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clickerflight · 1 year

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Clove: Part 12 - Why?

Masterlist

Part 11

I love my boys, of course of course, but also have you seen Margie and Josh? IDK what this side plot is doing, but I am invested personally.

Content: Werewolf whumpee, vampire caretaker, so much fluff, so much panic, mentions of a child who is chronically ill

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Everything smelled like Ephraim. Hyrum hummed softly, nestling farther under whatever was draped over him. He felt content and safe. Protected.

Faintly, he caught the scent of Ephraim’s blood and his eyes flew open as he scrambled up to see what was wrong. Ephraim was sleeping in the bed next to him, and he woke up as Hyrum started checking him for where he could smell blood. There was dried blood on his shirt on the floor so Hyrum pulled the shirt Ephraim was wearing back and forth, trying to see whatever damage there was as much as his addled brain could manage.

Ephraim reached out, taking Hyrum’s arms, making him whine.

��Sweetheart, what’s wrong?” Ephraim asked.

“Blood,” Hyrum said, struggling to get free, to make sure the vampire was okay. “There’s blood.”

“Ah,” Ephraim said. He sat up, letting Hyrum go and lifted his shirt. There was a pale scar across his chest and Ephraim said, “I’m okay, see? There was a dangerous man at the cottage and he hurt me when we were fighting, but I’m okay.”

Hyrum brushed a finger over it, to make sure Ephraim was telling the truth, but true enough the wound was sealed and all that was left was the scar.

“Oh,” Hyrum said softly.

Ephraim dropped the shirt and held his arms open, letting Hyrum plough into him. Ephraim held him for a while, soothing all of the spiraling little fears that had taken up residence in his brain the night before. Still, there was a quiet terror he couldn’t quite shake. He had gotten a tiny taste of what it would be like to lose what he had here and it had been devastating. The real thing would surely destroy him entirely.

He tried to shake the fear. Just because there was a bad man at the cottage, it didn’t mean that it was necessarily Jack. Who knows how many bad men there were in the woods. Hyrum knew that Jack had friends so it stood to reason there were even more than that. In fact, at one point he’d been convinced that all humans were like Jack.

Still, curious and apprehensive at the same time, Hyrum twisted, grabbing one of Ephraim’s hands and closed his eyes, smelling it deeply.

His hackles rose as his deepest fear was confirmed and he froze.

Ephraim pulled him into a tighter hug as the werewolf began to hyperventilate, tried to pull closer to Ephraim, tried to crawl into his very chest so he could hide forever.

“Goldenrod, hey,” Ephraim’s soft voice said urgently. “I know you’re scared. I know, I know. Stay with me, sweetheart.”

Hyrum made a conscious effort to calm down, pressing his ear against Ephraim’s chest and listening to Ephraim’s very slow heartbeat. Ephraim ran a soothing hand up and down Hyrum’s back, a touch the boy couldn’t have even imagined just a month ago.

Hyrum quickly came to a realization, one that he had shied away from before because it couldn’t possibly be true, but now….

“You’re not going to let him take me,” he whispered in awe, twisting his head to look up at Ephraim, only really seeing the bottom of his chin.

“No, I’m not going to let him take you,” Ephraim said gently. “And the next time he comes to cause trouble, I’ll…. I’ll kill him. And then he’ll never get to take you.”

Hyrum relaxed into Ephraim’s arms as Ephraim pressed a kiss to his head.

“Thank you,” Hyrum breathed.

“Of course, Goldenrod,” and Hyrum was too ecstatic and relaxed to hear the gentle and complicated sort of sadness in Ephraim’s voice.

…………………………………….

Margie was exhausted. She had spent nearly all day working on the cottage and she had only cleared the front room. There hadn’t been any traps or curses in the kitchen or the storage room, but both of the bedrooms were hexed to the high heavens.

Josh helped support her as she grumbled, unable to do anything else even with Josh’s help. They’d have to come back in the morning. Not for the first time, Margie realized she needed an actual apprentice, someone to take over for her when she was too weak to do this anymore. Most of the time she pushed the thought off to deal with when she was ‘actually old’ in her mind, but now, exhausted, feet aching underneath her and feeling sick to her stomach, Margie allowed the thought to actually stay this time and make a nest in her mind. Maybe she didn’t feel ‘actually old’, but she recognized that she was.

