Knives and forks clink against the dinner plates, metal scraping and laughter, their base drips with water from above. Drip, drip, drip. Impulse watches. It seeps into the center of the table, a growing patch on the wooden grain. Right between the steaks and loaves of warm bread. Nobody pays it any mind. Drip, drip.
(…Nobody but him.)
Etho says something he doesn’t catch, a bark of laughter from Tango. Beads of water splash onto the surrounding food.
Impulse’s hold on his fork goes tight.
He needs to fix that.
“Impulse buddy, you with us?” Skizz shakes his arm, “You agree Scar’s acting weird right?”
“Yeah yeah,” Impulse answers on auto-pilot, “I heard rumors he’s been trying to get kills. Yellow Scar, man.”
Tango cackles and the conversation cycles on. Impulse steels his jaw, he can’t zone out again. Keep pretending, he reminds himself. It wouldn’t be good to stab his teammates at the dinner table. He’d have to clean the table out. Maybe pull out the entrails from the cracks in the grain of wood.
(Drip, drip.)
No, focus.
Focus.
(A faint, metallic scent permeates his senses– gone in a moment.)
Impulse bites into a piece of steak. Buttery juice slides over his tongue and between his teeth. The taste of blood makes his grip on the fork creak. For what feels like the first time in millenia, his glamor itches at his skin. The careful control over his form twitches and squirms like a coiled snake poised to strike.
Show them what you really are, hums in his mind. The dripping echoes like a wardrum. Show them your true face.
Impulse licks at his lips, “You did a nice job, Tango. It’s delicious!”
“Aww!” Tango coos, his flames crackling a soft orange-red, “Etho lent me some seasoning but he won’t tell me where he got the happy happy sauce.”
Impulse takes another bite, canines digging into flesh and bone, and the rip is loud. Or is it loud for him? Again, infernal magic bubbles at the back of his throat. He swallows, appraising the flavor. It doesn’t drown out the sickly sulfur like he hoped.
“Bdubs?” Impulse guesses with a tease.
“Oh come on,” Etho groans, “Ah I guess that was way too easy.”
“He married me too, remember?” Impulse laughs at Etho’s expression, “Can’t blame me for forgetting the best meals I’ve ever had! Bet he’s feeding his family around now.”
Etho waves him off as they cackle at the blush rushing up past the mask. Impulse cuts another piece off the bone. Rip, snrk, clink. Idly, he wonders if human skin still made the same noise.
The clink of metal against the plates, the dull pounding of water. The snap-crackle of Tango’s fire. Buttery-sweet blood coats his tongue.
He remembers the musky smell of Etho's burning hair and flesh, his screams turned into bloody gurgles as he flailed in lava in the first game. Just minutes before everything ended.
Impulse tears off a chunk of meat.
(Snrrk, clink.)
People die in so many ways. It’s why he loves the variety poison provides— stomachs twisting and lungs seizing— and yet he wonders if anybody’s tried skinning someone, if the server would even allow it.
Impulse swallows a dark laugh, is vivisection on the table? His glamor shivers.
Metal catches the light, the smooth shimmer taking him back. To sharp arrowheads and snapping magma, to a castle reaching into the sky.
He remembers a golden clock.
(Rip, snrk, clink.)
Impulse remembers the way Bdubs’ flesh bubbled and blistered from the Wither. The way his Red bloodlust sang at the way his corpse crumpled to the ground. Bdubs’ skin growing dark, mottled with blackened streaks and bruised from the Withering and regular battle.
The worst of it healed over, scars stitched into flesh. But he’d be a liar if he said he didn’t revel in it, the stained canvas left on Bdubs’ face and arms.
He kissed that face. Peppering them along wither-cracked ribs and arms, tracing every dark and poisoned line with a smile. I’m sorry, he had said. I’m sorry.
He meant it. (Yes, really.)
Impulse hadn’t meant to curse Bdubs with chronic pain and scars, especially since he had to feel the echoes of it through the soulmate bond. He loved Bdubs. Loved him since the beginning.
And he remembers the rip-schk! of the ax in his back.
The way his blood pooled on the grass as everything went dark.
The phantom feeling of Pearl’s wolves tearing flesh from bone in long strips and bites. Riiiip-snrk-crunch.
Blood dripping from between their teeth.
(Drip, drip.)
Impulse stabs his fork a little harder into the next cut, picturing a handsome face with a cute and crooked grin. Damn him. He glares down at his plate. No, focus. Pretend, he tells himself, you’re good at that, aren’t you?
There’s a hand over his, warmer than it should be. He looks up.
Tango has cocked an eyebrow up with a cute little nose crinkle, “You in?”
Impulse blinks, the words registering in his head.
“Yeah, sure,” He grins, “A walk sounds great. I think I’m tired of Skizz’s stink overpowering the place. We really need to install some ventilation.”
“Hey!”
And they laugh, bright and loud as Skizz pouts, checking his armpits. The glasses shake as Tango rattles the table with a smack, a cackle on his lips. Etho’s eyes twinkle with amusement.
Impulse’s focus drifts. Back to the present, away from the blood.
(Drip, drip.)
And yet.
(Rip, snrrk, clink.)
…The hunger prevails.
234 notes
·
View notes