#spending too much time chewing your own vomit narrows your view until you can only be selfish

[whetstonefires]

I think a part of the reason I feel so connected to JGY and XY is that I, too, think everyone is lying about what a good person they are. Sure, there may be a few genuinely good people, but those are in the minority and never claim the title.

I don't know about never; some people are pretty straightforward.

And in some ways the whole point of the concept of 'a good person' is that the feeling of losing the right to consider yourself one can impose instinctive recoil from doing wrong, in situations where you don't have the leisure of working your way through an ethics diagram and choosing the logically moral path before reacting to a situation. It has practical utility.

But that system can backfire pretty horribly too, in a lot of ways. It can be hijacked by definitions of 'good' that actually make you recoil from ethical acts because they're deviant. It can lead to disappearing up your own ass lmao.

And definitely the threshold for 'talking about how you're a good person' enough that it makes you suspect as either a) a liar or b) someone who values that self-image over objective reality and other people's wellbeing is. Not very high.

Jin Guangyao, ironically, is one of those people who's so performatively A Good Person in his public life that in retrospect it looks like a red flag. Which knowing this about himself in an ongoing fashion ofc just reinforces his own cynicism about everyone else lmao.

Even Lan Xichen, who I think he may see as a genuinely good person, he also sees as an easy mark who will reliably choose what is comfortable over what is 'right,' if you just structure the scenario to make that an easy choice that's easy for him to justify.

Xue Yang's bitterness is in many ways more exciting than Jin Guangyao's because he has a way more unusual relationship to reality, but it does share a lot of notes.

The role of deception in his psychology fascinates me because as far as I can tell he's as instinctively straightforward a person as Lan Wangji, albeit along quite different lines involving a total lack of impulse control, but has adopted 'deceit' as a weapon against the wicked world in the same way he has adopted 'murder.'

But when he feels someone is not merely lying but papering over bad behavior with principles they are not living up to he is livid.

People claiming to be better than him because they're 'good' when 'good' is a construct of privilege, is the underlying idea he's not equipped to articulate. Except he takes that and applies it to 'hitting me to interrupt my random murder of some guy who happened to be within arm's reach when I wanted to hurt someone.'

Which isn't like philosophically perfect, but the underlying problem he's actually reacting to is that he understands the social contract as a lie that has never protected him but seeks to control him, while protecting rich men it has no power to control.

Which it is fair to be mad about, but then his feeling is that since that's the nature of the world and all people, he is entitled to amass for himself the power to inflict hurt without consequences as much as he possibly can, and to use it against the vulnerable for fun, and no one is entitled to interfere.

Which brings him to a place where he is violently angry at anyone talking about trying to treat other people well as a value, because either they're a hypocrite and a liar or they threaten his entire system of rationalization for why he can be The Worst and still In The Right.

'Everyone is equally bad, actually' is like, an understandable take for anyone who's had cause to become embittered. Everyone is free to make whatever philosophical peace they can with the world and by and large there's no ethical weight to any such opinion, in itself.

But it's an ideological crutch people tend to wind up leaning on very heavily when they can't or don't want to take responsibility for their own behavior.

Which is an approach that Xue Yang, Jin Guangyao, and Su She all share, and which not only is shitty of them, it...traps them in a wheel of doubling down on their own worst impulses because rather than going 'that was bad and I shouldn't do it again' they've repeatedly invested all this energy into making what they did actually the correct thing, according to their interpretation of the context. Which means they're more likely to do it again.

(I think this is how Jin Guangyao became a serial killer, for example. He followed a doing-a-murder-impulse and then internally doubled down on how he had nothing to be ashamed of, so he was more likely to do it again, every time.

Wei Wuxian's strain of self-righteousness about his revenge was less...thorough than Jin Guangyao's, because he had the benefit of going after people on the opposite side of a war from him while Meng Yao's first known murder plot was against a shitty boss. But it probably didn't help him not try to solve army-shaped problems with mass murder, even after that stopped being allowed.)

If any of them had just like, zero moral sensibilities they would have created very different problems, and very possibly fewer of them. It's making a central goal of your operations 'self-vindication in your own internal narrative, created retroactively via reframing' rather than 'figuring out what I think I should do and trying to do that' that traps them in the self-reinforcing murder pissbaby vortex.

So if you look at it one way, these three villains are themselves perfect examples of how pursuit of the 'feeling of being good' (or at least 'not the bad guy') can make you worse.

