An Expected Onism

by Lamentful_D1rt

Summary:

Onism : The awareness of how little of the world you'll experience.

Sebastian finds himself fond of a prisoner, who would have guessed?

Notes:

For context: Angi, gameplay wise, would have about 200-250 health, is about 1.5x faster than a normal player, and has a high clearance keycard to let her get through any locked door she wants.

If only I could have that....

Chapter 1: Onch. (CH. 1)

Summary:

A woman is held at gunpoint by a traumatized fish, hijinks ensue.

Clank- Sssscrape… THUD.

“Uggh…” Angi verbalized as she made her way through the tight squeeze of a vent. She popped out the other side into a dingy room with a slow moving metal fan hung from above. “All this for some damn data… If they wanted it so bad they could come down and get it themself.” She whispered to herself while opening the door and walking into the next room, not upset but rather bothered by how much she had to go through just to snag a few files every time she came down here. Angi snuffed out those thoughts however, she had been given the best opportunity she’d had since she was put in this prison so many years ago.

 

Angi was a prisoner- er- worker? Both were apt to her situation with Urbanshade. She had been given small freedoms due to her abilities and competence at the job they had given her. Rather than going for the crystal in the abandoned Hadal Blacksite, she was simply tasked with collecting as much data as she could from any room she could find to bring back to HQ, they found her more useful alive. It may have been some sick joke, or maybe rather an overextension of trust, but they never gave her a navi-path, meaning she would be completely reliant on her memory to make it back to the submarine for extraction without being injured or worse. Angi found that there was more data in the non-pathed rooms anyways, and she was pretty good with direction too.

 

Occasionally she would hear the sounds of horrible monstrous screams a few rooms away, but rarely did any angler variants come down the paths she would take. They may just be animals, but they were smart enough to realize that their meals tended to walk along just a few paths, so they mostly went the same way as the navi-path would direct expendables. Wall dwellers on the other hand were just about everywhere in this facility hibernating within the abandoned walls, and they often made the mistake of viewing Angi as prey.

 

“Great. It’s flooded.” Angi sighed as she saw the large pool of water before her. She had been given gills despite not being a guard considering they found her to be useful, but she hated using them and often kept them hidden beneath the skin tight neck piece of her swimsuit. Her suit was also a different color than that of the expendables, just to make sure that the extraction guards wouldn’t mistake her for an expendable attempting to back out of a mission. Her suit was fully black with white accents, as opposed to the deep navy blue of the standard diving suit. It complimented her longer black hair tied up in a ponytail, as well as her gray eyes. If it weren’t for the life in her skin, she’d look completely monochrome, which fit her personality as well. Angi wasn’t the type to show strong emotions of any type, amused, upset, or otherwise.

Angi pulled down the neck piece of her suit just enough for her gills to open before she got in the water. She kept her mouth closed as much as she could when she would dive, although the murky sea water would still get in her nose. It wasn’t as much of a bother because it didn’t impede her ability to breathe, she just hated how the stuff tasted and smelled. As she swam through the dim water, she usually had to use her flashlight, but this time there were guide lights. How strange, did she manage to accidentally find herself back on the path the expendables took? She wanted to keep her distance as she didn’t know if they could potentially harbor a hazard she was unaware of, Angi thought to herself as she swam, not noticing the small parasites latching on to her legs. She had a higher than average pain tolerance and honestly thought she had just scraped something for a moment, that is, until she had 10 of them biting into her flesh. She shook a few of them off of her legs in the water before quickly swimming up the nearest opening back to the main facility.

 

“Shit-! Ow- Ow-!” Angi cursed under her breath as she popped her head back above the surface of the water, climbing up onto the concrete floor. She sat on the edge of the water, 2 or 3 of the parasites still holding on for a moment after being exposed to the air. Angi grabbed one, ripping it off of her leg leaving a nice hole where it had taken a small chunk of her flesh with it. The other 2 popped off themself when she lifted a flashlight to her leg to get a better look. Right, they didn’t like the light. She probably could have done that less painfully if she had just done that in the first place.

 

Angi stood once more, taking a step back from the edge. She was bleeding, but it didn’t hurt too bad, not nearly as much as a wall dweller bite. She shook it off, continuing on to the next room. It was dark, but luckily the next door ahead had an illuminated sign so she wouldn’t have to use her flashlight, which was already running low on batteries before she used it a moment ago. She sighed in relief slightly before making her way forwards in the pitch black, using the green numbers to guide her with confidence. She went to open the door, but as it slid open she was met with an unexpected sight. A large creature was hunched over in the room, quickly turning its peculiar mask-like face towards Angi, not giving her any time to react before it lunged forward and slashed at her torso with its claws. Angi was barely able to step back as it swung its arm, able to minimize the damage it did but not avoid it entirely.

 

“AGH-!” Angi yelled out, clenching her teeth to stifle her scream of pain as she felt the claws slash into her abdomen and chest. She fell backwards into the darkness, the creature closing the door and retreating back into the room. The door number screen flashed for a moment, a voice calling out.

 

“MORON!!”

 

Oh. How kind.

 

Angi reached down in the darkness, holding her stomach as she winced in pain. She felt warm liquid coat her palm. Not good. She quickly got up, taking deep breaths. She’s survived worse. She hit her flashlight a few times, trying to get it to come on for just a little longer. Miraculously it worked, the light flickering on. She had it pointed at the ground when it turned on, catching a glance of her blood on the ground. She didn’t have time to linger on that though. She pointed the light around the room until she saw another door, this one having a numbered sign that didn’t glow in the darkness of the room. She cautiously approached it, not wanting to repeat what just happened. As she got closer, the door opened on its own, showing a well lit hallway before her. Great. Angi mentally cursed herself for being such an idiot, trusting a flashy sign like that when she was scared of simple lights in the water moments before.

 

Her thoughts were ripped from that quickly however, a rocketing pain shooting through her abdomen. She could see her blood seeping through her diving suit in the newfound light. The wound wasn’t that deep, but it hurt like a bitch. She swallowed harshly, steadying herself from the scare. She gripped the flashlight tightly, turning it off to save the very miniscule amount of flashlight battery she had left as she walked forward through the hallway. This room seemed safe enough, which was a welcome change of pace. She walked through the room, holding her stomach as she made her way through the next door.

 

“I can’t get extracted like this, I need-” Angi spoke to herself quiet enough that she could barely even hear, but she was quickly interrupted by a vent flying open and sliding across the floor in front of her. She jumped slightly, prepared to fight some other monster she hadn’t been briefed on in all her time working in the blacksite. The sound of a voice caught her off guard however.

 

“Hey stranger, Over here…” An almost raspy voice called out in a whisper. Angi’s gut told her not to trust it, but after a moment of cautiously standing there, the voice spoke again. “Come on, I don’t bite!” It said almost sing-songily. Angi slowly approached the vent, grunting in discomfort as she crawled through the vent. When she made it out on the other side, she was met with a dim room laid out like a shop. She brought her free hand up to cover her eyes as the room suddenly lit up from a light… or… esca? Angi slowly brought her arm down as she stared in disbelief at the creature before her, a large sea serpent… No… There was more to it than that. The tail of a sea snake, the lure of an anglerfish, the tailfin of a whale, and many more peculiar features that were hard to categorize. Three arms, Three glowing blue eyes, pale scaly skin and black hair. It-... He seemed humanoid as well. He was dressed quite nicely for something living down here.

 

“Welcome, Welcome- Don’t be…” The creature seemed as though it were about to give an introduction, but as its eyes caught sight of Angi’s suit his expression quickly shifted to being wary and aggravated. He reached behind himself, unholstering a gun and pointing it directly at her. As if instinctually, Angi shot both of her hands up, palms facing him in surrender.

 

“Woah- W-Wait!” Angi muttered out, a bit louder than she had meant to. The monster before her kept the gun pointed in her direction, eyes slightly narrowed.

 

“You’re not an expendable, are you? I assume you’ve been given orders to slaughter me then…” He spoke with venom in his voice, not seeming all too friendly. Angi took a few deep breaths, the pain of her wound coming second to the feeling of her heart beating quickly in her ears, the feeling of death being so close was one that was all too familiar.

 

“No.” Angi said with a calm, steady voice. She looked at the gun, then back to the holder, directly in the eyes, as if trying to connect with him on some level. “I can assume by your appearance, and by what you just said, you’re the Handyman.” She spoke calmly, although her deep huffing breaths betrayed her stoic exterior.

 

‘The Handyman’ was a title this beast hadn’t been called in quite some time, having had his code name changed to ‘The Saboteur’ shortly after his first signs of insurrection. The metal of the gun clicked slightly as he shifted his grip, seemingly holding it less tightly than before. The name he had been called caused an ounce of intrigue to cross his face.

 

“Who are you then?” The two of them stood almost completely still, looking at each other in a standoff.

 

“I don’t work for Urbanshade, I’m just a prisoner, like you.” Angi slightly lowered herself, not breaking eye contact but attempting to seem less threatening. The creature before her only seemed to be less amused by this, taking it as her treating him like a wild animal, which she somewhat was.

 

“Then why are you wearing a different suit?” He asked demandingly.

 

“I’m not a guard.” Angi quickly responded, not quite answering the question but stating the truth nevertheless. “I don’t even have a gun, see?” She lifted her arms slightly, showing that she had no holster of any kind, just bags for data collection and her high clearance keycard she had been given by HQ.

 

“...” The Saboteur slowly lowered his gun, not holstering it, but no longer threatening to shoot. While looking over Angi’s belt to make sure she had no weapons, he quickly noticed that she was wounded and bleeding, no longer perceiving her as too much of a threat. “You’re awfully awake for someone so damaged. Have you been mutated?” It felt like an interrogation more than an inquiry.

 

“Not much. I can manage myself without them.” Angi huffed out. While the Saboteur had noticed the gash on her stomach, Angi had noticed the medkit strapped to his tail. Her eyes widened slightly although she kept her usual unwavering expression of boredom. “You saving that for yourself?” She questioned, feeling as though she could be a little less on guard.

 

“It’s for sale.” He said with a slight smile revealing his many razor sharp teeth as his tone shifted, almost to one of jest. Angi cocked her head to the side. Why would a hazard of the blacksite need currency? Would she need to offer up her flesh as food?

 

“What’s the price?” She questioned, feeling safe to lower her hands back down to her sides. The Saboteur took that as a sign to holster his gun as well, the tension having been cut and feeling as though he could trust Angi at the moment. Even if she did betray that trust, she was injured, and he could likely rip her apart with his claws alone if he had to.

 

“Well, I usually get to that first when I meet someone, but obviously that introduction has been ruined.” The Saboteur said slightly saddened that he didn’t get to go on his usual rant. “To summarize, I’m Sebastian, I’m looking for data in exchange for some goodies I’ve found laying around the facility. Considering your bags seem rather full, I’d imagine you’ve collected a fair amount of these ‘Loose Assets,’ yes?”

 

Angi felt a small amount of comfort in the fact she could put a name to the face, no longer feeling like strangers. At least she didn’t feel like she was going to die to Sebastian anymore. She knew she had plenty of data to spare, she had collected several thousands of dollars worth in the past few hours she had been down here. Angi slowly reached down into her bag, wanting to make sure that Sebastian knew she wasn’t trying to pull a fast one on him. She slowly withdrew 2 orange-ish red vials and a handful of USB drives. She took a step forward, extending her hand out to him, offering up the data. Sebastian’s eyes widened slightly, his ear fins twitching excitedly, debating whether or not to tell her she only needed to give half of that for the medkit, but decided that she didn’t need to know that.

 

“Will that be enough?” Angi asked, looking up at Sebastian expressionlessly. Sebastian took the data from her hand, setting it on his table beside himself.

 

“Barely.” He lied, crossing his arms with a smug grin. Seeing Sebastian’s teeth made Angi slightly unnerved, but she didn’t let it show. Angi stood there for a moment, as if waiting for him to hand her the medkit himself. “You can just take it off my tail. I won’t hurt you.” Sebastian spoke up after a few seconds of silence. He normally said that to insure expendables, but this time it came across as more of a subtextual apology for the initial aggression. Angi took a few steps forward, taking a knee to grab the medkit off of his tail. Now noticing the bleeding wound on her leg as it touched the floor, Sebastian groaned in annoyance. “Could you try not to get blood everywhere? Who do you think has to clean that…” He muttered out.

 

Angi didn’t bother to listen to him though, she opened the medkit and began to use it right there on the floor, right next to his tail. If he had an issue with the mess, she’d clean it herself. She provided an antiseptic and sterilized her wound, wincing and hissing through her teeth but dealing with the pain a lot better than a normal person would. Sebastian felt a strange tinge of pity towards her pain, but didn’t say anything. After a few moments of caring for herself, Angi had wrapped herself with bandages over her dive suit. It wasn’t the best care she could have gotten, but it would make due. She still planned on being in the facility for several more hours, so she didn’t have time to be picky about the quality of her patchwork medical prowess. Angi still had a little bit of bandaging left after wrapping up her leg and torso, so she balled it up and looked down at the floor where she had bled onto the concrete. As she began to sop it up with the bandages, Sebastian looked at her with discomfort.

 

“What the hell are you doing?” He said, annoyed. Angi didn’t look up at him, busy with cleaning up her own blood.

 

“You said not to leave a mess.” She said bluntly. Sebastian felt a bit strange at the ounce of respect, he’d had to kill countless expendables for fucking around and finding out, so it came as a surprise that the person he had just threatened to kill would respect his wishes. Then again, she wasn’t an expendable. He rolled his eyes.

 

“Whatever, just hurry it up will you?” Sebastian seemed rather ungrateful, and Angi picked up on it. She finished cleaning the blood off the floor, putting the now useless bloody bandages back into the medkit and closing it, leaving it on the floor next to Sebastian.

 

“There’s still some stuff that can be used in there, so I’ll leave it in case someone else needs it. I wouldn’t imagine you run a shop if nobody else comes in here.” Angi stood up with a little effort, stretching and slightly feeling her now bandaged wound. It still hurt, but it was much more manageable. She walked over to the vent, crouching down to leave. “Thanks, I’ll be back around some time.” She thanked him without much gratitude in her voice, as she was returning Sebastian’s not-so-grateful attitude.

 

Sebastian stopped her before she left. “Forgetting something? The keycard’s on the table…” He pointed with his clawed finger over towards the keycard resting on the metal table next to the radio. Angi shook her head.

 

“Nah, I’m gonna go back and find a different way. Too many monsters around here. Cya, Sebastian.” She said confidently. Sebastian sighed in discontent, seeming confused what she meant by that.

 

“Whatever. Bye.” He shrugged as Angi crawled back through the vent, going the opposite way from the locked door ahead. Sebastian thought about how weird she was as he looked down into the medkit to see what she had left behind. He was somewhat surprised that she had left behind both the numbing agent and pain pills included in the medkit. So she had walked off with no painkillers after having been slashed by the Good People? Sebastian sighed, getting the creeping feeling that she was going to die out there very soon, Especially since she wasn’t taking the marked path.

 

“Maybe I’ll go check around for the rest of the data she had on her in a few hours, if I can find her corpse.” Sebastian said to himself thoughtfully.

Notes:

Spoiler alert: She's not gonna die <3

Chapter 2: Yummers! (CH. 2)

Summary:

We all outta wall dwellers. (CW: consumption of raw meat)

Notes:

ANGI NO!!! DONT GO INTO A FLASHBACK!!!

Sebastian sat in his usual position in his shop, looking over the few treasures he found in his most recent scavenge. He found a few expendables laying about, items half charged or unused were perfect for taking back to resell. Something nagged at him however. He had never found the body of that peculiar girl he had seen. She did take an off route, so maybe he just didn’t happen to stumble upon her, but still… Sebastian took a heavy exhale as he leaned back, curling his tail slightly to sit more comfortably. The crystal wasn’t taken, so she definitely didn’t make it to the ridge, he thought to himself. He shrugged it off, he didn’t really care all too much. If she came back then he’d get more data, if not that’s one less thing to worry about.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Angi waved off the submarine that had brought her back to the site as it submerged back into the murky depths off the harbor. Her bags were empty and she had no equipment with her, just like always. She remembered what had happened last run, the parasites and the fake door and all, deciding she’d try her best to stay away from the marked path usually taken by expendables. She wondered for a moment why HQ would send prisoners down a more dangerous path if the unmarked doors were safer, but she supposed if everyone were to spread out it would just make the whole facility more dangerous for her.

 

She walked ahead to the first door, the same one all the expendables took as well. She would start on the marked path, then when she found a branch that had been left unexplored she would break off and continue in that direction. She made haste in picking up all the data she could find in the first several rooms, humming some tune she had heard a long time ago. She couldn’t quite remember how it ended, so she would just sing the first part over and over again.

 

Her steps echoed through the longer hallways as she would go quiet to stare out into the endless sea just outside the window while she walked. Something about it was comforting to her at this point. Perhaps it was from being down here for so long, but the way that the water dulled out all outside sound just calmed her in a way she couldn’t explain. She had encountered many expendables while doing her job, and they would always panic at the smallest of noises, which she didn’t quite understand. Angi had always been prepared to die from the first time she ever stepped into the Hadal Blacksite, several years ago.

 

Angi had first started ‘working’ for Urbanshade not long after she had become a prisoner for them. Her memories of her arrest were fuzzy, and she didn’t like to dwell on them. Not much she could do about it now anyways. She had a reputation in the prison for being someone to stay away from. In her past she was angry, violent, and would lash out over the smallest things. Most prisons would lock inmates in the hole for that kind of behavior, possibly even physically disciplining or abusing them for it. Hers, however, found that trait valuable. She was offered work not normally offered to other prisoners, an odd job to go down to the underwater facility nearby the prison to do maintenance. Foolishly, she took the opportunity without a second thought.

 

Whenever she would go down to the facility, it might as well have been abandoned already. The halls were so expansive she hardly ever ran into anyone, so the experience from then to now was roughly the same. She would fix equipment, patch up broken vents and doors, and the strangest job she had been given was watering the gardens of the DiVine. She didn’t understand at the time why they would choose someone like her to do busy work, or why they treated her so kindly as she did. It felt like something was going on that she couldn’t quite grasp.

 

After a while, the facility slowly became more and more decrepit, less researchers would show up for work, more containment breaches would put Angi and the staff of the blacksite in danger, and soon her main directive had changed from menial labor to data retrieval. She had been doing the same job just about every day for years now. Go down in the submarine, find research, bring it back, day in and day out.

 

Every now and again in the beginning she would look out into the ocean around her and see something moving around in the depths. She was told it was ‘The Handyman.’ They had never met face to face until…

 

Angi came back to focus from her thoughts. She had already been through dozens of doors without paying attention, having gone into autopilot while remembering her past. She looked down, her bags were rather full already. She had probably gathered a few thousands of dollars worth of data by now. That was something else that stuck out to her, that after all this time there was still so much data to be collected. It never failed to amaze her just how much pure data was stored down here.

 

“Right… Sebastian. That was his name huh… I’ll probably not see him again unless he comes around the unmapped parts of the facility…” Angi said to herself quietly as she walked ahead to open the next door in front of her, holding out her yellow and black keycard to open the locked door. She paused for a moment, thinking about how she had technically known Sebastian for years, having seen him out doing his old job of being a repairman, not long after he had been… well…

 

Angi’s attention faltered for a moment as she stood at the door, holding her keycard out but not having yet put it in the reader. Just before she was about to do so, she got this sudden chill up her spine and whipped her head around, just in time to see a wall dweller inches away from her face. Her blood ran cold, not having enough time to react to the thing kicking her leg out from underneath her.

 

She had gone through this before, and knew how to survive. As she was falling to the ground she quickly brought her right arm up to cover her throat, barely avoiding having the wall dweller's teeth tear out her throat. The wall dweller bit down into Angi’s arm, its teeth ripping into the back of her forearm. She didn’t even think to scream, just gasping as a strangled pained groan escaped her throat. Angi reached down to her side, grabbing a flashlight she had absent mindedly taken from a drawer a few rooms prior from her belt before smashing it into the side of the wall dweller’s face, causing it to fall to the ground. Angi moved quickly off the ground, sitting up on her knees over top of the wall dweller, hitting it again and again with the flashlight until she was covered in a mixture of its blood and her own. After one final blow, its jaws let go of her arm, letting her rip it away to fall limp at her side.

 

Angi sat there, huffing from exhaustion following the sudden encounter. She looked down at her flashlight in her lightly trembling hands. The glass had been broken and it was dented inward from the blunt force. It wouldn’t turn on anymore, meaning it was useless to her. She tossed the flashlight to the floor, looking over at the wall dweller which was now deformed, its top and bottom right face plates had been cracked and broken in, and its strange white flesh was beaten in and bleeding around where she had repeatedly struck it in the head.

 

“God damn it…” Angi grunted through her teeth. She was getting sloppy. She was too busy caught in her own little world she had let her guard down. She looked down at her bitten arm, the effort of moving it causing it to shake. The bite was much worse than she was hoping, the adrenaline keeping her from feeling most of the pain. It was bleeding horribly and she was pretty sure she was bit down to her bone. She looked back over to the wall dweller’s lifeless corpse, seeing it twitch ever so slightly. Angi shuddered, knowing what she would have to do.

 

“Come on Angi… It’s gross but you gotta do it…” Angi whispered to herself, holding her arm which was seeping blood at an alarming rate. She had heard of expendables eating the flesh of wall dwellers, stating that it had mysterious healing properties. She had always thought that it was just a bunch of superstitious crap until she saw it with her own eyes. An expendable had been shot by a malfunctioning turret, and she watched as the flesh around the wound was slowly brought back together and healed, as if by magic. It didn’t end up mattering in the end however, no amount of wall dweller flesh could fix being ambushed by Blitz… She was the only one who made it back via emergency extraction, although that was expected.

 

Angi reached down, grabbing hold of the jaw of the wall dweller while making sure to avoid the sharp teeth. Even dead, those teeth could easily cut through a hand… She gave a tug and the piece of jaw ripped off remarkably easily, much to Angi’s discomfort. She brought the chunk of wall dweller flesh to her face, smelling it for a moment. It smelled just like any other raw meat, so at least she had that going for her. She slowly brought the piece of flesh hanging off of the jaw bone to her mouth, taking a bite. A shiver was sent up her spine at the taste and texture. It wasn’t terrible but certainly not pleasant, meanwhile it felt stringy and tough as she chewed it. She swallowed, feeling disgusted by the whole process, but to her surprise she actually felt a little better afterwards.

 

Angi looked down at her arm, seeing the bleeding slowly die down, as if the blood vessels were already starting to repair themselves. She was actually pretty amazed that it worked, trying to ignore what she had to do to make it happen. She shook her head however, standing up quickly with a determination to continue onwards.

 

“Well… At least I know I’m not going to bleed to death, but it would probably still be nice to sterilize the wound with a medkit before it completely closes, I can’t be sure whatever weird chemical reaction is happening will do that for me…” Angi sighed, holding her arm, now starting to feel the pain the adrenaline had kept from her until now. She kept it down, telling herself it wasn’t that bad. She walked over to the door, bending down to pick up her keycard she had dropped when she was first attacked. As she stood back up she looked over her shoulder at the corpse of the wall dweller, almost feeling bad for it for a moment before reminding herself that it tried to kill her first. She slid the keycard into the card reader of the door, listening to it beep a few times before the door slid open.

 

“Well, I’m not gonna count on there being a medkit laying around randomly… Might as well see if I can find my way back to Sebastian’s shop on the main path for expendables.” Angi spoke to herself, maybe for a sense of comfort, as she made her way through the usual unmarked rooms in the direction she last remembered hearing an angler.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sebastian skimmed through files in his shop, looking for anything valuable he could store for later when he found ample opportunity. It had been relatively slow today, only a few expendables coming in and luckily none of them dared to test his patience. He was absent mindedly flipping through a folder when he heard the door to the room connected to his shop open. His eyes flicked up to the vent as he moved forward to open it before looking back down at the folder in his hands.

