Work Text:
Maxwell paced the floor. He wasn’t sure when he had picked the habit up, or why—it was nothing he had done Before, there hadn’t been the energy to do it, and here it was useless, or should have been. It wasn’t him doing it. He thought. The atrocities wearing down his true body echoed up from the deepest layer, but things didn’t leak back down to it, no matter how close his projected form was. He thought. They shouldn’t have been able to. On the other hand, what had just happened had admittedly been…
Keep it together. The longer he could go without thinking about the specifics of what he was doing, and more importantly, the why, the better.
So the pacing worked, let his thoughts move with him. There were raw materials laid out for what he needed, but he didn’t glance at them, wouldn’t until he had a clear idea in mind. They could be very particular about his creations if he wasn’t careful. The list had to be absolute.
He had sent dogs before, but he needed more than a dog. A bodyguard wouldn’t be enough, he needed something that could help with everything. Protection, yes, but an aide as well. Something to make up for the injuries that wouldn’t heal. Something that could carry, but not something that would slow him down even more. A warden, a watchdog but better. Something intelligent, then, or resembling it. Something that would obey him without question, except when the orders were wrong. Something to keep him going, something to keep him grounded.
Something to let him survive.
At length, Maxwell stopped pacing and pinched the bridge of his nose. The last time he had asked so much of a single creation, he had ended up with a docile, inexplicable race of quickly-reproducing stone crustaceans that he’d had to contain underground before they destroyed the entire Board. The effort had laid him out for weeks, and the criteria hadn’t been half as complex. Was this fool’s errand really worth it?
"Don’t leave me."
Maxwell closed his eyes, gritting his teeth.
"Please."
He turned to the altar and started building.
Despite how much it sapped his energy, Maxwell took solace, if not quite enjoyment, from creation. Something, perhaps Their fondness of it, granted him a brief, blissful span of peace as he pulled components together from dead space, bound them together with deft hands. For just a moment, he felt unbound, alive, free to pluck the stars from their order and crush them between his fingertips just to decant the glittering dust. He contained untold multitudes to pick and choose from at his leisure, a world of worlds to shape and fling across the sea like skipping stones.
His last thought before the habitual blank space of absolute power overtook him was wondering if this was what his ridiculous little pawn felt like while crafting a new hat.
Reality came back together in pieces, in the ebbing of fresh pain into his back, in the noticing of a migraine that had already settled in and made itself comfortable. Maxwell pinched the bridge of his nose again, hard, then sighed and looked around to see what They had left him.
There was nothing there.
His heart jerked in his chest, then sank. Useless. THey wouldn’t let him so much as bend the rules, not for this—
No. Wait. Something glittered on the altar.
He picked it up gingerly, squinting at the off-white bone, and his face blanched as it squinted back. The abominable thing’s stare shot through him, scraped at something he had buried deep, and he could hear Them laughing at the sick little joke, hear them laughing, hear their laughter—
The paralysis was broken by something slamming into his legs hard enough to send him sprawling to the floor.
Maxwell laid curled in on his side, counting off the pain, then opened his eyes to his newest creation.
This was not what he had had in mind.
The absurd furry creature didn’t shy away as Maxwell used it to pull himself up, but it started to charge again as soon as he was standing, and he grabbed it by one horn to deflect the blow.
"Listen you godless beast—" Maxwell gritted his teeth at the sound of his voice slipping, forced it back to normal. "—goddamn mutt, I’m the boss here, and you listen to me.” He took a deep breath, managed to keep it from shaking. “Sit.”
The monster sat, and Maxwell leaned against the altar for a moment before taking stock of it. A short examination later, he heaved a sigh.
It would have to do.
It was, at least, obedient. It listened as Maxwell instructed it, and seemed to comprehend. It sat still while he emptied the saddlebags he had had ready into its…he hoped it was a mouth. It was only when he picked up the bone staff again that it started fidgeting, wagging its tiny stub tail.
"Heh." He raised the staff above his head, grinning despite himself as it sat up on its hind legs. "Is this what you really want?"
Is this what you really want?
The grin faded.
Last chance. Let him go. Turn back. He’ll forget. You’ll forget. You didn’t ask for this. Who would? No one would blame you. A quick lay. Leave it at that.
"You’re a terrible lay, Carter."
The animal whined. Something not at all like a smile worked at the corners of Maxwell’s mouth.
”Fetch.”
Something tore in his shoulder as he threw the staff, and he kneaded the muscle absently as bone and beast vanished to higher ground. It hurt, but he’d worked through worse. He followed them, dusting off his suit, fragments of the past falling away as he focused.
He had a show to put on.
----
Bee. Flower. Leafy tree. Not a leafy tree. Beefalo. Bee. Bee…s.
Not Sure tried eating a bees, then spat it out and waddled along. There were a lot of Not Sures besides herself at the moment, but names were filling in as she scrutinized them. There were mostly bees. She didn’t know what to think about them yet, but she hadn’t existed very long. She was sure she’d work it out.
What did a Mister Wilson look like, though?
Not Sure scratched at one horn, thinking. She’d met a lot of things so far, but they weren’t Misters. She looked at an orange thing and thought “carrot”, but not “Mister Carrot”. She licked a fuzzy thing and it was emphatically not a “Mister Bunny”. There was a difference. She kicked something over. Rock. Definitely not Mister Rock.
Was she a Mister?
She wasn’t a rock. But she wasn’t like Mister Boss. But she wasn’t like rabbits, either.
Not Sure scuffed at the dirt, drooping a little. Mister Boss had made her with a lot of thoughts already in her little self-same head, but she had a feeling she wasn’t built for existentialism. Whatever that was. A Not Sure, for sure. But if it was a Not Sure, and she was a Not Sure, then by the virtue of that fact, wasn’t she by nature also—
MISTER BONEY!
The sudden realization of someone picking up her best friend blanked out everything else as she bolted toward it. There were no Not Sures in that moment, just leaping, *poink*ing, running pell-mell tumble-bumble forward until there was the JUMP—
"Nice doggy nice doggy nice doggy—"
Not Sure scoonched back off the Not Sure, berating herself for doing the Thing again. But nice? Nice…doggy? She was not a doggy, but nice? She was nice?
Belatedly, she opened her mouth, looking to the Not Sure for approval.
"You’re like…a chest. A little chest on legs."
Not Sure sat up attentively as the Not Sure closed her mouth, looking at him properly for the first time. He looked tired, like the Boss, and a little scared, like the Boss, but he was different. There was something special in his mismatched eyes. He seemed…nice.
Not Sure wagged her tail. A Mister Wilson. A Mister Wilson was nice.
Mister Wilson cheered up a little, some of the tired fading from his face. “I’ll call you Chester.”
Chester.
Chester *poinked* excitedly and beamed.
This was going to be nice.