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ohwynne · 5 days

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TIMING: Current. PARTIES: Elias @eliaskahtri & Wynne @ohwynne LOCATION: Saol eile SUMMARY: Wynne finds Elias and attempts to help him. WARNINGS: Animal death, medical blood

The last thing Elias remembered was crying about how he was going to die, the dread that pooled in him as he slipped from consciousness. His life had flashed before his eyes, key moments with friends he considered closest dancing in visions around him as he watched himself walk away from the pit, dragged by Regan. But in the end, he couldn’t hold on. His life slipping away like sand through his fingers. Completely unaware of their surroundings, Regan had left Elias out of the way and let out a scream, hoping it would attract someone to help.

Elias was bleeding, stab wounds to his left shoulder, his upper left arm, and three stabs to his lower abdomen, all bleeding. The man looked pale and grey, as if he had nothing left in him. Despite all of it, he still drew breath. Despite everything, the barely-there pulse and shallow breathing was still there. Elias Kahtri wasn’t dead, not yet. But he would be if he wasn’t treated soon. And fast.

_____

They couldn’t manage it, hiding in the clinic attic and waiting for the evening to come. It couldn’t come quick enough, this moment of escape that seemed more far away the closer it came. Until then Wynne tried to practice patience. They played some Animal Crossing (which was sweet, but made them think of the small town they lived in and how they missed ‘their’ villagers) and abandoned the attic. As it got closer and closer to the end of the day and Elias remained absent, though, they grew worried. They were supposed to be all together — but the clinic remained empty and quiet. No Elias, no Regan, no Nora. No notifications on their phone. They felt something harden in their stomach as they looked at their and Elias’ belongings and figured it was time to go look for their friends and inform them it was time.

So they ventured out. The aos sí was covered in a heavy cloak of what Wynne could only describe as grief. The wailing women paid little attention to them as they all moved around in dark clothes, some faces hidden behind dark veils. They weren’t sure what Worm Remembrance Day entailed, but they had expected it to be a more happy occasion as remembering worms seemed like a good thing. The banshees seemed to be in a state of mourning, though. They could not help but take it as a bad omen as they continued slipping through cobbled streets and alleyways.

But even though they had thought the atmosphere of grief a bad omen, they hadn’t expected to find Elias like this. Near that pit of no-good tar, covered in his own blood and injuries, a pale shadow of himself. When their eyes fell on the image straight out of a horror movie they’d never watch, they let out a strangled noise. They were supposed to leave tonight. Safely and all in one piece, but here Elias was, looking more dead alive. Wynne looked over their shoulder and rushed over, crouching at their friend’s side. “Elias? Elias — hey, can you – can you stand? We should —” Eyes flicked to the tar pit in the distance. Someone was screaming and they felt their ears buzz with the sound. “Elias can you hear me?”

_____

Elias’s shirt had been removed and pressed against the wound on his lower abdomen, but he was no longer conscious. He was pale and almost gray from the blood loss, face confronted in pain. This was it, wasn’t it? This was where he died. Overseas in Ireland without a way to contact his family one last time. No, he couldn’t. His eyelids fluttered as he heard a familiar voice calling his name.

He opened his mouth to speak, but it was too much effort to do so. He was being asked if he could walk. He couldn’t even speak, let alone move his body. He’d been through so much, but the words that Marcus had told him echoed in his mind. “Even if you’re at death's door, don’t break your resolve.” He had to keep going. He thought of his sister, how she’d be devastated to lose him, even if she was in London. He thought of his parents, who called every other day to check on him, and how he’d had to continue to lie to them about where he was, what he was doing.

He had to remember that giving up wasn’t going to just affect him, but the people around him that mattered to him. So with that in mind, he let out a cry of pain as he forced himself onto his knees, wavering as he wanted so desperately to just curl up and sleep. He needed rest, but he couldn’t. There was no safe place here. Instead, Elias held out a hand to Wynne for help. He couldn’t do this alone. He was too weak.

_____

Wynne had seen blood before. They had slit a rooster’s throat and watched it bleed out. There had been the lambs and other animals laid on the altar to bleed, red mixing with fur or bristles. There had been Jac, laid down and bled out as the ultimate sacrifice. There was Iwan, bleeding out in their dreams. There was all that blood back in the barn. They had seen blood before, but they’d never get used to the sight of it in large quantities.

Their hands trembled as they took stock of the situation. A trail of blood leading up to the tar pit, a mush of shirt pressed against what seemed like another wound. The scream continued, in that tar pit, and they were afraid it would come closer — but it seemed it wasn’t. That was good. They watched with wide eyes as Elias was trying to get up and their hands trembled, not sure where to support him.

He extended a hand and they took it, placing their other hand under his armpit. They used all their strength (which was not totally insignificant) to pull Elias to his feet and then turned 180 degrees so they were aligned with him. They draped his hand over their shoulder and held onto it, then took hold of his side. His tallness had been a thing of awe before, but now it was quite a bother. “Okay, we should go, to the … to the clinic.” There were things to help him there. They swallowed thickly and tried one step. “Can you … can you manage?”

_____

Every step was like stepping on knives. Every step felt as if he were trying to make his way through hardening concrete. His vision was tunneling again, and Elias knew that he didn’t have long before he’d be completely useless to Wynne. “Trying.” He forced out, voice hoarse and mangled. He couldn’t talk, he had to conserve what little energy he had to make it to the clinic. It felt like years, the walk to the clinic. It felt like a great trek, like he was walking up mount doom to throw the ring into the volcano. This was his Mordor. And dammit, if Frodo could do it, then so could he.

Finally, they’d made it to the clinic, and everything Elias was using to get himself there with Wynne’s aid left of him. The second he’d reached inside, his body collapsed as he went unconscious once again, the pain too great for him to keep holding on. The blood loss and the pain culminated into a hellish existence, and all Elias wanted to do was sleep. He had to sleep.

