Author's Note: Hello everybody, it's been... a while... Listen all the things I've been working on are still getting worked on, promise. HOWEVER, I got a little inspired by Doom: The Dark Ages and this was the result. The beginning of a little series ooo she's doing multi-chapters now! Yes. Yes she is, so that hopefully I can grease the wheels for my bigger projects.
Title: All the Freedom We Can Hope For
Word Count: 5276
Relationship: the Doom Slayer/fem!Reader
TW/CW: Blood, Gore, Torture (physical & psychological)
The world fell out from under you. For a solid few seconds you had sworn youâd just died and almost accepted it too. Everything was weightless, an utterly blank void. It was not the worst afterlife, you supposed, given the unfortunate knowledge life had gifted you. Hell was real. Viscerally, terrifyingly, real. And in the name of survival you had signed up to tamper with it. UAC offered shockingly competitive rates for new hires, painted a pretty picture of life amidst the stars providing infinite energy for humanityâs future. Like many gullible, optimistic, fools before you, youâd fallen for it hook, line, and sinker. In all honesty it hadnât been horrible. Samuel Hayden was the genius he was made out to be. But he was also a ten foot tall, metallic, bastard of a man. As a menial cog in the machine though, you didnât see him often and suffered his condescension even more rarely.
No, you were a humble lab tech, firmly beneath his and Olivia Pierceâs notice. You had been fresh meat to throw at old problems, things veteran staff were too smart and far too scared to do themselves. Things like fiddling with artifacts from literal Hell.
At first you had been thrilled to get a pay and prestige bump from the invite to shadow a Lazarus Lab researcher, one of the more personable senior staff even. Now you were fairly certain that if you ever saw your lovely boss again you would wring his neck and dance on his freshly-dug grave. Whatever demonic rock heâd had you blast with concentrated argent energy had caused a blinding flash of light that left you in the yawning void, but fate could never be content to leave your unlucky self so unbothered as that. The abyss had spat you through what felt like an inter-dimensional roller-coaster, gravity stretched and warped what felt like your very atoms, lights flashed and blurred past you at speeds you couldnât possibly catch. Hellish red, sickly green, icy blue, they burned even through your eyelids as you clenched them and tumbled to god knew where. When you were thrown from a portal, it was into solid stone. Into what youâd learned was called Argent DâNur, a planet populated by an ancient warrior race embroiled in a battle against Hell that had raged for centuries.
The Sentinels, as you'd learn they were called, pointed spears of pure energy at you and shouted in a language you didnât understand. You had gracefully and promptly vomited your meager lunch onto the floor and fell unconscious. You awoke hours later in what seemed to be a medical facility of some kind, bound to a bed but unharmed even as they started to interrogate you. To say you were shocked they spoke English would have been the understatement of the century but you were informed that your unceremonious entrance had not been a first impression, it had been the second. You werenât the only unlucky human hurled through time and space to Argent DâNur. Once the Argenta had firmly determined you were no threat to them, they had been kind enough to inform you that another human had suffered the same fate as you many years ago. One they had simply deemed the Doom Slayer as heâd never given them a name to call him by. He didnât sound human from what they told you, but the little flicker of hope in your chest just couldnât let the idea go. Maybe you werenât so alone after all. Maybe you could figure out a way to get home with him. Or at the very least have a companion to suffer with.
That former had not happened. The latter, on the other hand, took on an entirely different meaning.
It was rather slow-going learning the Argenta language but youâd become reasonably fluent, sharing knowledge of your home and history that the Slayer had not. Several of the Sentinels found it, and you, fascinating. Fascinating enough to tell their otherworldly patrons, the Maykrs, about the curious new visitor to their world.
Once again you felt as if youâd been suckered, but King Novik and commander Thira had been nothing but sincere to you, they couldnât have known what they were walking you into. If theyâd known what awaited you. If theyâd known what awaited their former comrade, theyâd have turned their guns on the Maykrs then and there. Of that you were certain. The Night Sentinels were honorable, proud, people, above something so duplicitous and cruel as lying to you for so long. Perhaps that was woefully naive to think but... They wouldn't. They wouldn't have walked you into this if they knew? Right?
Right?
