Work Text:
Sometimes, Ethan thinks, it's easy to get used to the pain.
Especially for him, because the last day or so—if it's even been a day, it's hard for him to tell anymore—that's all he’s felt. He's been stabbed, burned, sliced, punched, kicked, bitten, thrown down multiple floors, smashed into the sides of castles, ripped, with a few hundred broken bones to boot more times than he can count. He's positive he should be dead. He should be dead. Ethan can’t begin to fathom how many gallons of blood have been removed from his body and splattered across these floors. Adrenaline has become a friend, the only thing in his body that's keeping him going—that and unadulterated fear. Because, you know, when the tallest woman to ever grace the planet is hunting you down with enraged eyes and knives for fingers, Ethan feels like he should be running.
And— by the end of today, he’s more than ready to go home and pretend like this never fucking happened.
The Duke is a friend, he's found. He doesn't come by very many of those; enemies are abundant. He’ll trade him valuables for necessities and an open ear in return. When Ethan hands over a bag of coin, although quite small, the Duke takes it gratefully and slides over a bottle of first-aid. “I’ve heard some quite interesting things, Ethan.”
Ethan works to properly shove the bottle into his bag, which is practically overflowing at this point with ammo and weapons bigger than himself. “Oh, I’m sure.”
The Duke laughs, boisterous, finding Ethan’s caustic comment amusing. “Why, I have! The other Lords, surely you've met them by now.”
“Not since some family dinner they had in the mines,” Ethan clenches his jaw. “Bunch of bastards. Specifically that asshole—the one with the hammer—”
“Lord Heisenberg,” The Duke supplied.
“Yes, him,” Ethan snapped, and although the Duke has been kind to him, he is not exempt from his.. less than stellar attitude about this whole ‘situation’. To the merchant’s credit, he doesn't seem to be too perturbed, much less unsettled by Ethan’s unending frustration. “Real piece of work.”
Heisenberg, and it makes Ethan bitterly angry to even imagine the guy now, is nothing less than a piece of shit. How embarrassing it is to be dragged around on his belly by the shackles on his wrists. To be subdued so quickly, without much of a fight at all, next to the entry of Dimitrescu's castle. He is both impatiently awaiting their reunion as well as dreading it— because then maybe he’ll be able to kill the man, but also that means he’ll have to listen to him chat his goddamn ear off.
“He's always been quite the character,” the Duke leaned back in his chair, his large form looking down at him. “Word says that he's very excited to see you.”
“I’m sure he is.”
“You'll see him soon,” the Duke smiled, one of those private ones that makes Ethan uneasy, because he knows something that Ethan does not. He's always been wiser than he seemed, constantly leading Ethan on with cryptic riddles of some kind. It always made him mad to never get a straight answer, from anyone it seemed, but there didn't seem to be very much Ethan couldn't do about it.
When Ethan begins to move on, the Duke grinned, sinking into the chair for another catnap. “Do come back soon, Mr. Winters.”
The Beneviento House is worse on the inside.
Because—naturally—cruelly cold on the outside, and almost polished on the interior, looking as if someone truly lived in it, which is a rarity to find. Although, it was so pristine that the living space was more decoration than actually intended to house somebody. In Dimitrescu’s castle, it didn't even seem like those women really lived in it, which makes sense because they’re not people, but it still makes Ethan restless and uncomfortable and his stomach turn with the need to vomit. And there’s a fucking thing in Beneviento’s basement, Ethan’s heart lodged in his own throat at the scare of it, the eerie calls of an infant to its parents.
Everywhere Ethan goes he is surrounded by the dead, unfathomable fear, with shaky bloody hands, which hurts to know that those same hands hold his baby girl. The only reason he’s doing this is to make sure that it doesn't happen to Rose, too, but it seems it already has. In his vision at the altar, Ethan had seen Lady Dimitrescu, Beneviento, and Heisenberg, and Miranda— all those assholes up top, surrounding Rose, who cried in distress.
He had kneeled at the Duke’s feet, the wheels of that wagon, with Rose’s head , trapped in an ugly yellow vial. “What did you do to her,” Ethan had gasped, hate crawling up his throat. He balls his hands into fists and rests them on his thighs. Ethan notes the blood on his jeans. He looked back up at the Duke, green eyes wide, pale as death. “What.. what did those fuckers do to her?”
The factory reeks of blood, gunmetal, and rotten flesh.
Not exactly a welcome atmosphere, but for once, he is permitted company. Heisenberg is handing out his own personal olive branch, and although Ethan is not usually one to bite the hand that feeds him, he may feel somewhat inclined to do so now. Not that ‘usually’ matters anymore, because Ethan has done many things in the past three years he wouldn't ever expect himself to do for an entire lifetime.