_____

They made it. Eventually they made it to the clinic, that so-called safe haven where Regan had offered them shelter. Wynne grew winded but it was nothing compared to what they imagined Elias to be feeling and so they powered through. Teeth grit, eyes forward, breaths inhaled and exhaled with a steady rhythm. Wasn’t it always easiest for them to exist when they were being relied on, anyway? When there was someone look at them for a purpose. Now they had a purpose and it was to get Elias away from the banshees roaming around.

They made it and Elias fell down, eyes fluttering up but not seeing anything. They let out a mangled sound and looked outside, hoping the sound of the large man falling down hadn’t alerted any of the banshees. They spent a good minute barring the door and then rushed over to Elias, turning him on his back and taking a closer look at what had been done to him. Done to him. Someone had done this to him and left him there and Wynne had no idea how to solve this.

Their hands trembled again and they scrambled for the fallen t-shirt, pressing it against the gushing wound again. In their mind it was Padrig who reminded them to be calm. To be calm is essential. And it was. It was. They breathed in and out and got up, eyes scanning around the room. This was a clinic. There were bandages. There were things to clean wounds, there had to be. Dr Kavanagh was a good doctor. She had made Cass better when she’d been hurt, so she would have the stuff. She had to have the stuff.

There were books with things like First Aid: what to do in emergencies! on them, but also books titled First Aid: how to preserve bones in case of fracture and Worm First Aid, which made them worry maybe they weren’t reliable. So they pulled out their phone and Googled ‘what to do with stab wounds’.

Wikihow gave a to do list. That was good. Wynne tried to read it while gathering supplies. One: Survey the area. They had done that already, so that was good. Two: Call for emergency help immediately. That was not an option. They did not know the Irish number to 911 and there was no way they would be able to get here on time and also they would probably also be stabbed. Three: Lay the person down or get them to sit. Okay! That was also done. Wynne scrolled a little further, past the picture of someone on their back with blood everywhere. Elias looked like that, so it was definitely a stab wound.

They hit the section about ‘Attending the stab wound’, which was where they had to be. Wynne searched for disposable gloves because those were needed. Regan definitely had those and soon enough they found them, blue gloves peeled over their fingers. They then went over what WikiHow called ‘ABC’s’, rushing over to Elias to check if he was breathing and also pumping blood. He definitely was. There was a pool of blood spreading onto the ground below him. WikiHow told them to take off the clothes (already done) and to take out the knife (already done) and to stop the bleeding (definitely not done).

They speed-read through some of the article, gathering the supplies it told them they needed. Clean towels and bandages, something to disinfect the wounds, dressings and something called a ‘suture kit’. They wobbled back to Elias with their tower of supplies, changed their gloves once again because they were afraid they had gathered some kind of banshee dirt and knelt down.

There was a short moment where the air froze, where they looked at everything in front of them and wanted to do nothing but burst into tears. But there was Regan’s voice, too, telling them to demand better. They demanded better than Elias succumbing to wounds in a banshee clinic. And so Wynne got to work. They wrapped one towel tightly around Elias’ arm and then another around his shoulder, trying to give more pressure as they focused on the main problem. His gut. They peeled away the shirt, blood clinging and stringing away from it and they tried not to worry about all the blood he was losing. They tried to be single minded. To remember their purpose. Wynne was a person with a purpose. Once they were destined to die to save their community and today they had to try and save Elias by walking through the surgical fire.

So they tried. They cleaned the wound and kept their tears in their eyes. They Googled how to pack a wound because they didn’t understood what it meant and then did that, lips trembling but their eyes still dry. Calm, as not only Padrig demanded them to be, but the situation did too. They put down a dressing that fit once the wound was packed, taping it extra because they weren’t sure it was good enough. They breathed in. Out. In. And moved onto the arm. Then the shoulder.

And as they breathed Elias breathed too and as long as he did, Wynne would not tip over the edge. Even if blood covered their knees and hands and face, even if they wanted nothing but to howl and cry. When they spoke to him again after what felt like an eternity their voice was a whisper. “I’m sorry.” For what, they weren’t sure. Perhaps for not being better at this. For this being all there was. For having given in to this idea, to this journey to Ireland. For not having stopped whatever this was. “Please.” In that case, they were sure what they were begging for. A miracle.

_____

After Wynne had attended to Elias’s wounds, time passed. He still drew breath, but that was the extent of it. He was pale and unmoving with a contorted expression of pain on his face. While his body pleaded for death, for release from the pain. But it never came. Instead, the pain continued in the dreamless, fitful rest. Seconds turned to minutes turned to hours. When Elias’s eyes fought to open, it was dark. He couldn’t get himself to open his eyes. He was so groggy that it felt as if he were in a fog. Then, he finally opened his eyes. The pain was excruciating, but he was alive. He’d made it. “Wynne?” He croaked out, noticing them sitting nearby.

“I should be dead.” He decided aloud, brows pinching together in confusion. They already felt a need to close their eyes again, lids heavy. “Regan…” he tried to say, the words becoming more and more hard to get out. “Grandmother. Tortured.” he couldn’t continue speaking. Instead, he closed his eyes and allowed himself to go back to the land of sleep. A dreamless, fitful slumber to repair the damage that had been done. “‘M sorry.” He forced out, eyes still closed.

_____

Once they thought they’d done everything they good they peeled off their gloves, disposed of them in a tiny, bloody heap on the floor and pulled their knees up to their chin. Wynne rocked back and forth, a tear breaking through a smudge of blood on their face as they stared at Elias. This should be when they texted Teddy or Emilio, to tell them that they had to come, no matter the cost — or that maybe they should forget about them. This should be where they ran out and grabbed Nora and ran to the edge of this place and on and on and on and fulfilled their promise to Emilio.