The Kreed Maykrâs ship was perpetually cold, built with only the armored forms of his kind in mind and not your damnably fragile human flesh. At the very least he had deigned to allow you to keep the clothes Thira had gifted you, which luckily included a heavy, fur-lined cloak. Now your only barrier against the frigid cell youâd been thrown in. There was a palpable disgust that the Maykrs held for you, almost none of them would even look at you let alone speak with you. The only reason they kept you around was that you had once again been unlucky enough to be deemed useful.
For all they cared you were nothing more than a sobbing, screaming, bargaining chip fit only to keep their newest and most unruly beast firmly on his leash. You would never forget the first time you saw him, the Slayer. A towering behemoth of green armor and an untamable killing instinct that almost suffocated the air around him. He hadnât been there when the Kreed Maykr took you, but he had returned just in time to see the aftermath.
There was precious little you knew about him, and less that you understood, but even still it didnât take a genius to figure out exactly the kind of rage seeing you in the Maykrâs clutches had kindled in him. They kept him in his own cell, a barren circle with layer upon layer of fail-safes and kill switches, not even the freedom to pace like the animal they treated him as. But the second heâd heard you, you had heard a terminal somewhere in the room start to scream.
It had meant nothing to you at the time, a background hum as your ears rang. These⊠things were not benevolent patrons, their very presence reeked of ill-intent and malice, but you didnât have your Argenta allies anymore. They had been ordered away, and while Thira had done so reluctantly, she had clearly wanted to. So there you stood, alone, terror rising in your throat like bile.
The air was still and tense, drones milling about unaware or uncaring for the steadily boiling panic in you. You clenched and unclenched your hands, fingernails digging aching crescents into your palms before you spoke, âI donât know what-â
The Kreed Maykrâs many eyes snapped to you, âI do not remember having bade you speak, human.â He said it like it was some kind of a filthy word, something he could barely stomach even leaving his lips. Immediately your shoulders flinched upward, voice quavering into silence. âYou will not speak unless spoken to, you will do as instructed,â he loomed over you as he continued, âor you will learn quickly what disobedience earns you if you do not.â
A shaky nod was your response and the Kreed Maykr drifted away, absentmindedly waving a hand. âHave her brought to the other containment cell, we shall see if the Khan Maykrâs hypothesis rings true.â
Instantly you were seized by the arms, two drones flanking you and wrapping their odd, tentacle-like, arms around yours and pulling you backward. It was instinct alone that made you dig your heels in, fear that chased a watery cry from your lips. You had no possible idea of what they wanted from you, there was no way they didnât know you were just a normal human. Unremarkable in every way except blindingly bad luck. The limbs twining around your own coiled tighter as you struggled, every animal part of you screaming that wherever it was they were taking you would be the last place you ever saw. You wanted off this ship, you wanted Novik and Thira to come back for you no matter how unlikely that was, you wanted your life back. âI just want to go home!â Your shriek was answered only by the drones twisting your arms behind you, the pain of bone and muscle being torqued and ground pulling a sob from you that finally broke the dam and sent tears down your face.
SLAYER MOVEMENT DETECTED
Finally your eyes snapped to something that wasnât the Maykrs. That floating cage came alive, more screens and alarms blaring as the Slayer dragged one foot forward. His single step echoed like a canon shot and sent all the drones into a flurry of motion, even the Kreed Maykr flinched and shuddered. Massive turrets unfolded from the walls, whirring to life as each barrel primed and prepared to fire on the Slayer.
You couldnât even blink staring at him. Your heart seized and he wasnât even looking at you. No his eyes were on Bishop Kreed, still suffused with that unnatural golden glow, but locked on like a predator about to leap. One of the drones poured more power into the gravity cage, slamming the Slayer to one knee but failing to pin him completely. Electricity and argent energy arced from the core on the ceiling down to his armor halting his stubborn attempts to stand again. He was going to kill himself at this rate. Your lips parted to speak but nothing escaped, just a panicked, stuttering, breath as a cold barrel pressed to your forehead.
