#Dionysus kids are feral (affectionate)

[heartsandmarketplaces]

Blood, the Blood of Grapes (pt 2/3)

CW: Blood, minor discussion of cannibalism

Previous

It was comforting, the grinding of pestle and mortar, the slow repetition, the scrape of stone, the handsore ache of his bones. 

Lee hummed as he worked, the air bitter with crushed herbs and cut leaves. 

Yarrow, alehoof, bay-laurel, borage.

He didn’t know why the old ways worked so well on demigods, maybe it was the god-gold blood in their veins, but it was the thing they learned first, his father’s children, of honey for burns and meadowsweet for pain. 

Although he wouldn’t admit it to anyone, it was one of his favourite tasks, the preparation of poultices, the gathering of stock, the careful sorting and measuring. Just him alone with his tinctures and elixirs and glass bottles. Calm in the way camp never was. 

Perhaps when Will was older, when the threat of war was over, when the kids didn’t need him, he could do this for good. He let the thought of it carry him, the dream of beeswax and quiet backrooms.

Six years he’d been there, he knew the place like his own scarred hand. Knew from the thud-fall of feet on grass that someone was coming, knew the door would squeak first, then the little bell jingle, then the murmur of voices next door in the infirmary as Will, more capable than Lee wanted to admit, went through the standard questions, knew he had four more minutes before he should poke his head round the corner and —

‘Lee. LEE.’  

You weren’t supposed to run in hospitals but he was a big brother not a doctor and Will’s voice had cracked on the syllable of his name.

His heart thudded to a deadbeat halt as he realised it was Caz who made Will scream, Caz standing there drenched scarlet with blood. It took him a few more seconds to realise that the thing in their arms, the bundle of bloodrags was Theo, limp and deadweight. 

‘Her feet, she’s – her feet. Please.’ 

It hurt to hear silver-tongued Caz trip over their words. 

‘Please.’ 

Lee was a medic, head-medic, he’d help anyone who needed it, but he knew then that he’d walk Asclepius’ line if Caz begged him. 

He led them to the private room at the end of the Infirmary with the widesky windows because Cabin 12 kids always did better with sunlight and he politely pretended not to notice when the old grapevine outside raised its head with interest, when it prodded the glass with a curled curious tendril, when Caz, having laid Theo oh-so-tenderly on the bed, flung open the latch and clutched the wooden trunk with bloodied nails and hissed into the leaves, ‘Pollux. Infirmary. Now.’ 

Against the stark white sheets of the stretcher, away from the protection of Caz’s chest, Theo looked a mad thing. The smear of red on her cheek, her mouth, her hands, the stickiness of beepollen on her fingers, the ragged ivy crown slipped sideways on her head. She was wearing Caz’s leather jacket, Lee realised, it was nearly large enough to hide that her clothes were shredded to the bone. 

Caz’s shirt was dark with blood, wet enough that it pressed to them like skin and drip drip dripped to the floor. 

They didn’t seem to notice, didn’t seem to care, just clambered onto the bed beside their sister and tucked her into them, buried their nose and mouth into her hair. 

Lee wanted to reach out and hold Caz’s hands as they shook but Theo was bleeding and Lee was made for help not love confessions so he swallowed down the ache of his heart in search of bandages and tweezers.

In the Utility Room he found Will stirring antiseptic into a bucket of warm water. His back was turned and he was stone quiet, like he was thinking or praying. But he couldn’t hide the quick rise and fall of his shoulders. Not from Lee. 

‘Oh, Will.’

Will resisted the hug at first but when Lee made no move to let go, he caved, head falling into his brother’s chest with wet hot tears. Lee rubbed his back like he thought his mother did when she was flesh and bone and alive. 

‘You got a read?’ He asked sympathetically.

Will nodded dully, head not lifting an inch. ‘Her feet. Toes broken.’ 

Lee was careful to keep rubbing gently as he angled his next question. He didn’t want him to feel pressured, and he’d check himself of course, but Will’s abilities were stronger than his. ‘Nowhere else huh?’

‘Nu-uh.’ He sniffed, ‘It’s just. The blood. when she – when Caz. I thought she was dead.’ His words dissolved into a soup of sobs and snot and tears.

