Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Once the world has ended, it can never be the same.

People tried, of course. Once the rubble from the global nuclear fallout was cleared and all the survivors found, the very first idea was to go about building cities and governments and bringing back the status quo. But the thing about survivors is they're not the same as the dead, they're from a tougher stock, and trying to tell someone who just spat in the face of the apocalypse that what they need is more of the same is like trying to tell a lion that he can't sink his teeth into a beautiful steak.

Not that the world was rebuildable anyways, not with everything changed the way it was. All but the most rural of manmade structures were leveled in the chaos, and perhaps if humanity were to band together they could recover from that. The problem was that humanity wasn’t humanity anymore.

Some of the survivors made it out alive but not unscathed, the effects of the radiation mutating their DNA in ways that no one could have anticipated. Otherwise ordinary people were suddenly developing abilities, superhuman abilities, becoming a race of special humans known only as Exceptionals.

Which would have been fine --it might have even helped the reconstruction process, to have those who could lift mountains or soar above the trees-- if it weren’t for the fact that no nuclear missile could obliterate human greed. Almost as soon as the Exceptionals began to appear, they were hunted, tracked down and sold like commodities to the highest bidder. The lucky ones put to work using their special skills to aid whatever the specific goals of the clan who owned them happened to be. The unlucky ones found themselves in chains, put on display in the homes of the powerful like some sort of freakish menagerie of prizes, spoils of war.

And then there were the few who tried to keep hidden, who learned to contain their powers and tuck them away where no one could find them. Sometimes, a power would be just quiet enough that an exceptional could pass for normal, walking amongst the general population with few --if any-- of their neighbors ever knowing.

Harry is very careful in that way. The village he currently calls home is fairly large, about a hundred people, and of all them Zayn is the only one who knows he’s exceptional. Of course, the secret is safe with Zayn because he’s exceptional too; Harry found him one day behind the medicine tent watching with delight as bright red feathers sprouted on the backs of his fingers, flipping through every color under the sun before receding back into his smooth skin.

“How did you do that?” Harry had asked breathlessly, eyes glued to the young man’s wrist in fascination. “Did you just shape-shift?”

The man was up in a flash, hand pressed to Harry’s mouth and eyes desperate. “Not so loud!” he hissed at once. “You can’t- you can’t tell anyone, okay? Please, if they find out what I can do, they’ll--”

“I know what they’ll do,” Harry had interrupted solemnly. “I saw the raiders take the girl with the night vision last month. I won’t tell a soul that you can-- do whatever it is you can do.”

Zayn can shapeshift into any kind of animal, Harry later comes to find out, as well as communicate with them in his mind. It explains why there are always little birds and squirrels trailing after him, and why he always turns up knowing things he isn’t supposed to know (Zayn has mastered the art of quite literally being the fly on the wall). Harry happens to think it’s the coolest exceptional ability he’s ever seen.

When it comes to practicality, however, Harry has it in the bag. A couple of years after the fallout, he noticed that people always seemed to feel better around him, coughs disappearing and fevers cooling inexplicably. All he had to do was touch someone and suddenly, they were on the mend.

The real test didn’t come until Harry and Zayn were out in the woods one day, Zayn stripping down and morphing into a hawk so he can show off the flying skills he’s been perfecting in secret all week to the one boy he knows he can trust. “Watch this!” he called to Harry right before his mouth gave way to a beak, and as soon as he was fully bird, he was off like a rocket.

His demonstration may have been a little premature, however, because he’d been in the air less than ten seconds before he’d begun to wobble and suddenly he was careening into an oak tree with a thud and a pained screech. Harry watched in horror as Zayn’s human form began to take over again, and by the time he hit the ground he was himself once again and moaning in pain as he clutched an arm that was bent at a wholly unnatural angle.

“Zayn!” Harry shouted, darting over to where he lay in the dirt. “Jesus, are you-- are you okay?”

“I think I broke my wing-- arm-- whatever!”

That much was obvious, as Harry unfurled Zayn from his protective hunch and took a look for himself. “We can get you back to the hospital tent and reset it, get you a cast for it,” he mumbled miserably. “Do you think you can make it? I could go get someone and come back for you--”

“You’ve gotta do something, Hazza,” Zayn begged through gritted teeth. “Do the thing with your hands, take the edge off for me. It hurts like a fucking bitch.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll-- just stay still for a minute, okay? I’ll try. I don’t know how to-- I don’t know if I can, but just give me a minute.” Harry took a deep breath to calm the butterflies in his stomach and wrapped his hands gently around Zayn’s arm, right on either side of the break. Zayn hissed and closed his eyes and Harry followed suit, face screwing up in concentration, though on what he couldn’t say.

At first Harry felt nothing and Zayn’s labored breath went on. Please, just heal him, Harry begged whatever part of his damaged brain held this mutation. Just take his pain away, please. Maybe he’d just been imagining the effect he has on his patients because Zayn doesn’t appear to be healing, until there’s a tingle in Harry’s palms and a rush of heat down his spine and the odd sensation that he couldn’t take his hands from Zayn’s skin if he tried. Zayn gave a startled gurgle and froze beneath Harry’s touch, both boys holding their breath as the heat in Harry’s hands burned impossibly hot for one split second and then vanished.

When at last Harry found the will to open his eyes, he found Zayn already gawking at the formerly broken spot on his arm. It was perfectly straight once more, not a scratch on him, and when Zayn wiggles his fingers the muscles move seamlessly beneath the skin. “Holy shit,” Zayn croaked as he blinked up at Harry. “You’re incredible.”

There’s something about the way he says it, or maybe the grin he says it with, that reminds Harry of a lifetime ago before the war and of a version of himself he’d long since buried. “I guess,” he just weakly replied.

Over the next few years Harry learned to hone his skills, to call up the strange power quickly and to keep it in check. He learns to use only a little at a time, so that no one suspects that he’s anything except a good doctor. Fever by fever, infection by infection, he learns to craft his skill until now, nearly ten years after the world fell apart, Harry’s found his place in this new one.

Zayn develops the ability to communicate with animals telepathically, which leaves him relegated to nursing duty since he refuses to hunt or cook anything he can have a conversation with. Neither boy minds much, since that means they can spend their days together in the hospital tent, tending to the sick and wounded and keeping each other safe.

Or driving each other insane. “Harry, I don’t know why you won’t at least try to heal yourself,” Zayn reasons for the hundred thousandth time, voice low as he cuts new bandages from clean cloth and passes them to Harry to fold. “You’ve healed everyone in this village a dozen times. Why won’t you fix your face?”

He’s referring to the long scar running from Harry’s temple to jaw, a souvenir from a shrapnel bomb that took out most of his village back home. It had taken his family and left him with an ugly gash on his otherwise cherubic 15 year-old face. Ten years have passed and now it just accents the grimace he wears at Zayn’s words. “I don’t have to ‘fix’ my face, Zayn, I have no problem with how I look,” he answers tiredly.

“That’s not what I meant, mate, and you know it. You’re well fit. I just think it’d make things easier for you if you didn’t-- you know.” Zayn takes his time cutting straight lines in the fabric. “No one even looks at you when they talk to you. They either stare at your scar or at the ground. I just think you deserve to have people look at you for you, not some scratch on your face.”

