2.2

Content warnings: suicidal ideation in the context of torture (detail below; skip if you prefer surprises)

• A character mentions having their will to live stripped away through prolonged torture. No torture methods are described.

~.~

Joshua woke up in the pocket dimension infirmary with a soft groan. It was the first dreamless sleep he’d had in years, and he was almost disappointed to awaken. He could feel the intense pain coursing through his shoulder. Still, as he sat up, he realized that someone had fixed up his wings, and there were no signs of a scar—it was like Joshua had never been hit with lightning in the first place.

Which couldn’t be further from the truth, really. Joshua’s fists clenched at his sides.

The infirmary was empty, and for a second, Joshua contemplated staying there so he wouldn’t have to talk to other people. His hunger got the better of him, though, and he eventually made his way to the kitchen. Kai was the only person there when Joshua arrived.

It was probably early in the evening, but that did nothing to dissuade Joshua from grabbing a cup of coffee. Kai acknowledged Joshua with a nod and a gentle smile. It took everything Joshua had to hold in the vitriolic comment on the tip of his tongue.

“I have a question,” he said instead. “My powers—they came from you, didn’t they?”

“Yes,” Kai said easily. He did not look up from the green onion he was slicing.

Joshua swallowed. “Okay. Question number two. Was it really random? I ended up this way as a circumstance of chance?”

"It's not entirely up to chance," Kai admitted. "Or at least, we don't think it was. The power we released into the world attached to people who were, more or less, suited to the power."

Joshua let that realization sit for a minute. It wasn’t as if this was new information for Joshua—he’d long suspected that his powers came from Kai—but hearing it said so casually was something different entirely.

Still stewing in his feelings, Joshua took a sip of his coffee, watching as Kai struggled to cut vegetables with a gangrenous left arm. The spiteful part of him felt a little satisfied.

“Good thing you’re right-handed, huh,” Joshua said thinly, gesturing to the knife in Kai’s right hand. If Kai was in any way affected by that comment, he did not let it show. “How did your arm get like that, anyway?”

“Fought The Necromancer today,” Kai said calmly. “It didn’t go well.”

“Oh.” Joshua swallowed again. He wished he could outwardly express some of his rage in Kai’s direction, but he couldn’t, not when his brother’s safety was tied to these people. All Joshua ever wanted was to protect Joel.

“...Need some help?” Joshua ventured, setting his cup of coffee on the counter.

Kai shrugged, then winced as the movement elicited pain from his arm. "Sure, I could use the help. Cutting vegetables with one functioning arm kind of sucks."

“Wow, you guys are martyrs,” Joshua deadpanned. He grabbed the knife and started chopping vegetables in Kai’s place. “It’s infuriating. The people who fucked up my life keep fucking up theirs to atone. It’s dinner, and you have an injured arm. Just direct me. I’ll listen.” He was too exhausted to be too much of an ass.

"To be fair, I think we were fucking up our lives long before you came along," Kai said mildly. "And besides—someone has to make dinner. Anyway, mince the garlic and dice the mushrooms."

“Bullshit. Takeout exists.” Joshua followed Kai’s instructions to the best of his abilities. It wasn’t that Joshua was a bad cook—he’d learned enough to make Joel happy—but he doubted he was at an immortal’s level.

"I suppose I could have ordered takeout, but is it really too much to want to do something nice for the people whose lives you ruined?" Kai said lightly. He started to empty a bag of ground pork into a bowl. Joshua’s grip on the knife tightened.

“You want to do something nice for us? Maybe stop throwing us into danger,” Joshua snarked. “Or, I don’t know, actually succeed in protecting us from The Necromancer. Stop turning us into pawns in your game of repentance.” Joshua’s shoulder still ached from where the lightning strike had hit him. Kai’s gaze was downcast as he started mixing hoisin and soy sauce into the pork.

“... Did you know what would happen in that arena, since you weren’t there?” Joshua asked. Kai shook his head.

"Ven filled me in on what happened when I got back. It sounds like you had a rough time," Kai said casually, as if he were talking about last night’s soccer game and not, you know, getting hit with lightning. He looked over his shoulder. "Do you know how to shred cabbage?"

