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There is something wrong with Tina.
Cellbit doesn’t have much room to talk, but the point still stands. There’s something wrong with Tina, far past what’s normally wrong with people on this goddamn island, and Cellbit can’t figure it out. That’s what really worries him. Tina is a puzzle with all the pieces there and intact, and Cellbit still can’t put it all together.
It scares him. She scares him. He doesn’t like that she scares him.
She’s nice, which makes everything worse. Tina is sickeningly nice, even with a twisted ankle and bruises and scrapes all over her body. She was just chased through woods and forest by a crazed bear aiming to kill her, and she’s offering to help him with the dishes. She’s so nice.
Cellbit wishes he was paranoid. And he is paranoid, but he wishes that he was just being paranoid right now, and everything was actually fine. He wants to like Tina. Bagi loves Tina. She hangs on to her every word and follows her around like a puppy. It would be sweet, the way her and Tina orbit around each other, always wanting to be close and together but too scared to actually touch. It’s all hesitation with Bagi and Tina, and Cellbit wants to feel fond and nostalgic and he wants to tease Bagi about her little crush and tell Tina embarrassing things about how obsessed with her Bagi is. But, that’s the thing. He can’t do that.
Because Bagi is obsessed with Tina.
And again, Cellbit is throwing stones from his own glass house. He knows obsessed, he’s been obsessed, he is obsessed, currently, with everything Roier does. Cellbit’s not really in a place to judge obsessed, which is what frustrates him. He can’t put it quite into words, how strange Tina makes him feel, how strange her influence is on other people.
He’s never wanted to like someone as much as he wants to like Tina. He tries to convince himself that it’s just because he doesn’t want to be paranoid, doesn’t want to scare off the new islanders with his skittery, distrustful attitude, that he wants to play nice with his sister’s —oh god , that’s his sister , it’s still so strange to think about— partners. He could convince himself of that, if he really tried, because there’s nothing suggesting that that isn’t the reason why.
He doesn’t believe it though, not for a second. He can’t believe it.
There’s something wrong about Tina.
She’s sweet, and she’s caring, and she’s soft with Bagi and Cellbit and the eggs and everyone she meets, despite the fact that being soft will never keep anyone safe, especially not here. Cellbit wants, so desperately, to believe it’s naivete, that there’s not another person with bad intentions, especially not someone like Tina. But he can’t, not even when she helps him with chores in thanks for letting her crash at the castle despite not knowing her situation, not even when she takes up as little space as possible and keeps quiet in all the ways Cellbit knows that hurt people do. He feels bad for her and angry at himself, because she’s scared and a victim and Cucurucho tried to kill her the way he tried to kill Cellbit and Tubbo and every single other person who didn’t fall exactly in line, despite the fact that Tina never once strayed out of line. Cellbit hates that he’s suspicious of her, and hates that he doesn’t trust a single tear leaving her eye, because he knows they’re real.
He thinks they’re real. His brain tells him they’re real, and he can usually trust his brain.
He’s not quite sure right now.
There’s something really wrong about Tina. It’s messing him up. He hates it.
Cellbit thinks that he wants to be friends with Tina, Cellbit thinks that Tina deserves to be safe, and Cellbit trusts Tina. That’s not good, even though in a perfect world it would be, because Cellbit doesn’t trust people he’s just met, and certainly not this much. He’s fighting against himself to distrust Tina, and it scares him. This isn’t normal. Something is very wrong, and that something is very much having to do with Tina.
He inhales sharply and looks up, startling when he makes eye contact with Tina. Bagi’s back is facing him, the girl leaning on the table while rambling on about something to Tina. Tina nods and hums and makes noises of excitement in all the right places, asks all the right questions, but she stares over Bagi’s shoulder. She doesn’t look away, even when he catches her staring. Cellbit, not breaking eye contact, lowers his pen onto the table, ceasing his tapping, but her eyes still don’t move.
Who are you, Cellbit thinks to himself, and what the fuck do you want from me?
Tina doesn’t answer. She smiles though, like she knows exactly what he’s thinking, and Cellbit wants to be angry, be furious and spiteful and hateful because nothing good ever comes from a smile like that on this island. Cellbit isn’t furious. He just feels a little emptier, and a little less tense, despite himself.
Oh, Cellbit thinks, Oh, this might be a problem.
Cellbit thinks that Tina is a problem far larger than him, than Bagi, than the island itself. Cellbit thinks that she’s a problem the way Bad is, but a little worse, a little more disarming. Bad is tall, frightfully so, with horns that curve into sharp, knifelike points, and claws that nobody could mistake for harmless. Bad has a warning sign that flashes miles away. Bad could kill him, and Cellbit knows this because he’s seen Bad kill and he’s seen Bad in general. Bad is a lightning strike, sudden and bright, capable of harm to wild extents but visible from miles away.
Tina is water heating slowly on a fire, where the frog doesn’t realize the water’s boiling until it’s already dead.
Cellbit turns away, head jerking down back to his work. He can’t feel her gaze anymore, but it doesn’t mean it’s not there. She’s still there, in his home, his castle, talking with his sister like she’s not a fucking devil in disguise. Because, really, what else would she be?
