Later that night, Nicholas gets the trapdoor open with helpful opposable thumbs and then immediately folds out into Rito so he doesn’t smell human while Hearth peeks his head over the edge of the almost pitch black ‘detached wine cellar’ but what looks more like some jungle base for guerrilla warfare.
The property backs into the forest, a beautiful picturesque Italian landscape that can’t be seen at all when it’s this dark, the canopy blocking the moonlight out too. The house is an old one-storey made entirely of concrete, built in the midst of World War 2, and if it can take technomancy-fuelled planes dropping bombs then it can take two werewolves.
Rafael’s mum is in the basement under the house, and Rafael once explained they used to stay together until Rafael grew up and their instincts told them to kill each other. Then this second basement was dug up and lined with concrete. The werewolf disease isn’t exactly conducive to a family-friendly environment.
It takes Rito a moment with the darkness but he spies Thoth lying in a corner, curled up on top of a large stuffed toy transmuted to look like Rito, with a little floppy Hearth toy in his paws. Those are the only two things in the room and only because Rafael hides them from his mum. She thinks more stimulus will make the wolf stronger.
One day, Nicholas will tell her how wrong she is. How locking up Thoth in an empty box doesn’t teach him control, drugging him doesn’t make it easier to get through, and keeping him from other people doesn’t make his life safer.
Thoth’s breathing is raspy and stuttered, gold eyes fluttering half open at the trap door opening. There’s blood on his mouth from gnawing at the metal ladder up, and he must have thrown up a few times judging by the smell.
At least he hasn’t started biting himself. The drugs keep Thoth from making too much noise or crawling his way out of the basement his mum puts him in, but it doesn't stop Thoth from turning inwards in rage and fear, so Rafael has some pretty noticeable scars from his own claws and teeth.
Rafael (at Nicholas’ insistence) keeps telling his mum to lower the dose but since neither of the werewolves remember the night past the pain going into and out of the transformation -plus any leftover effects the day after are excused as the transformation too- she never believes him. Then again, Rafael is also only going off of how angry Stavros gets when he sees Thoth like this.
Rafael’s mum takes the same poison but adjusted better over a lifetime and for her smaller body, a whole half less than what she tries to kill Rafael with - but maybe that’s going too far, she’s never meant to hurt him, she’s just always so scared, and incompetent enough she can’t be anything but. Maybe Nicholas would be more sympathetic if Rafael wasn't his first priority. (Maybe Stavros would stop offering to switch their potions and hide the body after if he was a better person.)
Rito bleats quietly down into the dark basement. Thoth half lifts his big head and then just falls back down again. He tries to hug his plushies closer for comfort.
Fuck, that’s heartbreaking.
Rito and Hearth share a look then they’re shifting back for the rescue. Stavros is gently levitating Thoth’s huge body as Nicholas runs around conjuring a soft hand cart to put him in. Thoth doesn’t struggle – either too weak or not conscious enough to realise there are humans here.
They don’t want to stay too close to the house in case Rafael’s mum comes up in the morning faster than they can run away. If she knew Rafael actually had friends, she’d pull him from school. If she knew Rafael had friends who knew about his sickness, she might take drastic measures.
Stavros lies a whimpering Thoth into the cart and retrieves his stuffed toys too, then shuts the trap door. Nicholas climbs under the arched, very basic harness and shifts back into Rito, lifting the cart off its front legs. Thoth tries to snarl, legs kicking out slightly as Stavros walks alongside the cart casting healing spells as they head deeper into the forest.
They make Thoth take the purging potion so he throws up a few more times, then coax him into eating and drinking, spiking the water with a broad-spectrum healing potion. He’s still out of it and moves slowly but they get him up for a walk around their little clearing, pressed side to side. They spend most of the night just piled on top of each other and napping though.
Fun fact; canine species (like wolves) put their mouth over the muzzle of other dogs to assert dominance - usually in a kind of playful way.
Thoth tries to do that to Rito, while the unsuspecting sheep is lying down in a nice patch of grass, and Rito just sits there giving no fucks because he doesn't understand it.
And then Rito realises it's hard to breathe because Thoth is covering his entire muzzle which means mouth and nose. Rito bleats and it echoes strangely in Thoth's mouth, the werewolf pulling away soon after and licking his lips.
Rito turns to Hearth and opens his mouth, which gets him a lot of outraged shrieking because Hearth isn't down to be dominated by a herbivore.
They end up sleeping outside in the forest after the moon starts to wane, a newly shifted back Rafael cuddled up to Rito's warm stomach, head half buried in the black mane, and wrapped in a sleeping bag with Hearth on top as an extra quilt. It's too cold for Rito and Hearth to shift back, not when they lie outside and stare up at the bright stars.
