Cause I got issues but you got ‘em too

[Rhys McCabe]

Help with what? he wanted to retort but there just wasn't enough energy in him to say it. He barely even thought it, mostly as a remnant, mostly as a reflex. Fuck, he felt awful. Why did he think it was a good idea to try and rip those things out of himself? Even just the one... it was a pain beyond anything he could ever remember feeling in his entire life. It made him weak. Like he hadn't eaten in ages, like he had been laid out sick for weeks and was just getting up. It didn't feel good.

So he didn't retort and he didn't argue, only let Raphael help him out of the bathroom and past people that he didn't know or care about. He could hardly believe his own stupidity, when he thought about it. He himself told Raphael that they didn't physically rip wings off fairies to make them Fallen. It was a magical procedure. So what did he think he was going to do? And why didn't he think that his corruption touch wouldn't do anything? Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!

He hated being reliant on anyone but any time he tried to take a step on his own, it was as if his body refused to let it happen. Still, once they were outside, he tried again to step back. Thankfully, there was a bus bench nearby that he could drop into. And just like a bad tooth, he couldn't seem to stop himself from sliding a hand up over his shoulder. He hissed and took it back.

"You did this," he said through gritted teeth. "Ever since..."

He didn't finish because it was so incriminating. He licked the blood from his lower lip, where he'd bitten down too hard. "My father was in there. In the mirror."

[Raphael Malai]

"Whoa! Hey hey careful!" He didn't understand why Rhys kept fighting him but luckily there was a bench to catch him as he fell. Raphael was on his knees beside the bench immediately, reaching out to lay a hand on Rhys' shoulder to steady him, in case he rolled off. The area on his back was spreading. Corruption did that. It was a blight, after all—a darkness that consumed. That was the dreadful, awesome power that fallen were bestowed once their wings were removed.

"M-me?" Did Rhys mean that it was Raphael's fault this happened? That his father—was in the mirror?! It sounded like that was what Rhys was saying! It was Raphael's fault because he defected and the King himself was so displeased that he came and... attacked his own son? But surely he would have simply removed Raphael! He would have used the corruption to erode Raphael into nothing more than a pile of ashes!

He's always protected me.

He said that to Luka not some five minutes ago. Maybe Rhys tried to stop him...? And this was the result? Raphael was frantic with worry and nearly on the verge of tears in his panic; he didn't know what to make of all this. "I felt his presence there," he gasped out as he finally worked up enough courage to look at Rhys' back. Blanching, he swallowed hard to force the bile back down his throat. God... god it looked awful!

"Rhys we need to stop the corruption from spreading. It's—what happened?!"

[Rhys McCabe]

"...yeah, he's kinda hard to miss," he said, teeth still gritted against the corruption spreading on his back. It was moving upward, too, up his neck. His eye didn't feel quite right. His hearing was fading. It was like his entire right side was failing to function correctly.

Rhys couldn't really move his right arm without it hurting like hell, so he couldn't just pull off his shirt. Instead, he used his left hand to grasp onto the collar and he tore the fabric, pulling it off his body and leaning forward. He didn't know how it looked but he had an inkling it looked bad. Still, it was a relief to get the fabric off. It just felt like it was burning more with it on.

"...he said... wings," he said. "...tried to rip them out but--" He blacked out, slumping against Raphael.

[Raphael Malai]

"Oh oh oh OH OH OH RHYS!" Raphael lost his head completely once Rhys fainted, after tearing off half of his clothes and then saying something about wings. Wings? Wings?! Rip them out?! He only just caught Rhys in the nick of time and gently eased him back onto the bench before once again losing his mind and grabbing his phone out of his bag.

"MARGE! MARGIE HELP! HELP RHYS IS DYING!" He wasn't but that set the tone, he thought, and conveyed the seriousness of the situation. After babbling nonsensically to Marge over the phone about sunflowers and footsies and wings, she told him to shut his mouth and wait there. Then she hung up on him and he... sat on the ground beside the bus bench, watching a bus pull up and open its doors.

"We're not getting on!" He called hysterically to the bus driver, who seemed a little too quick to pull away from the curb. Moments later Marge showed up in her car, screeching to a halt beside the bench. A young man with sandy hair was with her, goggling at them through the window. Raphael leapt to his feet as Marge got out and immediately began to cuss him out for fucking up her plans.

