Chapter Text
“Molly, I’m home!”
“Well, shite.” The violet tiefling shoved a hand through his hair at the call, glancing down at the unconscious body he and Verin had laid out on the master bed. He pointed a long, manicured nail at the echo knight with a demand of, “Keep an eye on him!” before heading off down the hall to intercept Essek. “Hiiii~! What’s been up with you today, Starlight?” he asked, draping himself over the Shadowhand’s shoulders as he so frequently did when the drow got home from work.
But Essek wasn’t buying it. “What did you do?” he sighed, sinking to the floor and turning to wrap his arms around the taller in turn.
“Nothing! Why would you assume–?”
The stare Molly received was as nonplused as ever.
“Okay, so, maybe, just maybe Verin and I might’ve foundsomeoneinbadshapeandbroughthimbackheretoheal,” he mumbled under his breath.
“I’m sorry, what?”
Molly huffed out a breath as he pulled free from Essek. “So, they–we were out today, and we were hanging around, and there were some jerks beating up someone, and we broke up the fight, but the guy was really hurt, so–”
Essek’s brow furrowed. “Why not take him to Jester or Caduceus?”
“Well, this was closer, and we kinda didn’t think it’d be a good idea to carry him halfway through town.”
“What? Why? Molly, we don’t have any spare potions around and–”
“He’s human.”
The drow blinked blankly for a moment before seeming to come back to himself, storming towards the bedroom. “You–You brought a human back here?”
“Hey, you’ve never had an issue with Beau!” Molly argued, chasing him down the hall.
“She’s considered a diplomat, not a potential spy!”
“He’s not a–he’s probably not a spy!”
“How could you possibly know that?!”
“Would a spy have gotten beat up like that?!” Molly got in front and threw open the door, pointing towards where Verin was still wrapping up one of the cuts going down the man’s arm.
Essek moved in closer, looking over the redhead that had been laid in their bed. Bruises darkened his pale face, blotting out freckles and swelling the skin. Blood had apparently been cleaned up a bit already if the bowl of pinked water to one side meant anything. Bandages covered several different spots across the man’s body, and where they weren’t, he was covered by a dirty, dingy brown coat over traveler’s clothes.
“What the hell happened to him?” Essek demanded, coming to sit on a chair by the bed.
A faint grin spread across Molly’s face at the drow’s cursing, which had been picked up from the tiefling himself, before he leaned against the doorway to reply, “We’re not really sure, we only got there at the end.”
“He was already out cold, but they wouldn’t stop,” Verin added, tucking the man’s arm back towards his body. He glanced over to his older brother, face pinched in concern. “They were laughing and everything, like it was just a game. Poor guy practically went flying when one of them kicked him.”
Essek sighed. “Fine, okay, he can stay. I’ll contact Jester for a house call.”
“No can do,” Molly negated, shaking his head. “She Sent to me a bit ago that we’d been given a new mission, and they had to leave already. I’m supposed to catch up if I’m able.” The tiefling’s red eyes were focused on the sleeping man. “He’ll have to heal the old fashioned way, for a bit, at least.”
The brothers nodded, dual expressions of concern and pity crossing their faces as they studied the man. “He’ll stay here while he heals,” Essek said after a long pause, nodding to himself. “But we’ll need to find out more about him once he wakes. Just in case.”
~~~
The first thing he could understand was pain.
Pain was nothing new for him, of course. He had adapted to pain over the years. But this was different, this wasn’t the sharp pain of green shards dug under his skin or the aching pain of pushing his magic too far. This was the deep, throbbing pain of a beating gone on far too long. No magic had been done to him, just physical brutality.
Which meant he wasn’t home.
He blinked, only one eye opening a sliver, the other staying firmly closed, pulsing at his attempts to move what was likely a very swollen black eye. Still, he could make out blurry shapes about him, and his fingers could twitch into the fabric below him. He was lying on something, something far too soft to be his own pallet and definitely not the stone floor of the Towers.
He was in a bed. He should not be in a bed.
His heart stuttered in his chest. This was not good. If Master found out–No. He could be away from the bed before Master ever knew. He could definitely be back in his own room, on his pallet, where he belonged–
But Master always knew when he was lying. He’d never managed even the smallest fib before the man, who could always tell exactly what he and his classmates were thinking at any point. No, it would be much better to seek out Master and confess now rather than try to hide it. The punishment would be less.
“Ah, look who’s up!”
Scheisse. Master was going to kill him.
He flailed, tumbling off the bed to a wooden floor, new pain shooting through his body from every cell that hit, or so it felt.
“Oh, shite, no, wait!”
Footsteps were coming towards him. He scrunched down into position for whatever was coming to him, whatever punishment he had earned. Someone loomed over him, and he braced–
“Oh, love, that looks like it hurt, huh?”
An arm wrapped under him, lifting him and placing him back on the bed. If his eyes could widen, they certainly would have. He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t be on this bed, it wasn’t for him. This–This person was going to get him in even worse trouble!
He bit down to stop the instinct to whimper, fresh blood dripping into his mouth as he apparently reopened a split on his lip.
“Love, don’t do that, aye? You’ll make it worse.” A hand brushed over his chin, loosing his lip from his teeth, then continued to stroke across his cheek as someone sat beside him. “You’re doing a little better, at least, but you’ve still got some healing to do. Essie will wanna chat with you when he gets home.”
Fear shot down his spine, but he knew better than to show it. Instead, he focused on his heartbeat, slowing it and forcing himself to go lax in case this person had a different idea for punishment.
“He’ll be back soon, so you can just doze here for a–”
“Molly, I’m home!”
A chuckle came from the person sitting beside him. “He’s nothing if not punctual. In the bedroom, Starlight!”
There weren't footsteps, but something was definitely approaching the room. “How’s our guest doing?”
He needed to be able to see more than just blurs. He needed to see so he could judge the best way to get out of here with the least amount of pain.
He needed to get back to Master.
“He took a bit of a tumble when he woke,” the person beside him called back. There was a shift, they were turning to look towards the door.
This was his chance. He forced his eyes as open as he could, blinking rapidly to clear the blurriness as he also looked towards the door of the room. The person beside him was a violet tiefling.
“Well, we can’t have him dying in our bedroom,” came from the door. A drow stood there, smirking towards the tiefling. “The rumors would never stop.”
A tiefling and a drow. He wasn’t home.
He was in the Dynasty.