But they remained rocking back and forth, staring at Elias and willing him to open his eyes. They had a duty and a purpose and this time they would not leave before it was fulfilled. When he finally did stir a sound of relief (that sounded a lot like a sob) was pushed from their throat. “Elias,” they said, moving over on all fours. He said Regan’s name and their stomach sank — was she hurt too? Was she bleeding out elsewhere? But then he tacked on the word grandmother, and it made a little more sense. “Tell me later, okay? You can tell me some other day. You can – when you feel better.” When, not if. “It’s okay. Just stay — just stay with me, okay?” They pulled back the blanket they had put over him, seeing that the dressings still looked considerably white and pulled it back to his chin. “Don’t be sorry.”

_____

Forcing a tight smile, Elias looked up at Wynne. “Make a good nurse,” he mumbled through waves of sleep. He was grateful that Wynne had been there, that Wynne had saved his life. He didn’t know how they did it, but they did. “Thanks.” He forced out, giving a pained half smile before closing his eyes again, sleep threatening to take him once more. He was just so tired. Everything was exhausting right now.

He was relieved when Wynne bid him not to talk about it, and he nodded his head once, then winced at the pull of the muscles around his shoulders. He never really paid attention to how much pain he could cause from such a simple motion. “‘M not going anywhere.” He reassured Wynne, cracking open an eye to give a wry smile. “‘M a stubborn motherfucker.” The swear came easier from his lips, something he was hesitant with in the past.

Everything felt like it was in slow motion, as if time wasn’t moving correctly. What should have been a minute felt like an hour to him. He wanted to find Regan, he wanted to help. But if he tried to do anything, he’d be a burden and nothing more. “Gonna rest now.” He decided, eye closing once more as he let sleep claim him once again.

_____

Protherians weren’t healers. They never had to be with the demon’s blessing. It was not up to doctors or surgeons to keep someone in good health, but their community and the unknown they revered. So they didn’t know much about these things. But they’d seen the nurses and doctors at the hospital, had seen how they washed their hands before touching Wynne’s injury, how they had patched it up.

They didn’t really know if they did a good job, though. In the hospital they’d gotten blood transfusions but they couldn’t do that here. All they had was their amateur hands and their desperate determination to not see someone die. Elias called them a good nurse. They didn’t answer his compliment by pointing out they were not good enough. They just looked at him. “I am glad you are stubborn.” For once they were. Everyone’s stubbornness had made them feel lost and angry these past days but they felt grateful now.

He seemed out of it, though. As if he was tethered to another place as well as this plane of existence. Maybe with his blood some of him had gone. “Okay. Okay. I’ll stay here. No one’s coming. Just rest — and next time —” They inhaled. “Next time you see me you’re drinking water.” Hydration was always good. Wynne rested their forehead against their knees as Elias dozed off once more.

Wynne did not sleep that night. In stead, they got one of the cots from upstairs down with an amount of noise that made their stomach sound. They got Elias on there in a way they’d prefer not to retell to him once he was properly conscious again. They scrubbed the floors with soapy water that turned an ugly shade of pink, then scrubbed their hands and nails until the blood was mostly gone. They gave Elias water. They checked his dressings. They kept him warm. They took their clothes off, balled them up and threw them away and changed into something not stained with the blood of their friend. They waited for something, anything. For Nora, for Regan, for the courage to reach out to someone back at home. They pulled their knees up to their chin, leaned against the cot and fell asleep after sunrise to the rhythm of Elias’ continued breathing.

#what dreams may come.#elias.#threads.#ireland.

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ohwynne · 23 days

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TIMING: Current PARTIES: Emilio @mortemoppetere and Wynne @ohwynne LOCATION: The kitchen table SUMMARY: Upon Wynne's decision to go to Ireland to find and bring back Nora, they and Emilio hold an Axis Academy Meeting. CONTENT WARNINGS: sibling death (past), child death (past), domestic abuse (past)

Wynne was going to Ireland. Wynne was going to Ireland because Nora was in trouble. Wynne was going to Ireland because Nora was in trouble, and Emilio couldn’t go with them. It was a swirl of information that left a pit in his stomach, anxiety thrumming with every beat of his heart. With more time, he could have thrown something together. Javier could have gotten him a fake ID convincing enough to land him an American passport, and it would have still run the risk of someone figuring out the nonexistent status of his citizenship, but it would have been doable, at least. But as things were, as the cards fell… Emilio was landlocked, and someone needed to help Nora. It couldn’t be him.

So it would be Wynne instead.

It would be Wynne, and he’d feel that knot in his stomach until they were both back. He’d feel sick to his stomach for however long it took, would avoid eating and sleeping and thinking where he could, and it wouldn’t make anything any better. He felt the same dread in his chest now that he had when he’d dragged himself to the door to his house in Mexico, when he’d barged into a living room that was both empty and full, when the stench of death had clung to every inch of him. Would he survive the trek a second time? He didn’t think it was possible. He couldn’t imagine it.

Powerlessness wasn’t something he dealt with well. He liked to feel some semblance of control, even when it was imagined. So, he’d invited Wynne here to pretend like he could offer them enough advice to save them. He let himself believe, for an instant, that he could make some kind of a difference, even if he knew it wasn’t true. He pretended his chest wasn’t tight and his throat didn’t ache. He was good at pretending.

“You’ll need to talk to people,” he was saying, and he watched the conversation as if he was a third party, as if he wasn’t the one speaking. “To find out where she is. It won’t be easy. They won’t want to tell you. They never do. But you can pick up on the little things. Fae can’t lie easily, but they can avoid saying the truth. So sometimes, you have to focus on what they’re not saying. Makes sense?”

—

They weren’t sure.

Maybe that was to be the byline of their life, the very thing that everything always circled back to. They weren’t sure. They weren’t sure if they should have left the commune, if they should have abandoned their fate. If they had done something good by returning and bringing destruction and finality. If it was the right decision to wear these trousers today, if that text they had sent had been right, if they should go back to Moosehead sometime soon or if they never should.

