#saucesmp

'and without you is how i disappear' - echo gets to know a handful of people wearing their family's faces. it goes better than it did the last time.

"you're so-" echo makes some kind of vague gesture with both hands, face screwed up. shepherd screws her own face up in response. they note how her nose still scrunches up the same way dec's does.

"what's that supposed to mean?"

"i dunno, you're just - just-" they struggle for the right words, making more incoherent noises as they throw their hands up, chewing on the inside of their cheek. exasperated, shepherd stands to leave and echo stumbles to their feet; they aren't entirely sure where the sudden desperation had come from.

it settles like lead in their bones, heavy and unwieldy, some strange cousin to grief and all the more unsettling for it. echo swallows around the sudden lump in their throat, unable to get the image of shepherd - of dec, really, they know deep down - leaving them behind. it's a silly thought because shepherd is a stranger and declan would never but - it sits and threatens to choke them anyway. hurts in just the same way that hearing dec say those four words did - i knew from two weeks - and hurts the same way him running out of the hidden altar room with fear in his eyes did.

"you're washed out. like you never got all your colours but don't even realise they're missing."

cw - brief talk of things Under the skin in second to last paragraph.

morituro - of someone who is next or destined to die

'A normal resting heart rate should be between 60 to 100 beats per minute, but it can vary from minute to minute. Your age and general health can also affect your pulse rate, so it's important to remember that a 'normal' pulse can vary from person to person.'

46 - angry kisses

echo shoves rassel away, eye blazing as he snarls.

"that wasn't my fault!"

"like hell it wasn't!"

"how was it even remotely my fault, rass?" rassel throws their hands up, pacing in a circle, knees clicking.

"i told you - more than once, time and again - to not touch my thaum stuff! and you promised, when you said you'd help, that you wouldn't!"

"it looked like it was going to explode and blow up half of your house." he's gone deadpan, condescending. they fucking hate it.

"it wouldn't have! and even if it did, what would it matter! i'd just rebuilt!" with each exclamation, they stalk closer, poking one finger hard into echo's sternum. he grabs, tight, at their wrist. they both glare.

"your ass would be complaining about it nonstop. maybe i just didn't want to hear your whining." rassel scoffs, knows he doesn't actually mean it but lets it feed the burning anger in their chest anyway. they lean up to knock his forehead with theirs, hard. echo barely winces.

"so you ruined my experiment instead?"

"seemed like the better option. guess i was wrong, since you're bitching about it anyway."

"you piece of shi-" he cuts them off, the hand not crushing their wrist to his chest snapping up to grip the back of their neck as echo drags them the last few centimetres closer. rassel growls against his mouth, considers biting him and only just decides against it. they nip, instead, warning.

echo huffs but pulls back, pushing rass away again like he had at the start of their fight. before they can start up again, he's already turning away.

"i'll help you get the stuff back, ok? god, what kind of asshole do you think i am?"

"pretty big one, honestly."

'therefore, you and me' - character study on echo and rassel's relationship, post reunion

dark blood splatters across the pit floor and rassel laughs, loud, unhinged. they grin, snort another clot out of their nose and wipe it away carelessly. it smears across their cheek and forearm. echo shakes out their fist, knuckles raw where they forgot to wrap them. it hurts in the best way possible. punching rassel is never pleasant - chitin too hard to do real damage - but if it isn't satisfying, sometimes.

rassel draws back a few steps, practiced, and echo braces. there's no pretending here, no feints or psyche outs. they both know eachother too well to have any fun with that when they're both in the mood. no, echo reads the move with practiced familiarity and decides to just take it.

with a screech - enderman static underlining it enough to make echo's ears ring - they leap forward and sink their teeth into the leather bracer covering echo's forearm, clawed feet braced against their thighs. it doesn't hurt, the leather thick specifically for this purpose, but rassel bites hard enough for the material to creak and for the dull pressure to definitely bruise.

selfishly, echo wishes they weren't wearing the armour. wishes that rassel had sunk fangs deep enough to hit bone and sever nerves, wishes that their blood would stain chitin forever, wishes the taste would make rassel feel sick. they want it to hurt, to scar, to remind them forever and ever, a link tying then together. dog with bone, ox with cart, killer with victim.

would it be enough? would it ever be enough, for what they'd done?

'talk about the weather' - the next time, now. icarus takes a moment.

it would never admit it, but icarus is a little scared the next time it comes around. there is no regret about what they did last time - it had far too much fun to feel particularly bad - but it still doesn't want to scare declan again because rassel and echo don't want to scare declan again.

his house is off limits. the area around his house for the next 300 metres is off limits. self imposed. icarus wakes up in the pit again with the distinct feeling that it shouldn't leave the forest this time around.

and it doesn't like that.

that's not fair. that's not fair! neither component likes being trapped, being caged, and that only goes twofold for icarus; it doesn't need to listen to stupid rules and it doesn't need to contain itself. already they want to run. be free. it could leave easily and there was nothing that could ever stop them.

but it won't. because it doesn't want to scare declan again - because it loves declan - and because it doesn't want to be a monster to those it loves.

19. champagne by machinery of the human heart

scrosciare - the action of rain pouring down or of waves hitting rocks and cliffs

three empty bottles of wine, drained almost dry between them. evan's pretty sure echo had been sneaking extra sips straight from the bottle when he hadn't been looking but it's not like he's in any position to call them out. still aware enough to admit that, yeah, he's pretty fucking buzzed too. the world fuzzes comfortably around him, echo's voice droning on about something or other and mixing in with the sounds of the ocean below their cliffside haunt. he's only half listening, humming along to their story when their voice hitches and chokes.

echo clears their throat and tries again. the sentence dies out on their tongue halfway, replaced by a somber realisation.

"rassel would have loved the bumblezone..."

they sniffle wetly and evan realises, with a chill going down his spine, that maybe they're more drunk than he thought.

"echo?" he reaches out hesitantly, all too afraid of the snap of teeth that never comes. evan touches their shoulder and they turn slowly to face him with tears in their eyes and their bottom lip caught between their teeth. words dry up in his throat. suddenly he feels perfectly and terrifyingly sober.