Work Text:
The aftermath of operation Spider Pyre was just about as chaotic as Rodya was used to, at this point.
The LC headquarters were a flurry of staff from departments she recognized and didn't recognize desperately repairing the place. She swears she spotted that Caiman lady among them, the one who had been so rude to her and the Sinners before, but it either wasn't her or she didn't recognize them because she didn't react to them at all. Actually, now that Rodya thought about it, pretty much everyone was ignoring the Sinners. Requests for help were made exclusively through Faust or Hohenheim and no one paid attention to what the Sinners were doing unless they were directly in the way of someone else's task.
That being said, it didn't exempt them from doing their share of the repairs. Rodya, with her height and oddly powerful grip strength, was tasked with holding pipes and panels and other things in place while others installed them. Faust and Yi Sang were off helping with the design of the place, with Hohenheim grumbling "we designed this section to the best of our abilities given the time and budget constraints" every time Faust pointed out how poor the construction was. Yi Sang just seemed happy to be helping.
Everyone else was milling about whatever tasks they found and so Rodya never really saw anyone apart from brief glances or nods if they happened to pass each other in the hallway. This helped her forget about the one person she hadn't seen a single time ever since they returned from the House of Spiders.
Gregor.
And who could blame her? He was immediately carted off to the medical ward, Faust and Dante requesting her and Heathcliff to keep quiet about him until the situation could be properly explained. Rodya didn't even know where the room he was being kept in was, and even if she did, she barely had enough time to visit him between all the repairs she was helping with!
...she thought, currently in the food storage room stuffing some snack bars into her coat pockets.
Okay, yeah, that was all a big excuse.
The actual reason why she had been avoiding visiting Gregor was one Rodion did not want to admit to herself. She knew it and she recognized it but how could she accept it? No, it was too ugly a thing; the type of thought that would immediately be struck down the moment it reared its vile head. But it was also a thought that was persistent, clawing its way back to the front of her mind the moment she managed to push it back down...
Jealousy.
Agh, there she went, she said it! Fine, fine, she was jealous! Rodion was jealous of Gregor! He had some grand potential sleeping within himself and she didn't and she was jealous!
And what a horrible thing that would be to admit! Here was poor Gregor: forced into a surgery he didn't want, scarred by a war the horrors of which only he and other veterans could comprehend, now transforming against his will, attacking his friends against his will; and here was Rodion, wishing that something similar could happen to her! Because even though Gregor's circumstances were far, far worse than hers would ever be, he was someone who could change, he was capable of changing the world, he had the power to actually do something and that was amazing, wasn't it? Even if it went against everything he stood for or believed in, even if he was ultimately just a tool to be used for the benefit of someone else, even if the change he could bring would destroy his world as he knew it, it was still anything and that was more than Rodion had and will ever have.
She was disgusting.
Far, far more disgusting than The Roach Emperor ever was.
But what was Rodion if not good at hiding her true feelings? She was an expert after all! And someone had once said something like, "it doesn't matter the ugly thoughts you have as long as you don't act on them", and she was definitely not going to admit her jealousy to Gregor or anyone else, so it was all fine, yeah? Yeah?
Yeah...
No...
No, she couldn't go to see Gregor. She knew she should, she should show him that she cared about him, save him the pain of possibly awakening alone in a hospital room dazed or horribly guilty about his actions, reassure him that she wasn't bothered and would save him again and again if she had to. But that jealousy (agh, she hated the word), that vile disgusting emotion was one that could not be kept inside her mind. No, even if she did not say anything, did not act on it, did not even give a slight bit of it away in her expression, it would somehow leak out, an invisible force contaminating everything around her with its, no, her disgustingness. She would be confronting her own self and damn it all, she did not have the energy for that!
So Rodion was guilty. Guilty that she wasn't showing Gregor the support he deserved, guilty that she felt the way she did, but at least not guilty about taking all those snack bars. Like, come on, how come the LC staff get waaaay better food than the Sinners do? Rodya was one of the ones actually getting the Golden Boughs! Eh, whatever.