Wynne was never sure, their inner world a war of turmoil and conflict. But there were external forces and those they trusted. People who said they had good judgment, Elias who wanted to do this with them and Regan, perhaps most importantly of all, who had told them to demand things.

So they were going to Ireland. They were going to the place Regan had come from, the place that had to be similar to the home they’d abandoned as there had been plenty of confusion. They were going to Nora, because she had gotten caught up in the entire mess. They were going to try and do what Dr Kavanagh had done for them, even if it was perhaps ill-advised, if their gut churned at the prospect. But someone had to go get Nora, didn’t they? Someone had to try and do something.

No one had ever done something for them, back at home. They had all waited the days as they had, anticipating the moment where Wynne wrist’s would be bound and their throat would be slit. They didn’t know what it was like for banshees, but they knew the weight of duty was heavy when perhaps it didn’t have to be.

But they weren’t going to go unprepared. They were asking advice from every person who could, and one of the wisest people they knew was more than obliging to help. Emilio, who was not only a slayer but also an investigator. Elias and Wynne had some investigating to do, as they had no idea where to find the banshee hideout, and so they turned to him. If he could solve crime and murder, he could help with this.

They just wished he could come along. They hated the government.

“Okay,” they said, pulling up their legs. Wynne popped a finger in their tea, testing the temperature and sucking the liquid off their finger. “What kind of things should I try and focus on? I’m not always the best at discerning truth from lie.” They were quite bad at it, actually, and they both knew it. “Would be good to try and think of questions beforehand, to prepare? I can do that. Maybe that would be better.” They swirled the same finger around the tea.

—

When vampires stormed his front door and bled his family dry in his living room, Emilio wasn’t there. There had been so much chaos out in the streets, and he’d been out when it started. He’d been with Rosa, who’d died inches from his face, had tried to help Edgar, who’d bled out just a few feet away from him, had gone to his mother, who was dead before he got there. He wasn’t home when Juliana’s throat was slit, wasn’t present when Flora’s neck snapped. He thought about that sometimes. Or all the time, or only in the moments when he couldn’t avoid it, or all of that at once. It got jumbled up in his head, sometimes, like a puzzle whose pieces kept shifting, but he always knew that he wasn’t there when it happened.

Sometimes, he thought that this meant bad things happened when he wasn’t around to stop them. Other times, he remembered the blood on Rosa’s lips or the way Edgar fell so close that Emilio could have reached out and brushed their fingertips together on his way to the ground, and he knew that bad things happened when he was around to stop them, too. He didn’t know which was worse — to be present and powerless, or to arrive only in the aftermath and wonder what you could have done to prevent it.

Right now, he felt like he was doing a little of both. He wasn’t in Ireland with Nora, couldn’t be, but he was here with Wynne. He was giving them advice, he was doing something, and he wondered if it would be enough. Was he helping to save Nora, or was he setting himself up to lose them both? Was he present and powerless, or was he dooming himself to the questions that came in the aftermath?

He stared at his coffee on the table, untouched and certainly cold by now. He’d only managed to smell it before the nausea settled like a stone in his stomach, and he couldn’t imagine drinking it now. “When they give you a direct answer, focus on what’s missing from it. When they answer you with a question, try to… take it apart. Figure out what’s underneath.” Rhett, he thought with a pang, would be better at this. Rhett, who understood fae better than Emilio ever could. Rhett, who was gone now. The nausea tugged at his gut again, and he swallowed.

Humming, he nodded thoughtfully. “List of questions is good,” he agreed. “And a game plan. Have some things prepared, I think. Like… a name. You should give them a fake name. Hard to come up with that kind of thing on the spot, so you should do it now. Practice saying it, practice introducing yourself.”

—

When they had ran from the estate, they had not even crossed the state line. Not initially, anyway — there had been that short stint in New Hampshire, but it had hardly been a world away. But it had felt like it. To no longer see the shores of Moosehead lake felt like they had traveled to another kind of world. And they had, hadn’t they? They had gone from the commune to that place outside. The place condemned and spat on, the place thought of too removed from all that was good and sacred, the place they would not ever thrive in.

But they’d ventured in that outside world, even if it was just a fraction of it. They’d hopped from town to town without a permanent roof over their head, seeing things they could have never imagined — bright candy wrapped in brighter plastic, sold for only cents, but also vampires and other creatures. And now they were bound to take a plane to a different country.

Wynne was suffocating with the size of the world. It was incomprehensible to them, how much was out there. For twenty years, their world had been as big as the lake their commune had stood on the edge of. The only times they’d ever left it was for small bike rides along the shore, never far enough to make a difference. But now — now they were going to cross an ocean in a metal construction that defied gravity and they didn’t know how a person was supposed to do this. If a person was supposed to.

Nora and Regan had done it, though. Plenty of others had done these kinds of things just for fun, too! It seemed like this was what people in the outside world (which Wynne was now inside of) did. Of course, not all of this was part of the regular human experience. That was why Emilio was helping.

Something unspoken hung in the air. They wanted to repeat what they’d said before: I wish you could come with. In stead they scribbled something with their pen before writing down what Emilio was telling them. Not that they’d forget — it just seemed smart to do.

“Okay. Should I assume everyone lies?” Wynne didn’t like that, but they were so very bad at discerning truth from lies. They trusted the wrong things, distrusted the wrong ones. Why were people so intent on making everything so hard to grasp?

And Emilio was suggesting that they lie too, which was understandable in this case. They were trying to infiltrate a place, to go against whatever rules there were. It was also probable that Dr Kavanagh did not want to be found, so it would be best if she didn’t know a Wynne was looking for her. “I like to be prepared. I can do that.” They dug around their mind for names, stumbled upon one. “Alys. Does that sound okay? I’m Alys.”

