Chapter Text
“Don’t worry.” Sean’s voice calmed me, but not enough. It had been several hours since Mark and Ethan had left, and I was beginning to grow concerned. Despite his demeanor, I could tell that Sean was also beginning to worry, which only made me more anxious.
“Do you think they’re okay?” I asked, voicing what both of us had been wondering. Sean leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling and contemplating how to answer.
“I’m sure they are.” He said after a moment. “Mark and Ethan know how to-” He suddenly cut himself off, listening to something I couldn’t hear and then looking towards the door. I followed his gaze, turning my attention to the door, but heard nothing.
“What is it?” I asked, not looking away from the door. Even if I couldn’t sense anyone beyond it, I trusted Sean’s judgement. “Is it Mark and Ethan?” For a long moment, he didn’t respond. When he did, it wasn’t the answer I had been expecting.
“Listen to me.” He began, his tone quiet and hurried. “No matter who comes through that door—Mark, Ethan, or otherwise—I won’t be here. If it’s not one of them, things are going to get messy, and quickly. Whatever Anti says, I want you to do. You can trust them.” Behind his words, I heard Anti’s voice, a faint “you can trust me” echoing Sean’s sentiment. A feeling of unease rippled through me, and I got the feeling that the two of them knew more than they were letting on.
“What’s going on?” I questioned, but he didn’t answer. After a moment, even I heard the footsteps nearing the door of my hospital room, and time slowed down. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sean’s eyes turn green, his ears grow pointed, and his expression become a scowl.
The door opened—moving barely a centimeter a second—until the world caught up with itself and the door opened the rest of the way. I breathed a sigh of relief as I saw Mark in the doorway, and even Anti relaxed for a moment before he went back to pretending that they didn’t care.
“You were gone for a while.” They said, leaning back in their chair and trying to act nonchalant. As if they had not been prepared for a fight.
“And you’re still here.” Mark replied, refusing to rise to the bait that Anti was offering him. “Were you planning to stay? Or are you still going back to England?”
“If we stay, it won’t be for either of you.” They snapped. “We came to warn you, but the reception was less than welcoming. Next time, when you no longer have a human companion who needs protecting, we’ll leave you alone to die.”
“Enough.” Ethan’s voice rang out. He sounded tired, but firm. He was too used to mediating. “We’ve all made mistakes today that I’m sure we will live to regret. That’s not what’s important right now.”
Anti scowled, but backed down. “We’re staying.” They conceded. “But before we help you, did you ever think of actually telling her what was going on? It isn’t our responsibility to educate the mortals, but you left us no choice.” Their words stung, but I brushed them off, taking a deep breath and remembering what Sean had said.
Anti was bitter, and it made them frequently say things that they didn’t mean. It was how they lashed out at the world that had hurt them, a world that Sean refused to let them hurt back.
Sean and Anti were intrinsically linked, and had been for thousands of years. One’s will quickly became the other’s, a difficult balance to maintain when they shared the same body but were opposites in so many ways. Anti was violent by nature, whereas Sean leaned towards pacifism. He wasn’t against hurting those who deserved it, or being the one to give comeuppance—but he believed that violence frequently only beget more violence.
The fact that they were so often at a stalemate, that they were more likely to watch a fight from the sidelines than join in, earned them a reputation as someone who was weak—someone who didn’t know how to fight. Someone harmless. Sean hadn’t told me much, but from what he had told me, I was glad that neither of the two had any real intentions to hurt me; glad that any wounds acquired from interacting with Anti were nothing more than superficial abrasions from their rough exterior.
I was snapped out of my thoughts when I heard my name, and I forced myself to listen to the conversation that was going on. “- should tell Y/n.” I caught the tail end of Anti’s sentence. “I’m not helping you until you explain to her what this all was about and fill in all the blanks I wasn’t able to.”
“It would be putting her in danger.” Mark growled, struggling to keep his aggression to a minimum. He was trying hard, but Anti was pushing his buttons. “I’m not willing to do that to her.”
“She’s already in danger!” Anti’s voice crackled, their eyes flashing solid black. “She’s in the hospital because of your actions, because you couldn’t be bothered to explain any of it to her.”
For a moment, Mark looked guilty, and it seemed as though he wouldn’t respond. He didn’t have to, as Ethan broke into the conversation. “Mark, they’re right.” He said quietly. “Ignorance isn’t bliss, and if we had just talked about what was going on in the first place. . .” He, too, looked guilty. “Then maybe none of this would have happened.”