#ava 5

For being a horrible atrocity, the killing spree was pretty fun. The poor civilians' frenzied shrieks, the two siblings' laughs as adrenaline pumped through their veins. Splotches of red covering their clothes, they didn't mind destroying anything they came across.

After all, why would they?

Destruction was all they knew.

Dark took a wheezy breath into his inhaler before tucking back into his stained jacket pocket and flying over to Chosen. He was shouting something incoherent at people running for their lives. 

Dark tapped his shoulder, fidgeting with the broken zipper on his jacket. Chosen spun around, eyes glowing bright crimson. "Un autre ? Ils continuent à venir comme s'ils le voulaient..." (Another one? They keep coming as if they want this...) he said with a manic smile, fading as he realized it was his younger brother.

"Hey, Cho!" Dark said quietly, a smile on his flushed face. "I.. I think we might have to wrap this up.. It's getting dark and my chest hurts a bit." 

Chosen nods, seeming a bit spaced out. 

An offhand comment of "Ever wonder what those fuckers taste like?" and the two siblings found themselves sitting around a campfire. Dark's heavy eyelids eventually closed, his head on Chosen's lap. The latter didn't mind carrying the former home.

~

Dark unclenched his jaw to drink some of his water. It felt good on his dry throat and eased the hunger clawing at his stomach. He hadn't moved from his computer for 14 hours now. 

Originally, the standing desk seemed like a good idea, but Dark's scoliosis has gotten worse over the years and now standing for so long just made his back hurt.

Hence the bottle of ibuprofen beside the computer. He had taken 5 now. 

Staring at the small numbers and letters on his computer screen was giving him a pounding headache that not even the painkillers could help. He ended up having to squint harder than was comfortable to even see much of what he was doing.

But with a final hit of the enter key, Dark was done. He felt like he was going to pass out. A quick glance at a clock told him it was either 10:30 or 1:03. Either way, it didn't matter. He finally finished his project, ending a 2-month hyperfixation. He honestly couldn't remember the last time he had eaten or slept, which further explained why everything was aching. He was ready to just curl up on the floor and go to sleep and forget about the world, the animator, the hurt, when Chosen opened his door, even the soft click of the door ringing in Dark's ears. He turned his hearing aids down.

"Dark, I honestly don't care if I have to drag you out of here, you haven't left this room in 14–" Chosen starts, quickly being cut off. "Cho! Cho, I finished! You wanna see? I- I did it! Finally! It'll be just like you.. like we always wanted!"

Chosen chuckled softly. "Alright, alright... Since you say it's 'so incredible.' Just take it down a notch, okay? You're talking really loud." 

Dark rolled his eyes. "Just turn your hearing aids down." He paused. "But- But anygays, I have my thingy to show you!" He darted back to his computer, stimming excitedly. 

"O-okay, okay, so.. So, this is the ViraBot! I've been working on it for, like, 2 months! It can do a ton of- A ton of cool shit! A-and.." Dark's tone was shifting from excited to just plain manic. Chosen placed both hands on his shoulders. "Deep breaths." 

Dark did as he was told and started over with a sigh. "This, my dear brother, is the ViraBot." 

"It looks like a spider, but missing a few legs."

Dark shot Chosen a glare. The latter shrugged.

"But anygays, this thing has a ton of features, like..." Dark typed a couple things on his computer and the ViraBot on the wall suddenly had a bright red spike on the end of its... limb. Dark smiled. "And that's just the start."

He took the spike, its sharp end glinting in the warm sunlight. He forcefully stabbed his globe with the the spike and it immediately dissolved into some bare code, along with its stand. Dark grinned, his coal black eyes shining. "We can destroy the world, Cho. And anyone who would fucking dare hurt us the way that cursor did."

Chosen just stared in horror for a moment, his chest tightening painfully. 

Not another bloodbath.

Not more innocents' screams.

Not more fire and tears and broken bones.

Why would Dark want to go back to that after all this time living normally?

But then again, why wouldn't he?

Pain and death and killing was all he knew.

Dark loaded the ViraBot into its launcher, carefully contained in a red-and-white casing. 

"Dark. We don't have to do this."

Dark's excitement died down for a moment. His smile faltered. "...wh-what?"

He quickly puts his smile back on. "Come on, Cho! It's what we always wanted to do! Obviously we've gotta start with our biggest problem, the..."

"Dark..?"

"...cursor, who can fucking burn in hell. Like, how could he do those things to you? To us? Nobody can just do that..."

"Dark."

"...but I digress, this lil bitch will end up on his computer and fuck him up just as bad as we did! And then I can finally go to sleep. And drink water, it's been a hot minute since I've done that..."

"Dark."

Dark's hand was hovering over the button, either quivering from excitement or just outright shaking from the exhaustion of not sleeping for so long.

"What? Oh, do you wanna press the button? Yeah, that's only fair. After all-"

"Dark, stop."

"But.. What? This is what-"

"Dark, shut up! Have you ever considered that maybe I don't want this? That the whole world doesn't fucking revolve around you and what you want?"

