#limited life smp fic

[scribbling-dragon]

you've got two lives down and one life left

summary:

“They're also headed over here,” Cleo says. He can hear the frown in her voice. “You're still yellow, meaning you're still target number one. They're all going to be vying for your time.” “Yeah, yeah,” he waves her concern off. “I know.” He pulls himself off the bed, trying not to wince too much at the aching in his chest. “Are they on their way yet?” “Joel’s just pulled himself out the water,” Martyn tells him.

(ao3 link)

(6,604 words)

[hey hey hey! the fishfucker series makes a grand return! this is the first of two final installments in this series,, there are some references to earlier fics in the series, so if you haven't read those there may be a little confusion, but other than that, just think: scott is a mer than works on (slightly modified) h2o: just add water mechanics. hope you enjoy! and remember- reblogs are ALWAYS super appreciated <;33]

He shakes his head in an attempt to rid himself of the disorientation that comes with a sudden death. Several faces peer at him from above, all of which shift backwards when he starts to sit up. Scar looks a little guilty, but overall pleased with himself. Scott would, personally, be a little annoyed if he didn’t look pleased with himself after gaining another thirty minutes to his timer.

“Was I right?” He asks, more occupied with finding out whether his hunch was correct or not. He can continue to regain his bearings over the next few moments.

“Yeah,” Martyn’s stood towards the edge of the hill, peering out towards their island with a spyglass. He lowers it from his eye and glances back. “They're looking around right now, all confused.”

“What did I tell you,” he grins. So sue him, he’s pleased with himself for reading the bad boys like a book; not that it’s a hard thing to do in general, they're each an open book with their motivations easy to pick apart and determine, with enough time and effort.

“They're also headed over here,” Cleo says. He can hear the frown in her voice. “You're still yellow, meaning you're still target number one. They're all going to be vying for your time.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he waves her concern off. “I know.” He pulls himself off the bed, trying not to wince too much at the aching in his chest. Scar certainly doesn’t pull his punches, but the slight desperation in gaining time only put more force behind his blows. His chest feels as though it might cave in with too hurried a movement. “Are they on their way yet?”

“Joel’s just pulled himself out the water,” Martyn tells him, “looking rather like a disgruntled dog- oh, yeah, look. He’s shaking himself off like one, too. Grian just hit him for that. I think. Oh man!” Martyn breaks off into a laugh, “Timmy looks even worse- look, Cleo, he’s like a drowned bird.”

Cleo hums. “It reduces the intimidation factor quite significantly.”

“From what?” Scott manages to get himself completely upright, joining Cleo and Martyn in their watching of the bad boys (still a stupid nickname). “Zero into the negatives?”

“Aw, c’mon,” Martyn bumps his hip against Scott’s. “You don't need to be so mean to them, they're trying their best, you know. Look at them.”

“Joel just tripped over nothing,” Cleo announces. “And the other two are laughing at him.”

Scott looks back to the trio in time to watch Joel throw his hands up in frustration and walk away, forging a path ahead of the other two. Grian and Jimmy continue to laugh, though they're too far away for Scott to hear anything.

He’s smiling, amused at the small performance, when Joel glances up. He’s in a patch of the forest that has fewer trees, meaning they make eye contact near immediately. This is apparently enough to make him forgive his fellow teammates for their earlier transgressions, as he immediately turns back to yell at them.

“You know,” he takes a step back from the edge of the hill, “I do believe that’s my cue to do a disappearing act.”

“Have fun.” Cleo tells him, still watching the bad boys with something resembling amusement.

“Stay safe,” Martyn tells him, halfway turning away from the view. “And good luck.”

“Thank you, dear,” he blows a kiss towards Martyn, only beginning to back up more rapidly as he hears the sound of shouting approaching quicker and quicker. He scrambles around the side of the Clock Tower, a plan already quickly forming in his mind.

He digs his fingers into the cobble, lengthened nails aiding in his ascent. He makes it to the first of several ledges, pulling himself over the edge and tucking his legs a little closer. The sound of shouting has lessened, but people are still speaking below.

He inches around the edge, one hand pressed against the side of the tower for stability, ears pricked to listen to the conversation happening just below him.

“Oh, I think he went that way,” Cleo points over the hills, past where the bad boys’ base is. They're lying through their teeth right now, but the trio don't seem to pick up on those cues. As a group, they glance over at where they're pointing. Scott leans back against the wall behind him slightly, pressing a hand over his mouth to muffle a laugh. “He started running as soon as you guys did, so you're gonna have to be quick to catch up with him.”

“And how do we know you're not lying?” Joel crosses his arms, sunglasses slipping a little lower on his face with the sudden movement. He doesn’t push them back up, because that would mean uncrossing his arms and then crossing them again once he’s adjusted his sunglasses. “He’s your ally, you could be defending him. He could be here right now, and you might be lying.”

“And if you found that out, you’d kill us.” Martyn shrugs.

Scott slowly chips away at the block behind him, aware of how exposed his current position is but far too curious to hide himself somewhere safer.

“And he went that way?” Grian asks, tipping his head in the direction Cleo pointed in.

“Yes.” Cleo says. “He might have veered off elsewhere afterwards, but he headed that way.”

“He might’ve gone back to our island,” Martyn muses. “Regather supplies, y’know?”

“As if,” Joel scoffs, hefting his axe over one shoulder and begins walking away. Jimmy stays for a moment longer, eyes squinting at the small group of gathered people. His wings are puffed up behind him, making him look like an angry cat.

Jimmy follows after a moment too, and Scott watches, alongside his allies, as they descend the hill again, set on the path of a wild goose chase.

He slips down the tower after a few minutes of silence, bracing himself before dropping the last few feet. It sends a slight shock through his legs, jarring his ankles with a sharp sting.

“How would you feel about checking on our base? Joel seemed pretty confident that you I wasn’t going back there.”

“Probably because everything’s destroyed,” Martyn sighs. “We both saw him coming out of our little hidey-hole.”

Scott grimaces at the thought of what destruction Joel might have wrought on their base. Any number of traps could have been set up there in preparation for his own inevitable death. He’s only lucky that he decided to tether his spawn to the bed in the Clock Tower rather than gambling with his luck and losing a larger chunk of time.

“Well,” he starts, “I'm sure it’s nothing a little carpet won’t be able to cover up.”

=== === ===

“Woah!” He veers out the way, watching as the firework explodes into a shower of sparks and fire. The heat of it licks dangerously close to his skin, sending heat washing over him in waves. He stumbles to a stop, dirt crumbling beneath his feet as he halts.

The ground below looms, warning of the fate that awaits him if he overbalances.

Another firework shoots past his head, whistling as it misses.

“You missed!” He calls back, unable to refuse a taunt even if it’ll only anger his pursuers more. A wordless shout follows behind him, frustration bleeding into it. “You’ll have to do a little better than that to hit me!”

He glances up with a grin, only slightly out of breath. He’d barely reached the top platform after hauling himself up the ladder before they were on him, relentless in their pursuit, chasing him down like a pack of rabid animals.

Etho looks up from where he’s reloading his crossbow, face unreadable. “I'm sorry Scott, it’s gotta be you!”

“Why’s it gotta be me?” He calls back, backing up a few more steps. He hides a hand behind his back, summoning an ender pearl to hand. It settles comfortably in his palm, the cold weight of it familiar as he readies himself to fling it as far as possible.

“’Cause you’ve got the most!” Etho’s footsteps are heavy behind him, the sound of another firework exploding beside his ear deafening. He turns to glance over his shoulder, finding Etho far closer than he first thought.

He flings the ender pearl in a panic, watching as it hurtles out of sight.

Etho reaches out for him, going to grab onto him – any part of him – and teleport with him. Scott ducks out of the way, elbowing Etho in the gut as he drops himself off the side of the rickety bridge. Etho makes a punched-out noise as all the air is forced from his lungs, his hands loosening their already loose grip on him.

He plunges off the side easily after that, a fuzzy feeling already beginning to surround his limbs. Etho frowns down at him from above, lining up his crossbow for a final shot.

Said shot never hits, as the ground surges up around Scott, a purple tint overtaking his entire field of vision for a few moments. He stumbles, knees threatening to buckle from the impact. He continues running in spite of it.

His mind runs through several scenarios, each of them being discarded one after the other, as he scrambles for some kind of escape plan.

He could escape into the water, but that move is now a predictable one, and there are very few rivers deep enough that he could leave the ocean if necessary. And the ocean itself may be deep, but it’s a small area that he can do little with if he’s pursued there.

To retreat deeper into the forest would only place him closer to the bad boys and their bases, placing him directly in the line of sight of another group that wants him dead.

There’s potential in escaping to the Clockers. But their base is close to TIES’, and he’d feel endlessly guilty if he brought conflict to Cleo’s doorstep in an effort to escape the inevitable.

As he’s grasping for another idea, he almost runs directly into a low-hanging tree branch. He skids to a stop before he can collide with it, chest heaving with exertion as he glances around. Then back at the tree and its low-hanging branch. He could…

Decision made, he hauls himself up. The bark scrapes against his hands as he clambers up the tree, but he climbs it as quickly as possible while also doing his best to not shake the entire tree and give his position away.

It’s during moments like this that he almost wishes Martyn had come with him rather than scurrying off to wherever it is that he’s gone. He’d much rather have an ally beside him, one that can protect him and, in the truly dire moments, take the time rather than have an enemy gain the upper hand.

Scott whips his head around when he sees something glinting in a nearby tree, shoving his shield up just quickly enough to hear the thunk of an arrow embedding itself into it.

“Goddamnit,” is the whispered curse he hears, before Impulse is poking his head out. “How’d you see me?”

He swallows back the anxiety before he even dares speaking, only lowering his shield enough that he can peek over the edge of it. Impulse is still holding his bow, an arrow loosely notched. Scott knows full well how quickly that arrow could go from being loosely notched to embedded in his shoulder, and so he keeps the shield up.

“The sun reflected off your arrow,” he tells Impulse.

“Damn,” Impulse frowns. “I don't think there’s a way I can fix that.”

“You could just walk away?” Scott offers, “You're pretty close to eight hours, aren’t you? We’re at a similar time here Impulse. You kill me, you’ll just be switching our places – you’ll become the one with a target painted on your back.” A branch snaps on the forest floor below, quiet enough that it could easily be a curious animal poking around in the shrubbery below. “Or, I guess you could just let Etho carry out his sneak attack.”

He knows he’s hit gold the moment Impulse’s eyes widen, and the rustling of undergrowth turns into the snapping of twigs and small branches as Etho forces his way through the dense bushes to stand below the tree Scott perched himself in.

He…didn’t really think this through, actually. He’s cornered himself in this tree he sought as his sanctuary, leaving him trapped in a cage of his own making.

“Good afternoon,” he greets, nodding down at Etho. He doesn’t know what time it actually is. It could easily be early morning or late afternoon, and he wouldn’t have a single clue. “Funny seeing you here.”

“Uh-huh,” Etho ignores him, slotting a firework neatly into his crossbow and lighting the fuse. “Funny seeing you here, too, Scott.”

Scott shuffles back a little further on his branch, glancing down at the drop to the floor. Not terrible, but also not ideal. His shield catches against the fork of the tree branches that he wedged himself into. He sighs and yanks it back further, firmly wedging it into the wood before he drops.

The explosion of a firework rings in his ears, his ankles protesting the repeated abuse they’ve undergone today, sending small flares of pain up his legs with every step he takes.

Colourful sparks settle on the ground around him, residue from the previous shot.

Etho steps around the tree trunk, unperturbed, simply loading another firework into the crossbow. He hopes Etho runs out soon. He really hopes Etho runs out soon, actually.

“Nowhere to run now, Scott,” Etho says, eyes crinkling at the corners with his smile when he looks back up. He squints when he lines the crossbow up, following Scott easily, even as he takes staggering steps, trying to get Etho to shoot it early and give him enough time to duck out the way. “You’ve abandoned your shield, too. You're gonna be wishing for it back in a minute.”

“Yeah,” he laughs nervously, already wishing for his shield back. He started wishing for his shield back the moment he abandoned it in that tree.

He ducks as Etho releases the firework, rolling and hoping that it misses him. Even if it singes half his scales off, he doesn’t care anymore.

Somehow, perhaps with some divine intervention from above, the firework only catches the edge of his already torn jacket, setting a small fire that he puts out when rolling amongst the leaves.

He hops back to his feet, turning on his heel to continue run. The exhaustion dragging at his bones makes him a little slower than usual, a little more clumsy on his feet from the stress of constantly escaping and running and fleeing whoever’s decided that he’s easy pickings.

He chokes.

The feeling of something lodged in his throat brings him to a halt. A halt which almost ends with him keeled over on the forest floor as his legs abruptly weaken beneath him. he manages to avoid falling flat on his face by throwing a hand out to catch himself, the other flying to his neck.

The metal bolt from a crossbow is what greets him, when he ghosts his fingers over the skin of his neck. He can feel his gills fluttering, attempting to make up for the sudden lack of oxygen. But they're not designed for extracting oxygen from the air, not designed with that in mind at all.

His fingers come away wet with his own blood, glistening in the sparse few rays of sunlight that slice through the thick canopy of leaves above him.

A few beads of blood drop to the leaves below him, a slow pitter-patter, almost like rain, filling his ears.

“Aw, man,” he hears, despite his rapidly fading vision and hearing. “I wanted to get him. Now you're gonna be back to yellow.”

“I didn’t think it’d actually hit him! It was just meant to soften him up for you, make him a little easier to hit.”

