Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

             Long ago, a young girl went with her mother to pick berries for her father who was hard at work.

             But the forest greeted them with a dark, cold silence, the bushes empty.

             Yet, determined to find the berries, the rascal broke free from Mother’s grasp and vanished into the trees.

             Mother’s worried cries faded fast as the girl ran on; over vine, and under branch and into the forest deep.

             Feeling strange eyes upon her, the girl recalled Mother’s scary bedtime tales and her throat became bone dry.

             Then the Bat Lord appeared! He greeted her warmly and bit his own wing.

             “Come, child. Quench your thirst,” he said.

             So she drank the thick, dark blood and smiled with joy.

             Passing through a graveyard, menacing storm clouds loomed and the air turned bitingly cold.

             The girl was shivering in her thin clothes.

             Then a Dark Weaver appeared, and with a click of his fingers, crafted mist into a beautiful dress.

             “Come, child, warm yourself,” he coaxed.

             So she clothed herself and smiled with joy.

             Across waters deep and ominous she went, hoping a boat she found would carry her home.

             But hunger’s grip tightened and her heart grew heavy.

             Then the Fish King appeared and offered one of his many fins.

             “Come, child. Eat your fill.”

             So the girl ate and smiled with joy once more.

             Continuing on, she soon entered the forest’s dark heart.

             Then an Iron Steed appeared, bearing a beautiful, golden gear.

             The creature said nothing as the girl approached…

             …and snatched what she thought was another gift.

             The horse grew angry and summoned the other monsters.

             Terror filled the girl’s heart as a wild wind rose about the beasts.

             Suddenly, a witch appeared – dark, yet regal.

             “Gifts we gave, but more you took,” she snarled.

             “So more, in turn, is due.” In a blink, the girl was trapped inside a mirror.

             Her parents, though, had searched all day and, at last, arrived.

             With rampant rage, Father fought the Witch while Mother’s loving touch shattered the dark enchantment.

             But the Witch was strong and Father yelled, “Save our daughter!”

             So Mother bore their child to safety as the forest was consumed.

             Even now, the burnt forest is a grim reminder of Father’s sacrifice.

             To this day, any child who stares too long into the charred wasteland will be haunted by nightmares of getting lost while picking berries.

🔦

             Ethan hated that story from the get-go. Now he’s starting to wonder if it wasn’t some kind of warning - a twisted one, twisted like everything else in this gothic nightmare.

             Four creatures for the four lords, one witch for Miranda. Straightforward, just the way he likes it. Only, the living versions of the story’s monsters seem to prefer taking their insane gifts. From him. The bat tried to drink his blood, the weaver tried to add him to the graveyard, and the fish tried to eat him. If that’s the village’s idea of “help”, he’s not looking forward to finding out what the last monster - the Iron Steed - has in store.

             Which will be happening any minute now.

             He stands in front of the deceptively commonplace factory doors as they groan open, Heisenberg’s parting words ringing in his ears. Nothing’s tried to kill him yet, which is only making him more nervous.

             The Duke called Heisenberg the most dangerous of the bunch, and even if he’d had only the lord’s voice to go off of, it’s easy to tell he’s aware of his likely-deserved title. Ethan remembers the way he said his name and can’t keep himself from shuddering. He’d said it like he was savouring it; like Ethan is some kind of exotic dish he can’t wait to sample. And that sly, “I like you”... like Ethan’s his newest toy.

             Gun drawn and ready in front of him, he enters the building. Inside is dingy and less than spick and span, like any older workshop.

             “What are you planning?” Ethan growls, although he’s pretty sure his voice is too low for any cameras to pick up. This place looks like a disused storage unit, but that doesn’t change the fact that there are bars on the windows.

             He doesn’t expect the stained steel door he pushes on to open without the aid of a lockpick. It opens anyway. The creak has him jumping and looking around for anything the small noise might have summoned. But there’s nothing falling from the rafters, and nothing waiting for him as he descends the stairs beyond the door, and the sheer amount of nothing where there should be something is starting to get to him.

             The passage after that reminds him far too much of the Beneviento mansion with its bare brick walls and exposed pipes, and the single naked lightbulb putting up a feeble fight against the dark.

             The mansion - was it really three days ago? It feels like he’s been here forever, and yet he could have sworn he left the estate only hours before. Time is unwinding before his sleep-deprived, highly traumatized eye.

             Thankfully, the next room is better lit. The bulb is at ankle height, but it’s set in an industrial fixture and gives the closet-sized space a comfortingly familiar sepia tone. He almost doesn’t want to go through its only door and leave this facade of security behind.

             (So he takes a few minutes to calm his erratic breathing and pounding heart. So what.)

             The room after that is larger. The light clutter makes it look like someone’s possibly been roughing it in here. Probably Heisenberg. The man dresses like a tramp mugged Van Helsing and then rolled around on the grill of a train.

             Ethan looks around. Not a great living space. There’s bits of building materials everywhere, the lighting’s quite frankly bad, and he can’t imagine where anyone would sleep. Plus, you know, the looming threat of whatever’s powerful enough to take its time hunting him like this. Marginally less ominous (but only marginally) is the one wall, obscured by a couple of raggedy, discoloured sheets of fabric strung up on a line to form what one might very generously call curtains. It could be a window to let in natural light and fresh(ish) air while the room’s in use, but somehow, he doubts it.

             The Duke’s warning flashes through Ethan’s mind again. “Let’s just say parts of the human imagination are better left alone.”

             Well, now he can’t afford to be squeamish.

             Trepidation mounting, he sticks his gun in his waistband, freeing his hands, and pulls the curtain aside. And stares.

             “What the hell?”

             The wall behind it is a detailed hodgepodge of photographs and scraps of paper containing scrawled notes and official-looking printouts. He recognizes the three other lords and Miranda - all crossed out in red save for the latter - but also Chris, several BSAA soldiers, and… “Mia?”

             “Truth hurts, don’t it.”

             The voice, albeit mild and conversational, is shocking enough after what felt like hours of complete solitude that Ethan has his gun out and pointed at Heisenberg’s chest before he realizes he’s moving. For his part, Heisenberg doesn’t seem concerned about being threatened.

             “Lemme guess,” he says, taking a few borderline jaunty steps closer. “You’re thinking, take me out like the others, and then you get to go and save Rose, right?”

             Ethan lowers the gun. “I’m healing my daughter.” The words come out low and dangerous. He’s so done with all this.

             Heisenberg takes a drag on his cigar. “Look. You’ve got this all wrong,” he begins agitatedly.

             Before he can continue, what sounds like an extremely large engine begins revving somewhere beneath their feet. It goes on longer than a revving engine should, which tells Ethan it’s not just some very lost villager starting up a lawnmower.

             “Dammit, I’m talking here,” Heisenberg grumbles. He stalks over to a nearby grate, wrenches it open, and hollers down the shaft it reveals, “SHUT YOUR FUCKING HOLE.”

             It works, both surprisingly and not. The mechanical noise stops, and Heisenberg glances at Ethan almost sheepishly. “Sorry ’bout that,” he says, contrite. His words don’t match the pent-up aggression with which he lifts a rickety-looking metal folding chair from the clutter and plunks it down in front of the uncovered shaft. “Have a seat.”

             Ethan elects to remain standing. The idea of placing himself between Heisenberg and that hole makes him nervous.

             If he’s bothered by the lack of obedience, the lord doesn’t show it. His tone is quiet and informative when he says, “Listen, Ethan - you’re being played.”

             “What’re you talking about?” Ethan demands. “You think this is a game?”

             Heisenberg responds by physically hurling a dagger into the picture of Lady Dimitrescu and then, in almost the same motion, whirling and shoving Ethan into the chair. “I SAID SIT.”

             Ethan sits. He stays in his seat, breathing hard, while the lord takes a moment to regain his composure.

             Once again calm, Heisenberg turns to regard the board with contempt. “Lady Supersized Bitch. Ugly-Ass Psycho Doll. And that moronic freak.” With each “title”, the dagger draws itself out of the wall and stabs itself into the picture of the mentioned lord. He leaves it embedded in Moreau’s photographed face and turns to Ethan. “Don’t you get it? It’s a test. To see if you’re strong enough to be part of Miranda’s family.”

             That has Ethan’s jaw clenching. What is with moldy people and twisted concepts of family? “I don’t want to be a part of Miranda’s family-”

             “Neither did I, but here we are!” Heisenberg shouts, throwing his arms out dramatically. “And I’m next in line, right?” He paces, gesturing to emphasize his point and inadvertently doing a great job of coming across as halfway to insane. “Kill me, move up the chain? Well, FUCK THAT!” With a violent sweep of the arm, the blade slices across the theory board, leaving a wide scratch that bisects the photographed Miranda’s face.

             Ethan laughs in disbelief. “I don’t give a damn about your personal issues!” He drops the dismissive tone, knowing full well playing superior won’t get him anywhere. “I just wanna fix my daughter.”

             It’s Heisenberg’s turn to laugh. He chuckles, lightly but without mirth. “So do I. You have any idea how powerful that kid is? Even Miranda’s scared of her.”

             At the mention of Miranda, the prolonged revving starts up again, more aggressive this time. Heisenberg’s shoulders spasm like he’s about to lose it, and Ethan gets the feeling he’s grinding his teeth before he leans over the hole and yells, “LAST TIME YOU FREAK, I SWEAR TO GOD.”

             The thing in the hole falls silent.

             Heisenberg gives it a moment to contemplate trying again (it doesn’t). When he’s satisfied he won’t be interrupted, he returns his attention to Ethan, who finds himself barely breathing as the lord removes his sunglasses and folds them up almost delicately before tucking them into his jacket pocket. “You and me, Ethan,” he says with hushed anticipation. “Together. We go save Rose, and then we can use her to grind Miranda into paste!”

             Oh, hell no. “My daughter is not a weapon.” Ethan doesn’t give himself time to reconsider his next words. “FUCK YOU!”

             Heisenberg recoils a little, face going blank. He scrutinizes Ethan’s features, then the floor at his feet as if in thought. Then he drives his boot into the chair with a growl, launching it across the room like it weighs nothing. His hand snaps out to grab Ethan’s forearm before he can fall into the shaft.

             Ethan reflexively grabs the lord’s arm in what is clearly a feeble attempt to not be dropped. If Heisenberg decides he wants Ethan down that pit, Ethan will go down that pit no matter what he does. Fortunately for the time being, his grip is encouragingly firm.

             Which does not mean the goal isn’t to threaten him with certain death. “Last chance,” Heisenberg warns. “You don’t want to find out what’s in that hole.”

             Ethan glares at him. “I’ll take my chances,” he says in deadly seriousness, and lets go.

             And doesn’t fall like he’d kind of hoped. His dramatic exit is thwarted by the hand still holding on stubbornly to his arm.

             Heisenberg huffs incredulously. “You’re really going to die on this hill, aren’t you?”

             “I’d rather face whatever’s down there than let you use my daughter for anything,” Ethan spits. And he’d rather do it on his own terms, thank you very much. Not that that’s how things are going at this rate.

             Surprisingly, Heisenberg’s stony eyes lose a fraction of their edge. He sighs harshly. “Fine. We leave Rose out of it.”

             “What?”

             “Help me kill Miranda - without the kid - and you can leave, never lay eyes on this damned village again if that’s what you want. Last chance.”

             It’s a generous offer coming from a man who murders without discretion. Probably too generous. “How do I know you’re going to stick to your word?” Ethan demands.

             He’s surprised when Heisenberg throws back his head and laughs. “I knew I liked you. No, Ethan, you don’t know I’ll play nice. But tell me; when have I lied to you?”

             Ethan opens his mouth to admit that no, Heisenberg hasn’t lied yet to his knowledge, but he doesn’t get the chance to speak before the hand gripping his arm is gone and he’s falling.

             As he hits the ground several floors below and scrambles to his feet, he hears a faint “Oh shit!” - or maybe just imagines it - before the low, nearby sound of an engine rumbling catches his attention. He’s not alone down here.

             Betrayal. Before the deal is even struck.

             Except a moment later, Lord Heisenberg hurriedly descends from the room above on a makeshift staircase of floating scrap metal. “Come on,” he barks.

             Ethan stares at him blankly.

             “If you want to make it out of this pit without a fight, come on,” Heisenberg repeats.

             None of this makes any sense, least of all the urgency in the backstabbing lord’s voice. Ethan has just decided to comply and is reaching out to accept the proffered hand when the hiss of a mechanical door opening draws his attention to a previously blocked-off hall behind Heisenberg. More specifically, to the hulking shape that is waiting there.

             It steps over the raised threshold, tall enough that it has to crouch in order to fit. As it straightens, its upper half passes through the light slanting down from above, revealing a massive engine where a human torso should be.

             It should be comical. But those long, lethal-looking chainsaws whirling at dizzying speed in the dimness as its legs bend to jump can only be described as terrifying.

             Heisenberg swears in German and shoves Ethan to the side. Ethan, fumbling for his gun, trips over the uneven ground and comes within inches of losing a limb as the metal monstrosity lands heavily where he’d been standing a second ago.

             “HEY! STAND DOWN, YOU RUSTING BUCKET OF BOLTS!” Heisenberg bellows. Far from intimidated, he plants his feet on the concrete and glares it in the propeller axel. Even taking his formidable powers into account, the gesture seems insane.

             The creature’s answering wail suggests it feels the same way. A few bowlegged steps bring it dangerously close to its creator, where it stops as though daring him to yell some more. It has almost a foot on him.

             “I said stand down,” Heisenberg says abrasively. “You think I won’t hesitate to destroy your useless ass? Right, of course not, because you’re too stupid TO EVEN FOLLOW ORDERS NOW!” He roars the last words into what would be the creature’s face.

             The creature makes an aggressive revving noise and starts up its propeller again. But instead of attacking Heisenberg, it charges past him toward Ethan, outright ignoring the bullets Ethan pumps into its front.

             “Your funeral.” Heisenberg holds up a hand. The creature freezes. The soles of its boots make an earsplitting screech as they skid backwards across the cement floor until the creature comes to a halt in front of Heisenberg once again. Without a single gesture being made, it is lifted into the air, where it hangs helplessly.

             The raised hand clenches into a fist.

             Never before has an engine dying sounded so rebellious.

             “Anyway,” Heisenberg says, letting the quieted body drop to the floor. “This freak of engineering-”

             That’s as far as he gets, because the apparently-not-dead creature makes a final bid at ending Ethan’s life. It lunges forward, chainsaws whirling - and topples over as Heisenberg shuts it down with a frustrated grunt. He doesn’t, however, have time to halt its momentum before several hundred pounds of metal and still-rotating propeller come crashing down on him.

             It’s like the world’s briefest avalanche. One moment he’s standing and the next he’s ploughed off his feet and buried beneath the creature’s bulk. That’s gotta hurt.

             There’s a very short-lived pause. Then a long and inelegant string of profanities rises from the depths of the two-person doggy pile. The dead machine goes flying into a wall with a lot more force than is necessary, revealing a battered, bloody, and very much pissed Lord Heisenberg.

             Ethan winces and moves to help steady him as the lord gets shakily to his feet. “What was that?”

             “Sturm,” Heisenberg says a tinge breathlessly, sounding more annoyed than hurt. “Failure of a soldat. I’ve been using him as a guard in the lower levels. Must’ve malfunctioned even more than usual, the walking trash heap.” He takes a few staggering steps down a passage chosen seemingly random, almost falling when his foot catches on a stray segment of pipe.

             “You shouldn’t be standing after that,” Ethan says, catching him. The lord pushes him away stubbornly. “Here, let me-”

             “Fuck you, I’m fine,” Heisenberg snaps, and promptly eats concrete.

             “Like hell you are,” Ethan mutters. He hauls Heisenberg to his feet and wraps an arm around his shoulders to steady him. “Just take the damn help already.”

             Heisenberg growls something unintelligible under his breath, but doesn’t push him away. It takes about three steps for Ethan to figure out that’s because he can’t. The man can barely walk; three steps after Ethan’s observation, he stumbles and nearly goes down again.

             This isn’t going to work.

             There’s a brief, startled silence when Ethan stops and scoops Heisenberg up, avoiding touching the worst of his injuries. Then Heisenberg gets vocal. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he roars, squirming in Ethan’s arms. “Put me DOWN, Winters!”

             “We’re not going to get anywhere if you can’t take ten steps without falling,” Ethan says with as much patience as he can muster.

             “I don’t NEED your help! I’m a LORD, I can- I- Fuck.” The last word comes out slurred and faint as Heisenberg proceeds to pass out. Which, on the one hand - a relief. Dead weight is easier to carry than weight that is actively trying to be dropped. But also concerning, because apparently Ethan needs him alive if they’re going to save Rose.

             Keeping that in mind, Ethan hastens to look for a way out. Heisenberg picked their direction for a reason (hopefully), so he keeps going this way.

             That doesn’t mean getting out is straightforward in any way, shape, or form, though. It takes what feels like an eternity of wandering and backtracking through the lower levels before he finally finds a way out in the form of a ladder bolted to the wall.

             Well, shit.

             Later, Ethan isn’t sure how he got the two of them up that ladder and into a room that looks halfway decent. Heisenberg doesn’t weigh much for a man of his stature, but he’s sturdily built and Ethan’s running on three nonconsecutive hours of sleep and whatever the Duke last sold him (he can’t remember.) His arms ache as he lowers the unconscious lord to the ground and kneels to examine his wounds.

             It looks bad. The left side of Heisenberg’s torso is crisscrossed with thankfully shallow lacerations from shoulder to hip. His legs are doubtlessly a mess of bruises to match the darkening skin visible through his grimy white shirt. A nasty bump is swelling where his head made contact with the ground, and there’s a good chance he has several broken bones.

             Ethan winces and gets out the first aid kit. Working quickly, he disinfects the lacerations and douses them with chem fluid, then steels himself and lifts Heisenberg’s shirt to wrap his shoulder and side. A rudimentary search turns up no breakages, which is a relief. There isn’t anything he can do about the bump.

             Doctoring complete, he contemplates the unconscious lord’s current position - flat on his back on the dirty floor. That can’t be good for his healing. Ethan Winters is many things, but needlessly cruel he is not. And a healthy Heisenberg is a stronger ally.

             He carefully picks him up again and makes his way over to the wall, where some kind of foldout futon leans up against the relatively clean siding. There’s only one, annoyingly, if it can even be called a futon. The thing is approximately the size of a saltine cracker. Still, either Ethan is going to take the floor or they’re going to have to share. 

             There’s actually a moment where he does consider the alternative; he weighs the pros and cons of sleeping on the ground before coming to the conclusion that nope, sharing it is. He sets Heisenberg down as close to the wall as he can, then pauses. If Heisenberg is a restless sleeper, getting kicked with those boots will hurt like hell. Off they go, revealing ratty socks that smell more of corroded iron than foot odour. Then, since he also doesn’t fancy getting a face full of hat, Ethan pulls it off the lord’s head and leaves it in a pile with the boots and jacket.

             Alright, that’s enough stalling. He removes his own boots and makes himself as comfortable as possible without coming into contact with anything Heisenberg-shaped, silently praying he’ll be the first one awake tomorrow.

Chapter Text

             Karl Heisenberg is no stranger to pain. A lifetime of Cadou experiments, brawls with rebellious lycans, encounters with an enraged Alcina, and any variety of factory accidents has toughened him to the point where he can easily shoulder through pretty much any damage his body takes. So the agony of multiple injuries caused by a souped-up ceiling fan landing on him is just about par for the course.

             What isn’t par for the course is the fact that he wakes up crying.

             It’s impossible. The Cadou-infected are incapable of tears. When Moreau blubbers or Donna wails, when Alcina dabs at her eyes, it is without shedding a drop. Karl himself hasn’t attempted to cry since the experiments.

             And yet his eyes stream when he forces his aching body to sit up.

             “Fuck,” he mutters, swiping at his wet cheek. His finger comes away wet and flecked with rust. Scowling, he wipes it on his shirt. Then, finally, he takes note of his surroundings.

             He isn’t in the lower levels anymore. Somehow, Winters has lugged his unconscious ass out of that death trap and back into the more civilized part of the factory. Possibly even more surprisingly, he’s sitting on one of his emergency futons, hatless and stripped of his coat and boots. Huh. He’d expected a man possessing Winters’ ruthlessness and need for retribution to dump him on the floor and leave him there, not tuck him into bed and - Karl checks - tend to his wounds.

             Which explains why his injuries are farther along in the healing process than he’d expected either. Normally Karl just washes his hurts out with alcohol and goes on with his day.

             It’s a dad thing. Just a paternal moron letting his baby-centric instincts get the better of him. For some reason, the thought sends a twinge through him that is almost physical.

             Karl stretches carefully, wary of setting off this sudden sensitivity. It is now that he notices the still-warm hollow beside him.

             So. Winters has slept on his futon. With him.

             “What the fuck,” Karl says, because that seems to be an appropriate response. No one willingly gets close to him, nay, any of Miranda’s “children”, conscious or not. And here’s his former prey, who apparently thinks nothing of sleeping back-to-back (Karl fervently hopes) with a lord.

             What. The fuck.

             A stony little warmth pulses somewhere behind Karl’s solar plexus. Which- What the hell is that and why is it there? Karl touches his chest and is alarmed to find that not only is the warmth not physical, but it’s accompanied by a significantly more prominent sensation of hollowness and something... oh God... longing?

             His breathing hitches. His eyes prickle with fresh tears. And Karl comes to the horrifying conclusion that something is unthinkably wrong.

🔦

             “WINTERS!” Heisenberg lurches into the room at an invalid’s approximation of a run, clutching his injured side. Ethan barely has time to look his way before the lord slams him into the wall and pins him there. “What did you do to me?” he snarls.

             Normally, Ethan would be intimidated. But Heisenberg’s hands are shaky and his knuckles white, he clearly isn’t fully in control of his extremities, and his face... Ethan can only name that expression by its parts; distress, confusion, fear, and the defensive ferocity of a wounded animal.

              “Answer me!”

             “Nothing,” Ethan blurts. “I didn’t do anything.”

             Heisenberg stares at him. Then he stares at his fingers, buried in Ethan’s jacket. Then he lets go as though the fabric burns and shoves his hands into his pockets. “Don’t give me that bullshit,” he growls. “I don’t just wake up and start leaking saltwater. Now what did you do?”

             “I didn’t do anything,” Ethan repeats. “Got you out of that pit. Disinfected your cuts and wrapped them up. That’s it.”

             For a moment, it appears that Heisenberg doesn’t believe him. But then he sighs again and pinches the bridge of his nose in defeat. “Let’s just get on with it.”

             “It?” Ethan repeats dumbly.

             Now Heisenberg’s annoyed. “The plan to off the mother bitch. Did you hit your head or something? I thought you were smarter than this.”

             “Maybe I’m concussed from when you dropped me into a war machine’s lair.”

             The lord rolls his eyes. “Sure. I sweeten the pot for you and then dump you in a hole. Your sleeve ripped, shit-for-brains!”

             Ethan checks his jacket and deflates when he sees that yes, there is a chunk missing from where Heisenberg held him. The chem fluid must’ve done only so much to repair the fabric after Lady Dimitrescu sliced through it and the arm within.  “Right, well. Don’t dangle me over open shafts, then.”

             “Don’t give me a reason to,” Heisenberg fires back.

             They glare at each other for a few seconds. It gets awkward real fast.

             “So what’s the plan?” Ethan mumbles finally, looking away.

             The question seems to snap Heisenberg out of his hostile mood in an instant. “I’m glad you asked,” he says animatedly. “Have a look at this.”

             “This” turns out to be the board from yesterday. Fair enough; Ethan barely skimmed it. He’s a little concerned about the level of classified intel he suspects is pinned to it, though.

             “You brought the flask?”

             Ethan reaches into his pocket and pulls out the flask containing his daughter’s torso. “Right here.” He holds it protectively close, not trusting the lord to keep his hands off.

             Heisenberg makes no move to take it. “That’ll keep Miranda on pins and needles for at least a week,” he says in satisfaction. “Keep that safe.”

             “It’s my fucking daughter.”

             “There you go, then.”

             Ethan is surprised to hear a tinge of resentment beneath the cheerful demeanour. More family drama, probably. “Great. Ceremony delayed. Fill me in on the plan here.”

             “The Mold’s at the centre of it all, obviously,” Heisenberg begins, tapping the board with a cigar before lighting it and taking a drag. “It started with Miranda and now there’s not a damn thing in this area that’s not infected. Only difference is how it got into you.”

             Annnd Ethan’s already lost. This doesn’t bode well for his sanity’s future prospects. “What are you talking about?”

              “Application, Ethan. My darling siblings and I work with Cadou parasites, in case you hadn’t noticed.” The lord counts on his fingers. “Lady Man Mauler’s daughters, the moroaice and samce, Donna’s puppets, the uriaș, lycans and vârcolaci, my soldats… all Cadou-implanted. You know what the deal is with those.”

             “They change people’s genetics,” Ethan tries, and gets a nod of affirmation.

             “Not bad. Those are low-level Cadous. Us lords are also implanted. Don’t ask how that worked.”

             “How is that different?”

             “What did I just-” Heisenberg pulls off his sunglasses and gestures wildly with them. “You see soldat Zweis turning into giant fish? Lycans sprouting long-ass claws out of nowhere?”

             “Uh,” is all Ethan can come up with. He hasn’t seen… whatever a “soldat Zwei” is at all, but that doesn’t seem like something Heisenberg’s in the mood to hear.

             “Exactly. Whatever the fuck Miranda did to make us more powerful, she didn’t share any details.”

             This complicates things. “Well, what do you know?”

             “Not a lot we can use now. The other lords are dead, you saw what their so-called blessings were. Monsters, the lot of them.”

             “And you?” It’s not entirely a business-only question. Despite himself, Ethan’s curious. Heisenberg looks so normal compared to the others.

             “Not human myself, if that’s what you’re asking,” Heisenberg says dryly, guessing what’s really on Ethan’s mind. “Organs like an electric ray. My Cadou’s right about…” He taps a spot just below his sternum. “Here. Ergo, magnetic fields.”

             “Huh. Anything else?”

             “Can’t die too easily either.” A smirk. “Believe me, things have tried.”

             “So you actually have a chance of going head to head with Miranda and surviving,” Ethan surmises.

             “I wouldn’t go that far. She didn’t just implant a Cadou in her own body. She was taken by the Mold itself. It’s like saying a lapdog could kill a wolf.”

             “Then what makes you think you can kill her?”

             Heisenberg grins. “Because I have an army. And I have you.”

             “Me?” Ethan repeats, surprised.

             “Yes! You!” The lord’s voice is hushed with excitement. He sounds far too thrilled to be talking about Ethan’s papa bear stubbornness.

             “I don’t understand.”

             “You’re special, Ethan! You were infected by the Mold first-hand. And that puts you at Miranda’s level.” Heisenberg’s teeth gleam as he bares them in a pleased grin.

             “That’s- That’s not possible!” Ethan stammers. “I underwent treatment, I’m clean!”

             “Mmhmm.”

             “I did!”

             “You’ve survived injuries that should have killed you, if Miranda’s to be believed.” Heisenberg flaps a hand at Ethan’s midsection indicatively. “I saw you recover from being impaled in minutes. And forgive me if I’m wrong, but normal humans can’t reattach severed limbs just like that.”

             “That’s because of the chem fluid!” Ethan insists. “Not the Mold!”

             Heisenberg gives him an unimpressed look and holds out a hand. After a moment of expectant silence, Ethan realizes what he wants. He passes him one of his few remaining bottles, then folds his arms and silently dares him to suggest he’s wrong.

             Unexpectedly, Heisenberg sniffs the fluid and then takes a swig. “This,” he says dismissively, wiping his mouth on his sleeve, “isn’t strong enough to heal anything larger than a moderate cut.”

             “Oh,” Ethan mumbles. Before this all started, he would have been thrilled to discover he had the healing factor of Wolverine. But it’s just a slap in the face now, a cruel reminder that even his blessings are a mark of genetic tampering. The Mold’s still there, still in him, and likely never won’t be.

             Heisenberg gives him a bemused and oddly concerned look. “Why the long face? It’s not a bad thing. You’re better equipped to rescue your girl than anyone I can name.” His face twists. “What the fuck am I saying?”

             “What I needed to hear,” Ethan admits, rubbing his forehead. He’s not too much of a man’s man to refuse emotional support. Even if it’s coming from a hobo-esque Dr. Frankenstein who probably sticks to fridge doors. “I didn’t know you were capable of empathy.”

             “Neither did I.” The lord’s voice sounds like he’s being strangled.

             Ethan looks at him quizzically. “Are you okay? If this turns into a pity party for two, I’m out.”

             “Forget it.” Heisenberg shakes his head resolutely. “Back to planning.” He gestures at the board. “Miranda’s expecting you to come after her any day now with my blood on your hands. Eventually, she’s going to come investigate the holdup.”

             “So?” Ethan says. “We take the fight to her. Problem solved, right?”

             Heisenberg points at him. “Wrong. We go find her, we end up fighting on her turf.”

             “She has the advantage out there,” Ethan realizes. “You want her to come.”

             “Now you’re getting it,” Heisenberg says approvingly. “When she shows up, I can unleash my soldats on her.”

             Seriously, what the fuck is a soldat. “And kill her.”

             “Wrong again.” Heisenberg chuckles at his foolishness. “They’re a distraction at best. If they don’t get obliterated by her lycans, she’ll destroy them herself.”

             Wait. “Don’t you control the lycans?”

             “As a lieutenant, yeah. But they’ll always obey her first.”

             “Okay, so we lure Miranda here, sic the… soldats on her to keep her busy, and then… what? You riddle her body with scrap metal?” Ethan waves his hand around indicatively.

             “Something like that,” Heisenberg agrees. “I’ll have to use some of my resources to mutate, but everything else is going for her face.”

             Ethan nods slowly. Of course the lord with the most powerful human form has a mutated form as well. He has no business being at all surprised. “Right. So where do I come in?”

             “That’s the only thing left to figure out,” Heisenberg admits. “I need to know what you’re all capable of.”

             “I don’t know what I’m all capable of.” Ethan says it with more force than he means to. “I just found out I can heal from almost anything. How do we know that’s not it?”

             Heisenberg waves this away. “The Mold never stops at passive mutations. You’ve got some kind of bioweapon in you.”

              “That’s reassuring,” Ethan says dryly.

             “If you can’t work it out, we’ll find another use for you. In the meantime…” Heisenberg flashes a grin that quite frankly makes Ethan uneasy. “Let’s do something about those fingers.”

Chapter Text

             Ethan sits at a workbench deep within Heisenberg’s factory, seriously contemplating where he went wrong in life and if it’s too late to repent. It’s either that or address how extremely nervous he is about what’s happening.

             “Huh,” Heisenberg says, probing the scabbed-over wounds with a surprisingly gentle fingertip. Without removing his hand from Ethan’s, he jots something down on the already half-filled notepad with the other. “You’d think they’d have grown back.”

             Ethan grunts. “A wolfman ate them.”

             “No unaided regenerative abilities, then.” Heisenberg lifts Ethan’s hand and examines it carefully, paying special attention to the torn knuckles and the missing side of his palm. “No loss of strength to the hand, though. That’s impressive.”

             “Why’s that?” Ethan asks in spite of himself.

             “The pinkie alone contains fifty percent of the hand’s power. You’d be able to do next to nothing with this hand, if you didn’t bleed out first.”

             “Oh.” Yet another bullet dodged. He flexes his remaining fingers and experimentally hones his focus in on the gaps. Apparently he can’t get his body to grow new digits through force of will.

             Heisenberg hums to himself in thought, lets go of his hand, and produces a measuring tape. “Other hand,” he instructs. When Ethan offers it, he spreads its fingers and holds them still as the tape flits around the pinkie and ring finger seemingly of its own accord.

             “I didn’t know you were smart with anatomy,” Ethan comments.

             “It’s part of the job.”

             Interesting. “So, were you a doctor before you got your implant?”

             Heisenberg laughs humourlessly. “Nah, that was Moreau’s thing. I learned through trial and error with my soldats.” He smirks. “Right here, in fact.”

             Ethan can’t help the face he makes at that. “Please tell me you clean your tools.”

             “Worried you’ll catch something, Ethan?” There’s real amusement in the lord’s voice.

             “You’ve been messing around with my hands for fifteen minutes already, if I don’t feel sick by now, I never will,” Ethan fires back.

             Heisenberg abruptly drops his hand and steps back, brow furrowed. Then his expression smooths out. “I’ll have you know, I clean everything regularly. Myself included.”

             “Right.” Ethan makes a point of looking him up and down critically.

             “It’s hardly my fault I keep getting called on before the workday’s done,” Heisenberg points out. “And you’re one to talk. When was the last time you showered?”

             Touché. Ethan feels gross just thinking about it. “I haven’t had the chance to!” He can’t resist adding, “Does this dump even have running water?”

             “Why yes, it does,” Heisenberg says smugly. “Installed it myself.” He pauses to consider something. “Alright, I have the measurements I need. You go get yourself cleaned up, calmed down, whatever you need to function so we can fix you up. And make sure that hand’s disinfected.”

             There are several things that come to mind with this. The one that makes it out of Ethan’s mouth is, “I don’t know where I’m going.”

             “Not a problem.” Heisenberg presses a hand against the wall and bows his head for a few seconds. Then he pulls away and crosses his arms, relaxed. “By the way - you want any modifications? Nothing big, unless you want me to take off the arm.”

             “What? No,” Ethan says uncomfortably.

             “You sure? There are some interesting upgrades I could make. Built-in flashlight, screwdriver, claws, a nice little switchblade perhaps…”

             “No,” Ethan repeats, although his curiosity has been piqued. “Just the fingers. I want to have a normal hand.”

             Heisenberg looks disappointed, but shrugs. “Your loss.”

             He looks like he’s about to say more, but he’s cut off by a zombie wearing a VR headset entering and promptly going for Ethan’s face with its axe. Ethan reaches for his gun, realizes he left it in another room, and grabs the nearest object - a large wrench - to defend himself.

             “For fuck’s sake,” Heisenberg grumbles. “Stop.” The - okay, it’s probably a soldat - halts obediently. “” the lord orders, adding in Romanian, “Escort him to my private quarters and wait for further instructions.”

             Ethan lowers the wrench slowly. “I don’t…”

             “He’ll obey you,” Heisenberg says confidently. “If he gives you any trouble, feel free to smack him around a bit.”

             Considering the thing has an axe and cybernetics while he’s practically unarmed, Ethan is quite sure he doesn’t feel free to do anything. If anything, he feels more like a prisoner than he did before.

             Noting his discomfort, Heisenberg plucks the axe from the soldat’s unresisting hands and offers it to Ethan. “Haulers can’t do shit against competent fighters, you’ll be fine.”

             “If you say so,” Ethan mumbles semi-sarcastically, accepting the weapon. Their hands brush in the process, and Heisenberg jerks away like a startled cat, which is very reassuring. Fighting back a smirk, he looks at the Hauler. “Lead on, then.”

             The Hauler turns and shambles out without hesitation. Huh. Looks like he does have some control here.

             Still, he’s not letting the axe out of his grasp.

⚙️ 

             Karl waits until they’re gone. Then and only then does he allow himself to do what he’s been holding off on. He examines his hand intently, then clutches it to his chest in a gesture he’s no longer familiar with.

             His skin wherever it came into contact with Ethan’s - it burns. Not with the scalding heat of his Cadou any time he overexerts himself, either. This heat is gentler but more persistent. It lights that strange new hollowness in his chest on fire. Worse, he can’t help yearning for more. 

              Yearning. That’s not a word anyone could have used to describe him, Lord Karl Heisenberg, Mother Miranda’s prized lieutenant and one of the Four Lords, for the better part of a century. Yet here he is, doing just that.

             What is wrong with him?

🔦

             Heisenberg isn’t all work and being an asshole to villagers, Ethan learns. He apparently has time for other hobbies, such as monitoring the village via wall-mounted tv screens and collecting odds and ends that serve no obvious purpose.

             And painting.

             As the Hauler leads him through the factory, taking him through areas he’s never seen and wishes he’d never have to see again - dead guys, everywhere dead guys - Ethan begins to spot hints of colour. It’s subtle at first, but once he notices, the details are suddenly obvious. A doorframe here, the rim of a barrel there, a hook on the wall, all painted a cheerful, very familiar shade of yellow.

             It’s the same yellow of the supplies he found in the village.

             Ethan would contemplate this latest turn of events, but the Hauler enters a small service elevator he otherwise wouldn’t have noticed, and he has to rush to follow before the door slides shut. There’s yellow paint on the inside of the door as well, in the crude shape of a flower.

             “What’s with the paint job?” he asks, gesturing at the door.

             The Hauler gives no sign of having heard. It just stands there like a department store mannequin, hands dangling limply at its sides, as the elevator creaks and rumbles its way to what must be the heart of the factory.

             After what feels like hours of sharing a cramped space with a barely sentient corpse, the ride ends. Ethan isn’t sure what he expected to find upon exiting, but it isn’t this.

             The door opens to reveal a room the size of a closet, completely empty save for an armoured door on the opposite wall, the surface of which is riddled with a complex-looking puzzle. It’s pretty safe to assume the door is locked and will remain so until the puzzle is solved. But no sooner has Ethan reached out to begin than there’s a muffled click and a groaning of gears, and the door hisses open.

             Ethan looks at the Hauler, which is positioning itself next to the doorway in an almost comical mimicry of a proper guard, then cautiously enters. He finds himself clutching the axe tightly, despite Heisenberg’s assurances that he’ll be okay. An invitation from that guy isn’t worth a lot just yet.

             Or maybe it is. Because Ethan steps out of the entry chamber and into what he can tell right off the bat is Heisenberg’s inner sanctum.

             The rooms are dimly lit like the rest of the factory, but clean and devoid of corpses or parts. They remind him of a hotel room, the way the main area forms an L around the smaller room, which upon closer inspection turns out to contain a toilet, sink, and shower.

             Ethan gratefully enters the bathroom - locking the door behind him and jamming the axe under the handle, he can not handle uninvited guests right now - and strips, leaving his clothes in a heap on the floor before stepping into the stall. The water comes out in a scalding jet. It’s amazing.

             He just stands there for a few minutes and lets the hot water power wash the events of the last few days from his skin. Then he sets about actually getting clean. The soap has a gritty texture but smells okay. Neither of the bottles on the shelf are labeled in English or Romanian, so he just uses a little of both in his hair and hopes it’s not Heisenberg’s version of shaving cream. 

             At last, scoured and smelling like herbs he doesn’t recognize, he gets out. There are a few towels stacked haphazardly by the sink, thankfully, so although getting back into his dirty clothes feels gross, he doesn’t have to do it with wet skin. He feels a lot better.

             Which gives his curiosity an opportunity to set in at full blast.

             Ethan leaves the bathroom and looks around, taking in every detail. The walls are a mess of maps and pictures, not unlike the theory board from their planning session, but much more casual. He spots diagrams of various machinations both recognizable and not, sepia-toned photographs of picturesque landscapes, and a few portraits of people in nineteenth-century garb. One or two are wearing military uniforms.

             Where the walls aren’t covered with paper, they’re set with bookshelves. Most of the titles are in German, but Ethan can read a few of them. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a copy of The Canterbury Tales, and a couple classics he recognizes by cover alone: Gone with the Wind, Of Mice and Men, Brave New World... Every book is well-worn and inscribed with the name Karl Heisenberg, solving the mystery of whether or not the guy goes by anything less ostentatious. The shelves are also littered with trinkets and little clockwork figurines, which seems like a rather whimsical choice for a man obsessed with overthrowing the village matriarch.

             Sandwiched between two such bookshelves is a writing desk. Ethan leans over to scan its contents, fully intending to keep his hands to himself. There’s a lot of paper on here too, mostly incomplete blueprints and notes written in a rather tidy scrawl, but the extremely thick book lying open in the middle catches his eye.

             The entry’s unfinished. Curiosity piqued, Ethan flips backward to past entries.

             Ethan skims through dozens upon dozens of such accounts. There’s no mistaking anything here. Heisenberg’s ambition is solely to be rid of Miranda’s control. In several entries, what must be years apart, he wonders what’s going on in the outside world.

             There’s no indication of which war he’s referencing.

             That explains why there’s no one else here who isn’t dead.

             How long has he been reading? Ethan flips back to the last entry and takes one last look around - wall-mounted family crest, closet, queen-sized bed that looks like it hasn’t been slept in for years - before hurrying out to where the Hauler waits impassively.

             “I’m ready,” he says guiltily.

             The Hauler doesn’t move.

             Ethan opens his mouth to repeat his words, then remembers what Heisenberg said. Escort him to my private quarters and wait for further instructions. He’ll obey you. “Take me to H- Lord Heisenberg,” he orders.

             Bingo. At his command, the Hauler stumps into the elevator, and they begin the journey back to the outer buildings of the complex. The lack of conversation gives Ethan plenty of time to think over what he’s seen.

             Heisenberg’s given every indication that he can be trusted. Still, something about him makes Ethan uneasy. Maybe it’s the ever-present aura of power that hovers around him as a constant reminder that trustworthy or not, he’s dangerous. Or maybe it’s just how casual he is about working with the dead.

             Ethan looks down at his injured hand. Uneasy or not, he’s about to let Heisenberg fit him with a piece of metal that, knowing Heisenberg, could likely be turned into a weapon against him should either of them betray the other. It’s a disquieting thought.

             Too soon, the Hauler is ushering him into the workroom from before. Heisenberg is hunched over something on his workbench when they enter. “Ah, Ethan,” he says, looking up with a grin. “Perfect timing, perfect timing. C’mere.”

             Ethan seats himself on the stool he is waved to - not overlooking any dark shafts this time - and watches nervously as the lord gathers up his creation with steady hands. “No mods. Right?”

             His query is met with a less than encouraging chuckle. “Don’t you worry about that,” Heisenberg says, and stabs the first prosthetic directly into Ethan’s wound.

             The pain is sudden and intense. Ethan screams, instinctively pulling away, but Heisenberg holds his arm firmly in place with one hand and inserts the second prosthetic with the other. Then he doesn’t let go, watching calmly as Ethan thrashes in his grip.

             Finally, the agony fades; not slowly or in stages, it simply disappears. The abrupt lack of pain snaps Ethan out of his frenzy. He looks at his hand in awe as his flesh knits itself shut around the exposed wiring.

             “Very nice,” Heisenberg observes, releasing his wrist. “Your body’s taken to them quicker than I thought. Well, go on, try ’em out.”

             Ethan slowly fans his fingers, then wiggles them. To his amazement, the prosthetics move as naturally as if he’d been born with them. He flexes his hand, they flex in time with the other fingers. “Whoa,” he breathes.

             “Two perfectly normal fingers, as requested.” Heisenberg folds his arms in satisfaction. “You won’t have any feeling in them, but what can you expect? I’m a mechanic, not a miracle worker. Oh, and don’t worry about keeping them dry. They’ll tarnish but not rust.”

             “This is- I can’t believe it,” Ethan exclaims. He can’t tear his eyes away from his new digits. They closely mimic human fingers in appearance, but are constructed from what looks like polished iron. The nails are transparent panels behind which he can see an intricate setup of tiny gears, wires, and turbines. In a nutshell, he can quite literally see what makes them tick.

             Heisenberg laughs, a bright, genuine sound, and claps him on the shoulder. “Put your eyes back in your head, Ethan. Sticking a finger in a hole is hardly an impossible feat.”

             “Thanks,” Ethan says sincerely.

             The teasing grin drops off Heisenberg’s face, replaced with something approaching wonder. “You’re welcome,” he responds seriously, almost hesitantly.

             Huh. That’s not quite the tone one would expect of the brash lord. Ethan wants to comment, maybe disguise his questions behind a joke that hey, you CAN be a decent human being after all, but he’s stopped short by Heisenberg clearing his throat harshly and turning away. “Anyway. We should make sure you’re in fighting form before we try anything productive. You’re probably hungry, huh?”

             “Actually-” Ethan’s stomach clenches painfully. He’d been too overwhelmed by everything to feel it sooner, he guesses. “I’m starving,” he admits.

             The grin he receives is every bit as sharp as before. “I can fix that too.”

Chapter Text

             Karl feels like… well, he feels like his head’s in a turbine, but it’s just as accurate to say the problem’s that Karl feels at all. Positive things, bizarrely. Why does he care if Ethan can’t keep his eyes off his new prosthetics? Karl’s good at what he does, that’s just fact. Why does a single word of gratitude fill him with emotions he can barely put a name to?

             “Do lords even need to eat?” Ethan wonders.

             Karl snorts. “Would be cheaper if we didn’t. We are eating for two, after all.”

             “Like a tapeworm.” Right, because that’s the route the mind of a mature adult man with a biological child will go down. Eh, it’s probably more accurate anyway. “So, what, you’ve been ruining the village economy for decades?”

             “Sustaining it,” Karl corrects. “If, like me, you do the honourable thing and actually acknowledge that shit ain’t free instead of just taking it for yourself like the entitled asshole you are.” His lip curls spitefully of its own volition. Not that he’s complaining.

             “Who-” Ethan begins.

             Karl cuts him off. “Mother dearest encourages it. How d’you feel about eggs?”

             “The- Uh, eggs are okay, why?” This guy is fun to catch off guard. “That’s not all you eat, right?”

             Karl delights in not answering.

             “Eggs aren’t all you eat, right?” Ethan repeats, horrified.

             This is hilarious.

             Ethan is beginning to look sick. “Heisenberg?”

             “I have got to get you better acquainted with the place,” Karl grumbles, in fine humour and barely hiding it. “Can’t have you tagging along at my heels all the time.” They’re not even going far, just to the canteen he last remembers stocking, and yet Ethan insists on sticking almost embarrassingly close. If he didn’t have the obligatory spark of dignity he’s already displayed, Karl is certain the man would be clinging to his coattail.

             “This place is a maze full of death traps and zombies with drills for hands,” Ethan defends himself.

             There’s no need to worry, you’re under my protection. The words form unbidden on Karl’s tongue. He swallows them and says instead, “Whatever the fuck a zombie is, I’m pretty sure I don’t have any. What I do have - or should, anyway - is something to fill that empty gullet of yours.”

             “Should,” Ethan echoes as they enter the canteen.

             Karl ignores him in favour of checking first the cupboards, then the refrigerator. A handy installation, he must say. Even if they constantly require electricity to function.

             Ah, his memory serves him well. He puts on a kettle for coffee, then gets out a pack of jerky, a can of beans, and the box of hard boiled eggs. “”

             Ethan blinks at the food. Then he looks at Karl like he proposed eating engine oil.

             “What?” Karl says.

             Ethan’s gaze flicks toward the refrigerator. “Is… that all you have?”

             “I have beer or Gibcos if you’d prefer,” Karl answers, miffed. “The vegetable market isn't exactly in business lately.”

             “Heisenberg,” Ethan says slowly, calmly, like he’s working something out. “Is this what you eat every day?”

             Karl shakes his head. “Not every day. I eat maybe… twice a week? Less?”

             Wrong answer. Ethan looks like he’s trying not to explode. He’s not doing a great job. “You said - But you- Why are you not eating three square meals a day if you have to feed your Cadou as well as yourself?”

             “Easy there, papa,” Karl tries, holding up his hands in a placating gesture. “I eat when I’m hungry. And when I remember.”

             “WHEN YOU-” Ethan rubs his forehead and then scrubs his hand down his face. “How are you still alive?”

             Karl shrugs. “We’re a resilient breed.” The coffee should be just about ready in a minute. He checks anyway. Ethan’s a guest, after all.

             “You’re crazy,” Ethan says with a shake of his head. “Are there any raw eggs in there?”

             “Raw,” Karl repeats approvingly. “A bold move. Sure, knock yourself out.”

             His ally opens his mouth to protest, closes it, and retrieves the basket of aforementioned eggs. He then searches through the cupboards until he emerges victorious with a frying pan in hand. “No butter, I presume?” he asks tiredly.

             Karl has no reason to feel bad as he shakes his head.

             “Cooking oil?”

             “Nope.”

             “Anything I could use to grease the pan?”

             Karl holds up the pack of dried meat.

             Ethan puts no effort into holding back a groan, which is rude considering he’s essentially refusing his host’s food. “Forget it.” Without another word, he marches out of the room like a man on a mission.

             “Where are you going?” Karl calls after him.

             “To find the Duke,” comes the irritated answer.

             “Tell the bastard to stop clogging up my main cargo elevator,” Karl hollers, and then Ethan’s out of earshot. He listens to the vibrations of the man’s footsteps growing briskly farther away for a moment or two, then returns his attention to the coffee. He’ll be damned if he lets a rocky morning get in the way of a decent cup of brain fuel.

             Ethan returns impressively quickly for a man in a relatively unfamiliar factory complex, package-laden and satisfied. Karl suspects it’s purely out of spite that he made it back so soon. “That man is a godsend,” he says cheerfully.

             Karl eyes the packages. “Lotta butter you got there.”

             “Ha! You wish.” Ethan sets them on the table and starts opening them one by one. “If you want this alliance to go on, you’re going to stop treating yourself like a neglectful parent. I bet I can count on one hand the number of times you’ve slept in the last two weeks.”

             “First off, rude, I sleep when I have both time and interest in it,” Karl retorts. “Second, that is unrelated and tells me nothing about what the fuck you’re talking about.”

             Ethan points at him bossily. “As long as I’m part of your rebellion, we are both eating well and getting a decent amount of sleep. And we’re starting with eating well.” He doesn’t wait for a response before getting busy putting away some of his groceries and doing cooking-type shit with the rest.

             “I’ve gotten along just fine with what I have,” Karl grumbles. He brings a strip of jerky up to his mouth - and finds himself wincing and lowering it hastily. What the hell? This is the same fare he’s been eating for decades. Why does it fill him with revulsion now? “The fuck?”

             “What?” Ethan asks without looking his way.

             Karl stares at the jerky. He almost swears it’s staring back. Scowling, he tears off a large chunk and chews it determinedly. It’s like forcing himself to ingest stale cardboard. Despite the jerky being as fresh as dried meat can be. “This is bad. I’ve been eating this for years, why-” Swallowing is a chore. It’s still better than scrambling for words, which is what he’s doing right now. “Why does it suddenly taste like shit?”

             “When you say “I’ve been eating this for years”, how literally are we talking?” Ethan asks.

             “I mean this is what I’ve been eating for years. What else could I mean?” Karl’s voice sounds petulant to his own ears. 

             Ethan nods slowly, expression overly critical for the most generic-looking man on the planet. “There’s your problem, then. You’re just sick of eating the same thing all the time.”

             “That’s stupid,” Karl grumbles.

             “It makes sense. You’ve been feeding yourself this stuff for, what, twenty years?”

             “Try sixty-three,” Karl says flatly.

             “Six- How old are you?” Ethan blurts, wide-eyed.

             Karl lets one corner of his mouth twist up in a smirk. “If you must know, I’m turning ninety-one this November.”

             If Ethan’s jaw drops any further, it’ll break the floor. It’s especially comical on the mutant hunter himself. “You aged well,” he manages.

             “Thanks. You’re not doing too badly yourself.” Karl stretches languidly. “Although I guess I can’t claim it’s natural.”

             “Why not?”

             “The Mold keeps its hosts from aging past some arbitrary point. I stopped in my forties.” He eyes Ethan speculatively. “I wonder when it’ll be for you,” he remarks.

             Ethan looks like this is not a comfortable thing to speculate on. “You’re not eating that,” he says finally, plucking the jerky from Karl’s hand.

             Several responses to this come to mind. Karl decides on a sarcastic, “Oh, and I suppose I’m not drinking this coffee either.”

             “The coffee stays,” Ethan amends. His nose wrinkles in disgust. “Black and bitter as your soul, huh.”

             Karl laughs at that. Then stops. “Are you insulting my coffee now?”

             “Do you ever drink it with cream or sugar?” Ethan demands.

             “Who’s got the time for that?”

             “Okay, this is an intervention.” Ethan sets aside the sausage he’s been chopping up, then whisks the mug away from Karl and adds a modest amount of both cream and sugar to the brew before Karl snatches it back.

             “Take your damn interventions somewhere else!”

             “Just try it,” Ethan says with infinite patience.

             Karl sneers at him and takes a sip. And- “Holy shit.”

             “See?” Ethan says smugly. “I know what I’m talking about. You’re welcome- Okay, that’s enough.” He grabs the additives, but not before Karl dumps what Ethan will later swear is an ungodly amount of sugar in his coffee. (“Ungodly village, ungodly coffee,” Karl will respond wittily. “Sue me.”)

             “For once, I don’t regret you interfering,” Karl admits now, tapping the rim of his mug before taking a greedy swallow.

             Ethan gives him the look of a deeply exasperated parent and goes back to cutting sausages into coins.

             They don’t speak while the meat fries, or when Ethan empties the pan onto a dinner plate and scrambles eggs and diced vegetables in what remains of the grease. It’s oddly pleasant.

             For his part, Karl is remembering what it’s like to be hungry. Normally, this occurs when he’s been working for hours, often days, and his body reminds him that it needs fuel. Now, though, sitting at the table with his sybaratically sweet coffee and inhaling probably the best smell he’s encountered in years, it’s less an irritating setback and more a feeling of anticipation.

             Anticipation? Over food?

             The legs of the chair screech across the concrete as Karl pushes away from the table abruptly and stands, shaking his head vigorously enough that it screws with his balance.

             “What’s up?” Ethan asks.

             “NOPE,” Karl says wildly. “NO NO NO NOPE THIS IS NOT HAPPENING I REFUSE TO LET THIS HAPPEN.”

             “Let what happen?”

