#febuwhump finished

[acekindaneat]

A Wedding. 💍

Based on Lapidist's work on ao3.

^^please give it a read because it's really good but i had to cut out a lot of bits to fit it into 10 pages :0

[hotcheetohatredwastaken]

Wild's Wolf: Febuwhump Day 6 -- "You (They) Lied to Me."

Tw: Implied child abuse, medical whump, human experimentation.

Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!

Wild knew what was coming by now, when he heard the metallic chime that preceded the opening of that metal door. The hazy memory of rough hands and voices, fear and violation, and above all pain, pain, pain sent his heart racing.

Beeeeep! The door swung inwards with a slow fwoosh! 

Wild backed himself into the furthest corner of his hiding spot underneath the bed, nearly sick with anxiety, as he eyed the man that stepped inside. That in and of itself was odd—these strangers usually dealt with him in overwhelming groups, so that any defense he tried to mount against them was easily crushed. The man even looked different—he wore not the universal white coats common to all of his tormentors, but instead a beige turtleneck sweater and black leather jacket. He was a lot taller than his regular tormentors, too, and broader, though he still had those rounded ears that Wild was learning to hate. The door hissed shut behind him.

He must be worse than all of the others combined, Wild determined, if he was willing to step into the room alone. And he was already coming towards him. Wild raised his shoulders, bracing himself for another fight for his life, a fight he already knew he’d lose like all the ones before it.

The man’s tall boots stopped at the edge of the bed. Then he crouched, stooping down to peek under the bed, and his single eye met Wild’s two. His singular eye. His other had been gouged out, signified clearly by the neat scar that ran over the closed eyelid. Vibrant, blocky tattoos streaked harsh angles across his face, and more climbed the column of his neck and poked out from the hem of his long sleeves. He was obviously strong and battle-worn, and he was coming for Wild.

A shiver of fear ran through the kid. A feral growl left him, and he scrambled back further into the little cranny made by the bed, ready to kick for all that he was worth as he bared his teeth. Oh Hylia, he wasn’t escaping this, he thought faintly.

The man blinked his singular eye owlishly at the response, then bared his teeth back in a wolfish smile. “Hey there, kid,” he said lowly, maintaining an intentionally jovial tone. “What are you doing under there?”

The professor’s voice crackled through the speakers. Behind the one-way glass, the researchers turned up the sound, tuning in through their earpieces.

The kid, of course, gave no response. Those odd long ears of his pinned themselves back against his head similarly to those of a wary cat. Time could see, now, the stark bruises left by cruel hands blossoming underneath the pale skin of his wrists and arms, the deep bags hanging underneath his terrified eyes. The hospital gown he wore hung loosely over his skinny, shivering frame. They hadn’t been kind to him.

If that was true, they’d be here for a while. He might as well make himself comfortable while he tried to earn a bit of the boy’s trust. Time lowered himself to the tile floor and sat against the wall with a groan, which prompted the boy to growl, louder that time. “Oh don’t be dramatic, I’m not threatening you, I’m just old,” Time said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I’m sure you’ll be making all these sounds too, one day.”

Those long ears flicked forwards curiously. A bit of the defensiveness left the boy’s coiled up posture at his tone, and the snarl on his face faded into something softer. Then his shoulders raised as he seemed to remember himself, and he shifted back again, hugging his knees to his chest as he looked away. He warbled something that Time couldn’t even begin to decipher, though it sounded familiar—and those researchers were right, that was not a human language—but given the fearful edge to his young voice, he could translate with mild confidence all the same. Who are you? What are you going to do to me?

“I’m not going to hurt you, kid, don’t you worry,” Time said soothingly. He reached into his pocket. “In fact, I’ve got a little treat for you.”

Time withdrew the crinkly aluminum packet in his pocket, and out of that a jabber nut. They were disguised as regular candy—chocolate covered walnuts would be a good comparison—so believably so that they’d been okayed by the researchers without a second glance. He offered one to the kid.

The boy gazed at the candy sitting in the center of Time’s palm, reaching hesitantly out to take it, then flicked his eyes back up to Time’s face. Whatever he saw there made him go pale, and he moved back, resolutely turning away. Still, he snuck childish glances at the piece of candy, like the refusal hurt him. His stomach audibly rumbled in the cold, silent room.

“Oh come on, drama queen, it’s not poison or anything. I know you want it,” Time said with fond amusement. He popped the jabber nut into his mouth, and he made a show of chewing and swallowing in demonstration before he fished out another for the kid. “There, I ate one. Not poisonous, see?”

The kid frowned up at him, looking between the jabber nut and Time himself like he was trying to figure out whatever trick was hiding there. He put his hand forwards as if to take it, then drew it back to his chest, his face clouded with indecision.

“Go on, it’s okay, kid.” It was like feeding an untamed, flighty cat—like one of the ones Malon kept out in the barn, who even after months of progress could be sent scrambling with any sudden move—but Time was nothing if not patient. He kept an easy grin fixed to his face and the lines of his body intentionally open and non-threatening as he scooted a little closer, shoving the offered piece of candy forwards with a little inviting thrust. “It’s for you, you can take it.”

The boy seemed to have a sort of debate with himself as he eyed the candy in Time’s hand, his hands twitching at his sides. Finally, the boy's face screwed up, and he snatched the candy out of Time’s palm. He shoved himself back into the corner of the crawlspace just as quickly—knocking his head against the bedframe in the process, which made Time wince in sympathy—and hunched over the jabber nut, turning it over and over between his fingers. Time only just held back a laugh as he took a long deep sniffffffff of the treat, then darted his tongue out to sneak a taste of the chocolate coating. He jerked back from it with a delighted sound, his long ears waggling similarly to an excited puppy’s tail.

This… was odd, Time thought, eyeing those too-familiar ears, the ones he hadn’t seen in decades, maybe even lifetimes. The researchers had contacted him on the basis of getting his help in establishing communication with some feral child they’d discovered living in the forest. They’d spun a tale of a child raised completely divorced from any other human civilization before now, a golden opportunity for linguistic advancement in the study of him that Time just couldn’t pass up. But they’d mentioned nothing of the obvious otherworldliness about the kid, though the picture they’d sent him had spoken magnitudes, and once he arrived, they were talking about differences in species.

Details were being withheld from him intentionally, it seemed.

Finally, the kid put the chocolate in his mouth, biting down on the jabber nut inside with an obnoxiously exaggerated crunch! Time smiled to himself and tapped at his watch, timing out exactly minute.

Time didn’t even have to wait for that long for the boy to grow bolder. He edged forwards until he was nearly at the edge of the bed, holding his hand out in clear request.

“I’m sorry, you can’t have another one. It's not good to eat more than one at a time.” Time shook his head pointedly, then shot a glance back at the one-way window at the opposite side of the room. The researchers had said that he’d eaten nothing since they’d “gotten” him what seemed to be days ago, poor kid. “Maybe we can request some food for you, huh?”

The kid muttered something back darkly, his disappointment clear in his pout. Time glanced down at his watch. 15 seconds.

“Y’know, I wasn’t always a language professor. If you know what a professor is, I don’t know if you have ‘em where you’re from,” Time began conversationally. “Before that I was certified as a child speech therapist. Turned out to be a good thing when it came to my dissertation, because they’re really the best when it comes to the model of language learning. Y’know, one of my favorite projects, they have this dialect of ancient Mayan out in the really rural parts of Central America, way down south from here, and anyways my youngest went out with me that trip, his mother was a nervous wreck, but I told her that we just had to go, especially since they put us up in one of the nicest hotels down there…”

It was always funny to watch a jabber nut kick into effect. The boy uncrossed his arms, furrowing his brow and frowning as Time continued to prattle on—talking at length was one of his strengths, he knew, whether or not there was something worthy of being discussed. The boy scrubbed at his eyes and pressed his hands over his ears before lowering them again, his expression a perfect picture of bewilderment.

“Wha…?” the boy managed to get out, his eyes wide. “...you can…?”

“Magic,” Time whispered with a conspiratory wink—a blink, really—and a grin. The researchers watching would see nor hear any of their conversation—to their ears Time would continue to speak English, and the boy Hylian. He tapped away at his watch again, setting another timer for 10 minutes. “What’s your name, kid?”

The boy bit his lip until it blanched between his teeth, studying Time’s face as if trying to determine his trustworthiness from sight alone. “...I’m… I’m not supposed to tell my name to strangers,” he said at last, dragging his fingers along the grout lines of the tile floor. 

“My name’s Time Forrester. I have a wife, Malon, and a couple of kids of my own about your age,” Time answered. “We’re not strangers now, are we?”

The boy shrugged, shifting uncomfortably, but he finally offered up with a touch of shyness in return: “My… my name’s Wild.”

“Well, Wild, would you mind coming out here so that we can hold a real conversation?” Time said smoothly. “I don’t know about you, but my back’s getting all cramped, and there are two perfectly good chairs over there."

Wild shook his head, murmuring something about how they’d come back and hurt him that Time clearly wasn’t supposed to hear.

Time paused, chewing over that phrase. Then he spoke. “I know this is all confusing for you,” he said as diplomatically as he could manage. If he kept talking, he could almost pretend that his voice didn’t tremble. “I don’t know a lot, but I’ll do my best to answer any questions that you have, if you’ll answer mine in return, I promise. Is that all right?”

Wild nodded. And when Time stood, stretching out his aching back, then extended his hand down to him, Wild only hesitated for a second before he took it.

First Chapter >> Previous Chapter >> Next Chapter Coming Soon!

[bokettochild]

Febuwhump Day 5 - Rope Burn

Well this took forever! I actualy finished last ight but then I wasn't sure if I hated it or not, so I had to sleep on it. If you see any typos, no you do not.

Wordcount: 9,300

Rating: Teen

Summary: After Twilight reveals some information about his past, Four tries to use it as a learning opportunity for all of them. It does not go as expected.

-

  “There is no way a military leader was that incompetent.”  

  Wild pauses in his story, much to Wind’s frustration, because he really did want to hear the end of it, which he’s about to say, only the vet’s voice raises, a smirk touching the other’s face as he settles down at the fire with the rest of them after coming back from doing rounds. “Sounds about right to me.”  

  “Too competent,” Warriors challenges, dropping his head to thoroughly tousle his hair, “half my men couldn’t do that.” That’s fair, Wind decides, he remembers the captain’s men as all being somewhat... stupid. 

  The champion stares at them, openly astounded. “How,” he begins, glancing between the vet and captain “are your kingdoms still standing? If the leaders of your defenses are less capable than Master I-killed-myself-on-accident-with-my-own-power Kohga?” 

  “Spoilers!” That’s how the story ends? Wild had only just begun to get to the part where he fought Kohga, but now the ending has been well and truly ruined! Although, it seems they’re getting derailed, so it’s quite likely he won’t even get to hear said ending, considering the champion is too busy looking between captain and veteran for answers. 

  The vet just snorts, unknowing of what he’s missed, and of Wind’s ire, and simply crossing his legs and focusing on the fire. “Where do you think I got the title of veteran? I don’t just sit on my fanny all day, champ.” 

  When the champion’s eyes turn to Warriors, the captain just shakes his head. “I have no clue.” It‘s more sigh than anything, as though the captain’s long since given up hopes for competency among his people. “I’d say Impa, but even she can’t hold the country together by herself, so I’m assuming it’s pure dumb luck.” 

  Across camp, Sky, who’d been the first one to say anything after the champion’s insane story, stares. “You’re saying I brought down the knights of Skyloft just so they could devolve into idiotic half-competent protectors of the country and leave kids to be the ones to save the world?” It’s harsh, but it’s fair as well, although not everyone seems to think so. Wind can’t say anything on the matter though because the closest to military groups they have in his world are pirates, and pirates don’t exactly serve the people. 

  The group as a whole gives each other considering looks, although Legend and Warriors are too busy talking with their eyes- Legend raising a brow and Warriors sighing, rolling his own eyes and earning a smirk in answer- to really care about what everyone else thinks. He thinks Legend asked a question, but how either of them can read each other that well, considering how rarely they even interact, he’s not sure.  

  “The knights in my era are half-competent,” Four assures, “easily manipulated by magic, but they’re just people, so I can’t really blame them. They’re good at their work though.” 

  “Lucky,” Legend scoffs. 

  Time also seems confident in the soldiers of his era, but Twilight adds that his own are cowards and pathetic, so it seems they’re split. Wind, Wild, and Hyrule can’t add anything, due to the lack of military forces in their eras, the soldier is in agreement with their farm boys on the idiocy of his own people, and only their first two and the old man seem to have any faith whatsoever in those set to guard their era. He wonders if maybe there was a decline, after one of them, that led to the army of Hyrule falling, but he doesn’t ask, since it’s unlikely they can say for sure anyway. 

  “How often do you interact with knights though?” Sky challenges, glancing between them. Most haven’t been around them often, but those who’ve got only ill to say all scoff, almost simultaneously, which startles them as much as it does the rest of the group. 

  “I live with them,” the captain starts slowly, glancing between Twilight and Legend with a curious half-smile as though he’s actively trying to figure out what on earth could tie them to the people whom they so frequently scorn. “Spent the last five or six years in the army.” 