Ethan raises his magnum when Heisenberg appears behind him.
He was a little out of it when he was gathered in front of the Lords back at the castle, so he never really got a good look at him, neither at the main gate, what with Heisenberg’s head ducked low.
Heisenberg looks like some fucked up mechanic wizard that Ethan wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. He looks like he uses car oil as hair grease, like his clothes haven’t been washed in years. Even when they met, Ethan hated him—and that wasn't even a full day ago. Sauntering towards him, with his stupidly large hammer, willing all metal objects in a fifty mile radius to rise and point themselves in Ethan’s direction—not that that wasn't absolutely fucking terrifying. And now, considering how much metal Ethan is surrounded by, he can't help but be on edge, holding up his gun in apprehension.
“Hey, now,” Heisenberg says coolly, and he's (not that Ethan didn't notice before) got an odd accent— it’s not very Romanian, perhaps a version of transatlantic? Or just.. metal wielding psycho in the mountains. He raises up both hands, “Put that down, hm?”
He lowers it, but not with any sort of confidence in Heisenberg’s trust. Ethan glares at him. “You wanted to talk?”
Waving his hand, an aluminum chair stands upright nearby, and Heisenberg nods at it, “Sit.”
Ethan does not sit. The lord— and it's then Ethan studies him. Grey hair all askew and tangled, leather hat crooked, his shades hung low on the bridge of his nose, digging his hands into the pockets of his trench coat. Fishing out a lighter, he puts a cigar between his lips and puffs a large breath into the room. As if it didn't already smell, pungent and sour as a lemon.
It gives him a good look at Heisenberg’s eyes, leering over the rims. A murky mix between green and brown and orange. Maybe some gray? A dull cocktail of gray and green, if you had to pick. Almost oddly pretty for a man like him.
“So I’m supposed to just trust you?” Ethan snapped, turning his head to follow Heisenberg as he idly paced to recollect his thoughts. Back and forth across the floor like a grandfather clock. “Just like that? I can kill you too, like I did the rest of them.”
The room spins, Ethan’s stomach churns, and then he's sitting in the chair Heisenberg had sat up, “ Sit,” the corner of his mouth curling into a snarl. They stare at each other for a second, Ethan panting, hands clenched on the arms of the chair, while Heisenberg’s large hands stay glued to Ethan’s shoulders, unforgiving and concrete. A moment, then he lets go. He drops and stubs his cigar with a heel. “I could kill you anytime I’d like . ”
“This entire place.. what do you think it's made of?” The rafters hummed, like the idle start of an engine, like the walls were vibrating. Heisenberg breathed heavily, his voice metallic and cold. “I could fucking crush you. But I need you, so I don't plan to do that. But I’d highly recommend you be good and sit still and listen . ”
He leaned back, and flicked a finger. A knife jammed itself into Lady Dimitrescu’s picture on the wall. Heisenberg rattles off some bullshit about picking them all off one by one, and now it's Heisenberg’s turn, and Ethan is irritated to realize he's got a point. The Duke had given him the tip to go for the Four Lords one by one, collect the flasks, upgrade that key.
“—and, Ethan, you're going to help me. I want to use Rose to kill Miranda.”
Out of his chair before he knows it, Ethan is digging into his belt for a weapon, anything to tell this crazy bastard that he's not gonna use his infant daughter as a nuclear bomb. Until Heisenberg, who had been previously staring pensively at his bulletin board, spins on his heel and angrily jerks his fingers in Ethan’s direction. Ethan yelps in surprise as he's yanked back into his chair even with Heisenberg halfway across the room, before he notes the irritants hovering around his body.
Scraps of metal, screws, broken chains, any sort of gadgets that had been laying on Heisenberg’s floor, are gathered together to form makeshift handcuffs. Even going far enough to link around his ankles as well, which does nothing but piss Ethan off. Ethan glowers at him. “I’m not too sure this is helping your case, dumbass.”
“Calm down, papa,” Heisenberg says, then crouches on his haunches in front of Ethan. It's so condescending it makes Ethan grit his teeth, seconds from spitting in Heisenberg’s face. “Won't matter, anyway. I know you know you need my help, because you're not killing Miranda by yourself.”
“Fucking watch me.”
In a small, frustrated—satisfactory, Ethan thinks—fit of rage, Heisenberg stands, his hands twitching like he wants to punch Ethan’s jaw in. Ethan juts his chin out at him defiantly. Like a dare: do it, bastard. Go on.
A strange mix between a sneer and a grin crosses Heisenberg’s face, the corners of his lips turning up, like this whole situation is fucking hilarious. And he grumbled, “Don’t get cocky, Winters,”— it's very easy for Heisenberg to pull one of his hands out of his pockets, reach a hand up, and meanly pat Ethan on the cheek, once, twice. Doesn't think about the fact that he keeps his palm there afterwards, eyes drifting behind those stupid shades.
