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He hadn’t been himself for a long, long minute.
He was violently aware of that fact. Violently aware of the way people looked at him with a look of…caution? Pity?
He didn’t…know. All he knew is that maybe it’d be best if they all stayed away, at least until he sorted some things out. At least until he sorted himself out.
It’d been at least two months since the incident on New Years, when that horrible monster that was a version of himself showed up and tore through the group, and he just barely won the round by the skin of his teeth. Ever since then, he’d been…far too caught up in his own brain. Jane stumbling into The Realm just made everything even worse, and then there were the two new killers to deal with, including one who had Darkheart, it was just…
It was too much. He had to admit it. For once, something was too much for Shedletsky to handle. It wasn’t like the last time something was too much for him to handle and he went on a terrifying rampage after Builderman had died. This was a quiet, cold “too much” that left him dragging himself through the motions of existence like he could barely fathom what existing was anymore.
He knew it was taking a toll on those around him and he hated that. He just wanted them to please, just focus on themselves. Just focus on getting out. Everything will turn out okay if they all just get out.
It was a round like any other. Shed had outright begun to flinch when the weather was strange on maps, and the storm in the sky and the fog on the ground left him with dire memories of that round. Memories that were, thankfully, shoved to the side when he realized it was simply Yorick’s and he then heard a certain screech in the distance rather than the killer-sided silence that came from that killer.
Instead, it was the distant sound of 1x1x1x1.
With the plan to get out in place and agreed to by both sides, 1x had calmed down in exactly how violent she was, but she was still on the side that had to kill the survivors. Illumina in hand, Shed made his way towards the noise just in time to watch Elliot make an honestly impressive dive-roll out of the way of an Entanglement. The pizza boy made note of Shed and cracked a smile that Shed really could never truly frown at, even though it only drew his face into a neutral expression this time around. Elliot quickly skittered away from the scene, and 1x turned to face Shed.
Their face was unreadable for a solid few moments before they cracked a sharp, toothy grin, pointing their Daemonshank at him. Not Venomshank, who instead still rested in their other hand, even though that would have been the sword to do the most damage.
“I was waiting for you to show up, old fool. It’s been a while since we had a one versus one, hasn’t it?”
Shed had…truthfully been ignoring 1x as much as possible. Every death he’d had to it recently had been quick, brutal, and never done face to face. He hadn’t gone down fighting against it since at least December. It was always a quick shot from something that left him sprawling on the floor, dead so quick he didn’t have time to process it. Part of him thought it was what he deserved. Part of him thought it was mercy. All of him thought it was cruel that his own child was so eager to kill him.
In response to her words, he simply hummed an agreement and waited for her to move. If he moved first, there was no doubt she’d dart away from his slash. But yet, that seemed to…puzzle her.
The grin faded from their face as they looked at him, and Shed couldn’t read the emotions properly. They never were easy to read, even before they looked like this. They always kept themself so calm and composed, or showing a completely different emotion than the one they were actively feeling. The only one ever properly able to read them was Taph. And surely, surely he had to be reading their expression wrong now, because there was absolutely no, no way they were showing concern.
“Why do you…look like that?” they mumbled, tone masked but still betraying something.
He hadn’t thought of himself as looking any different. Did he look any different? Maybe it was something in his face. Maybe it was the fact that he’d lost a bit of weight. Whatever it was, he didn’t see why 1x would care.
And surely, surely he didn’t see what she mouthed correctly, because she’d declared she’d never call him that again ages ago.
And then as if thinking about them earlier had summoned them, 1x was suddenly disoriented by what may have been one of the best thrown Subspace Tripmines Shed had ever seen, and before he could clear the colors from his own vision, there was a gloved hand-talon around his own hand-talon, frantically dragging him away.
Taph, even though she hadn’t needed to, had scooped in to save her father from her sibling, and Shed simply had no choice but to go along with it.
The aftermath of the round was the same as the aftermath of any round, especially a round at the end of the day. Shed took note of Two Time eagerly running to the kitchen after Elliot, presumably to help with dinner, Chance following quickly afterwards. Guest and Jane mulled about together, making sure to include 007n7 in their conversation. Veeronica and Noob were clearly discussing the rounds of the day, making occasional glances at other people. Shed hadn’t moved from the winner’s table for a long, long minute, and part of him did feel bad when he didn’t respond to the double foot tap that Taph gave when she wanted attention, simply flicking a head-wing to tell her not right now.
