Weight of the World
Chapter 2: Quarantine
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"I trust you know how dangerous it is out there." 1 said, keeping the calm he had a within his reach near as he could. "I want you to tell me exactly why you left, and why you've decided to come back."
9 surpressed a groan.
"I left because I felt like it. It's no concern of yours why I left. Maybe I don't even know myself!" 9 said defensively. "And I came back because I felt like being a part of something, felt like hearing a voice. I don't want to be out there by myself." his sentences got progressivly quieter, so by the time he had gotten to the end his voice was just above a whisper.
1's smile grew, and 9 looked up at the chuckle that had risen from the elder's throat. Wait, why was he chuckling? What was he up to?
"So, we've got another weakling." 1 said, raising his head a little more, trynig to press dominance on 9.
"Weakling?" 9 asked, his eyebrows coming together furiously. "What do you mean? I'm not weak!"
"You're just like 6. You are buried so deep within yourself that you must try to endanger others. But 6 learned the ways around here. He learned to obey. I let him draw because it's the only thing he wants. But you, you don't want anything. You're here to mess things up. I know what you're up to. So quit now, while I still agree you should be safe and held here with us. There's more to you, 9. Don't make me change my mind."
9 was baffled. What was 1 saying? Why did he compare him with 6? What on Earth had happened while he was gone?
But suddenly, he snapped. He didn't know where the anger had come from, but it was time to let it out.
"I'm not hurting anyone else! Tell me, who here has gotten hurt because of me? I did all I goddamn could about saving everyone's lives and this is the thanks I get?" he shouted, making 1 jump the slightest and 8 grip his blade. "I went back in time to save the ones I care about, and just when I think everything is going to be ok, I come back to find no one knows what the hell I've been through, and no one gives a goddamn SHIT!"
There was silence in the throne room. 9 expected 1 to be glaring at him, but he only gave a calm stare. He suddenly realized what he had just said. He had just admitted everything to 1! Maybe... Maybe the elder would believe him?
"8. Seize him."
Well, he had tried.
"Hold him in this room until further notice. I don't want him escaping..." then, in a much smaller voice, sadder, his face filled with an almost mock sorrow. "He couldn't face those monsters alone... Poor thing is talking about time travel..."
9 couldn't believe what he was hearing. 1 thought he was crazy? Or was it all an act? But what if 1 really did think he needed to be quarantined for his own good? How would he ever get 1 to trust him now?
8 lumbered toward him, leaving his blade and leaving himself naked of protection. Not that he needed any protection from 9, who was half his size. 9 let 8 hold his arms behind, not putting up a fight. He didn't think it was helping his case if he screamed and fought back like he wanted to.
"9. I want you to stay in this room. It may seem useless, but you have 6 to keep you company." said 1, not adjusting himself in his high throne. "You need to..." he took a nasty grin that left 9 insanely confused. "Rehabilitate..."
"Where should he stay, sir?" asked 8, his head looking almost lowered, treating 1 like royalty. In a sense, he was. He was high and mighty because he was the first, the most experienced. There must have been many things no one else knew but him...
1 took a glance around the room. His optics narrowed and his head swayed from one side to the other swiftly, scanning the room he must have memorized by now before keeping his optics on a certain spot. When 9 tried to turn his head to look over in the area he found himself unable to see anything except the rough burlap of 8's chest.
"Over there, 8. Inform 2 he must make a bed for this new addition." he said, then sitting back in his throne. 8 grunted in agreement and turned his massive body, hauling 9 over to what he could now see as a small hole in the wall, right next to 6's. He raised an eyebrow. Did 1 really think he was going to keep 9 in this hole for... Wait- how long had he said he would be staying here?
9 turned, only allowed to toss his head over his shoulder and stare at 1 with a sideglance.
"1, how long do I have to stay here?" he asked, wiggling a bit in 8's firm grip.
