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Minute feels sick. He really hates thinking about Spoke now—it just brings up too many memories—but his hand had been forced.
Spoke and his empire had wandered down to the end, Minute's end, and plundered it. And Minute hadn't expected that, not really, not when he thought he and Spoke had a decent relationship. At least, Minute hadn't done anything bad enough to warrant this. He would never hurt Spoke like that, not in a permanent way, not when he had a choice.
He didn't have a choice in the mafia. Spoke clearly had a choice here.
So for a couple of weeks he is sulking, wondering what he did wrong. Is Spoke just an inherently bad person? Or is there something more going on here? Is Minute clouded by his own self-reverence? He knows he can't get caught up in hero-worshiping himself, that will only cause him to overestimate himself and fall further, further down.
He needs to focus. What did he do?
And for a long time, he doesn't have an answer. As much as he tries to dig one up, it doesn't come, and his mind drifts to worse things—a hatred of Spoke, mainly. A bubbling, festering thing. Like a wound.
He tries to get rid of it. He knows that any emotions at all towards Spoke, positive or negative, were liable to be manipulated, either by Spoke or his enemies. The safest thing to do, for both him and Spoke, would be to keep a veneer of ignorance and carelessness until this all went away.
He busies himself with work.
It's a crisp "morning" in the end when he gets the news. From Egg, of all people, who got it from a contact he had with someone in the empire. Apparently, Spoke's people had all turned on him, led by someone called The Executive.
All of that bottled-up anger and carefully placed apathy is burned away in a gust of fire, replaced by slowly cooling sadness and pity.
Oh, Spoke. As much as people treat him like an adult, he's just a kid. He has schemes and little plans and they blow up in his face. He has his ride-or-die, his friend, Mapicc, the kind of friendship that only works for teenagers. He rebels against authority and gets put back in his place after it is all over.
He is in the unfortunate position of being in power, of course, of having a massive impact on the world, but even so, he shouldn't be punished for acting his age.
Thoughts of Spoke fill Minute's mind as he tries to continue with his daily routine. Spoke—killed by his own citizens, his body laying broken, a net of hundreds of gashes. Spoke—dead by BAT, an invisible soldier's hand clasping the collar of his shirt and dragging his body back to Jumper. Spoke—dead. Dead by a thousand hands, but still dead dead dead dead.
Minute's instincts flare up in the back of his mind, in the thick knot of muscles in the nape of his neck. He's making himself upset, he knows this. He should stop before he gets too deep in.
But his mind keeps going back and his instincts keep flaring, so sharply he can almost feel them beating against his conscious thoughts, trying to swallow him.
Minute is a voidling. His instincts are strong and oppressive. The void is a very dangerous place, and the things voidlings hold dear—their young, their sickly, their treasures—are easily lost to the expanse of it. Minute's first instincts when someone he loves is in danger is to grab them and clutch them to his chest, hold onto them, protect them. Forcibly, if necessary, because voidling kids are rambunctious and they don't always (or ever) know what is right for them.
Spoke is a voidling, too, which makes this so much harder. His instincts would be bad enough if he saw Spoke as just his kid (like his little brother), but his instincts are also very focused on keeping voidling young alive, and Spoke is certainly a voidling youth.
These instincts spread to Mapicc, as well, because Mapicc is Minute's kid, as far as his instincts are aware, and because Spoke clearly cares about Mapicc. The possessive, slinking voidling in Minute's mind doesn't want to make Spoke upset, and Spoke cares about Minute, and…
Minute cuts himself off, digging his fingernails into his palm. He can't go down this path. He can't.
These instincts are wrong, and he knows they are wrong. He knows they are evil and dangerous and horrible. He shouldn't want to take Spoke's freedom away. But instincts aren't like emotions in that you can accept them and let them flow through you. It was as difficult as trying to rebel against the very fabric you are made out of. Minute's body and mind is built of a foundation of these instincts, not the other way around—when Minute is stripped down to his barest parts the instincts are still there, omnipresent.
He can try to push them away but they will always slink back around to come at him from another angle. They foment his thoughts, slipping between the cracks unannounced. They are the very foundation of his worldview, his self-identity, his interface.
