Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Rune is getting angry and freaked out that shit is going missing- the first drawing Corbie ever made for him, a photo of him and the Tower, his mother’s cameo, his wedding ring- and no one seems to know what the fuck he’s talking about. He gets into a shouting match with Addam and Brand about it. “I don’t know what the fuck you two are doing but it’s not fucking funny- stop pretending you don’t know what I’m talking about! My mother’s cameo sigil! My godsdamned wedding ring! ”  

The next morning, he goes to Addam to apologize for shouting, and Addam apologizes too. Rune says, “Now I need to find Brand and say sorry to him too. He’s not gonna let me off the hook so easily though-“ Addam is giving him this look of worried concern so Rune is like, “Oh for fucks sake- what now?”

Addam says, “Who… is Brand?”

“That’s not funny,” Rune snaps. “Pretending you don’t know about my sigil is one thing but don’t fucking joke about my Companion like that.”

“Rune,” Addam says, slowly, “you don’t have a Companion.”

He goes into an absolute meltdown - panic attack is not the word for what he’s experiencing. He’s equal parts terrified and furious and confused, and his aspect billows forth like the aftermath of a spark to gasoline. 

He doesn’t know how long it is before he’s cognizant of his surroundings again, but Addam is speaking frantically to a harried looking Ciaran- when did he get here? - about how Rune had been saying things that didn’t make sense and now this . 

Ciaran takes a look in Rune’s mind, with his permission, and when he pulls back to look Rune in the eye, Rune says “Ciaran, you gotta believe me, something’s happened to Brand!”

“Rune,” Ciaran starts, with that infuriating gentle caution of someone approaching an injured wild animal, “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

“Brand is real! I can’t fucking believe this - he’s real and he’s my Companion, and now he’s gone!”

“I believe that you believe that. But Rune, sunshine, there’s no evidence of a Companion bond in your mind, ever. There’s only these memories, and we both know those can be fabricated.”

Rune flinches back. "No. No - I would know if that much of my life was a lie," he hisses. How could Ciaran, of all people, not know?! 

"Rune-" 

"No," he says again, laughter like hysteria bubbling up in him - no's in triplicate like a vow. "This isn't happening - I'm not losing that much of my life." 

"Hero, please stop this-" Addam pleads softly and Rune turns to him. 

"Tell me it doesn't feel wrong - tell me there's not a tiny part of your heart that feels something missing, something that should be there. You know I'm not making this up, you know me, Addam." 

Addam hesitates and that hurts, too - how could he, when he had once told Rune he couldn't live without Brand too?

The rush of emotion that floods Rune is so strong that it nearly staggers him, and he finds himself leaning against the nearest wall and clutching his chest like his heart is about to tear its way out of his ribcage. No Brand, he thinks, and it feels so foreign, so wrong. Less like the ripping off of a band-aid than the complete removal of a limb - because that’s what Brand is, a fully living, breathing, real extension of himself. 

Despite his mind threatening to shut down and his thoughts running in useless circles, he takes as steadying of a breath as he can. It’s shaky and far more shallow than he needs, but it’s enough to give him some stability so he can form the dregs of a plan. It was one thing when it was small stuff disappearing - things that could have been practical jokes. But this? This is too far, and he’s hard-pressed to believe that anyone who truly knows him would feel it okay to play such a prank on him.

Naturally, the first part of his plan involves reaching out to the Tower - someone who he trusts deeply. Addam’s hesitant about the impromptu trip to the Pac Bell, clearly still under the impression Rune’s having some sort of mental break, but doesn’t stop him. Rune’s frantic request to meet works more magic than any of his official attempts ever have, and in little time he’s riding the elevator with Mayan and Addam up to the Tower’s offices.

“Brand’s gone,” Rune says immediately upon entering, entirely skipping over any greetings. The Tower stands near a large window at the end of the hallway, silk pajamas lit in the soft morning light. He turns to meet Rune’s eyes, one brow quirking in interest. Rune doesn’t wait for any encouragement, instead immediately pressing forward: “A lot of things have gone missing lately and that’s, well, it’s weird but I just thought everyone was having a laugh at me. But then today, I woke up and wanted to find Brand but he’s gone, and no one remembers him.” He swallows thickly, then pleads, “Please, please tell me that you remember him.”

“Yes, of course I remember Brand.” 

The answer is everything. Rune finds his shoulder against a wall, again, and heaves a sigh of relief. “Thank gods,” he murmurs, and the world is a little less wrong.

“You always spoke about him as a child,” the Tower continues, and Rune finds his gaze snapping back to the man as speaks, stomach rapidly sinking. “But I had rather thought you let go of your imaginary friend before your age of majority.”