“And what happens when I show up with a fresh face? They’ll look me in the eye alright, and then offer me up in a heartbeat the next time raiders come through.”

“So do it a little at a time,” Zayn shrugs. “Go get some berries from the forest and smash ‘em up into a paste, smear it on your scar and say the shit’s a miracle skin cure.”

“Right, until they try it for themselves and the only thing that happens is a berry-colored stain on their face.” Harry heaves an impatient sigh. “Of course it would be easier if I didn’t have the scar. You think I like being a social pariah? It just isn’t going to happen, and I’m okay with that.”

They continue to make bandages in silence until the fabric runs out, and Zayn sits on the edge of the table to watch Harry fold the last of them. “You can’t let this village walk all over you,” he says quietly at long last. “You’re the best guy I know, one of the few genuinely good guys.  You’re twenty-five years old, you should be starting a family. Any of those girls or lads would be lucky to have you.”

The last bandage is more a scrap than anything else, too small to be used, and Harry thumbs at the fray along the edges while he wills the lump in his throat to go away. Zayn’s the holder of all of Harry’s secrets, including the fact that he isn’t too picky about gender when it comes to love. He knows everything about Harry, even about the boy that Harry loved long ago and lost in the war along with everything else.

“I’m not ready,” he whispers uncomfortably, just like he does every time Zayn gently nudges him. “I hear what you’re saying and thank you, but-- it just doesn’t feel right, yet. I’m not ready.”

Zayn just nods, face nothing but kind. “Of course, mate.” He doesn’t pretend to understand what goes on beneath Harry’s curls when it comes to romance, never has. Most people were eager to connect in this strange new world, even past the almost universal mourning, but there was something that sat in Harry’s gut and refused not to feel sick at the idea of letting go of that boy he loved a lifetime ago. It just never felt right, and Zayn knew his best friend well enough to trust in that.

Harry opens his mouth as if to say more, but a shout rings out through the camp and both heads turn in unison to take in the words being called out. “Raiders,” Zayn whispers, the word sending a chill down both spines. Harry moves first, striding to the entrance to the tent and pulling the flap aside to peer out, Zayn coming up behind him to watch as activity in the center of the village grinds to a halt.

There are ten men with horses, suited up in worn armor with wicked-looking weapons in their hands. Their faces are hidden with masks, grotesque expressions painted on like the sight of armed strangers riding into town wasn’t enough to strike terror into innocent hearts. Every few weeks one of their agents will come sneaking into camp, hiding amongst the trees and listening at doorways for whispers of Exceptionals hiding in their midst until inevitably they were caught and some brave villager would run them out of town.

If they were lucky, the scout would turn up nothing. If they weren’t… it was never more than a few days before the scout was followed by warriors on horseback and some unfortunate creature was snatched from their home and dragged off to some unknown but undoubtedly terrible fate.

There’s a woman with long grey hair in a braid down her back standing before the horsemen now, arms crossed and chin jutted in defiance. “There’s nothing for you here,” she says firmly. “You can’t just come here and take our children from us--”

“Silence!” the leader growls. “We’re here for the boy with snakeskin hands.”

Harry drops the tent flap like it’s burning and whirls around to face Zayn. “You didn’t--?”

Zayn’s face is pale, his eyes wide with terror. “Learned how to do it last week. I was practicing in the woods, I checked like five times to make sure I was alone!”

“Shit. Oh, shit,” Harry moaned to himself, heart pounding. “Zayn, you’ve gotta go, you’ve gotta get out of here! He’ll give a description and they’ll hand you over, you know they will.”

There’s no denying it; the village stands strong now, but if they’re asked for a slight man with dark skin and swirls of ink they’ll know it’s Zayn and they’ll give him up. They have to. The alternative is to watch innocent people cut down one by one until the raiders get what they want or run out of throats to cut. Zayn nods shakily, then leaps into action, grabbing a sack from the dirt and shoving canteens of water and the remnants of his and Harry’s lunch into it as fast as he can. “I’ll take the back way. It’ll take them a minute to figure out who they’re looking for, and by then I can be gone. Tell them I ran, Harry, or else they’ll hurt people.”

“I don’t think you have time,” Harry gulps, peering warily through the tent flaps. Heads are starting to turn towards the hospital tent with suspicious eyes as the lead horseman rattles off a description. “You won’t be able to make it to the woods. Zayn, you need to shift and hide, now.”

There’s a split second of indecision as Zayn stops in his preparations and looks at Harry with eyes full of fear before he’s tearing off his clothes, body already shifting as he goes. Harry does his best to help, untangling the shirt from around Zayn’s shrinking limbs and tossing it behind a desk even as footsteps and angry whispers begin to approach the tent. “Hurry, hurry,” Harry whispers unnecessarily, heart pounding, watching as Zayn completes the transformation to a furry little mouse.

Harry scoops up Zayn and plops him in the breast pocket of his shirt without a second thought, kicking the discarded trousers and shoes under a table just as the tent flaps are ripped open and warriors start pouring in.

“Where is he?” a warrior growls to Harry as the others begin tearing apart the tent in search. “The dark-skinned one, the shapeshifter. They said he was in the medicine tent, where is he?”

“Who, Zayn?” Harry says innocently. “I dunno, he looked outside and then ran out the back. I think he was headed for the woods, but he didn’t say where he was go--”

“You idiot!” the man interrupts at a roar, bringing up one armored hand and lashing it across Harry’s cheek with enough force to knock him to the ground. Harry twists painfully to catch himself so that the boy-mouse in his pocket isn’t crushed, crying out when he feels something in his ankle snap. “To the woods, quickly!” he hears the warrior say. “Don’t let him get away!”

There’s a thunder of commotion as the warriors tear from the tent and towards the woods, and Harry remains on the ground, breathing hard, until the tent quiets. Eventually a gentle hand comes to rest on his shoulder. “Are you alright?” a man asks, one of the cooks who’s always at least tried to look at Harry directly.

“‘m fine,” Harry answers hoarsely, biting his lip at the pain in his face and ankle. “You should all go. I’ll need to clean up the tent.”

The few villagers that have trickled into the tent in the wake of the raiders look at a loss for words, their eyes sad as they take in the wreckage of the once tidy tent and the boy on the ground whose best friend is currently being hunted in the woods. Apparently no one can think of any words of comfort, because it’s in silence that they slowly trickle back out.

Harry sits up with a grunt and rests one hand on his cheek, feeling his palm heat up with healing power to dull the pain from what’s surely an already purpling bruise. Zayn scurries out of his pocket and down one arm to the ground, quickly shifting back to human. “They’ll notice that your face is fixed, Harry, you shouldn’t,” he says as soon as he has a mouth. “I’m so sorry, you shouldn’t have been in the middle of that--”

“It doesn’t matter what they see if we’re going on the run,” Harry interrupts, moving on to grab his ankle with a wince. “You need to stay shifted, though, they might come back. I’ll grab some food and we’ll leave before they can miss us.”

Zayn is shaking his head before Harry can finish. “No way. You’re not coming with me. You’ve got a life here, Harry, a good one. I’m the one that fucked up and got caught. I’m the one who needs to run.”

