Jay counted them, wishing they were not real.
More hands than the other side.
By one.
A silence fell over him. Not the fighting, his body was still pulling at the chains, still burning, still running through every approach it knew. But deeper than that, a quiet settled in, the kind that comes when there's nothing left to do but accept what's happening. He looked at his son standing alone in the centre of an infinite court, dried tear tracks on his face and Bonk's blood on his knees, and felt his soul crack.
He needed Luv closer. If he could get even the tips of his fingers on him, he could reach the blocks he'd placed on his son's powers month ago and deactivate them. He could then steal his powers into himself. He would deal with the morality of taking a child's abilities without consent later. Right now he just needed Luv to move three steps.
"Luv," he said, keeping his voice as level as he could manage. "Come here. Just come to me."
Luv looked at him.
And for the first time in his four-month life, he didn't follow his father's instructions. His first rebellion, even if it hurt them both.
"I shouldn't have asked Mom to save me," he said.
The words were barely a sound.
But in a room with perfect acoustics and beings capable of hearing atoms, they landed everywhere.
Jay went still. "What? No. Fuc...Luv, that's not- Christ, just come here, okay? Just-"
Luv's voice had gone calm and resigned, too calm for any five-year-old to know. "If I'd stayed quiet in that grey place. If I hadn't cried out and kept to myself, Mom wouldn't have come to save me. And then you wouldn't have to be like this." He looked at the chains digging into the flesh and the blood drying under his father's eyes. "You wouldn't be like this because of me."
The gallery, which had been noise and argument and ancient agendas, was completely silent now.
Several of the beings present had existed since before the concept of time had anything to mark. They had watched entire civilizations run their course from first fire to last breath. A five-year-old child reasoning himself out of existence to spare his family was not something any framework they possessed had been built to process.
A few of them at least looked away.
Jay pulled against the chains. He needed to reach his son because Luv, a five-year-old child, had just concluded that his own survival was a mistake, and every instinct Jay possessed was screaming that he needed to console his child right now.
"Luv." His voice came out very level because he knew if it broke Luv would hear it and it would make this worse. "Son! Look at me. Right now."
Luv slowly looked at him.
"Asking for help is not the problem," Jay said. "Asking for help is never the problem. None of this is your fault. You are my son, I love you more than my own goddamn life and none of this, none of it is your fault. Do you understand me? None of it. Not one fucking second of it."
Luv didn't answer. He'd gone still, like a child who has heard something they want to believe but can't quite trust yet.
The Queen of Nevers leaned toward Eternity and said something low and urgent, "Love, you have to save Jay and little Luv. That's what you promised him, didn't you?" Eternity turned toward her and formed a closed fist out of frustration, "Not now. Now's not the right time".
The Queen of Nevers looked like she had more to say, but seeing Eternity's frustration stopped her in her tracks.
The Living Tribunal settled back into his delivery.
"The vote stands eight to seven. Luv has been found guilty of existence. Since the Outsider is protected by The One Above All's mark, this court hereby moves to remove him and his mother from exis-"
"This ruling is unjust."
The voice came from the platform's edge.
Boots on stone. Quick, purposeful steps from someone who had already decided what they were going to do.
A figure stepped up onto the platform.
Black jeans. Black tank top. The button-down jacket worn open. Long-barreled Colt hanging easy on one shoulder.
Then the gallery saw the rest.
Wide-brimmed hat tilted at the angle it always sat. An ankh necklace resting at her collarbone, and fitted into the loop of it like it had been made for exactly that setting, the Death Stone caught the light and threw it back at all of them.
Neena Thurman scanned the room in one sweep. Her mouth had already started composing sentences that would have adequately communicated her assessment of this court and every being present who had voted the way they had.
Then her eyes found Jay.
He was wrapped in a cocoon of golden chains, half compressed, his eyes red with burst vessels from the strain of what he'd been attempting. She could read the exhaustion in his jaw the way she'd learned to read it over years, the look he got when he'd pushed well past reasonable and had no intention of stopping.
Her heart, which had been hammering since the moment she understood where she was and what was happening, went somewhere worse.
Then she found Luv.
Her son was standing next to Bonk. Poor Dino was mortally injured in trying to save his friend.
She then studied Luv and her heart stopped from dread as she saw the face he was making. She knew that face the way she knew her own hands.
The brightness was gone. The joy, the wonder, even the fear and angst, every emotion a child could face was gone and what remained were empty eyes staring at her in disbelief.
Neena dropped off the platform and walked toward them. Golden chains descended to meet her, the same restraints that had taken Jay, snapping toward her wrists and ankles with the full authority of the Tribunal's power behind them.
She noticed them for a moment and just swatted them out of the air.
The gallery gasped. Old certainties crumbled. The Living Tribunal's three faces shifted a fraction. Oblivion went still, realizing their plans had failed and now they'd have to start from scratch.
Neena walked to Luv and put her arms around him. Felt him relax against her, just a little. That unwinding that only happened when both his parents were in the room. She held on and didn't let go.
"Mom, I'm sorry, if…" he said, very quietly, against her shoulder. Just that. Just the word.
"Shh, I've got you," she said. "I've got you, baby."
She held him for a moment. Then she crouched next to Bonk.
The small dinosaur's breathing was shallow, too slow. His scales had gone grey at the edges, that grey that meant blood loss, shock, vital damage. She'd seen it before. She knew what it looked like when something was dying.
She put her hand on Bonk's side, just above where his heart would be.
The Death Stone pulsed once as the ankh at her throat grew warm.
Bonk's eyes opened. He made a small questioning sound at her, like a creature who had been somewhere far away and wasn't entirely sure how it got back.
"You're okay," she said quietly. "You're going to be okay."
Luv's eyes went wide. "Bonk? Bonk, you're--"
The small dinosaur turned his head toward Luv and chirped, recognizing someone he loved.
Luv made a sound that was half laugh, half sob, and buried his face in Bonk's neck.
She held him for a moment, and if her eyes were bright, none of the assembled cosmic entities made the mistake of commenting on it.
"Look who finally joined us." Oblivion's smoothness had returned. "Saved us the trouble of finding you. We were going to deal with you anyway."
"Dom." Jay's voice was rough at the edges. "Please. Take him and run. You need to get him out of here right now. Please, Dom, just…"
Neena raised the Colt.
Purple light ran along the barrel and stock in lines that pulsed at irregular rhythms. The shot she fired didn't go toward Oblivion or the Tribunal or anyone who had voted against her son. It went into the chains wrapped around Jay. The golden links suddenly unwound, peeling back and dissolving. Where the energy touched Jay, it didn't damage him. Instead, it undid the damage already done. She watched the colour come back into his face, the burst vessels in his eyes clear and the exhaustion from burning himself out reverse itself until he looked like himself again.
He stared at her.
She let the corner of her mouth do what it did when she needed him to understand that she was here now and things were going to be alright. That she'd burn this entire fucking dimension down before she let anyone touch their son.
Jay's throat worked. "Dom—"
Then she turned to The Living Tribunal.
"This ruling is unjust."
The murmur that followed was shock. In the Dimension of Manifestations, in the court of the Living Tribunal, that phrase did not get spoken. It wasn't just controversial. It simply wasn't a phrase that existed in this context.
The Living Tribunal regarded her. "On what grounds do you accuse me of such?"
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