Notably Wei Wuxian was also extremely sensitive to hypocrisy in his youth; it was the only part of Madam Yu's behavior he was ever shown objecting to. But he's sufficiently mellow and cynical from regret and burnout by the 'present' timespan after his resurrection to just get disgusted and alienated about it, rather than outraged.

He wasn't even all that mad at Xue Yang, though honestly that may be partly because he stopped entirely characterizing him as a person at some point during their interaction. Like, there's no point being angry at someone whose moral sensibilities operate exclusively on the plane of 'is this unfair to me' for manipulating and destroying people who were good to him, and then getting obsessed with his own self-pity about it. This is not a person who understands how not to be, metaphorically speaking, a cannibal.

And Wei Wuxian did know better and still got roughly the same result, so what business does he have getting angry?

Anyway yeah those two villains are both delightfully relatable if you sit down and put their perspectives together; they are clearly operating with the same basic suite of human needs and emotions as everybody else, without that being in itself particularly exculpatory, which is honestly refreshing. They've just got the most fantastically toxic interpersonal habits that knowing them counts as some level of Suffering A Curse.

Jin Guangyao and Xue Yang do both stand as scathing rebukes of the society that created them. But within the narrative, wherein they're people, the fact is that each of them had agency and one of the things they chose to do with it was develop rationales for why they were the most special little guy and everything was someone else's fault.

And their moral nihilisms, while also grounded in serious trauma, ping me as emotional masturbation of this variety.

#ask #hoc est meum #Anonymous #rambling about ethics and villains lol #this isn't an organized essay but it's the best i'm going to manage #wei wuxian #xue yang #jin guangyao #meta #mdzs #this is why wwx is not that invested in how the underlying machinations made his bad choices 'not his fault' btw #spending too much time chewing your own vomit narrows your view until you can only be selfish #jiang cheng is also somewhat trapped in the pissbaby vortex #but he did get deliberately stuck there by people who loved him (his mom and wwx mostly) #and he has much higher standards than the villains about who he takes it out on and how #and there is a non-zero chance he will claw his way out post-canon #which none of those three was ever going to do no matter how much time and paradigm shifting information you gave them #so i cut him more slack

[mushroomminded]

Bend Until You Break (Part 3)

Written by @fundeadasylum, illustrated by myself.

Warning for heavy violence, torture, and generally a bad time.

Part 1 Part 2

Back to square one. He was right back where he started when he first came to the Facility. Only this time he was weaker and exhausted and terrified of his own body. Milo had never experienced such a prolonged sense of fear. It clung with sticky tar fingers to his mind, jarring him awake in the middle of the night with muscle seizing terrors painted across the backs of his eyes. It made his breath short, his lungs cramped against the walls of his narrow ribcage, struggling to expand against the steel beams of panic wrapped around them. Food wouldn’t stay down because the idea of feeding whatever it is that’s inside him made him wretch. Worse still were the phantom sensations; the feeling that something was wriggling underneath his skin, twisting amidst muscle fibers and chewing on his already frayed nerves, like if he put a hand on his stomach he would feel it move. But he still wanted his hoodie back. Even if whatever was inside him came from his hoodie—his completely normal, definitely not cursed hoodie—he wanted it back. He’d had it for as long as he could remember. And it was his. Milo let out a choked whimper, pressing his hands over his eyes as he lay curled under the blanket on his cot, hiding from the cameras and other prying eyes. He wanted his hoodie back. He wanted to go home. He wanted to be safe and warm and loved. He wanted Dan to pick him up like he weighed nothing and spin him around in a bear hug. He wanted Jake fretting over him like an anxiety ridden mother hen. He wanted Cody telling him off for trying another harebrained scheme to get big views on his channel. He wanted normal. He wanted safe. He wanted his family. ——— If Milo thought the testing from before was intrusive, it was nothing on what they were putting him through now. They took sample after sample from him; from his skin, his saliva, his blood, and anything else they could get at short of cutting him open. They shoved cameras down his throat and into his stomach, leaving him raw and hoarse. They induced vomiting to see the contents of his stomach, then they fed him chemicals and made him do it again to see if anything had changed. He overhead Dr. Pearce talking to one of the nurses once, discussing how Mr. and Mrs. Sumney kept bothering the facility for their son back. Pearce had said something about forced government ownership and how there probably wasn’t anything human left, that it was just a thing wearing a teenage boy’s skin, and Milo had screamed. Just sat strapped in a chair with drugs in his veins and wires taped to his head and screamed at the indecency of it all until they’d muzzled him again.