Heisenberg doesn't think about it, because clearly that's how this psycho operates. He's touchy, clearly, because based on the view coming in, he’s very handsy with.. people. But whether people means corpses is semantics. And Ethan isn't a corpse—he's not going to think about it— but here the jerk is, with a rough hand cradling Ethan’s cheek as he falls in love with the sound of his own voice. It's not meant to be a kind gesture. It's certainly not meant to make Ethan’s heart drop like stones to the bottom of his stomach.
Ethan thinks about it. He finds himself registering every little detail of Heisenberg’s palm, the idents, scars, scratches, calluses, burns, marks. The lines of his knuckles. His skin is warmer than Ethan imagined. The room’s temperature feels above boiling, his heart speeding up with it, skin covered in a growing sheen of sweat.
He’d do anything to make sure Heisenberg doesn't notice. Something to keep him distracted, because if he notices anything is off, chances are he’ll make a big deal about it. Ethan realizes that his eyes fell shut, and he peeks them open just to check. That was his second mistake.
His first was failing to recognize that Heisenberg had stopped rambling. Their gazes lock, and Heisenberg cocks his head, mouth curling wide with the beginning of a grin. Curiously, a thumb swipes under his eye, and Ethan almost passes out. His hand jerks in his restraints, as if to reach and grab Heisenberg’s wrist, but there's no give.
Then he rips his hand away from Ethan’s reddening cheek, dropping it back down beside his hip. Ethan is mortified to find himself mindlessly chasing the touch, his head leaning after it without permission, and makes an aborted, humiliating whimper at the loss.
A pause. Ethan can’t face the grave he dug, so he turns his head away. Some shuffling in front of him, then,
Heisenberg tilts his chin with a gloved finger. Ethan has half a mind to bite him, tear his teeth through the skin as hard as he can, tell him that he can fuck right off. The other part, maybe the larger portion, is thinking Please, God, don't take your hand away.
Which is fucking ridiculous. But it also makes complete sense, too.
The only touch Ethan has felt in the past twenty four hours is knives and claws and guns. Everything sort of interaction given to him is done through Ethan’s own suffering, ending with his blood spilt. It hurts, Christ, it hurts so bad. He can still feel the phantoms of his missing fingers, and they twitch from where they sit on the arm of the chair. And he hates this man with every bone, muscle, tendon, joint in his body - there is nothing more he'd want than for Heisenberg to fuck off and die. He has no interest in meddling with Heisenberg’s century-long family drama as much as the guy wants him to. Except, maybe it doesn't matter who the hand belongs to as long as Ethan gets some sort of relief. Because Ethan has been fucked up long before he came to this village.
Although the lord’s eyes are covered, Ethan still feels intensely observed, to the point it's almost intrusive. He keeps his own eyes trained out beyond Heisenberg’s shoulder at the bulletin board, eyeing the meticulous strings and papers Heisenberg has created. His finger digs into his chin, insistent, like: look at me . Even if he tore out of his grip, he’d imagine Heisenberg would only drag him right back.
His eyes slide to Heisenberg’s face, the peppered gray in his beard, the ruggedly handsome curve of his mouth, and Ethan is so disturbed at the thought—because where did that even come from,
“Alright, Ethan,” Heisenberg pockets both hands, certainly on purpose. “You have surprised me."
“Peaked your interest?” Ethan mutters dully. As some sort of fruitless attempt, he yanks at his restraints, tries to kick out his legs, but they only tighten—painfully, Ethan winces— in response. It’s almost comical Heisenberg is so committed to it, because that means this entire time a part of him is focused on keeping those metals wrapped around his limbs.
Leaning in, jacket swerving to press down on his knees, his salt-streaked hair tumbling forward, Heisenberg grins. His glasses fall low on his nose. He radiates cigar smoke and grease, and it makes Ethan’s face scrunch in disgust. If the guy notices, he doesn't seem to care. “What’s all this about, mm? Huh? Are you nervous , Ethan?”
“You're psychotic,” Ethan works his jaw, like he's about to spit right in Heisenberg’s stupid face. Heisenberg’s eyes flash, and Ethan almost snarls. “ Fuck you.”
Maybe that was a poor idea to say to a guy who’s already completely unhinged, as well as had him strapped to a chair using his freak abilities, but hindsight's 20/20.
Heisenberg kicked the front legs of the chair to send Ethan toppling backwards down a very conveniently placed hole in the floor. With a conveniently painful long fucking fall. It only made Ethan angrier, landing on his ass and probably breaking a few more bones. But, hey, what’s a few more to the collection?
