Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A sharp hiss escaped from between Ponk's teeth as Niki pulled away the bandages, a steady string of murmured apologies placating him as she removed the last of the bloody strips of gauze and cloth. His right hand- his only hand, now- was wrapped around his elbow, keeping it steady for her, the grip tight enough that he could see the pallor of the indents from his fingers. 

"It looks like you're healing well," she said softly, turning to grab fresh dressings. "Hold on, now, this is going to sting." 

Another pained gasp sucked its way into his lungs as the damp sponge pressed lightly against the stitches and scabs of the wound. Niki had managed to save a few inches of the arm below the elbow, not enough to have anything useful for poking or nudging things in place of a hand, but enough that he could still move the joint and- hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, please - minimize any phantom limb problems he could have in the future. As she reapplied the watered-down regen potion and the layers of bandages and wraps, he couldn't help but stare at the area just below her ministrations. The empty air that his body used to take up loomed before him, the space where his forearm and hand should be, the void of nothing that should be illuminated by a soft green glow. 

"Are- are you okay?" Ponk looked up at where soft brown eyes were staring at him, startled and wide as he realized that the fabric of his mask was damp with tears. "I'm sorry, that's a stupid question-"

"No, no, it's all right." Wiping away what he could with the back of his hand, he looked down at her finished work and gave a weak smile, relayed in the raising of the apples of his cheeks and the slight crinkles visible at the corners of his eyes. "Thank you." 

"You're welcome," she replied in turn, lips pressed together in worry. "Do you want to talk about it?" He let the pause draw out long as the question slowly dipped into the swirling pool of his mind, the clutter and chaos that the question hinged on soaking the words through with the same turmoil that was wracking its way through his soul. 

"... Not yet." 

"Okay. Well, I'm here if you want to talk." Standing, Niki wiped off her hands and pulled the sleeves of her coat back down. The used bandages were tossed into the trash, the unused equipment stored away for next time, her productivity and movement a blur around him as he stared numbly at the clean white bandages and the empty nothing that was beneath them. Eventually, the movement slowed and stilled, coming to rest in the doorframe, paused as she leaned against it and looked back at where he sat, both numb and swirling with emotions, a storm contained within skin. "Come find me if you need anything, okay?" she asked gently, and he nodded in return. 

"I will. Thanks again, Niki." 

He pretended not to see the look of pity in her eyes before she disappeared back into her city, the chill of the underground welcoming her back into its arms once more. 

The wet spots on his mask were only growing larger as he sat there, tears spilling soundless down his cheeks as he looked at his arm. There would be scars. He had almost guaranteed that when he had forced the stump into the lava to blinding, white-hot pain, knowing that it was the only way he didn't bleed out before finding help and trying to keep the feeling of the deaths he had just experienced, over and over again at the hands of the same liquid, from overwhelming his senses into blind panic and terror. Burning was horrible, but the adrenaline it provided had at least numbed him out enough to grit his teeth and bear through the self-saving mutilation. Maybe the burn scars would take the place of the scar that was supposed to be there, the little lines and squares that trailed up from his wrist to the inside of his forearm. Maybe they could represent the severing of ties, the bridge he had to burn far more literally than he would have liked as he stepped forward and moved on, picking up the pieces of his fragmented heart and piecing them back together as he ran from the flames.

They wouldn't have the same sense of certainty, though. A shuddering breath made his shoulders shake, his breathing becoming thick and wet with tears as he tried to feel the warmth that had once radiated from the glowing marks in his arm, the creeper-green grid that had irrevocably tied him to the man who smiled sweetly and made his heart flutter. He could still feel Sam's influence burrowed deep in his chest, coiled painfully tight around his heart, and with a pang he wondered if marks still glowed on dead limbs. If one day, when he could finally move past the person who had loved him and hurt him and made his chest ache, the mark would burn out into a scar on slowly rotting flesh or if it had flickered out moments after it had left his body. 

Soulmarks provided a sense of certainty, of rules, of unbreakable truths in the world. When they emblazoned themselves upon someone's skin, they knew. They knew the person, the intensity, and the truth of how deeply they had worked their way into that person's very core of being. The mark itself was the magic, but the knowledge was second nature. It is far too easy to define who holds such sway over your life, and when Ponk had felt his flare into existence, he hadn’t even needed to look down to know it would be glowing green. When a soulmark scarred over, the bearer was given the certainty that they were past it, that they had taken the changes and experiences that person offered and stepped forwards, moving on. Soulmarks could stay forever or fade, but what they represented were concrete truths, a knowing their wearer could carry in their heart and move through the world with certainty. And without a moment of hesitation, Sam had taken that away from him. 