 

“In here.” He stated, sounding somewhat bored. He listened as somebody crawled through the vent, but they sounded like they were struggling and exhausted. Sebastian set down the file on the table next to him as he turned his attention to the vent, seeing a familiar head of black hair tied up in a ponytail pop into his shop. His eyes widened slightly as he remembered who Angi was, although he quickly let his expression fall back to normal.

 

“Oh- It’s you. Welcome back.” Sebastian had a small amount of intrigue in his voice, although not much more than he would have for any other expendable who returned without needing to be dragged out of hell with ferryman’s tokens. He quickly took notice that Angi was dragging herself through the vent with only one arm, but decided he wouldn’t say anything about it. It was obvious she was injured.

 

Despite having eaten a piece of wall dweller flesh, it was still going to take a while for Angi’s wound to fully heal, and it definitely didn’t feel nice to put pressure on it yet. She managed to get through the vent, standing up while positioning herself to stand with her injured arm hidden from Sebastian. She took a deep breath, steadying herself to make sure she wasn’t shaking. She had an irrational urge to keep her pain from people, even if there was no reason to.

 

“Hey, Sebastian. Just a medkit.” Angi said as if greeting a friend. Sebastian’s demeanor softened slightly at the familiarity Angi carried herself with, and it reminded him that he should probably apologize.

 

“Right, as long as you can pay for it.” Sebastian said with a smug grin. Angi immediately reached down with her good arm to look through her bag for enough data to pay for the medkit. Sebastian hesitated for a moment as if he wanted to say something, cupping his two top hands together. He inhaled to start talking but the words got caught in his throat for a reason he couldn't explain.

 

Angi stopped and looked up at Sebastian as she heard his breath, obviously still on edge from being caught off guard by the wall dweller not long ago. Seeing her sharp gray eyes dart up to meet his hit Sebastian with a strange sensation, not quite fear but it was petrifying for just the instant their eyes met, forcing him to speak up.

 

“Sorry about the uh- ‘harsh’ introduction yesterday. You understand, right?” Sebastian said somewhat slyly, shifting the blame from himself inadvertently, making him come off kind of rude. Angi didn't really mind though, appreciating the apology even if it was forced. She nodded, her expression not helping to ease the slight discomfort in the room as it gave nothing she was thinking away.

 

“I do.” Angi said bluntly before looking back down to her bag, pulling out more than enough for the medkit, again overpaying without much thought. Sebastian sighed exasperatedly, he was happy to get the data but was somewhat annoyed by Angi’s obliviousness. As Sebastian reached out and took the data from her hand, Angi stepped forward towards his tail to grab the newly stocked medkit. Sebastian caught the deep wound on her arm in the corner of his eye, surprised she had gotten that injured again.

 

“You… left the facility since the last time I saw you, right?” Sebastian asked, somewhat worried. He was positive she had, considering she had a new diving suit without the gashes left in it from the good people, but he wasn’t sure how exactly she managed to come back if she did leave because he knew for a fact she hadn’t taken the crystal.

 

Angi held the medkit in her hands, trying to get her right hand to stop shaking from the pain she was stifling. “Of course I did.” She didn’t bother to look up at him while speaking. Sebastian let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, a miniscule satisfaction coming from knowing he was correct, but followed by a growing curiosity quickly after. He watched in silence for a moment as Angi took out the bottle of hydrogen peroxide and gently applied some to a cloth before putting it on her bitten arm, barely flinching while doing so.

 

“... That has to hurt, right?” Sebastian said cynically, trying his best to make it clear he wasn’t actually worried for her. Angi shot him a glare as she held the cloth over the wound, causing him to chuckle to himself. “You said you weren’t an expendable, right, so what are you? Are you after the crystal?” Sebastian changed the subject, trying to get some more information out of Angi while trying to seem a little more friendly. Angi could make for a valuable connection later, if everything goes according to plan…

 

Angi didn’t respond to him, staying quiet as she stared down the painkillers in the medkit. God she wanted to take them, but she was silently stuck, refusing to take them in front of Sebastian. She couldn’t even tell why, was she embarrassed? It didn’t feel like it, she had nothing to be embarrassed about, she already bought the medkit anyways. Why was she hiding pain? She didn’t have time to self analyze her psyche just to figure out why she was averse to showing emotion, she just knew she had been doing it for a very long time. It’s why she was even in this mess in the first place. 

 

Sebastian scoffed quietly, feeling ignored. His ear fins twitched with annoyance. “Hello? Earth to-... Whatever your name is.” He grumbled the last part, realizing he couldn’t finish that saying without knowing Angi’s name. Angi sighed, leaning back on her heels slightly in her crouched position, finally deciding she would go without the painkillers once more.

 

“Angi.” She said, now properly looking Sebastian in the eye again. She stood up, still holding the cloth on her arm. “If you want to interrogate me about what I’m doing in the blacksite, can I at least take a seat for a while?” Angi’s speech was slightly entitled and somewhat pissy. Sebastian narrowed his eyes. He didn’t appreciate her tone, or her piercing gaze, but decided he’d settle.

 

“Fine, Angi, you can take a seat over by the-” Angi didn’t give Sebastian time to finish his sentence as she sat next to his whale fin against the wall. She made sure not to actually lean against his tail, both for his comfort and for hers. “-...Shelf.” Sebastian looked unamused at her inviting herself to sit wherever she pleased, but didn’t say anything other than giving an annoyed groan.

 

Angi answered his question from before. “Like I said, I’m not an expendable, but I’m not a guard either. I was sent down here specifically for data extraction. I’ve been doing this much longer than they’ve been sending other prisoners down here.” Angi could feel her breathing and heart rate slow just from being able to sit down for a moment. It was nice, but also unnerving to feel her muscles relax. Sebastian’s mouth slowly crept into a toothy grin after hearing that she was there for the data. He could already tell that they were going to make great friends…

 

“Well, how long have you been doing this job then, hmm?” Sebastian cocked his head to the side as his ear fins twitched, moving his hair slightly out of his face. Angi brought her left hand up and started counting on her fingers for a moment. 3…4…5…6… She looked back to Sebastian after 7.

 

“7 years. In a few months, 8.” She said casually. Sebastian was honestly surprised and didn’t care to hide it. He had expected her to say a year or two, not 7. He was lost in thought for a moment as he remembered how long ago that was. It would have been about two years after he was first experimented on. No wonder when they first met Angi had called him ‘the Handyman,’ She was around the facility long enough to remember when he was still actually working for them. He paused, blinking a few times in utter confusion.

 

“Wait- Have we ever… met? Before now?” Sebastian couldn’t believe that if Angi had been around the blacksite for this long they couldn’t have ever met. They very well could have met when he was still just a regular prisoner at that rate… To Sebastian’s surprise, she smiled slightly, something he hadn’t seen her do until now. It was just a small smirk, but it made him realize how little she actually emoted.

 

“I think I’d remember if I saw a face like yours.” She let out an airy chuckle that was barely distinguishable from her normal speech. Sebastian seemed somewhat disappointed, although he wasn’t sure why. Maybe he wished that someone could remember him before he had been turned into a monster. “But I did see you a few times. I would walk through the long glass hallways and I’d see something swimming across the ocean floor to the different cables. That was you wasn’t it?” Angi said with a strange warmth in her voice. It was hard to place how her words felt, cold and distant but with the smallest hints of emotion, like a flickering streetlight in the middle of a snow storm, not bright enough to lead or warm you, but enough that you knew it was there.

 

“You must have gone out of your way to avoid me then, or were you just lucky enough not to be in the facility the day the lockdown started?” Sebastian’s tone was cold with a hint of mockery in it.

 

“Just lucky I guess.” Angi shrugged, expressionless. “I didn’t go out of my way to avoid you, I just didn’t have gills until a few years ago when the place started to flood more often.” Angi pulled down the part of her suit covering her neck to show her gills with a look of discomfort. She quickly covered them again. Sebastian’s expression twisted to be one of disdain. He knew that Angi wasn’t a guard, and that there was no way she could have stopped the experiments done on him if she was a prisoner just like him, but knowing that his experiments and testing is what led to the refinement of the gill mutation still irked him. Having to look at the guards with gills derived from his suffering never failed to make his blood boil. Sebastian’s thoughts were cut short by Angi continuing her reasoning. “Since I didn’t have gills I couldn’t go out into the water, so we never got to meet. Not that they would have put me out there anyways.”

 

Sebastian quelled his anger. There was no use in getting upset and ruining an opportunity to get more data. He exhaled, shifting slightly where he was sitting. He was about to ask another question but Angi cut him off before he could open his mouth. “You’ve been asking an awful lot of questions, do I get a turn?”

 

Sebastian thought for a moment before shrugging. “Sure, shoot. If you ask why I don’t have pants, I’ll rip your arms off.” He said in an eerie tone of jest. Angi smiled slightly once again, but it was so miniscule it almost felt dishonest, even if she wasn’t trying to be.

“Why run a shop? If you want data so bad, why not just collect it yourself? I’m still finding plenty even after all these years.” Angi asked genuinely. Sebastian brought his top hands together, looking down at her with a thoughtful expression.

 

“It’s fun.” He shrugged. Angi didn’t seem satisfied with that answer.

 

“C’mon, there’s gotta be more to it than that…” She looked bored once more. Sebastian sighed, disliking Angi’s pushing. Most people wouldn’t poke a creature 6 times their size with a stick.

 

“A longer answer then, I do collect data myself. Expendables are just taking a lot of it as well, so I thought I might as well save myself the effort and stay in one spot. It’s not exactly easy to move around in cramped vents when you’re as big as I am.” Sebastian explained, looking down at his claws as if inspecting his nails.

 

“I guess that makes sense… Hey wait…” Angi furrowed her eyebrows, looking up at Sebastian. “If you’ve been running this shop for a bunch of people, do you have prices? I’ve just been fishing out however much data I can hold in one hand…” Sebastian snickered mischievously. Angi suddenly realized she had given much more data to him than necessary.

 

“The price of a medkit is only about $200 worth of research…” Sebastian said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Angi’s expression dulled once more as she looked away from Sebastian, however the faintest hint of an embarrassed flush was visible on her cheeks. Sebastian smiled at that. He knew that this ‘friendship’ likely wouldn’t last long, but it was nice to talk to someone somewhat normally again. Speaking of speaking to someone normally, it occurred to him that Angi didn’t really seem like the type to have gotten herself into a prison like this. Prisoners who were sent down to the blacksite for any reason were almost always death row inmates or those with life sentences who had signed their rights away.

 

Sebastian was about to inquire about that, but held his tongue. He recalled the way she had been acting, and the possibility crossed his mind that she was hiding a lot from him. Her cold demeanor, her tendency to hide things, her nonchalance… She could very well be a sociopath. Sebastian turned to look at Angi with a newfound suspicion and caution, but as he was about to break the silence to ask her something, he watched as she finally lifted the cloth from her right arm, the wound he had previously seen was completely healed, as if it were never there.

 

“Huh… It really did work. Maybe I didn’t need to spend all that extra data on a medkit after all…” Angi said to herself as she looked down at her arm, opening and closing her hand as if to make sure it still works. Sebastian had seen expendables with strange healing properties, but he never knew how they did it.

 

“How did you!?-” He was about to ask with intrigue, but Angi held up a hand to stop him

 

“I’d… Rather not talk about it.” Angi stated firmly. Sebastian was slightly saddened by the fact she wouldn’t tell him how exactly that happened, but he could always just ask another time. Wait… Another time? Was he expecting her to return? Well she had been working this job for nearly a decade now… but he made it an awful lot more dangerous by releasing all the hazards. There was no guarantee she’d survive for even another day. As he thought about this, Angi stood up, stretching slightly. She walked over to the vent, crouching down to leave. Sebastian spoke up.

 

“Leaving so soon? I thought we were having a nice chat.” He wanted more information, regardless of if it had to do with miraculous healing or not.

 

“Well my arm’s all better, so I thought I’d head out. I can’t exactly hang around one place for too long anyways, I’m not exactly free to roam.” That same blank expression was on her face, the one she always had. She was peculiar, possibly a sociopath, but Sebastian was strangely intrigued by her. He felt as though there was something worth finding by talking to her. He hadn’t felt that way in a long time. It was refreshing and uncomfortable at the same, the feeling sitting in his chest like a warm stone.

“Well then, I’ll see you around, Angi. ” Sebastian said her name teasingly, as if to say he’d remember her. Angi realized as he said her name that she had given him her nickname rather than her actual first name. She had gone by Angi for most of her life, so it just felt natural to introduce herself that way. She didn’t know what to say in response, considering it now felt a bit too formal to refer to him as his full name, even worse to refer to him as his code name.

 

“See you, Seb.” Angi waved goodbye as she left. Sebastian was left somewhat confused by the nickname, but he supposed they were acquainted after knowing a little more about each other. He sighed as she left, feeling like he was slightly stressed by her presence in a way he hadn’t even noticed.

 

In a strange twist… Sebastian was hoping she’d come back the next day. He was looking forward to it.

Notes:

Sebastian will get less mean, eventually :3

Chapter 3: Take Care (CH. 3)

Summary:

Sebastian remembers what feelings are

Notes:

MORDECAI... WHAT HAPPENED :[[

“Angi… I wonder what she’s hiding.” Sebastian muttered to himself in the darkness of his shop. He hadn’t left in a few days, considering he had a pretty good stock of things to sell. He wasn’t sure why he was so caught up on this girl, because he knew that it wasn’t just about the data. At least he didn’t think so. The way Angi would act, the way she would hide herself from him, it reminded Sebastian of himself in a way. He hated it. He was fascinated by it. As if on cue, he heard the door to the connecting room open. He opened the vent. “Running low on supplies? ”

 

Angi came through the vent, pleasantly surprising Sebastian. “Y-Yeah…” She responded to his question, although it wasn’t really one intended to be answered. Sebastian immediately noticed that as Angi stood, she was swaying and her eyes didn’t seem to focus. She was paler than she was yesterday.

 

“... A medkit I’d presume? You should really be more-” Sebastian was going to tease her for being careless, planning to say something about how she was using up his whole stock, but she cut him off before he could finish.

 

“Flashlight- Just a flashlight.” Angi’s voice came out shaky, although her expression was the same as always. Something was off though, her pupils were constricted and she looked weak. She took a step forward as Sebastian watched, unnerved by her behavior. She tossed a whole bag of data on the ground at Sebastian’s feet, leaning down to pick up the flashlight from his tail.

 

“If… You say so?” Sebastian reached down to grab the bag off of the ground, but was quickly caught off guard by the feeling of Angi slumping over onto his tail. He whipped his head around to look at what had happened, almost instinctively going to shout at her but quickly realized that something was very wrong. He hadn’t noticed before due to the way she had been standing, making sure that her whole front was facing him, but her back was covered in deep gashes and what looked like minor burns. He could also tell there was blood in her hair, possibly from a head wound.

 

“Oh god damn it…” Sebastian grumbled. Why couldn’t she have just dealt with this herself? He reached down, moving her to the side for a moment with a bit less care than he should have while he pulled items off his tail, setting them on his table. After he had cleared his tail, he curled in a way that would be a bit more comfortable for Angi before picking her up and setting her down in the middle. He huffed as he opened the medkit, grabbing the basic first aid components and preparing them so he could care for Angi.

 

“...” Sebastian stopped for a moment, wanting to make some sort of snarky remark to make fun of her for passing out but couldn’t quite get the words to come to mind. In the brief silence he listened to her breathing, at least it was steady.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Angi slowly awoke, the light in the room dull and barely illuminating anything. Her head hurt like crazy, more than any average headache. As she blinked, her vision slightly cleared and she was able to see Sebastian’s looming figure, looking down at something on the table.

 

“Seb..?” She spoke with a tired voice, reaching a hand up to rub her eye. Sebastian looked over, letting his esca glow slightly brighter so he could see her.

 

“Good morning...” He said with a grin that had an obvious underlying anger. Angi looked around, noticing she had been sat against the shelf opposite of Sebastian while she slept. “You took the liberty of taking a little nap on my tail since you couldn’t be more careful. Don’t worry, I patched you up, but I took what was worth my time~” Now his expression was sly and taunting, he watched as Angi looked down to her belt, seeing that all 3 of her collection pouches had been emptied.

 

“Whu- HEY!” Angi was suddenly much more alert, and showing more emotion in this instant than Sebastian had ever seen from her, which was somewhat amusing to him. “Give that back, RIGHT now.” She calmed herself, attempting to remain as expressionless as possible but her tone was still dangerous. 

 

“Why should I? You were the one who almost died , I saved you.” He retorted. Angi winced suddenly at a sharp shooting pain in her head, like the start of a migraine. She looked back up at him.

 

“Well you obviously didn’t do that great of a job.” She muttered through her teeth. Sebastian tilted his head to the side, unamused with a hint of pity.

 

“That has nothing to do with me, you have a concussion.” Sebastian pointed to the bandage around Angi’s head, one that she hadn’t even realized was there until just now. She reached up to touch the bandage, in a bit of disbelief. She didn’t remember being hurt that bad… “What even happened to you anyways? I’m surprised you didn’t die before crawling into my shop.” 

 

“What, suddenly this is another interrogation?” Angi spoke with distrust. It was strange how the dynamic had been flipped. Sebastian thought to himself that maybe he shouldn’t have helped her, if this is how she was going to repay him…

 

“What, I’m not allowed to show concern?” He feigned hurt feelings. Angi looked him in the eye before sighing, turning her attention to his tail, now barren of items. She wondered where they had gone, but didn’t say anything about it.

 

“If I remember correctly…” Angi gave in, Sebastian leaning forward on to his table to rest his head in his hand. “... I was attacked by whatever the fake door monster is called, the one with the mask?.. I accidentally backed into the door while trying to avoid looking at that damn shark… Not long after, I wasn’t paying attention and had walked directly under a pipe that had burst, the steam burned like hell.” Angi paused every few moments to remember exactly what had happened, it was quite fuzzy now, and the migraine wasn’t helping. She returned her gaze to Sebastian, his face saying ‘Really?’

 

“I’m not usually this clumsy, ok? I don’t know what’s been going on the past few days… It’s like I can’t think straight…” Sebastian raised an eyebrow.

 

“Every time I see you, you have a wound that should have killed you. Something tells me that’s a bit more than being clumsy.” He sat up, snaking his way over to where Angi sat, sitting beside her with his tail stretched across the room. Angi scooted a bit further away, the closeness was uncomfortable. She couldn’t tell if he was trying to be friendly or if he had ulterior motives, and really neither did Sebastian. “... You should take your hair down.” He stated, it seemed random. Angi turned to look at him.

 

“What? No- Why would I?” She said defensively, moving her hands up to hold her ponytail.

 

“Leaving your hair tied up tight like that for a long time isn’t good for you, and from the looks of it you’ve had your hair up for days… You’ve been taking that out to sleep right?” Sebastian said with a bit of actual concern. Maybe it was the fact that he had already cared for her but in a way he was actually thinking of her well being.

 

Angi looked away, not responding to that question. Sebastian narrowed his eyes. She noticed his disapproving gaze but just muttered under her breath. “Since when do you care so much…”

 

Sebastian sighed, he didn’t really know the answer to that himself. He chuckled. “You’re a valuable customer. If you die then I have to do all the work myself, and that would be just terrible.” He thought about his goal. He thought about how he was going to escape this place, about how he’d be free. If it worked. It had to work.

 

Angi felt a little guilty for being so aggressive. He had apologized before for threatening her when they first met, and honestly the only reason she was being so up in arms about it in the first place was because passing out in front of Sebastian meant that she had to acknowledge that she was hurt.

 

“... I haven’t slept since we first met.” She muttered. Sebastian looked at her wide eyed and dumbfounded. “Well I mean… Until just now…” Sebastian laughed at the absurdity.

 

“Well then no fucking wonder you can’t think straight!” He facepalmed, sighing exasperatedly. He moved away from Angi, back into the corner of the room he usually sat in. He reached down under the table and grabbed one of the bags of research (the biggest of the three) and held it in his lower left hand before moving back over to where Angi was, offering a hand to help her up from the ground. Angi stared at the offered hand for a moment before slowly taking it, standing up while still being towered over by Sebastian. “I’d imagine you can’t exactly return to HQ empty handed, so take this and go home to sleep.” He tossed the bag to her. She barely caught it without it slipping out of her hands.

 

“But-” Angi tried to protest.

 

“But nothing. If you don’t sleep soon you’re going to die and I’m going to have to actually start working for myself.” Sebastian pointed at the vent, showing her out. Angi looked down at the bag in her hands for a moment before strapping it back onto her belt, moving towards the vent. “And seriously, take your hair down.” Sebastian said with a tinge of annoyance.

 

“...Thanks Seb. I mean it.” Angi said, looking over her shoulder at him before she left. Sebastian sighed, waving her off.

 

“Just call me Sebastian…” He didn’t care for the nickname that much, it felt too comfortable for his situation. Angi didn’t listen though, and as she crawled through the vent Sebastian could make out the smallest sound of a chuckle.

 

Sebastian sighed after she was a few rooms down, feeling like he made a mistake by letting her take the data. He stopped himself in the middle of that thought however. Angi is a person, just like him. She’s no more free than him, and obviously she was just doing what she had to to survive. Regardless, she had already given him plenty more data than any other expendable would have, so it was worth giving her that much so she could return safely.

 

Safely? Why was he so worried about her safety? The feeling was foreign, it had been a long, long time since he had felt so strongly about another person’s well being. It made him feel gross inside, like something was wrong. Whatever, that’s a problem for future Sebastian to handle.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Angi had finally gotten back to her cell after being up for another 3 hours after leaving Sebastian’s shop. She explained away why she only had one bag as her being attacked, showing her bandages to prove it. She finally got to her bed, sitting down, exhausted. The bed wasn’t the most comfortable one in the world, but it was better than what the EXR-P’s got, so she was fine with it. She was about to lay down when she remembered what Sebastian had told her.

 

Angi hated having her hair down, it just felt weird. Despite her discomfort, she slowly reached up and pulled her hair tie, feeling as the tension on her scalp instantly lessened. She let her hair fall down over her shoulders, her head feeling sore. Honestly she should probably wash her hair too, it had been a long while since she had the opportunity to wash anything but her body. She sighed, falling back onto her bed, instantly feeling tired. For months now she had been waking up, going to work, coming back and sleeping just so that she could do it all again, meaning that she was only truly sleeping as a necessary part of the process. She was never actually resting because all she was thinking about was getting to tomorrow to do it all over again.

 

Now, for the first time as of late… She was sleeping to actually rest. Her eyes slowly fell closed as she thought about how Sebastian had helped her. He had been treated horribly of course, but so had she. Not once in the past 5 years did she think someone would care enough to tell her to rest. Not once did she think she would care enough to laugh again. And she most definitely didn’t think that the person to remind her of that fact would be someone like Sebastian.

 

Angi would close her eyes and sleep for a full 24 hours.

Notes:

She was just a little eepy guys (also sorry this chapter was a little shorter)

Chapter 4: Gift (CH. 4)

Summary:

Two idiots and a child.

Notes:

STÁT IS AN OC MADE BY @ph0biccherry ON TIKTOK!! I LOVE HIM HE'S SUCH A GOOBER!!

Bridges you walk

Pages you turn

Crumbling building

Watching it burn

 

Empty silent fields

Yet all but alone

Over the hill

Come bounding home.

 

Angi’s eyes shot open. What a strange dream…  A nightmare perhaps? She felt that it had alarmed her but as she tried to recall what she had seen it all felt blurry. She sat up, feeling her long black hair snake over her shoulders in a way she hadn't felt since she was a young child. She sighed, reaching over to her nightstand to grab her hair tie. As she was about to put her hair up she realized that she hadn't actually brushed through her hair in a long while.

