chrisisofaith | IC Contact

He shoots Amelia the first sizable smile he feels he's managed in some hours for her suggestion and nods. "I'd like that."

He's got his pants on and is contemplating Jacob's shirt when Hawke says his name. He's half turning back to him when strong arms wrap around him. The cleric goes still a moment, even his breath pausing with his surprise, before he finally brings his arms up to return the hug. It's light at first...but it quickly turns tight, Chris' fingers digging into Hawke's shirt until he can pull himself together enough once more to loosen his grip.

It's...a practical ask. Information. Three sets of eyes are better than one. It still sits oddly in him, but not in a way he knows how to look at just yet.

"I hardly need bodyguards here." But he can imagine them, leering expressions and knowing smiles and he can picture how his blood would run cold in his veins. He's not so foolish to think he'd be immune. And if he's out with someone he felt he needed to protect? He couldn't afford to be paralyzed by fear. He tucks that train of thought away. It wasn't a problem until it was.

"One of them was broad, heavier set. Medium-dark skin and clean shaven. Eyes like steel. I think I heard him called...Callous? Calus...something like that. He likes to follow and be in the thick of whatever's happening. Likes to be part of whatever will get him approval from those around him. The other...ringleader of them, but with no self-worth to speak of. He makes a grand effort of it, though, and seems to have the rest fooled. His name was Tarent. I heard that clear. Pale, sharp jaw and cheeks, dark hair and dark brown eyes and a few inches taller than me. Strong, too, so I imagine he's built like it."

Chris shakes his head. "They're probably stationed around the People Zoo most often. A couple of those in the group had been assigned to some of Jon's punishment details before, so I'll not say it's impossible to see them again, just...unlikely. So don't worry much for it." Probably. He could tell himself that, anyway.

He looks back to Amelia. "To your question: yes...I think I'll head back to bed. There's a few I need to check in with tomorrow. Jon..." He pauses, discomfort and guilt breaking across his expression before he can school it back into neutral. "Jon already knows something's happened. Don't fuss him for it, please. He's alone in there, he has enough on his plate."

She lets Hawke speak and pull Chris in without speaking, only managing to step closer and rest a hand on Chris' shoulder as the cleric curls into the other man. It isn't her place to crowd, and she knows how Chris is with physical touch. If he wants something of her before they go, he'll have it. There's nothing else to worry about outside that.

Every detail offered about the assailants is burned into her memory. They'll need that when they go clean the city of their filth. It doesn't matter how large they are, how strong they are, or how clever they are; she is faster, lighter, and has a powerful mage on her side. They won't stand for long. Blood will be spilled and she may very well paint herself in it to add insult to the injury of their deaths. She doesn't care; their lives were forfeit the second they thought themselves capable of getting away with what they did to one of hers.

"If you give me your key, I'll get those things at Marzipan Terrace you asked for and have them for you here sometime tomorrow. I can ask Cinder for more of what she made for you, too, if that will help." She gives the cleric's shoulder a small squeeze before withdrawing her hand.

"What happened is between us. I'll speak none of it to anyone. Aloïs will hear you've been hurt, but nothing more. It's your story to tell or not." Her partner only needs to know why she's off to commit murder. Any deep injury by city guards is more than enough in both their eyes to deserve it. "Jon stays out of my range until well after this is done. I agree he has plenty to deal with right now, and the last thing he needs is to see a face he doesn't get on with."

She's not even angry with him. It's not Jon's fault Chris was in jail, it's the city's. Later, she'll be angry with herself for realizing she's hopped to Jon's side of the fence on fighting the city's ways directly when occasion calls for it, but that's hardly the worry of anyone in this room. They don't need to hear it, and she won't dare speak of it. Her expression darkens briefly, but a breath allows her to school it into something neutral before she picks up the bowl and rage from the coffee table then heads to the kitchen, calling softly over her shoulder as she does.

"Rest, Chris. You need it, and we'll not be far if you have want of us." She offers him a small smile before beginning to dump and stack all of the various bowls into the sink. She'll gather any used rags as well, getting them deposited by the washer on her way out the door. It's what she can do to keep things moving right now, and she will make sure it's done before she steps a foot out the door of this house.

"I'll still send him a statement tomorrow, so if he asks I'll let him know you're safe and nothing else. He may feel alone in there but I've tried to make well sure he knows he's not." As much as he could with the limits of text messaging.

