westfallcorndog | Walls Go Up (For Juststeverogers)

Steve demands, but Harrowheart doesn't speak. He stares right at his friend – right through him – but the words don't want to come. His vacant staring stretches on, and Steve would be forgiven if he thought an explanation might never be given.

Until Harrowheart takes in a breath and says, "I couldn't handle what was coming out of Anna's mouth. I couldn't hear it anymore. I couldn't take it. I had to shut her up. So I hit her. Hard. I knocked her down and I shook her around. I don't know why I didn't kill her."

His glassy eyes don't move from Steve.

"Reynard showed up, and everything went wrong. He wanted to punish me for my necromancy. For bringing that woman's body back to life. He used Anna to get to me. Took over her mind and made her his slave. He tried to use her take my magic away from me. He said I had to choose. My magic or my sister."

Finally, slowly, he blinks.

"I didn't pick my sister."

That thousand yard stare is a look Steve wishes he didn't know so well. It's a look The Asset used to give him. The look Barton gave him under Loki's control. A look that burrows underneath his skin and hisses into his ear that something is Wrong and it's not a problem he can swing his way out of.

There's so little emotion in Harrow's voice when he speaks. Despite his condition he's never sounded like a corpse being marrionetted around until now. As if he's shutting himself down so it's someone else--something else--telling the story instead of Steve's friend.

And what a story it is.

He hurt Anna. Harrow with his superior strength hit her and shook her as though she were an enemy. Over something she said? How could he do that? But Winter comes into play and Steve feels a shiver down his spine. The cold that insidiously creeps its way into Steve's heart every time he thinks he's gotten free of its grip. Winter wanted to punish him for necromancy? It's not as though Harrow brought hismelf back from the dead...

"The woman. The one no one spoke to when you had me over. You did that to her." Desecrated a corpse. Turned her into a slave. A tool. Just like--No. No now is not the time for that, Rogers. He hears the glass in his hand creak and Steve sets the bottle aside before he shatters it. There's no stopping the way his heart rate has spiked. Winter did the same to Anna that Harrow had done to this other woman. And Harrow didn't try to save his sister when the choice came.

"You didn't choose your sister." There's something different in Steve's voice now. An edge that had been aimed at Harrow's family up until this point is no longer pointed elsewhere. Steve doesn't have to ask questions or say anything else really. Repeating that one fact says all that needs to be said on the matter. The accusations hang unspoken in the air. Steve wishes he didn't have the air conditioning on right now. He doesn't want to think of the cold right now. Not when it's taking everything he has not to snap at Harrowheart before he's had a chance to explain himself.

The anger is there however bridled it may yet be.

"No." It comes as a whisper, and when it passes it twists his blue lips bitterly.

Harrowheart doesn't look away from Steve. The focus that had fled him when he told the story comes roaring back to life and puts a fire in his eyes that stare unfalteringly directly into Steve's.

"Because she didn't deserve it."

"Your family didn't deserve it."

Steve can't believe what he's hearing. How this entire conversation feels so disjointed to everything Steve believed about Harrowheart before this moment. And all of a sudden it makes sense. How Taminny never came back to inspect the work after her task was done. How Steve's never been asked over to the tower again despite his family offering him all kinds of welcomes the night he had come over. How they'd cared for his statue of the Virgin Mary as if it were their own goddess.

Harrow chose necromancy over them. Not just Anna but all of them. All of their friends. Over Viatorus and Steve.

Steve's moving before he can process what to say. Still repeating Harrow's last statement in slow motion as his fist pulls back. Too slow to tell himself this is a bad idea when he steps forward to follow through with a blow to the man's face he considered to be one of his best friends in the Nexus.

"Basic human decency isn't something that has to be earned or some kind of provelage you can mete out at your choosing." It's half hissed half growled through clenched teeth. "Outside, Harrow. Or I will throw you out and jump after."

