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TIMING: current, immediately after the threshold. LOCATION: an empty barn in Gaitlin Fields PARTIES: @apaininyourneck, @mortemoppetere, @technowarden and @loftylockjaw SUMMARY: eve and wyatt arrive at the barn to help emilio and confront owen. CONTENT WARNINGS: gun use, suicidal ideation

When Eve knew she was driving to a bad clean, she used a trick from her father. She summoned to her mind a little music box, with a ballerina spinning in the middle. The music slowed as the winding ran out, and the ballerina’s turns became jerky as she slowed down to a stop. Her breathing slowed with the music, her mind centered. When the gentle pings of music finished, the music box closed, with a tiny click of the cheap clasp. She was not driving to the scene where Emilio and Owen were preparing to kill each other. There was a supernatural fight, a victim, a supernatural instigator. There might even be a body. It was the reignition of a to do list from twelve years ago. Hundreds of years of hunter’s blood coursed through her. It had been a while, but Eve had not forgotten what her body was built to do.

She braked her car harshly, not saying a word to Wyatt as she whipped around her carseat to grab her rifle and a satchel, and then she was off, sprinting through the dusted snow, tracking two sets of footprints that had both walked this route just minutes ago. Her running leg hit the ground with a clack with each step - her arrival would not be a surprise, but it did not need to be.

Eve used the slamming into the door to slow her run, only two steps into the barn before she came to a stop. The flashlight on her rifle flicked across pools of glistening red before settling on Owen, and the knife in his gut. A nonlethal hit, just like the ones she’d patched up a few weeks ago. It hadn’t been enough to spare Nasir.

Even the sound repressor on the end of the barrel only did enough to stop anyone further afield from hearing it, a gunshot was still a gunshot, even when muffled. The concrete inches from Owen's hand cracked, and then the little red dot slid from the ground to Owen’s chest, the flashlight settling on his face. Even as Eve panted from the sprint here, the dot did not tremble. Here, she found the answer to the question she’d asked herself dozens of times since she’d found Nasir’s body, the question she hadn’t even let herself consider in the car. There was no question in her mind, nor in her heart, whether she could pull that trigger. She wondered if he could see it on her face, better than she could see him in the dim lighting of the mid afternoon dusk filtering in behind her. She wondered if it mattered. Few deaths were perfectly instant. If he wanted to take Emilio down with him, Eve didn’t have the power to stop him, just the power to end him. Everyone in the room could see that. An animal at its most caged was at its most dangerous.

“Rosel’s not as smart as she thinks. You should hear us out,” Eve’s voice was unnaturally quiet and steady, after the violence that had happened here. Two cards played. A second pair of footsteps were sprinting up the track behind her, getting in close. If the threat of the gun and the dangling carrot of information were not, she hoped her third card, just a couple seconds behind, would be enough.

—

She was increasing the distance between them as they both ran, Wyatt’s lungs burning from the cold. He couldn’t keep up, but that was probably okay, right? Eve seemed to have a level head about her, she wanted to talk to Owen before trying anything else. But she was also carrying a gun, which wasn’t exactly a weapon that could easily put someone down without doing permanent damage. And knowing Owen, Wyatt had little faith that staring down the barrel of a rifle would really make him slow down.

Huffing his way up the slope of the small hill, Wyatt gave a start as he heard a gunshot. Something wrenched itself from his lungs, though it wasn’t quite a cry or a scream, just a strangled, desperate sound as he pushed himself harder, hearing Eve’s voice carrying gently on the wind. He burst into the barn with panicked urgency, eyes adjusting to the dark in an instant, going yellow as he swept his gaze over the scene. Three heat signatures — Eve, standing next to him, and two on the ground. Bleeding. His eyes flicked blue again and he felt his throat closing up, seeing the knife sticking out of Owen’s gut. Emilio was spared a quick glance to make sure he wasn’t dead, and confirming that, Wyatt was then hurrying over to Owen’s side.

He dropped to his knees, staring at the wound with fear in his expression, seeming uncertain of what to do with his hands. “How do I help? How—” He looked up, meeting Owen’s gaze. “Hang on, wait—” He glanced over his shoulder at Eve, realizing that the sight of her gun was now aimed at his back. It didn’t matter. “Just — tell me what to do, and — and listen to her. Listen.” He set a hand gingerly beside the wound, the other gripping Owen’s shoulder firmly.

—

Dread had never been something the slayer associated with the feeling of steel, or wood, sinking through skin with ease - an ease that had surprised him when learning of it the first time. Less so with the knife, more so when it came to a perfectly sharpened stake. Now, feeling the hilt of his blade slam against Emilio’s skin, the only thing stopping the knife’s force from digging even further through viscera, Owen ran cold with dread. Every morsel of strength and his whole weight had been behind that blade, making things move deceivingly fast when Emilio had shifted. It took a good second to register where the deadly weapon had found purchase, another to take note of the sound of Emilio’s breathing and another still to get distracted by something entirely different, something outside.

Owen’s grip on the knife had grown limp almost instantly, before it had registered that this probably wasn’t a fatal injury and how much of a relief and a horror that fact was all at the same time. It still didn’t mean this was over - and the irony of his own weapon being returned by way of it being shoved into his abdomen, that part was really the kicker. He’d expected the steel to be cold but those few seconds nestled amongst Emilio’s organs and blood had clearly warmed it up plenty. Owen had only just managed to steady an arm against the ground, now slick with blood, body pivoting towards the threat on instinct (except Emilio wasn’t really the threat, for some reason) when the doors slammed open with a new gust of chilled air.

Out of all the people he might have expected to see silhouetted in the fading light, Eve wasn’t even among the runner ups. Had she been following Emilio? Following him? Since when? The light of her gun was blinding and he would have raised a hand to shield his eyes if not for one bracing against the floor while the other steadied the knife still delivering a steady throbbing of pain. Moving wouldn’t help but there was no telling years of training that, forcing him to shift under the steady gaze of the rifle. The gesture was rewarded with a round going off, adding the smell of gunpowder to the scent of blood and panic. He stilled reluctantly. To his credit, Owen didn’t flinch, although the shock of seeing Eve here was partly to blame. Also the way his body really wanted to shut down, months of running it even more ragged than usual making a stab wound less than desirable.

