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ironcladrhett · 6 months

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TIMING: Current LOCATION: Watcher’s Way PARTIES: Rhett (@ironcladrhett) & Emilio (@mortemoppetere) & Ophelia SUMMARY: Emilio chaperones a meeting between Rhett and his estranged daughter, Ophelia. It goes better than expected? CONTENT WARNINGS: Sibling death (past mentions), child death (past mentions)

—

It had to be public, Emilio had said. That was stupid, Rhett argued. If it was too public, then how were they supposed to talk about anything important? His eyes had lit up then, and suddenly he was agreeing with Emilio, suggesting very loud, crowded bars. But Emilio knew better, and picked an open, outdoor venue—Watcher’s Way. Plenty of passerby, but enough space that they could conceivably converse in private. Foiled again.

The air was brisk, the early afternoon sun doing little to warm anything. Rhett stood below a massive oak off the main path, using the tree for support with his crutches leaned against the trunk beside him. He was healing quickly, of course, but Alex had still done a hell of a number on his leg. His face was finally free of bandages, though a proper eyepatch now covered the empty socket on his left side, and the fresh, angry scars from the rake of the werewolf’s claws raked up from his jaw through his short beard, over the bridge of his nose and eye and brow, tapering into nothing as they passed the centerline of his face. His silver hair was pulled back into a messy bun, a scarf wrapped around his neck and pulled up high to his chin, and an old, beaten-up looking peacoat kept him relatively warm.

His attention was somewhere in the grass at his feet, thoughts wandering as he waited for the pair to arrive—together, Emilio had insisted. As if he’d do something here. And to… to her. The crunch of feet over fallen leaves was inconspicuous at first, but then he noticed it was growing steadily louder rather than passing him by. The warden lifted his head and felt the world tilt on its axis.

The air was sucked right from his lungs as he spotted his brother approaching in the distance, his familiar scowl doing little to settle Rhett’s nerves. The warden could see someone walking just slightly behind him, someone nearly as tall as the slayer, with long, dark hair that had a familiar, wavy texture—she skipped for a few steps and moved to Emilio’s side, and Rhett made a soft, strangled sound. He wanted to look away, but couldn’t rip his eyes from her.

If there had ever been a doubt in his mind that Ophelia was his own, it was now quashed as she and Emilio reached the spot beneath the large oak tree where he said he’d wait, standing about ten feet apart, staring at one another.

The silence was so thick, you could cut it with a knife. Rhett stood there, mouth agape, unsure of what to say. Ophelia shifted her weight anxiously, hands stuffed in her coat pockets to keep warm. Her gaze darted between Emilio and Rhett for a moment or two before finally settling on the latter, and she opened her mouth.

“... hey, dad.”

—

He’d been careful, planning this with Rhett. He’d made sure to shoot down any ideas that felt like they might hide traps, even if he hated himself for the lack of trust he had in his brother. Crowded bars where he couldn’t see everything going on were a no-go, as were private meeting spots where it would only be the three of them and no one else. Rhett was frustrated; he could tell. What he didn’t know was whether that frustration stemmed from a desire to do what Emilio was working to prevent or a genuine need for the privacy he was claiming to be after. He used to know Rhett well enough to unpack even his most minute ticks and understand where they came from, but that wasn’t true anymore. He didn’t know when it had stopped being the case.

In any case, he had Ophelia meet up with him first. Cut out any possibility of her being alone with her father, even for a moment, and pretended he didn’t recognize the frustration in her eyes, pretended he hadn’t seen the same exact look on his brother’s face more than once. It was jarring, how much she looked like him. He thought of Flora, who Juliana had always complained resembled her father more than her mother. He tried not to imagine some world with the two of them together, with Ophelia looking like Rhett and Flora looking like Emilio. It was stupid, thinking about things he knew would never happen. It was fucking stupid.

He focused on the matter at hand instead. One foot in front of the other, harder than it used to be. Ophelia was quiet as she walked beside him, all nervous energy and excitement. Emilio was terrified. He hated it, but he was. He was so afraid that Rhett would hurt her, so angry at himself for thinking it. Rhett was his brother. The only family he had now, the only one who’d made it out of that town alive. Shouldn’t that award him some level of trust? But… Emilio kept going back to that van. To Ariadne’s face, gaunt and terrified. Rhett had no qualm against hurting kids. Emilio didn’t know if Ophelia being his would change that.

The meeting place came into view and, with it, Rhett. Emilio faltered for a moment, taking in the sight of his brother as close to cleanly shaven as he’d ever seen him. Ophelia ran on ahead, unaffected by the change in appearance in a man she’d never seen before. If not for her, it might have taken Emilio a moment to recover, but as it was, his paranoia drove him forward.

They all stood there, Emilio still staring at Rhett as Rhett stared at Ophelia. He looked younger without the beard, Emilio thought; it was easier to draw comparisons between Rhett and his daughter like this, easier to see the similarities. Ophelia greeted him, the word dad seeming to echo through the space as Emilio continued to take his brother in. Not just the lack of beard — the eyepatch, the crutches. “You look like shit,” the slayer acknowledged.

—

That familiar scratching sensation seemed even worse now, somehow worse than it’d been even in that fae bar surrounded by them. It was pointed, digging its claws into Rhett’s shoulders and shaking him about. Kill it, get rid of the feeling, kill it, something inside of him said. He answered with a stoic frown, finally pulling his gaze from Ophelia to instead meet Emilio’s. The title of ‘dad’, while unearned, still struck a chord. He wasn’t sure he could answer. But Emilio’s astute observation that he looked like he’d been dragged to hell and back was something he could answer, albeit with a curt, fabricated lie. He recognized the look of distrust in the man’s eyes and wasn’t sure if he felt shamed or incensed by it. Maybe both.

“Troll,” he growled, pushing himself off the tree and wincing in pain as the weight was put on his bad leg—now he had one to match his little brother, he thought grimly. Fantastic.

Ophelia’s brows furrowed for a moment and then her eyes widened. “A troll? Like a real life fucking troll?” Some ingrained lessons on manners made her straighten her back and she looked between the men apologetically. “Shit, sorry. Ah!” She stumbled on her words, giving her head a small shake as she focused on the ground between them and tried to collect herself. Rhett took the opportunity to interject, hoping to speed this along.

