"I'm lying to you but this sentence is technically the truth without context" is such a good trope. Like yes the way that I am spinning these words forms a lie but if you squint I'm actually not lying.
For them, you died six months ago. Flesh wounds healed but nothing else did. For you, an alien world expanded on all sides. It meant nothing without him there to explore it.
"Balada triste de trompeta,
Por un pasado que murió,
Y que llora,
Y que gime,
Como yo."
Balada de la trompeta - Raphael
Death grayed. The animal, the humanoid, the fauna, without life flowing through them, it was no surprise they neared colorlessness. The opposite came about Viltrum. Death engorged Viltrum to an overripe peach. Bigger and brighter and more colorful as days dragged to months.
There wasn't a planet anymore. Hadn't been for two months now. Viltrum was gaseous. Viltrum was pure fire. Viltrum was nothing at all.
In the early days, they searched as the ground bloomed open and magma oozed into Viltrum proper. Helmets were peeled off dead rebels, bodies were thrown into piles. You were nowhere to be found. They knew you'd be particulate, but there had been a dim hope for some miracle that you'd be whole, somewhere, somehow.
Just like you, Grayson, Sebastian, and Ollie had gone into nothing. The explosion was hot enough to disintegrate your bones, but not kill them- not by miles. Yet they were nowhere to be found.
The same way Thaedus was nowhere. The same way Thragg was nowhere. There was a theory that lasted a single afternoon- one of them, Grayson most likely, took you. But all the space suits were accounted for. Heat signatures from the battle didn't even show anyone leaving the atmosphere. Nothing made any sense.
You weren't anywhere. Not in the cruiser's debris field, not in the oceans, not scattered into the ring.
Though there was no ground to walk on or pale sky to search from, Mark searched. Again and again. Hovering just outside where it was bearable to exist. Too close to Viltrum and he'd start to blister. Staring into the fire until the shape of his birthright was burned into his retinas. When he could see nothing but light, he still saw you, burned into his mind so deeply, not even hellfire could destroy you. Too blind to fly, he'd put a hot finger to his ear and call for them.
They always came. Fetching him from under his arms, one of them at either of his sides. Markus and Gray, the only ones who understood, who saw you too when their eyelids closed.
Time could not stand still forever, there were too many colonies starving to ignore. If they could be called colonies anymore, so many of them in full-blown rebellion after the airing.
Many warships survived, imperial included. Taken off the ground by the council as Viltrum started to fatten and blister. Many things were saved. Flora, fauna, so much of it stuffed into control rooms and living quarters. Pieces of production lines deconstructed and put into another. Everything ran at half efficiency, animal populations dipped. Nothing was meant to be moved, crafted to be planted for eternity. Viltrum was never supposed to fall.
Thragg, before death, had cut off too many resources. The rebels who'd shot at your precious head, those who survived the massacre, got to live by Kregg's reasoning. "Who will provide our resources if all of our subjects are dead? Think of what you're fighting for, son."
Mark didn't have the energy to spit, 'Don't call me that.' He'd just nodded.
They were loaded into filthy squalor in the cell blocks. Mark wanted to keep them there, suffering for what they'd done. But he let them de-board on their home worlds. Left with firm words, threats that somehow felt hollow coming from his mouth. Thragg was dead, coalition leaders and soldiers dead. No danger left but the empire itself.
Mark waited, home world to home world, for them to shoot at his exposed face again. He wanted them dead, but nobody tried. They all bowed, thanked him for their lives, and promised good things. They deserved to die. For lying or telling the truth, he couldn't tell anymore.
Markus put a hand to his shoulder, "There will be others."
"Don't fucking touch me." Mark slunk back into the ship. To his rooms where he'd cry into your pillow.
Slaughter came. Often.
People thought Viltrum exploding meant there would be a power vacuum. There was not. Even with the dying colonies and the rebellions and the loss of faith- Viltrumites were still superior war machines.
Mark threw himself into rebel genocide. Alone. Despite warnings he was needed at the helm.
It was up to Markus and Gray to prevent the vacuum, because it could happen.
They called back soldiers from the far reaches of the cosmos. Stationed them where they could, but resources for wider colony recovery were slim. Returns were meager.
Unchecked, Mark killed too many rebels, beings who would have been useful alive and afraid and working for the empire; reduced to bodies.
The council worked in tandem, but even then- there was no undoing what had been done. No matter how brutally Mark slashed through the rebellions, there were always two more the next day.
Mark kept bashing his head into the wall. Day after day, destroying civilization after civilization. Crushing hearts in his hand soothed him in half-second intervals. Then the agony would return, and he was at work again.
The Coalition had never seen so many outposts destroyed. Never read so many reports of minor rebellions squashed to pulp before they really started. Size made no difference to Mark, they were all the same people responsible for what happened. They all had to die.
Mark didn't sleep. Didn't eat. Didn't come back to the ship. The only one able to keep an eye on him was Conquest. Who certainly didn't discourage excessive killing and often broke off to find his own fun.
It was easier to let Mark burn himself to nothing. After days away, as reports of killing dwindled, Markus and Gray would track him down again. They always found him bloody, tear-slick with a swollen face. Crying, always crying. When he saw them, he dropped the body to cover his face, as if the tears were worse than the cloud of viscera surrounding him.
"I just want her back." He sniveled, "I just-"
"I know." Markus dusted off his skirts.
"I do too." Gray pulled him upright.
Mark let himself be escorted. Limp and whiny as a drunk. He stayed maneuverable so long as they avoided the council. If anyone but his Grand Generals saw him they would lose him again for weeks.
Markus called for food, Gray prepared the shower, a piece of technology that had been alien to him before caring for the Emperor. Mark sat, stinking on the bed. Battle Beast's headless pelt over his shoulders. Taken from the ruins by Thula for his true killers. Skinned and cleaned and treated. And they gifted it to him. Its weight, eight whole pounds, almost slowed Mark down. The warmth, the pressure, like a hug from behind. Sometimes he closed his eyes and imagined it was you. He never took it off. The thing was filthy.
"How are you both just fine?" He asked, a fist squeezed in the fur.
"We just have to get through this." Markus said. Stony as ever, never a tear shed in Mark's presence. If at all.
"Get through what? She’s dead. It's over! We can't even use Angstrom to-" He felt the heat coming to his eyes. Mark curled into himself and squealed. "Fuck, fuck, I can't do this. How are you doing this?"
The food tray came, steaming with Mark's favorites. Markus set it beside him. "You can too." Robotic, he'd said it a million times to himself.
Mark looked up, pink as a carnation. Markus and Gray looked down at him with blotchless, dry cheeks. Not sporting frowns or faraway gazes. Flat, as paper. Only he ever mourned. They took his responsibilities off his shoulders without complaint.
And all Mark did was kill and cry. Pathetic by comparison. He shrank into the pelt and growled, "Get the fuck out."
They left without question. That made it worse. The food splattered against the door. Mark wailed.
Gray stared at the ceiling, tucked into bed but still reeling. Another night he'd go without sleep, he wasn't sure the last time he had. Every three days he was scheduled to sleep for four hours, a crisis schedule made by Markus and the council to keep them going for as long as possible. They weren't sure how long this would last. Projections said two-hundred years until they returned to previous efficiency. Gray wondered if he could go that long.
His data pad pinged. A report received from Markus. Long winded, about another supply line they'd lost. Markus was meant to be sleeping as well. He wasn't alone.
You'd been in his bed not so long ago. The longer he'd live, the more of an insignificant blip you'd be. The thought made him want to run like a child, so he got up.
Markus continued reviewing the live footage of the most recent rebel attack even as his bedroom door opened. Half of Lemo wanted to help feed the other colonies, the other half wanted to burn the grain fields. Killing them would be counterproductive; the famine was too widespread. He'd have to find a diplomatic solution without Mark finding out or they'd lose them all. He typed up another strategy for Polla. Then would do the same for twenty other outpost soldiers. Then review the handful of soldiers' reports who were trying upkeep Viltrum outreach. On and on until the rest of his hair went gray.
So no, he did not turn to greet Mark.
"The Bomlie line was bound to fail." Gray's voice. Markus turned. "Between two rebel planets, I don't know why the council insisted on so much outreach. Our time would be better spent elsewhere."
"You should be sleeping, General." He said.
Gray stood stiffly in the doorway, the same way he did everywhere, arms at his back. "As should you."
Markus returned to typing, "I can't sleep. Our titles don't mean much if the one who gave them is incoherent. We have to prove ourselves again."
Exhaustion overcame Gray at the reminder. More work. No rest. No you to relax with in stolen moments between. Words bubbled up his throat. He swallowed. A man when Markus' gaze was upon him. Without it, he felt small, unsteady.
"Did you need something, General? If you wanted to go over the report we should wait till morning to discuss with the council."
"There is something wrong with me."
Markus turned back around. Gray froze, unable to continue, unsure what he even wanted to say. But as he saw Markus tired eyes, he knew they felt the same way. He spoke, for both of them. "I can't stop thinking about her."
Death too, grayed Gray. The warm-tone tan dimmed, his sharp cheeks went gaunt, his under eyes sagged. Markus looked nearly the same, aside from the new crop of grays. "Well," his touch left the keyboard, "you loved her."
"Love is an emotion humans feel because they have limited capacities. We are above such things." It came without thought, almost natural.
Gray had not loved anyone for a long time, he had said it freely as a cria, in his mother's arms as she cooed, "I love you, Mark."
She giggled at his standing at attention. Practicing to guard something important with the most serious look on his tiny face. Father came in. Spent his time, ate his food, and announced he was needed elsewhere. Mark saluted the best he could by the door with an, "I love you." Only in these quarters was he permitted to say it. Always before Father left, an easy routine they had done for years.
His mustache didn't reveal his frown. "You're coming with me today son, only cria stay with their Mothers."
He had nodded, and Mom had smiled. She hugged him as tight as she could, "Oh, don't fly too fast, my little man." It no longer felt the same, but he appreciated the sentiment.
They kicked off from the ground. Mark tried hard to stay steady. He waited for a crumb of praise. Mother would've already given it.
Father didn't so much as glance at him, "You shouldn't say that to me Mark, save it for your mother."
"Mother says it to us." On the fringes of backtalk, he would never speak to another Viltrumite in this way, but his Father was tolerant. He had never realized Father never said it back.
"Your mother is human, of course, she loves you, she can feel little else."
Mark nodded as though he understood. He did not.
Father landed on a platform, wide and white like all others on Viltrum. But this one was so far from the surface that he had only seen it from the bottom. Mark leaned over the edge, a new perspective.
"Why do you think you're able to come with me today?"
Mark snapped back to attention. "Because I'm no longer a cria."
"Why is your mother still home then? She is not a cria." Father waited, arms behind his back.
Mark kept his face blank. Confusion and revulsion were not Viltrmite emotions, he'd been told. Viltrumites were also the only species that were cria. Never humans. Asking what mother was like as a cria had warranted a punishment before. He remembered the lesson well, "Humans are never cria. They never grow out of their weakest state."
"Yes, good." Mark's chin lifted at the praise. "You feel things she never could, this is a feeling Mark-" The breath was knocked from his lungs, unprepared as his father hit him harder than he ever had.
Father had only hit a few times, his powers were still new. Jabs before, but this was the closest to battle he'd ever been. "A human couldn't handle those feelings." Pain. Spasming muscles. Rattling bones. Mark's eyes bulged as he tried not to cough and sob. Another thing he was no longer allowed to do as a Viltrumite. Father had told him if he cried during official training, he would be as good as dead. "They'd blow apart, but you..." He almost skittered off the edge, catching himself as one leg dangled off the platform. "You're perfectly fine, even if it hurts."
Father blurred in his teary vision. Mark blinked fast, so the tears stopped growing.
"I don't love you, Mark, I can't. This is what I can give you as a Viltrumite. Show me how that makes you feel."
Mark punched him back.
Markus was silent for a moment, as though he too was reliving a memory. "Father told you that?"
They both knew he had.
"We're half human." Markus hovered toward his bed. Too tired to stand even a moment. Thighs sunk into the mattress, shoulders drooped to half-mast. Around anyone else, he'd force them straighter.
"Genetically, less than one percent of our genome is unique to humans." The doctors had told Father, shame in their voices. They wished he didn't have his Mother's eyes and lips.
"You know that's not true."
"Mother cried when she missed home and when she missed Father. I didn't understand missing a place she chose to leave, and she told me-"
"It's a silly human thing. We get older, a little wiser, we miss things we take for granted, but I'm going to live a long, long time. Probably longer than any human ever has. Viltrum medicine is... I have everything I need here. But I still miss it. I hope you don't feel that way about me when you're older. I don't want me to hold you back. That way you make your Father proud, for the both of us."
"I never felt like that, not until..." Gray sat beside him. "I hadn't considered we could love, even as Viltrumites."
It wasn't quite a question.
"I..." Wording his viewpoint wasn't something Markus had ever done. Father had done it plenty. He said Viltrumites take, hoard, and redistribute as they see fit, and they saw little fitness outside the empire. His mother was an asset as was he, and nothing more. "I think we love because we're human." There was no question he loved her. What had begun as a quest at Father's word, something he went about with complete apathy, morphed. A soft heat in his belly that melted the flesh around it. She left him dethawed. "But harder than any human can because of what we are. That's why so many of us came for her."
"I barely knew her." It was the softest he had heard Gray's voice.
"She was easy to love."
He watched Gray's face shift at that.
"I'm not a human being the way you or Mark are. I should be enraged. Where is my Viltrumite heart? I-" His lips twisted down with such a force he couldn't stop it. "What is this?"
Markus saw the first tear slip down Gray's cheek, and simply said, "Grief." Body completely still. Everything inside him packed so tightly, if he let anything slip he'd combust. One of them had to stay afloat.
"Grief," Gray repeated. He remembered your hands in his guts, your eyes teary for him, "It hurts."
"I know."
"Does it..." He swallowed, this couldn't be permanent. "When does it stop?"
"I don't know."
Gray's lips twisted in as he hunched over himself. Cheeks red and eyes squeezed shut as he tried to prevent tears from falling. He sniffled in breath and sounded like a dying motor. Pathetic. Human. He needed something good to hold onto. He reached for Markus. Gripped his forearm hard. "I don't know what to do."
Markus wanted him to let go. To walk away. To leave him to his own quiet, more dignified grieving because that's what men, what Viltrumites were supposed to do.
Instead, he pulled down the sheets of his bed. "You need to sleep."
"She's there when I sleep. I never even shared a bed with her, I never-" Gray hitched. "I can't."
"We work less efficiently when we don't rest." Markus guided Gray to lay. Not a word between them about how it was his bed.