Distantly, he can hear Bagi saying her goodbyes to Tina, and Tina’s reassurances that she’ll be fine going back to her house alone and that she’ll call if anything bad happens, she promises. Cellbit tries not to listen when Tina gives him a bright goodbye, but he mumbles something back to her anyway. He didn’t want to do that. He tells himself he did it because Bagi would be upset if he didn’t. He doesn’t believe himself for a second, but he’d really not prefer to give the other idea any thought.
He doesn’t want to distrust Tina. He wants to believe that it’s all weird coincidences and that he’s paranoid, and for now, he’s okay believing that. Mentally though, because who makes physical lists anymore, he crosses her off the list of people he can trust. She never should’ve been put there that soon in the first place.
There is something wrong with Tina. There’s something wrong about Tina. Cellbit’s not sure if he actually wants to find out what. That only hastens him to look a little closer, because no one is ever not worth investigating in Cellbit’s eyes, and she has done something to his brain if it doesn’t want to investigate her.
Tina is nice, and she’s sweet, and she’s soft . She’s good to Bagi, and she’s good to him, and she’s good to the eggs. She’s a good person, and in Cellbit’s eyes, she hasn’t been touched by war or grief or evil the way he has, and she’s better off for it. She’s lovely, and she’s wonderful, and nobody (save for maybe Foolish, but Foolish and her banter like Cellbit and Bagi do, so he won’t take what Foolish says at face value) have a bad thing to say about her. Cellbit likes her, genuinely, despite himself, even after his realization that she’s not as innocent as she shows she is, the same way everybody likes Tina.
Cellbit trusts Tina about as much as trusts a broken lock to keep him safe.
Cellbit sighs, and he goes back to work. Answers will come to him, at some point, but everyday has been piling on top of each other. It’s times like this that he misses Richas, which is saying something, because Cellbit always misses Richas nowadays. Richas would know what to do, Cellbit thinks, and then tries to not feel pathetic for pushing the emotional load bearing onto his child son. Part of him knows it’s true though, because at his core Richas was a little matchmaker.
Is, Cellbit corrects himself mindlessly, He is a little matchmaker. He’s not dead. And he will come back to meet his mãe or tia or whatever Bagi is and he will want to know everything about her and her weird, demonic, strange girlfriend. It’ll be better when Richas comes back.
It’ll be better sounds a lot like I’ll be better. He tries not to think about it, and so far, he’s pretty successful.
Cellbit is trying so hard not to judge.
He’s a little judgy, he admits that. He’s not opposed to gossip, especially when gossip often means more information for him about the happenings of the island, but in all honesty, that’s really only an excuse. Cellbit’s always been a bit hyperaware and a bit hypercritical. It comes with the territory, now that he’s a kind-of, sort-of detective.
From what he remembers, Cellbit’s always been a little more observant than other people. It’s not their fault and it doesn’t necessarily make him better, even though it does make him a slightly better investigator than most, rather, it’s just another trait he has. Because of this, Cellbit tries not to judge others on what should be obvious to them, because he never really knows if it’s actually obvious or if his standards for what is “obvious” are higher than the average person.
Right now though, Cellbit thinks he might be going insane.
Now that he’s noticed, Cellbit can’t stop noticing. It’s not just the energy she gives off, unnaturally disarming and welcoming, but it’s everything. He watches her pick up a weapon she claims to have never used before and tear through mobs like it’s nothing. He eats lunch with her and Bagi one time and her teeth are pointed and deadly and not in a feline way.
On that note, there’s not much about Tina that suggests a cat. If someone’s not looking, they’ll see the sharp eyes and retractable claws and cat ears resting on her head and they’ll hear her hissing noises she emits when things aren’t quite going right, and believe that all signs point to cat . But, really, none of these signs are cat exclusive, and since Cellbit is looking , because he might be a little worried, he finds them to mostly just be signs of a predator.
There’s also the most damning evidence, being that those are absolutely not her real fucking ears.
And listen, Cellbit might sound like a creep, but he truly did not mean to spy on Tina. He was just walking home from Tubbo’s house when he saw her, fighting too many creepers for one person to handle. He was prepared to help, or at the very least revive her before she had to respawn, but she killed them like it was no problem after a few moments. This isn’t the most shocking thing, because there are plenty of crazy fighters on this island, but then Cellbit sees her ear fall off, and he knows for sure that that is not a normal fighter thing that happens.
Instead of screaming, as one would if their ear fell off abrubtly, or looking around frantically, as one would if their entire identity could’ve been revealed to literally anyone walking by in the broad daylight, Tina just grimaces and picks it up. In her quick movement, she shook the other ear loose from her head. She turns to readjust them, and Cellbit pulls off the quickest move to the left behind a tree ever acheived in human or non-human history. He has literally never been more thankful for being able to be as silent and still as possible at the drop of a hat, because if he didn’t have that ability, he wouldn’t have been able to see the sharp, short horns peeking out from Tina’s hair where her ears usually are.
