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delimeful · 3 months ago

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nothing in this world (i wouldn't do) (6)

warnings: captivity, restraints, panic attacks, unethical science, experimentation, wounds, injury and blood mention, character being kind of an ass, fear, bird ex machina, lmk if i missed any

Virgil woke up to find he was surrounded by darkness and completely unable to move.

Seeing as the last thing he remembered was being poisoned into unconsciousness by a demon slayer with mad scientist leanings, this was about as far from reassuring as an awakening could be.

For a disoriented moment, he tried to check for the baby crow, which mostly just involved him listening closely for any loud, raspy-voiced swearing. Naturally, there wasn’t any, because he’d blacked out and the slayer very clearly hadn’t wanted Roman’s bird anywhere near him.

Bizarrely enough, he felt a little morose at the baby crow’s absence. Maybe because she was the only creature who had figured out that despite being a monster, he wasn’t actually a threat to humanity.

Or maybe it was just because being immobilized in a dark, silent place was totally freaking him out, and he would have taken any company so long as it meant he hadn’t been locked away forever or buried alive.

(Could he still die from a lack of oxygen? Would he be stuck underground, conscious and alone, for the rest of time? He couldn’t even call out for help.)

His body was unresponsive, and nothing his brain was coming up with was remotely helpful, so Virgil focused on his breathing, trying to keep his count steady as he inhaled and exhaled air that could be rapidly running out—

By the time the slayer entered the room, Virgil had already hyperventilated himself into unconsciousness a few times, each time utterly convinced he was dying.

The man didn’t bother saying anything to him or even sparing him anything more than a glance, simply walking around the space and lighting several lamps at a brisk pace, but Virgil felt a vast, sweeping sense of relief fall over him regardless.

He wasn’t buried. He hadn’t been left alone to rot away in the dark.

He was… extensively strapped down to a waist-high table in the center of the room?

A significant amount of his relief started to fade. Right. He’d been caught by a slayer who wanted him dead or worse, and was now entirely at his mercy— assuming he even had any for demons.

There was another person in the room, too, and they scurried about so quickly that it took Virgil a few moments to identify them as the wary stranger who had sent him to go find their brother. They were wearing the same uniform as the slayer, now, which answered basically all of Virgil’s potential questions about the situation.

“Subject ABN-V3, Log 1,” the slayer started, and Virgil’s eyes flicked over to him curiously. “The subject regained consciousness approximately half an hour after halting the regular wisteria toxin doses, indicating remarkable poison resilience, comparable to a Lower Rank.”

There was the distinct scratch of hurried writing, but the slayer’s hands were unoccupied as he circled Virgil’s prone form. The younger slayer must have been an assistant.

There was a muted pressure on his hand, which refused to even twitch, even as the pressure grew heavier. The slayer hummed, pulling away. “In contrast, regeneration ability appears relatively slow. Internal organ function has resumed, but exterior nerves and muscles remain paralyzed.”

His organs had been paralyzed?! Virgil’s breathing stuttered, and he wrestled with the instinctual panic for a moment. His lungs were clearly working now, so he should just keep breathing and not pass out again.

When he looked back over, it was to the sight of the slayer staring directly at his face with a detached sort of curiosity. That composed mask of his may have dropped for a few moments in the clearing, but it was fully repaired and glued in place now.

“Do you have anything to say?” he asked, which was a little startling.

Virgil blinked at him for a moment, and then very quickly recalled that blinking was about all he could do. His hands weren’t cooperating with him, and even his head felt too heavy to shake or nod at the moment.

An irritated rumble started up in his chest for a moment before dying out, and he heaved a low sigh, already exhausted. He’d burnt through all his default terror while panicking in the dark, and now there was barely anything left to scrape up for his impending dehumanizing death.

The slayer only watched him impassively for another long, silent stretch of seconds before turning his attention away.

“Subject’s nonverbal behavior remains consistent with previous encounter,” he narrated, which succinctly explained why he’d bothered to verbally prod Virgil in the first place. “No secondary manifestations present in the room. We’ll proceed with direct regeneration testing while the paralytic is still in effect.”

