Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

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Charlie jumps as his bread abruptly pops out of the toaster, accompanied by a cheerful ding that does nothing to make the ordeal any less startling. He sighs, pressing a hand to his heart to steady its rapid beating, and reaches over to grab one of the hot slices. 

He picks up a nearby butterknife and begins spreading some mashed avocado over the crispy surface, crumbs falling onto the plate as the dull edge of the blade scratches the toast. He makes sure to get a somewhat even spread before moving onto the second slice of toast, all while feeling two very attentive eyes watching him from behind. 

“Flippa,” he starts slowly, feeling her judgment, “this used to be your favorite food! I know you don’t believe me, but it’s true. It’s tasty, I promise.”

With two fully spread slices of avocado toast sitting on top of his plate, he picks it up and brings it over to his lovely daughter Juanaflippa, who’s sitting at the small kitchen table with a blank expression on her face. 

She pulls out her small notepad, clicking her pen before scribbling some words down on the page. It takes her a while, which has been the case for the past few days, but she eventually finishes writing her thoughts and flips the page over for Charlie to see. 

‘I don’t like the nutty flavor,’ is scrawled in black ink, the font jagged and shaky but almost robotic. Her handwriting has changed since she came back, although Charlie isn’t sure if he can consider it better or worse than it used to be. 

He frowns at her. “You used to love it, though... Well, here—” he places it down in front of her, the glass plate clinking against the wooden table, “—maybe tasting it will remind you of how much you enjoy it.” 

Charlie goes to take a seat in the chair across from Flippa, but his communicator buzzes from inside of his pocket, making him hesitate. With curiosity getting the better of him, he pulls the small device out of his pocket and flicks open the compact screen to see what message has been sent.

To his surprise, it’s a message from Roier. ‘I’m coming over to your house,’ the first message reads. It’s followed by, ‘It’s been a long time since we saw each other.’

“What in the…” Charlie quietly voices his confusion, then starts to type out a response. ‘You don’t have to come here,’ he sends. It sounds a bit blunt, but he isn’t sure how else to say it. He doesn’t want Roier to come over, he wants to spend the night bonding with his child. 

‘I’ll be there soon,’ Roier says in response, and Charlie lets out a frustrated groan. 

“Okay,” Charlie sighs, looking over at Flippa who’s carefully examining her avocado toast instead of taking a bite of it. “Roier is coming over for some reason, out of nowhere. I won’t tell him about you, but I think you should go downstairs to hide while he’s here. Just in case he wants to come inside. I’ll try to get him to leave as soon as possible, okay?”

Flippa looks up at him, the glare on her glasses covering her eyes completely, then she nods obediently. She gets up and pads over to the ladder, pointedly doing so without her plate of toast. Charlie doesn’t bother to remind her to grab it. He’ll just have to jog her memory on her love for avocados another time.

Charlie figures he should meet Roier at the warpstone to deter the man from wanting to enter the house, so he heads outside to walk over to it. It’s a lot darker than he originally thought it was, dark enough that he can barely see where he’s walking. 

He thinks he might have some matches tucked away in his backpack, so he reaches behind himself to blindly feel inside of the side pocket, because that’d probably be where he’d keep them. He’s never been the best at organizing his bag, but sometimes there’s an order to his chaos. 

As his fingers brush up against a few unidentifiable small objects, something makes itself comfortable on top of Charlie’s shoe. He thinks at first that it’s some sort of large rodent, but then it starts clawing its way up his leg, scratching through his jeans and scraping his skin painfully. 

He looks down and is barely able to make out the sight of a meature, the vaguely infant-shaped zombie gurgling desperately as it climbs up his leg. He shrieks and reaches for the sword that’s strapped to his back, swinging it at the small monster just before it passes his knee. It lands on the ground, squealing as it tries to right itself with clumsy limbs, but he brings down his sword one more time to end its animalistic flailing. 

Before he can recover from the panic, he hears a slight hissing from behind him. He turns around while rolling his eyes, expecting to see an oversized spider scurrying towards him, but he instead sees the long, green body of a creeper standing right behind him. Its entire body pulsates, a hot glow illuminating through the cracks of its scaly body, and Charlie barely has time to take a singular step backwards before the monster explodes and sends him flying. 

He’s in the air for only a second or so, landing on the dirt and rolling as the momentum slowly wears out. There’s a painful heat clinging to his skin from where the explosion hit him, but he doesn’t think the creeper was close enough to cause any serious damage with the burns. 

“Fucking hell,” he mutters under his breath, pushing himself onto his hands and knees and trying to catch his breath. Unlike some of the other people inhabiting this island, Charlie isn’t a fighter. He’s weak and cowardly, and although he can fight when he needs to, that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s great at it.

While his lungs are busy trying to remember how to function again, he hears the foreboding sound of bones clacking together from a few feet away, followed by the strained creaking of an old bow being pulled back. He barely has time to roll out of the way before an arrow embeds itself in the dirt directly where his hands used to be, the wooden shaft of the arrow vibrating back and forth from the strength of the shot. 

He looks in the direction the shot came from and sees the skeleton busying itself priming another arrow, its dark, hollow eyes unmoving from where they’re locked onto his form. While it’s readying another shot, Charlie tries to jump to his feet but staggers clumsily as his body protests the sudden movement. By the time he finds his balance, the skeleton has another arrow pulled back, pinched between two bony fingers. 

Charlie barely reacts in time to avoid getting shot right in his throat, the tip of the arrow grazing his cheek as he tries ducking down, leaving behind a thin cut that quickly fills with warm blood. He yelps at the close call, bringing one hand up to clutch at his cheek as his other hand tightens its grip on his sword. 

He rushes towards the skeleton, watching in disbelief as it quickly primes yet another arrow into its bow. The quiver that Charlie can see sitting strapped on the skeleton’s back is filled to the brim with arrows, never seeming to run out or dwindle in numbers. 

He manages to close the distance enough to throw off the creature, who slightly lowers its bow in surprise as it tries to back away and put some more distance between the two of them. When Charlie swings toward it with his sword, it decides to just shoot its arrow without properly aiming it, successfully doing so only a split second before Charlie’s sword cuts through the middle of its cervical vertebrae—sending it collapsing into a stiff bile of bones as its decapitated skull rolls away, the jaw limply handing open. 

Charlie tries to celebrate the kill, but the moment the skeleton hits the ground, he becomes aware of a shooting pain coming from his left thigh. He looks down, and is surprised to see an arrow sticking out of his leg, a growing patch of red seeping into his jeans around the projectile. 

He reaches for the object with shaky hands, unsure of what to do, but he doesn’t dare pull it out or try to put pressure on it—he just can’t bring himself to touch it at all. He’s honestly just shocked at how quickly things turned to shit. Just a minute ago he was spreading avocado onto a warm, freshly made piece of toast, and now he has an arrow in his leg. 

It seems like the universe doesn’t want him to gather his thoughts, because suddenly something is slicing through his upper arm, and he’s letting out a pained scream as he tries to get away from whatever’s attacking him. 

Unsurprisingly, his leg doesn’t appreciate the pressure that comes with running for his life, so he collapses onto the ground with another wounded shout. He twists around to hold onto his thigh, gripping the area around the arrow as if it’ll soothe the sharp pain that’s continuously radiating from it. He feels the sleeve of his t-shirt grow hot as his blood leaks out of the deep gash in his arm, and he feels droplets trace his bicep and soak into the crease of his elbow. The sensation is so distracting that he forgets about the thing that caused the new injury in the first place. 

In his peripherals, he sees the glint of a blade as the moonlight shines upon a sword, and he snaps his gaze onto a decomposing figure preparing to strike him once more. Behind the zombie, Charlie sees four or five more of the same creature limping their way over to him, and he’s positive that he’s going to die. 

Somehow, through the power of fear and desperation, Charlie rolls onto his side as the zombie above him brings down its sword, and he hears it stab through the earth where his body used to be. 

He starts to crawl away awkwardly, trying to position his leg so the arrow sticking out of his thigh won’t get snagged on the grass or get bumped by his own frantic limbs. The small horde of zombies grow closer, grunting and gurgling louder with excitement, and he sees the armed zombie yank its sword out of the mud, easily catching up to Charlie’s pathetic retreating form. 

Dully, as he watches the zombie lift its sword once more, Charlie realizes that he has dropped his sword within the past few moments of mortal peril, so he can’t defend himself right now even if he wanted to. He squeezes his eyes shut when he realizes that escape is futile, and braces himself for whatever agonizing pain is awaiting him. 

The anticipation is almost as excruciating as his upcoming death, which makes it all the more harrowing when nothing happens for two seconds, then three, then–

He hears a body drop beside him, followed by the sharp thunk of a fallen sword. He wills himself to open his eyes and look over at the body, seeing the zombie that nearly killed him laying motionless in the grass, its eyes lidded and expressionless as an arrow sticks out from the side of its head. 

Another body falls to the ground, and Charlie becomes aware of some movements that don’t look unnatural or mindless. He sees something expertly pull out a sword from behind its back and jump through the air as it slices the head off of a zombie, and then it wastes no time in winding back and killing another zombie without a single moment of hesitation. The bodies hit the ground one after another, and Charlie’s eyes widen as he finally comprehends what’s happening and who the figure really is. 

“Roier?!” he yells, voice cracking in confusion. 

Roier, who’s working hard to take out the final few monsters, somehow finds the time to let out a hearty chuckle. “I told you I was coming!” he yells, and Charlie feels a bit dumb for forgetting about that detail. “It’s too dark here, man.” 

Charlie can’t help but agree. He’s been meaning to find the time to light up the area surrounding his little shack, because Roier is definitely not the only person to complain about the lack of light around here, but he just never really manages to get to it. Plus he’s been busy recently with the return of his beautiful daughter Juanaflippa, which he thinks is a perfectly acceptable excuse. 

As Roier skillfully takes out the zombies and starts taking care of some approaching spiders and skeletons, Charlie hears footsteps from a few feet away and turns around to see a creeper slowly making its way towards him.

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” he mumbles to himself as he scrambles to get to his hands and knees. As he tries to crawl away, his arm bumps into the arrow that’s still deeply nestled into his thigh, and he can’t help but let out a gasp as he feels the sharp tip shift slightly inside of his bloody flesh. 

It’s enough to halt his movements, and his escape from the approaching creeper is forgotten for a moment as Charlie tries to remember how to breathe through the torment. He hears hissing, he sees a faint pulsating glow emitting from behind him, and he closes his eyes as he prepares to get caught in his second explosion of the night. 

Just before the creeper detonates, he’s grabbed from behind and dragged away by muscular arms hooked underneath his armpits. The jostling tears a raspy cry from his throat as the deep wound on his arm gets irritated by the movement. Whatever is dragging him away—Roier, he realizes dumbly—jumps in front of him just before the creeper blows up, acting as some sort of blanket to protect Charlie from the explosion. Roier’s body shields him from the worst of the blast, but Charlie is still too busy reeling from the torture he’s been enduring within the past few minutes to properly appreciate it. 

There’s a lull in movement and sounds, which is relieving because it means that they’re no longer in any immediate life-threatening danger. Charlie opens his eyes, his face still pulled tightly into a grimace, and sees Roier leaning over him. 

“Are you okay?” Roier asks, even though he’s the one who just used his own body to cover Charlie from a creeper explosion.

Charlie can feel the gash in his arm and the arrow in his thigh, and they’re both throbbing with each panicked beat of his heart. “I’m good,” he says anyway, nodding for extra measure. “Why’d you decide to come visit?” 

