[closed catchall for Homeward Bound Boy Wrath]

[garbagechild]

Who: Wrath, Lust, Envy, Scar, Henry
What: LASSIE WRATH COME HOME
Where: Shark House (ie, quiet suburban neighborhood in Goldenrod City)
Warnings: Later threads include graphic dialogue about subjects like child death/injury, suicide, etc.
Summary: Wrath can't avoid the inevitable any longer. After meandering in awkward emotional paralysis for a month, he finally arrives in Goldenrod City to find out if his family is still there or not.



The city streets haven't changed a single bit.

The same smells hang on the humid, seaside air. The same warm yellow lights blaze above the sidewalks. The same buzz and murmur of never-sleeping nightlife float along main roads and narrow alleys alike.

Wrath remembers all of them with startling clarity, and yet they don't feel familiar anymore. He shies away from all of it, slinking along like an awkward shadow and trying not to be noticed. Which is blessedly not difficult, at least in the heart of town where there's still enough bustle and activity that a short kid and his Cubone hardly stand out. But even with his memories intact... coming back to a bona fide city after the isolation he'd wrapped himself in back in Amestris is overwhelming in every way.

What he's looking for, however, isn't in the heart of town. No, his destination is down in the southern half of the city, in a much sleepier pocket of suburbia...


____


His feet remember the path there better than his brain does, and all too fast, their surroundings have shifted from broad bright streets to ones lined with houses, trees, and lamp-posts. Completely preoccupied with his own growing anxiety, Wrath barely even notices how fast they've arrived until he realizes that downtown's golden hum has been replaced with the soft, velvet drone of chirping insects and whirring fans. The clank of his automail foot on the pavement is painfully loud now that there's so much less background noise to drown it out.

He stops right there in the middle of the road like a statue as the realization hits him.

This is it. This is their street...

Down at his side, Son squeezes his hand. The Cubone had been keeping up with his trainer valiantly all night long, despite his stubby little legs. Keenly-attuned partner-Pokemon senses aside, it hadn't exactly been hard to notice that Wrath had been growing tenser and tenser the closer they got (even though escaping from the chaos of the inner city should have, would have been a relief for most people). Although Wrath doesn't look down, the squeeze tugs him back into reality enough to carry on.

It isn't long until he spots it.

There.

It's there.

It's still there.

The House... but that doesn't mean it has the same people in it. Or that they would feel the same way they did once, even if they'd remained. ... It's not too late. He could just keep walking. He could just head straight out of town and into Ilex Forest, never to be seen again. They would never know that he was here. ... And vice versa.

A shadow briefly passes in front of one of the windows, and Wrath stiffens, freezing again. He feels like throwing up.

But Son delivers a gentle headbutt to his automail leg. CLINK. Wrath grimaces, swallowing, and stumbles up the walk.

Approaching the house is ten times more difficult and painstaking than it had been with the cottage in Violet, but eventually, he finds himself standing on the doorstep, almost too tense to breathe. He lifts a hand several times, only to drop it again. Once, he manages to make contact with the door... but just scratches it timidly with his nails, too quiet to be heard.

"... I can't," he mumbles hoarsely after these failed attempts, more to himself than to his Pokemon... but Son responds anyway with a whispered but no-less-vehement "Bone!" Yes you can!

Wrath lets out a shaky, miserable sigh, but... he can't say no to his son.

Steeling himself and taking a deep breath, he raises his hand again... and knocks.




Thread Timeline because we're out of control:
1. Wrath arrives and is ushered in by Henry + Envy; Scar informs Lust about Wrath's return; Lust and Wrath reunite.
2. As Lust + Wrath Cry In The Living Room (tm), Henry re-enters with a failed hot cocoa attempt; Envy flees to the laundry room.
3. Heather receives distraught Envy phonecall.
4. Envy and Scar briefly discuss The Gluttony Thing in the hall.
5. Wrath and Envy catch up; Evil Brother Hug! at Kitchen Island.
6. Heather and Scar fail to communicate on the porch, but it's fine.
7. Hot Cocoa Attempt 2.0 by Henry; Evil Brothers + Henry quiet couch time.
8. Scar + Lust discuss personal growth and parenthood.
9. Heather gets home with pizza baked goods, gets caught up on the tea.
10. The following morning, Scar + Envy discretely get info from Wrath; also Don't Tell Mom About Gluttony.