They laid, side by side. Markus on his side of the bed. Gray on the side that would've been yours if you'd ever gotten to sleep with him. His eyes stung. When he closed them, Gray's hand on his arm, still there, it almost felt like yours.
The next morning, they escorted Mark out of his quarters. Mark couldn't be trusted to go to his office alone. Too often, he'd flee the ship to go kill something and cry about it. It'd be up to them again to pick up the slack.
They were passing through the announcement hall. Where once, they'd stood with heads in their hands and you'd watched from behind the camera. Everywhere had a memory of you. They slowed in your lingering presence, save for Markus, who kept pushing forward. "If Polla can not recuperate the losses, I will-"
The entire wall lit up with Thragg's image.
His skin had returned to him. Mustache groomed. Regalia shiny on his shoulders.
"It has been enough time, the young have grown." He said to the universe.
They paused, turned together.
Bar taps had nearly gone dry from all the celebratory drinking. Now, they paused. Mouths hung open. Months-long parties, rebel meetings, card games, marathon sex, paused wherever there was a screen. The world leaned in to listen to Thragg.
"My new empire swells with alliances. One you will not believe, even after I prove it to you. Despite its clear impossibility, many of you believed I had died at the paws of a lesser creature. I thrive."
Mark barked at the screen, "No!" Just to bark and scream and howl because his hands weren't around Thragg's throat again.
Thragg's lips twitched up as if he knew. "I am willing to share my good fortune. On account of my goodest will and intentions, I invite the hungry, the sick, the desolate, and the hopeless- to come to Talescria. The secret heart of The Coalition of Planets. Never before revealed to the public," he chuckled, "We will provide for you, and you will be safe from the feeble claws of the old Viltrum empire."
"He's- Huh? What?" Was the memo around the whole universe.
"I am aware of your assumptions of me. I have done this universe much harm, but I have come to see, there is more to this life than conquest. Viltrumites can love. This is why, with open hand I invite you to a new era of the Viltrum Empire, beginning with my wedding."
Everything was bullshit before, but the mere word 'wedding' sent Mark spiraling, yanking at his mohawk, gnashing his teeth, "What the fuck is he-"
Thragg looked off screen, batted his lashes uncharacteristically. "I have moved far ahead of myself. For it was she who has changed me, and I've done her a disservice. Age has made learning slow. Forgive me quickly, for I'd like you to bask in her radiance. I'd like to introduce you to my staunchest ally, my bravest commander, and my mate, (Y/n)."
You were there. Suddenly as an apparition. Thragg's hand smoothed over your waist. You glanced at the camera with a soft, "Thank you."
It had to be a trick. An edit.
Your eyes, as if led on a string, drew up to Thragg's face. Your whole body relaxed, save your smile, that widened. Your touch grazed his chestplate, finger glittering with the very ring Mark proposed with. Before you remembered yourself and lowered the hand, mouth closing but smile never waning. You looked to the camera, bashful in his presence, sweet as a lamb.
She'd looked at him that way, his wife, never you. Air could not pass through Markus' closed throat.
You told the universe, "The last time you saw me, I was with the enemy, though I never wanted to be. Thragg set me free. I've never been happier. All I can ask, is if you need help, come to our wedding. We want to help you first, then dance with you later. The politics can wait."
Though your hair had changed and your skin wasn't dull and your clothes weren't bland: It was you.
Mark screamed and lunged for the screen.
"We can't wait to see you there."
The live feed cut.
The screen shattered under Mark's fists. Markus let him destroy the rest of it. Beside himself. Completely hollow. If a wind passed through him, his body would whistle a tune out the holes.
Gray stared at where you'd been. And there, in the cracks of white, was his Viltrumite heart.
Six months earlier.
Fever overtook you. Romantically, you could say it was because of loss. Really, it was because of infection. Even with the rudimentary medicines and Grayson constantly tending to it- the stigmata over your ribs festered and tried to pull you to Seb.
You lived. Sweating but so cold, any remaining fluid in your body leaking from your eyes. You were a person only in segments, Grayson dribbling water and a sustenance slurry passed your lips.
Sometimes, you were a wanderer on strange worlds. Climbing over mountains with a trusty walking stick Seb found. He pouted when you threw it away, so you turned back just so he would smile. You picnicked on purple peaks. You met the tiniest, mole people. Seb made them tiny sunglasses for their blind eyes. It was all so wonderful and stupid.
And other times, you were awake.
Terrified as only the sick can be. Smelling Thragg's heat as he regrew his flesh from feet above you. Unable to do much but blubber at Ollie, trying to prod you into reaction. Only able to watch Sebastian from where he planted himself, far away, but never out of sight. Always watching back.
Then there was The Asshole.
Quiet for the first few days. Feeding himself in drips. Looking at you with that fucking face on his face. Mocking and insults, you weren't sure were fever or reality.
The fever broke on the last day. Hours before landing. You were sniffling. He was looking. And it just happened.
***
Night nine of quarantine. One-hundred-fifty-two hours after landing.
Time was different here. You should have suspected. New planet, new rotation, new schedule.
You'd been deprived of watching days and nights pass for so long on the ship. It was the only pleasure you allowed yourself to sit at the long window, and watch time pass. There was no clock, but Grayson said the days were seventeen hours. It was only seven hours shorter than an Earth day, but you struggled to imagine how they functioned here. How could you do everything you needed to do, then sleep, in only seventeen hours?
The Thraxans did that, apparently, and then died after a single season. You weren't sure how long the seasons were or how many there were. You were fed details in short bursts. Thragg ate up most of Grayson's seventeen-hour days. Always wanting for more and more details of what he did in the empire. What had changed under the Mutts' rule, what his plans were. Which colonies were rebelling that he didn't know about.
Grayson didn't tell you what he was doing with Thragg. He didn't say much at all, but you knew he was working. While you waited at the window. Your shared bedroom behind you, purple and pale tan. Plants bursting out of shelves that smelled strongly of sap. On the end table by the bed, there was a woven basket arranged with yarns of all colors. A shuttle stuck through the middle, thoughtfully placed. A craft waiting for you, but you never got far enough to discover what it was.
You just sat at the window, looking at the reflected colors. The translucent outlines of furniture and decorations. Saw only your outline and was reminded Seb was not there with you. And cried.
You waited for more to be taken from you. For the imperial ship to appear in the pink sky. For this beautiful new hell to be destroyed.
But Mark never came.
The quarantine would end tomorrow. Ten days, Grayson's recommendation. Medicine had helped with the fever, but your side was still gnarly. Your immune system was weak from the fight. The world outside was teeming with foreign microbes just waiting to take advantage of your busy white blood cells. Apparently, Viltrum had been adding supplements to your food to artificially balance your immune system and fight off foreign bodies. Another violation you had not been aware of. You had recoiled at the notion, but Grayson was glad for the opportunity to keep everyone away from you.
When the sun rose, and the sky went pink, you'd be allowed to wander the imperial halls. Unimpeded by a collar or tracker. That much you were guaranteed. Thragg had said that himself that final day on the ship.
"I've been told things about how to keep a human by your companions. Many contradicting things. I ask you, how should you be kept?" He asked.
"I don't need to be kept." You'd said simply. Beside you, Grayson's throat bobbed.
Thragg's burgeoning mustache stretched as he smiled. "So it will be."
The door, that wretched thing that often betrayed you, opened.
You turned, gave the noise a sweet smile, the same one Mark liked when he entered the room.
You were able to drop the smile, to breathe as Grayson glittered in the eve. Already, he'd tanned two shades darker. At a glance he looked the same. Still in a white and gray uniform. The cut was different, no boot, no Viltrumite sigil or skirts. Stripes across his belly and knee. Arms still out. Arms plural, because he had a replacement prosthetic. Gold, where it was metal plating, teal, underneath where it was a squirmy biological matter. The limbs had more range than the Viltrum tech. Smoother. An upgrade.
You waited for him to talk. Set the tone so you could react.
This wasn't a good setup for either of you. Grayson was waiting for the same thing. All those plans A through Z, and he hadn't considered how to act after the fallout.
Somebody had to speak. "Is that for me?"
He carried a shallow plate made of twisted reeds. On it were fruits ranging from very spiky to smooth.
"Yes." He said. Between Thragg's demands and reconstructing empire technologies, Grayson was on a constant hunt. Researching what was and wasn't safe for human consumption, touching, and breathing in. Most foods, you could not digest, let alone chew. Your palate was small, but he was trying to expand it. Afraid too much sameness would harken back to the empire's nutrient blocks.
He set the plate down on the vanity table beside your chair. He waited for you to reach for a fruit but you didn't move. Waiting for him to direct.
In moments like these, you remembered how little you really knew each other. Mark's oppression had forced conversation, but here, you had all the time in the world to sit and wait for the other to talk. Seb would've talked. Talked and talked until you told him to shut up.
You picked one up, it fit in your palm, the skin leathery, and went for a bite.
His voice cracked, a squeak that made you stop. "Here."
He pulled the skin away and showed off the meat. "You can eat the white part, don't eat the seeds."
"Well, thank you." You finally took a bite as he watched and began prepping another. You put down the fruit, so delicious that you needed Grayson to try.
You reached for the next down the line, the spikest and a pale green. He pushed a different piece of fruit into your hand, setting the spiked one back down closer to him. Your eyebrows raised, "What, is there an order I have to eat them in?"
"No, no just..." He felt silly explaining it, vulnerable in a way he hadn't felt since he had first started dating her. "I think you'll like this one the best." His fingers shifted over the spikes.
You smiled, and he felt himself get hot all over, like he was in the heat of Viltrum once again. "Yeah? Saving the best for last?"
He couldn't speak, overwhelmed by your smile, by the memory of hers and how similar it was, so he just nodded.
They'd split up at the grocery store. His only job was to find the best produce. She swore he had a sixth sense for it, so freakishly good at finding the best fruits. Really, they weren't the ripest or highest grade, they were just what he noticed she liked. This fruit, she liked crunchier, that one, juicier. He always knew which slice to hand her, which bite she would prefer.
When she was gone he'd wander aimlessly around the store. Feeling up apples and thinking to himself, she'd love this. To her grave dirt, he'd go. Sitting, sniveling, and eating apples even though he hated them. Pretending to himself he was her, and things were the other way around.
You slurped down the membranous pockets of the next fruit, cracked open by Grayson. You'd thought it was too much food, but you were hungrier than you'd thought. You set half of each aside for him to have.
"All of it's for you." He said.
"You need to eat too." Over food, you could get to know each other better. This wouldn't be so awkward. You held a piece out to him, letting him choose whether or not to close the distance. He shied away.
"I'm taken care of." Thragg ensured he was fed well during their talks. Hot broths, pickled vegetables, close to what Mom made him in childhood. Too close. Eating them made him ache with misery. Thinking about eating more made him ache again.
The conversation dropped, shattered like glass. You ate the rest, the last fruit he handed you was the best thing you had eaten in months. Your smile was better than anything he'd seen in years.
Grayson disappeared into the conjoined bathroom. You followed to rinse your hands. The Thraxans had similar arrangements in toilets and baths. Hand carved soaps sat on the shelves, perfumed, and always left behind a thin veneer of blue-ish glitter behind. It left your skin a little rough, but you smelled better than you had in months. Even under the glowing crystal lights, you shimmered while looking absolutely miserable.
Mom always kept medicine in the bathroom so Grayson did too. A pill that looked more like a teacake came out of a pot by the sink, broken up with a sharp blue prong. He held it out between thumb and forefinger.
Hands still in the running water, you leaned forward and took the pill, fingers and all, into your mouth. Your tongue lathed between his fingers. The pill was swallowed, but you both stayed there. Frozen and wanting.
You moved first. Mouth opening to show the pill gone, swallowed like he wanted. Your tongue twitched under his thumb, able to escape but keeping itself there. Tamed.
You toweled your hands. Let his slick fingers out of your mouth. You could see in his eyes like you always did, he was waiting for something. You reconnected, a hand on his, eyes locked on his lips, this was where you knew him best. He saved you, he deserved it, he wanted it.
Grayson knew where that'd lead. "It's late." You weren't ready. You were coping the only way Mark ever let you. Morality didn't stop the hot coals in his gut from stirring.
Lust's glaze went dull over your face. Rejection. Another bad feeling to add to the pile. "You don't want to kiss me?"
"I-" Grayson's throat closed. He swallowed, once, twice. Cleared the blockage, but he couldn't make himself say it. He did want you. Badly. But he didn't want to be another Mark Grayson taking advantage of your vulnerability. That he had before was bad enough. Worse, would be you thinking of someone else the whole time.
He was flushed, mouth open as he looked for words that wouldn't come. You waited for him to close the distance again, but he never did. You turned away from him. Opened a tin, dipped a scrub brush into it, and started working at your teeth.
The bed sank under your backs. Tabby stitched blanket over both your bodies. The inches between you felt like miles.
Grayson waited for you to cry. You had the first few nights, curled into his stiff statue form. He rubbed your shoulder and existed beside you, but that was all he could give. His throat closed, or you'd cry louder over his words, or there was nothing good to say.
You didn't cry tonight, hadn't the last two nights. You just stared at the ceiling. Arm reached out, resting fingers on the side of his thigh just to feel someone there. His breath caught at the touch.
He could wait for you to fall asleep as he had night after night. Just to hear the rhythm of your breathing, the same as hers. That sound the only thing that put him to rest. But he had to tell you before tomorrow.
Grayson tasted the sap in the air. Swallowed a few times before he had the nerve to say, "They're cooperating with Thragg." You hadn't asked. Tried not to think of them or the fact that they got off that ship breathing instead of ejected as corpses.He kept going, better to get it all out now. "I've requested they be kept away from you. He said..."
"They will not have quarters in the palace. I will withhold her whereabouts for now. However, they will report to me in my office. If they find her, it's out of my control, I am not here to tend to your mate."
Though Grayson spoke less like a thousand-year-old vampire. "He promised nothing."
Your lips twitched. "Did you tell him what they did to me?" As you'd told Grayson, the second night of quarantine. Just trying to hurt him for confining you again. Quarantine made perfect sense, but those first nights you were angry. His face had fell and he'd said he was sorry. You'd let him hold you.
Neither of you brought it up since.
Immediately, "No." Grayson knew by now, Thragg didn't care about rape.
You said nothing and he knew you were thinking of finding them, of doing what you thought had to be done.
"I know you want out, but please, wait for me to get back tomorrow. I want to be with you. Please." His voice cracked on the last word.