They gleam a pure white, contrasting the deep, dark black of Bad’s horns that Cellbit’s used to, and Cellbit would almost admire them if they weren’t confirming exactly what he had thought. He doesn’t even get the chance to take a picture, because Tina is attaching her ears right back to her head, securing them with some sort of hidden technology that Cellbit can’t see. She shakes her head and they stay firmly in place, only shaking the amound a normal cat-hybrid’s ears would. She sighs in relief and gathers the gunpowder left by the creepers before opening a warp scroll and quickly disappearing, most likely back home, to Girls’ Village.
Cellbit does not freak out on the rest of his walk home. He doesn’t even freak out when he gets home. He’s proud of himself for this.
Instead of freaking out, he works in his office, and he works in the dining room, and he actually talks to a few people. When the day ends, he sits on his bed next to a sleeping Roier and pulls out a notebook and writes down every single thing he knows and has noticed about Tina and her behavior, and resolves to bring it up with someone tomorrow. She’s more careless than he had originally thought. She’s frightening, sure, and whatever influence she has over others puts Cellbit on edge, but she doesn’t even seem to try to hide her own secrets, so someone on this island must have noticed at this point.
This, Cellbit resolves, is obvious.
“Mate, what the hell are you talking about?” Phil asks, looking at him with genuinely concerned eyes. Cellbit groans in frustration, running his hands through his hair. He leans back in his chair, spinning around as though that will help the situation. Phil sits across from him at the other side of his desk, and just kind of... stares at him. As though Cellbit’s crazy.
Cellbit’s not crazy.
“I’m not crazy, man,” Cellbit sighs, slouching in his chair, “there’s no way you haven’t seen it.”
Phil, apparently, hasn’t seen it. He just smiles a little condescendingly and rolls his eyes and tells Cellbit to sleep more, like that’s relevant to anything. Sleep doesn’t affect him, that’s not how Cellbit works.
He tells Phil this and Phil just says, “Clearly it’s not how you work, mate, it’s how you sleep. You should do it more,” and then he laughs at his own joke that Cellbit doesn’t... fully understand, before patting Cellbit on the shoulder and warping away.
So Phil is, and was, a bust. That’s fine. Phil’s preoccupied, and Cellbit doesn’t think Phil’s even hung around with Tina since she first got here, so it’s not like he would have the chance to notice. It’s fine. This is fine. Someone is bound to have noticed.
Cellbit tries Bad next, because Bad knows everything. Tina’s there too, and it scares him so bad that he thinks he has a mini heart attack on the spot. He’s subtle about it though, and the most he gets is a raised eyebrow from Bad at the way he recoils away from Tina. She greets him, still with that same wide smile and barely blinking, if ever, eyes, and he greets her back. He doesn’t really want her to be here, considering the sort of talk he wants to have with Bad, so he tries to subtly kick her out. It doesn’t work that well, and Bad chastizes him for being rude, but Tina just nods and tells him that she was on her way out anyway, and waves them goodbye. She’s so nice, that Cellbit feels a little bit bad for kicking her out, feels a little sorry about— No, he doesn’t. No, nope, not at all. Cellbit doesn’t care, and Cellbit definitely does not feel sick.
He tells Bad about his theory —he doesn’t have a name for it yet, because TinaDemon feels a bit on the nose— and Bad just gives him a skeptical look. They stand in an awkward silence for a few seconds at the foot of Cellbit’s castle, Cellbit trying to resist the urge to fidget with his hands, before Bad sighs and gestures to his own horns and tail.
“Cellbit—” Bad starts, and Cellbit cuts him off with a huff. He knows that tone of voice very well, and he’s not at all pleased with where this discussion is heading if Bad’s about to say what Cellbit thinks he is.
“Cellbit, you don’t even know what I was going to say—”
“Yes, I do!” Cellbit says, slightly petulant. He sounds fifteen again, which would be mortifying if he was paying any attention to the way he sounds.
“No, you don’t,” Bad says, rubbing at his forehead like he already has a headache, “And that still doesn’t give you the right to interrupt people like a muffinhead. ” Cellbits rolls his eyes, and Bad gives him a light smack over the head with his tail, to which Cellbit hisses at. Bad snorts a little laugh and Cellbit goes to protest that, but Bad opens his mouth to continue.
“What I was going to say is that I would—”
“—You’d know if Tina was a demon because—”
“—I’m a demon,” Bad says, barreling through Cellbit’s interruption, before turning to smile at Cellbit from underneath his hood.
“Exactly,” Bad says, “You understand. Now, be reasonable, Cellbit. Of course Tina’s not a demon,” and he says it like it’s obvious that she’s not, when the opposite is clearly the truer option, “and I, of all people, would know that.”
Clearly not, Cellbit thinks vindictively, as Bad continues to chatter as he organizes and reorganizes his entire house around Cellbit.
Cellbit is realizing that he may be the only sane person on this island, which is a hard thought to think about. He needs to try a different tactic, because all he has right now is anecdotal evidence that only he’s experienced. He needs to get wider evidence, a second source, maybe, or at least a witness.
