Like Winter

Fandom: Twilight

Pairing: Caius/Athenodora

Crimson-matted hair clung to Caius' face, cutting his vision into jagged shapes and edges. He raised a shaking hand to push the strands away and instead dropped to his knees, a string of hissed curses slipping out between clenched teeth. Deep, bruise-blue wounds were visible beneath the tattered remnants of his cloak, and his right arm hung stiffly by his side.

It hurt like hell—vast, unceasing and unimaginable. The pain edged its way into his skull, twisting and explosive, sending dull black dots skittering and swirling behind his eyes. The blade-sharp torment was meaningless—absolutely nothing—compared to the dull certainty that he had failed. Too many memories smoldered in his mind like a comet's tail, each bearing the scent of dirt, death and defeat. This was what he hated more than sacrifice and combat: the terrible, shuddering weakness of being brought to his knees.

His fingers digging into the ground, he counted the moments, waiting for the torture to end, as a silent scream clawed its way out of his throat. Corpses littered the forest's undergrowth, and the disciplined, dispassionate corner of his mind that remained untouched insisted that they should be burned.

It'll pass, Caius told himself as the bitter taste of bile filled his mouth. The wolf-blood he had swallowed throughout the night seared his tongue, and nausea spun his head. As the agony ebbed into a muted throb, surrender's helpless rage took hold. The snarling, caged creature of his anger had broken its bonds, wanting brutality and revenge, some semblance of justice in its warped, battle-mad mind. His thoughts twisted and crashed, willing his body to comply though he was too weak to stand.

As he struggled, he heard branches snap aside beneath impatient feet.

The only familiar aspect of the woman who appeared before him was the smell (apricots and autumn masked by blood). He had never thought of himself or his kind as walking corpses but the mosaic of bleached-bone pallor and crimson smeared across her face was enough to convince him otherwise.

"Athena?" he asked, in a voice cracked and dry as the desert. Now you're hallucinating your mate, his mind mocked, hating his own limitations.

"Your arm." Her tone was inflectionless as she pulled aside scraps of his cloak and almost clinically gazed at the tangle of sinew and shattered bone, which a wolf's teeth had torn from his shoulder.

"Can you walk?" she said in the same dead voice, and without waiting for a response, pulled him to his feet. Looping a shaking arm around his waist, she carried most of his weight. At an awkward, limping pace, she led him towards the west, in the direction of Volterra.

-

The pain had faded completely, leaving Caius' mind free to wander. Glancing at his mate's hand, he almost recoiled at the sight of jewel-bright blood, spattered from arteries torn beneath her nails. She was usually fastidious, as they all were, sanitizing feeding into something polite and civilized. The evidence of obvious cruelty was unnerving.

In the steely morning light, he could see corpses shadowed beneath the trees. Their wounds were open, and the smell of blood on their bodies echoed the metallic odour clinging to his mate's hair and cloak.

Oh gods, what did she do?, his impatient logic demanded, trying to count, to grasp at straws of reason in this strange, inverted dreamscape. He wanted to ask her, but the blackness of her irises and the odd, broken-marionette roughness of her movement indicated that she would not hear, much less answer.

-

Athenodora vanished as soon as the stone parapets of the ancient castle came into view, neither explaining nor faltering. Caius, left alone, entered through the main gates snarling at the guards who dared look at him for more than a moment. Immediately, he strode in the direction of Aro's study.

He had no excuses for his brother, no justification for an incomplete task or the death of so many guards. Instead, he directed his pounding, visceral rage at his elder sibling and leader.

"She could have died," the pale vampire said calmly, though the torchlight made his face monstrous.

Aro's voice lacked its usual sweetness, perhaps because he knew that Caius would not appreciate it. "That would have been unfortunate. I knew nothing about your mate's departure."

"Do not lie. You see through the guards' eyes at the end of their watch. They saw her leave. You knew." His eyes were black.

"Where would you be if I had stopped her, Caius?"

"Aro…" he stopped for a moment, raking fingers through his hair, "You are my brother, and the first person who gave a damn about me. I fight for you, I kill for you and I do not mind dying for you." There was nothing but harsh, stumbling sincerity in his tone.

"I trust you," he continued, and Aro understood the weight behind that word. Caius did not trust easily, but once he did, he would walk through hell if it was asked of him.

