Cain

The first time Dean called you “one of the boys”, your chest had lit up with something like pride. You’d been craving that—recognition, belonging, the affirmation that you weren’t an outsider. He’d slung an arm over your shoulder and said it with a grin, and you’d thought, finally. He sees me.

But that glow didn’t last long.

Dean was relentless. He wanted you to be stronger, tougher, louder. Every time you faltered—whether it was the shake in your hands after a hunt or your hesitation pulling the trigger—he jabbed at you.

“C’mon, man. Don’t be soft. You’re not a chick. Don’t act like one.”

You’d laugh it off, pretending the words didn’t sting. But they dug under your skin like barbed wire. Dean didn’t mean it cruelly, not really—he was trying to push you, to harden you the way John had hardened him. The only way he knew how to love was through pressure. But for you, it felt like suffocation.

He shoved old flannels into your arms, saying, “None of that fitted crap. Dress like you mean it.” He tossed you razors with a chuckle, like you had a beard worth shaving. He bought you whiskey, scowled when you ordered anything lighter.

And every night, you peeled off the layers he piled onto you and stared at yourself in the mirror, wondering if you were failing him—or failing yourself.

It came to a head in the Impala one night, the road humming beneath the tires. Sam was asleep in the back, so it was just you and Dean, silence thick as smoke.

“You did good back there,” he said finally, glancing at you. “Handled it like a man.”

Your stomach turned. Those words again. You clenched your fists in your lap. “Dean… can you stop saying that?”

He frowned, confused. “What? You are a man. That’s the point.”

“No, you don’t get it.” Your voice cracked, and you hated it. “When you say it like that, it feels like I’m on trial. Like, if I don’t measure up to whatever your idea of a man is, I’m not real enough. Not good enough.”

Dean’s jaw worked. He gripped the wheel tighter. “I’m just trying to help you fit in. I don’t want people giving you shit. The world’s cruel, and you gotta—”

“—Be tough, be strong, drink whiskey, never cry?” You cut him off, anger lacing your voice now. “That’s not me. That’s not what being a man means for me. And it’s sure as hell not the only way to be one.”

Dean went quiet, eyes fixed on the road. For a long moment, you thought he’d brush it off, tell you to quit whining. But then he exhaled, shaky.

“I’m… I’m screwing this up, huh?”

You swallowed hard. “Yeah.”

The silence after that was heavier than any fight. But it wasn’t empty—it was the weight of Dean realizing that maybe the only way to protect you wasn’t to shape you into his reflection, but to let you breathe as yourself.

The night air over the ocean was alive with fire. Red tracer rounds streaked across the waves, and the cries of tulkun and banshees mingled with the screams of battle. The Sully family fought as one, but war has a way of choosing its victims without mercy.

You had been right there, beside your siblings. Neteyam—your older brother—kept barking at you to keep low, to follow his lead. His bow was swift and precise, while you fumbled with your arrows, hands trembling with adrenaline and fear. Lo’ak was reckless as always, charging into danger, and Kiri’s heart was split between helping and surviving. Tuk clung to Neytiri’s side, terrified but brave.

Jake had always said, “Sully's stick together.” You tried. Eywa, you tried.

But fate had other plans.

It happened so fast. The humans’ gunship tore through the night, cannons belching fire. You dove with Lo’ak behind a broken piece of reef, heart hammering, lungs burning. The water shimmered with sparks and blood. Then came the sound—crack-crack-crack—and the world slowed.

A sharp heat bloomed in your chest.

You looked down. The arrow you had nocked fell from your fingers—blue skin, slick with blood, dark against the bioluminescence of the water.

Your breath caught. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t supposed to be you.

Lo’ak’s voice was distant, panicked. “[Name]! No, no, no—Eywa, no!”

You stumbled, crashing to your knees. The waves swallowed you as your brother caught you, his hands pressing hard against your wound. It hurt, but not as much as the look in his eyes—raw, terrified, helpless.