The girls of Girls’ Village aren’t much help either. Mousey says she hasn’t seen her do anything strange, and Niki and Jaiden generally repeat the sentiment. They say everything that Cellbit already knows, that Tina is a sweetheart and that Bagi and Tina are so good together, but they don’t say anything that tips him off to anything suspicious. He tries not to make them suspicious, tries to ask all the right questions and say all the right things to get information without telling them that he thinks their friend is an evil demon sent to possibly murder him and his new-found sister. He’s found that he can’t really tell people the actual reason for his questions, because they usually don’t react well, saying things like “That’s so invasive,” and “Why the hell would you ask me that?” It was getting bothersome, having to answer questions and explain things to people. So, he asks better questions, but despite that, he’s getting worse answers.
Cellbit is slightly, a little bit, on the verge of giving up. Roier’s still asleep, and Bagi won’t talk to him unless it’s to try and remind him of their forgotton childhood. He hates everything he can’t remember, and he hates everything he can’t prove. Part of him, desperate and angry and hungry, thinks that he doesn’t care if Tina possesses or kills or does whatever she’s planning to do to Bagi. He’s angry, like a child, like he’s fifteen and constantly tired and aching and fighting , and the fighting never stopped. He doesn’t hate Bagi, but he hates that he can’t remember what they had and he hates that he’ll never have what she had and he hates that he’s living a life he’s not in control of.
Cellbit hates that he misses Bagi. He doesn’t even know her. He misses her anyway.
Sleeping that night is hard. Waking up in the middle of the night is even harder.
Cellbit gasps awake, hand scrabbling at his own chest and breaths heavy. He knows —because he knows everything because he’s a fantastic investigator, thank you very much— that whatever dream he was having wasn’t a good one. He can feel his own heartbeat racing in his chest, eyes wide and body twitching, but he can’t stop panicking. He knows that whatever he dreamed about either didn’t happen or, the more realistic version, happened a long time ago and shouldn’t be hurting him anymore. Cellbit heaves another deep sigh, and he looks around the room for comfort. Roier is still sleeping, and that’s a small joy tinged with sadness, because he’s still fucking sleeping but at least he’s alive. Cellbit’s eyes scan their room, eyes tracing over their bed frame and dresser and dark, tall walls and only one exit out of the room because there’s no fucking windows and—
Cellbit needs a walk. Or maybe a drink. Or maybe he just needs to get out of this place, and get off this god damned island.
Only the first two and a half he can do right now, because getting off the island is still a work in progress. He can get up though, leave the room with a kiss to Roier’s forehead, and he can get himself a drink that, shockingly, isn’t coffee, and take a small walk around the castle. It’s late, really late, and usually he wouldn’t mind being up. There’s something about wandering downstairs though, with all the lights off and no natural light to peek through non-existent windows. Cellbit opens the fridge absent-mindedly, trying not to think so he doesn’t think about closed off rooms and locked cell doors and the aching loneliness of solitary that’s been his punishment since the war all the way until the prison and then, now, the Federation and their empty offices and empty buildings and empty smiles and—
Cellbit’s not thinking about it. He’s really, really good at not thinking about it.
He takes a deep breath, and moves to the cabinets to take out a bottle of wine. He doesn’t even check which it is, he just grabs a knife out of the drawer and drives it into the cork of the bottle, yanking it out without flinching. He takes a long drink of it, and holds it in his hand for a second, thinking about the possible pros and cons of slamming it down on the counter. He would feel a lot better, until the glass shatters everywhere and he has to clean it up, in which he would feel a lot worse. He resigns himself to placing it down gently, and throws the knife down at the counter haphazardly in exchange. It doesn’t make Cellbit feel better, but it gives him a vindictive sort of satisifaction for a brief moment, so he supposes it’s better than nothing.
Cellbit stands motionless in the middle of his kitchen, like a robot with no code or command. He closes his eyes despite himself, and feels himself swaying for a moment, on the brink of sleep. He quickly rights himself back up but he doesn’t open his eyes. He can’t afford to fall asleep, not now. He doesn’t want to be inside another nightmare, clawing and scratching at people he can’t remember anything about when he wakes up, just the visceral, instinctual fear they’ve ingrained in him. He’s already on edge, body laced with tension despite his exhaustion, and his fingers twitch minutely from where he’s let them lie in fists at his side. He clenches his fists, tries to bring some feeling back into his hands, some feeling back into his body instead of the dissociative state he can feel himself slipping into. Cellbit hisses, claws digging into his palms, and he shakes his head viciously, trying to keep himself focused. There’s a tension in the air, the way there has been for days now, and Cellbit’s trying to let go of it. Cellbit paces, and he heaves a heavy sigh, trying to let out some tension, before resigning himself to a tense, twitchy walk around the castle.
Just to be sure , he tells himself, just to be sure. Sure of what, Cellbit doesn’t know, but he needs to be sure of whatever it is.
It’s almost routine, pacing the perimeter of the castle with light, wary footsteps, eyes darting around. Cellbit taps a rhythm into his thigh, and tries to ignore the knife he feels sitting at the back of his inventory. He doesn’t need it. He doesn’t need a fucking knife to feel safe. He has swords and shields and a goddamn gun, he doesn’t need a knife—
There’s a snap of a twig, and Cellbit doesn’t even blink as he launches the knife at the sound. There’s a tiny gasp as the knife hits flesh, before a hiss and the sound of the knife thudding against the soft ground, and the sound of light footsteps running away quietly. Not quietly enough though, because Cellbit’s fucking trained for this. It’s the one thing he’s proven to be good at, time and time again, and it’s not going to fail him now.