The Kreed Maykr spoke and time slowed to a crawl, âthink very carefully about what you do next, Slayer.â
Beads of cold sweat joined the tears dripping down your face, you dared not even move, eyes still locked on the Slayer. He turned to you and still you couldnât parse anything but the haunting glow in his eyes, but after a few long, agonizing seconds, his body relented. The gun retreated from your head and you sucked in a breath, heart pounding in your ears. Watching the tether reassert control over the Slayer was horrifying, like somebody pulling puppet strings on a human body. His movement was too smooth, almost mechanical, muscles relaxed and placid where seconds ago theyâd been straining to what looked like the point of pain.
The drones promptly dragged you away but youâd caught the very last thing Bishop Kreed said.
âMy how promising indeed.â
You were, as it turns out, a very effective insurance policy. Bishop Kreedâs⊠assistant? Minion? Advisor perhaps. Whatever he was to the Bishop, he had told you in the few meager conversations youâd had that your purpose here was to keep the Slayer under control. Or at least be used to do so. And such use typically involved no small amount of pain on your end.
It wasnât necessarily a frequent occurrence, but it didnât matter how rare it was. It was excruciating. There was a balancing act the Maykrs struck between near-irreparably harming you and keeping you just alive enough that the Slayer had no choice but to keep playing along. It was humiliating. There was a nonstop video feed of your cell projected on the screen in his. If he so much as breathed in a way they didnât like, they would do something to you. Be it physical or mental harm, depriving you of food, rest, or warmth, they would do it. And without fail it would snap the Slayer back into their perfect little soldier.
You couldnât possibly know how long youâd even been locked away. Days? Weeks? Time ceased to mean anything, the lights were always the same, the temperature was always the same, it felt like they gave you food at completely random intervals. Sometimes you swore they forgot you were even there. Youâd lie on the floor for god knows how long after the latest session of torment, unthinking, body teetering between the waking and unconscious worlds. It ached, everything ached. Even the frigid metal of the cellâs floor couldnât ease it anymore, couldnât reach the agony that had burrowed into the very marrow of your bones.
Part of you wished one day soon theyâd finally go too far and outright kill you. There would be no saving them then. The Slayer would rip the ship to pieces with his bare hands and grind the ash under his boots. But there was still a stupid, stubborn, part of you that hoped against all hope it would end some other way. Maybe Thira would come back for you. Maybe something would go wrong and you could escape. Maybe. Possibly.
âLike all of your pathetic species, your purpose is to die for your bettersâ
You just laid there. Unmoving. Barely breathing. Why even try? Your eyes burned, but no tears escaped, your body stubbornly clung to what little water you had. They were hollowing you out. Day by day. piece by piece. To everyone who had ever known you, you were dead, obliterated in an unfortunate but necessary lab accident. A briefly grieved stepping stone in humanityâs march toward infinite energy. Part of you wanted to laugh at it now that you knew what argent energy was, at the absolute destruction Hayden was courting. If he knew, he was a moron, if not, simply a fool.
A fool and a genius who couldn't see past his own ego long enough to realize that what he had was a monkey's paw and not a golden goose. Each finger curling as your species asked for more and more not knowing the costs that would inevitably come calling.
You had to stop that train of thought, it never led anywhere good. Flashes of the terrible monsters that lived just beyond the gossamer veil of reality. The demons that the UAC was knocking on the door of. Right on Mars. Right next to Earth. If they-
You slammed your own forehead against the ground hard enough to make your ears ring. None of that. Think of something else, anything else, anything besides how doomed you and your people were. You closed your eyes. The golden light still pried at your eyelids, unchanging as ever. Groaning, straining against myriad healing and new injuries, you turned yourself into your back and threw an arm over your eyes. At least a facsimile of darkness. A place where you might pretend.
Retreat inside your own body, your own mind, go somewhere they canât follow you yet. Was it pathetic to pretend you were just sleeping under your desk back home? Maybe, but you didnât care. For just a moment your wheezing breath seemed to ease, body going even a little slack as you let your mind wander. A phantom of a memory snagged you, your little wireless speaker. A much cherished part of your workspace, a tiny island just for you amidst the hustle and bustle of the labs. Music. God you missed it.
