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whumpy-wyrms · 2 days

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The Last Lab Rat #15: Broken Dreams

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content: recapture, lab whump, captivity, mind control, self injury, drugging, murder mention, winged test subject whumpee, creepy scientist carewhumper

Dew and Anton have a much needed conversation about stuff (things will only get worse before they get better i’m afraid)

—

The drive home was long and quiet.

Anton stared ahead as the windshield wipers went fast and rain pattered on the roof of the car. The roads were dark and empty, and thunder boomed in the distance. After a while, Anton turned in to a trail, mud splashing under the tires as he drove through his forest.

He looked in the backseat.

Dewey was sleeping, still and quiet. He’d fallen asleep after only a few moments of lying curled up in the backseat, letting himself drift off to the sound of gravel rumbling beneath the tires. He was weak and bloody and broken. Anton tried to ignore the sound of blood dripping onto the car floor.

God, this had never happened before. Nothing like this had ever happened before. What would Pierce think? If he found out Anton had let his test subject escape?

It hadn’t been a big deal at first. He knew what Dew and Sasha had been scheming, and Anton thought it was cute that the two of them were working together. Anton had just wanted to give him a sense of control, a small taste of a false freedom to latch onto, just something to keep him satisfied. He thought that even if Dew did escape, Anton would easily bring him back. He’d teach him a lesson not to leave, and they could have a laugh about it in the future after everything went back to normal.

But Anton had never expected, not in a million years, for his sweet little lab rat to do something not even Anton himself could stomach; murder. Dew had killed someone, taken a life, just like that. Sure, the clone wasn’t a real person. Anton could easily make a new one. Nobody saw it happen or would ever know about it. Anton wasn’t worried about whether or not he’d get away with it, because he knew he would.

Anton was worried about Dew. Maybe it was his own fault; this was what happened when he chose to let his test subjects have an ounce of freedom. Maybe he should’ve known better. He should’ve known better.

Anton arrived at his cabin and sighed. He hadn’t been one to listen to music, but maybe he should have, it sure seemed to help Dew during his spirals. He was still sound asleep in the backseat, chest rising and falling slowly as he breathed, so oblivious to the world around him. Anton stepped out of the car, ignoring the pouring rain soaking into his clothes and hair, and gently picked Dew up. He ran into the cabin while holding his test subject tightly against his chest, sheltering him from the rain.

Anton went straight to the lab, trying to avoid Sasha and their wandering eyes. They’d find out Dew was back eventually, but for now, all Anton wanted to do was sleep his thoughts away.

He cleaned Dew up, taking care of his bloodied clothes and matted hair. Then Anton dressed him in soft, warm pajamas and gently laid him to bed. He closed the latch of the vents, locking it tight. No more of that anymore.

Anton didn’t even know how to move forward from this. He should punish Dew. He should. That’s what Pierce would have done… Although, Pierce never would have let a test subject escape in the first place. He would have erased Dew’s memories, got rid of his free will, made him a hollow shell of a person.

Anton wasn’t going to do that. But what should he do then? He was growing soft. He had been too lenient, too… friendly. Dew wasn’t his friend, he had made that very clear.

As he lay in bed, staring at the blank ceiling alone in the world, Anton couldn’t help but think. Fuck, Pierce would be so disappointed in him.

. . .

I’m back.

The words repeated in Dew’s head over and over again. In the span of only a few hours, he went from being finally home and safe to finding himself back with the person who tormented him. Back to being a test subject in that horrible lab. Back with Anton.

A wave of terror flowed through him as he remembered last night, and he hid under his bed again. A million questions were flowing through his mind but he felt too tired and numb to do anything but quietly weep under his blankets.

It was most likely a very long drive back to the lab last night, but Dew wouldn't know, falling asleep too early to tell. He supposed it didn’t matter. He didn’t need to know the directions to the lab or the way back home; he’d surely never see the outside world again.

After who knows how long of sleeping, he had woken up in soft pajamas, cozied up in warm blankets in his bed. He was so comfy, melting into the warmth. It was as if last night had never happened.

He really thought— he really thought he escaped, that he’d never be back here again. And that only made this all the more devastating.