He could hear the flat question every time he closed his eyes, every time the air was too still and silent, every time he let himself linger too long or think too hard. 

“Are you right handed or left handed?”

“I’m right handed, I use everything with my right hand-” Ponk had blustered, quickly transferring the last book to his left and turning it so his friend, his love could see the inside of his arm. The perfectly geometric squares trailing up his forearm, glowing green and connected by a single fluid line stared out at the one who they were there for, and the man bearing the symbol gave a sheepish smile. Guess you can’t take either, can you , he had thought cheekily, trying to ignore the slight tremble in his fingers.

“Then we’ll take the left one.”

Something visceral had lurched in Ponk’s chest and he’d stumbled back from the glass. He wouldn’t take this away from him, he loved him, he loved him to the point of matching soulmarks, he loved him to the deepest extent of his heart and surely he wouldn’t, he couldn’t-

The glass had shattered and the blades descended.

“ Aaah! My arm! My a- arm! No!” he had screamed, the words quickly devolving into senseless cries of agony. He had screamed hard enough to hurt his lungs, screamed until his throat burned, he had devolved into begging and pleading and sobbing as the twin blades of the shears flashed and a part of him- so much of him, that mark was so much of him - was suddenly gone. Muscle and flesh and sinew cut away with freshly forged blades impeccably sharp, he heard the sound of the limb thudding to the floor through the ringing in his ears and the pounding in his head. His vision had spun as he watched Sam- no, two Sams now, there were two Sams bending to pick up the severed limb as they straightened up to give him one last look, face flat and solemn without so much as a flicker of emotion.

“Goodbye, Ponk.”

The creeper hybrid had turned and walked out of the room, severed limb in hand, and as he stepped out the door for a moment all the tortured man could see were two twin flickering lights, one red and one green, glowing in his rapidly blurring vision. 

Shaking his head, gasping, Ponk dragged himself back into the present. His hand was clenched tightly around the wood of the table in front of him, breathing heavy and mask practically soaked through with tears. Letting out a quiet, broken sob he reached up and tugged the fabric off, pressing what dry spots remained to his eyes as he tried to reconcile with the physical ache inside of his chest. Heartbreak was a familiar term, but he hadn’t realized how literal it was.

It was a strange feeling, letting himself finally cry. His heart was heavy, aching and pained, but he still had no idea what he was truly grieving. Was it the loss of his arm, a piece of himself, his agency as he healed and tried to learn how his new self was even supposed to function? Or was it what it represented that he was mourning, the loss of a person, the loss of trust and love and the certainty that was emblazoned on his skin? His breaths were wheezing, gasping, aching as he let the sobs wrack his body, shoulders shaking as tears were shaken from where they gathered along his jawline and spattered to his lap and floor. His left arm moved instinctively, reaching a nonexistent hand to cover his face and he felt like screaming as realization set in and sent a wave of hysterical sobs tearing their way from his throat. The pads of his fingers dug in as he tried to grasp, to cover where his face was twisting and contorting, to hide away as whatever composure he maintained crumbled to nothing. 

Rocking back and forth, he finally let himself fall forwards, folding almost double, collapsing in on himself. He wanted to curl into a ball, fall into the fetal position for some kind of compression, any sense of being small and wrapped up and safe again. Slowly, he slid down from the chair to the floor, pulling his knees to his cheat and burying his head in them. Vision was obscured by white, now, the bright blankets of his pants, he remembered with a sickening feeling how the light had cast on the blank slate, painting him in new colors.

“Green’s a good color on you, handsome,” Sam had said, voice warm as they’d sat surrounded by roses, a picnic splayed out between them both.  

“Funny you say that. I rather like it myself,” Ponk had replied, laughter tinging his words as he leaned back and raised his forearm to admire the design. He wasn’t sure he could get enough of looking at it, especially when he held it up beside the image of his love and took in how similar it looked to the mottled green skin that adorned the figure of his affection. 

“Do you have anything to say to me about colors? Maybe… red?” asked Sam, leaning in and raising his eyebrows as a playful smile split his face. 

“Oh, no, red’s an awful color on you.” 

They had dissolved into laughter, hearty guffaws and mock shoving as demands for a retraction filled the air, accusations of whose fault it was that their marks made them look like Christmas decorations devolving into awful pick-up lines about unwrapping each other for the aforementioned holiday, teasing and light and fun and loving all wrapped into a single, sunny moment of peace among the sweet smelling blooms. 

It had been beautiful. It had been perfect.

