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The greys of the cell were horribly dull.
Enough so that Lomedy found they rivaled even the gloomiest of nights working at his farm. Enough so that not even colourful blooms and bunches of greens could contrast well with the death of the air. A kind of sickly paleness that stripped the walls of personality and left every single person in the prison quiet.
Or, well, would have. A dark red petal fell into Lomedy’s open palms as Parrot rushed by toward a cell door.
There was a commotion up above awhile ago, and soon enough the entire place was being destroyed as Wemmbu and some others were filing people out. It was rushed, and the thrill—that tangled itself up with the itchy fabric of the uniform he was wearing and the tiredness that wrapped around his body—was reminiscent of times spent raiding a farm with his friend.
His best friend, even if they fought; even if he was still pissed. Even if things were…complicated. And, well, Flame had thrown everything away just to chase a title, so it certainly wasn’t Lomedy’s fault that ended with the only person he cared for leaving. Wasn’t Lomedy’s fault he’d come back, still, and then gotten the farmer taken by LAW.
No, that was all Flame’s doing. Surely, if he hadn’t handed over the mace or let the other stay, it could have been a little bit more the tiger’s fault, but nonetheless. Nonetheless, here he sat—watching death messages from everybody, everybody but his friend (had he not come?)—he sat and waited and, despite knowing that he would never take up the offer to leave, sighed violent and stressed as he let his head hit the wall behind him.
There were mutterings about ‘Flame was supposed to have done this by now’ from what sounded suspiciously like a familiar loud, purple man, and that settled everything faster than it could even form. The flowers of Lomedy’s thoughts wilted and kissed soil as they blinked one final time at the sun, and he knew. He knew Flame hadn’t come.
Why would he?
The Immortal Demon, the strongest player, the Flamefrags. He had a title to maintain, and it seemed that time did nothing to pick away at the man’s desire to prioritize something that wasn’t a few words muttered every time they—he—wandered into a civilisation.
Lomedy was just…not a part of that anymore.
Wouldn’t be after this, more precisely. The cold wall pressed into him as he leaned into the small corner he’d shoved himself against, and it was nice. Nice to be invisible; nice to just relax, a bit. Sure, he’d have to wait out his sentence, but now he wouldn’t be surrounded by escape plans and less-than-happy guards. A break, if Lomedy squinted and maybe ignored a few glaring signs like the lack of Lettuce in the actual prison (he’d heard something about Wemmbu and him fighting up above; it made sense he defended the actual town over the prison).
It took over three hours for everything to calm down.
Three hours of waiting and looking away whenever another player made eye contact. Three hours of getting increasingly anxious over the fact Flame wasn’t here—over the fact one of the LAW’s most wanted fugitives wasn’t trying to tear it apart from the inside.
Though, it very well could’ve just been anger. Or sadness. Fear, maybe, that there was nobody here that’d be willing to protect him if something went wrong. His friend had been exiled, was millions of blocks out at this point, and…and, well, Lomedy had asked to not be associated. To want it now was selfish. It was exactly like Flame would think, and that spread bitterness on his tongue as he grinded his teeth; as if a berry split down the middle and bled as its pit laid in its last moments.
Lomedy closed his eyes, foot pressing against the metal bar in front of him.
Everything faded slowly.
Faded until there was nothing to fade, even the most distant fighting and yelling having disappeared. There was nothing.
And then there was.
Calm, measured footsteps—panicked, maybe if you really listened for the slight rush in them—approached, winding down the stairs and dancing with a soft humming that Lomedy had gotten used to hearing. The presence had no right to make him feel calm, never had given the man’s history, and yet he felt himself relax into the wall behind him nonetheless.
Really, as begrudgingly as it would be, there was technically somebody who would—who was—protecting him.
Long lashes fluttered as he opened his eyes, looking up at the red caracal in front of him.
The humming, a light and airy thing that settled into the halls throughout the multiple months he’d been in prison, stopped. It was a forced thing, as if an inconvenience, and the exhale the other let out was gravelly.
It put Lomedy on edge.
“You’re still here?” There was humour to it, flat and quiet as it was.
And, well, yes. Lomedy was still here, wasn’t he? He couldn’t just leave. Not with his sentence unfinished; not knowing Lettuce was so much stronger than he was. With a force so much more expansive than just one farmer. With a fist that tightened at his side, now, shakily resting on the hilt the moment beads of red formed under pointed nails.
Lack of water had left his throat sore, and so Lomedy settled for nodding; subtly straightening his back.
“I see! Well,” his nails tapped on the sword, eyes drifting to his neck in a way that choked a wince from his lungs, “You know how it is, you still have more than half of your sentence left. A few years for associating with Flame, yeah?”
Quiet.
Air breaking like the peeling of a fruit as a metal shing sounded, “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah! So, I have a place in my office for now until we,” he looked around for a second, eyes drifting only as far as his peripheral could get its way by keeping Lomedy in its vision, “until we…y’know, have a more secure place.”
Nodding felt sluggish, tense as if fighting against something more putrid than even blood and guts from the battle. Lomedy managed. Wrestled a bit still, with the thought that Flame would’ve loved to be here for this.
For this—the fighting and revenge. Chaos might’ve never been his thing, but void was the tiger obsessed with vindication. It used to be endearing, but it sat poisonous and itching in Lomedy’s chest, now—pierced into the tissue of his heart as it beat faster and faster the tighter the bloodied blade in front of him was held.
Lettuce had been fighting, then.
Enough the blood that dripped slowly onto his shoe was warm, still.
With a sigh, the cat—LAW’s leader, the man behind everything wrong with the server and yet everything right as of recently—raised the sword against Lomedy’s Adam's apple. From the small cut it made, blood that felt far too cold spit, a thing that barely made a line as it fell to rest at his collarbone.
