Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There is something to be said for running life by your own standards. Now, it’s one thing to disobey authority. It’s another to realize that… maybe there is no “authority.” Maybe no one deserves to be in charge of everyone else, because we’re all just specks of dust running around on a little planet.

That, of course, is what you told yourself every trudging step through a little government owned facility called… prison. Sure, you were reckless at times. But that made you fun, that made you… ehm… special. Just because the cost and repercussions of your behavior hadn’t always reached your brain all the way didn’t mean you deserved to be here. That is also something you told yourself, even with the secretive glares and pissy attitude always directed at you. You would look yourself dead in the eyes through the grimy, busted up mirror in the public prison restroom, and convince yourself that you were a survivor. If you had managed to get through every misfortune to occur in such a place as prison, that must mean you’ve survived the worst of the worst.

But a little voice, seemingly hesitant, whispered in the back of your mind and made your neck tingle with every word. Am I really a survivor? This voice became clearer, ringing like the echo of a bell as you were informed of your arrival on Death Row during your third post-conviction relief hearing. No such mischief you could have accomplished before prison ever made your heart drop to the pit of your stomach like it did then.

Why is it, that only now they were deciding you were fit for Death Row? Well, shortly thereafter, it had been proved by quite a few lawyers present in the hearing that you had been found guilty of several counts of third-degree murder. It wasn’t only the fact that you had been framed for such acts, but that everyone in the room seemed to be on the same page except for you. Everyone had decided for themselves that you indeed deserved a penalty of death. EVERYONE thought… because third-degree murder meant that you would have had no intention or reason to kill, these murders resulted from your reckless behavior.

How… predictable. Honestly, you should have seen it coming. How could anyone not blame such a little ball of mischief after all? Evidence or not, you were sentenced to death and given one last day to relish in the overwhelming feelings as you were placed in a holding cell. It was quite a difference from the more open feeling of your original cell, as this one did not have the fourth wall made entirely of iron bars. It almost felt like it was meant to trap any anger or negative feelings a prisoner might have towards the crafters of their demise.

And yet… all you could think of was how much you missed the ocean. Truly a random thought to appear so suddenly in the depths of your mind, but you couldn’t help closing your eyes and imagining you were there. Your leg tangled in a strip of seaweed that brushed in from the tide. The cold embrace of water wrapping around your feet and leaving residues of seafoam against your ankles like a tan line. Maybe this was your version of your life flashing before your eyes. The good parts, at least.

You had begun to declare yourself dead in your mind as you were guided out from the holding cell and led to a steel chair in the middle of a blank room. It reminded you of a hospital room’s empty walls and grease-patterned floor. The blaring lights overhead definitely complimented that demeanor.

You snapped back out of your trance when another steel chair was set ungracefully across from you. You attempted to pay attention as a man sat in it, leaning forward with his elbows pressed against his knees. However, the thoughts of your upcoming death disrupted it now and again.

“Hey, are you listening?” The man asked, snapping his fingers once in front of your eyes. You blinked at him and leaned away slightly with cautious eyes trained on his movements. Frankly, he looked tired. He had the kind of face you expected to have when you kicked the bucket.

“I thought this was my death trial. I don’t believe there to be much talking, am I right?” You muttered the last part under your breath, but voiced it loud enough for the man to hear. He only rubbed his eyes tiredly in response.

“Think of it… as more of an interrogation, yeah?”

“Interrogation? Could’ve saved me some trouble if we’d done this, y’know, before I was sentenced to death,” You spat. “What kind of interrogation happens after I’ve been found guilty?”

“...Fine, don’t think of it as an interrogation then.” The man leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. His head tilted back and his eyes stared in thought at the ceiling as a sigh escaped his mouth. “I’ll just beat around the bush and call it like it is. I’m here to offer you a compromise. Alternative to the promise of a quick death.”

“What, like you’re offering me a slow death? Pass.”

“Can you listen for one second?” The man asked with a raised voice, dropping his head down from his gaze at the ceiling to face you again. “I work with an undercover company called Urbanshade. Ever heard of it?”

“No-”

“Good. Because it is highly confidential. Even so much as telling you the name could have put you right back onto Death Row, had I not come to you with an offer.” The man leaned over his knees and seemed to stare directly into your soul. You weren’t uncomfortable with much, but this definitely started to make the back of your neck tingle. You laughed at his comment, however, whether it was out of nerves or actual humor, you didn’t quite know. This man just stared at you with his exhausted gaze and waited with strained eyebrows for your laughing to cease.

“Hah… hah… You’re not lying, are you?” You realized aloud with a pained expression. The man only sighed in response and stared at the musty floor with a blank face.

“Listen, I’m all for leaving you to your awaited death if you won’t bother setting aside your attitude for a minute and hearing me out. There are plenty of others who would take my offer at the drop of a dime.”

“Well I have yet to hear this golden offer,” You piped up, but quickly settled back down when his dark eyes glared at you directly. “Right… Sorry. Go ahead.”

“Urbanshade is a company that runs a place called the Hadal Blacksite. It’s a division set on experiments regarding the creatures of the deep sea. It is located roughly 73,985 studs below sea level, and you would need to take a submarine to even get there.” The man stood from his seat and paced around the steel chair. You looked up and watched him circle the chair aimlessly as you actually listened.

“There are only two main directives set on you if you decide to take this offer. You would have to secure an asset called Z-2; a crystal. As well as… loose assets.”

“‘Loose assets?’” You repeat.

“Files, documents… the holy trinity of confidentiality left scattered inside the Blacksite. See, the whole area is on lockdown at the moment, which is why you are needed. Thanks to some failed experiment…” The man grumbled. You didn’t quite catch that last part, but you weren’t about to interrupt this man for the fourth time.

“Anyhow, if you would obtain Z-2 and maybe even some loose assets while you’re at it, you could earn your freedom. And I’m not talking about going back to that cell and really only escaping Death Row. I’m talking about leaving prison and having that recent trial of yours scrapped from your record permanently.” The man stopped his pacing and gave your eyes a break as they trained on his still figure. “Do we have a deal? Or do you need time to think it over? The most I can give you is a day.”

His words broke you. Well, most of them at least. You didn’t even think it was possible to escape something like Death Row. Maybe you were a survivor after all? Then of course you had to take his offer; you weren’t stupid. The man’s outstretched hand was aiming to fall limp again at his side from your hesitancy, but you quickly grasped it in your own and shook it firmly. Your eyes met his with a determination you didn’t realize you still had as you whispered, “Deal.”

And what a deal it was.

Chapter Text

Part of you wished you had longed for death. How ironic, right? Well, death would be a quick and easy way of escape that you just didn’t have the guts for. And you had the guts for quite a lot of your faulty actions. But if you had just… declined the only offer one could make at such a standstill as Death Row, you would have spared yourself from the impending horror.

You were very unaware of this, however, even as you sat alone in the cold, fast diving submarine. Only your thoughts could be heard apart from the rush of water slipping against the outsides, as well as the occasional intercom voice declaring your departure and arrival. It felt too soon that you arrived at the Blacksite, but maybe that was a result of your nerves.

'Stand back from the hatch', the intercom demanded, just as the submarine halted and the large door at the end folded into a dimly lit ramp. 'Please exit the submarine,' this voice continued. You were hesitant to take in the surroundings outside of the submarine, even as you stepped off of the ramp and the vehicle submerged itself back into the depths of the water. You were slightly confused, thinking this was all there was to the Hadal Blacksite. It was a big room, sure, but it did not exactly measure up to everything your compromiser had described.

'Please note: The safest path is the currently marked path. It doesn’t mean it’s clear. Be ready for anything.'

The intercom’s dreadful voice made you shiver slightly, even through your wetsuit. The room really just looked like an indoor storage area, with crates and forklifts lining the walkways. You decided that if you were going to be here taking a risk for your life and your freedom, you’d at least study your surroundings. Nobody was here to rush you anyway. He really wasn’t lying about the lockdown, huh? You didn’t exactly expect a welcome party, but maybe a few operators? Workers? Maintenance??

It didn’t matter. You had been on your own before. Besides, you worked better solo. If Urbanshade wanted some stupid crystal, you could get it. The only issue was… the classified information held from you. You had no idea what kind of dangers might await you past the obviously numbered metal door, but you would likely find out.

First, however, you took your time looking around the place. You noticed a few folders and USB drives that were left on desks, and you figured those were considered the “loose assets.” Along with your diving gear, you were giving pouches that strapped on to your torso, your legs, and one on your arm. So, you pressed the folders together and stuffed them straight into your personal storage, zipping it closed again.

During your search, you noticed a card sitting plainly on a lone desk, brandishing the number one in cyan and white. You picked it up and turned it over in your hand, feeling the ridges of the barcode on the back. You made a “hm,” sound to yourself and stuffed that in your arm pouch as well. That is, until you rummaged for it again once you saw the numbered door was also a ‘one.’ Flipping it to face you, you swiped it on the door slow enough for it to read before pocketing the keycard once the gears shifted and opened you to a new room.

Well, if you could call it a room. It was more like a short hall with a few lockers and more desks scattered around. An open window was on your left, but you decided not to look out of it in fear of what might be lurking in the dark waters outside. Any other curious person might’ve stared outside, but you kept your focus on collecting “loose assets” and shoving them in your personal storage pouches. Without needing a keycard for the second door, you simply walked near it and almost jumped when it opened automatically for you.

The confidence rush you had experienced when you shook that man’s hand was not so present anymore, especially now that you had no idea what you were doing. In a place like this, you did not feel welcome.

Then again, you didn’t feel welcome in prison either, or in the firework shop you robbed. You chuckled in reminiscence of that little stunt. To be fair, you left cash for about two of the seven fireworks you took. They were so incredibly expensive, though! Seventy-five dollars for each one, how could anyone pay that? And they were so pretty, you just had to take a couple for the road.

You hummed to yourself, recalling every little thing you could think of that put you in this position. Really all white collar crimes, but when they all added up… You pursed your lips and scanned the second room for documents and folders. It wasn’t fair. Prison, yeah, you understood that. But Death Row? You had never killed anyone, not even in all your chaotic moments. What really irked you the most was how the jury, the judge… Everyone… just believed that you must have committed such a crime. Why was it so hard to believe that maybe someone like you wasn’t capable of murder?

You didn’t even notice that you had made it to the sixth door during your spiral of thoughts, collecting data as you passed each room. You sighed and tilted your head back with closed eyes. Deep breath. Breathe out. Open.

You opened your eyes, your gaze landing on a stray locker tucked into a corner of the room. You had to blink a few times, thinking you were seeing spots in your vision. You neared the locker and peered up at the slit airways at the top with a squint. Were those… eyes? Purple dots of light were definitely visible from where you stood, and as you stepped closer you accidentally slipped in a puddle forming below it. Something was seeping out and onto the floor; whether it was water or some other mysterious substance, you weren’t sure. To top it off, you could have sworn you heard the faintest of breaths echoing from inside the metal case.

That was enough for you to back away and quickly head to the seventh door. You were not about to open that locker just to see what was causing the light and puddled liquid. You may be curious, but you’re not stupid. As luck would have it, you saw the lights again in another locker from the seventh room. You had to double-take. Whatever was hiding in those lockers just had to be trying to lure you in. No way were you going to fall for it. You’d been enclosed in many tight spaces in life, but never with another living being.

On the eighth door, you grinned to finally see some change in environment. Not only was the room a bit bigger, but it had a side door that opened when you approached it. You peeked inside at an office area with yellowed overhead lights and grouped desks. You noticed the lights flickered a few times, probably due to the lack of proper maintenance down here. There were more files and USB drives scattered within the drawers than in the combined rooms you had scoured through, making you gleam with delight.

The air conditioning must have been rattling in the vents, because you heard it gradually grow louder… until you realized…

That wasn’t the vents.

Something was getting closer.

And closer.

And LOUDER.

LOUD ENOUGH TO ECHO THROUGH YOUR BODY AND LEAVE YOU COVERING YOUR EARS ON THE GROUND.

LOUD ENOUGH TO SHRIEK PAST THE OPEN DOOR AND SMASH THE LIGHTS ONE BY ONE.

…Until it was gone.

You were left crouched in the corner of the office room with your hands enclosed tightly around your ears. Your heartbeat crashed loudly in your head and vibrated in the palms of your hands. You didn’t realize it was over until you opened one eye and saw only the dimly lit lamps around the office area. Outside, the hall was pitch black.

The only thing you could do from there was whisper to yourself, “I’m okay. It’s okay. I’m safe. Everything is…”

You choked on the last part. “...Fine.”

You wouldn’t let yourself regret this just yet, because you were obviously fine and alive. Just… shaken up. So you forced yourself to stand and take a deep breath as you held your arms crossed behind your head to give your lungs room to expand. You stood there for a moment and collected yourself before grabbing a lamp and using it as much as you could to lead you to the next door. You did jump this time as it opened automatically.

Strangely enough, the ninth room was lit just fine, as if the storm of shrieking didn’t just come through here. Had you imagined it? No, the lights definitely flickered, and the room definitely rattled as something rushed past the office. You assured yourself that it would be the scariest thing down here, but the dissident part of your mind whispered otherwise.

Despite the looming dread of death hanging over you like a storm cloud, you carried on past another ten doors with only the occasional pipes sounding throughout the walls. You watched carefully for anything that might seem out of the ordinary, especially flickering lights or loud shrieks in the distance. You weren’t sure if the two were actually connected, but it scared you to think about ignoring a sign like that and ultimately dying from that kind of mistake.

The fear of messing up even just a bit motivated you to pay attention to your surroundings and walk around with a false determination in the hope of showing yourself that you can do this. It worked; you felt like you were strong enough to earn your freedom by carrying on through the endless amounts of doors and rooms. At least… until the lights flickered again. You steadied yourself when it happened, convincing yourself that the lights were definitely a sign that something was coming. But this time, there was no side room to hide in the corner of. You scanned the stretched hall for any other doors besides the twentieth on the far side of the room. But you wouldn’t make it. The room had already started buzzing with anticipation as a shrill scream sounded from the doors you had already come through.

You didn’t think. In a situation as desperate as this, you could only act. You flung open the double doors of a locker stood strong against the wall, careful to check for purple eyes or drooling puddles. With a quick glance through the line of doors you had just come through, the sight of a nearing cloud of darkness forcing your legs to leap into the locker and hold it shut tight in the cramped space. You weren’t sure exactly what you saw, but you knew it was a creature far beyond what words could describe. A terribly… horrific face was really all you captured in your sight. One with teeth sharper than blades and several beady white eyes.

You held the locker doors with every ounce of strength in your hands and arms, squeezing your eyes shut when the screeches passed right outside the locker and faded past the next door. You let out a breath that you had been holding too long. Your trembling hands held steady against the doors even after the creature had passed, and your shut eyes pictured the only thing they could to comfort your racing heart and unraveling mind.

Bristling bushes lining a sandy path… Frigid water lapping at your ankles. An overcast day rustling your hair in line with the breeze.

That’s all it took to force yourself out of the locker. Your hands found themselves wrapping around your arms in a protective stance. It was almost a reassurance, but what really encouraged you to keep moving was the fact that you were alive. You reminded yourself as you trudged to the twentieth door in the pitch black void before you that had you not taken this deal, you would have been limp in an electric chair with no thoughts left to course through your head. You reminded yourself that in a way, this was worth it.

So when the twentieth door opened, and the intercom speaker began talking to you in garbled requests, you told yourself that you were fine.

You told yourself you were fine even as a scatter of luminescent green eyes trained on yours from outside the gaping window. The intercom was telling you to look at it. So why wouldn’t you?

But… when you continued to stare and unknowingly step closer, you felt a hint of hesitation from within yourself. Since when did you listen to external voices? They had no idea what you were going through down there. Besides, you had a mission, right? Secure the crystal.

“Secure… the crystal,” you whispered to yourself as if to convince your eyes to look away and continue to the next door.

'Do you ever want to see your family again??' The intercom blasted. 'You will see them… If you look into my eyes.'

You laughed, and the action of throwing your head back let you force yourself away from the window and to the next door. Family? Yeah, right. The door opened automatically for you, and you stumbled through gasping with a hand clasping your chest. You had no idea the eyes had been so hypnotic… that you had stopped breathing altogether in that room. You looked up from your hunched position and looked at yourself in the distorted reflection of a metal locker.

“I can’t trust anything here. Not a single entity,” you told yourself with a firm tone. You would make it out of this alive, you decided. And it meant not trusting the intercom, not trusting the literal glowing eyes, not trusting any living creature except yourself.

You stuck with this determination throughout the next ten doors, although you wondered how many rooms you would have to search through to eventually secure the crystal. For at the moment, it seemed pretty endless. Especially with your pouches stuffed to the brim with documents and files. You carefully tucked a couple glowing vials in your arm pouch as well, although you weren’t sure what the deal was with them. You assumed as they stood out amongst the desks scattered within rooms that they held some kind of value in your mission. But you also knew that assumptions like that could get you killed, so you handled them with care.

As you reached the thirty-second door, you noticed that before you was a vast pit of water with stairs leading down into it and right back out on the other side. Were you supposed to wade through? Was there a catch? You scanned the side you stood at for a desk, and when you found one, you took a pencil and dropped it carefully on the shallow step in the pool of water. For a moment, it sank to the solid level of the step and sat there. You waited, watching for any signs of living creatures that might rush towards the movement in the water, but nothing came. In fact, you were so focused on anything moving in the depths of the water that you almost didn’t notice the splitting wood of the pencil.

You took a single step back and watched as it cracked and revealed the graphite underneath layers of wood. Concern tangled with your expression and made your eyebrows furrow at the sight. What kind of water…?

You stepped away from the water and searched the room for any hint of how you were meant to cross. Clearly if the pencil didn’t survive wading in the shallow parts of that water, then you wouldn’t either.

Funnily enough, there actually was a separate room with a wide window to oversee the pool of water below it. Inside was a control panel that looked just about as dead as you felt inside, and across from it, a wall full of small pipes. You wondered if this was some kind of joke; if you were actually meant to solve the maze of pipes and connect it to the other side. But why not try?

Saying it was easy is a complete overstatement. The puzzle took you way longer than it should have, and at moments you had to take a break so your brain wouldn’t split in two to try and solve it. It wasn’t just one side you had to connect the pipes to, but multiple that would only show green if connected to the source properly. You had been there for over an hour, at least, before you finally clicked the right one into place and set the entire thing rumbling like an airplane engine. At first you panicked from the sudden noise, but turned to the window to be met with the sight of the water dissipating.

You clapped your hands together and spun around like a child in excitement that you’d finally done it right. You were a lucky person; trusting your gut isn’t always the first thing people do, but you’d always known your subconscious to be smarter than yourself.

You strode across the empty walkway with pride in yourself, opening the thirty-third door before you. As much as you loved the adrenaline rush from the last room, you sighed in relief when this room was just a normal hallway. You never saw another pit with… weird water in it again, but your routine of survival continued pretty much the same. Avoid the purple eyed lockers, look for flickering lights, and collect data. That is… until you came across two doors both labeled number forty-four. You thought maybe you were seeing things, but when you neared each door, they looked exactly the same.

Something within you told you this wasn’t right. You didn’t exactly know what might hint at the right door, but as you stood there trying to figure it out, you noticed the lights flicker again. You sighed, waiting a beat before stepping inside the locker to really process your next move. As you climbed inside the metal casing and held it shut behind you, you noticed that the screeching creature did not take as long to catch up to your room. You shuddered at the realization that if you had waited just a little longer, you would have been caught right in the middle of the room.

You jumped straight out of the locker and felt your way through the dark. One of the doors had been opened in the rush of whatever monster came through, pointing out exactly which one was the right door. You were secretly thankful for the creature's appearance, as you weren’t sure what would’ve happened to you if you chose the wrong door. You tried not to think about it.

So came the forty-ninth door, and you wondered how long you had been down there to already pass through forty-nine doors. Had others survived this long? You were starting to miss people, which was not something you ever thought you’d feel. People were gross, stupid, mean… but you just wanted to talk to a sentient being at this point. You’d expected someone to be down there even if to just accompany you in your mission to acquire the crystal. And yet… you were alone. With no one to talk to. At all.

At least, that’s what you thought before you heard the clomping of footsteps fast approaching behind you. You whipped around in excitement for another human being, only to see a taller, unnaturally slimmer… mold of a human. You froze and considered dashing into a locker, but it had already seen you. Well, so you figured. It didn’t have eyes… it didn’t even have a face. But as soon as you saw it, it dashed around a corner. You didn’t have the words to call after it, ask it what it was… or even scream. So you gulped down your voice and turned right back around to head into the next room.

You did scream, then, when a vent cover came flying across the room and a long hand beckoned at you from inside.

“In here!” A scratchy sounding voice echoed from within the now open vent. You didn’t have time to think. You didn’t have time to look around for a possible locker to hide. All you heard was the same clomping footsteps running up from behind you, and that was enough to make you dive head first into the vent and crawl through it like there was no other way. There was no time to look up at the three meter long creature sat stretched out in the corner of this new room. There was only time for you to crouch underneath a desk and watch as the mold of a human crawled right after you through the vent and came towards you with raised fists.

When you held your head in your hands and squeezed your eyes shut, all you could hear and make sense of then was the loud bang that echoed in every part of you. You didn’t open your eyes, but you heard the thump that reverberated across the ground shortly thereafter.

All you could assume in those moments was that you had finally received your overdue payment to the grim reaper.

All you could assume from the numbness that spread over you,

Was that you were finally dead.

Chapter Text

You had expected death to be quiet, and not loud with an unfamiliar voice snarling at you. Had you finally met God? Wait… there was no way you would be allowed into heaven.

“You are not dead,” The unfamiliar voice said with annoyance laced between each word. “You’re welcome.”

“Sure feels like it…” You peeked an eye open and straightened your posture only to hit your head on the desk above you. You were, in fact, probably being delusional as you were definitely not dead. You groaned at the impact on your head.

“If you were dead, I don’t think you’d feel anything at all, idiot.”

The comment made you furrow your eyebrows and crawl out from under the desk to see who thought they had the right to call you an idiot.

You wished you didn’t.

You practically launched yourself back under the desk, hitting your head for a second time at the sight of this “person.” A long, thick serpentine tail was unwinded and stretched across the room as the torso connected just next to the desk. Too close for your liking, although you weren’t sure being in the same room altogether was helping. Your reluctance to come back out made the creature groan and lean all the way down to level with you under the desk.

“What… what are you?” You whispered with your knees hugged as close as possible to your chest. The creature frowned; glowing eyes looking unamused at the question.

“I’m Sebastian.”

You wrinkled your nose. You weren’t sure how to respond to such an insufficient answer. You took a moment to suck in a breath and remind yourself that this… man… was not the weirdest and certainly not the scariest thing you’ve seen all day.

“What I mean is… You talk like a human, but…” You grit your teeth and sighed. Time to be blunt. “You don’t look like a human.”

“What? I don’t?? Call… call a doctor! I look like a fish!” Sebastian cried, flapping his hands around as he rose out from underneath the desk. You almost rolled your eyes at his sarcasm. That was when you noticed the third arm on the left side of his torso, making you gulp. It took a lot of mental strength to climb out from underneath as well. As you stood in front of this giant being, a rare feeling of intimidation creeped along your arms. You tilted your head up and stood tall with whatever dignity was left inside yourself.

“Seriously, you’re not going to explain the… tail? Or the extra arm, the eyes, the…” You waved loosely in the area around your own forehead. “...the light?”

“Why should I have to explain anything about myself to you?” Sebastian snapped. “Settle down, Expendable, I should be the least of your worries.”

“Really? For all I know, you could be tricking me.”

Sebastian leaned down to the floor where the faceless entity that had chased you was crumpled up in an odd position. You noticed three identically horizontal bullet holes that pierced through to the other side of its thin figure. That could have been you all twisted on the floor. You shuddered at the thought.

“What reason would I have to trick you?” Sebastian asked with a snort. He reached toward the lifeless body on the floor and dug his claws into the pale flesh, scooping it like icecream right into the palm of his bluish hand. Your face distorted to show your concern with his every action; right down to when he took a large bite out of the meat in his hand, revealing the dagger-like fangs behind his lips.

“I think you answered your own question–” You gagged on the last word, covering your mouth. But there was no way you were going to let yourself throw up in front of this guy. Sebastian didn’t stop his chewing to notice your horrified face until he held out a piece of the chewed off chunk of flesh toward you. You furrowed your eyebrows at him and shook your head at the offering. Sebastian made a “hm,” sound and moved back to his corner across the room.

“What was that? Why does it… resemble a human? In a way…” You openly asked, tilting your head at the corpse. Now with a clear sight of it, you noticed how inhumane its features actually were. Apart from being faceless, it actually had no arms. What you had thought were fists raised toward you in your first encounter with it was actually just two nubs of shoulders on either side of it. You peered closer, squinting at the patterned texture in its graying skin. Almost like wallpaper.

“What, that?” Sebastian said with a mouth full of the very thing’s own flesh. “It’s a Wall Dweller. Insolent vermin… Not sure why you needed my help dealing with it, but here we are.”

You shot him a glare and stood from its body to face him just as he was finishing eating said Wall Dweller’s meat.

“How could I have ‘dealt’ with it on my own? It was chasing me. Who knows what it would’ve done if I hadn’t crawled in here,” You explained.

“Uh, I know. It would’ve kicked your knee in and started eating you alive,” Sebastian scoffed, as if it were common knowledge. “All you had to do was turn around.”

“Hm, pretty sure I did.” You crossed your arms and glanced at the items scattered amongst tables around the room. “Just… it doesn’t matter. If you’re so friendly, why are you here? Are you hiding from the monsters out there too?”

“I am ‘friendly’ so long as you reciprocate.” Sebastian smiled and clasped two of his hands together in front of him. “And I don’t need to hide from the monsters if I am one, Stranger. Who do you think caused this lockdown?”

You stared at him for a while, processing his words in your own way. He caused the lockdown? What does that benefit him? Well, it benefits you, that’s for sure. A chance to earn your life back from Death Row doesn’t present itself to everyone. So you decided not to question it much further. Besides, you had your eyes on a very prominent flashlight strapped to Sebastian’s tail. If you had that, you wouldn’t have to throw your hands out blindly in every lightless room. While you hadn’t pickpocketed since the days before prison, you still had a knack for distractions.

“Stranger? How do you figure?” You egged him on, stepping a comfortable distance from him in order to block your right hand from his view. Sebastian looked you up and down, brushing a clawed hand through his thick black hair and revealing a third eye above his right one.

“You know how many Expendables come through here? Too many to remember them all. So ‘forgive me’ if I don’t know who you are and I don’t want you to stick around long enough to find out,” Sebastian said plainly. You frowned at his comment but kept your right hand delicately slipping the flashlight out of its tie in the strap on his tail.

“Hm, well, I am not exactly the person they declared guilty up there.” You nodded your head in a general upwards direction, gesturing to the people on the surface that got you down here in the first place. That little motion made you able to redirect his focus briefly and slip the rest of the flashlight out of its pocket and into your right hand. “...Well, not entirely…”

Sebastian narrowed his eyes and cleared his throat.

“Is that so,” He muttered. His hands separated from each other and as the third rested on his hip. Or… whatever was left of his hip just above the beginning of his tail. Which, as it turned out, seemed to be completely in his control when the fin at the end swiped your legs right from underneath you. As you landed on the cold, hard floor with a sharp inhale from your mouth, a clawed hand reached down from above you and plucked the flashlight straight from your grasp. No resistance at all. Whatever he was, his strength couldn’t even be compared to a human’s.

“I’m currently only interested in trading research. If you’ve got any, I’d gladly give this to you in return for it. Otherwise, don’t bother wasting my time trying to convince me you’re ‘innocent,’” Sebastian snarled with an annoyed tone lathered onto his voice. And yet his face remained calm, as if many others like you had already tried to swipe an item from him. You had expected him to lash out at you, but maybe swiping something as simple as a flashlight hadn’t provoked him as much.

“Research? You mean the loose assets?” Your eyes flicked between the stuffed pouches on your arm and legs before squinting at him. “Why…?”

“No such thing as a free lunch,” Sebastian chuckled, his three eyes blinking in unison. “Let me guess. Your supervisors have told you to secure ‘loose assets.’ Documents, vials, whatever. However, you give me any research you might have on you, and I’ll give you some of the items I’ve scavenged. That includes this flashlight. These would be far more useful to you, compared to some ‘silly data,’ no?”

“Depends. I’ve made it this far, haven’t I?” You tilt your chin up at him. “Why do you need it?”

Sebastian made a clicking sound with his tongue. He examined the ring on his third hand with a thoughtful expression.

“If you don’t ask questions, I won’t either. You get yours and I get mine. It’s that simple.”

You thought the offer over in your head; the lure of a promising light source and the security of a medkit also strapped to his tail was incredibly tempting.

“Look, I don’t know why taking these could benefit you so much, but I’ll make an offer.” You stepped closer to him, hand on your arm pouch. You slowly zipped it open to reveal just one of the storages on your person filled to the brim with documents and small, glowing vials. Sebastian’s eyes lit up at the sight and he grinned as he listened. “If I give you all that I have, I take the flashlight and I take you.”

Sebastian blinked. “Um. What?”

“How much do you know about this place?” You asked, pointing a finger at him. Sebastian scoffed and batted it away.

“I know more about the Blacksite than I know about myself. What kinda question is that?” Sebastian said as he crossed his arms.

“Exactly. If I had you with me while I secured the crystal, I’d be less likely to die. I’d feel a whole lot better too, if I’m being honest.” You offered your hand to shake with a wide grin on your face. “C’mon, you saved me from the uh… wall.. person. Think of how much faster I could get this done with your help.”

Sebastian’s eyes flickered between your outstretched hand and your smirking face. He hummed in thought.

“No one’s ever made that kind of offer before…” Sebastian admitted. This made you smile wider and place your other hand on your hip.

“Wouldn’t you want to accept a first, then?” You encouraged, wiggling the fingers on your reaching hand.

“Shut up and let me think.” Sebastian turned away from you, and so you dropped your hand while he thought to himself and meddled with the ring on his finger. Your eyes browsed the room while you waited, tapping your foot impatiently on the cement below. You noticed the room dim when he turned away, and realized he must keep the place illuminated just with the anglerfish lure on the top of his forehead. Was that what he was? Some kind of mutated human-anglerfish? You didn’t have time to dwell on that kind of question residing in your mind, as Sebastian whipped around with a brand new smug look on his face.

“I have considered my options… and I would like to make a counter offer,” Sebastian said. His voice was low and gravelly, like each syllable was dragged through years of memory and metal. “First, I’d like to see all of this research you’ve acquired. I need to know if your offer is even worth taking.”

You raised an eyebrow. He wasn’t just going to take it and run… right? No, he couldn’t run. He had a tail. Duh. “Fine,” you agreed, unzipping all of your pouches and shaking yourself off like a wet dog. Once some documents had fallen out and loosened the stash in each pouch, you stripped yourself of them one by one, making sure to set the vials carefully on the desk beside you. You were not about to see what sort of chemical would leak out in the event that you accidentally broke one from setting it down too hard.

When your storage was completely emptied out on Sebastian’s floor and tabletops, he leaned down to skim through the loose assets. He made a surprised murmur at the collection of luminescent vials glowing in red, blue, and yellow. He seemed quite impressed with the two red vials you managed to get, although he also hummed at the dozen yellow and blue vials set aside. He whispered his counting of them under his breath and his eyebrows furrowed.

“How did you get so many of these?” He asked curiously as he moved onto counting the scattered piles of documents and USB drives on the floor.

“Uh… I don’t know. Is it not a normal amount?” You shrugged.

Sebastian looked from each document in confusion, saying, “You’ve got like 1,300 worth of value in the vials alone! I haven’t even finished counting the rest, but there’s no way it won’t be estimated to be over 3,000.”

“Is that… good?”

“For reference, I would’ve sold you the flashlight for 150,” Sebastian grumbled under his breath.

“Oh, so I have enough to buy your time then?” You grinned, cracking your knuckles. Sebastian shot you a glare and gave up with his counting to slither on over to you.

“Hold on, I haven’t given you my counter offer yet,” Sebastian reminded. You groaned and rolled your eyes. “Seen any landmines or tripwired doors on your little expedition up to here?”

“Is this relevant?”

“Answer the question.”

You folded your arms across your chest. “No, I haven’t.”

“Hm, well you will on your way back out. I know, because I set them up. No offense to…” He looked you up and down with a frown. “...Felons like yourself, but they’re there to stop you from retrieving the crystal.”

You could already see where he was going with this, and you narrowed your eyes at his words.

“So you’re not going to help me,” you stated for him.

“That’s not what I was going to say,” Sebastian said through gritted teeth. You sighed and held out your hand.