Cellbit hears himself chase after the person, can only hear his own heartbeat in his ears as his sights narrow. He refuses to let anyone spy on him and get away with it, and he refuses to let himself be in danger again, let Roier be in danger ever , and he doesn’t give a single flying fuck who it is that he’s hunting down. He knows that Roier doesn’t care if he kills someone, unless it’s someone like Jaiden, or his grandfather, or something, and he barely cares at all right now outside of that.
Cellbit pins whoever it is to a tree, fists clenched in their shirt and teeth bared. He sees a flash of brown hair and worries, for a second, completely nonsensically, that it’s Roier, and that Cellbit’s finally ruined everything. It’s not though, because Cellbit feels long hair fall over his hands and his vision focuses to see Tina, glaring at him with eyes that seem to glow and pierce through him.
He thinks, momentarily, about the risks of killing her. Foolish might get mad. Bagi will definitely get mad.
“Get the fuck away from my house,” He grits out, deciding quickly that killing her is absolutely worth any consequence. It’s not like she’ll die permanently, anyway, however unfourtunate that is.
He goes for the knife in his inventory, reminiscent of the way he pulled it out when Bad told him to kill Tina earlier, and he attempts to drive it into her shoulder. She ducks away and procedes to lunge at him, knocking him backwards and reaching at him with only her claws and a heavy determination. The jokes on her though, because Cellbit has determination, claws, and a knife. Despite himself, Cellbit feels more at home here than he did in that treehouse with Bagi, feels more like himself when he’s clawing and stabbing at someone else than he does in his childhood home, in his childhood bedroom. He cracks his fist against her nose, the knife almost skimming her face as she falters back, shocked slightly. He doesn’t stop, swinging the knife towards her again, blindly following muscle memory. Cellbit’s used to this, and he’s really fucking good at it. He nearly pins Tina, chest heaving as she still kicks and fights her way out. Tina doesn’t fight clean. She doesn’t even fight organized. She fights with the ferocity and desperation that Cellbit’s seen in himself, only she does it like it’s an art, like it’s a practiced method of murder that she’s perfected. She kicks him and claws at him and keeps throwing herself around like her body’s a vessel for her mission, and it might just be. Her ears don’t fall off this time, Cellbit notes, before aiming directly at them.
It’s his downfall, because with him reaching for her horns-disguised-as-ears, she gets the chance to grab his arms and flip him to the ground. She drops down, claws sharp against his throat and knee dug into his stomach. Cellbit chokes, gasping for air that’s already been knocked out of his lungs, and Tina doesn’t do anything but press more weight into his stomach and chest than before.
She’s angry. She’s angry and she’s won.
Cellbit hisses at her anyway, the sound of someone who is angry and who has lost, and her face shifts. It’s almost awful to see the way she changes up close. Her expression shifts from something dark, otherworldly and hellish and angry, to something sweeter. Her eyes get lighter, black shifting to a warm brown, and her whole face seems to smooth out. She looks calmer, save for the blood dripping down from her nose onto her mouth and chin, but Cellbit can feel the anger radiating off of her in waves.
“I fucking hate you,” Cellbit says, like it matters, because he has zero self preservation instinct.
“I know,” Tina nods condescendingly, like she cares at all about him even with her claws digging into her neck, “I’m really upset about it.” Tina is, demonstrably, not upset about it, and Cellbit bites back a snarl as he watches her eyes glint with humor, an amusement that he hates on anybody but especially her.
“You’d kill me in a second, if you only could , ” she says sympathetically, to really contradict the way she drives her knee up into his ribcage, paining him again. “ But you can’t, ” she finishes, voice soft and sad like a comforting whisper, speaking to him like he’s a child who just needs to hear exactly how much he’s failing. It’s accompainied by a faux-sweet, almost sickeningly saccharine grin that shows all her teeth. Cellbit tries not to falter, but something instinctual within him tells him to run and not stop running, never stop running. It’s the first time Cellbit’s felt like prey more than predator, hunted more than hunter, in a long, long time. He forgot how much he hates it, the way the sensation crawls over him like bugs, but he does. He hates it more than anything.
Tina must know this.
He looks at her, and she smiles wider, and Cellbit can see her own blood on her teeth. He feels that same blood on his knuckles, and that feeling used to feel good, vindicating, but now it just leaves him hollow, terrified, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
She closes her mouth, and when she opens it a few seconds later to smile some more, the blood is gone. Cellbit wonders if this is what everyone else felt like so many years ago, shocked still and terrified down to their bones. He wonders if this is retribution for his actions, a divine karma sent from whatever God might be out there.
He looks at Tina, bloodied yet unafraid, grinning like she has nothing to lose, grinning like she’s won, because she has.
“I’m just trying to help, Cellbit,” she says, nodding with wide eyes like they’re on the same side, only the manic grin on her face giving herself away, “I promised to protect her, y’know, and I have to keep that helpful streak going.”
Cellbit doesn’t want to know what she means by streak, but he knows that somewhere in her, she genuinely thinks she’s helping Bagi. It’s bloodcurdling, the fact that she thinks she’s doing the right thing, that he once thought he was doing the right thing.