He had been home, with his friends. They were there and they had been shot with tranquilizer darts by the scientist, so so close to danger and yet so far. It hurt to think about what would’ve happened if they had woken up, Dew bloody and broken, Anton standing there with a smug smile on his face. There was no knowing what the scientist would’ve done to them.

And then he was taken away from them again. He didn’t even get to talk to them before he was whisked away.

Dew knew things would never go back to normal. Not when he lied, tricked, and schemed behind his captor’s back. Not when he escaped and got caught brutally murdering his own clone that had replaced him all these months.

He shuddered thinking about it. Dew killed someone. Not just anyone, but another version of himself— the old him, the Dew who was free, the Dew he had always wished to be again. He killed him. Who could do such a thing? He felt sick— with himself and with the world. But most of all, with the scientist.

Anton. Dew hated him, more than anything. He was filled with so much burning anger that for a moment, he wished his clone had fought back and killed him instead. That would have been revenge against the scientist. Anton would have lost.

But he didn’t. The scientist had won. Again.

And that was terrifying. More than Dew could ever hate someone, he was so, so afraid. He could never be more scared of anything more than Anton. This man could control every aspect of his life easily, he could hurt his friends. At this point, Dew didn’t care what the scientist did to him anymore because he knew he couldn’t escape it. There was nothing Dew could do but cry and hope that whatever punishment Anton was planning for him wouldn’t be too painful.

. . .

Anton walked into his test subject’s room quietly, not wanting to accidentally startle the poor guy awake if he was still sleeping. He clicked the door shut, then realized that Dew wasn’t on his bed where he had left him. Anton looked around, noticing the bathroom door was ajar, light off. Dew wasn’t in there either. Anton’s eyes widened, could he really be…

“...Dewey?”

Anton knelt down beside the bed, lifting up the blanket to peak underneath. Sure enough, his test subject was hiding from him again, skittish and afraid. When he noticed the scientist staring, Dew shuffled deeper under the bed against the wall, trying to create as much space between them as possible. Anton clicked his tongue and let go of the blanket, letting it cover Dew back up, and stood up.

“You’ll have to come out eventually, Dew,” Anton said, setting the tray of food on Dew’s nightstand and crossing his arms. He got no response. “The silent treatment, huh?”

Anton leaned back against the wall and took a cookie from his pocket, taking a bite. “Aren’t you hungry? I’ll give you a piece of my cookie if you come out. As a treat. It’s really good.”

The only response Anton got was quiet sniffles muffled by the blanket. “Dew, I’m not going to hurt you. You’ll be okay, I promise. You’re safe.”

“Your… friends are safe too.” Anton’s voice was soft, as if he was trying to sound comforting. “Everything was taken care of. No blood, no body… no knife. It’s– It’s as if it never happened, okay? Nobody’s hurt, nobody’s sad, nobody knows. Everyone woke up like normal, completely fine, if not a bit tired from that party they threw you— your clone.”

Anton hesitated. “And you left a note, telling them you’d be gone for a few days, visiting distant relatives. They won’t suspect a thing. It leaves me the perfect amount of time to make a new clone and have it take the old one’s place. I have plenty of your DNA samples; you wouldn’t have to give me your blood, you wouldn’t have to do a thing. It was no big deal really, what you did. It changed nothing.”

The silence itself was driving Anton mad. He had no idea what his lab rat was thinking down there. They both royally fucked up this time.

“If you won’t say anything… that’s fine. I’ll just… assume you’re okay with this arrangement then, and I’ll go make another clone.”

There was a whimper coming from under the bed, followed by a couple sniffles. “N-no.” Dew said quietly.

“What was that?”

“No. Please don’t. Please.”

“I can hardly hear you under there,” Anton said. “If you want to talk, you’ll have to come out. You… don’t have to hide from me. I don’t want to hurt you, Dewey. You’ve put yourself through too much already.”

Dew’s breath hitched, failing to stifle a sob. “I-I can’t”

“...Why not?”

“I’m s-scared…”

Anton fidgeted with a pen in his pocket. “I’ll tell you what. I bet you have about a million questions floating through that little brain of yours, right? If you come out, you can get answers. I just want to talk, Dew. Talk. That’s it. You… You don’t have to be scared.”