“And what were you aiming for? His head?”

“I was aiming for his leg,” Impulse hisses. Leaves crackle underfoot nearby, but Scott doesn’t find it in himself to care. He’s already on his way out, there’s nothing more they can do to him.

“Wow,” Etho whistles. Blurry outlines appear in his peripheral vision, fading more by the second. “Your aim is terrible.”

=== === ===

Scott sighs. Again. For what feels like the fifth time in the last ten minutes.

His throat still feels weird, the new scar tissue raised and irritated. It’s only barely healed, just enough to make sure that he doesn’t start bleeding immediately upon re-entering the land of the living. Cleo grimaces at him from her seat as he runs his fingers carefully over his throat again.

“You better stop prodding at that,” she tells him. “You're going to give yourself an infection.”

“I'm not going to be sticking around long enough for an infection,” he tells her. “None of us are.”

Cleo snorts. “Might be true, but you don't need to say it.”

“Someone needs to.” He heaves himself out of his chair with a sigh. “Anyways, I'm off. Got some business to attend to.”

Cleo watches him go, one eyebrow raised. “You might not be everyone’s favourite punching bag anymore, but you're still one of the people with the highest time. You sure you wanna go alone?”

“I'm off to my death anyway,” he shrugs. An agreement is an agreement, and just because he’s died before he intended doesn’t mean he’s going to break his word. “No point in prolonging the inevitable. And they might think I'm attacking them if you come with me.”

Cleo makes a sound in the back of her throat. “Just remember that Martyn won’t be pleased if you're back in less than one piece.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he pushes the door open with his foot, waving her off. “I’ll be back in a minute, just you wait.”

He doesn’t intend for this to take long, anyway. He’s got an agreement, and he’ll stick around long enough to uphold his end of the deal. Jimmy should be waiting for him in the agreed upon spot, and then he can decide how he wants to kill Scott. It’s out of his hands at that point.

The climb up the ladder is long and boring, the waterlogged mansion looming below, a dark splotch amongst the otherwise green forest. He pokes his head out into the main house, glancing around. He’s wary of Joel and Grian being the first to see him, and only emerges once he’s certain neither of them are waiting to pounce on him.

Unfortunately, he can’t see Jimmy either, poking around in all three of the little houses and just about ready to give up on this whole thing. He might dislike breaking his word, but there’s nothing he can do if the other person isn’t here either.

“Scott!” He jumps at the sound of his name, spinning around. Jimmy grins back at him from the top of the bread loaf house. His wings flutter behind him. Once upon a time, Scott might have been able to read the exact mood Jimmy is in from the fluttering of his wings, but now he can only guess that it’s something like excitement or anticipation.

“Jimmy,” he returns the greeting. “I almost thought you weren’t here.”

“Course I'm here,” Jimmy scoffs, crossing his arms. Scott can’t see his eyes for the dark sunglasses covering them, but Jimmy is still smiling down at him. He’s managed to crack his sunglasses since Scott last saw him, running through an entire lens. “We’ve got a deal to complete.”

“That we have,” he spreads his arms out wide. “How is it you're choosing to kill me?”

Jimmy pauses. “You're gonna let me choose?”

“Makes it more fun for you that way, doesn’t it?” He cocks his head to the side, watching as Jimmy considers his options. “A little fun never hurt anyone.”

“Alright,” Jimmy shoots him a look he can’t read. Wearing sunglasses makes it infinitely harder to determine what it is that Jimmy’s thinking. He might have been grateful that Jimmy is the only one amongst his trio that knows how to wear sunglasses properly, but at least he can get a good read on Joel and Grian still. “Let’s head up, then.”

Scott glances upwards, towards the ladder leading onwards and upwards. The same ladder that has claimed several lives in recent days…hours? He’s still not sure how time passes here, several days disappearing in front of them, yet only a few hours ticking down on their timers.

“More ladders?” is what he settles on instead, “Really?”

“Good for building upper body strength,” Jimmy claims. “C’mon, you said I could choose. Up we go.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he sighs, for the umpteenth time, and begins climbing the ladder. “You could just shove me off here and have it done with. Doesn’t seem like there’s much point in climbing only to drop back down.”

“You're sure doing a lot of complaining for someone that told me to pick how I get to kill you.”

“I'm a complainer,” he glances down at Jimmy. “You know this. I do things, I complain, and that’s how all of this works.”

“I’d like it if you complained less,” Jimmy tells him. “As the person deciding your death.”

“Uh-huh,” he turns to continue climbing, only to balk at the arrow that goes flying past his nose. He looks up further, finding Joel and Grian, each holding a crossbow and peering down the small gap at him. Joel looks as though his birthday has come early, positively giddy at the thought that he might be able to kill Scott. Grian just looks annoyed.

“Excuse me,” he frowns. “This is Jimmy’s kill.” Something else falls past him as he speaks, and he presses himself closer to the ladder, before turning to glare back up at Joel. His fins, a new addition since his most recent death, press flat against the side of his head in annoyance.

“They just tried to dri- drop dripstone on you,” Jimmy tells him.

“Did you just try and steal Jimmy’s kill?” He pauses in his ascent again, looking up at Joel properly. The man is giggling, far too excited at the prospect as he stares down at Scott.

“Yeah.”

“Joel,” he frowns, continuing to climb and pulling himself out at the top. He pokes Joel in the chest, right in the middle of his chestplate. “You're gonna steal time from someone on thirty minutes?”

“Thirty-five,” Jimmy corrects.

“You're gonna steal time from someone on thirty-five minutes?” he repeats.

“He was on seven minutes earlier,” Joel tells him. He’s still grinning, but it doesn’t seem to reach his eyes in the same way it had just a few seconds ago, when the idea of killing him had still been on the table. Joel pushes his sunglasses up a little higher when he sees Scott watching him.

“That’s why I'm here,” he plants his hands on his hips. “I told Jimmy he could kill me however he wanted, and he wants to shove me off of here.”

“Oh, really?” Joel’s eyebrows rise over the edge of his sunglasses, and he looks between Jimmy and Scott. “Please, do continue. Can I watch?”

Scott sighs. “Sure, yeah. Let’s make it a public spectacle, shall we?”

“Nah,” Joel pushes him between the shoulder blades, urging him onwards and into the wheat fields they’ve got growing up here. “Let’s get going, I wanna see this now.”

The wheat brushes around his ankles and up his legs, tickling the exposed skin as they make the trek across the wheat fields. Scott does his best not to trample the crops, even with the heavy press of a crossbow against his spine and his impending death looming ever closer.

Grian mutters something to Joel that makes both of them laugh.

He doesn’t blame them for getting giddy over the idea of someone offering themselves up for death – to reach this point in the game and not begin to become excited at the idea of spilling blood is more unusual – but he’d much prefer it if they giggled about it somewhere he can’t hear them.

The fields of wheat slowly turn to churned-up dirt underfoot as they approach the far edges of the platform. He can feel the give of the dirt beneath his feet, worrying for a moment that it might give out beneath him before Jimmy can shove him off the end.

Smaller branches spiral off of the end, spiderwebbing across the entire server, overlaying Skynet. He winces at the memory of how much destruction these pathways have wrought, still feeling a flicker of fire under his skin at the memory of explosions too close and sudden to survive.

Jimmy leads him out onto one of these branches, Joel and Grian hanging back.

The dirt sinks beneath his feet now, truly unstable and threatening to leave them to plummet at any second. Jimmy sticks closer to the main chunk, readying his crossbow with twitching hands. Scott would almost say he looks guilty, fussing over a crossbow that has been loaded and ready to shoot for the past few minutes.

He feels his heel dip into open air as he backs himself up to the very edge of the platform, resisting the natural urge to glance backwards and see how far away the ground is. Doing so will only cause the dread to build further, and he’s not sure he can withstand that right now, with Jimmy continuing to fuss over the most minute of details.

Scott watches as Jimmy nudges his sunglasses further up the bridge of his nose with his elbow, lining the crossbow up a moment later.

“Appreciate this,” he says, and shoots.

The impact of the hit is enough to send Scott tipping over the edge, shoulder smarting from the impact, fingers twitching. The other bad boys give a whooping cry, probably congratulating Jimmy on gaining himself a little more time.

He twists himself around midair, only to regret it a moment later as the ground surges up to greet him.

He doesn’t feel the impact, thankfully, nerves numbing and senses dulling as he shoots back up. He presses a hand to his chest, attempting to get his ragged breath under control. The feeling of air in his lungs, even after only a few moments of breathlessness, is uncomfortable.

The void stretches wide around him, water lapping at his ankles and yet refusing to reclaim him. It does not return him to the land of the living yet, seemingly content to allow him to stew in the silence for longer.

First to fall.

He jerks at the sudden voice, lurching to his feet. The water laps at his ankles, the splashing loud in the silence left in wake of the echoing words. He has heard of Them speaking to others before, choosing to bestow warnings or wisdom upon those They deem as worthy.

He has never been greeted with anything but disapproving silence on the few occasions where he has been permitted entry to this void.

You believe your sacrifice can reverse the Curse?

He stiffens, turning to try and find the source of this voice. To find a source of the gaze weighing heavily upon his back. And yet his watchers remain unseen, cloaked in the darkness that surrounds him.

He is trapped. You cannot prevent the inevitable.

“There’s no harm in trying,” he tells the open air. The empty space around him. He flexes his hands at his sides, wishing for some kind of weapon to fill the empty space there. “Every curse has a cure. That’s how things work.”

Not this one. Your efforts are foolish and misguided, your sacrifice will be in vain.

“Maybe I don't care, then.” He crosses his arms, “Have you ever considered that your shitty games are pointless? That they don't mean anything in the grand scheme of things. We’re gone for a day, maybe two. No-one misses us; we slot back in as easily as if we’d never been here at all. What’s the point when you can’t even make a lasting impression?”

That is what you think, the voices almost sound offended. A mere insect believes that when a tree shakes, it is the one causing it to do so, rather than the wind or a larger creature of greater importance.

“And I'm the bug in that analogy?” He cocks an eyebrow. “How creative of you.”

You overestimate your importance. You think you have more of an impact than you truly do. In reality…you are nothing more than an after-thought.

“Then why include me at all?” He laughs, “I fuck up your plans every time. Tell me, did you decide on me being the first Boogeyman as a joke? Or were you just so upset over last time that you couldn’t resist.”

Their silence permeates the air.

“Or, tell me this, actually: did it frustrate you that it was done so easily? That the usual build-up and betrayal was missing from the equation – is that why you were so desperate to create another? To make up for the way I've been ruining your games?”

You know not of what you speak. The voices are definitely offended this time. The tiny pest continues to believe itself more important than it is. Fine, a huff reverberates around him, return to your life. See how far your sacrifice carries the Canary.

He opens his mouth to respond, but the water surges up around him before he can say anything, muffling any words he tries to yell at these divine beings with Their overinflated egos.

He huffs out a breath as he resurfaces, pressing a hand to his chest again. This is beginning to become uncomfortably familiar. Feeling the way his heart gradually slows beneath his palm. The way his chest slowly stops rising and falling so quickly, breaths evening out into something less dizzying.

“Scott!”

He looks up at the familiar voice, smiling at the rapidly approaching Martyn.

“I'm back,” he pats the bed below him a little, swinging his legs over the side. “Hi.”

“Yeah, hi.” Martyn reaches him, trousers soaked below the knee and looking more than a little worried. “What happened?”

“I had a deal with Jimmy, remember?” He tilts his head to the side, watching how Martyn follows his every movement. His hands flutter anxiously around Scott, as though wanting to touch him but unsure whether he can.

Scott grasps his wrist gently, pulling it forward until it rests on his shoulder.

“Yeah, I remember now.” Martyn frowns. “How much longer have you got left now, then?” Martyn could easily glance down at his wrist, see the timer ticking merrily down himself, but he chooses not to, for some reason.

“Long enough,” Scott tells him. He’s still easily got the highest timers out of most of their allies and enemies, but there’s no reason to reveal such a thing to the pair loitering just behind Martyn.

He raises his eyebrows at Pearl and BigB, looking back at Martyn for a response. Martyn gives a small shrug, squeezing his shoulder once before releasing him completely. Scott stands, peering around at the almost invisible shards of glass scattered amongst the water.

He grimaces at the thought of jumping down and impaling himself on those by accident, sympathetic aches flaring up along his legs.

“Didn’t think you’d be appearing around here anytime soon, Scott,” Pearl greets. “Nice of you to drop in.”

“Ha-ha, aren’t you funny,” so maybe he’s still a little sore over Pearl attempting to attack them in the middle of the night. She seems to have moved past it rather easily seeing as she’s been setting up a trap alongside Martyn for however long – presumably for as long as Martyn disappeared for.

“C’mon,” Martyn grabs him by the elbow, surprisingly gentle over the new scales and fins. He feels the way Martyn swipes a thumb over the patchy scales, a question written into the furrow of his brow. “There’s a few of us gathered down here, and they’ll only get more and more suspicious the longer we hang around for.”

“We’ve got something else to be doing, anyway,” Pearl says. She hops out of the water easily, walking along the cobblestone path cutting through the water and leading towards the Clock Tower. “Just gonna have to wait and see with this one.”

“I'm sure someone’ll jump down sooner or later,” he replies. Martyn doesn’t release his grip on Scott’s arm, continuing to hold onto him even as it makes walking down the narrow path a little more awkward.

“We’ll just have to wait and see who falls for it first.”

He groans. “Martyn, dear, that might be one of your worst ones yet.”