He resists the urge to kiss the top of Chris' head, not for the worry that he'll give himself away but because with the tightness of that returned hug - a cling, nearly - he's not sure if he could bring himself to actually leave were the levee to break. It feels a close thing and he'd encourage it otherwise, but he can't in good conscience when he and Amelia have grim business to attend to.

"You're safe now, Chris. I promise." He pulls away first, squeezing his friend's arm as he goes, giving an encouraging
smile. "Get some sleep and know you're protected while you do. Jacob's probably cold and wondering after you."

He turns to join Amelia, sliding a hand on her arm in silent signal that they should be going. He tossed one more look to Chris before they step away, expecting to have to wrestle himself into leaving and feeling only fierce protectiveness and resolve. "We're only a call or text away, though if it doesn't go through right away try again in a few minutes. We'll wake if we hear it twice, I'm sure."

And their phones will be left off until through with their business, so. An excuse. Everyone here needs sleep so it's believable as anything, and careful phrasing to make it clear he will be with Amelia and it may put anything Chris is worried on their condition to rest. Calculated. Careful.

"Sleep well."

“Hold a moment.” He nods to them and vanishes back into the room with Jacob, the rest of his clothes in hand, and returns with his key to marzipan terrace only.

He presses it into Amelia’s hand and gives it a squeeze, his other hand brushing by her shoulder. She was as hesitant about touch as he was, so even if part of him craved it right now, he didn’t reach for more. To Hawke, he pauses only so long to reach up and brush his fingers through Hawke’s hair before stepping back.

“Thank you, loves…truly. I-“ brambles flood his throat and his mouth works a moment before any words find their way out. There was too much, like a churning sea beneath calm waves…but he simply couldn’t. Shouldn’t. So he doesn’t. It gets buried away and he simply nods to them before turning to head back to Jacob’s room. His assassin’s arms were empty and it seemed a good place to bury himself a while.

Chris gets a hand to his shoulder in return for the touch to hers, but she doesn't try to prompt him further. He needs his space, time to recover, and now's the time for that. She watches him retreat without a word, depositing the key in one of her pouches and pulling on her boots before walking out the door with Wolfe. Without much thought to it, she reaches for one of his hands as they walk through the cold.

"What's on your mind, Wolfe?" she asks once they're decently far out from the house. Her eyes aren't moving from the horizon as they walk. "I'm with you in this. All of it."

Chris can't get the words out but brushes through his hair ones with tenderness and Hawke nearly pulls him in again to bury his nose against blond curls as if he could be a shield against wrongs already committed. Instead Hawke nods and watches Chris' retreat to another safe space before retreating out the door with a safe space of his own.

He threads his fingers with hers, the anger that he'd finally been able to tamp down while healing now seeping again into his demeanor and expression as they walk. When he answers her, his voice is hard and cold as deepest winter. "I need one more potion, and then we make sure this can never happen again."

Rest isn't an option, not while the ones who did this still draw breath.

She's careful to have given him her uninjured hand, not wanting to distract him. His anger is more open than hers, and if it's focused, she'd rather follow it. Disruptions will only slow them down when there's vengeance to be had.

"To The Cat House, then. I have everything I need on my person." She gives his hand a squeeze. "We'll start at the Zoo after, track them down from there."

He nods and speaks a little of focused planning with her in quiet voices that don't carry beyond them as they travel. The potion is easily procured, as is a cloak in deep navy. His staff he leaves, having decided it's too recognizable for their work tonight. They need to be as unrecognizable as possible.

Note left for Festival that he'll be out until the following day and phone put on silent, Hawke rejoins Amelia on the street, already having downed the last of his silvervine potion and feeling the course of renewed mana through him. Other effects of the potion as well, but easily ignored with the grim business before them. His gaze is dark and equally grim to face it as he moves in beside her.

"The tracking is up to you. All I ask is that while I know you're efficient, I need to look them in the eyes. Make sure they know why before the light leaves then." There's almost an audible growl in his undertone, a subtle reminder of his snow-prowling namesake.

Amelia's silent on the street as she waits, a mask tied over her mouth and nose to keep anyone from recognizing her directly. Aloïs already knew she'd be out for the night, possibly without returning, so she doesn't send him anything else before silencing her phone. Too late she's realized she didn't bother with a cloak this evening, but it's fine. She has a few black kerchiefs in her pouches that will have to do enough work before they take to the streets after they're done.