Lettuce was going to kill him.
But getting up felt like a chore. One he didn’t want to do, right now, after having sat through hours of noise and violence.
“I can’t have you escaping.”
‘Get up.’
“I wouldn’t—I,” everything was so much; getting up would probably mean falling right back down on shaky legs, “I’m finishing my prison sentence no matter what, just…give me a minute.”
Everything sat tense for what might have been an hour as well as it might have been a few seconds. Burgundy hands tightened around the grip of the sword, black and green eyes squinting with a scowl and pulling the lower lid up on the left side. But yet, nothing moved. There was no outward violence past the steady coolness on his throat, and he took that second to inhale deeply, exhaling only when things felt a bit more bearable.
A bit more like he wouldn’t puke right then and there.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
There was a determination in Lomedy’s eyes as he looked up, about to stand. A fragile thing that Lettuce tilted his head at and smiled, the sword falling to his side to let the farmer get to his feet—still weakly; still not quite completely stable. In it, the teeth that showed and the warmness that leaked without any sign of refilling, was a wrongness. One that mimicked everything that usually made up the man’s expression while still falling short. An imitation nearly perfect. An imitation completely imperfect.
As if he was going to kill him either way.
Saying just that felt like a mistake. Something he couldn’t take back even when it was muttered; even when Lettuce paused his turn to look back, “Kill you?”
He made Lomedy sound ridiculous.
“Kill you? Like—you?”
“Mhm,” he took a cautious step forward, hands cold.
Lettuce turned without a response, sighing and gently shaking his head. The pace he set left Lomedy to rush up behind him, dancing past debris and destruction. Explosions that went to bedrock mixed with mace craters, and all of that mixed with missed sword hits and tnt-carts. Chaos. Of which still dripped from the hallway they walked down, dampening only when they got far enough the doors were intact and LAW’s leader actually had to pull out cards to open them.
It was colder where the sun didn’t shine through small cracks and crevices.
At the end of the third winding hall sat a singular office, something protected and barricaded as if solely for the purpose of keeping somebody safe—or, in this case, stuck. The room was small, the door just barely tall enough for the cat himself, and yet when they reached it and the handle was turned, it was lived in.
Lived in like a house might be, a cup on the desk and pens discarded about surfaces. Papers and potions sat on the walls, and Lomedy was only fifty percent sure that the whole thing wasn’t attacked like the rest of the prison.
The way Lettuce’s shoulders dropped slightly said otherwise, and a larger hand rested on the farmer’s upper back before bringing him into the room.
“No.”
A singular word, barely muttered and yet still said so casually it could have been part of a normal conversation. The lock to the room was clicked shut, though the key still rested in the door, and black eyes stared down golden ones.
Suddenly, where he stood felt wrong, “What?”
“No,” his smile showed again, “I wouldn’t kill you. I don’t have to.”
‘Don’t have to’. He doesn’t…have to. The statement stood vague and tall by itself, only moving to inch forward and into Lomedy’s skin, its sharp edges and smooth tone digging in with the dull pain of being hit. Because Lettuce didn’t ‘have to’. He didn’t have to and Lomedy despised how weak that implied him to be. Being a fighter said nothing about how well he was able to protect himself, and…and—and, well, there wasn’t any reason to leave, anyway.
Lettuce wouldn’t have to kill him to keep him still.
Low, “Even if I escaped?”
“If you tried to escape,” the man laughed slightly as he approached, sword scraping against the ground like chalk leaving behind a trail of blood, “and even then, it’s not like I’d need to.”
“Flame would deal with you, anyway,” it was said so peacefully, a matter-of-fact that didn’t require venom or anger to be let out. Even if Lomedy didn’t need to escape, didn’t want to, it was still true. If he tried, there would be somebody to help him. Even if that somebody was gone now, by the time Lomedy would break enough to want to, the LAW would have disintegrated. Flame would have gotten concerned enough he’d come.
He didn’t like what that said about his stubbornness.
“Yeah?”
Lomedy also found—quick and with very little surprise—he disliked the smugness in Lettuce’s tone. Flame could beat him easily any day, he just…wasn’t great at outnumbered fights like the LAW presented. And yet, the person in front of him spoke and carried himself as if unbothered. As if he could beat the strongest player singlehandedly. That was irritating—it had Lomedy’s face scrunch as he tried not to get annoyed; tried not to start defending Flame like a toddler might their first friend.
The bite he had on his tongue could’ve only lasted so long, “It’s not like you could beat him.”
Sharp canines showed as lips pulled back, a wide smile that was accompanied by amused, surprised eyes. Eyes that looked happy. Happy, of all things, when being insulted. Void, was Lettuce a masochist or something?
Maybe so, given how he brought his free hand up to his mouth, biting it and still somehow stretching the silence thin from his laughing as he turned away. Maybe so, given how he dropped the sword and it landed roughly against the side of his boot—steel-toed, by the way the hit sounded; by the way it scuffed the floor as it silently ricocheted to rest at Lomedy’s feet—and the player in front of him ripped his hand from his teeth.
It bled less than it should have (lingering golden apple effects, maybe), and that left little blood to pool on top of his bottom lip as he spoke, “I don’t think he can save you.”
Red fell slowly down Lettuce’s chin.
“Even if you wanted to escape.”
It bled further when it reached his shirt, a hole of colour that spread outward.
Lomedy titled his head slightly, accidentally having caught eye of what Lettuce dropped the sword to grab.
The wall was cold where he sunk back against it, exactly like in his cell. None of the colour in the room did anything to contrast the death of the air. The sickly paleness that licked away the red of his cheeks and ripped the feeling from his legs to bring him to the floor; to leave him quiet.
A dark red blindfold fell into Lomedy’s open palms as Lettuce ambled toward the door.