If Taph wanted a conversation, they would have to wait. Shed didn’t know how long they’d have to wait for, but they’d simply…have to wait. They’d just have to wait until he figured things out. Specifically until he figured out what was up with 1x during that round.
He had to have been reading everything wrong. She couldn’t have been concerned about him, certainly not after all these years. It’d been over a decade since she betrayed everyone, there was no way she was going back on it now. It had to have just been…desperate hope. Desperate hope that his precious baby would come running back into his arms.
…But maybe…maybe that could happen.
1x had to have betrayed their family because of something. It couldn’t have just been random. Perhaps, somehow, Shed had been a bad father. He had tried his best, but there was no guide to it. No manual to follow.
So maybe, if he did something to prove he was a good father, maybe, maybe she’d forgive him for whatever he did.
And he knew just what to do.
He stood up from the table only to end up face-to-face with Dusekkar, Builder standing next to the pumpkin-helmed divine. Once again Shed was staring the terribly familiar look of pity in the eyes. A look he had gotten many times in these past few months.
“I can’t talk right now,” Shed managed to find his voice, “I have something I have to do.”
Dusekk opened his mouth to speak, but Shed was already turning to head out the back door, ignoring the disappointed call of “FALCON!” that Builder shouted out after him.
Shed took off running through the forest, seeking out…something. He didn’t know why he knew where to go, but eventually, he breached through the trees into a clearing, staring up at the sky. Now how would he go about something like this.
…Might as well take a guess.
“Where are you?!” he yelled at the sky, “I want to talk!”
Was this stupid? Yes. Shed may have been impulsive, but he wasn’t an idiot, despite the persona he put up so people wouldn’t think of him as just Telamon. He knew what he was doing was stupid and risky.
Once the sky crackled into red, he knew it was too late to turn back. His shadow seemed to shift, coiling around him like a snake poised to strike.
He was staring The Spectre in the face.
Well…not its actual face, as he knew would be a terrible, terrible idea, but rather the false eye that was marked on one of the wings that covered its face. Still, it stared with such…amusement.
“Back so soon?” it trilled.
Shed stared in confusion. So…soon? He’d only confronted The Spectre once to his knowledge, and that was ages ago at this point, sometime extremely soon after 007 had shown up, his confrontation fueled by the desperation for the safety of the exploiter-turned-friend and his son. He didn’t remember the encounter, of course, but Builder had relayed what had happened, and Shed was left with the knowledge of never, never doing that again.
“I…what…?” was the only thing that came out of his mouth, pleas for 1x’s release lost on his tongue as he pivoted to trying to figure out exactly what it meant.
“Well now, this marks…the fifth time this month, if I’m counting correctly!” the beast purred, “And the twentieth this year! In all honesty, I’m surprised your brain isn’t MUSH at this point!”
As if this was a friendly conversation, it punctuated its fascination with a playful wing-bump to the side of Shed’s head, laughing as it did so.
…It had to have been lying.
“This is the first time I’ve…personally spoken to you in months…” he mumbled, his mouth dry.
The Spectre drew back a moment, staring blankly.
And then it burst into laughter.
It was a horrible, horrible ripping sort of noise, cackling and cruel and like every one of the swords he held so dearly were stabbed through him and ripped out a thousand times over in a single second. It shot through his brain like it was trying to personally drive him to madness, and yet he scrabbled at sanity, breath caught in his chest as his talon-fingers grabbed at his hair.
“He hasn’t told you! He’s kept it a SECRET!” it howled, “How RICH! Does he think he’s /protecting/ you or something?!”
…Builder. Builder had been–
His train of thought was ground to a halt as the shadow grasped further around him, any amusement ripped out of its body and ground into pure annoyance at the drop of a hat.
“What a pity. Your attacks and attempts are cute, but even cute things can get boring and even ANNOYING. So here, let me /teach you a lesson/, Shard.”
Everything in him told him to get away or at least look away, to panic and squirm and try to run to escape whatever was about to–
He caught sight of its face.
