Fon marvels at the fact he made it all the way down the mountain, with someone on his back no less. He's in pain, muscles strained and spasming, can't say if he'll manage to stand up again, but clearly as much as they've been turned into babies they haven't become babies.
He hopes.
It's something.
He tries not to be too loud with his labored breathing, making himself breathe deeply and exhale slowly. Perhaps his heartbeat won't slow down anyway and instead he'll have a heart attack, the rules of his new body are still to be determined. He doesn't want to think about it.
Skull's head lies on his lap, and he runs his hand through his hair. He ruffles pieces of rocks out of the bloodied strands, and he couldn't bear to watch but he saw enough of how they got in that state.
There's dry blood on his face too, on his fingers down his hands, and all over his neck. It must itch, but Fon doesn't dare touch it. He doesn't want to think about it.
He doesn't want to think about anything—
—about their mangled bonds and the hole where their Harmony was, about how he's short of breath still, and least of all about how stupid they look, lined up against the mountain, facing a car bigger than they can even get in, and unable to breathe the same air as the only one that can drive it.
The last one is funny. Fon's eye level with the foot of the wheel only, and he'd laugh, he would, if the sight didn't make him feel everything else stronger than amusement.
He keeps his eyes down, running his hand through Skull's hair.
"I called my men to come pick you up, if you'll allow them," Luce says somewhere at his left, and he bites the inside of his cheek to not flinch at the sound of her voice. "They can drive you back to the safe house for now, I won't be going back there. I'll ask them to stay too. You can send them back to me, but I'll ask them to stay as long as they might be needed."
Reborn won't go back there, won't show up again to any of them before a long time, if at all. Lal won't either, though she might want to take a look at that soldier of hers first and foremost. Viper and Skull wouldn't want to go back either, if they were in any capacity to make the call. They aren't.
Fon wants to glance at Viper, he does, but he's so tired, and this is going to be the longest day of his life.
"What do you say, Skull?" He bends down over him, and strokes his hair away from his face.
It's not like any of them want to go back there, Fon included. They have each a safe house of their own they could use, but they'd be hard-pressed to assure its security by themselves. They have contacts they could call and hire, but where they can be sure Luce's men are loyal to her, well.
Fon doesn't want to gamble on the fact whoever he'd call won't take advantage of his current state to stab him in the back.
Luce can frame her offer of protection as a choice as much as she wants, but it isn't.
"We can go back to the safe house, and stay only as long as we need to get back our footing. What do you say?"
Skull doesn't say anything. His eyes are lost somewhere ahead, unseeing but not empty, unbearably not empty, and Fon's glad he doesn't have to look him in the eye.
He lies still, his body stiff and tensed, and every time it jerks, every time it coils further on itself and Skull's blank face contorts in pain, he knows it's the urge to rip himself out of his skin.
Skull smooths his face again and stills, and Fon wonders how long he'll last.
He leans back, and waits for their ride to come.
Viper and Verde are the only one to come with them. They let themselves be carried in then out of the car, but walk on their own to the house. Luce's men inspect every room before leaving them with a bag of first necessities each.
Fon leads Skull to his room, and doesn't let his eyes wander. It's less excruciating than he'd have thought to be there, but then again from his standpoint it's difficult to notice Reborn's suits forgotten on the couch, or the mess Viper and Lal made of the communal bathroom through the ajar door, or the banner up the wall Skull threw them out of the house for, so it could be a surprise at their return.
Fon takes specific care to not look up at it.
He walks inside his bathroom, Skull's hand firmly in his. It's dark, and he realizes at once he's unable to reach the switch. The bathroom's big, everything so tall, and he can't reach anything, not the switch, not the bathtub, not the shower head, not anything.
He bursts out laughing. Throws his head back and laughs, because what else is there to do when he can't afford to cry?
The sound reverberates off the walls, leaves them unscathed somehow like it isn't shards of glass tearing their way out of his mouth. It reverberates until it sounds as hollow as it feels, as bitter and desperate, until it's almost palpable, and he almost chokes on it.
The World's Strongest Storm, defeated by a bathroom, unable to clean up his Cloud. Truly the world's funniest joke, and he has to laugh.
Fon ends up on his knees, breathless, his throat aching, and he's about to snap. "Sorry," he chuckles, his lips pulled upwards, and it hurts. "I wanted to clean you up before changing, but…" He laughs again, his lips pulled back in a grin, everything he is stretched so taut, and he's about to snap.