“Aye. What you want, girl? What you after? Why’re we here?” This seemed to make his daughter deflate—on some foolish level, she’d hoped her father would be happy to meet her. Instead, he just sounded annoyed. But maybe that was just the… various… injuries he’d sustained? Surely this wasn’t his typical look, if he was still a fearsome fae hunter.

“Well I—” Ophelia glanced over at Emilio for backup, or comfort, or anything, but managed to find her words before the slayer had to speak up again. “You know why I’m here, Everett. You’ve gotta stop coming after mom.”

“No,” the warden answered gruffly, folding his arms across his chest with some slight grunting.

Cursing something quietly under her breath, Ophelia felt her own short supply of patience run out. “No? Have you ever stopped to think about why you’re so hellbent on killing her? Have you ever considered what things might be like if it had gone differently?” Rhett scoffed, and Ophelia took an angry step forward. The warden’s hackles immediately raised, eye narrowing and body shifting ever so slightly to allow faster access to a hidden knife, should he need it. “I’m serious! If your friend had killed her—”

“Then I’d be dead too. End’ah story,” Rhett argued.

“Forget the promise for a second! Mom was young and she didn’t know what she was doing. Just forget about that for a second, and consider how you would have felt if Desmond had killed mom. Where would you be now? Who would you be now? Would you have forgiven Desmond for killing someone you loved?”

The warden had been sent into a stunned silence, perhaps not having anticipated Ophelia knowing quite so much about what had happened. He’d hoped, maybe, that her mother had spared her the details. Apparently not. He glanced back to Emilio, unsure of how to answer. “... that’s different—”

“No, it isn’t.” Now it was Ophelia’s turn to look at Emilio, gesturing to Rhett with exasperation. “Tell him it isn’t!”

—

There was a moment where Rhett looked at Emilio and Emilio looked at Rhett and the slayer could pretend, for a moment, that things were less complicated than they were. He could pretend that there was no part of him that doubted Rhett’s explanation for his injuries, could pretend that the greater-than-usual ache in his own leg and the still-healing knife wound in his side weren’t put there by someone his brother evidently considered important enough not to want to bury. He could forget about the shit with the leshy and the ranger, could forget the hardened look on Rhett’s face when he’d ordered Emilio to sit among corpses just to teach him a lesson. He could even forget the fluttering fear in his stomach that he wouldn’t be quick enough to step in if Rhett decided to stick an iron blade through Ophelia’s chest now. There was a moment where Emilio was Emilio and Rhett was Rhett, where he was that desperate teenager who’d already lost something he didn’t know how to replace and Rhett was the first person who’d ever shown him an affection that didn’t ache.

But it was only for a moment.

Because Rhett spoke again, gruff and low and cutting Ophelia off as she stammered, and everything came rushing back in at once. Emilio wasn’t a kid anymore, and Rhett wasn’t the untouchable big brother who could do no wrong. There was a graveyard between them, full of corpses they’d put there and ones they hadn’t. There were people he needed to protect from Rhett — and, if Rhett’s message to Emilio regarding the warden with the penchant for making off with people’s tails was any indication, there were people Rhett would like to protect from Emilio, too. He’d never been on the opposite side of his brother like this before; he wasn’t sure he liked it.

Ophelia looked to him, and Emilio offered her a small nod. Say what you need to say, he thought, though he didn’t dare offer any verbal encouragement. Shit with Rhett was already hard enough; if he made it clear that he was on Ophelia’s side here, and if Rhett considered his own side to be the opposite… Emilio didn’t want a repeat of that hunt with the leshy. After everything, he wasn’t sure he could handle it.

Luckily, Ophelia had inherited more than just her father’s stubbornness. She had his bluntness, too. Emilio shifted his weight as the two argued, gritting his teeth against the flare of pain the motion brought up his bad leg. It was funny; he was learning more about Rhett’s history with Ophelia’s mother now than his brother had told him in the twenty years they’d known one another. All of it was carefully filed away, the names and details memorized. He couldn’t help it. Emilio liked knowing things; he was a detective, after all.

He was content just to listen. He was only here to make sure no one got killed, after all. It wasn’t his fight, not really; Rhett was his brother, but he doubted he wanted Emilio’s opinion on the matter. Only… Ophelia asked a question, and Rhett glanced to him. Then, Ophelia was looking at him, too, and Emilio felt, suddenly, as if he had spotlights shining in his face. He certainly hadn’t expected to be put on the spot here.

Hesitantly, he glanced between the two. The expressions on their faces were so similar. It was a familiar expression, too, even if this was the first time he was seeing it on Ophelia’s face. He knew what Rhett looked like when he was pushing Emilio to agree with him. For the last twenty years, that expression had been foolproof. Rhett would flash it, and Emilio would say whatever his brother wanted him to say. But he couldn’t agree with both of them, couldn’t placate them both at the same time. He glanced between them for a moment, uncertain. After a beat, his eyes landed on Rhett, and he shrugged.

“Never known you to forgive someone for hurting someone you love,” he said. “Don’t think it’s as different as you want it to be.”

—

Rhett frowned and looked down at the ground again, wanting to cast aside the things they were suggesting, but finding it impossible to do so. The hypothetical past in which Desmond had killed Mariela for what she was—the kind of hunter he’d always been, the kind of hunter he’d inspired Rhett to be once his blood was on the warden’s hands, body still and silent in his arms, hugged to his chest like that would bring him back—Rhett sucked in a shaky breath, imagining how that might’ve happened. Had he not promised to protect Mariela, and had Desmond charged at her anyway upon learning of her pregnancy, iron blade finding her heart… killing her, killing the unborn Ophelia… his gaze jumped briefly to find his daughter’s face, and he shook his head.

There were others, he knew, that he’d never meet. Ones he’d never cared to meet, ones that had been purely transactional. Mariela hadn’t been like that. Their baby was supposed to be the one he helped raise himself. He’d been excited for fatherhood, young as he was at the time. Maybe that’s why the ones that followed had never stood a chance of having a father—he couldn’t bear to put himself in that hopeful position again. Tío Rhett was the best he’d ever been able to manage.

