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whereisyourstar · 2 months ago

Text

Thank You

Part 7 of the Stand By, Hold Back, Be Patient series

Part 6

Rating: SFW, Mature

Word Count: 10.2k

Warnings: Angst, descriptions of violence, home invasions, choking, assault, blood, murder, panic attacks, mentions of sexual assault (mentions only, not described and do not happen to the reader), wound mutilation, don't hesitate to ask to tag any others I'm blanking out on

(AN: The warnings obviously give it away, but this part is heavier than the others. I toned it down a lot, but if any of those warnings sound like something you don't want to read, please message me and I'll give you the exact places to start and stop so you can read around it.)

The meeting wraps up just after midnight. For you, anyway. Due to the global nature of the somewhat shady operation your supervisors are running—there is, you think, a less than 1% chance that they're not using the site you write for to launder money somehow—meetings tend to be scheduled at strange times for the sole employee on the American east coast. This one started around ten tonight, and you've been dreading it all week for that reason. Ten isn't too incredibly late for you, but you're still subject to that deeply human psychological quirk of never being more tired than when you can't go to bed. That factor was doubled when the meeting's subject matter had been all about scheduled maintenance times for the site, the quarterly click statistics (then broken up into monthly stats, which was torture to sit through), and some vague talk about upping the possible earnings cap sometime in Q4. You made a valiant effort to stay present throughout the meeting, but sometime around the hour mark your brain started to long for the book you put down just before hopping into the call. Third in a series of romances, which is not usually your style, but the couple in this installment has you hooked—the love interest is so cartoonishly into the main character that it should be unbearable to sit through, and his "who did this to you" trope speech was objectively corny, but it's hitting so right for you regardless. Being on camera meant that you couldn't reach for the book and sneak in another chapter or two while the meeting was ongoing, but mulling over the unresolved romance between those two characters was the only thing keeping you awake as it wore on.

At least until Abby saw fit to hop into your lap and curl up there, at which point you were able to focus in while stroking your hand through her fur. If your supervisor minded, she never said anything. You did have to mute yourself when she started snoring, though. Encouraged by her noise, Heracles had started dream-yipping at your feet, and it was hard to fight your smile while they slept all over a long-winded response to a coworker's question. Another excellent reminder of just how much more bearable they make your life.

When the meeting is over and the little light by your webcam finally blinks off, you make short work of depositing Abby back to the floor and stretching a place in your upper back that's been bugging you for an hour now. The sticky note you keep over your webcam's lens is replaced—a precaution, just in case—and you find yourself with a weird amount of energy. Your body usually forces you to conk out around eleven most nights, but since you've pushed past that for the meeting, you've got something of a second wind. As you pull an arm across your chest to better get at that stiff upper back, you notice the book on the coffee table, and the opportunity presents itself so naturally. Wash your face, get into something comfortable, climb into bed, and spend however long this energy lasts knocking out the last few chapters in your book. Your sheets are newly washed and fitted on your bed already, a kindness you appreciate your earlier self for doing so much, and you know your favorite soft t-shirt is ready to be worn. Some, like your mother, could argue that your whole life out here is indulgent, but this—just the idea of curling up all cozy in bed with the book you like—sounds absolutely divine. The only thing it's missing is a cup of tea, maybe, but getting the kettle boiling is a lot more effort than you want to put in right now.

"Ready for bed?" you say to the dogs, crossing over to the table and retrieving the book. Two pairs of eyes stare back at you from the ground, tails curiously wagging. You cross your arms and smile down at them. "You're not getting second dinner, so don't even think about it."

They are thinking about it, you can tell, but for once there's something even more pressing on their minds. It's Heracles who stands and trots himself right over to the front door, looking back at you expectantly. For added effect, he pushes his paw against the wood and whines, his tail swinging back and forth like a metronome.

Ah. A small bump in the plan, but it's a necessary detour. With a nod to yourself, you toss the book back on the table and search around for your jacket—it's summer, but the nights can still get pretty cold out here. By the time you've gotten your jacket and shoes on, Abby's already joined her brother by the door, and she keeps glancing at the harnesses hanging up nearby. "We're not going far," you tell her, making your way to the small cabinet table by the door. Its cubby only holds one thing, and you take the hunting knife in its sheath and shove the entire thing into your jacket pocket. It's too late to bother with strapping it on, and besides, this will be quick. "It'll only be to pee, then it's back inside. Please don't make me run after you." You consider a threat, something like because you will not like what happens when I catch you, but you don't have that in you and you know they know it. These two have you so wrapped around their paws that it would make the dog trainer influencers that pop up on your social media feeds irate for days. But you wouldn't have it any other way, personally.

The night air is crisp and cool, a welcome reprieve after the heat of the day. It's been a slow, hazy march into June, but with the month half-over by now, you've come to appreciate the disparity between the sun being up and the sun being down. You spent more time indoors when you lived in New York, which means you never really noticed the seasons if it weren't obviously snowing, so this all feels new. Your body is still expecting hot, humid days and muggy, mosquito-filled nights—finding yourself shivering in the middle of June is kind of a fun novelty.

You plant yourself next to the treeline right in front of the house and take turns between watching Heracles and Abby sniffing around and observing the sky. It's clear tonight, and there's just enough of a moon to illuminate this front area in silvery light. Plenty of stars, though, all glittering down from their homes in the void. It reminds you to look up when Argo Navis is visible around here, if ever—Jason showed some interest in seeing it, though you're not sure you could ever confidently pick out the lines meant to connect the constellations. All the stars just look like stars to you.

At the thought of Jason, your chest constricts a little bit. You saw him just two days ago, and he stayed around for hours walking with you and the dogs in the forest, but you still…miss him. He's been active lately, spending plenty of precious time with you, and you try very hard not to think about what that means. Ever since that day at the lake, you don't look too closely at his clothes anymore. There's a reason you've been avoiding the news around Pinehurst County for weeks now. It's just—

The dogs notice it first. There's a low, rumbling growl that snaps your head back down from the sky, and your gaze slots naturally to where both Abby and Heracles are staring. Your first thought is a predator, a bear, or maybe mountain lion, but then the growl comes again and it's Abby. Her teeth are very white in the moonlight, head low, hackles raised, and that first flash of fear jolts down your spine. She's never looked like this before, not even when she was hurt and scared.

So fast you can barely track it, a figure bursts from the shadows that devour the side of your house. Upright, two legs, and running so hard that you can see the fog of their breath. That's a human, that's a person, and—at first you think they're going for the truck, but the two of you see the sliver of light coming from your not-quite-closed front door at the same time, and they angle hard to get there.

You don't think. Your legs are moving before you even know you're giving chase, and you barely hear the dogs following behind, or the way your voice cracks when you order this person to stop. All there is in the world is the image of this stranger running up to your front door, throwing it open wide, and stepping in. The flare of your indignation gives you the final push needed to run inside after them as they begin to shove the door back into place. How fucking dare someone just come in here—

But then it's just you, this person, and the sound of your locks being slammed into place. The dogs howl from outside, frantic and angry and confused, but you cannot think about them now.