Rito wonders what Luca is doing.
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Luca, staring around the empty cave, does not find a table with three goblets and a throne with a skeleton. He spent so long learning Nicholas' food transmutation trick to use on the poisons in all three goblets so he can fight the skeleton without being half-dead, but nothing is even here! Where did the necklace on the skeleton go?
"I'm not upset at no lich king to fight," Older Stavros -Christos now- admits, kicking some pebbles down the short hill where they splash into the empty water. His limp certainly isn’t helping on the crumbling stone slopes. "Have you seen Xia wearing any of his bling?"
"Please don't call it that," Luca grumbles. "And no but Nicholas mentioned a trophy room when he was giving me a tour of the place."
Christos winces. "So the only way you're getting to it, is if Nicholas is there with you."
"I'm not risking it," Luca says firmly. "And…you know what, Xia is a little bit weird - like acting human weird. Like a normal person and not just a vessel of anger and wild magic?"
"What does that mean?” Christos muses, crossing his arms. It’s not judgemental or sceptical, he’s simply asking. Christos has always been up for a stupid plan.
“I can’t fight him head-on anyway -not without a miracle- but I still have easy access to him and even Wei’s grimoire?” Luca tries to explain. “We know what he wants and how he does it and we have a concrete plan to stop him. He is the one thing I know for a fact. It’s everything else I need to figure out. This might sound delusional but I feel…I already have a handle on him? Especially when he acts like this.”
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Christos considers it. "You’re not wrong about knowing how to stop him, and he’s backed himself into a corner politically going public with Nicky, but Luca you might be getting confused here. Xia is insane in the future – flat-out fucked in the head from those rituals, so he’s going to be different. Almost a different person entirely. But he’s still dangerous as a high mage, they all are.”
“I know,” Luca says solemnly. Christos wasn’t there for the end, he doesn’t know how true those words are. “I’m not saying we leave him alone. We should destroy the pieces to his soul sweeper device and keep an eye on him, but he’s a contained threat and there are so many more high mages to take down. If he does get out of hand…I know how to end him. I just don’t think he’s the first one we need to kill anymore and focusing so much on him while the others slip by might be a mistake.”
Luca and Christos destroyed the reform centre that had Rafael but there are plenty more and the people running the scene are still free. Plus the anti-mage lab is getting set up this year. In fact, and Luca has always kept this in mind, but Xia needs the research from the reform centre and the anti-mage lab to even get half as strong as he does in the future.
Christos kicks some pebbles out of his way as he walks back down the slope. “Alright. I get what you’re saying and I do think we need to start tracking down the other problems. My concern now is why you’re talking circles around it. You could have just said ‘fuck Xia, he’s turned wimp, let’s gank the others’.”
Luca scrubs a hand through his hair and follows Christos back out of the cave. "It's just…" he sighs. "This is also the last chance we have to move unwatched. Xia is onto me and I don't know what the grimoire is going to get."
"Can’t do much about that anyway,” Christos points out. “We’ve already got a plan going and if all else fails, Nicky can slip me in as Hearth and I’ll slit Xia’s throat in his sleep. Just keep your guard up and your wand on you.” He pauses and smirks. “Actually, you know that dualling tournament you want to go to so you can contact Verma? Don’t worry, Nicky will take you.”
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Rafael wakes up to the smell of a home-cooked meal. His limbs are a heavy weight and his frayed mind is still in the clutches of the moon that’s just passed. He doesn’t know where he is, just dazed, confused, senses dialled up to eleven and screaming at him in a jumbled mess.
But even like this, he knows it’s not his mum who cooked for him.
Rafael and his mum were inseparable before, tightly connected by suffering and secrets, her eyes so relieved whenever Rafael was cut down and torn apart by the wolf inside him because at least she wasn’t alone. She was his best friend - only friend – only person he was ever allowed to know because humans were dangerous.
She was so desperate and clung to him so tightly when he left for school, breaking down in heaving sobs when they had to separate like she was losing a limb. Rafael was scared too, utterly terrified at being alone for the first time.
He thought people would look at him and they would know he was sick. Every story, every threat his mum warned him about haunted him for those first few months. He would jump at shadows, flinch at loud voices, and hide away in empty classrooms. The first spell he learned was a cutting charm because killing himself would at least be quick.
Except when he went back home for the holidays, it was to find his mum had moved on. He had been gone for months and in that time, she had found something new to cling to -only the first of many new obsessions to comfort herself- and she just never looked back. They pass each other as strangers now and she only talks to him when she wants to make sure that he’s in just as much pain as her.
No, obviously it wasn’t his mum.
