#whumpober

[ceruleanmindpalace]

Inktober No. 8 - Back from the Dead

"A thousand apologies, my dear Watson."

From @whumptoberber 's promptlist for Inktober 2023

I am flattered if you reblog, but do NOT post my art on other sites/social media or use in any other way without my written permission.

[flappy-pancackles]

Would you even want me looking like a zombie?

She stares at the reflection, but the one she sees isn't herself. She stares into the eyes of Kairi, but her expression matches the one Xion is sure is on her face. It's been two weeks since the fight for Kingdom Hearts, since Sora disappeared. Riku has been insistent on searching the worlds for him. Ven, Terra, and Aqua have been making up for their lost ten years while occasionally helping out in the search. Roxas has been focused on finding Sora as well. Kairi let the researchers put her to sleep to search her heart for clues, and Naminé has been staying with Xion. Xion, Roxas, and Axel decided to share a house in Twilight Town.

Life as her own being hasn't been...The easiest, for Xion. Axel and Rox seem fine, but, Xion just- she can't stop seeing others in the mirror.

She picks up the knife, taking a few deep breaths to steady herself. She can do this. Maybe she should've grabbed scissors and maybe she should've asked for help but she doesn't want to bother anyone with this.

A shopping bag sits on the counter. She lifts the knife, gathering her hair into one hand. Xion takes a deep breath, before slowly cutting the hair. It falls away as she does, though held in place by her other hand.

She stops partway through, staring at her reflection now. Uneven, yes, but so much more unfamiliar. She kind of...

She thinks she likes this look. Maybe she'll ask Olette to help her clean it up, and half of her still looks like Kairi, but... Yeah. She likes it, she decides. It's more-- Xion.

[ashleyswrittenwords]

Whumptober No. 1

Let’s Hang Out Sometime! (Waking Up Restrained | Shackled | Hanging)

Series Summary: After Calamity Ganon awakens, Zelda is left alone and heartbroken. Now something horrible has happened to Link and no more is she merely tasked with fighting the Calamity - but also what is left of her knight.

Note: Hey all! October is finally here! Many thanks to @spacebeyonce​ and @dontwaitupxx​ for reading through this first one. The hardest part is always getting started.

The first time she slipped up was the second time she saw him.

It was an immature coincidence when she went to investigate the sound of a little girl screaming, which turned into a horrible one when it was at the exact moment she felt her divine seals slipping.

Zelda woke to darkness and the sounds of her own ragged breathing. For a moment, she panicked. Hands scrambled to pull apart and her body writhing against their holdings to run… to where?

The castle, the castle, the castle.

Her mind was a whirlwind.

Calamity Ganon. The seals. The seals broke.

Then, the world bit back at her all at once in the typical way it did since her powers were awakened. From the flora to the skies and the soil to the mountain peaks. The sensation was so overwhelming that it hurt and she breathed in a loud gasp. Her heart stuttered in her chest at the realization that – no, they didn’t break.

Everything was much too alive for that.

Black spots marred her vision as Zelda fought the bile in the back of her throat. The last thing she remembered were eyes that were a bit too blue and the sensation of the moblins’ claws holding her down.

“That’s a shame.”

She was too weak to jump once the room came into a sudden clarity. It was still dark, but she slowly adjusted to her surroundings. The ground was damp, wetting her bottom and backside uncomfortably, the air stale. A cellar, perhaps? There was a slit in the upper wall, just tall enough that the figure in front of it had to partially lean up to see outside.

“For someone so legendary,” the figure said, but there was no mystery when he opened his mouth. “Ropes were enough to shackle you down.”

Her head was in the clouds and she wrestled with her senses to anchor where her body was. When she spoke, her voice was scratchy, misused.

“What did you do to me?”

His laughter was Death Mountain magma being doused by cool sea water. Deep and dangerous, yet tempting and curious. It made her cringe.

“Well,” he nodded to himself. “That is the question, isn’t it?”

Making out his form was difficult in the dark, harder to grasp that this wasn’t him because the silhouette was the same. The manner of his purposeful, lumbering gait bared such a semblance that her breast overflowed with hope that maybe Hylia wasn’t so cruel to let him leave her.

Why should their story be any different from the heroes and princesses of old?

