#alright incoming trigger list of biblical proportions

[coldslaws-gear-station]

Here it is, again, warning, triggering stuff here!

Metempsychosis

She woke up with a start, sharp intakes of breaths as she struggled to get a grasp on her surroundings. She was on something far too hard, far too cold, the air within the room stung her lungs wide open, tastes… Sterile. Eradication doesn't understand how she got here, in fact, she doesn't remember a thing at all, just the feeling of being perpetually suspended up within a large tube of liquid.

"Ah." A man began as he entered through the large metal door that barred whatever this place is and the outside, seeing her trying to blink herself awake. "Looks like someone's finally up!" The man was carrying some sort of rectangular device; a tablet? Maybe? Her brain was far too fogged up to recall. The man donned a white coat, far too bright, almost like he was a doctor or of the sort. Eradication frowned, "Where… I am?"

The man simply ignored her question, like she hadn't spoken at all, giving her a grin. "Looks as if you're ready for another round, is that right? Well then, if you insist!" Something snaps, her brain splitting wide open. She stared at the man, her breaths becoming ragged and her body tensed up, she knew this man.

She had been forced to see him so many times, too many times, all the time in this room. This room, this daunting room, a room that shouldn't be this starch white, not after everything that's happened within these walls. "Wait, no." Eradication finally managed to get out, her throat sore and torn from being unused for a long period of time. Shaking her head back and forth, she tries to get up off the table, "No."

"Now now, lay back down on your operating table…" The doctor coached her softly, gently pushing her back down onto the cold metal, too gently. "Please, you can't…" She tried to protest, but her words were slurring too much. The man hummed, looking at something else, so unsympathetic. "I'm aware. I'm aware. You're so upset that you've been experimented on and tested with, but it's for a higher cause! Don't worry, you'll feel much better about it once I've properly sedated you."

Eradication shook her head, forcing herself up again. The man, however, with little effort shoves her back down onto the table again. Tightening a strap around her chest to make sure she doesn't struggle. "Don't worry." He pushes back the hair that had collected up on her wet and sweaty forehead. "These straps are for your safety, remember?" No, no she does not. She shoots both of her arms up, trying to get the strap off, but the man slams both her arms back down with a painful force of somebody losing his patience.

"Ah-ah, I need you to keep your arms down for me." He straps her arms down, the tightness hurting as it slightly cuts off her blood flow, blue bands of skin around her arms from the previous time they've done this exact dance and tale. "There we go, all secured!" She hated him.

She struggles and fights to keep her falling eyelids open, struggling as hard as she mentally can to keep herself awake when her mind is already so cloudy. "Just relax for me." The man cooed, his attention elsewhere as he tinkers with something, though his eyes do flicker to her at one point, curved up into a smile. "There's no point in fighting, you should know that already." Her head slams back down onto the table, hoping the pain would be enough to keep her mind awake, it is not.

"That's it, you're doing so well…" Why must he always talk her through it? "Soon, very soon, you'll be at my mercy. Under my command and incapable of anything other than obeying. Incapable of feeling anything but too heavy, too drowsy, so relaxed and unable to speak a word against your superiors." Even though she was unable to speak at all, the man just kept talking, guiding her through every single sick and sadistic process and experiment he plans to do to her this time. Every single intricate and intrinsic detail.

"Once you're asleep, no matter what is done to you, you will not be able to resist." It was worse than any of the experiments.

The man hummed to himself, grabbing something off the metal plate that resided on a rolling table near her, she didn't want to know. "You won't be aware of anything that's happening to you, just sleep soundly, utterly at my mercy." Eradication glared up, and the urge to try and spit at him is strong. "You're incapable of mercy." She thinks, bitterly. "You just think this is all just a sick and fun game."

"Though once the sedative kicks in finally." He grabs a vial off the table, drawing the liquid from it with a needle, the liquid clear and sloshing around within the confines of the plastic. He makes eye contact with her, his head tilting as he smiles down at her. "You won't remember a thing." If she could, she would grit her teeth at the news, trying to tense up and fight him, but the heavy bracelets slung around her wrists prevented her from causing any harm to the scientist. Eradication was unable to do anything but stare up at him, blinking rapidly as her breathing increased, trying to stay awake for as long as possible.

He looked down at her with faux pity. "Though, now I see you'll need something to guide the sedative along, here." He pulls out a mask, the kind you would only see in hospitals where anesthesia would be given to a patient, a whine comes from the back of her throat. "I'll just place this on you and secure it…" She struggles, using all her strength to shake her head in protest. The scientist scoffed, rolling his eyes in annoyance. "It's just oxygen right now, calm down."