Lee crooked him under his arms, rested his chin on his head and tried not to think that Caz was doing the exact same thing to a too-still Theo. 

‘Hey, hey now. Shhh, it’s okay.’ They both knew he could not say truthfully that she was definitely going to be fine. 

Will pulled away and ran a hand under his nose. ‘I know. You’re looking after her.’ 

His tone was serious and trusting and he looked at Lee like he was the next best thing to a promise of recovery.

Lee swallowed with the weight of it and ruffled his hair and sent him away to Molly in the Arts Room because kids shouldn’t have to be healers in the first place and Lee would have to die before he let Will stitch up his own friends.

He'd barely sat on the stool, barely dressed himself in blue powdered gloves, barely started to wash the wine-dark mud from Theo’s feet when the front door squeaked and the bell jingled like a stupid laughing jester. 

‘Caz? Got yer message are y —’ 

Pollux’s voice died as he reached the threshold. 

Lee waited for the interrogation. The questions. He did not expect the soft, tremulous intake of breath. 

‘Feck.’ 

Silence. 

‘She’s eleven. She’s too young. She - she still sleeps with a stuffed animal for God’s sake.’ 

Caz’s mouth twisted painfully and they buried their face back in her curls. Their eyes were rimmed red.

‘Feck.’ Said Pollux. And then because it clearly wasn’t enough, ‘Mhac na galla.’ 

He dragged the chair from next to Lee and shoved it as close to Theo’s bed as he physically could and took her bloody, nailbroken hand in his. Like that, wedged between the two giants of the twins, she looked utterly, painfully small. 

Lee continued working. Her feet were filth itself, like she’d been trekking through Eris’ bog with no shoes and it was hard to tell mud from blood from flapped, flayed skin. But Will was already right about one thing. At least three of her toes were broken, stuck out like glass at the wrong angle. 

‘How did you know where she was?’

Caz shifted, ‘She didny turn up for Greek, Ah thought maybe she was with Will. Ah was coming here bu’…’

Lee heard them swallow.

‘The music was loud.’ 

Pollux breathed out. ‘Ah heard it too.’ 

‘She tried to tell us.’ Caz’s voice was small, ‘ Pol, she tried and we didny listen.’ 

‘What?’ Then, ‘Feck. The fecking – Ah thought –’

‘ – Aye –’

‘ – Like –’

‘- Ah know. Me too –’

Pollux breathed in deeply. 

Out of the corner of his eye Lee saw him lift Theo’s hand, press it like a medieval relic to his mouth. 

 ‘Ah’m sorry sweetheart, Ah’m sorry Ah wasn’t there.’ His words were whispered like a prayer and when he dropped their hands back to the bed he didn’t let go.

‘They thought I was Pentheus.’ Caz murmured, lowly. ‘Ah’ve never seen them like that Pol. If Ah’d been anyone other than you or me Ah’d have been ripped to shreds.’

And suddenly a horrible number of things made sense to Lee. Greenfoot ivy, bloodwine fingers, barefeet .

‘Maenads.’ Lee breathed out. ‘Bacchae, wild women.’ He knew the two of them went out sometimes into the black night. They never invited him, he never asked. They came back smelling of myrrh and honey and fennel, weary and crazed and grinning like the wide smile of the moon. But never like this.  

The twins exchanged a significant look. Long and dark and furtive. And he remembered, like a bruise, they belonged to Zagreus and the Mysteries too.

‘Sorry.’ He ducked his head, suddenly ashamed, ‘It’s none of my business.’

There was a beat. A silence.

‘It’s an initiation rite.’

When Lee looked up Caz was watching him carefully, like they were wanting him to hear what they weren’t saying.

Their words curdled in his stomach. He wet his lips. ‘You – You did this too?’

‘We were thirteen.’

Lee felt slightly ill. ‘You were just kids – you –’ How had he not noticed? How had he not noticed?

 Caz shrugged, ‘It happens to all da’s kids. We knew what was happening.’

‘And we were together.’ Said Pollux firmly ‘And we weren’t fecking eleven.’