             Karl gestures at himself, Ethan, the coffee, everything. “This! None of this is normal! There’s a glitch in the system, this is not how it works, there’s-”

             “Whoa, whoa, whoa, calm down.” Ethan’s hand rests on his shoulder, meant to be soothing. It burns.

             “There’s a glitch in the system,” Karl repeats. That feels urgently important to say. He grabs Ethan’s jacket with both hands and stares frantically into his eyes, willing him to get it. “There’s a glitch, I’m malfunctioning. There has to be-”

             Ethan puts his other hand on his shoulder and squeezes gently. “Easy, Heisenberg,” he says softly but firmly. “I need you to slow down and tell me what’s wrong. What is the glitch?”

             No no no no no. He won’t understand. He won’t see the problem. He can’t. He can’t he can’t he can’t…

             “Heisenberg,” Ethan says, a little louder. “Heisenberg. KARL!”

             Ridiculously, hearing his given name snaps Karl out of it. “I’m feeling things,” he says breathlessly. Suddenly he’s not out of control, but full of manic energy. It demands he let go of Ethan and pace and gesticulate wildly, so he does just that. “All the way. It shouldn’t be possible, Cadou implants of this strength permanently fuck over the emotional part of the brain. But now I’ve got all these full-power thoughts and feelings and sensitivities in me all the time and I’m suddenly able to cry, for pity’s sake, which, by the way, also impossible, and none of this makes sense. And WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED.”

             “Uh,” says Ethan. “That last one was a panic attack, I think.”

             “Great,” Karl chirps sardonically. “I get to randomly explode with mental overstimulation now!”

             “Can we come back to that later?” Ethan requests. “There’s… a lot to unpack here. Start from the beginning? Again?”

             Karl sighs and sits back down at the table. He explains the whole Cadou-affects-the-brain thing more slowly - how every host is affected differently, but permanent involuntary emotion suppression is a given - and manages to give a brief recount of his recent experiences, which is hard when Ethan’s sympathetic expression makes him feel like he’s about to cry. By the end of it, he’s exhausted.

             “But Miranda’s notes said your brain functions were normal,” Ethan points out.

             Karl huffs. “Normal compared to the rest of her freak show. Donna’s split between chronically shy and a hellspawn child, Moreau’s intelligence is all but gone, Alcina’s stone cold except where her precious bug brats are concerned… and then you have me. Nothing but faint ghosts of human emotions, plus one I managed to regrow over the decades.”

             “Which is?” Ethan prompts. Karl can’t tell if he’s asking in an attempt to help or out of curiosity.

             “Anger.” The word feels familiar on his tongue. He makes a face. “Also fear and satisfaction, but those are more half-assed. Not as useful.”

             Ethan doesn’t say anything for a moment. “That’s… not good.”

             “Tell me about it.” Karl takes off his hat and scrunches it in his hands in thought. “The crying thing’s what gets me. Brains are complex enough that I can believe mine just evolved around the Cadou’s influence. But tear ducts? What’s next, my sterility up and vanishes?”

             “What,” Ethan says flatly.

             “No one with a Cadou living in them is capable of producing tears,” Karl sums up. “Ever.” He gives his hat an extra vicious twist, then lets it unfurl to its normal shape before jamming it on his head. “But here we are.”

             Ethan shakes his head uncomfortably. “Not that. Your… what now? Goes away?”

             Well, well, well. The mighty Ethan Winters is a prude. “Oh, hadn’t you heard? The Cadou also render their hosts sterile. Why do you think Lady Di had to make her own spawn herself?”

             “Experiments?” Ethan offers weakly.

             “No, and that’s why you’ll never see lycan pups either.” Karl barks a laugh. “You could say none of us can give a fuck.”

             Ethan regrettably doesn’t laugh at his excellent joke. “That’s kind of messed up.” He cocks his head and eyes Karl with a suddenly shrewd gaze. “Are you trying to use humour to distract yourself right now?”

             … There’s no safe way to answer that. “Not that I’m not guilty of wearing the same clothes for days on end too, but you really need to change,” Karl says instead. “That jacket’s developing sentience.”

             “Ha ha,” Ethan grumbles. “I’ll be sure to take it into the shower with me next time.”

             “Do that. Save me a load of laundry.”

             Ethan’s face is unreasonably sceptical. “You have a washing machine in this dump?”

             “Please,” Karl scoffs. “I’ve built the mother of washing machines. It might even be a match for the civilizations forming in your pockets.”

             “If it’s still usable after decades of retirement.” The words are muttered, and Ethan immediately snaps his jaw shut like he didn’t mean to utter them out loud, but Karl hears them all the same.

             He laughs in Ethan’s face. “And just what do you think you’ll be wearing while your threads are in there?”

             The expression he gets in response is nothing short of hilarious.

             “Cheer up, papa. It’s just like playing dress up!”

             “You’re an asshole,” Ethan says grumpily. “And don’t think you’re getting out of the conversation so easily.”

             Karl smiles sweetly at him. “What conversation?”

🔦

             Why does the universe hate me? Ethan thinks as Heisenberg (Karl?) rummages through his closet, whistling obnoxiously. He doesn’t have a problem sharing clothes with another guy; heck, he and Mia shared clothes all the time. But with this guy?

             “These’ll do,” Heisenberg (Heisenberg.) decides, waving the door shut with a flick of his fingers. Not bothering to give a head’s up, he tosses the untidy bundle at Ethan.

             “Great.” Ethan puts every bit of sarcasm he can muster into the word. “Can’t wait to cosplay as a bargain bin mad scientist.”

             Heisenberg mouths the word cosplay in abject bemusement, then shakes his head and gestures for Ethan to get on with it.

             “What, here?”

             “Why not?” Heisenberg asks sincerely. Then, “Oh, you’re modest.Very well.” He tips his hat in a display of feigned chivalry and saunters off down the hall, tossing a candid “Nothing I haven’t seen before, Winters.” over his shoulder on the way out.

             Ethan resists the childish urge to make a face in his direction. Sighing, he sets the bundle down on the cleanest-looking flat surface and looks around warily. He trusts Heisenberg not to try anything, for some insane reason, but he can’t help it. His therapist once said something about this new paranoia being his instincts acting up to “protect him from further non-consensual encounters”. Then again, the factory is the first place he’s stayed in a long time that he knows with complete certainty isn’t under surveillance.

             Unless…

             “What’s taking so long?” Heisenberg calls from outside, sounding annoyed.

             “How do I know there aren’t any security cameras in here?” Ethan calls back accusingly.

             The walls vibrate with a long-suffering sigh that echoes with unnatural volume through the metal-enforced structure. “First off, I’m offended you think I’m that desperate to ogle your fatherly ass. Second, I don’t use cameras in my security system.”

             That catches Ethan off guard. “What? Why the hell not? What if someone gets in?”

             A hearty guffaw. “Nobody gets in.”

             “I got in,” Ethan points out.

             “I let you in, Ethan. I needed you alive and well to join me in killing Miranda, after all. Keep up.”

             He can’t argue with that. Muttering about arrogant blowhards under his breath, he shucks his admittedly disgusting garments and gets dressed in Heisenberg’s loaned stuff.

             It’s weirdly like changing into lazy day clothes. Maybe that’s just the sizing, though. They’re similar in height, but Heisenberg is broader in shoulder and overall girth, so the shirt hangs loose and he has to belt the trousers a bit tighter than he usually goes for. Heisenberg also neglected to offer him a jacket in this chilly establishment, but he did provide an undershirt, and Ethan is pathetically grateful for the extra layer, no matter how flimsy.

             He examines his reflection in a piece of metal siding. The face that looks back is unshaven and haggard, and could belong to any overworked factory employee from the nineteenth century. But both he and his clothes are clean, so that’s something.

             “Not. A. Word,” he growls to Heisenberg when he comes out to find the lord leaning idly against the wall.

             Heisenberg looks him up and down, smirks, and says, “”

             “What did I just say?”

             His irritation is met with innocently raised eyebrows. “If that’s the tone you’re going to use on your misbehaving child, maybe we should let little Rosie stay in pieces.”

             “Fuck you,” Ethan says, and means it.

             The lord tilts his head as if considering the words, then chuckles and starts off down the hall. “That’s twice in as many days,” he comments as Ethan jogs to catch up. “If I didn’t know better, I’d almost say you might not like me.”

             “Shows what you know.”

             “Aw, that’s not nice,” Heisenberg chides. “Show a little gratitude, maybe?”

             “For what?” Ethan fires back. “Dropping me down a hole, getting beat up by your own weird-as-hell creation, and eating more than your fair share of my food?”

             Heisenberg points at him accusingly. “A third of that is blatantly untrue, a third happened because you were being useless, and the rest is justified. And you can thank me for sheltering you, letting you tag along and save your bouncing bundle of joy while I destroy Miranda, and fixing your goddamn clothing problem.”

             “You’re not just letting me tag along,” Ethan protests. “You’re helping me.”

             “Wrong.” Heisenberg bares his teeth in a not-quite-smile. “You’re helping me.”

             At any other time, this would be the kind of statement he’d leave alone. But after everything that’s transpired over the past day and a half, he’s not in the mood to take it without comment. It’s also hard to be intimidated by a man who’s lent you some of his clothes while he washes yours. “What’s the difference?” Ethan challenges.

             “Who has the power.” Heisenberg veers off to the left with no regard for whether or not Ethan follows. A massive steel door looms up ahead. At one glance from the lord, it swings obediently open with a single groan that resonates in Ethan’s bones.

             Steamy heat washes over them, setting Ethan’s skin prickling with sweat. Swallowing a mild wave of nausea, he looks around at the building they’ve just entered.

             It looks like a homemade car wash in here. Which, now that he thinks about it, it probably is. Hoses of various lengths and states of wear are coiled along the wall or hanging from hooks. An assortment of brushes and nozzles decorate the shelves. The floor is a patchwork of drainage grates and scoured concrete, and an enormous boiler glows a dull red behind a row of smaller water tanks.

             There’s also a handful of Haulers scrubbing robotically away at a large something too dirty to be identified. That’s a bit of a giveaway.

             “You power wash your clothes, huh?” The jab is born of a distinct lack of awe and does its job with similar nihilism. “Can’t say I’m surprised.”

             “What were you expecting, a pithy little tin bin with a lid?” Heisenberg sneers. He strides right past all the cleaning gear, Ethan at his heels, and turns a hidden corner to enter the most steampunk laundry room imaginable.

             “Whoa.” It’s not a two-machine setup crammed in some out-of-the-way corner like Ethan had half-expected. This is a room dedicated to providing a service, and the washing machine is the room.

             Three conveyor belts of separate colours run in confusing patterns along the walls, weaving in and around an intricate array of pipes, cogs, and cables. Each leads to its own lineup of cleaning equipment before dropping off into its corresponding bin off to Ethan’s right.

             Catching Ethan staring, Heisenberg smirks and gestures for him to drop his laundry on the middle belt. “Always knew the guest track’d come in handy,” he says smugly. “Rein in that jaw of yours before you trip on it.”

             “Shut up, Heisenberg.” Ethan’s too absorbed in watching the laundry room do his laundry for him to put much sting into the words. The conveyor belt dumps his clothes into a vat, where a paddle swirls them in hot water before pushing them into the waiting prongs of a mechanical claw straight from an arcade game. The claw relocates them to another stretch of belt, which leads into one of the three relatively mundane washing machines mounted like flies wrapped in a web amongst the pipes. They’re so embedded in the apparatus that only the doors are visible. From there, Ethan figures out, another claw will set the washed clothes on a third belt, and they’ll be carried along the wall located against the boiler, below a line of fans, to be dumped into a bin and wait for pickup.

             “Not bad, eh?” Heisenberg persists.

             “Doesn’t this thing use up a shitton of energy?”

             Heisenberg looks at him like he just said the earth is flat. “Between the hydroelectric power generated by the river and the stuff I produce myself? It’s covered.”

             “Right,” Ethan says, hating the amazement he can’t force himself to not feel. “What are the other belts for?”

             “My laundry, and whatever comes with the peasant schmucks that find their way into my facility.” Heisenberg shoots him a slanted look from behind his glasses. “I don’t dig up the bodies, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

             “No, of course not.” He was wondering that, actually. Not that he’d ever give the lord the satisfaction of knowing he’s right. Still, Ethan feels compelled to ask, “It’s your assistants who do the dirty work, right?”

             Heisenberg huffs in what Ethan takes to be amused surprise. “Nah, this is a one-man business. Been that way for a looong time.”

             “Sad,” Ethan says, throwing caution to the wind.

             “I don’t need ’em,” Heisenberg returns pointedly. “Besides. The village idiots were laying out their dead in offering to their Black God decades before I came along and put them to good use. Miranda was swimming in corpses.” He laughs. “Lady Di didn’t want to touch the dead manthings, Moreau couldn’t even get them to move, and Donna never animated anything that wasn’t man-made or full of pollen. I had a surplus of test subjects the minute I started.”

             “So you just… waltz into the village every now and then to collect the bodies they leave for Miranda.” Ethan doesn’t bother masking his disgust at the prospect. Walking on eggshells won’t get him anywhere except tired in this place.

             “Well, I have a little more flair than that.” Heisenberg tweaks his cuff dramatically.

             “Never would have guessed.” When he gets no reaction beyond a smirk, Ethan adds sarcastically, “How many lycans does it take?”

             “Ha!” Heisenberg barks. “None. The sacrificial pallets are inlaid with metal. I just levitate them out to a drop-off point and send the pallets back in empty. They even ring their church bells to announce when the ceremony’s about to start.”

             Ethan frowns. “Aren’t you adding to Miranda’s goddess of death image by doing that?”

             “They make it easy for me, I give them a little something to believe in,” Heisenberg says with a shrug.

             “They can’t be blind enough in their superstition to not notice you skulking around the place.”

             “Oh yeah?” Heisenberg shrugs off his coat and discards it, his hat and gloves, and his sunglasses, next removing his necklaces and the belt slung around his thigh. Then he partially untucks his shirt and musses up his hair so it falls in his face. And suddenly it’s not Heisenberg standing there, but an unkempt, mournful-looking villager with slack posture and trembling hands heralding his fading youth.

             Ethan stares. “Okay, that might be the most impressive thing you’ve shown me.”

             Heisenberg’s somber expression morphs into his trademark grin as he abruptly sheds the curved shoulders and drooping neck, taking years off his appearance. He looks strangely human in his simplified getup, Ethan thinks. Like he could be a normal - albeit old-fashioned - mechanic getting ready to head home after work.

             And nope, he is not feeling sadness at what Heisenberg could be if Miranda hadn’t gotten to him. He has no sympathy for the murder hobo. End of discussion.

             “Now what?” he says instead of commenting further.

             “Now we get down to business,” Heisenberg answers boisterously, buckling his belt and leading the way out onto the catwalk overlooking one of the soldat processing areas.

             “To defeat the Huns.” Ethan shakes his head at the lord’s puzzled expression. “Movie reference. Or - moving picture, I guess.”

             One eyebrow raises at him, unamused. “I know what a movie is, Ethan.”

             “Yeah, well, my ninety-three-year-old grandma doesn’t know what a movie is, and she actually has a life.”

             The other eyebrow rises to join its brother. “Villagers have died for less than what you just insinuated.”

             “So what’s the holdup?” Ethan says recklessly, raising his voice to be heard over the ruckus below.

             Heisenberg does that feral, not-quite-smile thing again. “I like you.”

             “Forgive me if I’m not flattered,” Ethan retorts.

             “So Americans are all looks, no brains,” Heisenberg muses. “Whaddaya know.”

             “At least I can claim one of the two.”

             There’s a moment where he worries he’s signed his death warrant as the lord halts and stands motionless, head down and shoulders shaking with what looks a lot like barely suppressed rage. Then Heisenberg throws back his head and roars with laughter. “Where was this wit back when you were facing the others?” he demands when the echoes of his mirth abate.

             Ethan considers giving some sensible excuse involving not having to run-and-gun for his life, then decides fuck it, Heisenberg deserves the truth. “None of them were this annoying.”

             “Oh, Ethan, Ethan, Ethan.” Heisenberg clasps his shoulder in a way that, while familiar, carries a distinctly threatening weight. Ethan tenses when he leans in close and says softly, “You should really do something about those shit survival instincts.”

             He’s only half surprised by the shove that propels him off the catwalk.

             “Anything to add?” Heisenberg asks conversationally, letting Ethan dangle helplessly from the railing by one hand.

             “Yes,” Ethan wheezes. “Make up your fucking mind, you wishy-washy freak.” His muscles are already burning with the exertion of not falling to his death.

             Heisenberg crouches and removes his sunglasses to look him in the eye. “Now would be a great time to have some kind of… moldy bio-enhancements, huh.”

             “Fuck. You.”

             “Listen, you can hang around all you want, but eventually you’ll have to get your ass in gear and start learning what you’re capable of,” Heisenberg says dismissively.

             Ethan glares at him and finds the energy (read: spite) to lift his unoccupied arm and flip him off. From there, it isn’t so hard (he’s lying shamelessly to himself here) to reach the rest of the way toward the bottom of the railing.

             The second his hand closes around the bar, Heisenberg sighs deeply and, grabbing him by the collar, effortlessly hauls him back onto relatively solid ground. “Truly, truly disappointing.”

             “Stop dangling me over multi-storey drops!” Ethan yells, pulling away.

             The lord sighs again. “The lycan pits it is.”

             “What?” Ethan grabs his arm and pulls him back as he starts to walk away. Heisenberg looks annoyed, but lets himself be tugged backward. “Hold up. We spend the morning getting ourselves into some semblance of a functioning team, and now you’re gonna throw me to the literal wolves? This is NOT how teamwork works!”

             “For the last time, I’m not trying to kill you,” Heisenberg says impatiently. “We need you to get a grip on what exactly your little Mold friend did to you. And the only way to do that is through experiments.” He spreads his arms dramatically and projects the last word the same way he yelled “Showtime!” a couple of days ago.

             “No,” Ethan snaps. “I’m not your latest toy soldier to do whatever you want with. You hear me? I get to decide how we figure out my biology, and I say no impromptu life-or-death experiments.”

             Heisenberg lets out a sound somewhere between a huff and a growl. “Very well. What’s your plan?”

             Okay, confession time: he doesn’t have one. Yet. The yet is very important to that statement. But when he does, it’ll be a lot better than “chuck Ethan into a pit full of hungry werewolves and see what happens”.

             “That’s what I thought,” Heisenberg says smugly into the silence.

             Actually, screw careful planning. “Puzzles,” Ethan blurts. “You’re an escape room kind of guy, right? There’s gotta be some kind of puzzle room around here that I can use.”

             It’s not a bad idea, now that he thinks about it. Nice and nonlethal and oh no, Heisenberg’s making a spectacularly incredulous face that says he’s not going to like whatever assholish words next leave the lord’s mouth.

             “Really. You’re choosing death traps over basic melee combat. You.”

             “I didn’t say- Of course you filled the place with death traps.” Ethan massages his temples, completely done with this bullshit. “I saw your goddamn bedroom door. Why am I surprised?”

             “Because your one brain cell is busy thinking about guns,” Heisenberg states matter-of-factly. “Death traps or lycans, what’ll it be.”

             Ethan sighs in defeat. “Why don’t we just make it a package deal and see where that gets us.”

             This earns him a hearty laugh and a slap on the back. “Now we’re talking,” Heisenberg crows. He steps back, shaking out his hand like it’s fallen asleep, and replaces his sunglasses. That’s a very punchable face he has on right now. Then again, his face kind of seems to be stuck that way.

             “On one condition,” Ethan says firmly, because honest or not, he doesn’t trust any lord not to turn this into some torturous game. “The experiments begin and end at my say-so. No leaving me in a nest of radioactive snails when I’m screaming at you to get me out.”

             “Radioactive snails,” Heisenberg repeats sceptically.

             Ethan groans. “I don’t know, man, you work with zombie cyborgs. Who knows what else lives down here?”

             “I eradicated the mold mice and wasp spiders decades ago, so probably nothing scary.”

             “The what,” Ethan says.

             Heisenberg gives him a smile that is not nice. Then he taps his chin thoughtfully and sets off down the catwalk at a brisk pace, muttering.

             Ethan catches only snippets of his thought process, and hates it thoroughly. “Execution is key… set lycans loose in the passages?… too risky, might fry him… unless… have to dig up some… second Gauntlet?…”

             He forces himself to stop listening when Heisenberg mumbles, “gas canisters,” with that special blend of speculation and anticipation reserved for people who realize they lack comprehensive knowledge of what they’re doing and are thrilled to see what happens.

             It’s a very stressful walk back to what Ethan has dubbed the main building.

             “We’re not going to start on this right away, are we?” Ethan feels the need to ask as Heisenberg plunks himself down at the worktable and begins sifting through papers.

             The lord shakes his head distractedly. “Gotta build it first. Where’s my fucking… aha, there you are. Any requests?”

             “For the extremely dangerous, probably illegal tests you’re going to throw at me?” Ethan laughs humourlessly. “Uh, try not to kill me?”

             “No promises.”

             “Heisenberg.”

             “Winters,” Heisenberg mimics back, still not looking up from the oversized notepad he’s now scribbling away on. One hand gestures vaguely. “Relax. I’ll make it my top priority to equip each test with a kill switch.” He chuckles at his own joke, but thankfully doesn’t try to mansplain it.

             “Really?” Ethan asks hopefully.

             “Nah. I want to see results first and foremost. Safety comes second.”

             Ethan contemplates grabbing him by the lapels and giving him a good shake, then regretfully sets the notion aside. “Add that to the list of shit that would land you in court if the OSHA caught up with you.”

             “Mmm,” says Heisenberg.

             “This is why people don’t want to team up with you.”

             “Ethan. Do me a favour and kindly shut the fuck up.” He doesn’t even sound grumpy, which should be irritating but is actually just very concerning in this context. The notebook is already getting cramped.

             “Fine, I guess I’ll go wrestle a lycan or something,” Ethan says, just to be annoying.

             “You do that.”

             “Actually, on second thought, I’m going to check out your bookshelf, see what fucked-up literature you read when you’re not operating on dead guys.”

             “Uh huh.”

             Ethan experimentally makes a few rude gestures in Heisenberg’s direction, to no avail. Then, because he apparently can, he walks out and yells at the top of his lungs, “OI! HAULER! GET YOUR FERMENTING ASS OVER HERE!”

             “SHUT UP, WINTERS,” Heisenberg shouts back.

             “PISS OFF.” Ethan rolls his eyes at the Hauler that shambles over. “Okay, zombie butler thing. Take me to Heisenberg’s quarters.”

             He actually recognizes some landmarks this time around. Like before, the bedroom door offers no resistance as he enters, despite the lack of an explicit invitation. “I could get used to this,” Ethan says to no one in particular, then takes a moment to wonder about the state of his brain. Shaking it off, he heads for the books.

             There’s disappointingly little to laugh at. Heisenberg is a man of science, and his taste largely accentuates that. There’s a lot of boring-looking nonfiction, along with a few sci-fi novels in both Romanian and German. The rest are unfamiliar to Ethan. All of them, he notes, are very worn, and all of them were published a minimum of twenty-five years ago.

             Ethan amuses himself with them for a while, but it only takes so long for him to get bored. Setting aside a heavily annotated copy of Herbert West–Reanimator, he wanders over to the desk and leans on it as he takes a closer look at the stuff pinned up on the wall.

             Huh.

             Nothing here is related to Miranda, the Cadou, or soldats. The schematics are all for other inventions - his hammer, several variations of a kind of lever-operated vehicle, mechanical birds and horses and insects. The pages are written in someone else’s hand.

             And the pictures. The pictures are… sad. Ethan doesn’t recognize anyone in them. They’re clearly related to Heisenberg, though. It’s visible in a hooked nose here, a toothy grin there, the pale eyes that seem to be a family specialty. Locating the lord among the faces is nearly impossible; Ethan finally settles on the pair of young boys as the most likely suspects. Unless he was the photographer, of course.

             Feeling oddly depressed, Ethan lets his gaze roam over the desk before returning to his book. Heisenberg will likely be awhile; he has time to kill.

             Man, he is getting sick of that word.

Chapter Text

             There’s nothing like a fresh challenge to get the creative juices flowing. The plotting out of details, the thrill of answering the question is it possible, the overarching satisfaction in making something out of practically nothing… Karl can’t get enough of it.

             At one point, he becomes aware of a plate of food resting by his elbow. He eats it while he works, vaguely grateful for the sustenance. The designs are really coming together. Once he has the rough spots sorted out, he’ll begin construction immediately.

             As it turns out, his houseguest has other ideas.

             “If you don’t put the pen down and go to bed, I’m going to shoot you until you pass out where you sit,” Ethan says candidly. This is not the first threat he’s delivered within the past fifteen minutes.

             “Sleep can wait.” Karl jots a calculation down in the margin of his blueprint.

             “That’s not the deal. Remember the deal? We work together so long as we don’t work ourselves into the ground doing it. I already let you skip supper, now get your ass to bed before I kick it for you.”

             “I never agreed to that.”

             “You did.”

             “Go to bed if you want, I’ve got business to deal with.”

             Ethan sighs, defeated. “Where should I sleep.”

             “There’s beds all over the factory,” Karl answers, waving a hand to encompass the general largeness of the complex. “Take your pick.”

             “Oh, that’s easy.” Ethan’s tone is suddenly overly bright, like he’s plotting something. “I’ll take the one with the yellow quilt.”

             Karl’s head snaps up almost of its own accord. “Oh no you don’t! That’s MY bed!”

             “Not if you don’t use it, it’s not,” Ethan says with a self-satisfied grin.

             That’s enough of that. Karl stands and jabs a finger into Ethan’s chest. “Fine. I’ll use it. Happy now, you parasite?”

             The grin turns lazy. “Mmm, no,” says the parasite. “I want the bed.”

             “You little...”

             “Look, you think I’m going to skip sleeping in an actual nice bed because a grown-ass adult can’t handle sharing?” Ethan folds his arms threateningly. “Don’t make me pull the “no homo” card. I won’t hesitate, bitch.”

              “I don’t know what that means,” Karl snaps, wanting nothing more than to either pull his hair out or slap Ethan silly with a chair.

             “Well, homo refers to homosexuality, and no means-”

             Karl bares his teeth. “Finish that sentence. I dare you.”

             “You don’t have a guest bed, I’m taking the main one,” Ethan says stubbornly. “That’s how hosting works.”

             “Do you have no sense of self preservation?”

             “Self preservation? That died the day I lost everyone I had left.”

             Karl abruptly feels like he’s been punched in the gut. Even Ethan looks like this was not the direction he’d intended to go. They stand there silently, two broken men coming to the understanding that the standoff of a moment ago means very little in the face of everything that brought them into the same room.

             Or maybe that’s just Karl.

             That’s what this is, he realizes. After decades of seething over what Miranda did to him, he’s only just now stopping to think what she’s done to Ethan too. Because of her, Ethan’s lost his family, his home, his ability to focus on anything other than finding an end to the nightmare. He’s suffering too. And Karl toyed with him, belittled him, and generally made everything worse.

             “I will smack you if you sleep talk,” he warns.

             Ethan gives him a sheepish smile. “Shouldn’t be a problem.”

             Karl nods, not trusting himself with more words just yet, and starts for the door. Then he stops. There’s something that’s been nagging at him, longer than this sudden blast of sympathy and guilt, and he wishes it would go away. “Sorry for impaling you.”

             The apology is unexpected, going by the surprised quirk of Ethan’s eyebrows. Or maybe he was expecting an apology for something else. “Oh. Yeah. That hurt like a bitch.”

             “I missed all your important parts,” Karl points out, not liking the inescapable feeling that he’s making excuses to himself.

             “Mold or not, being speared by rusty metal struts sucks,” Ethan returns. “But thanks, I guess.” He makes an inquisitive face. “Why are you apologizing now?”

             “Because we’re allies.” It’s more of a guess than a statement. “And because I feel really shitty for doing that, for some reason.” He groans and scrubs a hand down his face. “You better pray there’s a way to reverse this before I lose it entirely.”

             Ethan chuckles awkwardly and claps Karl on the shoulder. “Sleep on it,” he suggests.

             “Stellar advice,” Karl grumbles, trying to ignore the way the heat from Ethan’s lingering hand is permeating his flesh like some unnaturally fast-acting infection.

             “Hey, I work in IT. “Have you tried turning it off and on again?” is my life motto.”

             “IT.” Karl holds up a hand as Ethan opens his mouth. “Do not elaborate. Just - go the fuck to bed, I’ll be there in a minute.”

             “Not sure I believe you,” Ethan says pragmatically, but he shrugs as he says it. Giving Karl’s shoulder an absentminded pat, he walks out.

             Good. Karl can’t take another moment of his tactile presence.

             Except the second they’re not touching, he’s hit with the inexplicable desire to reach out again.

             “This is madness,” Karl says to the empty room. He knows voicing his internal monologue is a bad habit, but he feels like he’ll explode if he doesn’t get the words out. “Absolute madness. Emotional vulnerability is one thing. This sensitivity to body heat is another entirely! There are so many questions, I don’t know where to start. Are the triggers specific to body heat, or am I now sensitive to all sources? How is it going to affect my body? Is the reaction physical or emotional? Why is it more intense when I’m not the one initiating contact? Am I undergoing a comparatively natural mutation? Maybe reacting to the presence of American Mold in Ethan?”

             The room is not forthcoming in answers. It does, however, give Karl an idea. He pulls out his cassette recorder and clears his throat before continuing in the cool, precise tone he uses for all his scientific documentation.

             “The symptoms are fairly uniform, as observed during multiple tests. Upon contact, abnormal heat in the immediate area is experienced, followed by a biologically improbable spread. I noted a similarly improbable sensation of warmth in my chest, centred around the solar plexus. Additionally, unexpected touch appears to cause shortness of breath and an involuntary tension in the muscles. If contact is maintained, both temperature and area of affliction increase exponentially and are accompanied by a tightening throat and growing pressure in the tear ducts. In the occasion of brief contact, the symptoms are more subdued. Regardless of duration, I, the subject, experience a strong and seemingly instinctual compulsion to seek out more human touch immediately after breaking contact.”

             It feels good to catalogue his observations like this, like it’s an anomaly he can study and cross-reference and solve. Unfortunately, this brings him to his next problem.

             “There are too many variables,” he tells the recorder softly. “I have no way of knowing whether the compulsion will remain little more than a passing thought or evolve into a physical impulse. Or if my consciousness or lack thereof will affect my body’s reaction to the confliction. Sharing a bed with the only other person in the complex strikes me as a bad way to find out.” He hesitates. “I haven’t informed Ethan of this development as of yet. I’m not sure why.”

             Maybe he’s embarrassed. Maybe he just wants to give some semblance of a strong ally. Whatever the reason, the words don’t want to leave his mouth. Karl flounders a bit before giving in. “Ending recording.”

             Pocketing the recorder, he considers his options. Ethan’s touch burns through fabric, but it’s guaranteed to be stronger without layers between their skin. The safe choice is to keep everything on. But Ethan will realize something’s up if he doesn’t take off his hat or coat.

             He could fake it, climb into bed and right back out once Ethan’s asleep. Something tells him Ethan won’t buy it. For all his cluelessness, the man can be dangerously observant. And there’s always the risk that he’ll wake up during the night.

             In other words, he’s trapped.

             Ten minutes later, Karl is placing his necklaces on the desk, his hat, coat, and belts already hanging on their hooks. Ethan’s still up; he sits cozied up in Karl’s bed, reading one of Karl’s books, as calmly as if he were in his own home. The domesticity of the scene is really not helping, even if it does leave Karl feeling oddly nostalgic.

             Now, about the work gloves. He normally takes them off at night, since his hands are prone to overheating, but what if Ethan moves a lot in his sleep?

             “Quit stalling, fucker,” Ethan says without looking up.

             “I’m not.” Lies, lies, bald-faced lies. Karl pulls off the gloves and sits on the edge of the bed to remove his boots, mentally cursing his guest’s stubbornness all the while. Then, with nothing else to do, he settles himself in bed next to Ethan. 

             The lamp turns off with a click. He takes petty satisfaction in Ethan’s indignant, “Hey!”

             “Sleep well. You’ll need an edge for tomorrow.”

             “Asshole.” There’s the sound of a book being clumsily set aside, followed by some grumpy rustling as Ethan makes himself comfortable. Then the room falls silent.

             Almost, anyway.

             Karl will be the first to tell you he sleeps like the dead. That’s when he has the bedroom to himself, that is. Now, with another person lying beside him, he’s painfully aware of every detail - the sound of Ethan’s breathing, the way the mattress dips differently, the distance between their pillows. Thank God he had two.

              I’m never going to relax enough to sleep, he thinks, expecting a long, unproductive night with absolutely no enthusiasm. Thanks for nothing, Ethan Winters.

             Within two minutes of his prediction, he’s out like a light.

🔦

             The bed is empty when Ethan opens his eyes. He can’t really say he’s surprised. Knowing Heisenberg, he’s more surprised he wasn’t jolted awake by some sadistic alarm clock from the lord’s dreams/his nightmares.

              Also knowing Heisenberg, he’s probably ignored breakfast in favour of compiling a slew of puzzles designed to zap, club, and maim him in fun new ways.

             It’s tempting to just roll over and pretend to sleep for the rest of the day, but Ethan forces himself out of bed and into his (clean!) clothes. He thinks longingly of a razor and some shaving cream, then discards the unlikely prospect and heads for the door.

             And stops. There’s a device lying on the desk that wasn’t there last night, bearing a makeshift tag with his name on it.

             He picks it up. It looks like a homemade walkie-talkie, albeit one made out of CAT parts by an eccentric techie who likes dumpster diving. When he flicks the yellow switch, the speakers crackle with static.

             “Morning, Winters,” Heisenberg says cheerfully from the other end.

              “You’re in a good mood,” Ethan grumbles, knowing precisely why.

             There’s no response. He examines the little control panel and pushes one of the buttons experimentally.

             “Hold the larger button down to talk,” Heisenberg instructs at almost the same time. “Little one by the side locks it down if you need both hands for something else. Red one mutes m-”

             Ethan pushes the red button, then holds down the big one. “Walkie-talkies. Nice.”

             He grins at the silenced speaker. The pleasant absence of Heisenberg lasts maybe half a minute before there’s an angry hiss from the device.

             “Nice try.” Heisenberg sounds mildly annoyed. “No, Ethan, this isn’t… whatever you just said. It’s a radio communicator so I don’t have to rely on Haulers to keep you from getting lost around here.”

             “So, a walkie-talkie,” Ethan surmises. “Where are you?”

             A mumbled string of what sounds like math. Then, “Storage unit. Lowest level, look for yellow signs. See ya!”

             The communicator falls abruptly silent.

             “Egotistical prick,” Ethan mutters, clipping it onto his belt. Probably didn’t even bother to save him some coffee.

             Leaving the private elevator is like walking into a life-sized road map. Arrows have been painted on the floor and walls - in yellow, of course - leading in various directions, all of which have been labelled neatly.

             “When did you have time to do all this?” Ethan asks the empty cavern. There’s no answer, so with a long-suffering sigh, he begins following the arrows leading toward “LOWER LEVEL”.

             He does make a quick detour to the kitchenette to stock up on coffee and muffins. There’s half a pot of stone-cold coffee waiting for him, in a typical display of Heisenberg “thoughtfulness”. How long it’s sat there is not worth puzzling over.

             “Cold coffee. Real mature.”

              Bitching at an empty kitchen. Real mature, his brain snarks back. Stupid traitor brain. Ethan heats up the coffee, debates looking for a mug, and elects to just drink it straight from the pot as he walks. He has a feeling Heisenberg won’t be put off by a lapse in manners.

             More arrows, more signs. It would be an insult to his intelligence if he didn’t actually rely on the directions to get him anywhere productive. Quite possibly, it’s meant to be both.

             “Took you long enough,” Heisenberg remarks candidly when Ethan finally enters the unit. He’s fiddling manually with a control panel on the wall, hatless and bare-handed. The bandages visible beneath his dark green tank top look less than pristine.

             “I have,” Ethan says grumpily, “so many bones to pick with you.” In no mood to be civil, he chucks the less appetizing muffin at the lord’s chest and plunks himself down on a workbench to consume his own breakfast.

             Heisenberg raises an eyebrow at him, then tosses his wrench into the toolbox floating beside him. “Not a morning person, I take it?”

             “This is the first night in a week where I haven’t had to sleep with one eye open. Fuck off.”

             “Remind me never to let you get yourself into any situation that leaves you hungover.” Heisenberg doesn’t seem too taken aback by the potential crisis. Ethan detects amusement in his voice.

             He jabs a finger in his direction. “Eat up, asshole.”

             Heisenberg waves a dismissive hand. “Yeah, yeah.” It takes maybe three bites for the muffin to be all but decimated. Heisenberg eats with the same precise ferocity he seems to do everything else with - no decorum or restraint whatsoever, but oddly efficient and tidy.

             Ethan sips from his pot and watches him under the guise of maintaining his stink eye. It’s the first time he’s seen any of the lords look anything approaching… well, normal, and it’s jarring. With his hair tied back in a little ponytail and his signature sunglasses replaced by wire-rimmed spectacles, Heisenberg could be someone he met in a modern environment, maybe a farmer or backwoods mechanic. The hand in which the muffin rests is large and marred with scars and calluses.

             “Now, about those bones,” Heisenberg says obliviously, wiping that hand on his pants.

             Right. He’s in a bad mood. “You couldn’t have given me a heads up on what you were doing?” Ethan accuses. “No hey Ethan, just popping out to do an assload of odd jobs, ring me if you need anything?”

             “You needed your beauty sleep.” Heisenberg gives him an exaggerated once-over. “Mission accomplished, by the way. You only look a quarter dead now.”

             “Sure. And you look like you got up long before the asscrack of dawn,” Ethan says. “Cold coffee? Really?”

             “Not true, and would you rather I spent the time constructing a thermos?” He’s treating this like a game, the bastard.

             “Don’t.” Ethan rubs his eyes with a tired hand. “Just… don’t.” The arrow thing can wait for later. Scrambling for a change in topic, he comes up with, “When was the last time you changed those?”

             Heisenberg follows his lacklustre gesture to his own bandaged torso. “I’ll do it when I have time.” He smiles crookedly at Ethan’s expression. “Don’t worry about me, Ethan, I’m perfectly fine.”

             “You are the last person I trust to accurately assess your well-being,” Ethan says flatly. “Shuck ’em.”

             He gets a blank stare for that, but Heisenberg scrunches his eyebrows quizzically and pulls off his tank top anyway.

             The bandages don’t look good. There’s no sidestepping it. They’re crusted with rust-brown blood spots and grimy with dirt, machine oil, and who knows what else. But when Heisenberg unwraps them, it takes Ethan a minute to make out the new scars among the old, that’s how close to healed they are.

             And also because with all the blood and adrenaline out of the way, it’s a lot more obvious how many scars there are to notice.

             “If we’re done ogling me, I’d like to get the testing under way,” Heisenberg says dryly.

             Ethan tears his attention away from the Y-shaped scar running from collarbone to navel abruptly, embarrassed to be caught staring. “That shouldn’t be possible.”

             “Said the man who got his hand chopped off and stuck it back on without stitches.”

             “I-” Ethan lets out a growl of frustration. “Shut up, Heisenberg.” He deliberately doesn’t watch as the lord puts his shirt back on, then shuts the control panel before plucking a hovering mug from the air and taking a swig. “That’s where the magic happens?”

             “You got it,” Heisenberg agrees with immense satisfaction. “I didn’t have a lot of time for construction, but this baby-” the wall receives a fond pat “- should get your moldy stowaway up and running. Maze, puzzles, traps, possibly some lycans… Any questions?”

             “Yes,” Ethan blurts before he can think of some questions to ask. “Rules. What are the rules? What am I doing? Just getting from Point A to Point B without dying?”

             “Pretty much.”

             “I need more to work with than that.”

             Heisenberg nods like that was a test Ethan just passed. “Alright, you know the drill,” he says briskly. “Yellow gets you out of harm’s way in a pinch. Use anything yellow and the trap shuts down. But keep in mind, I will be notified each time you do that, and I will come fight you myself if you take too many shortcuts.” His teeth flash white as he grins. The canines are just a smidge too long and pointed to be human.

             “About that,” Ethan says, finding something else to focus on. “Why yellow? Does it mean “help” or something in Romanian culture?”

             Heisenberg gives him a strange look. “It’s my favourite colour.”

             “Okay, but…” Ethan stops. “No way. All those markers - that was you?”

             “What did you think was going on?” Heisenberg demands. “God raining blessings from the heavens?”

             That’s more thinking than he’d actually done on the subject up to this point. He’s honestly stopped questioning the “yellow means helpful shit” thing since working with Zoe Baker. “The Duke…?” Ethan hedges, hoping this is a believable answer.

             For some inscrutable reason, the lord relents a little. “Oh. Well. He helped. Just in places I couldn’t access on my own, of course.”

              “How?”

             “Same way he gets anywhere,” says Heisenberg with a shrug.

             Ethan looks at him blankly.

             “His Cadou, Ethan. Use your brain, goddamn.”

             Wait. “Duke’s a lord?”

             “Was one,” Heisenberg corrects. “Lord Cesare, unless my memory’s gone to shit. He got away somehow, maybe twenty years back, and he’s too slippery for Miranda to catch him again.” He sounds jealous, understandably enough.

             “What does he do?” Ethan asks curiously. “I mean, what’s his...” Insert vague gesture meant to convey any conceivable mutation here.

             “He can assimilate his wagon into any area with a door. And you don’t notice him unless he wants you to. Don’t ask me how any of that works.” Heisenberg takes a long, leisurely sip of his coffee.

             Ethan’s head is spinning with this new information. His mouth, however, doesn’t get the memo and keeps on talking. “So you sent him into these places to make me a path?”

             “Nope. Had him take me there to do it myself.”

             “That explains a few things,” Ethan says, remembering the rusty scrap in Lady Dimitrescu’s castle.

             So that makes sense now. But there is one little thing he doesn’t get.

             “What?” Heisenberg asks upon noticing Ethan staring at him with furrowed brow.

              “Why are you slapping bright yellow paint all over this shithole?”

             An easy shrug. “Recruitment tactic. Shockingly, you’re the only person ever to follow the trail.”

             “The trail,” Ethan repeats. “The one leading through all four lords’ houses. In a village where the lords are unstoppable forces of death and havoc that answer only to the mouthpiece of the all-powerful Black God.”

             “Yes. Your point?”

             Ethan throws his hands up in exasperation. “What the fuck were you expecting to happen?”

             “It worked with you, didn’t it?” Heisenberg points out reasonably.

             That’s… true. “Whatever.”

             He gets a smug little “Ha!” for that one. Alright, that’s it. No more questions. He’s not going to fuel Heisenberg’s ego any further.

             “How did you know where I needed to go?” Dammit.

             “Aside from figuring out where the others were keeping your precious baby bits?” Heisenberg smirks. “Didn’t know, didn’t bother trying. I just left goodies wherever I thought you might find them.”

             “So there’s just free ammo and chem fluid scattered around the village where no one will find them now.”

             Heisenberg narrows his eyes at him. “You’re stalling.”

             “What? No,” Ethan lies.

             “Save it for later, Winters. Time’s a-wasting.” A panel in the wall slides open with a low rumble, revealing an industrially lit passage beyond.

             Ethan sighs. “I’ll go get my gun.” Before he makes it to the door, an unseen force turns him around forcibly and drags him back by the midriff. “What the-”

             “No guns,” Heisenberg says, lowering his extended hand. “Last thing we need is you wasting bullets. Take this instead.”

             A plain but serviceable-looking knife is tossed Ethan’s way. He manages to catch it without losing more fingers, which is a small miracle. “But how did you-”

             “Belt buckle.”

             “That’s not fair,” Ethan grumbles, tucking the knife into his waistband.

             Heisenberg just grins unrepentantly and waves him onward into the maze.

             The passage seems harmless enough. There are no traps or other obstacles in sight. Ethan enters with extreme caution anyway, one hand ready on the hilt of his new weapon.

             And the panel rumbles ominously shut behind him.

Chapter Text

             Ethan was never a great student when it came to military training. But he’s never been more glad a few things stuck than he is now. True, it’s not so much of a life-or-death situation as it’s been in the past, but knowing he’s in an enclosed, carefully planned out sort of danger rather than an outdoor, unplanned one already has his nerves tying themselves in fraying knots.

              Take note of your surroundings. File away every detail.

             The passage is not narrow, maybe eight feet across. It’s fairly dim in here, but lit well enough that it wouldn’t seem out of place in a slightly rundown mall. The walls are plated with a metal that could be steel or iron, as are apparently random sections of floor.

             “Did I forget to mention?” Heisenberg’s voice crackles from the communicator, causing Ethan to jump. “I’ll be monitoring you on camera.”

             “The whole time?” It seems like an unproductive way for the lord to do things, although not necessarily out of character. He did watch Ethan’s progress through the village without taking action.

             “I’m a great multitasker.”

             “Wonderful.” Ethan looks to the left, then to the right, mentally debating with himself as to which direction he should take. Straining his senses reveals nothing out of the ordinary either way.

              Any creepy mold powers lurking in there?

             Nothing exciting happens. He picks a direction at random and creeps down the hall, heart in his throat. It’s like the Gauntlet all over again, but almost worse because getting out is guaranteed to require more than just avoiding lycans and giant meat grinders.

              And spike-riddled collapsing ceilings, can’t forget the ceilings.

             Right on cue, something clicks underfoot. Ethan has a split second to make the choice between DON’T MOVE and GET OUT OF THERE before the ceiling folds open and an enormous bladed pendulum slices through the air where he’d been a moment before.

             “JESUS FUCK!”

             The pendulum swings back and forth a few times, each with vicious force, and then retracts. He gives it a few seconds before peeling himself off the wall and looking around for anything else that could be a trigger. Nothing so far, but he does spot a yellow line of paint encircling a button on the floor.

             Moving on, then. The sooner he gets to the end of this maze, the sooner he can leave.

             “That went well.” The fact that Ethan can’t tell if the remark is sarcastic or not makes having his own personal commentator all the more annoying.

             “Don’t you have shit to do?”

             “Sure,” Heisenberg drawls. “It’s not my fault loud swearing playing over the speakers is distracting. You’re in worse shape than I thought.”

             “I don’t work well with an audience,” Ethan grits out, coming to an intersection and checking for telltale hints of yellow.

             A low chuckle rises from the little speaker. “Mmm, no, you really don’t.”

             Ugh. Ethan doesn’t like condescension at the best of times, but Heisenberg has a special knack for dialling it up to eleven. He bristles. “You say that like I didn’t make it through your sick games last time.”

             “The Gauntlet?” Heisenberg laughs. “You’re as blind as my dearly departed siblings if you think that was meant to kill you.”

             Ethan opens his mouth to argue that it sure seemed like it, then closes it again. The barricades holding the lycans back. The marked crates containing useful supplies. The convenient alcove where he hid until the meat grinder shut down and he could crawl to safety. Even the metal restraints on his wrists, tugging him out of harm’s way when he was at the mercy of the king lycan.

             “I’ve been trying to get rebellious villagers out through that thing for decades,” Heisenberg says in that patented “you’re lucky I know everything and am kind enough to explain it to you” voice. “Good job being the first to make it out and stick around to seal the deal.”

             “I don’t blame them for splitting.” Ethan comes to a door with a complicated array of pins and holes on the upper panel. The setup reminds him uncomfortably of a grenade.

             “Quit poking the bear,” Heisenberg chides. “Working with me as an outside man would be great! Travel to new places under my payroll, do some shopping, maybe collect a little gossip… Tell me that’s a downgrade, I dare you.”

             “Heisenberg, if you don’t shut up and let me focus, I am going to get my head blown off by an exploding door.”

             With a lot of unintelligible muttering, the lord backs off. Good; the argument was getting dangerously chummy anyway.

             Ethan turns his attention back to the patterns on the door. They somewhat resemble the Heisenberg crest, only the disorder of the varying pin lengths renders the overall picture a jumbled mess. Seems straightforward enough.

             He’s got this.

🔦

             He doesn’t got this.

             “HEISENBERG!” Ethan yells, ducking under a portion of collapsing ceiling. “GET ME OUT OF HERE!”

             “Giving up already?” Heisenberg says with maddening perplexity.

             Steel jaws the size of garage doors snap shut practically on Ethan’s heels. He stumbles and slams into a wall, running too hard to turn the corner with finesse. “WHAT DO YOU MEAN, “ALREADY”? I’VE BEEN STUCK HERE FOR HOURS!”

             “Exactly. You’re doing great.”

             By “great”, he apparently means “mostly uninjured despite not showing any sign of useful powers.” Ethan would gladly strangle him if they were in the same room. And, you know, if he weren’t currently racing down a stretch of boobytrapped hallway with every conceivable kind of mechanical danger present and actively trying to kill him.

             “I can’t keep this up!” he pants. A pit opens practically beneath his feet. He jumps it without looking to see what’s down there.

             Heisenberg sighs. “Very well. We’ll try this from the top tomorrow.”

             The communicator falls silent. Then, before Ethan can fully register his own fury at being left hanging, there’s a series of groans, creaks, and metallic whines as every trap grinds to a halt.

             He leans heavily against the wall, gasping for breath. “About time, asshole.”

             “I’ll be honest, that’s not my favourite nickname.” Heisenberg sounds distracted.

             “What are you even doing out there?” Ethan asks without thinking. Nice going, Ethan. Give him an excuse to leave you here longer.

             Heisenberg doesn’t answer for a second. “Developing some prototypes. Get yourself cleaned up and we can talk.” He swears under his breath, and Ethan opens his mouth to snap at him about not helping. Then he says, through a grunt of effort, “Look for panels outlined with tape. They’re emergency exits.”

             He’d wondered about those, fleetingly. There’s one just up ahead. As promised, it slides open when he pushes it, revealing the - blessedly quiet, blessedly plain - storage unit. “Thank God,” Ethan groans, forgetting he’s not technically alone.

             “You can call me by my name, you know.” The quip is accompanied by a laugh that could accurately be described as a vocal grin.

             “Shut up.”

             He’ll be damned if he admits it, but the arrows are an invaluable help getting him back to Heisenberg’s rooms. The trek is a lot less nerve-wracking when he isn’t being led by a dead guy who should be rotting but for some reason isn’t, he’ll say that.

             Rummaging through the closet doesn’t feel like an invasion of privacy anymore, he notes with a mix of distaste and petty satisfaction. He takes his time sifting through the assortment of work shirts and sweaters - the latter being noticeably more moth-eaten and threadbare, probably owned by the previous inhabitants of this place - before making a selection and heading for the bathroom. His reflection in the cracked surface of the little wall-mounted mirror catches his eye, reminding him how badly he needs a hygiene boost.

             “I’m going to take a wild guess and say you don’t keep a razor handy,” he says to the communicator. Yes, he’s going for it. No, he doesn’t expect a positive outcome. Heisenberg probably keeps his beard in check with any sharp object he happens to find in his pocket.

             “There’s one kicking around the factory somewhere,” Heisenberg says, followed by a gross squelch that hopefully isn’t coming from him. “My advice is, just use a knife until it shows up.”

             “Great.” Ethan doesn’t bother complaining that he didn’t ask for his advice and probably never will. He pours that salt into his tone and hopes it gets the message across.

             “If you’re that desperate for a shave, I could do it for you,” Heisenberg offers in a smirky voice.

             Ethan snorts. “Fuck no. I like having lips.”

             “Your loss.” The lord’s shrug carries across the radio waves just fine.

             And that’s the end of that. Ethan leaves the communicator outside the bathroom just to spite him, closes and locks the door, and takes his well-deserved shower. (In the end, he gives in and uses the knife. It leaves much to be desired, but he feels a lot better with his face stubble-free.)

             He emerges to the sound of tuneless humming crackling faintly from the communicator. Something about it - the mundanity of someone making music while he works, perhaps, or the lack of swagger in the action - gives him pause.

             That’s not going to fly. “Where are you?” Ethan asks loudly, and smiles when he’s met with a clatter and a startled curse.

             “Done primping, are you?” Heisenberg snips after clearing his throat. “About time.”

             “Just answer the damn question.”

             Heisenberg makes a gutteral noise of irritation. “Operation Room, Processing Area C, third level. I’m not coming after you if you get lost.”

             “Wouldn’t expect you to.” He tucks both communicator and knife into his belt, then heads out.

             Some time later, he opens the door labeled “OPERATION ROOM” (seriously, is Heisenberg painting as he goes?) to find the lord wrist-deep in a cadaver’s gut.

             Ethan closes the door sharply.

             He waits until his stomach has settled to open it again and go in. The cadaver is still lying there on the operating table. Heisenberg’s hands are still dripping with gore.

             “That’s fucking disturbing,” Ethan comments, looking elsewhere. Not a great idea, seeing as this is an area dedicated to the creation of soldats. There’s a chute labeled “PARTS”, with less-than-encouraging stains on the flap.

             Heisenberg grunts. “You get used to it.”

              “Do you?” Ethan says sceptically. He gets nothing other than a shrug as Heisenberg turns to wash his hands at a dinky-looking sink.

             That strikes him as a no. Huh.

             He quickly turns his eyes on the soldat-to-be. The arms have been outfitted already; the left with a large, curving serrated blade like a metal version of Wasabi from Big Hero 6, and the right with an external row of metal rods the size of beer bottles, each sharpened to a crude point. Plates of similarly studded armour sit in haphazard stacks on a nearby table.

             “I can see how that’s an improvement over the drills,” he comments.

             “Don’t be so sure,” Heisenberg returns. “You’ve never seen a soldat Panzer in action in the lycan pits.”

             Ethan shudders. “Thanks, but no thanks. What are you calling this one?”