“You didn’t have to. Well, take all the research anyway. I would collect it for Urbanshade, but I’m not one for following directions. Especially if it doesn’t have enough significance to ensure my freedom.” You frowned and zipped up your arm and leg pouches, keeping one hand held out towards him. “So I guess… for all of this research, I’ll just take the flashlight, then.”

Sebastian’s ears flicked, but he held out the flashlight to your outstretched hand. As you attempted to grab it, he held it back just slightly.

“My counter offer was not going to mean I don’t help you, by the way. I’ll give you the flashlight, but I’d appreciate it if you would hear me out instead of assuming my next words, yeah?” Sebastian shot you a look but placed the flashlight into your open palm. You adjusted your weight onto your other foot and placed a hand on your hip. “Listen, I am quite against Urbanshade’s policies and overall existence in general. I know you’re only here for the crystal because it was the only way out of death and blah blah blah, whatever, but I won’t try to stop that because they’ll just send more Expendables down here.”

“But… the crystal means nothing to me if I can gain enough research around here to shut this place down for good,” Sebastian continued, enclosing his two main hands around each other. “So, if you were to continue helping me collect as many vials, documents, USB drives, and anything significant, then I would accompany you. For survival purposes, of course.”

Sebastian smiled at the end, showing hints of his sharp white teeth underneath his thin lips. Being close enough, you could see his shaggy black hair definitely needed a wash and a major haircut. You imagined he didn’t have much to work with down here, but maybe if you squinted, it looked alright. He cleared his throat to remind you of his offer.

You glanced at the vent where you’d first crawled in, ignoring the corpse still lying on the floor beside it. You weren’t sure exactly how long you would last if you ventured back out alone. Not to mention with no information on any of the creatures awaiting you. You didn’t exactly trust Sebastian with everything, but he seemed to know what he was talking about. If… you overlooked the possibility of danger emanating off of his entire being. You were made very aware of the gun attached to his hip… and who knows what those claws could do.

But with seemingly no other sentient beings in radius of you, an impulsive decision was made. It was possible you’d die down here anyway, so at least you would do it alongside someone competent.

You shook Sebastian’s large, cold hand firmly. When he was just about to let go first, you latched onto it and pulled him forward slightly.

“I may deserve to be down here, but what does that say about you, hm?” You whispered fiercely to him. “I might need you, but don’t think I won’t hesitate to put myself over you. If you make this me or you, I will always choose me.”

Sebastian’s face was difficult to decipher, even just a foot away from it. You let go of his hand and started through the vent at last. You knew he would catch up, and you knew he would think about your words as you made yourself pretty clear. You weren’t down here to make friends. If Sebastian wanted you to trust him, he’d have to earn it.

But you would have to learn to earn his trust as well.

He was right about one thing,

There is no such thing as a free lunch.

Chapter Text

Sebastian was certainly very odd.

And big, you couldn’t forget that.

As it turned out, he must have had an alternate exit from his open room, as he did not follow you like you’d expected. You assumed this was because of his size, but with how long he was, you were so sure he could wiggle through just about anywhere. Maybe it was the gaping hole in his ceiling or the locked fence gate at the far side of the room; either way, he did not follow you through the vent. You stood outside his room for quite a bit, tapping your foot as you waited for his appearance. You deeply hoped that he hadn’t scammed you or just escaped altogether.

In fact, he took so long that you started looting the room around you as you hadn’t the time to do so in the pursuit of the wall… thing. As soon as you finished, you continued your waiting just outside the opening of the vent. You noticed the golden glow of Sebastian’s angler light was no longer illuminating the room beyond the vent, but you couldn’t help but wonder what could be taking him so long.

You examined the flashlight he had given you and noticed the batteries were exactly like some you’d collected on desks around the rooms. You weren’t sure what to do with them at the time, so you’d stuffed them in your shoe and forgot they were there. You made an intrigued sound and turned back to the vent only to be greeted by a wall of sharp teeth. You choked down a scream at this new creature until it cackled and flicked on a light above its face.

“Now that is some entertainment I’ve really been missing down here,” Sebastian chuckled, straightening himself up to his full height. For that, you internally pictured him under you while you beat him unconscious with a baseball bat. Oh… how you missed your baseball bat. The luckiest weapon you ever owned. Of course, you weren’t the type to use it on people… unless absolutely necessary. Although occasionally, you’d have to hammer nails into the end in order to break better. Unfortunately, every time you did, you would have to pull them back out after use in case you were ever questioned by cops. Shame it didn’t matter anyway. Eventually you got caught, and you’d probably never see that lovely tool again.

“Yello? Did I scare you into a daze?” Sebastian snapped his fingers in front of your face and frowned under the dim glow of his light. You blinked and the picture of your beloved weapon was gone.

“No, of course not. I was picturing two versions of your future death,” You admitted plainly. “The chance of pursuing those routes are very probable at the moment.” Sebastian shot you a look and slithered over to the next door. You had to follow quite closely, since he was the one with an unlimited source of light. You would use your flashlight, but you decided to save that for when it was really needed.

The next room finally had substantial overhead lighting, thankfully. Sebastian wandered over to another room full of desks and item lockers while you checked the entire hall for loose assets. Your fingertips brushed over the thin veil of dust blanketing each desk. A part of you wondered how long this place had been abandoned before Expendables were thrown in. You weren’t sure why so much was left behind in the lockdown, but you always fulfilled your end of a deal. So you packed away a couple files and five USB drives in your arm pouch. Sebastian came back almost completely empty-handed, but when you showed him your collection, he squinted at you.

“How is it you always manage to find more?” Sebastian demanded. He held out his hand and you hesitantly placed the items in his open palm.

“My caretaker always told me, ‘if you only got what’s plain in sight, you ain’t looked hard enough,’” You explained, continuing to the next door. You chuckled in remembrance of every time those exact words went through one ear and back out the other.

“Your caretaker? What is that supposed to mean?” Sebastian scoffed as he followed behind you. You noticed he had to duck through the doorway in order to even get through.

“Oh, uh… I was orphaned at six.” You tucked an obnoxious strand of hair behind your ear and pulled out a desk drawer to scavenge for files. Sebastian paused beside you, watching blankly out the window. You trailed his line of sight and saw nothing.

“You alright?” You asked, poking his arm. Sebastian flinched hard away from your touch, even though it was light and very brief.

“No, yeah, absolutely. Just reminded me of when I was a kid.” Sebastian cleared his throat and left you standing there in confusion as he walked through the next door.

Inside was a loud machine whirring with a barbed wire fence surrounding it directly in the middle of the room. It split off into three directions, all with doors brandishing the same number: fifty-three. Sebastian took off to the left, and you followed carefully as he seemed to know what he was doing. He got close to the left door and pressed his finned ear to the wall beside it. You blinked at his strange actions until he hummed in thought and left it behind.

“What’s wrong with that door?” You asked as he slithered to the center door. Sebastian did not answer as he pressed his ear to the wall beside this one as well.

“C’mere.” He beckoned to you with an outstretched arm until you were at the wall next to the door as well. “This is how you can tell which is the right door. Tell me what you hear when you press your ear to the wall.”

You eyed him in suspicion until he moved to give you room on the wall. Reluctantly, you held your ear to the wall and listened hard. What did you hear? Well… air? Maybe? Or like… rugged breathing on the other side. The number on the door sparked, and you pulled away with a yelp.

“So?”

“So, it sounded like… slowly rushing air… or maybe breathing?” You shrugged. “Why does it matter?”

“You tell me. You really wanna find out what’s on the other side of a door with audible breathing?” Sebastian chuckled, moving to the door on the right of the room. This time, he went straight through without any issue. You caught up to him and walked beside him with concern laced in your expression.

“You didn’t even check this one. How did you know?” You inquired, skipping steps in order to keep up with him.

“Process of elimination. I thought you were smarter than this?” Sebastian looked at you through the side of his eyes and used all three hands to rummage inside desk drawers.

“You don’t know me,” You muttered under your breath. Sebastian’s hearing must have been a hell of a lot better than any human because he perked up at that and towered over you intimidatingly. You attempted to stand your ground, but damn could he shadow the light like a monster.

“I could say the same, Expendable,” Sebastian snarled through his teeth. “But at least I don’t pretend to look at you like you’re innocent.”

You frowned at him and crossed your arms. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Sebastian scoffed, “I see how you glance at me, don’t think I haven’t noticed all your staring. Despite your broad stance, I know you’re hesitant of me because you’re scared of what I could do.”

“Maybe you’re right,” You said, a huff of air blowing from your nose. “But you have no right to expect any more of me when this is my first day here from getting off Death Row. I have experienced so many mutated beings trying to kill me in less than a day, so sue me for being a little hesitant.”

The glares cast between the two of you seemed to last minutes, but you stood your ground until he sighed and turned away from you.

“Okay, yeah, whatever. I’ll give you some leeway, but as long as you keep up the staring when you think I’m not looking, I won’t pretend to be your ‘buddy.’” Sebastian took off towards one of the three office doors to scavenge for loose assets. You took a deep breath, holding your hands over your head as you ventured into the second office door. When you determined it to be completely cleared out after bulldozing through every locker and drawer, you went to the third door only to find Sebastian there as well. This room was strange; with a large tube with eerie projected light inside. This tube took up almost the entire room, apart from a few item lockers and a desk shoved into the corner.

“Oh, hey,” You mumbled automatically out of surprise. Sebastian grumbled incoherent words but didn’t look at you. You frowned and sat in the swiveling desk chair as he looted an item locker. “So… I’m sensing a tension in the air.”

The locker door bent with a loud creak under Sebastian’s grasp as he looked at you in his peripheral vision with a hard glare. Combined with the light from the tube, his face made you all the more uncomfortable.

“Yeah, maybe,” He growled sarcastically, slamming the door behind him. You sighed and leaned all the way back in the chair as you propped your feet up on the desk.

“Listen, I just wanna get out of here, man. It’d be a hell of a lot easier if we stopped arguing every time we get within a certain radius of each other,” You pointed out. Sebastian’s eyes narrowed, but he nodded and looked around the room in thought.

“So… how ‘bout we just accept our dislike toward each other and be cool?” You suggested. Sebastian clicked his tongue and shoved a couple USB drives in his rustic brown jacket’s side pocket.

“Sure. Besides, it’s not like we’ll see each other when you leave and I escape with p.AI.nter.” Sebastian cleared his throat and turned to exit the office.

“Who?”

“Erm… a friend of mine. It doesn’t matter, you’ll probably meet him sooner or later–”

The lights outside the room flickered subtly and sent Sebastian backing up quickly, his tail coiling underneath him. He peeked outside of the door, whispering a count of numbers under his breath before coming to a conclusion.

“It’s just Angler,” He whispered as he backed into a corner of the room.

“Angler?” You whispered back, pressed into the wall next to him with a thumping of your heartbeat intertwined with the scattered thoughts in your head. You shut your eyes when a familiar loud screeching filled the air. “We need to get into a locker! It’ll see us–”

Sebastian’s clawed hand clamped down on your mouth. You shot him a panicked look, but he only shook his head at you. As the creature outside screamed past you and the lights shattered sparks and glass over the room, Sebastian’s light flickered on. He had a finger held to his lips to quiet you before slipping his hand away from your mouth. His ears flicked in the direction of the Angler’s last path.

“It’s clear,” He stated and slithered out of the office and into the main hall. “Can’t go making loud noises like that. Angler has a set path, but if you notify it of your existence, it will trail back to find you.”

“Oh… sorry, I had no idea.”

Sebastian turned back to look at you, and through the dimness of his light you could make out a confused expression plastered on his face. As if he didn’t expect an apology to ever be uttered from your lips. You scowled at him and regretted ever responding.

Sebastian made his way through the next door, revealing yet another pitch black room. Even with Sebastian’s light, you clicked on your flashlight so you could maneuver around on your own without accidentally tripping over his tail. Through the faint glow of your flashlight, you searched through scattered desks and pocketed any files or USB drives. In one drawer, you actually found yet another glowing vial. You noticed Sebastian’s light on the other end of the room, buried deep in an item locker.

“So, Sebastian,” You called out. His rustling around paused in recognition of your voice before resuming with a hum of acknowledgement. “Out of curiosity, how did you know I was trying to steal this flashlight from you? Back in your room, I mean. Just… I thought I hid my arm pretty well from your line of sight.”

Sebastian chuckled and turned to you from the other side of the room. He tapped the right side of his face, saying, “Third eye, remember? Has its own line of sight.”

You bit the inside of your cheek in annoyance. Damn… you hadn’t even accounted for his third eye. You’d have to work on that next time.

“Is it… often that people steal from you?” You asked as you made your way across the room to him. He slowly backed out of the item locker and glanced at you.

“I mean… it’s often that they try. Not everyone could collect as much research as you did,” Sebastian answered as he shut the locker door closed. Right… you probably could have bought out his entire stock of items with the arrangement of loose assets you’d collected. You scanned the dark room in thought and let Sebastian lead the way through the next door.

For a good half hour, neither of you spoke. You collected research, handed it over to him, and onto the next door. You had stopped checking the numbers, as you weren’t so sure how far the Blacksite stretched, but you assumed you were on sixty… something. It didn’t matter. Your mind felt like it was on hold anyway, like a thick mask was dimming any coherent thoughts. Besides, whenever there was a standstill between two or three of the same lookalike doors, you always let Sebastian decipher which to go through. If you were in charge of doing that, you’d probably mistake breathing for a rush of air past your ears. At least, that’s what Sebastian said every time you tried to help listen.

It took only ten minutes longer to reach the seventies. At that point, you noticed your attention to any research around each room was becoming scattered, and it was increasingly difficult to stay focused. How long had you been down there? Surely several hours, but you didn’t know exactly how many. If you had been down there an entire day, then of course you’d be feeling drowsy. Pulling all nighters was incredibly easy in prison, but in such a place as the Blacksite?

Thankfully, you weren’t the only one with need for rest.

“Let’s find an office to camp out in,” Sebastian declared. You didn’t have much wit left in you to respond, so you just nodded and followed along in his trail. Were you at door seventy-two? You didn’t even know, but when a golden light shone underneath a side door in the room, you perked up and dashed inside before Sebastian could even get there. It was smaller, not significantly, but to the point where Sebastian had to curl his tail around the room in order to fit comfortably. You watched him with squinting eyes as he dug his razor sharp claws into the open door and dragged it closed. He noticed you staring and raised an eyebrow.

“What? If we’re going to rest here, I am not risking an entity finding us,” Sebastian said matter-of-factly. You shrugged lightly and unhooked the pouch on your arm as well as the two attached to your legs. Your diving gear was also quite bulky, so you fiddled with the straps on your back to try and get it off.

You didn’t ask for it, but a large hand reached from above you and unbuckled your air tank from your back after you were struggling with it for a minute. You muttered a “thanks,” and threw the diving gear to the side of the room along with your storage pouches. With Sebastian’s tail stretched alongside every wall and corner in the room, there was nowhere you could lean up against without bothering him, so you decided to grab a swivel chair and lean back in it. Usually nothing could beat prison for the prize of uncomfortable beds, but the swivel chair was doing absolutely nothing positive for your back.

“What are you doing?” Sebastian asked with a concerned tone. You spun around to face him and frowned.

“I’m resting,” You said cautiously. “What are you doing?”

“I was going to crush the dangling lightbulb in here but I noticed instead of lying down, you took… an office chair.” Sebastian stared blankly into your eyes, propping himself up on his elbows. You furrowed your eyebrows at him and kicked your feet onto a desk.

“Yeah, it spins.”

Sebastian’s face could not have looked more irritated with you. Well, actually they could, but you weren’t sure you wanted to find out what that looked like.

“Are you stupid or something?” Sebastian spat. “When I said we’d rest here, I meant sleep. Or is that not a concept you’re familiar with?”

“I was just going to sleep here,” You explained before frowning at him. “Also that comment was completely uncalled for.”

“I doubt there is any way you can manage to fall asleep sitting upright. God, why did I have to get such an insufferable Expendable?” Sebastian dragged his hands down his face and groaned. You blinked slowly at him with half-lidded eyes. You were too tired to put up with this. So, you spun all the way around so you were facing the end of his tail instead of his stupid, obnoxious face. You could hear a sigh emit from behind you, but you crossed your arms and closed your eyes in response to it.

A moment later, after you had found a comfortable position and he had settled down, you heard a crunch of glass muffled under strong flesh. You assumed after darkness flushed behind your closed eyelids that Sebastian broke the hanging lightbulb and left it at that. What you hadn’t expected was for him to start whispering through the dark.

“What did you do?” He asked, his gravelly voice low and hushed. You kept your eyes closed; it wasn’t like you’d see anything in the pitch black, as Sebastian’s light wasn’t even on. But you slowly turned in your swivel chair to face him. Or at least, you believed you were, since there wasn’t much of a way to tell in the dark.

“What?” You whispered back.

“What did you do to get on Death Row?” Sebastian clarified. Your arms stiffened as they held the chair but you made no sound beside the blow of air through your nose. Even after a short time of silence, Sebastian squirmed in his spot before you, his jacket rustling with his undershirt.

“That was stupid of me to ask, I shouldn’t have–” He began.

“I believe…” You sighed. “...I believe I was framed. I mean, I can’t say I probably didn’t deserve Death Row, but not for the reasons I was given in trial.”

With both of your quiet whispers bleeding into the dark, for once you felt heard. It didn’t matter if neither of you could see each other, it seemed like a secret told between two friends on a camping trip together. It felt… like something familiar… for the first time in this cursed place.

“What reasons were you given?” Sebastian pressed, his tone low as if he could melt into the ground with each word.

You hesitated, recalling the very day of the trial and the one time someone had accused you of the wrong crime.

“It was… I don’t know.” You shut your eyes and pictured a different scenario. One where you didn’t end up here. Maybe even one where you declined the offer of life and stuck to the right path. If everyone else seemed to agree with it, it must have been the correct option. Right…?

“It’s just, my head was foggy. As soon as I was declared guilty for third-degree murder, I think I just shut everything out,” You continued, digging your nails into the plastic armrests of the chair. “I think anyone would.”

“I know. I did.”

You opened your eyes, despite the pitch black before you. He… what? Sebastian’s tail audibly flicked somewhere behind you as he laid in thought.

“What do you mean?” You whispered to the dark. Sebastian groaned and turned on the ground with a rustle of fabric and slick scales.

“Eh… story for another time. Have fun sleeping on that chair,” Sebastian’s muffled voice said. You grit your teeth at the lack of information, despite presenting your own story to him. With a huff, you swiveled back around and attempted to sleep in the stiff chair underneath you.

“G’night… Expendable.”

“Yeah, whatever. Goodnight.”

Chapter Text

Sleeping was a bad idea. 

Not only were your dreams corrupted with visions of your own death right before you, you woke up several times thinking Angler was screaming just outside the door. In your hazy, half-awake mindset, you thought someone… or something was banging on the door and shouting incoherent words beyond it. 

Luckily enough for you, Sebastian must have been a deep sleeper, because not once did he wake up when you yelped from a nightmare or clawed your nails deep into the leather of the swivel chair. 

The fifth time you woke yourself in a dazed, cold sweat, you decided to forget about trying to sleep again. You’d gotten enough to function, and that was all that really mattered. So you got up from the office chair and stretched every stiff muscle in your body; until you realized just about every muscle was stiff. With a sigh, you gave up on that too. Sebastian was right; the swivel chair did no favors for you. But he didn’t need to know that when he’d awoke.

You cast a glance in his direction, his back facing you and his black hair draped around his shoulders. You’d expected him to be an early riser, but clearly you’d have to wait a little longer, as you didn’t want to find out what he’d do if you startled him awake. In the meantime, you counted the loose assets shoved last minute into your storage pouches. Which… were thrown onto the floor from the weariness of last night. Was it night? Or had you slept through the day? How could anyone manage to keep track without sunlight beaming in through the windows or clocks to serve as reminders? 

In the office room alone, the only way you could navigate was with your flashlight, since Sebastian broke the one light bulb hanging from the ceiling earlier. Illuminating only a small width of the areas you shined your light onto, you couldn’t help but glance twice at the medkit strapped to the end of Sebastian’s tail. Now, his turned torso and face were across the room in a different corner, making it all the more tempting to… let’s just say… take a closer look at. And that you did, but this time you were wary of his face, expecting him to whip around and shoot you this time, as opposed to the wall… creature. Didn’t that have a name? As you slipped the medkit from its strap, you thought about how many names he’s mentioned to you in the past day. Part of you was glad you didn’t have to remember all of them when you had a portable, living Blacksite manual right here. 

And then you had the medkit. Secured tightly in your grasp, you snuck back to where all your diving gear and personal storage was littered on the ground, and you attempted to push it into one of the pouches. 

“Are we really doing this again?” Sebastian’s muffled voice groaned. His two main arms stretched above his head and his third pushed himself upright against the wall. You froze before sighing and chucking the medkit at his groggy face. It smacked him right on his incredibly small nose and bounced into his lap. 

“What can I say? Old habits die incredibly hard,” You admitted with a shrug and zipped the pouch closed again. Sebastian grumbled something and sat up straight, tossing the medkit back at your feet. 

“Whatever… just take it,” He said with a stretch. “I assume you’ll try again before we even come across the Searchlights, so I’d rather save the trouble now.”

You paused, midway through strapping your diving gear and pouches back onto your person, and stared at him. 

“The Searchlights?” You asked. There it was again, another name you’ll ultimately forget. Sebastian chuckled and shot a dark, humored look your way. You finished latching the diving gear to your back and waited for his explanation. 

“Oh… right. I can’t wait for the look on your face…” Sebastian grinned as he uncurled his tail and threw the office door open. Never mind… you never should have expected a clear description from this guy. You squinted from the blinding of actual lights in the outside hall after hours of nothing but darkness and the occasional dim glow from your flashlight. You followed him, making sure nothing of yours was left behind, as he entered the next door. 

“Ah, what a lucky little camp-out spot!” Sebastian said with a chuckle, likely to himself. “What a coincidence that we rested right beforehand!” You eyed him cautiously. There had been so many brief comments about certain areas and entities coming from Sebastian that you’d quickly learned to just drown them out.

…Maybe you shouldn’t have picked up that habit. 

The following room was different; it looked like a waiting room with an odd purple keycard lying on a nearby desk. You cautiously reached to pick it up, but before your fingers could brush against it, your intercom suddenly bellowed in your ear.

‘You need to go off the beaten path for a bit.’

‘Several pieces of equipment in this sector are broken, and we need them fixed.’

‘The door is remotely locked until every broken apparatus is operational again.’

You stood in place, occasionally glancing towards Sebastian until the intercom finished its uninformative speech. Sebastian gestured for you to swipe the card already and lead the way, which expanded your concern entirely. When you hesitantly grasped the keycard and swiped it at the forefront of two side-by-side doors, each opened automatically and led you to a room with generators lining the walls. You looked to Sebastian with a confused expression, but he only grinned and shooed you off to figure it out yourself. 

“What is even the point of keeping you around if you don’t tell me what is happening…” You grumbled in irritation under your breath. 

“What was that? That doesn’t sound like you’re being productive ,” Sebastian snapped. “You’re not saying bad things about me, right Expendable?”

You gritted your teeth and scanned each generator until you found one emitting a red light. A puddle had formed underneath this one and a few others, so you were careful not to slip in any of them as you neared the glowing red generator.

“No… why would I do that…” You muttered sarcastically through your grinding teeth as you leaned over and poked a visible gear. It shocked you quite harshly and sent you tumbling back. You shut your eyes as Sebastian’s laughter filled the room, imagining a scenario where he was actually helpful and didn’t stand back just to watch you fail. 

You circled the generator in thought and decided to loot the desks surrounding you instead. Sure enough, a wrench was burrowed deep into a drawer of a desk, bringing a grin to your face. Returning to the red generator, you twisted the wrench against the gears. You weren’t sure if continuing to twist was the answer or not, until it lit up green at the tenth hard turn. You gasped in delight as it turned green and hopped back up to your feet. You barely even noticed Sebastian slithering up behind you when you moved to the next door and found the same layout as the last. 

This time, it went by smoothly now that you knew what you were doing, and before long the red generator in this room turned green as well. A little voice whispered in the back of your mind, wondering if Sebastian was proud of you for figuring it out so quickly, but you shoved that voice down as soon as it spoke. Not only did you not care about what he thought of you, it didn’t matter anyway. He would never say something like that, let alone anything positive even remotely in your direction. You didn’t know him for very long, but you knew that fact about him well enough. 

It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter what he thought or what you thought, all that mattered was that you were breezing through the last couple of doors without an utterance of help from the real expert here. 

That’s what you told yourself. That’s what you believed. Until the next room was just a long hallway with hardly any desks in it. However, what really caught your eye was the glow of orange light moving just outside the wide window on your left. What really responded to your ears was the echo of an unfamiliar noise coming just beyond the stairwell leading down. 

You made your way down the stairs, waiting for Sebastian at each landing, until there was nowhere to go but down. Literally, down. All that was left for you at the bottom was a broken door and a pit dug into the ground. You glanced at Sebastian close on your tail, and when he shrugged, you rolled your eyes and leapt into the dugout. You’d thought initially it would have sucked you deep down, but it just led to another room.

At the very point where you entered this new room with giant, automatically opening doors, you finally noticed Sebastian lingering behind you with a smirk plastered on his face. As the doors opened to reveal a massive facility with high ceilings, trellises, and construction equipment, beaming lights shot down from… a ship? Some… floating… creature? These lights spotted another Expendable’s body just outside the doors, and a blade shot down from in between the base of the spotlights to latch onto the corpse. Whoever that was… they were gone in a second. That was all you needed to see.

You backed up with a horror-stricken face until your back was pressed against Sebastian. He snarled at you and pushed you off of him, but you were frozen in place. 

“...What…?” You whispered. “...What is that? Who did it just grab? Why is it floating?? How am I supposed to–” 

“Okay, okay, settle down,” Sebastian said as he leaned against the same wall as you were frozen to. “Although the look on your face right now is absolutely priceless , I didn’t tell you much about the Searchlights because I knew you’d freak out.”

Your neck almost snapped when it turned to face him. “ These are the Searchlights?? Is it a ship? Are there people inside?”

“No, what? It’s another entity, stupid,” Sebastian scoffed and crossed two of his arms across his chest. “I know you probably have a lot of questions… and I know I could likely answer them all… but how’s this: I don’t actually want to.”

You shot him the coldest, most unfriendly glare you could possibly send. This probably didn’t affect him, but it was mostly to make you feel the slightest better about this entire situation. 

“So here’s the plan that I crafted extra specially for you: First, you distract the Searchlights so I can book it over to a safe space and hideout there. Second, you fix all five broken generators by yourself, no help required, until these doors open again, yeah?” Sebastian explained with an overjoyed smile. You blinked at him and furrowed your eyebrows. It took you a moment to burst out laughing. This may have confused him, as he raised an eyebrow prominently. 

“So… so… let me get this straight…” You cackled. “You’re sending me out there… to do all the dirty work and not get caught… while you sit around and wait for me to finish?”

“I’m getting the feeling every word coming from your mouth is meant to convey sarcasm…” Sebastian said with a lowered voice. He fidgeted with the ring on his finger as your laughing settled. 

“Hah! You’re sending me to die!” You chuckled, turning your back to him and accepting your fate. The Searchlights neared, and you stood right outside the door with open arms. “Come and get me! I’ll die anyway, so just make it quick–”

As the lights briefly skimmed over your body, you were tugged back harshly and slammed onto the ground. Your eyes widened at the suddenness, looking up at Sebastian’s angry, snarling face. 

“What the hell is wrong with you??” He demanded, pushing you by the collar of your diving suit further into the floor. You struggled against his grip, but none of your attempts seemed to free you. 

“What’s wrong with me?” You repeated with a furious tone. “What’s wrong with you! To sum up exactly what you told me; I should be just fine going out there on my own with no prior knowledge of the entity outside! Oh, but it’s okay, Sebastian will be hiding away from it and not serving any use in the process.”

“Does it kill you to use your brain once in a while?!” Sebastian spat, tossing you to the side like an unused toy. You huffed at the second collision to the floor and pushed yourself to your feet slowly. “I’m too bulky to go out there and help. As much as I would just love to fix generators with you, I would be caught in a second.”

“Why didn’t you just start with that??” 

“Well I–” Sebastian paused and groaned, sweeping his hands down his face in annoyance. “Yeah, whatever, I should have said that in the first step of the plan. But if you pull some shit like that again… standing out there waiting on a death wish… I will not pull you back.”

You bit the inside of your cheek and decided not to stare at him while you gathered your wits. If going through this was your only way of freedom, then you’d just have to suck it up and keep going. You’d made it this far anyway. A quiet chuckle escaped your lips as you braced yourself for your next moves. For a distant, ghost of a memory echoed through your head in that moment of standing across Sebastian in a room embellished down to its roots with danger. If you have the nerve to escape, then you must have the nerve to know what consequences lie at the exit. It was easy to remember common sayings from your past caretaker when every word was hammered into you at every ‘teachable moment.’ Sometimes, you would even have to engrave those very words directly into wooden slabs until they were a constant reminder of your mistakes. 

The sentence would pound alongside your heartbeat even in a completely different place with completely different consequences to your actions. Your caretaker’s words would layer over each other in your mind even as you sprinted to each generator with a wrench secured tightly in your right hand. Past events to occur in Mulberry’s Children Home would blind your vision until you hid out underneath forklifts and waited for them to pass with panting breaths. A constant reminder of mistakes with a smack of a wooden spoon against each of your wrists would spark every time you messed up, like a bolt of electricity spiraling down your forearm. 

You’d forgotten what this was for in the first place, as the sound of children screaming filled your ears when bright flashlights caught you at the fence. You had nowhere to run, and you were too young to climb… too desperate for an exit. You remembered exactly the feeling of being dragged to the basement and pushed into the storage closet until you had learned your lesson. You could almost feel the ghostly breath of others like you; children who had been stuck down there all on their own with nothing but impossibly loud thoughts to keep them company in the dark. If you ignored the ringing in your ears… you could even hear them shouting… 

“...”

“Snap out of it!!” 

You gasped right out of your daze and shook your head until your eyes focused. You blinked and squirmed in a tight hold against something frigid… yet warm in the center. You tilted your head ever so slightly only to be met face-to-face with Sebastian’s concerned expression. 

“What happened back there? You were doing fine… but then you just stopped! Right in the middle of the Searchlights!” Sebastian growled. “I thought I told you not to pull that shit again–”

“You’re right.” You interrupted, lowering your gaze to the floor. “I just felt… alone. Like… Do you know that feeling when you’re not sure if what you’re looking for is even the right thing at all?”

Sebastian sighed and gazed at you solemnly. “Do you know who you’re talking to? Of course I know that feeling; I’ve literally danced with it. But… I remind myself of how much I’ve missed up there in the real world… and that’s what keeps me going. Maybe even seeing… a certain someone again.” 

You nodded and stepped back from his personal space. 

“It’s just… I’ve been told by so many people that freedom is nothing but a lie. That I will always get punished for trying to do what I want,” You explained, furrowing your eyebrows at the memories. “Like, is there some kind of guideline I missed? A manual on how to act like everyone wants me to that I should’ve received at some point?”

Sebastian laughed and combed through his thick hair with his hand. “I’m sure if something like that existed, this world would be a lot less interesting.”

You cracked a slight smile and popped your knuckles with a quick glance outside the large, hallowed shipping crate you both fit into. The Searchlights were still scanning all across the deserted area, and for a moment you thought they picked up speed.

“Look.” Sebastian pointed a long, clawed finger just outside of the crate. “That’s the last generator. As soon as you fix that one, the doors are open. You just need to follow me back.”

You quickly glanced at him and noticed just briefly that he offered a smile. You took a second look to evaluate the true meaning behind it, as it didn’t look smug or mean at all. It took some bravery, but you mustered a small smile back at him and dashed out of the shipping crate. The Searchlights echoed across the facility from the opposite side, but they were starting to move quickly and you had to put years of prison’s strength building behind each twist of the wrench. 

“Not to rush you or anything… but I would definitely hurry,” Sebastian called from inside the crate. You cursed under your breath when the generator shocked you on the last turn. You had to steady yourself from the electrical current before getting back up and dashing back into the shipping crate. 

“Did I mention the Searchlights start to get restless at a certain point?” Sebastian said with a laugh as you shot him a horrified look. “So… last one to the doors gets eaten alive!”

Sebastian took off like a slithering rocket towards the slowly opening doors all the way across the facility as soon as he uttered those words. This time, you did not hold back as you shouted profanities after profanities in your chase after him, making sure to avoid the Searchlights whenever they neared your position. 

“YOU SICK, STUPID, SLITHERING, LYING, MAGGOT-EATING, ROTTEN SON OF A–” 

You yelped as the glow of the Searchlights brushed across your diving gear, making you halt to a stop under the crook of a forklift. You could barely see a cackling Sebastian disappearing past the open doors with all three of his hands brandishing their middle fingers before the Searchlights swept across the entire area around you. You grunted at the strain in your legs from crouching, but without the ability to see where the Searchlights were unless they were directly overhead, you couldn’t will yourself to move. 

