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kadavernagh · 6 days

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Heads underwater || Regan & Wynne

TIMING: Current LOCATION: The lake in Saol Eile PARTIES: Regan and Wynne SUMMARY: Wynne meets with Regan at the lake and, in a moment of Regan's desperation, is able to reach her. They speak of escape. CONTENT: Self-harm, domestic abuse, parental death, sibling death, vomit mention

"You carry Padrig’s death on you now. That was your judgement. I could never carry someone’s death. This is my judgement.” But was the jade in her hand not as heavy as any cadaver in her morgue? She would shed it too. She didn’t have to carry it. She didn’t have to carry anything. No banshee did.

The soil underneath Regan bled a dark brown as she coughed up more water, which had to be the last of it. She still felt soggy inside – and not the kind of soggy she was trying to forget, the kind she had shed from her skin, the kind she had nearly given to the lake to drown because she could not do it herself. It was usually a two-banshee job, an báthadh, it had to be. As far above humanity as they were, banshees were still susceptible to the same instinct to breathe, to scramble and claw their way to the surface no matter what. And that was the root of all of Regan’s problems, wasn’t it? Life would be so much easier, Regan thought, if banshees did not need to breathe.

Crickets chirped along the water’s edge; they had been Regan’s only audience. Cliodhna had not been there. She didn’t get to see her granddaughter's persistence, her flailing efforts, her attempt to disavow what held her back.

But it was just that, wasn’t it? An attempt. Pride turned to shame. Regan hadn’t been able to do what was really necessary. The ring was still on her finger. She didn’t see the jade shine through the surface and then fade as it sank down with the detritus. She didn’t throw it in the lake where it probably belonged, because such a swampy, soaked token deserved somewhere equally wet, and not a hand such as hers. But she couldn’t, she couldn’t do it.

Regan ran her towel through her damp, stringy hair again. The sun could not be counted on here. It was a day like most others, where the mist rolled down to the earth and exhaled a cool humidity. The wet stayed wet. Decomposition toiled a little faster. Wynne grew bolder. Though perhaps that last one had nothing to do with the weather. Where Elias remained upstairs in the clinic, Wynne had been daring enough to venture out, which Regan saw as an opportunity for them to see the rot of this place (once more, not the good kind). That had been her intention, anyway, when she’d asked Wynne to meet her by the lake in the middle of the day.

She would show Wynne where she had drowned herself, and then had tried to drown Jade’s love. She would show them the tar pit, the place where young banshees learned to rend flesh with their scream, the spot where Declan would die a senseless death. She would show them her palms and the new aithrighe chun báis writ in iron above her navel, tell them how she received this ugly, awful honor, the way her father’s purpose was to be expendable. She would describe the punishments, the exiles, the tearing of wings from cold skin should someone dare fly high enough to ask a question. She would name every single banshee who lived here and recount every callous comment, rude remark, compulsion to kill for something that might have been no more than an idea. And then Wynne, a mask of impenetrable horror over their naive face, would see that this was no place for them, and they would drag Elias and the ham child out the way they had come in, and they would not look back at such a vile place.

Regan would do that, if her heart didn’t feel like it was about to vomit the second she looked at Wynne. She averted her gaze immediately. Hearts did not vomit, but hers would become the first in recorded medical history. She swallowed down what tasted like the scummy water of the lake, but there was no drowning the sensation now. Regan stared at the water, stiff as she was born to be; she couldn’t look at Wynne, and wondered what Wynne saw when they looked at her now. “Have you made plans to leave yet, or do you require more convincing? You’ve walked around enough. You know, don’t you? You’ve seen it, all of this, twice now.” Regan crossed her arms, catching the sight of her finger where her failure shined back at her. There was that cardiac queasiness again. The breath she took was not nearly as controlled as it should have been. Her lungs ached to scream loud enough to part the lake, but she had it, barely, and she held it, tangling her own fingers around it to push it down into the water before it could breathe. Regan’s distant expression registered faint discomfort. That whirlpool forming in her stomach had to be just a few measly drops remaining inside her. Still, she couldn’t meet Wynne’s eyes again. “There is no demon here, metaphorical or otherwise. There is nothing to bravely confront. There is no battle to fight. So do not fall on your own sword in lieu of having an enemy. The banshees would all enjoy that, seeing your organs spilled out over something sharp, but you would not.”

———

It was impossible to stay in their designated room. Wynne had been stuck in plenty of rooms in their life, ruled by passivity and fear. They’d folded to obedience and let other people’s demands sculpt their days, as was customary back at home, and though they had often felt accomplished at the end of one of those days, they knew better now. More importantly, they had not come here to sit idly and wait for a chance to run. Run, they would — but only with Regan in tow. And, alternatively, only if they could be certain that Elias, Nora and them had done everything they could to get Regan to come, even if it had been fruitless. There was a part of them that knew the reality existed that this mission would partially fail. That there were minds that could not be changed or moved. That there was a home they should return to. That there was no use in trying forever. Some battles were lost. Their brother had died on an altar. Some battles were lost.

But for now they clung to hope and whatever courage they had managed to muster. They left the clinic each day in an attempt to do what Emilio might. To investigate. To make themself understand what this place was, in general and to Dr Kavanagh. They understood these to be two different things, after all. Their impression of the aos sí would always be painted in different colors than that of Regan.

It was like that with their own former home too, wasn’t it? Emilio had gone there and seen something ugly, something that should be met with anger and violence. Who knew what Teddy had seen, or Lil. To Wynne, the estate on the shores of Moosehead lake was a combination of sweet memories. Of bonfires and swimming in the lake, of shared meals and communal living — but also of forced death, of reprimands and punishment, of limits so tight that sometimes they weren’t sure they could breathe.

They saw things in Saol Eile, with those wide and observant eyes, their ability to be quiet and a wallflower. They saw joy. They saw glee. They saw more ugly things, though, than these things. The smell of death hung like a thick blanket everywhere, reminding them of the leftovers at the altar after a sacrifice, after the demon had left some things behind and their people had been to afraid to clean it, lest It wanted more. They tried to see what Regan might see, but they didn’t understand it yet. They didn’t see her surrounded with other women, like some clumps of banshees seemed to be — like cousins or sisters. Perhaps Dr Kavanagh was a sheep returning to her flock, but if that was so, Wynne had not yet found evidence of it.

There was the lake, which was perhaps the only peaceful place if you ignored the echoes of screams. It could be that Regan wished to stay for the lake, but there were other lakes. This wasn’t a superior lake, just like the lake at their once home hadn’t been.

They met Regan where they had agreed to meet, not sure what would come of this. Wynne had once been someone people listened to, a sanctified martyr, a savior. At the end of the day, though, they had answered to their elders and their patriarch, just like the rest of them. Once, they had thought of Regan as something similar to those people — another elder with a wisdom that could guide them. But they realized now that perhaps Regan was just like the others at home. A member, who was looking up at their seniors to guide them, filled with desperate hope. Another person grappling with duty and obedience. Maybe Regan was even more similar to themself than they had ever thought could be. If she was, maybe she too would run.

They halted next to her and watched the ripples of the lake. It was nice enough to swim in it now, but they hadn’t brought a towel. The one they’d packed was hanging in their designated place of hiding. Wynne was quiet, letting Regan take the lead. There was still some of that reverence left. Such things didn’t disappear so easily. “I intend to leave,” they said. “That was always the plan.” Leaving was something they knew how to do. Leaving was something they had learned was sometimes the right thing to do, even if it came with a guilty conscience and an endless question of what if. Leaving was something Regan had approved of, in their case. “I have seen it. I don’t understand why you need to stay. This isn’t — it’s not a good place.” They were quiet again, noting how unhappy Regan looked. Not that she’d often looked happy in Wicked’s Rest, but she had never looked like this either.

“I don’t want to fight. I don’t — there is no fight here for me. Maybe not for you either. I want to leave. To go home to the people in Wicked’s Rest. To get Hamstring there. And you. You know that.” There was no demand in their tone. Just a statement of fact, as that was all it was. Wynne watched the lake with its pushes and pulls. Patient and endless. More immortal than any undead thing they’d ever met and would ever meet. “Why did you leave this place before?” Because she had returned, hadn’t she? She had left and come back. “I … I think about going back too. Not any more. I burned that bridge. But I still do.” They dreamed of it more now that Ariadne wasn’t there to ensure a dreamless sleep. Of the lake, of the meals, of the fields. Of their brother. Always their brother. “I know why you came back. But why leave?”

———

“I do know that. But you staying here, allowing the ham child to do the same, is putting her in danger. Cut your losses. I have cut mine.” That wasn’t a lie. Regan had cut them (hadn’t she? She had, right?). Accepting that she had cut them was what took longer. That was it. “Do you like the lake? There is death at the bottom. A heavy coating of it.” Regan’s eyes filled black, and she scanned, watching darkness mix within the water like ink. “There are waterfalls that feed into it. The ham child mentioned them. I think her… tour guide showed her. She doesn’t realize that they lead to all of this death.”

Wynne’s question made her blink, attentive. It made sense that they were asking about that. They probably thought they could replicate Reilly’s success, but these circumstances were different. Regan paused, her thoughts taking a moment to shuffle themselves into the right order. The day Reilly found her was both incredibly hazy, yet also one of the clearest memories she had of this place. “I saw my brother and… I don’t think either of us thought the other was real, at first. He looked older.” She didn’t. “I asked him how he got here. He said a plane. He appealed to my confusion, I guess.” It had been more than that, though. Something unrecognizable rose up in Regan’s throat and where she had expected a scream, her voice only croaked. She crossed her arms, turning away from Wynne slightly because her failures were becoming evident. It wouldn’t take her grandmother to pick them from her face. “I had been here for years and… I was told I would never see him again. And then I did see him again. He pointed that out. So for just a few minutes, for just long enough to… to make the mistake I made, I thought that, perhaps, he might be right about other things, where my grandmother had been wrong. Like that I did not need to be here.”

Regan’s resolve cooled and hardened, and she turned back toward Wynne. “But I am back here. My grandmother wasn’t wrong. I could never… I couldn’t do what you did. Burning that proverbial bridge. I need this place, I need my grandmother. It’s not only about duty.” A comparison struck her, something Wynne might grasp. “You were going to sacrifice yourself for your people. It wasn’t only about duty to you, either, but about the greater good. That is why I’m here, too.”

And it became easy to lose sight of, when little but duty was poured into her ears. But as her grandmother liked reminding her, Regan could not have one without the other. Did Wynne understand better now, or had they seen the whole truth this entire time, and come anyway? Regan twisted her ring around her finger. Somewhere deep within her mind, she conjured an image of herself throwing it into the water, as she tried to do before Wynne arrived. She could see the tiny splash and the shine as it rocked down to the bottom. Regan hated Jade right now – as much as she was allowed to. Hated her love. Hated her love for Wynne, and Elias, and the reckless child who had stuffed herself in luggage. Hated herself for attracting such humans into her orbit. She freed her finger from the ring and held it in her hand. As her gaze locked over the water, her muscles begged to pitch it.

———

“I don’t –” They cleared their throat. They wanted to sound unwavering and steady, the way they had felt every now and then on this journey. Regan was no elder to cower in front of — she was just a person, Wynne reminded themself. A complicated person who had listened to them before, who might listen again. “I don’t think I am allowing her to stay here — that’d insinuate I have any authority over her,” they said. “I can’t just drag her from here, kicking and screaming. It would … it would be bad.” Nora would have to agree to come. She had powers that could overwhelm Wynne, and though they didn’t think she’d use them against them, they weren’t sure how far Nora would go to achieve her goals. “I am working on it. I don’t want either of us to be in danger.” A beat. “That includes you.”

Wynne turned their attention to the lake as Regan did, moving in tandem with the banshee. These were things they knew how to do – how to be agreeable. How to move along, how to act as a unit. They nodded. “I like the lake. It reminds me of the one at my old home.” The ebb and flow was peaceful. They felt the urge to take off their shoes and socks, to hike up their skirt and stand in it. “There’s death at the bottom of every body of water, isn’t there? It’s how nature keeps feeding itself.” They squinted. “I hope there’s no trash in it. That would be very bad.” Wynne hesitated a moment, and then started unlacing their shoes. They wanted to be here a while – to really speak to Regan. They might as well get comfortable. “I’m not sure how much Nora knows about death. The way we do.” It was worrying.

They worked on pulling off their shoes and socks, all the while standing. Maybe part of them wanted to demonstrate that they weren’t put off by the death at the bottom of the lake, but the weather was also nice. Wynne knew that part of life was about enjoying it now. For Iwan, in part. They didn’t want to think about him, but they did as Regan spoke of her brother. “Does he know you are back here?” Had she told him, like she had told all others? That brother, who had crossed an ocean and had gotten into one of those horrible planes to come get her. “Is that not … is that not sad and wrong, that you can never see him again if you stay here? If this place keeps out all those that care for you, even from a visit? Is that not, on its own, bad?”

They weren’t sure how to do this, though — how to convince Regan to leave when every day was filled with a moment of regret. Sometimes, yes, sometimes Wynne felt empowered by their decision to live. Sometimes it was as simple as getting their feet wet in a lake and feeling the sun on their face to make it seem worth it, but sometimes it wasn’t. Sometimes it was more akin to being swallowed by a lake, wondering how things might have been if they hadn’t messed with the status quo. Wynne wasn’t Regan’s brother. They weren’t Elias, who wore his heart on his sleeve and was so convinced of his righteousness. They weren’t Jade, who loved Regan in a singular way. They were Wynne, who still regretted not getting on that altar from time to time. Who was glad and grateful for all the people they’d met and the things they’d learned — but who might undo it, should they get a second chance.

“You said – you need to be here to learn, right?” Wynne was trying to piece together all they knew about banshees. They screamed, they killed, they had a pit where people died slowly. They upheld Fate like they had once upheld their then-nameless demon. It was hard to undo the threads of the Banshee’s world, just as it was hard to undo the ones that had held together their own. How much of it was true, how much of it was not? When were things about control and when was it simply about controlling? Again – there was no way to start judging Regan’s grandmother, when their own mentor haunted them. When there were still ties that bound them to their family, who might convert them back into their circles should they return.

But Wynne would not return and Regan had.

“I’m … I’m just trying to see, okay? I don’t –” There was the hesitation again. After depositing their phone into their shoe, they walked into the water, let the sharpness of the cold water sharpen them. “It wasn’t the greater good though, was it? It was lies, back at home. And if not that, it was corruption. I thought it was for the good of my community, but what good would it have been? If I had laid down on that altar for their bounty and fortune? If another had followed me, and another? What good — what good is it if Normstring is hurt and your hands are bandaged too – I noticed – and you cannot see your family, if you are confined? Is this the only way to learn?”

They watched Regan take her ring off and though Wynne wasn’t sure what the ring symbolized, they understood it meant something. “They told me so many times there was no other way.” There was something tired in their voice, then. “That dying was the best thing I could do, but I didn’t. And you told me that was a good decision.” They wanted to take that ring from her hands, to stuff it in their pocket and shake Regan the way so many people had shaken their shoulders. But they wouldn’t. “It can’t be so simple, that this is the only place, the only way.”

———

Confusion twisted into a tired sort of faint alarm across Regan’s face as Wynne removed their shoes. The meaning was clear. They were going to wade into the lake. No surprise that Wynne seemed comfortable around the water, given their previous home right on a rather large lake (one that was probably impactful to their community) but it was the secondary meaning that Regan did not like: Wynne was not going anywhere. The towel dangling from Regan’s hand dropped clumsily to the ground at the realization. Her hair dripped. Her lungs felt wet again. Was it not enough that Wynne insisted on coming here on some ill-advised rescue mission? Now they would also swim in the same water (if what Regan did could be called swimming), and claim they knew about death in the same way. The line Regan had drawn between the two of them, so stark only seconds again, wobbled.

Since coming here, Regan had tried not to think about her brothers, or Jade, or anyone else she’d left behind. They clung to her like the stench of cadaverine but less desirable, unable to be scrubbed off. She addressed Wynne more curtly than she intended. “My brothers don’t know about any of this, and will not. Having them visit would be cruel to everyone involved. They would see that their sister has died, and I would be setting myself back. The same is true of Jade, and of you and Elias.” It took about two weeks living here, in the beginning, before Regan had raised the subject of her brothers to Cliodhna, asking when they could visit. Normally displeased with questions, her grandmother was uncharacteristically open to providing Regan with an answer to this one – it was a question that she supplied in response. What would they see? That shut Regan up. Over time, she formulated the things her grandmother did not need to say – you would hurt them, a year of progress would be undone in a moment, they would blame you for what happened to your dad, they would try to pull you back where you do not belong, they won’t recognize you now. Regan did not ask again.

She watched Wynne out of the corner of her eye as they waded into the water. They seemed more certain about that than anything they were saying. Did they feel like a hypocrite, some part of them missing what they left behind or regretting what they did? At least here, Regan would learn to have no regrets. Wynne would never get that in Wicked’s Rest. She would here. She would.

Regan clenched the damp bandage wrapped around her palm, not reacting at all to Wynne pointing it out. She fidgeted the ring loosely between her fingers, the water still calling for it, louder and louder, pounding like her slow heart. Jade had promised Regan her bones. Could she still lay claim to them, to her, if she did this, changed and twisted herself in such a way?

She tried and failed to blot Jade out again. “I assume norm is what you called ham in your home. Hamstring was not supposed to do that. She won’t do it again. Your community… they collapsed without you.” It was harsh, Regan knew that, but Wynne had not shied away from that fact in the past. “Not because of some sacrifice, but because you went back for your notion of the greater good. You carry Padrig’s death on you now. That was your judgement. I could never carry someone’s death. This is my judgement.” But was the jade in her hand not as heavy as any cadaver in her morgue? She would shed it too. She didn’t have to carry it. She didn’t have to carry anything. No banshee did. She thought she hadn’t been willful enough to throw it earlier, that was the problem, but it was the opposite, she realized now – she had been too willful, too human, too much Regan. Wynne would need to see that she belonged here. She needed to prove it to herself even more. Regan curled her fingers around the ring and wound her arm up, expecting to see Jade streak through the air like a green-bottle fly before she hit the deepest part of the lake (that was the water sounding in her ears, only the water, not her heart now).

But Regan’s shoulder locked up. Her palm refused to open. Her fingers did not listen. It was Wynne’s fault. It was Jade’s. They made it her fault.

Fine. Regan’s lips curled in a snarl she wasn’t allowed to have, but it would be the last. Instead of attempting to throw the ring, she marched into the water behind Wynne. She would drop it, let it sink and drown like the stones crushing her chest. Let it join all of the other dead things in the lake. That would fix this and free her. It was, as Wynne had asked, the only way. Hatred flashed in her eyes. It needed to go. It all needed to go, if she was ever going to be able to be what she needed to be. Why couldn’t she be left here in peace? Why was she constantly being disinterred and dragged out of her burial ground, stuffed full of her organs again when she was trying so hard to embalm herself?

Regan waded further in, ahead of Wynne, not feeling the chill at all. She would answer Wynne’s question in a way they would feel as the sting of loss, a way that would force them to give up, one that made a point rather than a concession. “The reflex to breathe, to live, is incredibly strong,” Regan started, remembering how her grandmother had explained this before the first drowning. She saw it in the defensive wounds on the hands of decedents, sometimes skewered all the way through with the knives that slayed them. She saw it in the huge eyes of the thrashing animals she vociferously disassembled. She saw it in Wynne as they had stood outside of their community, taking in everyone’s words of encouragement. Life wanted to keep living, even despite death’s inexorable march. Banshees were not things of life.

Where Wynne seemed to find the water peaceful, Regan only felt thousands of reminders against her skin. Her grandmother’s fingers caught in her hair, Jade’s soft kisses trailing down her neck, the sting against the wide scab on her stomach, the way Elias’s entire arms had wrapped around her, the desperation of her lungs. “Screaming– screaming for someone’s death is the same, and if you fail, if you open your mouth and try to live, the price can be everyone around you. There is only one way to learn, to do no harm. When you drown, your instincts take over. They force you to kick, to jump, to clamber, so desperate to reach the surface the body feels as though it's on fire. But all you can really do is wait… waiting is the worst thing about drowning.”

The rictus of her arm eased and she lowered it, ring still stuck against her palm like it had been glued to the bandage. Regan’s voice was low and struggling to stay flat, itself attempting to reach the surface. “You strain against it at first. The first time, the second – the first twenty times, perhaps. But eventually… you stop.” She stared into the water, and for a second, she thought she saw her grandmother’s dark eyes peering back at her. Regan swept her hand through it, disrupting the image. Stop, she muttered to herself, to the reformed reflection, desperate.

Regan’s silence did not last long. “Or so I’ve heard.” She was almost waist deep now, and her grip on the ring loosened; it tightened around her voice instead. “This–” She held out a shaking palm, showing Wynne the beautiful promise, one that had been so full of love, one that should have instead been an inconsequential trinket from a life she had been severed from “–it’s the problem. You’re all the problem. It’s why I don’t yet know what it feels like to not flail and gasp.” The water rode up Regan’s shirt, reaching her face from feet below it, staining her voice and her eyes. “That's why this isn’t working. It’s not working. It’s not working this time. I need it to work. Please leave. Please let it work.” She tried to turn her wrist. Tried to let the ring drop. But it only sat in her palm, her hand trembling underneath it, more fragile than what it held and who she pleaded to.

———

The water was cold. Though the world warmed slightly since the appearance of spring – even if April remained as capricious as always – the water was taking its time to adjust to the more moderate temperatures. Wynne didn’t mind it though. They felt awakened by it, more alert by the pinpricks the cold water delivered through their system with every centimeter of skin that got in contact with the water. It kept them grounded to this place, their mind from straying to another lakeshore where they had stood with the same kind of dread. A shore where maybe they would have longed for someone to speak with them as frankly.

The lake at home had been large and seemingly endless. A border of their world. They’d lay on their back on the water, staring up at the sky and considering its clouds, its chemtrails, its blueness. Wishing and wondering. They’d loved that lake. They had found answers on it, mused away as a young child about the ways and wiles of the world. If they waded further now and laid on their back, would they find any answers in the Irish sky? Would they find the way the make Regan see that this place was a poison, a weapon, a cage? Would they find the right words to make Nora give up and abandon plan?

They doubted it. It hadn’t been Moosehead lake and its sky above it that had made Wynne see with clarity, back in the day. It had been their own self preservation, their selfishness, their anger and above all, perhaps, their fear. They let their fingers dance on the water all the same, because the water was – in all of this – blameless. It could not help the bodies at its bottom, but it could still sustain other lifeforms.

Regan spoke with a definitive and curt tone, one that would have made them cower a few months before. But they had crossed another body of water to be here. They had seen their former mentor die because of their decision. They were here because their friends were in trouble and even if Regan’s tone struck that obedient nerve within, they did not budge. They dipped their fingers into the water further. “That’s not right,” they said. Maybe it was childish, to take rightness into consideration — but it wasn’t right. “Your brothers deserve to know where you are. You deserve to see your brothers. To see the people you care about. Those aren’t — those can’t be things to set you back.” It was through their loved ones that Wynne had found the things they had lacked, after all. Home and support, but also autonomy and safety. These things mattered. They had to matter.

Wynne was confused when Regan said something about norm meaning ham. They frowned but decided to let it go, as talking about different definitions for ham was not really the most pressing issue. Regan was speaking of their former home, after all, accusing them of what they knew they were guilt of. It still made their breath catch in their throat, though. No one had told them, after all, beside Siobhan that one time. No one had been honest with them like this. They swallowed, stared a the ripples in the lake Regan and them were causing. “I don’t think your community will collapse without you,” they answered. “But the people in Maine might. They don’t want you to die. Not truly and also not in this metaphorical way you speak of.”

They were closer together now and Wynne started hiking up their skirt a little to keep it from getting wet as they followed Regan. She spoke of banshee lessons and ways and some of it went over their head. They didn’t understand it fully, the screaming. They knew it was done for someone’s death and knew, now, that it was capable of causing harm — that people could die because of the scream, that it wasn’t a mere announcement. But the details evaded them. Did it matter, though? Was it not just another responsibility to learn to live with? Regan had been told there was one way to learn and she saw no further. She stood at the edge of the lake and didn’t see the opposite shore, the other roads to take.

And why did she compare it – this learning – with drowning? Was she speaking in metaphors again or was that why she was drenched? “Did you — were you trying that now? To try and drown without giving into your instincts?” They needed to know, what this was. To clarify what Regan was speaking about.

They felt their stomach grow tight with dread. No one had ever pushed them under water in such a way. No one had made them learn by making them squirm and struggle for life. Maybe they would have, once they had tied their arms back and pushed them on the altar — but to Wynne struggling to live had looked more like running through the woods, sleeping on benches and in seedy motels, being confronted with humanity’s cruelty in the uglier corners of the world. And then survival had looked like learning to love other people, in accepting their care and affection even if they felt infinitely dirty for their survival.

“The — I don’t know if this is a metaphor or if you are really being drowned, but irregardless. The way to not flail and gasp is to not get stuck underwater to begin with. It’s not – it’s not to cut ties with us. You’ve heard that this is how you learn,” they said, and they were starting to feel a little more sure of themself, “But people lie and people are misguided. And I don’t know about being a banshee. But I don’t think having to drown or feel like you’re drowning is a way to learn anything. You can learn a different way. I do think that is true.”

It was hard to hear Regan’s pleas. To see her tremble. Wynne had been taught how to calm people once. How to make them feel at ease. They had been a beacon of hope, a promise of a bountiful future. But they didn’t know if they could reach Regan the way they had then. “You can find a different way for it to work.” They moved down further, letting go of their skirt and letting it float in the water as it reached their thighs. They stood more in front of Regan now, rather than beside or behind her. “You told me so many things, about demanding better for myself. About having done right by myself. So why can you not do that for yourself too?”

———

Was her drowning all that surprising? Regan had never told Jade, never told anyone so overtly (humans would not understand, only be horrified), but how did Wynne, or anyone, think that banshees learned how to hold in a breath while their lungs were exploding out through their ribcage? Positive reinforcement? “I dislike metaphors,” Regan said simply, though it wasn’t true. “Mine usually involve bones, at the very least.” Many times she had compared her love and those she cared about to cherished femurs or glistening entrails. The more her life had been filled with poetry, and she had come to learn or remember so many sensations not described by anatomy textbooks, things the dead would not tell her, the more her mind opened up. Her language choice and mannerisms had begun to mirror that. Less Gaeilge, hills in her flat affect, the occasional please, words curling around her lips because she had smiled, metaphors and similes and analogies brightening her speech by the day. “I dislike metaphors,” Regan repeated, and, thinking of how much she had changed within a year, it was more true now.

How dare Wynne step in front of her, try to stop her forward momentum, her clear path to becoming something better? That was not a metaphor either. If she could move her hand she would have pushed the child out of the way. Regan couldn’t drop the ring. But she could set one foot in front of the other until she was in deep enough that the ring would be pulled off her palm by the gentle current. She could if Wynne were not obstructing her. “Move.”

Wynne held enough certainty on what was right for both of them, but they still seemed unsure about something. Regan had learned to recognize the silence that covered them right before they said something about their home; they probably thought of that place. She wasn’t sure why. This was not the same. Regan’s voice wobbled as she spoke. “Banshees live a long time. Hundreds of years. And despite that, I have not heard a single word about there being another way. Don’t you think someone would have found it by now?” If there were another way, why would they not be using it? This was not like Wynne’s community, where someone in charge needed to keep power in their grip, and self-interest prevented dangerous ideas from spreading. Banshees were different. There could be no self-interest where there could be no self. Her arm trembled again, and she tried hard to knock the ring out of her hand. Jade thought she was a person. Wynne did, Elias did. There were times where all of them made Regan feel like, maybe, she could be one. But it was a veil she had chosen not to pull back, in Wicked’s Rest, surrounded by those who cared for her. She needed to pull it off now.