Roier shakes his head and moves so he’s not directly above Charlie anymore, instead settling into a comfortable kneel next to Charlie. “We should get inside first,” Roier suggests.

“Yeah. My, uh– My shack is over there,” Charlie informs, pointing over Roier’s shoulder at his poor excuse of a shelter. There are vines and other plants that have begun overtaking the small, humble structure, but Charlie hasn’t bothered to remove them. It adds to the island vibe, he tells himself. It’s a choice. Yeah. A choice.  

“You still live in that?” Roier blurts, voice shrill with disbelief. He drops the appalled exclamation before Charlie can ask what exactly he means by it. “Here,” he dismisses, “let’s go.” 

Roier stands up and puts his sword back inside of the sheath that’s strapped across his back, reaching out a reassuring hand for Charlie to take. Charlie stares at the hand for a moment, still stunned from the events that just took place, but soon snaps out of it and reaches up, accepting the gracious help. 

He’s firmly pulled to his feet by Roier, who’s quick to wrap an arm around Charlie to support most of his weight. Charlie is glad for it, and he leans on the man as they hobble their way over to his weathered wooden shack. He can see Roier’s head swiveling around in the corner of his eye, and he can only assume that the man is both keeping an eye out for any other creatures and also taking in the pitiful view of Charlie’s secluded home. 

Roier pushes open the squeaky door and quickly deposits Charlie down on one of the kitchen chairs, then rushes over to shut and lock the door to prevent any unwanted visitors. 

Charlie lets out a breath of relief, before looking down at his body and wincing at the ugly sight. With the flickering light hanging from the ceiling, the blood and dirt coating his body becomes even more apparent. 

“You look like shit,” Roier comments, taking off his backpack and rummaging through it. 

Charlie pulls his lips into a tight, insincere line. “Thanks, dude. I’ve actually been doing pretty good recently, believe it or not, despite all the monsters roaming around.” 

“Yeah?” Roier peeks up at him a few times while he looks for something inside of his bag. “You look tired,” he continues, clearly not catching onto how much Charlie doesn’t appreciate the scrutiny. “And pale. Paler than usual, I mean.” 

“...Did you just come here to insult me?” Charlie asks. 

“No, I came to see you.” Roier gestures toward the gash on Charlie’s arm. “That will probably need stitches. I’ll take care of that first, then your leg. Do you have any other injuries?”

“You don’t have to tend to my wounds,” Charlie explains, chuckling in amusement. “I can handle it myself. You’ve helped plenty by killing everything and bringing me inside.” 

Roier pulls out a small first-aid kit. “It’s no problem,” he assures, flashing a toothy smile in an attempt to get Charlie to agree. 

It works. “Fine,” Charlie says in defeat, leaning back in his chair. “Thanks. I appreciate it.” 

“I haven’t done anything yet,” Roier points out. Then, he comes over and sets down the first-aid kit on the kitchen table, not too far from the untouched plate of avocado toast that Charlie made for Flippa. Roier doesn’t question it, thankfully, then reaches down and pulls at the bottom of Charlie’s mud and blood soaked shirt, suddenly saying, “You should take this off.” 

Instinctively, Charlie wants to refuse the request, and maybe sputter something about being in an unstable yet committed marriage. But, the gash on his arm is still actively leaking blood, and it’s getting all over the table, dripping onto the chair, and pooling onto the rough wooden floor, getting between the cracks and jagged texturing. So, he wordlessly listens, pulling off his shirt carefully and slowly as he tries not to irritate the laceration more than it already has been. 

He tosses his bloody shirt onto the floor, then looks over at Roier just in time to catch him staring. “Hey,” Charlie says, covering his chest with his arms. “Contain yourself, bro.” 

“You look skinnier than the last time I saw you,” Roier tells him sadly, and that was not what Charlie was expecting the man to say. “Where’d your abs go, man?” 

Roier reaches over and runs a gentle finger over the outline of Charlie’s ribs, his eyebrows furrowed with concern as he shakes his head in disapproval. Charlie shivers at the sensation, then lightly swats the hand away, feeling embarrassed and slightly defensive for some reason. What does it matter to Roier whether or not I’ve lost a bit of weight since the last time we spoke? 

He opens his mouth to tell Roier to back off and move on, but Roier suddenly straightens up with wide eyes as he notices something on Charlie. “Whoa—What’s that?” he asks, leaning closer to examine something on Charlie’s shoulder. 

Charlie looks down at his own shoulder, and he sees what Roier is referring to. It’s a patch of darkened skin—similar to deep frostbite or the result of dead tissue, stiff and rough. More perplexing than the seemingly dead tissue, however, is the constant flow of neon green electricity that seems to be running through it, sporadically flashing every few seconds and forming what looks to be jagged numbers, 0’s and 1’s. It showed up the other day, and Charlie was a bit concerned about it but Flippa told him it was probably fine. Nothing has happened because of it, no side effects or significant discomfort, so he assumes that it must be harmless.

“It’s a rash,” Charlie says, and the explanation doesn’t sound believable even to him. “Don’t worry about it.” 

“That doesn’t look like a rash,” Roier argues. He goes to prod at the strange wound, but recoils his hand with a yelp as he seemingly gets shocked from making contact with it. It makes Charlie jerk back, too, more in surprise than anything else.

“Well…” Charlie shrugs, clearing his throat, “it doesn’t hurt. So it’s fine.” 

Roier holds his hand close to his body, rubbing at the fingers that got shocked, and looks intently at the weird thing on Charlie’s shoulder before meeting his eyes. He lets out a slow exhale, clearly not buying the ‘rash’ excuse, but chooses to drop it for now in favor of taking care of the other injuries for now. 

The air around them seems to grow a bit tense after the small confrontation. Charlie doesn’t speak because he doesn’t want to prompt any more questions, and Roier doesn’t speak because he doesn’t want to cause Charlie to get defensive again and risk him closing up entirely. 

It isn’t too much of an issue, though. Roier silently cleans and stitches up the gash in Charlie’s arm, murmuring apologies after every pained noise it elicits, and they maintain this quietness throughout the entire process. The newly stitched wound gets covered with gauze and wrapped with a bandage, the arrow gets carefully removed from Charlie’s thigh, the injury gets cleaned and wrapped and stitched, and even the cut on Charlie’s cheek gets taken care of—all without uttering anything except hushed apologies and some short, strained exclamations. 

Roier decides to leave afterwards, claiming that it doesn’t seem like a good time for him to catch up with Charlie considering what happened tonight. Charlie, tired and increasingly anxious to see his daughter’s face again, easily agrees and doesn’t question the reasoning. 

Before exiting the small shack, Roier turns around and looks at Charlie, staring at him silently as if he were waiting for Charlie to stop him or ask him to stay. But Charlie doesn’t do that. He simply waves at Roier wordlessly and waits for him to leave. 

Roier lets out a sigh, and it sounds disappointed and sad. “I’ll see you later, Charlie,” he says, and then he walks out the door.

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Chapter Text

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Sometimes, when his newly returned daughter disappears for the day, Charlie likes to visit her old room and reminisce on the good, more simple times. He doesn’t want to take Flippa to her old room just yet, because he doesn’t want to overwhelm her, but maybe someday he will. Until then, though, he’s content to just visit on his own. 

The house, which was built into the inside of the large, infamous stone wall, used to be pretty cozy. It was never very big, nor was it very safe or comfortable to live in, but it was his, and he loved it. Then, one thing led to another, and he ended up blowing it up himself, leaving it as nothing more than a giant crater that stays forgotten and ignored in the shadows.

But he doesn’t forget about it, because as ruined and unrecognizable as the small used-to-be house is, his daughter’s room was left completely untouched from the explosion by some divine, merciful miracle. So the pictures and belongings that were left behind by his daughter still remain there.

He looks down at a picture of JuanaFlippa playing with her cousin Tilin, who she was very close with. Poor Tilin, neglected and ignored but so loved by everybody on the island, dying at the pathetic hands of Charlie himself—who knows how to do nothing but fuck up constantly. Remembering Tilin is painful, no matter how badly Charlie wants to remember him in a positive light. Usually Charlie cries when he thinks about it, and he also normally cries when he visits Flippa’s old room, but he can’t today. Simply because he’s too tired. 

With a long, defeated sigh, Charlie sets the old image back inside of JuanaFlippa’s old chest. It’s covered in dust, and there are cobwebs forming in the corners, but it’s still his daughter’s, and wouldn’t dare disturb it more than he has to. 

He wonders when Flippa will recover her memories. Obviously it can’t be easy coming back from the dead for the second time, but it seems like she’s forgotten nearly everything that made her so unique and special. Charlie tries not to let it bother him, because Flippa is his little girl no matter what, but he can’t help but find it strange sometimes. 

At the end of the day, he’s just happy she’s back. As he leaves the small empty bedroom and descends the creaky ladder, he’s glad that he doesn’t have to live with that unbearable loneliness that plagued him for so long. He can come here to his old home and remind himself of how things used to be, and then he can go to his new home and hug his lovely daughter as if she never left in the first place. It’s incredible. 

He stumbles through the jagged crater which used to be his living room, looking forward to returning to his humble little shack. He’s not sure if Flippa will be there or not—she tends to do her own thing most of the time without telling him where she’s going (after all, kids will be kids, right?). 

When he finally manages to pull himself out of the crater and make his way down the old wooden staircase leading down the wall, he notices something strange in the corner of his eye, and he halts his movements as he observes it. 

He mistakes it for a phantom or something at first, because it’s pretty high in the sky and there aren’t very many flying monsters that it could be besides a phantom and a few other creatures that he never bothered learning the names of. But it’s not gliding through the night sky, nor is it swooping down to bite and scratch at him, it’s just hovering in the air, eerily still. 

As he looks closer, adjusting his glasses as if that’ll help him see it better, he realizes that it looks nothing like any creature he’s ever seen before. It’s so dark that it would probably completely blend in with the black sky if not for the stars revealing its ominous silhouette, and the strange, neon green flashes of static that constantly surround its body. Just like the weird patches that appeared on his own skin, the electricity surrounding the creature almost seems to form miscellaneous numbers that appear and disappear like the flickering sky on a stormy night. 

He notices that somewhere among the mess of darkness and static, the thing is holding a sword. That’s when Charlie notices that inside the large mass of volatile chaos, he can see a pitch black, vaguely human hand clutching the handle of the weapon. He can almost follow the shape of an equally human forearm, though he isn’t sure if the thing can be considered a person. He can’t see its entire body due to the dark trail of fog and electricity that constantly follows its movements, concealing whatever organic form might lay inside. 

Charlie stares at the mass of darkness and then looks down at his own hand, which has been infected with the same thing that’s on his shoulder. The substance looks nearly identical to the creature floating above him, and he wonders why that might be. Since his hand got infected, his fingers have been stiff and his skin has been almost completely numb. It’s harder to use his hand now, because he feels so incredibly weak when he tries to hold onto anything and the numbness makes him clumsier than he already is, causing things to slip from his grip easily. He wonders if the creature hovering in the sky feels the same way—if it feels weak and uncoordinated. 

As if it could hear his doubts about its power, the entity stirs from its stagnant position in the air. Slowly, almost curiously, it floats down towards him. Charlie jerks away from it, both in surprise at the sudden movement but also in response to a strange, uncomfortable sensation that erupts underneath his skin as the creature comes closer. 