He straps it down tightly against her face, "Now, breath in, breath in deeply even, if that's what you want." She holds her breath, though even with all her might, she only lasted for a few seconds before she broke. Gulping down greedy breaths of the air that was being forcibly provided. "That's it. Try a deep breath for me. In and out…" He picks back up the needle, grabbing her arm tightly. "I'm going to start the sedative. It's going to take a few minutes, but before you know it, you'll be oh so sleepy and relaxed."

She tries to hold her breath in once more, trying the best she can to delay the enviable. But once the scientist notices, he slams a fist down onto the hard middle of her chest, forcing her to take a sharp deep breath in. "Now now, there's no use in holding your breath!" It hurts, she wheezes, eyes blurring from sleep and tears collected from the blow. Eradication finally took a deep breath in, unable to stop herself from being drugged.

"There we go, finally." The man breathes out, watching her with a keen eye, discarding the needle in a bin close to him. "Just relax and let the sedative do all the work on you. Soon you'll start to feel drowsy and floating as the drug makes its way through your system. Your eyes will become too heavy to keep open, and you'll soon drift off, leaving your mind completely blank and relaxed." He leans in closer, the blue swoop of hair he has tickling her face, smiling with that shiny crazed look in his eyes as he whispered.

"So, tell me, do you feel it yet?"

She only has enough energy to lull her head to the side, her arm lifting just to try and swat the man's face away from her, but it doesn't even make it an inch off the table before falling back down. The scientist laughed, getting up and walking around the table, drawing circles around her as he wrote in that strange tablet of his. Never touching her as he walked around her like a Pyroar inspecting it's prey, not like that mattered, as soon as she was unconscious she knew her skin would be poked and prodded at.

The worst part though? She won't even remember when she wakes up in a confused daze, not until she spots him. Forever stuck in an endless loop of repeating the same actions every time she woke up, forever stuck in a cat and mouse game from hell.

"You're starting to look a bit dazed." He commented, leaning over to pet her hair like she was some kind of distressed Pokémon. "That must mean the sedative is beginning to work, I think…" Eradication could do nothing but close her eyes… Only to shoot them wide open when she realises how close she must've been to falling asleep. "You're feeling nice and relaxed, aren't you?" The scientist giggles, Eradication blinks slowly. Doing her best to pay attention to his words as a way to ground herself. "Oh so sleepy, I can see your eyes blinking oh so slowly."

She doesn't know what she'd be subjected to this time, but she was far too terrified to find out. With what little strength she has, she tries to launch herself up and off the table, crying out in frustration when the restraints proved to be too strong for her to fight against. "No, no." He admonished her, holding her back down with a grip around her neck, a cold look in his eyes. "It's no use to struggle against the drug, against the restraints. Soon you'll stop fighting it, and go to sleep."

He releases her neck, markings blooming on her pallid skin. He flexes his hand, his joints popping with the movement as he whispers to himself. "Just like the rest of them…"

He clears his throat. "Your body is becoming heavy and your mind is growing hazy." Eradication felt a sense of betrayal run through her body as she realises her body is doing as the man says, relaxing and stopping her meagre attempt to escape her situation. "Just lie back onto the table and-- ah, yes, that's good." He picks back up his tablet, readying it as he looks down on her. "I bet you feel so calm and peaceful… Like you just wanna let yourself drift off to sleep, right?" He looked at her curiously, almost as if he genuinely wanted to know how she was feeling. She hated him.

"Your body and mind are relaxing and becoming one as you are being sedated, and there's oh so little you can do about it. Your eyelids want to drift shut, so why are you refusing them? That tiredness is spreading and engulfing every inch of your mind and body, pulling you under." The scientist raked his fingers through her hair in an attempt to trying and soothe her asleep, somehow catching every knot in her unbrushed hair. With his tablet in the other hand, he leans forward and taps her nose thoughtfully. "Is it starting to get hard for you to keep your eyes open? Is your head starting to feel heavy? Do you feel like you can fall asleep at any moment?"

She huffs and turns her head, an attempt to avoid all of the onslaught of questions. The scientist, obviously annoyed she'd turn her head away from him, clicks his tongue. Grabbing a fist full of her hair and wrenching her back to look at him, staring at her for a few moments before letting her head drop down harshly against the metal. "Yes." The scientist nodded, writing something down onto the tablet. "That's how the sedative is supposed to make you feel; calm, sleepy, and relaxed. You're fighting your body's natural urge to go to sleep, you will lose that battle, Eradication. You need to go to sleep."

