#c/w: abuse

[ijichi-nijika]

i can’t fall asleep so let me tell you all a story of a little girl named iris.

when iris was nine, she went to bed one day as she always did. it was a friday, the day before a holiday, and she was excited to go to her grandparents the next day to celebrate. iris of course, never had much in common with her cousins on either side, but she enjoyed her grandmother’s cooking and just listening to people talk. of course, she would have to put up with her father, a racist, homophobic and sexist man, and he would probably get drunk and force them all to get in the car while he drove the family home. that of course being her mother and brother, and her dog, who went to event with them.

upon iris’s awakening, she was being yelled at for waking up too late, and needing to rush to get ready. she of course, was never taught how to get properly washed or how to brush her teeth on her own, having just been told to figure it out at a young age, and then her anxiety would not allow her to ask for instruction or help. so of course, iris took her time to make sure she was actually clean. this was not something her father liked, as being late was apparently more important that his daughter having proper hygiene. so as she was brushing her teeth, her father stormed into the bathroom and ripped the toothbrush from her mouth and said to hurry it up. iris of course, scared of him, simply asked for the tooth brush back. of course, her father did not like the idea that she could possibly have her own feeling about this and began hitting her for “talking back”. she ran from him and hid in her room, crying for being abused, but he followed and continued his torment. iris had finally had enough and said the only thing she could think of to possibly get him off of her, even if only for a second in shock.

so iris said “i want to be a girl”.

coming out at 9 was not something iris was sure was a good idea. she was labeled a boy at birth, with no questions asked of her own opinion on the matter, and had always thought that she never quite felt like she was a boy. of course, when she has seen girl characters in games or anime growing up she would always sympathize or cherish them, not as some crush symptom (although that did develop later) but as a form of jealousy. so she concluded, around the age of 8 that she wanted to be girl, not knowing that she already was one.

of course, this story doesn’t have a very happy ending. saying this only stopped her father for a moment, until the beating began anew and even more harsh than before. she was dragged downstairs on the carpet and wooden floor (that she had already fallen down before and broke her arm on), essentially thrown in front of her mother and brother and screamed at. iris of course doesn’t recall the exact words said, but tears from her mother she’d and her brother looked sick a tiny bit, at least to her in the moment, it seemed that she was the cause of all of this turmoil.

upon finally all being together (and a momentary lapse in memory due to a blockage of iris’s memory of how bad it was) the family took the time to not go to her grandparents. instead, they drove iris all the way to the church that she was “baptized” in, brought in front of the stairs by her father, and told that it’s against what “god” wants from her to be a girl, and that she was disgusting and sick. and that if she didn’t take back what she had said, that things would get a lot worse. iris of course, being as scared as she had ever been in her life, pleaded with her father, that she just wanted to say something to shock him and make him stop hitting her, and said it wasn’t true and that s-she was a b-boy…

her father, happy with this news, made her swear on it (something extremely scary for the nine year old girl) and then took her back to the car, where she apologized for “lying” about this and took it back once again as a “joke” in front of her family. iris doesn’t have much memory beyond this of being happy for most of her life of course, as she spent the rest of her youth trying her best to convince everyone that she definitely was a “boy”, and ruined many friendships by lashing out.

…

iris, came out again in 2021, after the first year of the pandemic, to a few of her close friends at the time, but of course, was unsure of if she was making the right choice, and allowed them to call her the name that was chosen against her will, instead of just saying to call her the name that actually made her happy. she started hrt in 2022 at the age of 25, at the behest of her girlfriend, who is trans herself. she hid that she was on hrt for two years from her father that she was forced to still live with, until only 5 months before she escaped, with the help of many true friends.

iris has nightmares of the terrible acts committed on her by her father, at least once a week, although they have been less frequent in recent months.

[sandinmybed]

can i be fr for a minute?? sending abuse to people online for holding different views than you is not activism and in fact actively hurts your cause. most people are not extreme in their viewpoints, you can give them a new perspective if you're willing to spend some time explaining shit. if someone is saying something you disagree with and you rush in there to condescend to them and call them disgusting and subhuman and dont even TRY to explain calmly why their views are harmful, they're going to shut you out instantly and double down on their views.

most people are simply genuinely ignorant to the issues they're talking about - they just pick their views up from the news and the world around them and express opinions because that's what every person does. if you run in there and tell them they're scum for it, what then? if someone does that to you, are you going to think "maybe i should do some research" or are you going to think "this person is an asshole, im blocking them." a lot of you think you're activists and then refuse to do any kind of actual WORK to support your cause.

[hoglinz]

exile selfie ! !

[agnesandhilda]

I get why nobody really asked about it considering Everything Else that happened in blue lock chapters 260-262 but what is kaiser's legal situation vis a vis ray dark and bastard münchen. does his father still have legal custody of him? it's possible that he's still kaiser's legal guardian but has in practice left him to be a ward of bastard münchen. but if that were the case wouldn't kaiser make some reference to it? kaiser very much conducts himself like an emancipated minor imo, and there's no indication that he's not getting every cent of that paycheck, and even an arrangement where his father is no longer physically in contact with him has potential for coercion (child prodigies are famously never financially exploited by their parents /s), as he needs to approve kaiser's status as (at some point) a working minor. but if he doesn't have custody of him, how did he lose it? by all accounts he has never given a shit about providing for kaiser, so it's possible he transferred custody over to someone else (and who would that be? ray dark? some third person who in practice will approve anything ray dark wants?) with no fuss, but it's equally likely that the guy who had been coercing kaiser into stealing from a young age to support them both would want to profit from his son's athletic career too. did ray dark have to sue? in which case kaiser's dad broke that bottle over his head in front of the police, so there's irrefutable evidence for a child abuse case, and they've got all the money of the bllkverse's fifa-analogue on their side too.

[ladystoneboobs]

A memory prodded at Theon. In one of his rare curt letters, Lord Balon had written of his youngest brother going down in a storm, and turning holy when he washed up safe on shore. -Theon I, aCoK

this little glimpse of balon/theon's strained long-distance relationship kinda fascinates me now. can't believe i'm going to defend balon as a father to theon in any way, however small, but i feel like hindsight has kinda blinded fandom into thinking balon gave up theon for dead and gone the moment he gave him away as hostage. this also carries the underlying assumption that balon was always going to rebel again making theon's life already forfeit to him.

thing is, while balon undoubtedly called his banners before theon came home, that also coincided with robert and ned both being recently dead, making that 2nd war seem really opportunistic. as if the only thing balon learned from his first rebellion was that king robert was strong enough to defeat him, the only man capable of defeating the great balon. so when that enemy dies, balon's crown is all but won in his mind, and with the death of ned too he could use his next war to take revenge on the (dead) man who took his son from him. maybe with robert's lifestyle he could have hoped to outlive him despite being older than robert, but robert and ned together? that must have seemed like a miraculous chance straight from the drowned god himself, a chance to rise up and take revenge that it was his duty to take for his people, even if it meant risking the life of his youngest child who'd been gone for 10 years anyway.

but before all that, even if robert being still alive was the real deterrant keeping him from warring again, he was, in effect, not only keeping theon safe by paying the hostage-ransom of keeping the peace, he was also keeping up a bare minimum connection with theon through rare and curt correspondence updating him on family events like aeron getting born again (and i'm assuming that's also how theon knew what asha's ship was named). idt we should so easily ignore that this is a society which views kinslaying as a grave offense regardless of circumstances or personal feelings, and one which greatly values male heirs over female heirs. i doubt balon was so much a feminist girldad that he just switched 12yo asha into the son slot right away as soon as all her brothers were lost. imo it was more likely a gradual process done not so consciously as asha proved herself worthy growing up and theon's time in the north stretched on and on. all until such point as asha had achieved son status and only son status at that, (maybe also coinciding with alannys leaving him so he had even less reason to keep up with her baby boy?), and then theon could be written off as belonging to the enemy, no longer ironborn or a son of balon, so sanctity of greyjoy life no longer applied to him. (real ironborn greyjoy son already killed by darth greenlander theon, from a certain point of view.) only then could balon be a not-father to theon, not welcoming him back home or even giving him a chance to prove his loyalty by providing intelligence on the northerners and the lands they were about to invade. (which could have made balon's war plans a touch less stupid. see, it all comes back to criticizing him in the end.)

in fact, come to think of it, i wonder if one thing ned and balon had in common is just not thinking of the danger of theon being executed as a hostage, not taking ownership of that possibility bc it hadn't happened yet. and hey, if it ever did come to that they could each tell themselves it would be the other guy's fault really, i was just doing my duty to my king/as a king to all my proud people. and that meant their actions didn't have to be obviously at odds with ned's view of himself as a good man opposed to killing children or balon's view of himself as great greyjoy patriarch and victim of the greenlanders (who could ofc prevail against them all if given the right chance).

[swordfright]

I want to know about the ouroboros AUs very badly

The amount of words I'm about to type is gonna make me look INSANE but in my defense I had to think about this every day for like a YEAR OKAY.

Island AU Spiderette AU: This AU operates on the premise that the Vault considers any structure c!Sam builds with the intent to imprison someone as an extension of Pandora — an extra limb. In Ouroboros, Sam was planning to kidnap Michael and keep him at the island house in order to lure Ranboo to the prison (as in canon), but he doesn’t have a chance to actually go through with that plan because he gets distracted by, y’know, Pandora becoming a sentient eldritch horror. So basically, Island AU diverges from Ouroboros in the final chapter. When Dream fakes a suicide attempt to force the Vault to spit him and Sam out, Pandora doesn’t dump them in the prison lobby…it dumps them in Sam’s island house. Essentially, the Vault considers that house (which Sam intended to keep Michael in, ostensibly as a hostage) to be a type of prison, and thus, an extension of Pandora’s Vault. So, Sam takes the only course of action that makes sense to him: he treats Dream’s injuries and officially incarcerates him in the island house. It’s supposed to be temporary, but after a while Sam is resigned to the possibility that he may never return Dream to Pandora Proper. And y’know what? This is fine! This is fine, actually. Dream is still his prisoner, Sam can still be warden here.

In the beginning, the situation is very similar to his and Dream’s dynamic in Pandora. Sam keeps Dream in the little room meant for Michael. The house isn’t really set up for full-on incarceration, so Sam has to make modifications. He can’t exactly install a lava chamber, but he adds chains to the walls so he can keep the prisoner secure. Michael’s room doesn’t have space to add a desk or a cauldron or a toilet, so Dream must be permitted to leave a couple times a day. Dream moves around the house with Sam’s permission and occasionally helps with chores/maintenance/daily tasks (a freedom which Sam justifies as “prison labor” lmfao)

After a while, the two of them fall into a bizarre domesticity: they are essentially cohabiting, but Dream is still Sam’s prisoner and Sam is still Dream’s warden. It’s weird. It’s tense and awful, but it’s also kind of okay sometimes, compared to the prison. Dream eventually hatches a plan to escape, but things get complicated. Honestly, a lot of the “plot” for this AU hinges on the idea of Pandora’s sentience, and the fact that people in-the-know can basically fast-travel between buildings on the server as long as those buildings are limbs of Pandora. It gets very technical so I won’t bore y’all with all that.