HER plans?! Raphael was momentarily indignant but then he was too busy helping Rhys into the back seat, where the young man was. Charles. A fixer. WOW Marge worked fast! "Is he okay?" Raphael cried as he got into the car, and it pulled away again to take them back to the apartment. He was too flustered to realize how dangerous this was—the King was connected to Rhys at all times. He would know, now, where Professor Jack and Brayden lived but... but Raphael was far too concerned about Rhys to even think about that.

Charles the fixer was muttering something as he traced designs and sigils on Rhys' back. He didn't respond, but he looked grim and Raphael had to shove a fist into his own mouth to stop from asking a million more questions. Luckily the cafe was close to the apartment; not ten minutes later he was helping Charles lay Rhys face-down onto the sofa of Brayden's apartment. While Charles set about trying to dispel the corruption, Raphael held Rhys' hand. "He said... something about wings and trying to get them off," Raphael whispered.

"Oh no, he didn't..." Charles sighed. "Oh boy. This is going to take a while then."

"Where did he get wings?" Raphael felt stupid for asking it. "We're Fallen, we—I mean he—shouldn't have wings."

"Then what are these?" The fixer pointed to something sparkling between Rhys' shoulderblades—a light that not even corruption could dim.

"Wings!" Raphael breathed, eyes wide as saucers. "Rhys... grew wings!"

[Rhys McCabe]

Even his dreams were distorted by the corruption. Rhys didn't even know he could corrupt himself; he'd never done it before. But he didn't have wings then. And now... he did? It didn't make sense. He remembered scoffing at Raphael saying that he had them. And now, Rhys had followed. Why? When? How long? What did it mean? He didn't recall this being a thing. There was no manual to being Fallen but he just assumed that once the wings of a fairy were taken, they were gone forever.

And he searched for answers but his dreams were do distorted that nothing made any sense. Walls became the floor, dizzying as he looked around, trying to find something that looked familiar.

Oddly, the first thing he found was a teacup. Frowning, he walked over to it and picked it up. It was one from Raf's collection. He turned it over in his hand. It started to corrupt in his hand, though. Quickly, he dropped it and it shattered on the wall-floor. He looked up and there was his father, standing there with those hateful, glowing eyes.

"You've done a number on yourself."

Rhys looked down at his right hand. It was blackened. Corrupted. His whole arm, actually. And when he touched his face, everything felt tender.

"But your friend the fixer is... fixing you."

"I don't have a fixer friend. I killed him."

A ghost of a smile. "You did." He paused. "If you want to have those wings removed properly, you're going to have to come home. I don't think Keith will be able to handle this one."

"Does he often? Take care of wings growing back?"

"You'd be surprised. Fairies... are such stubborn creatures."

He was about to speak again when the strange surrealism of his dream world melted away.

Pain. He still felt pain. But it wasn't as harsh as it had been when the corruption was spreading. His cheek was pressed against something soft and he was lying on his stomach--not a sleeping position that he would normally choose for himself. He cracked an eye open.

"Ugh... where the hell am I?" This wasn't his bed. It was... a living room that he didn't recognize.

[Raphael Malai]

"So let me get this straight. He went to the bathroom to take a shit. And then he tried to rip off his own wings to protect you from dark fucker daddy?" Marge didn't sound impressed and even Raphael had to admit that his version of events sounded... unlikely. Implausible, perhaps. But it was true! Rhys went to the bathroom and something happened in there and when Raphael found him he was trying to remove something from his back—now understood and confirmed to be actual wings.

"Something... like that," said Raphael haltingly as he cast anxious eyes on Charles, who was still drawing glowing sigils on Rhys' back. The corruption had stopped spreading but it wasn't going away, and the little pinpoint lights where wings were supposed to be were growing dimmer. Raphael clung to Rhys' hand tighter. "Is he going to recover Charles? Are his wings okay?"

"I have noooo idea," Charles grunted as he drew a particularly intricate sign and ended with a flourish. "But he's coming around. Something's blocking my magic, I can't get around the barrier."

As Rhys stirred, Raphael glued himself to the side of the couch. "Rhys? Rhys are you okay? You're here! I mean—you're with Margie and Charles and me!" He reached out and tenderly dabbed at Rhys' forehead with the edge of his sleeve. "How do you feel?"