He can cerebralize and read all about his own instincts, and he can understand that they are dangerous and irrational, but that doesn't mean that 95% of him—the squishy, unknown parts, the unknowing flesh—doesn't fully believe what they tell him.
He manages to hold off for a rather long time, all things considered, as Egg continues to regale him with news of the surface—news that he didn't really like.
But there is a human limit to the stress that he can handle. Eventually, he reaches, and than surpasses, that limit, and something inside of him snaps.
"Egg?" He calls, once he is done with washing up the plates from his lunch.
Egg is, predictably, in the library, buried in a notebook, cross-checking something. Minute can't force himself to care about what he's doing.
He walks up to Egg, until he knows that the seraphim can see him at the top of his vision. When Egg doesn't acknowledge him, he presses the book down and out of Egg's vision.
"Can't you see I'm busy?" Egg asks, and Minute would indulge him, but there is something vibrating under his skin like a thousand bees. He needs Spoke and Mapicc like he needs water, like he needs food.
Motivation without action is anxiety. There is something awfully similar to fear (Minute hasn't felt true fear in a very very very long time, the return is uncomfortable) crawling up Minute's spine. He needs to do something. He needs to move. He needs to act.
"Do we have any books about demon-hybrid instincts?" He asks Egg, instead of ripping open the seraphim's wings and tearing at the flesh inside. His instincts are tunnel-visioning him—he needs to remember that Egg isn't the enemy.
(Who is the enemy? Spoke? His instincts don't like the idea that Spoke is just choosing to stay away from him. He resoutley tells his instincts that they don't understand any of the context.)
Egg blinks up at him, curious. It's clear from the way that his tone has changed, he has somewhat clocked the instinct shift. "Yeah. Why?"
"N-nether demon hybrids" Minute clarifies, he is not trying to renegade on Egg's turf, "I bet you can guess."
Egg laughs dryly, and than wanders into the stacks to grab him a couple. It's a little cruel, how he's not trying to stop him.
Minute grabs the first book on the large library cart that Egg wheels over to him—a rather old, faded volume, the cover softer than it really should be from overuse. It bends under Minute's fingers, revealing thin yellowed pages, brittle and thin and easily ripped if Minute makes a single incorrect movement.
A Preliminary Description of the Social Aspects of Demon-Kin. The esoteric nature of the book doesn't exactly speak much to its credibility, but Egg had vouched for it (from his knowledge, the type of demon hybrid Mapicc was didn't have all that much research done about it. This was the newest thing he had access too, maybe the newest thing that existed.)
Minute flips to the section of the book that pertains to Mapicc and begins to read.
Nether-demon hybrids are highly social creatures with a similar, but more compulsive, system of pack bonding than humans. They are incredibly prone to codependency and trauma bonding, especially with people they view as "good" or "pure". This links back to the origins of their nonhuman species, who originally were formed with the intention of seeking out holy things and corrupting or taking them, depending on context.
This instinct is somewhat corrupted in the psychology of hybrids, who, lacking the connection to Gods, Godliness, and the source of evil that drives pure demons, will mostly seek to be around things they see as good or pure, and not necessarily possess them.
In addition, their definition of "good" or "pure" drifts over time, without a connection to a source of pure good or pure evil. As a hybrid lineage becomes longer and longer, this definition usually will come closer and closer to just being people who make the hybrid feel safe, content, or happy.
While in a state of pack-bond with another person, a demon-hybrid will lack the capacity to feel stifled or need space. In fact, they are often called "clingy" by those who are unaware of this condition. They are fiercely protective, but also are able to relax much better when in the presence of the other part of their bond.
These instincts can be easily manipulated by—
Minuet closes the book. The cover snaps against the pile of pages with a loud sound that cannot be good for the spine's structural integrity, but Minute ignores that, because he has bigger problems right now.
He stares at the book in his lap. The book stares back. Is he really going to do this?
And of course, there is no answer, because there never is an answer. There wasn't an answer when he decided to re-join the mafia, when he decided to betray Spoke. His conscience either doesn't exist or is not very vocal; there is no tell-tale heart beneath the floorboards.