“Really? I actually thought that was quite good- hey! Pearl! What did you think of that one? Pearl? Why aren’t you responding?”

=== === ===

Scott jumps at the flurry of motion beside him, leaping back and away from the bed. He watches as Martyn flails out of it in a tangle of sheets and limbs, landing with a dull thump on the floor.

Scott watches, amused, as Martyn rests his head on the floor and lets out a groan.

“Having fun?” He asks.

“Scott!” Martyn jerks his head upwards, “Uh, hello. Didn’t realise you were there.”

“I gathered,” he crouches down in front of Martyn. “Need a hand up?”

“No, I’m…I'm fine, actually.” Martyn sighs. He then begins to untangle himself from the bedsheets, wriggling around awkwardly on the floor. Scott watches, still crouched in front of Martyn as he seems to only get himself even more tangled. “I- ugh.”

“Do you need a hand?” He asks again, watching as Martyn continues to struggle for a moment before going entirely limb.

“Yes, please.”

“See,” he unwinds a tangled bit of the bedding, releasing one of Martyn’s arms. “No harm in asking for help, hm?”

“I'm perfectly capable of asking for help.” Martyn sits up as Scott untangles his other arm, leaving him able to untangle himself easily. “It’s you that seems incapable of such a thing.”

“I ask for help when I need it.”

“Uh-huh, then what’s all this?” Martyn gestures at him, the vague way he spreads his hands out not at all helping with Scott’s confusion.

“What’s all what?”

“You, right now.” Martyn catches one of his hands. “I haven’t seen you since you turned red, and then you turn up out of nowhere, freshly dead, and you look sick.”

“It’s just a few aesthetic changes,” he scoffs. Martyn ignores him in favour of studying his hands, scales now covering most of them and webbing stretching between his fingers. “Don't poke at that, it’s sensitive.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Martyn stops prodding and stretching the webbing on his hands, looking up at him guiltily. “You're not bothered by this? Everyone might have seen your other form, but that’s very different to being unable to choose what you look like.”

“I expected it,” he lies. “Red lives always look a little…different. I mean, the first time around everyone went grey. Jimmy looked like he was a strong breeze away from collapsing at all times. I think I've gotten a slightly better end of the stick, here.”

“Hm, well I certainly won’t disagree with you there,” Martyn brings his hand up to his lips and presses a kiss to it. The sudden warmth on his cold, and rather sensitive, scales sends a tingle up his arm and down his spine. “It’s much easier to admire you like this when I'm not a few moments away from drowning.”

He laughs, even as he feels his face growing a little warmer. “Always a flatterer.”

“Is it flattery if it’s true?” Martyn leans back from where Scott has moved forward to continue talking. “Flattery implies that I'm trying to get something out of you, and simply trying to get on your good side in order-”

Scott quiets him with a chaste kiss, grinning with some satisfaction when Martyn shuts up immediately, even going so far as to lean after him when he pulls back.

“You talk too much, sometimes.”

“Good thing I have you here to shut me up,” Martyn’s fingers curl into his hair, pulling slightly but not enough to be painful. “Though, I do often find myself without words around you. You really steal my breath away.”

He sighs, pulling back. “Are you ever going to let that go?”

“You didn’t even know it would work,” Martyn pokes him in the chest. “How long did you think regular people could breathe underwater for? Ten minutes? You were a regular person up until this round of the games, and you forget it so easily?”

“I was certainly not a regular person.”

“Alright, Mr. Pedantic, you weren’t capable of breathing underwater before this, and yet you still managed to forget the need for air?”

“I had it all sorted. You’d have died otherwise; alternatively, I could have just left you to Pearl and BigB.” He narrows his eyes. “See if I’ll save you next time.”

“Aw, no,” Martyn reaches after him, grabbing his face between his hands. “That evening was a great experience. I’d never known such things could be done-”

“Do you have no sense of decency,” he interrupts, pressing a hand firmly over Martyn’s mouth.

“No kiss to shut me up this time?”

Scott frowns at him, opening his mouth to respond. He closes it a moment later, tilting his head to the side. His fins quiver slightly, perking upwards as he listens. Martyn’s gone stiff as well, head tilted in the same way as Scott in order to listen.

“Can you hear…”

“The Canary Call,” Martyn finishes. “Damn. I almost thought Joel might go out first this time.”

Scott doesn’t respond to that, and Martyn doesn’t continue talking. They both want to see how long it’s going to take before the song cuts out, before that lilting melody fades and leaves nothing but silence in its wake.

He winces at the final drawn out note, the pitch rising to something painful.

In the silence afterwards, Scott finds that his previously light-hearted mood has been destroyed. Martyn’s watching something just over Scott’s shoulder, eyes far away and not seeing anything that’s actually there.

Scott tries not to look too closely at Martyn as he regathers himself, not wanting to see the glassy sheen of almost-death covering his eyes.

Scott only allows himself to look again when Martyn sucks in a deep breath, loud and jarring, filling the silence where, he realises, Martyn previously hadn’t been breathing. The glassy sheen is gone, but the look in his eyes doesn’t return them to their previously playful moment.

“Well,” Martyn breathes.

“Well.” Scott returns. “I guess that’s the beginning of the end.”

Martyn laughs. “I almost wanted it to last longer. I thought it might, even with the ever-present timers counting down our every second.”

“Nothing to be done now,” there’s a bitter taste in his mouth. At knowing that They had been proven right once again, that there is no escaping of whatever they ordain as fate. He wonders if They’re laughing right now, gleeful over claiming the Canary once more. Or perhaps they're watching for his reaction, to see how he feels as his sacrifice amounts to nothing.

“No,” Martyn sighs. “Guess not.”

[thequeercourtjester]

Hello everyone :D

I was recently apart of the Hermbi Big Bang Event (Hermbang) and I will bestow a new fic for you!

Also check out the Art from @setacin and @gremling4mer!

https://www.tumblr.com/setacin/723928221783097344/art-for-thequeercourtjester-s-fic-do-you?source=share

https://www.tumblr.com/gremling4mer/723949714148605952/get-geminislayed-idiot-for-thequeercourtjester?source=share

[whereispearlescentmoon]

Grian looks for an open space on his shelf.

The first space is taken up by a plasma ball. Sparks of bright blue streak across the glass. Inside, a man with blue hair runs and runs and runs around a cottage. It’s impossible to tell if he is running towards or away from something. Sometimes the sparks catch him and he stops for just a moment, before getting up and running again. He looks tired.

The next space is taken up by a snow globe. Grian takes a moment to turn it over, as the snow has settled. Inside is a woman in a red hood. She is shivering, pacing around in a small space. She drags an axe on the ground behind her. Sometimes she reaches out for someone who is not there. When the snow settles again it reaches her neck, and she has to struggle to claw her way out. She always sinks back in eventually. She is in pain, and she is alone.

The third space is an hour glass, set up on a rack to turn itself over every couple of hours. Inside, a blonde man rages at the falling sand. He slashes at it with his sword as though that could do anything. When he is at the bottom, he starts to drown in it. When he is at the top, he slides down with the sand against his will. He wants to stop moving. He can’t. There’s no time.

The fourth space has a miniature green house. Sunflowers grow there. A man coated in poppies struggles to keep them alive. He tends to them tenderly, but somehow he always slips, always cuts them off at the stem. His hands are built for violence no matter how hard he tries. He replants with tears in his eyes. His task is never finished.

The fifth space has a small dome. The inside looks like a hologram, see through and glitching slightly. Inside, a person with orange hair kills wave after wave of mobs. Her eyes are covered, her limbs don’t quite connect to her body. She struggles to aim. Sometimes the mobs get a hit in and she falls, having to scramble to catch up as enemies have surrounded her. Everything is much larger than her. A small counter at the top ticks up with each wave, as though there could be an end to this. There won’t be. It’s not real.

Finally, Grian sets down his latest creation. It’s a little box of glass containing a wind up car track. A man inside with green streaked hair turns the key on car over and over. It slips as his hands become coated in sweat, taking a lap around the track. If he can just get it to keep going, just turn it enough times before he lets go, then he can rest. He can’t leave it broken. He needs to fix this. Hes sure of it.

Grian takes a step back from his shelf, settles into his chair, and watches.

[oh-snapperss]

has anyone else thought about the fact that since bdubs won't be uploading his pov of limited life we aren't ever gonna know for sure what his timer is at? anyways, headcanon that bdubs can't see his timer because it's on the back of his neck and he just has to trust the other players not to lie to him about how much time he has left-

[apassingecho]

Ok so, I was thinking about how, in a lot of fics for the other seasons of life, they're in the games for like a few weeks/months but it couldn't be like that this time cause they have 24 hours. But then I remembered

Minecraft days last 20 real life minutes

This means that, if you want to be accurate to Minecraft rules, they have 72 days to live

Normal dead is -3 days

Normal kill is +1.5 days

Boogey dead is -6 days

And boogey kill is +3 days

[its-muffin-tyme]

These Characters Are Stolen From Their Respective Life Games And Thrown Into A Tiny Life Series World/Game Together:

[w1ngedv01d]

Teen Bad Boys, like 17-18, getting an apartment together for the first time

Discover 5 minutes in that Grian is somehow the braincell

All 3 of them are horrified

[avocadish0w0]

I NEED PROMPTS FOR SCARIAN CHRISTMAS FICS AND NEW YEARS FICS

TUMBLR DO YOUR THING

(prompts deposited on the question/prompts tab)

[teddy-bear-d]

Oh I just know the desert duo enjoyers are going crazy over Grian accidentally calling Joel Scar when yelling at him for being reckless

[aquaquadrant]

How would htp!Tango go with the bit from Limited Life episode 4 when he's running from everyone?

How would it be different from the actual scene?

(not canon to HTP ofc because the timelines don’t match up but HEY i like angst)

"tango!" skizz calls desperately, peering out over the ocean. he could’ve sworn he’d heard tango’s voice when he came this way, but the range of amplification their voices get from the proximity mod can be a little tricky sometimes-

“skizz?”

tango’s voice crackles out of skizz’s communicator; he must be in range, after all. but skizz doesn’t relax just yet. crouching by the water’s edge, he scans the waves intently. his grip tightens around his axe.

"alright, where are you, dude?" he asks, voice low. he keeps the horizon in his periphery; he can just barely make out the horde of yellow names off on the distant shore, digging and searching for tango.

“r- right below you.” tango’s voice is shaky; probably from the adrenaline. being hunted by almost the entire server isn’t exactly a picnic. “where- is impulse with you? or- or etho?”

skizz shakes his head, even though he knows tango can’t see it. “no dude, they’re running interference, okay, but it won’t be long before the others see me over here.” he swallows. “you gotta let me kill you.”

there’s a brief silence.

“okay.” tango’s voice is barely audible. the tone of it gives skizz pause; that sounds like more than just nerves. “okay, o- okay, fine, i’m- i’m fine with that.”

“are you?” skizz asks, his brows furrowing.

“i…” there’s a shuddering exhale. “i don’t- i’d rather it be you, if- if i’m honest. the others, they might…” he breaks off, making a distressed sound in the back of his throat. “y- you know.”

there’s definitely something wrong. skizz’s heart is starting to pound, but he keeps his voice steady. “alright, yeah. this is gonna stick it to them so bad.” he lifts his communicator up and peers through its lens. “can you give me a quick tag, buddy?”

tango doesn’t reply, but skizz sees the flash of a gamer tag beneath the ocean before it vanishes again. tango’s not taking any chances, apparently. not that skizz can blame him.

“you’re pretty deep underwater, dude,” skizz informs him regretfully. “and i don’t- ugh, i don’t have my stupid shovel.”

tango inhales sharply. “i- i can’t- uh, can you…?”

“okay,” skizz murmurs. he knows tango won’t be harmed by water like a real blaze, but it’s uncomfortable even on the best of days and that’d be a lot to ask of him right now. “alright, i’ll come to you. stay put, okay?”

“okay,” tango whispers.

“there a hole for me, buddy?” skizz asks, putting his axe away.

“yes.”

“alright.” skizz straightens up, folding his wing tightly against his body. even one wing will cause a lot of drag underwater and he’s already not looking forward to soggy feathers. “i’m on my way, just hang on.”

taking a deep breath, skizz dives into the ocean.

salt stings his eyes as he swims towards the sand at the bottom. it’s darker down here than he’s expecting for midday, only the faint glow from his halo allowing him to see. he starts digging as soon as he reaches the bottom, hoping he’s in the right place. he’s acutely aware of how long he can hold his breath for and the last thing he needs is a stupid drowning death to steal even more time from him-

a figure enters his field of vision, making him jolt. it’s scott, his freshly yellow timer barely visible in the deep. still holding his breath, skizz equips his axe.

scott actually rolls his eyes. “i’m not gonna kill him, don’t worry.” his voice carries well underwater, and he doesn’t seem to have trouble breathing. must be due to those recently acquired gills of his.

well, that’s fortunate. skizz nods quickly and puts his axe away before resuming his digging. to his surprise, scott floats down next to him and starts helping, his webbed fingers making easy work of the sand. after a couple seconds, they’ve cleared enough sand for skizz to see a hold in the underlying stone, with a faint light beyond it. lungs burning, skizz dives for it.

he makes it through right as the first damage hits him, head breaking through the water with a gasp. kicking against the current, he finally emerges from the ocean. gravity once again takes hold of him. he flops onto the damp stone floor quite ungracefully, his wing heavy and pulling him slightly off-balance.

skizz hauls himself to his feet, dripping wet and catching his breath, and looks around the cave tango’s carved out for himself. it’s tiny, with just three blocks between them, and lit only by the glow of tango’s blaze rods. they’re redder than usual and roaring with flames, whirling above his head in agitation- the way a blaze spins before it starts shooting fireballs.

tango himself doesn’t seem to be doing any better. he’s crouched against a corner, his arms wrapped around his knees, claws digging into his skin. his pupils are blown, so much so that it almost makes his wide eyes look completely black. his chest is rising and falling rapidly, and the noise that comes with each breath sounds disturbingly like a blaze. his mouth hangs slightly parted as he pants, lips drawn back to show his sharp teeth- like a wolf does. but there’s no ferocity in his expression; just sick fear.

altogether, the sight sends a chill down skizz’s spine. it’s like he’s looking at an animal; a cornered, terrified, wild animal. there have been things in the past tango’s reacted strangely to, sure, but skizz has never seen it this bad before. god, he wishes impulse was here.