_____________________________________________________

They all came for you. Neytiri’s scream tore across the battlefield as she saw you crumpled in Lo’ak’s arms. Her rage ignited, and every arrow she fired after that was dipped in fury. Jake’s command voice faltered when he saw your blood staining the water, but still he tried to rally everyone—because that’s what leaders do, even when their heart is breaking.

Neteyam pushed through the chaos, dragging you toward safety with Lo’ak. He was shouting, promising you’d be okay, promising they’d get you to Tsahìk, promising things even he didn’t believe. Kiri wept openly, her hands glowing faintly with her bond to Eywa as she tried to heal, to do something. Tuk’s cries cut through everything, a child begging for her sibling to wake up.

But the light in your eyes was already dimming.

They laid you down on the sand, under the glow of Pandora’s twin moons. You were cold despite the humid night air. Your father knelt beside you, strong hands trembling as he brushed the hair from your face.

“Stay with me, kid,” Jake rasped, voice cracking. “Come on, stay with me.”

You tried to speak, but only blood bubbled at your lips. Neytiri pressed her forehead to yours, tears falling freely. “My child… my heart,” she whispered, her voice shattering. “Do not go where I cannot follow.”

Lo’ak held your hand like he could anchor you to life. Neteyam kept saying it should’ve been him, that he was the oldest, that he was supposed to protect you. Kiri rocked back and forth, chanting to Eywa, begging her to take her instead. Tuk just sobbed into your chest, not understanding why her sibling wouldn’t get up.

Your vision blurred. The stars above melted into streaks of white. For a fleeting moment, you saw the Tree of Souls, its tendrils glowing softly, welcoming.

With the last strength you had, you whispered, “Sully's… stick together.”

And then you were gone.

Silence fell heavier than the ocean. Neytiri’s wail carried through the night, primal and broken, echoing against the cliffs. Jake wrapped his arms around her, but his eyes were hollow—because leaders don’t cry, not until no one is watching.

Neteyam swore that day he would never fail his family again. Lo’ak carried guilt like a stone in his chest, believing he should’ve taken the bullet for you. Kiri sat by the water for nights on end, whispering to Eywa, hoping to feel your spirit in the currents. Tuk clung to Neytiri constantly, afraid that if she let go, someone else would vanish too.

And Jake and Neytiri… they buried part of their souls with you.

The family survived. They fought on. But there was always an empty space at the dinner circle, always a missing laugh during hunts, always a name left unspoken because it hurt too much to say.

Pandora went on glowing, beautiful, and alive, but for the Sully's, the world would never be the same.

Scott Arceneaux Jr., better known to the world as Scrim of $uicideboy$, never expected to be a father—especially not from a hazy, one-night tangle of sweat and silence in a dimly lit club in New Orleans. It was a night lost in the fog of touring, withdrawals, and stage lights. He hadn’t even remembered her name.

Three years later, a letter arrived. No threat. No drama. Just a short note:

“He looks like you. You should meet him.” Attached was a Polaroid of a boy with ice in his eyes and a furrow in his brow too heavy for someone so young.

Scott met the child—Leo—and felt something inside him crack open. He’d cleaned up by then, at least mostly. With Sage beside him, soft-spoken and grounded in a way he wasn’t, he started shaping a life for Leo that he never had. One where music was art, not escape. Where pain wasn’t inherited. Where a father’s sins didn’t echo.

They raised him in a quiet part of Louisiana, close to the swamps but far from the demons. Sage homeschooled him for years, guiding him through words and melodies. Scott taught him about rhythm, about how to hold a pen like a scalpel. They wrote verses together. A new kind of legacy.

But at sixteen, Leo began disappearing at night. First, it was once a week. Then it was three, then five. Sage would ask where he went. He’d mumble something about friends. Homework. Skateboarding. But his eyes twitched the way Scott’s used to, and Scott saw it—the lie humming beneath his son’s skin like a faulty wire.

Scott started following him.