The person presses their entire weight against the door and, between their panting, sighs in relief. In the low light of the room, you can plainly see all the details you need. This man isn't much taller than yourself, and his body is lean almost in spite of his obvious middle age. You can't tell what color his hair is, only that it's drenched in sweat—he's been running for a while.

And you have, with terrible efficiency, trapped yourself in with him.

Much steadier than you feel—fear and anger are taking rapid turns riding your limbic system—you say, "This is my home. You need to leave." You drop a hand into your pocket and squeeze the sheath of the hunting knife tightly, like one would a stress ball.

The man, still panting, cracks an eye open to look at you. Apparently he doesn't consider you much of a threat, because his lid slides back shut and he heaves a ginormous sigh. "Look, lady—"

You slam the heel of your palm into the wood just centimeters from his nose and the way he jerks back is satisfying. "You look. I'm not fucking asking! Get the fuck out of my house!" The yell is shrill, it lets on just how afraid you are, but you're already throwing back the first lock. You're going to wrench this fucking door open and shove him out.

An arm, sticky with sweat, hooks around your neck and drags you away. Your legs give out with the shock of it, hands flying up to pry at the arm suddenly and effectively cutting off your air, and the animal of your brain screams. Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck—

He's talking as he pulls you further into the room. There's so much blood rushing in your ears that you can barely hear him, much less process what he's saying, but you get the important parts. Friends and dead and wants me and I'm staying right fucking here.

You recognize, faintly, that you only vaguely assumed he ran into your house to steal from it. You knew exactly what he was running from. You know who killed this man's friends.

And some part of you, yelling over the panic, says good.

It's probably an accident, because you imagine this man has priorities other than sexually assaulting you while his friends die somewhere out in the forest, but his mouth brushes the sensitive ridge of your ear while he talks. He keeps talking, low and insistent, and your brain abruptly shuts up.

The hand still in your pocket rips out the knife, shakes off the sheath, and plunges the naked blade into whatever is softest behind you.

First, the arm holding you is abruptly gone, and you crumple into a gasping heap onto the floor. Second, the man howls, and there is a disgusting squelching noise between all the din. Third, you scramble to half-face him while your legs recover, and you watch as he tugs the knife fully out of his side. Blood, red and very, very fresh, blooms through the off-white of his shirt just above the hip. It drops to the floor and splatters where it lands.

The man presses a shaking hand to the wound in his side and moans like an animal. His entire body is shuddering, and you think you must have hit something important. He doesn't give you the time needed to wonder if you've just killed him, because when he looks up, zeroes in on you still on the floor, there is nothing but rage there.

"You BITCH!" he bellows, and he advances on you like a rolling thunder. You're already mostly to your feet and you sprint for the door. He never turned back that first lock, if you can just get the others—

He grabs you by the hair this time. Fingers pull painfully at the roots, but it's the fear, not the pain, that makes you cry out as you are thrown to the floor. You're being dragged back again, pulled by the hair like something hunted, and it's all you can do to clench your own fingers down next to his to alleviate some of the pain. The knife is somewhere nearby, it has to be, and you drop a hand to the ground to search for it. The word please repeats through your head like a siren—please let me survive this, please don't let him kill me, he can't hurt the dogs, please, please, please. Your fingers touch the familiar plastic of the knife's grip and you grab for it blindly, your eyes too blurry with tears from the pain to be of any use.

"No you don't—" is all the warning you get before the man slams his shoe down on your hand. Some delicate bone in the wrist dislocates itself and there is nothing but a blazing pain in its wake. Your scream is punctuated by the sound of him picking up the knife, his grunt rightfully strained. Then it's silenced by the feeling of cold steel against your throat.

Through the pain and the tears, you force yourself to look up at this stranger and see the fear in yourself echoed back in him. He's fucking terrified as he holds you to the ground and puts your own weapon, wet with his blood, to your jugular. His other hand is still in your hair, but he's crouched over you now, and his entire body still shakes.

"Don't make me kill you." It sounds like a plea. His eyes are so wide, you can see each individual red vein in the sclera. "It wasn't supposed to be like this. It wasn't—it wasn't supposed to be real. You're all fucking crazy."

You finally find your voice. "Let me go," you rasp, swallowing. "St—stay here, call the police, I don't c—care. Or take—my keys, I have a car. Please." And here the tears start flowing in earnest. You've begged like this before. It didn't make a difference then.

At the mention of keys, you see a plan form in the man's mind, in the way his brows lift. Maybe it's the original plan, the one he had before he saw your front door was slightly open. Get to the truck and drive it to safety. It's a good plan—it worked for you, after all. Maybe you should tell him that.

He's panting again, but you don't think he ever truly caught his breath. "How do I know you wouldn't report me?" He asks it quietly at first, more to himself than anything. But the words have an effect on him, and in an instant, he's furious again. "How do I know, huh? Huh?" Each question is punctuated by his hand clenching in your hair, jostling you painfully. "I know what this fucking looks like, I mean—even if I survive, even if he doesn't kill you, there's evidence all over this place. You'd turn me in in a second."

You try to shake your head and earn another press of the knife's edge against your throat. Much more of that and he'll actually draw blood. "I wouldn't! I won't! I won't say anything, please, please, please, don't do this, please, I—" You're cut off by the back of your head connecting hard with the floor, slammed back by the man. Stars burst into your vision and you groan. It's the last sound you get to make.

The man has both his hands around your throat and he is intent on squeezing the life out of you. He's discarded the knife in favor of doing this more directly, it seems, and all your body can do is convulse. Your hands grab at him, try to push him away, but he has too much leverage. Even when you scrape your nails into his cheek deep enough to make him bleed, all he says is, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it has to be like this, don't fight it. I'll wait until you're gone to use the knife, they'll think he did it, I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry."

You're fading fast, but the apologies make you furious enough to dig your nails into him again, and this time one hooks into the bottom rim of his right eye. He doesn't get to kill you and say sorry for it, like you're something pitiable and small. He's going to have to fight you the entire way down. You pull.

It all happens at once. One of the hands round your throat disengages as the man covers his now-bleeding eye, and the other is so weak that you're able to gasp for breath. Air floods into your lungs and you're dizzy, panting, but alive. The man is curled half on top of you, as distracted as someone with a ripped lower eyelid can be. He's still pinning you, though, and you're screaming wordlessly at him as you try to push him off. Your wrist is a dull roar of pain, but it's unimportant right now. You need to get away, grab your keys, get the dogs, and go. Jesus, you can't hear the dogs anymore, are they okay? There's so much in the forest that can hurt them, and Heracles is clumsy on foot, and Abby was mauled by coyotes, and oh god, you just left them to fend for themselves.

Then your front door explodes.

There's no other word for it. One second it's tall and solid as it's ever been, still mostly locked. The next it's hanging off its top hinge, thrown open wide by the force of the loudest impact you've ever heard. Cool night air floods in, and you should see stars, but they're blocked by the figure already bending to fit through the doorway.

Relief hits you like a downpour. "Jason."

It's him. He heard you, or he felt you, or he felt this stranger in his territory and followed him here, and you don't care because he's here now. He's here, and his mask is filthy with blood, and his sleeves are drenched in it up to the elbow, and the machete gripped in his hand is dripping on your floor, and you have never been so happy to see someone in your entire life.

