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The doses weren't enough.
They stopped being enough long ago.
It's been exactly a month now since Multi started his experiment to enforce the Dead Man's Hand project. A way of strengthening and ensuring the system would work perfectly once it needed to.
The doctor had enemies of a quantity great enough death was inevitable, whether it came sooner or later. Before, he would've said that a god shall never die and his time, even if it ended, would be remembered as a period of the greatest ruler the world has seen; the most powerful and intelligent mastermind that the islanders under The Federation would experience. Once he gained his power, once his plan was completed, they would see his worth. They’d have no choice.
But the present was a different story. He grew to love, to trust and to care. Way too humane for a god. A deemed perfect being has gotten attached to life.
He's found friends, ones who were filled with honesty and motives to the brim; ones who Multi entrusted with his secrets and goals. Trust came off as a struggle to him but they made it easy.
Quackity, Katie, Roier and Aldo. They became the closest people the doctor knew. Months back, he would’ve been convinced that the Polish Hussars would remain his most trusted friends, his family. They had a blood connection, did they not? They all came from the same place, the same land.
Yet past is past, isn't it?
The trust he once embodied was crushed and shattered. The people he once knew — he swore he knew — spat in his face. Spied, betrayed, abandoned. A god with no power, no trusted nor whom believed. A god with nothing.
That was until he got close to Katie who by her annoying tendencies forced herself into his space. By some unseen luck, or unluck as Multi would've described it at the time, they started to co-parent a child. Katie would be the last person he would ever think of being around. He never disliked her but whenever he got to talking to her she always somehow managed to bribe him out of work, causing him to completely forget his duties. Yet Multi wouldn't have changed a thing.
Alongside Katie was Quackity. The man he barely talked to though trusted most out of anyone from the start. Hiding information felt like a curse of a kind the doctor would die rather than have. When the Polish Hussars left, he stayed.
Then came Roier, they never were too close and still aren't, yet the Mexican grew on Multi either way. They had a bond of an inexplicable kind, neither complained or thought too much about it. Roier’s passion for polish and his jokes made him quickly fit under the description of family in Multi’s sense.
Last, there was Aldo. The man who was the most remarkable in the gaze of the scientist. He shone with a fierce determination, a power the man admired. They shared a goal of defeating the same enemy. Who could ask for a better alliance? They spoke in a language of favours but favours might as well stay forgotten.
It didn't take long for Multi to trust the other. Might've been shocking to others, yet it wasn't to them.
Aldo lingered in his mind, he always has. They all had a special place in Multi’s mind, being a close memento for his sanity. A memento which continued on during his work.
The project he's been working on was what one could call a precaution caused by his crippling paranoia. There's been attempts at ending his life already, so who in their normal mind wouldn't worry about it happening again?
It all began with a plain observation. Multi's been working with uranium and radiation for months now. He’d call himself an expert in his field, specifically since this wasn’t his first rodeo around a nuclear reactor. Despite his work ethics, he's seen way too many cases of irradiation for his liking, too many failed subjects and experiments. Yet it never seemed bother before that he never noticed any casualties on himself.
Factually, he's worked with adequate gear on every time, tried to keep himself as safe as physically possible. Decontamination for each entry or exit guaranteed. Though it's quite obvious some side effects would appear at a certain point, right? No safety measures work as they’re assigned.
Back at the start of this job, Multi can remember himself coughing for a few days which may be qualified as an early irradiation symptom… but it disappeared without a trace. Was it just a passing cold? Or something deeper buried within.
Then came the discovery of the acidic caves. When he saw them at first, he couldn't breathe. Not only because uranium was visibly a more accessible resource on this island, but also because he was unaware of these existing throughout his entire stay. Everyone could’ve known about them by this point, could’ve used them to their own advantage or worst case scenario, infect everyone and then Multi would actually have to develop a cure. A cure for something incurable.
While going through the caves and discovering their potential perils, Multi’s foot slipped into the acid. His mind raced with anxiety, his throat closing up wanting to throw up. A feeling of abrupt pain spiking his leg hollowed his thoughts. The turnup of one of his trousers’ legs burnt off in its entirety. He stumbled back onto the cave’s wall, sliding down it’s curves to frantically start inspecting his leg. Nothing. There were no wounds, no burns, no scarring. His skin was untouched as if the acid had been water.
