#longin

"Just follow my lead, Captain..."

*bites you* @koyato, why are you doing this to me

General Alexander Block and Captain Longin. Two dolls in the cruel hands of people who do not realize the consequences of their actions. Toys for therapy, because playing war is fun. Alexander is at least a character, but Longin... He's just an extra. One of hundreds of the same soldiers with the same face. Chosen among hundreds of identical dolls. How special should he feel? Maybe that's enough to try to become something more?

A small Grindeldore one-short I just made, because I had a headache and I imagined a young Albus Dumbledore with one, too.

Summary: One Thursday night, Albus struggles and breaks a promise.

He presses the palm of his hand against his eye in a weak effort to appease his killing headache. There are three messy, dangerously high piles of parchments on his desk that he’s required to go through, but he doesn’t know how he’ll manage when he can barely tolerate the dim light of a single candle in the middle of his office, which definitely isn’t enough for him to read. But he promised. He promised his students that he would have their essays graded by the end of the week, and there’s only twenty minutes till Friday. If he intends to get any sleep before his first class of the day, then he really should start reading them. He ought to start, or he’ll end up breaking another promise.

Merlin, he hates breaking promises. He hates it.

His treacherous eyes slid to the tallest shelf in his office, where he knows a stash of letters is skilfully hidden away. At the very top, there lies a request which didn’t ask for an answer, merely his presence. Merely his ability to keep a very old promise.

And he failed.

His eyes sting, so he reaches for the closest parchment on his desk and he begins reading. He is a teacher before he’s anything else. He cannot break the promise he made his students. A quill flies to his hand but he drops it, and his eyes keep burning.

He feels as if he’s a prisoner inside his own body, for he cannot go where he longs to, and he cannot focus on what he must. He knows he’s a very poor excuse of a teacher at the moment, but his heart is racing like crazy and he’s only sitting down. He imagines himself jumping out the window and running to that place his mind keeps shifting to, but his body doesn’t move. His eyes are burning, but he doesn’t blink, and he cannot distinguish a single thing on the paper in front of him.

However, he knows by heart the contents of every letter he’s got hidden away on his tallest shelf. It’s going to be midnight any minute now, he knows, and he’s got things to do. Responsibilities. A job—

But he imagines he’s running. Clearly, he imagines the sound the dry leaves make under his feet, the wind tugging at his hair and robes, and the warm tears running down his face, a few wetting his dry, stretched lips as he struggles to breathe on his impromptu marathon. He imagines he makes it pass the magical barrier and that he Disapparates away with a loud crack. He even imagines the turning of his stomach and the bile on the back of his throat. He imagines he opens his eyes to the dark of the night, to the symbol and the words on white marble poorly illuminated by the moon, which is high in the sky, and to a familiar back clasped in all black and a blond head over broad shoulders.

He stops imagining, and he dries the tears off his face with the back of his hand. He lights another candle so he can read more easily the messy handwriting on the sixth year’s DADA essay. His headache isn’t gone, but it is tolerable, and he has a job to do. He cannot afford to break two promises on one night.

His poor racing heart wouldn’t be able to handle it.

If you read till the end, go and drop me some love on AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/25906294