Zelda was captured, put in a dark place. And here he was coming near her with an ever-comforting presence. She was to be rescued.

Then, her eyes adjusted just enough and suddenly that smile wasn’t so reassuring. Hands that were meant to be Link’s curled into fists and relaxed repeatedly, making his intentions drill forebodingly in her stomach.

“Don’t touch me!” Zelda screeched, pushing her feet against the stone and doing anything that meant getting away from him. She learned her ankles were also bound and her heels slid against the floor only to push her back flush with the wall behind her.

Link’s hand reached the back of her head. She lashed to the ground, screaming obscenities. Fingernails dug harshly into her scalp and snapped her head back. Nose met nose, grimace met silent scream, narrowed eyes met wide ones. Her palm flexed behind her, instinctively wanting to draw power from a well long since dried up.

He sneered, “Do you think just because you were able to pin Ganon down, you could do the same to me?”

The pressure on her hair tightened,  pulling a choked sound from her throat.

“Don’t pretend as if I haven’t seen you playing royalty across Hyrule. Playing at building something by going from town to town. I never realized you could be such a comedian,” he said, smoothing a course thumb over her cheek. “Because you sure are humoring me.”

The inflicted pain was red and hot. Her nails bit into her palm until the two throbbing parts of her body canceled out. He continued to speak into the open air, not seeming to care if she heard or not.

Feather light laughter escaped him with the sound of his indecisiveness to keep air in his chest. His gaze washing over her until eventually the laughter  morphed into a deafening scream. Link wrenched his hand away, tearing strands of hair with it. A dark, coagulated substance dripped to the floor, too thick to be water. The stench was almost overwhelming.

Zelda fumbled to pull the  loosened rope from her wrists, the light from her fingertips was already fading and the ground shook. She  fixed her attention to her ankles, wrestling the blade in the bottom of her boot out to pry the constraints apart.

Link continued to scream, cradling his hands against his stomach.

“Yes,” she said, once the soles of her feet found the floor. The word came out airy, but loud over his audible pain.

His eyes found hers, now yellow  and shocking. Zelda forced herself to maintain the stare, even when he doubled over. She didn’t elaborate because they both knew what she was answering.

The princess didn’t pretend to know what was happening to him because her power hadn’t manifested like this since Calamity Ganon was trapped. Nor did she let herself inspect any further. The door flew open, revealing a masked Yiga clansman. He stopped his sentence to stare at Link.

When his head turned to Zelda, she held the short blade before her and desperately tried to ignore the throbbing in her skull. Immediately, he readied a stance and shouted as the broadsword he  held swung down harshly. She tensed, cursing herself for not listening to Impa more, and inelegantly tripped backwards to avoid it.

The mask didn’t give her any hints on what he was about to do, so when he lurched she just narrowly escaped him. The clansman’s bulky frame didn’t allow his movements to follow through with her own, which made it easier for her to climb his back and trap him in a headlock. Their frantic clawing made maintaining her leverage difficult. Suddenly her back slammed into the adjacent wall and her breath was knocked out of her.

Don’t think about it. Just do it. Do not think about it.

With nimble fingers, she flipped the blade towards herself and drove it inward with the rest of her remaining strength. The Yiga gargled into her ear and her grip on the knife slipped as the arteries in his neck spilled open. Too lodged to pull out, Zelda abandoned the knife once the body under her slacked to the ground. She didn’t turn even when Link called out to her in a voice all too familiar.

[whumpdoyoumean]

Whumptober #3

This is part 3. Part 1 Part 2

xxx my way or the highway

“What, you mean–you mean Klaus? All of this was because you want me to help you find Klaus? Man, he could be anywhere! Watch the alleys and ERs. You’ve got as much chance of finding him as I do.”

The man steps forward and gets down on one knee, draping an arm on Diego’s leg and looking up at him. “No, no. Come on. I know you two are close. I know you keep tabs on him. No one else does. And can you blame them? Guy’s a mess!”

Diego’s lip curls and he grits his teeth. “Don’t do that. Don’t talk about ‘im like that.”

The man raises an eyebrow. “What, you don’t agree? You just told me I’d find him in an alley.”