Tina couldn’t be sent from God , Cellbit thinks, resolutely, still lying limp even as Tina pulls herself away, rescinds her claws from his throat and bounces away, humming absently to herself like she’s not in competition for the worst fucking thing on this island. Cellbit thinks of the bows in her hair, the pale purples and greens and delicate demeanor in contrast to Bad’s sharp edges and high contrast and neon reds and edgy blacks. He thinks of Tina’s temper, voice rising sharply as she hisses at Foolish for interrupting her goodbye to Bagi. Cellbit thinks to himself, Tina couldn’t be from divinity, even if she tried. Especially if she tried.
Cellbit takes a shaky breath, and lifts himself off the ground. He rubs at his throat, at his arms and his head, but there’s barely a bruise anywhere on him. There’s no proof, no evidence that anything happened to him. He has the stars and the trees as a witness, but that will never be enough. Cellbit’s heart is racing in his chest, anxiety and stress threatening to overcome him as he drags himself back inside. With trembling hands, he resets all the locks to the entrances to the castle, and takes care to scan the entire area up until his and Roier’s bedroom. He enters, and changes into something cleaner, dazed and thinking with no real train of thought. Cellbit tucks himself in nect to Roier, essentially curling into the man.
“ Gatinho? ” Roier whispers, barely awake. Cellbit hums in response, and Roier relaxes into him.
“Are you okay?” Roier asks, and Cellbit sort of wants to cry, if it wouldn’t be so embarassing and so unexplainable. Instead, he just hums again and nods into Roier’s shoulder. He’s tense, and he’s scared , and part of him feels bad for lying but the rest of him can’t be bothered to feel anything but bone-deep exhaustion.
She would’ve killed him. She could’ve killed him. She wouldn’t have even needed to blink.
Cellbit wants to say that he didn’t sleep that night, but he did. It was dreamless, and blank, and he can’t help but feel like it’s her fault. He hates her, for messing with his head, for messing with everyone’s head. He almost wants to thank her, because who knows what would’ve shown up in his nightmares.
Cellbit wakes up to a lack of anything. There’s no Richas shaking him or jumping on him, and there’s no Roier or Forever or Felps slamming things around in the kitchen. Cellbit wakes up, because that’s all he can do, and he gets to work. He’s not going to be scared off by something so simple, and the very least he can do is warn the people close to him, and also close to Bagi and therefore close to Tina.
Pac is... less than receptive.
Pac looks at him for a long time when Cellbit tries to warn him of Tina’s not-so-savory traits, the bloodthirsty tendencies and the murderous encounter tells him. Cellbit looks back at him, confused. Pac usually hears him out on things like this, so he’s not quite sure why Pac’s not hearing out for this idea.
“I don’t see how this makes her any worse than anyone else we’ve dealt with,” Pac says, frowning, “Those traits aren’t exactly unique.”
“She’s a demon , Pac,” Cellbit stresses, “I don’t know how everyone but me is missing this,”
“Oh, wow,” Pac says, and Cellbit’s actually impressed by how uncharacteristically monotone he manages to make his voice, “she’s manipulative, obsessive, and probably murderous and bloodthirsty. What a new type of person I’ve never met before. Only a literal demon sent from Hell could act like that, nobody else.”
“Alright, I think I get your point.”
“Who would ever behave in such a manner?” Pac continues, staring at him with that same dead-eyed stare and speaking in the same monotonous, yet still someone judgemental voice.
“Alright—”
“I cannot think of another person ever, let alone anyone on this server, who would ever act in such a way.”
“Leaving now,” Cellbit says, briskly walking past Pac, shoving a middle finger in the other man’s face as he walks by, before heading out of the building. He slams the door behind him, and winces because that might’ve been taking it a little far.
Through the door, he can hear Pac call after him, and for a moment he’s relieved because the laughter in Pac’s tone reassures Cellbit that Pac’s not actually scared of him anymore. Then he registers what Pac’s saying: “It must be an actual demon , because who on Earth would ever , ever behave that way?” and Cellbit thinks that it wouldn’t be so bad to have Pac be scared if it only meant he wouldn’t say the quiet part outloud in an even louder way.
“I hate you!” Cellbit yells back, knowing that there’s barely a chance Pac can hear him. Based on the muffled loud cackles through the door, Cellbit assumes he was very much heard, and is very much being made fun of.
Later that day, he feels his phone buzz with a message, and he sighs. He has a fairly good idea of who messaged him, why they did, and what the message will contain. He opens his phone and allows that sinking suspicion to become a reality.
mikethelink: I heard about your concerns with Tina.
Cellbit: i need you to stop talking
mikethelink: I completely understand, don’t worry. Your fear is one hundred percent valid.
Cellbit: jesus christ
mikethelink: We wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to Bagi.
Cellbit: mike
mikethelink: I hope this deranged lunatic doesn’t do anything drastic. Like, hypothetically, cut her leg off and eat it.
Cellbit: im killing myself mike
mikethelink: Don’t worry, Cellbit. No one would ever do that. It’s just too crazy of a thing to do.