She nods to him as they start their walk to the Zoo, voice as quiet as she can make it. "You'll have the last blow. You need it more than I do." As angry as she is, as full of rage and unfettered need for violence as she is, Hawke has it much worse. This is his for the taking, but she's going to help.

Getting to the prison is easy, though Amelia keeps them to the shadows as they approach. She motions silently for Hawke to wait for her as she nears the entrance, closes her eyes and listens for words from inside on movements and who's where, and it's not long before she has what she needs. A usual hangout near the outskirts of the Down is their target. It seems the unassuming victims have the next day off and are celebrating their successes with excessive drink tonight.

It will be their last.

Information relayed, the rogue quickly starts them off. "What else do you need once we've found them? Other than space to work." Something readily available at this time of day where they're going.

He's not sure he would say he needs it more but he takes it. What he has in mind will be satisfying enough for the both of them.

He doesn't have a mask, but the hood of the cloak is deep and as long as he keeps it up most of his face is suitably obscured. Without his staff there's little to mark him as anyone specific, just a tall broad man. It will do.

The questions he considers along with the setting. The Down is better than the Up for this, less on patrol guards and the camera birds are more obvious and easily avoided. They still have to be careful, quiet, but that would be the case anywhere. "Nothing specific. Just no prying eyes, some time, and a place to put them after."

There's no regret in him that this has to happen, no second thoughts or remorse. If he didn't already considered these two having killed themselves when they brutalized Chris, there might be.

He's humming with magic, spells chambered and ready to let fly the second they're able to do so out of sight and earshot.

Where to put the bodies when they're done is something Amelia's been pondering since they left Broken Hollow, and as they make their way through the Down, straying near South Park, an idea comes to mind. She smirks behind her mask, eyes dark and devious.

"Let's get them closer to here," she murmurs, gesturing past him to where the park - and its giant sinkhole - are located. "I know what to do."

There's nothing more to be said while they find their targets. The bar the pair have sat down in is half-empty when they peer in through the window, winding down for the evening and with most of its patrons so drunk they should've been cut off several cups ago. It makes what's going to come next very easy for them. Amelia stations them half a block from the entrance in a shadowed corner, not taking her eyes off the door as adrenaline starts to filter into her blood once more.

"We need to spook them in the right direction. Keep them to the alleys in that direction," she points to a few darkened side streets leading back toward the park. "I can make them fear the shadows enough to keep them going in that direction if you cut off other access points they might try escape down."

There's only a few seconds for Hawke to respond before the pair they're looking for stumble out, laughing jovially. The Shadow Mistress' heart rate drops, all sounds that aren't those fucking voices, that glee. If the mage at her side says anything else, she isn't going to hear it. She takes a breath, pulls her slingshot her belt, and takes a single step out from the corner. The guards get two warning shots close to their ears before she's making straight for them as they curse and jump down to first alley she indicated.

It's time to make them fear for their lives before they're ended. They won't hear her coming as she does it either, only rocks whizzing past them, catching them across the face or legs as she forces them on her chosen path. Silent as shadows she follows them, and in that silence, she's going to strike when the time comes.

He says nothing, only nods in a cold calculating way that doesn't break the veneer of placid rage etched into the lines on his face. It's a hard expression for a face so used to laughter and coy looks but it's settled on him and doesn't shift even as she begins the chase.

He keeps pace with her across the way, sticking to shadows and throwing walls of force at intervals where the two guards may turn away from the intended destination. Ice would leave evidence at least for awhile, but force is invisible and impenetrable, sending the guards bumbling and bumping into each other as they sprint away, arms up by their ears and yelling drunkenly about assault.

Arms up protecting their heads and necks, like Chris had from their attack.

The next force spell doesn't block a path but instead propels them down an alley of Amelia's choosing, sending them sprawling and scrambling with wide eyes and more urgent movements. They're starting to panic.

Good.

It's easy to keep the men running to where they want them to go with Hawke's magic in the mix. On her own, a maneuver like this would never have worked. In Ragneux, she would've needed at least three well placed Family members to pull it off. He's resourceful as well as powerful, and in any other moment, the thought might send her pulse racing for a different reason. For now, it's merely information to be filed away, held onto until it's useful again. It'll come again soon enough.

