#referenced murder

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Silver

Bleeding in Moonlight: Chapter One | Chapter Two |

CW: Some brief moments of dehumanization, referenced captivity and torture, referenced death/murder

-

“I have no idea where we’re even going.” 

Eden flexed his fingers, stretching them out and then closing them back around the steering wheel. His head felt like it was full of wet cotton, heavy and soft and soaking into every wrinkle of his brain. 

Apparently driving on two hours of sleep wasn’t the best way to handle these things. Not that they had a choice. Well, they did have a choice, but Anaya wasn’t about to let him make it. She was determined to keep going as long as they could.

“Just drive east,” She said, as if she could hear him thinking. “We have a full tank of gas, we can go for hours.”

“Hours?” He couldn’t quite suppress the way his voice sounded pouting, a toddler throwing a tantrum in the middle of a store. He took a deep breath and tried to straighten his spine.

Still, every pothole, bump in the road, or swerving too-tight turn brought an answering whimper or soft whine from the back and Eden’s nerves were fraying more every single time. 

His heart twisted at the simple sounds of pain, sure - he knew it had to hurt like hell, lying there with a stitched-up leg and only some expired hydrocodone from an old surgery Eden had had years ago for the pain, but Eden’s own head was throbbing with a lack of sleep, his eyes felt hot and dry, and a muscle in his jaw had begun to twitch as he kept grinding his teeth.

He had to push down the urge to snap at the boy to quiet down. It wasn’t his fault, Eden knew it wasn’t, but the anger still rose with every pulse of his heartbeat he could feel behind his eyes.

Added to all the other bullshit about today, they were in the middle of nowhere, a good hour from the next place Eden could think of to even grab half-decent coffee. They needed to find somewhere where they could park, somewhere nobody would look in the back and then ask about a thousand increasingly uncomfortable but honestly really understandable questions about the naked teenage boy back there.

The naked teenage boy covered in scars and wrapped in blankets, who badly needed a haircut and a hamburger and who hadn't spoken a fucking word since they started driving.

“Not too many. Four more hours of driving would get us to Missoula,” Anaya said, a little distracted, looking down at her phone. “I have a friend we could crash with there. Vanessa… she has an extra room, she says. Yeah. Four hours and twenty minutes to Missoula and then we can spend a couple days figuring this out-”

“Anaya.”

She blinked and looked over at him. “What?”

“We absolutely cannot take him to Missoula.” Eden had the urge to drop his head into his hands even as he made his careful way on the winding road, the darkly forested mountains they had been camping in rising high and dagger-edged behind them. Like they were angry at them taking the boy out of the woods and towards civilization.

Well, that was a weird thing to think.

“Of course we can,” Anaya said, frowning, puzzled. 

“No. We can’t. Missoula is in Montana."

"Yeah, I'm aware. But it's also only four hours away."

"Going to Missoula... that is a full on crazy idea, Naya, and you know it.”

“I don’t know it. Why exactly is that crazy?” Anaya, bristling, set her phone down and twisted around in her seat to look back at the blanket lump behind them that was Misae, whose eyes were closed even as his expression was pinched with pain. “We all need sleep, right? All three of us do. Vanessa won’t ask too many questions.”

“If we show up with him, she probably should!”

“Why?”

“Anaya, for God’s sake… Taking a minor across state lines is fucking kidnapping!”

“Sure, if we had kidnapped him, but we didn’t! Somebody else did!”

“Okay, first of all, that isn’t how kidnapping works. We’re not playing fucking flag football with a human being. Also, we don’t know that he was kidnapped at all!”

“He said his family is dead! That means he was kidnapped by whoever killed them!”

“We. Don’t. Know. That. It just means they’re dead, it doesn’t say anything about how they died or how he ended up where he is. You’re… you’re just guessing at things we can’t prove, that might not even be true!”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Her voice sharpened.

His own voice rose in response, louder than he intended. “He might have lied to us or something!” 

The boy in the back flinched, hands moving to cover his head, visible as a sudden shift in the rearview mirror. Misae groaned, muttering something to himself. Eden’s chest twisted in dismay as he realized there was a tiny spot of red starting to show through the blanket, which meant the poor kid had started bleeding through his bandages at some point. He needed them changed. Eden must not have done a good enough job putting pressure on the wound. The stitches were doing their best, but Eden’s first aid kit wasn’t great, and stitching someone up in the woods in a hurry was never going to work well anyway. He needed to redo the stitches, hopefully after a few hours of sleep and with steadier hands. Guilt prickled. “Sorry... I'm sorry, man. I don’t really think that you’re lying, exactly, it’s just… Maybe you told us what you thought we needed to hear so we’d help you. I’d honestly understand if you did.”

“Eden!” Anaya smacked at his shoulder. “You can’t just accuse him of lying!”

“I’m not trying to be accusing! I’m just trying to keep us from getting thrown in prison. Taking a minor over state lines isn’t just illegal, it’s a felony. We do not have enough knowledge about this situation right now to commit felonies for total strangers, even if they are bleeding all over my backseat!”

She huffed and rolled her eyes. “You took out the backseat.”

“... please don’t do that thing where you nitpick everything I say because you’re mad at me even though you know I’m right.”

Anaya opened her mouth, then closed it and looked away. "Yeah, okay." For Anaya, that was a white flag raised high. 

He took the truce she offered gladly. “Okay, so, we don’t know him well enough to commit a felony on his behalf, even though he’s bleeding all over my trunk.”

She relaxed a little - his acknowledgement of the nitpick was his way of flying a white flag, too. Then she sighed. “Well…” Anaya trailed off, then turned back around and looked at the road ahead as if it were personally offensive to her. “Okay, I can see your point. Maybe… maybe you’re right about this. Still, we don’t even know he’s from Idaho at all, he might have already been taken over state lines? We’re… there’s no way we’re the bad guys for helping him, is there?”

“No, I didn’t say that. I don’t think we are, and I absolutely agree that he needs help. I’m just… I’m just too tired to think straight about this, or maybe I’d have a better idea of what we should do. We need to stop so I can nap, so we can all nap. Yeah?”

“Fair enough.” Anaya tipped her head back against her seat, her black hair spilling in messy waves all around her shoulders and down to her ribcage. The clear light of morning turned her skin  Eden fell in love all over again.

He usually did, every time he looked at her. 

“Naptime for everybody,” She said, a little dreamily. “Sounds good. Does that sound good to you, too, Misae?”

The boy had to hear them, they weren’t keeping their voices particularly low, but he didn’t answer. He was lying down in the back of the car, everything but his injured leg curled up as tightly as he could get, existing in a kind of numb silence. 

Shock, Eden had thought at first. Now his mind skipped back to the sight of the scars the kid was covered in, and he wondered if he just was too used to being hurt and simply didn't think this kind of thing was worth even remarking on. Or... maybe he was used to getting hurt worse if he spoke up about the pain. Maybe it had been safer to be silent.

Still... at least the kid seemed to be getting some sleep. He'd clearly dozed on and off for most of the drive. He didn’t even seem to be listening to them now, when they were specifically talking about him. 

When Eden checked the mirror, all he saw was that reddish-brown hair with gray scattered throughout, sticking out like a puffball above the blankets he’d curled himself up beneath, which Eden did not allow himself to think was cute. The red stain on the blanket - was it a little bigger than the last time he’d looked?

Shit.

“Right." He hummed, changing lanes. "Also, not to like harp on this or anything, but… what if somebody’s still looking for him?”

Anaya’s thoughtful frown deepened. “He said that his family-”

“Is dead, no, I know he said that. I’m not talking about family, not exactly. But that guy with the gun, he said something about finding bodies on their land before, remember? Like this isn’t the first time. And he was clearly hunting that wolf. So… would they just give up looking?”

Anaya’s worry had her thumb shifting upwards, until she was absently nipping at her thumbnail, catching it between top and bottom teeth and worrying at a torn spot of skin along her cuticle. “I don’t know. I guess I figured they would, if he wasn’t on their land anymore, but…” 

Eden sighed, half-smiling as he reached out and put a hand over hers, pulling it back down and holding tight. “Stop that, baby.”

She blinked. “What?”

“Stop eating your hand,” Eden said, with long-suffering affection. Her fingers twined into his and he gave a short squeeze. She squeezed back.

“Eden, seriously, I’m not eating my-” Naya glanced down at her thumb, the nail already torn at one corner. She smiled a little. “Oh. I guess I was. Well, anyway, we should still help him, right? We can’t just leave some kid to bleed to death alone. If we don’t go to Missoula, what do we do next?”

“I honestly… I don’t know.” He had to pull his hand back - this road was way too full of curves to be safe to drive one-handed - but the simple gestures, old habits long built between them, settled his racing heart a little. He and Anaya had been together since before he’d dropped out of his residency, even, as friends at first and then they had realized more or less at the same time that 'just friends' had started being more without either of them noticing it. The memory of their simultaneous attempts to officially ask each other out, awkward and sweet, made everything about the day seem suddenly a little easier to handle. He took a deep breath. “I’m just saying that we don’t know anything about this kid, except that he got shot and he’s running from somebody named Bill.”

“We also know that he’s a werewolf,” Anaya pointed out. When Eden didn’t respond, she frowned, narrowing her eyes at him. Eden chanced a glance sidelong so he could see it - her squinty eyes always made her adorable, even if she’d get really, really mad if he told her that.

She saw him thinking it anyway.

Her eyes narrowed even more, but the corner of her mouth twitched upwards. “Eden Yarrow, you quit that.” Anaya hissed, badly hiding the smile that kept trying to creep over her, “This is not me joking. He’s a werewolf! You saw him being a wolf! We both saw that he’s a werewolf!”

“No, we didn’t. We definitely saw a wolf. We’re agreed on that. Then, later, we saw a kid hiding under my car. Two totally different events that happened literally hours apart.” He paused, letting the silence draw out. The radio droned in and out of whatever stations it could pick up this far away from anything at all. He winced when he heard a scrap of a sermon. The sound was too familiar not to feel like ghosts haunting him down to the bone, the echo of his father’s own thundering disappointment. “We don’t, technically speaking, actually know that they’re even related events.”

Anaya didn’t respond, but the sheer weight of her answering stare burned hot against his right cheek. He could have seen it with his eyes closed. He was vaguely afraid he’d end up with some kind of burn as a result.

Eden tried to wait her out. The silence drew out. The radio played part of a hip-hop song and then went back to static. 

Naya had always been better at the quiet game, though, and after only a couple of minutes he gave up trying and just sighed. “Okay, I admit it would be a really big coincidence-”

“Yeah, I’d say it would be one hell of a coincidence!” She drew the word out, gave it syllables it didn’t even have. “I mean, sure, it’s a coincidence, in the same way that Batman and Bruce Wayne are coincidentally never seen in the same room at the same time-”

“Don’t you bring Batman into this.”

“Fine. Clark Kent and Superman, then.”

“Now you’re just listing every superhero.”

“Look, if you want to play this game, I could do this for days. We’ll die of dehydration before I run out of superheroes and their secret identities.”

He didn’t know if she looked as smug as she sounded, but he knew if he looked he’d start laughing and this whole conversation would be a wash.

“... Fine. Yeah, okay, you win. I’ll accept it. Werewolves are real. Men who turn into fucking wolves on the full moon, totally real. Oh, and cherry on top of the sundae, there’s one in the back of my car right now. Pure insanity, but sure.”

“Insanity. Right. But wouldn't you-... wouldn't-" The corner of her mouth twitched upwards again. She muttered under her breath, and had to put her hands up over her face. Her shoulders shook a little.

Eden sighed. His headache was getting worse. Even his arms felt weirdly heavy. They passed a road sign advertising a rest stop coming up, and he shifted into the right lane, not bothering with a turn signal. There was nobody but them and a handful of tractor trailers and like two other cars on the road right now anyway. “What?”

Anaya shook her head. She still had her hands over her mouth. “You won’t like it.”

“Why not? Just tell me. What’s so damn funny?”

