A Tale of One Deviant (Book 2) (Technically Hiatus, but kind of not)

Chapter 202: A Fixer

"Honey, where were you?"

     "Hm?" I blinked, looking over at my mother who seized upon me with sudden grasping hands right as I teleported in between them. They seemed to have gotten used to me coming to that exact space after just a few nights of it happening, and my mother was ready the moment I appeared. "What do you mean? I told you-"

     Honestly, I just had a spot of time. That was it. I wasn't really expecting to stay there for longer than a few minutes, enjoying their warmth, snuggling in, before going off to deal with the aftermath Kiki was surely to assail upon me after sighing at my antics of earlier.

     But I was glowing. Smiling, even, while Mother's hands were all across my face, rubbing over the bridge of my nose where a thin scar - well, it was thin when I was in my adult form, but like a splash of solid white freckle over my nose clean from where Thanos' dagger swept across and relieved itself of my brown skin on either side - had "suddenly" appeared.

     But she was a bucket full of worries rubbing that scar so much I had to squint to see her, scrunching my face in retaliation.

     "Ana," Father sighed, hands looping over to save me from her incessant worrying.

     But I was wrong. I wasn't saved from one by the other, but kidnapped from one by another, one somehow even worse as he sat up in bed and held me tight everywhere but where he knew not to touch on my chest. His legs drew up and crossed, trapping me in, and he bent over the top of me so he could see my face from behind. Arms wrapped across my torso, one hand rubbing over the scar.

     I didn't get it. They were spooked - like a ghost had flown through the halls that looked like me, telling them I died early. Rattled, somehow, even though searching their memories I found nothing...except for traces of memories being erased by Kiki.

     No way...

     Master, it's fine if they don't remember. They were worried about you.

     So the solution is to show them that? That would make them worry more! And be afraid of me! Panic started to well up as I wanted to work my own magic and suppress the feeling entirely, completely not only wiping the memory of me going crazy in my adult form with the God of Death as my partner in crime, but the feeling, the idea of it, everything, anything...

     Do they seem more afraid of you? Even not remembering what happened, and having nothing but what their emotions are telling them as a guide to how to act around you now.

     So I stopped. Feeling Father's pointer finger just going over the white line, feeling for the edges of it, and only trembling in his aura because he was...

     Upset? No, rattled. That's the rattled part. But what's this...fear? Because of me?

     Afraid for you, not because of you.

     "Oh..."

     And then I looked up into those forest green eyes, relaxing myself again after a bizarrely good day. Feeling Mother's weight as she leaned on Father, and her hand as she knocked his away so she could touch my face instead. Fighting, almost, to touch me, to feel that I was there, to hold me close.

     "Were you...worried for me?"

     "Don't say that with such a tone as if it's a ludicrous idea! Do you know how terrified we were? You kept on saying something important was going to happen today, and every time you would say that in the past, then you'd-..."

     Mother's hand stopped as she cupped my cheek and forced Father over, going to place a dry kiss on the bone there.

     "Oh...I'm sorry." There wasn't much more I knew to say. "Kiki shouldn't have shown that to you without properly dealing with the effects on your bodies. I'll scold her later, don't wo-"