No Good Left to Give

"No Good Left to Give" is a [SEASON NUMBER] thread written on [IRL DATE].
==Summary==
[Write a summary of the thread's events here, including spoilers and important plot details. Check the Order of Threads to see if the thread you are placing already has a summary, to make less work for yourself.]
==Full Text==
He stood in front of his door for minutes on end, afraid to enter. The cold numbing his body was all he felt he deserved, along with each step back home that enunciated the pressure on his face. Being able to only see out of one eye while the other swelled was the only feeling he had.
He braced his weight with his hands against the door, leaning heavily into it and allowing his antlers fall to rest on it. He knew Milae would be home, and he couldn’t think of any words to explain the situation he was in. He had to tell him everything, and the last thing he wanted was to have a repeat of his encounter with Vox, no matter how warranted the reaction had been.
He lightly pushed on the door, trying to keep the noise to a minimum. Maybe he could just sneak to bed and deal with it in the morning.
foresight-botgd
“Dario?”
Milae’s ears perked up, and he looked over from in front of the fireplace. His legs were folded into a floor cushion stuffed with straw that the two of them had fashioned together–chairs had become an absolute hassle in the household between both of their half-breed joints. In his lap was a sort of circular loom, a mental break from the toil of working in requisitions for the Rebellion. His penance for his crime, as explained to him a short time ago, when he was told he was being released. For now, he would be able to stay home so long as he contributed efforts towards mobilizing Haligan. It was exhausting, but rewarding.
“I’m glad you are home, I was beginning to worry that–”
He stopped dead when he got to his hooves. The door swung shut behind Dario, blocking out the last of the evening light, and allowing Milae to properly see Dario’s face…which was far more wounded than it should have been.
His old scars flexed as he clenched his hooves into fists. The small goat immediately stalked over to Dario, his presence enlarging in the fit of his anger towards the person responsible. “What in the name of Yggdrasil’s nine branches happened?” He tugged on Dario’s shirt, making him lean over so that Milae could inspect the bruising. “Who did this? Who dared–”
dario-the-deer
The pull from Milae to meet his stature was probably easier than the goat had anticipated; Dario gave no resistance to it. There wasn’t any point in fighting it.
“It’s… it’s really nothing, Milae. I can’t say this wasn’t earned.” Dario wouldn’t look him in the eyes as he spoke. His vision was intentionally pointed away from him, in hopes that it would convince Milae not to pry any further, though Dario knew that the conversation would have to happen eventually. “It’s probably not even that bad.”
foresight-botgd
“Earned?”
The hairs down Milae’s spine were still sticking up in a stiff bristle, but he could already tell something was very wrong and that he was making it worse. He forced himself to take an impatient, but slow breath, and gently cupped Dario’s face, turning it towards him so that he could see his bruise better in the firelight. “Sit down,” he said tersely, giving him a nudge towards the hearth. “You’re freezing. Work on healing yourself, if you can. I will go make a snowpack, and then food should be ready by then.” There was a hearty smell drifting from the large pot hanging over the coals, and the steam coming from within billowed as Milae crossed the room to retrieve his thick winter cloak and hang it over his shoulders.
dario-the-deer
Dario slumped in a heap of dead weight in front of the fire, unable to shake the image of Vox’s rage. He knew it would bother Milae indefinitely until he told him what had happened.
“Okay. We… we can talk after you come back. It’s a lot.”
The warmth felt wrong to him. The compassion that Milae unconditionally showed was almost painful for the stag; he wasn’t sure what his partner knew of his capture and sudden epiphany, but he did know that there were plenty of things that Milae would never tell him. It was probably easier that way. Even now, it wouldn’t matter what the goat knew, or didn’t know. He wasn’t going to be leaving that way again.
foresight-botgd
The cold doused Milae like an ice bath, and he knelt down just outside of the borders of Dario’s garden, scooping snow into a small bag made of treated leather inside of a larger linen bag. It dawned on him that the snow shouldn’t be melted all the way out to the footpath leading to the house, and he squinted at the ground, noting how there was still ice and moisture. But it had melted and re-frozen, in a very large aura around a certain spot. It was reminiscent of a steady, heated fire.
Milae looked the other way, down the hill towards the rest of Haligan, which was draped in dark blue twilight. Warden.
Seidkonur? The demon instantly replied at his hail, sounded surprised.
I told you to stop calling me that. You came by the house? Was something going on?