It starts in the infected parts of his body—his right shoulder and hand. A dull tingling that reminds him of a dull electric shock, one that startles you and makes you jump even though it doesn’t actually hurt that much, it just feels odd. But, as the strange monster continues to approach him from the air, that uncomfortable tingling graduates to a sharp feeling that’s similar to the sensation of a limb falling asleep. Although the sharpness quickly intensifies as the seconds pass by and he can no longer compare it to harmless phenomena. It doesn’t just feel weird or uncomfortable anymore, it hurts, and he suddenly feels the urge to run away from whatever’s causing it. 

The sword remains unmoving from where it’s clenched in the creature’s vaguely human hand, but Charlie still feels like it's attacking him. Its presence is bringing him pain, and no matter how many steps he takes down the stairs, the thing continues to float towards him. Charlie wonders if it knows that it’s hurting him, if it knows exactly what it’s doing by not letting Charlie get away from it.

The ever growing discomfort spreading through his body isn’t the only thing that happens as the creature moves toward him. Not only does the agonizing feeling radiate through his entire being, not just the areas that have been infected, but it makes his muscles tense up and he can feel his body growing stiffer and stiffer as the thing gets closer to him. It makes him uncoordinated and unbalanced, and the simple goal of running away from the entity seems increasingly impossible. 

Still, he has to try. So he screams loudly, both in pain and determination, and tries to run down the rest of the despairingly long staircase. It seems as though the creature notices that he’s trying to run, because it suddenly rushes towards him and only stops when Charlie’s body seizes as if he’d been tased, sending him tumbling down the rest of the stairs with a shaky, wounded cry. 

After what feels like forever, when Charlie finally regains the smallest amount of control of his limbs, he reaches out a trembling hand and grabs onto the blades of grass in front of him. He tries to crawl away, but he doesn’t get more than a few inches away from the stairs before the creature lurches towards him again. It’s as if the thing is teasing him, letting him get hopeful enough to attempt escaping before ruining it all by merely moving towards him. It hasn’t even tried to use the sword in its hand yet, because it doesn’t need to use it in order to defeat the pitiful human below it. 

The close distance tears a roar of agony from his throat. The act of yelling is the only thing his body is capable of doing now, so he lays motionless at the bottom of the stairs, wondering if it’s possible to die from too much pain. If it is possible, then surely he’s a goner. 

All he can focus on is how much his body hurts. The electric tingling and sharp convulsions that plague his body are enough to completely incapacitated. He can’t even begin to ponder about how he could possibly get out of this, and he can no longer ask himself why the creature’s presence is causing him so much pain in the first place. He can only scream, and even that is incredibly exhausting.

He’s so preoccupied with everything happening that he barely processes the sound of an arrow zipping through the air above him. He hears the dull thunk of the arrow embedding itself inside the flesh of the strange creature, but it’s hardly audible over the sound of his own screaming. 

Thankfully, as the creature gets shot again with an arrow, it seems like it lurches backwards a considerable amount in an attempt to avoid getting hit again. The sudden space between Charlie and the creature causes a considerable lapse in agony, and Charlie can finally take a moment to stop screaming and breathe. 

With his new clarity, he hears another arrow rush by and hit the entity once more, causing it to move further back. Charlie should’ve known who was shooting the arrows based on the accuracy alone, but he hears the sound of shouting accompanying the shots, and he recognizes the accent and tone as Etoiles. 

He focuses his gaze onto the ground in front of him, focusing on using the lull in torture to crawl as far away as he can. The feeling of tingling and electricity is still coursing through his veins, and his body still feels tense and unpredictable, but it’s not as intense as before, so he pulls himself through the grass. He feels the mud between his fingers, staining his skin and getting stuck beneath his fingernails, and he drags himself away from whatever the hell is behind him. 

The sound of rapid footsteps suddenly crescendos in his ears, and he quickly cranes his neck to see who’s running towards him. It’s Etoiles, and he’s sprinting so fast that he passes by Charlie in probably less than a few seconds. Etoiles is determined, enough so that he doesn’t even spare Charlie a glance as he rushes by, his eyes instead locked onto the creature in the sky which he has the intent to kill at any cost. 

Charlie continues crawling away, reveling in the way he slowly regains feeling in his body as he does so. The further he gets from that thing, the more normal he feels, as if nothing happened at all. If it weren’t for the lingering numbness in his infected areas, and the slight shakiness leftover in his body, he’d think that nothing significant happened in the first place. 

Once he garners enough strength, he pushes himself onto his hands and knees so he can crawl away more efficiently. While he continues escaping and sucking in much-needed breaths that he deprived himself of while he was uncontrollably screaming, he looks behind himself to see how the battle is going.

Etoiles has already ascended the long staircase leading to Charlie’s old house, using the height to come face-to-face with the entity, and he’s currently engaged in a sword fight. Charlie can hear the blades smack against each other as both Etoiles and the creature parry blow after blow after blow. Charlie hates to admit it, but it seems like the creature is almost an equal match for Etoiles, who’s been untouchable and undefeated for as long as he’s been living on the island. 

It’s fascinating watching the monster use its sword. When it had been near Charlie, its weapon had simply remained unused by its side, clutched in its hand like it was nothing more than an accessory. But now it was swinging it around wildly yet skillfully, and it almost seems like a different creature. It moves swiftly, much faster than it did with Charlie, and it’s significantly more aggressive and bloodthirsty. 

Just when Charlie begins to wonder whether or not Etoiles will be able to win this fight, the man suddenly reaches over his shoulder to whip out an axe, which he swings towards the creature while it’s too busy parrying the hit from Etoiles’ sword to block the blow in time. 

The creature gargles out a grating, inhumane screech as the sharp blade of Etoiles’ axe lodges itself where its chest should be. As it’s busy crying out from the anguish of being wounded, Etoiles swings his sword and slices the thing across the stomach. Then, mercilessly, Etoiles rips out the axe from the thing’s chest and jabs his sword into the gash the axe was drawn from, impaling the creature through its chest. 

There’s even more screeching, but it gets quieter as the creature finally decides to retreat from the battle, flying away from Etoiles quickly and pointedly as if it were afraid. Charlie wouldn't blame it if it was.

Filled with relief, but also suffering the effects of an adrenaline comedown, Charlie lets out a loud sigh before slumping onto the ground, laying on his side surrounded by the itchy grass. He continues catching his breath, still somehow recovering from the agony he endured earlier. His stamina hasn’t been the best recently, he thinks. 

He hears Etoiles shout something at the entity as it gets further and further away, but he can’t make out the words. They sound angry, though. Threatening. Charlie manages to lift his head and peek over his shoulder to look at Etoiles, and he sees the man jump off the top of the rickety staircase, rolling out of the landing as he carries his momentum through. Then, he jumps up from the roll and seamlessly breaks into a jog towards Charlie. 

Charlie lets his head fall back against the grass. Even watching Etoiles do athletic stuff makes him feel exhausted. He can’t wait to go back to his little shack and take a nap after this. 

“Charlie!” Etoiles shouts as he reaches the man. He kneels down in front of Charlie, placing a careful hand on his shoulder to roll him over onto his back. 

“Hey, Etoiles,” Charlie greets, lifting a weak hand to offer a friendly wave. 

Etoiles doesn’t bother with the casual greeting, instead scanning Charlie’s body for any visible injuries. “Where did it hurt you?” he asks, probably wondering why Charlie was screaming bloody murder when there’s not a single speck of blood present on his body. 

“It didn’t hurt me,” Charlie says. “You showed up just in time. Thank you.” 

“What? Are you sure you aren’t hurt?” Etoiles asks, clearly doubting Charlie’s words. “Those things are very powerful. They’re strong and ruthless.” 

“What even are they?” 

Etoiles seems surprised at the question. “You… don’t know what they are?” 

“Uh, no?” Charlie pushes himself up into a sitting position with a grunt, gently swatting away Etoiles’ cautious hand that hovers over the middle of his back while he does so. 

“They’re known as the binary entities,” Etoiles explains. “Usually called ‘the code.’ They’ve been invading the island for a while now, and they’re incredibly dangerous… How do you not know about them?” 

Charlie shrugs. “I dunno, man. I live pretty far away, so I guess I’m not caught up to date on all the current events. Nobody’s told me anything about codes or whatever they’re called.” 

“Oh… I’m sorry,” Etoiles suddenly apologizes. “I shouldn’t have assumed that you were being updated on things. I could have told you myself.” 

“Ah,” Charlie waves a dismissive hand, “you couldn’t have known. Don’t worry about it.” 

“Still, it’s not safe for you to be on your own while bad stuff is happening on the island,” Etoiles says, sounding serious and regretful. “Are you sure the code didn’t hurt you?”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Charlie tells him. 

“But it sounded like you were in pain?” 

“Well, I was,” Charlie chuckles, “but it only lasted a few moments. I’m all good now, I promise. I got a little shaken up, I guess, but other than that, I’m fine.” 

Etoiles stares at Charlie suspiciously. “Then what happened to your hand?” he asks, gesturing at said limb. 

Charlie looks down at his infected hand, which is jerking and twitching uncontrollably as if it were being shocked repeatedly. He makes a small surprised sound, sitting up a bit more as he watches his hand convulse. He thinks it must be some sort of aftershock of whatever happened with the code, but he could barely feel it because of how numb his hand is. 

“This was already like this,” Charlie explains, referring to the infected skin instead of the very obvious uncontrollable shaking. “Don’t worry, it doesn’t really– Ah!” When he tries to clench his hand in an attempt to stop the violent trembling, a sharp pain shoots up his entire arm. The pain goes away as soon as he stops trying to control the shaking. 

“Are you okay?!” Etoiles asks, maintaining a close distance but doing a good job at keeping his hands to himself. “Does it hurt?” 

“No, no,” Charlie says, staring at his hand as if it were disconnected from his body, “just when I… um, try to hold it still, I think.”

As his hand continues its sporadic twitching, Charlie grabs his own wrist to try and stop the harsh movements, but it barely makes a difference. It still jerks around in his own hold, so he tries to tighten his grip and use some of his strength to keep it in place. He wonders how long this will last, or if it’ll go away at all. 

Etoiles reaches out and gently pries open the grip Charlie has on his own wrist. “Don’t do that if it hurts,” Etoiles scolds softly. “You shouldn’t do that to yourself.” 

Charlie looks at his infected hand, disturbed at the way it continues to convulse from where it lies limply in his own lap. “...Okay,” he tells Etoiles, offering him an assuring nod even while his eyes remained trained in his lap.

There’s a long beat of silence before Etoiles interrupts it. “Charlie?”

Charlie looks over at the masked man. “Yeah, Etoiles?”

“Can you tell me what’s on your hand?” 

Charlie looks down at the infection, then back up at Etoiles. “What, this weird black stuff?” he asks, dumbly and rhetorically. “Some sort of rash, I think. It showed up a while ago. I live in a pretty weird area, so there are some questionable plants around that I must’ve accidentally touched.” 

“It looks like the code,” Etoiles says, ignoring the poor excuse. “Look—” he holds out his left arm for Charlie to see, “—I have it, too.” 

Surely enough, Charlie looks at the man’s arm and sees a similar-looking infection to his own. Although it’s a bit harder to see with the man’s naturally green-pigmented skin, there’s definitely signs of an infection. There’s darkened skin spreading up Etoiles’ arm the same way that vines invade trees (or rickety little shacks, like Charlie’s), and there’s a faint trace of green static, although it seems to be stained into the infected area rather than sporadically flashing. It’s as if it were completely benign, unlike Charlie’s.