"I have powers, Grayson, I'll be fine." One's you'd been practicing on him at night. Nothing strenuous, just enough to stretch those stiff muscles. Practice didn't happen tonight. If you started, you wouldn't stop till he was eating you. You wouldn't force him. You weren't Mark.
"It would..." Markus would say 'be safer.' Gray would say 'be safer.' Mark would say 'be nice if you just fucking listened to me.' "Make me feel better," Grayson said.
He's soft to you. Always. You kept expecting a sting at the end of every word, but it never came.
You wanted to be soft too, but you just couldn't. "It's their fault the ship... Seb..." Fists twisted the tabby. "You know they need to die."
"I do." He'd thought about it, had dreamed about their corpses still at his feet, silent. He wanted it as much as he wanted you. Badly. Knowing you wanted the same thing. The dirty work had to be for him, so you could stay pristine up on your pedestal. He'd get grimy for you. Your body count would be closer to hers if it stopped now. "But it puts us at risk, we can't-"
"Then let's just leave before Thragg finds out." You'd gone from under one thumb to another. You couldn't do it again. No more evil Marks. You wanted to run but had no end in mind, just wanted to be away.
"There's nothing else." And he wasn't lying.
You looked at him, and the words jammed. "There has to be something."
"You're the empress of Viltrum. Anyone who sees you will attack you or ransom you to the Empire. We can't make an enemy of Thragg."
You knew what would happen in the empire. "Stop fuckin' crying. You asked for this." He'd say before they put you under. Control of your mind and powers hadn't been enough for him. You'd wake up without legs or hands to command or a tongue to speak. He'd force his cock into your shell of a body. Then coo against your neck, saying, "We figured it out, babe, you're gonna live forever."
Grayson had a point, but, "Fuck, it's never over, is it?"
"It will be."
Your caress turned to a hard grip on his thigh. "When?"
He didn't know. Didn't know if Thragg could even win. Didn't know if Mark would somehow ever find you or not. Didn't know if he'd get his happily ever after. That'd fix him, he thought. Without war everything could be normal again. His voice wouldn't scratch and conversations would come easier. But he was running from something too.
"Grayson?"
All the comfort he'd got after what Dad did was, "Sorry, kid," from Cecil. He wanted to be better, to be the thing he needed all those years ago, but he didn't know what to say. He had been a creature, a shadow who hunted and had no need for a voice. Now he found himself human again, his own body an ill fitting suit.
The machinery compressed Dad to pecs and a head. "You haven't come to your senses, have you?"
Grayson said nothing.
The silent alarm was going. There'd be a hundred guards in here within the next fifteen seconds.
"There's nothing for you here," Dad said. "There's no point in revenge. They're never coming back."
Grayson flattened out his palm, felt his heartbeat. Alive.
Dad's mustache twitched. "Fine. Kill me. Have no family." He expected his sweet little boy to hesitate in the windup, Grayson did not. "Cecil wants you to do this. You're being controlled by humans, again. It's your fault fo-"
"It's not your fault."
He came out the womb soft, earlier than a human should, much earlier than a Viltrumite should. A squishy, pink thing that was in an incubator for three days. Mom said he reached for her through the glass even though he couldn't see yet.
It took his body longer for his bones to fuse. Longer for him to walk, he rolled in Mom's retellings. Longer for him to ditch the baby blankies and stuffed bears. When fuzz started on his upper lip, Dad was so excited he smiled and patted his shoulder. He shaved it off. Shaved it smooth and washed his face, and did pilates with Mom instead of weight training with his father. He met her and slept with her squishmallows. He wore her favorite colors, he met her friends, he melted into a man before his parents' eyes. A human man.
"I think I wanna look at engagement rings. I know we're young, but..." Mom cried when he said. Hugged him and rocked them back and forth.
Dad stood in the kitchen. Smelling the soup he loved in a pot that he loved. Wearing his polo and khakis. So disgusted at his spawn, but he'd become the same thing. His son the reason he realized they were too human.
"What?" You asked.
"What happened," he said, "there was nothing you could've done."
They were going to go to a local jeweler next week. He was going to sneakily ask her about diamond cuts- if there was even a way to do that. He was going to snatch a ring out her jewelry box for a size.
He and Mom giggled about it over lunch just hours ago. She said she'd help pay for the wedding. She said she was excited for a daughter-in-law. She said she loved him.
She was dead six hours later. They both were.
"They didn't see it coming." Dad hovered down. Cape dark at the bottom. A strand of her hair stuck in the red. "But I wish you did." He tsked, "You made me do this."
It was something he had wanted to hear, that he had been helpless, that there were no signs he missed, and her death would have happened even if he saw them. Everyone had looked at Invincible and knew it was his fault. His fault he lost his family, his fault thousands had died. You didn't deserve that burden. He expected tears, for you to reach out. Even in his most pessimistic imagining, you just rolled your eyes at him but still smiled.
But your lip curled, "Is that supposed to make me feel better?"
He blinked.
"They made it pretty fucking clear there was nothing I could do while they raped me." The sheets snapped, you were out of bed.
"(Y/n), no, I-"
You thought about running, but you were running out of people who cared about you, who would deal with your outbursts. You knew Seb would have chased you, would have bitched back, and held you afterwards. Your legs felt weak as you sat heavily in the chair you'd spent every day in.
"It's fine," but it wasn't. You said nothing for minutes until the rage steamed off you. "I'm sorry."
He wanted to say again, "It's not your fault," so he said nothing at all.
You were both silent. You watched clouds drift in the purple sky as the day faded away. Only when the rhythm of your breath deepened did he stand and drape the blanket over you. There wasn't enough of it at your feet to cover himself with, but he lay there nonetheless.
You woke alone. Afternoon sun on your face. Same purple buildings on the horizon. Day ten. You could leave anytime you wanted. Explore whatever, wherever.
Seb would be knocking at your door by now. "Dude. Get up! I gotta show you some crazy shit." Shit he'd have already told you about, sat outside your door through all ten days just talking.
You b-lined for the bathroom. For your teacake pill.
Grayson gave it to you only at night, hoping sleep would make it so you didn't notice the high. You noticed in how heavily you slept, in how your fingers felt floaty right before you drifted off. You'd been taking crumbs of it in the mornings, hoping he wouldn't notice. He did.
It was the only way you could get through the day. Today you'd just need a little more. A third of a pill, no, that was too little, a half then, no, at that point you should just take the whole thing.
Hunched over the sink, you swallowed the pill with water. Then you waited. For Grayson to escort you around like a prize doll or for Seb to somehow come knocking.
You'd never been awake longer than an hour after a full dose. Had never felt the lightness go all the way up your arms and down your legs. Pressure relieved from the back of your skull, like you hadn't cried a day in your life. For the first time in days, you felt okay.
Star fished in bed, sheets over you, you tried not to doze. It'd be easy. With the sun on you and the sound of people outside and the food Grayson had left in your belly and-
"Isn't it nice here?" He said.
You sat up, expecting Grayson at the door. Worse, Ollie. Nobody was there. Or in the bathroom, or in your sheets.
"It's okay. It's okay." He assured, quick, quiet. Like he didn't want to be heard, like anyone could hear him but you, "I didn't mean to scare you."
"Where are you?" You rolled to look under the bed, but that was impossible, the bed was propped up on solid stone.
"It took me so long to get out of that pit, but I did it. I did it for you."
Stupid as only a high person could be, you looked under the covers.
The dark looked back. "Can you see me?" It whispered. "I'm..." Shock made you lose focus, lose the sound. You had to try to hear it again. "It's just me." You squinted, and there was something between your feet, like the shell of a rolly polly blown up a hundred times. "I miss you."
"You're dead."
"It's okay. I'm okay, just, come here." His voice didn't sound right. Less sweet, less scratchy.
You scooted backward, reeling in your legs.
"Hey, wait, don't go." Another of Baldie's lenses shone out the pitch. He was a formless dark that somehow was coming closer, you just knew it. "I forgive you for what you did. The scar isn't bad, it's just big." Something squelched.
You scrambled out of bed. "Don't go out there. The light is- Don't go. The light is going to hurt you." Sensors picked up your movement. For a solid second, the doors didn't move, you were trapped and Grayson lied. "I just want you to be safe. They're out there." The door moved to the left with a mechanical vrrrt.
The shellac walls of the hallway shone. Everything was except the plush, red rug running through the middle. Herringbone instead of tabby. A pattern no one would notice unless they looked closely, because there was nowhere else they wanted to look for fear of seeing their dead boyfriend.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't be like that. Let's start over." Baldie called at your back.
You turned, and the blankets were still. "Come back." He mewled from inside your mattress. I'll be good, I promise. I didn't mean to, please talk to me. Please, please, I love you."
You ran from the room and didn't look back.
The hallway bent into more hallways that seemed to go nowhere. Lots of windows, even more foliage. Endless turns. You wound up at your bedroom door.
"Ah! I wasn't aware you were done with your interlude." You spun to find a blue...? Creature? Insect? Person? He stood on two stick-pole legs, his arms nearly as long with protrusions coming just off the wrist. Bulbous red eyes like something out of a Ripley's Believe It or Not- scanned you right back. His lips opened, closed, opened, just as bewildered
He didn't blink (mostly because he couldn't) at your gawking, continued, "Shall I alert the Monarch?"
Weren't the Thraxans more human-shaped?
You picked your jaw up off the floor. "No." You weren't sure who that was. "No, I'm just walking."
"Do you require an escort?" He offered a two ponged claw to guide you by.
"Uh, sure?"
That's how you wound up in a courtyard. Flowers three times your size shaded the walkways. Pillars where vines crawled, reaching into the sky as arches that went beyond your sight. Stems shifted toward you when you neared, though that may too be hallucination.
Nuzlocke, you learned his name, left you with a warning not to eat anything.
For minutes you wandered. Twisting toward rustling leaves. Walking faster when shadows were too large. It was better than going back to the room where you knew his ghost would be.
"Heeeey, killer." Pollen dusted around Ollie's feet when he landed. "Love the outfit, sage is such a cute color on you."
Bones reset, outsides went back in, Ollie didn't have a bruise on him. No, he was milky in the sun. Arms and legs on display, a cheerleader's uniform on the rest of him. White and gold and gray, pearlescent like he was worth something.
Mark only caught up to the ship because of him. The man who forced his way into so many of your crevices. The man who smiled as you took in a breath. Stood there and waited for sweet, sensual violence.
"Turn around. Walk away."
Peace, for all of thirty seconds. He found you relocated under a tree, rubbing velvety leaves between your fingers. "Anything else you wanna do to me?" You opened your mouth, but that was still too slow. "I'll get you if you don't."
"Leave me alone."
Forty-five seconds this time. Enough time for you to abscond back into the halls on jello legs, hoping he wouldn't find you.
Ollie did. Laying down in the air over your head, whining, "I didn't mean like that. I meant crazier. I could adapt to being completely blind, honestly, if you want any ideas."
You took a turn. Reasoning with yourself that Grayson had to be right.
"Wait, come on, no silent treatment. Puh-lease, I've been so bored. I thought leaving would make it different, but it's just work, work, work, with everyone all the time. And Marky will barely talk to me! Like, I thought we had this big breakthrough friendship moment with me saving his life or whatever- but noooo. Then you were sick again or whatever. On my breaks, I just fly around fast as I can looking for something to do then boop- little spot of green in the garden. I knew that was my (Y/n)."
"I literally don't care." You made a point not to look at him. For Grayson. For Seb, who wouldn't want you to fuck up your freedom.
Ollie landed in front of you, hands extended, "Look, I'm sorry about what happened in the cell." Two seconds his genuine expression lasted, then he was laughing. "Okay, you got me, I'm not sorry. But! I was good! We could've been waaaaay wooorse."
"Stop talking." You left his stunned husk of a body for another hallway. Not for long. His shadow loomed back over your head, but at least he'd shut up.
The connection waned, forty seconds. He reloaded on air, aimed, fired, "You're a lil better than last time. Been working on it since we got here, I bet. You can show me a little more, yeah? Don't you wanna punish me for what I did? Come on. Come on!"
Another turn, you were back in the garden? You wondered if there was a map. Wondered if that shape under that flower was Seb or Baldie's ghost. "I'll kill you so fast you won't get to be gross about it."
Ollie did a slow roll through the air, "You don't want it to hurt? That's so mean."
"That's the point."
"How are you gonna do it? Wait, don't tell me." He landed beside you. Too close. Hand trying to worm into yours. You jerked away into a thorn bush. "Oh, poor you. Don't wiggle around too much, it'll hurt worse. You know that, though, don't you?"
You grabbed onto a nearby trunk to yank yourself out. Ollie, a voyeur to your mild annoyance. The best entertainment he'd had in days. You swept debris off yourself, huffed at the new holes in your skirts. Did anything you could to keep yourself from doing what he wanted.
"Missed a spot." A barb was plucked out of your cheek. "Oh, wait." He licked his thumb and wiped away the blood.
You batted him away with a, "Don't-"
Ollie caught your wrist, smiling. "Oh-ho-ho, shit, I can't believe I didn't notice your eyes till now. You're on exo, aren't you?" He'd learned lots of things about those pills they'd given you on the ship. By your reaction, you hadn't. "Thaaattt's why you haven't killed me. Doesn't your boyfriend know it's habit forming? And you've like, had habits."
"Let go." He did, still smiling through the command, you couldn't help biting, "Grayson knows what he's doing." You told yourself. Doubt's bubbling.
"Does he? Cuz here I thought, aw man, Robo Cop's gonna be all over (Y/n)! I'm never getting her alone again. And where do I find you?" He waited half a second for a reply you both knew you wouldn't give, "Alone. Zenned out to the point you don't want to kill me. Which is all very sweet and very stupid of you."
"He's doing important work. You're flying around in a miniskirt." Was your best defense for him. Your last bastion of a good Mark.
"First of all, it's a skort." Ollie lifted the hem and showed off overly tight golden shorts. You hated it here. "Also, if you wanna ask what I'm up to, you don't gotta be so coy. I'll tell you anyway." He floated up, crossing his ankles as if he were a cherub. Was he trying to be cute? "Like, a bunch of shit, like lots of running around, but I'm mostly combat training those stupid kids. Thragg gets so mad when I kill them in a super not fun way, so I had to stop that. Cuz who wants to kill someone's kid then get lectured about it? Are we freakin' serious? Just hit me, man."
You shouldn't have engaged, but the question bubbled up, "They let you around kids?"
Ollie's eye glittered. Finally, headway. He gushed. "I know, right? Thragg calls them the nymphs, which I thought meant he didn't really care about them but holy shit, he does. I thought since they're half-bugs and purple, he wouldn't care, but they're Viltrumite enough I can't kill them without dignity or whatever. I dunno, he's crazy, but the kids love me. Which is sweet but boring. Marky got the fun job."