“hey, tango,” skizz says softly.

for a moment, tango just stares at skizz. then his eyes dart to the side, to the hole in the stone. belatedly, skizz realizes what’s got tango so concerned.

“scott,” he calls carefully, keeping his gaze on tango, “just uh, just stay out there, okay, dude?”

a dark shadow passes by the hole before vanishing. “you’re fine, just get on with it!”

skizz swallows. he stays where he is. “tango, buddy, you okay? talk to me.”

tango’s gaze cuts back to skizz. “is martyn…?”

“no, no martyn,” skizz assures him.

tango takes a shaky breath. “i killed him,” he says hoarsely. “he- he’ll want revenge. and- and the other yellows- you have to kill me, before they find me. skizz, please.”

“hey, hey, hey, it’s alright,” skizz soothes, despite the way his heart feels like it’s twisting itself into a knot. he never thought tango would fear the other players so badly; these are his friends. “you got it. what do you- uh, how do you want me to do it?”

“TNT?” tango asks quietly. “if you light it…”

“alright, yeah, i got some TNT,” skizz says, rummaging through his inventory and pulling out a block of it. “here, uh- you wanna just take that?”

warily, tango teaches a clawed hand out and takes the TNT. he sets it down right in front of him, flush against his folded knees.

“tango?” skizz prompts gently, pulling out his flint and steel. “i need to hear you say it, buddy.”

tango shudders. “do it,” he whispers, turning his face away. “you can kill me, you- i- i just want it to be over.”

“okay, thank you,” skizz murmurs, taking a cautious step forward. “that’s right, dude. after this, it’ll all be over. i’ll come find you at spawn, okay?”

“okay."

“i’ll see ya there. now, count to five for me?"

tango swallows. “one…”

skizz lights the TNT. the sound of sizzling fills the air as the TNT starts to flash.

"t- two..."

putting the flint and steel away, skizz turns and dives back through the hole, into the ocean. tango's voice still sounds from his communicator.

"three..."

kicking madly, skizz swims towards the surface, where scott is waiting.

"four-"

BOOM.

skizz breaks the surface, gasping for breath. he glances back down and sees a new crater at the bottom of the ocean, water and sand churning into a froth. treading water with one arm, he holds his communicator up and looks at the chat.

Tango blew up.

scott gives skizz a sidelong look. "i know how hard it is to let a teammate kill you," he says, his voice low, "but that seemed..."

"scott, buddy," skizz says tiredly, heading for the shore, "keep this between us, will ya?"

~

[scribbling-dragon]

first to fall

summary:

The darkness welcomes the Canary, the first to fall. And he welcomes those that fall after him.

-

Or: a concept on what happens after the final deaths.

(ao3 link)

(6,476 words)

just a heads-up that the main theme of this fic revolves around death. there are lots of mentions of it so if that's not your jam feel free not to read this :]

He doesn't even feel the ground when he hits it.

The feeling rushes away as a wave of numbness overtakes him, flooding his nerves until they're dulled and blunted, leaving him gasping in breaths he no longer needs. He breathes anyway, because it is a small comfort, a reminder, that he can still do it- that his lungs still work and that he can draw air into them. The rise and fall of his chest assures him of this, rising rapidly beneath his hand.

His heart continues to thump beneath his hand, the pulsing beat another small comfort. A comfort that he can only barely afford himself here.

Something echoes above him, some semblance of words drifting in the air above him. He’s not sure that he really is surrounded by air here, but thinking too far down that line of thought does nothing but cause his still-beating heart to race faster and his thoughts to spin in a dizzying whirl.

He stands, dragging himself from the waters of this place. Here. Wherever here is. He’s visited this place several times, returning each time he fulfils his job- completes his duty. He hasn't asked about this place, hasn't voiced any details of it. No-one else mentions it either. He doubts they remember it.

And the universe said you have played the game well.

“Yeah, yeah,” he waves the voice off with a dismissive hand, droplets of water flicking from the ends of his fingers. “You can cut the spiel, I've heard it all before.” He doesn't mean to snap- well, he does, actually, but the beings watching over him should know that he’s heard it before, that he doesn't care for their empty words.

The silence that follows after feels accusing, the weight of several eyes on him lingering for moments after his outburst.

“I'm not sorry,” he snaps. His wings ruffle, the sound of feathers brushing against each other quiet against the blood roaring in his ears. “We’ve been through this song and dance several times before, and we’ll go through it several times again. The least you can do is leave me be.”

The eyes continue to linger, though he can see no faces that they may be peering from. No disappointed expressions or pitying murmurs that lament his fate- his curse. The eyes watch him, and he does his best to stare back- see how much they like being scrutinised over their every action.

The weight of eyes on him gradually disappears. The silence that follows is not accusing nor pitying nor is it disappointing. It is simply silent.

He scoffs, rocking back on his heels, wishing that he was still wearing his shoes. The water laps at his ankles, not rising any higher, but the cold has no such qualms. It clambers through his bones, settling deep within the marrow and burying its teeth into him, gnawing at his bones until he shivers.

His face feels warm, hair sticking to his forehead as he idles his time away in the void of nothingness and ankle-deep water. The darkness stretches thick around him, seemingly endless in every direction imaginable. He doesn't bother walking, not like he had the first and second times. The third time he had sat in the water until it soaked his clothes entirely, leaving him a shivering wreck. He doesn't sit this time. He doesn't pace either- no matter how far he walks, duty will always drag him back to this spot.

Best to remain rooted in place. The water wasn't here the first time he arrived, stumbled into the domain of something beyond death; he’s certain they can change it whenever they wish to, shaping it to their whims and twisting it in accordance to their arbitrary rules. He’s sure it would take nothing less than a single thought to place him in a true cage- one with bars rather than an illusion of freedom.

He prefers the endless void to the thought of a cage.

He swipes at the first drops of blood that drip into his eyes, scrubbing a hand over his face. His palm comes away smeared in crimson, the tang of iron hanging heavier around his head than before. He can taste it in the back of his throat.

He wipes at it again, swipes it away before too much of it can enter his eyes and blind him. It glistens, dark and wet, on the leather of his jacket (-not his jacket, it’s borrowed, taken with permission and something that is expected to be returned- a promise he should not break- a deal he does not want to break-). He’ll have to wash the blood out, he thinks, Tango wouldn't want the jacket returned with his blood soaking the leather. He thinks he remembers something about this being a favourite jacket, but one that was slightly too big on the shoulders for him to really wear it all that often-

Something cracks through the air. It is not as sharp as the lightning that thunders through this place when someone comes to join him more permanently. He turns to where the person is fighting their way through the water. The water upon which he stands yet threatens to drown them- swallow them completely.

He grabs Skizz’s hand, hauls him from the yawning depths before they gain too many ideas and try to keep him longer than they should. The water clings to him, threatening to drag him beneath the surface if Jimmy’s grip wavers for even a moment.

He shakes, just slightly, when he finally manages to pull Skizz free, pausing for a moment to breathe. It isn't as though Skizz will judge him for it- he can't even see him. Nobody can. They simply twitch and sometimes murmur incomprehensible sentences to themselves as the universe works its magic.

He watches as the bones are set and the wounds are healed, if only slightly. He won't bleed out when he returns, as long as he doesn't run too far or too fast- as long as he doesn't jump immediately back into the action.

Jimmy wonders what’s happening. The world around him remains dark and they do not give him a whisper of guidance.

Blood drips into his eyes again, blinding him momentarily before he blinks it away. It sticks in his lashes, threatening to glue his eyes shut if he blinks for too long or too hard. He doesn't bother to wipe the blood away, feeling, instead, as the warmth drips further down his face. His hair sticks to his forehead.

He brushes a hand over Skizz’s shoulder, careful not to apply too much pressure or alert Skizz to his presence. He woke someone up, once, watched the ways the waters tried to claim him before his time. He tries his best not to wake them anymore.

Skizz twitches once more, words falling past his lips- nothing Jimmy can hear. The sound of words escapes him here, leaving him with a yawning sense of emptiness. The silence rings in his ears.

Skizz melts back into the water, returning to whatever conflict they've tumbled into now that his warning has been cried out. He tries not to feel too bitter at the man’s return to the land of the living- Jimmy saw his clock, could see it ticking down, slowly but surely. The man will be back before long. They always are.

His face feels warm. The blood is sticky against his chin, tacky against his skin. He raises a hand to brush the worst of it away from his eyes, swiping at it, ignoring the way more trickles down to replace it.

The water brushes over his feet, moving with an invisible tide. The water barely reaches his ankles, and yet everyone else sinks deep into it, slipping easily into the water and drifting elsewhere.

This place does not bow to time, even as every other fragment of life dances along to time’s merry tune. He’s glad of its timeless nature, unsure if he would be able to stand and wait for the moments to tick down, for the next person to burst free from the waters.

He doesn't have to wait long- or maybe he does. Time doesn't exist here.

Joel bursts from the water, hands clawing for something that is out of reach. Jimmy lunges forward, pulling him free from the water before it can swallow him back down, drag him into its depths.

Joel’s fingers curl into his arms, nails digging into his skin, denting the leather of his jacket. He holds onto Joel even as he winces, feels the blood start to bead beneath Joel’s hands. He ignores it- it’ll be gone in a moment and Joel will return, will sink back into the waters and continue to chase whoever he was hunting.

Joel always thrashes, eager to return to the land of the living, eager to send more people to greet him (or not greet him, none of them ever speak, not until they come to stand beside him and wait for their friends to join them). Jimmy holds him steady, even as he winces at the stinging.

The waters rise up to greet Joel, and Jimmy’s forced to push him back down, ignoring the way he struggles- reluctant to be guided in where he should go, what path he should take. He holds him there until the water whisks him away, swallowing him and returning him to the conflicts.

It is as though the floodgates have burst, death flowing freely among the members of the server. The water is around his knees, just below. He has to push forward to move anyway, wading through the sucking depths of the water. He can't see his feet. 

The water is cold. The gnawing cold has faded, leaving numbness in its wake. He’s not sure which he prefers; he’s never decided whether the gnawing of the cold, the feeling of something like teeth scraping along his bones, or the numbness that spreads in its wake is better. He’s stood in this cold several times over, and yet he’s never come to a decision. He can hardly think with the pressing darkness and rising waters.

The waters never rose before. Never climbed over his feet, never clambered higher than that. He shivers. He’s only glad that he didn't awake in the robes of last time; the fabric would have dragged in the water and weighed him down. The leather jacket is cold, but it is a small comfort anyway.

BigB emerges from the water next, hardly lingering before he’s returning to the living, leaving him alone in the darkness. Scott follows soon after, the scales on his cheeks shining oddly in the lack of light. They shimmer, even with no sun to reflect off of them. They're almost iridescent.

Scott doesn't move, doesn't stir. He simply lays there, still. Jimmy almost thinks he can see the whites of his eyes, eyes only slightly open, not enough to see. His mouth moves quickly, words dropping past his lips though no sound follows them.

He hates it when they talk. Reminds him that they're seeing something beyond him, experiencing something other than this cold, endless void. The darkness swallows everything around him, but his visitors see something beyond that. He’s never seen anything beyond that; the cold void greets him every time.

With each death something crackles through the air, weighs down on his limbs as he’s forced, each time, to watch them sink back into the water; to return to the conflict that he heralded. And yet, the conflict continues, his warnings go unheeded. What is the point in the canary, in its song, when no one stops to listen when the song dies out?

He thinks they simply enjoy tormenting him. Forcing him to watch as his friends die, unable to do anything but provide them with comforts they won't even remember.

Impulse dies. Then Etho. Both of them are silent. He wouldn't even notice their presence without the crackle in the air and the heavy feeling that settles around his throat. Skizz returns again, calmer than before. His face is settled in something that could be resignation but could also be acceptance. Jimmy can hardly see through the blood dripping in his eyes.

The next death cracks through the air, and he startles, whipping around. His wings bristle, feathers rising with his apprehension. The water sloshes around his knees, soaking his jeans through, the cold sending shivers down his spine. He thought the cold had settled far enough into his bones that he wouldn't shiver anymore. The cold slithers down his spine anyway.

Martyn is halfway sat up, hands trailing in the water. He seems…almost aware of it, eyes half-open as he looks around. His eyes don't catch on him, don't pause or linger; he doubts Martyn’s actually seeing him, simply staring at something that his own brain has summoned to make this void more comfortable.

Martyn says something, the sound carrying in the silence. His ears ring with the sudden input of sound and he steps closer. He can feel his feathers bristling, something cold continuing to slither down his spine. He hates seeing Martyn here, hates watching the way he glances around, half-aware of his surroundings. He hates it.