             There’s a brief pause while Heisenberg considers. “Haven’t figured that out yet,” he admits, unconcerned. “Just scratching that itch, you know?”

             “Most people don’t get an itch that involves corpses.” Ethan notices a jar sitting beside the stacks of armour, containing something resembling the Cadou in Moreau’s lab, but riddled with wires and circuits. “Is that…?”

             “Ugly little fucker, isn’t it,” Heisenberg agrees.

             Several questions battle for first pick in Ethan’s head. The one that makes it out is, “Aren’t you just setting your army up to be taken over by Miranda this way?”

             “Nope.” Heisenberg pops the P, looking pleased with himself. “The first fifteen years of my lordship were dedicated to engineering a new strain of Cadou, supposedly so they’d work with my reanimation technology. Miranda lost interest after she couldn’t do anything with them.”

             “Why the fuck is Miranda just letting you fill the place with zombie soldiers she can’t control?” Ethan asks incredulously.

             Heisenberg makes a face combining a grimace with a smirk. “She doesn’t care. Anything that keeps us out of her business.” There’s a hint of pain in his voice.

             Ethan can’t help wondering with a twinge of pity what the story is there.

             Then Heisenberg dusts off his hands and strides over to a desk covered with schematics for another soldat. “And this one’s for dealing with Miranda’s Mold. I’m thinking of calling it the soldat Brand.”

             “Mold,” Ethan repeats blankly.

             “The Megamycete. Black God. Whatever you want to call it.” Heisenberg waves a hand. “She can call up strands of it. Hence the fire.”

             “Right.” Ethan examines the schematics, which are essentially for a reverse firefighter. The left forearm has been replaced by a nozzle connecting to a hose, which snakes from the upper arm to a tank mounted on the torso. The right has a large shield strapped to it, to protect the soldat from the power of its own flamethrower.

             Heisenberg leans on the desk next to him, looking at his designs with pride. He gets points for creativity, that’s for sure.

             “Soldat Cutter,” Ethan says on a whim.

             “What?” Heisenberg’s forehead wrinkles.

             “Soldat Cutter. For the spiky one.”

             The lord mouths the name experimentally, then huffs in approval. “I like that.” The smile he gives Ethan is startlingly sincere. Then he seems to catch himself and clears his throat jarringly. “Right. Onto today’s tests.”

             “You’re a special breed of voyeur,” Ethan informs him, slipping right back into his earlier grievances.

             “Eh, not the worst I’ve been called.” Heisenberg pushes away from the desk, rotating his arm in its socket with a series of light pops.

             “If I use the words I’m thinking of, they’ll burn down the factory,” Ethan says grimly.

             The lord just laughs like he’s been told a joke. “You did pretty good for a first time.”

             “I almost died.”

             “But you didn’t,” Heisenberg points out with enthusiasm. “Better yet, the test yielded positive results. Positive results, Ethan!”

              “When?” Ethan wants to know.

             “The spike launcher, the bear trap, the wall saw… What, you didn’t notice?”

             “Uhhh…” Ethan shakes his head slowly. What did he do?

             Heisenberg eyes him thoughtfully, head cocked. Then he spreads his arms, raising a cloud of various sharp-looking tools and parts that hovers behind him and then begins firing pieces of itself at Ethan with terrifying speed.

             Ethan shrieks and curls in on himself protectively, only for the objects to whistle past one by one without touching him. “You can’t aim for shit,” he notes breathlessly when the last tool has embedded itself in the wall.

             Heisenberg responds by launching a nail into the ceiling with extreme force, skewering a passing fly. “Oh, but I can.” He plucks the camera from his belt and tosses it to Ethan. “Observe.”

             The most recent video is only a few seconds long, giving him a view of himself from the perspective of Heisenberg’s hip. Ethan watches in amazement as his recorded self dodges every projectile - by caving in parts of his body no human should be able to cave in, rather like a piece of Silly Putty squished between a child’s fingers. When the last pair of pliers rockets toward his head, he can see the skin turn black and moldy where his skull reshapes itself to avoid injury. “Damn.”

             “That’s more like it,” Heisenberg agrees, satisfied.

             Ethan holds out his hand and squints fiercely at it. His hand remains hand-coloured and hand-shaped.

             Heisenberg pats him roughly on the back. “We’ll work on that.”

⚙️ 

             They spend the next two days like this. Ethan runs the Gauntlet II, while Karl perfects the prototypes and sets up new processing areas to manufacture more.

             They’re making it work. Better yet, they’re improving.

             After a few near misses, something clicks for Ethan. Watching him morph parts of his body out of harm’s way with increasing speed and dexterity isn’t particularly exciting, but it’s satisfying.

             Karl realizes he’s getting distracted and stops monitoring the camera feed so closely.

             On the second afternoon, he’s startled out of his concentration by a litany of muffled swearing. He jogs over to the monitor to check it out, only to be met with nothing but empty hallway. Ethan’s either somewhere between trapped areas or out of the camera’s reach.

             “You dead, Winters?”

             Ethan’s reply sounds like it comes from between gritted teeth. “Me? Nah, I’m great.”

             Well, that’s a lie. In no way can the implications be described as “great”. Karl grabs his hammer and heads for the garage, keeping an ear out for anything that comes out of his communicator.

             He doesn’t care, obviously. He’s just not in the mood to waste more time patching Ethan up.

             Aside from a few strained grunts and muttered “come on”s, it’s radio silence. Which would make Ethan incredibly hard to find, if Karl couldn’t sense his vibrations through the plating on the walls. And-

             What the hell is he doing.

             Karl leans on his hammer casually. He looks up at Ethan, who’s crouching with one hand and both feet planted firmly on the wall halfway to the ceiling, and tilts his head to the side. “Are you fucking stuck?”

             “No,” Ethan says stubbornly.

             Karl looks at him. He looks away. The wall reverberates faintly as he subtly tugs on his glommed-on hand.

             “You’re fucking stuck.”

             “Yeah.”

             Snickering, Karl lifts one hand and gestures at the wall. The plate Ethan’s hand is glued to peels away from its mooring with a screech. This seems to do the trick, as Ethan’s feet promptly unstick and send him tumbling gracelessly to the floor.

             “Ow.” Ethan picks himself up, flapping his hand uselessly. The plate doesn’t budge.

             “Here,” Karl says, grabbing the edges and prying it off of Ethan’s skin.

             With a soft ripping noise, the plate comes away, along with a glistening black stain shaped exactly like a handprint.

             Karl looks at it. Then he looks at Ethan. “That hurt?”

             “No?” Ethan’s eyes remain fixed on the print. “Hey - can you like… wait here? For a hot second?” Without waiting for an answer, he turns and jogs away. “Say something,” he orders over the communicator after maybe two minutes.

             “I think you’re in shock,” Karl offers obligingly.

             Ethan sighs. “Not over the radio, dumbass.”

             “Well, pardon me for making a logical assumption.” Karl makes a point of distorting the radio waves so nothing makes it through to Ethan’s side. He could simply unlock the transmission button, but where’s the flair in that? “Is there a point to this, or can we get back to business? Charming as your quirks are, I don’t have time for games.” He chucks the plate aside as he talks.

             “Ow, Jesus.” Ethan sounds a little breathless. “Shit. Okay. Mind picking that up again? Carefully?”

             “What, this?” Karl asks, poking the plate with the toe of his boot.

             “Yeah.”

             Karl eyes the handprint, gears turning in his head. Then he summons his hammer and brings it gleefully down on the black mark.

             “HOLY MOTHER OF JESUS FUCKING HELL,” Ethan shrieks. “WHAT THE FUCK, HEISENBERG.”

             “I take it you felt that.”

             A few more curses filter through the static. “No, but I sure heard it. You’re the worst, you know that?”

             “It’s been mentioned, yes.” Karl taps M-O-L-D M-A-N onto the palm in Morse code. “Come get your skin back.”

             “It’s not skin. My hand’s not missing anything.”

             “Come get your viscous black extremity secretion back.”

             Ethan’s shudder is audible through both the walls and the communicator. “Please, for the love of God, never describe it like that again.”

             A moment later, the mold man himself makes a reappearance. He collects the plate gingerly, as if expecting to get stuck again, and then, after a brief hesitation, places his hand on the mark. It makes a soft rustling noise as it melts back into his skin.

             “Excellent.” Karl flicks his fingers and the plate zips back to the wall and anchors itself. “Now that that’s settled, mind filling me in on your little adventure?”

             “Nothing to fill you in on,” Ethan grunts. “Got zapped by the floor, jumped at the wall, stayed there.”

             Karl pulls out his cassette recorder. “Experiment Three,” he begins. “Subject has proven himself able to adhere to surfaces vertical and otherwise through some form of mold secreted on contact. The presence of clothing doesn’t appear to affect this secretion in any way. Additionally, subject can use this mold as a sort of biological listening device.”

             “It’s not just listening,” Ethan butts in, annoyed. “I could… I dunno, feel where you were when you weren’t touching it.”

             “As of yet, range has not been determined,” Karl concludes, knowing the recorder caught Ethan’s interjection. “Ending recording.” He grins. “You’ve done it again, Ethan. I knew I’d want you on my side.”

             Ethan makes a face. “Yeah, I bet you’re thrilled to have Discount Spider-Man in your corner.”

             “Spider-Man,” Karl repeats. “Is that an American folk hero?”

             Ethan blinks. Starts to smile. Then he laughs and shakes his head. “I guess you could say that.”

             “Huh.” Karl makes a mental note to do some research on American culture next chance he gets. It probably won’t happen here, since all he gets over the radio are channels that only feature music or some language he has no hope of teaching himself. Leaving this backwater rock is going to be amazing.

             Joints click as Ethan stretches extensively. “Well, I’d say I did real good today. See you at supper?”

             “I’ll walk you back,” Karl says, surprising both of them. He shrugs at Ethan’s questioning look. “I’m heading that way anyway.”

             He hadn’t intended to, actually. There are plans that need to be looked over, a factory check to be completed, any number of little chores that he’s gotten used to doing before and during the preparation of the meal.

             But lately, talking with Ethan has been… nice. The man doesn’t seem to dislike him as much as he used to. And much as Karl is loath to admit it, he’s starting to like Ethan for more than just his resourcefulness and hatred for Miranda. They’re maybe a little more than allies now, he thinks.

             Then again, this could be nothing more than his trigger-happy hippocampus getting carried away. The damn thing hasn’t settled down at all, but getting used to its emotional output has become a little easier by now. He’s mostly been ignoring it.

             And it is a shower day. He was just planning on doing it later.

             So Karl and Ethan head for the sleeping quarters, and it’s completely normal. They banter. Ethan brushes his hand against a railing and accidentally leaves a trail of mold. Normal.

             “It’s not voodoo, it’s a science,” Karl insists. “And, dare I say it, I have it mastered.”

             “Sure. And Sturm’s the proof.”

             Blushing isn’t something Karl’s used to. It’s worse than the crying, because he can’t hide it as well. “You try designing and building a soldat while running on nothing but energy drinks and espresso.” And beer, but Ethan doesn’t need to know about his sad, sozzled twenties.

             “I have,” Ethan says smugly. “Or, well, a battle bot, anyway. A little one. College Robotics was wild.”

             Karl stops to stare at him. “You mean to tell me you know your way around a combat-oriented machine. And you’ve been running around my factory giving me shit for doing something you did in college.”

             “No grave robbing was done on my part.” Ethan’s smirk is begging for a stinging comeback.

             “Alright, genius,” Karl says instead of taking the bait. “Enlighten me. How would you go about constructing a soldier Miranda couldn’t control?”

             Ethan pauses, clearly caught off guard. Then, to Karl’s surprise and mounting fascination, he launches into a detailed, plausible account of the mechanics involved in the creation of such a thing. He talks with his hands as much as his voice.

             Before he knows it, Karl is adding in his own suggestions and constructive criticism. The blueprints are coming together in his mind, even if some of the parts Ethan describes are completely foreign to him. If only he had the resources for this!

             “No, but the chip responds to electromagnetic fields only,” Ethan says animatedly. “You can’t just replace it with vocal recognition. It leaves the whole thing vulnerable to Miranda’s shapeshifting. This way, you are guaranteed to be the only person who can control it.”

             Karl clicks his tongue. “But something like that wouldn’t mesh well with the complexity of the control system. Besides, it’s impractical to have each individual machine completely dependent on a human mind to manipulate it. I can’t concentrate on every soldier in an army.”

             “True.” Ethan thinks about it. “A partial hive mind? You could rewire the system so one mental command affects an entire squadron. Then you’d have a lot less to focus on, and your squads would be more in sync. Not to mention this modification gives your army more flexibility.”

             “Ah, but I don’t need something that complex. So long as it’s got attack anything from Miranda and don’t attack anything from me down, it’s smart enough.”

             “You asked how I’d do it.”

             “That’s right.” Karl hooks his thumbs in his pockets. “You have a real head for this stuff. I’m impressed.”

             Ethan looks at him with sudden awareness, a quizzical smile playing on his lips. At last he says, “Thanks. You’re not so bad yourself.”

             “Ha!” Karl barks. “I should hope not!”

             For some reason, this strange, unreadable mood of Ethan’s lingers. He’s quiet when he gets out of the shower, and even a little awkward when Karl finishes his turn and joins him in the canteen, running his fingers through his still-dripping hair to keep it from drying in a tangled mess. All throughout dinner, he keeps glancing thoughtfully at Karl, then looking away when he’s caught in the act.

             “What are you going to do when you’re free?”

             Karl stops mid-bite. Then he pulls the fork from his mouth, chews, swallows, and says, “Well, there’s a question.”

             Ethan says nothing. He just watches and waits.

             “I’m not exactly sure. I’d had a mind to travel, see what’s all changed in the world since I was taken. Maybe visit America. You were the nation of innovation, in my time,” he adds, waving his fork at Ethan. “After that… Well, I want to find somewhere to hang my hat. This place has nothing for me. And then I’m hoping I can make a living out of machines. Invent them, build them, fix them, whatever cuts it.”

             He hesitates. There’s no reason it should be hard to say. But it’s been his private, personal dream for many, many years, and putting it out there takes effort.

             “Above all, I just want to be a man.”

             There’s a muted pause. “I don’t get it,” Ethan says softly. “A man?”

             “A man,” Karl confirms, nodding. “Not a figure of authority, not a cautionary tale or the monster under your kid’s bed, especially not someone’s fucking experiment. I’m sick of playing the roles everyone sets out for me. I want to decide I’m the kind of guy who takes evening walks or has a cat. I want to decide who I pick fights with and who I treat like a brother.” He’s getting choked up now, dammit. “I don’t want to be Lord Heisenberg the pagan deathmonger, just Karl Heisenberg the plain old engineer.”

             The canteen falls silent. For once, Karl doesn’t have to remember to hold his tongue. Everything’s been let out.

             “I think I understand,” Ethan offers after a quiet eternity. He’s carefully not looking at Karl.

             “That’s… thank you.”

             “I’ve been trying to escape the same mess for three years.” Ethan’s eyes are distant, focused on the past only he can see. “Maybe this time it’ll free us both.” Now he meets Karl’s gaze, and something in his expression says, I know you now.

             Karl tries a smile. It’s twitchy and uncertain, but he thinks it says, I’m not sure I’m comfortable being known.

              But I trust you anyway.

Chapter Text

             Ethan falls apart on the third day.

             Karl is trying his hand at making omelettes when the canteen door bangs open and Ethan stumbles in, breathing hard. He makes it to the table and collapses into the nearest chair, burying his head in his arms and making panicked little noises with every hyperventilated breath.

             “Ethan?”

             No response. He’s shaking violently.

             “Ethan, what’s wrong?”

             Ethan’s shaking intensifies.

             A lump of concern rises in Karl’s throat. Dropping the spatula into the pan, he rushes over, only to stop short. What if touching him makes it worse? “Ethan, can you hear me? Raise your hand if you can hear me.”

             Ethan’s trembling fingers emerge from beneath his head and make it two inches into the air before disappearing again.

             “Okay.” He’s lucid then. “Alright. Are you hurt? Sick? Anything mutation-related?”

             Ethan gives his head the tiniest of shakes.

             “Not a physical problem,” Karl deduces. “Shit. I know fuck-all about this stuff. Uh… Can you try breathing with me?”

             A very small nod.

             “Great. Deep breath in… hold it, if you can… let it out…” He repeats the pattern a couple of times, not too pleased with how it’s going. Ethan needs to slow down. “Can I touch you?”

             Hesitation. Then a nod.

             Tentatively, Karl rests a hand on Ethan’s hunched back. “I’m going to tap my finger to keep time. Try to follow my lead. Got it?”

             A muffled wheeze that could be a yes.

             “In for three.” Tap, tap, tap.

             “Hold for three.” Tap, tap, tap.

             “And out for three.” Tap, tap, tap.

             It seems to be working. Karl does it again and again until Ethan’s frantic gasps subside into quiet sobs. The shaking is also letting up.

             “Thanks,” Ethan whispers hoarsely.

             Karl pats his back awkwardly. “Uh huh.” Then the smell of burning eggs reaches his nose, and he jumps up. “Oh shit!”

             Ethan, startled, flinches and lifts his head as Karl rushes back to the stove to salvage what he can of breakfast. A wet laugh bursts from his throat. It’s preferable to a whimper.

             “Go right ahead, yuk it up,” Karl grumbles, sliding his failure of an omelette onto a plate and depositing it in front of him. “This was for me, but by the look of things, you need the fuel more than I do.”

             The hint of a smile ghosts across Ethan’s face - his blotchy, puffy-eyed, tear-streaked, runny-nosed face - and he unfolds himself enough to accept the offered fork. He wrinkles his nose at the brown bits, but it’s so much better than the agony he was radiating mere minutes ago. Agony, Karl realizes with some discomfort, that he, Karl, had experienced by proxy.

             “So,” he says, folding his arms and leaning his hip against the table to watch Ethan dig into the eggs. “Is this normal for you, or…?”

             “Only recently.” Ethan swallows, then clears his throat. The roughness of his voice is mostly gone when he continues, “Been breaking down in stops and starts since the accident. Before that… I’d mostly stopped.” He takes another bite and says with his mouth full, “Can’t have a panic attack and survive out there. One or the other.”

             “Okay, so why now?” Karl wonders. “Am I not providing enough stimulation?”

             Ethan’s face crumples. “Ciorba de legume,” he says miserably, and starts crying again.

             … Soup. That’s not the answer he was expecting. Karl steals the fork and takes a bite of omelette. “Care to elaborate, buttercup?”

             “Grocery run,” Ethan chokes. “I w-w-went to get s-supplies from… from the Duke, and he… I mentioned I was su-surprised our alliance was going so well… He off-f-ffered to m-make us some ciorba de l- de legume to- celebrate-”

             He snuffles. Karl passes him the fork again, prompting him to take another bite. With food on its way to his belly, he recovers enough to finish, “That’s the soup she was making the last time I saw her,” before the sobbing returns in full force.

             “That’s too bad,” Karl offers unwisely. “Ciorba de legume’s one of my favourites.”

             “To hell with your soup,” Ethan spits, suddenly full of venom. For emphasis, he lashes out, sweeping everything off the table with an arm that is unexpectedly no longer an arm.

             The racket of the dishes crashing to the floor seems to snap Ethan out of it. He and Karl both stare numbly at the wreckage.

             “My omelette,” Karl says sadly.

             “Sorry.” Ethan probably means it too, but no one can fault him for being preoccupied by his right forearm, which has transformed into a wide, curving blade of oil-black mold half as long as the table. It looks wickedly sharp; it’s surprising that the table isn’t missing a chunk.

             It also looks like Ethan just unlocked a new ability.

             Karl reaches to touch the flat of the blade, then stops and looks at Ethan for permission. Ethan’s too busy gawping at it himself to notice, though, so he takes the silence as a yes.

             The mold is cool and sleek under his hand, not sticky or fuzzy as mold usually is, but slippery. The edge draws a thin line of blood when he tests it with the hardened pad of his thumb. An attack from a weapon like this would be devastating.

             A drop of blood falls onto the blade when Karl moves his hand away. He’s not sure how to feel about the way the mold absorbs it the instant the two meet.

             “Can you do anything else with that?” he asks, pressing on the cut until it scabs over.

             Ethan frowns in concentration. The blade shrivels back into his regular hand, then morphs into a series of new shapes in rapid succession: a mallet, an enormous pick, an axe. He repeats the procession with his left. Then he returns both hands to normal with an amazed laugh.

             “That’s a handy talent,” Karl approves. “Uh. Pun unintended.”

             “No kidding.” Ethan’s eyes glow with excitement, his grief forgotten. He looks up at Karl with a goofy grin. “Do you think this means I can mutate my whole body too?”

             Karl makes a face. “You don’t want that.”

             “Why not?”

             On second thought, maybe he shouldn’t have said anything. This is going to sound like a load of bullshit excuses. “When one of us enters final form, it’s not just our body that gets bigger. Every emotion we’re capable of feeling grows too. Our critical thinking skills practically go down the drain. And the burnout’s a bitch.”

             “Can you turn back?” Ethan asks with interest.

             “We have to at some point,” Karl answers dryly. “That kind of power isn’t sustainable. Hurts like hell.” He gestures at Ethan’s hands. “On the plus side, looks like your hands’ days of getting chopped off are over.”

             Ethan looks elated at this. Far too elated.

             “Alright, what’s the story with that face,” Karl sighs, seating himself on the table. “Your hands get mangled before or what?”

             “Oh yeah.” Ethan nods seriously. “Big time. Over the last six years, my hands got stabbed through, sawed off, sliced with barbed wire, ripped up by hooks, burrowed through by bugs, and Angie bit off part of my palm. Oh, and one time my leg got hacked off with a shovel. I still have nightmares.”

             “What,” Karl says calmly, “the fuck.”

             “Hang on, I just realized something.” Ethan rolls up both sleeves.

             Karl’s idiot brain goes Ooh, forearms and then takes note of the scars encircling said forearms. One is years old, while the other looks much fresher. Both hands are littered with other once-nasty marks, though they are all clean and closed, and they’re not the point anyway.

             “They’re matching,” Ethan says in amusement. He lifts his pant legs next, revealing the leg-lopping scar carving an ugly path across one calf. The other leg is relatively unscathed. “Shit, here’s hoping I don’t get a full set.”

             “Is it normal for Americans to be this casual about their limbs getting maimed? Should I be worried?” He’s seen worse - done worse, indirectly - but it always ended in the victim’s mutation and/or death soon after. And he’s just a little shaken by the switch from quaking and sobbing to candidly talking about bodily harm and cracking jokes about gluing feet back on.

             Ethan laughs a little tiredly. “Ever heard of using humour to cope?”

             “Not really,” Karl says somewhat honestly. Using humour to deflect? Yes. But to cope?

             “Basically, when you’ve been through hell and you’re still alive and technically okay, it sometimes helps to treat your trauma like it’s a normal part of life. Just another Trauma Tuesday. Make sense?”

             “No.” Again.

             “I don’t know how to explain it better,” Ethan says in mild frustration. “Just… if I treat it like no big deal, maybe it’ll stop freaking me out all the time. I can actually make jokes about it now.”

             It still doesn’t make a lot of sense to Karl. But he really can’t judge. His methods of dealing with his problems involve long dead-of-night walks around the village and breaking into Castle Dimitrescu to take potshots at the samce.

             He doesn’t say any of that, though. “You’re going to be fighting lycans in the Gauntlet.”

             “Noooo,” Ethan moans, letting his forehead hit the table gently.

             “Oh, quit whining,” Karl says. “They were already in there. I’m just giving them more free rein.”

             “A werewolf ate my fucking hand. Do you want the rest of me gone too?”

             “Keep complaining and the answer’s yes.”

              “Fiiine.” Ethan sits up and looks hopefully at the box of eggs sitting on the counter. “Any chance of another omelette before we go…?”

             Karl huffs. “Make it yourself, master chef.” He chucks the spatula at Ethan. “Try not to turn this one into crockery coleslaw.”

🔦

             There’s nothing quite like a mental breakdown to start the morning off on a cheerful note. Or maybe that’s the knowledge that there are lycans running amok in the Gauntlet.

             Ethan runs amok too - in the opposite direction. Out of everything he’s faced so far, they may be the least nightmare-inspiringly horrific, but they’re also among the smartest, and he really, really doesn’t want to meet one in an enclosed space with no gun, just some freaky mold morphing to keep anything else from going down a wolfish throat. Once was quite enough, thanks.

             He makes it pretty far this time, he thinks. Still no sign of the official end, but between the wall-crawling and aforementioned morphing, a good deal of the traps he encounters aren’t nearly as big a threat as before.

             Lunch is, as per usual, a rather late affair. They’re low on supplies, since Ethan’s last visit to the Duke’s emporium didn’t result in any trading happening, and he’s examining what remains critically when Heisenberg enters the kitchenette.

             “We’re running low on leftovers.”

             Heisenberg lowers his sunglasses to give him a long, piercing look. “What do you need? Give me a list.”

             Oh. That’s… uncharacteristically kind of him. Unless he’s got something up his sleeve.

             “No, I can handle it,” Ethan says, to be safe. He doesn’t tell Heisenberg to stay behind however, so he has only himself to blame when the lord slings his hammer over his shoulder and falls into step beside him. “Hey.”

             “It’s been a while since I last saw the Duke,” Heisenberg says conversationally. “Wonder what news he’s got. Probably nothing.”

             Ethan gives up. “One word about my sanity and I’ll kick your ass so hard, your vertebrae will pop out of your mouth one by one like a PEZ dispenser.”

              “I can hardly judge your sanity.” That’s an outright lie, as far as Ethan can tell. Heisenberg seems like the kind of guy to display extreme hypocrisy in mocking others’ shortcomings. “Fear’s one of the three emotions I’m capable of, remember?”

             Right, they’re back to denial. Fear, satisfaction, anger. Got it. “I’ll bite,” Ethan says, rolling his eyes. “What does that have to do with having a panic attack at the breakfast table?”

             Heisenberg shrugs. “That was the stress of the past week hitting you all at once, right? Lotta fear there. And fear is hilarious sometimes, sure, but it makes sense. Especially here in Mindfuck, Romania. Hell, you’re probably saner than I am.”

             So says the man who freaked out over suddenly experiencing the full spectrum of human emotion. He has a point.

             “You just told me you feel fear too,” Ethan points out.

             “I’m too smart not to.” Heisenberg taps his forehead arrogantly, then makes an airy gesture and drops his hand. “You’re doing fine for a human, is all I’m saying.”

             He’s deflecting. He’s totally deflecting.

             Ethan stops and crosses his arms. “Alright, tough guy, what’s the big bad lord afraid of? Can’t be worse than chainsaws and soup.”

             It’s a little disappointing how readily Heisenberg answers. “Death,” he says without hesitation. “Scares me shitless.”

             “Any kind of death in particular?”

             There. Heisenberg hesitates for just a fraction of a second. “Nah-” lying through his teeth, how polite “- just the not-knowing. Not too fond of snakes either,” he adds thoughtfully.

             “Snakes,” Ethan repeats, amused, but he doesn’t push it. Heisenberg’s been weirdly sensitive about his issues, and prying into his issues would be a shitty way to repay him.

             Besides, they’re coming to the cargo elevator.

             “Mr. Winters,” the Duke says in greeting when the door slides open. “And Lord Heisenberg! What a pleasant turn of events.” He inclines his head with far more respect than Ethan personally thinks Heisenberg deserves.

             “Duke,” Heisenberg returns with surprising civility.

             The Duke smiles, then looks repentantly to Ethan. “My sincerest apologies for this morning’s incident. I would have chosen my words more carefully had I known. Please, feel free to browse. I’ll throw in any meal of your choice, on the house.”

             “Thanks.” Ethan glances at Heisenberg, wishing this kind of respect was a universal side effect of lordship, then begins looking through the merchandise.

             “You’ve been doing this longer than I have,” Heisenberg says while Ethan browses. “That comes with knowledge of the Cadou, right?”

             The Duke chuckles. “I am hardly an expert. However… I may have some answers for you. Ask away.”

             “I’ve been experiencing something… new recently.” Heisenberg sounds like he’s trying to sound casual and not at all tense. Ethan pauses his browsing to listen. “Functioning tear ducts, heightened overall sensitivity, lapses in self control…”

             “He’s fucking feeling things like a normal person,” Ethan cuts in, tired of Heisenberg bullshitting himself.

             “Right,” Heisenberg says. He glares at Ethan in a way that says I’m “fucking feeling” irritated right now. “Know anything that might’ve caused this?”

             “Hmm.” The Duke taps his chin in thought. Then he also turns to Ethan. “Did you kill him, perhaps?”

             Ethan and Heisenberg share a startled look. “Do I fucking look like I’m dead?” Heisenberg demands, gesturing at his decidedly not-crystalline body.

             The Duke smiles amiably. “My apologies, I assumed Mr. Winters had simply revived you. It was remiss of me.”

             “Wait,” Ethan says slowly. “The crystal people can be brought back?”

             “Of course. It’s quite easily accomplished, really.”

              “How.” Heisenberg pronounces the word through gritted teeth like a statement rather than the question Ethan knows it is. His hands clench in and out of fists on repeat.

             “Well-”

             “One word about a price and I introduce my hammer to your wares,” Heisenberg warns tightly.

             The Duke clasps his hands in front of him, not at all upset by the lord’s belligerence. “The process requires very little, only for the calcified person to be unbroken and brought in contact with what empowers them. For instance, if you were to revive Lord Heisenberg here, it might be done using electricity or perhaps a magnet.”

             “And you think turning me into a piece of glass and back would be enough to make me feel emotions again,” Heisenberg surmises.

             “It’s certainly a possibility,” the Duke agrees. “With every rebirth, so to speak, the afflicted Cadou’s effects weaken. I imagine you would eventually find yourself quite human, should you take that path.”

             “And you’d lose your powers?” Ethan says, taking mental notes.

             The Duke’s smile takes on a hint of weariness. “I have never noticed a lapse in my abilities.”

             Wait. “You died?” Ethan blurts.

              “That’s how you got away from Miranda,” Heisenberg adds in fascination. He drums excitedly on Ethan’s shoulder with one hand. “Ethan, if the killing-the-control-freak thing doesn’t work, put a round of bullets between my eyes and run.”

             Ethan stares at him. “What happened to fearing death?”

             “That was before I knew it was a reset button!”

             “It’s not a pleasant process,” the Duke warns.

             Heisenberg waves this away. “Last resort, then.”

             “Would shooting you even work?” Ethan wonders.

             Heisenberg spreads his hands to indicate himself. “Stronger offensive powers, weaker defensive powers. You see Lady Damn-That’s-Big or Moreau doing anything more impressive than brawling?”

             “Lady Dimitrescu was pretty impressive herself,” Ethan mumbles.

             “This again.” Heisenberg shakes his head in disgust. “Never saw the appeal.”

             “Man, are you blind? Or gay?” Ethan tacks that last one on as a joke, but from the mixture of confusion and horror on Heisenberg’s face, it’s not appreciated.

             “Gay?” the lord repeats.

             “When a guy likes a guy or a girl likes a girl. Or when you like both. Basically.” He shrugs. “There’s more to it than that, but I can fill you in later.”

             Heisenberg’s jaw is slack. “Is this even legal?” he hisses to the Duke.

             “Times have changed, my lord,” the Duke says serenely. To Ethan, he adds, “I believe I have some flags in stock if you’d like one. They aren’t my most popular product around here, old-fashioned mindset that they have. Still, there’s always a few.”

             Ethan is sorely tempted to ask the price. Not now, gay impulse. “Maybe later.”

             “Flags,” Heisenberg says. “There are flags now. You know what? Why not.”

             For whatever reason, the flat-out weirdness of this whole conversation gives Ethan an idea. “How long does it take a crystallized person to come back?” he asks.

             “Oh no.” Heisenberg grabs him by the shoulders and stares at him over his sunglasses. “Fuck no. Tell me you’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking, Ethan. Tell me you don’t want to bring them back.”

             “What if we can convince them to fight Miranda?” Ethan says apologetically.

             Heisenberg shakes him a little. Static electricity crackles where his hands grip Ethan’s arms, raising the hair on the back of his neck. “Are you short a screw? THEY WORSHIP HER!”

             “Minds can be changed,” the Duke offers. “If I may-”

             “YOU MAY NOT,” Heisenberg growls.

             The Duke does the smart thing and shuts up. He looks very placid about it.

             Ethan takes a step back as the lord lets him go and begins to pace agitatedly, bits of slag and metal shavings swirling around his boots. “It’d be a poetic end. There are advantages. But they were hers! Don’t need more to fight. Donna might listen… not worth whatever the Lady Bitch turns into. And I don’t want Fishstick drooling acid all over my factory.”

             The muttering goes on for a few minutes. Ethan and the Duke exchange a helpless look.

             Finally, Heisenberg stops both pacing and talking to himself with a heavy sigh. “I need to think about this,” he tells Ethan. “Don’t get any ideas.”

             “I’ll be sure to keep the calcified lords safe until you’ve reached a decision,” the Duke says helpfully.

             “You sold my siblings’ crystal corpses to him.” Heisenberg shakes his head. “Why am I not surprised.”

             The Duke has the courage to pat his arm. “Don’t worry. I’ll give you a generous discount for them.”

             Heisenberg looks down at his arm, then up at the Duke, looking very much like there’s something else he wants to ask. Then he steps back and clears his throat. “Noted. Ethan, get your damned groceries and let’s go.”

             “You can leave, I’ll catch up with you,” Ethan says. He has a feeling there won’t be a lot of conversation to be had for the next few hours.

             Heisenberg takes a deep breath. “I’ll be in the third-level observation room,” he announces seriously, and strides out of the elevator.

             “Why don’t you choose a dish for me to prepare while you shop?” the Duke suggests mildly to Ethan. “I’ve found a great supplier of ingredients.”

             “Uh huh.” Ethan peruses the menu for a bit before pointing at one of the items. “This sounds good.”

             “Tochitură de pui, an excellent choice.” The Duke maneuvers himself around to face what looks like the wall.

             But then Ethan’s vision blurs, and suddenly, it’s not an elevator wall, but rather a travel-sized kitchen standing against a backdrop of wooden panelling. He’s reminded of Heisenberg’s description of the Duke’s powers. Shaking his head in disbelief, he goes back to picking supplies for the next few days. And talking, because he has questions and also the Duke’s just a really pleasant guy.

             In what feels like no time at all, the smell of frying pork wafts through the air, teasing a rumble of hunger from Ethan’s stomach. “That smells amazing.”

             “I pride myself on my cooking,” the Duke says with a smile. He presents Ethan with the tochitură, neatly packed up. “Are you ready to make a purchase?”

             Ethan pays for his groceries (and a couple of flags, they’re not expensive and he just can’t resist), thanks the Duke for his services, and heads out to find Heisenberg.

             He hates the observation room on sight. The room itself probably isn’t horrible, but why oh why do the walkway and stairs leading up to it have to be so rundown? He’s never been afraid of heights, but when he’s climbing a rickety staircase above a rushing underground river where only two people might hear him scream, the fifty-plus feet of distance between his feet and solid ground seems like a lot more.

             When he enters the room, Heisenberg’s not even there to greet him. It’s a pretty cozy space though, considering getting to it is hell, and also that its large windows look out over a soldat processing area. He can see why Heisenberg would come up here to do his heavy thinking.

             Speaking of… 

             Heisenberg’s hammer leans against the wall temptingly. Ethan has to resist the urge to imagine it as Thor’s hammer, just waiting for him to prove himself worthy.

             He can’t just not look at it, though. Feigning maturity and casual interest, he examines the weapon without touching.

             The metal is worn and a bit grimy, though not as bad as he’d expected. Heisenberg clearly takes care of it. The unconventional assortment of parts it’s made of even suggests he constructed it himself. But then, Ethan can’t think of any reason such an item would be available to buy or steal anywhere else. No occupation he can name requires hammers with that extreme a head-to-handle ratio.

             (He’s trying very hard to ignore how badly he wants to see if the thing’s heavier than it looks. The handle is too skinny to bear too much weight, the head can’t be that hefty.)

             “What are you doing?” Heisenberg says, materializing next to him.

             Ethan startles backward. “Just looking,” he says guiltily.

             The lord chuckles in a way that manages to come across as both amiable and mocking, but doesn’t call him out on his almost-lie. “Not bad, huh?” He pats the handle fondly.

             “You shattered stone with that,” Ethan observes for lack of a more logical response.

             “Scissors beats rock in this case.” Heisenberg grins at his own joke, then backhands Ethan’s shoulder lightly. “Go on, then.”

             Ethan looks at him questioningly. Is he being invited to handle his favoured weapon? True, the lord of metal could decimate him in a heartbeat if he messes up here, but it seems weirdly trusting of him, having what Ethan automatically interprets as a moment of vulnerability offered to him-

             “Break anything and I’ll bury you in scrap and make a soldat out of your corpse,” says Heisenberg conversationally.

             Alrighty then. Ethan wraps both hands around the handle, bends his knees for support, and swings the weapon up in a gentle arc to rest on his shoulder.

             Or tries to, anyway. The hammer doesn’t budge.

             “What are you waiting for?” Heisenberg asks.

             “Give me a second, this thing’s heavy.”

             “Heavy” is an understatement. It’s like trying to rip a chunk of concrete out of the floor. Still, Ethan tries a couple more times. It’s not hard to guess why he can’t do what Heisenberg can, though Heisenberg himself doesn’t appear to have gotten the memo. When Ethan inevitably gives up, the Lord is the only one who’s confused. “That’s all you got?”

             “Sorry,” Ethan says sarcastically. “Unlike some of us, I don’t have the magnetism to move it.”

             “It’s not that heavy without the magnetic fields.” Heisenberg grabs the handle with one hand and easily lifts the hammer, going so far as to toss it into the air and catch it again. Then he presents it to Ethan.

             The sound Ethan makes when his arm is nearly ripped from its socket is one of pain. “Not funny, asshole,” he grumbles.

             Heisenberg tilts his head at him curiously. “Do I look like I’m laughing?”

             Ethan makes a face at him, then looks around. “Where the fuck did you even come from?”

             “Over there.” Heisenberg jabs a thumb at the far corner, on the other side of what looks like a small forge but is probably just a fireplace. The shadows cast by the angle of the walls must have hidden him from Ethan’s view.

             “You know, I’m not surprised you’d go for the “sit by the fire and stare moodily out the window” thing,” Ethan says, waving a hand satirically. “Goes with the whole… melodramatic asshole revolutionary vibe you’ve got going on.”

             Heisenberg gives him a sarcastic grin and grabs for the tochitură.

             “Nuh uh.” Ethan holds it out of his reach. “I’m in charge of the food.” Warding off the lord with one hand, he sets the package on the table and sits down. “Sheesh, didn’t anyone teach you manners growing up?”

             “I have plenty of manners.” To prove it, Heisenberg actually behaves while Ethan dishes out the tochitură de pui, even taking off his hat and gloves. Ethan finds it more impressive that he manages to slow down his eating.

             Except that it changes the tone of the entire meal. Sitting up here above the noise of the factory, eating at a leisurely pace with firelight winking off the dark windows, feels almost… intimate. It’s an extremely awkward atmosphere for lunch with a business partner.

             “Did you ever want to have kids?” Ethan asks, to break the silence. He immediately wishes he’d chosen literally any other topic, but Heisenberg doesn’t seem to find it weird.

             “Me? Nah.” He takes another bite, chews and swallows like a man with all the time in the world. “If I’d been left with my family, I’d be expected to at least try, but as you can see, I’m the only Heisenberg left.” He shrugs. “I’m not cut out for parenthood anyway.”

             Ethan hums in agreement. “Yeah. Factory’s no place for child-rearing.”

              “I was reared here.”

             “Case in point.”

             “Bastard.” There’s affection in the word. Ethan is surprised to find that he kind of likes it.

             “You insult me because you know I’m right,” he teases.

             Heisenberg wiggles his fingers and Ethan’s fork redirects itself into his cheek instead of his mouth, dripping fatty juice down his chin. Ethan wipes his face, then flips him off.

             The rest of the meal is decidedly less awkward with them bickering comfortably. It’s only when Ethan has packed up the used dishes and is following Heisenberg out of the observation room that he remembers how bad it is right outside.

             “Jesus Christ,” he groans, looking down and immediately regretting it.

             Heisenberg follows his gaze, then gives him a shit-eating grin. “Scared, Winters?” he coos, holding out his palm in mocking offering. “Want to hold my hand?”

             Honestly, fuck him. “If it makes you feel better,” Ethan snarks back, grabbing it. Heisenberg tenses in surprise. Mark that down as a Pyrrhic victory for me.

              He won’t be the first to let go.

             Apparently, Heisenberg guesses what he’s thinking and takes it as a challenge. After a moment, his fingers curl around Ethan’s.

             They descend the stairs hand in hand like a couple of preschoolers. Ethan lets himself be tugged along until they reach the marginally wider walkway, which for some insane reason lacks a railing. Then he walks beside Heisenberg, trying very hard to focus on anything that isn’t down. Like the hand in his. Large and warm and calloused, with a firm grip that, like it or not, is actually kind of reassuring.

             … He should not like holding this asshole’s hand.

             Ethan loosens his grip ever so slightly, but the second he does, Heisenberg shoots him a triumphant smirk. He squeezes instead. That’ll show him.

             Heisenberg actually misses a step at that. Score one for Team Winters.

             “You’d think ninety years would give you some practice with walking,” he snipes.

             “A human my age wouldn’t be walking at all.” Heisenberg does a comical little two-step for emphasis.

             Ethan rolls his eyes and hopes the lord’s ego gives before they reach the end of the walkway.

⚙️ 

             It burns.

             He hates it. He loves it. He hates himself for loving it.

             Karl told himself he was stronger than whatever this affliction is. He proved it over and over again. Not flinching away from Ethan’s touch. Not holding back from getting tactile himself.

             But this is prolonged, and it’s lighting every nerve ending in his body on fire and he’s quite sure he’s short-circuiting and if he doesn’t pour all of his energy into containing himself, he’s going to start crying.

             He wants to pull away. He doesn’t know how he’ll bear it if he does.

             His hand remains in Ethan’s.

             Ethan has nice hands. Good, steady workman’s hands, not as rough or careworn as Karl’s, but used to labour. The skin is cool and riddled with scar tissue in far more places than the average man’s, and his knuckles are a little knobbly in a way that could be called endearing, if you like that sort of thing.

              Karl remembers holding another hand with knobbly knuckles, before his brother went to war. He used to cry over the space that was left behind.

             Not good. He needs to focus on something that isn’t the fire creeping through his veins. “What makes you think my siblings would be reasonable?”

             Ethan shrugs. “I dunno. Tell them the same thing you told me? About Miranda using them as a test?”

             That’s… not a horrible idea. Alcina’s pride wouldn’t allow her to shrug that off so easily, and Donna never seemed too attached or beholden to Miranda anyway. Moreau’s the risk here. If he could get the idea through his thick skull, the betrayal alone could be a powerful motivator. Or it could drive him right back to Miranda for assurance that it isn’t so.

             “A logical approach. Assuming they don’t wake up and go apeshit right off the bat.”

             “One at a time, then,” Ethan reasons. “You like Beneviento the most, right? She must have something against Miranda already, or you’d hate her more. And two lords in agreement - plus me and Duke - stand a better chance against one.”

              Now they’re getting somewhere. “And it’ll go better if we convince them that there’s something to gain in allying with us.” Karl tilts his head in thought. “Travel, the return of their precious playthings, maybe revenge… Still, there are a lot of risks to take into account.”

             “Take your time,” Ethan says easily. “Duke says it takes up to a day for you guys to come back. And we still need the right materials if we decide to try it.”

             “Oh, that’ll be easy,” Karl scoffs, waving Ethan’s concern away with his free hand. (The one that’s holding his hammer, actually, but fuck semantics.) “Dip Moreau in water, I can retrieve flowers from Donna’s garden no problem, and I should have enough blood in the fridge to turn Lady Dumb-itrescu from a stony little antique to a stony big antique.”

             Ethan stops. “Heisenberg,” he says slowly and calmly, “why the fuck is there fucking blood in the fucking fridge?”

             “I have expensive habits,” Karl explains, rolling his shoulders. “You never know when one of the daughters’ll catch you screwing around in the castle and demand a flask of man-blood for her silence.”

             Ethan continues to stare at him, floored.

             “Bribes, Ethan. I bribe the girls with leftover soldat blood so they don’t tell their “mother” I’ve been in her pantry or using the bat maids as target practice.”

             “That is fucking gross.” Ethan looks sick. “Please tell me you don’t drink the blood wine.”

             Karl laughs. “I take souvenirs, but I draw the line at sanguis virginis. Unless it’s to dump it.”

             The statement has Ethan sagging a little in relief. “Thank God.”

             “What, you thought I’d get addicted to the taste of blood and drain you?” Karl teases.

             “No.” Yes, says Ethan’s tone plainly. “I’m just sick of vampires.”

             “I’ll drink to that.” They’re almost at the elevator. Karl slants a discreet look down at their twined hands, thinking. He’s made his point, and so has Ethan. They’re both hanging on out of pure stubbornness by now. He taps the back of Ethan’s hand with his thumb. “Still scared, Ethan?”

             Ethan’s jaw tightens. There’s a determined glint in his hazel eyes when he says, “Why would I be?”

             The challenge stands. Unfortunately, Karl’s never been one to back down from a challenge. Eiserner Willen Karl, his family called him. Karl with the iron will.

             He sends a low thrum of electricity into Ethan’s palm, barely enough to warm the skin.

             “Asshole,” grumbles Ethan, and squeezes in retaliation.

             The burn lasts long after their hands finally separate, a good while later.

Chapter Text

             They’re in the kitchenette - again - when Ethan makes note of the date and realizes something. “Well, fuck me.”

              “Hard pass.” Heisenberg cocks his head curiously. “What’s got your pants in a twist?”

             “We blew right through Valentine’s Day and I didn’t even notice,” Ethan exclaims.

             Heisenberg frowns. “It’s not the twenty-fourth yet.”

             “What?”

             “February twenty-fourth. Valentine’s Day.”

             “Oh,” Ethan realizes. “You guys celebrate ten days after we do.”

             An amused smile creases Heisenberg’s features. “If you wanted to celebrate, all you had to do was ask,” he says, backing up a pace. He holds out his hand, palm up as though feeling for rain. Cutlery swirls around him in uncharacteristically elegant patterns, tinkling gently whenever one utensil comes into contact with another, and Ethan finds himself thinking of magic from some old Disney movie. Within seconds, the dancing metal has twisted itself into the shape of an intricate flower hovering just above Heisenberg’s spread fingers. The lord plucks it from the air and offers it to Ethan with a cheeky bow. “M’cete.”

             “I thought you didn’t like using your powers for personal projects,” Ethan says, accepting the flower and then turning it over in his hands. How the hell do you respond to shit like this? It is a beautiful piece of art, though.

             Heisenberg somehow adds a flourish to the simple action of unbending from the waist. “It’s different when I’m doing it specially for someone she hates, for a reason she wouldn’t approve of. Consider it a big fuck you for making me this way in the first place.”

             “Is everything you do a big fuck you to Miranda?”

             “Eh, might’s well be, right?” Heisenberg says carelessly.

             “Actually, it kinda sounds like you’re letting her live rent-free in your head,” Ethan points out, adding sympathetically, “Sorry, mate.”

             “Fuck, you’re right.” Heisenberg shakes his head. “First thing I’m gonna do when she’s dead is forget her. That’ll fix her.” He grins with savage anticipation as he says it.

             “Why do you smile so much?” Ethan asks impulsively. “You’re the most spite-driven person I’ve ever met.”

             The grin evaporates like a puddle in the California sun. Heisenberg is silent for some time. “Because in Miranda’s family, either you smile or you scream.” There’s another length of silence before he adds, “Safer not to broadcast what you’re thinking.” The words are accompanied by an indicative finger tapping the frame of his sunglasses.

             The implications have Ethan tasting bile. He remembers how much stress Zoe Baker was under in having to hide her efforts for three years; to be forced to fake complacency for sixty-three would be… “That’s fucked up.”

             “Tell me about it,” Heisenberg says with a wry huff. He’s still not looking at Ethan.

             “It’ll feel great to drop the mask, huh?”

             Heisenberg doesn’t answer. The playful atmosphere has vanished, yielding the right of way to awkwardness and whatever angst he’s stewing in.

             Looking away, Ethan clears his throat like the smooth bastard he is and quips, “Guess I’d better put this in water so it doesn’t die.”

             “Ha,” Heisenberg mutters. “Stick it in the fishbowl with Moreau.”

             “You decided yet?”

             Heisenberg growls. No words, just a growl.

             “Forget I asked,” Ethan says. The growl doesn’t particularly scare him - nothing about Heisenberg seems that scary anymore - but he’d rather not be pinned to the wall by a plethora of kitchenware.

             “Hrm.” Heisenberg plays with his necklaces, expression dour. The spring scale stretches and contracts, seemingly by itself. Watching the lord’s magnetic abilities in action, Ethan wonders if the necklaces serve as a kind of stim toy for him. At last, Heisenberg says roughly, “We should get you used to fighting without guns. I know you’re running.”

             “Can you blame me?” Ethan protests. “I can’t take on lycans and death traps at the same time!”

             The look he gets burns clear through the dark lenses. “I’m trying to keep you from getting yourself killed in the field. Miranda’s going to be gunning for your blood to start the ceremony. Lycans, the Megamycete, anything she can throw at you, she will. You want to face that untrained? Be my fucking guest!” Heisenberg jabs a finger into Ethan’s chest. “But. Rose. Dies. If. You. Fail.”

             Ethan slaps his hand away. “Quit it! What’s wrong with you?”

             “What’s wrong with me?” Heisenberg snarls, voice taking on an unnatural echo. “My rebellion got jumpstarted years ahead of schedule, my siblings are not only not gone but apparently my responsibility now, and you’re putting more effort into fighting me than prepping yourself to fight Miranda. One wrong move and we’re all dead. I AM FUCKING STRESSED, ETHAN!”

             The walls rattle. Ethan’s skin buzzes with the electrical power emanating from the lord.

             Too bad. He’s too pissed to be cowed by the display. “SO AM I, BUT YOU DON’T SEE ME THROWING A TANTRUM OVER IT!”

             Heisenberg’s hammer is in his hand in a second. Ethan takes a step back. If that hammer comes down on his head, he’s in for a world of pain. “Don’t even think about it,” he snaps.

             The lord stares at him, then sighs in disgust. “I’m not going to fucking hit you, Ethan.” He rests the hammer on his shoulder and lowers his head so the brim of his hat hides his face. “I am going to beat the shit out of Lady Di’s glassware, though. Get my issues out through mindless violence.”

             “I’ll come with you,” Ethan says without thinking, stopping Heisenberg in his tracks as he turns to leave.

              “Why?”

             He considers lying, but in the end, there’s no reason he can come up with to hold him back. “Because I’m going stir-crazy in this place. And,” he adds, inspired, “I can get some field experience in.”

             “Your call.” And with that, Heisenberg is out the door. Ethan follows after him, just in time to catch his impatient wave. “Come on, then. We don’t have all day.”

             “It’ll take days plural to get to the castle from here,” Ethan notes, hurrying to catch and keep up.

             Heisenberg shakes his head. “Never underestimate a lord, Ethan.” He leads the way to yet another elevator, this one lacking walls. They ride down to the bowels of the factory, then take a short walk over to a shelf of rock overlooking the river, where what looks like a small barge is moored.

             A few minutes later, they’re speeding against the current, the barge moving at a much faster clip than Ethan suspects the laws of physics would normally allow. Heisenberg stands at the prow with his hammer resting beside him and directs the boat with grandiose gestures. It takes barely any time at all for them to emerge into a shallow above-ground creek in an area Ethan doesn’t recognize. “Where are we?”

             “East of the village,” Heisenberg says briskly, anchoring the barge to a large rock and hopping off. “Anything this side of Miranda’s domain can be reached faster from here. There’s a great vantage point up ahead, if you want to get an eyeful.”

             Ethan looks around as they trek through the woods. “How much work went into figuring all this out?” he asks, impressed.

             “I was bored.”

             Well, if that’s the case. But Ethan is distracted by something off to their left. “Hang on.” Ignoring Heisenberg’s curious stare, he moves closer, peering up at the jutting expanse of rock. It looks very familiar. “What’s at the top of this thing?”

             “That? An abandoned trapper’s hut. Why?” Heisenberg joins him in looking at the formation.

             Ethan frowns thoughtfully.“I wonder...” He scales the rock easily, hands and feet sticking to the vertical surface without issue. When he reaches the top, he turns and looks out over the village, and yep, this is the spot. “I’ve been here before,” he tells Heisenberg.

             The lord lands beside him, having stood on the head of his hammer and levitated the whole thing up the stony face. “Really?” he says disappointedly. “Can’t take you anywhere, Ethan.”

             “That isn’t even remotely funny.” Ethan follows the faint trail back to the hut. There it is, smashed wall and everything. He doesn’t go inside.

             Heisenberg, however, peers in through the hole and whistles. “And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why lycans make the worst interior decorators.”

             “I was there,” Ethan says. “When that happened.”

             “Sounds festive.” Heisenberg trots over to walk beside him. “So, pops? Where we headed?”

             “Crash site.”

              “Very informative. You truly have a way with words.”

             Ethan flips him off, then reaches to part the tangle of barbed wire in their way. The whole fence rips itself out of the ground and goes flying into the shrubbery before his hand makes it anywhere near the barrier.

             “I’d rather not spend the afternoon administering tetanus shots, thanks,” Heisenberg says with relative cheer. “How much more of a- My word, that’s barbaric.”