Amelia closes the distance between herself and her targets with each alley, jumping off anything above ground level to give herself an extra boost of speed and distance. She doesn't need to catch them to scare them, and each shot across their ears, arms, or chests is enough. Rocks do plenty of damage when fired hard and aimed well, and these men are on the receiving end of decades of practice, bleeding from many cuts across their bodies. They won't survive this.

When at last they leave the security of alleys on their way to South Park and the sinkhole there, the Shadow Mistress gives herself a little more speed to get alongside her targets. One she slows with a rock to the forehead, hard enough to daze him a little. The other takes a knife to the outside of his thigh as she closes in. They're starting to scream now, to get loud, and she won't have that. They're not done yet, and she won't have them be disrupted by anyone who might think these men are in need of help. They are beyond that, having lost their chance for it when they assaulted one of hers.

She's on them both in seconds, leaping from the ground to come down hard on the taller of the men with a dagger to his shoulder, in the soft spot between bones just above his armpit. Her weight hits his chest and sends him down, and she rips his shirt before stuffing it in his mouth.

"Keep quiet," she commands, voice so guttural as to be unrecognizable. "You'll speak when I say you can."

There's one left to take care of before they take these two down into the sinkhole, and she trusts Hawke to have him when he's still stumbling from being his so hard in the face with a fig sized rock.

Melee fights are to be avoided when you're a mage, as a rule, but Hawke is broad and tall and when he got out of the Pit he refreshed on how to throw a punch, which benefits him now as he descents on the other guard with a full knuckled hit to the mouth, practically riding him down to the ground with the force of the blow. There's nothing in it that's finesse or fine tuned. It's a punch that aims to hurt and he succeeds by dislocating the guard's jaw with a cut off yelp and a pathetic whimper.

Hawke raises quickly, leaving his boot against his target's neck to prevent any screaming and then looks to Amelia. Should he just throw the man down into the sinkhole and use that cover for their business? He's half a mind to and so he hauls the man back to his feet by his collar, twisting it still so talking is difficult, and walks him backwards so Hawke's grip on his collar is the only think keeping him from disappearing into the blackness of the cavern below.

Even as the man he's fairly certain is Calus begins to flail in his grip, the look on Hawke's face is deathly calm. Clinical. And he holds him further over the sinkhole with all the detached demeanor of a crumbling cliffside.

Both men fall silent save for their muffled cries of agony and fear, and Amelia delights in having that control. She wraps the shirt in her hands tightly around her guard's face, tying it tight and swatting his hand down with a blade through his palm when he tries to stop her. He's still far larger than her and could, if he's smart, throw her off before she can get help dealing with him. Lucky for him, he's not smart, and so he only gets three more knives to various weak points in his body to keep him still.

When her target is fully reduced to a panicked mess, she gets to her feet, standing on the man's free wrist and hip. Her weight keeps him from rising or thrashing too hard, freeing her attention for Hawke. She can't see his face from where she's at, but she can guess what he's thinking.

"We'll follow him down to see it through. If you're done with that one, gag him and let him go for now. He won't survive the fall." And if he does, he'll be in such pain and torment as to wish he was dead; a worthy thing to be inflicted on someone so vile.

"I'm far from finished." Power hums in the air as Hawke gathers his magic to him, the edges of his cloak rising slightly and rippling on an unseen wind. The air in the Down is stagnant and close as ever but in their small corner of it it moves, turning against their quarry all on its own at his directive.

The temperature around them drops several degrees as Hawke shoves the man over the sinkhole but he does not fall immediately. He's left hovering but silent, scrambling at his throat for breath and feet flailing. A gesture of Hawke's hands and the front of his shirt tears open. The wind picks up, cold and cutting in a very literal sense, directed with intricate cruelty into the squirming guard's naked chest. With maticulous precision a word scrawls itself there, the process taking both an excruciatingly several seconds and far too short a time for what the man deserves. By the time Hawke's finished, the guard has passed out entirely and floats rotating slowly in the air over the sinkhole so Hawke can survey his handiwork before the man drops down into the darkness below, a message clear to anyone who would find him later.

NOTHING

Amelia watches Hawke work, her lips pulled into a grim smile beneath her mask. It's right that this man should feel so much fear before he dies. That terror and pain should rip through him the same sway it does all their victims, the way it did Chris. A soft growl issues from somewhere in her throat as she watches the man - dead or alive at this point doesn't matter - fall into the void below. Her eyes narrow as she looks at the man beneath her feet.