You looked at your hands, one desperately clinging to the oil-stained wrench, and thought back to Sebastian’s words. Whether he really meant them or not, everything stuck to you. And so you pushed aside the bubbling echoes of everything you’ve done wrong and leaped out from underneath the forklift. The wailing sounds of the Searchlights directly behind you sounded overhead, but you practically threw yourself past the open doors and watched as Sebastian wheeled them shut behind you. 

For a little while, you stayed face-down on the floor, limbs spread out after scrambling inside. You had to muster enough energy to flip onto your back instead and stare at the ceiling. Scales dragged across the cemented floor as Sebastian got close enough to be in your sight. You noticed he didn’t dare get close enough to touch. A funny little detail, but you definitely did notice. 

“Hey,” He said with a low voice and a smug grin. “You didn’t die.”

A short laugh escaped you. “Yeah… I didn’t die. Not sure if I should thank you or scream at you.”

“Oh, you’ve done plenty of screaming already, I can assure you.” Sebastian leaned down to quickly flick your head and moved across the room to swipe a keycard he’d collected across the reader to two doors. You laid there in silence for a moment longer until you heard the muffled sounds of the Searchlights still beyond the closed doors. That shot you straight up onto your feet and caught you back up to Sebastian. 

Careful not to stumble over his tail, which seemed to take up every inch of your personal space sometimes, you followed as close as possible behind him. Something you would never admit to Sebastian, of course, was the fact that the Searchlights really did freak you out. Whether it was his words or your own past childhood coming back to haunt you, you didn’t know. But the whole experience felt like a fever dream; one that did not involve any of your homemade drugs. No, those made you happy. This made you want to freeze up and back into a corner where no one could find you. And that was exactly the kind of feeling Sebastian did not need to know about. Especially not now. 

“You’re quiet,” Sebastian commented. You snorted, not because of his words, but because of the irony of already thinking about him. 

“Just… processing everything in my own way,” You muttered. It wasn’t the entire truth, but it also wasn’t a lie. Lying was not your strong suit anyway. Sadie had made sure you knew that every day. You bit the inside of your cheek, regretfully bringing up the very person you didn’t want to think about. 

“My advice? Don’t process it,” Sebastian stated. You raised an eyebrow as you finally entered another numbered room, expecting him to elaborate. When he didn't, you frowned.

“What kind of advice is that?” You scoffed, tapping your fingers against the flashlight sticking out of your belt. 

“The great kind,” Sebastian declared, pointing a finger at you before vanishing into a side office room. He called out from inside, “See, if you try and process what you’ve seen, it’ll just circle your head and remind you of everything you could or could not have done differently.”

You blinked and actually nodded in agreement. As stupid as he could be, sometimes Sebastian had a way with words; a skill you’d never quite picked up. For a split second, you thought… It was kind of nice to have someone to talk to. In such a grim, terrifying place as the Blacksite, you were lucky to have gotten a… less terrifying… friend? Is that what he was? 

“Sebastian.”

He peeked his head out of the office, ears flicking in your direction as he acknowledged your speaking. 

“Are we friends?” You asked quietly. Stood there in the middle of the room, you waited until he fully came out of the office and stood directly across from you, documents and files in hand.

“What?” He chuckled lightly. “I mean… we’re both trying to survive and escape this place, right? I thought we made it clear that neither of us were here to make friends.”

You blinked and looked away with a frown. 

“No, yeah. You’re right,” You mumbled. “I don’t know… I just felt with all we’ve been through… we were together when it happened, you know?”

“Not with everything.”

You glanced back at Sebastian, but you barely caught a glimpse of the shadow fallen across his face before he whipped back around and headed to the next room. You brushed your hands up and down your arms with a sigh. This wasn’t like you. Sentimentality? You needed to get over it. You couldn’t make friends in a place like this, and you couldn’t feel that way around a monster . 

But… if he was a monster…

Then what did that make you? 

Chapter Text

Calm before the storm…

What a bullshit saying.

One way or another, there’s always a storm somewhere.

You’re just waiting for it to reach your position.

After the long-lasting experience with the Searchlights, you demanded rest in a side office. Sebastian was reluctant, and you were ninety percent positive he was grumbling about it the entire time, but eventually you found a branched off hallway to a safe room. This one had made you feel all the more uncomfortable, as it had a powered-off console lining the rim underneath gaping windows. They stretched across an entire wall, giving you the view of absolutely nothing but eerie, dark waters outside. It made you think hard about how far down from the surface you were. You’d never had any fear of the deep sea, but you wondered how long that would last if you continued to stay down there.

You pried your eyes from the windows, a part of you wanting to cover it with something as if it’d give you privacy. Sebastian didn’t seem to mind, as he spread out a wide variety of files, documents, notepads, and CDs across the span of three desks. But of course, he’d been down here much longer than you. He probably knew everything there was to know about the Blacksite.

He blew a huff of air from his hardly visible nose as if he knew you were thinking about him.

“You’re staring again,” He mentioned without turning around. You cleared your throat and glanced around the room, deciding to instead look at everything but him. That earned a chuckle from him as he stretched the length of his tail across the room. Thankfully, this office was bigger than the last, and you had room to walk around and not step on his tail. As cool as it was, you figured he didn’t want you anywhere near it, so you steered clear whenever you could. Instead, you threw your diving gear onto a desktop and sat against the wall opposite from Sebastian, the wide window on your left. You could probably nap right there, but too much was clouding your head from earlier.

When you closed your eyes, the first thing that flared in your mind was the burning orange glow of the Searchlights. Your eyes sprung open again, blinking the image away. But it wasn’t just the vision of the scanning Searchlights that lingered. The feeling that they were waiting just outside the forklifts and shipping crates you hid underneath crept down your spine. What was actually worse was when you couldn’t see them. You just had to assume they were on the other side of the facility. You had to guess on your life. You looked up from the floor at Sebastian counting USB drives in his hands. That was something you knew he wouldn’t understand. He already knew how to avoid death. But you? You’d been struggling at that ever since you fled Mulberry’s Children Home.

Just the mention of the name in your thoughts put a sour expression on your face; your mouth turned to a frown and your tired eyes burned a hole into the floor. There was only one person in that whole goddamn orphanage that you’d trusted. But that trust was easily shoved into the trash the moment you got out.

Another glance at Sebastian. You were doing it again, going ahead and putting faith in someone else just because of shared experiences. Shared trauma. You’d have to stop doing that.

“Is there something on your mind?” Sebastian growled and whipped around to face you. You blinked in surprise. “Well, I’m assuming there’s something you want to say because I can constantly feel your eyeballs attacking me with that stare.”

“If you haven’t noticed, there’s not much room here to look elsewhere,” You snapped, crossing your arms over your chest. Sebastian scoffed and sat with a thump on the floor, mirroring your exact position across the room. You furrowed your eyebrows at his behavior and uncrossed your arms. Not a second later, he uncrossed his as well and let them lay in his lap.

“What are you doing?” You demanded.

“I’m showing you exactly what you look like right now,” Sebastian explained. He twisted his face to glare and scowl.

“That is not what I look like.”

“It is, because there’s something you’re not saying,” Sebastian pointed out. “Just spit it out. You’ll feel better.”

You sighed and began knocking your head back into the wall behind you until you couldn’t hear your thoughts any longer. You couldn’t just tell him what you were thinking. You wouldn’t even know where to start. Besides, the privileged, egotistical attitude splaying off of his person made it seem like he wouldn’t really listen anyway. So, you decided to redirect the conversation.

“Why do you need the research left behind here?” You asked, lifting your gaze to meet him. He glanced off at the piles of documents he’d left scattered on desks.

“...Is this question relevant in your search for the crystal?” He responded. You opened your mouth to speak, but shut it after a moment. “That’s what I thought. That kind of information is useless to you once you either secure the crystal or die trying.”

You opened your mouth in offense. Did he really have the audacity to assume your death was already near?

“I can’t believe you just said that,” You chuckled in shock. “You think I’m going to die? Your expectations are that low?

“My expectations have to be low,” Sebastian snapped. “Do you know how many Expendables have tried their luck before you? Too many. It’d be impossible for me to assume you’ll end up succeeding.”

You bit the inside of your cheek and stared at the dust-covered floor.

“You know what, that’s fair,” You sighed, your hand ghosting over the storage pouch strapped to your arm. Carefully, you removed it, stretching your arm out at the loss of weight. You tossed it at Sebastian, who caught it expectantly in the air and dug around the USB drives piled up inside.

He chuckled and shook his head, saying, “I’m not sure how you manage to find all of these. And I know this place better than Urbanshade does.”

“Maybe because they don’t seem to care who or what they throw down here,” You scoffed. Your comment earned a slight smirk from Sebastian. “Speaking of… do you happen to know how many rooms there are here?”

Sebastian paused and shifted his gaze towards you with a raised eyebrow.

“...Why?”

You shrugged your shoulders and pulled a knee up to your chest to let your arm dangle off of it.

“Just asking… out of curiosity and because I don’t know when to expect to find the crystal,” You admitted. Sebastian’s eyes cast a stone cold look to the ground. You weren’t exactly sure why, but he didn’t seem to want to explain it.

“You’ll find the crystal at the 100th door,” He said plainly. His face seemed like he was holding back a comment, but he didn’t open his mouth again. You narrowed your eyes at his sudden strange behavior before coming to the decision that he was just… like that. Unpredictable emotions were common with Sebastian, which you slightly understood. If you’d been down here as long as he seemed to be, you’d definitely go insane. Maybe he already has.

“Is… there anything past the 100th door?” You asked cautiously. Egging more conversation out of him was proving more difficult every time you tried, but it was the only way you could learn more about the Blacksite.

“Are you asking if the Blacksite ends at 100 rooms? God, no.” Sebastian rubbed his face tiredly and scoffed. “There are more than I can bother to explore. Just… think of the 100th door as a checkpoint. There’s a submarine loading dock near it.”

“Really? That’s great!” You exclaimed suddenly. “Oh… I thought I’d have to go all the way back to where I came from after securing the crystal. But this makes things a hell of a lot easier!”

Sebastian rolled his eyes. “Yeah. Seems real great for you. But… you’ll still have to get past the Searchlights.”

The lights flickered, and an unfamiliar sounding scream echoed past the room. Even then, you didn’t move, your eyes focused on Sebastian in a blank stare as your mind processed his words.

“The Searchlights…?” You whispered. The lights outside cut out briefly before resorting to red lanterns as backup power.

“There goes Blitz…” Sebastian muttered under his breath. You ignored his comment while he glanced towards the hallway outside.

“The Searchlights?” You repeated louder. Sebastian eyed you suspiciously.

“What? You didn’t seriously think you could just walk out with the crystal, no trouble. Right?”

“Uh, no, what I thought was that you would tell me these things beforehand!” You sputtered, throwing your hands in the air.

“I am telling you beforehand!” Sebastian said defensively. You crossed your arms, and he mimicked you. You uncrossed your arms, and his arms fell in unison. A moment of silence passed before the both of you burst into fits of giggles.

“Man… you were right, there is no way I am making it out of here alive,” You chuckled, your hands planting themselves loosely in your lap. Sebastian grinned and shook his head.

“It’s hard to say… I mean, there’s been a couple who’ve made it this far… but I could never fully tell since, y’know, I don’t actually accompany the Expendables,” Sebastian pointed out with a tilt of his head. You watched his messy hair fall into place on one shoulder as he did. For a second… he almost seemed human. Was he ever a human? Or was he just a regular sea creature mutated into… this? The urge to ask was overwhelmingly strong, but you had a feeling the light-hearted atmosphere you’d finally created would vanish real fast if you did. You smiled, however, because as much as you knew you were a pain in the ass to deal with, breaking the ice was always your strong suit.

“Were you ever… friends with some of them?” You blurted out. You weren’t sure where the question even came from, but it was out there now. “The Expendables, I mean.”

Sebastian sucked a breath through his teeth and looked around thoughtfully.

“I dunno. I mean, most acted around the same as you, just… y’know… less of the bribing me to tag along,” Sebastian chuckled. “Hm. Friends. It’s just not something I’ve really considered down here, as you’re only here for the crystal and I’m here to… well, to leave. Except–”

He paused. You raised an eyebrow as he stared off into space blankly.

“Except…?” You echoed. Sebastian suddenly snapped back into reality and uncoiled himself to a higher stance from sitting on the floor.

“Shit. I have something I need to do,” He murmured quickly, enclosing his hands around the pile of USB drives stacked on a desktop and swiping them into a large satchel strapped close to the base of his tail. He latched it closed and headed for the door.

“What? What are you talking about? Hold up, wait for me,” You insisted, immediately standing and grabbing your diving gear. Sebastian barely turned around before sighing and shaking his head.

“No… Look,” He hesitated. “This is something I have to do myself. It doesn’t concern you. Just stay here.”

“Excuse me? Why should I have to stay here? What exactly are you going to do?”

Sebastian stopped in the doorway and looked at you with frustrated eyes and his mouth twisted into a thin line.

“Hi, so, remember what I said about irrelevant information? This is the part where you say, ‘Okay Sebastian, I’ll sit tight since I asked to rest here in the first place,’ yeah?” Sebastian said through gritted teeth. You scowled at him. You thought you were having a moment with him earlier, but that was quick to vanish.

“I also remember you mentioning trust between us. How am I supposed to know you’ll actually come back?” You clapped back, earning a glare from the harsh glow of his teal eyes. In the dim golden lights overhead, the luminescence of his eyes screamed at you, especially when they were focused on your own gaze.

“You won’t,” He breathed. “Just… stay here. You’ll only get yourself killed if you go back out alone.”

Sebastian turned for a final time and slithered out the door, the rest of his tail following in pursuit. You huffed in frustration and threw your diving gear to the floor.

“Last time I checked, you didn’t seem to care whether I live or die!” You shout out into the hallway. You figured he was long gone at that point, but it relieved a part of you to yell it out.

What was it that he needed to do? And why was he so keen on keeping it from you? Well, that wasn’t unlike Sebastian. Holding back information seemed to be the very thing he was skilled at, apart from maneuvering around the Blacksite. But this was different. There was definitely something he was keeping hidden just below the surface of his very being; just out of reach from you. You groaned and rubbed your face stubbornly. If you were going to be in the office alone, you might as well sleep.

You slid against the wall into a seated position and closed your eyes. For a little while, you focused on steadied breaths and the darkness within your eyelids. Unfortunately for you, your mind was still quite awake. How could it not be? Your thoughts cascaded without rhythm inside your head, jumping from question to unfactual conclusion.

Don’t you want to find out what he’s doing?

Don’t you want to know what lies beyond the veil of void?

There’s more than presented to you.

There’s more than the crystal, more than the entities, and more than Sebastian.

A short breath left your lips as your fingers clenched into fists by your sides. You peeked open your eyes and glanced at the open exit, leading directly back to the hallway of the seventy-sixth door. You could absolutely try to rest in the office, waiting to see if Sebastian decided to come back. You could and you should be mindful and patient. But if you had learned patience ever in your life, you wouldn’t have been a convicted felon, now would you?

An impulsive decision trickled through your mind and made its way to your hands, which pulled the diving gear off the floor and onto your back. This impulsive decision shivered down your spine and sent your feet moving back into the hallway. It wasn’t a good idea, you knew that. However, not only did one side of you want to prove Sebastian wrong, but the other side told you to be curious and cautious. So, you embraced your arbitrary choice and stepped into the next room. The door was already opened, as Sebastian had gone the same way. Following in his footsteps should be fairly easy, right? There was only one path. …Right?

You’d find out very quickly, it seemed.

The atmosphere in the next room was… different, to say the least. It wasn’t like any of the rooms you’d encountered before, and it almost felt like the Blacksite was changing around you. Something was off, but you continued on in hopes of coming across Sebastian before he got too far. You couldn’t put your finger on what exactly was coming off as strange to you, so you ignored the abandoned and tipped over desks scattered along the room. Above you was a flickering sign informing you that the place was under construction. The information didn’t make the place any less eerie, unfortunately.

You clicked on your flashlight and maneuvered past rubble and debris cautiously. At the next door, which did not open automatically and made you pry it open yourself, the room behind it looked almost exactly the same. You glanced back uneasily and wondered if you were even going the right way to begin with. Sebastian was probably faster than you, so it was incredibly possible he was long gone.

“Sebastian?” You called out anyway. You swiped the beam of your flashlight across every corner before coming across a floating… squid-like creature smack-dab in the middle of the room. You neared it, squinting to get a look at its features, before its tentacles began to glow and hum. You immediately dropped the flashlight and scrambled backwards with a small gasp. It did not follow. You furrowed your eyebrows and picked your flashlight up off the dusty floor, briefly shining it on the creature again. It hummed and shook, but this time, a wretched, distorted face began to glow on its head until you jumped back and clicked off the flashlight.

“...Are you friendly?” You whispered into the dark. Whatever it was… it didn’t respond. You hadn’t actually expected it to, but you felt the silence answered more than anything. So, you gripped your flashlight tightly and left the thing alone. It made you ponder how many entities were created down in the Blacksite. Did Sebastian know them all? He was the one to set them loose, that’s what you knew. You sensed a grudge held by him against Urbanshade itself; one that you were silently grateful for, as it gave you the opportunity to live. Even though… there was no way he meant for that to happen.

‘Stop– on the– as instructed. You– path– slight redirection.’

The intercom on your diving gear suddenly spoke. You attempted to listen as closely as possible, but it was glitching far too much to make out barely anything. You could guess it was warning you of straying off the designated path, but there was no way you could decipher whatever instructions it told you. While a sliver of your mind regretted not staying in the office room, you couldn’t manage to admit it even to yourself. In a place such as the Blacksite, you couldn’t afford to make mistakes. So, you convinced yourself that this must not be a mistake, just the path you decided to choose. So there.

That was a motto you kept like a parasite in your head, even when you left the construction site and immediately burst into a room with blaring green eyes peering at you from the twenty-foot window. You held up a hand to shield your eyes, despite the temptation yearning for you to look at it. What exactly was it? You could never quite catch a glimpse besides knowing it had several green eyes. Obviously. That was something you’d have to ask Sebastian. If… you ever found him. In this maze of a place, you weren’t sure of the possibility of that anymore.

“Stop it,” You blurted out to yourself. “Do not think like that. I am going to find Sebastian, and I am going to make it out of here alive.”

You stood in the middle of the room, even while sharp green eyes bored into your back. You shouted your words out, loud enough that your voice reverberated across the windows and lockers and resonated with your unkempt mind. Only then did you move on from that room and into the next. There… There is where you regretted shouting.

The overhead lights flickered, and a chime of anxiety sparked through your heart. You chose a locker shoved quaintly into a corner of the room and waited with open ears. A minute passed, and nothing. You looked around the room in confusion. Maybe the lights were just faulty? Still, you stayed by the locker until you heard a screeching in the distance. Accompanied by… music? Perhaps you really were going insane. You hopped into the locker anyway, peering out of the ventilation slits to see what exactly was coming.

It was too quick for you to realize.

A creature unlike any you had seen before, with a twisted and deformed face brandishing dozens of savage, yet empty eyes within its open mouth. It approached the locker with a speed that made you choke on your breath and grip the locker doors shut tightly. This… thing rammed itself into the locker, making it extremely hard for you to keep the doors shut. It was constantly screaming. Then again, you were also probably hearing your own voice echoing back as you screamed with it. The locker was wobbling and barely able to stay standing when it tilted from one side to the other in harsh jerks. You yelled for it to stop, wishing with the hollowed hope you had left that it understood your words and was ready to back off. It wasn’t.

You screamed until you had to catch your breath and really focus on keeping the doors shut. A few times, the creature had gotten close… too close… to ripping them from your grip and gaining full access to you. Although it didn’t feel like it, you were determined to not let go. Your life literally depended on it, and you decided you didn’t feel like dying to this ugly rat of a creature. So you gritted your teeth and leaned back with every bit of your weight to keep the doors closed.

It seemed like the music wouldn’t stop. It seemed like the screaming would never fade. But it only took what felt like an hour when your biceps were flaming up and your fingers were blistering for the rumbling of the locker to stop and the entity to finally leave. You still waited inside the locker with a pounding heart and limp, pained arms, just in case it was actually still out there and waiting for you. You panted in deep breaths and rested your forehead against the locker doors. Pricks of warm, wet tears formed in the corners of your eyes, but you blinked them away. You knew they were there not out of sadness, but hopeless frustration, and that crying would do nothing to help you.

You closed your eyes and pictured her face, frowning and disappointed. You had told her… no, you begged her not to say anything. For all that you had done for her, you’d expected this at the least. Your expectations were too high, apparently. She was the one crying then, even though she had no right to. ‘Save your tears, Sadie. They’re not for me,’ you had said. And that was the last thing you said to her.

Your eyes opened slowly, dry of any remaining feelings. You threw open the doors and stepped out on shaky legs, willing yourself to stand tall. In truth, your blinked away tears were not for Sadie, as hers weren’t for you. They were really there because of how much you need to get out. The first couple of days here, you had believed within reason that you had the wit and skill to succeed in your mission. You even shouted it just one door ago out to every entity that could listen. Now… you questioned whether you had either of those things.

You gathered yourself, taking a deep breath through your nose and blowing it out your mouth. Before jumping into the locker, you didn’t have time to actually look around the room. Now, you could see that there wasn’t a ‘next door.’ There was only a vent cover on the bottom of the wall and a cracked window leaking water. You wouldn’t have to crawl through the vent… right? You groaned and got to your knees beside it, ripping it off its loose screws. Claustrophobia wasn’t exactly a fear for you, but as soon as you crawled through the opening, you decided to reconsider if that was the case.

You turned on your flashlight and grit your teeth around it so you could crawl on your hands and knees and still see through the pitch black. It wasn’t terribly long before another light appeared at the end of a turn and you could knock the next cover loose. It clattered to the floor, revealing you to a large room with a bridge connecting to the other side. Below and beyond the bridge… you weren’t exactly sure what lied there. It was way too dark to tell, even with your dim flashlight. You stood and eyed the bridge suspiciously. It was only being supported by chains hanging from the ceiling, so you weren’t so sure it was very reliable. Was it your only option, though? Unfortunately so.

The door on your right was busted, and the next numbered door was at the other side of the bridge on your left. Great.

You carefully placed a foot on the start of it, testing the grated ground of it. It creaked loudly at the weight, but it surprised you how sturdy it felt. With a little added confidence, you tested your entire weight on just the edge, balancing yourself on the railing. You chuckled, delighted that it actually seemed safe. You strut across it, making it halfway over when a sharp screeching of something sharp against metal echoed across the bridge. You winced at the scraping noises, shooting a panicked look to the door without a number. You took a step back, but you were mostly frozen in place as claws jutted out from within the slit in the door and pried it open.

You sighed in relief. Ducking through the doorway was Sebastian, in all his glory.

…Until he spotted you and his mouth fell open. Your relief faded just as quickly as it arrived as you realized you were supposed to be still in the office many, many rooms ago. Sebastian’s gaze widened in… anger? Shock? Uncontrolled fury? Maybe all of the above, as he breathed out a shaky breath, his eyes locked on you.

“...You’ve got three seconds to convince me not to shoot you right now,” Sebastian declared, his voice loud and carrying all the way to where you stood on the bridge. “Three.”

You scratched the back of your head and frowned.

“Two.”

“I just wanted to see what you were doing,” You finally admitted. “And I’m not so sure being alone with my thoughts is such a great idea.”

“It was my idea, and it was formulated according to your best interest.” Sebastian sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance. You watched with fidgeting fingers for a moment before he suddenly started moving very quickly for his size across the bridge. You yelped loudly and scrambled to the other side, running as fast you possibly could and practically throwing yourself through the automatically opening door.

“I am going to slam your head into a desk! Repeatedly! You’re insufferable and you won’t just stay put!” Sebastian snarled, ducking under the doorway and slithering quickly after you.

“Listen, listen, listen! Listen! I didn’t die, did I? Not only did I prove you wrong, I proved myself right!” You exclaimed, running circles around him just out of reach. He growled murderously and repeatedly grabbed the air in an attempt to snatch you.

“I told you not to follow me for a reason. What did you see??” He demanded, trying to unwind his tail so he could properly grab at your diving gear. You yelped as you dodged his third hand, practically hitting a Michael Jackson pose in the process.

“What are you talking about?? I couldn’t even find you! I’m pretty sure I went off the path completely,” You explained, leaping over the fin on the end of his tail.

“I… don’t… believe you…” He grumbled after every attempt to catch you. You were only running in circles around him, but a life of white collar crimes and getaways made you quite nimble. Especially in comparison to this mountain of a creature.

“See, when you say things like this, it makes it really difficult to trust you!” You blurted out in frustration. “What do you even need to keep secret from me? I’m as much a prisoner down here as you!”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Sebastian snapped, snatching the air tank on your back and dragging you up close to his face by the edge of it. “You have a chance to escape. I have nothing but my own, personally gained resources. Do not compare yourself to me.”

You both shot glares directly into the others’ eyes. He opened his mouth to continue berating you, but before he could, the lights flickered all around you. Sebastian shut his mouth, his sharp teething clicking together as he did. He set you down quite roughly to your feet, looking around for a locker. There was only one in this room, shoved against the wall next to a desk. Sebastian opened the next door, peering out of it before returning to you with furrowed eyebrows.

“...There’s no other lockers,” He stated quietly.

“Not in the next room either?” You asked in a panic. “Hurry, let’s go to the room after that, there might be one–”

“I can hear the screaming already, I’m not going to make it in time. Just… you get in the locker. It’s okay. I wouldn’t fit anyway,” He said, his voice as low as a whisper. You sputtered, racking your brain for a solution.

“There’s no office doors, nothing in the next room? Maybe… try hiding in the corner,” You offered, pacing around. “Like, behind this plant! Come on, work with me!”

“Get in the locker,” is all Sebastian had to say in response. You furrowed your eyebrows and bit the inside of your cheek. Reluctantly, you backed up inside the locker. You didn’t shut the doors just yet, watching helplessly as the screaming got near. You envisioned Sebastian getting caught in the entity’s path and getting out to see him mangled on the ground. Or… if there would even be anything left of him…

No.

You jumped out of the locker, earning three angrily shocked eyes trained on your movements. With a quick unstrapping, you threw your diving gear onto the floor and made your way over to him. You grabbed two of Sebastian’s arms and heaved him over to the locker. You got in first and pulled him as quickly as you could into it as well. His tail was the problem, and you could see the face of an unfamiliar mutated entity speeding quickly across the bridge. With Sebastian’s help, you piled his tail underneath you, and he coiled it as tightly as he possibly could. In this moment, you realized that crawling through a vent was nothing compared to this. There was absolutely no room to move, especially when you reached for the doors behind Sebastian’s wide torso and slammed it shut. A part of him might have stuck out a bit, bending the metal of the locker in his proportions, but you were both inside.

The screeching echoes outside passed you, and just as you reached to open the door again, Sebastian’s hand grabbed your arm.

“Don’t,” He whispered. You didn’t have the air or the room to ask why, but you waited and listened as the screaming rebounded. Yet still, Sebastian held onto your arm with a deathgrip, leaving you both smashed together in the most claustrophobically uncomfortable way possible. Your face had to tilt to the side as it was pressed directly into his chest, and when you glanced up, he was clearly hunching as far over as possible to fit within the limited space. Your feet weren’t even touching the bottom of the locker, as Sebastian’s tail was what you stood on. It was wrapped around your legs in order to take up as much space as it could, and you could feel his scales even through the wetsuit. He was cold, yet warm at the same time. How did that even work?

As much as you relished in how this was the closest you’d ever gotten to him without getting your neck snapped, being tangled together was not ideal in such minimal space. It reminded you of when you first went to the dentist, and they took a mold of your teeth with pink alginate. It felt longer than it was, but it was uncomfortable and made you squirm every second of it. That was what you felt like in that moment with Sebastian. Finally, a third rebound of the shrieking entity echoed through the slits in the locker doors and across the metal plating. Glancing up at Sebastian’s face, he nodded at last and let go of your arm. You shoved the doors open, sending both of you tumbling out in a tangle of limbs onto the floor. Sebastian flicked his esca until it lit up the surrounding area as you enjoyed the free space. You unraveled his tail from around your left leg and stood up, stretching your arms out.

“Man… I never want to do that again. You’re on your own next time, I think I’d rather die to… whatever entity that was,” You chuckled. Sebastian stayed still on the floor, looking up at you in confusion. You noticed him staring and raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“Why did you do that?” He asked, completely seriously. You glanced around, not understanding the question.

“Do what?”

“Why did you bother saving me and putting up with that, when you don’t even know me that well? You could’ve just left me to die. I let you do that,” Sebastian grumbled. You frowned at him and crossed your arms over your chest.

“...I wasn’t just going to let you die. Besides, we made room, didn’t we?” You shrugged. Sebastian blinked at you in bewilderment. “Why can’t you accept that, y’know, maybe I don’t want you to die? It doesn’t matter if I know you well or not. You’re still worth saving.”

Sebastian didn’t respond, instead staring blankly ahead and getting up to his full height. You sighed and turned to head through the open door first. You didn’t really understand him all that well. You weren’t sure if you ever would, either. But whatever he wasn’t trusting in you was probably necessary. You’d done terrible things; even if it didn’t actually involve murdering several people, as you were sent here for.

However, you didn’t have much reason to trust him either. Whatever it was he left you for… whatever he didn’t want you to see… It meant more to him than escaping the Blacksite, it seemed.

At that thought, the familiar, thrill-seeking crime enthusiast in you knew…

…Whatever he was hiding,

You would find out.

Knowing that, a smile creeped onto your lips.

Chapter Text

You hated the Blacksite for all it was worth. 

Had you mentioned that yet? 

Maybe you didn’t say it with enough emphasis before. 

When there was a set of doors that led two different directions, Sebastian offered to take the door on the right. You initially believed he had these areas memorized , being as he knew more about the Blacksite than he knew about himself. But no , apparently this particular room was uncharted territory for him. How convenient. Honestly, you hoped his path was going well. You really did, so you could rub it in his face that despite the several armed turrets scanning the room, you would make it out alive. Unscathed , even. 

Let’s roll it back, shall we?

You had entered the door on the left with hesitancy, barely listening as Sebastian called out from the right door that both paths would probably conjoin in the end and you would meet up with him again. Not only was he leaving… again … He seemed to only be putting space between the two of you because of what happened in the locker. Well, to be fair, nothing actually happened there. You assumed he just felt awkward about being so close and cramped up in a tight space with you… which you couldn’t blame him for. It was definitely an uncomfortable experience, even for you. You were fairly certain as well that at least a quarter of his tail was sticking out of the locker, and that could have easily gotten both of you killed. But you stood on your belief that leaving him out there to die was out of the question. There were a handful of people in your life before prison who, yes, you absolutely would leave behind on a dime. Sebastian was not one of them, despite having moments with him that made you want to claw your own eardrums out. 

You smirked, thinking of how silent he’d become after the locker experience when he used to yap his heart out about random facts you never asked for. Entities, rooms, research… It was funny how talkative he could be if he regarded useless information, and yet he held so much back just to keep everything from you that could benefit your journey. Well, that part wasn’t funny. You decided you would get something out of him, even if it was just before securing the crystal and leaving. 

With a sigh, you neared the left door after a moment of hesitation and wondered what would become of Sebastian once you left. ‘ If you left,’ you could hear him reminding you in your head. Next time he said that to your face, you would probably slap him. Just being in the Blacksite and scanning every crevice of every room was enough of a reminder that death was right around the corner. But you would rather spend what might be the last of your moments on Earth at least trying to cling to life. That’s what you wanted, right? To live. Of course you did. 

You frown as the door opens for you and you are met with an unusually messy room. And wide, too. There seemed to be another side of the room across… a vast pit of darkness. Tables are flipped over, crates are stacked in the middle, large plants have fallen… Unfortunately for you, you didn’t have to wonder for long. You glanced at the numbered door just beyond the minefield of clutter, only for the number to flicker and shut off. You furrowed your eyebrows, tempted to just leave the room and see where Sebastian ended up. Well… you would have, but the door slammed shut behind you. Have they done that before? No… you’d been able to go back before. This… was eerie. The hairs on your arms stood up as a voice spoke from within the room. You whipped your head around to find the source; your eyes eventually landed on the screen where the next door’s number was supposed to be. Instead, a badly drawn face with a white background was grinning on the screen. You squinted and rubbed your eyes wondering if you were having a seizure and hallucinating a talking, smiling screen. 

