A quick warning for a deep dive into mental health themes. Please read at your discretion.
It hadn't been an easy three months.
Diego knew injuries like this didn't tend to "heal" in a complete sense, well…ever, but it wasn't any consolation when he was pushing himself further than he should in an attempt to catch dinner.
A huge leap, a heavy landing, and the muskox's hooves went out from underneath them. A second later, Diego ended it and slumped to the ground, mind aching in sync with his shoulder.
This was larger prey than sabers usually took down by themselves, but he was getting better. He was getting…better.
He knew he couldn't wait too long to eat. He couldn't (or, rather, shouldn't) sustain his initial tracking routine. And he couldn't gamble on lack of sleep. Those were lessons he was doing everything in his power not to learn the hard way. He'd never lived outside of a pack before, and he'd known he'd have to figure out how to make adjustments to compensate for the lack of help. Lack of…anything.
He was totally alone.
Sometimes it was a shock to wake up in the morning. Not because Diego thought he'd find himself back in his pack, but to see, really see, the emptiness of the space around him. Those were the times that reality hit him the hardest.
Then he'd get up for the day (or night if he'd decided to try his smoke-where-there-was-fire theory again), and his mind would go back to fighting with itself while his shoulder ached in the background.
Even though his thoughts still felt like the muddle of trudging through a snowstorm, he knew he was improving overall. There was a surety to this that he hadn't had when he walked away from Nate's pack to get back on the trail of the migration.
He'd found it. But not them.
And after swallowing his pride (or, if he was honest, anxiety) about talking to other prey animals, their reactions to his presence the few times he'd tried hadn't been reassuring. They'd been too busy running to answer his question about a mammoth and sloth.
So he went back to tracking, trailing the migration or moving alongside it out of sight. There was a wealth of scents, almost too many, and he often worried that the ones he was actually looking for would be long gone – trampled over by a few hundred other animals – and he'd get even farther behind.
And he was also always on the lookout for other carnivores. There'd been an attack on the migration by a dire wolf pack a few miles ahead, and that had slowed everything down for a few days. He'd been relieved to get to the site of the attack and only find unfamiliar herbivore's scents. But that couldn't totally ease his mind.
He wasn't good with emotions, he'd figured that much out, and the dismissive too-tough attitude he'd picked up during those first few weeks was so obviously a front it made him angry at himself to even think about. It felt like he kept making mistake after mistake. And he hated it.
And as the migration got farther and farther along its route, veering straight south from its original southeastern heading, Diego woke up one morning with the sense that it was time to get back to following his own instincts.
Now he was miles away from the long caravan of animals and back to searching out a trail. As he quietly ate his fill of muskox, he debated whether or not to try and take some with him when he moved on. He knew there was another saber pack's territory close by, and they'd smell him soon enough. Part of the reason he'd chosen to go after a larger prey animal was the hope that if he left the rest of this kill they'd either take it as a threat or a peace offering. As long as they left him alone, he didn't really care which.
But hunting on his own was challenging, and if he could spend more of that time sleeping and staying off his shoulder, he was better off. So when he was finally too full to eat another bite, he ripped off as much meat as he could and got a good grip on it before moving on.
For as much as this situation unnerved him at times, he still had to admit, he wasn't doing too bad at it.
000
Peaches actually really liked Brian. Except for right now. Because she was already late, and she was fairly sure she could feel Mayim's wrath all the way from where the other girl was inevitably pacing by the shore of the lake.
They liked to have lunch together and talk about Buck. Sometimes Jackson joined them too, and they went over and over possible search options. So far, still nothing.
But Peaches couldn't potentially go do any of that when Brian was motioning her over to where he was talking to Travis. The other mammoth looked his usual amount of irate, and his grouchiness from the leader meeting hadn't been calmed by anyone's reassurances. Least of all Brian's, so Peaches didn't know why he was even still trying.
"I'm glad I caught you!" Brian grinned at her. "Everything going okay?"
"We're perfect." Peaches reciprocated with a smile that felt fake and tired. She looked directly at Travis. "We feel very safe."
"That's good to hear. I'm sure it will stay that way," Brian waved his trunk at Travis, "Excuse us."
When Brian started heading to the other side of the clearing, Peaches reluctantly followed. By the time they reached it, Travis was stomping off to incite chaos elsewhere.
