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The Expendable had beaten him. They had broken P.AI.nter, and when he went to get his revenge, they came prepared. Using an improvised weapon, they managed to get in a lucky shot and send it right through his lung. Through Mr. Lopee’s intervention time and time again, they had managed to chase him until he was losing consciousness, breaking him all the way. He’d tried to fight back at first, he really did. His teeth and claws showed no mercy, but his body was giving up and they always came back good as new. Turrets, back under NAVI’s control since Painter had been neutralized, seared more holes into his scales in his desperate flight to a safe place. He knew he wasn’t going to make it, but he didn’t want the Expendable to have the satisfaction of ending him. He lost them eventually.
Dragging himself into one of his vents, smearing blood all over the sides in an effort to get his body to cooperate, he made his way into the spot where he had made the most progress in his escape plan. With some of the last of his strength, he flipped the table holding the radio. Research he would have once considered valuable smashed beyond repair, but it held no worth to a dying monster. He thrashed violently on the floor in a fit of impotent rage, grieving for the life he’d had and lost long before he lived this one.
It took quite a while to finish his tantrum, given that he was bleeding out with a punctured lung. When he finished, he simply flopped back into the corner where he used to sell things, claws gouging into the floor as tears welled up in his eyes.
No. Don’t cry. Crying means you give up. Crying means they’ve broken you. There’s nothing to break. Not anymore… I want to go home. I want my mom. I want to see the stars again. Please.
Sebastian clutched weakly at the drawer leg sticking out of his chest, before deciding that it would be better not to pull it out. He’d suffered enough, what was a little more? He made himself as small as possible, tail sliding into a position that made him appear almost childlike. Closing his eyes, he waited for the darkness to overtake him. He was interrupted by a quiet tinkling sound.
His third eye opened to see a pair of ghostly apparitions. One of his mother, and one of a younger him holding his guitar, the human Sebastian. He strummed. Well, strum was an understatement. The chords mingled with the waves of fire that spread up his body and the screams that escaped him with every breath, until he couldn’t tell which was which anymore. Yet his eyes remained open, locked onto his mother’s face. Her face, unsullied by his lack of memories. She reached out towards him.
Holding on by a thread, Sebastian fell more than moved towards her, driving the leg deeper still into his chest. That didn’t matter anymore, though. Mama would make it all better.
“Mom… I’m tired.” The apparition didn’t speak, but rather moved towards him. “Can I sleep in your house tonight?” She knelt down, reaching to cradle his head in her hands like she had so many times before. He cringed from another painful strum before leaning into the touch. He didn’t remember what it felt like to be held with such tenderness.
“Mom. Is it alright… If I stay for a year or two?” She smoothed his hair back, nodding silently. Sebastian spasmed once, twice, body wracked with agony. He cried out again, more desperate this time. “Mom.. I’ll be quiet… It would be just to sleep at night.” If he shut his eyes tight enough, he could pretend that the last twelve years didn’t happen, that he needed some help with finding a place to stay. “…And I’ll leave. Once I figure out… how to pay for my own life, too…” His ghostly mother’s hands, always so gentle, ran across his cheeks, wiping away the tears that flowed freely.
Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth as another strum made him cry out. “Mom? Would you wash my back, this once? And then we can.. forget…” His eyes opened slightly, drinking in every detail of the face he hadn’t seen in over a decade. “..And I’ll… leave what I’m chasing… for the other ones to pursue.” It took everything he had now just to keep his eyes open, let alone to speak. But speak he did. “Mom… am I still young?”
The initial trickle of blood had grown to a puddle on the floor, and Sebastian could no longer feel anything. A halo of darkness was closing in fast at the edges of his vision, so he chose to keep his eyes trained on his mother’s face. He spoke his final words in a ragged whisper. “Can I dream for a few months more?”
Then his vision went dark, the strumming faded out, and Sebastian Solace died.