The 30th
ROGUE
My boots leave sunken holes in the scorched mud, every step a squelch of hot, chemical-scented soup.
Smoke and magic hang so thick you could wring them out and light them on fire all over again.
Damon has baby phoenix Javi cradled to his chest in a nest of his shredded shirt, and it is exactly as grotesque and adorable as it sounds: patchy red and gold featherlets, crumpled wings, beak wide in a silent wail.
Javi’s eyes glint with feral intelligence, but his body’s stuck on ‘freshly microwaved chicken nugget’.
It’s more than a little on the nose.
Angelo’s behind us scanning the haze like someone’s going to pop up and shoot us from the bushes.
Which is fair, because if I were the bad guy, I’d wait till the heroes were hunched over a casualty, then finish them with a coup de grace they didn’t see coming.
I’m trying not to think about how I’m supposed to be the steel backbone, but every five steps I want to curl up and let the ash bury me.
We finally found Archie after not hearing anything during our ten-minute walk around the edge of this damn crater.
There’s a tree trunk, snapped and sharp-edged, pressing him flat to the earth like he’s been pinned by an angry god.
For a split second I see the lion inside of him—all gold and sinew and pride—but it’s not real.
Right now, he’s just a guy, naked and caked in blood and ash, his chest hitching in little hiccup-y gasps.
One leg’s flopped at the wrong angle, shin looking like a broken hockey stick, and his arm’s half-shoved under the wood with an ugly bend just above the wrist.
Damon makes an infuriated noise—a half-demonic growl, half-sob that tells me he’s in the same pit of rage I am about this motherfucker hurting our boy.
“Don’t—” Archie says, teeth clenched but voice light, “—don’t panic. This is absolutely the dumbest position I’ve ever woken up in, and it hurts like hell, but I’m going to be okay.”
Always a joker, this one.
My body moves before my head does, knees squelching into the muck beside him. There’s blood everywhere, leaking from under the trunk and seeping into the ground like it’s watering the soil. I reach for his shoulder—the intact one—and find it fever-hot, skin trembling under my fingers.
“He’s going to slip into shock, guys. We have to do something—now.”
Damon moves quickly, despite the phoenix tucked under one arm like a football. “We've gotta lift it. On three, we—”
Angelo interrupts, shaking his head. “He’s not shifted yet, bro.
If we lift it and there are things we cannot see underneath, he could bleed it.
Think, D. I know that he might also get compression syndrome, but we have to handle this like supernaturals, not humans.
Shifting is a requirement before we touch anything. ”
That’s the scary part: Archie’s stuck in normal meat and bone. No lion, no healing—just the slow collapse of every system he’s got if we don’t defeat that damn enchantment from the pedestal. He’s joking with us, but we don’t have a lot of time to get this done or we could definitely lose him.
“Have we all had enough time to recover so we can donate?” I ask as I look at the twins, my eyes tired and worried.
Damon’s eyes flick to mine, demon black but wet with unshed tears.
“We’re all getting hammered by that fucking spell, but a shifter has to heal first in their animal.
We have to try because I’ll be damned if I’m going to lose the guy I’ve liked my entire life and finally had the guts to show it in this stupid field. ”
The bird in his arms gives a wheezing squeal, which is hilarious except for how unfunny this all is. I know Javi did what they thought would work, but they were so fucking unstrategic about it and now we’re paying the price.
I want to strangle them, but that’s taken a big backseat to wanting them all to live through this day.
“Guys, I’m going to be okay, but you have to work together,” Archie groans, every syllable a test of will.
He shudders a bit, and I know that took a lot out of him.
His leg is what keeps drawing my eyes and while it’s not the worst injury, it’s the one that makes me worried the game he loves will be out of his future even if he survives.
Unless…
I squeeze his hand and give the twins a determined look. “We have to reset the leg before the shift so it heals correctly. Archie, if you don’t want to puke, keep those baby blues on me, okay?”
His eyes meet mine, so full of trust it nearly floors me.
“Ready?” I ask, and he nods as he grits his teeth. I let go of his hand, moving down to his lower body and getting into position. I’ve seen this done before by healers when Guardians are hurt, but this will be the first time I’ve done it myself. Hopefully, I don’t fuck it up.
“Hit me,” Archie says, and when I wrench his lower leg with both hands, the sound of screams almost does me in. This is a compound fracture for sure, and we have to get this shit dealt with so he doesn’t end up permanently injured.
Damon frowns, but he looks thoughtful. “Maybe we should try the wood again.”
“We can’t, bro. We’ve been over this,” Angelo says with an annoyed growl. “How is that you’re brilliant and this has made you absolutely unable to think straight?”
“He could have a concussion,” I blink as I look up at the gentler twin in concern. “I mean, he didn’t seem like it but this is pointing to worse than it seemed head injury. That’s not good, Ang.”
Despite the hoarseness from his screams, Archie gasps, “Guys, listen. I know you want to help. But you gotta do it together.” He coughs, which is all blood and spit, and I put a hand to his cheek because it’s the only thing I can think to do. “Take a minute and come together before I pass out.”
For a second we all freeze except Javier who lets out an ungodly screech that makes my eyes feel like bleeding.
“I’m sorry,” Damon mutters, and there’s something genuinely broken in it. “I keep… I keep screwing this up because I’m too upset to be logical.”
I surprise myself by not saying anything snarky. Instead, I give D an exhausted, but understanding smile. Angelo kicks a stone, and it skitters into the blast crater as he processes our friend’s words.
Archie’s voice is softer now. “Rogue, come closer?”
