Chapter Text
“Good luck out there!”
Every time, the same mocking well wishes. Of course he wasn’t being sincere; the last thing he wanted was for you to achieve your goal. Or, well. Urbanshade’s goal.
The runs were blending together. Room after room, death after death. The only run you could remember clearly was the one that he didn’t condone. And, you know, you died at the end anyways, so what was the point of trying again?
Trying again. And again. Again. Over and over. Did you even have a life before this? What were you even convicted for? It’s hard to remember.
Again.
Lobotomized by The Angler.
Again.
Torn apart by Squiddles.
Again.
Assimilated into the Good People.
Again.
Blown to bits by landmines.
Again.
Impaled by Searchlights.
Again.
Brain imploding from Eyefestation.
Again.
Filled full of lead by a turret.
Again.
Ripped to shreds by Abomination.
Again.
Neck snapped by Wall Dwellers.
Again.
Crushed by a Candlebrute.
Again.
Consumed by a Void Mass.
Again.
Incinerated in the firewall.
Again.
Consumed by Pandemonium.
Again.
Beaten to death by The DiVine.
Again.
Again.
Again. Again. Again.
One more time.
You woke up to a loud crash. It sounded like a car had smashed into a window, shattering glass everywhere.
Good Lord!
You half expected the sound to be followed by some more general commotion, maybe a baby crying or police sirens, but once you had fully extricated yourself from unconsciousness, you had no idea why you thought that would happen. There were more pressing matters to be concerned about, such as the fact that one of your windows was probably broken, late-october night air was now entering your home, and heating utility costs weren’t getting any cheaper.
Oh, and you were getting robbed.
You slipped out of bed, kneeling down and pulling out the shotgun you kept under your bed, just in case. Your time in the Blacksite had made you infinitely more paranoid, so you had decided to take a page out of the shopkeeper’s book and keep a weapon near you at all times. You opened the drawer by your bedside and plucked up some ammunition, carefully loading it into the barrel. A different kind of paranoia kept you from leaving the gun loaded.
Right when you opened your bedroom door, you heard a thunk from the kitchen and a grumbled curse. “Low-ass ceilings.”
You didn’t dare move or make a sound. That voice sounded way too familiar for it to be real. You pinched your arm, and though your pain tolerance had grown exponentially (once again thanks to the Blacksite), you could still feel something. So you weren’t dreaming, probably. Most likely.
Cautiously, you crept through the house towards the source of the commotion. You snuck through your own living room, making sure there was always furniture nearby to duck behind, just like the way you used to avoid being spotted by turrets. Everything about this situation was bringing up memories of the Blacksite—the dark room, the familiar sounds, and, most importantly, the fear.
Something was in your house.
You could die. And this time, no coming back.
As you reached the kitchen, the sounds of cupboards opening and closing stopped, followed by the sounds of something heavy hitting the tile with a slap. The sound of the fridge being pulled open was immediately followed by a soft hiss as faint light streamed out of the room. You steeled yourself, peeked through the doorway, and… Either this was indeed still a dream, or you were having some very vivid hallucinations.
The enormous, elongated form of the Saboteur was coiled in your kitchen. His upper half was obscured by the door of your refrigerator, which he was currently rifling through like it was a supermarket shelf. Other than the light pouring out of the open fridge, there was another source of illumination in the room—the_p.AI.nter (who you just called Painter in your head) was sitting on your countertop, screen pointed in the general direction of the door you were watching through. The white light from its screen barely illuminated the space, letting you make out the… straps? Seatbelts? Something wrapped around it, like a really shitty baby carrier. And there was some sort of device plugged into it, a black box covered in wires. It kind of looked like a bomb.
Great. Fantastic. The Saboteur and the depressed AI artist were in your kitchen, possibly with a bomb strapped to the computer. Were they here for you? Did they hunt you down somehow? Were they just going to straight-up blow up your house?
“Nothing good in this place,” Sebastian muttered, slamming the fridge shut and checking the freezer next. Painter visibly flinched at the noise it made, screen flickering.