It makes Diego’s blood boil, and the anger wakes him up and loosens his tongue. “That’s cus I’m his brother. I’ve earned the right to call him whatever the fuck I want. Every time I lied for him to keep Dad from ripping him a new one, every time I cleaned up his vomit, every time I bailed him out–I earned it. I can call him a worthless piece of shit junkie. You? You can just keep your damn mouth shut.”

The man lets out a loud exhale and leans back to regard Diego. “I really do like you, Diego. Now, I have your phone. You’re going to call your brother and you’re going to say whatever you have to to get him here.”

“I’m not doing shit until you tell me what you want with him.”

“Ugh!” The man throws his head back in exasperation and sighs before looking back at Diego. “So repetitive! You’re a goddamn broken record! But if you really must know, there’s someone I need to talk to. Someone who’s, uh. Passed on.”

Diego feels his eyes widen, and he’s grateful that he still has the mask on. The whole reason Klaus is…the way he is is because he’s trying to keep the ghosts at bay. Even when he’s sober, his control of his powers has always been hit or miss. If he shows up here and the man realizes he’s useless, he’ll kill Klaus in a heartbeat. 

Diego isn’t going to let that happen. 

He looks at the man and spits red. “Not a chance.”

The man’s face changes, darkening, his smile vanishing, jaw tightening, nostrils flaring. He stands. 

“I didn’t want to have to resort to this,” he says, and reaches behind his back and pulls out a gun. 

“Go ahead and kill me,” Diego says, heart hammering. “I’m not helping you use my brother.”

“I’m not going to kill you, Diego. I already told you, remember? If nothing else, I’m a man of my word. Plenty of places I can shoot you and keep you alive. Now, I’m dialing your brother. You’re going to tell him to meet you at the old broom factory. And you’re not going to cause trouble, because if you do I’ll put a bullet in your very fit leg.”

He presses a few buttons and then points the phone in Diego’s direction. “It’s ringing,” he whispers. He walks forward and presses the barrel of the gun against Diego’s left leg, just above his knee.

Don’t pick up, Diego thinks. Don’t pick up.

The phone rings a few more times and then stops. A tinny voice says, “Ah, my second favorite brother!”

Asshole.

The man holds the phone up to Diego’s ear and cocks the gun. 

“Klaus,” Diego says. “You actually answered for once.”

“I did! I’m here with–what was your name? Oh, it doesn’t matter. She’s the popo. But she’s very pretty. You’d like her!”

“On with it,” the man whispers harshly, pressing the gun a little harder against Diego’s leg. 

“Listen to me, Klaus. This is important, so you need to actually listen to me, okay?”

“I always listen, dear! Go on, then, what’s so important?”

Diego looks at the man, and then at the gun. He sighs. “Klaus, there’s someone after you! Be carefu-”

He’s interrupted by a loud crack, and a blinding pain in his leg.

He screams.

To be continued…

[romeoandjulietyouwish]

Solitary Confinement (Whumptober Day 20)

Chatacters: Marion Lavorre, Bluud

CW: agoraphobia, referenced sex work, implied violence against women

Marion  Lavorre was eighteen when she could no longer stomach the thought of going outside. Her friends would try to help her, taking her hands when they went outside, finding places where she could hunker down after a particularly stressful moment. But she couldn’t do it anymore. Stepping even a foot outside sent her into a panic attack. 

She lost all of her friends rapidly after that. And then she was alone, looking down at Nicodranas from her apartment, unable to set foot outside her front door. She was alone for a long time, but she was okay with that. 

The longest she was outside in five years was when she moved into the Lavish Chateau from her small apartment down the street. Everything had been taken by movers, now all that was left was the three minute walk to the Chateau. It took her twenty minutes to convince herself to step outside her front door. And from there it took her nearly half an hour to make it down the street. As soon as she landed in her new home, the door shut safely behind her, she fell to her knees and curled up in the corner, remaining there for quite some time. 

For the first week she lived at the Chateau, not a single person saw her. But quickly, she began to think of the whole Lavish Chateau as her home and she wasn’t confined just to her rooms. The ballroom didn’t scare her, neither did the bar, or the kitchen, or any number of rooms in the building. 

She saw her clients and she performed for her guests with hardly a trace of anxiety or fear. But, it didn’t take long for the others in the Chateau to notice she didn’t leave. 

In a good natured attempt to help her spread her wings, one of the bartenders insisted that she walk down the street. Marion agreed, just to appease them, after all she was almost twenty five years old, she should be able to walk up and down the street. 