Ouroboros Extended Cut AU: In this AU, c!Dream does not attempt to fake his own suicide in order to force Pandora to release him, as he does in Ouroboros. The idea occurs to him, but he has extreme reservations about actually going through with it: what if the plan works too well and he actually kills himself? These reservations aren’t unfounded, given the intense anxieties he has surrounding death in canon. Sam can’t revive him because he has not given Sam the book. So basically, Sam and Dream spend way, way, wayyyy longer trapped inside the prison. I’m talking at least another year or two. And the longer they spend there, the weirder shit gets. This AU leans really heavily into the horror elements of Ouroboros. Dream eventually figures out how to communicate effectively with the Vault. Sam also communicates with the Vault, but far less effectively because he’s Sam and he fucking sucks. There’s plenty of bizarre space-time continuum stuff. Also, the prison gets really good at recreating illusions of people who have spent a lot of time in the Vault in the past. The strongest illusions are capable of speech and sometimes even conversation, though they appear to have a limited variety of possible responses. Quackity is one of those people, but it’s Tommy’s illusion that’s the strongest because he wasn’t just resurrected inside Pandora (like Ghostbur), he actually died there as well.

As things get more horrifying inside the Vault, Sam and Dream become progressively more desensitized to that horror; it changes their dynamic somewhat, because they have to be pragmatic as hell if they want to make it out one day. The Vault wants to keep them alive, and yet is fundamentally hostile to living. Dream is allowed way more freedom (under Sam’s supervision) for reasons of mutual survival. He and Sam become more codependent. I probably will never write this AU down, but if I did, I’d want to incorporate a bunch of minecraft gameplay and environment elements from the big spooky 1.17 Caves & Cliffs update: the warden creatures, the ruins, the Deep Dark biome, the skulk, etc.

Timewarp AU: One of the big decisions I had to make when writing Ouroboros was whether time inside the prison should pass at the same rate as time passes outside the prison. If you’ve read the fic, you know that time inside the Vault passes slower after the prison gains sentience, so Sam and Dream spend months in there but only a few days have passed in the outside world. However, if I’d decided to have time pass in the prison at the same rate it passes on the rest of the server, that would mean Dream completely misses Techno’s rescue. In this AU, Techno shows up on 11/28 to break Dream out and finds the prison seemingly abandoned. After having a thorough look around, he leaves. His thought process: Dream must’ve found some other way to escape! Makes sense! If escape was possible, why would he wait for Techno?

Because of this, when Dream pulls his fake suicide stunt and forces the Vault to spit them out, his incarceration continues as normal because he missed the jailbreak. Ngl, this AU is pretty bleak because Dream is alone and locked up for a much longer period than in canon. (I actually ended up NOT going with this option when writing Ouroboros because my good friend aaron ringenthusiast told me very plainly that any version of events where Dream misses Techno’s big rescue was too depressing to contemplate!) 

Eventually the Syndicate get suspicious, of course. It’s been over six months since the failed jailbreak and if Dream really did escape prior to that, it’s weird that he hasn’t tried to contact Techno or reach out to any other Syndicate members…right? Eventually, Phil and Techno are contacted by Punz, who’s forced to out themself as Dream’s ally because they haven’t heard from Dream in an alarming amount of time and are frankly confused. Tbh, I haven’t decided where this AU goes after that, but I think it’d be neat if Dream still gets rescued or maybe even escapes Pandora by himself somehow. I'm fond of stories where Dream is ultimately the one to save himself.

The final AU is Amnesia Island. It’s similar to Island AU Spiderette in that after the events of Ouroboros, Sam manages to move Dream from Pandora onto his island and imprisons him there. However, Dream is in really bad shape. In this version of events, his suicide fake-out was unsuccessful in that he accidentally does kill himself. The Vault still spits them out, but the blood transfusion comes too late and it looks like Dream is actually gonna die – bummer! That’s not what either of them wanted! Luckily, Sam has a secret: he’s already created a clone of Dream’s body (without his consent or knowledge, because of course.) So when Sam realizes Dream is gonna die FR fr, he uses the power of (canonical!) cool awesome unethical science to transfer Dream’s mind to the new body just before Dream dies. This all happens in the triage ward in Pandora. After the process is complete, he whisks his prisoner away to the island. 

All should be well, theoretically. Except, uh oh! When Dream wakes up in his new body, he…isn’t Dream. At least, he isn’t Sam’s Dream. Something went wrong, either with the cloning process or the transfer of consciousness. New Dream has clearly got the same personality as old Dream, but minus the traumas he’s recently acquired. Huge chunks of his memory seem to be gone. He doesn’t recall who he is, who Sam is, L’Manberg, the Disc Saga, any of the events of the past couple years. It’s all gone.

Sam’s reaction to the amnesia is…messy. First, he doesn’t believe Dream, thinks he’s faking it. It takes an unpleasant interrogation to finally convince Sam that Dream really doesn’t remember anything. After denial comes anger: this version of Dream is both familiar and alien; he reminds Sam more of the man who built the Community House than the prisoner! Which means all the time and effort Sam spent conditioning the prisoner to fear him and respect him and obey him is wasted. Sam gave up parts of his soul for that deference, that submission. And now it’s just gone. He’s not happy about it. Next comes the bargaining, and finally, acceptance, or something that passes for acceptance until you hold it up to the light. According to Sam’s worldview, Dream is fundamentally corrupt. Even if amnesiac Dream doesn’t remember doing terrible things, he still did them, right? Which means Sam still has a responsibility to keep him locked up. The warden is still needed! This is a huge source of relief, since it preserves Sam’s self-concept.

Only…the situation is a bit more convoluted now. No version of Dream is innocent in Sam’s eyes, which means amnesiac Dream cannot be innocent. But the amnesia complicates things. For one, this Dream doesn’t have nearly as many reasons to fear and hate Sam, which means he’s openly affectionate — helpful, even. Sam appreciates that, and his appreciation throws a wrench in his plan to reincarcerate the prisoner. This is post-Ouroboros Sam, so he is aware on some level that he loves Dream, though he perceives that love as an unforgivable weakness. Not to mention he and Dream have been sleeping together for months and Sam misses that. Given these compounding factors, Sam opts not to punish Dream as frequently or as harshly as he did when they were in Pandora. It’s not that he regrets his former treatment of Dream (after all, Sam has never had any qualms about treating a lover sternly, has he?) but he does have a vested interest in encouraging Dream’s affection. He wants Dream to be obedient, and obedience is an easier thing to offer when you think you’re in love. So Sam does what he has to: he lies.

He doesn’t exactly tell Dream the two of them are married, not quite, but it’s heavily implied. Sam does everything he can to avoid verbally defining their relationship in such clear terms, while simultaneously doing all he can to make Dream believe that the two of them are in an established, committed relationship. It’s not so far from the truth, Sam tells himself. After all, what is the relationship between warden and prisoner if not committed?

In short, their life together on the island is fucked upppp. The two of them cohabitate and eventually resume sleeping together. Dream is not allowed to leave the house without Sam’s supervision, and he’s never allowed near the shoreline under any circumstances. He’s not allowed to send or receive letters or communications of any kind. Dream’s also forbidden from touching or picking up weapons and tools, lest he use them to harm someone (or himself. Sam has nightmares about watching Dream stab himself in Ouroboros.) The list of rules goes on, and the consequences for breaking them are…varied and creative. Dream understands, on some level, that Sam hurts him, that being around Sam is frightening and stressful. But Sam is also his partner, a man Dream thinks he loves. A man he feels comfortable with, sometimes. Dream has been told in simple terms that he’s dangerous, that he needs the warden’s guidance in order to keep everyone else safe. Dream doesn’t remember who “everyone else” is, but he has no reason to wish them ill, whoever they are. So he’s also grateful, in that sense, that Sam is willing to help him not hurt people. It is a gratitude that Sam has manufactured entirely, but it’s a powerful force nonetheless. 

So, in summary, they’re codependent as hell and their life together is scary and bad. Don’t worry, it gets better but first it gets worse. As time passes, Dream feels more and more often that the way Sam treats him is unfair, which is objectively true. He has misgivings, but with very few concrete memories to base them on, these misgivings don’t serve him particularly well. However, after about a year of island living, his memories do start to come back gradually. This creates problems. Sam is quite happy with their new arrangement, so Dream’s memories coming back is a nightmare scenario for him. When he begins to notice little clues, it makes him incredibly paranoid, which in turn causes him to act…rashly. There is one notable incident where a bird dies by accidentally flying smack into a window, as birds sometimes do. Dream calmly picks it up and steps around the back of the house to bury it in the garden. But when Sam comes to check on him a few minutes later, he finds the bird alive and flapping, as if it was never hurt. Dream tells Sam he doesn’t remember how he brought the bird back to life; he can’t explain it, he just knew. Sam doesn’t believe him. It’s a rough night.

Of all the AUs, Amnesia Island is probably the one that’s rotted my brain the worst. It's definitely the most detailed so I could probably go on about it forever, but this post is already way too long so I’ll conclude by adding that in none of these AUs does Dream ever cave and give Sam the revive book. He’s holding onto that motherfucker, always and forever. Amen.

[crxmes]

@crxmes

[bthump]

I don’t think the ending of lost children is saying that people like Jill should stay with their abusers or that it’s noble to suffer I think it’s just making the point that there isn’t a paradise where you will never suffer, as it seemed that Jill tried to leave with Guts as a form of escapism thinking her problems would disappear if she did, like rosine did with the sacrifice. Yeah it’s still not that great and it doesn’t reflect well on guts either when he could’ve just brought her to Godo and had him look after her or something. Though the narrative does frame it as though guts made the “right” choice, basically tough love and making her stronger or whatever. And there was the idea that the demons haunting him at nightfall would be too dangerous for her anyway.

Enh I'll admit that Jill's naivete is a detail that makes Jill's decision to stay work strictly on a character level. Sure, Jill is frightened off by ghosts and decides to stick with the devil she knows, I'll totally buy that.

But yeah like you go on to mention, the narrative framing it as the right choice is the real problem here for me. I doubt Miura intended to flat-out say that abused kids should just deal with it, but it's effectively what the narrative says consistently throughout the Lost Children arc, from putting the Peekaf 'you'll regret leaving home' story in the arc about child abuse to Rosine's regret and longing for home as she dies to Jill deciding it's best for her to stay with her abusive parents and just struggle and cry her way through it.

Also maybe worth noting that plot-wise Jill's decision doesn't actually fit the larger narrative of Berserk. This is probably accidental lol, due to being a serialized story, but think about it: she decides to stay with her family because it's dangerous elsewhere too. Well, what happens a year later when her village is leveled by dragons because Griffith genre shifted the story to high fantasy? It's a hell of a lot safer to be traveling with Guts than it is to be an ordinary villager during the Fantasia arc lol.