"Why do you hate me?"
Brian's smile turned sheepish. "I needed an out."
"I'll be sure to let Mayim know this holdup is because of you."
"And I have, yet again, managed to get myself from a bad situation into a worse one," he laughed, and Peaches did crack a real smile at that.
Despite not having spoken more than a trunkful of words to him yet – he was always busy and always running somewhere – Peaches found Brian comforting. He was a slightly younger, less manic version of her dad. And Diego had a really good relationship with him. They'd been friends since Diego had first come to the area, and a part of Peaches had been burning to ask Brian what he thought of the Half Peak story.
But this wasn't the day for that either, and she could tell by his expression that Brian had more to say and probably multiple motives for pulling her aside. Before Peaches could even begin to psyche herself up to nudge him into just getting it over with, Brian met her eyes and smiled. "I don't know when I'll run into you next or how much you've talked to Diego about this, but Merle and I have agreed that when this is all over, you and Julian can take your pick of spots in the territory."
"…Our pick?"
"We did the same for the triplets when they decided it was time to get an area of their own." Brian's smile was kind, if not also a little devious. His voice lowered. "I know you two aren't planning on moving on after this. And staying in Diego and Shira's clearing is only a short-term solution."
He was…making room for them? "Oh."
"I wanted to get to you before Diego does. If you've already got a plan in place, he'll go along with it a lot easier. Not that he actually wants the two of you to go, despite anything he may say." Brian rolled his eyes. "Like he's got the time or energy to come up with a good argument right now anyway."
Peaches couldn't stifle her excited grin. "Thanks, Brian. I…we really appreciate it. Already, her mind was sorting through potential spots, imagining what it would be like to actually live here. To have someplace to call their own, surrounded by their family…
"There you are!" Mayim's eyes were blazing when Peaches startled and looked up.
"I was on my way!"
"You clearly weren't." Mayim stalked over to her and started to very forcefully and quite successfully herd Peaches forward. "You have a problem with being on time."
"She was worried, so she came looking," Brian supplied, smiling like Mayim's wrath was funny and harmless.
"Shut up," Mayim snapped without bothering to look at him.
"So if I stopped right now in my tracks, would you eat me?" Peaches teased, not bothering to hide how much she was enjoying Mayim's annoyed frown and the constant rumbling she was emitting.
"Every time you say things like that, I look over my shoulder for your father," Diego snapped as he passed them – fresh out of another meeting judging by his pained expression. "So stop it."
Diego was barely out of earshot when Brian scoffed. "Wishful thinking." He waved once with his trunk. "I have about a million things to do, so I will let you two fight this out. Peaches," he pointed at her, "good talk."
"Good talk." She nodded mock seriously back.
"Let's go." Mayim gave up trying to make Peaches walk forward and stalked into the trees.
"Coming, Cousin," Peaches echoed the trite title Mayim had taken to calling her and threw a sweet glance over her shoulder at Diego for good measure. He must have been waiting for Brian because he'd stopped a few feet away, and his face had gone from merely annoyed to a fuming That's not funny. Peaches laughed and chased after Mayim before he could argue with her.
When she caught up, she tapped Mayim's shoulder a couple of times in excitement until the saber looked up at her. "You won't believe what just happened."
000
"They're getting along well," Brian tossed out as he joined Diego and they left the main clearing.
"I am this close to a headache," Diego growled and ducked his head like that was going to keep Brian from making fun of him the rest of the way to their next meeting with the newest groups of animals.
000
It took six months after Half Peak for Diego to finally admit to himself that it was over. He was out of options. He'd failed.
It felt terrible, almost physically painful to let his single goal spin away on a frigid wind gust. But he'd essentially run himself in circles and come up empty. He'd always had a noncommittal relationship with the truth. It was yet another tool that could be wielded and shaped for survival. Now, it had finally caught up with him.
After deciding to stop following the migration three months ago, he'd spent a month wandering on his own and letting his instincts guide him. Then another few weeks doubling back to the migration and pushing farther south into warmer areas where herbivores had settled in a last-ditch effort to uncover something he'd missed. After that, a few weeks tracking the general area and taking advantage of the plentiful food source. But it had still ended with the realization that he wasn't going to catch up with them.