“Shouldn’t you be more quiet? What if somebody hears us?” it whispered. Despite facing you, it didn’t seem to have noticed your presence. You straightened up and casually leaned against the doorway, keeping both hands on your shotgun.
“Relax, kid,” Sebastian replied, still arms-deep in your freezer as he scrounged up something from the back. “If anyone wakes up, I’ll take care of it. Now…” He pulled out a box of ice cream sandwiches and held one up. “Do you think it’s worth it to try one of these? I mean, I haven’t had ice cream in years, but if it doesn’t agree with me, then we’re gonna have a problem on our hands…”
What the hell was that supposed to mean?
At Painter’s lack of input, Sebastian just sighed and replaced the sandwiches in the freezer, slamming the door shut. “Maybe next time, then.”
It was at that moment when Painter finally noticed you leaning against the doorway. “Uh— Sebastian? You might want to… turn around.”
He did not, in fact, turn around. “They’re right behind me, aren’t they.”
You answered by clicking the safety off.
Sebastian stiffened at the noise before raising his hands slowly. “Hello, stranger!” he called out. “Don’t be afraid, I’m not going to hurt you. Me and my companion were just… looking for some donations. We’ll be on our way now…”
“What, not gonna introduce yourself as ‘my only friend’ this time?” you scoffed, shifting your weight to stand up straight.
Sebastian’s head whipped around so fast, it was a miracle his esca didn’t detach from his head. And… wow. Not to say that he was the pinnacle of hygiene back in the Blacksite, but he was certainly looking worse for wear now. His jacket was riddled in even more rips and tears than you remembered, and was concerningly bloodstained. One of the frills of his shirt was torn off, many of his tail straps were missing, and while the bandage on his third arm was gone, a nasty scar had been left behind by whatever injury had occurred.
Sebastian himself wasn’t in much better condition than his clothing—he had dark circles under his eyes, his hair was somehow even more tangled and bedraggled than before, and one of his… Ears? Fins? Ear-fin things? Auricles? had a small tear.
But all of that paled in comparison to the ugly snarl that twisted across his face when he recognized you.
“You,” he growled, starting to raise himself threateningly. You quickly raised your shotgun, keeping it trained on his head.
“A-tut-tut-tut. Move another inch and I’ll bring you back down to two eyes,” you warned. Sebastian gritted his teeth, but wisely stayed where he was, pupils shrunk back into those pinpricks that signified he was pissed.
“What are you doing here?” he hissed. “Haven’t you ruined our lives enough?”
Okay, first of all, rude. Second of all:
“I live here, asshole. I’m the one who should be asking—” You paused for a second when Sebastian’s other question registered in your mind. “Wait, what do you mean by ‘ruined your lives’? If anything, you two were the ones making my life hell.” Your grip tightened on your gun, remembering all the ways those two had gotten you killed.
Sebastian’s eye twitched. “Oh? So you don’t remember?” He grinned with all of his teeth. “Then allow me to enlighten you.”
That was your only warning before he squeezed his eyes shut and activated his lure, brighter than you’ve ever seen before. The light is blinding compared to the nearly pitch black kitchen and it makes you wince. Oh, so this is what it felt like to be flashbanged. Was this karma?
While you were trying to clear the spots from your vision, Sebastian slammed you against the floor, claws nearly tearing into your chest and shoulders. You managed to keep your grip on the shotgun, but he used his third arm to grab your wrist, preventing you from aiming.
“You think you're so fucking special, don't you?” he growled. “Even though you knew what would happen if you took that damn crystal, you still just couldn't wait for just a little while longer?!”
His voice took on a mocking tone. “‘Oh, look at me, I'm the Expendable, I can't die! I'm going to retrieve the crystal and deliver it to the evil megacorporation that caused all this in the first place!’” You opened your mouth to defend yourself, but Sebastian cut you off, squeezing your shoulder in a way that threatened to stab his claws right next to your heart. “Don't even think about pinning the blame on me. If you went through thirteen years of hell, you would’ve done the exact same thing.” He drew up his shoulders and let out a humorless laugh. “Thirteen years! Thirteen years just so that some clever little convict could swoop in and ruin. Everything.”
