Ortiz

I shivered furiously underneath the mound of blankets on top of me, my teeth chattering so hard I was afraid they'd break. I stared blankly at the closed door of my room, trying to fixate on something other than the ache deep in my bones and the sweat that rolled down my temple as it pulsed stressfully. 

I felt like I wanted to tear off my own skin, and my throat still burned as I swallowed, reminding me of the events of the night before.

Benji had rushed into my room soon after Corey linked him, giving me a tiny dose of the opiate to ease the worst symptom of my withdrawals, the hallucinations. I almost choked with how fast I chugged down the tiny pill, willing it to absorb into my body as fast as possible. 

Corey had stayed by my side all night, as awake and alert as he was during patrols, holding a trash can to my mouth as I heaved up my guts into it. I felt like absolute shit, dry heaving continuously even after I'd expelled all of the contents of my turning stomach. 

I knew my room had to smell absolutely fucking terrible even though I could barely smell anything through my stuffed up nose, but Corey didn't show any signs of discomfort as he sat beside me. I even found myself leaning into his touch then he rubbed my back during a particularly harsh retch, selfishly using the tingling sensations his touch brought me like a painkiller. 

The pattern of sit up & throw up continued into the early hours of the morning, leaving me in a trembling heap on my bed, utterly exhausted both mentally and physically. 

But regardless of how tired I felt, I dared not close my eyes even for a second, as fear gripped me when I thought of what terrors were hiding behind my eyelids, waiting patiently for me to succumb to unconsciousness. 

Corey tried to stay close in case I needed more help, but after my stomach stopped churning I buried myself under the comforting heap of blankets on my bed and banished him away into a far corner of my room where he still sat by himself silently. I dragged my sore eyes from the door I'd been staring daggers at for what seemed like hours to inconspicuously take a peek at the large man.

He sat still in his seat across the room, muscular legs crossed at the ankle. The only movements he made were his eyes as they drifted across the pages of the book he held in one large hand and the occasional flick of his finger as he turned the page once he was done reading it. I'd noticed he had a hobby of reading when he was not at training or doing whatever the fuck else warriors do throughout the day, like eating raw eggs or something. 

He could go on for hours, sitting in the same spot as his face remained strangely - but unsurprisingly - emotionless, not reacting to whatever words were on the page.

In any normal circumstance, I wouldn't give a flying fuck what he was doing with his own time, as long as he was far away from me. But at that moment, I was so utterly, painfully bored from laying in my bed in a pool of my own sweat for hours on end, so I decided to poke the dragon just to stimulate whatever was left of my fizzled out brain cells. 

I had intended to simply ask what book he was so intensely focused on, but of course - in my typical fashion - the words spewed from my mouth in a much more... interesting form. 

"I didn't know you knew how to read." I said with a slight sharpness to my tone, my voice hoarse from the stomach acid that burned my throat the night before. 

Corey's eyes snapped up to mine the moment I spoke, although his body remained painfully still in the chair. He didn't react outwardly to my stupid jab, instead calmly lowering his eyes back down to the pages of his book as he replied, his voice impossibly deep but also gentle.

"Indeed I do." He shifted in the chair only slightly as he turned the page, eyes returning to scanning across it before he fell silent once again. I felt my jaw tic at his nonchalant reply, feeling irked that my insults never seemed to impact him the way they did anyone else I carelessly hurled them at. 

What was he even reading?  He probably wouldn't understand most literature, seeing as to how he likely had no conception of what an emotion even is. 

If I didn't know better I'd probably assume the man was some kind of alien as he sat there silently, his incessant reading hobby some way of studying and learning the ways of our species. That's just how odd his unexpressive personality was. 

Logically, I knew that it was probably some war strategy book, as he was the head warrior after all, but my curiosity got the best of me as I spoke, more carefully this time as I forced myself to tone down the sassiness that always managed to work its way into my tone. 

"What book?" I asked, slightly proud of myself for not spewing another sarcastic line. Corey looked back up from the page he was reading, meeting my eyes once again. This time he sat up, uncrossing his ankles as he closed the book, using his thumb as a bookmark so he wouldn't lose his place. He rolled his shoulders, stretching them from staying in the same position for so long before he spoke, his words shocking me the moment they left his lips.