But her body did not listen to her. The banshees did not listen to her. Wynne and the others did not listen to her. What was she supposed to do, listen to her strangled sense of self? Regan grabbed her wrist with her other hand, twisting violently, trying to get her bones to obey, but it felt instead like she might just break them. Something in her met her own intentions and resisted with enough force. When she and Jade had spoken of rings, Regan had thought of it as a promise. That had been a metaphor (which, she decided, she now hated). That must have been it. A promise. Of course she couldn’t break it. Only it didn’t feel like a physical wall, or like something had strung her up. But if it was a promise made in error (she buried the word deep in her mind after she had thought it), then it wasn’t– it wasn’t her fault that now she couldn’t– instead of the kerplunk she had wanted to hear, a screech whistled from between her teeth.

“None of you are letting me– don’t you understand?” She was emphatic. Her face felt as it had when she was starved of oxygen, before Wynne showed up here. “I’m trying to be good! I’m trying to make sure I don’t hurt someone! The duty that I– do you think I care about serving something I don’t believe in half the time?” She couldn’t suck the words back in. But only Wynne was here to receive them. “Someday I’ll care. If this works. If I work. But I care about you, and Jade, and Elias, and my brothers, and keeping people safe. That’s why I can’t leave. You need to leave me so that I can leave you.”

There was a kerplunk.

Regan’s eyes ticked to her outstretched arm. To her hand that had gestured as she was talking, turning sideways without her realizing it, and effortlessly allowing her ring to slide off her palm. Into the water. She hadn’t even felt it.

Her heart jumped quickly enough to shake off the ice. Regan’s gaze whipped to Wynne, now asking for their help, and she dove in after the vanishing flash of jade.

———

So it hadn’t been a metaphor. The way banshees learned – what, exactly, Wynne didn’t know – by being made to drown. They shuddered at the thought, wondered who it was that held Regan down — if it was her grandmother’s hand pushing down on her head or some other method used. At home, when they had learned to swim, it had been in small classes of peers, and though it did include being thrown in the deep end there had been something gentle about it all the same. Drowning served no purpose. The water was just that. A place for leisure. A source of food. A rippling thing of beauty. They stared at the lake and how the sun shone on it and they hated the banshees for making it a place of such ugliness. They hated Regan for speaking of it like it was something that was actually useful and needed. “I dislike you drowning. I dislike that you have to do that. No, that you think you have to do that.”

They shuddered, too, when Regan told them to move, but they felt their feet stand steadily in the mushy bottom of the lake. At home, they’d reach for that mush and throw it at each other while squealing in joy. A lake was a beautiful place. A source, not an end. Not a cruel lesson, a punishment. Not a room to be locked in, or reprimand, or a hand clashing against skin. “No.” There was something rare in their voice. Certainty, determination. Their eyes were as wide as always but they flashed with something harsher.

And it almost faded from their eyes as Regan spoke of the way banshees lived so long (this was news to them, and so a truth they had to grapple with on top of all the other things — were some of the women they’d encountered over a hundred years old), but they kept their heels dug in the ground. They sunk a little. “If you really believed it why haven’t you thrown us in that pit yet? Why have you not screamed at me since? Why are you — Regan,” Their eyes grew a little wider at the sound of her first name coming from their mouth, “This cannot be it. This – you would not have left if you don’t understand that in some way. There are other banshees, aren’t there? And besides, even if things last long and have lasted long, that doesn’t make them right. Like, you know? Capitalism has existed for a long time. And kings, there have been kings and queens for more than centuries. Are those right? That is not a good argument. Just because something has been one way for a long time doesn’t make it right. You are bandaged and wet because you are trying to drown yourself and you think that is right? Why? Because people before you have done it? That is wrong. It is wrong.”

They fell silent, shocked at how loud their voice had gotten. They didn’t know a lot about the world, that was true. It had only been one and a half years since they had started broadening their horizons but they understood some things. They understood that some people were cruel. That power and control were both means to an end, even if they did not always understand that end. That the people at home had thought they were doing something right, even if they had raised them up to die, even when they had watched their brother get slaughtered. That the world existed in more gray tones than they had been taught, that it wasn’t all one extreme to another. They knew that it was important to feel like you belong. That feeling strange and unfamiliar to everything was isolating. They understood that it was scary to deviate, to run away and not look back. That even though there was something cowardly about doing that, it was also brave to abandon. They knew that sometimes love was the only thing that mattered, because everything else hurt and was scary and unfamiliar. These were the things they were certain of.

And sometimes that certainty was stirred, because they were certain too that to be convinced of something was not always to be right.

They were quiet for a moment. “It hurts when you do this.” It was not meant to be accusatory, but it was in a way. Jade said she had been crying. Elias looked like something wounded. Van was upset. Nora had gotten in a suitcase. Regan’s brothers would wonder and wonder and wonder.

The plop of something hitting the water had Wynne looking down, then back up at Regan. They didn’t understand what the ring signified, but it had to be something important considering how the other had struggled with the weight in her hand. How she looked at Wynne now.

And so Wynne followed into the water, pushing their body down. Back at home they’d throw down little trinkets and tried to dive them back up. Sometimes they got lost in the mud, only to be found a year later. Sometimes they got them, hands closing around the familiar feel. They swam down the way they had then, fingers petting the lake’s bottom, filled with death and life and the ring. Their fingers found it eventually after sifting through a few stones and they came up. Panting, they held out their hand for Regan. “Here,” they breathed, extending the ring.

———

Regan had never heard Wynne speak in such a way – bold, demanding. Like she had told them to be, once upon a time. They said the same thing Elias had; if this was the fate that awaited them, why not get it over with? Why not stop trying? Neamh-roghnaithe. If Wynne of all people did not understand, then no human could. But that unfair though came tethered to another: please leave, please leave, please leave. It was only that single, simple sound of the last year of her life hitting the water that replaced everything else in her head with nothing but action.

Her lungs steeled themselves as soon as her head submerged. The water pulsed in her ears. You’re permitted to come back up, you’re permitted to breathe, she reminded herself, but panic was again quick to push out any rational thought. The lake wasn’t deep here, but small things drifted (small… how was this small?) and Regan still had to stir up the sediment, raking her fingers through detritus to find the one thing down here that mattered more than all of the fish bones and decomposition in Ireland.

Her chest burned and she felt that familiar, creeping and then surging need to breathe. To open her mouth even (especially) if it meant letting the water in. This time, she scrambled to the surface before that happened, but she had nothing to show for it. No ring, just mud clinging between her fingers. Regan popped up intending to take in a quick gulp of oxygen before plunging back in, but Wynne stood there, dripping, the water curving around their waist, their hair sopping wet, their breathing heavy, and– Regan stared at their hand, the glistening ring in their palm like it had been no trouble at all. Her eyes stung – the water was obviously not clean – and she was able to convince herself that any additional precipitation was only from the lake.

“It fell, I didn’t mean to– I wasn’t– I mean, I was trying, but I couldn’t–” She had been so desperate to get away from that thing and now she couldn’t get it back quickly enough. Regan leaped through the water over to Wynne, grabbing it from their hand and fitting it right back on her finger. It felt like a phalanx clicking back into its proper place. In the same motion, her arms wrapped around Wynne’s thin shoulders and she exhaled the entire contents of her lungs, even feeling some of the water from earlier seemingly evaporate. “Thank you,” Regan whimpered, a sound and phrase so unbecoming here that it jarred her to hear it. She wobbled like an unsteady pillar. Enough to realize just what she was doing. Regan peeled herself away from Wynne like none of that had just happened, her eyes darting to the surface of the water. It was unassuming, the sun casting off of it through the clouds and mist, not at all like it had just almost taken everything from her.

“I’m not… a very good banshee. That’s the other way. Failure. Death.” Regan waded into the shallower water. She could see the bottom now, but she felt heavier with each step as her clothes became waterlogged and stuck to her skin the more she was exposed to the air. She looked over her shoulder for Wynne. Who was still there. Of course they were. She wasn’t sure why she’d felt the need to check. Wynne wasn’t the type to discard anyone in a lake.

Regan’s shoulders sank and another one of those long, undulating breaths left her lips, like something was pressing against her throat from both sides. She flitted her wings a couple of times to make the water slide off them and finally let her gaze hang over Wynne. Wynne had started demanding. Regan was going to stop doing that, at least right now. “Jade gave… I think she…” As tired as she was, her tongue still fought her on a specific p-word. What came out instead made her sound more frog than banshee. So pathetic that she had not been able to form a whole sentence. “It’s a promise. And apparently not the kind that I… I thought I couldn’t do it because… it’s always been me, though. The problem. Not you. Me, and… this place.” Another heavy, difficult breath. She knew what she had to convey. She had known since she met Declan, since before, even. But she hadn’t been able to stomach it. “Thank you.” Regan’s jaw felt hingeless and she was silent for a moment. “Does your phone work?”

———

When Regan lurched at them they nearly jumped out of their skin, but it wasn’t something to stress about. The banshee took the ring and put it back in its place, around her finger and Wynne watched for a moment. They mindlessly fiddled with the ring they wore around their own finger, a gift from Ariadne that they touched more and more in these days of temporary separation. It had only been a week since they’d been apart and though they knew they would be reunited with her (or, at least, they had to be, they would be, it could not be that they weren’t) it felt like an eternity.

They were surprised once more by Regan as she embraced her and spoke to them in a tone they had never expected from the doctor. Wynne stood there for a moment and then returned the embrace, hands maneuvering around the wings that had not been there back in Wicked’s Rest. They didn’t know what it meant, this moment of uncharacteristic closeness where Regan crossed some kind of barrier. Where she thanked them, which was something that fae didn’t tend to do. They let her go once she moved back and just watched her, quiet and silent and unsure at this new side of Regan.

They followed the banshee with some distance, patient and silent. Wynne was a better listener than speaker, anyway. “Why should failure mean death? And why — I think you can decide what makes a good banshee. I think you are a good banshee.” But they weren’t exactly a great judge of banshees, considering they still barely understood what they were all about. Regan seemed different than the people here, though. She thought murder was wrong. She thought Wynne shouldn’t have died. She helped people when they were hurt. She understood something about death that they seemed to understand too, but it was different from these women who liked sacrifice and murder a lot.

The topic swayed to Jade and now the ring made more sense. As context dawned on them they felt a little more sure again and as they wrung out some bits of their skirt, they let Regan talk. It was good to be patient, they’d learned. Patience was a good quality. It was one of the things they thought Padrig had been right about — that patience suited them well. It was clear that Regan was grappling with something, that there was a knot of inner conflict she was trying to undo and Wynne tried to imagine what it might have been like, had they returned home and left Ariadne behind. How mixed up everything would have been in their insides, then. They started stroking the water again.

“Then you should hold onto the ring.” A beat. “Even if you stay.” It was a quiet concession. Wynne knew there was a potential at failure, that there was a reality where they managed to sway Nora to come home and leave this play. Where they’d run as they’d once had. “You’re welcome.” They gave a small smile and no more words. There was no room for any more speeches, no more words left in their chest. But they had what Regan was asking for and Wynne waded to the shore, waving their hands around for a bit to dry them before pulling their phone from their shoe and opening up their chat history with Jade. It was an assumption, but it was also something of a push in Regan’s back. They extended the phone, “Here you go.”

———

If Wynne thought Regan was a good banshee, then they knew nothing of banshees, even after spending a couple of weeks here. Actually, she preferred it that way. It meant Wynne wasn’t often in the company of the locals. She let her feet drag her around a little, unsure and unsteady after that brief simultaneous holding that her skin still crawled with (and especially her wings, which were only grazed, but that was more than she ever would have permitted if she thought about it). Only the most infirm of humans required these holdings, and it was because they could not hold themselves up. Regan was not that. So why had she– well, there were those times when– no, she wasn’t going there. Except she was. Because she was holding onto the ring and because Wynne was handing their phone over and when Regan got the first glimpse of Jade’s profile, a quiet sob did leap up her esophagus. The assumption of Wynne’s did not escape Regan. The fact it was correct did not escape her either.

The ring hadn’t been the only promise – there was another. Regan had intended to keep Jade away, but now she realized it was keeping both of them rooted in place. Her fingers hovered over the strange keyboard (her old Blackberry was much easier to type on). Maybe… no. Or… no. She seethed with frustration again. Couldn’t the hazy sun dry her off any faster? Useless star, only able to keep the solar system glued together. Regan glanced over at Wynne, checking to see if they needed their phone, but they weren’t rushing this. It also, apparently, was not waterproof. So Regan shook her hand out a little, shedding droplets of water, and focused herself. Why was it that things that could be typed were not always the same as things that could be said?

Probably because of how dangerous this was.

She kept pausing, deleting, pausing, turning to Wynne for reassurance she didn’t realize she had been seeking. Once, her hand slipped and it seemed like something happened but the message was still there. It happened again and the camera went on. Wynne had to help with that. Blackberries were better.

Suggesting cremation to Declan had filled her with dread, the words fine individually, but forbidden when expressed together as a sentiment. It made her think a banshee could be behind any corner, they had eyes all over (never mind that she’d sense them). It made her disobedience contort her stomach and stain her mind enough that Cliodhna had picked up on it when Regan turned up there in the evening (yes, she examined the child for the other child; yes, he was suitable; yes, she needed to go upstairs and vomit into the toilet). This was twenty times worse.

Regan pressed SEND before she could make room for doubt – it wouldn’t be long, she could feel it pressing against her on all sides, waiting for a crack to appear. And she did create a lot of cracks. Talking to Wynne about what she had sent was even harder. But Regan couldn’t do this alone. She might not be able to do it at all. She looked left, then right, for good measure. Also up. She didn’t even want a bird or squirrel to hear this. The animal could die, and a banshee could extract this from them. It wouldn’t be the first time such talk spread in such a manner.

Regan gestured for Wynne to come closer and stayed hush. Every precaution. And even then, the words stuck to the inside of her mouth – Wynne had to pull them out with one of those soft, melty (too delicate it might break apart), human looks. Regan hesitated, then sped up, eager to get this over with. “The boy the ham child loves is going to die. We need to get the child out of here before that happens. The ham child, I mean. Not the boy. He is going to die. I mean, he is really going to die, there is no changing this. And I… I will try to explain this to her. Again. She needs convincing.” Wynne was listening, more attentive than ever, and she was no longer uncertain in saying all of this. Actually, Regan’s eyes sparked with more electricity than they had in weeks. She had a cause, a mission, something she cared about. “It isn’t working, what I am doing here. It isn’t you. It’s… but I don’t think I can leave.” She swallowed. She knew this. It was not a new thought. But saying it, expressing it as a would if I could, was more than a small slip in progress. “But… but if I can find a way, a way to help you three, and– maybe–”

She could tell Wynne had hoped Regan would say all of them. That she was coming, too, considering how much they had dug their heels in before. This was the best Regan could do. A stuttered fragment of a distant possibility– but it was not an I will not go. It would also have to be enough. Out of the three who had come here for Regan, Wynne was the most likely who would be willing to leave without her, if it meant getting the ham child and Elias out safely. They had the most sense, even if today had been an excellent display of stubbornness. “It’s going to take a couple of days. Worm Remembrance Day is on…” Regan checked Wynne’s phone for the current day. “Thursday. All of the banshees will be gathered by the statue at sunset. Away from the cars.” Wynne would understand what she was saying. They had to, because the shame of disobedience was going to strike her down soon if she stated it any more plainly.

“I will try,” Regan said, handing Wynne their phone back – after one more quick message sent to someone who needed it. She hooked her towel up from the ground and made a half-hearted attempt to dry her hair off, but she still felt as wet as ever. “And I will think.”

#writing #c wynne #parental death tw #sibling death tw #vomit tw #self harm tw #domestic abuse tw #sad and gay tbh :/

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enbysiriusblack · 8 months

Text

"You're not allowed to be smoking in here", Regulus commented, standing by the door.

Sirius turned towards him, sitting in the lounge on Orion's chair by the window, "Fuck that."

Regulus moved further into the room, sitting upright as Sirius slouched further in the black velvet chair.

"People from the Ministry are coming to dinner tonight."

"I'm going out", Sirius grinned, dabbing the ashes of their cigarette on the chairs armrest.

"Mother specifically requested your presence."

"She couldn’t come tell me herself?"

Regulus' hands fidgeted, "I offered."

Sirius turned, looking at their brother, their eyes taking in his agitated form that kept glancing to the door.

"You don't have to protect me, Reggie. I can handle myself."

"Mother is angry. She knows you left the house last night."

"Well she can do what she wants to me", Sirius smushed the cigarette into the armrest and stood up, "Just don't get in the middle of it, you'll only get yourself hurt."

Regulus glanced to the door, footsteps getting louder, "You do it for me."

Sirius sent him a grin, rolling his sleeves up to reveal the tattoos his mother detested, "You don't want to be like me, Reggie."

The two heard Walburga start shouting Sirius' name, and Sirius gestured to the door that led out to the front porch, "Go."

"She's angry, Sirius."

Sirius sighed, "Fucking leave", he grabbed his brother's arm and pushed him out the door to the porch.

The other door flew open and Walburga stepped inside, Regulus couldn’t move from his spot against the door, hearing his brother's screams as he cowered mere metres away.

#forever thinking about the sibling dynamics in the marauders. could talk about it forever.#regulus black #sirius black #the black brothers #tw. domestic abuse #tw. abuse #marauders era #marauders #the black family

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morganski-19 · 4 months

Text

I Don’t Know Which Way’s Home

Chapter 4: Running Away

ao3 link, Part 1, Part 3

Cw: domestic abuse and mentions of child abuse

April 1983

“How many times have I told you that tips go to me,” David yells from the other room.

It's just another one of the many screaming matches between him and Julie’s mom. The third boyfriend in Julie’s lifetime to escalate yelling at her mom for various things, and the second to demand her tips.

“Those tips aren’t for you. You didn’t earn them, I did,” her mom screams back. “Julie needs new clothes soon; I need those tips.”

She doesn’t know where her mom finds them to be honest. Every time she brings a new guy over, they reek of booze and cigarettes, and they have an unmaintained, greasy mullet to make them look like every bad guy in a sitcom. They’re happy for a month before things get sour. Her mom ends up hurt, emotionally and physically, until her breaking point is hit, and they’re tossed to the curb. Metaphorically as there is never enough room for the boyfriends to move into the trailer. She’s thankful for that.

“That bitch doesn’t need anything, she’s already a spoiled brat.”

But no matter what her mom never seems to find someone who will actually treat her right. Julie pleads with her after each one, tries to tell her that she doesn’t have to be treated like this. Ever since she was old enough to understand that this was wrong, it’s all she would repeat. But her mom never believed that anyone would actually want a single mom who could barely get by on her own. So, she kept bringing home dirtbags time and time again.

“Do not call my daughter a bitch.”

“Why not, you raised her. No wonder she’s a bitch.”

As much as Julie tries, she can’t ignore the screaming match anymore. She shuts her textbook as loudly as she can without them hearing it through the walls, but she doubts that they would over themselves. Grabbing her jacket from the closet and her latest notebook, she carefully opens her window and climbs out.

This isn’t the first time she’s done this, and it probably won’t be the last. The first time she underestimated the height of the window and ended up spraining her ankle. So, she learned and placed a few old milk crates underneath so she could step out more easily. It got better when she got taller too, spiking up to one of the tallest girls in her class.

When her feet hit the solid ground, she took a moment to make sure that they didn’t hear her. But the screaming has only escalated, so she takes her chance.

Turning on her heel and facing the woods, she runs into them, going to the only spot that makes her feel safe at times like these.

. . .

Present Day

“You did what,” Robin asks, standing frozen across the room from him.

“I kissed Eddie,” he admits.

“Just kissed him?” she asks giving him a look that already tells him that she knows.

Steve’s eyes look everywhere except at hers. “We might have also slept together.”

“And you didn’t immediately tell me afterward,” she exclaims, waving her arms around in the air. “We,” motioning between her and Steve, “are platonic soulmates, who are supposed to tell each other everything. And you neglected to tell me, for literal days, that you not only kissed but slept with, the guy that you’ve been pining after for months.”

He rolls his eyes. “I have been not pining for him for months-.”

“You absolutely have,” she interrupts, “and the tension between you two have been insufferable to sit through. Every single movie night has been you two stealing glances, casually touching each other far too many times for it to be considered normal or platonic, and essentially undressing each other with your eyes. With your eyes, Steven.” She puts her hands on her hips and glares at him again, fully exhausted from this bullshit.

Worst part is that she has part of a point. Yes, Steve has liked Eddie for a while and yes, he did realize that he is attracted to guys a long time ago. But the other guys he was attracted to were surface-level stuff, nothing like this. The feelings he has for Eddie are a lot deeper than anything he’s had in the past few years. And with all of the dug-up feelings about his dad, he didn’t think he was going to do anything about it soon.

Going over to Eddie’s that day wasn’t thought out all that well. He was stuck in all of the thoughts that he would get in high school. How nothing he ever did was enough to get his dad to notice him. Nothing would get his mom to come home. So, he decided that they shouldn’t be the reason to have this. Because as much as he wanted to pretend, their voices were still in the back of his mind telling what to do that would make him, and them, look good in the eyes of the public.

It wasn’t until his lips finally locked with Eddie’s that those thoughts finally started to dissipate. But is he ready for whatever he has, will have, with Eddie. That he’s still not so sure of.

“Ok, ok you’re right. I should have told you.”

“Well, that was obvious,” she walks up closer to him and gives him a knowing look. “Now can you tell me what’s actually going on up there? Cause sleeping with him was one thing, the way you’re looking like a kicked puppy is another.”

Steve takes a deep breath. “What if I’m not ready for this?”

“Being with a guy is different than being with a girl. So, depending on what you did, I’m sure that he’d be careful with you going forward so you don’t just jump into it and-.”

“That’s not it,” he cuts her off. “I-. The last time I felt like this about someone, I got my heart broken. And with everything that’s coming back up with my dad, with Julie. What if it was a mistake sleeping with him now was the wrong thing to do?”

Robin’s face softens. “If you think that everything else that’s going on in your life right now is too much and adding a new relationship on top of that will only add to that, I think he would understand. Just talk to him about it.”

“I know,” he presses the heels of his hands against his eyes. “I know you’re right. But I feel so stupid for giving him hope for something I’m not ready for yet.”

The walkie on his counter crackles. “Hey Steve, it’s Julie. Is it ok if I come over?”

Steve picks up the walkie and hits the call button. “Yeah, you can come over.”

“Ok, thanks.”

“When did you give her a walkie?”

“The last time she was over here, thought it’d be a good idea. We’ve been talking on it a lot, actually.”

Robin smiles. “You two are getting closer then?”

“I’d say so. It’s still kinda weird knowing that I’ve had a sibling this whole time, but it’s nice.”

“That’s good, I’m glad this is working out.”

“Me too.”

Steve hears a knock at the door and goes to answer it, Julie standing on the other side. “Is it ok if I leave my bike on the lawn?”

“Yeah sure, that was fast.”

“I might have been most of the way here already before I checked to see if it was ok.”

He moves out of the way to let her through the door, closing it after her. “Everything ok?”

“Yeah, it’s just,” she sighs. “School and everything, didn’t want to go to that house after.”

“Wanna talk about it?” He asks, walking back to the living room where Robin is.

“Hey, Julie,” she says.

“Hey,” Julie plops onto the end of the couch. “Maybe, I don’t know. It’s just. So, I’m sixteen right, and the oldest kid in that house so they treat me like the babysitter, all the time. And they’re drunks that can barely look after themselves and now add three kids to that mix, so I’m pretty much doing everything. And like, I don’t mind doing the dishes or making my own dinner or doing the laundry. But they shouldn’t get to treat me like their maid just because they’re too drunk to get off their ass.”

Steve and Robin shared a worried look. “That sucks,” he says, not quite sure what else to.

“Yeah,” she says while picking at the skin around her nails. “It does.”

“Is there anyone you can talk to about getting you and the other kids out of that house?” Robin asks.

Julie nods. “I mentioned it to my case worker at our last meeting, said she would look into it. Don’t know how long that’s going to take though.”

“We can talk to Hopper to see if he can do anything about it if you want.”

“I don’t want to bother you too much with it, it’s fine. Just frustrating.”

He wants to push more but doesn’t. She looks like she doesn’t want to talk about it, and they just started really getting along. So, he changes the topic, and they talk until Julie says she wants to get some homework done. He lets her stay and do it in the kitchen, him and Robin being left in the living room by themselves.

“Are you going to do anything about that?” Robin whispers, leaning forward to keep it private between them.

“I want to, but what do I do? I don’t want to make it worse for her by saying something.”

Robin presses her lips together. “Yeah, that wouldn’t be good.”

“I think I’m just going to tell her to come over as often as she wants. I mean I wouldn’t mind, and I trust her to be alone in the house if I’m not here.”

“But that’s not going to make it any better for when she goes back.”

“There’s nothing I can do right now that would let her stay past curfew, or even for a night. That would only end up in another missing kid report and her being brought back by Hopper.”

“Steve,” she looks at him with a soft gaze. “What do you really want to do? Cause I think I know, you just haven’t said it.”

Steve sighs, running a hand through his hair. He has thought about it, pretty much since that first night he met her. But considering this house isn’t his and the fear that his dad would come home any minute and find her here, it never seemed like a real option. And what government official would let a twenty-year-old without a full-time job, getting by living off his parent’s money take custody of a kid.

He thought that maybe after some time, some effort on his part, he could maybe get it together enough to do it. If they got a long and both wanted to. But that house is treating her and those other kids horribly. He wants to do something to help all of them, get the other kids in a better home and maybe take Julie in.

It all didn’t seem possible, but maybe it was time to try.

“I don’t know if she wants that. And even if she did, I have no idea where to start.”

“Well, even though it probably didn’t go through all the right channels, we do know someone who adopted a kid. Talk to him, he might be able to help.”

He takes a deep breath. “I’ll think about it.”

Robin reaches to cover his hand with hers. “And while you’re at it. Think about what you want to do with Eddie too. You’re not giving him false hope, I promise that. You still want this, you just have some other things you want to take care of before starting a relationship.”

“You’re right,” he nods. “I’ll talk to him soon, promise.”

Julie knocks on the doorway. “Hey, I’m going to head out. Curfew is earlier for school days.”

“I can drive you back if you want,” Steve says, already standing up.

“No, it’s ok. I’d rather go myself. Thanks though.” She turns to head to the door, Steve following her.

“Just so you know,” he says before she opens the door. “You’re welcome over here after school anytime, if you want to get your work done without being in the house. If I’m not home, I leave the back door open most of the time, so you can come in through that way.”

“You’re ok with me breaking into your house when you’re not here,” she asks.

He shrugs. “Yeah, I know you enough to trust you. It’s no pressure or anything, but if you like it here more than there, I’d rather you be where you’re safe instead of going somewhere else.”

She looks at him with a confused glare, processing what he said. “Ok, thank you. I might stop by again tomorrow then, I have a paper due.”

“You’re welcome here, Julie, any time. You don’t have to feel like you’re bothering me because you’re not. Promise.”

Julie just nods, closing the door behind her. Steve takes a deep breath, heading back to Robin and trying not to think about what he knows he’s going to do.

. . .

Julie looks like a mess. Leaves are stuck in her hair and her clothes are all rumpled. And there is an ache in her back from sleeping on a hard surface. But what else did she expect from sleeping on a park bench. It beats going back to that house then, so she’ll suffer until third period when she can use the gym showers to get the park off her.