“Sebastian—” Painter piped up nervously, but he spoke over it, clearly not done yet.
“It’s all your fault that we had to make a half-baked deal with that shitty backstabbing company, haul our asses to The Ridge, and pray that they sent the goddamn sub over before Urbanshade nuked our asses. Which, by the way, could you have gone any faster? It wasn’t a fucking competition. Your desperate scramble to leave us all to die did more damage than anything we could’ve thrown at you.”
“So that means you can just waltz in here and kill me?” you snapped, interrupting his tirade. His eyes narrowed and you gritted your teeth, pain flaring through you as Sebastian tightened his grip. The crushing pressure on your chest was starting to make it hard to breathe. You had to throw him off somehow.
“Don’t do this, Solace. If I die here, if I die now, you know what happens? We go back. All the way back. Back down to the Blacksite, before the crystal was taken. You really want to go back to that?” You were bluffing. You were totally bluffing. You had never bluffed so hard in your life, but then again, your life had never been in so much danger before, so. That checked out.
“Bullshit,” Sebastian gritted out, but his claws didn’t dare dig any harder into you. Just for a second, his eyes flicked to Painter, but that second was all you needed.
You wrenched your hand free and fired a warning shot. It missed, of course, blowing past Sebastian’s head into the ceiling somewhere. The recoil knocked the gun out of your grasp, but it did its job: Sebastian recoiled from the sound, loosening his grip just enough to allow you to scramble away from him.
You fumbled for the shotgun and cocked it right as he recovered, but instead of aiming it at him again, you pointed it past him, towards Painter.
You knew from a… previous run that unlike Sebastian, the computer program was completely defenseless without any external systems to hijack. And, from that same run, you learned that if the computer is destroyed, Painter dies.
“Alright, listen here you tripod fuck. You are going to sit tight and do exactly as I say, or the computer gets it,” you threatened. Sebastian froze, fear flashing across his face before he steeled his expression once more. Painter, on the other hand, looked absolutely terrified—you were sure that if it could move, it would be shaking like a leaf.
“Y-you wouldn't,” Painter stuttered. “You're not gonna actually—”
You moved your finger to the trigger and it shut up real fast, screen frozen in fear.
“Alright, let's make one thing clear,” you began. “I didn't know that Urbanshade was gonna nuke the Blacksite the second I got out. I just thought, I don’t know, they’d abandon the place or something. Maybe keep on sending people down to retrieve research, since they seem to have assets to spare.” Sebastian opened his mouth in indignation, likely preparing some insult or smart-ass comment, but a twitch of your finger made him close it, stewing in silent anger.
“Believe me when I say I have nothing against you two,” you lied. Your grievances were many. “We were all just trying to get out of there alive. And even though the one to get that stupid crystal happened to be me, it doesn’t mean you can just hunt me down and kill me for it. It could have been any other Expendable who got the job done.”
“Wait, you thought we were here to kill you?” Painter blurted out before remembering it was being held at gunpoint and clamming up again.
Your eyes flicked between the AI on your countertop and the giant fish snake man draped all over your kitchen. “...You can’t seriously be telling me that you just happened to be in the same area as and broke into the house of the person who, quote, ‘ruined your lives’.”
Sebastian didn’t answer; he just shifted in place, looking a little uncomfortable. Similarly, Painter’s scribbled face avoided eye contact.
Be for fucking real.
“You’re kidding me.” You let your finger off the trigger, but kept the gun aimed at the computer.
“To be fair, we did break into a lot of houses before yours,” the AI admitted sheepishly.
“Painter,” Sebastian hissed warningly, still keeping his eyes on the gun in your hands.
Now that you’re just the slightest bit more sure that no, the escapees aren’t going to blow up your house or kill you for vengeance or anything, you’re a little more willing to hear them out. The genuine confusion from Painter and the begrudgingly silent confirmation from Sebastian told you that they really were just in a bad situation and needed help.
But they better not be expecting that help to come from you. Not after all the shit went through because of those two.