Your face closed like a door. Slammed shut, locked, boarded up, at the reminder of what they had done. You started walking again.
Ollie followed with a smile, he knew it upset you and wanted more. "He's an enforcer. Same shit as before, which I thought was worse at first, but now I wanna be the one enforcing cuz I wanna kill the bugs that aren't strong enough to have kids. Can you imagine how awful that'd be, lucky you, don't have to get pregnant, but now a weird Viltrumite has to kill you." He could. Be so easy to do to you. He wanted it. Except you didn't flop around and scream tantalizingly.
You just walked slowly out of the garden. Whispers in your ear, if you focused, you could hear what they were saying. Rather to be bored or hallucinating than talk to him. Ouch.
"Oh please," he said at your back, "you know I could be doing so much worse to you right now, but I'm not. It's not that hard to carry a conversation with me, is it?"
"It's very hard."
"You can do more than say three words at a time. You know this'll be easier if you talk to me, you know what I can do." The first few days, he was satiated to explore. Week two into Thraxa, he didn't care anymore about all the colors and weird children and bug people. He wanted company that Sebastian wouldn't keep. Too moody to talk to him longer than a minute these days.
You'd be a good peace offering. Then round two would be so much fun. After, you'd all be closer. More apt to keep his company.
Except you weren't biting. "Grayson rubbing off on you already? God, I bet he has in your sleep, just hunched over you like a freak." Bite. Come on, bite. "It's true, isn't it? You'd be safer if I were there. I've been so bored without you." Where was your room anyway?
"You did fine enough when I was dead." You nipped. The sting was familiar, an echo of the old you who made Bash bust his jaw. An echo of-
"Are you gonna post it?" The photo she'd snapped of him. His arms behind his head, the city under him. Her thighs wrapped around his waist. She'd teetered dangerously during the shot, but damn, if it wasn't home screen worthy.
Gum smacked in her cheek. "She's still stalking my Insta, she'll flip."
"I can take her," Ollie said. "I mean, we've been pretty obvious. It's her fault for ignoring how you've been acting." Ollie liked saying what he really thought. Instead of GDA scripts or Dad's advice to just stop talking. With her, he could be loose. He'd never had so much fun. She liked adding on. Conversations like games, winding each other up on and on.
Two months since she'd called him over the fence. Two weeks ago, she'd made it official. Boyfriend and girlfriend, even though she was talking to Eve again. Playing multiple fields never hurt. Except when you weren't Invincible. Whatever. It was all above-board, Eve had hurt her back plenty of times.
"I mean, yeaaah." Her thumb hovered over the post icon. A bow gif on Ollie's head and a pop song on loop displayed in the corner. "She did kiss Kate at that New Year's party. I know we were on break at the time, but it was like, literally a day after. Like, let my side of the bed get cold. Fuck."
He could stop her. Keep these rendezvous secret long as he wanted. Kissing and sex was nice. She was nice. Sneaking around was a nicer feeling. But just the thought of people finding out, the public that hated him, Eve, Rex, it made Ollie's heart race. Invincible had a girlfriend. Invincible, the worst superhero around, was happier than you. Invincible stole Adam Eve's girl. Now those were good headlines.
"Hurt her back then." He ran a hand up her side, fingers threading through her belt loop, tugging. "She deserves it."
She thought while his hand roamed, thumb brushing the skin between her shirt and pants. "We should go all in then."
"How?" Ollie hummed, near dizzy with arousal. The world under them, not having a clue what they were up to.
She unbuttoned his blazer.
Gel undone, shirt open, his lips with the slightest glitter of her lip gloss. Clearly mid-moan. Eve sobbed on the toilet, phone resting on her thigh.
Ollie's phone blew up for the first time ever. Eve. Rex. Her. Celebrity scalpers who stalked friends and relatives of supes. His heart raced, faster, faster. They took more pictures. He nearly dropped her at thirty-thousand feet. They laughed at the messages. Eve's confusion in both of their DM's. Horrible together.
He came home one o'clock in the afternoon the next day. Dad waited in the living room, arms crossed. The lecture was legendarily long. "Blah, blah, distraction, blah, blah, irresponsible, blah, blah, below your heritage." He recited it to her later. They'd parrot that line back and forth. Even in his house with Dad downstairs. Back and forth.
She was dead just after his nineteenth birthday.
There was a time he wasn't so sad. Viltrum's missionaries brought him to wonderful places and told him to lay waste. Wasting was good work. Reporting, guarding, and waiting for the next kill was not. Viltrumites, like humans, did not accept him into their pre-established folds. Again, he was an outsider.
The time between good things seemed to stretch longer and longer. Until everything was a supermassive gray blob, followed sometimes by occasional sprees of murder that only felt shorter everytime.
He told a quivering Qorsnac one dreary night, "You know. I kinda wish I saw it coming. Nipped that puppy at the bud. I could've made some crazy cold cases I think. Been a real Jack the Ripper type. She'd be so scared she'd be next." He rolled the aliens eyeball between his nails. "I'd tell her nobody could ever hurt her long as we're together and she'd believe me. God. It'd be so hot. But I wouldn't hurt her, I think. Not knowing what I know now. I'm all like, hindsight. Maybe I'd get her to do it with me if she found out. Maybe I'd let her. I think that'd be fun. Good couple's bonding but, ah. She's dead like the rest of your family."
The thing tried to crawl away. Toward the muck that was the others. "You really care about them, don't you? Crying like that, it's so weird. Does it help? It just seems annoying. I was so tired of mom crying all the time that when she killed herself, I was so relieved." It stopped over its mate. Wailing.
Ollie came to himself. Talking to an alien who didn't want him there. Nobody wanted him anywhere, except to work. In that broken down den, with so many corpses, he'd never felt so alone.
-that nasty, awful girl he loved.
"Would you believe me if I said I missed you? Obviously you should. I literally pretended to trust Angstrom to see you again. Doesn't that count for something? It has to, you love pathetic guys." Desperate, he thought as soon as it came out his mouth. Badly, he wanted to hear you coo it. Call him desperate with your nail under his chin.
"Jesus, you're desperate." Except you didn't touch him. Arms tucked to body, like touching the space around him at all would infect you with cooties.
Yes, yes, yes!
"Maybe, but you know what else I am? Super, super in love with you." He tried.
"Fuck off."
He floated right over your head. You reached up, fingers curling in his hair, and pushed him backwards. Without looking, you kept walking, barking out, "Stay."
Yes!
Fabric whispered across the smooth brickwork path. "Human minds are prone to wander. I see their bodies are as well." Thragg lifted a petal out the way of his head. The reddest man you'd ever seen stepped into the sun. Fabric the cause this time, not a lack of skin. A smear of red in a sea of cool colors. A statement.
"Hey boss," Ollie turned, released by your surprise, "we're kinda in the middle of something."
Thragg paid him no mind, head swiveling fluidly despite his thick neck. Overly muscled to the point it didn't seem like it could move. "Your insights are valuable," he said to Grayson at his left, "except when it comes to her, I see."
He'd said you'd be in your rooms. Waiting. Weak. Possibly without the ability to walk so Thragg would have to wait even longer to speak to you. You, the dull figure he'd painted for Thragg in hoped he'd lose interest. Yet when Thragg looked at you, his eyes gleamed. Found treasure, twinkling under dramatic stage light. A weapon in multiple regards he planned on using.
Grayson started to pivot, "She-"
Thragg had no interest in hearing of you when you were in front of him, turning his intense attention to you. "I understand the sun rejuvenated many species. Good to better yourself than hide."
Your back straightened under his gaze. Grayson had painted a photo of him for you too. Conniving, violent, unpredictable. You swallowed, unsure of how to act.
The man before you looked utterly incapable of tyranny. Muscles rounded out, his mustache had grown back. He looked like a good neighbor. But good neighbors didn't hang around people like Sebastian, who stood at attention by his right hip. Dressed in gold and black. Arms exposed, a skirt short in front and long in back. A sort of regality to the odd cut. Even more if you considered how well he'd done his hair.
His eyes, black at pits, bore into you. Behind his back, his palms sweated and itched, but he made no sudden moves, frozen unsure if he were prey or predator.
You should say something. In your experience, sociopaths in power didn't like to be ignored. "The sun is nice." Nice one.
Thragg did not mind your jaunted speech or wandering eye. Humans were untrained in the art of proper diplomacy. As shown by Mark and his many copies. This cultural difference, he would allow for the time being. You too, would eventually kneel to Argall's five tenants.
A spontaneous "what if Mark got his powers earlier" 14 page oneshot comic about Nolan and the results of his A++ parenting.
cw: angst, physical child abuse, major character death
And that's a glimpse of Omni-Mark's origin story :3 His tv show counterpart is such an interesting case study of a Mark that was clearly inspired off of Omni-Man, so presumably he loved and idolized the man enough to don his attire... he's the most "dad-like" of the alternate Marks in that he doesn't like to swear, coaches the other Marks on teamwork and is mostly calm, quiet and reserved. But he killed his mom and hates his home? So there's some fun thought fodder there as to how that may have happened.
Anyway, this all started because I wanted to draw some Nolan and his very alien Viltrumite like way of thinking with hyperviolence as a form of showing love to your offspring clashing with the genuine and very human parental love he developed over time... I figured his heart slowly but surely got soft over the years, enough that it burst upon impact :)
The widely televised "Battle for the Heart" (as news anchors would call it) is now available in full and uncensored for media record. Let it be known, distributing for money or leisure is strictly prohibited. As The Coalition of Planets, we do not celebrate the loss and suffering that occurred in this taping. Please, be wary of the disembodied head at timestamps 21:03-21:04.
The writer and editor are now engaged!
[Invincible Variants X Reader]
[Part one] [48] [Ao3] [Chapter Index]
49 * My Dead Boyfriend [13.5k]
"I think you’re a bad man,
I know what you’ve done,
You think you’re a good guy,
Take it and run."
Run - Slow Funeral
Fifty-six paramens ago.
Him: I can provide more transcripts after I'm told about the signal.
Them: We're at risk of packet sniffing. We'll find the rest of them on our own.
Him: There are no hard copies left. I remember their contents. I have them typed and ready. They are not exact replicas, but you need them. I can make the files more difficult to decrypt.
Them: Send them.
Him: What is the signal?
Them: Send the files. If they can prove further useful in our mission and we detect no further interference, then I will speak to my advisor about telling you more.
Him: If The Emperor has found a way to view our messages, I'd already be dead. Your technology is bound to send off signals due to the way it's designed. This line has remained uncompromised, if it becomes so, I will cease communication. What is the signal?
Them: We will not risk communicating that on this line.
Him: You've risked more than enough on this line.
Them: We have other avenues of gathering information. Slow communication for now. We'll be in contact.
Him: The other "defector" on board hasn't sent anything useful and never will. He will not fight by your side. I, and my other Viltrumite ally will, if you tell us the signal so we can coordinate.
Them: You can't miss it.
Now.
The creatures came apart at the seams, but their blood didn't ease the tension in his back. Ever tight since Hydrox, tighter still since your defiance. Gray watched Thula whisk you away, gears turning about how to proceed in the aftermath. He'd side with Mark, but be gentle with you. Humans tended to lash out when emotional- Mother framed proposals as high stress. You just needed a nap and some food, simple human routine and you'd curb that issue. Gentle re-education could-
The imperial tower's rightmost spire blew apart at the middle. Chunks of its walls flew overhead, crushed corpses and corpses to-be. Gray barely noticed it, or the fire suddenly blasting out of the wound in the tower. Eyes caught instead on the glittering shards of glass from the cria tanks. The fact that even keyed-in, he couldn't hear their cries.
He was there in the next moment, an unthinking drone scanning for life. The air stuffed thick with smoke and heat, but he saw enough flying through the blasted ceilings into floors. There were no bodies left to incinerate, pack into a tube, and store close to Viltrum's core due to re-contamination concerns. Nothing but the shattered hulls, they cooed and reached for him in. Empty, aside from the ashen shadows where'd they'd once been.
Gray rose through the fire, but the heat didn't touch the ice that'd solidified his insides. He glimpsed what was left of the waddling girl and her overseer. He started to shake.
At the final floor, he found the boy alive. The top floor was unscathed save for the door that had been blasted up into the ceiling. Soon the whole tower would fall, a structure older than human history reduced to rubble. The cria, slipping as the structure began to sway, would survive. He would make sure.
Gray brought the boy to a pavilion where there was no fire. In the half second he'd gone, it'd bloomed red everywhere like a field of poppies. He didn't know what they looked like, just that Mother said the name and red a long, long time ago, and he'd felt warm and safe and slept in her bed that night.
Gray's hands slid off the boy's shoulders. "Stay here." Shadows zipped overhead. None of silhouettes he recognized. He watched them, tensed, ready to-
"Sir, there's a-"
The boy's body shattered under the mace. Gray turned a quarter second later, mouth open to tell him again to stay. Blood misted over his tongue and stung his eyes.
Battle Beast scoffed and pulled his bludgeon from the corpse. "I left the war-dunes of Tscnar for this? You, Viltrumite, prove to me the travel was worth it." The mace came down again.
Markus didn't leave the slaughter pit when the explosions started. He slowed, watched as the council ping-ponged in different directions to deal with dozens of sudden emergencies. The food processing plant, blown apart, animal breeding grounds, on fire, power production, mills of all kinds, historical relics, gone, gone, gone.
And still, Markus waited for the other shoe to drop. If he'd learned anything in this life, it was the worst was always yet to come.
The worst came as a man in a cream robe from beyond the horizon. Behind him, beings in armor with peashooters. Blue blazes shot from their backs because they needed codes and circuits to fly.
Markus could've killed them all first. Mark certainly went for it, screaming his head off and lunging into the throng of them. But Mark wasn't thinking about what was holding the guns, just the weapons themselves and how they'd ruined his proposal. Markus was stuck there too, lingering on it, so angry his whole body throbbed, but it wouldn't make him stupid. The man in the cream was pointing and ordering, flying without a pack, the commander who needed to die.
Markus had heard enough about Thaedus in Kregg's history spiels, but he'd never seen the man's face. He didn't care to make the connection as he headed for him fist first. The man started to speak in that know-it-all balm the elderly had, "You-" Markus hit him and felt the healing cracks in his bones split open. He didn't grunt or nurse the arm, just swung again.
Thaedus maneuvered out of the swing, spat a, "Fine then." Speeches were mostly a post-victory tradition in the old days, after all.