Shivering, she combs out her hair with her fingers, pulling it back into a short braid. She goes to the bike rack she parked at and unlocks her bike, mounting it and heading toward the school.

When she gets there, she rushes to the bathroom to change her clothes, hoping no one notices the difference. She makes it through her first two periods, trying to keep her eyes open and pay attention. Her grades have already slipped, she can’t afford to miss another lecture.

Third period rolls around, and she gets changed for gym, thanking the teacher for giving them an easy day of just doing exercises with a partner.

Jane, the girl Max was talking to, approaches her. “The teacher said I cannot keep skipping class and sitting with Max on the bleachers. Can I partner with you?”

“Sure,” Julie shrugs. They travel around the circle that the teacher made, tossing basketballs to each other meaningless activities. Jane is shy, but Julie doesn’t blame her. She is too most of the time.

After class she takes a quick shower, rubbing the last two nights of sleeping on park benches off of her and getting the rest of the leaves out of her hair. The rest of the day is monotonous and all she wants it to go home. But home isn’t home anymore and no where she goes even compares to the comfort she once felt in her own room.

Well everywhere except for Steve’s. But she knows that comfort is different. It still isn’t the same as walking through her trailer door and seeing her mom’s things scattered around, smelling the dinner she made before going to work or hearing the music she’s playing from the radio. The conversations aren’t as effortless, and the life just isn’t there. It’s not her home, nowhere is.

It’s cruel to try and compare anything to her old house. It’s cruel to try and chase the feeling of comfort that her mom gave her in anyone. She knows that nothing will ever compare to her mom. But she can’t help but keep searching to find something else that is close to it.

Steve is an interesting addition to her life. For the past month she’s had to grapple with the fact of her who her dad was, and that she had a sibling across town who didn’t even know she existed. From what she’s heard about her dad, she never expected his son to be like Steve. From what she can imagine, Steve is nothing like his father, and Julie’s happy that is true.

If Steve was like his father, he wouldn’t have left the back door open for her so she could come into his house while he was at work. He wouldn’t have left a note telling her that there is a sandwich in the fridge if she’s hungry, or that she’s welcome to anything in the pantry. She wouldn’t have even been able near the house at all.

Their relationship is still new, still uncertain. Sure, they get along, but there is so much of their lives and experiences that are different that they haven’t even touched on. There is so much more to Julie that she has even yet to share. She’s trying to open up, trying to create some sort of bond with him. There’s this want inside of her to have a family again, to come home to a house through the front door and not immediately be yelled at to clean up a spill. To come home and feel like it’s a home.

She can recognize that Steve is trying to do that with her, trying to create someplace that she wants to be. To get to know her because they are one in the same. Two kids from the same dad who never stayed long enough to get to know them, she can at least assume. Both trying so hard to fill something they’ve always wanted, but never had.

Julie stays for as long as she’s supposed to, heading out the way she came in and picking up her bike from where she left it in the woods. She’s out of clothes so she can’t just go to the park afterward like she did yesterday. So, she prepares for what will happen if her presence is known when she gets home.

Honestly, she’s surprised that they didn’t notice that she was gone for two whole days. It’s probably because the other kids were in school and doing work, so they were quieter. The time they sent the cops after her was a Saturday, so they realized their babysitter was missing. It just meant she had to be smart with what days she doesn’t go back.

When she parks her bike on the lawn of her foster home, she’s ready for the verbal onslaught that she’s sure to happen.

“Where’ve you been?” Janice mutters over her cigarette, lounging on the couch.

“At a friend’s,” Julie responds quickly.

“Lucky, we don’t call the cops on you again. Bathroom needs cleaning.”

Julie mentally rolls her eyes. “I’m not your maid,” she mutters under her breath.

Going to the room she shares with Molly she takes out her dirty clothes and exchanges them out with new ones. Then heads to the bathroom, so it doesn’t turn ugly. Better she complies now so they don’t notice her missing tomorrow.

“You didn’t come home last night,” Molly says quietly. “Or the night before.”

“No, I didn’t,” Julie says while scrubbing the toilet.

“They noticed, I lied for you.”

Julie sits back, looking at the girl she barely knows. Molly isn’t much younger than her, but she shouldn’t have to cover for Julie’s choices. Especially when Mark’s temper is as short as a stubbed-out cigarette.

“Don’t do that again, I don’t want you getting hurt for me.”

“I won’t. Me and Oliver got adopted a week ago we’re leaving on Saturday.”

As much as that will only put more attention on her, she can’t help from smiling. At least their getting out and going to someone who will care for them a hell of a lot more that Janice and Mark would. “I’m happy for you.”

“Are you going to be ok here by yourself?”

“I’ll be fine, Molly.”

Molly walks away, leaving Julie to clean the bathroom alone. She just hopes that when the two of them leave it will be the last kids that come through this house, leaving her to deal with it alone.

A small part of her hopes that she won’t be here that much longer either, but she can’t be sure. So, she shoves the hope down and just goes back to scrubbing.

. . .

Steve didn’t exactly plan for this to happen when he invited Eddie over. What he did plan was to tell him that things needed to slow down between them because he was in no place to start a relationship with him. Not after all the old baggage that he has with his dad, and definitely not with the information Julie told him earlier.

Because in his mind, he’s going to do whatever he can to get Julie out of that house. And if he’s lucky, maybe get her to live with him.

So that means a lot of outside work from him with protocols that he has no knowledge of, but he knows it’s too much. So, he was going to invite Eddie over and explain it to him gently. Until he didn’t.

Instead, he’s here with Eddie’s tongue down his mouth and his hands all over Steve, making his mind hazy in the way he likes. So hazy that he can’t bring himself to stop Eddie, and instead just folds and kisses him back as hard as he can.

It’s a stupid, reckless decision that will probably just hurt both of them in the end. But he can’t seem to stop it.

That is until there’s a banging on his door that’s hard enough to knock it down.

“The hell,” Eddie says as he pulls away from Steve. “Was anyone supposed to come over?”

“No,” Steve answers, untangling his fingers from Eddie’s hair.

Eddie slips his hands out from underneath Steve’s shirt as another round of pounding comes from the door. “Should you go get that?”

“Probably, stay here ok.”

Steve goes to the front door, running a hand through his hair and fixing himself to make him look presentable. He opens the door to two people he’s never seen before, both extremely angry.

“Can I help you,” he asks confused.

“Where is she?” the man spits out, fists clenched.

“Who? I know a lot of people.”

The man gives him a cold stare that makes him want to strengthen his stance. “Julie, the bitch ran away again. Thought she’d be here.”

Steve raises his eyebrows at the name he called her, appalled. “Don’t know who you’re talking about,” he feigns innocence.

“We know about you two,” the women slurs. “We know that she was here the first time, she has to be here again.”

“Look,” Steve says, making himself look bigger. “I haven’t seen her in a few days. I’m sure she’s just out somewhere and will be back soon.”

“Well, we haven’t seen her since Thursday. It’s Saturday,” the man growls, eyes full of anger.

Fear shoots through Steve at the thought of Julie roaming around town finding empty benches to sleep on. He thinks back to the past few days and not once did he ever give her a ride home. She always refused, riding away on her bike before he could convince her. Because she knew he would wait to watch her go inside the house, like he always does. And she didn’t want that.

“I have no clue where she it,” Steve asserts, enunciating every word clearly. “She’s not here, so I can’t help you.”

He has to get to her before they do. Has to call Hopper and get a search party out there before they do. Because there is no way he is letting Julie go back to a house that is dangerous.

“Fine, we’ll just have to go around looking for her then.” The man stomps off, the women following close behind.

Steve shuts the door as gently as he can, adrenaline rushing through him. As soon as it shuts, he quickly runs to put his shoes on, rummaging around to find his keys.

“Hey, you ok?” Eddie asks, coming into the front room concerned.

“No,” Steve asks, patting down his pockets to see if his keys are there. “That was Julie’s foster parents, they haven’t seen her since Thursday. I haven’t either. Where are my keys.”

“Fuck, hold on.” Eddie runs to the kitchen and comes back holding Steve’s keys. “Here. Take a breath ok, we’ll find her.”

Steve takes the keys, breathing heavy at this point, heart rate slowly increasing more and more. “They were so angry, Eds. Like terrifying. The guy looked like he was about to beat me up if she was here, what is he going to do to her?”

“Nothing,” Eddie cups Steve’s face in his hands, forcing him to look at his eyes. “They are going to do nothing to her because we are going to find her first. We’ll take my van and look around, ok.”

“Yeah ok,” Steve says, the panic slowly fading with Eddie’s touch.

They go to Eddie’s van, him speeding out of the drive and to the nearest park. The benches are all empty to they check the next, which is also empty. Steve tries to think of places she would go, the library, video store, diner. Anywhere where she might be. Each place coming up empty.

“Where could she be?” he says after the last failed attempt, panic rising again.

“Wait, hold on. I remember something,” Eddie pulls out of the parking spot and starts to head toward the trailer part. “I would see her run into the woods behind the trailer park sometimes when her mom was fighting with one of her boyfriends. I never said anything at the time, but it’s the only place I can think of.”

. . .

Julie sits on a fallen log in the woods behind her old trailer. The familiarity of coming out here covering her like a hug, even if those moments weren’t the best. They were hers. Ones she shared before her life was irreversibly changed. Back when everything was normal.

Here she was always safe, away from the chaos and in her own little world. She would sit on this log and write her latest story, do some homework, or just sit and listen. It was her place, and she missed it.

She knows what day it is, knows that Janice and Mark noticed that she was missing. Molly and Oliver were adopted today, which means that a case worker went to the house to pick them up, and hopefully went inside. She wasn’t there to pick anything up, and she was sure that no one else did. With all of the beer bottles and junk that made a constant mess around the house, there was no way that the two of them passed.

At least she hoped.

But with that, Julie knows that nothing would be done instantly except for make Janice and Mark angry. An official investigation and a few more surprise visits would have to happen before they got blacklisted from fostering. Her case worker explained it all to her when she made the initial complaint. That was weeks ago, and nothing has changed, so she forced it to. Even at her own safety.

Her head picks at rustling leaves as someone approaches. Fear shoots through her and she debates running, scared that she was finally found by the people she was running from. But as Steve emerges from the trees, relief visibly going through his mind, she stays.

He doesn’t say anything, just walks over to her and sits down. The sit there for a moment in silence before he finally says something.

“I had the pleasure of meeting your foster parents today. If I didn’t get why you hated them before, I definitely do now.”

She sighs. “I didn’t know they would go to you.”

“I wouldn’t of either,” he says with a shake of his head. “How long have you been lying to me about going back there?”

He says it in a way that reminds her of her mom. Not anger, just concern with the want to understand why. “About a week.”

“Any reason that they suddenly noticed it now?”

Julie picks at her thumb, the skin so broken up it could start to bleed. “The other two kids that were there got adopted and picked up today. So, I made sure I was gone so the mess would still be there when the case worker got there. And if I wasn’t there and they didn’t know where I was, something might actually get done about it.”

Steve huffs. “That’s bravely stupid. You and I might be more similar than you think.”

She lightly laughs, finally looking at him and seeing the worry still painted on his face. He worries for her, he cares. It’s been a while since anyone did.

“Look,” he sighs. “I know there’s probably nothing I can say to get you to stop running away. But I don’t want you out on the street every night. This town might seem safe, but it can be real dangerous, I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I can’t go back there,” she says shakier than she wants. “I hate it there.”

He looks away from her, letting out a deep breath. “You know, there’s this shed in my backyard I don’t go in that much anymore. Has the heater and tools for the pool and that’s been closed for a month know. But I also use it for storage, so there’s a bunch of blankets and maybe even a cot on the one side away from all of the chemicals. I don’t think I would notice if someone would slip in there at night. And you know, if I left one of the windows open, or even the back door, if someone were to slip in after I went to sleep and left before I got up, I’m not sure I would know.”

She smiles at him, a real smile this time. “Thank you,” she says, bumping her arm with his.

“I didn’t do anything, just told you some basic facts.” He smiles back, keeping the true meaning of what he meant unsaid. “I know you don’t want me to, but I am going to call Hopper to go talk to your foster parents and make sure they don’t do anything. I can’t ensure that it would be permanent, but at least for the night.”

“That’s probably for the best. Maybe have me drop him off too, that way they don’t know that you found me.”

Steve nods, standing up. “Come on, I’ll take you back to my place while I call him.”

Julie stands, grabbing her bag from where it rested on the log and follows him. They meet back up with Eddie who is leaning idly on his van, smiling when he sees Julie them. He doesn’t say anything, just enters his van and waits for them to do so too. The drive back is filled by Steve trying to mess with Eddie’s radio stations while Eddie swats his hands away, claiming to already calming the music down for him. Steve eventually gives him, staying silent for the rest of the ride.

When they get to Steve’s house, Julie goes to the kitchen to wait for the inevitable, Steve stopping in the hall to call Hopper. It isn’t much longer until the chief arrives, taking Julie back to her foster house with a promise that they aren’t going to do anything to her if he has a say in it.

She doesn’t quite know what he says, her retreating to her now empty room before he talks to Mark and Janice. But when she comes down to try and get some food and sees Mark almost flinching as she walks by, it must have been good.

. . .

“She’s ok, kid. I put the fear of god in them, but if they as so much as hurt a hair on her head, you tell me and I’ll make sure that they’re locked up.”

Relief fills Steve as he leans against the wall, thankful that this situation is over. “Thank you, Hop. It means a lot to me.”

“It’s no problem. And as far as I’m concerned, if she’s at your house, she won’t be reported as missing. As long as they don’t get the case worker involved, but she wasn’t too happy with them when I called her up either.”

“That’s something.”

“I gotta go but call me if anything happens. And if you need anything, Steve, you let me know, ok?”

“Yeah, ok.”

Steve hangs up the phone, already making a plan for what he wants to do in his head.

“You’re going to try and get custody of her, aren’t you,” Eddie asks, walking up to him.

He turns to look at him, crossing his arms. “Yeah, I am.”

Eddie huffs. “Thought as much. You could talk to Wayne if you wanted, ask him how it was getting custody of me.”

“I might take you up on that.” Steve takes a deep breath, preparing himself for what he has to say next. “There was actually something that I needed to talk to you about.”

Eddie nods. “I was expecting that.”

Steve walks up to Eddie, getting close to him and wanting to reach out and touch him, but he knows the moment he does what he needs to say won’t happen. “Look, Eddie, I really like you. More than I have anyone in a long time, and I really want to have something with you sometime.”

“But,” Eddie cuts in, sounding resigned.

“But, with all the stuff that’s been dragged up from my past with my dad that I have to deal with all over again, and now with Julie. It’s too much for me to be in a relationship right now. I can’t be worried about her and how things are going between us at the same time. There’s still a lot of things that I have to work through when it comes to being in relationships still, and I can’t do everything at once. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Eddie reaches out to touch his arm, stuttering before realizing that it’s ok. “I want this, whatever it is with you. And I get needing to wait before everything calms down again. It’s a not right now, not a not ever. I can deal with that.”

Steve looks at him, feeling the urge to just say fuck it and lean in to kiss him again. Take back everything he said and just jump right in headfirst. But Steve knows that this is for the best. “Are you sure?”

“Positive. You have no idea how much I like you, have wanted a night like a week ago to happen. I can wait a little bit longer if that means that this might actually have a chance.”

“Thank you.”

“No problem, Steve.”

Eddie leans forward and gives him a chaste kiss, this time being the last for right now. A goodbye to the small romance they had, if they could even call it that, as they go back to being friends. For just now, Steve promises.

Part 5

Tag list(let me know if you want to be added or removed): @homoerotictangerine, @mugloversonly, @thesuninyaface, @imyelenasexual, @anaibis, @ilovecupcakesandtea, @brainsteddielyrotted, @jackiemonroe5512, @eddie-munsons-missing-nipple, @goodolefashionedloverboi, @cinnamon-mushroomabomination, @lolawonsstuff, @writingandmushroomdragons, @stevesbipanic, @sierra-violet, @steddie-as-they-go, @dauntlessdiva, @mousedetective, @the-daydreamer-in-the-corner, @zombiethingy, @connected-dots-st-reblogger, @that-agender-from-pluto, @allyricas, @cheddartreets, @devondespresso, @crypticcorvidinacottage, @queenie-ofthe-void @chronicpainstevetruther, @cheddartreets, @theupsidedownrealestateagent, @acidbubblegummie, @sirsnacksalot, @l0st-strawberry, @helpimstuckposting, @strawberry-starss, @freddykicksasses, @italianwhore1, @i-threw-my-name-out-the-window, @rageagainsttheapathy, @nuggies4life, @ape31, @whimsicalwitchm, @chrissycunninghamfanblog, @michellegilligan, @hippielittlemetalhead, @bridget-malfoy-stilinski-hale, @jaytriesstuff, @confused-stripes, @faeb1tch42069, @marklee-blackmore, @hel-spawn, @genderless-spoon, @mamafaithful, @estrellami-1, @starryeyedpoet17 @i-amthepizzaman, @lilpomelito @melonmochi

#steddie #i don’t know which ways home fic #stranger things #steve harrington #eddie munson #robin buckley #julie lawson #steve secret sibling fic #cw domestic violence #tw domestic violence #cw mentions of child abuse #tw mentions of child abuse

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pinkfey · 4 months

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older siblings on this website r soooooo annoying but also i know my experience is not universal 💆🏻‍♀️💆🏻‍♀️💆🏻‍♀️

#older siblings beat the shit out of their siblings six years younger than them then go ‘but i baked a frozen pizza for you 🥺’#like for me.. my oldest brother’s ’light slaps’ and ‘play punches’ turned into actual abuse as we both got older #he terrifies me still. his addiction + the real beatings with real bruises started when i was so so so young and i thought it was my fault #he hit me so hard this year my eye is permanently damaged. the decade of abuse i endured was enabled when i was just a small child with #‘play fighting’ and ‘small hits’#like oldest children are old enough to know not to hit. sorry idgaf how ‘parentified’ you were.#sensitive subjects idk idk #they don’t all turn out to be possessive domestic abusers i know. i’m an outlier. but like #don’t be surprised when your little sibling grows up to fucking hate you. quit directing your anger at your parents towards them #anyways.txt #abuse tw.#domestic abuse tw.#delete later

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luci-in-the-stars · 5 months

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@escudofracturado replied to your post "Why did he Leave you?" Fuck that guy tbh. [pm] [................] Hey [user cannot sit still] I'm sorry [......] About how I handled things. [...] After. [User hesitates for a while before pressing send and yeeting his phone away from himself. He feels like a coward]

Yeah I'm not going to curse, but [...] he could pound sand.

[pm] [User sits idle for a little scared of answering this before doing so] I don't [...] Think either of us are ready to talk about it like this, Milo. [...] But, you were grieving and I was too. I get that - even if it hurt. I just missed you -

I forgive you. The same way I hope you forgive me for not [...] really being there. I [....] wasn't there for awhile. I know that. Sometimes I don't think I'm really here anymore anyway. It It probably wasn't easy being around me. Sorry.

#milo #sibling death tw #implied #domestic abuse tw #just incase

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letsbenditlikebennett · 7 months

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TIMING: Pre-Goo Current-ish PARTIES: @mortemoppetere & @letsbenditlikebennett SUMMARY: Alex wanders into an alley and finds herself stuck in a square... Emilio happens upon her and of course does not fuck off. The worst game of Get Along Or Else Candyland ensues. CONTENT: Domestic abuse, emotional abuse, parental death, child death, sibling death.

While Worm Row was considered the “bad” part of town, Alex always thought that was being way too generous to the rest of the town. You were just as likely to get eaten by a random monster on a block in Worm Row as you were over in Harborside. The only real difference was the tax bracket which meant the latter was decidedly not where one went to check out pawn shops for a potential new guitar.

Mike's hadn't been the score she thought it would be based on their instagram posts from earlier, but she had gotten a pretty sweet hand mixer from the vending machine instead of the Hot Cheetos she'd wanted, so Alex would still call it a win even if she was still craving hot chips.

It was that line of thinking that had her absentmindedly walking toward the smell of something sweet. Given how cooped up Alex had been in the cabin following her injury and the fact she could actually walk a little bit on it now without a lot of a pain, she was enjoying just wondering the streets even if the buildings were all run down. It was kind of more her style anyway. Lived in.

Her nose led her straight to the edge of an alley that she almost wouldn't have noticed as she hummed to herself if it was for the fact the ground under her feet turned a bright shade of green.

“What the,” Alex muttered as she stopped in her tracks and actually looked up. It was the same shitty buildings to the left and right of her with rusted signs hanging from the windows, but the alley looked like that one board game she always saw the normal kids in their neighborhood playing.

Ahead was a curving path of colored squares lined with candy... which while it smelled delicious, seemed a little bit ominous. ”Not today, Satan, not today,” Alex said to hereself. She moved to leave the spot she stood in only to find she couldn't. She lifted her boot off the ground but when she tried to move it out of the barrier of the green square, it was like it hit an invisible wall.

”Greaaaaaaaat,” Alex grumbled to herself. She looked around for some kind of clue for how to get out of this weird game only to see a certain slayer approaching her. This really wasn't her day. “Don't you dare take another step closer,” she spat at Emilio.

—

It was a detective night instead of a slayer night, and Emilio always liked those less. Detective nights tended to contain a lot less violence and a lot more sitting still, and he was so bad at that. His hands trembled, his leg bounced, his head spun. He could never manage to maintain the stakeout for as long as he could keep up a patrol, always came home feeling more restless and less at ease, somehow. Like the paranoia of being watched fit just as well into the head of the person doing the watching as it did the target of it. He was wired; he still wanted something to fight.

Usually, walking home in Worm Row would provide him with that. If you took the right route and moved slow enough, someone or something would show up sooner rather than later to give you something to hit. Emilio ached for it, longed for something to bruise his knuckles against the same way he longed for a swig of whiskey from the flask in his pocket. The latter was easy enough to obtain, but he’d had no luck with the former just yet. It only made the paranoia worse.

But maybe his luck was about to turn around. There was a noise from an alley as he passed it, something… strange. Like a bell dinging, but warped and unnatural. Not his usual fare, but Emilio was desperate enough for something that he was drawn to it with just as much eagerness as a man alone in the desert might have moved towards a cold glass of water.

As he entered the alley, he caught sight of a flash of red hair. For a moment, he thought it might have been Andy. She’d been in and out at his apartment for a while now, fixing things and crashing on his couch or using his shower occasionally, but not as much in recent days. His brow furrowed as he moved closer, only to see that it wasn’t Andy at all.

To Emilio, the alley still looked normal. Alex stood in place, seemingly unable to move in a way that looked almost comical from the outside looking in. Like some invisible force held her still. He might have thought she was messing with him, but he didn’t think Alex liked him enough to do that, especially not after their last conversation.

Unsurprisingly, he didn’t listen to her order not to come closer. He took a lazy step towards her, then another, bad leg dragging behind him a little more than usual. “What exactly are you —” He cut off as he stepped down just next to the spot where she stood, and the alley transformed for him, too. The concrete beneath his feet became a board game, stretching further than should have been possible in the small alley. He stood on the same green square as Alex, and a step back found him hitting against the invisible barrier.

Immediately, a surge of panic cut in. Emilio shoved his shoulder forward like he was trying to barge through a locked door, but whatever force was there didn’t budge. He kicked it hard, first with his bad leg in a way that elicited a long string of Spanish curses, then with his good leg in a way that delivered the same result, but with less pain. A fist slammed into the barrier, stopped by that same invisible force. Emilio was bad with tight spaces, and Emilio was bad with things he couldn’t see. This felt an awful lot like both.

“What — What the fuck is this?” He turned to Alex, trying to smooth his expression into something neutral. He wasn’t sure how successful he was.

Above their heads, that bell dinged again. Inside the game, it sounded less warped, but not pleasant. It was unsettling, to say the least.

A disembodied female voice rose up around them, robotic in its inflections: “Welcome, Player One. Welcome, Player Two. Prepare for the game to commence.”

“I don’t want to play a game,” Emilio yelled back, looking up.

“Prepare for the game to commence,” the voice repeated. Fucking great.

—

If it had been anyone else, they might have actually listened when Alex said to stay away. Of course, this wasn't anyone else, it was Emilio who she was pretty sure was actually physically incapable of fucking off. Hell, she didn't even give him the usual 'fuck off' in a different language greeting to really drive the point home. She was pretty sure that he actually just enjoyed being a pain in the ass. Not that she could fault anyone for enjoying that but she really wished she wasn't on the receiving end of it. The last person she wanted to be stuck in a small square of space with was Mr. Irish Spring himself.

“No, stop,” she demanded desperately before he was beside her in the green square and equally as perplexed as she was. Alex crossed her arms over her chest in annoyance and watched him with a scowl on her face as he cursed in Spanish and kicked at the invisible barrier that was keeping them trapped in the square. If she wasn't stuck with him, she probably would have found the display hilarious. Seeing as she was stuck with him and already felt like the space was entirely too small, she was pissed. “I swear I could fucking stab you for not listening for once in your god damn life right now,” she spat.

Almost immediately, the strange dinging in the air put Alex on edge. The sound of bells was a little too high pitched for her when she wasn't agitated which meant at that moment it was practically grating against her ears. It was like nails against a chalkboard right on her ear drums and it made her want to punch Emilio or the barrier... or both. Definitely a little bit of both.

Then there was some eerie sounding autonomous voice calling them Player 1 and Player 2 like this was one of those video games that Cass and Van talked about. Except, this looked like that one kid's game Alex had all but begged her mother to buy for her to no avail. It seemed almost cruel that this was the version of the game that she finally got and it wasn't even her choice... because god forbid anything in her life ever be some choice of her own. “Game,” she spat out, “This isn't funny.”

Emilio expressed not wanting to play the game and the voice told them prepare to commence. Well, Alex did not like this one bit. In fact, she was pretty sure she hated it and she hated Emilio a tiny bit for not listening and getting sucked into this with her. Hell, she thought she might actually prefer to have Thea along for this ride than Emilio because at least Thea knew how to game.

“Doesn't look like it's giving us a choice,” she grumbled, “You know, if you listened to me I could be stuck playing this with someone who's less of a pain in the ass.”

Almost immediately, she felt an electric shock jolt her and she jumped in place, hitting the edge of the barrier as she moved. “Ow,” Alex shouted, “What the fuck was that? Who gave Private Asshat over here a taser?”

Another shock hit her and she was getting even angrier. What kind of game was this? It definitely wasn't the cool version of Candyland that Alex had begged her maman for, that much was clear. She turned to Emilio, arms still crossed over her chest and brows still knit together in annoyance. “Are you any good at games? Doesn't look like we have much of a choice.”

—

Blood was rushing in his ears, half rage and half panic. Emilio had never been particularly good at accepting situations he couldn’t control, but he’d become so much worse at it since the massacre. Things slipped from his carefully curated command, and it felt like the world was on fire, like he was back in the midst of a massacre watching everyone he loved bleed out. Alex was speaking, but he barely heard her. He was six years old, locked in a shed with something that was both dead and alive. He was thirty-two, and his family’s blood was staining the soles of his shoes.

Then, Alex jumped beside him, and Emilio flinched violently despite the fact that he wasn’t the one who’d been shocked. He turned to look at her with wild eyes, trying to calm the pounding of his heart. She was insulting him. That wasn’t entirely surprising. There was a strange comfort in the familiarity of it, and he let himself cling to that. He could ground himself through the familiar back and forth he’d accidentally built up with a kid who reminded him a little too much of himself and hated him just as much as he hated himself, too.

“You think I want to be here? I would like to be trapped with someone who smells less like my dog when it rains,” he snapped. Immediately, a jolt went through him, sending him scrambling so quickly that his bad leg screamed in protest. He let out another long string of curses, kicking at the invisible barrier again. “¿Qué chingados está pasando? Did you do this? Is this — Is this your idea of a fucking joke?”