The man reacts like you stabbed him again, making those wounded animal noises, and he starts to crawl off of you. You hear him chanting "oh shit oh shit oh shit" like it's a prayer that can protect him. He still has one hand over his eye, and the other discards the knife nearby entirely in favor of pounding into the floor, dragging him inch-by-tortured-inch away.

Perhaps he thinks Jason is going to kill you first.

It doesn't matter. Jason crosses the floor in three steps, the force of them enough to make your teeth vibrate, and seizes the man by the back of the head in one massive palm. He raises the man up to waist-level, just holds his body up like it's nothing, then slams him face first into the floor. Then again. And again. And again, until the man stops screaming and there's only the squelch of meat and blood and sinew.

When the man is released, he does not move. Not so much as a twitch.

From where you sit, not even three feet away, you watch as more blood than you've seen in your entire life pools from under his head. You're grateful you can't see whatever is left of his face.

Then you can't see anything, because your vision is full of Jason. He drops to his knees on the floor beside you, his machete makes a jarring clang from where he drops it, and you think he's trying to sign. His hands, brutal and terribly strong, flutter uselessly in the space between you two, and his shoulders hunch forward hard enough to look painful.

"I'm okay," you tell him, a hand flying to your throat when it hurts to speak. "I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm—is he? Is..?" And you gesture uselessly to the body that Jason blocks from view. He shakes his head no, hands still apparently uncooperative, but that's all you need. You nod slowly, not sure how you feel about that. You can't really feel anything right now. Maybe you've hit the threshold for emotion and it's just nothing after that. "Okay. Okay, okay, okay, okay, I—okay. Um. Fuck. I'm trying—really, really hard not to freak out, um. Okay. Th—the dogs? Where are the dogs, I need…I need to find them."

Safe, Jason signs. You make a move to stand and he holds up a hand to stay you, shaking his head. They're outside. Abby is protecting. That hits you strangely at first, but then you think of that sound Abby made, the way she unnerved even you. She won't let anything hurt your boy, you're sure.

What hurts? Jason isn't touching you, which you appreciate. Your body feels like one live nerve right now, frayed and dangerously oversensitive. You'd probably start fighting him, too, if he touched you now. Even still, the weight of his eyes on you, hidden with his back to the only switched on lamp in the room, is almost too much. You have to look away to answer.

"My wrist," you say, flexing it and earning a trillion pinpricks of pain in your arm. Breathe, breathe, breathe, you remind yourself. "I can't tell if it's broken or just…sprained? But it—yeah. Um, my throat. Hurts to talk, but my brain's kind of stalled out and I don't think I can sign, uh. Right. Am I bleeding?" You turn your head to the side and gently prod the back of your skull. It's tender, and you suck in air through your teeth to even graze it, but your fingers come away clean. By some miracle, nothing has actually broken skin. With a myriad of bruises and a maybe-broken wrist, you're coming out of this encounter a sight better than the man that invaded your home. For some reason, that's what makes the dam break, and the tears start to fall.

They don't last long. You're emotionally tapped out, and it's awkward crying while there's a dying man in the room. Because he is dying, there's no doubt about that. You don't think anyone can survive what Jason just did to him.

You're sniffling, but more or less back in control of yourself when your voice returns. "Can you…can you get him out of here?" Another useless gesture—Jason is a very effective wall. His breathing has only gotten more and more intense since you told him your injuries, but it hits a peak when you mention the man. You don't have the energy to examine that reaction. "He can't die in my house, I…this is where I live." Which feels, in the moment, an important thing to emphasize.

Yes. I will take care of it. His hands hover next to your shoulders for a moment, and you despair that he's doing to touch you. Your brain is finally catching on to how close he is to you, and it's starting to send panic signals down to your overworked body. The last thing either of you needs is a panic attack because he's boxing you in. Maybe that shows on your face, because Jason instead returns his hands to where you can see them, and signs, I should not leave you alone.

But leaving you is exactly what he should do right now, because the panic is only continuing to rise at the thought of him staying. You need everyone out of your house right fucking now. There's desperation in your voice when you say, "I'll be fine. I'll have Abby and Heracles with me, we won't be alone. Just…I'm sorry, but please, please get him out of here." You can taste the iron in the air and it sits unpleasantly on your tongue.

He doesn't argue. You think, detachedly, that if you weren't already half enamored with this man, this would do it. No insistence, no attempts to sway or soothe you with words. It's just onto the next thing that needs to be done. Jason takes the man by the back of the head and hefts him easily over his shoulder, angling himself so that you can't see the worst of the carnage. At the threshold of your ruined doorway, he looks over his unburdened shoulder and lifts a finger. The message is clear: one hour. You nod your understanding and, before he can turn back, whisper a quiet thank you to him.

The dogs come barreling in moments after he leaves. white all around the eyes and, in Heracles' case, trembling. You gather them both up to you after checking for injuries, ignoring your aching wrist, and squeeze them tightly. Now you really cry. Great, shaking sobs that make every bruise and sore muscle twinge, but the crying helps calm you. The panic recedes now that it's just you and the dogs, and when Abby starts to lick the tears from your cheek, the need to cry peters out as well.

You sit there, too close to a cooling pool of blood, and stare out into the night. The door swings a bit on its hinge, and now that you can really look at it, that gorgeous solid wood is splintered around the edges. Jason practically tore the thing down to get in here.

A shiver that has nothing to do with the chill outside runs down your back. There was never anything actually stopping him from entering your home. Your sturdy door with its nice, expensive locks that you took so much comfort in, that you trusted to keep you safe, now hangs uselessly between you and the rest of the world. He didn't even have to hit it more than once for it to give in.

He has been letting you live for far longer than you realized.

The option to spiral over this is easily available, as is the option to spiral over the last hour of your life. Neither is particularly appealing. Those are options only for when your emotions even out and there's not an entire gallon of adrenaline trying to work its way through your system. The third option of just getting on with it will have to do.

First, you shoulder your heavy door more or less back into place. Not that it really matters anymore, but it doesn't feel right to just leave it, and the third option is all about restoring a semblance of normalcy. Then, with the harsh, pale light of the bathroom's overhead on you, you strip naked and assess your wounds in the mirror. Your throat already looks bad, and it'll certainly get worse before it starts to heal. You can't look at that one too long before you want to cry again, so you focus on everything else. A roll of elastic bandage wrap goes around your wrist, which seems to help a bit—you hope that means it's not broken. There's nothing you can do about the back of your head right now. The idea of a shower stream hitting it makes your stomach roll.

Under your nails, you find skin from a dead man's cheek. Blood, too. You wash it away dispassionately.

When you exit the bathroom, you head straight for the drawers in your room and pull out the t-shirt you were so looking forward to wearing not even an hour earlier. You slip into it and pretend the worn cotton is comforting. Next is the baggiest pair of sweats you have—you don't want anything constricting you right now, save for the socks you make a grudging concession to. It's noticeably cool inside the house now, and there's still a lot to be done before Jason comes back. You don't want cold toes slowing you down.