The guilt never hurts as much as he thinks it is going to, which, ironically, somewhat hurts more. The emptiness behind his ribs has to mean something, he thinks, even though it clearly doesn't. Is he just repressing it? Or is there genuinely nothing there?
Minute considers himself an okay person, he thinks. As okay as someone on Unstable could be. Not good, not selfless, but something approaching passable.
Will this action increase his objective morality, or decrease it? Because Spoke and Mapicc are doubtless in more danger alone. They were constantly being hunted down and getting themselves in more trouble than they could get out of alone. Minute's very existence, his ability to regulate himself and regulate the boys, could single-handedly save them from a significant amount of strife. And that wasn't even counting Minute's pvp skills.
Minute shakily opens the book, his hands weak and his pulse thump-thump-thumping behind his ribs. He needs to face this if he wants to have any chance of succeeding. He doesn't actually care all that much about Spoke and Mapicc's freedoms, what they need. This is for him.
His instincts are thrumming in his blood. He feels sick whenever he thinks of them, alone, in a world that wants to kill them. He can't ignore this. If he wants to feel okay again, there is only one path forward.
He looks back down at the book.
These instincts can be easily manipulated by making the demonkin accept you as one of its precious things.
Like most instinct sets, demonkin have a set of "official" bonding rituals that other demonkin use to establish bonds.
Luckily for any enterprising manipulator, these instincts are very intuitive. Nether-demonkin respond very well to—gifts, especially gifts of cute or pretty things (think stuffed animals, clothing, or jewelry); frequent complements; feelings of safety; and physical touch, which of course goes with feelings of safety, and is very common in demon-kin families.
The end goal of this would be for the demon-kin to associate you with safety, which leads to an almost 100% chance of them eventually bonding with you, if given enough time.
For a more unsavory route, many have also found success with drugged or sick demonkin. If you can get a demonkin in a vulnerable or suggestive state, it is much easier to make it happy or convince it to let you touch it.
In addition, demon-kin are especially vulnerable to Stockholm syndrome. If the only positive exposure it gets is from you, it will be likely to bond with you by default.
Minute swallows the lump in his throat. He's not going to do any of that, obviously. He wouldn't hurt Mapicc.
(Would he?)
Minute sighs, and goes off on his merry way to find some stuffed animals.
His instincts coo at the idea. Awwwww, his kids (the age gap is not that crazy, a small voice in the back of his brain screams. WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING) with stuffed animals. That's so cute. The rush of serotonin he gets standing in a random shop in capital city and looking at them feels incredibly startling against the background levels he has (absolutely none).
But if he just gave one to Mapicc, that would be bad, right? Maybe Spoke would get jealous. He doesn't want Spoke to think he has a favorite.
(These are teenagers! A very small voice in the back of his brain screams. Teenagers still like stuffed animals, though, so checkmate, rationality).
He grabs a second one. For Spoke.
And then two more, just in case. One for each of them. The book had emphasized gift-giving, which implied that this should happen more than once.
Besides, if only Mapicc gets a stuffed animal, he might figure out what Minute's trying to do. And Minute can't have that. This will kind of only work if Mapicc is caught unaware.
So. Four stuffed animals. A strawberry with legs and eyes, and a very large killer whale for Mapicc and a little soft bunny and a dinosaur for Spoke. He will probably have to wait quite a bit for to actually give any to the two, but that doesn't matter.
Just buying them has helped him immensely. He feels alive, in a way he hasn't for a long time. The clouds part; he can feel his breathing and his pulse, again, gently packing these stuffed animals into his inventory and walking back to the end.
He's coherent enough to make a plan. Here is what he is going to do:
1) Set up the end for Spoke and Mapicc's residence. This entails many things—expanding and moving his nest, setting up a soundproof, hidden part of the base that Wemmbu doesn't know about, getting a large backlog of food—but he can take all that one step at a time.
2) Wiggle his way back into Spoke and Mapicc's good graces. It's not impossible. While he's doing step one, he can work on step two. It can't be too hard. Send a couple of messages checking up on them, "run into them" a couple of times, eventually invite them over to dinner a few times, so that when he does it the final time they don't expect the betrayal.