The depths of Heisenberg’s factory is a complete blur of dead bodies and mutated lycans and freak experiments. Heisenberg was saying all of these things are being used as an army to take down Miranda, but Ethan can't help wondering where he got the bodies in the first place. The village? The people who adamantly worship Mother Miranda?
Ethan passes through rooms and rooms of silver tables with all kinds of scary machines surrounding it. Majority of the lycans still alive are equipped with chainsaws, or airplane engines, or whatever the fuck Heisenberg can come up with to make Ethan just that more miserable.
There's a spiral notebook sitting on a desktop that makes Ethan bite his tongue indignantly. Heisenberg’s chicken scratch handwriting, messily noting that Ethan’s got a “pretty interesting body himself,”
He's not entirely sure if Heisenberg has been watching Ethan run wild around his factory or not, but there's certainly enough evidence to prove that theory true. If so, then Heisenberg knows he found that note, additionally that Heisenberg doesn't care. Or maybe he wanted him to.
“ Have you met my friend, Ethan?” A tinny voice filters through the intercoms. Ethan doesn't stop to wonder why Heisenberg bothered with installing a speaker system. “ He's a big fan!”
Assumably, he means Sturm, the special soldat with a plane engine tied to it, missing its arms. Ethan had read up on it in Heisenberg’s journals: it was a failed experiment that chopped its limbs off, with no minds of its own. Now it's used as a makeshift bodyguard.
“Sure,” Ethan scoffs, reloading a clip. He ignores the joke, because it's terrible and he won’t give Heisenberg the satisfaction of any reaction at all, negative or not. “If you mean the bastards with chainsaws for arms!”
One of the worst parts about this godforsaken factory— besides the fact that Ethan is here in the first place— is the fact that everything is borderline indestructible. He could empty an entire clip into the cranium of one of these things and they wouldn't flinch. He's found that centering his gunfire on the little red reactor in the middle is the quickest way to genuinely kill them, but they never stop moving so aiming is a difficult feat on its own.
“ Mm, the soldats,” Heisenberg muses. “ Their only purpose is to help me kill that bitch.” One of the soldats explodes before it falls to its knees. A generous pause, like Heisenberg is reconsidering, before he murmurs, “ You're doing very well, buttercup.”
“Can you shut up, for once.” He grunts, bashing an elbow into another soldat that almost pierced its drill through his sternum. His stomach clenches itself into knots. Ethan would be disgusted if he wasn't already used to the.. banter? Odd, flirtatious comments? Jesus Christ. “Doesn't matter, I’ll kill you once I get out of here.”
It's very satisfying to know that a comment like that really pisses Heisenberg off, because it seems like Heisenberg needs Ethan more than Ethan needs Heisenberg. Ethan's done just fucking fine by himself. Three of the lords are dead and this one's days are numbered. Heisenberg hasn't been able to get rid of one in decades, even if he'd say he was biding his time.
Although positive that he's still watching, Heisenberg said doesn't follow up with a response.
Ethan wakes up on a steel table. Almost like a gurney.
He gasps. What the fuck?
His ankles and hands are tied. There’s a small belt around his waist. Ethan heaves, trying to brute force his way out. Similarly to how it was back in that dumb chair, speaking to Heisenberg, it holds up nicely.
Jerking his wrists fruitlessly in his restraints, kicking his ankles out, Ethan groans. He's lucky he's not gagged, which is a small mercy, the aluminum table freezing cold against his (naked, Ethan realizes) spine. Although given the modesty of his boxers, it's still humiliating to be laid out like this, completely vulnerable. He can't even get himself to look down at his own chest, too afraid of what he’ll see.
He was just in the factory. That's the last thing Ethan can remember. Not passing out, or getting kidnapped, or dragged here against his will. Speaking of Heisenberg..
Ethan tries to lean up despite being laid flat. He scans the room, pointedly avoiding the little tools set neatly on a plate level to his stomach.
It becomes very apparent this is Heisenberg’s doing. It's just like one of his rooms that Ethan had passed through earlier, although he can't recall this one particularly. Suffocating, as usual, with the smell of rot rampant in the air. Perhaps it's a room actually meant for the living, but even that, Ethan can't verify. It's dark and ugly and not at all welcoming. And considering Heisenberg seems to treat his patients like freak experiments, Ethan isn't too confident.
Ethan makes a small, helpless noise. He's been through worse than this.
“Ohh, just in time!”
He whips his head in the direction of the voice. Heisenberg has his nose buried in a clipboard when Ethan spots him, before kicking the leg of a stool with an oily shoe and clunkily sitting himself down. The man clicks his tongue, before haphazardly tossing the clipboard behind him onto his desk. It's covered in papers and scribblings and sketches.
