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“Wemmbu.”
There was a mutter about him being annoying; a punch.
“Wemmbu.”
A sniffle. Another punch.
“Wemmbu, bro!”
And this time, when his arm raised for another, Mane pushed back. Threw him to the side and put his weight down to keep the boy still. To keep his little one from doing something he’d have to fight back against.
He looked small under him—he was, he hadn’t been eating—shaking and letting black eyes dart around as if to look for a way to escape. Mane was sure he wanted to. But he couldn’t let him go like this, dying and breaking down and absolutely heart breaking. Something any player would take advantage of. Something anybody would see and say, ‘that’s the strongest player,’ (or was that Flame now? He’d been so proud when he heard the news of Wemmbu succeeding in defeating his brother), ‘if we kill him, the Law has to make us rich’.
Aggravation, or maybe something much more loving, tightened when Wemmbu tried squirming out, his knee unconsciously digging into the other’s stomach in a desperate attempt to keep him still. Unconsciously ignoring the warmth that shouldn’t have been against his knee. Just for a second. Just enough to make sure his baby is safe.
It didn’t work that well. Something scared and violent lit.
Mane pushed further down onto his shoulders, claws digging into the dirt beneath, and spoke loud enough he prayed the other would just listen, “Listen to me! You—you always do this,” always ignore him; always act reckless and impulsive.
“Listen to me. You,” his left hand grabbed Wemmbu’s head, fingers grasping his cheeks, “You are going to be fine.”
Because he was. He would be. He just needed to listen for a second. Needed to let Mane help, for a second.
It hurt.
It hurt, but it was this or Wemmbu went running or trying to hurt Mane, and that was the absolute last thing he needed now that he was in this state. Tired and hurt? He could handle himself. Upset? That was fine, but like this? Like this, where he looked wrecked and about to die if he tried moving more, Mane couldn’t just let that happen.
It didn’t matter if his words and actions were harsh if Wemmbu would be fine in the end.
Even if his breathing was quickening, shallow and panicked. Even if he started to cry quietly again, flinching when Mane’s tail wrapped around his leg.
Even if Wemmbu hated him.
“It’ll be okay, I…I’m here, kid, just listen. Listen to me, yeah?”
A small ask, begging for just a second of the demon listening to him—a second that he…seemed fine giving (too fine giving, his face scrunched in pain and yet still complying). Under Mane, Wemmbu went slack, looking up at the lion with big eyes that screamed fear—cold, white fear that licked and twisted to reach out of the other’s heart and into his own. Sinew and blood held them together in thin strings. A beg he didn’t understand. A beg he interpreted as wanting comfort.
But when Mane tried to bring him up, tried to cradle him to his chest and whisper it’d be okay—because it would, it would if Wemmbu would just listen for once—the world sharpened in a way it had no right to. Wore itself down to a point, loud and thrashing underneath him; every bit the chaos the kid could be.
His arms tore upward, small pleas to ‘stop, you’ll make it worse’; his legs scraped up dirt and grass, and everything blurred; everything blurred and suddenly claws had to dig into thin shoulders—dig and hit bone when they had no right to, causing a gasp and whine to sound from Wemmbu as the fighting got worse. Got worse and didn’t stop when he had to have known that letting go would mean Mane could too.
Wemmbu didn’t, though—no, instead he was trying to turn them around again, letting out a big sniffle and pushing with weak arms and a pained breath—pained (had he hurt himself?). And as a shaking hand went to press against his abdomen (not close to gentle; so far from it he felt sick, somewhere far back in his mind) something warm and sticky slowly coated his hand. Seeped from white fabric and—and, god.
God, was he injured?
He had hurt himself.
Did he open a wound?
Reopened?
Did Mane reopen a wound?
He did—he did, or maybe not, but it didn’t matter—it didn’t mean a thing when Wemmbu was now silent beneath him, a disgustingly black and white change that was concerning and terrifying. He stared, quiet and wide-eyed even as they fluttered in pain. Stayed staring; stabbing every one of his veins with a thick, burning shock that took away warmth from every ray of sun shining down on them. On them, on the hand he slowly raised to look—red, red with his cub’s blood—and on the movement of pressing back down on it.
Down, firm and stable and keeping Wemmbu alive because god—he’d done that. He’d done that. Mane had done that. It was his fault, and a tired, choking sigh escaped the boy beneath him as he looked about ready to sob in pain and, and—he felt sick. Sick in a way he hadn’t since the sign, since seeing how thin his little one was, since deciding to leave and be absent when he could have kept the demon healthy, since, since—since. There wasn’t a point it all fell, but it was distant. A sting in his throat that was acidic and hot; that became a memory of a feeling over time.
It wasn’t a phantom pain of remembering his actions now, though.
It was present.
Because Wemmbu was breathing shallow beneath him.
And Mane was frozen. His mouth moved and nothing but a ragged exhale came out. No words came out. All he could hear was his loud breaths and the way grass was disturbed as Wemmbu let his head fall back against it. The red was dark, nearly black now. It wasn’t meant to do that. He wasn’t meant to let it do that.
Wasn’t he supposed to keep his cub safe?
Hadn’t he promised it’d be okay?
It wasn’t—it wasn’t okay, and for as much as he could almost hear in his mind the way a sickeningly familiar voice (when would it fade? When would it be a phantom pain like the acidic burn? When would it just be an echo in his head?) would usually be yelling at him for help or to stop or—or, anything. Comfort, guidance, everything he should’ve provided. Everything he couldn’t provide. As much as he could hear it, it wouldn’t come. He knew it wouldn’t. Not with how Wemmbu was slack right now; how he wasn’t doing anything about it.
How the kid took an inhale that only dyed the blouse he was wearing further, and did nothing as it stuck itself faintly to the edges of the cut. Hung itself from either side where flesh parted, the inside barely outlined before the cloth draped where the wound wasn’t able to catch with the fibres.
Mane felt cold, a blanket that wrapped around him as if thrown in a rush. It pulled flesh too tight against bone as black-tipped hands finally loosened fully on his arms—arms that were still applying pressure to a wound that he hadn’t noticed, should have noticed; didn’t notice. A wound that didn’t matter anymore. A wound that bled like the boy had weeped.
A wound that left his knee wet where it pressed against it earlier.
Wemmbu looked like he was just as cold.
Mane’s tail unwound itself from his leg.
|Wemmbu was slain by Manepear