Locked Away/ My OoO AU

Shadow And Light

Inpu's POV

Shade and Inpu had been sitting on the porch waiting for Crystal and Artemis to get back.

It was quiet, but Inpu had enough light from the porch light so he was just reading as he usually would.

He was constantly taking a few minutes to read, then he'd glance over to the path, then to the window to Bryan's room, then back to his book, it was getting to the point he couldn't tell if he was anxious or excited.

After another 5 minutes passed, Skyler had exited the house and had brought over some of the leftovers from dinner for Inpu.

"Why are you bringing out leftovers, I said you didn't need to worry about me, I'm not hungry"

"You've barley eaten since they left, I normally wouldn't worry this much, but I know you're worried because they don't want to tell you what happened yet"

"The jackal pack normally tells me of anything important that happens with Crystal when she goes out to do something, they haven't told me a thing"

"Probably because Zeritino is still at the house, they know he still feels he's in debt to Bryan and wants to protect your kids"

"That really doesn't help my stress"

Skyler moves so they were laying on the porch with their legs resting on the steps.

"If we had to worry about the 2 of them, I would have gone with them to make sure Crystal wasn't going to get herself killed"

"But she's watching Artemis as well, she's more likely to make dumb moves to protect him"

"Artemis isn't a baby anymore, as harsh as this will sound, she knows he can hold his own a good amount, she will let him fight and she will help him if needed"

Inpu sighed and started to pick up the plate and eat some of the food Skyler brought out for him, giving Shade a piece of steak to thank him for staying by his side.

Skyler was just glancing up at the night sky, clearly glancing at a perch that Dove usually sat at every now and then.

Shortly after he finished his food, Inpu went back to what he had been doing before, until he heard a small chirp.

He noticed Skyler had been giggling a bit as they were looking at Dove's perch.

Inpu glanced over and noticed Dove was sitting on the perch, making sure her feathers were glowing as bright as they could.

They then heard a whistle and Dove quickly moved to the path and landing on Crystal's head.

Shade quickly got up and ran over to Oreo and Phoenix, clearly being nearly as stressed as Inpu.

Crystal whistled again, and all 3 jackals quickly went to the porch and sat down.

Inpu and Skyler started to walk over to them and Inpu quickly hugged his kids while Skyler stayed a good distance from where they were near the forest but made sure they could easily get to the house.

Artemis was trying to get out of Inpu's grip while Crystal was gently touching part of her bag to make sure she had her stuff.

They had a quick catch up conversation, then sent Artemis to his room so he could get some much needed sleep.

The other 3 went into the house and went to the kitchen table where Crystal took out a box the camp had made for magical artifacts.

"Alright, so I confirmed that this is the missing part of papa's soul crystal, it's going to take some time and a lot of energy, but we should be able to correctly reconnect it by sunrise" [Crystal]

"Are you sure it's the full piece, it seems smaller than I thought it would be" [Inpu]

"Well, considering it wasn't a giant chunk missing when you pulled out his soul crystal so I could look at it, this seems correct" [Crystal]

"How much energy will it cost you both and what should I do to help you guys?" [Skyler]

"Well, I'd say it would cost us a good chunk of soul energy since I barley have my power trained and the most dad can do is hold papa's soul crystal for me, so I'd say just get a good amount of food ready, plus the medications we had ready last time we thought papa was going to wake up" [Crystal]

Crystal and Inpu began going upstairs with the box while Skyler stayed downstairs trying to get stuff ready.

They stayed quiet for a few seconds, then Inpu heard Crystal speaking quietly to herself asking the gods for any assistance they would be willing to provide.

Inpu began doing the same thing, really only asking his parents for assistance, then they both stood up, and activated their soul power so they could start.

They spent hours trying to make sure it was perfect and that every piece lined up correctly as to not hurt Bryan.

The sun started to rise when they had finished, they waited a few minutes and heard the heart monitor Bryan was connected to began to change the way his heart was beating to a rhythm that showed he was waking up.

Both of them let out a sigh of relief that caused Crystal to collapse from exhaustion and Inpu began to kneel next to the bed to get a bit of extra energy.

Soon, Bryan opened his eyes and started to look around the room where his eyes quickly met Inpu's.

"Why do you seem so down, love?" [Bryan]

"I'm not down, just tired and happy to see you" [Inpu]

Inpu began to caress Bryan's cheek while Bryan slowly put his hand over Inpu's.

Bryan started to look around the room again and saw Crystal leaned up against the wall with her eyes barley open.

"Are you ok as well?" [Bryan]

"I just used more soul power then I had trained, I'll be fine in a few hours, I'm just glad you're awake" [Crystal]

They all just sat in the room for a while, Inpu was constantly giving Bryan small kisses all over to show that he was happy to have his husband.

Skyler had come in and started to work on most of the medical stuff, making sure all 3 of them were doing ok after what each of them ended up doing in the past few hours.

Eventually, they all heard the triplets up and already running downstairs to see what they could find for breakfast.

They decided that it would be good for Inpu and Skyler to head downstairs to get the day started for everyone else so Crystal could head to her room and get some actual sleep and Bryan could attempt to sleep off the fatigue despite the fact he really didn't want to go to sleep again.