Work Text:
He was limping slowly through the tunnel, searing hot pain, was the only thing he could comprehend in his hazy mind. The past however many minutes were a blur. After the chandelier had crashed through the floor and opened up the gaping chasm that had consumed him- he had fallen hard on his left leg and had most definitely hit his head, but he would have to worry about a possible concussion and whatever was wrong with his leg later, right now he had a far more pressing issue he needed to take care of. Aka the missing limb and the blood that was actively pouring out from it.
He felt his arm burn again at the reminder and a different sort of pain filled his heart. He knew that Ambrosius was only disarming a weapon he knew that! But it still hurt even though he desperately wanted it not to. He thought back to the incident at his mind's own mention of the weapon. His own sword, the very same one he had silently vowed to protect people with, had now just ended the first person to ever see more than a slimy street orphan, the first person who gave him a chance at success.
He didn’t know who did it- tampered with his sword or even if it was the queen they wanted gone or him and just used the queen's death to do it. Either way whoever it was had succeeded and he was left with the blame for it.
His head throbbed again, an obvious sign he was thinking too much and his already mushed up thoughts couldn’t handle it. He tried to focus back on what was important at the current time and that was trying not to bleed out before he could try to prove his innocence in some way, and to do that he needed something to stop said bleeding.
He needed to find bandages or a gause of some kind as he had already bled through his cape that he had first decided to use and it got too heavy for his weak state to handle. He thinks he might have dropped it at some point but he wasn’t quite sure.
He was slowing down his pace now he knew but it was getting more and more difficult to keep going. But he couldn’t stop walking, he wouldn’t! He would make it out of this tunnel and he would get to somewhere relatively safe and he would find out exactly what happened to his sword and who framed him.
He kept up his walking for a small while more before he just couldn’t will his legs to comply. His knees buckled as he fell forward his left arm leaving the stump of his right to try and pillow his fall. He vaguely thinks he might have let out a cry of pain, but he wasn’t quite sure. He slowly maneuvered himself so he sat against the tunnel wall as tears pricked in his eyes, whether from pain or the utter crippling defeat he felt he didn’t know but it was most likely a mix of the both.
He mentally apologized to Queen Valerin, explained how he was so sorry he had let this happen and that he wouldn’t be able to bring the real culprit to justice. And how he hoped to Gloreth that Ambrosius or someone else would see that he wasn’t guilty that he could find who really caused this-
And oh.
Oh no.
No.
No no no.
Ambrosius.
He was going to leave Ambrosius.
He was going to leave Ambrosius without explaining.
What if he believed he did it? What if he never would find out the truth? Would he hate him for the rest of his life?? For the rest of whatever lay beyond?! Would he blame himself????
No.
No!
NO!
He had to tell him! He had to make sure he knew! Had to make sure he knew it wasn’t his fault!
But- how could he? He couldn’t even walk.
He sat wallowing in the new doubt that the greatest person he had ever known would never know of his innocence and that he might put his death on his own shoulders. He sat there for what felt like hours but was merely minutes before an idea came to him. He remembered movies he used to watch with Ambrosius, and in one of those movies a dying woman wrote a message to her lover in the dirt before she died so they would know she thought about the other in her final moments.
He didn’t exactly know if the grime would work on its own and it wasn’t exactly a love letter he wanted to write, but he had the blood that was still flowing from his impromptu amputation and a burning desire for his love to know he was innocent and for his love not to blame himself.
So with all the strength he could will himself to muster up, he used the pooling blood infused grime on the floor and tried to write so someone could see it if they were looking at him instead of from his perspective. It was difficult and his hands didn’t stop shaking once but he was nearly done when- his arm gave out. It was sudden. The shaking becoming too much for his muscles to handle.
“NO!” Ballister screamed into the seemingly endless void of the tunnel cursing the world's timing.
He mentally begged to Gloreth or whatever other higher power there was, to just let him finish his last word. He willed with every single fibre of his being for his arm to just MOVE ALREADY! But it wouldn’t.
And that’s when the full reality finally set in. He knew he was going to die. It was why he was writing the message in the first place. But now it fully made itself known.
He would never see Ambrosius again.
Never see his eyes light up when they landed on him.
Never see that slight playful smirk that seemed to be etched into his very core.
Never hold him again.
Never kiss him again.
Never hear his reassurances when he doubted himself.
Never again.
He really started to sob now. He hated that he was using the ever small amount of energy and life he had left to cry but he couldn’t help it. Good Gloreth he was pathetic. All he wanted was to make sure Ambosius would still love him in death and wouldn’t blame himself for that very same death.
He knows Ambrosius won’t hear it, hopes that the words written in blood and grime will convey it, but still, as he closes his eyes for the last time and mutters the final words he ever would, he hopes it's enough.
"I'm so sorry you have to live with this burden, Ambrosius.”
He has to take a shaky breath in trying not to let his voice break in his emotion.
“I love you Ambrosius and I will always love you, I hope you won’t forget me.”
And as he takes his final breath and his heart stops beating he hopes that he was in another universe.
Maybe one where he made it to the outside. Maybe there he would have somehow found medical supplies. Maybe he would somehow have proven his innocence. And maybe, just maybe, that universe wouldn’t leave him alone without his lover, maybe they grew old together after the truth that seemed so distant to him now was revealed to the rest of the kingdom.
But this universe isn’t as kind.
No.
In this universe Ballister Boldheart lives his final moments alone, in pain, not knowing who will rejoice in his suffering and if anyone will mourn him. Thinking of all the memories with a love that ran so deep it was entwined into his very soul.
His final thought before the lull of death takes him was this;
he will wait for his lover wherever death may take him, whether that be in an afterlife or another life, he knows he will be waiting, waiting for the day he reunites with his lover once more.
But that day would not be for a long time, if it would ever be so at all in their haunted existence.