Between Angels and Insects: Chapter 3

“How are you feeling, my boy?” Hojo's cackle somewhat startled Nero, who hadn't realized he'd fallen asleep until he'd been woken up by it.

“Vapid.” The sable responded flatly, opening his eyes just to narrow them at the scientist, watching the scrawny man as he shuffled around the room gathering what he needed, then came back and hooked his bony fingers into the front of Nero's bandaging, pulling it enough to see the wound beneath.

“Now, now, don't be that way. You know you're in good hands, this used to be a medical facility after all.”

“Before you turned it into a den of monsters, that is.”

“What was that?”

“Can we just get this over with? I have work to do.” Nero rolled onto his back and tried to look as cooperative as possible, despite the growing desire to have his darkness pull the scientist apart… the only thing stopping him was Weiss' orders. Something about the man freaked him out.

“Oh but of course.” Hojo had a laugh that made Nero's skin crawl… but at least he was pulling on those latex gloves like he was finished wasting time with preamble chat.

The man vanished from Nero's line of sight and rolled a metal cart over to his table, fixing the white mask over his face and searching for what the Tsviet was certain to be an unnecessary amount of time, just to pull out an empty syringe and a bottle filled with swirling, noxious looking mako. Hojo was a fan of the theatrical.. Nero knew from experience the less he reacted to the man's behavior, the faster he'd get what he wanted and allow the raven to leave. Still, seeing that mako fill the syringe as Hojo slowly pulled back on the plunger never gave him a good feeling… usually something like trepidation. None of the Tsviets had terribly pleasant memories of the stuff, even if they had lived here their whole lives… but they were soldiers of Deepground, trained with torture worse than a little infusion here and there.. so they would grit their teeth and say nothing to give Hojo the satisfaction.

“Let's begin.”

The needlepoint sank into the soft, pale flesh between two of Nero's winding black and purple tattoos, just above where he'd been stabbed. At first there was nothing, but with every CC of mako entering his body, the poison became fire and burned throughout his stomach, following the path his heart was pumping it until it had reached every corner of his body and left him shaking. Nero opened his mouth, pulling his lips back over sharp fang like teeth and his pupils shrank to pinpoints. Hojo took the chance to slip something hard and leathery into his mouth, so when the following pressure to his wound took him by surprise, those pointed teeth sank into the object instead of into his own tongue or lips. Nero bit hard; using it to try and distract himself from whatever the mako was doing to his system. The Darkness in him was moving too, chasing the mako like it intended to destroy whatever was hurting its host… like it could overtake the mako and convert it into more darkness.

While the mako and the Darkness played cat and mouse in his veins, Nero wasn't actually aware of Hojo, who had paused to trace his fingers slowly down across the Tsviet's convulsing ribs, watching the flesh jump and twitch over the wiry but strong frame. He wasn't just watching Nero's body though.. he was watching the markings on the boy's skin. Of course they weren't actual brandings or tattoos at all… more like bruising, like the darkness in Nero's body was visible beneath the boy's almost translucent skin. This meant that times like now, when the Darkness was reacting to an intrusion, the markings were shifting and tangling themselves, merging and forming new patterns in a morbid kaleidoscopic dance. Hojo didn't care for the beauty of it, he cared that it was a sign of power.. of a successful experiment… Nero was a completed art piece… now if only he were as independent as Weiss was- but instead he had to be so steadfastly connected to his brother, so stubbornly loyal that he was nearly useless on his own.

“…Pity.” Hojo purred, his fingers barely a tickle across Nero's hip and then across his arm, touching the nails where the Darkness had permanently stained them black, “You have so much promise…. I wonder…”

Hojo moved again, barely a mumbling shadow in Nero's sight anyway, and came back with a new object. Nero could see that it was small and square, and that it was shiny with some sort of barb on one side, but that was all.

“What…” he tried to question.

“Oh hush, hush hush…” Hojo cooed back, “Don't start fussing now Nero. If this works, it will provide a great deal of valuable data to Shinra… if it doesn't, don't worry, I can probably extract it again before it causes too much damage to your body.”

Yes because that sounded so reassuring…

Nero was about to explain to Hojo the exact size and shape of the object Hojo could find a hole on himself to inject into, but the scientist had pushed the small object directly into the hole on Nero's stomach, the barbs on it puncturing something inside and the Tsviet threw back his head….

