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Subspace sighs as he lays on his back, pushing his feet against the bars of the cage he was trapped in. He almost feels like a bird with the way the cage is chained to the ceiling. “Do you not have AC in your stupid office?” He complains, stretching his arms out in front of him simply because it was something he could do other than sit there quietly.
This is stupid . He tries to do a little bit of kindness for once in his life and this is how this stupid oaf repays him? Stupid .
“Nah. The heat don’t bother me,” Ban Hammer says, twirling around on his stupid office chair like he isn’t almost fifty. Come on . Does this guy not feel embarrassment, or something?
“Yeah, ‘cause you’re a giant freak of nature.” Subspace drags his tail along the bars of the cage, back and forth, relishing in the distracting, rattling noise it produces. Just give him a harmonica and a metal cup and he’ll fit the bill of a classic prisoner stereotype.
Ban Hammer ignores his insult and instead works — or, well, tries to work on the paperwork needed for Subspace’s capture or something, blah blah blah Subspace could honestly care less.
“I’m not happy about this, either,” the warden grunts after a few long, tiresome minutes, filled with the rattling and clanging of the cast iron bars. “You’re taking up valuable space I could use for a more dangerous prisoner. Your boss would get on my ass if I let something happen to ya.”
A soft growl rises from Subspace’s chest at his reasoning. Whatever , it’s not his fault Ban Hammer is a lame loser who can't handle his presence. He’s half tempted to act up some more, but he doesn’t really know what else he’d do . There isn’t much to be done in a cramped cage aside from what he’s been doing.
“You can always let me go,” he croons, digging his claws into one of the bars of his cage as he pushes his cheek against it. It barely struggles under his weight, to which he huffs. So much for that. “I mean, come on , what’s the point in holding me here if it isn’t even permanent!!??”
His persuasion does nothing. Unfortunately.
“You were being suspicious.” Comes Ban Hammer’s blunt reply, “sneaking around. I have every right to jail ya until your boss sends someone to collect you.”
“What- everrrrr ,” Subspace grouches, “you’re so annoying ! No fun at all!! Really, you have to be the most uptight guy I’ve ever met, and I live in Blackrock!!”
“I’m not uptight!” Ban Hammer defends, clutching the desk in front of him in a near death grip with one of his hands. It’s polished wood, fancy, and yet his claws gouge into it and leave permanent, ugly marks.
Subspace can’t help but snicker at how distraught he looks to have been called such a pointless insult. A blow to his ego, maybe? Either way, he’s sure the warden has been called much worse names by other prisoners. So, in theory, being called uptight shouldn’t bother him at all .
“You sooooo are.”
He makes the rash decision to continue to fuel the fire. Ban Hammer’s first mistake, honestly; he shouldn’t have shown weakness.
“Am not!”
“Are, too!”
“I’m not .”
“You areeee—“
“Just shut up.” The warden silences him with a low growl. “You’re—“
Subspace cuts him off by raking his claws across the bars with a horrible, grating shrieeeekkk — slowly, purposefully, and a grin underneath his mask spreads to his eye as Ban Hammer snarls and covers his ears in an attempt to block out the noise.
He lowers his arm and continues to leer at him, victorious; but his smug expression is quick to falter when Ban Hammer pushes his chair back from the desk with a leg, stands up, and begins to walk towards the cage, an unclear expression on his face.
He jumps up (hitting his head on the top of the cage, ow ) and skitters to the far end opposite to him with a hiss. “What’re ya doing??!!” He demands as the warden grabs ahold of one of the bars and pulls the cage over to him.
Ban Hammer doesn’t offer up a reply, seemingly content to stare at him through his blindfold. It lasts a minute or so, and just when Subspace thinks he’s safe, Ban Hammer lets go of the cage and it swings back.
Subspace screeches in indignance as he’s jostled around, his frail form hitting the sides of the cage over and over, and still some. The only way to stop himself from hitting them is if he shoots a hand out to grab onto a bar but he’d probably break an arm doing so with how wild the swings are.
“You fucking bigass son of a bison!!” Is the only insult he can find as the cage continues to swing back and forth even without Ban Hammer’s help. Gods help him. It’s almost as if he can feel his brain rattling around his skull, but if that were the case he’d already be long unconscious. So he’s fine. Probably. He’s definitely going to get concussed from this though. Whatever.
After a few more heartbeats, Ban Hammer grabs hold of one of the bars mid-swing and holds the cage there for a moment. “No more misbehavin’,” he says, and Subspace can vaguely see the way his blindfold ripples as his eyes narrow.