“The rapid weight loss is becoming a concern,” Another doctor told Pearce as they checked Milo’s vitals. He was perched on the edge of an examination table, legs dangling in the air as he swayed dazedly from side to side. An occasional shudder would rattle down his thin frame, making him blink rapidly as he appeared to come back to himself for a few seconds before he would fade out again.

“He’s just not keeping food down and at this rate, we might lose him.” The doctor continued, not at all put off by the progressively sour expression on Pearce’s face, “I suggest we hold off on further testing until we can get his body at an acceptable and healthy weight. He’s obviously suffering trauma. He needs a chance to recover.”

“As much as I hate to push back our timetable, I have to agree with you,” Dr. Pearce shot a glance at Milo who looked ready to drop, his cheekbones sharp angles and his wrists pencil thin, “What’s left of the host is wasting away. Start him on a food plan and make sure he’s getting vitamins and nutrients. Provide psychological assistance at your discretion.” The woman’s fingers drummed across her clipboard, “The director is breathing down my neck about this project. It’s going to take a bit more convincing to get the board to favor our bid to keep the host as a government acquisition. This is our first chance at a supernatural breakthrough like we’ve never had before and I am not going to let it slip through our fingers.”

———

“Come on, come on, come on. Please.”

Milo’s voice was a breath across his own hands as he shivered under his blanket. He was laying sideways, curled on his cot, the blanket pulled over his head as he shakily worked on unlocking the phone he’d stolen days ago. He was surprised he still had it, that he’d managed to keep it a secret and no one had come looking for it. But then, rich people probably bought new phones all the time and the loss of one was no big deal.

Frustrated tears welled into Milo’s eyes, a soft hiccup shaking his thin frame. He had almost cracked the damn thing but kept falling short at the end and it was exhausting him. The hope he’d felt when he’d first stolen the device had all but fizzled out by now. He was beginning to think the battery would die before he could ever get it unlocked. Wiping tears from his eyes with one hand, Milo tried again to unlock the phone, praying with every ounce of himself that was left that this time, this time, it would work.

Someone must have been listening because in the next instant, Milo was blinking stupidly at the home screen. By the time his shocked brain had processed what was happening, the screen had dimmed in preparation to lock again. Milo scrambled, tapping frantically at the screen and paging through applications until he found what he was looking for.

He checked to make sure the phone was on silent and then opened the app. The logo lit his face up in bright blue and, for what seemed like the first time in months, Milo smiled.

———

“Open. Your mouth. Now.”

“Pry his jaws open, he’s not going to cooperate.”

“Stupid kid, does he want to starve to death?”

“Open your mouth!”

“Hey! Don’t touch me you—stop it! Leggo of m—AHGK!”

“Feeding tube in place. Dispense supplements.”

“Nutritional supplements incoming. Round one.”

“Clear. Dispense round two.”

“Round two is a go. Incoming.”

“Clear.”

———

His weight came back slowly and, as it did so, they started pushing him hard again.

They forced him onto a treadmill with a mask over his nose and mouth, and varied the strength of the oxygen being released to see what would happen. He passed out and twisted his ankle badly when the still running treadmill had shot him into the wall behind him.

Pearce was as cold and ruthless as ever. She’d stopped calling Milo by his name, only referring to him as “the host” on a good day. On a bad day, he was just “it”. Dehumanized and objectified, nothing but a smear on a glass slide to be studied until it could provide no more information. Every time she called him “it” his insides would turn icy and his breathing would pick up as he was forced to remember that stuff they had pulled out of him.

They hadn’t seen any of it since.

Though Milo was bracing for the day they stuck that huge needle back into stomach to see what they could find.

———

just keep fighting

we’re coming for you

i promise

———

Milo would have been suspicious if he hadn’t spent most of his time sleeping.

No one had come for him. The door never opened. No one tried to force him into that awful muzzle, no one tried to stick him full of needles, no one said a word to him. The most they’d done was escort him to the bathroom that morning but that was a short walk and no one had spoken. His food was delivered as always but there was nothing else.

The silence dragged on his ears, prickling against the back of his neck. But fretting about it only wore him out so he spent most of the day asleep.

He didn’t touch the phone he’d hidden inside his mattress. As much as he longed to spend all day on it, he knew they were still watching him and it would be obvious he was up to something if he spent all day underneath the blanket on his cot. So he paced his room, stretching out his sore muscles, sat cross-legged on the low table just to be spiteful, and eventually migrated back to the bed. He sat there for a while, humming to himself, staring off into space.

But the exhaustion lay thick and heavy on his bones and he ended up sleeping until his lunch was delivered.