"You're next."

He's on the edge of passing out, and she won't allow it. Stepping aside, she gives him a swift kick to the ribs, forcing the man in a curl to protect himself. Her eyes are wide and pupils narrowed as she rips out various blades, leaving the one pinning his hand to the ground.

"Look at me, filth. Look me in the eyes when I'm striking you. You have no defense, and you are no victim - stop trying to act like one." The man - Tarent, she recalls - seems to crumble further as her assault continues, her blows to his chest, hips, and shoulders causing pain as she strikes wounds she's made relentlessly. She doesn't let up, doesn't stop until he's too weak to raise his free arm to cover his face, blood loss and pain taking all his strength. She tucks the toe of a boot beneath his chin to get his attention before speaking again.

"I strip you of your name. Once you could call yourself Tarent, but no more. Now you're merely trash, a corpse not yet dead enough to shut up until his breath is taken from him." Another growl slips free as she kicks his face away, allowing her to drop to her knees and grab hold of her last knife. She twists it until he tries to cry out in pain again, the sound muffled by her makeshift gag. It's satisfying in a way she needs right now.

"We're taking back what you stole from us," she tells him, voice sickly sweet compared to the dark utterance it was before. "And you'll never be able to hurt another ever again." She catches Tarent's eyes briefly before ripping her blade from his hand and the ground in one swift pull, giving him a last kick in Hawke's direction.

"For you. I've dirtied my hands when his life's not mine to take."

"You're lucky," Hawke intones in a voice that's low and still carries like a deep winter's chill, felt through the bones more than heard. He strides the gap between himself and the dead man, coming to rest standing over him with the pitiful curled up form between his boots. "You're lucky because you get to die when this is over. I would have preferred you lived the rest of your craven little life with the knowledge of what you'd done."

He flicks his right hand from his side casually and the man that had been Tarent lets out another muffled cry behind his gag as his arms jerk themselves stretched outwards. "I'll take solace, though, in knowing you can't impose your miserable self on anyone else. I'm doing you a favor, really, if the only way you can get off is by forcing your tiny cock into submissive's face by surprise."

The air grows heavy and the guard gags, struggling to breathe both as he can't expand his lungs past a certain point and as the fabric in his mouth is forced further down from the shift in gravity. Hawke remains impassivly standing above. "Know that you died at the hands of yet another submissive who knows what his place should be. Know that you died for daring to touch your betters."

Hawke leans down, pressing one knee to Tarent's chest as he brings his face close. The guard is struggling, straining with bulging eyes and veins clearly defined along his head and neck. One eye has gone completely red for the blood vessels behind it that could not take the strain. "Know that you killed yourself the second you even thought of laying a hand on Chris Sonom."

He pats the side of his face gently and retreats to kneeling at his side instead. Even the pressure lifts and Tarent gets one difficult breath into his lungs before, like Calus, his shirt tears of its own accord to expose the hollow of his chest. "I'm just doing you a favor by informing you."

Words carve themselves in bloody scrawl here too, longer and with painstaking clarity. Hawke's hands rise like a conductor, fingers moving to direct the wounds as they appear, and once they're drawn - and only then - he lowers his hands to his sides again, leaving Tarent still and passed out with dripping letters etched into him. Blood drips in turn from Hawke's face and front. He runs a hand through his beard, staining the snowy white in red streaks, surveying his handiwork.

YOU'RE WELCOME

A simple push of force magic and the corpse tumbles to meet the other, cracking against rock after rock the whole.

Way.

Down.

Edited (Forgot a word) 2023-02-19 16:44 (UTC)

Amelia watches with cold eyes as Tarent struggles. As he looks up at them with unspoken pleas for mercy. The same ones she knows others have cried out to him when he forced himself on them, when he beat them and fucked them and thought himself better.

Pathetic.

Hawke gets his chance for vengeance, hate, and anger without interruption. Cold echoes out of him and it feels good as the filth at their feet slowly succumbs to the pressure on his chest, the fabric in his throat, the loss of blood from so many wounds.

Then, just as simply as that, he's tossed over the edge and sailing to be judged in his afterlife.

It helps. It helps so much. Knowing he's dead or that they'll break his neck soon and that it'll be the end of it. But there's still work to be done.

