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edales-drabbles · 5 years

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Hive is Home Drabble 1 pt 3

Themes: Heroes vs Villians, frenemies, protective families, accidents, hiveminds

Summary: Espers are people with powers. Some are good and some are not so good. Ervin is from a family of adopted Espers who work as heroes but lives in his own city attending university. Then he gets hurt on a mission and the ‘villains’ are now going to have to deal with his family. Including the guy he actually likes. Joys.

“Hello!” Torleif declared brightly as he strode into the hospital, carrying a vase of brightly coloured flowers. “How is our Blackbird doing?” He declared, grinning with his goofy smile at Ervin and Oisin. He was radiating happiness and rainbows with a good dose of cheerfulness that was far too bright for the average person. He also still had his wasp logo on his jacket, though his outfit was currently civilian.

Ervin groaned, closing his eyes and resting his head backwards. He was in pain and in no mood for this. It had been bad enough having Oisin look after him without Torleif and the hive appearing.

“I thought your alas was different?” Oisin asked lightly and just a touch too naively.

“It is. Tor and Smiles just prefer to call me Blackbird,” Ervin muttered darkly. “Go away, Torleif. They reduced my meds. I’m in no state to play games or be cheerful.”

“Nope! This had been the first time all week that the Hive has been able to see you without your father or one of your more intense brothers,” Torleif declared, placing the flowers down and playing with them a little bit. “We thought some flowers would cheer up your room. They are fake so the hospital let them in,” he explained calmly. “We aren’t planning to play games with you.”

“Should I call Dad?” Oisin murmured softly, sensing danger. Ervin hummed, forcing himself to open his eyes and look at Torleif. He was wishing he’d taken Nelson up on hiding a dagger in the room. Torleif was not someone Oisin could fight on his own. Torleif was big and muscular, Oisin was like Ervin and Nelson, slight and small. Ervin had avoided tangling with Torleif for the most part.

“Don’t bother,” Torleif smiled, his tone turning a touch darker. “We won’t let the call go out,” he promised, grinning with too many teeth.

“Tor,” Ervin warned, as Oisin stood up ready to fight. “Don’t taunt the baby. What do you want?” Oisin was 17, almost 18. Their Dad had gotten the paperwork sped up so Oisin would be a Bertram before he became a legal adult. Unlike Nelson, he hadn’t spent his childhood being trained by a cult. He had come into his powers by accident and Darkstalker had swept him up before one of the darker elements had trapped him.

“Not the baby,” Oisin grumbled but was still on his feet ready to defend himself and his older brother.

“Well, Nelson isn’t and you were the last to be adopted so congratulations. You’re the baby,” Ervin teased, watching Torleif carefully. He was still grinning goofily. It was almost as unnerving as Smiles. Only Smiles used makeup for the effect and this was just Torleif naturally. A big friendly giant, who happened to be in a collective that wanted complete power over the world. Very dangerous.

Torleif laughed and walked over to the clipboard at the bottom of Ervin’s bed. “You’re too young for integration. You’re a baby,” he noted, looking at the papers. “I see what you mean. Your meds were high. Hopefully, the pain will fade soon. How does it feel?”

“Tight?” Ervin offered, waving Oisin to sit down. Oisin scowled but lowered himself back down to the chair. Ervin resisted the urge to smile. Nelson wouldn’t have, nor Kane. The rest would have. Dad would have thrown Torleif out of the room at the first sight of a wasp badge. “When I move, the skin feels tight. It’s healing well according to the nurses. No complications yet,” he recited calmly, reaching over to take Oisin’s hand. Oisin settled more, his green eyes deeply distrusting of Torleif.

“Likely a good sign. We had Yui drop by once or twice to help. We wanted to her make sure you didn’t get an infection. Only your father scared her off after the second time. He’s very intense,” Torleif mused, sitting on the bed. “Very protective,” Torleif murmured, the echo of the Hive getting clearer with each word. His eyes were silver ringed now too.

“Most fathers are,” Ervin pointed out. “I warned you once before my father would be upset if something serious happened to me,” he smiled sweetly. “You laughed.”

“I didn’t,” sniffed Torleif, suddenly himself again but the hive was still behind his eyes.

“Smiles did,” Ervin retorted and Torleif winced.

“To be fair, we didn’t realise who you were connected to,” the Hive murmured, rubbing Ervin’s legs idly. Possibly possessively. They saw Ervin as a potential. He knew this. He used it against them. “He would not have laughed at a threat like your father. We only wish we had known before the incident that it was you connected to him.”