“And you’re also my best friend. It’s non-negotiable. I’m coming with you, okay?” Harry is already picking up the abandoned pack and loading it up with first aid supplies and the snacks they keep on hand for patients. “We’re better as a team. You shift back and I’ll carry you out of the village, and we will make it through this together, do you hear me?”

They lock eyes for a long moment before Zayn looks down and nods. “Thank you,” he whispers.

Harry just retrieves Zayn’s clothes from the ground and shoves them into the pack with a little smile. “Mouse up, Z.”

Five minutes later he’s strolling from the tent with Zayn tucked in his pocket and the pack on his back. For once it’s to his benefit that no one can look at him with that scar on his face, since it sends people scurrying away from him rather than questioning why he’s heading towards the woods with his bags packed. No one stops him. He keeps expecting them to, to call out and stop him from disappearing into the trees, but in the end he just slips away without a word and no one mourns his going.

It’s probably better that way, though.

Once they’re well into the woods, Zayn shifts into an eagle and soars overhead, keeping watch for raiders and guiding Harry around all the rivers and valleys that stand as obstacles in their path. Neither of them really knows where they’re going, except for away from the village and the raiders. By sunset the raiders have given up and are retreating into the mountains, and Zayn is back on the ground with Harry picking their way through the trees.

“At some point we’ll have to pick someplace to aim for,” Zayn says quietly as they struggle their way through a little thicket, using sticks they found to swat the brush aside. “We can’t just walk in a straight line forever, there’s no telling where we’ll end up.”

“Can’t think of anywhere I particularly want to go,” Harry grumbles in answer. “The whole world is fucked up. It’ll just be the same story in a different city.”

“Yeah, but with people who don’t know to turn us over to the raiders. To turn me over to the raiders.” Zayn pulls up short and sags against a tree with a hand over his face. “This is all my fault. I should have fucking known better than to use my ability outside where anyone could see. We wouldn’t be in this mess if I weren’t such a fucking idiot.”

“It isn’t your fault,” Harry argues at once. “We’re in this mess because there are people out there who think that Exceptionals should be property. They’re the ones to blame, not you. Okay? Come on, let’s just keep going and find a place to stop for the night--”

Suddenly there’s a faint whistling sound through the trees and a spray of bark as an arrow thuds into the trunk of the tree Zayn’s leaning against, not three inches from his head. They both whip around in time to see a figure slinking back into the brush with a bow in hand and a scowl on his face. “Raiders! Run!” Zayn shouts, already sprinting in the opposite direction as fast as his legs can carry him. Harry is close on his heels, the thick branches whipping them in the face as they go.

Behind them they can hear the shouts of raiders closing in, more arrows whipping by. There’s no time even to duck, what with the way they’re racing through the thicket. There’s too much around them, the brush is too dense to be rushing through this way, and the instant Harry feels one of his clumsy feet snag on a tree root he knows he’s done for. Harry goes crashing to the forest floor, head smacking painfully against a fallen log with a cry that’s half pain and half fear.

The last thing Harry sees before the darkness overtakes his vision is Zayn stopping and turning to help him and an arrow flying straight into his chest. He doesn’t even have time to scream.

Chapter Text

It’s the pounding in Harry’s head that eventually wakes him up. He hasn’t even opened his eyes yet and already he’s moaning, the throb of his skull threatening to make him empty his stomach. One hand flies up at once to find a giant knot beneath his curls, fingers tingling with familiar warmth as he focuses on feeling it shrink beneath his touch. Little by little the pain ebbs, until at last Harry can pry his eyes open with no small amount of dread to see where he’s been taken.

It’s a hut, not unlike the ones in the village they’ve just come from, except the faces peering over at him are unfamiliar. “You alright there, mate?” a blonde man with an Irish accent asks, standing and moving closer to Harry’s cot.

Harry acts instinctively, leaping out of bed and scrambling up against the wall  as far from the man as possible. “Stay back!” he shouts, suddenly wishing he could grow fangs or claws like Zayn, anything to protect himself with--

As soon as he thinks of the other boy he scans the room in panic until his eyes fall on a second cot with yet another stranger standing over it. Zayn is lying there, unmoving, the only sign of life the faint rise and fall of his chest beneath where the unfamiliar man is pressing bloody rags to his wound in an attempt to stop the steady bleeding. “He’s alive,” the man answers Harry’s terror, his voice surprisingly kind. “Barely, but he’s alive.”

“Move your hands,” Harry breathes, rushing to Zayn’s side at once. The man hesitates and Harry shoves his hands aside to replace them with his own, pressing down until his skin is damp with Zayn’s blood and shutting his eyes in concentration. The heat starts seeping into Zayn almost at once, and Harry can feel, in a way that’s not quite vision but not entirely imagined either, just how serious the wound really is. The beat of Zayn’s heart is faint, almost gone, slowing with every passing second as Harry’s power spreads through him.

It’s a slow process, piecing Zayn back together. Harry can feel muscles and veins knitting together with a sizzle of energy, starving cells flickering back to life. He can hear Zayn’s heart stutter and then beat a little stronger, gaining purchase on the blood now filling his body once more. He can sense the oxygen running down every alley inside of Zayn, muscles breathing sighs of relief, brain starting to glow back to life as his neurons fire in overtime now that the energy is there.

The skin over the wound is starting to crawl shut when suddenly Zayn’s eyes fly open, chest heaving as he gulps in air. His fingernails dig into Harry’s wrist as he grips the boy’s healing hands, eyes instantly afraid even as they struggle to stay open. “Harry, no-- they’ll see--”

For the first time in what his aching back tells him must have been half an hour at least, Harry takes his eyes off of the healing hole in Zayn’s chest to look up at the two strangers who are huddled off to the side watching the events unfolding with wide eyes. “So they’ll see,” he says tersely. “I don’t care. I’m not going to let you die. The raiders can take me too, it’s not important.”

Zayn would probably argue, except that Harry bites his lip and sends an extra zing of energy into his brain so that his eyes flutter shut and he’s asleep at once, body eager to accept rest after hovering so close to death. “Sorry,” Harry mumbles, even though he isn’t, before turning to face the strangers. “Do what you want with me, but let him rest. He almost died.”

“I thought he was dead,” the kind one says. “He was barely breathing when we rescued the two of you--”

“When you rescued us?” Harry interrupts furiously. “Is that what you call it when you ride into villages and snatch people up from their homes just for being different? You rescue us from an awful life of freedom and give us some nice slavery instead?”

“Whoa, whoa, calm down, mate,” the Irish one says, palms extended in a gesture of peace. “You’ve got this all wrong. We’re not raiders.”

Harry frowns at the pair, then down at Zayn’s sleeping form, then up at the men once more. “We were being chased by raiders, then I was knocked unconscious and he was shot, and now we wake up and you want me to believe you’re not the bad guys?”

“You’re free to take your friend and leave at any time,” blondie says. “We saved you from the raiders. One of the foragers from our village saw you being chased through the forest and came to get help, and we stepped in before they could take you. Brought you back here so we could fix you up-- guess you took care of that for us there, mister magic hands.”

“Fix us up so you could parade us around, you mean,” Harry scowls, unconvinced.

