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
"You know, Wrath, they're still making those Orange Islands candies. How would you like a few from my stash?"
no subject
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 subject
"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.