Martwiec!Adder AU fic, part 1/?
I have finally written some of planned chapters for undead!Adder AU . The prime idea is to explore Adder’s relationship with Janosh, Kubyenka, Henry and hopefully other characters through various POVs, while also playing with Slavic demonology and supernatural stuff, because why not 😈 Just for record, I’m going with Bestiariusz Słowiański (Slavic Bestiary) by Paweł Zych that presented martwiec as demon created from a deceased person whose family mourned the dead for too long and too intensely. Understandably, I’m taking the liberty of adapting this concept for the fic’s sake.
Written with mature rating in mind, main focus is put on Janosh & Adder relationship (both as friendship and as Jadder) but also on dark supernatural stuff. Warning: violence, dark au, KCD2 spoilers including using Adder’s real name & siege of Suchdol.
Also, this part originally was written in Polish language and translated by me, so in advance sorry for eventual mistakes or the quality of translation. Chapters with Henry & Kubyenka’s POVs were written from scratch in English, so reading them should be more smoothly, hopefully. I will soon add text on ao3 + the original Polish version too.
Oh, for those curious, Martwiec!Adder picture (my edit of the game screen) can be found here.
***
Leszek couldn’t remember the last time waking up hurt as much as it hurted at that very moment. And he’d woken up with murderous hangovers that twisted his guts and throbbed dully from the inside of his skull. More than once, he’d woken with a bruised body after tavern brawls, torture, and bloody slaughter.
Nothing he ever experienced was even half as excruciatingly painful as opening eyes weeks after his own death. From the moment he drew the last breath, his soul kept close to his own corpse, which wasn’t even buried properly in a Christian manner. Instead of being laid to rest in a coffin on consecrated ground, he was thrown into a deep pit outside the castle walls, among the bodies of other outcasts. The damned bastards even robbed him of his weapons and clothing that the seeping blood hadn’t completely ruined. In life, he would have sought revenge and quarreled without a second thought with anyone who had even the slightest part in this outrage. But death has changed everything; the feeling of injustice and worldly goods ceased to matter. In fact, everything lost its importance… except Janosh.
And it was for him that Leszek remained, suspended between life and death.
[[MORE]]Leszek knew that Janosh would be devastated by his death. He himself would have howled like a madman if something had happened to Janosh. But Leszek was one of those people who turned their pain into anger. Who with a saber in hand healed their wounds — those deeply hidden scars imprinted on their souls — and dulled the taste of despair with alcohol. Unfortunately, Janosh repressed everything, practically choking on his grief and tormented himself with an endless race of thoughts. Leszek’s own cadaverous fingers might as well have been tightening around Janosh’s neck and robbing him of his will to live, since it was his death causing such suffering.
Janosh’s first days of despair were understandable, and in a perverse way, this even warmed Leszek’s heart; someone loved him enough to mourn him sincerely, to truly miss him and remember him fondly, when others were already looking to a future where there was simply no room for the dead.
But time passed inexorably. The deeper Janosh sank into his grief, the harder it became for Leszek to pass away in peace. Even if they hadn’t pledged their allegiance to God, they had pledged it to each other. No matter that they had done so drunk, holed up in the forest, and chilled to the bone. That night, they became wedded brothers, sharing flesh and bread, the joys and miseries of this cursed world. They were united by something more than shared booze, fleeting dreams, oaths hidden under the night, and blood spilled together. Their hearts beat for each other. Leszek’s heart might be dead, but as long as Janosh’s beat, even death could not separate them.
So Leszek did what he had to do - he opened his dead eyes.
It was the first mistake he made that night.
At first, his mind was a jumble, his thoughts unable to connect. Memories fought for supremacy, so clear and sharp, yet blurred, changing too quickly. Old impressions, which he had become unaccustomed to, and which had intensified since his death, assailed him from all sides.
The moonlight, once pale and distant, burned his eyes like a blazing sun. The forest seemed to scream; the ripple of a single leaf and the rustle of the smallest blade of grass echoed in his mind like the clamor of a bloody battle. Cold, that terrible cold that seeped through the livid skin, the dead muscles, down to the marrow of the bones.
And still, the cold was better than the senseless hunger that howled in his thoughts like a wild animal demanding human blood.
Leszek took a deep breath, and if it weren’t for how worried he was about Janosh, he would have sincerely regretted his decision. Even though the night was chilly, the fresh air burned his lungs, ripping the insides apart — and at the same time, the feeling of icy cold never left him.
The first breath was like a living fire. The next gulp of air was even worse, but Leszek stubbornly took in air, even though his unruly, dead heart resisted.
There was no time for self-pity though.
Slowly but stubbornly, Leszek dug himself out of the deep hole, his stiff fingers digging into the wet, rain-clogged earth that so tenderly accepted his corpse. His stiff muscles clumsily yielded to his will, as if trying to discourage him from returning to the living. But Leszek listened neither to the voice of reason nor to his body, burning with pain and protesting. He couldn’t, since Janosh kept calling him, kept waiting for him in the false hope that his beloved Adder would return.
Leszek did as the loving heart demanded — he rose from the dead and set off toward the Suchdol fortress. The summer night was short, too short, so he had to hurry if he wanted to see Janosh that night. And he wanted to more than anything.
Janosh was important even more than the hunger consuming his guts.