Satisfied with the amount she took, Rodya exited the pantry and almost ran into Heathcliff, who was apparently passing by at that exact moment. She was prepared for him to snap at her, but he had a more pensive look, and his expression changed when he recognized it was her who nearly bumped into him.
"Oi, there you are! You comin' to see Stubbles, too?"
"Uhh," Rodya blurted, entirely unprepared for this scenario. She took a split second to compose herself. "Didn't they say we weren't allowed to visit him?"
"'Course, but that won't stop us from tryin', yeah?" he smirked.
"Yeah," she replied with far less enthusiasm than she meant. She brushed her hair back. "Phew, sorry, I'm all tired from the work they've been putting me through!"
"I feel ya. C'mon, I saw them take him down this way earlier." With a wave of his arm, Heathcliff began walking down the hall, Rodya taking a moment to follow.
The LC HQ was a convoluted mess of hallways and corners and Rodya could not comprehend how anyone would purposely design a building this way, but at least it provided an excuse for her when she was caught snooping around areas she shouldn't be in (or, in the case of the previous discussion, an excuse to not visit Gregor). Still, she had never walked down this way, and making her way through the corridor she noticed it was significantly less repaired than everywhere else. Some of the lights were still broken and made the area much darker than everywhere else, creating a sort of foreboding as she made her way down. It was also much quieter, and the air vents had not been reactivated, so the air was still and stale. Whatever blood and guts had been here were cleaned up, but the claw marks and gashes in the walls, ceiling, and floor from whatever had been fighting here remained, and Rodya had to duck more than once under wires that spilled out from the ceiling like the guts of many of the casualties she had passed by when the attack first occurred.
Bleh.
Heathcliff seemed to pay those details no mind as he charged ahead. Rodion envied him, too, for the ability to not think about anything else and simply focus on the present. How nice would it be to live free of those thoughts plaguing her...
It was only when she passed by a containment unit did she realize they were in the Abnormality containment wing of the HQ.
"Uh, Heath, are ya sure you're going the right way?" Rodya asked, glancing at the doors with apprehension as if the Abnormalities within would escape at any moment.
"Yeah, I saw 'em take him through here all in a rush, whisperin' about 'maximum security' or whatever," he replied without turning around to look at her.
"Huh..."
It did not occur to her that Gregor would be kept inside an Abnormality containment unit. She assumed he was being held in whatever hospital rooms they had in the medical bay. But it made perfect sense, given how no one knew the extent of Gregor's transformation and whether he'd still be himself after he woke up. But it did feel a little mean, yeah? Locking him up as far away as possible, alone, treated like just another one of the abominations kept here...
(Why did Rodion nearly envy that, too?!)
The closer they got to Gregor's room, the more sick Rodion felt. She wanted to bail.
"Hey, Heath, since we aren't allowed in there, hows about I keep watch outside while you-"
"There's his room! C'mon, before anyone notices we're missing!" Heathcliff interrupted her, likely not hearing any part of what she had said.
Steeling herself once more, Rodya followed Heathcliff to the door of the containment unit. The door had a large circular window like all the other units, and through it, she could see the room, but not Gregor.
She was about to ask where he was before Heathcliff grabbed the handle and swung the door open with such force that Rodya wondered if it would be ripped off its hinges. But before she could worry about that, the sight in front of her interrupted all other thoughts.
There was Gregor.
It wasn't that she couldn't see him through the door, it was that she couldn't tell it was him at all.
He was human, yes, just as human as any other day with the only buggy part of him being his arm, but he was covered in such an excessive amount of medical equipment and restraints that it nearly formed a cocoon around him, camouflaging him against the steel walls and pipes of the room.
Metal restraints bolted his neck, arm, and legs to the bed at multiple points. His bug arm rested on a separate table at a ninety degree angle from his body, swaddled in what appeared to be blankets bound with chains which were then also bolted to that table. It barely looked like a part of him, and more like some sort of tumor that was to be surgically removed. If Rodion thought about it hard enough, she could almost convince herself that there was no bug arm under all that mess at all.