"Romeo and Juliet." 

I couldn't help the laugh that bubbled its way out of my throat at the realization that his huge threat of a man who looked like he snapped trees in half in his free time was spending half of the day reading a romance novel. 

He stared at me blankly as I laughed out loud, the sound turning to a cough as my raw throat protested, although the amused smile remained on my face as I did so. I went to reply with another sarcastic jab, but was interrupted by my phone chiming loudly on my bedside table. 

I groaned as I reached my arm out of my safe cocoon of blankets, goosebumps rising on my skin as the old air in my room intruded into the cave of warmth I'd created. I slapped my hand down on my phone, turning onto my back and bringing it to my face as I squinted, the brightness of the screen making my sensitive eyes throb. 

On the screen was a text from our little fairy Luna, Berlin. He was asking if he could come down and check on me, the text punctuated with a red heart emoji at the end. I grumbled, not even bothering to take my other hand out of my cocoon as I typed out one word and pressed send.

'No.'

I threw my phone down somewhere among the mass of blankets on my bed, throwing an arm over my strained eyes with a sigh. Not 10 seconds later, I turned my head to the side at the sudden sound of my door opening. I groaned aloud at the sight of the little luna shuffling through a small opening in the door, leaving it open as he stepped inside.

"Hi!" Berlin smiled brightly at me before turning to wave to his brother. The man in the corner nodded to acknowledge his smaller brother before turning his eyes back to his Romeo and Juliette. I laughed inwardly at the thought again, still not being able to believe that he was reading that cheesy crap.

Berlin's demeanor was as cheery as ever as he looked back at me with the hint of a blush on his cheeks, like I wasn't lying in bed feeling like I was on the brink of death. I didn't bother returning his greeting as I turned my head to look at the small Omega.

"Why the fuck did you even bother texting me to ask if you're just going to come anyway?" I grumbled out at him, finding myself slightly annoyed by the fact that he had simply ignored my text telling him that I wasn't interested in him 'checking up' on me. 

"...Also, don't ever send me a heart emoji again, that's gay as fuck." I added as an afterthought, coughing a moment later as my raw throat throbbed. Berlin looked at me as I spoke, his arched brows pulling together as he pursed his lips. 

"Well... I am gay... but that's beside the point!" He giggled, smiling down at me. "How are you? I heard you hadn't been doing too good." I rolled my eyes at him, scoffing.

"Aren't you supposed to be watching those two little brats you call sons? You should worry about them instead, they are probably falling off of a cliff as we speak." I retorted sarcastically, not bothering to answer his question of whether I was fine or not. 

I knew that if I said I was fine that it would be a bold-face lie, and in the state I was in there was no use trying to convince someone that I was fine when I probably looked somewhere between death and a piece of half-eaten salami. 

In other words, I looked nowhere near fine. 

Berlin shuffled from foot to foot as he pursed his lips. 

"Daddy is watching them right now. I guess I should be a little worried, since him and Papa seem to be perfectly fine with practically having a... frickle-frackle in front of us." Berlin's face flamed red as he looked down at his shoes, and I almost busted out laughing at his ridiculous use of words. "Oh, but I brought company! They have some news!" He turned around with a smile, gesturing to someone outside of the door. 

I threw my head back against my pillow, groaning even louder in annoyance as a whole herd of people invaded my room. 

"What the FUCK man! Can I please just die in peace? In my room, alone?!" I complained, forcing my shaky arms to contract as I pushed my heavy body to an upright position. Berlin's 'company' consisted of Osias - who had his arms crossed firmly across his chest, the pink-haired Benji, Tyrus, and the little yellow-haired, alien-eyed fae, Daffodil. Corey looked up, placing a bookmark in his book at their arrival and silently turning his attention to the commotion as they all filed into the room. 