You’ve been talking, Dew wanted to say, but quickly pushed that thought away. Arguing never worked before, nothing ever worked before. It was best to do as he was told from now on.

Dew timidly crawled out from under the bed, clutching his chicken plushie in his arms. He avoided looking at the scientist, and curled up in a different corner of the room. Anton had never seen him so afraid, so broken.

Anton forced himself to give a friendly smile. “How are you?”

No matter how much he wanted to act strong, Dew couldn’t stop himself from breaking down the second the question was asked.

“I-I didn’t wanna do it,” Dew squeaked, looking up in despair. “I didn’t mean to- to kill him. It- it happened so f-fast— I’m n-not a murderer! I didn’t wanna do it! I didn’t wa–wanna do it!” Dew’s voice broke down into uncontrollable sobs, his chest heaving.

If this was anyone else, Anton would give him something to calm him down, but Dew hated needles, and Anton didn’t want to scare him more than he already was. He sighed. “It was just a clone, Dewey. It wasn’t a real person. I promise, everything’s okay now. You don’t have to be sad.”

“I w-w-wanna go h-home. I was home, I… I got out. M-my friends, I didn’t g-get to talk to them— I d-didn’t want you to h-hurt them. Wh-why did you take me away? Why c-couldn’t you just set m-me free? I was out.”

It was a sad sight. Anton had always tried not to feel bad before, but this… it overwhelmed him. Maybe the only way to calm down and eventually see eye to eye, was to do what Dew always did to calm himself.

Anton dimmed the lights, causing his lab rat to curl into himself at the sudden change. The scientist walked to the other side of the room and picked up Dew’s MP3 player, then he crouched down in front of him, simultaneously caging him into the corner. He grabbed a blanket off the bed and sat it on the floor beneath them, a soft cushion from the cold, hard floor.

Dew stared at him while Anton turned on some music. They sat there for a long time. The only way they could tell that the minutes were passing was when each song ended and a new one began.

“Do you wanna talk now?” Anton asked after a while, when Dew had started to relax.

Dew nodded, taking a deep breath. “You cloned me,” he said numbly.

“That, I did.”

Dew looked up. “That’s why nobody was looking for me.”

“Yes.”

“The whole time?”

“Yep.”

“Nobody knew I was gone?”

“Nope.”

“How’d you do it?”

Anton’s face seemed to lighten up at the opportunity to explain something scientific to him. A small, familiar distraction from the gravity of this situation. “It was quite easy, actually. All I needed was a DNA sample, your clothes, a memory eraser, and the cloning chamber on the other side of the lab. It was on your first day, actually, when I got your blood, remember? It took a few days to make the clone, and once it was ready, I gave it all your stuff, drove down to your old house and set it free. I obviously had to erase its memories of the past day, so it wouldn’t remember me or my lab.”

“After that,” Anton continued. “It was like you had never left. I don’t actually know what it did as you. I could’ve made it so I’d be able to see through its eyes if I wanted, but I didn’t think I needed to.”

Dread pooled in Dew’s stomach. There was so, so much about this man that Dew did not know and couldn’t begin to understand. If he had cloned him without Dew realizing, what else had he done to him?

Dew ignored the fact that he felt so utterly helpless, and swallowing his nerves, he decided to ask more questions. “If– If you could make clones this whole time, why didn’t you just experiment on a clone of yourself instead? Wouldn’t that be… easier?”

“I did,” Anton replied. “For five years before I got you, the only test subject I had was myself— and obviously I didn’t experiment on animals, that’s unethical. Sometimes I would experiment on a clone of myself. But it got to the point where it was getting too dangerous to do that anymore. And that’s why I got you.”

“But—”

Anton shushed him. “I needed a test subject separate from myself. I couldn’t keep experimenting on a clone because, well, he’d be me. He’d know all my weaknesses. We’d have the same strength— he’d be stronger, even; enduring everything I'd put him through. He'd easily overpower me if he could, maybe even outsmart me. I needed someone smaller, and weaker, someone who didn’t know me like I know myself. Like you.”