It didn’t sting half as bad as hearing Rosel’s name coming from Eve’s mouth. “How-” His throat constricted, eyes whipped to Emilio, who also looked in the know, the other half of this supposed ‘us’ Owen was supposed to sit back and listen to. No matter how much the two of them knew, it was too much - about her, the lackey work, the murders. The reason for all of it.

For the first time this evening, Owen did genuinely want to end Emilio’s life, if only to prevent further spread of this secret, this disease. He conceivably could, might manage it before Eve’s finger tightened around the trigger (if she knew, why had her bullet only shattered the ground and not him? He’d lied to her face next to the dead slayer she’d obviously cared about, however superficially. Why the fuck was he still alive if they knew about the trail of bodies? Even if they knew about their convoluted roles in all of this, keeping him alive couldn’t be to protect themselves - their deaths were useless if Owen wasn’t around to live with them). Nothing was sitting right.

Owen had only ever known how to fight his way out of a situation, even those not designed to fight your way out of. A suicide mission beat whatever was going on here, was preferable to facing this. Blood soaked fingers curled around the handle of the knife, the only weapon within reach - he couldn’t see Eve’s face properly under the glare of the flashlight but figured he’d somewhat managed to make eye contact. To convey some sort of message, he wasn’t quite sure which one. Could have been anything from a dare or a threat to an understanding that she would do what she had to in response to Owen doing what he had to. Only… Wyatt was here now and the only thing that made sense was that Eve had taken the shot and in the last desperate throes of life, his brain was going haywire. Or maybe Emilio owned the killing blow, just the two of them in this barn, soon to be one slayer and a fully dead body.

Then again, Owen wasn’t sure he had the imagination to conjure up the absolutely gutted expression on Wyatt’s face. A stark contrast to the last time they’d met, the shifter’s features contorted with hurt, sure, but also rage. It made complete sense when Wyatt began his approach, the thought that he was here to seize the opportunity to make good on the recent threats of murder, that thought made sense. In a way, it also made sense that Owen made no move to prevent the bodily harm he was expecting. Like any other half-formed thought Owen had manage to conjure in the last minute (it felt like hours, like a whole lifetime or two), it crumbled just as quickly as it formed because Wyatt was… fuck.

Everything hurt except the serrated steel lodged inside his body - that was the only thing that currently made sense. This felt like a trick, the looming feeling of the other shoe just waiting threatened to choke Owen. He had thought the current situation with Rosel was the least amount of control he had ever experienced; only this was it.

“Don’t-” The bloody hand previously clinging to the hilt of the knife for dear life snatched at Wyatt’s wary one when it approached, holding it away from the weapon while simultaneously gripping at it with a level of desperation that felt entirely foreign. Teeth locked together, breath coming out in harsh pants through his nose, Owen finally tore his eyes away from Wyatt to look at Emilio and Eve in turn. The grip on the hand in his own tightened still, gaze somehow managing to stay on Eve despite the whole world now being off kilter.

“Speak.”

—

It wasn’t particularly unusual for a hunter’s earliest memories to be bloody. Even Emilio’s reluctance to start Flora’s training when he was meant to did little to stop her mother from staining to sofa red after a hunt went poorly and a balam carved a gash in her side or to keep her from rushing to answer the door when Edgar knocked on it one sunny afternoon with his shirt artfully splattered with scarlet and his nose sitting crooked on his face. Red was a familiar color; most hunters knew it intimately, even when they weren’t hunting as actively as they once had. The way it coated Emilio’s hands now was almost comforting. He didn’t understand what was going on with Owen, didn’t understand why his throat felt tight at the idea of killing someone who was a threat, someone he’d hated for over a year now, but he understood the tacky feeling of blood coating his fingers. It was just about the only part of this entire goddamn situation that made any fucking sense at all.

Even Eve’s sudden appearance was, in a way, a mild surprise. They’d planned for this, of course, and he’d trusted her enough to know she wouldn’t leave him hanging, but there was still some shock in seeing her point a gun in Owen’s direction. It made more sense the moment his addled mind reminded him that it wasn’t really for his sake. Eve had been cleaning up the corpses of people she probably liked a hell of a lot more than she liked Emilio for months now, and Owen was the one who’d put them all there. The gun wasn’t here to keep Owen from sticking his knife in Emilio’s throat, though that might have been an added benefit. More than anything, the gun served the same purpose as a broom, a mop, a keyboard: it was ready and waiting to clean up this fucking mess.

Wyatt burst in, and Emilio used the multitude of distractions to put a little more distance between himself and Owen, propping himself on the stable door behind him and pressing a hand against the wound in his gut to slow the bleeding and stain his fingers with more of that familiarity. He watched the lamia place himself between Eve’s gun and a man who probably wouldn’t do the same for him if the roles were reversed, and he thought that Wyatt was probably the only person in this goddamn barn that deserved to have their name on that list. Eve would shoot Owen to clean up the mess he’d made if she had to; Emilio would have stuck that knife in his chest if he hadn’t known backup was on the way. (Wouldn’t he?) And Wyatt would die for him. It might have been impressive if it weren’t so fucking sad.

There was a moment after Wyatt’s appearance where the world seemed to stand still. Emilio’s breathing was ragged, but he took some satisfaction in the fact that Owen’s was, too. The floor was stained with red, but not all of it came from him. Some part of him remained frustrated in spite of this small victory, though; too much of the blood on his hands was his own, and not enough was Owen’s. His jaw clenched, his fingers twitched. He wished it didn’t hurt as much as it did.

The silence stretched a moment longer before, in something of a dull surprise, Owen was the one to break it. He looked to Emilio for only a moment before his eyes went back to Eve, who was the bigger threat with the gun in her hand. He stayed close to Wyatt, who was the only comfort offered in the dusty barn. And Emilio wondered, with a childish flair of anger, where that left him. Eve was the wound; Wyatt was the salve. Was Emilio little more than table dressing? Playing distraction for Edgar’s intricate plans as a kid had always ended with Emilio cast aside while Edgar and Rosa finished the job, grabbed the glory, and earned their mother’s respect. The idea that nothing had changed in all that time, that he was thirty-five years old and still an unimportant piece to be cast aside the moment it was more convenient to lose him than it was to keep him stung in a way he couldn’t quite comprehend. His throat felt tight. The wound in his gut burned, the sticky blood wet against his hands. Owen said speak and, for a moment, Emilio forgot that he knew how to.