Still nothing from outside his room. No tests, no science jargon, no Pearce looking at him like a rat in a maze. Nothing. Milo wanted to be suspicious, wanted to fret and worry and pace, wanted to try and figure out what was going on. But he was tired, so tired, and the sweet paradise of finally being left alone was too much to deny.

So he slept. And he dreamed of escape.

———

Milo knew better, he really did.

He knew that when they left him alone for an entire day, it was probably because they were planning something monstrously awful. But he’d been so damn tired, so exhausted and so taken with the thought of just sleeping, that he hadn’t really had time to think about it.

If he’d had, he may have had time to plan. Although, given his circumstances, even if he had, it would probably have been for naught.

The nurses had swarmed him early in the morning, dragging him out of bed before he’d even woken up. The blanket was ripped away and he was plucked off his cot before the lukewarm air of his room had sunk into his skin. By the time he’d blinked the sleep from his eyes and oriented himself as to what was going on, the nurses had hauled him halfway down the hall. They’d already passed the bathroom and the showers and showed no signs of slowing as they neared the halls that led to more unfriendly rooms.

“H-hey,” Milo’s voice croaked with the last vestiges of sleep, “Hey, what’s going on? What’s happening? D-did I do something wrong?” Milo wracked his brain as they pulled him down another hall, trying to think what he could have done that made Pearce break her oh so precious schedule. He didn’t pay attention to where they were going until the sharp stench of chemical cleaner burned into the back of his throat. He raised his head in time to see the nurses push open a set of double doors and into a large room that was dark except for the brilliant circle of lights in the center.

They did a fantastic job of lighting up the polished steel operating table.

It took mere seconds for Milo to register the tray of medical tools, the team of doctors with surgical gloves and masks, and the heavy straps on the table. The cold terror that flooded him made his muscles seize and his throat close up, his breath clogging in his lungs and his eyes wide. He looked petrified. But when the nurses lay him on the table, he jolted back to life with a panicked scream.

They weren’t ready for it and he bolted, slithering out of their startled grasps and running for the doors. Everything felt like too much and not enough in those brief moments of freedom; the hard floor underneath his bare feet was icy cold, the heavy shocks of his own footfalls sent ripples up his bone, he could feel his own breaths scraping his throat like sandpaper. The room stretched, narrowing into a single focus, a single point in all of existence—the double doors. The way out.

Of course, he was never going to make it.

A weakened teenager in a room full of healthy adults didn’t stand a chance.

Someone tackled him, arms wrapping around his waist and dragging him to the floor with a bang. Milo screamed and twisted around in his assailant’s grip until he was on his back. He kicked out ferociously and the heel of his foot smashed into the nurse’s nose. He felt something crunch and the man let him go with a yelp, hot blood splattering from the broken nose Milo had given him. Milo scrambled away, clawing across the sleek floor until he’d managed to get back to his feet and was running for the door again. He could hear their heavy footsteps behind and he pushed himself until his breath rattled and wheezed in his chest, stretching his hand out in desperation. His palm stung as it slammed into the door bar, sending him tripping over his feet into the brightly lit hallway. The overhead fluorescents dazzled his eyes as he bounced off the far wall and nearly fell over, panic shooting spikes of fear and adrenaline down his spine. So loud was the beating of his own heart in his ears that it almost drowned out the shouts of the pursuing staff, the white-out terror in his mind blinding his thoughts as he ran. He had no idea where he was going, no idea how to get out, no idea where to go. He only had the animal driven instinct to get out. A flash of yellow against the pale halls of the Facility caught his eye and Milo registered the words “Closed For Maintenance” on a wide plastic stand blocking another hallway. He didn’t even think, just launched himself past the sign, his shoulder clipping the edge and leaving a sting that quickly faded amidst his adrenaline rush. He smelled mortar dust and drywall, that metal-ozone tingle of power tools, saw the plastic sheeting draped from the ceiling, and tripped over a box of hammers and wrenches lying open in his path. He slammed into the floor, ears ringing with the impact of his head hitting the hard tile, momentarily stunning him. “Shit, is that a kid?” “The fuck—“ “Hey, kid, you okay?” Men in overalls and hardhats loomed over him and Milo whimpered, backpedaling frantically away from them. They were adults, they were strangers, and they were in the Facility—they were not to be trusted. The workers took several steps back, glancing at one another, and then they all turned to look back down the hall as shouts rang out from Milo’s pursuers. Milo didn’t wait for them to catch up. He’d spotted a likely escape route; an unblocked air vent next to a ladder, the covering hanging open, the metal interior looking more than inviting. Milo bolted for it, banging his shins on the steel steps of the ladder as he clambered up it. He had to jump to reach the air vent, not quite tall enough to reach it even from the top step of the ladder, and his leap caused the ladder to tip and fall over with a resounding crash. Milo’s fingers dug into the smooth metal of the vent as his bare feet kicked against the wall, trying to push himself in, trying to get away before— Hands closed around his ankles and gave a savage yank, dragging him out of the air vent, his fingers squealing across the unblemished metal as he screamed at the top of his lungs. They caught him as he came tumbling out of the wall, firm grips settling vice-like on his arms and legs, holding him in the air between a bustling group of nurses that carried him far too easily through the plastic sheeting. He screamed and cried and called for help, bucking against their hold, his back arching as he tried to pull away. There was a lot of shouting and angry voices, all of them smearing together around him, incomprehensible and terrifying. When they hauled him back into the surgical room, Milo’s fear was so much that he began to hyperventilate, dry heaving and coughing as he choked on his own saliva. The nurses and doctors paid him no heed, only using the distraction to fasten him to the cold metal table. Milo sobbed as they painfully tightened the straps across his body, the same way they had when they stuck that huge needle in his stomach. The coughing got worse as his panic escalated, tears blurring the bright lights into white starbursts. Bile and something sour and metallic clogged his throat, bubbling into his mouth and spilling over his lips. It felt sticky and suffocating, like glue clinging to the inside of his mouth. Milo thrashed, trying to breathe through the gummy slime and blood that frothed out of him. The shouts of the staff sounded far away as his vision darkened at the edges, the pinch of the needle in his arm a distant prod against his dulling senses, the taste of blood and rot over powering everything else. His eyelids fluttered, ice prickling through his veins, his mind going fuzzy as the world became indistinct and melted away from him. And then it was dark and it was quiet and Milo was gone.