Dew swallowed down his unease. “Then– then why didn’t you just take a clone of me instead?”

Anton looked surprised at the question, as if it was obvious. “Because… I needed the real you, and a clone isn’t the real you. Unlike my mentor, Pierce, I like my test subjects to be themselves, to be their own person and to have their own personality. I want them to be real. Clones are just… a fake, a facade. Making a clone of someone feels like a cheap, easy way out.

“I couldn’t just keep a clone of you knowing that the real you was out there living your life. Clones don’t mean anything to me. They’re not real people and can easily be recreated and replaced. I wanted the real you, Dew. And I’m so happy I got it.”

“Will you make another clone of me? Like you said?” Dew asked, fearing the answer.

“Yes, most likely. Unless, of course, you want your friends to think you’re dead? They’ll be awfully sad about that I think. It’s in your best interest to be cloned again.”

“How would they think I’m dead? I thought… you got rid of the body?”

“I did, but I could always fake your death. That’s… what Pierce used to do when he got new test subjects, sometimes. I could clone you and kill the clone, make it look like some horrible freak accident. Everyone would think you’re dead and that’d be the end of it. But I don’t think you want your friends to be sad, do you, Dew? I’m giving you a way that’s beneficial for all of us.”

“Except me.”

“...Except you.”

“Fine. Clone me again, I-I guess. My friends will figure out something’s wrong eventually.”

“They hadn’t for almost three months.”

“Well, I don't want them to be sad.”

Anton smiled and ruffled his hair. “Good choice.”

Dew looked down and fidgeted with his hands. So, that was it, then. He’d just given up. He’d just agreed to be replaced by a clone. That entire escape plan, those weeks of crawling through the claustrophobic and cold air ducts, had all been for nothing. He was back where he started, and far worse. He was completely and entirely defeated. He lost.

“Hey, where’s Sasha?” Dew asked, looking for the only friend he’d ever had in this terrible place.

“Oh, they’re upstairs.”

“So… are you mad at them for- for helping me?”

“What? No. I mean, I didn’t realize that they were such a great escape artist,” Anton chuckled. “I guess it makes sense though. They’re a snake, after all. But no, I’m not mad. They were just… doing what was right, I suppose. We’re both their friend, they just wanted to help you.”

“Can I talk to them? Please?”

“Oh,” Anton looked around awkwardly. “I um, I actually didn’t tell them you’ve returned. They were in their room when we got home last night. I just… couldn’t bear to break the news to them? They still think you’re free.”

Dew stood up. “What!?”

Anton stood up after him. “It’s fine—”

“You need to tell Sasha I’m back! You can't keep this a secret from them!”

“But I'd feel bad. I don't want to disappoint them. I don't want them to hate me.”

“Grow a fucking spine Anton! You made this happen! You ruined everything!”

“Lighten up, will you?” Anton said, playfully poking Dew’s stomach. “Where’s birthday Dew? Where’s the Dew that had fun throwing balloons around, or watching TV with me? Or—”

“‘Birthday Dew’ is fucking dead!” Dew hissed.

“That’s a shame,” Anton tutted. “I liked that Dew more than this one.”

“I should have ran when I had the chance,” Dew hissed, hopping over the bed and away from the corner he and his captor had been sitting in. He couldn’t go anywhere, but standing on the opposite side of the room was much better than being anywhere near the scientist. “I should have fucking ran!”

“You wouldn’t have gotten very far, I’m afraid.” Anton’s voice darkened, and he pulled out that horrible device Dew recognised and turned it on, activating the mind-control. “Don’t move,” Anton said.

He watched his test subject’s eyes go wide in horror, the blood draining from his face. “N-No, you—”

“Don’t talk.”

Dew was fuming on the outside. But on the inside, he was more scared than he’d ever been in his life.

“Yes, I made a spare.” Anton waved around that remote as if it was nothing. “Of course I made a spare. Why wouldn’t I, when I knew what you and Sasha were planning?”

Anton walked closer to Dew in slow, deliberate steps. His body was still, frozen in place, once again so easily cornered. Dew couldn’t say anything.

