LOS Drabbles

Comeback

Ferro was back. Somehow. Found collapsed at the foot of his own memorial, with a new look and far more scars than he had four years ago. There was a stiffness to his movements and a complete shift in his demeanor, but it was most definitely the same dead guy come back to life.
———
"Soo..." Lightning started, idly stirring a rather massive pot of spaghetti that probably wouldn't last the night. "...how's life been? Bein', uh, not dead?"

"Really weird, if I'm being honest. Keep forgetting to breathe." Ferro shrugged, fiddling with his newly fixed flight ring.

"Forgetting to what now?" Lightning dropped his spoon to stare, heedless of the way it clattered into the side of the bowl.

"Yeah, it's like my brain knows what to do but my lungs don't wanna do it." He caught the look being thrown his way and hastily added: "They're still my lungs!"

"That's not the problem!" The redhead cried, anguish evident in every syllable. He dropped his elbows on the counter and his head in his heads, the stress-about meter he'd set aside for Ferro already filling. "You-are you gonna need an alarm for that? We can put a beeper on the ring."

"That'd...actually be a good idea." Ferro slipped off his barstool. "I'm gonna go and ask B about it."

"You go...you go do that, I'm gonna be here, tryin' to stave off a stress headache."

"Oh, uh, I'm sorry."

"S'not your fault." Lightning waved him off, sighing. "Jus'-jus' talk to Brainy, please."

"Okay."
———
Brin's ear twitched, flapping ceaselessly over Tinya's head as they sat squashed together in the only available armchair. Something was bugging the hell out of him, and she was getting tired of it.

"Dude, what the dick?"

"What?" He growled, glaring sourly at the racing game that Damsel was currently using to pummel Ferro's hopes of winning into a bloody pulp. It'd be sad if it weren't so entertaining, watching her toy with him all across the map like the evil, calculated genius she was.

"Mr. I'm-Gonna-Fly-Away-With-My-Ears, what's the deal? I don't like getting whapped in the head forty times by flimsy cartilage." Brin opened his mouth to reply, and she already knew what was coming. "Make a forehead joke, I dare you."

"The hell're you gonna do, princess?" He scoffed, amber eyes narrowing but still not bothering to change his focus.

"Gods, you've been spending too much time with Garth- I'll cut off that stupid lil hair curl of yours, now spill. What's your deal?"

"I don't-" Tinya raised an eyebrow judgementally at him. "-okay, yeah, fine. Ferro's fingers creak, and it's driving me up the wall."

"Creak?"

"Like a fuckin' cabinet door."

"And that's...not a nice visual. I can't unsee it now, thanks, ass." He rolled his eyes as she stuck her tongue out, the motion falling short as they landed on the opening Rec room door.

The tell-tale copper of Garth's hair peeked in, and Tinya knew that Brin's attention was hopelessly and entirely diverted -no matter how many accusations the salted fur bucket vehemently denied.
———
"Figure anything else out?" Brainiac asked noncommittally, tweaking with Ferro's newly-made respirator and politely not staring at the tangled wreck of scars that ripped gashes down his cheeks and throat. Whenever he did look over, it was to note the progress of the man's hand exercises.

Ferro's left was palm-down on the table, and he was slowly lifting his index and thumb off of it, the rest of his fingers firmly stuck to the smooth metal.

"Not any more on my own, no. Though I -apparently- binged an eight hour movie series with Phantom last time, and she's been getting really hyped up to do it again."

"My advice: don't do it. Last time I made that mistake, I ended up stuck in a reference feedback loop for three weeks."

"I mean, seems logical, but I'm kinda wondering if it'll dredge something-hey, I got another!" B paused and looked over to see Ferro wiggling his middle finger in the air, and puffed a short laugh.

"Nice. Can you get it with your right?"

"Time to find out!"
———
Ferro twitched restlessly in Kell's arms, nose band of his respirator biting into their neck. Lightning scarred fingers gripped weakly at red cotton sleeves, trying to catch hold of something. The whir of Ferro's mask would've muffled his steady string of words to a normal person, but Kell heard them all, every. Single. Time.

He begged for someone to stay, for someone to leave him, cried out apologies that got tangled in pleas for his life, and everything in-between. Names, familiar and foreign, spilled from his lips; they shifted with the night and muddled together in what had to be a nightmarish heap.

Kell so desperately wanted to fix it all, to hold the man long enough that the plaguing thoughts went away and the scars stopped aching, but even magic couldn't do that. Not permanently and never without cost, if Zix had taught them anything. All they could do in the moment was stay, and hold him close when so many others had left.