“Things are different here,” the other one answers. “Everyone here is exceptional. We don’t-- we’re a safe haven. For people like us.”

He looks so earnest that even Harry’s suspicious walls start to quiver. He has to swallow a few times before he can speak. “So you’re--?”

“Exceptional, yeah. I’m pretty strong, and if I get enough momentum I can run so fast you can’t see me. I’m Liam, by the way,” he adds after a pause. “This is Niall. He can fly.”

Niall floats a few inches off the floor and wiggles his fingers in a friendly wave of confirmation. “What about you?”

“I’m Harry. I can -erm, heal. Like you saw. This is Zayn.”

“Is Zayn exceptional?”

Harry just shakes his head. “If you don’t already know, that isn’t my story to tell. Ask him yourself when he wakes up.”

“He will wake up though?” Niall confirms, stepping over to the side of Zayn’s bed and leaning down to listen for breath. “That’s pretty sick, what you did. Never seen anything like that before. The chief will be impressed.”

“The chief?”

“Yeah, he’s called Striker. Like a lightning strike. He can control the weather,” Niall finishes in a whisper with a wiggle of his eyebrows. “Well scary. Especially since when he gets mad he can’t properly control it.”

“He doesn’t talk about it much,” Liam adds in an equally conspiratorial whisper, “but rumor has it he lost someone in the war, a true love or something. He doesn’t have anything to ground him so when he tries to harness electricity things can get out of hand. Not that he lets anyone close enough to know if that’s true.”

Niall shrugs his shoulders with unconcern. “You’ll see what we mean. If you choose to stay,” he rushes to add. “Like I said, you aren’t prisoners.”

It’s probably good form for Harry to hold his tongue, to take a look around and talk to people and wait for Zayn to be conscious so he can include him in this decision. But the truth is, Harry realizes as he looks down at his sleeping friend, this is their only option. It’s a great big world out there, even if the war made it smaller, and if there’s even one tiny part of it that isn’t looking to put them in chains for who they are, that’s where they’re meant to be. That’s where they have to be.

“I guess I’ll see what you mean,” he answers quietly, “because we’ve got nowhere else to go.”

…………………

The chief, as it turns out, is even more mysterious than he sounds.

Most of the time he stays inside his hut, the biggest one in the center of the village, with messengers running in and out throughout the day to bring him news and bring back orders. He joins the rest of the village for evening meal, waltzing into the square with a posse of assistants and bodyguards and talking to no one except for his inner circle. Then he retreats back into his tent without a word.

You can’t even see his face, at least not properly. There’s war paint of red and blue smeared across his skin, highlighting the lines of his bones and looking just a tad like the blood of his enemies, concealing his features all the while. The only thing you can see is a pair of striking blue eyes and a gaze sharp enough to kill.

The only other time Striker leaves his tent is when they catch wind of an exceptional in need of rescuing. Eventually Harry gathers that they have a spy within the raiders’ camp, someone who reports back when and where the raiders are going to appear to seize assets so that Striker and his crew can run interference, doing the best they can to get to the exceptionals before the raiders can or else win them back before they’re hurt. Naturally Harry never goes on these raids --he has no training in combat and besides, a healer is too great of an asset to risk-- but he does get to tend to the warriors who get injured when they return to camp.

Not Striker, though. No one’s ever quick enough to get Striker.

Zayn wakes up about fifteen hours after Harry puts him under, sore and confused but otherwise completely healed. Niall --who turns out to be one of Striker’s main advisors-- immediately assigns the both of them to work in the hospital tent, considering that Harry’s skill at healing is completely unparalleled and the two boys are practically joined at the hip. It takes Zayn over a week to feel safe enough to tell anyone what he can do. If he carries around a heart full of guilt for being careless enough to get them run out of their village, Harry is the only one who knows him well enough to see it.

The funny thing is, Harry and Zayn find their place in the new village almost right away, feeling more at home among these strangers in a month than they did after almost a decade at home. Maybe it’s the way that everyone here is living out of a similar sense of fear, a looming trepidation of the outside world that unites them in a common cause to protect one another and thrive here in this little village where at least they’re safe from those who wish to harm them. Maybe it’s the way that they can finally, for the first time since the war ravaged their DNA with these strange mutations, live as themselves.

No longer does Harry have to keep his abilities in check in order to conceal the truth from those around him. Now he can have a patient laid before him and simply close his eyes and let the power rush from his palms into their skin, free for anyone to see the way that healing comes from his body to mend that of another. Zayn spends his spare time learning to morph into the bodies of a cornucopia of new animals, once the band of fear around his chest is loosened and he knows somewhere deep in his soul that he can take whatever form he pleases without being hunted. It’s funny, that embracing the things that make them so different can make them feel so at home, but before  a month has passed, that’s exactly where they feel they are; at home.

The village embraces them, too. Some of it probably has to do with their abilities, since they haven’t had a single casualty since Harry came to town, but beyond that, even, they seem to like the duo for who they are-- which is as dizzying as it is unfamiliar. Harry still reel reels a little bit every time someone comes bursting into his tent with a patient in tow calling him ‘H’ and looking at him like he can do anything, scar or no scar.

This time it appears that a patient is dragging himself in, stumbling into the medical tent where Harry is alphabetizing his herbs. “How can I help you? Harry asks automatically as he turns, gasping when he sees it’s Liam leaning heavily on a surgical table with blood dripping from a gash on his forehead. “Jesus! Liam, what hap--”

“Run,” Liam interrupts to order. “They’ve found us. Run, H!”

Harry’s bolting before his stomach has even finished sinking. They’d always known this was a possibility of course; if the raiders ever got wind of an entire village full of exceptionals they’d come swooping down in an instant. Everyone knew that. It’s just that Harry had been so happy here he could almost pretend it wasn’t so.

The crowd is pushing against him as he attempts to make his way to Zayn’s tent. There’s a mad rush towards the woods, a panicked exodus, and as much as Harry would like to run with them, the fearful knot in his stomach just keeps putting one foot in front of the other and drawing him to Zayn. For all Harry knows he could be gone already, could be miles away in the form of a cheetah or an eagle or something else that can’t possibly be tamed, but Harry can’t leave without making sure.

The tent is empty. That has to be good news, right? That means he’s already run, that now Harry can run too, can turn around and sprint for the trees like everyone else and maybe get out of here before hell arrives in a handbasket--

But when Harry turns around to push the tent flaps open once more, it isn’t the path to freedom that he sees before him. It’s a raider with an angry face, a burlap sack coming down towards him, and darkness.

Chapter Text

He tries for a little while to keep track of where the raider leads him. He stumbles too often to count steps though, and the screams and the sounds of weapons clanging together from every which direction make it hard to keep track of which direction he’s being dragged in. All Harry can tell after a few minutes is that the soft dirt of the village has given way to gnarled roots and broken twigs and branches that slice into the soft skin of his arms as they go.

Hours pass. Maybe it’s just minutes, but it feels like hours of trekking through the woods with burlap rough against his cheek and cords biting into his wrists, bruising fingers wrapped around his upper arm as men bark at each other all around him. He can hear other voices, pleading, clearly more exceptionals from the village who hadn’t been quick enough to escape. He keeps asking where they are, where they’re going, as if one of his captors might develop a heart and give him an answer to soothe the fear pounding through his veins.