Before you could stop yourself, before you could think better of it, your lips were moving. It was quiet, off-key, and cracked under the weight of agony, but your voice stumbled along the beginnings of a song. Whatever you could think of, you barely even registered it, but something in you felt lighter. Maykrs didnât seem to have music, this ship and its crew seemed so sterile, above useless things like amusement and art, it seemed. So this was something all your own, something they couldnât take from you even if they ripped your larynx from your body. You would have memories. Your home lived in you. Even when it hurt.
As your voice petered off, you felt the needle on the record in your mind skip and skip and skip. Why? Your throat protested the shuddering, panicked breath you sucked in, cold air rasping all the way down like broken glass. Why? Again, the burn in your eyes reminded you there was nothing left in you that your body was willing to cry out. A sob wracked you anyway. Your voice sounded tiny even to you as you whimpered, âWhy canât I remember the rest?â
SLAYER MOVEMENT DETECTED
Your eyes snapped open, arm flying away from them and pushing you up to stare unblinkingly in the direction you guessed he was in. The alarm set your heart racing, like it was clawing at your ribs.
RETURN TO COMPLIANCE OR BE TERMINATED
He was fighting them again, and your mind tore in two directions. If he could get out, he could save you, even if he couldnât do that he could save himself. At least one of you could be free. He could deny the Maykrs so much. A vengeful and bitter flame in you sang at the idea. The idea of a victory, even a Pyrrhic one, nearly brought a mad giggle out of you. But the other side wailed and cowered at the idea of being alone, of being hurt, punished on his behalf as a last wound to a man they seemed to know they could never fully control.
The Slayer didnât know you. He seemed to care in an abstract sense about you, didnât want to see you hurt because of him. But there was no way heâd keep weighing that against his freedom and keep choosing you. He had no reason to. He deserved to escape, people needed him, he was someone who could help in ways you never could. The Slayer had suffered like this for who knows how long. He needed to take his shot while he could.
RETURN TO COMPLIANCE
âGet out of here,â you spoke it into the air like a prayer.
CHARGING PLASMA CANONS
Another sob tore through you. âDonât you dare look back either.â
PLASMA CANONS PRIMED. THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING
You felt something rattle the very ship and a manic smile pulled at your lips. âRip this place apart, tear it out of the sky!â It hurt to yell but it felt so good.
The ship-wide comm crackled to life as the Kreed Maykr screamed, âSomebody shut her up!â
That finally ripped a full laugh out of you. It tore its way up from your stomach and out. The walls shook again. You howled like a maniac, falling back to the floor, fingers digging into your hair and covering your eyes to hide what you were, against all logic, sure were stubbornly welling tears. Seems there was something left in you after all. âI hope he gets you first, Bishop Kreedâ you hissed his name with force that shocked even you. âI hope you beg like I did!â
The door to your cell flies open but you couldnât stop even if youâd wanted to, âI hope he doesn't listen, just like you did.â
You were dragged up by your collar and something struck you on the head. The darkness was almost instant but you remember grinning like a lunatic nonetheless.
When you awoke you were somewhere else, a different room, darker and smaller. Taking stock of yourself you tried to push yourself up only to realize you were strapped down to a table. Panic doused every nerve in your body and you jostled against the restraints only to freeze as cold air slithered down your back. Your bare back. Like a trapped animal, your head whipped every way it could looking for some way to escape, somewhere to even hide.
âFinally decided to wake up, have you?â The Bishopâs voice only chilled your blood further. âI should have you peeled apart, piece by screaming piece.â He finally floated into view, looking more haggard than youâd ever seen. A little satisfaction was a small balm on your frazzled mental state, the Slayer mustâve escaped, that would explain this level of exhausted anger. âI should kill you, but I wonât. I have something far more⊠instructive in mind.â
Without explaining further, a sardonic smile flitted across his face and he exited only to be replaced by drones youâd never seen before. As they approached, terminals and platforms emerged from the floors and walls, a large light flicking on overhead that wouldâve been blinding had you not been face down. âWhat are you doing?â The drones didnât answer your hesitant question, simply continuing to silently float around preparing things.
The door slid open again, revealing that Maykr with a broken halo. He floated toward you, eerie and silent as the rest of them. âYou really should have known better at this point,â his head tilted down at you. Inspecting, appraising. âYou both should, but it seems you humans are a uniquely willful and self-destructive species.â The bastard had the gall to tut at you as if you were some misbehaving child. As if you werenât crisscrossed with bruises, as if your ribs werenât cracked and your blood hadnât stained the floor of this ship more times than you could count.