The scent of blood pulls him back from the edge.
Skull curls on himself, his legs up against his chest, his head hidden against his knees. His hands are around his neck again, and blood drops on the tile floor.
Fon's grin falls from his face. He makes himself step back further from the edge, muffling the storm inside him. He stands, cranes his neck to look up at the switch, and jumps.
He reaches it.
He reaches it.
The light is harsh on his eyes, his heartbeat fastens—he reached it.
They've been turned into babies, but they haven't become babies.
It's something.
Fon gets them into the bathtub, the water almost reaching their mouth because he miscalculated. He's not even close to touch the side of the bathtub nor the wall, even if he were to outstretched his arms at their fullest. He can't see past anything outside of the bathtub either, and it feels like he's at the bottom of a well.
His every instincts scream at him, and the knowledge of Luce's men standing watch is the only thing that stop him to give in to panic.
Fon'll never bathe again.
He pulls Skull's hands away easily enough, and he tries not to let his eyes wander as he washes the blood off of him.
"The last time I bathed with someone must be way back then, with my sister. We were eight I believe?" His lips twitch, a ghost of a ghost of a smile. "I was the chubby type at the time, and she liked to make fun of me. It was a relief when our parents agreed we were too big to keep bathing together."
Fon takes the time to remove the blood under Skull's nails. He dips the cloth under the water, washes away any blood he might have missed from his body, and figures he might as well remove the already ruined makeup too.
"Sorry, I know there's a way to do this that's not this. More skin friendly too. You can use my lotion afterwards if you want." He catches Skull's eye, but doesn't feel like he's being seen at all, and he looks away.
He washes his piercings as best he can, washes the pacifier too, and grabs the shampoo bottle he preemptively dropped in the bathtub. Red lather drips down Skull's neck, and Fon probably should have started by the shampoo.
"Oh, the water isn't too hot, is it? I have been told many times I like it too hot." His chuckle never comes out, never even form in the turmoil inside his belly.
Fon runs his hands through Skull's hair, massaging his scalp as soft and caring as he can make himself be. Bubble bath and sweet scented shampoo always have been Skull's remedy to rough days, or so he says.
"Rough" day doesn't even begin to cut this one. No shampoo in the world will be of any help now.
The words slip past the lump in Fon's throat despite himself. "Talk to me." He stills, and the whole world does too, quiets like no one else inhabits it.
Fon's world grows louder, screams and drowns his mind, and it's not courageous struggles, but desperate, inevitable agony.
Fon grabs Skull's shoulders, and shakes him. "Look at me. Say something." The water splashes around them, but he doesn't hear it, wishes he could, needs to hear anything than the loud unraveling of his soul.
Skull looks at him, sees him, and his eyes immediately fill with tears. He flicks his eyes around, his breathing picking up its pace, and his body jerks and twitches, tenses and coils on itself.
Fon holds his face between his hands, steadying it, and catches his eye again.
Skull whines low in his throat, his features twisting in pain. He grabs Fon's wrists, squeezes and tugs and digs his nails into his skin, drawing blood. He cannot bear to be there, but Fon won't bear to have him slip between his fingers again, not when everything is so loud and he cannot drown.
He cannot, cannot do it here at the very least, not when he is a Storm and he never knew how not to blow without collateral damage.
(He never needed to, shouldn't have learned to, but he did, he learned how not to. And for what?)
Skull whines again, and Fon's sight blurs, his lips pursing in an apology he can't make himself say.
He'd rather not hear anything than hear that sound again because of him.
"It's okay." He cups Skull's face, running his thumbs across his cheekbones. Skull sniffles, and by the time he blinks his tears out of his eyes and goes limp again, he looks at Fon but doesn't see him anymore. "Let's just finish our bath, okay?"
They come out of the bathroom in clean, baby clothes, and Fon sits them on the floor. He looks for a first aid kit, and bandages Skull's already smooth skin. He starts with his hands, then wraps bandages around his head, and finishes with his throat.
They don't look at each other.
Skull pushes his hands away as he's about to finish bandaging his throat.
"Don't," Fon says, his voice empty and far away. Skull slams the first aid kit away. He tears at the bandages on his hands with his teeth, biting at his skin too, then rips at the ones around his head and throat. "Stop it."