Heisenberg stands next to Ethan’s operating table. Ethan’s head is level with his stomach. “Deepest apologies for such a rude welcome, that first time around. I do hope you've learnt your lesson.”
It's a threat, obviously. He's giving Ethan a second chance. Which—on the record—means he’s one-hundred percent desperate for Ethan's alliance.
Ethan doesn't deign the lord with an answer. He turns his head away (although it doesn't do much since he's hovering over him) and tries to block him out. While Ethan is here, Heisenberg should just be kind enough to give him some antibiotics and more first-aid liquid. At least, if he wants to convince him in any shape at all.
“Are you aware,” Heisenberg starts, large gloved hands pawing at Ethan’s ruined arms and making their way down. He sounds entranced, almost. “Of how peculiar your body is, Ethan?”
“I know you think I’m interesting,” Ethan grunts into the table.
“Oh, I do.” His arm is flipped over onto its side. There's nothing too serious up on his shoulders, but Heisenberg still takes note of it anyway. There's actually nothing serious about any of Ethan’s entire body, but Heisenberg has devoted himself to making a big fucking deal about it. Certainly not gently, or kindly, but more so in the way a scientist observes a lab rat. Maybe just satiating his own curiosity.
Several minutes pass. Heisenberg takes his fill, which is all he's wanted since Ethan stepped foot in the grounds of the factory. His hands catalog every recent scar and gash and actively bleeding wound Ethan has, even if it makes Ethan wince away in rough pain. Heisenberg’s stupid leather gloves feel the very, very fresh wounds in his calves, where the Dimitrescu daughters stuck their stupid sickles in him. Heisenberg recognizes the shape of it, too, murmuring, “Oh, yes, of course,”
Not like he hid it very well, Heisenberg is eager to take a look at his hands. He saves it for last, but his fingers just barely touch Ethan’s skin and he wrenches away from him immediately. Not that it does much to stop him, but it gives Heisenberg an idea of how he feels. Heisenberg snatches him by the wrist and brings it back towards him.
“Alcina’s handiwork, I’m assuming,” Heisenberg pauses for Ethan’s response. Ethan squints to what he means: landing on where a gloved pointer finger grazes the bisection of his left hand. There is a twin mark on the other, too.
“Yeah,” Ethan croaks.
“Look what we have here ,” Heisenberg almost purrs. A touch at the base of his wrist. Ethan hisses, clenching his eyes shut. White, sizzling hot pain slithers up his arm as Heisenberg touches the quick, nasty slice of his right hand. His voice is coated in, what, admiration? Some sick sort of respect? “Was this that tall bitch, too? Taken clean off. Ethan Winters.”
Ethan can’t get any oxygen down. His bare chest rises and falls in a panic, refusing to look at what Heisenberg is spotlighting. Every ghostly touch the lord leaves hurts like hell, because it's been, what, twelve hours since the castle? His right hand was ‘taken clean off’ not even a day ago, and somehow it's still attached and working. It was the same with his ankle back in Dulvey, although that memory is so repressed into the matter of Ethan’s brain you’d suffocate trying to dig it out.
It's hot in here, Jesus. Is it supposed to be hot? Does Heisenberg live in a fucking volcano? Ethan saw the underground of this place, it’s too goddamn expansive and the rent must be atrocious, but it was also sweltering. He can install speakers but not some air conditioning? Does he even know what air conditioning even is?
“Hey, you're burning up, stop wiggling, Ethan, shit.”
Heisenberg’s palm sits heavy in the center of his chest, almost like he's trying to soothe. Most likely not the case, because Heisenberg doesn't soothe, but Ethan doesn't bother to think about it. He also doesn't bother to recognize how Heisenberg’s—admittedly warm, ‘cause he’s a fucking furnace—hand is on him. “Surely you understand why you have gained the ability to reattach bodily appendages.”
“I’m not thinking about it,” Ethan rasps quietly. His breathing comes back to him in small, slow bursts. Heisenberg is quiet, cocking his head, as Ethan’s heart finally slows and his lungs even out. In reality, he had figured that the first aid fluid that the Duke gave him was just some top-tier shit. But he figures that if he tells Heisenberg that, then maybe he’ll reconsider the decision of not killing him.
Heisenberg laughs. “Don’t feel self-conscious. I should've died years ago.”
The man has no sense of personal space, so he leans right in to get a good look at the four identical gashes in the middle of Ethan’s chest. They've stopped bleeding, and started to close up, but they burn fiercely and Heisenberg has no qualms with petting the surrounding skin. When he prods a bit too close, Ethan almost catapults the upper half of his body off the gurney.