“Would you say it's insanity... or..." She said, her voice slightly cracked with suppressed laughter. “Eden. Listen. Wouldn't it more accurately be... lunacy? Get it? Like the moon? Lunacy? Werewolves and the m-”

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Eden muttered. “Isn’t the guy in the relationship supposed to do the stupid dad jokes? Anaya, I am not laughing.”

“Hi, Not Laughing, I’m Anaya.” She threw her head back, the sound of her laughter bouncing around the inside of the car. A little delirious with her own exhaustion. It made Eden feel warm to hear it, even as he heard the boy in the back shift around for the first time. In the mirror, he caught sight of those unsettling light brown eyes, glinting gold with reflected sun, as the kid lifted his head enough to stare at Anaya like she’d grown four new arms. 

Wolf eyes.

He had to admit it.

The kid did not have human eyes at all. 

He took the exit for the rest stop, relieved to break eye contact. It had felt almost like a physical weight, demanding to be recognized even though the kid remained quiet. 

He was unsurprised to see a few semi trucks already parked alongside three regular cars. A small family sat eating what was clearly a kind of picnic breakfast at a small table in the morning sunlight. Another man had a dog on a leash sniffing around the edges of a trash can.

The boy must have seen the man with the dog, too. He made a sound, low in his throat, shifting over to get a better look through the backseat window. The sound he made was like a rumble, eyes laser focused on the man and his dog, and suddenly the mess of his hair seemed almost to stick out more than it had before. He shifted as Eden’s car passed by the two, his injured leg dragging a little as he tried to kneel, hands against the glass. 

Eden pulled into a parking spot at the very end of the row, as far away from anyone else as he could get, and just sat there, blinking. Then the nature of the sound seemed to suddenly make itself clear to him all at once. “What the hell? Dude, are you trying to growl? Anaya, he’s growling. Like a-”

“Wolf?” Anaya asked the question in a tone of pure and perfect innocence. When Eden glanced at her, her eyebrows were raised nearly to her hairline. “Would you say it was a wolflike sound, there, Eden? Canine, perhaps?”

“No, I wouldn’t,” He snapped, but his heart wasn’t in it. Anaya reached out to take his hand, pulling his knuckles to her lips to kiss them, one by one. He found himself relaxing until his head dropped back against the headrest. The world swam in front of him, the trees that lined the rest stop shifting in and out of focus.

God, he needed some sleep. 

Anaya yawned, Eden yawned - and then, in the back, he heard the unmistakable sound of Misae yawning, too. Anaya rolled her shoulders, then shifted to open the door and step out. “I’m going to go check and see if this place has one of those coffee vending machines. You want anything?”

“Granola bar or protein bar, if they got one. Also coffee. Not that it'll do much good. Anything for you?” He looked back at the mirror again when there wasn’t an answer. “Hey. Wolfboy.”

Misae looked away from him. Eden could read his expression well enough, though. He looked… hurt. His shoulders slumped, inching up towards his chin, and he sat back down. 

Anaya frowned. “I think we just insulted him.”

“Oh.” Eden cleared his throat. “Uh… Misae. Is ‘wolfboy’ bad? Not a good nickname?”

The boy’s eyes dropped down as he licked at his lips, taking in a deep breath and then slowly letting it out. His eyes cut off to one side, refusing to look back. An uncomfortable, heavy silence weighed all of them down. 

Just as Eden was about to give up waiting for him to speak and tell Anaya to go on and get the food, Misae cleared his throat. His words came out halting and hesitant, speaking slowly. “It’s fine. Just water, please.”

Anaya nodded. “You got it. Any food for you? You’ve got to be hungry by now, right?”

Misae didn’t respond this time, no matter how long they waited. He just blinked. 

Anaya sighed and then shrugged at Eden. “I’ll get him something,” She said, voice low, and then walked away, the car closing gently behind her. Misae watched her go, eyebrows furrowing a little in something like worry. The two men watched Anaya disappear into the rest stop building.

After a couple of minutes had passed, Misae whined. The tone was a little different than it had been before - not pain, but… concern. It was a deeply familiar sound, one Eden had heard a hundred times in his life or more. 

“Oh, stop it, she’s coming right back.” 

Silence from the back. 

Eden caught himself, and then made a sound somewhere between a groan and a laugh. Even he wasn’t sure which he meant to do. “Sorry. I know you’re not a dog.”

"Was... shifted, for too long. Can't remember which I am sometimes."

"Oh. Uh... Sorry?"

Silence.

Eden sighed. “Boy, you are not a talker, huh.”

The quiet drew out for a while longer. Eden’s mind wandered, and he found himself picking up the silver bullet, turning it in circles so he could run his fingers over the markings carved into it. They looked almost like… runes. Only not like them at all. But the idea was the same - symbols drawn in straight lines and dots, the occasional half-circle curve. Some of them had been partly obliterated by being fired into a human being - or not a human being, maybe, at least not all the way - but he could still get a sense for them by running his fingers over the curves of the thing. 

It felt oddly heavy in his hands. When he tipped it to one side and then the other, something seemed to shift inside it. Was it full of buckshot? It was a miracle it hadn’t filled the kid’s body with shrapnel. If it had broken apart the way Eden had thought it would…

Well, sewing up the wound wouldn't have been enough to save him.

His lips pressed together into a line. Then, he turned to look back at Misae, who was watching Eden and the bullet, his eyes locked with unconcealed dread on the way the silver glinted in the sunlight. Eden’s eyes narrowed in thought. “Hey.”

Brown-gold eyes flicked to his, then back to the silver. 

“Will you hold this for me?” Eden held the bullet out, only to watch with wide eyed as Misae flinched violently backwards, crying out in pain as his injured leg was forced into motion. He stopped only when his back was pressed against the back windshield. He had to clutch at the blankets and pull them back up to cover himself, but briefly all his scarred-up nakedness, the parade of bruises in various stages of healing all over his body, the mix of uneven welts and sharp, perfect straight lines of damaged skin were all on terrible display.

Eden looked nervously out the windows, but nobody seemed to have noticed them. Good. The idea of having to explain what Misae doing in his car was... not even scary, just something so exhausting he couldn't even stand to think about it. He dropped the bullet back into the cupholder. “Silver really freaks you out, huh?”

Misae slowly nodded, but he didn’t relax or move back close. “Bad,” He said, hoarsely. “It’s bad.”

“Silver is bad? Like, it hurts you? Like mythology?"

“It hurts.” Misae’s chin jerked down in the nod, and he crossed his arms in front of himself. His face was pale, white under the darkened freckles. “It… burns me, cuts me, doesn’t heal.”

“It doesn’t heal?” Eden thought of the wound that was still, somehow, bleeding even though he’d stitched it up and bandaged it heavily. “Like, ever?”

“If it comes out, it will. Different then.” Misae’s shoulders hunched near his ears and he looked down, hair falling forward to shadow his eyes. “Heals too slowly. Always scars. I don’t… like to see silver.”

“Oh. Uh… sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I didn’t think… that it would scare you like that, but that makes sense. Hey, about earlier… do they call you that? The, uh, the people… where you’ve been living? Do they call you ‘wolfboy’? Is that why it bugged you when I said it?”

Another long pause. Speaking with Misae felt like dropping a coin into a well and having to wait way too long before you hear it splash. Eventually, those narrow shoulders shrugged. “Sometimes they call me that. Sometimes other things.”

“Other things?”

“Worse things.”

“Like what?”

Misae looked at him through shaggy bangs, lips thinning.

“Yeah… okay. You probably don’t want to just tell me the nasty bits, you barely know me.” Eden sighed, leaning over until his forehead touched the steering wheel, closing his eyes. He wondered if he’d just… doze off, if he kept them shut for too long. He started talking just to try and keep himself awake. “This has been… the weirdest day, man. I have a werewolf in my car. An injured werewolf. An injured teenage werewolf.” With his level of exhaustion, it suddenly seemed like a reasonable possibility. Sure, why wouldn’t there be werewolves? Why not? Why wouldn’t there be a werewolf with knobby elbows and long legs in the back of his stupid old car? 

Maybe Bigfoot was out there, too, and they’d catch him hitchhiking. Or fucking little green aliens in flying saucers. Why the hell not? Or even vampires, maybe. 

Maybe they’d find a vampire staked through the wrong part of their chest next with a thumb out for a ride and have to take them on a road trip, too. Like a fucked-up road trip movie. Maybe he’d walk into a fairy circle of mushrooms one morning and vanish, never to be seen again. Or wake up in three hundred years the same age he was when he went to sleep, or…

Maybe all of it was real, legends and myth. Maybe he didn’t notice because he’d never tried to read between the lines of reality before. 

If he was having thoughts like that, he desperately needed sleep. He had to force down a half-hysterical giggle and make himself focus on his next train of thought. It was getting more difficult to think at all. “The guy who shot you. The one we saw in the woods. Who is that?”

Pause. “Austin.”

“... Is Austin one of the people… you live with?”

“Sort of.”

“What… what does ‘sort of’ mean?” God, it was like pulling teeth that just kept growing deeper roots every time he asked a question, fighting harder to give him nothing. Kid didn’t exactly make himself easy to rescue, now did he?

No. That wasn’t fair. He’d gotten right into the car, he’d let Eden and Anaya drive him away without protest. He just… didn’t seem to find it easy to speak. 

“Austin lives in the house.”  

“Where do you live?”

Silence again, other than the soft sound of Misae breathing. 

Did he not want to answer? Or did he not know what Eden was asking, not pick up on it? Maybe he thought Eden was making fun of him somehow. Eden frowned, trying to think, to reword the question. “I’m asking seriously. Did you not live in the house? Where did you sleep? Come on. Talk to me, I’m trying to understand.”

Misae shrugged again. “Outside.”

That seemed to be all Misae was willing to give him. 

Eden listened as the boy behind him just laid back down against the back of the car, hissing through his teeth at the pain in his stitched-up leg. Eden glanced back in time to see him cover himself until even his hair vanished beneath the layers of quilted cotton blankets. Just an unmoving lump with a red splotch near the bottom. 

The boy was literally hiding from having to continue the conversation.

“Okay, guess we’re done with that, then,” Eden muttered, rubbing his hands over his face. His stubble was scratchy under his palms along his jaw, and the sensation sent a warmth through him. Felt pretty damn good, even though he knew it would drive him crazy if he didn’t get a chance to shave in the next couple of days.  

He decided, glutton for punishment that he was, to try one more time. “Are these people going to keep looking for you, even though we got you off their land?” After a long pause, he let his frustration bleed into his tone, and stopped trying to gentle it. “Just fucking answer me, okay, man? Are the people who shot you going to keep looking for you now?”

Misae’s muffled voice came, barely audible from under the blankets. “Yes.”

“What happens if they find you?”

Silence.

“God damn it, kid-”

“Containment!” Misae’s voice trembled, now, enough for Eden to hear it. The word seemed forced from him against his will, spat out like poison. He wondered suddenly if he wasn’t hiding from the conversation itself, but trying to hide his tears from view. Ashamed or even afraid of his own emotions. “Quarantine.”

A pit opened somewhere between Eden’s chest and his stomach. He shivered, despite the warmth of the sun shining on him through the window. Goosebumps raised on his arms until he rubbed at them with one hand. “What?” 

He glanced over at the rest stop building and saw Anaya through the glass doors. She stood off to one side at the vending machines, choosing something, looking down at her phone while she waited.

“Been in quarantine so he could fix us. But… but I left.” Misae hitched in an uneven breath, a whine at the edge of his exhale. Twisting canine noise into human speech. “Left.”

“Why did you leave?”

Misae looked to the side, his hopelessness a heavy weight in the car, pressing the both of them down. “Bill decided no one would ever get better. Can’t be fixed.”

“What does that mean? ‘Getting better?’” 

“Not… becoming. We might still hurt people. Make them sick, too."

“... You hurt people?”

“I… I didn’t mean to…” Misae licked at his lips again, looking away and then back, and Eden had trouble with the combination of a very human body echoing very canine traits over and over again. 

“So you were… kept in quarantine to keep you from hurting people?”

"From making them sick."

"... oh."