[Rhys McCabe]

As much as he wanted to, Rhys didn't even try lifting his head. There was something utterly wrong with him. He could feel it. Most of the right side of his body felt... numb now. The corruption had stopped but it was still there. What was he thinking... He just thought... he could.... fuck.

"Like half my body isn't mine."

That was how he felt. Half his body wasn't his. It was corrupted. But he was already corrupted as a Fallen, wasn't he? It didn't make much sense to be able to corrupt himself. He hadn't corrupted himself before. Was it just the wing that he touched? The other one, he hadn't had a chance to try and tear out. Maybe that was why only half of him was suffering. Fuck.

"I have to go back home. This guy's useless. He can't fix me."

[Raphael Malai]

"Hello, this guy has a name, and he's trying really hard to not let this corruption take over?" Charles muttered as he kept working, brows furrowed.

Raphael clung to Rhys' hand. "Go home? But—but you just got your wings! And Charles can fix you, I'm sure! He's a fixer! That's what they do, they fix people, right Charles?" Another grunt, sounding wholly noncommittal. Charles did spare him a brief glance and the suggestion of a smile, but whatever he was doing seemed to require concentration.

Marge hovered behind the couch, staring at the region around Rhys' chest. "You can't go back. Your core light's already changed. If you try to take off the wings, the light will go out."

Raphael gasped. Then realized he didn't have the foggiest idea what Marge meant. "What light? Where?"

"His heart. The light from his heart has connected to his wings. You take away one, you take away the other. Looks like little fairy prince here caught some feelings out here."

[Rhys McCabe]

Yeah and that was all well and good but the guy with the name or whatever couldn't remove the wings. And that was how he meant to fix them. Rhys sighed and rolled his eyes at the way Raphael clung to his hand and insisted that Charles could fix him because he was a fixer. Not that kind of fixing, he wanted to say but the woman was staring him down and blabbering about core lights.

He had no idea what it meant, any more than Raphael did.

Ignoring the last part, Rhys scoffed. "I don't care if some light goes out. I need to get rid of these things. They're worse than the corruption."

He'd rather be dead than have to go through having feelings. He didn't want to feel sad about his mother or be worried about his father catching Raphael or any of this shit. Feelings sucked. The only thing he agreed with here was the term "catching feelings" like it was some nasty disease. That was exactly how it felt.

[Raphael Malai]

"Okay little fairy boy, listen. To. Me. I know that dark corruption shit didn't affect your hearing. If you take the wings off, your heart will die. Your soul will die with it, too. Understand? You're not going home. Charles, keep going. I think I can find a way around the barrier."

Raphael lowered his voice to a soft whisper. "You'd better listen to her, Rhys. She's real scary when she's mad. And... well... what's wrong with wings? It's not bad, you know, to feel things. Don't you want to feel happy again? Or—or to feel love? This is your chance! Why don't you give it a try?" He scooted closer to the couch—if that was even humanly possible.

"You can still take the wings off if you don't like the feelings. At least let Charles take the corruption away before you do anything. Please?"

[Rhys McCabe]

"I'd rather die than have feelings," he said flatly, even though Raphael tried to warn him that she was scary. Her tone was a lot more intimidating than her face. He turned his gaze back to Raphael, who was trying to make it sound like wings were a positive thing to have. But he didn't want them. The idea that feelings were occurring bothered him greatly.

Maybe Raphael, in his infinite sunny disposition, didn't see it but feelings were bad things to have. As far as Rhys felt, they were nasty. They were the reason humans couldn't get anything done; they were constantly distracted by their feelings for other people, for themselves.

"And do I really have a choice?" he asked, annoyed because he knew that he didn't. He wanted to get up but he couldn't. He felt too numb and too shitty. He couldn't even lift his head right now. No, he was stuck here, lying on his stomach like a baby, with his face pressed against some baby blanket. He felt like a fucking baby with no way to defend himself or any autonomy.

[Raphael Malai]

"Typical Fallen," Charles grumbled as he made room for Marge, who was drawing things alongside him now.