             He’s referring to the dead crows hanging from the trees.

             “Careful,” Ethan warns. “Some of them might not be super dead yet.” By now, they should be, but that means jack shit in this world where the dead don’t stay down. Sure enough, one of the dark shapes explodes into motion and noise at their approach.

             There’s a nasty crunch when Heisenberg’s hammer meets it head-on.

             “I hate crows,” is the lord’s only comment as he brushes a few bloody feathers off the sullied weapon and keeps walking.

             Ethan has to remind himself that he’s seen worse before he can follow. And then he’s promptly reminded of how much worse it’s been, because they come to the road and find that BSAA soldiers are not the head of the food chain in Romania after all.

             Ethan impales the first lycan on his arm-turned-pick from several feet away. Heisenberg crushes the other with his hammer. “Friend of yours?” he asks with far too little concern, indicating the mess at their feet.

             “Kidnapper,” Ethan corrects. It doesn’t matter anymore. The poor guy might have been dead before they ever met face to face, but he doesn’t wish ravaging by lycans upon anyone.

             Heisenberg isn’t listening anyway. “Dear God.” His hammer slips from his lax fingers and drops to the ground. “Is that what automobiles look like nowadays?”

             “Ta da,” Ethan says queasily.

              “Astounding!” The lord rushes over and begins examining the wrecked vehicle with unbridled fascination, practically vibrating with excitement. “Not crank-started? And a solid top! Why are there so many buttons? Holy shit, look at this engine.”

             It’s unbelievably entertaining to watch.

             “Ethan. Ethan. These things are the future.” Heisenberg pulls his head out of the window he’d been peering through, heedless of broken glass. “Wait wait wait. Can automobiles fly now?”

             “Uh, not yet,” Ethan admits, enjoying himself immensely. He picks up a cell phone lying on the ground - probably the one he answered when he woke up at the crash site - and tries the home button.

             Nothing. It’s dead as a doornail.

             “Hey Heisenberg. Catch.”

             Heisenberg snags the phone out of the air and peers at it curiously. “What the hell is this?”

             “It’s a modern phone,” Ethan says.

             “Shut. The fuck. Up. You’re not serious?” Heisenberg jumps when the device buzzes in his hand. “Is it supposed to light up?” he asks warily.

             Ethan comes over to take a look. The screen is blank save for a low battery symbol blinking in the middle. “Okay, I knew you generated electricity, but this is nuts. It’s charging. In your hand.”

             “A cordless phone you can carry in your pocket,” Heisenberg murmurs, doing just that.

             “If we look around, I’m sure we can find a laptop for you to study.” Ethan pokes around a bit, ignoring the puzzled look Heisenberg shoots him, until he unearths a battered-looking laptop that - surprise, surprise - is completely dead. He tucks it into his backpack for later. (He also finds a few gloved fingers possibly still connected to something under the snow, which he does his best to ignore.) “Are we still going to the castle?”

             “Of course.” Heisenberg gives the van one last hilariously infatuated look, then tramps back the way they came, Ethan on his heels. When they reach the outcropping of rock, he doesn’t bother climbing down; instead, he leaps over the edge, landing heavily but easily on his feet. “Coming?” he asks sweetly, looking up at Ethan still standing at the top.

             “Showoff,” Ethan mutters as he climbs down like a sensible person.

             Heisenberg raises an eyebrow. “You could have jumped, you know.”

             “I swore off bone-hurting juice a long time ago.”

             A long-suffering shake of the head is the only response he gets.

             They travel at a vigorous pace unhindered by the need for stealth. Well, Ethan tries for stealth. Heisenberg strides along without a care in the world. Between the hammer and the years of visits - and his powers, I guess - he clearly doesn’t see a point to skulking.

             Still, Ethan’s surprised at how quickly they arrive at the castle. “It took me a full day to get here from the village. How did we get here in two hours?”

             “I am a man of many talents,” Heisenberg says cheerfully, kicking the door open. His boot leaves a muddy print on the antiquated wood, which seems to please him.

             The castle is well-lit. There’s no one around to turn the lights off, so that makes sense. It’s cold, though. Ethan guesses the fires heating the building went out a while ago. Other than that, it’s not hard to imagine that Lady Dimitrescu and her daughters are lurking somewhere nearby, hooks and claws at the ready.

             Heisenberg whistles an unfamiliar tune loudly and obnoxiously, grinning at the echo. The toe of one boot pokes disappointedly at a very fancy vase that’s lying on the floor in shards.

             That reminds Ethan. “Why’d you hide so much shit in Lady Di’s china?”

             “Why’d you start breaking Lady Di’s china?” Heisenberg retorts.

             “The first one was an accident.” Embarrassing but true, sadly. He’d knocked it over and been unable to catch it before it smashed on the ground.

             “And you figured the goods would disappear if you just reached in like a normal person.”

             Ethan’s neck prickles. “Shut up.”

             Heisenberg laughs and pats his shoulder companionably. Then he looks around. “Damn, Winters. You killed all of them?”

             “I sure tried,” Ethan says.

             “Disappointing. Those creepy little buggers are fun to wallop.” The lord takes an idle swing at a statuette, reducing it to rubble. “Care to check out the courtyard?”

             Ethan takes a deep breath and nods. “So long as we leave the dungeons the fuck alone.”

             Heisenberg looks interested at that, but he shrugs indulgently and follows Ethan through the halls. Nothing breakable in their path is left unscathed.

             “You’re a jerk,” Ethan remarks.

             “Agreed.”

             The courtyard is as dark and abandoned-feeling as Ethan remembers. The silence is unnerving.

             “Homey,” is Heisenberg’s opinion on the subject.

             “I’d beg to differ, but you live in an underground OSHA violation full of undead soldiers.” Ethan pokes cautiously at the bushes. Anything could be hidden in there. Could be valuables, could be the lair of some bloodthirsty beastie.

             He hears footsteps approaching, whirls, and stabs with one pick-hand.

             Heisenberg stops. Then he turns to look at the moroaicǎ crumbling into chunks of ash just behind him. “Nice shot.”

             There’s a hoarse screech and way more moroaice than Ethan is comfortable with emerge from every conceivable hiding place. Wingbeats alert him to the presence of at least a dozen samce. They’re completely surrounded.

             Ethan and Heisenberg exchange a look. Then Heisenberg grins wildly and, whirling his hammer above his head, lets fly. The weapon bulldozes into an incoming samcă, taking out both it and the ex-maid behind it.

             “Great move,” Ethan says sarcastically, slicing one moroaicǎ in half and then pivoting to stab another. “Now you’re-”

             Heisenberg uses one hand to grab a moroaicǎ’s sword and the other to punch clean through its ribcage.

             “- weaponless,” Ethan finishes lamely as the hammer zips back to its wielder in a smooth arc.

             “I am a weapon, buttercup,” Heisenberg grins. “Duck.”

             Ethan ducks. The hammer passes through the air above his head and takes out a swooping samcă. It also leaves Heisenberg open to the horde at his back, which is Ethan’s cue to let the momentum of his duck lead him around to cover the vulnerability. Two slashes lay waste to two monsters, and then he’s engulfed.

             They’re not smart by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s a good move. Ethan cuts and jabs and even flails, anything to keep the rotting teeth and filthy proboscis from his neck. They’re everywhere, though, and slowly but surely, he’s dragged further away from Heisenberg. The lord isn’t even visible behind the wave of moroaice that converges on him.

             “HEISENBERG!”

             The possibility that he’s about to lose the only real person left in his life is like a bucket of ice water to the face. Ethan tears into the monsters holding him back like they’re paper dolls. Within seconds, the ground around him is littered with ashes and crystals.

             Before he can charge the writhing mass of undead maids that swallowed his ally, though, it veritably explodes. Heisenberg’s teeth are bared and on full display as he storms through the fray, hammer swinging in furious arcs. The hum of electricity heats the air, and whenever he or his hammer make contact, there’s a loud zap and the offending moroaicǎ or samcă is thrown backward, smoke rising from its clothes.

             “Nice of you to join the party,” Ethan pants, ignoring the prickle of wow Heisenberg’s fighting style inspires in his gut.

             “Ain’t a party without the guest of honour,” the lord snarks in return. They’re once again back-to-back, covering each other while laying waste to the ranks of Castle Dimitrescu.

             There are decidedly less moroaice now. The remaining samce are circling like they’re not eager to join the conflict, but can’t ignore the intrusion upon the castle. 

             “Why are they all attacking now?” Ethan kicks a disintegrating monster away.

             Heisenberg sends a dropped sword into a samcă’s head. “You killed their mistress, they’ve got nothing controlling them anymore but bloodlust.” He grunts and shakes off a moroaicǎ that’s got its teeth in his arm. “Same goes for Donna’s ghouls or my Haulers.”

             “I’ll try not to kill you, then.”

             A zombie brawl isn’t somewhere you’d expect to hear laughter. Ethan is by no means to blame for getting distracted by the way Heisenberg finds time in the middle of pulverizing moroaice to let out a resounding guffaw. His voice has a way of drawing attention to him, especially when it’s paired with that whirling hammer.

              Gross, Ethan. You can do so much better.

             “Behind you,” Heisenberg says.

             Whirling, Ethan morphs both arms into axe blades and executes what he’d call a pretty badass crosscut. The last of the samce falls to the ground in pieces.

             “That mindlessly violent enough for you?” he asks, shifting back.

             Heisenberg leans on his hammer and lets out a deep, satisfied breath. “Best fight I’ve had in years.” He shakes his head with a low chuckle. “You didn’t do too bad yourself.”

             A dozen crystallized monsters at his feet and he “didn’t do too bad.” Right. “I’m blushing.”

             “You can hardly tell through the maid blood,” says Heisenberg, ever the charmer. It’s really sold by the way he casually wipes a splatter off his cheek with his sleeve as he says it. “What say we see what’s left in the kitchens, hmm?”

             “You think there’s stuff in there that’s not full of blood?” Ethan says.

             “Sure there is. The staff had to eat too, didn’t they? And I know the ladies posh liked a little fine dining to go with their wine.”

             “I’m starting to get why Lady Di thought of you as a pesky little brother.”

             “Those aren’t the words of a man interested in the Dimitrescu secret chocolate stash.”

             Ethan perks up. “Did I say “pesky”? I meant “brilliant”. You’re a genius with that hammer and the soldats and death traps and shit. And generous,” he tacks on pointedly.

             “Keep going,” Heisenberg says.

             “Uh, no. I’m a chocoholic, not a masochist.” He makes grabby hands. “Lead me to the goods.”

             “My ally is a child,” Heisenberg observes, but he gives Ethan a good-natured nudge and ambles into the freshly-uninhabited building.

             The kitchen is in fact stocked with more than just blood. True, the cookbooks Ethan finds have plenty of blood-inclusive recipes in them - how many variations of czernina and sângerete does a woman need? - but the majority of the food is clean. They make a grand meal of servants’ fare and what’s labeled as leftovers set aside for the daughters.

             “You should probably stop wrecking everything if you want her to listen,” Ethan advises out of nowhere.

             Heisenberg kicks back in his chair, crossing his legs at the ankles and letting his filthy boots rest on the table. “Who’s wrecking things?” he asks innocently.

             “I’m just saying.”

             “You’re more fun when you’re not being sensible.” He pops the last sarmale into his mouth, then takes his feet off the table and stretches. “Right, chocolate time.”

             In no time at all, Ethan is happily snacking on some of the fanciest old-fashioned candy he’s ever had. The focal point of the stash is chocolate, but Lady Dimitrescu also liked to indulge in jujubes, mints, peanut butter bars, turta dulce, and buttons of something that looks suspiciously like liquorice. He doesn’t find out for sure because Heisenberg immediately claims the whole packet for later consumption.

             “Why didn’t you just take those the last time you were here?” He wipes a smear of chocolate from his bottom lip with his thumb and licks it off.

             Heisenberg’s gaze lingers on his mouth for a fraction of a second before he raises one shoulder in a shrug and reaches for the chocolate. “Weren’t any then. Mary mother of Jesus, I’m not taking all of it. Learn to fucking share, you greedy bastard.”

             “I’ve seen you eat.” Ethan reluctantly passes him the little glass dish of rosettes. While Heisenberg’s distracted with tossing them one by one into the air and trying to catch them in his mouth, he pockets the rest.

             A rosette bounces off the lord’s nose. He picks it up to try again.

             I’m the child? Ethan thinks mockingly.

             “We should head back soon,” Heisenberg states, turning his gaze toward the nearest window. “Not everything out here is something I don’t mind meeting in the dark.”

             That’s ominous coming from him. “Like what?”

             “Dracs, vârcolaci, ghouls... nothing I can’t handle, but I prefer not to do it blindly.”

             Ethan remembers his nights of huddling in the most secure hideaways he could find, unable to sleep or keep moving for fear of attack, and can’t disagree.

             The sun is already low in the sky when they leave the castle, weighted down with their ill-gotten gains. Between the lingering triumph from wiping out a castle’s worth of monsters and the chocolate, Ethan finds it dangerously natural to let his guard down. Nevertheless, unease sets in as darkness falls. They’re still not at the creek.

             Heisenberg’s frown when they hear the first howl really doesn’t help. “They’re out farther than usual tonight,” he comments thoughtfully.

             “Oh boy.” Sarcasm is hard to pull off through an instinctive cringe. Every muscle in Ethan’s body is tensed to attack or flee at the first hint of trouble. He’s aware he probably looks half-feral, especially next to Heisenberg’s lack of fear, but he can’t help it.

             “It’ll be fine,” the lord says. His voice is oddly serious when he continues, “No lycan’s going to get its teeth in you. Not while you’re with me.”

             Oh yeah. He can control them. Ethan loosens his death grip on the flashlight and tries to relax a little. Not too much, though. While he’s seen firsthand what Heisenberg’s capable of, he’s also well aware that lycans aren’t the only creatures lurking in the shadows.

             Realizing his error, Heisenberg twirls his hammer demonstratively and adds, “And anything else you can slice to ribbons before it gets too close, just like our least favourite shrew of unusual size.”

             Believe it or not, the joke actually helps. Ethan snickers before he can catch himself. “Was that a fucking Princess Bride reference?”

             “Why shouldn’t it be?” Heisenberg asks flippantly.

             “I refuse to believe you got your hands on a book that modern.”

             “Modern,” Heisenberg repeats. “That fucker was published almost fifty years ago. Modern, my ass.”

             “Really? I could’ve sworn i- FUCK!”

             The glow of predatory eyes is the only warning he gets before a massive form detaches itself from a nearby rock formation and lunges at him.

             A second later, it’s intercepted by a length of something mottled and unforgiving that shoots out from practically underfoot like a rocket. Ethan barely has time to jump back before there’s a dull thunk and the vârcolac is pinned to the formation it had been crouching on. It’s not dead yet; it scrabbles at the corroded shaft of metal embedded in its body with a roar of wounded fury, only doing itself more harm.

             “Care to do the honours?” Heisenberg offers calmly.

             Ethan stares at the creature, horrified but unable to look away. “I... I think maybe you can handle this one.”

             “Hmm.” Heisenberg scrunches his forehead at him, but bows gallantly and gestures as if selecting and throwing a dart. The shaft withdraws from the vârcolac’s torso, then plunges in again.

             Another former villager dead, just like that.

             That’s the kind of thinking Ethan’s been struggling with since his first kill. They’re not people anymore. Everything that made them human was already stripped away. But it’s so hard to keep that in mind.

              Not Leonardo. He wasn’t completely gone.

             “Ethan.”

             Ethan tears his eyes away from the crumbling monster to find Heisenberg watching him in concern. The lord smiles crookedly. “You good there, buttercup?”

             “’M okay.” Ethan scrubs a hand over his face, suddenly weary. “Why “buttercup”?”

             “I like buttercups,” Heisenberg says with a shrug. “Yellow. Poisonous. Shows up everywhere. Kinda like you, actually.”

             Ethan frowns at that. “Thanks.” He’s pretty sure there’s a blond joke in there, but there’s no point confronting Heisenberg on it, particularly now when he’s clearly distracted by...

             He looks down. An inch-wide gouge cuts across the inside of his calf where the shaft didn’t quite miss him, soaking his torn pant leg with blood. “Oh,” he says faintly.

             Normally, this is the part where he swears a lot and scrambles to apply chem fluid to the wound before he bleeds out. The thing is, he glances up at Heisenberg first, and the curious way the lord is tilting his head to observe the gouge makes him realize the dizziness he should be experiencing hasn’t hit.

             The blood flow, when he looks down again, appears to be slowing. As he watches, thin tendrils of dark grey weave across the gouge, stitching it shut. Then they flatten and fade to a pale pinkish beige.

             A second later, the wound is nothing more than a fading scar.

             “No help this time,” Heisenberg notes.

             “The fuck?” Ethan says. He sticks out his leg and turns it from side to side. The bloodstain and the hole in his jeans remain. Everything else looks fine. “So the chem fluid was a waste of money this whole time?”

             “It probably helped.” Heisenberg crouches and pokes at the scar. “Sorry ’bout that,” he adds sheepishly. “Didn’t realize your leg was in the way.”

             “It’s fine.” And it is, Ethan is surprised to find. It was an accident and Heisenberg is sincerely apologetic, and somehow that outweighs the fact that if he hadn’t been a mutant, he would have been in big trouble.

             Huh.

             “Oi, asshole.”

             Heisenberg straightens and steps back. He doesn’t respond verbally, but it’s still funny that he treats the insult like an accepted nickname.

             Smirking, Ethan pulls a pilfered ring from his pocket and tosses it to him. The sight of the lord fumbling to catch it in spite of his powers is one that’ll make him snicker at random for days. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

             “Aww, you shouldn’t have,” Heisenberg coos jokingly, cradling the gift in his hands.

             “I have no clue what that one unlocks, but have fun with it.” Ethan rubs the scar banding his left arm distractedly. It aches as if protesting the mistreatment of Lady Dimitrescu’s property.

             A gentle whir rises from the tarnished band. “Looks like a code ring,” Heisenberg notes as the two parts of the ring continue to spin on their own. He pokes it with much less caution than he’d displayed for Ethan and cackles. “Fifty leis says this is the key to the harridan’s secret library.”

             “I’m not taking that bet, you fucking cheat.”

             “Meh,” says Heisenberg with a flippant shrug. “Haven’t dealt in lei for years now anyway.” Between his fingertips, the ring’s energetic rotating slows until it stops altogether.

             They don’t say anything more about the gift. If Ethan notices that Heisenberg slips it onto his index finger discreetly and feels a whisper of satisfaction, that’s nobody’s business but his.

Chapter Text

             They make it back to the factory in one piece, and Ethan immediately crashes into bed. Karl shakes his head at him, then surprises himself by stooping to remove the man’s shoes. He’s going soft.

             Which reminds him - he hasn’t updated his journal lately, and it’s high time that’s rectified. He sits down at his desk, settles his spectacles on his nose, and begins summarizing the events of the last few days.

             There’s a lot to cover. Ethan’s progress in working out his mutations, the success of his soldat production, the Duke’s revelation regarding his siblings… and then there’s the modified plan, a rundown of his increasingly fragile emotional state, and their little visit to the Dimitrescu estate, to keep it simple. Good thing his book’s got plenty of pages.

             Karl makes it through maybe half of what he needs to transcribe before the faint but increasingly steady humming in his pocket finally becomes impossible to ignore. Grumbling at his own weakness to distraction, he pulls the phone from his pocket.

             What a remarkable piece of technology. It’s so small and fragile, and not connected to anything even resembling a receiver. There are no dials and only a few tiny buttons that aren’t marked with numbers.

             “How do you work?” Karl mutters, pressing the biggest one experimentally. The screen lights up immediately, displaying the time and some words in English. The lock symbol at the top is clear, though.

             When he pushes the button again, the words are replaced by a single empty box. Yep. It wants a code.

             “The fuck am I supposed to type it in with?” Karl chews on his cigar in frustration. “Am I missing a piece? And why does this shithead think he needs to put a lock on his phone anyway? It’s not a fucking weapon. A phone’s a phone! Goddamn.”

             From the bed, Ethan mumbles something unintelligible.

             “You’ll be answering a lot of questions come morning,” Karl tells him, wagging the cigar between his fingertips.

             “Hmmmmrph,” says Ethan, and goes back to noiselessly suffocating himself in the pillow.

             Karl shakes his head fondly before returning his attention to fucking around with the phone. The two buttons on the left don’t do anything. The one on the right turns it off.

             It really doesn’t take long to come to the conclusion that unless he takes it apart, there is nothing more for him to learn without Ethan’s help. (He really really wants to take it apart.) He sets it aside reluctantly, then looks at his journal.

             It needs to be finished. But his mind is not there right now.

             He slogs through it anyway, doing his best to ignore how mind-numbingly slow the time passes until he drops his pen. Never again. I am never letting myself fall this far behind again.

             It’s a relief to crawl into bed and let the still-strange presence of his ally distract him from the device lying on his desk.

🔦

             “I’m not good with phones,” Ethan says, drumming his fingertips against the casing. “You know that, right?”

             It’s morning and they’re messing around with the (ahem) salvaged phone instead of having breakfast. Ethan would like to get some toast in him first, but one look at Heisenberg tells him he’ll be lucky just to lay eyes on a cup of coffee.

             He’s right.

             “You’re saying there’s nothing you can do?” Heisenberg folds his arms with a disappointed frown.

             Ethan tilts the device and looks closely at the darkened screen. “No. Not yet, anyway. Let me try something real quick.”

             Both of them have left fingerprints on the screen protector, but fortunately nowhere near the lower third of the screen. He turns the phone on, taps the code bar to activate the keypad, and takes a mental snapshot of where each key is. Then he turns it off and looks over the fingerprints again. From there, it’s not hard to unscramble the letters and type them in.

             Ethan hits enter and grins at Heisenberg as the phone unlocks with a click. “You’re welcome.”

             “My word.” The lord lowers his sunglasses to reveal wide eyes locked (ha) on the screen. Feeling cocky, Ethan swipes the shades and puts them on with a smirk. Heisenberg barely glances at him before taking the phone. “This is like some kind of interactive television screen, then? But how does it work? What are these emblems, and what do they have to do with communication?”

             “Those are apps,” Ethan says, fighting a mostly successful battle to keep from laughing. “Short for “application”. You need them to use different functions on the phone. Here, see?”

             It’s almost cute how confounded Heisenberg is when he opens the Notes app. “It’s not just for communication?” Then he gets distracted with peering at the writing onscreen. “What’s it say?”

             “Nothing important,” Ethan says, giving the note a cursory look. It’s just a list of reasons the phone’s owner hates being stuck in Romania. Relatable, but boring. He exits the app and nudges Heisenberg. “Your turn.”

             Heisenberg makes a confused face. “To do what?”

             “Explore. Pick an app. Do your thing.” How does he fucking see with these dark sunglasses on?

             “Hmm.” Heisenberg examines the screen carefully, then pokes at the Mail app, probably drawn to the red blob announcing several new emails. Since he’s wearing gloves, it doesn’t go well.

             “It doesn’t work with fabric.”

             Heisenberg’s brows raise, but he gamely tugs off one glove with his teeth - Ethan looks away for no particular reason - and tries again. “Ha!”

             “Wow, way to go,” Ethan coos, giving him a teasing pat on the back. “Look at you, learning how to use a phone!”

             “This is me learning tech I’ve never fucking seen, show some respect.” Heisenberg squints at the email being displayed. “I can’t read this. It’s in English.”

             Ethan almost breaks right then and there. The mighty Lord Heisenberg, master of technology and fearless iPhone explorer, is helpless in the face of a language barrier. Talk about irony. “Here, let me see.” He scans through the text to familiarize himself with what he’s reading (and to make sure it’s nothing Heisenberg shouldn’t hear), then clears his throat and begins.

             “What the fuck,” Heisenberg says.

             “It’s a work phone. I’d be more surprised if there was personal shit on here.”

             Heisenberg plucks the phone from Ethan’s hand and pokes at it experimentally. “I still don’t understand what all these “apps” are f- It’s transmitting.”

             “What?” Ethan rescues the device from the lord’s fumbling hands. The screen says it’s calling someone called “Nova”. “There’s no way there’s service here!”

             “The radio waves beg to differ,” Heisenberg says distractedly, chin tilting first this way and then another as he listens to something only he can hear. “There’s another device with the same frequency that’s- Shit.”

             A fraction of a second later, there’s a click and an unfamiliar voice barks, “Timber? What the fuck’s going on? Why’re you-”

              Call dropped, says the screen as Heisenberg pinches his fingers together abruptly.

             “Thank you for doing that,” Ethan says in shaky relief.

             Heisenberg nods, still eyeing the phone warily. “You mentioned some prick infiltrating the factory. That him?”

             “How would I know?”

             “Did it say anything about this Alpha just now?” Heisenberg asks sharply.

             … Right. English. “The number’s saved under “Nova”. That could be a nickname unconnected to the BSAA, but I doubt it.”

             Heisenberg narrows his eyes. “There’s a BSAA soldier attempting to infiltrate my factory. For eleven days now. Why hasn’t he turned up yet?”

             “If you used security cameras, you’d probably know.”

             “I am the Iron Steed,” Heisenberg says irately. “I can see through the eyes of my army. I can hear vibrations through the walls of my factory. I can pinpoint the location of any communications device within a mile of where we stand. And there has been nothing out of the ordinary. Aside from you.”

             “You could’ve just said your freaky metal senses had it covered,” Ethan points out, unimpressed.

             “Same thing.”

             “Drama queen.” Ethan tugs on his metal pinkie. “Wait, what do you mean you can see through your soldats’ eyes?”

             Heisenberg shrugs expansively. “Each headset is equipped with a rudimentary camera for tactical purposes. It’s not a security system, but it works as good as any you can name.”

              “That’s not creepy at all.”

             “It’s effective.” The lord snatches his sunglasses off Ethan’s face. “I’d like to dismantle this thing, if you don’t mind,” he says, eyes disappearing behind the black lenses. “Keep this Nova asshole from trying to resume the connection.”

             Ethan sighs. He knows where this is going. “Can I at least eat something before I get ripped apart by wolfmen?”

             His request is met with a dismissive wave. “Make it quick, mold man.”

             Funny how it almost sounds like a jab from an old friend.

Chapter Text

             He hates that running the Gauntlet has stopped feeling like a suicide mission.

             Seriously, is indifference contagious around here? He almost gets hit in the face with a blast of fire, and all he thinks is, Typical Saturday morning. The acid burns on his hand are almost gone already, and although he lost the knife to a giant meat grinder, he’s more resigned than stressed.

             That changes the second he springs the sound trap, though.

             It’s a simple machine as far as Heisenberg’s creations go, and it doesn’t hurt Ethan, headache and ringing ears aside. But the wailing alarm is soon accompanied by something infinitely worse - the howls of at least two freshly alert lycans.

             Ethan isn’t dumb. Unfortunately, “not dumb” is not the same as “not susceptible to panicking”.

             He takes off.

             Later, Ethan will look back on his mad dash and wish he could reach through the bounds of time to give himself a good smack. At present, his only concern is escape.

             Running will only buy him so much time, he realizes as he books it through the passages. They’ll corner him sooner or later. Wall-crawling is out, thanks to that insane jumping ability lycans are unfairly blessed with. He could fight, but… but… 

              NO!

             Ethan shakes his head wildly, uncaring that he slams into a wall because of it. Too soon. He’ll find another way.

             Lead them into a trap? It could work. Unless whatever trap he leads them into is something they’ll sense and avoid, in which case he’ll only be endangering himself.

             He’s thinking about it hard enough that he nearly runs into the very thing he’s running from.

             Fortunately for him, the lycan is apparently not doing too well with recovering from the deafening noise either, and he has time to screech to a halt and duck back out of the intersection before it notices him. Then that’s all he’s able to do, stand there with his back pressed to the wall and no air passing in or out of his lungs, frozen in terror as the lycan approaches.

              Disappear, disappear, disappear…

             The lycan stalks right past him, sniffing the air. Its face twists in confusion, and it turns to stare directly at him, but then it makes up its mind and lopes away.

             A moment later, there’s a thunderous thud, a scream, and then silence.

             Ethan waits a little longer before daring to move. He looks down, expecting to see his body flickering out of invisibility or something. Instead, he’s met with the sight of no body at all. Not a human one, anyway. He’s quite literally plastered to the wall.

             “I’ve seen a lot in my time,” Heisenberg says over the communicator, “but that’s a new one even for me.”

             Ethan tries peeling his arm out of the large splotch of mold he apparently now is. It comes away with a gentle squelch, turning from a glistening black blob to a completely normal hand protruding from a completely normal sleeve. He uses it to push off the wall, the rest of his body following suit until he’s completely normal all over. “Were you watching the whole time?”

             “Long enough.” Heisenberg audibly sets the communicator down and fiddles with what Ethan assumes is his cassette recorder. “Experiment Four. The subject is displaying an enhanced version of his ability to instantaneously convert his cells into fungal form and back, effectively turning his entire body into mold. Evidence suggests this amorphous state alters his scent enough to avoid detection by lycans. Commencing further testing.” To Ethan, he says, “Try that again in reverse, will ya?”

              “Please,” Ethan mumbles, obediently pressing his palm to the wall and trying to mentally replicate that specific feeling of being gently squeezed. His hand melts into a splotch of mold clinging to the metal. Leaning forward, the rest of his arm is swallowed by the blob, then his shoulder, and then his entire body follows.

             “Subject is able to enter mold form at will,” Heisenberg notes. “Whether or not he’s capable of self-propelled movement in this state remains to be seen.”

             Catching the hint, Ethan thinks hard about amoebas and how they move. It can’t be that different, can it?

             “That’s a yes,” Heisenberg says as the pizza-sized blob that is Ethan slithers along the wall at a modest speed. “I estimate a speed of nineteen point three kilometres per hour.”

              “How fast?” Ethan asks, forming himself a little face. “Speak American.”

             “You want that in English?”

             “Just in miles, thanks.” He’s pretty sure he’d have a heart attack if Heisenberg just randomly started speaking English.

             The lord hums in thought. “That’s roughly… twelve miles per hour.”

              “Shiiit.” Ethan un-blobs himself. “I am speed.”

             “I hate that sentence so much.”

             “Yeah, well, I just took down the source of my latest greatest trauma through sheer brainpower,” Ethan says proudly. “I get bragging rights. Deal with it.”

             Heisenberg huffs. “One down, three to go.”

             And there goes Ethan’s good mood, a little. “There’s more?” He takes a peek in the direction of the now-dead lycan, then winces and looks away. Aggressive slabs of concrete are apparently something he should be worried about now. On the plus side, he’s come into close quarters with a lycan and gotten away unharmed, so that’s a nice boost to his confidence. “You know what, don’t answer that. Just keep… doing whatever it is you’re doing.”

             “Working on some Ethan-appropriate weaponry, thanks for asking.” Heisenberg sounds very pleased with himself. “Buzz me on your way out, I’ve got some things I’d like you to see.”

             “You can hear me moving around, why do you need the communicator?”

             A sigh amid a sudden gush of static. “In case you hadn’t noticed, Ethan, we are in completely different areas, one of which is a constant mess of unpredictable activity whenever you’re in there. Picking you out takes up a lot of attention.”

             “If you say so.” Ethan starts walking again. He has to admit he’s curious about this weaponry of Heisenberg’s. The sooner he finds an exit, the sooner he can see it. Here’s hoping the other lycans aren’t on his-

             “Fuck. Me.”

             He misses Heisenberg’s reply, being a little busy sprinting away from the snarling creature that has emerged from the next passage. The lycan gives chase. Of course. And now, with one baying monster on his heels, the other two have no problem closing in on his location.

             Ethan spots a passage that looks familiar, turns down it, and throws himself onto the pressure plate, going flat in the same motion.

             The sound the bladed pendulum makes when it hits is absolutely sickening. But Ethan is on his feet and in human form on the other side, and there’s one less pursuer to worry about.

             His lungs burning, a stitch forming in his side, he keeps running. Trap after trap goes off. The lycans jump the pit, dodge the spikes, even endure the electrified floor. And then they reenter unfamiliar territory, and Ethan’s heart leaps into his throat as he trips on a wire stretched across a doorway and hears a telltale hiss.

             There’s no time to turn around. He takes a deep breath in and holds it.

             Sure enough, the air grows hazy and thick with some kind of gas. It’s torture to run and hold his breath at the same time after so much effort already, but he has no choice. He keeps moving.

             Behind him, he hears the lycans begin sniffing loudly. Then the footsteps slow. One lycan snarls.

             Ethan’s vision swims with black spots. In a desperate - and crazy - attempt to give himself relief, he collapses into mold form and slithers for it. He doesn’t seem to need air like this, he notices, but maybe Mold Ethan breathes through his skin like a frog.

             It seems to take forever before he hears a faint whine followed by two thumps. Ethan stops.

             He’s perfectly fine, and he’s been in here longer than the lycans have. It’s pretty safe to say he won’t be toppling anytime soon.

             Staying in mold form, he changes direction and slithers over to where the monsters lie. They don’t react.

              This is my chance.

             Ethan creeps over to the nearest lycan, considers, then wraps himself around its throat and tenses. He feels kind of horrible when his edges, now razor sharp, end the unconscious creature’s life, but this is probably the most humane way anyway.

             The second lycan follows the first, and a few minutes later, the air clears. Ethan stands up, human again, and looks down at their lifeless bodies guiltily.

             “I’m a weapon too,” he mumbles, and walks out.

🔦

             Ethan is halfway out the door when he remembers. He dutifully stops to pull out the communicator. “I’m on my way. Where are you?”

             “Garage off the river landing.” Heisenberg pauses. Something clinks metallically. “You were pretty impressive back there. Not gonna work without the traps, but impressive nonetheless.”

             “Thanks.”

             A low hum of acknowledgement. Then, “Lycans really rocked your shit, huh.”

             Ethan flexes his prosthetic fingers almost unconsciously. “I’m trying,” he says defensively.

             “You could’ve destroyed them within seconds, and you ran instead. There’s some kind of stigma here, isn’t there?” Heisenberg mutters a curse as something clangs. “Something in your head.”

             “Well, yeah,” Ethan says. “I was stalked by lycans after waking up in the middle of nowhere at ass o’clock at night, dragged through the floor onto a pile of fresh corpses, attacked by a man who killed all his friends in front of me without fully turning, had part of my hand ripped off, and, oh yeah, ran into a giant ruin fuck-full of lycans to get my daughter’s embalmed torso back. Pardon me for not loving the idea of going hand-to-hand against one.”

             Staticky silence.

             “You won’t have to,” Heisenberg says somberly. “This I swear. But there will be lycans, and you will have to be ready for them.”

             Ethan swallows. “I know.”

             “Good.” Heisenberg’s voice takes on a jovial note. “Now get down here and take a look at your arsenal.”

             He says it like it is - a practicality, just another step toward the end goal. Still, Ethan can’t help the small smile that forms without permission. He kind of likes this considerate, slightly awkward side of Heisenberg, even if it comes paired with the man’s clinical attention to pressing advantages.

              I guess you can be tactical and nice at the same time.

             The fact that it’s a big step up from Heisenberg’s fit of temper only yesterday is mildly perplexing, obviously. Either Heisenberg is actively learning from his mistakes, or this is just a ploy to keep their alliance running smoothly. Well, regardless of what’s going on, he’ll take it.

             Ethan pushes open the door, steeling himself for blood and dismembered corpses. Thankfully, there isn’t any. Only a chaotic workspace crowded with large constructs that could conceivably be vehicles, tables bearing various weapons and tools, and Heisenberg. The latter has a pen in one hand and a bottle of that Gibcos shit he likes so much in the other, and is marking things down on a piece of paper. He doesn’t look up even though the door creaks.

             “Alright, I’m curious,” Ethan says, leaning on the doorframe. “What’ve you got that’s better than my many upgraded guns?”

             “What every American wants to hear,” Heisenberg returns candidly. “More guns. You’re welcome for the M1911, by the way.”

             “I’d ask where you got it, but something tells me I don’t want to know.”

             Heisenberg waves this away. “Not my fault that outsider got on Miranda’s bad side- Ah, fuck.” This as the pen slips from his fingers and disappears under the tank-looking thing parked nearby. Grumbling under his breath, Heisenberg stalks over to the construct, makes a show of gripping the tread and lifting until the thing is at a forty-five-degree angle to the floor, and looks over to Ethan. “Mind grabbing that?”

             “Just use your powers, asshole,” Ethan suggests dryly, retrieving the runaway pen.

             “Can’t.” Heisenberg sets the tank thing down with a grunt. “Built it out of a metal/polymer composite. Magnet-resistant.”

             Ethan’s jaw drops. “You… But then…” The thing with the hammer suddenly makes a lot more sense. Ugh, that is unfairly attractive.

             “What?” Heisenberg asks, doing that goofy inquisitive head tilt of his.

             “Nothing.” Ethan shakes his head. “Just wondering why the fuck you’d make a giant weapon you can’t control.”

             Heisenberg grins. “It started out as an experiment thirty years ago. I figured you could use some extra protection.”

             “When you said you had weapons for me, I wasn’t expecting a fucking tank.” If it even is a tank. The front looks like a construction rig, the controls resemble those of his grandparents’ old lawnmower, and there are entirely too many chainsaws attached for his comfort.

             “What can I say? I am a marvel.” Heisenberg pats the tank fondly. Then he stops. Eyes it critically. Winces at Ethan. “I didn’t take the chainsaw issue into account.”

             The sheepish look on his face startles Ethan into laughing. “Fuck, dude, just put a gun in my hands and I’ll be good.”

             “Noted,” Heisenberg says, chastened, and proceeds to do just that. “Here’s your gear back. I took the liberty of modifying them for maximum efficiency. And I scrounged up a few other options, if you’re interested.”

             Ethan lets himself be led from table to table and introduced to each weapon as the lord rambles enthusiastically about the ups and downs of each one. Some of them haven’t been in use since World War II.

             “A gift from a family friend who deserted,” Heisenberg reveals, patting the barrel of one such gun, a Sauer 38-H in surprisingly good condition.

             “Wow.” He’s holding history. It’s pretty neat. Ethan runs his hand lightly along the stock, takes aim, and then lowers it again. “Man, it’s weird. On the one hand, it’s great to be properly armed again. I missed this. But on the other, I can’t wait until I never have to see another fucking gun in my life.”

             There’s no response. After a moment, he looks up to catch the downcast way Heisenberg’s eyes rest on the gun before tearing them away and pasting on a small smile. “Truly a day for celebration.”

             “Then let’s make it one,” Ethan says recklessly. “It’s been years since I last went out for a drink. God knows I could use it.”

             Heisenberg cocks his head, smile becoming a crooked grin. “I do have beer.”

             “And I don’t have a lead stomach.” Ethan points at the energy drink now resting on a table. “How long has that been sitting in your cupboard?”

             “It’s not fucking expired, if that’s what you’re asking. Duke keeps me in supply.”

             Ethan side-eyes the bottle, particularly the faded and discoloured label. “Not sure I believe you.”

             A small piece of scrap metal bounces off his head as Heisenberg candidly flips him the bird. Ethan just laughs and chucks the pen, laughing all the more when it gets caught in the lord’s hair.

⚙️

             It’s late. Karl, frankly, is surprised Ethan hasn’t come after him about getting sleep. Then again, it’s been a long day. Between the lycan chase and that unexpected and potentially disastrous encounter with the BSAA agent, he can understand why Ethan eschewed riding his ass about bedtime in favour of turning in early.

             Karl isn’t complaining.

              He isn’t quietly hoping the extra sleep will do the man good, either. His mind definitely doesn’t keep returning to a list of reasons he should be concerned and what he could do to solve those problems.

             Anyway. It’s extra time to get a little work done, and he’s taking it. Even when it takes a bit of an unexpected turn.

             He’s busy repairing a soldat Panzer’s malfunctioning reactor when Ethan enters, bleary-eyed and sheetfaced. Without a word, the man plunks himself down on the nearest available chair and idly begins shaping and reshaping his hand into various forms. It’s not hard to tell that something’s keeping him from getting the rest he’s been chasing. Stuck in his head, Karl guesses in unasked-for sympathy. He needs help getting out. Otherwise he’s just going to stay awake until his body shuts down forcibly.

             “So.” He keeps his tone light, conversational. “Anyone you plan on going home to?”

             “No,” Ethan says shortly.

             “No,” Karl repeats. “Colour me surprised, Ethan, I had you pegged as a family man.”

             “I was.” Ethan takes a shaky breath. “Not anymore. She’s dead.”

             Unsurprising. Karl doesn’t look up from his work. “The woman Miranda imprisoned and presumably experimented on a couple weeks ago? Probably.”

             A beat of silence.

             “Come again?” Ethan says in disbelief, hands clenching into fists so tight that his knuckles crack.

             Now Karl meets his eyes, mildly perplexed by his reaction. “Miranda brought back a woman before she went to kidnap Rose,” he recalls. “I assumed she was just a particularly interesting villager, but then Miranda came back three weeks later with a baby that kind of looked like her, so I figure that was your wife.”

             “That was three weeks ago?”

             “That’s what I said,” Karl confirms. 

             Ethan looks shellshocked. “She was- But- How? She died right before this shitshow started! I was there!”

             “Big deal, someone who looked like your wife kicked the bucket,” Karl scoffs. “I’d bet my last bolt that was Miranda trying to lure you here. It’s her favourite trick, turning into someone you care about to fuck with your head.” The words bring back unpleasant memories. He clams up, grateful that his ally is too distracted to notice.

             “So there’s a chance Mia’s still alive,” Ethan says slowly.

             “If she’s anything like you or your kid, sure. It’s a slim chance, but sure.” Karl sets down his screwdriver and rolls his shoulders to stretch out his aching muscles.

             Ethan lets out a relieved breath. “I thought she was killed by a friend right before he abducted us and brought us out here. It’s good to know he wasn’t completely trying to screw me over.”

             Karl doesn’t like the downtrodden note in his voice. It reminds him uncomfortably of long-buried crushed hopes and tears shed back when he still felt things. He clears his throat awkwardly. “We can look for her once this is over if it’ll make you feel better,” he decides.

             “Thanks,” Ethan half-whispers huskily.

             “Don’t,” Karl warns. “I’m only saying this to motivate you.”

             Ethan raises an unimpressed eyebrow. “No you’re not.”

             “No I’m not,” Karl agrees bitterly. He scowls at Ethan’s smug-ass face, which only becomes more smug. “Stop looking at me like that, you bastard.”

             “Or what?” Ethan taunts.

             There are a lot of whats he could very realistically unleash on Ethan’s grinning mug. The fact that he’s grinning means he’s just as aware as Karl is that none of the serious ones will come to pass; not if he wants to keep his friend ally intact and able to fight.

             “Or I’ll task every soldat in the complex with hunting you down and poking holes in you,” Karl says anyway.

             “Very intimidating,” Ethan agrees with mock sobriety. “I’ll try not to break too many of your toys. That would be real shitty of me, huh?”

             “Or maybe we can see how long it takes the Mold to reattach that pretty head of yours after I slice it off,” Karl growls.

             Ethan blinks once, looking startled, and then smirks. “Oh, you think I’m pretty?”

             Shit. He did say “pretty”, didn’t he? “I said “petty”,” Karl blusters.

             “No, I don’t think you did.” Ethan is enjoying this, the little shit. At least he’s not moping anymore.

             “Shut up,” Karl grumbles. “Better yet, get your ass somewhere I can’t see you making that face at me. Preferably somewhere with sheets and a pillow.”

             For some reason, Ethan snickers like this is a grand joke Karl just walked into. “Trying to bed me, Heisenberg? I’m flattered.”

             “YOU’RE OVERTIRED, IS WHAT YOU ARE,” Karl says too loudly. “Shut your hole or get out.”

             “Mmm.” Ethan stretches exaggeratedly and pats the chair’s arm. “Maybe I’ll take a nap right here. Keep an eye on you.”

             Every loose piece of metal rises into the air as Karl stabs an agitated finger in the direction of the door. “OUT.”

             “Okay, okay,” Ethan says with a grin that’s more tired than teasing. “I’m going.” Whether he’s regained his senses or used up the last dregs of his energy, Karl can’t say. Regardless, he’s both relieved and disappointed when Ethan offers him a farewell nod and a shoulder pat before plodding out of the room. “Don’t stay up all night,” he calls, and then he’s gone.

             Karl opens his mouth to respond without thinking - “I won’t” - and stops short. Maybe it’s the Cadou malfunction talking, but something’s not sitting right about this.

             Not having a witty comeback to Ethan’s dead-on-his-feet flirting? Being such a pushover about getting sleep? Pretty?

             “That’s new,” he mutters to himself out loud. “Why...?”

             Any soldat, lycan, or intruder listening in would catch nothing but the long, heavy pause that follows this unfinished question, a pause during which one could practically hear the gears turning like some mechanical puzzle fitting itself together.

             Then, “Well, shit.”

Chapter Text

             Ethan wakes up feeling great. It takes a second to remember why, but then he’s smiling so widely his face starts to hurt. Mia’s alive! Or, there’s a chance she’s alive! Chris (probably) isn’t a heartless monster! Assuming Heisenberg wasn’t lying, but he trusts Heisenberg enough by now to-

              Heisenberg. Ethan groans. He and late-night heartfelt conversations do not go well together, especially when he’s in a good mood. And given the news Heisenberg gave him last night, he must’ve been on cloud nine, so he can only imagine the shit that must have left his mouth. His only consolation is that Heisenberg seems like the type to jokingly flirt with people too.

             Speaking of…

             Once again, the bed is empty save for Ethan. He vaguely remembers feeling the mattress dip under Heisenberg’s weight as the lord climbed in last night, so he’s definitely slept. But Ethan can’t pretend he’s not disappointed in his ally for only getting a couple of hours in before going back to work. Fatherhood really does do a number on you, he reflects, getting up.

             Heisenberg is messing around with an old-fashioned revolver when Ethan enters the kitchenette. In typical Heisenberg fashion, he doesn’t look up or acknowledge his presence in any way.

             Ethan stands there for approximately three awkward seconds before just jumping in with both feet. “Alright,” he sighs. “What’d I say last-”

             “It has come to my attention that I have feelings for you,” Heisenberg interrupts bluntly. Ethan opens his mouth to react - how, he doesn’t even know yet - but the lord doesn’t give him a chance to get a syllable out. “Never had ’em before, so it took a bit of figuring out, but it’s pretty safe to say it’s friendship. Don’t think I’m not annoyed about it, by the way, you persistent asshole.”

             Ethan closes his mouth abruptly. “Oh,” he says after a moment. “Okay. That’s... huh. For a minute I thought-”

             “- I was confessing my undying love and passion for you?” Heisenberg finishes with a grin. “Don’t get a swollen head. You’re pretty, but not that pretty.” He waves a hand airily as Ethan flushes. “It’s almost more scandalous to be friends, really. You get attached, start spending more and more time with someone you have no intention of starting a family with, and then suddenly you’re risking your life for no sensible reason.”

             “That’s... a really sad way of viewing friendship,” Ethan offers.

             Heisenberg spreads his hands in a what can I say? -type gesture and changes the topic.

⚙️ 

             If you’d told Karl a year ago that he’d chicken out of confessing his infatuation to a Mold-infected American - and a man, at that - already blessed with a wife and child, he would have marked you insane and not bothered implanting a Cadou at all. Yet here he is, and here’s Ethan, and he did just that. It’s a good thing Ethan can be painfully oblivious to everything that isn’t announcing itself at the top of its lungs.

             God, Ethan. Now that he knows his interest in the man stems from a romantic point as well as a scientific one, it’s hard to ignore. There’s just so much to distract him.

             The intelligence hiding behind a thick layer of thoughtlessness.

             The way his eyes crinkle when he laughs.

             The passion with which he throws himself into anything that’ll help him save Rose.

             How fucking nice he is.

             And there’s more, there’s so much more, but Karl is well aware that if he goes down that path, there will be major consequences. Even if it is… well, okay for a man to be interested in another man now, he doesn’t know if Ethan shares this particular affliction. And he’s happily married, for crying out loud.

             So he doesn’t try his luck. He cracks a joke about Ethan reading his books to the point of picking up German instead. And Ethan defends himself as he makes breakfast, naming excuse after excuse, pointing the spatula at Karl in protest, smirking when Karl challenges him further.

             “Paper is hardly an issue,” Karl says when Ethan mentions running out. “If you need somewhere to scribble your thoughts and shit, I’ve got plenty. Hell, take a full sheaf.”

             Ethan perks up at that. “Lazy morning,” he announces. “Deciding it now. Executively. No work, just you doing your eccentric artificer tinkering thing and me getting my diary up to speed. No exceptions.” He holds a bossy pointer finger in front of Karl’s nose. “Nope. Shut it. We both had a long night, we’re both taking the morning off.”

             “Sounds like a waste of time,” Karl drawls. “Why d-”

             The finger presses firmly against his lips. He shuts up.

             Ethan tuts, shaking his head mock-sternly. Or maybe it’s not feigned at all, which could very well be the case. “No arguing.”

             No arguing. He couldn’t if he wanted to. Not with Ethan still leaning in his space, pressing his finger to his lips like that. Damn him.

             Finally, after an eternity (approximately two and a half seconds) of this nonsense, Ethan is satisfied and pulls away. “Stay there,” he says in admittedly deserved satisfaction, and trots out of the room.

             One beat. Two.

             Ethan pokes his head back in. “Where did you say the paper was?” he asks self-consciously.

             Karl laughs at him and gets up to help him locate it.

🔦

             Ethan can’t remember the last time he enjoyed a lazy morning. Which probably makes sense considering his life officially went out the window almost seven years ago. First the depression of losing his wife so soon after their marriage preventing him from enjoying anything, then the recovery process after the Baker house, followed by two years of what was essentially house arrest, and now weeks of almost nonstop action in the name of salvaging what he can of his family - not exactly a relaxing schedule.

             This, though. He missed this.

             It’s nice to have some peace for once. They’re just chilling in one of Heisenberg’s tidier workshops, but Ethan finds he quite likes the informality of the setting. The noises of the factory are a comfortable drone in the background, overlaid with quiet clinking and scratching noises as Heisenberg alternately tinkers and jots things down. The lord is also humming quietly to himself, not even seeming to notice he’s doing it.

             Ethan glances up at him. God only knows what the thing on the table is, but it’s got Heisenberg’s undivided attention. It’s a bit mesmerising to watch, the dedicated focus with which he works, gloved fingers delicately and expertly handling whatever tool he sees fit to use. A cigar lies forgotten next to his notes.

             Without really thinking about it, Ethan switches to the next page in his borrowed notebook and begins sketching.

             The picture that emerges slowly isn’t perfect by any means. He’s never been the most talented artist when it comes to referencing a model that isn’t stationary, especially compared to Mia, and it comes out a little messy. But he kind of likes the way it looks.

             “Did you know you stick your tongue out when you do that?”

             Ethan jumps. “What?”

             “I take it that’s a no.” Heisenberg tilts his head in amusement, a loose strand of hair falling across his nose. “You kind of… do this.” The tip of his tongue pokes out before disappearing into a relaxed grin. “What are you drawing, anyway?”

             “Your ugly mug,” Ethan says, too distracted by the innocence of the gesture to come up with a different answer.

             He gets a chuckle and a head shake for that. “Flatterer.” It says a lot about Heisenberg’s life that it’s taken less than half an hour for him to unwind to the point of losing both the theatrical bombast and the scientific detachment he’s been alternating between almost nonstop. Ethan much prefers this softer side of him. “I didn’t know you were an artist.”

             “’M not. I just like drawing.”

             “If you say so.” The device on the table makes a hiccupping noise. Heisenberg pauses to listen, then reaches into the cavity and fiddles with the exposed wires, and the noise smooths out into a soft whirring.

             “You draw too, don’t you?” Ethan asks. “Would you say that makes you an artist?”

             The lord huffs, not looking up from his task. “Diagrams are different from art, Ethan.”

             “They’re kind of not.”

             “Yes, they fucking are. Diagrams are informative, art is performative. One of them has to be strictly accurate, the other can be anything the creator damn wants.”

             “Okay, first off - bull shit.” Ethan leans forward. “I’ve been working with diagrams for sixteen years, and I’ll be the first to tell you those things are performative. Performance is how people fucking communicate. Second, there’s a huge overlap between diagrams and art throughout history. Look at da Vinci, for Christ’s sake. And before you say anything about “oh, art is pretty and diagrams aren’t” - shut the hell up, beautiful diagrams exist.”

             “Name one example,” Heisenberg challenges.

             “Maps.”

             “That… was quick. Another.”

             “Illustrations of growth.”

             “... Another?”

             “Anatomical references.”

             “You consider that art?”

             Ethan spreads his hands in a gesture that says you don’t? “How’s it any different from literally any other picture with a person in it? You’re just looking deeper.”

             “Good fucking Lord.” Heisenberg scrubs a hand over his face, dislodging his glasses. “Fine, I’m an artist too. Happy?”

             “Ecstatic.”

             Just like that, the banter is over. Without another word, they both go back to their chosen activities, Ethan with a comfortable smugness warming his chest. It takes him a second to realize he just kind of agreed with Heisenberg's insinuation that they’re both artists. Stupid sly asshole.

             He makes a face at the paper but lets it go.

             Several minutes pass before Heisenberg clears his throat softly. “Could I see it?” he queries, voice low and unsure.

             Uh.

             “Sure.” Ethan passes the notebook over to him, then watches his face carefully. Either he’s about to get the snarkiest critiquing of his life, or it’ll be handed back a second later with some dismissive comment about his art skills.