Rafael slowly moves a hand and feels Hearth in his bed, curled into his side. He pets the fox with a shaking hand and blearily looks around to find what smells so good. Three giant plates of food have been laid out on his desk nearby. Rafael blinks and it takes his foggy brain a moment to understand something is not right.
He’s in his house in Italy, after a full moon. Nicholas and Stavros brought him back to bed but had to make a run for it when they thought they heard Rafael’s mum start moving in the basement. Hearth should not be here; Rafael’s mum is awake.
“Why are you here?” Rafael hisses, struggling to sit up, legs tangled in blankets and a shoulder blade jabbing into the headboard. He feels too hot and everything aches, which is incredibly good for a moon at his mum's house. Nicholas takes his healing studies seriously and he keeps getting better. “Go. I’ll be fine.”
Hearth uncurls and limps to the edge of the bed. He limps. His back leg.
“You’re not…” Rafael trails off as he realises Hearth’s fur is too long and he’s a bit bigger. The fox smells like a damp cave and Luca.
Hearth leaps off the bed and Christos is the one who lands. He’s not much more grown than Stavros but he has a neat beard now and his hair is not so perfectly curled. Christos doesn’t look as put together, dressed like he rolled off the couch, but he moves with the same predator confidence.
Christos grabs the first plate, steam held in suspension with the stasis charm, and comes back to sit on Rafael’s bed. He puts the plate in Rafael’s lap and then just flops down over the rest of Rafael’s legs with a sigh. “I was stuck in a cave all of last night. I’m still feeling rocks under my feet.”
Rafael’s eyes dart around and spot his wand on his bedside table. “You’ve picked a bad time. I feel like shit but I’ve still got full moon strength.”
“Eat your food,” Christos scoffs, shoving the plate a bit so Rafael has to grab it to stop anything from falling off. “I’m not kidnapping you.”
“I’m sure that’s what you told Nicky,” Rafael mutters. “Is this food drugged?”
“Do you think your mother is dead right now?”
Rafael goes very still. His next inhale brings with it the delicious aroma of all of his favourites now that the dish is right in front of him. Rafael feels sick.
Rafael feels…something. Something.
Christos rolls his head around to peer up at him, white-blond hair splayed over Rafael’s bedsheets like a halo. His eyes are soft but he’s always been able to cut someone with that smile. “You don’t have to say it, Raffy. You can eat and then go back to sleep and recover. I’ll take care of it, all you have to do is nod. Now…do you think your mother is dead?”
Rafael’s fingers twitch on the edges of the plate. “Stop it.”
Christos watches him.
“Stop it,” Rafael repeats firmer, looking away. “What the fuck – you just get worse, don’t you?”
“I’ll ask again later,” Christos mutters petulantly and sits up with a huff. “She took her meds and passed out in her room. Eat, I’ll clean the dishes and she’ll never know I was here. Where did Nicky leave your potions?”
“I told him not to.”
“Okay, well where did he hide them anyway?”
Rafael points to his bedside table and Christos goes hunting through papers, coming back up with a set of three. Rafael eats, and after the first bite, he’s suddenly ravenous. He gets through one plate, takes a potion, and gets halfway through the second before his hands are shaking too much to hold the fork and his breaths are coming too fast.
“Bit of a delayed reaction,” Christos mutters but shifts over to sit against the headboard with Rafael and swings an arm around him. “Okay, I’m sorry. I could have led into that better. Here, squeeze my hand.”
“Why would you do that to me?” Rafael wheezes, curling up and squeezing his hand. Christos bites his nails now. “Fuck you, Ross, you son of a bitch.”
“I am so far past sitting on my ass and watching you suffer,” Christos admits with an unkind laugh that shakes Rafael where they’re pressed together. “You’re lucky I even fucking asked your opinion, or else you’d already be in Nicky’s house and your mother would be in an unfortunate house fire.”
Rafael turns and shoves his face into Stavros’s hair. He doesn’t smell the same anymore but he still smells like Stavros. How is that even possible? “You’re a psycho. Did you do this to Nicky when you had him? He came back fucking manic.”
“You little baby versions are just too delicate,” Christos complains. “Or maybe I’ve been in a coma for too long and lost my people skills, who knows? Eat your food, you need to carb load.”
Rafael’s breathing slowly returns to normal and he just keeps eating with Christos still wrapped around him. “Why are you here?”
Christos shrugs. “Like I said, done with waiting.”
Christos looks at Rafael like Stavros does, with all the emotion and the love, like not a day has gone by. Nothing has worn away by time or distance. Stavros joked once, that the only things that are infinite are the universe and how much Stavros loves his Rafael and Nicholas.
“I missed you, Raffy,” Christos says and his voice is even, a wry smile on his lips, but his eyes have stars in them.
“You’re cheating,” Rafael says.
Christos laughs.