“Hi! Say hello to my little friends,” The screen said in an obnoxiously high and grating voice. You blinked in an utterly confused response, thinking maybe this was it; you were finally going insane… Until three fully loaded turrets revealed themselves from underneath regular security cameras placed around the room. From behind the stack of crates, you stood clutching your arms tightly and glancing around in a panic. The face on the screen was gone, replaced with the door’s number. Or… was that even the right door? You peeked behind the crates, watching the turrets scan the room in an ordered fashion. You could see everywhere they looked, as their line of sight was shown through red laser beams brushing across every visible surface. Behind the turrets, however, was another numbered door across a bridge of disordered wooden planks. Great . If you’d learned anything just being in the Blacksite, it was that every “right” door was always behind a lengthy deal of obstacles. Because of course it was. No, you had no doubt in your mind that beyond the bridge, that was the correct door. 

The closest turret’s lasers neared your location, and you whipped your head back from peeking out with a sharp intake of air through your teeth. The turret moved after finding nothing but a stack of crates, right back to its routine of looking right and left. You sat, leaning against the crates in silence and processing your next move. You couldn’t go back to Sebastian, and you weren't even sure you would if you could. How could you stand to say to him, “Oh yeah, I couldn’t make it past the turrets in that room because I chickened out and didn’t even try!”

You scoffed at the thought. Absolutely not. You’d go through with this whether the door behind you was open or not. Whoever it was messing with you on the screens, you would find out and in turn, find them . They must not have really known you, or they wouldn’t have chosen turrets in their method of getting rid of you. That was a little something you’d had some experience with in your… scandalous life before prison. Of course it would be a challenge, and of course it would be incredibly annoying to avoid their constant surveillance, but it was all possible. You could memorize the turrets’ patterns no problem, the only issue was getting past them without activating them. 

It was fortunate that you knew a thing or two about avoiding watchful eyes; what was unfortunate was the time you spent in prison, making the skill of being nimble slowly rust over time. You gritted your teeth, throwing glances at the fallen locker just across from your hideout. If you could get behind that, you’d have a better lookout at the bridge of wooden planks without peeking out and worrying about triggering the turrets. You’d already decided, and in the moment of dashing behind the locker, you felt a familiar race in your heart that made you grin. Crouching behind the locker, you could see past the railing all the way to the other side of the room. The wooden planks crossed over a void of pitch black; something you’d gotten used to seeing. You didn’t know what was down there, and you certainly weren’t going to find out. 

You bit hard against your bottom lip, almost piercing the flesh and staining it red while you pondered your next move. If you thought of this situation like you would an organized crime, it made sense. You could practically see in your mind each step you would take across the bridge and to the other side of the room. It’s like a heist, you told yourself. Although a heist involved sneaking into places and not out of them, it still required invisibility among the cameras, or in this case, turrets. 

You eyed the pockets of space where none of the turrets could touch in their line of sight. There were only two in the distance between you and the exit door; one behind a flipped desk and the second by the railing over on the other side. While the second place you planned to stop was in plain sight, the turrets surrounding the area never even looked in their automatic searching. 

You couldn’t help but think as you planned out your next moves that if whoever was behind this actually wanted you dead, wouldn’t they have come and killed you themself? Clearly they had control over the turret systems, so why wouldn’t they just get behind the guns instead of leaving the job to the automated coding? Overthinking it led you to quite some accusatory conclusions, but only one of them really made sense. You narrowed your eyes and pursed your lips at the turrets. Oh yeah, you knew what was going on here. 

You practically dove behind the tipped desk, pressing your back into the shield it provided like it was grounding you in this reality. You exhaled slowly, a smile tugging on the corners of your mouth at how well you thought this all out. For once, right? In all the sporadic events to happen in the Blacksite, this was one you could time just right and have confidence in your skills while you did it.

However, this next bit, you would have to cross the bridge of… very unsturdy-looking wooden planks. There were only two, crossing over a pit of blackness, but they looked ready to snap into splinters from any kind of weight. You’d have to jump. Sure, you could absolutely take your chances stepping on a thin beam with nothing keeping it in place, or you could trust your own athleticism and just leap for it. You chose the second option. Whether that would be the cause of your demise or not, you’d sure look hella cool doing it. 

…Not that looking cool was the point. Of course not.

You saw it. A stutter in the turrets’ lasers which gave you perfect access to the plank bridges. You ignored them, of course, and lept to the standstill in the middle, waving your arms to keep your balance and not fall into the void below. However, you couldn’t stay there for long, as you needed to get to the other side of the room and to the railing. The turret behind you chirped online as lasers fell over your body. You didn’t have time to turn. You jumped with everything you had across the last gap and sprinted to the railing. You ducked behind it just as the turret shot a couple bullets in your direction. Not a single one grazed your skin, and you laughed as you clutched to the metal railing. In your kneeling position, you took a moment to laugh out of relief and surprise in yourself, bowing your head to rest on the cold iron bars. 

You shouldn’t have been surprised, as escaping consequences was exactly what you were known for; exactly what got you in prison in the first place. Your chuckling smile was quickly replaced with a sour frown. No, that’s not right. You got in prison because of trust . Trust in the very person you’d cried and bled with, only for it to melt in your palm like every relationship you’d ever tried to make work. You straightened your back, staring off into space as her face cut through your mind. And cut through your arm. Wait, what?

You cried out in pain, grasping your right arm and curling your body inwards. This is what you get for being sloppy, this is what you get for thinking of her again. And yet, why did her face stab your eyelids with her image every time you closed them? A prick of warmth in the coldest of places gushed onto your firmly placed hand and snapped you out of your daze. 

You whipped your head around to find the turret that saw you peek your head out from behind the railing, its line of sight no longer catching you as it turned back to an automatic route.

“ Shit ,” You groaned through gritted teeth, slamming your uninjured arm on the metal bars. It didn’t make it hurt any less, and it didn’t solve anything to throw punches at inanimate objects. But violence is a hell of a coping method sometimes. Violent is what you were about to get to the very person behind this. You muttered curses under your breath, timing the movements of the three turrets and bolted for the door, gasping in relief when you heard them power down behind you. Still clutching your blood-spilling bicep, you ran on wobbling legs past visible research scattered in the next room and just hobbled through the next door. You told your legs to stand strong. You reminded yourself that it’s just nerves. You’d been shot before, of course. It’s just… been a while. Besides, experience doesn’t mute pain. 

You didn’t look at the door numbers, you just kept going until you reached a wide room with several doors and a scavenging Sebastian. He didn’t even notice your presence until you gritted your teeth, ignoring the excruciating pain in your arm and sprinted toward him with every bit of energy left in you. 

“ You! Asshole! ” You snarled, just as he turned around with wide eyes. Your left fist landed smack dab in the middle of his face, the force leaning him back practically flush with the tail underneath him. He straightened himself, hand covering his mutated nose as he checked for bleeding. No. He didn’t get to check for bleeding from his stupid fish nose when you were right there in front of him channeling all of your anger in one blow to his face while your right arm was gushing red. 

“What the hell??” He demanded, looking at his hand before landing his shocked and angry eyes on you. “What was that for?!”

“You know damn well what that was for! You sent me through that door! You probably knew there were turrets behind it, didn’t you?!” You shouted right in his face, blinking away the darkness in the corners of your eyes. You placed your hand back on your injured arm, pressing it tightly to the wound. 

“I can’t believe you’re accusing me of that! After I am sticking my neck out for you just by being here !” Sebastian yelled back, leaning close to my face with a scowl. 

“No! You are a terrible liar, Sebastian, and I’m so sick of you! Your attitude, your constant mistrust in me, every yelling match that has started because of you! ” You snapped, frustrated tears blurring your sight. “Well I’m starting this one because it’s actually necessary!”

Sebastian bit his lip and looked away with a scoff. “Look, fine. I’m sorry it had to be that way.”

“...What?”

“What?” Sebastian repeated, raising an eyebrow at you. 

“Why did you say it like that…?” You whispered. 

“Like what? I didn’t say it like anything. I’m apologizing, okay?” 

“No… no, you could have said you were sorry it happened, but you said you were ‘sorry it had to be that way.’” You pointed out with furrowed eyebrows. “That implies… that… what did you do ??”

“What are you talking about?” Sebastian huffed, throwing his arms out defensively. “I said I was sorry!”

“You activated the turrets… didn’t you…?” You whispered, looking around in shock. “You controlled them so they would slow me down… or stop me… because you don’t want me getting the crystal.” 

Sebastian fell quiet. It was an unusual experience, but you were too shocked and regretful to relish in it. You stepped back from him, the dark haze really clouding your vision now. 

“You tried to shoot me… You tried…” You looked up at him with a hurt expression knotting your eyebrows together. “You tried to kill me…”

“I didn’t…” Sebastian hesitated and sighed at the lack of words. You kept your eyes on him as you shook your head, removing your hand ever so slightly as the haze crept through your head and loosened your limbs. The blood flowed ever-present now, and that’s what broke Sebastian’s guilty gaze from your eyes. 

“...Were you shot? God… that’s why you were clutching your arm??” Sebastian neared you with outstretched hands, but you fell back on the floor and gave everything to inch away from him. 

“ You tried to kill me… ” You repeated, the words resonating within your mind until it went blank. 

“No, no. Stay awake, c’mon,” Sebastian hurriedly bent over and scooped you up in his arms. You struggled against his grip but apparently your body did not want to use any more strength. “Just… think of how much you hate me right now, yeah? Let that keep you awake. C’mon…”

You did the opposite of what he said, not just because his words were blurring together with the lines of reality, but also because fuck him. He shot you. You’d do whatever you wanted to, in fact, you would stay awake just to spite him . So there. You kept your eyes open because you wanted to send dangerous glares piercing right through him, whether he reciprocated or not. You were so focused on this task that you hadn’t even realized the two of you were moving until he was laying you on a desk in a darker office with monitors and large, empty tubes being the only light sources. 

“Stop, don’t close your eyes,” Sebastian ordered as soon as you had started to close them thinking he wouldn’t catch you. You blinked in anger towards yourself and towards him. 

“You… you don’t get to tell me what to do. You tried to kill me,” You said with slurred words. They sounded normal-ish to you, but you were sure the blood loss was concocting some crazy things right now. Sebastian sighed and ran a hand through his hair as he searched his tail for something. 

“That wasn’t my intent… at least, not really. I called them on because I wanted to test you… maybe even scare you into wanting to stop trying,” Sebastian admitted. It was one of the only genuine things he had said to you in all your time together, and despite wanting to absolutely destroy him at the moment, you sighed and tilted your head back against the desktop. You flinched when Sebastian’s large, clawed hand appeared in your vision and pressed the back of it to your forehead. You scoffed, knowing the procedure for a victim of gunshot wounds. He wouldn’t find anything abnormal, as you didn’t feel cold at all. 

“I just… I need you to stop acting as if you’re not trying to stop me from getting the crystal. I know you are,” You said drowsily. “But do you know how it feels to trust someone… even knowing the limits of that trust… and to have them crush it all up right in front of you and spill the remains onto the floor?”

Sebastian exhaled slowly, setting a medkit down next to you lightly. He clicked open the medkit and laid the top back so he could view everything residing inside. He cracked his knuckles and pried out a roll of gauze. Before he unraveled it, he took two fingers and pressed firmly on the inner side of your arm, just above the wound. 

“Yeah, I do,” He breathed. “I’m not much better than the people who did that to me, though. And I can’t say I’ll improve anytime soon. That’s why I told you not to put your trust in me.”

You groaned in the new throbbing in your arm. “That doesn’t exactly sound like an apology…”

“How many times do you want me to apologize to you? I swear I’ve already said sorry like three times,” Sebastian scoffed softly, still rummaging as quickly as possible through the medkit as he grumbled. “Why are there no tourniquets in here…?”

“Maybe ‘cause people don’t expect their friend to activate turrets on them here,” You muttered with slurred speech. Sebastian paused as he held out the gauze to your arm. At first you thought he’d correct you, saying you were absolutely not his friend, but you didn’t hear anything of the sort. Maybe you were just too out of it to notice, because that sounded exactly like something he’d say. What you did notice, however, was the pounding pressure on your wounded arm as Sebastian tightly wrapped the gunshot in gauze. You sucked in a harsh breath, tilting your head up from laying on the desktop to shoot a glare at Sebastian. He ignored you entirely, patting the other side of your arm gently. You narrowed your eyes at his behavior. If this was his way of comforting you, he sure as hell needed to work on that. You kept your head up, resting some of your upper body weight on your left elbow while Sebastian continued wrapping your right arm. 

“God, would it kill you to go a little easier? I’m only bleeding out here,” You scoffed. Sebastian raised an eyebrow as he looked up at you from leaning over your wound.

“What happened to almost losing consciousness? I miss that part of you, it’s way less demanding,” Sebastian snapped. He tilted his head in thought, maybe thinking over his word choice. “...Sorry. I’ll try to wrap it softer.”

You let out a short, quiet laugh. One of the rare occasions of Sebastian repeatedly apologizing to you was happening right there. You’d probably never see it again. 

“I know you said you weren’t aiming to kill me,” You blurted out. Sebastian tensed visibly but continued pampering your arm as he tied a knot on the gauze. “But I’m thinking that was a blur of the truth. Stop me if I’m wrong.”

A sigh escaped his lips, his messy black hair falling over his face as he leaned partly over you, his hands planted on either side of your legs. 

“...You’re not wrong. It would have just been… another reset. Another Expendable,” Sebastian whispered. You frowned, but you were grateful that he was finally telling the truth. “And… it would have guaranteed more time in my favor.”

“What do you need time for? Seems like you’ve had plenty of that down here.”

“Exactly… I need time to escape. I’m just… so close, and I don’t want to risk never seeing the light of day again if you get the crystal before I have time to leave… ” Sebastian looked up at you through the drapes of his hair, his eyes meeting yours. Despite everything… you saw a lonely, scared man in his eyes. Pools of teal shades swirling together revealed what words did not; that he was just another lost soul in the Blacksite’s crafted maze, just like you. Desperate to get out and willing to sacrifice in order to do it. So yeah, despite everything… you saw a man within a monster. 

“...How long have you been down here?” You whispered underneath your breath. His face was close to yours, enough to make it feel like even whispering was too loud. The last time you were close enough to feel his breath on your face, you wanted to shoot him in the head. You didn’t understand why that feeling had vanished so quickly. Probably because of the shock.

“Too long,” He answered solemnly. You furrowed your eyebrows in thought, but continued to keep your eyes locked on his. “I didn’t think… They didn’t tell me … I never wanted this.”

“So… are you… human? Or, were you?” You asked before biting your cheek to scold yourself for asking so many questions. You knew he didn’t like that, so why were you still blurting things out?

“Yeah, I was. Until they mixed my DNA with that of sea creatures, chasing after the idea of giving a human gills ,” Sebastian explained with bared teeth at the reminiscing thoughts. “Well, they gave me a whole lot more than that , and now look at me.”

You frowned, doing as he said. You scanned him over, his uncoiled tail draped all across the room, his shiny black hair reflecting the light of the tubes behind him, his glowing eyes, his scruffy brown jacket, the ruffled collar attached to his white undershirt… For once, as you looked, he did kind of seem human. 

“I’ve gotten used to it,” You whispered, giving a small smile. Sebastian looked you up and down as if searching for a lie in your smile or your words, but after seemingly finding nothing, he offered a smile back. “But, I’m still not over the turret situation.”

“Are you ever gonna let that go?” Sebastian grinned with a low voice to match your whispers. You let out an amused huff from your nose and shook your head. “So… I’m guessing you were in shock for a while, but I am slightly confused as to how you don’t seem to be in pain when you have a bullet hole in your arm.”

You shrugged with only your uninjured side. “It hurts like hell, actually. But you get shot enough times, you learn how to deal with the pain. Doesn’t make it hurt any less.”

“How many times have you been shot?”

“Uh…” You grimaced. “I wonder about that myself.” 

Sebastian chuckled, removing his hands from the desk and straightening his back. 

“Well, tell me if it starts bleeding again and I’ll put on some new layers, yeah?” 

You nodded, sitting upright without using your right arm. You wiggled your fingers just fine, and your forearm didn’t reciprocate the pain from your bicep, so that was good. It seemed like the bullet just missed the muscle as well as any important arteries. If it hadn’t, you’d probably cry from the pain induced. It was lucky you weren’t crying right now, actually, but you assumed that was also from shock. 

“So… you can control all the turrets, huh?” You mentioned suddenly. Sebastian eyed you and sucked a breath through his teeth. 

“Uh… yeah.”

“Is that why you went into a separate room? So I couldn’t see you activate them?” You asked. This was the kind of question that you didn’t care if he got annoyed at. 

“That, and my scrambler would have messed with them,” Sebastian admitted. You raised an eyebrow. 

“Scrambler?” You repeated. 

“Yeah, y’know, the big hunk of equipment that’s been strapped to my back since you first crept into my shop?” 

You peeked behind him and made an “oh” sound. “Huh. Just thought that was for the aesthetic.”

“What aesthetic?” Sebastian scoffed, crossing two his arms over his chest. “Grungy, gothic fish?”

“‘Oversized hobo’ is actually what I was going to say, but whatever makes you feel better about yourself.” You cleared your throat and blinked at him.

“Wow. Ouch.”

“So, were you trying to stay anonymous or something while shooting me with your turrets?” You questioned, remembering what appeared on the screen where the door number should have been. 

“What do you mean…?” Sebastian asked cautiously. You glanced at him in suspicion. 

“You know, the face? That appeared on the door number? Wasn’t that you?” 

Sebastian clicked his tongue. You couldn’t tell if his face was reflecting anger or thoughtfulness, which, not knowing was nerve-wracking to say the least. 

“Yeah, yeah. That was me. It’s kind of an automatic thing, I guess I need to fix it…” Sebastian mumbled, his gaze drifting off to look anywhere but at you. 

“Oh, okay.” Is all you said in return. A moment of silence ensued between the two of you as you were both lost in your own thoughts. You wondered how Sebastian could get around when he was so… terrible at lying. Whatever was actually controlling the turrets definitely wanted you dead, and you would find out what it was. Eventually. 

“I just noticed,” Sebastian chuckled, breaking the quiet. “Have you looked in the mirror lately? Think you need to check your hair.”

You patted down the top of your head, feeling every stray strand matted down in tangles. It had probably occurred from your little tango with the turrets, and you scowled at Sebastian’s fit of laughter. 

“It’s not that funny,” You insisted, combing through it with your hand. 

“No, you’re absolutely right,” Sebastian cackled. This made you frown harder. 

“Then why are you still laughing?? It’s not funny .”

Sebastian rummaged his hand through his satchel as a couple chuckles released from him even when he tried holding back. His clawed hand brought out a brush, some strands of black entangled around the bristles. You expected a comb from him, but this was probably for his mane of hair. You reached your left hand to take it from him but he held it just out of your grasp. You furrowed your eyebrows in confusion as he gestured for you to turn around. You did as he wanted, even though you should have been far past doing what he wants. 

It startled you to say the least, even when he was careful at first to brush through the knots in your hair. Something you wouldn’t tell him, especially not now, was that you were completely right-handed. So even if he had handed you the brush to do it yourself, it’d take a whole lot longer just to get out one tangle with your uncoordinated left hand. So with hesitation and a readiness to hop right off the desk and smack Sebastian with your good hand if needed, you let him slowly brush through your matted hair. 

With his help, it only took about fifteen minutes to get your hair completely smoothed out and tangle-free, as the dust from the past two days had likely settled in and contributed to the messiness. Sebastian tucked the brush back into his satchel and leaned against the wall as he stared at the luminescent tubes in the corner of the room. You followed his eyes to meet the tubes and a frown tugged at the corners of your mouth. You wondered if that was the kind of… thing he had to be in when his DNA was altered. You didn’t know much about his experience with it; you didn’t know much about Sebastian to begin with. But the way he looked with a guarded, hateful expression towards such an object suggested years of trauma. That was something you could relate to, at least. 

“I’m kinda tired… I didn’t really rest after the last time you left… Can we camp out in here?” You suggested, stretching your arms while minding the wound on your right. Sebastian thought for a moment before nodding. It was dim enough in the room as long as you turned away from the glowing tubes, so you stayed lying on the desk and curled up facing the wall as you closed your eyes. You were too tired to think about trusting Sebastian to not kill you as you slept. Despite everything. Despite the turrets, the attitude, the rudeness. Everything. Perhaps it was out of shock that you didn’t seem to care.

It was easy to slow your breathing and drift off, but you could have sworn in your last moments of a hazy, conscious state that you heard Sebastian mutter something. 

Something nice, for once. 

Even if it didn’t really mean anything.

It never did. 

Chapter Text

It was humid.

More than usual, you remembered that.

But it was in that warm and sunny way with a hint of dew in the air that made everything seem… fake.

Or… obnoxiously happy. Was that a thing? Well, it felt obnoxiously happy that day. If the sky decided to be so clear, you preferred it be nighttime. In the day, without clouds in any direction, the sky felt… empty. It felt that way then.

Maybe it was because you focused on how bright the sun was blaring through your windows that let your guard down.

Maybe it was her. Knocking on the door with an urgency that she’d only ever had on one occasion; you knew, because you were there too.

“Sadie? What’s going on?” You had opened the door hesitantly, as anyone running from the law would. She brushed past you into your house and headed for the couch. You remembered the way she was hunched over, crumpled in on herself like she was nauseous. So you had offered her some water. Something to ease her. She nodded, so you went to the kitchen, only to come back with a glass of icewater in your hand. You found her, standing in the middle of your living room and a… joyful expression on her face.

You blinked in surprise and glanced around the living room. Wait… how were you back in your living room…?

“Sadie…?” You muttered, stepping closer to her cautiously. It was like a light flashed behind her eyes robotically.

“Hey! I was just stopping by to tell you…” She chirped. “Your identity was leaked to the police. I don’t know who did it… but I promise to help you, alright? Like you helped me. We’ll find a place… far from here. We’ll run away together! You know… like when we were kids.”

A deep, shaky breath escaped from your parted lips as you took one more glance around the room. The dark… decrepit living room. Peeling wallpaper and ripped out baseboards; you recognized it more than any other place. Not because it was your home at a point, but because of the memories inside the creaking, rusted structure. With the money you got from your crimes, you could have bought a nicer place. But this was a house one would least expect someone like you to hideout in. But it wasn't a secret forever.

Besides, this house wasn’t yours. The details were spot on, but it seemed some were left out. You pointed with your free hand at the couch, making Sadie follow your sight with a curious hum.

“...The couch is missing the stain you left years ago when you spilled marmalade and forgot to clean it up,” You whispered. Sadie turned back to you and laughed. Something was off about it… It wasn’t really her laugh.

“What are you talking about? I cleaned it up.”

You shook your head and inhaled profoundly as tears stung in the corners of your eyes.

“...But that’s not what you said.”

“How do you mean?” Sadie tilted her head, the smile glued to her face like a doll.

“You said you were sorry… and ‘it shouldn’t have had to be that way,’” You muttered softly. “And I asked, ‘what did you do?’”

You remembered it vividly, especially now. The crying and screaming echoed around you in recollection of the moment.

‘WHAT DID YOU DO?’

‘SADIE… WHAT DID YOU DO?!’

“This never happened,” You cried with a breaking voice. “I know, because when I came out here, you weren’t smiling, you were crying.”

Sadie’s smile faded with your words.

“I know, because when you stood there in the living room, you were holding a gun to my head,” You raised your voice despite the strain in your lungs and the ache in your heart.

In Sadie’s hand, a gun materialized, and her fingers clenched around it as it lifted to aim towards your head.

“I know, Sadie, because the glass of water shattered when I dropped it to the floor. I remember that because the broken shards cut up my ankles and left scars.”

The glass of water slipped from your hands and did indeed shatter against the hardwood floor, sending shards slicing up your ankles.

“You answered me once, and then not again, Sadie,” You recalled as you said her name like it was something sour in your mouth. The flaming, burning tears cascaded down your cheeks. “Tell me why you didn’t bother responding when they detained me, tased me, and threw me into their metal van like a dog in a cage?! Tell me why memories of the orphanage didn’t scrape through your mind like I was scraping for you on the doors of that van!”

Sadie did not speak. Didn’t open her mouth to protest. You wondered as you crumpled to the ground in muted anguish why you were dreaming this. You knew you were still trapped in the Blacksite, likely curled up on the desk while your subconscious was back here, in your reimagined house with the very person you didn’t want to see. You didn’t want to even think of her. You didn’t want to remember her.

The house around you groaned as if the supports were under pressure. There was clawing on metal nearby… nails shrieking against your ears. Screaming… so much screaming, yet you couldn’t tell which direction it was coming from. You folded into yourself, squeezing your eyes shut as if it would help drown out everything around you. It was so loud… so loud… and yet the most deafening sound of all… was the silence from someone you used to know. That quiet rang through your ears above all. You hated it.

“Stop… please, let me wake up,” You sobbed. “I WANT TO WAKE UP!!”

“...Then wake up.”

You jolted, your hands grabbing around for something, anything to hold onto. Something real to prove you weren’t still dreaming as you gasped deeply for more intake of air.Thankfully, you found something to grab in order to ground your quivering body. It was… cold and moist.

“Ah, so that’s my face,” Sebastian’s muffled voice pointed out. You blinked the haze from your eyes and squinted up at the figure before you. You were indeed grabbing half of his face, and as soon as you realized it, you immediately let go and muttered a shaky apology. You fidgeted with your fingers, unaware that they were trembling in your lap. It took a moment for your breathing to slow down and your heart to stop pounding in your head. You didn’t look up at Sebastian, but you heard the shifting of his jacket as he leaned down by coiling his tail to be eye level with you. With his face shoved right at the end of the desk you sat on, you had no choice but to meet his gaze.

“...I’m assuming you were dreaming… and correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m also guessing it was not the pleasant kind of dream,” Sebastian suggested with a low tone. You opened your mouth to dismiss his worries, but only a choking noise came out when the rush of the previous day’s events made a stabbing pain shoot through your right arm. Your left hand shot up to brush against the gauze wrapped tightly around your bicep; stained red from the dried blood. You groaned at the pain and leaned forward hoping if you waited it out, the painful throbbing would go away. It didn’t.

“I looked all throughout the medkit, but there weren't any… painkillers,” Sebastian’s low, gravelly voice cut through your aching mind. Your eyes darted to him and your eyebrows furrowed with anger as the memories of the turrets came flooding back.

“I can’t believe you tried to kill me!!” You snapped, sitting up straight so he had to look up at you from where he was positioned before you. The haze of the dream was gone, replaced with a rage like no other. If there was one way you could snap out of a trance, it was with pure, unfiltered fury.

Sebastian sighed and leaned back away from you slightly, his hands up in defense.

“Yeah, I think we went over that quite enough times,” He protested calmly. “I’m guessing the shock from yesterday wore off.”

You ignored him and proceeded to raise your voice. “If you wanted me dead, then why didn’t you just leave me to the Searchlights, huh?? Shouldn’t have pulled me out if you wanted me to die so badly!”

“...You’re going to hate me but… If I let you die to the Searchlights, they would’ve hooked you right up.” Sebastian made a show with his hands, clicking his tongue to present you getting grappled up. “And then, there would be no loot to scavenge your corpse afterwards.”

“Oh, you are lucky I was in shock yesterday, Sebastian,” You chuckled under your breath as you seethed. “I should’ve done more than punch you in your stupid, blue face.”

“Save that for later, yeah?” Sebastian mumbled as he backed off. If you weren’t in a constant battle to keep your composure from the burning throbs in your right arm, you would’ve done it right then and there. Your left hand was just as strong as your right, and it was more than capable of inducing pain. But instead, you sat there and plotted to get him back right when he least expected it. You caught yourself, however, and reminded your brain to stop thinking on a criminal autopilot.

“Sebastian,” You said through gritted teeth. You slightly regretted what you said previously; you were the type to start fights. The only difference is you knew how to finish them. You hadn’t even noticed Sebastian’s figure had moved to hover around the glowing tubes left on the other side of the room. He cast a look back at you, and you could’ve sworn even with hardly visible pupils, he rolled his eyes at you.

“If you’re going to continue to scream at me for thinking of myself before someone I’ve known for a few days, I will leave you out in the hallway without providing you with my guidance any longer,” He said as he stared through the glass of the tubes. The fact that he didn’t consider you a friend cut through your heart deeper than it should have. Deeper than expected. It caught you off guard, actually, especially since you had no reason to feel the twinge of disappointment that you did. It was as he said; you’d only known him for a few days.

You cleared your throat and looked away. “I wasn’t going to scream at you. You’re right, you have no reason to want me alive.”

“Hm. That’s not what I said,” Sebastian contends. At last, he broke his gaze from the cool-toned light of the tubes. “I said I thought of myself before you. That doesn’t mean I want you dead.”

You glanced up to meet his hard stare, biting the inside of your cheek.

“...What does that mean, though? You definitely tried to kill me, so how is that thinking of yourself before me?”

“It’s…” Sebastian hesitated and sighed. “It doesn’t matter. You’re hard to kill anyway. Like an insolent little vermin.”

“So I’ve been told…” You clicked your tongue and let your tense legs dangle from the side of the desk you’d been on for hours. Maybe you should’ve actually gotten up and forced your body to keep moving before getting this stiff. “Look, I can forgive but I don’t forget. Ever. So if you try to separate from me because ‘there’s another path,’ just realize I won’t let that happen again. I can trust you’re sorry, but I don’t trust you to not do it again.”

Sebastian slithered slightly closer and tilted his chin up at you. “Fair. Shall we shake on it and move on?”

“Only if you help me out when I can’t use my right arm,” You insisted, pointing a finger at him with your left. Sebastian smirked and nodded in acceptance, holding out his left hand so you could shake with yours. You stared him down, piercing his eyes with your gaze as you took his hand and shook it firmly. You desperately hoped that shake meant something to him. When you shook hands with someone, you always kept your word and meant it. While you had a tendency to… bend the truth at times and gloss over details… lying was not your thing. That’s why you’d become so perceptive to the lies of others; as if their facade was transparent to you. Besides, you were exceptionally bad at lying anyway.

As the both of you packed up and left the mysterious, dark room, you couldn’t help glancing at the dark circles under Sebastian’s eyes. They had been there before; you imagined it was fairly difficult for someone like him to fall asleep. But these were different, darker, and it seemed like the weight on his eyelids was heavier than usual.

However, Sebastian must have had a sixth sense for your staring or something, because he shot a glare in your direction.

“How many times on our journey are you going to gawk at me? Keep your eyes on the road, buddy,” He huffed, crossing two of his arms. You frowned, ignoring his comment. Before, you would have immediately looked everywhere but at him, but now his annoyance at your staring didn’t seem to bother you.

“Did you sleep last night?” You asked, squinting at him. “I know I passed out before you, but I never heard your snoring.”

“Excuse you? I don’t snore.”

“You’re avoiding the question,” You pointed out with a smug grin. Sebastian pursed his thin, caesious-colored lips and brushed his bangs back with a clawed hand.

“Too much to be done, no time for sleep,” He answered simply and gazed straight ahead as you walked and he slithered beside you.

“Dude. You know that’s not good for you, right?” You raised an eyebrow. Sebastian didn’t respond. “I’m pretty sure you suffer from serious effects after even two days without sleep–”

“Yes, I am well aware,” Sebastian said through gritted teeth. You shut your mouth promptly at the tone in his voice, sighing at his stubbornness.

“Fine, fine. I’m just informing you,” You muttered under your breath. As you both headed down the long hallway, reaching a small flight of stairs, neither of you spoke. It wasn’t exactly an awkward silence, but it wasn’t one of the content, pleasant lack of conversations that you normally had. This one felt like at any moment, one of you would burst out into debate that this whole… frenemy thing wasn’t exactly working out. If you had to be the first, so be it. You were getting pretty sick of this back and forth banter. It would have been fine if the banter was only sarcastic; just for shits and giggles. But it wasn’t always. Sometimes you got the feeling he was serious about some of his insults and quips. Which, again, did not make it funny.

Perhaps you were the only one fuming over this as the two of you walked in silence. Maybe he wasn’t thinking about you at all. Which made you wonder why the hell you were thinking about him. It was clear he didn’t want to be anything more than just acquaintances keeping each other’s side of a deal. You could imagine why it seemed weird to not think of him the same.

The next door opened, and you were especially grateful that there weren’t many doors left until the 100th. You really hoped Sebastian wasn’t lying about the number of rooms you’d have to brace yourself through.

However, there were still quite a few left, and you were getting tired of the utter silence and tension hanging thick in the air.

“I wonder why we haven’t seen any other Expendables,” You mentioned, not because you cared, but because it was some kind of conversation. “I thought they sent down multiple at a time. Well… they didn’t with me for some reason. I was the only one in the submarine.”

“That’s because they don’t put others with those convicted of murder,” Sebastian replied without missing a beat. “Trust me, I know.”

“Why, were you convicted of murder?” You sarcastically asked with a chuckle. No answer. You hadn’t noticed until it got quiet again that he was staring ahead with darkness in the corners of his eyes. You blinked, thinking it was just a trick of your mind, but the black edges on his normally glowing teal eyes were absolutely there.

