A/N: Thank you guys for staying on with me as long as you have. I can tell there are more than a couple repeat readers, and it means a lot. Sorry this chapter is a bit late, but I had to make sure I knew where I was going before I went so it got written out in a few different ways before finally getting finished. Warnings for violent fantasies, abuse, and Mao generally being Mao.

Laharl woke up drenched in a cold sweat with the sheets sticking to his body like an oppressive second layer of skin. He tried to breathe deeply in order to abate his panic, but his mind only told him that there wasn't enough air in the room.

There had been a river, the water a dirty brown so that it had hidden the bottom. When he'd looked into it he'd only seen his own face, so he had looked closer, wading into the water. Slowly they'd risen to the surface. Lifeless bodies. His mother, and his father. Flonne, and Etna. Lamington. He could see Mao fighting, and clawing at Kira down stream, but loosing. And when he'd looked up, she'd been there, laughing silently with her husband at her side.

He tried to swallow the bile rising in his throat but didn't manage. It ended up splattered all over the floor. Last night's dinner of pilfered beer, and rice. He groaned, and braced an arm against the night stand, so he was leaning half way out of the bed.

The second wave came like hell eating up the inside of his throat, and splashed onto the hardwood with a wet thunking sound. He hated being sick. He hated the feeling of lacking control. Especially when he was currently in the hands of a woman who would gladly use his weakness against him.

His mouth opened so that he could attempt to breathe, but more vomit came rushing out. He was starting to feel dizzy. He could feel it dripping out of his nose. Finally, when it was turning clear, and yellow, the torrent let up, and he gasped, spitting to try to rid his mouth of the taste.

Someone was giggling from the doorway. He looked up, bleary eyed from sleep and sick to see Shas.

"Don't puke up the important bits, okay?" she said happily, before turning, and bolting out the door screaming for her mother.

He groaned, and tried to stand up without stepping in his dinner. It proved harder than expected when he slipped, and fell, feet tangling in the vomit. He heard Yasurl before he saw her. Her feet hit against the flood with the hard clicks of a woman already wearing high heels at an ungodly hour in the morning.

"Shas tells me you're sick," she said as her toes came into his line of sight. As if to answer her, another wave of vomit pushed up, and passed his lips. Yasurl made a sound of disgust as Shas giggled uncontrollably.

"I'll have Vesuvius take care of you today. I have an important meeting at the office."

He curled onto his side with a groan instead of replying. Yasurl turned on her toe, and retreated the way she'd come with a harsh, "Don't touch him, Shas."

Of course, her mother's warnings didn't seem to stop her, from leaning down, and grabbing him by his hair.

"Is it because I put rat poison in your food?" she asked gently.

Laharl was pretty sure he was going to die without medical treatment if Shas was being straight with him. "You know what?" he asked. "I cannot possibly think of another thing that would do this to a person, so I'm gonna have to go with 'yeah'."

"Oh! So I shouldn't do that anymore?"

"Shas, if it has poison in the name, people are not supposed to eat it."

"You have food poisoning," Vesuvius said when he sat down next to him on the couch later that day. He was almost glad to see his uncle for once as he was getting royally sick of the wiggles, but was still too out of it to wrestle the remote out of his idiot cousin's hands.

"So Shas didn't feed me rat poison?"

"Laharl, the first effects of rat poison are hemorrhaging, and most of the time effects don't kick in for a while. You can't believe everything a child tells you."

Laharl grunted, and tried to ignore the man's biceps bumping up against his side as he grabbed the remote out of Shas' greedy little hands, and flipped over to the news. More school shootings. A rape that had been broadcast over a number of social media outlets. He groaned.

"Can we watch something that isn't either mind numbing, or telling everyone about how we'll die the minute we leave the house?"

"I can't think of anything that doesn't fall under one of those categories," Vesuvius sing songed, leaning forward to read the text scrolling along the bottom of the screen. They were a musical family apparently. Laharl was embarrassed to be related to them.

Mao broke into his room at about eight o'clock, and woke him up with a hand over his mouth. That was how Laharl made the discovery that backlit in the dark with his glasses all fogged up, Mao looked like a demented barn owl that liked to eat people.

In fact, Mao looked so murderous, that Laharl clocked him in the face before he had fully processed what was going on, and was able to control his muscle movements. Lucky for Mao he was feeling better or the other boy might have gotten covered in the chicken broth Shas had "made" him. It couldn't really be called making if she only took enough effort to open the can, and drop it in his hands.