They wrote down the name, underlining it with thick lines. “I wish you could come.” They waited a beat, before adding: “Stupid government.” They hoped that would keep Emilio from blaming himself.

—

Control was a thing that hunters were taught, at an early age, was almost impossible to achieve. His mother had been especially fond of reminding her children of this, often throwing them into situations in which they forfeited all control from the very start. The shed had been a tried and true method of it, the locked door and undead enemy a stark reminder of who was in charge. Often times, he still heard her voice in the back of his mind, still heard the sharpness of it. A weapon has no say in how it is used or in whose hands it falls into. Neither do you. It’s better if you accept that now, isn’t it?

And he had, hadn’t he? He’d come to accept that lack of control, even if he’d hated it. He’d had little choice in the matter, little way of saying no. He did what his mother told him to do, he killed what she told him to kill. What was the alternative? What other choice did he have? He’d known no other life, no other way of being. A weapon couldn’t turn its head away from the carnage, and neither could Emilio. He had no control, no say.

He still didn’t. Even now, with years and countries separating him from his mother’s corpse, he wasn’t in control of his own life, his own actions. He couldn’t stop Kavanagh from ‘accepting her duty’ and leaving the country, though he’d stopped trying in the end. He couldn’t stop Nora from sneaking along for the ride, from landing herself in a world of trouble where Emilio couldn’t reach her. He couldn’t stop Wynne from going after her, though he wasn’t sure he wanted to. If Nora needed help, Emilio trusted Wynne to provide it to her.

But he couldn’t go with them. And that stung more than anything, felt like the worst absence of control he’d felt in a long, long time. He couldn’t go, couldn’t protect either of them, and wasn’t that just Mexico all over again? Wasn’t he still in that goddamn living room, even now? He’d never hated that familiar lack of control more than he did in this moment, with Wynne looking to him for advice because advice was all he could give them.

“Yes,” he confirmed. “Everyone is probably going to try to fool you.” He wondered how much control those banshees had over the area surrounding their aos si. Did they have the locals bound to protect their secrets? Would everyone Wynne met be an enemy? Would they be able to recognize it? Again, Emilio hated the fact that he couldn’t go with them, hated himself for the inability to do so even if there was nothing he could do to change it.

He tried to distract himself, nodded along as they settled on a name to give. “Alys,” he repeated. “It’s a good name. Practice it. Make it feel natural to say.” He didn’t know if the banshees would expect for anyone to be coming or not, but if they were, it would be good to make sure Wynne wasn’t found out. If something happened to them, or to Nora… Emilio couldn’t let himself think on it too long. He felt sick at the idea.

His stomach churned again as Wynne said what he was thinking, lamenting that they wished he could come along with them. He wanted it, too, wanted to be there as if his presence would make any kind of a difference. “Ah, I’d fuck it up,” he replied, pretending the words didn’t taste like ash on his tongue.

—

Leaving had always been considered an act of defiance. People didn’t leave their former commune, and when they did they were shunned and hardly spoken of. They were traitors, defectors and they were not worth their consideration. Wynne had heard rumors of one or two having been met with violence on the outside, though whether that reprimand had come at the hands of Protherians or other people, they never knew. All it did was reassure them that leaving was wrong and dangerous.

But they had left and they had lived. They had grown. It made them wonder where those other deserters had ended up. If they’d struggled like them, with phones and internet and the way people spoke, how inconsiderate they were. Had they left for similar reasons as them, because they couldn’t face the human sacrifices? Or had it been something else?

Maybe it didn’t matter. It was the past now — they had left and had no intention of returning again. And now they were leaving again, but with all the intention of returning. They weren’t running from something this time, but towards two people who they’d grown to care for. So how could leaving be bad, if it could be these things? An act of self-preservation or perhaps even self-love, or in this more recent case, an act of care or perhaps even love.

Leaving was hard, though. It always ways, as proved by Emilio and them sitting in this kitchen and their stomach feeling as tight as a rock.

Wynne listened with great care, similar to how they’d once listened to their elders. Knowing that whatever the other said was true and said for their own benefit, that to listen was to learn and to learn was to be wise. And though they tried not to blindly idolize Emilio (which was made easier because he was sometimes glaringly wrong or hypocritical), they hung onto every word he said.

“Okay. Then I’ll assume the worst and hope for the best. I saw that somewhere once and I think it might be a good motto.” They wrestled with their feelings for a moment. “I think I could fool them, maybe. Fool them back. Someone thought I was a banshee before. Or was supposed to die for banshees. I’m not sure. I can try and be cunning.”

They mouthed the name Alys quietly, glad that Emilio approved. Would they have picked that name, had they changed their name? Wynne didn’t think so — Alys was someone from back home, someone they felt angry about. But maybe that would help motivate them to help Regan. Maybe there was someone like Alys at her place, too.

They shook their head, resolute. “No, you wouldn’t. You’d be brilliant. And it’d be nice to see Ireland with you and Nora after all is over. We could go see some things. I think they make good whiskey there.”

—

It was difficult for Emilio not to catastrophize. It always had been, though the massacre had made it much worse. He looked at a situation and saw nothing but worse case scenarios. There were no silver linings, no small moments of hope. Ophelia told him Rhett was gone, and he wrote his brother’s eulogy in the back of his mind even as his niece made plans to find him, even as she insisted he must still be alive. Regan told him she had to leave, even if she did not want to, and he shrugged his shoulder and sent her on her way even as Nora snuck into her luggage and went along for the ride as one last desperate attempt to save her. Wynne announced that they were going after their friends, and a small voice in the back of Emilio’s head insisted that they wouldn’t come back, even as he answered their questions and tried to prepare them for the journey ahead.