Not betrayal. Why did he call it that?
3) Invite Spoke and Mapicc over for dinner, entertain them until late. Drug their food, but make it seem like it was just them being tired. Invite them to stay the night.
While they are asleep, bring them into Minute's nest. Drug Mapicc a little more than Spoke, so that he can get Spoke in his instincts. When Mapicc wakes up, Spoke should be far enough into his instincts that Mapicc falls into his instincts, so that it's easier to handle both of them.
4) Cement his bond with Spoke. Form a bond with Mapic.
Easy as pie. He can totally do this. The serotonin from his instincts floods out the anxiety, he feels warm and flowery and safe.
The only thing that would make him feel safer would be having Spoke and Mapicc in his nest. But not yet.
Minute takes a deep breath, runs his hand through his hair—he's home, it doesn't matter, it's not slicked back—and opens his communicator.
Minute: Hello Spoke! How are you doing? I heard about what happened to the empire. I'm sorry that happened to you.
After a couple of minutes, in which the texting bubble pops up and goes away several times:
Spoke: u r?
Minute: Yes. You shouldn't have to worry about the people you trust betraying you.
Spoke: ah. this is a dig at me
Ah, fuck. That's not what Minute was going for.
Minute: No. I'm sorry that came off that way.
Spoke: Pssh. You're not.
Minute:It came out wrong, Spoke. I don't feel betrayed by you.
Spoke: ?
Minute: You didn't mean to attack me, right? It was an accident.
Spoke: yea but i still did it
Minute:The damage has been fixed. No harm, no foul.
Minute: And I'm sure you've learned your lesson.
Spoke: i gues
Minute: Anyway. How are you?
Spoke: bad
Spoke: me and mapic are alne again :(
Spoke: i mids my empure
Minute considers typing out a sweet little you still have me but decides against it. They aren't there yet. He needs to give it some time.
Besides, Spoke seems off. Like he's not in his right mind.
Minute: You sound tired.
Spoke: It's hard, being on th run
Spoke: i was abt to go to bed anyways
Spoke: mappe is already aslep
Minute: Why did you respond, then?
Spoke: did nt want to leav you hangin
Spoke missed him, is the unspoken idea here, and Minute's heart flicks into high gear inside of his rib cage.
Having him here—even if it's though a communicator screen—is bliss. Spoke Spoke Spoke. Spoke is alive!
Spoke: You should go to sleep.
Spoke: i thot u wer mad at me
Spoke: did nt want to make you mor mad
Minute: I'm not going to get mad at you if you go to sleep.
Minute:You can message me in the morning if you want.
Spoke: you text so omyniousleay
Spoke: ominusley
Spoke: y do you end yr sentaces with a period
Minute: It's good to be professional.
Minute: Can't make too much of a good impression.
Spoke: :( yr not making a good impresion on me
Minute: …
Spoke: ok fine il go to bed
Spoke: gnight minuite
Minute: Goodnight Spoke
So that's that, and the channels of communication are open. It takes a while for Minute to coax Spoke into truly believing that Minute wants to hear from him, but once he does, it is a glorious thing.
Minute wakes up about every other morning from a little musing from Spoke. Spoke likes to pepper people he cares about with windows into his life—
me and mape trapped a bat member today! Languishes on the front page of his communicator. He very neatly ignores the bad ones, the ones that crush his heart with fear fear fear fear.
He doesn't need to look at those. Everything is fine. Spoke will be fine for the month it takes for Minute to finally grab him.
The way he thinks about Spoke and Mapicc has changed once again, the image of them in Minute's brain a mirage, a flickering light. He's stopped the infantile denial of what he is doing, replaced it with a dangerous knife-flick of yearning.
Which is somehow worse. He feels nauseous whenever he looks at his communicator, whenever he gets a notification, but he also can't breathe without it. His life is pulled between those two extremes. He doesn't know what he would be without the plan. The plan is the only thing keeping him coherent.
In between enthusiastic communicator messages, Minute busies his hands with preparing for Spoke and Mapicc's arrival. First comes the new part of the end base, which doesn't take Minute all that long to create.