She was faintly miffed with herself that she needed to be so run down to be able to accept thoughts like that, but here she was.

She ran the people of the village through her mind, trying to think of who would work best for this sort of job. Someone who was careful and fairly neat in their actions. It would be useful if they had some knowledge in distilling and brewing, even if it wasn't specifically experience with potions. Lots of free time on their hands to learn this sort of thing and an ability to sort out magic by feel. Not likely to be bowled over by other people’s opinions.

Just as she was starting to run the adults of the village through her mind, she realized the answer was right in front of her. Or, rather, right beside her helping her walk. She inwardly groaned. Still, there were worse people to work with and Josh met all the requirements. Well, most of them. While his business with wine and alcohol meant he had knowledge in brewing and distilling and gave him the winter’s off because of the money made during the summers and he wouldn’t have to tend to the grape vines he kept, he had three children he helped his wife look after so free time might not be as free as she liked, but he was the best option, especially after seeing him work alongside her in the cottage.

“Josh,” Margie said in a croaking voice.

“Yeah?”

“Have you ever considered becoming the village’s magic man?”

Josh’s stunned silence lasted only a moment before he said, “Can’t say I have. Why?”

Margie grumbled a little before saying, “You were very helpful in there, and I can’t keep this up forever, you know.”

“Are you asking me to become your apprentice?” he asked, a wry smile on his sun tanned face.

“If you have to know, yes.”

Josh thought about it for a moment before he said, “I think I could? I’ll have to talk it over with Anna first, of course.”

“Of course,” Margie grumbled. “Maybe I could teach her too. You could split the load between the two of you. She’s already proved herself useful when it comes to herbs and remedies and the like.”

Josh sighed. “Yeah. I guess that sort of happens when you have a child like Dimitri.”

Margie nodded. Dimitri was a weak, though resilient sort. He was almost always sick but still plowed on through life like he was going to live it to the fullest, no matter if it shortened his lifespan. It seemed to make his parents happy, though. The village often watched him carefully, wondering if this was going to be his last winter.

Margie certainly remembered his birth and his first winter. Anna had nearly died giving birth to the child and he practically lived in Margie’s little hovel during that first winter with endless bouts of croup and any passing cold that decided to drop in for a visit.

“I’ll walk you to your house and then I’ll let Ephraim know he can’t go back today,” Josh said matter of factly, and Margie bristled.

“I can tell him myself.”

“Oh, no, old bird,” Josh said easily and Margie nearly cursed him out. He had been growing to be just as brazen as his wife. “You’ll go home and rest. Orders from the possible future magic man.”

Margie huffed. “Insufferable. Completely insufferable.”

“Your knees will thank me,” Josh promised.

And Margie hated that he was right.

……………………………….

Guntar was kind enough to let Ephraim and Hyrum stay in his house while he was out working, and Ephraim was glad for it. He didn’t much feel like leaving the bed, and Hyrum certainly wasn’t up to it.

As the two laid curled together, dozing off in intervals, there was a knock on the door which made Hyrum whimper, grabbing hold of Ephraim.

Ephraim stroked his head, listening as a familiar voice called, “Ephraim!?”

Ephraim placed his hands over Hyrum’s sensitive ears and called back, “In here! Come in!”

The door opened and Josh shuffled in, eventually poking his head in.

“Oh, sorry,” he said, surprised when he saw the two.

“It’s fine,” Ephraim said. “Goldenrod and I had a bit of a scare, so we decided to just rest for today.”

“So I heard last night. Well, not that I actually heard it. Embarrassed to say I slept through the whole event,” Josh said. “Anyways, I went up with Margie to try and sort out your cottage. It’s a mess up there. The spells were laid pretty thick. We did what we could but the bedrooms are still hexed and trapped. We’ll be going up again tomorrow to see if we can finish…. Well, that’s if Margie can make the trip back up the hill. Her knees have been giving her some trouble, see?”

“Oh, thank you, Josh,” Ephraim said kindly, pulling up the blanket to hide Hyrum a little better. “I know you probably have things to do, but would you be able to drop by the butcher’s shop and ask Guntar if we can stay here another night or if we should find other accommodations?”

“Absolutely,” Josh said with a warm smile. Ephraim deeply appreciated that Josh didn’t pry as to why Ephraim couldn’t do it himself. He didn’t want to draw attention to Hyrum when he was so scared. “I’ll be back in a bit, then.”

