Of Love and Death.

The Future Chapter 17b: Snow is Thicker Than Water Pt. 2

Shu gently squeezed Bel's hand. His son was still passed out. Sleeping on his back in the hospital bed. Breathing in and out, albeit a bit laboriously. There's this notion that people look peaceful when they're sleeping, even if they've been beat up. That wasn't true. Not here, at least.

In his sleep, Bel looked scared. Curled up and tired, with tense eyes like he was having a nightmare. And beat up. So, so beat up. His one eye was becoming a little bit black, something Shu would guess was just going to get worse. Not to mention how beat up a bruised he looked. Some of Bel's skin had been scraped off, and the red-eyed blader didn't even know why.

At least Jamie was a little bit better off than Bel. Shu hadn't fully examined his other child. Mostly because he didn't like the sight of either of them so banged up. He could barely stomach checking out Bel. He needed a minute. He just needed a minute. Because he hadn't been able to stop it. And now two innocent kids were lying in hospital beds.

There was the sound of a chair being pulled back. Shu didn't look up to see Valt sit down next to him. Right next to him. The shadow didn't waste a moment before laying his head on Shu's shoulder. To which the fiery sun did the only thing he could. Wrap his arms around his husband and hope that they could end up doing something.

Silence. And then... "It was her," Valt whispered in Universal. So quietly, Shu could barely hear it. But he didn't even need to. There was now way that anyone else would have done this. Or could have done this.

The white-haired blader buried his head in the crook of his husband's neck, focusing on both of their unsteady breaths. The way that they breathed in sync, but without rhythm. As if the other was an island for them. The only island right now. "I-I'm not even scared," Valt muttered. "I'm not scared, I just...I just want her gone. It's sad. It's really sad. She's still so mad at us for something that happened billions of years ago. And, and it's one thing to come after me and you.

"But Bel and Jamie are just children."

There wasn't anything that Shu could say to that. There was no way he could explain how he felt. He couldn't even reconcile all of his emotions. That fire. That fire, so healing and calm, that part of him that just wanted to give everyone warmth and keep them safe had turned on its head. Wanting to just be let loose and rampage so that its antithesis would be destroyed forever. And there was no way to explain how much Shu still cared. How much he wanted to be on the front lines. Blocking anyone from hurting his family.

And how burnt out Shu was. How tired and annoyed and done. She'd always made him mad. From that first moment she attacked him. To what she'd done to Mind. To Blood. Just Blood. And the hand that she had in his death. And all of it. It had always made him burn with this unending fire.

But now? Now Shu couldn't put up with it anymore. The way that Cold had come after his kids. The two small little humans that he still remembered holding when they were two. And he and Valt were just trying to figure out how to actually parent. It had gone surprisingly not poorly, too. But still. To see those little kids, now lying in hospital beds, beat up, looking worse than Death on a bad hair day.

Shu cried. And he felt Valt cry against his chest as well. And they stayed like that for a few minutes. How easy it was to slip back into old patterns. How many times had one been terrified and held the other. How many times had Shu held Valt close.

It's easy to say that Shu knew Valt better than anyone else, and vice versa. But it was the truth. Perhaps Spryzen or Valtryek could rival that title. But, at some point, the man who you've fallen in love with time and time again, over millions of years. Who you've known for billions counting Mind and Fire, you just know them. And you find it so easy to turn to them for help.