He’s quickly pushed back down by a solid, immovable hand, and even if Ethan tries to squirm away, he understands it's completely useless. Heisenberg’s hand isn’t going anywhere. Ethan resolutely keeps his eyes trained on the dark, gloomy ceiling. “Do you treat all the poor bastards who show up at your factory like this?”
“No,” Heisenberg says, licking his lips. “Usually, I kill them.”
“That's comforting,” Ethan says, too tired to be disturbed.
Skin layered with goosebumps, an immeasurable tremor beneath each one of Heisenberg’s touches. He gets the insane urge to plaster himself against Heisenberg, to let him hold him. At the same time he wants to slap Heisenberg away, too.
And he wanted to lean over the side of the gurney and vomit on the floor. So, there’s that. Multitasking.
Heisenberg is too busy touching the spots where Lady Dimitrescu's claws— where all four points injected themselves into his chest. He nudges them curiously, and Ethan’s hips buck painfully out of instinct. The pain isn't as intense as it was when she got her hands on him, but it's enough that his vision withers out and his head goes dizzy with a mouth full of cotton.
It's hard to tell if Ethan wants him to stop because he doesn't like the touch, or to stop because Ethan is realizing he likes the touches and wants them to continue but knows Heisenberg won't grant him them. Not out of worry for Ethan. He does it to fill his own gauge. And the idea that he will get all of this ripped away from him is too much to bear. It's an empty, hollow ache in the cavity of his chest. It's fucking overwhelming.
“—inters. Winters. Ethan!” Heisenberg is patting his cheek. He looks down at him, so his glasses fall to the tip of his nose, and Ethan can clearly see his eyes. They flicker in concern. “You're shaking, papa.”
Is he? His hands tremble where they rest by their restraints. Ethan hadn't noticed. His stomach flutters. Ethan cannot— he can't—
“Fuck, okay,” Heisenberg grumbles. Ethan stares at him, unblinking, heart pumping a mile a minute as the man’s grimy fingers unlatch his cuffs. “Up we go. C’mon.”
“Let go,” Hands braced on the center of his spine, his shoulders. Blearily, Ethan groaned, his joints and muscles achy with disuse. He feels himself go frustratingly pliant, like he's malleable, and he can't do much more than lay there and let Heisenberg feel. “What are you..”
“Shh.”
“Don't tell me to—” Heisenberg wraps his arms around him. Like a hug. No, it is a hug. Gloved fingers brush his nape, digging into the dirty blonde of his hair, the cropped edges. A thumb swipes over his forehead, pressing gently on the grooves of stress between his brows. Ethan’s entire frame shakes, not out of fear. His face is slotted neatly into the crook of Heisenberg’s neck. Nose filling of gun oil, rot, blood, engine exhaust; it's nauseating, but Ethan can't even get himself to let go. God, he’s trembling like a leaf in the wind.
“Please,” Ethan begs. He doesn’t know what he’s asking for. At least, not until the words tumble out of his cracked, split lips, unbidden. He digs himself into Heisenberg’s skin so the machinist won't even make out his next sentence. A quiet, mumbled, Please, into his neck.
It makes him dizzy. The feeling of his hands, the inhuman warmth of his body, the scruff of his beard against Ethan’s temples. The skin to skin contact. It’s some weird sort of withdrawal, because it really hasn't been too long since Mia touched him—a hand on his waist, or brushing his wrist—but it makes Ethan want to throw up at the idea that Heisenberg will take this away from him.
A moment. Ethan draws in a long, shaky breath, steadying.
“Good?” Heisenberg murmurs. He doesn't make Ethan move his head from its spot, callused hands ghosting his ears, but he straightens himself like the action of bending over Ethan’s body was killing his back. Ethan, desperately, burrows his fingers into Heisenberg’s sleeve, as if to tether. “Hm?”
He doesn't even get what the issue is with himself, why he can't get himself to stop shaking. It should be because of Heisenberg’s needless poking and prodding at fresh, should-totally-be lethal injuries. He doubts Heisenberg feels any sort of regret for it, but he doesn't bother to bring that up. It's not like the evidence isn't right in front of them both, with Ethan’s partially naked body laid right in front of him.
He is left alone, for lack of a better phrase, because Heisenberg only momentarily pulls away, his hands on the side of the table. Ethan lays there and catches his breath, lets his heart slow to a normal pace. Enough that he can let himself be without Heisenberg’s palms. His skin prickles at the mere idea.
A little bit of clarity is gifted to him, now that he's not entirely shrouded in the brain-fog that is human connection. It only makes Ethan all the more infuriated at Heisenberg’s audacity.
“You gonna listen to me now, Ethan?” Heisenberg’s gaze cuts through him over the rims of his glasses. His face spreads into the nastiest, no-good, shit-eating grin Ethan’s ever seen. “We can talk properly this time.”