“I think you underestimate me, Dew. And that’s a dangerous thing for you. I feel I’ve been letting you off too easy. It was all my fault, really. I wanted you to have some freedom, because I didn’t want to see you so completely hopeless. But now I realize that it only made you more comfortable to act out against me.

“You’re never leaving this place again. I thought I’d given you enough time to accept your situation, but you’re simply too… too determined to escape me. It’s admirable, truly. But it’s gone on long enough.

“Let me put all this in perspective, Dew. It doesn’t matter if you run away, because the world won’t accept your wings. If you let anyone see them, they’ll catch you and turn you into the authorities, where other scientists will get their grubby little hands on you and perform far worse and merciless experiments than I ever had. Face it, Dew, you know you belong here.

“And if you don’t accept that, I could make you want to stay here. I can control your mind, Dew. I can control your thoughts, your desires and dreams. I could make you yearn for experiments. But I don’t. Because I want you to come to trust me naturally. I want you to choose to be loyal to me.”

“And I thought…” Anton laughed. “I thought you were doing so good, too. We had fun together, didn’t we? I thought we were making progress.”

Anton didn’t want to say the next part, but it might be the only thing he could say to finally convince him. “If you try to escape again, I’ll hurt your friends. And I know you know I’m capable of it. I could erase their memories of you, destroy any evidence of you ever existing in the outside world. There are so many things I can do to make you stay here, but I’m going to continue to give you a choice. I don’t want to resort to those measures, Dew. I want us to trust each other.”

Dew stared blankly. So there was really nothing he could do now. All hope was lost. He’d rather endure an eternity of horrible pain than see his friends get hurt because of him. He had truly lost everything. This was his life now. Of course it was, rang a little voice in the back of his head he had tried to ignore for so long. It had always been, from the start.

Anton shut off the device, and Dew was in control of his body again. He collapsed to the ground and brought his knees to his chest.

“...Will you still let me fly?” Dew asked, quiet and broken.

“Of… Of course,” Anton said. “I won’t ever hurt your wings.”

“Okay.”

“As for Sasha… of course I’ll tell them you’re back. When the time is right. You’re both friends… after all. It wouldn’t be right to separate you.”

“Thank you.”

“No problem.”

“I’m thirsty.”

Anton held his hand out. “Let’s go to the lab and get something to drink, alright?”

“Okay.” Dew grabbed his hand and Anton pulled him up. They walked into the lab, Dew unrestrained but obedient. He stayed by Anton’s side as he filled up a glass of water, and Dew slowly drank it.

“Now, Dewey, I wanted to say I’m proud of you for coming back so nicely last night.” Anton smiled brightly, the praise making Dew’s stomach turn. “But… I still have to punish you for escaping. There’s an experiment I’ve been wanting to do for a while and— hey, don’t worry. It’ll benefit you too, y’know. You just sit tight while I start preparing it.” Anton ruffled his hair, ignoring the tears forming in his eyes.

Dew couldn’t do anything but nod along, numbly watching Anton gather his clipboard and tape recorder. Another experiment? Really? After everything that had happened, Anton just wanted things to go back to normal? Dew felt sick to his stomach.

He should have ran. He should have fought back. He should have murdered Anton too, with that knife, when he could. He should have called out to his friends, screamed for help that wouldn’t have come. He should have gotten away when he had the chance. But instead, he fucking complied. What was he thinking?

The scientist wanted acceptance? Okay, sure! Dew would accept this life. He’d be his test subject. He’d stay here in this lab with that monster, but he’d do everything in his power to make the scientist’s life a living hell in the process.

Dew grabbed a random vial of liquid from a shelf and drank it.

“Dew!” Anton exclaimed, dropping everything and rushing over to him. “What the hell?!”

Dew flinched. “I– I just—”

“Shut up.” Anton picked up the vial his test subject had just drank, and rolled it over in his hands, reading the label. In a split second, Anton’s horrified expression warped into one of concern, then surprise.

“You just— Oh man. I um, I forgot all about this stuff. You just drank something I created a very, very long time ago. It’s supposed to, um, make whoever drinks it extremely happy. Like, ecstatic.” Anton laughed, and to Dew’s horror, he laughed back.