  The vet’s a bit more hesitant with his answer, staring between them warily, guarded. “My sister is a knight commander, and our family has ties with the army, so I end up around them a lot more than I’d like, even when they aren’t actively hunting me down.” And Wind wants to stop the conversation there and ask about the fact that Legend apparently has a family and also a reason for the army to be up his ass about something, but he doesn’t get a chance because once more, someone else speaks first. 

  “I grew up on a military base,” Twilight snorts, “trust me, soldiers are as dumb as rocks.” 

  And well, Legend having a family isn’t that crazy in comparison to that. 

  Warriors starts, staring at the rancher, blinking slowly as though still trying to process the words of the other. “I’m sorry- you what?” 

  “I thought you grew up in Ordon?” Wild questions, turning to his mentor, confusion on clear display. 

  Yeah, Wind has a feeling that Wild’s story is well and truly over now, but he supposes it’s worth it. Learning something about their rancher is, he supposes, better than hearing the rest of the story the cook had already spoiled the ending too, especially as the limit of their knowledge about the rancher at this point is that he’s from Ordon, used to work as a ranch hand, and is descended from Time and Malon somehow. The fact that he’s a hero goes without saying, but the ranch hand nearly never shares anything about himself, even though he seems to love talking about his hometown and all the people in it, to the point where some of them feel they know the village and its residents already, despite still not having been there yet. 

  Yet, the rancher is grinning as he leans back, the sprig of hylian rice between his teeth bouncing some as he flashes a wolfish grin at them. “Well, yeah, sort of.” 

  “Sort of?” Time nudges his pup, looking thoroughly unimpressed. Their leader isn’t keen on them being cryptic with him, even though he frequently does so himself. The hypocrite. “Explain.” 

  The rancher chuckles, a nervous little thing, but obediently pulls himself up, resting his weight over his knees as he looks around the fire at all of them, eyes glinting slightly. “Well, y’see, I a’tually grew up in a citadel on the edge of Hyrule.” 

  Warriors jaw drops so fast. “Holy Hylia you’re a military brat.” 

  He can’t help it; he bursts into laughter. Yes, objectively, it’s funny to see Warriors so shocked, but from an outsider's perspective it is so, so much funnier because he’s met Warriors parents and sisters, and he’s seen for himself the proof that the captain is anything but the sissy city boy Twilight likes to accuse him of being. No, the captain was born in Hebra, so far out from cities that he thought Kakariko was huge. Meanwhile, it turns out their “country boy” actually grew up in a military base? Not the country? It turns out Twilight is the military brat and Warriors was the hill-billy? How the turn tables have turned! 

  The rest of the heroes stare at him, confused, but the captain just rolls blue eyes, pinching the tip of his ear to make him shut up. “Ignore him.” 

  Twilight’s dark gaze flicks between them, but apparently, he determines to listen to the captain for once. “Right, so, my dad was a’tually a knight from some family o’ knights or summat, an’ my mom comes from desert folk, so I grew up on the border studyin’ with other knights’ kids to take on our fathers’ duties ’n protect Hyrule one day.” 

  The stares are very, very evident by now, although Legend’s in particular is strangely intense, studying the other with his mouth half open like he’s got a question about the rancher’s words.  

 Broad shoulders shrug, a bit awkward as the rancher grins at them. “My friends growin’ up were dumber’n rocks, an’ every knight I’ve met since is the same, so yeah. Knights ‘re stupid.” 

  “Just a question,” and it seems the vet decided to actually ask whatever’s in his head, “but your knight family, they Hyrulian Knights?” 

  “Yeah?” 

  The vet nods, slowly, lips pursed like he’s sucking on a lemon. “Oh.” 

 “Why?” 

  A shake of pink hair, eyes turning back to the fire. “Same hat is all.” 

  “You too?” 

  “Born and raised, but never followed. Your folks drag you to Snowpeak every winter too?” 

  The rancher shakes his head. “Naw, yeti’s took the place over some time ago. I’d heard it used to be ours though, never thought much of it though. You’ve been?” 

 “Yeah.” 

  “Hold up,” Watrriors interrupts the, frankly unexpected, moment between their rancher and vet to stare between both of them “You’re both military brats, you both hate soldiers, and you both neglected to say anything until freaking now? Also, Hyrulian Knights? You’re talking about the fabled family that sealed back Ganon here, right? Produced the Savior of Labrynna, may or may not be the family of the Hero of Time?” That has their old man looking up, startled, for a moment. It’s only a moment though, because that one wide eye promptly shoots down to Twilight and then, as though on second thought, Legend too, Time’s stare growing ever more startled and shaken, ears twitching like they used too when he was particularly confused or trying to work something out in his head. 

  Legend snorts. “Yes.” 

  “Heads up,” Hyrule chuckles, “Legend is the Hero of Labrynna, so keep your hero worship at a minimum there, Wars.” 

  He thinks that the captain’s face flickers through all five stages of grief for a moment there before the man gets up and simply...walks away, leaving Hyrule rocking in his seat from laughter and Sky looking thoroughly befuddled. “Is he okay?” 

  “Big hero worship,” Wind says, like the snitch he is. He’s no traitor in most senses, but if he can give Warriors a little grief, tease him a bit, he will. He’s fine with sharing some of the things he’d learned under the care of the other. “Apparently he views that guy like I did with Time, wanted to be like him and everything.” 

  Rather than flush or falter, Legend’s lemon-sucking face gets even more pronounced. “Why?” 

  “Because apparently the stories all say you were such an inspiring leader to Labrynna’s army that soldiers and generals emulated both your tactics and speeches for decades after Ganon’s defeat.” It’s amazing to watch the vet’s entire world-view shatter at the words, the man apparently not sure if he should look off towards their captain who’s flopped on his bedroll to contemplate his whole life all over again or down at the ground to contemplate his own. Like the problem child he usually chooses not to be, Wind decides to make it worse. “His Hyrule considers you the greatest knight that ever lived.” 

  Ringed hands bury in pink hair, violet eyes blowing wide as the other hunches over, mind clearly blown. Beside the vet, Twilight gently (and by gently, Wind means very cautiously) claps his brother’s back, his own face a bit tense. 

 Wind is loving watching this. This is better than listening to Wild explain his exploits against the Yiga! Although, he’s also curious. “Did you really grow up in a citadel, Twi?” 

  “Yeah,” a brief nod, dark eyes lingering on their malfunctioning veteran, “I only traveled up Ordon way around your age, when the citadel fell.” 

  Okay, not touching that bomb. “What was it like?” 

  His question earns a grin. “What you’d expect, I s’pose. We were monsters as kids, an’ I s’pose growin’ up military gave us a twisted view of the world. Or, rather, of what was normal any’ays.” 

  “Like how?” Sky, who grew up in a knight’s academy and seems entirely normal by what standards Wind has, asks. 

  “Our main games usually centered around pretendin’ to be knights an’ capturin’ each other or doin’ what we saw our dads doin’ most of the time.” 

  “Like?” Time prods again. 

 Twilight grins, and then falters, looking suddenly alarmed as he glances over the rest of them. “Okay, in hindsight, it was messed up.”   

  Now he really wants to know. “What did you do?”  

  The others all stare; those who aren’t, like Warriors and Legend, currently questioning their existence. Their concern is steadily growing the more Twilight falters and flushes, and Wind is now very much dying to know what sort of shenanigans the rancher used to get up to as a kid. Whatever it was, it can’t be worse than what Time used to put him through during the war, although the idea of their sweet and warm rancher being related to the gremlin he remembers from back then is now not so insane a concept anymore. 

  “Alright,” The (apparently not from Ordon) Ordonian starts at last, and Wind’s not sure if the rancher is aware that he’s moved his hand up to be toying with the vet’s hair now, a nervous sort of stroking, but the vet hasn’t snapped at him for it yet, although maybe that’s because he’s just too lost in his own head to notice, “don’t judge.” 

  “I will reserve my judgement,” Four answers, slowly, “but no promises.” 

  “I grew up on the edge of the desert, an’ most of what our folks did was hunt Gerudo thieves an’ protect traders in an’ outta the desert.” Which makes sense, but he feels like Twilight’s getting at something less than what his parents did for a living. “Nowadays, my hairs a fair bit darker, but it was purdy red back then an’ the other kids kind of figured it meant that when we played, I had to be the evil Gerudo thief, since, y’know, red hair.” 

  Ah, racism in children, now Wind sees it. Not what he was hoping for but he’s not sure what he was expecting. 

  “So,” Twilight clears his throat awkwardly, “when we played, I’d be the bad guy an’ they’d chase me down and ‘capture’ me. In hindsight, it probably was less play an’ more bullyin’ since I wasn’t too well liked at first an’ they weren’t very nice about it.” 

  “But?” Sky asks, maybe too hopefully. 

  “But,” the rancher accepts, because apparently there's something good in this after all, or at least something that makes the man smile, “part of the ‘game’ involved them tryin’ to tie me up. Unfortunately for them, I got mighty good at escapin’ bein’ tied up. I think I must’ve impressed ‘em, because they started makin’ a game of if I could escape various crazy things, an’ sometimes would ask me to help ‘em tie each other up so they could try a hand at it too.” Sharp teeth glint in a fond smile. “Got a reputation for bein’ slippery as a snake and sly as a fox, an’ t’others all started treatin’ me like some sorta genius. We became friends awful fast after.” 

  An awkward silence settles over camp after that, the rancher’s words sinking in and the rest of them processing what was said. Surprisingly, it’s Legend who breaks it, lifting his head from his own hands, apparently having decided to shelf whatever feelings he’s having, but also apparently missing the hand still tangled in his hair. “So, in other words, you earned the respect of your bullies and made their bullying into what sounds like a perfectly normal childhood game.” 

  “What sort of a childhood did you have again?” Sky deadpans. “Didn’t you start adventuring at like, eight?” 

  “And?” The vet returns, looking actually, genuinely confused as to what that has to do with anything. 

  Their chosen hero sighs, shaking his head, apparently already giving up on trying to explain the flaw in the vet’s logic. Honestly, Wind can’t see it, whatever it is, but he’s getting the impression that kids on Skyloft and kids in Hyrule have very, very different experiences.  

- 

  It’s about a week later that someone brings it up again, and surprisingly, it’s Four. 

  They’re sitting around the main room of the smithy’s house, keeping warm after spending the last day out in the middle of a strange mix of fog and rain while hunting monsters. The smithy’s parents have been very welcoming towards their guests, and all of them are savoring the chance to fully relax for the first time in a good while. Well, most of them, Legend and Hyrule don’t seem particularly capable of fully relaxing, so Four’s mother has roped them into helping her in the little garden out back, which seems to be quite to the vet’s tastes and, while foreign to Hyrule, a new experience the traveler doesn't seem keen on passing up. 

  That leaves the rest of them free in the otherwise empty house, left to their own devices while the smithy’s father attends to his work at the castle. Twilight is trying (and failing) to teach Warriors how to play chess, and Wind and Wild are busy playing with Four’s cat, Tongs, when the smithy suddenly walks into the room again after coming downstairs and addresses the rancher. “Do you think you could still escape being tied up?” 

  Time, who was sitting on the couch, looking halfway towards dozing off, suddenly starts awake again and stares, as do the rest of them. 

  “Pardon?” The rancher asks, sighing in defeat as Warriors knocks all the pieces off the chess board with an agitated scowl, signifying his disinterest in continuing to try and learn the “stupid” game. 

  “The game you mentioned,” Four reminds them, crossing the room to perch on the couch arm closest to the rancher, although why he doesn’t just sit on the couch, Wind’s not sure. “You said your friends were really impressed by your ability to escape all the time. Do you think you could still do that?” 

  Twilight shrugs, scooping up the fallen chess pieces to put back in their box, all while Warriors glares at one of the rooks like it’s personally offended him. Wind wasn’t watching close enough to know if it had or not. “I mean, I might, haven’t tried in a while. Why?” 

  The smithy kicks his feet, well off the floor, and frowns, a thoughtful frown like he’s slowly piecing his words together. “I was curious. I’ve never been good at that sort of thing, and I wanted to know if you’d be willing to show us so I could get better.” 

  “And why do you need to get better at escaping being tied up?” The captain interjects, tossing the white rook into the box with a twitch of a frown. 

  “So sure you want to ask that?” Sky snorts, moseying in from the kitchen where Four’s mother had given them free access to make tea and grab food. The face the captain makes at him is scandalized but their chosen hero just slurps his tea, staring over the rim of his cup with raised brows. 

  Wind doesn’t get the joke. He’s not sure if he wants to. 

  Four huffs, slightly red in the cheeks, but presses on. “During my adventure, I made...some mistakes. It resulted in my capture, and I couldn’t exactly escape. I don’t want that to happen again.” It’s a simple enough answer, glazing over anything and everything other than the smithy getting captured, but it still raises questions, although not the ones the smithy was likely trying to avoid. 

  “I thought you were a knight?” Warriors picks up the queen piece, not dropping it yet but not staring at it either, instead focusing his narrowed eyes on their smithy. “All soldiers are trained on what to do in the case of capture, torture, and questioning. Did you not recieve that training?” 

  It’s Twilight’s turn to shift about to stare at the captain. “How would they train that sort of thing?” 