Lord Tower says those words, seemingly designed to be the cruelest possible, and Rune reels like he’s been slapped. He stands there for a second and then goes, “No. I’m not playing these fucking games.” He grabs the Tower by the arm and pulls him into his office, slams the door, and seals it with a privacy cantrip, cutting off Addam’s cry of protest.

He turns and looks at the Tower directly in the eyes. “I need you to listen to me, and listen good. I have never once in my entire life played a joke on you or lied to you or come to you with anything frivolous. You have to know that I hold you in the highest respect, both as an Arcana, and as family. We’ve been through too much together for our history not to mean something. So I am asking you, Anton, to listen to me, to hear me fully out, and for the sake of this conversation, assume that I am telling the truth. Can you do that for me?”

The grip Rune has on his arm, the aspect burning rings around his eyes seals it for Anton. Despite a tug of something on his mind that tells him to dismiss this childishness, he nods. "Very well - tell me everything."

Rune nods and it's not his rage but his relief that spurs the next thing Anton does into action. 

"Rune, look at me-" he says, covering his foster son's hand with his own. "I will listen to you and I will keep an open mind for the truth - I swear it and I swear it and I swear it," he says, hoping if there's something hurting his boy's mind, that his own vow will be able to keep it at bay.

After Rune lays out the whole awful mess, only interrupted by questions from the Tower, Rune trails off and stares at his hands feeling blankly empty. 

The Tower sits back in the plush wingback chair and sighs. “What you’ve told me does not match up with my own memories, but I’m sure you’ve ascertained that already. I don’t know of any magic or creature that can do what you’ve described but… I have seen more outrageous things happen before my very eyes.”

Rune’s head snaps up. “So you believe me?

“To be honest, Rune, I’m not sure. I don’t believe you’re lying or playing games or are simply mad, and I think that this deserves our most thorough investigation. Either someone has done a magnificent job implanting false memories - for which they will pay - or we have a Companion to rescue.”

Despite knowing the truth, knowing what Brand did, what happened after, he asks, "When Dalton - when he-"

"Amelia.  She stepped in. You've been close with her since." Except Rune doesn't remember that.  With a soft sigh, the Tower adds, "You said he was from Boston, that you had seen the information before. You remember it, yes? We'll start there. See what Mayan can dig up."

There's another question too - one far larger, resting on the tip of his tongue. One that he's loathe to ask, because he hates acknowledging it as a major part of his youth. But if there was no Brand in this... whatever this is - no Companion, no, no... no bond to break a geas, then how the fuck did he get out of that carriage house? 

...because Sun Estate still fell, right? 

God, my head aches, Rune thinks, massaging his nose in a gesture so Brand-like that it only increases his desperation. Without Brand, what is his life? Not only in the abstract, but in the physical? Brand has rescued him, time and time again. He's kept him alive, kept him on his toes - Brand has been the one reason that Rune's survived. Without Brand, he... he...

The world wavers and tips, a weird sort of dizziness overtaking him.

"Rune?" the Tower asks in concern, striding over next to him to place a steadying hand on his shoulder. "What are you feeling?"

"Like I..." Swallowing, Rune's eyelids flutter shut as the burn of tears begins. "Like I don't even know the world anymore."

"Breathe through it," the Tower guides him gently. He waits until the ground under Rune's feet stops shifting and Rune's hands shake less. "Tell me what the big question is, the one you're hurting over." 

Rune shakes his head, a tiny thing but he speaks anyway. "How-" It rattles in his lungs like his ribcage is what all the words hit against. "How did I survive the fall?" he asks, raising his eyes up to meet Tower's - needing to know. 

It's the smallest thing - had he blinked he would have missed it, but there's a flicker of something that goes through his eyes, something that darts through causing Tower to pause before answering. "We found you - we came as soon as they let us know there was an unofficial raid - Rune, Addam carried you out of there - no, it was Mayan." He pauses. "We came for you,” he says, but it's not the words Rune latches on to. 

"You don't remember it."

"Not the details no, but it's been so long and it was so chaotic-" 

"No," Rune says with a feverish look in his eyes. "You don't remember it - there's something fighting the memory," he insists.

~oOo~

A name, birthdate, and city is enough for the Dagger Throne's network to get Rune an address and a phone number in less than fifteen minutes. The knowledge that Brand still exists is like a cold bucket of relief dumped over his head, and he plugs the number into his phone with shaking fingers.

And then he sits and stares at the green call button, which he can't seem to bring himself to press.