 

Angi swung her legs over the side of the bed, her feet dragging across the ground as she did so despite the height of the bed. She stood, stretching for a moment before walking towards the door of her cell. Although could it really be considered a cell? She was still a prisoner here but she could leave her room whenever she wanted. Although then again, it certainly didn't feel like her room. It was barren and sparsely furnished, just a bed, a night stand, a sink and a mirror. There was a separate room for the bathroom, so at least she was given that privilege.

 

She opened the door, stepping out into the hallway and dragging her feet slightly as she walked. She was tired but could tell she was well rested. She hadn't slept that well in a long time. Speaking of time, What time was it? There was a clock in Angi’s room but it was broken recently, yet to be fixed. She peeked her head into the office of a guard she was ‘friendly’ with waving a little

 

“Collis? Why's your hair down?” The guard instantly noticed the change in her appearance, which only stood to further Sebastian's nagging about Angi needing to take her hair down more often.

 

“Don't worry about it. May I request a hair brush?” Angi said blankly. She was monotone when she would talk to Sebastian, but this was a whole other level. Her eyes barely moved from the guards face, her face was unmoving and emotionless. If she was simply inexpressive normally, currently she was practically robotic.

The guard crossed her arms with a sigh. “Stevens isn't happy with you, are you sure you want to make requests right now?” The guard was the nicest person on site, a short middle aged woman with blonde hair.

 

Angi nodded confidently. She knew that she would be in hot water for bringing back so little data and skipping a day of expedition, but she hadn't made an item request in almost a year, since the last time her toothbrush broke.

 

The guard shot Angi a look that said ‘if you say so…’ and picked up the phone on the desk next to her, dialing a number and waiting for it to ring. Angi walked off back to her room, stepping inside and closing the door behind her. If she didn't get her hair brush it wasn't the end of the world, so she would just wait 15 minutes to see if they'd bring it or not. She moved over to the sink and mirror, running her hands through her hair. It was greasy and wasn't easy to comb through with her fingers. 

 

Angi walked over to the door of the bathroom, deciding to take a proper shower to wash her hair. She wasn’t sure why she was suddenly so focused on it, maybe because it had been mentioned to her? The guards would comment on her appearance constantly to the point it annoyed her, so that probably wasn’t it. Was it… Sebastian? She hard blocked that thought from continuing. She was just going to enjoy her shower.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Angi came out of the bathroom after she was done with her shower, having changed back into her sleep wear, which was an oversized plain white t-shirt and some old baggy shorts. She wrung out her hair without caring where the water fell, the floor was entirely concrete anyways. As she walked out into the main room, she noticed that there was a plastic hairbrush laying on her bed. She picked it up, looking at it front and back before making her way over to the sink in the corner of the room. She looked down into the basin of the sink for a moment, for some reason struggling to raise her head to view the mirror. She blinked a few times, holding on to the side of the sink with her free hand as she slowly peered up into her own eyes.

 

Her wet pitch black hair draped over her face, falling over her shoulders and making her shirt damp. She looked into her own gray eyes, those same ones that would look at her in her old house. That huge mirror in the attic she would always stare at was one of her most vivid memories in her childhood. The rest was… Rather unpleasant. Angi raised the brush to her hair, slowly running it through the ends of the wet strands. It was quiet aside from the sound of the fluorescent ceiling light humming monotonously. Angi had heard that same ever-present hum every morning for the past 8 years. Yet right now it stood out to her. She wondered why she was noticing little things like that. Despite the bittersweet memories of her childhood, it was a strangely peaceful moment.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Angi was back in her diving suit, and was in the middle of putting her hair up when a guard came in. It wasn’t the older woman from before like she had hoped, but rather one of the male guards. She looked over her shoulder just enough to look at the guard’s face, pulling her ponytail tight. It was Stevens.

 

“Collis.” The guard said with a dark tone in his voice. He closed the door behind him. Angi took a deep breath, half holding it as she felt all of her muscles tense. She turned to face the man, her hands firmly at her sides. It was as if her eyes dulled over in his presence. She stared with empty eyes ahead of her. “You’re on a warning. Try to sleep like a normal person for fucks sake.” Stevens’ eyes scanned her body up and down, it felt like an invasion of privacy. Angi was expecting him to say more, some sort of scathing remark about her poor performance, or worse something about her body, but he simply turned around and left.

 

Angi sighed in relief once he was gone. The only reason someone like him would hold his tongue is because he’s being stopped by someone else. She didn’t have time to question that further however, as her door swung back open, snapping her attention back to focus. It was the female guard from earlier.

 

“Come on, Since you slept for so long you’re going on a late mission.” Angi stood there for a second before processing what that meant and quickly following the guard as she walked back out into the hallway. As Angi caught up to her, she looked down at the guard as they walked, thinking that maybe she was the one who told Stevens not to say anything. Then again, why would he listen to what she had to say, she wasn’t higher ranking than him or anything…

 

Angi suddenly realized that she would get to go see Sebastian again. She thought about what she would say, or rather what she would do. She wanted to bring him something to thank him. She was really rude the day before considering he possibly saved her life. Maybe she could bring him an item? But he already has a lot, he probably doesn’t need any more. Extra data? Maybe, but she’d also have to bring back extra to make up for losing so much last time-

 

“Collis?” The guard spoke up, catching Angi off guard as they weren’t at the docking bay yet. Angi looked down at her.

 

“Yes?” She blurted out quickly, trying to seem as though she had been alert the whole time. The guard looked at her with suspicion. Even though she was Angi’s favorite guard, it didn’t mean she was always nice.

 

“Keep your head on straight.” The guard said bluntly. Angi tilted her head to the side as she said that, keeping a blank robotic expression.

 

“Why do you say that?” She was wondering what gave it away. Maybe she had just been staring off at nothing for too long?

 

“You were smiling.” The guard said, almost sounding off put by Angi showing emotion. Angi’s eyes widened ever so slightly. She looked straight ahead, not caring to respond. She was smiling? How had she not noticed? Why would she even be smiling in the first place, she was just thinking about… Angi was discomforted by the thought. She pushed that to the back of her mind as they walked through the prisoner funnel to the docking bay. Angi nodded to the guard as she turned to go back to her office.

 

“What’s… Wrong with me?” Angi whispered to herself, looking down at her hands for a moment as she walked to a single person submarine. She stepped inside, the hatch closing behind her before the sub sank into the water.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Angi walked through the halls of the blacksite once more, as always. She was grabbing data but she was also taking extra care to look for something to use as a gift. She had decided against grabbing anything with utility, as Sebastian already had plenty of tools, and instead landed on finding something that could have sentimental value. She walked into a room that used to be an office, desks all lined up next to each other with nameplates and desk decorations long abandoned. Angi searched through a few desks, grabbing some of the data left behind in the drawers when suddenly she was met with something that caught her eye. A thick golden bracelet, and it looked like it was high quality too. She picked it up, inspecting it for a moment before sliding it over her wrist. It was a bit too big for her to wear comfortably, but then an idea came to mind. She could save it for Sebastian.

 

Angi looked down at the bracelet once more before looking back to the desk she was taking it from. She felt a little bad about taking someone’s jewelry, but they likely wouldn’t ever get it back anyways, if they were even alive. The majority of the workers in the blacksite had died during the start of the lockdown, so chances are that nobody would ever come back for it. She tucked the bracelet in her bag, continuing onward.

 

It was (unsurprisingly) a lot easier to avoid being hurt when Angi was fully conscious and well rested. She had managed to deal with several monsters already without being injured, which was a welcome change of pace from the past week. She did get a couple scrapes from crawling through the vents, but they were so minor she hadn’t even noticed them. Not long after going into the facility, Angi had made her way through quite a few rooms, and decided it would be a good time to merge back to the marked path.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As expected, Angi walked into a room with a vent that flew open, a familiar voice welcoming her inside, without a moment to spare she started to make her way through the vent, but something caught her attention. She could hear Sebastian whispering something in the shop, as if he were talking to someone. As she crawled out to stand in the little room, Sebastian’s esca illuminated it comfortably, except it seemed a little dimmer than usual for some reason.

 

“Ah, Welcome back. You seem to be in better condition this time, so I take it you followed my advice.” Sebastian said with a smile, seeming to be leaning into a ‘I told you so’ kind of tone. Angi nodded, her expression seemed slightly troubled for a moment as she looked down, rocking back and forth on her heels.

 

“I uhm… I wanted to say I was sorry for last time…” She seemed embarrassed to admit fault, like a child forced to say sorry by a parent. Sebastian looked somewhat amused at the scene, already thinking of many ways he could use this against her. Angi looked down to her belt, rummaging through one of the smaller data bags to pull out the bracelet and holding it out to Sebastian without looking him in the eye. “Here. As a token of my appreciation.” She seemed flustered. She didn’t think it would be so hard when she was planning it out.

 

“Uh- Hah- I don’t really-” Sebastian started, but was barely able to get his words out before something lunged from the top of the room behind him towards Angi, snatching the bracelet away from her. Angi jumped back in surprise, looking at the creature before her. It was crouched down on the floor, holding the golden bracelet with both hands inspecting it carefully. It was a mix of dark violets and near blacks, with the fins and tail of a shark, but the body of a human. As it turned its head to look over its shoulder at her, Angi could see its many eyes on one half of its face, similar in appearance to Eyefestation.

 

Angi staggered backwards, staring the crouched figure down. She was on high alert and prepared to fight, but Sebastian’s voice quickly ripped both of their attentions away from each other.

 

“ST ÁT!” He boomed, picking up the creature from under the armpits, as if it were a child. It squirmed, trying to get down, seemingly wanting to lunge at Angi once more.

 

“You said-! You said humans were bad!” Its voice was distorted, as if it was playing out of an old broken speaker. It swung its arms in a feeble attempt to scratch at Angi, who was taken aback, staring in disbelief at the scene unfolding before her.

 

“Angi is…” He paused for a moment, trying to gather the words. He looked down at Angi for a moment before looking back to ‘Stát.’ “... Different.” He took the bracelet from Stát’s hands, quickly putting it in his jacket pocket. “And regardless, Don’t lunge at customers. There’s a reason I run this shop, kid.” He grumbled, obviously annoyed by the sudden outburst. Sebastian put Stát down slowly, trusting him not to attack Angi.

 

Angi on the other hand was still on guard, warily looking Stát up and down. Stát’s glowing purple eyes were piercing, it was unnerving to see that many eyes on her at once.

 

“I apologize for his rather… unwelcoming introduction. As you can obviously see, he likes to take after me…” Sebastian said in a tired voice. Angi thought it was strangely wholesome to act like a guardian to this boy, even if he was a ‘monster.’

 

“Yeah… I can see it… Are you his dad or something??” Angi said bluntly. Sebastian looked surprised at the question, stuttering.

 

“Wh- huh?? No-?” Sebastian looked down at Stát for a moment, who had taken a few steps closer to Angi, staring her down. “Well- I take care of him. He’s young and he’s obviously been through alot.” Sebastian’s gaze softened, feeling bad for the kid.

 

“I’m 19, I’m not a kid.” Stát looked back to Sebastian before returning his gaze to Angi, stepping forward and grabbing her arm. Angi instinctually flinched, slightly pulling away but not entirely. Stát’s eyes flicked across Angi’s expression, its own being hard to place as well. “Why do you look like that.” Stát stated, although Angi supposed it was meant to be a question. She cocked her head to the side, looking confused. Stát clarified. “Normal people’s faces change. They look scared when I get this close. What’s wrong with you?”

 

“Stát…” Sebastian muttered, trying to get him to mind its manners. Angi on the other hand, didn’t even realize that he was being rude. She thought about the question for a moment before answering.

 

“I just… Don’t think it’s necessary, I guess.” Angi shrugged. Sebastian was glad that the two of them weren’t killing each other, at least. “If Seb trusts you, then I don’t see why I shouldn’t.” She said plainly. It really wasn’t the best thought process, considering the type of person Sebastian is, but it worked for this scenario. Stát walked around Angi’s side, looking at her from different angles. Angi stayed quiet for a moment before a slight smile came across her face. “You really are like a kid, huh?”

 

“No!” Stát blurted out, looking up at her again. “You don’t even look that much older than me!” Stát pointed at her. Angi did look quite young, so she could see where he was coming from. She tilted her head to the side, seemingly counting in her head, doing the same thing where she counted on her fingers.

 

“I’m 27.” Angi said casually. Both Stát and Sebastian looked at her in surprise. She suddenly got defensive, furrowing her eyebrows the slightest bit “Well that’s still not that old! God- Don’t look at me like that!” She looked at Sebastian.

 

“I expected you to be at least 5 years younger than me…” Sebastian’s ear fins twitched as he brought a hand up to his chin in thought. Well, at least she aged well? Sebastian looked down to Stát. “Bud, Why don’t you give us a few minutes?” He nodded towards the vent, telling him to step out. Stát nodded, turning back to Angi.

 

“You’re not all bad, but you’re a human. Don’t talk to me.” He said bluntly before crawling through the vent. Sebastian sighed, deciding he would have to talk to him later about it.

 

“So, Angi…” Sebastian said, drawing Angi’s attention back to him. She remembered what she had said before she was interrupted by Stát, feeling that strange embarrassed feeling again. Sebastian pulled the bracelet out of his pocket, holding it up. Instantly the problem was clear. “This gift is nice and all, but it’s too small for me.” Angi’s face suddenly got hot, getting visibly flustered by her lack of forethought. “I could give it to Stát, he obviously seemed to like it. He tends to like shiny things like jewelry, so-” Angi took a few steps closer to Sebastian, gently taking the bracelet from his hand, interrupting him. She reached out a hand, asking him to take hers. He obliged, placing his lower left hand over her palm, but was visibly confused. “What’re you-” Angi slid the bracelet over his last finger, and just as she had hoped, it fit perfectly as a ring.

 

Angi’s face lit up like Sebastian had never seen, actually smiling more than a subtle smirk. She beamed up at Sebastian, still holding his hand, and suddenly he was stuck. He froze at seeing her smile up at him like that, unsure of what to do or say. Why were his words getting stuck in his throat again? He hadn’t even realized it, but a slight rosiness had crept onto his face. Seeing his stunned reaction, Angi immediately started overthinking, realizing that what she had done could be taken by some as ‘wildly romantic.’ She took a step back, letting go of Sebastian’s hand and muttering.

 

“Y-You don’t have to wear it like that- I just thought-” She stuttered out her words, waving her hands in front of her in a slight panic. Sebastian reached down, twisting the ring on his finger and fidgeting with it.

 

“I like it.” He said, looking down at the shimmering gold reflecting in the light from his esca. Angi stopped in place, looking up at him for a moment.

 

“Right- Well- You can keep it. Thank you for the other day, and, uhm- I’ll be going!” Angi quickly made her way through the vent, mentally cursing herself for being so stupid and putting herself in that position. She can’t believe she embarrassed herself like that.

“You didn’t even!-” Sebastian called out, but it was too late, Angi had rushed back the way she came. “-Buy anything…” He stated, now to himself. He looked back down at the ring, replaying the whole situation in his mind. He smiled a bit as he thought about her before realizing and shaking his head. “Don’t get attached.” He told himself, his smile falling. He looked to the vent before reaching up and turning his esca, the room going dark.

Notes:

'Don't get attached' He says as he gets hopelessly attached

Chapter 5: A Distance Closed (CH. 5)

Summary:

A gift for the gifter is a gifters gifted gift to be gifted- you get the point.

Notes:

hey remember how this is supposed to be a high security prison filled with dangerous criminals sentenced to death? haha, yeah me neither!

The light in the room buzzed familiarly, the sound of the air conditioner hanging in the corner of the room bounced off the sterile white walls, making the space feel cluttered and somewhat suffocating for some reason. A view of a metal table, littered with pieces of white paper, but none of them had anything on them. Looking just downward, thin pale hands in handcuffs, chained to the table. Was that really necessary? The buzzing was so annoying, the sound of the handcuffs lightly clinking together as the hands shifted was something else to focus on.

 

“Angela?” A voice called out from across the table, but she didn’t move. “I’m trying to help you. We can’t know what happened unless you talk to us.”

 

…

 

Silence. The hand of a man took the papers from the table, showing the reflective surface just beneath. Angi stared back at herself, her hair hanging down in front of her face, framing her pale sooty cheeks hauntingly. She could barely recognize herself. She looked younger, only a child.

 

“We’ve been at this for hours, she hasn’t said a thing.” The man across the table spoke, seemingly to someone else in the room.

 

“The jury’s not gonna like that.” A different voice responded.

 

.

 

.

 

.

Angi blinked, one moment asleep, the next awake. Another strange dream. That memory sat heavy in her mind, feeling a chill run up her neck as she thought back to that day. She shook her head with a shiver, quickly leaning over to her bedside table and grabbing her hair tie, getting her hair put up and off of her neck.

 

The buzzing of the light in her room was so similar to the one in her dream, just at a different frequency. She stared up at the light for a moment before looking away, realizing she had little dark spots in her vision. Yeah, staring directly into a lightbulb isn’t the brightest idea. Angi was motivated today, or perhaps she was just unsettled by the dream, making her want to get to work immediately.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Angi was rummaging through some drawers in a dark room, when she suddenly saw something glowing from the corner of her eyes, outside of the radius of her flashlight. She turned over to look at it, the purple glow making her think it was just a puddle of void mass for a moment before she saw it move. She was confused for a moment before she saw it start to approach her. Once she moved her flashlight to illuminate the creature she realized it was Stát. She let out a little sigh of relief, although Stát shied away from the light slightly, as Angi accidentally pointed it in his eyes. She quickly moved it to the side without a word, making sure not to make it uncomfortable.

 

“Sebastian says I’m not allowed to kill you.” Stát says, rather ominously. Angi stares blankly down at him for a moment.

 

“That’s kind of him.” She remarks off-handedly. Stát stared up at her for a moment, kind of giving her a headache, but she didn’t mention it.

 

“... He said he wanted to see you, too.” Stát grumbled as if he didn’t want to have to tell her that. Angi’s eyes widened slightly. Did he mean that Sebastian was looking forward to seeing her again? Or was he saying that he told Stát to come get her? She was quickly shown that it was the latter as Stát grabbed Angi’s wrist and quickly pulled her along, before she had a chance to react.

 

“Hey- Wait!” Angi tried to object, or pull her hand away so that she could follow on her own accord, but Stát’s grip was stronger than she had expected. She wouldn’t be able to pick up any data from the rooms they walked through if she was being dragged like this, meaning she would have to spend extra time on her way back looking through every drawer they passed. His claws slightly dug into her skin by accident, not breaking the skin but leaving little red marks.

 

Angi followed quietly behind Stát as it decisively made its way through the halls, as if knowing exactly where Sebastian’s shop was. That would make sense if he came from there, but Angi could never know exactly where he was going to be, considering he moved his shop to stay in the middle of the navi-path each time it was recalibrated, meaning about once every day.

 

Eventually they reached a room with a vent, Stát stopping in front of it. He moved to the side to let Angi crawl through, causing Angi to stop and look down at him with confusion.

 

“Sebastian’s shop is in the room after the next on the left. I have better things to do than listen to you two flirt.” Stát glared at her. Angi straightened her posture after hearing that last bit, immediately wanting to get defensive, but knew that it would only make her look worse.

 

“We don’t flirt. Giving people gifts isn’t flirting, kid.” Angi looked at him with a dull expression, as if reprimanding a young child.

 

“I’m not a kid! I already told you!” Stát crossed his arms, looking up at Angi with a stubborn expression. Angi raised an eyebrow before moving on and ducking into the vent, crawling through to the next room. As she walked through the next door, she wondered what Sebastian could want to see her for. Maybe to take more data from her? Or perhaps he wanted to tell her to stop visiting. She was slightly saddened by the thought of not being able to come to his shop anymore- but she didn’t even know if that’s what he wanted to talk about.

 

Angi shook the thought from her mind as she approached the door, pulling out her keycard to unlock it before moving into the next room. As she peered into the dimly lit room, she spotted the vent on the left side, just where Stát had said it would be. It opened as usual, but Sebastian’s voice didn’t call her inside, rather an eerie silence permeated for a moment as Angi crouched down to get through the vent. She had a strange pit in her stomach and she couldn’t tell why.

 

As Angi stepped into the shop, Sebastian was there in the corner, his esca already on before she had come in, which was out of the ordinary. Sebastian’s eyes widened slightly as he saw that it was her, looking behind her expectantly for a moment but seeing nothing.

 

“Where’s the kid? He did bring you here didn’t he?” Sebastian asked with the faintest bit of worry in his voice. Angi looked to the vent then back up to Sebastian, having to swallow before speaking, trying to clear her mind of the thoughts telling her something bad was going to happen.

 

“Oh- He said he had… Other places to be.” She purposely left out the part where Stát had said they were ‘flirting’ feeling as though Sebastian didn’t need to know about that. “So, you said you wanted to see me?” Angi cocked her head to the side, looking up at him. Sebastian tugged on his scarf a bit, trying to readjust to be a bit more comfortable.

 

“Yes- Well…” Sebastian rummaged through his pockets for a moment, holding something in his hand, but keeping it closed to obscure it from Angi’s vision. She noticed however that he had kept the ring on his lower left hand, which made her feel a bit happy. “You said you gave me the ring to repay me for the other day when you almost died in my shop - which was still a nuisance, don’t get me wrong - but I feel as though the data I took from you to pay for it was more than enough for my services. So, I…” He stopped in the middle of his sentence, looking down at Angi’s curious face. He took a sharp inhale, turning his head a bit to the side to not look directly at her, holding out his hand for her to take what was in his palm. “Just take the damn thing, will you?”

 

Sebastian opened his hand to show that he was holding a red hair tie, one that looked small in comparison to his massive claws. It wasn’t just any hair tie however, it seemed to be threaded together customly, the main thread being a darker almost crimson red, while there were accents of shimmering ruby thread woven in, making it quite nice to look at. Angi marveled at it for a moment, Sebastian groaning under his breath in annoyance at the fact she was taking so long to pick it up.

 

Angi gently took the hair tie from his palm, holding it pinched between her fingers and turning it to watch the ruby strands shimmer in the light. She looked enchanted by it, which Sebastian thought was strange since it was only a hair tie.

 

“Where.. Did you get this?” Angi looked up at him, a sparkle in her eyes reminiscent of the last time they met. He played it off as if he were annoyed she was so happy about it.

 

“I made it. I know it’s not the best weaving in the world, but I did what I could with the scraps of thread I had laying around. Do you know how hard it is to sew individual threads together with hands like these?” Sebastian went out of his way to make it seem like it was a bother to make her something, but he really did enjoy the challenge while he was making it. He looked back down at her, who was smiling up at him. He thought she looked like an idiot. “Don’t look at me like that…”

 

Angi suddenly realized she was smiling, instantly letting her expression fall back to unreadable. Sebastian panicked slightly, thinking he had upset her by being too rude

 

“Well you can still smile about it- god you’re dense…” He muttered out, a slight blush of embarrassment creeping onto his face. Her eyes stayed tired but a small smile came back across her lips, easing Sebastian’s worry.

 

Angi put the hair tie in her mouth, holding it with her teeth before reaching up behind her head to grab her ponytail. She pulled her regular black hair tie out a bit, grabbing her hair at the base to make sure it wouldn't fall as she did so. She stretched the black hair tie over her hand and onto her wrist, taking the gifted hair tie from her mouth and tying up her hair once more. The crimson stood out, nicely contrasting her black hair.

 

“... Well? How does it look?” Angi asked, looking up to Sebastian with a slight smile.

 

“Like a hair tie.” Sebastian said with a hint of confusion and annoyance as to why she cared that much. It's only like he hand crafted a gift for her because he knew she was specific about the way she liked her hair. He obviously didn't care at all.

 

Angi let out a hum of content at that comment, thinking it was a little funny. She moved towards the metal table next to Sebastian, hopping up to sit on it. She took care not to sit on any of the files or anything important. He looked down at her with a surprised expression

 

“What are you doing?” He moved a few inches back, remembering that Angi didn't like to be too close to him, although she was the one who had closed the distance this time.

