Birthday fic for a friend happy birthday bae! i told you i'd make something special here it is
Hahah oh man this is going to be angst
z e r o
number
1. no quality or number; nothing.
The sickening crunch of metal against skin. He would've clamped his hands over his ears if he could—that sound was familiar, too, too familiar, like rusted iron chains grinding against delicate, tortured skin, like chains being pulled forwards by large, angry hands—
He's still. So, so still.
Distantly, someone is screaming. He blinks and recognises the frantic eyes of Ara—ah, what a sweet girl.
Her red eye is glowing brighter than ever. The ears on her head perk up, the tails enveloping him in a soft, downy embrace. He squints to look closer and realises Ara's only crying through her orange eye—her human eye.
With her teeth bared, yelling for him, the girl looks feral. Like a fox, he realises with clarity, and he opens his mouth to alert her.
Nothing comes out.
Someone is screaming. From the corner of his eye, he can see Crimson Avenger. The girl is mercilessly taking on the monsters, red hair flying in the wind whilst her teammates crowd around their fallen friend.
Crimson Avenger has no room for friends. She continues to attack. Her blood shines bright on her dark blade as she swings it up and down with a grace that is almost mechanical.
Someone touches his face. He hisses, unused to touches—because the only ones he knew were rough and violent and unwanted—but lavender locks fall onto his face and he looks up into the eyes of his twins.
Lunatic, he thinks. And Mastermind.
Lunatic Psyker is saying something, his mouth wide. Next to him, MM computes something on his Dynamos as he shoots him worried glances.
He raises a hand. The motion sends spikes of pain through his body, but he manages to rest it, shakily, on LP's arm.
His twin freezes, completely still.
Damn it all, he says. And he laughs.
He laughs until blood fills his lungs and he gives way to darkness, with lavender hair being the last thing he feels against his neck.
Mastermind always did have the softest hair. Maybe he wears it long as a tribute to their mother.
Diabolic Esper is awakened by the soft brush of something against his cheek.
Five more minutes, Mom, he wants to say. Let me sleep, I did all my chores yesterday.
What he would give to hear her voice one more time, to have her lovely soprano ring through the house, usually chiding him for unruly behaviour.
He opens his eyes to a bright blue sky, and for a second Add forgets exactly where he is. Through the haze of sleepiness, his memories are washed away only to be replaced by what he thinks is right. His mother preparing breakfast. His dad getting ready to head to work out in the fields. As he takes in the sky, seemingly endless and so, so blue, DE feels a boy again and wants to jump to his feet, ready to disturb the chickens and annoy the cows.
Then it just clicks, as it does so many mornings and counting, that his mother and father and the chickens and cows and the entire village is dead, that there's nothing left for him but his person and his twins.
Three men against the world. It gets lonely.
DE brushes the familiar tinge of something distant from his mind—he's spent too many years trying to accept the fact and instead he's accepted that he will never get used to his miserable excuse for a life. What use was there crying over things already ruined?
Then he blinks, sits up and looks around, because he doesn't know where he is. His last memory is being inside his lab, cooped up as he has been for the past few months, agonizingly looking over every little research detail for something. Anything to prove that he wasn't absolutely mental.
Oh, but he was. He could see it in their faces. Even LP and MM had a bond that DE would never be a part of.
No matter. He had his research, his memories, and that was really all one man needed. After a while, friends faded to memories as well, didn't they?
So what had happened, exactly? DE raises a hand to his chin, suspects that he might've fallen asleep at the keyboard as he's prone to doing every now and then. Maybe he accidentally hit something that transported him elsewhere?
Only, this doesn't look like a familiar place. They had been camped near Velder, of course. There was no clear blue sky, no innocent field of green dotted with the loveliest white lilies.
Lilies. DE wants to grab the petals, wants to crush them in his palm and feel them crumble between his fingertips. Wants to get up and run away because there's no way something so shattered like him should be worthy to touch something so innocent—
He shoots up as if he's been stung. Where was he? He's scrambling onto his feet, looking around desperately.
There's nothing around. He's in a large plain with nothing but these sickening flowers and the broad sky above.
DE wants to scream. Where was he? What happened?
Shock hits him like a flying arrow screeching to a stop. Where were Lunatic Psyker and Mastermind? His twins were usually always by his side—he was the one to push them away. He puts his hand on his side and looks around.
He nearly falls over when pain shoots through him like a flood. His fingers dig into his flesh and come away red and bleeding.
DE doesn't know how in the world he hasn't noticed this by now, but he's bleeding out. And soon, he will die.
Well, isn't this ironic. His blood splatters the lilies, turns their innocent white shade to the a dark, envious red. At his feet, his Dynamos lie whirring gently. He bends down, picks one up.
"Did you do this?" he asks. As soon as he finishes his sentence he sways on his feet, falling to his knees.
Damn. His wound really did hurt. How fitting, he thinks. I thought the world was cruel enough but now it's brought me here to die. With no one to see, nothing but these bloody flowers.
DE's simultaneously looking at how fast his blood can flow from his body and writing out a mental will when someone speaks to him.
"Mister?"
He turns sharply, surprised by another human voice, and DE feels faint once he sees exactly who stands before him.
A boy. With the softest of lavender hair, white locks tinted purple against the grandiose blue sky background. Wide, innocent magenta eyes look up at him curiously, with just the slightest tint of fear. A round face, still keeping traces of baby fat, so pure and unblemished. A neck, nape white as snow, without the horrid brown scar that refused to heal curling around it like a snake ready to strangle.
Overalls, brown and white.
They were always his favourite pair.
DE feels sick to his stomach. He adverts his gaze, hopes to scare the thing away. What trick was this? What being in this world could be so cruel?
"Mister?" the younger Add asks again.
"Go away!" he snaps, a sharp intake of breath accompanying his words as his wound flares up in pain.
"You're hurt!" The boy gasps as he comes into full view of the wound.
DE smacks the boy on the chest, physically pushing the other away. His head spun, pounding against the interior of his skull.
This isn't real. This isn't real. This isn't real isn't real isn'trealisn'trealisn'treal—
The smaller Add stumbles, tripping over the entangle of flowers as vines snag his ankles. The boy falls back and tears immediately sting his eyes—DE almost wants to laugh.
You're gonna go through a fuckton more than just tripping, kid.
Add jumps back up, and DE can't even remember a time when he was that eager, that happy.
"Mister," he says again, bright pink eyes wide open with concern. "Let me help you! My mom can help, she knows things! You're hurt!"
Mother. Through the daze of his slowly fading vision, that's the only word DE catches spoken from the boy's pink lips.
He falls to his knees. The walls that he's taken forever and a day to build up inside of him come crashing down with that one word. Add bends down, looking at him with concern.
DE puts his head in his hands. Refuses to look up even when the boy's slim fingers tap him gently on the shoulder.
"Let's go," Add says softly.
"My Dynamos," DE replies. The wound throbs, his head spins.
Mom.
Scruffling. DE is forced to look up when he hears the younger huff.
Mom.
Add stands with one of DE's Dynamos clutched tightly in his arms, the weapon being too much weight for the smaller. He almost wants to laugh at the contrast, at how much his younger self struggles under the weight.
Mom.
"What's your name?" Add asks.
Mom.
He feels his tongue dry up. The world spins as he drags himself to his feet. Dimly, he can hear a female voice calling.
Lunatic Psyker. Mastermind.
He almost doesn't want to share this victory with his brothers. She's his. She's here, she's his, she's alive.
Maybe he can be selfish for a little while longer.
I did it. I found mom.
Darkness.