Work in progress

He walks directly into the chest of a stranger that must’ve been standing too close. Or maybe he took too big a stride.

All he knows is that briefly his world is engulfed in soft gray fabric and then two steady hands grip his shoulders and hold him in place, arms length apart.

“Hey, bud. Aren’t you going to get my name before motorboating me?”

The voice belonging to the pair of hands, laced in a bit of humor, grounds him, but just enough to realize he is standing much too close to a stranger. He pulls away quite dramatically and stares up at the troll.

Sweater with a fleet emblem, purple eyes, fuck.

All that’s missing is some facepaint.

Reid takes a half step back.

His eyes are kind, hands up to show he doesn’t mean any harm, with a slouch that indicates he is trying to portray a more lax stature.

Anyone can fake those things.

Reid’s eyes dart from the troll in front of him to the rest of the crowd milling through the market.

He must look like he is about to dart himself because the stranger sets a hand on his shoulder again.

“Hey. Stay with me kid. You don’t look so hot.”

“I need to find my friend.”

“Can’t even find your own feet.” He says with a small laugh, almost pitying in nature, as he gently guides Reid to sit at a curb. The panicked human does nothing to fight against it. His voice is actually pretty soothing. “Got a name?”

“Casper. My name is Casper.”

“Alrighty Casper. I’m Laeche. Lai’s good too. How about you take a drink of that water there and we sit here and wait for your friend together?”

Reid nods slowly, patting around for the water bottle hanging off of his backpack. When he finds and unclips it he drinks in big gulps while keeping his eye on the purple blood.

His heart thrums in his throat still.

Laeche.

He seems content to just sit there fiddling with his purchases for the day, then he takes out his phone and swipes through what must be a list, and back to fussing in his bags.

“It’s the craziest thing, Cas. I get back home for the first time in a handful of perigees, I got two brats sending me to the market for ingredients.”

“Is it laziness?”

“They love to boss me around.” He shakes his head. “Crazy, right?”

“I know the feeling.”

“Speaking of. Feeling better?”

Before Reid can answer, someone casts a shadow over the pair and Laeche adjusts himself to take a more defensive posture over him.

The figure speaks before he gets a chance to see.

“Casper!”

It’s Alli. Thank god. thank god he didn’t take off when he wanted to.

“Rorian! You disappeared.”

Just like that, the purple blood relaxes and continues to dig in his bag.

“Yeah. Sorry about that.” They rub the back of their head as they mumble their apology. Excitable nature temporarily muted to leave room for sincerity. “Did you make a new friend?!”

“This is Laeche.”

“Hola.” Laeche says with a half wave as he stands.

“Hola!” Is Alli’s enthusiastic reply. “Leaving already?”

“Yeah. I need to find some peppers. It’s been real, Casper. Rorian take good care of my buddy here, will you?”

“You got it, chief!”

As he walks by he mumbles something into Alli’s ear that Reid doesn’t quite catch. They immediately gasp and rip their backpack off to dig around for something in it.

“What’s up?” Reid asks with the tilt of his head, standing up now.

The only parts of the ship that remain ungutted are the engine room and coms station to man the thing. His only means off of Alternia when his work is done.

“After I run my diagnostics on the engine you’ll be all set to send for a crew to fly you out of here, sir.”

Where will he take this experiment when he is done?

The engineer never bothered to ask, the less he knew about whatever super soldier project this was the better it would ultimately be for everyone involved.

“Good, I never want to set foot on this miserable rock again.”

“What an impressive show of allegiance.”

“Get to work.”

Laeche puts both hands up as he meanders over in the direction of the engine room, taking time to throw one more pitying gaze at the experiment as he passes it.

Briefly, he wonders how aware of the world around them they are in there.

Then he hopes that the answer is not at all.

 - -

Hours pass before the engineer emerges from his work — A critical failure put him behind in the timeline. The scientist sits in the common area with a scowl cemented to his face. Like a disappointed parent he says nothing as Laeche fully enters the room, following his movements only with his eyes.