Towers crumbled, shots were fired, Markus took two fists to the back. The old man was faster than he looked, had an edge of five-thousand years too. Markus was spiked into the ground so hard he felt himself disconnected from his body, consciousness continuing into the planet's core. It'd been such a long time since he'd hurt so badly. Nostalgia was seeing his battered body and wondering whose it belonged to.
His body rolled barely out of the way of the man's heels, aimed like a spear for his head. Then it clicked; it was his body. Moving perfectly as it'd been taught, even without his mind. He snapped back into it.
Numb legs swung for the old man's ankles. Father had taught him that. A last resort only, to go low and "dirty"- it was below their Viltrumite heritage to use anything but perfect stances and strikes.
The old man was not snared. Markus was, head pinned to the ground by a knotted palm. So quickly he'd fallen apart. The pain wasn't bad enough to justify defeat, yet there he was, about to die. Too slow, too hurt, too stupid to realize Mark was planning on proposing. Lamenting was easy on death's door, he was a failure by all metrics of the word.
Thaedus wasn't exactly tickled by his thrashing. The overgrown cria hit hard, but there would be no more cria soon. No more grown Viltrumites either, after he eradicated the rest of his own species. "You believe the empire has taught you to win but they have not." Perhaps it was his old man tendencies, his impending suicide, or the fact Viltrum taught him to never do his brethren harm, but he couldn't stop the lesson coming from his lips. "You have never known victory and never will. Victory is-"
"Shut up, bitch!"
His feet connecting to Thaedus' jaw sent a shock wave up Mark's legs he wasn't ready for. He crashed and skittered through wreckage and knew by the end his ankles were shot. Which was fine, at least Thaedus was off Markus and on him.
Markus wobbled upright, dazed and coming to quickly. Mark's blurred outline zipped around the old man's. Blows connected so hard they blasted wind through his concrete-gelled faux hawk, sending the grayed strands out of place. Fighting hurt Mark the same way it did Markus, and still the little bastard was taunting, bouncing around. Pretending he didn't notice how outclassed he was as he fought for an impossible outcome. Before, Markus would have thought it was stupidity, but now he knew it was resolve.
Easily, Markus had given up. Let himself be beat down. Let himself down. Which meant letting you down.
A split moment, he locked eyes with Mark.
Thaedus tried to throw Markus off his back, who was suddenly there and clinging on hard. Without a clue of what he was doing besides digging through Thaedus' robes and piercing shallowly into his body anywhere he could reach. Dishonorable, and messy and haphazard- something Mark would've done.
The same thing Mark was doing to Thaedus' front. Wide open for the same rip-and-tear treatment. Didn't matter how much time the old man had over them both. They had something to live for- a knock-down drag out fight over your hand in marriage- Thaedus did not. Five-thousand years and all the love in the galaxy couldn't have prepared Thaedus for being shish kebabed by two clones of the royal bloodline.
The bundle of Viltrumites thudded to the ground, Thaedus no longer able to hold them up as he drifted closer to death.
Mark and Markus breathed in the smell of each other's blood. Their noses now twins, crooked and streaming blood into their open mouths.
"Find Gray." Mark said soft, words just for him and not for the corpses.
Markus went.
Mark stayed. Took in the battle around him. The council, what was left of them that Mark could see, were taking on the backpacked soldiers. Making fast progress. A pitiful army, he laughed around a mouthful of blood. How had Thragg ever thought this would destroy the empire?
A slipstream lightened the evening sky, headed by a pale twinkle. There it was, the coup de grâce, whatever the hell it was meant to be. Probably the tiny-headed fuck himself coming in for a grand entrance. Mark wouldn't allow it.
He took off hard for whatever it was.
And stopped as he heard- "Dude, (Y/n)'s not in her room."
Seb opened the closet, finger to his comm. You weren't there either. Grayson told him to go get you but, "She's not here!" Or on the observation deck, or in the mess hall, or in the training room.
Mark paused. What did he mean you weren't in your- his- room?
"Who is this?" Gray's voice cut in over the sound of a cat's hiss.
A pause on the comm line then, "Your emperor... Dipshit." The impression wasn't bad, they were the same man after all.
Mark turned around. "Yeah, that's not me. I'm heading to the ship."
Seb's hand flew off his ear. "Shit." Out of all the Viltrum tech bullshit he forgot, it just had to be how to privately comm Grayson. At least he remembered how to empty the septic tanks. God, he hated this place.
Air split around Mark's outstretched fist, then the airlock door just as easily. "Are you two together?" He slowed in the halls, scared he'd move so fast he'd tear you in two.
"Yes-" Markus took his finger off his ear so the whole planet didn't hear him get body slammed. "Busy."
"Watch for Thragg, he's-" Mark stepped into his bedroom, and you weren't there. Fine, Thula put you somewhere else, if he just checked his-
Thragg didn't wait for the ship to land. He stepped out of the airlock and onto the screen of every speakeasy and shit box across the galaxy. Onto Mark's data pad screen, the camera floating down to his side, framed by the destruction. Easily, he'd reassessed Viltrum's broadcast system. Even his off-world earpiece was dialed into the speakers that sent his word to millions: "This chaos was preventable."
Mark turned, mind in a million places. He nearly walked right into Grayson.
Thragg eyed the battlefield as if he weren't being shot at by flying rebels. "I could have stepped in at any time, stopped this from reaching our sacred homeworld."
Mark paused, uncharacteristically quiet as his mind struggled to place the man in front of him. Why wasn't he fighting rebels?
Thragg continued from his arm, "The Mutt could have too, if only he'd looked in the right communication channels, but he is witless as the young often are."
Mark knew all at once why Grayson was at his door. So obvious, he felt stupid not seeing it coming. "What do you think you're going to do, huh?"
"I will no longer allow him to let our home burn." Thragg prattled on. If Mark had been watching the screen, he'd have seen Kregg smacked aside like a sick puppy by Thragg's backhand.
Grayson shifted in the air. All he could do was float with the one leg, he looked ridiculous, raising his fists and frowning- as if he was a threat in any capacity. Mark scoffed, "Oh come on, you know you can't hit me, you forget that? Got so caught up in whatever you thought you had with my fiancé, you forgot you're also my bitch." He hit him, a pistoned punch to the chest. He expected Grayson to go through the wall, frail and easy like he'd always been. But he caught Mark's fist and twisted. Mark's own momentum sent him through a wall.
His earpiece buzzed with Kregg's voice, "Emperor, we need you out here. Thragg is here, I repeat, Thragg has entered Viltrum's atmosphere."
Mark floated out the him-shaped hole and found Grayson. The smooth, marble joints that carefully made up Grayson's knuckle, twitched. He waited for something, but Mark didn't care for what. "That one kiss you had really was enough to turn you traitor, huh? I mean, I'd go the same way. She's so good with that tongue. Good at lying too. What'd she tell you, she wants to run away with you?" He hit him again, same easy motion. Grayson didn't deserve a battle plan.
"I will no longer allow The Mutt or his father's legacy to tarnish the great expansion." Thragg.
"Mark!" Kregg.
Grayson caught it again, taking the brunt of the impact without moving an inch. Mark felt his lips curl into a snarl as Grayson just watched him with their father's eyes. Mark tried to rip his fist free, but he was trapped in his grip. "Bet she forgot to tell you how much she loves the empire, though. She has to with all the cock she sucks for it."
The floor met Mark's back. Grayson let go to swipe for him, but Mark twisted upright. Snarling, "You're a great lil employee, Grayson, really, ya are. Could let you in on the action anytime I want, because you wanna know something?" He was wide open and weak, but even at his most pathetic, it was enough to beat Grayson. Too easy. Should've done this months ago. "She would never be happy with you, she's too much of a slut to end up with only one of us, needs all the dick she can get."
Soft as a kid in church, "Don't talk about her like that."
"You can talk." Mark's fist bloomed open to a waiting spear. "Where is she, Grayson?"
False hope was better than what the emperor deserved. Grayson gave him what he did- a prosthetic fist to the face. Joints became shrapnel, metal plating blades, Mark's face an open wound. Grayson shattered to the elbow, a stump once again.
Mark wobbled back, a groan out his open, bleeding mouth. Metal stuck through his cheek, glimmering as it stabbed into his tongue.
Grayson didn't wait for him to process what had happened, that the programming he'd made to trap Grayson had been nothing but an illusion. He was just as capable as the rest of them. Subjugation a mask, the same he'd worn as Invincible.
He tore the data pad from Mark's arm and ran best a one-legged man could; through flight.
Grayson closed Thragg's broadcast and opened the control panel for you. No passcode to it at all, sitting pretty on Mark's home screen unprotected and obvious. Turning it off a single motion, no verification needed. It'd always been that easy.
Finding you was just as easy, your location viewable in the next thumb swipe. Your dot flashed beside two others. The angel started screaming.
Thick in a stupor, Mark found himself on the floor. Alone. Face throbbing. One eye swollen shut. His breath heavy and wet as his teeth clicked against a thick chunk embedded in his gums. He tore the metal out with an animal cry. Blood flooded his mouth. So much if he didn't keep swallowing, he'd choke.
Mark checked his arm for Grayson's location and found his wrist bare. He screamed.
The angel wouldn't stop crying. Telling him how badly it hurt to die again.
Twice Grayson pushed his earpiece, said a quiet command of, "Seb," and he was wired into direct communication with the useless fool.
"What!?" Seb's voice came over the universal comm line. Idiot.
"You need to get her now." Grayson pushed himself faster through the halls. The ship shuddered as Mark tore through it, smashing through the walls instead of navigating around them. "She's in the-"
Grayson had been counting on it. He pushed himself through the door instead of waiting for it to open, tore the cuffs away instead of sitting around while they unlocked.
Originally, The Asshole had been a bone to throw for information. Only in The Coalition's caginess did Grayson find a place where he neatly fit. Between plan Y and Z. Freeing him wasn't optimal, but he'd planned right for it. Fed and watered the dog best he could and hoped it'd prove loyal.
The Asshole lifted his neck and drooled out glitter, the agent fourteen vial chewed to sand. Only thing he could destroy and it was between his teeth. "Now?"
"Now."
The Asshole nearly fell onto his face. Unused to holding himself aloft. He'd better get used to a whole lot in the next two seconds, Mark was in the busted door frame.
"Where is she?" Seb said in Grayson's ear.
He wouldn't say, not in front of these two.
Mark cackled and sent blood misting out his mouth. "This is your plan?"
The Asshole was so tired of that smell. Ever present in this room. He lifted to his feet, body shaking the whole time, but his muscles held. "Eve." Was all he could say because it was all he could think about. So close he could almost taste her in his dry mouth- or was that just what you tasted like?
He couldn't remember. Too much warping and twisting and torture. He knew one thing here, in the fogginess of his cage, Eve was the light at the end of the tunnel. Really, it was the hallway light that blinded him. The emperor's throat under his forearm. Pushing, The Asshole tried to sever the man through, but Mark's meat was too gamey.
Grayson left, finger to ear.
Mark punched Mark in the stomach. Hard enough to make anyone puke, but there was nothing to puke, so he got a hot cough instead. Then teeth closing on his nose. "Get the-" Mark breathed in blood, choked, coughed it into Mark's mouth.
They snarled and thrashed and clawed wall to wall. Metal dented and went red in splotches.
Mark sent the Emperor through his cage, harder than he thought he could throw. The Emperor made an easy hole to the outside. Weak and hurting almost bad as The Asshole was.
Freedom had only been six feet away this whole time. Dirty air blasted The Assholes face. He moved toward the wind and into the outside world. Once again, the sun warmed his skin. Not much of it left, and he couldn't see it through the smoke, but the warmth was there. What little fresh air there was made him human again. Spark returned to his eye.
The Emperor shot out of wreckage to snuff it out.
"Emperor!" Kregg screamed into the comm line to no reply. "Generals!" He searched for their shapes in the smoke. Mechanical eye whirring in his skull, locking onto bodies, but none of them the right one.
Mark wasn't listening anyway, blood rushing in his ears. Thragg and his political devastation had been wiped from his mind as soon as the image of him had been torn from his arm. The war march hadn't stopped, nor the monologue.
Thragg gave no particular skirmish any mind as the creatures with nearly the same skin as Viltrum's evening sky flooded out of the ship. "The nymphs come from a race so worthless our tech has left their planet unlabeled for eons." He spoke to the universe calmly despite the threats to his life all around. He let them come just to bat them away like toys. This was his fight to win, but not yet. "Weak without my DNA. But they are better now, even as the lowest rung of abominations." They wore his red and white. His sigil. "They are beyond enough to take back my empire from The Mutt's paws." He only needed to nod toward Kregg, and a swarm of them went. "Watch them work."
You were right where Grayson said you'd be. Worse and somehow better off than Seb had imagined. "I've got you." He pressed you so close you must've felt his hammering heart. "I've got you, dude." Your blood pressed warm and sticky to his chest. "Are you-"
"I'll be fine." You shakily pulled up the bottoms. Wind a hard wall at your cheek.
Seb's stomach swirled with sick. Knowing what they'd done. Wanting to make them pay, but there'd never be time for it. He told himself so he'd keep moving. "Yeah, yeah, we'll be fine. Gonna get you outta here, man."
"We weren't done!" Ollie burst from the shattered airlock. He locked onto your retreating forms, a feral bloodhound.
Sebastian lagged behind. Disbelief all over his face. He followed. Mouth open, hissing in your scent, still pungent in his olfactories. You haunted him from his nose and mouth and deflated, stuffed away cock. Haunted when you were right there, still living. She wasn't anymore. She was gone because she hated him. He couldn't stop thinking about it. The fact solid, absolute. Coming back again and again no matter how hard he tried to think of something else.
"Sorry, I gotta- we gotta run." Seb covered your head the best he could and pushed harder. So fast you could barely catch enough air to breathe.
No way in hell was he leading these two freaks right to your happy ending.
Seb was lithe, twisting around crumbling buildings and people killing each other. Still, the pair stuck to his heels. Gaining fast. "Hold on." You already were, hard as you could, like he was worth trusting with your life. He had to earn it.
Seb shot out his forearm. An axe of air sliced a tower in half. Sent it teetering down hard for the dog's heads. Thank you, gravity training. "I got 'em!" His dad had done that move a hundred times, and he'd never been able to, too lazy to even try before coming here. Maybe he really could do this. His arm wrapped back around your shoulders. "And I got you! Fuck those guys." He veered for the shipyard.
Mark saw it all through blurry vision. Making out only your flowing clothes, the chase, Seb's whooping. It cost him another punch to the face. Pain didn't register when you were getting further away. In another man's arms, during a coup and-
You'd done it to him again, hadn't you?