One night, under the broken halo of a streetlight downtown, Scott watched his son disappear into a warehouse. Inside: flashing lights. Pills passed in palms. Numb music blaring through cracked speakers. A girl dancing on a pool table with glassy eyes and a bleeding nose.

Leo was there—laughing. Wide-eyed. Spun out on something Scott didn’t want to name.

Scott didn’t storm in. He just stood there in the dark, remembering what it felt like to need the high more than the air in your lungs. Remembering what it felt like to die in slow motion.

The next morning, Leo came home with pupils like moons.

Sage was making pancakes.

Scott didn’t say anything. Not yet. He sat across from Leo and slid a napkin across the table. On it was a verse:

“If I bury my past in the garden, Will my son dig it up in the dark? Or will he plant his own ghosts, Water them with what I left behind?”

Leo stared at it. He knew.

Tears didn’t come. Just silence. And that same heavy brow.

Scott stood and placed a hand on his shoulder. “You don't have to make the same mistakes to understand 'em, man. But if you're gonna walk into that fire, don’t do it pretending you’re cold.”

Leo didn’t say a word.

But that night, he didn't sneak out.

Years later, Leo would put that verse in a track. The beat raw. The vocals cracked. Produced by his father. Mixed by his mother. It would blow up on SoundCloud.

They named it "Ghost in the Garden."

And for once, the past didn’t bite.

It bloomed.

Frank meant well. You knew that. He didn’t go around hurting people he cared about on purpose—not unless they had it coming. But sometimes the way he loved felt like being pressed into a mold that didn’t fit, forced to carry the shape of a man who wasn’t you.

“You gotta square your shoulders,” he’d say, stepping behind you, his heavy hands adjusting your stance like you were a weapon that needed correcting. “Don’t fidget. Men don’t fidget.”

Each word landed like a stone. You nodded, swallowed, and did as told. Because it was Frank, and you wanted his approval like oxygen.

He drilled you like a soldier: pushups until your arms trembled, gun drills until your palms ached, sparring until your ribs screamed. “Be stronger. Be harder. Don’t let anybody see weakness. That’s how they’ll tear you apart.”

He thought he was helping. He thought he was protecting you from a world that chewed people up. But every correction, every demand, every “man up” tightened a rope around your throat.

Because for Frank, being a man meant being like him. And you weren’t. You weren’t six feet of muscle and vengeance. You weren’t carved from violence and grief. You were you. And somehow, that never seemed to be enough.

One night, you broke.

It was after a job, blood still under your fingernails, the smell of gunpowder lingering. You’d messed up—hesitated, flinched—and Frank had lit into you, barking orders, telling you to stop being soft.

Back at the safe house, you slammed the bathroom door and braced yourself against the sink, breathing hard. When Frank followed you in, his voice was sharp.

“What the hell was that out there? You can’t freeze. You freeze, you die.”

Your reflection swam in the cracked mirror. Your jaw trembled. “I’m trying,” you spat, voice cracking. “I’m trying to be what you want, but it’s never enough, is it?”

Frank froze. He looked at you like you’d just taken the air out of his lungs.

“Kid—”

“No. Don’t.” Your eyes burned. “You keep pushing me to be like you, to be this… this unbreakable soldier. And every time I can’t measure up, I feel like I’m not even real. Like I’m not a man unless I fit your fucking blueprint.”

Silence. Heavy. Frank’s face was unreadable, all hard lines and shadows.

Finally, he muttered, low: “I didn’t… I didn’t mean it like that.”

But the damage was done. The words hung between you, jagged and raw. You turned away, shoulders tight, and for once Frank didn’t try to correct you.

He just stood there, drowning in the weight of his own shadow, realizing that maybe—just maybe—his way of protecting you was the thing cutting you open.