So yeah. ia that staying with her abusive family makes sense for Jill on a character level, but it's the way the themes of the Lost Children arc seem to support that decision that bothers me, and I don't think it really works on a plot level either, taking the later story into account.

Thanks for the ask!

[tanjir0se]

Is the world ready for my Sanemi conspiracy theory? Should I include it in Love Me Mercilessly? Is it time for me to speak my truth?

[transthadymacdermot]

Finally figured out a design for aoife I think... my longest yeah boi ever etc

[paingoes]

Hi! I just started reading your destroyer story and I really liked it. Was the academy a training ground or an experimental place or both? The way that it was talked about as weeding out the good kids made me wonder what it would be like to actually live there

oh what an exciting ask. both is correct! i want to describe it as a kind of evil X-Mansion situation. it was legally filed as a boarding school for tax reasons but the main purpose is for psychic training and experimentation.

they do technically hold classes. the vibe of the school environment is like if there was standardized testing at school every single day (you need to focus, the stakes have never been higher, be quiet, focus on the test). however as you can imagine being exposed to this every day causes a lot of the kids to get desensitized to the high security environment and still find ways to act like kids in spite of it. its their only opportunity to really socialize with other children and some of them are able to take advantage of it in subtle ways.

any time not spent in "class" is spent with research/training of psychic abilities. this takes up the majority of the day. these can be 1-on-1 or in groups depending on how specific or dangerous the test is. this is where a lot of the MK Ultra type shit happens its where the kids learn to blow stuff up with their mind and the researchers get to see how they react in different combat situations.

the facility also has a LOT of doctors and scientists on staff to experiment w different drug cocktails and procedures to see what works and what doesn't. they're able to really juice some of the kids abilities in this way and eventually permanently modify them to get more consistently high results. (this is what happened to delta. he'd never be able to produce the levels he does if he wasnt altered.)

one of the weird things w the institute and one of the reasons it doesnt really "work" in-universe (the whole project is generally considered a failure by Empire) is because there are kids there of a lot of different age ranges and ability and many of them were ENROLLED at different ages. there's a huge disparity between the kids who were basically born into the program the way delta was and the kids who showed up when they were like ten or eleven and already had personalities.

i actually think one way to describe it if there was more levity to their circumstances, the institute would be a really good generic evil setting for some kind of tween fantasy series. imagine some older kids getting enrolled into the program and learning to rebel and form alliances with each other to plan a daring escape!!! and they are teenage psychics and best friends!!! i think this is what maximum ride is about i guess it has potential to be a kind of maximum ride situation... i never read that book though so i dont know.

anyway as it is i havent really written about the Institute simply because im kind of adverse to in-depth depictions of severe child abuse! because it was a very very abusive environment for the students, bonding was discouraged, all of them were repeatedly told they were only as valuable as their powers were strong and it was designed to groom them for a lifetime of accepting abuse and dehumanization.

so i dont really want to get heavily into whump w/ child characters because its not to my taste but tbh i might make a backstory chapter at some point because it is fairly important! its just depressing honestly id have to psych myself up to write it.

thanks for the ask! <3

[unproduciblesmackdown]

also riawin timeloop ("canon compliant" (still focusing on character so not canon compliant in that way)) ft. the attempts to make things work but that only goes Winston? more like Win State over giving up on that b/c he's in a situation where no matter what he does the other person chooses to see him as a nonperson (so canon compliant it's barely an au. the role sure exited the iterative loop upon giving up on all that (not possible to Win (the final Lose is others killing him))

[spineless-lobster]

Psychoanalyze Me

My sins will not be forgiven.

[faoighiche]

PARTNERS : @wonder-in-wings | @mortemoppetere | @eldritchaccident TIMING : Early December. LOCATION : A shed in the Pines. SUMMARY : Burrow and Parker go to a secret shed to discuss their plans. Emilio and Teddy interrupt. Payback is a bitch. WARNINGS : Drug manipulation (mention), domestic abuse (mention), eye trauma (mention), alcoholism, unsanitary

The steam rising from the cup felt pleasant on Burrow’s nose. Well, the thing that was her “nose,” molded by the glamour encasing her. She took a sip of her tea: black with a squirt of lemon and a spoonful of honey. It was not as good as the honey from Nectarfell; an unfortunate nostalgia she could not remove. She could barely remember the taste now, just left with the knowledge that the honey from the human store was lacking somehow. It lingered on her tongue longer than necessary before she swallowed. It filled her with warmth, which was much needed as the air grew colder. She hated the winter months. It killed her parasites and made her tendrils slow to help. But she would continue to push through, for their sake. It was the reason why she found herself there, in the woods with a killer of her kind. Necessary uneases to be the proper protector she was made to be. 

Burrow was familiar with winter’s slow embrace of death, but the ways of ironmongers were not as clear. Of course, she had heard the nightmares they bring, as all fae children did. But it was always through the eyes of others, not her own. She watched the man curiously. The binds on him were strong and firm; she could feel how they writhed around his neck. But still, she wondered, what would he do without them? Where would he strike first? Would it be quick? Would he watch her bleed out? What would be done of her body? She would see it, eventually, done to another. Her morbid curiosity sated through another necessary unease. She would have it readily, the same as the mediocre honey. She took another sip. 

“There it is.” Burrow pointed to the dilapidated shed. It was easily missed, appearing as another collection of shrubs and moss amongst the wild floor. It had been claimed by nature, but since she was a being of pure nature, she knew it would not mind her use. Not that she would let it stop her. It would serve her just as any. “We can discuss more... sensitive matters in there.” A vagueness she knew he would understand. 

—

The writhing mass of insects taking a temporary human shape wasn’t the only being that walked along in the forest that day that would rather have not been out there. Parker also disliked cold weather, even as it was being staved off periodically by each sip of the hot drink in his hands - white Earl Grey with… he wasn’t sure. Bergamot oil. Something citrus-y, he wasn’t really thinking about it. No, instead he was thinking about the way his blood churned in his veins as he walked alongside Burrow. The way his joints stiffened with each brush of brisk wind on his exposed skin. The way he could feel her eyes on him as she was likely studying him. He still couldn’t figure out why; was it the scars that lined his body like cracks on ceramics? Was it how much they had in common despite being on entirely opposite sides of the scale? He felt his teeth grit under pursed lips, the phantom sensation of feeling the deals pressing into his skin though he were tugging against a chain. ‘No matter how much they might seem to be, fae are not and will never be human. Never forget that, boy.’

He just knew that he couldn’t look at her for very long, not unless he wanted to add the feeling of his mind starting to race to his list of sensations. It had been a while now since that Fateful encounter in the forest, when she had bound him to several different deals, each one engraved on the inside of his skull and wrapped around his neck. And yet, despite all of this, Parker still longed to observe her, to take her apart, see how she operated. Add her to his collection. Just a piece. ‘It’s a shame you can’t; I’d love to see that happen.’ It was. He felt himself tightly coiled like the eternal spring he was but his mind was in disharmony regarding acting on that tension - what would he have been able to do if she attacked him? He wasn’t able to think about that at the time he was unfavorably restrained. Which part of it ended with regards serving her goal? She said she wouldn’t kill him, but the Warden knew as well as anyone how much someone could live without.

But then he thought, there wasn’t anything he could’ve done. It was pointless to think about, in that case. Not thinking about it was easier said than done and he tried to turn his mind into being more aware of their surroundings - how many steps it took to get to where they were going, how her tempo was, the sounds she made. The time of day, feeling each time his blood washed over itself in microcosmic waves in his veins.

If there was something fortunate about Burrow, it was that she was similar to Metzli when she didn’t expect small talk. Their journey was one in relative silence, going from Steeper’s Stop to pick up their drinks to the Greenhorn, the trail she had specified to him until the duo arrived at the abandoned structure. Parker’s blue-eyed stare danced over the details of the shed, immediately recalling the similarities it shared to his workshop; how intricately it hid among the foliage, the underbrush and patchy fuzz. How unassuming the exterior felt. How long it had been there, unappreciated until it was found by two individuals that were likely equally as unappreciated. “Very well.” He finally stole a glance sideways at her, uncharacteristically brief before pulling his gaze away once more and motioning for her to lead the way inside the discarded structure. 

—

For the most part, Emilio tended to prefer hunting alone. Other hunters were difficult to trust these days, especially after the various… altercations he’d had with a few of the ones in town. Hunting with nonhunters stressed him out for an entirely different reason, each moment of action tinged with an undercurrent of stress that something might happen, that they might end up dead, that it would be his fault. Hunting alone was a much simpler ordeal, even if it tended to leave him in worse shape than he might have found himself with backup involved. 

But hunting alone had also become a tad more difficult as of late. Sharing a house with Teddy meant that they were aware of his comings and goings, and it was difficult to hide where he was going when he headed out on a hunt. Teddy was smart enough to notice when he went out with more weaponry on him than usual, and they cared enough to prefer it when he didn’t go out alone on those days. Sometimes, Emilio could talk them out of it. Some days, they managed to out-stubborn him. Today happened to be one of the latter.

He trudged along beside them through what remained of the fall leaves on the forest floor, tense and uneasy as he always was when someone joined him on a hunt. The familiar paranoia crawled under his skin, eyes darting to the treeline as Teddy rambled on in a rant likely only designed to keep Emilio from growing too anxious in the silence. At least the adrenaline that came with the paranoid anxiety eased some of the pain in his knee. It had been worse since the ordeal with Parker, but it wasn’t bothering him as much in this moment. It was a small silver lining, but it was there all the same.

It was because of his paranoid scanning of the treeline that he spotted them first. A hand shot out to stop Teddy, a glance telling them to stop talking. Subtly, Emilio guided them behind a nearby tree. His heart was pounding in his chest, anxiety reaching a fever pitch. “Someone’s up ahead,” he said lowly. “I think — Christ, Teds, I think it’s that asshole. Had a kid with him. Shit.” His mind was reeling, hand already going for a knife. “How much do I have to pay you to get you to make a break for it and let me handle this?”

—

A wave doesn’t know that it’s a wave until it crashes. Until the swell rises far above its apogee and clear water gives way to frothy foam. Breaking against rocks, the wave wonders where the ocean went, where the shore began. Why its journey was cut short, why its water became separated. The wave loses its identity in the tidepools until the rest of the ocean comes to greet it. In, out. Teddy didn’t know how they’d react upon seeing the monster who’d mutilated them. More than just cut, Parker Wright disrupted all sense of safety the demon had. Took away agency along with a tail. 

If you’d have asked them, it’s just as likely that they would have assumed fear to be their all consuming response. That they might flee, might put as much distance between the predator and themself as humanly possible. Or that they’d freeze up, petrified heart, stone still body. What they wouldn’t have expected, wouldn’t have guessed in a million years, was the anger. 

Maybe it was a protective thing, seeing the person beside the beast. Sipping at a warm drink, having a stroll. Had he lured them out there? Was he planning on drugging them too? Or was it another exercise in repaying a gregarious kindness with senseless violence? Teddy didn’t know. Teddy didn’t stop to think. Teddy didn’t reply to Emilio, but they didn’t rush ahead either. 