Had Dez lived, had he carried out his will unobstructed, the warden was reluctant to imagine how that might’ve altered his trajectory in life. As much as he could see himself in Ophelia, he could see her mother, too. As he’d known her, anyway. Her softness had rounded him out, had pulled him away from Dez in a way that was subtle until the day she—Rhett blinked, refocusing his thoughts. She was dead. Dez was standing over her triumphantly, telling his brother that it’d been for his own good. That he’d let this go on for far too long, that he’d never thought it would get to this point, that he was just waiting for the inevitable crash, ready to pick his brother up from the wreckage, but this had been the last straw. Rhett would be angry. As angry as he’d been when it was Desmond’s corpse he’d clutched to himself. He would scream out a threat, throat raw with emotion, the same kind he’d given Mariela.

“It wasn’t fair what he did. But he didn’t give you a choice. He wouldn’t have given you a choice either way, don’t you see that? It was always him or mom.” Ophelia stepped closer again, and Rhett flinched. “He was ruthless. Brutal. He tried to put it away for you, but he couldn’t. And he made you… just like him, didn’t he? When he died, you felt like you had to pick up his mantle?”

“Stop,” Rhett muttered, shifting his weight again and hissing in pain, slumping back against the tree as he’d been when they arrived. Ophelia moved closer, and he remained still.

“No, I won’t stop,” his daughter promised with tears in her eyes, her arm raising as a hand reached for him.

“S-stop, I don’t want—I can’t—” The girl’s hand found his shoulder and he had nowhere to go, helpless against her will as she circled her arms around his torso. He wanted to crawl out of his skin, the insect buzz and scratch of being this close to a fae almost overwhelming him, but there was no escape, so he tried to push it down. Bury it like he’d buried his brother. Bury it like he had the truth of his moralities all this time, overlaid by Desmond’s own. Just as he’d been adopted by that hunter community, so too had he adopted his brother’s code. He loved him fiercely, but Ophelia was right.

A free hand came up to press between her shoulders, his best attempt at returning the hug. With her head nestled in the crook of his neck, he was able to see Emilio standing a short distance from them. His brother who still lived, who desperately wanted him to see what Ophelia was explaining now. That this wasn’t who he was. This was mimicry of the worst kind, and he still had time to stop it. Time to fix what he’d been breaking, bit by bit.

His scowl had melted away, and the last remaining eye shone in a rare display of weakness. Of hurt. Of regret.

“I’m sorry,” he said to them both, more genuinely than he ever had, and his grip on the girl tightened. “Yer right. I’m sorry.”

—

He’d never seen Rhett quite like this before. Close, maybe — he thought back to that moment in the woods after the massacre, when his brother found him half dead and angry that he would be saved at all — but even that had been different. This felt like a… softening of sorts. Like Rhett finally coming to understand something that had been true all the while.

Still, Emilio watched the interaction carefully. He watched Ophelia approach her father, ready to step in if need be. On a normal day, Rhett would have been faster than he was, would have made him nervous that if something did go wrong, he’d be unable to stop it. But it was clear that his brother was going nowhere fast now, and Emilio ached with the fact that he found some terrible relief in that. His brother was hurt, and he should be upset. He should be angry, should be looking to help. Instead, he could only manage a quiet knowledge that Rhett wasn’t as much of a threat to Ophelia this way. He hated himself for it.

He stood still as Ophelia moved to hug Rhett, as if he was worried the slightest movement might interrupt the moment and shatter the illusion. Emilio himself had only hugged the warden a handful of times; maybe just the once, really, in that clearing in the woods with his daughter’s blood on his hands. It was hard to say how Rhett might react. The slayer waited for the warden to push his daughter away, waited for him to lash out or react in anger, but he didn’t. There was no rage; grief without it was such an unfamiliar thing.

Rhett reached up to rest a hand between Ophelia’s shoulders, and Emilio met his eye and offered him a small smile. He’d never seen Rhett quite like this before. That wasn’t a bad thing.

“Eh,” he said, unable to let the moment hang, “you’re still an asshole, hermano.” His eyes sparked with quiet amusement and loud relief. It was okay, it was okay, it was okay. If he’d known Ophelia could act as a catalyst to shift his brother more towards his way of thinking, he… Well, all right, he still wouldn’t have pushed for an earlier introduction. Even on his best day, Emilio was a paranoid bastard. He didn’t see that changing any time soon. But this was nice. Being around Rhett had been so hard recently, and he didn’t want it to be. He wanted things with his brother to be simple, the way they’d always been. Maybe, with this, they could be again. “That’s all right, though. Wouldn’t recognize you otherwise.”

—

An upset laugh was strangled from him at Emilio’s words and he hugged his daughter carefully, conscious to not squeeze too hard. She didn’t need to hold back though, and she didn’t. And as she connected with the man she’d feared most of her life, she shone bright. Her glamour didn’t drop, but there was a noticeable golden hue blooming around her, at least from where Rhett stood. Finally, she pulled back enough to look up at him, tears streaking her face and a wide smile plastered there among them. Rhett couldn’t help but smile back, though his was more uncertain, like he wasn’t quite sure how to wear it.

“I knew I could get through to you,” the nymph whispered, leaning into the hand that’d found her cheek. “You just needed someone to tell you what you couldn’t see yourself. Grief is… well, it’s a heck of a thing, dad. It can be blinding, I know. I’m so, so sorry about what happened.” Rhett shushed her, brushing her dark hair from her face.

“Don’t… worry ‘bout that, lass. What’s done is done.” He looked back at Emilio, beckoning him over with a wave of his hand. “Arsehole ‘er not, I can still apologize.” Setting his hands on Ophelia’s shoulders so she could take a step back, the warden turned to his brother and held out a hand. “Tree’s fuckin’ diggin’ into my spine, mate,” he complained, taking Emilio’s hand as it was offered and pulling himself forward. Rhett didn’t stop once he was fully upright though, leaning in closer and tugging the younger hunter into his own hug. His palm braced against the back of the other’s neck, and he spoke into Emilio’s ear in a voice he hoped was soft enough for Ophelia to not pick up on. “Been too hard on you, ‘Milio. M’sorry. Really. I—” He didn’t know what sort of excuse would begin to cover everything he’d said and done, so he just let the sentence go unfinished, patting Emilio roughly on the back before standing up straight.

