so do you remember when caligo got his ass handed

And it continues. The idle waiting, the storming, with hail beginning to form crystals within the atmosphere with how the general consensus was in disbelief that this could have been a fluke. The heavy, overbearing air was felt within all households, indiscriminate rage akin to a Corvus rushing through people's blood like ice, but none like the actual Corvus household.

Caligo lies in his bed. Unawoken by the sudden drop in temperature and frost biting at his ears and the tip of his toes. His body began to quiver, restlessly tossing and turning as the storm outside began to brew within his mind, his blank safe space that takes form of overgrown gardens and rose thorns. He feels things prickling down his side like needles and suddenly, just suddenly, he jolts himself awake.

And he's greeted with not only a clear, blue sky with lightning, but two women.

"Get up." the red one orders, to the dismay of the blue one. He feels compelled to argue, of course, but having only gained consciousness hindered his ability to do anything in a sober, timely manner. The red woman, who he recognizes to be Maria, seems to be particularly impatient. Her judgement in the form of a firm stabbing onto his gut with her rapier quickly flashed in his mind, and he struggles to sit up.

"Mary, we should do this--" Lorraine's words were cut off by a sharp, and, admittedly, very attractive click of Maria's tongue. Her rage did, to some, make her beautiful. In a distant, unattainable way.

"No." the stern knight says, unsheathing her sword and handing Caligo one. A fair-ish fight. "The adrenaline will jog his half-dead, maggot-infested brain." she says. Caligo barely saves himself from a piercing on his foot when Maria lunges forward. Clearly, there were no rules to be followed in this unofficial duel. It's only set to even out scores.

"Maria--" the dean attempts to speak, only to very nearly miss an aimed thrust at his throat. He gulps, keeping himself on his toes. "Maria, I--" "Silence!"

And a bone-chilling silence it was. He could only evade, mind doing so much to slug step by step against her ruthless attacks. Maria held no boundaries. "Maria-!" he gasps out, playing not just defense, but flat out running from her attacks. "Maria, listen-" he gasps. "Why are you- Why- Stop--"

"Stop?" Maria replies with an unapologetic face. Playing with Caligo's pathetic figure like a toy, making him dance. "Stop? You think you deserve that mercy, what with all the leeway we've given you, you good for nothing whore of a man?" she asks, eyes bleeding out her hatred. "You scum? You dirt? You maggot lowlife?"

Lorraine looked as though she was going to cry. She thoroughly believed that Maria had the intention to spill blood within this pristine, untouched dreamscape. This childhood arena of the three beloved. But no, no, Maria was smarter than that. She wasn't going to murder the dean in his dream. She was going to get what she'd always wanted.

So, in one swift movement, she discards of her heirloom rapier, and takes long strides towards the dean. Caligo, the unexperienced man he was, having only woken up, could only widen his eyes before he hears a faint CRRACK sound, and the noise of something falling onto soft grass.

His gums bled and cheek ached. The taste of iron was within his mouth. Maria punched him.

"How could you!?" the woman growls with increasing bloodlust. Punch, after punch, after brutal punch was delivered to the poor man's body, barely able to keep up. "My husband-- OUR husband is in need and what--!? You leave him!? You- You spit on his need!?" she questions, accentuating each word with a gasp. Caligo feels it, every hit was aching and hot and painful, and he could barely keep evading. He was barely surviving.

"H-He-- Harvey, he-" and just as Maria was about to choke herself with her tears, she was caught off guard when the scenery changed and a blooming sting arrives at her cheek.

Caligo just punched her back. Wheezing.

She did not take this kindly. She did not. Her pride as a Klein was shattered right then and there, and she feels herself bloom with wrath at the disobedience. The resistance towards her overdue anger. She takes Caligo by the collar, and slams him effortlessly down onto the grass, where he coughs and chokes on impact. His saliva travelled down the wrong pipe and he was wheezing already, before the struggle was added with Maria's weight pinning him down.

She sat on his stomach, and with a quick, painless stab-- had pierced stone just beside his head. Maria's tears dribbled and she was... she was lost. Not in hysterics, no, but the way her fists were ghostly white from how she held herself from mauling him then and there... it was obvious she was upset.

Moreso from Lorraine's quiet, but present sniffling in the distance. Fear in her eyes.

"You scumbag." Maria whispers. Caligo didn't understand. "You utter filth. We hand you over our beloved, our- Our angel, and you... You think he could do that...?" she whispers. She wanted to tear his throat out. "Our innocent, do-no-harm Harvey Gross, who couldn't kill a damn fly, would go to some semen-ridden dominatrix wanna-be and defile himself like that? You believe that our Harvey would do that?" she asks, thoroughly wondering why she couldn't just deliver divine judgement then and there.

