Skull wakes up all at once. One moment unaware and the next wide awake though not a breath changes, not a movement gives it away.
He isn't sure when he honestly passed out instead of the mentally retreated state he had been in earlier, but it happened at some point.
His body hurts. It feels raw in all the places that were recently healed and a few more, like skin layers have been scrubbed off with sandpaper until he bled. It's a very familiar feeling but his surroundings aren't right for that.
It takes him a few minutes to figure out what happened.
The events of yesterday bloom in the front of his mind and his breath stutters ever so slightly.
The curse, his inability to heal himself, the knowledge he would have to go to the Arcobaleno and the choice to apparate in. Collapsing and the Arcobaleno's arrival, the instinctual movement to stop Reborn because as far as he could tell in that state Flames just made the curse worse (multiplying his own wounds was not a fun experience) and he didn't want to chance it.
Calling to Viper, hoping she was smart enough to put it together.
She obviously had been, he was alive, if only very sore.
It takes another second for it to dawn on Skull what this series of events actually means.
The Arcobaleno would want explanations.
Explanations he didn't want to give. He had worked hard to keep them out of the world that had taken so much from him. He'd worked hard to be 'Skull' and this…this went against everything he had worked for. Everything he fought for, his greatest fulfilled wish.
Viper was now aware at the very least that wizards were involved in whatever Skull was doing if nothing else.
That was too much. Even just that would eventually lead to Harry Potter and the Arcobaleno weren't stupid they would put it all together and Skull was not ready for that.
But he still refused to alter their minds. He couldn't do it. It went against his instincts and morals (those that had survived the war). He would not alter their memories. It was revolting to him. The very idea that he would break their trust that way…he couldn't do it.
Not to them,
Which meant he'd have to tell them something.
This was the closest to sheer blind panic he had been since he was 11 with his hands burning a man into ash with a touch. He breathes for another moment before he opens his eyes, and sits up, the only sign of his pain is the tightening skin around his eyes.
He stills. Something had felt off, but he hadn't noticed it. Not- not exactly. His hands shook.
He could see his hands, his arms; his chest.
His skin was bare.
There was nothing covering him. Nothing to shield the marks of war on his body.
They had seen him without his armor.
LINEBREAK
The room is silent.
Not one of the Arcobaleno speak, but their rage fills the room, making it thick and heavy, almost as if it were humid. The only one absent is Yuni who is with Skull.
They had gone to clean him up after getting him inside. Colonnello had been the one to take him into the bathroom and begin cleaning him up. He hadn't been alone more than three minutes before the others had come back due to the sudden spike of absolutely inflamingly enraged Rain Flames.
Skull had been limp in their Rain's arms, but he had been missing his gloves and shirt.
Scars.
Scars everywhere. Scars they could tell at a glance were all inflicted by someone else scars they recognized for the marks of torture that they were.
Words carved into skin, knife wounds, punctures, slashes, things they didn't even recognize.
Colonnello had reached forward, hesitant for only a fraction of a moment before he pulled rest of the clothes free until Skull was left only in boxers.
More scars.
It had gotten worse as they cleaned up his face. As the makeup was cleaned away, the marks of torture (because the Arcobaleno knew what torture scars looked like) were revealed.
Fon had disintegrated the door he had been holding, as well as part of its frame before he got himself under control, but he knew that pesky Lantern Warning System- as Skull called it-meant his eyes were a gleaming red. He had very carefully folded his hands into his sleeves so he wouldn't break anything else down into nothing with a touch. He took careful breaths in an attempt to still the raging of his inner Storm.
It didn't work. (Someone had carved into his Cloud's body very deliberately)
He needed to demolish something (someone) his fists ached with urge to clench and punch whatever (whoever) had done this.
Another breath. He couldn't do that yet. (Oh, but he would, he would and he would enjoy every moment of it)
Reborn was very, very still. His eyes were shining gold, and his fedora did little to hide their gleam in its shadows as he tried to wrestle the urge to go shake the answers out of their Cloud. He didn't think he'd ever be able to truly hit their Cloud again after this. Some of those scars were years too old to be inflicted at any point but very early childhood. Reborn very carefully controlled his breathing as he struggled to not think about how many times he had hit and shoved and kicked their Cloud around. As he struggled to control the very real, very powerful surge of remorse that he had expanded on the hurt of someone who had survived so much.
God they had called him weak but some of those scars should have killed him.
His steady hit man hands shook just a little.
Verde was very close to a breakdown.
Not in the 'sobbing hysterical' way, but in the sense that everything he thought he knew was wrong.
He was a genius. He prided himself on his information on the other Arcobaleno. He had observed and recorded information on all of the Arcobaleno himself. How had he missed this? How had he not seen? How had he missed all the signs that were so, so painfully obvious now that he knew to look for them? The signs that their Cloud had been in, and survived, torture the likes of which he hadn't ever seen outside some very bad cases of Prisoners of War?
Sparks danced across his hair and fingers, his eyes glowing so much brighter green then normal as he wrestled with the knowledge that he had tried to experiment on a POW survivor. He didn't have many lines he wouldn't cross, but that was absolutely one of them. He wouldn't put someone who had survived what Skull had back into a situation so like what they had survived.