“Properly,” Ethan scoffs. His words almost mean nothing if his fingers don’t uncurl themselves out of Heisenberg’s trench-coat sleeve. “Look at me. Does this look like a fucking civil conversation?”
“And you're human enough for that?”
Ethan turns his head away, setting his jaw. His hand doesn't let go, and that's a message that he sends to Heisenberg that he wishes he didn't.
Heisenberg does grant him the ability to sit up properly on the table. Ethan had tugged at his waist restraint, wiggling to pull free, and Heisenberg raised a hand and the metal simply floated away. It landed somewhere nearby Heisenberg’s plate of dentist tools, and Ethan immediately leans up in place.
Ethan wriggles in place to try and get the blood flowing back into his hands. He stretches his arms, and he feels like he’ll fall over and die from muscle atrophy just from how achy he feels. “Maybe you’d want to let me stand?” Heisenberg stares at him, and Ethan pointedly flicks his eyes in the direction of his strapped ankles.
Leaning forward, large hands pressing down next to either side of Ethan’s hips, Heisenberg says, almost coy, “And what are the chances of you running away from me again?”
Ethan glares at him, and opens his mouth to respond. The proximity is intoxicating, and Heisenberg smells like shit, but he's got this feel to him that makes Ethan sick in the head. Heisenberg immediately pulls away with a flourish, boisterously throwing out his hands in a way that seems to say see what I mean? “See! Look at your face, Ethan! You don’t trust me, even though you fucking need me.”
It's hard to even look at him. So he doesn't. Ethan trains his eyes at a point somewhere over Heisenberg’s shoulder, like a coward, and holds bile down. “I’ve done fine by myself so far, if you haven't noticed.”
“I have,” Heisenberg leans against the small desk next to where Ethan sits, his hands loosely braced against it behind him. “And, as I have said, Miranda will crush you. Like a bug. She will kill you, and you’ll never get your precious Rose back, and I’ll be sitting back, watching the show, while—”
“ Okay!” He inhales through his nose, serenely, at the bliss of Heisenberg’s mouth snapping shut. “Okay. Fine.”
His first priority is Rose. One-hundred percent. He needs Rose back as soon as possible, and Ethan is starting to think maybe he wouldn't really mind Heisenberg’s help. Besides, Heisenberg hasn't killed him yet (despite his attempts, but even then it seemed like Heisenberg wasn't really trying) and Ethan doesn't have the time to continue this charade.
Heisenberg’s lips are slightly ajar. Ethan realizes he's staring at Heisenberg’s mouth, so he looks down at his poor hands. Two fingers missing from his left, the pinky and the ring finger (with Mia’s band of gold along with it). The staples patterned around the base of his hand. The aforementioned slice around the entirety of his right.
Wordlessly, Heisenberg’s hand twitches, and the shackles around his ankles drop down to the floor. Ethan flexes his feet in response, sighing at the feeling. He almost tells him thank you, but thinks that Heisenberg doesn't particularly deserve it.
“If I’m going to.. work with you,” Ethan holds up his mangled left hand. “Is there anything you, um. Could do about this?”
“Staples,” Heisenberg says, almost complimentary. He pets up and down said staples, as if checking if they’ll give. Ethan hopes not; it’ll be very painful. “Inventive, papa.”
“Wasn't me,” Ethan supplies. “A friend of mine.”
“Assumably at your little incident back in America?”
Ethan winces at a particularly painful poke. Heisenberg shushes him like a child, as not to scare him off. Instead of biting his fingers, Ethan digs his teeth into his bottom lip and works his jaw. “Yes.”
Zoe had done the nasty work with shaky, bloody limbs. Taken his sawed-off hand and simply took a stapler to it and did the best job that she could, Ethan observing her work with horror. Although, that wasn't any stranger from his booted foot reattaching itself after applying liquid to it, or waking up again after getting a chainsaw to the face. That all hurts, but everything hurts, and at this point Ethan can’t afford it to.
Heisenberg has him sat only on the side of the operating table this time around, with his legs dangling off the edges. The machinist is sitting in a swivel chair by his side—Ethan is almost a fool to think Heisenberg wouldn't know what a swivel chair even is, but there's a good chance the man thinks he invented those himself.
He had agreed to create Ethan a type of prosthetic for his fingers, pleased with the offer and disgustingly excited to take a look at Ethan’s hands to start on it. “Of course,” Heisenberg’s mouth ticked upwards. “Since you were so kind to let me study you.”
“That was not willing,” Ethan snapped, and Heisenberg grumbled an uninterested shh while he complained. “I was actively against it! I told you to stop!”
Heisenberg shrugged with one shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
Ethan squints at his unapologetic tone. “That is such bullshit.”
“Are you always this whiny,” Heisenberg sighed, big and overdramatic.
