Work Text:
Crouched in a tree, Philip watched the traitors scramble with a shitty wooden rowing boat. As they squealed in victory in getting the thing afloat, his hands distended into long ebony claws.
He pounced upon them, silence shortly punctured by screaming. Not for mercy, though. He supposed these two knew better, even under a haze of terror. Despite their scrambling, he grabbed one by the neck of his shirt and held the other by their neck in front of him.
‘Morose requests your audience, you know how he gets.’ He said with a wry smile. The pathetic creature in front of him was immediately silenced, trying to curl into itself and staring through him with prey’s eyes, he could feel the other one’s writhing cease as well. They seemed to remember their place, at least.
They didn’t bother to struggle as he dragged them to Morose’s feet, nor did they look up to see the Doctor’s mirthful sneer. Turning to Philip, his face softened somewhat. ‘Excellent work, my boy! You do have a way of exceeding expectations!’
‘Thank you, Father.’ He was standing off to the side, claws retracted, hands firmly behind his back. The traitors were too preoccupied with the emerald tentacles holding them down to pay him any mind.
‘Now!’ He clapped his hands. ‘Could you prepare theater C for procedure?’
‘Of course.’
‘Right, prepare specimens…’ He pondered, looking over the traitors, ‘...Vulpes vulpes, Hystrix Indicus and Atelerix albiventris.’
‘And Homo sapien?’ They both stared at the poor souls, before the doctor reassured him that he will take care of the primary specimens.
‘Oh, and no anaesthesia, the Children shall witness what befalls such sinners.’
Philip spared one more glance to the subjects, nodded, and left for the specimen enclosures.
The Doctor’s loyal Children watched over them as they entered the operating theater, watching with rapt attention as their Father gave his opening monologue and he was strapping the human specimens to the operating tables.
‘Now, these Children here saw fit to try to run away from our lovely home’ various noises, animal and human, erupted from the crowd, jeering at the subjects. ‘But worry not! They shall learn the error of their ways under my infinite mercy! Philip!’
‘Yes, Father?’
‘Is everything prepared?’
‘Yes.’
‘Wonderful’ he raised his hands, ‘and now, my Children, WITNESS!’
The next few hours were filled with the subjects writhing and screaming, and the Children cheering and clapping. While he understood the theatrical importance of leaving the specimens unanesthetized and mobile, it made vivisection far harder than it needed to be. Blood getting everywhere, including his freshly cleaned coat, having to get his claws out just to hold the subjects down as the straps apparently weren’t enough- oh, speaking of theriatrics-
‘My Children!’ The Doctor’s voice alone was enough to silence the crowd. Philip completed the last suture and stood to attention. ‘These mislaid souls have been corrected through the sanctity of blood and agony, reborn in ascendant flesh!’ one of the newly-reborn Children groaned softly, though if Morose heard he didn’t pretend to care. ‘Philip, care to take your kin to the recovery ward?’ He nodded curtly, rolled both bodies onto a single hospital bed, and rolled them away as the Doctor continued his sermon, probably something about loyalty. The mangled bodies in front of him only gave the occasional pained gasp on the way to the infirmary, as some errand-running Children (and the occasional Acolyte) gave him as wide a berth they could manage.
The newly-Reborn porcupine-fox Children glared at him from their cot. Good, that meant Morose didn’t do too much damage to their brains. He greeted them as chipper as he could given the circumstances, still only to be met with a terrified silence. Oh well.
An anteater-crow Child gently knocked on the door, and informed him that Father requested his presence, probably to ramble to him about He Who Sleeps Below and the city He sleeps in. He dismissed the Child with a nod and bid farewell to the bed bound creatures. It was going to be a long afternoon.
Angelique was damn near the only reasonable person on this island.
It’s the next day, and Morose did, indeed, spend five hours rambling to him about the things that sleep below their feet. Again.
Angie pottered about the kitchenette as Philip complained over a mug of cooled black coffee.
‘You know, Howard-’ and there he goes again, somehow turning every conversation into a tangent about his boyfriend (at least, she was fairly sure he was his boyfriend) she just hummed in acknowledgement as he continued gushing.
Hm.
‘Do you know where the last jar of peanut butter went?’
‘Oh, uh, no.’ He stammered out, his train of thought interrupted. ‘Leary might’ve taken it?’
A shrug. This wasn’t the first time food has gone missing, and she doubted it would be the last. The people here were, quite literally, animals.
Philip was probably right.
Howard would hate it here.