 

“Well you made a point of dragging me all this way, why don't we talk for a bit?” Angi swung her legs back and forth off the edge of the table. Angi was kind of tall, so having somewhere to freely swing her legs was nice.

 

“What, Is getting a gift not enough for you? Must I entertain you as well?” Sebastian looked down at his ring fidgeting with it for a moment. Angi ignored his comment, instead asking a question of her own.

 

“So I take it you liked the ring?” Angi said somewhat quietly.

 

“It's not often you come across something that's accustomed to my size, whether that be clothes, jewelry, whatever. It's something I would have taken whether you brought it to me or not.” Sebastian explained it away as if he didn't find it sweet she gave it to him. Honestly he thought of her every time he looked at it.

“Hm.” Angi kept her eyes on his face, while Sebastian was busy looking down at his hand. “I feel stupid admitting it but… I honestly thought you were going to be mad at me when I first came in.” Angi looked down to the floor.

 

“Why?” Sebastian asked plainly.

 

“I don't know, really. I just had this feeling in my gut. I guess it didn't mean anything though.” Sebastian noticed that as Angi talked, she would accidentally smile. It caught his attention more so than it usually would.

 

“Why do you still make such a big fuss over not showing your smile? What you got fucked up teeth or something?” Sebastian teased. Angi didn't find it funny, the atmosphere getting a little tense.

 

“It's… Complicated.” She said, her smile disappearing as quickly as it came. Sebastian brought a hand up to move his hair out of the way of his third eye.

 

“Sorry, I uh…” He couldn't think of what to say.

 

“Don't be.” Angi cut him off. She didn't want to sour the mood, he was finally starting to act a little nicer than usual. She wanted to savor that. “So, what did you look like when you were human?” She asked with a little too much stride. She thought she'd ask a personal question since he asked one.

 

Sebastian’s eyes flicked down to look at her. Normally he’d charge people for it, but… “You can see it right there.” He pointed down to his file on Angi’s left, sitting on the table. She looked up at him for a moment, silently exchanging a glance. He nodded. Angi picked up the file, opening it slowly. She didn't care to read any of it, it wasn't what she was looking for and it's also not what Sebastian said she could look at.

 

Angi looked at the image held inside the folder, it was the mugshot of a man, familiar greasy black hair covering his eyes. Just visible below his bangs was the start of what looked like a fairly large scar across his face. He held a plaque that said ‘Sebastian Solace.’

 

She peered down at the image before looking back up to Sebastian, as if comparing the two. He was fixed on the old image of himself as well, seeming to reminisce. Angi spoke up, although with an ounce of hesitation.

 

“Is it… Bad that I like you better this way?” She said, quickly adding on “I mean- Your face hasn't changed all too much, and I'm not trying to say you looked worse as a human or anything-” She rambled, looking a little worried.

 

“...” Sebastian shifted his gaze to Angi as she spoke, staring at her blankly for a beat before snickering. “My charms transcend my physical form. Good to know.” Angi’s eyes widened slightly. Charms? Was he charming her? Is that what he had wanted to do with the hair tie? Was Stát right in the first place?

 

She got quiet, her cheeks flushing a little at his laugh. She cleared her throat, remembering to show no emotion, letting her face fall back to normal, although her brow was slightly furrowed. Sebastian had seen all he needed to see though, keeping that image in his mind.

 

“And to answer your question from earlier, the red suits you.” Sebastian crossed his arms, leaning down to rest his arm on the table next to Angi. It was the first time they had ever really been eye to eye, and it made it much more clear just how huge he was. Angi thought to herself that he must be at least 10 feet tall, even curled up like how he normally was.

 

“Thanks…” She focused most of her energy into not smiling at that comment. He had already mentioned it, and she couldn't be getting soft now. Sebastian on the other hand was honestly starting to like Angi. He had been using her as a means to collect data at the start, but she was actually quite comfortable to be around. It was a nice change of pace from the expendables who would kill him if they could.

 

They ended up talking for another few hours.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Angi waved goodbye as she left the shop. It was a nice conversation, she wouldn’t deny that, but she had been in the facility for hours longer than she was supposed to. She walked back the way she came, but since Stát had brought her a strange roundabout way, she wasn’t sure which way to walk to get back to the docking bay. She ended up taking a door on the right side of an intersecting hallway and ended up getting even more lost. She sighed, knowing that it was going to take a while to get back to a place she was familiar with, but she was still quite happy about the fact she got to have a long conversation with Sebastian.

 

Suddenly, the familiar sound of the PA system chimed, a voice calling out from the speaker bolted to the wall in the corner of the room she had walked into.

“You’re going to need to- Oh wait, it’s you.”

 

Angi was slightly confused by the person on the PA system recognizing her. Could he see her through the security cameras?

 

“Well, it’s always good to have qualified hands for a job like this. The equipment in the next sector is broken and needs to be repaired. After you’re done, we’ll send an emergency retrieval crew, since this isn’t your main directive.”

 

Before Angi could call out over her radio to ask for clarification, the PA chimed once more, shutting off and leaving her with no further information of what was ahead. Well, she had done repair jobs before, so it should be fine, right?

Notes:

this was so nice, i sure hope NOTHING BAD happens!

Chapter 6: Hook, Line, and... (CH. 6)

Summary:

CW: HEAVIER GORE THAN NORMAL.

Angi plays dead by daylight! The killer has NOED!

Notes:

oof, onch, ouch my bones

Angi inserted her keycard into the purple reader, the two doors before her sliding open to reveal a dark damp room filled with basic generators, one of which had a red light signifying that it was malfunctioning. She made her way over to it with confidence. She had worked with basic wiring quite a few times in her time working on the blacksite, so she had experience dealing with malfunctioning equipment. She leaned down, inspecting the sparking generator. It was pretty simple, some of the mechanics were jammed together and there were a few wires out of place, so she managed to fix it within a few seconds.

 

The door to the next room unlocked as she repaired the generator, which signified to her that this was a matter of necessity. These generators weren’t connected to any kind of mechanical mainframe that would have control over the doors, meaning that HQ was remotely locking them until she completed the task she had been given.

 

Angi sighed, thinking that this was a bother after the nice moment she had with Sebastian. Honestly she was tired at this point, which surprised her because she’d normally be fine without sleep for a full 24 hours without feeling side effects. Perhaps the comfortability she was finding in Sebastian’s company was causing her to lose her touch.

 

She made her way to the next room and it was more of the same, another room full of generators with one malfunctioning. She repeated the same process she had the first time, gears, wires, done. She looked up but noticed that the next door was off to the side, the one that she thought would open remained locked, meaning they were redirecting her to somewhere else. She thought that was peculiar, but continued onwards anyways.

 

As Angi walked ahead through the next hallway, she could hear the loud song of what sounded like a large deep sea creature. Possibly a whale? Strange that she would be able to hear it from this part of the facility but-

 

Angi’s stride faltered, realizing exactly what she had just heard. Vultus Luminaria had caused plenty of issues in her time working at the blacksite, and she had always been creeped out by the things, their method of killing sent shivers up her spine every time she thought about it. Their harpoons reminded her of meat hooks, which she had always had a sort of irrational fear of.

 

She stepped forward, the door to the next room opening. She looked to the left through the glass panes, seeing a massive glowing orange creature swim just outside the window. She shuddered, but continued to move forward.

 

“God damn it… I just knew something bad was going to happen today…” Angi wrapped her arms around herself as she ran ahead, wanting to get this over with as soon as possible. She didn’t want to have to deal with this, but she knew that HQ was going to force her to get the job done or they wouldn’t let her leave.

 

She quickly made her way down the stairs, noticing that they were broken and she was going to have to jump down to continue on the path. She barely batted an eye, jumping down and landing on the rubble before continuing onward. The thought of possibly spraining her ankle meant nothing to her compared to the fact she was going to have to deal with the massive problem just outside.

 

Angi heard the beast’s wail, taking a deep breath before making her way closer to the massive airlocked door. She watched as it slowly opened, the massive beams of yellow-ish orange light cascading down to illuminate the expansive storage room. She then looked slightly downward, and there laying on the ground propped up against a railing was a heavily armored guard, unconscious or dead. 

 

Angi was about to make a move to get the guard to safety inside the airlocked room she was in, but just as quickly as she processed that the guard was there, she heard the sound she dreaded.

 

bWOOOP!

The thing called out, a harpoon quickly shooting down from the ceiling and rocketing into the guard’s body, snatching it up without a moment of hesitation into its gaping maw. Angi stared in horror for just a moment before shaking her head with a shaky swallow. She was going to have to deal with this whether she liked it or not. She had been through worse.

 

The creature, dubbed ‘Searchlights’ by the researchers Angi had always heard talking in the hallways of the blacksite when it was still functional, moved slowly past, its eyes scanning for more prey to feast on. Angi pushed past her fear, running out into the open space, the airlock shutting behind her. She looked around, quickly searching for the nearest generator to repair. She quickly spotted 5 red lights in the room amongst the green operational generators. Although the situation unnerved her, this fact slightly consoled her, she knew that there were only 5 generators to be repaired.

 

“Come on Angi, you can do this-” She whispered to herself as she bolted across the room, making her way to the nearest broken generator. She slid down to her knees, instantly getting to work on the machinery. Every few seconds she would look over her shoulder to make sure the searchlights weren’t too close before resuming her work.

 

Within 10 seconds, the first generator was done. She looked behind her once more, spotting the body of the creature on the complete opposite side of the room. Angi nodded, taking that into note before quickly dashing to the next generator she could see. She got down and began working on it without a moment’s hesitation.

 

“Alright, that thing is slow and I’m fast, these generators are easy to work on so if I just stay moving-” Angi moved her hand just a bit too far to the left inside the generator, getting a nice shock to her hand. It didn’t hurt as much as it caught her off guard, causing her to lose her rhythm for a beat. “Fuck! God damn it, pull it together-” She quickly shoved her hand back inside, finishing the repairs on this generator. She looked up to the searchlights, watching them approach faster than she had noticed. There were a few boxes nearby, allowing Angi to duck under them quickly to avoid being spotted.

 

Angi balled herself up as much as she could to make sure that no part of her would be caught in the light. She waited there for a few seconds until she saw one of the rays of light scan directly over where she was, causing the hairs on the back of her neck to stand straight. She held her breath and covered her mouth, almost scared it would be able to hear her. Just as quickly as the light moved over her, it was gone, continuing to scan the rest of the floor.

 

Angi let out a bit of a nervous laugh, getting out from her hiding place. “Hah- Dumbass…” She said with vitriol. She didn’t dwell on that minor victory however, moving to the next generator in need of repair. She tried to stay on the tail of the Searchlights as much as possible to avoid being caught going in the opposite direction, but stopping and taking 10 seconds to repair each generator made it a bit hard to keep up.

 

Angi kept up her pace, finishing the third generator and moving on to the fourth, still relatively close to being on the creature’s tail. She had started to get a good sweat going, as her heart rate was through the roof even without the added cardio of running across the storage room. She continued to check over her shoulder to see where the searchlights were as she worked, but did surprisingly well at the repairs despite that. By now the searchlights were scanning the opposite side of the room again, and she confidently reactivated the fourth generator and moved to the fifth. At the pace she was going, she was confident that she would be able to escape without having to hide again.

 

Luckily, the fifth generator was directly next to the door Angi would need to exit out of. Gears, wires, gears, wires, and then a pull of the lever. Just like that she was done. She got up from the generator, moving around the side of the elevated exit platform with an arrogant confidence she rarely exhibited before making her way to the door. She honestly thought it would be more of a struggle, but she narrowly avoided-

 

bWOOOP! bWOOOP!

 

Angi’s blood ran cold. She made a dash for the door, watching the orange light bask over her, casting her shadow onto the concrete floor. In just a second after being spotted, she felt a harpoon shoot down through her back, stabbing completely through her body. The black hook protruded through her torso, soaked in her own blood. Angi simply looked down at it for just half a second, it felt like everything was in slow motion. Survival instinct took over as she tried lifting herself with all of the strength she could muster to dislodge the hook. With just barely enough leverage, the hook slipped just enough to lose its grip. However, that didn’t stop it from ripping through her chest cavity and back as it retracted, attempting to pull her in.

 

Angi ran through the airlock, disoriented and now half gutted. She didn’t make it more than a few steps inside the airlock before collapsing to the ground. She heard the airlock shut behind her, but she couldn’t move to actually see it close. Her eyes were wide, but she didn’t have the same fear in her she had when she was in the storage room. She had a strange level of calm about her, faced with the realization of what was happening. All of the sounds around her seemed to fade.

 

“Oh man… I think… I’m really dying…”

 

Angi attempted to speak, but she could only hear the thoughts in her own head, no noise would come out other than a shaky choking.

 

“I always thought I would die quickly, like I would fall really far, or I'd be shot in the head, and it would be over in an instant, but… I never thought it would end like this. I can feel it getting harder to breathe…”

 

She attempted to crawl, to move anything, but she helplessly clawed at the ground without enough strength to carry herself.

 

“When people are dying, aren’t they supposed to think of a loved one? Who should I be thinking of?”

 

Her eyes flicked around, searching for something, anything to help her, but nothing could save her from this. Not from having her whole chest ripped open. She could see her own organs on the floor below her, a horribly human mix of pink and deep red, having spilled as she fell forward.

“...Mom?... No. She hates me.”

 

She thought of her 18th birthday, spent in prison, alone.

 

“Jenn?... No, I killed her.”

 

She thought of her childhood. She missed her sister.

 

“... That’s… so much blood… I think I’m gonna pass out soon….”

 

She saw her own blood pooling below her. Her vision wavered. Sebastian had told her she looked good in that shade of red.

 

“......Sebastian?...”

 

.

 

“...Maybe. I still don’t know. I don’t think I ever will.”

She looked back to her hand, focusing her thoughts. Her last thoughts.

“I gave him that ring… He wears it all the time… Oh no… He’s gonna find my body… He’ll be so disappointed in me. I’m sure he’d tell me I’m such an idiot to die like this…”

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

“I want to go home...”

 

It felt as though hours had passed as everything got cold, it felt as though she had been walking in the rain, her diving suit was soaked in blood. How long had it been since she had felt the rain? Since she had seen the sun?... Why had she never thought of those things until just now? It was too late. She was never going to be back in those fields again. She would never see another flower, wear another dress, hold another person. It was too late.

 

“I’m so sorry for everything, momma….. I see the light…”

 

Usually, that was a metaphor, but she really did see a light. People often debate on whether or not it’s the visualization of heaven, or perhaps just a visual hallucination as the body fires its last visual processing neurons just before death.

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

And then it was dark.

Notes:

All is horrible that ends horrible!

Chapter 7: Sinker. (CH. 6.5)

Summary:

CW: STILL HEAVIER GORE THAN NORMAL.

Sebastian remembers what feelings are: part 2

Notes:

"Next chapter is the funeral" uhhhhh nuh uh!!!

Just after Angi had left his shop, Sebastian heard the PA chime. He caught a little bit and put together that it was talking directly to her, and he got slightly worried. She had said she was going to go back to be retrieved, so hearing the PA tell her to proceed through the area where Searchlights was felt off. He decided he would follow her, just to make sure that everything went ok. Sebastian knew that Angi was capable of handling herself, but also knew that she was prone to making mistakes.

 

She wouldn’t have to know that he was following her as long as he stayed out of sight, that way she wouldn’t know that Sebastian was worried for her. Win-win for both parties! Instead of leaving through the vent in his shop, he slithered carefully up to the ledge just behind where he normally sat, which led to a vent system that stayed above the next several rooms and out of sight. Despite how large he was, he could fit through vents quite nicely, although it was a tight fit.

 

Sebastian made his way closer to where he thought Angi would be, in the large storage room they sent expendables into often. He cursed himself mentally for keeping his holster on him as he went through the vents, as it made it much harder to get through smoothly and without making any noise. He could hear the generators being powered back on, which helped ease his worry that Angi would be in danger.

 

Sebastian managed to get himself further through the dark vents, turning on his esca after a while due to how hard it was for him to navigate. It was always a hassle to get through the mazes of ventilation shafts, and he much preferred being able to move through rooms normally, but he didn’t want to make himself known to Angi. Considering the fact that the person over the PA had recognized her, it probably meant that there were cameras in the area as well, so it was best to stay away from those too.

 

He made it to the other side of the storage room, peeking out through a vent near the ceiling into a room with an airlock and three doors, one leading to a small office room and the other two leading out of the area. He knew that Angi would be coming through this area after she was done in the storage room, so he would be able to continue following her after that. He waited for a couple minutes, listening to the generators be repaired one by one through the walls and echoey vents, slightly uncomfortable the way he was laying but unable to move due to the tight fit.

 

Sebastian’s attention was grabbed by the airlock beginning to open. He ducked slightly back into the vent to make sure he wouldn’t be spotted by Angi if she just so happened to look up to where he was and-

 

bWOOOP! bWOOOP!

 

He heard the call of the creature, having spotted something. His train of thought lacked rationality for just the few seconds after hearing the noise. It couldn’t have been Angi, right? There was someone else there, something else that it had spotted, she wouldn’t have-

 

He looked down into the room, watching as Angi stumbled inside, her torso barely keeping its shape. Sebastian had seen plenty of horribly injured people in his time in the facility, guards he had ripped to pieces, the shattered skulls of people he had shot, but he hardly ever got that pit in his stomach he got as he watched Angi collapse to the floor, gasping for breath as her blood pooled beneath her.

 

Sebastian no longer cared if he was spotted by her or the cameras, he forced his arms ahead of him and attempted to pull himself out of the vent, struggling to free himself for a brief moment. Due to the height of the vent, he fell to the floor with a bit of pain, but he wasn’t focused on that. He scrambled to Angi’s side, not knowing what to do.

 

“ANGI!?” Sebastian called out helplessly, watching as her eyes darted around before fluttering closed. “God damn it- No-” he picked her up, struggling not to gag as he saw her internal organs drag slightly behind her. Angi’s eyes were barely open, staring blankly at nothing, devoid of life.

 

Sebastian stomached the sight, his hands bloodied already, he quickly scooped whatever he could back into her body before wrapping his leather jacket around her to try and keep her in one piece. He carried her body hastily to the next door. He had another shop set up nearby so he wouldn't have to go back through the vent, as they wouldn't both fit.

 

Sebastian searched desperately through his jacket pocket hanging below Angi with his lower left arm, grabbing his keycard and half-hazardly jamming it into the keycard reader. “Fuck- Come on! ” As soon as the door beeped, he ripped the door to the side, slamming it into the wall beside it, finding its automatic opening not fast enough.

 

“Not now- Not after I started to fucking care again- I- I can't fucking do this AGAIN!” Sebastian's thoughts were sporadic as he rushed through room after room, finding his way towards his other shop. He barely noticed that he had left his esca on from when he was in the vents as he navigated through a dark room with ease. Sebastian recognized this area, knowing that he was just a door or two away from his shop. He looked down at his blood soaked hands, shirt, and coat, seeing that Angi had closed her eyes. She looked peaceful. Why did she have to look so peaceful? That pit in his stomach only grew as he was coming to grips with what was happening.

 

As Sebastian looked back up, he saw the vent to his shop. He quickly ripped the vent cover off of the wall, holding Angi against his chest tightly as he managed to squeeze them both through the vent. He looked around for a moment in his shop, his eyes landing on the metal table pressed against the wall right where it was in all of his shops. With a sweep of his arms he threw everything that was on the table to the ground without a care, tools, a lamp, even his radio.

 

He laid Angi down on the table, unwrapping her from his coat. The whole thing was soaked in blood. She was so pale. It reminded him of the last time she had been badly injured around him, when she had collapsed. He couldn’t stop to reminisce now, he had to focus on making sure she survived this. After just a moment of looking at her Sebastian knew he wouldn’t be able to help her by giving her normal medical aid. He looked through his bags on his tail, finding what he was looking for with a sigh of relief mixed with discontent.

 

“I was saving this for myself…” Sebastian grumbled as he held the flask of luminous yellow liquid. He didn’t care to dwell on it any longer. Angi was the one thing he had in this god forsaken place anymore. He unscrewed the cap of the flask quickly, bringing a hand under Angi’s neck to lift her head slightly. Sebastian tilted the flask so that she would drink the party special. It didn’t matter if she could really drink it, as long as it got in her system, it would be able to repair her.

 

After a moment of pouring the drink into her slightly parted lips, Sebastian looked back to her grotesquely opened torso. He inspected carefully, and after a moment, he saw little sections of her muscle glow as they began to fuse back together, ever so slowly. Sebastian sighed with tremendous relief at seeing her body begin to repair itself. He hoped that he wasn’t too rough with her body, at the very least that she wasn’t in any pain.

 

“That stuff works slowly, and I’m not sure it’ll work right on a wound this large… But if it’s putting her muscles back together it means she got it in time that her body is still fixable…” Sebastian said to himself, looking down at Angi’s body. He decided that he would have to stitch her torso together to make sure it would be able to fuse her chest back together properly.

 

Sebastian grabbed a medkit from his shelf, as well as a pair of scissors. He cut Angi’s diving suit to be able to work on her, making sure to give her as much dignity as possible while doing what was medically necessary. The first thing he noticed were the several scars on her torso, which he hadn’t ever really thought she had, since they were always covered by her suit. As he began to work, sewing her skin together, he got his mind off of how horrifying it was by wondering about those. Was she violent? Had she gotten those scars from fighting? Or maybe from other injuries during her time working in the blacksite?

 

Sebastian felt bad for violating her privacy but reassured himself it was for the sake of making sure she healed properly. Suddenly the thought occurred to him that he was being awfully caring of Angi. He couldn’t even explain why… But he knew. He wouldn’t do this unless he loved her. He never believed in ‘love at first sight,’ and he still didn’t. He knew that when they had first met, he wanted to kill her instantly. She was a threat. But now… What had changed? Was it the fact she gave him a gift? The fact she had smiled up at him the way she had?.. No. It was because Angi treated him like a person. Nobody had done that in so long. Even if she was strange, inexpressive, and sometimes came off ungrateful, Sebastian could tell she saw him just as human as anyone else.

 

“God damn it.” Sebastian muttered to himself. Coming to terms with the fact you’re in love with someone as you’re doing surgery on them is a very polarizing experience.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After Sebastian had finished stitching Angi’s torso back together, she was looking a bit better, but still had a large patched together gash down the center of her chest. He was just hoping it would heal looking better than that. Sebastian finally got a chance to lay down, going over to his usual corner to sit. He kept his eye on Angi, watching as her skin ever so slowly gained some color.

 

Sebastian couldn’t help but think that lying on a metal table with nothing on it would be uncomfortable. He sighed. His jacket was already horribly bloodstained from wrapping it around her when he had first picked her up, so he wasn’t going to be using it anyways. He folded it over itself a few times and slid it under her head gently, letting her use it as a pillow.

 

Next thing on the agenda was to get her something to cover up with. He looked around for something she could use as a blanket, finding that he had actually taken a blanket from one of the weirdly hotel-like rooms deep in the facility. He didn’t really ever have to use it because he didn’t really get cold anymore, but he had grabbed it anyways, just in case he ever wanted to use it for familiarity’s sake. He took it from the crate he stored it in, shaking it out before gently laying it over Angi.

 

Once again, Sebastian looked down at Angi’s expression, and now with the blanket over her, it really did look like she was peacefully sleeping. Sebastian moved a bit closer, carefully removing Angi’s hair tie so that she wouldn’t wake up with a headache. At that moment, he was able to see her chest start to slowly rise and fall, meaning that her lungs were already working again. He was glad.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“There’s nothing here sir- just a… puddle of blood?” A guard muttered out in confusion over his radio, staring down at the puddle of blood that had been left behind where Angi had collapsed just after the storage room.

 

“Hm. You said there was nothing? Nothing at all?” A gruff voice responded through the radio.

 

“Nothing at all sir. It looks as though it trails a little forward, but other than that there’s no sign of Collis.”

 

“A normal Z class entity would have left pieces of her everywhere, and her tracker would still be inside whatever ate her.”