They were battered, bruised, bleeding. A claw stuck out from Markus' shoulder and fur spilled out of Gray's mouth. He hadn't been proud of biting the beast, but the damn thing wouldn't go down. Only after he locked eyes with Markus did the plan slide into place. Connection between them near psychic. Gray one side, Markus the other, their fists met in the middle of Battle Beast's great, collapsible head.
Triumph. Surely the greatest warrior The Coalition had to offer, was defeated. The hard part was over, now was the clean up. After a moment's respite, to breathe and pick at teeth. Just a second, they wanted to relax their stinging bodies.
Mark's voice came icily in their ears. "She's trying to leave." Calm. About as much Mark could spare in his body. Emperor-like for a single moment before he exploded. "Shipyard! Get to the fucking shipyard! Now!"
They went.
As did The Asshole chasing after Mark's skirts. Forgotten as soon as you were on the line.
As did Ollie and Sebastian, only mildly dusty.
Seb didn't look behind himself, only ahead, but he heard their bodies singing. Coming in hot. He pushed his shoulder into his earpiece, "Which one is it? All these ships look the fuckin' same!"
Briefly, in the before when the chaos broke out, and Seb didn't know where to go- Grayson spoke in his ear. "Find the cleanest ship and wait for me." But all the ships in the yard were clean, everything was pure white, it was Viltrum for God's sake.
Radio silence. If you ignored Thragg talking, the council screaming at Mark for help in a handful of different places. But no Grayson.
Seb made the mistake of looking back. "Fuck, I don't know if I can lose them all." He looked back at you as a voice split the sky.
"Give her to me, now!"
It could've been any one of them. Each fate just as bad. Seb saw the visions on your face. Mark caught you, and it was game over. Jesus, why had he said that? "But I gotta try," he amended, "They're not touching you. I ever tell you I'm the fucking expert at girlfriend keep away? You know how many girls I was juggling, watch this!"
Kregg didn't have to punch for the children to hurt. They wounded themselves, pounding their glass-fragile fists to his face. Burst apart at the wrists and knuckles and shoulders. Brothers and sisters shared the pain of trying to kill him together. Simply, they could not. They were Viltrumite in shape and composition, but not in age. No longer cria, but still nymphs as Thragg had called them.
He only needed to slash, and a row of them came apart, even on the back winds. Like cutting through mud. They hissed at him for it, came down in a tighter knot, but it didn't matter. He slaughtered through them all. Heart aching, they looked like cria, but all they were was abominable homunculi.
Thragg piloted the camera away from Kregg and the worthless nymphs before the universe saw. Fine. He'd sent a weaker fleet for Kregg, he knew that.
The best grapes for the best wine. Thragg's personally picked favored. He pointed at the bodies lunging for the shipyard. Escape wasn't an option he'd allow. They, all seven hundred of the least violet-hued children, flew off as a uniformed storm.
The rest were punished by staying, by having to join the swarm trying to kill one man. He'd told them they could kill thousands, but they knew, joining the back of the throng, they were in line for execution. They deserved it for not making it into the favored. Perhaps if they landed the killing blow, they'd finally be seen as anything other than fodder.
Thragg followed behind, camera at his shoulder, the shot perfectly capturing the swarm. The impending impact. He turned to the camera, utterly balmy as Viltrum burned. Optics, it was all about optics. "When this is done, I will come to you and yours. I, and my full-blooded peers, will gift you all new generations of a better breed. They will never be pure, but they will be better than what you are capable of."
The skin on your hands, your face, heated. You hissed, losing the breath before you could take it. Seb was going too fast but they were going to-
"We were having such a nice time." Ollie swung in front of him, fist ready. "Why'd you have to-" Seb couldn't slow down in time. He was going to ram into that fist, and it was going to go right through you. "-ruin it?"
A flash. The tailwinds made Seb spin. He corrected before he crashed you both. The sky in front of him clear. Ollie yards away, getting further with Markus' hands on his throat.
The others would get you back safely. It'd be fine, as soon as Ollie was dead for good.
Seb lost speed, bobbing like a plane in turbulence.
An iron grip clung to his left boot. Thrashing and going faster would not dislodge Sebastian. "Get off me!"
"You-!"
His sole slammed into Sebastian's nose. Cartilage popped like the swollen back of a fat tick, blood bursting like one too. Sebastian howled, blood blew into his eyes. Stringing so badly, he swore they'd been burned away.
Blindly, he snatched for Seb's other foot. Pulled to feel a give. Lids opened, not seared away but working. In his hand was not you, not Seb's corpse, but Seb's boot lined with his skin still inside. Tendons and tissues still attached, twitching and glimmering in the light.
"Fuck!" Seb stomped him again, but the burst tick did not let go.
If he wasn't so infected, so bogged, Sebastian would've taken the whole foot, the whole leg. You, you put something in his head that made everything boil and let off thick, toxic vapor. Made him shake, made his legs go useless behind him when you looked at him with a fear that normally fueled him.
He let the boot fall. Blunted nails tore up Seb's leg. Piercing fabric and muscle. Ignoring the degloved foot that kept smashing at his face. Voice closer to a dying rabbit's than a man's, "You don't get to leave me."
He left you. Not of his own volition, but Gray's. Swooped up like a baby chick by an eagle. Taking him and more flesh from Seb's leg. Gray hadn't forgotten being gutted in that cave. He'd stayed impartial in the halls for the sake of the empire. Tried to move on, but he stayed awake in the night, dreamt of the sensation of being unwound from the inside. He wanted to return the favor.
"Motherfuckers!" Seb dipped then shot off. Mark was still coming.
"You okay?" Choked out against his chest.
"I'm," he swallowed bile, "fine!"
"Come." Mark swiped for Seb's raw heel. Missed by millimeters. "Here."
You shouldn't have looked down at him. Saw how badly he wanted to hurt you. Seb. Everything. Everyone. The longer this went on, the worse the inevitable would be. Because he always won. No chance in hell you got away. You were weak and-
Behind him, a cloud of pale purple. Battle cry like cicada buzz. A chance in hell.
"Mark, stay!"
Like a bowling ball to the chest.
He went straight as a pin. Fought hard as he could for the two seconds you could keep him, but it was enough. Seb gained distance, and the kids gained ground. The connection snapped as they swarmed him.
Sebastian had been right, saving it for Mark was the thing to do.
Seb laughed from his belly. "Suck on that, dipshit!"
He curved down, eyes on the ships. They blended together into a perfect, colorless nothing.
"I had to order something for them to get here." You said wispy as a dandelion in bloom. "It'll be a-" Your head dipped. "Space ship."
"How much blood did you lose? Of course, it's a space-" Out of all the identical ships, one was nearly without windows. Built like an eighteen-wheeler. No, like a freighter. "Oh, oh! Ship."
The Asshole nearly had Mark until he was whisked away by a screaming ball. Then all he could see was you. Less than half a second, gazes met.
Stomachs dropped like you were seventeen again. The sky dim and fires flickering, you both slow dancing on your apartment stoop the night he stood you up. He thinks you're good for him. You think you finally found something good.
The next moment comes like cold water to the face. "Stay there!"
The Asshole went stiff. Dropped half a football field before he caught himself. Gasping and terrified. Off balance as a newborn calf, as he'd been after your first kiss, as he'd been when he realized it was you at Machine Head's side.
That's what you were going for, right? To disarm him? To bring it all back to rub salt in his wounds? Fuck you, fuck you.
He hurdled for you. Fists in front of himself for that extra inch of speed just to kill you faster. He wouldn't tell Eve about this. About anything that'd happened. He'd lay on her thighs and weep and tell her nothing because she'd frown and hiss, "Mark." With all the disapproval in the world. Your staunchest defender. He just needed her voice, even imagined to call to him sweetly. But as long as you existed, he only heard yours. Let the disapproval come.
Seb wasn't wounded enough that he couldn't dodge a starving man. Though it sure came close. "Jesus!" He nearly spun out again. "Where do they keep coming from!?"
The Asshole rasped, "The cage where you put me."
"What the fuck?" Seb chanced a glance back, "Wait, is that your ex? How the fuck did he get out?"
"I have no idea." But no one heard it, carried away by the wind.
"I didn't do shit to you man, you're looking for the guy with the mohawk!"
Seb (whose name he did not know) was right, he hadn't done shit. They all could've been like the Robot, petting him and feeding him like he were a stable mare. "I don't care." He shot for Seb, swung with claws for nails. Missed. "This is her fault. She-"
"Go away."
Blame was washed away. He was nothing but a husk. Turning away from you and floating off in a dreamy stupor. Going no particular way, just away from you.
Seb let out a breath, "Holy fuck, dude. Thanks." Out of fear of looking too relieved to be saved, he said, " That guy looked like he was like, gonna give me something. Ya'know?"
"Just get us out of here."
"Yes, ma'am." Seb landed.
He hammered his fist to the freighter door, "Hey, we're here!" It did not budge. "It's us, the spies, let us in, man." Knock, knock. "Hey, Coalition? We're on your side." Knock, knock, nothing. "Oh, shit do you think we need a password or something?" He thought for a moment, hard as he could, "Password!"
Nothing changed.
Sebastian had gotten loose from Gray's batting. He held himself together at the stomach but ribbons trailed behind him. Headed straight for you. Oblivious to Gray at his heels. Getting his hands on you mattered more than surviving. Getting his hands on you and... and...
The connection stretched until it held no more. The Asshole was coming again.
"I lost him."
"How much juice you got left, dude?" Seb watched them come, knocking on the door like an idiot.
"Not a lot."
"My turn then, huh?"
Grayson was there. Suddenly and with blood dried between his remaining knuckles.
You were alive. The angel quieted.
He hovered, a pillar between Seb, The Asshole, and the feral, gutted thing hounding for you. He turned to The Asshole, said gently something you could not hear.
The Asshole lost momentum in a tumble. Then he was a bullet, re-chambered and shot for Sebastian. They collided, a snarling mass. Ripping and pulling instead of punching.
Grayson linked to the overhead announcement system, via a button by the door frame. He said something in an alien language, and it opened.
"Thank fuck you're here, I would have never guessed that."
The ship sat in the middle of an empty room. Bootprints painted the floor while the cruiser was shiny. Body sleek and ready to cut through Viltrum's sky.
Grayson stepped inside.
"They're just gonna follow us, man, we won't make it." Seb said, following him anyway. Gray following all of you.
"We can't stay." Space Racers gun was either about to blow or the shot was coming.
Except Gray, without an opponent was gaining, Markus was coming to, Ollie's limp body dropped the second he could, and Mark was clawing out of the ball. "Get her. That's a fucking order." They obeyed. Coming in fast, not to cradle you, but to tear you from Seb and freedom.
The cruiser hadn't opened. Maybe there was no pilot inside. Maybe you'd come all this way for nothing. Be better if you'd bled out in that prison cell.
Mark burst from the lilac cloud, but he was red all over. The favored fallen.
"Casualties are expected." Thragg narrated, hovering slowly over the circling vultures. One himself. The only one not squawking and panicking. "They are young. Inexperienced but only a modicum of Viltrum teachings even with their flawed DNA has made them make The Emperor bleed. I can admit, he is a strong boy."
You eyes were dragged away from your coming doom by Grayson holding something out to you. The ear piece for his communicator. You opened your mouth to ask what he was doing but when your eyes, clear and confident, you knew just what to do. You turned your head and he pushed into your ear with the ghost of a smile.
"Huh? What's going on? I can't hear them if-"
You interrupted him, "I'm not talking to either of you, okay?"
Spit flew off Mark's lip, "I've killed millions- fuck, billions- of people for you, you bitch. You really think I'll let you go? You-"
"Stop."
For half a moment, you had all three of them paused mid-air. The moment was long enough to actually get closer to the cruiser, for Grayson to reach the control panel and shut the door of the freighter.
"Oh shit." You heard Seb distantly.
Snap.
Mark landed through the roof. Needing to be the loudest, the spectacle, the one you looked at. Shrapnel around his feet, in his hair, shiny specs in the nook and crannies of wounds on his face.
Markus and Gray followed.
They landed, an unbroken front assessing the situation. They didn't lunge further. Wouldn't with the immanent threat of death at your throat. Seb's hand open like a blade. "Back the fuck up. I'll lop 'er fuckin' head off if any one of you fuckers move."
"Shut up, we know you won't do it." Mark smiled with all bloody teeth. Fingers flexing for a throat to squeeze. Yours if he had the chance.
Calmer, though with an edge you'd never heard from him. "Put her down." Gray.
Seb didn't budge. "You really think I give a fuck about this stupid broad? Few lies here n' there and she invites me to piss off. Not hard to get 'er to like you if you treat 'er nice." He nodded, "Get the door, dickhead."
Markus didn't bother with words. Seb was beneath him, always had been. He looked to Gray and Gray looked back. Another killing akin to Battle Beast it'd be.
"Markus, Gray, I know you both can beat Mark." You said, throat bobbing against Seb's hand. "You don't have to kill him, I know you're friends but just- fuck. Come with me."
Markus paused. Gray hesitated. All they had to do was turn, punch together. This whole mess would be over.
"He hits hard enough but..." Thragg descended slowly through the freighter's new sunroof. The remaining favored followed, waiting for orders. He didn't spare them a glance. "Human DNA twists far too much. It's left his faculties inept. You can tell by how easily the empire has folded in his hands. He is not worthy of his lineage, he is worse. A scourge."
Mark laughed, "You think they're gonna kill me? Do you know what that'd do?!"
Betray the empire. Leave all structure. Create a universe ripping power vacuum. No more safety, but, no more Mark.
"You-" Mark shook. Dug his nails into where his data pad used to be, only to find skin. "-Ungrateful fucking bitch. I gave you everything."
Perhaps it was the blood loss, or the emotional exhaust, or maybe, you'd just gotten that good at playing victim- but your next words came out in a quiver. "Please. Please, come with me."
Mark opened his maw in a snarl. Stepped forward.
"Stay the fuck back!" Seb pushed his hand closer to your neck.
Quietly, Gray's voice came to you. "Your plan was foolish, this would never have worked."
You knew it was coming, Gray had always been loyal, but hearing it made panic well up in you.
"Markus!" Wouldn't look at you, another betrayal he hadn't expected. He was scared he'd kill you again.
Rejection slid between your ribs and slit your heart. You hitched but did not stutter. You were used to Mark Grayson disappointing you. You screamed, "Look at me." Eyes, all remaining four-hundred pairs, turned to you. Your traitorous boyfriends and fiancé, barely connected. You pointed to them, "Get them out of here!"