Mao of course retaliated by shoving his knuckles up Laharl's nose. Laharl made a 'guck' sound as his head bounced off the headboard.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" he asked, holding his face with both his hands to defend against possible attacks to follow.

"I've tapped the phone lines, and bugged the house," Mao whispered emphatically. "They're trying to kill you!"

"I know that, you idiot!" Laharl hissed back.

"I don't care what you know! I'm here to rescue your ass!"

Laharl's hands fell away from his nose. He was thinking about Lamington, and Etna. There were two people already on this case.

"I'm not Harley Quinn, Batman, I can take care of the Joker myself," he said harshly. Mao blew air at his bleached out bangs, making them flutter up, and down dramatically.

"I know you little piece of shit, but sometimes Nightwing still needs to get his ass saved even after he leaves the nest, so come on before Two Face gets you?"

"You make me sound like the biggest fucking dork sometimes," Laharl said with a sigh. "Look, Mao. I don't know about this. I've got two completely legal means of getting myself out of this situation. People might take me seriously. I could get a lot of money from suing them."

"Your family members are trying to kill you, and you're thinking about money?"

"I wear my green, and silver same as you."

"And there you go sounding like a massive dork again. Come the fuck with me right now, Laharl. We're the overlords, we've gotta stick together. If we don't we'll be divided enough for the rest of the vultures out there to conquer our unprotected asses. We need to stay in each other's corners."

That was a metaphor Laharl was truly able to relate to. "We are," he said. "That's not even a question, man. But right now you're not the only person in my corner, and it's really a problem I'd like to face alone."

"Right, cool," Mao said, before picking up the lamp on Laharl's bedside table, and hitting him over the head with it.

Laharl woke up on the concrete floor of Mao's living room with Beryl standing over him.

"What are you gonna do with him?" she asked.

"Nothing I haven't done before," was the response she got from Mao who was currently out of his line of sight. Honestly, it felt like the opening cut scene to one of those action video games. Especially because Laharl was tied up, and couldn't properly move his head to look around.

"Mao, goddammit, I told you I had everything under control!" He yelled, trying to struggle.

"Don't make me use the chloroform. Not that I don't want to use the chloroform. Took a hell of a lot of effort to make it. Just that you don't want me to use the chloroform."

Mao came into view holding a buck knife. It swayed menacingly between his fore, and middle fingers, and Laharl really didn't think he had any business being on the business end of that.

"If I untie you, are you gonna kick me in the liver?" he asked.

Laharl spit at his feet. It made Beryl giggle, and shove her toes into his backside. "I don't understand why the fuck you two get off on tying up your friends, but I'm not having any of this. I am not Almaz!"

"Calm down, Jesus. You'll wake the neighbors," Mao said, kneeling down, and sawing through the rope on Laharl's wrists. "Now take this," he added, handing him a plastic bag.

It was full to the brim with scrambled eggs. Laharl took a moment to marvel at the nonsensical nature of it all.

"You'd better appreciate those too. I stayed up until like five in the morning cooking those."

"Why?"

"I know you hate eggs."

Beryl was laughing her ass off, and given the dorky smile Mao was giving her, this must have been some inside joke. He set the eggs down on the floor, and went to work untying his ankles.

"Do you wanna play some video games?" Mao asked.

"No. I need to get back."

"What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"Nothing."

"It's Stockholm Syndrome," Beryl said.

"It's not Stockholm," Laharl snapped. "I hate her, but it's better that I stay on her good side."

"Why? What will she do to you if you're on her bad side?"

"I've told you a million times, Mao!" Her hands were clawing up his back, taking hold of his hair, and dragging him down by it. "I don't wanna fucking talk about it!"

The door slammed shut behind him.

"You didn't even take your eggs!" he heard yelled after him as he started the long trek back to the nightmare house.

She opened the door just before he could. Her hair wasn't even a mess. She looked exactly the way she did going to work in the mornings, only now all she was wearing was thin, satin lingerie.

Her claws caught him across the cheek, leaving behind angry, red welts before he could even open his mouth to explain. Probably better she didn't give him the chance to try. The punishment for lying tended to involve putting his mouth to "better use".

"Sick my ass," she said, grabbing him by his scarf, and hauling him back inside. "Little liar!"

"I wasn't lying," he tried dejectedly.