The scientist stilled in his movements, staring agape at his bare calf. He stuttered in an attempt of forming words and instead sharply inhaled whatever air he could grasp. As his mind sobered up, he started to analyse, overthink why the hell the liquid had no effect on his body.
He did what any good scientist would do. He started experimenting. An aspiration for knowledge he’d never found interesting. A test on the limits of his body.
The first tests, caused him more anxiety than any good, he deemed. Working around uranium never caused him much stress, only fear of wrong outcomes. What he has worked on was preventable, predictable to a point of salvage. This, on the other hand, was complete endangerment of his life.
While working around the substance, he started to slowly, piece by piece, remove any of his protective gear. His goggles, mask, even his gloves had gone. He gave each a few days to show a sign, a symptom or the slightest change in health statistics. None appeared.
The time he spent in his laboratory, working with these toxins and daily mental torment. He grew accustomed to it. His body gave him one good thing in life to spare. The uranium didn't do anything.
Knowing that should be enough. One of the most toxic substances on earth couldn't affect him. Only advantages can come from that, thus logically Multi should be satisfied with his find, right? He could use this fact in so many ways to take over. But what can a curious cat do other than push on?
On a stand lay prepared vials. Vials of liquefied and slightly altered by composition uranium. Fulfilling this plan, he hesitated. It sounds ridiculous, even from a perspective of one who knows nothing about chemistry. Matter of fact, the sole idea of trying to fulfill such a test seems like stupidity in a pill.
But he needed to know. He needed to see whether it would work or kill him on the spot. It’s now or never. Due to his calculations, there’s a bigger rate for success than loss, but this is something no one has ever tried before. Something that no one has been slightly able to achieve or try.
A shaky sigh escaped his lips as he transferred one of the vials’ contents to a syringe. He already had a spot on his arm prepared. All it took was a quick injection in the right spot and patience. Additionally, not a death regard.
As he raised the needle to the assigned pre-cleaned spot, his thoughts raced to a different place. He tried convincing himself as an excuse that this was all for the project, all for the Dead Man’s Hand success rate. All for his safety. In reality, he was desperate. Desperate for a way of escaping the term of being a human, of overpowering them. Science, wits, his work was one. But being a walking weapon itself was another.
The substance got into his blood flow. He felt ill. He felt ill and his brain felt like exploding. He struggled to breathe as he gripped onto his chair’s sides, a last grip at control and perhaps reality. Who knows, he felt like he was going to die in seconds.
He didn’t. It took him a few minutes but he calmed down, his body seemingly relaxing as if nothing took place. Same result as the previous tests, over and over. Nothing was happening, none of it hurt him.
The results could’ve changed any minute. So he waited. Minutes, hours, days, to a final conclusion, uranium didn’t affect him. He was enthralled by such a discovery. He could make it work. They will finally see his greatness.
They will learn what a blessing the ability to say I’m a God is.
The doses stopped being enough. They weren’t satisfactory.
He hasn’t really seen anyone outside of The Federation and Katie in the span of this month. He’s focused on work, on keeping his son and Katie safe and on making sure that whatever may come, he shall be prepared. Katie’s been asking him if he’s alright or getting enough sleep more often — possibly his state was worsening. Maybe he’s been staying in the reactor for too long, the Polish Hussars used to constantly tell him he was way too pale and malnourished to work and gain great results. Perhaps that was the case. He should fix it.
But today was injection day and he was getting happy as the sole thought of it. Today, was different though. He’s noticed the lack of reaction the last dosage caused to the point he felt his days dragging and dragging on without a visible end or nearby exit. The amount had to be increased for it to work again.
Multi was doing amazing. He’s been more lively, stronger and “whimsical” as Katie described since the injections had begun. She didn’t anything about the tests Multi has been completing, he didn’t utter a word about it. He brushed it off as more scientific work involving the reactor and The Federation to which she complied. His only concern was that the last few days have only given him bad results, an immediate change was necessary. He felt like an entirely new person now. He felt like he could crush the world with just his wits and make every person on earth befall his superiority. He needed that power back.