The Shadow Mistress reaches out, touching a man so cold her fingers almost burn from the contact with his face. She catches his eyes, and dreams is everything about him difficult to resist. A fire burns in her she wishes she could quench in the chill of him, to press against until they're both nothing but embers and ash.

Later. Their work must be finished, and then she'll take him home for whatever else he'll allow.

"We have to follow them down. Put them out of easy sight. Let's see this done, then we'll go home."

Amelia touches his face and he shifts his eyes to look at her, turning his face just slightly and forcing himself to see her and not the heavy red film that's coated everything since they left the Hollow. She speaks, something about finishing their work but he doesn't hear her. He's focused on her lips moving, the blood staining her clothes, drying on her hands, the clear and steely focus in her eyes. All for the same purpose as the mess he's made of himself and their quarry, the necessary sanguine work of revenge born of love.

He ducks down and kisses her, unable to help himself for the emotion that rises to choke him. The kiss is thawing, his skin still chill but mouth hot and needy, a small grunt of pure emotion and adrenaline sounding against her lips and teeth as he pulls her crushingly close for a long moment.

Another and he parts from her, breathing heavy pants against her lips as he nods. There's weariness there now that the deed is done and the feral energy that has suffused and sustained him ebbs and tells him he's overextended his abilities. He's no longer seeing red but coronas of soft color edge her form and that of anything that lives or gives off light, signs of mana imbalance. But she's right, they need to make sure this can't be traced.

"I'll get us down." Another kiss, placed softly on her forehead, and he pulls away entirely to create the disk that can get them silently and safely to the bottom in order to complete their grisly work.

---

No more than an hour later sees them in the elevator back to the Up. Hawke's turned his cloak inside out to hide the splatter, too drained to utilize a cleaning spell for it and not sure he wants to anyway. He needs to feel this still, smell the iron tithe they'd forced due to pay for the wrongs done to one of their own.

He leans against the wall, head lolled back and not dozing but resting his eyes, comforted by having coaxed Amelia up into his side if she's willing. The hand at her back rubs absently but in soothing circles, more just feeling the texture of her clothes than aiming for any meaning in his touch.

The doors part and he's slow to move, bringing Amelia alongside and forcing a natural smile to the SIN guard at the checkpoint, their cover story of a wild night of play with pain and blood given in drunken-sounding pieces until the guard rolls her eyes and waves them out into the much more chill air of the Up.

It's harder to focus on the remainder of their work after a kiss like that from Hawke, but Amelia's denied herself so well for years that she manages. The excuse of being and staying close when the work is done while they make their way back to the Up eases the rest of the need in her blood enough to keep her steady. Helping to fool the guard is good, but dreams know she plans to delve her fingers into his hair as they clean themselves in her shower, to touch and worship him as no one else has ever managed in his life.

Damn the weariness. Damn the pains and soreness. She's going to take them both to new heights after this.

The sharpness of the cold air makes her draw a breath, cheeks flushing as she instinctively leads them toward Shadows' Rest. Her lips are still parted as drags a hand along his arm, pupils wide and eyes unblinking as she looks up into his face.

"I want you home with me," she murmurs. "My home is closer, and I've a shower to melt away everything that isn't us." She raises their entwined hands to brush her lips across his knuckles, her breath warm and soft as she clasps her free hand around his. "I need you, Wolfe, as soon as I'm free of every stitch and weapon."

He’d found his way back to bed, he’d made a valiant effort at dozing at a minimum, but sleep had proven elusive even without a threat of dreams to haunt him. Jon might not have liked Chris locking away his dreams forever, but in times like this, he was thankful there’d be no nightmares.

Still, his mind works and memories play like visions that chase away peace for each sound in the night, and the sight of his loved ones faces as they were preparing to leave keeps resurfacing. They were going to go home. Get rest. Right?

If it were reversed, he’d want blood. He’d want to taste it in his teeth and feel it on his skin and drag the remains to the feet of his person so they’d know it was done.

They’d tell him, wouldn’t they? Not if they thought he’d have stopped them. He would have stopped them. Those men didn’t deserve more of his thought or attention than they already had, and they certainly didn’t have a right to put hands on his family if something went wrong.

If something went wrong is the thought that sends him out of bed. He can’t get away with getting up twice, but he presses assurances and promises to Jacob’s lips before shoving on his boots and stealing one of his boyfriend’s jumpers from his days as a younger man.