The air in the cave was cold, suffocating. A heavy silence hung between them, broken only by the occasional drip of water echoing off stone. Laurance, an older Shadowknight, stood just within the dim glow of the flickering candles, his armor blackened and worn from countless battles. His crimson eyes bore into the new Shadowknight who knelt before him, her once-innocent gaze now clouded by the shadow that had claimed her. A hidden anger strumming through her veins.

“You wanted power,” Laurance’s voice was low, a rasping growl that seemed to vibrate through the walls. “This is what it costs.”

The woman—once a soul full of hope, now a vessel of darkness—stirred. Her fingers curled into the cold stone, nails scraping the surface as if to remind herself she was still tethered to the remnants of who she once was. But there was no escaping it now. The curse, the transformation, it was all complete. Her heart no longer beat with the rhythm of life but with the pulse of shadow.

"Laurance," her voice cracked, strained, as if the name itself was foreign on her tongue. 

“I didn’t… I didn’t ask for this."

He took a step closer, the weight of his presence pressing down on her like the crushing blackness around them. His gaze softened for just a moment, the briefest flash of something almost human in his eyes. “None of us do. But it’s what you’ll become, whether you wish for it or not.”

She could feel the power coursing in her veins, a constant ache that seemed to whisper, to urge her to embrace it. To lose herself completely to it. The pain from the transformation was still fresh—sharp and raw—but it had already begun to fade into the cold, empty hunger that now consumed her every thought. She wasn’t sure if it was grief for the person she once was or the rage that wanted to rise within her. Both felt as if they were tearing her apart.

But Laurance, he knew. He had been here once. His transformation had shattered him into something unrecognizable—into this thing that stood before her now.

"You've become something... unholy," she whispered, the words tasting like ash on her tongue. "How do you live with it?"

Laurance’s lips curled into a faint, mirthless smile. “You don’t live. You survive. That’s all there is.”

The way he said it, the way it hung in the air, made her stomach twist in both fear and disbelief. Was this truly her future? To walk this path forever—damned, alone, a shadow of the person she had been?

But then Laurance moved, kneeling before her with the speed of a predator. His cold hand cupped her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze.

“I can’t undo what’s been done,” he said, his voice now a low murmur, almost tender in its cruelty. “But I can teach you to survive it.”

She shuddered at his touch, not just from the coldness of his skin, but from the weight of his words. His eyes locked with hers, and for a moment, she could see the scarred remnants of a soul buried beneath the darkness—a flicker of the man he had once been.

“But you will never be the same,” he added, his voice so soft it felt like an ominous promise. “You will always hunger. And you will always fight the monster inside you… until it consumes you.”

The silence between them thickened, like a fog creeping through the cracks of her fragile sanity. The cold seeping into her bones felt like the last whisper of her humanity, a distant echo she could never fully reclaim. She should have been afraid. Terrified of the power that pulsed through her veins, of the promise Laurance made that she would never be the same.

But instead, she was numb. Numb to the loss. Numb to the hunger. Numb to the void that had consumed everything she had been.

Laurance’s gaze never wavered, his fingers still gripping her chin, his thumb brushing the skin of her jaw as if trying to comfort her in the most twisted way possible. He was close now—too close—and for a moment, she could feel the weight of his pain pressing against hers.

“Laurance…” Her voice trembled, cracking beneath the weight of all the words she couldn’t say. She wanted to scream. She wanted to run. But she couldn’t. Not now. Not anymore.

He leaned in slightly, his breath cold against her ear. "You wanted to know how I survive it? You never stop fighting. You fight the rage. The hunger. The darkness that whispers in your ear every waking moment. You fight it—until you no longer know who you are.”

She closed her eyes at his words, knowing deep down they were true. That was the price of this power. The cost of the shadow. She would fight and fight, and in the end, she would become something so far removed from the woman she had been that even her memories would begin to feel like a foreign story.

His voice was softer now, almost tender, but the darkness in it was undeniable. “But there’s one thing I never told you. The shadow doesn’t just take. It binds.”

