Chapter Text
He twitches his finger and immediately assumes he’s in hell. He can feel his limbs this time though, a small improvement from the previous pins and needles.
Medkit takes his hand and slowly holds it above his eye, surprised at the lack of obstacles that prevented him from doing so. His chest is surprisingly able to breathe without the force of a thousand suns striking him down every time he inhales, but his ribs continue to pierce him when he does breathe.
Judging by the soft ridges under him and occasional rocking, he assumes he’s in the back seat of a vehicle. His brief gander around his surroundings confirms his suspicion as well once buildings pass through the windows and street-side lamp posts briefly light up the interior of the car.
Speaking of interiors, this one specifically held a monstrous railgun in the back, neatly positioned against the back of the driver’s seat with its tip facing down. A blade lays on top of sheets of paper that litter the car floor as the horror quickly sets in.
A Blackrock stamp flashes on the corner of each contract, messy handwriting scribbling across each page to sign off the hit. His eyes find a foreboding helmet resting on top of the driver’s head, the figure occasionally turning to speak to someone he presumes in shotgun.
This might be worse than death. Medkit scrambles to reach for his gun and realizes that it was nowhere to be found. His rustling alerts his captors who turn and reveal themselves to him.
Hyperlaser, Blackrock’s finest mercenary, one who he doesn’t doubt is collecting his bounty. They briefly looked at each other back when he was a scientist, but he doubts that was enough to show pity towards him. Katana, traitor to Lost Temple, one he only recognizes because of Broker’s incessant talks of hatred towards him. From what he understands, the feeling is mutual.
There’s words that are spoken to him, but he can neither hear nor understand them. In a panic, he goes to grab the railgun but severely overestimates his strength and falls on his face, knocking himself out.
The room he finds himself in is unknown, yet familiar.
A piano in the back plays a soft tune he doesn’t quite know the name of, but it comforts him all the same. There’s hard tiling on the floor where he lays, similar to that of his office, and there’s feeling in his limbs. Medkit slowly sits upright, cautious about everything, and comes face first with a mirror.
It reflects back a pristine image of himself, one that still had his other eye with no eyepatch covering it. His eye bag had virtually disappeared and the wounds that should have ruined his clothes showed no evidence of ever existing. He raises his right hand over the old eye but his vision does not change like how it should from binocular vision.
Huh. He’s dead, isn’t he?
Medkit looks around and finds a door behind him. There’s a sign above, but frantic scratches block out whatever used to be written.
When he opens the door, a gust of wind pushes him back, coupled with static in his ears. He comes to his senses and comes face to face with pitch black. A pit of anxiety builds inside of him, but he continues to keep staring into it. Medkit never paid much attention to the legends surrounding the edge, but something about endless reaches of nothingness was pulling him towards it. The call of the void, was it?
Somehow, he tunes out the static and considers taking a step outside, but a voice behind him echoes in the room.
“Leaving before the party ends?”
He spins back to the direction of the voice inside the room, finding a table with two seats, one of which was occupied by a certain, obnoxious figure with his light-up visor.
“Boombox.” Medkit stares at the Playgrounder. Of all the people he'd expect to see in this limbo, it was not him. Maybe a deity telling him he’s dead, or an old colleague, but not him.
Boombox takes a sip from his cup and gestures towards him. “Hey,” he nonchalantly replies. A chessboard lays on top of the table, a cup of coffee strewn on his side.
“Wanna play a round?” he asks, cup dangling off his hand. His head turns as his visor displays cheerful, staring eyes.
Medkit crosses his arms. “Where are we?”
Boombox shrugs. “How should I know?” he complains. “It’s your consciousness, Med.”
He looks to his hand and closes it a few times, worried that his suspicions had been confirmed. “…So I am dead.”
“Eh, who cares?” He shrugs again. “You’re still here, aren’t you?”
His limbo really made Boombox more annoying than usual. Medkit stands there and observes the demon, remaining unchanged. His sleeves continue to be rolled up way too high and his tie rests sloppily tied. He even catches the annoying music that somehow always radiates from him, yet it’s a stark contrast to the endless abyss that he had just come face to face with.
Boombox grows impatient from Medkit’s idling and eventually asks, “Are you going to play a round or not?”
He grumbles. “I will, calm down.”
Medkit takes the chair and identifies that the game was already a few rounds in. He sees that he had a king, queen, and rook, while Boombox had a king, queen, bishop, and some pawns. He looked like he was losing, but he was expecting to beat Boombox.
“Your move,” Boombox instructs. Medkit scans the board and eventually settles on moving the rook.
“…So, what happened?” Boombox moves his king to take his rook.
“What?” He moves his king to take the pawn.