He didn’t recognize the ‘game board’ stretched out in front of them, barely understood what a board game was at all. The Cortezes had done everything in their power to ensure that their children knew nothing of the world outside of hunting, had made a very active effort to raise weapons rather than children. They’d done a good job at it — Emilio had very little capability to function as a person in society, and this was proof of it. But while the specifics of a board game were unknown to him, he did know at least the basics of what games in general were. He knew that there were goals, that there were winners and losers.

He knew that there were rules.

He looked over at Alex with a scowl. “No,” he replied flatly. Then, feeling ridiculous, he looked up at the empty sky. “What are the fucking rules? What are we supposed to do? How do we win?” The questions were in quick succession, one after another.

Another ding sounded. “Players 1 and 2 may only win the game together,” the voice said. “You will be presented with a number of riddles. Answer each riddle with an associated memory to move across the board. If both players offer a memory, you may move multiple spaces. If only one complies, you may only move one space forward. If neither complies, you must move back. The game is cooperation. You cannot win without giving something.”

Emilio stared blankly at the sky, heart still pounding in his chest. He turned to Alex, expression deadpan. “We are going to die,” he said simply.

—

Okay, the whole electric shock thing was way more amusing when it was happening to Emilio and not to her. Alex only barely stifled a laugh as the slayer let out yet another string of Spanish curses. She was pretty sure they had to be breaking some kind of record for the most swear words said in the most languages in a 5 minutes timespan. It was really a trilingual trifecta of curse words going on in the green 5 by 5 square they found themselves trapped in.

“I just need you to know that I have a really good comeback for that one,” Alex declared with an air of smugness, ”But clearly this shitty game is trying to Pavlov us into being nice to each other.” There was some satisfaction in knowing that Emilio would not know who the hell Pavlov was, which was maybe a little bit mean, but she doubted the game knew enough about science and their dynamic to know that.

“No, I didn't do this,” she chided with an eyeroll, “If I was gonna trap myself in a small space with someone it'd be a pretty girl and not a stinky man.” Zap. She flinched as the shock hit her, but decided it was worth it. Emilio needed to know he was stinky and it probably pained her more physically to hold that in anyway. At least she'd say as much for dramatic effect anyway.

At least Emilio had the smarts to ask for the rules of the game. Alex just assumed it was gonna be like Candyland... which she'd never gotten to play, but she imagined how it was supposed to go in her head. Actually, Ariadne probably would have been the perfect partner for IRL Candyland, but then the game announcer spoke and this wasn't that.

They had to cooperate. That was already a tall order for Alex and Emilio. From the moment she'd met him, she'd been trying to irritate him into leaving her the fuck alone and he seemed to take joy in irritating her right back. Then sharing memories? Ok, yeah, he was right. They were doomed, but she wasn't going to tell him that.

“Buck up, grandpa,” Alex said, giving him a sportly smack on the back, “I'm not dying in a 5 by 5 game square with a man. That goes against my entire brand as the gayest cousin.”

The bravado was decidedly false. Alex was nervous as hell about going through some sort of bonding experience with the slayer. He already had an annoying habit of saving her life and she didn't know if the memories shared would exuberate or squash that feeling. A girl could hope for the latter, but that seemed like... the opposite of what the stupid game wanted.

“Come on,” she gestured as she reached for the card that was now floating in front of them. Alex turned it over in her hands and looked over the words. Bubblegum goes in hard and comes out... Before she read them aloud, she knew the answer and felt her stomach lurch. No. Not that word and those memories. This game was a bitch, she decided, but read aloud all the same. “Bubblegum goes in hard and comes out....”

She couldn't bring herself to say the last word. It always tasted like acid on her tongue much like the tone her father took when he spat the word in her face. Alex really didn't want to go there and not with another hunter at that. He'd already seen firsthand that she was too soft and couldn't fight for shit, why'd she have to tell him about it to get out of this hell loop. “You're the grownup, you go first,” she murmured with her shoulders already hunching in on themselves to protect her from the rejection that seemed inevitable.

—

“What the fuck is a Pavlov,” Emilio raised his voice an octave at the word, mimicking Alex’s accent poorly. Apparently, it was enough of an insult to earn him another zap, which seemed incredibly unfair. She wasn’t zapped for the implications she’d been making in announcing that she had a ‘great comeback,’ even though that great comeback doubtlessly would have involved calling him stinky or something equally childish. Why did he get zapped just for changing the tone of his voice? He shot a glare back up at the empty sky to voice his displeasure, but he wasn’t sure how effective it was. If there was someone or something watching them, he couldn’t see it anywhere.

In any case, Alex got a zap of her own shortly after, and there was some childish satisfaction in that. Emilio didn’t dislike the kid. He didn’t want her hurt, didn’t want to see anything happen to her. If anything, the opposite was true. He wanted Alex to be safe because of what she represented to Andy, because of the way Andy had given her all for her the way Emilio would have given his to Flora if anyone had ever given him half a chance. But he wasn’t the type to take bickering sitting down, either. If someone picked at him, he tended to pick back. Even if it meant an electric shock.

Alex wasn’t responsible for this; he’d known that even as he’d asked it. Since they met, Alex had made it clear that she wanted to spend as little time with Emilio as possible, even if doing so meant risking death. There was no way she would have intentionally trapped herself in a tight spot with him, game or no game. Normally, he might have found some dull satisfaction in the fact that, at the very least, she wasn’t having any fun, either. As it was, though, he was far too on edge to find enjoyment in any of this. He wanted out.

And it seemed there was only one way to do that.

The idea of sharing memories with anyone made bile rise up in the back of his throat. There were so few memories that Emilio was okay with other people knowing about, and he doubted that this ‘game’ intended to aim only for the easy ones. If it had, it probably wouldn’t have trapped them here, after all. Sharing with Alex seemed especially daunting. He knew she disliked him, and she knew that plenty of the memories in his head would prove her right for that.

But what other options did he have? He could stay here forever, until whoever was holding them in place either grew tired and freed them or until he doomed them both to starvation with his stubbornness, or he could play the stupid game. Alex would hate him by the end of it, but how was that different than how she felt about him now?

Still, he felt sick. It was as if there were bugs crawling over his skin — or maybe beneath it. Emilio wasn’t much of a talker. There were so many things he’d never said aloud, and he had such little desire to change that. He scowled as Alex picked up the card, heart in his throat as she read it aloud. The answer was obvious, but he thought it was probably supposed to be. The riddles weren’t really what the game was about. It was the memories.

And it had started with a hardball.

There were so many to choose from. The word had defined so much of his life growing up, had become a knife sharpened on the belt of everyone responsible for shaping him. He could have plucked a thousand different memories from the arsenal, but none were ones he wanted to share. Closing his eyes, Emilio inhaled a trembling breath, exhaled just as shakily.

“I was twelve,” he said hoarsely, the words sticking to the back of his throat. “And there was — We didn’t do funerals. When someone died. Funerals are for people, and we weren’t meant to do that. But my… We lost someone. And I was fucking twelve, and stupid, so I buried his fucking knife in the yard. His favorite one, you know, the one he always kept with him. Stuck a stick in the ground. That’s how my mom found it. And when she was done… with the real — paliza, she said…” He trailed off, pushing his tongue against his teeth until he tasted blood in his mouth. “I was always too soft. That’s what she used to tell me. And the family would have been stronger if it were me instead of him, because he was better. I knew that, she knew that. Everybody knew that. I was soft. Guess I still am.”

There was a ding from the sky above them, and the spot in front of them turned the same shade of green as the one they were standing on. Emilio scrambled forward, but the barrier wasn’t gone — it had only moved a few feet. He slammed into the new boundary, cursing again before turning back to Alex. “You — It said it’d go faster if we both say something. I want to get the fuck out of here. You want to get the fuck out of here. So it’s your fucking turn, kid. Answer the pinche riddle so I can go home.”

—

How painfully easy the riddle was almost seemed mocking. Alex was good at actual riddles, but it was evident the point of this game had little to do with the actual riddles. It was all about cooperation with a person she decidedly didn't like to cooperate with. What a weird and miserable turn of events. She wasn't sure if the word soft held the same acidity for Emilio as it did for her. It'd been spat in her direction more times she could count in the short time she had with her parents while they were alive. It was the word that repeated like a broken record in her mind every time she felt even a shred of inadqueacy.

She'd seen Emilio fight. Even with his shitty knee, he still knew how to move and deliver the hard blows in a way that Alex never could. She couldn't imagine the word being spewed at him with the same vitrol. But then he spoke and her eyes widened in surprise. Even though he fought like the weapon he was born to be, the word had been hurled at him all the same.

The memory made her frown. It was hard to imagine Emilio as a little kid, not that she had ever tried. Not surprisingly, it was easier to keep someone at a distance when you didn't know them too well because really, Alex knew she didn't actually dislike Emilio. He'd saved her friends on more than one occasion, he was there for Andy, he saved her— it wasn't as if she had some real grudge or sleight to cling to besides the fact he could bicker with the worst of them. Something in him seemed smaller as he spoke and she could imagine a sad kid just missing someone they loved and lost. Then there was something so familiar in the way he called it stupid. Fucking game. She didn't want to give the game the satisfaction of it actually working, but she did want out of the square.

“It's not stupid,” she murmured quietly as she followed him into the square ahead. Alex knew what came next. It was either another riddle or she shared a memory too to get them the extra spot. Emilio was already prompting her to share her memory to make this whole game from hell experience move faster.

Alex's eyes found the pink square below her feet. She really wished she was with someone who would get a Barbie reference so she could cut through the tension a little bit. She was pretty sure saying 'Hi Barbie!' would only warrant a very blank stare from Emilio which would be a lot funnier if they weren't essentially trapped. At least the space felt a little bigger now that they moved forward though that didn't stop the way sweat was pooling in the palm of her hands. It still felt like she had no space and he was rushing her to share her memory.

“I didn't rush you,” Alex huffed as she snapped her eyelids closed. It was hard to think of a memory with her father that didn't have the word being thrown at her like it was an insult because it was. Knives and bullets weren't meant to be soft. They lived in a world of monsters and she was meant to be the blade. Turns out she was a pretty shitty knife. She chewed at her bottom lip and settled on the one she remembered best.

“Elle est trop douce,” Alex finally said in barely a whisper. The words burned in her throat and made it feel impossibly tight, but the game was waiting. “I was 4 the first time I heard papa say that to maman. She's too soft. I guess Andy had been better at throwing knives by four years old than I had... Probably because she wasn't just human.” Now Alex found it hard not to wish that she was just human. “I kept cutting myself on the knives I was trying to throw... I was 4. It hurt, I cried.”

She shrugged it off like it didn't matter, but Alex hated how the same still held true. The sight of blood was still enough to make her sick and pain did make tears well up in her eyes despite how hard she tried to fight it. She wasn't even human, she was a monster and she was still too soft. This game was really fucking rude for pointing it out like that.

The square rudely did not light up again yet. “Really,” she pestered the sky, “That was the memory.” It didn't light up still. “Ugh, fine,” she spat, still refusing to look at Emilio, “He punished me after. Smacked me to get back up and I wasn't allowed to sit back down until I got a knife in the fucking bullseye. You happy?”

The square lit up. “Yeah, fuck you too.” Zap. She cursed again. “Hey, I meant you the game, not you Emilio.“

The next card hovered in front of Emilio and she wasn't particularly keen on having him read it. If the rest of the riddles were this hard hitting, Alex really didn't want them, but like most things, what choice did she actually have?

—

He didn’t look at her. He couldn’t. Not when he told his story, and not when she told hers. He didn’t want to see the way her expression shifted at the revelation that he was more of a failure than he let on, didn’t want to see her eyes soften with… pity for a kid who was never meant to be a kid at all. This, this tightness in his stomach and this sharp pain in his chest, this was exactly the kind of thing that had earned him the punishments his mother doled out to begin with. This feeling of being too small, it was why the word soft cut through him like the blade he was never much good at being.

So he was surprised, a little, when Alex said it wasn’t stupid. He’d known she wouldn’t judge him for it — he might not know her, but he knew the woman who’d raised her, and Andy wasn’t capable of bringing up someone who would judge a child for mourning the dead even when that child became a man who was still so much softer than he should have been. But he hadn’t expected… comfort, either. It felt wrong. She’d said it, hadn’t she? He was the grown up. He ought to be the one doing the comforting.

“You called me grandpa,” he mumbled, but there was no heat to it. She was right — she hadn’t rushed him, and it wasn’t fair for him to rush her even if his heart was pounding, even if he wanted so badly for this to be over. When she started speaking, he found he wished he hadn’t asked her to share at all.

Her story was as familiar to him as he suspected his might have been to her. He’d been four years old once, too, holding a knife too big for his hand and trying not to cry when it cut him. He tasted ashes on his tongue, thoughts moving inevitably to Flora, who’d died at four with hands that never held a knife at all, and he wondered if one option was better than the other. Had it been kinder for her to die just four short years into her life with no scars from nicks and cuts littering her fingers? Or should he have wrapped her small hands around the hilt of a blade, showing her how to thrust it forward just so?

In any case, he couldn’t imagine doing to his daughter what Alex was describing her father doing to her. He’d never been able to wrap his mind around the concept. And hadn’t that always been another mark against him? Another piece of evidence his mother could point to when saying how soft he was, how disappointing? Maybe he could have done it without cruelty. Maybe he could have shown those small hands a way to hold a knife that might have protected her without hurting her. He’d never know now.

He swallowed, unsure what to say. What was there to say? I’m sorry your father hit you. My mother hit me, too. I probably deserved it more than you did. Or I’m sorry it hurt. I tried to find a way to make it not hurt, and it ended bad anyway, so maybe there’s no answer that doesn’t end in blood. Or maybe there was a question he wanted to ask, an answer he was afraid to hear. Would you have loved your father more if he’d never put the knife in your hand? If you’d died for it, would you have forgiven him in the end? Have you forgiven him now?

Alex wasn’t Flora, because no one was. Alex wasn’t Flora, because someone had loved her and had gotten her out, and Emilio hadn’t done that for his daughter. Alex wasn’t Flora, but for a moment, she was, and he wanted to ask her everything his daughter would never be able to tell him and pretend her answers meant something.

Another space lit up with a ding, and Emilio felt like a coward for finding relief in the fact that he didn’t have to say anything at all. He didn’t want another riddle, but he didn’t want to talk about the last one, either. He moved forward, picking up the new card and staring at it for a moment.

“It can not be seen whenever it's there. It fills up a room, it's much like the air. It can not be touched, there's nothing to hear. It is quite harmless, there's nothing to fear.” He read it carefully, slowly. His accent wrapped around each word, his brow furrowed. A little less straightforward than the last one, but still not particularly difficult. Looking up at Alex, he held out the card. “I went first,” he said quietly, “last time. You can go first this time. And then me.” There couldn’t be too many of these, could there? If they both answered each one, they’d be done in no time. He told himself this, repeated it like a mantra. He needed it to be true.

—

Nerves twisted in her stomach as she waited for Emilio to read what was on the card. He never said anything about her own story, but he didn't have to. Alex had the feeling these riddles weren't going to get any lighter as far as the memories they were linked to went. Almost as if to mock the very thought, the words that Emilio read aloud all pointed to 'darkness' being the answer. It felt as if the square they were standing on was somehow shrinking as he read the words and her throat felt impossibly dry. It felt too tight as the obvious memory tried to scratch its way to the surface.

Alex didn't even feel her nails digging into her own palms until she drew blood that she did not dare look down at. Emilio was saying something again, but she couldn't hear it. The rush of pressure in her head made his voice sound distorted.

The game dinged impatiently and she was back in that room with the yellow door that had grayed over from years of wear. The last rays of sunlight from the day flickered on the door from the small window above. It was the only source of light in the room and it was quickly fading. Her tiny hands desperately threw the knife towards the target only for it to clatter against the floor again. Clumsy fingers picked the blade back up and blood spilled from them in the process. She could still feel that desperation as the night fell and the room turned to black.

Another ding. Alex was pretty sure she was going to be sick. ”There was a room,“ she finally said, her voice as hoarse and small as it was when she'd cry for her father to let her out. She didn't dare look up at Emilio. A harsh glare from an older man when she was thinking about her father was the last thing she needed, but even looking down at her own shaking hands didn't help her find the words.

“It was where,” her voice trembled and she hated the sound of it— wished she could rip it from her own throat. The space felt even smaller and her breath couldn't seem to find her lungs. “I don't think— I'm sorry,“ she gasped. She slowly backed away only to hit the barrier which only made it more difficult to breathe. There were no walls, not in the physical sense, but she was trapped and the animal in her wanted to rip her way out. Not do... whatever this was.

Alex had to fight the feeling of claws trying to break from her skin and push the memory back down. “I'm sorry, I don't think I can... We're gonna die in a fucking alley,“ she heaved.

—

He could see it. The way she shifted, the way she squirmed. The discomfort there, the way it was similar to the one building in his own gut. Did this game know them, somehow? Was it designed, specifically, with the two of them in mind? Or was it all an impossible coincidence, the way each riddle seemed so pointed. Emilio looked down at the card so that he wouldn’t have to look at Alex, traced the curve of the letters with his eyes over and over again like maybe he could change the answer if only he tried hard enough. But it was what it was. There was no getting around it, and he doubted another card would appear until this one had been satisfied.

A room, Alex said. He didn’t know what kind, but he did. He could feel it tugging at the edge of his own memory, pulling him back in time. Time travel, he thought, was a useless thing when it operated like this. His mind had a way of pulling him back, sending him sprawling into events that had ended years ago without the ability to change them. He relived them a thousand times over. Awake, asleep, everything in between. Alex, he thought, must have been a time traveler, too. It was the only way to account for the quivering of her voice.

“It was a shed,” he said, so quiet that his voice could barely be heard at all. The dinging — which had grown insistent and impatient in Alex’s refusal to answer — stopped abruptly, as if the alley wanted to let him speak. “For me. I was… She’d stick us in there sometimes by ourselves, but I was six the first time she put something in there with me. A ghoul.” He didn’t say who she was. He didn’t think he had to. Based on the last memory he’d shared, Alex would probably be able to guess. “Locked it from the outside. Chain, padlock. Gave me the basics. Knife, stake, holy water. Left me in there overnight.”

The memory was more than a memory. He could see that ghoul, dead for almost thirty years now, lurking at the edge of his vision. He still thought about what his mother said to him, sometimes, just before she shut the door. When I open this in the morning, either the ghoul will be dead or you will. Either way, this family is stronger for it. Killing the ghoul proved he was allowed to keep living, just as dying to it would have proven he wasn’t. It was the same for Victor, for Rosa, for Edgar. It had been the same for Jaime, just a week before that massacre. Had the massacre never happened and had Emilio not made good on his plan to take her away, Flora would have been placed in the same shed this year.

“Slayers see in the dark,” he said, glancing up to the sky as the riddle was ‘answered.’ “So that didn’t bother me much. But it was… small. The shed. Couldn’t take more than a few steps, even then. Ghoul was close, but it was clumsy. Still… took me hours to kill it. Nearly killed me before I did. Next day, she comes and she lets me out. And I’m — I’m bleeding, yeah. Barely on my feet. Pretty much fall into her when the door opens. Was leaning against it, you know, trying to put space there between me and the body. So she opens the door, and I fall. And it’s — She’s pissed.”

It was funny — he didn’t notice the way he slipped when he spoke about it. The event was nearly thirty years past now, but his words fell into present tense as if he was six years old still, as if he was still leaning against that shed door. Maybe part of him was still in that shed the same way part of him died in that living room floor, the same way part of Alex was still in that room. Maybe they’d both left pieces of themselves behind every time they time traveled. Maybe that was a part of it.

Clearing his throat, Emilio continued, leaning against the invisible barrier now. “She’s pissed,” he said again. “Because I let it get as bad as it did or — or because I’m still there, and she doesn’t think I should be. So she tosses me back in the shed, and she shuts the door again. Sun goes down, comes up. It’s dark, it’s light, but it’s all the same, you know? Slayers see in the dark, so it’s all the same. I’m thirsty, I’m fucking dying for a drink of water, but I know I’m not allowed to say anything, so I’m quiet. By the time my uncle opens the door again, it’s been a day. Yeah. Maybe two. Nobody ever tells me. He opens the door, and I’m not leaning against it anymore. And he lets me out, and I think — I figure it’s because of that. Because I’m not leaning on the door, not falling out into the grass. So he lets me out. And it’s still dark, you know? Dark when I went in, dark when I come out. But I don’t know, I don’t know how long it was.” He paused for a moment, chewing at the inside of his cheek, biting down on it even though it hurt. “Next week,” he said quietly, “she puts me in there again. Guess I didn’t learn the lesson.”

—

It was hard to find relief in the fact that Emilio had taken over with sharing his memory, not when Alex still couldn't bring herself to look up at him. Something akin to guilt twisted in her gut as it became obvious that he was stepping in to save her yet again—- that she still couldn't save herself and relied on a hunter she was trying to keep at a distance. It wasn't murder this time. She had to remind herself of as much. Emilio was just sharing a memory, one he probably didn't want to share, but neither of them were given a choice in the matter.

The same theme seemed to be present in his story. They'd both been kids without a choice once. While Alex couldn't look at him, couldn't bring herself to see the strain in the slayer's face as he tried to hide his own pain, but she felt his words as if they were her own. In a way, they practically were. Replace shed with small basement training room and ghoul with random small beast and it was her story. Lock a kid with a room with a monster or in a room until they get their movements right... his mom and her dad must have read the same parenting book. She wasn't so sure anymore that it was a good one.

Because Emilio's voice was just as strained as hers had felt.

Because it was so easy for his words to slip from past to present tense, as if Emilio was transported back to that moment like she always was.

Because Emilio had what it took to fight but there was still something so broken in the way he recounted the memory.

How could breaking your kid be good? There'd never been much hope for Alex to be the weapon her parents had wanted her to be, but Emilio had that. She'd watched him fight, watched him save her because she fell short in a fight... but he sounded just as broken as she was. He was still too soft by those standards... and Alex wasn't sure she thought being the opposite of that was better, not if it meant he'd hurt Ariadne or Mack without a second thought.

Emilio shared the memory and it was like looking through a clouded mirror. She could see him, smaller almost—- small as she had been— and some part of her wanted to comfort the kid who never had a chance to just be a kid. Because even all these years later, the memory still had a hold on him and he still didn't know what the lesson was.

And that was the root of it, wasn't it? How Alex found herself endlessly frustrated with the slayer despite the fact he saved her ass on more than one occasion— saved her friends' asses on more than one occasion even. Being around Emilio was like holding up a mirror and she didn't like herself... but she didn't hate Emilio and that was too big a contradiction for her to wrap her head around.

She wasn't sure at what point during Emilio's story that her hands uncurled from the fists they'd been clenched in. Alex looked down at her fingernails and grimaced at the blood caked underneath them. She couldn't find anything to say as the next square, a sunny shade of yellow that was almost mocking, lit up so they could advance.

”Thank you,“ she murmured, unable to find the usual vitriol she threw in the slayer's direction.

He shared his memory. It was only fair she shared hers so they got to move forward two squares. Cooperation. Alex laughed bitterly at the thought. ”This game fucking sucks,“ she finally said, finding her voice again. It still sounded small, frustratingly so, but she wasn't going to fail this time.

”It was a basement for me,“ she said after a moment, staring ahead at what looked like a face in a puddle of melted chocolate. Somehow the ridiculous aspect was something to hold onto and keep her grounded. She sure as hell wasn't about to cling to 5-in-1 soap guy for comfort. Even in her thoughts, the insult was starting to lose its zing. “It was small too,” she breathed out finally, ”Felt smaller the longer I was locked in there. Sometimes with small beasts like agropelters, sometimes just with my knifes and targets I wasn't very good at hitting.“ She looked down at her left index finger and the small chunk that was missing. It had scarred over a long time ago, but she still traced over it sometimes.

“The only light was from a small window... and we lived in the sticks,” she explained, “Uh... English American talk for out in the middle of nowhere.” She wasn't sure why she felt the need to clarify. Confusing Emilio was usually more fun, but this wasn't random science terminology. It was something they shared that some part of her wished they didn't.

“When the sun would go down, it'd get really dark in there,” she almost whispered, “I don't mind the dark, but in there it felt suffocating. Made the room feel smaller.“

She looked blankly at the purple square ahead, willing it to light up, but it simply wouldn't. ”I don't think I learned the lesson either... He'd come in and wouldn't even look at me. Like I—-“

Her voice cracked and caught in her throat.

”It'd be like I wasn't even there. He'd walk into the room and look at the knives on the ground like they were a couch cushion out of place and I didn't even exist. I used to think he wished I didn't.“

Now Alex knew as much, especially considering she existed as a werewolf of all things. The square ahead of her glowed purple, but it didn't feel like a victory. She took the step ahead, still eager to feel like she had more space. She didn't and neither did Emilio, but she grabbed the card anyway.

“If your uncle's sister is not your aunt, what relation is she to you,” Alex read aloud and then answered, “Your mother.”

What was with this fucking game? Had it been curated specifically for those with family trauma or was this personal to them. Alex didn't like the answer either way.

“Not sure if it wants us to talk about our mom or uncle... or dad and aunt,” she shrugged, “Pretty sure my aunt tried to kill me. Don't remember much on account of being 7 and my first full moon.”

—

He wanted to tell her she didn’t have to go. He’d said his piece, and they were another step closer to freedom, whatever that looked like. They didn’t have to take two steps every time, didn’t have to cover the most possible ground with each riddle. They could take one step, and it would be fine. He could fall on the sword, and it would be better. He wanted to tell Alex that she could be quiet, that she could just listen, but his throat was dry and his limbs felt heavy and the air in the alley felt like it was going to suffocate him with the way his words still clung to it, the way his story still seemed to echo long after he’d stopped telling it.

The truth was, Emilio wanted her to say something. He wanted her to add her words in with his, wanted something to cleanse his honesty from the air. And it was a selfish fucking desire, wasn’t it? He’d been raised as both sword and shield, designed to deliver blows just as well as he was meant to take them. His uncle told him once, not long after that first incident in the shed, that his job was to bleed. We bleed for others, he’d said, gripping the back of Emilio’s small neck in his hands. He still couldn’t decide, sometimes, if that grip was a threat or a comfort. Even now, he had trouble telling the difference between the two. We bleed so that they don’t have to. We fight, we die so that they live.

But here, in this alley, Emilio wanted desperately not to be the only person bleeding.

So it was a selfish, unforgivable relief when she spoke. She talked about her basement the same way he talked about his shed. And he understood what she meant by it, understood how it was to feel the space grow smaller the longer you spent trapped within it. The shed seemed to shrink with each hour he spent there. By the time Lucio freed him that first time, it had seemed as though the walls were so close that his chest couldn’t expand to take a full breath. Like it was crushing him, somehow, crumpling himself up like paper in its hand and tossing him into the mouth of a wastebasket.

He hadn’t been good at it. At the shed, at whatever it was he was supposed to learn in between those walls that seemed so intent on swallowing him whole. Between Emilio and his siblings, he was doubtlessly the one who spent the most time there, was the one who was pushed inside most often. Victor grew out of the shed by the time he was ten, Edgar stopped being locked inside at twelve. Rosa was eight the last time their mother wrapped that chain around the door with her on the wrong side of it. There was never any fanfare to it — one day, Elena just stopped putting them inside.

But not Emilio. For Emilio, the shed was a constant. At six, at ten, at seventeen. At thirty-two, he’d still been afraid of it, still spent every day wondering when the next time he’d be locked away might be. He was as slow as he was soft, apparently.