His chest was so full of tombstones that it was a wonder his heart found room to beat, sometimes. It was a wonder his lungs could expand at all, a miracle he hadn’t suffocated beneath rows and rows of granite. He mourned people before they were gone; he didn’t know how not to. Because he looked at Wynne, sitting across from him with wide eyes that carried a little too much faith in him, and they reminded him of his daughter. He looked at Wynne, and he saw so much of Flora there that every part of him ached. He saw her in Nora, too, sometimes. It made it harder to believe that things would turn out, made it seem impossible that this would be any different than that, because he looked at these people who he loved and a dead girl stared back at him. He looked at these kids he wanted so badly to protect, and there was already a ghost hidden behind their eyes.

He liked to pretend it made it easier. That expecting the catastrophe made it go down a little smoother, that breathing around gravedirt got easier with practice, but it didn’t. Every time the worst happened, it felt like the world was ending. Rhett was gone, and it hurt just as badly as it had when he was twelve years old and mourning Victor. Nora and Wynne were planting themselves firmly in the midst of a wildfire in hopes of pulling out someone who’d walked into the flames with her arms wide open, and the panic pulled at him just as harshly as it had when he’d been crawling through the bloodied streets of San Agustín Etla in search of people he’d known were dead already. Grief didn’t get any easier with practice. Every time that blade found your skin felt like the first time. Every ache was brand new.

Wynne was speaking, and Emilio had to pull himself out of the dirt to hear them properly, had to shake the granite from his ears. Assume the worst and hope for the best. It might have been a decent motto, were hope not such a dangerous thing. Hope, Emilio thought, would get you killed quicker than any bullet, any knife, any banshee’s scream. It was a noose around your neck, patiently waiting for the moment the ground dropped from beneath your feet. “Maybe just assume the worst,” he said gruffly. “I don’t know if hope is what we need here.”

Could Wynne fool them? They were smart; Emilio had seen that much. His mouth felt dry, anyway, and he shrugged. “Pretend to be a banshee. One that hasn’t screamed yet. Not — Not a sacrifice.” If they pretended to be that, he couldn’t be sure that no one would take them up on it. “Just… talk about bones or something. I don’t know.” He wished he were better at this. He wished Rhett were here, even if he knew Rhett’s solution would be to storm the aos si and kill everyone there. He wished Rosa were alive, even if she’d wanted him dead in the end. He wished he had someone to lean on, someone older who might know more than he did. But everyone was dead now, weren’t they? Everyone Emilio loved had already died for his sins. And now, he felt as if he was sending Wynne to die for Regan’s. What did that make him?

Wynne was trying to reassure him, and the smile he offered them was blank and empty and didn’t come close to meeting his eyes. “I’m not good at things like this, kid.” At saving people, at rescue missions. Emilio usually arrived when the carnage was finished, when the bodies were on the floor or the limbs had already been removed. He’d made a habit of showing up too late if he showed up at all. He didn’t look at the scar on Wynne’s throat, but it was a near thing. They made plans for a vacation when they got back with Nora; Emilio dug more graves in the hollows of his chest. “They won’t let me back in the country if I leave,” he replied. With more time, he knew he could get a convincing fake, but… the idea of going to Ireland, after all this, made his stomach churn. He’d rather do anything else, rather never see or hear of another banshee again. It was hard not to go back to that factory in his mind, to Rhett’s blood on the floor and his leg lying separate from his body. Even if Wynne did find Nora and bring her home, how many pieces would she be in? How many would Wynne? He felt sick.

“Don’t give too much away,” Emilio said, pushing past the thoughts. “Cards to the chest, yes? Let them think you’re not a threat until you need to be one.” Better to keep to the lessons, to keep himself from being distracted. He’d drown otherwise, and what use would he be then?

—

When they had left before, they had done so in silence and secret. It had been a spur of the moment thing. They had not planned it, not consciously, but in the back of their mind they’d gathered the small nuggets of information they’d needed. They had remembered, in precise detail, where there were buses in the towns spread around the lake. They had remembered which direction to go. They had remembered where to break in. They had made a mental checklist of things they’d have to do if they were to really, truly leave and they had checked it all off that night they’d ran.

Was it better, then, to plan ahead? The flurry of things to take care of these past days was overwhelming and though Wynne felt supported, they already felt exhausted from the work that had to be done prior to getting on that plane and attempting to find where Nora and Regan had gone off to.

And they weren’t going alone this time and they weren’t running away from something, but all of it still reminded them of those days. Even when sat across from Emilio. If they were to draw a parallel line between who he was compared to the people in their life before, they ended drawing one to where their father had once stood. Not the father who had been proud of them for being an inevitable sacrifice, but the father who had laughed with them, who had indulged them, who had sat in a boat on the lake with them and fished, shown them how to gut it after and make sure the fishbone was all out so neither of them would choke on it later. Who had taught them how to dance, once. Who had sang during long, laborious tasks and liked to sing harmony with Wynne, whenever they helped out.

But their own father would never have done this. If they had told him that they were leaving that night, he would have taken hold of both their wrists and woken their mother. He would have dragged them back to their bedroom and their mother would have bolted the door shut and he would have sat there, with his solid back against the closed door. His brusque voice vibrating against the wood. Disappointed and angry, like he had always been whenever Wynne had expressed an inch of doubt or concern. He would not have sat with them at the kitchen table and thought of the best approach. He would not have guided the way.

So maybe Emilio did not the inhabit the space of their father — maybe just a father. The concept of it, the shape of it, the silhouette that had been created by expectation and norm. The person Gareth had been at times, but not when it mattered.

They didn’t say these things out loud, didn’t address the parallels their mind drew. Maybe it was just their mind, connecting dots in a way to contextualize things, after all. And besides, Emilio already was a father, even if his daughter had died. To think of themself as in any way or shape similar to Flora out loud would be unforgivable. So they didn’t say it out loud. They tried not to think of their father at the kitchen table, preparing the fish they’d caught together. They tried to think of Regan and Nora and the plane, of their cup of tea.