Finally, you put your place back together. There's very little to do, considering most of the struggle took place only a dozen feet away from the door. This entire front area is open concept, so the entryway leads naturally into the living room and kitchen, but even still, all that's really out of place is the table by the door. After that, there's only the blood to clean up, and keeping the dogs away from it proves to be the bigger challenge. All it takes is one curious sniff from Heracles for you to briefly quarantine him and Abby to the bedroom so you can bleach the hell out of your floor. You go through an entire roll of paper towel mopping up the pool and the nearby splatters, and you're not entirely sure what to do with it all. You decide to throw the soaked sheets into a cupboard that houses all your cleaning supplies for now—no way are you throwing it out with your normal trash without rousing a lot of unneeded and extremely unwanted suspicion.

It's helpful, watching the blood disappear under your dedicated hand. In the low light, you can almost pretend it was never there at all.

The dogs come out of quarantine after you've scrubbed your hands raw in the kitchen sink, and you spend a lot of time just petting them and telling them how good they are. Tonight can't have been easy on them, either, though you're glad you got the worst of it in that respect. You'd be inconsolable if anything happened to them. Knowing that they're safe and unharmed is one of the only things keeping you from having that panic attack right now.

They act as comforting heaters when you gingerly open your ruined door once more and sit in the threshold. With one on either side, you settle a hand on their respective backs and stare, unflinchingly, into the night.

He failed you.

There is plenty he could be thinking about right now. The six dead ones miles and miles from here. The wound in his thigh where one of the ligaments still does not sit right after being slashed with a knife. The wretched weight upon his shoulder. But what he comes back to, over and over and over as he walks, is that he failed you.

He sensed the intruder. He knew it was too close to your home, bordering on that gentle, familiar presence that is uniquely yours. He could never have guessed it would find its way inside.

It hurt you. This thing—he refuses to think of it as a man—laid its hands on you.

He should have been there. The second he felt that one peel off from the pack, he should have chased after it and pierced its brain with the machete. Straight through, until the skull cracked and the earth swallowed up several inches of the blade. He should have.

Even now, with it gurgling and twitching over his shoulder, Jason thinks that's not enough. He wants to use his teeth to rip this things throat out. He would taste its blood and know that it failed to take you away from him.

Almost, though. One of the blood vessels in your eye was broken. That bruise around your throat. The way you shuddered, teeth bared in a grimace when you touched the back of your head. How close had you come to dying tonight? Too close. That is the only answer. Too close.

Guilt and anger. They have been with him since the beginning, and tonight they burn him more deeply than in years. Past the veins, right into the marrow. All of this thing's friends lay dead for the animals and the police to find. It will soon join them. The knowledge of the thing's imminent death does nothing to quell the inferno.

He failed you. The only thing Jason has to offer you is his protection, and he could not give it when it mattered most. He reaches out with his sense and finds you easily. You are where he left you, only fainter for the distance. The sound of your screaming still echoes in his ears, washing over his silent heart like wave after terrible wave, but the feeling of your presence is a comfort. It always is.

This is far enough. It's closer to your cabin than he likes, but he is anxious to return to you, and that can only happen when this is done. He will guide you away from this area for the next few months. The land will have drunk up all the blood by autumn.

The thing gurgles uselessly when Jason presses it back against a tree. He peers at it, attention sliding off the glistening ruin of its face in favor of the lesser bloom of blood on its side. He rips away the fabric covering the wound and ignores the thing's strangled yelp. A not-yet coagulated gash stares back at him, oozing fluid that the body really should be trying to preserve by now. Behind the mask, Jason's breathing is fierce. You fought. Your talons found their mark, and they went deep. His observant, dangerous hawk—he is proud of you.

He pushes his finger into the wound, curious, and the thing actually manages a scream. A slam backward against the tree silences it, and he refocuses. The edges of the wound are clean, save for a ragged section of skin near the top—your knife is serrated close to the hilt. Did you get it in all the way? Did this thing bleat in pain when you hurt it? He sinks his finger in deeper, probing for the end of the entryway sliced into its viscera. When he finds it, knuckle-deep in the wound, Jason's breathing stops entirely. He wants to drop this creature and find you, to tell you how good you did, but there is still work to be done. This thing is in pain now, but it isn't one tenth, one millionth of the pain it deserves for hurting you.

Another finger pushes into the wound and he does not silence the screams now. Instead he watches the thing's face, the burst eye and smattering of teeth and muscle and vibrant blood, and he readjusts his hold on it. He takes it by the throat now and is vaguely surprised to see its legs still kicking, connecting with nothing but the tree behind it. So much fight in this one—too much.

He isn't the type to draw it out like this, typically. His kills are efficient, singular in nature, just thinning out the herd of trespassers until the number is small enough to manage openly. There are some he has enjoyed killing more than others, of course, but this is different. The pain in him is so, so similar to the one that had him put a spike through the temple of his mother's killer. Too quickly that time, she should have suffered more—

A third finger in the wound, stretching and breaking the skin as he worms another digit into the hot, wet cavity your knife started for him. The thing's breath has long since run out, but Jason wants its last moments to be agony. He hooks his fingers, claws deep into tissue and pulls, and is pleased by the low, airless wail he receives. When its heart gives its final, tremulous beat, he drops it to the forest floor in a heap. Something snaps, and it may be a limb, trapped under its own weight. He is past caring.

Instead, he stares at the blood on his fingers, shiny and black in the moonlight. This is how he begins to avenge someone he loves while they yet live. He knows that now.

Your presence is a soft touch upon his mind, drawing his gaze through miles of forest where he knows your home sits. Has it been long enough now? One hour was all he could give you, all his shaking rage and guilt could manage. Yes, he decides, and starts off toward you. He needs to see you again, needs to see your injuries and know that you survived them. It will calm him, somewhat, to feel your pulse beneath his bare fingers.

(Even in the depths of his shame, Jason cannot help but remember the heat of your skin against his, how you stood there blazing just under the flesh like a star condensed to one body while his will broke almost entirely. He had wanted to press the flat of his palm against your cheek, to better understand the impossible softness of you. And if he had done that, if you had let him—you did let him, you stood so still and so quiet, watching him with those eyes he wants on him always—then the rest of his resolve would have died and he would do something regrettable. Something like press his bare face into your hair and breathe you in, just to envelop himself in the scent he's been chasing for months. And you would scream, and scream, and scream to see his face but he would not be able to stop.)

Jason breaks into a run, uncaring of the ligament that still slips poorly around in his thigh. It should have healed properly by now, and he knows why it has not. It doesn't matter. Nothing else matters more than getting to your side and staying there. Where he should have been all along.

He only hopes you will let him.

You have counted four hundred and eighty-two breaths since sitting. The counting is good. It keeps you from slipping into that just-under-the-surface panic. You started gasping for air at some point, feeling it rush over your senses like being caught in high tide, but the sound disturbed Heracles, and his dissatisfied grumble brought you back to yourself. That's when the counting started, and you haven't stopped yet.