“Thank you,” Ephraim said softly and Josh nodded, heading back out to do as he was asked.

Ephraim stroked Hyrum’s head under the covers, laying his own head back down on the pillow, contemplating the situation. It sounded like he and Hyrum wouldn’t be able to go back to the house for a while, which left him in a rather sticky situation. He wasn’t certain how well Hyrum would do when it came to being around other people. As far as the vampire could tell, the werewolf was terrified of everyone who wasn’t Ephraim.

And even after Josh and Margie got the spells cleared up, Ephraim would have to find someone to try and clear out Jack’s scent or at least cover it, or go do it himself, though he wasn’t sure how well Hyrum would take it. He supposed he would just have to see how Hyrum reacted after he had a couple of days to process everything. Who knew, Hyrum had proved to be rather resilient, if a bit hesitant. He could grow to like people after finding that they wouldn’t hurt him. After all, he had grown quite attached to Ephraim pretty quickly, so there was a good chance that all would be well.

“Ephraim?”

Hyrum had shifted, poking his head out of the blankets, his ears flicking up once freed from the covers.

“Yes, Goldenrod?”

“Who was that?”

Ephraim smiled. “That’s Josh. He’s a friend of mine. He’s married to Anna. You met her when Morticai was in town, remember?”

Hyrum nodded. “So he’s…. Like you?”

“I’m not sure I understand your question, dear.”

“He’s not going to h-hurt me? Or tell Jack?”

“Oh, no. Not at all.”

“Oh…. I just thought that humans were…..” Hyrum searched for the words for a moment before continuing with, “I thought they all knew Jack and that they’d help him.”

“No. People who would help Jack are pretty few and far between, really. The people in the village are my friends, mostly… maybe not Harry or Katrina. They’ve never really warmed up to me, but that’s alright.”

Hyrum mulled those words over carefully, his ears flicking slightly back and forth as he did so. “So…. what does Josh want then? Jack wanted to make me a weapon-” Doubtful, Ephraim thought to himself, “-And you want to keep me safe and M-Margie wants to heal people? Then what would Josh want?”

“He probably wants to take care of his family,” Ephraim replied. “You know, making sure his children grow up strong and are happy and have happy lives of their own.”

“Oh.”

Ephraim supposed the idea would sound quite foreign to Hyrum, so he just let the werewolf process that information for a moment.

After a few long minutes, during which Ephraim started to drift off again, Hyrum patted his chest to get his attention again. Ephraim gave it willingly, opening his eyes.

“So… most people don’t want to make weapons, do they?” Hyrum asked. He sounded like he was coming to that conclusion himself and just wanted to make sure he was on the right track.

“No, they don’t,” Ephraim assured him, though that seemed to leave Hyrum more confused.

“Then, why would Jack want to make me a weapon?”

Ephraim had expected this question, though perhaps not this early. He thought it over for a moment. He could see no rhyme or reason to what Jack had done, and he certainly wasn’t trying to make any sort of weapon. Hyrum had turned up on the verge of death, for crying out loud.

“Hyrum… I’m not sure he was trying to make you into a weapon. I really have no idea what he was doing, but I think he was just hurting you for the sake of it. I’m so sorry I don’t have an explanation, but what he did was not okay, and it was not normal, and I’m here to protect you now.”

Hyrum stared at him, and Ephraim wasn’t sure the werewolf really comprehended him. Hyrum looked down, distressed as he gently kneaded his stomach, trying to wrap his mind around it.

“But….. Why!?”

Ephraim just held him closer while Hyrum whimpered softly, kneading his stomach harder. “I’m sorry,” he whispered into Hyrum’s hair. “I’m so so sorry. It’ll be alright. I’ve got you now. He’s not going to come anywhere near you.”

Ephraim’s heart could only break as Hyrum shuddered under his arms, hiding his face in his hands.

Part 13

Clove Taglist: @wolfeyedwitch @the-blind-one-speaks @whumpsday @extrabitterbrain @inkkswhumpandstuff @honeycollectswhump @whump-blog-reblogs @pigeonwhumps

#whump #whump series #clove #werewolf whump #vampire caretaker #fluff #chronically ill child #mentioned #our boi is gonna have to start coming to terms with what happened to him #and especially #the fact that Jack did all this to him #for no conciveable reason #I mean #there is a reason #but that's spoilers

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