Etoiles uses a finger to slightly pull back the mask strapped around his eyes, revealing a similar area of infection covering his temple and upper cheekbone, just barely stopping before reaching his eye. It looks just as stagnant as the infection on his arm, but that doesn’t make the sight any less startling.

“What happened?” Charlie asks, appreciating the change of topic so he doesn’t have to be the topic of discussion for the time being. 

“I think it’s because I held a code’s shield for too long,” Etoiles explains, readjusting his mask to sit properly on his face. He runs a finger over the infection on his forearm, then flicks his eyes onto Charlie’s infected hand again. “Maybe it’s because I began healing after I discarded the shield, but… my infection doesn’t seem nearly as severe as yours.”

Charlie narrows his eyes in slowly rising annoyance. “Nothing is ‘severe,’ Etoiles. I’m fine.” 

Etoiles wordlessly stares at the infection on Charlie’s hand, which flashes with neon electricity while still occasionally twitching. Then, he looks up at Charlie with a doubtful raised eyebrow, as if to silently say, That’s ‘fine’?

“I can take care of myself, dude,” Charlie says. “I’m a grown man. A grown man who has places to be right now.” 

He goes to push himself to his feet, but Etoiles doesn’t wait more than a second or two before butting in to help. He grabs Charlie’s arm and pulls it over his shoulder, supporting most of Charlie’s weight even though the assistance wasn’t requested. 

Charlie tries to push himself away from Etoiles, but the man is strong and doesn’t even budge. “Etoiles,” he tries, softening his tone, “I need to go home. Let me go.” 

“I can walk you home,” Etoiles says, as if he expected Charlie to already know his intentions. “It’s no problem.” 

“No, Etoiles, you don’t get it. I don’t want you to walk me home.” He tries again to pull himself out of Etoiles’ sturdy hold on him, but to no avail. 

“I think it’s not a good idea for you to go alone,” Etoiles explains. “You just got attacked by a code, Charlie. Who knows where it went, or when it’ll decide to come back.”

Charlie rolls his eyes. “I’d hardly call it an ‘attack.’ It didn’t even touch me.”

“That’s not all that I’m worried about,” Etoiles continues. “You say you’re not hurt, but you might discover injuries while you’re on your way home when the adrenaline wears off. Then you’ll be alone, with nobody to help you. It’s not safe.” 

“Etoiles.” Charlie grits his teeth and takes a deep breath, feeling the irritation grow inside of him the more stubbornness he’s subjected to. “Thank you for attacking the code, thank you for checking up on me, and thank you for trying to help.” He cranes his neck to look at Etoiles, who senses his gaze and quickly meets his eyes. “Now let go before I get mad,” Charlie says, and he means it as a threat. “I’m being serious.”

Even though the man clearly doesn’t feel threatened, Etoiles reluctantly releases his hold on Charlie. “Are… you sure?” he asks quietly as he watches Charlie brush himself off. 

Charlie looks at him, then scoffs and storms off with no answer. Etoiles silently watches him go, wondering what the hell just happened. 

.

Chapter Text

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The sun is shining brightly in the sky as Charlie walks through the Favela, his amazing daughter walking beside him with her tiny hand clasped tightly inside of his own. He looks down at her, admiring the way her braided pigtails bounce slightly with each step. 

In the daily tasks that were given to him by Flipper herself, it’s written that they need to go somewhere and explore. Charlie never really leaves his home, and Flippa only showed up a few weeks ago, so they decided that exploring the Favela would suffice. 

The scenery is gorgeous, truly. Not in a majestic or elegant way, but in a cozy and somewhat lively way. Graffiti is plastered on the side of brick buildings, the spray paint dripping down from blocky and bubbly letters. The buildings sit upon the hilly terrain, built so close together that they nearly blend in with each other at times. They pass by countless fascinating stores and restaurants, but refrain from going inside in order to avoid anybody seeing Flippa—who told Charlie a while ago that she wanted to be kept a secret. 

Flippa, as if she could sense that her dad was thinking about her, tugs on the hem of Charlie’s t-shirt. “Yes, Flippa?” Charlie asks immediately, fondness seeping into every crevice of his voice. 

Charlie watches as she takes out her notepad from her pocket, taking the pen out of the spiral and clicking it open before flipping to a new page and scribbling something down. He waits patiently, busying himself with looking around at the unfamiliar yet incredible buildings so Flippa doesn’t feel pressured to hurry. He feels a tap on his leg and looks down, reading the robotic font scrawled across the page that’s presented to him. 

‘I’m hungry,’ it reads. Charlie frowns, then takes off his backpack in search of something to feed his daughter. How could he have not noticed that she was feeling peckish? What kind of a father is he if he can’t even properly feed his daughter? 

“Let’s see what I have,” he says thoughtfully, rummaging through the messy contents of his bag. There’s not a lot of useful stuff inside of it, but he manages to find an item that vaguely resembles something edible. He pulls it out, brushes off the mysterious crumbs that have stuck to it, and tries to figure out what it is. 

“Well,” he says, squinting at whatever’s in his hand, “I think it’s dried meat?” He sniffs it, and although the strong savory smell surprises him, it thankfully doesn’t smell spoiled. “Yeah,” he confirms, “definitely meat. Damn it– I mean, uh, dang it.” 

Before he can throw the meat back in his back to continue searching for some food that his daughter can actually eat, it gets snatched right out of his hand. He looks down at Flippa in confusion, and watches as she eagerly takes a bite out of the dried meat and chews it happily, flashing a satisfied smile. 

His shock must show on his face, because after a few seconds of innocently chomping on the dried meat, Flippa holds it in her mouth as she gets out her notepad again. ‘What’s wrong?’ it says. 

“Um…” Charlie clears his throat, “Nothing, it’s just–uh… You used to be vegan. You–You didn’t eat any meat or dairy products. That’s why I’m… surprised you ate that.”

Flippa looks at him dumbfoundedly for a moment, her eyes covered by the thick black frame of her glasses that have slipped down the bridge of her nose. She nibbles on the dried meat that’s in her mouth as she works on writing something else on her notepad. After a few moments, she shows the page to Charlie. ‘I wasn’t vegan,’ it says matter-of-factly. 

Charlie doesn’t want to argue, but he can’t help but feel defensive. As a father, he used to lack a lot of things. But he knew about his daughter’s diet, and her lifestyle choices, and her personality, so he knew that she was vegan—that’s not something that he could misremember so easily. 

“You were,” he corrects gently. “You didn’t eat any of the meat I tried to give you. Your favorite food was avocado toast—which you still need to try, by the way. I’m sure you’ll love it as much as you used to!” 

‘No. I never liked avocado.’ 

“What?” Charlie laughs nervously, “What are you talking about?” 

‘I’ve always liked meat, dad. My favorite food is steak.’

Charlie stares at the words written on the page in front of him, struggling to process what he’s reading. His mouth opens and closes as he tries to think of a response. “You must’ve forgotten your old eating habits,” he manages to say eventually. “I’m sure that’s, uh, common among people who have come back from the dead.”

Flippa doesn’t make any moves to respond, so Charlie continues. “That’s okay,” he tells her. “I like steak, too. A lot of people go from being vegan to eating meat again, so it’s not that weird. You’ll have a lot more food options, too.” 

When Flippa still doesn’t move to write in her notepad, Charlie squints down at her. She’s staring at something in the distance, looking back the way they came. She used to stare off into the distance a lot the first time she came back, but she didn’t really have that problem this time around. 

The longer she stares behind them, the more curious Charlie gets. He zips up his backpack and puts it back on, then turns around to see what Flippa is looking at. 

He freezes. Standing only a few feet away is none other than Cellbit, who’s staring at Flippa in complete and utter bewilderment. Flippa stares right back at him, but her eyes are blank and expressionless, and it’s hard for Charlie to figure out what she could be possibly thinking. 

Remembering her request to remain secret, he snaps himself out of his surprised daze to gently push his daughter behind him, shielding her from Cellbit’s gaze. 

“Flippa,” Charlie whispers, looking down at where she stands hidden behind his leg, “you can go hide. I’ll explain everything. Cellbit is a nice guy—he’ll keep you a secret if I tell him to.” 

Flippa shakes her head, and writes something in her notepad. ‘It’s okay,’ she writes. ‘I’m ready to be seen now.’

Charlie’s eyes widen on their own accord. “Flippa, are–are you sure?” he asks, but he doesn’t wait for a response before turning his attention to Cellbit. 

The man is still standing a few feet away, staring silently at the scene in front of him with a surprised and confused look plastered on his face. He seems just as surprised as Charlie. 

“Don’t make this a big deal,” Charlie tells Cellbit, but the panic that’s showing through in his voice makes it seem like he’s the one who’s making this a big deal. “Be chill, okay?”

“I–I’m chill,” Cellbit says, sounding significantly calmer than Charlie as he approaches the man and his daughter. “I’m just… a little surprised to see, uh… JuanaFlippa, was it?”

“JuanaFlippa, yes,” Charlie confirms, trying to get his voice to stop shaking. His heart is pounding in his chest, and he’s freaking out no matter how many times he tries to convince himself that everything is fine. Cellbit is calm, even Flippa is calm, but Charlie feels like his fight-or-flight instincts have suddenly kicked in. 

“It’s a surprise that you’re here, JuanaFlippa,” Cellbit says kindly, smiling gently at her like he’s always done with the other children on the island. “All the other kids are actually missing right now,” Cellbit explains. “Plus, last I heard, you were supposed to be dead.”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Charlie blurts, gaining confidence as defensiveness fills him. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” He’s not sure why he’s so quick to get mad, especially when he and Cellbit have been nothing but friendly to each other since the moment Cellbit showed up on the island, but Charlie can’t help it right now. He needs to defend his daughter. 

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that,” Cellbit soothes, holding up his hands in defense. “I was just explaining why I was surprised to see her. I’m just confused at how she’s… here.”  

Charlie looks down at his daughter, who’s finishing up her dried meat. “It doesn’t matter how,” he says, patting her on the top of the head. “I’m just glad she’s back.” 

“Yeah…” Cellbit trails off unsurely. Charlie gently pats Flippa on the head, smiling fondly at her. “Uh, Charlie, what’s wrong with your hands?” 

“Huh?” Charlie looks up at Cellbit, who has stepped a bit closer and is pointing towards Charlie. Charlie looks down at his hands, both of which are infected with code and very subtly shaking. They never quite stopped shaking since that day he encountered that code, and he can barely even feel them anymore. “It’s some sort of rash,” he tells Cellbit, even though he knows from Etoiles that it’s actually related to the codes. 

Cellbit hums slowly and thoughtfully. “Okay,” he says, dropping the subject instead of pressing Charlie for an actual answer. He kneels down to get on JuanaFlippa’s level, and smiles softly. “Hello, JuanaFlippa,” he greets kindly, holding out a hand for her to shake. “It’s nice to finally meet you.” 

Charlie watches Flippa carefully shake Cellbit’s hand before pulling out her small notepad. He looks down and watches her as she writes. ‘It’s nice to meet you too,’ the words say, and then she turns the notepad over so Cellbit can read it. 

“Is it?” Cellbit asks, but quickly brushes past his own question. “I have a son that’s around your age. His name is Richarlyson. He’s really close with some of the other other kids on the island—I’m sure you would’ve gotten along with them, too.” 

She’s quick to write in her notepad. ‘I did,’ she scribbles quickly, almost snappily. 

“Oh, yeah, you’ve probably met most of them before,” Cellbit says. “You haven’t met Richas, though. Or Pomme.” A contemplative look flashes across Cellbit’s face before he continues speaking. “You know, all of the kids went missing a couple of weeks ago.” 