———   the dull ache of a body in pain                                (his body?) muffled ping of sound, far away, constant                                                                (beep…beep…beep…beep)    something that might have been voices                (underwater?) floating, weightless, untouchable                                  (where…?) darkness ——— Milo woke up because he hurt. His eyelids fluttered but he closed them again when bright light seared across his vision. A soft, pained grunt made its way out of his mouth and it hurt. Everything hurt; his legs, his arms, his face, his head, all of it ached or twinged or pounded. But his chest…his chest burned. Milo whimpered, a weak sound that was barely a breath, and tried to move but it sent fire through his veins and nausea swimming through his system. His stomach heaved, which only caused him more pain, and he cried out, the scrape of sound in his throat like tiny needles tearing him up from the inside out. Even the prickle of tears heating up his eyes hurt like acid dripping into his skin. There was the all too familiar hiss of a hydraulic door opening and a set of hurried footsteps. A hiss of displeasure. Something clinked and jostled above him. Milo cracked his eyes open, looking through heavy lashes at a hazy figure beside him. Blinking a couple of times made his vision settle and he realized it was a nurse and she was busy with a bag of medicine on a pole. It took his sluggish brain a few minutes to put two and two together but when he did, it drew another pathetic whine out of him. The nurse glanced at him, met his pleading gaze, and looked away, still fussing with switch out the medical drips that fed who knew what into the needle in the back of Milo’s hand. “Please…” His voice was hoarse, cracked, weak and strangled as if he’d swallowed sandpaper. He wasn’t even sure what he was asking for, all he knew was that he was tired and he was hurt and he wanted someone to comfort him, “P-please…” The nurse cast one last glance at him and then turned away, walking back out the door and ignoring the broken cries that followed after her. ——— Milo drifted in and out of sleep. He was recovering from…something. Something bad. He couldn’t think of what. He couldn’t think much of anything with the drugs they were pumping into him.

They tended to him, were careful to keep him stable and alive and as put together as they could. But they wouldn’t comfort him. They wouldn’t ruffle his hair or pat his hand or tell him everything would be okay, that he was strong, that he was a fighter. The ache inside him was more than just physical.

———

He didn’t know how long it took him to recover. He barely remembered the time at all, only left with a vague sense of weightlessness, dulled pain, and harried voices.

Milo was still sore when he was finally aware of his surroundings, but it was a manageable soreness, the kind that came from the tail end of still healing injuries. His breathing was still shallow and excess movement hurt but he was awake and he was alive and that had to count for something.

He also woke up alone but he tried very hard not to think about that.