Like piranhas in a feeding frenzy. They came as a wave, crashing down before Mark was halfway to you. "Bit-" The swarm cut him off. The floor shook violently as they were carried away by the riptide of nymphs.
Grayson finally bypassed the ship securities. The pilot had locked the doors, unwilling to let you in with the emperor still so close. He didn't care what she wanted.
The Asshole watched the nymphs make a hole out of the freighter door. Through it, he caught a glimmer. A mirage, he thought, but it didn't leave like Eve always did. Escape was right there, and they were taking it without him. He left Sebastian, a pulpy mess in the sky- the both of them.
Sebastian chased until his ears sang. Then he was falling. A distant thought that he should start flying, but he couldn't do anything beyond thinking about it. He tried to move his body to the hole in the ship everyone had entered, but he slammed into the roof instead.
Ollie wheezed beside him, "Hey, buddy." Together again by pure happenstance. Fate, in Ollie's mind.
Sebastian spat out chunks of his own flesh and blood, they didn't taste a lick like her buttery bone marrow. Swallowing down pieces of her, of you, would fix the problems. All of them. He couldn't do anything but lift his head and watch.
Thragg let the camera follow the storm of his children. He signaled for the group to split and capture the rest of the runaways. They paid him no mind, throwing themselves at the Mutt and his generals like he didn't exist. They had known nothing but obedience their entire lives, failure of blind subservience led to death, and they knew it well. This was something beyond their control, something he would remedy himself.
Thragg landed on the bridge up to the escape cruiser's hull. Uncaring as the fruits of his labor were shredded limbs at a time. There were only forty of them left in a second. The camera lens caught it all, but that was okay. "The nymphs have little experience or pedigree." Thragg mused, "The Mutt has much more and still, he struggles against them."
Seb's hand lowered from your jugular, "Can we uh... Get past, dude?" The dude was old looking, but Seb learned by now, the older, the harder the ass.
"Dude, that's Thragg!" You hissed from his arms. Grayson was still in front of you, trying to find the next right move.
Thragg didn't budge, yammering on, "A few years time and their siblings that come after them will be unstoppable. This is only the first generation of the new empire, and already we reap great rewards."
You weren't going to be trapped in another empire.
"Hey! Hey! Look at me." You waved. Some of the nymphs turned head, easily drawn by your voice, even with their personhood revoked. "Attack!" You pointed, and the few that looked, went. Hands scratching and grabbing at their own father, though they had called him such.
Blindsided, Thragg watched you escape through the flood of subordinates, the children not even looking as you passed. Your eyes met through the flurry, and he knew his next target.
You disappeared inside the ship's heavenly light.
"No." Sebastian's small intestine unfurled under his belly as he elbow crawled toward the hole. Voice small and so far away from himself, "No, don't..."
"Don't move." Ollie said, closer. When had he gotten closer? How could he still move with so many broken bones sticking out his skin?
An arm squeezed under Sebastian's chest. "We won't."
Ollie didn't have much strength left in him, Markus had played too rough. Hitting the roof hadn't been a kiss on the head either. Despite the pain, he dragged them both slow as molasses. Moving hurt too much. There was the normal weakness that came with pushing himself too far, his body begging for him to cum and drift off to sleep.
The cruiser opened around you. Teal and orange inside with puffy seats and neon screens. Straight out of a fifties sci-fi movie. The one thing out of place was a white box. Package slim and discreet as a customer could want. The rebels didn't have to deliver on the order, but it sure was fitting to send a cock to the empire as a last gift. Except the soldiers actually doing the fighting didn't want to see the package and think about what the emperor would be doing with it, if they were to fail- so here it went.
But you didn't know that. You wouldn't know till later.
Seb let out a breath, "Sorry man, you're not stupid. You're smart and hot, and I do give a fuck about you. Like, a lot. 'S why I-"
"Hold onto somethin'!" The pilot said. "After this door shuts, we're outta here!"
Hands grabbed rails and throttles as the door began to close-
The Asshole landed inside the cruiser with a thud.
"Dude, fuck off!" Seb kicked him in the stomach. The Asshole hit the shut door and slid to the floor. "Wait, open the-"
The cruiser shattered out of the freighter's front. Everybody inside leaned hard and had to pull themselves harder to keep straight. Faster than anyone but the pilot thought it'd be. Less than three minutes and you'd be a blip on Viltrum's radar.
Silence fell over the engine hum. All of you tense and waiting for the wild animal to lunge. The pilot's grip was white knuckled on the driver. Too many Viltrumites on her ship, more than she had been ordered to bring back.
The Asshole broke the silence, "You." He peeled himself off the wall, crawled toward you on heavy, prowling shoulders.
"Back up." Seb shifted on his feet and almost slipped on his own blood.
You gathered power in your throat.
Grayson shoved himself between you, "You're fast enough to kill her, but not both of us after. Don't you want to see Eve again?"
"She-"
"(Y/n) distracted the emperor so I could get to you. She's been trying to help you for months." Lies came out smooth as buttercream, curdled in your stomach just the same. You thought he was going to die in that ship and you'd never have to think about him again.
The Asshole's- Mark's eyes softened. That plump bottom lip you'd sucked on as a teenager, opened. Shut. The hardness returned. He didn't look like Mark anymore. He looked like Markus. Like Mark. Like Gray. "I don't give a shit."
"We're a few days' trip from The Coalition stronghold," Grayson said. "Once we're there, you never have to see her again."
Mark's toes flexed. Gripping because he needed to. Already so tired of being upright, his body wanting to return to the kneel he'd been trapped in for months. "You tried to leave me."
"There was no safe way to get to you."
"Bullshit." But he let his body drop anyway. Blood-caked and reliving every soft face he sheered in half. What would he tell Eve? How could he go be a Father after that? He collapsed into a chair, knees throbbing and wanting to bend shut, but he forced them to stretch, to accept his new reality out of the cuffs. And he wept.
"You said Angstrom was coming, not him." You wiggled in Seb's hold.
Seb started, "Hey, stop, you're-"
"Put me down." It was over. Lot of snags in the way, but it was over. You were done being swaddled.
Your feet hit the ground, you swayed. "Whoa, hey, take it easy." Seb steadied you by the shoulder as you pushed the still bleeding wound shut.
Pain made you snap, "Really? Fucking Mark? What happened to the plan?"
Grayson pushed out a sigh, "Angstrom didn't make it."
"Didn't make it? So what he just-!" You gestured to Mark and saw a ruined mass of man. Empathy struck your righteous ass down. He couldn't help you get away like Angstrom would have, "Just keep him away from me."
"We won't let him do anything."
Seb nodded, "No way, dude."
Wa-bump!
"What's-"
The ship groaned and teetered sideways, your feet slipping out from under you.
Thragg slaughtered the nymphs first. With their viscera in his retinas, he found the camera and faced it. "I've allowed this to devolve too far, trusting the young too much often does that. I have learned my lesson. I will wait for them to grow a while more before moving forward. It will not be long but, while I wait to fix you-"
Mark tore the last teenager into two. The ship in the sky getting smaller. All Thragg's fault.
"-I will do this inexorable favor of killing The Mutt and his pups myself. Come to me, you creature, come and die."
The universe watched Grand Regent Thragg get ripped to shreds in high definition. Too fast for most species to process. In the hours after, the recording was slowed and analyzed. First, they speared his gut in three separate places. Then they ripped him. Tore the flesh and fat right off his front in long ribbons. His face came apart in their hands, mustache first. Only scraps were left, one eyelid still blinking as he aimed for the Emperor's head.
The Emperor took Thragg and threw. A giant baseball aimed for the ship. He missed. Thragg was a glint in the atmosphere then gone. The camera followed his image just as he'd programmed it to. Until the camera hit space and its weak propulsion left it uselessly spinning. Recording stars, then turning back to show Viltrum's scorching body before returning to the stars.
Days after, debates on thousands of news networks. "Viltrum's long thought dead Ex-Grand Regent Thragg is dead for certain this time... or is he? Shonni, tell us what you think."
The newscast lady pointed a green antenna toward the footage, "I can't agree with the general consensus, Smim. If we compare Viltrumite to human biology- which is the closest species anatomically- we can assume damage to the heart is enough to kill. But... There is no way they pierced his heart. Look here, they angled too low. He's hurt, recovering for sure, but that Viltrumite is not dead."
"Oh yeah? Where is he then?"
"Well, we can't assume anything."
"He's an ice cube! If anyone watching is doing some intergalactic travel this week, keep an eye out for Thragg's body, contact-"
But that was a million miles away and days from now. Now?
The cruiser struggled to gain speed as it left the atmosphere. Perfect calibration thrown off by three hundred extra pounds on the ship's left wing. Without calibration, the cruiser couldn't cruise. The pilot cursed, tendrils working overtime on multiple keyboards, and screens to try and get you going.
Ollie clung to the cruiser's wing, Sebastian held to his side. He looked at you through the port window and smiled big.
You tensed in Seb's hold. "What are you doing? Fly!"
"I'm trying, but Beauty's a delicate girl!" More fumbling.
"Open the door! I can get them off!" He said.
"Can't guarantee I can get you back in once you're out." The pilot veered the thruster hard to the side. "Best I can do is rebalance this thing with their weight and deal with the consequences later." The ship started to tip to the other side.
"Just go, we can't be sittin' here!"
"You think I wanna be a sitting starmink? I don't exactly wanna crashland on Viltrum." At Seb's silence, the pilot said, "I got it."
Mark flew harder than he ever had, but his bones seemed to liquify and settle in his feet, his head like a balloon from the pressure. He pushed harder and only seemed to get slower. Fine. That was fine. The impossible task of catching up to the escape ship was possible now that it had nearly stopped. Still, he pushed harder for the ship, vision blurry at the edges. Tears.
"Sirs!" Kregg's voice in their ears. "We've received a report from the warship. The infinity ray's heat signature has been picked up above your location." He was flinging the last of the children off, trying to go, but they just kept grabbing onto him. "They've been distracting us!"
Mark tore the earpiece out and let it drop. The quiet made him faster, let him fester in the burning anger consuming him. Markus and Gray did not peel off his sides. Satisfaction swirled in his gut but, "I fucking got it. Go."
If he didn't have it, he wouldn't order them away, Gray thought. Mark knew what he was doing. He went.
They'd be quick. Deal with one problem, then solve the next before the minute was up. Markus thought. He went.
"I need half a paramen!" The pilot said. "Then we're gone."
The ring of white-clad corpses hung over the ship. Casting a shadow that left Ollie as a cancerous lump on the wing. You couldn't see his smile but you knew it was there. Same as the cold gazes, millions of them staring you down. 'How dare you leave?' Their faces said. 'How dare you leave this mass grave of a place- of a relationship- behind?'
"I just want it to be over." You told the bodies.
Snap. Your neck went cold. You turned to him, his sunshine of a smile, and felt the warmth of it on your cheeks. "It is over," Seb crushed the metal heart of the collar in his palm, "lil hiccup doesn't mean shit, we're out." He let it fall and tumble under a seat. A weight lifted.
"I'll have everything that's tracking our locations deactivated before we leave the solar system." Grayson was already working on it. Sat in a chair with Mark's data pad balanced on his leg.
"You can smile now." Seb huffed a laugh, "Wow, that makes me sound like a dickhead."
You were an emotionless slate, saying, "Just a little bit."
"There's my girl." Seb turned you around. Grip soft, gaze softer, "Missed you, toots."
The slate cracked like your lip to cheek, "Don't call me that." You laughed, once, curtly and it was enough.
"How's about beach babe?"
"Still a little nineteen-seventies misogynist, but you're getting better." You leaned in, dreamily light. Dopey because it'd be okay- after you got twelve or so stitches, but that was a later problem.
"Misogynist? You shoulda heard the shit me and Rex would call girls. Wha'dya want me to call you then? Main squeeze? Man, that's also shit. Girlfriend doesn't really work that well into the end'a sentences like babe does-" You cringed. "-but I don't think I'm a big 'babe' guy anymore. What about, oh fuck- fuck- you're stepping on my foot." He hopped half a step backward, raw toes in the air like a cartoon character.
You laughed, and fell forehead to his shoulder.
"Ougghh, it's not funny, that shit really stings, like, all my nerves are out!" He played it up to keep you going.
"Sorry, sorry. I just- I can't believe we didn't die out there." You shook with laughter.
"Hey, me too, man." Then so did he. "It's kinda like, ludicrous. Holy shit, I've never said that in my entire life. I think the empire did something to me, dude."
"Me too, man." You kissed him.
Grayson's cheek twitched, but neither of you saw. Too wrapped up in celebrating together when you should've been kissing him. Why hadn't he just died?
You pulled off Seb's lips. Said into his skin, "I really like you."
"Wow, I help you escape, and I go from being liked to really liked... High standards, got it. Guess I gotta bust my ass for-"
"Something's coming in hot. Brace!" The pilot shouted down the hull.
Wha-bump!
Two dents pushed into the closed ship door. The whole cruiser shook, but didn't stop.
Mooaaannn.
The door cracked open at the top, pulling down. Air hissed as it escaped. Oxygen replenishment systems groaned into overdrive. The crack widened, you saw smoke on the skyline. Widened until you saw the raging red dot that was Mark's flesh-wound of a face. Mohawk slick and fanning out as the air whooshed out of the ship, out of your lungs.
"You're gonna regret this."
Wider. You saw Mark's shoulders now, flexing to the point of stringiness.
"I don't know what I'm going to do to you yet." He said, voice tamed into raspy calm. It was a lie. He shook at the idea of ripping you apart. Wider. "Come here, and I might be good to you."
Seb held you so tight it hurt.
"I said, come here." Mark had the door wide enough to plant a hand on the inside and start to pull himself in. Everything he touched smeared burgundy. "(Y/n). You don't want me to hurt you, right?"
"Leave."
If you'd just been without the collar a little longer. If you'd just trained, you'd have enough left, so close. Close only counted in horseshoes and hand grenades.
He laughed, wet and more crazed than he'd ever been in the desert, "You want me to hurt you then? Is that it? I can hurt you more if that'll make you stop ruining everything. Do you need that baby?" He was inside to the hips, bending the metal around his fingertips.
"I'm not her." You were shaking. "I never wanted this!"
He grinned at your terror, "I don't care."
Seb had been relieved, really, he hadn't had to fight Mark. Sure, he'd pumped himself up for it for months, but when it was going down- Seb was closer to shitting his pants than punching the emperor in the jaw. He'd been glad to run. He wanted to now but-
The look on your face, as if nobody could save you.
The others surely couldn't, untrustworthy and weak and watching from the ship's wing, down to two limbs- then there was Seb. Unscathed compared to the others. But he was the weakest link of them all- isn't that what you thought?