Eden felt like the next pause between sentences like a hammer bashing at his brain. His heart beat too hard. He looked up and saw Anaya heading back their way, a coffee in each hand, somehow balancing a water bottle between her arm and her side and with protein bars stuffed in her pockets. He swallowed, feeling a surreal and completely pointless urge to tell her to stay away. Get out, run, get help.

To what? Save him from the exhausted, frightened, injured boy in the back who clearly couldn’t have hurt a fly in his current state? The thought was ridiculous. Misae was the epitome of fucking harmless. 

Bill, whoever he was, was clearly a liar.

Then again… Eden thought of the wolf racing in the moonlight, stumbling through their campsite. 

In the end, Misae was the first one to speak again. He just said, voice flat, “Silver was supposed to fix us. Make us safe. But Bill said it wasn’t enough. It’s… it’s like rabies.”

“What’s like rabies?”

"The bite."

Eden cleared his throat. “Okay, so… that’s why you’re on your own? Because of what this Bill guy said about it not being treatable? So you ran away?"

Misae’s throat moved, adam’s apple shifting up and down. His lips twisted into something like a snarl before he closed his eyes tightly. He pulled one knee to his chest, the injured leg still stuck out straight, and closed his arms around it, hiding most of his face. His shoulders shook, and the tears in his voice couldn’t be hidden no matter how soft and hoarse he kept his words.

“I thought I did a good enough job pretending."

A pause.

“I didn’t know Austin would see me when I climbed out of it.”

“Out of what?”

“... The hole.”

Eden stared sightlessly ahead, feeling somehow like it would be easier for Misae if he wasn't looking. His heart beat hard and ice pushed through his veins. "The hole?"

"We were all buried together. I had to wait. I was... I was the only one who climbed out of the... it was a g-grave..." Misae began to cry, sobs shaking thin shoulders, hoarse rasping sobs that filled the whole space inside the little car.

Anaya returned, balancing coffee and water and granola bars stuffed into her pockets. She opened the car door and then froze, staring. Her eyes went from Misae to Eden. "What-... what happened while I was gone?"

Eden felt like his own eyes were too wide, ringed in white, when he met her gaze.

"We, uh." He cleared his throat. "Get in. You were right. Let's stop to sleep in Missoula."

-

@finder-of-rings @burtlederp @scoundrelwithboba @shrimpwritings

[evilwriter37]

Selling Your Soul

Rated: mature

Warnings: referenced murder

Relationships: Viggo/Hiccup

Word Count: 700

Summary: Hiccup, accidentally complicit in a murder, has no choice but to help Viggo hide the body.

Written for @seasonaldelightsbingo. Language of Flowers.

Square Filled: Can't Tell a Soul

Inspired by this piece by @mdoodlerfandomart!

[scratchandplaster]

What Remains

CW: referenced murder, ghosts, supernatural Whumpee, Whumper-turned-Whumpee

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

Whumper lies awake for another night. The cobalt-blue specter at the foot of his bed guards any sleep, a silent whine is their constant escort. Through the moonlight, every lash and stab wound glows visible on their defiled shape: translucent, floating above the carpet floor.

"My body," the living dead whispers with a hollow tone.

When they speak, nothing but these words leave them. For weeks now, even after Whumper thought he got rid of them, the haunting cold they bring with leaves him restless, unable to close his eyes for even a second. As a single tear slips down onto the pillow, the sunken-in stare rests on Whumper's helpless body.

This would be a waking night, like they all had been; it didn't matter in which room or which house he might have tried to flee to, ever since Whumper squeezed the last breath out of the cursed guest, they decided to pay a visit until sunrise.

"My body."

It had been a mistake to take them in, there were plenty of folk that would have made fitting additions to his collection. Unmoving, Whumper prays to a nameless force to end this, to let him rest.

But they can't be reasoned with, their request will never be fulfilled. Even before the first haunting, it had been too late; the object of desire was thrown in the bog, like Whumper did to all of his guests. 

So he just withers away also, alive but fading into nothingness.

"My body!" the phantom howls desperately, as if they can read the thoughts of their torturer like a book.

What else could they be offered? What satiates a trapped soul? Desperation catches on, and Whumper finally joins their hopeless whining.

"I'll do anything," he mutters, still frozen in endless horror, "just let me be. What can I give to you?"

A long silence settles between them but apart from the electric purr around, only a sudden hint breaks it:

"A body."

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

Thanks for reading 🤍 [Masterpost]

[montammil]

Playdate, Part 1

CW: Heavily implied/referenced murder, implied dead spouse, implied past violence, implied noncon drugging

I collaborated with @obsessedwhump505 to make this! Please follow them if parental whumpers are your thing!!

Crickets chirped in the foggy cold and darkness of the night. The moon was in the sky, almost midnight. The body—draped in a blanket—fell to the ground beside the river. Lawrence sighed and wiped the sweat off his brow when he saw something in the corner of his eye. He turned to see a shorter man, about his age, standing there with a shocked expression. He was about to grab the knife from his pocket, when his eyes laid on the body that the man had, as well. The other man also seemed to notice the body that Lawrene just dropped. They both visibly relaxed.

“I didn’t know this place was already taken,” the shorter man muttered, eyes directed at the limp body in front of Lawrence.

The situation made Lawrence laugh. “I won’t say anything if you won’t.” When the other man just huffed a laugh back, he smiled. “I’m Lawrence. I’d shake your hand, but… y’know.” He raised his hand to show it was caked in blood, mostly dried.

“…I’m John.” The other man muttered, clearly hesitant. Lawrence could see his hands also had some blood on them, but it was more wet and shiny in the moonlight. He glared down at the body bag in front of him and slammed his foot down aggressively on a part of it. A horrific squelch could be heard from inside. The other man looked back up at Lawrence and shrugged nonchalantly. “I saw him twitch.”

“You can never be too careful of course!” Lawrence said with a wide grin. “If you don’t mind me asking, what are you doing all the way out here to take care of your…business? Obviously you don’t live nearby.” He asked. He hoped he wasn’t sounding too nosy, but he had to find out what this man was doing so far out in the woods. He could be a danger to Marshall.

Thankfully John didn’t seem too suspicious. “Eh, I kind of do. I have a house a few hundred yards away. No one knows about it, of course. I’m guessing you also live nearby, we’re pretty far out from civilization and you clearly can’t be caught with…” he side-eyed the corpse lying feet away from Lawrence. “That kind of thing.”

Lawrence snickered lightly as if he wasn’t ready to attack at any moment. “Yes, I have my own place somewhere a bit farther out. Lovely home, we should have tea sometime. Or maybe at your house?” He asked, waiting delicately for the right response. He didn’t want to visit whoever this was at all, but if he was a dangerous man he needed to be dealt with. For Marshall’s sake.

John looked away from Lawrence, lost in his thoughts. “Well, I don’t know. My house is cluttered and kind of a mess at the moment…” he mumbled.

“Oh, I don’t mind a bit of clutter, my house can get pretty messy, too,” he exclaimed cheerfully. “But if you really don’t want your house, I can clean my place up. No big deal.”

“Well…” John pursed his lips. “I suppose tea at your house sounds fine. Do you have black?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. It’s my favorite, too.” Lawrence grinned, the motion not quite reaching his eyes. He was careful not to be obvious with his movements towards the other man, but his hands were shaky. Barely, though.

With a nod, John replied, “Good. Um… should I come over tomorrow around noon? Will that work for you?"

Lawrence knew that John wanted to play this game of cautiousness, but so did he. “That’ll work just fine for me. Noon it is, then. My house isn’t far from here. Why don’t we meet here and then we can walk there together?”

John audibly sighed, but didn’t protest. “Alright. That’s…fine. I’ll be here at eleven.” With that he turned around and started to walk away. Lawrence watched the brunette stomp through the woods, briefly considering following him but decided against it. He had to prepare for a guest.

And he had to make sure he didn’t see Marshall.

When Lawrence got home, he could see Marshall sitting on the couch, an anxious look on his face as he fiddled with the fabric of the sofa. No doubt it was because of what Lawrence just had to do, but Marshall had to understand it was for his own good. No one could find out they were here. Well, except for the other murderer in the middle of nowhere.

He shook his head to brush it aside and put on a big grin on his face. “Marshall! Guess what!” he exclaimed excitedly. Marshall visibly flinched and looked up at Lawrence’s cheery face with both confusion and slight fear.

“...what is it?” Marshall slowly asked.

Sitting down next to him, Lawrence announced, “We have a guest coming over! Well, I do. I want you to be in your room the entire time, okay?”

Marshall seemed uncomfortable. He pulled a blanket around his shoulders, still looking nervous and unsure. “Um, okay. You never have guests over, so… who is it?”

Lawrence paused and gave a half-truth, “He’s just a friend who’s visiting. I ran into him while…taking care of things, and he said we should have tea. It will be no big deal, Marshall, don't worry about it. We can spend all of our time together before and after he leaves, okay?”

“When will he be here?” Marshall asked next. Lawrence could practically feel the anxiety bleeding off of him.

“Well, he should be here at eleven-thirty, I leave to pick him up at eleven. Just be in your room by then, okay?” He placed his hand on Marshall’s cheek in an attempt to bring comfort, having washed them at the river. “I’ll get you when he’s gone, m’kay?”

Marshall hesitantly leaned into the touch. “Okay.”

“Wonderful! Lawrence chirped happily.

Meanwhile with our boyo Johnny!

John quietly fed Evan his soup, ignoring the scowl on his boy’s face. “You need this soup to be strong and healthy, son. No need to worry, I didn’t put anything in it this time.”

Evan just rolled his eyes, but didn’t protest being spoon fed. “Sure, if you want me to believe that.” he grumbled.

They finished the bowl of soup, and Evan watched John confusedly as he placed the bowl in his lap and sigh with a slight nervous tone. He knew John by now. He was never nervous. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked in a slightly nervous way himself.

John let out a huff. “Well, if you must know, I’m meeting with someone I met while I was out. Considering he was burying a body nearly right next to me, I need to make sure he won’t be a threat to you.” he explained.

Evan looked at him as if he had three heads. “Are you nuts?! You’re seriously meeting with another murderous psychopath for my SAFETY!?” Evan yelled.

“Volume, boy.” John warned, earning a glare, but he didn’t care. “Obviously he won’t say anything considering we were both out there for the same reason. But apparently he lives close by. If he is a danger to you, I need to figure it out now. And if he is, I’ll take care of it.”

That made Evan scoff loudly and turn away from John to curl into the sheets. “Sure, cause a psycho who kills people and lives in the woods is definitely a safe person to be around…”

“Aw, I’m so touched that you care.” John simpered. Evan whipped around to shout at him but John held up a hand to quiet him down. “I’ll be out tomorrow, hopefully not for long. Because of that, you’ll have to be sedated for a while so you don’t leave your room or hurt yourself. Do not protest, this is for your own safety.”

Evan was definitely about to protest, but the harsh glare in John’s eyes made him decide better. John adjusted the collar of his trench coat and forced a smile on his face. “Don’t worry, Evan, it’ll be okay. Now stay in your room and play with your toys. I’ll be back to put you to bed soon. You’re lucky I decided to let you stay up this late.”

With that John left the room, locking the door behind him. Sure, ten locks was excessive and probably overkill. But it was for Evan’s safety.

And so was meeting this Lawrence fellow.

______

As soon as Lawrence set eyes on him, he waved his hand out—honestly a little shocked that he actually showed up, given how reluctant he seemed. The other man waved back with a tight-lipped smile, walking over to him.

After greetings were made, the two men started their trek towards Lawrence’s home. As they walked, Lawrence couldn't help but notice John’s stare. It was fixated on him and he wondered what the man was thinking. He glanced back, a curious expression on his face. John seemed to snap out of it, looking ahead at the road.

Lawrence decided to break the ice. “So, I hope you’re hungry. I made a pretty nice lunch, I can guarantee that,” he laughed.

John laughed back, though it sounded a little hollow. His hands were clenched, Lawrence noticed, but he didn’t think much of it.

When sand hit their shoes, John eyed Lawrence with even more suspicion. “So you live on a beach? That must be convenient for you.” When he saw Lawrence’s confused expression, he tilted his head. “You know, for dumping bodies?”