“What?!”

“Remember that first round of experiments I ever did on you? This was the stuff that made you unable to stop laughing.”

“Ser- seriously?! This isn't funny! This isn’t— hahahaha— fucking funny!”

“Why did you do that?” Anton asked.

“I– F-fuck you! Fuck you!”

“No, seriously Dew, why the hell did you do that?”

Dew giggled, almost painfully. “Make this stop!”

“Why did you drink something when you didn’t even know what it was? I have dangerous and deadly things all around my lab, if it was something else, it could’ve killed you. Surely you knew that.” As Dew continued laughing maniacally, Anton’s eyes went wide in horror. “Is… is that what you wanted?”

“No!” Dew cackled. “I don’t want to fucking die, Anton! I want to make every single little thing harder for you if I really am going to be your test subject forever.” He laughed, tears forming in his eyes. “Because– because the experiments are just gonna get worse from here on out right? If I cause problems for you then– then it delays whatever fucked up thing you’re gonna do to me. Because nothing I do to myself could be worse than the shit you have planned for me, I know that.”

“No, Dew, look at me.” Anton grabbed Dew’s arm and pulled him closer, making eye contact. “You don’t know that. And you just told me your whole stupid plan. I can easily stop you from doing any of that. I could keep you sedated permanently, keep you docile and relaxed and completely defenseless. You don’t want that, do you?”

“Fuck— hahaha— you! You would've found out my plans anyway!” He spat. “Just like all the other times! No matter what I do, you always win! If hurting myself is what it takes to get you to open your fucking eyes, that’s what I’ll do!”

Anton never should have played their game. He never should have let Dew leave, if he knew this was going to happen. He had ruined everything. “Stop this.”

“You made me like this!” Dew roared with laughter. “I was– I was happy before. W-with my friends! You took everything away from me, Anton! You ruined my life!”

The worst part was, everything Dew was saying was true. And Anton knew that. But he wasn’t going to admit it. “I didn't ruin your life, Dew. You’re still alive and your life here is just beginning. You’ll come to see that eventually.”

“I’m tired of listening to you, just m-make this stop!”

“I don’t have the antidote. We’ll have to wait until it wears off on its own.”

“Damn. This sucks!”

“C’mon, Dew, let’s… let’s go back to your room.”

Dew slapped his hand away. “No! No, I–I can’t go back there again! Not yet! It’s suffocating—”

“Okay, okay, fine. We can sit out here. Just don’t touch anything else.”

Dew hopped up into the air, flapping his wings rapidly. He curled up in a ball, and focused on his wings beating into the air around him. “Talking makes me laugh less. I need to keep talking,” he said.

“Okay,” Anton said, sitting down in his spinny chair. “You can talk to me about whatever you want, about anything.”

“Okay… Anything. Anything… I-I…” Dew choked back a sob. “I can’t stop thinking about it, I can’t get it out of my head.”

“What?”

“What I– what I did! The screams, the blood, it- it was horrible— and- and it… it was me! My clone! And- and he did everything I was too much of a coward to do. He– he lived a better life than me.” Dew giggled painfully. “And I just ended it… just like that… How do you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Live with– with hurting people? Don’t you feel remorse? How can you even- even live with the guilt weighing on you like this? It’s torture!”

“I guess I… Never had to worry about that. I’ve lived here all my life with Pierce and his test subjects, and I guess he just taught me not to feel guilty. It was just a fact of life for us. I didn’t know any better.”

“That sucks. What a freak. I wish—”

“Dew, let’s not talk about him right now, okay?”

“...Okay.” Dew wanted to keep talking, though. “My wings are getting tired.”

“You can touch the floor.”

“Sweet.” Dew stopped flying and collapsed on the hard tiles, laying flat on his stomach while his wings covered him like a weighted blanket.

“I cannot believe this is my life now.” Dew giggled into the floor.

Anton felt relief mixed with sadness. He should feel good about this. He won.

Dew sat up, criss crossed on the smooth tile floor, and stared up at the scientist with a grin on his face and tears streaming down his cheeks. “I’m sorry, A-Anton. I shouldn’t have drank that. I just didn’t wanna be experimented on. I won’t do it again. Please don’t wipe my brain.”

