Archive of Our Own

Cellbit kneels in the soft grass outside his old house. The predawn dew sinks into his pant legs, though the weather is mild. He rests his hands on his knees, palms up and fingers spread. In front of him, Étoiles sits on the stairs, his enormous great axe loosely held in one hand.

“So, are you a Cocorico now or just his bitch?” Étoiles asks mildly, like he’s just trying to make conversation to pass the time. He very well could be. 

“I’m sure Forever will tell you once I’ve talked to him,” Cellbit says levelly. 

“ If he talks to you,” Étoiles points out. 

“He will. He didn’t kill me on the spot, so he’s willing to hear me out.” 

“If you say so, man,” Étoiles replies without a shred of belief.

A moment later, the elevator inside the house sounds several times in quick succession. Cellbit can see Étoiles turn to look at who steps out, but he doesn’t look up himself. He knows Forever is here and he heard at least four more. 

“We’ll need to search you,” Forever says. He doesn’t sound like himself. His voice is rigid and ice cold. “To make sure the Federation didn’t put a wire on you or something like that.” 

“Of course,” Cellbit agrees. 

No one speaks for a long moment. 

“Did you want me to–?” Étoiles offers, but doesn’t finish. 

“Dapper, do you have the potion ready?” Forever asks. 

A potion appears on the ground in front of Cellbit. He picks it up and examines it. It’s labeled in Dapper’s nearly illegible scrawl. Sleep V (24:00:00). Cellbit balks. 

“Forever…” he pleads. 

“We have to search you,” Forever repeats. “You know the procedure. You don’t want to be awake for it.” 

I know the procedure, Cellbit can’t afford to say. I don’t know if you do. “You’re not putting me to sleep,” he says instead. “Either you let me watch or you don’t get a word out of me.” 

“Por Díos, Cellbit,” Maxo chuckles grimly. “Forever, if he wants to be crazy so bad, just let him. He will change his mind sooner or later.” 

Cellbit won’t. He and Forever both know that he won’t budge on this. He drops the potion back on the ground. “I’ll take blindness and weakness if you have them,” he offers. “So you can move me somewhere more secure. Not blindness while you’re doing the search.” It’s a decent compromise, he thinks. 

“I can stay as a guard,” Étoiles pitches in. “He won’t fight me and win.” 

“Thank you for the offer,” Forever says. His voice is still flatter than Cellbit has ever heard it before. It’s eerie to hear him this quiet. “I can handle this though.” 

“Alright, man, if you’re sure.” 

“Just give me a minute to set up the warp plate.” 

“Of course.” 

They lapse into relative silence again. Cellbit decides to risk looking up and feels the great axe against his cheek before he manages to do more than twitch. He looks back down and the axe moves away. All he has to look at are his own hands and his own knees and the steps up to the house that he knows will never be his own again. He counts the stones in the cobble to pass the time. One hundred thirty six until he hears the waystone. 

“Dapper?” Forever asks. Then, “Will this do?”

Another potion appears in front of Cellbit. Uncraftable Potion of Blindness (0:50) Fire Resistance (10:00) Weakness (5:00). He knows the search will take longer than five minutes but the window of opportunity for fighting back can certainly get shorter than that. He managed the preliminary search for Maxo in about three minutes and the preliminary search is the only stage that actually slows down when the person being searched is unconscious. 

“I’ll drink it,” Cellbit agrees. 

“Bad, help me move him,” Forever requests. 

A moment later, a hand shaped pressure lands on Cellbit’s arm with none of the accompanying warmth. Bad’s fingers wrap further around Cellbit’s bicep than seems entirely normal. 

“Max, can you take Dapper to the hotel?” Bad asks. “He wants to swing by Ramón’s first to drop something off.” 

“No problem.” 

“Great, thank you. It’s all secure, he just has some decorating he wants to get done. Here, take a spare waystone just in case. Dapper, be good for Tío Max, okay?” 

Two sets of footsteps depart and then Bad tugs Cellbit upright. Cellbit finally finds himself face to face with Forever.

Forever doesn’t look good. That’s the first thing Cellbit can think. He’s wearing a neat, well pressed suit, but he has deep bags under his eyes and he’s holding himself far more tensely than usual like it’s taking all his effort to hold himself together. He looks probably about as shit as Cellbit does. Cellbit doesn’t like knowing that he’s the cause of it, but it will be over soon. Once they know they have secure communication he can explain everything. He doesn’t expect Forever to forgive him, but if it’s enough to keep Richas alive, it’ll be worth it. 

Forever’s lips are pressed together tightly. He nods to Bad and Bad leads Cellbit to the warp plate. He pauses just before it and Cellbit drinks the potion. The effects are immediate. Darkness descends around him except for barely a few inches in front of him. His limbs feel heavy and floppy and his heart pounds in his chest. Bad warps through and Cellbit follows behind. 

He emerges somewhere underground, based on the taste of the air. Somewhere clean, but without the unnatural sterility of the Federation headquarters. Without the tang of copper ever present in its hallways either. 

“Strip,” Forever orders. 

This part, at least, is something approaching familiar. Cellbit admits that it hurts for the order to come from Forever, but he’s spent long enough in prison to get as close to used to this as he’s going to. The blindness effect helps. He shucks off his shoes as he pulls his shirt over his head. He hears Forever draw in a tight breath. Cellbit isn’t surprised. The scar bisecting his torso from his left shoulder to his right hip is twisted and ugly and still a bright and vivid red. It's one of those rare injuries that refuses to answer to healing potions. He pulls off his pants and underwear together too, then finally his socks. 

“The blindness is fading,” he warns because it’s always easier when he has something to say. 

Bad’s hand returns to his arm and Cellbit has never had much reason to pay close attention to Bad’s hands but he thinks there might be an extra knuckle in there somewhere. Either way, he’s led forward through a keypad door. 

The room he finds himself in when the blindness fades isn’t the same one that he searched Maxo in after Maxo got out of the Federation hospital, but it’s set up much the same way. Operating table and equipment, lead lined walls to prevent signals from getting in or out, a white bed with at least a block’s clearance from the wall in every direction, a neat clipboard with a checklist that Cellbit wrote himself. The main difference is the panels hung around the operating table. Mirrors, judging by the pattern of lights on the floor. 

Cellbit lets himself be led to the bed and sets his spawn. It’s not a very secure one. Once the weakness wears off, he’ll be able to break the bed and force a respawn back at the base of the wall. He can’t help but feel a twinge of fondness. Despite everything, Forever still trusts him.

“Bad, can you search his clothes?” Forever asks. “I’ll handle him from here.” Bad drops Cellbit’s arm and leaves without a word. 

And then they’re alone. Just the two of them. Cellbit wishes the thought could relax him. He wishes he could believe they have privacy. He wishes he could see Forever smiling at him. Instead he just stands there and waits as Forever flips past the first page on the clipboard. 

“Get on the operating table,” Forever says. 

“What about the preliminary search?” 

Forever’s eye twitches and his fingers grip the pen a little tighter. “It’s redundant and I don’t want the weakness potion wearing off before you're properly set up. Get on the table.” 

Anxiety crawls under Cellbit’s skin like hundreds of tiny insects. “It’s better to be redundant than to accidentally skip something,” he risks pointing out. “Once you really get started, I won’t be in much shape to help you.” 

Forever flinches. Then he curses under his breath and flips back to the first page. “Fine. Open your mouth.” 

Cellbit has been strip searched before. Cellbit has been strip searched probably over a thousand times before. It's hardly an unfamiliar process for him. But it’s been a decade since he left prison and those searches were always conducted by people who could not have given less of a shit about him. Forever, for better and for worse, cares deeply for him. His gaze burns as Cellbit runs through the familiar motions. Forever examines inside his mouth and nose, under his arms, under his dick then his balls. Under Forever’s careful eye, Cellbit ruffles his hair, then turns and bends and coughs. Finally, he shows the bottoms of his feet and wiggles his toes. Just as he's done it a thousand times before. 

Forever writes down his final notes, then gestures to the table. 

Cellbit looks to the table and back at Forever. He doesn't move. 

“I still have the Sleep potion if you want it,” Forever offers. 

“No.”

“Then we can find some clothes for you and make you a nice place to stay for house arrest. We could bring Richas to come visit and everything.”

That– that is honestly tempting. Cellbit wouldn't be happy, wouldn't be giving Cucurucho what it wants, but the thought of Forever having to explain why Pai Cellbit can't come on adventures anymore to an innocent child…

“How is Richas?” Cellbit asks. “Is he safe?”

Forever smiles sadly. “As safe as we can make him. He misses his pais though.”

And so does Cellbit. He misses Richas and he misses Felps and it hurts so much not to have either of them and he wishes he could say it would hurt as much as stepping forward will but it's still enough to give him the courage to cross the gap. 

The operating table is cold and unyielding and his skin sticks slightly where nervous sweat glues it down. Cellbit looks up at his own face in the mirrors looming overhead and tries to school his expression to one of slightly less terror. 

“Last chance to back out,” Forever warns him. 

“Do it,” Cellbit says before he has the chance to think. 

The restraints deploy all at once. Wrists, upper arms, shoulders, ankles, calves, thighs, forehead. Thick leather bands close over all of them and tighten in place. Animal panic jolts through Cellbit and he thrashes for a moment before forcing himself still. 

Forever comes up to stand behind him and places a hand on the forehead restraint. This is out of order is the first thing Cellbit can think. Follow the checklist. “Can you see everything you need to with this?” Forever asks, tapping the restraint. 

Cellbit looks up at the mirrors, examining his body. He forces himself not to let his eyes skate off the chainsaw scar no matter how much he wants to just linger on the potion particles floating off him. “I can see,” he admits. 

Forever’s hand drifts off the restraint to rest against Cellbit’s forehead for just a moment. “Good. I don’t want you giving yourself a concussion.” The slight tackiness of sweat holds their skin together for a heartbeat longer when he pulls away. “How long do you have left on the weakness?” 

“Fifty-three seconds.”

Just enough time for Forever to close his eyes and take a deep breath before he pulls his hair up, his jacket off, dons his mask and gloves. He uses a scalpel to make the first incision at Cellbit’s right shoulder. Cellbit breathes deeply and manages to not even outwardly react. Then Forever picks up the cautery pen and the machine hums to life. The tip glows red as it approaches. It's a lot quieter than the chainsaw was, but Cellbit can't help the way he instinctively shrinks back against the restraints. The pain will be entirely different, but it will hurt just as much.

It doesn't. The cautery pen presses against the incision and nothing much in particular happens. No smell of burning flesh, no skin parting beneath Forever’s fingers, no more than moderate pain. 

“What?” Forever asks. “Is it broken?”

Cellbit wheezes a noise that might be a laugh. “Fire resistance,” he realizes. “Three minutes twenty on that. Weakness almost gone.”