Determination ran through her body, only for it to be snuffed out by an even stronger wave of exhaustion, wiping out whatever traces of motivation she had before she even had the thought to try and use it. She hates him. "Did you realise you've stopped fighting against the restraints? In fact, it looks like you can barely keep your eyes open." A tear slipped past her eye and landed against the cool table, the scientist hums softly. "Slowly but surely, the sedative will put you to sleep, and there's nothing you can do about it. There's no use in fighting it anymore, those eyelids are shutting all on their own."

Eradication already felt a part of herself give in to the effects of the drug, already knowing that there's no longer any use in fighting it, her existence was unknown to the world. There was nobody who would come to save her. Her arms relaxed at her sides as her head lulled comfortably against the hard and uncomfortable table.

"That's right." The scientist cooed. "You're completely unable to fight the drug. It's strong and powerful, while you are weak and boneless." Eradication, the lady of pride herself, couldn't argue with the man in front of her. They both knew who was the one with the power here, and it most certainly is not the one strapped down onto the operating table. "This will make you feel float and drowsy and oh so blissful in no time, it will override your desire and ability to stay awake. It was over the second you woke up, but, you're such a smart experiment. You already knew that, didn't you?"

She fluttered her eyes over at the other man, only having enough energy to slowly blink at him. The scientist seemed pleased with this. "The sedation is conquering your body and soon it will override your mind. Your body will fall asleep soon, let yourself stop fighting, let sleep claim you. Let your eyelids close, Eradication." She fell into a complete lull, it feels just so comfortable, so blissful, why did she ever want to try and fight this feeling? "You're becoming drowsy, drowsier and more sleepy. Soon your eyelids will close, and you will give into the power of the drug. You will be docile, and pliant, and entirely at my mercy." The scientist pauses, a cruel smile on his face as he leans in closer.

"Are you ready for that?" Eradication couldn't answer, but the man didn't seem to mind nor care. Though, he never seems to care either way.

"The moment those pretty eyes of yours close will be the point of no return. A fleeting moment where you're not quite asleep but nowhere near awake, a moment where you know you've lost the fight. Where you'll be completely and utterly under my control, helpless." Eradication blinks slower this time, the fight in her flickering out like a dying candle light. "There we go, shut those sleepy eyes for me now…" The man whispered, a smile growing on his face, but for a fleeting moment, his face stills and relaxes.

"Don't open them again."

Eradication's breathing evens out, her eyes closing for the final time. "Fast asleep." The man sounded so giddy, sickening. "So very, deeply asleep. I bet it feels just so good to stop fighting and finally fall asleep!" Though there was no response, the man continued to talk to himself, snapping on a pair of gloves and moving his tray of equipment next to him. Grabbing his rolling chair, he sits down, having the pleasure of sitting down while he works. "And now that you've fallen asleep, I can finally get to work!"

The scientist grins, turning around in his chair to his computer to begin typing, setting up a recording system. He stares into the camera and smiles, a maniac kind of smile, grabbing a hold on one of the scalpel on the table. "Project; Eradication, Experiment PQ023. Beginning Phase Four."

-

Father gave her a brother.

She's absolutely out of her mind on drugs. Something for the pain, something for her aggression and rejection, something to keep her abilities in check. She… She doesn't remember when or how the dark and damp cell she was kept in below deck where that scientist would experiment on her turned into a cozy child's bedroom. In fact, she doesn't remember much at all, how long has it been? Is it daytime? How long has she been out of it…? A crazy, almost unhinged part of her, the part that lost it's screws after the fifth endless week of nothing but torture, misses it. She misses the dripping pipes and the lack of stimulus, the way the smell of sterile and mildew never seemed to get any more bearable. The hours of silence and darkness that were a soothing song to her fractured and broken body.

This place however… It makes her hands shake.

She can barely even see, her vision blurring and doubling. Her stomach swoops and swishes with nausea, her head aching from swaying side to side slowly. She's perpetually aware of her swaying, on her knees before her father, a pathetic sight. But the drugs, they're making everything cyclical. There's a chasm in her head, a warping vacuum that drags away every single thought she has, twists the sounds around her into the whispers of voices she has long since forgotten.

She wants to cry, but Father hates her tears. "My daughter."

The voice of Father comes from above her, a demand for her attention, but Father must know by now that there's none left to give. Nothing that has been left whole after the scientist's meddling, he left her a fractured doll with nothing inside. Father must know that though, because he's merciful enough to guide his daughter with his own gentle hands, fisting a handful of her hair and jerking her neck back to look at him.

The smile is terrible, it stretches across his aged face too wide, pushes his features from graceful and poised, to deranged. "I've found a use for you after all."

That's good. That is… A good thing. Useless children are given to the scientist, and the scientist only knows how to break his experiments. It's good for her to be useful now. She shouldn't dread it, a pit shouldn't have formed in her stomach at the sight of her Father's grin. That's a sign of disloyalty, and the punishment for disloyalty is severe. Maybe Father can read her mind, like Equilibrium, or maybe her trepidation seeps through the cracks of her skin like a bellow of smoke. The thrum of fear, the undercurrent of disgust. Stop it.

