papa // storm and his

[lance]

s t o r m .

"you are weak
but not foolish
you have learned
how to die."

You'd think the hard part would be at the beginning, right? The grand reunion after weeks of separation, and all of the tears and thinly veiled disappointment masked by relief that came with it. Because really, there was no denying it - for all of his hubris, for all of his, yes, stupidity that hindsight saw fit to illuminate for him, Storm knew that he had fucked up royally. No amount of ritual sacrifice, no amount of proving himself worthy, was worth throwing his own life away for.

he hoped

But the reunion itself was far from difficult, and either his family had taken master classes in acting in the weeks since he'd been gone or the relief that flooded from each and every one of them truly was genuine, for the confrontation, the chiding, the disappointment that he'd spent the entire long ride back home to Nine dreading never came.

Not on the platform next to the Justice building where the train dropped him off.

Not on the walk back to the family estate.

Not over the liveliest dinner he'd experienced with his siblings and parents in years.

Not even when most of them had scattered for the night, off to do...well, Storm didn't know how much had changed within a month. What he did know was that he could feel it all too acutely - the calm before the (heh) storm hung over his head too strongly to deny that something or another had to give.

Adroxises weren't the sort to hide behind the elephant behind the room. Adroxises weren't the sort to shove their grievances beneath the floorboards. So why now? Why was it so different with him? Surely there was more than that, right? He didn't just up and walk off to his apparent death only for the rest of them to pretend that the sin was washed out by his victory, right?

The rational part of him whispered that there was some sort of rhyme and reason behind it all. Maybe they had agreed to let it sit for a few days before confronting him.

(Maybe, a part of him hoped, they were just so relieved that the pain from any such wrongdoings would be ignored in full.)

But, well, Storm had never been patient even before the Games, and patience hadn't been what saved him from getting killed by December or Cordelia or Texas. So that's how he finds himself on that fateful day, as the last dying rays of the setting sun shine through a window and onto his face as he stands opposite the door leading into his father's study.

Rip the band-aid off, Storm, he whispers to himself. You've done far worse things than beg your father for forgiveness. There's no reason to hesitate now.

Yet it takes another minute more to summon up the nerve to raise his hand into a fist, and even more seconds after that before the inevitable fuck it propels the machine into motion.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

"Father?" And to think that Storm might be a Victor of the Hunger Games, murderer of five, and ultimate survivor, and yet his voice still cracks under stress. "It's me. Storm."

Hopefully, that much was still apparent. But if there's one thing the Games had taught him, nothing should be assumed until confirmed.

elegant

[✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ]

m o u r n .

"and i'm okay
with the life of a
meteor shower."

He loves his children in a way that he never thought he would be capable of loving anyone. When he was younger, there was a piece of him that thought he knew himself, that understood that he wasn't made to love people in the way they needed to be. After his brother was killed, even the idea of loving anyone at all after that particular loss felt painful.

Then Eve and Night had been born and Mourn knew that every single wall he thought he had built was in ruins. The feeling didn't lessen with every child Esther bore, it only grew. Every gift she gave them cemented his love for her in turn until there was so much of it that he no longer knew what to do with it. Those that are closest to him know this, though capable of great cruelties, there is a depth of love that runs so deep in Mourn that it is to the point of ruin.

Part of him did not survive Storm's games.

Esther knows this because she watched that part of him die. Every hit that Storm took, every moment of pain, Mourn felt it along with him. He'd done his best, tried to go about business as usual but it was a useless endeavour. No matter where he went, there was a television screen with his son's blood face splashed across it. There were knowing looks, pity aimed his way for the patriarch of the Adroxis family and his son, gone off to die in the name of glory.

He blamed himself, of course he did, how could he not? He wondered if he'd failed Storm, hadn't loved him well enough or somehow neglected him to make him think that volunteering for the death games he'd lost two cousins to was the right thing to do. In the days since his volunteering, Mourn tried to make sense of it. The only conclusion that he came to was either Storm had a death wish or Mourn had made him believe that was what he wanted out of him as a father- a casket for a son.

Then Storm had won and Mourn hadn't known what to do.

His baby boy had gone off to war and come out of it scathed, with five deaths under his belt. Mourn had seen enough deaths in his line of work to know that it changes you. He still remembers the first time he killed in perfect detail, it haunts him. It never became easier either, there's never been a face he's just forgotten, they don't leave you.

The dead don't die.

