#tyriatts

Uh. This got long… Possible RWBY V4, EP11 spoilers under the cut

When Watts returned back to Salem’s castle, everything was so quiet that for a moment he wondered if something made them evacuate. Then, of course, he dismissed the thought - Salem was nothing if not careful and, above all else, powerful.

So as he walked through the grand hallways of the castle, listening carefully for any sign of life, Watts wondered what he could have possibly missed in his short trip to Mistral.

Then he heard it.

The scream was positively bone chilling as it morphed into fits of cackling. It was a wretched sound, so broken and separate from any rightful reality that it seen a sharp shiver down Watts’ spine.

He knew that laugh.

Watts followed the sound as it bounced off the darker halls of the castle, squashing down the spike of panic as the laugh broke off, only to start against a moment later. He didn’t often venture into these parts of the castle - they were far from his workshop and definitely more for the combative members of Salem’s faction - but he followed the glow of the candles and the eerie laughter.

He saw Cinder first. She was stood just inside the doorway to the circular room, watching some sort of scene before her. She turned at the sound of his approach, meeting his gaze with wide eyes and a slack jaw.

She looked shaken.

She should have looked terrified.

“You’ll want to leave now,” Watts told her with a hard stare. Another horrific laugh shattered the air and made Cinder stiffen. She nodded then before headed off down another hall.

With her gone, Watts stepped into the room and he saw what had rattled her. Tyrian knelt on the stone floor, his wrist blades slicing through the remains of a steadily dissolving Grimm and his stinger-

Dust, his stinger was severed so sharply. It looked raw and sore, the tender flesh and sliced exoskeleton left exposed to the world. Purple venom had spilled from the appendage and trickled down the ridges of the shell. It looked terribly painful and it surely was if the way it twitched violently was anything to go by.

Tyrian seemed to be beyond notice, seemed to notice very little actually. The Grimm dissolved into one last puff of smoke and the Faunus’ wrist blades hit the stone with a sharp noise. He didn’t make another strike, just laughed and spasmed wickedly on the ground in a way that made Watts’ stomach clench.

He approached slowly, making as little noise as he could to avoid startling his partner. Tyrian was like a wild animal - Faunus traits aside - in that caution needed to be taken with him. Especially when he was… like this.

“Tyrian,” Watts spoke quietly but firmly, wanting his attention without spooking him.

Tyrian’s head snapped around, his laugh cutting off sharply as he fired a shot from his guns at Watts’ feet.

Watts froze and met the crazed look the Faunus gave him.

Tyrian seemed to recognize him then and he slowly lowered his weapon from where it was aimed at the doctor.

“It’s just me,” Watts assured him, lifting a hand to gesture around them. “Just us.”

The room was silent for a long moment before Tyrian let loose a sharp, stuttering breath. He took great lungfuls of air and pulled his limbs towards him, trying to curl in on himself.

Watts took the opportunity to move to his side, kneeling next to the hunter and brushing his fingertips against Tyrian’s shoulder. Tyrian shuddered violently under the touch but he leant towards it while he sucked in air.

“She didn’t forgive me, Wattsy. She didn’t forgive me.” Tyrian gasped out as he began rocking gently. “I’ve disappointed my Queen.”

Watts didn’t pretend to know what he meant but he felt something angry and frightful hang over him as he looked to Tyrian’s raw tail. Had she- “What happened?” he demanded.

The rocking continued, as did the shaky breaths, but his stinger slowed in its spasms when Tyrian presented it to the doctor. “My beautiful stinger, Wattsy. They ruined me. What good am I to our Goddess now?”

Not Salem then. Watts knew her particular brand of discipline was never gentle but she’d never damaged Tyrian’s tail before, if only because it was useful to her. At least it hadn’t been her.

“Come along. I need to clean up your tail,” Watts told him. The Faunus made no move to get up so Watts wound his arms through Tyrian’s and hefted him to his feet. “Just to my workshop, come on.”

Tyrian made a quiet noise in his throat but otherwise let Watts lead him out of the room and down the dark halls. It was quiet and they didn’t meet anyone on the way to Watts’ section of the castle - a good thing because Tyrian was rarely kind to people when he was particularly over the deep end like he was at the moment.

Watts pushed open the door to his room and led Tyrian through to the joined workshop where he developed various things for Salem. Up against the wall there was a metal table and it was there that he often worked on the injured members of Salem’s faction.

Tyrian crouched upon the table gingerly, looking small and helpless in a way that Watts hadn’t seen him in… Dust, it was years. Tyrian was always wearing a sadistic smile, a look of interest, wielding a deranged laugh as his primary weapon and his wrist blades second. To see him look so utterly hurt and frightened…

“Lay your stinger down,” Watts commanded, ignoring the sharp pang of feelings in favor of doing something useful. With the appendage laid out before him, he quickly set about cleaning the wound, taking care of the venom as it started dripping again and left corroded pockmarks in the table. He worked efficiently - Tyrian was a good patient after having spent so much time on his slab in the past and he barely moved as Watts treated him - and as he finished closing up the wound, he wondered idly if he could design some form of replacement stinger for his partner.

Even when Watts stopped working and moved to clean up, Tyrian didn’t stir.

“She’ll forgive you,” Watts said suddenly as he was cleaning his hands, though he was unsure of where the statement had come from - it was entirely uncertain if Salem would eventually forgive the Faunus. But he felt the need to return Tyrian to his former self - Dust, even his cackling was better than this silence.

“No,” Tyrian croaked, sounding like a broken child, and when Watts looked up he saw tears on his cheeks. “She won’t.”

“Tyrian-”

“Just leave me alone!” he shouted and his eyes flashed purple as he raised his weapons at the doctor.

Watts didn’t flinch as he wiped his hands in a rag and moved towards Tyrian. Tyrian faltered momentarily but he kept his arms up in an attempt to threaten. But Watts wasn’t afraid because Tyrian, unstable as he might seem, had never hurt him in all their years together.

“No,” Watts told him evenly, planting himself in front of the Faunus. “We will fix this. She will forgive you.”

He wasn’t certain how but they would fix it.

Tyrian’s arms quivered as Watts pushed them down gently and all of the anger seemed to drain out of him. He climbed down from the table and crowded into Watts’ space, nuzzling his face into the crook of the doctor’s neck. Watts’ arms came up and wrapped Tyrian up in a way that had almost become instinctual and Tyrian gave his skin an appreciative lick.

“She’ll forgive me,” Tyrian hummed and Watts pulled him tighter against his chest.

“She will,” he assured his partner.