Ophelia watched the exchange with bright eyes, happy to see the two interacting in what felt like a healthier manner, and once Emilio was freed up from his brother’s grip, she wrinkled her nose at him and lightly punched his arm. “Told you, tío Emilio.” Rhett cleared his throat, not wanting to dwell on all the wrong he’d done hiding behind a mask of superiority, not least of which was the act that’d earned him all these new scars. That bridge had been lit ablaze, he figured, and there would be no rebuilding it. The best he could do was keep his head down and wait for things to cool off. For now, though…

“All right, well I dunno ‘bout you two, but all this emotional baggage is makin’ me hungry. C’mon. We’ll grab a bite n’ you can tell me more about yerself,” he said with a nod to Ophelia, knowing full well that Emilio wasn’t going to be comfortable with them spending any time alone together for a while. That was okay, he couldn’t blame his brother for still harboring that fear. He’d have done the same, if the roles had been reversed. If he’d still been the same person he was over two decades ago.

Maybe… maybe he could get back to that, before it was too late. He could try, at least.

—

He relaxed as Rhett laughed, tension bleeding from his shoulders as he watched his brother embrace his daughter in a way that no longer seemed threatening, with a grip he no longer feared. Ophelia was beaming in a way that looked both familiar and foreign at once, Rhett’s features shining through on her face with an expression brighter than any he’d ever seen his brother wear. And Emilio thought of Flora, because of course he did. Because there was no way he could look at Rhett and his daughter without thinking about his own kid, two years gone. He ached a little with what might have been, but it wasn’t the hopeless ache that usually filled him. It hurt, but it wasn’t unbearable.

He moved towards the pair as Rhett beckoned him, the motion so starkly different than it had been those weeks ago in the bar with Owen. Rhett’s invitation wasn’t an order, Emilio’s acceptance wasn’t reluctant. This time, the slayer moved not like a man towards the gallows but like a brother moving towards a friendly embrace.

His hand took Rhett’s and pulled him forward, supporting his weight in spite of the pain in his own leg. Rhett’s arms wrapped around him in a way that lacked the desperate relief of that moment in the woods after the massacre. It was soft and apologetic, and Emilio relaxed into it with more ease than he’d ever managed to relax into a hug before. Still a little too stiff to fool anyone into thinking that positive touch was a thing he was used to accepting, but not so much that he looked at all uncomfortable. He slapped a hand against Rhett’s back, gentle enough to not risk upsetting his injuries but firm enough to be felt.

“It’s all right, man.” And it was. It was so easy for Emilio to forgive Rhett, so natural. He could forget about the way the warden shoved him into the back of that van with those cold corpses, could forget about the way he’d trembled for days after. He could forget Rhett’s anger towards him for attacking the warden in the woods, too. He could even push aside what happened with Ariadne now, could feel some confidence in the thought that it wouldn’t happen again. Things were better. Things were going to get better. And even Emilio, who held grudges for decades like they were a life raft in the middle of an ocean storm, couldn’t fathom the idea of not forgiving the only family he had left. He was allowed to, wasn’t he? He was allowed to have that, to keep it. He was allowed.

Rhett pulled back, and Emilio kept a hand on him to steady him as he grabbed his brother’s crutches from where they leaned against the tree. He nodded at the invitation. For once, his stomach didn’t churn at the concept of food being put into it. He felt lighter; like a weight had been lifted. It wouldn’t last, because it never did. But he could enjoy it while it was here. “All right,” he agreed. “But you’re buying. I left my wallet in the goo.”

#. thread ;#. with ; emilio cortez #. with ; ophelia delgado #. good omens ;#sibling death tw #child death tw

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ironcladrhett · 4 months

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TIMING: Current LOCATION: Various PARTIES: Rhett (@ironcladrhett), Ophelia, & Emilio (@mortemoppetere) SUMMARY: After shaking off the anesthesia once again, Rhett insists on leaving the hospital where Emilio dumped him on Zane. Ophelia shows up to chaperone her father, and Emilio comes to pick them both up. Neither of the hunters are handling the situation very well to the surprise of no one. But Emilio gives Rhett an ultimatum, and forces the warden to accept help. He doesn’t like it. CONTENT WARNINGS: Suicidal ideation (mentions), PTSD

—

Each pair of eyes that met his one in the halls were gifted with a deep scowl, silently demanding that they look away. It worked for the most part, but for the ones that refused to comply, he barked out an angry what?! Each time this happened, he'd feel a hand on his non-bruised shoulder and hear the voice of his daughter apologizing for his attitude. Most annoying of all, no one got mad back. They just smiled and nodded, and he could see the pity in their expression. He hated it. He hated it more than anything. He didn't want to be pitied, and he sure as shit didn't want anyone being sympathetic toward him, especially not to his fucking face.

With a creased brow and a temper to rival Hades, the warden was pushed outside in his wheelchair by his nurse, who was only there to take it back once he'd gotten safely into the vehicle that was waiting for them—oh, fucking hell.

Rhett only vaguely recalled the stupid car from the last time he'd been stuffed into it before passing out, and it was so much worse now that he was getting a good look at it. He scoffed, looking up at Ophelia. “I ain't gettin’ in that thing. Tell him to go get a better car.” But Emilio was already circling around the hood to join them and help get his brother in the backseat. For posterity, the warden repeated himself at a louder volume. “I ain't gettin’ in that!”

—

Just standing in front of the hospital made him feel uneasy. Part of it was probably related to the reason he was here — his eyes had been darting to every corner since the moment he’d found Rhett’s cane, finding ghosts in the shadows and seeing nightmares in the daylight — but he knew there was more to it than that, too. Paranoia was a heavy thing; Emilio had never figured out how to carry it comfortably. His leg bounced as he sat in the front seat of Teddy’s car, hands gripping the wheel a little too tightly to be comfortable.