Yeah… You were done trying. Maybe once the two of you found an office, you’d officially break the deal off. It seemed like everything you said triggered something inside him, whether it was a malicious insult or a blank stare that said more than he ever would with his own mouth. You were likely better on your own if you’d have to put up with this the rest of the way. As helpful as Sebastian has been… on occasion… his attitude was dreadful, to say the least.

The next room made you jump and lose your train of thought. Scattered across the hallway were figures… of some kind. Each one was a different, vibrant color. In a way, it made you focus on the sound instead of everything else. You weren’t sure if these were entities or just statues, so you let Sebastian lead the way while you hovered at the doorframe. He hummed as he gazed around. You noticed the darkness around his outer teal eyes were gone.

…You must’ve imagined it.

“Should I be worried…?” You asked cautiously, not risking a step past the doorframe until he called it clear. “What are those things?”

“What, these? They’re abstract art,” Sebastian explained calmly. He seemed to maneuver around them without consequence, so you carefully stepped into the room and never turned your back to a single one. Sebastian eyed your hesitancy. “No need to sneak around. They’re relatively harmless.”

“‘They?’ Are those things sentient??” You whispered. Sebastian raised his eyebrows at your behavior.

“I wouldn’t say… I mean… They’re alive if that’s what you’re asking.” Sebastian scratched his head in confused thought. “Not exactly sure if they understand us or not…”

“...It’s creepy as hell.”

“Yeah, well, that’s just what the Blacksite goes for. Creepy… unsettling creatures,” Sebastian sighed, rubbing his arms and looking away.

“Y’know, they seem to have a knack for housing things without faces,” You pointed out, leaning close to one as it towered over you.

“Hm. Does that bother you?” Sebastian chuckled teasingly.

You scoffed and looked away with crossed arms. “I just… believe that humanoid beings should have a face to give character to. Otherwise they look… devoid of life.”

Sebastian raised an eyebrow at your comment. “If a Wall Dweller had a face, would you be any less willing to run away?”

“...fair point,” You admitted. “But I dunno, maybe I would consider my options before leaving everything and dipping.”

“That makes one of us,” Sebastian mumbled. “Well… this room kinda proves that it’s not all bad down here, doesn’t it? I mean, the concept and corporation is fuckin’ evil, but the Blacksite hosts quite a few priceless art pieces. Including… those paintings.”

You glanced behind the crowd of ‘abstract art’ as Sebastian pointed a long, clawed finger. You noticed several paintings hung on one wall, scattered with different sizes and proportions. Now that was something you took a closer look at.

“Oh? I wouldn’t keep them around me, then.” You grinned wickedly. “Why wouldn’t Urbanshade want me to take these back instead of some… crystal?”

“Uh, maybe because it’s not just ‘some crystal.’” Sebastian rolled his eyes. “Urbanshade couldn’t care less about artifacts like these. Speaking of which, there’s my favorite: The Red Vineyard. Vincent Van Gogh.”

You spotted the very painting he was talking about and stepped close enough to see every brushstroke and hidden layer of paint.

“Why do you like it so much?”

Sebastian leaned on a desk as he gazed into the setting of the painting with a small smile. A smile was something rare, especially for him.

“It’s the only painting here depicting the outside surface… That I’ve come across. Besides, you don’t see warm colors down here often,” Sebastian explained. You frowned and squinted at the painting, brushing your finger over the dried paint. Sebastian took notice immediately and jumped up. “Hey, hey! What are you doing? You’ll ruin the value if you touch it!”

“This? This has no value,” You said with a tilt of your head as you stepped away. “It’s a good replica, though. Almost didn’t notice. But it’s definitely not the real one.”

“...What the hell are you talking about?”

“Yeah… see the brush strokes of the water? The original has horizontal lines, not vertical,” You pointed out, tracing the river’s lines with your finger. “It’s meant to show the reflection of the sun, not the direction of the flow of water. Besides, I’m 95 percent certain the real work is in a museum in Moscow. That’s why I had to double check, I wouldn’t have known if that changed while I was in prison. And things definitely change when you’re stuck in there, I can tell you that.”

You smirked at your knowledge of the matter, even after years away from society. Sebastian went quiet as you relished in confidence. It took a moment for you to even realize, turning from the painting, that his face was twisted. You glanced around, thinking you had done or said something wrong again.

“How can you tell all that?” Sebastian asked quietly after a while. You shrugged nervously.

“Did I… not tell you what kind of white collar crimes I’m known for?”

“No??”

“Oh… my bad. Yeah, I steal and make forgeries of art,” You laughed quietly and rubbed your shoulder. “I mean, not just paintings. Sculptures, artifacts, gemstones, jewelry… I can go on.”

“I got the point, thanks,” Sebastian sighed, holding a hand up. “Though I’m not too happy about my favorite painting being a fraud.”

“Yeah… I’m sorry about that. Want me to look at the others too?”

Sebastian laughed, and you blinked in surprise at how genuine it sounded. “Yeah, no. I don’t think I want you ruining the rest of the paintings for me. Let’s move on.”

“If you say so.” You smiled, glad to finally have something… well, real between the two of you. Without the lies, without the berating, and without the uncalled for insults. For a second… it made you forget that you wanted to call off your deal with him.

You caught up with him again when he made his way to the next room, flicking on his esca when the lights flickered and broke. You glanced around for a locker, but Sebastian stopped you with his hand and carried on through the room.

“It’s not Angler, it’s just broken lights,” He explained. You nodded and kept up with his slithering pace.

“So um… I kinda feel like I owe you an apology,” You blurted out. Sebastian cast a strange look at you through his peripheral and frowned.

“For?”

“Well, I feel like I’ve been forcing on you a friendship, and clearly you don’t want that,” You told him quickly, rambling in nervousness. “It’s actually a problem for me, y’know, trying to be friends with every person I spend a couple days with. Maybe it’s the trauma bonding, I don’t know. But I can tell you want nothing more than partners in a deal; I get that now. So… I’m sorry for pushing it.”

Sebastian blew air from his nose and looked away from me. Which… wasn’t exactly ideal, as he was holding all the light in the room. He paused in the middle of the room, making you halt to a stop as well.

“...It’s normal for the Expendables to want to befriend me. Trust me, you’re not the first,” Sebastian sighed. “But I need to keep these boundaries because… let’s be honest, I’m not really on your side. I don’t give a shit about the crystal, I’m just trying to get out of here. You wonder why I tried to kill you? That’s why.”

You rubbed the back of your neck and stared at the dusty floor. “I guess… I just don’t know how killing me will benefit you.”

“Well, maybe I’d like to keep it that way,” Sebastian said plainly. He then thought for a moment, as if reconsidering his abrupt wording. “...I’m also sorry, by the way. For keeping so much from you. It’s nothing personal, it’s just survival. You know all about that, I’m sure.”

Prison flashed before your eyes, and you hung your head in reminiscence of your daily queries in that hellhole. Am I really a survivor? Even now, you wondered. You may have come to exist this far into your life, but being in the Blacksite didn’t feel like you were living. It felt ghostly, frigid, and empty. Just like the faceless creatures, it was devoid of life. You didn’t feel like a survivor here, no. You felt just as dead as Sebastian and all of the lifeless entities in the Blacksite.

Despite your existential crisis, you noticed after a moment of processing his words, that he was… apologizing? Sebastian… saying sorry. In a situation that didn’t almost kill you. Because it seemed only then, such as with the turrets, that Sebastian actually apologized for his miscalculated and impulsive actions. Maybe he even meant it, but you couldn’t tell when he had a constant poker face.

Apparently you took too long to answer, as Sebastian snapped his fingers in front of your face. You flinched back and furrowed your eyebrows at him.

“Stop it, I can see you overthinking my apology as we speak,” Sebastian commented, leaning his face just a bit closer so you could see every illuminated detail and texture from his esca’s glow. The shadows around his cheekbones and nose made his features more dramatic than usual, you noted. It was kind of cool, in a way.

“Don’t overthink whether it was real or not, I’m not trying to trick you.” Sebastian paused and looked up in thought with furrowed eyebrows. “Wow, that is not something I’ve ever said before. Usually I am trying to trick others.”

You shot him a concerned look. “Maybe that’s something you should work on, dude.”

Sebastian chuckled at your response and rolled his shoulders.

“Well, I accept your apology, even if I don’t really understand the reasoning behind it…” You sighed. “But it’s fine, it’s none of my business, you’ve made that clear. We have a saying in prison, actually. ‘Respect is earned through loyalty and actions, and if you don’t have that, you don’t have respect.’”

“That’s… awfully bad. Who came up with that?” Sebastian laughed. You smirked and shook your head.

“I don’t know, man,” You chuckled in reply. “You really think the smartest people go to prison?”

“You’re right, I was never sentenced to time,” Sebastian gloated, implying he was smarter than the average. Which… you couldn’t disagree more with. “Quite the opposite, actually.”

“You were tried by a judge? What did you do?” You asked with a gasp. Sebastian looked off to the side and huffed air from his nose. You bit back the curiosity, knowing he probably did not want to talk about it. He never did.

“We should keep moving,” He said finally, slithering off ahead of you without looking back. You jogged to keep up with him until he slowed his pace and entered through the next door. The sudden light was blaring and made you blink repeatedly at the contrast to the pitch black room before.

As you stepped inside, you noticed a rotten apple set in plain sight on a desk, and your stomach rumbled. Not for the apple, no. Just… for food in general.

“So… Sebastian,” You called as he ransacked the desk drawers around the hall. “I can be good at fasting on occasion… but I haven’t eaten anything substantial in like three days, so do you happen to have anything?”

Sebastian scoffed and raised an eyebrow at you. “The answer might surprise you.”

You narrowed your eyes and folded your arms across your chest, avoiding the wound in your right.

“Let me guess. Fish.”

Sebastian laughed, although you weren’t sure how it was funny in the slightest. He just cackled his way down the hall and into the next room, leaving you standing with a raised eyebrow. You did smile, however, because it made you happy to make him laugh. It drove away the pang in your chest for every thought of your last dream. Every thought of her. In a way, his laugh forced you to focus on the sound of his joy instead of everything else. You weren’t sure why, exactly.

Maybe it was the trauma bond you had with him.

Maybe it was because of how lonely he seemed.

Or maybe… it was just because of some alien reason…

…That you kind of liked this weird guy.

Chapter Text

“I’m not eating that.”

“If you want to starve yourself, then go ahead. But this will heal your arm quicker,” Sebastian insisted, slithering along behind you as he waved a chunk of Wall Dweller meat in front of your face. The fact that you couldn’t smell it at all made you quite nervous about the taste. 

“You said you had fish!” You exclaimed, smacking his hand away. Sebastian frowned at your ignorance.

“It’s not a common occurrence for edible fish to pop their heads in here. Besides, most of the sea creatures this far from the surface are just nightmare fuel,” Sebastian added. “To be fair, the entire Blacksite is nightmare fuel. But I don’t have an abundance of good tasting fish, so no.”

“Then maybe I’ll starve myself.”

“For Christ’s sake–” Sebastian pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance before slamming the next door shut with pure, brute force. You yelped when it shut in your face. “Just eat the damn Wall Dweller! I promise it tastes good!”

“Oh really?” You raised an eyebrow in suspicion. “What does it taste like then?”

“It uh… tastes like… exceptional accomplishments.”

“What? That’s not even a taste.” You folded your arms over your chest and tapped your foot impatiently. 

“See, you wouldn’t know that because you won’t try it,” Sebastian snapped. You sighed and slowly extended your middle finger to him, watching with an amused grin as his face twisted with frustration. For a few moments, the staring contest between the two of you was in dead silence as your hand dropped to your side again. Until Sebastian tried to force the chunk down your throat and you clawed at him whilst trying to escape his grasp. 

“I have come too far for you to starve yourself over something you won’t try!” Sebastian snarled, attempting to pin you to the ground. Your wetsuit, however, was just the right texture for slipping away and pushing back open the next door. 

“I eat a lot of things, but hell if I’m going to try that!” You called back at him over your shoulder. You didn’t leave his line of sight, just out of precaution, but you absolutely heard him grumbling and shoving the chunk of meat back into his satchel. 

“Fine, fine,” He replied with an irritated sigh. “But we’re not making this a habit. I only eat these on my bad days. But it seems like everyday is becoming that way…”

You didn’t respond, your mouth agape at the gigantic, monstrous room before you. If you could even call it a room. You heard Sebastian’s tail slithering up behind you, but it didn’t process in your mind as your eyes widened from the sight of the room. 

“Look, I’m trying to be frugal here. The least you could do is respond–” Sebastian was saying before he peered out behind you and immediately stopped talking. 

The place was gaping and wide, to say the least. Larger than any indoors place you’d ever seen, in fact. That was saying something with how many huge, exquisite museums you’d been to. But this? This beat everything . You peeked over the edge of the railing regarding the long mesh bridge and felt your stomach drop when you couldn’t see the ground at all. In a place like this, you wouldn’t be surprised if there was no bottom. 

Sebastian’s breath swiped at the top of your head, rustling your hair as he looked over you at the wondrous sight. Despite his close proximity, you didn’t notice anything but whatever may lie in the middle of the room. It was a long walk across a hanging, ceiling-supported bridge, but mostly because it didn’t look trusty in the slightest. It was habitual to be suspicious of anything that breathed in the Blacksite, but you seemed to have the most problems with bridges. ‘ Maybe ‘cause I’ve burned a few,’ you thought with a murmur of a chuckle. You stopped very quickly, however, after realizing that maybe cutting ties with people you once considered friends really wasn’t funny. 

“Do you know where we are…?” You whispered as if it would be criminal to speak any louder in such a magnificent place. 

“Honestly? For once I have no clue,” Sebastian admitted. He brushed past you to lead the way on the bridge, which you were quite grateful for as he would be the first to fall if the bridge came crashing down. “I’ve seen a lot of rooms down here, but I haven’t even scraped the surface of them all. I usually stuck to one area, but then you came along.”

“Thank God I did, right?” You chuckled from behind him. “You clearly needed to get out.”

Sebastian whipped his head around to glare at you before continuing along the bridge. It was far too narrow for the two of you to walk side by side, and you definitely weren’t complaining. You always felt awkward walking next to people, even if you trusted them. The truth was, there was no one you trusted completely. Besides, look where all that relying on someone else got you. Fucked up in the head and barreling on high speeds toward the grave. You knew it, and you were certain Sebastian saw it too. Not that he would care once you were gone, but maybe he’d at least think of you like you thought of him. Although most of your thoughts about him were just… curious, to say the least.

Speaking of, you collided straight into Sebastian’s tail when he suddenly stopped slithering along. Steadying yourself, you peered around his large figure at the dock in the center, all illuminated in red. It didn’t exactly feel like a dangerous kind of glow, but the entity beyond the dock did. Sebastian barely slid himself onto the premise, maneuvering his tail to wrap around him and let you through. 

You were absolutely starstruck. It was hard to believe Sebastian hadn’t brushed upon a place like this, or even knew about the brightly white, humanoid creature held stranded beyond the dock by enormous chains. While “humanoid” was the first word to come to mind, it barely looked human at all. More like a god, really. But the real question should have been: Why doesn’t Urbanshade want to keep this? You found it incredibly odd that whoever the man behind the business was, they seemed to care about nothing Urbanshade kept down in the Blacksite besides some… crystal. Out of everything they had built and created, they sent thousands of prisoners down here for a crystal . Nothing about it made sense. 

“Should I go near it?” Sebastian muttered to you. You had to double take, sending him a concerned glare. 

“What? Are you stupid?? You don’t even know what that thing is!” You protested. Sebastian huffed air from his nose and ignored you, slithering ever so slightly closer to the giant entity. 

“Yeah, exactly why I want to find out,” Sebastian responded, halfway across the dock. You brushed your hand through your hair with a hesitant sigh and decided to follow in his trail. You wouldn’t go to the edge of the dock, but maybe you could also get a closer look at this thing. Despite how large and gaping the room was, you couldn’t help but get the feeling that Urbanshade wasn’t exactly advertising its existence. Of course, you would also keep whatever it was that was hanging before you a secret if it was to your advantage. Urbanshade was all about advantages.

You were curious, of course, but supposedly not as much as Sebastian, who was already at the edge of the dock near a large console. Sebastian stuck his head past the console as far as he could, squinting at the creature. And that was when it looked up. You choked on a gasp and stumbled back from your own spot in the middle of the dock as one eye stared at the two of you with unnaturally spiralling pupils. They were hypnotic to even glance at, the black in its eye contrasting with the pale white of the rest of its body. Despite the tingling fear creeping up along your skin, you did want to know what it was as you eyed the strange markings on its torso and face. Sebastian seemed extremely cautious once it looked up, returning to face you with inquiry in his eyes. Normally his face gave the impression of the know-it-all he was, but now you could read from his confused features that he had no clue about what was hanging on chains before you. 

“Do we do anything about it…?” You turned to him. “Or do we just walk right past? There’s another bridge on the opposite side of the dock.”

Sebastian gazed up into the blaring white and black eye of the beast and frowned. “...Maybe I should free it.”

“What?? That thing could easily kill us!”

“You don’t know that.” Sebastian’s head shot toward you with furrowed eyebrows and an upset expression molded on his face. 

“I just have to look at it to know that, Sebastian. That might be the largest living creature I have ever seen in my life, and you’re really going to stand there and tell me it can’t kill us?” You snapped harshly. It wasn’t to be mean. It was to knock some sense into this guy. 

Sebastian didn’t respond, but the entity did. It flexed its arms, raising itself a bit higher from the chains as the circular crown orbiting its head levitated upward. The two of you backed up when the place began rumbling underneath its rising energy. 

“Yeah, okay, you’re right. Time to go.” Sebastian immediately erased the hint of pain on his face and slithered quickly to the next bridge. You followed directly behind his pursuing tail, attempting to climb over it so you could squeeze by him. The glow of the creature that was now behind you seemed to brighten when the two of you made your way to exit, crossing the unfortunately long bridge as fast as possible. The blaring light shot into your backs and illuminated the walls greatly. 

“Sebastian?” You said with your hand slightly pushing his side. You were squeezed right up next to him, but the proximity did not cross your mind with any superiority over the thoughts of leaving . 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m going, I’m going,” Sebastian replied, looking over his shoulder before hissing at the blinding glow. “ Realize how much weight I have to carry as you push me.”

The whirring hum echoing lightly from the entity slowly but surely increased in volume, making it almost impossible to hear Sebastian over the noise. 

“Shit, shit , I think it’s mad!” You shouted to Sebastian. He visibly gritted his teeth as the two of you neared the next door. The bridge underneath you swayed with the entity’s overbearing presence, making you stumble for balance.

“If it wants a sacrifice, I’m offering you up!” Sebastian yelled back, pushing you slightly backwards and off of his tail. Without any support underneath a now swinging metal bridge, you latched yourself onto the rusty, gritted railing with your good arm as well as your legs. You spotted Sebastian up a little further trying to wrap his tail around the railing for some kind of balance, but then abandoning the idea and clinging to both sides with two of his hands. You gritted your teeth and waited for the opportune moment when the bridge met its swaying in the middle for you to run down to meet Sebastian. Without missing a step, you climbed right over Sebastian, boosting yourself off of him with a kick of your foot against his shoulder. You felt his body give way at the force of your leg just before you left it and you continued to balance yourself and keep a steady pace down the bridge until you reached the door. 

“Oh, you little–” Sebastian grumbled behind you. You heard the slip of his scales against the metal grating, but you definitely didn’t expect his third hand to shoot out and grab the back of your diving gear, looping his fingers in the air tank. You didn’t have the air nor the time to yelp as he pulled you back, throwing you carelessly over his shoulder whilst he cut ahead. The door before him opened automatically, and you didn’t have to look back at the whirring entity to know you had to get there as soon as possible.

You grunted, pushing yourself to your feet and launching through the doorway, coming across a more familiar kind of room. You panted both in relief and from the adrenaline pulsing through your veins.

“I swear to God, Sebastian–” You began, getting up to face him. You were interrupted, however, by the rumbling underneath your feet when the entity started up again. You scanned the room hurriedly before Sebastian pointed at the pool of water beneath boulders blocking half of the room. You winced, already knowing that the water had to be freezing cold.

“It’s the only way!” Sebastian shouted over the noise with a shrug. Without another word, he dove face first into the water and disappeared within the ripples. You took one last glance at the seemingly enraged creature from the previous room before putting on your diving mask and plunging down without thinking about it. In all honesty, the entire trip to the Blacksite had made you wary of deep and dark waters, a fear you’d never encountered before. Diving deep below the surface did not help this fear. 

Not only was it almost pitch black, save for the dim light your diving gear casted, you couldn’t hear practically anything but the rush of bubbles beside your ear. You kept yourself slightly afloat beneath the surface and turned in every direction you could to no avail. 

“Sebastian?” You called through the muffle of your diving mask. You combed your arms through the cold water only to cry out in the limited space from excruciating pain emitting from your right arm. The freezing temperatures seeped through your suit and stung your skin with its icy shards.

 “Sebastian!!” You shouted, whipping your head to catch even the slightest glimmer of light through the murky water. You kicked your legs to push you forward in the darkness, gripping your right arm with as much strength that was left in your numbing left hand. This was it, he left you behind. He must have finally seen the perfect opportunity and taken it while it was handed to him. You knew it would happen, and yet you still floated in the silence of your broken trust as the darkness engulfed you–

“Are you still here? I thought you went ahead of me,” Sebastian’s water-layered voice said presently behind you. You flinched hard and whipped in the direction of the sound, almost colliding straight into him. “Woah, why are you so worked up?”

“I’m not! I just…” The words were lost in your mouth as your arms hugged the cold away from your body. You couldn’t tell him about the irrational panic that settled within you just moments before. “I can’t swim with a bullet in my arm.”

Sebastian hummed in thought, glancing around at the veil of darkness swirling the two of you. “Well, I would rather you not hold onto my tail… because I do need it to swim.”

You frowned up at him for providing you with more problems and not solutions. Problems , is something he seemed to have a plentiful amount of. 

But… so did you, and so without asking or gesturing at all, you looped your left arm through his and held onto it tight. Sebastian flinched away at the sudden contact, but you told yourself in your head that it didn’t count as emotional contact when you were underwater. Underwater, practically every molecule is bouncing around and touching others, so you believed with your stubborn mind that nothing about holding his arm in yours was anything but tactical. 

“...I was going to suggest something else, but alright…” Sebastian muttered, turning three narrowed teal eyes away from you. You could see absolutely nothing in the nulled void of depth, save for the flickering glow of both Sebastian’s eyes and the golden luminescence of his esca. He seemed to know exactly where he was going as he propelled the two of you further into the watery abyss, dragging you in a suspended floatation by his side. 

You shifted your gaze from him, feeling the brush of slick, smoothed stone across your calf. In Sebastian’s dim lights, you could finally see as the tunnel you must have been in narrowed just enough that the dull reflection of aquatic blues was visible on weathered boulders all around you. In a way, it was almost… pretty to see. And that was quite the thing to say for a place made out of nightmares. 

You weren’t sure if it was the fact that you were no longer alone and trapped… in the water, of course… but you felt an ease that was unfamiliar in every way. It confused you, made you furrow your eyebrows in consideration and in questioning. Why wasn’t your heart pounding through your chest and your eardrums in anticipation for danger? You should be worried, you should be cautious of a creature who has tried multiple times to either harm or kill you in one way or another. And yet, when you looked up at him in what was usually an eerie setting, you couldn’t see a creature. All you saw was the billowing of his dark hair behind him, as if it belonged there. Above water, it looked greasy and unkempt, but now it glistened and flowed rightfully. 

…Perhaps your oxygen was running out slowly but surely and making you delusional. That was very likely.

As Sebastian swam along, you were both met with a numberless door just as you thought the cave couldn’t narrow any further. It opened for Sebastian as he approached, and the darkness faded from your vision and introduced you immediately with blinding white lights. You blinked repeatedly and squinted until your eyes adjusted from the change, but to your despair, the water had not thinned out in the slightest. 

There was something about being dragged along beside Sebastian while you uselessly kicked your legs in an attempt to help. Despite the lack of struggle he had even while carrying yours and his own body weight through the water, your mouth twisted into a frown from your own self pity. You didn’t have to glance at your reflection in the black, empty windows to know you looked like a limp waste of a human. You’d come far, apparently farther than many before you, but how much of your progress was actually made by you? Without Sebastian, you’d have perished much sooner than the Searchlights, which seemed like it happened weeks ago. Arriving on the submarine seemed to happen months ago. It felt like time slowed down in the Blacksite and yet tomorrow ended up at your feet so soon. 

A voice reminded you in the back of your head, ‘But Sebastian’s been here longer. Much longer than you. Quit your whining.’  

You hung your head as a flurry of bubbles rushed past your face. The voice was right, of course. It always was. It didn’t matter how long you’d spent down in hell, the one assisting you through the water had it worse. No matter how many times you asked questions and demanded he answer them clearly, no matter how many times he was cryptic with his words and annoyed the hell out of you and no matter if he tried to kill you again, he was just as much a victim as you. And you had to force yourself to realize that sometimes when you went a little too far with your small minded questions. 

“Are you plotting my demise or something?” 

Sebastian’s voice cut through your thoughts, bubbles leaving his mouth as he spoke beside you. You blinked at him in confusion and glanced behind you at the previous door you’d left. Had you really passed that many doors in your overthinking crisis?

“Something like that…” You muttered through your diving mask. Sebastian eyed you, slowing his pace in the water.

“You’re just… eerily quiet,” Sebastian mentioned with a frown. 

“I thought you liked quiet?” 

He hesitated, letting a sigh out in a swarm of bubbles. “I like the peaceful kind of quiet, where words just aren’t necessary. I don’t like it when it’s the… lonely kind of quiet. And you’re usually talkative if you’re not focused on something, so I was just making sure you were alive.”

You wanted to respond in a certain way to that kind of statement, because his words made your skin tingle in irritation. Making sure you were alive ? Has he already forgotten that he tried to kill you? Why would he care in the slightest if you were a corpse dragging along his side?

…But you didn’t say any of that. You told yourself to be grateful that he cared enough to check. Sebastian cleared his throat, as if reading your conflicted mind. 

“I meant to ask… did you really mean what you said? About that… entity back there?” Sebastian asked with a low tone. He looked away from you as if to show he didn’t care much about the subject, but you knew better. He wouldn’t have brought it up if it meant nothing more than small talk. 

“...Could be more specific?” You egged him on, not quite sure as to which words he was referring to. 

“Okay, maybe you didn’t say it directly, but I’m guessing you thought it was a monster?” Sebastian pointed out. “I mean, you assumed at first glance that it would kill you.”

You thought about it for a second before looking up at him, realizing he had stopped swimming. “I didn’t say it would , but it definitely could if it tried. And hey, what here hasn’t tried to kill us?”

“...But you don’t know that it would have.”

You sighed, biting the inside of your lip. You weren’t exactly sure what he was getting at here. 

“Yeah… I didn’t know. But I think it’s safer to make the assumption that everything has it out for us than to wait around and find out,” You admitted with a slight shrug of your shoulders. Sebastian finally looked at you, his eyes piercing even through your mask. 

“Do you think that even if it could kill you, but chooses not to… that it’s still a monster?” Sebastian whispered. You had to process what he said for a moment because his voice was so quiet. 

“Anything can be a monster, even if it doesn’t kill,” You said sharply, avoiding his gaze. “Our actions determine that. It doesn’t always involve the death of others.”

Sebastian didn’t say much after that, letting the silence between you two become tense and awkward. You stood with your words, however, as they reminded you of yourself. In all of the worst ways. You let him lead you through the next door, and only then does it pang in your mind exactly what he was getting at with the questions. 

“Oh…” You gasped slightly. “Sebastian, I’m sorry…”

“Don’t be,” He cut you off plainly. “You’re right. My actions determine my character… and I’ve done quite a few soulless things to earn me my title. I’m not a person here. I’m just another entity. Another… monster. ”

You cursed yourself for not realizing sooner that he was really asking for himself. Of course, you didn’t argue with him, you couldn’t. He tried to kill you after all. And how many before you as well? There was no fight in you to defend his blood-spilling hands, even if he wasn’t actively trying to kill you now. And yet… part of you still wanted to keep trying with him.

“Look… I don’t really believe in second chances, but I feel like I never really gave you a first ,” You sighed. “I can deduct from the fact that you’re not trying to drown me right now, that you don’t want to kill me for fun. I’m fairly confident you didn’t try to out of fear, either, but rather… out of strategy.”

Sebastian glanced at you but didn’t say a word. If anything, his silence almost proved you right. 

“I know there’s something you’re trying to do… and not telling me. Which is fine, whatever, I know no one seems to want to give me any information anymore, but I can tell you’re trying to delay my progress to the crystal,” You explained, trying to catch his gaze. “What I’m saying is… I think I can help you.”

Sebastian scoffed, snorting through his nose in a fit of bubbles. You frowned at his amusement, raising an eyebrow with annoyance. 

“Help me… Yeah right. You can help me by staying out of my way.”

“...Listen, dude. You’re not as mysterious as you think,” You groaned, rubbing your forehead in irritation. “I know you’re planning to leave, I just don’t know how . I have another offer to make.”

Sebastian raised his eyebrows, shooting a questionable look in your direction. “I’m listening.”

“If you stop trying to kill me, I’ll delay my progression to the crystal and give you enough time to do… whatever it is you’re trying to do. I’ll purposefully hide out in safe rooms and slow my pace. I feel like we can both make it out of here alive… if we work together. And really work together this time. No killing each other.” You stuck out your left hand as he paused his swimming. “Deal?”

Sebastian pondered for a moment, shifting himself to face you better. He took your hand firmly, and you could feel his claws dig in slightly as he shook it. Surprisingly, his skin was warmer than the water you were in, likely because his body was used to producing heat within the cold depths. But the heat of him made your hand linger a second longer than it should have, and in return he squinted at you in confusion. Your hand shot back to your side, holding onto the fabric of his jacket arm once more. You decided not to look at him and show your slight red face, although you could have sworn you heard the muffled sound of his chuckling. 

“How’s your oxygen?” Sebastian asked out of nowhere, surprising you a bit.

“Oh, uh… it’s fine. I’m more hungry than breathless, if that says anything.”

He shot a sarcastic glare at you, forcing a smirk on your face. “Listen, I offered you fish. You were the one who just had to find a room and entity I’ve never stumbled across before.”

“Yeah… but that was because you also tried to force feed me the meat of an entity.”

Sebastian raised two of his unoccupied hands in defense. “Sue me for trying to help.”

You bit your lip and squinted up at him. He seemed very sure of his statement. 

“...Are you certain it heals?”

“Why, getting tired of being dragged along?” Sebastian chuckled. His left hand reached into his satchel, pulling out a paper-wrapped chunk of meat. He threw the wetted paper to float off behind him and held up the meat to you. You frowned, considering your options. On one hand, you could just take fish from him once you were out of the water. On the other hand… you could take it now if you found an air pocket and hoped to God that Sebastian wasn’t lying. If he was, it wouldn’t be the wall creature’s meat you shove down his throat, but rather your fist . 

“What does it taste like…?” You asked under your breath before clarifying, “I mean, really taste like. I don’t want that bullshit answer you gave me last time.”

Sebastian snorted, rolling his eyes and tugging your arm so you could float alongside him. He seemed to have a different destination in mind. 

“It tastes like nothing, seriously,” Sebastian admitted, pulling you up towards a crevice in the ceiling. There was no light at all to show you what might be inside, and you leaned back in hesitance as he swam towards it. “I’m actually not sure. I’m fairly certain I’ve lost my sense of taste down here. And… I don’t even remember what real food tastes like, so I couldn’t even give you a comparison.” 

You felt a pang of guilt smooth its way through your heart, and you frowned under your mask. Prison food wasn’t exactly a five star meal, but you couldn’t imagine what Sebastian had to survive off of for how long he’d been down here. Fish and that strange meat, of course, but what happens when there’s a shortage of fish? No wall creatures to hunt? Sebastian was probably quite used to the feeling of starvation. 

“...I’m sorry about that,” is all you could bring yourself to mutter. Sebastian didn’t answer, either ignoring your apology or attempting to direct the conversation elsewhere. He pulled you up to the small, dark crevice in the ceiling first, unfortunately. You hesitated before popping your head up into it and realizing it was an air pocket. Immediately, you scrambled to take off your diving mask and gasp for some real air. Well, as real as it could get in a radius of three feet of condensed oxygen. You could only fit your head in the crevice without bumping it at the top, the water leveled out to meet half of your neck. You were given a moment to yourself before Sebastian popped his head out as well, splashing your face with a flip of his hair. You sputtered, wiping the water from your eyes and your mouth as you glared at him. 