It probably would have been better for everyone involved if he never remembered.

“You’ve been getting played, pendejo,” he spat out, the words as sharp as the knife still covered in his blood and sticking out of Owen’s gut. “Looks like you’re not as smart as you thought you were, either.”

—

Eve watched his hand tighten around the blade in his stomach, her own stomach clenching. He met her eyes, and she saw the decision in them. That, in every way, this had ruined him. Perhaps he’d wanted this from every hunter he’d killed in this town, and none of the others had believed the threat he posed until it was too late, or none of them had been prepared for a human who specialised in killing hunters. Eve believed, Eve had prepared. If either of them saw the grief or understanding in her eyes, it did not matter. To hunt was to do it anyway. With this weapon, at least she could give him a quick death, and an end to pain. She exhaled, and waited to see the steel start to emerge from his red, sticky skin before squeezing. Her finger tightened, fractionally.

Wyatt burst into the barn. Eve could not look at him, could not afford to give up the one split second reflex advantage. Wyatt demanded to be seen, rushing past her and crashing to his knees, blocking Owen almost entirely from her view. The red dot slid from the center of Wyatt’s spine to an exposed one of Owen’s thighs. A less satisfying target, but Eve knew first how deadly a blow to the femoral artery could be, and how disabling.

Wyatt didn’t grapple Owen. His body did not twist into a bird or a wolf or a snake. He did not unhinge his jaw to bite off Owen’s head. He had told Eve that he was afraid of what Owen might do to his undead loved ones, and yet he pleaded with Owen so softly. She could not see how Wyatt held him, but she saw Owen let go of the knife in his side. Eve exhaled quietly, but her aim only wavered a couple millimeters. Had Emilio known? Had this been part of a plan she’d been kept in the dark on, that they had known something about Owen that Eve had not. A few weeks ago, she had dismissed out of hand that Owen would ever hold a hunter dying in his arms. Seconds ago, the only way she saw to make him listen had been to pin him in place. All it took was a gentle hand. Owen looked back at her, his eyes wild with a raw desperation. His voice had never sounded like that.

If only Emilio didn't answer first. She couldn’t even look at him, couldn’t look anywhere other than her target, just in case. Just in case. Especially when the words themselves were a knife coated in venom. Eve didn’t even know if the words were a last show of strength in a fading body. She could not afford to look at anything but Owen’s wounded eyes. She could not be the sword and the scalpel at once. She could not be the bleach and the blood-letter. There was only room in her mind for one.

“He’s right,” Eve followed, her voice clear and emotionless. “The list she gave you, that failsafe? It’s not real. No one is paying attention to whether Rosel lives or dies. There’s no failure-to-contact system in place. She isn’t tracking us, isn’t tracking Uppsala, she’s only watching you.” Eve tilted her head, looking at him searchingly, giving it a moment to sink in. “There’s no grand plan, no conspiracy, no rhyme or reason to what she’s asking. There’s no plot that will notice your absence, nor hers. She’s just fucking with you. She’s always been fucking with you.” Eve inhaled, and called it shaky because of the sprint in here.

“You don’t have to kill Emilio. No more protecting seedy vampires all night. No more dead hunters. It can end now.” Her voice tilted up, almost like a question. For as much as her tone and words were just for conveying information, there was just the ghost of pleading, like the memory of an icy fridge and a decaying corpse. It would end here either way. Eve steadied her voice, cocked an eyebrow. “Because, honestly? I’ve seriously got better things to do than cleaning up this barn tonight.” How many times had she said that to him? In anger, in frustration, in eye-rolling annoyance, playfully, and maybe once or twice with a hint of affection.

—

He didn’t look down as Owen grabbed his hand, freezing in place to see what the other would do, breath trapped in his chest. There was a long moment where they just stared at one another, the grip on Wyatt’s hand strong and desperate like it was the only lifeline the slayer had left — and given the state of everyone else in the room, it might have been. Apologies tried to claw their way up his throat and across his tongue, dragging the pit in his stomach along with them, heavy and uncomfortable behind the barrier of his clenched jaw.

Owen looked away from him and over his shoulder, and Wyatt’s gaze finally fell to their hands. Owen squeezed him tighter as he demanded an explanation, and Wyatt squeezed back. He could feel Emilio’s gaze burning into him, could tell even without looking that the other hunter was probably both surprised by this reaction as well as unimpressed — he’d seemed glad that they shared a common desire to hurt Owen, had seen Wyatt get thrown out of that bar after screaming at Owen that he was going to kill him, but… here he was, unable to make good on any of that. It would’ve been easy to shift, to let out those long, powerful jaws and crush Owen’s skull with one quick snap. It was still something he could do, fast enough that none of them would have much time to react, but he hadn’t. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t. So this, he could only imagine, screamed of failure. Of weakness. And maybe it was, maybe this was something that Wyatt would never be able to admit to his loved ones that Owen had threatened. His inability to choose, to truly give up and let go of someone that meant something to him. It didn’t matter how furious he was, and it didn’t matter that he would have had to do something eventually, if Emilio and Eve hadn’t stepped in. What would he have done, if he’d been dealing with this alone? If it had gotten to the point of having to protect Caleb from Owen. Would he be able to put the slayer down then? He wasn’t sure. Killing strangers was easy. Killing someone who’s smile you missed, who had held you in an embrace not meant for prying eyes, who had shared things with you that they’d never told anyone else… he couldn’t do it. Fuck, he couldn’t do it. This connection they had shared was the only real weapon he could wield. Everything else was a bluff. Words were all he had left, and he was fucking shit with words.