No, no that couldn't be what you thought, because in the half second before the void of space tried to yank you out of his hold- you looked at him.
Rex turned to him. Body flying backward, neck twisted from that hell of a punch Eve threw at him. Crying already because he knew he was about to die. Could feel the heat of the pink spear about to pierce him. He decided to look at Seb. Not to beg for help, because he knew it was too late. Seb was too far away, still smashing through those stupid walls she put up- and there was no time for help. But because he just wanted to look at him.
His sweet, stupid, useless little soldier boy that he half-hated.
Rex smiled for a second. At him. For all the people who wished him dead, finally getting what they wanted. For himself. Free of the rotten killing work.
After, he gasped like a dying carnival prize goldfish. Of course, he didn't get a clean break. Of course, he had to sit and wait to die while Seb cried over him and tried to fix the unfixable. And fuck, it hurt so bad. Not the wound, adrenaline cleared that, but the collapsing of his lung, the suffocation. It burned and made him all wormy and pathetic.
"Shh-shit," he managed between blubs. The only thing Seb could do was cry louder, redder.
"No. No bro, you'll be fine. I just gotta-" Seb fumbled with his pockets. Wasn't there something he could use in there Dad told him about? Agent something?
"I know what's happenin', ma-" Rex coughed out a lump of himself.
Eve wielded another spike over her head, ready to bring it down to smash on Seb's back. It'd do nothing, but she had to try for the resistance. Sick to her stomach about Seb's turned back. He wouldn't look at her. Accepted whatever would come because the worst already had.
Power fizzled to nothing in her palms. She left them.
"It's- it's not that bad, man- you're good. You're gonna be-"
Clarity. Like a crystal blue cloudless sky over a grassy field. Rex didn't know why he thought of that, but he did. Grass, oxeye daisies, the sun.
"I should've kissed you." Another cough. Rex didn't taste the chunks, only felt their weight on his tongue.
"Wha-"
He could see it. A difference if he'd just leaned in all those times. A better apartment, real part-time jobs, and hiding from Seb's shithead Dad. It'd all go to shit anyway, but those years living paycheck to paycheck could've been good. Not a dime of going out money between them, so they'd get into hiking. Tall grass on their shins, buying long white socks to spot ticks, bug spray. The sun hot on the backs of their heads, their hands together.
Rex lived it in seconds. Wanted more, greedy greedy. He tried to close the inches between them, feel the dream upon his lips.
"What are you doing? St-stop moving!"
Rex didn't. Chasing the feeling because he couldn't feel much else but fear and a need for this. He curled up and reached. Breath on Seb's mouth, their skins so close. The spike shifted, blocked or popped or ruptured something else, and he fell back.
The sun. Bright. Warm. White. The whitest thing there ever was, so white, there was nothing else. Not even them. And Rex Sloan was too, nothing else.
Not again. Never again. He couldn't stand by and watch anyone else die.
You were shoved into Grayson's lap. His one arm immediately locked over your belly.
Oxygen roared out of the hull, but Seb's voice came so clear. "I think I could fall in love with you stupid hard, ya'know? I'm probably gonna fuck it up. I already have a lot, but I'm gonna fix it, okay? I'm not running from this-" Hair blew over his eyes, all you could see was his crooked smile. "-just takin' care'a you."
Seb lunged. Took Mark and himself off the ship's ass, spinning toward Viltrum.
The hull door slammed shut. Oxygen levels equalized.
"We're good!" The pilot pushed the driver, "Let's go!"
"No!" You tried to stand, but Grayson kept you down.
He felt the wetness warm his arm. "You're hurt."
The ship started to move. For a single instance, you saw them out the ship's back window. Then you saw nothing else, the cruiser too fast. Your getaway too clean. All because of Seb.
"We can't leave him there!"
"He can catch up if he kills him quickly." Grayson hoped he wouldn't.
He was the most afraid he'd ever been, but Seb didn't stop punching. The two of their bodies an asteroid returning to Viltrum, getting further and further away from you. Much uglier than the shot from the infinity ray that Gray and Markus were too late to stop.
Nothing to say between them, just pure honesty in their fists. Seb's hit harder, thwack, and a tooth popped out of the fucker's mouth. Rolled down his shredded emperor's clothes and spun toward Viltrum. By the time they touched the ground, Mark would be dead. Then you'd really be free.
Mark hit him back. Desperate. Swearing. Seb felt none of it. Nothing at all.
He smiled.
Alone with Grayson. Not alone. With Mark. Sebastian. Ollie. Not a real friend between all of them.
"We can stay close." You begged, "He'll get lost. The other's will find him, they're-"
"They'll hurt you if they find you." Grayson finished.
"Markus and Gray won't." was logical with blood loss to turn to the pilot and demand, "Stop the ship."
The ship stopped, but not at the pilot's command. She couldn't do anything, crushed in the crash that sent everything backwards. Grayson twisted, took the brunt of the force, but you still reeled. More from your throbbing head. Squeezed dry.
He stepped out of the brand-new black hole that was the cockpit. The reddest man you'd ever seen. He looked upon your feeble resistance and said, "You have something I want."
The Asshole lunged. So afraid he ought to piss himself, but there was nothing in his body but the fear.
Thragg swung out an arm, slamming the boy into the wall in one motion. The Asshole rag-dolled to the floor. Skin hung off him in sheets. Bleeding so much, a pool was forming at his feet even as it was pulled into space. He paid the agony no mind. Nothing mattered, not even the remaining five nymphs stood behind him, loyal drones despite. But something did matter, one lone thing.
"Will you try as well?" The skinless man asked Grayson. Even pulled apart at the seams, his voice stayed softly poised.
"Are you taking us to your cloaking ship?" Grayson said back. A new plan made. Risky. High chance of failure, but it was all he had. "I've been trying to track you for weeks. The scanners haven't been able to find you at all."
Pale pink muscles pulled into a meaty smile. "So not all of you are foolish. Good. Give the human to me, and perhaps you'll live." He held out a raw paw.
Grayson's hold tightened. "You can have us both. I am no friend to the Emperor, they won't find you without me." He shouldn't have waited. Should've known another horrible thing was coming. The angel's silence should've told him that- why hadn't he listened?
"Very well." Thragg spun around, said over his shoulder, "Bring them to me."
"Alive?" A nymph asked.
"Did I say otherwise?" He was nearly to the black hole when he spotted them on the wing. Ollie's eyes closed, but his grip still strong on the wing and Sebastian. "Fetch them as well. Bring anything valuable. Go."
He disappeared into the black hole.
The teenagers came for Grayson, but he floated on his own. Two stuck to his side, fists ready for funny business.
You could only be carried along. Mind a blur. Too terrified to speak over a whisper, "What did you do?"
"This is our only option." Grayson stepped into the black.
Lavender steel, screens with flight paths, unmanned seats, apparated around you. You looked back where your escape ship had been and only saw black. Through it, stepped the teens with their captives. The hole closed. Some sort of door or closing field that warped reality itself.
"Shall we get them to the tubes or save it for you, Grand Ruler?" Asked the boy, who looked no older than fifteen. Ollie slung over his shoulders.
"Only the weak rely on such technology, remember that, boy." And yet Thragg couldn't remember the nymph's name. He hadn't earned that even by surviving. "Put them where I can see them." He floated to a raised platform and sat heavily upon a high chair overlooking the cabin. Cold metal pressing to his open wounds.
The others were deposited in chairs too small for their bodies. Legs stretched long, arms hung limp, but they breathed. Grayson fit without the extra leg to take up so much room. He kept you on his lap. Heart a jackhammer.
"Don't keep them alive, they're useless." Said the half-limbed thing. Said it, while cradling a human so preciously.
"I did not see useless creatures in them," Thragg said.
"They're more useful to you dead, I promise."
"I thought that about these people at one point." Was all Thragg said about that. He flicked fingers toward the windshield, "Set a course."
The children obeyed. Scrambling in the lowered control deck. It'd be much faster if there were more of them and the best of them with the ship's controls, Zynia and Luoth and Freigg and so many others, were all dead. Only the slipperiest remained, the ones always at the back of the pack. But they lived, so perhaps when the next generation came, they'd be the new heads. Fantasies of recognition kept their hands moving, though grief stilled the hemolymph in their systems.
Nobody spoke. Thragg's body pulsed. Healing slow. The skin wouldn't return for days. Days where dust and cold air would irritate his sticky tissues. Hubris had to hurt so he could learn. Not to be bested a third time by a mutt that should've been extinguished in utero.
"This thing is, ahaha, still, haha, on?"
Thragg lifted his palm from the armrest, a perfect print where it'd been. He pointed, "Enlarge the broadcast."
A nymph tapped at a tiny square and swiped.
Mark's face took up nearly the entire window, wet as a newborn. "Of course it fucking is." He laughed. Everything about him stained. His hair, his teeth, now crooked and gaped, his thumb print on the camera lens. "Are you watching this, baby?" He turned his ear to the camera like he could hear you say yes back. You said nothing at all.
Behind him, a purple spear had struck Viltrum through. But Mark didn't care about the infinity ray that'd slowly tear Viltrum apart in a matter of days- because planetary collapse was anything but quick.
His dying planet didn't matter. What did was a small list comprised of you and a thousand different ways to make you pay.
Mark turned back to the camera, nodding with a close-lipped smile, "Mhm, mhm, good! You see this?" Something was shoved into the camera. It took a moment for the lens to adjust because he was so pale that he glowed. Nearly bloodless.
Seb looked like he'd won, face unscathed, just a misting of blood over his mouth.
Lips apart, like he'd just blown out smoke. Eye's expectedly glassy, looking at some faraway point. Like he was high and thinking about reaching out to you. But how could he with no body to reach with. He hung from Mark's fist by his overgrown slick-back. The loser.
Somewhere on the cracking ground, his body lay. Knuckles busted open, foot raw. He'd been running for such a long time, but now he was utterly still, only his heart moving as it pumped blood into the dirt.
He'd just been right next to you. He'd just been holding you. He'd just been smiling.
Grayson reached to cover your eyes, "(Y/n)-"
You escaped his hold, swayed for the screen, told it, told Mark, Seb, "No."
Mark smiled like he'd heard. "Yeah, you fucking do. You like that?" He pulled Seb's head back, then pushed it forward just so it'd grotesquely sway. Sway it did, a leaf in breeze, like his hair in the purple water of Ka'thala, yet when you held his cheeks, he'd been solid, immovable. "This is what you wanted, right? Don't pretend you didn't know what'd happen if you left. You knew." He shook Seb again, stained the camera red with his splatter. "Every second you're gone is you begging me to kill Markus and Gray. I'll do it for ya, baby. I'll find them right now. Let's do it live on camera, doesn't that sound nice?"
You turned to the nymph with fingers on the controls. You didn't even hear yourself say it, "Turn the ship around." You had to kill him. Had to kill him right now.
The nymph furrowed a brow at you. "Your word has no meaning here."
Not even enough left in you to control one of them- whatever they were.
"Or, or, or- you turn that tiny little ship around, and you come to me." Mark was moving now. Everything was a blur, but he kept the lens trained on Seb's head and the streamer of flesh that flapped out from his severed neck. The speed made his mouth drop open. Made his eyelids flutter. He looked mid-orgasm. Supple, sweet.
Horrible. You'd never seen something that'd made you feel worse. Never had tears come so quick. "Kill him." You said to anybody who'd listen, but the power fell on deaf ears.
"I see you," Mark said beyond the frame. "Good girl, stopping the ship. Wait for me."
The lens followed Seb's eyes as Mark took off to your abandoned ship. Half lidded. Calm, cool, collected. They belonged behind sunglasses. They could've been, if you'd just gone with him the first time. If you'd just- you'd just-
Grayson turned you away from the screen, but you pushed and screamed and clawed. "Don't fucking touch me!" He pulled you into his chest, kept you there despite your fighting. His skin felt like Seb's. His shape. His warmth. You were sick with the realization you would never feel it again, and clung to him all at once. Screaming like Mark was hacking you apart the way he'd done to your boyfriend.
Did it hurt? How long did it hurt? Did he regret it? Did he hate that he died for you? Did he-
Grayson said, "Destroy the ship." The last place Seb had ever kissed you. "Mark won't look for us if he thinks she's dead." Everything tracking you was offline.
Thragg watched dots move on his chair's inlaid screen. Three of them, coming in hot for the stopped ship. None of them yet realized it was stopped because it'd been smashed into by an invisible ship. They'd find out if they came closer.
"I want him to know I have her." Thragg said.
"We won't survive that now." At Thragg's narrowing eyes, he said, "Give us time."
"Us, so presumptuous." His teeth gleamed, somehow smiling without lips or skin. "Do it."
The imperial vessel was piloted away from the cruiser. Pulse beams charged faster than you could blink.
Markus didn't know what he'd do when he got on that waiting ship. He just knew he had to get there before Mark. Stop the inevitable, though Mark didn't announce it. They were the same person. He'd thought the same thing, felt your betrayal like her neck breaking in his grip. Harder, he pushed for Mark's heels. Pushed so maybe he could be the first aboard.
They failed the mission. Viltrum was dying in agony. Gray couldn't stop that, but he could stop you from leaving. Holding you, in turn, would stop the slithering feeling inside him. A feeling he'd only realized was lurking in him when you'd tried to convince him with such human conviction. He'd train it out of you. Effective immediately.
You could still hear Mark screaming as you sobbed into Grayson's collar, growing quiet in the vacuum of space as he got further away from the camera. Grayson destroyed the data pad.
The beams on Thragg's ship too, were undetectable. Heatless. No warping light. Just seemingly nothing, and then the escape ship wasn't a ship at all, it was an explosion that sent all three of them backwards.
Mark's fingers flew open. Seb escaped in a slow roll. Past the camera, past the ring of bodies, into the abyss. Never to be found. Forever wandering space, a nomad, just like he'd always wanted.
The wreckage fell and burned. Pieces too small to contain your body. You were the flaming pieces, fizzling out before they hit the ground. You were the ash carried in the wind. You were the smoke in their noses.
You were memories. You were things left behind. You were dead.
Actually, you were a thousand miles away already. Listening to the hunka-tunka-tunka of this new ship's engine. Beside, outside, inside yourself. Sobbing, blabbering, but you felt everything leaving you fast.
"I know, I know." Grayson rubbed your back.
Hunka-tunka-tunka.
Five thousand miles. Grayson convinced Thragg humans needed medicine. A needle pushed into your flyaway flesh.
Hunka-tunka-tunka.
You didn't feel it. You didn't feel anything at all.
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