near him and before he can pinpoint its location, the whistle of an arrow has already flown through the air; whizzing past the building before, past him, past the one ahead. Glass shatters.

A second arrow. A sickening thud and a gasp of pain in his transmitter.

His body swivels towards the Doctor in haste but before his foot can leave the ground the static crackles in his ears again, filled by wheezing gasps and coughs.

“...blue tower at...south east-kgh T-the fourth floor.”

“We need to fall back-"

He hears it, as he has always heard it. In a single word, as they take the center stage, as they move his strings with the utmost caution masked in callous disregard-

“Phantom." A shuddering breath in the yawning space of crackling comms, uncertain if it was the Doctor’s from the wound, or if it was his-

as his pupils constrict with the sheer weight of the command, so far away and yet so close,

as if their breath tickled his fur,

as if their lips brushed his hair,

as if they stood right behind him, staining his neck with crimson red lips, embracing him like a forlorn lover but asking the same of him, masked now in dulcet tones instead of cold cut clarity-

“Sing them to sleep, Phantom.”
–
Behind the visor, those eyes gaze at him with frightening intensity. They linger in the shadow he claims for the briefest second-before the Doctor turns to the blue haired, feline woman settling down the stack of papers in their desk.

He does not reveal his presence, nor does the Doctor acknowledge it, the interloper oblivious to the anticipation built in the atmosphere, lingering like the fragment of a restrained sigh even well after she leaves.

He does not reveal himself even in the empty room, just as the Doctor does not acknowledge him even after catching his presence. They simply continue to scribble or tap away at devices full of files he has no stakes on.

It lasts a second.

It lasts a day.

It lasts an hour.

It lasts a minute.

It lasts an eternity.

He cares not, for it is always those words that beckon him in their haunting echo, a sound present unconsciously in even the smallest vibration of their throat that beckons, that compels him, compels them all, to listen without reserve.

It is not melody of an Ægir. It is his, only his.

“Can I listen to your music, Phantom Your real music.”

He wishes. He wants. He yearns.

But this steeped in the shadows reminds him of the melodies sang by his targets when he lets his real voice loose. Of the beautiful crimson color in their lips, in their eyes, in their skin. Such a color that would look divine in the Doctor’s lips, the finest rogue, fit for an audience member all dolled up for him to take them to another world.

He does not wish. He does not want.

A performance only for them.

He still yearns.

“No. It is not something you should be subjected to.”

Their eyebrow raises, folding their arms over their chest as they lean back into the worn out office chair. It swivels enough for the Doctor to finally face him-a cue for him to step into the bright lights of the stage, ruthless white of efficient LEDs creating harsh shadows in his visor, true face still hidden underneath its shadows.

"Even when I already have"

"You never have. Not really."

Not with the clarity that comes with taking off the device at his neck, something he has not done even once after being willingly shackled like this. The most beautiful song he can manage now is but a hoarse croak in the face of his real talent.

“Will you, then”

“Not now.”

There is beauty too cruel to share, too terrible to behold.
—
The lullabies of an Ægir are nostalgic, an enchantment he rarely heard once upon a time. His companions are capable of it, as he hears the lilt under their syllabes, as they hum modern words in a way the original performers can’t quite reach even in embellished recordings.

And yet not one of them sings, not even the Doctor. Why should he expect them to Not one of them remembers the true terrible, cruel beauty of the sea, the full depths of the horror and enchantment, knowing it would kill you to stay, but nevertheless your heart longing fully to do so.

“Phantom.”

This is not a lullaby.

“…”

This is a requiem.

“They are…waiting for you. Don’t-don’t sing before time.”

The melody flickers in and out of existence, interspersed with groans of pain and wheezes of exhaustion, shattering the fragile illusion that overcame him for the briefest second. It’s enough to break him out of the frenzy of retreat, turning his sights to the pinpointed building.

The sun is setting behind it, the orange glow of the dying day forming searchlights that peek in between buildings. He sees them now, a sniper on the rooftop, a haze of refractive camouflage covering them, given away by the uneven shadow of their crossbow.

“I see the sniper. No confirmation of the caster.”

“I’ll lure them out.“

“No, Doctor-“

“Phantom.”

It is there again, a shudder to the tip of his tail, a command unlike the ones received in the harshest, closest of battles.

An unrefined melody, an amateur vocalization. But the real, beautiful thing nevertheless.

“On your signal, Phantom.”

He shakes his head to clear his head once more of the lingering spell, eyes tracing the closest path to the sniper. And if the caster is concealed, then he must be in the shadows of the building, or on a nearby rooftop.

His step is light and decisive, weaving in between the alleyways, a running step into a jump to catch a broken off emergency staircase barely hanging on the side of a close enough building. He reaches the top in no time at all, hiding in the shadow of a still intact sign, knives out and ready.

“Doctor.”

The click is clearer now, crossbow loading its shot as he forces himself to be still, eyes trained in the darkness cast by the building in front of him.

“Kgh”

Pain echoes in his ears, bristling his fur with a shudder in anger. Anger at those who would dare, and those who would set themselves in this path in the first place, anger at himself for agreeing in the first place.