Harrowheart doesn't even attempt to dodge that blow, but once it collides with his cheek he almost wishes he might have. Steve's new muscles aren't just for show after all. He feels something crack and the sting of pain that dulls near-instantly. Still it leaves him reeling, stumbling. He barely catches his balance when he finds myself outside of the kitchen.

Outside, he hears Steve order. Why he obeys he doesn't know, but he staggers out the door, casting magic as he goes. He encases his severed wrists in chunks of ice to act like fists and hardly waits for Steve to step through the entrance to swing them. A right hook in the side of the ribs and a left jab from the bottom of the chin. If he's lucky one will hit, and if he's really lucky it might fucking hurt.

A fugue of anger settles in a miasmatic cloud.

Sarah's barking at a worryingly high pitch in real fear while Ethel crowds her into the living room and away from the fight going on. This is Steve's fight, not theirs. And it might be against Harrowheart, who has always been a friend to the 'mon, but if Steve says they gotta fight then that's just how it's going to be. He'll call for them if he needs them.

Later--much later-- Steve will be grateful Harrow took this outside so he didn't end up knocking a hole in his house because he very much would have. As it stands he's going to have to fix the hinges on the door for how roughly he'd grabbed it and for how heavily Steve fell against it when the ice fist connects and sends him stumbling back into said door.

"It always ends in a fight."

Maybe Bucky was right. Maybe sometimes there is only one path forward and it involves going through someone else and dragging them along afterward. The followup swing Harrow gives Steve is ready for. He's jumping up and kicking at Harrowheart's wrist, trying to dislodge the hunk of ice from the stump of the man's arm. If he can knock it loose he's going to grab it and spike it at Harrow with as much force as he can muster.

A man's gotta have something to throw.

The ice comes loose, and with it dead flesh tears away. Thick, black blood oozes up in places where Harrow's skin is stripped from his wrist, but a grit of the teeth and the fleeting pain sensation passes. That's the thing about the will of the undead: Focus it hard enough and nothing can distract you.

A fast-chucked icy core hitting him square in the temple, though? That's a little harder to ignore. The force of the throw is enough that the collision turns Harrow's head and he growls as he stumbles back.

Okay. Fuck this fist fight bullshit. It's time for the magic.

Harrow's real hands, which float a few feet off at Steve's peripheral, twist and gesture as they conjure up a new spell. The cast won't be complete without Harrow's arm gestures, but when he raises his right wrist, skinned and bleeding, he completes the conjuration and sets the spell in motion.

An icy wind whips up around him, a whirling tempest that doesn't gain momentum but starts at full strength, icy cold and fast enough to grind away at living flesh.

"You don't get it!" Harrowheart shouts above the sound of the gale. "You won't get it!"

A bruise is finally forming on his cheek. It's hard to speak with the way his cheekbone moves so strangely under his skin. Something is broken, but he's been through worse. He'll be through worse by the end of the night, he's sure of it.

Fist fight bullshit is Steve's bread and butter in combat. He's a brawler. A tank. Without a shield to utilize his strengths are all close combat and blunt force. The thick blood oozing from Harrowheart's stump of a wrist is jarring enough to bring Steve out of his tunnel vision momentarily.

A stab of guilt begins to seep in along with the reality of what they're doing right now.

"Harrow--" The word is drowned out by a sudden chill and gale force wind forcing him back a step. Shards of ice dig into Steve's face. The back of his neck. Skitter tiny cuts into his shirt. It's a thousand icy needles hitting him on all sides. All that's missing is the water. The heavy dark that settles in and chokes everything else out.

"No, stop it. STOP IT!" He won't go back under. The choking cold and black took him once before. He doesn't want to lose his place in time again. The only thing he has to anchor on to is Harrow's shouting. Steve hunches down and charges through the gale toward the voice. Just trying to get free of that icy grip.

Steve's voice begging for this to end jars Harrowheart. The wind dips, dropping in intensity for the fleeting seconds between Steve's shouts and his body colliding with Harrowheart's. The spell is fully disrupted when Harrow falls to the ground, but he's not going alone. He wraps his arms around Steve and takes him to the ground, but now he's between a hard spot and a heavy man. When they come crashing down the force of it all dislodges something inside him and a growling wheeze comes with a sputter of black blood from Harrowheart's mouth.

