There'll be peace when you are done

[metalicarus]

It had been so small and subtle at first, that he hadn't even noticed it for what it was. Whispers at the back of his mind were chalked up to too little sleep, spikes in irritation and anger were normal for him and anything more than that was just stress.

They were fighting a losing war after all.

It was when his irritation spread for no reason to his own family that he began to notice. People rubbed each other the wrong way, especially families, but it wasn't normal to want to bite their heads off for using a tone or a phrasing or even a look he didn't like; maybe years ago when they were just starting as a group and every little thing set him off, but he'd mellowed out, that wasn't him anymore. Except, the last couple weeks, it had been.

Still, he ignored it and decided to suck up his pride and ask for a couple days to himself. It probably told anyone who knew him there was something wrong: Jet Link didn't like pulling out of a fight and he certainly didn't pull himself out of one. But he evaded any questions and decided just some rest would help.

But those whispers became more insistent and clamored to be heard now that he'd taken his concentration away from the things around him and they were something far worse than stress.

There'd been stories, warnings, of what to look for in someone who might be changing, but he'd never thought to look at himself. What the hell was a cyborg somnua anyway? But they were there and it was the only context that made sense for what was happening to him.

At first, he was just angry. Why him? He was busy fighting, no they weren't doing well, but they were trying and that was what mattered. Why couldn't he just pull it together, it was ridiculous, there were people who needed him, he couldn't just lose it now.

He sat where he was, watching Albert move around and do things, completely unaware of what was going on in the blond's head; how there was an insistent whisper promising that things would be easier if everything just died, that maybe he should just use his accelerator and snap the German's neck. It be easy and there'd be no pain, not like the pain of losing this war. That was when the anger turned to fear. Terror. Jet was losing two wars.

He almost said something then, almost spoke up and told his partner everything, how he was afraid that there was something seriously wrong with him, but he held back. He knew Albert too well: if he said something, the older cyborg would insist that they go see Gilmore together and not leave Jet's side until they could figure something out and he would insist they would figure something out.

But if they couldn't? Jet would twist and change and succumb until he was some monster bent on killing and destruction and the first thing it would find would be the silver haired man too loyal for his own good. And then he'd be put into a position Jet couldn't bear to throw on him because he knew how much it would hurt if it was reversed: there would be a dangerous creature threatening the Foundation and Albert would be in the best position to put it down.

Jet was terrified. Not of dying, he'd done that twice already, but of changing. Turning into a somnua was worse than death, it was losing himself and if he was something willing to kill everyone he loved then he would rather be put down.

But scared as he was, he was a fighter, he was never one to lay down and let life tell him what to do and he wasn't going to do it now. He spent that night doing everything he could for Albert and even insisted on spending some time where they didn't do anything but hold each other until Albert fell asleep.

He thanked God Albert was a heavier sleeper than the American was and disentangled himself from his partner, planting a brief kiss on the side of his head before he grabbed a coat and left, taking to the skies in the hopes he'd be fast enough.

Although, he didn't know what he was hoping to be fast enough for, there wasn't a cure waiting for him at the Gilmore Foundation, but he didn't know where else to go. It occurred to him as he went that he was breaking his promise all over again: he was flying off to die and Albert wouldn't be with him when it happened. But he just couldn't. In Jet's mind, they were supposed to go down back-to-back in a fight or even on a suicide mission to blow something up or whatever, not in some screwed up scenario where he'd 'died' and the thing left behind killed the man he loved, that wasn't going to happen. So he pushed his jets harder.

He entered the foundation through the garage access, figuring there'd be fewer people to see him and worked his way up to ops from there. He didn't get far. Floor B1 and something thrummed in his head and shot from there through the rest of him. He heard more than felt his knees hit the floor and his hands rise to his head as though he could hold his mind together that way. But it didn't matter.

Everything went cold and then numb as did his brain and he couldn't see or think or hear, there was just nothing. And then there was anger. Everything was anger and fire and hate sewn together with that fear it had been holding onto. All it knew was that anger and helplessness and how nothing it could do would change anything so maybe it should just destroy everything, that would make the fear and pain stop.

So it did what it did best: it lashed out.

Comments

[silberfuchs]

Albert sees the spray of red before he feels the pain of it, coughing a splatter on the limb of the monster's attached to the spike. It's funny, even after the world went to hell, he didn't think he'd go down like this. He'd survived so many wars, so much of what life could send to squash him. The irony of it is that when he'd wanted to die he'd been made to live and now that he wants to live...

It's difficult to move, pain racing all through him like current in the wires. Maybe that too; he can smell the acrid scent of burnt chemicals mingled with the overpowering copper tang of synthetic hemoglobin and plasma. His coat and pants are already soaking it up like a sponge.

Even so, he manages to haltingly pull his knee up, curling around the blade still protruding through his belly. He'll have to do it after all and he hates himself for it but at least there's one little saving grace.

At least he'll go out with whatever's left in there of his partner.

With a grunt of pain through clenched teeth, Albert fires a missile directly into the somnua's chest at near point blank.

[metalicarus]

There's dust and smoke and scorch marks on the parts of the floors and walls that aren't turned to rubble and the only sound that rivals that of the explosion are the screams from the somnua. There was fire and shrapnel and it wasn't fast enough, it was all too close to miss and it viciously tore through the creature's chest.

The blade is retracted, leaving Albert to fall where he will as the somnua collapses and writhes on the floor. It couldn't heal itself, it couldn't move, it was going to die. It was dying right now. This wasn't how it was supposed to go, it wasn't done, it still had to...to--

The transition is slow at first, the creature going still and silent and it's inhuman aspects shrinking into it's body as what passed for its skin began to grow pale, but then it picked up pace and grew into something human with blond hair, blue eyes still the same but now closed.