Chris gathers a first aid kit and bandages and an extra knife and heads out into the forest to make his way to…the elevators? The people Zoo? He’s not sure. He’ll start with the zoo, even as the thought stutters his heart, he has to check. Thankfully, he doesn’t get that far. Luck or providence has his trajectory turning a corner to spot them at the end of a street emptied by the late hour.

He opens his mouth to call to them, closes it, and lets his feet carry him instead, eyes already sweeping over them for a limp or careful movement that might give away an injury. What he sees instead is blood. Drying and flecked on skin and hair and hands and his stomach plummets as much as it soars in relief. Three steps four. Five. His bag shifts on his shoulder as he reaches out first for Amelia.

She’s even worse for touch than he is most days, but it doesn’t stop him now. He grabs for her and pulls her close, arms wrapping tight around her as he presses his lips to her hair. Her cheek, wherever he feels he can. When he pulls back, he takes her bloodied hand and presses a kiss there too, uncaring of the traces it leaves on his lips.

He cares just as much when he turns to Hawke next and takes hold of the front of his friend’s shirt to pull him in and press a kiss to his lips. It’s a slow, appreciative thing. Soft for all the evidence of violence they carry. Chris pulls back, a hand on each of them as he bows his head.

“Please tell me you weren’t hurt.”

He'd been about to murmur his acceptance to Amelia, sketch a picture of slow freedom from evidence of the night's exertions into more pleasant solace when a hand suddenly captures Amelia's and brings her around for a tight embrace.

"Chris, what are you-" He's too slow to start speaking and isn't through his question by the time his friend's hands are on his collar and pulling him into a kiss he hadn't expected. He goes rigid for a moment. He'd not been ready to let go of the frigid grip on his chest yet, tried and emptied of power as he is, and Amelia had not seemed to ask it of him. He'd been prepared to let the enmity stay as long as it would, fuel that joint experience and come down from it slowly with Amelia in the privacy of her shower and her bed, but that kiss cracks something in him. Thaws it forcefully and with too much ease, and Hawke brings his arms up around Chris without thinking, melting a kiss back into him. When Chris pulls away, he's panting steam again, his shaking fingers having left three red streaks against Chris' jaw.

"No," he responds, voice thick with emotion and exhaustion both. "And neither will you be, never again at those hands."

Edited (Typo) 2023-02-19 19:51 (UTC)

Amelia only has time to exclaim Chris' name softly before she's pulled in. She sighs with relief as she hugs him back, just as tight, releasing him the moment he pulls away. She tries to interject when he turns to Wolfe and the two share-- something that is not a mere friendly or reassuring gesture. Knowing they were friends and close the way they are, she'd assumed they were lovers, but this is... more than that. Much more.

She swallows down the desire to ask after it. Now's not the time when Chris is on edge, she and Hawke are covered in blood, and she's still wearing most of her Shadow Mistress mantle.

"It's over," she confirms softly, drawn back completely from both men. It feels... wrong to put herself so close when they're having some kind of moment. She forces down all of her emotions, kills the desire still screaming inside her, and takes a breath as she tries to catch Chris' attention.

"You shouldn't be out right now. What happened to resting? What were you--" She cuts herself off from berating him like instinct tells her to, taking another breath. "You could have messaged us. We would have answered." Eventually.

He can feel her try to step back from them, but he isn't as kind and his grip tightens as it shifts down to her waist. It’s selfish, terrible, but he wants only those couple inches between them and no words to ask it.

Not when their words carried so much already. His spoke of safety and vengeance and a sweep of gutting relief that stings his eyes he shouldn’t be feeling. Hers spoke of love and concern even through a berating tone, and he wants to bury himself in it. He won’t. Seeing them while is enough.

“I got scared. Something you said before leaving sat ill in me and I worried for you two, that you’d get hurt on account of me. I couldn’t sleep. I thought…I’d start with the zoo and go from there, I forgot I could-” text. Call. He did it so often and yet sometimes, instinct ran first and his phone sat forgotten in his pants pocket. “I’ll not keep you now that I’ve seen you, I just…I…”

His hand at Amelia’s waist and Hawke’s arm tighten and his eyes lower to look away from them as his emotions fail him and them.

“Thank you.” I love you.

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cw: torture, humiliation

cw: torture, humiliation continued

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