"... I--" Caligo wheezes, throat shattered from the punches. "I b-believe-- I believe h-him." he whispers. "I want-t to." he continues without shame. Because he feels as though he did nothing wrong. He was hurt, and Maria knew it. She just felt as though he was a fool for not trusting Harvey blindly like she and Lorraine did. "I d-don't think he wou-would."

"Then why ask!?"

Caligo remained silent. He had no answer for that, in all honesty. He should have just comforted Harvey and convinced him things would be fine. But he didn't. Was it the possibility that he and Usui were becoming truly bad influences? That somehow, Harvey had gone off the deep end and finally attempted to move on once again? Who fucking knows. Definitely not the dean.

He couldn't come up with an answer. And Maria was so, so tempted to just claw his eyeballs out. He wouldn't mind, it must have hurt more when Harvey realized he'd probably lost an old friend due to some petty slander. But Lorraine, ever the angel, drags her wife out from the violence and clutches to her like the world was going to cave in. She weeps, quiet and frail, cupping Maria's cheeks and pecking her with as many kisses as she needed to calm down.

Because Lorraine had never seen Maria murderous. And Lorraine feared for Maria's wellbeing. She didn't want her beloved to fall into the depths of hellfire. Not for her, or for Harvey.

Maria soon cracks, like an egg hatching. She hiccups, a hand clutching onto Lorraine, hiding her ugly sobbing face as desperation fills her system.

"It isn't fair, dearest." she hiccups, although her words were as clear as church bells. "How h-he could be like this." she whispers. As to who Maria was referring to, Caligo wasn't sure. He wasn't even sure if he was able to get concussions within dreams. But he sits himself up, regardless, watching the huddled women with a look of foreign emotions.

"H-Hush-- Hush, my knight, it's f-fine." Lorraine says between violent, sharp breaths. "He- We said it, right?" she says, burying her face onto Maria. "He- He a-and Usui c-can protect Harvey. W-We jus- Just need to wait." she says, barely able to form one coherent sentence.

And Maria keeps silent. Caligo watches, crossing his legs.

He clears his throat. Where should he start with his defense? He feels as though he's on trial for distrust. "... I do not have any substantial proof to support the theory that Gross did not commit adultery." if it even was adultery, he thinks. They aren't even bound by vows anymore. "Neither do anyone else, Miss Maria, Miss Lorraine."

The two don't respond. They quiver together, young maidens.

The fact that his words were met with silence was disheartening at least. He sighs, feeling his fractured bones and swelling muscles and internal bleeding from Maria's hits. It's not as bad as Usui's torture, he thinks, but it was still hell to not just lie down and groan from the shock. If the shock ever registers in this rigged dream.

"I plan on confronting him."

Caligo's voice felt like a pebble onto sound waters. The ripples just keep going and going, and Maria and Lorraine don't know peace ever since. They keep quiet, eyes piercing back onto the dean's bloody and bruised body for answers. Pity, of course, existed ever so slightly. But more curiosity and confusion filled their expressions. Oh, and violence, of course, from Maria-- Violence that was only soothed by the fact that her wife held her.

"I wanted to hear it from his mouth." Caligo says, looking at the dirt caked within his hands. When did that get there? "His explanation as to what had happened. Perhaps it could bring me closure."

At the word, Maria was so very tempted to knock his teeth out. But Lorraine hushed her.

"I hadn't planned on turning against him, no." he whispers. "But my support would have meant nothing due to my-- my own circumstances." Caligo explains, lying back down on the grass. Feeling every inch of his long-awaited karma. The tearing of sinew as he breathed. "A Corvus can't defend a saint." he explains, eyes closing.

Maria wanted this to end. Maria wanted nothing more than to have Harvey here, safe in her arms. And so did Lorraine-- but in a strange, twisted turn of events, the blue wife was the voice of logic.

"We can't quite ask Shizumori for his testament. And my reputation as one who sullies the doctor should not be brought into light." he says, voice awful and raspy. "I planned to wait. That was... That was my excuse. To keep things from dev-developing." and in a way, he was ashamed for his logical cowardice. He wasn't Usui who could castrate whoever did this to Harvey. He needed time. But time was of the essence, and he had no time, not when the memory of Harvey getting stepped on was essentially getting burned into the retinas of all of Saint Dymphna.

"Please." Lorraine whispers. "Please. Just-- J-Just give h-him company." she asks. Merciful. She was in no position to be asking favors, no, it should be Caligo who needs to beg for forgiveness. But Lorraine knew that this was all out of good will, and she wanted to have faith in him. "Please." she asks once more, softened beyond belief. Her beloved needed someone, and they couldn't be there.