“Okay. Okay, I'm gonna put the gun down now. You better stay right where you are, and if you reach for that triple barrel of yours, you’re a dead motherfucker.” You scanned over him, trying to catch sight of his gun. It wasn’t at his waist where it usually rested, ready to be drawn in less than a second. “Actually, where is your shotgun?”
Sebastian’s ear fins(?) flicked back slightly as his mouth pressed into a grimace. “I, uh, lost it.” Painter, in the background, animated a face-palm on his screen. Did he just make that, or did he have a bunch of animated emotes prepared for various situations? You were getting distracted.
“You lost it?” you repeated incredulously. “How do you lose an entire gun? If I had a triple barrel shotgun, I’d hold on to that thing tighter than my will to live. Which, now that I think about it, isn’t actually that high of a bar to pass, but whatever.”
Sebastian rolled his eyes, which had finally dilated back to their normal size. Their normal size, of course, being damn near the entire surface of his eye, which made it kind of hard to tell he was rolling his eyes, but whatever. “Well, I’m sorry that my priorities placed getting out alive over keeping track of my weapons. Besides, it’s not like I needed it to take you down,” he retorted, flexing his claws. Your chest throbbed in the area where he had nearly impaled you with his grip. Yeesh, that was definitely going to leave a nasty bruise.
You finally lowered the gun, instead holding it close to your torso the way you’ve seen Urbanshade guards do. Sebastian didn’t visibly relax in any way, but Painter certainly did, doing a little animated sigh of relief, which once again brought up a lot of questions on how his little drawn faces work.
Its. Its drawn faces. It’s a computer program, not a person.
“If that's all, then could you get out? Sure, it sucks that all that happened to you, but I'm not exactly inclined to lend a hand after you killed me hundreds of times and broke into my house.” Were you being callous? Hell yeah you were. Urbanshade may have caused the situation by imprisoning Sebastian and Painter in the Blacksite, but they were the ones who decided killing as many expendables as possible was the best method to slow them down. Half of your deaths were from hazards they created.
(You don't think about the fact that you volunteered to retrieve the crystal. You didn’t know what was waiting for you, that wasn't your fault. But you especially don't think about how if Sebastian never broke out, never caused the lockdown in the first place, you'd still be rotting in that cell. Or dead.)
Sebastian bristled, about to snap at you again, but a horrible noise interrupted him. It sounded like a mix between a terribly bass-boosted whale sound and a drowning tuba player.
“...What was that?” You looked at Sebastian. Sebastian looked at the ground. You looked at Painter. Painter looked at Sebastian. Sebastian continued to find your floor rapturously fascinating.
“Is anyone going to answer me?” you demanded. “Because so help me god, if you two dragged some demonic entity out of the Blacksite along—”
“Oh, uh, that was Sebastian,” Painter cut in. “He hasn’t eaten since…”
“Since yesterday, Painter, and it won’t kill me to wait. I went longer without food during the lockdown,” Sebastian finished, lifting his head to glare at the computer.
The lockdown itself only lasted for about two days, to the perspective of everyone else, but to you it felt far longer. Since your body reset with every death, it was hard to tell how exactly the passage of time worked down there. Was everything resetting when you died? But when you went on runs with other expendables, they didn’t show up in the lobby until a while after, meaning that their runs continued. And surely the Blacksite itself didn’t reset, not when there were always groups of expendables running through and Sebastian kept all of the research you gave him, even across runs. But Sebastian experienced all your runs, never died, and was in contact with the outside world the whole time, meaning he knew of the passage of time. Was it only two days for him, or was it much longer, like it felt to you?
Before you can think too hard about it, you took a step forward. Sebastian instantly reared back, hovering his smaller arm over Painter protectively. “What do you think you’re doing?” he growled.
“I am walking to my fridge. Because this is my house, and I can do what I want. Now move your fat ass,” you directed. Sebastian made a disgruntled noise but moved his tail out of the way nonetheless. You opened the door, and… well. There was a reason why Sebastian had been so disappointed by your refrigerator earlier. All you had were various condiments, two eggs, half an avocado that you swore you were going to use yesterday, a nearly empty jug of orange juice, and some sliced bread.