The momentum runs out and no sooner do they come skidding to a stop than Harrowheart swings his remaining ice fist for Steve's face. He tries to roll, tries to get Steve under him this time. His hands, floating elsewhere, begin to conjure up a new spell.

"You won't get it because you don't want to get it! Nobody wants to get it!"

Hands like black sludge sticking like rot claw their way out of the ground around them. They wrap their slime-oozing fingers around Steve's legs, around his arms. Their touch burns with draining magic seeking to steal away his life.

"I'm not the person everybody wants me to pretend I am!"

Steve's shaking on top of the death knight, duty and training making him shift and move even as his mind is still thrashing and panicking over the insidious cold trying its best to ensnare him once more. Logically, Steve knows it's just a spell. That there is no frozen ocean to go dumping back into for another sleep that will last how many decades.

Logic doesn't always help in these situations. The blow to Steve's face drags him back to the here and now much better than his won thoughts. It catches underneath his eye and there's bright red droplets now too instead of the coagulated black ichor that oozes from Harrowheart's wounds. The death knight is twisting them 'round, Steve barely getting an arm up to block the next blow from that ice fist. It's all he can do to block--he can't make a move for the floating hands casting. He brings a knee up in a desperate attempt to dislodge Harrowheart off of him but it won't affect much; the magic is already cast.

It looks nearly like Harrowheart's blood has a will of its own. Those hands have the same color and consistency as the ichor. They hold Steve down and burn into his skin when the soldier tries to struggle. He strains and jerks and pulls several of the slimy arms free with his super human strength but more rise up in place of those removed and grab for him again.

Steve has to listen to Harrow now. He has no choice. No outlet for his anger and hurt at the reality Harrowheart is trying to show him.

"Wh...what kind of person are you. Then?" The hands are inching up his chest but they haven't grabbed for Steve's neck yet.

Edited (fixing typos) 2018-07-21 13:16 (UTC)

The audacity Steve has to even ask. He knows. He knows. But just like everyone else, he demands Harrowheart debase himself and say it.

"You know what kind!"

Harrowheart stretches his arm behind himself to build the momentum for a powerful punch to Steve's jaw. The ice he's conjured around his wrist cracks.

"You've always known what kind!"

He hits him again and the ice finally shatters. Half of it falls away, leaving a sharp-edged shard still attached to his wrist.

The magic of the death and decay continues to envelop Steve, soaking over his limbs and creeping up his torso.

"Evil!"

And isn't that a line Steve's heard before.

One of these days they're going to be right. Steve will have misjudged someone's character and on that day Steve is pretty sure he'll die. For real this time. Because it makes Steve fight harder, ripping those hands off of himself despite the burning sear into his skin that feels like acid eating away at flesh that wants to knit. He can't out fight the hands grasping him though. Harrow's blow knocks his gaze off of the death knight. Turns his cheek and his gaze away.

"Are you?" Steve spits blood onto the ground from where it's dribbling down his split lip. Every breath comes in a pained heave. That's why Steve got so angry to begin with. He thinks better than Harrowheart. And right here, at the death knight's mercy...he still does.

"Then finish the job. I...I hurt you more than she did. I could break every bone in your body. D...do what you think you're made to do."

Is he? Is he? Harrowheart grits his teeth and feels his broken cheekbone grinding under his his flesh. Half of his face is a dark, black bruise that makes the glow of his eye that much more intense.

If his hands were on his wrists he'd be wrapping them around Steve's neck. As it stands, he can do the next best thing. His hands finally appear in Steve's field of vision and hover near Harrowheart's chest. They slowly curl inward, clenching only air. But shadows gather around Steve's neck growing closer and closer, choking like a tightening chain around his neck. Harrowheart clenches his jaw and watches down his nose as his magic closes Steve's throat.