"Oh, as long as it takes..." the elder murmured, a small smile on his lips as he sat back in his chair, closing his optics.
8 heaved 9 off the ground suddenly and 9 held in a yelp. He was hurled a few centimeters, landing on his feet, but his knees buckling. He fell flat on his hands, a gasp and yelp still in his throat for the sudden weightlessness he had suddenly experienced.
As 8 chuckled, walking away and leaving 9 in the darkness of the hole in the wooden walls, 9 found himself feeling rather cold. He rubbed his arms, pulling his body into himself. It would soon be Winter here, as the twins had taught him so very long ago. He doubted he would see any snow or rain anyways. He still needed to figure that out...
He sat there for hours, listening to the content scrabbles of 6's drawings. What was he drawing? Why was he even here?
He soon grew bored of the scratches and scrabbles, and he began to pick at a few splinters around him, investigating his entrapment. It looked safe enough, save for the slight icy blowing coming through the small holes in the wall behind him and the small splinters on the side walls. Even though there was enough space to fit three stitchpunks, discluding 8 of course, 9 felt cramped. He sat up, leaned against the side wall gently, so splinters wouldnt dig into his back, and pulled his legs up to his zipper. The same thought repeated in his head for hours.
He shouldn't have come back...
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He woke in the middle of the night, shaking from a nightmare, made up of his memories. They must have been. Stitchpunks didn't have dreams. He knew that. Everyone knew that. It would be stupid to assume he had thought up something that hadn't happened yet, since all they could see as they slept were memories they had already experienced.
He suddenly remembered that dream he had had two weeks ago, when he had come back in the talisman. Where had that come from? He had never seen those two in his life, despite his many wanderings and adventures. He had never experienced that moment of explaining a kiss to the others.
Was that what a human dream was like?
He sat up, remembering he had laid down after about the third hour. He was no longer too tired, as he had gotten plenty of rest, so all he could do was sit there, gazing into the darkness of the throne room. It wasn't actually too dark, as moonlight shone in through the haze of the Emptiness and the stained glass window that he marveled at.
After looking around, he began to wake up, realizing why he was lying here to begin with. Thinking about his situation a little more, he realized how sudden it had all been. He had barely walked in the Cathedral when 1 had banished him to this desolate corner, for Creator and 6 knew how long. Why had he even done that?
He rubbed at his optics before standing. He couldn't just stay here all night, in this cold corner of the throne room, shoved in a space with a draft. He wasn't about to let his gears freeze.
He walked across the room, carefull to make absolutely no noise, as his past had taught him. He went straight for 6's room, noticing the scratching from earlier had been replaced, extinguished, with silence. Most likely, 6 was asleep. But knowing the artist as well as he did, this guess was probably wrong.
9 carefully peeked his head around the small wooden barrier that was admittingly a weak attempt for a wall. If a storm came in, his room would break open, making 6 either very cold or very splintered himself. But 9 tried to stay on topic.
"6?" he called, his voice hardly big enough to be called a whisper, yet slipping from his mouth calm as the midnight wind.
6 sat up immediately - without so much as a rustle of paper that had covered him - as if 9 had screamed in his hearing receptors. 9 didn't jump. Very few things made him jump anymore.
"Must show you. Must show you..." 6 whispered, sitting up and reaching up to take 9's arm, which 9 held out gladly. He knew this was important, but he also hadn't seen the artist in what felt like ages. He needed to touch someone who knew what he had gone through.
"Yes, 6. 5 told me it was urgent. What must I see?" he whispered back, following 6 into his cramped room, carefully avoiding a pile of blank yellowed papers that had been placed right in the entrance.
6 lead him to the very back corner of his room, and only when 9 was practically fabric to fabric with him did he bend down to retrieve a small paper, easily able to fit in 9's chest cavity.
The older ragdoll pushed it to his chest, looking directly and firmly into his optics as he did so, never straying his gaze from 9's facial reactions to what he was about to see.
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