  The captain’s face screws up, “Am I the only one who was taught this? Sky,” the man drops the queen and it goes rolling across the table, “did you or did you not receive-” 

  “No,” the chosen hero doesn’t even wait for the other to finish. “Who on earth would even interrogate us? Skyloftian knights fight monsters, not men.” A long sip follows the words before Sky frowns and turns to look down at the seated soldier. “Do they seriously teach you about torture?” 

  “Yes?” Warriors glances around, but all of them look back at him with confusion. “All common soldiers learn this? You have to in order to progress through the ranks?” 

  “Not ringing a bell,” Time deadpans, staring at the captain with both eyes. 

  Warriors blinks, like the idea that his experience with knighthood not being universal is, in fact, a surprise to him. Wind can’t blame him though, considering based off of what he knows about the other, Warriors had gone through most of his experiences beside dozens of other young men, including his own childhood friends, in order to reach the rank he was at before the war started and he’d been suddenly promoted to captain. 

  “Well,” Four shifts, crossing his legs, “that’s a can of worms to be addressed later, but back to my question: Twilight, can you teach me escape tricks?” 

  “Correction,” Time sits up and turns around, eyes lingering on the captain a moment more before turning on his pup, “Twilight, Warriors, would both of you two be willing to help the rest of us learn escape methods and-” a vague hand motion is made at the soldier, “-whatever sort of training you received that all the rest of the knights here haven’t.” 

  The request seems to make the captain extremely uncomfortable and Wind doesn't miss the way royal blue eyes dart to him, hesitant. “Not the torture part.” 

  “What does that entail?” Sky asks, stare sharp and heavy in ways the man usually never is. 

  “Doesn’t matter,” Warriors is already moving to stand, leaving Twilight to clean up the rest of their game by himself. “I’m not teaching that to kids.” 

 “I am not a child!” It feels like the thousandth time he’s said that, but the look in the captain’s eyes.... yeah, he’ll let the man have this one. He's not sure he wants to see what it is that Warriors is trying to protect them from, especially after he saw everything that happened to the man during the war. 

  - 

  They have to recruit Legend and Hyrule from the garden, which Four does, and in the meantime Wind produces a length of rope for them to use for the exercise. The captain and Twilight are speaking in hushed whispers in the corner when Four returns with the others, and Legend shoots them a curious look as he heads over to where Wind is uncoiling all the rope he had in his bag. 

  “What’s going on?” 

  “Training exercise.” He answers, handing off the rope to the vet, who starts slightly at the contact but then helps him in re-coiling the loose chord.  

  “Why is the captain so tense?” 

  Those words make him look up, staring for a moment. Twilight seems perfectly at ease, but their soldier’s shoulders are tense, jaw set in a way he usually only has during a battle or shortly after one. Even the captain’s hands are still; devoid of their typical tremor, and if that’s not a sign to make him worry, he’s not sure what is. That said, he’s a bit surprised Legend had picked up on that. “I think he’s got bad memories of doing this before, he was pretty firm with Time about what he was and wasn’t willing to teach us.” 

  “Which is?” 

  “What to do if you’re captured or otherwise held against your will,” Time seems to materialize out of nowhere to answer the question, making Legend start slightly and scowl at the man. “Apparently most knights are trained to handle it, and I think you boys could benefit from having that knowledge too.” 

  “Yeah,” Legend snips, “because the shadow is totally gonna tie us to a chair and demand to know all our secrets.” 

  The conversation in the corner breaks off, Warriors running both hands through his hair in an agitated way while Twilight moves over to join the rest of them. “Maybe not, but the shadow ain’t the only threat out there, vet. You know that.” 

  The point is conceded, and the rest of them move in close, following their rancher’s example and watching as the man settles down into a kitchen chair Four had provided for their use. Twilight is not the one to start though, instead \turning his own attention, and thus the others do as well, towards the captain, who’s looking a little less like his normal self. It takes a moment, but Wind finally decides it’s the mess the man’s hair is in, that and the way all his emotions seem to have been wiped away cleanly as he stalks towards where the rancher is sitting.  

 “Twilight has agreed to show you all how to handle this, meanwhile, as I have the training, I will be instructing.” His breathing is off. “In some cases- most actually, the likelihood of being captured and watched by a large group is rare. Most of you don’t look like a major threat and few of you have a rank worth exploiting by your enemies, so your chances of being captured and tortured are low. The chances of questioning is also low, although possible, but considering how well you all keep your own secrets, I don’t think I have to teach you how to keep your mouths shut.” There’s the slightest quirk of a smile at that, and a few smile back. 

  Wind doesn’t. Wind is too busy watching the way too-steady hands reach out to take the rope Legend is still holding. 

  “I don’t need to teach you all how to watch the enemy, or how to be cautious, sneaky, how to move about without being seen- you know these things already.” The rope snaps in what he knows is a purposeful motion by the soldier to unsettle them, and that, if anything, is assurance that Warriors is still in there, and not entirely overwhelmed. Come to think of it, he may even be purposefully throwing them off with his behavior and appearance in order to better convey what it’s like to be held captive by a stranger. The thought actually makes him start and stare, watching closely. The hand thing can’t be faked, so maybe there’s some truth to the terrifying mask the captain is pulling; cold, harsh, calculating and seeking a reaction, but he genuinely hopes most of it really is just put on. “But how do you escape binds of different kinds? How do you quickly turn the tables to take yourself from prisoner to captor?” A twist of the hands and Warriors has made knot dangerously close to a noose. “Let’s try that, shall we?” 

  At his side, Legend tenses, eyes fixed on the captain as the man wraps the noose quickly around one of Twilight’s wrists, the rancher allowing himself to be manipulated as needed for the time being while Warriors twists and pulls and ties the rope this way and that. It's genuinely impressive, the kinds of knots and the effort put into them, far more than most enemies are likely to bother using, but the man still uses them, calling their attention to the different kinds and showing how some give way with a tug and others tighten, informing them that feeling the sort of knot used can be a huge step in escaping it, as it provides clues on how to manipulate your bindings to your own will. 

  Once the captain is finished, Twilight’s wrists and ankles are both quite effectively restrained, the rancher sitting quietly as he allows the rest of them to look over the bonds and Warriors to explain further about why certain knots are used and which ones to be on the lookout for. They are allowed to touch, encouraged even, to see how the rope feels, because- as the captain instructs them, clipped and cold- the likelihood of being granted sight is very low indeed when held captive. 

  “Everyone got all that?” At their nods, Warriors turns to Twilight. “Go nuts.” 

  Watching Twilight escape is very nearly as interesting as watching him get tied up. The rancher doesn’t explain nearly anything at all, focusing instead on getting out, but Warriors fills the blanks, pointing out that shifting, tugging and rolling your limbs can help loosen most bonds, even if it does tend to tighten the knots. “You don’t want to untie each knot, just get out of them. Most escapes need to be quick so as to actually be able to get out, but some circumstances give you time enough to pick over the knots later if you need the rope for something else. Getting a read on your situation at all times is crucial, but you have to rely on your own judgement much of the time in order to know what skills to employ and what to set aside.” 

  By the time the man is done speaking, Twilight is springing up out of the chair and making a grab at the captain. Almost without breathing, Warriors catches the other in a headlock. It's like watching a snake strike, one moment it looks like Twilight has him, and the next, the rancher is doubled over with their captain’s arms around his neck. 

  “Good try.” 

  Twi grins. “Woudla had’ja if I’d had time to slip my feet free.” 

  “Or if I’d been paying less attention,” the captain smiles, but it’s cold, thin, and very much not like their brother. The man’s hands let loose the other, leaving Twilight free to tug loose his feet while he turns back to the rest of them. “A key point is to watch for opening at all times. If your enemy turns their back or drops their guard, they give you a chance to over-power, injure, or kill them.” It’s said too coldly, too clinically, as though Warriors isn’t even talking about a life at all. He's beginning to see why the man spoke about this sort of training like he did; Warriors will be dumbing it down for them, making it something they can process, but with soldiers, commanders who didn’t give a shit about the innocence of their students, he can only imagine how this sort of thing would have been, especially paired with the knowledge that Warriors had also withstood training for torture and interrogation, so the mental strain would have been far worse then. 

  Honestly, maybe it’s not an act. Maybe Warriors is just used to shutting his emotions off when it comes to issues like this. 

  “Any questions?” 

 “Yeah,” it’s a new voice, one he doesn't know yet, which speaks, and it has all the heroes turning about abruptly at the sound of it, except the captain, who seems unsurprised, unlike them, to see Four’s father standing in the doorway “What on earth is going on here?” 

  As though of one mind, they all turn on the smithy. 

  “Training?” 

  “What kind?” The man leans in the door, one brow raised. He doesn’t look upset, maybe bemused, but Wind still feels Legend draw up stiff beside him. 

  “Escape training, sir,” Warriors clips, stepping forwards to address the man, “your son tells me he hasn't had a chance to undergo such training previously.” 

  “No.” It’s a very loaded word, “he hasn’t.” Guarded, wary, maybe even pained. Wind’s not sure, but he supposes maybe Four’s father doesn’t like the idea of his son undergoing whatever this training entails. 

  The captain doesn’t let the other knight’s tone bother him though. “All due respect sir, he requested that the Hero of Twilight and I instruct him, and the rest, in order that he might have some knowledge of what to do in the case of capture, sir.” Oh, Warriors is falling into soldier mode for real now. Shit. 

  Sir Smith notices too, apparently, face softening some as he looks at the younger soldier. “As ease, captain.” 

  Warriors does not relax in the slightest. 

  “Well,” their smithy’s father turns to look over them and the room in general, “I suppose it’s good knowledge to have, and about time you had it. Is there anything I can do to assist?” 

The offer is accepted eagerly by their smithy, and while Warriors still looks somewhat tense, Wind’s quite sure it’s the nature of the training and not the man offering to help with it. No, the captain and this world’s army commander had got on like a housefire last night, and he knows Warriors likes the man. It’s fine, his brother is just uncomfortable and thus falling into familiar patterns and behaviors in order to not betray that. Given time after, and Warriors will slowly drop those and return to his normal self once he’s ready. He’ll be okay. 

 “Escapin’ is like pretty boy said,” Twilight tells them, standing up again now that he’s free, “it’s a matter of gettin’ the ropes loose enough t’slip out. Amateurs tend to go too loose, an’ they keep it quick an’ easy. ‘pparently soldiers cover all the bases though.” The last part is added with a snort and a light nudge at their captain. 

  Time nods, slowly. “Four minutes and seventeen seconds. Quite impressive, pup.” 

  The words have the rancher beaming. 

  “Right,” Warriors plows ahead, ignoring the moment and looking over each of them. “Legend, you said you’d been trained, how about you show the rest how a smaller individual can handle this?”  

  The vet glares at the implications but doesn’t say anything. It’s fact that most of them aren’t nearly as big as Twilight and, considering few of them possess his brute strength either, having a few examples will probably give them more to work off of in the long run. Still, there’s something wary about the way the vet approaches the chair, hands already fisted as he stands in front of it, rather than deliberately sitting as the rancher had done. 

 “Commander,” Warriors turns over to Four’s father (he’s introduced himself as Leon, right?) and motions to the vet. “I believe you have more experience than I.” 

  The elder soldier nods, in one motion both conveying respect and also submitting himself to the command of the younger soldier for the time being, which Wind thinks is very grand of him considering it’s the older man’s own house they’re in, and his son they’re teaching. Then again though, Four had said that his dad is the sort of person who isn’t afraid to let a younger person take the lead if they know what they’re doing. 

  He wonders how Four knows that to be able to say it so confidently. What on earth does he get up to on his own? 

  A question for later, he guesses. Right now, it’s time to pay attention, because even if he hopes to grow as big as Twilight, Legend and he are pretty close in size now, so this will be more useful for him than watching the rancher. 

  Unlike Twilight, Legend doesn’t go easily, making Leon actually have to fight against him in order to continue. That, apparently, it is good though, as Warriors makes it a teaching point, “Generally speaking,” one large hand catches the vet’s dominant one, “you don’t want to let the enemy tie you down in the first place. Honor is all well and good, but when it comes to surviving, no one’s blaming you for fighting dirty.” Something Legend is notorious for. “Watch how the vet handles this, then we’ll discuss after. Sir Leon-” that is the right name then, great! “-will probably approach it differently than I do as well, so be aware that all captors are not the same.” 

  And the smithy’s father definitely doesn’t handle things the way Warriors did, nor does Legend. Where Twilight had let Warriors shift and move him as needed, Legend fights, and where Warriors had given little vocal cues to his “prisoner” and guided his motions carefully, well aware that a wrong move from the rancher at close proximity could do damage, Leon isn’t nearly as careful, instead grabbing, holding, and forcing the vet’s arms behind his back before slinging a rope around them with all the speed of a sailor in a storm. Also, unlike Warriors, Leon doesn’t use a variety of knots, rather keeping it quick and tight. 

  “He’s got thin wrists, so a tighter bind is needed. Some tie it tight enough to harm, but that’s not the goal here. Know it happens though.” The elder soldier tells them, yanking back on the vet who makes to push away. He doesn’t try to force the vet into the chair, instead catching the younger by the collar while his free hand works, hissing, “stay still, you wriggly thing!” 