The only sign of what he'd been was the large, deep, gash in his chest accompanied by lacerations across his stomach and arms and face. Had he not been next to indestructible when the missile had hit, there wouldn't have been much left of him at all.

He didn't stir, there was no flutter to his eyelashes, only a faint movement in his damaged chest marked his continued breathing and the fact his heart was too stubborn to stop beating just yet.

[silberfuchs]

The explosion rips through the hall and everything's silent to Albert's ears, everything but a high pitched ringing that wobbles in pitch briefly as he detachedly realizes his knees hit the floor. He can't feel them. That's normal, his knees are metal. But he doesn't feel it as his shoulder impacts with the floor either, the cyborg crumpling bonelessly on the concrete, still in ringing, ringing silence.

The picture of death, blood and oil streaking his face and clothes and scarf, Albert nonetheless claws his way towards the prone body at the other end of the hall. His left arm, the mostly flesh arm, stays crossed tightly across his stomach as he tugs himself forward with just his right, keeping his organs - synthetic and natural alike - from spilling in a grisly trail as he moves. It occurs that he's probably only still alive right now because of his cybernetics but for once he doesn't have time to be conflicted over his feeling of gratitude. He just has one thing in mind.

Even if his partner's shredded and bleeding form seems so very far away and the world is still silent and blurry. He keeps dragging, grunting with the effort, until he's close enough to just barely touch Jet's arm with his fingertips.

[metalicarus]

Everything seemed to have slowed down as Jet clawed his way through the inky darkness back into conciousness. First was his hearing, not fully there for the ringing in his ears, but it was better than total silence and the ringing was beginning to fade. He became aware of the taste of blood and oils and other fluids that kept him going in his mouth--why was that there? What was going on?

There seemed to be lead lacing his eyelids as he forced his eyes open and for one moment he was unable to see anything around him; the bright red and yellow warnings flashed their symbols and assessments of just how damaged he was in his eyes. It didn't look good at all.

He blinked, forcing all of the screaming warnings out of his vision and back to the sides. Then he tried to sit up. And regretted it. Searing pain lanced through his chest and spread through the rest of him as his body finally decided to let his brain know about the damage the warnings had been indicating. The pain caused him to gasp, but his ruined lungs protested and he choked on the fluids still in his throat, forcing him to turn to his side slightly so the liquid had somewhere to go when violent coughs shook his frame.

It wasn't until he'd collapsed to his back again that his memory finally caught up with everything else. Flying to the Foundation, changing, the intern and secretary he'd torn apart, Albert...Albert who he'd--

Jet pushed through the pain and turned towards where the other man had been only to see him merely arms-length away and just as injured as Jet had feared. He'd done this. No, the somnua had, but it was Jet's knowledge of Albert's weak points that had caused the creature to attack.

"Albert-" the younger man forced his body to roll over enough to drag himself the rest of the way to his partner, his own shaky hand moving to cover the other man's wound as soon as he could as he settled next to him. It was pointless, he couldn't stop the bleeding, but this was exactly why he'd run, why he'd tried to keep away from the German, he had to try. "S-sorry....I wanted to protect you...."

[silberfuchs]

Apology and explanation are only half heard, Albert's ears having a hard time of adjusting after the explosion. Jet's right there, right next to him, and he can only hear things as if from a great distance and depth, voice muted and words difficult to process. He's not sure what he can say in answer regardless. Instead Albert reaches for Jet's other hand.

"You should have told me." He swallows, coughing flecks of blood and fluids to the concrete floor as his own lungs try to down him. "We could have... done something..."

It's a straw to grasp at, that's all it is. There's no cure, there's nothing they could have done short of a preemptive bullet to the brain, and he'd hesitated even fighting Jet as a monster. He's incapable of bringing harm to Jet as a man.

He clasps Jet's hand tightly in his own scuffed metallic fingers, strength from the hydraulics that control it and nothing else. He has none in his muscles now, he's too weak to even lift his head any longer, instead lowering his cheek to the floor but keeping his eyes on Jet, on the one spot of color still in his fading vision, focusing on that instead of the slick, heavy feel of his own organs against his other arm.

"I didn't want..." he rattles, choked and wet and unable to finish his sentence for lack of voice and presence of a lump in his throat.

And his eyes never leave Jet's face.

[metalicarus]

No there wasn't, nothing short of a mercy killing and he knew Albert knew that, but if he'd thought the German capable of killing him when he asked, Jet would have done that first. He would have preferred just asking instead of forcing.

He didn't mention any of this, there wasn't a point anymore , just wasted breath on deafened ears. Besides, neither of them had been the greatest with words, Jet even less so. Why try now?

His hand curled with the one holding it and he moved the other so he could use it to pull them closer together. Gently, he rested his forehead against his partner's and clutched at Albert's shoulder as though his grip could keep them there a little longer.

All they could do now was wait for death to claim them once and for all; no one would get there in time. After everything they'd done, nearly a century at each other's backs, he wouldn't have guessed this would be it. But if he was honest, the fact they were there together...he'd take it.

[silberfuchs]

Feeling Jet's forehead against his makes Albert still, fingers woven with the other cyborg's and eyes blinking rapidly for the blood and sweat and tears and whatever else is running in his eyes. Fluid still pools in his lungs but his breathing still calms, he stops fighting it. There's nothing left to fight, not anymore.

It's freeing, in a way.

A sense of peace steals over Albert and his body relaxes, slumped against the rubble all around and his partner beside him, forehead's touching and fingers remaining entwined even as the last spark of life fades from his faraway silver gaze.

At least they don't have to die alone.