Martyn’s eyes catch on him, half-closed, but they pause all the same. Martyn grabs the front of his jacket, grip surprisingly strong for someone between life and death, a foot on either side of the boundary. He’s yanked forward, water sloshing around him as he’s dragged closer.

“-first to fall,” Martyn says, voice wavering. His eyes flicker back and forth, studying his face. Jimmy can feel his heart thundering in his chest, thumping hard enough to make him feel sick- he’s light-headed, heart in his throat. He hates seeing Martyn like this, hardly aware of himself. He hates it. “Forever caged in different walls.”

Martyn’s hand loosens on his jacket, releasing him completely a moment later as he disappears. He doesn't sink back into the water- the water doesn't claim him, doesn't allow him to sink into its depths and return. He’s yanked off, pulled away abruptly and with little warning.

Jimmy swallows, hearing the sound of it echo around him, feels the click of his throat. There’s something lodged there, as though his heart is truly stuck in his throat. He tries to swallow it down, but the lump refuses to disappear, lingers as Skizz follows after Martyn. Then Etho, blood blossoming on his jacket, spreading in the water. Scar’s throat is ripped loose, hanging in bloody tatters and he’s forced to watch as it stitches itself back together. Something makes a gristly crack and he forces himself to look away, the sick feeling rising in his throat again.

He doesn't get a warning when Joel bursts forth, surging forward from the darkness and lunging for him. Blood trails behind him in the water, water sloshing around both their legs as Joel grips at his arms, teeth bared in the beginnings of a snarl. He grips Jimmy’s arms hard enough to bruise, nails digging in.

Jimmy has to pry his hands off, carefully unlatching each finger and praying Joel doesn't start clinging to him again. He still has time, even as ticks down, trickling away faster and faster as Joel turns to the violence that soothes his aches. He shoves him down into the water, ignoring the way Joel seems to choke on it, pushing him down and waiting for him to fade away again.

He kneels in the water, feels it tugging at his jacket, threatening to pull him under too. He hates this. He hates the weight on his back, the water weighing down his wings, pinning him in place. The weight around his neck, holding him down as he kneels in the water, the cold soaking into his bones, threatening to pull him deeper into the waters.

His chest hitches, something painful clawing up his throat. He presses a hand to his mouth, muffling any sound he might make.

There are eyes on his back, pinning him in place. Like a bug on a board, held up and displayed in a collection, nothing more than an ornament. He doesn't turn to face them, even as the stare on his back grows heavier, watching him with disapproval.

He wants to turn on them, to snarl at them and voice his displeasure. He thinks it, and his throat closes over, mouth growing dry. Their stare turns mocking, gleeful, something that makes his anger burn a little hotter. His mouth remains dry and their stare disappears, leaving him alone again.

“I do too.”

Skizz’s eyes are open when he surfaces, looking around himself, as though confused. Jimmy stares at him, watches him for a moment before it all clicks into place. He remains kneeling in the water, squinting at Skizz as he stands. A lot of the blood obscures his vision, dripping into his eyes. Some of it has dried, threatening to stick his eyelashes together and render him truly blind.

His voice does not return to him.

“Oh, hey,” Skizz greets him, turning around in the water. He seems unbothered by it, moving through it as though it isn't there. Jimmy wouldn't be surprised if the water was only here for him- if he was the only one that suffered from it. “You, uh, you have a little something on your face, buddy.”

He nods. Skizz looks awkward, looking over him cautiously. He’s not sure what he looks like, can feel the blood over his face but the water gives him no reflection. He doesn't know how else they choose to twist him, change him to fit their purposes.

He opens his mouth to speak, but not even the sound of his breathing makes it past his lips before it shrivels in the air. He shuts his mouth again, jaw clicking, and gestures at it helplessly.

“No voice?” Skizz guesses. He doesn't look angry, doesn't pace back and forth, doesn't demand to be returned to the fight, to return to his allies. He nods in response to Skizz’s question, and the man’s face screws up in something resembling sympathy. “That sucks, scream it away already?”

He shakes his head, gesturing to the air around them. He doesn't know why he bothers. Skizz won't understand, and even if he did, this place will fade from his mind as soon as he leaves it. Its clinging cold won't follow him home, won't linger in his bones or the dark recesses of his mind. He leaves, and it washes clean, as though he was never there in the first place.

The knowledge of this place is his burden to bear.

“I don't think I get what you mean.” Skizz sits beside him, crossing his legs. He shivers as he sinks further into the water; maybe he can see it, just choosing not to comment on the way Jimmy is slumped over into it, clothes soaked through and face painted red with blood.

He shrugs.

This is the first time they've taken his voice from him, stolen away the one comfort he can provide in this place. Normally he’s able to reassure his friends, promise them that they only need to wait a little bit longer and they’ll be free again; calm the ones that hunger for the violence, the ones that would try and tear this place apart to try and return.

The water stirs, rippling just in front of him. Skizz’s eyes widen, watching the place that Bdubs rises from with a shocked silence. He reaches forward, hands stretching out to touch Bdubs- to shake him awake.

Jimmy bats his hands away, shakes his head at Skizz’s questioning eyes. He simply presses a firm, but gentle, hand onto Bdubs’ shoulder, holding him in place. He doesn't know why he bothers, doesn't know why he tries- Bdubs doesn't even move, twitching only slightly, face twisting and changing.

Maybe it’s because he remembers the feeling of Bdubs’ hands on his shoulders, fingers curling into the leather of his jacket, shaking him back and forth as Bdubs asked- begged him to kill him, pleaded for him to take some of his time in the hopes that he might last a little longer.

It wouldn't work- it never worked. Always the first to fall. And yet he took the time anyway, selfishly stole it from Bdubs, as though the noose wasn't already tightening around his throat, as though his song was not already petering out. He took it, driven by the force of Bdubs’ pleading and the misguided hope that, perhaps, this might be the time that it fixes everything.

Bdubs sinks back into the water, gone without a single sound. The surface doesn't even ripple.

“Does…everyone come here?” Skizz asks. The first one always does, curious about this place, asking questions- too many questions, questions he doesn't have the answer to. He’d answered them, at first, when he still hoped that someone might remember this misery, recall this place and his presence in it.

He didn't answer any questions last time, unable to meet Tango’s eyes as they sat in the silence together. He hadn't wanted to explain to Tango, to explain and then watch him forget, to know that when he tries to summon the words outside of this place, that they fail him; leave him open-mouthed and unable to force a single syllable from his lips.

He nods, and Skizz frowns. “I don't remember coming here.”

He shakes his head, hopes it communicates the no one ever does that he wants to say. Skizz frowns a little deeper, brows furrowing and eyes searching over him. Whatever he’s looking for, he doesn't find, because he slumps a moment later, shoulders bowing inwards.

Normally, this is the moment when he finds the words to comfort them. To assure them that it will all be over soon and that they can return to their homes as though this never happened, because to them, it didn't. This place doesn't exist outside of his own memory.

He feels tears beading in the corners of his eyes as he waits for the next death, for the next person to rise from the waters and then return to them again. He sucks in a deep breath, but it’s not enough to stop the first tear from falling. It cuts through the blood on his face, carving a path through the crimson.

It drops into the water, not even causing the surface to ripple.

He sucks in another breath, stares down at the water that does not reflect his face, watches as blood drips from his head and into the water, blossoms of red swirling deep within, like petals of a life long-gone.

When tears no longer prick at the corners of his eyes, he turns to face Skizz, watches the way he studies the water too, pulling faces as though that would convince it to show his reflection. Skizz looks up after a moment, meeting his eyes.

His throat is dry, painfully so, but he nods towards Skizz anyway, tilting his head in question. He hopes the man gets the idea, or at least the gist of what he’s trying to ask. The silence is uncomfortable, leaving him alone with his thoughts and the darkness and the ringing in his ears.

“Oh, uh,” Skizz looks down at himself, though there are no wounds to show the battles he’s fought in over the past however-long it’s been. “Etho killed me.” Some of his surprise must show on his face because Skizz laughs, shaking his hands, “It’s not what you think, I swear. I just,” he sighs, “just didn't have the fight to go on any longer, I suppose. I didn't want my time to go to someone else, for someone to stand over me and claim those thirty minutes when they could go somewhere that I wanted them to.”

Oh. He supposes that makes sense.

“I wasn't going to win, wasn't going to gain that time back. I didn't play the game well enough to win it back. I wish I played it better.”

Jimmy watches him.

Skizz looks up, away from where his hands have been trailing through the water. No one has risen through the depths to greet them, however temporarily, so there is nothing for him to do. His world grinds to a halt, however temporary, with the lack of a job.

“Do we…normally react like this?” Skizz asks. He clarifies a moment later, “Sitting with you, asking questions, talking like this?”

He shakes his head, then reconsiders, bobbing it from side to side in a so-and-so gesture. Skizz seems to understand him, at least a little.

“Would you rather I was angrier?” 

Jimmy raises an eyebrow at the question, asking silently, do you want to be angrier?

“No,” Skizz laughs, shaking his head. “No I suppose not. I don't really have anything to be angry about anyway. I did what I set out to do, and I did it well. That’s all we can really ask for, right?”

Jimmy dips his head in agreement, even though he wants to protest, wants to claw his way back to the land of the living, for just a moment more of life, just a few seconds. He doesn't want this- he never does. He never does what he set out to do, never survives long enough to be the second gone, rather than the first. His death heralds the descent into madness, and no one seems to notice.

Impulse rises through the water, and he sees Skizz jerk forward, panic flashing across his face before he settles back again with a glance in Jimmy’s direction. Jimmy leans forward, looking over Impulse’s face.

The deaths this time around have been far less gruesome. Falling from high places, blown to pieces so they are already stitched back together when they appear here. He’s grateful for it, for not having to watch as the universe pieces them back together, seals their wounds shut.

Impulse disappears as quickly as he arrived, eager to return to the fight. Skizz looks almost disappointed, watching his once-ally sink back into the waters.

Silence rings in his ears and they watch, together, as Scar emerges from the water, blood blossoming at his throat. Arrows are a good way to die, such a small wound and so easily fixed. Jimmy prefers it to the cleaving swipe of an axe or the tearing slash of a sword.

Cleo and Bdubs appear together. He’s glad he didn't have to sit through the four people Grian killed earlier, unsure of how he would deal with so many people- he can hardly stand to watch two people return to the waters, only used to it because everyone had arrived as a pair last time. Everyone had slipped through the waters with their partner, even if they were unaware of it.

“Are you always here?”

Skizz’s voice breaks the silence. He had been quiet enough that Jimmy almost forgot he was there. He hesitates, before nodding slowly. He watches the last of Cleo’s hair disappear into the darkness, swallowed by the water as they're returned to somewhere warmer.

“Without your voice?” Skizz asks, something softer in his tone.

He scoffs, or tries to without sound, and shakes his head.

Skizz makes a noise in the back of his throat and Jimmy turns to face him. “Then why can't you speak?”

He shrugs, gesturing above their heads again.

Skizz falls silent again after that, probably unsure of how to respond to that. Jimmy doesn't know either, but he doesn't have a voice to speak with right now, so he doesn't have to think of a response either.

Joel’s blood spreads through the water before he appears, dragging himself from it almost sluggishly. None of the fight from before is present in him, and he simply sways back and forth, hands twitching, arms ready and braced for some kind of impact. He’s expecting a fight before he’s even alive again, Jimmy realises.

He doesn't even fight when Jimmy pushes him back into the water, holds him down and waits for him to return. Skizz watches him, eyes heavy on his back- but these eyes have a face to connect them to, a nose and a mouth and eyebrows that he can see and understand, not just the feeling of eyes weighing heavily on him.

He sighs, shoulders rising and falling silently. His wings ruffle, the soft sound of feathers on feathers filling the echoing expanse that stretches around them. It disrupts the ringing in his ears, for a moment, and he relaxes in something that is not just the pressing silence.

Skizz shifts in the water behind him, hears it sloshing slightly, smacking against exposed skin.

He feels Grian before he sees him, watches the way Skizz stiffens at the sudden pressure bearing down on both of their heads, making his eyes ache. He meets Skizz’s eyes, shaking his head slowly and giving him a smile. He doesn't know how convincing it is, with blood soaking through his hair and sticking to his skin. He probably looks horrifying, but Skizz smiles back anyway.

Grian’s eyes are open as he emerges from the water, sitting up as though he’s waking up in bed, comfortable in this place in a way that never fails to unnerve Jimmy.

Grian sees him after a moment, blinking, his eyes refocusing.

“Ouch,” Grian winces in sympathy, though he’s still smiling, eyes flicking over his face. “Looks like you got the short end of the stick this time, huh?”

He shrugs, nodding at the same time. He doesn't miss the way Grian’s eyes narrow, “What’s wrong with your-”

The water claims him before he can finish his sentence, though Jimmy knows what he was going to ask anyway. The water wraps around him, seizing his hands and legs in poor imitations of shackles, dragging him back down.

A feather rests on the surface of the water, dislodged in the brief panic Grian had before he was pulled away again. The water claims that too, sucking it down into the darkness before he can even think of picking it up.

“How did he see you?” Skizz asks. Jimmy doesn't have a response for that, not one he can communicate with hand gestures and the nodding of his head. He settles for shrugging. “Right, yeah, yes or no questions. Can he always see you?”

He nods.

“Huh.” Skizz says. “If he always sees you, and you're always here, how come I don't remember this place?” Skizz looks around, as though the darkness will have changed, will have become something more familiar to him in the time between now and the last time he examined their surroundings.