Emilio spoke first, and Wyatt closed his eyes. He squeezed Owen’s hand again, silently begging him to let the childish insult slide. Eve was next, offering a much clearer and pragmatic explanation, but Wyatt recognized that it all hinged on whether or not Owen believed them. He searched the other’s face again, catching his gaze once he was done listening to Eve. “Let me help, Owen.” He wasn’t referring to the knife wound anymore. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted from you — to let me help you. Please.” The hand on Owen’s shoulder moved to the side of his neck, and ignoring the way the extra pairs of eyes in the room made shivers run up and down his spine, Wyatt persisted. “I’m… sorry that I didn’t see it sooner. I’m sorry.” It felt like a weak excuse, but there was genuine pain in his voice as he let those heavy apologies break through the dam. He squeezed the hand in his a third time, hoping that despite everything he’d ever known to be true of the man bleeding in front of him, he’d let go of his fucking pride for one conversation.

—

Emilio’s voice was jarring as it cut through the silence, once again rippling the waters that Wyatt’s quiet plea had just barely managed to smooth. It wasn’t a sharp insult by any means but it carried with it the weight of Rosel, of another slayer knowing about Owen’s intimacy and the subsequent betrayal and manipulation. Whether or not Emilio actually looked smug was irrelevant, that was the expression provided to him in Owen’s mind and he bristled, shifted in a way that failed to be threatening since it jostled the knife and forced out a painful hiss. The squeeze of Wyatt’s hand broke the focus on Emilio, on how much Owen wanted to tear his tongue out, stop him talking shit about things he knew fuck all about. Only Emilio did know, seemed to know more than even Owen did. A realization that had him tensing with fury all over again, contained only by vigour in which he kept Wyatt’s hand on his own, starting to verge on bone breaking intensity.

Lucky for everyone involved, Eve stole the word before more insults were thrown - not that her dryly delivered statements were any easier to hear. This was the sort of information Owen had expected to find out for himself, before hope had started to feel like a delusion. Except, for all the times he’d wondered whether Rosel was bluffing, he’d never allowed himself to properly go down that road. That meant it was all pointless, every last bit of it. A mind-numbing realization, one laced with a burning humiliation a thousand times more painful than any injury Emilio had managed or the cold detachment in which Eve still had her sights set on him or even the obvious fact that he had done nothing to deserve Wyatt’s compassion right now.

For a moment, breathing was impossible - was air or blood seeping into spaces previously occupied by lung tissue? A scenario preferable to the reality that his mind was simply folding. The first inhale after the drawn out seconds of drowning on dry land burned, Eve’s words that it could end now ringing in his head. Why hadn’t she just taken the shot before Wyatt had stumbled in here.

Everything told him to question this, to doubt because there was no wrapping his head around the kindness required to go down this road. How easy it would have been to confirm their safety and consequently get rid of Owen? It had to be tainted in some way. There were an endless amount of ‘whys’ crashing against the inside of his skull - none of the ‘how’ felt important, Eve and Emilio were competent and with Wyatt’s connection to the past, the how seemed obvious. None of the whys were obvious. Why they’d bothered, why he was still alive, why she had returned for this final twist of the knife.

It was Wyatt’s apology that finally broke the trance - Owen had listened and he wanted to unhear all of it, from Emilio’s venom to the plea to be allowed to help. Because it meant they would have been capable of helping all along, of preventing some of the horrors and the words used as weapons against the people currently standing between Owen and instant death. “Don’t you fucking apologize to me,” he finally managed, words devoid of any bite or any emotion at all, really. Only one person in here should have been apologizing but doing so would amount to an admission of how truly broken he was. Wyatt’s eyes were too much, his plea to help was one Owen couldn’t grant so instead he sought out the anger and detachment once again, looking between them for the reveal of the sick twist. There was only the stark reality of what he had done with not even a convoluted moral reason to back it up.

“You’re sure?” he asked Eve, loathing the choked quality of his voice and the people around to witness it. What a strange thing, to see evidence this clear that he was cared for and still not quite believing it, to feel this strong a mix of absolute loathing and caring towards that many people. (Not love, whatever intimacy he was capable of after Rosel would always be tainted, diluted. What if all the loathing was just reserved for him.) Before he had received an answer, a mutated version of a laugh followed the desperate question, the humorless sound cut short by a sharp inhale. Stupid fucking knife. Owen’s free hand moved to Wyatt’s knee, for a moment unmoving even if he couldn’t meet the shifter’s eye, before he was using the other man to painfully get to his feet with a stifled groan. The man that was simultaneously keeping him together and making the revelation of this all tear him apart more violently. There was still the option of shoving Wyatt away, charging at Emilio and dooming Eve to clean up yet another dead hunter to be blamed on Owen. He stood on shaky feet instead, taking advantage of Wyatt’s presence since he’d already started, even knowing full well it would only add to the growing pit of loathing.

—

Eve’s delivery of the truth was clinical in a way that was familiar, an echo of the tone she’d used to recount her coverup of the massacre of Emilio’s family. He wondered if it would twist the proverbial knife to add his own two cents in, or if Owen would prefer the familiarity of Emilio’s petty vendetta. Maybe he’d find Emilio’s anger just as comforting as Emilio found the blood soaking his hands. After all, when the world was turned on its head and nothing made any kind of sense, any familiarity at all felt like a security blanket that was a tempting thing to cling to. The obvious follow-up to this thought was the question of whether or not he wanted to offer Owen any sort of comfort. It should have been obvious, should have been laughable to think that it was a question at all. Hadn’t this man had a knife suspended above his throat mere minutes ago? Hadn’t Emilio felt satisfaction when he’d slammed the same blade into Owen’s gut? Why was there any part of him that wondered if there was something he could do to soften the blow while half of his attention had to remain focused on holding a hand over the stab wound in his stomach, trying to keep his life from slipping between his fingers?

(The answer, of course, was a simple thing: because he and Owen were more alike than they were different. Because Emilio had sat in the same position Owen was in now, albeit with a few tweaks on the details. Was there anyone who could understand Owen better than he could? Was there anyone who understood Emilio more than Owen? Maybe that was the real source of the animosity between them; Emilio had never hated anyone more than he hated himself, and Owen had always been just a little too close for comfort.)