He could kill him. He should kill him. If what he'd said was true, he would kill him. But his eyelids are twitching, his lips are trembling, his nostrils flaring as he tries to keep his burning white pupils on Steve's breathless face.

The magic around Steve's throat doesn't tighten, but it doesn't let up either.

Harrowheart presses the shard of ice at his wrist against Steve's neck, but even as he does he begins to turn his head away. He won't watch himself doing this. He shouldn't see what he's about to do...

Because he can't.

He collapses sideways off of Steve and just like that the twisted hands and choking magic abate, gone in an instant with a hiss and a sigh. Harrowheart lands on his forearms with his head hanging low and doesn't speak. His breathing is ragged, bordering on sobs.

Edited 2018-07-21 23:57 (UTC)

How many times is Steve going to have to put himself on the line like this? Risk everything that makes him special and capable to prove that one person isn't above redemption? He was doing it back in his old body too. His real body. The serum has only exacerbated a habit into a condition like everyone knew it would.

People can choose to be better. Circumstances of situation don't have to become chains of fate. The climb is so much harder for some than others but it's not impossible. He'll keep hanging off ledges and extending an arm out to those who think they have no where to go but down.

Especially for his friends.

Steve thinks he might have seen tears in Harrowheart's eyes but it was probably his vision webbing at the edges as he desperately fought to stay conscious through the choking hold. All he can think when the acidic black hands finally relent is to breathe though and that comes in a ragged sudden inhale that has him coughing hard. Loud barks of air and diaphragm convulsions that hide the noise Harrow is making.

There will be time for speaking later. Soon, even. For now, it's everything and more that Steve is able to breathe once more. That he's no longer burning inward aside from the film that lingers unpleasantly on his skin.

The sound of Steve's coughs are what rouse Harrowheart from his turmoil. He raises his head and stares at Steve, blinded and without focus until a sudden rush of energy moves him forward. He wraps his arms around Steve and collapses with his head on his chest.

He shakes his head against his friend but can't form words. All he can do is hold him tighter, as if touching him at a time like this could possibly suffice for an apology.

Harrowheart is heavy and at first all this does is knock some of the wind out of Steve, leaving him heaving for breath again. It's several seconds before he can do much more than breathe.

When he can though Steve reaches up with a hand to Harrow's shoulder and claps him on it weakly. They're both a complete mess. Steve's got something that looks and feels like chemical burns over much of his body and his face is a wreck from being pummeled with those ice hunks Harrow used to replace his floating fists. He's hurt Harrowheart, broken something in his face. They're both 'bleeding' in their own ways. Was it worth this? But Harrowheart is holding him tight, not glaring up at him in hatred.

"You're n....not evil." Cough. Oh, ugh. He needs to sit up.

Harrowheart eases up and gives Steve the room he needs. He sits back on his heels and drapes his wrists over his knees. It's too soon to really look at Steve, and so he keeps his head low and his eyes on his bleeding wrists.

"I'm not."

He shakes his head and covers his eyes in the crook of his arm.

"I'm not evil," he croaks. "I'm a coward. Just like she said."

"Nuhh...nobody's brave all the time."

Steve brings up one knee of his own to lean on, though a bit of his weight is still on Harrowheart all the while. Deliberately unafraid to be close like this. None of this is easy and it could quickly lead to one of them getting very very hurt or dead the way things were going.

Not this time. This didn't turn into a case where he had to honest to god try to bring down one of his friends again. Steve's grateful for that.

"Not her, not me. No one. And...even if she's right, it doesn't have to be forever."

Harrow's brows twitch and his lips press tightly together. Somewhere in his face he feels bones grinding out of place again.

There's a renewed bitterness and determination in his voice when he whispers, "That's what you don't get, Steve. Some coward acts are forever. Some things happen and there's no goin' back from 'em. Sometimes you make a choice, and no matter how much you regret it? No matter how much you wish you could take it back? Someone wants to punish you for it. Forever."

Steve doesn't know what he's talking about, and Harrow isn't going to hear it. As his thoughts grind in his head he glares, grit-toothed, off to the side.