Forever laughs and sets the cautery pen down on his little wheeled table, a small fraction of the tension draining out of his shoulders. “Of course,” he says. “You want to just wait it out?”

“Or you can just get a head start on the preparation for the third stage.”

“I’ll have to redose the weakness for that if I do it now.” Forever grabs a bit of gauze and applies pressure to the incision, which Cellbit would say was a waste if he wasn't sure Forever probably has some sort of busted gauze farm somewhere.

“And?” The weakness is wearing off already. Cellbit can tell more by the constant drone of anxiety lessening ever so slightly than by the strength returning to his limbs. 

“I’ve talked to Pac about it. I know you and Tazercraft aren't the biggest fans of being under weakness potions,” Forever says. 

It was never really being under the potions themselves that was the problem. Guards put a lot of effort into making you weaker than them in prison. You learned how to compensate. The problem was that the guards knew that. Once they decided you were habituated to the stuff… It didn't matter how long the judge had given you. Prisoners who were strong enough to compensate for the weakness potions were too strong to ever be allowed outside again. 

So, no. Cellbit isn’t the biggest fan of being redosed with weakness potions. But, “I’m not a fan of not knowing if the Federation hid something in my body to use me either.”

Forever manages to keep his expression level, but his hands tense up and dig into the wound ever so slightly, sharp and bracing. “Right,” he says. He folds up his jacket and lays it over Cellbit’s face as an improvised blindfold. 

It doesn’t exactly do much to muffle Cellbit’s hearing though. He knows that Forever is tapping away at his comm and then the warp pad outside the room activates and Forever opens the door to talk to whoever is outside and even if Cellbit can’t quite make out the words, Bad’s high pitched nasally voice is unmistakable. Half of Cellbit’s mind focuses on trying and failing to understand the conversation, but the other half is focused on trying to figure out how to escape. Not that he wants to, of course. But if the Federation have turned him into a sleeper agent, he needs to know how they would use him. His best bet would probably be to dislocate his thumb to try and get a wrist free and work from there. He flexes his wrist to see if there's enough give to make that work. Probably not enough to make it worth sacrificing the thumb. And that’s assuming he could get enough leverage to dislocate his thumb in the first place. Yeah, he’s not going anywhere anytime soon. Satisfied, he focuses on clamping down on the claustrophobic panic that thought brings. 

Forever pulls the jacket back off his face and holds the potion label close to Cellbit’s face. Cellbit has to cross his eyes a little bit to get the text to focus properly, but he does manage to read it. Weakness (8:00). 

Cellbit closes his eyes for a moment and opens his mouth. Forever drips the potion into his throat. It’s an awkward angle to try and drink from but Forever is patient and attentive and Cellbit manages to swallow it all without any trouble except for the obvious problem that he will never be allowed out of here again.

No, stop that. He’s doing this to make sure he’s not feeding information back to the Federation against his will. This is a step towards freedom. 

“Are you alright if Badboy stays and helps me with the procedure?” Forever asks. “It will go smoother with two pairs of hands.” When Cellbit hesitates, he adds, “He won’t be the one to put anything in you. Once we have the tubing in place, I’ll have him run the machine and he won’t even need to be looking at you.” 

Cellbit hadn’t been able to do his search of Maxo alone either. “Do you trust him?” he asks. 

“Yes.” 

Do you trust me? Cellbit wants and doesn’t want to ask. “Then fine.” 

Forever looks up and gestures and Bad approaches to where Cellbit can glance over and see him. 

“ Have you done this before? ” Forever asks him in English as he brings over the necessary tools. Cellbit struggles against the restraints to see them before he realizes that it’s easier to just look into the mirror. And then that he’d rather not look in the mirror. But it’s still not as awful a thought as letting himself be taken apart without even seeing what happens to him.

“ Not this exactly, but I’ve done surgery before ,” Bad replies. 

“ Okay, can you read the checklist for me? ” 

“ I mean I can try but I don’t know any Portuguese. ” 

“ I’ll just tell you what to do then. Good thing I reminded you to laminate the pages, eh, Cellbo?” Forever comments with an expression that might have been a weak smile behind the surgical mask.

“You’re stalling,” Cellbit replies with an equally dismal attempt at light heartedness. 

“Wouldn’t you?” 

“That’s an absurd question.”

Forever sighs. He pulls off his right glove and presses his thumb against an indent on the restraint on Cellbit’s right thigh. The restraint scans his thumbprint and retracts. Forever repeats the process for Cellbit’s calf and ankle, leaving him with a whole leg free. An old, well worn part of Cellbit’s mind watches for Forever to get close enough to trap. If he kicks Forever’s knee in and hooks his own knee around Forever’s throat while he’s falling… No, he wouldn’t have the strength to hold him. Not under the weakness potion.

Cellbit manages to hold himself still as Forever straps on the Create mod goggles and replaces his gloves. Bad comes up next to him. He’s taken his coat off too, but his face is still cloaked in shadow despite the lack of hood. 

“ Let me lead ,” Forever tells Bad. “ Don’t do things I don’t ask. ”

Then he finally gets to work. Even knowing it’s coming, Cellbit still jolts a bit when Forever pushes his dick aside with one hand to shave the skin on the inside of his thigh. 

“Careful,” Forever warns him. “I can use a local paralytic here if we have to, but that gets dangerous fast once we start working on bigger areas.” He sets the razor aside and runs a disinfectant wipe over the skin instead, adjusting Cellbit’s leg so his knee is rotated outwards.

“I’ll be good,” Cellbit promises ruefully. 

Forever doesn’t reply. “ Bad, give me the painkiller, ” he says instead. He inserts the needle into the meat of Cellbit’s thigh and Cellbit suppresses a shudder. For an instant, there’s the sharp bite of the needle, then the cold wash of the anesthetic. Then Cellbit’s whole thigh feels like nothing. He can watch Forever poke and prod, but it doesn’t bother him at all. 

“Okay, I’m going to have to put something in you now,” Forever says and now Cellbit is extremely bothered actually. He can watch the blood drain from his own face. “It’ll be two guidewires, two dilators, and a cannula tube, alright? Pac and Mike made them for you to search Maxo and they’ve been a locked chest ever since. The seal on them is still closed and we’ll filter and flush your system completely after we use them in case any… residue does get in. Which it almost certainly won’t.” 

That’s not enough. That’s not enough! Cellbit knows there are ways to break into locked chests and the chest isn’t in the room anyway so even if it was secure, there could have been tampering since. It would be just like the Federation to leave his body empty because they know him well enough to know that he’ll willingly swallow his own poison if he convinces himself that it’s the antidote.  

“Cellbit,” Forever says sternly and Cellbit realizes that he’s hyperventilating. 

He forces himself to slow his breathing, drumming his fingertips against the cool metal table. “Show me the seals,” he rasps out.

Forever obliges. Sure enough, all the equipment is contained in plastic that looks entirely undisturbed and sterile. Cellbit would prefer equipment with a complete, unbroken record that he can be one hundred percent sure of, but he knows he’s not going to get that. 

“Okay,” he says. “Okay.” 

Bad and Forever work well together. That part is impossible to miss and it hurts Cellbit to see as much as it reassures him as he watches the procedure with morbid curiosity. Forever can see where Cellbit’s femoral artery is located with his goggles, so he’s the one who makes the first puncture and slides the guide wire into the wound and the blood vessel. He quickly follows the guide wire with the first dilator. Meanwhile, Bad prepares the second wire and dilator to repeat the process. Cellbit watches Bad more closely than Forever. Bad is the unknown here and the threat and gives Cellbit a good reason not to watch Forever digging around in his arteries. Even without looking, he can still feel his insides being stretched open to fit the cannula. 

Forever works quickly though and soon he has Cellbit’s blood draining out of his body. It pools in a large transparent reservoir by the heart lung machine, the dark crimson rising higher and higher as Cellbit’s heart starts to beat faster and faster. He’s panting and sweating and starting to panic and his vision swims and his hearing fades out and his hands are freezing and tingling and he thinks he might be thrashing but it's hard to tell and strange shapes blur above him and his shoulder hurts and something cold and hard presses into his shoulder and something warm flows into his shoulder and the sharp shallow gasps resolve into the shape of the world. 

With great effort, Cellbit makes his eyes focus on the mirror. There's another cannula in the vessel that goes from his heart to his arm, bright red blood flowing into him through plastic tubing almost as thick as his finger. It's nauseating to look at. He's never been the type to be bothered by the sight of blood, but it's different when he’s looking at a couple liters of what is supposed to be inside him and it isn't inside him. 

His heart is still battering away at his chest while Forever and Bad talk quickly in English. Cellbit can’t make himself focus on the words enough to understand them. They're not at angles where he can see their faces either. He tries to sit up to get a better look and finds that he's having a lot of trouble with that. Did they tie him down? Why would they do that? He curses to himself as he tries again. He needs to get out of here. 

“Hey, hey, hey, settle down,” Forever chides, racing back to his side. “Are you okay?”

Cellbit looks at the blood tank then back at Forever. “…Yes?” he tries. 

Forever sighs. “You're probably feeling very confused right now,” he explains. “We can give you a transfusion if you want. That would help you feel better.”

“…what?”

“We can put more blood in you.”

Cellbit reels back. “No. No, don’t do that. No. Don't put shit in me. Get it out. Get it out !” He tries to claw at the tubes in him but he can't get to them and now his wrists are hurting and he can't actually do anything except scream curses and threats as Forever pins his leg down and ties it in place but he knows that there are things in his body that are making things feel awful and he wants them gone .

But no matter how much his blood is boiling, there simply isn't enough of it still in his body to fuel his rage for long. He sags back onto the table, gasping for air, trying to will his limbs to cooperate. They won't cooperate. They're tied down. He agreed to this. He rolls one wrist up and winces as he feels the leather bite into it. 

“We might want to pad these if we have to do this again,” he points out. 

“That's what I suggested,” Forever retorts. “You said it gave you too much wiggle room to break free. Are you back with us?”

Cellbit tries to nod, fails. “I think so. Hypovolemic shock?” 

“Yeah. We were trying to filter your blood as quickly as possible, but you’ll probably want to adjust the percentages for a conscious patient. We're only taking a little more blood at a time than an ordinary heart-lung machine would now.” Forever isn't very good at keeping his face expressionless. He's trying, probably doing the best he's ever done at it, but now that Cellbit actually has blood flow to his brain again, it's clear that Forever is concerned about him. 

“The idea behind the conscious subject parameters is to get through the procedures as fast as possible,” Cellbit reminds him. 

“I don't mind slowing down to do things properly.” There's an edge to Forever's tone that Cellbit can't quite interpret. 

“The filters work fine at high speed.”

“I mean without torturing you!” Forever snaps. “Did you forget about that part?”