Sebastian, of course, also ignored your heated glare when he flicked his esca to turn on. You squinted, even having a dim light in such a tight space was too bright. You shielded your eyes from it and blinked repeatedly. He seemed to take notice and just resorted to leaving it off. Besides, his eyes glowed just enough for you to see his features and the surrounding, damp rocks covered in a reflection of his teal blue luminescence. 

“Sorry about this, but there aren't many places to stop for air on this path,” Sebastian mumbled, raising his right hand up through the water, just between the two of you. He unfolded his clawed, glistening fingers to reveal the wet chunk of meat. You shivered, both from the freezing water dripping off of your face and from the terrifying unknown of the meat. Sebastian frowned at your hesitance, grabbing your hand slowly from underneath the water and placing the chunk in your palm. You curled your fingers over it, wincing at the squish it gave from the pressure. You brought it back up to your face, purposefully not smelling it just in case your mind gave out and refused it again. 

With cautious precision, you opened your mouth and waited a minute to take a bite. That is, until Sebastian’s hand came splashing out from underneath the water and shoving the entire chunk into your mouth. The very same hand, somehow with more agility and swiftness than you could process, clamped underneath your jaw to prevent you from spitting it out. Goddamn it , he lied. It did not taste like nothing, it tasted like raw, moldy chicken, and he absolutely knew it based on the laughter he tried to keep suppressed. 

“You have to chew it, I’m not letting up until I see you swallow,” Sebastian said as seriously as he could muster. “This is for your own good.”

Ohh, how you wanted to smack him all the way to Africa right about now. But you couldn’t bring yourself to even move your hands, as your mouth was on fire with the horrible taste dancing on your tongue. You squeezed your eyes shut and chewed enough times to be able to swallow, and only then did Sebastian’s hand fall from your jaw. You coughed, spitting into your hand what was left of the atrocious flavor. 

“ You… You knew it tasted like shit! God, I wouldn’t have even considered eating that if I’d known!” You sputtered, your left hand raking down your tongue at any leftover taste. 

Sebastian hummed, watching you intensely. “Yeah, why do you think I told you that?”

You shot a glare that you wished could pierce right through his shit-eating grin. You would never admit that it was kind of smart of him, and it did end up getting you to eat it. But that didn’t make you any less furious at him for it. Besides, why did he care so much if you starved or not? 

You brought your right arm to the surface, slowly and carefully so as to not flare up any more pain than you’d already been feeling. Thankfully, the freezing water temperatures seemed to numb it enough to make it bearable. The wound looked… about the same. You couldn’t really see any signs of the healing he’d promised. Well, as far as you could peer in the dimly lit area. The bandages and gauze needed to be changed, though. Covered in a must that stained what was once an eggshell white color, it was wet and falling apart from being in the water for so long. You could tell Sebastian was trying his best not to stare at it, although you could feel his eyes whenever you weren’t glancing up at him. To be fair, his eyes were the only sources illuminating the dark crevice. When you finally met them and held his gaze as you released your arm to go limp in the water below, you told yourself over and over again not to get lost in them. 

…But somehow you did anyway. It wasn’t until he blew air from his nose and flicked his finned ears that you broke the stare and cleared your throat to ease the silence. You weren’t sure if he felt awkward, but you sure did. 

“It um… didn’t heal,” You spoke up, your voice no louder than a whisper. You had to say something, anything, because clearly he didn’t like it when you stared for too long. You just weren’t sure why he wasn’t saying much about it this time.

“It’s not exactly instantaneous,” Sebastian chuckled, filling the tension with his amusement. Your shoulder relaxed a bit, although you chewed yourself out in your mind for making it weird. Staring was just habitual for you, it was often you stared in prison because no one could judge you there. But now you were talking to a real person, in a real scenario where your faces were only a couple feet apart. 

…Is that how you viewed him now? As a real person? 

“Why do you do that?” 

You blinked, looking back up to meet his eyes once more as his voice cut through your mind. 

“Do what?”

Sebastian brought his hand up to wave it around and gesture towards you. “Your face twists in a way that I can tell you’re overthinking my words. Why?”

“Uh… It’s not on purpose, I guess…” You shrugged lightly. Maybe you did overthink things a little too much. “The kind of person I was… or, still am , I suppose… tended to second-guess every intention. Maybe the orphanage made me this way… maybe it was my little ‘side-gig’...”

You paused, licking your chapped lips as you furrowed your eyebrows. 

“...Maybe it was some one who made me this way,” You said coldly. Sebastian might have picked up on your sudden change in tone, but he didn’t comment on it. Just nodded his head slightly, shifting his eyes to the damp rock wall that reflected his glow in glistening teal glints. 

“...You’re weird,” Sebastian blurted out. You squinted at him in surprise and confusion.

“Um…? You’re one to talk, Sebastian . You’re literally part fish.”

Sebastian rolled his eyes at your remark. “Thank you, I hadn’t noticed. I meant that your thought process is… just not something I’ve seen in any Expendable I’ve encountered.”

You processed what exactly he was getting at before nodding in his direction to gesture for more elaboration. 

“It’s just… You give me an offer that no one has ever made with me, you try to befriend me, and now you’ve negotiated yourself a path where we both might walk free.” Sebastian ran a hand through his dark, wet hair with a sigh. “ If it works, of course. But what I don’t understand is how any of that benefits you.”

“It doesn’t,” You said plainly. “But if there is any chance that I can save two lives, I’m going to take it.”

Sebastian thought over it for a minute. “...But why me?”

You sighed, looking into his eyes with concern. “Sebastian… I’ve done a lot of bad things in my life. Like, a lot . If this really might be the end for me, I want my last waking moments to know that I did try to do some good. Maybe even help someone in need. But it’s arrogant of me to assume I’ll be the one to retrieve the crystal and make it out alive.”

Sebastian nodded, leaving the two of you in another silence. This time, it wasn’t tense or awkward, but it was a bit… hopeless. At least, it felt that way to you. You’d made it this far, but how much farther would you really be able to get? However, you wished that at least Sebastian didn’t feel the same as you; maybe he even felt… hopeful. 

“Look,” Sebastian sighed. “I know I haven’t exactly been… the kindest towards you, but it is for a reason. Like when I activated the turrets; It was all for… a reason.”

Oh, that’s great. To hear from your attempted murderer that ‘oh no, it’s okay, you almost died for a reason you won’t ever hear.’ It definitely stung to know that even with the offer you had just put in place, he wouldn’t hesitate to ‘accidentally’ let you die. Maybe if you ‘accidentally’ stumbled into the path of the Angler, or ‘coincidentally’ opened one of the glowing lockers. 

You swallowed thickly, deciding you didn’t want to look at him anymore. You nodded downwards, strapping the diving mask over your face once more before sinking down into the water. You couldn’t tell if Sebastian had a knowing, guilty frown on his mutated lips as you dipped underneath, but it didn’t matter either way. You still knew him and what he would do if he had the chance. 

You did, however, use this chance while he didn’t have his arm securing yours to test out your wounded shoulder. He waited patiently and hesitantly behind, and you could feel his eyes watching your every move. You flexed your shoulder first, noticing that the icy water was helping thoroughly to keep it numb. You definitely felt a twinge of sparks in your shoulder when you flexed it, but it was easy enough to suppress. With that, you grabbed fistfuls of the glassy liquid surrounding you and pulled yourself in one long stroke. You laughed under your mask, shooting a glance towards Sebastian. He seemed surprised that you were laughing with him and not at him, but in return he gave you three thumbs ups and even a small smile. 

Sure, your shoulder was still healing and would probably spring pain once it was out of the frigid cold, but if you took slow, long strokes under the water, all you could feel were pricks of paining needles underneath your skin. It was small enough to ignore, and you did as you propelled yourself to the next door, watching Sebastian catch up with a grin. You weren’t sure if the wretched taste from the wall creature meat was necessarily worth the ability to swim and move your shoulder without as much pain, but you were slightly thankful that Sebastian had forced you to eat it. Without his determination to keep your jaw shut, you absolutely would have spat it out. 

You gestured to Sebastian to hurry up in a lighthearted way, knowing he could likely outswim you anyday. He reached the doorframe, leaning to duck his head underneath when the door slammed shut. 

You furrowed your eyebrows, moving to the door and using the handle. A handle you normally didn’t have to use, as it would just automatically open for you. So… why wasn’t it now? 

“Sebastian?” You called, tapping the door with the palm of your hand. Your voice was probably too muffled through your mask and the door, but you heard little snippets of what he was saying beyond it. 

“Kid? What are you doing? You shut the door on me!” Is all you could hear from Sebastian’s muted voice. You heard a slam on the door from the other side, but the metal hardly budged. You backed away, looking around in a panic. You swam as carefully and quickly as you could with your still-healing shoulder towards the next door, only to see that… there was no next door. Or if there was, the number had vanished. See, there were two unopened doors in the room, but neither had presented the green glowing number you’d grown used to. 

“Sebastian, what’s going on?? I don’t like this!” You called out, raising your voice so maybe he could latch onto some of your words. 

“Hey.”

You whipped your head around at the sudden voice. There, right on the screen where the door number should have been, was a familiar, badly drawn face. 

“ You ,” You said with much aggression lathered on the word. “I don’t know who you are or why you seem to be at the root of most of my problems, but if you don’t open that door–”

“Then what?” The screen challenged. “Whatcha gonna do? If you haven’t figured it out yet, and I’m assuming not with how you’ve been acting, I control almost everything here. The heavy machinery, the turrets, the doors… the little surprises behind each one…”

You bit the inside of your cheek as the face suppressed a fit of giggles, glancing back at the previous, closed door that Sebastian was banging on. 

“So… Sebastian really doesn’t control the turrets…” You muttered to yourself. Of course he lied about that too. You kind of knew, but a sliver of you hoped that maybe your intuition was wrong. Suppose it just never is. You wouldn’t make the mistake of doubting it again. 

“Is that what he told you?” The screen giggled robotically… maliciously. “Not so sure why he tries to keep me a secret. After all… I want it to be my face you see when I paint these walls with your blood .”

You flinched, a shiver of eerie cold creeping up your arms and spreading goosebumps across the flesh. 

“Who are you?” You asked through gritted teeth. Whatever this thing had coming, you could withstand it. You just needed to learn a bit about it so you could have every advantage when you found and killed it. No hesitation, no second chances. Those were bullshit anyway. You didn’t usually forgive, and you never forgot. 

“I am… another thing Sebastian’s been lying to you about,” The screen said cryptically, smiling wide. Everything about this drawn on face made your skin crawl and your fury inflamed. “...But you can just call me Painter .”

Your eyes flicked to the screen once more with realization drawn in the creases of your furrowed eyebrows. That’s right . Sebastian had mentioned that name when you’d first met. What was it that he said…? 

“Anywho! I have a little surprise for you,” Painter sang before whispering, “Look out the window.”

You didn’t want to. You didn’t want anything to do with Painter at all. 

As red, glaring light wrenched its way into your vision, you finally remembered what Sebastian had said about Painter, the first and only time he ever mentioned the name. They were going to escape together . You remembered now, and the realization of it sank your heart and your knees as they dropped to the ground. Although, maybe your knees gave out because of the pounding in your head and the pull at your eyes. 

If you would just… look out the window.  

Sebastian didn’t want to escape with you. He probably only took your offer to buy him more time. He must have been responsible for the bullet in your shoulder, if he and Painter were friends. Even if he didn’t control the turrets, he probably went into a separate room to call Painter without you knowing. This was all planned to begin with, wasn’t it?

Everything will be okay if you look out the window.

You clutched your head in agony, screaming through the overstimulation of your mind, your eyes, your spiraling thoughts, the ache in your chest where you wondered if there was a heart. You didn’t want to listen to the voice telling you to look up, despite the resistance tugging harshly at your mind and scrambling its every waking thought.

You’ll see your friends and family again.

But you had no friends. Your family was dead. Did that mean you would die too if you looked? It was as if a supernatural force was yanking your head towards the lucent red filling every speck of your vision. Whatever the force was, it seemed to be not only melting your brain, but your diving gear as well. The freezing water was also burning every lick of your skin that its icy claws touched, and you brought your fingers to cloud your sight instead of the reddened glow, only to see that the tips of them were turning white. 

Just look through the window, and you won’t have to worry again.

You’d like that… not having to worry. But without the thrill, you’d also feel empty. Was any of this worth it? 

You’ll feel good.

How long was it since you’d felt good? How long since you didn’t have to turn around and watch your back every second of every day? How long was it since you’d felt like no one was trying to kill you?

Look at me .

But you were sick and tired of listening to what other people told you. You didn’t want to look, even as your screams raked up your throat just to get out . Even as the pain didn’t end at clawing through your mind…. Even as the water rushed in. 

You will see Sadie again .

You squeezed your eyes shut, and a pained sob rooted from your burning lungs just to erupt in bubbles that muffled your screams. Sadie… The water was so cold, yet it inflamed your lungs and choked you. Everything was choking you, the emotions you didn’t want to feel, the red eyes forcing your gaze to meet them… 

Maybe you didn’t want to see Sadie again. Your dreams may foretell the abandoned thoughts residing at the back of your mind, but they couldn’t tell you what you felt at that very moment. You didn’t feel Sadie, you only felt the ache of what was left of her. She had left you to drown, along with Sebastian. And that was all you could think of when your last tear fell and the black at the edges of your vision engulfed the red completely.  

…

…

Your eyes see nothing except for the void, but your left arm feels the graze of something sharp clutching the wrist. And then nothing again as your mind fades out. 

…

… 

You are alerted drowsily to an ease of weight off of your face and your back, but the weight on your eyes is heavier as it pulls you back into the darkness. 

…

…

…

…

A choked gasp escapes your lips as your eyes fling open. You’re alive! Incredibly pained, but alive! You’re sat up on dry ground, save for the puddle you’d created underneath from your dripping hair and wetsuit. You hunched over, choking and coughing out the leftover water from your lungs, hardly noticing the large form leaning over you. You spit out the last of the water, wiping your mouth with the back of your hand and glancing up through hooded eyes at the fairly concerned face staring only a foot away from yours. You didn’t mind the closeness this time, only because you had just been fighting for your life. 

And suddenly that disgusting meat from earlier was making its way back up the hatch. You covered your mouth at the abrupt heave, turning away from Sebastian to hurl into a corner of the room. It was nice enough for him to catch a large piece of your tangled, wet hair from getting into your puked up mess until you eventually had nothing left but swallowed water in your stomach to vomit up. You coughed the last of it out, feeling a flush of embarrassment not only from almost dying but also from the mess that you felt like. You couldn’t even look up at Sebastian. 

He must’ve known how you felt, because he sat down on his curled up tail next to you, avoiding the vomit, of course. You hung your head between your knees as you brought them up close to you. 

“This… probably isn’t the question you’d want to hear right now, but… are you okay?” Sebastian asked in a low voice. You sniffed, trying to clear the burning sensation of phantom drowning in your nose. 

“I don’t know.” You gazed up at the ceiling, the croak of your voice making your situation all the more clear to you. 

Sebastian sighed, his eyes trained on the floor. “Look, I don’t know what he told you, but–”

“ He? ” You repeated, the word erupting like filth from your mouth. 

“Painter. I heard his voice through the door,” Sebastian explained solemnly. “I just… I’m sorry I lied about him. He’s just… been there for me ever since I met him down here. He was the only one. I didn’t want anything to happen to him if I mentioned him too loosely.”

You shook your head, the ache in your heart seeming to dull its beat. 

“You asked him to kill me, didn’t you?” You whispered. You were referring to the turrets, of course, as you weren’t certain if he influenced the last encounter as well. 

Sebastian bit his lip with guilt stained in his teal eyes as he nodded. You couldn’t help the single tear that fell silently from your eye, but you rubbed it away as soon as it did. 

“So what was different about this time?” Your voice breaking as you asked, staring straight ahead at the next door. One of the last doors. “You could’ve broken the deal and it wouldn’t have mattered, it was made too early.”

Silence from him. You scoffed, shaking your head. “Well?”

“I didn’t want you to die this time,” Sebastian blurted out. Finally, you met his gaze. It was riddled with concern layered over every feature on his face. “My natural instinct is to sit and watch it happen… but this time it wasn’t.”

Even after everything he’d put you through, a weakened smile crept up onto your face without even thinking about it. This was one thing… one time that he seemed genuine. You knew just from the look on his face that he wasn’t lying, wasn’t covering up the truth in any way. This was his truth. 

“...Do you know what changed?” Your broken voice croaked out. Sebastian sighed and shook his head in response.

“...I don’t know,” is all he could say. You nodded and scooted a little closer to him on the ground. You couldn’t help but feel warmer than the water had made you as you thought about how he must have dragged you as quickly as possible through the water just to save you. He could have let you die, like he did with the turrets, but he didn’t.

Maybe it was the sense you’d felt when you had pulled him into the locker with you once. 

You didn’t want him to die, as much as you felt anger and frustration and goddamn hatred towards him sometimes. Maybe that was how he felt at that moment. 

And in the shared, understanding silence between you two as you sat close on the porch of death’s door, you trusted that intuition that told you he felt the same way.

Maybe that unspoken trauma bonding was what made you consider a new title for him besides the usual ‘monster.’

A new title you liked to call… 

Friend.

Chapter Text

Emotions were generally foreign to you. 

The… heavy ones, of course. 

Sure, you were familiar with anger, frustration, the ups of joy and the downs of sorrow.

But these existential dread feelings… were not within your range. 

Let’s clarify.

You told yourself to write these things down, to keep them locked away for only you to read and spill every little thing of your life in order to cope. However, there wasn’t much to work with in the Blacksite, so you resorted to chanting the words in your mind like a cultist. Yeah. Not much sanity left in your head, unfortunately. 

To start, you felt an undying, unrivaled hatred towards a certain someone. Their name was Painter, as it turned out. A stupid name for a stupid piece of technology. Despite Sebastian’s action to call his little friend on you with loaded turrets, you weren’t really mad anymore. At Painter, yes, but Sebastian proved he didn’t actually want you dead when he saved your life. If you ever saw a chance to forgive, it was then. 

Sebastian apologized. Painter did not. That was the difference that had you so set on finding that little shit and ripping out whatever wire was keeping him alive. Frankly, you couldn’t care less if he and Sebastian were friends. It didn’t meet your thoughts in the slightest. Truth be told, you’d seen Painter only twice in your entire expedition through the Blacksite, yet you wanted him dead more than ever. 

…That’s what you told yourself over and over again until the pencil confined to the death grip of your curled fingers snapped under the pressure. You blinked, looking down at the splinters falling from your loosening fingers. 

Maybe this little therapy session in your head wasn’t exactly helping. 

You sighed, looking towards the wide window expanding across most of the room’s walls. Nothing outside but suspended, underwater mines and darkness. That’s all you’d ever see in these windows, so you weren’t exactly sure what the point of them happened to be. For the aesthetic, maybe. To make these rooms less… empty. Well, it wasn’t working. You still felt alone, and still, nothing was happening. 

You tapped the eraser half of the split pencil against the desk you laid on, glancing towards the exit door. Sebastian had found this room to rest in as well as drag on your arrival to the crystal, but he left in search of some… gear, apparently. That was all he had alluded to, but you couldn’t find it in yourself to be suspicious or even go after him like you’d done before. Even despite telling him you wouldn’t let him leave you behind again. You knew he’d do it anyway, so it just… wasn’t worth it anymore. 

Instead, you stared up at the ceiling in a daze and wondered if anything was worth it. Living especially. Would it all be worth the struggle and lurk of death if there was nothing actually waiting for you at the surface? You sighed, hoping that maybe if you got Sebastian out of the Blacksite, then he’d find his place above the water. You weren’t exactly sure how , with his appearance, but you knew he’d figure it out. He was clever like that; it’s exactly how he’d survived so long in the Blacksite.

In all honesty, you did suspect that Sebastian was not just ‘out to look for gear’ but rather talking to Painter. You couldn’t even be mad, despite not having a clue about whatever bond they had. Not even the fact that you could have followed Sebastian so he could lead you to Painter got you up from the desk. After barely surviving drowning underwater, your energy had depleted. Maybe Sebastian noticed it too, hence why he left. If you weren’t so exhausted and mentally challenged at the moment, you’d probably put up a fight like the last time he left you alone.

You blinked slowly, wondering if the faint chatter you were hearing was just in your head from your consciousness fading in and out. You could almost hear footsteps as well, and you closed your eyes to listen. They tap, tap, tapped against concrete and metal, seeming closer and closer… It was almost relaxing if you didn’t–

Wait a minute. Your eyes snapped open, flicking around. Those sounds weren’t in your head. You jumped off of the desk and cautiously went to the door, pressing your back to the wall beside it and peeking out ever so slightly from the slight opening. 

There, walking confidently through the hall was a group of people with belts full of medkits and various light sources. Your eyes widened in surprise; you hadn’t seen a single human being this entire way, and only now that Sebastian was gone did you see an entire group?? That didn’t make sense at all, you thought you were on an alternate path…

Your breaths left you in quick, panicking pants. They could absolutely take you out if they tried, and if you just left them, they could probably get to the crystal before Sebastian had time to do what he needed to. You could just let them walk away… It would be the easy thing to do. 

No. You weren’t the kind of person to break promises. You never were. If you had to converse long enough with them, at least for Sebastian to make it back, you would. 

You rolled your neck, popping out the strain and loosening stiffness from your exhausted head in order to give the illusion that you were alert before opening the door enough to leave. It was safe to say they too were shocked at your presence, stepping out to face them just across the hall. You shivered, avoiding the sight of the windows stretching from across the walls to curve up the ceiling. If you remembered correctly, Sebastian referred to these sets of halls as the “trenches,” which fit the vibe as murky, dark waters rippled all around you.

“Am I hallucinating? Or is that a person?” You heard a gravelly, low voice speak up from within the group. There were… six? Maybe eight of them clustered together with a hand on their belts likely in case you posed a threat. Suddenly you were very aware of the door behind them, making note that in any case, it could very well become an exit. You wouldn’t go to the next door, as it was unopened and you wanted it to stay that way to prevent them from getting much further.

Of course, that was easier thought than done.

A man neared you with caution in every step he took, hands up defensively. “Hello… My name is Rye. Who are you?”

You narrowed your eyes at his scruffy chin, thinking it very much needed a shave. What were you, an alien? He didn’t need to approach you with as much caution as he was showing.

“I’m… just a passerby,” You said with a light shrug of your shoulders, lifting your hands in the air. It was nice to not wince in pain from your right, as the meat you had eaten earlier did help the healing process. You wouldn’t admit that to Sebastian, of course. “See, I am actually… selling my items.”

You flinched as it came out of your mouth. You really didn’t want to get rid of your only flashlight and some batteries you’d picked up along the way, but if it would slow their journey to the crystal, that’s all you could ask for.

Rye eyed the group behind him before turning back to you. “Really, huh? What kind of items?”

“Oh… you know. Just some batteries and a flashlight. If you’ve got any loose assets on you, I’d gladly take them off your hands.” You smiled, channeling Sebastian’s energy as best as you could. Rye furrowed his eyebrows and folded his arms over his chest.

“How would you benefit from that? We were just going to offer you to join our group,” he admitted. “No need to sell to us. We’re trying to get as many of us out of here as possible.”

Honestly, that kind of deal made you consider your options. You bit your lip and slightly wished you hadn’t offered to help Sebastian in the first place. Really, how much did you actually care about him? And vice versa?

“Tempting, really,” You finally decided to say. “I’m going to have to pass, though.”

Before Rye could respond, a shorter, much younger looking guy stepped forward and cleared his throat.

“Did you take out your chip too?” The man asked. You opened your mouth to speak but nothing came out. Your mouth shut as you looked between the two speaking men in confusion.

“Um…? I’m not…” You hesitated, racking your brain for answers. Chip? What chip?

Rye turned back to you. “You’re off the deviated path. Clearly you must’ve taken out your chip. The one in your head?”

No, no, you weren’t just forgetful. This one stumped you, as you had no idea what they were talking about.

“If yours hasn’t detonated yet, then it must be… faulty I guess.” Rye shrugged, patting you on the right shoulder. You did wince this time, faltering slightly under his sudden touch. It felt… off. He felt off in general. “See, when HQ notices an Expendable is off of the recommended path, they connect to that chip in your brain and–”

Rye spread his fingers out in your face suddenly, mimicking an explosion. You backed away, catching an eerie feel from this man. The entire group, really. It unsettled you in a way and sent a shock of cold down your back.

“I witnessed one of my friends die that way,” Rye said solemnly, his voice softening. “So I took it upon myself to retrieve the crystal in his honor. Pursue the source. Cut it out.”

A shiver ran down the length of your spine as you looked Rye in the eyes. They were bloodshot, as you just noticed, and it made him look a bit deranged.

“I found some others with similar… determination.” Rye gestured to the group behind him. “Our diligence, all combined, make us practically unstoppable. I helped them cut out their own chips, of course.”

You didn’t realize how far you’d backed away from Rye until your back bumped the wall behind you, just a few feet away from the next door. You couldn’t seem to take your eyes off of Rye.

“I bet you’re wondering, if I’m so helpful and kind, how did I get down here in the first place?” Rye chuckled. “Well, let’s just say there were some… illegal experimentations, if you will. All for the sake of science, of course. Honestly, they really had it coming.”

The light laughter echoed past any awareness in your brain. Suddenly, you didn’t feel ready to face these people. They were likely murderers , something you’d been blamed for but never committed to the act of. For once, it wasn’t the entities that scared you. It was the Expendables. You shouldn’t have tried to talk to them.  

“…I’m guessing you didn’t experiment on animals…?” You whispered. Rye shook his head as a grin spread on his pale lips.

“No, no,” Rye laughed innocently. “I would never. Humans have much more interesting anatomy. Besides, I’m all for wildlife protection!”

Something clicked in your brain. You no longer wanted to be facing these people, especially as the group came close enough to stand just behind Rye.

“In fact, I would love to do an experiment right now. That is, if you really aren’t willing to join us,” Rye sang, taking a pair of plastic gloves from his belt and stretching them around each of his pale fingers.

You stood there with shaking limbs and wide eyes. Why wouldn’t your body move?

“And it sounds like you’re set on not accompanying us to the crystal, so I’ll just assume you want to die down here,” Rye announced, his voice oozing in venom. “That really aligns with what I’d like to try with you. Really.”

You didn’t want to know. You opened your mouth to protest, but Rye turned away to take a white, plastic mask with the face like ones of musical theatre from the young, shorter man.

“See, we picked this up on our way here, and I read over its document,” Rye explained, holding the mask up next to your head to measure your facial proportions. “I would like to see if that document was telling the truth. It would be… quite useful …”

…But you didn’t want to see what this mask would do to you. And so with every fiber of adrenaline your body could muster in that split second, you pushed the mask away and ran past him as well as the group lurking behind him. Taking off in the direction you came.

The voices that echoed behind you and the thumping of footsteps on metal suggested they were in close pursuit. Thankfully, you had great experiences with running, even while you were getting shot at. But you knew these people had no guns on them. What scared you was what they seemed capable of doing even without weapons.

You cut a corner, realizing there were actually two paths you could choose from. Either the one you came from with Sebastian, or… likely the one they did. You hesitated, gritting your teeth before just bolting down the unfamiliar path. You knew there was no chance of outrunning them the way you came, as the hallways were too long and had no corners to turn, but maybe this way had a different set of rooms. Every next doorway was open, thankfully, so you didn’t have to wait around for the automatic sensor to pick up on your movements. You knew after only a matter of time, they would eventually close again, but you relished in this advantage.

So you ran. And ran. Frankly, you weren’t exactly sure why this group seemed so committed to catching you, but it became a problem once you felt a tiring ache in your lungs and a tension in your legs. Your breath was hitching just to catch up with your speed, and it hurt like hell to keep your pace. Clearly these people knew how to run, because it seemed like none of them were slowing. In fact, when you turned your head for a split second, they looked even closer than before. You panted heavily, taking large leaps in your sprinting as if that would help your situation. 

It was a blur of rooms, all the same, and you weren’t sure how many you’d passed before you crossed a peculiar, different layout. There were actually two doors, separate but side by side that had already been opened. You went through the door on the right, although either could have worked as it led to the same place. It didn’t run through your mind to question it or find it odd as you could hear Rye and his group right on your tail. 

That is… it didn’t occur to you that you were somewhere new until you were running through large, steel doors. You slowed just a bit to take in the new surroundings, not realizing that your little action would cause more issues than there already were. For it seemed the universe was against you in those brief, two seconds. You slowed your strides as the next, giant steel doors closed before you could reach them. And as they did, you ended up coming to a halt in front of them, waiting an agonizing amount of time as the gears grinded at sensing your movements and slowly pried open. 

It didn’t matter. It was too late, and you knew that. You didn’t even have to turn around. 

Rye pummeled you to the ground, using two strong arms to pin your own on the metal, grated floor. The wind was knocked clean out of you at the impact of the ground and the force of the fall. It was cold beneath you, but not as much as the feel of Rye’s hands. He almost felt… dead. And it was only then, when his face was closer than ever to yours, that you noticed his sunken eyes and revealed cheekbones. He didn’t just look freshly dead, he looked like a day-old corpse . How had you not noticed before?

You struggled beneath his grip, kicking up at him with as much strength as you could muster. Until, of course, the shorter looking guy that had spoken earlier latched onto your ankles and pinned them down as well. With Rye practically sitting on you to keep you down, you could feel your breath constricting and coming out in short, heavy pants at the weighted pressure. Under the force, you wondered and almost rolled your eyes at how many times your lungs would be strangled in the span of two days before eventually they collapsed in your chest. 

“That’s okay, I’m used to some… kick-back from my patients,” Rye admitted. You shot him a concerned, fearful glare. Patients…? Is that what you were to him right now?

“What, just because I won’t join your little posse, you’re going to kill me?” You spat, trying to wrangle your wrists from his clenched grip. Rye tilted his head at you with the tiniest of smirks forming on his cracked, pale lips. 

“Kill you? Is that what you think we’re doing?” Rye asked, genuine curiosity spilling from his tone. You glanced from him to the mask he held up to you, wondering what exactly was going on. “No… We won’t kill a fellow Expendable unless we have to. In fact, this mask does the exact opposite. It gives you… a new sense of life. A new form.”

You searched his dark, soulless eyes for some kind of reason behind his actions, a cause for this behavior. What could he possibly gain from this? You were disappointed and hopeless to find nothing but… insanity . Rooted deep into the twisted structure of his face down to the trembling of his firm grip from his madness. Clearly something had happened to Rye down here to make him like this.

…Right?

You didn’t have another moment to ponder it before the overhead lights flickered. Only then did Rye’s weight finally ease off of you, letting you gasp for more air at the chance. You furrowed your eyebrows as the lights continued flickering for what seemed like at least five seconds longer than normal. Rye stood off of you and congregated with his group, but you didn’t waste a second. 

You jumped to your feet, cursing your weakened lungs for making you cough and hunch over as you did. You racked your brain for any instance of longer flickering lights that you might have encountered before. Your eyes squeezed shut as you tried to focus. Sebastian’s voice rang through your mind, reminding you of all the variants of the Angler entity. So which one….?

“Yeah. Seems real great for you. But… you’ll still have to get past the Searchlights.” Sebastian echoed in your head as you recalled a particular instance of a different Angler. You just hadn’t realized it at the time, as you were caught up on his mention of the Searchlights. But… had the lights actually flickered longer that time? You couldn’t tell through the fog of remembrance. 

“There goes Blitz…” Sebastian had mumbled.

Blitz… Your eyes shot open. Blitz! 

It was probably too late. You dashed for the nearest locker, leaping inside and slamming the metal doors shut behind you. Well, maybe it wasn’t for you, but it was definitely too late for them. You kept a tight grip on the locker doors, wiping the sweat off of your palms to ensure that. 

“ Hey! You think you can hide from us?” One of the group members rattled your locker, slamming their fists into the doors. You heard a faint whisper of Rye’s voice over the commotion from whoever was pounding on the outside of your locker. But you could’ve sworn that for a moment, you caught a hint of fear in his tone, followed by the shutting of two separate pairs of locker doors just in time for a high-pitched screaming to rush by. You didn’t even have the available hands from your knuckle whitening grip on the door handles to cover your ears. The screaming cut through your head and made it pound at the high-pitch. 

It was quick. Too quick. The Angler normally took a while to get to your location, giving you time to break for a locker, but this one… Blitz … came all too fast. Just as you remembered Sebastian mentioning in his rant about the entities. You almost didn’t want to open the locker doors, as the dreadful, expansive silence scared you more than the riot you’d heard only seconds earlier. But your heartbeat seemed to thump loud enough in your ears to make you dread the confines of the locker to the point where you just couldn’t stand it anymore. The outside of it couldn’t be much worse than inside the locker… Right?

…Wrong. Outside was worse than you could have imagined. One of the locker doors was too heavy to open, so you resorted to squeezing out of the other. As you did, you almost slipped in the wide pool of blood shining from the faint light on your diving gear in the stretch of darkness. You choked on your breaths, noticing the weight that was holding down one of the locker doors was from the mangled body leaning against it. You covered your mouth in horror, too shocked for tears to even fall from your eyes. You couldn’t even recognize the corpse as human. 