He wondered if it would have been the same for Alex, had her life gone differently. If not for that night, with the werewolf’s bite and her parents’ deaths, would her father be putting her in that basement even now? He had to imagine that Andy would have stepped in regardless, would have saved her even without the wolf forcing her hand. And he didn’t have to wonder why no one had stepped in for him, because he knew. Some people were worth saving, but some people weren’t. Alex’s basement had been cruel, but Elena’s shed had been a lesson. Emilio just hadn’t been smart enough to learn it.

“I was always like that, too,” he offered, unsure why he was saying it without a riddle to force his hand. “The… decepción de la familia. I wasn’t what they wanted me to be. I think…” He trailed off, thinking back to the first memory he’d shared. “They all wished it was me. When I was twelve, when my… I think they thought it would have been better if it were me.” Saying I think felt like a lie, because in reality? He knew it. Rosa had said as much, just a week before the massacre. But saying that felt too heavy, and the alley felt cramped enough as it was. They didn’t need to go filling it with any more ghosts than necessary.

Especially not when the game seemed intent on opening up a seance full of them.

The words Alex read from the card seemed to echo, ringing in his ear. She didn’t know what the game wanted them to talk about here, but Emilio had a pretty good idea. “Everything it’s given us so far has been to make us talk about things we don’t — Things that we didn’t want to say. Maybe your aunt. Maybe…” He trailed off, swallowing. His heart was in his throat, and he didn’t want to say anything, but he had to, didn’t he? This game wouldn’t let them move forward until they’d ripped their fucking hearts out and laid them on the brightly colored sidewalk.

“My uncle didn’t try to kill me,” he said quietly, “but I killed him. Stuck a knife in his gut and left him to bleed out in the streets. And I thought — I thought I would feel better. Or worse. You know? One or the other, I figured. It would either help, or it would hurt. But it just — It did nothing. I killed him, and it did nothing. I didn’t feel better, and I didn’t feel worse. I put a knife in the man who raised me and I left it there, and I felt nothing.” He thought of the cursed necklace that had nearly driven him mad, of the murderers’ choir in his head, the chorus of terrible voices all coming together. He thought of his voice among them, of the thought that echoed and the way he could have pinpointed the exact second he’d first thought it. I should have killed him sooner.

“I never knew my dad. Died when I was a baby, you know, on a hunt nobody ever talked about. But I knew my uncle. He stepped up. Never had his own kids. Said he was too busy with us. Loved us like we were his, and we loved him back. And when I killed him, when I did that, all I could think was… I should have done it earlier. When it might have mattered more. That’s all I could think.” He looked at Alex for the first time in a while, though it was a fleeting thing. His eyes landed on her for a moment before darting away. “That’s why I helped Andy when she did what she did. Because when I did it, when I put that knife in my uncle’s gut, I was too late. But she wasn’t.”

The ding filled the alley again. To Emilio’s surprise, two spaces lit up. He eyed them suspiciously. “Maybe your story was good enough,” he offered. “Or… I don’t know. I don’t know the rules.”

—

Something about the way he spoke made the words feel all wrong. When it was Alex locked in that room or being the child her parents wished they never had, the pieces seemed to fit into place. After all, even if she had never been bitten, part of her had always known she never had what it took. It was why she hid the cuts and bruises that took too long to heal— she was a broken thing. Not a single part of her was what it was supposed to be and even now it felt so evident, but she couldn't imagine Emilio not fitting. The fact he'd survived to see his 30s was a testament enough to that, especially when she knew the slayer wasn't one to run from a fight. Maybe that wasn't always true when he was a literal child, but he had what it took in him without the shed, without anyone wishing he had been the one who died.

It highlighted a certain cruelty that she couldn't see so clearly when it was only applied to her. Alex hated how clear it seemed now. Emilio's mother wasn't a good person. Emilio had been a kid who was born with what it took to fight and raised him into a shell of a person. She knew because wasn't that what she felt like? Couldn't she slip into the past just as easily and feel that same tightness in her throat that she could hear in his words? And if Emilio had never deserved to be treated that way somehow that made her father worse. Alex had never had heightened senses or strength to rely, she didn't heal quickly from the blows that seemed to be delivered day after day. She had been just human. No bells, no whistles— simply a kid. And weren't simple kids and humans who didn't know better the ones who were supposed to be protected? Isn't that what her family's code had stressed? At what point had legacy become more important than that?

Alex decided in that moment that she hated both of them. His mother and her father weren't good people. It made her stomach turn to think ill of the dead, but she'd spent her whole life hating herself for everything she was and wasn't. The dead could deal with a little bit of hatred lobbied at them.

“I don't think it would have been better if it was you,” Alex finally spoke, only barely managing to direct an understanding glance in his direction. It felt strange to admit when she'd spent so much time fighting the man at every turn, but it was true.

He was there for Andy and something about that ate Alex because she hadn't been there for her sister. Maybe she didn't understand what either of them were supposed to be, but she knew Andy deserved better. She deserved friends who would look out for her and have her back like Emilio had.

“Something tells me whoever it was that isn't here anymore.... wouldn't have been so quick to save a werewolf,” she murmured, “Or be a good friend to Andy. Or look out for Nora because god knows nothing is scaring her enough to not walk right towards it.” Nothing scared Nora... which was a little bit scary when you were someone that gave a shit about Nora's wellbeing.

Her next memory had been easy to share, so Alex wasn't too sure it counted. Hell, she barely remembered it. She just remembered being far away from Lyon when she woke up, with Andy looking over her shoulder constantly. Even then, she'd been able to put the pieces together. Maybe even before when the bite never really healed like it was supposed to.

Emilio's was decidedly not. It wasn't that his uncle tried to kill him, but that he had killed his uncle? Alex found her eyes trained on the candy cane ahead because the words made her feel sick. Not because she wasn't sure that Emilio had a good reason, but because there had been a reason in the first place. It was one thing to be a trained blade and know you were a weapon against evil--- but to have those lines blurred so intimately.

And he spoke of being too late. Andy hadn't been because they were both still alive. While Emilio didn't say as much, she couldn't help but wonder who wasn't there anymore because of his uncle. It had to have been someone Emilio really loved to have killed the man who raised him and the thought didn't sit well.

Because Emilio had been soft once and maybe that wasn't a bad thing, but whatever led to him sticking a knife in his own uncle took that away from him. The candy cane was starting to look sickeningly sweet in contrast. The whole colorful and happy atmosphere seemed like some twisted joke as they were both forced to bear their souls to each other. It was mocking and Alex didn't like it one bit.

But two squares lit up in front of them and it seemed generous to count her memory, so Alex took it for what it was. She wouldn't say anything about his story because she didn't know what to say. She wasn't going to press for more details, not when they had both been forced to share more than they ever would have. And maybe helping Andy hadn't been a bad thing even if some small part of Alex wished she'd been brave enough to fight for herself so that her sister never had to.

“I don't either,” she shrugged, “But I'll take the two squares forward as win.”

She stepped forward and took the next card in her hand. Alex found herself looking ahead--- they were so close to the end. Four more squares, two more memories if they both kept sharing like they had been. Pink, green, yellow, blue. They could do this.

She turned the card over and read. “Some try to hide, some try to cheat; but time will show, we always will meet. What am I?“

She wanted to answer 'weirdly cryptic' but directing sarcasm at the game was starting to feel weaker as it went on anyway.

”So it obviously wants us to talk about death,“ she huffed with a bitter snort, ”Really think this game needs to come with like a bottle of antidepressants or something.“

She wasn't sure if that was actually how antidepressants worked. It wasn't like she'd ever been to therapy and she avoided even the entry-level psychology courses. That would call for far more reflection on her past than Alex really wanted to give it... but that was kind of the name of this game.

Real Candyland had to be better.

”Gonna guess that the fact I killed a moose on the full moon doesn't count,“ she seemingly asked the sky. She didn't bother to look to see if Emilio found her joke amusing. He probably didn't... or maybe he did appreciate the deflection from how serious this whole exchange was. It was hard to tell.

“I guess it probably wants me to talk about my parents,” she finally breathed, looking down at her feet, ”We were on a camping trip. I think it was around my 7th birthday. It was supposed to be a survival excursion sort of thing.“

The one aspect of training she didn't fucking suck at.

”Guess there was a local pack of werewolves my parents pissed off,“ she explained, finding it odd that she didn't feel the same anger towards the pack that she used to, ”I remember being in the tent. I'd gotten sent in there for time out for something I don't remember. I was crying... I wasn't supposed to cry.“ Then her father would yell like that did anything to get a child to stop crying. ”Andy snuck in there with me at one point... she'd do that sometimes when I was upset. I don't think he liked it.“ The he of course did not need to be specified at this point. Emilio knew. ”The next thing I remember is hearing snarls and growls... I think my own scream? I couldn't move. I just... watched as they got ripped apart, as they ran towards me.”

Not being able to look up to meet Emilio's eyes seemed to be the theme of this stupid fucking game. “I don't remember at what point Andy grabbed me and got us the hell out of there... The next thing I remember is being on a plane and squeezing her hand tighter than I've ever held anything.”

Alex found she wanted her sister's hand to squeeze right now more than anything else. If she was honest, she'd been wanting as much from the moment she pushed her sister away and this whole fucked up game of Overshare Candyland only seemed to highlight that absence. Listening to how closely Emilio's past mirrored her own despite the fact he wasn't defective... made it harder for her to grasp the frayed threads of memory that said she was the problem.

She didn't bother telling Emilio it was his turn and instead simply whispered, ”That's all I got on death... unless the game really does want to hear about the moose. It was pretty tasty.“

—

Alex said it like it was easy. I don’t think it would have been better if it was you. The words seemed heavy and light at the same time, like their mere existence was some impossible contradiction, and Emilio found himself startling just a little as they settled. It wasn’t just because Alex had fought him tooth and nail at every opportunity since the first moment he found her facing off against that lapir on her own, though that did add to it. No, there was more to it than that — Alex was the first person who’d ever expressed this particular sentiment.

It had been an unspoken thing when he was a child that Emilio was wrong. Not in the same way he’d learned Alex had been considered wrong, of course; he had all the makings of a slayer, and that made it seem worse, somehow. He’d been born to do something, been made for it, and he still managed to fuck it up more often than he didn’t. He had eyes designed to help him see in the dark, but he still shivered when the sun went down sometimes. He had strength that made it easy to drive a stake through a chest and into an unbeating heart, but there were days where his hands shook where they gripped the wood. He was a weapon, but he’d never been a very good one.

He’d spent years of his life trying to figure out what it was that made him different, made him wrong. Was it the father who’d died before Emilio had ever known him? Edgar had had at least vague memories of Hendrik Visser, and Rosa and Victor had had entire stories of a man Emilio had never even seen a photograph of. From what Emilio knew of his father, he’d been of the same thinking as his mother, of the same school of hunter. Perhaps without two pairs of hands shaping him in those formative years, some development had been lost. Or maybe it was something else. Some broken thing within him, shattered when he was young in a way that forced him to grow around the pieces. Biological instead of situational, some defect that had been present in Santiago Cortez a century before Emilio was born, when he’d let Monty go and sealed his own fate. That thought scared him a little, made his palms sweat and his throat itch.

He wondered if Alex felt the same.

She’d been born broken, too, hadn’t she? In a family of hunters, but without the gene that made her one of them. Maybe there was another part to that gene, too — some inherited behavior that made it easier to abandon your humanity and allow yourself to be nothing more than a blade with a beating heart. Was that what Emilio was missing, he wondered? Was that the part of him that was wrong?

He shrugged, either in response to his own silent question or as an answer to Alex’s foreign statement. Even he wasn’t sure which. Both, maybe, because both seemed equally unknowable. He didn’t know what was wrong with him. He didn’t know if it was better for him to have survived instead of Victor. He didn’t know why he didn’t know. And, as Alex went on, he realized he didn’t even know if she was right about Victor not being the type to save a werewolf.

It was funny — Victor had been dead longer than he’d been alive now. Alive for eighteen years, gone for twenty-two. He was more a ghost than he’d ever been a person. Emilio had idolized him as a kid, the way twelve year old boys always idolized their oldest brothers. He’d been larger than life, a superstar. And then he’d been dead, and no one wanted to talk about him much at all. He’d gone from a superhero to a monument in an instant, from a tangible person with thoughts and opinions to a story that was half cautionary tale and half a vision to aspire towards.

Victor had never been much of a person the same way Emilio wasn’t much of a person, but he’d become less of one over time. When a person was dead for as long as he had been, so much of them was lost. They became clay, their memory shaped into whatever it needed to be in the moment. Victor did what he was supposed to do, his mother had said once when Emilio was trying not to show her his grief. Victor was foolish, and he got himself killed, she said on another occasion, when he tried to use his brother as an excuse to do things she didn’t want him doing.

Victor had been a good blade in life, capable of slicing through whatever was put in front of him without thought or emotion, but he was a far more effective weapon in death. Nothing was sharper than memory. Nothing cut deeper than grief.

So would Victor have done what Emilio did? Would he have saved Alex, even after she’d confessed to being a werewolf? Would he have helped Andy bury that corpse? Would he have stepped up for Nora and had her back? Maybe he would have done a better job at saving Flora, or been smart enough to help Teddy in the mines, or been fast enough to keep the blood from spilling down Wynne’s throat. But Emilio realized with something of a jolt that he didn’t know. He’d mourned his brother longer than he’d known him and, for the first time, it had him wondering how well he’d ever truly known Victor at all. How much of who he was had been replaced by the memory of him?

“I’m not sure,” he admitted, even though it hurt. That was what this was about, wasn’t it? That was what this game wanted from them — to hurt. Emilio found himself wishing, with a hint of vitriol, that whoever had done this had chosen a more straightforward method of torture. Give him blades dragging across his skin, give him broken bones, give him his own guts resting in the palms of his dirty hands. He understood that so much better than he understood this. He would have been able to carry it so much easier.

Something told him Alex would have agreed with the sentiment, too. If nothing else, the game was doing a good job at showing him how painfully similar they were. If Andy was what Emilio wanted to be — the hunter who had gotten out before it was too late, the person who’d saved the child in their care and spared her from the wrong end of someone else’s blade — then maybe Alex was a lot closer to what he actually was. A scared kid who couldn’t figure out how to carry the parts of herself that no one had ever liked. A child locked in a small space with the darkness closing in, someone’s angry voice ringing in her ears. She was soft the way he was soft. She was still in that basement the way he was still in that shed. Her aunt tried to kill her the way he’d killed his uncle. Two sides, one very pissed off coin.

So he found himself agreeing with her more than he normally would have. Two squares was a win, and he wouldn’t be looking any gift horses in the mouth when wins seemed hard to come by in this game. He thought it might be nearly over now — the end was in sight, even if he didn’t like the things they’d have to do and say in order to get there. Already, his chest felt tight. He’d said too much, revealed too much. But there was some selfish comfort in knowing that Alex had revealed just as many terrible secrets. Maybe she’d still judge him, but at least she’d have less room to do so. And she was like him — she didn’t like hanging out in places where she didn’t have a lot of room.

He followed her forward, letting her take the card again. He listened to the words as she said them, let them spin around for a moment before the answer popped out like a revelation he didn’t particularly want to have. Death.

What a fucking doozy.

There were so many he could have talked about, so few he wanted to say. Alex spoke about her parents, and Emilio listened. It was a story he’d heard before, but not from this point of view. It was funny — it was the same course of events, but Alex and Andy told it differently. They remembered different parts of it, different pieces. Age was probably a factor there — seven was still pretty young, and Alex’s memories were bound to be far hazier than Andy’s had been at fourteen — but Emilio suspected point of view had something to do with it, too. He thought Andy would be relieved that what Alex seemed to remember the most was being protected. Not just when the wolves came, but before, too. How much of a difference had it made, having someone in that tent with her? How much was it worth, having another hand in hers? Emilio thought the answer was something far larger than what anyone might have guessed.

He’d been alone, for most of his shit. Victor had been a dutiful soldier, playing his part as the eldest no matter what it meant. Rosa had taken over the role with just as much vigor when he’d died, adding in the desperation that must have come with being a daughter in a family full of sons. Edgar had been afraid, even if he never would have said so. None of them had ever stepped up for Emilio, but Emilio had never stepped up for any of them, either. He had just as many scars from his siblings as he had from his mother or the undead things he fought.

Even Rhett, when he’d come into the picture, had been a separate entity. Never cruel, not to Emilio, but not a savior, either. And why would he have been? The Cortezes did what every hunter family did, what hunters were supposed to do. Rhett would have seen no more reason to argue against it than Emilio had.

But Andy had fought back. Andy had held Alex’s hand in that tent, had carried her away from danger. Andy had looked into the face of a monster that she’d been taught to hate her entire life, had looked into eyes and teeth that must have looked so much like the ones that had torn her parents to pieces, and she’d seen only her baby sister staring back at her. She’d seen someone to protect, and she’d done that. She’d kept holding that small hand. None of his siblings would have done it for him. He wasn’t even sure Rhett would have. But Andy did.

And Emilio thought that Alex deserved that, but with that thought came a question he’d never asked before. This cruel game had pointed out similarities between him and her, had unwoven threads he never would have picked at on his own. If Alex had deserved that… what was there to be said about him? If Alex had earned that protection just by being, was there a chance that, maybe, Emilio might have deserved something a little more as well? It seemed blasphemous to even think it, like the concept alone would be enough to pull his mother from her grave and send her dragging him back to that shed or carving his mistakes into his skin.

He huffed a quiet half-laugh at mention of the moose, though it was a hollow thing. Alex was done, and he knew the rules well enough to know that that meant it was his turn. Death was a thing Emilio had so much experience with — but what could he say? He’d made it this far without mentioning the massacre, and he didn’t particularly want to bring it up now. If he could finish the game without saying his daughter’s name, he wanted to do that. And it was cowardly and it was stupid and Flora deserved so much more, but he clung to the desire all the same. So he swallowed, fiddled absently with his ring, and went in another direction.

“It was my brother,” he said quietly. “Who died when I was twelve. He, uh… His name was Victor. There were four of us, but he was the oldest. He was… It was a hunt.” As if that needed saying. It was always a hunt, wasn’t it? When you lived the way they’d lived, there was only one event that would ever kill you.

“He and my uncle went out together, some town near ours. Normally, we all would have gone, but… My sister had taken a bad hit on a hunt the night before, and I’d let her, so I was…” He shook his head, swallowing again. He was suffering the effects of his punishment, Edgar was tending to Rosa, his mother was doing the punishing. He’d always figured that made it his fault, just a little. “It was a small job. My tío was sure they could handle it alone. But they were gone too long. I think… We all knew, yeah. Before he came back, we all knew something was wrong. Should have been gone a few hours, didn’t come back for days. But I was…” He sighed. “I hoped.” He muttered it like a confession, like he was begging someone to tell him how many Hail Marys he needed to do to wash away the sin. “I hoped it was nothing. But when my uncle came back, he came back alone. There was no body, you know? Never found out what happened to it. Nobody wanted to talk about it at all. Victor died, and it was like he stopped existing. Like dead was the only thing left for him to be. Not even a thing to be buried, or a person to be remembered. Just… gone.”

Another ding. Two squares lit up, and Emilio ducked his head as he crossed them robotically. He didn’t look at Alex, but he didn’t look away, either. They were here, they were miserable, but they were more a team than they had been when the barrier first closed around them.

There was one card, and two spaces. If they both answered this one, and the rules didn’t change, they’d be free. There was a sense of relief as Emilio wrapped his hand around the paper, a sense of that same treacherous hope he’d just confessed to holding too tightly at twelve rising in his chest as he unfolded it.

And, just like it had at twelve when his hope was crushed by news of Victor’s death, that foolish optimism strangled him now.

“I sleep all the time,” he whispered, “but keep everyone else awake.”

A baby.

—

They were both able to take the crutch of humor for what it was. The hollow lilt in Emilio's laugh felt so similar to her own. It was harder to cling to the threads of hate for herself when she was looking at a man who held all the parts of herself that she hated, but Alex couldn't hate him. She could put on a good show, to be certain, but the vitriol she spewed never really had much behind it. It just felt safer to keep him at a distance. Emilio couldn't ever become someone he hated because of her if she never put him in that position. It was the same small fear she always held onto with Andy, too— one that had only been forced to the surface when Andy had killed someone, a human someone, to keep her safe.

The hatred that Emilio clearly already possessed for himself contradicted that fear in a way Alex wasn't quite sure how to swallow. With or without doing anything to help her, Emilio was already someone he hated. It wasn't a comfort so much as a jolt, a reminder that she wasn't that big. She didn't have the power to make him hate himself... and something in that was freeing.

She held onto the hollow crutch of a bitter chortle and the dose of clarity as Emilio readied himself to speak. Alex knew it'd be heavy. Did anyone really have a memory with death at the forefront that wasn't heavy? No matter how many years had passed, the memory of death could still wield a raw power that could bring someone to their knees. Both of them still stood, but she could see the slump in Emilio's shoulders become a little heavier as he spoke.

The lit up rainbow path in the alley really was taunting, but somehow almost thematic. Something about crossing a rainbow bridge and all of that. It was a kind way to refer to death, one that had been unfamiliar to Alex until she'd begun volunteering at the community center and saw the way normal people spoke to children. As Emilio spoke of his brother, she knew no one used such kind words to describe Victor's death. She doubted anyone showed that kid back in Mexico any kindness at all and she felt a deep sadness for him.

Because maybe their parents wanted them both to be unfeeling weapons, but they had just been kids. Emilio didn't need to say that he felt he was the one to blame because his voice was thick with that same guilt, that same disgust he seemed to carry for himself. Alex knew how it felt to hate everything you were, every shortcoming in training, but she had something he didn't. No matter how much she hated herself, Andy always found a way to hold her hand and soften that anger that threatened to consume.

Nowhere in any of his stories was there anyone looking out for the kid that Emilio used to be. Alex wasn't sure if it made her more angry or sad. For all those moments she seemed to be sucked back into the past against her will, she almost wished she could go back. Not to her own past, but to that twelve year old kid who had the weight of the world thrusted onto him too young, to that kid who'd been blamed for things that were never his fault and carried burdens that should have never been his in the first place. She could tell him it wasn't his fault and that he'd grow up to be braver and kinder than any of them, but she wasn't a time traveler, not really. She couldn't go back in the past and be the Andy to someone else who had so desperately needed it.

Emilio was still a broken man. Alex was still a broken monster in the sense that she wasn't one at all. If this fucked up game had highlighted anything, it was that. She was just as soft as she had always been in that room, but that felt less like some fatal flaw.

If there was one thing Alex knew, it was that nothing she could say would necessarily change that guilt Emilio carried. This wasn't even something he wanted to share with her... and it wasn't as if she had been so keen on sharing her worst memories with him either, but there was a certain clarity that came with speaking them out loud.

“It wasn't your fault,” Alex said simply. Because that part was simple. The rest... well, it wasn't like her parents had a grave either. She wasn't even sure she'd want to visit if they did, not anymore. But maybe his brother was different. She didn't know. “If you ever wanted to remember... I think planting something is nice. Wynne and I are planting something for their brother. My garden's got plenty of room.”

It was an invitation that he would or wouldn't acknowledge, but it was there. Alex felt inclined to show him something of a kindness because maybe it hadn't been a bad thing he saved her life. Maybe she'd known that the whole time, but hadn't been able to let go of the idea she wasn't worth saving.

They moved ahead their two squares and Alex felt something close to relief. They weren't quite out of this quite frankly homophobic rainbow alley... torturing the gays with rainbows was homophobic and no one was telling her otherwise. Emilio was reading the riddle and she could practically leap out of the square. Metaphorically anyway. She wasn't trying to bonk herself with a barrier again because that was decidedly really not fucking fun. Not that any part of this game had been. They weren't even being given actual candy to comfort them through this de facto heart-to-heart. Just vaguely mocking lollipops and candy canes staring at them from the sidelines.

But this riddle was easy. Given this memory didn't exactly paint Alex in a positive light, none of the previous ones had either and this was like in the same vein as everything else. Her dad didn't love her so she stole a stuffed animal from a baby. Boohoo.

She could probably even spin it as a joke and still have it count. Alex answered, “A baby... Weird, but I've got this one.”

She staged her best dramatic deep breath and announced, “I stole a stuffed otter from a baby once because my dad didn't love me.” The deadpan delivery was practiced and nowhere near Nora's, but the lack of immediate ding sent Alex right back to her regularly scheduled rambling. “I mean, that's kind of the gist of it. I was like.... 5 I think and at the mall with my mom,” she explained nervously, “I needed new shoes, I think and we were waiting in line behind a dad with a baby in a stroller. And... he was just looking at his daughter with so much adoration and love and... I hated that baby a little bit because of it so when her dad was paying for their stuff, I stole the baby's stuffed otter.“

She shrugged, ”It was petty and like... only steal from rich connards or corporations now. Not babies. I guess in my kid brain that baby felt rich.“ There was probably some Hallmark card about love making you rich, but she usually got handmade cards. The markup on Hallmark cards was a little much for two broke kids on the road though she did steal Andy that ”over the hill“ card when she turned 21.

”If you also stole from a baby I'm going to Walmart and burning every copy of Candyland. I can't be twinning with an old man, it's illegal.” The joke was just as hollow, but Emilio looked like he was about to have a complete mental break and Alex wasn't really sure what she was supposed to do here. She needed him to tell this story so they could get out of here, so that the barrier could stop feeling like it was somehow closing in on both of them.

—

It wasn’t your fault. He hadn’t said it aloud but, somehow, Alex had known exactly who Emilio figured was to blame for what had happened. And he was less surprised by that than he would have been at the beginning of this little game. Through their shared stories, the similarities between the two of them had crept up to the surface. It didn’t matter if the things they’d shared had been exposed unwillingly, didn’t matter that they never would have said any of it if not for the strange happenings of Wicked’s Rest forcing their hands. Once their memories were out there, they were out there. The understanding came for free. Alex knew Emilio blamed himself for what happened to Victor the same way he knew she blamed herself for what happened to her parents. It didn’t matter if neither experience of guilt made any logical sense. It didn’t matter if no one in their right mind would blame a twelve year old for his brother dying a town away with a guardian who was responsible for protecting him or a seven year old for her parents dying at the hands of people they’d doubtlessly wronged. Grief rarely adhered to rules of logic, and those who were grieving were never in their right minds.

“Wasn’t yours, either,” he offered quietly, though in Alex’s case, he knew she’d likely heard it before. Andy wouldn’t sit by and let Alex blame herself for that attack without telling her, probably more than once, that none of the fault belonged on her shoulders. Alex probably didn’t believe it, because Emilio wouldn’t have, either. Even now, hearing it from her, he had a hard time accepting that what happened to Victor didn’t happen because of him. But it needed to be said, sometimes. And it was one of those things he suspected carried more weight when it came from someone who didn’t know you quite as well. Although… Emilio certainly knew her better now than he had a few hours ago.

He sucked in a trembling breath at her offer, glancing to the side like he half-expected someone to chastise him for considering it. Victor would never have a grave, but there was something nice about the idea of planting a flower for him. There was something nice about the idea of it growing next to a flower planted for Iwan, even though the two had died decades apart in different countries. There was no connection between them besides the fact that their siblings met one another after their deaths. But Emilio found he liked the idea all the same. Like Iwan and Victor could rest side by side, free from a world that had failed them both so completely.

“I’d like that,” he said quietly, offering her a small smile. “Thanks, Alex.” It wasn’t a word he said very often. Rhett had pretty much plucked it from his vocabulary not long after they’d met, removing it with great care and telling Emilio in no uncertain terms that he ought to forget the syllable altogether. But the letters fit easily in his mouth now, sounded less foreign than everything else in English, somehow.