Cellbit knows he’s joking. He’s glad that Mike’s able to joke about it, because it means that Mike’s getting better and that Pac’s not really scared of him, at least, not as much as he used to. A large part of him wants to apologize, which feels silly, because Mike isn’t the one that got his leg eaten, and Mike doesn’t like hearing apologies and... any genuine emotional conversation that’s not from Pac when he’s not prepared.
That same day, much later, after everyone’s gone to sleep, Cellbit stares at the wall. Roier is still sleeping , and Cellbit desperately wants to talk to him. But Roier already woke up today, even if Cellbit didn’t talk to him, and Cellbit would hate to keep him awake longer than he wants. He misses Roier, and he loves Roier, and it’s terrifying how much he loves Roier, but it’s somehow easier than whatever he feels for Bagi. Cellbit stares at the wall like it will give him answers, and it never does. Cellbit opens his map, and he sees Tina and Bagi’s map markers moving together, just past his castle, wandering around together. Bagi’s marker eventually disappears, reappearing by her own home’s waypoint. Tina lingers for a moment, too close to the castle for Cellbit to feel any sort of comfortable, before she leaves as well. Cellbit hates to use hyperbole, but he thinks she’s haunting him; the way a ghost haunts a castle, the way a heart beats under a floorboard. Cellbit closes his map, curls around Roier, and tries not to think about prison or knives or sharp teeth tearing through a leg. He’s not that boy anymore, he’s not that man anymore. He’s better now. He got better and he got fixed . Cellbit is better .
He keeps telling himself that. He’s not sure if it makes it real.
He wants to be better. He hopes that’s enough to make it real, because he doesn’t know what to do if it’s not.
He and Tina get to an agreement.
Kind of.
It’s more like they’re at a stalemate. Tina stops hanging around Cellbit’s castle, or she at least makes it less obvious, and Cellbit comes to terms with the fact that a demon who slightly beat the shit out of him is trying to date the sister he didn’t actually know he had.
It’s... hard, to say the least, but it’s not like they can keep going around fighting. Tina wants to make a good impression on Bagi, and killing her brother would dampen that and both Tina and Cellbit know it. That, along with the fact that Tina seems to have everyone convinced she’s an angel that can do no wrong, leaves Cellbit and Tina hating each other from a distance. Usually, they’ll just ignore each other, or get into staring contests where one of them eventually loses (it’s usually Tina, she’s far more easily distracted even though she doesn’t biologically need to blink.) When they have to be closer, because their friend groups do overlap because there are only so many people on the island, they just get increasingly more and more petty and snide with each other. If it was anyone else, Cellbit would almost be having fun. And then he remembers that it’s Tina, and it becomes a lot less fun and a lot more annoying.
Their only real link to each other is Bagi, which is why Cellbit doesn’t even need to read more than the words “Bagi”, “help,” and “ my house” of Tina’s message to know that he actually has to go to Tina’s house and actually be civil with her.
He gets there frantically, and Tina’s not faring much better either. Her ears are still attached, her hair and outfit is windswept and radiating slightly, which is a clear sign of too much waypoint usage in a short time. She’s waiting at the front door of her house, staring impatiently as Cellbit regroups from his teleporting over.
“What?” Cellbit grunts out, stomping past her into her house before realizing that he has no idea where Bagi could be.
“Don’t be a bitch,” Tina grumbles instinctually, still pushing past him to lead him upstairs. Cellbit rolls his eyes, but they both still race upstairs in a tense silence. She gestures to a door, and he rushes through it before she gets the chance to, eyes scanning the room for Bagi before resting on the sight of her lying on a plush beanbag in the corner. He turns to Tina and raises an eyebrow, and she hisses at him.
“Shut up,” she says, stomping over to Bagi’s side. He follows her, and she sighs, slumping down next to the beanbag and leaning her head on it, right next to Bagi’s leg.
“What happened to—” Cellbit starts, and Tina cuts him off.
“I’m not sure,” She says, “we were just having a picnic before she started to get dizzy and twitchy and nauseous, before slumping over and passing out. I thought she was just tired—”
“You thought she was— wha— sleepy?” Cellbit says incredulously, and Tina flushes.
“ I don’t know—” She starts defensively, before taking a breath and calming herself down. “I’m not sure what I thought, but she’s been working a lot lately, and I don’t think she’s been sleeping, so it could’ve been possible.” Cellbit hums in vague agreement, and nudges her to continue. She takes another breath, shuddering this time, and Cellbit’s reminded of when she first came to his castle, shaking and crying after an encounter with Cucurucho.
“I thought she was just tired, so I was going to take her home, but then Cucurucho stopped us,” Tina gets out, wrapping her arms around knees. Cellbit grimaces at the name, and he takes out a notebook to write in. He scrambles for a pencil in his inventory, and Tina tosses him a pen from hers.
“Thanks,” He mumbles, and she nods, letting him write down the information before starting again.
“He didn’t even really say anything,” Tina continues, after Cellbit’s given her the alright to move on, “Just stared at us, and smiled, and asked if we enjoyed the food. And then he saw that I was okay, not trembly or shaky or dizzy, and he seemed angry and then he left before answering any of my questions. I don’t know what the fuck he did to the food, but—”
“Drugs, probably,” Cellbit interrupts, and Tina grimaces.
