Chapter Text
When he can’t sleep, he drags himself to the basement labs. The lights are low, and all is still aside from the hiss of airvents and the distant sound of music.
Caustic listens to old music, from before humanity getting scattered to the furthest reaches of space. With strings and piano with composer names so long that Octane honestly doesn’t think they’re worth learning.
It’s five am and the music is still on, and a weak wave of relief washes over him. Thank fuck. He’d still be there. He’d help.
He follows the music until they’re more than muffled notes, until it blooms into something delicate. Something haunting.
When he opens the door, Caustic is waiting. “Octavio,” he says, without sparing Octane a glance. “Do lock it behind you.”
He’d laugh but he’s so tired that it comes out a wheeze. Like a dying fish, gasping in the sand. He misses the sea. He misses the ocean of relief that comes with dreams.
Octane sidles up beside Caustic, hopping onto the counter just like he knows he shouldn’t. The man is exhausted himself, and it shows. He looks like he’s pushing fifty more than ever with his tired eyes, his shaking hand. That cough of his that rattles more in the night.
It’s a weakness that Octane doesn’t mention. An unspoken agreement. Sometimes, he needs to be forced to quit working, and that’s just fine.
Sometimes octane needs to be forced, too. They can have this mutually beneficial destruction. It’ll do them good.
“Well,” he says, pulling one prosthetic leg up, tapping his foot insistently against the countertop. “Do I reallyyyy need to say it, amigo?” Octane grins, even though his voice sounds like a gravel road after some things have rolled over on it and died. “You gotta be at a stopping point, si?”
Caustic pulls back from his work with a grimace, one hand going to rub at his lower back.
Man, he’s beat enough that he let that slide? Yeah, he better stop working!
“You are aware of my stipulations,” he warns, but Caustic’s brown eyes are on him all the same. He lays a hand on Octane’s thigh, thumb brushing the seam between metal and skin through clothing.
From someone else, it would be comfort. From him? It’s a warning, and a relief.
“Fine.” Octane rolls his eyes. Having to ask for everything he wants is such a pain in the ass when he knows full well that the big guy knows what he’s after. Using one hand to mime a blah blah blah hand motion, he says: “Please kill me, I can’t sleep.”
Caustic hums in satisfaction, finally laying his pen down to rest. He admires Octane like a houndmaster does a fine beast, and it’s a balm to know that he’s deliberating between his many methods of administering pain.
Administering death.
“Come with me,” he says, patting Octane’s thigh as if he were a thoroughbred animal ready for the race, and it’s not wrong. The scientist’s testing chamber lies up ahead, and in his palm is a vial of something new, and horrible.
Octane grins, and annoys the man by yanking him down for a kiss by the beard, laughing into his mouth. He tastes like stale coffee, smells like chemicals, and is going to kill him to end Octane’s hunt for a good night’s rest. They bite into the kiss until it’s impossible to tell who’s bleeding. Until it is impossible to tell who is predator and who is prey.
Sometimes they take their time with it, so that there’s room for violence and delirium and sex. But tonight, it ends softly if only because it ends swiftly.
Octane will get his rest. Caustic will get a final observation.
And tomorrow?
Tomorrow the games begin anew, and Octane will have the glory of a newly minted body, fresh outta respawn, and a good thing too–
Someone’s got to carry their squad.