  Wind’s not sure what exactly about the situation is wrong, but he swears he hears the vet’s breath catch, stutter, and then with a truly terrific show of strength, Legend rips himself free of the man’s hold, kicking back against the knight and propelling himself forwards hard enough that his collar slips free from the man’s hands and the vet can stumble very quickly away. Rather than stage an “attack” though, the hero just spins about, and the whole room freezes. 

  Legend’s stance is too tightly wound, breath too sharp, too harsh, but most obvious is the utter and complete terror shining in blown out violet eyes.  

  “Shit,” Warriors is moving before any of them have a clue what to do, and all aggression, put on though it was, immediately disappears from Leon’s own stance as both knights recognize what Wind himself has as well. He doesn't know how, and he doesn’t know why, but something about the situation has acted as enough to trigger the vet into some sort of panic, and what to them is a training exercise, has become, to his mind, very, very real. 

  “Lad-” Leon’s motion towards the vet earns a start back, one that is made even worse when Four jumps up from where he’d been watching. Wind can’t imagine why the sight of Four, of all of the people in the room, would make Legend stumble so far back that he falls flat on his ass, but it happens. It happens and none of them, especially the smithy, miss it. 

  “Vet?” They’re all worried, and several of them step forwards, reaching out, ready to help, wanting to help, only for both Hyrule and Wild to grab those closest to them and pull them back, something Wind does himself, catching ahold of the smithy. The last thing the vet needs is people crowding in and leaving him no space to breathe. Being surrounded when you’re vulnerable is bad, very bad, and if watching out for Mask and watching the captain taught him anything, it’s that letting an experienced adult handle it and keeping everyone else away is the best course of action. 

  “Is he-” again, Leon’s voice is cut off, this time though by a strangled sound from the vet. 

  “Leon,” and it’s the first time that the soldier’s voice has dropped titles to use anything else, “leave.” 

  “Excuse me?” Four hisses, but that also seems to have a very negative effect, one that has the captain turning, slowly, voice low and soft but cold enough to freeze.  

 “You too, smithy.” 

  Whatever is about to be said in return is cut off by Leon hefting his son over his shoulder and quickly leaving the room, although both he and Four look after the others even as they exit the door. If the situation were any different, Wind thinks he might have laughed at Four’s easy acceptance of being carried like a potato sack by his father, but right now dealing with the vet takes precedence. Luckily for all at hand, even if Warriors isn’t the most qualified to run a training simulation, there’s no one better at handing panic attacks. 

  Despite being downed, Legend’s still managed to shift enough that the ropes Leon was working to be decently tight have been mostly ripped off, although they’ve left a nasty burn across the hero’s skin, one that’s bleeding slightly in the worst areas along the inside of his wrists. No one stops him freeing himself though, and while the performance is definitely over, there’s also a part of all of them that notes how quickly Legend pulls himself free, the sailor even hears Time whisper a soft “two minutes, fourteen seconds” to himself, slightly awed. 

  “Hey,” Warriors’ voice has lost every amount of edge, ice, or stiffness as he settles down in front of their felled brother, now as full of warmth as if he’s back on the field, talking Mask out of his own head after the younger hero’s namesake was put away again. “You with me?” 

  Ragged breathing would indicate that no, Legend is not. He���s very much not, just staring after the door where Four and his father had disappeared, eyes still wide and breath too shallow. 

  The captain reaches out; slow, deliberate motions, easy to track as he reaches for the other hero. “You’re okay, alright? You’re safe. We were training, but it’s over. There is no threat here.” 

  The vet flinches away from the hand, inches from his arm, back slamming against a cabinet and making whatever’s inside clatter loudly, which just sees to further unsettled the shaken hero, who jumps at the sound, whipping his head around to look back, only to flick unseeing eyes back towards the captain. 

  Warriors doesn’t so much as falter, using his lifted hand to slowly push shaggy hair out of where it’d been over his eyes for the last while, messy and just slightly wavy at the ends, like he’s not had time to straighten it in a while. “Hey, it’s me. It’s Warriors, you in there, Link?” 

  Violet eyes flicker across the older man’s face, and this time, when Warriors reaches out, Legend doesn’t start away again, although he watches the hand reaching for him like it’ll produce a knife at any second. Luckily for all, the captain’s not capable of that sort of a trick, and all his hand does is catch one of Legend’s own, not by the wrist as Leon had done, but gently catching fingers in his own and guiding them towards himself, pulling the vet’s hand to settle over his chest, eyes locking with the other’s as he breathes a long, purposeful, breath. 

 Just like Mask used to, Legend mimics the action, although his own breath catches some. It doesn’t stop the captain from trying again though, and slowly, steadily, Legend’s breathing evens out again, clarity returning to his eyes like stars coming out at dusk. 

  “There you are,” their brother breathes, soft and warm and gentle and everything that eases tension and doesn’t spark it further, “keep breathing, you’re okay.” 

 Just because he says it though, doesn't mean it works, because the next breath that escapes their brother sounds more like a strangled sob. 

  Warriors doesn’t so much as falter. “You’re okay. It’s alright,” the hand that lifts is flinched back from, so the captain drops it again, resting it only over the hand still pressed to his own chest. “Keep breathing- there we go. You’re okay, you’re safe.” 

 The dart of dark eyes to the door betrays that Legend doesn’t believe him for a moment, but the vet shudders only a bit, focusing on Warriors again as he pulls away from the cabinets, although not so much to be closer to the captain as to not longer be shrinking away. It’s a sign of some recognition though, which is far better than nothing, and apparently a cue for the soldier to find out what is going on. 

  “That escalated a bit quick, wanna tell me what went wrong?” 

  Legend opens his mouth to answer, but a hitching breath is all that comes out, face twisting and screwing up again enough to warn that a repeat is very much in the cards. 

  Warriors counters quickly. “Was it the ropes? Too tight? Too many people?” He keeps the questions far enough apart to give time for a signal one way or another, but Legend doesn't do much more than force shaking breathes out as his hands reach to tangle in his wild hair. His hat fell off in the scuffle, and currently lies at Time’s feet. “Was Leon too-” 

  The strangled sound at the man’s name cuts Warriors off, and recognition shines in blue eyes. 

  “Leon.” Warriors repeats. 

  Legend’s eyes squeeze closed; face pinched up and shattered. 

  The soldier sighs. “Can I touch you?” 

  “No.” The fact that it’s verbalized is a huge step, and Wind sighs a breath of relief. 

  Warriors, likewise, accepts the boundary, shifting back a bit to grant their vet more space, but not so much as to seem like he’s leaving. “Okay, this is related to Leon. Was it how he handled you?” 

  Nothing. 

  “Was it something one of us said?” 

  A hitch in the vet’s breath, the captain opens his mouth to try again, to press, but Legend answers aloud again this time, voice a wreck. “I- he-” a desperate gasp for air as ringed fingers tug at messy hair, “he’s sounds-”  

  No doubt recognizing Mask’s same struggle with words in the other, Warriors offers his own, soft and quiet, but not yet a whisper. “Did he sound like someone you know?” 

  A nod. A fervent, desperate, nod as violet eyes squeeze shut again. “Sorry...” 

  Hearing the vet apologize has never sounded like such an awful thing. He hates it. 

  The captain clearly does too, but he says nothing to that effect, although the brief flick of his ears and flash of his eyes says it for him. “It’s not your fault. It happens to the best of us.” 

 A scoff. Yeah, Legend’s still in there. 

  Warriors presses on. “No really, it does. It sucks, but it happens.” 

  Dark eyes peek open, fixing on the captain. 

  “Yes, even with me.” The smile there is pained, strained, but real, despite all, and the flick down of the vet’s eyes to still outheld hands prompts the captain to reach out once more. “Would you like me to touch now?”  

 There’s a pause, nothing said, and nothing done, just a stillness as Legend considers the offer. He’s wary about touch even on good days, but usually only when it’s expressly offered or pointed out. When no one says anything, it’s usually met with acceptance as long as it’s not demeaning in any way.  

  As though catching onto a similar train of thought, Warriors changes his offer. “I could lend you my scarf?” 

  A glare. Okay, rude, it’s not that demeaning! Wind likes the scarf! Mask adored the scarf! Enough to throw fits when it wasn't his turn with it! Legend doesn’t have to want it, but there’s no need to make faces like that! It earns a laugh from their captain though, eyes creasing the way they rarely do, and only when he really means it, hand falling to rest gently on the foot of the other. Legend doesn’t shake him off, just stares, then lifts his gaze back up to search the captain’s face again. 

  Warriors meets it, smile fading back to the sad one again. 

 The vet’s gaze drops, arms falling to wrap around himself rather than digging his fingers into his scalp. “He looks-” a breath, harsh and strained, angry as it whishes between clenched teeth, brows drawing low with inward turned frustration, “the- our-” 

  “He looks like someone you know?” At yet another, hesitant, nod, Warriors presses further. “Someone who hurt you? Maybe someone you used to trust?” 

  A sigh. A slow nod before the vet’s head drops to rest against his raised knees. He's still shaking. 

  It’s clear as day that Warriors wants nothing more than to wrap an arm around their brother, pull hm close and assure, but he doesn’t. No, the captain respects the established boundary and doesn’t move any closer, hand just resting on one ankle as he crouches in front of their brother. “I get that.” his voice is softer now, bittersweet, “it sucks, I know. There's someone you trust and then you can’t trust them anymore, and it’s hard, especially when you meet someone who reminds you of them.” 

  Shit. Wind knows he shouldn’t, knows both he and Time know better, but neither can help it as they turn their focus on the captain, wary and watching. That is never a good subject to talk about, but the fact that Warriors is the one broaching it for the first time in forever is frankly shocking. 

  “You too?” Legend’s trying to pass off a tired smile of his own, but it just looks like he’s trying not to cry. 

 The captain nods, lifting his hand (definitely noticing how Legend’s breath catches at the loss of contact) and instead turning to lean his own back against the china cabinet, settling in beside their shaken brother, eyes falling closed in what’s both an open sign of trust, but also an obvious bid to ignore the sharp stares of both his boys on him. “Yeah, me too. It sucks, doesn’t it?” 

 “Sounds just like him,” Legend says, the first full sentence since he’d gone down, and Wind doesn't miss the way the other hero leans a bit closer into the captain’s space, although he doesn't touch him. “Looks like ‘im too.” 

  Blue eyes open again, turning past all their curious and worried ones to watch the vet, warm and gentle, that same look that he’d turn on Mask, and Wind doesn't doubt it was turned on him too, when Warriors thought they weren't looking. 

  The vet shudders, steeling himself up again, walls visibly reconstructing before their eyes. “He used to visit, when I was small. I saw him like a grandfather-” and they crumble again, the vet blinking violently, voice small. “He has granddaughters my age.” 

  “What happened?” Wind doesn’t mean to let the words slip, but they do. 

  Legend’s head hits the cabinet doors. “Corrupted.” 

 The captain nods. He knows. Wind knows that he knows. “I’m sorry.” 

  “He sounded just like him.” 

  “I know,” it’s a hysterical sort of laughter that escapes the older hero this time, “trust me, I get it. Every time I hear an Ordon accent, any time someone suggests playing chess,” the captain’s eyes roll upwards, and Wind’s kind of shocked when he realizes there’s tears there. “It sucks. Gods it sucks, but you live with it. I wish I could say it gets better, but I’m not there yet.” 

  Pink hair drops, settling against faintly shaking shoulders. “You were close?” 

Suddenly the moment before them feels too private to witness anymore. Suddenly, being there feels wrong, hearing Legend ask things that everyone at home in Warriors’ world knows better than to speak of. He doesn't know why Warriors answers, maybe out of guilt for pulling the vet into the exercise, maybe out of a need to set an example or assure, maybe out of his own sort of desperation, but an answer is given. 

  “Yeah. Grew up together. He teased me for my accent, I teased him for his. We ran our mothers to worry and our commanders to madness. I hauled his ass out of prison, he watched mine on the field. Heck,” a smile, bittersweet as the captain settles a cheek in rosy hair, “we went through our trailing- kinda like what I was trying to show the others- we did that together too.” A soft scoff, not a sob, but close, “I think he’s the only reason I made it through training t’all. Would’ve gone mad wit’out ‘im.” 

  “What happened?” Twilight dares speak up, and Wind doesn’t miss the way the man’s thick accent is held in check, nearly gone altogether. So, Twi did hear the comment about Ordon. 

  The captain sighs, lifting his head and staring out at the rest of them, eyes fixing on the rancher last of all. “Ganon. As with most things.” 

  Twilight winces. 

  Warriors chuckles. “Some days it’s like he never left though. He’s still on my ass, still callin’ me ‘pretty boy and tryin’ to get a rise outta me.” Wind doesn’t miss how Twilight’s face crumbles when he realizes blue eyes are still fixed on his. The captain doesn’t either, smile twitching alive again. “It’s nice, sometimes, like seeing what he’d be like if nothing happened. Other days, it’s difficult, and it makes it hard to get through the day.” 

  “How do you handle us?” Legend breathes, half scoff and half awe, eyes trying for a smile again and doing much better. It’s not happy, but it’s kind. 

  The captain doesn’t miss it. “Hylia only knows,” he teases, knocking his shoulder against the one still pressed against it, and then, more serious, “I draw back if I need. Sure, Twilight reminds me of him a lot, some days, but then he does something Gassun would never, or does something so stupid only a hero would do it, and then I remember again and I’m fine.” 