This time when he awoke, he was…. For lack of a better word…. Comfortable.

He knew by the scent and the temperature that it was his own room… he knew by the feel of the soft sheets and blanket under him and the way the pillows were shaped. He knew by the level of light before he'd even opened his eyes…

Nero kept his room at a very specific temperature, somewhere just a little bit cold but warmer than the rest of Deepground often was. His pillows were shaped longer than they were wide, because he usually just grabbed a hold of them with his arms instead of using them for his head… and his room was the only one of the Tsviets with no lighting whatsoever. Pitch black at all times, Nero's internal clock kept him on time for everything, and the lack of light in the room kept his Darkness happy and alert. He was safer in the dark… unseen, but always seeing.

Besides that, his wounds had sealed while he'd been out and the mako was down to an ignorable tingle in his skin, a phantom itch like syndrome the Tsviets were used to by now. The only trouble was that it didn't reach that level until a few days after injection- so how long had Nero been out exactly?

The raven puffed a sigh and sat up to find that not only was he healed… he was washed, dressed in his sleeping pants and his hair had been recently brushed. Paranoid, Nero propped up his knee and pressed his face into the fabric there, searching for the scent of whomever had touched him so intimately…

To his ultimate relief, it was Weiss' scent on him and not Hojo's…

Feeling better than he had in a week, Nero slipped out of bed and stretched, feeling the Darkness brushing greetings over his subconscious and the tense knots in his muscles from inactivity loosening up. He still didn't have his wings in… but that was fine, they were probably still in repair- he'd pick them up later.

Nero was just about to decide if he should eat or find his brother first when the decision was made for him.

He heard the code pressed into the keypad on the door seconds before it slid up and someone stepped in. The light was behind him so Nero couldn't make him out all that well, but he didn't need to. Just by the silhouette and the very way he stood he knew this person as well as he knew himself.

“Brother-“

“Nero.. you're up already?” Nero felt Weiss cross the room, knowing full well his brother had memorized the interior by now and would have no trouble navigating in the dark. When warm hands rested on his narrow shoulders, Nero sighed pleasantly, “how are you feeling?”

“Well enough to carry out whatever orders you may have for me, Weiss.” Nero responded automatically, and a chuckle sounded from close to his face, close enough for breath to skirt over his cheek.

“I should have expected such an answer… sit down, Nero.”

He did, almost before the request had finished leaving his brother's lips. Nero was happy- or as happy as he was currently able to get, and that made his Darkness buoyant and wispy around their feet. Nero felt the bed dip under his brother's weight, and simply waited expectantly for any instruction or unspoken hint as to what would come next. He loved being in the dark with Weiss… unpredictable… controlling and quick Weiss…

Once the Emperor was comfortable, a brush touched the back of Nero's head and he closed his eyes responsively, letting his brother comb out the long, thick black hair for him until it became a wave of dark silk trickling across his shoulders. They said nothing for a long time… there was nothing that needed to be said, and the two brothers' weren't the sort to fill silence with unnecessary words. They preferred the quiet, a little bit of peace between them before they'd have to return to the chaos of Deepground and the somewhat louder Tsviets, accompanied by the ring of steel on steel or bullets fired into targets in the training rooms… sometimes even the screams of the disobedient.

When Weiss set the brush aside and laid down on his back, Nero followed without the request being verbalized.

They both lay in the darkness, the side of their heads and their shoulders touching but nothing else, and stared at a ceiling they couldn't actually see. They could feel each other's body heat, smell the scents from each other's hair- currently overlaying in places where black merged with white-, and hear soft breathing alongside steady heartbeats.

“Lord Weiss!?” Azul's booming request was loud even in Nero's room, which was a good distance from any of the other rooms or halls, and both of the boys on the bed gave matching sighs.

“There will be time for this when Deepground belongs to us.” Weiss mused, but when he sat up, Nero felt part of himself go with his brother and leave him empty… like always…

“I suppose.”

“Don't be bitter.” Weiss chuckled faintly, “get up… join us out in the Throne Room and we'll see what Azul's griping about.”

“I will dress and meet you, Brother.” Nero promised, turning his head to wait as Weiss made his way to the door, and caught a passing glimpse of his smirk as the man stepped back out into the light and left him in darkness again.

“…Deepground will be yours.” Nero mumbled to no one in particular, “You will be the Emperor in the end… even if it kills me, I will fulfill your dream, Brother.”