Because no one else remembers Brand's life here in New Atlantis, no one else remembers his life with Rune. What if Brand doesn't remember either? What if the person who picks up the phone is a stranger—or, worse, what if Rune is a stranger to him? He doesn't think he could bear it.

After a few minutes of staring, Rune asks for Addam to join him. Still in The Tower's office, he leans against his husband's chest and stares, wholly intimidated, at the phone.

"You could always try texting first, Hero," Addam offers, though uncertainty permeates his voice. "Start small. Ask if it is, indeed, Brandon."

"Text Brand?" he asks weakly, and it's not a bad idea... but it doesn't feel right. It isn't right. Texting his Companion, whom he can't feel?

No, that's not good enough. And that's all he needs to finally hit the call button. 

The ringing is loud in his ear as he waits anxiously to hear Brand's grumpy voice. It rings, and it rings, and it rings some more.

Then it clicks to voicemail - and it's not set up, it's the generic message, something Brand would never do.

Rune leaves a message anyway, something rambling and half-coherent, because he still isn't even sure if it's his Brand who will listen to it. When he's done he leans against Addam, solidly reassuring against his back, and carefully doesn't think about what could go missing next, if they don't figure this out soon.

Addam pries the phone gently from his hand—he hadn't noticed how tight he'd been gripping it—and sets it aside, taking Rune's hand in his instead.

"So," Addam says. "We will go to Boston, then." In that moment Rune has never loved anyone so much in his life.

Chapter Text

Yesterday had been fucking weird. Which is saying something, since Brand’s entire godsdamn life is weird. Never a dull moment when one is metaphysically duct taped to fucking Rune Saint John. 

Especially since he’s started insisted things Brand’s never heard of have been disappearing. 

Brand had settled in bed for the night, worried, but chalking it up to the increased stress Rune’s been under as their court grows. He’d resolved to checking in with Diana in the morning to put their heads together and come up with a solution. His arcana needed to be at his best, after all, and slowly going crazy wasn’t that.

Brand wakes at the same time he always does, but his body tenses immediately. Something’s wrong. The bed is too big, too soft. The room feels smaller than it should, even in the dark, and - is that the sound of a bloody train going by? There are no trains near enough to Sun Estate to be heard like that. 

Alarmed but retreating into his Calm Space, Brand flicks off the covers and slides out of the bed, rummaging under the pillows and then mattress for his hidden weapons. 

Nothing.

“The fuck?” he whispers, then reaches for the outline of a lamp he can see, thanks to the strange yellow light of a city penetrating his windows. Which should not happen, because he chose a room in the basement.

The chain he wraps his hand around clicks, and light floods an unfamiliar room filled with…

…

“The fuck?” he reiterates, picking up a boxed figurine of Spider-Man. Old, from the looks of it; unopened, probably a collectible. Likely worth a shitton of money. The room is filled with them, along with various posters and comic books. 

The box thumps back onto the desk and he frowns. I need to find Rune, he thinks, and then startles all over again, because- I CAN’T FUCKING FEEL RUNE!

Panic wells in his chest for a moment before he forces himself to breathe and closes his eyes. He can’t help anyone if he’s an emotional mess. Once he’s shelved his emotions, he grabs the phone sitting on the bedside table and looks at it - then promptly tosses it on the bed. No use taking it when it isn’t his. All it would do is allow someone to track him. 

He’s exiting the window in the room onto the roof about ten minutes later after changing into a pair of black sweats and a black shirt - after ensuring there were no bugs or tracking devices on them, of course. The shingles threaten to cut through his socks into the soles of his feet, but there hasn’t been any shoes in the room, so he’ll have to manage. 

Jumping onto the ground, he stares around him at the unfamiliar residential neighborhood. Dawn isn’t far off and with it goes his ability to sneak around easily. So he jogs down the sidewalk, making it several blocks before seeing a coffee shop a distance away. In a matter of minutes he’s walking inside, ignoring the murmurs and people pointing at his feet. 

The woman behind the counter looks up and says, somewhat surprised, “Oh, this is much earlier than normal. Do you want your usual, Brandon?” Her blue eyes light up when he meets her gaze, and her lashes flutter at him. 

He stares a moment, feeling deeply unsettled. “Where am I?” he demands a moment later, hands clenched at his side. He feels lost without his weapons - without his Rune , bouncing around in his mind. 

She blinks, then laughs uncertainly, motioning at the sign above her. “Um, Starbucks? Like every morning before you go to work?”

That answer only sets him on edge more, and he exhales slowly before pushing forward. “Okay. Starbucks, where?”

Now her look shifts to confusion, then concern. “What- I mean, why…”

Striding forward, he slams his hand on the counter, causing everyone near him to jump in alarm. “Tell me where. The fuck. Am I?” he growls, pointing toward the street. “What fucking city is this?”

