but man, am i bad at math // storm + avriel, right after

He doesn't know what to do. In that first hour.

For awhile, he just sits there, waiting in silence. His phone rings, again and again. It buzzes to life and vibrates itself off of the couch from how much it rings.

And he can't move. Hands resting on his lap, stuck there, frozen.

And feels the handle of a knife in his hand again, the rust on the hilt, the motion as it leaves his grasp and the resounding thud it makes as it embeds itself into Aspen's skin.

He curls his hand into a fist and his palm, callused, feels rough against the denim.

Shuts his eyes and he's on the train going home except this time, there is someone sitting across from him.

He stands, phone still buzzing on the carpet but he leaves it there, feet moving mechanically to the door. He doesn't know what he's supposed to do now, there's no one to tell him, he only knows what he wants to do.

He goes to the roof.



When the peacekeeper steps off of the heli with Storm in his arms, there's a sheet covering his face and for a moment, Avriel's brain stops working.

But he won, saw it, the world fucking saw it.

Maybe Storm died on the journey back. His arm hangs loose over the Peacekeeper's arm, hand limp, bouncing with every step, like how a corpse would. Bloodstained nails, cuts along the skin peaking out from under the sheet, body could be anyone. The hand's too small though, little bird bones.

He forgot how little Storm still is, he's been so much larger than life on screen.

And none of this feels quite real, Avriel still isn't convinced that it is, seems sort of like a weird elaborate nightmare. He's had so many of those and he used to be pretty good at knowing when he was dreaming but these days it's harder. Everything seems to run together and none of it feels real.

Feels like cheating that he gets to take someone home with him already.

Feels like he hasn't done his time yet.

Shoulders back, chin up, Avriel walks forward to greet them, a medical team running beside him, arms reaching, not wanting to lose a moment, they bundle Storm onto the bed. He pulls the sheet back, shaking hands needing a couple of tries to catch the edge of the fabric. There's Storm Adroxis, eyes shut, drugged, but definitely not dead yet.

Avriel glances up at the helmeted officer.

"What's with the fucking sheet? Scared the shit out of me," he says.

The peacekeeper only shrugs. "Kid wouldn't stop crying, saw my mom do that to a horse once."

The medical team is already moving, a doctor kneeling on the bed over Storm, looking so damned little.

Avriel just stands there for a moment beside the helijet, watching, transfixed as they take him away. A memory surfaces slowly, one he didn't know that he had, of landing on the training centre's roof. He'd woken then briefly, to a midday sun instead of the sunrise he'd left behind in the arena. His body had been burning, pain radiating out of the hole in his chest that Aspen had left him with.

Gloria had leaned over his bed as they ran him inside, a big grin on her face. "The money you're going to make me," she'd hissed in delight.

"Oh, here."

Avriel blinks, struggling more lately to come back from the places he goes.

The peacekeeper holds a bloody lump of cloth out to him and Avriel just stares at it for a moment before holding out his hand.

"Came off during transport, thought maybe they could reattach it," the peacekeeper says before turning to go back into the jet, "Might want to hurry though."

The door shuts behind him and Avriel stares down at the lump in his hand. The fabric moves slightly. He glances down at the Kodama reaching out of the pocket of his hoodie. The scent of blood must have roused him. "Scout don-"

The jet takes off and Avriel stumbles backwards from the sudden blast of wind. His foot faults beneath him, a moment too slow and he falls, free hand clawing at the air for purchase. The bloody bundle falls from his hand and bounces once on the roof before landing, the cloth falling open.

Scout pulls itself out of Avriel's pocket, bumbling over to the mess of bloody skin. It's head rattles gently in excitement, inner light pulsating a dull red in anticipation.

"Scout!" he shouts and lunges forward but it's too late. The Kodama's mouth opens and closes around the shredded skin, cloth and all.

"Fuck."



"He supposed to sleep this long?"

His knee jumps up and down in the chair, foot tapping against stark white tile and the nurse, with her back turned, is focused on changing Storm's drip.

"Little Storm has been through a lot for one so young, Victor Baptiste. Have patience," the nurse says, not even bothering to look at him anymore, he's asked so many times. There's a clipboard on the bedside table and Avriel passes it to her while she works.

"I woke up in three days," Avriel says.

"This evening will mark three," the nurse says and then hums softly as she ticks a box on the board and passes it back to Avriel. He drops it back on the bedside. "You're here when I get to work and here when I leave, you should get some rest."

Avriel doesn't answer at first, eyes on Storm. Scout is nestled up against the boy's side, tired of Avriel's sweater pocket. Storm looks pale but peaceful at least, even with the bandage wrapped around his head. The sun is still rising though, the light coming in from the skylights overhead is dull.

And darkness pools beneath the hospital bed, waiting for Avriel to look away so that it can swallow storm up.

"I don't sleep much," he whispers.



"Av...Avriel?"

He jolts awake, hand curled into a fist over the scar on his thigh, Areto's voice still ringing through his head. Sweat slips down the back of his head, body baking in the afternoon sun coming in overhead. For a moment, he's lost still, the scent of campfire in his nose and the soft way that Areto smelled, even after eight days in the woods.

But Storm.

Storm is looking for him, not meant to be awake yet but stubbornly trying anyway, little Storm refusing to lay down and die, holding a grudge against death itself, his Storm, Storm who came back.

"Hey, hey, hey," he says, tone gentle, "I'm here kid, it's okay, I'm right here."

Avriel stands and reaches for his hand again, then hesitates. Maybe Storm doesn't want to be touched.

"If you're dreaming then I'm dreaming too," he says. But that's a whole other possibility. "But we're not," he says, "You're alive Storm, you're really here."

And that hasn't seemed real, none of this has. Any minute now, Avriel will open his eyes and he'll be staring at the ceiling of his room, having made it all up to cope with another loss.

And he has to touch, he has to be certain.

He reaches out, and brushes the hair out of Storm's eyes.

"You came back."