Chapter Text
Danny didn’t understand what had happened to him. He’d been in the theater, looking around, taking a few pictures of the cracks in the walls, then he was surrounded by smiling faces, painted like clowns. They cut him open, meticulously removing his skin and discarding the rest without care. He couldn’t decide whether he was lucky or not. The things that cut him apart had left him mostly intact, though he had no clue how he was still alive. They dumped him in an alley around the corner to die slowly and painfully. All alone, he wondered if anyone would find him and, if they did, if they would be able to identify him. It would probably be for the best if they couldn’t, he didn’t want his brother to be burdened with the knowledge of how he suffered. I would be for the best if he disappeared mysteriously without a trace.
Danny had consigned himself to death. Even if anyone found him now, he highly doubted they would be able to save him. He knew this logically, yet still yearned for a chance at survival. Then there was a voice, soft and sweet. He couldn’t make out the words, but he looked up to see a woman standing above him. She didn’t look disturbed at the sight of a skinless, half-dead man, she looked almost excited. She pushed a strand of blue hair out of her eyes and smiled at him with sharp teeth. She knelt down and offered her hand. Now that she was closer, Danny could hear her properly.
“I’m a doctor,” She said “I can save you.”
Danny took the doctor’s hand and she picked him up, carrying him through back alleys and side streets to some sort of lab. She laid him down on a metal table and started gathering tools. She held up a syringe and injected something into him. In his half conscious state, Danny assumed it would put him asleep or at least dull his pain, but no, it kept him awake and the pain only got more intense. The doctor started to take out thin sheets of metal and molded them to his body. The metal was Hot. He could almost feel each of his nerves being burned to a crisp. Whatever serum she’d injected him with stopped him thrash, stopped him from screaming, stopped him so much as even passing out from the pain. After what seemed like weeks, maybe even months, the doctor was done. Then the tests began.
She talked quickly when explaining what she was doing to him, though even if she slowed down enough for him to process the words, he wouldn’t understand what half of them meant. The first test was simple, Carmilla claimed it was necessary to be sure that she’d “fixed” him properly, even if she was certain she’d done everything right. The smile on her face when she pulled out a gun and shot him in the head told him that the test was not necessary, but rather for her own amusement. This was the case for all of her tests. “Please drink this” she’d say with a smile and he swallowed a glass of something that smelled like too-strong coffee, but tasted like gasoline. “This will only hurt for a second” she’d reassure before sending thousands of volts of electricity through his body. “We should be done in just a few minutes” would be the last thing Danny heard before the beginning of one of her month long experiments.
This went on for about fifty years, though Danny stopped keeping track after two. They’d left Earth in favor of traveling planet to planet in a small ship that Carmilla had made him help build. It wasn’t all bad, Danny did enjoy getting to see the stars and Carmilla had bought (or maybe stole, he didn’t ask) a theremin for him to play. Still, the good never outweighed the awful. The first time he’d tried to run wasn’t all that bad, he’d gotten nothing more than a slap on the wrist. Every repeat offence was worse and Danny gave up on running entirely when he realised that the Doctor was tracking him. He couldn’t kill her, she was just as immortal as him, perhaps even more so. Even if she could be killed, something in the way she had made him prevented him from harming her.
After decades of tests and torture, Carmilla got bored. Danny had spent so long trying to figure out how to get away from her, only for her to leave the planet they were on while he was sleeping. That was the start of his century alone. He traveled from planet to planet in a clunky old vessel that he had to put together from scraps. He found himself falling back into his old habit of jumping from hobby to hobby. He spent a few years on street art, some months on fly fishing, and almost a decade as a stand up comedian on a planet where comedy had been outlawed. It was during his time as a music journalist when he first heard of the Mechanisms and they immediately peaked his interest for two reasons. The first was because he loved concept bands and had even started one back on Earth (this was why he played the theremin). The second was because Dr. Carmilla had always referred to him as a Mechanism. So he went to their concert.