That earned a laugh from the blond. “No, I don’t dump bodies here. I would rather keep it away from here, actually. I just like the beach.”

“Hm. Sweet.” John mumbled. “I didn’t even know there was a beach all the way out here…”

“Clearly you don’t get out much!” Lawrence chuckled as the two of them approached his house. His joke didn’t seem that funny to his guest but he didn’t push it. “Come in, come in! There are sandwiches as well as crumpets!”

John lumbered in with his back hunched, seemingly bored. But that could just be his way of trying to let people’s guard down. “Crumpets? I didn’t expect you to be British.” He said as Lawrence led him to the kitchen.

“Oh I’m not. I just find them delicious!” Lawrence explained. He pushed open the chair across from him and gestured to John to sit. The other man reluctantly did so and Lawrence took his seat with a pep in his step. “Now, let’s chat, shall we?”

And so they did. They talked while drinking black coffee, about their occupations (besides burying bodies in the woods) , their hobbies, their favorite foods, until the conversation couldn’t be avoided anymore and they moved onto talking about their less than normal occupations.

“Well, I have my own business to take care of.” Lawrence explained while adjusting his collar. “Losing your wife can take a toll on you, as it can be expected. I haven’t been found yet, so I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

“Oh.” Lawrence looked up at John slightly perplexed, as the man had gone quiet. He only looked down into his teacup and mumbled, “You lost your wife as well?”

Damn it. Wrong thing to say. “Well, yes,” Lawrence said, wanting to avoid any problems from the other man. “But I learned to keep moving forward, as you can only do-”

He stopped when he heard John take a shuddering breath and he looked to see the man was shaking. He couldn’t believe what he thought was happening was actually happening and incredulously asked, “Are you crying-?”

“No.” John stated, although he was clearly rattled. He stood up from the table aggressively and turned away from Lawrence, letting out a choked noise before asking, “Where’s your bathroom?”

Lawrence was so disturbed by the fact that a fellow murderer was crying in front of him, he simply stuttered out, “Uh, the third door down the right hallway.”

“Thank you.” John nearly fell down from how fast he tried to leave, the chair almost being taken with him. Lawrence watched as the man stomped away before sighing heavily and rubbing his eyes. He didn’t expect the man to cry but clearly he shouldn’t have mentioned his wife. Some people don’t have the strength to move on.

That thought instantly made him dig his nails into his face. Wait. Did he lock Marshall’s door?

As John made his way to the door, he turned the doorknob just to realize it was locked. He was about to go tell Lawrence he thought the door was jammed, when he heard the sink start running. Was someone else here? Lawrence didn’t mention anyone else. He stood there, staring at the door until it unlocked. Out came a young man—boy, perhaps?— dressed in a cute orange t-shirt with little polka-dots on it and a pair of baggy brown shorts.

John blinked. So did the boy. Before either of them knew it, Lawrence was scrambling in the hallway, pushing the small brunet behind him. “Oh, sorry about him, he’s not supposed to be out of his room.” The words were seethed, and Lawrence turned his head to glare at the boy. The boy awkwardly itched the back of his head.

“I had to use the bathroom, I’m sorry…” Lawrence seemed to have calmed down a bit at the apology.

He smiled, it obviously being forced. “John, this is Marshall. Marshall, this is John.”

Marshall timidly waved. “Hi.” He had a faded yet huge bruise on his left eye that looked directly caused, and he was visibly shaking.

John only blinked once again, a million thoughts clearly going through his mind at once going by the look on his face. Lawrence was ready to shove Marshall back into the bathroom to fight this man before John just shrugged and hunched his back once again. “Alright. Fine. Just let me use your restroom, please.”

Lawrence was shocked that John didn’t make a fuss out of it, but moved out of the man’s way to let him by. The second the door clicked shut Lawrence glared at Marshall, who cowered before him. “I told you to stay in your room!” he hissed angrily. “What if this man was dangerous and decided to attack you?!”

Marshall just whimpered. “I’m sorry, I really had to go…” he mumbled.

“I understand that, but if someone potentially dangerous is in the house, you stay in your room! No exceptions!” Lawrence growled, trying to not let Marshall’s scared whines get to his heart. He needed to be disciplined for this. “You will be punished for this, do you understand-”

The sound of soft crying from inside of the bathroom made both of them quiet down. Lawrence gave one last glare to Marshall before going to knock on the door. “John? Is everything alri-”

The door swung open before Lawrence could finish, revealing John who had clearly just finished sobbing his eyes out from how red and puffy they were. “Yes. I'm fine.”

“Are you sure?” Lawrence asked hesitantly. “You look-”

“I’ll be alright, Lawrence. Nothing a night's rest can help me with. How about we have coffee at my place tomorrow? Same time, same place?”

Lawrence looked back at Marshall, who was quivering behind him, most likely scared of whatever punishment Lawrence would give out. He turned back to John with a wide forced smile of his own and nodded. “That sounds great! I’ll see you on your way out!”

John held up a hand and shook his head. “No need for that. I know where to go. Hope to see you tomorrow.” And before Lawrence could protest, John turned around to leave. It was a few moments before he could hear his front door open and slam shut.

Lawrence sighed and rubbed his eyes, turning back to face Marshall. The boy had his hands behind his back, and looked as if he was trying to disappear into the wall. He sighed and waved a hand. “Off to bed, kiddo. I need to think.”

Marshall didn’t dare question that, as long as he could avoid punishment. He nervously scurried back to his room, leaving Lawrence to think.

What was going through John’s head? Did he think he was abusing his son? Did he think this wasn’t his son at all? Lawrence knew both could be argued as true, but not to him. He was still doing this for Marshall’s own safety, but he also was genuinely curious about his life now. In a way, he felt bad for him. He still sometimes found himself crying over Nadia’s death, he understood the pain. He found himself genuinely wanting to be his friend.

A new question arose in his mind, though. What kind of secrets was John hiding?

____

John went to Evan’s room to see him still sedated, just as he had left him. He sighed, sitting down next to him, placing a hand on the side of his cheek. Evan didn't respond to the touch, nor did he wake up. Not that he was expecting him to.

His mind drifted to that boy he saw. Lawrence called him Marshall. John thought about what he saw in the boy’s face. That bruise. His fear. He didn’t know if Lawrence was purely abusive, or if there was more to the story. He didn’t want to assume given his own situation with Evan. But what were the chances Lawrence was just like him? He guessed past the murdering and shared love for black coffee and tea, that was as far as it went. Now that he thought of it, though, the boy seemed about the same age as Evan. Maybe a bit younger. It was hard to tell with his clothing.

Either way, whether Lawrence was like him or not, he needed to gauge if he was a danger to Evan or not. And if he was a danger, maybe to Marshall as well, he had to be dealt with. For both of the boys' sake.

[whumpacabra]

Day 15: “Who did this to you?”

Angst, knife wounds, bruises, rope burns, scars, shivering, crying, brief fear of homophobic hate crimes, vaguely referenced internalized homophobia, referenced death of a minor, referenced murder, firearm mention, implied past torture

[Directly follows Mouse]

Jackson was going to be in so much trouble for dipping before back-up could arrive. He was going to be in trouble for frisking a corpse without gloves. He was going to be in trouble for forgetting to re-enable his comm when chasing after a target of unknown threat level.

But mostly, Jackson thought he would be in trouble for taking that target to a quaint hotel at the edge of the city. If he was a less valuable agent, he might not be allowed to get away with a stunt like this.

The walk was long, cold, and dreary - at least Jackson’s heavy trench coat kept everything but his head dry. The stranger - ‘Wolf’ - didn’t seem to mind the weather, or at the very least didn’t complain and wonder aloud why they couldn’t flag down a taxi. He always kept a pace and a half behind Jackson, just out of arms reach. The same way he had followed Agent Smith when Jackson watched them from afar.

Curious.

Half the reason Jackson was willing to get in trouble was this stranger’s curiosities. The gun he had shot Smith with was Smith’s own weapon - Wolf himself appeared to be completely unarmed. (Not that a man of his physique needed a weapon to be lethal.) That was the first curiosity. The second was…everything after Jackson opened the closet door. He expected an ambush - a trap made from expired chemicals or improvised weapons. Not a man curled on the floor, trying to make himself as small as possible. Like a child hiding from a wrathful parent.

Jackson still wasn’t completely sure what a freelancer was, but it sure as hell couldn’t be this - skulking behind him like a shadow, avoiding eye contact, speaking so low he almost couldn’t understand the man. Command hadn’t been forthcoming on his identity - and Jackson knew they were keeping him in the dark, at least until the mission was done.

He was curious.

It wouldn’t kill him.

Probably.

—

The hotel wasn’t the best, but it was nice enough. Low profile, but off Command’s active radar for illegal activity hot-spots. Any good agent worth their salt had a few personal fake IDs, just in case. They wouldn’t be found here, not anytime soon.

“You can clean up first, I’m sure you could use the hot water more than me.” Jackson flashed a smile, but Wolf’s expression hardened as he nodded in reply, stalking to the washroom like a soldier on a mission.

Another curiosity.

Aside from a well disguised limp, Wolf moved like a soldier. He didn’t have the purposeful poise of an agent - American or otherwise. He took orders quite seriously. Wolf hadn’t moved since he and Jackson entered the room, as if waiting for instruction. Blunt, to the point, comfortable in a hierarchy - now that didn’t sound like a runaway spy’s associate.

The bathroom door locked, and Jackson turned to the bed with a sigh. Of course they only had singles left. He paid for a couples room, even if it left his skin buzzing. It shouldn’t have bothered him, but his paranoia was acutely aware of how the secretary had raised a brow at his refusal for separate rooms.

(God, what did Wolf think of that?)

(...)

(What did they care? It was 2004 for God’s sake.)

(…)

(He still felt like the eyes of others always seemed to know what he was.)

Jackson tossed the duvet and the spare pillow to the ground. He could sleep on the floor just fine. He didn’t want to make Wolf uncomfortable. (And a small voice in his head whispered he didn’t want to give Wolf any more reason to kill him. How easy it would be for Wolf to kill him here, alone, without witnesses, and for his death to be brushed off as just another murdered poof.)

The agent turned out his coat pockets, setting what he had collected from the dead American on the bedside desk.

A room service receipt - it matched the hotel he had been staying at, but the wrong room number. Smith certainly seemed the type to choose two rooms for two people, but the sheer scale of the bill - the wine, the dinners - it didn’t meet the income of a spy in hiding. He had friends in high places (literally - Jackson would have to case the penthouse tomorrow).

The hotel room key was additional confirmation that Smith was likely traveling within the hotel. It was for the room Jackson had been stalking the last few days. The blinds were always drawn, but he could see light and movement from time to time.

The third item he snagged from the corpse was…odd. It looked like a car’s key fob, or a small, oddly shaped television remote. It only had four buttons. Unthinking, he pointed it at the television in the room, and clicked the most well worn button.

The yelp from the bathroom startled him - more so because he hadn’t expected to hear from his quiet guest. It hadn’t been particularly loud, but it had sounded distinctly pained. The thud that followed was equally concerning.

Jackson bolted to the door, stopping himself from trying the handle he knew was locked. He knocked softly, trying to keep his voice even.

“Wolf? Is everything alright?” When no reply came, he pressed his ear to the door. The sharp, agonized breathing between sobs was enough to spur him into action. “Wolf I’m going to unlock and open the door if you don’t say something.” His lock picking tools were easily slotted into the door’s mechanism. He had it unlocked, but he knocked again. “Wolf, are you alright?” The silence was deafening. “I’m coming in - please say something if you’re…”

The sight shocked Jackson to silence.

It shocked him to being 15 again. 15 and finding the corpse of a girl he had shared classes with stuffed behind the bleachers, obscenities carved into her bloodied and bruised flesh. That moment had led him here, more than a decade later. A professional MI6 agent looking down at a man beaten and bloodied that very same way, but by some cruel miracle still alive.