It's four hundred and eighty-eight when Jason makes his entrance. Your spine straightens minutely when you spot his shape in the woods, walking toward you with such slowness that it can only be for your benefit. Maybe he senses how fragile you are right now with some land-given power he hasn't shared yet. Maybe the look on your face is putting the word danger in his mind for once. Or maybe he just understands that you've been through something horrible, and coming at you with any amount of speed is a bad idea. As he takes his careful steps, stride cut neatly in half with the effort, you find you don't actually care. All that matters is that he's here like he said he would be.

Unfortunately for him, you've had four hundred and ninety-four breaths to think.

The dogs are staring at him at your side, and you feel Abby's tail hitting your hip, but neither make a move to go to him. They're such good dogs. Somewhere in the emotional nothing space you're occupying, you spare a warm thought for them. It doesn't reflect in the flat, even surface of your voice when you say, "This has happened before."

Jason stops when he hears you. It's like he hits a wall, a dozen or so feet from where you sit, and it keeps him there. No seeing his eyes in this darkness despite the moon you admired only two hours ago, and it's better that way. Even knowing that they are focused solely on you is like a physical weight, pressing you into the ground, hands around your throat, squeezing, I'm sorry, I'm sorry—no.

You take your hand off of Abby's back to gesture at the wreck of your door, into the dimly lit confines of your house. "Something like it, back in New York. About a year ago, now. It's why I left."

Abby presses more solidly into your side, so you put your hand back into its spot along her spine, and the warmth is nice. It's close to chilly out here now that the sun has been gone for hours. You don't really feel it, which some ultra-rational part of you recognizes as a problem, but you ignore it for the time being. It's much easier to focus on Jason's hands, stripped of their gloves—when did he takes those off?—and the way he signs, What happened?

"Which time?" you answer immediately, and you pause. A mirthless laugh bursts out of you and Heracles flinches at your side. Up until this point, he'd been dozing. "Christ, listen to me. Which time. An offense in the fucking plural, now." But you know what Jason's asking. No sense in torturing him, not when his shoulders are hunching inward. "I was subleasing a bedroom in a shitty apartment. Two beds, one bath, and the rent was awful, but it was the only place I could afford while still in the city. My roommate, the girl I was leasing from, wasn't actually home that often while I lived there. She had a roster of partners, but one was kind of rich, so she spent a lot of time at their place." It's a lot of concepts at once for Jason, whose knowledge of society at large outside of Crystal Lake you're still trying to gauge, but you're in no mood to explain ethical non monogamy to him right now. He's smart, you figure he'll get it through context or ignore it entirely. Either way.

"All of this is to say that she would rent out her room when she wasn't planning on using it for a while. Short-term, not like my situation, it was…temporary. Couch surfing with slightly more regulations." Again, you're working around saying the word Airbnb. "She wasn't great about changing the code on the lock after people had stayed, though. Sometimes people would just walk into the apartment and it wasn't clear if they were supposed to be there, but—whatever, you know. My bedroom door had a lock, and at that point I didn't actually leave my room that much, so it didn't really effect me."

You have to stop for a moment to fight down the panic. The breathing count is abandoned, no hope in keeping it up while you talk. This is the first time you've said any of this out loud and it's hitting you harder than you expected.

Jason is moving again, coming to stand in front of you. Heracles sniffs curiously at him when he drops to his knees in the gravel, tenser than you've ever seen him. He sees where this is going, no doubt.

Another breath, and you're mostly back to yourself. "It was three people. I was there alone, as usual, and they came in right as I was about to leave. I had an interview, my first in months—my hair was still wet from the shower. But they came in, and they weren't expecting me to be there, I think. I didn't recognize them, at least. I tried to leave, but one of them blocked me, and I was already nervous so I…yelped? When he got in front of me? And he—he smiled, and he told the other two to get started."

It's vivid in your mind's eye. The mundane yellow of his teeth, his height barely anything against yours, but built like he'd been lifting since he was old enough to stand. Thick cords of muscle in his arms, and a tattoo of a funeral lily near the wrist. A knockoff calculator watch that seemed so juvenile compared to the rest of him, just a few years older than yourself. The way you bit your tongue halfway through telling him to take whatever he wants, just let you go first, because he lifted his hand and you flinched away from it.

"It was fast. I mean, one second I was standing, and the next I was on the floor, blood all in my mouth. The others didn't care, didn't even look, so they must have been used to it. I…" You're shivering while you catch your breath, and it's as much from the cold as it is saying any of this out loud. "All I could do was just take it. I still don't know if there was a…a sexual element to it. Maybe that would have come after I was dead? But I do know he hit me like he fucking hated me. So. Yeah."

Jason spells out your name, as gentle in the movements as he's ever been, but you can see the stiffness in him. There's a vein in his neck, just visible in the moonlight, that jumps out in a way that you think means he's gritting his teeth. Part of you is gratified to see him upset over this, because you're pretty fucking upset about it, too. Still, you skip over the mess of your roommate coming home and the scuffle between her partner and the man with your blood all over his knuckles. How you blinked back into consciousness to find your roommate crouched next to you, phone to her ear and hissing, "She's hurt really badly." You don't feel particularly up to the task of detailing how many of your teeth had to be professionally tightened after it was all said and done, or how nothing ever came from the report you filed with the police.

There's a knot in your throat when you try talking again, choking you up. "That's why I left. I never felt safe there again. Getting Heracles helped, but I was so scared all the time, just constantly sitting alone in that room and wondering if he would come back, if he wanted to finish what he started. So I came here, and I made this place safe for me, but now—" another humorless laugh, and you feel tears leaking down your cheeks, "Apparently I have victim written all over me in bold and everyone else can see it no matter how far from society I get. I don't know what to do about that, I don't—what else can I do? Where else can I go? I'm so tired of being scared, Jason, I'm so fucking tired." And of course you include him in that. It wasn't long ago at all that you spent your days certain he would kill you as soon as you stepped outside, and that old fear clashes strangely with the door hanging off its hinge at your back. You want to scream at him to explain, finally, why he let you live. The answer, whatever it is, can't make this night any worse.

An argument is forming in the back of your mind while you watch Jason attempt to apologize. His hands are shaking as badly as they were when he knelt before you earlier, and he's exhaling hard through his nose every time they twitch too much. You think it's supposed to be an apology—not much of it is making sense.

As collected tears slide down the bruised surface of your throat, you tell yourself that the man who tried to kill you tonight would never have been anywhere near you if it weren't for Jason. How many others are out there right now, broken and discarded like you almost were? The thought of all that blood, always more blood, makes your stomach turn. And here is their murderer, knelt on the ground before you and all but begging for your forgiveness. Because he didn't kill one quickly enough.

It makes you sick. It makes you feel powerful.

"You don't have to apologize," some tired part of you says while the rest ruminates on the mess that has been made of your life. What were you thinking, getting wrapped up in this? Because you were lonely? Someone is dead because of you. Because of him. "I don't expect anything from you."

Jason's next breath sounds strained and he edges closer, knees leaving tracks in the gravel, until he's almost flush against your crossed legs. The light coming from inside your house is just enough to catch the glint of his eyes inside the mask, but you don't need it to know he's staring at you with an unfathomable intensity. Expect it, he tells you. His hands are in his command again, utterly calm. You still have trouble reading them, but only because you can't quite tear yourself away from the impression of his eyes. You are safe with me. I should have been here.