In his first days home, Mourn chose to give his son space. It was enough to see him in his place at the dinner table, he didn't need anything else if his son didn't want it. It's still surreal, seeing him again, holding him in an embrace again and Mourn is still coming to terms with it.

There was a part of him that couldn't bear having hope again after losing Fleur and Nowles. He lay awake long nights, holding Esther, imaging the funeral that they'd have to arrange for Storm, his brain giving out at even the thought of it.

He couldn't stop envisioning Storm laying there silent in a little black suit, his little lightening storm, dead.

No.

It's over, all of that is over.

Mourn leans back in his chair, the stack of order forms he needs to read through and sign illegible in his current state. Tears prick the back of his eyes so he tips his chin up, gazing at the ceiling, blinking madly.

His son is home now, he can let go of the state of panic he's been living in for the past few weeks. There's nothing to worry about and if he's right, Storm is currently playing video games with Hal on the other side of the house, not hundreds of miles away.

He's got to let go or he's only going to push Storm away, he knows that. It's difficult though, when he has all of this love and worry for his children and he doesn't know where to put it. Sometimes it comes out wrong, too sharp and his love becomes a cruelty.

There's a knock at the door and Mourn sits straight and picks his pen up again, as if it's truly all he's been thinking about. "Father?" comes the uncertain voice of his prodigal son. There's too much of a question in his tone when he announces himself as Storm, as if Mourn does not know the sound of his own child's voice. He smiles a little, then shakes his head.

"It's open, Storm," Mourn says and comes out from behind his desk to greet him. In such little time, his second youngest has grown so much, too much even, in a way that Mourn hoped that he would never have to. When Storm steps inside he pulls him into an embrace and then steps back, hands on his son's shoulders. He looks him over carefully for a moment too long, as if committing his son's features to memory and then a corner of his mouth quirks up.

"Have I ever told you why we named you Storm?" he asks.

elegant

[lance]

s t o r m .

"you are weak
but not foolish
you have learned
how to die."

So far, so good - not that Storm had realistically thought it would go elsewhere, but hey, he was but a few weeks removed from a world where everything, including his own impulses, had been turned upside down in a purple hue, okay? Sue him for still looking for demons behind every corner and malicious impulses behind every smile.

(Just because his family acted all smiles and adoration in public didn't erase the fact that they'd seen what he'd done on the television many times over.)

But Storm had always lived by the philosophy that it's better to rip off the bandaid and face that short, sharp pain and get it over with than to let it fester. And does he know what happens to a wound that festers, both in the literal and metaphorical sense.

(If he can't earn his father's approval, if he can't confirm his father's love after five brutal murders that coated his hands red with blood, then better to know now while he's still healing anyway. He can survive a wound torn slightly further; the same can not be so confidently said of a healed scar retorn asunder.)

"It's open, Storm." Not a dismissal, if not an outright invitation. He could do things the easy way, he supposed, just stay out in the hallway with the wooden door for protection, but, well, he's already made it this far, right? No need to half-ass the trial when the pain would be the same regardless.

So he opens the door (slowly, carefully, as if afraid that one wrong move might shatter it and or himself), and hesitates only a moment before stepping inside and closing it behind him.

It still takes a second more before he musters the courage to look his father in the face, and yet another to follow through with the action.

For a moment, it's unreadable, and then suddenly he's locked in a bone-crushing embrace, one reminiscent of days past whenever he'd passed a test or made a perfect shot with his gun or sometimes just out of nowhere. He's taller now than he had been then, so his face buries itself in Mourn's shoulder instead of his stomach or chest, yet the action itself dissolves the first chain of trepidation locked around his beating heart.

(Surely, a man disgusted with his own son couldn't be capable of such an act of love, right?)

Yet his heartbeat skips erratically nonetheless when the embrace loosens, then another when it breaks entirely and Mourn's hands take residence on Storm's own shoulders. I can nearly look him in the eye without leaning back, he realizes with a start, and even with that realization, there's no denying the look in his fahter's face is anything but disgusted. Anything but hateful.

Another chain around Storm's heart cracks, and maybe something below it does, too.

"Have I ever told you why we named you Storm?" his father asks, and when Storm laughs in response, it's wetter than he expected.

(Not that he particularly cares, not in the way he would have just a couple of months ago. Because what is shame when the entire nation has seen you at your absolute lowest?)

"Not since I was a kid, father," he replies after a moment, once he's sure his voice won't betray him. "Well, more of a kid, anyway."

That doesn't change the fact that he knows the story by heart. It always has been one of his favorites, after all.

Even now.

elegant