Now, he has to suppress a smile when he passes a particular part of a particular hallway. He knows that if someone were to wind-charge the ground where it turned from tile to smooth surface, right in the gap between the tiles, the gap a little bit wider like crooked teeth, a tiny opening would come open in the wall three feet away.
Then, careful fingers and a careful eye could pull open the door, designed to take little force, and reveal his little, shameful, most integral secret.
The inside is more of a work-in-progress, but he is still making progress. He carves out a cavern that will become a nest room, and sets up what will become a little kitchen and living room and dining room and bathroom.
He also begins to plot out the defenses, because he is going to need some of those.
He is on his way back from seeing a redstone specialist for that when he sees Spoke and Mapicc. They are in Capital city; Spoke isn't even trying to hide his presence, probably relying on his sheer reputation alone to protect him.
It seems to be working, considering the absolutely petrified faces of the poor shopkeeps he is harassing.
Something jumps into Minute's throat the second he sees the flash of rainbow, far away from him. The void is choking him out, trying to asphyxiate him into doing something!
As he gets closer to Spoke, he maps out the way that the tendons in Spoke's body press out from his skin from the stress and panic. He desperetley wants to grab Spoke by his shoulders and press him into his chest, run his hands across his limbs until he stops shaking.
Instead, he whispers to his instincts not yet and than strides towards Spoke with a purpose.
"Spoke! I didn't expect to see you here!" His voice comes out a little too exited, but Spoke is probably too frazzled to notice.
"Minute" Spoke acknowledges, his tone and face going all screwy as he decides what direction to take the conversation. If Minute was any less focused on Spoke Spoke Spoke he wouldn't notice, but nothing that Spoke does will slide out from under his nose now. "Minute Minute Minute! How are you?"
His voice melts smoothly into the tone that Minute has labeled overconfident salesperson.
"Good, I'm just stocking up on some things." Thank god Minute had gone to get a couple of bags of beans after the appointment with the redstone specialist. Minute and Egg were running low on those staples—it was way easier to buy the nonperishables and cook so that he wouldn't have to leave the end as often.
Spoke peers over nosily and Minute opens his bag to let Spoke sees the random items at the top. He needed some external storage for the amount he was carrying home.
"Pinto beans?" Mapicc asks incredulously, having materialized while Minute watched Spoke poke at his food.
"I do have to eat."
"But pinto beans? What, are you cooking?"
What do Mapicc and Spoke eat? Do they not cook?
"Yes. Do you not?"
Mapicc doesn't dignify that with a response, pulling back from the bag and stepping back a little, to maintain that normal distance between friends. Before that, Mapicc and Spoke had been mere inches from him. He crushes the instinctual urge to grab onto Mapicc's red sweater and hold him in place.
"Wait, but how do you get food?" Minute asks, a little bit of concern lapping at his ankles.
"Mostly prepared food," Mapicc offers "or like quick stuff. Things that don't spoil—bread and jerky."
That's kind of pathetic, if Minute could say so himself. That was absolutely not a balanced diet in any sense of the word.
Minute does vaugley remember cooking for the two of them when they were hiding from the mafia, and them being super appreciative and…baffled by the gesture, but he hadn't really…interrogated that.
Minute wonders how many more horrifying things about these two's lives he will learn over the course of this adventure.
But this is also an opportunity, one that Minute isn't going to let go of if he can help it.
"Do you want to swing by and try some? It's an easy recipe and I'll let you two help me cook if you want?" He keeps his tone light, like this is a normal thing to ask, hoping that Spoke's paranoia doesn't cause any issues.
Has he broken into Spoke's "trusted people" category? He hopes so. This would be much more difficult if he hasn't yet, the persistent needling he was planning seeming more suspicious than sweet.
But it's a gamble. He can't get anywhere without introducing a little bit of risk into his life, that's not how anything works. So he has to do this, has to pounce on this opportunity.
Spoke blinks at Minute, the gears in his mind turning. Does he want to risk it? Does he trust Minute? Is this all an elaborate revenge ploy?
It's like Minute can crawl into Spoke's mind and make a home there. It thrills Minute how clear Spoke's thought process is to him.
