Content Warning: Violence, Psychological Trauma, Bullying, Mention of Domestic Abuse.

Twelve years earlier,

It was a gray afternoon at school. Leonard was hurrying up the stairs to the rooftop, his heart pounding for reasons he understood all too well. His classmates had told him Vincent was up there —and indeed, he was, standing at the edge of the railing, with head lowered. 

His face was bruised, his hands bloodied, a thin line of blood on his lips, and countless marks across his body.

“Vincent!” Leonard shouted. “Vin!”

The boy looked up. He was eighteen, just like Leonard at the time. Blonde, pale, taller than his friend, with black eyes that no longer sparkled.

“I'm fine,” he replied hoarsely. “I always am, Leo.”

They always shortened each other's names, a sign of affection and friendship.

Leo rushed toward him. “W-what happened to your face?!”

Vincent shrugged. These injuries were nothing new to him.

“I made the decision last night. I ran away from home. You know... my old man beats me until I pass out. And my mother… pff. She's too drunk to notice whether I still live with them or not.”

Leonard clenched his jaw, frustrated.

“Vin…”

“I slept in a classroom, but this morning, the same idiots followed me. This time, there were three of them. Cowards, can’t fight one-on-one, huh? They didn’t even let me reach the nurse’s office.”

“I didn’t see you this morning. I got worried,” Leonard said.

“I've been here all morning,” Vincent cleared his throat and continued. “The principal called my parents... but they weren’t home, as usual.”

Leonard looked down. He felt uncomfortable —this wasn’t new, and no one ever did anything.

“You can come to my place; I’ll talk to my parents. They’ll help you, I promise, Vin.”

Vincent looked at him with a bitter smile.

“And for what?! So they can see the helpless little boy who can’t defend himself when he’s getting beat up in the hallways?”

Leonard took a step back.

“That’s not what I…”

“I don’t need your pity, Leo. I need not feel useless!”

And in the middle of that desperate conversation, a rumble. A deep, deafening hum that seemed to rise from several kilometers away, echoing between the buildings. Both boys looked up. Black clouds were beginning to gather —clouds they both recognized.

“No! It’s going to rain…” Leonard murmured. “We have to get to the shelter! If we get wet…”

“I know!” Vincent snapped. “I know what happens if it touches us. We become them. The Rainbanes. It’s been like this for four years, and it’ll keep happening because no one knows what to do. People pretend everything’s normal. Some of the infected try to live like humans, but they know —it’s only a matter of time before they kill their families… and… and…”

Leonard frowned, trying to understand what his friend meant.

“W-what are you… saying?”

Vincent grabbed his jacket. His fingers trembled, his voice cracking as he tried to reveal something disturbingly honest.

“And… what happens after, Leo? I can protect myself from the rain, but not from my parents’ hatred. Or the beatings. Or the laughter in the hallways. What’s the point of living like this?!”

He began to cry. Tears gushed, falling freely between his bloodstained fingers.

“You know,… maybe it’d be better if I became one of them. At least I’d stop feeling…” he paused, swallowing hard, searching Leonard’s eyes for an answer. “Is that the only thing that will make the pain stop? Nobody helps me. NOT EVEN YOU!” obviously, he had lied about that last part, but it was easier to lay the blame on someone else.

And then, in a moment impulsive and utterly inconsistent with his despair, Vincent squeezed his eyes shut as tightly as he could and pressed a brief kiss to Leonard’s cheek. Perhaps it was a cry of agony. Or perhaps a way of saying goodbye. An innocent yet heartbreaking gesture.

Vincent stepped away from him a little, his eyes on Leonard's blushing face, waiting to speak, to let it all out —but all he could do was keep crying. 

**

Leonard snapped back to his adult self —pulled from memory to the now— and opened his eyes, focused. This wasn't the time to get distracted. 

The Rainbane from outside unleashed it's fury with a supernatural roar that shook the cabin, it was losing control. 

“BLAAAAAAAGGHHH!”

“I didn’t help Vin. I wasn’t enough. And now… I’m still not,” Leonard thought as he raised his weapon, cautiously peering through a crack in the boarded window.

“Come on,” he whispered in a firm, gravelly voice. “I’m right here.”

Because deep down, the man still believed there was something worth fighting for —even if that something was no longer by his side.