But any relief he might have felt, be it from the newfound understanding with Alex or the end that was now in sight, melted away quickly with the riddle on the page. He should have known it was coming. He should have known. This game, whatever it was, seemed to know enough about them to know exactly what existed within their pasts, seemed to understand precisely what they didn’t want to say. He’d been stupid to think there was any shot of him getting out of this without having to reveal the corpses in his past. It wasn’t enough to talk about Victor, whose ghost had haunted him for more than half his life now. The game wanted more. Everything always wanted more.

Alex was talking, but it was like Emilio was listening from somewhere underwater. Like he was sitting on the bottom of a lake, drowning or about to drown or already having drowned, while she spoke at the surface, unaware of the corpse floating beneath her. He felt guilty for not listening, somehow, but maybe the guilt was misplaced. Maybe he felt guilty for a thousand things at once and the shame was looking for a home, looking for something tangible and current. There was a weight on his chest, and he didn’t know how to get it off. It was going to suffocate him. There was no way around it.

Her story finished, and it was simple. Sad, still, because she’d been a kid who was unloved and angry about it, but not quite as heavy as the basement or the tent she’d shared about before. This riddle wasn’t for her, he realized. It was for him, but he couldn’t wrap his tongue around the words, couldn’t force them from his throat. They were stuck behind his teeth, heavy and acidic.

A buzzer sounded, insistent. Emilio remained silent. The buzzer went again, and again, and again. The game wasn’t patient. His breathing picked up a notch, each inhale a quick gasp and each exhale a shudder. He scrambled towards the last square, shoving himself against the barrier like he’d done in the beginning, like an animal stuck in a trap preparing to chew through its own arm to find its freedom. The barrier was just as solid now as it had been before, and he sat down ungracefully with his back against it, pulling his knees to his chest. And the buzzer, in its unforgiving cruelty, continued to sound. There was no other riddle offered, no other escape.

Emilio let his forehead drop against his knees, trying to calm himself down. Was it rage or grief that was swirling in his chest now? He couldn’t tell the difference anymore. It always felt the same. The buzzer sounded again, and he let out an animalistic sound, half groan, half growl. “Okay,” he shouted, hoarse and broken. “I’m — Fine. Fucking fine, okay, I’ll go.”

The buzzer silenced immediately, and the world seemed to still as if the sky above him was holding its breath. Another trembling breath, a shudder shaking his frame. He didn’t lift his head; when he spoke, it was muffled by his position. He pretended it made it easier.

“She was born on a Friday. I still remember it, you know? She was — Fuck, she was tiny. They handed her to me, and I could’ve held her in one hand if I’d wanted to. But I was scared. Yeah. Never been so scared in my fucking life. Faced off against ghouls and spawns when I was a kid, already gone against a fucking elder vampire at that point, and none of them scared me half as much as holding her. She was… It felt like I’d already failed her, you know? First time I held her, I already felt like I was fucking up. Wasn’t ready for it, didn’t know what it meant. Almost missed the birth, I was so scared. My sister had to kick my ass to get me back in the room. She didn’t sleep much, first few months. Her mom said that was my fault. Slayers, you know, we don’t need much sleep. And that’s what she was, because that’s what I was. So she was up all the time. Cried a lot. That scared me, too. Worried I was doing something wrong. Holding her wrong, or something. Her mom, she was less of a mess than I was. Babies cry sometimes, that’s what she said. Doesn’t mean there’s a problem, just means she’s a baby. She was right. Yeah. She usually was. But I was so fucking scared.”

There was no pleasant ding, still. And Emilio knew. He knew what it wanted. It wouldn’t let either of them out of here with parts still hidden, wouldn’t let them keep anything for themselves. They didn’t get that. Not here, not anymore. They weren’t allowed. So he swallowed against that lump in his throat, thought about the whiskey waiting for him when he was finished here. They hadn’t made it this far to fail. It wouldn’t be fair to Alex for him to refuse now. And besides… she probably knew. It wasn’t hard to guess. He told a story about a baby, and it was clear that he didn’t have one in his life now. She probably already knew. All that was left was to say it.

“It was a Sunday, when she died. She wasn’t a baby anymore, but she still felt like one. Four years old, already acting like she was her own person. Whole personality, you know? Whole life, all wrapped up in those four years. But there — There’s days when it doesn’t feel like it. When everything gets… mixed up, yeah, in my head. On those days, it’s like… Like it was all at the same time. You know? Like the only thing between her being born and her dying was the weekend. I failed her in the beginning and I failed her in the end, so what’s it matter how many days were between them? She still felt like a baby. She just wasn’t crying anymore.”

He went quiet and, for a moment, a suffocating silence filled the alley. He wasn’t sure he was breathing, wasn’t sure Alex was. And then…

Ding ding ding!

The colorful ground beneath them flashed. Confetti fell from nowhere. The barrier he was leaning against dropped, and he didn’t bother stopping himself from falling backwards into the alley. The same robotic voice from the beginning sounded again. “Congratulations, PLAYER 1 and PLAYER 2! You have completed the game!”

It sounded far too celebratory to match the mood in the alley, too excited and cheery to go with the weight of what he’d just dropped on the concrete between them. His throat ached, his eyes burned. He didn’t move from where he’d fallen on the sidewalk. Everything felt so goddamn heavy, like just sitting up would take all the strength he had in him. He wanted to leave, but he didn’t think his legs would hold him even if he gave it all he had.

—

If you had told Alex only a few short hours ago that she would be inviting Emilio Cortez to her garden and that he'd be accepting the invitation, she would have scoffed and made some joke about how the fumes from his 5-in-1 Irish Spring would kill all her plants. Even before, there wouldn't have been any real hatred behind it except for herself, but the idea itself didn't seem so laughable now. All her broken parts were so clearly reflected in the slayer and it was sobering in a way. It made her want to hold onto Andy and Kaden just a little tighter despite the fact she had been trying so hard to push them away.

“We'll pick something good out,” she said softly. It wasn't the first time she made the offer. Kaden and Wynne readily came to mind, but Alex thought maybe this would heal something in her too. Maybe that was a little bit selfish, but part of her knew Emilio would rather help her than himself. Her words of reassurance didn't magically take away the hatred she knew he held for himself just as his hadn't magically turned guilt and self-hatred into anything but anger. Because anger was easy. They both knew that.

Her story fell mostly on deaf ears. Alex could pick up some hint of acknowledgement in his features, but no words followed. The cheerful music played like something out of one of those soda shoppes but somehow the silence felt so much louder.

It was funny the way so much could be said by not saying anything at all. Even before Emilio spoke and the buzzer sounded insistently, Alex knew that whatever he had to say next was going to somehow be heavier than everything they'd covered before. The word 'baby' now left an acidic aftertaste on her tongue that seemed to coat her whole throat as realization hit her. There was only one reason the word would elicit such a physical reaction from the slayer and somehow it crushed her too.

Alex found she didn't want him to say the words. She could already piece it together and she felt a part of herself break for Emilio. Because he had been a kid who never wanted this. Because he'd been too soft and if there was a baby, she knew he loved them. She knew he was the kind of man who would look at his baby the way that father at the mall did, the kind of man she'd always wished her own father knew how to be.

Suddenly, the way all his broken pieces fit together made sense. His insistence at making sure Alex was safe despite her best efforts to sabotage his efforts at every turn, the way he softened when he saw the way she recoiled from his harsh words.

Emilio had a delicate heart and no amount of beating from his mother had ever beaten that out of him. Alex found she didn't think it should have been when she could so clearly see just how much he loved his own child in the way he was breaking down on the glowing yellow square they stood on. It seemed to illuminate every labored breath and she had to look away.

When he spoke, Alex wanted so badly for his words to not confirm what she'd already pieced together. They didn't do that. Everything was as she thought and she wanted to tell him he didn't have to continue. She didn't know if it'd be selfish or kind. She didn't want to hear the memory that came out as more of a confession because it tore her apart, too, but she also didn't stop him because his grief made the barrier feel like it was closing in on both of them somehow, as if it could swallow them whole.

So she let him continue to speak and for once didn't bother to hide the tears that pricked at the corner of her eyes. It wasn't fair. Alex knew life wasn't fair, but this was especially unfair. The love Emilio felt for his daughter was still so present even if she wasn't here to feel it. He loved his baby like he was supposed to. She could have grown up to be better than either of them. She could have loved herself but she never even got that chance.

He'd held that little girl like she was the most precious thing in the world, worried over her, and he lost her. The word Sunday felt heavy and the confetti that rained on them didn't feel like a celebration. They'd both just ripped their hearts out in some warped, rainbow alley and the sounding of horns felt grating. She wished there was an actual trumpet player for her to kick or argue with... that'd feel more satisfying than unceremoniously stepping forward into the blue square and then out of the game altogether.

Alex was still for a moment, unsure of what to say or do. She remembered the night in the kitchen with Kaden, when he spoke of Damien. How she'd reached out and hugged him... and despite how it seemed foreign to him initially, it seemed to help in a way, too. It was a small show of acceptance, a wordless way of saying I see you and what you're carrying and it changes nothing. Or maybe it changed everything. Did she not trust Kaden more after he told her about Damien?

So before her own doubts could come back and steal her courage, Alex reached out to Emilio and wrapped her arms around him. She didn't both with the apologies, she knew they rang hollow because nothing really changed grief. Apologies rang hollow after a while. He flinched at first, which she had almost expected. The action didn't make her doubt her own standing, for once, because well... she knew more about the slayer than she ever wanted to.

She stayed like that for a moment. It was easier to show support than speak it sometimes. Alex wasn't even sure what words could help heal a wound that was gaping. She wasn't sure the words existed. The gesture itself said more than she ever could.

When she pulled away, everything still felt too raw. Everything Alex had spent so long trying to shove down was forced to the surface and right now, Emilio was probably the only person who really understood the confusing mess of emotions she found herself lost in. It all still felt too heavy though, she wanted to feel as light as the candy-coated trail had suggested.

”I have an idea,“ she said with a smirk that didn't quite hold the same mischievous glint it normally did, ”I think you'll like it.“

Something told her Emilio was the kind of man who appreciated a little bit of arson... Or maybe it was more destruction of property. Alex was no lawyer even if Elle Woods had been her first childhood crush. Maybe part of her also wanted to buy the stupid game too. A nice little gesture of 'fuck you' to her parents for not letting her have any amount of joy as a kid.

”I hope you like breaking the law and lighting things on fire,“ she gestured ahead, ”We're going to steal some board games and light them on fire... And buy one of them. I'm sure you can figure out who that one's a fuck you to.“

There was still a heaviness in the slayer's shoulders and in her own words, but Alex knew he'd take her up on the offer. They both had all of this shit dredged up that needed an outlet and Alex could think of no better form of catharsis than lighting some games of Candyland on fire and watching them turn to dust.

—

The barrier was gone now, but the alley felt smaller than it had before. Like his story had filled it to the brim, like the force of those words was going to force the both of them out like a pot boiling over. He heard the trumpets and the confetti and the triumphant sounds that came with ‘winning’ the game, and he was so angry that it was hard to breathe. He was so furious that he thought it might smother him like a pillow shoved over his nose and mouth, like a wet cloth designed to drown him on dry land. He was angry. He was so fucking angry.

But he wasn’t. Not really. And hadn’t that always been the problem?

Emilio looked for rage to warm him, clung to anger because it was a fire in the hearth in the middle of a blizzard, but it was never real. He called his grief by an alias and pretended that was its name, and sometimes, he was a good enough actor to fool himself. Sometimes, that anger felt like anger, and he let it hold him when nothing else did. He let it wrap itself around him, curl up beside him like a dog. But there were days when the disguise slipped, days when it was embarrassingly bad like a pair of thick-rimmed glasses and a costume shop wig that wouldn’t fool anyone who looked at it for more than a moment.

Today was one of those days. The rage burned, but it didn’t. The fury festered, but it didn’t. Emilio was angry, but he wasn’t.

And he thought Alex probably knew. Because they were alike, weren’t they? Right up until the end, their stories lined up with one another. They were soft, they were shoved into too-small spaces, they carried death with them everywhere they went. And maybe, in a way, even those final memories stood side-by-side in a way that still made sense. Alex was unloved by a father she was better off without. Emilio carried too much love for a daughter he could no longer hold. They were both angry, but they weren’t. They both wished, more than anything, for the rage to be real.

He heard her shuffling in the alley beside him, heard her coming in close. Nonsensically, he half-expected a blow. As if, after everything, she might make good on that promise to kick his good knee, as if she was the type of person who might literally kick him while he was down. She wasn’t. He knew she wasn’t, but she came close and he tensed anyway. When you spent all your life as a punching bag, even a supportive hand on your shoulder could look a little like a swinging fist at first.

Her arms wrapped around him and, instinctively, Emilio flinched. His body was still trembling, still shaking, still so painfully his. She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him into a tight embrace, and it took him a moment. A heartbeat, maybe two, to recognize that it wasn’t an attack. When his mind caught up to his body, there seemed to be a second of hesitation before he allowed himself to relax.

How many times had someone hugged him? It had happened in Wicked’s Rest so much more than it had ever happened in Mexico, he knew. Before moving to this strange little town, he was sure he could have counted the number on a single hand and still had fingers left unused. Unsurprisingly, the Cortezes weren’t big on physical displays of affection. Even Emilio, who’d loved his daughter so much more than he’d ever loved anything else, had hugged her so rarely that he hated himself for it now.

He took a deep breath, and then another. He tried to calm himself. Every stuttered beat of his heart sounded like an apology, like a plea for penance. He was sorry to Alex, who had deserved a love she’d never been shown by parents who should have been better. He was sorry to Andy, who’d given up her childhood in an attempt to make up for that. He was sorry to Flora, who died young and terrified just four years and a weekend after she was born. He was sorry to Victor, who was a memory instead of a person.

And maybe, between all of them, he was finding another apology to carry, too. Maybe he could learn, somehow, to be sorry to that kid in the shed with a knife clutched in his trembling hand, leaning against a door he wanted so badly to open.

Alex spoke, and it took Emilio a moment to come back to himself. She was smirking, and it was less genuine than it normally would have been but he had neither the space nor the desire to call her out on it. There was no path forward that allowed them to recognize what had been said here and still breathe around it, he knew. There was no way to talk about what had been said without getting lost in it. It was still too raw. It would always be too raw, even if a century separated them from this alley and the things that had been said within it. Talk was cheap. Action was better.

And he really liked the sound of the action she had in mind.

Leaning back, the detective nodded. He brought a trembling hand up, shoved some of the wild curls away from his face. “Yeah,” he agreed, his voice hoarse and foreign, even to him. “Yeah. Yeah, I like that. Let’s burn that shit to ashes. And… I’ve got a couple of bucks in my wallet. I’ll buy you one, too.”

Neither of them could repair the damage done to them. There were things that couldn’t be fixed, no matter how much duct tape and chewing gum you used to stick the pieces back together. Glass, when shattered, would never slide back into place just the same. The cracks would always be there. The cold air would always creep in around them. But that didn’t mean you didn’t try, did it? That didn’t mean you didn’t do everything you could.

They were broken. And they probably always would be, despite anyone’s best efforts to change it. But there was something to be said, maybe, in being broken together instead of alone.

And arson. There was something to be said for that, too.

“Come on,” he said, pushing himself to his feet in a way that creaked and ached. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.” And on to whatever came next.

#domestic abuse tw #emotional abuse tw #child death tw #parental death tw #sibling death tw #(never been a natural all i do is try try try) ;; writing #threads; with emilio #threads; with emilio; candyland alley #(the moonlight is blinding) ;; season 1 writing

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wonder-in-wings · 2 months

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TIMING: Late-February LOCATION: The Woods SUMMARY: Metzli (@muertarte accidentally preys on a fae that’s fleeing from Parker (@wonder-in-wings, who’s confronted by the vampire's drive to be a better person. CONTENT WARNINGS: Domestic Abuse (implied), Emotional Abuse (referenced)

The smells of the forest overwhelmed Metzli a little. They hadn’t visited in well over a week, making their stomach twist with hunger. There were many patrons that looked good enough to eat at MuertArte, but given their new sense of morality, Metzli found it harder and harder to even consider a human. Sometimes they missed the taste, when they got very hungry, which was more often than it used to be thanks to that pesky guilt. They growled quietly to themself, taking a deep breath and surveying their surroundings. If Metzli wanted to keep control, they needed to find food quickly, and they had to maintain focus to do so. They marched on their path quietly, keeping their footing away from the patches of snow still on the ground. It felt like hours had passed by the time Metzli caught the sound of nearby prey.

Their face grew dark and tense as the leaves and twigs crunched ahead of them, marking every step their dinner took. Food, they thought, steeling themself by sheer force of will. Giving away their position would prove costly, but they knew the area well enough that a well-timed pounce from their position would suffice. Their keen sense of smell was not only often their ally, but their enemy too, especially when hunger clouded their mind. Carefully, after a few breaths, Metzli waited several minutes, listening and inhaling. Eventually, whatever lay among the shadows came to an abrupt halt. Did it trip? They wondered, nearly losing focus.

A familiar scent traced through the air, though the vampire was unable to fully process. Capturing a meal on an empty stomach didn’t allow for much thought outside of bite, kill, and drink. Is this meaning of grocery shopping with hunger? Metzli blinked the distraction away, wasting no more time and peering just above the brush. Eyes turned crimson in an instant. The sight of blood sent the smell of it careening into Metzli’s nostrils, sending their entire mind and body into a mild frenzy. Never mind that the animal was actually a person. And never mind that they were calling for help in the middle of the woods. None of that mattered once Metzli overpowered them with a tackle and elbow to the face, leaving their neck open for fangs to meet flesh, and for blood to meet tongue. — —

There was a critical malfunction, Parker decided as he skulked through the forest that evening, one hand swiping at his irritated eyes while the other was stemming blood flow from his nose. It wasn’t something he did, despite feeling a burning in his skull of several angry family members shouting at him about how he hadn’t moved correctly, how he was impatient, how he had done this, that, the other thing, all wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. ‘You let it get the drop on you!’ His father’s voice, as usual, was the loudest as it rattled inside of Parker’s head, not helping how he felt like it was spinning as his bloodstream pumped whatever toxic pheromone the entomid had sprayed directly into his face through his system as expediently as it could; fortunately, his upbringing and hunter genes had made him more resistant to certain strains of toxin and poison than the average person, but unfortunately he was still caught unawares, in the exact wrong spot at the wrong time. Not holding his breath, uncharacteristically. He had grown sloppy during that month. Careless. The mechanics were still there, but so was the desire and the childish need to, well, hunt. He was a hunter. And as he followed the trail of the entomid, incessantly wiping his eyes with the heels of half-bloodied hands, he heard sounds of a struggle through his good ear. Turning his head sharply, his darkened surroundings blurred as he widened his stinging eyes as much as they’d allow him to, Parker tried to gather any information he could. His first thought was that an animal had gotten to his quarry before he had a chance to, but as he blinked again and again, his vision getting slightly clearer with each one, he was able to detect a more humanoid shape. Involuntarily, without thinking more critically, he started to advance on the duo. “Back off. I found it first.” He said, his normally-robotic voice low and humming with an aggression that indicated that he wasn’t afraid of getting into a fight over his prey… another very unusual thing for him.

— —

The blood that pooled over the vampire’s tongue was unusual. Instead of a savory and iron-filled flavor, there was a rush of sweetness. As if the veins Metzli had pierced had produced an ichor they had never known existed. It filled their belly just the same, but it invigorated them with a sensation they couldn’t comprehend. Not quite. They shuddered, a shaky breath escaping them as they pulled away to see what they were consuming. No. They weren’t a what, but a who. And they were continuing to plea desperately, if a little weakly.

A mixture of distress and regret covered their face, and with what little will they had left, Metzli launched themself backward. “S-sorry. I-I-I…” They stuttered, vision going blurry with the development of tears in their eyes. Monster, they said in their mind. Monster, they said again. Quickly, it turned into a cacophony of voices saying the same thing. They shook uncontrollably as they crawled backwards and away from the innocent person they’d hurt. Their path quickly came to a halt, and it was only then that Metzli realized someone was speaking and a ringing in their ears had stifled all else. They turned and rose to their feet, blood-stained face meeting a familiar one.

An unexpected one.

“Parker? What…what—I-I…did not mean to do this. I-I-I-I…” Metzli’s voice cracked, and they began to back away in fear that Parker would perform his duty to protect, not yet realizing the person they bit was, in fact, a fae. They were too panic-induced to see past the fact that their victim was innocent, and they, as always, were a monster. Surely Parker couldn’t stand for that, even if he held the title of friend. The very thought twisted their gut, leaving them with shame and unable to say much more than a trembled, “I am sorry.” — —

Blurred vision wasn’t able to recognize whoever was attacking his target before their voice, which was recognizable to the hunter, effortlessly reached his mind. Almost immediately, Parker’s expression melted from simmering anger to obvious surprise, though he couldn’t have been sure if it was because he just happened into Metzli or if it was because he was trying to parse why they were apologizing to him. He shook his head as though that would relieve the irritation from the entomid’s spray, the action seeming to serve as a barrier as his own thoughts started racing. It was Metzli. This wasn’t a random stranger he had happened into during his prowl, nor was it an opponent he would need to fight for his quarry. He felt his heart starting to pick up its pace as discomfort tugged at his gut, though Parker wouldn’t have been able to tell anyone why. “Are you okay?” For some reason, that was what he asked first as he was able to pick up the obvious distress in their tone. “I’m… sorry, I didn’t realize it was you.” His hazy vision, becoming slowly more clear as the irritant was being flushed from his system, darted to the fae that was laying on the ground. “It didn’t hurt you, did it?”

— —

There was blood smeared all across their face and Parker was asking Metzli if they were okay? “I am okay. I-I am okay.” Taking a moment to digest it all, they paced in a small circle, using the sleeve of their shirt to wipe away what blood they could. That’s when they realized the situation they stumbled into. Metzli wasn’t the only hunter on the prowl that night, but while their prey was meant to be something more animal-like in nature, like a deer or a moose, Parker’s had been a person. For the moment, they looked more like an insect, but upon looking closer, Metzli couldn’t deny the humanoid body and the very human voice that begged for mercy.

That was the ugly side to being friends with a hunter. Best friends, even. Metzli had just chosen to see the side that had offered them a chance at companionship. The kind they rarely found. The kind where silence was cherished on both sides and fascinations could be shared without judgment or ridicule.

Still, Metzli could no longer ignore what their friend’s duty was, and it was their hope that they could convince him to let the poor fae go. After all, Cass, someone they cherished most in the world, was fae, and he’d managed to see them as a person too, hadn’t he? Whether or not he’d take their friendship to heart and listen though, was a different story.

They swallowed, and knelt next to the strange insect. “But they are not okay. They did not hurt me. I hurt them. I bite and I drink, and they are bleeding.” Fighting the urge to sink their teeth into flesh again, Metzli stemmed the bleeding and looked back up to Parker, eyes pleading. “I am not supposed to hurt people anymore. I do not want to.” They choked down a small sob, feeling the weight of their mistake unfolding into tears. Guilt caused a great deal of pain that sometimes bordered on unbearable. But it was a small price to pay when they’d destroyed so many lives. Metzli wanted to be different from before. They wanted to offer kindness and aide, everything they were always denied.

“Will you help me? I know you-you hunt them, but I-I…” The ball in Metzli’s throat tightened their voice. “I n-need…” They sniffled. “To help them.” Any attempt to swallow was futile, but they managed to choke out one more word.

“Please.” — —

A conflict of sensations tugged at Parker as his blue eyes opted to focus on Metzli’s form once more - the longer he looked at the nymph on the ground, the more he felt something… what was it, how was it described? ‘Your brain is broken.’ He knew that, that wasn’t what he was looking for. The Warden’s gaze lost that focus on the vampire as he absently wiped away the drying blood from his nose, trying to find the explanation, the reason, what it had been called.

He was a failure. He didn’t kill fae. But that wasn’t the reason why he felt a compulsion to harvest from them, was it? The wings were the only sign that he was competent, right? A trail of bodies was obvious, but what was a chorus of screaming falling on half-deaf ears? What was Parker, standing there in his militant stance, wanting to tell Metzli that he wasn’t judging them while simultaneously fighting the thing that he couldn’t describe tearing at him? The vampire joined the nymph at its side. He was able to interpret that their hands were over the wound they made in its neck in an attempt to staunch the blood flow from the opening created. It was still protesting, but faint, and almost… relieved as sticky, insectile fingers were lifted, shakily being placed over Metzli’s. A brief flash of seething rage enveloped Parker’s mind, keeping from him the gentleness needed to process what he was watching, what Metzli was asking– begging to do. He wanted to shove them out of his way, tell them that it wasn’t a human, that it thought of him and them as lesser. That’s how they all felt, right? He’d heard them over and over - the empty threats, the terrified pleading, deals, bargains, insults. All over the terror of being reminded that they bled, that they could break, that other things found value in them. He wanted to snap at them and say that they were wasting their time, their limitless time and that it was as good as dead anyway - or that it’d wish it were dead by the time Parker got his dextrous, skilled, dangerous hands on it. Pulled the wings from their sockets. Carved the gland that stung his eyes and nose from where it lay nestled inside. Metzli was his friend.

…Metzli was his friend.

And Parker was theirs.

Moments, both too fast and too slow were here and gone in an infinite instant. The anger was indeed brief, feeling it wrap its scarred, mottled claws around his mind, threatening to suffocate him. ‘Kill it.’ His father’s hands. ‘You embarrass me, boy.’ Easily replacing that anger with a deep, very rare fear of a memory that was there and gone in another infinitely instantaneous moment. Parker, suddenly visibly shaken from something that had long since been repressed in his mind, rather gracelessly fumbled for one of his larger pockets, pulling a gauze pad with a length of wrap from it and he staggered over to Metzli and the entomid, dropping to his knees as he handed the vampire the light medical equipment.

Blue eyes unfocused, Parker’s own trembling hands found what purchase they could around the entomid’s neck and started strangling it.

— —

There was a bit of relief that came with the proffering of what Metzli could only deduce to be gauze. The tears in their eyes made it difficult to unmuddy the collection of colors, even with their ability to see in the dark. Blinking them away to see, Metzli nodded in understanding and removed their hand from the insectoid’s wound to accept what Parker had offered. Unfortunately, doing so proved costly, and with a mixture of disappointment and surprise, Metzli yelped. A sound they didn’t know they could produce. It was so foreign that it gave them pause.

Move! Do something! Anything!

They didn’t understand why their body seemed to disobey their mind, but it did. At such a crucial moment, with so little life left in Parker’s innocent victim, all Metzli could do was stare. Seconds felt like hours, and they worriedly bit the inside of their lip until the acrid flavor of dead blood pooled over their tongue. The taste was enough to shock Metzli’s mind into moving, and they promptly dove to tackle Parker as they exclaimed instructions while the two of them rolled and wrestled for dominance.

“Hold your neck! Bleeding must stop!” Their voice was strained and desperate, mirroring the way their body moved and wrapped around Parker’s body like a boa as they came to a stop mid-revolution. By no means did Metzli wish to hurt their friend. If he was going to fight back like any hunter would, they wanted to get a head start on restricting his movements to keep their interaction as passive as possible. It worked, for the most part, but Metzli wasn’t sure how long it’d hold. They’d never had to test Parker’s strength before.