“But I felt fine—”
“You’re not a person,” Cellbit says bluntly, and then winces at her hurt stare. It’s the truth, but he supposes it’s still hard to hear. “You probably need different amounts of drugs,” he explains, “and they probably weren’t planning on you being awake enough to help, let alone not be the species that they expected.” Tina seems to think about this for a moment, and Cellbit takes that time to move closer to Bagi’s other side, kneeling to a sitting position as he tries to inspect her breathing and her skin for any signs of illness or a bad reaction. She looks asleep, Cellbit will give Tina that, with even breathing and normal looking skin, not pallid or green-ish. She looks healthy, to be totally honest, only the slight bags under her eyes giving her away. It’s only the way she shakes that gives her away, and if Cellbit didn’t know that Bagi sleeps like a dead body and a rock that have been combined to create the most silent, still person in the world from all the times she’s slept in his office recently, he’d think it was just normal for her.
“Okay,” Tina sighs.
“Okay,” Cellbit agrees. They sit for a few moments, before Cellbit heaves himself up off the ground. “She’ll probably be fine, at least for right now,” He says, “There’s nothing we can really do except wait for her to wake up, especially if she’s not having any bad reaction. Just... call me when she wakes up.” He makes a move to leave the room, only stopping when he hears Tina squeak behind him.
“You’re leaving?” She asks, and he turns to her.
“Would you rather I stayed?” He asks, turning it around on her.
“God no,” She says, grimacing, and Cellbit appreciates her honesty, even if it’s insulting. “I just thought that you would want to stay, y’know, for your sister.”
Cellbit thinks about that. If he was a normal brother, it would be expected for him to stay. It’s not like he wants to leave. He hates Tina, and he hates her house, and he hates being alone with her, but he does love Bagi, as much as he can love anyone that he hasn’t known for years and barely even remembers a glimpse of. Cellbit’s not a normal brother though, and it’s probably better for everyone if he leaves. He tells Tina this.
“It’s for the best, to be honest,” He laughs forcibly, even as Tina frowns, “She probably wouldn’t want her weird, murderer, amnesiac brother playing doctor with her once she wakes up.” He tries to play it off like a joke, so that he can actually leave this house, but Tina just keeps talking.
“Of course she wants you here,” Tina says, frowning even deeper, “Why wouldn’t she?” Cellbit scoffs, and he expects Tina to just agree with him after that, for her protests to just be courtesy. She doesn’t though, she just looks at him expectantly like he didn’t just say the reasons Bagi wouldn’t want him around.
“Tina, be serious. It’s one thing to look for your thirteen year old twin brother, and another thing to want your twenty-six year old crazy investigator twin brother who doesn’t even remember you to be around when you recover from a lunatic bear drugging you and your little girlfriend.” Cellbit insists, laughing to himself at the descriptions. Tina’s not laughing though, she’s just normal angry. Cellbit’s starting to think she’s always angry.
“Of course she wants you around, are you crazy? ” Tina yells.
“I literally just said—”
“Oh my god, shut up Cellbit,” Tina groans, digging her palms into her eyes to alleviate whatever headache she has. She looks over at Cellbit, halfway to the door, like he’s dumber than rocks and Cellbit bristles at her demeaning gaze. “She always wants you around, y’know that?” Tina says, and Cellbit falters, because Tina says it like it’s a gospel truth, like there’s nothing that will be more genuine, more honest, more real in human history. Tina softens at his confused look, and he hates it.
“You’re her brother,” Tina says, like it’s obvious, like it matters, “She’ll always want you around.”
Cellbit doesn’t break at that. He doesn’t even crack. He just sighs, mutters a small “whatever” under his breath and turns and walks out the door. He messages Bagi, despite himself, and it’s short and sweet.
The message reads, “I hope you’re feeling alright. Let me know when you wake up, I’ll talk to you then.” It’s a nothing sort of message, a greeting card platitude level of emotion, but it already says too much.
He doesn’t look back at the house before he leaves. He can still feel Tina’s eyes watching him from the window, an omnipotent, haunting feeling. He’s still left wondering why no one else can feel it but him, how no one else notices , not even the Federation, other than him.
His communicator pings, and he doesn’t want to look at it. He doesn’t look at it, not until he’s in the safety of the Fear Room where no one can really find him.
TeanaKitten: she loves you, by the way
Cellbit: and how would you know?
TeanaKitten: no one spends that much time looking for someone they don’t love
Cellbit: have any experience in that?
TeanaKitten: enough to say that fifteen years is a longer time than most people try
Cellbit doesn’t mean to say this. But he does, and that’s what matters.
Cellbit: tell her she can stop trying
TeanaKitten: i won’t
Cellbit: then i will
He doesn’t mean it. He really doesn’t mean it.
TeanaKitten: i’ll kill you
TeanaKitten: you know i can
Cellbit knows she can. The worst part is knowing that she will.
Part of him, tiny as it is, is relieved. Someone has to keep Bagi safe, even if it’s not him, even if it’s keeping her safe from him. Most of him just feels scared. It feels tired, and it feels scared, and it needs to keep working.