Jackson dropped to his knees, still processing the flesh in front of him. Bruises mottled from aged yellow to fresh blue along Wolf’s ribs, skin marred by scars and old burns. Cuts were tallied on his shoulder - like someone was keeping score - and the small, circular burns that trailed Wolf’s forearms were difficult to see against the thick bands of bruising from too-tight restraints and red rope burn. Wolf was kneeling next to the tub, keeled over with his back to Jackson. Between the blood and the bruises, the agent could make out two words etched across Wolf’s shoulder blades:

“BAD DOG”

Under the flickering fluorescent light, Jackson couldn’t read what else was carved across Wolf’s back, but those bloodied letters were cut deep into the muscle. Jackson let his eyes wander the room, finding Wolf’s rain soaked jacket and thin t-shirt neatly folded on the toilet seat. But Jackson’s eyes were once against drawn to Wolf when a violent shiver wracked his bare torso. The words contracted and stretched, weeping anew with fresh blood.

Unthinking, he let a shaking hand graze against the butchered carving before him. His words were soft, but the pity blooming in his chest made them waver with overwhelming compassion.

“Who did this to you?”

The trembling body under his fingertips stilled, and reality came crashing down on him as Jackson froze in turn. Wolf sat up slowly, broad back straightened until he sat taller than Jackson. (Blood ran in rivulets from the letters.) Dark eyes peered over his bloodied shoulder, damp with tears and expression unreadable.

Jackson was just about to jump to his feet, to mention that he had a medkit with a sterile suture needle, when Wolf lunged at him.

His brief panic at the sudden movement faded quickly as he realized what was happening. Strong arms had wrapped around him like a vice, but they were shaking - hands desperate and grasping at the back of Jackson’s shirt like he would dissolve without the contact. Jackson held Wolf’s head to his chest as he sobbed. He couldn’t touch his back without hurting him, and right now, Wolf just needed a shoulder to cry on. Jackson carded his fingers through sweaty, tangled hair and hummed soft reassurances.

Any thought of sating his curiosity tonight was discarded.

It didn’t matter who had done this, not right now. All that mattered right now was that they weren’t here.

[Directly before New Tricks]

(Part of my Freelancers: Changing Tides series)

[factorialsfandoms]

For the short fic ask game, how about number 5?

Right! From what I remember 5 was a forehead kiss so... Okay this is Rune Factory AU, as threatened, from when Bracken (read: Hyrule) was first taken to to the village... Doctor Odel is... A named version of one of the many old men, just one who is a doctor.

Bracken is ~9 here, just... having a really bad time.

This is kinda an unrelated scene as context and setup, then the actual kiss. The worms are not in my favour tonight.

When Rusl had called Doctor Odel out to the edges of the Lost Woods, he had been expecting many things - a member of the hunting party poisoned by the hallucinogenic spores, perhaps, or someone with crushing injuries from a more sentient vine. Being led to a clearing filled with bracken and brambles was not on that list, neither was how Rusl pointed to a spot where the other hunters were not looking.

Odel's sight had been gradually declining for some years, now; he squinted hard, trying to see anything there.

The red of ginger hair came first.

The red of well hidden blood came second.

And only combining them did he spot the child hiding within.

"We tried to get him out," Rusl sighed a little. "He wouldn't come, then when we tried to grab him he ran, but we can't leave him out here. Been pretending we're still looking so he doesn't freak out again."

They really couldn't; Odel had to wonder how the child had even found their way so deep into the Lost Woods. Alone, at that. Unless the parent was dead nearby, but...

"I'll handle it."

Rusl nodded, and gestured the other hunters to move along. To Odel he whispered a quiet promise to check the local area for monsters, just in case the child ran again.

Odel waited for them to leave, and then approached the patch of bracken where the child hid. He did not reach out, however, instead knelt down nearby. Old bones creaked and groaned, and Odel did his best to ignore them.

Once safely on the floor, Odel rummaged through his bag for his flask, and made himself a cup of tea. Not looking at the child he sat, and sipped at it for a little.

And then.

"Hello," he offered in the direction of the bush. "Are you alright, child?"

No answer at all.

Odel frowned, putting an end to the ploy immediately; given the reported skittishness, he should have at least heard some shuffling. Instead there was nothing, not even some leaves.

He thought of the blood again, shoving his flask away and ensuring bandages were to hand.

With aching bones and a little spite, he pulled himself back to his feet.

"Child?" he said again. "Do you understand me?"

Still nothing.

"I'm going to come to you," he spoke slower, explaining. "Please - I just want to help."

When no objection came, he did exactly that. In three strides he made it to the correct patch of bracken, and pushed the branches aside.

There was more blood than he had expected. The child was curled tightly around himself, pale, and his eyelids fluttered only slightly as Odel approached.

"I'm a doctor," Odel said quietly, trying to soothe the terror in hazy eyes. The spores, perhaps? "I just want to help. Will you let me?"

The child did not object, and so Odel reached down. It was only as he picked the child up that he realised he possibly should have called Rusl back to help, rather than rely on ancient bones.

Another moment, and he realised the child was impossibly light.

Not just underweight or even starving, but so light it should not have been possible.

The most obvious explanation was that the poor child was some sort of monster-born. It would... Well the forest would have let him through, but nothing else. The poor thing, no matter he was suffering.

Briefly, he wondered if it was kinder to put the poor creature out of its misery. But, no, no, this was a child - as human as not - and one capable of being human all of the time.

He was also gravely wounded.

With a few steps he bought the boy back to his bag. He set him down on a patch of softer grass, hurridly grabbing supplies. Everything would be treated properly when they got back to the Clinic, but for now he needed to stop the bleeding.

Odel's hands hesitated over the needles. If he were monster-born, the iron... Hopefully the tape would hold until they got back. He had some needles he used for the farm monsters at the Clinic. Maybe he should start keeping them in his emergency bag...

Sunken eyes, pale skin, clearly malnourished (what would he even need to eat?), covered in scratches and scars and a serious of thick whip wounds across not his back but his chest. Rags, not clothes. He might loose that eye if he were unlucky, but Odel thought he could save it, so long as the boy survived... So injured in the mud for who knows how long...

As Odel worked, the boy neither flinched nor made a sound. He just... lay there, eyes tracking him even as his body did not respond. Chances were he would remember none of this; Odel rather hoped so.

Once the bleeding was stopped and Odel thought his body would survive the spell, he called Rusl back. It did not take long to explain the situation and give Rusl's return token to the boy. Odel would bother Farore for a new one if the boy stayed, but for now...

He clicked the charm around the boy's neck, and pressed a finger to it. So, too, did he press a finger to his own. With a fragment of magic he activated the old spells, pulling them both from the Woods. It lasted only a few seconds before the two were found in the sacred grove; he bowed his head to that ancient tree, scooping up his patient.

The Clinic was only two doors down from the waypoint; the child would be safe here. They could find a way to hide him. Odel doubted that the hunters had realised, and he was not about to let them know.

---

Three weeks later, Odel was busy cleaning. Despite the infection he had expected setting in and his frail condition, the boy had survived. Still he did not speak or even make a sound, via trauma or magic or just the nature of himself Odel was not sure. And there certainly was trauma; when he had returned from helping Uli through the birth of her first son, he had found the boy awake, eyes blown wide with fear.

A promise it was okay, a kiss on the forehead, an offer to stay until he fell asleep; the boy clung to his sleeve as he did his best to curl up, still shivering from the dream.

Paying more attention at nights now, Odel could see them more often.

Whatever had driven the child into the Woods, it was nothing good. Still, the boy seemed more inclined to stay than to leave, having made no attempt to escape. They still had no name for him, the boy refusing if not unable to write either, and Odel would have to fix that soon.

Both parts. Writing lessons were the simpler, but the name... He could not just name someone else's child. But he could not just call him child forever... Later problems...

And that someone else; too old to be an abandoned baby, but he doubted the child's human parent was alive. Perhaps not either of them were. He would have heard... something.

The last he heard about monster-born children were reports of a mixed monster-human settlement being destroyed by a monster-hunting party. It had turned ugly when they chased a monster back, and found humans willingly beside them... Burnt, destroyed, ravenged... That had been a little under a year ago.

... He hated that it was not just possible but plausible the child had escaped that bloodbath.

Busy thinking about other things, he did not realise immediately that the boy was 'calling' for him, making an insistent beckoning gesture towards him.

Odel put down the brush, and turned to face him.

"Did you need something?" he asked.

The boy gestured a little more insistently for him to approach.

Odel did so, and he watched a calculation in his eyes. After a few long moments, a hand reached out and caught Odel's sleese, tugging it down. Caught off guard, even the fragile strength of a sick and injured child was enough to have him stumble fowards a little.

His chin was caught by the child, and then... something pressed to his head.

It took Odel a moment, and then he realised - a kiss to his forehead.

He paused, and let the boy finished, trying to think what had bought this on. Was it...

Oh.

"Thank you, child," he showed the boy his hand, before reaching out. He ran a hand over the boy's hair, watching as he relaxed a little. "Did you realise I was worried?"

A small nod.

Copying him, then.

Odel smiled softly, leaning over and granting the boy a gift of his own.

The boy yawned, silent as ever.

"Get some more sleep; I'll be right there."

The boy reached out, grabbing Odel's hand. He held it back, tracing soft patterns on the hand until eyes stayed closed.

[gremlin-coded]

been thinking about secret life again recently

[saturdaysky]

you lose sight of it, somehow, when you consort with gods: how fragile mortals are, and how precious.

[gale of waterdeep & my pc, mayhew of nowhere in particular]

[bleeding-seraphic]

Gwendolyn should take a page out of the good old Bouchard book

[deadsetobsessions]

Pt. 4

Sorry this took so long. In the hospital still. Out of the hospital now!

For @unadulteratedsoulsweets

——

It had been early in the morning when she’d stepped foot in the manor. It was closer to noon, now, that found the reincarnation attentively sitting in one of the (if she remembered correctly from the blue prints) three massive kitchens located in Wayne manor.

She sat atop one of the island stools Damian had ushered her into, spaced a comfortable distance from the man that was her biological father in this life. Her mask dangled at her hip, a comfort she indulged in after unpacking her things. In truth, she’s had cookies before, but it had been so long since she’s tasted it that she might as well have never tried it before. Damian and Alfred Pennyworth worked with maximum efficiency, measuring out flour and sugar and chocolate like there were no tasks more important than this.

Alfred Pennyworth also avoided a specific cabinet that smelled slightly of metal polish and gun powder. It was kept away from the perishables.

Perhaps the manor was smaller and much more homely than the palace, but the reincarnate could see the sense in and approved of the various well-hidden caches of weapons around. Meant for non-lethal take downs, of course, but anything can be lethal if you tried hard enough. Or, considering the vigilante filled manor she had agreed to vacation in, anything could be lethal if one did not try hard enough to keep it non lethal.

The scrape of a spoon drew her attention back to Damian, waving away the off topic musings her mind had wandered into now that a large portion of her brain power was freed from the duty of fear.

She tracked how Damian existed within this space he had so clearly made for himself. He was… happier. Kinder. More. More at ease, more settled into his skin instead of where he stretched it to fit the cast of the Demon’s Heir. Simply, more. He was more Damian than he had been in the league.

When Damian was locked within the walls of the palace, his shoulders were always held straight. There’d been a- not quite darkness- cruelty in his eyes and gait that their grandfather had eagerly nurtured. His chin had remained lifted, his actions closed and callous. She’d feared, for while, that Damian would follow their grandfather’s footsteps. Until the day she saw him sneak a bird into his room to heal, her heart had trembled and grieved to see someone she loved imitate the worst parts of her abuser. It didn’t change the fact that she loved him, but it changed how she taught him.

But experience is a better teacher than she will ever be, and Damian had little chance to experience true kindness in the pits of the league.

Here, Damian is light. Perhaps less aware than he normally would have been, on the look out for fatal attacks as she had trained him to be within the league, but here he is free and safe and relaxed. It feels like she’s sitting in a haze, the chirps of birds and the clouded noon sun casting everything into an unreal light.

“Ukhti, assistance is requested.” Her brother holds out a bowl of dough. Her heart hurt with how happy it was. She squished the dough between her fingers like a child rediscovering her childhood. In some ways, she was.