Cellbit looks away. 

“My God,” Forever snarls. “Did you want this to be torture?” Cellbit still doesn't look at him. “Did you think I would?”

“I tried to take Richas away from you,” Cellbit reminds him and blames the weakness in his voice on the gently whirring filter. 

“You did,” Forever replies. “And it hurt. A lot. And I’m still angry about it. And when I say I want to rip you to shreds with my bare hands for it, I don't mean that literally.”

Cellbit’s heart hurts and he consoles himself with the knowledge that worse is coming. “You’ll have to, whether you want to or not. I thought it would be easier this way.”

Forever scoffs at him. “Well you were wrong. Let's just get this over with. How's the fire resistance?”

“It's gone.”

Forever doesn't move. 

“It's gone,” Cellbit repeats, a little louder this time. 

“I heard you the first time,” Forever bites out. He snatches up the scalpel and the cautery pen, clinging to them in a white knuckled grip, but he doesn't actually step forward. 

“If you don't hurry up, you're gonna have to hit me with another Weakness potion,” Cellbit reminds him. “I’m not sure I could handle that kind of trauma.”

The weak attempt at humor fails entirely. Forever flinches and puts the surgical tools back down, crossing his arms over his chest instead. “Or we could just not traumatize you any more. We can finish filtering your blood and then just do a normal cavity search. That's also an option.” 

Strapped to an operating table, vision still blurry at the edges, uncomfortably aware of the frantic beating of his own heart, Cellbit takes a moment to desperately wish he could be as naive as Forever. “No. I was with the Federation for days. I slept there. They messed with my head, man, they could easily mess with my body too. I need to know there isn't anything in me.” Forever stares down at him, unmoving and unmoved. “What if they put something in me that will make me hurt Richas?” Cellbit tries. 

“All the evidence we have points to the Federation wanting the eggs alive,” Forever dismisses, but there's the same fear in his voice that's burning up Cellbit's soul. 

“We don't have enough evidence. Forever, please,” Cellbit begs. “I need to be sure .”

Forever picks up the tools again. 

Relief and terror war in Cellbit's mind as his body struggles to decide whether to go limp or try to shrink away. At least it seems like the emotional paralysis will make Forever's job easier. Cellbit keeps silent as Forever makes an incision in his shoulder, pauses, mimes a few cuts, then makes a new incision at a slightly different angle. 

He can't keep silent for the cautery pen though. Forever leans his left arm across Cellbit’s chest, presses down with his whole body weight, and starts to cut. Cellbit thrashes and screams as he burns and burns and burns. Then his lungs are empty and he inhales to scream again and the achingly familiar smoke from a burning body coats his tongue and his nose and his throat, making both his eyes and his mouth water. He tries to scream it out, tries to cough it out, but each hacking breath just draws more in even deeper and everything is the pain and the pressure and the smoke is thick enough to hang heavy and taste heavy but not heavy enough and there’s a reason he chose coffee for his new vice, why he chose something he could drown in because eventually he would run out of space for it but he is just empty and hurting and hurting and empty and then pressure lifts and the smoke settles and Forever straightens up and Cellbit can see himself in the mirror. 

Two new cuts run across Cellbit’s torso, one from shoulder to shoulder and the other from the center of the first down to the top of his groin. Even knowing why, it’s still eerie to see that they don’t bleed. Cellbit’s face in the mirror is streaked with tears but with none of the usual red blotchiness. He probably doesn’t have enough blood to spare for that, he thinks, slightly hysterically. Everywhere he’s restrained hurts, though not as much as his torso. It’s going to hurt worse. It’s going to hurt a lot worse. 

Except Forever doesn’t keep going. He moves away from the table. 

“What–?” Cellbit tries to ask. 

“I can’t work while you’re squirming,” Forever spits. He’s moved out of Cellbit’s line of sight but Cellbit can hear him opening up cupboards. “I’m giving you a painkiller.” 

Cellbit’s heart drops. “No! Fuck you, Forever! Don’t do this! Stop!” 

“I won’t put you to sleep,” Forever assures him, but he’s angry now. Genuinely and sincerely angry. “But I need you to be able to hold still.” 

Cellbit isn’t holding still. He’s having trouble believing this is real. For all the betrayals he’s committed and all the awful things he’s been through, it still seems impossible that Forever – sweet, soft Forever – would drug him like this. “I can hold still,” he promises, pleads, even as he writhes against the restraints for any weakness he could use to get away. There aren’t any. He knew there wouldn’t be any. He made very sure there wouldn’t be any. “I can hold still, Forever, you don’t need to do this.” 

Forever returns to Cellbit’s line of sight with a syringe and a vial of clear liquid, both still in their original packaging. He brings them close so Cellbit can look at them both. “Straight from Pac and Mike,” he promises. 

“Forever, if you put that in me, I swear to you, I’ll–” 

“You’ll what?” Forever bites out. “Try and steal Richas again?” He rips the packaging on the syringe open with shaking hands. “Bring him off into the wilderness without telling anyone where you’re going while we know the code is hunting? Do you have any idea what you put him through? He thought he was watching you die , Cellbo. Do you know what that does to a kid?” 

“…I didn't know the code would target me,” Cellbit admits. The guilt curdling his gut is a welcome distraction from the helpless dread. 

“Of course not, why would you think that?” Forever sneers. He's not even looking at Cellbit, instead focused entirely on drawing the liquid into the syringe. “It usually tries to kill eggs, after all. Did you actually think the Federation would protect Richas or were you just putting him in danger to sell your plan?”

Cellbit can’t answer and that in itself is answer enough. It feels like all the air has been punched out of him. “All the evidence we have points to the Federation wanting the eggs alive,” he parrots dimly. 

“And we all want things we can't have,” Forever retorts. 

He approaches Cellbit with the loaded syringe and Cellbit can't summon the energy to protest. The needle slides into his arm without any resistance. First, there's a sensation of cool liquid pushing into him. Then, there's hardly any sensation at all. God, Cellbit wishes it could be a relief but all he can do is stare at the needle and try to process the feeling of violation .  

Forever pauses with about a third of the liquid still in the syringe. “ Bad. Hold this for me. ” 

A feeling of sudden nausea and dizziness washes over Cellbit, bad enough that he grips the edges of the table to remind himself that the room isn’t actually spinning. He can’t squeeze his eyes shut though. He has to watch. Bad delicately grips the syringe, keeping his fingers well away from the plunger.

“ Sorry ,” Bad says and then something else that Cellbit can’t process through the panicked confusion to recognize beyond the fact that it carries the tone of an explanation. He just holds the syringe though.

Forever is the one who walks out of Cellbit’s sight yet again and returns with a small light. He holds one finger out in front of Cellbit’s face and shines the light in his eyes. “Follow my finger.” He moves the finger slowly to one side and Cellbit pointedly holds eye contact. “Cellbit,” Forever says tightly. “Follow my finger.” He’s trying to sound patient and caring like when Richas refuses to take a bath, but there are cracks on the edges of his tone. 

“You’re going out of order,” Cellbit replies sullenly. “Do you even care about the checklist?” 

Does he care? The thought repeats with urgency and alarm. Why doesn’t he care? Did Cellbit push him too far into loathing him entirely? Did the Federation get a hold of him while Cellbit wasn’t there to protect him? Was this all a trap from the start? It has to be. Forever wouldn’t do this to him. Not on his own. Not of his own free will. And now the nausea and dizziness are turning into panic and a frantically hammering heartbeat again as Cellbit gasps and pants for air that doesn’t seem to fill up his lungs and Forever is going to kill him and Forever is going to make it hurt and–

It’s not timed with the next breath. It’s on an exhale when something changes and Cellbit can think again and now Forever is back at his arm, back at the syringe, but his hands are away from the plunger and his eyes are wide with fear.

“Cellbo?” he asks. “Are you back with us?” 

“Tell me what happened,” Cellbit rasps. “Why did you ignore the checklist?” 

Forever huffs. “I was just making sure your eyes could still focus,” he says. “I wasn’t starting the actual examination. I just needed to make sure I didn’t give you too much painkiller.” 

“You couldn’t just ask me?”

“Would you have told me the truth?”

Cellbit looks to the mirror. That’s easier than looking at Forever’s face directly. “I would have told you anything was too much. Because I don’t want painkillers . And you know that.” 

“You were fine with the painkiller for your leg. What’s the difference?” 

“You know what the difference is!” God, Cellbit is getting hungry. That’s probably a bad sign.

“Humor me,” Forever replies coldly. Well, maybe whatever Federation bug is in Forever’s brain needs him to spell it out, Cellbit thinks sullenly. He really should refuse, but he’s already tied down and cut open and the Weakness potion is activating that old training to just comply with the guards and get the punishment over with.

“A local painkiller doesn’t stop me from thinking ,” he grits out. “A general one does. I need to be able to see and understand what’s happening. That’s the whole point of being awake for this.” There. Now the Federation knows that sparing him the pain is the worst torture they could possibly inflict on him. 

“Right,” Forever says. “And how many times now – just in here today – have you stopped being able to understand what’s happening because it hurts too much?” 

Fuck. Shit. Cellbit stares at his own sullen expression. “I don’t want it,” he repeats uselessly to his dear and trusted friend. 

“And I don’t want to be cutting you open,” Forever sighs. “So let’s get back to that, shall we?” He pulls out the needle, still with some painkiller left in the syringe, and reaches for a bandage. 

“Leave it off,” Cellbit whispers. When Forever pauses, he adds, “The bandage. It’s already in my system, just leave the bandage off, okay?” 

Forever puts the bandage back down. “Is it alright if I cauterize it?” 

“I don’t want it sealed off,” Cellbit explains. “I know it’s not rational but–” 

“I won’t seal it then,” Forever says. 

And then he’s standing next to Cellbit’s table, staring down at the incisions in Cellbit’s chest and both of them share a moment of realization that this next part is going to be ugly. 

“Want something to bite down on?” Forever asks. 

Perhaps if Cellbit hadn’t just had things put inside him against his will, he would have accepted. As it is, he just mutters, “No.” 

“Let me know if you change your mind.” 

Then, pain erupts across Cellbit’s collarbone. It hurts like a bitch, but true to Forever’s word, it’s dulled enough that he can watch Forever slide a large cartilage knife between his skin and muscle and start to pull the skin free. It comes away easily, just as he knew it would, just as it always has. Despite the pain and the clawing horror, each inch of muscle revealed is a relief. It’s somewhere the Federation hasn’t put something in him. 

Forever throws the flap of skin over Cellbit’s face and Cellbit catches it in his teeth. Forever pauses, knife still on hand and Cellbit glares, daring him to challenge it. Forever just shakes his head and carries on with cutting back the skin on Cellbit’s right side. There’s still nothing to find. Just an ever expanding sea of red and white.  