             Heisenberg doesn’t say anything. There’s a subtle tension in his jaw, which disappears as he examines the sketch with keen eyes. In fact, his entire expression softens. He glances up at Ethan briefly before returning his gaze to the picture, cheeks tinting pink - unless it’s just a trick of the light.

             It’s got to be a trick of the light. After all, it’s just an unfinished sketch of him leaning over his work with one hand writing and one hand in the wiring. Ethan may have put a bit too much into getting the details right, particularly the hair - sue him, he’s a perfectionist - but the drawing isn’t a markedly flattering one. His body isn’t even complete yet.

             “Well?” Ethan blurts after a moment of fidgeting.

             “It’s good.” Heisenberg taps the paper almost tenderly. “I uh, didn’t realize you paid so much attention to me.” He smirks as he says it, which fails to be anything near cocky.

             “Hard not to, since you’re such a theatre kid,” Ethan says, matching the smirk with a real(ish) one of his own. “Now give it back, I wanna finish it.”

Chapter Text

             Their so-called “lazy morning” ends up taking the full day. Karl can’t understand how Ethan did it. But somehow, they spent a full workday’s time on relaxing and precious little else. 

             It is, without a doubt, the best day he’s had in years.

             Sure, nothing impressive gets done. They talk. Ethan shares some of his drawings. Karl tells stories about the interesting bits of his life. It doesn’t really matter though, since the factory doesn’t technically need Karl’s constant presence in order to run reasonably smoothly, and Ethan’s made so much progress that him skipping a day can’t be too big a deal.

             So why is Karl still tired when Ethan decides it’s time to turn in for the night?

             “You go on ahead,” he says, ignoring the quiet fog swirling at the back of his mind. “I’m just going to-”

             “Shut up and get your ass out of here,” is Ethan’s mild-mannered interjection.

              Love is stupid, Karl thinks grumpily as he goes about his end-of-the-day chores, the only concession Ethan is willing to make. Love is a weakness. Love is-

             The way Ethan looks when remembering something his daughter did.

             The bright smile that wrinkles Ethan’s nose and lights up the room, the one you would never expect from someone with such a blank resting face.

             The voice that isn’t particularly remarkable but still pools in Karl’s stomach like a warm, filling meal whenever he hears it.

             He’s so weak for this man.

             “Shut up,” Karl growls out loud, smacking his head as if that’ll dispel any of the treacherous thoughts gathering in there. He conducts his factory check with less attention than is normally acceptable, then stomps into the private elevator and jabs the button, grumbling all the way.

             He grumbles even harder when he realizes, halfway to his quarters, that despite having a whole day to get to know Ethan better, he still wants more.

              Good thing he’s not going anywhere for the foreseeable future, his brain snarks helpfully.

             Fuck this. Fuck Ethan. Fuck every choice Karl has ever made to lead him to this insanity.

             Like it or not, he’s stuck.

🔦

             “Tell me about the American Mold.”

            Ethan snaps out of his mindless reverie at the unexpected voice and looks over at Heisenberg, uncomprehending. “What?”

             Heisenberg rolls his shoulders in a motion that could be a shrug or a stretch. “Whatever infected you in America. Tell me what it was like.”

             Ethan immediately has flashbacks of “concerned” therapists asking similar questions. “No. It was hard enough reliving it for BSAA researchers, I’m not doing it again for you.”

             “Fair enough.”

             Neither of them speaks for a few minutes. Heisenberg goes back to whatever it is he’s doing at his desk while Ethan contemplates the state of his hoodie. The bloodstains are fading nicely. It would seem the factory laundry setup is well equipped to get stubborn spots out. Which isn’t all that candid an observation when you take into account what kinds of spots Heisenberg’s setup must see.

             But eventually, the question lingering in his brain finds its way out. “Why do you want to know, anyway?”

             One shoulder rises in a shrug as the lord answers without looking up. “I’m curious. You’re a strange case, Ethan Winters.”

             “What, you want DNA samples next?” Ethan’s all too familiar with this practice. The words taste bitter on his tongue. “Trying to solve me like a puzzle, maybe replicate my mutations?”

             “I’m an engineer, not a biologist.”

             “Oh.” Ethan considers this. The chance to talk about what happened with someone who isn’t studying him or else suffering through three times what he did is a first. Actually, this is probably his first time in almost four years talking to someone he even comes close to considering a friend. That trust’s got to count for something, right?

             “It was like this, but so much worse, I think,” he says before he can psych himself out. Heisenberg doesn’t comment, so he keeps talking. “I didn’t know anything about the Mold or how to fight, I didn’t have any survival knowledge outside of basic street smarts and some practice with a basic shotgun… I was just a plain old IT guy living in LA.”

             Heisenberg shifts to straddle his chair backwards, facing Ethan. His head tilts inquisitively. “You keep using that word. What is IT?”

             Well that’s a new one. “It stands for “information technology”.” This is met with a silent echo of information technology and the beginning of an enlightened expression. Just to be clear, he says, “I’m a systems engineer.”

             “So you work with computers?”

             “Yeah. I’m actually kind of a johnny-one-note that way,” Ethan admits. Sure, he’s decent at other things too, but back home in Los Angeles, he was mostly known as the computer guy. Boring.

             … Right?

             Or maybe not. Heisenberg is nodding like this is fascinating to him. “I can only imagine how much computers have advanced by now,” he muses under his breath. Ethan has a moment to remember that the man probably hasn’t seen any system more complex than those shitty old tv sets before he coughs self-consciously and says in a less private tone, “Uh, sorry. Continue.”

             “Me and Mia had been married for three years. Then she left on a business trip and never came back.” Ethan’s doing his best to stay in the present, but his voice cracks anyway at the memory. “Her ship got caught in a hurricane. They told me she was dead.”

             “Ah, so you have experience with that,” Heisenberg notes.

             Ethan clears his throat. “Yeah. And then three years later, I received an email I thought was from her.”

             Confusion flits across the lord’s features. “Email,” he repeats.

             “Electronic mail. Uh, it’s a written message sent from one computer to another. It also works on phones.”

             “Phones can send written messages now?” Heisenberg leans forward, like a few measly inches off the distance between them will get him clearer answers.

             “Not landlines - the telephone you’re probably used to,” Ethan elaborates. “But yeah, cellphones can do that.”

             “What the hell is a cellphone?”

             Man, he is not good at this. “Right, yeah, you wouldn’t know that. It’s like the one from the crash site.”

             “Huh,” Heisenberg says thoughtfully.

             Ethan can’t help chuckling at his curiosity about such everyday things. “You know, you really aren’t like the people I had to talk to about the Mold.”

             The lord smirks at him. “I’m one of a kind.”

             “No shit.”

             “What did this electronic mail say?”

             Okay, they’re back to this. It’s a bit surprising how little hesitation he feels about jumping back in. “I was told Mia was at the Baker Ranch in Dulvey Parish, Louisiana and I should come get her,” Ethan recalls. “And since I had no idea what I was getting myself into, I just hopped in the car and drove there without letting anyone know what I was doing.”

             “Car- No, go on.” Heisenberg mimes zipping his lips and chucking the key over his shoulder.

             “Turns out the Bakers were a family of Mold-infected psychos who were kidnapping loads of people and trying to force them to become the perfect family by infecting them too. And if they didn’t fit, it was death and either digestion or a moldy communal grave for them.” He shudders, remembering decomposing torsos and bodies burnt almost beyond recognition. Andre Strickland, Clancy Jarvis… Deputy Anderson. Among others.

             “Sounds familiar,” Heisenberg drawls. His casual tone is undermined by the bitter twist to his mouth.

             “Exactly,” Ethan agrees. “They’d taken Mia, and she was starting to go crazy too. When I got there and tried to leave with her, she attacked me. Then Jack Baker - the head of the family - he locked us in the house. I only got out because his daughter Zoe was still sane and helped me escape. She also stapled my hand back on later. Mia cut it off with a chainsaw,” he adds in explanation.

             Heisenberg furrows his brow disbelievingly. “And you just accepted your hand still working as normal?”

              “Nothing was normal at that point! And it’s not like I had time to think about it. Jack basically curbstomped me and brought both of us to the main house for a moldy family dinner.”

             “Trying to make you one of them, I presume.”

             “Oh yeah. They had the embodiment of the Mold sitting right there at the table. A human-shaped bioweapon named Eveline, who was on Mia’s ship and sank it.” Ethan shivers. “She was controlling all of them.”

             At least Heisenberg seems genuinely sympathetic. Similar experiences breed understanding, he guesses. “That desperate for a family, huh? She anything like Miranda?”

             “Not really?” It’s hard to say, looking back. He’s barely met Miranda. “She acted like a little girl, only her thing was playing a really fucked-up version of house.”

             Now Heisenberg’s unaffected mask slips. “You were right. Miranda’s a bitch. This kid’s terrifying. Go on.”

             “I only got away with my life because a deputy came by to investigate the disappearances and-” Ethan stops to remind his lungs to keep going “- and they killed him. Except then I had to solve all these weird puzzles while being chased by the corpses of the people they killed and filled with Mold, and also Jack. We had a chainsaw fight, which I obviously won.”

             The lord whistles. “Shit. You’re a walking chainsaw magnet, aren’t you.”

             “Tell me about it.”

             They both kind of wince, minds going back to the Sturm attack of eight days ago. Or Ethan’s is, at least. It’s well within the realm of possibility that Heisenberg’s trying to remember if he sent any other chainsaw-endowed machines after him.

             “So you got out alive,” Heisenberg says presently. “What happened to your wife?”

             “We met briefly before Lucas Baker grabbed her.” He’d forgotten how much he hates even thinking about Lucas. Eveline had been a terrible, nightmarish creature to deal with, but she’d been understandable. Lucas, with his freedom from her mental invasion and the demented games of torture and death he concocted anyway, was the unfathomable monster. Heisenberg’s waiting for him to keep talking though, so he does. “I found out from Zoe that she and Mia had spent the last three years figuring out how to decontaminate themselves with some kind of serum so they could escape. We needed to find the stuff for the serum around the ranch, though. Marguerite, the mom, almost killed me before I killed her. Then I tried to meet with Zoe, but she and Mia were both being held captive by Lucas.”

             “Wait, who’s Lucas?”

             “Zoe’s insane puzzle-obsessed brother. You reminded me of him for a while,” Ethan remarks with stunning tactlessness even for him.

             Heisenberg just smiles bleakly. “I’m guessing that’s not a compliment.”

             “Well, it’s the truth.” The damage has already been done, there’s no point trying to explain it away. “He forced me to go through all kinds of horrible traps and puzzles and then tried to kill me by throwing an active stick of dynamite into the room I was stuck in.”

             The tale receives an impressed whistle. “Damn. How’d you get out of that?”

             “I threw it back,” Ethan admits, slightly embarrassed.

             Heisenberg laughs. “You’re a slippery one, I’ll give you that,” he says, shaking his head.

             “Yeah, so was Lucas. He got away. And then he was killed by someone else later. But him escaping let me go after Mia and Zoe.”

             “Knowing your history of terrific luck, things probably went to shit right after that.”

             “You got it. Jack attacked us and I had to use one of the doses of serum to kill him. That left only one dose for either Mia or Zoe.”

             Heisenberg nods slowly, face growing somber. “You chose Mia.”

             “I had to.” The words come out grief-ridden and almost pleading. “She was my wife.”

             He’s not prepared for the understanding and empathy he finds in the lord’s face when he looks at him. “Loyalty’s only a flaw if it’s misplaced,” Heisenberg says in a voice that could almost be called kind.

             Ethan squeezes his eyes shut, forcing his emotions back down to a manageable level. “Mmm. Zoe was furious. She ordered us to leave on a boat we’d found, because she couldn’t come too. She was lucky, though.”

             “Do tell.”

             This is the part his researchers disguised as therapists were always the most interested in, and also the part that scares Ethan the most in hindsight. Which altogether makes it the hardest part to talk about. “We ended up at the wreckage of the ship. It was housing a Fungal Root and the second we got too close, it destroyed the boat and… and swallowed me.”

             Heisenberg doesn’t look scientifically intrigued, only thoughtful. “That… hmm. And you’re sure you’re alive.”

              “Really?” Ethan gives him an unimpressed frown, which Heisenberg waves away.

             “Sorry. You were swallowed by the Fungal Root. Carry on.”

             “I met Jack’s memory in there. He begged me to save his family. And then Mia pulled me out of the Mold and threw me off the ship along with a piece of Eveline’s tissue so I could make a poison to kill her.”

             “Your-”

              “Eveline.”

             Heisenberg nods demurely. “Ah.”

             “That’s when the BSAA showed up to deal with the situation,” Ethan remembers. He can still feel the overwhelming relief from that day.

             “Bit late on the draw,” Heisenberg comments sardonically.

             “Shut up, they helped us get out of there and destroy both Eveline and the Fungal Root.”

             “And then they rushed you off to Romania to land you in another twisted family mess.” The sarcastic edge is back in full force. Heisenberg’s opinion of the BSAA is clearly not a favourable one.

             “Not,” Ethan corrects. “We were kept in custody while our infections and wounds were treated, they interrogated us to be sure we were victims and not connected to Eveline’s creation, and then we were sent to live here under witness protection. That was two years ago.”

             Heisenberg is quiet for a minute, gazing pensively into space. “That’s quite a story.”

             “Yeah. Chris had us taking therapy, learning Romanian, undergoing military training, all kinds of activities to keep us from going nuts from the trauma.” He hesitates before confessing, “Sometimes I still think it didn’t really work.”

             The lord flashes a grin. “I don’t know how you sleep at night.”

             “That’s because you’re unfamiliar with the concept of sleep in general.”

             “Piss off,” Heisenberg says without venom.

             Ethan chuckles tiredly and gets into bed. A minute or two of pen-scratching and paper-rustling later, Heisenberg removes his accessories to join him. The lights go out on their own, a feat Ethan dearly wishes he was capable of, and the room falls into a silence that, while not comfortable per se, carries a kind of companionable equanimity.

             So of course someone has to run his big mouth and make it awkward.

             “You’re not all that much like Lucas,” Ethan blurts, and then regrets it immediately afterward. Here’s hoping Heisenberg’s already sleeping.

             “Mmm?”

             Shit. “Now that I know you, there’s not a lot you have in common,” Ethan explains lamely. Then, because his brain is still running damage control on the last stupid thing he said, he adds, “I think you’re more like Zoe.”

             Heisenberg doesn’t respond for a long time. “Did she make it too?” he asks finally.

             Oh. They are alike, the tough, fiercely independent survivors hiding their fears and vulnerability behind disillusionment and a veneer of detachment. Ethan’s heart squeezes with sudden empathy. “Not right away, but she’s safe and free now,” he answers softly. “We will get out of here, I promise. Nobody left behind.”

             Silence blankets the room. Ethan has just accepted that Heisenberg has fallen asleep and he should do the same when the lord mumbles gruffly, “Thank you, Ethan.”

             He’s not sure why he does it. Maybe it’s that looseness that comes with late-night talks. Maybe it’s the weird humanity he can’t help seeing in him right now. But Ethan smiles into the dark and whispers back, “You’re welcome, Karl.”

Chapter Text

             “Outdoor training,” Karl says without preamble.

             Ethan stops. Then he lowers his mug and squints at his friend. “Interesting theory, care to elaborate?”

             “I’ve been thinking about your last run. You did spectacularly, but now that we have a much fuller scope of what you can do, the Gauntlet isn’t a practical way for you to prepare.” Karl waves a hand as he speaks. “It’s a battle, not a strategic game. No traps, likely outdoors, and there won’t be kill switches to lean on.”

             “So, what, you’re sending me out to kill every monster left in the region? With weapons, or barehanded?”

             “Not every monster,” Karl says sensibly. “You cleared out a good portion of the lycan pack, and there are a few beasties out there I know you can’t handle. No, I want you to put your survival skills to the test for a few days, get acquainted with the area and how to fight out there. Of course,” he adds, “the more lycans you kill, the less there’ll be in Miranda’s army.”

             “Murder field trip. Got it.” Ethan knocks back the last of his coffee. “How long d’you want me out there?”

             Karl rests his elbows on the table and leans on them, idly fingering his Valentine’s ring, which he’s strung onto a new necklace and added to the cluster around his neck. “Oh, about a day at a time. Probably less. We’re fucked if it lasts much longer than twelve hours anyway.”

             “Goodie.” In all honesty, he’s kind of looking forward to not spending the day surrounded by machinery. He is a little nervous about leaving the safety of the factory, but he’s already been in the village for over a fortnight; there probably isn’t a lot out there he hasn’t already encountered. “Are you coming?”

             “Factory needs me,” is Karl’s blunt response. “I’ll monitor you by camera, and you can call on me if you need help, but I’m not coming for you unless it’s an emergency.”

             And that’s the end of that conversation. Ethan finishes his breakfast, gets himself equipped for a day of hiking (minimal food to reduce weight and one gun only, as Karl insists), and takes the elevator from the tank garage up to a field ringed in by stone outcroppings and a reinforced chain link fence. He sees why Karl sent him out that way immediately. Here, he has plenty of cover and, should Miranda make an appearance, a plausible excuse for why he and Karl are both still alive, which would not be the case if he were caught leaving factory grounds through the only other exit - the front door.

             Sparing a moment to think longingly of the barge and its effortless speed, he scales the outcropping in blob form, then shifts back and begins the long trek into the wilderness.

             Romania’s not so bad. Sure, it’s bitterly cold, mountainous winter climate and all, and sure, the lingering threat of an ambush has him on edge, but he has to admit it’s pretty beautiful. Back when he and Mia were still fairly optimistic about their situation in life, they spent hours outside, just enjoying the fresh air and the view. Ethan remembers looking down on the village from the trapper’s path and smiles slightly. The view from their house had nothing on this one.

             Today, the world holds a different sort of beauty. The sun is a lazy circle glowing mildly from behind a blanket of cloud. The snow has formed a crust that crunches underfoot, and the trees are almost perfectly still. A light breeze ruffles Ethan’s hair.

             Like he said. It’s nice.

             Ethan notices the blood before he runs into them. And the tracks, but it’s kind of hard to not notice the blood first. The haphazard trail of red stands out starkly against the broken snow. Whatever made it was listing from side to side and resting its weight on every available tree in its way not too long ago; glistening smears stain the bark a few feet above the ground.

             Generally, the smart thing to do when you happen upon a large quantity of blood in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere is to stop walking and listen to see if the threat is still nearby.

             This is one of those times when Ethan does the smart thing. He’s very glad he does, because his ears quickly pick up chewing noises and quiet snarling. Lycans. More than one, by the sound of it.

              The more lycans you kill, the less there’ll be in Miranda’s army.

             Ethan takes a deep breath and creeps onward, taking mold form to disguise both his scent and the sound of him moving over the snow. He could just climb a tree and snipe them down from there, but the thought of summoning more lycans with his gunshots sends nausea spiking into his throat from his stomach.

             Then again, slinking right up to the trio of lycans tearing into an unfortunately identifiable carcass isn’t a whole lot better. He does his best to emulate a hollow in the ground as he inches into the monsters’ space. Ten seconds after starting this endeavour, he finds his vision filling with first snow, then dirt.

             He can burrow into the ground, then. Good to know.

             Straining his senses, Ethan is pleased to note that the mechanics of his mold secretions (still sounds wrong, fuck you Karl) also apply to his now-blind mold form. The lycans register as consistent vibrations like the impressions formed by pressing on your eyelids, almost directly above him now. The corpse is a dull lump just off to his left.

             It’s not going to get more advantageous than that. Now is the perfect time to strike.

             The lycans cry out in surprise when Ethan surges out of the ground in their midst in a whirl of bladed arms. In less than five seconds, all three wolfmen have been cut down. Ethan stands among their disintegrating bodies for a moment, letting the adrenaline drain from his system, then reluctantly kneels to examine the abandoned prey.

             Not a villager. This guy’s wearing modern clothing and a loaded backpack Ethan doesn’t have the stomach to rifle through. A backpacker?

             “What the fuck were you doing out-”

             He’s cut off by a none-too-distant howl. A flaming arrow whizzes over his head and buries itself in the tree behind him.

             “Shit,” Ethan mutters, reaching for his gun. When a second arrow hisses into the snow just off to the side, he steps into its completed trajectory and fires. A lycan, presumably the bowman, screams. More howls rend the air.

             That’s Ethan’s cue to book it. “Shit shit shit Jesus fucking Christ in a top hat fuck!”

             He could disappear into the ground. He should disappear into the ground. Does he have time to before he gets caught, though?

             The heat from an arrow warms his heels. Lycans snap and snarl from only a few paces away. He runs.

             The thing is, lycans are fast. Faster than humans on foot, and much faster than humans on horseback. Ethan’s flight through the forest quickly turns into an impromptu obstacle course as he dodges arrows, swiping claws, snapping teeth, and the odd pouncing lycan. They’ve all but surrounded him.

             Taking a chance, Ethan cuts right abruptly. This new path temporarily throws the horde off his heels, allowing him a moment to think through the haze of panic. He’s not defenceless. He can shoot. He can morph. He can shove his metal fingers down a lycan’s throat if it comes to that.

             He can also call for help, but the option is not a charming one. It’s his first day out, for Christ’s sake. Not to mention he’s already handled much worse, the lycan stronghold not least among these. Karl is a last-resort plan.

             Ethan has just decided to blob himself up a tree and work things out from there when an arrow lodges itself in his calf. He screams in pain and stumbles, foot catching a partially buried branch.

             It happens in slow motion.

             Ethan falls. His palms sting from catching him before his face slams into the ground.

             The first lycan lunges for him.

             And a figure drops onto it from above, cutting its lunge short, and starts shooting.

             “Stay down!”

             Ethan pushes himself onto his hands and knees and turns to watch as his rescuer takes on the entire pack of lycans in a scene straight out of a James Bond movie. The guy is precise in his marksmanship, despite barely taking time to aim between shots, and Ethan almost misses it when he stops to reload.

             Then the last lycan crumples to the ground, and the stranger’s attention switches to him. Ethan gets to his feet hastily, hand resting on the butt of his gun. But the stranger doesn’t move to strike. Instead, his brow furrows in disbelief.

             “Ethan Winters?”

             That’s not good. Ethan takes a step back. “Who’s asking?”

             “Shit,” the stranger grumbles, holstering his weapon and walking past Ethan. “This is how he handles it? I could’ve been vacationing in some nice little hamlet, but no.” He stops to toss a brief smile Ethan’s way. “I’m a friend. I know you have no reason to trust me, but you’re in a lot of danger out here. Follow me.”

             “I’m good, actually,” Ethan says flatly. This “friend” did too good a job fighting those lycans for some random civilian. And he should not have recognized him.

             The stranger sighs. “Look, those things aren’t the only monsters roaming these parts. My camp is just past this hill, at least come get that leg taken care of. I’ve got coffee.” The last part sounds like it would be a joke if he weren’t so weary. Which is kind of fair considering he’s wearing no winter clothes other than a leather jacket and boots and has just jumped out of a tree to fight a bunch of lycans.

             “Why are you out here?” Maybe it’s rude to demand answers from him so soon, but Ethan is suspicious. His voice sounds familiar, what...

             “I’m-”

             “You’re with the BSAA,” Ethan accuses, realizing what’s going on. “You’re working with Chris, aren’t you? Well, you can tell him to shove it. I’m doing just fine killing all his problems for him.”

             The soldier - Nova - has the audacity to chuckle at that. Then his smirk disappears. “Ethan, you can’t-”

              “Watch me.” Ethan flips him off with both hands and storms off. “Tell your guys to stay the fuck away from the factory,” he snaps over his shoulder.

             “Okay, hang on just a minute-“ A hand grabs Ethan’s shoulder. Without thinking, Ethan morphs his body out from under the grasping fingers, restoring it to its regular shape the second he’s free. He turns to glare at the other man as he does it, hoping it covers the unnatural dodge.

             Nova stops, hand still hovering in the air. His eyes, wide at first, narrow thoughtfully. “Ah,” he says.

             He noticed, then. Dammit. “I mean it,” Ethan growls, bending to pull the arrow out of his calf to really drive his words home. “I’m fine. Just leave the factory alone.”

             He leaves before the soldier can respond. Nova makes no move to stop him.

🔦

             Ethan returns late in the day, tired, wet, and the proud owner of a rather extensive kill count. There’s a bubbling pot of stew waiting for him. And also Karl.

             “Well done,” the lord says while Ethan helps himself to supper.

             Ethan grunts. “Could’ve warned me about the lycan hunting party.”

             “And led you to expect regular surveillance updates in battle?” Karl waggles a spoon at him. “Besides, the camera in that area has been malfunctioning for days. I haven’t had time to fix it.”

             “Yeah, no. That’s probably on the BSAA guy I met out there.”

             Karl sets the spoon down abruptly. “I’m sorry, what?”

             “I found Nova,” Ethan explains tiredly. “Or - no, I guess he found me. Shortish, kinda hot, fights like a ninja gunslinger, definitely working with Chris… He knows I’m a mutant,” he adds, figuring that’s important.

             “Fucking hell.” Karl stares off into space, the frown on his face deepening. After a moment, he asks, “Anything else I should know about this BSAA hotshot?”

             Ethan thinks. “I told him to fuck off and leave the factory alone. He seemed to listen? Maybe I read him wrong.”

             “So we have a BSAA soldier running around in the woods, disabling cameras, shooting everything that moves, and now fully aware that something’s going on in the factory,” Karl surmises. The cutlery rattles with great agitation in its drawer.

             “Not shooting everything. Just lycans.”

             This latest tidbit sees an end to the disturbed silverware, but his friend is not much appeased. Now he’s worked up and thoughtful. “Hmm. Less lycans is a benefit. But I don’t like having a potential threat lurking around my territory.”

             “Well what would you want me to do?” Ethan demands. “Kill him? Kinda rude after he saved my ass.”

             Karl levels him with an unamused look. “Some more information would be nice.”

             “Get it yourself, then. I’m not going back out there until I’ve had at least eight hours of sleep and a shower.” There. Ethan Winters has fucking spoken. He yawns and stretches exaggeratedly, takes half a second to mourn how quickly he’s picked up Karl’s stupid little idiosyncrasy, and goes to make his statement a reality.

Chapter Text

             “Karl,” Ethan says into the empty air.

             And again. “K-arl.”

             And again. “K-ar-l.”

             And - you guessed it - again. “Karl. Karl. Karrrrrrl. K-K-K-K-Kaaaaaaarl Heeeeeiiiiiisenbeeeeeerg.”

             “Stop that,” Karl growls as Ethan goes on to make a weird “pa-pa-pa-POWWWWWWW” sound through cupped hands.

             “Bored,” says Ethan, and resumes his sporadic chanting.

             “There are half a dozen ways you could be entertaining yourself right now. Why did you choose the most annoying one?”

             Ethan kicks the air languidly. “Dunno. I’m seeing how many times I can say your name before the novelty wears off. Or you skewer me with whatever the fuck that is.”

             “Don’t tempt me.” It’s been twenty minutes of this. Karl has been minding his own business and working on a little side project, and Ethan has been sitting upside down in his chair, legs hooked over the chair’s back, arms flopping against the floor, and being a pest. You’d think he’d be bone-tired after his second day hiking around the village, but no.

             “I don’t know how you’re still sane after all these years,” Ethan grouses. “Shit sleep schedule, shit diet, shit work, and you don’t even have people to talk to down here.”

             Karl rubs a gob of oil off his project with his sleeve, fighting the impulse to smear it across Ethan’s vulnerable face. “I have the Duke.”

             “Nah, face it, man. Your life is shit.”

             “Well if the little shit says so, it must be so.”

             “Touché.” Ethan gives him an upside down grin. “Remind me to buy you a couple rounds to commiserate your sad, shitty life when we get out of here.”

             “Count on it.”

             The conversation dies off there, and to Karl’s relief, Ethan doesn’t start up with his name again. He may be inadvisably in love with the man, but there’s only so much he can take before he starts yelling.

             After a few minutes of blessed silence, Ethan starts humming an unfamiliar song. Then the humming becomes a string of mumble/sung nonsense words. Then he starts dancing a little, still feet-over-head in his chair.

             It has no right being that endearing.

             “What are you doing,” Karl says, masking fondness behind exasperation.

             Ethan doesn’t stop his rhythmic wiggling. “Grooving. What are you doing?”

             “Wondering why you’re acting like a child.”

             A slight pause. Then, “Listen, Karl, it’s either I get goofy or I curl up in the corner and spiral into a panic attack, and frankly, I’d rather not do that.”

             “Ah,” is all Karl can think of to say to that. He’s pretty sure he knows what Ethan’s talking about. He distracts himself from the horrors around him with work, after all. Actually, maybe it would help if…

             “Lend me a hand with this.”

             “What?” Ethan lifts his head to look at him from a slightly less upside down angle, clearly confused.

             Karl waves at his project. “Lend me a hand. You said you know your way around a machine, so prove it.”

             “O-kayyy…” Ethan says slowly. He sits up and twists so his feet are once again on the floor, then scooches his chair over to Karl’s workbench. “What are we making?”

             “I’m trying to recreate this “cellphone” of yours using parts from around the shop. It won’t be nearly as compact or tidy-looking, but that can’t be helped.” It will likely be a mess, in all honesty, but he sure as hell isn’t bringing the factory phone with him when he leaves. That thing’s outdated anyway, if Ethan’s words are anything to go by.

             Ethan blinks at the array of metal. “You’re trying to build a laptop.”

             “A what.”

             “A laptop,” Ethan repeats. “A portable computer. It looks a little like a- Wait, I just remembered.” He dashes out of the room, returning shortly after with his backpack. “I found one at the crash site,” he explains triumphantly.

             Karl stares at the computer in awe. It’s so thin. How is there room for any components? “If that’s a computer, I’m a hamster.”

             “Guess that makes you a rodent.” Ethan hands him the device. “Here. Charge it.”

             There is no satisfactory way to respond to that. Karl grumbles some rude things about Ethan’s parentage in German, but accepts the command to hold onto the thing. “So computers don’t need an abundance of cables anymore. Like phones.”

             “That’s right.” Ethan flips open the computer’s lid, revealing a blank black screen and a keyboard with flat keys.

             “And they function the same as cellphones.”

             “Yep. And they can do other stuff too. Stuff I actually know how to work with.” He shrugs cheerfully. “I can barely figure out the Settings app on my own phone.”

             “The outside world must be a mind-boggling place,” Karl says, paying careful attention to the sound of electricity coursing through circuits. As always, it’s slightly mesmerising.

             “Yeah, get ready for major culture shock.” Ethan perks up as the screen brightens. “Fuck yeah. Give me that.”

             Karl relinquishes the laptop and watches him set it on the table, take a seat in front of it, crack his knuckles, and start typing. He has the same focused look on his face that Karl suspects he wears whenever he works on projects he actually likes.

             “Check this out,” Ethan says after a few minutes, pushing away from the table. “There’s all kinds of confidential shit on this baby.” He opens a file and points at the screen. “This is a log of virus breakouts. This one-” he opens another file “- is a list of supplies needed. And this one… Wait, no, I think this is just a journal. I-”

             Karl frowns as Ethan’s face goes composed. “What is it?” Concern seeps into his voice despite his best efforts to stay neutral.

             “A writeup of the Raccoon City incident.” Ethan’s gaze is distant. “I had relatives living there. Some of them… they didn’t make it.”

             “What happened?” Karl has no idea where Raccoon City is - stupid name for a city, if you ask him - but whatever happened there, it sounds bad.

             “This big pharmaceutical company manufactured a disease that turned people into mindless, bloodthirsty cannibals,” Ethan says in a controlled voice. “It only took one bite to spread. The city was overrun in a week. Now it’s a pile of rubble.”

             “Your folks survived, though.”

             “My aunt and a couple of my cousins got out, somehow escaped the plague and the ruthless lootings that happened when law enforcement went down. My uncle was bitten but died before turning because he crashed his truck into a pileup of cars to save a couple of survivors. Everyone else...”

             Karl doesn’t push it. It sounds like the lycan raids, but a hundred times worse. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

             “I was fourteen,” Ethan goes on. “When we got the news, my mom took me and my sister out to live with an ex-Marines relative in Canada and told us we were going to learn how to defend ourselves, just in case the Cannibal Disease reached our area. We stayed until long after the government destroyed Raccoon City and declared the emergency over.”

             That explains why he’s comfortable working with grenades. “At least you were prepared for the Bakers,” Karl offers, taking the pragmatic route.

             Ethan looks at him flatly. “Nothing could have prepared me for the Bakers.”

             Fuck. He screwed that up. Shame coils in Karl’s gut - he could really do without that one - and heats his face. “Sorry,” he mumbles.

             “Mmhmm.” Seeming to grasp Karl’s sincerity, Ethan pats his shoulder briefly before going back to skimming through the computer files. Karl wishes once again that he could read English.

             Distracted as he is, it takes a moment to register the vibrations. When it connects, Karl shoots to his feet, laptop forgotten. “There’s an intruder in the lower levels.”

             Ethan’s eyes widen, and he shuts the laptop with a plasticky clack. “Shit.”

              “Told you I don’t need security cameras.” Karl holds out his hand for his hammer. The grip has barely settled in his palm before he’s heading for the door, uncaring if his power shakes the walls a little.

             Fingers curling around his upper arm stop him.

              “I’ll go,” Ethan says firmly.

             “Are you kidding me?” Karl growls. “It’s my fucking factory.”

             “Yeah, and you’re the target.” Ethan lets go in order to fold his arms across his chest. “I’ve had my ass saved twice by BSAA guys, it’s pretty obvious they’re not trying to kill me. Let me go talk to them. Maybe we can form an alliance or something.”

             “I don’t like it.”

             “Yeah, yeah. If it makes you feel better, I’m already ready to pull out the battle training if things go south.” A wave of black ripples along his exposed forearm, either in demonstration or as an unconscious reaction to the possibility of danger.

             Karl stares at him, calculating the odds. “Fine,” he relents. “But I get any indication that things aren’t going well, and I’m coming after you.”

             “If you interrupt and cost us the alliance, I will personally kick your ass,” Ethan promises. He sounds serious.

             This might just work, Karl reflects cautiously as his friend grabs the Sauer 38-H from his backpack and leaves the room. Even if he’d rather not affiliate himself with those trigger-happy authoritarians. Really, if push comes to shove, he knows Ethan can handle himself against whoever he finds down there.

             If he locks the talk button on Ethan’s communicator before Ethan’s out of range, no one needs to know.

Chapter Text

             Okay, Ethan might have been putting on a brave face back there. But there is no way he’s letting Karl handle this. He’ll just have to trust that the BSAA are still the good guys.

             That doesn’t mean he’s not nervous as he makes his way down to the lowest level. The last time he ran into the Hound Wolf Squad, he was pinned to the ground, held at gunpoint, and yelled at. And that was when their first impression of him was of a villager. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to guess what’ll happen if he’s mistaken for Karl or a soldat, and something tells him that won’t be difficult in this dim, noisy environment.

          Thanks for nothing, Nova.

             As if this weren’t stressful enough, he has no idea what he’s looking for. Karl said “an intruder”, singular, but who knows how many soldiers could be lurking in the shadows? Maybe they’ve got cloaking technology that masks their presence from Karl’s senses. He could be walking right into an ambush.

          Okay, it’s time to stop. Focus, Ethan.

             He draws his gun, but keeps it lowered. Shooting first is not the priority here. If I were a BSAA soldier infiltrating a mutant’s death factory, where would I be?

             Nothing comes to mind. How do you infiltrate a faculty when the only living inhabitant can sense the difference between a real soldat and an imposter? Come to think of it, how do you get to the lowest level without being caught?

             Ethan stops. The barge landing.

             He breaks into a sustainable run, silently praying he hasn’t missed the intruder. There are several buildings along the river, most notably the scrap heap and the tank garage. He can’t imagine what the BSAA could want with the scrap heap, so the garage it is.

             As he nears the garage, he slows to almost a crawl, placing each foot carefully so as to avoid making any unnecessary noise. It crosses his mind that he could make much faster, quieter progress in mold form, but the idea dies immediately. He does not want a BSAA soldier catching him popping back into human shape.

          On the plus side, I’m pretty sure I could heal from a few bullet wounds at this point.

             It’s not an overly encouraging thought.

             Ethan slips into the darkened garage and closes the door softly behind him. It’s pitch black in here, but he’s hesitant to turn on the flashlight. What if the soldier shoots on sight?

             In the end, he risks it. Karl will kill him if he comes back without finding the intruder first.

             “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” he mumbles, panning the beam around the room. There’s a light switch here somewhere-

             Somewhere nearby, metal clangs against the concrete floor. Ethan whirls, taking aim before he even sees what’s there.

             “Gimme that,” a familiar voice snarls, and then powerful hands are wrenching the gun from Ethan’s grasp. He holds on stubbornly, and takes two punches to the face as punishment. Like it or not, he’s disarmed and on the ground before he can fight back.

             But not pinned.

             “I told you to leave it alone, Ethan,” the man says angrily, pointing at him. “You’re in the way.”

             Ethan gets to his feet, his own anger surging to meet the challenge even as the man he’d once called a friend turns and walks away. “I’m in the way? What are you even doing here?”

             “That’s none of your concern.”

             “None of my- Chris, you shot my wife, kidnapped my daughter, and had your guys literally drag me out of my own house!” Ethan jogs to cut in front of Chris, blocking his path, and stands there with folded arms and planted feet. “You owe me answers,” he says angrily.

             Chris gives him a long look. Then he sighs heavily and looks away, rubbing his beard. “This is no place for civilians.”

             “It’s not a place for anyone,” Ethan shoots back. “I’ve killed at least half the mutant population in the two weeks I’ve been here, just like I fought my way out of the Baker house. But by all means, keep calling me a civilian if it makes you feel better about bullying your way out of an explanation.”

             “Fine.” Chris tosses him the Sauer. “Come on. I’ll explain on the way.”

             “Where are we going?” Ethan asks, falling into step beside him.

             “Rendezvous with the Wolves.”

             “The Wolves?”

             “The Hound Wolf Squad. My team.”

             That makes sense. But- “Wait. They’re here?”

             “I brought a small group with me,” Chris says briefly, adding, “We’d anticipated a fight, but so far, there’s been nothing.”

             “Okay, and why are you here if you’re not looking for a fight? Are you gathering information, or what?”

             “From this dump? No.” The lights flicker on as they come to a stop in the middle of the garage. Three Hound Wolf soldiers are running cables and small devices along the far wall, while a couple others are clearly waiting for the meeting to start. “We’re here to do some demolition,” Chris finishes, nodding to the cables.

             “Holy shit,” Ethan breathes in disbelief. “Are those bombs?”

             “Enough N2 to demolish everything this side of the village,” Chris confirms. “Once Miranda’s right hand’s out of the way, we’re going to make a move on the Megamycete.”

             Uh. That’s not good. “Chris, you can’t blow up the factory. We need it!”

              “We?” the soldier repeats.

             “Yes! We! I came down here to form an alliance. If we work together, we can-”

             Chris holds up a hand. “Let me get this straight,” he says. “You want to use the bioweapons manufactured in this factory to destroy another, even bigger bioweapon?” He shakes his head. “It won’t work.”

             “You don’t know that,” Ethan objects. “We’ve been working on a plan, and I think it’s a solid one. You should see some of the shit we have to work with.”

             “Hold up. You’re working with one of the lords now?”

             At this, the soldiers (who were doing a rather poor job of feigning oblivion) drop the act and surround Ethan, guns drawn. None of them are aiming at him, but it still makes him nervous.

             “Well, yeah-”

             “Are you insane?” Chris snaps. “You’re going to get yourself killed!”

             Ethan clenches his jaw. “Tell your guys to disable the bombs, Chris.”

             “What part of no aren’t you getting? This is a cold-blooded killer we’re talking about.” Chris’s eyes darken. “I’ve lost good men and women to this bastard, and you want to recruit him into my team? I know you’re desperate, but this isn’t the way.”

             “You’re not listening. We need this factory. There’s a whole arsenal of weapons here that aren’t soldats - hell, he built a fucking tank - and it’s a safe place to hide from Miranda.”

              “No, Ethan. For the last time, no.”

             They’re face to face now. Ethan keeps his expression defiant, trying to hide that he’s scrambling for some way to fix this.

             Then things go from bad to worse.

             “Well, well. If it isn’t the boulder-punching asshole himself,” Karl remarks, his voice doing that echoey amplified thing as he saunters into the garage with the theatricality Ethan has grown to love and hate in equal measure. “I think I’ll take those,” he adds. The guns that are all pointed at him now yank themselves out of their owners’ hands and rise into the air well above their heads to join the cloud of hovering shrapnel.

             Ethan wants to facepalm as he casually walks past the soldiers to stand in front of Chris, hammer swinging idly by his side. More drama is not what they need right now.

             As usual, though, Karl disagrees. “Bit far from America, aren’t you?”

             Behind him, one of the Hound Wolves reaches discreetly into his jacket.

              Shit. “DON’T!” Ethan yells, lunging to stop him.

             Karl turns with him, expression going from confusion to clarity in a heartbeat as his metal sensitivity alerts him to the situation. “Bad idea-”

             And then the stun gun is firing into Karl’s gut. His soft, unprotected gut, which was previously holding in a steady current of powerful electricity.

             The surge rips through them like a bomb. Ethan barely feels his back hit the wall; he can barely think at all when his nervous system is on fire and his limbs are doing a frenzied jig out of his control. He’s losing feeling in his body.

              So this is what it’s like to be electrocuted, his brain murmurs dazedly. Then it decides to take a little nap right there, in a crumpled heap on the floor. Ethan has a second to see Karl slump first to his knees and then face-first into the ground, and then everything goes black.

🔦

             His first thought when he comes to is that he must have had one hell of a drinking spree last night. It’s quickly chased away by the memory that emerges from the deep like a vengeful Moreau.

             Chris. The Hound Wolf Squad. Getting the feet blasted out from under him by an electrical blowout.

             Ethan groans and lifts his head. The garage is even more dimly lit than before - probably running on power from a backup generator - and littered with unmoving bodies. Karl is lying right where he got tazed, now in the middle of a large scorch mark.

             He should probably check that he’s still alive.

             Getting up turns out to be a painful affair. Ethan’s body does not want to cooperate. He struggles laboriously to his hands and knees with a gasped “Dammit”, not trusting himself to stay upright if he tries anything fancier, and crawls over to the curled-up body in the blackened trench coat. Crawling is harder than he remembers. Then again, he’s shaky and kind of numb, and his arms and legs don’t usually spasm uncontrollably every now and then. He has no clue how he’s going to check for a pulse like this.

             In the end, it’s decided for him. Ethan lifts one hand from the floor to feel Karl’s neck - God, his arm’s heavy - and winds up flopping forward to faceplant into the unconscious lord’s shoulder. It’s hot to the touch, which is worrisome, but it rises and falls slightly, so even though it’s shallow and uneven, he’s glad to know Karl is breathing.

             Ethan somehow gets himself off Karl’s torso and sitting upright on his knees. There’s a little more strength in his arm when he reaches out to shake Karl’s arm. “Hey. Hey. Get up.”

             Karl groans and doesn’t move.

             “Come on, Karl. Since when is a little water-free toaster bath strong enough to do you in?”

             “I have,” Karl slurs, “no fucking idea what you just said.” He rolls over with a pained grunt and, with some help from Ethan, manages to sit up. His hat is gone, and while his sunglasses remain on his face, the frames are badly warped and the lenses shattered beyond repair. Other than that, he seems to be in one piece.

             “You good?” Ethan checks, to be safe.

             Karl runs a shaking hand through his hair. “I’ll live.” His voice, like Ethan's, is hoarse. He casts Ethan a halfhearted scowl. “Figures you get out of it feeling great.”

             “Me? Nah, I feel like shit,” Ethan says with a lopsided grin.

             He receives an unimpressed grimace for that. Then the lord’s gaze pans around the garage. “They dead?”

             “Hopefully not.”

             “They’re trying to blow up my factory,” Karl points out dourly. “One of them electrocuted me.”

             Ethan rolls his eyes. “And you electrocuted him right back.” It’s surprisingly easy to stand up; Karl wasn’t wrong about Ethan recovering faster. He grabs Karl’s arm and hauls him to his feet. “Come on.”

              “” Karl says, managing two noodle-limbed steps forward before dropping again.

              Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me. Ethan sighs. “You know what? Stay there. Let’s see if I can convince any survivors to join the cause.”

             “Because that worked so well last time,” Karl grumbles. The sentiment is undermined by the fact that he makes no move to get back up.

             Rolling his eyes again, Ethan staggers around the garage, checking each BSAA soldier for signs of life.

             They’re lucky Karl removed most of their weaponry before the overload thing happened - the guilty party’s stun gun appears to have fused into his hand. He’s badly burned, and Ethan can tell all of them will be suffering from a lot of bruising and possibly broken bones, but there’s not a dead soldier among them.

              Karl could probably use them as soldat material if any of them did bite it, his brain whispers morbidly. Ethan mentally slaps it and moves on to where Chris is beginning to stir.

             The look on his face when he opens his eyes to find Ethan crouching over him is laughably stunned.

             Keeping his expression serious and a little condescending - so he’s enjoying the sudden reversal in power dynamic, sue him - Ethan raises an eyebrow and says, “You ready to listen now?”

⚙️ 

             Things go a lot better the second time around. If you consider “propositioning the noble morons who just attempted to neutralize you whilst patching up their fancy asses for them” an improvement.

             Karl does not.

             Karl considers it a grand waste of time and resources.

             The one who shot him clearly regrets it, though. That’s gratifying.

             “I’ve been hiding out here for awhile now,” Ethan is explaining to the bozo in charge. “We’re working on a plan to rescue Rose.”

             “I’ll be honest, I hoped you were joking about working with a lord.” Bozo In Charge shoots Karl a dark, distrustful look. Karl flips him off with both hands and goes back to magnetically peeling bits of electricity gun from its wielder’s shivering palm.

             “He’s been helping me since I got here, it made sense to team up.” Ethan sounds annoyed.

             Karl grins. The gunman’s shaking intensifies.

             “You can’t trust him,” says Bozo In Charge as if he knows what he’s talking about.

             “I trust him more than I trust you right now,” Ethan snaps as Karl strips away the last of the gun just a little too quickly.

             The injured man screams. They both turn to look at him.

             “You haven’t even met properly.” Ethan waves him over. “This is Chris Redfield, captain of the Hound Wolf Squad and the guy who got me out of Louisiana. Chris, this is… Karl.”

             “I know who he is,” Redfield growls. “Lord Karl Heisenberg, Miranda’s pet monster. The grave robber.”

             “Ah, so you must be the man who tried to riddle Ethan’s wife with bullets,” Karl says pleasantly.

             Redfield’s gritting his teeth now. “That wasn’t Mia. I was trying to kill Miranda.”

             “Oh, well in that case…” Karl grabs his hand and gives it a hearty shake, adding in a harmless zap that has Redfield’s fingers flexing involuntarily. “Welcome to the Heisenberg Factory! Pleasure’s all mine.”

             Ethan sighs heavily. “Play nice, Karl.”

             “Sorry,” Karl lies cheerfully. “Where are my manners? You must be starving after all your hard work. I’ll have someone bring something up.” He summons a Hauler, to the gathered soldiers’ horror. “Fetch what you can from the nearest canteen. Oh, and spread the word that these guys are our guests, so no murderous rampages,” he adds as an afterthought. “For now.”

             The Hauler obediently trundles off while Redfield looks back and forth between it and Ethan as if to say, See? Horrifying monster! Who enslaves reanimated corpses!

             For his part, Ethan doesn’t seem to notice that every other human in the room is ostensibly terrified. Karl likes that about him. “So, about that alliance,” he says hopefully.

             Redfield shoots him a mutinous look. “Ethan, you-”

             “Ah ah ah.” Karl snaps his fingers and a piece of scrapped plating moulds itself over the soldier’s mouth and nose with lightning speed. “Ethan’s talking.”

              “Karl.”

             “You’re too polite for your own good,” Karl sighs, reluctantly letting the makeshift muzzle fall to the floor.

             “Ignore him,” Ethan tells Redfield. “He was raised by wolves. Literally.”

             Redfield eyes Karl for a moment, blatantly sizing him up, then turns those judgemental eyes back to Ethan. “Alright, Ethan. You want an alliance? Here’s my offer. We start with a truce. My team won’t blow up your hideout, and you will let us stay here while we consider a new plan of attack. Safely.” This last bit is directed at Karl.

             That is a bare-minimum truce at best. The intruders are clearly getting the long end of the stick here. But one look at Ethan’s face is all Karl needs to paste on a grin - he puts no effort into making it a friendly one - and say, “You have my word.”

             Ethan’s small smile as he gives Karl a little nod is worth agreeing with this bullheaded interloper.

             But there’s nothing to stop him from tacking on a parting shot. “Too bad. I coulda used a new Panzer.”

Chapter Text

             The upside to their arrangement is that Karl is still well within his boundaries when he decides to be an asshole. Sure, he reins it in a little - they’re still chasing this partnership, after all - but there’s nothing stopping him from “encouraging” the Hound Wolf idiots to set up base in one of his more dilapidated warehouses right above a soldat processing area. Or setting a Hauler to regularly drop in to check on them.

             “Think of it as extra security,” he offers when Redfield tries to complain. “Anything coming after you will meet the Hauler first. And believe me, you’ll know when it happens.”

             It’s also there to provide Karl with a means to keep tabs on his guests, but neither of them mentions that.

             So that’s that. He’s got a bunch of mutant-fighting soldiers in stupid helmets camping out in his factory. It’s probably for the better, anyway. If any of them tries something, he’ll just turn the room into a giant iron maiden and drop the ceiling on their impaled bodies.

             “I’m going for another field day,” Ethan announces, already on his way out.

             This gets Redfield’s attention immediately. “The fuck are you thinking?”

             “Relax, ,” Karl drawls. “He’s just getting a little training in before the big day. Practical learning and all that.”

             “Your recklessness is going to kill us all.” He doesn’t protest further, but his groaning is annoying. Karl considers making a new muzzle as soon as Ethan’s out the door. But he doesn’t, because he knows how to behave.

             That doesn’t mean he has to put up with Redfield’s whining, though. “Go wherever the fuck you want, but don’t touch anything,” he tells the soldier generously, and walks out. A second later, something occurs to him. He pops his head back in the room to warn, “Don’t tamper with any locked doors either,” before ducking out once more.

             It comes as a pleasant surprise that the man actually listens. Karl is extra vigilant in monitoring the factory, and is grudgingly satisfied when the Hound Wolf Squad stays out of his business. They do poke their noses into everything they can find without handling any potentially off-limits objects, though.

             (Karl takes pleasure in sending a soldat Jet overhead when they push it. Their defensive scramble, followed by a healthy dose of confusion and relief when the soldat snarls at them but doesn’t attack, has him chuckling.)

             So when Ethan returns, it’s to a careful sort of peace. “Nice to know you can hold back on the murderous intent,” he says as he and Karl sit down to supper.

             “He doesn’t make it easy,” Karl shrugs.

             Ethan just rolls his eyes and reaches for the bulz. His hair, still damp from the shower, is sticking up in untidy clumps. “The Hound Wolves might be nicer if you were a better host. Like inviting them for supper, maybe.”

             “They got this far on their own, they’ve got supplies.”

             “Okay, you’re right.” Ethan pulls a face. “Feeding them anything from your fridge would be cruel and unusual punishment.”

             “Fuck you for real, Winters.”

             They leave it at that and spend the rest of the meal discussing the day’s events. Apart from an increasingly impressive kill count, Ethan’s training excursion has been rather uneventful. Today’s outing took him to the reservoir, where he cleared Moreau’s residence of both lycans and food.

             “So my stuff’s not fit for consumption, but you’d willingly eat Moreau’s leftovers?” Karl demands, offended.

             Ethan shrugs and licks a crumb of cheese from the corner of his mouth. “The man has good taste.”

             “He regularly ate villagers.”

             “You can judge me when you swear off stealing Lady Di’s candy.”

             “Alright, but I think it’s worth noting that Alcina was a cleanly bitch who didn’t leak acidic slime from every orifice.”

             A momentary pause. Then Ethan blankly opens his mouth and lets the bite of cheese fall out onto the table.

             Karl roars with laughter. “You were saying?” he teases as Ethan scrubs his mouth out furiously with his sleeve.

             “I hate you,” Ethan grumbles.

             “You’re still buying me drinks after this, mold man.”

             “Shut up.”

🔦

             Ethan isn’t sure what he’s going to say. But they do have a time limit regarding this partnership, and not talking to Chris isn’t exactly going to help.

             Finding him is easy. In theory, anyway. He’s gotten pretty good at keeping track of his mold secretions (fuck this, he’s calling them spores), so sensing the small cluster he left on Chris’s coat shouldn’t be too hard.

             But even with the primitive tracker, Chris is unexpectedly hard to locate. Ethan eventually finds him pacing back and forth by the scrap heap, talking on the phone. In fact, he arrives at the scrap heap just in time to overhear the soldier on the other end snap, “Dammit Redfield, I warned you!”

             Chris rumbles in disagreement. “You did not tell me he was buddy-buddy with the mark,” he says crisply.

              “I gave you all the information I had! I’m your scout, not your damn handler.” A vexed sigh hisses through the phone. Nova mutters something faint and unintelligible, probably holding the phone away from his mouth. When he speaks again, his voice is calmer. “So? You gonna work with him?”

             “Getting cozy with that mutant bastard has “betrayal” written all over it. Heisenberg’s been abusing his power for decades.”

              “I know. Who got you that intel, golden boy?”

             A teasing note enters Chris’s otherwise gruff voice. “This how you treat your superiors?”