If Minute was a worse man, or a more desperate man, or a more patient man, he would make it so that Spoke and Mapicc had no choice but to come with him—seed their life with threat after threat after threat so that they would have nowhere to go but into his arms.
In a very roundabout way that was what happened when they were running from the mafia. They were in such dire straits that they had no other choice but to trust Minute at face value.
If Minute were smarter, then. If Minute knew who he had in the palm of his hand. He could have done things. He could have returned to Ash's side and manipulated him into pulling them into the fold, keeping them safe.
Minute misses the power he had in the mafia. He feels weak, now, weak in a way that feels strange—he's physically fit, a good fighter, but still has no control over anything. He needs that power back. He needs control. Without it, he will die.
Spoke finally finishes thinking. Minute watches the little crease in his eyebrows smooth over into carefully held indifference. He grabs Mapicc by his sleeve and pulls him a few feet away, presumably to deliberate. Spoke already has his heart set on a path, though, Minute can tell. There is nothing that Mapicc can do about that.
Which is good, because as much as Minute's instincts are being very pushy, Minute can only assume that Spoke's are similarly bad. Mapicc is the only one of the three who is thinking clearly, and he is the only one of the three who has no power over this situation.
Mapicc's back hunches in irritation as he continues to deliberate with Spoke, but Spoke seems set on his ways, so he eventually caves.
The instinct book was right. Mapicc certainly is bonded to Spoke, and clearly trusts him, which the book predicted would be the case. This makes everything a whole lot easier.
Mapicc makes one last grumbling comment to Spoke, and then Spoke whirls to face Minute.
"…sure" Spoke finally says, three layers of meaning in his words.
One, the highest, the most obvious: I would like to come over to your house to eat food.
Two, based on the mocking lilt of his tone: I'm going to fuck around while I am in your home in a way that you will not like.
Three: but you already know that, because you know me. So why are you letting me come over?
The train of thought dangles dangerously close to the truth, to what Minute's hiding, but also stays miles above it. Spoke will be so distracted by the mystery he will not notice the mousetrap closing in on him.
In other words: the suspicion is fine, beneficial even, as long as Spoke continues to think the best of Minute.
Minute follows Spoke and Mapicc around as they gather up the rest of the supplies they need. He convinces them to take a tiny detour for Minute to grab the last things on his list: restocks to his first-aid kit (currently being chewed through rapidly because of Wemmbu) and some spices.
It's oddly peaceful. Spoke chatters on about something-or-other while Minute carefully tries to remember what is inside of his living quarters. He had already mostly gone through the process of Spoke-proofing it—Spoke and Mapicc visiting was in his plans, after all—but there were a few things that would kind of hurt to get stolen.
Then again, that is in the calculus here; a part of Spoke-proofing something is to give Spoke a couple of things to play with, to tide him over. If it's too clean he'll get suspicious.
Eventually, the trio are all content with what they had bought, and Mapicc and Spoke start following Minute to the end. Minute would be worried about them knowing the end portal that he uses, but also—eh. It's a chess piece he would have to give up anyways, why not give it up now?
Spoke stares with barely concealed wonder at the sheer scale of Minute's base (something inside of Minute preens at that—yes-he-likes-it-yes-he-likes-it-he-will-want-to-stay), and Mapicc covers for him by hand-feeding Minute all of the normal pleasantries—Thank you for letting us come over! He says, and Wow, your home is so beautiful.
It's a new trick, and one Minute would expect more from Spoke than Mapicc, but than again, they often worked as one horrifically efficient well-oiled machine. It only made sense that the tricks would trade hands often. Spoke pretends to be Mapicc and Mapicc pretends to be Spoke, their identities tangled together inside of their chests.
Which is all well and good with Minute. He doesn't want one or the other, he wants both, because they are practically one person at this point, and because Minute is greedy.
Minute ushers them deeper into the base, all the way to the cute little kitchen Minute had set up. It feels like Minute's home in a way that he relishes, warm and safe, the walls painted a buttercup yellow, the backsplash painted with flowers. Not to be intimidating is a privilege, and one he only exercises in his most intimate places—like here, and his bedroom, and his on-suite bathroom. Eventually, the luxury, the imposing blackstone, becomes routine and cold, and you really only want something cozy.