She mused for only a millisecond before recalling. Dixie, Chief Grey’s pet arms dealer. He stopped by to deliver a map, with Rhenco’s location on it. He wanted further justice enacted on him. I dissuaded him. Besides that…
Did he hurt Dario?
No, of course not. Nala sharpened at the question. Milae briefly and silently filled her in, and she growled, acknowledging his stream of information. What happened?
I will talk to him.
May Hel have mercy on the perpetrator.
Milae stood, tying the bag shut with a twist and re-entering the house, kneeling in front of Dario and carefully pressing it up against his cheekbone. “Hold it there,” he said softly. “Are you not up to healing? Should I fetch Verdandi?”
dario-the-deer
The line of questioning was well-intentioned, and yet it still stressed Dario out with each word from the goat. His head was pounding, now compounded with the new cold sensation on the left side of his face. It was too much.
“No- please, no I’m fine, Milae. It’s not that I’m not up to healing, it’s-”
He cradled his face in his right hand, hoping to stop any sort of emotional expressions from being obvious to Milae, but even he knew there was nothing he could keep away from him. At the very least, he tried to mask any tears with a somewhat strong voice, and even that was falling short.
“I can’t, is the issue. I- I should never have. I made everything so awful for everyone around me. This is all my fault.” It wasn’t often that his trembling forced him to stop speaking, but it was becoming violent to the point of hyperventilation. He couldn’t stop replaying everything in his mind. Sylar, the chains, the axe, Vox…
foresight-botgd
“Shh, it’s okay. I’m sorry.” Alright, there is a problem and I need to stop trying to fix it. The thought was extremely forced and alien for him but he’d been practicing it for a while now. He knew it was what Dario needed. He touched his furry forehead to Dario’s, rubbing his back as he did so, and stood after making sure his partner would keep the snow to his face. “Take a minute to breathe. Then we’ll eat, and I’ll put tea on. Yes?”
dario-the-deer
Even in the worst moments, the gentle touch and presence of Milae was enough to soothe the deer back from a panic.
“Yeah… yeah, no, okay.” He caught his breath and exhaled deeply. Food would help, if at least a little bit. “I just don’t know what to do. I feel like I’ve ruined everything… with Vox, with the Arnasons, with my own family…”
He stopped, not wanting to overdo it again.
“I’m sorry. I know I’m not explaining anything.”
foresight-botgd
The ladle splashed and made a viscous noise as Milae poured Dario a large helping of the stew he’d been simmering. He pushed it into Dario’s lap along with a spoon, and then sat down before him, crossing his hocks under him. “Of all the people to apologize to for not explaining,” he said, very lightly teasing. “I have to say, I do not know where this is coming from, at least not now. The Arnasons are making peace…”
The warmth of the bowl was the only bit of the stew Dario could handle. The idea of eating, especially right now, turned his stomach. Hearing that name again so soon felt like a knife in his side.
“The Arnasons… I suppose that’s good- no, Milae, I can’t do this.”
He placed the bowl to the side in a sudden emergence of conviction. I’ve been keeping this to myself for too long now. Time to stop lying to everyone I love.
“It was Vox that hit me, Milae, and he had every right to do so. I fucked up his entire life out of selfish intentions… and I have to live with that now. He hates me, and I don’t think he will be forgiving me any time soon, if ever.”
He felt the trembling return to his hands, but made it a point to focus on his words to prevent it from spreading to the rest of him.
“I know why I haven’t aged. I’ve known for such a long time. I can’t keep this from you anymore.”
foresight-botgd
If it wasn’t for knowing his powers were truly gone, Milae could’ve sworn he experienced the same falling sensation that he usually felt when traveling. It was rather like getting hit by a saucepan. He blinked like a stunned rabbit for a few moments, processing Dario’s words. It was quick, as his mind usually was, but by no means fun. His hands twitched upwards in reflex and he forced them back down to his knees. The goat didn’t even know where to start.
“That’s…well…” Milae took a breath, finally getting his thoughts in order. “This doesn’t seem to be something we celebrate, as we once thought.” He gingerly took Dario’s hands, trying to give him the strength to keep talking. “What happened, ástin mín? Do you want to tell me?”
dario-the-deer
I have to tell you.
“I don’t really know where to begin… but you know about that healing incantation. I don’t know if I ever told you about my dad…”
The following moments were a deep explanation of the stag’s lessons with his father, and his understanding of magick debt. His head remained bowed and unable to face the partner he was confiding in. The shame crept up slowly the further the story progressed, weighing the deer further onto the floor.