He couldn’t describe it if he was held with the lives of everyone he loved on the line, and something, something about it crawled into where he kept his most precious memories and spiked itself in and writhed in the same way an animal just-barely-alive writhes in its death throes, and for a moment he forgot everything and all that was left was the mere outline of himself and it. For a moment every sight and every feeling and every sound and every sense was it and he couldn’t escape it no matter how he tried. For just that split moment he knew he was supposed to be something but all there was was blind blind terror that he could only attribute to the feeling some supposed-to-be-strong bird would feel when the coils of a snake were around its neck and crushing it from every angle, leaving it as nothing more than a mangled corpse to be swallowed to fuel the terrifying beast until it moved on to the next prey when no longer satisfied. Suddenly, all at once, there was a sharp, sharp pain in his chest, and he couldn’t breathe, and–
Suddenly the feeling of being held like that was gone, and he felt wooden flooring under his body. The memory of what he had seen was drifting away, replaced with such a vague lick of information that he had messed up. Still, everything around him was blurred, and the sounds muffled. His thoughts settled back into his, but he could still only focus on just one thing:
He was Shedletsky, and he was scared.
There were people around him, he guessed, but he couldn’t think straight. Everything was still a blur, and he needed to get out.
Something reached out for him.
Maybe if he had been in a slightly better headspace, he could have recognized the gentle voice, recognized the way hand-claws like deer hooves gently grasped around his arm to try to steady him, recognized the faint smell of roasting pumpkin.
But instead, all that registered in his terrifying brain was that something was grabbing him.
All at once, he flicked Illumina into his hand-talon, and there was a cacophony of noise that maybe, maybe was a group of people screaming for him to not, or screaming at whatever was grabbing him to get away quick, but he just couldn’t tell, and eons of what he was snapped into him all at once as he simply…swung.
Frantic panicked flames licked at his skin from where he’d sliced, and maybe if he was actually thinking that would have been a clue as to what exactly he had just done, but in his brain it was just more pain to the mess, and after desummoning Illumina he flung himself up, slamming into the front door before he managed to fling it open, leaving him frantically sprinting off into the woods in desperate search of safety.
When he actually regained being himself, it was much, much later.
His head was pounding as he opened his eyes slowly, finding himself splayed on the forest floor. The events of everything in the past day were a blurry mess in his brain, and certain parts of his memory made his head hurt even more if he tried too hard to think about them.
One of the first things he actually fully noticed was that part of his left forearm was bandaged, like he’d held it up to try to shield his face from something and had gotten it injured.
…Things were coming back to him.
“Glad t’ see yer awake.”
Shed snapped to face where a certain someone was sitting on a stump, looking at him with, again, a familiar look of concern.
Builder.
“What…happened…?” Shed mumbled, taking in a slow breath.
“What happened is that everythin’ boiled over,” Builder held an ever so slight growl to his voice. Not true anger, but the same tone he used to say “Shed, you’re an idiot” without ever actually saying it, “So you and I are gonna have a talk.”
Shed grimaced as he tried to pull himself up, only managing to sit up, “Listen, we don’t need to talk, I’ll just–”
“Not an option.”
Builder’s voice pierced not only the air, but also Shed’s very brain. It wasn’t his normal voice, it was what Shed could only ever describe as a “god voice”. A way for a god to grab the attention of everyone they wanted to in a way that was completely unable to be ignored.
So needless to say, he was very, very serious about this.
Shed let out a breath as he stopped trying to get up, simply sitting in the dirt, now leaning against a tree. Builder let out a heavy sigh as he stood from the stump, stepping over to sit down next to Shed on the ground. The two of them were silent for a long while, until Builder finally spoke again, voice back to normal.
“You and I haven’t really had a personal talk since Halloween, have we, Falcon?” he leaned himself partway against the tree and partway against Shed, “That’s part of the cause, I believe.”
“...We haven’t really needed to, Finch,” Shed couldn’t help but simply stare at the ground, “I’ve just been…figuring things out.”
“No, you haven’t,” Builder stated with such conviction that Shed wondered if he knew Shed’s brain better than Shed did, “you’ve been fumbling your way through existence for months.”
“I’ve been trying to figure things out,” he corrected himself, “But I guess I just…haven’t been doing that.”
…
“I’ve…gone after The Spectre this year?” Shed finally thought to ask, remembering vaguely the conversation he’d had with it as he looked at Builder, seeing the smaller divine pull his hat a bit down to cover his face a bit more.
“...I thought if I kept that from ya you’d stop havin’ th’ idea in yer brain, but…” he sighed, “Yes. Twenty times, if I’m countin’ right.”