That does it. Everything comes crashing down over your head—the night, the past, the unfairness of it—and you start to sob in earnest. "Then why weren't you?"

I was tied up, he tells you, and before you can wrap your head around Jason using an idiom, he pulls up his dark sleeves and shows you the clear ligature marks still denting the skin.

He means it literally. For the first time, you have to look at the wreck of his shirt and ask yourself just how much of that blood is his? You assumed it all belonged to everyone else who has died tonight, but if someone was able to get him down long enough to tie him up, then he could have been seriously hurt. Not enough to last, obviously, but enough to rouse concern. You're hit with the impulse to ask, to check that he's okay, but all that comes out of your mouth is a garbled oh that's half-drowned by your own tears.

Jason takes your face between his cool palms. The skin is calloused and dry where it touches yours, and they lack the warmth anyone else's hands might have, but they are steady, and they are gentle, and you need them right now. You need him right now—everything else falls away, just for a second, because there is no one else you want nearby while you cry but him. His long thumbs swipe lightly across your undereyes to brush away the tears that just keep falling while the rest of his fingers rest along the natural space for them along your jaw. The pads of his middle fingers press in, briefly, on both sides, and a semi-lucid part of your brain wonders if he's checking your pulse. It jumps up to meet his touch, kickstarting your heart into a frenzied tempo that crosses the line into frantic. If he has a heartbeat, you can't feel it through the thundering of your own.

You come to pieces right then and there. Abby whines at your side while you shiver and rock with the force of your sobs, but neither of you can offer her any comfort. All you manage to do is reach up and hold Jason's wrists, keeping him right where he is. The indents left by the ropes make your brain stutter and you start rubbing at them without consciously deciding to. He doesn't seem to have much heat, or a pulse, but you know he has blood in those veins, and it's such a natural thing to try and encourage them to flow again. You feel him shudder, a full-body thing that moves you with it, and you're trying to form a sorry through the mess of your weeping, but he mimics the action before you can. In that space under the curve of your jaw, his calloused fingers rub small, soothing circles just over your pulse point.

He lets you cry much, much longer than you could have expected. Not once does he try to pull away, nor does he stop the soft circles that have steadily calmed your racing heart, and that is exactly what you need. He stays there, knelt in the dirt and gravel, and keeps you safe while you cry out every emotion you've ever felt. You think, when your eyes have gone raw and the skin around them starts to burn, that if anyone were to come here now, to see this, they would never believe it. Jason Voorhees, an emotional rock that you've readily tied yourself to. Of course, they wouldn't live long enough for what they've witnessed to matter—you've known almost from the start that you get to see a side of Jason that few, if any, others do.

When the last of the tears fall, you don't so much as relax as you do crumple. All the fight leaves your body and is replaced with an all-consuming, numbing exhaustion. There is nothing left in you but the shreds of consciousness keeping you awake, and you think you could sleep for a thousand years and still wake up tired. But you do, eventually, slide your hands up to cover the back of Jason's and carefully pull them away. You hold his big hands between yours, whatever warmth left in you given over to him, and brush your thumb over a raised scar that spans two of his knuckles. He stops breathing. You only notice because you've been timing your breaths to his, once you both settled down enough for that to work, and you finally look up at him.

The mask is such a hindrance. In that moment, you want to take the edge of it and tip it upwards, to see what expression he's making under there, because you have never seen his eyes so soft. Just the impression of them in the light is enough to make your very, very tired heart thump.

"Thank you," you whisper. "For tonight." Which you mostly mean for letting you cry when you needed to, but also for the fact that you're sure he saved your life.

His hands are warm when you release them, your heat having permeated down enough to make him feel life-like, and he flexes them in mid-air a few times. He only takes his eyes off of you long enough to stare down at them, turning this way and that on the wrist like they've inexplicably changed. It would make you smile if you weren't so tired.

Then, with his gaze returned, he nods. It's all that needs to be said for tonight.

Jason glides his fingers through Abby's fur while you finish drying your face, and the way his eyes widen with clear delight encourages your heart to thump pleasantly again. He's never pet her with his bare hands where you could see—it's all too possible you're witnessing him truly petting his own dog for the first time. It's the most natural thing in the world to then take hold of his free hand and guide it to the top of Heracles' head, the fur there extra soft from a thousand kisses. His breathing goes funny behind the mask and this time you do find it in you to smile. It falters after a second, but it's there, and that helps.

You stand with all the grace your stiff limbs can muster, which isn't much. The groan that works its way up your throat is there entirely of its own volition, just your body's way of communicating how much it has not appreciated this day. Jason rises with you, and he makes to catch you when equilibrium is the last thing to catch up with the motion, but you're able to get upright on your own. A good thing, too—you're certain that if you let Jason touch you again, you'll fall asleep in his arms. It's just too much to consider right now. So you rub your face with your hand, more for the normalcy of the action rather than any need for it, and direct this next part over his right shoulder. "I'm…going to sleep. This…" a gesture to the broken door, "can wait until tomorrow."

I can fix it, Jason signs immediately, sizing up the ruin behind you as if for the first time. I will fix it.

"It's fine," you half-sigh, too tired to argue about wanting to fix it yourself, if possible. "It's a tomorrow problem, it's all a tomorrow problem, for now…I just really, really want to go to bed." And you look up at him with such plain exhaustion that you can physically see him dropping the matter. For now.

Getting the dogs back inside is more trouble than you expected. This night has clearly rattled Heracles, who growls upon getting past the threshold, and Abby's hackles raise within a few steps. It's something of a relief that your nose isn't as sharp as theirs—all you smell is bleach. You sigh as you step in after them. "I know. I know. Just…c'mon, the bedroom's still good. Please." You do feel for them, honestly, and you're over the moon that they're unharmed, but your patience is non-existent. In the end, you have to scoop Heracles' brick-like body into your arms when he refuses to to go any further, nuzzling your chin into the side of his neck so he knows you're not mad at him. Abby takes the cue and bounds down the hallway and into your open bedroom, and you watch her curl up in the middle of the bed with significant gratitude toward her. Heracles will calm down if she's calm, you're sure, and you'll feel better once they're settled.

Even still, you get two steps into the house with your burden before turning back and looking up at Jason. He fills the doorway once again, but he does not cross over, and his arms are firmly at his side. Just seeing him there helps fight away the dully encroaching fear of being inside again, his familiar frame backed by moonlight abating the press of your dark walls. The words are out of your mouth before you consciously decide to say them. "Will you stay? For tonight?" The idea of him leaving, of physically being where you can't get to him, is enough to make you shiver.

Of course, of course, he agrees. I will be here until you want me somewhere else. You and the dogs are safe, I promise. Your shoulders slump with relief to the point where you almost drop Heracles, and even then, you're only saved because he makes a grumpy noise close to your ear. Sleep. I am here.

Maybe you'll fight with him tomorrow. Maybe, when your head is clearer, you'll tell him you never want to see him again. Maybe you'll fall into his arms and cry until he swears upon the land that already binds him to protect you above all else. You don't care right now. He says he will stay and you believe him. It's enough.