Flippa doesn’t write anything, but nods in response. Cellbit uses it as his cue to keep going. 

“Even before that, they were being attacked by these dangerous creatures called the codes,” Cellbit explains. “The codes even killed Bobby—you were really close with him, weren’t you?”

Charlie can feel himself grow angry at the insensitive question, but his curiosity outweighs the urge to have an outburst. So, instead of calling out Cellbit for his insensitive behavior, Charlie just expectantly watches Flippa scribble onto her notepad. Her face is blank as she does so, completely void of sadness or grief, but she draws a simple sad-face in response to the news, showing it stoically to Cellbit. The sloppily drawn sad expression makes Charlie’s heart break, and then causes it to fill with irritation and hostility towards Cellbit for causing his daughter’s distress. 

Before the man can say anything about the suspicious answer, Charlie reaches his limit and roughly shoves Cellbit away from his daughter. Cellbit, who was kneeling when he was pushed, simply falls backwards onto the ground with a startled grunt. 

“Who do you think you are?” Charlie snaps, scowling down at Cellbit. “You don’t say shit like that to a child! Are you kidding me?!” 

Cellbit pushes himself to his feet, brushing off his jacket as he does so. “I’m sorry,” he apologizes, “I thought she deserved to know. Wasn’t she close with Bobby?” 

“She was, but that doesn’t mean you need to tell her that he died!” Charlie practically growls. “This is your first time meeting her, and you tell her that all of her siblings went missing and that some of them are dead? Do you hear yourself, Cellbit?!”

Cellbit opens his mouth to try and explain his intentions and possible attempt to calm Charlie down, but Charlie doesn’t give him the luxury of doing so, instead carrying on with his rant. 

“Flippa hasn’t even been back that long,” Charlie yells. “She’s trying to remember stuff and get back into the swing of things, she didn’t even want anybody to know she was back, and the exact second she decides to trust you enough to let you find out about her, you tell her–” 

Before he can continue arguing, he feels Flippa’s tiny hand rest over his calloused palm. He can barely feel her fingers through the rough infection plaguing his skin, but he can tell it’s her even through the faint feeling. He tries to feel her hand in his, to remind himself that she’s here and that she’s okay, but she suddenly uses all of her strength to grip onto his hand, her sharp nails digging into the darkened skin and causing the flashes of electricity to suddenly flare. 

He can’t really focus on her painfully tight grip, however, because as soon as he begins to finally feel her small fingers, his senses are overwhelmed with sharp, shooting pains that spread throughout all of his veins. The feeling is so intense and powerful that it causes his entire body to seize up as if he had been electrocuted, not unlike what happened during his encounter with the code. 

With his entire body tensing as his muscles are overwhelmed with agony, he hardly registers the fact that his hand has been forced closed around his daughters. He collapses to the ground, dragging Flippa down with him, but he can’t even worry about whether or not he’s hurting her because he’s too busy violently seizing and twitching as if he were being tased. 

Through the thick haze of anguish in his mind, he tries to force his fingers to unclench so Flippa can pull her hand away, but he physically can’t. He can’t even scream, every muscle in his body uncooperative and painfully stiff. All he can do is let out a weak, drawn out groan from the back of his throat.

He can vaguely hear Cellbit’s voice, yelling something to Flippa about how she needs to let go of her dad. Charlie feels the slightest movement against his palm, her delicate hand trying to escape his aggressive grip, but it’s not enough.

“You can’t let go?!” he hears Cellbit ask Flippa, his usually level-headed tone being overtaken with panic and uncertainty. 

He feels shuffling around him, and he recognizes the heavy movements as Cellbit. “Fuck! What do I do?” Cellbit asks himself, his voice hushed and tight with anxiety. 

Charlie feels Cellbit touch him on his shoulder, which Cellbit unfortunately can’t see is infected, and he isn’t surprised when he hears Cellbit yelp out in pain and quickly pull his hand away as he gets zapped. He mutters a few curses to himself, waving his hand to try and get rid of the electric feeling lingering under his skin. 

“Juana,” Cellbit says, trying to sound calm for her sake, “you need to let go of your dad, okay?”

Flippa’s hand in his tight grip jerks around a few times, a futile attempt to free herself. Then, the tugging stops, and Charlie can assume that Flippa is solemnly shaking her head, letting Cellbit know that she can’t let go of her father no matter how hard she tries. Although, something in the back of Charlie’s mind notes that Flippa didn’t pull very hard, almost as if she wasn’t really trying to get free. Charlie excuses that thought, concluding that maybe Flippa just doesn’t want to be separated from her father. He just hopes her small hand isn’t in any pain. 

“Shit, hang on,” Cellbit says, and Charlie isn’t sure if the man is addressing him or Flippa. It wouldn’t be surprising if perhaps Cellbit was speaking to both of them at the same time.

Before Charlie can linger on the words for too long, he feels Cellbit’s hand on his own. Cellbit’s fingers tremble as he works on prying Charlie’s tense fingers apart, all while screaming loudly in pain, no doubt in agony from the constant current flowing through his body the longer he touches Charlie. 

It doesn’t take long for him to forcefully open Charlie’s clenched fist, quickly grabbing Flippa’s hand and pulling her away from her dad. Oddly enough, the moment her hand is out of his own, Charlie gasps in a breath as the suffocating feeling of pain dissipates immediately. His body stops jerking uncontrollably, and he’s no longer paralyzingly stiff. His chest heaves up and down as he catches up on all of the oxygen that he accidentally deprived himself of during the whole ordeal.

As if cotton had been pulled out of his ears, he can now hear everything clearly. Cellbit is catching his breath beside him, and when Chealie peels open his eyes, he sees Cellbit shaking out his hand from whatever pain Charlie just involuntarily inflicted on him. Charlie sighs deeply, then slowly turns his head to look at Flippa, who thankfully looks completely fine and unharmed. 

“Holy shit,” Cellbit mutters under his breath, and then he scoots closer to Charlie. “Are you okay? Are you with us?”

Charlie’s entire body is hot and tingly. “Yep,” he forces out. “All good.” 

Cellbit’s eyes are filled with worry as he intently scans Charlie’s entire body, as if he can’t quite believe what he just saw. “What was that?” he asks Charlie breathlessly. “W–Was it a seizure? Do you have epilepsy or something?” 

“No,” Charlie denies, waving a dismissive hand. “I dunno what it was. Sorry about that.” 

“Don’t apologize, it’s okay!” Cellbit is quick to assure, moving to place a comforting hand on Charlie’s shoulder but stopping and retreating when he remembers getting zapped only a few moments ago. “You couldn’t have known that would happen. It’s never happened–? Oh, Flippa? What’s up?” 

Cellbit gets pulled from his inquiries as Flippa harshly pats him on the leg to get his attention. When Cellbit turns his attention towards her, she scribbles something down onto her notepad, almost angrily, then roughly shoves it towards Cellbit with a scowl on her face. 

Charlie watches Cellbit’s face drop and fill with confusion as he reads what’s on the paper. “What do you mean?” he asks, then he must see Charlie’s expectant look, so he explains. “Juana said that… you were fine until I got here?”

“Huh? Flippa…?” Charlie asks, not quite sure what his daughter is trying to say. He looks over at her, but she just glares at Cellbit, not bothering to elaborate any further. 

“Do you know what happened to your dad, Flippa?” Cellbit asks, not confronting Flippa about the very obvious accusation that she just made towards him. 

Flippa glowers at Cellbit, but eventually shakes her head. Then, she goes back to writing in her notepad, and Charlie is eager to see what she has to say. He expects her to address Cellbit, to maybe ask some questions about what just happened to her dad, and maybe even clarify what she meant when she accused Cellbit of causing Charlie’s sudden agony. 

Instead, though, she turns the notepad towards Charlie, ignoring Cellbit’s questions altogether. Through his slightly blurred vision, Charlie can just barely make out what she wrote. ‘Dad, I want to go home.’ 

Charlie processes the words, then looks past the small notepad to look at Flippa. She frowns, putting a sad look on her face, and Charlie can feel his heart melt at the sight. They’ve been out for a while now, of course she’d want to go home and relax after everything that happened.

“Oh, okay,” he tells her, pushing himself off of the ground with a groan, “I’ll take you home, then.” 

Charlie is already getting to his feet by the time Cellbit blurts out a startled, “Wait–!” He rushes to Charlie’s side to give him some support, holding Charlie’s waist to help steady him as he sways unsteadily. 

For the first time in a while, Charlie accepts the help, mainly because he thinks that he’d probably keel over without it. It takes a few seconds for his vision to stop swimming, and for his dizziness to pass, but it eventually does, and that’s all that matters. 

“Thanks, Cellbit,” Charlie says gratefully once he gains his balance. “I’m, uh… sorry for being so aggressive earlier. I’m a bit sensitive when it comes to Flippa, so…” 

“No, no, I get it!” Cellbit comforts sincerely, reluctantly letting go of Charlie once he’s sure the man won’t fall over. “It’s completely okay. I’m the one who’s sorry for upsetting you both. I haven’t seen you in a while, I should’ve asked how you were doing or something instead of acting like that.” 

Charlie manages to chuckle. “Nah, I’m sure seeing Flippa was a pretty shocking sight. It’s understandable that you were confused.” 

“You should come here more often!” Cellbit says genuinely. “I wish I saw you more. I missed you, man.” 

“I missed you, too,” Charlie confesses, a bit embarrassed to admit it. “I’ve just been busy taking care of Flippa, y’know? It’s hard work, and I don’t wanna…” he shakes his head, trying to ignore the dark reminders of what happened in the past, “I just wanna be the best dad I can be.” 

Cellbit nods sympathetically. “I totally get that. I’m the same with Richas. I’d do anything for him.”

Charlie feels Flippa tuck herself into his side, nustling her face into his clothes. He smiles down at her. “Me too,” he says earnestly. Then, he remembers what he’s supposed to be doing right now. “We should probably head home,” he tells Cellbit. “We’ve been out for a while. Flippa is getting tired.” 

“Oh, do you think you’ll be okay heading back?” Cellbit asks, looking concerned and doubtful. “I can help you if you need me to.” 

“No, I’ll be fine,” Charlie says, rubbing Flippa’s back as she continues pressing herself into his body. 

“Are you sure? With what just happened, I don’t know if it’s a good idea for you to go right away. Are you sure you’ll be alright on your own?”

Charlie nods, flashing Cellbit a smile that’s hopefully encouraging. “I’m sure,” he says stubbornly.

Cellbit clearly doesn’t want to let him go alone, but drops it in fear of pissing off Charlie again and souring the friendly mood they’ve managed to build back up. “Alright,” Cellbit agrees slowly, “but if you need anything—today or any other day—let me know, okay? I’m here for you, Charlie.” 

“Thank you, man,” Charlie says, and he’s actually really grateful for the kind words. “I’ll try to come by more often. See ya!” 

Cellbit waves as Charlie begins walking off with Flippa. “Bye!” he calls out, then scratches the back of his head as he tries to process all of the crazy events that just took place.

Charlie walks back through the Favela with Flippa, feeling a lot better than he did earlier. His entire body is still slightly numb, and there’s a sort of sparkling-esque tingle that’s trapped beneath his skin, but he feels happy nonetheless. Flippa’s okay, Cellbit and him bonded over their children—it’s been a good day overall. 

From beside him, Flippa takes her hand out of Charlie’s to write something in her notepad as they walk. They slow down their pace, and Flippa quickly finishes her scrawling before showing it to Charlie. 