 

“Your point sir?”

 

“It must have been Z-13. I’d bet you she’s still alive, too.”

 

“B-But why? Z-13 is aggressive, and-” The guard had seen what Sebastian had done to guards sent after him, the way they had been torn to pieces, scattered through rooms and disposed of without a care, it didn’t seem anything like this.

 

“Well, clearly the bastard has some motivation to keep her around. Trust me, I intend to find out why that is.” The voice through the radio cut off the guard, then once he had said his piece, turned off his radio, only static coming through the other side.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A full day had passed, Sebastian hadn’t slept much, keeping a careful watch over Angi as she recovered, listening to her breathing to ease his mind. He had removed the stitches he had given her a few hours ago, as the skin had started to fuse back together. She would occasionally stir in her sleep, as if she was in the middle of having a dream. Sebastian hoped it was pleasant, although he also hoped she would wake up soon.

 

“I knew that dumb ‘potion’ worked slowly, but jesus… She IS alive, right?” Sebastian silently stressed, looking down at his ring on his lower left hand. He twisted it slightly on his finger, giving a light smile, remembering when Angi had given it to him. Love? Was that really what it was? Was that even possible for him anymore? He sighed. Whenever he would look at her he would get this mix of feelings, like he was nauseous but also in the butterflies way. 

 

“Those scars… I know she has a past, it’s the only way people really get into places like this, but… I can't help but wonder what she did. She said she was 27, and she’s been working down here in the facility for 8 years, so how old was she when she was imprisoned? She couldn’t have been any older than Stát…” Sebastian stared at Angi, his eyes scanning over her face as he imagined what she possibly could have done. Maybe she was falsely accused, just like him? She didn’t seem like the type to kill a person. She didn’t seem like the type of person to even hurt anyone. Well… Was that true? That look in her eyes when she was mad at him, it wasn’t exactly the expression of a pacifist.

 

Speaking of expressions, that was another thing that he just couldn’t figure out about her. She would refuse to express her emotions normally, or at least when she did she wasn’t meaning to. Sebastian thought back to his initial thought, that Angi could be a sociopath. He quickly shook his head. She couldn’t be a sociopath, he saw the way she looked up at him when she put that ring on his finger. He saw that little sparkle in her eye every time she called him ‘Seb.’ He cursed himself for starting to be fond of the nickname.

 

“She could just be using me, the way I was going to use her. Remember to keep your guard up Sebastian.” His expression hardened for a moment before he quickly sighed. “Who am I kidding?” He went to facepalm, but suddenly realized that he had never washed Angi’s blood off of his hands. He stopped himself just before he touched his face, shuddering slightly, his ear fins pinning back against his head. “Right, I probably could have thought about the fact she could be a spy for Urbanshade BEFORE I saved her life and sewed her back together.” Sebastian scoffed.

 

He looked back to Angi, his expression softening a bit. He couldn’t help but feel bad for her, even if he was trying to be wary. He turned to the vent, slithering out of the shop for a bit to go find water to wash his hands in. Coincidentally, there was a flooded room just a door away. He lowered himself to the edge of the water, scrubbing the dried blood off of his claws. He swallowed hard, remembering what she looked like as he picked her up out of the puddle of her own blood. He wondered why she hadn’t called for help. Why she was so fine with dying there on the ground, alone and in pain. Why… Why didn’t she call for him?

 

He brought his hands out of the water, shaking them off and drying them on his shirt, most of the blood gone except for a little bit of staining. He went back to the vent to the shop, looking down at the ground as he entered.

 

“S-Sebastian?” Angi’s voice asked. Sebastian’s eyes widened as he looked up at her, her eyes barely open as she sat up slightly. Sebastian rushed over to her side, lightly pushing her back down to the table.

 

“Don’t move- You were hurt really badly- I don’t know if you’re fully recovered yet…” Sebastian hadn’t noticed, but he sounded genuinely worried. Angi tilted her head in slight confusion, her expression blank and unfit for the current situation, as always.

 

“I feel fine..? What happened- Why-” Angi lifted the blanket slightly to see her chest, which now had a large scar running straight down from the middle of her sternum to right above her belly button. She stared wide eyed for a moment before dropping the blanket back down over herself. She looked up at the ceiling for a moment, processing. “Where’s. The top of my diving suit?” Was the only thing she could mutter out, completely unrelated to her injury.

 

Sebastian didn’t really respond, just quickly leaning down and hugging her, which was very unlike him.

 

“H-HEY!?” Angi was embarrassed about being indecent, even covered by a blanket, but quickly got over it as she realized how stressed Sebastian must be. She slowly brought her arms up from under the blanket, hugging him back a bit awkwardly.

 

“You’re… Okay.” Sebastian said under his breath, closing his eyes. He was less assuring her as he was assuring himself. She was alive.

Notes:

TO THE PERSON ASKING WHERE THE CHARACTER DEATH TAG IS, HER ASS AINT DEAD!! SHE IS PLOT ARMORED AS FUCK!!!

Chapter 8: The Fruit (CH. 7)

Summary:

Angi is alive.

Notes:

the ao3 curse caught up to me ive had vertigo and nausea for days and i cant sleep or eat please help

also please ignore the lack of italics/bolding i wrote the entirety of this chapter on my phone so i don't get the privilege of funky text 3

“So, are you going to tell me what happened, or?” Angi spoke up after a moment of lightly having her arms wrapped around Sebastian, causing him to sit up and clear his throat.

 

“Right- Sorry about that.” Sebastian looked down at Angi with slight concern, wondering about the implications that she didn’t remember getting injured. “Do… You really not remember? It didn’t seem like the type of thing you could easily forget.”

 

Angi shook her head, a little confused about the situation herself. “The last thing I remember is leaving your shop, but the massive scar on my chest seems to indicate I didn’t just pass out, huh?” Angi chuckled slightly, as if trying to lighten the mood. Sebastian didn’t ease up, still rather stuck on her well being.

 

“You were impaled by Searchlights. I… I think you may have died in my arms before I was able to bring you back.” Sebastian looked unsettled, and reasonably so. Angi looked puzzled, trying to piece together her memories of that ever happening, but drawing a blank. “I-...” Sebastian clenched his fist, holding his tongue.

 

“I’m… Sorry.” Angi said blankly. Sebastian returned a look of stunned confusion. “Well- This is the second time you’ve had to save my life. I’m sorry to be such a bother.” She quickly clarified.

 

“... Are you fucking kidding me?” Sebastian said, slightly angry.

 

“H-Huh?” Angi was caught off guard by that.

 

“You don’t have to be sorry for that you idiot. I’m more upset about the fact you didn’t think to call for help when you were literally disemboweled.” Sebastian leaned back down to be eye to eye with Angi again, who shot him a wide eyed stare as he said the word ‘disemboweled.’

 

“Oh man… Was it really that bad?” Angi put a hand over her new scar, as if to feel if it was really there, and really part of her. Her nonchalance only made Sebastian more upset. Well, he wasn’t upset at her for being nonchalant, but rather for completely lacking care for herself. He would be fine if she was just stupid, but this was just a lack of self preservation at this point.

 

“Yes, it was that bad!- How can you be so casual right now!? Y'know, normal people usually have a stronger reaction to DYING, I’m honestly worried about why you don’t seem to care!” Sebastian began to ramble, concerned and caring in a rather uncharacteristic way from Angi’s perspective.

 

“... Why do you care?” She asked genuinely. Sebastian just stopped once more, staring at her.

 

“Because-!” Sebastian cut himself off, clearing his throat again and calming himself slightly. “Because normal people not only care for themselves, but they also tend to care that their friends don’t die horrible painful deaths, Angi.” Sebastian talked down to her like she was a child.

 

“We’re not normal people though, are we?” Angi responded rather bluntly, coming across as uncaring, Sebastian sighed exasperatedly, returning to his normal sitting height. “I-” Angi started, sitting up while making sure to keep the blanket over herself. “I didn’t mean that as in I wouldn’t care if you died, I want you to know that.” She avoided eye contact.

 

“I know you didn’t mean it that way.” Sebastian pinched the bridge of where his nose would be, if he had one that was human.

 

“I just… I’ve been doing this job for so long I’m prepared to die whenever. I don’t mind it. I don’t see why you have to mind it.” Angi explained, her tone softer than usual.

 

“Because I care about you, Angi.” Sebastian quickly stated. Angi looked up at him with an expression hard to describe. Shocked, maybe, but also concerned as if he had just said something outlandish.

 

“But- But why?” Angi fought back against that declaration, as if she was defending her right to be unimportant. Her right to die alone.

 

“I…” Sebastian had to stop himself, bringing his right hand up through his hair. “I-I don’t know the answer to that. Because you’re a good person? Because you care about me?” Sebastian muttered, not really knowing how to get around this topic. Angi paused at that last sentence. Did she care about Sebastian? Well, of course she did, but did she even consciously realize it before now? She had been smiling and laughing with him, something she wasn’t sure she'd ever do again. She returned to the first argument however, that she was a good person.

 

“How can you say that I’m a good person? You hardly know me, Seb.” Angi faced away from Sebastian, her expression falling. Sebastian paused, trying to think of a rebuttal to that but not quite able to form one. It was true, he had already thought on several occasions how he didn’t know who she truly was. “I’ve done horrible things. Obviously so have you, otherwise we wouldn’t be here now, would we?”

 

“I was falsely accused!” Sebastian snapped back at her. “I was taken away from my family for a crime I didn’t commit- I was turned into this THING because of it-” Sebastian sounded pained from the memories. Angi instantly felt bad for assuming, but didn’t think to say anything, her words getting caught in her throat even though she didn’t have any idea what to say in the first place.

 

“I-I’m sorry-” Angi blurted out, her voice wavering. Sebastian stopped, lowering his volume.

 

“I… Sorry. I got carried away. That’s not the point I was trying to make in the first place. What I was trying to say was that I don’t know what you’ve done, but I know that if I didn’t do anything to be put in here the same could be true for you. I don’t know what you did, I only know that you’re caring now. That’s all that matters to me at this point.” His tone was in stark contrast to what it had just been, it felt somewhat like whiplash. Angi nodded slowly, understanding Sebastian’s point.

 

“Well… I appreciate the notion that you think I could be innocent, but it’s not true. I did do horrible things. I deserve to be here.” Angi said darkly. Sebastian stopped her once more.

 

“Nobody deserves to be here. Not this place.” He was somewhat right. Perhaps Angi did deserve to be on death row, and perhaps she was as horrible as she said, but a place like this felt like it was a bit too far. She’d already been horribly injured countless times working here, it was like torture. It was just a torture she was used to. A torture they were both used to.

 

“I don’t know if you’d say that if you knew.” Angi’s voice was disgustingly calm and collected. She was defending her right to be left alone to die. Her right to suffer. Sebastian’s expression hardened.

 

“I would.” He immediately replied. “You don’t deserve to be here, Angi.” He stated firmly, leaning down to be closer to her once more.

 

Angi’s expression softened, remorseful for the way she had been acting. Maybe it was just the notion that she had to rely on Sebastian again to save her, or maybe it was the fact that she had already opened up too much for her own good, but she had been acting unreasonable. She sighed, closing her eyes for a moment.

 

“Would you happen to have a shirt I could wear?” Angi asked, getting off of the subject. Sebastian sighed as well, the tension in the room starting to die slightly, but there nevertheless.

 

“I’ll see what I can find.” He answered.

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

Angi had put on a baggy white shirt, not too far off from the one she wore as sleep wear every night. She took a deep breath, walking over to Sebastian who was in the other corner of the room as he had agreed to look away while she was getting dressed. She lightly wrapped her arms around him once again, the same apprehension in the action as she had when she first woke up. Sebastian looked behind him with confusion before realizing what was happening. He gave a slight confused look at Angi before she spoke up.

 

“Thank you. I hadn’t had the chance to say it before we got wrapped up in arguing.” Her face was slightly flushed, embarrassed to be hugging Sebastian. He placed a hand on Angi’s head, ruffling her hair slightly to her annoyance.

 

“Damn right you should thank me.” He said smugly. Angi huffed, letting go of Sebastian quickly. “Oh come on- I was just joking.” He said with amusement. Angi was kind of surprised that Sebastian liked physical contact at all, considering his situation. To be completely honest she hadn’t hugged someone in a decade, she had forgotten what it felt like.

 

“Hugging you from behind is awkward- I don’t really-” Angi started, blushing slightly at having to talk about it with a slightly irritated tone. Before she could finish what she was saying, Sebastian moved to face her, scooping her up into his arms bridal style. “HEY!?” Angi quickly blurted our at being picked up.

 

“There, shouldn’t that be a bit more comfortable?” Sebastian grinned, showing his sharp teeth. They were honestly much more frightening up close. Angi quieted her frustrations, lightly leaning into Sebastian as he held her.

 

“... I haven’t been held like this since I was a child. It feels weird.” Angi remarked.

 

“Should I put you down?” Sebastian asked with sincerity, his kind tone only serving to fluster Angi more, which he found very amusing.

 

“... No.” She quietly replied, fidgeting with her hair. Sebastian chuckled a little at that, finding it cute. They sat there in silence with each other for a few long moments, Sebastian curling himself into a sitting position to get a bit more comfortable while he held Angi. “I’m glad you saved me.” Angi suddenly said. Sebastian didn’t bother looking down at her.

 

“I’m glad I did too.” He said plainly. Angi noticed how it felt to be held by him, the way he could lift her easily and without much strength. She also noticed that Sebastian still wasn’t in his jacket, as she had been using it as a pillow while she was unconscious. He was slightly warm, but not like that of a human being. He had a certain lukewarmth to him, being mostly marine animal at this point. Angi brought her attention back to the conversation.

 

“... I’m sorry for acting as if it was something selfish. I really do care- I’m sorry if I’m not good at showing it.” Angi muttered, looking down at her scarred hands.

 

“It’s not your fault. I’d do the same thing.” Sebastian said, rather vulnerably. Angi looked up at him. He said they were friends. Is that really what you could call this? They had gotten each other gifts, but did they really know each other? “All I ask of you is that you don’t go off and die like that again. It was annoying to put you back together.” Sebastian apparently realized that he was being too nice, and had to throw in some trademarked bitching of his.

 

“Right… How exactly did you do that in the first place? I wouldn’t imagine a medkit could bring me back from disembowelment.” Angi tilted her head to the side, genuinely curious.

 

“Don’t worry about it. I used a gift from an old friend, kinda made your body grow back together. Really gross to watch though…” Sebastian shuddered, remembering the sights from yesterday. “On the other hand I had to stitch your chest cavity back together to make sure you healed right. You can pay me back for that later, by the way.” He mentioned payment.

 

The mention of data brought Angi’s job to the forefront of her mind, suddenly realizing that she had been out for god knows how long and was going to have to go back to the prison with a brand new massive scar that she would have to have an excuse for. She immediately started to stress about it, although on the outside it just looked as if she was spacing out, staring ahead at nothing.

 

“... You don’t have to if you don’t want to- I was just joking.” Sebastian quickly said, thinking he had offended her by making her have to pay for being saved, even though he’d make anyone else pay handsomely for that kind of service. Angi shook her head, suddenly coming back to focus. She decided she’d put off the thoughts of what would happen when she went back for a little while. Being held and talking with Sebastian right now was nice. She didn’t want to ruin it.

 

“Oh- Don’t worry about that. I’ll pay you back later, for sure. Honestly I owe you my life now, don’t I?” She chuckled a little, but it felt natural. Sebastian thought about what she had said, owing her life to him. It felt kind of… Wrong. But also it felt kind of like a commitment to him. He couldn’t tell how he felt about it, really.

 

They sat there for a bit longer, just relaxing in each other's presence. It was nice to have a bit of calm after everything that had just happened, although Angi didn’t really remember the whole dying thing. Angi thought for a moment about how she had reacted when Sebastian had called her a good person. She felt the need to dissuade him, to make him retract that statement. Maybe it was because she was always treated like a horrible person, or maybe it was just because she hated herself. She didn’t know. She didn’t care to. 

 

“Sebastian?” Angi asked for his attention. Sebastian immediately looked down to her, noticing the lack of a nickname, just like when she had first woken up. Angi thought for a moment about what she wanted to say, or rather how she wanted to say it.

 

“I… We don’t know each other too well. Well- You don’t know me very well, at least. There’s a lot I haven’t told you. I know most of your story from hearing other researchers talk about you, since you were such a big deal a few years back, but you haven’t had the chance to learn anything about my story.” Angi’s expression was emotionless, as if she was suppressing every part of herself to get the words out.

 

“... Yes?” Sebastian knew what she was getting at, but wanted her to continue.

 

“... Would you like to know… how I got here?” Angi muttered out, apprehensive.

 

“It’s not my story to know, but I won't stop you from telling it if that’s what you want.” He sighed as he spoke, knowing that it probably wasn’t the easiest topic for either of them.

 

“I owe it to you.” Angi stated. Sebastian looked down at her solemnly.

 

“You don’t have to feel that way-” Sebastian started, but was interrupted.

 

“I mean it. After everything you’ve done for me in just the past week alone I feel like you deserve to at least know the kind of person I am.” Angi moved from Sebastian’s arms, hopping down to the floor once more, going to sit on the table she had woken up on.

 

Sebastian was a little sad she got down from his arms, but understood why. It was best for her to be on her own as she talked about this. He knew the feeling.

 

It all started 13 years ago.

Notes:

CLIFFHANGER BABY!!!! tune in to next chapter for the Angi lore drop!! real not fake!

Chapter 9: The Pit (CH. 7.5)

Summary:

Angi opens up for once in her life.

Notes:

GUYS IM SO SORRY FOR DISAPPEARING. THERE'S NO GUARANTEE THAT I'M BACK FOR REALS... BUT THIS IS A START!

But that's different from this!
It's not different, it's gonna make you depressed.
A CHILDHOOD STORY OR TWO WONT MAKE ME SAD!
HEY!!! YOU'RE ALREADY SAD!! I CAN'T STAND YOU!!! /reference

Angi sighed as she sat on the table, crossing her legs and looking straight down at the floor, her expression blank and emotionless as she started. Sebastian felt a little tense, as if he were butting into a conversation he wasn’t supposed to be hearing, even though Angi was telling him her story entirely of her own volition.

 

“It’s not a nice story, and it doesn’t have a happy ending.” She prefaced, although that was pretty obvious by now. “It’s… hard to remember exactly what happened that day. It felt so ordinary, but one step out of place at the same time. I remember how it started, though.”

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

“ANGELA!!!” A hoarse, angry voice tore through the old rickety house. The sound shook Angi awake in her bed, if you could even call it that. Her room in that farmhouse was barren, her bed being a mattress laid on the floor with a scratchy green blanket and a beaten yellow pillow. It was humid and hot, being a late morning in August, and the air smelled of rotting wood and mildew, although it was most familiar to her at this point. The only light in the room was coming from the circular window just behind and to the left of her bed, shining yellowy sunlight down onto the oak floor.

 

“Dad’s calling for me.” Angi thought to herself as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes, standing up from her bed. The floorboards creaked beneath her feet even though she was light and thin, only 14 years old. She made her way to the ladder hatch on the floor across the room, lifting it open and lowering the wooden ladder down into the end of the upstairs hallway. Angi’s room was in the attic, solitary from her siblings and much less comfortable than their rooms. It’s not like she was hated by her family, they just didn’t have the room for her is all. She was the middle child.

 

She made her way down the ladder, quickly running down the hallway to the stairs on the opposite end, leaving the ladder down and the hatch to her room in the attic open. If she took too long her father would get angry. Angi wasn’t afraid of her father’s anger as much as she was of her mother’s words. As she got to the bottom of the stairs, huffing slightly from running, she saw her father in his wheelchair, facing the box TV they had in the living room.

 

“Would you get me my damn smokes already? What fuckin’ good are ya if you can’t do that!?” Angi’s father would yell, coughing after he was done speaking. Angi didn’t flinch at his screaming. It was normal. She walked over to the kitchen without another word, grabbing the pack of marlboros from the extremely cluttered counter and bringing them over to her dad, holding them out to him. 

 

He snatched the pack of cigarettes from her hands without another word, grumbling something unintelligible as he turned to face the TV again. Angi just stood there for a moment before giving a small smile.

 

“Can I go outside to play, dad?” Angi asked, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet a little. Her dad waved her off, taking a cigarette from the box and lighting it inside, speaking through his teeth.

 

“Do whatever the hell ya want… Not like I could fuckin’ stop ya.” Angi just nodded. Her father was a sad man, his disability making him angry and spiteful. It wasn’t his fault he ended up this way, Angi couldn’t bring herself to blame him for his behavior.

 

—

 

“He sounds like a dick.” Sebastian suddenly chimed in as Angi told the story. She looked up at him with a glare and he quickly shut his mouth and let her continue.

 

—

 

She walked over to the front door and up the little step before slipping on her shoes. She was already in her dress, as she practically never changed out of it. She had forgotten to change into her “pajamas” The night before, if you could even call what she wore to sleep pajamas, as they were just hand me down t-shirts and shorts from her older sister.

 

She quickly opened the front door, stepping outside and closing it behind her. She closed the door a little harder than she had intended to, ending up slamming it. She didn’t bother to apologize though, quickly running out in the fields around her house, skipping through the grass with a grin, the summer breeze blowing through her hair bringing her a comfort that she couldn’t get anywhere else.

 

She had very rarely been even a mile away from her house in her life, her family was just strange like that. She was homeschooled, and her mother was the only one who worked for the household. When she ran through the grass as tall as her waist, she felt like she was getting away from that place, even just for a little bit. Away from the yelling, away from the smell of the smoke, and the beer bottles sitting on the couch. Just… Away.

 

After 15 minutes, Angi’s legs already ached from the running, but she just fell backwards into the grass as it swayed in the wind, laughing to herself. Even if it was a strange way to find happiness, it was hers.

 

—

 

Angi paused for a moment, her expression slightly shifting, she looked… uncomfortable. She took a deep breath.

 

“I know that all of this is unnecessary to the actual point. If anything I’m stalling.” Angi said a bit harsher than she had intended to. She dreaded the next part of the story. Sebastian curled himself up a bit, leaning a little lower towards her as he spoke quietly.

 

“...I don’t want to only hear about all of the bad things you’ve done. A person isn’t defined by their worst moments. If I just wanted to know how you got here I could have stolen your file and read it myself, but I didn’t. I’d like to hear your story , Angi.”

 

She exhaled, slowly closing then opening her eyes, a bit too long to be considered a blink. She continued.

 

—

 

After half an hour of just laying out there in the grass, Angi got up from the fields and walked back towards her house, but she didn’t want to walk back inside yet. She walked around the side of the house, sitting on her knees in the gravel, even if the little sharp rocks dug into her skin. She looked around for the larger rocks, as she liked to look at them. Whenever you live out in the middle of rural Kansas, you start to appreciate the little things that could be considered ‘fun.’

 

She would pick up a rock, inspect it, then toss it over to her side at the outside wall of the house. They would make a little “ Tink!”  Each time they would hit the sheet metal propped up against the side of the house. Eventually she picked up a sharp looking rock, turning it back and forth in her hand a little before tossing it, the same way she had for all of the others. Something caught her eye, however. As it hit the metal plate, a little flash came from it. Suddenly, that little rock became much more interesting.

 

She got up off of her knees, walking a few steps closer and picking it back up. She threw it against the metal once more, a smile coming to her face as she saw what she could now recognize as sparks come flying off of it.

 

“Cool.”

 

—

 

“I don’t remember how long I stood there throwing that rock at the side of the house. Perhaps if I had just stopped a bit earlier…” Angi remarked, shaking her head before continuing once more.

 

—

 

Eventually, curiosity got the best of her, as she took the little piece of flint, striking it against the metal with her own hand. That made even more sparks, which she only found even more entertaining. That was, until she flicked it off the side of the metal, the sparks flying off to the side, hitting a pile of dry grass. She was so focused looking at the metal, she hadn’t even noticed the pile starting to burn until she smelt the smoke.

