#dhmis fic

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"So you've won this time, have you?"

The mop-thing turns his head to him. Red's snarling at him, probably, or grimacing. Tony can't be sure- blood's stained his gums and pearly whites so thoroughly that one can't quite tell where his skin ends and the mouth begins. He moves towards the time teacher, uncaring of how he crushes the dead worm underfoot.

(How atrociously low the standards for his fellow instructors have become. )

The mop's dead eyes stare at him, then slowly glance at his fellows on the ground, then look back at him. Tony thinks he sees a glimmer of clarity in the creature's gaze, something of recollection and frustration and so many other senseless things and it lunges at him-

Tony hums a tune, the sort you could skip to, and time skips with his spinning hands. From an hour ahead to the day before, to tea time next Tuesday and yester-year then hopping back to the here and now. The red one's always been made of stronger stuff, but even his constitution falters at this sort of play.

The mop collapses to the floor in a heap of dust and denim. Tony hums something softer as things stitch themselves back together. Spares are good to have, but there's no harm in mending what can be saved for a few more acts. So he thinks, anyway. Or so she says. It's all the same really, here.

How funny though, the way things have become. The red one wasn't so bold, before. Or violent. None of them were. They were too terrified then, when this was all strange and new. It's still strange, still new, but there's only so much strangeness and newness one can take before even that becomes old news.

They're just tired now, Tony thinks. Sick of the days and sick of each other, but still too scared to let that familiarity go.

He renders the room spick and span and the three in a livable state. They're gone before he knows it, plucked away to be set in another part of the house.