The door to the hospital opened, and he was out of the car before he realized he’d moved at all, eyes darting over his brother’s form in the wheelchair. He looked small, Emilio realized with a start. It was a nauseating thought. He’d never thought of Rhett as small before. For a moment, as his eyes found his brother’s face, there was a flash where Rhett looked as he had in that warehouse — bloody, defeated, pretty much dead already. Emilio’s eyes moved away quickly, breath catching in his throat. (Victor was dead. Edgar was dead. Rosa was dead. Rhett was —)

The warden’s voice broke through his thoughts as he circled around the car, and he tried to force a neutral expression onto his face. For Rhett’s sake, for Ophelia’s, for the people who actually fucking mattered. Emilio didn’t have time to fall apart; he was fine. “Yeah, you are,” he replied flatly, nodding to the nurse as he took the wheelchair. “You think I like driving it? Don’t exactly have a lot of options, you know.” He grabbed Rhett’s arm, gently. The quiet touch of someone trying to help, with movements that were deliberate and visible. Emilio knew the kind of disorientation that came with an experience like this; he made sure Rhett could see where he was at all times as he began attempting to lift him from the chair to transfer him into the back seat of the car. “Come on. Nobody will see you if you don't make a scene.”

—

They'd asked if he needed crutches, but Rhett insisted he still had his from the last time he'd ended up here, so they permitted him to leave without any assistance other than that of his family members. Assistance that, to his begrudging realization, meant there was going to be a lot of touching involved.

The nurse took this moment while Emilio was helping Rhett up out of the wheelchair to remind Ophelia that he'd need to get those crutches soon. “He said… something about a van?” she recalled, looking mildly concerned. Ophelia nodded, watching the two men hobble their way to the passenger side door of the ridiculous car.

“Yeah. Don't worry, we'll get ‘em. Thanks again for your help, and… sorry if he was a jerk to you.” The nurse smiled and shook her head.

“Don't worry, he was mostly just a jerk to Zane.” Ophelia huffed out a laugh, making a mental note to get that guy a gift basket or something.

Rhett found that he didn't like hearing voices behind him, especially not female ones. And he didn't like being herded anywhere, even though Emilio was literally just trying to help. The man grimaced through it all, shaking off his brother as soon as he was able to grip the car, the metal splint on his finger clanking against the roof. “I got it,” he growled, unlike himself in this moment. He'd been cranky before, sure, but this was different. He was coiled like a spring, all too ready to snap. And as he stared at the backseat of the buggy, it felt claustrophobic. It felt like being tied up all over again, and he hesitated. “Wait,” the warden breathed, his grip on the roof tightening. “I don't—I ain’t sure I can—” The nurse was gone, and Ophelia stepped up beside him, making him flinch.

“Hey, it's okay,” she tried to assure him softly. “Do you want the front instead?” Rhett paused, and then gave a small, defeated nod. “Okay,” she agreed with a smile, throwing Emilio a worried look over her father's shoulders before ducking down into the car herself and pulling the front seat back so Rhett could sit.

—

Emilio half-listened to Ophelia’s discussion with the nurse, snorting absently at the revelation that Rhett had been an ass to Zane throughout his stay. Figured. The nurse would probably ban both brothers from his emergency room at this rate, something that served Emilio just fine. If he never saw the inside of a hospital again, he’d be just fine with that. Leave him in an alley with his damn duct tape, he’d patch himself up just fine. Though… his eyes darted down to Rhett’s leg again, the bandaged stump. Emilio had no intentions of ever having anything like that happen to himself. He doubted Rhett had, either.

He let go of Rhett as his brother shook his grip off, knowing better than to argue even if he refused to step away from the car as the warden got inside. He seemed uneasy, and Emilio felt his chest clench. Something was wrong, something was wrong, something —

Ophelia stepped in as Emilio froze, knowing what to offer and offering it while the slayer was still reeling. She’d be good for him, he realized; good to have around. (If it had been Ophelia looking for Rhett instead of Emilio, would she have done a better job? Would she have found him sooner, could she have freed him without the promises Siobhan had tied them both up in? The banshee would have responded better to another fae, he thought; it might not have forced Rhett into promises he didn’t want to keep.)

He was quiet as Ophelia herded Rhett into the front seat instead, holding the back door open for her so she could get in. When they were both settled, he moved back around to the driver’s side. Slower than he needed to, with his breath still coming a little too quickly. What was wrong with him? He knew Rhett needed him to be better than this; Ophelia did, too.

(Edgar’s body slumped against the wall to the left of the car door; Emilio stumbled for a moment before looking away.)

He slid into the driver’s seat, glancing over at Rhett and then into the rearview mirror at Ophelia. “Put your seatbelts on or whatever,” he mumbled, gripping the steering wheel hard. It creaked a little, and he tried to loosen his grip. Teddy would be pissed if he broke their damn car, he told himself. He looked back to the mirror again, meeting Ophelia’s eye briefly. “Where are we going, kid?”

—

Ophelia leaned forward to rest her chin on the back of Rhett’s seat after her gaze met Emilio’s, humming thoughtfully. “Well… we need to go get you those crutches, Rhett. Where's your van? And no funny business…”

Oh, there would be funny business. Rhett gave the location of the vehicle—it was parked in the lot in front of some dollar store, likely with a ticket or two on it already. He was quiet during the drive, his left hand rubbing absently at his thigh, the ache from the werewolf attack still present even with a good deal of the limb missing. Of course they couldn't have removed the whole thing… that would have been too helpful. A number of times he moved the leg like he was trying to shift his feet around down by the baseboard, only to remember that there was nothing there. It was a phantom sensation, and it filled him with anger.

With neither of them having the keys to get inside the wagon, he insisted on getting out of the bug with them to jimmy the lock the way he'd learned worked for this old girl. He again had to resign himself to using Emilio as a support, hopping barefoot across the short distance with an arm around his brother’s shoulders, trying to ignore the storm that was building inside of him. These two didn't deserve his wrath, but it was coming regardless. It was just a matter of when.