Jimmy shakes his head. He doesn't know how to communicate no one ever does, don't feel bad or I've tried to tell everyone, so many times, they never hear, no matter how loud I speak. So he doesn't bother. He just watches the water.

Scar doesn't need to be pushed back down into the water. He goes happily, barely there before he’s returning again, face twisting into a smirk as he disappears.

Time does not exist in this place. This place, this void, exists beyond time, outside of it. It does not dance along to time’s merry little tune, creating its own song for Jimmy to play along with, as unwilling as he is. But he follows the motions anyway, moves through the verses and tries not to wonder how long it has been, tries not to think about how many people he’s seen.

(He’s seen so many more people than he usually would. Everyone died too much, this time, throwing their lives away with giddy delight as they realised they had more than three.)

Joel thrashes in the water, lunging forward with the intent to kill, not yet realising that his target is no longer in front of him, that he is no longer in front of his target. Jimmy catches him as he stumbles, holding his wrists tightly before he tries to break free.

He can feel his timer ticking down, can feel the erratic thump-thump-thump of his heart beneath his palm. He mourns Joel, silently, feeling how his life is slipping between his fingers, like sand through an hourglass. His sunglasses are cracked, one line through the left lens. Joel managed to scrape his way through his entire time without damaging them, but now, they crack and begin to fall apart on his face.

Jimmy pushes him under before he can watch them break completely, mourning Joel before he even joins them completely. It won't be long. Had seen the beginnings of madness in Joel’s eyes as he twisted mid-fall, watched the rage spark to life behind his sunglasses.

He doesn't have to wait long. It’s hardly a few moments - or perhaps it’s several hours - before Joel is surging out of the water, shaking his head like a dog, droplets flying everywhere as he snarls and seethes, hands curled into fists.

He’s laughing, some shaky, jerking cackle that makes Jimmy’s ears ring after so long spent in silence. He tosses his glasses away, doesn't even watch to see them sink into the water, swallowed by the hungry waters.

Skizz watches him, and he watches Joel. Watches the way he almost shakes apart, still laughing.

He presses a hand to his shoulder, which is when Joel seems to realise he’s not alone, that they're watching, that he has an audience.

“What the heck!” Joel startles backwards, voice tilting upwards towards the end. He shrieks, something which Joel denies every time it’s mentioned. “You can creep up on me like that!” He shrieks, voice still pitching higher, before he seems to realise who he’s shrieking at.

Joel stares at him for several long moments. The red in his eyes is gone. Then he turns with a snarl, shoving his way through the water, either ignorant or uncaring of the way it sloshes everywhere, soaking him through in a matter of moments.

“No,” Joel shakes his head. “Send me back!” He whirls on Jimmy, arms flung out on either side as he yells. “I need more time, I have more time! They need to- need to-” he cuts himself off with a yell, kicking through the water, sending an arc of water through the air.

He stills a moment later, chest heaving, breath heavy as he seems to collect himself, if only slightly.

“Why are you here?” Joel asks. He doesn't turn to face him, doesn't even continue with the anger that he had been feeding since…since whenever the bloodlust gripped his mind utterly and sent him on whatever rampage he tore through the server with this time. “Why are you here?” He repeats, a little louder, when Jimmy doesn't respond.

He doesn't have words to respond with, doesn't have any comfort he can provide. His throat is dry and he can taste blood in his mouth. His tongue feels thick and heavy, as though he’s gone without water for several days. For all he knows, he has. He doesn't know how long it’s been.

“Jimmy!” Joel turns on him, grabs him by the shoulders and gets close up and in his face. Jimmy doesn't flinch back, knows Joel won't actually hurt him, can feel the way his fingers barely press into his jacket, not even holding him tight enough to leave indents in the leather from his nails. “Answer me!”

“He can't,” Joel startles as Skizz speaks up, and Jimmy almost does as well- almost forgot that Skizz was here, watching. “He can't speak.”

Joel looks back at him, the whites of his eyes wider than usual. He stares at him, asking if it’s true, searching his face. He doesn't wince at the sight of the blood, doesn't murmur in sympathy or pity. He just looks over him, searching his face for something.

He shakes his head with a smile, hoping that there isn't too much blood on his teeth.

Joel’s eyes harden. “Why’d you have to be so stupid?” He asks, hands curling a little tighter into his jacket, pulling him closer to Joel until they're almost hugging. “Why’d you have to fall off? It was going so well? You didn't have to die.”

He smiles, and shakes his head again. It was always going to happen, he tries to say, tries to communicate, there was nothing to be done against it. The canary will always be the first to fall.

Joel snarls something, wordless and angry. Jimmy almost misses the way Joel had changed for the first iteration of this game, and then the second, the way his wolves had changed him a little. The way he had changed and not changed back, a snarl still buried beneath some of his words, even as the ears (something Lizzie had found funny at the time, at the start, before things went wrong) faded and the unnatural shine of his eyes reversed.

He raises a hand, pressing it over where Joel’s hand grips his jacket. His hands are cold and Joel’s hands are warm. He has been sat in this water for far longer than him, his fingers stiff with death and decay and the cold of sitting between life and whatever comes after.

His throat clicks as he swallows, but no words come to his mind, no words are able to make it free from his throat. His heart beats uncomfortably hard in his chest.

“You were meant to be free,” Joel says. He sounds like he’s begging, which is wrong. Joel doesn't ask for things, he takes them with a grin or a smirk and a laugh, pleased with whatever it is he’s managed to steal. “I was going to save you, give you my time, stop you from being the first.”

He shakes his head again, even as the sentiment warms his heart. It wouldn't have worked. He would have died halfway to that point, losing Joel whatever time he had managed to gain and ending up back here again. He is always the first, there is no escaping that.

To try and escape means the bars will be smaller next time, less gaps for him to wriggle his way through. The choking feeling will be more heavy on his neck, in his chest, in his lungs.

“It’s not fair.” Joel snarls. “You shouldn't have to be first.”

He doesn't know how to communicate it’s okay and you tried your best through his eyes and actions alone. He settles, instead, for the comfort of someone else, of someone that wanted something else for him. Even if it would never- could never happen.

He has a job to do. A curse to fulfil.

[tunastime]

no place for strangers

in which BigB realizes that there are a significant number of difference sbetween him and his friends, and in which BigB decides he doesn’t really care that much.

(2333 words)

A portion of the night sky, night for only a fraction of time, is blotted out by the shape of two dark, mottled-grey wings. 

He supposes he's a little jealous of that, the wings, how they shed loose feathers, how they flutter and swish and practically make no noise at all when extended. He's a bit jealous of Grian, known Watcher, much more powerful, hands twisted in the reigns of his own creation—the games. He's as much a pawn in this one as he has been in the others. But unlike BigB, he's hungry. The killing doesn't do it for him. Neither does the dying. Grian’s new—the Watchers don’t let him stay full. They chastise him for a million things and make sure he suffers, and at this point, BigB watches it happen. There isn’t much left he can do. He does less Watching and more supervising.

Maybe he's jealous of Pearl, with thin black and gold wings like a moth, ears wispy and pointed up toward the sky. The way her drooping eyes never dim, the way they both glow, silver and gold. She’s got it just as good as him, doesn’t she? Secretive and distant. Away enough to matter but not enough to cause a fuss.

But maybe he isn't. Isn't there something lurking behind his eyes when he stares at his reflection too long? Wouldn't redstone glow in his presence? Wouldn't the forest go silent and the earth hold its breath as he waited, as he watched? Wasn't there the purple remnant of where he once stood?

It doesn't matter. BigB stares up at the messy splotch that is Grian against the night sky and sighs something profound. He tried to understand him. To love him. But Grian is a widow, and everyone that loves him suffers the same. They just have, actually. Joel and Jimmy. And now Grian perches and watches and BigB watches him and there's a muted sting behind his eyes as he does. Grian doesn't turn. But his wings flutter.

"Good to know that some things stay the same," BigB says, cutting through the warm night air with a voice he hopes matches it, but he isn't sure. Grian hums, mostly questioning. His feet stay planted. BigB starts to scale the wall.

"Don't know what you mean by that," Grian questions. He turns his head slightly to the sound of BigB climbing the ladder to the top, but doesn't do much else.

"You," BigB huffs. He rests his hands on the top of the wall, pulling himself over the flat edge. He swings his legs over, and his heels bounce against the cobbles. It’s an uncomfortable resting place. He watches Grian shift from foot to foot, and wonders if the same cobbles are digging into the soles of his feet, the same way they dig into the underside of BigB’s thighs. 

“Me?” Grian parrots. His eyes flick over to BigB, quick, but not so quick that BigB doesn’t catch the nervous glint of them. He rests back on his hands. The rough rock presses back against his palms, cold and uncomfortable. Luckily, the air around them is thick with humidity, heat, and a faint metallic smell. And the hum of cicadas. Their drone blocks out everything else, except the words bouncing around in BigB’s head.

"You're still no good at the emotions thing, are you?" he asks. He tilts his head as he says it, cocking it to one side as he looks over at Grian. He watches Grian’s nose wrinkle, the beginnings of his teeth baring back, as if he could bite and make anything more than an impression. BigB almost laughs. He gets it, he really does. 

The thing about Grian is that he’s not an easy shape to love, and an even less easy shape to hold. Like every bird, he fears being caged, and arms are no more than a cage, and someone holding his heart is no more than a cage, so he can’t sit still, even now, even on the edge of a wall. BigB watches his wings twitch. They’re gorgeous, but there’s a sharp line through them where the flight feathers should be. They’re not much more than deadweight. Anyway—where was he? Right. Grian. Impossible to love, impossible to hold. A widow, of sorts. The words tumbled out of Scar’s mouth one time, scorned and scoffed. Grian was no more than a widow mourning the first partner he took—Scar—trying to find someone who fit the hole but wasn’t him. 

But Grian kills. Who could say it was even his fault? Scar. BigB. Jimmy. Joel. Everyone he tries to love, in any shape, dies. He’s forced to starve. He’s forced to feed a higher cause. 

BigB can see Grian’s calloused fingers from here, at least the pale shape of them, balanced over his shins as his wrists drape over the sharp edge of his knee. He studies him in the dim lighting before he looks away, feeling something curdling in his stomach. BigB knows his time is short. Unremarkable. And normally forgotten. That doesn’t really bother him, though. He knows the importance of his impression, here. But he wants to tug this string, just once. He knows where all the strings lie—even his own, unfortunately. Maybe that’s the one thing he knows better than Grian—he’s aware of the outcome before it happens. He doesn’t have to stop to wonder what his odds are.

“That’s not nice,” Grian begins, and BigB shrugs. The cicadas stop singing. BigB’s voice cuts through the night like a knife, cool and even.

“I’m just being honest,” he starts. He watches the stone of the clock tower for movement, eyes flicking over the shape in the dark. “Jimmy and Joel just died and you’re already trying to replace them.”

Grian huffs. He sounds indignant, almost twinged with hurt. “I don’t know what you mean by that.”

BigB raises his eyebrows, tilts his head again. Grian catches his eye for a second longer, this time, and his eyes are dark and wide. His jaw is tightly set. He looks like, at any moment, his lips might curl back and expose blunt, powerless teeth. BigB wonders what that might feel like—surely unpleasant, to have someone bite down on you with the intent to do harm, but he wonders if Grian could kill him on purpose and if it might rid him of anything. It might make the smell of guilt worse, actually.

“I think you do,” BigB says.

“Enlighten me, then,” Grian grits out, teeth closing around the words with a sharp snap. “Since I can feel you trying to figure me out.”

“Not me,” BigB says. Grian shuts his eyes, pinching his eyebrows together, before he twists his body around, fast enough to hear the slight pop of his spine as it cracks. BigB can feel the hair rise on the back of his neck as Grian searches, eyes scorching the earth for any sign of—

“Pearl—”

BigB hums, but it sounds more like a laugh.

“You’re just no good at it,” he says after a beat. Grian resettles, but his wings stay fluffed, body tight with tension. He radiates energy like a coil tightly wound. BigB can feel it seeping into the seams of him, and shifts as it prickles over his skin. He leans back on his hands a little further, hoping they can carry the weight. He shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“I don’t know what that means, BigB,” Grian sighs, short and through his nose. His hair blows into his face. “What d’you—” He sighs again, cutting himself off with a wave of his hand. 

He seems annoyed about the whole prospect of their conversation. It’s not unfounded, honestly. BigB did just climb up the ladder and start unpacking years worth of issues in front of Grian, trying to dig at the soft, bleeding center of the thing. He’s pretty sure Joel’s blood is still under his fingernails. He’s not sure if he saw it all happen. He definitely didn’t see Jimmy’s body hit the ground. Lucky, that. He’s not sure if he could watch people so used to flying be unable to use their wings when they needed it most. He thinks he might’ve seen Joel in the moment before Jimmy disappeared—Joel who was never one to let fear and grief trump anger. Or maybe the anger was his grief, like it was Tango’s, or Scar’s. Not that he saw much of that, either. Stories, mostly, things that get passed around a dim campfire at the end of the world. 

Jimmy was probably just a near-lifeless body in Joel's arms, right before he was gone. Poor guy. Grian didn’t even get to them in time before it was too late. He was too late for Joel, too. Joel was ash before Grian could even make his mouth into the shape of his name. BigB wonders if they got a grave. Grian was good at building graves, so he’d like to think so. It only made sense. Grian seemed to get over it faster when there was something to mourn to.

BigB takes a second to think, pressing his tongue between his back teeth. The air is quiet around them, still, like it, too, holds the tension in Grian’s spine, like it might be twisting it taut. 