They took a sip. It had gone cold. “Okay. Okay, I can do that. That’s what … that’s what she thought I was.” Wynne wasn’t sure what it all meant, to not have screamed yet, but they could imagine a few rituals. If the banshees were really as keen on sacrifice as Siobhan had made it seem, maybe they could use their knowledge and experience for once. “I know a lot about bones. I could take some. Unless those are not allowed on planes also.” A lot of things weren’t allowed on planes, apparently. Maybe whatever kept them in the air could not handle sharp things or bottles filled with a lot of liquids, they weren’t really sure. “Then I will find some. I think … if I speak about death as I was taught, maybe it will help.”

There was something so very sad about the way Emilio spoke of himself. They were quiet for a moment, wondering if they had the courage and energy to fight him. Maybe Emilio wouldn’t be good at talking to Regan about all of this, but he’d be good at getting Nora out of there. He’d be good at facing the violence and danger, should they meet any. They hoped they wouldn’t. They weren’t allow to bring any of the knives they’d been gifted over the past year, so that would be an issue. “I know,” they murmured, “I just meant … if you could. Then we could do that. But now … we will do something when we get back.”

Wynne nodded at his advice. They were glad for their strong memory. They might write things down later, but for now their attention was on Emilio. “I won’t.” The idea of them being a threat was a little laughable, and they pushed their lips together. “Should I let them … underestimate me? Is that what you mean?” They knew what they looked like. They saw it in the mirror. Frail and wide eyed, like they were always in a state of shock (as they often were), like a deer in headlights. “I can do that.”

—

He didn’t know much about banshees and their traditions. Even Rhett, who Emilio used to consider a walking dictionary on all things fae, knew less about banshees than he had nymphs or faun. In all honesty, Emilio had learned more about banshees in the last year than he had throughout the rest of his life combined. Through conversations with Regan, and her strange interests. Through interactions with Siobhan that he tried not to think about but couldn’t forget. It was the latter that had plagued him since Nora’s announcement that she was surrounded by them. While Regan often stated that she wasn’t what a banshee ought to be, Siobhan seemed confident that she was the prime example of one. And if that was the sort of thing Nora was surrounded by now, if that was whose guest room she was sleeping in…

Emilio tried not to think of the factory, though he’d thought of little else since Nora’s announcement. For a while, he’d let himself believe he was getting better. Rhett was gone now, dead or missing depending on who you asked, and as much as it ached, it also offered a terrible escape from the constant reminder of what had happened. There was no more glancing to the empty space where his leg used to be and finding himself transported, no more involuntary time travel to the stench of blood and infection clinging to concrete walls. For a while, he’d been convinced that he was over it. It had been stupid. Now, sitting at his kitchen table and doing his best to ignore the corner of the room that had transformed itself into an abandoned factory with blood splattered on the ground, Emilio wondered if he’d ever gotten over anything in his goddamned life.

He didn’t think he’d get over this. If something happened, if he sent Wynne to Ireland and they didn’t come back, or if Nora didn’t… There was only so much a man could take, wasn’t there? There was only so much a person could lose. If something happened to Nora or Wynne or both, if he lost his —

He couldn’t think about it. He couldn’t let himself assign the word to them here. If he did, he thought, nothing would stop him. He’d swim the damn ocean, he’d force his way onto a plane, he’d steal Teddy’s stupid boat, he’d go to Ireland and he’d fuck things up the way he had in Mexico, would watch history repeat itself with a new set of bloody streets and a new living room floor. Wynne was better than he was, he knew. They stood a better chance at getting in undetected and getting Nora out without a fight. If Kavanagh came with them, it would be good. But if she didn’t, that would have to be okay, too.

Plenty of people were worried about Kavanagh, who had planned on leaving for months before she was gone, who, from what Emilio could tell, would be welcomed back into her community like a lost sheep come home. Kavanagh had a lot of people in her corner, and that was fine. She deserved that. But Emilio needed to be in Nora’s. In Wynne’s. In the corner of two kids who were used and discarded by everyone who was supposed to look out for them throughout their lives.

Right now, being in Wynne’s corner meant empowering them. It meant teaching them what he could, meant letting them do things on their own. And that was hard. He’d only just been getting to that stage of things with Flora, who was growing into independence the way toddlers always did. Back then, it had seemed an impossible task to sit by and watch as she insisted on putting her shoes on by herself, struggling with it but refusing help all the same. This felt like the same thing turned up to eleven. He knew Wynne was capable of it, knew they could talk about bones and death and fool the banshees in Ireland into thinking they were a scream away from being one of them the same way he knew Flora would manage to pull the shoe onto her foot eventually. But his fingers itched to do more, anyway. He wanted to do more.

“I don’t know what’s allowed on planes,” he admitted. “But I think… It’s a good idea, the bone talk. They, uh… They like bones. The ones I’ve met.” He felt a little sick, the thought pulling him right back to that warehouse with Siobhan. “And death. Don’t mention the thing with your family, don’t — Don’t give them any… ideas.” If anyone got wind that Wynne had been a day away from sacrifice, he didn’t think it would end particularly well. And after everything they’d been through, he couldn’t stomach the thought of anyone trying to make them believe that their family had been right in their beliefs, that Wynne was little more than a lamb who’d missed out on the slaughter. They were so much more than that. They deserved to know it.

He wondered if, in some other world, they would have done what Wynne was suggesting now. If, in some universe where things were simpler, him and Wynne and Nora and Teddy would get on a plane and go on some grand vacation, with swimsuits and hotel bars and a lightness he didn’t think any of them had ever felt before. Would he like that? Would he know how? It was hard to imagine a world where he didn’t feel as heavy as he did now. But… maybe he could try to shrug off some of that weight. If, by some miracle, things turned out okay here, if Nora and Wynne both came back and no one was dead, maybe they’d take some trip somewhere. It sounded so impossible; Emilio’s mind was so stuck on the worst case that it felt wrong to imagine anything else.