Tyrus's much larger hand was waffled in that of the tiny fae's, the fae himself quite literally bright red as he practically bounced in his spot. He was chewing on something, and I winced as I realized it was probably one of those sour ass limes he loved so much, his lips glistening with the juice. Anyone could notice the almost comical size difference between the two. 

Tyrus was a large man, only slightly smaller than Corey, but looked gargantuan next to the 4'11" fae who stood bobbing up and down at his side. It looked like he could easily snap the smaller man's neck with a flick of his finger, but his grip looked extremely gentle on the fae's small hand.

I couldn't help myself from imagining a train ramming into a tunnel much too small for it as I looked between them, wincing at the thought of how much it was going to hurt that little alien kid when they finally - as Berlin would say - had a frickle frackle. I didn't think they'd have to worry about that anytime soon however, as the daft couple probably still had no idea that they were even mates.

"I can almost deal with the entire fucking Gay Guild infiltrating my room, but did you have to bring the kid? He's almost creepier than my fucking hallucinations!" I complained pejoratively, gesturing towards the fae who continued to bounce in his spot with barely contained excitement. My insult flew right over his yellow head as he giggled, smiling brightly at me and blinking his gigantic, happy eyes in an oblivious manner. Osias was the first to speak.

"Calm down, Ortiz. We have a development on your situation. We think we might have an idea of what is going on." 

My breath stilled at his words, any other sarcastic words sucked out of me as I stared at him, a silent gesture for him to continue. 

He sighed, swiveling his upper body around to look at Tyrus and Daffodil. 

"You should be grateful to Daffodil, who is actually older than all of us..." He gave me a pointed look, obviously referring to me calling the fae a kid, but I just rolled my eyes as he continued. "He recognized you two's symptoms, apparently he has seen a case like this before." Daffodil nodded excitedly at Osias's words, swallowing whatever was left in his mouth. For a moment I was worried his oversized eyes were going to fall right out of his head with the force of his enthusiastic movement.

"Daffi seen, Daffi seen! When home, long, long time away!” The fae tried to explain, but his inarticulate words made no sense to me, my face reading nothing but confusion. Regardless, everyone let him continue his gibberish phrases. 

"Heart hurt! So bad, bad, no love at all." Daffodil's voice became sad, his bottom lip jutting out a little as he continued. "When away, they say 'ouchie!' Goddess put together!" Daffodil's high-pitched voice gained back its happy, sing-song quality as he finished his story, grinning triumphantly to himself as I sat in my spot, staring at him dumbfoundedly.

That kid was so fuckin' weird. 

"Okay, can someone explain that again but preferably in english this time?" I asked, looking away from the grinning goon so others could see the look of confusion on my face.

Tyrus stepped forward at my question, still holding onto the fae's hand as he went to speak. His voice was deep - not as deep as Corey's, and lacking the intense edge that he had - but still vibrating with bass nonetheless.

"Daffi said that he has seen this before, a long time ago when he used to live at home with the rest of his Frollick." I watched the man speak, surprised he even had enough brain cells to form a proper sentence, as most of the time it seemed like Tyrus and the fae shared one total brain cell collectively. It was funny, he was basically like the google translate for the fae who continued to bounce unceasingly at his side. 

"There was a mated couple who denied their bond, but also refused to reject one another. Therefore, the Goddess tethered them together, bonding them tightly so that they were unable to go far before feeling pain." Tyrus finished, the fae purring delightedly and lifting their conjoined hands, rubbing them against his cheek as a gesture of thanks. 

I couldn't help but wonder how he'd surmised so much information from the jumble of words that the smaller man said, but I decided not to question their strange relationship any more as it was beginning to make my brain hurt.

I looked over at Corey who sat, as emotionless as ever as he pondered, staring at his brother who had just spoken. 

"What happened to them?" Corey inquired, his voice making my hair stand on end as it vibrated through the air.

Daffodil's oversized eyes watered and he looked distressed at Corey's question as he looked between him and I, slipping his hand from Tyrus's gentle grip as he ran over to me. His bright hair fluttered behind him, some yellow flowers falling from it as he grabbed at my forearm with his four weird-ass fingers and pulled, desperately trying to drag me in Corey's direction. 

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