Rocking back and forth, curled into a ball was so much harder when only one arm could pull his legs in tight. Another round of tears began to bubble up, flooding over and soaking the fabric he pressed his face into as he realized with a pang he couldn't even mourn right. Sam had taken that away from him, too.

“Oh, Ponk,” came a soft voice from the door, and before he could react there was a pair of arms lifting him to his knees and pulling him close. Body shaking, he let himself fall forward into Niki’s embrace and buried his face in her shoulder. He could feel the wet spots start to form near his eyes, the worn material of the coat darkening under the touch of his tears, but she didn’t seem to care as her hands pulled him in tighter, one splayed out on his shoulder blade and the other at the nape of his neck, stabilizing him as he shook and dissolved in her arms. 

“I- I’m sorry, I don’t-”

“No,” she said, more firmly than he’d ever heard her speak before. He tensed at the sound, and she must have felt it because her next words softened, gently flowing over him as she rubbed his back. “Don’t explain. It’s okay to just cry.” 

A fresh wave of tears surged forth, breaking whatever momentary respite and control he’d had over himself and he felt himself go slack, disintegrating in her arms as he blubbered and sobbed, wordless agony spilling from him as she let him muffle his wails into her shoulder. They stayed there for what could have been eons, years spent floating in grief and agony, her a single point of solemn calm in a tumultuous world that he clung to with the desperation of a broken soul. 

Sam opened the chest, setting his hoe inside as he wiped a smear of dirt and sweat from his brow. It was a simple life on the edge of the server, straightforward and clean-cut. It was him and the earth and his home, the laborious work keeping his hands and mind busy, the remembrances of the outside world pushed to the edge of the small landmass he called home. They were there, of course, overturned soil and markers where the sea met the land, but his tortures were pushed to the dark corners of his mind until he let them out to run rampant once more.

Tonight, though, the shadows of his psyche stretched long. His gaze kept returning to the tightly closed blinds, the long drapes of cloth that kept his eyes from staring and lingering at his regrets, and he could feel the siren song, the magnetic pull of what was out there dragging him towards it like gravity. 

His feet led him there in a dance he’d done a thousand times before, his hand parting the obstruction in a movement so practiced he didn’t realize he had done it. 

Slowly, his eyes focused out into the dimming night, the oranges and pinks of the sky giving way to purples and blues as the sun’s influence settled below the horizon. There, at the edge of his little rock in the immense sea, he could see the slight green glow seeping from beneath the overturned soil. He stared as day seeped into night, as the stars began to peek out from the inky blackness, as the small, pulsing light grew stronger against the darkening backdrop of the world, the green glow flickering and blooming in time to his staccato heartbeats.

Dark eyes dropped to where a zigzag of red wrapped around his wrist, burning like a flare beneath the skin, like it might ignite whatever gunpowder resided in his system. It seared and ached, a painful contrast to the soft warmth that had once pulsed through him when he had held the hand now buried in his garden, their fingers intertwined and the soft warmth thrumming through their respective soulmarks reflecting between them as green and red light mingled and mixed. In the back of his mind, he heard joyous laughter. The sounds of love and exuberance flooded through him, a voice filled with affection offering up compliments and suggestive comments, calling out to him with warmth and excitement. He lingered, letting the memories play, even as the words of the ghost in his mind became more strained. Even as the voice began to plead with him. The voice begged him to stop and look at himself, broke as it made jokes about flames and fetishes, pleaded for him to not follow through on his threats. There were searing noises, screaming noises, slicing noises. The voice cried out in agony and Sam just stood there, staring out into where the green light illuminated the darkness.

He stood there until the hand clenched in the fabric of the curtains ached, until his feet were deadened and fuzzy and asleep, until his throat ached with unsobbed tears and the pit had dug so deep in his belly that he swore he could feel the expanse of the void in his insides. 

He was never sure when the moment would break. The crippling paralysis of guilt and grief would loose its hold on him some time, and whether or not he would see the light of the sunrise diffuse the soft green glow was never something he concerned himself with. Sleepless nights were deserved. The soft oranges and pinks that would come to break his vigil and let him out of the cage his own mind trapped him in freed him far more often than his body would have liked. But for tonight, the worry for the blooming sun on the horizon stayed away. The moon lingered and the inky blackness only remained broken by the single point of illumination before him, eyes affixed, stoic even as a single tear slid slowly down his cheek. 

Somewhere far away, buried beneath the earth, a man sobbed, unknowingly sending flickers and flares of passionate burning across the world as his lover, traitor, soulmate stood vigil, red light echoing the green.

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