“…so that’s what I tried to do. At the last second, I thought I could save us both, but I didn’t. I had no clear memory of that day, beyond that it had happened, so I didn’t put it all together until… until Sylar.”
He gently looked up to Milae with wet eyes, trying to give his partner the respect he was due. His retelling continued with a graphic, detailed description of his capture and subsequent torture at the hands of the hawk half-breed. He could feel the goat tense up during the entire ordeal, and though he wanted to stop for Milae’s sake, it all had to be said. He couldn’t leave anything off the table.
“I just wanted to forget about everything that happened for the time I was trapped. I thought it easier to just keep it buried and hope that things would just work out… but the one thing I didn’t tell Vox, or you, or anyone else was that the memory of the incantation in High Central came back to me. I knew what I had done, and I knew that was the reason I wasn’t aging, but I was a fucking coward. Telling Vox meant that we wouldn’t search for my parents. We would go home, knowing that I caused my own curse… and that would still have been infinitely better than what I put Vox through, and his children and wife would have had a proper life with him. Not telling you felt like I have just… lied to you, since I’ve known you… and I can’t forgive myself for it.”
He took the goat’s hooves tightly in his hands, pulling them to his face and crying softly into them.
“I don’t want you to forgive me for my sake. I want to know what you feel, genuinely. I shouldn’t ask anything of you right now, but if I could, that’s all I could ever want.”
foresight-botgd
Milae cupped Dario’s face and allowed him the time he needed to hiccup messily into them, stroking his cheeks and making sure too many tears didn’t sting the split skin stretched across his swollen face. He took a long while to think hard about what Dario had told him. It was a lot, he knew, especially for the deer. This was the type of thing Milae would usually be confessing to Dario, not the other way around.
He finally cleared his throat, brushing the fringes of Dario’s hair aside. “Dario,” he said softly, “why did you think Vox would not have looked for them with you, even if you told him why you were immortal? If that’s what you wanted instead, why not tell him that?”
dario-the-deer
The question threw Dario off – he’d expected some sort of response to his plea, instead of a deeper analysis of his thought process.
“I… I don’t think I thought it through at all. I was scared.” He wiped his damp cheeks with his shirt, still feeling the radiating heat of the fire against his body. “We agreed when we left to find out what was happening with me, and when I figured it out, I thought it would be… selfish of me to ask for more, when he’d already given me so much, so I just… I didn’t. And I see now how awful that was for me to do to Vox. I was afraid of what he might do, so I didn’t even give him a choice.”
He’d exhausted himself even before reaching home; at this point, the deer wasn’t sure what was keeping him going.
“I don’t want to be that, and I can’t say that I’ve grown from it, because I was too much of a coward to even admit it to myself. I never told you out of fear of anyone else learning about it, and Gods know that I trust you more than anyone else.” His words were sporadically interrupted by sniffling and light coughs. I’m pathetic. I’ve made these mistakes, and I don’t want anyone to feel bad for me.
“I want to- I need to tell Liam, and Kendra… and Treepelt. I need to make this known, at the very least, because I know I can never make this right.”
My dad would be so disappointed in me.
foresight-botgd
“I can’t judge that,” Milae finally responded, quietly. “I can’t give that solace, or that condemnation. Mostly because it is not mine to give, as you said…but also because I’ve wronged both myself and others for reasons similar to yours.” He joined Dario on his seat, tangling their hooves together and resting his chin on his shoulder. “My time with the Norns was inherently selfish. I corrected what I could when I had the chance, but I feel I wasted so many years on things that were only important to me.”
Like the solution to your curse…but I can’t tell you that. That would kill you right now.
“Right now, my place is not as your jury. It is too early to do that. You are running a painful gauntlet right now, and I will leave whatever I have to say about it for the end, after amends have been made and wounds have been treated.” He gripped Dario’s hands tightly, his cloven fingers so oddly shaped when they were curled within his larger, human joints. “But I am still here for you. And I want you to think the best of the people around you, and yourself, because it may be the only way you get through this.”
dario-the-deer
Dario leaned his head over to rest on Milae’s own. The goat spoke sense into the situation; something Dario lacked greatly. His view was clouded by his own concerns of his standing in the lives of those he cared about, and didn’t focus on any sort of mending that could still be on the table. Clarity was a welcomed addition to the conversation.
“I know you are… and I just put myself into their shoes. I wouldn’t want to forgive me, and the worst of it is that I can’t even begin to blame them for that. You didn’t see Vox… he looked at me as if I were a monster. It was a look I saw a lot as a kid, growing up as a half-breed-”
The deer cut himself off. He’d had enough of an emotional throwback and didn’t want to bring anything that could further upset him into the fold. It was counterproductive, and he had to catch himself when the narrative began to shift towards him.