You hug Heracles closer to your chest. "Okay. Thank you, Jason. I—thank you."

He does something just before he takes the wreck of the door in both hands and hauls it back into place for the night. He reaches across the threshold into your home and presses his fingertips to your cheek, then spells out the letters of your name with featherlight smoothness. You hold still while he does it, and the touch is so sweet, so gentle, that your lids flutter shut of their own accord. But then it is gone as quickly as it arrived, and when you come back to yourself, the door is mostly in its place.

Your breath flutters out of your chest like a newly living thing, completely unmarred by the terror of this night.

The dogs deign to make space for you when you finally get into bed. You need a shower, but that goes into the tomorrow's problem pile along with everything else, and once you've got the bedroom door locked, you are single-minded in crawling between the covers. The mattress presses against your sore body like a hug, which does prompt you to squeeze out a few more miserable tears. This fucking day.

Your last thought is of Jason standing guard outside, and that final press of his fingers to your cheek, and your body finally lets go. You are asleep within seconds, and if you dream at all, it is only of being carried far, far away by a forgiving current.

#jason voorhees/reader #jason voorhees/female reader #jason voorhees x reader #jason voorhees x you #slasher x reader #hey so that took forever #waffled hard on just scrapping this because it feels too different from everything else #I think I've just been looking at it too long #also I told myself I was going to start making these shorter. lol.

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hiraganasakura · 1 year ago

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Hi so me being me I've decided to hyperanalyze the conversation Qrow and Raven had in Higanbana practically line by line bcus I have Many Thoughts and this is the best way I can think of to get them all out. If you can't tell I'm absolutely obsessed with these two. Btw.

Thanks to the RWBY wiki for providing transcripts for every episode, otherwise I definitely would have missed smth despite having just watched this scene recently lol

I put it under the read more for easier scrolling due to how long this post got!

I immediately noticed smth in the very first lines of the interaction:

Raven: "Hello, brother." Qrow: "...Raven."

You'll notice throughout the whole conversation that Raven never calls Qrow by his name, only condescendingly referring to him as "brother" this one time and never calling him anything else. Meanwhile, Qrow directly refers to Raven a total of three times throughout the conversation, and only one doesn't call Raven by her name (which we'll get to shortly)

On the other hand, Qrow doesn't bother with even so much as a greeting beyond simply stating Raven's name

It's different ways of communicating their distance. While Raven holds her relationship with Qrow over his head — never once, even outside of this scene, does she call him "brother" with affection iirc, only derision and condescension — Qrow doesn't seem to rly know how to greet her. He hesitates before saying her name and approaching her, as if trying to assess the situation before acting

Qrow: "So, what do you want?" Raven: "A girl can't just catch up with her family?" Qrow: "She can, but you're not. Now how 'bout we get on with it? Unless you plan on keeping these [drinks] comin'."

Again, Raven seems to bring up her familial ties with Qrow as a tactic to get him to do what she wants — in this case, stick around to talk to her despite him not seeming to rly want to. Frankly, it feels manipulative. We're gonna put a pin in this for now and come back to it in just a moment

Additionally, Qrow already knows that Raven's not just here for a friendly chat between two siblings, and sees right thru her facade that it is. Raven is here bcus she wants smth from him. But interestingly, it is Raven in V5 that says, in an almost frustrated/disappointed tone, "Family. Only coming around when they need something." There's another pin; keep both in mind

Raven: "Does she have it?" Qrow: "...Did you know Yang lost her arm?" Raven: "That's not—" Qrow: "Rhetorical question, I know you know. It's just obnoxious that you'd bring up family and then carry on like your own daughter doesn't exist." Raven: "I saved her." Qrow: "Once. Because that was your rule, right? Real 'Mom of the Year' material, sis."

Qrow dodges Raven's question about the Relic and instead brings up her hypocrisy in how she treats family. And it's a good point. Here she is lording her siblingship with Qrow over his head while simultaneously defending and upholding her rule that she is only obligated to help her own daughter a single time. Another pinpoint on our little conspiracy board

Also, here's the one time in this conversation Qrow refers to Raven as "sis". Like Raven's use of "brother", Qrow's use of "sis" is very pointed and with intent. But it's not to manipulate Raven, it's a snarky jab meant to rly hammer home Qrow's point

Raven: "I told you Beacon would fall, and it did. I told you Ozpin would fail, and he has. Now you tell me. Does. Salem. Have it?" Qrow: "I thought you weren't interested in all of that." Raven: "I just want to know what we are up against." Qrow: "And which 'we' are you referring to?"

A few things of note here. At some point in the past, Raven expressed an outright disinterest in Ozpin's inner circle, at least to Qrow. Qrow also feels excluded in the "we" Raven mentions being against Salem. To me, there seems to be a distinct possibility here that it wasn't that Raven felt personally disinterested in Ozpin's operations, but that she somehow felt excluded and feigned a lack of interest in order to protect herself. An idea that is further supported in my eyes by the following dialogue:

Qrow: "You should come back, Raven. The only way we'd beat her is by working together. All of us." Raven: "You're the one who left. The tribe raised us, and you turned your back on them." Qrow: "They were killers and thieves." Raven: "They were your family." Qrow: "You have a very skewed perception of that word."

And there it is. Raven's problem is laid out here for us, loud and clear: She feels like she was the one abandoned, not the one running away. She says it outright! "You're the one who left." To her, Qrow is the traitor, the one who left their family behind. If you ask Qrow (or, for that matter, Tai, Yang, and even Summer based on the scene in V9), it's the opposite

Bcus they have different definitions of family

Another thing to pin (I promise this will all become clear soon)

Raven: "I lead our people now. And as leader, I will do everything in my power to ensure our survival." Qrow: "I saw. The people of Shion saw, too." Raven: "The weak die. The strong live. Those are the rules." Qrow: "Well, you've certainly got someone strong on your side. I've seen the damage." Raven: "We couldn't have known the Grimm would set in as quickly as they did." Qrow: "I'm not talking about the Grimm. And I'm not talking about you, either."

Notice Raven's shift from "the tribe" to "our people". More of that guilt tripping!

Additionally, Raven is *obsessed* with rules. One save. The weak die, the strong live. Raven lives and breathes rules, even seemingly arbitrary ones. Guess what this is? Another pin!

Raven: "If you don't know where the Relic is, then we have nothing left to talk about." Qrow: "I don't know where the Spring Maiden is, either, but if you do, I need you to tell me." Raven: "And why would I do that?" Qrow: "Because without her, we're all going to die." Raven: "...And which 'we' are you referring to?"

Qrow's "either" here implies that he also doesn't know where the Crown of Choice is, which is... interesting. He's one of Ozpin's closest lieutenants, and is in the dark on where Beacon's Relic is? Wherever it is, it is such a closely kept secret that even Ozpin's best spy doesn't know where it is (maybe so that in the event Qrow gets captured by Salem he can't be forced into giving her the information?)

