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God, everything is fucked.
It’s Been fucked since the beginning.
Deimos picks at a crusted bandage on his wrist, tearing absentmindedly at abrasive cakey edges. Small strands and pieces of fabric litter his stomach and the floor as the thread frays and rips apart under his pointed nails. It’s late. An infinite stretch of shadowed maroon - Nevada’s dark sky - has deepened further. Until the horizon is indistinguishable, the sky and the ground melt into one in the same. The dark sucks in all light like it's being filtered out in the atmosphere, like they're at the bottom of the ocean out there.
They’ve done what they can for the day, 2BDamned doing 2BDamned work, never giving hxrself a rest, Hank out doing God knows what and Sanford under the Doc’s watch. Which leaves Deimos to ruminate in here.
“Here” is currently an old, abandoned agent bunker that they had cleared out once before. Sanford “discovered” the pantry was still stocked. Really, he went to lean against the wall, and it so happened that it was the still-open pantry door. Doc suggested it as safe enough. Exhaustion increases the drag of their bodies tenfold. It leaves Deimos stumbling over his own feet. Even Hank was sluggish.
Yes. Deimos thinks. Anywhere for some fuckin’ rest.
During their scavenging Dei finds a nice, padded sleeping bag rolled up tight. He had shaken the cockroaches off it and laid it out in one smaller room, an optimal spot to stare out the window, despite the lack of anything interesting to stare at.
And even though exhaustion tugs at his weight, his bones turned to lead and his blood full of iron, his head will not shut off. The muscles of his eyelids are fixed open, it feels like more work to force them closed than not. He doesn’t think his eyes even know how to be relaxed anymore, he barely ever blinks, and his eyes are constantly sore and achy. He notices recently that he has to squint harder to see the keys of a keyboard under his fingers, or text on a screen.
Eyes, his eyes... His thoughts run like processing code. Loading... Loading... as each line of thought writes itself into his head. He chews on it until he’s tired of the sour taste of tar and ash.
He chews on this: It was hard bringing Sanford home that day.
It’s been a lot to get used to, no time to process any of it. He still isn’t really sure how to feel about his own death, his own new body. Sanford, though, was really a fork in their team. Deimos thinks that sounds a little mean. They just don’t really know where to go from here, Sanford can’t fight like this. Can’t do much at all like this. Doc’s been looking into what Soldat tech there is that might be able to help him. So far shx’s come up empty handed.
His thoughts shift.
His heart felt like it was going to blow out of his chest and ears. He’d lit up a cig in attempt to condemn the tremoring in his hands. It’s a futile effort. His brain is tumbling down a slope a mile a minute. The tablet Doc sent him off with sits on the center console and Deimos thinks his heart restarts just about every time Doc sends another message through. The tires screech and the frame creaks as he slams the truck to a stop and clambers out the driver's side door. He drags a large crate out of the bed, to the front where Sanford's body lays half sinking into the ground. He drops the tablet as Doc’s rapid stream of messages ping through it. It jumps right out of his hands; the stress is jackhammering in his skull, and he trembles and fumbles as it clatters to the floor. It’s not broken until his hands go shooting down after it, gripping it a little too tight in stone hands. The screen flashes as he manages to take a screenshot on accident.
Fuck. Too bad, can’t worry about it right now.
He gives the incoming instructions a quick glance as he flings open the crate, then discards the tablet again. He smashes the lever into the terrain and flips it. Sanford slips slightly. His hand reaches out. Deimos is there to grab hold. There to pull him up. There isn’t time for a proper reunion and Deimos is rushing Sanford's half-conscious body back to the truck as soon as he’s on his feet. He passes out in the car and Deimos is getting so sick looking at him that he has to lean over to heave out the window. When they get back Doc is waiting for them.
“Not a real doctor,” sure, but shx is always the first one to a gash, to a sniffle, to an ache or pain. Not a wince or stiff limb goes unnoticed. And shx drags him in like his life depends on it. With how awful he looks Deimos isn’t sure if it would be more right to say it does. They don’t have access to much here in the way of medical supplies. Doc does what shx can to sterilize needle and thread, scoop the rotting gelatinous gore out of his face. Wiping off the inky stains of black ichor. Sanford has a spare tank top clenched tight between his teeth. Deimos looks away when the room starts spinning and his stomach churns.
Doc only gives San, gives all of them, a few hours of rest before they’re on the move again. It’d been a few weeks until they found themselves here currently. Moving, moving, moving, Doc doesn’t like staying in one place. That’s a gross understatement.
Doc hates staying in one place.
They’ve been recuperating here for a few days. With each passing minute Doc gets more and more restless. Shx tries to can it for them, Deimos knows shx can feel it too, those steel chains wrapped over hxr shoulders, that gripping heaviness. But it doesn’t stop the paranoia eating at the stem of hxr brain. Shx works hxrself until shx’s passing out at hxr desk. Doesn’t stop to drink or eat. Until shx physically can’t anymore. Until those flesh instincts sink their exhausted, painful, hungry tendrils into hxr body. Only then will shx relent, so hungry the scent of hxr food heating up makes hxr gag, so dehydrated Dei watches as hxr eyes shake in their sockets with the crush of a headache against hxr skull. He hates seeing hxr like this. It’s worse recently, at first it was just Hank shx had to worry about. Then it was him. Then it was Sanford. Constant surveillance. Constant vigilance.