Instead, they shared a look. Determination lacing the righteous rage that seeped through every pore. In a weird way, Teddy wasn’t quite so fragile now. Whatever harm they received they could return in kind. Give the monster a taste of its own medicine, so to speak. A hungry growl peppered the back of Teddy’s throat. Something far more animalistic, far more suited for their old demonic form. Sure, they took the beast out of their body but the instincts still remained. 

“Let’s get a whole hand this time. Think it’ll go nice over the fireplace.” 

—

Though Burrow appeared to slip through the door, appearances were often deceiving. Just as her face was false to the truth of her nature, her body was as well. Her presence far outreached the limits of that physical form. She was everywhere because they were everywhere. She was the mistletoe that swayed in the crisp air. She was the cordyceps that descended to the ground with its ant. She was the worms feeding in the tree’s phloem. She was also the ones who were trampled upon. There was a presence that pressed into her dodders. It could be anything in those woods. True seclusion was never a guarantee. Luckily, she was also her precious vines. A whisper that turned to a steady drum as she had trekked through the woods. Still, her vines were not as close as the others. A distance she had ensured herself. They were far from the human nest and all the fires and poisons that sought to hurt them. But they watched, patiently, in preparation for if anything were to hurt her. It was why she chose this location. If the ironmonger caused trouble (sneaking through the weaves of her deals) or if an outsider did the same (sneaking through the trees of the forest) then her vines would heed her call. 

Burrow entered the shed. She was greeted by a waterfall of light, dripping through the holes in the ceiling. It fell onto the leaves, ones who had been misplaced since her last visit. Another had been in there. She felt no warmth in the air, heard no sounds in the shadows, or tasted no presence on the wood. Whatever it was had left. Presumably. She spared another moment to search the interior of those forgotten walls, only remembered by those who were not of human society. Nothing else caused her concern. Despite the leaves, it was just as she had left it last. 

Burrow turned to the ironmonger without a care for prelude. She had been musing for too long to delay this any further. “I will use myself as bait, in a sense.” Her voice was low. Not a whisper, but a tone the wood easily claimed for itself. Absorbing her voice before the outside could listen. “I will talk to the fae. I will determine what they know. If what they know is favorable, I will lure them to a different location.” Different in many ways. The fae will congregate wherever they could cause trouble, and this human nest seemed supple for the thing. She had been keeping her eyes on areas like the shed. Things that had lost their purpose. She would bless them with usefulness. “You will be waiting at that location… or you may follow us. Whichever is better for your… methods.” That morbid curiosity returned in a flash of her eyes and a catch in her breath. Her fingers tingled as if she could snatch that knowledge off his tongue. “What are your methods? What are your thoughts on the plan?” 

—

Had his mind been more reminiscent of a child, ever having been full of wonder and whimsy, the aspect of stepping trepidatiously into an obscured, abandoned shed that had long since been enveloped in the mystery of the wood would’ve been excitable to him. Someplace new, someplace to explore, to imagine, to let it hold onto his secrets. As it was now, though, as Parker followed the nymph into the shed with its particles dancing in the rays of light, he only felt a modicum of relief; while he didn’t like being restrained at all, he did find a semblance of solace in enclosed spaces. His house was similar in its perceived protection for him, as was his workshop. 

But this wasn’t a place that he found himself. No, Burrow had found it and Parker reliably placed his hands on his utility belt in a self-soothing gesture as he glanced around the interior of the structure mildly. He wasn’t familiar with the place, but she was, putting him at yet another disadvantage. A studious gaze fell to the floor, as though anticipating stepping into another trap - ever since that day, he had been considerably more careful about where he placed his body, his steel-toed boots, extremities. He was nothing if not a learning creature. That same gaze snapped back to her in her glamored form, knowing better what lay under the shimmery veil of misdirection but taking himself to task to look at her as she spoke.

Blunt, to the point. He didn’t… hate it. In fact, he almost hated that she was speaking so quietly he was having trouble hearing her more and his head turned subconsciously. “The plan is satisfactory.” He replied first after a pause as his mind ran through the ever-present list of possible contingencies, setbacks, shortcomings. It was essentially the same as any other fae and fortunately, his extended time with Rhett had since made him more aware of effective interrogation techniques. Keeping his good ear facing her, Parker began to slowly walk around the area, a subtle form of his pacing when he was more stressed. “My methods are… quiet.” His right hand that rested on his belt thumbed gently over the four, fluid-filled, needle-like daggers that were lined neatly on it. Ever since his encounter with Emilio, he had done a little bit of experimentation to find a stronger formula, something that worked on things like balam and other hunters. Two of them held that new formula; he wanted to see if it worked. “I expect something.” He looked over at the nymph. “And when it’s not given to me, I take it by force.” After a measure of deliberation, Parker’s other hand reached into one of the many pouches on the same belt and he pulled out a vial no bigger than the length of one of his medial phalanges, the glass thin and a clear liquid that glinted in the light that made it into the structure sitting tightly inside. “I subdue.” He explained, slowly, carefully extending his hand, three fingers and a thumb caging the vial as he offered it out for Burrow to take. “If you can’t get the information out of them, I’ll sedate and take something of theirs.” He suggested. “As I mentioned before, sometimes they’re more likely to talk if they’re threatened with loss.”

—

Of course Teddy wouldn’t walk away. Emilio hadn’t expected them to, even if he’d hoped for it. Teddy, he’d learned, had a passion about them that wasn’t dissimilar to Emilio’s own. Even if there was some shot that the hunter might have been able to convince them to leave if it were just the two of them and Parker in the woods, the presence of the third figure, the one who was likely well on her way to being the sadistic warden’s next victim, erased any shot of it. Teddy was too kind to leave even a stranger to the same nauseating fate they’d faced for themself. That kindness was a terrifying thing; Emilio couldn’t help but worry about where it would leave them in the end.

Scowling, he glared ahead at the pair. What had Parker said to the kid to convince her to come out in the woods with him? There was no telling. He glanced over to Teddy as they spoke, grunting in agreement. “Rather take his fucking head off.” Last time, Parker’s drugs had allowed him to get a drop on Emilio. The slayer hadn’t been expecting it, hadn’t been ready for it. He knew better this time. This time, he was walking away on top. He’d make sure of it.

He tilted his chin upwards as Parker and the figure with him disappeared into the shed, glancing back towards Teddy. “Can’t stop you from coming,” he acknowledged. “But if shit goes sideways, take the kid and get out. He’ll kill you. He’ll kill her. I don’t think he’ll kill me.” It was a guess at best. Parker had every reason to kill Emilio, and might very well have been planning on it regardless of whether or not they picked this fight now. Given the finger hanging in a shadowbox on the wall back at Teddy’s house, he had plenty of reason to. But it wasn’t a bad guess, either. Hunters hesitating to kill other hunters was the reason Emilio hadn’t gone after Parker sooner, and the fact that Parker was evidently friendly with Rhett might offer Emilio a reprieve that neither Teddy nor the kid in the shed would be promised. “I need you not to fight me on this one, Teds. Okay? Shit goes sideways, you get her out. That’s what’s important.”

—

“You aren’t the one who can regrow bones by snapping his.” Teddy leveled a hardened stare at Emilio. Always wanting to play the sacrifice game, wasn’t he? Here, back in the snow and the concrete room that preceded it. Glimpses of it poked through in every scrap the pair had wormed their way into. Emilio would always try and take the hit, even if he couldn’t actually take it. Even if the slayer had an inkling that the warden wasn’t going to kill him outright, it wasn’t a bet Ted was willing to make. 

Still, an ache persisted in their chest. The same fear he held for them, they reflected back. Neither willing to let the other make the compromise at their expense. Teddy reached out, hand taking the detective’s for a brief moment. Their stare softened, their hand squeezed. “All three of us are getting out of this. Only one getting left behind is a shitheel named Parker Wright.” 

Teddy turned back. Facing the small shack, scanning every inch of it for anything that might give them the upper hand. Small, not quite sturdy enough for them to attempt to come from above, not without giving away any surprise they had. From what they knew, Parker was an ambush predator. Somehow getting unsuspecting victims into a state of vulnerability, despite the severe nature he possessed, only to then subdue them into a malleable piece of meat for him to butcher.

If the time they lost to his methods before was any indication, the man was slow. Methodical. A fucking sociopath rivaling Patrick goddamn Bateman. They had a few moments before the scalpel at worst. Though Teddy preferred to stop the surgery before the sedatives. Before the snake’s venom ever had a chance of taking its toll. Before the kid had to feel like their world was torn, flipped, and changed irrevocably. Not everyone was lucky enough to get a whole new body after such an altercation. 

—

Burrow looked down to the needles before she knew their true purpose. It was clear from the way his fingers curled that it was important to his hunt. She wondered how much it would hurt if that thin metal pierced her skin. It likely would not have caused even a gasp of acknowledgement, the bite as small as her parasites. Of course. Too much pain was not quiet, nor did it invoke charity. She thought of what he had told her online. His interactions with the fae; his fight with the balam. At first believed to be his way of questioning; his way of self defense. No. The two were connected. This is how he hunted. How wonderfully curious. The ironmongers were the same as her: takers. Something of a smile pulled at her lips. “I see.” Her mouth returned to a line. “So, that is how the Ironmongers hunt? They ‘take’ until the fae dies?” It would explain why they were so feared. As a child, she had merely taken a piece of the fae’s domain. To take such a thing was owed to her by her purpose and nature. Even that simple thing had caused so much fear and hatred. “You may take what you want from the fae. I want to take their knowledge.” She paused. “If the fae does not die, I will bind them to prevent them from warning others of the plan. You will threaten to take more if the fae does not accept the bind.” She may give them some of her parasites for their troubles… depending on their injuries. She would not place her parasites in crumbled homes, much like the building the two were in.

Burrow took the vial. It could have been mistaken for empty, containing a liquid of no color or fizz, except for the faint line at the top that shifted with her movement. She studied it in a way that she could still see Parker through its clarity, not fully taking her eyes off him. Still, her concentration did wonder at the implications of his statements. Her heart shuddered. The thing nestled peacefully in her palm had almost led to her demise. Without that knowledge, it was easily overlooked. How fitting, that a thing so small and unassuming would serve the parasites. It may be far more useful than the ironmonger would know. She was not impulsive: her vines had been making progress to her ultimate plan. Still, she was not opposed to adding other strategies in securing her hold on the fae. She would likely use multiple methods due to the multiplicity of the fae and their nature. She was eager to see the sedative’s capabilities. “How much of the sedative is needed to sedate one fae? Is the amount of the sedative that is needed different between types of fae? Are there consequences to the body if the fae is sedated for a prolonged time?”

—

“Not quite.” Parker replied in regards to her first inquiry. ‘Why are you so broken?’ His brother shouted at him from a memory that flitted through his thoughts, a specter that walked so effortlessly through the walls of his mind on occasion. ‘Why can’t you just fix your shit?’ He recalled the memory with such clarity, even if Walker had apologized months later after they hadn’t spoken throughout the duration of those months. “Generally, Wardens are slower to jump mindlessly into an altercation but they’re still killers.” He explained, recalling Rhett, recalling Walker and the rest of his family. “I’m… an outlier.” He admitted after a pause. “...Very well. Make sure you tell me if they will have your parasites on them before I proceed.”

