#onmode

Being on mode wasn’t what Jaime had initially expected. He had anticipated pain, but was instead met with a soothing calm that dulled the tumult of his unwanted thoughts and all the coinciding emotions. He could still think and process what was happening, focus on each individual breath, yet he found himself acting differently than he had prior to being repaired by the Reach.

Now his movements were too rigid, almost mechanical, his voice monotonous, and any hint of his Spanish accent was no longer palpable. He no longer had any use for sleep, and he never blinked.

It was somehow so easy, and also so right, to have the Reach think for him. They were ultimately smarter and wiser, and their commands made him better equipped at fighting the enemy.

Despite the Reach’s hold on him, he was still, in essence, himself. At his core he was the person he’d always been: Jaime Reyes, the Blue Beetle, a once average boy who had been at the right place at the wrong time, and had been condemned to live with an alien scarab latched to his spine.   

Yet the only times he ever felt even a inkling of regret was when he battled his former teammates. Not because they were whispers of the life he’d had, but because killing them was such a waste of good meat.

Now, as he stood over the Impulse’s unconscious body, he felt a twinge of… something. Something that bordered genuine emotion was beginning to stir within him. 

'Kill him.' The voice reverberated through his mind, cracking red-hot across his skull. It was mechanical and insect-like, grating on his every nerve. He hated hearing their unspoken voices, hated how even his own brain didn’t belong to him. Still, Jaime considered  the Negotiator’s order, a slight frown creasing his forehead. He couldn’t outright disobey, but maybe he could compromise. Receive some form of consolation. 

"Can’t I have him?"

'You can have him after he’s permanently paralyzed, and we've… shut off his metagene.'

Blue Beetle’s armored hand elongated into a blade, hovering dangerously close to Bart’s pale column of throat. If Bart was paralyzed, he’d never be able to run again. He would never be able to continue working for the League and their sidekicks. He’d never be able to really fight back. 

Still Blue hesitated to carry out the order. “It’s no fun playing if they’re already broken.” 

A pause stretched, before an impatient huff of, ‘very well. We’d hate to see perfectly good meat go to waste.’

After that, the voice in his mind fell silent. Jaime and Bart were all alone. 

Blue Beetle scooped up his new toy, and observed it silently. Bart’s hushed mind was slowly clawing back to consciousness. 

"J-Jaime?" He gasped as if every breath was painful on his lungs. 

"Ssh," he whispered, using a different voice than the one he’d used to converse with the Negotiator. This voice was not in a monotone; it was husky and exotic, and the one he used when speaking Spanish. It’s the one that always made Bart melt. "Don’t worry ese, I’ll take good care of you.”

Jaime’s faceplate retracted, and he slowly, slowly, drew an unseen line across Bart’s bottom lip with his thumb, relishing the way he was able to make Bart shiver from such a simple act. What else could he make him do?  

Bart struggled to speak, but upon finding that he couldn’t, he merely gazed up at Jaime, his wide-set green eyes pleading. Still, Bart didn’t fight back when Jaime brought their lips together. In fact, the younger boy’s lips were moving in tandem with his own. He showed no urge of resisting. But Jaime could change that.