 “Really?” The Stare of Disappointment was definitely something Time learned from the captain, so Wind can’t fathom why the man tries to use it on their brother, but here he is, doing just that. “You expect us to believe that?” 

  “Have faith in me,” Warriors snorts, “I don’t wander around in my own head all day. If I did, you’d’ve burned the world down already!” 

  It sort of ends like that. Warriors redirecting their attention and Legend rolling his eyes at their antics, slowly uncurling again until Four’s mother comes back inside and requests access to her kitchen again. They scatter after, Warriors throwing an arm around the vet and guiding him upstairs so they can have a talk, Time going off in search of the smithy and his father, Wild joining in dinner preparations, and the rest of them cleaning up their mess before leaving. 

 Hyrule still has questions for Twilight about escaping, but Sky heads upstairs after the others, worry creasing his brow in ways it rarely does, but Wind stays behind, scooping up Tongs to keep him company in the wake of his brothers all leaving. Even so, he makes a note to ask the others how they are later. 

  Of course, later, Twilight also asks about what Warriors said, and the captain, to the shock of both his charges, explains himself. Thinking back, it’s no wonder Warriors sees a resemblance; Twilight may have spent his last few years in Ordon, but the military haircut is still very present, a mirror of the captain's own and quite similar to said captain's old friend. Granted, Twilight is darker, hair redder and eyes bright blue, but the accent is the same, rough manner so similar, and the nicknames definitely finish the picture. He doesn’t like the implications of that, not for either of the two, but Twilight walks out of the conversation only looking someone thoughtful, rather than upset, and Warriors seems normal enough, although still quiet for the rest of their time in the smithy’s Hyrule. 

 Collectively, they agree to abandon the escape training. If they want tips, they’ll go to Twilight, but the emotional toll taken on both the vet and the captain isn’t worth it to any of them. Not a second time. Not when they all regret the first one. 

[mantisgodsart]

The ground creaked, a horrible, grating noise rattling through the air as something pulled its way out of the water, something massive, nearly half a dozen times her size. It smelled like a corpse – a bug’s corpse that had been left to decay for days, or weeks, where spores had settled deep enough that fungi were starting to sprout from their shell, ant and beetle and a horrible mishmash of species she didn’t know. It wasn’t shaped like any kind of macrovolute she knew, and it definitely didn’t move like one, slowly and steadily pulling itself along with four limbs and dragging a massive abdomen that bent like it lacked a shell entirely. It spread wings soddened with water that clung to its body like a slow-flowing solid and looked down on her, nearly five times her size, something oozing from its abdomen as it spoke, a horrific tangle of moth and ant and beetle and something else, twisted and distorted as if mimicked by a fungal console. <query><id>

[adrift-in-thyme]

Time becomes the Hero's Shade? 👀

I'm ready to cry

- hero-of-the-wolf

Hehehe yeah it’s gonna be painful alright

Darkness swallows Wild. And the earth folds into itself once more.

Time jerks back just before his hand is devoured too. Then, he is on his feet, breath coming fast, fury and fear roiling within him.

“Majora!” His shout echoes despite the padding of the towering brush. “What was that? What did you do to him?”

Maniacal cackles dance around him, enveloping him in their pungent insanity.

“Don’t fret over him, hero, he’s just fine. I merely transported him back to camp to await the others. However — ” The voice is in his ear now, the smothering heat of breath sticky upon his neck. Time goes rigid. “I would worry more about yourself.”

A long tentacle snakes around him, grasps his left wrist, and wrenches it up to eye level. Time chokes.

There is bone where there was once flesh, pearly white bone, knobby and jointed, forming what he knows were one fingers, the back of a hand.

The ground tilts beneath his feet. Time stumbles, suddenly feeling strangely weightless.

“What—” he gasps, “what is this?”

[shade-pup-cub]

Febuwhump 2024, Day 14: Mask(FD) & Link - Blood-Stained Tiles

Fandom: LOZ/Linked Universe

Summary: Mask seems to be the only one that can see what is going on with his big brother and he refuses to stand to the side when he could try to change it. Unlike his own Zelda, this era's doesn't show the same care. Their hero is only a tool.

CW: blood, injury, mild language

Link’s limp wasn’t hard to miss if you looked. His slight hitch in breath when he gave a slight laugh, drew in breath or spoke too much could be seen, if someone would look for it. His posture was guarded, arms stiff and hardly moved away from his sides. His smile was fake, pained and his eyes wanted to shut from the lack of sleep. All of this could be seen if someone just looked.

Mask watched from afar after the battle was over and had slipped the Fierce Deity mask back onto his belt. He saw Link get hit a few too many times and knew he would be kicking for not doing better.

A meeting had been called for in the castle to discuss the next move against Cia and Ganondorf the second the battle ended and Link was off the field. Mask cursed aloud when he lost sight of Link, crowds of people pushing and shoving. Being hip height had its disadvantages, but Mask was not above hitting kneecaps to get through.

It was the rare occasion that the eleven year old hero wished he had his sixteen year old body back. He could easily get through if he was taller, but he wasn’t. He scaled the nearest wall somehow undetected. He balanced his way across beams, careful not to fall into the swarm of bodies below. Living as a Kokiri was like living in one big playground, making this easy.

It still took much longer than he wanted it to to get across the castle, run down the halls to where Link’s personal chambers were. Mask jiggled the locked handle to the door. Link never locked it…

“Link! Open this fucking door!”

There was no answer outside of the shuffling of feet, something being tossed around and something breaking.

“Don’t make me blow this door off its hinges!”

When Link still did nothing outside of continuing on, Mask grew more worried. Link knew that Mask wouldn’t give idle threats, especially ones that included blowing things up.

“Cap, you’re worrying me… Please open the door.”

A few moments later, the door creaked open. “Worried? Now that’s a word I haven’t heard come from you before.”

Mask looked up at him, eyeing him curiously and cautiously. Something wasn’t right. Link had less dust and dirt on his tunic, meaning he had taken it off. He wouldn’t do that for any other meeting, especially with how urgent the Queen made it sound.

“Did you take a potion?” Mask went right to the point.

“No, I didn’t need one.”

“Did you wrap your wounds?”

Link furrowed his brow, “I didn’t have any.”

“Bullshit, I saw you take some hits today. There is no way you went unharmed.” Mask went to push on the Captain’s ribs, but his wrist was caught by Link. “If you don’t have any, why stop me from checking?”

To Mask’s surprise, Link’s expression cracked for a split second before he straightened up. “Because I do not have time right now. There is a meeting being held to strategize our next move. Even if I were injured, our supplies took a great hit today. We are short of most things. Small cuts are not worth my time worrying.” He let go of the younger’s wrist. “Stay here if you want, but I have somewhere to be.”

Mask flinched slightly back at his big brother’s became uncharacteristically angry with him.

Link deflated. “I’m sorry. I have no right to take my frustration out on you.” He took off his scarf, wrapping it around Mask snuggly. “Get some rest.”

Watching Link walk away hurt, but Mask had a job to do. He needed to figure out a way to get the good Captain to rest some. It had been three days since he slept anything more than two hours, a week since he slept five hours at one time.

He sighed with a groan as he walked into the somewhat large room. He went and sat on the bed, kicking his feet while his brain raced. He couldn’t think of a way to help his big brother and even if he did, no one would take him seriously due to his age. Well… he was just going to have to make them listen.

Looking around the room again, something caught his eye. Something white and red. ‘That bastard.’ He knew what it was before he reached it. It was old bandages that someone had tried to hide. That meant that Link had been hurt some time before and hid it from everyone.

Mask pushed open the bathroom door, wanting to take all the bandages out of there and hide them so Link would be forced to seek out proper help. What he wasn’t prepared to see was blood smeared across the marbled tiled floor. Several towels had been used hopelessly to clean up the mess and there were still small pools of blood that hadn’t been touched.

Mask’s breathing picked up as he took a few steps back. Horror gripped him like an icy hand around his middle. That was too much blood. How much was Link hiding? How much worse was he than Mask had originally assumed?

His anger roared back like a grease poured on an open flame. He folded Link’s scarf in a hurry, tossing it on the bed. He was on a warpath to where this so-called meeting was being held. He ran through people, not caring who it was. Many times he collided with the wrong people, all agitated warriors or nobles. A few pushed him away hard enough that he landed on the ground and nearly trampled. The others only spoke harshly towards him.

None of this stopped him from reaching the guarded doors that held the highest ranking officials in this Hyrule. He thought about blowing the door off the hinges, but that would cause too much destruction and bring too much attention from outside people. Direct approach it was…

Mask kicked and screamed as the guards tried to pick him up and throw him out of the castle for intruding. ‘This shit again, really?’ He managed to get a few good kicks to the door, calling for Link. With no one responding from behind the doors, Mask bit one of the guards and pulled the Fierce Deity mask from his belt threatening to put it on, backing up slowly, then literally kicked the door open.

“What is the meaning of this interruption?!” one of the nobles asked as everyone jumped to their feet.

Mask eyed Link as he tried to stand up fully without wincing. Link tried to keep eye contact, but sat down first with a hand holding his ribs.

Two more men went to snatch Mask, but he raced over to the way too oversized round table and climbed onto it. The Queen waved her hand for them to stop.

“Mask, what brings you here?” Zelda asked, calmly.

“Him!” Mask pointed at Link as he tried to catch his breath.

Link huffed, “Mask, go back to the room and get some rest, please. There is no concern here for you to be worrying over.”

“You don’t get to speak, Cap! Not after what I saw!”

Losing patience, Zelda also sat back down, prompting the others to do the same. “If something was wrong with our Captain, he would say something.”

“Are you blind? Are all of you blind to what is in front of you? He is injured, still injured from the battle before today, hasn’t slept in gods know how long, eating is a rare thing and he is refusing any medical treatment because he thinks it would be wasted on him when he should be the first person to receive it!”

“We are at war, child. There has to be sacrifices even if it comes to oneself.” A random nobleman said.

Swiftly turning, Mask gritted his teeth as he spat out. “No one was talking to you.” Looking at the Queen again, he asked, “How well do you sleep in your ivory tower, knowing that this war is all on Link? He has saved you, Impa, Lana, everyone in this room, this whole kingdom, but who is saving him as he drowns in his own thoughts of doubt and self worth? Who does he get to lean on when it becomes too much to carry alone on his shoulders? He isn’t some plaything from the goddess, he is a real person who deserves better than this. Heroes deserve better than this!”

The same nobleman decided to speak up again. “What would you know of a Hero’s job? You call yourself a hero, but how could an eleven year old understand the complexity of war and what Link is to uphold his part as the hero?”

Rage boiled in Mask’s veins, slowly turning back to the old man. “I took up the role of the hero at age nine, where I was sent to the future by sleeping until I was sixteen. I fought Ganondorf and his bloodthirsty monsters and I defeated him. When I was sent back to my original time as a nine year old, I did it all over again. I earned the title Hero of Time, though it came with many steep costs. I went to an unknown land called Termina, ridding it of one of the most powerful demons ever known to the world, Majora. I did both adventures alone outside of my fairy and the few that I could trust to point me in the right direction, but I walked alone.

“The work of a hero is damning and lonely, even if we aren’t alone. No one truly understands what we need or what we go through. I refuse to let another hero go through the hell I went through for the sake of his country. I don’t care if I have to do it from my grave, heroes from now on will never have to walk alone.”

The silence was interrupted by a puzzled Queen. “This still has nothing to do with you. Leave, Mask, we have work to do and every second that you waste by badgering us with things that are irrelevant, Ganondorf gets stronger. If Link has a problem or an issue, he knows how to deal with it. He is an adult, capable of taking care of himself.”

“Clearly not by the state of his bathroom! The tiled floor is stained in blood, fresh blood has pooled on top of it from where he tried to take care of himself and I’m surprised he’s even standing by how much was there! Do you not care for your Hero?”

“He is not my responsibility!” The Queen stood, matching Mask’s height where he stood.

“Mask, that is enough. This only makes matters worse. It doesn’t matter what happens as long as we win the war.” Link rubbed his face, elbows on the edge of the table. The lack of self preservation was overwhelming. Mask knew what it was like, but his big brother was being thrown to the wolves with no hope.

“See, boy, if our good Captain Link says he is fine, then why should we be listening to you? Now, run along and let the adults handle things.”

If Mask could have gotten away with it, he would have skewered that old bastard. Instead, he took the Fierce Deity mask, sighing, “Since you won’t listen to me, maybe you will listen to him.” He pressed the mask to his face with a scream. The scream wasn’t because of the pain like others thought, but because of the amount of emotion trapped inside with no way to release it except when Mask used them. Fierce Deity's hurt the worst.

“Mask no!!” Link hollered and scrambled to get to the youngest in the room.

The wooden table groaned under the weight of the god that now stood where the young Link was. The Deity knew why he had been called on, afterall he could go through the mask’s wielder's thoughts. His glowing eyes took in the room, landing on Link who was now doubled over and clutching his side, blood coming through the green tunic.

The Deity growled in disgust, “It takes a child to make you see what you already know, yet you call yourselves the responsible adults. I would have never treated my own men with such disregard.”