Dark felt the all-too-familiar sting of tears forming in his eyes, but he swallowed and blinked them back. Fine then. Be like that, he thought to himself. I'll just... do it myself..

Shaky hands.

Breath hitching in his throat.

Hand lowers.

Rough hands, firm grip on Dark's shoulders.

"Dark, what did I say? We can't do this!"

Dark wanted to explain to Chosen why they had to, why it would be the best decision ever for them, why he had gotten a total of just 56 hours of sleep in the past two months. But as he prepared the explanation, the words died on his tongue. He couldn't force them out if he tried. 

So he just went for the button again.

This time when he was met with the rough hands, he ended up on 

the cold tile with his nose bleeding, a new crimson stain soaking into the collar of his shirt. He felt his hands heating up and unstifle-able tears welling up in his eyes.

A few seconds later, a wall crumbled.

Just like Chosen and Dark's once perfect relationship.

Soon things devolved into what was pretty much a fistfight, but with a few more broken walls. Everything blurred around Dark as he ran for the button.

His revenge.

His closure.

Only a moment after Dark's palm hit the smooth red plastic, he felt a small explosion and found himself in the air, falling.

"I thought you wanted this."

~

Chosen took a deep, shaky breath as memories of him flooded his mind.

In and out.

Hands ignited.

He got a sort of adrenaline rush from all this, and he hadn't flown in months. It was kind of nice to do it again. Feel the cold wind on this face, see everything from beautiful views.

Maybe once this was all over, he could go fly somewhere. Though, it wouldn't be the the same without Dark...

That's okay, times change. And who knows, maybe he'll-

Impact.

Chosen pulled away from the light blue barrier that the ViraBot had so easily gone through, coughing weakly into his arm.

That's gonna hurt later.

It took a painfully reddened hand to realize that no amount of punching would do anything.

~

Dark felt himself hit the ground with a... Well, he wasn't sure what it sounded like, but it sure as hell could've been the loudest thing he had ever heard. It at least felt that way.

With a soft groan, he rolled over from his back to his side.

"God, I think I broke... everything.." he muttered, taking a few moment to collect his scattered, betrayed, hurt thoughts before picking himself up, pleased with the fact that nothing seemed actually broken at the moment. He quickly looked himself over, wincing as he noticed the sheer state of his body. Through the charred and still warm hole in his shirt, he could see dark, black burns, deep red oozing from melted skin.

"Shit. Shit, shit, shit..." Dark stumbled to his old... pitifully small house? Shack? Place...? He was honestly too disoriented to remember what the small structure's original purpose was, and his shaky ankles that, in hindsight, were probably sprained or something, threatened to give out at any moment.

Dark all but collapsed on the floor.

Down on his hands and knees.

Panting.

Saliva dripping from his mouth.

Tears dripping from his eyes.

He dug through the supplies stored under the table and pulled out some disinfectant, a shit ton of bandages, and a spare T-shirt.

He gingerly took off his current, very burnt one and set it aside. It was horrifically bloodstained anyway.

Mentally preparing himself for the burning sensation, he poured some disinfectant straight from the bottle onto the mess of stuff he didn't even want to look at.

Once he figured he had screamed and cried enough, it was onto the bandages.

From experience, bandaging yourself can be difficult, but not impossible after enough practice. Now, if your skin just stopped actively melting, that changes thing a bit, but Dark didn't really have a choice.

So he wrapped the slightly dusty gauze as tightly as he could around his chest and stomach, using a few too many pieces of tape to hold it in place. He then awkwardly pulled on the also dusty shirt and smoothed out some of the wrinkles. For the sake of being able to walk more comfortably, he also wrapped his ankles, which seemed to work wonders when he stood up and they only somewhat ached.

Maybe that was just his fast healing, though. If there was one pro to being created, it was that.

Dark let out a long, pained sigh before standing up on less-than-steady legs and pulling up the ViraBot code on his computer.

He glanced at the three whiteish scar lines on the back of his wrist.

Maybe they could use a fourth one to match.

~

Through strained eyes and sheer willpower, Chosen managed to break through the barrier.

A chilling sense of nostalgia gripped him as he traveled in the empty space leading to the PC.

He wanted it to stop.

His breathing picked up.

Tears stung his eyes for a moment.

If he was being honest, he really didn't want to go back to that place, but-

Another impact.

Okay, fuck what I said earlier, this hurts now.

More eye strain and hand pain got Chosen inside the PC.

The fight with the ViraBot was unpleasant, to say the least. Chosen didn't enjoy the metallic-tasting red in his mouth or the way his vision blurred and doubled after a while if he wasn't focusing on anything. But really, he didn't like that he and Dark's relationship was even more strained than his ruby-red eyes.

As Chosen left the PC, he gave a small nod of acknowledgement to his creator.

As he went back to face Dark, he couldn't help but feel like he was no better.

~~~~~

fun fact: this is my longest oneshot :3

heyyyy uh