Marion barely made it out from under the awning before her heart squeezed in her chest, her breathing stopped all together. She was frozen in place, unable to move in any direction. There were so many people, all of them crowded around her, danger in every possible direction. Then someone large stepped into her view. 

“Miss?” He asked in a deep, gravely voice. “Are you alright?” Marion shook her head and squeezed her eyes shut. “Okay.” He put a hand on her shoulder, using his large body to physically block her from the view of the other pedestrians, it helped a little bit. “You came from the Chateau?” Another nod. “Come on.”

He gently steered her back around. Marion kept her eyes squeezed shut as this man guided her back through the doors. The second she heard the doors closed, Marion let out a shaky breath and pressed her hands to her face, trying to slow down her breathing and her racing heart. 

“Are you okay?” Marion blinked her eyes open to see the man that had helped her, a minotaur kneeling in front of her so he’s just below her eye level. He looks incredibly concerned. 

“Thank you. I’m okay now.” Marion reaches out and touches his shoulder, she ignores how much her hand is shaking. “I’m Marion.”

“Bluud.” The minotaur stood and they exchanged a few parting words before he patted her on the shoulder and left the way he came. Marion took a slow breath in and walked purposefully up the stairs to her bedroom, stopping herself from running. The second she closed the door to her bedroom, Marion sunk to the ground and pressed her back to the wall, knees to her chest. 

She didn’t see anyone that night or the next day. On the third day, she could no longer confine herself to her rooms since she has to perform that night. She got ready and warmed up with the buzz of anxiety under her skin, but when she descended the stairs to the applause of patrons, her anxiety washed away and she became the Ruby of the Sea.

Performing has always been one of her greatest joys, but while she is singing her third song, the doors to the Chateau burst open and in walked a group of six people, all of them with swords drawn. She met their eyes and watched them tighten their hands on their weapons. They were there for her. 

But before anything could even happen, someone ran up onto the stage and leaped in front of her. 

To Marion’s surprise, it was the minotaur from before, Bluud. “Go.” He told her, pushing her towards the left wing. “They’re probably here for you.” Marion’s eyes were wide as she stared up at him. He pushed her shoulder again and she got moving, picking up the front of her skirt and running into the left wing. 

She heard someone shouting for guards and the sharp noise of swords being drawn, but she just ran. She ran through the backstage, up the spiral staircase to the second floor. From there she ran to her rooms, slamming the door shut and locking it behind her. She waited there for a long time, unsure whether or not it was safe to come out.

Eventually, there was a knock on her door. She opened it to find Bluud on the other side. His knuckles were bloody but when he saw her, the tension in his shoulders released. “You’re alright?” 

She nodded and stepped back to welcome him inside., “They didn’t even get near me, thanks to you.” 

He shook his head. “I was just looking out for you, Miss Marion. I don’t like seeing good people in trouble.” 

“Not everyone would call my business good,” Marion chuckled. “I’ve had more men than I care to think of trying to harm me.” 

Bluud’s face grew grim. “And yet you have no protection.” She frowned at that. “Miss Marion, I have spent my life learning how to use a sword and how to fight, please allow me to protect you.” 

“I don’t know that I need it,” Marion admitted. “I don’t leave the Chateau, I’m sure you can remember why.” He nodded. “Your skills would be wasted here.” 

Bluud shook his head, “They would not be.” 

Marion just looked at him for a long moment, his conviction unwavering. And she nodded. “Alright. It might be nice to have someone here.” She smiled at him. 

There was no way for her to know that the man standing before her would become her closest friend and confidant. He would protect her from people who wished ill upon her and he would protect her from her own mind. The few times she dared to venture outside the Chateau, he was always beside her, blocking her from the crowd. He helped her raise her daughter and protected her as well. 

He would become part of her family.

[an-ace-phoenix]

Whumptober, Day 29

29. Numb

You know when you put a seashell against your ear? And you hear the sound which adults convinced you was the sound of the sea, but as you got older you released was just the sound of the emptiness that filled the shell. Peter was that sound.

He was empty and alone. So so alone.

He blinked slowly, looking mutely at the bed in front of him. Someone was speaking to him, one of the other boys, but Peter wasn't listening. Only one sound was filling his ears, and it was emptiness.