Comments

[garbagechild]

'I missed you' gets Wrath to look up from his slouch, brows peaked. It's been said to him a couple times this evening... and each time, it's hit a little differently but equally hard.

When Henry returns, Wrath has re-taken his seat on the couch-corner-- when he reaches for the mug and murmurs, "Thank you...", it's both for the cocoa and Henry's earnestly-expressed sentiment.

For a second, he just sits there with his cup cradled in his hands, staring down into it.

After a solid minute he says, in the same faint, kind of dreamy way that someone might recall a friend from preschool, "... I remember marshmallows..."

[no_ufo_ending]

He remembers marshmallows.

Henry's brows peak at the wistful way Wrath observes the marshmallows. Man. Has it really been that long?

He dips back to the kitchen and soon returns with a mug for Envy and one for himself. For Envy's mug he chose the black one on which many glowing Ghost-type eyes appear once it heats up. For himself, Henry chose a red mug with a Rotom's face on it.

Henry takes a sip before finally speaking up. "Scar and I came back after a long time too. Feels weird' huh?"

[garbagechild]

It certainly has... at least for Wrath.

Two thirds of his entire life, if you didn't count the several years he'd spent in Johto.

Before taking a sip, Wrath takes a minute to observe the mug Henry had picked out... and his heart pangs again as he runs his fingers over the little Dratini-shaped handle. He misses Slime.

"It didn't feel real. ... It still doesn't."

Finally lifting the mug to his mouth, he takes a gulp that's slightly too large for the level of heat it's still at, but if it burned his tongue, he doesn't really react to it.

"I don't feel awake..."

[exeggutorhead]

Envy takes the offered ghostly mug and sips at it while Wrath and Henry exchange words. He notes that Wrath's gulp is probably going to burn his tongue, but honestly? So long as he's drinking it and not just swirling the liquid around in the cup.

Wrath had always been a big fan of chocolate, here.

"Might just take some time for that."

The massive differences between this world and the one they came from don't help, that's for sure!

[no_ufo_ending]

Satisfied with a job well done, Henry does a weird little criss cross thing with his feat and folds into a very well practiced sit next to the couch so he can face them.

"And you can take all the time you need. We're here." The somber way Wrath describes his experience urges Henry to vow to make more of an effort to get to know this kid outside of 'Envy's feral little brother.'

"Would you like me to turn the TV on?"

[garbagechild]

Time... right now, Wrath can barely conceive of feeling any other way than this strange, numb displacement with occasional bursts of sadness or anger. But he remembers that it used to be different, here.

At some point, he had felt like he belonged in this place.

It feels like it's too much to hope for, that he might feel that way again.

But also, today's been A Lot.

He couldn't think about any of this in-depth even if he wanted to right now.

The TV. He used to love watching TV.

"... Yeah. Okay..."

[no_ufo_ending]

Henry nods and leans forward to fish the remote out of the couch cushions. Once he finds it, he turns on the TV. It's a serene nature documentary with some Girafarig grazing among the treetops.

"That should be good." He knew Wrath liked cartoons but that seemed a little too high energy for the moment.

Henry turns his attention back to Wrath. His eyes wander to the metal hand that grips the cocoa mug. He wants to ask, but he knows it's not his place. Instead, he looks to the Cubone that has been glued to Wrath's side. He gives Son a little smile.

"Hi there..."

[garbagechild]

Henry's instincts would be correct-- while Wrath has at least had the past month to... slowly adjust to existing in a modern age again, a cartoon just might give him a panic attack tonight.

So as the TV pops to life, Wrath nods again. Yes, he will focus his gaze on these long yellow things peacefully eating leaves. And hold the hot mug to his chest. And maybe even lean on Envy's arm just a little bit, without fully realizing.

These are all things he can do.


Meanwhile, the little Cubone, who had left Wrath's side in the kitchen only briefly to wander around a bit while his trainer was preoccupied with another Important Reunion, offers Henry a little wave from where he had re-attached to Wrath's leg (a safe place to cling, he's found).

"Bone..."

Hello! This has kind of been a Lot for him, as well. <8)

[no_ufo_ending]

"Thank you for taking such good care of Wrath." He tells Son. "Would you like something warm to drink?"

