Wrath (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
garbagechild) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
victory_road2024-08-15 11:45 pm
garbagechild) wrote in victory_road2024-08-15 11:45 pm
[closed catchall for Homeward Bound Boy Wrath]
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 withpizza 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.
What:
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.
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
10. The following morning, Scar + Envy discretely get info from Wrath; also Don't Tell Mom About Gluttony.
no subject
He thinks of Rick. He thinks of Leo. There is an ache in his chest, alongside the glitter of anticipation and possibility. He wishes he could have even a last moment with them to say good-bye. On most days, it's little more than a quiet ache among all the others. Tonight, it roils to the surface.
For a moment, more than anything, Scar wishes he could be home.
He gathers Lust closer beside him.
"We'll make certain of it," he murmurs into her hair. A moment follows in which he says nothing. Then, through the heaviness in his throat, gently amused, "I'm fixing his spelling."
no subject
Really, it's a miracle he can read and write the way he can. But Lust's voice is warm with humor. Scar is welcome to take over that particular task.
"I think I still have a box of workbooks, tucked away somewhere. The ones real teachers use."
She'd made sure to get proper ones. So he could have a proper education. Where else was he going to get it in this lifetime? It's not as though they could send him to school.
With a small sigh, she leans her weight into Scar and rests against his side. The evening has worn her out efficiently. It's nice to unwind like this, quietly talking and curled into one another.
no subject
"Heather was kind to me, tonight, my utterly baffling her aside," he adds quietly as another moment passes. Half of a nonsequitur, but one he thinks is worth pointing out, given their... history. It is related, despite everything. This unlikely home keeps itself together better and better, with time. One of many one-in-a-million surprises that have come with this world.