(None do.)

Eventually the light filtering through the sack on his head gets dimmer and the air on his skin cooler, and the sudden echoing of noise around him tells Harry that he’s indoors. It smells dank putrid, like a building either made for filth or just too unimportant for anyone else to be arsed cleaning. The ropes at Harry’s wrists are yanked roughly and then fall away, and with a clang of metal, Harry is alone.

He waits a long moment before daring to reach up and pull the hood from over his head. Things don’t get much clearer even without the cloth in front of his eyes, since the only source of light in the room is weak sunlight filtering through a tiny barred window. He appears to be in some sort of prison cell, cinderblock walls and a heavy metal door containing him. There’s no furniture of any sort, just a bucket in the corner that Harry prays was emptied in anticipation of his arrival.

Quiet. For hours and hours, the only sound in the cell is Harry’s own breathing, the occasionally scuffle of his feet when he gets up to walk around the cramped room. It’s a heavy kind of silence, one that makes the air thick and the very world seem to stop spinning.

Perhaps it’s the persistent silence and stillness of the cell that makes any change seem all but impossible, but it seems awfully sudden when the door is thrown open and a new prisoner is shoved inside. This one is a fighter, trying to pull his bound wrists free of the guard’s grasp, to no avail. All the struggling earns him is an extra shove that sends him reeling into the stone wall headfirst. There’s a sickening sound as skulll and hard cinderblock collide and the man’s knees crumple.

Harry is on his feet before he can think better of it, moving instinctively to place himself between victim and perpetrator. “You can’t treat him like that,” Harry says fiercely, indignation turning his tongue to fire. “We’re human beings, that’s abuse--”

A fist connects with Harry’s jaw, which effectively ends the conversation as he’s knocked flat on his arse with an ‘oof.’ The door clangs shut a few seconds later, leaving Harry to rub at his chin with a wince. “You alright?” he asks when that healing warmth from his fingertips has seeped into the bruising flesh and edged out the ache.

There’s a long pause. Harry’s beginning to wonder whether the silence and stillness will remain undisturbed after all when the man turns over to sit on his arse with a groan. “I should be asking you that,” he says at last, voice light but sharp. “Don’t you know it’s a bad idea to pick fights with people twice your size?”

“Right, because you’re clearly so adept at avoiding confrontation,” Harry scoffs, pushing up off the floor to approach the stranger. “Turn around and I can untie you.”

There’s another moment of hesitation, but then the man complies. It takes a long minutes for Harry to untie the knots with the way the man flinches away every time Harry accidentally touches the skin of his wrists rather than simply the rope. “Thanks,” comes the short reply when at last both wrists are freed.

“I can fix your forehead, too,” Harry offers, nervously eyeing the fresh gash dripping blood down the side of that dark face. There’s something coating the skin, perhaps mud caked on, and all Harry can see in the dark room is piercing blue eyes.

“What, have you got a first aid kit shoved up your arse?” Blue eyes roll. “I doubt I’m getting medical attention in this place.”

Luckily Harry is used to working with children, so he doesn’t show any impatience. “I’m a healer,” he explains. “The radiation, it gave me the ability to heal people with my hands. Would you like me to try, or would you prefer to save face and bleed out?”

The man’s shrug is awfully non-committal for someone with blood in his eyelashes, but Harry takes it as permission regardless. He gingerly places all ten fingertips on the man’s scalp, and as soon as contact is made, it’s like the healing energy is being pulled right out of him. There’s no searching for the injury in his mind, no concentration, just energy flowing forth like it’s returning home.

It’s barely a handful of seconds later that the wound is healed, and the man pulls back to look up at Harry with eyebrows raised. “That’s quite the mutation you’ve got there.”

There’s not really much to say to that, so Harry just shrugs a shoulder. “I’m H.”

“Striker,” comes the reply, and pieces fall into place at once in Harry’s mind. It isn’t mud covering the face before him, it’s war paint-- streaks of red and blue ever obscuring the mysterious chief’s visage. The one little strip of light coming into the window falls on braided brown hair, just like Harry’s seen from a distance.

“I know you,” Harry says slowly. “I was in your village, I was the head healer. We never met, but I would see you in the village sometimes.”

Striker squints up at Harry for a moment before looking away with a shrug. “Wouldn’t know. Can’t see for shit in here. Don’t doubt that you’re the best healer there is, though.”

It’s near enough to a compliment that Harry feels his face warm despite the damp chill of the room. He returns to his spot in the corner opposite of Striker and sinks to the floor with a sigh. “They got us all, then? If they got you, they must have won.”

Striker doesn’t say a word, which Harry supposes is answer enough.

If Harry thought things in his prison were going to get livelier now that he had a cellmate, he was destined to be disappointed. The two barely spoke, Striker because he’s apparently content without human contact, Harry because he’s somewhat terrified of Striker. They sit in their respective corners as the days pass, time punctuated only by the two trays of food they receive twice a day and their own occasional shuffles to the bucket.

Three days have passed, judging by the schedule of trays and the shifting of the window’s light from pitch black to merely very dark a few times. There is still nothing more than quietude to hear. Harry is left to dwell on what he can feel, which at the moment is a dangerous rumble in his stomach.

“I can hear you panting from over here,” Striker remarks, his voice cracking from disuse. “Why are you all curled up like that?”

“I don’t know what was in today’s pile of mush, but it isn’t agreeing with me,” Harry grits out. There’s a bead of sweat rolling down his temple as he fights to keep his stomach from rebelling. If he just breathes in and out through his nose and concentrates, maybe he won’t--

It isn’t three seconds later that Harry’s leaning over and hurling all of his stomach contents on the floor next to him, and somehow it manages to be three times as disgusting on the way back up as it was on the way down. He tries to put a hand to his throat to use his abilities to stop the retching --even gross calories are calories he needs in a place like this-- but it’s no good, and Harry continues to kneel there on the hard floor until his stomach is empty once more.

When at last he slumps back against the wall, defeated, Harry can see Striker’s short silhouette standing next to him, arm outstretched as he offers something up. A handkerchief, Harry realizes when he reaches out to accept it, gratefully wiping his mouth. “Thanks.” He tries not to let surprise color his voice at the unexpectedly kind gesture from such a stoic man.

“Guess even healers get sick,” Striker says simply, returning to his corner, and silence descends once more.

The next break in routine comes later that same day, just as Harry’s managed to stop feeling queasy every time he breathes too deeply. He’s even feeling good enough that he might catch a little sleep, might drift off against the wall, if it weren’t for a yelp and Striker’s very loud exclamation of, “Fucking shit!”

Harry is on his feet at once, eyes darting around the room in search of danger. He finds it slithering in through the window, a thick, deadly boa constrictor winding its way through the bars towards Harry. Striker is fumbling behind himself, grasping for the metal tray he’d cleaned of food not long ago. Once he finds it, he holds it like the blade of a guillotine and raises it above his head--

“Wait!” Harry cries, flinging his hands up just in time to stop Striker’s attack, the tray skirting painfully off his knuckles as he falls to the floor before the snake. His heart pounds as it slithers closer. “Wait. I think… I’m not sure, but--”

“Are you out of your mind?” Striker grits out through his teeth. “Just hold still and I’ll kill it!”