Having something to bite down on does help, Cellbit has to admit. Or maybe it’s just the confusion of feeling his own teeth bite down on what used to be the skin of his clavicle that makes it easier to detach himself from what’s going on and observe objectively. Forever runs into some difficulties on the left side. He has to get out the scalpel and cautery pen to make sure he doesn’t cut through the cannula by accident. It would be so, so easy for him to kill Cellbit, even without intending to. All Cellbit can do is watch with his own skin clenched between his teeth and hope that the man he intentionally tormented chooses mercy. 

Forever works quickly and efficiently. The surgical mask isn’t enough to hide his grimace, but he does his job. He sticks two fingers in Cellbit’s stomach and pulls the skin upwards so he can slice it open from Cellbit’s navel to his groin. From there, it’s a simple matter to cut back the skin on his stomach too. 

And then there Cellbit is, all laid out and exposed. He tries to take a deep breath and realizes he can’t. His diaphragm is still under his control– he can see that much, but it can’t get the pressure to actually pull air into his lungs. That’s… Cellbit doesn’t like thinking about that. The fact that he can think about it means that the heart lung machine is working. He’s not about to suffocate. He just… can’t breathe. 

At least Forever is finally referencing the checklist. Cellbit’s blood smears on the laminated pages as Forever marks each line with a pen, checking off all the initial stages of the internal examination. Then, closer examination. This part takes a while. Forever pulls up a stool with one foot and bends down over Cellbit, running his fingers over every millimeter of exposed skin and breastbone. What he’s looking at is too small and too far away for Cellbit to see properly in the mirror, so he just watches his organs work with the kind of horror that he always feels as curiosity instead as Forever narrates the process. 

As the hours wear on, the pain and horror dwindle into boredom and more banal irritations. The blood filter they’re using to check for any nanobots in his bloodstream makes an annoying gurgling sound at the bare minimum capacity they’re running it at. No matter what oxygen concentration they’re using, Cellbit’s fingertips never stop feeling kind of tingly and weird. The leg with the cannula in it is starting to cramp. He doesn’t actually like the feeling of someone drooling all over his chest once the novelty of his chest being in his mouth has worn off. He’s hungry. 

Twice, Forever stops what he’s doing to examine something more closely. Both times, the terror that something has finally been found jolts Cellbit back to full alertness. Both times, it’s a false alarm. One is just a piece of cartilage that hadn’t been severed properly and the other is a tiny piece of lead that turns out to be nothing more than an old bullet fragment. 

“This why you skipped the MRI?” Forever asks as he flicks the bullet piece into the trash. 

The only answer Cellbit can give is a wry smile. 

Eventually, Forever settles over Cellbit’s shoulder to examine the top panel of skin and Cellbit finally has to give up what he’s holding onto. He’s proud of himself. He hasn’t even broken skin. If he’s scraped off a bit of the inside with his teeth to lick like a flesh popsicle, then that’s neither here nor there. Forever will be checking the contents of his stomach anyway. 

Forever finishes checking the top flap of skin and hesitates, visibly considering where to put it. It’ll be in the way if he puts it back over Cellbit’s body. Cellbit pointedly opens his mouth. Forever lets out a little snort and ruffles Cellbit’s hair lightly, but lets him have his skin back. 

“Alright, blink twice for yes, three times for no. Do you understand that instruction?” 

Cellbit blinks twice. 

“Do you need a break?” 

No. 

“Do you need more painkiller?” 

No. 

“Okay. We need to get through your breastbone next. That’s going to take an electric saw to do. We can either do it right now and get it over with or we can search your hair and come back to it later. Do you know which option you want?” 

Cellbit stares up at Forever. He knows he’s not hiding the dread on his face. But he blinks twice. He knows. 

“Do you want– Can you handle the saw now?”

Yes, Cellbit lies. 

Forever lets him see it first. It looks more like a drill than a saw, nothing like– “Alright, I’m just going to cut through the rib cage here and here,” Forever says, marking the spots at the edges of the opened up area. 

Just get it over with, Cellbit begs silently until Forever turns the saw on and then all his thoughts are consumed by that thing and how close it is to him. It’s higher pitched than the chainsaw and that lets him cling to reality for just a second longer but then the vibration travels up and through his rib and he’s in a dark hallway with a golden eyed Cucurucho standing over him and he can’t run and he can’t fight and he can’t plead or bargain or even draw in a breath to scream. All he can do is lie there and hurt and feel the aftershocks run through him as it pulls out his rib cage.  

The Cucurucho doesn’t stop there either. It plunges a hand into his chest cavity and somehow in this horrible nightmare, Cellbit can see its white skin stain red as it starts breaking apart the fragile little connective tissues that hold his lungs inside his body.  It takes his windpipe in one hand and cradles the whole mass of his organs with the other arm as it slices them away from his spine. Heart and lungs and liver and stomach and guts and all the vital pieces of Cellbit pull free of him as a single piece and as the Cucurucho lays the clump of viscera tenderly on a nearby table, Cellbit can recognize that it has stolen Forever’s face.

This time when he writhes in panic, something finally slips. There’s a blinding flash of red and a lot of screaming and panicking and then everything is very, very cold.

Cellbit respawns in a white bed, sees the pile of his own organs on the exam table, and dies again.

Cellbit respawns in a white bed, sees the pile of his own organs on the exam table, and dies again.

Cellbit respawns in a white bed, sees the pile of his own organs on the exam table, and dies again.

Cellbit respawns pinned down to the bed and there’s a bright flash of pain and he dies again. 

Cellbit respawns pinned down to the bed and there’s a bright flash of pain and he dies again. 

Cellbit respawns pinned down to the bed and there’s a bright flash of pain and he dies again.

Cellbit respawns pinned down to the bed and there’s a bright flash of pain and he dies again.

Cellbit respawns to ripping and tearing and dies again.

Cellbit respawns to ripping and tearing and gold and dies again.

Cellbit respawns to gold and black and red and hurts and dies again.

Cellbit respawns to agony and dies again.

Cellbit respawns to agony and dies again.

Cellbit respawns to agony and shouting and shoving and dies again.

Cellbit respawns to agony and dies again.

Cellbit respawns to die again.

Cellbit respawns to die again.

Cellbit respawns to die again.

Cellbit respawns to die again.

Cellbit respawns to gold to die again.

Cellbit respawns to gold to die again. 

Cellbit respawns to a pressure on his face and there are blurs and flashes of color and sound and he dies again.

Cellbit respawns to a pressure on his face and the pain lingers and he dies again.

Cellbit respawns to a pressure on his face and his stomach and gold and gold and pain and pressure and he dies again.

Cellbit respawns to die again.

Cellbit respawns to die again.

Cellbit respawns to ripping and pushing and shoving and dies again.

Cellbit respawns to ripping and pushing and shoving and dies again.

Cellbit respawns to pressure on his face and ripping and pushing and shoving and pain and pulling and dies again.

Cellbit respawns to die again.

Cellbit respawns to pressure on his face and ripping and pushing and shoving and pain and pulling and dies again.

Cellbit respawns to die again.

Cellbit respawns to die again. 

Cellbit respawns to pressure on his face and gold and ripping and tearing and cracking and dies again.

Cellbit respawns to pressure on his face and gold and ripping and tearing and cracking and dies again.

Cellbit respawns to pressure on his face and gold and ripping and tearing and cracking and shoving and dies again.

Cellbit respawns to pressure on his face and gold and ripping and tearing and cracking and dies again.

Cellbit respawns to pressure on his face and gold and ripping and tearing and cracking and shoving and sharp and dies again.

Cellbit respawns to pressure on his face and gold and ripping and tearing and cracking and shoving and dies again.

Cellbit respawns to pressure on his face and gold and ripping and tearing and cracking and shoving and sharp and dies again.

Cellbit respawns to pressure on his face and gold and ripping and tearing and cracking and shoving and sharp and dies again.

Cellbit respawns to pressure on his face and gold and ripping and tearing and cracking and shoving and sharp and pulling and dies again.

Cellbit respawns to die again.

Cellbit respawns to pressure on his face and gold and ripping and tearing and cracking and dies again.

Cellbit respawns to pressure on his face and gold and ripping and tearing and cracking and shoving and sharp and pulling and dies again.

Cellbit respawns to die again.

Cellbit respawns to pressure on his face and gold and ripping and tearing and cracking and shoving and sharp and sharp and dies again. 

Cellbit respawns to die again. 

Cellbit respawns to noise and dies again. 

Cellbit respawns to noise and dies again.

Cellbit respawns to pressure on his face and gold and dies again.

Cellbit respawns to pressure on his face and gold and ripping and tearing and cracking and dies again.

Cellbit respawns to pressure on his face and gold and ripping and tearing and cracking and shoving and dies again.

Cellbit respawns to pressure on his face and gold and ripping and tearing and cracking and shoving and dies again.

Cellbit respawns to pressure on his face and gold and ripping and tearing and cracking and shoving and sharp and dies again.

Cellbit respawns to pressure on his face and gold and ripping and tearing and cracking and shoving and sharp and sharp and dies again.

Cellbit respawns to pressure on his face and gold and ripping and tearing and cracking and shoving and sharp and sharp and sharp and dies again.

Cellbit respawns in a red bed. 

Cellbit… Cellbit stares at the ceiling. Cellbit can make out the ceiling. Cellbit does not immediately die. He doesn’t die within a few more seconds either. He looks around. Forever and Bad are staring back at him, ready and poised to spring into action. Forever's clean white shirt is splattered with blood up to the biceps and all across the torso. The blood hides better in Bad’s shadows, but it still drips to the floor from the heavy fabric of his clothes and the knife in his hand. The operating table is drenched with blood, the floor is drenched with blood, the walls are splattered with blood. There's even blood on the ceiling in places. Two thick plastic tubes flop on the floor, still attached to the choking and sputtering heart lung machine. Cellbit's own body is nothing but crimson from the neck down. 

“Cellbo?” Forever asks like he can't quite believe what he's seeing. “You alive?”

Cellbit checks. He breathes, feels his pulse, pinches his skin. “I think so,” he finally says. 

The tension in the air snaps. Forever bursts out laughing and pulls Cellbit into a bear hug. 

“ Did we do it ?” Bad asks. When Forever nods, his own nervous, giddy laughter joins the room and he puts the knife down. 

Cellbit collapses back onto the bed, which squelches underneath him. “What happened?” he asks, trying and failing to ignore the feeling of copious amounts of blood seeping into his ass crack. 

“The cannula putting your blood back in your body slipped out,” Forever explains. “Your health must have been lower than we realized; you died in a matter of seconds.”

“I was hungry,” Cellbit murmurs. 

Forever stares at him for a moment. “Why didn't you say anything?” he chides, though he's more worried than angry. 

Cellbit shrugs one shoulder. “I don't know. I thought it was just–” he gestures vaguely. 