In his office, he prepared his usual work station. A previously cleaned spot, the same spot it always has been. He could’ve sworn it got green-ish after each time but he had more important things to think about. The syringe was in his hand, begging to be injected as he finished pouring in double the amount of the substance in. He needed it.
The needle prickled into his vein once more and the liquid settled in. The usual state of shock of a few seconds followed, nothing Multi hasn’t gotten used to. What he wasn’t prepared for was the blood seeping down his lips to the floor as the leaned from his chair. His blood, he’s bleeding. His stomach churned and internally it felt like it turned into a mush of degrading cells instead of a solid organ. Everything hurt and Multi begged his brain to convince itself everything is okay.
He has been preparing his body for this substance’s intake for a month. It was not foreign. Why did his body react this way?
As he tried to move, to find a way of treatment he slipped off the chair, falling to his knees. His limbs grew week. He couldn’t move.
In the further distance, behind a held up wall of fog created by his brain, came multiple sounds of muffled communicator beeps. Message notification accompanied by the radar’s signals. The doctor couldn’t care less, though. He thought that it must be an enemy, he gritted his teeth and swore at himself that he had to move. Nobody would care if he were to bleed, nobody would care if he was on the verge on death either. But this wasn’t his time.
He had plans for the future. He couldn’t fail now because of a single unsuccess. The panicked doctor shuffled to the wall, laying his back against it and switching through his inventory for his ray-gun. It barely remained in his weakened hands, the gun too heavy and looking as if it might fall in seconds. Multi was prepared to stay here for until his enemy enters the room and he has the chance to kill them, till he heard their voice.
“Doc? You in there somewhere?” Aldo. The man he hasn’t seen in so long is back and is here and he might help- “Hey, I just came back from… a journey, you could say. Sorry for disappearing out of nowhere, I hope everything’s alright. Katie told me you should be here but- erh, doesn’t really seem like it. Qué coño le hablo a una pared, guey?”
“Aldo..?” his voice came out as a whisper. He needed to be clear and louder. Aldo was about to leave him and then he’d rot in one place like a helpless dog. “Aldo-!”
“Huh- Doc?” the scientist coughed up at the louder tone of his own voice, blood still poured down his chin. It was a smaller amount but it continued and his whole mouth tasted like metal.
“Are you in your office? You okay, doc?”
“Arh- Come in. The code is XXXX.” the act took Aldo by surprise. Multi never shared his pass-codes with anyone, only whitelisted them. The fact he gave him a pass code so quick too was just a confirmation of something bad happening.
“Multi-? Oh fuck.” the crow hybrid stilled in place as he saw the bloodied up Multi. The doctor didn’t really know what he looked like right now or how pathetic his stance must be, laying onto a wall, bleeding with a man looking at you from the top. Utter dishonour, yet with Aldo it didn’t matter as much.
“Mierda- Doc, what the hell happened?! Where are your injuries? What did-” Aldo dropped to his knees, right next to Multi and started inspecting him, looking around his body for visible injuries till he froze his panic in the sight of the spot of needle injection. The vein has been glowing a bright green, only dissolving the colour as it went further down the man’s body. The slight remnant of the syringe was now the most visible part of his body, he feared. That arm grew completely numb but the cut was bleeding, both blood and the same injected substance. His body was rejecting it.
“You need to explain what the fuck I am looking at.” the man’s lips shivered, Multi could see it. He wanted to help but didn’t know how and at the same time, his eyes furrowed, he was frustrated. Aldo was frustrated with him and possibly because he did such a stupid thing. He knew it was stupid without knowing what it was, of course he did. Before Multi could reply, his words turned to a quick jumble and passed out in the arms of the hybrid.
Aldo spent the next half an hour or so trying to figure out Multi’s thought process and a reason behind his actions.
After the doctor passed out in his arms, the crow froze panicking internally. In said panic, he laid Multi on the floor and started scrambling through his desk’s shelves in desperation for bandages. There were none in sight, but a few plasters and gauzes, usually seen during vaccinations, laid on top. Also grabbed them swiftly and in the same speed tended to Multi’s injury.