Wyatt was apologizing, was pleading, and Emilio let out a short, harsh exhale through his nose. Even Owen seemed to have calmed. There was no real bite to his tone when he told Wyatt to stop, more grief than fury when he asked Eve for confirmation. Eve was calculated, Wyatt was apologetic, Owen shattered. And Emilio, as he always was, was angry. He was the only one still angry, even if he had no idea what the anger was for anymore. It was a familiar thing, anger with no cause, no target. It had been with him for as long as he could really remember.

Owen got to his feet, so Emilio did the same. It was a struggle — the stab wound was teaming up with the bad leg, the pain surging through him in response to every movement a nauseating thing — but he refused to be in any position that might be considered a disadvantage even if it was painfully obvious that he was in no shape to fight. (Neither was Owen; despite having gotten his feet beneath him, he looked a breath away from collapse. Emilio should have felt vindicated by this; he only felt hollow instead.)

“We’re sure,” he said in a clipped tone, deciding he disliked the way Owen addressed the question only at Eve even if Eve was the person who made the most sense to answer. She had more details here. While Emilio had been focused on providing the distraction, Eve was the one who’d done the bulk of the work. (Christ, it really was like he was sixteen again, wasn’t it?) “There was never any fucking plan. She was fucking with you. She was always fucking with you.” He was too tired to make it a taunt, too exhausted to sharpen it into more of a barb. The truth would hurt enough on its own. Later, he might pretend he’d intended for it to. At the moment… he just didn’t know. He wasn’t sure he’d ever know.

His legs felt heavy beneath him, and he leaned subtly against the wall behind him to take some of the weight from them. It would have been smarter to stay down, but he wasn’t capable of allowing himself the comfort of a position on the floor if Owen was on his feet. He wasn’t capable of a lot of things. “You can end it,” he offered, almost an olive branch. “Someone can help you end it. Or you can end it on your own.” He had a feeling he knew which option Owen would pick. They were cut from the same cloth, after all. “But either way… only thing keeping it from being over now is you.”

—

Wyatt’s apology grated Eve’s ear. If he owed one, they all did, and considering that Eve was still debating whether she’d need to put Owen down, she didn’t think that was the case. She didn’t understand how a fighter in the Grit Pit could be so soft. She could not see how he survived wearing his heart on his sleeve. For a moment, Owen said nothing, his harsh, wretched breathing the only thing in the room. They were all waiting. All hoping. This was what hope looked like: a knife stabbed away from an artery, a rifle unfired, a gentle touch.

Eve nodded as Owen looked at her, supporting what Emilio was saying. They’d spent so long working together, they were finishing each other’s sentences and thoughts. It didn’t feel wrong, exactly. “I have proof, right here, right with me. The kids are safe. Everyone is safe. I even have her location.”

She had just started to lower the barrel of her rifle when he began to move, began to push himself up, a broken man with his joints all wrong, like he did not know how to wear his body with this new information. The red dot found his sternum.

“Owen,” Eve breathed, a plea, a warning. She did not know what a fight ending looked like with everyone still standing. Blood started running down his leg. Emilio was moving too, and she still hadn’t looked at him, couldn’t look at him. They were both bleeding, and gravity would only worsen it.

Owen had looked at her before like he was ready to die, and if Eve was honest with herself, he still looked it now. A permanent ending would be easier than the other kind, and why wouldn’t he make one last desperate try, one chance to escape the truth of what had happened here, of what he’d done. Eve knew that temptation all too well.

Emilio, in a move so shocking that Eve almost looked at him, offered his little olive branch. Despite it, she couldn’t relax. She couldn’t drop the gun, couldn’t switch the sword to the scalpel, couldn't let herself believe that Owen was anything else than the most dangerous he’d ever been. She needed him to say it, and wasn’t that foolish? After all this time, Eve wanted Owen’s word. It was as reliable as her own. Eve tried to logic herself out of it, tried to rationalise that Owen had every moment to do something stupid, something dangerous. He hadn’t yet. Yet. Fuck. “I need you to say what you're going to do.”

The moment he confirmed it, she would throw a medical bag to Wyatt and hurry to Emilio, but until that moment, she couldn’t afford it.

—

Don’t you fucking apologize to me. It was said flatly, not shouted or hissed or even growled; it came from a place of physical and mental exhaustion, but the lack of a point didn’t spare Wyatt the ache. Dull, throbbing, like the hours following a crack on the head — the kind of ache he’d try to soothe with ice packs or the cold bars of the cage he’d been tranquilized and thrown into post-fight. He shouldn’t have apologized, but he felt responsible. Somehow, he hadn’t put all the pieces together. He’d let his anger get in the way of reason, and he’d allowed (or so he felt) Owen to walk this path for far too long. He should have pushed harder, he should have fought more, he should have been worried instead of angry when Owen disappeared without so much as a goodbye. He should have gone looking for him. Instead, he’d wallowed in self-pity, filling the space left behind as quickly as he could, which had only led to more stupid decisions and more hurt.

The lamia lowered his chin when Owen looked away, feeling ashamed. He was quiet when Owen asked for confirmation, when he laughed (if you could call it that), and when he used Wyatt to help himself get back to his feet. He was quiet but still moved to support Owen, eyes downcast, allowing the other to lean heavily on him while those dry, unemotional words bloomed like a bruise on his mind.

Emilio interjected, and Wyatt winced. He liked Emilio, but he wished the other slayer would just be quiet. It seemed like every time he opened his mouth, Owen only got more upset. But… he had a point. They were right, and because they were right, there was an end in sight. This whole thing was in Owen’s hands, now. And even though he’d begged Owen to let him help, Wyatt got the sense that the offer would go unused. He didn’t see a way for him and Owen to get back to how they’d been before, and he wasn’t sure he wanted it. Despite his obedient silence in this moment, he still had plenty of reasons to be angry. That rage had been muzzled the moment he’d realized Owen was in danger, but he knew it would chew through those restraints sooner or later.

Eve stepped in with an offer of proof, and Wyatt felt his tense muscles relax, if only slightly. Proof was good. Proof was what they needed, if everyone was going to walk away from this alive. The kids are safe. The restraints tightened, pulling his anger deeper into the earth, making its escape that much harder. It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t his fault.

I need you to say what you're going to do, Eve insisted. It was a fair question. Wyatt glanced over at Owen, pleading silently with him to be reasonable. There was nothing more he could really say, not without running the risk of sparking the other’s anger. And if their tempers started to butt heads, Wyatt knew he’d be taking a risk. His fuse was short enough already, he didn’t need to add an open flame to the equation.

