Chapter Text
At night when he dreams, he's back on that street, that afternoon before all hell breaks loose. In his dreams, he is ready when the tranquilizer dart aims for the soft of his neck; ‘Mori does not lunge to catch him when he crumples. They grab onto each other’s arms and reach for that connection that hums in subspace, a manoeuvre they’d drilled in the times of Nightmare’s reign. It would feel like an old muscle, and it would feel like coming home.
Then, he wakes.
The only thing consistent: he is hungry and cold, weak and alone with his thoughts in the dead of what he thinks to be night. There's no windows or clocks here, the only time kept is by the guards knocking at his door, though that too seems intentionally or not to be irregular. In the silence, he rolls that moment around his skull like a glass ball, head lolling with the weight of his memory and failure. He sees a million actions he could have, should have taken as the scene repeats over and over again -- he is as trapped in it as it is within his mind.
When he bites his lip raw, it's barely a conscious movement. Self-comforting and grounding as his chipped nails digging into his flesh, drawing shallow pools of blood. Could you blame him? He can barely see himself in the dark.
She’s in a vat of liquid when she wakes up. Immediately, she thrashes, flailing arms smacking against a cylindrical surface. Wires and tubes and cords only wrap tighter around her biceps with each violent yank.
You're not dying, a voice struggles to be heard at the back of her mind. Look. But a chaotic pounding drowns her thoughts. A suffocating pressure crowds her skin. The liquid is thick. It runs red out of the corner of her eye as she tugs, tugs.
She’s can feel herself getting weaker. The rapid stream of bubbles that fly from her lips starts to slow. Fuck, she’ll drown here, lungs full of her own blood, plastic ropes around her neck. Deep underground, in lab number one million, whatever, and fifty-five, somewhere far from home. There’s a chance her guild won’t even find her body. Even if they did, what state would it be in? She might bloat into something unrecognisable as the chemicals worm their way under her skin, or they might cleave her body in half to find one more thing to be disappointed about before discarding her. No, please, she can't die. Not here. It’s not right.
Help her, Master Swordsman. Help her, friends. From the depths of her chest, unbidden, an animal noise claws its way out. Help me, mom. Help me.
(“Oh, shoot." Muffled. Drawling. "Nurse, sedate her.”)