Meanwhile, Raven's "And why would I [tell you]?" implies that she does know who the Spring Maiden is (obviously. Raven's the Spring Maiden lol) but refuses to disclose to Qrow

A lantern sputters out after Qrow says "Without [Spring] we're all going to die." Now, I genuinely can't remember if this is headcanon or canon, but iirc Misfortune seems to act up when Qrow's upset. He's clearly tired of this little game of dancing around topics that Raven's been playing with him

And once again, Raven indicates a feeling of exclusion from Qrow's life in the iconic final line. She gets the final word in before leaving

We've finally reached the end of the conversation. Now what does all of this tell us?

And here is where all of those pins I wrote down are relevant. As I mentioned, the twins view family very differently

Qrow's view is pretty obvious: he views family as the ppl in his life who matter most to him. Unlike Raven, he does not view the tribe as family despite the fact that they raised him, disgustedly referring to them as "killers and thieves". It's implied that he was, in fact, neglected and/or likely abused by the Branwen tribe, saying in V6C4, "No one wanted me... I was cursed..." further explaining his distaste for them. Furthermore, despite not being related to Ruby by blood, they clearly consider one another family throughout the series, and he even seems closer to her than he seems to his niece who's actually blood related to him (I personally headcanon that he keeps more of a distance from Yang bcus she reminds him too much of Raven, who he feels abandoned and hurt by, but that's neither here nor there). Bloodlines and debts are secondary compared to loyalty, if they're considered at all. He is obviously furious that Raven only insists on saving Yang once and never directly interacting with her beyond that, despite Raven constantly guilting Qrow over abandoning his so-called "family" of the tribe. And yet. And yet. He still offers Raven a place back in his life, even if only to unite against Salem

Raven's view, to me, has been an enigma for a while. But after hyperanalyzing this conversation, after noting down all of those points of interest, I feel like I've finally cracked the code. Raven views family as an obligation, an exchange that always has an ulterior motive behind it. She seeks out Qrow only bcus she desires smth from him despite showing distaste when someone does the same to her; condescendingly calls Qrow "brother" more than his actual name and calls the tribe their "family" to try guilting him into doing what she wants; and feels fierce loyalty to the tribe but barely interacts with her daughter, only seeming to count one of the two as true family. She views the concept of family with cynicism and seems to feel an obligation to the tribe, as if she "owes" them for raising her

I think the two's perceptions of what defines family are all to do with the way the tribe treated both of them. This crosses a bit into headcanon territory, but as you can see by the above quotes and analysis, I rly don't think I'm just making it up entirely

As I already mentioned, I think it's implied that the Branwen tribe neglected/abused Qrow. In fact, we could probably blame their treatment of him for the deep self-loathing he has due to his "cursed" Semblance. But what about Raven?

Well, it's simple: I think she was abused, too, just in a different way. While Qrow was likely shown and told on a consistent basis that he was unwanted, unloved, undeserving of good things, Raven may have been shown and told she was wanted, loved, and deserving of good things... if she did what the tribe told her. If she repaid them for raising her and her brother, for being her "family". The way she uses her familial ties with Qrow as almost blackmail may be exactly the way the tribe treated her. Her obsession with following rules may stem from the fact that she had to follow the rules the tribe set for her in order to be accepted and deemed worth smth

As for her distance from Yang... honestly, I wonder if Raven is aware that Yang deserves better and keeps her distance as her way of doing that. When Summer confronts Raven in the V9 scene, Raven says, "...You're better at that life. Better than I was." She seems to have a fear and insecurity about being a good family member, a good mother, and maybe that's why she fled. Maybe she was scared of being like her abusers due to how she emulates them as a self-preservation tactic in so many other ways. Not entirely sure about this point tho

And I think too this is why the twins don't rly understand one another. They may have been unaware of the different ways in which the other was treated. Qrow, constantly unwanted and loathed, can't understand why Raven sticks around with the tribe; Raven, who obeyed the tribe and, in doing so, garnered enough of their favor to even eventually become leader, can't understand why Qrow can't just be "good", earn respect, and stay

This dissonance between the two experiences may also be completely intentional on the part of the tribe; abusers will often eliminate their targets' support systems in order to make them completely reliant on the abuser, so it's highly likely that the wedge was intentionally driven between the two siblings so that they could not find support in one another. This would also tie into why the twins seem to feel excluded from one another's lives and abandoned by one another: bcus they were made to feel that way by their common abusers, and did nothing to challenge these assumptions bcus they saw no reason to — and only seemed to keep proving one another right if they did

Which rly has some disturbing implications about how the Branwen tribe works. Like, do they just pick orphaned kids up off the street and abuse them into being perfect little bandits, molded to be of the greatest possible use and discarded if they're deemed worthless? Plus Qrow says his Semblance is how he got his name, which implies that the tribe also renames the kids they scoop up (possibly as a form of control or a way to make sure they can't be tracked down by any remaining family)? Plus there's the whole thing where Qrow and Raven were originally sent to Beacon to learn how to kill Huntsmen, which carries with it the implication that the Branwen tribe grooms literal orphan children into becoming stone-hearted murderers? What. The heck.

And if I'm right, if the Branwen tribe is that severely abusive, then like... wow, no wonder Qrow and Raven are Like That. They're both very deeply hurt people expressing it in different ways

I was considering adding their conversation at the Battle of Haven to this post, but I think that would be better as its own thing. Also I haven't gotten there on my rewatch yet so I may miss some details if I try to analyze it rn; it's better to wait overall methinks

But I have reached the point of my rewatch where we see Weiss and Whitley interact, and I think it would be very efficient to sum up what Qrow and Raven's relationship seems to be by using those siblings as a point of reference. Qrow = Weiss, actively trying to break free from and fight back against their abusers in different ways, while Raven = Whitley, continuing to do as their abusers want and have wanted as a method of self-preservation. Only, unlike Weiss and Whitley, Qrow and Raven have yet to come to a point where they can understand one another. I think that's a good way to briefly summarize the uh. Absolutely massive post this is.

In conclusion, I may have cracked the majority of the Branwen twins' pre-Beacon backstory purely by hyperanalyzing a single conversation. Oopsies

#original post #'hey hira why are you so obsessed with these two—' autism. i hope that answers your question!#ok but srsly. i've genuinely worked rly hard on this post for the past like. 3 days?#i didn't think it'd lead to me deducing all of this about the twins' pasts but here we are lol #this'll probably flop due to the length but like. i don't mind tbh! this is mostly to satisfy my own silly brain [affectionate] anyway #i'm genuinely looking forward to seeing them in v10 #since the storyboard for the scrapped v9 epilogue had raven in it #i hope they somehow reconcile and come to understand one another like weiss and whitley did #tho. i have a bad feeling that even if they do it will end in one (or both?) of them tragically dying before the other's eyes #but that's not rly relevant lol #anyhow i am not sry for inflicting you all with my branwen twin brainrot. it will happen again #i'm having sooo many thoughts on this rewatch and they just keep on coming #rwby #qrow branwen #raven branwen #branwen twins #rwby9 spoilers #i hope there's no glaring errors here. i read thru this post multiple times to be sure but it's so huge i may have missed smth irjnfbpbne #character of all time tag

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