She is not human, merely a half-made thing. But even monsters and freaks can only go so far with no motivation, Father crouches before her, shifting his gentle hands from her hair to her face. He cups that fragile, pale skin of her cheek, peering into the eyes of his creation. "Do you want me to tell you your name?"

It might be a test, a mind game, a trick of some kind to see how attached she is to the name she thinks she deserves. A good daughter should say no. Instead… Instead, she grapples through the fogginess of her own mind, tugging together thoughts that threaten to fly apart at the slightest change within the wind. The daughter manages to get her lips to function, despite the drugs, despite the damage to her brain and body. It comes out a raspy stutter, another flood of iron coughed up her throat. It's pathetic, and Father sneers at her in disgust, but she manages.

"Y-yes, Father."

For a long moment, they stare. Father has the most fearsome red eye, the rim around it dark, slanted like a Ninetales'. In comparison, the clouded, fragmented red eyes of hers are like a Rattata's, a bottom feeder. There's no respect in that gaze, nothing to indicate that the daughter is anything resembling a human being in Father's mind.

"Do you want to know your purpose, girl?"

Father grips her by the chin, turning her face to the other side of the room, to the bed with a boy on it. It's a child's bed, so small. The sides have railings so he won't fall in his sleep, almost like a crib. The figure sleeping is shrouded in mist. It's a baby, it's a baby, and his hair is almost the same kind of green as hers.

"You exist to protect him." Father murmurs, close enough that his perfumed breath brushes against the daughter's neck, sending shivers down her spine. "That is your only purpose, Eradication Harmonia." The relief is instant. Like a hit of an opioid, sinking into every crevice of Eradication's bones. So overpowering that she almost crashes onto her hands and knees. Father holds her up, pinching her face between his fingers, forcing her eyes to lock onto the child.

"You will guard him." He hisses, and Eradication feels the order take place in a fractured part in her mind. Feels it click into her soul as something else slips away. The baby shifts, cries out in his sleep. Father lets go of her face, letting her drop down onto the ground with a thud, like a puppet whose strings were cut. Eradication flops onto her stomach, her cheek hitting the faux wooden floors with a slap, but her eyes remain on Father.

The green haired man kneels next to the bed, and all of the air is stricken out of Eradication's lungs. She's never seen Father present himself in such a caing and loving way, most certainly not for something as mundane as rousing a child. But he does. He kneels over the boy, bows at waist to kiss his mist shrouded forehead, shifting the tufts of hair to the side. It's tender and gentle, without the same mockery he imbues whenever he touches Eradication.

Irrationally, insanely even, she finds herself envious.

Father doesn't hear her mutinous thoughts, or at least they didn't bother him at all. All of his attention was directed to the boy, to softly rousing him, coaxing him from sleep with more patience than Eradication ever even thought her Father was even capable of. "Pendulum…" Father murmurs. It's his son, Eradication realises, when the boy's eyes fly open. Ninetales eye. Green hair. It's his son, that’s who she's protecting.

She should feel honored.

Father rises to a stand once more, this time with a boy attached to his hip. Eradication can feel the gaze of Pendulum, curious but fearful. She resists the urge to look back. "Do you see this thing?" He says, nudging Eradication with his foot. "It is yours to command, my child. It will care for you when I can not." "It's scary." Pendulum says, burying his face into the neck of a man far more intimidating than her. "Why does it look like that?"

"It's a monster I've raised from the pits of the Distortion Realm and tamed to be your very own pet." There's a teasing edge to Father's voice, the slightest bit of humour. Eradication feels herself drifting off, stuck in a sense of unreality. This is too far from the laboratory, too much all at once. She almost wants to go back to being a worthless, nameless thing. But the prospect of the scientist, of allowing that man to twist her bones into something more abstract than humanly possible, is something she does not want to ever wish upon herself.

"It's not scary." Father says, lowering the boy to the ground, however Pendulum still remains stuck against Father's leg. "It won't hurt you, I promise." She lays there, listening to her Father. She doubts that she'd hurt Pendulum if she could. The voices… They don't like that idea. "Is it… A playmate?" Pendulum asks, so curious.

"If you want it to be."

"Can it talk?"

Father kicks her again, one much harder than the one before, this time in a soft part just below her ribs. "Speak." She coughs, the rising tastes of pennies rest on the back of her tongue. "Yes, F-Father." Eradication says. It shouldn't feel like she is being rewarded for it, but it does, and she is. Father gestures for her to rise again, and then pushes the boy into her arms.