“The incident, as you kept describing it as.” He leans his head on an arm as he moves his king.
Right, the whole reason he was here. Medkit rolls his eyes at the demon. “Shouldn’t you already know, figment of my imagination?” he tests.
He chuckles. “Eh, we have time.”
He decides to rush promoting his pawn to ignore his questions, but somehow only catches the check when Boombox announces it.
Medkit stares up in shock to meet his grin. “How did you do that?”
Boombox makes an unsure sound as he straightens out his pieces, replying, “I don’t know. Maybe you wanted to lose.” His avoidant words were eerily similar to his own non-answers of deflection.
Medkit instinctively holds his hand out to surrender, unable to believe that he slipped up so easily. With his other hand, he takes a sip of the cooled-down coffee, recognizing it as black coffee. How joyous, at least he can enjoy his coffee in the afterlife.
He’s interrupted when a conglomerate of noises captures his attention, identifying it as Boombox’s music. “Why are you giving up?”
Medkit glares at him, annoyed at the Playgrounder’s ignorance. “You beat me, of all people.”
Boombox sends another ear splitting sound wave at him, pushing him to put his hand down and take back his surrender. He straightens out and tells him, “Med, you give up way too easily.”
Medkit rolls his eyes, but with his attention on him, Boombox points to Medkit’s bishop and makes an arrow towards his check. “You could have defended yourself and kept going. Sure, maybe I put you in check, but you,” he drags his queen next to the king, “just as easily could have easily put me in mate.”
When Medkit doesn’t respond, Boombox scoots his chair up and leans towards him. “Look, Med, we all make mistakes. Sometimes we run from them,” he reaches for something beneath the table, “but sometimes we can face them head on.”
He slams down on the table with the item and makes a flexing motion as Medkit realizes the presence of a new chessboard in front of them. “After all, several games are going on at once, each with their own, flexible win condition.”
Medkit looks under the table, bewildered to find no possible place to keep the game. “Where did you get a second board—“
“Life is about playing many games.” Boombox brushes him off. “Sometimes they’re small and fun games like these,” he gestures towards o the new game, “or, sometimes, they’re large and vital like these.”
He makes a sweeping motion towards the floor. Medkit follows his gesture and realizes that the tiles on the floor were checkered. The pillars scattered around the room were aligned with him as if they were rooks, while the abyss door laid diagonal to him.
“You gotta learn which games matter in the long run,” he waves his hand around, “or something.”
Medkit looks at him. “That’s a lot of big words from you.”
He scoffs. “I had time.”
Taking a sip of the coffee, Medkit leans back in his chair as he processes his words. Games, huh? What a childish way to see the world. Unfortunately, he does see some merit in his words, and begrudgingly examines them for himself.
His relation with Blackrock could be considered a game, if you considered the win condition for him as surviving. That doesn’t feel right though, since winning for Blackrock meant keeping him wanted forever. That’s an easy loss. He supposes his deal with Lost Temple could also be a game, if winning meant full protection. He’s lost that one as well.
Would relations with people count as a game? Him versus Subspace, that’s an obvious game, but the win conditions for the two of them makes things complicated. An eye for an eye, yet one is head of robotics while the other died from said robots.
…Does it even matter anymore? Could both players simultaneously win and lose?
He doesn’t notice Boombox getting up from the table until he looms right next to him, the noise pulling him from his thoughts. “What’s got you so scrunched up right now?”
“…How should I know if it’s worth anything?” Medkit eventually settles on asking.
He gives him his personal space back and shrugs. “You don’t,” Boombox unhelpfully supplies.
“But who knows? Maybe living is enough of a win.”
Medkit looks at the cup, reflection shining back. Living, huh? He’s living off of spite, but who else? Who else was he living for?
His head suddenly starts spinning as he reaches for the table to grip at. A throbbing pain numbs his body as the room itself begins to shift, fading and blinking out of existence. The door closes.
“What’s happening?” Medkit demands.
Boombox looks up to nowhere in particular. “Ah, just on time,” he ominously says. “Wasn’t sure how long I could do that.”
“What does that even mean—“
His head strikes the hard corner of the table as he passes out.
It’s soft, is the first thing he registers.
The second thing he registers is a Hyperlaser in the room, digging through its drawers. Medkit instinctively scrambles to find his revolver, yet realizes that he wouldn’t be finding it if his suspicions were correct.
The mercenary turns around and also seems shocked to see him awake. Medkit wastes no time and reaches towards the side table and grabs a glass cup to throw with, wincing at a pulled muscle but showing no reaction on his face.
“Chill, chill!” Hyperlaser backs up and puts his hands up, surprisingly. Medkit narrows his eyes at him. He never thought he’d see The Blackrock Mercenary yielding to a traitor of all people.