“Just–?”

Cellbit runs his palms down his thighs. Even they managed to get pretty bloody. He shouldn't be surprised. They always do. “Old stuff. You know what I mean.”

For a second, it looks like Forever might press, then realization dawns on him. “Right. Old stuff.” He shakes his head. Droplets of blood splatter on the bed and the floor and Cellbit’s cheek. “Well, anyway. You died and respawned, but your organs were still intact so they didn’t get reset or anything. But they were still outside of your body so–” He gestures at the bloody mess of the whole room. Enough for three, maybe four people. 

“Oh,” Cellbit says. There’s a lot of red. The scent of blood is thicker even than the scent of burning. The air tastes more like a slaughterhouse now than a churrasco. “Oh.” 

He should probably volunteer to get back on the table. He is not going to volunteer to get back on the table. He knows Forever didn’t have time to finish searching him though. He watches without comprehension as Forever and Bad share a quick conversation in English. Bad goes back to the chair by the heart lung machine, crosses his arms, and leans his head forward like he intends to nap. Cellbit doesn’t believe it for a second. He’s not particularly inclined to call the bluff. 

“You should have something to eat,” Forever says, leaning back against the wall. 

“Do you have coffee?” 

“You should have something to eat ,” Forever repeats pointedly.

“I want to wash the blood out of my mouth,” Cellbit explains. 

“We have sealed water bottles,” Forever says. “And I can get you some toast to go with it if you want.” 

“I ate better than that in prison, you know,” Cellbit grouses. 

Forever laughs. “Do you really want to bring up what you ate in prison?” 

Most of the cannibalism was before prison actually and Cellbit had already apologized to Pac anyway and he had meant to be teasing Forever about the lack of any fruits or vegetables or specifically avocado for the toast but also Forever isn’t looking directly at him and instead he’s looking at the table that had just recently had Cellbit’s entire digestive system sitting out on it so Cellbit decides it’s better to just… not push. 

“Maybe not,” he concedes. “Toast and water is fine.” 

True to Forever’s word, the water bottle he hands Cellbit is sealed and fresh, the cap stamped with the Chume Labs logo in a cheery bright yellow. It’s a relief to know that Cellbit can still source medical supplies and the like without having to worry about Federation tampering. Of course, that doesn’t rule out the possibility that Pac and Mike have finally decided to take their own revenge on him… 

“What is it now?” Forever asks with exasperated fondness as Cellbit squints at the water bottle in his hand. 

“Pac and Mike,” Cellbit says. “Do you trust them?” 

He sees the shock and incredulity play across Forever’s face and he has to remind himself that Forever didn’t come from Alcatraz like the rest of them. Forever slotted so easily into their little group that it’s sometimes easy to forget that he hasn’t always been there, that when he trusts, he still trusts in a way that the rest of them simply can’t anymore. Mostly because of what Cellbit specifically did to them. 

“Would it make you feel better if I drank first?” Forever asks. 

Cellbit passes him the bottle. 

Forever takes a swig and hands it back. 

Cellbit watches to make sure he swallows, then another second to make sure he doesn’t keel over. He doesn’t. Cellbit holds the bottle up to the still burning bright surgical lights. If they did add something to the water, it’s colorless and completely dissolved. He sniffs at it. No smell either. He drinks a small drop. No taste or aftertaste. Doesn’t make him feel any weirder than he already does. Before he has to think too hard about how his body feels, he takes a swig of his own, swirls it around his mouth, gargles it, and spits it out on the floor. 

Bad makes an offended little noise, but with three and a half Cellbits worth of Cellbit’s blood all over the room, Cellbit really doesn’t feel that bad about adding to the mess. When, at Forever’s request, Bad passes him half a stack of toast from his own backpack, Cellbit eats a few pieces without any complaint. Bad has plenty of reasons to want Cellbit to suffer and die, of course, but he's not the type to risk poisoning his own food supply to do it. Cellbit can feel his health ticking back up. A cold sweat breaks out across his back and he pretends that’s what’s sticking his hair to his skull. Well, time to just get this over with.

Cellbit stands up and immediately collapses right back down again. It’s not a physical weakness. He knows it’s not. He’s just had a good meal – well, a decent one. Adequate. His body is whole. He just can’t make himself believe that.

“Where are you trying to go?” Forever asks him, moving to his side to prop him up. 

“Back to the table,” Cellbit says. 

“No. We’re not doing that again.” 

“We have to. I know you didn’t finish searching me while I was out.” Cellbit tries to stand again, but slips in the blood and collapses into Forever’s waiting arms. 

“You weren’t just out . You were death looping ,” Forever insists, trying to push Cellbit to sit back down. 

“So what?”

“So what?” Forever repeats incredulously. “Cellbo, do you have any idea how dangerous a death loop like that is?”

“Look, sometimes you get cornered by mobs and lose your gear. It happens,” Cellbit ventures. 

“And sometimes it's much worse than that! Sometimes your body tries to reset itself so many times so quickly that it gets confused about how it's supposed to be put together! That's how people end up losing limbs for good!”

Cellbit rolls his eyes. “Forever, do you think I don't know this stuff–?”

“You're sure acting like you don't!”

“I literally just got a massive chainsaw scar, Forever,” Cellbit reminds him pointedly. “I know how permanent injuries happen. And they happen to the outside of bodies. You ever hear of someone losing an internal organ for good?”

“Bad has.”

Bad looks up at the mention of his name, not even bothering to pretend he had managed to doze off. “ Did you need something ?”

“ Tell him what you tell me. About the guy who … his … ”

“ Okay so this was in another world, but… ”

Cellbit does make an honest attempt to listen along as Bad tells his story. He genuinely does. And to his credit, Bad is speaking more slowly than usual. But more slowly does not mean that he's using less of his strange turns of phrase and Cellbit is still very overwhelmed and it's hard enough to follow someone talking to him in Portuguese let alone English so he's missing all the important words and by the time he's figured out one sentence Bad has already said three more and–

“Forever, tell him I’m sorry but I don't understand a single thing he's saying right now.”

Forever does so with an apologetic shrug. Bad waves it off and goes back to his unconvincing doze. Then Forever actually translates the story. 

“He was saying he knew a man who lost part of his skull for good. The guy took a pickaxe to the jaw and it wasn't just his eye that went missing. That whole piece of his skull from his eyebrow to his teeth just never respawned.”

A shudder runs down Cellbit's spine and he sits back down. He could probably live a decent life with part of his skull missing, but if the same thing happened to his heart? If his body decided to start respawning without a part essential for survival? Would he die or would the death loop he got stuck in just… not end? And how long would it take for the situation to become impossible to recover? The science around what causes permanent injuries is imprecise at best, but surely getting his body used to respawning the way it shouldn't be can't help…

“So you see why I’m reluctant to try again?” 

“Yeah,” Cellbit whispers. He swallows, then repeats himself audibly. “Yeah.” He takes a breath. “But that doesn’t mean we should just leave whatever the Federation put in me there.” 

Forever hisses and looks away, fists clenching. “Cellbo, you could have fucking died . You did die. You died so many fucking times. If you want to kill yourself for good in a fit of fucking drama because you think you’re the only one smart enough or brave enough or whatever the fuck was going through your head when you decided to join the fucking Federation , then fine! I can’t stop you!” He’s worked himself up to a yell but he stops himself, takes a deep breath. “But at least do me the favor of not forcing me to be the weapon you do it with.” 

Cellbit knows he had a counter argument at some point. A lot of them, even. Enough to justify pulling off this whole plan in the first place. But right at this moment, he’s exhausted and he’s shaken and the words just aren’t coming to him. “I’m sorry,” he says. 

Forever scoffs. 

“I am,” Cellbit insists. “I was trying to hurt you as little as possible–” 

“You failed,” Forever spits. “Stop talking. You’re still just making it worse.” 

Cellbit stops talking. 

“I’m not doing another autopsy,” Forever says with cold finality. “Tell me what else we can do to make sure you’re safe and I will do my best to work with it, but I will not do that again. That’s non negotiable.” 

Cellbit wants to negotiate. But he knows what Forever is like when he sets his mind to something. Besides, he doesn’t really want to do another autopsy either. He just can’t tolerate not knowing what’s inside him either. “Can I see the checklist?” he asks, his voice weaker than he wants it to be. “Just– so I know what we have done.”

Forever hesitates, but passes it over. It does soothe Cellbit’s nerves somewhat to see the neat black check marks against the blood smeared all over the laminated pages. As much as it had felt otherwise, Forever has in fact been following it dutifully. Cellbit can now say with certainty that the Federation hasn’t hidden anything inside the skin of his chest or abdomen or in his breast bone. That's more information than he had before. 

“Did you finish filtering all my blood?”

“Technically, no, but we can go ahead and check it off anyway.” 

“What if the Federation put something in my bloodstream though?” 

Forever raises an eyebrow and gestures at the room. “Pretty sure we have two entire Cellbits worth of bloodstream out of your body already. Even if there was something in your veins before, it’s definitely not there anymore.” 

Cellbit’s fingers drum against the bed. It makes him horribly anxious not to know the process is complete, but Forever has a point. “We won’t use this room again,” he says, mostly just to reassure himself. 

“There’s no way we could get it sterile,” Forever agrees. “So even if there is something in here…”

“It’s not leaving this room,” Cellbit concludes. “And the room is lead lined. It’s still secure.” He nods and takes the black marker from where it sits innocently next to the cautery pen and checks off all the blood filtration boxes. Or as close to them as he can get. His hands are shaking for some reason. 

“Next is examining the internal organs,” he points out. “How do you plan to do that without an autopsy?”

“I held them all in my hands, Cellbo–”

“That's not a thorough examination,” Cellbit replies. He waves the checklist at Forever with its neatly printed dozen or so action items for just the heart and lungs. “You need to do a thorough examination.”

“I also need to make sure you respawn with a heart and lungs at all,” Forever retorts. “You’re going to have to respawn at least one more time after I check your brain.” 

“So you’ll check my brain but not my heart?” 

“Interference with your brain would be the biggest potential threat to Richarlyson. Next time you backstab us– actually, come to think of it, you don’t need any brain tampering to be a threat to him.”

Cellbit flinches, but he doesn’t argue. 

Forever sighs. “Sorry,” he says. “I know you don’t mean to hurt him.” 

“It still happens.” 

“Yeah.” 

Cellbit wishes he could say he didn’t mean to hurt Forever either. The silence speaks for him. It stretches between them, heavy and stiff like the chains between a pair of manacles. The only sound in the room is the gentle patter of Cellbit’s blood dripping to the floor from every surface.

Finally, it’s Forever who speaks up and breaks it. “Let’s do your brain,” he says. “That’ll give me time to think of how to do everything else.” 