“What do you mean by that?” Oisin asked warily.

“What do you mean? I know it was a trap not meant for me, but …” Ervin trailed off, watching Torleif’s face. “You wanted Darkstalker to come here,” he breathed.

“We did not know you were the one connected to him,” the Hive repeated.

“I mean, the motifs are similar,” Oisin pointed out calmly. “It’s kind of obvious.”

“Not to us, it would seem,” Torleif rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment. “We should have checked before setting that trap. We want you. We didn’t want to damage you like this. As it is Kerrim stopped you being killed and you will recover well but we never wanted to hurt you like this.”

“Just someone else,” Oisin challenged standing again, anger pouring from him. “What if it had been me or Grace? Or Nelson? Everyone else is 18 but you won’t integrate someone under 18. Would you have burned them to death in molten gold like you tried to do with Ervin? The others are older but that doesn’t stop the fact they are our family! Would you have killed Kane or Rue because they are adults? That would not be the way to get Dad to help you.”

“Oisin,” Ervin murmured warningly. It was too late.

“Grace is under 18?” Torleif asked softly, but Ervin could already see in his eyes Oisin had given them exactly what they wanted. Confirmation that his adoptive father and Darkstalker were the same person.

“No, she…”

“Enough,” Ervin hissed grabbing Oisin’s sleeve. “Do you want to give them our home address and home phone while you're at it? Remember who you are talking to!”

“Grace is 18. Oisin and Nelson are not. Everyone else is old enough to be integrated. This is good to know. A new Queen does best when her court is familiar faces,” the hive buzzed, almost none of Torleif’s mannerisms left in him as the Hive took full control.

“Her?”

“Well, her is the traditional term. His, maybe their preferred. We will see. We are deeply sorry you got hurt so badly Ervin but our plan has occurred. It’s time for Darkstalker and the crows to become one of us. Do not fight us. You shall be left to heal in the hospital peacefully while we sort out the crows. Young and old,” the hive promised, Torleif’s neck clicking as it moved in an unnatural way.

“Oisin, you need to run,” Ervin breathed. “Get word to the others. It’s a takeover.”

“But!” Oisin protested.

“No, I think he’s fine right here,” the Hive grinned. A hand shot out to grab Oisin’s wrist but Ervin kicked upwards, blocking the hit. His back screamed in pain as it was bent into a weird angle as Torleif’s arm pulled his leg upwards. There was a crunch and pain burst from his ankle.

“Run!” Ervin yelled, grabbing Torleif’s arm in a desperate attempt to delay them.

Oisin ran. The hive threw Ervin from the bed against the wall. The alarms went off and Ervin heard himself screaming as his back felt like it was on fire again. The hive picked Ervin off the floor roughly and dumped him back on the bed as nurses ran into the room. They said something but Ervin couldn’t hear him over the pain. It was like the gold was flowing over him again.

There was a strange sensation and then black.

—-

When he came too, Smiles was at the end of his bed, whittling away at a piece of wood. Smiles looked at him and nodded. “Shouldn’t have fought, you hurt your back,” Smiles scolded, continuing to carve at the figure. “Our Queen is most unhappy with you.”

“Torleif would have hurt Oisin,” Ervin breathed, looking around for clues about how long it had been. The monitoring screens were still there, though the beeping was off. An IV was connected to his arm again and he could smell fresh dressings on his burns. The world was a little fuzzy suggesting his pain relieve had been put high due to this. “The Hive can’t use his body well. You have already crippled me.”

Smiles paused. “It’s been six hours. We haven’t caught anyone yet. We apologise for hurting you again. And for using Torleif. Oisin is more delicate than we first thought,” he admitted. “And we have not purposefully nor permanently crippled you. If we had, we’d ignore the accords, kidnap you and put you under nanite treatment.” He sniffed at the end.

“By the accords, shouldn’t Oisin have been safe here?” Ervin frowned. The accords kept people safe from interference in the hospital. Yui was a weird case where as long as she was healing people, she was given a free pass. Everyone else had to back off here.

“He’s never been registered to the city,” Smiles shrugged. “Loophole.”

Ervin looked down at his ankle. The one Torleif had crushed. There was now a cast there. “Fuck,” he cursed, no wonder his pain meds had been upped.

#story snippet #slash fiction #slash #my writing #drabble #mxm

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