              “I work with you, not for you. Besides, you know what kind of trouble you’ll stir up if you pick a fight with them. If you go along with it, even just for now, you’ll have time to prepare for the worst.”

              “Why are you advocating for them?”

             Nova is silent for a moment or two. “Don’t forget, you and me have both worked with bioweapons as allies.”

             “That’s not an answer.”

              “Think long and hard on it, Chris.”

             Chris opens his mouth as if to say something, then closes it when he notices Ethan standing there. “Look, I… We’ll talk later, alright? Something’s come up.”

              “Sure, boss.” Nova’s voice sounds tired. “Nova signing off.”

             The sarcasm has Chris shaking his head as he ends the call. “This couldn’t wait?” he asks.

             “You know we’re going to go after Miranda and Rose no matter what you do,” Ethan says bluntly. “Working together is the only way we both get what we want without fighting each other.”

             Chris sighs. “I want to help you, Ethan. But there’s a lot I have to take into account.”

             “Great, so we’re both working on that. Hey, you know what’s been on my mind a lot lately? What happens when Miranda’s dead and I have my daughter back. Are you going to dump my ass back in witness protection once this is over? Hide me away so no one connects me to whatever goes down?”

             “That wasn’t witness protection,” Chris says, suddenly grim. “You were being stored.”

             Ethan feels his brow furrow. “Stored? What are you talking about?”

             “Think about it, Ethan. Haven’t you wondered why Zoe Baker got to find a normal life for herself while you and Mia were hidden away?”

             He had, a few times, in passing. Apparently not enough, though. “They know. About… about the Mold.”

             “They know you’re still infected. None of the specifics.” Chris’s gaze is intense, like this is an interrogation. “Mia was under suspicion of infection too, but you were the focus. You were swallowed by it, for Christ’s sake.”

             “Did you know?” Ethan asks.

             “I knew about the BSAA’s suspicions, but you seemed fine, so I dismissed them. I take it that changed.”

             “You could say that. I’ve learned how to control it, though.” To demonstrate, Ethan lets his hand melt into a glob of mold, then forms it into a trident before shifting back. He holds it out in supplication. “Look, Chris. Neither of us asked to be like this. We just want to find some kind of normal. And it can’t happen unless Miranda dies.”

             Chris looks from his hand to his face, clenches his jaw, relaxes it, and then sighs heavily. “I can help you get there. But I don’t know that I can unleash a bioweapon like Heisenberg on the world.”

             Ethan can’t help it. He snorts. “Yeah, he’s a terrifying bioweapon alright. You should’ve seen his face when he discovered coffee sweetener.”

             “You say that like he’s a friend.”

             “He is. Why don’t you get that he’s just another human stuck in this damn nightmare?”

             Unexpected pain flashes across Chris’s face. The soldier’s eyes go distant. Then they focus on Ethan’s face again before he looks away. “Then he’s the luckiest sonuvabitch on the planet.” Before Ethan can argue, he says somberly, “I had a partner - a friend - who mutated into a bioweapon. He let himself die because he could feel his humanity slipping away and he didn’t want to hurt anyone.”

             “Oh.” Ethan winces sheepishly while Chris gazes pensively into space. How do you respond to that?

             After an eternity of silence, Chris seems to come back to himself. “What exactly are you wanting from us?” he asks shrewdly.

             “I dunno,” Ethan says, a bit caught off guard. “More firepower, probably. We’ll have to talk to Karl.”

             Chris nods slowly, then pockets his phone and waves for Ethan to lead the way. “Let’s get this over with.”

🔦 

             “I want two things from you,” Karl says without looking up from his work. “Shoot anything Miranda sends your way, and get your explosives out of my damn factory.”

             Chris huffs. “It can’t be that simple.”

             “If you want to sneak up on her and plant a bomb where it’ll hurt, be my guest.” Karl raises an eyebrow patronizingly. “You can also swear you won’t try to kill or capture me.”

             “And in exchange, you’ll provide support for my team in battle,” Chris surmises.

             “Exactly.”

             “Not good enough. I need your word that you won’t harm any civilians or anti-BOW personnel. At bare minimum.”

             “Believe me when I say that that’s an urge I resist on the daily,” Karl says dryly. “Particularly these last few days.”

             “That’s a yes,” Ethan translates. This could really be going better.

             “Hmm.” Chris doesn’t look appeased. “Let’s say I accept your offer. What kind of strategy are you planning to follow?”

             Karl sighs and pushes away from the table. “Before I tell you anything, I want you to know that if you use any of this information against me, I will skewer you, send enough volts into you to revive a stopped heart, sic my soldats on the body, and burn whatever’s left.”

             “Jesus,” Ethan mutters.

             “Understood,” Chris says calmly. “And if you turn on my operatives, I’ll personally see to it that your corpse is in so many pieces, there won’t be anything left to calcify.”

              Some peace agreement, thinks Ethan dismally.

             Apparently this is good enough for Karl. He leads the way to his conspiracy strategy board and proceeds to outline the plan in brief, concise terms that leave out the specifics of what Ethan brings to the table. “I don’t know what your men specialize in,” he tells Chris. “And frankly, I don’t care. Just stay out of my way while you do it.”

             Chris eyes his own bits of file with suppressed outrage. “The operatives carrying this information. They’re dead?”

             “Sadly.” Karl does not sound very sad. Ethan does catch a hint of guilt darkening his eyes, but the lord hides it well. “We don’t take kindly to trespassers around here.”

             “One mission. We will help you with one mission. Then you have one chance to make a quiet life for yourself.” Chris folds his arms across his chest. “Agreed?”

             “Agreed,” Karl echoes back seriously. Then he ignores both of them in favour of reading through the board intently.

             That settled, Ethan moves to take another look at the board as well, only for Chris to catch him by the shoulder and usher him out of the room, stopping in the hallway just outside. “I don’t trust him,” he says in English, glancing balefully at the still-open door.

              “I do.” After speaking exclusively Romanian for nearly two years, it takes a bit to recalibrate. Ethan hadn’t realized he’d gotten so comfortable with the language.

             Chris sighs at Ethan’s stubborn tone. Leaning in slightly, he says tersely, “Listen. We’re going to go along with his plan - for now. As long as we have a shared enemy, he’s an ally. But the second he even hints at other motives, it’s over.”

             “That won’t be necessary.” How many times do they have to go over this? “He’s not evil, Chris. Just sick of being caged.”

             “And what happens when he’s out in the world, huh?” Chris asks sharply. “Even if he doesn’t do anything to make himself a threat, the BSAA is going to pounce on him. One cage to another. You really think he’ll just lie down and take it?”

             “Can hear you,” Karl interjects from inside, using heavily - and strangely - accented English.

             Both Chris and Ethan stop in their figurative tracks. “How long have you been listening in?” Chris demands, by passing the more shocking revelation for the more pressing one.

             “When you started speaking English.” Karl joins them in the hall, sneering at him. “Way good to make suspicious.”

             “He has a point,” Ethan mumbles.

             Chris gives him a look of disbelief, then addresses Karl again. “Fine. What kind of problem are you going to be if we help you leave and it all goes to shit?”

             Karl tilts his head. “You will honour deal?” He grins as Chris nods grudgingly. “No problem. Not to you.”

             It’s not hard to tell he’s sticking to English out of sheer spite at this point.

             “There you have it,” Ethan says in exasperation, sick to death of all the posturing and hostility. “Now can we drop it?”

             Chris sighs again, heavily. “Just don’t try anything,” he warns Karl.

             The lord chuckles and shakes his head. “Wouldn’t dream of it.” His accent eases up for this statement, and Ethan realizes what was off before. It’s two different accents fighting for dominance, the thick, almost Russian-sounding tones of Romanian and the learned enunciation of the standard Transatlantic drawl. At the moment, he sounds like he’s fresh off the silver screen.

             “How…”

             “You can learn a lot from movies,” Karl answers briefly, switching back to Romanian. He starts to walk away, then pauses and glances back at Chris. “Oh, and I should mention - we might bring back the other lords to see if they’ll join us.”

             Ethan watches with equal parts amusement and apprehension as Chris opens his mouth, closes it, looks thoroughly out of his element, and then takes a deep breath and half-yells, “What?”

Chapter Text

             “So you’re leaning toward reviving the other lords?” Ethan queries, bringing a cup of coffee to where Karl is marking up blueprints.

             Karl accepts the offered beverage with an appreciative nod. “Looks that way. I can’t say I’m looking forward to seeing any of them again. But their return is the last thing Miranda’s going to expect.” He takes a fortifying sip. “We only have one shot at this, might’s well make it a big one.”

             “It’s kind of poetic too,” Ethan says musingly. “Miranda stole my child, I’m stealing hers. Her fake children,” he amends.

             “That’s some mighty thin ice you’re on, Ethan. But yes. Stealing us back, to be more accurate.”

             Ethan splays his hands in the universal gesture for surrender. “Point taken. So what’s the plan?”

             “For now?” Karl moves to lower his sunglasses, then remembers they’re gone and tangles his fingers in his necklaces instead. “Nothing. You keep doing what you’re doing, I’ll have words with the Duke about buying back my siblings. If we’re lucky, he hasn’t sold them to some out-of-town trader yet.”

             “Field training and peacekeeping,” Ethan sighs. “Why do I always get the hard jobs?”

             Karl grins. “Because there’s no gain if I take them,” he says.

             “I hate that that makes sense.”

             “It’s what I do, buttercup.” Karl stretches and tucks the pen behind his ear. “What say we get on with it?”

             “I’m going, I’m going,” Ethan grumbles.

             They take the walk to the elevator shaft together, Ethan out of necessity and Karl out of a sense of chivalry. Unfortunately, their pit stop at the canteen to pick up Ethan’s lunch is rudely interrupted by Redfield’s presence. Because apparently he feels entitled to skulk around Karl’s kitchenware now.

             “Finding anything?” Karl asks sarcastically, resting his hands on his hips.

             Redfield looks up from the corner he’s checking out. “I take it you won’t tell me what happened to the people who lived here.”

             “Long gone.” There’s just no point trying to do anything about the half-hidden accusation. It’s infinitely funnier to watch the soldier’s frustration at being dismissed as Karl proceeds to ignore him in favour of making Ethan a sandwich.

             Ethan, putting the rest of his meal together, either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. “Are we out of plums?” he asks, rummaging through the fridge.

             “Probably,” Karl says. “You’ve been eating them like there’s no tomorrow.”

             “Okay, but you’ve been eating them too. I’ve seen you.” Ethan points an accusing carrot at him before sticking it in his backpack.

             “You badgered me into eating healthier, don’t act surprised when I put effort into eating healthier.”

             Redfield mumbles something that sounds suspiciously like “what the fuck” under his breath.

             “Got something to add?” Karl asks, finally turning to sneer at him. He doesn’t miss the spark of rekindled suspicion in Redfield’s eyes. Well that’s just fine by Karl. So far these BSAA morons have been more trouble than they’re worth.

             “That oughtta do it,” Ethan cuts in before Redfield can respond.  “Think I should go through the village today?”

             “You might as well; hell, you might make Miranda think you’re hiding out there.”

             “Great.”

             Without further ado, Ethan shoulders his pack and leaves the kitchen without pausing to see if Karl is following. Which Karl does. He’s been meaning to conduct an inspection of the lower-level processing areas anyway, and it’s not too far out of his way to see Ethan off. And it gives him a perfectly valid reason to dismiss Redfield without being obvious.

             So of course Redfield decides to tag along where he’s not wanted.

             “Be careful out there,” he advises seriously, cutting in front of Karl to address Ethan. “The BSAA’s going to be all over that village any day now. They’re already scouting the area.”

             Ethan stops. “Hold up.”

              “You’re BSAA,” Karl points out, not liking this sudden uncertainty.

             “No,” Redfield says darkly, “I’m not. The Hound Wolves defected over a year ago.”

              “Why?” Ethan asks.

             Redfield glares melodramatically into space. “The BSAA started getting awfully okay with a lot of shit a few years back. Endangering civilians in the name of eradicating BOWs, making and overlooking errors in inter-agency reports, “losing” samples… They kept some of the mold from your surgery,” he informs Ethan. “A friend working in the labs tipped me off.”

             Ethan looks slightly sick. Karl puts a reassuring hand on his back without thinking about it.

             “I hijacked the squad when the BSAA started experimenting with remnants of viruses and the bodies of dead soldiers. At the time they explained it away as needing subjects to test vaccines on. It just didn’t add up, and my friends agreed. But it wasn’t until the data leak that we realized how bad it had gotten. We’ve been monitoring you in case they tried to bring you back into custody as a weapon ever since.”

             “Data leak,” Karl repeats. “First time I’m hearing about this.”

             “It wasn’t information my operatives needed to carry.” The words come cold.

             “How do you know what the BSAA is doing if you’re not an agent anymore?” Ethan asks, now looking both sick and interested.

             Redfield glances at Karl, then refocuses on Ethan. “I have informants on the inside. They report back to my team regularly.”

             “Nova,” Ethan guesses.

             “Among others,” Redfield agrees.

             “So now we have another organization waiting in the wings to attack us?” Karl thinks longingly of his hammer, but settles for fiddling magnetically with all his necklaces at once. There’s a good chance summoning the weapon will provoke Redfield into attacking him on the spot. “Lovely. Anything else we ought to know before we run into them?”

             “They’ve already sent in the agency’s best,” Redfield says. “I doubt they’ll do much more than that.”

             “Well, now that that’s settled,” Ethan announces, gripping his backpack straps tightly, “I think I’ll get going.” He speeds up until he’s just shy of jogging.

             “Thanks for the heads up.” Karl knocks his elbow into Redfield’s side in feigned camaraderie, not bothering to mask his sarcasm.

             He is easily brushed off, at least in body. The nettled look remains on the soldier’s face. “I’m not doing any of this for you.”

             “Oh, no doubt about that,” Karl says in overblown sobriety. He comes to a stop and leans against a support beam, crossing one ankle behind the other and folding his arms. “It’s for the fun of it, obviously. ”

             Redfield glares at him. “”

             The American speaks fluent German. That’s a new one. “” he comments mockingly.

              “”

             “ ” He shrugs. “”

              “” Redfield queries.

             Karl frowns. “” he says stiffly. “”

              “”

             That’s worth a laugh. “” Karl bares his teeth in a not-quite-grin and pushes away from the beam to lean in close, ignoring Redfield’s expression of undisguised contempt. “” he adds reflectively.

             Redfield eyes him sharply. Then his face does something weird and he nods. “”

             Karl feels the blood drain from his face. “” he snarls.

             “Guys, quit fighting,” Ethan calls in exasperation.

             They exchange a complicated look. Don’t you dare fucking say anything, Karl thinks fiercely. I’ll kill you. I swear I’ll kill you. He’s not sure what’s going on behind Redfield’s eyes. Something not quite as ready to brawl as before, he thinks. A kind of thoughtful calculation.

             “We’re not,” Redfield calls back gruffly, not breaking their little staredown. He inclines his head slightly in a clear, unspoken message - we’re not done talking about this - and strides off, leaving Karl standing there with alarm brewing in his gut.

            Redfield is in the observation room, resting his weight against the wall as he examines his cellphone intently. It’s perfectly convenient; he doesn’t have time to dodge before Karl nails him to the wall with a flurry of railroad stakes and twisted spikes of iron.

            “Alright, , ” Karl growls, a spare buzzsaw blade hovering just close enough to brush the soldier’s Adam’s apple. “I think we have a few issues to sort out.”

            It’s disgusting how utterly unafraid Redfield is. Without moving his head, he looks down at the blade, then up at Karl, and grunts in derision. “You’re a real drama queen, you know that?”

            Karl presses the blade closer. “Tell me why I shouldn’t use your body for parts right now. Give me one reason.”

            “The alliance ends with my death,” Redfield says calmly, eyes sharp. “But you don’t care about that, do you? The only reason you haven’t tried to kill me yet is up there, hunting lycans.” He pauses, maybe to see how Karl reacts, then continues, “You’re cooperating to please Ethan.”

            That’s all it takes. The blade skewers the wall just shy of Redfield’s left ear as Karl grabs him by the lapels and bares his teeth in his face, a low growl rumbling in his throat. “Choose your next words very carefully,” he snarls.

            Redfield is not impressed. “You won’t kill me. I believe you on that. And you won’t go back on your word. Even though you obviously would rather impale my team where we stand.”

            “You pose no threat to me either,” Karl returns. “I know your type. Men of honour.” He spits the word. “But that doesn’t mean I trust you on… other things.”

            “Let me go,” Redfield says quietly.

           Karl holds him there a moment longer, out of spite. Then he backs off, extracting the restraining metal from Redfield’s stupid coat.

            “Thank you.” The man steps away from the wall, frowning at a series of new holes in his sleeve. “So,” he begins in a tone that brooks no argument. “Let’s talk about Ethan.”

            “There’s nothing to say. He’s a tool to me, nothing more.”

            Redfield points at him. “That’s a lie. I see how you look at him. And how you clearly value his opinion of you. Hell, you made him lunch this morning.”

            “I take care of my assets.” It’s a stupid thing to say. Karl can’t be blamed for that, he’s still adjusting to the concept of embarrassment.

            This latest act of stupidity earns him a long, piercing look. Finally, Redfield says, “He’s a married man.”

            Hardly news to Karl. He huffs. “You think I don’t know that? We’re going to look for his wife once Miranda’s dead.”

            “You’re not going to win any favours recovering her body.”

            Where is this coming from? Is he trying to give Karl relationship advice now? “Get to the point, Redfield.”

            The soldier looks around like he’s worried someone will hear them - a pointless gesture - then sighs. “Listen, I get it. He’s a good-looking guy. But he doesn’t roll that way. So don’t throw yourself at him.”

            Karl sneers at him. “Thanks for the advice.”

            “It’s not advice,” Redfield says grimly. “It’s a warning.”

            “A pointless one. I have no intention of attempting to woo another man.”

            “Right.” Redfield both looks and sounds far from convinced. “Intentional or not, keep your crush to yourself, got it?”

            “I just said I’m not interested!” Really, he’s being very difficult about this. Karl considers the buzzsaw again.

            Redfield sighs heavily. (What is with him and sighing? A respiratory condition, perhaps?) “Cut the bullshit, Heisenberg.”

            “Why do you care?” Karl snaps. “It’s my life, and my damn problem. I know it’s wrong, alright? And I sure as hell won’t be saying anything about it to Ethan. My concern is whether or not you mention it to him or to anyone else.” The buzzsaw launches itself from the wall to land ready in his hand. “I will drop any pretense of a truce if you do. You have been fucking warned.”

            “I won’t say a word.” Redfield holds out his hand in invitation.

            After a moment’s hesitation, Karl gives it a firm shake. “I still don’t like you,” he says.

            “Feeling’s mutual.” Redfield gives him a small, wry smile. “Now what’s a guy gotta do to get some coffee around here?”

Chapter Text

            Over the course of his life, Ethan has learned that you can’t predict everything. Expecting the unexpected isn’t a mindset that comes easily to him, but he recognizes its worth. Still, walking into the canteen to find Chris and Karl having a civil conversation over coffee is a bit of a shock.

            Seriously. He can’t tell if this is an improvement or a nightmare waiting to happen.

            “That’s the problem,” Karl is saying when he enters. “No one knows where it is except Miranda. Somewhere beneath the village, would be my guess, but it could be anywhere.”

            “I’ve got some of my best operatives working on that as we speak.” Chris takes a drag of his cigarette. Neither of them have noticed Ethan yet, apparently too invested in the map on the table in front of them.

            “How much N2 will you be needing?”

            “The amount we brought should be enough to blow the Root sky high. If we use the charges meant for your complex, we could destroy the entire mountainside.”

            Karl frowns a little at the reminder, but surprisingly doesn’t take the opportunity to complain. “Let’s save that for after the crow bitch is dead.”

            “What kinda amateur do you take me for?”

            “A prickish one,” Karl smirks.

            “Ethan’s a saint for putting up with you.”

            “Agreed. So you think you can get someone into Miranda’s lair and kill the Megamycete while we draw her attention? The place’ll be crawling with lycans.”

            “Let the Hound Wolves worry about that.”

            “Why can’t you get along when I’m here?” Ethan complains.

            Both men look up. “Ethan,” Karl exclaims in greeting, sounding pleased.

            “Hey.” Ethan plunks his backpack on the floor by the doorway and comes over to look at the map. “How’s the plan coming?”

            “Wonderfully,” Karl says.

            Chris taps the map. “My team will be targeting the Megamycete while you and your army engage Miranda.”

            “It’s not my army,” Ethan protests.

            “It might as well be. Heisenberg gave me the details on the revival plan,” Chris goes on before Ethan can ask what the fuck he means by that. “We agree that it’s a risky idea at best, but if you go through with it and it works, I’m willing to extend the alliance terms to include the other lords.”

            “They’re not essential to our strategy,” Karl cuts in. “More like a bonus advantage.”

            Chris takes it from there. “We’re trusting you to handle anything that might go wrong. But if it gets out of hand, the Hound Wolves are equipped to step in. It’s your call.”

            “Makes sense.” Ethan leans on the table and rubs the base of his prosthetic fingers, trying to chase away the dull ache caused by the cold. “And then we find Mia and bring back Rose. Then what?”

            Chris glances at Karl for some reason, then steeples his own fingers. “Alright, this is classified information, so I can’t tell you a lot. We’ve set up a sanctuary for outbreak survivors and non-hostile infection victims in the U.S. You won’t be able to use your real identity for anything involving outside contact, and there are restrictions on travel and online activity, especially for the first few years, but you’ll have an actual life instead of what the BSAA forced on you. Both of you,” he adds meaningfully.

            “I don’t need your protection,” Karl says dryly and a tad over-confidently. “I’m strong and essentially indestructible, I think I can manage on my own.”

            “The BSAA has weapons specially designed to destroy BOWs like you,” Chris informs him, in a voice that carries no threat at all. What happened while I was gone? “And soldiers trained to use them. If they want you dead, you will die.”

            “It’s true. I killed the Fungal Root with a handgun they gave me.” Ethan stares into Karl’s eyes as he says it, doing his best to convey how dead serious he is. Karl not getting himself killed is a much higher priority than he’d thought, he realizes. Almost as important to him as saving Rose and getting Mia back.

            Karl says nothing for a few moments. He stares back at Ethan, expression inscrutable, a cigar hanging forgotten from his fingertips. Then he snaps out of it and leans back in his seat with a smirk. “Alright, alright. Who am I to turn down free bed and board?”

            Chris actually chuckles. “It’s hardly free.”

            “Good,” Karl says. “I hate charity.”

            “Why is that not surprising?” Ethan mumbles.

            He gets a droll look for that, made slightly less droll by the fact that Karl obviously wishes he still had sunglasses to peer over. “Is that sarcasm I hear, Mr. I Don’t Ask For Help Unless I’m Actively Dying?”

            “Alright, time to focus,” Chris cuts in patiently. “My team’s moving out tonight. Heisenberg, you know how to contact me, and you should have Timber’s phone for Ethan.”

            “Technically,” Karl agrees.

            “I’m sorry - technically?”

            “I dismantled it to prevent your Nova from tracking us down.”

            Chris looks pained. “You- Okay. Put it back together. And pray none of the data got wiped.”

            “You expect me to pray here, where God’s long-dead,” Karl says flatly. “You’re asking a lot of me, Redfield.”

            “Just fix the damn phone.”

⚙️ 

            An hour or so later, they stand by the river and watch the Hound Wolves disappear into the darkness. Karl notices a hint of worry for their wellbeing twining around his gut and dismisses it with a scoff. “Good riddance,” he comments to Ethan.

            Ethan shakes his head. “Why are you like this?” he says, and heads back into the factory.

            “Right,” Karl mutters. “I’ll just get to work on that phone, then.” 

            Within seconds of rolling up his sleeves, he has the pieces neatly arranged on his workbench and his hand-drawn diagram spread out before him. Reassembling the device should take no time at all. Of course, it would be much more enjoyable to integrate it into Ethan’s communicator, just for the sake of the challenge. But if the data Redfield’s so worried about truly is important, that plan’s a no-go.

            Karl grumbles to himself about that as he calls parts into his hands and begins piecing them together with delicate fingers.

            He never gets to have any fun.

Chapter Text

             To celebrate the success of the partnership, and to relieve some of his pent-up tension, Ethan takes a long, luxurious shower. He spends a hedonistic amount of time just letting the hot jet of water massage his sore muscles.

             He leaves the shower a good while later, relaxed, comfortably clean, and smelling of soap and aftershave. Singing (read: hopelessly mangling) Mr. Brightside to himself, he summarizes the day’s events in his diary before deciding to get himself a snack from the kitchenette and see how Karl’s doing with the phone. There has to be at least one piece of gogoși left, unless Karl’s sweet tooth already got to it.

             Great plan. He loves this plan.

             Ethan makes the trek, idly noting that he barely needs the yellow arrows anymore. There is gogoși waiting for him. He feels absolutely no shame in polishing it off without asking. Karl’s eaten too many of his sweets behind his back for that.

             Licking powdered sugar off his fingers, he leaves the kitchenette and begins looking for the pastry-thief himself. He could just use the communicator to find him, but where’s the fun in that?

             Karl turns out to be particularly elusive tonight. Dammit. Shoulda spore-tapped him like I did with Chris.

             The thought bugs him a little, honestly. After all he and Karl have been through, sneaking a moldy listening/tracking device onto him is both invasive and an affront to the trust between them.

             With a sigh, he leans against the balcony railing and watches the line of corpses flow steadily past down below. “When did my life become so fucking bizarre?” he asks the open air.

             As if to prove his point, mold creeps across his right hand, covering the skin and elongating his fingertips into claws. Ethan examines them with mild curiosity, turning his hand this way and that before lowering it to rest against the railing. It speaks volumes that offbrand shapeshifting isn’t even the strangest feature of his existence.

             His mind goes unbidden to Miranda infiltrating the Winters household. Their shifting can’t be that different, can they?

             The change takes longer than his other abilities, which is to be expected. Ethan holds out his hands and watches as they become smaller, more delicate. His scars melt into his skin, he feels his clothing loosen as his torso takes on an unfamiliar shape, and there’s a tickle of longer hair brushing against his neck. The metal fingers remain.

             “Hey, check it out,” he calls, not expecting an answer.

             There’s a muffled curse in response to Ethan’s new voice, followed by a sudden rattling in the walls, and then Karl appears, hammer slung menacingly across his shoulders. “How the-”

             Ethan gestures to himself and grins.

              “Ethan?” The rattling stops. Bits of metal fall to the ground in a tinkling shower as Karl stares. Then he sighs and lowers his hammer. “Mimicry. I should’ve guessed.”

             “This is so weird,” Ethan says, examining himself. Unlike Miranda, his clothes haven’t shifted with the rest of him. “And kind of messed up. Do I look okay?”

             “You look like a young woman on the run from the law,” Karl informs him bluntly. “Who are you supposed to be?”

             “Zoe Baker.” Hmm, can he turn into people who haven’t come into contact with the Root he did?

             Karl tilts his head. “The girl who helped you in Lou- Stop that, that’s creepy.”

              “Eethannn Winterss,” Ethan tries, putting one hand on his hip and stroking his now-bearded chin with the other. “I’m a showboat with mommy issues and no concept of self-care. B’tchhh.”

             “Stop that,” Karl repeats, obviously weirded out.

             Ethan-As-Karl grins at him. “God, I’m short.”

             “IT’S ONE INCH-” Karl cuts himself off with obvious difficulty. He takes off his spectacles and pinches the bridge of his nose. “I swear to God, Ethan.”

             “One more,” Ethan says cheerfully. “Uh… I love and admire Lady Dimitrescu with all my heart.”

             A muscle in Karl’s cheek twitches as he takes a deep breath and then roars, “I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU!”

             Ethan prudently turns back into himself and darts out of harm’s way, not-so-prudently laughing his guts out. He feels his form stretch and melt in another spur-of-the-moment change, but he only experiences a split second of elevation before shrinking back down. That’s a no on turning into non-moldy people, then.

             Regardless, Karl draws back warily. “Was that intentional, or are you losing control of the mutation?” He gestures at Ethan. “The… bubbling and whatnot.”

             “Just figuring things out,” Ethan assures him. It’s a shame, though. He was really hoping he could see what it’s like to be Chris-sized. Or just taller in general. Unless…

             “My fight or flight instinct is kicking in,” Karl says in a tone of deep disgruntlement. “I’m not responsible for any hammers you take to the face.”

             “Noted.” Ethan is pleased to find that his clothes somehow shifted to fit him this time. There’s no way they wouldn’t be ruined otherwise. “Ugh, this is weird. How does she not fall over?”

             Karl snorts. “Being a woman for a century and a half probably helps.”

             “Very funny,” Ethan concedes dryly. He taps his cheek in a mimicry of the real Lady Dimitrescu and smirks. “I gotta say, the view’s great. You don’t look so tough from up here.”

             “Don’t look down on me,” Karl snaps. It’s kind of hard to feel threatened when he has to tilt his head up like that just to meet Ethan’s eyes.

             Still, it’s just not worth the discomfort of being so… differently proportioned. Ethan shifts back in a downward rush that has him staggering a little with the speed of it. “Was that a-” He stops, realizing how close he is to Karl all of a sudden, and takes a quick step backward. “Was that a height joke?”

             Karl also backs up, looking a bit awkward about having been unexpectedly nose to nose with Ethan. “Crack a joke at Mega Witch’s expense? Me? Never.”

             “I’m starting to think you don’t know how to say her name.”

             “So? It’s not like she knows either.”

             Ethan blinks. “Wait, what?”

             “Not all of us were born under our house names,” Karl says. “Most of us weren’t even living around here before Miranda puppeteered us into her clutches.”

             “Are you serious?” Ethan takes a seat eagerly. “Okay, spill. I gotta hear this.”

             “What is there to tell?” Karl retorts. “Moreau lived and worked at the reservoir from the start. Donna’s family was in Italy before they came back to inherit the Beneviento estate. Alcina was touring America with her jazz group. Then she heard that Miranda’d found a miracle treatment for porphyria and came running. And my folks were lured to this part of Romania by the opportunity to buy back the mines.”

             “What were your old names?” Ethan asks.

             Something like regret settles over Karl’s features. “No one remembers anymore,” he says without a trace of humour. “All I know’s that mine came with the property.”

             “That’s… That’s not right.” Ethan realizes with mounting guilt that for the better part of the last month, he’d been calling one of his only remaining friends by a name that’s not his own. Being mistaken for a Baker once had been enough to make his skin crawl with horror and disgust. But at least he’d had the small comfort of knowing what his surname really was, unlike Karl. “You should know your own family name.”

             “Living under Miranda’s thumb does things to your head,” Karl says in a tone that’s trying very hard for levity. “You think that’s something you won’t forget, right? I know my full name, I can spare the headspace for more important shit. And then twenty years go by and you can’t even remember what letter it starts with.” He glances sideways at Ethan. “Maybe don’t try turning into Miranda.”

             “Never in a million years,” Ethan agrees with venom. He has more questions he’s dying to ask, but now doesn’t seem like the time. Instead, he jams his hands into his pockets and says, “So how’s the phone coming along?”

🔦

             Eleven o’clock comes and goes before Ethan decides it’s okay to ask. “So how did you come to be here? As a lord, I mean?”

             Karl lets out an explosive huff from the desk, where he’s sketching a mechanical tree with one hand and tapping an unlit (and slightly chewed) cigar against the paper with the other. “Miranda disguised herself as my twin brother and lured me off the grounds, and then she had the rest of my family slaughtered to keep me from going back.”

             “Oh.”

             “It was the logical thing to do,” Karl says dismissively. He sets down his pen and swivels in his seat to face Ethan. “She saw how much better the descendants of the Four Kings could handle her little gifts, and she wanted to try for a bit of a younger host for the brat. And so - me.” He gestures lazily at himself with the cigar.

             Ethan recalls what he’s heard about the not-actually-Heisenbergs, none of it good, and winces. “Out of the frying pan, into the fire, huh.”

             It takes a second to realize that a) he actually said that out loud, and b) that’s not something anyone should hear about their dead relatives ever.

             He smacks his forehead with a groan. “Sorry. That was rude. ’M sorry you lost your family.”

             “No, you’re right,” Karl says in an odd blend of droll humour and jaundiced resignation. “My folks were profit-minded tyrants. No one mourned their deaths, and rightly so. They’d gone through hell working under us. A family of monsters, we were.”

             “You can’t be all bad,” Ethan objects idly.

             “Oh? How so?” Karl’s tone is casual, but his eyes are bright and quizzical when he lowers his spectacles to look over them.

             “Well, let’s see.” Ethan begins counting on his fingers. “You wouldn’t stick to using the already-dead for your work if you were completely evil, even though living people might be more effective - yes, I read your notes. Don’t leave them lying around if you don’t want that to happen. You wouldn’t be so disgusted by Miranda’s cultist shit. The whole “leaving helpful donations lying around for any potentially rebellious villagers” thing, obviously. And I know for a fact that you’re more than capable of mercy and helping people you don’t like.”

             “None of which is morally absolute,” Karl argues.

             Ethan shrugs. “At the end of the day, a person’s just a person. What you do is up to you. And you’re choosing not to be a colossal bloodthirsty jackass to literally everyone you meet. Just saying.”

             “Mmm.” Karl falls thoughtfully silent. He removes his spectacles and examines them absently. Then he wipes the lenses with his sleeve and sets them aside. “His name was Uriaș,” he says after what feels like a long time.

             “Uriaș. Like the-”

             “Yes, like the king lycan,” Karl cuts in tiredly. “Not much of a family resemblance anymore, huh?”

             “No kidding.” Ethan thinks back to the big guy, trying to picture his features. There were maybe similarities in the nose and forehead, but that’s it. Unless he had the Heisenberg eyes. It was kind of hard to tell when- “Wait. I killed him.”

             “You did,” Karl agrees without ire.

             Ethan runs a hand through his hair. “Fucking hell.”

             “It was an end.” The lord fingers the compass hanging from one of his necklaces without seeming to realize what he’s doing. The needle spins erratically, pointing every direction but north. “He wasn’t there when Miranda gave the order, you know. He got out somehow, hid with another family for fifteen or so years, then took control of the village. Miranda hated him for escaping. That’s why, when the experiments failed…”

             “She used him as an enforcer,” Ethan finishes.

             Karl nods. “He was a good chief. She made him kill and destroy everything he loved. And then when our older brother, the last untouched Heisenberg, got back from the war, she sent Uriaș after him, too.”

             “The Drac?”

             “No,” Karl says with a humourless chuckle. “They were named after him. You haven’t met the Uriaș Străjer. And trust me, you don’t want to.”

             Revulsion wriggles in Ethan’s gut. “That’s fucked up.”

             Karl’s lips twist into a grim smile that does things to Ethan’s respiratory system. “And that, Ethan Winters, is why Miranda is going to pay for everything she’s done.”

Chapter Text

             The lords are great at dreaming.

             Or at least, Karl is. With no emotional ties to anything his mind can cobble together, it’s more like checking in on what’s lurking in his subconscious than being subjected to it. One might even compare the experience to watching a movie.

             Lately, of course, that’s changed. Karl hasn’t had many dreams since the day his body rewired itself, but the few he’s had left him disoriented. Some were good, more were bad, but every single time, he’d woken up to his brain working overtime to process the night’s events and how he felt about them.

             This morning is different.

             Karl knows he’s been dreaming the moment he’s awake. What exactly, he can’t remember. It was good, but that’s all his brain can dig up.

             Waking up is taking longer than usual. By a lot. He can’t find it in himself to mind.

             Instead of sitting up right away, he lets himself lie in bed, savouring the rare experience of being both comfortable and content. There’s a weight over his chest and another cutting diagonally across his legs, and it’s soothing.

             … soothing?

             Karl blinks until his eyes stay open on their own, then lifts his head sluggishly. The weight on his chest is an arm. The weight across his legs is another leg. Both are connected to Ethan, who’s lying on his back, sound asleep with limbs akimbo and air passing quietly between parted lips.

             That’s new.

             Karl lowers his head again and stares at the ceiling. He can’t get up without a high likelihood of alerting Ethan to the almost-intimate position they’re in, which will certainly happen anyway unless Ethan rolls the other way in his sleep. On a normal day, sneaking out from under him wouldn’t be a problem; but it is a problem today, when his head is clouded and his coordination thrown off by overexposure to physical contact. How long has Ethan been touching him?

             As if returned to consciousness by the mere thought of his name, Ethan’s eyes flutter open. He turns his head and gazes blankly at Karl. Then the haze of sleep vanishes from his face. “SHIT!”

              “ to you too,” Karl mumbles, sitting up as Ethan scrambles to put space between them. “Care to explain what the fuck happened last night?”

             Ethan has turned a mottled red from the neck up. “I’m so sorry! This isn’t me trying to spoon you, I swear. I just move around a lot in my sleep when I’m adjusted to the bed I’m using.” He coughs like his throat has seized up. “So yeah. Sorry.”

             Karl rubs his forehead, still bleary. “What do spoons have to do with this?”

             “Cuddling,” Ethan says in a mortified voice. “Spooning’s another word for cuddling.”

             “You can’t stop it?” Karl has barely enough time to voice the words before a yawn forces its way out of his mouth. It’s tempting to lie back down and fall asleep again.

             “No. I’ve tried.” Ethan rubs the back of his neck and looks away. “Sorry. I can sleep somewhere else. Seriously. I get it’s weird and invasive, and I’m pretty used to the soldats by now anyway, I don’t mind-”

             “Ethan, shut up and listen to me,” Karl says grumpily. Ethan falls silent. “You think a little tossing and turning will bother me? I’m a damn lord. It takes a lot worse to get under this skin.” Half-truth. If Ethan picks up on it, he doesn’t let it show. “Sleep wherever the fuck you want, but don’t go thinking it’s because I can’t take a hit from a sleeping man.”

             Ethan narrows his eyes at him, but nods. Without a word, he gets up and shuffles into the bathroom. The shower starts running a moment later.

              “Spooning,” Karl mumbles, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. At least it wasn’t him reaching out in his sleep. He glances at the clock and almost chokes on air. “The hell?”

             It’s way later than he usually gets up. What kind of sorcery is this?

             Karl hurls himself out of bed and into his morning routine, swearing mightily under his breath. There’s a lot to do today, and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t get it done because he overslept.

🔦

             Karl bought it. He really bought it. Ethan could kiss the oblivious idiot. Except that’s the whole problem, isn’t it?

             Because it’s not the bed he’s gotten too comfortable with. It’s the person.

             Ethan’s funny that way; he can sleep anywhere, but it takes a certain familiarity with his location - and, more importantly, his bedmate - for him to move around in his sleep. The last time he got this mobile, he was still sleeping with Mia. It makes no sense that it’s happening now with Karl.

             He really, really wishes that were true.

             Unfortunately, he knows himself too well to fall for it. The fact of the matter is, Ethan’s only an active sleeper when he’s alone or sharing a bed with someone he has feelings for.

             Him liking men is hardly new. He and Mia used to joke that they were the living embodiment of that old Tumblr joke - “whenever you encounter a bisexual, there is a smaller, angrier bisexual hiding nearby, waiting.” It’s the fact that it’s Karl he’s romantically interested in now that stymies him.

             Okay, he’s kind of hot - if you’re into the “grizzled mechanic with a dad bod” look - and there is a certain charm to him - buried deep beneath the assholish surface - but none of that’s ever really been Ethan’s thing. There’s also the small matter of their unfortunate history. (He’s ignoring the whole age thing for now. If he’s got an extended lifespan too, and he suspects he does, that’s hardly going to be a problem.)

             “Shit,” he mutters, resting his head against the wall and letting the water run down his back in an icy stream.

             Well, just because he’s apparently got the hots for Karl “Hammer-Wielding Asshole” Heisenberg, doesn’t mean he has to like it. Doesn’t mean Karl has to like it either. Or know about it at all, if he can help it. They’ll be charging into battle any day now, and then this partnership is over. Karl will go travelling and Ethan will... go with Chris to hide in a special secret town in the middle of nowhere. Or spend the rest of his life running from the BSAA, he guesses.

             Damn, his life’s a mess.

             Ethan turns off the shower with a frustrated grunt. He’ll worry about that later. For now, he’s got bigger problems. Problems that involve a certain asshole with rugged features and also a snag in the plan that he just thought of.

             “So, about the revival plan,” he starts when he finally locates Karl.

             The lord looks up from the soldat Eins he’s rewiring, “It’s a go. I’m thinking we barter for the crystal corpses tomorrow, fetch the flowers the day after, and get Donna kickstarted before turning in. Obviously we’ll have to set up a secure place to operate first, keep her contained if she picks a fight or wakes up while we’re not there. An alternating watch should lower that risk substantially. I’ll take first shift.”

             “Great plan, makes a lot of sense.” Ethan fiddles with his prosthetics. “Uh, one problem? We can’t. The flowers all withered when I killed Donna.”

             “Oh really.” Karl isn’t concerned. “Did you check?”

             “Well, no, not really,” Ethan says. “I was kind of busy getting the hell out of that house of nightmares. But they sure looked dead.”

             Karl shakes his head. “Faking it. They didn’t need Donna, she needed them.”

             “I stopped hallucinating as soon as she died, so that’s kind of hard to believe,” Ethan objects.

             “You stopped hallucinating that you were weaponless and being chased by spider dolls. You said it yourself, you only looked at the flowers on your way out, and they appeared lifeless. Which is the whole reason the flowers evolved to cause hallucinations in the first place.”

             Ethan makes a face. “Why do you know this?”

             “I snoop. Now, you think Duke’ll give us a better price for her crystal if we throw a dinner into the bargain?”

             “About that.”

             “Oh no,” Karl sighs.

             “I… uh… couldn’t find it?” Ethan fidgets. “All I left with was the creepy bride doll.”

             Comprehension lights Karl’s eyes. His stupid, attention-grabbing eyes that can’t decide if they’re grey or green. “Alright. Not a problem. Half of Donna’s Cadou is in the little monster already, so the crystal’s probably smaller than what you were looking for.” He steeples his fingers in thought. “You get Angie from the Duke. I’ll get the flowers and Donna.”

             “Wait. Why you?”

             “I’m a lord,” Karl says patiently. “They can’t do anything to me.”

             “Oh.” Ethan thinks about that. “So no field day today?”

             “We’ll start the building job tonight. For now, I think it makes more sense if you keep yourself sharp. Maybe try going without a gun, you rely on firepower too much out there.”

              “Fine,” Ethan grumbles. “Don’t blame me if I die wanting to punt your ass.”

             Karl gives him a curious look, probably picking up on the renewed aggravation aimed his way. Then he closes the Eins’s open panel with a sigh. “Tell you what. If your day is absolutely shitty, we’ll postpone the revival by twenty-four hours so you can get your poor, tortured self sorted out.”

             “And if I run into Miranda while I’m running around with no gun?” Ethan presses.

             “Flip her off, and burrow the fuck out of there,” Karl says wryly. “You can yell at me to your heart’s content when you get back.”

             “You are actually the worst.” Ethan leaves him on that note, storms into the kitchenette to pack himself a lunch, and spends the elevator ride to the surface glaring at the floor, hating how stupid he must have sounded.

             This day is going to suck major ass, he just knows it.

🔦

             Ethan storms into the kitchenette in a foul mood, shedding crystal dust and clumps of mostly-frozen slush with every step. He barely spares Karl a glance before grabbing the pot of gently steaming broth off the stove with his bare hands and chugging half of it.

             “Rough day?” Karl guesses.

             “Fuck you, fuck Miranda’s fucking psycho-ass experiment bullshit, fuck Romania as a whole, fuck you again,” Ethan growls, ignoring the burns already healing on his palms.

             “Rough day. Care to elaborate?”

             Another gulp of broth goes down. “I never want to see another vârcolac, ghoul, or crow again. And don’t get me started on the fucking SNOW.”

             “Alright,” Karl says.

             They look at each other.

             “I got mobbed by crows and fell into a snow-covered river,” Ethan admits grumpily. “Guess what happened with the monsters.”

             Karl doesn’t bother with guesses. Humming in sympathy, he pulls a bottle of wine from the cupboard and slides it over to Ethan. “I’d offer you scotch, but I figured we’d want reasonably clear heads for the job. It’s from the Duke,” he adds, seeing how Ethan’s staring at the blood-hued liquid.

             “Thank God.” Ethan pops the cork and takes a swig straight from the bottle. “You fucking called it on me, you piece of shit,” he accuses. “Karma. Or irony. Whatever it is, you basically dared it to fuck me up.”

             “Should have gone with scotch,” Karl concludes to himself. Louder, “Don’t worry about the plan tonight. Go get yourself cleaned up, you’re a mess.” He punctuates this statement by rubbing a trail of dried blood off Ethan’s cheek.

             Dull heat warms Ethan’s nape and ears. He pushes the lord’s hand away and hunches his shoulders to hide his blotchy neck. “Thank you.”

              That was kinda uncalled-for, he admits to himself as he makes his way to the bathroom to wash the dirt, blood, and sweat off. The cuts, scratches, and scrapes all healed long before he got back to the factory, and while bruises apparently slip under his accelerated healing’s radar pretty easily, he’s a lot less sore than he was when he began the trek back to the factory.

             “You useless tsundere,” he mutters aloud, meeting the eyes reflected in the mirror. His reflection stares back, expression petulant. Traces of red still mottle his skin, and there’s a feather stuck in the hair above his ear. He plucks it out with a disgruntled huff and drops it in the trash.

             Karl’s right. He’s a complete mess.

             On a whim, he seeks out the mold lurking at his core and coaxes it out. The shift is unsettling to witness in the mirror; a wave of black ripples across his features, visibly reshaping (moulding?) them into those of someone else. His eyes stand out starkly against the mold, irises swirling from hazel to agave. When the mold disappears back beneath his skin, he lets out the breath he didn’t realize he was holding and squares his shoulders.

             “Get it together, Winters,” Karl-In-The-Mirror commands.

             Okay, that is not helping the way he’d kind of hoped. He tries another face, pretending it doesn’t feel indescribably wrong.

             “Ethan,” says his reflection, which now looks and sounds exactly like Mia. “You can’t seriously be thinking about him at a time like this. Not in that way.” He pauses, tilts his head the way Mia used to. “You don’t even like him.”

             The reflection ripples back into his own. “You’re telling me.”

             “Look, it doesn’t have to be a big deal. Just keep him out of your head. You can work it out when you’re not in the middle of a rebellion.”

             “Don’t think about the bastard I’m working, eating, and literally sleeping with. Wonderful. I’ll get right on that.”

             … what is he even doing right now.

             Ethan frowns at his reflection, caught mid-shift. The mold retreats sheepishly. “Shut the fuck up and just deal with it like a sane person,” he tells the Ethan in the mirror, and marches out of the bathroom before this nonsense can resume.

⚙️

             A fierce tickle in his nostrils is Karl’s only warning before he rattles off four thunderous sneezes in rapid succession. “Who the hell is thinking about me at this hour?” he grumbles, rubbing his nose. (Not that he puts any stock in that stupid American superstition. It’s just fun to mock it.)

             He hopes it’s Ethan. Redfield or one of his lackeys - or the Duke, for that matter - would be acceptable too, he supposes. So long as it’s not Miranda.

Chapter Text

             Shockingly, Ethan is the first one awake today. Which, on the one hand, is great. He has a chance to distance himself from Karl before the lord discovers just how cuddly Ethan is capable of being in his sleep. On the other hand, well… Karl. Is on his other hand.

              Why is nothing ever easy?

             They’re not exactly curled together, but their legs are entangled and somehow one of Ethan’s arms is now pillowing Karl’s neck. The other, which he has already quickly removed, previously rested approximately over Karl’s heart.

             Ethan manages to wriggle away, not without a fair amount of effort that ends when he remembers he can flatten into mold, and rolls over. The more sleep he can get, the better.

             It doesn’t come. Instead, his thoughts drift. Where to, exactly, he can’t say. Whatever the process, his mind touches briefly upon the revival chamber Karl will be working on today before settling on why they need a revival chamber in the first place.

              Oh God, I’ll be face to face with the lords again.

             All the terror, all the pain and adrenaline and desperation of their last encounters washes over him like a tsunami. What if they come back and they immediately want to fight? What if they pretend they’re cool, but betray him and Karl later on? What if, what if, what if-

             And then he realizes that not only is he not asleep, neither is Karl. Not truly, anyway.

             The lord’s breath comes quick and shallow, bordering on hyperventilation. Although he’s lying still, all his muscles are taut, and he’s shaking like a leaf. His lips move to form an all-but-silent stream of incoherent mumbling. Most alarmingly, static crackles along his skin, snapping and popping and throwing out sparks that leave faint singe marks on everything they touch before dissipating.

              Shit. Ethan knows from experience that waking the sleeping person (usually Mia) isn’t the best way to handle nightmares unless they’re in danger of hurting themselves or others. But who knows how this raw, uncontrolled emotion is affecting Karl’s Cadou? He almost looks like he’s short circuiting, sparking like that. Making up his mind, he leans over and gives his shoulder a gentle shake. “Karl. Karl. Wake up.”

             Karl lets out a low moan. His hands come up to claw at his chest.

             Ethan’s heart aches. “Hey, hey, don’t do that.” He catches the scrabbling hands and wraps his own around them to keep Karl from hurting himself, ignoring the electricity buzzing up his arms. “It’s not real. Wake up.”

              “” Karl sobs, fingers curling almost painfully tight around Ethan’s. Then he jolts upward onto his elbows with a sharp gasp, and his eyes snap open.

             “You’re okay, it’s okay,” Ethan soothes. “You were having a nightmare.” A part of him is screaming to lean forward and press a kiss to the trembling man’s forehead. He helps Karl sit up instead.

             The second he’s reasonably upright, Karl’s hands close around Ethan’s again in what must be a knee-jerk reaction. He stares into nothing with glassy, tear-reddened eyes.

             Slowly, his fingers loosen their death grip as his frantic panting slows to a series of deeper, faltering breaths. Ethan very carefully tugs one hand from his grasp to brush strands of hair from his sweat-soaked brow, keeping his motions slow and deliberate.

             At long last, Karl’s eyes focus. “Ethan?” he half-whispers croakily.

             “It’s me,” Ethan says gently. “Wanna talk about it?”

             Karl slowly looks up to meet his gaze. They’re close enough that Ethan can see flecks of gold in his grey-green irises. “Family. Mine.” The words are spoken haltingly, like it’s a struggle to get them out.

             Knowing Karl, it probably is.

             “Not just them. My… my siblings. They were dying.” He takes a deep, shuddering breath. “Mother did things. Made me do things.”

             A chill runs through Ethan’s blood. “Made you do things,” he repeats carefully. “Mind elaborating on that?”

             “Turned my Cadou against me.” One hand creeps to his chest again. It rubs almost listlessly against his sternum.

             “She can do that?”

             “Moth-” Karl catches himself this time “- Miranda can use our own Cadous to punish us when we piss her off.” He pulls away from Ethan and averts his gaze, swiping his sleeve roughly across his face. The feverish redness has mostly faded, leaving a dull flush staining the skin around his eyes.

             “Jesus.” Ethan pokes his own forearm experimentally. “Can she hurt me like that, do you think?”

             Karl huffs. “Nah. You’re something completely different.” He sounds more like himself, which is both a relief and a concern. Mia would sometimes pretend she was fine after her nightmares, only to fall into a bad space and break down later in the day.

             “Karl-”

             “Enough dillydallying,” Karl interrupts. “I’m running behind on the revival chamber, and you need to find the Duke. Up and at ’em.” Avoiding eye contact, he swings his legs over the side of the bed, sniffs loudly, and all but launches himself out of the room.

             Ethan watches the door click shut behind him, then gets out of bed himself and collects the forgotten coat, hat, and gloves. Karl will probably want them once he’s calmed down. Hopefully they can talk more then.

⚙️

            Karl spent some time yesterday conducting a thorough inspection of the complex and, more importantly, scouting out a suitable location to convert into a safe room of sorts. Now he paces around his chosen building site and tries not to think about last night.

            The site isn’t large compared to most of the buildings in the factory, less than twenty feet across in any direction. A couple of Haulers are still chipping away at the stone walls. He dismisses them with a brief “ “ ” The trek back to civilized territory will take them at least half an hour at their standard shamble, but that only means more security. Karl doesn’t want potentially hostile lords anywhere near his factory.

             A deep, garbled voice patiently explains the mechanics of the nervous system.

             Gloved fingers clasp a long, elegant cigar and hold out a lighter in invitation.

            Karl shakes his head wildly. “You’re not real,” he growls at the apparitions. Phantom pain ghosts through his core; he resists the urge to rub his chest.

            He’s had nightmares of his family before. He’s watched Miranda unleash her failed experiments on the mines countless times, even though he wasn’t there. Their screams have echoed in his head for decades.

            It’s new that his other “family” has joined their ranks.

            They didn’t always hate each other. Karl remembers times when he was actually grateful for his siblings’ presence. Alcina was fond of an evening drink and smoke, and she could tolerate a little informality when it came paired with intelligent conversation. Moreau resented his presence as the youngest, but was quick to offer advice, a bite to eat, even a trade of movies and records. When the screaming got too loud or he needed inspiration, Donna was waiting with tea and quiet sympathy.

            He remembers the first hopelessly hopeful years when he was kind to them too. He repaired and upgraded and invented modern conveniences to furnish their lairs, offered an open ear and a shoulder to lean on, tried to ignore that they admired the woman who tortured him for years before deciding he wasn’t worth it.

            The thought sickens him.

            Karl clutches his head and squeezes his eyes shut. It does nothing to shut out the memories. Shouldn’t he have forgotten the details by now?