Much like Mask, his eyes locked on Zelda’s, lips pulled back to show all his teeth. “You, Queen Zelda, I would expect so much more from my sister’s blood than what you have become. You disgrace the goddess’s bloodline and all she believed in.”

Link took in a wheezing breath. “D-Deity…” He collapsed to the ground, head nearly slamming into the stone floor if it weren’t for the Deity’s quickness.

Large gloved fingers inspected the head in his hands, feeling for damage. He sighed when he felt the bump below the crown of the young man’s head. If he remembered correctly, Link got his with a shield there. Placing the man’s head on the ground softly, the Deity pulled the tunics and chainmail up, showing bandages soaked and hardly wrapped around him properly.

Almost like she cared, Zelda was at their side. “I had no idea… truly. We need to get him to the infirmary right away.”

“You will do nothing. You do not get the right to suddenly step up for him and care about his well being. I will take him to his quarters and watch over him. He needs rest, not people hovering over him. Besides, friends and foe are wearing the same colors nowadays.”

With Link in his arms, he made his way to the door, but stopped short to say one last thing. “If his body gives way and we lose him, my host will not fight in this war, I will make sure of it. You will do this on your own and you will lose.”

[fastcardotmp3]

She didn’t trust them until Nancy got mad over Robin insinuating she didn’t understand the impact of NINA, got well and truly in Robin’s face about they used my best friend as bait to understand the toothy fuckers better and you think I don’t get it? She didn’t trust them until Nancy. End of sentence.  » Ronance & Stobin // Rated T // Apocalypse AU // 2.4k » Febuwhump #10: Truth Serum & "Please don't" » Febuwhump Masterlist

read on ao3 // preview under the cut

The monsters came when Robin was eleven. 

The earthquake opened up crevices in the ground, jagged and dangerous things, and then three months later, the monsters came, and then in the chaos so did NINA. 

They pushed those of them already at the bottom of the ladder further down it in the name of protection. They put up fences and created curfews and took charge of the law with the fist of the military and Robin was eleven when it started but she learned how to fight fast. 

Her parents were some of the first to push back, to see their protectors for what they were and call them by their proper name: fascists, Robbie, born out of the power vacuum. They want us to rely on them so they can control us, but if we want to survive this we can’t let them, understand? 

Robin was eleven when the monsters came, and she learned how to fill a Molotov cocktail with young, uncalloused hands, learned how to rough them up with the handle of a throwing ax launched again and again at the trunk of a tree until she could hit the same spot every time. 

She was eleven and then she was twelve and fifteen and she was a freedom fighter because her parents never let her forget what it was like before. Never stopped finding her books to read and music to listen to and stories, so many stories to bury herself in. They stoked the fire in her gut to push back and they gave her hope for a future where it wasn’t like this and she believed them. 

Robin believed them, and that was maybe her downfall, the believing. 

She met Steve Harrington when she was seventeen, a boy raised in the barracks where they taught him how to control, how to lead, how to follow orders. She met him during the same week he decided to get out of that place and she met him while she was trying to get in. Cause some chaos. 

They both learned how to fight young, fight hard, fight tooth and nail without much strategy but a lot of vigor, and it got them locked up underground for three days straight. Broken fingers and something they claimed to be truth serum, Steve didn’t have any information to give up yet, but Robin did. 

Robin had plenty and she kept it to herself, kept it safe, kept it hidden, escaping with that stuff still running through her veins and a broken boy hanging off her broken shoulders and so much pride to show her parents what she’d survived only to find that they hadn’t. 

They hadn’t.

[strawberry-whump]

[NINTH] DOCTOR: Why have we stopped? Someone walking in from the dark.

[Footsteps.]

DOCTOR: Am I being saved? Who's that? Who's there?

OTHER [NINTH] DOCTOR: Oh! Hello, Doctor.

DOCTOR: Ah, alright, so. This is a very, very bad sign.

OTHER DOCTOR: Very bad. I'd call it a hallucination. Except I reckon it's more a proximity alarm for impending death.

DOCTOR: That sounds like something I'd say. Fair enough. We're in trouble, aren't I?

OTHER DOCTOR: Yeah. Can't hold out much longer. You're very close to regenerating, and it's not on.

DOCTOR: I'm really annoyed with myself, if I'm honest.

OTHER DOCTOR: Agreed, me too. So, that's why I'm here. To raise the issue of... the thing. The alternative. The plan B.

DOCTOR: B for really bad? B for boneheaded? Come on, it's far too risky, if it doesn't work-

OTHER DOCTOR: If it goes wrong, we give up twice as much. If it goes wrong, the incorporation doesn't just rise from the dead, they rise from the dead in my body. They get to walk around for the entirety of recorded time looking like the Doctor, sounding like the Doctor-

DOCTOR: I've already told myself this a hundred times, so get to the point, mate.

OTHER DOCTOR: The point is: it's the only option left.

DOCTOR: Apart from-

OTHER DOCTOR: Don't go there.

DOCTOR: Apart from denying the regeneration.

OTHER DOCTOR: No! Don't. You. Dare.

DOCTOR: Well, perhaps it's better to just call it a day. I had a good old go at it, didn't I? I saved the universe once or twice.

OTHER DOCTOR: But they say saving the universe is a bit like democracy, if you're doing it right, it's never done!

DOCTOR: (Scoffs) Who said that?

OTHER DOCTOR: Someone scared? Someone trying to distract themselves? Someone who wasn't getting on with what they're supposed to be-

DOCTOR: Alright. Alright, shut up. I'm doing it!

[The DOCTOR screams.]

DOCTOR: QUID PRO QUO!

SECOND INCORPORATION: What did you say?

DOCTOR: Quid pro quo.

FIRST INCORPORATION: He wants to do a deal.

@febuwhump day 2: solitary confinement | Ninth Doctor Adventures: Planet of the End | @whumpbot-brian

writ. Timothy X Atack

Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor

[silvrash-797]

@ladye-zelda, the fic you've been waiting for is here >:)

Brothers

Day 29: not allowed to die

Warnings: Legend mentions wanting to die (shhh, he's delirious)

Read on ao3

Wild surveyed the battlefield from his vantage point in an old oak tree, taking out monsters as needed, keeping an eye out for each of his brothers. The lesser monsters had been eliminated, leaving only a few dangerous enemies behind.

All in all, the battle was going quite well.

Until suddenly, it wasn’t.

“LEGEND!” Wild screamed, watching in horror as his brother fell over a cliff, propelled by the massive swing of a Darknut's claymore. A flash of terrified violet eyes and glinting golden rings caught his eye before the Vet disappeared entirely.

“NO!!” Wild roared. He leapt from his branch, using the time dilation to fill the Darknut's visor full of arrows. He broke into a full sprint the moment his feet touched ground. Dashing towards the edge of the cliff where he last saw his brother, he threw himself off the ledge, ignoring the calls of his other brothers trying to stop him.

The cliffs were tall and imposing, and Wild's heart lodged itself in his throat as he looked for any sign of his brother. Please, pleasepleaseplease oh Hylia please let him be alive!

There! Wild angled himself towards a splash of red near the base of the cliff, deploying his paraglider at the last possible moment to break his fall.

He rushed through the surrounding trees to Legend’s side, sliding on his knees as he approached the crumpled form. “…Vet…?” he breathed, suddenly nervous and so, so lost. “Link?”

Wild held his breath as he examined his downed brother. Shattered legs, a broken arm, a deep gash through the tunic weeping blood from the Darknut's claymore, cuts and scratches everywhere from falling through the trees, So many injuries, is he even…

The barest motion in Legend's chest caught Wild’s eye; relief flooded his body as shaking fingers found the pulse point in Legend's neck and felt movement. Faint, too fast, but a pulse nonetheless.

“Legend?” Wild's voice broke, and he swallowed to clear the lump before trying again. “Legend, Link, can you hear me?”

Legend grimaced, an awful groan tearing itself from his throat as his eyes fluttered open, pain bright in his irises. “Wha'…who?” Violet eyes roamed aimlessly, until Legend blinked and focused on Wild's face. “Wil'…s'that you?”

Wild sniffed, tears threatening his vision and voice. “Yeah, Vet, it’s me.”

Legend seemed to ponder that for a moment before attempting to speak again. “’nd you're…real? …’m not…dead?”

Horror filled Wild, and he shook his head vehemently. “I’m real, and you’re still alive as long as I have anything to say about it.”

A faint grin graced Legend's lips, and he attempted a chuckle before breaking into hacking coughs. A small trickle of blood appeared at the corner of his mouth, and he sighed. “Goddesses can’t give me a break,” he muttered, “’vrythin' hurts. I don' think,” he gasped, “I’m making it outta this alive…” His eyes fluttered closed.

“No, Lege, don’t say that!” Wild protested, tears beginning to fall as he pulled a clean cloth from his slate and pressed it firmly to the gash in Legend’s abdomen. Legend gasped softly, eyes flying open in shock and pain.

“Wild, stop, t'hurts!” Legend coughed again, rasping and painful. “Just let me go…I can be back with m' Uncle…an' Marin…my family…” his voice faded.

Wild ground his teeth. "A wise man once told me that 'family is being connected by more than blood,'" Wild choked out from a tear-constricted throat.

"I told you that, Champ," Legend rasped with a raised eyebrow.

"EXACTLY!" Wild exclaimed, "We're family, Vet; you're not allowed to die like this!"

Wild’s slate chimed, and he fumbled to open the communication rune while keeping pressure on Legend's wound. “Wind! Is everyone else okay?”

Wind's voice crackled through the slate. “We’re fine! Everyone's freaking out that you just left, though! Did you find Legend? Is he…?”

“He’s alive,” Wild confirmed, “but he’s hurt really bad. I have fairies, but I can’t use them until someone helps me set his legs and arm! I’m doing what I can, but we need help now.”

“Okay, okay,” Wind’s voice faded as the rest of the Chain’s voices rose, then came back into focus. “Okay, Hyrule and Wars are using my deku leaf and Sky's sailcloth. They’re on their way! Hold on, Vet, d'you hear me?!”

Legend rasped a small chuckle, panting as he responded, “Yeah…I hear ya, Kid…’m trying.”

“Wild, I’ve got my telescope, I'll let you know when they’re at the base of the cliff so you can shout for them, okay?”

“Thanks Sailor,” Wild breathed, cutting the communication for now to better attend to Legend.

Legend groaned and coughed again at the increased pressure. He swallowed harshly, then took a shaky breath. “Wil'…” his eyes fluttered. “I…”

“Hush, Vet. Help is coming, just stay awake a bit longer, please don’t fall asleep!”

A shudder rocked Legend's body and his face twisted in pain. His breath choked in his chest as blood bubbled at his lips, but the fit passed and his breathing stabilized.

Exhausted violet eyes met terrified blue and the faintest ghost of a smirk touched blood-stained lips. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” Legend whispered as the slate crackled to life once again.

[secret-bug-pain-blog]

@febuwhump Day 25 - ALT PROMPT - Immortality

ZB-162 our beloved. Speedrunning the final postings for these so that we can actually send in our index post. Day 29 is already done - we're just finishing up our mostly-finished prompts and doing a handful of illustrations for those that can't be made full-length in time. This is an OC work! You guys like undead switchboard operators, right? Definitely.

You did not have a name before you entered their systems.

You never expected to have one, then. You are a worker bee. There was no one to direct letters to you, and no reason for anyone to refer to you who wouldn't have already caught your scent. A name is for utility or diplomacy, and you were not one of those who had need for that utility.

You were yet another mediocre worker in service to the queen, and you had no reason to believe you would be anything but.

It was random chance that you, out of all bugs, would be chosen. You were never one to believe in fate, for all that ZBT-63 would claim it was destined. You were one worker among many, and you were the one to draw the short straw.

You knew little when you first entered the labs. You knew little when they first made the surgical incision at the base of your neck, feeding young tendrils of fungus in. Your memory of that time is foggy, clouded with a mixture of trauma and the typical failings of a fleshy, mortal brain.

You spent ten long, painful days in uncertainty, being held under observation as your other half grew. And then you were two, and the uncertainty that had been your constant companion began to fade.

The sentiments that your siblings hold towards your firstborn halves are varied. You know this more than anyone - save, maybe, Kjdrira. You are not entirely unique in it, but you find the feelings of nostalgia your siblings often feel to be alien.

Perhaps, in a way, your original self died when your younger half had burrowed into their brain. Or perhaps you merely want to grasp at anything that will distance you from the mundane bee who first entered Snakemouth.

You do not miss the uncertainty of living memory. You do not miss the mundanity of life in the hive. You certainly do not miss the feeling of being a cog in a machine that does not care about you.

You were given a name - ZB-162 - and you would cease to be a bee shortly after.

The rhythm of the lab was simple. Easy to learn, though you would not be so callous as to call it soothing. It was simple to know what was expected of you. It was simpler to follow it. Tests, you would find, had a simple sort of structure, the sort of thing that you could have grasped even without your other half. It was all strange to you, then. You wouldn't think to ask if there were others like you.

It would be days before you were contacted. It would be days before you would so much as realize that you could be contacted, rather than simply existing as the only bug in a lab full of roaches. It was them who found the network, a hundred years ago, writing words upon words into a communications network hurriedly thrown into the undercarriage of their computer system.