“Don’t, please, just wait a minute,” Harry begs. The boa begins to crawl up his torso and wind around his neck, cool scales feeling like a noose before the drop. “Please, don’t let me be wrong,” he whispers to himself or to the universe. “Please, for the love of all that’s holy--”

The snake lets out a long hiss right next to his ear, and Harry swears he can hear it say I’m jusssssst fucking with you, sssssweetheart.

“Zayn, you absolute tosser,” Harry sighs, the harsh words betrayed by the rush of relief in his voice. “I was about to piss my pants.”

“Are you talking to a--?” Striker starts to ask, but his voice trails off as the boa constrictor around Harry’s shoulders starts to change shape. Within thirty seconds there is a very naked Zayn sitting in Harry’s lap, and Striker just swallows, hard. “I have to admit, I didn’t see that coming.”

“Who’s this arsehole?” Zayn grumbles, jerking a thumb towards Striker even as Harry gives him a crushing hug. “Did he just try to chop me up with a cafeteria tray?”

“Well you did come in snake form,” Harry defends. “Zayn, this is Striker. Striker, Zayn. He’s from our village, he can shift into animal forms. Fuck, I thought you were dead,” he says just for Zayn, burying his head in his friend’s shoulder. “I went back for you, when the village was under attack, but you weren’t there. They got me before I could find you.”

“You should have been running, not looking for me, idiot. I was in bug form hiding under the bed. You know I can take care of myself.”

“Yeah, right up until the time you can’t--”

“I hate to break up this little reunion,” Striker interrupts, not sounding sorry in the least, “but I hope that you broke in here for a reason.”

“To break you out, obviously,” Zayn replies quickly. “Well, technically I came for H, but I suppose two for one isn’t a bad deal. We’ve been searching the forest for this prison for days before I caught H’s scent. You’re kind of ripe, no offense.”

“Wait, who’s ‘we’?” Striker demands, head jerking towards the window through which Zayn came. “Are there others with you? How many?”

“Just Liam and Niall. They’re the only two I’ve found so far. We think most of the exceptionals are being held here with you.”

Striker’s eyes close, the tiny bit of moonlight they were reflecting disappearing behind his lashes.  A tiny smile quirks the corner of his mouth. “Liam and Niall are alright.”

“They’re waiting outside for us.”

“I assume you have a plan, then? For how to get us out?” Striker’s eyes are open again and full of calculation. Even with the five of us, a direct confrontation with the guards won’t go well. There’s got to be at least fifteen of them, and they’re armed--”

“That’s why we won’t confront them. We’re going to sneak out the window.”

“There’s no way we can fit through there,” Harry frowns, eyeing the narrow slits between the bars. “Unless you’ve found a way to turn us all into snakes, you need a new plan.”

Zayn just rolls his eyes and takes a few steps back into the center of the cell. “You’re always so impatient, H.”

Harry doesn’t even have time to retort before Zayn is shifting, not back into a snake as Harry expected, but into a great, hulking bear. Fur erupts from skin, features stretching and thickening, razor sharp claws emerging from the tips of each powerful paw. The cell is suddenly even more claustrophobic than before, both Harry and Striker pressing against the walls to leave room for the enormous creature between them.

Bear-Zayn doesn’t waste any time, lumbering over to the window and standing on his back paws. There’s a rumble from deep in his chest. Harry closes his eyes. The next thing he knows there’s a creaking sound and a clang and where there once was bars there’s now an empty window just wide enough for someone to slip through.

Striker scrambles to the window as soon as Zayn is clear, sticking his head through for a moment before looking back at Zayn in dismay. “That’s a twenty-five foot drop. Even if we make it out, we’ll break our legs on the way down.”

“I can heal us,” Harry winces. “It won’t be pleasant, it’ll still hurt like a bitch, but at least I can heal us after.”

“Or,” comes a voice through the window, “you could just ask for help.”

“I’ve never been so happy to see your ugly Irish mug,” Striker says excitedly, and Harry squints through the darkness to recognize Niall’s pale complexion hovering outside the window. “Can you hold us both and get us down to the ground?”

“One at a time,” Niall answers with a shake of his head. “Come on, then, out you come.”

He grabs Striker by the wrists and helps him shimmy out the window. Zayn is shifting back to human form, and gestures Harry to go next. “I’ll be right behind you as a bird,” he says. “As soon as Niall’s on the ground with Striker he’ll come back for you--”

Shouts in the hallway cut off Zayn’s word, and Harry realizes with the brute force of instinct that they’ve been found out. He doesn’t hesitate before throwing his weight against the cell door, and it isn’t three seconds later that the door is straining against him as a guard tries to force it open. “They must have heard the bars breaking!” he shouts, muscles straining to keep the door closed. “Zayn, go! I’ll hold the door while you shift.”

“You can’t stay here,” Zayn says angrily, “go now!”

“If they catch you mid-shift they’ll kill you,” Harry wheezes. “As soon as you’re out I’ll follow you, just-- just go, Zayn!”

Maybe Zayn hears the desperation in Harry’s voice, or maybe he sees the way his feet are struggling for traction as he fights against the guards trying to reach them, but he argues no further. Skin and bones give way to feathers and wings the way they’ve done a thousand times before and then he’s taking flight, bursting through the window and into the night sky.

Harry takes exactly three seconds to psych himself up before he pushes off the door and bolts for the window. He knocks his head and both his elbows trying to shimmy out, only to realize with a growing sense of dread that Niall isn’t waiting for him. He’s still placing Striker on the ground a few dozen yards away. A hand grabs at Harry’s ankle and he kicks it away, uses the momentum to shove himself through the window and into freefall.

Somewhere between the window and the ground Harry has time to worry if he’ll pass out from the pain before he can heal his own broken bones.

Chapter Text

Hitting the ground doesn’t feel quite like Harry expected, mostly because it isn’t earth that his body meets but strong arms that slow his descent and cushion him just seconds before impact. “Hello, H, how are you?” Liam says serenely as he sets Harry upright and unharmed on the grass. “Y’alright?”

“I’ll be better the farther we get away from here,” Harry replies, already running away from the building and towards where the others wait. His footsteps falter and stop when he sees Striker hesitating on the edge of the treeline. “Striker? What’s the matter?”

“We can’t leave the others here,” Striker replies lowly, jaw tight as he stares back at the building they’ve just fled from. “We have to break them all out.”

“There’s too many guards,” Zayn argues. “They’d crush us, even if we were all rested and fed and ready to fight.”

“Plus we’ve lost the element of surprise,” Liam adds solemnly with a shake of his head. “They know you two are gone, and they won’t stop until you’re dead.”

Striker lets that sink in for a moment before nodding curtly. “So we draw them off and create a diversion. H and I. We let them chase us through the woods and while they’re distracted trying to catch us, you three can get to the others.”

No one says anything for a long moment, but then Niall gives a terse nod. “That’s as good a plan as any. There’s a cave next to a clearing where we’ve been camped out about six miles South of here.” He gestures into the trees. “We can meet there once we’ve rescued the others. But how do you plan on getting them to follow--”

He doesn’t even get to finish his sentence. Striker interrupts him by cupping his hands around his mouth and shouting, “Quick, this way! They’re getting away!” and proceeding to bolt into the woods beyond them.