The entomid took the vial, and a small, involuntary pulse, as though he’d been pricked, coursed through his fingers as Parker could feel his blood recoiling from her brief touch. It wanted to retaliate, press itself against his skin to protect him from her. The Warden didn’t display this sensation, however, and instead collected his drink from wherever he’d subconsciously put it down, taking another warming sip, feeling the steam entering his cold nose. While part of him felt as though it’d be appropriate to communicate just how he was a stranger even to other Wardens, he didn’t; she had moved on, and he was content to, as well. ‘Just don’t show any weakness, boy.’ His father warned. ‘People think you’re a killer. Fae won’t be scared of you if they know you just take pieces of ‘em.’ 

But that was where his father was wrong, surely?

Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to add more introspection to his mind that already had too many gears turning, even more than his usual number. ‘Do you ever stop thinking?’ The answer to that question was obvious. “Generally, the amount that you hold in your hand is sufficient for most fae that I’ve encountered.” He explained, gesturing to it. “It has to enter the bloodstream to be efficient. I’m not sure if it works on leshy and it’s less effective on lampades.” Parker took another sip, his other hand still resting on his belt. “I’m proficient enough in my duty that one dose usually works.” A pause. ‘Don’t tell her. If she finds out you aren’t a murderer, she won’t think you’re worth anything.’ The pause made way for a small inhale and a twinge of his brow. “Prolonged sedation leads to sluggish neurological activity, numbness in the limbs and appendages and on one occasion, an accidental overdose led to respiratory arrest.

“...I’m not sure if it would work on you, either.” He added, blue eyes darting to her face once more, his expression shifting slightly to be more absorbing. His imagination replaced her glamor with what he’d seen in the forest, a slide from a projector being replaced over his visual perception of the world. His breath caught in his throat and Parker shook his head to bring himself back to wherever reality was. “I’ve never… encountered someone with your unique form before.”

—

Frustration boiled in his chest, the irritation clear in the scowl twisting his lips. “You can’t just say things will be fine,” he argued. “You wanted me to make a plan, I’m making a plan. He won’t kill another hunter. If he were going to, he would have done it in the woods when he put me under.” It was the first time he’d admitted to Teddy that Parker had sedated him. In all honesty, it wasn’t something Emilio liked thinking about. Control was something important to him. When he felt he’d lost it, he tended to lash out. And with those drugs, Parker had taken away his ability to do even that. But even the idea of a repeat performance of the ordeal was better than the idea of Teddy or the kid losing their lives to this madman. “I’m going to get us all out. Okay? I’m going to make sure everyone makes it out of this still breathing. I’m just asking for your help doing it. If things go wrong, get the kid out. I’ll get me out. She’s important.” More important, but he wouldn’t say it. They didn’t have time for an argument.

Which was why Emilio didn’t wait around for Teddy to agree with him. He trusted them. He trusted that, when it came down to it, they’d trust him back. All three of them were going to be just fine. And Parker Wright — Emilio made note of the last name, just in case — was going to die alone and bloody in the floor of this shed. With any luck, he’d be left there to rot and Emilio wouldn’t have to come up with a lie to tell Rhett or Jade. Either way, he’d be fine.

He moved towards the shed, figuring Teddy would follow along behind him. He tried to keep the noise low, though it was far from his top concern. He’d noted during their fight that Parker didn’t always track sound with proficiency. Hearing didn’t seem to be the warden’s strongest sense. Stopping at the door to the shed, Emilio strained his own ears, momentarily envious of rangers and their advanced hearing. He could make out the low murmur of voices inside, though he couldn’t hear what they were saying. There were definitely two, though. Parker hadn’t drugged the kid yet. That meant they weren’t too late.

Turning back to Teddy, Emilio did his best to communicate this without speaking. He nodded towards the door to the shed, then gestured to himself. Gesturing to Teddy, he held up his index finger. I’ll go in first. You wait a minute. Better to let Parker think Emilio was alone to begin with. Being underestimated allowed the wielding of a powerful weapon.

—

There was little to do about making an actual plan with the short time they had between themselves and the shack. This was probably the best opportunity they had to get at the man, even if they didn’t have a kid in there to save. Hunters could be elusive if they wanted to. Even if they were arrogant pricks who thought themself the apex collector of all things not his. Teddy bristled, but nodded. Positioning themself the best way they could. Out of sight, a hell of a surprise. 

Watching the man leap into action (despite the knot in their stomach, despite the pounding in their chest, despite their wishes that he would do anything else) was a thing of wonder. Emilio was always on guard. Always ready for the next rattlesnake. But this? This was drive, precision. His muscles tensed in a way Teddy had only seen once or twice before. Readied and poised. He was the snake this time. A viper of vengeance and protection. 

Teddy wouldn’t repeat the thoughts it inspired out loud.  

They waited for the signal. Waited for the right moment to step in. Careful. Observant. They could do that, they could be that for him. But goddamn they really wish they had a better set of weapons than the three wooden stakes, two daggers and a set of not-exactly-brass knuckles that they had thrown in the fanny pack as a joke. If they had known the target was going to be him tonight, well. There’d be a whole different set. A scalpel, for one, seemed prudent. 

—

“Oh.” Burrow’s voice chirped in a single note of disappointment. “Well. The others are wasteful, then.” When they die, all the body’s offerings die with them. Though, even in life, there were those whose offerings were pitiful. “Yes. I will not have my parasites in a damaged host. You will avoid excessive damage the few times… I want the fae to live.” A want that almost had its hand in those binds that connected all fae. Hers were tattered and faded from neglect, but still, she felt it. An annoying persistence of her youth. No. The want was for who truly mattered. She looked to her arm — passed the false skin wrapped around her. “The fae will serve us fully if we can claim both information and food from them.” Serve them just as well as the thing that laid in her hand. Her gaze traveled up to look upon it again.

One vial, one fae. A thing smaller than a finger could have brought down the entirety of her. It had come from a pouch which was joined by others; others Burrow was certain held more of the same. Many pouches, many fae. Well, for however long the effects lasted. “How long is the fae sedated from one dose?” She could devise a system. Jab a dose into the skin upon certain time intervals. The consequences of that were not dire. The fae did not need to be physically or mentally capable, they simply needed to be alive. Alive to keep the barrier up; alive to lure in their domain. Their death would lead to the death of her own, as all parasites did when their hosts died. She would ensure their survival, if only barely. 

As if the gaze would pierce in lieu of his needles, the ironmonger stared. Burrow returned it, piercing the same. Looking for something. She had become adept at observing the humans, for all their survival relied on it. But this man was a curious thing. A blank. An ironmonger indeed. “And you will never know if it does, because-” 

Her parasites called out to Burrow. Something, something, something. They did not know what they sensed, for they were things of no thought or care. But still, they sensed something. A something that was approaching. Her gaze on Parker sharpened. Had he invited others to this meeting? If he thought that would be rid of her, he would soon see the consequences of breaking a deal. A likely outcome that had yet to be proven, so she pressed her finger to her lips. A silent shush; a command for silence. Then her hand moved to an inner pocket of her jacket, where her swiss knife lay. She grabbed it, slipping the vial in the pocket as exchange. Her thumb pressed on the blade, ready to swipe it out at a moment’s notice. 

A moment that came with the bang on the door. Feeble from decay, it relented to the intruder’s wish and clattered to the floor.

—

The numbers that ran through Parker’s head could’ve been visible for a flash as he glanced up in thought. How long did it keep one fae under? Again, it relied on physiology, the type of fae, and sometimes even the location of the point of entry. Instead of replying in a timely manner, he instead gave the impression that he was still thinking about the specifics when he noticed that their eyes had locked. It was inherently comfortable, but not because of their contrasting species, their similar behaviors, the two sides of the same coin or the damned reflection that the Warden hated looking at. He always hated eye contact, which Walker was sure to mention on occasion was ‘odd’ considering Parker’s proclivity to stare. He didn’t waver, though, and instead her affirmation that he wouldn’t be able to test whatever theory might’ve formulated in his brain was another small, but notable reminder that they were tethered together by the deals he was coerced into. One of his blue eyes twitched faintly, as though irritated at her rejection but he remained silent, not content with her refusal but begrudgingly accepting it as he was aware of the words wrapped around his throat. The Warden was expecting the rest of a sentence that had been cut short and where it had faltered, her stare on him hardened. He reciprocated with a semblance of a frown, not sure what had happened over the course of a few seconds to warrant both the abandonment of a statement and the glare of the nymph. He was nothing if not able to quickly study body language though, and Parker felt himself instinctively tensing even more than his usual preparation as Burrow herself indicated for him to be silent, reaching for what he assumed was a weapon. Did she bring back-up? Was this actually the setup that Parker had anticipated but in a moment of weakness, he hadn’t allowed himself to be prepared enough? Abruptly, he dropped his cup, splashing the soft wood with steaming liquid as the heat interacted with the frigid temperatures outside the confines of the vessel and he barely had time to turn to face the door when something - or someone - had caved it in. One arm flying up instinctively to protect his eyes from dust particles, plant matter and wood splinters, his other hand quickly reached for the broad dagger from the holster on his thigh. 

—

The knife he gripped in his hand was longing to taste Parker’s blood. He wanted to take the warden apart slowly, wanted to take his remaining nine fingers one by one before starting on his toes, wanted to bleed him dry little by little, bit by bit. But that couldn’t be the priority now, he knew. Parker had a kid in there with him. A kid who was likely about to meet a fate similar to the one Teddy had suffered, or Teagan, or the nymph he’d caught Parker taking to shreds the last time he’d confronted him. Parker deserved everything Emilio wanted to give him, but the kid didn’t deserve to be caught in the crossfire. He’d meant what he said to Teddy before — she was the priority here. Getting her out, keeping her safe, that was what mattered.

So he’d make it quick.

The muffled voices inside the cabin died suddenly. It was hard to determine if it was the result of fronts being dropped and drugs being administered or if he’d been detected. Safer, he knew, to assume the latter. The element of surprise was a powerful weapon but, like most deadly things, it could be turned on the person wielding it fairly easily. To assume you weren’t in control when you were was a pleasant surprise. To assume you were in control when you weren’t was a fatal mistake. So Emilio settled on the former, assumed his advantage had been lost. He hoped that Teddy remained an undetected trump card, glanced over to them with a scowl, hoping to warn them against any drive to act too quickly. It was the last look he’d spare them for a while. Parker knew of him as someone who acted alone. Let him keep thinking it. Let the warden’s superiority complex be his downfall.

Squaring his shoulders, Emilio opened the door, eyes darting over the scene. The kid was still conscious. She was holding something that looked like the weapon Parker had used to drug him in the woods before. Was this the warden’s way of playing with his meal before striking? Emilio wouldn’t put it past him. “You should go,” he said quietly, ignoring Parker in favor of addressing the kid. “This isn’t the kind of man you want to be around.”