Your siblings reached out, fearful and hopeful in equal parts. You reached back, and in an instant, you were made aware that you were not alone.

You knew little, then. There were few of you connected, few of you even aware it could be done - Kjdrira, so terribly, consistently inventive, its range sweeping so much wider than the rest of you, had been the first to reach out, the first to find that there was even potential for a network to begin with. ZA-31 had been the first to connect, ZBT-49 networking soon after, the others latching on one by one as they were reached out to. You were one in a half-dozen, a bare fragment of the hive, clinging to each other in a world that was all too new.

With time, your numbers would grow. Now, you spoke with your Siblings, you fumbled with languages old and new, and you began to learn the paths that would grow to be your whole life.

You were small. Unknowing and afraid, cowering before systems you could only barely hope to understand. Your connections were feeble and inconsistent, here one day and gone the next, interrupted by the slightest lapse in concentration, and what you could communicate was limited. Lines would overlap. Too many on the line would reduce the signal to incoherency. Few of you spoke the same language, fewer still knowing how to utilize the new one implanted into your brains with your newer halves. You struggled to speak. You struggled to hear.

And yet, fear and loneliness kept you still reaching out.

You were still of flesh, then. Caught with endless hours pacing your cage, barely in range of Kjdrira, speaking through brief brushes of signal. Your enclosure was blank and featureless, your paws itching for work - you could only stand still for so long, then, could only remain idle for so many days before the itch began to burn at your shell again. You were small and afraid, and you had nothing to do but sit and count the hours between tests, and you wanted dearly - oh, so dearly - to be useful.

You began to work on figuring out the connections.

Early on, every new discovery would improve clarity in leaps and bounds. Signals could be passed through Siblings, cloned and echoed to increase their range. A low-volume ping allowed you to indicate beginnings and endings of speech, limiting the interference of crosstalk. Improvements in communication. Improvements in speech. Improvements in coordination. More efficient packets to pass. Learning to lever your new shared language to make your communications more comprehensive. Learning to use the crystals in the roach technology to pass signals, rather than the ones in your own bodies.

You learned the workings of your new bodies by trial and error, slowly working out the limits of what you can and cannot do. You learn it through testing, experience, happenstance - how it was accomplished mattered less than accomplishing it, and with every new connection, you could share your discoveries easier.

One bug's knowledge was the whole hive's knowledge. You clung to each other like lifelines in a world that was not meant for you, tips and tricks and connections making paths between a slowly-growing colony. Your knowledge was the same as everyone else's knowledge, the hive united in working towards whatever would aid you- and the one thing that you were beginning to know, more and more, was that you couldn't sit with the roaches' experimentation forever.

None of you wanted to stay. None of you wanted to be trapped here forever, the short-term benefits of cooperating not outweighing the detriments. The new connections were a double-edged sword, allowing you to remain connected at the cost of knowing precisely when the others were hurt - anaesthetics grew less consistent as you grew further from your host's baselines, and the roaches would not halt progress for their subjects' comfort, logging the failures as simply another part of the experiment.

Your hive was hurting. You were hurting, feedback from your Siblings washing back through the connections that you yourself had forged in rivulets of pain, the ability to sense your hive serving as a way to tell you whenever one of the bugs you connected to died. You wanted it to stop, and you knew you were not alone, the connections between the others of your hive a near-constant presence in the back of your brain that reinforced and confirmed.

Private links were difficult, then. Kjdrira, Blight-carrying crystals loaded into it so thickly that its chest then had been nearly packed solid, was the only one of you who could manage them without fighting its own failsafes. Still, it spoke to you, hidden from the rest of the communications network beyond a thick veil of static.

Something needed to change. Kjdrira, ruthless, protective thing, spoke of a plan - not quite formed, but soon to be worked on, something that it hoped would set you all free.

Kjdrira spoke of rebellion. Of slaughter. Of killing the roaches that had kept you captive. Of turning their own systems against them, allowing them to be slaughtered in their own test chambers, the same way they had slaughtered you.

You had no wish to kill. You had never been one for bloody revenge. But you were bitter, and fearful, and you had watched so many of your own die by now that to watch your own colony die felt routine - you didn't want to feel the deaths of those you now cared for so dearly, and when those who kept you saw you as disposable, you felt there was little reason not to say they were the same.

Kjdrira, and any of your colony who wished to share in its bloodlust, would kill the roaches in their own homes. And you, the network-grower, would help them do it.

You were the first to break into their systems proper.

Crystals, by their nature, network with other crystals. It is the principle upon which crystal computers function, it is the thing that makes computing with crystals even possible without needing something the size of the Ant Kingdom Palace. It was the thing that allowed for your initial contact, it is the thing that allows you to stretch your network beyond the network laid in the lab now. Data carried between points in space, networking between crystals, allowing information to be passed through that which would otherwise be impassible.

Your crystals, the ones that hold your thoughts and your memories, network with the computer network in the labs.

You were the one to find a way in. You were the one to figure out how to carve a path into their systems, to access their files - to access the data they stored on you, and their many experiments.

It was a small step. But you could read their plans now, even if you were clumsy, even if you had to be careful with it. You could monitor upcoming tests, you could predict when newblooms would need to be integrated into the system - you could relay what was to be expected to anyone in your range, even if it took effort.

Seven months into your testing, your heart stopped.

Activity ceased in your brain. Your blood stopped flowing. Your body became medically dead, your host body's innards eaten until they could no longer function, your body more fungus than flesh. Despite it, you are still alive.

You knew when it happened. When the barrier between the coded self they put in you and the self you lived with dissolved. When the sensations of your body changed, subtly different, even if still nearly the same. When the weakening thump of your heartbeat went silent. When the hemolymph stopped flowing in your ears.

You read the report on the computers later. Total brain death. Cessation of bodily function. Appears to have no change in behavior or personality, according to the roaches. You did not struggle to read anymore. You did not need to translate anymore. Your pathway was easier to access, easier to erase once you'd finished, easier to treat as though you were just another scientist. You understood their words as though you had spoken them all your life. You touched the network like an extension of yourself, and it replied in turn.

When you checked the records saved to the crystals in your heart, you found that nearly all of your former transmissions had become total gibberish.

You have forgotten the tongue that you used to speak. You have forgotten the name of your queen. You have forgotten the name of your former friends.

It was too late to mourn then. It is too late to mourn now.

The mycelium of the network spreads, laid in pencil-holes and screw-shafts and rusted, infinitely small cracks in the metal. ZA-811 buries stolen crystal in the floor, and the range expands. ZBT-92 is left in the testing labs for minutes at a time, and they pull overgrowth from their pock-marked shell, laying roots that eventually connect to those beneath the new-blood. You know every new bug that enters. You know every new death. Every day, Kjdrira stocks just a bit more power.

Every day, you get just a bit closer to running.

You remember the day of escape. You remember the slaughter of the roaches. You remember the milk-white blood on Kjdrira's claws, one of last things that you would see with failing eyes. You remember running a million billion lines of communication through yourself, your mind more the speech of others than any thought of your own, hundreds of glimmering threads coordinated in attack and escape.

You remember losing track of your body. You remember losing track of your mind. You remember undirected limbs, a body moving on the bare minimum of thought that your mind had left. You remember your own inability to pay attention. You remember the roach.

You remember the hole ripped in your face, and you remember the eye burst as a clipboard cracked into your fragile, breakable skull.

A hundred strains of micromanaged thought scattered at once, mingling and intermingling as your control was lost. The colony - your colony, the only one you had now - exploded in disorganization and concern, and you could do nothing to help it as you desperately tore into the bug who had attacked you.

You were afraid. You were injured. You were holding your ganglia into your head with your bare claws, missing an eye and staring at a roach's corpse on the ground. It was a miracle you were still alive.

You stayed there, hours after the breach, until your sibling found you. And you stayed there hours longer, after Kjdrira had patched the holes in your shell with roach's blood.

You have no record of the latter part of the night. You still sees its records, filtered through the eyes of hundreds of siblings, disarray and panic and blind attempts at attack. You will still regret losing focus years later.

When you finally drew yourself back to coherence, the door was closed, and none of your kin could open it to chase those who had escaped.

You were still alive, when your siblings began to starve. When it became apparent that you were locked in, that the workarounds and tricks you used for your own operating systems were doomed to fail at the claws of the main lab's operating system. You were still alive when it became evident that a piece was missing, that even the most talented of your number could not open the way out because the scientists had cut out the door. You were still alive when it became obvious that escape was either impossible, or so impractical that it would lose you nearly all of your newfound colony.

And you would remain, as your siblings began to slip into sleep, unable to breach the walls of your entrapping home.

Perhaps it was madness that kept you awake. Perhaps it was duty. Perhaps it was lingering nature. You were a bee from the moment you hatched. Idle paws were not meant for your kind, and idleness never suited you. Perhaps it was carry-over from that that kept you, even detached from hive and identity, working away. Ironic, then, that you would retain your central drive, when others of your kin proved content in idleness.

Your peers, in their few periods of wakefulness, would equate it to hibernation. You could not truly claim to know of it, never having been made of any species that truly hibernated. Bees did not sleep through the winter - they huddled in dorms and bedrooms, trapping the heat in with their bodies, pressing up against each other for warmth and exchanging words and stories as they waited for the cold to pass.

There are fewer, here. Fewer, still, awake consistently. ZBT-63 rarely stays asleep for more than a few months at a time, woken by their splintering back as the errors pile up. ZA-527 struggles to stay down more than a few hours at a time, misfiring signals irritating their brain and their mycelium until it gives up and dedicates its thought to something else. The very Blight that allowed Kjdrira to rain death on the roaches lingers in its blood, unstitching and restitching its flesh at a constant pace that means sleep risks death for it. ZA-61 cannot sleep at all, oldest surviving of its kind and bearing the shoddy work to show it.

Sometimes, there is no one but you. More times, it might as well be no one but you. Compared to the hive, the lab is achingly lonely. Still, you remain.

You spend your time alone, weaving together the network. Fixing code. Working out kinks. Kjdrira has more processing to spare than any of you, but you are loathe to test on it when you know that a poorly-done line could threaten whatever passes for its life nowadays. You have little opportunity to test it nowadays, as hope of ever finding escape wanes.

Time passes. Chitin wears. Your cordyceps hatch fruiting bodies from the weakened shell over what used to be your eye.

Perhaps you will never get out. Perhaps you will never see the sun again. Your vision has long since gone out, all semblance of sight faded years ago, your newer senses never quite the same. Perhaps you will be trapped here forever, withering away in the husk of the lab that you destroyed in a life extended so far as to be unnatural.

Perhaps, rather than surviving so long in this life, it was you, the bee, who should have died before your other half even wove into it.

You have been alive for so very long, trapped in this impenetrable cage. You have taken injury beyond what any bee should have been capable of surviving, you have lived through hardships that many of your former hive never could have dreamed. You have grown resigned, by now, to the fact that you will never die; that your design, made for immortality, will never falter so much as to allow you to. You weave your hive's communication in a great web directed by principles that your older self never could have comprehended, crystalline structures that mortal brains were not made to understand.

You are greater than you once were, in some ways. But you are so very much smaller in others, trapped within a cage you have no hope of breaching. You are administrator of a colony that permits you to warp your siblings' very thoughts, capable of coordinating hundreds of bugs without so much as twitching a finger. But you cannot move beyond the glass cage that contains you.

You have a name. You have a role. You have a million fingers of mycelium moving behind your single, useless eye. You have siblings who care for you, who answer to you, who could not imagine living without you. You are so far from the person who was first claimed for this project that you would not recognize your own face, were you capable of seeing it.

And you - you the cordyceps, you the bee, you the experiment, the network, the immortal - are still doomed to spend your eternity trapped in the echo of another life's corpse.

You should be dead. But you aren't.

What a mercy. What a nightmare.

[ZB-162 - Central Communications Module. Former bee, and the colony member responsible for keeping communications throughout the hive fungal network coherent and functional. One of the few colony members incapable of going into hibernation between Upper Snakemouth's destruction and its re-opening more than a century after - though it itself cares little about speculating on the underlying cause, the most likely cause is something to do with errors in neural mapping, as is common in the larger batches of experiments.]