Cellbit nods and stands up. Being back at full health makes it easier, but he’s still weak and shaking. Forever slings Cellbit’s arm around his shoulders and helps him walk over to the table. Every instinct in Cellbit’s body is screaming for him to run. He ignores it. He has a lot of experience with walking into Hell with his head held high. Besides, he doesn’t think that Forever’s nerves would hold if Cellbit really tried to fight this. It’s a shame that Forever can’t enjoy this the way he deserves to after everything Cellbit did to him, but Cellbit probably shouldn’t fault his friend for not being a sadistic murderer at heart. Even if it means that he has to give Forever a reassuring smile as Forever ties him back down when all he really wants to do is sob in terror.

Forever starts cleaning off the relevant tools and going over the checklist while Bad rearranges the mirrors to make sure Cellbit can see everything. Bad makes a couple attempts to make casual conversation but Cellbit is focused mostly on trying to figure out if his current weird heart feelings are just fear or a sign of whatever the Federation put in him trying to mess him up and he simply cannot process English right now.

Bad gives up his attempts to talk to Cellbit and has a brief conversation with Forever. Forever points him to a cabinet. Bad leaves Cellbit’s line of sight and returns with a low wedge. He undoes the strap around Cellbit’s forehead and tucks the wedge under Cellbit’s head. It only angles his head up a bit, just enough to get it level. He lays it over Cellbit’s forehead but pauses and exchanges a few words with Forever. 

“Cellbo, do you think you could handle something to bite down on?” Forever asks. He doesn’t look up from the cautery pen, so he should be able to see that it’s already as clean as it’s going to get. 

“I’d rather not.” 

“That’s not what I asked.” When Cellbit doesn’t reply, Forever adds, “We can do this without anesthetic, but if you bite through your tongue and drown in your own blood, that’s just going to set us back to the start again.” The cracks in his composure are really starting to show through now. His hands and voice are both trembling. 

“So I get to choose between being drugged or gagged,” Cellbit replies dully. “Great fucking options.” 

Forever slams the cautery pen down. “And I get to choose between torturing my best friend now and letting his own paranoia torture him for God only knows how long! Do you think that’s any better?” 

Cellbit can’t help it. He laughs. “Everything I did to you and you still call me your best friend? That’s pretty sad, isn’t it Forevinho?” 

“Fuck you too, you piece of shit!” Forever shouts. “You think if you goad me enough, I’ll start to enjoy having blood on my hands? I’m not like you , Cellbit! I don’t want to make people suffer on purpose!” 

“Then stop trying to make me choose how I suffer and just get it over with!” Cellbit shouts back with ferocity that surprises even himself. Ah. Perhaps he’s slightly triggered by this whole situation. Perhaps. It’s a possibility. 

Forever freezes. “That would make it easier for you?” he asks and there’s an edge of soft hope to it that makes Cellbit’s heart ache. 

“There aren’t any good decisions here,” Cellbit admits grimly, “but I don’t want to be the one making them.” 

“Neither do I,” Forever all but begs.

“Forever, please.” 

All the fight seems to drain out of Forever at once. “You owe me one.” 

“I owe you a lot more than that.” 

“I know.” Forever switches to English and has a brief exchange with Bad, who unfastens the leather strap from the table entirely.

Bad tries to wipe the strap off with his sleeve, but only manages to coat it in more blood. Forever says something to him tiredly and tosses him a clean rag from a cupboard. Bad wraps the rag around the strap to make a tight little roll. He approaches Cellbit with the makeshift gag held in both hands. Cellbit deeply, deeply wants to defy him. He knows how easy it is to force a jaw open. He opens his mouth on his own. Bad inserts the gag in his mouth, carefully settles it behind his teeth, and straps it back to the table. It automatically tightens to hold his head down. He isn’t going anywhere any time soon. He wasn’t going anywhere in the first place.

Forever and Bad go back to talking as Forever cleans the electric saw. Forever is clearly still frustrated and upset, but Bad, while never not on edge, is more casual about the whole thing. Forever stops with the saw still bloody, talking loud and angrily. Bad tosses out an offhanded reply. Forever snaps a retort. Bad holds his hands out in a placating gesture and Forever nods begrudging acceptance. Bad runs a single finger across Cellbit's forehead down behind his ear. He still has no particular temperature to him and it just emphasizes the cold sweat on Cellbit's brow. 

Bad seems to be explaining something. It involves a lot of twisty motions and “ so then you just ” and more gestures that Cellbit can’t quite figure out which mirror is best to watch from. Whatever it is, Forever still looks skeptical. 

“ Do you have one? ” he asks. 

“ I can make one ,” Bad replies. 

Forever looks between Cellbit and Bad. Cellbit can tell that Forever wants to ask him what to do next. He glares. Forever sighs. He nods to Bad. 

“Do you–?”

Cellbit glares harder. 

Forever hesitates, then asks Bad a question. He clearly doesn’t like the answer he gets, but he just pulls up the stool and settles behind Cellbit, scalpel and cautery pen both at the ready. “Alright. I did promise no anesthetic. Just. Try not to squirm too much.” 

He makes the first cut lower down on Cellbit’s forehead than Cellbit had expected, then uses the cautery pen to curve it up to follow Cellbit’s hairline around his ear and down to the nape of his neck. It hurts. A lot. Cellbit bites down on the rag in his mouth and slams his hands against the table to distract himself from the pain but he manages to hold his head still. 

“Thank you,” Forever murmurs, stroking one bloody thumb against Cellbit’s cheekbone as he starts the second cut. Cellbit doesn’t dare shudder. 

Instead, he watches his skin part, the view unobstructed by blood except for the first incision at the center of his forehead. Forever dutifully wipes that away before it can drip in his eyes, leaving Cellbit anointed with a smeared and bloody cross. 

Bad lets out an excited little exclamation and Cellbit glances over to look at him. He’s sitting at a crafting table with a new tool in hand. It’s shockingly simple and primitive looking, just a large piece of flint with a sharp edge broken onto it. 

Forever makes a remark about it that sounds about as dubious as Cellbit feels. Bad’s reply is blunt and flippant. Forever says something that sounds more like a desperate plea than anything else. Bad claps him on the shoulder and presses the flint into his hands. He mentions something about Skeppy, which pulls a startled laugh out of Forever, who takes a moment to pull himself together and then sits back down. This time, Bad stays hovering over his shoulder, tossing out what Cellbit assumes is advice every so often. 

Cellbit cannot say that he particularly likes the feeling of a flint knife biting into his skull, but it doesn’t bring much new pain on top of the existing burning and it’s definitely better than the electric saw. It just gives his nightmares new material to work with instead of immediately catapulting him into a waking nightmare. He’ll take what he can get at this point and what he can get is apparently Forever scoring a line in his skull along the same line he’s already traced in Cellbit’s skin. 

Once the line is traced in his skull too, Forever peels Cellbit’s skin back from his forehead at the weird divot, searing it with the cautery pen as he goes, and scores in another straight line. The mark looks almost like a yoke for a cow right under Cellbit’s hairline. Then Forever starts tapping the flint knife against Cellbit’s skull. Bad stops him and corrects his angle a couple times until he’s starting to get flakes of bone off. Cellbit isn’t sure what this is supposed to accomplish. Forever and Bad both seem to be getting frustrated too and they break into a brief argument. 

Finally, Forever stands up and shoves the knife back at Bad. “Change of plans, Cellbo,” he says. “I’ll jump ahead to checking your limbs while Bad gets your skull open since apparently he has actual experience with this.” 

If Cellbit could speak, he would protest. It’s out of order from the checklist and the electric saw isn’t going to kill him. Then again, he did tell Forever to stop giving him choices and he does deserve to regret that. Besides, just because Forever hates the idea of Cellbit using him for self-inflicted punishment that doesn’t mean Cellbit can’t wallow about it anyway. His therapist wouldn’t agree with that particular line of thought but his therapist would have much bigger priorities anyway. The end result is Cellbit doesn’t even bother to grumble through the gag as Forever moves to his side to start checking his limbs. 

The whole experience is a bizarre contrast. Forever’s face is grimmer and sterner than Cellbit has ever seen before as he gently runs his hands over Cellbit’s arm, feeling for anything that may have been implanted under the skin. Meanwhile, Bad chatters cheerfully, sometimes just repeating “Skeppy!” to himself, as he scrapes away at Cellbit’s skull with practiced and ruthless efficiency. 

It also takes fucking ages to do. The time had flown by when Cellbit had searched Maxo. He’d genuinely been stunned when he needed to redose him with sedatives. But there’s no progress being made that he can see except for the little flecks of skull getting caught in his hair. There’s a long list of conversations he owes people, but he mentally adds a conversation with Bad about why he knows how to do trepanning to the list. For some interminable but achingly long time, the most interesting thing that happens is that sometimes Bad gets an extra large bone chip. Forever confirms that the Federation weren’t stupid enough to implant anything close enough to the surface of his right arm to be noticeable and moves around Bad to check around his left arm. The divot in Cellbit’s skull gets wider and deeper. 

Finally, just as Forever moves to Cellbit’s left leg, Bad breaks through his skull. He makes quick work from there, using a twisting, scooping motion to pull bone shards out of the hole and wipe them off on a little wheeled table covered in gauze. Once the hole is smoothed out to follow the original outline of the yoke, Bad shakes out his hand and rolls his shoulders back. He asks Forever a question. Cellbit sees Forever consider translating it, but in the end, Forever just gives Bad a wordless nod. Bad shrugs and deepens the grooves in the line around Cellbit’s skull until they connect to the hole. 

By this point, Cellbit is watching the whole thing with more detached curiosity than anything else. Forever’s fingers on his skin have proved a comforting distraction and he’s had enough agony recently that the repeated scraping has proven almost meditative. That all changes when Bad sets the flint down, sticks both thumbs in the hole in Cellbit’s skull, and yanks .

Cellbit’s skull splits cleanly in two along the line Forever had marked out. Bad sets the top of Cellbit’s cranium down next to the electric saw. It wobbles a little as it settles into its little nest of brown hair. It’s hard to tell in all the blood, but Cellbit thinks he sees a few new white hairs. That seems like the thing to focus on right now. Forever’s bloody hands leaving his limbs tacky and sticky and Bad switching out his flint knife for a scalpel both seem so far away and hard to focus on. The little nest of brown hair and bowl of red setting on top of it feel far more real. He stares at it even after it stops moving, even as he feels things pressing against the top of his head. No, he’s looking at the top of his head (except for the long, terrifying moment where his vision goes blurry and then bright and then black and then slowly refocuses) and he can see that nothing is touching it and if he keeps looking at it, he’s sure everything will still be okay because everything is okay now everything is okay .