——

As she watched Damian, in turn the others observed her. Bruce sat beside her, cataloguing every minuscule expression of his child, the first and the eldest, in an attempt to make up for lost time. And truly, it was minuscule. For all Bruce trained in micro-expressions and movements, his eldest- god, he had another daughter, the eldest- daughter remained a mystery from which he gleaned little of. Her face never lifted from that trained neutrality, having resettled back into it after first bite of b’stilla. He cradled the mug of coffee in his hands, the tang of grief and guilt roiling in his stomach as his daughter hesitantly but skillfully rolled a ball of dough.

“Pennyworth has divulged his secrets to me.” Damian plucked the ball from his sister’s hand, who allowed it with traces of… bemusement, perhaps? His eldest daughter flicked her eyes up in question, perhaps mildly amused. Even if she had more than two decades worth of training, Bruce was frustrated that he could not read her. She was his daughter.

Already he fails her. For too long, he had failed her.

“He chills the dough for a chewier cookie. I, and some of the others with adequate taste, prefer this texture. But which would you find adequate?”

His daughter flickered through that sign language again, the one he had no knowledge of. Considering he knew multiple from each continent, that was saying a lot. He was catching a few repeated signs, but nothing concrete.

Alfred waited patiently as they had their conversation, paying sharp attention to their motions. Bruce… felt like he was sitting next to Cassandra. He supposed they were the same, except his eldest daughter hadn’t gotten free.

“That wasn’t what I meant, and you know it.” Damian grumbled, resting his hands on the counter, making sure to keep it away from his meticulously clean clothes. “We’ll cook them immediately.”

Bruce, in a fit of inspired parenting, offered a compromise.

“We could do two batches. One for right now and save a batch for later.”

Unspoken were the words ‘so she can try the cookies now.’ Despite the silent nature of his intent, Bruce thought that Alfred and Damian understood anyways.

“A fine suggestion, Master Bruce.”

“Thanks, Alfred.”

——

She sensed them before she saw them. Her father had slipped out after his suggestion, no doubt intercepting his flock of traumatized orphans before they could pile in.

Perhaps she had inherited something from Bruce Wayne after, considering how many of them she’d taken under her wing. She rolled the ball of dough between oiled fingers in a haze. Faint memories, impressions of a life long faded, guided her hands as she smooshed the cookies to her preference.

“Penny for your thoughts, Miss Al-Ghul?”Alfred Pennyworth asked her.

‘A Pennyworth for my thoughts?’ She swapped sign language, eyes slyly watching for Damian’s reaction.

Damian, right on cue, clicked his tongue, looking defeated. Alfred, on the other hand, smiled wider.

“A Pennyworth for your thoughts indeed.”

Her humor faded into something softer. Longing. Melancholy.

‘It’s been a long time since I’ve made dessert for myself.’

She glanced at Damian, who was trying his best to pretend like he wasn’t paying attention to the conversation lest he caught another stray pun. ‘Or used it to inoculate poisons.’

“I see.” The butler patted his hands dry onto a towel, a sharp eye on Damian’s efforts at covering the dough meant for freezing. “I assure you that these cookies will remain poison free, have no worries about that. Now, would you like some tea?”

She shook her head. ‘I’ll make it myself later. Thank you.’

“Very well, Miss-”

“Hi, Alfred. Making cookies?”

Her hands continued to work on her tray, placing cookie dough on the tray with military precision. Damian remained relaxed, though watchful of her reaction.

“That’s correct, Master Tim.”

Tim shuffled over to her, and she turned. Ah, her partial benefactor.

“Little photographer.” She smiled, slightly. Her eyes, however, were warm. Alfred stilled for a brief second at her voice.

“Hi. It’s been a while.” Tim plopped down on the seat next to her. His whole body screamed of nostalgia. It’s odd to see the little scrawny Bristol boy grow into a full fledged vigilante. It seemed like yesterday she was keeping him from slipping on Gotham’s manifestations of its rot and plummeting down on its stone heart.

She hummed. ‘Not too long.’

“What is that supposed to mean? When had you met Drake, recently?”

She glanced at the little- not so little- photographer.

“She helped me bring B back.” Tim lied. She didn’t like how easily he lied to Damian… but on account of her fondness for him, she let it slide.

“Did you, Miss Al-Ghul?” Alfred wiped his hands on the hand towel he carried. “Then I suppose we owe you our sincere thanks.”

She blinked slowly.

‘I didn’t do much. I kept him alive just the once.’

“That is a harder task than one might think, Miss Al-Ghul. Master Tim has, arguably, the worst self preservation instincts out of the life risking vigilantes I have known.” And he has known many, Alfred seemed to imply.

She tilted her head in acknowledgement.

“Hey! What is this? Gang up on Tim day?”

“I would participate in that even if it wasn’t,” Damian stated, packing the frozen cookies away in the corner. “Come and help, Drake. My ukht is about to have her first cookies and we will bake it to perfection. Bring the tray.”

Tim scoffed but slid the tray away from her, Alfred seamlessly dropping a napkin for her to wipe off the dough from her fingertips.

“Thanks, by the way. For saving Z and Owens.”

‘They were my assassins. Even if you did manage to sway them to your cause.’ She tapped the marble island, before opening her mouth. “Thank you. For destroying his pit options. It helped me kill Ra’s.”

In her peripherals, Damian settled back, disgruntled but willing to rest his curiosity as gratitude towards Tim’s part in her freedom overrode his need for answers.

Tim stilled. “…What are friends for, right?”

‘Of course, little photographer.’ She relaxed as her, arguably first, friend and now brother popped the tray into the oven.

“Anyways, they sent me in here to see if you’re ready to meet the rest of them.”

“And they said that?” Damian scoffed, coming around the island to stand beside her as she slipped off the stool.

“Nah, they actually wanted me to subtly vibe check her, but it’s not like she wouldn’t catch me doing it.”

“Ukhti’s ‘vibes’ are perfectly fine,” Damian said crabbily, crossing his arms defensively. She tapped the back of Damian’s neck and he relaxed.

‘Thank you for the… assessment of my character and general disposition.’ She signed dryly.

“Ugh, I should’ve made the connection. Your syntax is exactly like Damian’s.” Tim joked, dodging the punch Damian aimed at his nonexistent spleen.

The reincarnation huffed. ‘I spoke perhaps three words to you.’

“And how many people use disposition on a regular basis?”

“I do, Drake!”

“I know, Damian. That was the point, you little walking thesaurus.”

——

They left Alfred in the kitchen, the man all but shooing them away so he could get working on lunch, and made their way to a sitting room. The floor was covered in a plush blue carpet, a fact that made itself vividly present to the reincarnation when she placed her foot on it, the fabric brushing the back of her heels. She was too trained to allow the slip to visible, but for a microsecond, the memories of kneeling and choking clawed their way past her defenses. She made note of the trigger and moved on, compartmentalizing that fact for later.

“It’s you,” Nightwing breathed out, tensing. The others behind him freeze, even more alert than their regular state. Bruce whipped his head towards him, sharp and searching.

“Nightwing.” She greeted. She felt a kinship with this vigilante turned brother. She watched him soar and fall alongside the little photographer. She watched him grow new wings and watched them get tainted with blood and fear and grim hope. She lived vicariously through him, he who flew when she was chained. In some ways, she had ended up watching his back for a long time, both in yearning for the ease he was allowed at her father’s side and to protect the vulnerable back that knew not of its openness. Bruce inhaled deeply at her voice.

Dick stepped forward and pulled her into a hug. She does not disembowel him for it. Instead, she allowed the giant octopus hug her new oldest little brother gave her. There was no aggression in his countenance. Only relief and gratitude.

“You know Dick?” The little, ah, no, she doesn’t want to sound like Ra’s, Tim asked. Dick tensed, clearly unwilling to speak about it. She stepped in.

“I met him once. Eliminated a spider for him on a rooftop. I did not think he would remember.”

“Is that why you were so adamant on knowing who ukhti was?” Damian demanded, scowling. She immediately freed an arm and wrapped it around his shoulders. Damian ducked away with a rather petulant scowl. "Not because of my safety but because she crushed an arachnid for you?"

Dick nodded at him before looking up at her. “I really hated that spider. It was super scary. Thank you for getting rid of it.”

In lieu of an answer, she gently hugged him back.

“I get the feeling.” She said solemnly, voice coming out soft and borne of an implicit understanding. ‘Talk later,’ she signed to him.

“I was not aware you were afraid of spiders, ukht,” Damian muttered. “Though, Richard, I would believe.”

“Hey!”

Dick detached himself and pasted on a mostly genuine smile. “Oh! You should meet the others!”

He turned to the rest of Bruce Wayne’s wards and children to cheerfully point them out.

“This is Duke! He’s Alfred’s favorite grandkid, because he hasn’t burnt down the kitchen yet and reports when he’s injured.”

“Hey. Nice to meet you.” Duke Thomas raised a hand, smiling. “The bar was literally on the floor with you people. ‘Sides, Jason did just fine.”

The reincarnate nodded. Yes, she knew of him, though her memories were hazy. It had been over two decades, after all.

Dick steamrolled onwards. “This is Stephanie-”

“But you can call me Steph!” Stephanie Brown interjected, bouncing in her seat. Despite her bubbly demeanor, her gaze was sharp. Seeing. She liked that sharpness. It was tempered by the same rough and tumble kindness she’d seen in Grave- ah, Jason.

Spoiler, her memories reminded her. It was a soothing distraction from the anxious memories of the league. She found herself collecting little hints and information about this family. Her family, even if it were tentatively so. She caught Bruce staring at them intently, visibly anxious about this meeting.

‘A pleasure to meet you.’

“So… what do we call you?” Steph tilted her head. Hm. A tell Ra’s would have beaten out of her, had Stephanie had the misfortune of being in his presence for more than a day.

“Al Ghul will be adequate.” Damian cut in. The glance he threw her promised a discussion upon the topic of her name. Later, it promised.

“Wow. That’s kind of impersonal though.”

“Steph!”

“What?! I’m not wrong.”

“Anyways!” Dick loudly said over the two bickering kids. “That’s actually it for now.”

“The rest aren’t here as of this moment, but they’ll be around for dinner.”

A white lie. She studied Bruce for a moment before acquiescing. He meant no harm. Despite his capability to inflict harm, his willingness to do so, she could not read a single instance of ill will in him. Not, at least, towards her. She allowed the lie to slide.

‘I wish to see the grounds.’ She put a hand on Damian’s shoulder. He knew what it meant for her to retreat to the wilderness. Nature, where most things were free and where one does not often find Ra’s after he’d had a taste for luxury.

“We will go to the gardens. Ukhti wishes to explore.” Despite the rather curt way he pronounced it, Damian had stepped closer to her side in a gesture of concern. The pit inside of her stomach eased.

“Sounds good! Let’s go!” Steph bounced out of her seat.

“We could tell you stories,” Tim offered from behind her.

“Yeah, like that one time Dick face planted onto one of Poison Ivy’s flower beds because he was distracted by an ice cream truck.” Duke grinned, eyes crinkling.

“Hey! That ice cream truck was full of Scarecrow thugs!”

“And they weren’t worth an Ivy-lecture. I’m surprised she didn’t skin you and make a pot out of your bones, Dick.” Tim yawned.

“Ooo, we should tell her about the time I hit you in the face with a brick!”

“Literally what more is there to that story, Steph?” Tim grumbled.

“I would like to hear this tale,” Damian said, beginning to tug his ukht towards the garden. The rest of the group followed.

“Actually, why don’t we tell her about the time you tried getting Batcow to the barn and he just sat down? Didn’t you bargain with her for an hour, Damian?”

“Tt!”

Duke leaned back and took in the chaos he unfolded with a twinkling grin and Bruce’s sigh bolstering him. And if their newest and oldest addition to the family relaxed in his chaos, well, that was between him and her.

——

Cassandra found her in the gardens, the both of them weaving in between the foliage like light footed cats. Her contingent of Bats were behind them, watching the two former assassins approach each other.

Cassandra had frozen, mirroring the reincarnator’s stillness.