She stiffened, a sense of unease crawling down her spine. She opened her eyes, but Laurance was already standing, looking down at her with those blood-red eyes that had once been filled with a flicker of humanity.

“A bond forms between us,” he said, the words dragging like chains. “A connection you’ll never be able to sever. We’re not just cursed, we’re tethered. The darkness doesn’t just consume your soul—it entwines with mine.”

His words hit her like a blow. The emptiness that she had felt, the aching void inside her chest… it wasn’t just because of the transformation. It was because something in her was now linked to him. She could feel it now—the cold emptiness between them, pulsing like a second heartbeat. She could never walk away from him. Not fully. Not unless she wanted to lose herself completely.

She stood shakily, her legs unsteady as she rose to her feet. "And if I don’t want this? If I want to tear myself free from it?"

Laurance’s gaze hardened, his lips twisting into something almost cruel. “Then you’ll die trying.”

For a moment, they stood in silence, two lost souls staring at one another. She could feel the weight of his gaze, the judgment in it, the coldness that radiated from him, and yet—beneath it all—she saw something else. A flicker of empathy. A glimmer of the man he had been before the darkness had claimed him.

She stepped toward him, fists clenched at her sides, heart pounding in her chest.

“I won’t let this consume me,” she whispered fiercely, though doubt gnawed at her resolve. “I’ll find a way to fight it.”

Laurance’s eyes softened for the briefest moment, and a shadow of something like sorrow crossed his face. But he said nothing, his silence carrying more weight than any words he could have spoken.

The bond between them stretched tight, an invisible chain that neither of them could break.

The silence in the crypt deepened, and for the first time since her transformation, she realized what she had become. What they both had become.

Bound together in the darkness, neither of them truly alive, yet neither willing to let go.

The sun had long dipped below the horizon, casting Piltover’s streets in hues of deep purple and indigo. The city of progress was a labyrinth of alleys, iron-clad buildings, and shadowed corners. There was a small part of the city, though, where the light never quite reached—a forgotten place where the dust of old memories clung to the cracked walls.

Violet’s fists were clenched as she stood at the edge of the street, glaring at the small figure before her. “No,” she said firmly, her voice calm but dripping with a tension that spoke volumes. “I told you not to go to that part of town. It’s dangerous.”

You rolled your eyes, not at all intimidated by the older sibling’s towering presence. “Oh, please. I can handle myself.” You crossed your arms, a defiant smirk on your face. “I don’t need your protection.”

Vi’s jaw tightened. The bruises on her knuckles from a recent sparring session barely faded, but it didn’t stop her from clenching her hands. She could feel the familiar surge of protective anger rising within her. “You don’t understand, kid. There are people out there who don’t care about who you are, what you’ve done. You’re not invincible, no matter how much you think you are.”

“I’m not like you, Vi,” You shot back, your voice more cutting than usual. “I don’t want to be like you. I want to be my own person, not some shadow of you.”

Vi winced, the words stinging more than they should’ve. She never wanted you to feel that way. But there was always something about you, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Something that drew you away from the safer paths and straight into trouble.

Before she could respond, a voice cut through the air, sharp and trembling with an intensity only someone like her could manage. "Well."

Jinx stepped out of the shadows, her wild eyes gleaming in the moonlight, her smile a little too wide. The younger sibling was the only person who could see the darker side of Jinx—the one that wasn’t masked by the chaos or the explosive laughter.

Violet’s heart skipped a beat. She knew that look in Jinx’s eyes too well. It wasn’t anger. It wasn’t even concern. It was something more—something obsessive. “Kid, you know Vi’s right. You’re so... reckless. Do you like making us worry? Or do you just want to get hurt?” Jinx’s voice was honeyed, sweet, but with a bite lurking just beneath.

Your brows furrowed, but you didn’t back down. “I’m not a child. I don’t need you to—”

“Not a child? Not a child?” Jinx interrupted, her voice growing darker. Laughing, she took a step closer, her tone dangerously soft. “You think you can do this on your own, huh? You think Vi and I are just... there for decoration?” She raised an eyebrow, her smile still eerie but stretching impossibly wide. “Do you even realize what happens to people who think they don’t need us?”