Harry is following a beat later, sprinting after Striker as fast as his legs will carry him. “Where are we going?” he asks before the panting begins, arms pumping as he pulls even with the fearless leader.

“As far away from that cave as possible,” Striker answers with ease. “I hope you’re a stamina man. Let them chase us North while the rest of the escapees head South. If we can outrun them, we’ll loop around and find the clearing later.”

Harry doesn’t mention the tug of fear in his gut at the word ‘if.’

The guards certainly do give chase. Striker’s shout brings them running in a horde, well behind the fleeing two but close enough that their pursuers can see their faces and chase them that much harder. There’s the grim sort of realization in Harry’s gut that all it would take for them to be overtaken would be a mere moment’s hesitation.

Neither hesitate. Harry’s lungs start to burn at their breakneck pace, tired feet tripping increasingly on the twigs and leaves of the forest floor. His mouth grows chalky, his back stiff. He keeps staring at Striker’s retreating back, his mind narrowing down on that target, and somehow, the idea that it’s a chase for him instead of a flight for their lives keeps him going long past the point at which he thought he’d simply drop to the spongy ground and give up. It helps him to ignore --if not forget-- the wearines settling in his bones.

It must be settling in the guards, too, because the farther and the harder they run (or, as the night wears on, stumble), the fainter the sounds of pursuit behind them grow. They can still see over their shoulders the glow of torches somewhere back in the trees, but by the glow of dawn, their trudging is still faster than the murmur of pursuants behind them.

Harry’s just about to beg for rest when Striker comes to a halt and plops down on a fallen tree without even turning to look at his companion. “Just for a minute,” he groans in explanation. “My feet are going to fucking fall off.”

“I thought you’d never offer. I’m not sure how much farther I can go,” Harry admits after a long pause. The words feel thick on his tongue. “I’m sorry, I’m just-- I’m not built for this the way you are.”

“You can’t give up now,” Striker sighs, turning at last to face Harry. “We’ve almost lost them, we--”

For a few seconds after Striker’s words drop off, Harry blinks expectantly at him, waiting for the end of the sentence that never comes. Something has apparently stunned the bossiness right out of Striker, and he’s reduced to staring at Harry with mouth agape. Nobody moves. Harry isn’t sure either of them breathes.

Then, just as suddenly as Striker stopped, he starts into action, standing and gripping Harry’s jaw with one hand for just a fraction of a moment before the drops the contact and steps back. “We should split up,” he says abruptly. “The meeting place should be about a mile East of us now, you can get there in half an hour if you walk at this. I’ll keep drawing them off.”

Harry tries to push aside the reeling oddness of the entire interaction and focus just on the words. “What? Why? We’ve made it together the whole time, I’m not just going to abandon you now.”

“The guards will tire out quicker than I will,” argues Striker, refusing to meet Harry’s eye. “They’ll turn back soon, and when it’s safe I’ll come. But if you pass out on me--”

“Right, because you’re in so much better shape than I am,” Harry retorts. “I’m a healer, Striker, I can tell an exhausted man when I see one.”

It isn’t a lie. Striker’s face, concealed as ever by the paint, is sagging with fatigue, his body swaying slightly as he attempts to stand firm. His hands shake much the same as Harry’s. “You should go for safety. Half an hour--”

“If we walk,” Harry interrupts. “I say we run.”

He doesn’t wait for an answer, just grabs Striker by the hand and starts sprinting East, tugging the man along behind him. His muscles ache, his whole body protests this final burst of speed, but there is something indomitable inside of Harry that has been hunted for a decade and refuses to be caught. The trees rush past them, and their pursuers are left behind, and when they burst into the clearing it’s hand in hand with matching sighs of relief.

Striker pries his fingers away first, to point at a formation of rocks off to one side. “There,” he says firmly, striding towards it with confidence. “Niall said there was a cave. We need to find the entrance.”

The entrance rather finds him, in the form of Liam racing out in a hazy blur and gathering Striker up into a hug before they’re halfway across the field. “Oh, thank god you’ve made it,” he says fiercely, squeezing tight enough to bruise. “We didn’t think you’d be all night, when you weren’t here by dawn we assumed…”

He trails off, and Striker shrugs. “You shouldn’t assume.”

Liam leads them both back towards the entrance to the cave, a small slit in the rocks that they might have taken hours to find if Liam hadn’t come to their aid. “Have you lost them?” he asks quietly as they climb inside.”

“Think so,” Striker answers shortly. “But I want someone on watch at all times. This is a fairly defensible spot, so we need to take advantage by--” He stops mid-sentence and gives what feels like his hundredth sigh of the morning. “What am I babbling on about like a twat? Nothing you don’t already know, is it?”

“You’ve always terribly underestimated me,” Liam says kindly, “but I’ll let it slide since you look like you could use a rest.”

Harry’s already sinking to the floor by the time Liam finishes the sentence, a nook in the cave wall calling his name and drawing him in until he’s curled up in the tiny space and giving relief to his weary legs at last. Someone hands him a handful of berries and herbs harvested from the woods, and for the first time in a what feels like a century Harry stops thinking about who’s chasing him.

…………………                          

It doesn’t last.

He hasn’t even had the chance to drift off into the sleep he so desperately needs yet, having just barely finished his meager meal when a commotion towards the entrance of the cave drags Harry to his feet. “What’s going on?” he asks someone rushing past him and deeper into the cave. “What’s happening?”

“They found us,” the man replies without stopping. “God knows how, but they found us.”

Harry has to push against the current of people fleeing danger to reach the cave’s opening, but when he last he sees sunlight peeking through, it’s Striker, Liam, Niall, and Zayn who stand like sentries looking out upon the field. He doesn’t say a word as he takes up his place between Zayn and Liam. “What do we do?”

“We’re screwed,” Niall says resolutely, and as they peer across the grassy expanse, no one can find it in themselves to disagree. On their side five weary, exhausted men make a stand. On the other side stands dozens, armed and trained and strong, with food in their bellies and rest in their bones. There’s a tremble in Harry’s heart, just a little silent quiver as he realizes that after so long spent running and hiding, the end had come at last.

“Go inside,” Striker says quietly. “All of you.”

“It’ll take them five minutes to find the entrance to the cave,” Zayn says flatly, face drawn and pale. “We’d have no place to run.”

“Even if there was somewhere to run to, everyone in there is exhausted,” Harry adds. “They wouldn’t make it half a mile.” His own legs wobble as if to demonstrate.”

“No one’s going to be running anywhere.” Striker’s eyes are fixed on the horizon, speaking as if his mind is in another world entirely. The others have to strain to hear him. “We’re going to end this, here and now. With a fight.”

For half a beat no one says anything, and then they all splutter their protests at once. The people are too weak, the raiders too well-trained, the odds too enormous. “You’ll get us all killed,” Zayn hisses.

But Striker just shakes his head. “I’m not asking all of them to fight. I’m only asking myself. I’ll call a storm and strike them with lightning. I need everyone inside though. I can’t guarantee that when the storm gets going that I’ll-- I’m not sure I’ll be able to control it.”