Heisenberg pokes around with a few tools of his for just a little longer before grabbing Ethan’s attention, and imploringly holding out a waiting hand. When Ethan did nothing but glare at Heisenberg's glove, the man’s fingers twitched impatiently and gestured for him to hurry up, raising a single eyebrow. Heisenberg cocked his head. “Do I have to remind you that you are the one who asked for this, Ethan?”
He holds out his hand. Heisenberg smiles, and lays Ethan’s hand palm-up in his lap.
Ethan falls asleep - exhausted as he is - throughout Heisenberg’s work. He's embarrassed about it, but his eyes suddenly got heavy (as if he finally realized how tired he is, how deprived of any rest) and Heisenberg was graciously silent, so Ethan fell under quickly. Waking with a start, groaning quietly with a crick in his neck. He was almost worried Heisenberg had used that time to start chopping off the remaining fingers Ethan still possessed, but instead woke to two steel slabs attached.
They looked like any prosthetic Ethan had seen before. Precisely attached to the base of the stub, and then shaping out into the proper feel of a fingertip. They would pass as real fingers if they weren't the color of metal, but Ethan could possibly get that altered in the future. If he lives through this, anyway.
Ethan finds himself - and not that he’d ever expect it, not from him - really liking them. When he bends his knuckles, they fold the exact way a real one would. Ethan blinks, neck prickling, and looks up to see Heisenberg meticulously studying his expression.
Ethan repeatedly clenches his hands into fists. “Thank you.”
There’s a solid, thick moment between them. Heisenberg squints at him like he's trying to gauge if he's telling the truth. Ethan meets his eyes. Whatever Heisenberg happens to find there, he quirks a small, proud smile to himself.
This man before him is a drug. Seriously. Ethan must've hit his head good in those mines, or maybe a lycan clawed his lights out, or something of the kind. Losing his two fingers in the thick of the village made him lose a couple screws so now every normally functioning part of his brain has absolutely lost it. His frontal lobe has packed its bags and walked off, because now Ethan is finding himself to be weirdly, grossly endeared. Like a dreadful, terrible, no-good need. An IV full of drugs sent straight into Ethan’s veins. Maybe it's his odd charisma. Or the crooked grin, sure. It's fucking humiliating.
There was nothing worse than kneeling before the four Lords, confused out of his mind, with Heisenberg’s feline pupils staring him down. Maybe a strong contender was sitting in that steel chair with Heisenberg so close their lips brushed.
“Yeah, yeah,” Heisenberg waves him off, before getting a handful of Ethan’s dirty jacket and dragging him. “Now, you're going back to sleep, because I’m not having you fall dead on the job.”
“Hey,” Ethan snaps, stumbling behind him. “Hey, asshole! Let go! What are you doing? I just slept—”
“Shut your hole,” Heisenberg grunted. Effortlessly, and like Ethan weighs very little, he’s scooped up and dumped a little less than gracefully onto a mattress. It squeaks when he lands, and Ethan frowns up at him. Heisenberg plants his smoky hands on his hips like a disgruntled parent. Maybe that's what Ethan looks like putting Rose to bed. He slumps at the reminder of her.
“Thank you for the help, but we need to start now if—”
“Did I not just tell you to shut the hell up, Ethan? You drooled all over my shoulder. You’re exhausted and deprived.”
Ethan grimaces, a few shades from embarrassed. “Drooled all over your—?”
“Have you ever seen the bags under your eyes, Winters? They’re huge. Quite unhealthy. I doubt my dearest siblings have been helping you sleep soundly at night,” Heisenberg arches a questioning eyebrow. “I’ve been watching you. I know I’m right.”
“Yeah, because you're a freak,” Ethan says, matter-of-fact. Heisenberg twitched. “But that doesn't mean I can just stop.”
“You step one foot off that bed, I’ll break your legs. And then you really won't be able to go anywhere,” Heisenberg is hovering in the doorway like some sort of attack dog, waiting for Ethan to make a run for it. He’d think he’d have some sort of fight left in him, but being so close to an uninterrupted night of sleep sounds so appealing to him he can’t get himself to move. “Sure, you’ll heal within time.. but,” Heisenberg grinned. “Ah, good choice.”
The man watches Ethan peel back the covers and slide underneath them. With his body still bone-tired, he already feels that familiar tug, sluggish and gooey, and Ethan doesn't even know if he trusts this man enough to fall asleep in his house from hell, but it doesn't look like he’s being given any other choice. “Happy?”
“Delighted,” Heisenberg drawled, rolling his shoulders and rubbing under his nose with an index finger. He turns to the door, and with one hand on the knob, pauses. Glances back, mouth quirked in something that isn't quite a smile. “See you, Ethan.”