You could feel Sebastian’s judgemental stare on your back. “I was going to go grocery shopping tomorrow,” you defended before he could make any snarky comments.
Whatever. You took out the bread and the eggs and maneuvered yourself around one of Sebastian’s coils to reach the stove next to the counter. He picked up Painter and the suspiciously bomb-shaped device it was attached to before you could get too close.
“What are you doing?” he asked again, more confused than defensive this time.
You had no idea. “Wasting my breakfast on you. Want an ice cream sandwich?”
“I’m lactose intolerant.”
“You’ll live.”
“Your plumbing won’t.”
Okay, maybe that was a problem. “...I’ll live.”
Apparently that was all the confirmation he needed to start rummaging around in your freezer. You heard the sound of a wrapper being torn apart as you turned on the burner, setting your gun on the floor. Surely they knew better than to kill someone who was actively offering help. For now, anyway. As soon as you finished being a Good Samaritan, you were kicking them out.
You put the bread in the toaster and crack the eggs onto the skillet. As they sizzle, you take a moment to reassess the situation.
Two… entities that have killed you multiple times have broken into your home (presumably through a window, which you’ll have to deal with later), you threatened them with a gun, one of them slammed you into the floor, you threatened them with a gun again, and now you’re making them breakfast. Well, you’re making one of them breakfast.
Maybe this was a dream after all. A really weird one.
Painter suddenly spoke up. “Sebastian, can you put me down? I want to watch.” It was still in Sebastian’s arms—well, one of them, anyways. You look over to see Sebastian holding an ice cream sandwich in one hand, cradling Painter in the other, and holding onto several wrappers with the third. How efficient.
“I dunno, kid. I don’t want them anywhere near you…” You rolled your eyes. If you had wanted Painter dead, you’d have shot it without hesitation earlier. And then he would’ve killed you, just like how he’d kill you if you tried to pull anything now.
“Please?” Painter begged. You glanced back again to see the most adorable pleading face on its screen, looking up at Sebastian. Damn, now you kind of wanted to advocate for it too.
Of course, Sebastian was no match for that kind of weaponized cuteness either, so he deposited the computer back onto the counter with a grumble, turning it so the screen faced you.
Well, now you felt uncomfortable. You were hardly a master chef, so cooking in front of an audience suddenly made you feel a little nervous. Even though it was just fried eggs.
You quickly opened a drawer and retrieved a spatula and a plate. Flipping the eggs off of the skillet, you set the plate on the counter and returned to the fridge, ignoring the way Sebastian recoiled as if you were a spider skittering towards him. You considered asking him what he wanted on his toast, but then you remembered that you didn’t actually care and took out the avocado.
Returning to the plate, Painter yelped as the toast popped up with such perfect timing that it could’ve only been the result of divine intervention. You opened the drawer again, took out a butter knife, and immediately dropped it as you were slapped full-force by Sebastian’s tail. Okay, probably not full-force. That thing looked like it could break bones. But still, it hurt like a bitch.
“What was that for?” you demanded, rubbing your arm as you whirled around to face him.
“No. Weapons,” he growled, flicking his ear fins back irritably.
“It is a butter knife,” you hissed right back at him. “I could do more damage by just throwing the fucking skillet at you. Or, y'know, shooting you.”
That was evidently the wrong thing to say, because he immediately reached for Painter again, who made a noise of protest at being manhandled once more. You ignored it and pulled out a spoon from the drawer instead, making sure to flip off Sebastian with it so he knew you weren't pulling out another “weapon”. Upon de-pitting the avocado, you immediately flung the seed at him as hard as you could, not even bothering to look in his direction. You knew that it had hit something when you heard him swear as you scooped out avocado and spread it on the toast like marmalade.
He gave you a scathing glare as you sidled over and held out the plate. “Avocado toast? You a health nut or something? And not even a fork for the eggs?”
