unforgiven ➽ a Halilintar-centric fic

31 | i trusted you

Solar narrowed his eyes condescendingly, eyeing Gempa from the corner of his vision. "Who are y—"

Halilintar put a hand on his shoulder, effectively silencing him. He met Solar's confused expression with a stern one of his own, leaving no room for debate. This isn't the first time they disagreed over something, and it certainly won't be the last.

Knowing this conversation was over before it even started, Solar rose to his feet and gestured for the pair of siblings to follow. Though unsatisfied, Thorn and Cyclone tailed him, retreating to the car.

Halilintar and Gempa waited until they drove out of sight, the taillights disappearing over the horizon. The lightning elemental's heart panged at the sight as uneasiness settled in his stomach, pooling as he turned to face his brother.

Solemness took over every one of Gempa's features, arms crossed and shoulders squared. His silhouette was framed by the light from the camp, the rest of his body darkened by shadow. He looked as if he were about to approach a topic he especially dreaded but knowing that there was nowhere else to run.

Halilintar didn't blink, clenching his fists by his side. Whatever Gempa called him here for, he wasn't going to enjoy any of it.

"I trusted you with the kids," was Gempa's opening line. "You promised you'd keep them safe."

Halilintar didn't refute, confused as to where this was leading to.

"You were the only person we could've turned to for this situation," Gempa continued, voice eerily stony and apathic, "but instead of keeping them from harm, you kept them trapped like a prisoner, thrown them out of the house, and now you jeopardized their lives. What do you have to say for yourself?"

"First of all, I never promised anything," Halilintar bit back, undeterred. "You dropped them off at the Kokotiam without so much of a warning, and did you really expect that I'd be happy taking on more responsibility on top of my existing ones?"

Gempa glowered. "I told you: we had no more choice than you did," he snapped. "It was risking wreaking havoc on the station, or coming to you." He spat out the last word like it were poison.

Halilintar's blood boiled. Being saddled with four random kids from space was one thing, being accused of abusing them was another. "Am I just a glorified babysitter to you?" He stepped forward, lightning flaring in his fingertips. "Is that what you think of me? Someone who'll gladly bend down and clean up after you?"

"This isn't about that!" Gempa shouted. "This is about you endangering their lives! Lives of innocent children who clearly don't deserve to be caught in our mess!" He whipped around the area, pointing to the charred spot where Cahaya had been. "You almost killed them. I don't know what you did, but whatever it was nearly killed Taufan's student and took the entire city with him. His element is powerful—I'm not refuting that—but it was nowhere near the level it should be just now. Just what did you do?"

"How am I supposed to know?" Halilintar was near hysterical with these claims, voice raising by an octave higher. "I wasn't even here for any of it!"

He wasn't lying. One second he was in that lunatic alien's clutches, and the next he was literally six feet underground possessing a freezing corpse. No one found it fitting to fill in the gaps in his memory for him either, so he had no idea what had happened in those moments when he was mentally absent from his body.

The only thing he gathered from Taufan's comments was that they were apparently at each other's throats, but Halilintar didn't recall any of it. But between Taufan and Halilintar, Halilintar knew who Gempa was more inclined to believe.