He made some unknown command and the drones set to work again. Hands touched you, pushed and prodded even as you jerked and tried to throw yourself from the table. âYou should feel lucky I argued him down to at least giving you local anesthetic.â That single sentence froze you solid, barely registering the stab of a few needles, right between your shoulder blades. âFrom what I understand of normal humans, enough acute pain can induce cardiac arrest.â You stared at him. Unblinking as you felt the liquid numbness seep under your skin.
With lips that could barely form the words you asked, âWhat are you doing to me?â
If you were in any fit state, you mightâve noticed the minute hesitation in him. It would have scared you more. âThere can be no more mishaps.â
Ice. Flame. Detached but not. Yet more restraints slammed you further into the table. The kiss of a scalpel was an unmistakable thing, slow and precise. Slipping through flesh almost without resistance. The drones were unmoved by your shrieking, cold and silent even as you screamed your own throat raw. They peeled you open. You felt blood run down your back, hot and thick, a mocking warmth in the frigidity of the sterile room.
Skin to fat to muscle to bone. Even with the blessing of some numbness it was like acid on a raw nerve. Parts of you never meant to meet air were subject to cruel, robotic, hands. Worse was the fact you could feel them adding things. Slipping filaments in between neurons and meat, slithering their control into your very body. They flayed you open, slow and deliberate, before whatever it was they put in you was activated and started moving of its own accord.
The Bishopâs right hand spoke one final time, âPerhaps now you both will learn how futile this was.â
Something beyond even what that damnable machine was touching cracked. He hadnât escaped. The thought swirled around in your head like a hurricane. He didnât escape. Some noise left you, a choke, a sob, you wanted to vomit but had nothing in your stomach to retch up. Not even after youâd begged him.
You really were never getting out of here.
Then⊠then the real pain started. Pain that rendered you mute. Agony beyond what a word could ever quantify. All that left you was jagged, gargling, sounds. Struck dumb, struck dead but not dying. It curled. It clawed into you. You werenât even writhing anymore, you could feel your heart pounding behind your eyes, in your ears, down to every capillary in the farthest reaches of you. Filaments turned to fingers turned to needles. A monster, a demon of metal they put on your gaping, bloody, wound. It dug past muscle straight to nerve, right to your spine and everything splintered. Thought ceased to mean anything, time died. All there was, all you had, was hell beneath your very skin.
The Slayer didnât even need the video feed to hear you screaming through the walls. But the auric glow in his eyes didnât falter this time. His soul shook but his body wouldnât answer. Trapped. Trapped. Trapped. A prisoner. A pawn. A thing. Idiot. Failure. Failure. Shouldâve killed them. Theyâd have killed her first. Maybe not. Maybe he couldâve been faster. Maybe maybe maybe. Probably not. But what if he had?
His muscles twitched and the control tether was ramped even higher, stilling him once more as your screams finally petered off into silence. Time hadnât held any meaning to him for years, but still the small part of him that could think beyond rage counted the seconds. The Maykrâs control wasnât perfect, it dulled everything about him down to slaughter and obedience, but there were small pockets of his mind that he could call his own even now. And all of them held their breath. Youâd been quiet for too long. Quiet wasnât good.
He couldnât see you back in your cell. At least if you were screaming it meant you were still alive. It meant he might hear you try and speak to him again. Or sing. Hell he would even take hearing you cry over the all-consuming silence of this ship again. Your pained sobs were not a sound he liked, not in the slightest, but they told him you were at least okay enough to feel. That you hadnât fully broken yet. That he could still save you. That he could deny your captors another soul.
The door to your cell opened and he saw you unceremoniously tossed in, body limp and lifeless. Your shirt was gone, your back a mess of carnage he couldnât discern the details of. It boiled his blood but the tether held firm. His eyes flicked to the side of the screen as something new flickered into existence. A vital tracker. Why? It couldnât be his, so it had to be⊠But why would they need to keep tabs on your vital signs?
