A/N So sorry this took so long, lots of shit happened and my fics got put on hold, but here. Have a chapter!
The Signless paced around the block, irritated. He had nothing to do, only a night in the Cull Center and he was bored already. He sighed as he laid down on the floor, staring at the ceiling. He rolled over onto his stomach and picked himself up before walking over to the desk on the side of the room. He sighed as he grabbed the pen from the tabletop and clicked it open. He laid back down on the floor and started clicking the pen opened and closed in utter and complete boredom.
He groaned as he sat up and then seated himself at his desk, the only things on it were pens paper, envelopes, some parkers, and of course the Cull Center Rules and Guidelines pamphlet. He sighed and picked up one of the markers uncapping it and twirling it between his fingers. He looked up at the blank white walls, down at the Guidelines which he'd read about ten times out of boredom, and then back up at the walls. At least it didn't say anything about not… customizing his block.
He picked up a few markers and angrily began drawing sloppy sketches over his walls. Stupid little images of his old life. Him with Crabdad, him and the Ψiioniic, his old hive, anything he could think of really. He didn't want to forget that life. He wanted to remember that there is something outside these walls, that the first 8 sweeps of his life hadn't been simply a dream.
He grew more and more furious as he drew over the walls until soon he was doing nothing but scribbling bright red and growling before throwing the marker across the room and kicking the door with a shout, "Get me out of here!"
He snarled and kicked the wall yet again, and again, and again, and again, until he was pretty sure he'd either bruised or broken his foot. He collapsed on the floor in frustration, staring at the ceiling. He wasn't sure how long he'd laid there before the sound of the door opening forced him to look up from where he laid on the floor.
"The fuck do you want?" He asked, not bothering to stand up from the floor.
A young man stood in the doorway before sighing, "I'm here to escort you to the recreational center. Is there anything you need before we depart?"
The Signless sighed and shook his head, "Not unless you can get me out of here and by 'here' I mean the whole fucking center… Actually…. I do have a question."
The Escort raised his eyebrows, "I'll do my best to answer."
"Do you know if a Sollux Captor, also known as 'The Ψiioniic' is here and still… you know… alive?"
The Escort stared at him as if he'd grown a second head, "How do you know about Captor? You've only arrived this morning."
The Signless looked up, "What's that got to do with anything? I want to know if my fucking friend is still alive."
"That is classified information."
"Classified? Why the fuck is the state of well-being of my fucking best friend classified infor- oh. Oh god," The Signless stood up from the floor eyes wide, "You bastards fucking killed him didn't you!?"
"That is also classified information."
The Signless stalked up to The Escort and had to fight the urge to reach a hand around his neck and squeeze until the guy passed out, he settled for leaning in menacingly close, despite the fact that he was so much shorter. He stared up at him with deadly serious eyes, "If my fucking friend is dead, you fuckers are going to have one hell of a time dealing with me. I will rip you shitheads apart."
The Escort gripped something on his belt before The Signless backed up again, still glaring at him.
"If that is all, I will now escort you down to the recreational facility."
"Whatever, dickbag."
And with that The Signless was led down halls and stairs into a large block filled with people, some in the Cull Center patient jumpsuits, and others in the typical Escort uniform. He glanced around at the enormous block feeling somewhat lost. The space was littered with tables, exercise equipment, different artistic supplies, a set of bookshelves in the corner, and by god was it loud. Everyone seemed to be bustling about. He had no clue how long he got to be here or what exactly he was doing, but fuck if he wasn't going to use his time to be around other people well. He sat down at one of the tables which, like the personal blocks, held an assortments of pens, markers, pencils, and paper. It was quite obviously the least populated table in the block. He picked up a pen and a piece of paper as he looked over at the only two other trolls at the table, both huddling over the same paper. The Signless scooted over a little to see what it was they were doing and he cleared his throat, "Hi, what are you two doing?"
The two trolls, both clearly some sort of rustblood, looked up. The girl with the wild hair grinned and piped up, "Plotting the downfall of the Cull System."
The Signless blinked and sat stunned for a moment before laughing sarcastically as the boy next to her nervously glanced over his shoulder.
"Ha, funny, seriously what are you two doing?"