“Well.”

“So there was a minor setback.”

Oh, if looks could kill.

“What kind of setback?” The scientist grits.

“The kind where you’re stuck on this miserable rock for at least another day.”

“That is unacceptable.”

“Them's the breaks.” Laeche says very simply, his attention now fully on the vat in front of him. “I can fix it in time for a preflight check tomorrow though.”

“That is unacceptable I said! Your commanding officer will hear about this!”

“General Kellon is already aware that you need me a bit longer. It’s just another night.”

The violet blood shoots to his feet and Laeche catches the glimpse of a grim expression crossing his features in the reflection of the glass.

Scary!

“Why are you playing games with me?”

“We’re both men of science--” he is cut off by a scoff from the higher blooded troll. It rolls off of his back. “Surely you’ve had things fall apart for seemingly no reason at all.”

“What have you been doing all day then?”

“Fixing it.”

Almost as if on cue the lights on the ship go dead, from the delicate hum and glow of the vat it seems like the only thing spared from the outage is the life support hooked up to the experiment.

Laeche laughs breathlessly.

“That wasn’t me.”

Before the seadweller gets a chance to broadcast his disapproval with the situation, though the sneer he wears is plenty good at getting the message across on its own, something large comes barreling out of the darkness and straight for him.

The resulting crash all but shakes the ship off of its foundation.

Laeche turns around to face the masked intruder, large clawed gloves piercing into the skin where they held the scientist up by the neck. In the sudden silence that flooded the room, the purple blood could almost hear the fluid being pumped into the troll from the bulky containers that wrapped around the cuffs of the gloves.

The scientist claws uselessly at the assailant’s wrist.

“Get-- Get this thing off of me.” He barks at him, choking on his own blood.

Laeche sighs.

“Can you drop him?”

The intruder obliges and drops his victim in a heap at his feet, when he tries to stand again he crumples almost immediately.

“You’ll have to forgive my brother,” the engineer starts to explain, eyes cold as his gaze sweeps over the scene. “He has no home training.”

He stares back in astonishment.

“Your brother?”

“Sh. You’ll want to hear what I have to say,” he continues, gesturing to his brother as he does. “Nene here just pumped you full of what I’m guessing is a lethal dose of poison.”

“Lo siento.” The mask troll offers, with a simple shrug.

The scientist sputters, hands reaching for his neck where it no doubt has started to sting something awful. He stares up at the pair with a suddenly humbled expression.

Pleading, almost.

“Thing is, I always walk with antivenom. So I don’t think you’ll die. It’d be painful though. It’s paralytic. Starts in the legs pretty quickly, then it starts to shut everything down. Usually in two or so hours. Worried about the amount he got into you, though.”

He lulls his head over to look to his brother for confirmation.

“An hour if he’s lucky.” 

“I don’t think he’s lucky--”

“What do you want?” The scientist spits back at them. “Is it money?”

“I want you to tell us how to get them out of there.” He indicates the vat with his head. “Alive.”

“What?”

“You’d waste precious time having me explain myself?”

The seadweller hisses and when neither of them respond to the pitiful threat display he drags both of his hands down his face.

It seems he’d rather not die here. Not like this, at least.

He sighs.

“Fine.”

“No funny business, Nene hates clowns.” Laeche warns. “We want them alive.”

“Fine!”

It does not take long for the brothers to dismantle the contraption, maybe about fifteen or twenty minutes, and pull the troll out of the foul smelling chemicals. Laeche finds an old blanket to wrap around their emaciated form. Then he sits on the ground beside them, fore and middle fingers pressed to the neck in search of a pulse.

He gives Vineno a thumbs up when he finds it, thready but steadily getting stronger.

“Your end…Of the bargain.” The seadweller rasps between labored breaths, now slumped over in a corner behind the three. If Laeche had to guess, the man will have almost certainly lost most if not all of the function in his extremities by now.