 

Angi’s face grew panicked, and she froze. She didn’t know what to do. She had never been taught what to do in the case of a fire, not that she would have been able to at this point anyways. Her only thought was that she was going to get in trouble if her mom found out. She ran around to the front of the house, looking through the window into the living room. Her dad was asleep in his chair. It should be fine then, right?

 

—

 

“I can barely remember the next few minutes. Before I knew it, the house was on fire.” Angi said, any apprehension in her voice from before seemed to have disappeared, even though it would normally be the other way around. It seemed as though she had completely distanced herself from the memories and feelings at this point.

 

—

 

Angi threw her little body against the front door of the house as the entire back wall of the house was up in flames. When she had slammed the door from before, the old rickety metal lock slipped into place, locking the door from the inside.

 

—

 

“I know my father was yelling for me. I know that my brothers were too scared to jump from the second floor window. I know that my mother came home not long after. I don’t… really remember those things though.” Angi said, her head lowered, her bangs in front of her eyes as she started to grip the edges of her shirt.

 

“The only reason I know that they happened in that order is because I’ve had to repeat it to myself so many times to know that they did.” She said, looking over to her left side. She let go of the end of her shirt, lifting up her left sleeve. She had a large burn scar on her left shoulder.

 

“I kept throwing myself into the door until the house collapsed in on itself. I cried so hard I fell asleep in the grass in front of it.” She rolled her sleeve back down, covering most of the scar except for the very bottom of it, which peaked out from behind the white fabric.

 

Angi went quiet for a bit, indicating that she was done recounting the events, at least the events from the day that it had happened. Sebastian looked down at her, his brow furrowed slightly in confusion.

 

“That’s what you consider to be ‘horrible things?’ ”

 

He said, bluntly, causing Angi to lift her head up and stare at him.

 

“I killed my entire family that day, Sebastian. All but my mother.” She said, her expression getting just a bit more agitated that he would take that lightly. “I don’t care if that’s not the massacre you were expecting, but I-” Sebastian cut her off.

 

“It was an accident. You were a child.” He crossed his upper arms, straightening his back a little.

 

“That doesn’t matter-!” She started.

 

“How could you have stopped that, even if you tried!?” Sebastian raised his voice, trying to rationalize it to her, the way it should have been rationalized to the court.

 

Angi looked a little shocked, honestly. She had never had anyone be in her defense on this. She felt a cold sweat go down her back for reasons she couldn’t explain. The feeling was foreign.

 

“You’re…” Sebastian started, feeling a bit bad that she suddenly went quiet after he yelled. He thought this was a good chance to say his piece, though. “You’re not completely innocent, nobody is, but you aren’t a monster. You aren’t dangerous, you aren’t insane, you made a mistake. One mistake.”

 

Sebastian sighed, leaning down on the table next to her in the same way he had after he had given Angi her hair tie. He wanted to be on her level.

 

“Just like me.”

 

The words hit Angi suddenly, like a shot ringing out in her ears. Her lip quivered for just the briefest moment. Her eyes stung but she didn’t dare to cry. She wouldn’t allow herself to. She couldn’t begin to express the emotion she felt. She was suddenly hit with a recollection, a memory previously stored away. Those last moments of consciousness, just before she died for those few moments.

 

They were about Sebastian.

 

And love.

 

She sucked in a breath as she recounted those thoughts, those feelings. She didn’t know what to do with them. They sat in her chest like an uncomfortable weight, she didn’t know what to do with it, didn’t know where to put it.

 

Sebastian felt a little pang of guilt, feeling as though he had upset Angi with his aggression about it.

 

“D-Don’t… Cry-?” He wasn’t sure if she was about to cry but it looked like she might, so he just muttered out a panicked almost-apology before Angi suddenly blurted out in return.

 

“I think I love you.” She said quickly, looking up at him with wide eyes and a confused, almost panicked look coming across her face.

 

Sebastian simply stared down at her in return, his ear fins flaring in response as he was caught in the exact same position, stuck with no clue where to go with this information. His face slowly grew flushed, or as flushed as a fish could be. He sputtered for a second, clearing his throat after a moment before getting back up from the table. He glanced away to the other side of the room, subconsciously messing with the ring once more.

 

“I… Think I love you, too.” Sebastian muttered. Angi looked at him for a second while processing, gasping after a moment. She trembled inexplicably, suddenly getting up from the table. Sebastian looked back to her, a little afraid that he shouldn’t have responded that way. “I mean- I don’t mean that I-” He was interrupted by a sudden hug that he wasn’t expecting. She didn’t look up at him, rather turning her head to the side and squeezing herself against the part of his tail just below his torso.

 

“This… Isn’t the best time to talk about this.” Angi spoke up. “Don’t think I’m not happy- I-” She let go slowly, taking a little step back as she pushed her hair out of her face a little, showing that she was actually smiling. “I’m very happy.” She looked up at him, letting her expression get a bit more serious again. “But there’s a lot we both need to think about. I… Want to give you time to think about it. Both because of everything that I just told you and because of everything that’s happened in the past… However long it’s been since Stát brought me here.”

 

Sebastian moved himself down, hugging Angi properly, although even with proper positioning his size made it a bit difficult and awkward.

 

“If you think that’s for the best.” He said, giving a soft smile.

 

Angi hugged him back, quietly saying “ yeah. ” As she let out a sigh of relief. She could say that she knew now, at least a little more than she knew before.

 

She took a deep breath, putting her face a bit further into Sebastian’s shoulder as she thought about how she was going to have hell handed to her on a silver platter when she got back to the prison. She let Sebastian decide when to step back this time, not wanting to seem like she wanted to get away from him.

 

They exchanged one last glance, a silent conversation happening in just the space between them. Angi went down through the vent, and started her way back towards an extraction point.

 

She expected for hell to await her, and await her it did.

Notes:

WOW! THEY ACTUALLY SAID THAT THEY LOVE EACHOTHER! This will SURELY not have ANY REPERCUSSIONS!

Chapter 10: Unreason (CH. 8)

Summary:

CW: BODY HORROR, TORTURE

"They knew. They knew everything that happened. How had she managed to think that they wouldn't?"

Notes:

here's my favorite prisoner angi, and she's going for her first swim, alright let's- angi? ANGI?? AAANNGGGII

A bright, searing light cast down into Angi’s eyes, waking her instantly from her half asleep daze she hadn’t even realized she was in. For a few moments she couldn’t see anything, but slowly her vision settled on the otherwise dim and sterile room she was held in.

“Wakey wakey…” 

 

The voice interrupted any initial thoughts Angi had, although her mind was ever so sluggish at forming anything coherent at the moment.

 

All in one second, her body sent a shock of adrenaline to her head as she was brought into fight or flight. She was able to process that her arms were tucked behind her, and as she attempted to bring them to a more comfortable position, she was met with the clang of handcuffs chaining her down to the metal chair she sat in. She turned her head to the side, trying to make the light just a bit less jarring to her freshly awoken eyes. What had happened? The last thing she remembered was leaving Sebastian’s shop, how did she-

 

“Awwh… So skittish.”

 

The voice spoke once more. It was familiar. She couldn’t quite place where she knew it from, but it sent dread through her entire being. That and everything else about the situation, that is. She tilted her head down, hoping that her bangs would bring a little shade to her eyes. She shuddered slightly at the realization that her hair was down as well. A hand suddenly reached out and grabbed her face, bringing it to face straight forward once again. Another hand moved to position the light elsewhere, at least so she could see.

 

“There we are, Collis. Mind speaking up sweetheart?”

Angi’s expression fell into a discomforted glare as she looked up at who she could now easily recognize as Stevens, the guard who acted as her superior officer and gave her direct orders when down in the blacksite. Angi grappled with her own memories, trying to piece together what led to this point, how she got here, anything, but she was simply at a loss. She had to respond to his order however, so she spoke steadily and calmly, not letting her exterior betray her emotional state.

 

“Yes, sir.” She stated, stale, robotic, and apathetically. The guard before her gave an almost pitiful smile as he stood back up properly, moving a bit further back. Now that he wasn’t directly in her face, Angi could see that behind him there was a metal table on which the bright lamp she had been woken up by sat. On the other side of the table there was another chair, which Steven’s made his way over towards, taking a decisive seat as he crossed his arms and looked at Angi

 

“Wonderful. Now…” He leaned forward, placing his elbows on the table and interlocking his fingers, his expression falling from that smile he wore to something entirely different. It almost looked like loathing. “Angi, my doll, can you tell me…” He reached down into his pocket, pulling something out and placing it down on the table with his hand covering it. Angi’s eyes quickly tracked his movements. Why must he use pet names? Why must people like him pepper their language with niceties only meant to aggravate and belittle her? And what was the point of this whole interrogation? Stevens lifted his hand off of the table to show a very familiar crimson red hair tie. “What this might be?”

 

Angi didn’t flinch, not a movement out of place, not a breath out of beat. She brought her gaze up from the hair tie back to Stevens’ face.

 

“A hair tie.” She spat out blankly, acting as if it were nothing out of the ordinary. She knew very well why she was being asked about this. She knew they weren’t stupid, and she knew that she wasn’t allowed to keep anything from the depths of the facility. She merely wanted to keep the memento for as long as she could enjoy it. The fact that she had managed to have it at all was okay with her. If only she were able to savor it for longer.

 

Stevens didn’t look pleased with that answer. He raised an eyebrow, giving her another chance to answer that question properly. Angi didn’t budge. Her outward appearance was solid, her eyes as cold as ice, and her voice as steady as it ever was. The only issue…

 

Clink… cl-clink…

 

The miniscule metallic sounds of her handcuffs clinking against the metal of her chair. Her hands were shaking. Why would her hands be shaking? They had never shook like that since she was a child.

 

“Hmm…” Stevens hummed for a moment as he leaned forward on the table, looking up at Angi with a smile again. “Might you know where it came from? I would imagine you do, considering the fact that you had it in your hair when you came back up from the blacksite.”  

 

Right. She had been extracted after leaving Sebastian’s shop. Searchlights, dying, love. Right. That’s what happened. Angi managed to keep her eyes looking straight ahead and unwavering despite her growing unease and trembling hands.

 

“I found it in a desk drawer. I apologize for-” Angi began to reason, but just as she was attempting to talk her way out of the situation she was cut off.

 

“Ah, ah, ah…” Stevens interrupted, bringing a hand up to tell her to stop talking. He gave a somewhat confused look. “Why are you lying to me, Collis?”

 

Shit.

 

“...” Angi parted her lips ever so slightly to begin talking, but just as quickly shut her mouth, not having any idea what to say. She took a deep breath, somewhat huffing through her nose.

 

“What did you think was going to happen, hm? We were just going to ignore all of the changes in your behavior? Ignore the fact that you went completely radio silent for a full 26 hours?” Stevens spoke down to her, as if berating a child. His smile fell completely, a dead, militant stare matching Angi’s perfectly. Two can play at that game.

 

“Ignore that you were speaking to Z-13?”

 

.

 

The words hung in the air for a long moment, Angi somewhat panicked, her eyes flitting just a bit wider as she inched a bit closer to the table in her chair. “That’s not what happe-”

 

“DON’T YOU FUCKING LIE TO ME COLLIS!” Stevens screamed, slamming a fist down into the metal table. Angi sat just a bit straighter as she quickly shut up, her eyes falling back down to the table in front of her, her hair draping down in front of her face. Stevens' breathing was heavy as he stood, the metal chair he was sitting in screeching against the floor as it skid backwards from the force of the action.

 

“This little thing had his unique DNA signature all over it. Conspiracy? Is that what this is? Are you conspiring with him?” His voice flipped back to being eerily calm and easy, as if he hadn’t just shouted at her like he was a drill sergeant. It was a genuine question, as he waited patiently for Angi’s response.

 

“No.” Angi responded after a long, heavy moment. She continued to stare down at the table, her blurred reflection staring back at her just as it had when she was 14, being interrogated for the murder of her family. 

 

“Ha.” Stevens gave a little chuckle, finding her lack of a real response to be humorous in a way. He paused for a moment, raising his eyebrows a little, waiting for her to continue. “Well? Then why don’t you explain what IS happening?”

 

“... I’ll settle for being demoted to an EXR-P. I apologize for not informing the guards of his presence sooner. I thought I could-”

“You will be admitted to the experimentation ward. A spot just opened up. Your new room will be in hall C.”

 

The words sat in Angi’s head like ten ton weights. Her eyes shot up and she looked at Stevens. She exhaled, but couldn’t seem to bring herself to take more air in. An uneasy silence filled the room like a dense fog, settling in her lungs and causing tears to prickle in her eyes, stopping just before being perceivable.

 

That… Couldn’t be right. Right? The experimentation ward? They had no evidence, no proof of wrongdoing, she hadn’t even acted out, she just wanted to-

 

“What, expected another slap on the wrist?” Stevens let that grin creep back onto his face, his smile horribly sadistic. “You can keep that little hair band. I’m sure since he brought you back from the dead, you were probably close.” They knew. They knew everything that happened. How had she managed to think that they wouldn't? Stevens walked around the table towards the door that was behind where Angi sat, his expression making it clear that he was reveling in her stunned horrified silence. He leaned down and whispered in her ear just before he left. “You disgust me. Enjoy becoming the monster you always have been, Angela.”

 

The door shut behind her.

 

Angi sat there in silence in the now empty room for a long, quiet moment. She replayed the events in her mind. Dying, coming back to life, telling Sebastian she loved him. Walking back, being extracted, being sedated. Waking up, being questioned, and now…. This.

 

…

 

She didn’t have a plan. She didn’t know what to do, where to go. This place, this job, this work. This had been her life for the past 11 years. And now…

 

It would be fine. It had to be. She would find a way out, she would prove herself again, she would make her way back to normalcy, she wouldn’t… become… The image of her own contorted body flashed in her mind. Sebastian said that it hurt so much. He said that it ruined him, changed him in ways that could never be undone. Oh god. Angi shook her head, a gesture that would go unseen by anyone it would matter to.

 

No. It would be… fine. The door opened and she felt her hands be uncuffed, a voice telling her to follow them out to the hallway.

 

…

…

…

The next day was a blur. Angi’s room was downgraded to a basic cell, there was almost nothing in it besides a cot and a toilet. She was taken out of her custom diving suit, instead put into a hospital gown as they took her vitals. She hadn’t known until that moment that her blood type was AB negative. It was a strange bit of information to latch on to, but it stuck with her for some reason. Nobody would talk to her. She was used to the guards attempting to converse, or at least speaking amongst each other, but the next 12 hours were uncomfortably quiet.

 

She thought maybe this wasn’t so bad. Maybe this wasn’t the same as what Sebastian went through, maybe there was still a chance for her. That was, until night came.

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

“AAAAAAAAAAAGGH!! AAAHAAAHGGH!!”

 

Boiling, searing pain. It felt like molten metal flowing through her veins, coursing up through her arms and neck, pooling in her chest and being spit back out through the rest of her body. Angi writhed and screamed in agony on the table where she was restrained by her wrists and ankles. She had never felt such agony. Not from the fire, not from being stabbed when she was still a prisoner, not even from her own death.

 

The pain was entirely unique, like hell itself was clawing through all of her muscles, tearing her apart from the inside.

 

“One more vial. She can handle it.” A voice spoke from somewhere in the room. There was a moment of hesitation from one of the technicians, but it barely lasted as they injected more of the serum into Angi’s veins. This was merely the first step, breaking down the body’s cells to open them up to take foreign DNA.

 

This lasted for several hours. An hour of agony, a minute’s worth of respite. After 2 hours, Angi’s voice was so hoarse she could no longer scream, just whimpering and writhing, her nails digging into her hands deep enough to gouge through the skin. It was more than just drawing blood, but rather she had physically born holes into her palms and they bled as open wounds. 

 

The longer the pain dredged on the more Angi simply wished she would die. She didn’t know how she was even still alive, how her heart could still beat, how her mind could still process the sensation of her cells melting and splitting open within every inch of her mortal vessel. She wished that she hadn’t been saved. Dying there, alone and quiet in the depths of the ocean would have been mercy in comparison.

 

At any other time, she would have seen the good in the situation. The fact she was able to tell Sebastian that she loved him. The fact that she was able to hold him, explain herself, get the weight off of her chest that she had carried since she was just a girl. In this moment however, she knew nothing but pain. Nothing but yearning for a swift demise, anything to take her out of this hell. She cared not for love, not for freedom, and not for walking away. All she could ask for was for this to end.

 

And this was only the first day.

 

.

.

.

The next thing Angi could remember was the cold, slightly damp floor of her cell. They threw her inside and closed the door, leaving no external light for her to see her surroundings. She couldn’t pick herself up to move to the cot in the corner, so she instead laid curled up in a ball on the floor. Her whole body shook and trembled as she attempted to move her body at all, dragging her hand across the grit of the concrete floor. She felt as the wounds she had dug into her palms ripped open, the skin peeling back and falling as if it were simply callous.

 

She felt saliva trickle from the corner of her mouth to the floor, but she stared so absently into the darkness that she couldn’t even think to move her hand to wipe it away. Even if she had, it would likely just end in blood getting all over her face.

 

She eventually drifted off to sleep after listening to the sounds of her own hoarse wheezing breaths for what seemed like hours.

 

.

.

.

 

For the next two days, it was more of the same agonizing, grueling torture. By the third day, she didn’t even scream anymore. She simply stared up at the ceiling, convulsing with pain worse than death. From that point on… She just started blocking out the memories of the experiments.

 

Eventually they started the actual procedures, introducing new DNA into Angi’s body, documenting the changes and taking biopsy samples of her flesh to investigate the changes it was making to her body.

 

Her form began to change, she grew slightly taller, her skin growing pale and scaly. At some point they had introduced grafts to her body, fin tissue near her ears and tail tissue directly at the end of her spine on her tailbone, hoping that the tissues would be most easily accepted into the body there. Luckily for the scientists, they were right. Unluckily for Angi, the process of the tissues adapting to her body was also extremely painful.

 

She would never be able to see the full extent of the changes to her body, as shortly after they began tissue grafts… She would completely lose her vision. In an attempt to reduce costs of utility tools, Urbanshade was attempting to utilize flashlight fish DNA to make bioluminescent light sources for guards, making flashlights obsolete.

 

The bioluminescent sacks that would normally form under the eyes of the fish were not made for the human body, and instead they grew inside the eye. 

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

Angi opened her eyes. She had managed to crawl her way into the cot last night, but it didn’t ease any of her aching body pains. The door was still closed, she could tell that much because she couldn’t see anything other than a faint… green? The entire time she had been in this cell, it had been pitch black, why was it suddenly…

 

Her distant trailing thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the door to her cell opening. As she expected to be met with her vision returning to her, basking her in the pale sterile white light of the experimentation ward, she was simply met with her perception of light changing, everything becoming brighter but nothing becoming more clear. It was simply all a luminous green color.

 

“You have more grafts today.” The scientist spoke to her. She didn’t move.

 

“... Z-726.” The voice called again. Why couldn’t she see? The buzzing of the lights just outside of the door, they were so loud.

 

“... Collis. ” They became more stern; they would have to drag her out soon if she didn’t move. Just the voice was so loud, so much louder than she knew it should be. Why. Couldn’t. She. See.

 

An unrecognizable feeling was building inside of Angi’s body, something she had never so much as come close to before. Pure, unadulterated hatred. She had nothing, and if she had nothing… She had nothing to lose. If she were to become blind then so would her anger, so would the years and years of survivalist instinct pushing down any semblance of emotion. Realizing that she was blind, that she would never be able to see those fields again, that was the last straw before she simply…

 

Broke.

Notes:

Crashout imminent, expect carnage.

Chapter 11: Reason of Purpose (CH. 8.5)

Summary:

CW: INCLUDES GRAPHIC VIOLENCE. A LOT OF BLOOD AND MURDER THIS CHAPTER.

“You deserve this.”

Notes:

i ran out of jokes to put in the notes just read the damn fic 3

Oh my GOD the new pressure update made me so sad that I had to come back to this. I MISSED MY GIRL AND I MISSED HER ROMANCE WITH A FISH. IS THAT SO WRONG!?! GOD FORBID I HAVE A HOBBY!!!!

“God damn it we’ll have to pull her out-” The scientist spoke, muttering as they turned back out to the hallway to get a guard to assist them. In that very moment that they turned, so many things were running through Angi’s mind.

 

The speech of the scientist gave her a type of sight. She was able to see with sound, likely a side effect of one of the foreign strains of DNA introduced to her body. Echolocation. She could see as they turned, but none of their details. They were a blur, a blocked out shape in her mind that moved like a person, but looked like nothing. Is that what everything would look like? Could you even consider this ‘sight?’

 

She could feel her skin, no, her scales move in ways that felt entirely unnatural to her mind. They flared outward on her cheeks, as if they were opening to a deeper layer of tissue. It felt as if the room got… Brighter? She clawed her hand against the cold hard floor of her cell, the sound of her newly assumed claws scraping against the concrete caused vibrations to bounce off of the walls and give her a level of perception she could have never imagined.

 

They were going to drag her out of her room. Put her through more pain. Change her more. How was she possibly this accepting of what was happening right now? She was angry, more angry than she ever had been in her life. An anger that knew not the bounds of her mind, but flowed over into her body, making her muscles itch for retribution. But even then… All of this pain. She was still harboring it in silence. Her expressions, her words, her movements… Why had she accepted this? Why had she accepted losing her freedom, losing her body, losing her sight? Losing her love?

 

The scientist turned back to her, as she started to move just as they were about to call for help. “Oh? Did you change your mi-”

 

Before they could even finish speaking, Angi’s body reacted with an instinct she had never felt before. She lifted her head to ‘look’ at the scientist, opening her eyes wide. That DNA, the same strain that had made her blind. It came with another effect, one that was unexpected by the scientists who gave it to her. To Angi, it almost felt like a squint, only from the back of her eyes. A muscle contraction, pushing the bioluminescent fluid to the forefront of her eyes and constricting it to be under immense pressure before widening its reach almost like an aperture.

 

For her, it felt similar to blinking, only it got brighter for a split second when she did so, rather than darker. For the scientist however? It was the same as having two flash beacons fired directly into their eyes.

 

“AAGH-!” The scientist screamed out in pain, being temporarily blinded. With their exclamation of pain came that same sense from before. Sight.

 

Angi lunged forward before she had even realized what she was doing. Her whole body screamed for her to stop, for her to collapse from all of the pain brought by simple movements, but at the same time, it screamed for her to continue. Her pain came second to her need for revenge.

 

With her newfound sense of ‘sight’ she was able to see the being before her and tackle them, bringing them to the floor. A woman? She had long hair, a thinner frame than Angi had previously been able to discern. The thoughts only crossed her mind as she felt the warmth of the scientist’s blood splatter over her claws, her hands transformed into tools made to shred through flesh and bone. The woman screamed for only a few moments as Angi ripped her apart, and before she had even realized it, the scientist was dead.

 

More.

 

The sound of several guards footsteps coming down the hallway brought a clearer view to Angi’s mind. She had memorized what the experimentation ward had looked like over the past… How long had it even been? She hadn’t thought to keep track since she got here. She knew the hallways, she knew how to get out.  

 

“Oh dear god!” One of the guards exclaimed in horror at the sight of Angi, eyes wide, covered in the viscera of a freshly slaughtered human being.

 

More.

 

Pain shot through her entire body as she stood on her own two legs, running towards the guards with a speed she could have never imagined before being turned into this… Thing. It didn’t matter. They made her into this. They couldn’t even imagine the pain she went through, what they took away from her, how they changed her. They were entitled to but a fraction of what she felt. This was mercy.

 

More blood. More screaming. More sight. Her own heavy breaths and strangled noises of pain brought little ripples of her surroundings to her mind. Everything was distorted, wavy, only mildly illuminated by each sound picked up by her highly sensitive hearing. Three more she ripped through, and she barely thought about what it meant for her to do it, she was simply surviving. They wanted a monster. They got a monster.