The sound of someone rusling through his stuff echoes from the pantry as he pokes through his cookbooks to grab a recipe for chili. He doesn't really need the book but if he's teaching this to someone else he wants to have measurements to lean on other than "a pinch" or "about three shakes" or "two handfuls." These kids do not have the hard-won cooking skill that Minute has, he doesn't need to make this harder for them.
"Spoke! What are you doing in my pantry?" He pushes a little bit of irritation (?) into his voice, but not enough to scare Spoke off. It's like playing tug-of-war with a dog, you have to make them think that the game is reality, so they will keep playing it.
"What do you need from here?" Spoke asks coyly, trying to con more time poking around.
Whatever. "Those big cans of tomatoes in liquid and the little jar labeled chili spice mix that's behind the oregano."
"O-re-ga-no… O-reeee-ga-no" Spoke sounds out, probably looking for the bottle.
With Spoke occupied, Minute turns his attention to Mapicc, who has gone from opening Minute's cabinets to peering over Minute's shoulder at the cookbook in front of him. Which is one less thing he needs to focus on, because he can tell if Mapicc moves or tries to switch tasks.
"Oh! Here!" Echoes from the pantry, "I gotchu Minute."
Spoke wanders back into the kitchen, holding the requested items and a clear Tupperware of big chocolate chip cookies that Minute baked three days ago, trying to soothe his itching instincts. He feels like a nesting bird or something.
He drops the food on the counter with a loud clack, shoves the spice mix and cans of tomatoes over to Minute, and pries open the clasps on the tupperware. His fingers scrabble against the clasp, the sharpened nails scratch-scratch-scratch-sratching for a couple of seconds. He eventually succeeds and pulls two cookies out, biting into one and handing one to Mapicc.
Awww.
Minute doesn't give Spoke the annoyance that he clearly wants, all too aware of the tenuous trust between them that could shatter in an instant.
"Ok. So the first step is to grab the beans that I already set to cook before I went out. Hold on…"
He carefully steps around Mapicc and crosses the kitchen to the crock pot. It releases a thick plume of steam as he opens it, the room filling with a heady umami scent and warming a couple of degrees.
He settles into his muscle memory of this recipe relatively easily, walking the duo through all of the steps. It's therapeutic, at least for Minute, the slow process, watching something come together under his hands.
Mapicc and Spoke are subdued to some extent. Of course, they are distracted and distractible, but Spoke hovers around Minute and asks him a million little questions, while Mapicc stirs the pot, and it is easier than it would be if it was Minute alone.
"How do you go about getting one of those?" Spoke asks, poking the pot then sticking the tip of his finger in his mouth when he gets burned, a reedy yelp falling from his lips.
"There are definitely stores in merchant city that sell them. I got this one off of the invisible mafia, but that probably isn't an option for you both."
It's a hefty thing, burned on one side and with what could be blood staining the handle, but Minute didn't want to leave the mafia empty-handed and it was sitting in the kitchen of his ostentatious mansion, untouched, and so he took it. (How much of his life came like this? he thinks sometimes. Why is all of him defined by its relationship by the mafia?)
Mapicc stares longingly at the chili.
"How will we know when it's ready?" Spoke asks, pulling his finger out of his mouth and wiping it on his hoodie.
"So before you put the tomatoes in, you want to make sure the onions are soft—if you bite them they aren't too acidic, and they don't crunch as much—and make sure the meat is fully browned, that way you don't get salmonella."
Spoke crushes Mapicc's wrist with his hand, weakening his grip almost to the extent that he can pry the spoon out. In response, Mapicc pivots on one skilled leg and pushes them both onto the tile floor with a crash.
Spoke ungracefully tries to wiggle out from under Mapicc, who presses his knee against Spoke's ribcage. It's all very sudden, Minute only reacting as they are already on the ground.
Spoke's face goes carefully blank for a second, than he twists his face into a forced pout, his eyes wide and watery. "I-I wanted to taste the onions…" He says, laying on thick the pitifulness.
