Scathefire(MxM)[Unedited]

5

This chapter contains some mild gore in the first paragraph :)

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Austin stirs as the wailing cries of an infant reaches his ears. He rolls to his stomach. It's his sister, probably, but her cries don't stop, they don't ebb away or gurgle into quiet, contented coos. They grow louder as she screams and gasps for breath around her choking sobs. He finally gets up, walking down the hall at the beckon of his sister's tears. The hallway stretches for what feels like forever as he takes sluggish, slow steps, languid feet brushing against crusty old carpet. When he finally reaches the door, it's open, and the crying seems distant and vague. His heart beats weirdly in his chest as he approaches the shadowy bed, and reaches out. He slowly pulls back the blanket to reveal his mother's bloodied carcass. His heart, stomach, and lungs all feel like one nasty, throbbing ball tangled up and stuffed into his throat. He chokes and steps back as her eyes open and she opens her mouth, bloody pink foam flooding her mouth with a strange rushing and splattering sound as it hits the ground.

Austin jolts awake with a shuddering gasp, but the rushing, splattering sound doesn't go away. Convinced he's still stuck in his nightmare, Austin drags his blanket over his head with trembling hands and despairing whimper. He rubs his hands erratically over his buzzed hair, fighting to block out the noise. The feeling of his hair on his palms is like static, like white noise on his hands. It helps him even out his breathing and calm his mind enough to peek past his blanket at the dark, wet window. Rain. It's just raining. Very, very hard. Hard enough to slip into his dream, at least. And that realization helps him ground himself as he looks around his room, fumbling to turn on his lamp. His skin is shiny wet with sweat, sticking his shirt to his chest and making his shorts uncomfortable and prickly. The temptation to lean back into bed and curl up tight is strong, but the longer he sleeps, the worse the dreams get. Besides, he should check on Avery, shouldn't he? He doesn't really need to, but he might as well find a reason to get out of bed, otherwise he really will fall back asleep.

The journey across the living room to where Avery sleeps manages to ease the tremors that continue to plague Austin's hands and knees. He pauses outside of the door as he recalls last night's dream. He draws in a deep, grounding breath before knocking gently at the door.

"Avery, just... checking on you." He calls quietly through the door. After a moment passes with no response, Austin carefully cracks open the door and peeks in. On the good side, he isn't opening the door to a massacre, on the worse side, he still gets a hell of a fright by the sight of feathers littered around the floor and the angel himself nestled in the corner, pupils gleaming in the dark room.

"Jesus- fuck." He grunts, pushing the door further open to let the light from the living room illuminate the room.

"Are you hungry?" Austin asks, folding his arms, watching Avery fidget with his feathers, running his fingers over the soft, delicate feathers of his expansive wings, eyes averted. After a few moments with no response, Austin pushes further. "Avery, you haven't eaten since... I don't know, at least 24 hours." Austin says cooly, stepping into the room. More silence. "You're not even going to look at me?" Austin demands, his face flushing hot and fingers curling as Avery's stonewalling threatens Austin's sense of control. His body moves forward automatically. It's not like he'd intended to hurt Avery, he just wanted Avery to at least look at him. He's quick to stop, however, as Avery's body coils up tight, fingers tugging at the feathers, yanking out a few with a few sickening snaps. Austin's jaw clenches, and Avery's eyes still don't meet his. Austin casts his gaze over the feathers scattered across the ground, and the ones clutched in Avery's fingers. He draws in a deep breath before releasing it again, slowly, flexing his fingers. He says nothing and moves slowly, going to pick up the feathers.

Finally, Avery looks at him, watching him with an expression akin to a cornered cat as he cleans up the feathers. When Austin is sure he's gotten all the feathers picked up, he extends his hand for the rest of the feathers in Avery's hand. Avery's eyes rest on his hand for a moment, scanning his palm, before looking up at Austin, eyes full of skepticism.

"I just want the feathers, Avery." Austin says, barely more than a whisper. It's enough of a prompt for Avery to reach out and place the feathers in his hand.

"I'm sorry." Avery whispers back, his voice and lip quivering. Austin shrugs.

"Don't apologize to me. They're your feathers. Does it hurt?" He asks, heading back to the door. The lack of answer doesn't bug him so much this time with the reminder of Avery's vulnerable position. Austin used to be much worse about his shows of dominance like that. It used to be the only way he could survive. Learning to have a gentle hand hasn't been easy, and it certainly won't be easy going forward.

If he's honest, he owes much of his progress to Jaz's little girl. In her early few months, he could barely look at her, it was like he was reopening wounds from taking care of Jaz when she had been a baby herself. The more he took care of a postpartum Calla, Jaz' wife, the better he felt about Calliope, their daughter. Her itty bitty hands fearlessly grasping at his gnarled hands, stained with violence, had reinvigorated a gentleness that had once been a fundamental part of him. His forbearing temperament had been twisted before his age reached the double digits, turned into a weakness in his fortress of viciousness, and Calliope had turned it back into a virtue.

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Thanks for reading :)

I made Austin's apartment in The Sims. It's bigger than I imagined in my head, tbh, but that's ok. Man's got it made 💅