You groaned and rolled your eyes. Lifting your chin to look him in the eyes, you pointed at him and declared: “You, motherfucker, are being awfully demanding for someone who broke into my house. I was going to get you a fork, but if you’re going to bitch and complain at me, then you can just eat it with your hands like an animal. Or swallow it whole, I don’t care. Shove the plate down your throat and choke on it. Or, you could give it back—”
You stopped when Sebastian let out an honest-to-god growl that made your hairs stand on end. You almost would’ve been scared by the feral-sounding noise if it weren’t for the fact that his face was stuffed with toast when he made it.
“What Sebastian means to say is that he’s thankful for the food and he would like a fork, please,” Painter spoke up, squishing his face into the corner of his screen to peek out at you from Sebastian’s arms. “And that he’s sorry for being mean to you.”
Sebastian quickly swallowed his mouthful of toast. “What are you doing?” he whispered to Painter, tilting his head towards the computer. He seemed to be asking that a lot recently.
“Trust me on this,” Painter stage-whispered back.
“You know I can hear you, right?” You slid a fork along the counter for Sebastian (only because Painter asked nicely, okay?) and crossed your arms, unimpressed by their scheming. What exactly were they up to?
Painter made a little surprised face as Sebastian scoffed. “Obviously. Which is why if good ol’ Painter here wants to tell me something, he should say it in private.”
“No, wait, this is important,” it protested. “This includes them, too.”
“What do you have to say that could possibly involve—”
“Sebastian, please.” Ah, there it was again. That adorable puppy-eyed face endearingly scribbled on its screen. Once again, Sebastian gave in, sighing and rotating the computer to face you. Its expression almost made you want to hear it out, too.
“Okay, so listen, uh…” You waited patiently as Painter floundered to remember your name, making no move to offer it any assistance. Eventually it gave up and repeated, “Listen. As you can see, Sebastian and I aren't exactly in a good situation right now. And you, you know, you seem kind of like a decent person and all, so I was thinking, maybe, we could, I dunno… stayhereforalittlebit?”
“What?!”
“Absolutely not.”
You and Sebastian exclaimed indignantly at the same time, voices overlapping.
“Why would we ever even consider having anything to do with this prick?” Sebastian objected, pointing at you with his fork. “Just because they’re treating us like a charity case for now doesn't mean that they won't try to stab us the second we turn our backs.”
“And don't mistake my pity for sympathy,” you added. “As soon as Solace finishes those eggs, I want you two—”
The words “out of here” died on your tongue as loud knocking rang from your door. You were ready to ignore it, but the shout that rang from the front of the house made everyone freeze.
“Police! Open the door!”
The police? Here? Now?!
“Did you call the cops?!” Sebastian nearly shouted.
“What? No! Why would I do that? I'm not looking to be collared a second time!” you snapped. You had lost all faith in the police force ever since your arrest, if you had any in the first place. Being taken down and cuffed isn't exactly the most trust-inspiring experience.
More banging forced you to leave them alone in the kitchen and run to the front door, flinging it open to reveal an almost middle-aged looking man with his hand still raised to knock again. You could see a cop car in the street, most likely with more officers inside.
“Yes?” you greeted him curtly. Maybe you should be a bit more polite to law enforcement, but sue you, you’re bitter and irritated and exhausted and it’s god-knows-what-hour in the morning.
The cop must’ve been tired too, because he wasted no time in taking out a little notepad. “We received several reports of a gunshot from this area ten minutes ago, and the disclosed directions from each location match this address. Can you tell me what happened here?”
You had nearly forgotten about that. There was probably a bullet hole in your ceiling that you had to take care of. “Oh, yes, that… I was taking out the trash earlier, and I saw a raccoon, and it startled me, so…” you awkwardly explained. “I, uh, missed.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You were taking out the trash.”
“Yes.”
“At four in the morning.”
“...Yes.”
“With a gun on hand.”
You struggled to come up with a good reply to that. “...Well, when you take out the trash at 4 AM in an area full of raccoons who eat trash, it’s good to protect yourself.”
“And what about the blood?”
“The what?” you asked before you could stop yourself. You looked down at yourself, noticing some smaller patches of blood slowly oozing through your shirt. Looks like Sebastian’s claws had broken your skin after all and you hadn't noticed. “Oh, well, that's… Well, I did say I missed, didn't I? The raccoon attacked me before it ran away. Don't worry, I'll be fine.”