Gregor's bug arm was surrounded by medical devices of all sorts that Rodion could not hope to name, all of them beeping incessantly at different rates. Gregor himself was also surrounded by monitors and things that were plugged into him at different points all over his body. He was also wearing an oxygen mask and had a few different IV drips inserted into him, though Rodion could guess only one of them was saline and the rest were some unknown fluid. Were they keeping him under on purpose, or was he simply yet to recover?
On that thought, Rodion finally took at look at Gregor's face. A full look, not just a glance.
His skin was pale. More pale than she had ever seen him. His eyes were sunken in, and his face was in a slight grimace, as if he were in pain whilst asleep. His breathing was shallow and irregular, and Rodion knew he was having nightmares. She could barely see the rise and fall of his chest from under all of the restraints, but it was there, and Rodion could not tell whether that brought her comfort.
"Stubbles..."
Rodya was brought out of her thoughts by Heathcliff who was standing over Gregor a lot closer than she was. He looked genuinely upset, like he could punch the wall at any moment.
"It ain't fair."
"Yeah..." Rodya could barely bring herself to agree.
"Just lookit all this shite they got 'im plugged into! He ain't a monster but he'll sure feel like it when he wakes up! Dammit..."
He was clearly holding himself back, and he got this almost painful look in his eyes as if he had somehow witnessed someone in a similar position before, but Rodion could not even guess who it was, and during Heathcliff's turn at that manor they hadn't learned any of his past really, so she gave up on that front. But it was an emotion Heathcliff had barely shown, and his display of it made Rodion sick to her stomach because she could never allow her true feelings to show like his did.
"Oi, you got any paper or anything?" Heathcliff reached out his hand and made a motion for her to give him something.
"Huh?" The sudden question startled Rodya.
"I wanna leave Stubbles a note or somethin' for when he wakes up."
"Aw, Heath, leaving a note? That's surprisingly thoughtful~"
Heathcliff blushed. "You know what I mean! Never mind, lemme just-"
"Hey! What are you doing?!"
In one swift motion, Heathcliff had reached into one of Rodya's pockets and snatched a snack bar, placing it on one of the side tables. Satisfied, he put his hands on his hips.
"This way, Stubbles'll know we visited him, yeah?"
"You could have asked first, but yeah."
"Oh c'mon, is takin' one snack really that bad? You've got a whole pantry in your coat!"
"It's the principle of the matter, Heath~"
"Am I the only one takin' this serious?!"
It was in line with their usual bickering and teasing but the sudden comment almost horrified Rodion. Heathcliff certainly didn't think when he said it or intended any deep meaning but it cut to the heart of Rodion's internal turmoil with such efficiency that she couldn't help but feel a sting. No, she wasn't taking this seriously, because if she was, then there would be nothing to protect her from all of the dark and ugly things she kept hidden behind her mask. She wouldn't have anything to prevent that disgusting, vile jealousy from rearing its ugly head once more and tainting everything around her with its pale hue.
But it was now at the forefront of her mind and she couldn't do anything to stop it, and the horror only exploded as she found herself jealous of the poor, frail, scrawny old man currently chained and bound to a steel bed like a lab specimen.
"No matter what, we'll bring you back, Stubbles. So don't go losin' to it," Rodion thought she heard Heathcliff say in a low voice. "I gotta get back now. You comin?'" he asked her.
"Yeah, uh, gimme just a moment with him..." Rodya responded without thinking.
Heathcliff nodded and left.
The short interaction was enough to bring Rodion out of her thoughts. Whoops, there she went again, nearly breaking under self-inflicted pressure. Phew!
She glanced over her shoulder at the door. She could make out the back of Heathcliff's head, walking away from the unit.
Rodion looked Gregor over once more.
She took the snack bar from the side table, put it back in her pocket, and left.