Your defiance faltered for a split second, your gaze flickering from Jinx to Violet. For a moment, you looked like you might back down, but that pride flared back up like fire. “You two... You think I’m a kid who needs babysitting. But I can take care of myself. I’ll do whatever I want, whenever I want.”

Vi and Jinx exchanged a glance, the unspoken understanding between them clear. Jinx’s face twisted into an almost playful grin as she walked closer to her sibling, circling them like a predator.

“Sure, you can do whatever you want. But we’ve been watching over you since you were a little thing, and we don’t take kindly to people who don’t appreciate the protection we give,” Jinx purred, her voice a dangerous whisper that danced just past the edge of insanity. “You’re ours to protect. No one else gets to hurt you, not if we can help it.”

Vi’s expression softened, the threat of violence giving way to something more vulnerable. "Listen... we’re not trying to control you. We just... we can’t lose you. Not again."

You felt a pang in your chest, something you hadn’t expected. You hated how they always treated you like a fragile thing, like some doll that could be shattered. But deep down, you knew why they did it. You knew. They were all you had left—your only family in a city that would chew you up and spit you out if you weren’t careful.

With a heavy sigh, you turned away, your voice quieter than before. "I just... I want to be more than just your little sibling."

Jinx’s grin softened into something almost tender. “You are. You always will be. But don’t you forget... you’re ours first. And we won’t let anyone take you away from us.”

Vi nodded, her usual brashness gone, replaced with a quiet sincerity. “We’ll keep you safe, kid. Always.”

The younger sibling hesitated, looking between the two of them. The storm of emotions in your chest made your head spin, but there was one thing you knew for certain.

No matter how much you fought it, no matter how much you pushed back against their care, you were never truly alone. Not as long as they were around.

And that thought, while comforting, felt a little too heavy.

Darkness. I was enveloped by a cold, bitter darkness, an all-consuming void that defined my surroundings, leaving no room for light or hope.

Faintly, a distorted hum broke the desolate dark, like a broken radio. Chills ran up my arms as it grew louder.

And louder.

Flinching as a small sphere of light appeared in the distance, growing and glowing bigger and brighter with every second. The warm emerald glow enveloped me, a figure formed out of the light to reach out before it all went quiet.

Thunk!

My eyelids feel heavy and sticky, a dull ache on my head. The world outside the window is a blur of light and shadow, distorted by the glass and my sleepy vision. A mix of scents fills the air of the cramped car. The faint smell of stale air, fast food, and air freshener from the car's interior combines with the fresh, damp scent of outside air coming in through a vent.

Sighing softly, I stretched in the cramped backseat of the Impala, the seemingly endless drum of the tires urging me to close my eyes again. The deep, rhythmic rumble that feels like a growing heartbeat. Five more minutes wouldn’t hurt, right? My neck popped with a slight sting.

“Look who’s back from the dead.” Dean’s voice sang out, glancing in the rearview mirror. A murmur of nonsense left my mouth as I sluggishly took my seatbelt off. Back from.. The dead? Feeling empty and cold, I looked out the window. Shadows from the branches of trees seemed to lurch out at the speeding car. Piercing and impossibly fast.

A cold, crawling sensation went down my spine, like an insect walking on my skin. Lying flat in the seat now, I huffed and threw a discarded jacket over myself.

“And there they go..” Sam chuckled lowly before shuffling his flannel off and throwing it at me, covering my face from the passing shadows.

“Just two more hours till we get to the motel. If you guys needa to stop now's the time to speak, because once we hit the interstate we ain't stopping.” Dean chuckled. Sam shook his head as Dean glanced back. If the music were any louder, the brothers would've missed the raspy “no” I let out. My eyes drifted shut again as that familiar broken radio hummed its way into my ears. 

Low and faint, waiting.