DoomPet

Chapter 104

Daisy took Devo up to the greenhouse and sat him down. He was scared that the gargoyle was about to latch onto him and rip him to shreds to feed her children, but they were preoccupied with a ham sandwich she bought from a vending machine. He shifted in his seat and spoke up, "Any particular reason you brought me up here?"

"Crüe need to give attention to Haine and also Slayer. Me and you sit and talk while they sort out silly feelings." She reclined in one of the raised garden beds, crushing weeks of growth from the little seedlings, "I thought you were bad," she bared her teeth in reference, "Like evil creature, but you good."

Devo nodded, still processing his feelings about her forcing him to be away from Haine for a bit, "Well to be fair I thought the Slayer was abusing you and Crüe. So we'll call it even."

"Did Grim hurt you too?" She asked looking down at her hands admiring the surgeon's fine handy work. Missy and Orca went quiet in the corner, their incessant chirping quieted down.

"Oh are you asking me about my transformation?" He paused and tried to dredge up the painful memories, "I was the same as everyone else, just as sickly and pathetic until they gave me that liquid to drink. Then, not only was I one of the only people alive, I was doing great. They took me away from my caretaker and I lived with Grim full time for about a month." He plucked a little seedling out of its container and squashed it between his fingers, smearing the splattered chlorophyll around between his forefinger and thumb, "It was hell having him looming over me, monitoring everything I did. Anytime something went wrong he wanted to cut it out and replace it with tech or some genetic modification he ripped off some other poor creature. He's just weird. I was glad to be out of there."

"We all run from Grim, now even Slayer has faced him and fell." Daisy looked over at her children as they bounced around the greenhouse, surprisingly being nondestructive, "Me hope they never face him."

Devo was saddened by this conversation, not because he was afraid of Grim, but because he missed Bell. He felt like life would be perfect if he could return to her with Haine and Crüe in tow. He knew that Crüe would never return, but that hurt his heart so much. He wanted his brother and life to be just like it was before they were marauders. It made him angry that things had changed so much, that he couldn't bond with his own brother like he used to be able to. It felt like all the long nights of them together sitting on the back porch talking about life were gone. "Is this area open at night?"

She laughed, "Well no, but you live with Slayer, you can do what you want." She snorted with a frown, "Besides eating people or gargoyles. They weird with that." She stood and began heading down to the apartment once more. "You come?"

Devo seemed hunched over on himself, gripping the boards of the little shelf behind him, "I'll stay up here. I want to think about things."

"Meh." She shrugged her wings and managed to wrestle Missy out of the greenhouse, but Orca stayed with Devo. It warmed her heart. It was one of the first times they had been willingly separated. She was quite gleeful to only have to worry about one child for a while.

Devo sat down beside one of the raised beds and rested his chin on the side of the wood. He knew he needed to be withdrawn for a while. It's simply what he did, how he processed emotions. He felt a similar grief to when he thought Crüe had died by the Slayer's hand or when he thought he was kidnapped by the Slayer. This time he wasn't mourning Crüe, he was mourning his brother.

It was stupid, but he expected Crüe would still be the same good brother he lost centuries ago. He felt like he was pretty similar despite a bit of random amnesia and his transformation, so it was a slap in the face that Crüe didn't even feel like the same person. His brother used to protect him and make sure he was ok.