Skull screams, trashing on the floor, his hands tight around the pacifier's chain until blood drips down alongside it. He twists and tugs it, but no matter how hard he tries it won't go anywhere.
Fon snaps too. It's quiet, surprisingly enough when it's been building up all this time, but then again his Storm is sucked dry, and his storm is too busy not self-destructing as it tries to not agonize.
It's almost steady too, turns the words choking his throat colder and crueler. They're words Skull doesn't deserve, but he spits them out anyway. He means them too, but it doesn't mean they're right.
"You're not the only one in pain, we're all feeling what you're feeling too." Skull rolled away from him, thankfully so, because his Storm sparks around his hands, and he'd hate to learn what would happen if he were to touch him. "You're not getting rid of the pacifier, it's not going anywhere. It happened, it happens, and—"
It won't stop happening, he doesn't say, but the very thought steals his breath away in terrifying horror.
Skull trashes, kicking his feet and banging his head against the floor, and in between the screams Fon makes out his words, and it hurts to hear them.
"You can't die," he says, and it's not hurtfulness anymore, but desperation. "You won't die no matter what you do, this is happening to you and there's no getting out of this. Stop it."
Skull stops. Fon watches the fight leaves his body, watches him still, his back turned to him and curled on himself.
If Skull could die at all, maybe he would have right then and there, from the fight and everything else leaving his very soul. Fon listens to his faint sobs and sniffles, and if the word broken was a sound, it would be that.
This is the worst thing that happened that day.
A choked back sob rips itself out his throat, and he bites the inside of his cheek until he tastes blood. He presses his hands against his eyes, because the last thing he gets to do after saying all that is cry.
I'm sorry I can't do any more that, he doesn't say. I'm sorry I need you to hang on, so I can keep hanging on too.
I'm sorry you can't let go no matter what, he doesn't even think to say, because this is all selfishness, and has nothing to do with Skull and everything to do with Fon.
Skull quiets down for good, and once his Storm doesn't spark anymore, Fon goes to him. He gets the first aid kit back, and once more cleans and bandages the wounds that aren't there anymore.
They don't look at each other.
"Life is a cycle, did anybody ever teach you that?" Fon needs a moment to realize he's the one talking. "We might be in the heaviest, most devastating downpour of our life, but the sun will shine again. It'll have his turn again, it always had and always will." He gathers Skull on his lap as best he can, and holds him tight. "Did you notice? Because I noticed I'm already doing better since we were on top of the mountain. Did you see how I was able to switch on the bathroom's light?" He shakes him gently in encouragement, and doesn't look down to see if he got a reaction out of him. "Rays of sunshine are already there we can grasp in our hands and hold onto. And we'll learn how to make the most of whatever amount of sunshine we get back, isn't that right? I'm sure it'll be no problem for Verde to build you a motorcycle you could ride as well as before."
Fon manages a smile, he thinks. It's shaky, but he keeps it there as he looks down at Skull.
I'm sorry you can't fall off the edge even if you wanted to, he doesn't say, but please, please, I need you to not try to anymore.
Skull looks up at him, his eyes dry and blank, and his bond is the first to let go.
Fon smiles wider, and cups his cheek. "We should try to rest a little, what do you say?"
Fon settles them inside the wardrobe. They sit in a well hidden corner, on and against a pillow, a piece of his blanket around them.
He made sure to leave everything as it were, they should have enough time if anything were to happen.
He wraps Skull in his arms. "I'll take the first watch. You just try to catch on some sleep, alright?" Fon shifts to be more comfortable, and rests his head on top of Skull's. He nuzzles his hair. "Your hair stink."
"Who used all the shampoo on them?" Fon holds his breath, doesn't say anything, doesn't move, to hold on the moment longer in case he imagined it. Skull huffs, then nudges him ever so slightly, and Fon can barely hear his voice but it's his. "Yeah, I thought so."
Fon chuckles, and it's all shaky, wet, tears filled sounds, and then he cries.
Skull squeezes his arm, somehow pressing tighter against him, and if the tears soaking his hair bother him, he doesn't say.
A/N: Surprise update! It was super interesting to write their dynamic too, and also writing from Fon's POV in a more heavy, serious context for the first time! Also I don't have plans to write for the others as of yet, but I might if enough of you would be interested in that?
I hope you enjoyed the story. Any and all review are appreciated.
Thank you for reading!
- w.h