If the situation weren't so serious, he would have been embarrassed that he'd somehow managed to lose an entire mammoth. Diego hadn't even known it was possible for him to fail this spectacularly.
But he just felt miserable. On top of the sudden, cutting realization that this wasn't going to work, there were the ever-present thoughts, mostly regrets, that floated through the back of his mind. He'd done more thinking about the baby and his pack and the female human's glare before she turned and just…jumped. It was unwilling at first, and it had almost destroyed him.
Diego had always known, of course, that carnivores' lives were brutal. He'd just never stopped to think what happened when that brutality stretched beyond the pack. And now with all the time in the world to imagine it, his mind had spent the last few months searching out those dark places. Nothing he found there was good.
He was seriously beginning to doubt whether or not having a carnivore as part of a herd would have even worked at all. Which led to his usual musing that the conversation that had taken place in the shadows of Half Peak before he'd been able to convince them to go had been nothing more than emotional reassurance for themselves. That their sadness didn't actually hold weight when it came to him, specifically. Or, even if it did, the anger that had undoubtedly come rushing back in the aftermath had basically decimated any chance of them actually wanting him around. And the more his thoughts and questions wrapped around him like sticky snow caught in his coat, the more Diego felt like this was the final blow of the fight – the limping, hissing shadow that lived in his mind that wanted nothing more than to overwhelm and drag him under.
The more his shoulder healed, the louder the voice got. Diego desperately wanted it to stop; he wasn't too proud to admit that anymore. But he also had no idea how to fight back and win. All the negating had done nothing except make it more invulnerable, and it was heavy. The weight was slowly breaking him down, wearing at anything and everything it could. He couldn't stop questioning, doubting, rethinking.
Again, if he was inclined to being honest, he had to wonder if maybe the reason he hadn't thought to give up until now was because he was afraid of what would happen when he did. With nothing else to focus on, his thoughts wandered back to the same topics like moths.
At the epicenter: his entire life had been torn down with nothing after to replace any of it. He was standing on the edge of nothingness. He didn't know what to do with that.
000
"So…so I left. And yeah. Really, you don't need to look at me like that, I'm okay." Julian took another deep breath to steady himself, blinking at the snow around him, trying to refocus for any signs that something was amiss. Weasel-shaped holes in the ground, prints, anything. Sidney had given him a crash course on tracking markers that had made his head spin.
A few seconds later, once his mind was more firmly back on the immediate task at hand, he went back to practicing. "Peaches, I want to talk to you about…" No, start again. "Peaches, I know I haven't really wanted to talk to you about this, and I'm sorry, it's nothing you did… No, no, stupid," Julian shoved his trunk against his forehead. He wasn't prone to headaches, but trying to figure out how to say this was starting to make his brain hurt.
Doesn't mean you have to follow.
Shira's words were not what Julian had expected to hear, but her support had both liberated him and somehow put him in an even worse position than he'd been before. Because now that someone he knew and trusted thought there was a chance to have a productive conversation about this, that probably meant it was time to come clean to Peaches.
"My family is complicated. It's a mess, actually," Nope, nothing under that tree, the snow didn't look disturbed at all out here, beyond the northern edge of the territory. But that may have been from the severe snowfall lately. "And my parents, well, they didn't understand me. I mean, you know how it is… And I just wanted to find out who I was. It felt like all they were ever going to do was make up what they wanted me to be."
Was that too accusatory? Would she think that he was just being a brat who didn't appreciate his family? Would she look down on him for not standing up for himself sooner?
"I love my family, don't get me wrong. Really." Nuh uh. To apologetic. "I loved…no, I love my family, but it wasn't working."
The crisp air tussled his fur, barely managing to cut to the base layers. Julian would need to turn around and head back soon. Even if he didn't want to.
"Peaches, I left," he tried. He'd been liking the more direct versions better so far. There would be plenty of time for explanations once he just spit it out. Once he just coughed it all up and it was finally out in the open. Once Peaches knew how much he really, truly still resented his parents for calling him annoying, for putting him down, asking him to be less…
But he was "sweet Julian." Peaches told him so about a million times a day. He liked and was liked by everybody. He didn't want to – couldn't – disappoint her. And he hadn't failed to notice that he hadn't actually said the end of the story yet, out loud, all the way out here in the woods alone. He'd gone through the whole story over again about eight times but still hadn't finished it the way he wanted to.