Once he recovered enough to register the tiny hospital-like room he was in, he’d switched to self assessment. All his limbs were still in place, two eyes, all his teeth, his tongue, and all the other important external bits. It was when he was running the palm of his hand down the front of his hospital gown that he realized something was wrong. His fingers were bumping over lines that weren’t there before, the light tingle of raw pain fresh against his mind as he touched his chest again. The beeping of the heart monitor increased.

Hands shaking, Milo gently pushed the blankets aside and curled his fingers around the hem of his gown. His breathing was loud in his ears, rasping over his dry throat as his heart beat a tattoo against his rib cage. Slowly, ever so slowly, he lifted the gown up, exposing the pale, trembling expanse of his legs, his narrow waist where his hipbones stuck out like handrails, his stomach that was only slightly less concave than it had been. And then—

Milo choked, his hands shaking so badly he could barely keep a hold of the edge of the gown.

There was a hint of stitches peeping cheekily out at him.

Just tear the bandaid off, just rip it off, it’s over faster if you just rip it off, come on, just look, just look, damn it, just LOOK—

Milo looked.

And he screamed.

———

The nurses and doctors who swarmed into his room at the noise and the alarms of the disconnected heart monitor found Milo in front of the shallow sink of the bathroom. He’d managed to drag his IV pole in with him, probably the only thing that had kept him on his shaking feet as he’d made his way into the side closet of a room, but his trembling hands were now gripping the edge of the basin so tightly his knuckles were white. His hospital gown was twisted around back to front, the ties on it hastily undone down to his waist. It hung off one shoulder, exposing the jutting line of his collarbone and the taut stretch of his neck, his freckles as faded and pale as the rest of him. But Milo’s eyes were snagged on the precise, even I-shaped scar across his abdomen. It crossed from just underneath one shoulder, over his sternum, and to the other shoulder, a line down his middle curving him perfectly in two, and curled over his stomach from hip to hip like an obscene belt. Medical staples pinched his separated skin together again, grotesque imitations of body piercings that stamped evenly around the incision, gleaming dully in the bright overhead lights. Milo’s gaze flickered to the reflections of the doctors in the bathroom mirror, “Wh…hn…wh-what dh-did you…gh…” He ducked his head towards the sink, exposing the prominent curve of his spine, his breathing heavy as he tried not to throw up, “What did you dh-do to m-me…?” “It would be best if you returned to your bed—“ One of the nurses began, reaching out to take his arm. Milo wrenched himself away, tripping backwards until he’s plastered himself against the wall between the sink and the toilet, chest heaving, his mutilated skin stretching against the staples holding him together. Panic glazed his eyes and his voice came out in a broken rasp, “What did you do to me!? WHAT DID YOU DO!? WHAT DID YOU DO!?”

——— They moved him back to his old room. And Milo made sure to give them hell. He refused to eat the food they gave him, going so far as to dump it on the floor and smear it on the walls, forcing them to clean it up while he sneered at them from behind his muzzle. Not because he wasn’t hungry—he was terribly, gut-wrenchingly hungry—but because he was too pissed and hurt to care anymore. When he wouldn’t eat, they stuck a drip in in his arm. He tore it out and left bloody splatters across the room. They stuck it in his hand and ripped that one out too, snapping at them when they rushed in to bandage him up. He left it alone when they put the drip into his neck, too afraid of what it could do to him if he took it out on his own. It made his blood boil to know they’d won that round. Sometimes he would scream for no reason, just sit on his bed and scream wordlessly until his voice cracked and broke. Other times he would remain quiet, staring at the ceiling or the wall, never saying a word or moving. There were a couple of times he purposefully tipped his IV pole over, crashing it against the floor, but the tug at the line in his neck spooked him too much to keep up that behavior. They still took him out for testing but were far gentler about it. They called him Subject 0-1A. No one said his name anymore. Dr. Pearce didn’t even bother with the brainwashing procedures now. When he’d snidely asked if she’d given up, she calmly informed him that Mr. and Mrs. Sumney no longer had any claims to him. He was the property of the Facility for the Exegesis of Abnormal Realities. The board and the director, she’d continued as he’d gaped at her in horror, had unanimously decided that whatever Subject 0-1B (his hoodie, apparently) was brewing inside Milo, it had the potential to be a dangerous threat and must be contained at all costs. He tried to bite her for that and it got him a swift punch in the jaw. ——— Milo’s chest was a constant state of pain. It throbbed dulling, scraping across his senses, always reminding him of what they’d done to him. Wearing the pajama shirt just made it worse, itching against raw and bruised skin. So he’d stopped putting it on, even though it turned his stomach to see the way his flesh was warped and twisted and bunched against the staples, the angry red of the vivisection lines traced delicately over his thin frame. The worst of it was that the doctors wouldn’t leave it alone. They would put him under and when he came to, he knew, he just knew, they’d pulled out all the staples and peeled back his skin and muscle and went poking around his insides again. It always left him tender and sore, left him feeling violated and disgusting and far less than human. It was a wonder this constant opening and closing of his chest cavity hadn’t killed him. But of course, they were very careful with him. Oh so careful to make sure he stayed alive. He did get sick, once. Horrifically so. His fever was so high he was delirious with heat, the cough rattling his ribcage like a windstorm. Black ooze and stinging stomach acid clawed up his throat and sent him wheezing for air, he couldn’t even keep water down, and anyone’s touch was like ice against his feverish skin. That week was full of misery and tears, soft linens and cool compresses, an unending sour taste and smears of purple-black that made Milo wretch all the harder when he saw them. When the sickness had passed, he was allowed a few days to recover before they started picking at him again. But they were less frequent about opening him up again. ——— Muscles seized in pain and tears were speckled across the uncomfortable pleather of the exam table.  Milo’s cries had long since petered out but he still made strangled, pathetic, hiccupping noises that were muffled by his muzzle. His arms were stretched out on either side of him, his raw and throbbing chest pressed into the table, strapped down securely so he couldn’t get away. Not that he’d get very far if he tried, not with the armed guards that followed him around these days. Sharp lances of stinging pain made him spasm and groan, pushing his forehead into the sweat and tear soaked table underneath him. The swipe of fabric over his aching right shoulder made him hiss. The buzz of the tattoo needle droned in his ears, steady and constant and awful. He didn’t need to see it to know what they were branding into his skin. 0-1A Nothing more than an object with its owners name written on it in permanent ink.