“Now.”

As if they were the ones commanded, a bright red glow gives away the location of the caster, camouflage removed from the sniper in that very instant as the glow dies just as quickly as it came to be-ceased as the caster falls on their back, knife protruding from their forehead.

The sniper is alerted, but it is too late. The buildings are too far apart, the roof too tall for them to consider jumping and the assassin already descends at lightning speed in the cover of sunset, eyes trained on the closest exit.

“No more hiding. The curtain call is now.”

His remaining knife glows red as he hums under his breath a wordless tune, garbled arts cloaking him in a layer of death.

He inhales. The metal door creaks open.

He exhales. The sniper sets one foot outside.

His knife finds its target; one slice to cut armor from shoulder to waist, another slice to dig it deep in their liver, twisting with one hand and then pulling it out as the other covers their mouth, silencing their scream of death into a pitiful moan of pain.

“Sleep, now.”

Their panic freezes into darkness, unable to fight the sluggishness caused by blood loss and his voice, until they struggle no more, letting them fall to the ground without a care. The ghost turns as he sprints, racing to the yellow, dilapidated apartment complex he’d left in the morning.

First floor.

Third floor.

Fifth floor.

Seventh floor.

Tenth floor.

Left hallway.

Apartment 1001.

He is not in the master bedroom, whose room is the only one with a large window, now shattered. Two distinct blood splatters, one at the height of the chest, spread like a shadow against white walls, another in the wooden floor, dripping blood trail that leads him to the bathroom.

Their helmet tossed on the blue-white tiles greets them first, visor shattered clean by an arrow. The shaft is broken in two pieces, carbide head lying in a small pool of still wet blood that leads to the shower, punctuated by layers of their clothes strewn around haphazardly.

There, sitting against the corner, clad only in pants and boots, torso uncovered but for the ripped white shirt that he presses against his torso, left hand wrapped in similar fabric now stained fresh crimson.

There, he raises his head with difficulty, the last dying rays of sunlight coming from the broken window, into the bathroom, bouncing off the tiles and highlighting the gaunt planes of his face, eyes looking at him, only at him.

His eyes look at the entirety of the assassin, from dust covered boots, ragged ends of cloak, bloodstained front of his jacket, until those square pupils lock onto his own slit ones, minute relief softening the sharp edges of the Doctor’s expression.

“Phantom.”

Their clothes are not merely to conceal their identity out in the field, but a necessity. The Doctor is unlike other Ægir operators, the might of their mind balanced by the fragility of their body.

“T-the temperature w-w-will drop another…16 degrees t-tonight. Help-p me up.”

His frame already shivers, lips trembling with the instinctual reaction of a body ill equipped to retain heat, a task usually left to the insulating clothes and helmet, regulating heat and cold even in the hottest of deserts or the coldest mountains without issue.

If they were intact, that is.

Phantom ignores the offered hand, lifting the Doctor right up by their torso and knees, their head tilting uselessly against his shoulder.

This apartment is no longer of use with the shattered windows, but there is another in the floor above still intact, leading them there without instruction through the still intact door, closed behind them.

The reactors of this town failed long ago and the people fled at the first sight of a catastrophe. It wasn’t kind to that which was discarded, nor the looters that returned once the dust was settled.

This apartment perhaps an exception, likely due the little it owned in the first place. Just a dirty, dusty bed, a closet thrown open, clothes spilling out of open drawers and knicknacks strewn on the floor and surface of the only table and chairs, old and rickety even well before the catastrophe.

“B-bathroom.”

Pink tiles greet them instead, the same premade configuration of sink, toilet, shower as he finally lets them down on their feet, teeth chattering as he grabs a dusty, thin body towel to wrap around his narrow waist and tie tightly.

He hoists the tangled sheets and dumps them in the shower, eyes scanning the closet for more before finding a pair of musty quilts crammed at the very top. Taking proper stock of the apartment will come later, closing the door behind them, locking themselves in the bathroom as he starts to undress himself.

“Move, Doctor.”

Unlike the bloodied fabric below, it is not discarded but added to the nest, as he sits in the strewn bedding, pulling the man towards him and pressing his freezing skin towards him, feeling the shudder of relief from the Ægir at coming in contact with his own warm skin, another, smaller shudder as Phantom throws the thick, musty quilt around them, wrapping the Doctor in a hug.

Windowless, lightless, they sit in total darkness for an untold amount of time.

No sound, but the labored breathing of the Doctor and the sudden wheeze at a particularly harsh shiver.

No feeling, but of cold clammy skin against his warmer one, the texture of a long stored felted quilt sticking to them.

No smell but the acrid sweat from a day of hunt, mixing unpleasantly with the scent of fresh blood.

Throughout, the Doctor curls up against him, frozen nose pressed against his shoulder; surrendered fully in trust to the feline that embraces him.

“This is my domain Doctor. Try to get some sleep.”

All Phantom gets is a mix between a wheeze and a laugh, interrupted by a particularly large convulsion at the effort.

Rest does not come for either of them that night.