He's given her a brother.

Pendulum is warm in her arms, her skin is cold and lifeless, you'd think you're touching a corpse if you grabbed her arm. Instinct has Eradication cradling the boy into her chest, hooking her chin over that slim shoulder. Despite his original reservations, Pendulum sinks into the embrace, fisting his small hands into the fabric of Eradication's shirt. They almost look the same, and that shouldn't matter, but it does. Pendulum looks like the girl she used to be who died in that lab, with his small face and green hair. He could pass for Eradication's brother, and they even share the same Father!

It pleases her, it soothes a sick need for order, to see it like that.

Pendulum is hers to protect. Of course he is, that's what Eradication was made to do, the only reason she's alive. She looks up from her vacant stare, the weight of the child in her arms dragging her back down to earth. Back into the small cozy bedroom, away from her place in that cell within the laboratory. She can't be there anymore, even if she craves the release of death, because now she has a reason to live, she needs to be in here.

Father meets her gaze, and for the first time in the entirety of her life as she remembers it, Eradication feels strong enough to hold it. Father peers down at her, the softness from before now stripped away from his face with Pendulum's back turned. He raises an eyebrow at his puppet. It's a question and a command all at once, an order waiting for acknowledgement. Eradication tightens her grip on the boy, clinging to sanity with the same grip.

"I'll do it." She says, and the words come out far clearer than he thought herself even capable of. "I'll protect him." Father smiles again, smug, the Liepard that's gotten the Tranquill. He crouches before the two children, one hand on Pendulum's shoulder, and the other coming up to cup the side of Eradication's neck. The proximity makes Eradication want to cringe away, to put distance between her and her Father, to fall back onto her stomach like before and plead for his mercy.

But the man does not punish her, he leans closer, hand squeezing tighter around the girl's neck. "Yes." He says, and he doesn't even need to layer compulsion into the weight of his words. This is a command that Eradication doesn't even think of disobeying. "You will."

-

There was a time, not so long ago, when Eradication felt big.

She can't remember why, or when, or what makes her think that way, but she remembers the feeling. The stretch of it, building in her long bones the ache of growing. Comparing, constantly, scratching out markings into the walls in shrill screams and pleas while her bones snap and reshape themselves into something bigger. So much blood. Too much blood, the sickening stench of iron and the wetness of it all…

There is a. Gaping hole. Inside her head.

She can feel it, right now, sucking and sucking, endlessly hungry. Siphoning her focus into an unending vortex, trapping her in a whirlpool. She is drowning and the… The faucet leaks. Her feet have gone numb from standing, thighs trembling and knees bowing ever so slightly at the effort of trying to keep her upright, she's unaware of how long exactly she's been standing here.

Nights are always the hardest. Pendulum sleeps at night, and without the distraction, without the direction, there is nothing to interrupt her path into spiraling. Eradication barely sleeps at night anymore, having not seen the use in doing so, she loses large swathes of time to the dark hours. So, she doesn't know how long she's been here, frozen in front of the sink, listening to the round, metallic plink, plink, plink of the water as it hits the basin.

She should. Should stop it, the leaking. She should make the water stop.

Her limbs move sluggish, like they are suspended in honey, fingers latching on tightly on the lip of the sink, curled up and bracing herself against the metal. She hears the joints in her arms and leg buckle and break at the movement, unused and unwilling. Her body swayed side to side ever so slightly, looking down into the mouth of the drain within the sink.

Eradication blinks. Blinks harder. Then looks up at her reflection.

The light is not on. They are not allowed to be on while Pendulum is sleeping, for they might wake him up. The scientist did something to her eyes, he made them rheumy and sensitive. Turned them into a fragmented purple overlapping her natural reds. She does not need the lights to see the soap scum congealed on the faucet, the grime caked around the cold metal. She does not need the lights to see her own looming, macilent silhouette in the mirror.

Eradication looks up. Remembers, abruptly, why she came into the bathroom in the first place. Her teeth are stained black. They twinkle with highlights of red within the inky black mess of her parted mouth, her medication must be wearing off again. Eradication brings a hand up to her lip, touches oh so gently against the bitten skin. The sensation of it, the pain, filters in so, so sluggishly. She bites back the urge to gag.

Her fingers come away blood stained. Her tongue tastes like pennies.

Father would laugh if he could see his daughter like this. Paler than snow. Shaking like a leaf in the wind. Just from a bit of a coughing fit. She leans forward, over the sink, puts her face right next to the dripping. This close. It's much louder. Much bigger. She digs her nails in, so she won't fall.

