Whatever I’ve Done….
This is part 12 of my fic Not Everyone Survives (But I will do the Best I Can). Tags and other chapters can be found here!
I did it for love / I did it for fun / Couldn’t get enough…
Koutarou couldn’t exactly conceal the dread pooling within him when he saw Tsukishima and the rugrats enter the lab. The blonde avoided his eyes and watched all the curious, confused, and concerned glances he got from the rugrats. Some of them, he recognized.
“This is Subject 8. We will be using it to find a cure to the virus and put an end to the apocalypse.”
That felt weird. ‘Subject 8’. And they made him feel like an object, or a specimen of some kind. He was a person. He was a human.
There was an uneasy silence for a second.
“Wait, isn’t that Bokuto, from Torch, though?”
“We will be referring to it as Subject 8 during its stay here.”
“Why?”
“Don’t question it. Orders from Captain.”
“He’s a consenting test subject, don’t worry,” Tobio assured from the doorway. The ravenette walked in and sat at one of the empty tables.
Consenting.
That was funny.
The first week was probably the worst. He was having needles shoved into him, things taken out of him, chemicals put into him. Most of it hurt. Some of them looked pitying, others curious.
“Isn’t this acid?” one of the guys asked, and Tsukishima looked away.
“Continue with the procedure.”
What.
What what what.
“But—“
“Anyone who shows sympathy for the subject will be punished,” Shouyou stated from the doorway. They were about four days in now. He already hated the sound of the ginger’s voice. “Continue with the procedure.”
He was gonna throw up.
He steeled himself, unable to meet the boy’s teary, apologetic eyes as he grit his teeth, clenching his fists and willing himself not to react too badly. Just don’t react too badly.
And then it started.
It spread through his veins at an excruciatingly slow rate and made his vision blur. The world was spinning and he couldn’t focus on anything else except for the sensation of being set ablaze and the fire crawling up his body was taking its time, spreading only with every pulse of his heart. He couldn’t even make a sound. He couldn’t move.
The voices around him were muffled and the heart monitor in his collar started beeping quicker than normal and then everything was yelling and his skin felt like it was quite literally boiling. He couldn’t see, only endure the sensation of his skin bubbling and liquifying as everything shrieked around him and his ears rang and he couldn’t feel anything except for that and—
Nothing.
He woke up later to the muffled voices of Shouyou, Tobio, Sugawara, and Tsukishima.
“That almost killed him,” Suga protested. “If he can’t handle this, how will he possibly handle the cure extraction?”
“Subject 8 will handle any experimentation. Now that the substance is in its bloodstream, it’ll be fine. It makes its DNA more…malleable, per se. We just had to sedate it before it could have a heart attack.”
“Can we stop with the ‘it’ bullcrap?! You’re pissing me off,” Suga hissed. Shouyou slammed a fist on the table.
“You wanna think of it as a person?? Then sympathy and empathy come along and you lose sight of what’s truly important: the cure. Stop being selfish and remember that this isn’t fucking about you. This is for all of us.”
There was a bout of silence.
“Wake it up,” Shouyou demanded suddenly.
“Well, the only way to do that would be—“
“Shock it, I don’t care,” the ginger scoffed. “I need to run diagnostics.”
Dread filled his veins quickly and he snapped his eyes open and scrambled back against the wall quickly, his breaths coming fast.
“Oh, it’s unnecessary. Hello, Bokuto.”
He didn’t respond at first, looking up at the ginger with wide eyes. A look of fake pity.
“Disoriented, huh? Well, you did almost go into cardiac arrest. Don’t worry. It’ll be a lot simpler now.”
He couldn’t manage more than a nod.
He hoped Keiji would save him soon.
—
Subject 8 was uncooperative lately. Maybe he should up the severity of the punishments. He sat in on experiments again, around three weeks in.
The same rugrat who’d always seemed to feel a bit more guilt than the others was arguing with Tsukishima today.
“It’s not right! And you know that! That’s why you can’t even look at him!”
Oh. He couldn’t have that. He couldn’t have his rugrats questioning the very very carefully curated idea he’d presented. This was for all of them. He couldn’t afford to have it ruined. Not when this was their saving grace.
“Subject 8 is vital to our ending the apocalypse. Continue with the procedure.”
“This is genetic manipulation! Not even, this is essentially a species change we’re talking about—“
“This isn’t my fucking choice,” Tsukishima snapped. “This is by orders of the Captain, and this…this is for all of us. I’m not a monster, I—“
Tsukishima couldn’t waver. He had to stop this now.
“Of course not,” he chimed from the door, walking in with a smile. His voice was soothing, though it had an edge. “What, is someone doubting my judgment?”
He kept his tone playful. Tsukishima cleared his throat.
“The rugrat.”
“Oh, is that so?”
“He’s been showing sympathy for Subject 8 for the past 3 weeks.”
“Well,” he said with a small chuckle. “We can’t have that, can we?”
He straightened up.
“Tobio, go get everyone else. I think we’ll have a meeting on the roof. All the rugrats, all the members. Everyone.”
His boyfriend stood, nodding, and then left. He couldn’t help his smile. The rugrat was looking up at him, his hands shaking a little.
“What’s your name?”
“I, uhm…”
“Your name. What is it?”
“Apollo.”
“Alrighty, Apollo, come with me.”
The boy opened his mouth to say something, probably to protest and try to save himself, but Shouyou wasn’t in the mood to hear it.
“Quietly, please.”
And his mouth snapped shut. And so they all met on the roof. Shouyou stood on the edge with the boy. Subject 8 was there too, in the front. Good. It should see this.
“Sorry to pull all of you from your daily tasks, but I figured this is something everyone should see. After all, we’re supposed to lead by example, right?”
The rugrat was trying very hard not to cry. He could feel it.
He wouldn’t have to do this if everyone just listened. He’d liked Bokuto. He’d really really admired him. He still did. But he needed to do this to save everyone, including Bokuto.
Suga and the others looked away as Shouyou continued speaking.
“We all know that anyone who sympathizes with Subject 8 is to face punishment, correct? We can’t exactly have liabilities for Project Savior. This, after all, is for all of us! It’s to end the apocalypse! You want to live, don’t you? Don’t want to keep losing people to the apocalypse, right? This is our key!”
He turned to the boy, Apollo, who was looking at the ground and trembling.
“This is Apollo. He is a Subject 8 sympathizer and a risk to our work on Project Savior as well as to our very safety. After all, he could tell the others that we have Subject 8, and if that happens…well, we’ll probably all be killed.”
That sent a stir through the crowd.
“And so, this is what happens, to those who put our very lives at risk.”
He moved so he was standing behind the boy, who was facing the edge of the roof, and then grabbed him by the shoulder. His free hand took the gun out of its holster, and aimed.
Take out his legs so he can’t walk.
BANG! BANG!
The boy screamed immediately, and Shouyou had to keep him standing with the grip on his shoulder.
He was, what, thirteen?
Don’t think about that.
He’s a risk.
He deserves this.
And then take out his shoulders so he can’t crawl.
BANG! BANG!
He drowned out the sounds around him so he didn’t have to think about it. He then aimed for the fourth vertebrae.
Pull the trigger and then dispose of the body. That was all he had to do.
BANG!
He dropped it off the roof, then turned back to those gathered.
“Just remember. This cure isn’t just for Messenger. It’s for all of us.”
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