            Their faces mingle with those of his loved ones’. Uriaș sits on a kitchen counter, swinging his feet as he watches Donna assemble a doll. His mother laughs quietly with Alcina and his aunt while setting the table, moments before Papa and Onkel Toma come trooping in for dinner. Moreau bandages his little cousin’s skinned knee, then pats her affectionately on the head. Jakob, surrounded by the enraptured Dimitrescu sisters, regales them with stories of the war.

            All of them die. Miranda swoops in on the wings of a half dozen crows and brings the Black God with her. In his dream, Karl watches, frozen, as the pitchy tendrils strangle and tear at his family and creep over his fallen brothers’ skin, twisting them in unnatural ways. Then he’s screaming at Miranda to stop - begging her - calling every bit of metal in range to fight back, protect.

            The pain that rips through him is unlike anything the world has shown him. He curls in on himself, clawing at the agony beneath his skin. His control shatters-

            Karl drives the side of his fist into the wall with a wordless roar. “DAMN YOU, MIRANDA!” he chokes. “DAMN YOU TO HELL!”

            His voice echoes through the empty cavern where living miners have long been replaced with the dead. Miners who, while rightfully discontent under Papa’s iron fist, did not deserve to be massacred once Miranda decided the Heisenbergs had outlived their usefulness. The bodies filled the factory warehouses and made up the majority of his first test subjects, mainly because he couldn’t find any other way to get rid of them without sending them down the river. Wouldn’t want to displease “Mother”.

            When the remains of his family inevitably showed up - a test, obviously - Karl burned them so the Megamycete couldn’t have them and made a vow. I will put an end to everything you stand for, or I will die trying.

            That familiar anger is almost comforting now. Karl takes a deep breath and squares his shoulders. Electricity leaks from his clenched fists and flickers along his sleeves. The iron in the walls rumbles. “You killed my family?” he growls into the solitude. “I’ll kill you with yours.”

🔦

             He can’t find the Duke.

             Ethan searches high and low, even checks outside, but the Duke is nowhere to be found. Adding insult to injury, he didn’t even leave a note.

             “What am I supposed to do now?” he groans, looking in the cargo elevator one more time. No dice.

             Running a hand through his hair, he considers his options before coming to the conclusion that there’s really only one thing he can do. He pulls out the communicator.

             “Uh, Karl?”

             Static. It’s almost impressively aggressive. Then Karl says, “Yes?”

             “He’s not here,” Ethan says bluntly.

             “What do you mean, “he’s not here”?”

             “Duke’s not here.” He looks around for emphasis, although Karl can’t see him. “I looked everywhere. He’s gone.”

             A brief silence. “Shit.”

             “Now what?”

             “Carry on until he comes back,” Karl answers after a few moments’ thought. “Or decides he wants us to find him. Fucking bastard.”

             It would be very helpful, Ethan decides, if he would just stop with the pissed-off growling. The growling is altogether too hot for someone who up until recently only showered once a week. And, you know, appears to be having a sexuality crisis on top of everything else.

             “So let me guess. Back to the field?”

             Karl mutters something inconsiderate about the Duke under his breath. “Might’s well. Every lycan you kill means another soldat to expend somewhere else.”

             “Yippee,” Ethan says without enthusiasm. “I’ll try to bring back a chicken or something for supper.”

             “Good man.” The static spikes, and then the radio falls silent.

             When all this is done and over with, Ethan is never going to complain about his job or home life again.

Chapter Text

             The Duke is still gone the next day.

             Along with, it would seem, Karl’s ability to sleep. He tries, spends maybe a quarter of the night plagued by familiar faces wailing in agony behind his eyelids, and gives up. Ethan doesn’t awaken when he leaves the room, but he knows he’ll be disappointed come morning.

             He spends the night in a fugue, gathering resources from around the complex and carting them to the building site one armload at a time. Not once does he call upon his powers to help; he already woke up sparking, and the manual labour gives him something to focus on that doesn’t involve anybody choking or riddled with shrapnel meant for Miranda.

             It’s slower work this way. He’s still at it when vibrations alert him to Ethan beginning his morning routine as usual. Karl reluctantly takes a break to greet him and see about a cup of coffee.

             “’S early,” Ethan whines, facedown on the table with a plate of barely-done poached eggs by his elbow.

             Karl helps himself to an egg. “Go back to sleep then, .”

             “Can’t.” Ethan rouses himself sluggishly and begins eating his breakfast. He doesn’t offer any more explanation, and Karl doesn’t ask. Instead, they share the food before going their separate ways, Ethan to the surface and Karl to the building site.

             It doesn’t occur to Karl as he works that Ethan is stressing over his siblings’ return too. Not until the following day, when he once again abandons his bed, and not two hours later, Ethan is dragging himself into the canteen to down three consecutive cups of coffee. Even then, he doesn’t quite realize that their apparently joint insomnia isn’t a nuisance; it’s a problem.

🔦

             Karl isn’t sleeping anymore.

             Ethan isn’t sure what clues him in. It’s not like he’s used to Karl being there when he wakes up. Somehow, he just knows.

             Maybe it’s the nightmares. He goes to bed and lies awake for awhile, with Karl silent and unmoving beside him. He falls asleep. He doesn’t sleep particularly well, but he sleeps. Sometime after that, the nightmares descend upon him and he wakes up thrashing in an otherwise empty bed.

             “Fuck this,” he mutters, getting up at four for the third day in a row. There’s no point in trying to drift off again if he’s just going to drift back into his own personal hell. He can only imagine what’s keeping Karl awake.

             Speaking of, Karl has barely been present for meals, let alone downtime. It’s really concerning.

             And that in itself is a minor problem. Ethan’s a worrier. When there’s even the slightest chance something could be wrong with the people he cares about, he can't get it out of his mind until he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that they’re okay. Which is not great when he’s in the middle of hunting lycans.

             So here he is, sneaking around a snowy field without weaponry, with both sleep debt and anxiety about Karl clogging up his brain.

             It does not go well.

             He manages to step in a leghold trap outside the village. It doesn’t cost him his foot, but it’s painful as shit. He’s limping as he leaves the tall grass and walks right into a couple of lycans in the process of bringing down a large pig.

             More than just his ego is bruised when the pig, not exceptionally grateful at being saved from the brink of death, nearly runs him over. Ethan watches it charge, squealing madly, farther into the village, and decides today would be an excellent day for pork if he had the energy to chase the hefty fucker down.

             A few hours later, he takes an arrow to the shoulder while relieving a horse of its wolfish rider. “Not groovy,” he complains to the empty village, pulling the projectile out and clamping a hand over the wound to staunch the bleeding. Just because his jacket is looking increasingly rough, doesn’t mean he wants to go around covered in his own blood.

             This day is shaping up to be a real joy.

🔦

             The next day, Karl doesn’t go to bed at all. He sits at his desk, scribbling plans and muttering about missing components until Ethan finally convinces his bleary eyes to stay shut. The desk is unoccupied when he opens them after a night of tossing and turning.

             He doesn’t bother looking for him. Instead, he makes himself a bowl of oatmeal and eats it slowly. When the lord fails to make an appearance, he straggles out the door by himself, not expecting much of the coming hours.

             Today is worse than yesterday. Let’s leave it at that.

             He’s poking listlessly at his supper when footsteps sound behind him. Without a word, Karl sits down across from him and begins eating. They exchange a few brief words about their day and how the plan’s coming along, but that’s it. Radio silence until the following morning.

             Day Five of this bullshit. Karl shows up for breakfast to find Ethan pillowing his head in his arms, having a staring contest with his food.

             Ethan flicks his gaze to the lord’s face before returning it to the plate of toast. “Hey.”

             “You look like shit,” Karl says, sounding tired but not suffering.

             Ethan yawns. “Thanks. ’S the exhaustion.”

             “No, I mean it. You look like a lycan’s scratching post.” That’s rich, coming from him. Karl’s clothing is reamed with grease and streaks of rust, there are tears in his coat, and his face is tight with stress. Ethan snorts and slouches forward a little more.

             Gloved fingers find his jaw and lift, somewhat-gently turning his head away from his meal. Karl’s expression softens slightly as he tilts Ethan’s face this way and that to catch the light. “You’re not sleeping.”

             “Pot calling the kettle black there, bud.”

              “I don’t have shadows the size of Alcina’s ass under my eyes.” He lets go, but his eyes continue to rove, taking in Ethan’s fatigued features.

             Grateful for the release, Ethan rests his chin on the table and closes his eyes with a sigh. “Rough nights getting th’ best of me. Shut up.”

             Karl mumbles something in German. “Here’s the deal,” he says. “We need to be ready to deal with my siblings at a moment’s notice as soon as Duke shows his fucking face. You? Are not ready.”

             “No shit, Sherlock,” Ethan mumbles.

             “I’m trying to change that, mold man. What’ll it take to make you sleep?”

             It comes out completely by accident. Ethan doesn’t even know the word is forming on his tongue before he says it. “You.”

             A surprised pause. “What,” says Karl.

              FUCK. “’M not used ta sleeping alone.” He’s just doing damage control at this point. “Th’ nightmares ’re getting worse. S’rry.”

             “Alright,” Karl says after another pause. Without another word, he takes Ethan firmly by the arm and pulls him to his feet, then starts towing him out of the kitchenette.

             Ethan stumbles over the threshold. The question he wants to ask, about where they’re going, turns into a much simpler one. “Karl?”

             “You need sleep.” Karl’s hand slips from his upper arm to his wrist, no longer domineering. “We’re fixing this.”

             … okay. Ethan lets himself be led back to the bedroom and manhandled into bed without complaint, curling up with his back to the door. He doesn’t see how it’ll change anything, but it’s sweet (argh, NO) of Karl to try-

             The bed dips as Karl sits on the edge to remove his boots. He leaves them and his accessories - and his work shirt, after a moment’s hesitation - in a heap on the floor, then rolls onto his side to face Ethan. “Don’t make this weird,” he warns gruffly, and drapes one arm over the other man’s shoulders.

             Ethan stiffens. This is… This is new. Is this what he’s like when he’s asleep? He’s not sure how he feels about it. But Karl’s trying, so he lets himself relax and even wiggle a little closer.

             Karl hums in satisfaction and shifts so his head rests comfortably on the pillow. It’s not hard to guess his plan; he’ll feign sleep until Ethan has gotten a couple hours’ rest - or lack thereof - and then sneak off to his own work again.

             Whatever. The weight of his arm is comforting in its solidness.

             Ethan’s not sure how much time passes before he finds himself snuggling closer. It’s just because the factory’s cold and he’s hot- WARM. Warm. He’s warm. It’s not because you like being cradled by those biceps. While he’s basically shirtless.

             His brain really needs to shut up. Without really meaning to, Ethan focuses on Karl’s breathing. The deep, even rhythm is mesmerising.

             Before he knows it, his eyelids are slipping shut and he’s asleep.

⚙️

             Karl wasn’t planning on taking a nap when he climbed into bed. He figured he’d take a couple hours to run through calculations and potential outcomes while Ethan snoozed, then leave. Time’s in no ample supply, after all.

             But something about the trusting way Ethan settles into his arms erases tension he didn’t even realize he was carrying. It suddenly doesn’t seem so important that he worry about every little detail he’ll likely go over again later anyway. Not when Ethan’s blinking sleepily, an expression of peace creeping over his drawn face. Not when there’s a hand curling into the loose fabric of his tank top and soft breaths ruffling his hair.

             Surely there’s no harm in closing his eyes for just a second. And if he smiles a little as he does, nobody will ever know.

Chapter Text

             Ah, the wonders of a full night’s rest. Or something like that. Ethan’s not sure what exactly to call the time they spent in bed yesterday. Not all of it was sleeping, that’s for sure. They actually talked about the things keeping them up at night, in spite of Karl’s best efforts to dodge the subject.

             After an indeterminate amount of time alternately napping and mumbling about mold and meat hooks, Karl insisted upon getting up for a smoke and a continuation of his building project. Ethan stayed behind to do some journaling. And also yell at himself for abandoning his protest against liking Karl.

             Those feelings have pretty much vanished for the moment, truth be told.

             He’s hiking through the woods beyond Moreau’s mountain lab today, heading toward the rocky crags that form the backdrop for Miranda’s domain. Ideal monster territory, Karl had said.

              More like ideal paranoia territory. Hunting lycans is all well and good when you’re within easy access of shelter, makeshift weapons, and a helpful fridge magnet with a hammer. Out here, where there’s no brush and the trees are growing steadily thinner, the disadvantages weigh on him like the bulked up personification of looming dread.

             Just as Ethan makes that analogy, a branch cracks. He whirls in the direction of the sound, arm-blade at the ready.

             Nothing. Goddamn nerves are messing with his senses.

             Not for the first time today, he misses the weight of his guns. Any one of them, or even just a knife to throw, any weapon that doesn’t put him within reach of an attacker, would make him feel infinitely better. Honestly, he’s starting to think-

              Something’s there.

             He freezes, but the flicker of motion is gone. Straining his ears, he catches the muted thump of heavy feet on stone. Then the footsteps fall silent. Well, whatever it is, he probably doesn’t want to meet it in an ambush. Unless he’s the one doing the ambushing…

             Ethan slithers up a tree and back into human form among the leafless branches to get a better view. “Where’d it go?” he whispers to himself, scanning the area.

             Then the whole tree shudders violently, and he has his answer.

             A second jarringly loud thwack sounds out, followed by a long, low groan as the tree topples. Ethan throws himself clear right before it lands, turns his own landing into a less than graceful somersault, and comes up scratched, bruised, and ready to fight. Of course, he’s not ready for his attacker to be twice his height, grotesquely deformed, and carrying an axe that’s longer than it is tall.

             The Uriaș Drac doesn’t give him time to compute what it is. It roars in Ethan’s face, then grabs the felled tree and hurls it at him.

             Ethan dodges and takes off at a dead sprint. He’s got to get out of here. Unfortunately, there’s only one direction he can take, and that’s deeper into the fold in the mountain.

             And the Drac follows, obviously, because that’s what Dracs do. They’re too dumb not to go after everything that moves, regardless of whether or not they’re being attacked.

             What is it even doing out here?

             The communicator vibrates against Ethan’s hip. “Heads up, papa. My cameras picked up a Drac heading your way.”

             “Yeah, no kidding,” Ethan puffs, ducking a swing that would send his head into orbit. “Lemme guess, you want me to fight it?”

             “Are you- Fuck no! Get out of there!”

             “Thank God.” Ethan tests the ground with one foot. There’s not an inch of dirt to blob his way into. “I can’t burrow out, the ground’s solid rock!” he yells frantically.

             Karl is thoughtfully silent for approximately two seconds. “Run,” he says, his tone deadly serious.

             Ethan wastes precious time looking around at what he already knows is there. Gorge walls to either side, a dead end looming up ahead, and a furious axe-wielding zombie giant hot on his heels. He could try scaling the wall in mold form, but he doubts he’ll be fast enough to avoid the Drac’s twenty-foot reach. “I can’t,” he yells again. “I’m gonna have to fight it!”

             “NO!” Karl barks. “Listen to me, Ethan, I’m on my way. Do NOT FIGHT THE-”

             His order dies in a flare of static as Ethan turns off the communicator and then hurls it at his pursuer. Surprise surprise, it doesn’t do a thing to stop or slow the monster down.

             Now what? The walls have no protrusions he can maneuver around to his advantage, there’s no cover, and he can’t throw anything at the Drac because there’s nothing left to throw. All he has now are his wits and his frustratingly close-ranged mutations.

              Well, here goes nothing. Ethan shifts his right arm into the biggest blade he can manage and his left into a shield. It won’t prevent him from taking damage on a direct hit, but maybe he can snag the axe. Then he charges. “BRING IT ON, FREAK!”

             The Drac seems surprised at this new development. It roars and slams the axe into the ground where Ethan stood a second ago.

             Ethan tumbles under the haft, gets in a slash across its chest, and then has to scramble away when the giant brings the butt of the weapon down in a vain attempt to crush his skull. A second swing has him eating stone to avoid being bisected. He rolls to the side, coming to a halt in a defensive crouch, then darts in to try again.

             This isn’t working. Between the Drac’s durability and his own need to stay in constant motion, he’s doing far too little damage. If this keeps up much longer, he’s going to tire himself out and become even more vulnerable than before.

             “I wish I had a final form right now,” he groans out loud, before jumping out of the axe’s trajectory.

             Wait. Who’s to say he doesn’t?

             Ethan slashes uselessly at the Drac’s forearm to buy time and pours every iota of his being into willing himself to grow.

             For a horrible, uncertain moment, nothing happens. Then he cries out in pain and collapses to his hands and knees as his body begins to mutate.

             Searing heat courses through his muscles. He hears the groaning and cracking of bones changing shape, sees his fingers lengthen and broaden and sharpen into huge claws. His jaw contorts. His spine arches.

             And something clicks.

             Ethan lifts his head, a growl rumbling in his throat. The Drac doesn’t seem nearly so big now, nor its axe such a hazard. He can take it. He can take anything. “You messed with the wrong guy,” he snarls through a mouthful of long, jagged fangs, and pounces.

⚙️ 

             Karl arrives just in time to witness the Drac hitting the ground, Ethan on top.

             He almost doesn’t recognize Ethan at first. For one thing, the Ethan he knows isn’t ten feet tall with three pairs of eyes and bony protrusions jutting out like armour from his shoulders, arms, knees, and back. For another, he doesn’t usually go for the throat with his teeth.

             “Total mutation,” Karl observes. “Impressive.” He regards the brawling monsters critically. “He’s got this,” he decides, leaning on his hammer to watch.

             Ethan’s mutated form is fascinatingly different from any he’s seen. There are similarities to the village’s other unnatural inhabitants, of course. The jaw and mane are reminiscent of a vârcolac’s, despite the latter being noticeably shorter in hair length, and an Ethanish blond rather than grey. His legs resemble the hind legs of some digitigrade in build, and both sets of limbs are entwined with tendrils of gently pulsing mold. The skin on his face from forehead to upper lip is pallid and stands out against the dark grey of the rest of his body.

             But other than that, his appearance is entirely foreign. The crimson sclera and yellow irises, the partially flattened nose, the long, fork-tipped tongue that is visible when Ethan opens his mouth to snarl or bite, the odd proportions of those claws…

             Ethan promptly rakes aforementioned claws across the Drac’s face, ruining its eyes. Karl nods approvingly.

             It’s good to know his ally won’t be going into battle unarmed.

🔦

             Fighting is so much easier when your entire body is a weapon. Ethan has no problem slamming the Drac against a wall and then whirling to throw it across the gorge and into the opposite bank of stone. Its axe crumples between his jaws.

             And okay, it does get a couple of hits in. Ethan just shrugs them off and carves a set of deep gouges across its torso with what used to be unprotected fingertips.

             As the giant stumbles back, he rips the broken haft from its grasp, tossing it aside carelessly. It’s useless now anyway.

             The Drac takes this opportunity to land a solid punch to Ethan’s face.

             Ethan slowly turns his head back to face it, baring his teeth. “Big mistake.” He lunges, his jaws find the Drac’s throat, and just like that, it’s over.

             With his attacker dead, the overwhelming desire to kill maim destroy eases up. Ethan has a moment to note that Karl was right about final forms being difficult to think properly in before he’s distracted by the sound of hearty clapping. “Now that’s a showstopping finale,” Karl whoops. “Well done, Ethan!”

             Excitement floods through Ethan like a caffeine hit. Grinning wildly with the thrill of his success, he bounds over to his friend and easily lifts him right off his feet in an all-encompassing bear hug. “I did it!” It’s funny to hear how much deeper his voice is. It’s a little distorted too, like he’s speaking through a voice changer. “I went all Venom on that bastard, did you see?”

             “Uh huh,” says Karl almost squeakily. He’s so small compared to Ethan. Ethan’s just the biggest when he’s like this. Big and powerful and strong and…

             … stuck.

             “Karl,” Ethan says anxiously. “Karl, what if I’m stuck? I can’t think straight- I don’t know how to turn back- WHAT DO I DO IF I CAN’T TURN BACK?”

             A hand pats his chest awkwardly. “You’ll figure it out,” Karl assures him, still sounding odd. “Just… think it through.”

             Think it through. Right. That’s how he mutated in the first place. Ethan focuses - damn, it’s hard when all his emotions are this amped up - and suddenly finds himself human in shape and size once again. Human… and hugging Karl very tightly.

             He quickly lets go and steps back, clearing his throat self-consciously. “Uh. Thanks.”

             Karl nods mutely. His spectacles are tucked into his breast pocket, leaving his face bare, and Ethan is surprised to realize his eyes are glazed and unfocused.

             “Hey, you good?” he checks, putting a hand on Karl’s shoulder to get his attention.

             Karl leans into the touch slightly. He still looks very out of it. Then, to Ethan’s bewilderment, a tear rolls silently down his cheek.

             “Karl?”

             The lord snaps out of it with a start, his eyes focusing on Ethan’s face. “Sorry,” he says hoarsely. “I don’t…” He shakes his head seemingly to clear it and takes a step back. “Not used to being hugged like that, I guess. We should head back before Miranda sees us and gets suspicious.”

             “Right.” Ethan shifts himself into mold form on Karl’s shoulder and slithers in under the coat.

             “What are you doing.”

             “’M tired. You’re conspicuous. Two birds, one stone.” Not his greatest explanation ever. But then, he is exhausted.

             It’s nice and warm tucked away in here. Karl runs hot - thanks to his electric organs, probably - and that heat is seeping through his work shirt and making it hard to concentrate. Vibrations buzz through Ethan as Karl grumbles, “I’m not a damn hired hansom,” and then starts walking anyway. “Are hansoms still a thing? I know the automobile industry picked up some time ago, clearly, but are they for hire nowadays?”

             “You’re fucking old,” Ethan snickers drowsily.

             “I’ll fry you. Don’t tempt me.” Karl keeps talking, but with the distinct air of someone who doesn’t expect to be listened to. His voice is kinda soothing when he’s not being loud.

              I’ll be mad about that later, Ethan decides. For now, he’s content to doze and let the lord ramble his way back to the factory.

🔦

             “Eat this.” A bun and a bowl of stew are pressed into Ethan’s hands along with a large tin mug of something transparent and green-tinted.

             Ethan digs into the meal gratefully. “Thanks,” he mumbles, ripping a chunk out of the bun and dipping it into the stew before shoving it into his already full mouth.

             Karl pats his shoulder supportively, then starts sketching something out on an age-yellowed piece of paper. The little radio sitting by his elbow hums and crackles as it skips rapidly from station to station in a blur of sound. Every now and then, a single word or fragment of song makes it out of the speaker intact. “New… show… I… See you… help… burns…”

             The overarching theme makes Ethan wonder if Karl’s thoughts are influencing what the radio catches on. Which raises a few questions, sure, but maybe not ones he should ask while stuffing his face. He takes a gulp of the mystery drink and almost spits it right back out again. “What the- Is this pickle juice?”

             “You need the sugar and electrolytes,” Karl says without lifting his gaze from the emerging image. “Drink up.”

              “Why?”

             The lord sighs in annoyance and, setting down his pencil, swivels to look at Ethan. “When you mutate into final form, you’re pushing your body to function at a minimum of three hundred percent power, which burns through your nutrient reserves like that.” He punctuates the statement with a snap of his fingers. “Think of it as biologically augmented hysterical strength. Since almost all strains of Mold I’ve seen bolster the functions needed for the host to survive, it doesn’t kill you the way it would a normal human. But to replenish the nutrients you burned, you need energy. And so…” The mug of pickle juice is implicated.

             “So mutating always leaves you like this?” Ethan asks, taking a reluctant sip.

             “Exhausted and fucking starving?” Karl tilts his head in a gesture somewhat resembling a nod. “You seem to be pretty melee-based, so it’s probably easier on you. Your mutations are hardwired for that kind of exertion.”

             “It’s worse for you.” Educated guess, the IT man’s specialty.

             Karl smirks. “Only if you call experiencing the backlash from the moment you mutate worse.”

             “I would, actually. It increases exponentially, doesn’t it?”

             An affirming tongue-click paired with a finger gun. “We’ll make a thinker of you yet.”

              “Good… you know… yes…” warbles the radio disjointedly in the background.

             Ethan takes another draw. The juice isn’t so bad once you get used to it. He knocks it back, licks the last of the stew off the spoon, and wipes his hands on his jeans. “Right. Let’s do this.”

             “Do what?” Karl asks.

             “You want to do some research, don’t you?” Ethan tries mutating just his hands. They obediently morph into disproportionately large clawed versions of themselves, but he can tell they lack the size and sheer power of the real deal. “It wasn’t so bad last time. I got this, watch.” Before Karl can protest, he reaches for that hidden monster.

             It’s easier now. Less painful, too. He’s not imagining it.

             “Did you learn nothing from seeing Moreau?” Karl says peevishly as Ethan uncurls his prone body, keeping his head down to avoid braining himself on the ceiling.

             Ethan rolls his shoulders - so broad, so strong - and grins. “You grumble, but I see that drawing behind you.” It’s so tempting to give Karl a playful nudge just for the fun of pushing him around a little. He settles for a gentle poke that nonetheless moves both the lord and the chair holding him.

             “Fine,” Karl grumbles, rubbing his arm. “Sit your ass where you won’t break anything.”

              Or what, you’ll push me into place? Ethan imagines the hilarity of such an endeavour as he positions himself on the floor. His leg joints bend differently like this. So weird.

             It’s also weird to have Karl circling him slowly and critically and taking notes. Weird and flattering, honestly. Not preening is turning out to be a challenge he wasn’t expecting.

             He’s very impressively composed while Karl pokes at his muscles, runs a speculative finger along one of his shoulder ridges, manually prompts him to open his mouth. There’s a moment where he’s reminded of being at the dentist, except his dentist would probably keel over out of shock if faced with what Karl is currently examining with unabashed interest.

             “How long is your tongue?”

             Ethan sticks it out as far as it’ll go. It’s bone-white, fading to a black tip that is just slightly forked. It’s also long enough to lick his eyeballs, he’s pretty sure. Not that he wants to try. He puts it back in his mouth where it belongs.

             “Can you move each eye independently of the others?” Karl asks.

             Ethan tries it. There are four more eyes to deal with than he’s used to, and he never could do this trick with just two, so he’s expecting it to be at least as much of a challenge as it actually ends up being. But, as it turns out, he is capable of it now. His peripheral vision is a lot more inclusive with each eye covering a different direction and angle. “Yes.”

             “Alright.” Karl moves on to his arms. “Can you still shift your hand into other forms?”

             His left hand sharpens into a tapering point, prosthetic fingers and all. Come to think of it, his prosthetics aren’t visible at all in this form. Are they buried beneath the mold? And while he’s on this thought train, what happened to his clothes?

             “That’s a yes,” Karl observes. He takes the pointed limb in his hands, one cupping Ethan’s elbow and the other testing the sharpness of the tip with curious fingers.

              Oh, but wouldn’t it be great if…

             Ethan lets his hand melt back into its (relatively) humanoid form, “accidentally” enveloping Karl’s in the process. Even with their fingers locked together, the lord’s hand is barely visible.

             A wave of quiet rolls over the room, unbroken for the span of two heartbeats. The radio squawks, “Hello!” and dies.

             The silence lasts maybe another few seconds before Karl tugs at his entrapped hand. “Very funny, Ethan. Now quit it.”

             He doesn’t want to. Ethan twitches his slightly melted fingers in a half-assed pretence of effort. “I’m trying.”

             Struck by inspiration, he yanks a little harder, and Karl is dragged forward just enough that his other hand automatically shoots out to steady himself on the nearest solid object, which happens to be Ethan. All that’s needed is for him to wrap an arm around Karl’s waist or take hold of his hip, and they’d be mimicking the covers of those trashy romance novels Mia read as a guilty pleasure. Now is not the time, though.

             “Shit, sorry. Hang on.” Feigning concentration, Ethan morphs his hand into a shapeless blob and draws it away from Karl’s. Fun as it may be to tease him, he doesn’t want to be too much of an asshole. There are other ways to hold his hand, he’s sure.

             Karl makes a short, conclusive “Hm” sound in his throat, rubbing his freed hand as if in thought. Then he retrieves his pencil and notes. “Gotta get that under control. How about those spines? Just for show, or what?”

             Oh, that would be cool. Like Riot from Venom! Ethan tightens the muscles in his shoulders and back, acting purely on impulse. There’s an audible shngk, like a movie sound effect, and the bone-like protrusions extend to impressive lengths. He could launch them like a cartoon porcupine, he’s pretty sure. Best not to risk spearing anything important, though.

             “Very nice,” Karl says approvingly, and Ethan glows with pride. “Versatile usage, no doubt. Increased damage when attacking, would definitely enhance overall defence, intimidation potential…” His voice dwindles to a distracted mumble as he turns his attention to his notes. “Retract ’em?”

             He can and does.

             “How about form reconfiguration?” They test it a couple of times, with varying results. Ethan can’t mimic others’ appearances while mutated, although he can go full or partial blob as he likes. His size is also fairly negotiable, with roughly two cubic feet of wiggle room.

             “Fascinating. The advantages…” Karl is lost in thought for a moment, eyes distant and bright. Then he shakes his head briskly. “We’ll test your strengths and weaknesses at another time. Revert, please.”

             “Oh, we’re tossing out pleases now,” Ethan says dryly. “Classy.” The burnout slams into him the instant he shifts back, and he sits down hard.

              “Please,” Karl scoffs, passing him a box of crackers. “I got class comin’ out my ass.”

             “Sure.” God, these are the best crackers he’s ever eaten. Even if they’re stale and have probably been here longer than he’s been alive. He’s going to sleep like a log tonight. Or maybe he’ll just curl up right here and take a nap. That sounds good.

             “Ethan. Ethan. Don’t pass out on me.” Karl smacks his cheek lightly, looking unimpressed when Ethan opens his eyes enough for things to come into focus. “I told you. Burnout’s a bitch.”

             “’M fine,” Ethan slurs. “Jus’ tired.”

             Karl’s shoulders do that kind of irked slump thing where they drop very quickly and purposefully. What is that called, again? “Can’t you at least find somewhere to lie down that isn’t the floor?”

             Ethan smiles. He’s dimly aware it’s a goofy one. “You ’ve nice shoulders.”

             The lord facepalms. And then just sits there on his knees with his face cradled by his hand for what feels like a solid minute.

             “Whaaaat?” Ethan says. “’S true. Lotsa muscles.”

             “Alright, that’s it.” Karl hauls him to his feet and then, in the same effortless motion, sweeps him off them. Ethan yelps as he’s swung unceremoniously into a bridal carry that brooks no resistance. “Let’s get you out of my hair.”

             “’S pretty hair. You should take better care of it.” He blinks his heavy, heavy eyelids a couple times, and the fog lifts from his brain a little. Which leaves space for instant regret. “Okay, I hear myself. Put me down.” Not that he’s not enjoying being cradled by those sturdy arms, but the situation’s mortifying enough without him swooning over the state of the chest he’s pressed up against, and he’s quite sure he can walk. Fairly sure, anyway. Maybe sure’ s a stretch.

             “Ethan, you are barely coherent right now,” Karl says flatly. “If you make it five steps past that door on your own, I’ll sell my factory to the Duke and take up knitting.”

             Ethan squirms a little. The arms supporting him are unyielding. “You’re going to carry me?”

             “That would be the logical conclusion, yes. You don’t weigh much.”

             “Like holding a couple of grapes,” Ethan says.

             The lord gives him a strange look. “... Sure.” Without another word, he shifts his grip a little and walks out of the room while Ethan tries very hard (and fails) to keep from going redder than a sunburnt Togruta. First that stunt with the hand-holding, then Deliriously Tired Flirting: Electric Boogaloo, and now being carried to their shared bedroom like a blushing bride. He’s so unbelievably lucky Mia isn’t here to tease him.

              Nice catch, he can imagine her saying. A ninety-year-old death mechanic built like Winnie the Pooh on steroids. Didn’t know you were into bears, Ethan.

              Like you wouldn’t do the same in my shoes, he thinks. Or maybe whispers. He’s not sure.

             “What?” Karl pauses to look down at him.

             “Nothing,” Ethan says through a jaw-cracking yawn. Too tired to resist gravity anymore, he lets his head droop against Karl’s shoulder.

             It’s kind of nice, not being the one who does the holding. He loved holding Mia, of course, but being held is… Yeah. Nice.

             That feeling of being protected lingers even after Karl sets him on the bed and moves to leave. “Stay,” Ethan says impulsively. Karl raises an eyebrow at him, and he adds, “Please.”

             For a moment, he thinks his request will be ignored. But then Karl makes a low sound of something like resignation in his throat and sits down at his desk to write. Content, Ethan makes himself comfortable, then watches him through heavy-lidded eyes until the sound of pen on paper lulls him to sleep.

🔦

             He wakes up the next morning with a rioting stomach and an armful of slumbering lord.

             He can’t say he minds.

Behold the Ethan:

Chapter Text

             It’s force of habit that makes Ethan walk past the main cargo elevator on his way out. It’s a familiar voice calling, “Good day, Mr. Winters!” that makes him stop and do a double take.

              “Duke?”

             “The very same,” says the Duke cheerfully. “I trust you’re doing well?”

             “Doing well,” Ethan repeats. “Uhhh… yeah. Yeah, I’m doing well. Where the fuck have you been?”

             The Duke smiles beatifically. “Restocking my shelves. I do need to acquire my wares somewhere, you know.” He casts a clever look at some point in space that Ethan can’t see, and one eye flickers shut almost like a wink. It happens so quickly Ethan almost misses it.

             “... Right. Cool. Uh, you mind giving me a second?”

             “But of course.”

             “Great.” Ethan sidles over to the corner he’d just rounded, then pours on the speed. Moments later, he’s sprinting after a familiar hammer-wielding figure thankfully just leaving the complex. “KARL! KARL, WAIT UP!”

             Karl halts obediently and turns.

             “Duke’s back,” Ethan pants, skidding to a stop in front of him.

             A strange expression crosses Karl’s face. Relief and anticipation, mixed with uncertainty? Apprehension? “Show me,” he says.

             The Duke is still there when they get back to the elevator, one noticeably more winded than the other. He raises a hand congenially. “We meet again, Lord Heisenberg. My most sincere apologies for the prolonged absence.”

             “You’ve got a lot of nerve disappearing without a word like that,” Karl growls. “Couldn’t even leave a note, could ya?” The displeasure in his voice is irritation and not anger, Ethan is relieved to discern.

             “What difference would it have made to you?” Okay, Duke’s a great guy and all, but he’d be a lot easier to figure out if he showed more emotion beside “mellow and polite”.

             “I could’ve planned around your vanishing act, for starters.” A muscle twitches in Karl’s cheek. “Eight days without contact, Cesare. Eight! Do you know how much we could have gotten done in that time?”

             “We almost ran out of leftovers,” Ethan adds, feeling the need to contribute somehow.

             The Duke at last looks properly chastened. “I admit your concerns are points I could have better taken into consideration. It is not a mistake I’ll make again. Now, may I interest you in anything?”

             Time for the “fun” part. Ethan sighs. “How much for the creepy bride doll.”

             “As a mark of my appreciation for your patience and grace, not a cent. Consider her a gift.”

             “Thanks.” Some gift. Still, Ethan accepts the proffered Angie (and holds her like he would a ticking pipe bomb.)

             “I’ll trade for Lady Fatass and the Fish Lord,” Karl states expressionlessly. “The usual?”

             “The usual will do,” the Duke agrees.

             Karl makes a gruff little scoffing noise in his throat, but gestures imperiously with his hand. An expectant pause later, a stream of bobbing metallic objects flows gracefully into the elevator and circles the space at eye level. Ethan spots an assortment of weapons and gun enhancements, tools, and more than a few pieces that can only be toys or works of art.

             “Ah, splendid.” The Duke reaches up to brush a finger delicately along the neck of a clockwork horse. The tiny creature tosses its head and prances in a circle, seemingly preening under the attention. “The craftsmanship is extraordinary, as always. And the attention to detail! Exquisite.”

             Ethan notes with interest that the flattery has Karl’s impersonal attitude brightening and opening up within seconds. Much like the horse.

             “Right.” The lord clears his throat. “My siblings?” he says brusquely.

             “Unharmed and ready to be awakened.”

             As they continue with the transaction, Ethan lets his attention shift to the traded items still making their rounds through the air. One object in particular catches his eye, and he stretches his hand out to it without thinking. The mechanical bird tilts its head at him, then flutters over to perch on his palm. Hardly daring to breathe, he stokes its back with a finger, admiring how perfectly the work mimics life. From the gilded wings to the oil-dark eyes to the tiny hinged beak, the bird looks and moves like any feathered thing to hatch from an egg.

             As if to agree with him, the bird begins to sing. But it’s not recorded birdsong. Instead, a woman’s voice emerges from within the clockwork interior.

              “

              ”

             Ethan blinks. Then he looks at the bird’s markings more closely. A mockingbird? Fitting. Don’t they symbolize determination or something? He glances at Karl, and finds the lord watching him.

             “Actually,” Karl says to the Duke, abruptly looking away, “You did offer a discount in our agreement.”

             “Of course,” the Duke agrees easily. “How could I forget? Please, name your reduction.”

             Ethan furrows his brow. “You guys are the weirdest business associates I have ever met.”

             “What, you’ve never seen Old World trading in progress before?” Karl considers the flow of objects before crooking a finger at a few pieces. They bob out of the stream and hover around him rather amusingly like adoring woodland creatures around a Disney princess.

             The mockingbird in Ethan’s hand hops from his palm to his wrist, then flits from there to his shoulder.

             Ethan turns to look at it as it settles there. “Uh. Is this one part of the discount or…?” He can’t keep the note of hope out of his tone any more than he can the confusion.

             “Keep it,” Karl says, voice rougher than usual. A tinge of pink enters his cheeks. Then, before Ethan can react, he floats the discounted objects into a pile at his feet, orders, “Bring the crystals to the revival chamber but don’t start anything without me,” and practically bolts out of the elevator.

             “Wait- What? KARL,” Ethan hollers after him. “WHERE ARE YOU GOING?”

             “House Beneviento,” comes the faint reply.

             “Uh.” Ethan looks awkwardly at the Duke, who only looks mildly amused. “Thanks?”

             The Duke inclines his head. “Always a pleasure, Mr. Winters. Would you like a bag for your purchases?”

             “I’ll pass.” He picks up the Moreau crystal carefully - damn, it’s heavier than he remembers - then reaches for the Dimitrescu one. His fingers slip on the slick surface, and the crystal thunks back down onto its stand. One of the shards making up Dimitrescu’s crown slices across the flesh of his palm in the process. “Fuck. Yeah, okay, maybe I do want a bag. Ow.” Reflexively, he shakes out his injured hand.

             Wait.

             He snaps his attention to the cut already healing on his palm, then to the crystal. The crown is now splattered with blood.

             “Ohhhhhh fuck.”

Chapter Text

             Karl stands at the prow of the barge and thinks about dead things. Dead flowers, dead languages, dead-eyed dolls in dead houses. All things his “sister” surrounded herself with until she became a dead thing herself.

             How ironic.

             Or fitting, perhaps. Donna’s morbid fascination with the dead emerged with every loss she suffered. That House Beneviento should become her crypt is probably exactly the kind of end the little shut-in would have wanted. And Ethan calls me a freak.

             It’s been literal ages since he last visited the Beneviento mansion. He and Angie’s mean streak never got on well. Their last encounter involved a dozen or so dolls armed with stakes, three ghouls in evening wear, and a tea party laced top to bottom with jimsonweed. What started as a relatively civil gettogether quickly devolved into a psychotic manhunt during which Karl, blurry-eyed and fighting unconsciousness, got thoroughly lost in the maze of hallways and nearly brought the place down in the midst of a mild seizure.

             For her part, Donna was very apologetic about the whole ordeal. Her very genuine distress would have been a lot easier to accept if he hadn’t known Angie was the manifestation of everything she was too afraid to do or say out loud.

             Karl pushes the incident to the back of his mind. He needs to stay sharp; the estate is one of the few places Ethan hasn’t combed through - no surprise or judgement there - and it’ll likely be crawling with bloodthirsty ghouls. They’re not hard to kill, but he’s not keen on being grabbed from below or dropped on. The bastards seem to grow there like flowers.

             The barge leaves the darkness of the underground river behind, and he steers it to the bank to moor it. He could take it farther up the creek and save himself some time, but he’s honestly not in the mood.

              Let’s think about something else, shall we? Something like…

             He’s not surprised when his mind settles on Ethan’s awe-filled face as he admired the clockwork mockingbird. The wonder lighting up his eyes does things to Karl’s heart even now.

             … It’s probably a good thing he doesn’t see that reaction often.

              I should change the tape so he can record something else. He could also teach Ethan how. It’s not a difficult task.

             A snarl draws his attention. Karl casually spins his hammer and takes a swipe. The lycan goes down. He puts it out of their collective misery with another swing, then carries on.

             The rest of the walk is similarly uneventful. Good. It lets him get back into a proper mood.

             Ducking under the first of the hanged dolls is not a relief, to absolutely no one’s surprise. Karl scowls at the very-much-alive flowers growing among the gravestones. He doesn’t know shit about plants, but these have got to be the ugliest damn flowers he will ever lay eyes on. Stepping over a skeleton that somehow hasn’t been reanimated or torn apart, he continues on to the rope bridge, stomping across without a care for the rotted planks that break and fall beneath his feet.

              Ethan must have hated this. The reminder of how badly House Beneviento scarred him almost makes it easier to pretend his own nerves aren’t raw and thrumming with pent-up anxiety. Sparing Ethan from going in his place is the only thing keeping him from turning around and going right back the way he came.

             The rusting gates swing open before him at the gentlest nudge. Nothing is waiting to greet him, oddly enough. The rest of the garden is similarly empty.

             Either the ghouls have developed a greater taste for ambush hunting, or something’s happened. Karl isn’t sure which possibility he prefers.

             He does stop at the memorial, though. Claudia Beneviento was a sweet kid, reminded him a lot of Irini, his little cousin. How Donna managed to keep her visiting niece safe and hidden from Miranda for almost four years is beyond him. Unfortunately, that protection didn’t cover Donna’s own burgeoning insanity.

             This is why he forced his assistants to leave early on.

             Karl sighs heavily, disturbing the haze of pollen. Yet another death he couldn’t prevent or undo.

             Time to move on. He opens the gatehouse doors without issue (would it have worked if he hadn’t given up that cassette of Tante Elsbeth sharing village gossip over late night coffee all those years ago?), eyes the elevator with well-founded skepticism, and resigns himself to a ride in the ridiculously ornate carriage. Honestly, who decorates an elevator that leads from one damp and drippy cave to another?

             “Should have just hopped the fence,” he grumbles out loud, striding down the path to the mansion. The front yard is still lousy with those damned flowers; the combination of pollen and mist from the waterfall makes him sneeze as his boots clomp up the front steps. He pauses there.

             Ethan had said he left the pile of Ground Donna in front of the elevator on the ground floor. That places her smack dab in the middle of the foyer, directly across the room from where he stands.

             Karl takes a deep breath, shakes off the memory of a pale, slender hand tentatively finding his, and pushes open the doors.

             Well.

             There she is.

             Donna isn’t even human-shaped anymore, just an oblong heap of dull greyish shards and ash. It’s easy to see why Ethan assumed she had no crystal to give. Which means in order to find her, Karl has to dig through her broken pieces.

             He moves to kneel beside the pile, feeling like the air and time itself are molasses. Unbidden, his vision blurs with tears he refuses to shed.

             “Not like this.” The words come out soft, gentle. “You didn’t deserve this.” And then the weight of what exactly he’s doing hits him. Karl rocks back onto his heels, suddenly unable to breathe. “Oh God, I’m bringing you right back into the nightmare. Donna- fuck. I can’t. I can’t do this to you!”

              I don’t care if this time will be different.

              Lies.

              I don’t have a way to justify your return.

              Lies.

              I can’t bring you back just to lead you to your death a second time.

             Truth.

             Karl presses the heels of his hands into his eyes in a fruitless effort to stem the flow of tears. “I can’t,” he whispers.

             But. He’s seen the extent of Donna’s powers before. She’s so much more powerful than what she’s shown the world. Her presence in the rebellion would be an undeniable asset.

             And deep down, he misses her. He never used to, but this isn’t then, is it? Facing death herself might have cured her of her necrotic fixation. Maybe her rationality will return. It’s a possibility he can’t help feeling guilty about denying her.

             He can’t leave her dead and hopeless.

             He can’t put her through more suffering.

             “Fuck,” Karl growls through gritted teeth, lowering his hands. He leans forward over Donna’s disintegrated corpse again. Then he plunges his fingers into the rubble.

             The bonelike crystal is cool to the touch. Big chunks and little chunks alike slip through his fingertips with only a hint of friction, leaving trails of ash on his glove. He almost misses it when he finds what he’s looking for.

             “Ha!” He pulls the crystal out of the mound and holds it up to get a good look. Donna’s calcified form is smaller than Alcina or Moreau’s, which makes sense considering she only had half a Cadou. It resembles a misshapen ball of yarn stuck through with long, thin shards of crystal. There’s a hole in the lower side, and half a doll-like face pokes out of the top, looking rather like it’s been haphazardly wrapped into the ball.

             Karl imagines the crystal embedded in Angie will look somewhat similar. Well, he’ll find out soon enough.

             Rising, he pockets Donna’s crystal and tries in vain to brush off the ash streaks caked onto his glove. The endeavour succeeds only in smearing it across his coat. “Dammit, Donna. I don’t need your dust in my fucking laundry system.”

             … he’s spent too much time in this mansion.

             “That’s it, we’re leaving.” Karl rests his hammer across his shoulders and heads back outside, stopping to jam some uprooted flowers in another pocket. “The first thing I’m doing when we’re out of here is cracking open a bottle.”

             This turns out to be incorrect. The first thing he does when he leaves the yard is have a ghoul fall on him from directly above.

             Karl swears mightily in German and hurls the offending creature against the nearest tree, following up with a punch that takes its head off. “ I’m not in the mood for this BULLSHIT!”

             Apparently, Donna’s undead playmates don’t share that sentiment. As the first ghoul crumbles, a high-pitched screech rises up from the gloom. The woods come alive with dangling arms and gaping jaws.

             Alive in a purely figurative sense, anyway.

             Karl growls a few more choice words under his breath and stomps on the head just breaking the surface at his feet, driving it back down beneath the soil. “This is why you don’t get visitors anymore, ”

             Thoroughly pissed off now, he lets electricity course along his body, heedless of the effect it’ll have on his Cadou. He’d rather suffer a little overheating if it comes down to that or a mauling. Besides, Ethan will notice if he comes home with toothmarks in his coat.

             Fighting ghouls isn’t actually that strenuous. A single ghoul is a rotting, pollen-filled bit of flesh clinging to an ungainly skeleton. Their sickles are dull and corroded.

             The reason Karl hates fighting them (poisoned tea parties aside) has less to do with their physical attributes and more to do with the fact that a) they’re ambush predators and b) they come from fucking everywhere. There’s no such thing as “just one ghoul”. By the time you turn one to rubble, three more have popped up to play Devil’s Whack-A-Mole.

             God, Karl hates that game.

             In no mood to linger, he storms down the path without taking any detours, mowing down every ghoul that falls, climbs, or staggers into him. It must make quite a spectacle, the lord carving a destructive trail through droves of ghouls, leaving electrocuted or bludgeoned bodies disintegrating in his wake. Rather like a small, dusty thunderstorm, he reckons.

             And then he’s magnetically slamming the gate shut behind him, and the show’s over.

             “Forget the booze for now,” he grumbles, shaking ash off his hat. “I’m getting home, handing you off to Ethan, and taking a damn shower. Then I am going to drink a full case of beer. You’re tomorrow’s problem.”

             Donna doesn’t answer, a reaction characteristic of your standard yam-sized inanimate hunk of crystal.

             “I don’t know why I’m still talking to you like you can hear me.” Nevertheless, Karl continues making occasional remarks to the thing as he returns to the barge, heads back downstream, and makes the trek out to the revival chamber. It helps distract from the headache and the uncomfortable burning in his chest.

             He opens the door to find Ethan waiting for him, face a mask of anxiety. Behind him, sipping daintily from one of the Duke’s teacups, sits a much shorter, healthier-looking Alcina Dimitrescu.

             “What. The fuck.”

🔦

             There wasn’t a lot they could do. Not that Ethan didn’t try.

             He did his best to wash the blood off before anything could happen. When stains remained, he rushed the crystal Dimitrescu to the revival chamber. The Duke didn’t follow, but once Ethan had the crystal in place, he appeared in the doorway to join them. Which meant Ethan wasn’t entirely alone as he paced anxiously around the room and watched the calcified lord for any signs of change.

             And change, she did. Slowly, of course, which gave him hope that Karl would return before she woke up entirely. (He wasn’t sure exactly what Karl could do about their situation. He just had this vague feeling that the lord would know how to regain some control over what was happening.)

             But as the hours passed and Lady Dimitrescu’s winged form disappeared beneath a thick, uneven layer of bonelike crystal that then started cracking and falling apart, with no sign of Karl, Ethan resigned himself to the likelihood of another fight.

             A fight that didn’t come.

             When Lady Dimitrescu came to, her first reaction was one of confusion and outrage at having been suddenly and violently relocated from the spire of her desecrated home to a dingy metal box in the bowels of the earth. Her second was horror at her own diminished state.

             “Before you try to kill me,” Ethan blurted as the lady vampire’s claws popped out almost on their own, “there’s a way to get your daughters back and it’s not going to happen if I’m dead.”

             Lady Dimitrescu paused at that. Then she looked at the Duke, who nodded calmly. “If this is a lie, I will not hesitate to slit your stomach and tear you apart organ by organ,” she hissed.

             “You people and your graphic threats.” Ethan didn’t say that out loud. What he did say was, “Look, I know you’re mad and scared-” Lady Dimitrescu scoffed “- and lost right now, but you need to calm down. We can help each other.”

             “I will never need help from a filthy man-thing like you, let alone accept it.” The lady’s voice cooled the already frigid cavern air by a few more degrees. “Especially when you’ve caused me so much irreparable damage already.”

             “Then you’ll never see your daughters again,” Ethan returned, pretending his stomach wasn’t sinking into his shoes.

             That gave her pause. “I will listen to what you have to say,” she said at last. “Then I will decide if I should kill you quickly and mercifully or drain you slowly.”

             “I’d rather not be killed at all, thanks. We’ll talk, we’ll talk,” Ethan added in response to Lady Dimitrescu’s haughty displeasure.

             “Would you like something to eat while we wait for Heisenberg to join us?” the Duke offered pleasantly.

             That did it. Lady Dimitrescu drew herself up like an enraged cat, eyes blazing. “Heisenberg? You expect me to consort with my incompetent mudlark of a brother? How DARE you!” She raised a hand menacingly for emphasis, only for her claws to retract back into her fingers. “What-”

             “Oh, that’s right,” the Duke said. “I did forget to mention. Calcification does have the unfortunate side effect of negating the Cadou’s… gifts. You may have noticed a sudden surge earlier, milady?”

             “What have you done?” Lady Dimitrescu demanded furiously of Ethan.

             Ethan, unfortunately, wasn’t particularly in control of his mouth at that moment. “So that’s why she’s, uh, shorter.”

             “It’s temporary,” the Duke assured Lady Dimitrescu. “Within the next few days or so, you should regain your previous formidable abilities. However, I fear your body will never return to its full stature.”

             “The alternative was staying dead,” Ethan offered.

             Lady Dimitrescu gave him a disparaging look. “I think I would have preferred to stay dead.”

             “Noted.”

             That was where the conversation ended. Lady Dimitrescu elected to ignore Ethan in favour of spending her time conversing with the Duke over a meal. Ethan elected to spend his time drafting explanations for when Karl got back.

             Now, though, in the face of Karl’s ash-stained incredulity, all he can think of to say is, “So there may have been an accident.”

             Karl stares at him. Then he stares at Lady Dimitrescu. Then he silently steps backward through the doorway and closes the door.

             Brief pause.

             The walls rattle with the powerful “What. The. FUCK.” that carries clear through the enforced metal. Something heavy-sounding smashes against stone. “”

             “Sorry ’bout that,” Karl says calmly, coming back in. “Welcome back, darling sister. Wanna kill Mom?”

             “You have a lot of nerve speaking to me like that after trapping me in your miserable factory,” Lady Dimitrescu spits.

             Karl not-quite grins. “Yeah, well, I didn’t exactly have a choice.”

             “Can we yell at each other later?” Ethan cuts in. “Miranda could come busting in right now.”

             “Right.” Karl holds out his hand in a facsimile of an offered handshake. “While you were dead, papa here and I decided to take down Miranda together before she could destroy everything. Care to join us?”

             Lady Dimitrescu eyes the extended hand condescendingly. “And you think you can just plough through Donna and Salvatore on your way to kill her.” She sniffs. “You always did think so highly of yourself.”

             “They’re already dead,” Ethan says sheepishly. “I, uh, killed them. We’re bringing them back too.”

             “You want that bitch dead as much as we do,” Karl continues, voice losing any hint of jocularity. “Trust me. You can hate me and Ethan as much as you want, but at the end of the day, Miranda doesn’t care about you or me any more than she cares about the lycans. We were her tools, for Christ’s sake.”

             “It’s the truth, milady,” the Duke adds somberly.

             Lady Dimitrescu’s manicured brows furrow. She slaps Karl’s hand away, then places both hands on her hips. “I will not join you. You are a rebellious child, Heisenberg, that hasn’t changed. If you convince our siblings to join your ridiculous crusade, I might reconsider, but I. Don’t. Think. You. Can.”

             Ethan is suddenly reminded that the people in front of him have been pseudo-siblings for more decades than he’s been alive.