“You just don’t understand how it works, you’re not good at grieving, and you’re not good at the whole grief thing, either.” BigB shrugs again, shoulders lifting just enough to be visible. He’s still not watching Grian, as much as Grian isn’t watching him, aside from the hum of them both, something wholly inhuman brushing shoulders with something that craved humanity more than anything else in the world, but could never figure out how to get it. 

“You don’t get it.”

“I do.” Grian starts.

“No, you don’t,” BigB turns toward him, finally, furrowing his eyebrows. “Grian, dude—you’re faking this whole human thing to begin with, and it’s not working—”

Grian whips around to face him. His face is sharp, jaw set. “Stop—”

BigB waves him off. His voice, unlike Grian’s, stays level, twinged with annoyance, rather than anything else. 

“You don’t understand what you should be guilty of, but you’re feeling it like it’s like…rotting something inside of you but you still don’t know why, and jeez, Grian, you’ve made it a crime for you to feel something.” 

He sighs, waving his hands around as if it could help bolster his point any further. He feels something ache in his chest—something aching to explain it in a way that Grian could understand, in a way that he wouldn’t just fight. Grian visibly bristles, feathers on his ears rising, the red and yellow tips of them stark in the night, even in the lantern light. 

“You’re on this planet too, you know, you’re allowed to let yourself feel. Messy and gross as it is. I mean, they died, man, is that anything?”

Grian swallows. BigB doesn’t watch the bob of his throat, or the way his feathers are still raised in alert as he jerks his head away. He follows Grian’s line of sight down the clock tower, where Bdubs and Cleo are talking. Bdubs looks over after a second. BigB feels a cold line run down his spine, but refuses to break his gaze. There are no sounds now, not even of his own heartbeat.

“No,” Grian manages.

BigB relaxes. Something of an easy smile finds his face, softening the shape of his eyes and the line of his jaw. He shakes his head. Grian shies away from him, but his feathers lower, and his posture sinks. He finally lowers himself to a sit, throwing his legs over the side of the wall. His hands cradle in his lap, and he stares into the palms of them. BigB remembers them as calloused, cold, and hard to hold properly. But he’s sure someone out there enjoys them. 

“You’re a really bad liar,” he laughs. Grian shakes his head. His voice is much quieter as he speaks.

“I don’t care. I don’t care.”

BigB turns his head. There, for a short moment in the moonlight, he watches the shape of Grian’s left shoulder turned toward him. They rise and fall as he breathes, shudder when he sniffs and sighs, move as he shifts his body, likely feeling those same, cold, hard cobbles pressing into the soft back of his legs. He sees where the back meets the wing, where the wing relaxes down and where feathers brush stone. He sees where they rest against the cobbles, half held and half upright, as if he wants to be ready to leap at a moment's notice. As if he doesn’t know that he, too, would die on impact. BigB reaches out, settling one soft hand on his shoulder. Grian tenses, but does not jump. 

“‘S alright, buddy.”

Instead, Grian deflates. BigB runs his thumb over the side of his shoulder, a friendly, comforting thing, as Grian leans back to his hand. His posture sinks to the touch, muscles weakening, wings folding back and down. Every molecule of his body, and BigB almost feels this in the air, grows heavy and tired at the subtle comfort. Grian draws what he can from it before he speaks. His voice sounds even, now, and tired.

“I miss them…” He starts. He swallows. “I missed you, too. I missed Scar.”

BigB sighs, giving Grian’s shoulder a long, warm squeeze before he lets go. Grian sways but catches himself on his hands. His body stays curved into itself. 

“I know,” BigB says. “But you’ll never be over it if you never break that cycle.”

Grian shrugs. The steel starts to slip back into his voice, firm. 

“I will when I win.”

BigB smiles.

“Maybe,” he says. He’s not sure he can see the end of that string yet, but the results don’t exactly look promising. “Who knows what’s in the cards?”

[ao2fics]

[whereispearlescentmoon]

Adding to my Nosey Neighbor thoughts from earlier:

(@bigb-enthusiast and @mapleejay pspspspspsps)

Imagine it begins to snow on the server. Pearl lets it fall on her, still, watching from atop their tower. She's shivering, but doesn't really notice, hands stiffening slowly on her spyglass as she stares at the Mean Gills chatting. She says nothing, but it hurts. Somehow it feels like a betrayal to see Martyn and Scott getting along so well. She starts to lose circulation. She still does not move.

BigB sits on the opposite side of the tower, though indoors, clutching his own spyglass. He doesn't really need it to look down and see the Clockers. Scar is waving around a sword as he talks for emphasis. Cleo doesn't even flinch. Cleo turns her back to Scar to talk to BDubs. Cleo will never turn her back to BigB again.

(Pearl will. She will turn BigB's sword towards her and look away from him, begging him to kill her so he can live. He won't anyways, even with the extra time. Neither will she. Both of their blood will mingle together on Scott's sword.)

BigB can't watch anymore so he turns back inside. It's only then that he realizes Pearl isn't inside. He climbs up to meet her but she doesn't respond to his greeting. He sits down next to her and pulls her spyglass away.

"A little cold, huh?"

"Oh, yeah. I guess,"

The snow has started sticking in his hair, but it's already piled on her shoulders and hood. He fights the urge to wipe it off. Pearl's reaction to touch is...unpredictable. She forgets shes not alone sometimes, even if you're right next to her. He tries not to think about what it means that she doesn't think the people talking to her are solid enough to touch.

"I'm going to head inside, I think Jimmy's heading over to ask about Judy again,"

The aforementioned man is loitering on the bridge outside their tower, being way too loud if he's trying not to be suspicious. Grian shushes him and BigB is reminded of late night meetups that felt like betraying Ren and freedom in equal measure where both of them spent half the time shushing the other and the other half giggling.

He begins to climbs down and trusts that Pearl will follow him. The inside of the tower is warm and what little snow was clinging to him begins to melt.

Pearl won't come back inside until Jimmy has come and gone. Falling snow doesn't have the same bite as sitting directly in powdered snow, but she is tinted blue all the same. BigB will place a hand on her, fingertips first to warn and then the rest when she has acknowledged that he is real, and guide her towards a furnace. She will hiss in pain as the blood returns to dying nerves and feeling returns to fingers that are scarred from the frostbite of a previous life. They will never talk about it.

(In the next life she will drop dripstone on his head and he will be reminded of his skull splitting open in time with Ren's. And he will feel like he's speaking with Ren's voice as he banishes her from Love Island. They are back in the Box and she is a demoness who has brought death with her. But she will tilt her head and ask "Nosey Neighbors?" and he will sigh and forgive her, remembering how the time he took from her tasted.)

[thetomorrowshow]

Whumptober 31 - Asking For Help

title: for him it was not an important failure

fandom: limited life smp

cw: discussion of child/spouse abuse, murder

this is another part of my bad boys gang au, continuing days 6, 14, and 22!

~

“Hey, could I—”

“Jimmy!” Joel cheers, sliding Jimmy his half-drunk beer. “Have a drink! You’re old enough to drink, right?”

Jimmy rolls his eyes. “Right. That one never gets old.”

Grian snorts. “Just like you.”

“Dude, shut up!”

“Come on, sit down, sit down,” Joel waves. Jimmy takes a look around at the rest of the busy bar, then slides into their booth, folding his hands in front of him.

“I’ve got—”

Grian raises a hand, flags down a waiter who just happens to be passing by. “Yeah, could you get him something light? It’s his birthday, first time drinking—”

“Bro,” Jimmy growls, leveling his strongest glare at Grian. Joel almost chokes on his beer (which he had promptly taken back once Jimmy sat down).

“Oh, no, I think you made the kid mad,” Joel can’t help but rib. Jimmy turns his glare on Joel, which does nothing to intimidate him, but does make him laugh a little harder.

“I didn’t come here to get bullied,” huffs Jimmy. “I—I have a job, and I wanted to ask your help for it.”

A job? Why would Jimmy have a job?

Grian’s the one who usually brings back the jobs for their little team, as he’s technically in charge of them. Jimmy’s never just showed up with a job ready to go.

It’s unheard of. It’s weird.

Grian is just as confused as Joel, apparently, because he only frowns for a moment before holding out his hand.

“Yeah, right. Show me.”

Jimmy pulls a plain white envelope out of the inside pocket of his jean jacket, passes it over to Grian. “I asked for a job,” he says, and Joel can’t help but notice that his voice has taken on an oddly nervous tone, lowered to not be heard over the sounds of the bar. “They said I could pick a team. Will you?”

Grian opens the envelope, his eyes scanning the paper. After a moment, he passes it to Joel.

It looks like a run-of-the-mill intimidation job. Some guy who owes the Bad Boys a considerable amount of money, has already missed more than one payment. Joel doesn’t recognize the name, so it’s probably a local politician or some corrupt businessman.

“Why would they give you a job?” Grian asks.

“I—I asked for one. I want to—”

“You want to rise in the ranks, huh?” Grian says. “Leave your old pals behind for greener pastures?”

“No, I—”

“Joel?”

There’s something not quite right about this. Jimmy has never mentioned wanting to lead out a job before—why would he go out of his way to ask for one?

But a job is a job, Joel supposes. They get paid by the job, and he likes to get paid as much as possible. It looks pretty easy, in and out, get the money and give a warning.

“Sure,” he shrugs. “Sounds fun!”

“With Tim leading, it’ll be a trainwreck. . . .”

“Hey!”

“That’s half the point, see? I want to see the train explode in slow motion.”

Grian snorts. “And somebody has to drag your bodies out of the wreckage, I guess.”

Jimmy opens his mouth to argue further, but he’s cut off by several waiters approaching, a cocktail and a cupcake in hand. “We heard that someone here is a birthday boy?” one of them encourages, holding the cupcake out to the table.

Jimmy’s face goes redder than a tomato in one second flat. “Grian, I will kill you,” he moans.

“That’s him!” Joel points to Jimmy delightedly. “Old enough to drink as of ten-thirty this morning!”

The waiters break into a rousing chorus of ‘Happy Birthday’, despite Jimmy’s repeated mutterings of “I’m literally twenty-two!”

Joel just laughs and downs the rest of his beer.

-

The mark, a man named Ed Fowler, lives in a townhouse in a quiet part of the city, a moderately nice car in the assigned street parking spot and a recycling bin out on the curb. Joel pokes his head into it as they sneak past, under cover of the late night—empty. The guy must’ve forgot to drag it up yesterday.

Breaking into the house is easy, even with the security system advertised on the sign outside the main window. Ed had left his kitchen window cracked, and Joel boosts Grian up and through it, then crawls in himself, aided by Jimmy below. Once he’s crawled his way over the sink (full of dirty dishes, geez, can this man not clean up after himself?), he turns around and takes Jimmy’s hands, heaving him through.

Grian’s already going through the cupboards by the time Joel pulls Jimmy all the way through, eventually finding and withdrawing a box of Cheerios.

“No good cereal,” he grumbles.

“Do you even eat dinner before these kinds of jobs anymore?” Joel asks, leaning up against a counter—much of the counter space is taken up by a microwave and a couple of empty beer cans. There’s a tied-off, bulging trash bag near his feet, and judging by the sound it makes when Joel kicks it, it’s full of more beer cans.

Grian opens the fridge. “Nope. Oh, gross, his milk is expired. Maybe he’s got chicken nuggets.”

“I’m gonna check the living room,” Jimmy mumbles, and with barely a sound, he slips out of the kitchen.

Grian glances at Joel, and Joel finds a reflection of his own feelings in his face—confusion, concern, suspicion.

“Jimmy’s being weird,” Joel says. Grian nods.

“Super weird. Do you think it’s just . . . y’know, leading a job?”

Jimmy had been the one to scout out the house, had presented a plan. Sure, it had been the usual plan for how Grian ran these kinds of jobs, but being in charge is a lot of pressure. It probably didn’t help that Joel and Grian had both been teasing him all day about it.

“What time have you got?” Joel asks, instead of responding. Grian checks his watch.

“About two in the morning. Just jitters, you think?”

Jimmy doesn’t go quiet when he gets jittery, though. He over-talks, laughs too much, hollers out his nerves. He’s so loud when he’s got jitters.

But this is a new situation. Maybe this is just a new kind of Jimmy Jitters that they haven’t seen before.

“Yeah, probably,” says Joel, though it feels not-quite-right. “Does he have any chicken nuggets?”

“Chicken strips, actually. And a handful of frozen dinners—you wanna pop this in the microwave?”

Grian tosses him a freezer meal. Joel raises an eyebrow as he examines the package. “Really? Spaghetti and meatballs?”

“You underestimate my love for pasta.”

“Yeah, but the salisbury steak ones are way better.”

“He doesn’t have any of those, he has that one and some ham and potato ones. Clearly, I chose the best option offered.”

They aren’t trying to be quiet. They’re honestly being pretty loud, and Grian turned on the kitchen light before Joel even got in, so they’re about as inconspicuous as a pack of drunk teenagers trying to sneak in. Joel only adds to it when he rummages through the silverware drawer for a knife to cut slits in the top of the frozen dinner’s plastic film, then tosses it in the microwave with a slam of the door.

It isn’t a stealth mission.

It’s intimidation.

That’s all the noise it takes for Joel to hear creaking coming from the staircase, the door leading to it situated between the kitchen and the living room. He leans back against the counter, making sure he looks carefully unbothered. Grian keeps rummaging through the freezer, making occasional noises of disapproval.

“This salmon has got to be centuries old, it’s covered in ice,” Grian says. He chucks it in the nearby trash can, heavy enough that it drags the trashbag down with it into the can.