"Keep digging your grave, Let's see how deep you can get." She used the momentum of their march to sling him down onto the couch. "Liars need to put their mouths to good use," she hissed, her hands slamming on either side of his head so that he was fenced in.

He felt like he was living one travesty after another, able to see the horrors to come, but unable to stop them.

"Don't you want to be a good boy, Laharl?"

That one sentence would keep him up years after he'd killed her, and chopped her body into tiny bits. He swallowed more puke that had nothing to do with any kind of poisoning, and gagged on his own throat, but it didn't help in the end.

He should have stayed with Mao. He could have lived underneath Mao's bed, and pretended he didn't exist until he withered away. Her hands were clawing up his back, taking hold of his hair, and dragging him down by it. He tried to ignore the taste of the switch slammed against his teeth.

School seemed for the first time in his life like a good thing. It was a legitimate, and inexcusable reason to leave her, and run away from the horrors that were Vesuvius being a stay at home dad, and listening to homeschooling lessons.

He never wanted to be too sick to leave that place ever again. Flonne's hand was warm on his knee as he took a drag from his cigarette, and continued to complain about his dad being dead beat enough to die on him. She looked concerned, which he didn't understand, but could accept.

He'd had no love for his father really. He was just mad about being left to the rest of his crazy family, and honestly he wanted to blame someone. His dad just happened to be easy because he'd been the scapegoat for everything since his parents' divorce.

"I wish I didn't have to go back tonight," he said, blowing smoke at the ceiling. The sink of the boys bathroom was cold against his ass, but he didn't much care. He spent an awful lot of time sitting in sinks in public restrooms.

"You could stay at my house," Flonne suggested.

"Nah. Last couple times I stayed out there was hell to pay." He really tried not to think about which hell. The ninth layer, his brain kept chanting. The pit. Last stop for eternal suffering.

Flonne made a pouty face, and leaned into his legs. "Maybe you could ask her this time. Like a good boy."

The urge to vomit was almost as bad as it had been yesterday morning. No. The last thing he wanted to be was a good boy.

"What could a call hurt?" she asked as he started shaking his head.

Everything. She was crazy. No one really knew crazy until they were being held down underneath it unable to get away. No one really knew crazy until it was ruling their life. Flonne had no possible way of comprehending. Unless he told. That little, annoying voice in the back of his head that wanted to let it all slip reminded him about that every time it came up. He could have people understand if he could just grow the balls to open his mouth, and upchuck the words.

He thought about the bruises, and the fact that he was likely to die at Yasurl's hands, and he realized he did need to make a phone call. He needed to make a call to Mao. He needed to get Mao's information, and he needed to plan ahead.

"Yeah," he said softly. "No foul no harm."

Flonne was positively beaming.

"Group project," he said. Yasurl sighed angrily on the other end of the line. "It would look weird if I didn't go."

"I know that, you brat," she snapped back.

"I'm just going to spend the night because I don't want to bother you to pick me up. It'll be late when we're done."

"Fine. Just go." she said. "But I find out you're out partying or something-"

"I know," he cut off. Because he did. He knew all to well. He could still taste the end of the switch as it pushed into his teeth.

"Good boy," she said. It left a bad taste in his mouth when she hung up.

Mao was of course late. He showed up in Beryl's pink bug, and waved at her while she blew him a kiss, and drove away.

"Are you gonna stand for that?" Laharl asked as Mao actually turned to the door.

"I guess," Mao said. "She's kinda my girlf-"

"Were you about to say girlfriend, Mao?"

Mao's eyes went saucer wide, and his grip on the little box under his arm shifted nervously. "Yeah well-"

"Well what? Spit it the fuck out, man. Are you guys being all love-y now, or something?"

"No- It's just- She bought a plug suit," Mao hissed under his breath, leaning in so that he was whispering at Laharl's nose.

"A what?"

"She cosplayed as Rei, okay?"

"Who cosplayed as Rei?" Flonne cried gleefully from behind Laharl. "Can I see? Was it cute? I bet it was cute!"

"Well sorta," Mao said in a way that Laharl knew meant he was trying to hide the fact that something weird and sexual had gone on.

"Let's get this over with so you guys can talk about stupid anime, and leave me out of it," Laharl said, turning around, and stepping back over the threshold.

"Mom," Flonne called into the kitchen, "We're going to my room."

