Eyes Like Mine (Herobrine x Blind!Reader)

Chapter Twenty One

An update? In MY 2021?

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Hero looked down at his hands, still scorched a bit from their earlier display of flame, and he scowled.

"This can't be real." He muttered. Upon realizing he'd uttered the words aloud, he cast a glance at Y/N, but blessedly she was still asleep. Notch had left not long ago in search of more healing supplies for her torn back, now covered by strips of Hero's teal shirt and wrapped in pale bandages. While her face was, even in sleep, etched with pain, she seemed more at peace than she had been awake - and surely more than she had been in that dungeon.

He had awoken not long before in an abandoned crypt, which seemed to be where Orion held his base of operations. Fitting, considering that his armies consisted mainly of undead. He had accused Y/N of being Brine, the creature he himself had been cast out of his home for being as a young man.

And he was him, after all. He was everything they had ever accused him of.

He glared, focused on his hands, and they burst into flame once more. While he had been glad for the power at the time, breaking free of his bonds just in time to save Y/N's life, now just the fact they existed wore heavy on his heart. His mind was filled with noise, static interspersed with whispers of a familiar voice.

"Do you want to save her?" It had whispered in the moments before his escape. "Let me out, I'll save her." He hadn't thought, only accepted it, and the next thing he knew he was gathering her in his arms and dragging her from the prison. The... voice, the other person had receded for now, leaving him alone for the most part. Leaving him in control of his own body. But... the reputation 'Brine' had was of being a monster... not human anymore. That... was his fate, wasn't it?

Hot tears of rage welled up in his eyes, and he dashed them away with a little growl. So that was how his life would end? Possessed by a mad demigod with a grudge against an equally mad immortal warlord? Just waiting for Orion to finish him off so that the beast controlling him would move on to a new host?

Herobrine leaned forward to rest his forehead on his knees, blinking back the tears that threatened to fall onto his jeans. He wondered, if he hadn't accepted his help, would Brine still be trapped inside him? Or had he the ability to force himself over his consciousness at any time? At this point, he supposed, it didn't matter.

A tiny cough made him look up, and he found Y/N groping blindly at the flagstones she lay upon. Wiping away his tears, Herobrine got up, making his way over to her and sitting down on her left.

"Y/N?" He whispered. Her hands stilled, and she twisted her head to point her ear in his direction.

"Hero?"

"Yeah." He reached out, giving her a tentative pat on the shoulder. She let out a breath, relaxing a bit and resting her cheek on the blanket she used as a pillow. "How are you feeling?"

"Awful." She groaned. "But... better than before." She twisted a bit, only to grimace. "Can't hardly move. Where's Notch?"

"Out, getting some medicine and bandages for you." The current bandages that were laid over her back were already soaked with blood, and he focused on her face instead. Her eyes were uncovered - when she'd lost her blindfold, he wasn't sure, but it was gone now. Her eyes were half-open, scars visible across the blank orbs. For a moment, he wondered if she'd been conscious when she was blinded, how old she was, but he quickly averted his thoughts. He had enough on his mind without such gruesome images joining them.

"So." She spoke up softly. "What happened down there... exactly?" Hero grimaced, looked at his hands.

"I'm... possessed by Brine." Saying it aloud made his skin crawl. "I used his power to escape and rescue you."

"Oh." Y/N was quiet, processing this. "Did you... kill him? Orion?"

"No." Hero almost laughed, but found that he couldn't. "No, I was... otherwise occupied."

"Ah." Another period of silence. "That's... good."

"Good?" Hero echoed incredulously. "How- what?? That I'm Brine??"

"Well, yeah." She confirmed. "You're... we're trying to defeat Orion, right? And Brine seems to be the only one he's afraid of. Enough to kill me, anyway."

"I- well, I suppose." Hero pulled his hand from her shoulder, almost expecting it to burst into flames again. "But I'm not Brine, or, I am, but I don't- I don't understand how to use these abilities."

"But you did when you saved me."

"That wasn't me! It was Brine, he controlled me!"

"W-wait, oh- what?" Y/N's voice was taken aback. "Oh, he's... can do that?"

"Yes." Hero's voice was far more irritable than he meant it to be, and he tried to tone it down before he spoke again. "Yes. He's not... me, exactly. He's a presence... inside me. He took over me, broke my chains and yours, and then let me go."

"Well, he doesn't sound that bad, at least." Y/N suggested hopefully. "If he saved me."

"He only did that because I told him to."

"So you have some control over him?"

"No! I mean, maybe?" Hero pressed both hands to his face, jaw clenched tightly. "I'm not sure. But I don't want to be Brine, powers or not."

"I get that." Y/N insisted, shifting again (and wincing, again). "I wouldn't want to either. But this- maybe you have the power to stop him."

"Brine's never defeated him in the past." Hero grumbled. "Why should he now?"

"Well, he has Notch on his side!"

"Notch might not even want to work with us anymore since I'm- since I'm possessed!!"

"Why wouldn't he??"

"Because he's good!! Notch is a hero, Brine's- I'm a monster."

"You are not." Y/N's voice took on a horrified note. "Even if Brine is, you're not him."

"Am I not??"

"No! Look." She reached out, flailed a bit, then her hand met his and she grasped it. "Look at me."

"I am."

"Hero, we've been friends for what, like... a week? Two weeks?"

"Two weeks." Something like that, he'd been a bit too busy to keep track of the time they had spent together. It felt like so much longer, though.

"Two weeks. You're not a monster, you're actually - you're actually a pretty good guy." He frowned, opening his mouth to respond, but his companion went on. "You're gruff and grumpy, but you're a good person. You protect me and deal with my- my disability, you protected your brother and his wife even though you didn't like them, you're willing to help people, by beating Orion, even though the people of this world have been nothing but jerks to you!!"

"Except you." He mumbled. Y/N stopped short, blinked.

"I was... kinda a jerk at first."

"I wasn't the kindest to you either."

"Well, we were both jerks, but that's just normal human things. That doesn't make you any worse than anyone else. And-" She gives his hand a squeeze. "In my informed opinion, you're a lot better than some of the people I've met."

"W-well, thanks." Hero hated the catch in his voice. "But that's... still, I'm not a... I'm not normal. Besides, I'm not trying to beat Orion to help 'people', I'm doing it to help you." There was a moment of stunned silence.

"Why?" Y/N managed at last.

"I don't know, maybe because you're my only friend." Hero snapped, immediately regretting using such a tone on the person he had just proclaimed to be his sole companion, but she took it in stride.

"I guess. And maybe I am just biased then, but I think you're a good person."

"Well-" His voice caught, and he swallowed. "...alright." He said nothing more, and Y/N lapsed into silence, apparently assuming that she had succeeded in changing his viewpoint of himself.

The cause of his quiet, though, was far from that. Hero sat in silence, born of his own grief, gripping her hand and mourning the loss of his own life.