“What are you doing here?” Medkit demands. His voice was hoarse from disuse, an obvious sign of time passing. How much specifically was for him to find out.
The mercenary continues to stare him down through that black tinted helmet. That helmet of his was driving him insane, but his railgun was nowhere to be found, at least. Medkit felt the pull of his own gear nearby, so luckily they hadn’t been entirely cruel.
Hyperlaser groans to himself, murmuring, “Swords, I am not qualified enough for this,” as he takes a stack of papers and leaves the room, leaving Medkit to his thoughts.
He waits for a few moments before he takes a deep breath and sets down the cup, relishing in how easy it was to finally breathe. He checks for his damaged eye, naively hoping his eye would have reappeared somehow, but he’s disappointed when he finds the eyepatch there. Darn.
He moves on to his chest, not expecting much, but he’s pleasantly surprised to find neatly wrapped bandages, only possible by another healer.
He decides to lean against the headrest as he observes his surroundings. Medkit properly registers that he’s in his room and not some Blackrock lab, although the furniture has slightly moved closer to the walls. He doesn’t know why he notices that, he hasn’t slept in this room in ages.
He vaguely remembers his… dream? Hallucination? Whatever it was. However odd it was, he wondered if he’d get a chance to ever apply it.
Footsteps dash through the apartment as Medkit holds his breath, only for the noise to be Sword. Their eyes lock on each other and Medkit notices that he looks more… stressed than usual. Medkit wonders what he thinks of him in this state.
He hesitantly takes his left arm and reluctantly holds it out for Sword to quickly take up the offer.
“Ow—” Medkit winces at the expected yet tight embrace. “Rib…”
Sword quickly loosens up his grip.
They stay like that for a long while. Medkit recognizes Sword’s comforting warmth radiating from his person, unfathomable by the freezing Blackrock standards, yet below the scorching Lost Temple averages.
Swords, he missed him. He missed his stupid excuses for his injuries as he patched him up, he missed his stupid yet witty arguments with him, and he missed his energy.
“How… are you?” Medkit eventually voices out.
Sword glares at him. “That’s the first thing you ask me? Really? How are you?”
He chuckles, coughing out, “I’ve gone through worse.”
“Shut the hell up before I make you go through worse,” he threatens. Medkit laughs, only 70% sure he’s joking.
He sighs. “Sorry for worrying you, by the way.”
“Damn right, dumbass.” Sword holds tighter. “I was about to start tearing your apartment apart if you weren’t gonna wake up.”
A light cough interrupts their banter. “…Should I come back later?” Medkit freezes and turns to the doorframe, revealing an awkward Hyperlaser waiting there.
“Leave it by the counter.” Sword waves his hand off and answers for him. He awkwardly nods and turns to leave, although he catches the mercenary lingering around for a few seconds extra before leaving.
Medkit falls apart into a coughing fit as he asks for some coffee, slightly embarrassed at his own pleas. Sword does not share his opinion and goes to get some water instead.
Medkit stares at the door from which Hyperlaser left. “Why is a Blackrock mercenary here?”
Sword passes the cup, stating, “Damn, I thought you’d have more sympathy towards someone who saved your life.”
“What?”
He tilts his head at Medkit. “Don’t you remember?”
He coughs on the water as he replays the scene. “Sword, the last thing I remember was them trying to send me back to Blackrock.”
Sword looks at him with an unknown emotion and sighs. “This is gonna be a long story.”
Medkit shrugs, a small smile forming on his face. “Eh, I’ve got time.”
Sword grabs a seat and begins telling his side of the story.
After leaving the cafe, Slingshot had called Katana to keep an eye out for the demon. Coincidentally, he had been driving around with Hyperlaser, who had recognized him as one of Blackrock’s most wanted.
“Of course that’s what he saw me as.”
“Let me finish!”
Sword continues, describing how the mercenary saw the sorry state he was in, and coupled with Sword’s amazing acting on the phone—
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
“—Anyway!”
They decided to pick him up. Katana and Sword had exchanged contracts to keep him informed, and could even hear his brief rattle in the back seat.
“Did you have to add that in—“
Apparently, he was dropped off near Katana’s residence, where Vine Staff was also called out to help.
“She did your bandages, you know. Sling got a lot of people to help your ass, you ought to tip him extra once this is all over.”
“I know, I know.”
From there, he has been serving as dead space in the house for about two weeks until 2 days ago, where they decided to move him home.
“Anddddd that’s basically it.” Sword claps his hands together. “Hyperlaser was trying to see if it was worth faking your death, but that’s an ongoing process—“
Medkit holds back his bandages as he surprises Sword with a hug.
Maybe he’s winning.