He thinks he misreads the words at first, but it turns out to be exactly what he thinks it says. ‘I don’t like him,’ is written, the writing as blocky as ever but shakier than usual because Flippa wrote it while walking. 

“You… don’t like him?” Charlie questions, looking over his shoulder to see Cellbit walking the opposite direction, head craned downwards as he types something into his communicator. “He’s a nice guy, though,” Charlie tells Flippa, not sure why she’s still being so hostile towards Cellbit. 

In response, she simply shoves her notepad towards Charlie again, the same words still plastered on the page. ‘I don’t like him.’

When Charlie is left speechless, Flippa seems to get frustrated, and flips to a new page. She struggles to write illegibly as they continue making their way down the sidewalk, but succeeds regardless. She holds out her notepad, which reads, ‘Do you like him more than me?’

Charlie gasps in dismay, reaching down to scoop Flippa into his arms and hoist her onto his hip. “Oh, Flippa,” he breathes out emotionally, pulling her into a tight hug. “Of course not. I love you more than anything in the world, because you’re my lovely, sweet, adorable little daughter!”

He feels Flippa wrap her arms around him and hug him back, and it prompts him to squeeze her even tighter. “I love you, JuanaFlippa,” he tells her, his voice muffled as he speaks into her shoulder. 

She rubs her face into the crook of his neck, which is more than enough of a response for him. He tries not to cry at the cuteness of it all, and can only bring himself to pull away from the hug when he feels Flippa twitch uncomfortably in his hold. 

“Okay,” he says, nonchalantly sniffing, “let’s go home.” 

.

Chapter Text

.

Charlie carefully balances a basket full of freshly picked pears in his arms, trying to navigate his way through the rough terrain without tripping and falling over. Again. For maybe the fourth or fifth (or… sixth?) time today.

He’s always been a bit clumsy, but it’s been a lot harder to keep his balance recently. Especially since he woke up the other night unable to see out of his left eye anymore, because the left side of his face has finally been overtaken by the infection that’s still stubbornly spreading throughout his body. The lack of sight in one of his eyes is hard to get used to, to say the least, and he thinks that tripping over himself a few times is perfectly justified. 

As if to prove his point, his shoe slips on an uneven patch of mud, and he staggers to the side as he catches himself from falling. A pear rolls out of the basket and plops onto the ground, but he knows that if he tries to pick it up, it’ll only result in even more fallen pears, so he leaves it on the ground and continues stumbling towards his home. 

When he reaches the front door, he knocks exactly three times so Flippa knows that it’s him and not anybody else. Then, he shakily holds his pear basket in one arm while he struggles to push open the door with his other arm. 

“Flippa!” he calls out cheerfully as he enters his small shack. “I brought back some tasty pears!” 

He sets down the basket onto the kitchen table, but notices that upon entering his house, that familiar uncomfortable tingling has made itself present underneath his skin. It reminds him of how he felt when he encountered the code with Etoiles the other day, when its slow descent towards him was accompanied by the growing sensation of buzzing and discomfort within his body.

The infection has been getting worse recently, as demonstrated by the way it has spread over his temple and stolen the vision from his left eye, so he wouldn’t be surprised if constantly feeling unbearingly volatile was some sort of permanent side effect. Just another thing to get used to, he bitterly tells himself. 

Charlie notices the lack of movement from within the house, signifying that Flippa isn’t making any moves to come greet him. She was here when he left earlier, so he can only assume that he’s still downstairs sitting on her bed. 

“These pears aren’t as overly ripe as last time, I promise,” he calls out. 

When there’s still no sound to indicate that Flippa has even heard him, he thinks that maybe she’s upset at him for taking so long to come back. He wouldn’t blame her, of course. He did take a lot longer than expected.

“I’m sorry for taking so long,” Charlie apologizes, grabbing a pear from the basket and gently washing it under the sink faucet. “I kept dropping the pears while I was picking them. And then I kept tripping on my way back… You know your papa, always being clumsy! Silly me.” 

There’s still no response, so Charlie sighs and turns off the sink. “Okay,” he says, “you can stay down there. I’ll bring you a fresh pear, and you can eat it whenever you want to.” 

With the cleanly washed fruit in hand, he makes his way towards the ladder so he can bring his amazing daughter something tasty to eat. When she first showed up, Charlie barely had any food stored in his shack, so it was a struggle bringing her the nutritious meals she needed. He still doesn’t have a comfortable amount of food for her, but he has more than he used to, and that’s an improvement at the very least. 

As he gets closer to the ladder that leads downstairs, his muscles tense up and twinge uncomfortably as he feels that unpleasant tingling crescendo even more. It gets to the point where he’s unable to endure it anymore, and the pear that was in his hand drops onto the ground and rolls away. 

He collapses to his knees, holding his face in his hands as the infection on his temple makes his head pound harshly. Unable to bear the pain, he drags himself away from the ladder with a shuddery, strained breath. He doesn’t know what’s happening, but he can no longer excuse the tingling as some sort of new side effect due to his infection. It’s much too strong for that to be the case. It’s almost like he’s back where he was the other day, face to face with the mysterious code entity. 

His heart drops as he makes the connection in his head. If he’s feeling this way, then that must mean there’s a code somewhere in the house. The only place it could possibly be is downstairs, and Flippa is downstairs. 

Charlie’s first instinct is to hurry down the ladder and protect his daughter, but he stops his body from moving on its own and forces himself to think rationally for once. He’s only encountered the code one time before, and the pain it caused him was so overwhelming that he couldn’t even move when it was close to him, let alone try to fight it. 

He fumbles to take the communicator out of his pocket, his breaths quickening and becoming more shallow as panic and anxiety start to swallow him whole. With shaky fingers, he types out a message. ‘Help,’ is all he can manage to say. He hopes somebody sees it and is able to come here in time, but he doesn’t even have time to stress over it.

He doesn’t think he could ever forgive himself if something happened to Flippa again, all because he decided to leave her alone for a while. It’s just like last time, something ugly inside of him snarls. You’ve repeated your past mistakes. And look what it cost you? Your daughter is–

“No!” he shrieks, trying to ignore his pessimistic thoughts. He continues holding his aching head, entangling his fingers in his raggedy hair and pulling as hard as it takes for him to forget the past. “No, no, no,” he mutters, tugging as hard as he can. His hands slip away from his scalp, and through his blurry vision he can see strands of his own hair sitting between his trembling fingers. 

He can barely hear over the sound of his rapidly beating heart, but he can feel his communicator buzz repeatedly from where he dropped it on the ground. He doesn’t bother to check it, though, because there’s no time. He has to get to Flippa and save her before something happens. He can’t make the same mistake again. He just can’t.

“JuanaFlippa!” he yells, voice crackling with thick emotion. “I’ll save you!” 

He takes a deep breath, preparing himself for what he knows will be an excruciating experience, then scrambles off of the ground and rushes over to the ladder. 

The sensation returns all at once, stunning him and ripping a guttural scream from his throat. But he keeps going, the thought of protecting his daughter single handedly fueling him to keep going despite the blinding pain. 

He begins his descent down the ladder, hardly managing to hold onto the worn down wood, and the feeling only seems to get worse. It confirms his fears—the code is definitely down here, and it’s down here with his little girl. 

That realization is almost as agonizing as his spasming muscles. The way his body hits the ground as his body seizes and sends him tumbling off of the ladder is nothing compared to the overwhelming grief he feels for failing his daughter yet again. Can he do anything right? Is he really destined to disappoint everybody he loves, over and over and over again? 

Moving feels like an impossible task, but Charlie tries anyway. He pushes himself up from where he landed hard on his stomach, vaguely registering the fact that he’s not breathing, probably from both the rough impact and the increasingly intense torment raging inside of his body. 

Somehow, through the power of sorrow and despair, he manages to open his eyes to look around. His mouth hangs open, trying desperately to convince his body to suck in some air and breathe, but it seems like it’s no use. 

He can feel the pressure grow in his head as his lungs are deprived of oxygen, and through his bloodshot eyes which fill with frustrated tears, he sees his worst nightmare right in front of him. 

The code, which looks exactly how he remembers, hovers in the room with him. Even more distressing is the fact that it’s floating over Flippa’s unmade bed, and his daughter is nowhere to be seen. 

He can’t scream. He can’t call out for his daughter, or force himself to get up off of the ground and fight for her. He can’t even cry for her. 

All he can do is feel the way his body gets overwhelmed with anguish, jerking involuntarily and still refusing to let him breathe. His lungs burn, his skin is on fire, his infection feels electric. As the lack of oxygen causes his vision to darken, he watches the code remain triumphantly in the air as if it were teasing him. 

It still has its long sword clutched in its hands, but it doesn’t use it. It knows that Charlie is weak. It knows that it has already won. 

Charlie mourns with what little strength he has left inside of him. He was so graciously given another chance to make things right with Flippa, he was given the opportunity to be the caring father he so desperately wanted to be, and he failed. He failed his sweet, innocent daughter again.  

A tear slips down his cheek, and that’s the last thing he’s capable of feeling before slipping into unconsciousness. 

.

Much to his dismay, he lives.

The first thing that signifies that he’s alive is the soreness that sits so deeply within his bones that he fears it’ll never go away for the rest of his life. It’s so paralyzing and overpowering that he’s groaning in pain before he even fully wakes up. 

He’s never felt this way in his entire life. He feels hot, but cold at the same time. Almost feverish, but it’s not quite comparable to something so common. The lingering numbness that swaddles him like a blanket is both comforting and unnerving at the same time, making him feel trapped. 

On top of everything, he’s somehow in pain. So much pain that he can’t even pinpoint where it’s coming from, or what exactly the sensation feels like. The only solution that flashes across his mind is that maybe he’s dying, and this is what it feels like to have your body finally give up and stop working.

But then, awareness comes back to him. He remembers how he got here, and he remembers who he needs to protect. Somehow, he wills himself to peel his eyes open to confirm that he is, in fact, still alive—and still laying uselessly on his cold basement floor. 

After his vision adjusts slightly, he notices someone looming over him. Maybe it’s because he’s not fully awake yet, or maybe it’s because he knows that the figure above him isn’t Flippa, but he finds that he doesn’t feel relieved in the slightest. 

“Can you hear me?” the person above him asks frantically, and Charlie recognizes the accent as Cellbit. When did Cellbit even get here? he wonders dully, but dismisses himself easily. Nothing matters except for the whereabouts of his daughter.

He tries to get his eyes to focus on the man, but is unable to do so. For a few terrifying moments, he wonders if the infection has begun spreading to the other side of his face and is starting to make him go blind in his right eye as well. Then, he realizes that his glasses aren’t on his face, and the threat of total blindness fades away for now. 

Cellbit, the patient man that he is, doesn’t let Charlie’s lack of response bother him just yet. “Are you okay?” he asks again, speaking louder and more clearly to make sure Charlie can hear him.

Charlie processes the question, but he’s not sure how to respond, and his throat is in shreds from his recent blood curdling screaming. So, he chooses to stay quiet for now. He tries to nod, but his limbs still feel a bit disconnected from his mind, so it comes across as nothing more than a weak jerk of the head. 

He hopes he got his message across, then tries to push himself up so he can gather himself and figure out the situation at hand. For some reason, his body doesn’t seem to have recovered at all from the code’s effect on him earlier, and it decides to punish his eagerness by shooting a sharp pain throughout his entire body. 