A quiet groan broke him from his frantic thoughts and his eyes snapped to you again. You were moving! Alive! Alive! Still alive! He hadnât failed you yet! He could still fix this. Just had to figure out how.
The bishopâs assistant threw something on you and you flinched, expecting more pain, more violation. But mercifully it was just your borrowed cloak. Or what used to be borrowed, you didnât think Thira would want it back now, ragged and blood-spattered as it was. You barely registered moving a trembling arm to grab it, could barely feel it between your fingers as they shook. Numb. Exhausted. A cloak clutched to your bare chest was the only vague protection and comfort you could muster. Just when you thought they couldnât rip any more dignity away from you, they throw you back into a 24/7 livestream topless and covered in blood, the bastards.
It mightâve felt at least mildly amusing to be upset about the Slayer and whoever else was monitoring the feed seeing your bare breasts if you didnât feel like youâd been hollowed out with a dull blade. Somehow you couldnât really feel your back, you felt the cold of the machine, the warmth of blood flow that had slowed to a tepid ooze rather than the hot flood it had been. Small mercies. You were probably in shock, you felt your heart racing, felt your chest expanding with rapid, shallow breaths, but it felt like your thoughts existed behind a pane of glass. Separate from your body.
Maybe that was a good thing, maybe the thick fog over your mind was what was keeping you from feeling everything far more acutely. It was certainly preferable to the operating table. You felt your stomach lurch just at the thought and it brought a little lucidity back to you. Just enough to hear somebody talking. It didnât seem like they were talking to you so you paid it no mind, content to curl harder into your cloak to try and regain some warmth.
SLAYER MOVE-
Your body was alight again, every nerve ablaze from your spine outward and you convulsed. You didnât even register screaming again until the pain stopped and you were hacking up bile onto the floor. This time your ears decided to actually comprehend what was being said.
âThis will be the fruit of further rebellion, Slayer. Remember this lesson well.â It was the Bishop again, sounding so very pleased with himself. Hate. You hated him like youâd never thought you could for another living being. In the burning aftershocks of that monstrous deviceâs assault on your nervous system your fractured thoughts started to fade. Oblivion, unconsciousness, was so much sweeter. Forgetting for a few hours was a joyous thing if they let you sleep that long. You hoped theyâd leave you alone for a while after this.
The Slayer watched you eventually go limp, vitals still active but shaky, asleep. He was fighting everything in himself to not move, not even blink too aggressively. Rage was too paltry a word for what he felt in that moment, when his hand clenched and youâd shrieked like you were dying. They had sewed your suffering together, shackled your very survival to his obedience and bet that heâd weigh one life against freedom. Theyâd bet on the bleeding heart they tried so vehemently to silence.
And theyâd bet right. The Bishop had sneered with smug satisfaction when he had frozen, when your agony had literally stayed his hand. The perfect trap. Not his tether, not his rage, a noose to hang himself with because he couldnât bear to see more of his people suffer, especially not at his own hand. An innocent torn from your shared home and brought into this mess because of him, the Maykrâs fear of him. They went further because he kept pushing and now look where that had landed you both.
His eyes fell toward you again, the uneven line of your heart monitor, the blood drying and flaking from your skin. He was almost happy youâd buried your face in that cloak, the undoubtedly deep shadow on your eyes and crust of tears on your face were not things his shame could take seeing at that moment. It burned. Roiled in him like snakes rearing up with fangs desperate to lash out, but he couldnât move. Not without hurting you.
The Slayer focused his eyes on your breathing, shallow as it was, your ribs rising and falling, rising and falling. He burned the image into his mind, every inch of your agony-stricken form, every drop of blood and angry wound.
The Maykrs would pay for a great many things, sufferings untold, but your price upon them would be different. The Bishop had exacted a personal and intimate violation on you, forced him to be a part of your torment, and worst of all that monster took pleasure in it. That kind of cruelty deserved payment in kind. The Slayer felt himself start to move, to clench a hand and aim to rip through everything between him and the target of his hatred, but he saw your heart jump. The slightest hiss of pain even in your sleep stilled him again.
He would figure a way out of this, he would save you, avenge you, make the Kreed Maykr pay. Make him pay. Make him pay. Make him pay.