The boy looked at him dead serious this time, "No actually, we're, uh, we're gonna try to get everyone who wants out of here, out of here."
The Signless blinked again, "Wait, how? I mean, this place is fucking security tight. No one gets in and out of these places without help from the staff. I mean, I've heard of a couple places having massive breakouts, but this place…"
The girl glanced up at the boy and then turned back to The Signless, "Well, we've done it before, don't see why we can't do it again," She put down the pencil she'd been sketching with and held out a hand to The Signless, "I'm The Director."
The Signless's eyes went wide as he took her hand to shake it, "Holy shit."
The boy next to her smirked and offered his own hand, "The Mutineer."
The Signless took The Mutineer's hand as well, shaking it quickly, "The Signless, fucking sweet to meet you two."
He leaned forwards on the table to glance at their drawing, "So what's that?"
The Director looked up at him, "It's a map of what we've seen of the Cull Center so far, we need to find a place where the wall leads directly to the outside. There's a troll in a high security block with amazing psychic abilities who could easily blow through a wall. Problem is, we have to wait for an emergency evacuation in order to get him out because that's the only time that the high security blocks are emptied. Even when escorting a culled from one facility to another, they do it with large insulated cages and restraining orders."
The Signless stared for a moment, "Did this powerful psychic happen to be able to shoot red and blue lights and have mismatched eyes, a horrible lisp, two sets of horns, and go by the title 'The Ψiioniic' and the name Sollux Captor?"
The Mutineer looked up at him, "Well I don't know about the name, title or lisp, but the guy was definitely shooting red and blue like there was no tomorrow, and it did look like he had four horns, and his glasses lenses were mismatched so I guess that fits your description?"
The Signless ran a hand through his hair and leaned back against his seat, "Holy fuck, he's alive."
The Director cocked her head at him, "You know him?"
The Signless nodded furiously, "He was pretty much my best friend when I was a wriggler. Then he got culled for his 'disability' which is the fact that he gets crippling migraines when he can't let the energy out of his goddamn eyes or whenever the voices in his head get a little too loud. I'd imagine this place is probably killing him."
The Mutineer and The Director shared a glance before The Director spoke up, "Well we're getting him out of here first chance we get. Everyone who wants to is getting out."
The Signless grinned, "So what's your plan so far?"
The Mutineer cleared his throat and pointed at the map, "Well, we're here. If there's ever an, uh, emergency evacuation, they have to open all the doors and they post ten or twenty escorts outside each one to keep us all in line, which is why we're going to need the psychic. He'll be able to blow a hole in the wall large enough to get people out of the center and run off to wherever they need to go. The high-security chambers will be opened as well for the safety of the prisoner- I'm sorry, the uh, patient- and so we'll have to go and find him. It'll be hard to get to him through the crowds of people, so The Director here is going to explain the situation to everyone as best she can and then hopefully they'll stop heading to the doors in order to follow us to the blast destination. We've determined that," He pointed to the wall on the far side of the block, "That wall is the one that's directly on the edge of the cull center. We should be able to get out and run."
The Signless nodded along, eyebrows furrowed, "So we have to wait for an emergency. What constitutes an emergency?"
The Director sighed, "Well, that's the problem. The only things that will lead to evacuation is major fire, a shooting, or a bombing. All of which are highly unlikely considering that the building is made of inflammable material. So we could be waiting for sweeps."
"But," The Mutineer piped up, "That means we'll have plenty of time to prepare."
The Signless grinned, "Great. Can I be in on this? I'll help out any way I can. I want out of this fucking hellhole."
The Director and The Mutineer looked at each other with a grin before turning back to The Signless.
"We can use all the help we can get," She said.
The Mutineer reached out a hand and The Signless took it shaking his hand, and then repeating the process with The Director.
"Welcome to the team."
A night Earlier, Halfsoul stared out the window of the block he and The Merciful shared. They'd just ended another argument over the cull system and Halfsoul was in a foul mood. He growled and kicked at the coon in the corner of the room. He hated the evening fights. They left him bitter and angry all night long.