Everybody's getting cocoa god damn it.

[garbagechild]

Inside the skull helmet, Son's eyes light up at the praise. Truthfully, he hasn't honestly been sure how much good he's been doing with this... very unusual little trainer he'd been assigned to.

Prior to THE BIG DAY, he'd done his best not to get his heart set on anything in particular-- there were all kinds of humans, after all, and you had to do your best even if your human didn't quite meet your expectations. He'd lowkey hoped that he wouldn't wind up with, like... a Youngster who hadn't learned not to pull on tails yet, but other than that, he'd really been keeping an open mind!

And then... THE BIG DAY came.

Son hadn't really expected to get a human that was so obviously some kind of rescue.

He wasn't upset about it.

But he hadn't been prepared for it, either.

"Bone! Cu-bone."

Thank you, bearded human, he's been doing his best! And a hot drink sounds great. He glances over at Wrath, because... is cocoa a thing he can have? Lemonade had been fine, but they hadn't looked up hot chocolate. :Ia

[no_ufo_ending]

With a smile, Henry reaches out and places his head on Son's skull for a moment before getting back up and going back into the kitchen. Soon, he returns with a small pink mug just Son's size with a Chansey's face on it.

"Here you go..."

Henry looks back to Wrath and just...looks for a bit. It's clear everyone is so surprised to see him and having him back is so surreal.

"Man, this is something else. It's like your back from the dead."

[exeggutorhead]

Serene nature documentary is about everyone's speed right now. Envy's more than good with not having to do any more feeling or thinking or explaining or confronting a crashing tsunami of shame. Henry's taken over for being calm and soothing and managing things. Just watching the Girafarig herd eat leaves and letting Wrath lean on his arm is all he has to do for now.

Even if the leaning comes with its own little extra twinge of emotion.

He's absently keeping an ear on what Henry's saying to the Cubone, but not much of one. But there are certain phrases which will always laser target themselves right into Envy's ears, and "back from the dead" is one of them!

He chokes into his mug.

"Yeah, well," his voice comes out a little strangled around trying not to inhale any cocoa, "We do know all about that."

There miiight be a little bit of lingering hysteria from the kitchen. He's not outright snickering like he might in a more normal situation, but it's still clearly something he's finding more morbidly funny than anything.

[garbagechild]

The Cubone accepts his mug gratefully, and for a moment there's just peace and calm. Nothing but the sounds of hot chocolate being sipped and ungulates crunching leaves on the television.

Then Henry just... blurts that out.

Wrath first blinks, drawn back out of haze of fatigue and Warm Beverage (tm) he'd sunk into by those words, even though they take a second to sink in.

Then his nose wrinkles and his mouth torques, almost like the prelude to an incredulous laugh, but not quite.

"... Yeah. 'Back'," he says finally, and even though he still sounds tired and distant, there's... some note of amusement in it. Like he's making a private joke, somehow. But if anyone expects him to explain it... then they're out of luck, because he's taking another really long drink from his cocoa.

[no_ufo_ending]

Henry's own mouth becomes a flat line. Oh...OH. Oh yeah. Haha. Oops. He's glad they're not upset but he instantly feels dumb. He's dropping the ball here! He's supposed to be picking up the slack for Envy.

"You know, Wrath, they're still making those Orange Islands candies. How would you like a few from my stash?"

[garbagechild]

YEAH HENRY, OOPS.

Fortunately, morbid humor has always been the way of the Homunculus. And the tension from earlier had broken hard enough that it would take something a lot more egregious than that to pierce the relieved fatigue that's settled over Wrath.

He considers the offer for a moment... then shakes his head.

"Mm... no, thank you."

There had once been a time where an offer of rare access to Henry's stash would have been met with hands held out eagerly, but... Wrath hasn't been hungry, and he's gotten very rusty at accepting handouts in the last few years.

But he takes another drink of his cocoa and thinks quietly to himself for a moment, before piping up again.

"... The cold ones used to make my mouth sizzle. Do you remember that?"

[no_ufo_ending]

Henry laughs softly.

"I do. And you know, they keep inventing new kinds. But...later. Sometime later."

He wants to very obviously give the kid his space, but he wants him to know that he's going to be sticking around. He wasn't overly involved in Wrath's life before, so this is a good second chance that he's thankful to get.