“I just knew that when he didn’t look back after hitting me, I’d done something that isn’t going away easily. I know that I have you, and please know how lucky I feel for that, but losing what I’ve had with Vox scares me more than you can understand.” He lightly placed some fingers against the still-swelling portion of his face, feeling dried blood fall to the ground in tiny specks. The sight pushed a lump into Dario’s throat, and he fought with his entire chest to keep from making a single sound. There was no more time for self-pity.
“I just can’t see a way that this doesn’t end with him hating me, and the rest of them in tow. The Rebellion still holds Vox in such high regard, despite his absence, and I am terrified that they will never trust me after all of this comes to light… and I still, through it all, feel like I have so much good I can do for everyone that I care about. That’s all I want.” The stag rubbed the sides of his head, trying to tend to the oncoming headache before it became a real problem. I swear, a concussion would just top this night off.
“I know that should be the least of my concerns. I’m really… really trying to not think about myself right now. I need to figure out how to make things right with Vox, and how in the Hel I’m going to tell Kendra, Treepelt, and…”
His heart sank. This was going to be the hardest thing he’d ever done.
“…and Liam.”
foresight-botgd
“Think kindly of them,” Milae repeated softly. “Their capacity to overcome is great.” He was quiet for a moment, one of his hooves tapping on the floorboards below their feet. “Just…don’t tell Liam alone.” He could feel the Warden hovering in the background, not eavesdropping, but still being watchful. He continued to rebuff her, letting him and Dario have their moment. “All you can do is confess and try to do better. I know you can.”
dario-the-deer
The goat was right – the Arnason family, though as stubborn and dysfunctional as they come, have always had a proclivity for working through even the worst of hardships.
“I have to do better. By them, and by you as well. I should never have kept this for as long as I did, and if there is any bit of you that is unhappy with me, just know that I will work to make this right.” He let his head fall back, staring up at the ceiling. “It’s already pretty late… I suppose the apology tour can commence when I’m not looking like I got hit by a dragon.”
Turning his eyes to Milae, he could still tell through impaired vision that the goat’s fur had the same glow against the flames that he always fixated on. It was a constant, of which they were few and far between.
foresight-botgd
Milae looked back just as tenderly, goat eyes shining. Beat to hell, in perfect health, antlers or no antlers, mistakes or none, Dario was perfect to him. He knew that would never change.
Something thumped against the wall near the front door. The snow slipped and crunched. “Oh, fjandinn h–”
Before Milae and Dario could react, they both felt something that at least one of them was familiar with–a dizzy rush of blood to the head. Then there was quiet. Milae’s mouth opened in shock and he looked at Dario, then at the front door. "Wha–?”
Dario stood quickly, unaware of his arm branching out to the side to protect Milae from any impending danger. He took a few small steps forward, wary of getting to close to their door – it was really late. Any visitor at all would be out of the ordinary for the goat and stag, let alone an interruption as violent as that.
“Should- should I go look?” Dario looked back to Milae, eyes wide. “You felt that too, right?”
Milae tilted his head, ears flicking back and forth. “I do not…hear anything. Are they still there?” He got to his hooves, too, and approached the door. “Is someone outside!?”
Nothing.
“What on earth…?”
The pair stood stunned at the absence. It was only seconds before that a very real presence had to be there.
“I thought it might be a bird, but… you heard that, right?” Dario stepped out into the bitter weather, walking to each side of their home. With the exception of the very real sensation he experienced, he couldn’t make any conclusions. “There’s just… nothing.”
“That was a Nornic curse.” Milae bent down in the snow and brushed his hooves over some scuffed marks. They seemed to be footprints, but they were filled with very strange ridges and markings. Their position seemed to show that the person had been crouched outside their home, with their weight on the balls of their feet–likely human. He was utterly confounded. Another seidkonur? Had the Norns found a new prize so quickly? Was it possible? “Whatever it was, it was interested in our conversation. Let’s keep an eye out in the future. They could still be on our side.”
“…or, they could, you know, not be.” Dario hunched himself down alongside Milae, observing the foreign patterns. He couldn’t trust that anyone unwilling to make themselves known had good intentions. “Regardless, I don’t think they’re around anymore. Let’s get back inside before we – well, before I freeze.” He ruffled Milae’s hair as he stood, letting the cold numb his face just a bit more before going back into the house.
“I think I can eat now. It smells amazing.”