With a deep breath, Metzli held firm and planted their chin at Parker’s shoulder to provide themself some sort of access to his ears. “You do not have to hurt them.” Their breath trembled, “You can let them go. You can let them go and they can be free like me.” Metzli paused, adding something they felt was important. “We are still friends. You are my friend. Just-just see what I see. And feel. I am hunted too. I cannot let someone else be hunted like me.” As they’d done a few times before, Metzli leaned their head against Parker’s temple, offering their friendship in affection. “Will you listen? Will you please listen?” — —

Useless, blood-slicked fingers weakly pawed at his wrists, his hands as they started to bruise the flesh of the entomid’s neck, already inflicted with the piercing trauma of fangs in it previously. Parker’s mind wasn’t there, not in its entirety; the memory of something he couldn’t recall had scared him, slowly crushing the fae’s windpipe as he felt the sharp sting of a psychosomatic strike against him in a move unexpected by all of them, even him.

So when he suddenly felt the force of Metzli’s wiry body colliding against his, wrenching him from off the nymph, he realized that it was half-hearted. Parker wasn’t committed to killing the fae, otherwise he would’ve done so much quicker and more aggressively. Metzli pulled him off of the other body and while he initially felt himself pushing back against it, feeling a crash of panic at being restrained making him writhe away from them on the ground–

Then a deep breath, one that Parker, with his failed purpose, inability to change, fractured thoughts that deliberately went against what he saw on Metzli’s face and in their voice, matched. It wasn’t ropes, chains, or vines that were wrapped around him as he stopped struggling against the vampire. It was once a human, with their chin on his shoulder. It was a friend, one who said that even after his repeated murder attempts on the nymph they were still friends. The entire situation was new and… terrifying. This wasn’t Rhett, who let Parker do what he wanted uncontested, wondering why he didn’t just kill the damn thing. This wasn’t a family member, who observed him with reactions from mild disapproval to anger at his leaving something alive. This wasn’t one of the younger members of Wicked’s Rest that had fallen into some strange, almost familial pattern with him, one that was still young and impressionable for him to behave around. This was someone much older than him, with their arm around him and their head against his in that way they’d done before, urging him not to. That he didn’t need to. Blue eyes that glistened with tears darted in the direction the nymph was, but not really seeing it. He was focusing on feeling Metzli’s musculature, their room-temperature skin against his own that perspired with effort. Their breathing, their words, their temple pressed to his. “...Okay.” The two-syllable word didn’t make it through in one piece, splintered and cracked but it was accompanied by an erratic nod of his head in what he hoped was affirmation. “Okay. I’m… sorry.” An inhale of air sucked through stinging nasal passages. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” And once more, one for each person that looked at him, eyes boring into his scarred back in shame for his failure.

— —

Metzli wasn’t sure what emotion was choking Parker, or whether or not it had anything to do with their desperation. But what they were sure of, was that their friend’s mental state was careening into a sort of panic that they were familiar with, had experienced so many times, especially recently. They understood, better than most, and when the apologies came tumbling out urgently, that’s when Metzli knew they’d reached Parker, in some way.

“Hermano, it is okay.” Continuing to lean their temple against his, the vampire let their grip loosen slightly, allowing the hunter to relax into them. “Shh…It is okay.” Red eyes surveyed the area, and the insectoid seemed a little worse for wear, but after a few moments, Metzli watched with relief as they shuffled haggardly to their feet. They chittered and let out a sob, which Metzli could only gather to be a small expression of either gratitude or disdain. There was no time to truly decipher which it was before they limped away as fast as they could. It was only fair, Metzli thought. If they were in the fae’s position, they likely would’ve fought until they died, but fleeing was just as honorable. There was no shame in self-preservation. Not to them.

“Thank you,” Metzli breathed, “I know it is your job. I understand, but-but…” All the lives they’d ruined in the past tightened their chest, and it swelled until the tension caused tremors to rake through them. Guilt was a direct result of their morality, and if not for that, Metzli wasn’t sure what kind of person they’d be. Certainly not who they wanted, and certainly not someone better than all those who had hurt them. They wondered, just briefly, if Parker could ever make such a change. With love and patience, things they’d both been raised without, could he keep himself from hurting others? Could he undo those teachings? Fight with kindness when things didn’t make sense?

All there was to do was try.

“It hurts to see people hurt. It hurts to lose control. Had to-to…make it right. Very glad I did not hurt you. I-I did not want to. Hurting friends is bad. Hurting…hurting family is bad.” — —

The vampire eased their restraint and it took Parker a second to realize that it was the main thing keeping him from collapsing entirely, though under what weight, he didn’t know or understand. He didn’t understand why it took Metzli tackling him to get him to stop half-heartedly killing the nymph, why he had started in the first place and why he had no idea how to react when they said that he didn’t have to. The fae stood eventually, but that was the last the Warden cared to see, hear, or recognize anything about it.

Shaking hands weren’t sure where to go with their newfound freedom so they hovered anxiously where they were out of the way as the two were placed against each other. In a flood of thoughts that returned to him all at once, threatening to send him into a shutdown, one of them managed to stand out above the others in the slew of words, emotions, contradictions, smothering warmth, serrated teeth.

“I don’t know what happened.” Parker never was a particularly gifted liar, much preferring to simply leave things unsaid or give half-truths. He was similar to the fae he harvested from like that. “I heard what you asked. I heard what you… said.” A shuddery exhale heaved his chest. “I… was–” A pause. “I… didn’t mean to.” His heart pounded in his chest, too loud in his half-deaf ears. “I didn’t mean to… hurt you. By not– not listening.” He did hear. He did listen. What Metzli said, what Metzli wanted was incredibly important to him. But that’s not what happened. They had blood on their chin, he had blood on his hands. Why could Metzli, who was under intense mind control, change because they wanted when given the freedom to do so but he couldn’t? “Do you hate me?” The question was childish, but it was the only one he could ask in lieu of falling completely nonverbal as his heart threatened to rip itself from his chest cavity.

— —

Pain and neglect, it seemed, were languages that so many of Metzli’s friends seemed to know. Parker though, was just as fluent as them. It made their chest ache, empathy rising and swelling painfully, and they tightened the embrace again. That time, the pressure came from a place of comfort instead of restraint, and Metzli found solace in the way Parker let himself be held together by his friend. Learning to be well-versed in a new language was hard, after all, and it was Metzli’s hope that they could learn what they could do with that kindness.

Together.

“No.” They answered, unable to help themself in wondering where the root of that question came from. After some consideration and pondering on their own experiences from childhood, Metzli felt like they had an answer. They had been hated most of their life, to the point that they sometimes thought it’d been since birth. But given the small memory book of the first year of their life their mother had made, Metzli knew at least that version of them knew of love. Everything else just…somehow got lost in translation over the years. Not anymore, though. Parker would know patience just as they did, and one day he wouldn’t have to wonder if he would be hated for his outcome. Because that moment wasn’t the end, and Metzli had been told there was always room to learn.

Even when you’re over a century old.

“There is no hate in a healthy family. We will be healthy and I will love you and I will be patient. It will be okay. Take your time to feel this. We can sit here until you can get up again. Promise to help you.” — —

‘No.’

Parker was eleven years old at 2:30 in the morning. He could feel his mother’s arms wrapped around him in a gentle, comforting embrace. Applying pressure to the few parts of him that were receptive to it. She had said the same thing when he asked the same thing, with tears in his eyes that trickled down an otherwise-stoic face. A face that didn’t know what to do with those emotions, so it didn’t do anything. ‘Uncanny,’ his brother said. ‘Dangerous,’ from his father. ‘Broken.’

‘No.’

“I…” He lifted his hands, clutching Metzli’s outfit in them, but not with the strength of the hunter, the aggression of the obsessive, but that same clinginess of a child terrified of being separated from a parent, a brother, a relative, someone familiar. Someone to keep Parker from falling through the earth, pulled down by the words that his family had said, the weights that he carried with him. “You’re a good person, Metzli.” Words that had never been uttered by his father. Words he didn’t deserve, but words that Metzli couldn’t have deserved more. “I… It’s…” How to comfort someone who was comforting him? What had changed? “Um–” The sound tumbled from him before he could stop it and his shoulder twitched violently as though he’d been stung by something in retaliation. “H-here.” The Warden, if he could call himself that as he could feel his purpose reeling inside him, raising his temperature, frothing the iron in his blood, removed one of his hands from it’s small, frightened grip and reached into the back pocket of his jeans, pulling out a clean, white handkerchief. He felt ill, but not at the sight of the blood on Metzli’s face the latter missed during their first wiping as he leaned back and attempted to gently dab at it, to clean their face with its tear stains from the impulse that coursed through them as his had through him. Actions spoke louder than words, they always would, coming from Parker.

— —

There was something intimate and affectionate about the way Parker put in the effort to clean off the blood from their face. Regardless, Metzli was still learning to perceive actions such as those as something non-threatening. And so, they squeezed their eyes shut and flinched, ever so slightly, before they realized what Parker was actually offering. Their eyes widened and they closed their eyes with a swallow, apologizing. “I am sorry.” They took a breath, feeling like it tasted like regret. After how many times they’d been close and held hands, it felt wrong to have had such a reaction.

“I do trust you. Sometimes there is just difficulty with…” A breath shuddered out of them, and Metzli took that moment to gesture vaguely to what Parker was doing. They ran their hand up and down their thigh to center themself, landing it on their knee with a tight squeeze. Sometimes it helped to touch their own body and prove to their mind that they were real and they were okay. It seemed so silly at first, but the results proved to Metzli that it was much more effective than rocking back and forth.

“You are good person, too.” They finally said, breaking the silence. “Think it is just hard to always be good when you are taught to kill. This is way you know. I understand this.” Their eyes didn’t tend to lock with others, the intensity of that far too uncomfortable for Metzli. It’d been an affliction for them for as long as they could remember. And yet, for the briefest moment, they made the effort to lock their eyes with Parker, urging their words to seep into him in both voice and sight. “You let them go, and I appreciate this. There is good in you. Maybe is hard to find, but if you want to be better, then we can find it and be better. I will be here.” When they finally looked away, focusing on the grass instead, Metzli smiled warmly. Affectionately.

“And I will not hate you. You are family. Healthy families do not hate.” Squeezing their knee a final time, Metzli searched their pocket and retrieved their trusty fidget tool. With the tension so high, they thought it would be good to give Parker something to do with his hands. “We will sit here and talk if you want. Or have silence. Here.” They handed the tool over, clicking the joystick section they enjoyed the most. “This helps. Lo juro.”

— —

Every once in a while, there was a thought about what would’ve been different if Parker wasn’t what he was. It took the human mind, overwhelmingly on average, a quarter of a second to process the intake of information it was receiving. But Parker was faster than that, wasn’t he. It wasn’t called ‘precognition’ but the Warden’s reflexes, the millisecond they caught Metzli’s flinch, had him pause. It took him longer than a millisecond to process that they weren’t flinching because of him, though he had long since grown accustomed to that reaction from others.

It was enough time for him to somewhat recover the control he had lost over his emotions during their entire exchange, though. His breathing became more even, deeper. His hands had eased from their convulsive tremor to little more than a tremble as he felt the lingering desire to abandon the vampire in favor of chasing down his prey and putting it out of its misery waning… rising, falling. Parker wasn’t even aware that he had resumed gently tending to Metzli’s face as the latter apologized, but he was aware that he gave them a small shake of his head.

“I… understand.” He didn’t, not really. He and Metzli were very similar in many regards, but Parker had never been abused. An attempt to connect was there for him, but it always came up short, an uneven scale. Flinching was something discouraged from a young age, he could remember. ‘If you react, you’re showing them weakness.’ His father said. ‘You don’t do that though, do you boy?’ Blue eyes that stung with tears now absently looked at Metzli’s hand as it ran up and down the length of their thigh in a rhythmic motion. ‘Daddy’s little serial killer.’ His father smiled that day. ‘Someone could ruin you and you wouldn’t so much as blink.’

It took him longer than a millisecond to process that Metzli was talking to him, addressing morality, being a good person, going against what one was taught. The vampire must’ve been speaking from experience - non-killers could offer… one of those feelings (Parker didn’t know the difference between ‘sympathy’ and ‘empathy’) but the words were superficial at best until it was another weapon saying them. Parker wasn’t a weapon, though. He was a machine. Metzli’s words were comforting, terribly so, placing him in a place of warmth for a second as the two exchanged a rare instance of eye contact.

‘If you want to be better…’ Parker wasn’t sure what he wanted anymore. He wasn’t sure if he ever did, as the two sat on the forest floor among the signs of their brief struggle, the pooled blood of the entomid clearly visible. ‘I will not hate you.’ Metzli’s voice repeating what he had heard in his head wasn’t like the rest of his family. It wasn’t even like the occasional quote from Rhett. It was… different, in a way that he couldn’t describe. Then they rummaged through one of their pockets, pulling out a tool that they offered to him. “Oh–” Folding the handkerchief neatly and setting it on the ground next to them for a moment, he adjusted his position to reach into one of his own pockets, fingers brushing past the smoothed stone that Rhett gave him and pulling out the tool that Metzli had given him for Christmas. Two of the buttons had seen considerably better use.

Holding the tool out until it lightly touched Metzli’s for a moment, Parker gestured that they could keep theirs, holding his up to his good ear and pressing his favorite button. Rhythmic. Controlled. As he should’ve been at all waking moments. “I’m…” And yet, putting his thoughts into words was as difficult as ever, arguably more so right now. “Not… sure what I want.” On the other hand, there was a list of things he certainly didn’t want; he didn’t want to make Metzli deal with his childishness and indecision, that was at the top of the list.

“What… do you want?” A pause. “Are you still hungry?”

— —

A warmth spread through Metzli’s chest at the sight of the tool they’d given Parker. It was worn from use, and the urge to roll their wrist happily quickly won out. They made a quick mental note to stock up on a few extra so they were prepared for when Parker’s current tool no longer worked the same. Because they were still going to be friends, and they were going to help each other. Nothing had changed, and nothing would. It couldn’t. Not if Metzli could help it, and they desperately wanted to.

“I want to help you.” The response was quick and instinctual, coming from a place that understood deflection. Parker was never meant to want, no hunter or killer was. That knowledge came from their own experience, and Metzli felt a twinge of painful empathy needle at the tips of their fingers. “Not hungry anymore. Let us take a walk.” Their eyes scanned the area with a worried frown for the fae, lingering in the direction they had escaped toward. They decided going the opposite way would probably be best. Parker still had his instincts about him, and Metzli didn’t want to have to restrain him again so soon. Though they were sure it likely wouldn’t be the last time.

Everything would have to be a work in progress, but it was work they wanted to put in. They didn’t want for much, weren’t allowed to really, but when it came to their loved ones, they wanted to show up for them. They wanted to love and show up, and extend help whenever possible. Because Metzli wouldn’t be what they were taught or how they were treated. With a little help, and of course, if he truly wanted to, maybe Parker could take a different path too. All he had to do was take the first step.

Metzli rose from their seat on the ground and offered their hand to Parker with a soft smile. “A walk will help. We can look for blackberry loopers. Have seen them here before.” Tilting their head in question, Metzli continued to smile softly, hoping Parker would take their offer. “Will you join?”

— —

His friend’s reply was too quick for it not to have been on the tip of their tongue, almost in anticipation for the question offered to Parker that he returned in an attempt not to sit there like a fool with no sufficient answer. At first, he didn’t believe it; optimism was something else he was discouraged from relying on, the household vastly preferring logic and low expectations. People were human. Humans weren’t like the fae in that they could say anything they wanted and it could be a lie but there wasn’t any way of Parker knowing that.

But he had learned very early on that Metzli, while human-adjacent at the very least, wasn’t a liar. They didn’t lie and they didn’t use words they didn’t mean. If they said they wanted to help, it wasn’t for personal gain, nor were the words pretty and hopeful but empty. When they said they weren’t hungry anymore, Parker didn’t understand how, but he understood that they wouldn’t have said that unless it were true. They stood and Parker’s sharp blue eyes followed the movement. He felt his head turn slightly, instinctively, wanting to look in the direction that that fae had limped off, but he didn’t. He didn’t… want to.

He… wanted to walk with Metzli. Enjoy their quiet, their walking, the clicks from their fidget tool. He wanted to walk in the direction opposite to the fae, what his family was urging him to do in his head, pounding his brain against his skull, twisting his stomach into knots with protest. He wanted to hold their hand for just a moment and wish that he could forget anything. And most importantly, that that moment, he wanted to help Metzli.

But he didn’t know how.

So for this moment, though he didn’t know if he’d ever be able to willingly forget anything he’d done before this moment, Parker tentatively took the vampire’s hand. He would follow them, go where he was told, do what felt right for them to do. He was smothering the shame that wrenched his insides, knowing that he would deal with the repercussions of tonight later. But for now, he longed to walk with his good friend with the smallest, most trepidatious idea in his head, an idea that was formed from the words of people who… might’ve actually cared. That his legacy as a Wright Warden might not have been the absolute. That if someone like Metzli, someone from a place much darker and no doubt with a history more violent than himself, could do it, then maybe he could, too.

Maybe he could be… better.

He… smiled. Soft, rather timid, but genuine. Unusual, new. “I’d… really like that, Metzli.”

#wickedswriting #writing // Better Together #writing with // Metzli #Silent Siblings // Metzli #domestic abuse tw #emotional abuse tw

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furiousgoldfish · 1 year

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Happy birthday! I was never abused by my parents, but I do have trauma from my sister and holy hell I really do not know how you do it but even though you specify in trauma and abuse from parents there is still so much I can relate to on this blog and so many questions you've answered that I did not even know I had. Thanks so much for helping me, even though you weren't really focusing on helping someone like me you still somehow helped me a lot. Also it's like fun to see all the things that parental abuse causes, like just straight up fun to read about.

Abuse caused by siblings can be absolutely awful and heartbreaking, I am so sorry you were put thru this. There's way less resources for it too, so it can feel like there's nowhere you can ask for help about it. I'm glad my blog was able to answer some of your questions, I would write more about it if I had experiences and knowledge to really cover it, if someone else wants to write about it and send their experiences to me, I would gladly publish it.

I never expected to hear that reading about causes of abuse symptoms was fun, I mean, you're possibly being very ironic about this and I'm just not catching it. But I hope you've had a lot of AHA moments where you knew your behaviour was caused by a specific thing, and then you had an idea of how to resolve it, or at least, where to be mad for it.

#sibling abuse #emotional abuse #domestic abuse #abusive siblings #toxic siblings

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kkoct-ik · 4 months

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i can def relate to having an abusive mother, the worst part is that people always assume mothers to be good people. thankfully my dad and mother don't live together so i chose to stay with my dad permanently but my dad's girlfriend is constantly talking about how i should make up with my mother because "you only get one mom" and she completely ignores me when i try to talk about how abusive my mother was

yeah. ugh. sorry about your situation anon. it sucks and im sending sympathies

#ask #i just dunno what to do with myself #as if complex trauma isnt enough im now dealing with a lot of complicated situations regarding what to do now #i dont live there anymore. but my siblings do. hi guys i have 4 younger siblings #and me as much as everybody else just wishes there was a nice family to help us develop stable and normal #so im doing my damn best. im trying to stay in contact with the kids. im hoping they have a better support system than i did #but family policy means the teens get no texting privacy no internet time. so as if i can fucking stay in touch and look out for them anywa #i dont think i can do anything. it feels inevitable that every kid is gonna get completely fractured like me #and the only other alternative risks making it worse and uncomfortable when its none of my business anymore #(taking up my therapist on calling cps. lol)#i cant talk about it with my siblings (no real access to them) and it makes me insane #i cant talk to my dad because he has enough shit and i dont want to drive the family to pieces #i cant talk to my mum because she has a habit of abusing the kids and then telling them its because *I* made her mad; blame me #what am i meant to do #as if the past isnt a lot to process right now. im also dealing with the present that this is probably ongoing and theres fuck all i can do #sorry for venting. im in hell. im trying to be normal and failing spectacularly #abuse #domestic abuse #for cw #i wish i didnt have to worry. i wish this was never a problem in the first place

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shewhotellsstories · 4 months

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There’s a lot that needs to be unpacked about boy moms, but an unexplored aspect of what this kind of favoritism and enabling allows is a pipeline of boys who were allowed to use their sisters as punching bags growing up to harm their partners. When I watch these things play out I often think that maybe things didn't have to get so ugly if people didn’t act like sibling rivalry excuses everything.

#boy moms #siblings #enabling #tw abuse #tw domestic violence

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the-lil-exorcist · 3 months

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are there any recurring themes in your dreams? what about your nightmares?

[Deleted] I don't remember the last time I didn't have a nightmare when I fell asleep. If I dream it's all nightmares now. Sometimes I'm drowning although - they've started to get better. Sometimes I'm standing next to my sister begging her to stop trying to make me do the ritual my hand bleeding out as I try to stop it. Sometimes I'm screaming stuck in a graveyard begging my dad to come back because I'm scared knowing he's not coming back until morning Lately it's mostly holding onto Jonas thinking he's dead and begging him to wake up. Covered in his blood knowing he can't hear me anyway. Sometimes they all mix up together and I'm paralyzed as people surround me and tell me I'm failing that I'm going to get everyone killed. That my mom is dead because of me and the others might be too. It's my fault I left - that I'm scared. [/Deleted]

Why want to make me have good dreams Anon? You're welcome to try.

#parental death tw #domestic abuse tw #sibling death tw

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red-rover-au · 1 year

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Do any other ROTTMNT fans have dogshit siblings who barely tolerate each other and u feel alienated by every fandom post about how the show "gets siblings right!" or is that just me djsksjs

#the Funny Sibling Dynamic of wanting to kill each other except my siblings have made actual attempts on my life #rottmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rottmnt fandom #tw domestic abuse #tw toxic relationship #tw family truama #turtle thoughts

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tallglassofchickennugget · 2 years

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TW: abuse, physical abuse, child abuse, domestic abuse, sibling abuse.

I genuinely can’t wrap my head around why no one protected me from my abuser. There’s so many moments where he could have actually killed me, and it was never taken seriously because he was “just a kid” or “just a teenager.”

We have a six year age difference.

When a sixteen year old boy is regularly getting into physical fights with a ten year old girl, and leaving marks, it’s not normal kid behavior. It’s abuse.

#tw abuse #tw physical abuse #tw child abuse #tw domestic violence #abuse #physical abuse #child abuse #domestic abuse #domestic violence #i'm so sorry if I missed any tags #message me if you need me to tag anything #tw sibling abuse #sibling abuse

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luci-in-the-stars · 8 months

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TIMING : A few days before the start of the school semester

LOCATION: Milo's apartment PARTIES: @escudofracturado & @luci-in-the-stars

SUMMARY: Luci goes to let Milo know she moved to Wicked's Rest to start school, shocking him because she's supposed to be going to Brown. It's a nightmare!

CONTENT WARNINGS: Sibling death, Self Harm, Domestic Abuse, Suicidal ideation, Suicide (attempts mentioned), vague transphobia mentioned.

Luci wasn’t often good at emotions. She didn’t really care much about them, and if she couldn’t understand where they came from she was more frustrated than anything else. She needed reasons and emotions very rarely had tangible ones. Usually she didn’t bother considering them.

So standing there in front of her brother's door made her pause as a sickening feeling came over her that she didn’t have words for. She felt something in her stomach fall while she was still standing still. It made her want to run away, avoid this place and she couldn’t place why immediately.

After all it was Milo, not someone dangerous. She shouldn’t feel anything so negative - so anxiety producing - when it came to him. He was her brother not a creature in the night or someone to make her life miserable. He’d never even yelled at Luci really, so why was she shaking? Why did she want to cry?

Then it struck her that she was scared he was going to push her away again. For some reason she had done something so wrong that he was going to leave her again. It was dread she was feeling and she didn’t want to write down that observation at all. She wanted to walk away - but she couldn’t. Stuck in this looming doom Luci didn’t know what to do.

So, while standing in front of the door she couldn’t seem to knock or walk away for a moment, until she felt a nagging voice in the back of her mind to not be a coward. Clenching her jaw for a second, Luci let out a breath she wasn’t aware she steeled herself and knocked on the door trying to keep a neutral face, hurriedly moving her glasses up to have some sort of motion that wasn’t writing down her thoughts.

“Hi, Milo. Can I come in?” Luci said her voice unusually quiet and with a slight waver notably only glancing over to her brother.

—

Milo didn’t know what he’d been expecting to see when he opened the door. His bet would’ve been on maybe a delivery person, a package of some sort, but certainly not his baby sister.

He’d had a dream like this before, but this felt too real, everything was too detailed for it to be a dream. His usual dreams were too hazy, too wavery, like there was a bad signal and one wrong move would make you lose your connection. This wasn’t the vague image of a person who he just somehow knew was his sister, this was actually his sister standing in front of him, and the sight of her made him perk up for a second before he began to really process it.

Luci was here.

“Luz?” It was practically an exhalation. All the air had been knocked out of him the moment he realized it was her. For a moment, he could only stare dumbly at her, eyes wide as he tried to breathe through the feeling of panic rising in his chest. Luci was here.

A million questions tried to come out all at once as Milo fought to keep his fear and anxiety in check. He needed to shove it down before it could come pouring out like the stream of nonsense he was stuttering out. “What– How are you– Why– Are you okay??? How did you… What?” Luci was in Wicked’s Rest. She wanted to come in. He could not lose control.

"You shouldn't–" Fuck. He felt like he might throw up. But as he really looked at his sister, he noticed the tense way she held herself, the way she was shaking ever so slightly, the pained expression on her face. And his stomach fell as some of the fear gave way to concern and an overwhelming amount of guilt and shame that left him feeling hollowed out.

He was the biggest piece of shit in existence, and he was absolutely going to hell. But he wordlessly stepped aside, holding the door open to allow her in.

—

Luci wasn’t quite sure what to expect, something that couldn’t help but make her uneasy. Before he left - before everything had crumbled down - she could tell you exactly what he would do. She would have ducked under his arm and told him about her latest experiment, her hair slightly singed or her hands covered with ink stains. He would have laughed or sighed or done something she would have categorized and she would have felt immediately at home.

Instead she stood there frozen for a moment wanting not to perceive what was happening her hands instead tapping at her bag. He had questions, and she had the answers to them - but they went so quickly past her Luci didn’t want to answer them let alone breathe.

He started to tell her to go away - that’s the only thing she really could take that she shouldn’t - she shouldn’t be there. It made her snap back in some ways, Luci’s jaw twitching shut for a moment. It wasn’t what she wanted to hear obviously, she wanted to hear that there had been a reason and then an explanation of that reason, but it was something she was prepared for. Glancing at him she almost said something, until he moved to let her in.

It made her pause, again a shift in what she expected, before quietly moving to go into the apartment, her hands now gripping at her bag. “Thank you,” she said quietly, realizing she didn’t exactly know where she was going, now paused in the hallway again uncharacteristically unsure.

“I don’t know where to go,” Luci continued, leaving the questions in the air looking towards Milo to help. “I - am sorry to surprise you, but I figured this was the most likely to make sure - I would have called.”

___

It all felt wrong. It was wrong, just as it had been for months. He should’ve been at work at the center or at home in his apartment with his friends, Luci should’ve been getting ready to go off to college, Genevieve should’ve been there.

But their older sister was dead, and he was at fault. Their older sister was dead, and being in New York without her had made him want to die. Their older sister was dead, and he had abandoned Luci at home because he couldn’t hurt her, too. Their older sister was dead, and Milo was terrified his younger sister would be next.

Every slight change in her face or her body language felt like someone was taking an axe to his chest. He had hurt her. Of course, he had hurt her. The guilt was always there, just underneath the surface, a constant weight on his soul that threatened to pull him under at any moment. But, it was better than the alternative. It was better that Luci hate him for the rest of their lives than to risk losing her, too. He certainly deserved that much, and he already hated himself so goddamn much anyway. The only reason he was still breathing was because life was a joke, and he was such a miserable fucking failure that he couldn’t even succeed at trying to kill himself. Again. Maybe the third time would actually be the charm, but he didn’t have it in him to try only to fail again. Not now.