“...With a knife?” Joshua ventured.

Kai smiled wryly. "I prefer to do this, actually." He walked over, grabbed the cabbage, tossed it upwards, and sent several thin blades of air through the vegetable. Thin slices of cabbage fell onto the cutting board in a neat pile.

“Show off,” Joshua grumbled. Kai ignored the comment, gathering the sliced veggies and mixing them with the seasoned pork.

"The secret to good potstickers, by the way, is adding the right ratio of hoisin and soy sauce,” Kai noted. “You also don't want the vegetables to overwhelm the meat. Have you ever folded potstickers before?"

Joshua shook his head. Kai folded the wrapper in half, then slowly ran Joshua through the pleating process. Joshua did his best to copy Kai’s motions, and for a second, the two simply folded potstickers in silence.

"A point of advice,” Kai said softly. “Being angry at Morgan isn’t going to help. Everyone has their issues, and people are at varying stages in their lives. If a particular person is causing problems, consider that maybe... they aren't doing so on purpose. Try to see it from their point of view, and think about how you can use your strength to help them grow—that's crucial to making a team work." Joshua bit the inside of his cheek, forcing himself to calm down.

“I don’t think they did it on purpose,” Joshua sighed, aggressively folding a potsticker. “But that’s the problem. We can’t call ourselves a well-oiled team if we can’t account for complications like that.”

Kai sighed. "Accidents happen, you know. And speaking from experience... when a person loses control like that, they're less likely to let it happen a second time."

“I get it,” Joshua snapped. “I really do. I get losing control, and I know that it was an accident, but no one’s backstory justifies that.” Joshua avoided looking at Kai. His grip on the potsticker in his hands tightened.

Kai's expression softened as he heated vegetable oil in a skillet. "It's okay if you don't want to talk about all of this with me, but you should talk about it with someone at some point."

The potsticker’s outer shell broke, and the filling came bursting out. Joshua sucked in a deep breath, expression instantly hardening at the lapse of his emotional walls.

“Thanks,” he gritted out, dropping the ruined food on the counter before him. “I’ll have it handled soon.” He wasn’t going to talk to Kai about it.

Kai raised an eyebrow. "No one's asking you to handle it soon," he said gently. "It's not about fixing all of your flaws to become the perfect soldier. I just think that you should talk about it for your own sake—bottling up your emotions is not healthy."

Joshua let out a slow breath through his nose. “I hate that you’re right.” He swallowed. “I feel like a teenager, again, back when I was a normal kid, opposing authority for the hell of it.”

"...If you were to ratio our ages, you would be much younger than a teenager," Kai said wryly.

“That’s great, old man,” Joshua snarked, placing his mug in the sink. As he left the kitchen, Joshua decided to leave Kai with one last thought. “That only means I don’t have hundreds of years of mistakes I have to fix.” Only the twenty four.

~.~

Mateen didn’t even look up when Felix walked in. The immortal was sitting against the foot of his bed, knees pulled tight to his chest, staring blankly at the floor. Felix swallowed. It had been a long time since he’d seen Mateen this shaken up. Slowly, carefully, Felix sat down next to Mateen the way one would approach a wounded animal. Mateen must have noticed, too, because—

"What.” The word was ground out between gritted teeth. It was a tone of voice that Mateen never used with Felix, which only confirmed to Felix that he was right for forcing his way in here.

“I just wanted to see how you were doing,” Felix said gently.

“I almost murdered three mortals, but I’m actually doing just fine, thanks for asking,” Mateen said flatly.

“Mateen.”

“Sorry.” Mateen rested his chin on his knees. “I’m just… thinking.”

“Mkay.” Felix wanted so badly to lean against Mateen’s shoulder, but he knew that Mateen would shy away from the touch, as he always did when he got into these moods. “Penny for your thoughts?”

“No,” Mateen said firmly. “I’m not going to trouble you with this.” Felix groaned internally.

“Mateen, you aren’t troubling me with anything,” Felix said emphatically. “After how long we’ve known each other, you’re seriously going to pull this stupid act and pretend that it’s all fine? I can tell that you’re not okay, and if you keep bottling it up, it’s just going to get worse.”