It smells like wet metal and fatty soap. Thin strands of her lifeless green hair flops onto her face, escaping the half-hearted pulled back knot of a braid that runs all the way down her neck and back. She opens her mouth, runs her tongue over her black, blood coated teeth, and turns the faucet on. Water fills her mouth, runs down her cheek and over her neck. She squeezes her eyes shut, grounded by the taste of sink water and iron. She rinses until iron is all she can taste, and it doesn't feel so gritty and painful to swallow, and then stops.

Even when she turns the water off, she just holds herself there, underneath the still dripping sink, shivering and shuddering, heavy breathing from filling herself up with more water than she could manage. She could drown. Actually, really and truly drown. Not just her head. Fill herself up to the brim until the vortex is smothered and her body stops shaking. Eradication lets go of the sink and drops down to the ground with a thud, hugging herself. Resting her forehead against the cool and wet metal of the basin. She feels feverish. Unwell. But she always feels unwell…

… She needs to get up. Go back to the bedroom so Pendulum isn't alone when he wakes up, he doesn't like to be alone, she should know that, she does know that. But there's a long time till it hits dawn, and Eradication isn't quite used to being in her own head alone. It's… Unnerving. Quiet. To be alone.

She might've stayed there all night, if not for the sound of approaching footsteps.

Panic is an odd feeling, at least in this state. It doesn't come as easily as it should, muffled back like the rest of her sensations. She's lost it, like how she lost her will to fight, and gained servility in its place. The only thing she truly fears now is Father. But even so, the sound has her stiffening. Eradication straightens her posture, smooths out the wrinkles in her dress and skirt, and turns to face the bathroom door.

It's only as Pendulum shuffles around the corner, his tiny green-tufted head coming into her view, does she realize she can hear something else as well. Something nearly drowned out by the sound of his bare feet tapping around the cold ground. Her pupils, as slitted as they are, dilate. Wider and wider until her head spins with it, and her grey-scale vision sharpens into something picture perfect. Her fingers twitch, the muscles in her body spasming, a physical reaction to the command programmed into the depths of her brain.

The boy cries the same way he did when they first met. Softly, quietly. The lancing sound of it prickles down Eradication's spine, until she can't even think around the failure. "Pendulum." She says, the words dragging up from the clawed up recesses of her chest, scraping and tearing all the way. It's dreadful, like nails on a chalkboard. "Why are you crying?" She kneels, then, because as small as this ship makes her feel, as Father makes her feel, she's just far too big for Pendulum. Bigger, and stronger, technically, and it's her job.

Her knees are jarred, bones crunch and move by the reverberation, and she falls forward, her palms out for the boy. Pendulum is filthy. Eradication pauses, hovering just short of touching the child, blinking down at the mess in front of her. There's snot all over his face. Crusting on his cheek. Getting into his eyes. His shirt is soaked in bile, chunks of regurgitated food plastered down his front. He smells strongly enough that, this close, Eradication can taste it. Sharp and acidic, in the air around them. Worse than that, though, is the wave of heat that radiates from the boy, flushing his face, eyes glazed and swaying.

Oh. Oh, no. No, no.

Pendulum trembles, shaking so violently that his teeth chatter. And when his teeth start chattering, he starts coughing, and when he starts coughing he starts gagging, and--

And Eradication watches, in horror, as the boy pitches himself forward, and vomits all over her.

It's warm, and wet, and viscous and as soon as it touches her skin she immediately wants it off her. Even without the corrosive bile, the sensation of the throw up is putrid. There's such a, such a profound sense of disgust to it all. Visceral and automatic. Eradication rears back, something that she's never have done with Pendulum, cringing away from the boy. For a second, Eradication truly does exist in the moment, shocked into her skin, without the depress of the drugs or the vacuum of her thoughts. She just reacts, scrambling out of the way even as Pendulum continues to vomit, flinching every time it splatters onto the flooring with a splat.

A horrible, horrible sound. Like something is being wretched from the deepest parts of her, almost violent. All the while Pendulum continues to cry. Big, fat tears streaking through the caked up grime on his face. "Oh." Eradication says, strangled, wheezing ever so slightly. "Oh." He's sick. The boy's never been sick before in her care.

Eradication is frozen, drenched in very quickly cooling vomit. It smells. It's dark. And the faucet behind her is still dripping. Plink. Plink. Plink. A metronome of rhythm to the sound of Pendulum's terrible crying. She doesn't-- She doesn't know what to do, but the compulsion in her is screaming at her to fix it, and she can't just sit here and gawk at him.

She's moving before she even realises it, stooping to wrap her arms and hands around Pendulum's waist, hoisting him up, at arm's length. The maneuver stuns him into a soft, hiccupping silence, and Eradication has never been so grateful for anything in her life. "Hush." She says, roughly, stumbling across the cramped, narrow bathroom to the tub. "Be quiet, little boy." He doesn't listen, tipping his head back, and wailing his indignation at the low, popcorn ceiling. Her chest hitches, rhythmic and jarring.