But Wynne was making plans. Wynne was promising they’d do something when they got back with Nora like it was a given. And even if Emilio couldn’t hold on to hope, he wouldn’t take theirs away. He offered his best attempt at a smile, tight and unsteady. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Might be warmer out then.” It was funny, the way he had no idea what to suggest. There was the beach, but Teddy’s relationship with water was so strained now and Emilio didn’t want to push it. There were hiking trails, but it was a tossup on whether or not his bad leg would give out before they managed to finish one. There was the stupid amusement park, which might have been the most annoying but safest bet, though Emilio had a feeling he was likely to punch someone. If they went to the zoo, Nora would almost definitely find a way to unlock at least one of the cages. Holding on to those thoughts felt a lot better than thinking about what lay between him and having to make those plans, so he clung to them. He imagined Nora at the zoo and Wynne at the beach and pretended there was no dark corner of his mind that couldn’t stop picturing the pair of them dead in Ireland.

Carefully, he nodded. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Yes. That’s the word. Let them think you’re nothing to worry about.” It was a strategy Emilio often employed. He caught a vampire glancing at his bad leg during a fight, he played it up. He let them get in close to target it, and he made it the last thing they ever did. He wasn’t sure Wynne would be killing any banshees — he didn’t particularly want them to try unless it was absolutely necessary — but that didn’t mean they shouldn’t be able to take them by surprise. “And… The most important thing is to be careful. To look out for yourself. I need you to do this, Wynne.”

—

It happened often these days, that Wynne would lie in bed at the end of a day and go over everything they’d experienced since they had arrived in Wicked’s Rest. Sometimes they did so with wonder, but most of the time it was done with exhaustion. There were sources of contentment in this town – like the kitchen table they sat at now – as well as sources of happiness, purpose, love. But there were the dark corners, too. The barn. Ariadne’s time missing. The hole opening in the ground, a claw coming out. Their brother.

Sometimes all of it would gather in their chest and press down on them, making it hard for them to breathe while just laying there. Feeling the same kind of terror and exhilaration they had felt when they had been running from home, but immobilized at the same time. They would have a night like that tonight again, they were certain of it. Where they’d go over all their moments with Nora and Dr Kavanagh.

In those moments, their mind would travel down a darker path of what if. What if they had stayed in the commune and none of this would have happened, none of these stories would have had them in them? What if this was what they had always meant about the outside world, that it was dangerous and wild, that none of them had a place there? What if it was all wrong, no matter how many times they were told they had been right to run? Maybe they shouldn’t be here — not in Wicked’s Rest, not in Maine, not anywhere.

But then there was the kitchen table in Teddy and Emilio’s home. There was Ariadne in their bed. There was Nora’s bravery. There was Van and her bright clothes on her skateboard. Cass showing them movies. Metzli talking about art. There was all the music they hadn’t heard before and would listen to. There was the sea, which they hadn’t seen before they had come here. There were fizzy drinks and brightly colored candies. There were stacks and stacks of wonderful moments.

And there was purpose and duty. To themself, to their friends. If this life was a second chance, they could not squander it on regret and passivity. They could not do what those who had failed them had done — sit by, watch and wait for disaster to strike. Nora and Regan needed help, even if they didn’t seem willing to acknowledge or accept it. Emilio could help them. Maybe that was their new duty – to aid. They could never be a hunter the way Emilio was, but they could do something similar, couldn’t they?

It was all solidifying and though tonight they’d be overrun with fatigue and doubt, they felt more secure in it now. They drained their cold tea.

“I will ask Google,” they said. “But there are bones everywhere. It should be okay.” Wynne was quiet for a moment and nodded. “I know. Maybe — maybe they will think I betrayed fate, or something like it.” Because they had, hadn’t they? Or they hadn’t. It didn’t make sense. Fate, to them, seemed like a flimsy thing. That wasn’t something they’d say in front of banshees, though. They’d tried to talk about fate with Teagan, but it hadn’t led to a lot — everything she’d said had either not sat well with them or just contradicted what they thought fate was. The things that mattered were decisions and actions. And so they were deciding to take action. Even if it would make it hard for them to breathe.

That was why they were making plans for what was to come after. There had to be an after. For so much of their life, they had not thought about an after, as there had been none. There was their impending end and then whatever came after was up to that higher power. They hadn’t made plans because there were no plans to make — but Wynne was determined to return with Nora and perhaps even Regan in tow, and to add more good experiences in town. “We can laze around on the beach as some people do,” they said, “And get ice creams. I could learn to make cocktails and then we can drink them.” They were rambling. “A bonfire, too. I always like those, and more of the tourist experiences, maybe?” They gave Emilio a smile. This was a promise. This was a way of expressing that they intended to live.

There was a distinction between intending to live and not wanting to die, they knew that now. The former was action, the latter inaction. They were getting at living with intent, rather than with the fear of their evaded death. Bit by bit.

“Alright,” they said. “That should not be too hard.” They were unassuming and nervous, a frail wreck. But they were also determined. They had killed a vampire (even if kind of on accident) and had orchestrated the murder of a demon. There was a part in them that was capable, even if it seemed to slumber most of the time. Wynne was quiet for a moment. “I will. I promise. I will be careful and not stay any longer than I have to. Okay? And I will keep in touch. I can message you every chance I can, if that helps.” They eyed their empty cup, got up and flicked on the kettle. “I will. Do you want more tea?” They didn’t want to leave this place just yet, this corner of the world where they felt safe, where they could breathe, where it was home. A place they would leave, but only temporarily — as this was most of all a place to return to.

#emilio.#lessons in leaving.#threads.#ireland.

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