 

Even with only being able to view light, she noticed that her vision got slightly tinted red in one eye. Blood. She wasn’t able to tell if it was hers, or one of the guards she had just massacred, but she had gotten blood in her eye. It didn’t matter to her, she couldn’t see with them anyway.

 

BEEEEP!!! BEEEEP!!! BEEEEP!!!

 

An alarm started without warning. It must have been a safety precaution used for the experimentation ward, similar to a lockdown.

 

It was so loud to Angi, she wanted to cover her ears and fall, let herself succumb to the pain, let herself be put down. The thought occurred to her that they may not kill her if they caught her. That was enough to keep her going.

 

Even if it was overwhelming, and even if it was like being plunged into cold water head first, her head reeling and stinging with pain, the sound was enough to let her see like she never had before. She dragged her clawed hand along the wall of the hallway she was in as she began running. She could see the path she needed to take. It was strange to her, she could see around corners. She could check places without her eyes, without her touch.

 

With every scientist or guard that appeared in her path, she ripped through them with claws and teeth, tearing them apart like an animal. She felt warm. She felt… happy? It was like relief, like stretching your muscles after a long day, or taking a deep breath with your whole chest. She couldn’t even see that she was covered head to toe in human blood, but she didn’t even take the time to think about it, her only thought was to run.

 

Suddenly, with the sound of the alarm, she was able to see something. She stopped and stood in the hallway, knowing that the nearest guard was a few hallways down, following the trail of viscera left in her wake. The interrogation room. She could see it there, 2 lefts and a right. She needed to get there. She couldn’t even begin to reason with herself why, she just needed to.

 

Before then, there was another room along the way. She sucked in a breath, the guard that was trailing her coming closer. She ran once again, her footing unsteady from all of the unbearable pain. She ran her shoulder against the wall to ground herself and know where she was heading, smearing an invisible crimson streak across it in her wake.

 

An office. She could ‘see’ that as she drew closer, the sound from the alarm echoing off of the walls and telling her exactly where the door was. She rammed herself into it, the wood splintering and giving way to her amalgamation of a body. Angi could ‘see’ him there, sitting at his desk. He didn’t even have the time to react to her standing in the doorway before she drew closer.

 

“Angela-” Stevens started. Good. Exactly who she thought it was. Angi didn’t speak in response, she merely breathed raspily and heavily, the tail they had grafted onto her body dragging across the floor behind her just barely audible to her below the sound of the alarm.

 

She could hear Stevens' fear. The sound of his heart beating ever so slightly faster, his breathing slightly quicker than normal, an almost imperceptible crack in his voice. He muttered something, a question, an attempt to seem threatening, or perhaps an attempt to seem unbothered. She didn’t listen.

 

He was scared of her. That’s all that was on her mind.

 

With a gravelly, hoarse voice, she said one last thing to him as she drew ever closer with measured, pained paces.

 

“You deserve this.”

 

“ANGELA!-” He screamed just before she leapt forwards, sinking her sharpened teeth into his flesh with eyes wide with intention. She wanted him to know that this was intentional. This was not insanity, this was not irrational, this was sweet vengeance.

 

With the others she had slaughtered, she had done so blindly, tearing into them in a way that felt like it would get them out of her way the fastest. With Stevens, every swipe was calculated. She went for the non vitals, tearing open the skin and muscle of his legs and arms, each scream from her tormentor pairing in a horrible disharmony with the alarm that was still blaring across the facility. She wished in that moment that she could have her sight back, not for herself, not for who she used to be, but merely to see his expression as she paid him his due recompense.

 

Her mind quickly became foggy, her ability to think logically falling idle in place of her desperate need to inflict as much pain as possible. The next events were a blur, she hadn’t even noticed that he had fallen silent as she continued to rip into sinew and bone, tearing out pieces of his corpus and pulling joints from their sockets, the massacre now becoming nearly autonomous from her point of view.

 

BANG! 

 

The sound suddenly snapped her from her state of mind, a radiating pain spreading through her abdomen. She quickly pieced those two things together, a gunshot, and a bullet in her side. She knew that getting shot hurt like hell, she had been grazed by malfunctioning turret rounds a few times before in her expeditions, but strangely enough it was merely a mild pain. Perhaps it was the adrenaline, perhaps it was a newfound tolerance for pain, or maybe it was just nothing in comparison to what she’s had to endure.

 

Her head whipped around towards the guard that had shot her, her eyes landing on their form meaninglessly, a nearly imperceptible sound radiating from them that was unmistakably the sound of a gun rattling in someone’s unsteady grip. She once more used the tactic she had on the scientist, the muscles in the back of her orbitals contracting before a blinding light came from her now mostly useless eyes.

 

Angi picked the guard up with ease, her mutated body harboring more strength than she had realized, even until now. She didn’t have any more time to waste, simply tossing their body away like it was merely a ragdoll. She hoped that it would be enough to get the guard to stop pursuing her, rushing down the hall and leaving Stevens’ desecrated corpse lying all over his office.

 

She ran down past the next few rooms, hearing yelling through the walls and down the passages around her, her sight coming in short bursts with each blare of the alarm. She skid to a halt at the interrogation room where she had been told she would be in the experimentation ward, the last place she had felt human. She didn’t even know why she felt the need to return here, it was a sort of guttural instinct that she had to follow. Even though her ability to echolocate wasn’t exactly ‘vision’ she was able to see in a way that was almost as good. Things were blurry, almost fuzzy colorless outlines with each noise and vibration that reached her senses.

 

There, just barely perceptible to her without her ability to actually see, she was able to make out this faint, small object sitting there on the table. That was it. She had come back for her hair tie.

 

Of course Stevens hadn’t taken it. He didn’t care for her useless memoir, he simply left it behind and waited for it to be discarded the next time the interrogation room was used. Believe it or not, Urbanshade doesn’t have a lot of people to interrogate, only a lot of people to senselessly kill and discard, so there it lay, untouched in the very position he had left it on that day.

 

Angi had this brief moment of calm, although in a rather hollow sense of the word. She walked over to the table, slightly limping from the gunshot wound in her side. She hadn’t noticed that she was bleeding, not that it would matter considering she was drenched head to toe in the stuff anyways. She reached down with her scaled hands, picking up the hair tie and holding it in her claw. It seemed smaller now, as if it wasn’t meant for her. It was meant for the human girl it was given to, after all.

 

In this strange moment of respite, she finally drowned out the sound of the alarm with her own thoughts, able to ask herself a simple question.

 

“Do I stay here and die…?”

“Or do I try to escape? Attempt to live like this?”

She stood there with the hair tie in her hand, the last thing that she wanted to hold being within her grasp. She didn’t want to live like this. Not as a monster, not in pain, not in hiding. She had spent all of her life following orders, never once able to truly think for herself. Would it be better to inevitably fall into another position doing the same thing again? Or would it be better to finally take initiative, let her death be her choice?

 

…

 

But that wasn’t exactly true, was it? She had gotten to make a choice. She had gotten to live a life where she could dream. This hair tie wasn’t the last thing she wanted to hold, not the last thing she was looking for, it was him. He was still down there, he was still living, if there was anyone in the world who would be there to help her through a life she had chosen to live, it would be him , would it not?

 

She turned the hair tie over in her palm, her expression softening in a way she had never truly let happen before. Even though she couldn’t see its color anymore, even though she couldn’t see how it would look in her long black hair ever again, she was still able to think about Sebastian as she held it. That was all she really needed.

 

Sebastian.

 

The alarm slowly came back into focus as Angi realized that she couldn’t stay here for long. There were more guards actively looking for her, and if she didn’t leave now, she may never get the chance to. Her choices had changed. Live for him, or die for herself. And if those were the options, she knew which one she would choose a thousand times over.

 

She wrapped her claws around the hair tie, the last piece of who she really was, holding it in her closed fist. She ran back out into the hallway, sensing as far as she could with her echolocation. She could see that the stairwell down to the expedition funnel wasn’t all that far, just a few halls down. She could see a few figures blocking that path however, closing in towards her.

 

She didn’t care, she’d tear through however many people she had to. When she set her mind to something, nothing was going to stop her, especially not now. She took off down the hall, her footsteps still light even with her changed body. She felt the warm blood that covered her body and clothes slowly cooling, leaving her slightly cold, but not uncomfortable. Her body was now a strange mix of cold and warm blooded, leaving her vitals at a sustainable temperature but her perception of temperature was now entirely dependent on external stimuli.

 

Angi never considered herself a violent person before. After all, she was falsely imprisoned just as Sebastian had been. Perhaps it was from the foreign DNA, or perhaps it was from the torture she had endured, but she couldn’t care less as she ripped apart the last few guards that stood in her path. As more warm blood spilled over her features, she didn’t even think of the lives she was taking, only the fact that she felt a bit too warm now.

 

She continued to the end of the hall, spitting out the severed arm of the last guard she had killed just before ripping the door to the stairwell open, her left hand still tightly gripping the hair tie she had taken from the interrogation room. She thought more about the hair tie as she made her way down the many sets of stairs, mostly moving with momentum and muscle memory than with her echolocation. The sound of the alarm getting more and more distant as her echolocation began to fade made it difficult to navigate, but with an occasional whack to the metal handrail, she was able to make it well enough.

 

Would she even be able to wear the hair tie again? She had no idea what she truly even looked like any more, she had no idea if it would look the same or not. Her hair had gotten longer since she had started the medical experiments, and by a decent amount, too. Right… How long had she been in the experimentation ward? If she remembered the dates… When they’d started, it had been February. She hadn’t put that much effort into remembering what month it was before the experiments, it didn’t mean anything if every day was the same and she never got to see the seasons change, after all. Last she remembered, in all the blurred time of medical procedures and horribly cold nights, the last time someone had given her a date was in August. Half a year. It had been half a year, and she hadn’t even realized.  

 

She reached the bottom of the stairs without realizing it, stumbling slightly as she found her footing. The gunshot wound in her side was starting to hurt again, her limp beginning to come back as it had in the interrogation room. She couldn’t stop now, not after all of this. The adrenaline had to keep her going for just a bit longer, just long enough to get her back to Sebastian. 

 

She pushed through the door to the prisoner funnel with her shoulder. It wasn’t the vault door that was leading to the elevator, so she didn’t need to worry about getting access to the subs. The docking area was so spacious that nearly every noise reverberated, making it much easier for her to navigate towards the water’s edge. She lugged herself down the small staircase to the submarine that she normally took down to the blacksite, huffing slightly as she realized how out of breath she was. She hadn’t run like that in months.

 

Angi hadn’t thought about how she’d actually get the submarine to dive, considering the fact that the Navi-AI would only let her descend if it were given outside commands to. Before she even got a chance to mess with the panel in the back of the sub, the familiarly robotic voice of the AI itself came crackling over the intercom.

 

“Employee ‘Angela Collis.’ According to your file, you are now classified as a Z-class entity, meaning that you are not fit to be operating an Urbanshade dive sub without express orders from an Urbanshade containment officer. I have inf-fo-o- o-o-o-... ”

 

The voice suddenly began to stutter and crackle, as if it were being manipulated by something, before totally cutting off and going silent for a moment. Suddenly, the light of the panel she stood before changed, getting brighter. Angi wasn’t sure what to make of it at first, but it seemed as if it had… changed color? A new voice, although one that wasn’t totally unfamiliar, spoke over the intercom.

“An entity in one of the subs, that’s rather unusual…”

 

The voice was even more robotic, a certain static coming through with each word it spoke. Angi clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth to create a noise that would let her see if anyone was coming. It was an instinct that came naturally to her, although one that she hadn’t even realized she had gained. It was as if part of her mind was no longer her own, natural behaviors of the animals she had been melded with becoming part of her own instinct seamlessly.

 

“Wait, Angela… It’s YOU! You’re the one he’s been talking about?!”

 

Angi turned back towards the panel, not able to sense all the way to the back of the docking bay, a certain stress building in her mind that she wasn’t able to express. She wanted to say something, anything, but she couldn’t think of what to say. She remembered that voice, it was the same one that came from that door all the way back when she had first met Sebastian. The first time she had been attacked by one of the Good People.

 

She didn’t know what to do in that moment. Would it try to kill her? Would it alert Urbanshade to her position? What would she do if this is where it was going to end? She clutched the hair tie ever tighter, holding it up to her chest without even realizing it.

 

Without another moment of hesitation, the hatch to the submarine closed, leaving Angi in darkness, unable to see with her eyes, nor with the reverberations of the docking bay. She hadn’t been expecting for the dive to happen so suddenly, causing her to be knocked off her feet, falling to the floor of the sub as it descended.

 

“Agh! I’m sorry!”

 

The voice chimed back in, not having left like the Navi-AI normally does after the descent begins. Angi slowly picked herself up slightly from the floor, her hands sticking a little to the metal because of the slowly drying blood painting her claws. She looked back towards the panel, able to perceive the light coming from it clearer than anything else in her surroundings. Being completely unable to see was unnerving for her, she needed there to be some sort of noise, something that allowed her to ground herself. She thought that maybe breaking the silence would help with that.

 

“Where-..”

 

She attempted to speak, her voice coming out in a rasp that she wasn’t expecting. She swallowed, attempting to remember how to speak properly. She hadn’t actually taken the time to speak to anyone in so long, it felt as foreign as any of the other instincts she was learning about today.

 

“Where are we going…?”

It was a simple question, although one that seemed a bit obvious. She couldn’t help but ask, she needed confirmation to ease her mind. If she was going to die in this submarine, then she wanted to at least be at peace with it.

 

“Uhh- To the Blacksite?? That’s the only place these things go…”

 

The voice responded to her mockingly. It seemed to have quite the split personality, flipping back and forth between being apologetic and helpful to being snide and reluctant to offer assistance.

 

“W-Who are you? Were you talking about Sebastian? Are you going to kill me? What are you-”

 

After finding the will to speak, she seemed to have too many questions on her mind for any of them to come out coherently.

 

“Woah, woah! Slow down, we can talk about that more when I lead you to him…”

 

The voice responded, not sure what to make of her frantic state. After a brief moment of silence, it chimed in once more, although seemingly talking to itself more than to Angi.

 

“He said that you were the ‘quiet, self sufficient’ type…”

 

It grumbled, essentially telling her that she was the opposite. Has she really changed that much? She hadn’t even noticed, but she had been putting more emotion into her voice than she ever had when she was still human. Is it even right for her to say that she was no longer human? After all, she was the same person she always had been, just having been forced into a body she was never meant to inhabit. Before she could continue to get into that philosophy, the voice chimed in again.

 

“We’re almost down to the site, do you think you can handle making it to Sebastian on your own?”

 

As much as Angi wanted to say that she could, that she would be perfectly apt to run through the facility like she was used to, she knew that she couldn’t. Not like this, not when she was hurt. In a way that seemed almost a bit too lax and confused, she simply said:

 

“... I’m blind? ”

 

The voice groaned, as if it were annoyed by that fact, or rather he was annoyed at its lack of mention until now.

 

“You’d think that MAYBE he would have told me that? He seemed to like talking about you a lot…”

 

The hatch to the sub opened, the sound of the hydraulics being loud enough to let Angi get a feel for where they were. They weren’t at the very start of the regular path, so that was good. They were probably closer to Sebastian’s shop that way.

 

“Come on, follow the sound of my voice, I’ll tell you where to go…”

 

It sounded begrudging, but also insistent upon bringing her to who she could hope to be Sebastian. After all, that question was never answered. She didn’t have much of a choice, knowing that Urbanshade would be tracking the missing submarine the second that they had the resources to. 

 

Angi stepped out of the sub, clicking her tongue more, trying to see where the door was. One of the security cameras in the room tipped towards her, and suddenly the voice chimed in once more.

 

“ Good god! What happened to you!? ”

 

Angi didn’t reply, now able to sense where the door was. She simply ran ahead, the door sliding open before ever being told where it was by the voice that was supposed to be guiding her.

 

“Hey!? Whatever happened to being blind and needing help!? You look like you know where you’re going to me!”

 

The voice chimed in from the next door panel, letting Angi quickly navigate. She was fast, she hadn’t realized how easily she would have been able to traverse through the facility had she not been stopping to collect all of the data she could possibly find.

 

“Listen- Just keep speaking from where the right door is, other than that I got it.”

 

She had slipped straight back into her neutral tone, as if she had gone straight back to work after all this time. There was a brief hesitation, but after a beat, the voice appeared once more, guiding her as she hoped it would.

 

“Fine- come this way!”

 

Angi continued through room after room, getting small directional cues from the unnamed guiding voice as she continued to click, acclimating herself to seeing properly through echolocation. If the experimentation ward was a crash course, then this was her first actual lesson.

 

As fast as she was going, she was also making mistakes. Bumping tables, running into walls, stumbling over rubble, but it didn’t stop her. Even despite scrambling through just about every obstacle, she still ran through the rooms in almost a single fluid motion.

 

“Last door, come on! ”

 

The voice urged her forwards, her body beginning to tire and ache, her right hand coming to her side to hold the gunshot wound. She stumbled just a bit further, using her other hand, still holding the hair tie, to hold the wall for support. She panted, out of breath from running for so long, on the verge of collapse. She clicked once more, able to see the familiar layout of the room, a light pointing towards the left side wall and a single vent in the center of it.

 

She was there. She made it.

 

The vent fell open, that voice that she had hoped to hear coming through the opening, confirming that she was right, it really was him.

 

“Running low on-”

 

Before he could even finish his normal greeting designed for expendables, Angi had scrambled half way through the vent, claws scraping against the metal as she became used to the uncomfortably tight fit that used to be more spacious to her. She pulled herself out to the other side, getting to her feet as quickly as possible.

 

The familiar sound of Sebastian’s gun holster unclipping as he reached backwards for a weapon rang in Angi’s ears clear as day as she stood before him. He reached for his gun. Why? He had never done that- not since the day they met. She… Looked different now, didn’t she. Right, she was still dowsed in human blood. She did the only thing she could think to in the moment to try and get him to see that it was her.

 

“SEBASTIAN!!”

 

She practically cried, a certain fear coming over her and showing in her voice that she hadn’t yet experienced. She had never wanted to live for something. Never fought like that, never killed for someone, never valued something over her own purpose before. She was scared that she was going to lose that. She was scared that he wouldn’t see her, and instead would see the monster that she had become.

 

Her yelp brought her sight to her, able to see him there, holding the gun pointed at her in such a way that he was just about ready to fire. Slowly, the reverberations died down, the only noise in the room being the sound of the radio static, letting her sense blurry, fuzzy shapes that barely came together. Even then, the constant sound let her see not in snapshots, but rather in a constant motion, like she was used to when she could see with her own eyes.

 

She was able to discern the movement as Sebastian slowly lowered the gun, a quiet sound coming from his throat that would be imperceptible to anyone other than her, the sound of his breath catching. He realized in that moment exactly who was in front of him. She was so different, yet recognizably her. In her left hand, raised in surrender, tucked against her palm by her thumb was that red hair tie he had made her.

 

“...Angi?”

 

His voice nearly cracked, sounding unsure.

 

There she stood, in a hospital gown stained entirely red, her hair down and in her face, partially covering her eyes without a care. She was taller, her skin grey and scaly like his own. She had an eel-like tail that sat in an uneasy stillness behind her, and most notably, her eyes glowed with a vibrant green, along with the scales around her cheeks and the skin that stretched over her ear fins.

 

Tears welled in her eyes as she sucked a shaky breath inwards. Her shoulders suddenly trembled with a burden that she had never carried before. She took 2 unsteady steps forwards before Sebastian reached down to support her, her weight slumping forward into his arms as she finally broke down with years of emotion. She attempted to speak as she began to sob, looking up at him pointlessly without vision.

 

“I-I can’t see you- I-”

 

Sebastian simply shushed her, using a hand to attempt to clean some of the blood off of her face while also wiping her tears.

 

“I thought you were dead… I-”

 

He was equally as wordless. After all of this time, he had convinced himself that his confession of love to her was what had made her disappear. That she had changed her mind, or had secretly been spying on him for Urbanshade, but he hadn’t even considered that they would have turned her into… This.

 

After everything that she had done, all of the energy she had spent just to get here, just to end up safely back in his arms, Angi simply couldn’t take any more. She let out another sob before resting her body against his chest and buckling, losing the last bit of energy that was keeping her awake.

She didn’t have to run anymore. She didn’t have to go through those experiments again. Here, in this moment, in his arms, she was safe again .

Notes:

uhhhhh idk, p.ai.nter mention finally!!

You, me, experimentation ward. What are we having for dinner? Scientist of course! Uh oh! There was a Stevens in our experimentation ward murder! We black out and wake up in a lock down surrounded by guards! KILLABLE guards! YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS! GUARD SLAUGHTER! The slaughter leads to an office. What do we do? We're gonna kill Stevens. Kill Stevens, Kill brutally, Kill with REVENGE? OH YES PLEASE! We throw the guard across the hall after we get shot in the side and go into the interrogation room, ANGI'S. RED. HAIRTIE. Sebastian made the hair tie? Return to the blacksite to find Sebastian? UHHHH I think so! Next thing you know, Angi kills 3 more guards, Then she goes down the stairs, gets into a sub, the ai threatens her, the ai gets replaced with p.ai.nter instead, p.ai.ter HELPS HER, which i didn't even know he could do? She gets to the facility, FINDS SEBASTIAN, UH OH, THE ADRENALINE IS WEARING OFF!! HJAGSRJHABHSJHGFHAIUSGH ahgsfjhags UAHSFGAUS HFAUYRHUIASH

Chapter 12: 'Normal' Again (CH. 9)

Summary:

Wait, now they're both fish?? How the HELL does that work??

"Can I hold your face? I want... to remember what you look like...”

Notes:

HGEEHEHEHEHEHE THE FLUFF IS BACK BABY, WE'RE OUT OF HELL!!!

After the events of that day, Sebastian allowed Angi to sleep as he extracted the bullet from her side and cleaned some of the blood off of her, at least from the wound and her face.

 

He kept her in the back behind his shop, making sure that none of the EXR-P’s even knew she was there, but there were decently fresh bloody bandages and dressings littered about his table and his workspace.

 

He couldn't really be bothered to clean them or keep them out of view, if anyone said anything he’d kill them before they got a chance to say anything over their radios. That prospect brought back that all too familiar question that had once plagued his mind. How had he managed to become so fond of Angi?

 

He leaned his head back and rested it on the wall he always sat up against, just thinking. His esca glowed dimly, not needing much light when it was just him in the shop. Nearly none of the blood that had covered her head to toe was her own, she had taken the life of living breathing humans in just the way that Sebastian himself had become painfully desensitized to by now.

 

Of course. Of course they did the same thing to her. Their stories were in near perfect parallel, it was only the timing that truly set the two apart. Sebastian harbored so much anger and hatred and vitriol for those who turned him into this, but to see it happen to one of the few people he had come to love in this living hell was… Disheartening in a way.

 

He had been so focused on getting revenge, he couldn't manage to prevent what happened to him from happening to Angi. He felt his throat tighten up at the thought. Truly, he couldn’t face the thought that there was something he could have done to save her from the same cruel fate he was subject to all those years ago. If he had told her to stay, if he had thought about it rationally and not been so lost in his own emotions, if he hadn't-

 

A noise coming from the back room where Angi was resting shocked Sebastian from his thoughts, causing him to immediately move his desk from the door, ducking down through the entrance to investigate and make sure that she was okay.

 

There Angi stood, facing away from the door off to the side of the room, supporting herself on a table with one hand as her other held her head. She growled inhumanly, her legs shaking slightly as she stumbled, nearly falling forwards. Her ear fins and eyes glowed in the mostly dark room, that vibrant green light that was proof of her transformation clung to her body and illuminated her features, her expression looking pained and confused.