—

The knife under Burrow’s sleeve stayed firm in her grasp, its blade not yet fully revealed from its sheath. It was not her moment to strike. A parasite rarely attacked, it simply waited for an opportunity. So, she waited the same, gauging this intruder. He was similar to her associate, baring skin that told a life of violence with eyes that sought more blood. A confirmation for her initial suspicions — except — it was not her blood the stranger sought. No, that bloodlust was directed at Parker. She was only given a warning, as if she was not a danger herself. As if she was some poor victim. It was the stranger who was the fool. While she would not weep upon Parker’s demise, she did not want him dead. He was useful, and she was certainly not finished with him yet. 

Though her face stayed facing the intruder, her eyes flicked over to Parker. Burrow waited for reciprocity, their eyes meeting, before calling to her parasites. A cauliflower fungus feasted on the dead wood of that long forgotten shed. Its cluster of mushrooms was advantageous: a nook just by the opening of the door. Her influence wrapped around those mushrooms and directed their aim. A swirling cloud of white spores erupted in the air, right into the intruder’s face. In the same moment, she mouthed to Parker: There is another one outside. Her tick could see them, those human shoes lurking beyond the walls. It could not decipher much else, for its view was small and its mind much smaller. 

Burrow seemed to follow the advice of the known intruder. She threw aside a hanging blanket, revealing a broken window. Its glass had long ago lost its dangerous edge, so she slipped through it with ease. Out into the world, she looked to where her tick had seen the human. There they were, somehow standing both stiff and unsteady. She kept her gaze on them, watching and waiting. But she did react, though not noticeably. Her influence reached out further, invisible tendrils branching from her body the same as the mycelium below. They coiled around her vines who were eager to finally hear her call. But she did not call to them all. Her call was focused on the ones who had already satisfied their urges. Those who had claimed — those who could run. A few began to run to her.

—

He didn’t afford himself much time to shield his eyes from getting anything in them - each moment was one that compromised him for an incoming attack. The dagger removed from its holster rose in a defensive position as he forced his eyes open. As he did, a familiar voice managed its way into his good ear.

Emilio. 

Parker’s nostrils flared as an involuntary surge of anger tore its way through his tense body. He wondered how the hell Emilio managed to find him out here, in the middle of seemingly nowhere. He wondered if it was stupid luck or some semblance of actual skill, though that wonder was quickly discarded - he refused to acknowledge that Emilio might’ve been good at anything. ‘Oh c’mon, surely other hunters can be skilled at things.’ Walker suggested, nudging him in the shoulder with an elbow once over ten years ago. The Warden’s gaze narrowed, not daring to remove his icy glare from the slayer. Last time, he got several knives thrown at him. The space they were in now was much smaller; surely that wouldn’t have worked. 

Last time, he got caught off-guard, as well. And last time, the fae he was with was unconscious. So while he was expecting some empty dialogue to be shared again, Parker wasn’t expecting the slayer to address Burrow first. A recommendation for her to leave. An assumption that the parasite nymph was one of his targets, which was both correct and incorrect. How Parker longed to dismantle Burrow, find out what was under her squirming, writhing visage. He wanted to study her, an intense fascination that dug into his brain sometimes. ‘It’s funny because it’s like a parasite.’ 

And he couldn’t. 

Just like he told Rhett he wasn’t going to kill Emilio. 

Those unspoken promises, one of which he felt around his neck whenever he was near Burrow and the other souring his saliva as he stared down the slayer, threatened to leave his mind as he resisted the rage that wanted to overwhelm him. The hand that his finger had been cut from thudded with a phantom pain that had quickly since been ignored and forgotten until this moment in time. Instead of indulging in that urge, however,, he managed to tear his eyes off the slayer and he looked at Burrow for a moment, as though to communicate that this wasn’t his idea. Whether that communication was effective, there was no way for Parker to know but as steely blue met dark brown, she had summoned something from the ground, something that plumed and blossomed like a ghostly explosion of decompositional flora and something, presumably spores, were sprayed into the air, directed at Emilio. Subconsciously, Parker started to hold his breath and he took a step back. Burrow had mouthed something to him, but though  he was adept at reading lips, he wasn’t sure if he understood clearly. There was someone else outside? Well, he supposed there was now as Burrow took the opportunity of distraction to escape from the decrepit building, leaving the two hunters inside as the Warden turned his gaze back to Emilio. He still wouldn’t strike first, even as he held the advantage. It was unbecoming so instead he backed up until he hit the far wall, silently, the dagger still held in front of him to block whatever would come his way first.

—

He’d been expecting an attack from Parker. A lunge, a throwing knife, maybe some attempt to hit him with those fucking sedatives. He’d been prepared for any and all forms of hunter attacks, body tensing in anticipation even as he addressed the nymph first. He hadn’t been expecting the nymph to come at him. A cloud of some kind of dust exploded all around him, invading his lungs and eyes. He shut the latter as quickly as he could, an instinctive attempt to prevent damage, but he couldn’t stop some of the shit from getting in them. Emilio grunted, taking a step back and bringing a hand up to rub the intrusion away.

Being blinded, even momentarily, wasn’t ideal. His heart thudded at the very concept, paranoia settling deep into his veins. He tilted his head, listening for Parker’s movements and gripping the hilt of his knife so tightly his knuckles went white around it. Why had the kid attacked him? Some terrified inability to tell friend from foe? Or… Was she working with Parker? The very thought seemed laughable. Parker didn’t strike him as the type to work with a fae, and he couldn’t imagine anyone who knew half of what he’d done teaming up with him, either. (Except for another hunter, of course; that was a different matter entirely.)

Questions swirled in his mind as he finally forced his eyes open. His vision was still blurry, but blurry was better than blind. The kid was gone. He could only assume she’d vanished in his blindness, and regardless of the reason behind her attack, that was probably a good thing. If she was working with Parker, it meant one less foe to worry about. He didn’t love the idea that she might stumble across Teddy, but Teddy had their healing and he’d much rather they go against the kid than Parker. If she wasn’t working with Parker, it was good that she’d gotten away. 

His eyes locked with Parker’s, anger burning through them. The warden hadn’t attacked while he was blinded; Emilio was almost insulted. But only almost. In a fight, letting your pride cost you an advantage would only ever cause you to lose, and Emilio had no intention of doing that. If Parker wasn’t smart enough to take the advantage, Emilio would ensure he lost it. He was a scrappy fighter, used to fighting opponents more powerful than him. That was the nature of a hunter; while genetics granted them some useful perks, the things they were hunting were always going to have the upper hand. And right now, for Emilio, Parker was one of those things.

He shot forward, adrenaline granting him speed in spite of his useless leg. Whoever’s side the nymph may have been on, there was no way to know how long she’d remain out of the fight. Unlike his opponent, Emilio wouldn’t let any advantage slide from his hands. He feigned an attack on the left before ducking, attempting to plunge his knife into the right side of Parker’s chest instead. Finish it quickly, get out, get Teddy. That was the plan now.

—

The sudden flurry of activity wasn’t exactly what Teddy expected, but then again they barely knew what to expect at all. Emilio dove headfirst into the fray, but someone else jumped out almost just as quickly. Took the ex-demon more than a second to realize it was the kid. The one they were trying to protect. In succinct succession their expression shifted. From a hardened worry, all close knit brows and clenched jaws, to a relieved surprise. A smile ghosted their parted lips as their eyes widened. Almost blowing their cover by shouting something over to her. 

Instead, Teddy mimed an ‘are you okay?’ over to the kid. Shortly followed by a ‘get out of here, get to safety’. Though that was probably a bit harder to read. Lots of reassuring palms and frantic gestures to the wayside. Deep into the woods where a fae would be safe, right? The ex-demon knew a lot, but they were no expert. That being said, nature was kind to most of its guardians. 

With the kid out of the way, all that was left was the monster. Even before Teddy’s hand hit the handle on the door their heartbeat was the only thing they could hear. Any sounds of the scrape between the two hunters was drowned out and muted as everything began to sound as if it was underwater. No, that would’ve been comforting. This sounded more like they were being suffocated. Somehow, they knew it wouldn’t relent until they entered. Until they joined the fight. Until they won. Guess it was time to give the bastard a bit of his own medicine. 

The ex-demon burst through the door, following the path the hunter took. Hopefully putting themself between whatever Parker had planned and the man who assumed it was his job to take it. The adrenaline was pumping, their vision was blurred around the edges, but he was vivid at its center. 

“Remember me, asshole? My turn to take something.” 

—

Burrow returned the human’s silence for more of her own. A silence void of any meaning or offering. Unlike the human, who offered her a warning, the same as she had warned Parker of their presence. The two intruders were very concerned for her, despite never bothering to ask her wants. She did not want to leave — she wanted them to leave. Still, she continued on her walk as if she accepted this warning as well. It was Parker who hunted, who held a knife the moment he was born. Burrow did not run into a fight, but she would watch one. Hidden behind the skeleton of a bush, peering through its bare branches.

Though steps away, Burrow followed the human with her senses. My turn to take something. Curious. The person was clearly not a fae, but it seemed they were no human either. She doubted Parker would take from his own kin. Could this stranger be the balam he had once mentioned? Her eyes immediately dropped down to the stranger’s ass, but saw no signs of a dent. Nothing to indicate the missing of a tail, sealed behind that human skin. It did not rule out her suspicions, but it did not solve them either. She would have to wait if she wanted to learn the stranger’s nature. A curiosity she would forfeit, for revealing their nature could cause the death of Parker. Parker was her host, she would not let them kill him before his use was done. 

Burrow would not ask more from her fungi. It needed to save the rest of its spores for the proper time. Through the air, the tendrils of her energy searched for another. More diversions to stumble the strangers before her hounds arrived. Her tachinid flies heeded her call, weaving about her expansive presence. She swarmed them with her love, before urging them to swarm. Go to the cabin. The air around the shed’s door became littered in small dots. Unassuming and easily missed. Until she dug her essence into their wings, turning their silent flapping into a wail. A shriek that dug the same as her, writhing into the intruder’s ears. 