It sends him collapsing back onto the floor, earning a raspy cry from Charlie as he tries to get used to the way his body protests being alive. The only way to endure the pain is to breathe through it, but the slight rise and fall of his chest is enough to hurt him as well. He tries to hold his breath to give himself some relief, but then even the rapid beating of his panicked heart is enough movement to cause him more harm. It’s as if the only way he could ever feel okay again is to simply die—that way neither his heart nor his lungs have the ability to make things worse.

Through the haze of his frantic mind, he feels Cellbit try to place a sympathetic hand on his shoulder to bring him some sort of comfort, but seems to forget how volatile Charlie’s infection is. With a shrill yelp, Cellbit jerks away from him, and Charlie feels like he’s all alone yet again, left to deal with his own problems just like he always has been. 

It takes a few moments, but eventually the overwhelming pain becomes tolerable, and allows Charlie to think coherently. Right away, his mind veers towards Flippa. Through nothing but the power of fear and desperation, he manages to find the strength to ask Cellbit about it. 

“Where’s Flippa?” Charlie mumbles, his voice pitifully hoarse as the words transfer through his exhausted and torn up throat. 

Something akin to disappointment flashes across Cellbit’s face as he hears Charlie’s question, like he’s sad that Charlie would ask about his daughter of all things. Slowly, Cellbit shakes his head. “I… don’t know,” he says, but he doesn’t sound very convincing. 

Charlie is too tired to call him out on his blatant lie, but he somehow gathers enough strength to roll himself onto his side and sit up, wanting to look for his child by himself. He’s successful until he tries to lean his weight onto one of his arms, which causes his elbow to give out and send him falling back onto the floor with a weak groan. He squeezes his eyes shut and grits his teeth, trying to look more composed than he feels. 

“Just lay down,” Cellbit tells him softly, coming closer to him but not daring to physically help him out in any way. Charlie feels his infections flicker with electricity, and he understands why Cellbit is cautious. 

“I…” Charlie’s voice fades away as emotion builds inside of him. “I need to find my daughter,” he croaks shakily, feeling frustrated tears well up in his eyes. 

Cellbit doesn’t comment on the very obvious sheen in Charlie’s eyes. “Your code infection is getting even worse,” he says instead, looking at Charlie’s body with a grimace. “How do you feel?” 

“Where’s Flippa?” Charlie asks again, giving Cellbit a taste of his own medicine by not acknowledging his words. “I–I can’t… I can’t fail her again, man… Please.” 

“It’s okay, just calm down,” Cellbit tries to soothe carefully. “Take it easy, Charlie. Don’t worry about anybody but yourself for now.” 

“No,” Charlie cries, his face twisting pathetically as he begins to sob like a child. “No, no, no…” 

Just as he begins to feel tear after tear slip down his face, his body is once again bombarded with the familiar electrifying feeling of tingling and stiffness. He feels the expression on his face shift from devastation to agony, and the sobs that were escaping him morph into wounded whimpers. He’d be embarrassed by how he’s acting if he weren’t so preoccupied with trying not to scream again. 

The sudden spike in pain makes him think that the code is probably coming back to get him. It's probably on its way back to Charlie’s little shack right now, and it’ll fly back down the ladder and see Charlie squirming uselessly on the ground. To kill him in such a sorry state would be a favor more than anything, an act of mercy rather than a cheap kill. 

The code continues to grow closer—Charlie can feel it as it does. Every inch that decreases between the entity and his house makes the prickling in his veins intensify impossibly, and it isn’t long before Charlie can no longer save what little dignity he has left. 

He screams, not just in pain, but in fear as well. For a long time, he’s been living recklessly and carelessly, but he’s not ready to die. In fact, he’s scared. He doesn’t want to die, and he certainly doesn’t want to die this slowly and excruciatingly. 

Cellbit is screaming something beside him, which Charlie can’t hear over the sound of his own tormented roars, tearing up his throat even more than it already was. He can’t even feel the shredding of his own vocal chords over the blinding sensation of static trapped under his skin. 

It seems to last a lifetime. He isn’t even sure if he’s breathing between his tortured screaming, but every part of his body feels as though it’s on fire. He’s halfway convinced that maybe all of the electricity he’s been feeling has actually begun heating up his flesh, to the point of creating sparks and perhaps even igniting. The feeling of his skin melting off wouldn’t feel much worse than whatever is plaguing him right now, and the only way that Charlie knows that he isn’t burning alive is because he can’t smell any burning flesh. That’s the only real giveaway. 

At some point, Charlie can no longer hear. Maybe it’s from the pain, maybe it’s from the lack of oxygen getting to his lungs, or maybe he just can’t hear anything over the sound of his own yelling in his ears—he doesn’t know. Not that it matters, of course, because he wouldn’t be capable of processing any sounds regardless. 

Through the rickety floorboards, he feels vibrations as someone jumps down the ladder and lands right beside him and Cellbit. He knows it’s not the code, because the code doesn’t run or jump, nor does it panickedly pace around uncertainly as it takes in the scene in front of it. 

Charlie feels himself begin to slip back into unconsciousness, and he’s grateful for it. He feels another person jump down the ladder, and then the footsteps all mix into each other as chaos supposedly ensues. The code is probably in the room, if Charlie had to guess, but he can’t bring himself to care about it anymore. He can’t bring himself to do much of anything, actually. 

He’s never been in this much pain before. It’s almost impressive. Never in his life has he ever even been close to feeling this much pure anguish, and the fact that he can feel himself fading makes him wonder if it’s actually just unconsciousness awaiting him or if death is genuinely approaching this time. 

Surely nobody can suffer this much and live. That’s all he can think about. If pain is the body’s way of telling you to avoid doing something, and Charlie isn’t running away right now, then will he die because of this? 

He feels a flicker of fear, and then he feels nothing.

.

Although he’s never directly admitted this to anybody, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Charlie never actually wanted to have children. 

He’s young, and he likes to goof around and have fun—sue him. Responsibilities are stressful, and having a child was one of those huge responsibilities that just never crossed Charlie’s mind. He could always picture himself doing a lot of things, but becoming a father definitely was not one of them.

Then, one day, a clutch of freshly hatched dragon eggs were found on the island, and suddenly everybody was in charge of taking care of at least one of the young dragon hybrids. For no particular reason other than the fact that they were instructed to do so.

To say that Charlie had no idea what he was doing would be an understatement. He had never cared for a child before, and although he was initially under the impression that these kids were part dragon, they looked so human and acted so intelligent that it was impossible to treat them as anything but actual human children. 

At first, he constantly told himself that it was okay to be rough with them, because they’re dragon hybrids, and dragon hybrids are strong and resilient. He taught JuanaFlippa how to hunt, and how to kill, because that’s what dragons are supposed to do, right? 

But Flippa, just like all the other hybrids, didn’t act like a dragon. If it weren’t for the horns sticking out of her scalp, or the tail hanging out from underneath her skirt, or the small wings that fluttered on her back, then there’d be no way to tell she was part dragon. She was so human—she had thin hair which Charlie would sloppily tie into pigtails, she had poor vision which required a strong prescription, she was vegan with a strong love for nature, and she had such a big heart which was filled with unconditional love to give out to everybody. She was incredible.

It took Flippa dying and being brought back to life for Charlie to actually recognize Flippa as his daughter and see her for how kind and precious she truly was. Unfortunately, though, by the time he figured it out, it was already too late. Call it karma, call it retribution, call it whatever you want. Charlie calls it one of the worst things to ever happen to him in his entire life. 

Despite all of his best efforts, he let his carelessness be his downfall. He killed somebody’s child, his very own nephew Tilin, in an accident which would follow Charlie around for the rest of his life. In fear of repeating his mistake twice, he exiled himself and remained isolated for as long as he could. He left his daughter behind, left his friends, left his home, because what else could he do? 

His daughter died in an accident which was very similar to Charlie’s incident with Tilin, but it was at the hands of her mother, Mariana. Charlie didn’t hear the news until a few weeks after it happened, and by then it had already felt like he had been grieving her loss since the moment he left the island. He thought that the fact he hadn’t seen her in months would make her loss a bit easier, but it ended up making it even harder. 

Flippa had died for the second time, and Charlie, once again, wasn’t there for her. He failed her not once, but twice. And this time, he knew there wasn’t gonna be another chance.

In all honesty, Charlie never thought her death would affect him that much. He wasn’t blood related to her, so in the beginning he assumed that when she inevitably died or eventually got reclaimed by her actual mother, he’d simply turn around and continue on with his life. 

But he broke down after her first death and nearly hurt those who cared about him the most. Then, after what happened with Tilin, her disappointment and hatred that was aimed towards him ripped him apart more and more every day. 

He’s haunted by the way Flippa would look at him—with so much love and trust sparkling in her big, innocent eyes. She looked at him so sweetly, even though he was a horrible person, and an even more terrible father. 

She’ll never know how much he genuinely cared for her. She won’t get to see how much of an impact she left on him, or how much her presence is missed dearly by so many people. She died thinking that Charlie was nothing more than a bad dad who recklessly killed her beloved cousin. That’s something that Charlie will forever regret, and he often loses sleep over it. 

Deep down, Charlie knew that there was no way of getting Flippa back after she died the second time. When she was first brought back after the trial, it was a miracle, a gracious act of kindness and mercy that was bestowed upon him—not because he deserved it, but because his friends believed he should get another chance at the very least.

So when he found out that she had died again, similarly to how she died the first time, Charlie knew that was it. There was no way of getting her back now, especially not after what he did to Tilin. 

But Charlie loves Flippa. So, when he saw a being that vaguely resembled his daughter emerging from deep within his mine, something buried inside of him knew that it wasn’t really her, but he blatantly ignored it.

It just looked so much like her, and he wanted so badly to believe that maybe, just maybe, he was getting yet another chance to prove how good of a father he could be. He wanted to show everybody that he could redeem himself, and more than anything he wanted to show Flippa that he loved her more than he could ever love himself.

He knew Flippa wasn’t back, but he still would’ve died for whatever creature was pretending to be her. Because sometimes living in a lie is the only way to live. 

.

The repetitive sound of metallic scraping pulls him from the depths of his unconsciousness, nudging him back into awareness despite his desire to remain asleep. 

His body doesn’t feel as volatile as it did before he passed out. In fact, it doesn’t feel volatile or electric at all. For the first time in weeks, he doesn’t feel like there’s a lightning storm raging inside of him. 

Still, his beaten body reminds him of what happened. Soreness weighs down his entire body, an unpleasant ache sitting so deep within his muscles that he’s pretty sure even his bones are sore. He’s not even sure how that’s possible.

His eyelids, quite possibly the only parts of his body that aren’t insufferably sore, slowly flutter open. The sun is still sitting high in the sky, shining down on the small piece of land he calls home. He’s laying on his back next to a large tree, and its thoughtful branches hang high over his body, letting their leaves shield him from the unforgiving rays of light. 

The metallic scraping continues to cut through the peaceful atmosphere, and he lets his head lull to the side as he tries to figure out what’s causing the grating noise. 

Much to his surprise, he sees Etoiles sitting beside him, leaning against the trunk of the tree as he diligently sharpens his sword. The man must see Charlie move out of the corner of his eye, because as soon as Charlie’s eyes land on him, Etoiles snaps his attention onto him almost as if Charlie called his name or something. 

Without wasting a single second, Etoiles pockets his whetstone and reaches over his shoulder to sheathe his sword, then scrambles into a kneel so he can observantly lean over Charlie. 

Etoiles’ eyes scan over Charlie’s body, frantically and uncertainly as if they aren’t sure where to start looking. “Hello,” Etoiles greets gently, sounding a lot calmer than he looks. “How do you feel, Charlie?” 