“Ukhti.” The word was torn out of Cass’ throat, filled with tears and relief.

“Cassandra,” she called, fond and kind and loving. Damian’s eyes darted between his sisters. They knew each other. How? She called his ukht, ukhti. A title he had assumed only he could use.

Cassandra scrambled and launched herself at her, silent sobs shaking her frame.

“Hello, Cass,” she caught the flying vigilante, crushing her first little sister into a tight hug. “Freedom suits you, habibti.”

Cass trembles in her arms, hands clutching at the fabric on her shoulder blades like Damian’s. Her eyes softened, and she rested her chin on Cass’s head.

“You know Cassandra too, ukhti?”

She nodded.

“Ukhti named me.” Cass said, voice wobbly. ‘Cass. Cassandra.’ Cass did her name sign. The one she had taught the slip of a girl back when Cass was stuck in a senseless prison and she was only free in terms of movement.

‘First word too.’ She smiled, proud of Cass and how far she’s come. Cassandra reads the pride in her language, the safety and kindness that she’d never forgotten even after traversing the world for years before arriving home, and she burrowed deeper into the hug.

“Oh. I see.”

“Two ukhts.” She smiled at Damian.

Cass shook her head, but before Damian could settle into his hurt at her supposed rejection, Cass explained her confusion. “Ukhti is your name? I’m Cass.”

“Ukhti means older sister.” Damian informed her.

Cass blinked and looked back at the reincarnation. Her shoulders relaxed and drew back, eyes softening and body loosened from its confusion. She smiled, bright as the sun, and deftly clambered around to perch on her older sister’s back.

“Two.” She declared. And truly, the reincarnation was weak to her younger siblings because that was that. Cass declared it so, and it shall be so. Damian grumbled but seemed like they agreed.

“How did you two meet?” Bruce piped up, intent and surprisingly considerate.

“Saved me,” Cass sighed, resting her chin on her ukht’s head. ‘From father and the league. Taught me to speak, a little. My name. Cass. Taught me..’ Cass paused. “Taught me I am not a weapon.”

The former assassin carrying Cass on a piggy back ride hummed in agreement.

“Oh.” The rest of the family glanced at each other. Dick had his shiny teary eyes on, the ones he got when Jason initiated a hang out.

“Not a weapon,” Cass repeated, pressing firmly on her ukht’s head.

A less sure hum. Cass scowled.

“No. Bad,” Cass scolded. “Not a weapon.”

An acquiescing hum, full of fondness and exasperation.

Cassandra Cain will take that answer. For now.

“You named Cass?” Duke asked. Bruce looked at them with gentle eyes.

“After a heroine I knew.” She replied, shifting. Cass hugged her tighter, intently listening. “She was strong. Lethal if need be. But… kind. She had an inherently kind heart. Full of love. Like Cass.”

“Oh, that’s really.. that’s really sweet.”

Cass hugged her ukht closer, touched. She had never known why she had been given the name, but finding out that it was after a heroine her sister looked up to made the day that much brighter. Hopeful. Honored.

“You have not told me this story,” Damian said.

‘I will. One day.’

——

Jason found her at the lunch table. Along with the rest of the brood. Except for, jarringly, an alien named Jarro.

“He’s our alien brother!” Duke said. He smiled, and it was a smile of unassuming harmlessness. A well crafted mask that she knew better than to be fooled by.

She offered three long blinks that had Cassandra, stuck like a limpet on the reincarnator’s back, muffling a laugh.

“Telling truth,” Cass whispered, sentences punctuated by giggles.

She hummed, shifting to more securely carry Cass on her back. Damian sighed and dutifully carried Cassandra’s pack. She smiled at her little brother, who straightened. Adorable. All of her siblings were adorable. She would kill for them. Ah, right. They frown upon murder here. So had she, once. Before Ra’s broke that part of her heart and forced her hands to commit evils that grew gnarled vines through her very soul.

“Oh.” She blinked.

“Hm?”

“Killing is… a choice.” The conversations around them fell silent. Cass’ arms tightened around her shoulders.

“We don’t have to do it, anymore,” Damian agreed. Yes, he understood what it was like, to be raised to kill and suddenly having the option not to.

“Did you not want to kill, before?” Bruce asked, suddenly a bit closer. Her mind was slipping, she realized. It felt… safe, to slip.

‘If I did not,’ she admitted, like throwing stones off of a lock-laden bridge. ‘Damian would bear the consequences.’

She sounded… young. Afraid. Two things she had always been and were never allowed to be.

Bruce Wayne looked at her like his heart was breaking, like he wished he could shoulder her pain on top of the weight of the world he willingly carried since his parents died. This, she is reminded, was why she swore Damian to secrecy regarding her existence. She wondered if he had ever taken the burden of more grief than he could bear.

‘And I could not say no, regardless,” she told them, absent and tired.

She wondered if she would be the one to break him, should she allow him a glimpse of the scars on her back.

“I could have taken it.” Damian grabbed her arm, clutching at her sleeve once more.

“No,” she whispered, haunted. ‘Not while I drew breath, habibi.’

“You don’t have to kill here. We’re all very good with no murder.” Tim reminded her firmly.

“Unless it’s the Joker.” Steph chimed in, bubbly smile gentled into something kinder.

“Unless it’s him.” Duke agreed. His eyes were more serious now.

“No,” Bruce replied, tired. Heavier, in a way that made sour tang of guilt scratch the back of her tongue. She hadn’t meant to give him the weight of knowledge, but she had inadvertently done so with the things she had and hadn’t said. He wasn’t the world’s- she glanced at Tim, who quirked a smile at her- second best detective for no reason.

“Yes, but you’re not ready for that conversation.” Dick snapped, lightheartedly.

Ah. That’s what was off.

They’re kind. They choose to be and they inherently are kind.

It showed. And she wasn’t used to that.

“Lunch.” Cassandra reminded them. She was a solid, grounding presence at the reincarnator’s back.

“Oh, Jason said he’s on the way.” Duke commented, nodding when she quickly did a subtle thank you sign.

“Why does he text you and not me?” Dick whined.

“Wow, man. I don’t know. Maybe it’s because of the emoji wall you send?”

“They’re nice! How else are you supposed to know what I’m feeling, right, Cass?”

Cass nodded and gave a thumbs up from her place on ukhti’s back.

“See?!”

“I love you Cass, but you also use a wall of understandable emojis. Dick just spams them.” Steph retorted.

The reincarnator turned to Damian, a silent question in her eyes. He sighed. “Yes, the imbeciles argue all of the time.”

She nodded and the group made their way to the green house for lunch, bickering all the while.

When they get there, Jason Todd, along with Alfred Pennyworth were already at the table.

“Grave.” She greeted as Cass slipped off her back.

“Ain’t no fucking way, Trainer?” Jason leapt to his feet. It was odd, seeing him in casual clothes. Ra’s had kept him in armor most of the time.

“You know each other?”

“At this point, who doesn’t ukht know would be an easier question.” Damian grumbled. She tapped him on the head twice, a light reprimand.

‘Grave was part of your guard,’ she told him. ‘He protected you well.’

“You’re the demon brat’s older sister? That makes so much fucking sense.”

She felt her eyes go cold, lifting to stare at Grave’s rapidly paling face. He visibly backtracks.

“Uh- I mean, you’re Damian’s older sister?”

She regarded him for a beat longer before blinking, ice melting away at the change. The nickname chafed at her neck, too close from a fate she gave everything to save Damian from.

Her head dipped into a small nod.

“Wild.” Jason sat back down. “So, uh, how are you handling the pit?”

‘I am not.’ She informed him, settling down in her seat. Damian claimed the spot next to her and Cass quickly took the other, much to Bruce’s chagrin. Tim plopped down to the seat next to Cass, eyes zeroing onto the chamomile tea Alfred had set out for him.

Duke smiled at Bruce before sitting next to Jason, Steph skipping over and sitting next Dick and Jason at the same time.

“Ukhti managed to get rid of the side effects,” Damian informed the table at large.

Her little bat had the worst ability to make sure attention focused on her, the reincarnation groused. She sighed.

“How?” Clearly, Grave had forgotten how much she beat him into the sparring mat because he leaned forward to glare at her. Well, she hadn’t wanted him too afraid of her.

‘Magic.’

His face fell at the assumed non answer, but Damian’s nod had the entire table once more expectant.

She sighed and began weaving her magic.

——

She stalked through the shadows of the manor, at ease. Bruce and the others had left on patrol, hours ago. She was clad in her sleeping clothes, one of her less favored clothes. Her hands would get dirty again tonight but she was long past the point of lingering on those regrets.

“Miss al-Ghul,” Alfred turned as she stepped towards him, having made sure she made adequate noise as a forewarning. “Having a good night?”

She tilted her head, eyes inquisitively peering at the spotless china display behind the butler.

“Ah, you must be curious about the fine ceramics we have currently displayed,” Alfred smiled. “Would you be so kind as to indulge an old butler on this topic?”

She had an idea about the kind of gift Alfred Pennyworth would appreciate.

——

“Uh, whatcha got there?”

She blinked, pulling bloodied hands away from her clothes where she had been inspecting them. The assassin that caused the damage on her clothes laid beneath her feet, still and lifeless. She blinked again.

Nightwing, Dick, stood in front of her, freshly showered from his patrol.

Some form of long forgotten instinct rose from the dry rotted fabric of her faded memories had her responding, ‘A smoothie.’

“…That’s… not a smoothie,” Dick said as he stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. “I’m pretty sure that’s an assassin?”

She shrugged. “He was after Damian. To force him into being the Demon’s head.” She paused. ‘I am tying up loose ends.’

Dick considered her. And the he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Right, okay. I’ll help you get rid of the evidence.”

She waved him off, clicking her fingers and looking over the room with critical eyes as the body and traces of the fight disappeared.

“Woah, handy.”

‘Very,’ she agreed. ‘Did you need something?’

He made a face. “That’s weird. It’s usually me asking that,” he muttered. “Uh, yeah. I just… wanted to thank you again. And uh, let you know that the others don’t know so if you could not tell them, that would be great?”

With a huff, she reached over and up to gently ruffle his hair. ‘Of course. Damian did not know either.’

“Right,” he breathed. “You get it.”

She gave him a knowing look. “Been avoiding thinking about it?”

He swallowed. “Yeah.”

She looked at him, silent. Offering a space to listen, and a quiet promise to offer no judgement.

“I don’t- it- I could have stopped her,” he told her, guilt and shame and the lingering whispering voice Catalina burrowing into his ears and heart.

And when he started, it seemed to him like he couldn’t stop. Dick told her of the things he felt as she got on top of him, of how numb and far away things were. How, if it rained, he couldn’t be in the quiet because it made him relive it.

“But… but you stopped her so I shouldn’t even be like this!”

‘It wasn’t your fault.’ She told him, the first thing she’s said since he’s started talking. ‘The only one at fault was her. You trusted her to stop. She did not. Her crimes were not yours to bear.’

She paused, taking in the refusal she could read on his face. “If someone beats another person, would you blame the person who was beaten?”

“No!”

‘Then you are kind. But you are so kind to others, why not yourself?’

Dick fell silent.

“I killed Ra’s,” she reminded him. “He allowed many others to partake in my body without my agreement.”

She leaned towards him, the admittance of something she had not even told Damian ringing painfully in her heart but made all the easier to say by the fact that one of her little brothers (the free, first Robin, the son who stood by Bruce’s side when she could not) needed her. “He himself partook in me. And yet,” she added, when Dick looked up. ‘It is difficult to forget. I am still afraid when I step onto the carpet on the sitting room.’

“The carpet? The rug? The fluffy one?” He asked, confused.

“It is like… your rain and silence,” she crossed her arms. ‘That and the sound of rustling silk reminds me of his chambers.’

“Oh.”

‘I killed him and it will not go away. Would you blame me for that?’

“No, that’s how healing is- oh.”

“Be kind, to yourself.”

His chin trembled. “Yeah. Thanks.”

“Ukhti.”

“Ukhti,” he parroted, aiming a watery and small smile her way.