——— Milo could sense the tension building in the Facility. He didn’t know what it was causing it and no one really talked to him anymore. There were a lot of big words being tossed around, people in suits bustling around the pristine white corridors and hissing at one another. He watched them with narrowed eyes and they looked back at him in disgust. He flipped them off a couple of times and they looked suitably mortified. They all gave him a wide berth, regardless of the muzzle and the guards and his clearly weakened state. But one of them still yelped in fright when he rattled his IV pole at her. ——— He was puttying around his room, leaning heavily on his wheeled IV pole as he paced the perimeter, working off the stress of the day’s testing before bedtime. The hydraulic door opening made him jump and freeze in place, a shiver running down his spine as his brain instantly flashed to the worst possible scenarios. He’d done something wrong, he’d mad someone angry, they needed to redo a test, they needed to open him again, they needed to take his organs out and—

A man in a suit stood in the doorway, looking disgruntled and maybe not a little put off. He was flanked by two guards and Milo immediately bristled at the sight of them on principle alone. Milo’s grip on the IV pole tightened and he slowly inched closer, eyes narrowed, puffing heated breaths against the muzzle to make his agitation clear. The suit tensed but didn’t move.

“You’re being moved to a new location,” Said the man in a voice that made Milo want to punch him in the face, “You will cooperate or—“

A shout down the hall interrupted him and he and the guards turned to look. A look Milo didn’t understand flashed across the man’s features and he barked some orders at the guards. Milo slunk closer, clutching at the pole, suspicion prickling over his skin.

More shouting. The guards left the doorway, heading towards the left. A few moments later, the suit took off in the opposite direction.

He didn’t close the door.

Milo’s breath caught in his throat.

For a second, he swore he saw heavenly light shining on the open doorway, heard a choir of angels singing.

He stared at it.

Then he gritted his teeth and ran.

Running hurt, it jarred his bones and sank meathooks into his weary muscles, dragged his lungs and jarred his damaged chest with painful shocks. He wasn’t even sure if you could call what he was doing running, leaning as heavily as he was on the IV stand, tripping over his own feet, over the shaky wheels of the pole, rasping for breath through the muzzle still strapped to his face.

He didn’t know where he was going, he just knew he had to go.

It was a chance and he’d be a fool not to take it.

Then he rounded a corner and his blood ran cold because there were people clustered in the hall. Adults. In the Facility. He could pick out the guards and doctors, all of them shouting and gesturing. He thought he saw police officers. Or maybe army? Army wore camouflage, right?

Milo’s legs twitched. He wanted to turn and run the other way but something…something made him pause.

This wasn’t the usual hysteria of the Facility. This was different. Something crackled in the air, a spark, a flicker of something that might have been hope a long time ago.