Charlie opens his mouth to try and answer, but all that comes out is a small, scratchy sound. He grimaces, breath hitching in pain, and he gulps as he tries to soothe the burning in his throat. 

“Ah,” Etoiles says, gesturing towards Charlie’s neck, “can you speak?”

When Charlie does nothing but stare at him with a discomforted frown pulling at his lips, it seems to suffice as an answer. Not only does Charlie feel like he could sleep for a week straight despite just waking up, but his throat is so raw that he thinks he can faintly taste blood.

Etoiles looks down at his belt, which contains a bunch of small multicolored vials that are presumably different kinds of potions. He pulls one out, swirling it around and holding it up to examine it. Then, he lowers himself even further onto the ground, and cups a hand underneath the back of Charlie’s neck, lifting up his head and gently maneuvering his hand so the back of Charlie’s scalp rests firmly in his palm. 

Charlie trusts Etoiles, so he lets the man pop the cork off the top of the small vial and carefully pour some into his mouth. He painstakingly swallows down a few sips, but has to stop halfway through the vial when the pain becomes too much. Etoiles seems to understand, and looks satisfied that Charlie was even willing to swallow a few drops of whatever potion he chose—most likely healing, knowing the man.

There’s a thick layer of sweat covering Charlie’s skin, making him feel sticky and disgusting along with the patches of mud and grass that litter his body, too. He’s conscious enough to be aware of the uncomfortable feeling, but too tired to really care. 

“That’s okay,” Etoiles comments as he puts the half-empty potion vial back into his belt. “You don’t need to speak.” 

Charlie is glad, although he would’ve stayed silent regardless of whether or not he was given permission to. 

Etoiles smiles at him. “I have good news, Charlie,” he says excitedly. “A lot of good news, actually. First, the code is dead.” 

He pauses after that, letting Charlie process the information if he needs to. Charlie does, but he’s not sure if he's quite coherent enough to catch onto what exactly the death of the code entails. 

“You don’t need to be scared anymore,” Etoiles tells him comfortingly. “It can’t hurt you.” 

Charlie finds it inside of himself to let a small smile pull at his lips. He lets out a deep sigh of relief, closing his eyes as he does so, and he hears Etoiles chuckle at the response. 

“That’s right,” Etoiles says. “We killed it for you. Me, Roier, and Cellbit. But that’s not all, there’s more good news. Look—” instead of telling Charlie what the news is, Etoiles scooches closer to his enervated body, wanting to demonstrate it instead. 

Etoiles places a calloused hand on Charlie’s infected shoulder, grinning widely as he does so. Then, he moves the hand to Charlie’s temple, resting his palm over the eye that Charlie has lost his vision in. 

Charlie isn’t sure what Etoiles is trying to show him at first, but then he remembers Roier and Cellbit, and how they would react to touching his infection. They’d recoil in pain, as if they’d been shocked, and Charlie would feel the static, too. But Etoiles is touching him with no problem. 

“Yeah!” Etoiles exclaims as he sees recognition fall upon Charlie’s face, nodding his head ecstatically. “The infection doesn’t hurt me. It hurt Cellbit and Roier, but not me. Maybe it’s because I was also infected by the code, but whatever the reason, it’s good news.”

Charlie can’t help but agree about it being good news. He doesn’t have the energy to worry about the specifics on how exactly it’s possible that Etoiles can touch him with no issues, but he smiles at the prospect of normalcy that comes with it. He was beginning to get tired of constantly hurting those around him, both emotionally and physically. Maybe things are finally turning around for him. 

He’s happy that he escaped the code, and he’s happy that nobody seemed to get seriously hurt while defending him. Besides a few scrapes and smudges of dirt, Etoiles looks completely normal, and the average person probably wouldn’t be able to tell that he just finished killing one of the island’s most notorious and dangerous creatures. 

“Cellbit and Roier warped over to the castle,” Etoiles explains, running a hand through Charlie’s hair as he absentmindedly comforts the man. “They wanted to prepare a room for you, so you can stay there while you recover. You’ll get some pain medicine when we’re there, so you won’t be in as much pain.” 

Charlie wants to thank Etoiles for helping him and refusing to give up on him despite his stubbornness, but when he opens his mouth to speak, nothing but a scratchy breath escapes him.

“Don’t try to speak,” Etoiles says gently. “It’ll just hurt your throat more.” 

The combination of Etoiles’ convincing tone and Charlie’s raw throat is enough to urge him to listen. He’s disappointed that he can’t let Etoiles know how much he truly appreciates everything that he, along with Cellbit and Roier, have done for him. It’s enough to bring tears to his eyes, although he partly blames his sudden overflowing emotion on how tired and weak he feels.

“Are you sad?” Etoiles asks innocently, tilting his head as he sees Charlie get emotional.

Charlie manages to nod jerkily, his quivering lips forming a grateful smile, and a look of understanding falls over Etoiles face. 

“You shouldn’t be sad,” Etoiles tells him. “The code is gone, so you don’t have to be afraid or suffer anymore. That should make you happy.” 

Although it’s clear that Etoiles is mistaking Charlie’s grateful tears as fearful ones, the man still does have a point. At the very least, the code being dead is one less thing to worry about, and it seems like a step in the right direction. Charlie can thank everybody for their help later, and for now he can just be glad that this chapter in his life has finally ended.

“Everything will be okay now,” Etoiles says sincerely. “You’re safe. And if you’re not safe, then you can just let me know, and I’ll protect you. Roier and Cellbit, too—along with anybody else on the island. We all just want you to be okay, Charlie.” 

The kind words help him feel better, although it makes Charlie cry a bit harder. They’re happy tears more than anything as he lets himself accept Etoiles’ words of reassurance and comfort. He doesn’t really remember the last time he felt this way.

The sound of whooshing followed by staggering footsteps comes from nearby, and Charlie recognizes it as the warpstone being used. He doesn’t have the strength to look over and see who it is, but they run towards Etoiles and Charlie right away, which reveals their identity rather quickly.

It’s Roier, and he looks out of breath as he joins Etoiles and Charlie underneath the tree. Charlie meets Roier’s eyes, and the man seems surprised to see that Charlie is awake. 

“Charlie!” Roier exclaims, sounding relieved but still looking pretty concerned. “Are you okay, man? Are you feeling better?” 

Etoiles thankfully jumps in before the inevitable awkward silence arrives. “He can’t speak,” he says helpfully, but doesn’t bother elaborating.

“Really?” Roier questions, frowning in confusion as he turns toward Etoiles. “Is he okay? What’s wrong with him?” 

“I think he just lost his voice,” Etoiles explains, returning his hand to Charlie’s head to continue carding his fingers through the man’s hair. “He’s probably exhausted, too. He’s been through a lot, so he’ll need some time to recover.”

“Oh,” Roier says, shoulders sagging with relief, “okay. That makes sense.” He turns towards Charlie, who’s still blankly staring at him. “I’m sure Etoiles told you, but the code is dead. It’s all over now, isn’t that great? You don’t have to be in pain anymore.” 

Charlie smiles, blinking his eyes heavily as he tries to ward off his exhaustion. He’s not even sure why he’s so tired—he didn’t do anything to participate in the code’s killing, and yet he feels significantly worse for wear than both Etoiles and Roier combined. 

“The corpse is still here and everything,” Roier points out, looking in the direction that Charlie assumes the code’s body to be in. “I’m sure things will get better from now on. For everybody.”

It seems like something upsetting crosses Roier’s mind, because his reassuring grin drops into a sad smile, and he looks down at the ground dejectedly. “I’m sorry we didn’t do anything to help you sooner,” Roier apologizes before Charlie can wonder what he’s thinking about. “We all knew about Flippa, and we knew that you weren’t doing very well, but we just… didn’t do anything. We were caught up in our own problems, y’know?” 

Charlie doesn’t blame anybody but himself for what happened. There’s no possible way that anybody could have known how serious things were getting, and even if they did, Charlie was far too stubborn to accept any help regardless. The fact that Roier feels guilty enough to apologize for something that he couldn’t have helped in the first place just shows how genuine and good of a friend the man is. Charlie feels bad for not appreciating him and everybody else sooner. 

“The past is the past,” Etoiles says optimistically. “It can’t be helped. We should just celebrate our victory instead, and be thankful that nobody got killed during all of this.” 

“Yeah,” Roier agrees, “things could’ve gone a lot worse.” 

Etoiles flashes a comforting smile towards Roier, then looks back down at Charlie. “We should probably get back to the castle, right? Celbit is waiting for us?” 

“Yeah, he is,” Roier says, clearing his throat as he gets back on track. “He says we should bring back the code’s corpse so he can try to examine it.” 

“Examine it?” Etoiles questions, raising a curious eyebrow. “Why?” 

Roier shrugs, “I don’t know. But Cellbit says it’s better that we have the code instead of the federation. And, also, Cellbit is a nerd, so…”

“Fair enough,” Etoiles says. “Well, are you okay with carrying it? It’s… not very big, so it shouldn’t be very heavy.”

“Sure. Are you carrying Charlie, then?” 

Etoiles pats Charlie’s shoulder. “Yep. He’s heavy, but I’m very strong, so it’s okay.” 

“Hey, I’m strong, too!” Roier argues. “Didn’t you see me while we were fighting the code?” 

“No, I was too busy doing all the work myself,” Etoiles brags, a smug look on his face. “I didn’t even notice you were helping, to be honest.” 

Roier scoffs lightheartedly, rolling his eyes and shaking his head. Charlie can see the slight smile tugging at his lips as he turns around and walks over to the code’s corpse. 

Etoiles shifts from his position on the ground, preparing to lift Charlie and carry him to Cellbit’s castle. Charlie, who’s exhaustion seems to be tugging at him more aggressively than earlier, simply closes his eyes as Etoiles lifts him up from the ground with surprisingly little effort. There’s an uncomfortable feeling of vertigo that plagues Charlie as he’s carried, so he keeps his eyes closed to avoid confronting the dizziness. 

“I don’t remember you being this light,” Etoiles tells him quietly, and Charlie can feel the vibrations of his words from where he’s tucked against the man’s chestplate. 

Charlie opens his eyes and looks at Etoiles, trying to convey the action of a shrug through nothing but the look in his eyes. He isn’t sure if it works or not, but Etoiles chuckles nonetheless. 

“You should sleep if you’re tired,” Etoiles says. “Just trust me and get some rest, okay? The hard part is over now.” 

There’s something deeply comforting about those words, and Charlie lets his eyes slip shut once again, his limp body melting into Etoiles’ arms even more. He can hear Roier join them again, his footsteps heavier as he supposedly carries the code’s corpse. Something inside of Charlie wants to peel his eyes open to take a look at the defeated creature, but he doesn’t bother. He trusts Etoiles, and he trusts Roier and Cellbit, and he trusts that he’ll be okay while he’s with them. 

“We’ll be with you when you wake up, Charlie,” Etoiles reassures, and Charlie can barely register the words with how quickly he’s falling back into unconsciousness. 

A warm, comforting feeling blooms in his chest as he fades away. It’s both familiar and foreign, but he lets himself revel in it because of how incredibly comforting it feels. 

For the first time in what feels like forever, Charlie feels loved. Not used, manipulated, betrayed, or hated. He feels loved, and he feels safe, and he allows himself to accept these feelings. Not just because he’s tired, or because he’s sick of feeling isolated and alone, but because he thinks that maybe he should be allowed to be selfish for once and decide that he deserves to feel this way.

.