He should be proud that he was keeping his emotions in check. He hadn't been able to when he was first wandering on his own, half-awestruck at the freedom, half-devastated for the same reason. He'd cried for nights on end. But in reality, now, he just hated himself. Because, for as hard as he'd tried since the day he walked away, he wasn't over them, not even a little. He knew he should be, for myriad reasons. It had been a long time; they probably weren't still upset about it; he wasn't the type of guy to hold on to grudge; the anger wasn't healthy or helpful; maybe he'd even been overreacting a little bit to their nitpicking. It was all so confusing and painful, and he almost wished he would have told Shira what was going on yesterday before he'd thought better of it.
"Peaches, my family and I have very different personalities," Okay, good. That was true. Julian nodded to himself and wandered a little farther into the clutch of pine trees. "I just wanted to be myself and I-I hated that they didn't just like me. It was like I was always annoying them or getting in the way. They made feel-"
Whoa, too far, too far. Back up, ease into it. "I hated that they didn't appreciate our differences. I…I feel so lucky to have found you, and I'm glad that I left home."
Julian hissed and let out a breath. The hollowness in the words faded among the trees, dirtying the snow and the wintry air around him. It was a lie. He shouldn't be talking about this as if Peaches and their relationship was always what he'd set off to find. It wasn't. He'd just needed to get out of there. He hadn't cared where, and shielding his broken heart behind his love for his mate only made him a liar.
Julian kicked a nearby mound of snow in a rare burst of anger.
"I don't regret it, okay? I'm better off without them, and they have no one to blame but themselves." His voice sounded louder, more desperate than he'd anticipated. Even though he knew no one was around, Julian still glanced to either side quickly to reassure himself. This was the first time he'd ever said it out loud, and the rightness had thrown him for a moment. It was also way too honest. There was no way he could tell Peaches. Not like this anyway, the way he desperately wanted to.
Even if it was finally the truth.
000
It had been a year and a half and Diego had never felt better.
His shoulder had healed well, as had his mind, all things considered. Regret was not a feeling he had wanted to make friends with, but with miles alone to think, he'd reluctantly let it in. And it had slowly, relentlessly, helped him heal. He still hated that the female human had jumped over that cliff because of him, and he wished he would have just left when Soto started showing signs that he was not coping well with the deaths of their packmates, but Diego had figured out how to accept that it had happened and that it never had to happen again.
Diego felt sure of himself, maybe for the first time. It wasn't the same kind of surety he'd left the north with, and he was relieved at that. Because the farther he wandered away from the idiot who'd battled snowstorms and thought he could out-track his own conscience, the more he was disinclined to go back to that pessimistic, shell of a saber.
After finally accepting that tracking wasn't going to get him anywhere, Diego had ultimately decided to stay in the northern lands where carnivore pack territories were fewer and farther between and so that he wouldn't drive himself insane in southern climes by falling back into his old patterns.
Manfred and Sid had migrated. They were gone. And they also probably carried a fair amount of resentment about it all. The best thing Diego could do for them now, and probably himself too, was to let them go. Even if he still didn't want to.
So he explored and tracked and honed his survival tactics to fit his new solitary lifestyle. It was lonely sometimes, but even the worst days were so much better than pack life. And rather than his skills and instincts deteriorating (another significant concern he'd had), Diego relied on them now more than ever.
And one bright morning, he woke up in his temporary campsite and decided that he should push further north and survey the area before the winter storms really hit. He'd been telling himself he'd go north for a few weeks now, but with no one else to report to, he'd allowed himself to get caught up in wandering around the gullies and forest patches in the immediate area.
Still, he liked knowing where he was physically at all times. And he hadn't gone far enough northeast the first time for his liking. The plains of the far north may have stretched on forever, but Diego wanted to know for sure. So after a drink and a snack, he was leisurely loping northward in the early sunlight.
He'd only been scouting for a few hours when he heard it.
Oh my goodness, thank you to all the reviewers! I appreciate your feedback and suggestions so much! And we definitely haven't seen the last of the dino birds.
To answer Arika Koski's question, I think the film version of this fic would still be PG, but some of the darker emotional themes may be enough to edge it into PG-13.