He’s looking at me the way people look at old wedding photographs, and I feel myself blush all the way to my hairline. I lean in, waiting to see what he wants only me to hear.
“Little more,” he whispers, and when our faces are inches apart he says, “You’re scared.
You hide it behind all that ‘I’m tough’ crap, but I know you.
When you’re terrified, you slice up everyone around you, just so you don’t have to feel it yourself.
You get mean because you care too much, and you’d rather be hated than see anyone hurt.
Especially the people you…” He stops, sucking in a breath that sounds like it’s tearing his ribs apart.
“You don’t have to do that—not with us.”
The words hit me like a punch in the teeth, and I flinch. I’m about to retort, but the look in his eyes is so painfully gentle that I can’t. I just stare back, and the lump in my throat is bigger than my pride.
Holy Dr. Beardo, the half-dead funny man is right.
“It’s gonna matter,” Archie says, barely above a whisper, “when you find Rebel. He’s gonna be hurting, too, and if you go in sharp you’ll just slice him open more. Please, Rogue. For me.”
I never cry in front of people, but my face is suddenly wet. Archie’s hand squeezes mine, and I bite my lower lip to keep from making a sound as I think about his statement. “Okay,” I finally say. “I’ll try. But you have to not die, first.”
He grins, and blood slips between his teeth. “Deal.”
It takes longer than I want to get my face back together, but once I do, I wipe the snot and sweat with my palm and look up at the two other idiots I call family. Damon and Angelo are hovering close enough I can see the lines of worry drawn across their faces.
“So,” I say, voice thick, “if I’m an asshole again, you have to tell me. Like, immediately.”
Angelo blinks. Damon almost laughs. “Archie gets his ribcage collapsed and still manages to psychoanalyze you in under a minute,” Damon says. “He’s gonna be insufferable about this.”
“Yeah, well, he’s earned it,” I mutter, and then, before I can lose my nerve, I dig my thumb into my own forearm, where the skin is already puckered with half-healed scratches from earlier.
“This is the solution that worked for you guys and we need to try it here even if his injuries are much worse.”
Blood wells up, silvery and floral scented as it drips from the cut.
I let a couple of dribbles run, then I close my eyes and push the recovering magic in me into the air surrounding us.
It’s not a lot, especially for me, but I’m hoping that both breathing me in and getting the essence will combine to turn this naked hockey player into a lion.
“We do this together, right?” I say.
Damon just nods, baring his own wrist and dragging a thumbnail across it to reveal his obsidian blood.
Angelo follows, less showy, a neat slice at his fingertip, but the blood’s just as thick and dark.
For a second we’re a fucked-up communion table, demons and sinners pouring blood into the purest of us all to heal him.
Archie’s eyes are open but glassy as I tilt his chin up and let my blood drip onto his tongue.
Damon adds his, slow and deliberate, and then Angelo, all three types mixing in the hollow of Archie’s mouth.
Blood magic isn’t clean— even with me in the mix—it smells like burnt sugar and old pennies, tastes like the first lick of a flowery battery, I’d guess.
It’s not pretty like in the movies, but it’s ancient and powerful, which we need right now.
Nothing happens at first. If anything, Archie looks worse—his skin mottles, lips going a sick shade of blue. The blood drains from his face, and for a split second I think maybe we’re just speeding up the process of death.
Damon’s hands start to shake. “It’s not enough. He needs more. If he can’t shift, he’s going to die. No one is coming to help—not after all this time.”
I grab the younger twin’s face and shake it hard enough that his teeth knock. “Hey. Don’t you tap out on me now, D. If we lose Archie, we’ll all suffer. I know you’re struggling here, but put your back into it and believe.”
The bird in Damon’s arm makes a strangled trilling sound, and before anyone can react, the phoenix sticks its nugget head out and yanks one of the few feathers it’s grown out with a squawk.
It falls onto Archie’s face, covering his eyes and there’s a flash—hot blue, then orange, then something pure white—and the bird’s fire lances into Archie like a defibrillator.
“Motherfucker,” I murmur in awe.
Archie jerks, back arching off the ground, and then he makes a garbled sound.
It’s not human—it's a lion straining to roar, but lacking the ability to do it yet. The trunk cracks as his body expands, splintering apart, and in the next second, we have to scramble back before the wood’s been tossed three meters by a set of paws the size of dinner plates.
I’m still kneeling, my jaw unhinged, watching bones knit, muscle balloon under shredded skin, fur explode in a ruff around his head like the sun rising after a goddamn hurricane.
He’s huge, and beautiful, and most importantly—not dead.
The lion limps forward, then collapses, with its head in my lap. Damon sniffles, which is both deeply embarrassing and also kind of touching. The guys are going to give him hell about it, though.
That is until Angelo wipes his own eyes with his forearm, then grunts, “Told you he’d make it.”
Javier, still a lump of bird, responds by trying to wiggle out of Damon’s arms. When he’s given freedom, Javi curls up on the lion’s back and tucks his head under his own wing, obviously unconcerned by his plucked chicken look.
Archie’s tail gives a feeble swish, and then the world settles again, just us, the mud, and the promise of one last impossible thing to do.
I bury my face in Archie’s mane, which smells like fire and copper and home, and whisper, “Don’t ever scare us like that again.”
He rumbles, which I choose to interpret as “Deal.”
We sit there in the ruined field, blood and magic on our hands, knowing full well there’s one more family member out here. He’s alone and probably hurting, so we’ll have to get up and do this again in a few minutes.
But for now, we all need a moment to appreciate that Archie is going to be okay and that we survived.