—

The movement was swift, as it tended to be, even with a disabled leg but it still wasn’t quick enough for Parker’s mental arsenal of contingencies. The fake-out was expected and tolerated in place of the Warden moving to block the incoming dagger to his chest as the clash of metal scraped through the cold air. He used the momentum (and the offset weight of the slayer favoring his good leg) to push Emilio away from him, creating some distance between the two when suddenly the third party that Burrow had warned him about made themselves present in the room, glaring at him. A short pause in thought to the question before the Warden raised a brow. “The show-off Bisexual.” He replied bluntly, straightening up for just a second before returning to his defensive position, stepping lightly as he was determined not to expose his back to either of them. He wasn’t accustomed to fighting two at once, but he was even less accustomed to retreating from a fight, especially one that seemed to churn in his mind on occasion. Parker was frustrated with how often he thought about the first fight with Emilio, how much time was wasted wondering what would happen if they encountered each other again. There was no respect, no begrudging acceptance that it was a fair fight and that Emilio had held his own despite his lack of skill, thought or cleverness. And the thought that Emilio didn’t tell anyone that he had lost that fight did more than irritate Parker; it infuriated him. The slayer had taken a finger but he lost. And yet no one had perceived it that way. Parker received no praise from Rhett for not killing his “brother”, Jade treated it like it was a joke and she was still friends with Emilio despite the latter’s poor decision. He was sure if he told Owen, that slayer would’ve made a sardonic comment about it. This was why he didn’t have any friends; they weren’t friends with him, they were acquaintances, people to use him until they got bored, until he did something that was bad enough to warrant them deciding not to be “friends” with him. Parker wasn’t a failure, despite that being all that he heard from his father’s echoing voice in his head ever since that day, chastising him for not striking the killing blow. He wasn’t a failure, despite finding himself in a ramshackle cabin with two people who wanted him dead with the fae that he had made deals to nowhere in sight. He wasn’t a failure. He couldn’t have been. He wasn’t a failure, as the three started to engage in a desperate struggle before a loud screeching could be heard outside. It only reached half of him but the other half spontaneously wanted to shut down. Instead, he took the opportunity to slash out at one of Teddy’s arms while his other hand was busy preparing itself for another attempted stab from Emilio.

—

Parker dodged the attack — expected, but frustrating all the same. Emilio would have liked to have ended the whole ordeal before Teddy came onto the scene at all, because he knew that was only a matter of time. Teddy disliked the idea of letting Emilio take a fight on his own, even if fighting was what Emilio was for, what he was good at. They’d come to help, because they cared about him. He remembered the way they’d looked just speaking about Parker on the floor of their kitchen, how small they’d seemed. He’d wanted to make a corpse of the warden so that when Teddy came barging in, they’d find themself avenged, protected. He wanted to show Teddy the same… warmth that they’d always offered to him, and he’d only ever known how to do that through violence. But Parker dodged the attack, and he was still breathing when Teddy barged in the door. It wasn’t ideal.

Neither was the way Emilio stumbled backwards as Parker shoved him. His leg had been worse since his last encounter with the warden; carrying even less weight than it used to, aching more than it had before. It was a weakness he knew the other hunter would capitalize on if he spotted it, and it was a weakness that was hard to miss in the way he stepped backwards now. “Don’t talk to them,” he snapped as Parker turned to Teddy, anger burning in his chest. 

He took another step forward, ready to go in for the kill, ready to turn the damn floor red. And then — the screech. Loud, unexpected. Two things that Emilio wasn’t much good with anymore, two things that tended to have an ill-effect on an addled mind. It disoriented him, made his ears hurt, made his eyes dart wildly from side to side as he searched for the source. Something’s wrong, his mind whispered, something’s here. It’s going to kill you, it’s going to kill them, don’t you get it? It’ll tear the world apart all over again. 

His eyes settled back on Parker just as the warden slashed out at Teddy, and any limited strategy the slayer possessed vanished with the glint of the warden’s blade. He was a rabid dog as he launched himself forward, eyes wild and settling nowhere for long. He was a flurry of movement — slashes, stabs, fists, teeth. Emilio was raised in a way that found him fighting for every ounce of life he had; moments like this saw that heritage shining through. The movements were without strategy, but unpredictable as a result. With that disorienting sound triggering the parts of his mind that never left Mexico, he was a hard thing to pin down.

—

Where the fuck did that noise come from? The ex-demon was reeling long before the screeching ended. Staggered as if it had been a physical blow. Maybe not as hard as the hunters would have hit, but a strike all the same. And it wasn’t the only one. The momentary disorientation was all Parker needed to slash out and strike skin. Blood, bright red and human seeped from Teddy’s wound. Jagged and deeper on one side than the other, an imperfect strike. Good. Hurt worse in the moment, but that seemed to be the kind of thing that pissed Parker off. Ted didn’t know much but they knew a perfectionist when they saw one. 

Was it the surprise of a second guest, they wondered, or the noise? Probably the former, Parker didn’t react quite as badly as Emilio did. Had the warden somehow caused that, was it part of the trap for the fae girl? Some supernatural creatures had extremely sensitive hearing, it was only logical to think some fae might as well. That it might be another of the coward’s tools like the drugs he’d hit Ted with before. The thought of which made their head spin, and their eyes snap towards the strange daggers on the man’s belt. 

The slash on their arm was not enough to stop Teddy, wasn’t enough for them to show their hand and give it back either. Too early to show what would happen. In a way, the stinging gash along their arm was a driving force. Painful, and weakening that arm quite a bit, but igniting a fire inside their chest all the same. Unfortunately, they weren’t the only bonfire lit by the action. Ted’s attention whipped around just in time to see Emilio lunge at the other hunter. Fuck. Right within range of the scorpion’s tail. 

So Teddy rushed at a different angle. Reaching out for a slash of their own, going for the belt that held those dangerous daggers. Metal met leather with a gnawing resistance, but Parker was far too tangled up in Emilio’s teeth (goddamn, now that was a mental image to savor) to stop the ex-demon from snapping the strip, then slinging it out of the belt loops. Quickly, they tossed the thing as if it was a live grenade. Far enough away from the fray that it might as well have been in a different state. This turn, however, served another purpose. Bait. Parker had wriggled one arm free, still had a blade of some kind in his hand. And Teddy had just presented him with a wide open target. Too enticing to ignore. 

—

Snapping orders on what and what not to do. An observation that no amount of bravado could hide the knowledge that Emilio’s leg wasn’t any better than last time; if his quick observation was correct, Parker wasn’t the only one who lost something in their last fight. It should’ve given him a flash of satisfaction, but he wasn’t allowed any time between frenzied attacks from Emilio, especially after he could feel his dagger striking flesh. Uneven, unsatisfying, but there just the same. The Warden didn’t even have time to examine the damage he’d done (or see the black blood that surely spilled from the wound as it did last time) when something seemed to ignite in Emilio, the latter growing even more erratic and careless, but also utilizing his enhanced speed in ways that made it impossible for Parker to block them all and soon enough, he had placed his focus once more on the other hunter. The two became almost intertwined with each other; arms banging against one another, legs crossed as they pushed against the ground while trying to stay standing, themselves. There were different attacks coming from every angle he could perceive and then some but he reacted as best as he could to each of them, opting to block the knife in favor of whatever else the slayer had at his disposal– ‘Wait did he just bite you??’ Walker asked incredulously as the Warden sucked in a breath of surprise when he felt teeth being buried in his arm. Somehow, he was expecting that less than any stab wound and the hand that wasn’t holding the knife grappled for Emilio’s curly brown hair in an attempt to pry him off. Parker was so focused on being caught off-guard like that that he wasn’t aware of Teddy coming in from one of his blind spots and he realized with a sensation far, far stronger than the surprise that painted his face upon being bitten that his utility belt had been removed. Abruptly abandoning any endeavor to attack Emilio, his gaze snapped down where it found nothing, then his head jerked up just in time to see Teddy throw the belt with enough arm strength that it disappeared from his view. His breath caught in his throat and wild blue eyes with their tiny pupils darted to Teddy, who seemed to leave themselves open for him. Time slowed, or perhaps it was just his own enhanced senses but in any case, he was being confronted with options: In a deft maneuver, Parker had swapped hands that held the knife and for a split second, he was ready to stab Emilio just for the trouble - the two were obviously close and he himself was starting to lose the fight, especially as he struggled to keep himself from hyperventilating as he the weightlessness of his belt being torn from him and placed so out of reach threatened to send him into a meltdown. Teddy obviously wanted him to go for them, which was why it made more sense to remove Emilio, then he could take Teddy apart limb from limb. He inhaled…

…But any thoughts that were racing through his head were promptly lost as oozing crimson caught his eye. The belt was all but forgotten. Emilio’s teeth, his blade, his fists, anything against Parker was dulled. The sounds of struggle became muted as though they were plunged underwater and the pupils that were pinpricks just seconds ago swelled in size, almost like a cat suddenly fascinated with a moving object. Air was expelled from his nostrils and he wrenched his arm from Emilio, spraying his own blood everywhere as he wordlessly attempted to use the slayer as a springboard. The four inches of advantage he had over the slayer was utilized as well as still having two working legs and he rushed for Teddy– no, he rushed for Teddy’s arm, knife in one hand and approximately zero critical thoughts going through his head as everything was drowned in red. The pulsing, fevered spot on his back, obscured under both his shirt and jacket, sent signals to his mind. Consume. It wasn’t black. It didn’t matter. Parker was on them in a flash, all but dropping the dagger as he used his bare fingers to pull open the wound so he could sink his teeth into it and feed on their blood.

—

His teeth found purchase, and Emilio held on tight. The full force of his jaw was locked around Parker’s arm, even as his hands continued striking out with blades gripped in the fists. The warden’s hand was in his hair, trying to yank him back, but Emilio held fast. The pain was a long-forgotten thing. The sound was still assaulting from every angle, and Emilio’s mind was a frazzled thing. He smelled blood; he thought it might have been Teddy’s. The thought only served to further enrage him, and he tried for another stab in the center of Parker’s abdomen. Even in this state, he knew the best bet when fighting a skilled opponent was to aim for center mass, where you had a good shot at hitting something even if they dodged.

In spite of the stench of blood in the air, Teddy seemed to be holding their own. Out of the corner of his eye, Emilio saw Parker’s drug kit fall away. It was a smart move; he hadn’t thought of it himself, but he should have. The drugs had been what Parker used to take him out last time. If the warden got a chance to do the same thing again, Emilio wasn’t certain he’d wake up with all of himself still attached. But the slayer wasn’t the only one who noticed the kit falling away — it caught Parker’s attention, too.

And it wasn’t the only thing.

It was funny; Emilio recognized the behavior. It was a half-realized thing, in the state he was in, but bloodlust was the sort of thing he’d been trained to pinpoint since the time he was a child. The look in a vampire’s eyes when it zeroed in on its meal, the single mindedness of a hungry beast. The warden jumped at Teddy, grabbed for their bloody arm, sunk his own teeth in, and Emilio took a moment to focus on that hollow of his gut that usually tugged when there was something undead around. But the feeling wasn’t there now. Parker, despite his behavior, hadn’t been turned into a vampire since the last time Emilio had seen him. He was just… trying to eat Teddy’s arm. Huh.

The warden’s quest for Teddy’s blood had sent Emilio stumbling back a few feet, a chunk of Parker’s arm still clenched between his teeth. He spat it out in quiet disgust, shaking his head to try to center himself in spite of the sound. Being used as a springboard hadn’t done any favors for his bad leg, but he was miraculously still on his feet. And Parker was attacking Teddy, and even knowing that everything he was doing was being dolled back in his direction piece by piece wasn’t enough to quell the rage that came with that. Maybe Teddy’s new party trick would serve as a decent distraction. Emilio was about to find out. 

Launching forward once again, he readied his knife and hoped that this time, it would be his blade that came away bloodied.