With some finagling and a pop, the wagon's lock bent to Rhett's will and allowed him to swing the rear doors open one at a time. The crutches lay there in the back, but they weren't the first thing he reached for. No, that action was reserved for a half-drunk bottle of plantation rum, which he snatched up before sitting down on the van's rear bumper to unscrew the cap.

He could feel them both staring at him, but he kept his gaze angled down at the ground.

“Well… I'm here.” Home. “So go on, git.” Ophelia let out a barking laugh that betrayed her immediate irritation.

“Unbelievable!” Her hands braced against her hips, a frown settling on her face. “The hell you're here.” She looked to Emilio for help, unsure of what needed to be said to convince the man to get up again.

—

He was only half-present for the drive. He followed the directions Rhett gave him to the van robotically, driving just as terribly as he always did but with none of his usual cursing as he cut off other cars in traffic. Periodically, his eyes would dart off to the side of the road, catching sight of things not there before he forced them back front and center. He shouldn’t be like this. Emilio knew that. Rhett was the one who’d lost a limb, Ophelia was the one who’d damn near lost her father. But Emilio felt more like a ghost than he usually did, even as he put the car in park beside Rhett’s van and maneuvered around to help his brother out.

He let Rhett lean against him as the warden jimmied the lock open, eyes darting down to the floorboard of the van. For a brief moment, it was weeks ago. There were corpses in the van, and Rhett was telling him his place was beside them. For another heartbeat, it was weeks before that, and Ariadne was shaking and shivering behind a line of salt. Emilio wondered if reliving those events would be better or worse than living the one he was living now. He felt a little nauseous.

Rhett grabbed for a bottle and sat on the bumper, and it wasn’t as much of a surprise to Emilio as it probably was for Ophelia. He glanced to the girl with a grimace, moving around Rhett so that he could slide the crutches out of the van and handing them to the young nymph. “Go see if you can fit those into that yellow nightmare machine, yeah?” A silent request lurked beneath it — give me a minute with him.

With the crutches out of the way, he sat on the bumper beside Rhett, snatching the bottle from his hand and pouring a good amount of the liquid inside down his own throat. It burned a little; the shit Rhett bought usually did. His hands shook as he handed it back, and he clenched them into fists as if that might stop them trembling. It didn’t. He wasn’t sure anything could have.

“You remember when you found me in the woods?” He didn’t specify when; he didn’t have to. He doubted either of them would ever forget Rhett coming up on him in those woods, his daughter’s blood drying on his hands, his clothes. “I asked you to leave me there. To let me die. I wanted to. I —” He cut himself off, looking back down at his shaking hands. I still do. “You wouldn’t. Christ, I hated you for that. Would’ve punched you if I weren’t half dead, but there wasn’t much I could do. You remember what you said to me? You don’t get to clock out on my watch. Man, I don’t think you left me alone for more time than it took for me to take a piss for weeks after that.” Until he had, until Emilio had succeeded in pushing him away so entirely that he hadn’t seen him again for nearly two years after. He wasn’t about to let that happen again. Not now, not when Rhett needed him.

So he leaned back, laid out in the van, shifted around with a grunt. “You want to live in the van, you live in the van. But I gotta tell you, it’s gonna be real awkward trying to fit the two of us in here. Yeah, and you know I get damn cold in the winter, so I’m gonna need you to let me get real close at night. Might have to just sleep on top of you for the warmth. You know they got weighted blankets? You get that shit for free, me laying on top of you. Real lucky.” He turned his head, letting himself look at his brother for the first time since they’d exited Teddy’s stupid yellow car. “You are out of your goddamn mind,” he said slowly, “if you think I’m letting you take off on your own. I thought you were dead, asshole. I thought you were fucking dead. You look at me, Rhett, and you remember what that felt like when it was you. You remember that, and you tell me you think you’ve got any chance in hell of chasing me out of here and leaving you on your own in this goddamn van. You just try that.”

—

Emilio gave her instruction, and Ophelia gave an indignant huff, but did as he asked. She knew well enough that Emilio probably needed to say some things to his brother, since it didn’t seem like they’d had a chance since he’d found him. Crutches tucked under her arm, she made sure to make the task take as long as she could, glancing back at them every now and then before giving up the charade and just sitting on the hood of the buggy.

Rhett glared at Emilio when he snatched the bottle away, noting the tremor as it was passed back. The guilt might have surfaced quicker if not for the inky layer of anger that coated this particular emotional puddle, ready to ignite at the slightest offense or inconvenience. One that… appeared to be rapidly approaching. He listened to Emilio talk about the day in the woods, staring ahead at nothing as he drank more of the liquor. He understood what Emilio was saying, even if he didn’t think it was accurate. This wasn’t like that. Not by a long shot. But there was no point in arguing it. The matter of Emilio staying in the van with him, however…

The warden looked back at his brother, surprised to be meeting his gaze. I thought you were dead. “You say that like it was my fuckin’ fault I got spirited away to some fuckin’ torture dungeon,” he spat, gripping the neck of the bottle hard. “That’s a fuckin’ occupational hazard, jackass. I didn’t choose it because I wanted to die.” He wanted desperately to get up and walk away, but he couldn’t. He was stuck, so he just shifted his weight in a haphazard sort of way, angling himself to face Emilio a bit more. “Where the fuck you propose I live then, eh? We ain’t found no apartment yet. Ain’t gonna, now, no one fuckin’ moves out in the dead’ah winter. And I sure as shit ain’t livin’ with no one else. Not movin’ in with you ‘er any one’ah yer bleedin’ heart friends. I’m fine on my fuckin’ own.” He pointed up toward the front seats of the van angrily. “I got socks and I got a space heater and I’m fuckin’ fine.”

Ophelia could hear her father’s raised voice from the other car, sliding off the hood and hugging her arms around herself. She wanted to approach but she was afraid to, afraid of making it worse somehow. So she stayed put, watching them anxiously while she wandered back and forth.