He could still remember when he used to feel. Could still remember what love and happiness and safety and fear and worry and despair and crushing loneliness felt like, bit it was as though Peter only had a monthly allowance of feelings and he had used all of his up within the first few days and now he was left empty and numb until the new month came along.

The room he was standing in was bare. It was filled to the brim with stuff, but was still bare because it was devoid of any joy. They tried to spread joy - Meg and the other carers - but in a place like this, where everyone has to have lost something and most have lost everything, joy is hard to keep alive. 

The walls were a pale, creamy, white; the kind of colour which was all the range to promote calmness and space a few decades ago, but now just screams of a mental asylum. Not that Peter was in a mental asylum, but he would guess they weren't too different. There were a few pictures up on the walls, drawings done by some of the other boys and the odd motivational poster, but most of them paid them no mind. They had just always need there so those posters and drawings just faded into the background. 

The majority of the room was filled with about twelve, meal framed, beds. They were packed in like sardines, with only enough space for a small cupboard between them. It didn't affect Peter, he didn't need much space for a single photo and a change of clothes. He normally let the boy in the bed next to him - Oscar - use his lower shelf. Peter only needed the top one but Oscar was lucky, he had a couple of his own belongings which he needed to store.

Peter knew he should care about the fact that he had nothing, but he was numb to that fact. He knew that it would hit him one day soon, the fact he had nothing left in the world, but for now he remained blissfully ignorant. He hoped he stayed that way forever.

Nothing was the same anymore.

Different house. Different school. Different teachers. Different work. Different carers. Different routine. Different after school activities. Different everything.

Peter barely even recognised himself anymore.

He lost everything that day.

It had been such a normal day, he was sure it was going to be completely normal. He was at school, May was sleeping at home after a long night shift and everything was amazing. A field trip had just been announced and Peter and Ned were planning a sleepover. In the end Peter didn't make it to either the field trip or the sleepover.

He had smelt it before he had seen it. Obviously he had seen the bright light on the horizon, but he had thought it was the sun set. It wasn't the sun set. The strong stench of smoke had hit his nose and he had sprinted, but he was too late.

He lost everything. His home. His spider suit. Everything he owned. Everything that used to be Ben's. Everything that used to be May's.

May.

The only thing he still had was a picture of the tree of them, taken not long before Ben died. It had been in Peter's school bag so, just like him, it survived.

Now Peter was here, in a halfway home for boys, not even in Queens anymore, feeling empty and alone, with nothing to live for but nothing to die for either. He was just stuck there. Floating.

He hadn't seen anyone he knew for the longest time, but he knew in the back of his head it could only have been a couple of weeks.

How long since his life crumbled into a pile of ash? He hadn't been counting.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"Come on Peter." Meg called. They were going on a trip. For some reason the carers had decided that this small collection of children just needed some fresh air and to get out and about for a bit. Peter thought it was stupid, he had lost everything, he didn't care about whether the air smelt of flowers or leaves. He couldn't not go though, they had said it was 'super exciting' and 'once in a lifetime' and 'not to be missed'. Peter assumed they were just trying to get a bit of excitement out of the lot of them, it wasn't working but we'll done to them for trying.

They filed out, a small crowd in a huge city. A small hole of emptiness in the city of everything. Not one of them even blinked at the cold Autumn wind, no one jumped in piles of leaves, not a single person kept about in autumnal jubilation, they were all the inside of a shell, they were all in a separate world.

That wasn't true, and Peter knew it. Every other child there had a future, they had lost but they were ready to go out and fight for their futures. Peter wished them the best, but he knew he was stuck in his little void. It would take more than hope to get him out of it.

Peter didn't even notice when they ended up outside of Stark industries. They were just passing by it, on their way to the ice cream parlour which boasted to serve the 'best ice cream in New York' - Peter had managed to overhear Meg telling Oscar where they were going - and Peter didn't even blink. He just kept walking towards the ice cream.

In fact, he only really registered what he had seen once he was sitting down, staring blankly at a bowl of mint choc chip ice cream. It had been Stak industries. It had been…… it had been home.

"I'm going to the toilet." He said to Meg, his voice rough from disuse, before standing up and walking out the door, very clearly not the way to the toilet. Peter didn't care. Why would it matter if they knew he was lying?