“...You can’t keep these things from me,” Shed glanced over, “Last time you tried to keep something from me…”
“...I died, and we both ended up here,” Builder admitted, “yeah, it was stupid t’ think that’d work out.”
They trailed off into silence again, each taking their time to turn to look up at the night sky, taking it in. Shed…could appreciate this, even as whatever wound was bandaged began to itch.
“So in th’ future, if you start just freaking out, instead of bottling it up, you come to me, or at least to somebody,” out of the corner of Shed’s eye he could see Builder eventually pull his head back down to look at Shed.
“I just…I didn’t want to bother you,” Shed shrugged, “It’s my own problem, because it was a version of me.”
“Shed,” Builder’s voice was incredibly firm, “Once it starts hurting you, it becomes my problem too. It’s my problem because it’s not just hurting you, it’s hurting me, ‘cause in case you forgot somehow,”
Shed turned to watch as Builder untucked something from his hoodie, a simple, old feather in a little glass trinket bottle on a necklace, faded in color but still clearly yellow.
One of Shed’s feathers.
“I love you, Falcon.”
“…I love you too, Finch,” Shed sighed, “I guess I just…wanted to prove I was still strong. Prove that I could figure it out.”
He glanced at the bandage on his arm.
….Things really were filling themselves back in. Particularly what occurred after Shed appeared back in the cabin.
“…who did I…”
Who did he hit?
Somehow, in some terrible way, he already knew the answer.
“…Dusekkar tried t’ grab ya. I dunno if it was just t’ comfort ya, or t’ make sure you didn’t hurt anyone else, but…”
Shed’s eyes widened.
“I…I broke through the helm, didn’t I? And then I got burned from it.”
“Not entirely!” Builder was quick to assure, voice in an unusually frantic uptick, “it was mostly just surface, I can promise ya that. He’s bein’ taken care of, he was more concerned about you. Bluebird’s smart, but sometimes he’s a lil impulsive.”
Shed put his head in his hands with a groan. All this attempting to push people away to help them, and all it ended in was him taking Illumina directly to Dusekk’s face.
What a mess.
“We should…head back,” Shed started to stumble up, “I need to apologize to…everyone for that.”
Builder got to his feet first and offered out a hand of help. Builder was much smaller than Shed, but that short form hid a powerful god, and even though this realm rendered him much weaker than he should have been, he was still stupidly strong. Once he grabbed Shed’s hand in his own, he yanked the taller fallen divine up with ease, allowing Shed to regain his footing before they moved carefully towards the cabin in a silent walk.
Builder was the one to open the door, and Shed peered inside.
Nearly every head was turned to stare, and Shed nearly turned right back around to flee the cabin before he shook himself out and stepped in. He wasn’t a child, he was a god. He could deal with a bit of embarrassment.
Most of the faces he spotted were full of concern, but he did catch two mild flashes of anger–007 and Two Time. Understandable, considering…
When he finally brought himself to actually look at Dusekk, there wasn’t even a scrap of anger. A somewhat fresh carve in the pumpkin helm ran in a diagonal line, merely across the surface save for at the edges of the already cut eyeholes. Shed took a step towards him, mouth open to offer an apology.
Dusekk hesitated for just a moment, seemingly seeking if he was alright, before he grabbed Shed in a hug. Shed equally hesitated before he hugged back, taking in a breath.
“I’m so sorry,” Shed breathed out.
“It’s alright,” Dusekk hummed, “it was nothing more than a mild fright.”
Shed stood there in the hug, trying to figure out exactly what to say next. Before he could figure it out, Builder had joined the hug too. Taph took only a moment before she was in the cluster as well, making a distinct strange sort of trilling noise that Shed never could figure out exactly how she could make.
…This was stupid and sappy. Perhaps even sappier when after a moment, much to Shed’s absolute shock, the smell of smoke-stained clothing hit him and he looked over to see Jane. Jane, who as far as he thought, had hated the admins.
“You need it, idiot. Don’t act like this is a shock,” he could see her eyes narrowing at him through the shadow that covered half her face.
And like some stupid cliche to some sappy feel-good film, before he knew it, the whole group in the cabin was in one big group hug.
…Maybe it was stupid, and sappy, and cliche, but it was his. He just had to remember that.