—

She was always fucking with you. It made the most sense - there was no higher purpose, no plan. Just malevolence and Owen falling into a perfectly spun web again. At least the first time, no one had been there to witness the desperate and pitiful attempts to break himself free of the strings. Now, he had a captive audience to his demise and Emilio to provide commentary. If only the son of bitch could lose blood faster so maybe he’d pass the fuck out. “You need to shut the fuck up,” Owen threatened, despite being in no position to do so, despite the red dot on his chest and Wyatt’s gaze boring into the side of his face, begging him still. The second time Wyatt had begged, the first instance light and teasing and remembering it now threatened Owen’s already unsteady legs. Emilio didn’t shut up, unsurprisingly, but instead was being… reasonable. The world truly had gone to shit.

And then Eve. The only one to truly see him for the threat he was. What would this situation have been without Eve’s presence, the only one quietly calculating all of it in a sensible manner? At least as far as Owen could assess, her face was so devoid of any hint of emotion as she made sure to never lose her kill shot. For all the times he’d poked fun at her for not being a real hunter, Eve absolutely was a ruthless killer. Maybe even more ruthless than himself, definitely more so than Emilio. Even so, she hadn’t taken the shot, was somehow managing to rationalize to herself that Owen deserved a chance. He had no fucking clue how she was managing such a feat, pragmatist that he thought her to be (out of everyone present, he truly knew Eve the least - even when her ‘work’ mask dropped, Owen had always noted a ‘thinner but still very much there’ mask to take its place). So she demanded confirmation, promised evidence in return and the safety of people he’d viciously killed for during this last year.

What was he going to do? The longing to bolt was strong, to scream and thrash around, break things, even if they were his own bones just so that something was as shattered as his psyche. But all of that required energy and without Wyatt - who was silent now which somehow stung more than anything he’d said so far - Owen would have crumpled to the ground. All of this would come back to haunt him, again and again but letting this pathetic display rot and fester in his mind now would also require energy. “I’m done,” he answered blankly, making half an attempt to stand on his own under the weight of that statement but the leg closest to the knife folded immediately, forcing him to cling tighter to Wyatt. At least the shifter was being allowed (by way of no other plausible option presenting itself) to help in this way, something he desperately wanted for reasons undecipherable to Owen. “Except for her. Give me her location and we can be done here.”

—

Owen snapped at him, as familiar as the knife to the gut and the blood on his hands, and Emilio felt a crushing sort of relief with the animosity. It wasn’t quite as harsh as his tone had been before Eve’s arrival — and Emilio wanted it to be, wanted back the feeling of knowing how this was going to end rather than the sticky uncertainty that had replaced it — but it wasn’t the same strange tone he’d used on Wyatt or the blankness with which he’d addressed Eve following her revelation, and that was preferable. Maybe Emilio was still the only one who was angry, but at least Owen was something close. He leaned a little heavier against the wall, blew a heavy exhale out his nose, tilted his chin back and pretended to ache less than he did. “Why don’t you fucking make me, asshole?” Poking the bear was never something he’d been averse to, but it was an almost sad display now, with the pair of them barely standing and Eve’s laser sight dancing on Owen’s chest. Still, it seemed to relieve some of the pressure in Emilio’s chest. It was something to cling to in a barn full of so few handhelds, so he gripped it with all his sorry might.

But Owen’s threats were as empty as the rest of him, in this moment; it was obvious from the way he stood that, even if he wanted to, he was incapable of making Emilio do anything regardless of how easy it would have been in his current state. Frustratingly, Emilio wasn’t even sure he did want to. Eve brought up the list, assured him that the people who were on it were safe, and the relief was clear even if he knew Owen was trying to hide it. Everything he’d done had been to protect those names on that crumpled paper, and Emilio’s had been among them. Not an ounce of it made sense to him. He preferred to cling to the feeling of burning in his gut, to the memory of the knife that Owen had put there and the way it had hovered just over his throat a moment before. Wasn’t that the thing that made more sense? Wasn’t that easier to swallow?

Despite the truth still echoing off the walls, the tension in the barn remained. Eve didn’t lower her weapon; Wyatt remained a crutch for Owen, who stood stubbornly on his feet. Emilio pretended his own balance was steady, tried not to show just how much he was leaning against the wall behind him for support. His legs trembled, and he knew it was unlikely that he’d keep his feet underneath him for much longer, but he refused to sit before he fell. He watched Owen, the hand not holding pressure on his stab wound inching towards his pocket as if one of the knives waiting for him there would do anyone any kind of good if Owen decided to go in for a kill on any one of them. Wyatt was closest; if Owen removed the blade from his gut and stuck it in the lamia’s throat, none of them would be able to stop him. If he tossed it towards Emilio, Eve couldn’t be able to pull her trigger quickly enough to throw off his aim. If he moved towards her, she might be able to catch him, but there was a chance he’d throw her off-balance beforehand. Emilio’s mind offered a thousand paranoid possibilities for what might happen next, his body tense as he waited for one of them to come to fruition.

Instead, Owen surrendered.

It was as if all the air was sucked from the room at once. Everyone seemed to relax with the statement, as if Owen’s word was worth its weight in gold. Had Emilio been a little less… stabbed, he might have protested. He might have pointed out that Owen had just spent months lying to every goddamn one of them, that he’d killed plenty of hunters who’d probably taken him on his word the moment he assured them he wasn’t a threat. But there were spots dancing at the edges of his vision now, and it was taking all the willpower contained within him just to keep from falling over, so he remained silent. His eyes lazily tracked the medical bag Eve tossed to Wyatt, his brow furrowed when he realized she was making her way towards him after. He tensed a little as she got close, the look in his eyes closer to that of a wounded animal than a man. “He could still kill us, you know,” he said lowly, eyes fixed on Owen and Wyatt over her shoulder. “He’s got a knife.” Granted, said knife was currently sticking out of him, but it had been sticking out of Emilio just a few moments prior, and that hadn’t stopped him from yanking it out and using it to his advantage.