"Okay, honey, have fun!" was called back through the open door. Laharl could smell food in the oven. It reminded him of home. Real home. Of talking to his mother while she cooked, and he wondered for a moment who was living in that empty house now.

Mao set himself up on the carpet in Flonne's bedroom, reminding everyone that despite his size, he still remained quite collapsable. Like the endless amounts of equipment he was pulling out of his little box. Wires, and wires.

"This is a recording device," he said, setting down a little plastic object about the size of his thumb.

"Like spies use?" Flonne asked.

"Is she really with you?"

Laharl waved a hand in Mao's general direction. "You met her on fight night remember?"

Mao squinted at her again, and shrugged. "I hid it in your aunt's study about a week back, and I caught some pretty juicy shit," Mao said, continuing from where he left off.

"Like what?"

"Like they're planning on staging it as a hit and run after the will is read. Like the next day, man."

"So all I need to do is postpone the will reading until I'm ready to bail the fuck out before they can touch me," Laharl said.

"Sounds cash. Only thing is you've gotta make sure they don't catch on. This lady seems like the type to keep contingency plans. I know because I'm the type."

"Takes one to know one."

Mao nodded with a savage grin. "Exactly."

They got about of hour of plotting in before Flonne's mother called for dinner. Flonne's sister was already sitting at the table looking dejected. All Laharl could really remember about her was the fact that she had some hippy name. It made him feel kind of bad as he settled into the seat next to her.

She moved to make a bit of room for him. Mao pulled up the chair on the other side of her, and Laharl noticed her leaning stiffly against the back of her seat. Like their presence made her uncomfortable. He figured that would be normal for a girl from a conservative family who was suddenly surrounded by older boys wearing dye in their hair, and dressed like they'd probably just come from a street fight.

She was eyeing the tattoo on his knuckles surreptitiously which made him anxious. He tried to shake off the feeling by rapping his fingers on the table top but that didn't do much other than make Flonne glare at the two of them.

"Shall we say grace?" Flonne's mother asked from the end of the table. The entire family held up their hands, and closed their eyes. There was left a split second for Laharl, and Mao to look at each other across the girl between them before they took deep breaths, and tried to follow suit.

Laharl ended up uncomfortably holding hands with Flonne's sister, and father, head bent over his mashed potatoes, eyes open, and looking nervously around the table at the thoughtful faces. He looked to his right, and caught the girl's eye.

She seemed to be in the same position, and the sudden moment of understanding between them, made her start to laugh softly. He smiled, and tried not to reciprocate, knowing that it would jostle the other hand he was holding. Mao made an odd noise right as the whole family said "Amen" in unison, and started to eat.

It was like a well oiled machine. Watching it made Laharl uncomfortable.

"How was school today, Ozone," Flonne's mother asked Flonne's sister. The first thing Laharl thought was, hippy name. Though in reality it's not like he had much room to talk about unusual names being as he was named after a volcanic god, and a natural disaster in one breath.

"Same as always," Ozone said.

Laharl took a huge bite of mashed potatoes, and found himself face to face with the Virgin Mary. Mao made a sound of similar discontent. Ozone laughed quietly again. Flonne's glare only deepened.

"And you, Dear?"

"I had a wonderful day, Darling," Flonne's father said happily. Laharl realized with the same discomfort that he realized he was eating off a biblical figure's face, that they were likely a "Jim Dear," and "Darling" couple. No first names allowed.

He wondered how the vows had sounded at the wedding. "And you are never to not call me by a ridiculous nickname. Honey bun will do."

"My boss called me into the office. He's talking about a raise. Honestly, I'm very excited. Though it will put us into the next tax bracket."

"That sounds wonderful, Dear. How about you Flonne?"

"Well, I wouldn't say it was the best day," Flonne said somewhat morosely, which caught Laharl off guard. He had expected from the previous conversation that they were a fake it till you make it kind of family. Honesty seemed out of place. Even more out of his expectations was that both of her parents seemed to have a caring, and accepting response.

It was like the conversations he'd had with his mother. Open, and interested. They genuinely wanted to know about her concerns. He felt kind of bad about judging them nutso for naming their kid after a layer of the atmosphere, and eating off the holy Virgin's face.