"That's why she deserved it. That's why I hit her in the first place. 'Cause she wanted me to suffer, and I wasn't gonna let her torture me any more. I wasn't gonna let her get any more satisfaction out of hurtin' me."

Edited 2018-07-31 03:08 (UTC)

"I thought you said Winter was controlling her."

Steve's leaning forward against his own knee just trying to take stock of how hurt he is. He's been through much, much worse before but it's an old habit and one he's having a hard time stopping himself from falling into now while he's mostly focused on what Harrow's saying.

"Wouldn't Reynard be the one deserving it if he was manipulating her? The words came out of her mouth, but wouldn't they have been his?"

Harrowheart shakes his head vehemently. "Maybe he was, but what my sister said to me? That had to be her. I've heard her say that too many times before to think anyone else put those thoughts in her head or those words in her mouth."

He runs his hands through his hair, then smears them down his face. "I shouldn't'a hit her, Steve. I know I shouldn't'a hit her. But... I don't think I feel bad that I did? So what now? How could I ever fix this when I feel that way?"

Ah, now there is a wrinkle Steve hadn't heard to this story before. His initial worry for Harrowheart's sake rises from the ashes of their dead conversation from before this fight started. He had been angry for Harrow's sake before. Assumed any wrongdoing had been done to him, not caused by him.

Steve understands.

He doesn't like it, doesn't agree with it. But he does understand a little bit better.

"But what....about the rest of it?" The woman he enslaved. The reason Reynard manipulated Anna to begin with. Harrow choosing his necromancy instead of not just Anna but his entire family. Anna's hurtful words aren't the whole story. "The rest...of your family?" He gives a wave of his hand in a half circle he can't complete the gesture of sitting at this angle.

"Even...if you don't want to fix things with her, what about the rest of it?"

"What about the rest, Steve?" Harrowheart asks in a tired sigh. "Reynard wanted me to choose between my magic and my family. But that wasn't a choice. How can you ask a man to give up his magic?"

He hangs his head and looks away. "I can't ask you to understand, because you ain't got any... But once a person gets magic in 'em... That's like askin' you blind yourself. A person can't choose that, Steve. A person can't just give that up."

"Didn't ask you to do that. But it's not an either or thing, Harrow. Reynard isn't you. He doesn't get to say what happens in the long run between you and your family. So you turned him down. Okay, now what?"

Steve doesn't try to argue that he would. He'd give up the serum in a second if it would save his family. Someone important to him. It's not magic so far as he knows but Steve's pretty sure he'd give that up too for the right people. But it doesn't matter what Steve would choose either. Steve isn't Harrowheart. Only Harrow can make and live with his own choices. What Steve can do is try to help him bear the weight of them. Or at least help him find other solutions.

"You can't un-make an enemy out of Reynard. But you can probably salvage your family." Steve gives a small grunt of exertion as he gets to his feet and then holds a hand out to help Harrow up. "I'll help you figure something out, but you gotta be the one to go through with it."

Edited 2018-08-14 17:28 (UTC)

Harrow offers his arm and allows Steve to haul him up, which is strange enough to consider that he quickly pushes it from his mind. Times have changed. People have changed. Steve physically, but not his spirit or morals. But Harrowheart? How has he changed?

He sighs through his nose and doesn't meet Steve's eyes.

"You're a better friend than I deserve," he mumbles. Stealing a glance at his friend's face he offers, "Lemme ice those wounds of yours. And... Maybe you can tell me what you'd do, if you were in my spot?"

"Come on back inside. We've got the rest of that six pack to finish up while we think about this."

He'll have to get his door looked at, but that's so far from being the most important thing in Steve's mind that he barely registers it when he's tugging the door closed behind them as they slowly file back into the kitchen and out of the sweltering heat.

