|| 𝗩𝗘𝗟𝗟𝗜𝗖𝗛𝗢𝗥 - various DODEU oneshots

you wouldn't want bad press, woul you? - part 3

POOKIES IM BACK OMG
tw for mild vomiting reference bc honestly ren has not had one single break in this series

The House of Dawn was disrupted by a bout of screaming.

Nightmares were very common in the House — you couldn't very well be a hero, facing death and destruction every day with out a few bad dreams — but what struck this fit as odd was not only the time of day, but the room from which it came.

If Ren was not out and about by 3 in the afternoon, then he would be very much awake, cooking eggs in the kitchen or reading in the garden. Sleeping was not particularly Ren's trademark. He liked to be active, to do something, to be something. You wouldn't expect to find him tangled in his bedsheets late in the day.

Except recently, sleeping was all Ren could do. He'd wake up, eat what his stomach could handle, and if he didn't immediately throw it back up then he'd sleep again. Wake up, eat, sleep. The Ren he was two weeks ago would've laughed at such a boring routine. Now he didn't even have the strength to smile.

Up until now he hadn't had the strength to scream, either.

"Hold him down! He's gonna hurt himself!"

Fujiko had already bitten off three of her acrylics and was well on her way to chewing off the fourth, backed up in a corner as the scene in front of her unfolded. Ren, crawling along the fine lines of life, death and unconsciousness, was thrashing for dear life against Monterio. Normally, the latter would have little to no trouble with calming down rogue individuals, whether they be outlaws on the run or stubborn victims of crime, but Ren was practically mad with fear. It made him completely uncontrollable, pushing, pulling, crying, screaming.

"They have him! THEY HAVE HIM!" His legs were tangled in the bedsheets, fuelling his panic. Monterio was holding his arm down by his side to stop him from clawing his skin off. He couldn't move, couldn't think, couldn't do. Hardly the recipe to calm somebody down, but what else could be done? Munchy was out, and without her Soothing Smoothies Ren would scream and scream until he wore himself out. "LISTEN TO ME!"

"We are listening to you!" Kitsune had Ren's other arm, already scraped red and raw, and she was shaking it with such desperation that it was at risk of coming off. "You need to calm down!"

She turned to Kuma, texting and calling from three different phones suspended in mid-air. The noise had woken her from her mid-day nap, and thin strands of hair clung to her lashes where she hadn't had the thought to brush them off. "Where is she?"

"Totally off the grid. Can't reach any of her phones."

"Who's 'they'? Who's he talking about?" Taro too had been woken from his sugar-induced nap, and the current indecent had startled him so badly that he'd shot up through the ceiling. Even now, whenever he exhaled his feet lifted a few inches of the ground, and Gou had to continuously tug him back down again.

"Nightstalkers, I believe," Azumi whispered. "She was preparing to gauze Ren's arm, huddled in the corner over a mess of pristine bandages. "Though I haven't the faintest clue how they got in."

Haruto was tapping his foot restlessly against the floor. He pulled up his apron to cover his mouth, momentarily sedated by the familiar smell of caked clay and acrylic paint, before the smell faded and took his peace of mind with it. Nightstalkers here. Ren badly injured. Tozen missing— dead? God, please no.

Now working on her seventh nail, Fujiko's quiet whimper brought the spotlight on her. "Shuri came in. He, um... I, like, I dunno what happened, but he was there, and Ren was there, but he was on the floor and he was bleeding and Tozen was there and- and..." The words wouldn't come out right. They stuck to her throat and spilled out of her lips in the wrong order. "God, I just wanted some biscuits! What is all this? Why is this happening?!"