//the italics is everything happening in his dream & mild gore warning && tldr is below !
Anxiety had fluttered in Pierce's chest and gripped his stomach almost all day now, from the moment he woke up to now, as he was climbing into bed. He didn't understand; he was getting better. He had been better, smiling, not worried about all that bullshit that had been haunting him for months - Clementine's littermates, Everett, even killing Riddler. The memories weren't pleasant, eof course not, but they weren't constantly wearing down on him like they used to. They were manageable, coming only on occasion while everything else remained relatively normal, and it'd been wonderful. Why now? Why, out of the blue, was he feeling so horrible? It wasn't even the memories of his lost family, he was just anxious, which wasn't really very common for the serval. Still, he knew how to deal with it, and he'd gone around his duties as he usually did.
He'd blown out the candles he had lit and turned off the lamp on his bedside table, casting his home into darkness. Antigone would be home soon, he was sure - maybe just a bit late to catching up on his duties -, or perhaps he was in Shadow Veil tonight. His father didn't really like him staying there, but it was good for him to explore, even if him being away always filled Pierce with an unexplainable dread- he just wished the little domestic would let him know when he was gonna be home and when he was gonna be there, but that wasn't something to worry about now; they'd talk later. A shaky exhale escaped the boy's lips as he moved toward his sleeping place, pressing them gently against Clem, who was already fast asleep,'s forehead before he slipped quietly into his own bed, a ball of pillows and blankets, which was basically connected to hers. He closed emerald eyes tightly as he curled up, trying not to think about what had been bothering him all day, since it was still unexplained to him, and instead focusing on his own breathing. He was fine. Everything would be okay.
Of course, it wasn't, because when he awoke, there was blood everywhere.
Ribbons of crimson streaked down Pierce's legs and cheek, warm as it stained his fur and dripped onto the soil below him. There were voices, familiar ones, he could hear them, but his vision was blurred with tears as he looked up at his attackers, teeth gritted against the stinging of the gashes. "Who- who are you?" the tom choked, placing a red paw on the clawmarks on his cheek as he spoke in an attempt to stifle the bleeding. It was all so familiar - the placement of the wounds, the voices, the colors of the people before him, but it was all hazy, and he did not like it. Clem- where was she? Where had she gone? She'd been with him when he went to sleep, that much he was sure of.
"Clementi-" his words were cut off as something pressed against his skin, at first feeling only pressure until his brain processed the information it was being given and the searing pain of the brand against his skin computed. Pierce swallowed a scream, biting down on his lower lip as the taste of blood, both from his teeth and the gash on his cheek, filled his mouth. Tears cascaded down freckled cheeks, a gasp being torn from his throat. There was laughter, and, although his limbs shook as he tried to stable himself, he raised his gaze to focus on those surrounding him, and suddenly, the identities of his attackers became very apparent. They were just standing there now, as if they had nothing else in store for him. He closed his eyes, covering his face. He just wanted them all to go away, to leave him alone.
Then there was silence. The jeering stopped, the sounds of knives and paws crunching on dirt and the forest around them going quiet. The only noise around Pierce now was his own labored breathing, tears still staining his cheeks, though he wiped them away quickly. It was okay. It was just a dream. Pain still throbbing in his shoulder - must be some sort of phantom pain -, the vice-leader reached a paw up to brush it gently, but rather than soft fur, his paw pad brushed against skin, scarred and burned into the initials of his long-gone torturer. Skin that wasn't supposed to be there, not in this body. The dappled feline jumped to his paws, which shook violently as he stumbled out of the studio, into the moonlit forest. His legs felt weird, almost as if they weren't his own, as they were far longer than they'd been in all the months he resided in his female body. Although he'd always been feminine, he perhaps appeared more masculine than before, as everyone had gotten used to his other body- his shoulders wider, paws larger, and his build all-around bigger, not to mention the fact that his birth form had had much more practice and exercise, giving it far larger muscles than his female one.
Pierce stumbled into a clearing, trying to keep fresh tears from falling, not from the pain - not the physical pain, at least. He had finally felt confident in that body, a body that wasn't broken like this one, with all of its ugly scars and horrible flaws. The other one had been a bit little, a bit feminine, but he didn't mind that. Those things were okay. Hell, he'd felt pretty. Even without getting a good look at himself yet, he knew how terrible it looked, all the bumps that lined his legs, the patches of missing fur where claws and knives had been imbedded in his skin. Not only were the scars ugly, but looking in the mirror each day had just been a reminder of all the horrors he'd faced. He'd finally escaped from that- at least, he'd thought so.
The slender vice-leader stepped toward the water, the moon reflecting off it just enough to give him a look at himself. Gazing back at him were those same old amber eyes, though they were lined with red. His cheeks were wet, a few strips of skin on them uneven and bare. Scars ran down his legs, both from the time a Renegader had broken one of them and the time his spar with Aleksei had gone wrong, and he had three horizontal lines from the exact same event. There were lacerations from a whil down his spine, too, but they were covered by fur. It was him, that was for sure. ”Shit,” the tom uttered, voice shaking slightly as he gazed down at his own face that now seemed so alien to him, so wrong. Soft, smooth features had been replaced with his previous ones, still soft around the edges but missing patches of fur where his skin stood up. He felt oddly bare, having left his scarf and satchel, at home, both being things he had always used to hide the less lovely traits he possessed. Without them, he was exposed to the whole of Blizzardclan to see - he was exposed to the cold, too -, but he could only hope no one would be around.
Pierce had read about trauma anniversaries a while ago. They were odd, something he'd never really considered, though perhaps he should have. After all, he'd been through quite a lot of traumatic events, ones that, although they happened long ago, probably should have crossed his mind when skimming through the old book. It was a theory that the same day, one year after a traumatic event, one’s preexistent anxiety, stress, or flashbacks would become worse. It was pretty much the only explanation for what had happened to him. Of course, figuring out what had caused this was the least of Pierce’s worries- he had to calm himself down before he headed back to see Clem. God, Clem. Would she be afraid of the new traits her father possessed? The differences were probably pretty small to a stranger, but seeing him in a different body, however similar, might scare her. He didn’t want to think abouut it.
//asdfadgshuji this is shitty bUT in case u didn't want to read all of that
tldr; it's the anniversary of pierce's second capture in the cartel, one of the most traumatic ones for him, and he is reliving the torture + other traumas he's experienced in a dream. when he awakes, he assumes he was just dreaming, but when he instinctively reaches for one of the biggest wounds he received in the dream, he feels an old scar and freaks the hecc out, realizing he shifted back into his male body in his sleep, and runs out to a lake near camp to look @ his reflection bc he's stupid and forgot he owns a mirror
there's no need to reply to this ! ik it's hard to respond to these threads but i just wanted to make his return to his old body official