There was a metallic clink, and Virgil’s gaze flicked over to a tray covered with tools he could only guess at the purpose of. Most of them were sharp-edged.

At least he wouldn’t be able to feel them. Yet.

The slayer picked up a thin blade, and Virgil squeezed his eyes shut, in an attempt to not have to see whatever was being done to him.

The narration of that calm, clinical voice couldn’t be as easily blocked out, so he found out regardless.

—

His healing factor had improved a lot since being turned into a monster, but it wasn’t anywhere close to the level he’d seen from some of the other demons he’d fought, so he wasn’t surprised to find that the first thing he felt when the paralysis began to wear fully off was pain.

The wounds weren’t serious, at least. He hoped that didn’t mean they were saving more lethal ones for when he could actually feel them, but he wasn’t optimistic about his odds.

(Unsurprisingly, it seemed like most demon slayers really hated demons.)

The slayer seemed strangely perturbed by the way the methodical injuries he’d inflicted hadn’t healed yet. Apparently, vastly accelerated healing was the norm for most demons, so this was just another way in which Virgil was a freaky outlier. Virgil could have told the slayer as much himself if he’d been able to sign.

Not to say that he’d regained all his vocabulary. With his limbs strapped firmly down, his post-poison communication was limited to signs that he could form with just his hands, and no accompanying movements. Fingerspelling was tedious, but at least it was possible.

“S-L-E-E-P,” he’d signed when the slayer had been theorizing on his apparently deeply unusual slow healing. “L-O-N-G.”

It took a few repetitions for his captor to pay it any mind, but once he did, his expression immediately creased with doubt. Virgil let himself look irritated about the reaction, because really, what was the point in pretending? He was screwed either way.

“If hibernation periods could heal demons, there would be longer stretches of inactivity between attacks,” the slayer said, frowning down at him. “It would make my job much easier if that were the case, but it isn’t.”

Since when was Virgil the representative for all of demonkind? He’d barely even spoken to other demons, since generally their interactions tended to start and end with them trying to kill each other. This was his supernatural sleeping schedule, not theirs.

Generally, he only slept like that when he was injured. If he wasn’t hurt in a fight, he didn’t get tired. He signed as much to the slayer, and earned a disbelieving scoff for his efforts.

Virgil had only been dozing lightly so far, seeing as he was currently trapped and about as far from safety as he could possibly get, but the disbelief rankled, and he huffed before pointedly closing his eyes as though to prove it.

He thought maybe the slayer wouldn’t allow it— there probably wasn’t much to scientifically observe when your subject is sleeping— but to his surprise, the man only noted down the behavior and then left.

It took a good part of the first day to force himself down into genuine sleep, but being left alone in a quiet space was close enough to his usual cave naps that he eventually managed to sink into the heavy unconsciousness of one of his impromptu hibernation sessions.

A full week later, he snorted into wakefulness to see the slayer had unstrapped one arm and was inspecting the smooth skin where the incisions had been previously.

This must not have been the first time he’d removed a restraint to see if Virgil was faking his beauty rest, because his head shot up with keen alarm the moment Virgil’s eyes fluttered open.

He released Virgil’s hand and drew a thin, needle-like dagger from his side in the same moment, presumably a breath away from poisoning him back into temporary organ failure.

Virgil barely even registered the movement, his eyes still crusted over with sleep. Half-awake and triumphant, he blearily inspected his completely-healed arm and then promptly signed, “I told you so.”

“Return your arm to the restraint,” the slayer instructed, his voice brooking no argument and his gaze assessing.

Virgil made a sour face, rubbing at his eyes. “Don’t you have cuffs?” he asked, turning slightly so he could tap his free wrist to his strapped down one for the last sign. “I could at least sign in those.”

“The restraint. Immediately,” the slayer replied, firm as stone.

A low grumbling growl of complaint started up in Virgil’s chest, but there was no way he could get free of the other restraints quickly enough to try and escape, and he really wasn’t looking to get his organs shut down again for no reason.

Besides, the assistant kid was still there in the corner, watching him with wide eyes, and he didn’t like the idea of scaring them.