Suddenly, in a motion too quick to see, he found himself pinned against the stone wall, Caius' callused hand at his throat. He could see the other vampire's mind, where the image of a woman with shimmering hair was prominent.

"But remember, brother," Caius hissed "I am not Marcus."

If anything happens to her, you will be ash, then I will ask questions, his thoughts supplied, knowing that Aro could hear the threat. He left the room in a swirl of torn cloak, not glancing back.

-

"What the fuck were you thinking?" Caius' words were barely distinguishable, masked by a savage snarl.

Athenodora was silent, sitting on a chair in her bloody clothes, staring at nothing.

"How could you do that? You could have died, you wouldn't have helped, why the hell did you even consider—" He cut himself off abruptly. Screaming at his mate was reminiscent of rage directed at a broken doll; it was ineffective and vaguely unnerving to lecture a still, hollow-eyed facsimile.

He stalked out of the room to wash the stench of wolves off his skin, his mate's empty gaze infringing upon the corners of his mind.

-

It was almost dawn when he returned and found Athenodora sitting on their bed, looking into the gray-blue stillness of the lightening sky. Her eyes were the weary colour of blood and rust now, and an echo of life had returned to her features.

He sat down beside her and wrapped his fingers around hers, a tentative bridging of an abyss. She did not pull away.

"Listen, I'm sorry," he offered.

"I know." The reply was quiet, but there were hints of Athenodora peeking through the stiff mask.

"Please, don't do that again. You don't need to save me," he said.

"Yes, I do."

He almost smiled. As soon as his wife began contradicting him, he knew that she was going to be fine.

"I need you, Athena. I'd be a liar if I said I didn't. I can't move—I can't think if I know you're in danger. You have no idea how frightening that is."

"It's how I feel every time you leave. And when you come back, you're different," she murmured.

That stopped him. There was no way to counter the note of raw, shivering pain in her voice.

"I don't blame you. I killed so many people—" she was gasping as she said it, as though the words stung as much as blows. "I hurt them, and it didn't matter to me. I was happy. I didn't have orders to do it, and—oh gods, I'm so much worse than you could ever be."

Caius immediately wrapped his arm around her shaking form, trying to hold together the jagged pieces of her grief.

"You're not," he whispered.

"You're trying to be kind," Athenodora said gently. "And I'm grateful. I can't do it—I won't fight again, Cai. Please, don't let me."

He nodded wordlessly because, for once, he understood that nothing could make that feeling vanish: the cold, grim certainty that damnation was assured, the conviction that the final, arbitrary line in the sand between existence and hell had been overstepped.

Speech carried no comfort; instead, he buried his lips in her blood-stiff hair and held her close, the way he wished someone had cradled him when he believed himself to be a soulless creature, years ago. Their embrace was an awkward thing, where two people with shattered arms and deep wounds tried to press close to each other, biting back hisses of pain.

"You'll be alright," Caius said after a while, uncertain whom he was trying to convince. He was injured and furious, his coven had been decimated, he had just threatened Aro and killed more werewolves than he could count. Everything was so far from simply alright and yet… holding her made it better. Not much better, certainly, but he experienced peace that he knew he had no right to feel.

"You're lovely, even covered in wolf's blood, but do you want to go wash?" he asked, brushing a kiss over her shoulder. Athenodora glanced at him, and a hint of a smile quirked the corner of her mouth.

"I think I'll go terrorize Sulpicia a bit. She'll be appalled at the proximity of my grubby hands to her nice furniture."

She disentangled herself from his embrace and ghosted away. The grace and sharpness had returned to her motions and her voice, but there were shadows in her eyes, the sort that could not be erased.

Author's Tirade: I don't particularly like the fandom's assumption that Athenodora and Sulpicia never leave the tower because they are oppressed, delicate and female. Instead, I decided that Athenodora has some semblance of a moral code, and well thought-out reasons for not fighting, instead of simple ineptitude. Fighting brings out sadistic elements of her personality, and she can't live with herself knowing that she causes suffering and enjoys it. Therefore, her strategy is to avoid violence as much as possible.

Also, writing Caius/Athenodora hurt/comfort is either the most entertaining or most awkward thing ever. I can't quite decide.

As always, reviews are much appreciated :).