He walked with a purpose, more purpose than he'd had in weeks. It felt…. It felt good actually. After so long walking around feeling empty and cold, being filled with purpose was a welcomed change.

He didn't stop until he was standing outside the glass doors of Stark Industries and suddenly his head caught up with him. This may of been the only home he had left, but he had been AWOL for ages, maybe he wasn't welcome here anymore….

"Peter?" A voice asked in shock before he was pulled into a tight hug. Peter would remember this motherly hug anywhere.

"Hey Pepper." He said, his voice hadn't warmed up yet so it was still rough and actually probably made him sound ill. Before he could pull back or, he didn't know, do anything, Pepper bustled him through the doors and towards the lift.

"Hello Peter." FRIDAY said gently as the door closed. Her voice was as robotic as always, but somehow it sounded glad, as though somewhere in her artificial heart she had been worried about him, Peter didn't think for a minute that it wasn't true. FRIDAY felt, he knew that. She was loyal to Tony and was like Pepper's friend, she was another mother figure in Peter's life.

"Hey FRI." He said shakily. The amount of mothering in this single lift was overwhelming, especially now that May was - now that May was gone.

"Do you want me to tell Sir that you are here?" FRIDAY asked and Peter's brain just paused for a second. Tony. He was going to see Tony. He hadn't seen Tony since the incident, in fact he wasn't sure Tony even knew. He had missed Tony recently. Somewhere deep in the numbness had been an emptiness which didn't come from May, but from the loss of everything else which he counted as family.

"Can you just tell him to meet us in the sitting room, please FRIDAY," Pepper asked quickly. Clearly she thought this would be a fun surprise. Just like 'surprise here is your missing spider kid!'

Peter took a deep breath as he felt the lift stopped. It was time. He could already feel tears prickling at his eyes, he was home.

He stepped out slowly. He could see the back of Tony's head sitting on the sofa, and watched as he turned. He felt detached, almost as if he was watching it happen on a TV screen and this wasn't really his life, but then their gazes met and Tony gasped in shock and Peter's tears burst free. It was like his emotions were back, but now they were crashing over him full five, drowning him in their intensity and trying to drag him down.

"Peter." Tony whispered, almost like it was a prayer while Peter stumbled forwards. He didn't feel his legs moving, he was just suddenly there, being crashed against Tony's chest and pulled into a hug. He was truly home.

"Peter what happened? You've been gone for ages. Where did you go? I had FRIDAY doing a search but she didn't see you in Queens, and she said she had found you but couldn't tell me because it was restricted information. I tried to bargain with her but she wouldn't tell me." Tony's voice was wavering and full of emotion. He gently lowered Peter and himself onto the sofa and after a second Pepper came to join them, gently rubbing both of their backs in comfort.

"I've been - been in a halfway home." Peer explained, his voice breaking while he hiccuped, his tears starting to clear but not going yet.

"A halfway home?" Pepper asked gently, clearly confused over what was going on.

Before Peter could explain, FRIDAY spoke up. "Sir, there is a woman at the front desk, asking at access your security cameras to find a missing child."

"Do we have any information about this woman and the missing child?" Tony asked, always careful about security when Peter was around.

"She says her name is Meg and she's looking for a child called Peter Parker. She had given a description but I'm guessing you know what he looks like." Peter smiled at FRIDAY's words, anyone hearing those words would believe she was a real human.

"Peter?" Tony asked confused.

"Yeah, she's my ...carer I guess." He said, feeling tears bubble up once more at the thought of it all. It was odd, it had been a while so now half the time he could smile, he could even laugh once or twice, and then suddenly the emptiness would be back and drowning him once again.

"Ummm. Send her up I guess, Peter what's going on. Where's May?" Pepper asked.

"You didn't hear?" Peter's tone was empty, drone like, "there was a fire. I lost everything."

"Oh Peter." Tony said, pulling him into another tight hug. "It's ok."

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

It took twenty minutes and a lot of explaining, but it was decided.

Peter was going to be adopted by Tony and Pepper. He may have basically been their kid before, but now he would be.

He was home.

Things weren't perfect straight away. He was still spending half his time numb, waking up in cold sweats due to nightmares about the fire and still couldn't believe this was real.

But he was back at school. Back with his friends. Back with his family.

He was home.