Anton sighed. “I won’t, I promise. And I wasn’t actually going to conduct that experiment today, I was just gonna talk about it. But I think we both needed a break.”

“I think that experiment will be shit. I don’t want you to do it.”

“You don’t even know what it’ll be yet…”

“I guess not.”

“Y’know, Dew… You don’t have to be scared of me. You don’t even have to hate me. We could start over, work together. …Become friends.”

Dew snorted. “I think it’s a little too late for that. Nothing will be normal after what I did, after everything you put me through.”

“...I suppose not.”

“Hey, why’d you even make that stupid laughing stuff an-anyway?”

“It’s not– I didn't think it was stupid, at the time.” Anton sighed. “It wasn’t for me. I wanted to see if there was a way to just, uh, take away someone’s… bad feelings completely.”

“Pfft. You couldn’t just get them antidepressants? Or therapy? Or– or better yet! Set them free?”

“It wasn’t like that, and that wouldn’t have helped. I… I needed something that could have an immediate effect. Something they could drink that would make them feel better, happy, completely ease their pain and mental anguish in the moment. Something that could make them never feel sadness ever again. I thought it would help. As you can see, it backfired.”

“Help who? Help what?”

“That doesn’t matter. I was young and… didn’t have my priorities straight.”

“You said you’d answer my questions!” Dew exclaimed.

Anton rolled his eyes. “These questions have nothing to do with you.”

“Well I’m not fucking happy, Anton. It’s painful as hell. It’s like it’s stealing all the air from my lungs and forcing me to laugh, and stretching my skin to make me smile. And yet I can’t seem to feel upset about it. I feel elated. It’s fucking horrible.”

“I know, they said the same thing.”

“Who?!”

Anton changed the subject. “In any case, I’m glad you drank that instead of… something else. Thankfully this won't have any negative side effects.”

“Well when the hell will it wear off?”

“I don’t know… A few hours?”

“A– a few hours?! Hahaha. I can’t do this anymore!” Dew collapsed to the floor, crying and sobbing in a ball.

“For what it's worth, I really am sorry,” Anton said, voice so soft and genuine. Dew didn’t trust that for a moment, but just hearing him utter those words had affected him more than he would’ve liked. He looked up at his captor. Dew just wanted it all to be over, he just wanted the pain to stop. If this really was the rest of his life now, he’d have to make the most of it. He didn’t have any other choice.

“Can I—” Dew hiccuped, futilely attempting to wipe his never ending tears. “Can I have a hug?”

Anton looked surprised for just a moment. That wasn’t what he’d been expecting at all. “You’re not gonna… stab me in the back during it, are you?” Anton joked.

Dew laughed. “No, I don’t have a knife.”

“Yeah, then um, sure.” Dew ran to him and wrapped his arms around Anton, gripping his lab coat and crying into the scientist’s chest. Anton held him, slowly petting his hair and rocking back and forth. What a long fucking day.

They were all each other had now, all each other had always had. Alone in the world, nothing but the lab. Anton tightened his arms around him and buried his face into Dew’s shoulder. Sitting there like that would’ve felt nice, if it weren’t for Dew’s body uncontrollably trembling and silently laughing and Anton’s intense sense of guilt that never seems to go away anymore.

Dew was the one to break the hug, and take a shaky step back. He smiled even though it hurt, and laughed despite it feeling like a burning fire in his lungs. He was so tired. He stared at Anton as he walked backwards and scurried up to his room, slamming the door shut behind him. From the lab, Anton watched his test subject leap under his bed and pull the blankets and plushie underneath with him. Dew put on his headphones and curled up in a ball.

Anton turned Dew’s light off, and began to clean up the birthday decorations that they both had forgotten all about.

—

i laugh when i’m nervous (sorry for taking literally 2 months to finish this omg i feel so bad y’all!!! tllr will hopefully return to bimonthly updates after this!! i hope!) (also idk i struggled with this a lot and i’m gonna be real y’all i feel like it didn’t turn out very good… the next ones will be better though i prommy! yippee!!)

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