She held out her arms and, with Dick’s tacit understanding, tucked him beneath her wings like she did with Damian. “Thank you for offering to get rid of the body, habibi. But I would not want you to get in trouble.”

“Eh, I’ve helped Jason deal with worse.”

‘Comforting.”

“I know, right?”

——

“Why the hell do you keep calling me Grave?” Jason asked her, grumbling as he tried to wire his new helmet after the last one got damaged.

She leaned back, basking in the sun on the new rugs. After their conversation, Dick had set fire to every fluffy rug in the house-

“What the hell, dude?!” Duke gaped as he watched Dick cheerfully toss an expensive rug into the impressive bonfire they had going on.

“Ukhti doesn’t like fluffy rugs,” Dick said with a straight face. Damian dragged another roll to the bonfire with a scowl. “Alfred Approved project, if you want to join~!”

Duke stared at him… and picked up a roll to toss into the fire.

- and bought new ones using Bruce’s credit cards.

“You got some of your memories back, in the league.” She hummed. “You liked reading. Poems.”

“What does that even have to do with Grave?”

“I remembered one. A line. Do not stand at my grave and weep. I am not there, I do not sleep…”

Jason twisted around. “Are you kidding me?”

She continued. “Do not stand at my grave and cry. I am not there. I did not die.”

“But I did die.”

She shrugged. ‘People still remembered you. Gotham and Bruce cried at your loss. I saw it.’

She straightened and smiled a small smile at him. ‘Besides. You got better.’

Jason snorted. “You too, I guess.”

She hummed an agreement, eyes slipping closed in the warm light of the sun, relief after a long second life of cowering in the shadows of a man more like a demon than he was a grandfather.

[pydrasplatling]

I have no clue

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Call Mom

CW: PTSD/flashbacks, BBU in general, haunted, ghosts, reference to a murder, severe chronic panic

Jameson's Masterlist (scroll down)

-

Aw, crap. Hey, Johnny, do you remember where I put that girl's number? Like, Katie, or Caitlyn, or... do you remember? Hey! Johnny! Put down the fucking xbox controller for two fucking minutes and give me a hand, won't you?

Fingers snap right in front of his face.

Johnny!

Jameson jerks in a breath that sounds like a whine, sitting straight up. The fan blows cool air over his sweat-soaked skin and he shivers, cold inside and out. The air in his room is freezing, suddenly. Outside it's so dark you can't even see the trees - the power outage must still be going, there aren't any streetlights. Thanks to the clouds, no stars or moon, either.

Just darkness.

Wait, if the electricity's out...

He looks up. The ceiling fan is perfectly still above his head, even while ice-cold air keeps goosebumps rising on his arms, the hair standing up at the back of his neck.

See, was that so hard? It'll take like five minutes if we work together, I swear.

"Nat?" He mumbles. "S'at... you?"

Checked there already, actually. Checked the fridge, too, so where the hell did I put it?

He's the only person in this room.

Jameson goes from still half-asleep to fully, painfully awake and aware in a single breath.

The voice comes as clear as if it was right next to him, a voice as familiar as his own - but he has no idea whose it is. There's no one here but him - even Trash Cat isn't here any longer, probably hunting a tiny piece of plastic downstairs that he'll end up stepping on in the morning. So far she hasn't eaten any of them. He doesn't even know where she's finding them.

Johnny, come on. Let's, like, retrace our steps.

His head starts to ache more with every single word, the pain working like tendrils behind his eyes, a pressure trying to crush his skull from the inside. Something flashes, bright and almost like a spectrum of rainbow colors, in the corner of his right eye, but it won't resolve when he turns his head.

I got home from work, I told you we had a hot customer who gave me her number, and then... then what?

Jameson stares into darkness so complete it feels like it has weight. Like it's sitting on the bed next to him, like the mattress dips underneath it. A body made of memory, slowly pulling together the pieces of what's been hidden. Clawing them out but leaving deep weals across the inside of his mind, like a corpse's fingers digging into loose dirt to climb out of his grave.

"Caitlyn," He whispers, as the thought crystallizes. A memory, pure and perfect. Some sliver of whatever they broke the person he was into. Some small piece of the man who signed up. "Her name was Caitlyn, not Katie. She... wrote it on the fucking paper."

Right! Okay, so, clearly I told you her name, and then what?

Jameson turns his head, and there he is.

Hank.

His breath catches in his throat.

Hank is younger than he is, even though he was older then. The older brother, trapped in time, while Jameson - Jonathan - keeps aging. The rakish smile is still there and, Christ, Jameson had forgotten that he'd done that stupid thing to his hair - you forgot everything about him, you begged them to take him away from you so that it wouldn't hurt anymore. He's still got that one crooked tooth he'd refused to get braces to fix. That crooked tooth had been in his dental records. It was how they identified his body.

The fucking crooked tooth, the silver-colored fillings, then the DNA tests...

"No," He whispers, going for a vicious hiss, but what comes out is far too close to a whimper. "No. This is-... this is a flashback. This isn't real, this isn't-"

Maybe I left it in yesterday's pants?

"This isn't real, fuck off." Jameson shoves himself off the bed, forgetting his stupid fucking legs don't work. His knees buckle as soon as they have to take his weight.

He lands wrong on one arm and the pain spikes up through his shoulder, making him cry out in the hoarse, rasping voice that his life has left him with. "Fuck!"

He rolls onto his side, but he can't stop himself.

He looks up again. He doesn't want to remember Hank but he's desperate for one more look at his face. Just the one more time.

Just once more.

Hank sighs, raking a hand back through his hair, leaving it mussed-up and sticking out, looking ridiculous. He did that all the time. Bit his nails, too, and tried everything to stop but he never did. He wore those jeans with the ripped knee all the time, their mother had hated it. Hank, wearing the t-shirt for the band they'd gotten concert tickets for but never got the chance to see. Hank, dead for years, smiles to one side at a brother who isn't there.

The brother who erased him.

"Hank," He whispers. "Hank, you gotta-... you gotta go. You're hurting me-"

Damn. Man, it wasn't in my jeans either. Well, I'll find it sooner or later, I guess. Hank shrugs. His eyes are in shadow, not quite defined. Jameson wonders if it's because he's forgotten what color his brother's eyes were, forgotten it deeply enough that even this can't pull it back.

It'll be okay, Johnny. It really will. Hank looks right at him. Jameson's breath catches in his throat. The room is so cold the air burns as he breathes. It never gets this cold in California. It can't be this cold in California. I mean it. Don't cry yourself to sleep over this.

"I cried myself to sleep... all the time, but I don't now. I'm not-... that guy." He can barely speak. He sees his breath puff out when his lips move, and Jameson slumps back. His voice cracks, it creaks like old floors. He didn't stop crying for weeks. He didn't leave his bed. He did any drug he could find trying to not think about Hank, until he realized there was only one way to make sure he never had to think about what he'd done, by letting Hank walk home alone that one night, again. He didn't want to think about that pain anymore.

They had promised him he wouldn't ever have to hurt like this again.

They lied about that, too.

Jameson makes a sound he refuses to admit is a choked-off sob. "I'm not him, Hank. I'm not Johnny... not anymore."

Hank stands, and it's impossible. He's not here. But he holds out his hand anyway, and Jameson takes it without thinking. Hank's grip is so cold it burns, but Jameson lets his dead brother pull him to his feet anyway.

He smells like earth and ice.

"I'm not him," He whispers.

Right, like that argument ever works. Hank just grins, shaking his head. The man Jameson was - the one he had begged to leave behind - is the reason Hank will look like this in his memories forever. He's the reason there isn't another Hank, only this one, locked in the memories he wanted to boil and burn out of his own head. They're still there, though. They break through.

They never stop breaking through.

He would crawl back into Robert's cage himself if it only meant he didn't have to remember that it's his fault Hank is dead.

Tears run hot down his cheeks - the only thing in him that isn't frozen is his grief, wildfire in his chest leaving nothing but ash behind. Forests after wildfires are ghosts, Hank said once, when they were both high and everything sounded fucking important.

Jameson had called him an idiot - he remembers that now. But... he also thinks Hank was right. He closes his eyes as tightly as he can, focusing. He isn't here. Hank cannot be here. "I don't remember... remember you-... I don't want to remember you! It was my choice to forget!"

Hank claps him on the shoulder. His smile goes briefly gentle and soft. Jameson can see it with his eyes closed. Whatever you say, man. Just promise me you'll call Mom sometime soon, okay?

The pain is too much. If he can't pass out soon, he might die just from having to experience it, unending, never stopping, rising higher and higher. "Mom...?"

Yeah, dumbass. Mom. Our mother? Who gave birth to us and never lets us fucking forget it? I keep trying to talk to her, but I guess my signal's bad. Hank laughs, and Jameson's whole body breaks with the sound of that familiar laughter. The way Hank could throw his head back without the slightest bit of self-consciousness, how he'd hear that laugh across a crowded room and know it was his brother's, know right where he was.

Until he didn't.

Until nobody did.

Until the cops found what was left.

Until-

Jameson jolts again, and finds himself still lying on the floor next to his bed. He's burning up, boiling hot, pouring sweat until his sleep shirt sticks to his back and his arms feel slick with it, his hair sticking to skin. A droplet trickles down the back of his neck like a fingertip, barely touching. He rips his shirt off, then his pants, throwing them as far away from himself as he can, until he's naked on the floor but it isn't enough.

He's still sweating, still breathing in harsh gasps, fighting around the strength of his racing heart to get enough air to fill his lungs. He looks frantically around, but no one's here.

The ceiling fan circles lazily overhead.

He takes in a breath, his heart pounding. It feels like it's going to grow wings and fly away, up his throat and out of his mouth. He's still crying, he realizes only now. He closes his eyes as tightly as he can and fights tears back through sheer willpower and rage, curling his hands into fists. Just like they used to be, his fingers know - muscle memory of mittens that had kept him powerless, once. Now, he does it on purpose, and he forces them to curl through the pain.

Forces down the dream.

Wills himself to forget he ever had it.

"Four... f-four things you can see," he whispers to himself, slumping back down. His voice keeps trembling, catching, and it's everything he has to open his eyes again around the pounding headache in his skull and look. "The-... moon. Out the... window. The, my dresser... for my clothes... M-My, uh, the picture Nat p-printed of me and Allyn... fuck, the... the doorknob."

Every time he thinks he knows how much of his body can hurt at once, some nerves he didn't know existed decide to join the party. He has to breathe in and out, slow and controlled, trying to will his body to cooperate. He won't walk tomorrow, he can tell already. It'll be a day to spend in bed, or using his wheelchair. It might be a week until his body lets him walk again.

He fights back a new well of rage and despair at how well he knows the next way his body will fail him. He can't think about that right now, or the pain and the panic will spiral out of control. He might hurt someone. He can't hurt anyone, not ever again.

He won't.

"Three... things I can touch," He murmurs. "My, my... my shirt, fuck, gross, sweaty... my... my hair... the floor, feels... cold, feels good... the corner of my bed..."

It helps. He makes himself focus on this, on real things, not the nightmare of his brother.

He won't remember his brother.

He won't.

"Two things I can hear. Uh, the, there's... crickets or something outside, and-... and I can hear-"

Hank's voice whispers right next to his ear.

Call Mom.

His breath hitches.

"Not real," he whispers. "One... one thing I can taste..."

All he tastes is blood, and for one horrified half a second he's sure it's Hank's blood, until he realizes he bit his tongue in his sleep.

The blood is his own.

Call Mom.

-

[devilsskettle]

The X trilogy + "psycho-biddy" influences

[mmeqkoi]

ah yes, a face of a 13 year old 😭😭

[cartsandhorses]

dare I say art museum date number two?

[absolutesolvr]

Warm, Soft, And Happy

(Ch 1) Khan returns home late at night (or early in the morning depending on how you see it) and decides to check on Uzi. What he finds is shocking. + (Ch 2) N suffers from self inflicted insomnia! Surely Uzi could help!

Art by @qcumbersodazz <3 who was kind enough to draw a scene from chapter two! Read Here! Side note, the chapters feel out of order because i never intended to write the second one, it just happened JKLGDS