He picked up his rifle and stalked out of the block. He had a schedule to keep. He hurried down stairs and walked up to his custodian, swinging his leg over his back and riding off to his first destination. He arrived as the escorts showed up. Oh dear god it was always so much more annoying with the culled troll still there. He rolled his eyes as he unhooked his rifle from his back and he approached the door the escorts had just knocked on. He waited in the midst of the group as a small troll, maybe 5' if that, glared at the Jadeblood standing in front of the escorts. They exchanged a few comments and remarks before Halfsoul stepped past the seemingly unremarkable culled troll and into the hive as the escorts took ahold of the small troll.
He headed in to find an enormous white almost bi-pedal crab. He stared at it a moment before taking aim and shooting through its skull. The color that spattered the walls surprised him. A bright streak of red. Not maroon, but bright red sprayed and dripped from the walls and the clean hole in the beast's head.
He kept his expression nonchalant as he walked out past the culled troll who he glanced at just long enough to see him glaring. He rolled his eyes as the mutant troll called him some name or other and spat on his shoes. He walked away, wiping his shoe on the grass and climbing onto his lusus's back. He couldn't pretend that he hadn't noticed the abnormal color. It would stick out in his memory for a long time.
That was probably the reason he was being culled. God he hated the system. All these people did was mooch off the system. They became nothing but leeches on society and they all deserved to just die as they should in natural selection. The strong would survive and all would be right.
He spurred his lusus and he took off, the color red still hanging in his mind. It was so unnatural and eye-catching. He went on his way, culling lusus after lusus for the cleaning crew to come in and pick up to feed to Her Imperious Mercifulness's lusus. He frowned as he arrived back at the palace heading up the stairs to their block again, hoping that she'd be there. He could use some stress relief about now.
He threw the doors of their block open and one of the corners of his lips perked up at the sight of her at her desk. He walked up behind her and draped his arms around her shoulders, "mornin' Fef."
She brushed him away, bristling, "Eridan, I don't need this right now."
Halfsoul sighed and leaned down and kissed at her jaw, "You sound tired."
"Eridan. I said to leave me alone right now. I've got work to do."
"Work on what? That cull system a' yours? That can wait, it's fallin' to pieces anyways."
Feferi huffed and swatted at him, "I'm not in the mood. Eridan, leave me alone or I'll have the guards escort you out."
He sighed and let go of her planting another kiss on her cheek before running his fingers through her hair. She relaxed a little as he just stroked through her hair. Sometimes their relationship seemed to go back to what it used to be, something far more pale. Halfsoul braided and twisted The Merciful's hair, then he unbraided it, stroking his fingers through the long dark locks. She smiled at the affection as she wrote a few quick letters before pulling away from the desk, turning around in her chair, glancing up at Halfsoul with a faint smile.
"You really do know the way to a girl's bloodpusher, don't you?"
Halfsoul kneeled down in front of her, resting his elbows on her knees, "What can I say? You got some fine hair."
She chuckled as Halfsoul leaned up a little to kiss her softly, pressing his lips against her cold lips. Her arms wrapped around his shoulders and he chirped contentedly. He tilted his head to nip at her lips a little before getting to his feet and pushing her back against her chair, his hands coming up to brace on her shoulders. He sucked at her mouth hungrily as she returned the favor, the empress's sharp teeth grazing over his lips before he gripped at her collar and pulled her up so that he could press her back against the desk, her legs pressing into the edge.
He could feel her smirk against his lips before she turned them around and pressed Halfsoul down against the desk, his back bending almost unnaturally, fins flared out in surprise.
And then she pulled away, "That's all today. I don't feel up to it."
She planted a soft peck on his cheek that really seemed even less than pale, reluctant even. She turned and walked back to her coon where she pulled off her dress and draped it over the chair beside the coon, leaving her in her undergarments. She stepped in and sunk down in the green slime.
Halfsoul stared longingly after her before sighing and standing up. He couldn't deny that he'd been hoping for more. She seemed more and more reluctant to pail with him as of late and he couldn't help but find himself a little frustrated with her. He pulled his own clothes off, tossing the many layers onto the chair next to hers and then sinking into the slime beside her and wrapping an arm around her shoulders, letting them both drift off into a deep sopor-induced sleep.