He was still standing there, brow furrowed, when one of the doctors caught sight of him,

“Fuck! How did it—grab it! It’s out of its room!”

Milo backpedaled, ready to turn and run, but a furious roar made him freeze in terror. It was a sound of such rage and passion that it drove iron nails into his feet and made his knees lock. The bag hanging from the IV pole rattled as his hands shook.

A large shape suddenly exploded through the group of guards and doctors and law enforcement. It punched the doctor who had shouted in the face and knocked her to the floor with a snarl. Then the man looked up, looked down the hall, and saw Milo. Instantly, all the hard edges and angry angles melted out of his body, tears welled into his eyes, and he staggered on his feet, something like grief and happiness and horror all written across his features.

It took Milo far longer than he would ever admit to recognize who it was.

“Milo!”

Dan shouting his name—his real name—shattered him. Milo let out a cry that was swallowed by the stupid muzzle and launched himself forward, one hand on the IV pole and the other clawing desperately towards his dad. Dan ran to meet him, skidding across the tile floor on his knees when he drew near. The man hesitated, arms wide to wrap Milo up, but his eyes darted over the wretched staples on Milo’s narrow chest, over the fragile looking frame, and he hesitated.

Milo did not. He threw himself into Dan’s arms with a broken sob, pressing his muzzled face into the man’s chest, shaking fingers curled as tightly as possible into the soft fabric of Dan’s shirt. And Dan hugged him back. Warmth and safety wrapped around Milo and he sobbed, sagging in his dad’s arms, breath hitching, his legs nearly giving out from underneath him at such affection.

“Jake! Jake, it’s Milo! Jake! It’s him! We got him! We got him back! It’s him!” Dan was crying, his voice shaking, and Milo looked up to see—

Jake tripped his way through the crowd, his eyes wide, looking more drawn and tired than ever before. His chest hitched and he pressed a hand over his mouth. Milo whimpered and reached a hand over Dan’s shoulder. Jake broke. Tears flooded down his face and ran to join them, nearly toppling over when he dropped down beside Dan to hug the little boy still in the man’s arms. Jake’s shaky fingers ran through Milo’s hair, snagged on the muzzle, and he let out a wavering cry that was part anger and part pain and all parts love and grief and happiness.

Milo cried. He cried harder than he had his entire time in the Facility, grabbing at both men, afraid to let them go for even a second.

He felt fingers scrabbling at the back of his head and jerked in fight only to realize it was Dan, wrenching at the buckles with an almost inhuman strength. They snapped and Jake helped Dan pull the damned thing off, throwing it across the floor with a venom that Milo had never seen before.

“Milo!” Jake sounded like he was about to hyperventilate, breathing so hard and fast, tears streaming uncheck down his face. He cupped Milo’s face in his hands, the pads of his thumbs rubbing gently at the deep circles under the boy’s eyes, “Milo, my god, I thought you—we fought to get you back so hard and—if you hadn’t sent those messages—Milo, my brave boy, Milo! You’re so brave, Milo!” Jake’s words dissolved into gross sobbing and he clutched Milo to him, body shaking with emotion. Dan wrapped them both up in his arms, tears dampening Milo’s skin as he cried, rocking them back and forth.

Milo gasped through his tears, only on his feet because of the support of the people who had fought tooth and claw for him. He drew in a shaky, sniffling breath and said, “I knew you’d come for me. I—I knew you would. I miss—I missed you so much. Dad…d-daddy! Dh-d-dad!”

And he broke down into a fresh wave of tears.

———

Milo didn’t ask what happened.

He didn’t care. Didn’t want to know.

Even as Dan carried Milo out of the Facility in his arms, Jake clinging tightly to Milo’s hand, escorted by a dozen or so soldier, Milo didn’t care.

He didn’t care about the camera flashes and the news reporters shouting. He didn’t care about the cold autumn air that made him shiver as he curled against the warm chest of his dad. He didn’t care about his old hoodie, lost somewhere in the depths of the Facility. He didn’t care about how weak he felt or how tired he was or how every inch of him ached. He didn’t care about what had happened or what would happen.

They would cross those bridges when they got to them.

All Milo cared about in that moment was the smell of fresh, crisp, clean, unfiltered stale air. All he cared about was the bright and wonderful glow of sunlight and the way it danced over the shapes around him. All he cared about was the warmth and love and safety of the arms around him, of the hand in his, of the gentle reassurances and tender kisses and tear-filled smiles.

All Milo Pierly-Fuller cared about was that he was finally home.

#art tag #fics #bend until you break #bummers #mico #milo