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Fang didn't want to do this. He really, really didn't want to do this. But he had to. He knew he had to. It was time to attempt a return to his duties as the senshi of Fang. There was only one way to fix what had happened on his planet.

He could never fix what happened to him.

He had to go. But he would not, could not go alone (alone alone alone ALONE ALONE ALONE FOREVER AND EVER and always and ruin and graves so many graves THE H U N G E R the s t a r v i n g and the please mom don't die I need you and the flash of his Fangan mother's face as they tried to run but Chaos swallowed her)

He shook his head violently to clear it. The thoughts thundered against his skull, demanding to be acknowledged. No, to be centered, focused on unrelentingly, to try to crush him before he even started. He'd already spent far too long listening to them.

Still, he couldn't go alone. This was not something he could handle without shaking hands, feeling like the entire universe was bearing down on him, asking him why he wasn't enough.

Fang have Michel, he told himself sternly as he waited at the agreed upon meeting spot. They didn't want to draw attention to their house, after all. His heart wouldn't settle.

He didn't want to do this, but maybe it wouldn't be so bad with his Pack Leader. They'd talked it over, packed as much food and water as they could into their subspaces just so Fang had one less thing to worry about out as they went up into the stars. He'd felt terrible asking it of Michel, but he'd started to cry thinking about going up there without some kind of backup plan in case they got stuck, just like Fang himself had been for a thousand years (gnawing hunger, biting at dry bones, helpless, hopeless).

Please hurry, he thought, a prayer, hugging himself lightly. He didn't want to manage to talk himself out of this.

Fang swallowed, relaxing a little more as Michel approached. Good, good. His skin crawled with nerves and he exhaled slowly.

"Fang... not ready. But, must," he said, reaching out to take Michel's hand. He quivered a little. He could do this, he assured himself. He had Pack Leader. Michel was smart. Good. Capable.

Perfect.

He blushed at that last thought, took a deep breath, and took them—took them home.

Almost immediately, his heartrate spiked upon seeing the meadow with its tall grasses that had once been where he lived, with the forest just behind them. His grip on Michel's hand tightened and he let out a quiet whimper, folding in on himself.

Everything seemed so dark. He'd forgotten how dark it was.

Fang reminded himself to breathe. He was safe. He had Michel. Michel wouldn't let anything hurt him while he got a grip on himself. He'd lived here for a thousand years, before. He could do this.

"Fang..." He swallowed heavily. Fang can do this! I must! "Fang need to visit village. What is left."

He needed to apologize. Once the last person had died, the illness finally getting to them, he'd fled. He'd never come back to his mother's grave, either, but that felt like it would be worse.

He still had no idea what happened to his Fangan mother. She'd been taken from him, right there in front of him, as he hid from the chaos-infected people that were little more than puppets on the strings of chaos, clawing, biting—

They'd disintegrated so quickly, too. He got away, to a safe place, where the Chrysocyon tended to him, and a short distance away, the village. The sicknesses didn't catch them for a long time, at least. He'd been right in the thick of the Chaos infection, but after the initial drop of... hmm, zombification? That... that was a good Earth word for it... He thought, anyway. Once that initial strike had passed, it was just the slow decay of everything that took what was left from him.

The village would be the best place to pay his respects first. Going back to his mother's grave, and further still to where the initial infection had taken place?

He'd have to go there eventually, but he really would like to say never in a million years. Earth was rubbing off on him.

He couldn't bring himself to let go of Michel's hand, so he took a steadying breath, relaxed a little bit, and gestured through the woods to the little path he'd carved out over years and years of going through. Nothing had grown back over where he'd walked.

"Here is where we start. Fang will know close."

Fang blushed, ever so slightly, at being told Michel trusted him. That felt... really good. He felt safer, suddenly, like nothing could get to him, not with Michel by his side.

The sudden urge to kiss Michel felt like lightning through his body, but he managed to restrain himself, turning his head to the path and beginning to walk along it.

"Thank you," he said softly, as they walked along.

Not too much later, they arrived to the dilapidated village, houses built from rough-hewn wood in a large clearing in the forest. Different from the deserty meadow that he'd lived in with his Chrysocyon family.

He stopped abruptly, tension thrumming through his body as the memories, good and bad, flooded his mind.

Fang swallowed heavily, tears cropping up in his eyes and slowly beginning to fall. He missed them. He missed them all so much he could hardly breathe. He took a shaky breath, rubbed at his eyes with his free hand, and swallowed again.

"I'm sorry," he whispered to the ghosts only he could see, the memories playing out in his mind's eye—over there, where the few children had played with him in the dirt; near the main hall, where he always brought hunted meat to exchange for bread and cheese; the healing building, where they had all slowly died over the years.

"...Thank you, Michel." Fang turned to him, the hand so warm in his, grounding him to the present even with the memories overwhelming him. "Fang... go home now."

Home. Home on Earth, not home on Fang. It ached in a different way—this village had been one of his homes, after all. "Go home" but not here. Never here again.

Home was where people lived. Not just died.

He took a deep breath, squeezed Michel's hand again, and took them both back to Earth.