—

Despite arriving together, her and Wyatt had been at odds from the moment they’d both crossed the threshold into the barn, him stepping between her and Owen, him pleading where Eve only had facts. Briefly, they were reunited in inaction, in the terse, breathless waiting for Owen’s decision. Her eyes flicked in irritation at Emilio and Owen in turn. It was the way her brothers used to fight. The thought cracked open the music box, and she slammed it shut with such internal velocity that it almost cost her her balance. Her glance shifted to Wyatt, who held up Owen entirely, who held a battlefield in his expressions that he had not learned to hide the way she had. The fae would have a field day with him, she thought. It was good that she was the warden, and him the shifter, her with her gun, and him who could not be a weapon without touch. What a brilliant weapon he’d been.

So when Owen confirmed that he was done, Eve’s sight finally, slowly lowered. Owen lied to her all the time, taunted her, tried to trick her. He was no fae (a horrifying thought), and there was something about the empty echoing halls of his voice that could not be faked. She held the rifle bracketed against her shoulder with one arm so that she could shoot if it came to it, but her aim would be wide. With her other hand, she unzipped her satchel, flicking the first med pack to Wyatt’s hands with inhuman speed. Owen made his demand, and Eve grinned feral, all teeth bared. “I was hoping you’d say that. A return to form will suit you. Just one moment.” As long as there weren’t more bodies for her to find.

The legs which had run her here in the nick of time were not built for the walk over to Emilio, her right leg on tip toes to match the length of the running blade, but she did not turn her gaze from Owen until she was right by Emilio. It was only then that she finally looked at him, her eyes falling straight to the bloodied stain around his middle, trickling down his leg the same way it had on Owen’s. Matching wounds for matching scars. Eve pursed her lips, a tiny movement to bury the way she wanted to rush to him. It was too fucking deep.

“He could. He won’t. Well, he might, if you don’t get back down and let me see to that. Bleeding out from that wound would be kind of a bummer end to the night.” Eve didn’t reply quietly, and slid to the floor, sitting to the right of where Emilio was standing, unflinching at the pool of blood she settled into. She twisted the mechanical knee a complete 180, until she could bend the knee towards her rather than away, and the bottom of the running blade became a useful little perch for the rifle to sit on. It could be aimed in Owen’s general direction, but not at him for the moment. Don’t drop the whole guard, but also take advantage of the rifle’s adjustable flashlight so she could see how injured he was. Eve glanced back over at Owen. “Look at him.”

With the hand that wasn’t helping balance the rifle on her leg, Eve reached for her phone, and with a couple taps, Rosel’s live location was shared to Owen’s phone. She shrugged, setting her phone back down as she looked at Owen. “I’ll give you a bit of a head start before I start sharing that more widely.”

“Oh, and Owen? I’ll be watching.”

—

Wyatt caught the medkit that was thrown his way clumsily with one hand, the other busy supporting Owen by bracing itself against his lower back. The relief in the barn was palpable, the immediate threat of bodily harm having passed, but Wyatt still felt sick to his stomach. He wasted no time in guiding Owen backward a few steps, back against the opposite row of stalls. With a huff, he shifted his weight and kicked out a leg, hooking his foot on an empty wooden crate and dragging it closer, then nudging it into place so that Owen could sit on top of it.

He was done, except for Rosel. He was going to go after her alone, and that might be the end of it. Of him. Wyatt hoped not, but he also knew better than to offer his help a twenty-second time, so he decided to let it lie. Owen would do what he wanted, and that was his problem, not Wyatt’s. (It didn’t mean that he was free from worry, though.) “Sit,” he said, his voice hoarse even though he’d not been yelling. Squatting down and opening the pack to see what they had to work with, Wyatt thought about suturing the wound himself without asking, then decided against it. Worst case scenario, Owen would get snippy with him, but he didn’t really want to deal with that. So he just set it on the slayer’s knee, looking up at him with as neutral an expression as he could manage. “I can help, if you want. Or I can wait until you're done, n’ take you home.” That part he wasn’t going to budge on — there was no way, after all of this, he was letting the idiot insist on walking anywhere in this bitter cold where he’d just die from exposure. And although the idea of disrobing and shifting in this weather was miserable, it would quicken his pace and make it easier to carry Owen. He’d consider it a final gesture of kindness.

He turned his head slightly in Eve’s direction when she spoke, figuring out what she meant through context, then chuckling humorlessly at her promise to keep an eye on Owen. That was probably for the best. His eyes moved back to the knife still jutting from the slayer’s gut, to the dark red stain that had spread so much farther since the time he’d first run into the barn, to the matching stain on his own hand that Owen had been gripping so tightly earlier. He might have been worried about Owen turning that knife on him if not for the way the hunter had resigned himself to his fate when Wyatt was first approaching, not moving to defend himself, certainly thinking that Wyatt was going to make good on his threats in that bar.

Wyatt had been right. He didn’t want to hurt him like that. He had to hold on to that now, for as long as he could before those restraints snapped and he told Owen what he was really thinking.

—

Trying to put himself in Emilio’s shoes, or Eve’s, was proving impossible (in no fucking universe did Owen have the mental capacity to put himself in Wyatt’s place, even though he knew what sort of response the injured shifter had received before, what felt like multiple lifetimes ago). Why the fuck was she lowering her gun on just his word? Maybe it was simply her belief in his viciousness, the clear need for revenge. A return to form will suit you. If only he still had a form to return to - Owen was utterly bent out of shape and whatever mold he’d previously fit into had shattered amongst all of the revelations. At least Emilio was still a beacon of skepticism, comforting in the same way his taunting had been achingly familiar, but it seemed the blood loss was finally getting to him. Speaking of…

Letting himself get supported over to one of the stables, another low point for this evening, Owen slumped down onto the crate with a barely concealed hiss of pain. The knife needed to go, a priority even if the buzzing of his phone and Eve’s explanation of what it now contained sent a thrum of electricity through him. Owen might not have had the energy needed to fight anyone present but from some deep, dark part of himself that she had helped create, he knew there would be a reserve of strength, saved just for Rosel. Even just answering Eve’s threat, one he knew without a doubt she would follow up on, took effort he couldn’t manage so all she got was a vague sound of confirmation that the message was received.