But movement catches his eyes. Forever has stood up from his stool and Bad passes him the scalpel and Forever takes the scalpel to his thigh and no no no no no this isn’t what Cellbit wants this is wrong this can’t be happening but it is happening. He thrashes the barest little bit that his bonds allow and he beats the table with his palms and he thinks he’s managing to shout but he’s not sure his vocal cords are responding right anymore and all he can see is black and gold overhead but he can feel digging in his leg and then digging in his head and that is only a bare relief because the digging in his head turns to hot cold rust and copper and smell and sound and light and dark and light and pain and suffocation and burning and twitching and shaking and panic and panic and panic and panic and cold cold twisting pulling wrong wrong no not there colder colder–

Cellbit respawns in a red bed and sits up and his vision blurs and he pitches forward to get the nausea under control and his vision isn’t quite blurry enough that he can’t see his brain slosh out of his skull and splatter on the floor.

Cellbit respawns in a red bed with Forever kneeling next to him and holding his head together while Bad showers him with bright red health potions. After a few potions, Forever carefully lets go of Cellbit. The top of his head doesn’t immediately fall off again. 

“Dare I ask what happened this time?” Cellbit asks wryly, rubbing his forehead. There’s no hole in it anymore. Even going over where the score had been with his fingernail doesn’t leave any sign of injury to the bone. That feels luckier than he’s entirely comfortable with. 

“Dare I ask how bad you’re feeling that you don’t immediately want to know?” Forever retorts. “We found something.” 

Cellbit freezes. 

“You started fighting like hell when we tried to get it out, so we figured there was probably something else in your brain too, but we checked it thoroughly and couldn’t find anything,” Forever continues. “Eventually, I think we damaged something vital up there. You started dying so we just pulled the thing that was in your leg. It was connected to your femoral artery so that just finished you off. We probably could have gotten it off without killing you but we needed to respawn you anyway.” 

A pit of dread curls in Cellbit’s gut, thick and choking. “The – what you found… was it here?” He points to the inside of his left thigh right by his groin. 

Forever looks down where he’s pointing and then back up at his face. He’s confused. Oh fuck he’s confused. “... Yes. It was.” 

“Can I see it?” 

Forever shrugs. “Sure.” He goes back to the exam table and grabs a little beaker filled with water that’s now pinkish with blood. He doesn’t actually let Cellbit grab it, but Cellbit doesn’t need to. The beaker has a tiny chip in it. It’s rectangular and about half the size of Cellbit’s thumbnail. It also has a bitterly familiar logo stamped on it.

“Could we talk privately?” Cellbit asks. “I know Bad doesn’t understand Portuguese but…” Forever doesn’t look too happy about the idea. “You probably should tie me back down just as a precaution, but it’s about… old stuff.” 

Forever has a brief conversation with Bad. Unsurprisingly, Cellbit’s ability to comprehend his second language hasn’t gotten any better since he got his brain scrambled. But Bad does leave without a fuss.

“So,” Forever says, putting the beaker down out of Cellbit’s reach and tossing Cellbit a pair of handcuffs. “Old stuff.” 

Cellbit fastens one cuff around his ankle and the other around the leg of the bed. It’s not the best anchor point, but he’s selfish enough not to push Forever to get him back on the table. “I genuinely forgot you wouldn’t know,” he says. “I know it’s not a good excuse, but Felps and Tazercraft and I – you know we all have a shared history and now that you’re part of us , it’s easy to forget that you haven’t always been and so it’s just the sort of thing that I forget I even need to mention and–” 

“Cellbo,” Forever cuts him off. “That’s very sweet. What the fuck are you talking about?” 

“That’s my old kill switch from Alcatraz.” 

“Your fucking what !?”

Cellbit winces. “My kill switch,” he repeats. “If a prisoner ever gets somewhere the guards can’t subdue them, there’s an emergency override to just. Kill that prisoner off. It’s to prevent attempts to take over the prison, mostly, but it also made escape attempts a lot more complicated.” 

Forever’s jaw drops. “A kill switch !? Cellbo, what the actual fuck?” 

“Sorry. I forgot you wouldn’t know to leave it in.” 

Forever buries his face in his hands. “You had a kill switch in you? You knew about it?” 

This. This really isn’t such a hard concept to grasp, is it? Forever is usually smarter than this. “Yeah.” 

Forever sighs and lifts his head back up. He doesn’t look half bad with a bloody face, Cellbit can’t help but notice. “I guess we should consider it lucky that yanking it out didn’t permakill you then,” he sighs. 

Cellbit blinks up at him, confused. 

Forever blinks back at him. “Oh my God,” he breathes and then his voice pitches up into a shout. “You left it in there on purpose! ? You wanted to!?” 

“...Yes?” Cellbit offers. 

That seems to get the better of Forever. He mumbles a long string of swear words under his breath, pacing the room and glaring at the surgical implements like any of them have hurt him like Cellbit has. He pulls over the stool and sits down across from Cellbit. 

“Explain,” he orders. “From the start.” 

Cellbit looks away. “Just… could you give me a moment? This isn’t something I’ve had to talk about before.” 

“You didn’t mention it to your therapist?” 

“...Why would I?” 

From Forever’s expression, Cellbit guesses that’s probably the wrong answer. Oh well. That’s a problem for later. It does take him a bit to put his thoughts in order, but he manages eventually.

“The kill switch,” he says, staring at a blood splatter on the wall over Forever’s shoulder. It’s easier than watching Forever’s face. There’s a lot about prison that it’s easier to just leave unspoken, to try and pretend could have stayed back there. “They, uh, they weren’t standard issue. Alcatraz was supposed to spare no expense on security, but for most prisoners, they were just bluffs. They just sedated you and made the incision and sewed it right back up again. It’s not much of a security issue as you might think. Put real switches in the top twenty, twenty-five percent most volatile prisoners and a few more besides, find an excuse to set one off at least annually, and that about covers it. Everybody knew they were bluffing with some people by around the third or fourth time Jv tried to escape and didn’t get killed for it, but no one wanted to find out the hard way that they were one of the unlucky ones. Except Jv, I guess.”

“So you didn’t even know if you had one?” Forever asks.

Cellbit laughs. “I wasn’t supposed to know,” he clarifies. “But I had my ways to find out. And to counteract it. I’m sure this will stun you to learn, but they don’t always supply prisoners with the highest quality products. It was set to trigger if you tried to take it out, of course. They weren’t complete idiots. But it didn’t even have a dead man’s switch or any kind of geographic link. Once I got out of reach of their signal, they didn’t have a way to set it off anymore.” 

“Right,” Forever says. Cellbit risks a look at his face. He’s still suspicious and wary, but some of the anger seems to have cooled. “And is it just because it would get set off if you tried to remove it that you wanted it to stay in?” 

It’s not the question he wants to ask. Cellbit knows where he’s being led and he knows that it’s easier to just get it over with on his own terms. “Pac has control of it now.” 

“Why?” 

“Mike acts before thinking sometimes. He might do something he regrets.” 

Slowly, as if speaking to a child, Forever elaborates. “Why Pac as opposed to no one?” 

That actually gives Cellbit pause. “How much of my… old stuff have you actually looked into?” he asks. “Like just the news stories, or–?”

“Or.” Forever says grimly. “Police reports, coroner’s reports, trial records. They all came with all the pictures too.” He laughs. It’s not a pleasant sound. “You’re the man of my dreams, Cellbo, and that is not a compliment.” 

“And you would let that monster off his leash?” Cellbit asks. 

“Five years I’ve known the monster now and I’ve only ever seen him at heel.” 

Now it’s Cellbit’s turn to stare at Forever in a combination of astonishment and dismay. “You trust me,” he says, caught between accusation, confusion, and gratitude. 

“I wouldn’t go quite that far,” Forever says. 

“You’re trusting me more than I trust me,” Cellbit reminds him.

“There’s a difference between trusting someone and not wanting a fucking kill switch in them.” 

“I mean, it does require some amount of trust.”

“It really doesn't?”

“Look at it this way,” Cellbit says reasonably, “It's just an extra little insurance plan in case something happens.”

“Look at it this way,” Forever replies mockingly. “I’m not fucking killing you again.”

Cellbit glares at Forever. “So, anyway,” he says brightly. “Have you figured out how to finish the search?”

“We're done with it,” Forever says coldly. 

“No, we’re not. There’s still so much more left to do.” 

“I said we’re done .” 

“But the Federation–”

“No. Stop. Listen to me. The Federation is fucking evil . I am not going to let them make me evil and I’m not going to let you do it either.” Forever is on his feet now, looming over Cellbit, making Cellbit feel small in a way that even Cucurucho had never managed. In the way only his therapist could. 

Forever is clearly braced for a fight, but Cellbit doesn't give him one. “I’ll hold you to that,” he sighs. Then, unable to resist one final jab, “If you want to bet Richas’ life that there’s nothing in me capable of transmitting to the Federation, then we can stop.”

“Only your own free will,” Forever points out. He jerks his head to the door. “Come on, let's get cleaned up. We're both messes.”

“I’m– I’m still cuffed?”

Forever squints. “Are you sure you're feeling like yourself?”

Cellbit jolts in panic and looks down at the cuff, then bursts out laughing. “Okay, maybe I’ve done better before,” he admits as he bends down and pulls the quick release latch. “Do you even have the key to these things?”

“Nope,” Forever laughs. He offers Cellbit a hand. 

Cellbit takes it and lets Forever pull him to his feet. He almost pitches forward into Forever’s arms. He's still shaky and weak and the floor is still slick with blood, though the shallower edges have started congealing into a tacky, clingy mess. 

Forever surveys the situation himself, then tucks his arm under Cellbit's knees and sweeps him easily off his feet. Even seeing Forever shirtless most of the time, Cellbit can't help but be a little taken aback by how little effort it seems to take Forever to carry him. Forever holds him without a hint of strain or difficulty, just tucks Cellbit close to his chest. Cellbit wants to protest, but he’s still trembling. He’s not sure what’s wrong with him. 

He rests his head against Forever’s shoulder. “Are you sure that’s the only thing they put in me?” he asks, his voice smaller and weaker than he ever wanted it to be again. 

Forever presses against his scalp. It might be a kiss or it could just be his chin. Cellbit isn’t sure which. That’s probably not a good sign about the state of his nerves. “I’m sure,” Forever promises.

“...Why?” 

Forever pauses with one hand on the door. “We can talk about it after a shower,” he says. “I’ve trusted you this far. Just trust me enough to give me that.” 

Cellbit is already curled up in Forever’s arms. He’s far weaker than normal and Forever has always been stronger than him. He suspects that not trusting Forever would be a purely academic matter at this point. And Forever has just recently drugged him against his will. That’s sort of hard to ignore. But after everything Cellbit has done to him over the past weeks… 

He nods. “I can wait to hear you out. I can give you that much.” 

“Thank you.” 