"Lamington's still under investigation." Laharl felt Ozone snort beside him. "Though I really don't know why. He's never done anything wrong. I've been praying for him, but honestly, it doesn't seem to be of any help for anyone but me. I wonder if God is testing him in some way. Perhaps this is something he needs to work through on his own. I simply hope that his good soul carries him through such adversity,"

"We can help you pray if that makes you feel better about it," her mother said, clasping one of her hands gently. Laharl looked at Mao who seemed just as baffled. Which Laharl supposed was normal. Mao had shit parents. His father never paid him any mind unless he was yelling, and his mother never talked even if she was home.

There was probably a bit of shock that came along with realizing that some people had it better. Mao had known Laharl's mother was caring. He'd seen it a couple of times honestly, but that had been along with all the shitty things. They'd been in the same boat in different ways.

"I'm sure he'll make it through," her father said. "Lamington's been through a lot of trying times before."

"Yeah, he went to college with my dad," Laharl said derisively.

"Did he?" her father asked.

"Um- yes- sir?" the formality felt odd in his mouth to the point where he heard Mao laugh at him.

"Please, call me Telle."

"And call me Elle," Flonne's mother threw in from the other side of the table.

"Cool," he said to his mashed potatoes, trying to ignore the fact that they had matching names, because honestly that really pissed him off for no reason at all.

"So what do you like doing with your time, Laharl?" Telle asked.

"Well, I guess not much these days," he tried. Sounding boring usually got you ignored, and the truth of the matter was he didn't want to tell the massively Catholic, probably far too moral man in front of him that his hobbies included stealing candy bars from liquor stores, and tagging buildings, or along the more illegal lines getting into violent underground fight clubs.

"So you don't have any hobbies?"

"Well, I supposed I do Savate, and my father used to have me enrolled in fencing classes so I'm alright with that too."

"Oh really? That sounds very interesting. What is Savate?" he asked the question more toward his wife.

"Kickboxing," Mao said. "It's just special because it's French."

"Yeah, whatever. You watch cartoons, and they're just special cause they're japanese." Mao's hands braced on the table, and his chin jut, making Laharl laugh.

"So do you go to St Henrick's as well Mao?" Elle asked.

"No. I'm just an incredibly good resource. I go to Hillside."

"Oh, Honey, that's on the other side of town."

"That's quite interesting," Telle agreed. "How would you say it is over there?"

"How you would expect a public school to be. The students don't care. The teachers care even less. Standardized testing is all that really matters, and we've got shit scores on that which means our budget's in the shitter. I could go on for hours."

"It seems like you put an awful lot of thought into this."

"I haven't got much else to think about. These peas are really good."

Elle smiled, and preened a bit.

"My sister is such a strumpet sometimes," Flonne said when the door closed behind them.

"Why do you say that?" Laharl asked, sitting down by the bed.

"She was totally hitting on you!"

"Was she?"

"Yeah, dude she was totally hitting on you," Mao threw in.

"Ew why?"

"I don't know. She likes bad boys?" Mao suggested.

"If she liked bad boys wouldn't you be the one she was hitting on?"

"You're the one who's got the tattoo."

Laharl groaned. "Tell her I'm not interested. She's like twelve."

"Probably means she's tight, man," Mao said.

"Can we please get back to the actual important shit we're here to do?"

"Yeah."

The plan, Laharl assumed was good enough by the time Mao, and Flonne had been thoroughly bored to death by his need to bang out all the tiny little details. He laid back on the bed, and went over it again, and again in his head as the two of them mooned over her figurines.

That same poster of pretty boys surrounded by roses stared out at him. The blonde's smug face seemed like a mockery of the situation as he started to drop off to sleep.

He woke up with Flonne standing over him, golden hair falling into his face.

"Woah," he said, hands moving to find purchase in the clothes of her bed.

"Mao went home."

"Yeah."

"His girlfriend came to pick him up."

"Pink?"

"Very," she said with a smile.

He made a humming sound in the back of his throat, and rolled into a sitting position. "Sorry about sleeping."

"You're tired. That's okay."

"Thanks."

"Like I said last time. No big deal."

"Yeah. Still." She was smiling. She was smiling so wide, and it made him feel something. Something like he had felt with his mother. He looked for a word in his head, but couldn't find one.

"I'm just glad you're alright for now," she said, and he kissed her again. One more time because she was so close, and it was so easy, and it had been so nice the first time. She tasted like skin, and he thought about how romance novels lied, saying everyone had their own taste. Her hands felt good on his neck. It made him want to smile, so he did. He smiled as she slid into his lap, and she smiled back.