Chapter Text
Lightning never strikes the same spot twice.
…unless you have an iron rod up your ass, apparently.
(Lady Luck has not favored Arlo Montgomery as of late.)
Electricity flows through his veins unbidden. Lungs and channels and…?
(lightning. always lightning. wasn’t this supposed to get rid of it? of him? why-)
But this isn’t EMBER’s stolen power. It’s…
“---’t you fucking dare…on me…rlo…!”
What? But he was supposed to? He's doing what he’s supposed to?
Brilliant white floods his vision, reawakening drowned senses and jolting through his ocean-soaked limbs. Bright, bright-
he thinks he makes a noise. everything is hot loud too much when it had just been quiet, finally quiet not long ago, so why- a voice. pain. why. he was so close, so close, just little longer, to—
Red.
The first thing Arlo comprehends is color.
Glassy and tear-filled. Angry. Ruby eyes red-rimmed as they glare down at him through a curtain of soggy bangs.
(…he’s always hated that look on her.)
Then it’s blue. Bright. Not like the dark depths he’d walked into fully clothed, fully intending for those steps, those breaths, to be his last—
Breath.
With a gasp, he starts hacking up everything in his lungs because, despite his body’s desperation for oxygen, it has no idea what to do with it after so long waterlogged. Every cough, involuntary, violent, rattles his shivering frame and he turns out on the sand to expel the liquid from his convulsing airways.
Arlo is just as confused as his organs are by the sudden rescue. Rowden’s beaches are so far out, and there had been no one remotely near him before he’d went in, so there was no way anyone could have-
It could have been minutes or an hour, but once his coughing fit settled, he manages to turn towards the hand that he is belatedly registering on his back.
Pink. The third thing.
Salmon locks drenched and dripping, darkened to a deeper shade than its usual shrimpish shade. Pink in the face as well, like she’d just finished running a marathon. Murmurs of breathless encouragements and worries reach his ringing ears as his stinging eyes struggle to focus on her above him through the tears in his sandy lashes.
A jagged line runs down her eyelid like a tear. A line he carved himself. The tears are his fault, too.
Pinky…?
and he doesn’t even feel his lips move to rasp it out. his throat hurts, though.
“You don’t get to call me that after pulling— THIS, Arlo!” Did he say that out loud? Pinky never did like his nickname for her.
Each cough is weaker than the last before they fizzle out into a pathetic sputter, eyes misting with the effort.
and he’s never liked it when she cries. hideous. that’s why he came all the way out here. he didn’t want to see her like this. for her to see him like this.
(did she seriously have to save him after all he put her through?)
and his focus is jolted back with her “What the HELL, Arlo?” and she’s pounding on his chest again, though no shock is involved other than the one to his systems, and the one prior, so it’s no ploy to clear his lungs or restart his failing body as she had before. She’s just pissed. But her hands are gentle when they find his face, far too kind a cradle as she glares at him, lip trembling and bitten with sobs.
“I almost didn’t make it…” Remi chokes out, and the words ring clear for him even through the ocean in his ears.
And he hears her voice, rising and radiating fear and worry in its frantic pace, but he isn’t getting all the words. Just staring, watching tears well and fall, tracing that line down her cheek, landing on his own.
It wasn’t just her hair that had been dripping onto him earlier, he realizes.
“how could you…without even…goodbye?! …idiot….! …sen and —! hang on, i’m taking you to-” bits and pieces, syllables that mean nothing to him in this state. his head lolls forward, too heavy for how empty it feels with his disjointed thoughts, and he feels arms around him, boneless in her hold as she activates her ability and hoists him up. A different weightlessness to being underwater.
Sparks illuminate her lithe frame and tingle on his skin, conducive from wet clothes and the dampness clinging to him. His temple meets her chest, and the sound of her heartbeat, wild with adrenaline and an aching worry, drowns out whatever she’s saying and the squelch of dashing feet on wet sand.
(A homemade defibrillator. Palms to the chest, just enough Lightning at the ready. A clever use of -their- her ability he hadn’t considered before. Maybe Rei taught her, having been med-school bound alongside Kuyo and all. Or maybe she's had to use it before. He doesn't like that idea. Clearly her Recovery has improved. She really has gotten so much stronger…
surely, she didn’t need him anymore—)
He’s guessing the shock earlier and regained access to oxygen had been just enough to restart his systems, activate his Regen. Just enough.
(he should have swam farther out, then.)
He’s surprised. On multiple fronts, but the thing that’s currently sticking to his wrung sponge of brain is: since when could Remi swim?
(“what kind of shrimp can't swim?” he’d said a lifetime ago, blurry with age and the mundanity of the moment. another triumph he had over the cafeteria’s tyrant queen. another reassurance his plan would work, had she not–)
The world dips for a moment as Remi crouches in the sand, him still in her hold, head now over her shoulder. Arlo doesn’t blink as something heavy and sunwarm is draped over him. But he wrinkles his nose at the smell of ashes and blood lingering on his coat.
No. Not his coat. EMBER’s. Arson’s. Not…
(get away from me.)
he reaches out, fumbling, batting it off him. limbs too weak to work. “Quit squirming,” Remi huffs, admonishing, and he is helpless against her swaddling.
Those words are familiar. The position, too.
(him in her arms and he hates that these arms have held him once before. It only makes sense, she’d said, holding out her arms as they stood just to the side of the freeway, as if expecting him to jump in with zeal. She was much faster than him, after all. With Lightning. It had been necessary back then, the Rowden trip gone wrong. He thinks. The memories are loosely stitched together in his mind, linked by vague associations and concepts rather than concrete. The headache he’d ended up with was debilitating. It's only natural that breaking free from god-tier brainwashing would do that to you, he supposes.)
and just like last time, he’s falling asleep.
he’s so tired.
has been. before the raid. before remembering. everything has just been exhausting, the weight of living and truth an equal burden, and he just wanted to rest.
(sleep wouldn’t touch it. where would he go? home? in the blood of his mother’s sister? no.)
but maybe he can close his eyes for now. face the world later. remi’s tears. his actions.
today’s rest doesn’t come with the effects of Sleep Touch or Hypnosis or any other bullshit. This has nothing to do with an ability other than Remi’s innate way of making him relax. She’s always had that effect on him, just by entering the room.
eyelids drooping shut once more…
“...rest, but you’re not getting out of this just cause you’re sleeping, we’re going to have a talk later-” the nagging is half processed, but he doesn’t miss how her voice is softer than he’s heard it in a while. hoarse but not hostile despite everything.
he hears the car open. voices other than remi’s, exchanged above his head as the words fly over him in a similar fashion. the smell of sun warmed seats and long gone fast food (gag) greets him as he is gingerly deposited across the back seats, the damned coat tucked in around him once more despite his protests. he can already feel his regeneration stitching together the damage, draining him further.
soft murmuring surrounds him. remi, isen.
Blyke.
(free. they both are, now.)
and through the exhaustion and weight of wet clothes, injury-leaden limbs dragging him into unconsciousness…arlo manages a smile. More of a twitch of the lips. That'd earn him a kick, later.
He can rest.
It’s all up to them now, after all.
♡