“Boston,” she whispers, fear finally taking root in her pretty features. “You- you’re in Boston.”

“Boston,” he responds evenly. “Fuck me .” Without another word, he turns and strolls back out of the shop. 

Apparently he should’ve paid more attention to Rune, because mother fucking horsefireshit. He’s now on the list of things that have disappeared.

This time Brand pays more attention to the street names as he walks back toward the house. Every passing sign pisses him off even more because he knows them. He knows this area. Not because he’s been there, not because he’s from there. But because he, around 8 fucking years old, had researched his birth family.

This is their neighborhood.

He pauses a few blocks before the house to glance down another road. That’s where my mother and father should live, he thinks. So the house he woke up in either isn’t theirs, or they’ve moved. His mouth twitches, eyes narrowed, then he continues on.

He stops at the edge of the lawn, the sun’s creeping light showing a rather simple-looking house. Very domestic with an old, beat-up swing set in the yard. He quickly maps his way back onto the roof, then proceeds to follow it, pleased when he lands mostly-silently on the edge. 

“Whatcha doing?” comes a tired voice, young and cracking under the weight of a yawn. 

“Mother fucker ,” Brand curses, rubbing a hand over the base of his skull where he’d smacked it against the windowsill in surprise. 

Laughter sprinkles the morning air as he jerks out of the open window to glare at the face of a young boy - about Quinn’s age, if he had to guess, bearing a really, really strong resemblance to what he remembers looking like as a teen. The boy leans on the sill of his own window, head cocked to the side and blue eyes sparkling with mirth as he takes in Brand’s appearance. “You do know you can just like, leave whenever the fuck you want, right?” he teases good-naturedly. “Dad’s gonna be so annoyed when I tell him I saw Uncle Brandon on the roof again.”

As if the past hour couldn’t get even weirder, Brand’s brain about short-circuits when he hears the term ‘uncle’ come out of the kid’s mouth. He blinks, staring blankly at the teen, before sharing his head. “Nope. Not today,” he grumbles, and then slides into the room, slamming the window shut. 

The phone opens when he presses his thumb to the screen, and he frowns when he sees the background image is of him and the teen. Navigating to the photos, he swipes through it and is bombarded with pictures of his birth family. “The fuck,” he says for what feels like the millionth time. 

There’s a knock on his door and, before he can say anything, the knob turns and the teen pokes his head in. “Uh,” he begins, looking around the room in the way teens awkwardly do when uncertain what to do or say. A pause, and then he settles on: “I was only joking. About telling dad.”

Brand doesn’t answer, instead staring intently at the phone. I’ll call Rune, he decides, and flicks to the number screen. Except… his fingers don’t move because he can’t fucking remember the number.

The door shuts softly, unfamiliar clicks detailing the kid’s trek across the room until the edge of the bed dips. “Uncle Brandon?”

“Don’t call me that,” he snaps, and then sighs wearily when he sees the teen’s face crumple for the briefest of seconds before hardening into a much too familiar expression. Rubbing the bridge of his nose, he releases another sigh. “Jesus. Fuck. Sorry, but I don’t know you. I’m not your uncle. I don’t know what the fuck is going on. And I need to find Rune.”

The kid blinks once, twice, eyebrows knitting together. “Who’s Rune?” 

“Look kid, I have no idea who you are or how I got here,” Brand says honestly, a little taken aback by his own reluctance to say anything that could hurt the teen. “I’m not about to tell you anything that could make shit worse.”

Another blink, and then, “Tavis.”

“…what?”

Holding out a hand, the teen flashes a quick smile. “My name. Tavis. I had a dream like this, last night. Fucking weird, deja vu crap right now, but maybe.” 

Brand takes Tavis’ hand and shakes it. “…a dream,” he repeats warily, because if this is Ciaran fucking with him, so help him-

“Yep.” Popping the ‘p’ obnoxiously, Tavis points at the displaced SpiderMan box. “That was my dad’s. Except it was opened. And you weren’t here.” He shrugs. “It was just mom, dad, and me. But I’d heard of you. Brandon…” Swinging his gaze up to the ceiling, he pauses, lips pursed in thought. “Uh. Saint… Saint James?”

“Saint John,” Brand whispers, eyes wide. 

“That’s it!” Tavis agrees. “In Atlantis. You know, I always wanted to visit Atlantis.”

“Then today’s your lucky day.” As Tavis’ eyes widen in disbelief, Brand’s mind begins to stir with a plan.