Except he had in a way. Oh, nowhere near that bad, but he had done a few things that would have certainly triggered a flashback or two if he was reading the scars on the Cloud correctly. (Skin samples, blood taken without permission, tests that didn't scar or maim, but he could see some scars that spoke of things that mimicked these tests, but were meant to torture.)
Guilt was an emotion Verde was not familiar with, almost as unfamiliar as the situation where he was wrong, and he didn't like it.
Colonnello's hands shook. His blue eyes glowed. He had had to wash the blood away. He had felt each new scar as it appeared under makeup or blood, or under a layer of clothes. He has gotten a very, very close look at the marks on their Cloud. Colonnello who was a soldier and recognized the signs of war when he saw them.
He was going to be sick.
He was a soldier and he hadn't seen that their Cloud was one as well. A brother in arms. Always Faithful he had sworn, he had sworn he would be to those who fought. And he finds he hadn't been. Skull hadn't looked like it, but he was a soldier a survivor and Colonnello had missed it. That had been bad enough, but to not only miss the signs, but miss them so thoroughly he had abused (oh god he had hadn't he? That was what he had done and he hadn't realized it. He hadn't connected his actions with that word) what looked to be a POW?
Colonnello hunched in over his knees as he tried not to throw up.
How would they ever make this up to their Cloud?
Viper was feeling a little faint. She wasn't stupid.
She has sensed that Skull had magic. She had thought him to be like her: a Hedgewizard. Except he could apparate, as he had done to get to them. That meant he was an actual full-fledged magic user.
A magic user covered in scars. Scars enough to look like he had come out of a war.
What magical place did she know of that had had any sort of war recently enough for her Cloud to have the scars he did?
Britain.
Voldemort.
Skull De Mort.
She had gone to get a closer look at those scars when they were revealed to her once the blood and makeup, the armor he had worn was stripped away. Each scar had upped her horror and shame. She had never hit or screamed at Skull, but she had stood by. She hadn't helped him as she should have.
That scar on his hand. The words 'I must not tell lies'. The knife wound on his arm, a knife that had been dragged very slowly through his veins, the puncture wound on his arm that appeared to be chemical burned, the marks on his back…they had all lead her to one conclusion…she had prayed she was wrong to a god she didn't believe in.
And then she had shakily lifted Skull's fringe and there it was. Nearly invisible it was so faded, if she hadn't known exactly where to look and what she was looking for, she would have missed it.
The lightning bolt.
She had swayed on her feet, revulsion slamming into her. Not for Skull, not for him. No she had never been more disgusted with herself in her life.
The man who had lead the war, the man who had saved their people, and especially those like her who were not like the wizards with full use of their magic had been sitting with her for over 33 years, who had given her gold, and baked her the best of her favorite desserts for information and favors and she had missed it.
The only thing to save her from falling over was that she was sitting down now.
Good gods, Skull was the Man-Who-Conquered.
LINEBREAK
"Skull…"
Purple eyes swing to the side of his bed and there she is. His Sky.
He flinches back from her sight the thought rings through his head-"Oh god she can see all my scars she's staring at me stop it stopit STOPIT"
"Skull, breathe. Breathe, okay? It's okay. Shhhh…." She reached out to him and he flinched again, but he's already against the wall and he can't go anywhere without moving Yuni who has stood and approached him slowly, reaching out for him even though all he wants to do it hide because she had seen.
"It's okay," she tells him, utterly sincere and he wants to scream that, no it's not, but his voice has fled as she cradled his face between her hands much as she had in the forest when he had collapsed under chains except her eyes are a shining gleaming orange as she soothes him.
When it dawns on him that she isn't looking away from his eyes, not once does her eyes flicker to any scar that is showing he slowly, achingly slowly, relaxes on the bed.
"Yuni." He whispers, voice trembling, but clear. "Where are my clothes?"
Her eyes are soft as she sighs softly. "Destroyed, but I have something for you."
She hands him a pair of leather gloves and a long sleeve dress shirt (it's Reborn's) and a long pair of cargo pants (Colonnello's) and he settles a little even though he has to roll both articles of clothing up a bit to manage them, and he still feels naked and knows the scars from Malfoy Manor are showing on his face, but most of them are covered and he doesn't feel like he's about to crawl out of his own skin now just like ants are crawling over his exposed face.
He can ignore that.
But…
"Do…Do they know?" he asks his Sky and he knows she knows what he is asking.
Do they know I am Harry Potter?
Yuni had always known who her Cloud had been, had always shielded him as best as she could from the others and it's part of the reason Skull is so ruthless in defense of her.
"They will" she answers him "And Viper knows for sure"
Skull flinches.
He knows they would eventually have found out about his past…but he had never thought it would be like this.
A slip up on his part, on his self-imposed mission. He was decades removed from the Wizarding World. An eye was barely enough to know all the details of an entire world.
And that buried fear from what seems like an age ago is back in his head, the whispered thought that he no longer needs to wonder and will soon have an answer too.
What will they think of me?