—

Maybe it was fair, that quiet accusation. The unspoken reason behind Rhett’s insistence that he hadn’t wanted to die, after all, was the fact that Emilio had. When Rhett had asked Emilio to leave him in that factory, it hadn’t been for his own sake; he’d been thinking of Emilio, just as he had been when he’d carried his sorry ass out of those woods. That was the thing about their dynamic, the part that people sometimes didn’t get; Rhett was always thinking of Emilio. For thirty-four odd years, he’d been the only person in the goddamn world who was.

Emilio hadn’t been thinking about Rhett in those woods, when he’d begged to be left alone to die. He hadn’t been thinking about Rhett months later when he’d disappeared and made sure he couldn’t be found, either. He hadn’t been thinking about Rhett when he told Rhett to forget about him the moment his brother found him in Wicked’s Rest. But he was thinking about him now. He was doing it desperately, with everything he had, whether Rhett wanted it or not. He’d been ready to die for his brother in that factory, would do it again in a heartbeat now. Whether Rhett wanted his help or not, he’d have it. He’d learned that move from the warden himself.

He didn’t move as Rhett angled himself to face him, didn’t flinch away from his brother’s anger. The fury was real, sure, but it wouldn’t hurt him. He’d always known that, with all the same simplicity as he knew his own name. “I can find you an apartment. That’s the easy part. My place is out of the damn goo now, you can stay there with me until we find you somewhere. Or with Alan. Or with one of your other friends.” He’d even accept Rhett staying with fucking Parker over living alone, at this rate. “But I’m not leaving you in the van on your own. I don’t care if you think you’re fine. I don’t care. I —”

He cut off again, closing his eyes for a moment. He could hear a battle raging; it only existed in his mind. The worst things always did. “You don’t want to do it for yourself, fine. Do it for me, then. Because I’m asking you. Because I — I walked into that room, man, and all I could think about was Edgar. And Victor, and Rosa. And I’m still…” He trailed off, unsure how to continue. Would Rhett think he’d lost it if he admitted that Edgar’s body was leaning against Teddy’s car now? If he pointed to the empty wall at the front of the store that cast a shadow over the parking lot and told him that Rosa’s blood was staining the sidewalk? There were no ghosts here. Nothing a medium would spot, nothing an exorcist could chase away. But Emilio was haunted all the same, and Rhett had almost joined the ranks of things hanging over his shoulders.

“I need to know that you’re safe. Not on your own in a fucking van in some parking lot. Safe. So either I’m staying out here with you, and we’re making this stupid fucking van fit two people — or three, because between you and me, I don’t see Ophelia leaving either — or you’re going to let me set you up somewhere. I don’t care which. You pick. But you are out of your fucking mind if you think I’m leaving you alone after that, Rhett. You’re out of your mind.”

—

Why? Why do I need to be under constant surveillance? The question rattled the cage bars, burning hot beneath his collar. He wasn’t a child. He wasn’t going out of his way to get killed, especially not now, so why the fuck was Emilio so intent on having eyes on him? The answer was obvious, if he’d take just a moment to consider it. But he couldn’t, he wouldn’t, not until Emilio forced him to by mentioning the family they’d lost. Rhett wasn’t the threat here. Not to himself, not really. It was the Others, the ones like Siobhan and Ingeborg who’d like to do the same (if not worse) to the warden. And he couldn’t even defend himself, could he?

He felt trapped. Unable to move forward without help, and forbidden from going back. The man turned away from Emilio, pressing his thumb into his thigh and leaning forward, focusing instead on the horrible pain that was slowly emerging as the drugs meant to dampen it wore off.

Rhett hated being helped. He hated relying on other people. He was better than that, stronger than that. He was old as hell for a hunter, particularly with one so red a ledger as his own. He was a survivor, and he’d not gotten through it by cowering in fear, by hiding behind others. He hated it, but he was resigned to it for as long as Emilio felt was necessary. And what could he do? Abandon the only family he had left? He needed to, he knew that. He needed to get the fuck away from all of them as soon as possible, to keep his mistakes from bleeding into their lives too. But… he couldn’t. Physically, he couldn’t. He didn’t feel trapped, he was trapped.

“Fuck!” he bellowed suddenly, squinting his eye tightly shut. It was followed by something like a groan, agonized by the reality of his situation and the memory of what had brought him to this moment. He dropped the bottle down onto the pavement, shattering it and spilling the last of the rum across its cold surface. But he wasn’t thinking about the bottle, he was thinking about giving in to that desire to run, even though he could not. His body still dragged him forward, one bare foot crunching over the glass, the other—he lurched forward, feeling his left foot hit the ground when in reality, it did not. Could not, because it was in the possession of some sick, twisted banshee. But he himself did not meet the pavement with his chest and his head, because there was something there to stop him. Someone to catch him, to hold his weight against him as Ophelia ran toward them, looking at Emilio, wide-eyed and frightened.

“Yours,” the warden bleated, giving Emilio his answer. “Nowhere else. Just yours.”

—

It was funny, the relation of time and grief. Emilio often found the two at a funny sort of war, fighting one another in constant contradiction. He remembered the days after the massacre so crisp, it was as if they happened hours ago, or he remembered them in such a blur that he couldn’t do something as simple as create a timeline of the events. He heard Victor’s voice in his mind so clearly it was as if his brother was right behind him, and he couldn’t remember if his hair had been curly or straight. Rhett yelled and dropped that bottle, and everything happened all at once and in slow motion.

Emilio was moving before he realized it, was already standing in front of his brother and keeping him from falling before he knew he’d gotten to his feet at all. His hand was a steady thing against Rhett’s chest, even though it trembled. His body held Rhett upright, even though his own weight seemed daunting. His heart was pounding in his chest, even though he felt like he was dead already.

Grief was a never-ending contradiction.

Relief flooded him as Rhett finally relented, though Emilio had known he would. After all, there was that universal truth, that terrible thing that he knew just as surely as he knew the sun would rise in the east and set in the west: that Rhett loved him. That he’d do what Emilio asked just as long as he knew Emilio wasn’t asking in the interest of getting himself killed. That he was still one of the only people who’d ever wanted Emilio to be okay more than he wanted him to be useful. He asked, and Rhett relented. It was how it was always going to go.

