#instincts about resource management and wasting it and such. they never really like flowers.

[quietwingsinthesky]

even does know what plants are though. (as per doctor who canon, the way ships manage to keep oxygen on long voyages is via having literal forests in them. now, nothing to that extent, obviously, they weren’t that well-equipped or funded. but there’s definitely plants In There, probably relegated to a much more ordered existence, think the difference between a natural forest and one grown for logging.) at least they have that. they have seen plants. not often, but they have.

i don’t think they really understand plants beyond their functions (to eat, keep everyone breathing, etc.) whereas with natural beauties and animals and other such things that even has no experience with and can wonder over, they can’t really. do that with plants. the ability to admire a flower rather than immediately think of it in terms of resources lost and gained in its creation is a skill they have to learn.

but you know. at least they have seen them. that’s something. that’s slightly less depressing, right.

[clockworkrobotic]

OOOOUUUGGGH H HERE IT IS

Thanks everyone for your patience while I took three times longer than intended <3

final word count 5234 ;;

I’m planning to write more but this ended up so absurdly long that I’m splitting it up. It’s a wild dumpster fire of headcanons and canon canons, ive tried to avoid exposition but if something doesnt make sense shoot me an ask lol

sort of vaguely around the end of BL1. Rowdy teenage calypsos. Dramatic backstory. Go

“Do it again.”

 He sits cross-legged, facing her, watching intently. Tyreen scans the grass for another flower and finds one, a small purple thing that’s braved the blistering Pandoran heat to spring up from the rare lush patch they’ve settled into this afternoon. Her brow furrows with concentration as she touches it and searches for the not-quite-uncomfortable breathless feeling that precedes what she’s about to do. In honesty, she’s not entirely sure what she does to trigger it, but if she focuses hard enough, it seems to happen eventually.

 Sure enough, after a few seconds, it’s wilting against her hand, the colour draining to a dull brown as the petals dry and shrivel and crumble to dust. Her chest feels hollow and then it doesn’t, her arm is tingling slightly as the pleasant warmth travels up and leaves her markings glowing a faint blue, and she feels content and floaty for a moment.

 Troy is watching in awe, and he reaches out suddenly and grabs her arm.

“These are getting bigger,” he tells her certainly, inspecting her tattoos, “they didn’t go around your hand the other day. D’you think they’ll keep growing?”

 Tyreen pulls back and looks at the ground. She doesn’t want to tell him that she feels them, at night, a scratching needling feeling drawing patterns down her body, and that as pretty as they are she doesn’t really want any more of them, they might make her face look weird. She also doesn’t want to tell him that he’s right.

“So cool…” He trails off, and Tyreen enjoys the quiet envy in his voice.

“I wish I could do other stuff,” she confesses. Troy shrugs.

“Maybe you can. But you haven’t found it out yet.” He pulls up another flower and hands it to her. “Do it again.”

* * *

“When was the last time you ate?”

“Dunno,” Tyreen answers honestly, “I’m fine, though, really.”

She feels more than fine. It’s the only use she’s managed to put her powers to - as long as there’s something small and alive nearby, she can draw its energy in place of food. Some days she’s been getting by just running her hands through the grass. When she thinks about it, she can’t even remember what being hungry feels like.

 The past few weeks have been a blur of trudging through the arid desert and scavenging abandoned camps and just trying to stay away from trouble. They had learnt early on to avoid active settlements - the local bandits didn’t take too kindly to thieves - but rummaging around in waste and ruin yielded little in terms of rations. Tyreen had pocketed herself a neat little pistol that she (thankfully) hadn’t had to use yet and Troy had secured some kind of baton that looked as though it might have once doubled as a taser, but other than that, resources are scarce. At least this way she can make sure he’s getting something close to enough to eat.

“You should still eat something, Ty. This can’t be good for you.”

“I’m not sure living in the desert is good for anyone.” Tyreen pulls her jacket up over her shoulders to shield herself from the heat. Little as she might physically need it, she’d kill for a cold drink right about now. Beer. She isn’t even sure what beer tastes like, but she’s parsed that it’s a noble option on hot days, and under the blistering sun came now to consider it some kind of ambrosia.

 Troy’s footsteps stop behind her and she turns wearily to look at him. He’s shielding his eyes and squinting into the distance.

“I think there’s a town up ahead. Let’s move.”

* * *

“It’s no use, Troy,” Tyreen groans, trying to hide how pissed off she’s really getting. Not that she doesn’t appreciate his enthusiasm, but there’s only so much she can put up with. She starts to pull her jacket back on.

“No, no, c’mon, just - one more try,” Troy pleads, darting forward to grab her wrists, “You heard the guy in the bar back there. He reckons you’re a Siren. There’s - there’s so much more you could lea-”

“Most powerful being in the universe were his exact words, Troy.” She slouches a few exasperated feet away and slumps onto a rock cluster. “Killing plants is a far cry from that.”

 Troy runs a hand through his hair and sits himself on the ground in front of her. “It’s not killing plants, Ty, it’s - some kind of energy thing, like you can - steal life force or something -”

“Troy,” Tyreen cuts him off firmly, then pinches the bridge of her nose and softens her tone, “I know you want to believe there’s more to this but - I think this might be it.” He’s watching her in earnest, but she can see the light die behind his eyes a little, and it hurts. “You heard him, too. Sirens are dangerously powerful, from birth, he seemed to think they’re killing their parents and levelling bandit camps before they can walk. Do you - don’t you think, if I could do anything like that, we would’ve found out by now?” She tries to offer a small smile. It looks more like a grimace. Troy opens his mouth to say something, and she cuts across him again. “I’m sorry, Troy. It’s a fairy tale. We’re stuck on the same shitty planet as everyone else.”

 Troy’s mouth is pressed into a grim line and he looks away from her. Tyreen gets up and offers him a hand. “Come on. It’s getting dark. I can start us a fire, at least.”

* * *

 They come for her that night.

 Tyreen is jolted awake by a hand over her mouth, and finds herself face to face with a masked marauder. Even with the ventilator covering the majority of his face, she can tell who it is.

“Hello, little Siren,” he croons, and the grin in his voice is sickening. She shrieks, one hand going for his face, the other scrabbling above her head for her pistol, kicking and howling muffled under his thick glove, trying to make enough noise to wake Troy up. The marauder is bigger than her by a lot, pinning her easily to the floor, and to her panic she can see two others advancing behind him.

“Never seen one in real life,” one of them comments, stepping over and kicking her gun out of reach, “Is she dangerous?”

“Nah, they told me everything,” says the one holding her down, and shifts to press his knee into her abdomen. Tyreen feels tears springing into her eyes. “She can’t do shit, least, not yet, anyway. Reckon we can fix that, though.”

 Tyreen twists beneath him and makes another lunge for the pistol. It catches her assailant off guard, and she manages to choke out a breathless “TRO--” before he regains his hold on her, hand twisting in her hair and slamming her face hard against the ground. She can taste blood.

 Several hands seize her arms and haul her to her feet, and there’s one covering her mouth again. She kicks frantically at them, feet slipping against the dusty earth floor.

“Come on, sweetheart,” is the rasped attempt at sweetness against her ear, “Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.” And with that they’re dragging her from the shack, impervious to her muffled pleas and the tears streaming down her face.

 Through her panic and probable concussion, she tries to find some clarity, to find that little breathless inkling she feels with the plants. It’s a long shot, she’s never managed anything more complex than a small cactus before, but maybe Troy is right, she can do it, she just needs to -

CRACK

The hand around her mouth goes limp and after a couple of beats, she feels the weight drop behind her. The other two let go of her arms, instinctively leaping away from whatever has just felled their comrade, and for one absurd moment she thinks that she’s managed something incredible.

“TYREEN!” Troy grabs her arm and pulls her behind him. He’s holding a thick piece of wood that looks like it might’ve been Tyreen’s height to begin with, but now hinged almost completely in two, bearing thick, vicious splinters where it had collided with the marauder’s head.

 The other two have drawn their guns, but Troy is faster. Even at 16 he towers over them, wasteland-formed muscles knocking down both attackers in one swing of his makeshift weapon. There’s a loud BANG that jolts Tyreen unpleasantly back into reality and she dives for the dead marauder, seizing his gun from its holster and realising too late that she’s never done this before.

 Troy has one of the men pinned to the ground, and the other is taking aim again. Tyreen doesn’t think, just points and shoots, aiming as far from her brother as she can get away with, fighting the resistance of the trigger until she lands a solid hit. Silhouetted by the light of Elpis, she sees him go down, his fingers twitching as his weapon falls from his grip. Her heart is racing, vision blurred by tears and adrenaline, but she can’t risk him getting up. She can hear the panicked pleas choked beneath Troy’s fingers to her left as she shoots her attacker between the eyes.

* * *

“Can’t sleep?”

“Nah.”

 Tyreen sits on the mottled grass and watches the sun rise. Troy seats himself next to her, legs crossed like he used to when they were kids. Tyreen fidgets with the sleeves of her shirt.

“You can’t wear this, Ty, it’s a hundred degrees out,” Troy says, picking at the worn cotton. Tyreen pulls them further over her hands.

“I don’t want anyone to see them.”

He doesn’t have anything to say to that, and the pair of them sit in silence and watch the orange sunlight wash over camps and communes as far as the horizon.

“We have to go,” Tyreen says eventually. Troy glances over his shoulder to where the bodies of the three marauders are still lying. It’s only been a few hours, but in the heat the flies are already buzzing lazily around the corpses, and a swarm of rakk are beginning to circle overhead.

“Don’t you want to get some rest first? Nobody’s going to find us up here for a while.”

 Tyreen shakes her head and lets the silence fall for a little while longer, punctuated by the occasional shriek from above.

“I’ve never killed anyone before.”

“Me neither.”

 They both ponder the absurdity of the situation. Pandora isn’t renowned for its peaceful living, its occupants consisting mostly of violent bandits, escaped convicts, and the mutated casualties of Dahl’s mining operations. Yet they’d managed to avoid confrontation up until now, and it had dragged them screaming from their cabin in the dead of night. Terrified as she’d been, Tyreen wonders why she isn’t feeling more, well, anything - she’s just taken a life, and she feels as indifferent to it as if she’d walked away from a bar fight.

“They deserved it,” Troy says suddenly, as if reading her mind. His voice is flat and stony, “They were going to hurt you.”

 Tyreen looks up at him. His expression is cold, and there’s something different about him, like a vengeful spark in his eye. She sighs and leans her head against his shoulder (well, arm) and then pulls away abruptly.

“Troy, you’re bleeding!”

 Troy snaps out of his reverie and glances down, noting the deep indent in his bicep where a bullet must have skimmed past him.

“Has that been open this whole time? Damn it, that’s hours old, we have to get that cleaned up-”

“Calm down, Ty, it’s just a gra-”

“It’ll get infected, Troy, you could lose your arm.”

“It’s fine, leave it-”

“Let me help you.” She’s standing now, furious tears pricking her eyes. Troy doesn’t say anything. She storms inside to get the med kit.

* * *

 They play it safe and don’t stop until they’re a couple of towns over. Despite the sparse population news had a habit of travelling fast here, and Tyreen is keen not to become the focal point of a planet-wide manhunt. She stays small, keeps her arms covered despite the sun, though thankfully they appear to be moving north and it’s getting a little cooler.

 Troy keeps an anxious eye on her. She’s growing skittish, recoiling inward whenever anyone passes too close, avoiding eye contact as much as possible. She refuses to use her powers any more and at night she insists on sleeping next to him, terrified of what might happen if they get raided again and she can’t wake him up in time.

 They’re sitting in a tavern one lazy afternoon when a conversation the next table over makes Tyreen freeze up. Troy hears it too; they’re talking about a local faction of the Crimson Lance, and the word Siren hangs heavy in the air. Tyreen cringes inwardly and looks up at Troy with pleading eyes, desperate to get as far away from this conversation as physically possible. Troy shushes her, trying to tell her without words that they can leave in a moment, but what they’re hearing could be important - Commandant Steele is old news at this point, but it sounds like they think there’s another Siren in the area. Tyreen pulls nervously at her sleeves. They can’t be talking about her, surely - she hasn’t said a word to anyone since they arrived. Low profile isn’t the word.

 Tyreen gets up suddenly, upsetting their glasses, no longer resigning to sit and listen. She grabs Troy with a shaking hand and all-but drags him out of the bar.

* * *

 Tyreen sleeps restlessly, tossing and turning uncomfortably, too hot and too cold at the same time, her brother’s protective hold the only thing preventing her from falling out of bed. She swears the ground is shaking like they’re resting over a tremorous fault line, yet the room and its contents remain still and Troy sleeps undisturbed. There’s a nagging urge telling her to head outside and look for… something, like a magnetic pull calling her out into the darkness, but she vehemently fights it, fear outweighing abject curiosity. When she finally drifts off, the sun is rising, spilling in through the frayed curtains, and she’s curled up in Troy’s arms, safe as she’ll ever be.

* * *

“Ty.”

Tyreen barely hears him. Her head feels like it’s full of radio static, has done since she woke up somewhere around 3pm. She’s focussing on just walking straight forward, though she’s not sure she’s doing a particularly good or convincing job of it.

“Tyreen,” Troy insists, grabbing her arm and forcing her to stop.

“Wuh,” is all she can manage, her hazy state making the sudden halt feel vaguely like whiplash. She presses her eyes shut and rubs her temples.

“Ty, look.” Troy is pointing behind her. Tyreen turns around and waits for her head to stop spinning.

“What ammi lookin’ at?” She mumbles after several seconds of attempting to decipher the blur that is her vision.

“Are you alright?” Her brother sounds incredibly worried and incredibly far away. She aware of his hand on her back, although she’s not sure that is her back, it feels thrice removed, as if she’s watching through someone else’s eyes and thinking with someone else’s brain.

“M fine. J’st dizzy. Water,” she manages, and fumbles around for her hipflask. The motion is disoriented, almost drunken, but she finds it and struggles with the cap for far too long. Troy takes it off her and opens it. “What’s am I lookin’ at?” She says again.

“Ty, you’re leaving footprints.”

“So? S’a desert.”

“In the grass.”

Tyreen blinks several times and tries to focus on what’s in front of her. It takes what feels like minutes before she can see clearly enough, and when she can, she’s not convinced she isn’t hallucinating.

 As far back as she can see, as far as they’ve walked - which is not the sandy wasteland she’d been picturing in front of her for the past couple of miles, but more of a, admittedly ill-attended, pasture - there’s a set of footprints leading up to where she’s standing. Where she’s set foot, the grass has wilted away beneath her, leaving dead foliage and dry earth in its place. Tyreen looks down to where she’s standing now, and sees it; around her, the verdure wavers and leans in, towards her, pulled taut by some invisible force, before drying up and shrivelling to straw. It seems to slow as the circle around her grows, but it’s happening alright.

“This is bad... issnt it.”

“It’s…” Troy’s tone does not match hers. He seemed elated. “Ty, it’s incredible. I’ve never seen you keep this up for so long!”

“Mm?”

“You’re getting stronger, I told you, you just need to practise-”

“Troy…”

“- We can find somewhere safe next time we stop, you can try it on something larger, like, an animal or something-”

“Troy, I’m n- not -”

He’s still talking, but his words are blurring together into one excited stream of noise. Tyreen feels a drop in the pit of her stomach, like the ground has just fallen away with her still attached to it. She tries to feel for the hipflask he’s still holding.

“Troy I’m going to throw up,” She manages, surprisingly coherent, and her brother catches her as she blacks out.

* * *

 Troy is holding a cold cloth to her face when she comes around. She’s lying on his jacket, but the ground beneath is hard and uneven, and the fabric pulls uncomfortably against her as she moves to sit up.

 Troy breathes a hefty sigh of relief and against his better judgement, gathers her into a tight hug.

“Oh my god, I was so scared, Ty, I thought I’d lost you,” he mumbles brokenly into her shoulder.

 Tyreen pats his chest gently. “’M fine. Can I have some space?”

 Troy gives her one last squeeze and lets go. His face is wrought with worry, and she can tell he’s been crying. She opens her mouth to say something, and he shoves her hipflask into it.

“Drink. It’s been hours.”

 She complies gratefully. He’s right, she’s completely parched, and the flask is empty in seconds. The awful fuzziness from earlier still isn’t quite gone, but she can see clearly again, and Troy doesn’t sound like he’s half a mile away when he talks. Tyreen takes a few deep breaths and scopes out the room.

  It’s not a room. They appear to be in a cave of sorts, the grey walls dotted with condensation that’s slowly crawling down the walls and keeping the air comfortably cool and refreshing. Up ahead, the entrance opens out to a deep blue sky dotted with bright constellations and a full, luminous moon.

  Troy is watching her. “I’m sorry, it’s not great, but it’s the only place I could find without anything…” He trails off, and she sees his jaw flex as it does when he’s nervous. “...Alive.”

 Tyreen blinks at him, at a loss. He doesn’t elaborate. She draws her legs up to her chest and rests her head on her arms.

“It’s a good thing you’re wearing long sleeves, anyway.”

 It’s then that she sees it. His shirt is torn - no, burnt, the edges frayed and blackened,  pulling away to reveal an angry mess of red, blistering skin dragging down from his shoulder.

“Oh my god…” she murmurs, reaching out to touch him. He flinches.

“You, um,” Troy laughs uneasily, trying to lighten the mood and failing, “You were a bit grabby.”

 Tyreen can only stare. She can barely remember anything before she passed out, only a static headache, and footprints, and Troy catching her, and now…

 Now her brother is recoiling from her touch, on instinct, like a frightened animal, and he looks as though someone has raked at his chest with a hot poker.

“Troy,” she says slowly, “What’s going on?”

 Troy runs a hand through his hair and looks at the ground. His shoulders are hunched, making it hard to see the scars she’s left on him, but she knows they’re there now, and she can’t take her eyes off them.

“I don’t know,” Troy answers honestly, after what feels like forever, “But I think those bandits were right.” Tyreen flinches at the memory. “I think I was right.” Troy looks up under his hair and offers her a half smile. Tyreen feels like her heart is in her throat, too anxious to smile back. “You can do more than kill plants.”

* * *

 Tyreen is glowing.

 Whatever cover the long sleeves offered her before is lost now. Through the tired grey of her shirt the markings weave a prominent blue around her arm. She wonders if they will actually burn through eventually.

 She walks a few paces behind her brother, hopeful that his hulking presence will shield her from view, or at least deter any would-be attackers.

 She wears gloves now, although she’s not sure it’s doing much. Foliage still wilts as she brushes past it, and it’s getting worse. She can’t control it. Her heart is hammering in her chest and she can’t sleep, so buzzed constantly that she can’t get a moment’s rest. The static headache is coming back.

 They’re back to raiding bandit camps, reluctant to risk running into any enthusiasts in towns, but it’s taking a toll on the both of them. Troy still needs to eat, and as they venture further into the tundra the camps grow populous and more secure. Few are abandoned and they’re more complex, civilised almost, rickety shacks climbing multiple levels up cliff faces, connected by makeshift stairs and ladders that can barely hold Troy’s weight.

 After a few close calls, they decide Tyreen should sit out the raids. Night is a lost cause, her luminous tattoos making her a walking target as they try to stealth through the camps, and during the day her vision blurs and vertigo hits her in waves.

 She resolves to sit outside the camp, standing guard, although there’s not much she can do if disaster strikes. At least Troy can find her easily in the dark. She learns quickly not to mention the growing collection of marks and scars he’s amassing with each trip.

“I think we should turn back,” she says one night, as they’re huddling together under blankets, deep in the safety of a cave. Tyreen can barely feel the cold but her brother is shivering (much as he tries to hide it) and she’s giving off enough body heat for the both of them.

“We can’t.” Troy’s jaw is clenched.

“We were safer in the desert. There’s too many people here.” Troy shakes his head. “Troy, come on, we can’t stay here. You’re going to freeze to death.”

“I’m fine,” Troy mumbles, breath rising in a mist before him, “Have to keep you safe.”

“Troy…”

 Her brother presses his eyes shut and shakes his head again. “It’s better for you… here.” He draws in a shivering breath. “Nothing… to hurt you.”

 Tyreen knows exactly what he’s talking about, and he’s right. As they wander deeper into the frozen wasteland the greenery is dwindling, giving her body less to draw on, the headaches becoming tolerable background noise as opposed to the constant, nauseating buzz when she was brushing through the foliage a few miles back.

 She wants to tell him to leave, that she’ll be fine here on her own; but she knows that’s a lie, and he’d never abandon her anyway. Troy is the only thing keeping both of them alive, and it’s killing him.

 She looks up at him, in time to see his head drooping as he drifts into an uneasy sleep, resting against her shoulder. She’s managed not to burn him since that fateful night in the nexus, but she also hasn’t managed to do anything else. For a few days Troy had insisted that she try channelling the energy she’s built up, convinced that that’s what had hurt him, but after several frustrating, failed attempts, Tyreen was starting to think they’d both imagined it. Maybe she hadn’t burnt him, just clawed at him a whole lot, enough to draw blood. That must have been it.

 She wishes she could sleep. Instead, the best she can do is curl up close to her brother and keep him warm until the morning sunlight seeps in through the windows of their makeshift home.

* * *

 Tyreen is sitting in the snow a few hundred feet outside of Troy’s latest charge when she hears him screaming. The sound reverberates within her, shaking her to her core, raw and visceral and unmistakably him. She’s on her feet before she can stop herself.

 He’s done this before… don’t get involved… it’s too dangerous… She stops trying to convince herself. She’s never heard that sound from him before. He needs her.

 Nobody looks at her when she bursts into the camp. They’re too busy huddling, watching, jeering at something she can’t see up ahead. The ground is spattered, warm and wet and soft with blood, so much blood. They’re at least a hundred yards away and the vicious spray reaches as far as where she’s standing.

 Tyreen feels as though she’s wading through water as she approaches the spectacle. She can’t move fast enough, terrified of what she’s going to see, but desperate to see it. The buzzing headache is creeping an icy path behind her eyes and obscuring her vision, her heart pounding so hard and so fast her chest hurts and she can’t breathe, her blood races like molten metal through her veins and she can see out of the corner of her eye the vibrant blue radiating from her, the only visual she can place as the static pulls a cloudy veil over her sight.

 She isn’t sure if the crowd parts for her, or if she pushes through them. The taunting subsides for a moment as her presence is noted, and then starts back up again, wordless yelling and mockery coming from all sides. Who is she? She shouldn’t be here.

 Tyreen doesn’t need to see clearly to know what she’s looking at. Her brother is slumped motionless before her, propped half-upright against something, his form through her murky vision painted merciless red, red, red. She can make out her hands in front of her as she reaches out to him, her palms coming away from his torso hot and damp. Her mouth forms silent words, begging him to wake up, fingers drawing thick red lines along his face.

“This is heartwarmin’, truly.” The voice comes from all around her, barely audible through the haze of shock. Tyreen gets unsteadily to her feet. The world tilts sideways. “But you can’t be here, darlin’.”

 Tyreen half-staggers around to face the speaker. He’s a blurry mess of colour and motion, and he’s pointing something hefty and probably dangerous at her. “You got ten seconds to leave, or you’re joinin’ him.”

 What happens next, Tyreen will later justify as self-defence. It’s a lie. She’s never wanted to hurt someone so badly. She wants him dead.

 The figure takes a step towards her, and Tyreen moves, hand outstretched. She thinks she hears his shotgun go off as she connects with his throat. Something surges within her, rippling through her body and charging the air around her with a terrifying electricity. Her vision goes white.

 Tyreen comes around to chaos. Her clothes cling to her uncomfortably, and she’s vaguely aware of screaming and raucous movement all around her. She looks down at her hands.

 She’s covered in blood. It’s coating her arms, her body, drying against her face, plastering her hair against her forehead. Through the vibrant red, her tattoos glow faintly, the light dying peacefully against her skin. The headache is gone.

 Heart in her throat, Tyreen reluctantly surveys the area around her and nearly passes out. The bandit who threatened her is gone, replaced by a violent spattering of blood and viscera. An amalgam of decimated organs and what might be clothing is dotted around, hanging from various buildings and structures, painting a few unfortunate nearby bandits caught in the splash zone. Only the gun remains intact, lying in the midst of the gore, seemingly untouched by any of it. It’s almost comical.

“Don’t touch me,” she says shakily, aware of one particularly brave or foolish bandit cocking his gun off to the side. He doesn’t need to be told twice. Tyreen casts a sweeping glance around her, and the remaining spectators scatter.

“Tyreen…”

“Troy! Oh my god!” Tyreen spins around and all-but throws herself at her brother. The colour is drained from his face, his skin cold and clammy, but he’s alive.

 She pulls away suddenly, remembering what has just transpired. “Oh, fuck, oh my god, I didn’t-”

“That was... awesome,” Troy manages. He smirks weakly, hand reaching up to grasp her shoulder. Hand…

“Troy, your arm!”

Troy follows her gaze to bleeding crater where his arm used to be. It’s been blown completely from the socket.

“Huh,” he mumbles. He moves to touch the wound, and Tyreen grabs his wrist. “That’s not good, is it.”

“Can you walk?”

“Th... think so.” Troy attempts to push himself up with his remaining hand. “No.”

“I- I don’t know what to do.” Panic settles solidly in her throat as the magnitude of the situation dawns on her. “Troy, y - you need a doctor.”

“Yeah…” Troy trails off, his eyes starting to drift closed.

“No, no, god, don’t go to sleep, Troy-!” Tyreen taps his face firmly, hands shaking. He doesn’t respond. “Stay awake, please, wake up, oh my god - HELP!” She scopes the camp frantically. “SOMEONE HELP ME!” There must be something, someone who knows what to do, a settlement out here couldn’t last this long without medicine…

 There. She can make out the crudely-drawn Aesculepion hammered into the ground a few hundred feet off.

“I’m gonna be back soon, okay?” She presses her forehead to her brother’s, fighting tears. “I’m getting help.”

 She draws herself to her full height and takes a deep breath. Picks up the discarded shotgun with bloodied hands and marches towards the medical tent.

* * *

 Troy’s hand twitches lightly against hers. Tyreen springs to attention, the most she’s moved in two days.

“Hey,” she greets him softly as his eyes flutter open, “Don’t move too much. You’re in safe hands.”

 Regardless, Troy awkwardly tries to push himself upright, knocked off balance by the missing appendage. Tyreen pushes him gently back to lie down.

“You need to rest. Doctor’s orders.” She shoots a smile over to the far corner, where the medic is cowering, terrified. “Isn’t that right?”

“You’re not glowing,” Troy murmurs, his voice cracking slightly from the anaesthesia. He moves over like he wants to touch her. “I can’t feel my arm, Ty.”

 Tyreen brushes the hair from his face and smiles tenderly. “We can fix that.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

 Troy squeezes her hand weakly, too worn out to inquire any further. He mumbles something incoherent and sinks back into the mattress. Tyreen pulls the worn blankets over him, feeling real relief for the first time.

 It’s refreshing. Liberating. Nobody’s out to get them here, far contrary - the commune dwellers have proven quite eager to help her. For once in her life, they don’t have to run.

[rrrawrf-writes]

in which no one ever lets eli forget his mistakes, and i actually bother to describe my characters’ appearances for once in a lifetime wow astounding

Eli was a little surprised that Javier had reached out to him; he was amazed to see the man actually walk through the door of the cafe, as scheduled. He looked the same as ever, in a black suit that had probably come from a department store, but wearing it with the confidence of someone in a thousand-dollar outfit. Eli wondered, briefly, if he had more than one of the same pair of sunglasses, and they all looked the same, or if he only had one pair.  They stayed firmly on Javier’s nose, even though the cafe was brightly lit with both sun and fluorescent light.

The server wiping down the counter looked relieved; Eli had waited to order anything besides a water until Javier showed up, and the kid probably didn’t want to try kicking out someone who was at least twice his size.

Anyone who knew Eli wouldn’t be surprised that he chose to frequent such a flowery little bakery and coffee shop; anyone who didn’t would be curious to see a tanned, burly man in jeans and a leather jacket, four metal studs in each ear, and altogether too big for the frail-looking chairs and tables that littered the cafe. The shade of his hair was an even brighter pink than the painted flowers curling all over the walls.

Javier was his opposite in nearly every possible way: lean, average height, and dark-skinned, his head shaved bald. He had pierced ears, but Eli had only seen him wear earrings when he was working undercover. While Eli gave him an easy grin, Javier’s expression remained perfectly blank as he took a seat.

They exchanged greetings - enthusiastic on Eli’s part, curt on Javier’s - ordered a couple things so the server could feel like he wasn’t wasting his time on them, and then proceeded to stare at each other.

Well, Eli stared at Javier; the DSA agent loosely clasped his hands on the table between them and looked down. Eli wasn’t a fan of silence, but he managed to keep his mouth shut. Javier had always preferred the quiet, and Eli got the sense that today was not the day to antagonize the man. Javier was always tense, but he held himself stiffer than usual, and glanced around as if he expected to be caught out by his boss or some cape at any moment. When Eli glanced at Javier’s hands again, he noticed that he had tightened his fingers around each other, as if suppressing the urge to fidget.

Finally, as Eli sipped at his iced latte, Javier said, “Can I trust you?”

He spoke in Spanish, the accent different from what Eli had grown up with. Javier was Mexican; Eli had spent half of his childhood in Spain. The question made Eli blink, and he went on the defensive with a quick, crooked grin.

“What kind of question is that?” he asked, using the same language. “Of course -”

“Sasha,” Javier said flatly. Eli faltered, glanced down at his own hands, then gave a quiet sigh.

“No, you can’t.”

Javier nodded, unsurprised. “Who did you bring with you?”

Eli rubbed some of the condensation off his drink with his thumb. “Kawai is waiting outside. Red truck.”

Javier had requested Eli come alone; Javier, of course, had to know better than to expect any Mercury Independent employee would respond to a DSA summons, even one off the record, without backup. MI agents traveled in packs. He just gave another nod and glanced back down at his hands. Eli, following his gaze, saw that Javier was rubbing at the inside of his wrist. With an effort, Javier dropped one hand in his lap and wrapped the other around his own coffee.

He was definitely agitated. Eli took another sip.

“This is not a job from the DSA,” Javier said, voice low, even though Eli was reasonably certain the server, who was the only other person in the cafe, couldn’t hear them from the counter, and probably didn’t know anything better than high school Spanish anyway. “It is not a job for MI.”

“All right,” Eli said cautiously. “You need someone to take your mom to the doctor?”

Even behind the sunglasses, Javier’s glare was lethal. Eli winced, and made an apologetic gesture with one hand.

Reaching down next to his chair, Javier opened his briefcase a spare inch, fishing out a file before he snapped it shut. He started to pass it across the table, but pulled it back just as Eli reached for it.

“This is top secret,” he said, with more gravity than the phrase ‘top secret’ ever really deserved. Nothing was ‘top secret,’ not to Mercury Independent. Eli forced himself not to grin. “Sharing this with a known mercenary wouldn’t get me fired, Sasha, it would make me disappear.”

Eli paused, and forgot even to correct Javier on his use of ‘mercenary.’ He put his hand back down, from where he had been reaching for the file, and gave Javier a long, level look.

“What are you going to pay me?”

“I’m not.”

Eli arched his eyebrows, then bit out a laugh. He started to get up, but Javier said, “Sit down,” so sharply, that Eli plopped right back into his chair. It squeaked.

“You can’t hand me classified information, imply that I can’t even tell my boss, and expect me to just hop onboard for free,” he said, his turn for his voice to be flat and expressionless. “I don’t owe you that many favors, Javi.”

“I’m not cashing in favors.” Javier set the file down and settled his hands on it. “I’m cashing in a year of being ostracized and belittled at MUGD.”

Eli flinched, and looked down at his own hands, face slowly reddening as Javier went on.

“I’m cashing in every time you ruined one of my cases, every time you made my job a living hell, and every time I let you and your team go on a technicality.” Javier tapped the file, looking Eli square in the face. “I’m cashing in on your human decency.”

Eli opened his mouth, tried to say something, and failed.

“This little girl can do what I do,” Javier said. “But she does not have the protection I did. She’ll be sent to a hospital, for screening.” His voice was bitter and sharp, and angrier than Eli had ever heard Javier be. “I doubt she’ll ever make it out again, not until they find a cure, and probably not even then.”

He picked up the file, but again, didn’t quite let Eli take it. “Transportation details. She was adopted from China by a couple here in the states. They have been told she died. Get her, get her parents, make them disappear.”

He waited for a long moment, until Eli, reluctantly, nodded. Only then did Javier had over the file. Eli didn’t open it, not in public, but instead he tucked it in his own satchel.

Damn it. Eli knew he had Javier figured out; he’d never though the agent would be able to force him into something like this so effortlessly.

“If Taule’alo has to know, then fine.” Javier skimmed his fingers over the inside of his elbow, digging briefly into the cloth of his sleeve. “But it does not go beyond her. I have the identities ready for them, but I can’t help beyond that. You’ll have to find them somewhere to live - somewhere foreign.”

Eli ran his fingers through water rings on the tabletop, not quite looking Javier in the face. “What if her parents don’t want any part of it, now?” he asked. He hoped not - they would be a piss-poor example of a family, in that case - but if they had lost their daughter to the government’s desire for some kind of ‘cure’ to superpowers, they’d have been paid off. 

“You’ll have to find a home for her,” Javier said, shrugging. He watched Eli warily. “Will you do it?”

Eli sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. Every instinct told him not to go for it. He would be kidnapping a power nullifier from the American government, without any support beyond Kawai. He couldn’t afford this, financially. Kawai had the money - but would she even bankroll it? Eli couldn’t go to Javed, or anyone else, and he would have to pull all his saved up vacation days. His kids were going to kill him.

“Yes,” he said, with another sigh. “Of course I will. Dammit. I always counted on you being too noble to guilt trip me into this kind of crap.”

Javier smiled. Eli couldn’t remember the last time he had seen the agent smile; he had the ridiculous urge to lean across the table and kiss him for it. He wondered what Javier would do in that case; arrest him for sexually assaulting a federal agent, probably. Eli’s sigh was a little more wistful this time.

“Everything you need is in there,” Javier said, nodding at Eli’s satchel. “Don’t contact me again until after she’s safe.”

Javier started to rise; Eli copied the motion. “What were you gonna do if I said no?”

The agent didn’t quite look Eli in the face. “Do it myself. But I’d have to worry about my mother, and Flerida, and I don’t have a quarter of the resources you do.”

“Hey, I have my own family,” Eli objected, but only as a matter of course. Javier might have rolled his eyes, judging by the slight tilt to his head, but it was hard to tell behind the sunglasses.

“You also have three safehouses all around the country.”

“Five, actually.”

“I have an apartment in DC.” Javier’s mouth quirked into the slightest smirk. Eli answered with a grin as he pulled his satchel over his shoulder. He opened it again to check on the file, then held a hand out for Javier.

The agent reached out, then hesitated.

“What’s wrong?”

Javier rocked back on his heels and looked up the six inches between them. “There are only three powered people who don’t mind my touching them,” he said. “Why don’t you?”

Guilt surged in Eli again. He looked down, fidgeting with the strap of his messenger bag until it lay perfectly over his jacket.

“It’s like you said,” he confessed, after a long moment. “We were - we were in the same boat at MUGD. Foreign, barely spoke English - all I wanted was to fit in.”

He looked at Javier’s arms, but the sleeves hid the scars. “I could’ve helped us both if I threw in with you, instead of those officers’ brats. I didn’t know you were -”

He gestured vaguely at his own wrists, and watched a cloud settle over Javier’s face. “I’ve been trying to make it up ever since. I figure, the least I can do is treat you like a human being, instead of a leper.”

And there was the small, inconsequential fact that Eli had had a crush on Javier for years.

Javier stood there in silence for a moment, before nodding. He shook Eli’s hand; Eli had to brace his neck and shoulders to hide the little shudder than ran down his spine as his power disappeared, completely. For all his bravado, the feeling of losing something so integral to his entire being still scared him; there was the hint of relief when Javier let go, and the power came back this time, instead of disappearing forever.

Eli forced a laugh. “Well. I’m off to kidnap a little kid, I guess. See you around, Javi.”

He started for the door, and made it several steps when Javier said, quietly, “It’s Coyotl.”

Eli paused, and turned. “Sorry?”

Javier looked up, straightening his shoulders a little. “My name is Coyotl.”

He walked out the cafe, right past Eli, leaving him startled and certain that despite everything the two had done to each other over the years, Javier actually trusted him after all.

[sivaykimura1996]

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My Ex Wants Furniture Back

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Ex Girlfriend Added Me Back On Snapchat