Fine. He’d go back to his stupid nap then.

With a petulant scowl, he closed his eyes and stuck his arm back out and allowed the slayer to pin it back into place and tighten the straps over it. He flipped him off afterwards, though, just to make things clear.

It was quiet for long enough that he pried his eyes back open suspiciously. Both of the slayers were staring at him like he’d just started abruptly juggling fish or something, and he raised his eyebrows in a display of irritated bewilderment.

For once, the slayer didn’t have some snappy annotation to spout, only glaring down at Virgil with his jaw working like he was gritting his teeth.

Was he really that pissed off that Virgil had been telling the truth about his healing? Why?

“Professor Logan—,” the baby slayer whispered, faltering when Virgil’s gaze flicked their way.

“That’s enough for today,” ‘Logan’ answered, stepping away from the table. “We’ll speak elsewhere.”

Virgil only barely managed to stifle an incredulous noise as the two of them left, putting the lights out as they went. They’d never bothered to take their rude and often horrifying conversations about him elsewhere before. Maybe he should try being right about things more often.

—

“Bastard!”

Virgil’s eyes flew open at the muffled call, his head feeling much clearer after sleeping off the last of the poison’s symptoms.

It was quiet and dark all around him, as always, and for a moment, he nearly convinced himself that he’d imagined the noise entirely.

Then, from outside the door, there was a raspy squawk and an audible ruffling of feathers. “Fiend! Fiend?”

… Just how determined to swear at him was this bird?!

He couldn’t exactly respond, and he wasn’t sure why he would want to. Logan had reacted extremely negatively to the bird existing in the same space as him last time, and he wouldn’t wager that the slayer’s attitude had changed in the past however many days.

Still, the crow was clearly looking for someone, possibly even him. He could hear the distinctive pitter-patter of little taloned feet scurrying back and forth on the floor, with the occasional inquisitive swear thrown in.

After a few long minutes of this, Virgil gave up on trying to go back to sleep, unable to tune the little creature out. He may as well try to answer in the limited way he could.

It took entirely too long, but he managed to purse his lips and whistle a long, low note.

The clicking of steps stopped dead, and then grew abruptly louder, the bird’s faux-speech taking on an excited tone.

The baby crow audibly scrabbled at the doorway for a few seconds, before evidently managing to worm her way under the door gap. From there, she made short work of the flight up to the table, where she immediately perched directly on Virgil’s forehead and peered upside down at him.

“Scourge!” she announced gleefully.

Someone certainly hadn’t learned her lesson about fraternizing with big scary demons. He whistled an amused note at her, fingers twitching in an impulse to reach up and ruffle her feathers before he remembered his situation.

Right. No bird-petting for monsters, he guessed.

The crow— wasn’t her name Fluffbutt or something?— seemed to notice the movement, though, and she traversed down Virgil’s arm in little hops. He still couldn’t really reach her scruff of downy baby feathers from this angle, but he gave it his best attempt.

Fluffbutt pecked him harshly, which, rude, and then she turned around and started picking at the straps holding his forearm down.

… No fucking way.

Virgil craned his neck to look over at the bird, his disbelief slowly melting away as he saw that yes, the crow really was tugging and prying at the corded knot holding the restraints in place like her life depended on it.

It was slow going, but as she steadily worked at it, Virgil could tell that progress was being made. He wiggled his arm testingly every so often, usually getting bit for his efforts, and after what felt like hours of agonizing waiting, he finally managed to pull through the last threads of the restraints.

He only had one arm free, but that and some time was all he really needed. Fluffbutt reclaimed her spot on his forehead, watching as he quickly tore at the restraints on his other limbs.

As it turned out, quickly sitting up for the first time in days was a bad idea. Virgil rode out the surge of dizziness and pushed to his feet, pacing back and forth in the small room until he was confident that his legs had remembered how to function well enough to get him out of there.

A simple test of the handle revealed the room had been locked, and Virgil wasted a few minutes poking through the unsettling number of medical tools in the room before realizing there was no way they’d left the key in here with him.