“ Fine ,” Subspace spits, crossing his arms. “You’re no fun.”
Ban Hammer mutters something unintelligible in response, letting go of the bar (and swinging the cage a bit more in the process) and walking back over to his desk. “Now be quiet. I hafta finish filling out these forms.”
“Blah blah,” Subspace hisses quietly, although he ceases when the warden whips his head back over to him.
Sheeeeeesh . And he says he isn’t uptight.
A few silent minutes go by, and Subspace is bored . More bored than he’s ever been ever, probably. At least back at the lab he always has something to do. Sitting still is one thing, but being quiet is a whole ‘nother can of worms that’s terrible and wicked and more evil than anything he could ever do.
“I bet you’ve never done anything fun in your whole life,” Subspace says after a particularly silent moment, one too silent for him to sit through.
Ban Hammer looks up from his desk, “I have, too.”
“Nope, I don’t think so!!”
Unwilling to partake in another argument, Ban Hammer slams a hand down onto his desk with enough force to rattle the room and send Subspace into a fearful silence.
“What were you even doing here in the first place?” The warden asks, herding the conversation to one that’d benefit him.
“..Well!! That’s rude,” Subspace snips. He, obviously, is smart enough to see what Ban Hammer’s trying to do. But he’ll give in anyway, only because he’s bored. No other reason. “But if you must know , I was looking for one of your less dangerous freaks.”
A dumb, vague answer. Subspace would never give the full truth, though. How humiliating would it be if Ban Hammer found out he came partly for him ? Too humiliating. His career would be over in an instant.
“You better not have been plannin’ a jailbreak,” Ban Hammer snarls, “‘cause I swear to the Gods—“
“No!! I was just gonna… experiment a little.”
Ban Hammer pauses in his threatening, raising an eyebrow underneath his blindfold. “Huh?” He says dumbly.
“You always get on me at Blackrock’s quarterly meetings for experimenting on innocent demons. And while I find that more enjoyable—“ Subspace shimmies around a bit so he’s lying on his side, peering right at the demigod, “—I figured I’d be nice for once and test on a demon that actually deserves it.”
Ban Hammer seems to ponder his reasoning for a moment, and when it looks like he’s finally going to buy it he speaks up.
“So, if I check the bag you brought…” He strides over to the corner of the room and lifts up the pack he’d confiscated when he first caught Subspace. “There won’t be anything incriminating in here, right? Just nerdy science stuff?”
“ Hey !! It isn’t nerdy, but yeah, whatever. Nothing in there but a bunch of syringes with mystery contents and some rope. I didn’t even bring a scalpel with me!!”
Ban Hammer grunts as he rips open the bag and rifles through it carelessly.
“That’s not a good idea,” Subspace says, “I wouldn’t wanna get pricked with one of those syringes if I were you—“
“Shut up,” Ban Hammer says immediately, arm still buried halfway in the impossibly deep pack.
“Okay!!” Subspace chirps, bringing a hand up to his forehead in a mock salute. He uses the same hand to mime his mouth being zipped shut, and then lets his arm fall back down to his side.
The warden scoffs, but Subspace pretends to not notice as he dutifully watches him dig through his bag. He’d be furious, protesting and yelling up a storm if just anyone trifled with his things. Ban Hammer is an exception. Subspace doesn’t know why; he just is.
He watches as Ban Hammer pulls out syringe after syringe, grinning wildly underneath his mask as they very clearly get more and more concerning. One is filled with a bright-pink glowing mixture, obvious to where it came from — whereas another is pure white, almost ethereal in nature.
“Is this Spawn water?” Ban Hammer asks when he pulls that particular syringe out, to which Subspace shrugs.
“I dunnooooo,” he says, smushing his cheek against the cage bars again. “You can’t expect me to label all my wondrous, genius solutions.”
Ban Hammer fishes out another, and then another, and another. Blue, green, red, purple, just a jumble of different colors.
“Sometimes I like to just mix different cleaning solutions together and see what it does to organic matter,” Subspace says on with another shrug when Ban Hammer turns to him for questioning.
“Of course you do,” he mutters under his breath, and Subspace pretends yet again to have not heard it.
Finally he just gets fed up and dumps the whole bag onto the ground when there doesn’t seem to be an end to the contents. He lifts up his blindfold, staring in half-horror half-bewilderment as a frankly giant pile of ever-bigger syringes (and of course, the rope) rests at his feet. Seriously. There’s one almost as wide as his forearm, and Subspace is sure he’s wracking his very tiny brain about how that’s even possible.