"He's not typical! He's the Prince!" Raphael had to speak up—people were dumping on the love of his life here! Not that... Rhys acknowledged his feelings in any way but you know, he had to do what he thought was right, and speaking up was right! Although he quailed under Marge's glare, he didn't move away or try to hide behind a bookcase.

"This is the Prince?" Marge snorted. "He's Jack's little brother? The one you told me about?"

"Y...es..." Raphael stroked Rhys' hair back from his eyes, and then gently patted his cheek. He imagined these were comforting gestures, what with Rhys down and out—and just down in general, in a terrible mood. Or they were annoying, he didn't know. Most things he did seemed to irritate Rhys, to be fair...

"You're working with Keith." Marge's tone was dangerously low. "Oh this is going to be beautiful. Charles, change of plan. Bind him. He's not going anywhere for a veeery long time."

[Rhys McCabe]

"Traitor..." He narrowed his eyes at Raphael. He actually, really did tell them more than he should have. And now look where it got them. Fuck it all. Why did he have to try and take matters into his own hands in that cafe bathroom? What he should have done was escaped and gone back home on his own. The problem would have been fixed and he wouldn't be delivered right into the hands of the enemy in a weakened state.

Rhys couldn't even appreciate the nice way it felt to have his hair brushed back, like his mother used to do. Which was good because he didn't think he could handle appreciating things right now. No, instead, he fiercely put all of his power into rolling himself over onto his back. It didn't quite work. The back of the couch stopped him and he ended up on his side, pressed against the couch pillows.

"Keith's not going to come for me," he said, assuming that was the Plan. This wasn't strictly true, though. Keith worked for the king and he was one of his best and brightest. Or darkest, as it happened. He would do whatever the king commanded and if he was ordered to rescue him... But maybe he wouldn't and his bluff would ring true. His father had many sons still. He didn't... necessarily need Rhys, as depressing as the thought was to his newly found emotions. And anyway, Keith's only true motivation was self serving--and that was Jack, not Rhys.

[Raphael Malai]

"I'm not!!" Why did Rhys keep calling him a traitor? Raphael wasn't even a Fallen anymore! He was...? A fairy? Fae? He had wings now! Not proper ones but they had grown quite a lot since he first came out here. And he abandoned that world and that lifestyle so he counted himself among the fae and humans, and even then he didn't tell them anything that he deemed important.

Of course, that was up to his own judgment and Marge, she had such a way of extracting information from people... In fact, even now she was smiling and it sent a chill down Raphael's spine. He reached out to brace Rhys as he flopped around like a fish out of water, but thankfully the couch stopped him from moving too much. Even Charles tried to stop him, only to sigh and then continue with whatever new thing he was doing. Bind Rhys? Bind him to this apartment maybe?

"Who the hell wants that fucker?" Marge snorted derisively. "He can go all the way to hell. No I've got something better up my sleeve." She pointed directly at Raphael. "You. Other little gay fairy boy. You're going to stay here with him and you're going to take care of him. I don't want to see you step foot outside of this apartment, understood? Your job is to tend to him."

"O-oh... um... I... that was already my job so..." Raphael was taken aback. That was it? All the sinister smiles and that slow tone and... she wanted him to stay with Rhys? Well Raphael was going to do that anyway! Her plan didn't sound very... smart... And yet he couldn't help but feel that there was more to it!

[Rhys McCabe]

That was her brilliant, evil plan? Rhys scoffed again. He didn't even have to say it because Raphael said it for him. That was already his job. Nothing new was happening except that they were trying to bind him to one area. That would only work for so long. Eventually, his father would find them, if he hadn't already. And if it wasn't Keith, it would be somebody better. Or maybe a portal. That would be more helpful.

"He's not going to be much against anybody my father sends," he said, which was true. If there was a rescue operation, they would just rip through Raphael like paper. (And he was annoyed with himself for even caring that it could happen.)

Also, he had his own home. If the brilliant plan was to stick the two of them together, they didn't have to bind him here at this random place. Then he narrowed his eyes and tried to sit up.

"No," he said in his most imperious prince voice. "You're trying to make me care about him so my wings keep growing. Let me tell you why that's a stupid plan; they can still remove them." But he'd never thought about why they took them when they were young and how corrupted an adult with wings had to be in order to shed their wings. Well! He could still do it. Their plan was stupid. It wasn't going to work.