Caligo listens. The sky was gorgeous from down there. He wonders if this was the same sky that the three of them saw.

"We-- We just want someone t-to be there for him in--" Lorraine whimpers. She felt her professionality begin to crack and leak. She wasn't used to this, it was always Maria doing the diplomatic entrance. "In our stead." she finally finishes her sentence. And Caligo did understand the full phrase, even if it was butchered. Even if Lorraine had more to say.

He takes a deep breath and hears his fractured ribs begin to crack. The pain was lightning. It was searing, and it was sobering. He felt it as though this was reality. "I see." was all he replied with as he tries not to vomit from the sheer damage Maria had dealt him. This was only fair, he understood.

"He has- He has no-nobody." Lorraine continues to warble in palpable grief. An icy sheen. "Nobod-y but us. And w-we-- We're dead, we- we can't pro-protect him!" she says, wanting to just deny that this ever happened. But she needs to keep talking. Keep going. Make sure Caligo understands what it was he needed to do as the hours tick by and his body regains consciousness. Before he gets dragged back into the waking world.

"P-Please, Caligo." the soft, ever angelic wife pleads. To the devil, no less. Or perhaps, to the reformed man, who grew to have a human heart.

And of course, how could he refuse?

In all honesty, he should. Take it at face value, the safest way to protect himself and his family from this moment of disgrace and outcast. But would his shitty, ever-optimistic, foolishly naive set of familial morals let him? Of course not. He regrets not having cut off that leech of a trait off of him long, long ago. And so he lies there, on the soft grass of the Gross estates within his mind, thinking about if he'll remember this pain.

Caligo knew that it was a rare, if not almost impossible feat to have Harvey's steadfast wives be so broken. That there must be a reason as to why they went to him, tearing him from his preexisting pedestal, and make him battered enough to listen clearly. That sobering, searing throb that he could not tell to be either his heartbeat or theirs. It felt very, very foreign. This kinship in grieving the loss of Harvey's title. Harvey's cast away from society as a disgraced doctor. His fall from idolatry.

Of course, it was also painful to see the usually endearing man be isolated from the outside world that once had embraced him so warmly. So Caligo, in a way, understood the gravity of the situation. He couldn't find the words to let them know that the problem will be solved. Because who knew? This could last forever. This could be Harvey's life for the next few decades, doom to live under the shadow of blasphemy until he expires of old age.

Or it could be better, Lorraine hopes in her innocent, praying mind. That this will be fixed, and Harvey can live a sinfree life like he had always. That their Harvey smiles once more and is proud of his standing. He could show his face and be with his grandchildren and not hang his head in shame.

Caligo feels reality begin to grip him by the ankles. The sky looked odd, and he takes this as a sign that the wives' grip on him was waning. He could feel it. He could feel the ripples.

He was barely able to push himself up. Sitting once more, hunched, and hearing his ribs be shifted once more underneath his weight. His eyes meet the wives', black and brown, the colors of the earth. Deep, and warm, and all-encompassing. Nothing but love for Harvey in those eyes, he thinks. Silent demands for his participation in the saving of the doctor's pride.

Caligo doesn't say a word. Because to his and Maria's understanding, this was no longer a truce. This was an alliance. A permanent acceptance that if Caligo truly was what he considered he was to Harvey, he would fight tooth and nail for him, just as they both did. This was acknowledgement that nothing mattered more within their bonds other than Harvey.

Caligo felt the grass begin to turn into a haystack. And haystack into ocean waters. And ocean waters into cloth. He sinks into it, eyes never leaving Maria's as Lorraine buries her exhausted self into her wife's shoulder. Tired. Wanting to sleep off the next millennia.

Maria's eyes contained a flame. A threat and a promise. Destruction and downfall for betrayal, and blessing and protection for cooperation. Caligo wordlessly signed his name in blood onto the silent Himmel-bound contract, and he felt his soul be woven anew by his vow.

And Caligo wakes up. His ribs still ached. He feels stitching wounds in his soul, somewhere, and a familiar ache. He did not think the exchange would have felt like an eternity of silent, knowing glances, but he was appreciative of the lack of words exchanged. He felt understood, and he understood them.

"Dean Corvus?" Kyla knocks on the door, working double shifts due to Wendy's absence. Caligo sits up, making a noise of acknowledgement as he tries to find the key to his mental vocabulary after that knowing silence locked his words away. "The headmaster would like to see you this afternoon." she informs.

Caligo once again makes a sound of approval of the plan. He knew his brother and had a gist of what was to happen next.