Maybe it was the snarl in his tone or the chill that seemed to Lee to fill the air or the threat of sacred Mysteries being revealed. But Theo woke all at once. A shout, a gasp, a shriek. She kicked her legs out of Lee’s hands and caught him, a glancing blow on his cheek. His head reeled and when he blinked the universe blinked back. 

Theo trembled all over, the whites of her eyes were wide and when Pollux squeezed her hands she threw herself at him, gripped him nailtight.

‘Ye’re safe.’ He cooed. ‘Ye’re safe. Ye’re home.’

She sobbed. She sobbed and sobbed and shook and Pollux just rocked her. ‘Ah’ve got you, ye’re safe. Ye’re safe.’ 

Lee sent Caz a look. They were pale, their eyes trained on Theo.

It’s then that he realised she was crying words, actual words, over and over and over again like they were keeping her alive. I’msorryI’msorryI’msorry.

‘It’s aright. Ye’re safe. Ye’re safe and Ah love you.’ 

She shook her head, ‘You can’t. You can’t love me.’ 

‘Why not, ae?’ Pollux brushed back her hair.

‘Because Caz,’ She sobbed. 

They flinched. Clear as day. And Lee wanted to stretch out his hands and hold them.

‘Caz was there. The dancers wanted to – they wanted me to – they were going to – going to eat Caz.’ 

Eat them? Lee wanted to laugh, it had to be a joke. A very little and scared child's imagination.

 But Caz very purposefully did not look at him as they spoke. ‘Ah’m here Aggie. Ah’m alright. Ah’ve got tough auld bones, not very tasty.’ 

Theo sobbed louder and Caz’s face grew thin. 

‘Look at me m’eudail, ae?.’

She shook her head, buried herself into Pollux. 

‘Aggie. Aggie, Ah’m alive. Ah’m no’ hurt.’ They bit their lip, grimacing, and reached forward to run a finger around one of her curls. 

Pollux kissed her forehead, ‘Go on,’ he said softly, ‘Ah’m sure Caz wants a snuggle too. They’ve been worried about you. Not left yer side, ae?’ 

Theo didn’t seem sure. Her gaze slunk to Lee who tried for an encouraging smile. Then slowly, so slowly, she turned to Caz. 

From his seat at the bottom of the bed, Lee was in perfect position to see her wary assessment of them, her mouth as it started to downturn.

‘S’no’ ma blood.’ Caz said quickly, holding their hands up in peace. 

Her big eyes search them for any trace of a lie. ‘I wanted to hurt you.’ 

‘Bu’ you didn’t.’

It didn’t stop another sob from breaking from her. And another. She hid her face in her hands. ‘ I love you and I wanted to hurt you.’. 

Caz’s face fell further. ‘Hey, hey,’ They reached up for her hands but she pulled away. Lee could see the pain flash a second across their face before they hid it.

‘Agatha. Do you remember wha’ happened?’ 

She spoke into her hands. ‘We were playing, and there was an intruder. And they wanted to kill them – but but I didn’t know it was you.’ 

‘Mmm, and after?’

‘They went hunting. We all went hunting and then we found you.’ 

It took every degree of Lee’s composure not to suck in a breath. What the hell. What the actual hell. His every nerve was fixed on Caz because he’d trusted that they were okay, that it was Theo who was injured. That they would have told him they’d been hunted down like an animal. The blood still dripped from their shirt. And Lee could not do anything about it.

‘Aye, and do you remember what happened when you found me? What did they call me ae?’

‘They found you. They found you, and they were going to kill you and then the music stopped.' she sniffed,' They said you were – hieroph-s.’ Her tongue struggled around the Greek.

Caz’s mouth curved into a smile. ‘Aye. Hierophantes. Revealer of the holy. Now, how dya think they know that?’

She wiped her face with her hand, cracked blood, ‘You - they’ve met you before? You’ve been there ?’ There was understanding in her tone, revelation, and more than a desperate bit of hope.

‘Aye. Exactly.’ Caz leaned in, Their face gentle, ‘Ah’ve been before. An’ Ah’m one of Da’s. You think he’d let his followers eat me?’

Theo shook her head.

‘Aye. Clever girl.’ Caz bopped her nose. ‘You think Ah can have that cuddle now?’

And this time when they reached for her, she didn’t push away.

Part Three --

(Part of a larger story universe)