 

Sebastian quickly moved towards her, reaching a hand out gently to her shoulder in an attempt to help her. Upon feeling the smallest bit of contact, Angi flinched with a gasp, whipping her head around and swinging her arm backwards into him with killer instinct. She didn’t know what was going on, only that she had to survive. That was her priority, it was the only thing left she truly had to rely on to keep her defenses up.

 

Sebastian took a decent blow to the side before he managed to grab her wrist. It hurt like hell, the force she put into that swing was likely enough to have broken a few ribs if he were human, possibly enough to knock someone out if she had aimed for the head instead of the chest.

 

“ Angi-! Agh- It's Sebastian! … It's just-... It's just me.”

 

He had to remember that things were different now. She was missing one of her most important faculties, she couldn’t trust anything that wasn’t laid out plainly in front of her because it could mean the difference between life and death. Sebastian wasn’t entirely sure exactly how Angi felt, but he knew that she was at least partially blind. He hadn’t had the chance to ask about the severity.

 

Angi relaxed slightly, huffing from just that small amount of exertion. Her expression shifted, the residual anger from the night prior fading from her mind, replaced with relief in his presence. Right. She was with Sebastian, she had made it out of the experimentation lab, and she was safe again. If there was one place in the entire world she would feel most comfortable right now, it was probably here.

 

“Seb…”

 

Angi sighed, allowing herself to lean against him. Instantly, Sebastian was able to tell that she had changed. Her instant response to seek comfort in him, the absence of that calculated confidence she once held, the fear that was palpable in her instincts … She was vulnerable. They had ripped every part of her personality from her, leaving her open and without any of the defenses she had built for herself after years of struggling.

 

“Please, sit down… You can barely stand.”

 

Sebastian urged, his voice dropping to a calm whisper that she had only ever heard from him a few times before. Angi had forgotten that feeling, the way her body seemed to relax whenever he was there. She couldn’t believe that she had been without this peace for that long. Angi clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, attempting to get a feel for where everything was.

 

“...Why are you-”

 

He tilted his head to the side in confusion, but just as he was about to ask about the clicking, Angi walked directly towards the bed, even stepping over the end of Sebastian’s tail in the process. His eyes widened as he watched her navigate, turning towards where she now sat on the edge of the makeshift bed she had been laying in.

 

“Wait- Can you see? How did you just-”

 

He questioned, looking down into her lightly glowing green eyes. She shifted a bit, her expression seeming a bit uncomfortable, if not defensive.

 

“...Right. They probably interrogated you for the sake of their precious ‘research’ huh?”

 

Sebastian spoke with a tangible anger in his voice, the memory of his own constant questioning as he was being experimented on caused that ever so familiar rage to build in his chest. He sighed, leaning down and resting his head atop his top two arms on the bed beside where Angi sat. She looked towards him, her ear fins twitching slightly as she thought quietly.

 

“You… Don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want.”

 

Sebastian added in a half grumble, attempting to calm himself before he made this whole interaction any more upsetting for her. Angi turned her head, facing forward and somewhat down at the floor, her hair falling forward to cover her face. She had never gotten the chance to put it back up once she made her way back to the shop.

 

“... There’s not any point in keeping you in the dark about it.”

 

Angi muttered, her voice still ragged and quiet. She waved her hand in front of her face, an ever so slight change in light perceptible to her, but nothing more than knowing there was something moving. She couldn’t even make out the shape of her own hand in front of her, she just knew that it was reflecting some of the light from her eyes back towards her.

 

“No, I can’t see. I… Can make sense of the things around me through sound.”

 

She spoke slowly, like it was a struggle to get her voice to cooperate with her at all, but she was still beginning to open up again. She turned her head back towards Sebastian, her eyes half lidded in contempt for the entire situation, a feeling that Sebastian was anything but unfamiliar to.

 

“Like echolocation?”

 

He asked simply. Angi nodded her head, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. When she opened them again, she moved her hand ever so slightly towards Sebastian, but hesitated.

 

“... With every sound comes differing levels of clarity… Speaking gives a little, but the louder the noise, the better I can visualize what’s around me.”

 

She closed her hand as she spoke before slowly opening it again, reaching out half way once more before stopping.

 

“I can’t see you since it’s too quiet… Can… Can I hold your face? I want... to remember what you look like...”

 

Angi asked with a slight tremble in her voice, as if she were scared that he was going to reject her. Sebastian’s eyes widened slightly, looking at her honest and slightly embarrassed expression and remembering exactly why he had fallen in love with her in the first place. Those little glimpses of her true emotions which were once so rare were now on full display, her only option being to trust him with her actual feelings earnestly.

 

Sebastian gently took her clawed hand with his own, the unexpected contact causing her to flinch a little, but she quickly calmed when she felt that it was just his hand. He placed her still blood stained palm against his own cheek, letting her feel his features so that she could look at him in her own way.

 

Since she had lost her sight, Angi’s eyes had somewhat defaulted to being wide open, attempting to catch as much light as possible for the little amount that she could see. As she gently guided her other hand to the other side of Sebastian’s face, gently holding him and running her fingers over his scales, her gaze (or lack there-of) softened, a small smile gracing her features the way it had when she was still human.

 

She had been changed, yes, but she was still the same. She still loved him, she still loved looking at him, even if that meant something different to her now than it did before. She let one hand roam up to his hair, resting just to the right of his illicium. Sebastian closed his eyes, feeling a strange sort of comfort from the gesture that he had forgotten about a long time ago.

 

“ Aaaaahhh… ”

 

Angi let out a long, monotone noise, causing Sebastian to look up at her once again. He let her continue on for a moment, but he couldn’t help but ask.

 

“What are you doing..?”

 

He said, laughing a little as he did. Angi closed her mouth once more, looking like she had only just then realized how strange that probably looked to him.

 

“... I’m… trying to see you…”

 

She admitted, blushing a little from embarrassment. She moved her face just a bit closer to his own, the gentle green glow of her cheeks and eyes reflecting off of his own features. He chuckled a little, thinking about how bizarre it was for her to want to look at him so badly. He wasn’t exactly known for his looks.

 

As he laughed, she was able to piece together a few more details of his face. Oh, how she had missed looking at him like this. She had thought of him for the first few months of the experiments, but after a while she simply stopped thinking for herself. She was in too much pain to be able to hold onto those thoughts.

 

“When you laugh I can see glimpses of you… It’s nice.”

 

Her voice steadied slightly, like she was finally remembering how to speak properly again.

 

“What, are you asking me to keep talking then?”

 

Sebastian said in a mostly joking manner, expecting her to get tired of looking at him by now. Angi just nodded slowly, a thought crossing her mind as she brought her hands back down to the sides of his face, her clawed fingers tracing the back of his jawline.

 

“Well… I’m not sure if you could make it out, but I never stopped wearing the ring you gave me. I spoke with… a friend of mine about you pretty often while you were gone-”

 

As he spoke, Angi seemed to focus, leaning just a bit closer to him. Even if she couldn’t see it, she could feel as his cheeks got slightly warmer as he attempted to continue rambling on. From his point of view it was a bit awkward to see her just staring back at him, but if it would make her happy, he’d keep talking.

 

“-.. Uhm- Ahem- If I’m being honest… I really did… Miss you alo-”

 

She had decided she had pinpointed to the best of her ability exactly where the sound of his voice was coming from, leaning down in a somewhat slow and deliberate manner, guiding her head towards Sebastian’s so that her mouth rested softly but snuggly against his own, cutting him off in the middle of his confession with a gentle kiss.

 

Sebastian jumped a little, but not enough to pull away from her. It took her a moment, but she allowed her eyes to close, her ear fins twitching and flaring out slightly as she held him in her hands, reminding herself that this is what she fought for. This is why it was worth it to live. To be with him.

 

Sebastian brought his lower left arm up to mirror the way that Angi was holding him, that gesture only lasting for a brief moment before she slowly pulled back and retracted her hands from his face. Sebastian moved forward just a couple centimeters as she did so, subconsciously wanting to make the moment last for as long as it possibly could, although she couldn’t see that he had done so.

 

As she sat back up straight, she seemed to be deep in thought before her face suddenly flushed, her face glowing brighter than before, and her eyes going back to being wide and embarrassed. She didn’t quite know what to say, or if she should say anything at all, but she just sort of blurted out:

 

“I’m… Still covered in blood aren’t I?”

 

Angi muttered, scooting a bit further away from him on the bed. Sebastian was equally flushed, taking a moment to move a stray strand of hair from his face as he began to laugh at that question.

 

“Yes- Yes you are.”

 

His smile was evident in his voice, and the fact that Angi was able to hear the slight shuffling sound of his tail wagging across the room wasn’t helping her feel like that was any less embarrassing than she already thought it was.

 

“Uhm…” 

 

Her voice raised slightly as she let her head fall slightly forward, her hair hiding her expression from him as best as she could manage.

 

“Are there any flooded areas around here? I should probably try to wash some of it off.”

 

Angi attempted to move on from the kiss and act as if nothing happened, which, in a way, was also helping her return to a sense of normalcy. She was recovering surprisingly well now that she was back beside Sebastian, even if her initial reaction to his presence was a bit on edge.

 

“There’s one around 5 rooms down… I could take you there, if you don’t think you could make it there on your own?”

 

Sebastian offered.

 

“It feels a bit strange to ask you to accompany me to bathe, Seb.”

 

Angi tensed slightly at the thought, but Sebastian simply chuckled. He had missed that little nickname.

 

“Angi, I’ve seen what you look like with your organs hanging out and dragging behind your body. What’s above the skin is the least of my concern at this point.”

 

He recalled the last time that they had been together, when she had nearly slipped past death’s door just before his eyes. Suddenly, something came to mind.

 

“Oh- Right! After the emotional rollercoaster of those 3 days, I ended up sewing your diving suit back together- Err- As best as I could anyways. It would probably be nice to get out of that gown, huh?”

 

Angi hadn’t even thought about the fact that he had kept her original diving suit. When she had gone back to the prison, she had gotten another suit from the extraction point, since she had been wearing the t-shirt Sebastian had given her when she left his shop.

 

“You… Kept it?”

 

She muttered, for some reason surprised that he would care enough to save the suit for her.

 

“Well- I was planning on giving it back to you sooner, but… Obviously…”

 

Sebastian trailed off, alluding to the last grueling 6 months in which he had silently half-mourned, quietly holding out hope that she would still come back.

 

“You really are the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

 

Angi said, her tail slightly twitching back and forth behind her on the bed. Sebastian instantly blushed again. He’d never really had anyone say something like that about him before. He quickly cleared his throat, lifting himself up from the bed and offering a hand out to Angi.

 

“Yeah- Yeah- Because saving your life is nothing in comparison to keeping your diving suit around...”

 

His voice dripped with sarcasm, rolling his eyes as if she hadn’t told him that she owed him her life after that event. The sound of Sebastian’s voice let Angi sense where his hand was, and she reached out and took it, allowing him to pull her up to her feet. She smiled lightheartedly at him, but it seemed Sebastian had reached the limit of all of the genuine emotion he could express in one day.

 

“Enough mushy emotional crap, let’s go get you cleaned off.”

 

Even though he pretended like he hated being vulnerable with her, it was obvious that it came as a relief to him. If he hadn’t wanted to share that moment with her, he would have pulled away from her touch. She knew that, and was perfectly fine with letting him pretend like he wasn’t equally as in love as she was.

 

Angi nodded, letting him guide her out to the shop before they set off towards the nearest flooded room together.

Notes:

THEY KISSED!!!!!!! THEY FUCKING KISSED I'VE BEEN WAITING LIKE A YEAR TO MAKE THAT HAPPEN WOOOOOOOOOOOO YEAAAAHHHH

Chapter 13: Plans (CH. 10)

Summary:

First impressions are important, but they say that third times the charm, right?

Notes:

they're so straight it hurts me

“So… How do I look?”

Angi asked, standing a bit awkwardly before Sebastian, now cleaned of the blood that once covered her, although her hands and face were still a bit stained. She had originally tried putting on the suit that Sebastian had sewn back together for her, but that didn’t end up working considering that her body had changed so drastically from the last time that she was able to fit in it. He had quickly workshopped it from its original form as a singular diving suit by cutting it in half, making it into more of a two piece outfit, therefore more accessible to her new features.

 

The top piece worked almost as sports wear, Sebastian had gotten rid of the sleeves as they were too small to fit her arms, and he had cut a slit into the back down the spine so that her backfin had space to move. The collar still went up to fit nicely around her neck, since Angi used to talk to him about how she preferred keeping her gills covered, although now that may be less of a concern for her.

 

The bottom piece had been cut to fit more like shorts, the back of them having an opening for her tail to fit through just above the tailbone. The material was stretchy enough for her to still fit in the wider portions of the suit, so no major tailoring had to be done for the sections of the clothing that were kept, except for where space needed to be added for her newfound extremities.

 

Sebastian looked down at her, pondering for a moment as he looked over her. Her hair was still down and partially wet from when she had been in the water not long ago. Angi started to get a bit antsy at his lack of a response, chiming in once more.

 

“I wasn’t asking because I’m asking you to tell me I look nice, I’m asking you because I can’t see myself, Seb.”

 

Her expression seemed a bit worried, like he may have taken her words the wrong way if she hadn’t clarified.

 

“I know Angi.”

 

He said, sighing as he brought himself away from his thoughts for the time being.

 

“I’m just not entirely sure what you want me to say. You look… Mutated.”

 

Sebastian said bluntly, and rather callously considering the circumstance. He had gotten used to steeling himself again in her absence, so he still wasn’t fully back to being kind with her, even after the moment they had shared earlier in the evening.

 

“... I meant with the outfit, Sebastian. I know that I look different.”

 

Angi seemed unamused with his response, turning a little away from him. She was starting to get used to the constant lack of visual stimulus, being able to sit without sound to guide her for a decent period of time now.

 

“I feel… Like there’s not enough to cover me.”

 

She cringed slightly, running her hands over her arms, feeling where there were no longer the sleeves of the diving suit to cover them.

 

“Well, that’s just about as good as you’re going to get for now. I’ll work on getting you more clothes eventually, but don’t expect designer.”

 

Sebastian took slight offense at her comment about his workmanship on the suit, causing his tone to get a bit snappy. His mood changed as soon he heard her giggle at his quip, though. Good, she could still laugh. After everything, at least she hadn’t fallen into even more stoicism.

 

“Don’t worry about it- I can live with this.”

 

She realized that it sounded as though she was asking for more, which she quickly shut down. She wanted him to know that he had done plenty enough just by letting her live, let alone saving her life and letting her stay with him like this, after everything.

 

Sebastian gave a little chuckle, shaking his head slightly. Angi tried to follow the movement in her mind, piecing it together, albeit slowly. He reached down and placed his hand over hers where it rested on her bicep, startling her a little, even though she knew that he was right there in front of her. She quickly calmed, and Sebastian reminded himself once more that he had to be more forthcoming about his movements with her.

 

“Come on, let’s head back. I have someone that I want you to meet.”

 

Sebastian gave her a little push, slithering beside her as she began to walk. She clicked her tongue to help her see, Sebastian holding onto her hand the entire way. He felt a strange sort of affection for her in that moment, it carried a sort of somberness in his mind. He liked that he was able to help her, but the fact that she needed to be helped in the first place saddened him. She was perfectly capable, adaptive, efficient, and yet they still experimented on her. It was tragic in a way.

 

“... Who exactly am I going to be meeting? I didn’t think you were a man of many companions, Seb.”

 

Angi’s question snapped him out of it. He didn’t need to be getting worked up over something that he couldn’t change, especially when it wasn’t his tragedy to mourn. It was hers.

 

“I’m not. Still, he's a good friend of mine. You may have actually met before, if I’m not mistaken.”

 

Sebastian looked down at her, studying her expression as she looked straight ahead. There wasn’t any need for her to look back up at him if she couldn’t see him, after all. She seemed to think for a moment before her brow furrowed, seeming perplexed by the last sentence he spoke. Someone she had met before?

 

“Can you… Tell me about him?”

 

Angi asked, her ear fins twitching curiously as she racked her brain as to who he could be talking about.

 

“Well-”

 

Sebastian started, but quickly cut himself off. He didn’t want to give her the wrong impression of him by telling her of his actions. After all, if they had met before, it likely wasn’t under the most friendly of circumstances.

 

“I’ll… Just let you learn about him when you’re face to face.”

 

He decided that it wasn’t going to be his job to determine how the two saw each other. He would just allow them to interact, and then they could decide for themselves if they liked each other. Then again, if they didn’t… That was going to be a whole other can of worms.

 

Angi didn’t like the way that he was being secretive about it, but she let it slide, considering she would be meeting this mystery friend soon enough anyways. She was just going to hope that it wouldn’t be something that would try to kill her. Honestly, she wasn’t entirely sure if she would have been able to handle Stát without Sebastian’s interference when they had first met, so if the rest of his friends were similar…

 

Angi seemed to get a little tense, her ear fins flaring outwards as she looked around and clicked, trying to make sure that she was seeing the room to its fullest extent. Sebastian looked down at her with a rather confused expression, squeezing her hand gently.

 

“Are you uh… Doing ok?”

 

He asked in a tone that made it sound like he was off put by her sudden change in demeanor.

 

“It feels… A bit too quiet, doesn’t it? No entities, no turrets…”

 

She mutters as the two of them slow down slightly, looking around and listening carefully for any sort of noise that would tell her that something was coming. She didn’t think that it was going to be an issue, she knew that Sebastian could very well defend the both of them with ease if anything were to come their way, but she definitely wouldn’t want it to be a surprise.

 

Sebastian laughed, causing Angi to look up to him with a confused and somewhat annoyed expression, feeling like he was taking her concern as a joke.

 

“Don’t worry, that has to do with the friend in question!”

 

Sebastian seemed almost proud to be able to tell her that. Her eyes widened a bit, looking back in the direction that they were walking.

 

“This… ‘friend’ can stop the entities?”

 

She asked, genuinely in disbelief.

 

“Stop is a strong word, more like redirect the entities.”

 

He corrected her, taking out a black keycard just like the one that she had carried with her for her data collection runs, sliding it into a panel on the door that they were just about to pass through. Angi noticed as the door beeped and slid open that the interior of the room didn’t look like one that would be connected to Sebastian’s shop. It was more spacious, and from what she could tell with her actual vision, there seemed to be quite a few lights. Were those… Server towers?

 

“...Seb?-”

 

Angi began, but she was quickly cut off by a now surely familiar voice.

 

“Sebastian!”

 

The robotic voice greeted him happily. 

 

“Yeah, yeah, it’s me. I know I don’t visit too often, but this little meet-cute isn’t about me, kid.”

 

Sebastian smiled, letting go of Angi’s hand and instead placing it on her back, cueing her to greet the artificial intelligence. Angi peeked around Sebastian who was standing partially in front of her, trying to make herself known as well.

 

“Ooooooh~! And Z-726-”

 

Sebastian cleared his throat, giving a look to the computer that told him to fix his attitude.

 

“Err- I mean… Angi.”

 

Angi stepped a bit forward, snapping her fingers to make sure that she knew where she was going. She came up to the metal grate that made up the computer’s enclosure, focusing intently on where the old monitor sat on the desk in its own little cage.

 

“You… You were the one who saved me, weren’t you?”

 

Angi held onto the metal grate, putting her claws through the chain link openings. She tilted her head curiously, the bioluminescent scales on her face and earfins glowing in an almost pulsing manner, as if you could physically see the gears turning in her head.

 

“You mean on the sub? Yeah, I guess you could say I saved your life. You owe me.”

 

The computer chuckled, looking back at Sebastian. Really, that was more so aimed at him than it was at Angi. He knew fully well how much Seb cared about Angi, which was the only reason he had chosen to spare her in the first place.

 

Angi’s expression changed, looking annoyed and somewhat pissed.

 

“No, that wasn’t the first time we met, was it..?”

 

She reached down to her side, holding it with her hand. The scar was gone now, but she had been slashed by the good people just before she met Sebastian for the first time. That was the first time she had met Z-779. She sighed. She supposed that if anything, his effort to lead her back to Sebastian was enough to make up for the time that he had allowed her to get attacked. She didn’t need to cause a fight right now, anyways.

 

“... What’s your name? You already know mine.”

 

Her tail swished across the ground behind her, an unconscious movement that showed her curiosity and half annoyance.

 

“Painter. I don’t know how much Sebastian has told you about me, but he’s told me a looott about you!”

 

Sebastian looked slightly embarrassed. He didn’t want to admit just how much he had been thinking about her over the past half a year. She took up too much of his mind for his own good. She was originally just another prisoner, just someone who intrigued him because she was different from the average expendable, but then she was suddenly so much more than that, and he didn’t know how to handle her disappearing into thin air.

 

“I… Spoke of you.”

 

He admitted, leaving out the little details like how he was infatuated with her, or how he held out hope that she would come back since the last time that they had seen each other. Nothing big.

 

Angi straightened her posture slightly, hearing that slight hesitation in his voice. Something about those little moments when Sebastian himself would fluster would make her feel warm inside. The feeling was unfamiliar, but nice. She didn’t really understand how she knew, but she could just tell that this is what love felt like.

 

“Auuurgh…”

Painter’s voice cut through the brief moment of quiet connection between the two, his tone annoyed and somewhat grossed out.

 

“I thought you said you wouldn’t be getting distracted Sebastian… I brought her back, so now-”

Sebastian quickly cut him off.

“I’m not getting ‘distracted,’ I’m trying to help someone in the same situation as us get the hell out of here…”

 

Sebastian murmured defensively, interrupting Painter as he attempted to make his point. Unbeknownst to Angi, the face on Painter’s monitor shifted to be one of annoyed boredom with Sebastian’s interruptions and dismissal of him. Painter couldn’t pretend like he didn’t look up to Sebastian, and it would be a bold-faced lie for him to say that he wasn’t extremely grateful and fond of the guy, but sometimes he really managed to get on his robotically simulated nerves.

 

“... Like I was saying-”

 

Painter started again, not even directly addressing what Sebastian had said.

 

“Now that we’ve got all three peas in a pod, when exactly do you plan on actually getting us out? ”

 

Painter spoke of their escape impatiently. Angi turned her head back to Sebastian. Any plans of actually escaping were news to her. She stepped away from Painter’s enclosure, about to speak up and ask Sebastian about what exactly that was going to entail, but Sebastian spoke before she got the chance to.

 

“Soon. Much sooner than we thought.”

 

He said, a sense of certainty and determination clear in his voice. He looked down to Angi, her eyes wide and gently glowing, her gaze trained on him even though it had no practical use. He felt a sort of knot form in his throat, realizing that he hadn't exactly let her in on the whole escape plan.

 

“... Angi. Let’s go back to the shop for the night.”

 

Sebastian slowly reached down to her level, holding out his upper left hand and snapping with the lower, showing her the gesture through echolocation. He was finally getting his head around the idea of her blindness.

 

Angi had so many questions, so many things that she wanted to ask and worries that she wanted to express, but she simply paused in front of his extended hand, silently grateful for the thought he put into letting her know where he was. She eventually nodded, taking hold of just his clawed fingers.

 

She didn’t turn back to face the monitor, but she spoke to Painter as she prepared to leave with Sebastian.

 

“... Thank you, Painter. Genuinely.”

 

Her voice had more subtle emotion in it than Sebastian had ever heard from her while she was human. Painter let out a satisfied hum of acknowledgment as the two of them turned to leave the room. Sebastian gestured to the small walkie talkie that he had strapped to his belt as he began to slink away with Angi in tow, insinuating that he would be in touch.

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

That night, when the two of them got back to the shop and sat together in the near pitch black darkness of the shop, they spoke. Sebastian told her everything, the escape plans, Innovation Inc., how this little operation was supposed to take less than a week, and ended up being drawn out to over a half a year long stalemate…

 

And after a few hours of serious talking turned to lighthearted banter and reminiscing, the two of them fell asleep, finally able to find comfort in truly resting in each other's presence for the first time since they met.

Notes:

"now HOW is a clanka gonna borrow some coolant!? CLANKA IS YOU GONNA GIVE IT BACK!?!?"