Work Text:
How long? Days? Weeks? No, no it didn’t matter, what mattered was that the stupid gun wasn’t fucking working. Hissing, tail lashing, he punched the workbench. The gun rattled violently—and fell right off the table. Another hiss escaped him, and his tail rattled, long and baleful. His long claws dug into the workbench, and when one of the automata came to clean up the mess, he smacked it with his tail.
It crashed into the wall beside him and didn't get up. The pile grew.
Didn't matter. It didn't matter when he couldn't get the components to cooperate, not when the letters swam in front of his aching eyes like insufferable little pests. Not when the slightest failure felt like a massive weight pressing him down, down, down until he was crushed against his work table.
But that didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but the broken weapon on the floor.
How did it get there? Did the automata drop it?
Growling, he stormed off to find who was responsible.
~.~.~
It wasn’t working. Nothing worked in this godforsaken ship. Everything swayed to and fro, all chaos and disorder, and he couldn’t find shit.
His eyes burned, his head ached. When the hell was the last time he'd slept?
“Alex? Alexander, wake up!”
“Leave him, Alice.”
“Were you working all night again? Alex? Alex, answer me!”
He tugged at his hood and hissed in irritation. Stop talking. I don't need sleep—I need to finish.
“If staying up all night is what he needs to finish his duties, then so be it. However, this behavior is unbecoming. Alexander! Wake up!!”
“. . . Father, if Alexander passes from lack of sleep, you will have killed your golden goose before it has given you all its eggs.”
Something tugged him along the arm and guided him around the shoulder. “Alex, it’s time for bed. Come along.”
That voice . . . he recognized it.
Alice.
His eyes burned. His head ached. Slowly, he allowed Alice to guide him back to bed. He must have been awake longer than he’d intended—again. Leaning into her arms, he closed opened his bleary eyes. When had he closed them? He must have been tired. Been awake too long.
The floor looked wrong. Didn’t their home have carpets? Yes, he remembered they did because the servants always had trouble cleaning the soot and really he would have felt bad if he hadn’t been busy—so busy that he didn’t have time for sleep and sleep was for the weak—
A glowing red eye met his.
“Alex, come to bed. You must sleep.”
The eye blinked with every word. Alice’s voice was coming from somewhere, but when he looked around, he couldn’t find her.
Where was she?
“Alex, it is time to sleep. Come along to bed.”
The eye blinked with every word, but she was nowhere to be seen. Where was her voice coming from . . . ?
“Alex, come to bed. It is time for sleep.”
Her voice was different. Too—too tinny, too distant, flat. Sleep was the furthest thing from his mind now as he stopped in his tracks. The arm around his shoulders kept nudging insistently, but that felt wrong, too. Too hard, too cold, that isn’t Alice.
“Alex. Come to bed.” The red eye blinked with every word. “It is time to sleep. Come along.” Her voice was coming from—
With a roar, he ripped the arm off its place in the wall and smashed the red eye to bits. He raised it again and slammed it down again and again and again and again and again andagainandagainandagain—
Until he stood there, panting and gasping with exertion, glaring daggers at the machine that dared impersonate her.
For a while, he stayed in front of the machine, mechanical arm in hand and staring at the little machine with his sister's voice. How long? How long has he stood there?
Not too long. Not too long before he heard— “Al-Al-Ale—ti-i-i-mmmmmee for—Alex c-com—”
His eye twitched. He raised the mechanical arm.
“Al-Alex-x-x c-co-o-o—”
His lower lip wobbled. God, it sounded so much like her, it sounded just like her and she—
She was dying.
Oh God, she was dying—she—no, she couldn't die, she—
The arm dropped with a loud clang!, but the sound was muffled through the cotton in his ears. Sleep completely forgotten, he gathered the remains of her body and rushed her back to the workshop to—to—to fix her, to heal her, to do something she can't die not again—
It took him the entire night to fix her. His tears kept short circuiting her.
“I'm sorry,” he sobbed. “Come back, please come back please, I'm sorry—”
~.~.~
Of course, the next night was the same. And the next. And the next.
The cycle repeated without end, until he finally collapsed from exhaustion.
At some point,
(he didn't know when or how or why, the days mixed and blended and melded together endlessly, endlessly—)
he dismantled those automata.
For good, this time.
At least, he thought so. He broke this one so much that the voice box stopped working entirely and yet—
And yet.
The next night, he heard her voice.
“Come along to bed. It is time to sleep, Alex.”
He clenched his fist around the pencil.
“Not now,” he mumbled. “I almost have it.”
“Alex. Come to bed.”
His hand shook, but he kept writing. He could feel her exasperation, all but swore he felt her hand tightening around his shoulder. His eyes burned and he could feel exhaustion dogging at his heels, but he needed to finish. Then, he and Alice could have a nice, long—
blood spilled on the streets as he cradled her body. no matter how hard he shook her, she would not open her eyes would not speak did not smack him away for shaking her so hard—
The stinging scent of blood permeated the air. His arm outstretched, his hood flared, he glared down at the piece of machinery that had been gripping him— urging him to go to sleep. He couldn’t take it anymore. No matter how many times he destroyed it—destroyed her —she always came back like a ghost. Someone kept repairing these machines, but he would destroy them once and for all.
Later, he barely remembered the rampage. All he truly remembered was the weight of his wrench slamming into his machines, every single automata whether it had her voice or not meeting its end. Hell’s sun was already high in the sky by the time he stopped, furious and dripping venom.
The ship was silent. No noise aside from the humming of its engine. Not a single voice. Just his ragged breaths.
And it felt . . .
. . . peaceful.
. . .
. . .
. . .
For a moment, at least.
Because when he looked down at the carnage, all he could see were the ruined houses destroyed in the exorcists’ slaughter. The wrench clattered to the ground as he clapped his hands over his ears as the screams of demons tore through the air.
But everything was silent.
He couldn’t hear her, couldn’t—couldn’t—
He looked down at the carnage and saw
her
mangled body, bleeding and oozing
oil
blood and viscera, staring up at him with red, accusing eyes because he killed her,
he let her die.
“No,” he whispered and shook his head vehemently. “No, no no, she’s not—not here, she’s de—” The word caught in his throat.
And then— “A-A-Alex-x-xannnnnnnn—Co-come—lexxx—”
“No!!” Knocking his fist against his head, he shut his eyes and curled into himself. She wasn’t there, she couldn’t be there, she’d been ki—
The ship was silent save for his frantic, heaving sobs.