              “Wonderful,” Karl returns snidely. “I look forward to proving you wrong.” He turns to Ethan. “The doll?”

             Ethan relinquishes Angie willingly. “Please take her off my hands. Every time I look at her, she’s staring at me.”

             “She does that.” Karl takes the doll and probes her inert form with his fingers. When they tap against her forehead, he pauses. “This’ll take awhile. Better find somewhere to spend the night.”

             “Let’s find you somewhere to sleep,” Ethan says to Lady Dimitrescu, casting a warning look at Karl. “We can talk about bringing back the girls in the morning.”

              “After she agrees to join my rebellion,” Karl interjects.

             “We can still talk about it. And you’d better not spend all night on this.”

             “Yeah, yeah. Scram.” Karl flaps a hand at him, then goes to talk quietly with the Duke.

             Ethan sighs and turns to Lady Dimitrescu. “Come on.”

             He really can’t blame her for looking thoroughly and hopelessly confused. Anyone in their right mind would be.

Chapter Text

             True to his word, Karl doesn’t spend all night working on Angie. That might be because Ethan refuses to let him.

             Once he’s got Lady Dimitrescu reasonably settled in the cleanest available room, he goes looking for Karl. That haunted look in his eye says a lot about what kind of funk he’ll be in for the rest of the evening. Ethan doesn’t have it in him to spend another sleepless night worrying about the guy.

             Karl turns out to be operating in one of his preferred workshops. Surprise, surprise. He sits hunched forward at the table, the crystal Donna beside him, gloved hands working away with painstaking attention at whatever it is he’s doing.

             “What are you doing?” Ethan asks.

             “Figuring out how to remove the Cadou and reconnect it to Donna so she isn’t braindead when she wakes up. Preferably without fucking up the wooden brat.” Karl grunts in frustration. “How the hell did she get it in there to begin with?”

             “Sounds tricky.” And time-consuming. Ethan leans against the table to watch. “You think there’s a secret compartment or something?”

             Karl huffs. “If there is, I can’t find it.” He sets down the tool he was using and stretches carefully, rubbing his chest with a low rumble of discomfort.

             “Okay, what happened.”

             “Pardon?”

             Ethan folds his arms. “Something’s bothering you. Pulled a muscle, or what?”

             “It’s nothing. I’m-”

             “Say you’re fine. I fucking dare you.”

             “It’s true.” Karl manages to hold his stare for a few seconds before caving. “My Cadou overheated on the way back.”

             … That’s a new one. “Shit, really?” Concerned, Ethan presses a hand against his chest, feeling for anything off. The unnatural heat pulsing dully under his palm reminds him of the blowout that destroyed the lord’s sunglasses and knocked him out. “That’s not nothing. Karl, last time something like this happened, you collapsed.”

             “But I didn’t,” Karl protests, squirming. “I’ve dealt with electrical imbalance before.”

             “That kills people, Karl.”

             “I’m not people! Seriously, Ethan, I’m fine. It’s just a little heat and muscle fatigue.” Karl throws out his hands in exasperation. The way his breath hitches as he does so undermines his point substantially.

             Without hesitation, Ethan takes him by the upper arms and pushes them back down, digging his thumbs into the sore muscles. “First off, you are people… uh, a person… and second, bodies feel pain for a reason,” he scolds as Karl winces. “I don’t know what happened that made you overheat like a car engine - which fucking wrecks it, if you hadn’t noticed - but whatever it was, you could have gotten seriously hurt. Jeez.”

             “Okay, okay, I’m sorry.” Karl shifts as if to step back, but doesn’t. Encouraged, Ethan continues rubbing somewhat aggressive circles into his biceps. It’s mainly to prove his point, but if it helps ease the ache a little, that’s just a bonus.

             The moment is just that - a moment. Around the same time that Ethan realizes the implications of giving his friend a massage in the middle of an argument and lets go, Karl pulls away, clearing his throat awkwardly.

             “Let me see,” Ethan offers, indicating the doll.

             Karl raises an eyebrow, but gamely moves over so he can take a look. Intimacy is apparently still his greatest weakness, not that Ethan has a mind to exploit it anytime soon.

              Later, though?

             He pushes the thought aside. “Later” is the time for thinking about thinking about that. For now, he has a creepy doll to check out.

             Karl was not exaggerating his frustrations with Angie. He finds nothing on her torso, none of her joints are suspiciously loose or glued together with mold, and the back of her head is devoid of any hidden panels.

              If I were building secret compartments into a doll, where would I put them? He looks at Angie’s sun-and-moon face and has the answer.

             “Have you tried her face?” When Karl looks blank, he takes that as a no and begins running his fingertip along the divide between the doll’s eyes. “When we were playing that fucked up game of hide-and-seek, her face opened and these freaky tentacles came out,” he says in explanation.

             Bingo. The sun and moon portions slide apart a little with a click, then swing outward to reveal a lump of crystal that looks like it would fit into the hollow in Donna’s. Ethan wedges his fingers into the small space and carefully finangles it out before offering it to Karl. “I’m here all week, folks.”

             “Very funny, Costello,” Karl says dryly, accepting the crystal. He inserts it neatly into the empty space, nods in satisfaction, and gets up, rolling his shoulders. “Well, I’m going to take an impractically long shower and get some food into me. Don’t wait up.”

             “You’re not doing anything after that, so I won’t have to. You’re showering, eating, and coming to bed. Right, Karl?”

             Karl squints at him. “... Yyyes.”

             Two hours later, Ethan intercepts him on his way from the kitchen to the workshop and all but drags him to their room.

🔦

             Breakfast the next morning is a rather tense affair. Lady Dimitrescu, now half a foot taller than the already imposing six feet she’d been yesterday, doesn’t comment on the condition of the kitchenette or the food, but it’s painfully clear that she wants to.

             Karl very considerately provides her with a flask of soldat blood - ew - which she wrinkles her nose at, but accepts. Ethan makes a point of not looking at her as she sips it. Instead, he focuses on his own plate, or steals glances at Karl when he thinks he can get away with it.

             Immediately after breakfast, they head back to the revival chamber. Now that they’ve already started, Karl seems to want all his siblings up and active as soon as possible. There’s a strong possibility he’s just looking forward to it being over so he never has to see them again.

             “You still haven’t proven to me that my daughters are safe,” Lady Dimitrescu complains as Karl sets the crystallized Donna in position.

             “They’re with the Duke,” Ethan says. He’s not sure how readily she’ll accept this, but she calms down and takes a seat with impressive patience.

             Karl, meanwhile, finishes arranging the gathered flowers around Donna, then summons a huge piece of steel wool and allows it to scrub his clothing and skin ruthlessly, probably taking off a layer of skin along with the residual pollen.

             “Doesn’t that hurt like hell?”

             “Eh, what’s a little pain in the name of decontamination?” Karl says nonchalantly, scrapes and scratches from the cloud of metal healing all over his face. “I’ve had worse.”

             “That doesn’t make me feel better.” Ethan eyes the arrangement critically. “Are we spending the whole day here, or…?”

             “Well, since the plan went to shit when Alcina took her little blood bath, I think it’s safe to say I am. Feel free to leave, though.” Karl shoots Lady Dimitrescu a dirty look. “Not you.”

             “I have no interest in spending any more time in your disgusting factory than necessary,” Lady Dimitrescu says snootily.

             “Good, I don’t trust you around my machines anyway.”

             “The machines you always cared more for than you did for your own family? I’d sooner live with Salvatore in his shack than touch one of those damned contraptions!”

             “At least I don’t play with my food like some kind of shameless ”

             Ethan thinks fondly of his sister and their own petty squabbles, and is very glad they’ve never been this bad. “I’m just gonna go get a book,” he says uncomfortably. “Uh. Bye.”

             He escapes to the solitude of the factory and may or may not accidentally-on-purpose get lost to stall for time. Eventually, though, the possibility of one lord killing the other drives him back to the revival chamber.

             Surprisingly, they’re both calm. Glaring fiercely at each other and not saying a word, but calm. Thank God.

             It doesn’t last forever, of course. A couple of hours pass in obstinate silence, during which small shards of translucent crystal begin pushing their way out of Donna’s relatively smooth surface, before Lady Dimitrescu folds her hands neatly in her lap and says, “As long as we’re here, you might as well tell me what you want of me.” Her voice is cold and clipped.

             “Fine,” Karl says bluntly. “What we want is for you to join our rebellion. My soldats will take care of the lycans and Mold, Ethan’s American friends will blow up the Black God, and you, me, and Ethan will kill Miranda. In exchange, you’ll get your girls back. And you can find somewhere less shitty to live.”

             “Mother Miranda made me a goddess,” Lady Dimitrescu objects in no uncertain terms. “She gave me eternal beauty, loving daughters, a castle and dominion over everyone in it. She gave me power. Why should I throw it all away for you?”

             “Get the rose petals out of your eyes and look around!” Karl snaps. “You see daughters, a castle, power anywhere? All of it is GONE.”

             Lady Dimitrescu’s grey eyes flare with tempered anger. She rises to her feet, fingers flexing at her sides. “And whose fault is that.”

             “She didn’t respect you,” Ethan says.

             Both lords look at him. Karl’s forehead scrunches in a question, while Lady Dimitrescu looks taken aback.

             “She gave you gifts, but it wasn’t because she cared.” Ethan stands up as well, setting the book aside. “Look, Alcina - can I call you that?”

             “With respect,” the lady says through gritted teeth.

              “Lady Alcina,” Ethan amends. “You know why Miranda gave you the Cadou, right? She wanted to create the perfect body for her daughter to live in. Same with the girls. She gave you the idea to experiment on them, didn’t she?”

             Silence.

             “You were just a tool to her. A living, thinking tool that she kept comfortable with luxury and pretend family to make sure you stayed loyal. What do you think she would do if she got her real daughter back? Would she still want you around?”

             Alcina’s face grows composed. Rather than appearing thoughtful, it gives the impression of ice over turbulent water. “My decision stands.”

             “Fine by me,” Karl says with an obnoxious shrug. Inclining his head sarcastically at the other lord, he saunters over to Donna to check on her progress.

             The new growth has built up in enough layers that the crystal’s original form is almost distorted beyond recognition. It’s nearly doubled its size, and is beginning to look like a slightly moldy egg, albeit a lumpy one.

            “She’s really givin’er,” Ethan mumbles. At this rate, Donna will be awake in half the time it took Alcina.

             Sure enough, the crystal is roughly the width of a tire by midafternoon. It’s much longer, to the point where Karl has to tip it onto its side so it doesn’t fall over. Ethan considers helping, but remembers the airborne pollen in the nick of time and leaves it alone.

             It grows a little more, then starts shedding chunks at irregular intervals. This is the part where the statue hatches like a giant cocoon, leaving its occupant looking like she got dipped in ice and left outside to freeze. It was already creepy with Alcina; seeing Donna’s porcelain features half-hidden behind her disheveled veil gradually emerge from the rubble, shiny with a thin layer of crystal that begins cracking and falling off as they watch, is pure nightmare fuel.

             The process speeds up when Donna shifts slightly. Finally, the last few shards join their brethren in a heap on the floor, leaving a much less ghoulish-looking lord shivering on the floor on her back.

             Ethan holds his breath as Donna gasps and opens her eyes.

             And Karl’s eyes go wide and glassy.

Chapter Text

             It happens in the span of seconds. The last shards of crystal fall to the floor. Donna inhales sharply, her first breath in well over a fortnight. And all the lights go out.

             Karl instinctively reaches out to send electricity back into the system - and nothing happens. In the time it takes him to realize he can’t feel the subtle, ever-present buzz of his Cadou anymore, a single light blinks back on overhead.

             He’s completely alone.

             “Ethan?” Karl calls into the gloom, apprehension tying his organs in complex knots. His voice echoes wetly - why is it wet in here all of a sudden? - off the walls he can’t see anymore, and the light flickers ominously. Then one of the shadows moves.

             “ETHAN!” It’s not Ethan. He knows it isn’t, even if the reason why is fading quickly from his mind. All he knows is that something is horribly wrong, and he needs to know Ethan is okay.

             A low chuckle rises from the shadows. Karl’s blood runs cold.

             “Heisenberg,” Mother Miranda breathes, stepping out of the darkness. It clings to her wings and trails her every move like some tangible material. Shapes move within its murky depths.

             Karl swears in German and tries to electrify his skin. He can’t do her any damage, he never could, but by God, he refuses to go down without hurting her too.

             Nothing. There’s no electricity running through his veins. Never has been. Why did he think there was?

             “S-stay away from me,” he gasps.

             Miranda pauses. In the wildly flickering light, she looks unreal, cold and statuesque and wholly unnatural. “Mind your tongue.” Behind her, more shadowy silhouettes form. Teeth and eyes glint where the light catches them.

             Words wither and die on Karl’s tongue. She sees him. She sees him. He can’t fight her. He can’t even run.

             She’s looming over him now, far too tall. Has she grown, or is he smaller? Her face is blank, her eyes mercilessly empty as she looks down on him.

             Karl shrinks away from her, stomach clenching, breath coming too short. He’s smaller, he knows it. He’s young again and only a tiny, trembling thing with no one to run to, and there is nothing he can do to protect himself from this cold, terrifying woman who calls herself Mother.

             She’s reaching for him now. “Come, little lord,” she says, and her voice is a knife veiled in soft tones. Her face briefly flickers, becoming that of a little boy before shifting back to her own. “Your family is waiting.”

             His family isn’t waiting. His family is dead. She’s talking about her monsters, the dark shapes that lurk behind her, barely visible but so grotesquely inhuman even though they can’t be seen clearly. Karl takes a step back, jaw working furiously to make the sounds that won’t come. All he can do is shake his head in terror.

             “Don’t fight me, child. You have so much potential. Wouldn’t it be a shame to waste it?” A blade twists itself into existence in her right hand, a lump of something dark and foul writhes in her left.

             Karl’s insides writhe along with it. One of those... things is already in him, he realizes. He’s already part-way to being a monster too. “N-no,” he manages through chattering teeth.

             Miranda tilts her head to regard him with those empty eyes, lifeless as a doll’s behind her mask, and advances on him.

             Like a doll’s…

             “Donna,” Karl gasps. He backs away from the reaching hands - illusion or not, the fabricated horror will harm him - and tries again. “Donna- please-”

             His ankle turns, his palms sting as they take the brunt of the fall. He scrabbles backward, desperate. Either he is shrinking or Miranda’s growing, her face splits into a leering maw of jagged black fangs, and he’s screaming, he’s screaming the words he can barely hear through his roaring heartbeat, “PLEASE DONNA STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT STOP-”

             And then it’s over. Karl comes back to himself gasping for air and sickened to his core. His throat is hoarse.

             “Karl,” Donna’s voice whispers. “What have you become?”

             Karl takes a deep, shuddering breath and lowers the arm he’d thrown up to protect himself. “What have I become?” he snaps. “What about you, huh? You’re the one going crazy on me!” Behind him, hands grip his shoulders reassuringly. Ethan.

             Donna’s face is mostly invisible behind her veil, but he still catches the suspicious look she gives him. “I’ve never been able to influence you before.”

             “Yeah, well, you’ve never been calcified, have you?” Karl stands up. His legs don’t feel up to the task but he’ll be damned if he stays down like a scolded mutt. Ethan rises with him and moves to stand beside him. “I’m still a lord and you’re still a deranged witch.” So much for things being different this time around.

             A hand seizes his wrist. “Prove it,” Alcina says, eyes narrowed, and slashes his wrist with a barely-visible claw before he can pull away. She makes a face as she sucks the blood from the cut. “Have you never washed your hands?”

             “Fuck off,” Karl growls, snatching it back.

             Alcina arches an eyebrow at him. Then her expression changes. “You are different. Such exquisite overtones... but still a lord. What happened to you?”

             Thankfully, Ethan speaks up. He looks pissed. “I’d be more worried about what’s happening now,” he says firmly, almost aggressively. “We’re taking down Miranda. You can either join us or be killed here and now. Permanently.”

             Alcina laughs. “And how do you propose you do that?” she asks, examining her nails with exaggerated nonchalance. “I seem to recall you struggling a great deal to survive even one of us.”

             Ethan doesn’t back down. “In your domain, with no supplies and nowhere safe to rest? Sure. But here? You’re out of your element and weak from reviving. I, on the other hand, am in better shape than I was when I first got here. I’ve had time to sleep and heal, I know your strengths and weaknesses, and I’m allied with a man who could weaponize this entire factory in a heartbeat. Still like those odds?”

             Karl rattles the walls for emphasis. Bits of scrap metal and debris swirl through the air, and if one or two of them hit Alcina as they orbit him, well, he’s not complaining.

             “Bold words, man-thing,” Alcina purrs. “Do you think a pair of rats can slay the dragon and the spider?” She flicks her fingers meaningfully.

             “Where’s Angie?” Donna whispers. Karl feels unexpectedly sorry for her once more. As far as he can remember, she’s never spoken so much without her demon doll acting as the middleman.

             “I have her,” he says, picking the doll up from where he’d left it on the table and holding it out in a kind of unspoken apology.

             Donna snatches it from him and hugs it to her chest. Her veil slips as she moves, revealing the rest of her face. The abscess over her right eye has deflated back into a salmon patch. “Thank you.”

             Seeing her sitting there, legs tucked under her and arms clutching her doll like a scared toddler, clears away the last of Karl’s defensive anger. “You panicked, didn’t you? That wasn’t your fault.”

             Donna nods, eyes downcast in shame.

             “Okay.” Karl blows air between his lips. “Look. Miranda gave you the Cadou because she thought you could be a host for her daughter. Then she used you as a test to see if Ethan could be her next lord. She doesn’t care about you or any of us at all.”

             “I know.”

             “So we’re going to-” Karl stops. “I’m sorry. You know?”

             “She never visited,” Donna whispers. “She made me and called me Eva and left when I wasn’t enough.” She hesitates. “She hurt me until I killed the people I loved.”

             Ethan looks shocked and horrified. Karl thinks of how quiet Angie was at the meeting following Claudia’s death, how both she and Donna had avoided Miranda to the best of their ability, and wants to snap something. Preferably Miranda’s self-aggrandizing headdress. Alcina just looks marginally sympathetic.

             “We’re going to take her down,” Karl says. “Help us kill her and you’ll be free. No more death.”

              “Mostly free,” Ethan cuts in quickly. He holds up a hand as Alcina puffs up indignantly. “You won’t be locked up or anything, but you’ll have to be careful not to catch too many people’s attention. And no killing or torturing people.”

             Karl takes it from there. “Ethan’s got friends willing to give us protection if we promise to behave. They’re running a town in America where we won’t have to hide our mutations.” It sounds a little too much like their own village for his taste, but what other options do they have? Alcina is a giant woman and Moreau isn’t exactly easy to overlook on his best day.

             Predictably, Alcina’s expression remains sour. But Donna’s eyes widen and she lifts her head. “Can I bring my dolls?” she asks hopefully.

             “Uh,” says Karl.

             “Probably?” says Ethan.

             Donna worries Angie’s overskirt between her fingers. “I will help you,” she decides after some thought, settling the doll in the crook of her arm.

             The words send all the worry Karl hadn’t even known he’d been carrying rushing out of him in a breathless chuckle. Without stopping to think about it, he clasps Donna’s hands in his own and pulls her smoothly to her feet, grinning elatedly. “Wonderful!”

             It takes a soft sigh from beside him to draw his attention away from the light entering her eyes. He glances at Ethan, startled, to find the other man watching him with a fond smile. Heat pools in his stomach, and for a moment he forgets how to breathe.

             Suddenly self-conscious, Karl releases Donna and fumbles for something natural to do with his hands. He ends up with one in his pocket and the other rubbing the back of his neck. Great. “Uh. Guess we should get Moreau going now. Unless you’ve made up your mind?” he inquires of Alcina.

             “Convince Salvatore and we’ll see,” she says archly, but there’s a strange tinge of humour colouring her demeanour.

             “I regret buying back your corpse more every time you open your mouth.”

⚙️

             They wait until the next day to pour water over the calcified Moreau and wait for him to awaken. Donna amuses herself with a freshly animated Angie while Ethan sketches and Karl and Alcina (now over seven feet tall) face off in a very competitive game of chess. The Duke stops by to provide a hearty lunch, before deciding to stick around and wait with them.

             Moreau takes even less time to reform than Donna did. Evidence that the speed of revival is directly proportional to elapsed time since death?

             There isn’t a lot of time to speculate, because there’s now a giant fish-salamander creature uncontrollably spewing enzyme colonies all over Karl’s floor. He is very glad they didn’t do this within the complex.

             It takes all three lords plus the Duke to calm Moreau down enough to return to his less monstrous form. “Are you done?” Karl demands as the flying slime dies down.

             Moreau slowly relaxes from his fighting stance. “Where… am I in your factory?” he asks dazedly. “Last I remember, I was fighting- YOU!” His face twists in a snarl upon spotting Ethan.

             “Easy.” Karl puts himself between the two, ignoring the apprehension twisting in his gut. “Nobody’s fighting anyone right now.” Moreau still looks mutinous, so he raises his voice and announces, “I’m calling a Meeting of the Lords.”

             “Finally, some common sense,” Alcina murmurs scathingly.

             Karl ignores her too. True, he could - and should - have invoked the Meeting rules much earlier, but he didn’t have time, now, did he? “We need to talk about Miranda.”

             “You’re not ugly anymore,” Angie shrieks.

             Or that.

             Rather than taking offense, Moreau looks down at himself. His confusion immediately morphs into wonder. “So I am,” he says, rotating his arms in front of him.

             It’s true. His limbs, once bony and discoloured, have regained a healthy amount of muscle. The hunch has disappeared from his back, the fleshy lumps from his neck. His face has lost its flattened, fishlike shape. Though Karl has never seen pictures of him from before Miranda’s experiments, it’s obvious that this is Moreau at his most human.

              If revival did this to him… what would it do to me?

             “Don’t get your hopes up,” Alcina says in a bored voice. “The effects are very temporary.” One of Donna’s hands creeps up to touch her veil, once again covering her face.

             “Oh.” Moreau’s face falls. He looks at Karl. “Why are you calling a Meeting? You hate Meetings.”

             “Business proposal for ya.”

             The suspicion evident on his “brother’s” face is justified, Karl will admit. Their history hasn’t been a smooth one. “I’m listening,” he says carefully.

             “It’s regarding Mother Miranda.” This is the dangerous part.

             “Oh! Are we doing something nice for Mother?” Moreau asks. Too much excitement. That’s a bad sign.

             “... No,” Ethan says, to which Karl is unbelievably grateful. “See… she’s not your mother at all. And she was just using you to test my strength. So we’re not exactly in the mood to throw her a surprise party.” 

             Moreau’s eyes narrow.

             “Come on, Moreau.” Karl’s frustration bubbles up, along with his concern about how sharp the usually dopey lord’s gaze is. “You’re a smart man, when you’re not being a moron. Use that brain for once. Miranda never loved anything but her blasted Eva. Do you think she’ll keep any of us around if she gets her back?”

             “We were just her test subjects,” Donna says softly.

             “She’s been in control all this time. Now it’s our turn to control our own lives and take her down.” Karl holds out his hand. “What do you say?”

             Moreau backs away from him. “I-I need to think.” He shakes his head, thick black brows drawn together in concentration. “The mutations clouded my brain for so long… have I never questioned Mother Miranda this whole time?”

             “You were her biggest fan,” Ethan says. “It was kind of sad.”

             “I thought she was an incredible physician, when she came to me. Said she’d teach me groundbreaking new procedures to help my patients.” He shakes his head ruefully. “I bought it hook, line, and sinker, huh?”

             “You can pay her back for that,” Karl offers matter-of-factly.

             Moreau gives him a long look. Then he grabs his hand and gives it a firm shake. “It’s about time I earned some respect around here. So what’s the plan?”

             “Take it easy, fishstick.” Karl grins. “Let’s get you a shirt first.”

Chapter Text

             Ethan was expecting Moreau to be fully human again when he came to. He was not expecting him to be kind of handsome. So yes, he’s a little distracted during the meeting.

             Here’s the thing. While Moreau does have an earnest, Hardworking Villager-type appeal, Ethan’s interest is entirely based on genuine curiosity. It’s hard to match the athletic build and approachable face with the staggering, bloated creature he’d been before death. His voice is different too. He sounds so levelheaded.

             Under different circumstances, it would be so easy not to question him and Karl being good friends.

             “No need to worry about that,” Karl says, regaining Ethan’s attention. “Ethan dealt with them.”

             Alcina sniffs. “I don’t suppose you spared my experiments either.”

             “Not a one.”

             Right. They’re discussing the number of monsters they’ll be fighting. He should listen more carefully.

             “I’ll be level with you, Heisenberg,” Moreau interjects. “I don’t see how big a help I’ll be. Dry land isn’t where I do my best work.”

             “Like a fish out of water,” Angie snickers.

             Okay, now that there’s no taunting and threats of death to work around, Ethan’s starting to enjoy this kooky doll’s tendency to blurt out the things he has just enough of a filter to keep him from saying himself.

             “That’s a problem, Angie.”

             Angie subsides, muttering grumpily about a distinct lack of tea at this party.

             “Not when you were fighting me,” Ethan remembers. “You almost killed me with that acid stunt.”

             “True.” Moreau taps his fingers on his arm. “Provided I have a body of water to change my shape in, I should be able to enter my final form on land. My main concern is whether or not it’ll last long enough. You know how poor my control is.”

             “Every contribution helps,” Karl says generously.

             Ethan frowns. “If you can’t control yourself that well, how do we make sure we don’t get burned along with everyone else? We’re fighting in a fucking factory.”

             “Not for long.” A grim expression steals the glint from Karl’s eyes. “The second things get ugly, I’m tearing the place apart. Might’s well go out with a bang, right?”

             “But… Karl. You spent your whole life here.” Depressing as the factory is, there’s a certain air of safety to it that Ethan has come to appreciate. It’s Karl’s home. Not to mention the place where every memory he has of his past life is kept.

             “Relax, papa,” Karl says with forced amusement. “I’ve got everything important nice and safe behind reinforced concrete walls. Not that it’ll matter if we fail.”

             “None of you are prepared for this, are you?” Alcina pipes up oh-so-helpfully.

             “Shut up, Alcina,” all three lords plus Ethan chorus in matching tones of irritation. Angie practically screams the words.

             “Alright, so what role will he play?” Moreau asks the question seriously, without a hint of disrespect. His chin-length hair sways as he nods at Ethan.

             Karl raises both eyebrows. “Why don’t you ask him that?”

             “Nothing specific,” Ethan says, caught off guard. “I’ll do whatever it takes. Doesn’t matter what that means.” He shrugs at Karl. “Thanks for thinking of me, but I really don’t have anything more than that. You’re the strategist.”

             “I’m not going to order you all around like Miranda,” Karl objects. His lip curls at her name.

             “So don’t.” Ethan lets the corners of his mouth turn up in a tiny smile as he indicates the room, proud on his friend’s behalf for loosening his grip on control. “Instruct us. Just because you’re the leader doesn’t mean you have to be anything like her.” He wants to say something about Uriaș’s leadership skills running in the family, but it seems cruel to bring him up without good reason.

             “Alright,” Karl says slowly. “If that’s what you want.”

             Nods all around. Alcina, the only exception, looks like she’s contemplating whether or not to believe what she’s witnessing.

             “In that case… Ethan, you’ll be the jack-of-all-trades. Retrieving the other flasks takes priority, obviously. Once you have the flasks, we can entrust them to the Duke for protection. Other than that, communication with Redfield, scouting, any form of fighting you’re ready for, all that falls to you.”

             Ethan considers the responsibilities he’s been assigned. It’s essentially what he’s been doing thus far, only with higher stakes. While it doesn’t sound like a lot, he can tell Karl’s placed a lot more importance on those tasks than he lets on. “I can do that.”

             “Donna, I need your skills to offset Miranda’s army,” Karl goes on, turning to her. “Your pollen still affects lycans, right?”

             Donna nods. “We experimented with Sal’s giant puppies once,” Angie chirps. “Miranda wanted to see if we could make them think they were human again.”

             “Great. We’ll have to transplant a fuckton of flowers in the surrounding area. When they come, you hit them with everything you’ve got, alright?”

             “I won’t let you down,” Donna says softly.

             “We still need to solve the acid problem, Heisenberg,” Moreau reminds sensibly.

             Karl looks at him for a moment, then quirks one side of his mouth up in a crooked grin. “We’re conspiring to kill our surrogate mother together. I think we’re on a first name basis, Salvatore.”

             There’s a brief lull. Ethan is fully unprepared for the sudden energy with which Moreau - Salvatore - lights up and throws his arms around his “brother”. “I missed you, Karl!”

             “Yeah, yeah,” Karl says, awkwardly patting his arm. “Love you too. Moron.” He looks like someone just handed him something he was too insecure to ask for and is now trying to act like he doesn’t care.

             Ethan remembers his distress at dreaming of the other lords’ deaths, how his face glowed with joy as he looked at Donna and held her hands, and thinks that maybe there’s some hope for this ill-cobbled family yet.

             “There’s not a lot we can do about who gets sprayed.” Karl adjusts his hat as Salvatore reluctantly lets go and steps back. “Our best bet is to place you on the frontlines. So long as no friendlies are out there, you can use that acid rain of yours to clear out as many lycans as possible. After that, stick to trampling lycans and targeted spitting. Aim for mold shoots and any other nasties we miss.”

             Salvatore nods seriously.

             “I’ll take Miranda,” Karl concludes. “Out of the three of us, my powers are best-suited for one-on-one combat. If you can find a way to give me the advantage, do it. But unless there’s no way I can continue fighting, she is not your priority. Got it?”

             “And what do you propose I do?” Alcina asks dryly.

             “Drink tea with the Duke and bitch about your wrecked castle. What else? You’ve hardly done anything else since we welcomed you back to the world of the living-”

             Alcina silences him with a finger against his lips. “You can’t be serious. I refuse to laze around while you meet what you undoubtedly consider a hero’s end in the name of pointless bullheadedness. Let me speak, you fool,” she snaps as Karl opens his mouth again. “You clearly need someone with a good head on her shoulders to keep you from dying. Besides, if you fail, the secret to reviving my daughters is gone forever.” Her eyes narrow dangerously. “Discarding them like they’re nothing was Miranda’s first mistake.”

             Karl stares at her, confounded. Then he grins. “Can you keep that in mind while tearing Miranda apart?”

             “I can certainly try.”

             “Splendid. You’re with me, then.”

             And that concludes Ethan’s first family gathering with the lords.

Chapter Text

             “You want me to what,” says Ethan.

             “You heard me. Transplanting will take much less time if we do it this way. Besides, it’s not going to harm you.” Karl glances at Donna for confirmation. She nods.

             Ethan groans. “When you said “jack-of-all-trades”, I thought you meant creative liberty on the battlefield. Not swallowing mutant flowers and swimming through the dirt around the factory.”

             “And pooping the flowers out,” Angie adds gleefully. “I love this plan.”

             “Untrue,” Karl says. “You’re technically absorbing them, not eating them. And Angie? No. Just no.”

             “You’re no fun.” On that scathing note, the doll goes back to scribbling illegible battle plans and cackling to herself. Watching her, Ethan has to wonder if she’s using the hallucination pollen to create the illusion of colour in her drawings. He can’t imagine where or how she found markers around here.

             They’ve moved on from discussing their plans for the revolution to discussing their plans for the remainder of the day. The atmosphere is markedly lighter when they’re sitting around the kitchen table with the exception of Angie, who’s propped up on her elbows on the floor as she colours, and Salvatore, who volunteered to do the dishes and has since refused every offer of help. Donna is mending the stab holes in her veil, Alcina is tapping her fingernails idly against the tabletop, and Karl’s having a smoke.

             Ethan, meanwhile, pushes away from the table and starts pacing. Nothing against Donna - she’s pretty cool now that they’re on the same side - but her house is not somewhere he wants to visit ever again. He’s pretty sure if he thinks too hard about that place, he’ll throw up.

             The thing with the flowers isn’t helping.

             “I understand your hesitation,” Karl tells him apologetically. “But there’s no other way. Nobody else can get there and back without risking Miranda’s suspicion if spotted.”

             “That didn’t stop you.”

             Karl fidgets guiltily. “I need to stay back for other reasons.”

             “You’re scared shitless of that place too,” Ethan guesses. “Uh. No offense.”

             “None taken,” Donna says.

             “No! Well, yes. But that’s not… It’s complicated.” Ninety-year-old revolutionaries aren’t technically supposed to have functional puppy dog eyes. But the pleading look Karl sends his way comes pretty damn close. “I’m not just dumping the shit I don’t want to do on you, I promise.”

             Well, that’s just not fair. Ethan gives in. “I want an explanation when I get back.”

             “You’ll have it.”

             “I could give you a ride if you like,” the Duke offers, blurring into existence and startling Salvatore into dropping a spoon.

             Karl and Ethan stare at him. Then they look at each other. “Why didn’t we think of that sooner?” Ethan says to no one in particular.

             The Duke folds his hands over his stomach. “I was just about to offer when Heisenberg ran off.”

             All eyes turn to Karl, who blushes. “Shut up.”

             “Great, so why can’t Duke do it himself?” Ethan asks quickly, sensing that somehow he’s to blame for Karl’s behaviour the other day. Maybe it’s the way Karl refuses to look at him.

             “I cannot leave my carriage, Mr. Winters.” The Duke says it patiently, as though this is something Ethan should know by now.

             “Oh.”

             He gets an indulgent nod for that. “However, I will gladly escort you to and from Miss Beneviento’s mansion. Just say the word.”

             “Okay,” Ethan says slowly. “Yeah, sounds good. So we just… magically appear in the mansion, I absorb all the flowers, and we disappear again?”

             “There is another way,” Donna whispers before Karl can answer. Angie scuttles over to her and raises her arms in an unspoken request to be picked up.

             A fraction of a second of silence.

             “Oh no,” Karl barks. “Absolutely not. We are NOT going through that again. Sal, back me up on this.”

             “What are you talking about?” Ethan asks, alarmed.

             Karl actually growls. “She tried entering final form for Miranda once. It almost killed her.” He aims the words at Donna like a weapon.

              “Neither of you can tolerate the strain for long,” Salvatore points out reasonably.

             “I can handle it better than she can, don’t forget.” Karl stubs out his cigar on the table with a lot more force than necessary. “The long and short of it is, you won’t do shit for the cause if you keel over before the fighting even starts.”

             “I’ve grown stronger,” Donna says stubbornly.

             In her arms, Angie nods vigorously. “It’s true! We’ve been practicing!”

             Karl stares at her, then slams his fist into the table and stalks out of the room with a bona fide snarl. The door slamming shut behind him resonates for an unnaturally long moment before fading.

              “Men,” Alcina murmurs exasperatedly.

             “Don’t lump me into this.” Ethan gently lifts the mockingbird - he’s decided to call her Vinietă, the Romanian word for “flower” - from his shoulder and pets her head with a finger. “He’s just being overprotective.”

             “Ah, right, because you didn’t practically bite our heads off when Karl was screaming at empty air.” Her sarcasm is rife with amusement.

             It’s Ethan’s turn to go red and mutter something unintelligible.

             “Oh?” Salvatore says, turning away from the sink. “First I’m hearing about this.”

             “’S nothing,” Ethan mumbles.

             “Is not.” Angie giggles wickedly. “They’re in loOoOove. And they’re gonna get married and kiss lots and-”

             “What the fuck, Angie?” You could fry an egg on Ethan’s face. He looks around the kitchen, embarrassed beyond belief.

             Donna has one hand over Angie’s mouth and one over her own, whether to hide a titter or a shocked gasp, he can’t tell. Salvatore looks more thoughtful than anything else. Alcina is openly smirking.

             “Our baby brother has had quite the eventful month,” the vampiress says, her voice practically a purr. “Isn’t that right, Ethan?”

             “Keep it down!” Ethan hisses.

             “I didn’t want to say anything, but Karl has always seemed a little… eccentric that way,” Salvatore muses. He raises both hands in a pacifying gesture as Ethan shoots him a warning look. “Hey, I’m not judging. Love is love is love.”

             “I thought everyone around here was homophobic,” is all Ethan can think to say in response to this unexpected support.

             Alcina waves the statement away. “That idiot has been actively isolating himself for the past fifty years, of course he’d lead you to believe that. Surely you’ve noticed we’re not a strictly heterosexual lot.”

             “Well, no, but you killed everyone.”

             “Fair,” Salvatore mumbles.

             Ethan cradles his head in his hands, a dull throbbing building up behind his eyes. Things have officially gone off-the-rails weird. The LGBT community is alive and well in an otherwise dead village. He’s been called out by a doll. All that’s left is for Miranda and Chris to show up and announce their engagement, and the madness is complete. “Anything else y’all want to tell me? Just get it out in the open before we all go gallivanting off to kill Miranda or die in the process? Donna?”

             “I was born male,” Donna offers.

             “Cool. I was joking, but cool. She/her pronouns, right?”

             “Yes,” says Donna.

             “Cool. Again.” He lifts his head to address the Duke. “Ready to leave now.”

             The Duke smiles and beckons him closer. “Right this way.” Behind him, the carriage shimmers into view, its interior enticingly hidden from view. Ethan climbs in without hesitation.

             He’s fully aware that he’s running away from the conversation.

             He’s also fully aware that he really doesn’t want to be here anymore.

⚙️

             “Hey Salvatore?” Karl hates how uncertain his voice comes out. He’s Lord fucking Heisenberg, for Christ’s sake. He has confidence for days.

             Salvatore looks up from the book he’s borrowed from Karl’s shelf. “Yes?”

             This should not be so hard. Why is this so hard? “I… need your help. Regarding a medical issue.”

             “Do you need me to take a look at it?” Salvatore asks, setting the book aside and getting up. “I can’t promise a solution, but diagnosing the problem shouldn’t be a problem. How serious an issue are we talking?”

             Karl fidgets with his necklaces. “I’d rather not talk about it outside of an operating room.”

             The other lord rather understandably looks more concerned, but doesn’t question it. He follows Karl to the nearest operating room, then has him sit down to talk. “Do you know what the problem is, or…?”

             “I can describe the symptoms. That’s it.”

             “Let’s start with that.” Salvatore leans against the wall and folds his arms, dark eyes bright with concern.

             The concern evolves into thoughtfulness over the next ten minutes. Karl describes the psychological breakthroughs of the past few weeks, his newfound sensitivity to body heat, everything but his attraction to Ethan. When he’s finished, Salvatore takes some time to process the new information before nodding slowly. “Alright. I’d like to take a look at your Cadou, if you’re comfortable with that.” Karl nods. “Your accelerated healing is still in effect, I take it?”

             “Near as I can tell.” He very carefully doesn’t look as Salvatore locates and sterilizes a scalpel (probably stolen from his own lab decades ago), then sets to work reopening the scar over his implant. The pain doesn’t bother him much, but the memories that arise regarding his last laparotomy are… unpleasant.

              An unfamiliar woman in a lab coat, blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, scalpel in hand.

              The haze of sedatives giving way to the sensation of raw, burning agony.

             “It seems healthy,” Salvatore notes. “The tendrils appear to have retreated a bit. Have you experienced any pain without causation?”

              His own voice whimpering, words slurred by drugs and pain. “None.”

             “Hmm. Has anything prominent changed in your personal life? Sleep schedule, diet, physical activity…?”

             “I’ve been sleeping more,” Karl says. “And eating regularly. Different food, too. Physically, nothing’s changed.” He pauses, remembering something. “Except I’ve been spending a lot of time in close quarters with Ethan. I thought maybe my Cadou was reacting to the Mold in his system, but there wasn’t any evidence to back up that theory. After the first night, I had a violent psychological reaction, and then it just sort of… hung around.”

             “Huh.” Salvatore peers at the nematode more closely. “Alright… What happened during that time?”

             “I don’t know,” Karl says grumpily. “I was unconscious. Sturm collapsed on me with blades still going. According to Ethan, he carried me out of the lower levels, treated and bandaged my wounds, and then had me sleep it off.”

             “And spent the night in the same bed as you.”

             Strange. Karl never told him that detail. “That’s some guess.”

             “It’s an educated guess,” Salvatore corrects. “From what you’ve told me, and from the state of your Cadou, it looks like you’re partially correct.”

             “So it is a reaction to Ethan’s Mold.”

             “Sort of. The Mold definitely had a part in it, but that seems to be less of a catalyst and more of an amplifier. Your body came into contact with a foreign element and adapted, like the Megamycete has always done. Especially since you were injured at the time.”

             “Wait, so what did I adapt to?” Karl asks, beyond confused.

             Salvatore gives him a weird half-smile. “It looks like your Cadou responded to the host.”

Chapter Text

             The wagon is still gone when they rejoin the other lords in the kitchen, Karl rubbing his freshly cauterized and bandaged chest distractedly. He can’t say he’s surprised; there are a lot of flowers to collect, which will require a foray into the woods for sure.

             “When are we going to do something about my daughters?” Alcina demands impatiently.

             Karl sighs. He’s too tired for this. “As soon as they get back from the Beneviento estate. Duke’s got all three in his wagon still.”

             “And you’re sure they will be returned to me unharmed.”

             “There might be some mutation setbacks, but they’ll be fine. Trust me.” Honestly, he’s not sure why they didn’t get the girls started on the revival process before sending the Duke and Ethan out to pick flowers. Possibly Past Karl thought it’d be better not to let Alcina get distracted.

             Past Karl is a fucking hypocrite.

             “Now what?” Angie asks.

             “Hell if I know. Just try not to break anything.”

             “But that’s booorinnnggg,” Angie whines. “Show me the weapons! Bring out the big guns! THIS IS A WAR, PEOPLE!”

             “I don’t trust you with anything even remotely resembling a weapon,” Karl says flatly.

             Angie very maturely sticks out her tongue at him. Except she doesn’t have a tongue and therefore employs the next best thing - a tendril of her Cadou.

             “Put that back in your head.”

             “Neh.”

             Karl considers holding her up by the “tongue” and giving her a little shake. “Okay, fine. If I make some toys for you, will you shut up for five minutes?”

             Angie responds with a victorious screech that sounds like a filmmaker’s best approximation of a velociraptor.

             “I wasn’t going to say anything earlier, but Donna, I think you need an exorcist,” Salvatore says half-jokingly.

             “I agree.” Alcina’s eyebrows have practically merged with her hairline as she stares at the doll with head tilted and lips pressed in a thin line.

             Donna just shrugs composedly and goes back to her needlework.

             “TOYS! TOYS! TOYS! TOYS!” Angie chants, bobbing around Karl and pumping her fists.

              I regret this already, Karl thinks grumpily. “Alright, alright. Hold your damn horses.” He probes the surrounding factory for already-completed toys and calls them into the room in a parade of miniature animals, animate figurines, and vehicle models. (Maybe he adds a little pizzazz to show off to his siblings. Maybe their faces, ranging from amused to admiring, make him feel warm and bright inside. No one will ever know.)

             Angie, absolutely delighted with this turn of events, insists he help her direct her new playthings into a war of epic and quite frankly disturbing proportions that somehow manages to include court intrigue, highly improbable natural disasters, and at least three instances of starcrossed lovers dying tragically in various ways. Eventually, she ropes first Salvatore, then (shockingly) Alcina, into her game as well.

             It’s a relief when Karl finally escapes to the safety of his workshop under the excuse of needing to work on something crucial to the revolution. Angie’s laughter still rings in his ears as he tries to lose himself in the soothing task of repairing Ethan’s busted communicator.

             Which leads him right back to Salvatore’s diagnosis and complementary explanation. He really needs to mull that one over, he’ll be honest.

             Nothing really makes sense around here on the best of days. Hell, even the science behind his work has its lapses in logic. But a Cadou regression in response to a single night of prolonged physical contact?

             And now the suspicion that he may have absorbed some of Ethan’s spores, leading to him developing something of an attunement to the conditions caused by Ethan’s proximity - namely body heat, the release of hormones on both ends, adjusted spatial awareness, and the activation of the vagus nerve, as characterized by his interactions with Ethan.

             In other words, spending just a little too much time cozied up with another person triggered a change in mutation in order to better communicate - and benefit from communication - with others.

             It doesn’t make sense. None of this makes sense. Overnight evolution shouldn’t be possible!

             Then again, he shouldn’t be able to move metal with his mind either. It all ties in to Salvatore’s theory that their mutations are intrinsically connected to the elements of their surroundings. Whereas Ethan’s mutations, and likely Rose’s by default, seem to have stabilized long ago.

             Lucky bastard.

             Well, that’s the communicator done. He tinkers with it a little more than necessary, letting his power spill out as it will. There’s currently nothing breakable around him; why not let loose? The gentle ebb and flow of the currents running through him does wonders to soothe both mental and physical tension.

             Pity he won’t be able to do this anymore, when he’s out in the world. He’s sure as hell not going to spend forever hiding away in yet another village where nobody’s normal. Redfield did mention that travel restrictions will ease after the first few years, once the BSAA have put the Megamycete out of mind, and he has every intention of milking the opportunity for all it’s worth.

             It should be a welcome break from living next door to Ethan and his family. Or, you know, not.

             Right on cue, the door creaks open. “I thought you’d be here,” Ethan says, a smile evident in his voice.

             Karl turns to face him. “Ethan. Successful trip, I take it?”

             “Mmm. This is the weirdest thing I’ve ever done.” He pokes his own stomach indicatively. “I am so full of flowers right now.”

             “That explains the leaf in your neck.” Truth be told, the foliage seemingly growing from Ethan’s skin is not the only indicator to be found. Patches of mold are visible wherever the stems emerge, and his entire torso looks lumpy under his layers of borrowed clothing. It makes Karl wonder yet again just how much of Ethan is mold shaped like a man.

             Ethan touches the leaves self-consciously, then looks around. “Geez, Karl, you’re like a wireless mobile.”

             Karl follows his gaze to see that everything metal within sight is floating aimlessly around the room, forming random shapes before disbanding again. One particularly concentrated cloud of scrap repeatedly coalesces into a featureless, doll-sized figure walking through the air, which pulses in and out of shape like a series of stills. “I’d hardly call myself a children’s toy,” he says without looking away. This is far from the first time he’s moved things around while zoned out; it is interesting that it’s still happening now, though.

             “No,” Ethan murmurs, probably to himself. “You’re definitely not.”

             They watch the near-soundless constellations of scrap together in silence. Then Karl comes back to himself with a jolt. “Uh - I fixed your communicator.”

             “Oh, sweet,” Ethan exclaims. “I thought it was lost forever.” He grins. “A noble sacrifice in the name of defeating a rampaging beast.”

             “That was far from noble. That was stupid.” Karl reins in his powers, letting the metal fall to the ground in a gently tinkling shower, then adds, “You’re welcome for picking it up on the way back to the factory, by the way.”

             Ethan pockets the device with an eyeroll and a smile. “Thanks.”

             “Don’t lose it next time.” Kind of a stupid response, but Karl is tired. It’s been a crazy past few days.

             “Heh, yeah.” Ethan sighs. “You should come have supper before I leave. I brought back a deer and it smells amazing.”

             Karl allows himself to be tugged toward the door without resistance, quietly revelling in the warmth of Ethan’s hand on his arm. He pulls away before they enter the canteen, though. Knowing his siblings, they will notice his behaviour, and they will judge him for it. He’s just fine without Angie’s excitable shrieking right in his face, thank you very much.

             Besides, it’s not like he’s that against sharing a meal with the other lords. Without Miranda’s influence fucking up their minds, they’re really not so bad.

🔦

             “This. Is. The worst. This. Is. The worst,” Ethan mumbles, leaving the safety of the factory and eyeing the rain-soaked ground apprehensively. True, spending the evening with the majority of his body in mold form (and chock-full of flowers that he can feel rustling around whenever he moves) has been the weirdest, possibly most uncomfortable experience he’s had in his life, but even that isn’t quite as bizarre as what he’s about to do.

             At least supper was pleasant.

             Sighing heavily, he slips into the earth, takes a moment to consider where Miranda’s army is likely to emerge, then speeds off. He skims through the dirt just below the surface, shedding uprooted plants like an out-of-control seeder.

             Angie is wrong. It is absolutely nothing like taking a shit.

              Looks like I won’t be needing a trowel for gardening anymore. He’ll probably just use his hand in the future. There’s not a lot of dignity in becoming one with the compost.

             Alright, time to focus. Once the groundwork (ha) has been laid, he needs to go to the Giant’s Chalice back at the village and pick up Rose. The flask in his backpack, now melded with the mold blob that is his body - which is still something he doesn’t want to think about for fear of breaking his brain - feels more and more significant with every yard he covers.

             Ethan drops a smattering of flowers around the Chalice, on the off chance Miranda passes by, then emerges from the ground and approaches the stone formation. Thunder rumbles overhead, heralding the continuation of what’s shaping up to be one hell of a storm. “Hey, jellybean,” he says softly, resting his hand on the head flask. “Daddy’s here. Let’s get you to safety, okay?”

             A moment later, the grass surrounding the chalice is ablaze.

             Ethan flinches away from the fire, startled, and that’s when he hears it: a low whimper that he’d recognize anywhere. “Rose?”

             The hair on his neck prickles. Someone’s watching him. He turns, drawing his gun, to find Mia standing among the crackling flames.

             A crow caws from somewhere nearby.

             No no no no no. That’s not Mia. It can’t be Mia. He points the gun at her as lightning briefly turns the world white.

             “Our child,” says the Mia lookalike wistfully, taking one, two unhurried steps toward him. “She’s so important, isn’t she?”

             “She’s everything to me,” Ethan growls. She’s still advancing on him. His finger feels wooden on the trigger, and against his will, he finds himself lowering the gun. It doesn’t matter how much he wants to fill Miranda with lead, every instinct in his body is fighting against the very idea of hurting something wearing his wife’s face.

             She laughs gently. Then she pauses, and her voice is beyond cold when she says, “And mine to me.”

             Thunder rumbles as she moves toward him again. “Did you really think I wasn’t aware of Heisenberg’s little games? He knows nothing. Especially when it comes to the restoration of the child.” Her voice turns sickeningly sweet. “What are you going to do?”

             Ethan manages to aim again. “I don’t know,” he says harshly. “But I’m saving Rose.”

             “You never know, do you?” Miranda sneers. “Even when I took Mia’s place in your home.” She’s close enough to reach out and touch the muzzle of the gun. “Poor Ethan.”

             He fires, two shots directly into her chest.

             Miranda only laughs. Wings unfurl from her back and fold into a sphere around her, hiding her from view. All around them, shoots of Mold burst upward from the ground like trees on fast forward.

             Ethan keeps shooting, wanting nothing more than for her to stop laughing. It’s not working. He should know it won’t work. But their plan is falling apart around him, and he’s alone, and he’s scared and angry. “Miranda!”

             The wings open, revealing the cult leader in all her black-robed glory. “Enough,” she commands in her own voice. Perfectly unharmed, she begins walking again - not towards Ethan, but taking long, elegant strides that carry her in a wide circle around him. “Remember Eveline and her power over the Mold?”

             It’s a directive, not a question.

             “Rose is her successor.” She pauses for a fraction of a second. “No. Rose is Eveline’s true, complete form.” Her path takes her behind one of the writhing shoots.

             Ethan waits for her to emerge from the other side. She doesn’t.

             Breathing hard, he ducks around the shoot himself. Gotta keep her in my sights. But she’s not there as she continues, “She will grow to fully control the masses.” Her voice becomes a hiss, right behind him. “And I must have her.”

             He whirls. “FUCK YOU, YOU CRAZY BITCH!”

             Before he can shoot, a murder of crows takes to the skies between them. He blocks his face with his arms to avoid the flurry of wings, and when he looks up again, she’s several yards away, watching him.

             “Calm yourself. Rose will be saved.” She passes behind another shoot of Mold, and is Mia again when she comes back into view. “The Megamycete catalogues all of us. However,” she goes on, coming toward him, “she will be reborn as my daughter.”

             Ethan grabs her by the shoulders and shoves her away. “She’s my child! Not yours-”

             Miranda dissolves into another flock of crows, forcing him to let go in order to protect his head.

             He looks around wildly. Nothing but burning grass and twisted Mold. “WHERE ARE YOU? SHOW YOURSELF!”

             “Why did Rose come to be?” It’s not Mia or Miranda who walks out into view this time. It’s the old lady with the creepy stick. Ethan shudders - he’d talked to the hag, several times - as she hobbles past. “Was it because of her parents?” She pauses. “And you are truly a special case.”

              Yeah, I know. Mold man and all that.

             She disappears behind another shoot. “But I’ve learned all I can from you.”

             He likes that impersonal tone of voice even less than he does everything else about this nightmare situation. Ethan runs to intercept her, finding once again that she’s not there.

             “Your worth as a lab rat has run out.”

             He scans his surroundings desperately, fear and anger battling for control. Anger wins. “Miranda! You coward! Come out and FACE ME!”

             The sound registers first. Then he looks down and sees the explosion of gore as Miranda’s hand plunges into his chest.

             “Don’t worry, Ethan,” she whispers unsympathetically, face dripping red with blood. “Your death will come quick. You will join the Megamycete’s records.” Then she tears her hand free from his ribcage, and his heart along with it.

             Ethan tries to scream. It comes out as a series of agonized moans. Somehow he remains standing for another second or two before crumpling to his knees.

             “I will make sure to sample your blood for later,” she says, examining the organ in her hand as though it’s merely an unusually shaped apple. “Once dawn breaks, the ceremony will be complete, and I will become her true mother, bound for eternity in blood.” Laughing, she raises it above her head and squeezes, drenching herself with crimson.

              My lifeblood, Ethan thinks faintly. Mine.