“It’s too dangerous,” Liam answers, mouth hanging open a bit in shock. “You barely have control over your abilities. How are you going to-- to aim lightning bolts at the enemy? You’ll be lucky if you don’t electrocute yourself in the process!”

“What other choice to we have, Liam?” Striker shouts, whirling to face his advisor. “What’s our Plan B? To hide inside that cave until they come and slaughter us? Or worse, chain us back into captivity? I am tired of running, and I am tired of hiding, and god damn it, I’m done avoiding a fight. If it kills me, it kills me, but I am putting up a fight.”

Liam swallows hard and nods past the tears collecting in his eyes. “Alright. You’re sure-- alright.”

One by one the sentries solemnly leave their post, retreating back into the safety of the cave as storm clouds begin rolling in. Harry feels a raindrop on his cheek. “You don’t care if you die here today,” he says when it’s just the two of them.

Striker only gives a half-shake of his head. “I don’t want to die. But the thing is--” he looks up at Harry with those pained blue eyes, “some things are worth dying for.”

It’s a dismissal. The sky is black now, sheets of rain falling from the clouds and drenching them through, torrents of water obscuring the movements of the army advancing slowly towards them. “Inside, Harry,” Striker says roughly, raising his palms towards the enemy.

Harry makes it almost all the way back to the cave before the electricity starts to hum in the air. The animal part of his brain, the instinct-driven part, tells him to get inside to darkness and safety before it was too late. It’s what he should do. It’s what Striker told him to do, and what Zayn’s beckoning from inside the cave urges him to do faster. It shouldn’t be a question.

But then Harry glances back to see Striker swaying in the middle of a great storm, wind whipping around him and sparks dancing across his skin. He sees the tension in his jaw, the fear in his eyes, the quiet resignation of a man prepared to die alone, and suddenly, the cave doesn’t feel like safety anymore.

Harry isn’t sure where he finds the energy to run to Striker’s side and take him by the hand, but the instant their palms meet, a shudder runs through the once-fearless leader. His eyes snap shut and the breath whooshes out of him, muscles contracting all at once as the sky splits open and hell rains down.

There is a brief moment, as he watches bolts of white-hot light form crackling spears between heaven and earth, where Harry accepts that he’s going to die alongside Striker in this field. There’s no way one man could control so much power, so much destruction. This was going to be the end after all, and Harry was okay with that.

But Striker’s eyes were back open and his free hand extended, fingers twitching minutely as he sends the lightning exactly where he bids it. Suddenly the storm is at his command, the deadly forces concentrating on the enemy with fearsome precision. One by one the raiders fall, Harry’s eyes locked on the scene through the rain surrounding them.

The decimation is unimaginable. They have an army and Striker is only one man, but he has turned the earth itself against them, until the very ground beneath their feet and the air they breathe conspire to set fire to their traitorous bones. It’s all over in a matter of minutes, flames licking from corpses as the last few enemy cries fall silent.

“You did it,” Harry whispers in wonder, watching the rainclouds start to dissipate. “Striker, that was incredible, you--”

Harry finally peels his eyes from the scene before them and looks to their hero, but as soon as their eyes meet, the words die on Harry’s tongue. The rain has washed the paint from Striker’s face, and there’s a stutter in Harry’s chest as he recognizes the delicate cheekbones and soft lips of a boy that he once loved and lost, several lifetimes ago.

He has just enough time to whisper, “Louis?” before blue eyes drift shut and the man is crumpling to the ground.

Everything slows down. Harry can see with startling clarity the lifeless pallor on Louis’ cheeks, the glassy film across his eyes as he hits the ground. Harry collapses with him, pulling the limp body into his lap to take that lost face between his hands, eyes jamming shut as he calls upon his abilities with a kind of desperation he didn’t know he possessed. Don’t leave me again, Harry finds himself thinking with a fierce kind of numbness. Don’t you dare.

It’s maybe a minute, or an hour, or a century as he searches for any spark of life within Louis. There’s only darkness. He’s empty, he’s hollow, nothing left for Harry to heal. Harry doesn’t give up. If there’s a single breath, a single heartbeat--

A tiny ember, fading quickly in Louis’ soul, and Harry reaches out for it and clutches it desperately. If it kills me, it kills me, but I am not losing this fight.

It’s like an explosion, the moment where Harry’s abilities take over and healing starts flooding into Louis’ body. It’s a firestorm, a frenzy of magic or whatever force drives him, as powerful in its rebuilding as Louis’ was in destruction. Harry’s body goes tense like he’s lifting a great weight, as if he’s rescuing Louis from the very brink of death. If Harry had the presence of mind to think, he would perhaps realize that he just has.

Harry’s never worked more furiously in his life. After a while he’s on autopilot, blindly pushing light through every cell of Louis’ body without really consciously deciding to. He can feel Louis sparking back to life, neuron by neuron, until his heart shudders out a beat and his lungs drag in a painful breath. Still Harry works. He has to fill every pore, to turn Louis into a beacon of light, to mend him so thoroughly he’ll never be broken again--

It isn’t until someone forcefully drags his hands from Louis’ face that Harry gasps and opens his eyes back to the real world. The sun is low in the sky and Zayn is kneeling before him, holding Harry’s hands in his own and looking at him with concern. “H, you’ve been at it for hours,” he says softly. “You’ll kill yourself if you don’t give it a rest.”

Harry looks at him, then down at the man sleeping peacefully on the grass, and mutters a very soft, “Oh,” before everything goes black.

…………………

It’s been at least a day. Harry knows if before his eyes even open, just based on the screaming stiffness in his muscles. There’s some kind of fabric bunched beneath his cheek for a pillow, but no mattress beneath him. His body aches with too many hours spent unmoving, and it’s only with great effort that Harry drags his eyelids open.

The most beautiful pair of blue eyes look softly over at him. “Hey, Harry.”

Harry weeps. It starts with a gasping breath and just overtakes him, lungs shuddering with the force of his sobs while tears start to pour from his eyes. It wracks his whole body, makes him ache even more, but Harry is helpless to stop the weeping even when a thin, strong arm wraps around him and warm lips press themselves into his hair.

With the way the world has fallen to pieces around them time and time again, Harry has a thousand reasons to cry. He does not cry for them. He does not weep for their broken home, or their broken world, or for fear of what’s to come, but for the feel of Louis’ skin beneath his hands and his breath on his skin and his heartbeat pounding powerfully away between them. He weeps knowing that even in a world that can never be the same, miracles can happen, and sometimes, inexplicably, you get to keep the other half of you.

“You were dead,” he finds the breath to sob into Louis’ shirt after a few minutes. “That’s twice now you’ve died on me, you selfish bastard.”

Louis laughs a little, but then a quiet sniffles gives his own tears away. “Yeah, and then you almost killed yourself dragging me back. Who’s the selfish bastard now?”

Their lips meet and it probably ought to be awful, considering that they’re both half-dead and achy and covered in tears and snot. But there’s an electricity that passes between them that has nothing to do with Louis’ abilities, and everything feels just as it’s supposed to be.

Once the world has ended, it can never be the same. But sometimes, if you’re lucky, it gets better.