It was way too dark to see around you, but you took careful steps through the blood so as to not fall into it. Your chest heaved, doing double the labor from your squeezed lungs as well as the stench of metallic-smelling gore all around you. You’d just have to wait for the emergency red lights to come on so you could make a swift escape. 

That is, you would have, if you didn’t trip over a body sprawled out on the floor and made enough noise to alert anyone nearby to the splash of blood you created. You couldn’t even cover your nose or your mouth with a clean hand, as the blood splattered onto your arms and legs when you fell into it. The sound not only gave away your presence, but as the back up red lights began to flood the spacious room, your position was clear too. 

You froze as two lockers opened slowly and out came the short, young man as well as Rye with widened eyes and shaking hands. They only had to glance once at their counterparts strewn all across the floor lying in their own blood and guts. They saved their rage-filled glares for you when they looked back up with madness in their shadowed eyes. Well, Rye mostly, but even the nameless young man had this sense of craze about him. Who were these people? You swallowed roughly and backed up slowly as they pursued you. You attempted to turn on your heel and continue sprinting down the darkened, red hallway, but you only slipped on the inch-thick pool of blood encasing and lapping around your feet. 

Rye and his partner didn’t even have to run. But they pushed you through the slow-opening door that got you in this situation in the first place, knocking you down on clean ground. Well, until the blood drenching your wetsuit stained the floor on impact. You could barely see their faces in the warning, red light, but you didn’t have to just to know how enraged they were. You heard it, actually, before you felt their anger as Rye socked you in the cheek, nearing the corner of your mouth. The force drove your head back to slam against the floor and sent a dizziness throughout your skull. You groaned, unable to feel your cheek with numbness spreading throughout as Rye’s counterpart once again pinned you to the ground. Rye stood above you, seething in silence and shaking his head as he crouched down low.

“...You did this. You see all of them? All of those innocent people mangled by your own stubbornness??” Rye grabbed your chin and forced it in the direction of the gore behind him until you yanked it free of his grasp. 

“If they were so innocent , then how’d they get down here–” You snapped before being cut off by another smack to the face. You could already feel the bruise forming in that very spot. 

“They may have done things… but they didn’t deserve to be down here,” Rye laughed in a… nervous, yet psychotic way. You very much disagreed with him. The shorter man handed Rye the now blood-stained mask, showcasing a dangerous red rather than its previous white. You didn’t exactly know what it would do, but you couldn’t imagine it was good things. 

“You… don’t get to decide that,” You grunted, kicking the younger man between the legs whilst simultaneously biting Rye on his outstretched wrist with all the strength you could muster in your clamped jaw. Both actions elicited yelps of pain from the two, successfully knocking the short man off of you and keeping Rye at bay even for a split second. His hand had ripped away from your mouth, throwing the mask to slide all the way across the room to the next, closed door. Rye’s blood stained your parted lips as you panted, getting to your feet just as Rye was also standing to face you down. The outline of his unkempt hair glowed in the red emergency lights, but his face was too shadowed over to recognize his features. But you could imagine without even looking that it was twisted in a crazed rage as he held his bleeding wrist with the other hand.

You expected his next leap towards you, as that seemed to be his most effective move in pinning someone down. And so you ducked to the right just barely out of his reach and kicked the back of his knee in. Efficiently, it drove his knee to the ground and allowed you to have a split second to make a panicked, desperate decision. There was no way you could outrun him, especially now that he seemed hysterical and willing to chase you down to the ends of the earth just to punish you for the deaths that you had no control over. 

So… you made the irrational, impulsive decision to jump on his back and wrap your left arm around his throat. You squeezed with every fiber of muscle you could muster from your bicep and your forearm, muttering prayers to no one in particular that this would work. It didn’t matter if you were religious or not, you were mostly chanting positive things to yourself in a state of desperation. 

Rye struggled long enough for your hopes to rise drastically; that is until he threw himself backwards onto the metal floor, crushing you under not only the force, but also his weight. Your mouth opened to let out a silent choke as the air was knocked from your lungs once again. Sure, you were cutting off his airways, but you were also being molded into the solid steel beneath you, effectively limiting your breaths as well. You squeezed your eyes shut, wondering which one of you would give out or pass out first. It was only a matter of time before you heard Rye’s younger counterpart up and nearing you once more. Rye dug his back into you, pressing you down against the hard floor and effectively crushing you. A tear of pain and hopelessness fled from your closed eye, the first one of this drastically escalating situation as you realized you might finally die from this. 

…Is that what you wanted?

As you held tight to Rye’s neck, you thought it over. You seemed so desperate, so aching to save yourself from drowning after Painter’s influence. 

But after it was said and done that Sebastian had pulled you from Death’s tight grasp, you recalled feeling a sense of…

Disappointment. 

Leaving the living would have freed you from this endless pull of a nightmare. So maybe… if you let go of Rye’s constricting neck… you would have that relief. Or maybe it was the lack of air that was making you want to pass out… forever, even…

You loosened your elbow, pulling it back down to lie at your side and waited for a final, escaping sleep. It’s fine, you told yourself. This is what you wanted. You wanted to evade the pain and regret of life. It was all you knew how to do; to run away when it got hard. So you would just lie back and allow it. For if you feared the hand of Death, then it could not free you from your state of imprisonment. 

You decided to succumb to it, until you heard an ear-ringing slam of something hard on metal. Your eyes shot back open, and the weight on top of you faltered as Rye’s head lifted to meet his eyes with the source of the sound. From beyond the closed doors, opening slowly to the presence of movement behind it, three darkened, clawed hands bathed in the dull red glow that encased the three of you wrenched the metal doors open the rest of the way. Teal eyes contrasted with the red and zeroed in on the tangle of limbs you were in. And as they did, you noticed something that you had never seen before.

Darkness spread on the outer edges of his eyes, revealing pinpricks of teal pupils that shone brighter than you’d ever seen them before. They flicked down to the blood-stained mask lying where his tail met the ground before locking in on the scene before him. Your thoughts of death abandoned you, and the only word that echoed in your mind was: Shit.  

“ You ,” Sebastian’s voice said, low but loud and reverberating all across the walls. It was the first time in a while that it scared you more than the inevitability of death. At first, you believed Sebastian was talking to you, but it was clear when Rye scrambled off of you that you were in fact not a glimpse in Sebastian’s vision. You crawled backwards on trembling arms until you were met with a thick wall, watching the scene unfold. The younger man fled as well, taking to hiding within the confines of a locker.

“...You,” Rye repeated, his voice a whisper compared to Sebastian’s guttural bellowing. “You’re still down here? I see you have… changed.”

This new, timid side of Rye was almost unrecognizable. Here he was scurrying away from Sebastian’s looming form only a moment after just trying to crush you to death and force on a mask that seemed to be more than how it appeared. But… Sebastian was also different. However the two knew each other, there seemed to be more tension than you had ever had with Sebastian, even upon your first meeting. What were you about to witness?  

Sebastian barked out a loud, unhumoured laugh before swerving towards him at a blur of speed. His clawed hand grabbed a hold of Rye’s throat, dragging him across the metal ground and up against the wall where he was held with his feet dangling to meet Sebastian’s cold gaze. 

“I’m going to enjoy every last second of this…” Sebastian growled, tracing a free hand along the sharp edge of Rye’s jaw and leaving a trail of leaking blood in the path of his claw. Rye choked audibly, and you shivered at the sound of his weakening throat and the sputter of blood from his mouth as Sebastian squeezed his airways.

“...It was… a long time… ago…” Rye gagged. “...You were always… like that, Sebastian. Can’t ever… let it go .”

You covered your mouth, unaware of the blood from your hands smearing across your face as you held back your horror. Sebastian was still and silent; too silent. Until he slammed his third fist into the wall next to Rye’s head, eliciting a strangled whimper from Rye’s throat. The fear that reverberated off of Rye seemed… earned.

“ Let it go? ” Sebastian echoed, his voice low and seething through bared teeth. You hadn’t realized until they glinted in the red lighting how sharp his fangs were. You didn’t even know he had fangs until now. “You think I don’t remember every time you used me for parts? Every time you cut me open and sewed me back together like a rag doll?”

Rye seemed to either struggle to find the words or struggle to speak in general from the crushing of his throat underneath smooth claws. 

“You really believe I forgot about the scrutinizing pain I endured while everyone watched and ignored my screams? Spoiler alert, I didn’t .” Sebastian emphasized those last words with a rumbling snarl that came deep from within him. “Not when you turned me into an irreversible monster . Well it looks like karma was on my side this time, yeah ?”

What? What?? You didn’t want to watch. You knew how it would end. Sebastian stood taller than ever before, broad shoulders flexing under his anger. He’d been mad at you, sure, but not like this. No, he was absolutely livid . With context clues from their argument, all you could decipher was that Rye was responsible for Sebastian’s mutated appearance. Maybe he was the experimented human that Rye was heavily boasting about. 

“...I didn’t make you into a monster…” Rye gasped with short, limited breaths. “ You did. ”

With that, you heard the crunch of Rye’s spine and laryngeal muscles before his struggling ceased and he went limp as Sebastian threw him to the ground. This was when a sob did escape you, muffled in the encasement of your hand. But Sebastian didn’t even seem to glance in your direction. Did you really want him to notice you when he was acting like this? What if he came for you next?

But rather than slithering over to you, he took off towards the locker that Rye’s partner had hid in. It was just across the room from you, merely twenty to thirty feet that you watched Sebastian rip open the steel doors, yanking them from their hinges with horrifying speed and strength. They were flung in separate directions, tossed behind Sebastian without a care. His third hand reached to grab at the young guy’s wetsuit, but you shouted out to him before he could. 

It surprised both you and the man underneath the halting claws of his impending doom as it left your mouth, and you realized that as Sebastian was not turning to face you, you had limited time to speak up. 

“Don’t do it,” You croaked out, loud enough for both of them to hear. “Please, don’t…”

Sebastian kept his hard glare on the man, choosing rather than grabbing his throat as he did with Rye to grip the fabric of his wetsuit and pull him close to Sebastian’s face. You could slightly make out the low, grumbling words Sebastian uttered to him.

“...Do you even know what that does?” Sebastian’s free, third hand pointed a long finger at the mask in its same position near the now opened doors. 

The young man quivered and shook his head quickly as short breaths left his fearful, gaping mouth. You could only make out through your blurred, tear-stained vision that under the red light drenching both figures, Sebastian was baring his teeth at the man in his grasp. 

“Yes, clearly you don’t. But clearly you knew enough to decipher that it could do damage beyond recognition to your fellow Expendable over there,” Sebastian snapped. You weren’t sure if the fact that he did recognize you were sitting there shaking like an airplane engine was a good thing. Not in this state he was in. It felt like he wouldn’t stop. 

The man only continued shaking his trembling head with wide eyes. “My group… they were all killed because of that ‘fellow Expendable–’”

“ No ,” Sebastian enunciated harshly as he interjected. “It was their own fault for standing in the path of Blitz. Yeah, I heard him come through here. Your accusation is not plausible .” 

It was only after Sebastian forced those hardened words from his bared teeth that Sebastian held the shaking young man up in the air by the collar of his wetsuit. 

“STOP!” You shouted, your voice echoing across the walls. You attempted to make your voice loud and commanding, but you felt it break just after leaving your throat. “Stop, Sebastian! He doesn’t need to be killed! Don’t… Don’t become the monster they already think you are!”

A pause. A silence. A quickly beating heart thumping in your ears. The dripping of blood mixing with sweat on the palms of your hands. The shaking of a head in the fragile, dark red light.

“I already became… the very thing they didn’t want me to be.”

With that, Sebastian’s left hand stretched out before plunging into the man’s chest and ripping out his heart. His heart. You had no words left in your open mouth when the nameless man dropped to the floor just the same as Rye. Sebastian crushed the organ in his grasp, letting the remaining blood and flesh to drip from his claws. 

So you sat there. And he stood there. Both of you still and drenched in blood, sweat, and grime. You didn’t know how to think. You weren’t even thinking in general. Your mind and thoughts were blank with the shock that infiltrated your system and kept you frozen in time and place. You wanted to ponder and assess what had just happened, but it was all too quick to keep up with. So you just sat. And he just stood. How else could you react beyond staring at the spots where there were two fresh corpses littering the ground and feeling the shiver of fear and shock crawl up your spine?

Maybe it was minutes, maybe it was hours before your ears picked up on the sliding of scales across the metal floor. You glanced up, holding your arms protectively around yourself as Sebastian neared you. His eyes were not focused on you, but rather his blackened sclera and thinned pupils were lost in staring at the wall. You flinched as he stopped just in front of you, keeping a distance of at least five feet. Were you next?

You couldn’t process anything. Again, it all happened so fast. You didn’t even know where to start. Sure, Sebastian saved you, but at what cost? Was it really worth someone’s life? Clearly there was a personal grudge against Rye, but was it actually necessary to kill the other guy? 

You swallowed roughly and made a decision that may or may not have risked your own life. You had to be the bigger person. It was clear Sebastian was not himself. You needed to stop him before this continued any further.

You stood on trembling legs, threatening to give out beneath you, and stepped close enough to Sebastian to grab two of his wrists, where there were no scales as there were on his tail, but rather smooth, bluish skin. The touch smeared more blood than there already was over both of your hands. Even then, as you felt the veins underneath his tough flesh and the ligaments tense at your grip, you refused to let go. Somehow, holding him steady was also keeping you from hyperventilating as the touch grounded you. 

“...I know your patience… and trust… are wearing thin right now,” You whispered slowly. He didn’t seem to be in a stable state of mind, as the seething rage on his face had barely depleted even after killing. “Mine is too. I don’t…”

You choked on your words, forcing back tears and an ugly sob from leaving your mouth. You looked down, instead laying your blurred gaze on the ruffle of white peeking out from his worn, brown jacket. It was the only place eye-level to you that didn’t have splatters of blood staining it.

“...I don’t know how to act or react to what I just saw… to what I just encountered from those people…Or from you,” You managed to say breathlessly. “But whatever is going on in your head right now, I need you to snap out of it. Please… After what just happened I don’t think… I shouldn’t have to be the one calming you .”

After seeming to take a minute to breath and consider your words, Sebastian finally shifted his eyes to look down into yours. You weren’t sure what he was thinking. You couldn’t read him at all.

“It’s okay, it’s okay… You’re here and I’m here, and we’re okay…” You repeated, hanging your head and hoping to get through to him with soft enough encouragement. But it was also said… to yourself. You continued to echo those words until the gasping cry managed to escape you as the weight of what you experienced finally dawned on your mind. You crumpled to the floor, releasing his wrists as your legs gave out.

And then you were caught just before hitting the ground, all three arms latching onto your own limbs to keep you upright and hold you steady. They were shaking, but you hardly noticed as your mind spiraled. He just killed two people. After they were trying to kill you. Oh God… Oh God… Oh God, oh God…

This was too much to process in such little time. 

You wanted to run away. Like you were used to doing. Turn from Sebastian and Painter and everything out to kill you and run from it all. 

Instead, you fell into the trembling grasp of Sebastian’s cold arms unintentionally.

It wasn’t right to want to lean into him.  

For how could you trust the hands that spilled blood just to have an illusion of safety?

Chapter Text

“I’m sorry.” 

Sebastian’s cracking voice cut past the heightened thoughts spilling throughout your head. He sounded distant.

“I didn’t… mean to kill them. I couldn’t stop.”

You looked up at him to see his eyes were no longer madly enraged, but displayed their normal teal with no blackened outer edges. His eyebrows furrowed up into creases on his face. 

The words spilled from your mouth before you could stop them. “No, no, I’m so, so sorry, Sebastian… I should have just stayed put in that room like you told me to, like I was expected to do, but I thought I could delay those people from getting to the crystal so it would help you further, at least so you could get to us in time… But it didn’t work and they turned out to be insane , and trust me, I ran , but I couldn’t run fast enough before they caught up and Rye… he tackled me and punched me, and I’ve been in fights before, but not like that… No, he was trying to kill me, even though he said he wasn’t, and–”

“Hey.” It was Sebastian’s turn to grab your own wrists and hold them firmly at your sides. “You can tell me later, when we’ve both calmed down enough to talk it through, yeah?”

You let a huff of breath through your still-open mouth and decided to close it with a nod. You were too worked up to even think. You needed an outlet. 

“Is… there anywhere we can wash off?” You asked in a whisper, noticing and attempting to contain the quiver residing in your hands. Sebastian’s own, bloody claws still encased your wrists as he nodded, but he had a gentler hold on them rather than the tight grip he had when he was prying you out of your own thoughts. Now, they still echoed in the back of your mind and reminded you with gory images over and over of the events that had just unfolded. But maybe it was Sebastian’s presence of touch that dulled them ever so slightly, or maybe it was the sound of his voice keeping you down to earth. 

That realization that he was the one keeping you grounded sent your hands shooting out of his grasp before a flush could even reach your face. You kept them close to your chest protectively, but you didn’t miss the confusion and maybe even the slight disappointment that flashed on his face, even if just for a second. But you couldn’t bring yourself to feel guilty, not when you just witnessed a homicide of several people. Could you even call it that? Most of them died to the rush of Blitz down the hallway, so did that actually count as murder? 

You shivered as you watched Sebastian take off towards where the mask was dropped and picked it up with a sour expression on his face. He shoved it in a zip-up bag close to the base of his tail and took the lead, slithering off in one direction. You just kept your head down and your arms hugging your torso as you followed the movement of his tail in front of you. How much more of this could you take until you crumbled? The traumatic experiences you’d encountered almost every day in the Blacksite seemed to crack your sanity and confidence every time you thought you felt safe for even a moment.

But no. Safety didn't exist in a place such as the Blacksite. You had to come to terms with that or you’d never make it out alive. 

You huffed in sarcastic amusement. ‘Alive.’ Only a bit ago were you succumbing to the veil of death, and now you were fine with living? You couldn’t make up your mind. It seemed like even when you got the chance to make everything finally end, something just kept pulling you right back to the land of the living. But even when it wasn’t… you still found a reason to keep going. What exactly was that reason anyway?

“Hey,” Sebastian said in an unfamiliar, soft-spoken voice. He paused his movement forward to allow you to catch up and walk next to him rather than behind him. 

“...Hi.” You kept your head low, not finding it in you to look at him.

“I’m sorry you had to see… everything,” Sebastian admitted. “It wasn’t what I intended.”

You didn’t respond, only swallowing the sour taste in your mouth. Usually when he was apologizing, it meant he had something more to say. 

“But look, you’re going to have to get used to the sight of death pretty quickly,” Sebastian added, and you almost snorted for knowing he was going to say that. “Neither of us can control it. It’s either us or them . We all want to go home, you know.”

He said the last part with a low tone, quiet enough to make you wonder if he actually said it or if your mind was playing tricks on you. Was his home even… standing anymore? How long has it been since he’s returned to the surface? How long has it been for you since you’ve seen the natural light of day?

“I’m not… mad at you, Sebastian,” You clarified with a sigh as you delicately touched the soreness forming on your cheek. “What you did… It scared me. I’m still trying to process it in my own way.”

Sebastian hesitated before responding. “Did my actions scare you… or did I scare you?”

“...A little bit of both,” is all you could answer him with. You weren’t sure what you were so afraid of, but the entire experience was making your head pound and your body feel cold as it shivered even after the event took place. Maybe it was because you watched several people die. Or maybe because it was someone you considered a friend who caused two of those deaths. 

“You know why I chose a life of crime? ” You asked without looking up. Your eyes were trained on the metal floors below you as you walked, following the grated texture as it gleamed in reflections of the overhead lights. “You know, stealing high-value art pieces… the whole ‘white collar’ deal. It wasn’t because it was the only option. Trust me, I had my options laid out in front of me. I chose to do it because it seemed to be the only thing that I could do… good. I mean, I escaped my orphanage when I was just a teenager, so I guess I’ve always had that knack for… running away.”

Sebastian was quiet as you talked, which was unfamiliar as he was usually the one yapping about whatever entity he felt like giving a speech about. This time he seemed to actually listen.

“But that’s all it was; running. I realized as I grew up that I wasn’t just good at stealing things, but also making it look like I never did in the first place in order to avoid further issues. It’s like I have a built-in gene that makes me run from every problem that comes my way. It was easy, and I took advantage of that,” You explained, gritting your teeth in your own self-pity. “So… I haven’t experienced much violence or even killing in all my years avoiding the law. I know if I ever did, I’d just run away from that too.”

Sebastian stopped in his tracks and you finally titled your head up to look at him. It was quite a different sight from how he looked earlier as he killed two men right in front of you. Now he just looked… sympathetic. 

“I know that I can't expect you to immediately… adapt to how things run down here,” Sebastian sighed knowingly. “But you need to try if you intend on escaping. You said you’re good at that, yeah? So let’s focus on what’s ahead of us rather than behind us.”

You considered his words before shaking your head, your voice no higher than his.

“...I can’t just forget what happened.”

“And I’m not asking you to. But what’s done is done, whether you and I like it or not.” Sebastian combed a hand through his dark hair, brushing it back to reveal his face more before it all falls back into place. “...You know how I see it? I see that you’re not running from your crimes, you’re running towards them. You live for the thrill of whatever might lie in the next locked safe, and that is what you’re chasing. The cops are just trying to keep up .”

You cracked a smile, breaking through the cage of your mind even just a bit. You weren’t sure why he was telling you this, but it did make you feel better. Slightly. It didn’t change anything, though. You still felt partially responsible for the deaths of several people. No amount of encouragement from Sebastian could deter you from thinking that you were partly to blame.

“Look, I’m not one for sentimentality, but I appreciate what you did,” Sebastian mentioned. It wasn’t like him to continue spilling emotional thoughts like this. Maybe he really was feeling guilty. As he should, for murdering two people. “And… I can’t believe I just said that… But, in all honesty, I didn’t think you’d actually try to help me.”

You shot him a confused look as the two of you returned to your pace down the widened hallways. 

“We made a deal, Sebastian,” You reminded him. You hadn’t broken a single pact with him since the moment you stumbled upon his shop. So why was he still skeptical?

“Yeah, well…” Sebastian scoffed and crossed two of his arms over his broad chest, ruffling the collar on his white undershirt beneath his jacket. “You wouldn’t have been the first to break a promise with me.”

You sighed quietly, turning your eyes away from him once more to stare at the ground instead. He must’ve been betrayed an awful lot in order to obtain such massive trust issues. Hell, you wished you had trust issues. It would’ve stopped you from trying to befriend the giant fish man for the umpteenth time. You hoped, even if he didn’t want to know you as a technical ‘friend,’ that he at least respected you like one. Besides, that term seemed rather one-sided …

Should you even be thinking about whatever complicated relationship you had with him when you just witnessed him strangle a man and tear out the heart of another? You didn’t know. You didn’t know how to feel about anything right now. Although you did feel an overlying guilt for their deaths, you couldn’t bring yourself to be… mad. You had every reason to go off on Sebastian for his impulsive and quite irreversible actions, and yet you couldn’t help but realize instead that he’d been there when you needed him. As Rye was crushing you to death, Sebastian was there for you, whether it was for the right reasons or not. And obviously he killed Rye for his own personal grudges, but he defended you against the young, shorter man’s accusations. If that didn’t show a little bit of respect, you weren’t sure what would. 

So you trembled slightly as you reached the area Sebastian mentioned, out of remorse and guilt for not trying to stop people from dying, rather than any fear or anger towards Sebastian. How many times had he saved your life now? Enough to clear any feelings of hatred against him.

You were about to count those times until you saw scales slither past your form and into the room Sebastian mentioned. You looked up and your lips parted in shock. It looked… vaguely familiar. Expansive and wider than any regular room, obviously, as it was in fact… a loading dock. In rusting white, ‘ #0016 ’ stood out on the back wall. A large pool of water, big enough to fit at least four average submarines, rippled in a quiet, untouched rhythm. But what caught your eye the most was the waterfall near the back wall, pouring in the wide pool with glistening rushes of scattered droplets. They reflected the bright, overhead lights in a way that glimmered every now and then. It was the tallest waterfall you’d ever seen in person, coming from a gap in the ceiling. 

You looked to Sebastian only to find him already gone, snaking off on the dry path that curved around the contained water. He seemed to be hanging his head and shielding his eyes from the light as he quickly made his way across the cemented floor. You jogged to keep up with him, scanning the loading dock’s every feature in amazement. Despite the living nightmare this place could be, it sure did have wondrous sights that could only be found in the Blacksite. As the cemented path ended, you paused and waited for Sebastian to make a move as you weren’t sure what you were doing at the very corner of the area. 

“It’s an abandoned dock,” Sebastian said before you could ask, squinting to see. “Never finished construction after Urbanshade discovered the erosion on the rocks just above the ceiling. I didn’t come as often after I set up shop around door 50, but I used to for the view… and the free shower.”

He cleared his throat, gesturing for you to follow him with a flick of his hand as he found a downwards metal staircase at the back wall. You traced his tail’s path with your own steps until there were no more steps to take. It was clear that the staircase hadn’t finished being built, making you jump to reach the rocky terrain below. It was darker down below the dock, save for the bright lights above you that ever so slightly cascaded down and illuminated the area enough to be visible. Despite the rushing waterfall that Sebastian was nearing with you following close behind, the water level was lower than it should have been, allowing for the rocky, beach-like ground to be walked on. Oh, how you missed the beach. If this was the closest thing you could get to a beach, you would take it. 

Down out of reach from the bright lights, you noticed Sebastian’s eyes glowed and opened fully again. Suddenly, you stopped as you thought. Sebastian wasn’t bringing you here to get cleaned up… was he? He mentioned it as a ‘free shower,’ but you weren’t sure if going for a swim in unprotected waters was what you needed. Especially after hardly surviving a drowning experience… Another little act of Painter’s. 

“Wait, you’re not suggesting we wash off in the waterfall, right?” You asked cautiously. Although the drying blood stuck to your skin and made your wetsuit cling to your body, you weren’t so sure about risking everything just for a rinse-off. Sebastian just chuckled menacingly without looking over his shoulder. He reached the edge of the rocky ground, where it met with the dark water. You did not follow, standing right where you stopped. Only then did Sebastian turn, stretching all three of his arms. 

“What’s wrong? Not afraid of a little water, are you?” Sebastian sneered. You eyed the water but couldn’t bring yourself to move towards him. “Look, it’s incredibly shallow at this spot. There is no way you could drown.”

“Only takes an inch of water to drown,” You stated abruptly, shaking your head. Sebastian dropped his arms from their stretch above his head and sighed. 

“I won’t let it happen.”

“Sebastian, you just took the lives of two people. As much as I am thankful for you stepping in, you could take my life as well.”

Sebastian winced at the last words, but seemed to think it over before groaning. With his third hand on his hip and another pinching the bridge of his nose, he nodded. 

“Okay, alright,” He conceded. You noticed that the tip of his tail, where it morphed into a large blue fin, dipped in, likely to test the temperature of the water that lapped slowly onto the rocky ground. After doing so, Sebastian undid the buttons on his worn, blood-stained brown jacket and slipped it off the rest of the way. It almost didn’t feel right to see him in just his gear and the white undershirt that was left on his torso, even if there was nothing indecent to show. He held out the jacket to you patiently, although an annoyed frown was evident on his lips. 

Hesitantly, you stepped across the smoothened, rocky terrain crossing your path to him and grabbed the jacket with caution. It smelled, unfortunately, of metal and blood, but you also caught a faint whiff of a beachy scent. Maybe without the mix of death and gore layered onto the article of clothing, it would’ve smelled nice as your fingers curled around the fabric. 

“What am I doing with this?” You quipped, scrunching your nose as you glanced at it. 

“That,” Sebastian cleared his throat, nodding towards the bundle in your hands. “...Is your flotation device.”

You stared at him. He stared back blankly. For the first time in a while, you let out a breathy laugh. 

“This… this is just a regular jacket!” You said between cackles, holding up the dirty jacket to his face. He leaned back with irritation splayed out on his features as he let you get it out of your system. “How am I supposed to float with this? If anything, it'll carry more weight and sink me further!”

Sebastian raised an eyebrow until you stopped in your fit of humorous snickering before reaching out and taking it back from you. With his third hand, he smoothed it over to find something within the wrinkles. Whatever he was looking for, he must’ve found in the process of scanning it over as the sleeves began to puff out along with the rest of it, stretching the fabric tightly. You stared with concern furrowing your eyebrows. 

“What the hell…?” You muttered, taking a single, small step back.

As it finished expanding, Sebastian placed the newly formed jacket back into your hands with a pat on the top.

“I’m not sure I told you that I used to work down here as an engineer,” Sebastian mentioned with a small chuckle as he rolled up the sleeves on his fully revealed, white undershirt, right up to the elbow. “They called me the Handyman. Let’s just say I learned quite a few tricks in my time spent down here.”

“Like making a life jacket out of a regular one?” You scoffed at the brilliance of this guy. Not that you would ever admit it to his face, of course. But it almost felt like the thrill of a challenger, matching your own intelligence. And yes, you very much credited yourself for your wit and intellect. 

You searched the jacket for whatever Sebastian did to make it puff up, but you couldn’t even find a hint of what made it change. You weren’t exactly an expert in makeshift gear, but it surprised you at how Sebastian could just… make a regular jacket into something like this. So, you put it on while avoiding the spot of pain on your cheek and admiring how it was big enough to drape past your knees and not feel tight in any way. In your fascination, you almost forgot about the scene that took place just barely a couple hours ago and had riddled your head with confusion. Almost. It still rooted itself like the haze of a nightmare in the back of your mind. 

You gritted your teeth, the small smirk that upturned your lips were replaced quickly by a frown. You wanted to ignore the twist in your stomach as you recalled earlier events, but you didn’t want to forget about it. 

“I’ve never seen this side of you before,” Sebastian blurted out, interrupting your train of thought. 

“What do you mean?”

“I saw the way your face changed. When I handed you the jacket, it had a lighthearted smirk; the one you wear when you think you’re right… But now I can barely recognize you when you look so guilty and… sad,” Sebastian explained thoroughly. You weren’t sure whether to be offended or not. 

You scoffed, turning your head to catch another glimpse at the waterfall behind him. Just looking at his chiding eyes was irritating enough for you.

“Yeah, well… it’s been a rough couple of days,” You said through your teeth. “Give me a break, dude.”

“Womp womp.”

This was the part when your head whipped back towards him and shot a surprised glare directly into his eyes. 

“...Excuse me??”

“Oh, sorry. What I meant to say was… get over it! ” Sebastian snapped. Your dropped jaw should have been the telltale sign that he should shut up. And yet he did not, in fact, shut up. “You’re not going to be much of a help to me if you’re constantly stuck in the past. Get. Over. It. I know it hurts and I know it makes you want to give up to the point of taking your own life . Yes, I saw when I broke through the doors that your arms could have worked to stop him, but you were just laying there and waiting for him to kill you.”

You attempted to speak up, maybe to defend yourself, maybe to agree with him, but Sebastian held up a clawed finger and promptly got you to shut your mouth again. 

“Trust me, I know how you are feeling. I’ve been there. But you gotta keep moving forward with me now , or you won’t have the opportunity to again. Look, those people that died? They were on Death Row for a reason . They were very set on killing you, so take their deaths as a lesson, not as an excuse to give up.”

“I didn’t even say anything,” You cut in before he could berate you any further. 

“You didn’t have to,” Sebastian sighed. “The look on your face said everything. I’m only going to say this once: If you don’t get your act together real quick and accept that there will be gruesome experiences down here, I will leave you to die as well.”

You searched Sebastian’s face for a sign of lying or trickery, but were confused as to why you couldn’t find a trace of anything. It wasn’t like him to be so concerned, and to replicate that emotion in his eyes as they stared you down and waited for a response. He was right. Like usual, and like you despised him for. Sometimes the truth ached. And you knew you needed to let it go, because nothing was going to change the fact that those were strangers, and they did die. You couldn’t just reverse that.

“...Where is all of this coming from?” You whispered to him under your breath. Sebastian blew air from his nose and glanced around the area. He didn’t respond for quite a while.

“I’m just… Y’know, I’m saying all of this to you, but to be honest I’m a bit… shaken up too. I really didn’t mean to kill the other guy.”

You tilted your head at him, tugging at the ends of the jacket billowing around you from the blow of air rushing near the base of the waterfall. 

“Did you want to talk about it?” You whispered hesitantly. You figured it was best to ask, as he didn’t usually like speaking up about his issues. 

Sebastian combed through his hair with his hand, revealing his third, glowing eye. 

“Not… really,” he admitted. “Maybe one day I’ll tell you, but… all you need to know is that Rye got what he deserved, so don’t think about his death too much. He might’ve thought I was a monster for what I did, and shit , you can think that too. But I don’t regret killing him .”