~oOo~

The click of Tavis' staves against the pavement is an oddly reassuring sound to Brand, staving away some of the madness threatening to overtake him. Speaking with his biological brother had been far more taxing than he could have ever anticipated - Brand's able to harness his emotions, sure, but an actor? Not really his forte. Even after spending time drilling Tavis for what information about this version of himself he could get, he'd barely pulled it off - being asked several times if he was okay. 

It had, unfortunately, affirmed Brand's fear that there was some sort of spell at work to fuck with everyone's memories, because there was a full fucking story of a life he never lived in everyone else's heads. 

How Tavis had somewhat escaped that he has no fucking idea, but he'll take what help he can get. 

"Won't the school call your parents if you don't show up for class?" Brand asks. That's the last thing he needs to deal with.

"Not if you call them and say you're my dad," Tavis shoots back quickly, a devious smile curling his lips. 

"Like hell."

Tavis halts, and the expression he shoots Brand puts Brand on edge. "Did you bring your passport?" the kid asks casually, and shit .

"...no," Brand says grudgingly, realizing that he has no fucking clue where it would be kept.

"Do you have money?" Tavis continues, and Brand snorts, because of course he has fucking mo-

The wallet he'd grabbed from the nightstand was pitifully empty, barring a MA ID. He sighs angrily. "For fuck's sake." 

"Good thing I've got both," Tavis snickers, pulling two passport booklets out of his back pocket. 

Sneaky little fuck, Brand thinks, but honestly? He approves. This kid is different from what he assumes the typical human is - and he likes him. "Fine," he huffs, holding out his hand for Tavis' phone because he'd opted to leave his fake one behind. 

Two minutes later, Tavis is officially excused from school for the day, and Brand is staring at the keypad once more. 

"What?" Tavis inquires, moving next to Brand's side to glance at the phone. "Did you break it?"

"Huh? No, I didn't fucking break it," Brand replies hotly, and then wonders Geez, is this how Rune feels when I ask him things like that? "I know everything about Rune, down to his favorite fucking smell but I can't, for the life of me, remember his godsdamn phone number." Groaning, Brand locks the phone and slides it into one of Tavis' hands. "Whoever is responsible for this did their fucking job too well. I can't call him."

"So try someone else."

Brand freezes, breath caught in his throat. "What did you say?"

Tavis holds out the phone, unlocked again. "Try. Someone. Else. Can you remember someone else's number?"

"Holy shit," Brand whispers, snatching the phone away from Tavis to immediately input the first number that comes to mind. "You're a fucking genius." Pressing the call button, he puts the phone to his ear and waits anxiously as the line rings.

The amount of phone numbers Brand has memorized are, unfortunately, finite. Most are left over from a time before cell phones, when it was required to have the number either written down or firmly affixed in memory if one wanted to make a call. Those are limited to: Rune, Mayan, and a few of their old contacts that would be useless currently. There are a few newer ones that have weaseled their way in, due to various circumstances: Corrine, because of the stupidly catchy song Corbie came home singing one day that was made to help the kid remember it; Max, because he texted Brand so fucking much in the early days it's practically seared in his frontal lobe; and Addam, if only because he'd taken forever to give the man an actual name.

Naturally, the first person he tries is Mayan.

Also naturally, Mayan does not answer because when the fuck does he answer? Not when it's a fucking emergency, that's for fucking certain. 

The message he leaves is short, threatening, and so full of swear words that he cuts a glance over at his... well, his nephew, he supposes, half-expecting a shakedown of change for the swear jar. Tavis isn't even looking at him, not really; he's leaning against one crutch and swinging the other around like he's sparring with a weapon. Huh, Brand thinks, watching a moment before deciding to try Corinne. The kid has promise.

Then he shakes his head and chastises himself for thinking about turning someone he doesn't even fucking know into a future fighter. A human, at that. Not a Companion, just a human . Bad idea, that.

Corinne also doesn't answer and fuck, it's the time of morning she's probably working to get Corbie ready for school. The message he leaves her is far less confrontation, but still clipped and littered with proof that he is who he says he is. 

There's no surprise when Max doesn't answer. Without Brand there, he's probably still fucking asleep - much like he bets Addam and Rune are. 

"How long does the bus take to get there?" he asks Tavis, then decides it's better to simply google that answer. He doesn't particularly like what he sees. “Six fucking hours !?" Rolling his eyes, he grumbles under his breath. Still, it could be worse. He could be from fucking Iowa or Montana or something.

What a fucking day he has ahead of him. "Keep the ringer on," he orders Tavis. "Answer any and every phone call, or let me. I'm not about to miss the chance to portal home just because your generation hates fucking phone calls."