—

If the sensations from the battle up in the bunker in the mountains were strange, this was something else. Bizarre. Vile. One part excruciating, one part invigorating. Fingernails found purchase between the layers of skin. Peeling and prying at the weeping wound to get a better angle for his hungry mouth. Teddy felt panicked, a whole new flavor of freaked out. Their heartbeat quickened, blood pressure spiked, the body’s defense of sending all its blood to their extremities started becoming a real fucking concerning issue. 

The sanguine fluid dribbled out and all over Teddy’s arm as Parker cracked into it like a greedy toddler trying to get at the candy in the center of a pinata. The ex-demon flailed, trying to put their whole strength into a move that would have thrown the man across the room with as much ease as they had clipped the belt but– but Teddy was human now. Human and broken enough that their strength was nothing impressive, certainly not something that could rival a hunter’s. Instead their shoulder popped with a sickening sllu–lruck! Drooping lazily for a moment behind them as they struggled to get away like a fox caught in a bear trap. 

Even so, the Leviathan’s final gift was weaving its magic. 

In Parker’s frenzy, maybe he didn’t notice right away. Teddy had no idea what had gotten into the man who they were pretty sure was a warden and not a vampire or something. Teddy hadn’t ever been jumped by vampires before. Demon blood apparently wasn’t too tasty. And since the ritual, well, Emilio had been sticking close enough around to act like mosquito repellent. As the ex-abomination watched and struggled against the shifting tides of skin and blood, they saw the way the skin tried to knit itself closed around the teeth still stuck deep within their flesh. Saw how it molded around, like the knots of a tree bending to the whims of iron fences, only to overtake with time and effort. 

By the time their shoulder had popped back into place, Teddy was feeling woozy. The magic was struggling to keep up in a realistic way. It may have been pumping that much damage into the feral warden, may have been trying desperately to close the wounds his gnawing teeth and gnashing hands sought to re-open. That, or it was the sheer amount of magic that had to flow through in such quick succession. Either way, the edges of their vision started going dark and Ted had one hell of a fall. 

—

The taste of copper on his tongue wasn’t a welcome one, Parker had acknowledged that immediately. But it was necessary, through a powerful urge that he wasn’t sure he’d ever felt so strongly aside from when he found something he needed to add to his collection. The word ‘obsession’, said in disgust by his father when he would overhear the hushed conversations the man and his mother would have behind closed doors, found its way into his head once more. ‘He’s impossible sometimes, Eris.’ He said as the Warden clumsily, carelessly sucked at the open wound to siphon blood from Teddy’s freshly-dislocated arm. 

‘He gets these… ideas in his head and it’s like he doesn’t realize where he is.’ A fresh, unnatural spike of pain came from his other arm now as his chin was coated in crimson. ‘He shuts down and gets unresponsive.’ The wound Parker’s jaw was clenched around was… closing, skin trying to push his teeth out from it. Every ounce of blood the Warden consumed seemed to fire another neuron in his brain, a machine fuelled by life itself with no grace, no capacity for recognizing when it should be grateful or understanding when it needed to stop. He jerked his head to the side as he felt the flesh attempting to stitch itself up, a human can opener with teeth not suited for what they were trying to do, a throat that wanted to gag as blood seeped down his esophagus but an insatiable hunger that overwhelmed him despite everything else he felt. 

‘He doesn’t understand pain.’ Accompanied with the sensation of his own arm being pulled open by teeth not suited for what they were trying to do, miraculously forming as though he were being bitten by an invisible specter was the decidedly sharper pain of a knife in his side. More blood unlocked more of his capacity to think; Emilio was still there, Parker had turned his back on him and in that moment, the slayer had taken advantage. Every ounce of him that grappled to take control back told him that what he was doing wasn’t worth it. He would bite, the wound would close and he’d feel something akin to, well, teeth sawing into his arm. An arm that felt like it’d been tethered to a car that wrenched it from its socket.

‘You wanted a hunter.’ His mother replied curtly, with that tone Parker only heard on occasion, and mostly when he was listening in to their conversations. ‘He hunts. And I’d have expected you of all people to know what obsession feels like; he got it from you.’ He wasn’t sure if the knife was still in his side or if it had been pulled out, opening a hole for him, his own iron-rich blood pouring from it. He wanted– he needed to inspect it, to refocus his attention on Emilio, especially if the damage he was doing to Teddy wasn’t amounting to anything. His vision still swimming, blurred over and almost not recognizing anything but what was colored red, the Warden’s bones cracked as he pulled himself from the human just as the latter fell to the ground. 

He straightened up despite both arms pulsing with bite wounds (and one of which swinging loosely), the inflamed sore on his back demanding he pay more in blood and the knife wound in his side and Parker, dripping, gasping for breath and still yet almost completely silent, cast his steely stare to Emilio. His own dagger had since been dropped. His blue eyes searched for an opening on Emilio, any place where the red stood out. He found nothing. He’d find something; Emilio bled just as well as he or Teddy or anyone else did. Staggering slightly, Parker attempted to kick Emilio’s bad leg once more. He’d fall, and his eyes would be at the perfect height for Parker to gouge them out with his thumbs. He’d drink from those sockets. ‘He doesn’t understand pain because you made sure he doesn’t understand pain.’ As he kicked, he brought one of his arms up and twisted it until his mouth was caressing his own skin, pulling blood from his own veins now in an attempt to quell the seemingly-unquenchable thirst. 

‘How am I supposed to punish a boy who doesn’t feel anything?’

‘Maybe think about how that’s punishment enough.’

—

The vines bursted through the hole once known as a window. Wiggling and twisting like water from a spout. As if they had no limitations to the shapes they bore, except for the muffled clicking from their core. Clicks of those long dead bones below the surface. The vines were things of death, but they could be persuaded otherwise from the right mouth. The vines’ mouth was a spiral into darkness: a meager mimicry of the thing that rotted inside them. It latched onto Parker, the spiraled vines curling around both his arms. They slithered through the window, man and hound, and into the crisp air. But that hedgehound’s assistance was over, for it was the retriever. Parker was flung onto another: one mighty and swift. A thing worthy to be a steed, as its vines secured Parker onto its back. 

Most things came in threes, and the hounds were no exception. The third loomed by the cabin, matching the second in girth. The only thing taller was Burrow, who clung onto its mighty back. With only a twitch of her will, the hound eagerly followed her command. Twisted masses that mimicked hind legs kicked the corner of the shed. It too was eager to bend to her will — it bent into total submission. With only a tremble of protest, the shed began to crumble to the ground. Nature had fully claimed it at last.

Burrow did not care to see it to fruition. She would not let the intruders harm her parasites or her host any longer. Back to the trees she urged her precious hounds, and back to the trees they ran. The steeds ran in tandem: side by side. The retriever trailed behind. Its legs twisted into their opposing directions, sending the hound into a backwards gait. Keeping its eyes steady upon what once was the shed and those inside.

It freed Burrow’s own eyes to look at Parker. She saw a composed man look closer to a bloody beast. “You are a full mess. Remember, you cannot harm me.” What had happened? The man ruminated when his emotions simply overstayed their welcome. Surely he would not worry about such little things if this chaos was common. A madness that had him biting whoever dared cross his maw, even his own flesh. Her retriever hound had told her of such. She could see its evidence: how the mess of gore concentrated on his lips. Even all the marks on his shoulder did not produce as much blood that dripped off his lips. Drippings he desperately licked upon. Almost as if he was… hungry. How interesting. “You will explain to me why you bit the intruder and yourself… after you calm down and deal with your wounds. Your amount of blood loss is wasteful and unhealthy.” She urged her vines to press onto the gash on his side, holding what blood they could into his body. “I will put the moss on your wounds. Then, you will tell me why you were biting.”

—

Teddy fell. Parker attacked them and they fell, and it was too loud, and his leg hurt, and he could smell blood in the air and taste it on his tongue and he didn’t think he’d be able to breathe again until the taste went away completely or he ripped the warden’s throat out with his teeth to add to it. The walls of the room were starting to shift and blur, and Emilio was as angry as he always was, as terrified as he always pretended not to be. A shed in the woods, a living room in Mexico, it was all the same. There was a monster in front of him with blood in its teeth, and he knew how to kill something like that, so he would. This was what he was good for, after all, this was the point of him.

The slayer readjusted the knife in his hand, readied himself to strike. Kill the monster, serve your purpose. It was simple. 

But everything was only ever simple until it wasn’t. 

There were vines; it took a moment for Emilio to realize that they weren’t just in his head. They crawled through the windows, they scooped Parker up. There were creatures — hedgehounds, he knew those were hedgehounds — and they were riding in like stallions, were carrying the warden away. The fae was back, was helping him, and it didn’t make any sense. Hunters could work together with the things they were supposed to hunt sometimes, but the idea of Parker doing so seemed so utterly ridiculous that Emilio couldn’t wrap his mind around it. But the hedgehounds were whisking the warden away, and the nymph seemed to be controlling them. It didn’t take a detective to put two and two together. 

Nor did it take one to recognize the way the building began to tremble.

He could have gone after them. He knew that. Even with his bad leg, there was a chance he could have caught up. But the building was shaking and Teddy was on the ground, and Emilio couldn’t bare the thought of leaving them so he didn’t. Instead, he rushed over. He draped himself over them, let his skin brush against theirs. (Were there any injuries left, any more evidence of Parker’s assault? He’d take it all, if he could. He wanted to.) The ceiling fell, too old and decrepit to do any real damage even as it collapsed around him. He was a better shield than he was a person, he thought. He liked himself better when he was serving a purpose.

By the time it was all done, there was no sign of the hedgehounds. No sign of the warden or the fae, no sign of anything but Teddy and Emilio in the wreckage. Emilio glared in the direction they’d taken off in, furious that the warden had escaped with his life again, furious with himself for his failure. He’d spend the rest of the night drinking it away, he thought; chasing the feeling of inadequacy with a bottle of whiskey, burying the aches and pains of the fight with bitter amber. But… There were more important things to take care of first.

He stood, brushed himself off. One arm went under Teddy’s head, another under their knees. He scooped them up gently, cradling them carefully against his chest as he stood. His leg ached in protest at the added weight, already unhappy at the results of the fight, but he pushed the pain to the back of his mind. It was a message; it could be ignored. Straightening, he took an unsteady step forward, and then another. It’d be slow going, but he’d get them home eventually. 

And then, with a bottle in his hand, he’d figure out just what he was going to do next. He still had a warden to kill, after all.

[llycaons]

one of the prev posts I was like oh cql? on the url and they WERE cql...but their top tag was...bad....but I don't even have the energy to refute their nonsensical arguments for it because like that's not what shipping really is about but also THEY REALLY THINK JC IS *THE ONE* TO MAKE WWX HAPPY AND LWJ IS BORING???? incest aside like jc makes wwx MISERABLE jfc canonically yeah lwj does make wwx happy and jc is left miserable and alone due to the consequenves of his actions including actively tormenting and mocking and humiliating and trying to kill wwx. go die mad about it 😭