“Hmm.” The policeman wrote something down in his little notebook before flipping the page. “Did you see any suspicious individuals when you went outside?”
What? “Huh? Um, no sir. Just the raccoon.”
The man nodded, writing something else down. “There have been several reports of robberies in the area over the past few days, along with blacked-out security footage. Are you sure you weren’t fending off any sort of home invasion?” he interrogated.
“Yes.”
“Then why is your front window broken?
Ah. You lean to the right and— yup, that’s a broken window alright. An enormous hole was punched through the pane, broken glass everywhere on the floor. No wonder it seemed colder in here. How did you not notice that earlier?
“Oh, don’t worry, that wasn’t from a break-in,” you explained, returning to your original position. “That was from… my son. He’s, uh… getting his learner’s permit right now, and we had an incident earlier tonight. So it’s fine.” You were so good at lying. Nobody’s done it like you. Mostly because nobody has been in this absurd situation before.
The officer glanced at your unscathed car in the driveway.
“I have a second, smaller car,” you blurted out before he could question you further.
Yep. Super good at this.
He looked unconvinced, but relented, sighing. “If you say so. But please report any suspicious individuals—”
“Yes okay thank you goodnight.” You closed the door on his face.
Returning to the kitchen, you were met with the barrel of your own gun being pointed at you by, quelle surprise, Sebastian Solace. Painter peeked out at you from where it was cradled in his arms.
You just groaned. “Seriously? I make you breakfast and this is how you repay me?”
“I think letting you live is quite the generous ‘thank you’, after the stunts you’ve pulled,” Sebastian drawled. For the first time since you’ve seen him in the Blacksite, he actually seemed a little bit more in his element, smirking down at you from behind the shotgun. If you ignored how disheveled and generally miserable he looked, you'd think you were back down in his shop.
You tried not to let your anxiety show, crossing your arms again and quirking your brow as if having your life threatened was just a minor annoyance. It was concerningly easy to slip back into the Blacksite mindset, pretending that being killed only hindered your progress and nothing more. “Need I remind you that—”
“Your continued existence as anything other than a bloody smear is what’s graciously providing us our freedom?” Sebastian interjected. You didn’t like the confident tone he was using.
Something must have shown on your face, because Sebastian chuckled darkly. “Oh, but you see, Painter and I had a little chat when you were away. And you know what we think?”
You didn’t dare respond. Sebastian leaned a little closer, inching the barrel towards you with a menacing grin.
“We think that's bullshit.”
Oh fuck. You have to salvage this before crime scene cleaners have to salvage what’s left of you off the floor.
“So you're going to kill me after all,” you said, defiantly trying to keep the tremor out of your voice. “You're going to kill someone with no ferryman tokens, no fucked up time loop, no way of coming back. You really want to have some actual blood on your hands?”
It was easy to forget, what with Sebastian being a terrifying enormous aquatic experiment, that every person he'd directly killed with his own two hands had come back to life, one way or another. Urbanshade revived their officials all the time, and for whatever godforsaken reason the EXR-P weren't allowed to stay dead. Everyone knew about the loops; it was just an unspoken rule to not mention them in the submarine bay.
If Sebastian killed you now, it would stick with him like a stain on his soul. Assuming he still had one.
“Actually, I have a better idea.” Oh, that didn't bode well for you. You watched out of the corner of your eye as Sebastian’s tail shifted around you, effectively caging you in. The twin barrels of your own shotgun stared at you like the eyes of death.
“As Painter said, we’re in a bit of a tight spot right now. So we’re currently in the market for some… temporary lodgings. So how about we cut a deal? You let us squat her for a bit, and in return,” he motioned with the shotgun towards your head, “I don’t splatter your brains all over the floor.”
Oh hell no. You glared up at him. “Seriously? Are you hearing yourself? I’d room with a bear before letting you two stay here.”
Sebastian just hummed, unbothered by your objection. “Sounds like you’d rather house a bullet in your skull instead.”