It’s a marvel he’s speaking at all.

“About that,” the purple blood says with a smile that shows off his fangs. “I never really promised you anything.”

The scientist sputters up blood instead of protest.

“But we aren’t the torturing type. Nene wants to give you one small mercy as a thank you.”

Vineno says nothing as he walks toward the troll.

Laeche cradles the head of the rescued experiment in his lap as the sound of crunching bones fills the air.

“You’re going to be okay now.” He whispers to them. “Nene will take you somewhere safe.”

After the embrace, Laeche stands and starts to meander back toward the engine room.

Vineno follows.

When they are good and alone, Laeche lets out a big sigh that also sees him deflating the tension he held in his back.

“I don’t know how you can be so serious all the time, Nene.” He muses as he sits himself at his workstation, letting himself relax further as he does. “It’s exhausting.”

“It’s a talent of mine.”

“Alright, let’s get to the part where you beat the shit out of me.”

“Gladly.”

“I sent a message to the flying crew that he’s ready for systems check this evening. They’ll be here in a few hours, go make a mess so it looks like you struggled.”

Vineno tsks behind him. It was not as though he needed to be told how to do his job.

“Hazme un paro, por favor.” The engineer says as he puts his goggles on.

“Hm?”

“Don’t break my arm this time.”

Persep did not stay in the room to bask in the glory of having tamed his old friend, instead he stepped out to grab dinner as promised.

It was upsetting for him when he’d heard that he was making an effort to kick his cannibalistic tendencies. Inconvenient, really. Suddenly deciding that there are morals and ethics to take into account when looking for a meal.

What was he to do with morals and ethics? He would not just stand around and watch his muscle get all soft on him.

Not a chance in hell. Persep is a man of science after all.

And he’d never been quitter.

All of that to say, Areios was not expecting this meal to be anything other than some poor unsuspecting troll that meandered a little too close to the border of their shared forest. Even then, there was no way of guessing what Persep did end up coming back with.

When the door reopened Persep had a troll in tow by the hair and a grin on his face that was uncharacteristically giddy.

Areios watched the squirming troll wordlessly. The corners of his lips twitched when the scent of fresh blood washed over his senses.

“I keep my promises,” Persep explained as he shoved the blueblood within arms length of the starved behemoth. “I always do.”

Once again, Areios lunged and this time his prey had the misfortune of crumbling beneath him. He dragged them back to his corner before he could even get a good look at them.

Across the room Persep watched with morbid fascination.

Before he got the chance to bite into his meal a voice rang out above the clanging of his chains.

A very familiar voice, high pitched and frantic, as they thrashed uselessly in his grip.

“Areios! Wait. Please.”

The beast stopped, eyes wide as turned the troll to face him.

“Sarrca?” He managed to say, voice hoarse and dry from disuse. 

“Listen to me, I know you’re hungry. I know it. But you can’t let him win. He’ll hold it over your head for the rest of both of your lives.”

Having caught her moirails eyes, she ceased her twisting and turning to pet his arms. 

His stomach growled, ferociously, but the look on his face gave clear insight into the war between love and hunger that waged on violently within him.

“Areios, I –”

Before she could continue her pleading he snarled again, pushed her away, and retreated further into his corner.

“Areios –”

“Areios!”

This time she was cut off by Persep, with a voice louder than it’s ever been. Angrier than anyone expected. Impatience was never a good look on him.

The gazes of the pair followed the sound to make direct eye contact with the mortician just as his eyes lit up from his engaged voodoos.

Sarrca could only sit there, statue still with her mouth screwed shut, as her moirail crawled toward her on all fours.

Persep did not release his old on the two until the sound of flesh tearing and bones crunching, along with the heavy scent of blood, filled the air.

He was delighted to find that the sight unfolding in front of him, grisly affair that it was, did not stop when Areios was released from his control.

His grin only broadened.