“Get out of my house.” Joel looks up. Grian doesn’t.

The man standing at the bottom of the staircase must be Ed Fowler, and he isn’t exactly what Joel expected. Judging by the food and beer cans, he’d expected a portly, greasy guy, the kind of guy who spent hours in front of the TV without eating a single vegetable.

Ed Fowler is fairly fit, his grey nightshirt showing some pectoral definition, his arms muscular. He’s a big guy, definitely taller than Joel, and his light-brown hair is speckled with grey, cropped short enough to almost be militant.

And maybe it is militant, given the steely look in his eyes and the gun in his hands.

“G! Three makes company!” Joel says, and Grian makes brief eye contact with him, his sight of Ed blocked by the freezer door.

Three makes company—their code for whether or not someone has a gun. They haven’t used that one in a while, not since Jimmy joined them. Now they usually say something like our friend is here, but for some reason Joel had jumped to the old one.

Ed doesn’t move, his gun trained on Joel.

“Ed Fowler,” Joel says. The microwave beeps beside him. He ignores it, though Ed’s eyes flick toward it. “How long has it been since you washed dishes?”

Ed’s chuckle is humorless. “Too long. What do you boys want?”

Grian grimaces. “Look, I know Joel’s not that tall, but we’re fully adult men,” he says, closing the freezer. He still doesn’t look at Ed, instead walking back toward the silverware drawer, holding a frosted-over carton of ice cream. “Got any clean spoons?”

“Right. I suppose I should say Bad Boys,” Ed says. “Why are you here?”

Grian shrugs nonchalantly. “Oh, you know. We get a job, we do it. I think the question is for you, Ed—why would the Bad Boys be at your house at two in the morning?”

Ed looks genuinely confused, though he hides it well with a small smirk. “I’m guessing it isn’t a booty call,” he jokes, and Joel almost laughs.

This guy is pretty cool, actually. The kind of guy that Joel would grab a drink with, probably. Well, maybe. Depends on his profession—his build kind of looks like a cop, and that’s a red flag from the get-go.

Where’s Jimmy? He was only going to check the living room, it can’t have taken too much time.

Last time Jimmy went missing during a house visit like this, it wasn’t pretty.

The microwave beeps again. Another minute that he hasn’t appeared.

“You’ve missed some payments,” Grian says, his tone still casual. He manages to find a spoon, but the ice cream is so frozen solid that it won’t even dig in. He chips away at it, finally turns to face Ed. “The boss sent us to collect.”

“I haven’t owed the Bad Boys anything in years.”

Joel shrugs. “Not according to our records. Nothing we can do about it, so you might as well fork something over.” Now that Grian has eyes on Ed, he turns to the microwave, popping it open. The freezer meal looks more unappetizing than it did earlier, but he pulls it out anyway.

“That’s stupid,” Ed spits. “I don’t have any debts!”

“Yes, you do.”

Joel looks up.

There’s a gun just in sight, pointed straight at Ed’s temple, and Jimmy takes a step into the light, eyes trained on Ed.

Ed’s eyes glance to the side. His face turns red quicker than Joel’s ever seen, cheeks suddenly ruddy with anger.

“James,” he says, and despite the clear rage in his face, his voice is calm. “Put the gun down.”

James? Does this man know Jimmy?

If he does, then Jimmy never should have accepted this job. It’s an unspoken rule in the Bad Boys that you don’t do jobs that involve people from your personal life, and Jimmy knows that well enough.

Jimmy doesn’t move. His hand is steady. “I don’t think so,” he says. “I think this is when you put the gun down.”

Ed’s fingers tighten around the grip of his gun. “What, and leave myself defenseless?”

Jimmy laughs—short, sharp, ugly. “Yep. Drop it. Kick it over to Grian.”

Joel glances at Grian—he’s gone still, the ice cream forgotten on the counter. He’s staring, staring at Jimmy, worry creasing his brow.

This isn’t right. Something about this isn’t right at all—maybe it’s the cold tone of Jimmy’s voice, usually so lively; maybe it’s the whitening of his knuckles around the grip of his gun.

After a long, long moment, Ed slowly drops into a crouch, carefully setting his gun on the ground. He pushes it to Grian, the gun skittering across the tile floor of the kitchen. Grian catches it under his foot, but makes no move to pick it up.

When Ed straightens, he keeps his hands up and open, so that everyone can see that there’s nothing. “All right,” he says, voice once again even. “How much do I owe?”

“Twenty-thousand,” Joel says quickly. “That’s the first payment. Seventy-thousand, total.”

“Right. Well, I want it made clear that I don’t owe anything, but I’ll cut a check for fifteen-thousand now if you can arrange a meeting with one of your bosses. I want to get this cleared up.”

That sounds good to Joel, honestly—this situation isn’t right at all with the way Jimmy’s acting, he suddenly wants to get out of here—so he casts a look toward Grian, waiting for him to accept the deal.

Grian doesn’t say a word. He looks toward Jimmy.

Oh, no.

Jimmy’s leading this mission.

Can’t Grian take over? Doesn’t he see that Jimmy is clearly acting on some personal grudge and thereby compromised?

Jimmy doesn’t look at either of them. “I don’t think that’ll cut it,” he says, and Joel’s heart sinks. That isn’t the right choice to make; he’s letting his emotions get in the way of this job. He should accept it and let them get out. “I think you know that.”

Ed growls. “Look, I can get the money. I just want to talk to your boss.”

“I don’t want the money, though,” Jimmy says softly. “I know you don’t owe anything.”

“James—”

“Jimmy—” Grian says, reaching forward—

“I want you to talk to me like a grown man,” Ed says. “Can you behave long enough to do that?”

“I’m going to kill you,” Jimmy says, as if he didn’t hear either of them speak, voice still so eerily soft. “You see?”

Ed’s adam’s apple bobs. “If you do it like that, you’re nothing but a coward. Sit down and talk.”

“I’ll do it as a coward. I don’t care how disappointed you are in me. Not anymore.”

Joel swallows. They need to get Jimmy out of here before he does something he regrets—yeah, all of them have killed before, but not like this. Not as whatever—whatever revenge this is.

“Grian,” he whispers. “Tell him to stand down.”

Grian doesn’t say anything.

“James,” Ed says, and now his voice trembles, cracks in his cool facade beginning to spiderweb out. His eyes dart back and forth between Grian in front of him and Jimmy to his left, his mouth a thin line. “James, put the gun down and let’s talk about it. I’m not ready to die today.”

That’s the wrong thing to say.

Joel sees it in Jimmy’s face, the way his features darken, the way his eyes harden. “Was she ready to die?” he asks.

“I—”

“Was she ready to die? The doctor said the hemorrhage was caused by recent head trauma.” Jimmy digs the gun into Ed’s forehead; the man blanches. “Which concussion do you think caused it? How many times did you slam her head against the wall over the years?”

“I didn’t kill—”

“Was I ready to die?” Jimmy asks, and his voice is shaking now, as well. “How old was I, fifteen? A kid that you left bleeding out on your bedroom floor. Do you know that I thought of her? I was dying, and all I wondered was if she felt the same way. Alone. Terrified. Sick.”

“Yet you survived,” Ed spits. “James, I didn’t kill your mother.”

“Keep telling yourself that. It won’t save you, in the end.”

Oh.

Oh, no.

When Jimmy was only eighteen, Joel had become fairly certain that Jimmy was experiencing some level of abuse at home. He and Grian had started slipping extra bonuses into Jimmy’s money (he remembers how excited the kid had been, showing them that he was getting paid more than he expected), and when Jimmy had announced to them that he was going to be able to afford an apartment, they celebrated with him. They bought him a tiny cactus as a housewarming gift and never mentioned their involvement in his pay raise.

After he got the apartment, Jimmy finally started to mellow out. He started laughing more, blaming himself less for mistakes, getting control of the anger that burned within him.

He had stopped showing up after every weekend with new bruises.

If Joel’s right, this man is his father.

Now that he’s made that connection, he can see the resemblance. Jimmy’s hair is just a couple shades lighter than Ed’s, his nose the same sharp angle. Ed’s eyes are the exact same hazel as Jimmy’s, and if there were a few more lights on, Joel expects he would find the same light freckles on Ed’s cheeks that Jimmy has.

He—he thought this man was cool mere moments ago. He almost laughed at his joke.

This is a man who abused Jimmy, and—apparently—almost killed him.

Joel feels sick, and it isn’t from the the smell of the microwave dinner.

“You don’t want to kill me,” Ed says. It might be a threat, it might be a beg. Jimmy laughs again, still that horrible, ugly laugh that’s so unlike Jimmy.

“I’ve wanted to kill you since I was fourteen,” he says. “Lizzie’s the only thing that kept me from shooting you in your sleep.”

Ed latches onto that. “Elizabeth wouldn’t want you to—”

“Lizzie isn’t here right now. She’s sound asleep in the apartment that I saved up for for years to get us out. I got her away from you. I saved her.”

“I’m not the monster that you think I am, James.”

“What, so you’re normal?” Jimmy scoffs. His words come faster and faster, emotion driving each syllable. “Normal people don’t choke nine year old boys until they pass out. Normal people don’t—don’t put their cigarettes out on their kids’ backs. Normal people don’t hurt their kids, dad!”

“I—and what does that make you, now?” says Ed. “A gangster? How is that any better?”

“Anything’s better than a wife-beating cop,” Jimmy snarls, and for a moment, his hand shakes. The gun slips from Ed’s forehead briefly, scrapes down the side of his face, and Ed freezes.

“James—”

Jimmy reasserts his hold on the gun, one thumb running over the grip. “This is your gun,” he says, his voice soft again. It’s scary, how quickly he can go from one to the other. “E.J.F., your initials. You gave it to me. Remember?”

“James—” Ed says again, but Jimmy cuts him off.

“I want to make it hurt. I want to watch you bleed out. But I’m better than you.”

Silence.

A bit of ice drips off the ice cream carton.

Joel hardly dares to breathe.

“Please don’t kill me,” Ed whispers, the blood entirely drained from his face, leaving it pale as milk. “I don’t want to die.”

Jimmy’s face doesn’t change. “Neither did my mom.”

BANG.

-

For Jimmy, the job was surprisingly well-executed.

As it turned out, he had gone to TIES.

He had approached Etho of TIES six months earlier, presenting him with a fat file folder of evidence of Ed Fowler’s corruption. Ed Fowler, a high-ranking police officer, was known to take bribes from certain less-reputable gangs while borrowing money from those less likely to kill him, including TIES. In fact, he had borrowed sufficiently from TIES that Etho felt justified in sending someone to collect. He gave Jimmy the details and Jimmy forged the handwriting of a higher-up in the Bad Boys to write out the job. While in the living room of the townhouse that Joel now knew to be Jimmy’s childhood home, he had disabled any security systems or cameras that might incriminate them.

With Etho’s permission, as Jimmy claimed, they ransacked the place and made it look like TIES had destroyed it looking for money. Of course, they took any money and valuables they could find. Joel found a couple of very nice guns in the master bedroom—he wasn’t just going to let them go to waste.

(He looked at the floor, at the stained brown carpet, and shuddered.)

By the time they leave, it’s almost four. Nobody speaks, but that morning, for the first time, Jimmy pulls up GPS navigation to an apartment address on the other side of the city.

They walk into Jimmy’s apartment at around five in the morning, the pink-haired woman living there already awake. She and Jimmy make long eye contact, in which Jimmy kind of shrugs and blushes, and she frowns.

Then she smiles, and invites them all in, and introduces herself as Lizzie Fowler.

Joel pays more attention to Jimmy than he does to her, keeping an eye on his emotions, but Jimmy seems fine. A bit shaken (he’s barely spoken since he did it, face pale and blood spattered across his knuckles), but fine.

Lizzie and Jimmy go about preparing something to eat—and Grian raids their cereal, humming in satisfaction as he finds something sugary—and Joel just stands awkwardly in the center of the kitchen, not sure what to do.

Soon enough, the eggs and toast are done, and everyone retires to the living room.

“Thanks for the help,” Jimmy mumbles, once they all have some sort of breakfast item in hand, and Jimmy’s sitting between Grian and Joel on the cheap sofa, his head leaning on Grian’s shoulder. Lizzie’s on the floor in front of him, her back against the sofa, idly picking at Jimmy’s pant leg.

“I don’t think we did anything, Tim,” Grian tells him, idly running a hand through Jimmy’s hair. “Like, that was all you.”

“Not that.”

Jimmy’s at the most relaxed Joel’s ever seen him, his eyelids fluttering, his shoulders slumped. He yawns, leans further against Grian.

Joel wraps an arm around him, leans in as well.

Grian smiles at Joel when he catches his eye. Joel smiles back.

They can reprimand Jimmy later. They can tell him how foolish he was for getting other gangs involved in personal revenge, how terribly that situation could have ended. He’ll probably be getting suspended from jobs for a while, restricted to manning the front or janitorial duties.

That can wait, though.

The sparse living room grows lighter and lighter as the sun breaks over the horizon, gradually bathing them all in its warm yellow glow.

It’s a new beginning that isn’t for him. It’s for Jimmy and Lizzie, almost uncomfortable in their silence, but not quite leaving each other’s side. It’s for Jimmy, a release of the weight that he’s been carrying for years. It’s for Jimmy, able to seek out comfort at last.

Joel just has the privilege of witnessing it.

[starppleb]

Another practice/test of my animation skills!

The idea comes from theories in Allies or Enemies series Discord!