“Mm.” Mateen brought his knees even closer to his chest. “I’m surprised Ridwan is letting you use their body just for this.”

“That’s not—Ridwan doesn’t hate you!” Felix spluttered. “They’re worried about you, too.”

“Sure they are,” Mateen muttered. Felix’s hands clenched into fists as his sides. Mateen was always so difficult like this—it was hard not to yell and shake some sense into xim. Felix inhaled slowly to calm himself. If this wasn’t working, he’d just try something else.

“Mateen,” Felix said evenly. “I know that you’re thinking about the war.” Mateen stiffened.

“I’m really that much of an open book, huh?” xe mumbled.

“Not really,” Felix said with a shrug. “It’s just… you haven’t really used your powers like that since the war. And…” Felix’s gaze was downcast. “That shapeshifter turned into Skye. It’s only natural that you’d be thinking of that time.”

Mateen’s next words were so quiet that Felix almost missed them.

“I’m just surprised by how little’s changed since then.”

Felix swallowed. “What do you mean?”

Mateen let out a bitter laugh. “I still can’t control myself, when it comes down to it. All it takes is one mention of Skye for me to lose it.”

“She was important to you,” Felix said quietly. “It’s only natural to get angry when someone disrespects her memory.”

“But none of that justifies what I did to those mortals,” Mateen insisted. “I went too far. Again.”

“Maybe that’s true,” Felix murmured. “But…” He sighed. Time to change tactics, then. “When you close your eyes, do you still see it?”

“What?” Mateen raised his head to stare at Felix. “What are you talking about?”

Felix tilted his head back so he was staring at the ceiling. “I can still feel the red-hot irons searing my skin. Any time anything so much as brushes against my forearms, the weight of handcuffs settles around my wrists. And when I close my eyes…” Felix shuddered. “I can still see that damn prison cell.”

Felix’s voice caught in his throat, and for a second, the two just sat in silence.

“I’m not trying to justify anything,” Felix continued, his voice shakier than he wanted it to be. “But… we were in prison for fifty years, Mateen. It’s going to take more than a month to recover from having our will to live stripped away, piece by piece. I doubt any of us are stable right now.”

Felix locked eyes with Mateen. “In your shoes, I probably would have done something much worse. I would’ve run from my mistake. But you—you went back and healed those mortals after hurting them so badly. You didn’t leave them to die.” Felix’s lips twisted into a bitter smile. “You’re not as bad a person as you claim to be.”

“Easy for you to say,” Mateen muttered burying his face in his knees once more. “Your kill count isn’t in the hundreds of millions.”

“But it is in the hundreds of thousands,” Felix countered. Mateen gave him a withering look. “What?”

“That’s not something to brag about,” Mateen groaned.

“Oh, I know,” Felix said with a smile. “I’m just saying—none of the nine of us are innocent. You fucked up yesterday, but hey—we’ve each got several lifetimes’ worth of mistakes. What’s one more?”

“What, indeed,” Mateen grumbled. A beat. “You’re insufferable, you know that?”

“And whose fault is that?” Felix teased.

“Ohhh, no,” Mateen said wearily. “Don’t you go blaming me for your attitude. I didn’t raise you like that.”

“Sure, sure,” Felix said coyly. “We can pretend that’s the case.”

“Oh, fuck off!” Mateen playfully shoved Felix’s shoulder. Felix shoved him right back.

“I will not,” Felix said firmly. “At least, not until I think you’re okay.”

“Pain in the ass,” Mateen muttered.

“Takes one to know one,” Felix chirped, almost on reflex. Mateen tried to glare at Felix, but his intent was undermined by the beginnings of a smile. Before Felix could duck out of the way, Mateen reached out and ruffled Felix’s hair.

“Hey, hey! I worked hard to get my hair to lay flat today!” Felix protested, swatting Mateen’s hand away.

“I know that’s not true, because that’s not even your hair,” Mateen chuckled. “But fine, have it your way.”