Had she tracked him down to tell him what a piece of shit he was? It felt unlikely coming from Luci, even if it was what he deserved. She didn’t look mad, though, didn’t look at him with the same hatred he saw in the mirror, in his own eyes. She just looked small, sad. The same way she’d looked when they were kids and their parents started fighting.

There had been a point in his life, even before he’d really come to understand the situation they’d grown up in, and all the damage and hurt their parents had inflicted upon all of them, where Milo had sworn he would never be like their father. But here he was, with his little sister looking at him nearly the same way she’d looked at their dad as she said a meek ‘thank you’ and walked inside. And it hurt him so incredibly deeply that he was surprised his chest didn’t start weeping blood right then and there. It hurt so badly that he wanted to pull out the razor blades and do it himself.

“You don’t– you don’t have to apologize,” he said. His voice felt far away, words falling out of his mouth purely on autopilot because he sure as fuck wasn’t thinking them through whatsoever– his head was too foggy for that. “Is everything okay?” Glancing over her, she seemed fine, physically. Had something happened? After a moment, he turned, threading his hands through his hair and grasping on tightly, as if he could somehow manage to hold his mind together that way. “Luci, what are you doing here?”

His sister was in Wicked’s Rest, and not only could Milo not protect her from the town’s many dangers, but being around him actively put her in more danger. This was so beyond bad. The only thing keeping the situation from imploding on the spot was his inability to handle the amount of emotions that suddenly came flooding out. His mind had shut the fuck down like a shitty failsafe protocol, trying in vain to keep the floodwaters at bay.

—

The way that Milo considered her made Luci feel more like an apparition than a person in the moment, her eyes glancing around to find bits of a life that she’d been forcibly removed from. She wondered briefly who was living with Milo, bits and pieces not matching him. She wanted to ask, but part of her felt it was intrusive seeing as he was staring at her like she was a phantom. Something that haunted him, that seemed to pull out emotions she couldn’t quite place, but someone who wasn’t real anymore.

Still, she wasn’t a ghost. She wasn’t haunting him and it was better for her to be shocking and suddenly real again then pretend that she wasn’t here. She existed, and she took up space. Luci interacted with the world, and in turn it responded to her. She wasn’t a figment or something abstract. She was real and she was going to respond.

“I don’t need to, no,” Luci said, nodding slightly considering the words. After all, she wasn’t really sorry for showing up suddenly. It was her right to do so, like it was Milo’s right to run away. She got to make decisions so after taking a breath she tried to shake the nerves she wasn’t good at handling and looked at him what she hoped was normally but knowing that she probably still looked nervous.

At the question Luci wished she’d asked one first. She didn’t like the question because it implied a lot of different things. Was she okay? It depended on what he meant by that. Her magic was failing, she was burning things and causing small calamities wherever she went. That probably wasn’t okay, but that wasn’t something she wanted to tell him at the moment. After all, that had to have been the reason that he ran right? He had to have figured out she’d lost control - what other reason was there to leave suddenly. Not much else made sense. So with the little bit of the false confidence she borrowed from observing other people in her grade she raised her shoulders a little bit and stopped fiddling and said, “Yes. I’m perfectly fine. I have all ten fingers and ten toes - and no added ones either.”

As he moved to look away from her though, her false arrogance deflated somewhat as she tried to follow what he was doing. Luci hadn’t expected him to act so differently and then suddenly - another question she was hesitant to answer.

“I - go to school here, and the semester started,” Luci almost mumbled, glancing back at the door. Whatever confidence that she had that she could handle what Milo said or did seemed to be crumbling down around her again. “I came to see you before classes started. I figured we could hang out - or you know. I just wanted to say hi.” She stumbled over her last statement realizing that it probably sounded lame. She’d tried to work shop it - even said it in the mirror of the hotel she rented waiting for the dorms to open - but it never came out particularly confident.

“I figured you would want to know if I was in town,” Luci said, finally deciding that she was probably lame and should have waited a while more. Maybe she would have made a better ghost.

—

There was such sorrow in her eyes, but he could also see a spark of something else underneath it as she looked back at him– likely anger. Even if she didn’t really look it, she had to be mad at him. How couldn’t she be? She knew she shouldn’t be apologizing to her piece of shit brother, and she straightened as she continued speaking, answering his question.

No added ones, either. Half-breathing, half-choking, a strangled laugh escaped from his mouth at the statement. It caught him off guard and it was so very Luci that it just sucker punched him in the guts. There was a swelling of energy, the air between the two siblings suddenly feeling charged, a calm before the storm. Clutching at his hair, Milo forced himself to breathe until the current seemed to dissipate. But the calm didn’t last very long.

“You, what?” He spun around to face her. “I thought you– Weren’t you– What about Brown?!” She’d been accepted to the Ivy League. Had it been a financial matter? He didn’t know, but he could feel himself hanging on by a thread. She should leave. He should tell her to leave. Wait, she was going to school in Wicked’s Rest?!

—

Luci blinked as she saw Milo for a moment more like the one in her memory, always surprised somehow with something that she said. It almost made her relax to hear him laugh except - when she focused it didn’t really sound like a laugh though, it sounded like a breakdown. Something was wrong.

Something was wrong again, and no one told her. She swallowed that feeling keeping that thought in her mind to write down later before she was startled again suddenly face to face with Milo. Part of her was suddenly afraid again, but she squashed it down before it could settle on her phase. She didn’t need to be afraid of her brother. She wouldn’t be afraid of him.

Instead, she paused looking at him for a moment before tilting her head as she tried to take in what was happening. It wouldn't react badly, instead reaching into her bag to pull out her welcome packet to show him, tilting it so he could see the oddly comforting cow creature. “I didn’t accept Brown’s offer,” She said with a shrug. “I wanted to go here, so I accepted the offer. Isn’t the mascot cute? Her name is Bessie.”

It was a bit more complicated than that, and she could feel the unasked questions on her as she looked at the little cow mascot she was oddly attached to before looking back up at him. “Tia said it was fine.” That was at least true, while their mother didn’t really seem to care either way, she had at least seemed to acknowledge that it was her choice was was just happy she was still going to college. In fact, she seemed a bit happy Luci had made a choice. It wasn’t often that she did without consideration from other people. After all it was Gen who - Luci decided not to finish the thought and instead looked at Milo.

“Milo, breathe please,” Luci said calmly, not quite sure why it was upsetting him this much, and part of her nervous it was because of her. That she had done something that had made her so awful to be around that she couldn’t exist in the same town as him.

Maybe it’s because she wasn’t reliable, and couldn’t help at all. Maybe even now he though she wasn’t useful or good to be around. Swallowing the fear she said softly, “I did get scholarships here too. I-I’m not going to need any help or anything like that. You don’t have to change your life here, I promise. I’m not trying to butt in.” The sound of her voice almost made Luci wince at how pitiful it sounded but she just muscled through it.

____

There was no way this was just a coincidence. He had never heard the name Wicked’s Rest until he went searching for a way to fix his magic, and he’d never heard Luci mention anything about schools in Maine. Granted, he hadn’t been able to keep up with all the college application talk, but still. Why would she come to this random small town in Maine just to go to a state school? No, this couldn’t be a coincidence, it was his fault. Milo had left, and he’d hurt her, so she had come to find him. This was his fault. Because of him, Genevieve no longer had any future, and Luci had made a decision that would negatively impact hers. She’d turned down an Ivy League, for fuck’s sake.

If there were a way he could not just die, but, like, cease to have ever existed, that’d be cool. His sisters could be alive and happy and together, while he could just not be anything or do anything ever again. If he could make it happen, he would in a heartbeat.

She was right, he needed to breathe. He needed to breathe, and he needed to stay calm. He could not lose control.

But she sounded so small, and so timid. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. He should tell her to leave, but she needed to understand. “Luci, this town is really dangerous. You shouldn’t–” He could feel the fear, panic, worry, hurt, rising in his throat. He forced himself to breathe again. “You should leave before you get hurt.”

The thought of her staying here, living amongst the monsters and mayhem, facing off against nightmarish creatures and beings that he thought only existed in the world of fiction, it was all too much. “Please, Luz… I can’t–” I can’t lose you, too. He couldn’t force the words out, instead the thought just lingered in his mind, echoing over and over. As it bounced around his head, he could feel the thread snapping, could feel the wall between himself and his mess of emotions beginning to crumble, beginning to let in the murky floodwaters.

Even as his vision went blurry with tears, his eyes widened as he felt that familiar buzz under his skin. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck! It was building fast, he could feel it crackling in his palms. He spoke quickly, tone urgent even as his voice trembled. “Luci, you need to leave rig–”

Too late.

Magic surged through him, exploding outward in a flash of blue that he barely saw through the tears pouring out of his eyes. He was unable to do anything before it began to circle him, phantom brambles beginning to form all over his body, twining around his limbs, his torso, his neck. Milo could feel them poking into his skin, sturdy, holding him tight as if they were solid wood.

—

There was something that Luci didn’t know, she could feel it in the air and part of that infuriated her. While there were things she couldn’t know, secrets the stars were hardly ever going to give up for the small alchemist, it didn’t make her less upset that they wouldn’t. She studied laws and rules that were supposed to be firm, so why did it seem like they kept bending to punish her now.

Why did her brother not seem to want her around any more? Why didn’t Gen trust her at all? Why did everything keep falling around on Luci and why wasn’t she apparently allowed to know why?

“Everywhere can be dangerous,” Luci said, sounding more like a petulant child than she normally did, annoyed that she was being told what to do again, her cheeks feeling warm with what she perceived as chastisement. “I’m not leaving. I’m moving into my dorm tomorrow, actually. I’m not going to get hurt.”

Whatever annoyance she had faded from her face as she saw Milo’s panic get worse. Her eyes darting around to see that something wasn’t right. Whatever he was worried about was making him - “Milo - Milo calm down,” She said softly, the magic looking too familiar for her own comfort, her eyes not wide with unknown fear but something known. “I’m not - Milo please breathe.”

She couldn’t help the scream, as her automatic response was to hit the wall behind her getting away from the shocking blue, her hands dropping her folder as she raised them over her face again waiting for an impact. Still, instead of feeling the heat she had imagined being there there wasn’t anything which she wasn’t expecting. Last time a spell - she was pretty sure Milo had put on her had kept the heat away, and she shouldn’t have that on herself anymore. Shaking for a moment she tried to breathe before looking out of her hands and being struck for a moment.

“M-Milo what’s going on. Why is your magic acting like -,” Luz managed to close her mouth before she continued that specific thought not wanting to worry him more. Cautiously she moved off the wall slowly trying not to startle him as she decided she needed to do something.

“Calm down, or I’m going to have to try and dissipate this,” Luci said softly, moving towards him not flinching away from the sparks, her voice becoming more clinical than she usually held with Milo. “I know you don’t want to see me and you probably don’t like me, but you need to focus right here right now. Because I can’t leave you like this, and you know that. So if you want me out so badly, calm down.” It sounded harsh, but it had to be at least closer to the truth. “Look at me and breathe. Just trust me for a moment please.”

___

She was arguing with him. She didn’t understand, she didn’t know about all the monsters, all the creatures, the crystals, the deaths and disappearances. If he really gave enough of a shit about his own wellbeing, he wouldn’t still be here. If she understood, she probably wouldn’t want him here either. Or, at least, she wouldn’t have before he ruined everything. Because, truly, that’s what he’d done, it was what he was good at– ruining every single thing he touched.

He ruined his relationship, ruined his friendships, ruined his life, his sister’s future, his magic. Genevieve was dead and it was his. Fucking. Fault. Luci screamed, and for a moment his heart stopped. For a moment, all he heard was Genevieve, the way she’d yelled just as everything was ruined forever. Milo couldn’t breathe, couldn’t catch his breath, wasn’t sure his heart was working. “Luci?!” The spectral vines tightened around him, seeming to pulse in time with his erratic heartbeat.

But then she got up, started speaking, and his heart restarted. He heaved a massive sigh of relief, the movement making the dull thorns dig into his skin. He was overcome with such a feeling of relief that nothing had happened that he almost felt lightheaded. For a moment he could breathe a little more easily, the vines loosening slightly.

Of course, it couldn’t last. After the relief came the guilt and pure panic at the thought of just how poorly that could’ve ended, of how, for a moment, he had thought his worst nightmare was coming true. Even through the fabric of his clothes, the thorns dug into his ruined skin, the rows of lines, all in various stages of healing, some whitened, fading with time, some puffy and red and brand new. Milo wished it did anything to take away from the giant, aching wound that used to be his chest, but, shocker, it really didn’t.

She can not see the scars, she’d be so upset. But she shouldn’t be, not after what I did. She wouldn’t if she knew. Wait, …did she know? What if that was why she was here? She knows what you did, she just wants you to admit it. Luci hates you and you deserve it– I deserve it. The vines should just fucking suffocate me and be done with it. You’re a waste of fucking space. They’d all be better off anyway. His legs gave out, and while the vines kept him upright, he still slumped further onto the brambles, the thorns digging into his skin in a way that teetered past the point of uncomfortable and straight into painful. Still, it couldn't compare to the ache inside.

Milo had sworn he would never be like his father. However, deep down, he had already known the fact of the matter– he was his father’s son, his unwanted son, no less. He had that darkness within him, that fire, that destructive anger that turned everything in its wake to ash. And most of the time he could keep it in check, keep it turned inward rather than outwards, but he’d always been scared of this. Maybe his magic wasn’t even broken, maybe this was just him, his curse to bear. What if all along he was always just this fire, this destruction, this desolation, this chaos? He wasn’t even supposed to be capable of it, as steeped in his studies into the protective arts as he was, but it didn’t matter, did it? It was him.

Luci was talking. It took him a minute to pull himself out of the firestorm of his mind, another just to calm down enough to actually process what she was saying. I know you don’t want to see me and you probably don’t like me. His entire being pulsed with an ache that he wished would manifest as something physical. There was a black hole where his heart should be. She thought this was her fault. She thought he hated her. “Luz, no,” he choked out. “I don’t– No– ‘S my fault– Not–” Milo didn’t even know what he was saying, he just needed her to understand. It was him. “Love you– ‘M so sorry–”

—

It was horrific, and part of her wanted to scream again when she saw what his magic was doing. It felt like something she wasn’t supposed to see, like her aunt crying at Gen’s funeral. It just didn’t make sense. It didn’t click, that something so scary could have been done.

It wasn’t how it was supposed to go either. He was supposed to be a little mad that his kid sister followed him, but begrudgingly let her back in. She was supposed to gently ask what happened and get some answers. They were supposed to work together on the mystery of what was going on - and Luci was going to help him. She had planned it out, and that was the most likely scenario.

So why was she now looking at something that seemed to be hurting her brother that came from himself. Why wasn’t he trying to move away from it, instead sinking into vines? She didn’t understand and part of her wanted to cry and call - but she wouldn’t pick up anymore. Luci was going to have to try and talk through this, and she’d never figured out how to say the right words to calm Milo down. There was an ache that she decided she was going to figure out later, instead focusing on what he was trying to say moving closer to him.

“I don’t care,” she said, trying to look at where the vines were coming from. Where she could pull to get them off of her brother. “I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care who’s fault it was what- What you’re hiding from me. Let me help you.” Luci said, trying to find out a solution and suddenly having an idea - that Gen would have hated.

Taking a breath, Luci’s hand went firmly onto Milo’s shoulder moving to try to get under the vines, not flinching as she felt bits of pain instead trying to free him. To get him to stand up and not just let them grow.If he wasn’t going to do it for his own sake, she was going to have to force him too.

“Milo stop letting them grow on you, or I’m going to have to -. Please breathe with me and stand up.” Luci looked at him in the eyes for a moment trying to find the words Gen would have used and coming up with nothing. She was going to have to do it her own way, “If you don’t I’m going to either pull these vines off of you myself or try a circle to transfer them, and I think both of them are going to make you upset so please calm down.” It was a threat, she wasn’t sure she could back up but he had to know that she was going to at least try.

“Please. I just found you again,” Luci said softly, more akin to a confession than anything else, her focus now on trying to keep her hand under the vines that seemed to want to push her away moving her other hand to the other shoulder flinching when it she felt the prick that time, “I love you too, and you are not leaving me like this.”

___

Milo couldn’t help but think of that Mitski lyric as the tears he’d been holding back ran down his face. Lately, I've been crying like a tall child. He was sobbing like he was a kid again, trying to catch his breath, taking in shallow gasps of air. The dull thorns dug into his abdomen at every shuddering sob, every attempt at filling his aching lungs.

He was having a full on menty b in front of his little sister, it was pathetic. He was freaking her out, and she shouldn’t have to deal with it at all. But still she was trying to calm him down, trying to wiggle her hand under the magical brambles and pull them off of him. It made him the void ache, but there was a warmth to it, too. The tears kept falling, but he was gaining a little more clarity, focusing on Luci, how as much as he didn’t deserve her, she was there anyway. ow if Gen were here she would help calm him down before gently tearing him a new one for this.

He croaked out a laugh at her threat, mouth pulling up into a watery smile in spite of himself. Her next words helped pull him together, wound not entirely closing, but made much more manageable. I love you too, and you are not leaving me like this. He needed to get it together for her. There was nothing to be done about the crying, though. If anything, he was just crying harder now, the pain just replaced by his sorrow, his love and concern for his sister. He had to do it for her.

So, he nodded, and focused on his breath like he had learned in therapy. Deep breaths, in and out, incredibly shaky at first, but slowly they evened out. As they did, the vines began to loosen more and more until they finally dissipated. He just barely managed to keep himself from collapsing onto the floor, but he did, he forced himself to as he pulled his sister into a hug. It made his breath hitch and his eyes water, so he breathed through it, pulling back after a moment.

He didn’t know what to say. What could he say after that, after everything? “Sorry,” he managed. “I’m– I’m sorry.” For all of it. There were a few attempts at other sentences, but he felt the tears welling up, the lump in his throat grow when he tried. “Are– Are you okay? Your hands?” None had actually pierced his skin, it seemed, only leaving deep red indents on his skin that left him wondering if they would bruise, and a few cuts that he could feel had reopened on his thighs. Thankfully his sweats were black and would hide any blood from Luci’s eyes– Luci who had been trying to pry them off of him. He really hoped she hadn’t managed to hurt herself in the process.

—

Luci wasn’t sure what else to do trying to get her hands under the vines seemed like her best option then trying to talk. She wasn’t good at words - or rather she wasn’t good at the type of words people wanted to hear when they were sad. It wasn’t something that she mastered, and most of the time if she was being honest she couldn’t care enough to bother with it. After all, actions spoke louder than words most of the time right? Maybe she couldn’t talk about it, but she could try and remove them.

She couldn’t be Genevieve. She didn’t want to be her sister as much as she loved her, she knew that those shoes were too big to fill. Her words wouldn’t be as soothing as hers were. So instead she waited a breath to hear if he was going to try and help her get these off of him, or if she was going to try her admittedly terribly executed threat. Hearing a - what she could only assume was a laugh - she wasn’t sure how to respond for a moment.

Then, slowly the vines seemed to loosen around him as he started breathing evenly. She was too scared to say anything, to do anything other than watch and still try to move the vines, worried that her words would be wrong again. She’d make the vines come back somehow and he wouldn’t listen to her again.

Suddenly though, she was being pulled into a hug to a still shaking Milo and for a moment Luci broke a little burying her head into his shoulder ignoring the way her glasses poked at her face as she did so. For a moment she was five again not knowing what to say and just desperately wanting the noise to go away, and knowing that while he couldn’t stop it Milo would at least keep it away for a little.

Then he pulled away, and Luci tried to right her face, her hand going up to her glasses knowing that she must look like a mess. She’d tried very hard to be put together, and show that she was an adult now and all of her things were everywhere and she’d made her brother cry. Again. For things she wasn’t quite sure she understood. Again.

Clearing her throat she said, “It’s okay. Oh - uh - no, they're fine. Just bruised. Not too bad.” Luci said realizing that the pain she’d thought was sharp wasn’t. She’d been so concerned that they were hurting him that she hadn’t realized they were dulled. They probably wouldn’t have even bruised her if she hadn’t jammed her hands under the vines. Still, she didn’t want him looking closer - the burns on her arms may not have been as bad as they could have been, but there were still marks. So she looked to make sure her sleeves were down before showing him her hands. “It’s okay, see? But you should probably sit down. Can we go sit down? I’ll clean up here.”

____

Luci had never been the most physically affectionate of the De La Vega siblings, so the fact that she leaned into the hug surprised him a little, caused a few more tears to escape from his eyes. He just let them fall, though, not wanting to let go quite yet. The ache in his chest no longer felt so heavy. Now it was more of a balloon lifting him up rather than an anchor dragging him down.

After a few moments and a quick squeeze, Milo released her. There was a pitiful, apologetic smile on his face as he wiped at his eyes and runny nose. Luci looked upset, and it made the guilt swell up, however, he quickly pushed it away. His self loathing could wait, she was standing in front of him right then.

He frowned at the red marks on her hands– his fault– but she was right, it wasn’t anything too bad, thank god. “Sorry.” It was barely audible, more of an exhalation than anything else. It had been a reckless move on her part, but he would’ve done the same if it had been her tangled up in magical restraints. Plus, what was he going to do? Chastise her? Make her feel like shit for trying to help? Make this situation even more tense? Make her hate him? No. No, he wouldn’t– couldn’t. He didn’t even have the energy for it if he wanted to.

Speaking of his nonexistent energy levels, he really wasn’t sure he would be able to hold himself upright for much longer. “Yeah, let’s sit.” What little energy he did have left was going toward holding himself together, not letting Luci see him for the small, pathetic, guilty child he really was. Waving off her attempts at picking up after him, Milo nodded toward the nearby couch. “Just leave it, Luz, I’ll get it later.”

He practically collapsed onto the sofa, but still, he made sure to leave enough space for his sister to sit. There was also another seat– he would definitely understand if she didn’t want to be seated next to him right now.

—

“Not your fault. I’m the one who decided to put my hands underneath brambles,” Luci said softly, mostly to herself. After all, she’d gotten her own hands bruised doing something admittedly futile. If he was being fair, he should have scolded her but maybe both of them were too tired for things that should happen. She didn’t really like how all of this ended up and just wanted to calm down.

Even though he had said to leave it, Luci still reached down to carefully move her papers back into the folder and put it into her bag not willing to leave them scattered and knowing that he was probably too tired to help her later. Still, it hadn’t taken her long before she moved towards the- now observing more of the place where lived - after him. It seemed nice, and she had about a million questions she wanted to ask him and knew that he was probably not going to answer any of them.

So Luci moved towards the couch plopping down next to him in an exaggerated sigh and sat for a moment looking at Milo. Part of her wanted to smile that he was there, but most of her was still shaken about everything that had just happened. So after considering it for a moment she said matter of factly, “You know - I had a powerpoint presentation for you and now I don’t think either of us are really going to be able to pay proper attention. So I am going to have to come back to give that to you.” She was trying at least, to act normal although admittedly she wasn’t sure what response she was going to get. “So you better not move again without telling me. Or its just going to get longer.”

—

Not your fault.

But it was. If he hadn’t freaked out, there wouldn’t have been brambles. If he hadn’t left like he did, maybe she would be at Brown instead of the town from hell. If Genevieve were alive. If he hadn’t asked her for her. If he had left the damn stone alone. It was all his fault. If his attempt had– He pushed the thought away.

Of course, she didn’t leave it for later, so Milo went over to help, handing her a bundle of papers as well as picking up something that seemed to have fallen in the midst of the ruckus. Then, he slumped into the couch cushions, feeling absolutely drained. He had sustained those brambles for a bit, hadn’t he? It’d been a while since he’d done anything quite so strenuous– well, aside from the caves, at least.

He didn’t know what to expect from Luci. She was planning on going to school here in Wicked’s Rest, she had come here looking for him, she possibly thought he was mad at her??? What the hell was he supposed to say to her? Milo couldn’t look her in the eyes and tell her that Genevieve’s death had been his fault, he just couldn’t. It made him the world’s biggest coward, the worst human being on the planet, but he just could not do it. He couldn’t handle it, couldn’t face her reaction, the hatred and disgust and disappointment in her eyes. He could barely live with himself now, but having Luci look at him, see him for the monster, the ruinous thing that he really was? That would utterly destroy him. It was what he deserved, but, at his core, he truly was his father’s son– a spineless, selfish man.

So he stayed quiet, leaving his sister to break the silence.

And he promptly snorted, a grin spreading over his face even as more tears began to well up because goddammit Luci. “Okay,” he agreed. Then, again, much more softly, “okay.” Milo knew that he could spend the rest of his life apologizing and trying to make it up to her, and it still wouldn’t be enough. But he was still going to try. Swallowing around the lump in his throat, he apologized again. “I’m really sorry, Luz.”

—

Luci huffed slightly when he didn’t just sit down, but decided that the fight was better left unsaid. There were a lot of things left unsaid between the two of them. While she didn’t know everything - she knew that it was bad. Something bad was happening, but - well they were still here. For the moment that was going to have to be enough.

Still, her mouth did tilt up to see the grin go over his face even if she had to ignore the tears that seemed to suggest that he was still in a private war he wasn’t going to share with her. It seemed that maybe the rift wasn’t unsurmountable between the two of them even if he had seemed to want to make it that way. Unlike before, Luci wouldn’t let that happen again.

Leaning back on the couch Luci sighed and said, “I know. You’ve said. I’m not sure about what for or why, but I know you’re sorry. I forgive you. Whatever it is, I forgive you okay? So stop ignoring me.” She wasn’t exactly what for, but there wasn’t anything that she wouldn’t have forgiven him for so she decided it was alright to say. As long as he stayed this time she would forgive him. “I was bluffing though - I probably won’t make you sit through a powerpoint. Still, don’t leave okay? ” Her voice wobbled a little at the end although she was hoping that would be ignored.

—

Milo hadn’t seen her smile in months. Seeing it almost broke through the dam that he was trying to put back into place. He couldn’t start to break down again, though, not in front of her. So, he shoved a hand in his pocket, pressed down through the fabric onto the wounds that had reopened, finding some clarity in the sting.

He watched her lean back, listened as she brushed off his apologies. Of course, she could say she forgave him now, but she didn’t know what he’d done. The comment about ignoring her made his heart fall, though. His immediate instinct was to apologize, but he bit back on the words. “For leaving,” he replied instead. His eyes stung as he, at least partially, explained the ‘why’ and ‘what for.’ “And ignoring you. And I’ll sit through your powerpoint, if you want,” he gave her a small smile. “I know you probably put a lot of work into it. Can’t let that go to waste.”

If he were a stronger man, Milo would be able to do whatever was necessary to keep Luci safe. But he wasn’t strong, the crack in her voice striking him like a bolt of lightning. He couldn’t say no, couldn’t hurt her again, couldn’t stand leaving her for another time. And he certainly couldn’t just leave her if she was really going to stay here in Wicked’s Rest. While he was entirely useless now, he was still her brother, he still had to try to protect her. He had tried when the monsters were only in closets and under beds. Now that they were real and deadly and here, he would not leave her to face them alone.

“Okay,” Milo agreed quietly. As he spoke, he thought of Cass and of Mack’s party, of that night at the death pit. “I promise.”

He knew that sooner or later, Luci was going to find out, that she was going to see him for what he truly was. Sooner or later, she would realize that he was a monster, too. But until then, he supposed he would try.

#sibling death tw #self harm tw #domestic abuse tw #suicidal ideation tw #Suicide tw #transphobia tw #call me when you have the time; milo #para: Milo #a dangerous disposition; para #Banner was done by Ang and is beautiful #angst was provided by both but! it's gonna be okay :)#this thread is heavy so please be careful.

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