Chapter Text
When Wolfwood was still living in Hopeland, he often found himself reading bedtime stories to the younger kids. Fairy tales about knights in shining armor, beautiful princes and princesses, evil witches and trolls, that kind of thing. The little ones ate it up, utterly enraptured by it. And though he would never admit it, so was he. He especially adored the happy endings. The villain slain, True Love’s Kiss winning the day, and those six magic words: “They all lived happily ever after.”
But now, though? Aged out of the system, working as a mortician in the third largest city in Noman’s Land, with the only good thing in his life being his brother Livio? Wolfwood couldn’t help but scoff at the notion. Not that he was never happy, but the truth of the matter was that it was fleeting. Life moved on, and you had to move with it. Happily Ever After did not exist in the real world.
“You gotta be realistic, Shorty. Just how many guys have you gone through now?” Wolfwood asked to prove his point.
Meryl, an insurance agent who often swung by for paperwork regarding life insurance claims, huffed, “Three guys, two women.”
Wolfwood handed her the document she needed. “Yeah? And none of them were Prince-slash-Princess Charming, were they?”
Meryl snatched the paper from Wolfwood as she said, “That doesn’t mean it still can’t happen! How would you even find true love if you don’t even look? This stuff takes effort, y’know.”
“Girlie, do you even know the definition of a fairy tale?”
She groaned as she rolled her eyes, and Wolfwood counted it as a victory. He lit a cigarette as she left.
Once again, Wolfwood was the only living soul in the mortuary until buttfuck-in-the-morning. God, he hated these double shifts. But they were the only thing putting Livio through school, and he’d be damned if Livio didn’t get the opportunity Wolfwood never did. Yeah, Happily Ever After didn’t exist, but that didn’t mean a better life was off the table entirely.
Something banged on the front door, nearly giving Wolfwood a heart attack.
“Unless you’re dead, we’re closed!” Wolfwood called out. The banging continued. He sighed and went to unlock the door, thinking that Meryl was back for more paperwork that she might have forgotten. Instead, it was Livio, soaked to the bone by the rain and his own tears. Wolfwood pulled him inside and ran to the bathroom to grab wads of paper towels.
“What are you doing here?” He asked as he did his best to dry poor Livio off. The towels were flimsy and Wolfwood might as well had been wiping Livio down with his bare hands for all the good they were doing.
“You said you were only gonna take a single shift, remember?” Livio sniffled, despite himself, “We were gonna have a movie night. I got worried and went to find you.”
“Aw, shit, was that tonight?” Wolfwood mentally kicked himself for forgetting. “Sorry, Pal. I just wasn’t thinking.”
“Like last week?” Livio asked, “Or the week before that… Or the week before that… Or the—”
“Okay, I get it, I’m a piece of shit.” Wolfwood sighed, “Look, Liv, I got two more bodies to prep and I’ll clock out, okay? We’ll get a taxi and pick up some takeout on the way home, yeah?”
Livio nodded, and Wolfwood sat him down at the empty receptionist’s desk as he worked.
Between clocking out before the end of his shift, the taxi, and the takeout, their finances were going to take a hit, and Wolfwood spent the rest of the time thinking on how to counterbalance it. He could pass on cigarettes for the next month, but he doesn’t know how well he’d handle the withdrawal. He could let his bus pass expire and just walk to work, but it’s monsoon season and the bus company sucks at renewing expired passes, anyway. Maybe he could just skip out on a few meals? Livio would catch on fairly quickly, though.
He thought about it hard, even after he locked up the building and the two were far down the road. It was all he could think about until Livio smacked him in the shoulder and shouted, pointing out the window, “Is… Is that a guy up there?!”
Wolfwood looked to where Livio was pointing and saw that, yes, there was a guy up on one of the large gears that make up July’s landscape. And that guy was dressed in some of the most ridiculous clothing Wolfwood has ever seen. Big, poofy sleeves that Wolfwood could see from here and a giant open skirt that looked equally impractical. (Or maybe it was coattails? Still stupid, though.)
The guy nearly slipped on rain-slick metal and swung his arms wide to steady himself. Livio hit the driver’s seat and ordered him to stop. The second the brakes came on, Livio jumped out of the car. Wolfwood had no choice but to tell the driver to wait as he chased after Livio. For as much as he was a crybaby, Livio could be quite brave when he wanted to. Wolfwood just wished that brave didn’t always equate to stupid.
Now closer to the weirdo up on the gear, Wolfwood could hear him rambling, “Please, Miss Kitty, if you’d be so kind as to tell me where I am and how to get home, I’d really appreciate it! Please? Nobody else around here wants to talk to me unless it’s to say some really mean things… Ouch! No need to scratch! Please, Miss Kitty!”
“Hey!” Livio called up, “You need to get down from there!”
Hearing Livio’s plea, the guy did indeed get down from there… because he had startled and slipped once again, this time unable to steady himself. The guy plummeted to the ground below, and Wolfwood, being as brave and stupid as his brother, ran forward to catch him.
Suddenly, the man sprouted a wing, black and shining like the night sky, and his descent slowed just enough Wolfwood wasn’t crushed by the guy’s full weight.
Stunned stupid, all Wolfwood could do was stare mouth agape as the weirdo chuckled sheepishly, “My hero."