It bled violently, the blood basically creating a puddle of itself under Multi’s still arm with a visible glint of the green shining through. A question which entered Aldo’s mind, he answered for himself. He didn’t have to be a genius to figure out what happened.
For some god forsaken reason, Multi had injected uranium in himself. Aldo had no idea why or whatever the hell was the motivation for it but as of now he was glad he was wearing his gloves. He hoped those would be enough for protection against the substance.
Multi’s body has always been weak, weaker and seemingly paler than any of the islanders. From the moment Aldo met him, he looked sickly. His visuals changed from time to time under the matter of him getting enough sleep or not working as much once in a blue moon. Yet deep eyebags were always frankly visible on his face and now to add to it, he laid injured with green veins which thankfully were slowly turning back to their usual colourisation. Either the uranium has been adapting to the doctor’s body or it was simply killing him from the inside out.
Fuck, how Aldo hoped it wasn’t the latter.
He had no way of actually helping Multi so he could just sit next to him and wait in desperation for the other to wake up. The scientist’s head laid on the bare, cold floor. Aldo could’ve sworn that it was the same temperature as the other’s body. Multi always had a lower body heat than him, or basically anyone he knew. He grabbed Multi’s unmoving hand in his and held it in a manner of fear. Fear of breaking it under the force of his own hand, this fragile yet completely worn out fragment of Multi.
When Multi awoke, his head was laying on something soft unlike the rest of his body. He groaned from pain, trying to sit down yet was held down by a hand laying on top of his chest. It wasn’t filled with much force either, but his body was weak, too weak to admit, to even put up a fight.
Once his eyes registered the light and made out the room around him, he realised Aldo was sitting right next to him. He was staring right at him, his face forcibly stern but Multi could look through to notice the worry he held in his eyes. Concern for someone who doesn’t need it.
“Don’t get up, doc.” he skimmed through documents, which he held up on his lap. Multi couldn’t make their contents out from where he was, moreover his head ached to a degree great enough he couldn’t get himself to care. His focus travelled to from Aldo’s scarred face to his injured arm. He still couldn’t feel it.
His lip quivered at the thought and his whole predicament. He knowingly drove himself to failure, blinded by the success. He couldn’t get himself to say anything, to explain anything to the man sitting next to him. He was staring at him, his worry now more prominent, and to Multi’s surprise, he just stayed there in silence. Aldo was waiting for Multi to say something, he didn’t ask any questions. No screaming, shouting, pointless “Why?”s.
As the quiet dragged on, Multi got himself to notice that the avian wasn’t wearing his jacket. He could see all the scars and bandages covering his muscly arms which Multi wished to admire one day, inspecting each inch, every scar and the story behind all. The situation they were in as of now, did not really allow him such things. If anything, Multi is the one to who has to talk, not Aldo. As for the jacket, it finally clicked that he has been laying on it. Aldo must’ve used it because he felt bad. He has always been too kind for a person seen as evil.
He finally found his voice to begin “How long have you been here?”
“I’d say around 40 minutes.” the other replied instantly, almost as if he expected those precise words to be the ones to leave the doctor’s mouth first. Not calculated, just predictable.
“Aldo- Why did you stay? You could’ve just left me, you know?” the doctor went on shifting his head on the other’s jacket. He didn’t want to sugarcoat anything, the man just saw him almost die either way. What else was there to hide? He was there when Multi needed protection, always, so why would he keep these feelings a secret?
“Huh? Why the hell would I ever leave you when you’re bleeding out. I’m more surprised you survived, idiota.” Aldo seemed genuinely confused and even hurt by those words. They both settled on a relationship purely for each other’s benefits but they both knew neither had a clue about what benefits the other wanted. It was hard to believe Aldo would care this much. As Multi’s expression darkened, trying to think of something to say, he finally got himself to read the documents Aldo held.
“Those documents-” he cut off himself with a sharp breath and an jolt upright. Aldo instantly reached out to the doctor, supporting him as he sat up. The avian’s hand remained on Multi’s back.
