Work Text:
It started with a cough.
Tango knew he was going to be dropped down to red, but since nobody has ever failed this hard he has no idea what is to come, patient zero and all that.
It started with a cough.
Ren and Impulse dragged Tango out of his self dug grave and back to the pyramid, trying to console him and that he ‘worked really hard!’
Impulse sat Tango down on a comfortable patch of cobblestone as Ren warmed some bread for the three of them, a farewell to the session.
It started with a cough. Something dry was stuck in his throat, itching and scratching, and when Tango tried to dislodge it, it stuck its claws in like a cat on a curtain.
“Ow, ow, agH!” Tango managed out through his coughs, raising his hands to his face.
“Tango, do you need water or something?” Impulse ran his large hands over Tango’s back, the edge of his dulled down claws tracing nice patterns along his shoulders, unfortunately Tango didn’t care to take much notice of that when he pulled back his hand and saw blood.
“That’s not supposed to be there,” Tango began before the coughs grabbed his throat and began to choke him again.
“Oh my gosh, Tango, I—“ Tango barely noticed that Ren was closing in until his hands were on his biceps, holding him up. When had he fallen to the ground?
His lips were wet with something, so was the front of his shirt, as well as his hands. Someone pulled his hands way from his throat, where he was clawing bloody marks down the side of his neck. Someone is there, he can feel the bumps of their fingers. Long and spindly knuckles, thick, uncut nails that met each other at the back of Tango’s neck, thumbs that held his jaw up.
He screamed something wet, something he regretted when it tore his throat into a dozen different pieces, and the blood backed up and stabbed into his chest. Something was breathing into his ear, muttering whispers. Tango writhed and pulled, whatever reassurances and yells Ren and Impulse were trying to get to him felt chunks away from him, unloaded.
One last shake, one last cough, and then something changed. Tango went stiff, his eyes wide and his coughing paused, and then he went down, loose like kelp, last he saw was his team crowding above him, staring into his eyes with inevitable horror, and then—
Tango died
He woke up lying in a dirt filled, gunpowder dusted crater, the blue sky above him. His muscles screamed as he ached himself to his feet. He didn’t feel the knuckles anymore, but there was the tingling of something on the back of his neck and a weight on his shoulders that wouldn’t go away no matter how much he brushed them.
“Top!” A voice called out from the edge of the nearby cliff, and there, with the sun behind him stood Skizz, Jimmy and BigB flagging his sides.
“Skizz!” Tango choked out, the words coming breathy and strained.
“What happened?” Tango opened his mouth to answer but—
It started with a cough.
Claws raking themselves up his throat, grabbing his oesophagus and pulling until he screamed, talons digging themselves into his shoulders until he toppled, desperately trying to push back against the weight of the world.
He barely noticed when scarred arms picked him up, dark hands tried to wipe the blood from his mouth and a loud voice tried to ask for answers.
Tango’s head lay against Skizz’s chest, his diaphragm suffocated by claws and feathers. He couldn’t breathe, any of the air he took in left him with a hacking cough.
If he knew this were to be his fate, he would have stabbed Cleo as soon as they turned their back on him. He would have killed Martyn, he would have killed Grian, he would have killed Scar, he would have killed Etho, he would have killed Skizz, he would have killed Ren, he would have killed Impulse and he would have killed himself before he could do any of that.
“Top, Top, you— I…” Whatever Skizz was saying passed by Tango as he instead looked at the figure above him, etched in the clouds.
Tango was trying to ignore Jimmy as he cut the twine off of a hay bale, not because he was annoyed at him or anything, but someone’s got to feed the animals, he’s happy with letting Jim rest.
“Clouds are nice today.” Tango heard from behind him as he divvied up the biscuits between the horses.
“Are they?”
“Yeah, come take a look at them!”
Tango laughed, “I actually do have things I need to do, yknow.”
He felt Jimmy tugging on the hem of his trousers as he tried to walk away.
“This cloud looks like a strider.”
Tango sighed and groaned, but he knew Jimmy would take no offence since he sat right down next to him afterwards.
“Which one?”
“That one, but it’s kind of drifted since I looked at it.”
“Mmm, the one up there, near the moon, looks like a totem.”
“Oh yeah! And that one is watching us!”
Tango paused, that’s not how this memory goes. Jimmy is supposed to say it looks like Grian and they laugh and laugh until the sun sets.
“What do you mean it’s watching us?” Tango tilted his head to Jimmy, only to scramble back in fright.
Jimmy was stood tall, looking down at Tango with uncharacteristically cold features, not matching his voice.
”Can’t you see it? It’s watching us, Tango.
“Jimmy—“ Tango risked blinking, and within an instinct his chest was crushed. His ribs groaned and his lungs screamed out at Jimmy who was perched on him, blue eyes replaced with a colour he doesn’t think he could name. There was a prickle on the back of his neck, someone was watching him and he couldn’t see them back.
“Jimmy I can’t— Jimmy I can’t breathe.”
“One grain of sand in our hourglass, trickled into infinity. Two more and you may resurface, anointed and prepared for what is to come, Tango.”
Tango died
Figures approached his hole, silhouetted by the lowering sun. They were saying something but Tango didn’t care to listen. He lay still, and tried to accept his fate. Hands pulled at his clothing, not letting him rest.
Bdubs was cupping his face, opening his mouth to try and comfort Tango.
”We’re watching, Tango.” Tango snapped to attention, staring at Bdubs with a numb tongue.
“What?”
Bdubs looked at him with concern lining his features.
”One more before equilibrium.”
Tango’s head was lagging, Bdubs’ lips didn’t line up with his voice, and everytime someone tried to comfort him, tried to grab into him they stabbed another splinter into his soul.
“Tango? We are watching.”
“Come on, little blaze, one last grain.”
“Breathe Tango, breathe, the lust of the kill. You can taste it now.”
“Ever seeing, ever knowing, fate farewells you, Top.”
Tango pushed away from them, prying sticky hands off of him, he needed to run, he needed to hide.
“Let go of me, let go of me!” Some of them shied away, but not enough. A horned man stood in front of him, born from the devil, his mouth spoke only evil.
“You can’t hide from our eyes.”
He reacted on instinct, like a cornered animal. His throat seized as he screamed; long, fiery claws raking across Impulse’s face. Tango used this as a diversion to flee, hands digging into the debree of his failed trap and legs pumping, moving as fast as they could.
His chest seized with the effort of running, but even when he slowed down it didn’t let up. Tango panicked.
It started with a cough.
Tango was alone, a premonition of what was to come. There was nobody to rub his back, to wipe his mouth, to hold him upright. Tango lay on the grass, blood collecting under his head and he had never felt so alone.
Tango died
There was a humming in his veins and a greyhound in his arteries. His hands were red, flames so deep they were almost pink. There were no claws around his throat, no weight on his shoulder, but he could still feel them there, watching.
Tango stood in the middle of his failed trap, surrounded by the entire server, and he was entirely and utterly alone.