“Oh? And what will you do after that? As soon as the neighbors hear the shot, those cops’ll be back and riding your asses, and this time they’ll find a body. You do realize that they’re already tracking you, right? Then you’ll just have to move on anyways, so just save yourselves the trouble and get the hell out now.”
“Wait!” cried Painter, startling you both. You had nearly forgotten it was there.
Sebastian drew back, shifting his hold on it to one arm to use the other hand to pinch his brow. His third arm still steadily held the gun to your face. “Kid, I thought I told you to let me do the talking.”
“I know, I know, but this isn’t working,” it argued. “We need a better plan, so let me try. Please, Sebastian?”
This time, it didn’t even need to make puppy eyes. Sebastian just let out a long-suffering sigh and held it up alongside the gun so it could speak to you face-to-face.
“We don’t have anywhere else to go,” it pleaded. “If we go to Sebastian’s family, they might not be able to help us, or they might not want to help, or it could put them in danger, and m-my creator i-is… He’s…” It trailed off, little digital tears welling up in its eyes. You still had no idea whether it was intentionally drawing those or not.
You took a deep breath and let it out slowly. You were not going to let this stupid little AI’s sob story get to you. You could not give in to that pathetic look it was giving you. There was absolutely no reason to listen, you didn’t owe these guys anything. So after a long moment, you finally said:
“Okay.”
Painter’s face perked up and Sebastian looked surprised. “Okay,” you repeated, “It’s late, I’m tired, you’re tired, none of us want to be in this situation right now. You can stay FOR NOW.” You held up a finger when Painter made an excited expression, Sebastian shifting backwards slightly at the sudden motion. “On three conditions.”
“Of course,” Sebastian muttered.
“One: you gotta fix my window.” You considered also telling them to plaster the hole you shot into the ceiling, but you supposed that wasn’t quite fair when you were the one to fire the gun. The window, however, was entirely their fault.
You held up another finger. “Two: you give me my gun back, and three,” you spoke a little louder to drown out Sebastian’s noise of protest, “if you so much as even fucking think of taking my shit and bouncing in the morning, I swear to god that I will personally hunt you to the ends of the earth.”
Sebastian scowled at you. “How about I keep the gun?”
“How about I call the cops?”
“...Deal.”
Reluctantly, Sebastian lowered the gun, leaning down and placing it on the ground before his coils shifted so he could smack it towards your feet with his tail. You bent down to pick it up and felt something whoosh right above you where your head used to be. Glaring up, you see Painter snickering while Sebastian casually examined his claws, acting like he didn’t just feign smacking you with his fluke.
You don’t have the energy to deal with this shit anymore. “Welp! I’m going to bed,” you announced, straightening up. “You two fuck off or whatever. See you in the morning, I guess.”
Painter sputtered as you picked your way around Sebastian’s tail. “A-aren’t you going to tell us where to sleep or something?”
“Nope!” you called back from the living room, already beelining towards your bedroom. “Figure it out yourselves. If you wake me up before twelve I’m killing you.” And with that, you slammed your door shut, effectively sealing the problem outside for future you to deal with.
You stood there in your room, barely processing anything that just happened in the past… what, hour? Half hour? You had no idea. You carefully unloaded the shotgun, ejecting the remaining shell and hiding the gun under your bed.
You wanted nothing more than to flop onto your bed and pass out, but unfortunately there was still one more thing for you to take care of. You dragged yourself to the bathroom connected to your room and took off your ruined shirt to assess the damage.
While the initial gore that greeted you made you suck your breath through your teeth, a quick rinse with a warm washcloth revealed that the damage wasn’t as bad as you thought. There were eight puncture wounds of varying depth, but they were all relatively shallow, none of them going any deeper than skin level. Still stung like a bitch though.
You opened a cabinet, retrieving your first-aid kit. You bought it along with a bunch of other emergency supplies when you bought the house, but you weren’t expecting to use it so soon. After dabbing some antibiotic cream around the gashes, you carefully bandaged and wrapped your injuries. Too exhausted to bother putting away the kit, you left it lying on the floor as you staggered back into your room and collapsed on your bed, not even bothering to redress.
You almost hoped you wouldn’t have to wake up in the morning.