Sebastian said those words with a snarl that resonated deep within his throat, his eyes glaring at nothing in particular. You figured it was best to drop it. 

And so, despite the fear raking up your spine at the sight of that dark, cold water that had almost drowned you once, you took a step past Sebastian and into the ripples. It was indeed icy cold, the same as before, but you were very grateful that you could touch the smooth rocks below. Somehow, the feeling of the dried blood littered over your wetsuit and hands washing off in the water soothed you in a way you definitely needed. 

After a moment of shivering and attempting to adapt to the temperature, you heard Sebastian start to remove some of the bags strapped to his tail. You watched with curiosity as he placed a certain, larger and oddly shaped bag far from the water. He then slipped in after you and sent cascading ripples all around. He came close enough to be within earshot, but he didn’t near you any further than that as he sank down until he was only above water from the chest-up. You eyed him with a frown, hugging your arms around yourself. His jacket was definitely keeping you somewhat warmer than you would’ve been without it, but the cold still crept up your skin. 

“What’s in that?” You nodded your head to the strange bag he had just placed on the stone floor. Sebastian didn’t even have to look for him to display an uncomfortable frown on his face.

“It… doesn’t matter,” He said after a moment of hesitation. There he goes again . “That information is irrelevant.”

“Actually, it’s entirely relevant because I asked for it.”

Sebastian pursed his lips into a line on his face. “You are annoyingly persistent.”

You let out a short laugh with a smug grin tugging at the corners of your mouth. Of course you were persistent. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t get into places so easily, and you’d actually have friends. 

“Not sure why you’re so hesitant to trust me for even the slightest things. After all this time together.”

You received a sharp glare from that comment. 

“Expendables are here for one thing and one thing only. None of them can be trusted,” Sebastian snapped coldly. Bam . An arrow of disappointment straight through your heart. Even though… you should have expected that kind of response. 

“...Alright. That’s fine,” You sighed. You were slightly used to it by now. Giving and never receiving. He wasn’t required to give you any sort of personal information, and you never wanted to force it. “You just have so many bags, and I know not all of them are for research… so I was just curious.”

Sebastian wrinkled his nose, considering your words as he pulled a rock up from under the water and tossed it in his hands. 

“...Maybe I’ll show you later. Maybe . The bags are necessary for keeping an eye on every item.”

You cracked a smile and nodded. You noticed the zip-up bag containing the odd mask from earlier was not in the pile on the dry ground, but rather still attached to him securely underneath the water. Whatever it was or had the ability of doing, it was one that Sebastian seemed very guarded about.

“What was the deal with the mask?” You decided to ask. It couldn’t hurt anyway, since you were the one they tried to force it on. 

Sebastian clicked his tongue, rolling his shoulders. “They didn’t even tell you?”

You shook your head, remembering Rye’s very words when he and his little group tried to push it onto your face. It was strange… Why did he want you to wear it so badly? Had he really just… lost it? Or was there a reason behind his psychotic behavior? 

“Rye kept saying how he wasn’t trying to kill me…” You recalled. “He seemed fairly confident that the mask wouldn’t. But he wanted to see what it did after reading its file… For some reason, I think he believed it would benefit them if I wore it.”

Sebastian made a “hm” sound, folding his arms over his chest. Now that his sleeves were rolled up and the white appeared more translucent in the water, you could more clearly see his toned arms as they glistened from the sheen of water dripping from them. You imagined they had been working overtime in such a rough environment as the Blacksite. You stared a bit… from the forearm, to the bicep, to the shoulder– 

You caught yourself before you could continue and bit hard against the inside of your cheek. No. Bad. Don’t do that. Something was very wrong with how your brain worked at times. 

“No… he was right about one thing; it wouldn’t have killed you,” Sebastian sighed, knocking you straight from your trance. You raised an eyebrow at his words as you forced yourself to listen. “But it would have mutated your body beyond recognition. It’s a parasite . And… It was one of the reasons I lost control. I just… I saw it and… I don’t know. I know what it does .”

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” You were quick to say, waving your hands defensively. Sebastian shook his head in response. 

“No, I need you to know. Because that thing; it is one of the most dangerous items here,” Sebastian explained sternly. You gulped, glancing at the zip-up bag through the blurred ripples that he had shoved it in earlier. “It’s called the Mask of Sadness. Remember that name. It will feed on anything and any one if someone were to wear it. Those people you encountered were likely going to use you once you had it on to destroy any entity that got in their way. I need you to understand that it is a good thing they didn’t get to the crystal.”

Something in your mind clicked, and suddenly the haze of guilt encasing it was gone. 

“...Because then they’d have free reign… on the surface… with the mask of sadness at their control,” You realized aloud, covering your mouth in shock as you felt a wave of nausea overcome your senses. “Oh my god… Rye almost… he almost used me to get his way… And he would’ve had the chance to go free!”

Sebastian tilted his head at you and nodded. “Believe me when I say that none of them deserved a second chance. Especially Rye .”

Now you were incredibly curious about what Rye did while he wasn’t sentenced to Death Row, and it burned you to know that Sebastian wasn’t ready to tell you. Something happened between them, that much was clear. 

“Second chances are a myth,” You scoffed. “...But I still don’t think killing them was the answer. I hate to say it, but even with Rye.”

Sebastian rolled his eyes and flicked his tail up to the surface for a brief moment, splashing water over your head. You covered your face with a yelp.

“You really like to hold grudges, huh?” Sebastian smirked. “It’s not like you were the one I killed.”

You pushed away the thought in your mind that whispered, ‘ But he could have.’

“I’m not holding a grudge, I’m just reminding you so it breaches through that thick skull of yours.” You tapped on your own head to show him. “So you learn for the future. You’re welcome.”

“Wow. Yeah. I feel so blessed to have you here,” Sebastian said in a monotone, sarcastic voice, throwing the rock that he’d been holding far across the water. You laughed, and it felt genuinely good to do so after dealing with… everything, really. He smirked in return, flipping strands of hair out of his face. 

You winced at the way it fell into oily parts around his face. He took notice of your staring, as usual, and furrowed his eyebrows. 

“What?”

“It’s just… are you going to wash that?” You asked through gritted teeth. Sebastian raised an eyebrow. 

“My hair? I mean… It goes through water almost every day. Isn’t that enough?” 

You almost threw up in your mouth a little. How long has he gone down here without washing the mop on his head?

“No?? You need to actually soak it; scrub the grease out,” You suggested. “You know, just do something to clean it!”

Sebastian frowned, narrowing his eyes at you. “I don’t understand why this is a concern of yours. I’ve gone just fine with how it is.”

You twisted your face in anguish, looking him up and down. 

“...What. What. Why is your face doing that?” Sebastian backed away slowly, likely because you looked like you were having a seizure. In reality, you just couldn’t stand to think about how nasty his hair must be, and you searched your mind for any time that you might’ve touched it. 

“Okay, look, it’s really bothering me. I don’t want to accidentally touch it and get infected with a disease. I will wash it myself if you don’t,” You declared, shaking your head. Sebastian let out a short, barking laugh. 

“Yeah, no thank you. Your grubby hands will probably mess it up more anyway,” Sebastian grumbled and reluctantly sank into the water. You watched through distorted, dark currents as he dragged his claws through every strand deliberately, scrubbing enough to make a slight difference. Too bad there wasn’t any soap you could find, even in the bathrooms you stumbled upon every now and then. Most of them had collected enough dust and mold to be completely unusable. 

After a good while, Sebastian came back up and flipped his now wet hair back, smoothing it over with his hand. It was weird to see him without the loose strands falling into place and covering most of his features. Now you could clearly see his third eye and the finned ears that flicked away droplets of water. At times like this, he almost seemed majestic… in a way. 

“You should be less worried about my hair and more about that bruise of yours. Anyhow , onto more pressing matters,” Sebastian muttered, flexing his finger in front of him. “I am in the process of a plan.”

“A plan?” You echoed, brushing your fingers against the bruise as you suddenly became self-aware of it. You hoped the mark wasn’t too colorful.

“I figured we’d need one if we both plan on escaping,” Sebastian explained. “It does require a bit of a detour though…”

You thought it over before nodding and letting him continue. You weren’t far from the 100th door anyway, so a detour wouldn’t change your position much. 

Sebastian drifted closer to you in the water and spoke in a low voice. “So, I’ve been thinking. I’m assuming you don’t know much about N.A.V.I., yeah?”

A shake of your head egged him on. 

“She’s an A.I. unit tasked with operating the systems here in the Blacksite. And see, I was wondering why she hadn’t detonated your diving gear after you left the designated path, until I realized you probably never even heard a whisper from her because of… me.”

You shot your head up at the mention of detonating your diving gear and snapped your fingers in recognition of the subject.

“...Because I was with you practically the whole time!” You realized, earning a knowing grin from Sebastian. “And that scrambler on your back must’ve messed with the connection! That’s what Rye was talking about…”

“Yes, precisely. And we can use that to our advantage,” Sebastian pointed out. Oh, now you were interested. It seemed like… a heist was just around the corner. It made your skin tingle with anticipation. “See, she’s closing the external bulkhead to most of the loading docks due to the lockdown, including the one I need access to. But if we can reach her database–”

“--Then we can either shut her down or change the security protocols,” You finished the thought. The two of your matching, shit-eating grins were all the confidence you needed to go through with this plan. Up until now, you weren’t exactly sure how Sebastian planned to escape, as Urbanshade didn’t seem to want to bring him to the surface. But this plan changed that. 

However, as you thought it over, you realized a crucial detail in his plan. 

“So uh… if we do shut down Nappy, or whatever the name was… what would you do once you got to the dock you mentioned specifically?” You pointed out. Sebastian looked down at you with hesitation written on his face, as if he didn’t want to tell you. You were noticing a lot of secrets from a guy willing to work with you on something so significant and impactful. 

“...There’s a submarine going to pick me up there,” is all he responded with as his head turned away. A pang echoed in your heart; as if you hadn’t been hardly answered like this before. Maybe you just thought that with the lighthearted conversation and the trauma bonding… you might have sparked something within him to open up to you more. It felt… saddening to be so vulnerable just to receive more secrets and whatever other information he didn’t want to share with you. 

You bet he shared his life with Painter . 

You weren’t sure where the thought came from or why it sounded so malicious, but it did make you wonder why Sebastian valued a killing machine more than anything else. Then again, he did just murder two people in front of you, so maybe they were more similar. It still felt lonely, though. Even though he had your back most of the time, he didn’t actually trust you. He never did, and maybe he never would. 

“Uh… wait. Do you even know where this A.I. is located?” You piped up suddenly. Sebastian scratched the back of his head without looking at you. 

“Mm… not exactly. I already asked for help on that, however.”

You raised an eyebrow. “Help? Who is helping?”

“...Painter.”

Your hands crumpled slightly into fists by your side just at the mention of the name. Oh, so now Painter was willing to help you? It seemed like not too long ago, he was trying to drown you instead. You decided that your mind was made up. You wanted a word with him. Privately. 

So as the two of you agreed it was time to go, you walked behind Sebastian’s trail in silence after he packed up and shook some of the loose droplets off of himself as you were drifting in and out of a string collection of thoughts. He had long since stopped searching for loose assets; another thing he didn’t bother elaborating on. You suspected he probably just found enough of what he needed. Whatever… ‘enough’ was. It didn’t matter. You were set on your next goal as you trailed behind him in your dripping wetsuit.

You thought everything over in your head once again, knowing once you both got some rest in an office room, the next day you’d be battling an A.I. with control over the entire Blacksite. You thought about the Mask of Sadness, sitting idly in a bag at the base of Sebastian’s tail. You thought over the deaths of several people and wondered what would have happened if you had joined their group and split from Sebastian. They were bad people, you knew that. But so were you. Even if you weren’t involved in anything violent, you weren’t innocent in the slightest. Maybe you would’ve fit right in if you had calmed your nerves enough… 

Thinking about that didn’t make you feel better.

But you were learning things about yourself as Sebastian set up to rest in a small office area, propping his tail partially up on a tipped-over locker. You were learning that although you still felt guilty about the death of the nameless, young man, you realized you let it happen. You just sat there and waited for Sebastian to drop the guy to the floor as a limp and lifeless corpse. 

You learned about yourself that maybe you were getting through to him ever so slightly as Sebastian turned to you and finally opened up in the slightest way when he unzipped the large bag you’d questioned him about. Even as he pulled a detailed painting of a sunset from the bag and explained that it was for Painter. It wasn’t high quality. In fact, it was a brutally tainted copy. But you were learning that you didn’t have the guts to tell him at the time.

You learned about yourself that you found Sebastian’s face kinda cute when he fell asleep in that little office, his back turned towards the wall so he faced every possible area. You also learned to take advantage of his lack of awareness at that moment. 

So you slipped out from the door in the quiet, stealth mode you’d trained yourself to have and wandered the halls alone with nothing but your flashlight in hand. Something you already knew about yourself was how you craved vengeance on those purposefully making your life difficult. You knew that deep down you weren’t a killer, but you had learned from the constant death that erupted around you earlier that day… that it was inevitable. His death would be inevitable. Maybe that’s why Sebastian tried to keep him a secret at first. He knew there would be someone to take action. But you wouldn’t be the one to kill him, no. 

You stepped into the same, expansive halls that you had run to before, where everything took place. Everything . Your feet hit the metal floors as you scanned every room possible. You realized as you thought it all over that you regretted ever wanting to kill Painter in the first place. You didn’t want to, not really… Not after your first-hand experience with the concept of death. You didn’t want that for Sebastian or for yourself. 

All you wanted was… a few choice words with him. That’s it. 

Sebastian didn’t need to know. 

If he wanted to keep secrets…

Then so did you. 

Chapter Text

Let’s be completely clear.

You did not want to kill Painter. 

At least, that’s what you told yourself in your head as you scoured the area, avoiding the one hallway where a particular abundance of death took place. You didn’t want to see the bodies or the blood rotting in place there. 

You actually rehearsed what you’d say when you found Painter; starting over when you found yourself getting aggressive. Well… he did shoot you with turrets and leave you in crippling pain as you bled out all over the place. And then he tried to drown you and make you look into the eyes of an entity to take over your mind. So there’s that.

“Hello, Painter,” You greeted the empty air ahead of you. “Funny seeing you here– No, that’s stupid. Hey… Painter– Ugh, no…”

See, the key to succeeding is to control frustration.

To keep the mind clear of anger.

That is how anyone can manage to achieve anything. It’s what you’d been told all your life by all the same do-gooders that had a problem with your anger issues. You didn’t even realize you had anger issues until Sadie made an effort of pointing it out every time it slipped through. You shivered at the thought. Your mind had actually been clear and silent in the aspect of memories and… her, so it definitely startled you at the sudden mention of her name in your thoughts. 

Control your frustration, her voice echoed in your head.

Yeah, bullshit. You were beginning to get frustrated past the point of doing anything about it. In fact, you had kicked your foot against a desk a little while earlier after thinking you’d found Painter…Therefore resulting in making you stumble your way around for a bit as the desk had been metal. When you pictured it in your head, you had thought getting past Sebastian would be difficult, but clearly it was actually finding Painter that proved a challenge. At every turned corner that came back empty-handed, you threw your head back and groaned out of your growing frustration. 

All sorts of odd, mysterious objects were placed meticulously within several side rooms, and even with your previous experience, you couldn’t possibly identify the artifacts. A singular room you had found displayed a wall of paintings, which you found brought a smile to your face in such a dreary setting. Of course, as you scanned them you realized that only a few were actually authentic… Except for one. 

You had to step closer, because you couldn’t really trust if your eyes were working right. Hanging low in the corner of the collage of paintings was a small, detailed landscape. You noticed as you squinted, zeroing your focus on the detail and technique that the brushstrokes were quite expressive… vivid and showing movement. You tilted your head to view it from a side angle, humming in thought at the thick layer of paint built onto the canvas. Impasto, your brain whispered to you. The painting, of course, was the Hay Wain by John Constable. And this was absolutely authentic; the original piece. 

You leaned back with a smug grin; not just at your identification of the work, but of how much it made you eager to find something within this place that you could properly understand. Maybe you would even trade it as a peace offering to Painter. 

…Right. Painter. 

You sighed, carefully wrapping your fingers around the cold wooden frame and setting it gently inside the pouch on your leg. It was sticking out quite noticeably, but it didn’t matter. You continued on, walking stiffly with the flat rectangle flush against your leg. You wondered as you walked if there was something Sebastian had; something that was just for him to enjoy. 

Stealing wasn’t your passion, no. You did that because you just happened to be good at sneaking in and running away. You just had an appreciation for art in general, and that’s what made you smile after rough days. Looking at a real masterpiece thrown precisely on a canvas. Or maybe just on paper, or on clay, a computer, maybe even right on the sidewalk…

But you never saw much of what Sebastian seemed to like. Did he like anything? You’d have to ask him later. The abandoned loading dock with the waterfall seemed to be his favorite place to go, as he didn’t make much of a move to leave for the longest time when he took you. But that was about as far as you could get to the basis of his preferences. 

And so you continued further down the halls. 

And further.

Looking in every room you possibly could. But it seemed the area would stretch much farther down than you were willing to go. You blinked with tired, unfocused eyes at the electronic servers sprinkled over the edges of the hallway you stood in. Was it even worth it to check…? There were servers everywhere, so this wasn’t a new sight. Every next hallway seemed endless and every next door seemed unnecessary and fruitless. Besides, Sebastian would likely wake up with how long you’d been gone and notice you were missing. To be fair, he disappeared and left quite often. You were your own person and you were allowed to go where you wanted and when you wanted. 

Whatever. You were losing more than you were gaining just being there. So, with one last glance at the servers surrounding you, you turned your back and left in the direction you came. You pondered everything on the way back, feeling the halls and rooms go by much quicker without the need to check every side door. 

You hadn’t felt this way… in a while. And you weren’t sure if it was just about Painter. A fog of dreadful hopelessness plagued your head and dragged across each of your thoughts with an existential question. Was any of this worth it?

You frowned as you neared the office you left Sebastian in, thinking the question over. You didn’t have an answer at the moment, and maybe you never would. But it was there, it would always be there, and it was definitely something to consider when making the decisions you did. You were impulsive at heart, that was for sure, but with the extra hesitation as you asked yourself that question dulled it down ever so slightly. 

…In the end, would it all be worth it? All the pain, all the fear, all the death…

You stopped at the door to the office, forced shut to keep out any wandering entities. 

All the… bonding. Growth of a friendship. Talking when you should have been sleeping. Risking your life as it was risked for you. Feeling like maybe… you weren’t so alone in all of this. 

That was also something to consider when you asked yourself that. 

And so you reached for the door handle, twisting it gently and carefully so as to not alert your presence. You slid it open with slow and precise movements, shutting it behind you when you stepped inside the dark office room. You released a quiet but long sigh of relief when it clicked closed again. 

…Until a throat was cleared within the room. 

Sebastian flicked the esca hanging from his head until it blared into your eyes brighter than you had seen it before. You squinted, raising a hand to block it from your vision as the rest of your limbs froze in place. Damn.

You waited for him to speak his mind, to yell at you… y’know, say something, but he just raised his eyebrows as if daring you to try and defend yourself. Challenging. You were good with lying your way out of things, but you didn’t exactly want to dig yourself a deeper hole.

“I’m allowed to go out,” You blurted before he could shoot you the same look any longer. 

Sebastian frowned at your statement like it wasn’t the one he was looking for. You just frowned back at him. 

“I never said you couldn’t,” Sebastian said in a low, gravelly voice. “You can go wherever you want, whenever you want. It doesn’t affect me, and frankly, I don’t care.”

You understood what his words were intending to mean, but it still stung to hear that blatantly when he’d shown so many times that he clearly does care. And you could definitely tell… there was more he wanted to say. You pursed your lips and paused so he could continue. 

“...But when you feel the need to leave while I’m sleeping without even mentioning that you are, that’s where I start to raise an eyebrow.” Sebastian crossed his arms over his chest menacingly. “However, that’s not what concerned me. What concerned me was the fact that you purposefully snuck out and back in with enough care to muffle every sound to the best of your abilities.”

You winced at how he was calling you out like this. Could you use the ‘habit’ excuse? It was true that you tended to walk silently around without even trying to.

“See, now that is why I am bringing it up with you,” Sebastian added, tilting his head down to you. “Without a smile on my face.”

You rolled your eyes ever so slightly. “You never smile.”

Sebastian inched close enough to where you could see even his third eye was glaring straight through you. 

“Where were you?”

You scoffed, throwing your hands onto your hips defensively. “Okay, woah. You are always off somewhere without even peeping a word as to what you’re doing, Sebastian.”

“That was not the question,” he growled through his visibly gritting teeth. “I didn’t ask what you were doing, I asked where you were.”

“Why? You don’t trust me?” You let out a sharp, sarcastic laugh, throwing your head back slightly. You weren’t intentionally redirecting his question… yet. “You know, that excuse is kind of getting old.”

“Excuse?” Sebastian’s voice echoed. 

You shook your head, turning your eyes away from him. “I don’t know, whatever you want to call it. My point is: we’ve been down here for what? Weeks? Months? And you can’t even trust me to go out on my own?”

You could see from the movement under his lips as Sebastian swiped his tongue across the top set of his teeth in a quiet seething. 

“How can you rely on me doing my part to take down N.A.V.I. and help you escape if you can’t possibly have a little faith in my intentions?” You continued, biting back the anger slipping into your tone. You didn’t want to rile him up, you knew where that would lead. Images of gore and death flashed briefly through your mind at the thought. Sebastian was at the center of it.

He only pondered for a second with a stilled look of frustration laced in his furrowed eyebrows. 

“You were in Heavy Containment, weren’t you?” He asked more quietly this time. You hesitated, racking your brain for that name. 

“What?” You whispered. “I don’t know where–”

“I swear to God, Expendable, don’t lie to me,” Sebastian closed in on you, forcing you to back up into the wall behind you. “Were you in Heavy Containment?”

“Back up,” You uttered through your teeth. Sebastian didn’t make a move. “I said, back away from me.”

“You’re not answering me.”

You threw your hands out and pushed him back by his shoulders. The action hardly affected him, maybe inching him back ever so slightly, but it spoke enough words in itself. 

“God, Sebastian, when is this cycle going to end, huh??” You exclaimed, running a hand through your ragged hair. “You open up every now and then and once you realize what you did, you go right back into your shell! I don’t know how to respond every time in the way that you want; in the way that keeps you from reeling backwards. I don’t know how to get through to you… I just don’t know you at all!!”

“Good!” Sebastian snapped. “I don’t want you to know me! You’re here to get out, and I’m here to stop that from happening, so don’t act like we’re connecting!”

“We made a deal, Sebastian,” You sputtered in utter disbelief at his words. “How am I supposed to work with you if I don’t even know you?? This place is a literal, goddamn nightmare, and you think the last thing I need is someone to connect with?” 

Sebastian shook his head with a scoff. “What I think is that the moment I give you that kind of information about myself, you’ll turn right around and use it against me. What I think is that I have been sabotaged and betrayed like that enough to make me a little skeptical of the next ‘promising’ Expendable!”

Your jaw had dropped beyond reason. For a moment, through the tension and anger and yelling in the air, you almost thought you heard a muffled voice from within the room. A crying, helpless voice over the blur of static that reminded you of how you felt deep down under the glare and towering of Sebastian. 

“Really? Really? There haven't been enough instances where I could have betrayed you but very clearly didn’t? How long do I have to be around and show you my real intentions until you believe it? How fucking long do I have wait to receive the slightest bit of faith? We both want to get out of here, you said that! So why can’t you, y’know for once, believe me??”

Sebastian slammed his third hand on the table beside him. “That is easy for you to say. Unlike you, I don’t go around with my heart on my sleeve. Unlike you, I am actively avoiding an outcome that neither of us will like if I trust another Expendable. Do you even know what that title means? It means there will always be a replacement for you once you die. So now I would like you to actually answer me this time. Were you in Heavy Containment?”

“I don’t even know where that is, Sebastian! Why is it so difficult for you to expand your boundaries when it’s clear that I’m trying?? I’m not asking for your hand in marriage, I’m just asking for a little faith in me!” You cried out, feeling the sharp prick of tears in your eyes. You bit down on the inside of your cheek to try and keep them down. It felt almost embarrassing to have them spill so vulnerably. 

Sebastian opened his mouth to respond, but a static noise of speakers from overhead cut him off. The two of you went silent as an unfamiliar voice rang throughout the room. 

“This is N.A.V.I. calling a site-wide announcement.”

Your heart dropped in your chest at the mention of the name. So that’s N.A.V.I.

“I am happy to report that the parasite messing with my systems has been neutralized, and operations are now at acceptable levels.”

“The Internal Defense System, as well as any other previously hijacked systems, will no longer pose a threat to all personnel.” 

In all honesty, you stopped listening and immediately drowned out the sound of N.A.V.I.’s voice as soon as she mentioned a particular ‘parasite.’ That couldn’t be…?

You watched in the moment as all of the blood drained from Sebastian’s face in an instant, leaving him the palest shade of tealish-blue you had ever seen on him. 

He didn’t bother hiding it from you as he scrambled for a walkie talkie hidden in his still-drying jacket draped over one of the desks behind him. He raised it to his mouth and spoke hurriedly, practically dripping with nerves.

“Kid?? You okay?” He asked with a strangled tremor laced in his words. He hardly waited a few seconds as no reply proceeded to echo through before grabbing his jacket and pulling it around himself. “I’m coming over! Hang tight!!”

The floor seemed to sway beneath you. One moment you were arguing over where you’d gone without Sebastian, and the next you were hightailing it behind him right back to the same area you’d just been. This is Heavy Containment, then, you realized. But… you hadn’t found Painter… You hadn’t done anything. So why did you feel an overlaying guilt wrapped in a tight grip around your head as you sprinted in the path of Sebastian’s swiftly slithering tail?

Perhaps it was residing there in your mind because you originally had intentions to… do something to Painter. It didn’t matter if it meant killing him. You still wanted to do it at one point in time, and that’s what made your stomach drop in guilt. 

You hardly noticed what direction Sebastian was headed in until the abundance of wired, humming servers littered the room and suddenly you knew exactly where you were. This was the very place you’d turned back, and you never would have known that you’d just missed Painter if Sebastian wasn’t so set on his path. He darted past the servers and into a room just behind them; one you didn’t bother checking. You cursed yourself out mentally for somehow missing it. 

“Kid??” Sebastian called out from within the room just as you ducked inside, just behind him. “Painter…?”

Behind a metal grated fence was a sectioned-off area with a computer sitting idly on a table. The door to the area was left open with the matching purple keycard deserted on the ground next to it. 

You watched with wide eyes as Sebastian dashed through the door, barely fitting inside as the rest of his tail stuck out from the doorway. His hands shook, you noted, even from afar. He raised them to be placed delicately on either side of the old computer’s frame, and it was only then that you noticed the screen was smashed in. Wires revealed in a  tangled, broken, and sparking mess did not seem to concern Sebastian when he brought his face down close and hung his head low. His black hair draped past his face as he did, his shoulders hunched behind his head. 

“I can… I can fix you…” you heard from his hung head, hardly a whisper under his breath. “I was almost done, I could have… If I had just stayed a little longer–”

You flinched as his voice broke and ultimately shifted into quiet sobs.

The air was distorted in the windless room, making you hold your breath anticipating the next bad thing to come. You feared it was close, and nearing the very room you stood in with your hands clenched into knuckle-whitening fists by your sides. You had a vague understanding of Sebastian’s grief as it spread all around him and stained the walls with a darkness felt deep within him. But you could only stand there while you watched his shoulders shake, either from the flames developing from his heart or the rivers of despair he attempted to conceal with his back to you. 

But you immediately felt those flames burn hotter than his tears when he whipped his head back towards you as held Painter’s corpse of a machine in all three of his arms. You almost didn’t notice the protectiveness of his nature with his zeroed-in pupils burning holes into your own eyes. You automatically took a cautious step back.

“You were in Heavy Containment…” Sebastian uttered with malice laced between each word. “I knew this would happen, I knew you would go after him once you knew who he was, I… You killed him, didn’t you?”

“No, no I didn’t–”

“It wasn’t enough for you, was it? To try and get on my good side, lure me away from him so you could shut him down?” Sebastian’s evercoming presence forced you back into the buzzing server behind you, and you winced as the warm metal came into contact with your shoulder blades. “Did you plan this the whole time, huh? To take us all down for the promised freedom, for the allure of money. So you could escape with acquired pride.”

“Listen to me, Sebastian. I didn’t find Painter. I never touched it.”

Your body convulsed to the right with a sharp inhale of breath as Sebastian’s claw slammed into the server on your left. 

“Him. Painter was a ‘him.’” Sebastian snarled. “You know… you were right. You don’t know me at all. And you didn’t know Painter either, because if you did, you’d know he was just trying to find his place. All he wanted was to paint the landscapes up there.”

You swallowed roughly as your wide, blurry eyes searched his. 

“...I do know–”

A spark of electricity surged and shot out from the next slam of claws next to your head. Just out of reach from slamming your skull far into the server behind you. You heard the click of a gun as his shotgun was pulled by his third hand from the holster on his hip, although he didn’t make a move to aim it at you.

“You don’t know!! Stop thinking you know anything!! You know nothing!”

You refrained from covering your head in shock, fear… hell, empathy. Whatever mixed emotion was coursing through you. You wanted to tell him you knew his pain, but that was exactly what he didn’t want to hear. So you shakily sent a hand down to the bulky object in the pouch on your leg, unzipping it carefully and pulling out the beautiful, authentic painting. 

Sebastian’s snarling mouth closed as he took the painting with his only free hand and slowly turned it around to see the front of it. The clawed hand beside your head fell limp to his side, as did the one holding a firm grip on the shotgun. You blinked through tears as you heard the weapon thunk to the ground. 

His eyes traced the brushstrokes for a moment before finally looking over the frame at you. 

“...It was for him,” You said with a painfully quiet, cracking voice. “I thought I could give a peace offering…”

Sebastian’s lips trembled ever so slightly, but enough for you to notice before he looked away, holding the painting close to him. 

“I just… I wanted to find something actually authentic down here…” You whispered. “Something real.”

That’s when Sebastian finally broke, hunching back over to the ground with his elbows and forearms held him up as his head dropped. He couldn’t even glance towards Painter’s shell of a computer behind him. You fell to your knees beside him, for once feeling equal to him in size as he curled inward on himself, quiet tears dripping to the floor.

“...I can’t even kill you,” He croaked. “I wanted to… I wanted to, so bad, and I still do because I still don’t know if you actually did it or not… but I can’t.”

You didn’t quite know what he was talking about, or whether he was just blabbering out of grief. And comforting others during their remorseful states was definitely not a skill you’d picked up over the years. But… you did learn the skill of redirection and regrouping. 

“Sebastian,” You called in the calmest, quietest voice you could muster. Which wasn’t exactly saying much, as you happened to be a very boisterous person. “If you want some consolation, even in the slightest, you could always check the footage of the security cameras in every room to see the real culprit.”

Sebastian went still, his shaking shoulders tensing up. You continued, debating in your head as you whispered to him whether you should touch his shoulder soothingly or not. You decided against it. 

“How much you wanna bet that N.A.V.I. holds access to those security cameras?” You mentioned. “We’d be headed over there anyway, so why not stop to check?”

Sebastian’s head rose, his eyes wet as they stared a hole through the wall. 

“...I don’t need to bet anything. I know she has access to them,” Sebastian’s abnormally quiet and cracking voice spoke up. “I swear to God, Expendable, if it was you…”

“I know your trust is thinner than anything right now, but this is one of those times where I really need you to trust me,” You pleaded. He turned his head away as he processed your words. “I mean, what else… is there to lose?”

That must have really resonated with him, as he took a moment of thought before he straightened his back and pushed himself off the ground to stand to his full height. You got up from your knees slowly, making note of how he shoves the painting still within his grasp into one of his most secure bags. He glanced back towards Painter, lying broken on the ground and surrounded by buzzing servers. You weren’t sure why they were still active and lively if they seemed to support Painter, but maybe… No, never mind. You were not a computer whizz in the slightest. 

“Leave him,” Your voice echoed out to him. He turned away from Painter, finally following your words. “Let him rest now.”

“I know.” Sebastian mumbled, but not to you. To himself. “I’ll find whoever did it. Whether it was you or someone else, I don’t care anymore. We’re no longer in a game of checkers against the entities. We’re playing chess now, and fuck if I’m not going to take out that damn Queen first.”

You bit your cheek as you watched and listened to this suddenly vengeful, grieving side of Sebastian. His cheesy reference of chess and checkers made you concerned for how he was really holding up, but you knew he was right.

There was no avoiding N.A.V.I. 

There was no avoiding death. 

You learned that when you first roamed these halls of Heavy Containment. 

You just hoped that Painter’s death wouldn’t make Sebastian into something he would regret.