“Okay,” he agreed. “Okay. Yeah. I’m going to take you there. I’ll — I’m going to stay with you. Not all the time. I know you need your space.” And the thought of leaving Teddy’s left him with a strange hollow in his chest that he couldn’t quite define. “But I’m going to stay with you some. And… make it safe.” The apartment was already mare-proofed out the ass — a side effect of the two visits he’d gotten from two separate mares to his bedroom — but he could make sure other things couldn’t get in, too.

(He couldn’t fae-proof it. Not with Ophelia to think about. But the banshee promised it wouldn’t physically hurt Rhett again, and Emilio had to force himself not to think about other fae that might want his brother dead. He’d find some way to stop them. He’d make a thousand promises, he’d sell his fucking soul. It wasn’t like he was using it anymore.)

“Okay,” he said again, sliding himself under Rhett’s arm like a crutch. He maneuvered his brother around the broken glass as best he could, trying carefully to make sure he didn’t damage his remaining foot any worse than he already had. “All right. We good?”

—

“Good?” His humorless laugh hissed and snapped like a viper, venomous and dangerous to anyone within striking range. “I ain’t fuckin’ good, no.” And Emilio wasn’t either, that much was clear. Rhett’s fingers had clutched lamely at the fabric of Emilio’s jacket before his brother repositioned himself to support the weight of his left side—his useless side. Might as well cut him down the middle for all the good that half of him was worth. Now he was left dangling from him, helpless once again, recoiling as Ophelia reached for him to help support the opposite side. He wanted to yell at her, he wanted to scream until his lungs and throat were as raw and bloody as they’d been in that factory, but he couldn’t. She just looked so fucking scared. Because of him. Because of who he was as a person, deep down. Beneath the layers of sarcasm and sanctimoniousness and devil-may-care attitude, he was just a bastard with anger and daddy issues.

There were tears in her eyes, and he hated himself for it.

Hopping on his bandaged foot between the two of them, the warden made it back to the waiting yellow atrocity, allowing himself to be lowered back into the front seat. Ophelia leaned down, sighing as she plucked something from his shirt. “You stink,” she said with the smallest of smiles. “You need a shower and a change of clothes. Do you have any in the van?” Rhett nodded slowly, thinking of all the nicer things that Alan had gotten for him.

“White tub, red lid. Passenger side seat,” he grumbled, and off she went to retrieve it. He glanced at Emilio then and put a hand on his arm, feeling the tremor that still persisted. “I still see Dez,” he offered without any further explanation. He saw Flora too, sometimes, but that didn’t need to be said. His gaze dropped to the floorboard and he gave Emilio’s arm a pat before withdrawing back into the vehicle fully. He wasn’t great with words, but he hoped that if his brother knew he wasn’t alone, maybe it would help. If only for a moment.

—

He recognized the rage in Rhett’s voice, in his eyes; he’d seen it in himself a thousand times before, in every surface capable of providing him with a reflection. For a moment, staring at Rhett as he simmered, Emilio wondered if this was where he’d gotten it from. Had he been angry before Rhett walked into his life twenty years ago? Was the fire that warmed his chest one that had been set, or had he been born with it? It was difficult to remember who he was before he’d known Rhett; the warden had become such an intricate part of him, that it was difficult to separate himself from him. He was who he was because of Rhett. The good and the bad, and the rage, too. So Rhett was angry, and Emilio watched it build and burn and there was a strange sort of comfort in it. Like a warm blanket, like a glass of something strong. He didn’t respond to the outburst. He only basked in it. Rhett was angry and Rhett was alive, and maybe that meant Emilio was, too.

Ophelia was at Rhett’s other side in an instant, and Emilio felt a brief stab of guilt for forgetting that she was there at all. She took the weight on Rhett’s other side; he didn’t realize it had hurt to shoulder the full burden until that small amount of it was taken from him, until some of the heaviness eased and some of the pain in his bad leg went with it. He offered the nymph a curt nod, a thank you without the words. If she hadn’t been here, he thought, Rhett probably would have been angrier, and Emilio would have fed into it. They were good at that, the two of them; they each had a habit of building up the other’s rage, of stocking those fires a little too high until the smoke became suffocating. It was what had separated them those two years ago, when Rhett walked away from him and Emilio made sure he couldn’t come back.

(Rhett couldn’t walk away now. There was another flash of guilt at the thought, a deep sense of shame at the way it brought a quiet relief with it. It was a godawful thing to be relieved about, a terrible thing, but Rhett couldn’t walk away and he couldn’t follow if Emilio chose to leave and that was a power the slayer had never really had before.)

He let out a small, hollow laugh as Ophelia commented on Rhett’s stench. He wondered if someone had cleaned him in the hospital, at some point. They must have, right? He wasn’t covered in blood anymore. (But how much of that blood had been real? Emilio still saw flecks of Flora’s blood under his fingernails, two years and a thousand showers after he’d held her bloody corpse. How much blood had actually been on that warehouse floor, and how much of it existed only within the confines of a broken mind? It bothered him that he’d never know the answer.) Ophelia was right, though. Rhett did smell. “He always smells like this,” Emilio said flatly, his voice just as hollow as his laugh had been. He hoped neither of them would pick up on it, but he knew it was an empty sort of hope. He could fool Ophelia, if he tried to. But Rhett? Rhett, who made him who he was? There was never any hope of fooling Rhett.

Ophelia went off to the van to grab Rhett’s things, and Emilio started a little at the sudden presence of his brother’s hand on his arm. He glanced down at it, swallowing around the lump that hadn’t left his throat in days now. Rhett still saw Dez. Emilio still saw his family. They were both haunted in a way no salt circle could save them from. Emilio reached out, giving Rhett’s shoulder a gentle pat before pulling away. He stood there for a moment, the car door still open between them, until Ophelia came back with the clothes and he took a step back, shutting the door gently.

Turning to Ophelia, he took the clothes. “We’re going to Worm Row,” he announced. “Got a place there. El viejo is going to stay there for a while.”

#. thread ;#. with ; emilio cortez #. with ; ophelia delgado #. do it for me ;#suicidal ideation tw

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