“Yeah, they’re the reports of your so called experiment. What the hell did you think would happen, doc?” the hybrid inhaled sharply as if distraught at the thought. It made Multi wonder whether he really had been blinded to such an extent to not notice others’ worry, the people closest and most important to him.
Multi wanted to give Aldo a proper reason. An explanation that will be sensible enough for the crow to believe him without a second thought.
No such ideas came. The only choice he had was to be honest. He didn’t exactly want to lie right now, either. Not ever if he didn’t have to.
“It- My body was immune to it. Those records are… They were all successful. This one had double the dose. I didn’t expect my body to react this way-.” the doctor stuttered out his words, forming a scramble of randomly picked thoughts. He didn’t want his voice to sound desperate, yet raw emotions were all that filled him. He felt nude in such a position, basically dying an hour ago.
“Oh. How did you find that out?” Aldo seemed startled. Multi could feel a tight grip on his clothes begin to form.
“I never got irradiated.” he had no other answers, he didn’t want to mention the other tests. He didn’t want to make it worse than it already was.
“So you decided that injecting the fucking uranium is going to what? Help you?” it was bewildering. The sole idea of the scientist just doing it… out of pure curiousity? Multi’s mentality was the only part Aldo couldn’t wrap his mind around. He never truly understood the man thoroughly but when Multi’s motives where revealed he could sort all the reasons and try to understand. This? This was above his comprehension. He knowingly risked his life for some sick statement of "science”?
“It was for the Dead Man’s Hand project.” those words brought Aldo back to the lab. To the moment Multi so proudly spoke of it. He seemed mad when speaking about his projects, yet so passionate it never failed to amaze Aldo. But it has been proven to work perfectly and will work if needed — Aldo hoped the moment will never come — he would always be here to protect the man. If it weren’t to work, Multi wouldn’t speak of it so confidently.
Aldo would always notice the slight tinge of uncertainty in his tone when he spoke. He would’ve heard it at the time as well. The way the doctor was speaking now was more than a tinge. His voice was uncertainty itself.
“Was it?” an awkward silence filled the air, as Multi tried to say something but failing. They both knew the answer to the question, neither would admit. Aldo sighed and brought their bodies close, careful to not injure Multi further. “…Don’t do that again, doc. You scared the shit out of me.”
The hug, an act of such affection, had Multi shaken. He didn’t expect it nor would he ever expect a hug from Aldo. He was always averse to physical touch but for once, he didn’t mind it. It felt comforting.
Aldo’s muscles relaxed as he sunk into Multi’s shoulder, awaiting a response. At least some form of confirmation. His wings twitched uncomfortably from the stillness they were forced upon for the last hour. Finally, Aldo could feel Multi’s chest rising, preparing to say something.
“Oh- I don’t-…” he hesitated. “Kurwa. I don’t know how my body will deal with withdrawal.” the words made Aldo snap back from the embrace, holding the doctor by his shoulders.
“You’re gonna continue it?” his eyes were wide, but Multi didn’t know if it was because of surprise or the disappointment of hearing him say it out loud.
“… It’s not like it’s got anything to do with you, Aldo-. I don’t know how it’s going to work!” whatever he said was a sad attempt to protect his case. He knew they wouldn’t work.
“What do you mean it has nothing to do with me? I swore to protect you. I’m a man who keeps his promises.” Aldo’s voice was stern as he declared. Multi could’ve sworn he was upset with him for assuming such things. The man was too dedicated to his alliances, even though he betrayed his most important one.
To that, Multi had no words to say. They could’ve gone on to the point of arguing, resorted to yelling out their points and views but that was pointless. Multi didn’t have the energy to pull out any proper arguments either way, he just sunk at the idea onto Aldo’s chest. He could hear the other’s wings jolting up at the movement, perhaps worried he passed out again.
“We’ll see.” he said as a last resort, one of his hands clung onto the crow’s arm as his other fell still against his body. Aldo relaxed against the eerie cool of Multi’s and just let them both remain in a hug.
A hug of which neither knew if they’d get to experience again.