“Who’s being a pain in the ass now,” Felix pouted, crossing his arms. It was all a pretense, and Mateen saw through it immediately, but Felix didn’t care—Mateen was smiling now, and that was all that mattered.

“You’re a good kid, Felix,” Mateen said softly. “Thanks for checking in on me.”

“Of course,” Felix said with a grin. “I’ll always be here for you, even when you don’t want me to be.”

~.~

When Jinal walked into the training room, a thunderstorm was already in progress. Wind whipped around Jinal, blowing her hair into a frenzy, and as a lightning strike charred the ground at Jinal’s feet, Jinal was forced to jump back. Rain pounded against Jinal’s skin, but that didn’t bother her—quite the opposite, in fact. As the water made contact, her skin was enveloped by a healing glow.

Jinal calmly made her way to the center of the raging storm. She couldn’t see very well through the sheets of rain, but she knew she’d find—

“Morgan.” Jinal’s voice was calm but firm. “We need to talk.” If Morgan noticed Jinal, she didn’t show it; she continued to sob, and the wind continued to pick up speed around the pair. Jinal knelt next to Morgan in silence, and for a minute or two, Jinal let the girl cry.

“Is it okay if I touch you?” Jinal ventured. Morgan whimpered something unintelligible in reply. Jinal could feel how touch-starved Morgan was, though. Experimentally, she placed a hand on Morgan’s shoulder—the one that hadn’t received a bullet last month.

Morgan leaned into the touch. Jinal internally breathed a sigh of relief.

“You don’t need to say anything,” Jinal said gently. “But I’m going to say some words that I think you need to hear. If you feel the need to speak after that, I’ll listen.”

Jinal took a deep breath, and then she began to say the things she wished she’d heard when she lost control for the first time.

“I’m not going to say it’s not your fault. You wouldn’t believe me even if I did say that, but the fact of the matter is that you do carry a portion of the blame. But it’s exactly that—a portion. The blame isn’t just on you for what happened in that arena.”

Morgan began to sob harder. Jinal gently squeezed Morgan’s shoulder.

“Losing control of your emotions in a situation like that was only to be expected,” Jinal continued. “It was a natural trauma response, and you shouldn’t feel bad about that part of it. In fact, you’ve beaten yourself up about this enough already.” Jinal paused, letting those words sink in. “You’re allowed to be upset—you should be upset—but wallowing in self-hatred will get you nowhere.”

For the first time since Jinal had entered the room, Morgan looked up. Her eyes were red and puffy, and her face was streaked with tears.

“Wh-what should I do then?” Morgan whimpered. “How can—how can I even—I shouldn’t be allowed to exist!”

Jinal inhaled sharply.

“You deserve to exist as much as anyone else,” she said firmly. “Losing control doesn’t make you a monster. It doesn’t make you a bad person. You can’t judge yourself overall based on one moment in time.”

“But you know what would reflect poorly on your character? Refusing to confront this. Running away, never apologizing to Joshua, never addressing the harm you inflicted.” Jinal looked Morgan straight in the eye. “It doesn’t need to be now, but you owe him a conversation.”

“I-I can’t—” Morgan sniffled, wiping away her tears with the back of her hand. “I can’t face him. Not now. And I can’t go back into that arena—” Her voice broke.

“Don’t worry,” Jinal soothed. “We’re not sending you back in there. The tournament team has already left.” Morgan let out a relieved sob. “In fact, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. We can run some control exercises here, and then you can call it a day.”

“I—” Jinal could tell from the wind whistling in her ears that Morgan still felt conflicted. “I can’t just do that. I’d feel so—so useless.”

“People are not things to be used,” Jinal said smoothly. “But if you wanted to do something—as a distraction, I mean—Ilia and Karyme are going to be heading out on their own mission later today. They could use the protection of someone who knows how to use a gun.”

“O-okay,” Morgan said quickly, wiping away the last of her tears. The wind began to calm, and the rain lightened up just a little. “I can do that.”

“Good.” Jinal smiled and offered Morgan a hand. “Now then, let’s get you some dry clothes, hm? You can’t go around looking like that.” Morgan’s smile was shaky as she took Jinal’s hand.

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