Cellbit’s alertness quickly fades as Forever carries him out of the exam room.  He tries to cling to it, but it’s like clinging to a fistful of blood. He’s exhausted . It’s taking all of his effort to stay conscious and he’s vaguely aware of the fact that his shaking is getting worse. What started as shivering as though from the cold is progressing into tremors that wrack his whole body and wear away what little energy he has left. He thinks his teeth might be chattering. He might have bitten his tongue. His mouth sure tastes like blood. It tasted like blood before though. 

The next thing he’s properly aware of is freezing cold porcelain against his back, followed immediately by the realization that he must be slightly feverish because he melts into it. He’s a fucking wreck. There’s no reason for him to be. His body is whole. 

It very much hadn’t been less than an hour ago.

But it is now. There’s nothing physically wrong with him. 

Is he sure of that? Does he know for a fact there aren’t scars on his brain like the one across his chest? 

He hadn’t left any on Maxo. He knows that much. 

He knew what he was doing though. Forever doesn’t know these sorts of things. 

Forever is a fast learner. Cellbit made sure to teach him with Maxo in case it ever came to this. He had the checklist. 

Forever ignored the checklist. He wouldn’t do that without a good reason.

A good reason for Forever might not be a good reason for Cellbit.

Fuck. Cellbit is being a raving fucking lunatic and he knows it. Forever literally explained his reasons for deviating from the checklist to Cellbit. Cellbit agreed they were adequate reasons. He just can’t convince his stupid, idiotic, paranoid brain to calm down enough to agree with obvious, basic reality. 

It’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you. 

It can be both! He’s had years of therapy about this! It can fucking be both! 

He groans out loud and rests his head back against the lip of the tub. At least he can convert the self directed anger into enough adrenaline to figure out what’s going on. Forever is kneeling on the floor, running the water from the bath over his hand.

“It’s just starting to warm up,” he reports when Cellbit manages to raise his head and blink at him. 

Cellbit peers around the room. Ah, they’ve made it to his castle. Into Cellbit’s own territory where he has all sorts of hidden security systems that Forever must know exist but wouldn’t have had time to disarm. Unless he sent someone else to do it and is bringing Cellbit here to lull him into a false sense of security.

Forever just had his hands in Cellbit’s guts . He doesn’t need to lull Cellbit into a false sense of security. He already had all the power over Cellbit he could ever want and all he wanted to do with it was make Cellbit not hurt anymore. Fucking typical of him to demand the impossible.

“It’s not gonna get hot,” Cellbit rasps. All the screaming must have taken more of a toll on his voice than he thought. “I haven’t had time to get the boiler put in.” 

“No, you’ve been busy,” Forever says cooly and for a moment all Cellbit can think about is how easy it would be for Forever to bash his skull open on the tub and then all he can think about is that he already knows what his splattered brains look like because he did it to himself. 

Forever doesn’t hurt Cellbit though. He just waits a few moments longer, his own hand rinsed clean from his work. “How’s the temperature?” 

Cellbit dips a toe under the spigot. “It’s not bad,” he reports. Calling it lukewarm is generous, but it’s not cold. He doesn’t really want to be cold again right now. 

“Alright, I’m turning the shower on now,” Forever warns. He has the shower head angled down so it doesn’t get in Cellbit’s face. 

The cool water is bracing. Cellbit watches it run red over the raised crags of his chainsaw scar and realizes that if – when – he gets off this island, he’s going to have to talk to his therapist about tactile hallucinations because the constant feelings of something crawling around on the underside of his skin hadn’t quite lined up with the verifiable thing. Hmm. He’s still having trouble focusing, he thinks. Not every thread connects into a neat little bow. Sometimes he pulls a thread and it doesn’t turn out to have much to do with anything.

Sometimes he pulls a thread and unravels the people he loves. 

“Do you mind if I join you?” Forever asks. 

Cellbit glances over at him. Right, he’s all bloody too. He’s shirtless already and most of the blood is just on his face and hands, but that’s the worst place for the blood to be, where other people will see it and get suspicious. Wordlessly, Cellbit tucks his knees up to his chest to make room. 

Forever strips bare and climbs into the tub, sitting down across from Cellbit. His hair is so long that he has to hang it over his shoulder so he doesn’t sit on it. He reaches over to start unbraiding it, but pauses. 

“Is blood harder to get out of hair?” he asks. 

Cellbit shrugs. “As long as you’re washing it anyway, it’s not a big deal.” 

Forever unbraids his hair with deft, confident fingers. Forever has always been much better with his hands than Cellbit. Cellbit used to love watching Forever’s fingers at work. It’s harder to love the fingers that peeled back his skin. 

Some of Cellbit’s feelings must show on his face because Forever frowns. “It was your idea.” 

Cellbit looks away. “I know.” It wouldn’t be the first idea of his to end catastrophically. 

He doesn’t remember much of the rest of the shower. Forever helps him get clean. He knows that much. Even the lukewarm water doesn’t last very long and it’s hard to forget the nauseating panic of being caught between the blood warm hands of his torturer and the icy chill of the grave. 

The next thing Cellbit is aware of is waking up in a sleeping bag in the main hall of his castle. Nothing hurts and that makes him want to claw his own skin off. The memory of pain is an ache he would call deeper than the pain itself if he was willing to tempt fate to prove him wrong. Instead he just pushes himself upright. He’s still naked but there’s a folded set of clothes waiting for him by the sleeping bag. 

He grabs the clothes and dresses slowly, examining each garment carefully first. The boxers are his own, but he hasn’t been keeping his wardrobe properly secured, so there’s no telling what anyone might have done to it. There’s no evidence of tampering though. The rest of the clothes are borrowed. That’s no reason to be less thorough in his search though. He estimates it takes him about an hour to get dressed. As he finally pulls the hoodie over his head, he hears a knock at the door. 

“Are you decent?” Forever calls. 

“Have I ever been?” Cellbit calls back. “Come in.”

That earns him a laugh at least as Forever slips in the door. He’s lost the suit finally and his hair is still loose and just the slightest bit damp from last night’s shower. “How are you feeling?” 

“Fine.” 

“I thought you were done lying to me.” 

Cellbit flinches. Okay. Forever is not in a good mood. Noted. “Coherent,” he corrects. “I’m not about to keel over and I know where I am and who you are.” When Forever raises an eyebrow he adds, “In my castle and you’re Forever. Asshole.” 

“Are you hungry?” 

“I’m at full saturation and I don’t think I feel up to eating anything I haven’t made myself.” 

Predictably and to Cellbit’s chagrin, Forever looks concerned. “Do you have food you can eat?” 

“Yes, but if I go get it now, the cache won’t be safe anymore.” 

“Promise me you’ll eat something as soon as I leave?” 

“You know, there’s an easy way to ease some of the paranoia,” Cellbit says petulantly. 

Forever growls in frustration. “I tried doing what you wanted to ease your paranoia yesterday and all I did was mutilate and kill you!”  

“I don’t… I don’t always have the best handle on what coping mechanisms are going to be effective,” Cellbit concedes, accepting Forever’s scoffed laugh as another blow to the heart that he frankly deserves. “But given that we did find a bug planted on Maxo, I had enough material facts to justify being… cautious.” 

“To justify a search, yes. Not–” Forever visibly cuts himself off. “You’ll bring this all up with your therapist, right?” 

“As soon as I get the chance,” Cellbit promises. 

“Okay. Good. Do that.” Forever sits down across from Cellbit on the unfinished stone floor. “So. Material facts, yes? Let’s start with Maxo. How big was the device we found in him?” 

“Forever, you were there for that.” 

“Humor me.” 

Cellbit holds his thumb and forefinger about an inch and a half apart. 

“Describe it to me.” 

Cellbit shrugs. “It’s nothing special, really. It’s a mic, a tracker, a transmitter, and a battery.” 

“Pretty cheap, would you say?” Forever says. He really needs to get better at asking leading questions. 

“I mean, nothing meant to be implanted in a human long term is cheap ," Cellbit rebuts. "Especially if you don’t want them to know about it. It’s pretty high quality actually.” 

“So it’s an investment.” 

Cellbit rolls his eyes because that’s a better response than trying to rip Forever’s tongue out. “You think because we found Maxo’s so quickly they wouldn’t bother to try again? That’s idiotic. Look at everything else they’ve done. I can’t imagine building brand new facilities overnight is cheap either, but they clearly manage to find the budget for it somewhere .” 

Forever nods along placidly. “That’s what I was thinking too. That’s why I was willing to search you at all. And frankly–” He takes a breath and grimaces like the words are painful for him to say “–it’s a good thing I did.” 

“Why?” Cellbit demands. That’s the last thing he expected to hear from Forever of all people.

“How sure are you that it’s Pac who had control of the kill switch when I took it out?” 

Cellbit’s blood runs cold. 

Forever continues relentlessly. “If the Federation found that thing in you at some point? Why would they bother implanting new tech in you when you already have old tech that you’ll fight to keep in? Tech that you and I both know can be controlled by a new person since Pac got control of it somehow. Sure it doesn’t have a mic in it, but it has to have a transmitter to be able to work and that can be easily turned into a tracker if you get a half decent programmer on it. Knowing where to send spies to is worth enough with the guarantee it’ll stay in.” 

Cellbit can feel himself start to tremble. “You’re right,” he whispers. “ Fuck. You’re right. God.” 

“Do you understand why it had to come out?” Forever asks with far too much gentleness for how incredibly cruel this whole situation is. 

Cellbit takes a deep breath. It doesn’t make the trembling stop. “I do,” he admits. “I’m just– Fuck. Forever, I’m scared .” 

“Fuck, man, me too! Fucking shitty Federation–” 

“It’s not that!” 

Forever pauses. He takes Cellbit’s hand in his own. Cellbit goes very, very still. Forever is absolutely strong enough to break Cellbit’s hand easily if he wanted to. Cellbit has given him so many reasons to want to. 

“Is this when you say you need someone to be able to kill you if you go off the rails?” Forever asks with a wry smile. “Because that’s not gonna be me. And I’m not gonna let anyone else do it either. I know you can be a good man, Cellbo. I know you will be.” 

Cellbit wants to cut his throat for that. Wants to tear into him and see how he bleeds and prove that he’s an idiot and Cellbit is a fucking threat that needs to be properly contained. Cellbit wants his old knives from his prison days and his war days to remind himself and the rest of the world of what he is, what he truly is on the inside.

All he gets is the warm pressure of Forever’s hand on his. Skin on skin. Outsides of skin, which is a nice bonus. All he gets is a human who is bound and determined to see him as one too, no matter how stupid an idea it is. It doesn’t fix everything, of course. He’ll have to face up to how badly he’s hurt all his friends, beg for their forgiveness. He’ll have to do his damndest to deserve it. 

But for now, just the skin on skin is enough. 

“I will be,” he promises and just for now, that’s enough.