"Yeah well, I'm the friend you've got so you gotta deal with me." Steve tenses a little bit at the idea of more ice after their scuffle, but it's not the damage that concerns him. "I'd rather just leave it. I earned these blows. And besides...I was frozen. When I missed all that time. It's difficult to deal with the cold for a whole other reason now than when I was little. Serum'll have it healing soon enough, I don't stay down for long anymore, even if I wanted to."

Edited 2018-08-14 18:57 (UTC)

Harrowheart
It's too soon after a fight to think about beer, but damn if the sound of it doesn't relax Harrowheart, if only just a hint. He follows behind Steve with his head down, until it occurs to him that the pokemon are going to be there on the ground. He can't explain why he doesn't want to face their judgement in particular, and he isn't going to try.

Once back in the kitchen he finds himself leaning against the same place he'd been before his fight with Steve really began, though now with none of the defiance or self-assurance.

"So what would you do?" he asks tiredly. "If you did everything I did?" A heavy sigh. He doesn't want to say this, but he can't not bring it up. "You helped Bucky with somethin' worse than this."

Steve

To be honest all Steve wants is to sit down and relax after all of that. He hates how used to putting his fists up to people he considers friends. And yet he still does it so readily. Maybe Buck was right. At the end of the day Steve doesn't know what to do with himself if he's not headlong into a fight. Even if it's with his friends. He gives the girls a nod and a smile to let them know everything's okay but Ethel keeps them out of the kitchen. Neither Steve nor Harrow look like they want any company right now and with their duel over everything should be fine, right?

Steve pulls out one of the chairs from the table in the corner and turns it round so he can settle his weight in it. And good thing he was sitting because Harrow has to go and bring up Bucky. The man who's at least two thirds of the reason why Steve's currently a wanted fugitive and war criminal.

"Bucky wasn't in control when he did the things he did. He didn't choose to do any of it. But the rest of the world don't see it that way. They don't know what happened. He's going to have a lot of folks to convince if he wants to reintegrate back home." They all will. Steve's not sure it'll be worth the trouble to try but if Bucky wants to go home he'll do it and never once look back. "I've got a lot to answer for too, when I go back. And I'll admit that I did everything they accuse me of, so long as it's true. Even the bad stuff. And I'll accept punishment for it. But not the stuff I know wasn't wrong."

Harrowheart
"So give it to me straight, Steve," Harrowheart says. He opens another beer but doesn't move to take a drink. Instead he leaves it on the nearest counter, something safe to glance at from time to time. "What do you think is the first and most important thing I gotta apologize for in all of this? Settin' aside whether or not I can convince myself all of it was wrong... Tell me where to start."

Steve
"Causing them physical harm. Even if you can't forgive your sister she's not the kind of woman who could best you in a fight. The attack was not just or fair. For hurting them and attacking your own blood....that's probably the biggest transgression."
And he doesn't even know about the rest of them.
Steve doesn't reach for a beer yet for himself.
"No one's expected to get along perfectly with everyone all the time. Not even the people they care about. But that doesn't excuse abuse. You apologizing for hurting her doesn't excuse her emotional abuse toward you. It's not the same as saying she was right."

Harrowheart
Harrowheart's brows twitch and he finds himself grateful for the beer to stare at. He finds himself looking at it long enough that he decides to pick it up once more, but still can't bring himself to drink it.

"You really think that?" he asks without looking up at Steve. "That I can apologize for what I did without sayin' I was wrong for doin' it in the first place?"

Now he raises his eyes and watches Steve with confusion and worry twisting up his features. "'Cause I can't let her be right about everything she's been sayin' to me since I came back into my family's life. I can't go back to lettin' her treat me like that. Treatin' myself like that."

Steve
"You were wrong to do it. That action specifically. You weren't wrong to defy her though. There's plenty of ways to dispute with her that don't come down to bloodshed and physical violence. Like it or not she's part of that family too and you can't rebuild trust with them if they fear the next one to upset you will get their bones broken or worse if they speak up."
Steve sighs then, reaching back behind him for the fridge door so he can get himself one of the beers.
"You can't build respect out of fear."

Walls Go Up (For Juststeverogers)

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Continued in Discord: