#my internet access is infrequent as a result so if i dont reply to something its because i just didn't have time

[delimeful]

tear it down (around my head) (6)

warnings: unreliable narrator, physical & mental abuse, violence, dissociation, panic, remus-typical body horror, PTSD, painfully high number of dad jokes

-

Everything was not fine.

Patton shook his head, trying to focus on the meat he was browning. That wasn’t true, not really. Here, everything was wonderful.

That was the problem.

One day turned to two, turned to a week, turned to two weeks. And Patton was still here.

In all that time, they hadn’t made a single mention of kicking him out, not even Umbra. They’d settled into a routine, displacing their usual lives to live in what had to be a secondary safehouse, and Patton had somehow been folded into that routine without any of them thinking twice.

He wasn’t the best cook, but he was good at what he knew, and he had the time and the energy to make meals where the others dragged themselves back from patrol looking near-ready to collapse. It was the least he could do for them, even if Dee insisted on buying the groceries.

When their schedules got really rough, Umbra in particular had been sustaining himself on pre-packaged snacks, coffee, and stress. Patton seemed to be slowly but surely working his way into the hero’s good graces through warm meals alone.

Remus was an inventor in the kitchen, and so excited to try bizarre combinations that it was contagious. Whenever a dish went sideways or Patton had an odd idea for a garnish or sauce, he found himself setting the trial portion in question aside for Remus to try.

Whenever Dee got the chance, he would appear in the kitchen to help him, chatting as they worked through preparing each dish, probably making sure Patton wasn't poisoning anything. He had mentioned several times that Patton ‘really didn’t have to do all this’, but Patton had noticed the way his shoulders had eased and his face lightened when everyone ate together.

He enjoyed the cooking process, too, introducing him to new recipes or better ways to prepare certain foods. Patton suspected that Dee would have been filling this role already if it weren’t for the fact that– no matter how many hands he had on hand– he simply didn’t have enough hours in the day.

After all, it was The Conductor who seemed to do most of the managing when it came to their chaotic crime-fighting trio, and even when they weren’t patrolling the streets or battling megalomaniacs, he could be found nose-deep in extensive legal documents or making phone calls to mysterious contacts and/or friends in high places. According to Remus, it was thanks to him that the three of them could use their abilities without being impeded by local law enforcement in the first place.

It was amazing, watching the way they put their all into being heroes, into helping people. Even someone like him. It was only natural that he’d want to return that kindness as much as he possibly could.

And so it went.

Every day, Patton did his best to make himself useful and make the three of them happy.

Every night, he tossed and turned under the force of horrible, gut-wrenching memories, fragments of a life he didn’t want to remember.

Every morning, the pit of guilt grew larger in his gut and he thought about telling Dee.

And yet, the words remained locked in his throat, all stoppered up by the idea that he’d tell them just as soon as he had to leave. The promise that he’d confess once he finally overstayed his welcome.

But he was still here. And the memories were getting worse.

They’d started out like that first dream. He still felt like himself, if a version of him that had been through an unending streak of bad days. The memories would start during little moments of solitude, walking the streets or curled up at home, finally feeling like he was half-settled in his skin. No matter how hard he tried, he could never remember his surroundings or read any of the street signs.

Then, the dream would shift to a punishment, like he was being reprimanded for those little moments of selfhood even in his subconscious mind. They varied in method and intensity, but none of them were as simple or painless as that first memory’s blow.

He learned that he could tell how old the memory was by his reaction to the worst punishment. In the old memories, the ones that were even hazier than normal and patchy at the edges, his memory-self would struggle and writhe and beg. It would take several other people to pin him down and force him into a kneel, their harsh hands leaving heavy imprints.

In the more recent memories, he didn’t fight. He folded to his knees and simply waited there, still and silent and unrestrained, for the blistering pain to white out his vision. His mind was mostly blank, but the reasoning still lay there under the surface: They went quicker that way. Only a single hand laid on him that way. Boss was happier that way. It was better.

Patton woke from those memories sobbing every time, trying to remind himself that it wasn’t real, that it wasn’t him, that he hadn’t given up hope. But he had, hadn’t he? If someone pressed along those fault lines, wouldn’t he do it again? Didn’t the memories prove that?

He hadn’t known it was possible to feel so betrayed by one’s past self.

Patton was jarred from his thoughts by a timer going off, and found himself stationed at a cutting board, halfway through dicing some chives. Hadn’t he been in the middle of something else before…?

Turning, he could see the ground beef sitting on the stovetop on low heat, already seasoned and ready to be scooped into taco shells. The smell of cumin and garlic powder was thick in the air, seemingly impossible to miss. He had no memory of even pulling the containers from the spice rack.

He’d lost time again. It was so easy to get caught up in his own head these days. Alarmingly so, when he didn’t know just what lay in the corners of his mind. There might be a supervillain in there somewhere. He was lucky that the episodes had been subtle so far, enough that he could just be dismissed as airheaded.

Something was wrong with him. Really wrong. He needed to tell the others.

The front door opened, and a chorus of three mismatched voices called out a greeting, toppling into the kitchen like sleep-deprived college students.

Umbra ducked past him with a grumbled ‘behind you’ and hauled both the first aid kit out from under the sink and four plates from the cabinet, Remus hopped up to sit on the bar with bloody lips and a cheshire grin that was missing a tooth, and Dee stripped off his outer armor to don his favorite apron (emblazoned with ‘No Bitchin’ in My Kitchen’, courtesy of Remus) before bustling over to the stovetop.

“Welcome home,” Patton told them, watching as they bickered and set the table and slowly but surely let the strain of a long night slide off their shoulders.

It was late. They were tired. He would tell them later.

—

“Umbra, now!”

His lips twitched down into a muted scowl as a bubble of darkness descended on him, blocking out his view of the street around him. Surrounding him entirely in darkness, with only his own glowing form visible in the void.

Only a heartbeat later, there were multiple hands grabbing hold to his arms, legs, all of them attempting to pin him in place. For a moment, his mind grew confused, a memory of punishment– of darkness and gripping hands– overlapping with the present for just long enough to make him pause.

“Surrender,” The Conductor demanded, his voice strained with the power of maintaining his constructs. “Whatever it is you’re dealing with, we can get you help.”

Anger bubbled hot and bright in him. These false heroes were a plague, and they insisted on trying to infect him. Unforgivable.

The bubble of shadow constricted closer, heavier around him, but it didn’t matter. They couldn’t hide away in the darkness. He was the bringer of light.

His glow grew into a piercing shine, brighter and hotter until it was burning away the hands and evaporating the darkness. Cleansing the scourge from this city, as always.

The so-called heroes disengaged, more than familiar with his blast radius, but he wasn’t willing to let them go so easily. He would engage them here, keep them occupied and contain their impurities while Boss made changes in the city unhindered, working on a bigger scale than these meaningless skirmishes.

He didn’t like the heavy darkness. A small, distant part of him cowered away from it.

With an outstretched hand, he pulled back his light before it could finish its usual crackling halo and redirected the energy towards a new target, one darting between the shadows cast by his brightness. Between one shadow and the next– there.

“Umbra!”

The others’ warning only gave the hero enough time to turn his head. His eyes went wide and frantic, the terror on his face lit from below as the bolt of concentrated light struck true.

—

Patton woke to a scream strangled in his throat and hot tears in his eyes.

A dream. Just a dream. … A memory?

No, that dream– it couldn’t have been a memory. It couldn’t have been. It hadn’t been like the others, where he felt like a real person, like himself, and only realized it was a dream when he woke up. This one was different.

He had watched from the eyes of– of Lightshow, fine, he could admit that much. But the shift of his gaze, the wave of his hand, the step of his feet? Patton hadn’t been able to control any of it. He’d been forced into the position of a silent spectator, trapped in place, forced to watch as his body moved and fought and burned.

It wasn’t a memory. Those weren’t his thoughts. It was just a nightmare, a normal run-of-the-mill nightmare, constructed by his mind as some twisted response to stress. He was feeling guilty over not telling them, and his brain had taken it too far, that was all.

It had to be just a nightmare.

Patton tried to calm his breathing, to lay back down, but Umbra’s expression at that last moment flickered into view every time he closed his eyes.

Eventually, he gave up, just like he had that first night, and climbed out of bed. On the nightstand, the clock’s digital numbers glared up at him; three AM. Maybe he could figure out something really fiddly and time-consuming to make for breakfast. Maybe Umbra would help!

To his surprise, when he rapped quietly on his door (to avoid ‘scaring the life out of’ Umbra the way he had that first night) and poked his head out, there was no hooded figure sitting next to his door, back against the wall.

Had the other two finally convinced him to stop keeping watch on Patton? Or…

A sudden jolt of foreboding ran down his spine, and he pulled the door open wider, looking up and down the hall. Nobody was there. Had something happened to him?

Patton hesitated; they’d never explicitly told him to stay in his room while they were sleeping, but it only made sense that they’d want a potential threat contained. If he started wandering around now, would they be upset with him?

A flicker of that memory flashed in his mind’s eye again, and it was enough for him to force his shoulders firm and cross the threshold. A potential punishment wasn’t important. Not when Umbra could be in danger.

He hurried down the hall, only registering the sound of lowered voices a beat after he’d burst into the common area.

Remus was laying on the couch, flat on his stomach with his face buried in his arms, and above him on the back of the couch–

“Umbra,” Patton said, unable to contain the relief that swept through him. It didn’t even matter if he was in trouble for breaking the rules. Umbra was here, he was alright, he was safe.