Eradication sets the boy down into the bathtub, pulling off her own vomit-crusted dress, leaving her in her under-dress shorts. It's foul. Overwhelming and sour. She would be crying too, if something as nasty as that came out of her. She strips Pendulum, listening to the boy weep in the darkness, basking in the fever that pours off his skin. When he breathes, his chest rattles with a sound that is almost physically painful. Eradication pities the poor, sick creature.

"Hush." She says once more, not quite as reassuring as she wants it to be, with a growl for a voice and a face that came straight from the depths of the Distortion Realm. "Hush, hush, hush." Pendulum softens for her anyway. Lifting his arms so Eradication can take his top off, letting himself be manhandled by the other woman in the tub. Eradication detaches the shower head from its place in the wall, crouching half-naked next to her brother. She turns on the water as hot as it'll go, which is very much to be honest. Pendulum's teeth chatter, regardless of the hot water.

Father will know. Even if he doesn't visit tomorrow, he'll know. He always knows, he knows everything. She's unsure whether or not Father will be mad, doesn't know if he'll blame her for allowing the boy to get sick in her care in the first place, or will praise her for taking care of him so well in the process.

Pendulum clings to her, wrapping his wet, dirty arms around Eradication's neck, while she tries vainly to clean him off. He's shivering, pressing his sweat-soaked face into Eradication's shoulder. It takes too long. Eradication has to climb halfway into the bathtub herself just to get the job done, soaking her shorts in the process. By the time she's wrapping Pendulum up in a towel, and carrying him back to his room, she's only in her undergarments. Dripping wet and soaked, wracked with shivers of her own.

Her feet pad against the hard floors, the sound is oddly mundane. Eradication cradles Pendulum to her chest, chin tucked over the soft green tufts of hair, breathing in the smell of the soap she used. The vortex is calm. Negligible even. Eradication feels… Present.

"It hurts." Pendulum weeps, lips moving against Eradication's collarbone. He's hanging there, limp and exhausted, one arm managing to squirm free from its binding in the towel to get a fistful of Eradication's hair, just holding it in a tight grip. "What hurts?" Pendulum sniffles. "My feelings." Her face twitches ever so slightly. "Your head?" Eradication suggests, tightening the arm she has around the boy's thighs, leaning back, to free up a hand and let the rough pads of the tips of her fingers brush over Pendulum's forehead. "Mhm." "Alright."

Tomorrow, she'll use the Xtransceiver to call for Father. It's for emergencies, technically, but this feels like an emergency to her. Pendulum is never this lethargic. He needs medicine, right? Soup, Ginger? For his stomach? She doesn't know. She doesn't know what to do in this kind of situation, Father had never prepared her for this scenario in case of it happening.

The room is as it was. The same, small, yet cozy bedroom where Eradication first met Pendulum. The bed hasn't gotten any bigger, because the boy hasn't gotten any bigger. "No!" Pendulum squeals, when Eradication goes to put him down. He digs his nails into her scalp, tugging on the knotted mess that is her hair. It hurts. In a stinging, distant sort of way. Eradication sighs, shifting the boy so he's balanced precariously on her hip, and goes about getting him some new clothes on.

There's an itch at the back of her throat, the threat of another bout of coughing and gagging, and Pendulum isn't any help in the situation. Squirming relentlessly as Eradication tries to dress him, getting the thin, tickling stands of his hair in her face and up her nose. She's been getting more and more of them lately. Long, yet debilitating fits that leave her doubled over and wheezing. Looking and smelling like she just went through a poorly made cheap thriller movie. The drugs aren't helping as much anymore, and Eradication doesn't know how to feel about that. Doesn't know how to care about it.

But what she does know, is that she does not want Pendulum to see it. So she stifles it as best she can, clearing her throat gruffly, shoulders jerking in muted, aborted shudders. She dries Pendulum's hair, the movements automatic, almost ingrained. It's not good to go to bed with wet hair. Pendulum curls up in her lap, happy, sedate, clean, and content. However he's only getting hotter, there's sweat beading on his freshly cleaned face and skin. In fact, Eradication feels warm just by being near him.

"Bedtime." She tells the boy, once he's dry and fully dressed again. She picks Pendulum up, stumbles over to the bed to put him down. Pendulum does not let go of her hair. Eradication hisses, tugging, trying and failing to get the small child's limpet hands out of her hair. "Pendulum." She says. "Pendulum, I need you to let go. Please let go." "No!" She lets herself be dragged down, the bars of the bed digging awkwardly into her stomach, painful in a way. A pair of skinny arms wrapped tightly around her neck. She hovers there, hugged to Pendulum like a glorified Teddiursa, bare, back exposed to the room.