The first few people who walk onto the stage were a little disappointing. They didn’t stand out like Danny did with his steel skin, they just looked like normal musicians in slightly strange costumes. Then he saw the violinist’s arm, it could just be a prosthetic, but still promising. The next person of note was the pianist with a pair of metal wings stretched out of her back, then the drummer who seemed to be made out of brass and the mandolin player who looked to be wooden. Danny’s hopes were confirmed when the lead singer started yelling and shot the guitar player three times in the chest. The guitarist got up a few moments later, only after everyone in the bar had run off. Everyone except for Danny.
“Well, pack things up I suppose.” The drummer sighed and started to take apart his set.
“What? No! Not everyone ran, there’s still a guy.” The singer defended. He had yet to holster his gun, so it was currently pointed at Danny’s head.
“That’s one guy and he hasn’t moved in ten minutes, he’s probably dissociating right now.” The bassist unplugged their instrument and swung into around onto their back.
“I’ll snap him out of it.” The singer started to move toward Danny, and Danny briefly considered that he should be running from the gun wielding maniac. Suddenly the singer was in front of him, but his entire demeanor changed when he got a closer look.
“This is definitely her work.” He mumbled. The other members of the band noticed the shift and started to make their way over. “What’s your name?”
“Danny.” The band was surrounding him now. Each of them ticked and whirred in ways that reminded him of the machines that the Doc had kept in her lab.
“I’m Jonny and this is Nastya, Ivy, Ashes, Brian, the Toy Soldier, Tim, Marius, and Raphaella.” Jonny pointed out each member of the band and they all looked at Danny sadly. “Have you ever met a woman named Dr. Carmilla?”
“Unfortunately, yes.” Danny nodded. Suddenly the wooden one, the Toy Soldier, had him wrapped in a hug.
“What are you doing, TS?” Raphaella asked, gently removing the wooden man from Danny, and shooting him an apologetic smile.
“Dr. Von Raum Said That Whenever Someone Brings Up The Good Doctor, They Need Comfort.” It explained. “I’ve Gathered That Hugs Are A Very Good Form Of Comfort.”
“Thank you for that, Toy Soldier.” Danny smiled at it and it gave him a thumbs up. The ten of them talked for most of the night, but the general agreement was for Danny to join their crew. That’s how Danny found himself working as the Navigator of the Aurora.
There weren’t many rules on the ship, but breaking them were often considered punishable by death: Do not enter the engine room without the Aurora’s permission, do not remove a book from the archive without Ivy’s permission, do not flip Brian’s switch without his permission. Some of the rules were in place to protect you from death: Do not enter the brig, do not enter a room with more than 20 octo-kittens, do not touch anything in Raphaella’s lab. But a lot of the rules were just common curtesy: Do not make fun of Jonny’s southern accent, do not order the Toy Soldier to do something unless absolutely necessary, and do not bother any member of the crew around important anniversaries (their death, the death of a loved one, their mechanization).
Danny was grateful that despite being a group of apathetic muderers, they were all shockingly sympathetic to his situation. He was welcomed with open arms to the crew and dragged along to concerts, adventure, and killing sprees. He enlisted in war, joined cults, and spent decades in prison. He was killed hundreds of times and did the killing more times than that. And he fucking loved it. The mechs played tag with bullets, played poker with whole decks of cards up their sleeves, and played century long games of hide and kill. They formed a family of immortal space pirates that he cared for more than he’d ever admit.
Danny was sure he was content until a particularly long game of hide and kill. Danny had chosen earth as his hiding spot after Ivy had confirmed that there was very little chance it was the same universe he had originated from. He was working as a mechanic, using the name Daniel Steel. A shockingly low number of people actually questioned why his skin was made of metal and those that did gave up after his reassurance that he would be visiting a dermatologist soon. It was a nice life, any boredom that my have arose was canceled out by the possibility that one of his crew mates could track him down at any moment. That exact thing happened when Jonny burst into his shop wearing a sweater vest of all things and started screaming to him.
“How could you not tell me you have a brother?” Was the last thing Danny heard before being shot in the head.