He could probably kick the door down if given a few tries, but the more noise he made, the more likely it was that Logan would find him mid-escape and put him right back in those restraints. Virgil had no illusions on how a second match between him and the uncannily quick slayer would turn out, which meant that stealth was currently his best friend.

He turned his gaze to the wall, wondering if they were flimsy enough that it would be better to try and punch a hole through one of those, but before he could decide further, he heard the sound of approaching footsteps.

Shit. Plastering himself against the wall, he waited tensely for them to pass by— only for them to pause right outside the doorway. There was the distinct click of a key being inserted into a lock. Double shit.

The door swung open, and the assistant slayer had just enough time to look up and see the empty specimen table before Virgil leapt at them.

Don’t freak out, he would have said if his hands weren’t currently occupied with covering the slayer’s mouth and dragging them bodily into the room. Instead, he made a series of low chuffing sounds from deep in his chest, which helped absolutely nothing about the current situation.

“Scourge!” Fluffbutt crowed, her contribution equally as unhelpful.

Hurriedly booting the door shut with his foot, Virgil only had a moment before the baby slayer gave up on trying to pry his hand away and instead went for the sword sheathed at their side.

Since letting them do that was basically a one-way street to getting decapitated, he risked releasing them for long enough to tear his claws through their belt and yank the sword free, sheathe and all, before tossing it into a corner with a muted thud.

“PRO—,” they started, and Virgil slapped his hand back over their mouth, hissing lowly in the closest approximation to a shush that he could manage. They responded by glaring and biting him, which he really should have expected after living with teenagers for a few months.

It only took a glance around the room to find a suitable cloth from the cache of cleaning supplies, and Virgil wrangled the baby slayer into a headlock for the handful of seconds it took him to assemble a makeshift gag and shove it in their mouth.

With the slayer now unable to raise the alarm, Virgil paused for a moment to think, his whole body jittering with sudden adrenaline. The easiest solution would obviously be to strap the slayer into the convenient demon-proof restraints readily available on the specimen table, but he really didn’t want to do that. The kid was already panicking hard enough, the last thing he wanted was to make them think he was going to experiment on them or something.

Instead, he tore a larger piece of linen into strips and wound them around the slayer’s wrists a few times before knotting the end of the faux-ropes intensively around one of the table legs.

The slayer started yanking against the makeshift restraints the moment Virgil stepped away, their cries muffled but still audible enough that he should really be escaping sooner rather than later.

Luckily, his cloak had been dumped on a nearby shelf with the rest of the meager belongings he carried with him, mostly ignored after Logan had finished snooping through it for bones or something. Virgil ignored Fluffbutt swooping noisily around his head as he slung the comforting weight back around his shoulders and pulled the hood up, and then stepped back around the table towards the door.

The baby slayer seemed to think he was headed for them instead, their gaze very obviously wide with terror as they scrambled ineffectively to get away from him. He stopped short, guilt swamping him.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he signed, backing up a few paces to try and give them some space. “I just want to get out of here, okay?”

The kid stared at him, chest rising and falling as rapidly as a sparrow’s. He sort of wished he had heard their name at some point, but it probably wouldn’t have made a difference. As it was, he didn’t even know if they knew sign, let alone how to calm them down.

He sighed, lifting his hands up to his shoulders in a gesture of nonaggression, and edged around them to finally get to the door. Fluffbutt settled on his shoulder, apparently content to be identified as a little feathered demon-associating traitor.

The hall was blessedly empty when he stuck his head out to check, and so he waved a small farewell to the kid— almost certain that they would wriggle out of those haphazard bonds within the hour— and closed the door after himself.

The key was still sitting there in the lock, so he twisted it to relock the room, and after a moment of thought, dropped the key and kicked it under the door so that the kid wouldn’t be stuck if nobody else came by in the next few hours.

He’d done it. He was out— mostly, anyhow.

Now, all he had to do was stay out.

#tss fic #sanders sides fic #demon slayer au #ts virgil #ts logan #my writing #writing #nitwiwd #nothing in this world i wouldnt do #thank you to everyone who was nice to me while i took my break <3 #i've got some asks i'll hopefully get around to answering soon!

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