Doc gets nasty when shx’s stressed. None of them are strangers to it. They all know what sets hxr off, what not to say. Deimos got the brunt of it earlier; he does one of the things he’s best at and pushes his luck. He needs hxr to do something, anything other than this. Shx’s already irritable, the point of a needle is pressed to the thin skin of a balloon, but he grows increasingly tired of watching hxr sway in hxr chair, flex numb and prickling muscles after holding a position too long.
More than anything else, Doc hates being told what to do.
“Deimos.” Hxr voice is just as sharp as the daggers shx’s glaring into his face. The stone that protrudes into his throat prevents him from speaking properly, and with no lips to shape the air out of his lungs he’s about as privy to verbal communication as Hank is; metal jaw, scarred vocal cords and shredded upper lip. So, he’s taken to being more physical. He tugs at hxr arm and flashes his best I-Don’t-Want-To-Make-You-Do-This-Either face. He moves to block hxr view of the monitor, to make a point. He raises his hands to sign a few gestures:
Come, short, break-
Shx slaps his hands out of hxr face and swiftly rises to his height. With that, he knows there won't be any big winnings for him today. He backs up a few steps, goes to move his palm over his chest:
Please-
He sees the way shx shakes; shakes when shx’s hungry, shakes when the paranoia works hxr into a stupor and hxr heart thrums a constant worry into hxr chest, shakes with rage. Probably all of the above at this moment.
“Deimos- I bend my ass over backward for you fuckwads every day because it’s life or death for ALL of us If I don’t keep us safe. Sure, I can bring you back, but it takes, equally importantly, Time and Resources.” The rage broils in hxr voice and sears him. “You’re lucky your rotting corpse isn’t being desecrated by roaches and ants as we speak. Your life is a tether on my line.” Shx spits that last part out through grit teeth. Wow. Actually - he thinks - he’s in debt to the casino dealers and they want his head on a stick and his intestines drying on a rack.
“Every second that clock ticks," Hxr pointed finger comes up to gesture to the wall-clock hanging from the back wall, "Auditor is cooking up more and more Agents for us to deal with. I don’t get to sit around; I don’t get to shoot shit with you and Sanford and Hank because I’m busy Saving Your Fucking Lives and covering our backs 24/7.” Deimos catches the brief breath shx holds. Shx shakes still as shx leans hxr palms on the desk shx was previously sitting behind. “Your lives aren’t expendable. Sanford’s life is not expendable, your life is not expendable, Hank’s life is not expendable.”
“The body becomes unstable- one of these days I won’t be able to bring them back up. Their data will corrupt. With that, I lose the ability to anchor the body...”
“Hank is one thing. I can’t keep watching you die. It’s not something I’ll allow.” Shx breathes heavily and sways slightly.
Fucked. It’s all fucked. He needs a cigarette.
The guilt licks at Deimos’s skin like black and red flame. It gnaws a lump into his throat and leaves skin black and charred in its wake. A thought creeps up his spine that he tries not to entertain, one that slithers up his vertebrae like a ladder and nestles itself right behind his eyes. That it would be a load off hxr shoulders to have stayed in purgatory. He knows it’s bullshit. Shx works so hard for all of them. Because they all need each other. Shx needs all of them. He can’t argue, he can’t add anything. What is he supposed to say?
He doesn’t blame hxr, shx’s got possibly the most fucked up form of survivor's guilt where everyone around hxr dies and it’s Hxr dragging them back up out of hell back to the living. Deimos comes over to guide hxr back into the chair. Shx sighs in defeat. Dei watches hxr rapidly type something final into the input.
He blinks for the first time in a few minutes, his vision turns foggy at the sting and well of tears as his eyes moisten themselves. He brings a hand up to wipe them. He needs a cigarette.
He ignores the ache in his muscles and the goosebumps that rise on his exposed skin as he slithers out of the sleeping bag and rises to his feet. Sanford and Doc get on him all the time for stinking up facilities by smoking inside. Doc says it makes them traceable. He makes his way down the hall and passes a small room. The silhouettes catch his eye- there's a few bare mattresses pushed together on the floor. The three of them are curled up together. San has an arm slung over Doc’s chest. Hank is curled around hxr on his side, his large frame shielding them from the rest of the room. Dei slips out the front and leans against the side of the building. He slides his pinky across thumb and the rock catches flame. He holds the cig between stone teeth. Finally, the tension in his shoulders frees up, falling lax as he hangs his head back and rests it on the wall of the building. His eyes still water and ache as his eyelids are tugged closed with sleep. He’s tempted to sit until the cig is out, but he knows he’ll end up passing out on the floor. He stomps it out and slips back inside. Makes his way into that room. Crawls into bed with them. He worms his way under Sanf’s arm, between his and Doc’s warm bodies. Doc stirs, sets a firm hand on his hip and snuggles close. Hank chases after hxr as shx scoots closer.
It is fucked. It’s fucked they have to deal with all this shit, that they’re pitted against Nevada’s very own Satan Hell Mob, and maybe the devil itself woke to deal with Them specifically. But as his mind slips from his body he feels slightly less fucked here. Squished between the people that make him feel the safest. That risk their lives and would each sacrifice themselves over and over in a fucked up infinite loop to get each other back. Here, with the people he loves the most.
Tucked Neatly.