Ignoring the insistence that Wyatt was bringing him home, as if he hadn’t already done more than could have been expected of any sane person, Owen wrapped a shaky hand around the knife. It slid out with a wet noise, pulling at insides as it went, body already trying to stitch itself back together around the intrusion. Without adrenaline and the rush of the fight, it hurt like a bitch. The blade clattered to the ground, gauze haphazardly pulled from Eve’s little go-bag and pressed against the steady stream of blood that started bubbling out.

For a moment, Owen’s head rolled back, eyes closed and focused on the constant throb of pain. Most of his focus at least, the rest divided between the hushed voices of Eve and Emilio as the latter got patched up and Wyatt’s presence, lingering and hoping he might be allowed to help despite knowing Owen well enough for that hope to be a fool’s errand. Which it should have been, only… Owen really didn’t feel he had any pride left to lose and since two out of the three people present had already pulled him back together with needle and thread, might as well go for the full house (full barn?). “Yeah, okay,” Owen breathed, summoning the strength needed to raise his head, meet Wyatt’s gaze and the shit attempt at hiding the storm of emotions visible there.

“You can help.” It felt heavier than the apology that had been trying to break its way free since Wyatt had said his own unnecessary sorries. As much as Owen didn’t want there to be meaning to this simple thing, to rationalize it as pragmatism, there was no avoiding it. It was absolutely a twisted and shitty way to pay someone back for saving your life (something he could admit to now but would inevitably come to deny at a later point) but it was all he had to offer the other man. As for the two hunters that had also taken part in this rescue mission - and it had never been a rescue mission for Emilio - it would be easier for everyone involved to pretend there was no debt to be paid. Emilio would never admit to actively sparing his life and Eve would chalk her actions up to helping the greater good. Wyatt was the only one here willingly baring his soul to a room full of hunters conditioned to fear that sort of vulnerability. The least he deserved was getting to do the only damn thing he’d ever asked of Owen.

—

The fight was over now. The tension in the barn was dying down, Eve was lowering her gun, Owen was claiming to be finished, Wyatt was opening a med bag. The fight was over now, but it felt as though no one had properly communicated that to Emilio’s mind. The adrenaline coursing through his body was fading, sure — blood loss would do that to a guy — but his mind still moved a mile a minute, still provided him with more scenarios in which this could go badly. Sometimes, it felt like there wasn’t a single fight he’d been a part of that had ever really ended. He was still on the floor with Owen, a knife hanging above his throat. He was still in the streets of his hometown, his leg twisted in all the wrong directions. He’d never left the factory where Rhett was tortured, never got away from the street outside his apartment where a vampire cornered him with Zane. Every fight he’d ever won and lost was still waging in the back of his mind, and this one was at the forefront.

There wasn’t much he could do about it now, of course. As stubborn as he was, the amount of blood he’d lost was starting to make him a little woozy, though he kept his feet underneath him as he watched Wyatt lead Owen to the other side of the barn. It was only when the other slayer had allowed himself to be lowered onto a crate that Emilio let himself do the same, gracelessly stumbling his way into a seated position beside Eve. He kept his back against the wall and his eyes on Owen, though he let his head drop back a little. His limbs felt heavy; he chalked it up to the adrenaline draining out of them.

“I’m not bleeding out,” he protested, pulling his bloodied hand away from the wound so that Eve could take a look. He had a feeling there was no duct tape in her med bag; some half-hysterical part of him wanted to ask anyway, remembering the time Owen had stopped him from treating an injury with such. Would Owen remember it if he brought it up now? Did he want him to? The idea of the two of them recalling a less tense time in their relationship just after stabbing each other with the same goddamn knife made his chest clench in ways he couldn’t quite understand, but he hadn’t entirely understood anything that happened in this barn, anyway. He kept his eyes on Owen, snorting when Eve mentioned how he was looking. “Yeah,” he said, raising his voice enough that he hoped it would be heard on the other side of the barn, “he looks like shit.”

Just speaking took a lot out of him, so Emilio fell into an irritated silence as he watched Wyatt take care of Owen across the barn. The fight was over. Maybe one day, it would feel like it. But for now, all he could really do was sit back and let other people stop the bleeding.

—

As Owen finally relented, Wyatt couldn't help but feel surprised. He had expected to receive pushback at every turn, just as he always had, except this time without the undercurrent of amusement. The playful banter they'd always enjoyed, even when Owen was legitimately pissed, was absent. And Wyatt, always able to put on an easy smile and just shrug off the slayer’s temperamental outbursts, didn't feel like he could do that anymore. So he was glad that Owen gave up on being combative, removing the knife and agreeing to let him help.

“Great,” Wyatt said with a small smile, digging out the sutures and ripping open the sterile packaging. He'd done this to himself enough times to feel comfortable with it — his first attempt was when he was thirteen, with his older cousin guiding him. He was quick about it, efficient… just like Marcel had taught him. There was nothing more that needed to be said, which of course left the floor open for Emilio to run his mouth.

“Okay, peanut gallery,” Wyatt chastised the other slayer without looking up from his work. The quiet settled around them again, and with a sigh, Wyatt heard the wind outside starting to kick up. As he finished the final stitch, he reached for fresh gauze and laid it over the wound, moving Owen’s hand to hold it in place while he ripped off a few strips of medical tape. “There,” he muttered, taping the gauze down and rising to his feet again. The med kit was sealed and slid back toward Eve, and as he turned back to face Owen, Wyatt’s skin was looking a little more scaly. He shrugged off his jacket and kicked off his shoes, hissing in annoyance as the frigid air bit at his freshly exposed skin. The shirt was next, and his tail was trying to cause him problems as he hurried to step out of his jeans and underwear. The rest of the shift was as rapid as ever, during which Wyatt used two claws to tuck all his clothing into the coat that wouldn't fit him anymore. He pushed it over to Owen and told him to zip it up and hold on to it, then scooped the injured slayer up into his arms. Another low, upset growl rumbled deep in his throat as he nosed open the barn door and took a blast of wind to the face, yellow eyes squinting against the onslaught of snowflakes and his head tucking downward to protect Owen from the worst of it.

This was going to be a long walk.

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