The hero in question blinked at him in surprise for a moment before frowning, more confused than upset. “Lightshow? What are you doing up?”

Remus popped his head up, craning it back at a painful-looking angle to grin at him. “Glowbug!”

Patton smiled back and drifted a few steps closer automatically before stopping short, remembering that he had yet to explain himself. He opened his mouth.

“You weren’t there.” … That wasn’t what he’d meant to say at all. That wasn’t an explanation, that was an accusation!

Before he could start panicking, Umbra raised his eyebrows questioningly, and then seemed to put it together. “Oh. Yeah, I left to help Remus. Figured you probably weren’t going to get up and murder us all on only two hours of sleep.”

“Unless…?” Remus drew the word out suggestively, and Umbra jabbed his heel into his back in retaliation. Neither of them seemed upset at him, not even a little.

Patton dared to step a little closer, shaking his head and showing them his empty hands as proof that he had no murder plans. Remus pouted, letting his head flop forward once more.

“Help with what?” he asked, watching the way Umbra was applying pressure to Remus’s back curiously.

Umbra stiffened a little, narrowing his eyes at him the same way he always did when he thought Patton overstepped in his questions (which was frequently), but Remus didn't hesitate to answer in his place.

“Power malfunction,” he said, his nasally voice muffled through the couch cushion he was talking against. “Couldn’t sleep, so Paramoan here is keeping me company.”

“I couldn’t sleep either,” Patton replied wryly. A power malfunction? “Are you… hurt?”

Both of them went oddly still, and Remus rolled over onto his side to shoot Patton an incredulous look.

“Wait, do you not know my power?” he asked. Patton flushed, embarrassed. “Holy shit, you don’t know my power!”

“Here we go,” Umbra said with an eyeroll, drawing his legs up and tucking them under him like a cat as Remus squirmed up into a sitting position. He was going to give a demonstration of his power. Patton felt dread begin to fill his lungs, making his breaths shallower.

“Behold,” Remus announced grandly, waving his arms and wiggling his fingers dramatically for a moment before slamming his hands together. He had his two hands fisted side-by-side, with a thumb poking out between his pointer and middle finger of his left hand.

… Wait a minute.

“Tada!” Remus crowed, pulling his fists apart to reveal that he’d ‘separated’ his thumb from his right hand. It was a classic grade school magic trick. Above him, Umbra was facepalming.

Patton muffled a chuckle, smiling good-naturedly. “Remus, I may not remember much, but I wasn’t born yesterday. I know that one.”

“Aw, damn. Well, here, for your troubles,” Remus said, and dropped the thumb into Patton’s hand.

The thumb. The single, unattached, warm thumb.

Patton looked up, eyes wide, and Remus waved at him gleefully. His right hand was conspicuously missing a digit.

The thumb in his hand wiggled.

A short, strangled shriek of terror escaped him. “Your thumb!”

“No, Patton. It’s your thumb now,” Remus told him solemnly, apparently completely unconcerned.

Patton skittered over to Remus with his hands cupped around the missing appendage, mind racing. Could a finger be reattached? Would it heal if they put the pieces back together!?

The others had jerked back at his approach, but Remus obligingly held still as Patton grabbed his injured hand and inspected the wound that would surely be gushing blood by now.

The wound that… wasn’t gushing blood at all, actually. Instead, there was a dark green patch where flesh and blood should have been, as though Remus’s insides were made of clay. When he looked down at the thumb in his other hand, the severed end of it looked the same.

“Superpowers,” Patton recalled out loud, and slumped over onto the couch as his utter panic faded. “I forgot about superpowers.”

Remus immediately started cackling at his expense, and even Umbra had his face turned away to hide amusement of his own. Abruptly, Patton realized that he was so exasperated that he’d forgotten to be scared. He hid a smile, waiting for Remus’s amusement to die down before holding his hand out.

“I’m sorry Remus, but I can’t accept this gift,” he said, offering the thumb back. “It’s too opposable.”

That had definitely been a snort from Umbra’s direction. Patton resisted the urge to fistpump.

“Ah, well,” Remus replied with a delighted grin, taking the thumb back and reattaching it to his hand with ease. “You win thumb, you lose thumb.”

Patton cracked up. “I can’t believe you!”

“Just be grateful he didn’t do ‘pull my finger’ instead,” Umbra told him, shaking his head, the beginnings of a smile on his face. “He pulled that one on me and I threw the finger at him.”

“So cruel!” Remus agreed enthusiastically. “I mean, on one hand, I was wounded. But on the other hand, I was fine.”

There was a beat of silence, and then Umbra grabbed the nearest throw pillow and attempted to smother Remus with it. The homicide attempt was accompanied by snorting laughter, though, so Patton thought it was probably fine.

He hoped so, anyways: he was too busy laughing himself to perform a rescue.