#after months of hunting you might as well start feeding him back you cant rely on his anger to burn incessantly

[habeascorpseus]

thinks about "you would kill me?" "i would kill for you. never you," and cellbit's love language being destruction.

thinks about how cellbit will go to any length of self destruction for those he loves. thinks about him not sleeping for months, drinking coffee obsessively, until he's eventually too tired even to boil it and thus begins resorting to eating coffee beans, so he could keep himself sane. thinks about cellbit running from a bear with a chainsaw, and being forced to talk to him as a subordinate for months afterwards. thinks about him pushing people away so theyd let him destroy himself for the federation, unsure if the information he gathered would even be worth it. thinks about the slow death of the self, how much time one can spend running before they collapse from exhaustion, the love in demanding your family eat your corpse.

and then... thinks about outward destruction. thinks about broken trust in the form of an unusable xp machine. thinks about broken hearts in the form of custody battles. corpses with ciphers scribbled in blood left for long lost sisters who don't get it, not yet. badboyhalo describes cellbit pulling a knife on someone when he jokingly asks him to as less personal, and more like a dog being told to play fetch. thinks about him plunging into ravines and caves to kill bad's enemies as bad followed behind, being the first of them to die for bad's victory. thinks about "keep your hands clean." cats bring their owners dead birds out of concern for them being fed, cellbit brings enigmas and bodies because it's all the damage he can do. in a life shaped by violence, how else do you show loyalty than through a willingness to hunt for those who arent strong enough, to kill unthinkingly when they ask? it terrifies his family, but it's all he has left to give.

there are so many parallels between felps' kidnapping arc and the current one. the difference is in how many people are also at their breaking point and couldn't afford to see their rock crumbling. cellbit's mind was the bright light for every damn person on the server who had questions, and at this point, that number is all of them. and no matter where he looks, how much he wants to save them, there are no answers. there is no satisfying conclusion. if only he could go home at night and sleep soundly without thinking about the evidence of his failure to protect anyone resting beneath his feet. there are only more dead ends, more wheels, more humiliation, more degradation of his sanity as he's unable to sleep. his family has been picked off and the remainder have picked apart his corpse to scraps of marrow and flesh and are still starving, too terrified to hunt for themselves. what a blessing that cellbit's hands are already bloodied, and he's angry enough to tear apart the wardens for them to feast.