[popcorn-plots]

Day 1: Helpless | 100 words | Wong reflects on being sick. | Ao3 | Tumblr

Day 2: Solitary confinement | 100 words | Stephen Strange laments. | Ao3 | Tumblr

Day 3: "Bit down on this" | 689 words | Sherlo-- Stephen gets injured on a casemission. Watson Wong to the rescue. | Ao3 | Tumblr

Day 4/5: Obedience/Rope burns | 932 words | Stephen and Wong are held captive in their own home in a robbery gone wrong (mostly). | Ao3 | Tumblr

Day 6: "You lied to me." | 500 words | Tony confronts Stephen about a choice he made. A choice that ruined both their lives. | Ao3 | Tumblr

Day 7: Suffering in silence. | 150 words | Stephen Strange was fine. | Ao3 | Tumblr

Day 8: "Why won't it stop?" | 200 words | Stephen Strange breaks after using Atlantean Black Magic. | Ao3 | Tumblr

Day 9: Bees | 1128 words | America gets stung by a bee. Stephen comforts her when she admits her biggest fear. | Ao3 | Tumblr

Day 10: Killing in self-defense | 100 words | Stephen Strange is found guilty. | Ao3 | Tumblr

Day 11: Time loop | 100 words | Tony Stark is stuck in a time loop. | Ao3 | Tumblr

Day 12: Semi-conscious | 741 words | Stephen has a nightmare in the library, one he didn't quite wake up from until he was safe in Wong's arms. | Ao3 | Tumblr

Day 13: "You weren't supposed to get hurt." | 176 words | Stephen watches his daughter grow up. | Ao3 | Tumblr

Day 14: Blood-stained tiles | 59 words | Wong reflects on his husbands death. | Ao3 | Tumblr

Day 15: "Who did this to you?" | 150 words | Stephen visits a grave. | Ao3 | Tumblr

Day 16: Alt -- "I love you." | 903 words | Stephen plays the bait in a mission to take out a group of rogue sorcerers. Wong intervenes and feelings are felt. | Ao3 | Tumblr

Day 17: Hostage situation | 694 words | Strange or the people of New York. Tough decision. Who lives, who dies…. You are playing a delicate game, Sorcerer Supreme. You decide who survives. Play God, just for a second, or we destroy your planet. Your choice, Sorcerer Supreme. You have 24 hours to decide. | Ao3 | Tumblr

Day 18: Alt -- Found footage | 756 words | A video is posted about Stephen Strange and the death of his sister, Donna. Stephen watches his old high school bullies vandalize his locker -- and his well-being. | Ao3 | Tumblr

Day 19: "Please don't." | 100 words | Stephen and Eugene’s relationship is all but healthy. So when Stephen gets home and finds his father drinking, he tries to avoid him at all costs... but avoiding Eugene is near impossible when you’re the one he’s angry at. | Ao3 | Tumblr

Day 20: Truth serum | 367 words | Stephen ingests a truth serum. The students of Kamar-Taj are curious, but some take it a bit too far. | Ao3 | Tumblr

Day 21: Unresponsive | 567 words | Tony finds Stephen nearly dead, barely breathing, an empty bottle of painkillers just out of reach. | Ao3 | Tumblr

Day 22: Alt -- CPR | 866 words | Tony Stark has a heart attack during an event. Peter performs CPR with the help of a mysterious stranger. | Ao3 | Tumblr

Day 23: Presumed dead | 200 words | With the cloak returning from the fight alone and radiating sadness, one could only assume the worst. | Ao3 | Tumblr

Day 24: "I'm doing this because I care about you." | 261 words | Wong is not the person he once was. | Ao3 | Tumblr

Day 25: Waterboarding | 1110 words | Stephen Strange is part of the .1% of the world's population that can see their soulmate's experiences. Great for Tony Stark, not so great for Stephen when his soulmate gets waterboarded in the middle of Stephen's shift. | Ao3 | Tumblr

Day 26: "Help them." | 375 words | Stephen knows he's going to die. Why waste time on him when others need it more? | Ao3 | Tumblr

Day 27: Left for dead | 455 words | The Illuminati on Earth-838 don't kill Stephen Strange. They maroon him on Titan, alone and stripped of his magic.

Stephen doesn't believe this is punishment enough for his crimes. | Ao3 | Tumblr

Day 28: "No... not like this."/Alt -- last words | 500 words | Wong finally confesses his feelings for Stephen... just as he's dying in the man's arms. | Ao3 | Tumblr

Day 29: Not allowed to die/Alt -- immortality | 682 words | Stephen Strange is cursed. | Ao3 | Tumblr

Guys we did it. We finished Febuwhump!

[scattered-winter]

might temporarily put quintenary stars on hold because ngl. I am eyeing febuwhump SOOO hard rn

[heytheredeann]

Febuwhump 2023 (stop laughing at me), Day 2 - Flinching

Tags: Post-Canon, Napoleon Solo Whump, Hurt Napoleon Solo, Injury, Hospitals, Guilt, Illya Kuryakin Needs a Hug, Could read as Gen or Slash or OT3 tbh, Angst with a Happy Ending, Friendly fire

Notes: Okay so LOL, this was written for the prompt "flinching" for Day 2 of. uhm. Febuwhump. Yes, 2023. I DID FINISH IT (barely) BEFORE FEBUWHUMP 2024 AT LEAST, RIGHT???? But BUT, extra funny? This is also for @cha-melodius, who inspired this with a comment that she left on a fic way back in drum roll MARCH 2022! So here you go everyone, if you've sent a prompt in my inbox ages ago and I never filled it, never give up, you don't know the length that my stubborness will go to when I decide that something Must Be Finished! LOOOL So, yeah. Have fun with this totally-on-time-in-every-way piece of whump!

.

He walks back in with no little hesitance, a bottle of water and a sandwich at hand. Though he can see her eyes running in his direction, testifying that she did notice his entrance, she doesn’t turn to him, nor does she acknowledge him in any other way.

That is probably the best reaction he is going to get from her, so he swallows and steps forward, holding out his offerings with no explanation.

It’s been a while, she needs to drink and eat something, or she’s going to crash at some point. He’s worried about her, though how he can spare enough space in his mind to worry about anything other than Solo at the moment is a mystery to himself before anyone else.

Gaby gives him a look that isn’t the least bit benevolent, but she accepts the water and the food, taking them from him and turning away like he isn’t there at all. He can’t spare the energy to be offended, and he certainly doesn’t blame her for not wanting anything to do with him.

Her screams are still echoing in his ears as he sits down, at more distance from her than would probably necessary. The look on her face when he told her is burned in his eyes, the way she went from worry, fussing over his graze as soon as Solo was out of their sight and she noticed the blood gushing out of his arm, to horror followed closely by disdain—he remembers her taking a step back, her hands still hovering between them for a few moments, and then there was only screaming.

He got out of her face when ordered to do so, numbly finding someone to take care of his stupid little wound just because he wasn’t sure he could bear to be alone with his head.

It was such a stupid mistake, and it’s going to cost them their partner’s life.

[More on Ao3]

[bokettochild]

Still not over Legend and Wind's argument in Sunset, or the suspicion from the Chain towards Twilight in recent ones

If JoJo ain't going to play with it, y'all know I will >:)

[walls-actual-ly]

Hi!!!! For the ask game, would you share something about this one: Febuwhump "forced to hurt a loved one"?

Or not really dar’vod, if Fox would not be Cody’s brother they would not even be in this situation. He would not have followed his ori’vod, would’ve not been sloppy and distracted by the fact that his brother was knifing corrupt… And Fox would’ve probably already shot him instead of knocking him out, tying him to a cold and slightly wet wall before having someone, probably a slaver or gang member, tell him to kill Cody anyway.

„Aren’t you supposed to save as many lives as you can?“

Fox’s voice, strained and tired, but also… amused? Kriffing hell Cody really didn’t knew his brother anymore.

„Yes, and what would happen if you let him live? He will not just let you get executed, it will be the whole guard.“

Cody pressed his lips together - whoever that guy was, he made a point. And Cody had been hotheaded and not thought this through, kriff.

„I don’t know all of your brothers, but we both know that it’s not just you that’s involved. They will stage a full on investigation, blame the corrupt senators on you, torture is not forbidden since your brothers aren’t sentient, you think they will treat Thire, Stone or Thorn decently?“

Fox inhaled loudly and moved towards Cody, placing a hand on his kih’vods shoulder.

„Please, don’t make me do this.“

[pullakori]

Febuwhump 2023

Day 6. Secrets revealed

When one does something often enough, it becomes a habit. And when it becomes a habit, one usually gradually stops paying attention to it. It becomes a part of one's life, for better or worse.

Until someone else notices and calls one out on it.

It had started small. Charles had lost a lot of sleep, mostly because of the pain in his back, but also because of the stress to get the school up and running. He spent many late nights going through legal work, until he was ready to pass out. (This usually also kept the nightmares away, but not always). The boys' worry was touching, but soon became stifling to him. So he started to project a vision of himslef that didn't have dark circles under his eyes and pasty skin. And the boys were able to stop worrying about him.

Until Hank noticed that he had been losing weight. With his busy schedule, as the school had finally opened, he had forgotten to eat occasionally. He was doing fine though, so he added that to his projection. Just for now.

And if there were days when he had no energy to put himself together, he could just project the image of his better self. Too many people relyed on him to keep it together, to stay strong. He could do it, he just needed to focus on his work. On his dream.

It was easy, just a small effort on his part, a constant flow of telepathic energy that he wasn't even aware of anymore. He couldn't remember that others didn't see a complete picture, when they looked at him.

That was, until the late evening, when Erik arrived with his group.

The students were already in bed, fortunately. Charles and the boys were having a little talk about the day's events and how everything had gone this week. The school had been open only for few months by that point, so Charles wanted to hear how the boys were coping with the knew everyday life. They had meetings with other teachers too, but the evenings were just for them four. It was time for all of them to relax.

So when five new minds suddenly appeared nearby, Charles was taken aback. So much so that he almsot dropped his tea cup, spilling hot liquid on the table. This got the attention of the boys.

"Whoa, Prof, careful there." Sean said, while Hank moved to get a towel to dry the table with. It was Alex, who noticed Charles' worry.

"What is it, professor?" He asked and even though there was one mind Charles could not feel, he knew he was there too.

"It's Erik." He answered. "In the hall."

The boys shared a look before Sean and Alex stood up and rushed out of the kitchen. Hank was about to follow them, but stopped to look at Charles, questioning what he should do.

"Go. Make sure thay don't start fighting." He told the young man, just as Alex's yell reached them.

"What the hell are you doing here?!" With that, Hank hurried out and Charles followed, wheeling himself forward as fast as he could.

He made it to the enterway of the hall as the argument started to get truly heated. Hank and Sean were holding Alex back from apparently attacking Erik with his bare hands. Angel and Janos seemed tense, Frost and Azazel in turn seemed amused. Raven looked indifferent, but Charles could tell she was upset. Still, it was a relieve to see her again, well and healthy.

Erik stood in front of his group, his expression tight, but otherwise Charles couldn't read what he was thinking. Especially with that cursed helmet on his head. The old feeling of betrayal that had followed Charles since Cuba lifted its head again and he decided that it was better to get this over with.

"The least you could have done was to knock." Charles spoke over the argument, gaining everyone's attention as he moved to the hall. He noticed Raven's shoked expression when she gasped, staring at Charles' chair. He turned to look at Erik, spiteful part of him hoping to see at least a sliver of guilt or pain in his eyes, but he wasn't ready for what he found. Erik looked completely lost, almost fearful. And that might have soothed Charles' wounded heart, if the other man's eyes weren't looking him all over. It unnerved the telepath, more so when he couldn't read the man's mind.

"Charles..." Erik sounded almost broken and he took a small step towards Charles. "Are you dying?" His question threw him completely off guard, before it finally dawned on him. Erik was wearing his helmet. Charles' projection didn't affect him. He could see exactly what shape Charles was in.

"Fuck." What the hell was he supposed to do now?

Erik seemed to realize that something wasn't right from Charles' reaction and Raven's next words didn't help.

"What do you mean?" Erik turned to look at her and the others, and finally back to Charles.

"What do they see?" He asked and Charles tried to keep some kind of control of the situation.

"Erik, what are you doing here?" But Erik had none of it, walking past the boys, freezing them with any metal that they were carrying to get to Charles.

"Charles, what do they see? What is going on here?" He demanded, his confusion turning into anger.

"Oh, that's what it was." Frost mused, before she straightened her posture a bit and tilting her head to side. "Now let's see here..." Before Charles could do anything, he could feel Frost's telepathic touch inside his mind and with a precise cut, she stopped the flow of his continuous projection.

"Hey!" Charles glared at the other telepath, but it was too late. From everyone's shocked expressions he knew that they all could see him now.

"Charles?"

"Professor?"

"What the hell?"

Everyone's reactions started to overwhelm him. This wasn't supposed to happen. How was he supposed to fix this!?

"Charles, are you actually dying?" Raven's worried voice made him get somewhat back on track. He had to do some damage control, that was only thing he could do.

"Don't be silly, I'm just little tired." He reassured her, but she didn't look convinced and neither was Erik.

"You are not just tired, you look like shit." He pushed and Charles pushed back.

"Why thank you, Erik. Why don't we shoot you into the back and see how you'll look afterwards." It was a low blow, but got Erik to back off. Honestly, Charles didn't have much idea how he looked. He had started to avoid mirrors ever since he got back from the hospital.

"Professor, how long?" Hank sounded betrayed, and Charles felt terrible about it.

"I'm truly fine Hank." He said, but knew that it was not enough.

"You are clearly not fine." Alex's words were almost desperate. Charles might have founded them funny in some other time, but now they only twisted the knife that had been pushed into his heart.

"Why didn't you tell us? We could have helped." Sean asked and the boys' worry and support should have comforted Charles, but it only seemed to make things worse. Everything he had been building, everything he had fought for was crubling down and he had to do something, anything to save it.

"I am quite capable to take care of myself, no need for you to worry about me." The words came out harsher than he had intended and the boys looked hurt by them. He had to talk to them later.

"So you've been lying to them all this time?" Erik asked and Charles' anger came back.

"I don't really care what you" he looked at Erik and his group. "-think about this. Now tell me, why are you here or just leave."

It was clear from Erik's stormy expression that this wasn't over. Not yet.