“I like to stay well-stocked,” Subspace says, and if his mask was off he’d flash Ban Hammer a cheeky grin. Too bad he can’t, but he’s sure the way his eye is scrunched up portrays it well.
“You—“
Ban Hammer sputters, looking back up at Subspace and then down to the pile.
“Me,” Subspace says, tilting his head to the side.
“…There’s nothing wrong with this,” the warden says at last, clearly upset that he was telling the truth.
“See??” Subspace says, and Ban Hammer sighs.
“Fine, okay. So maybe you weren’t sneaking in for a nefarious purpose.”
“I’m surprised you even know what that word means!!”
Ban Hammer sighs again. He ambles back over to his desk and sits down before placing his head down on the desk.
Subspace almost feels bad for causing him to quite possibly have a mental break. Keyword being almost. After all, it isn’t quite his fault Ban Hammer can’t handle someone as eloquently spoken as him.
But, you know, being so smart is exhausting. And he already had to deal with running for his life before Ban Hammer rudely imprisoned him. He slumps against one of the sides of the cage with a yawn, blearily looking at Ban Hammer with his eye already half-shut.
“Can you turn the light off??” He asks in the sweetest voice he could muster. Unfortunately, Ban Hammer doesn’t get the hint, and he stares at him incredulously.
“There’s no way you’re about to fall asleep like you aren’t in jail.”
“It’s warm ,” Subspace mumbles tiredly, “warm weather makes me sleepy. Also you totally chased me for hours and hours and I need to recover my awesome stamina.”
“It was less than thirty seconds. You run pathetically slow.”
“Shut up,” Subspace whines. “I’m trying to sleep.”
Ban Hammer groans, but he gets up once more to flick the light switch off. “This is the last time I’m getting up from this chair,” he warns as he sits back down.
“I don’t care,” Subspace says with another yawn as he grabs onto his tail to use it as a makeshift pillow.
He dozes off not long after, ignoring Ban Hammer’s attempts to continue speaking to him as he fades from consciousness.
-
Subspace is roused from his nap by the rattling of the stupid cage he’s trapped in, and his eye shoots open as he begins to snarl protest. “What the hell is your deal , warden, I was having an honestly incredible nap—“
He freezes as he fully takes in his surroundings. It’s not just Ban Hammer in the room with him, now. There’s another demon — a familiar helmeted one, arms folded in front of them as they stare seemingly impassively up at him.
His eye lights up immediately, “Hyperlaser!! Took you long enough, by all the Gods—“
“Quit your yapping,” Hyperlaser grumbles, “I had to put a pin in something important in order to round you up.”
“Because you’re here, I’ll pretend I didn’t hear you tell me to shut up,” he says dramatically, cheerfully as Ban Hammer unlocks the cage. He kicks open the door and jumps out before the warden has a chance to open it for him, running past Hyperlaser and out of the office.
“You wouldn’t believe how much of a brute that warden is, really —“
He continues talking, voice fading down the hallway despite Hyperlaser having not caught up to him. He hasn’t even begun to follow after him — he’s going to hold off on that for as long as he has the opportunity to.
“Wow. I almost feel bad for you!” Ban Hammer says, still staring at the cage door that was now hanging off its hinges.
“Tell me about it,” Hyperlaser sighs. He just wants to go home and sleep.
“…It’s kind of endearing, though, ain’t it? His complaining.”
“Hell no.” Hyperlaser stops the conversation right then and there. Frankly, conversing with Subspace would be better than whatever Ban Hammer was trying to do.
“Oh, c’mon,” Ban Hammer tries to speak up, but Hyperlaser merely raises a hand.
“We have to get back,” he says flatly. “You can continue this conversation with Subspace when he inadvertently does something to end back up here.”
He stands there silent for a moment longer, as if considering something.
“Keep him next time. Please .”
As soon as the words leave him, he turns around and quickly paces out the door to try to catch up to Subspace.
“Wait,” Ban Hammer says quickly, to which Hyperlaser stops a few paces out the doorway.
“What.”
“Tell Subspace that,” he trips over his words a little, “if he gets permission from his boss, we can arrange something for him to experiment on the death row inmates. Without him sneaking in next time. Or somethin’.”
Hyperlaser stares at him for a long, hard moment.
“Fine,” he says finally, and then he continues walking, pace a bit faster than before as Ban Hammer watches him leave.
As he leaves his view, Ban Hammer sighs, and then turns back to his desk.
He really needs to finish that paperwork.