Demanding. Children are always so demanding.

Eradication shifts, kneeling down, so she isn't awkwardly hunched over the bed so dramatically. Allowing herself to be draped over the boy, turning her face sideways, so her cheek rests on Pendulum's chest and the weight of his head is on her shoulder. Only then, does Pendulum begin to settle, eye fluttering shut, breathing heavily through his mouth. Eradication just simply lies there, not daring to move.

She waits, anxiously, for the fog to descend again now that the boy is back to sleep. Waiting for that faded, tarnished feeling to creep back in. It feels imminent, like a storm cloud is just beyond the horizon that is her sense of peacefulness. It never comes, though. Eradication stays painfully solid, blood swishing in her mouth, trapped within the arms of a child.

She thinks that, maybe, this is what happiness is truly like.

-

Okay so, just to clarify a few things before I forgot, no she's not infantilizing Penny in the second half by calling click a baby. The drugs made her mind numb so when she saw him for the first time her brain thought; "Small human = baby." Obviously this corrects itself by the third part where she calls click child instead

There was actually supposed to be a fourth part of this, but I felt like it ruined the vibe of the story, so I stopped writing it abruptly. Though I'll post it below, it is not betaread like the above;

[She's recently gained a new hobby. Sewing.

It's mundane, monotonous. Thread needle in and out, in and out. Her brain felt numb and her head felt heavy, unyielding, all of her thought snatched away and all that remained was in and out. Her senses dull, though it felt as if there was lava pouring on her head. Eradication's brain swirled around her skull with each way and movement. Hurts. In and out. In and out.

All of the fabric collect for this experiment was collected from discarded uniforms and ruined pillows. In and out, in and out. None of their uniforms have red in them, so she has to use blue. She found blue uniforms while scavenging through the stuff that was being sent to the incineration room. In and out, In and out, it was theirs, it had their emblem. So why hasn't she seen them before?

In and out, in and out, in and-- "Sissy?" Prick.

Straight through her finger. Ouch. It brings her back down to earth, seeing the blood drip down her inhumanely long finger. She does not react, simply lulls her head to the side. "Yes, Pendulum?" The boy grabs a hold of the chair's arm, reaching to see what's in her hands. "What are you doing?" The sounds of the child reaching and whining, trying to get a look, was annoying to Eradication. She pulls the needle out of her finger and places it on the table. "Stop that, child." Pendulum squeals happily as Eradication picks him off the ground and places him in her lap.

Pendulum snuggles himself up into Eradication's chest, grabbing a hold of her hair. He never stopped doing that. "I'm sewing. Look." She holds up the plush for Pendulum to see, he squeals in delight and reaches for it. "A Zorua! A shiny Zorua!" "I didn't have red fabric."

Once the toy is in his hands, he squeezes it to his chest with a puff. "Careful. If you break it, I can't fix it right away." Eradication wraps her arms around the boy's abdomen. He is lively and warm. She is deathly cold. Comforting. She places her chin onto the top of Pendulum's head, the child's green tufts of hair tickling her face and nose. They're both snuggled together. Comforting.

"Why does it have a ribbon tied around it's waist?" Eradication does not answer immediately. Fiddling with the aforementioned ribbon, a nervous tick she has yet to squash. "I like the feeling of it."]

-💌

finally got around to replying to this. embarrassingly enough i actually read it a little bit ago but thinking about my son made me run off to work on smth for a bit so i didn't respond right away 😭 anyways that aside

JESUS MAN. WHAT THE HELL /LH

this was SO hard to read.. but like in a good way. you're really descriptive and visceral. in the beginning i lowkey wanted to shake colress around because of his insistence

reading all of this was like the most conflicting experience ever because on one hand i was like omg my son :∆ and just over the moon that you like him enough to write sm about click. and then on the other hand it was shock and horror and dread. like oscillating between these two images the entire time

i feel so bad for herrr jfc. i feel bad for penny too (sick :( ) but her treatment was way worse obvi. hate that ghetsis got penny to call her an it. i mean he would but it still sucks ARGH

for a sec there i thought penny was going to dematerialize before us.. that would've been so evil 💀 also just have to say. with how bleak and horrible the final paragraph building up to it was, the last line being about happiness was harrowing. all this about blood and puke and sickness only to end on a line about happiness. erm💥

but thank you for leaving in the sewing story. it's not the happiest thing ever LMAO but it was a nice bittersweet pallet cleanser after all of That. they make me feel. i just want the best for them your honor