Minute's heart kicks against his ribcage, and he has to crush the inside of his bottom lip with his teeth to stop himself from doing something rash. The scene is very very cute.
"Y-" Spoke begins to sniffle, "you said they weren't acidic. I've never had a non-acidic onion bef—"
Mapicc presses his knee harder into Spoke's rib cage and Spoke's voice cuts off which a wheeze. "Minute, take this idiot out."
Minute glances at the soup—not burning, it looks like—and takes the spoon from Mapicc. He turns to continue mixing the chilli while Spoke and Mapicc wrestle behind him. Like fighting cats.
They are both skilled enough to avoid hurting each other. It's nothing Minute should worry about.
Eventually Spoke pops off of the ground gracefully and returns to lean against the oven. He stares at the soup like it owes him money. Mapicc hovers somewhere behind, licking his metaphorical wounds.
"Wanna try some…" Spoke whines, tapping his fingers in an itching rhythm against the glass stove top, the pads inches from heat that is liable to burn him. This kid is infuriating.
"Wait for it to be done." Minute almost crams a "kid" at the end of that sentence, but bites his tongue. He needs to be patient. He just needs to be patient.
Spoke huffs, dropping his shoulders, and dramatically sinks to his knees, cupping his chin in his hand and staring at the tile floor below him.
Mapicc is positioning himself to be the "responsible one" (no such thing exists) in the duo during this interaction, so he politely asks Minute if there is anything else he can help with.
Minute sets Mapicc up setting the table, as the chili finally starts to bubble, thank god. Spoke continues to needle Minute—"What's salmonella?" but with Mapicc out of the interaction, it's almost manageable.
Minute does not trust either of the kids with the pot, so he does the honors of taking it to the little dining table he set up here. He has a bigger, more regal one, for guests, but Spoke and Mapicc aren't guests, their family (and the formal dining room is really goddamn imposing).
Spoke and Mapicc tuck into their food, and Minute starts spooning his own up to his mouth, praying that Spoke and Mapicc are too focused on the food to notice him staring at them.
But they are eating! They are getting enough food—safe, good, nutritious food—and it's Minute's food, and they are accepting Minute's help, and—god, the joy that Minute feels here is unparalleled.
Spoke seems similarly effected, a light daze settling on his wide eyes. He looks calmer, less focused. If Spoke had his way, he would never relax. This has to be involuntary.
At some point (Mapicc and Spoke are at least two bowls in at this point), Egg wanders in to grab some chili. As he is leaving, he shoots Minute a knowing look, half "I know what you're doing, you aren't slick", and half "are you sure this is a good idea?"
Minute has never been more sure of something in his life.
So, yeah. Eventually they have to go home, much to Minute's sadness (he hopes he masks it pretty well), and Minute goes back to being alone.
It's…fine. He tries to ignore the way it bites at him, under his skin. The loneliness. He turns back to building.
He ignores the midnight episodes where he wakes up in his huge, cold, empty nest and turns over to the stuffed animals—all four of them—and clutches them to his chest. He sobs, brokenly, trying to figure out a way forward, a way out, the days between him and being able to see Spoke and Mapicc again too many, the time too long. How will he survive?
He is sick with worry, with paranoia. He plans and plots and plans and plots and listens for bad news on the wind. It never comes, but it makes him sick sick sick sick to think about. This can't be healthy. He's sleeping less and less, working more and more, spending the time between work and sleep pulling his hair out and sobbing in stress in random rooms—his bathroom, his nest, his kitchen, the private kitchen built for Spoke and Mapicc (maybe Minute can teach them another recipe once they settle in?), into the slowly matting fur of the stuffed animals.
Minute invests into some entertainment items: books, coloring books, stim toys, playing cards, knitting needles and some yarn, a build-your-own-circut kit.
He buys clothing (daytime and nighttime, no pockets, no shoes—he is going to steal their shoes—all clearly pajama-esque, not warm or safe enough to go out into Unstable with), toiletries, towels, shatter-proof cups, bowls, and plates.
And the less savory items. Sleeping pots—splash and drinkable, weakness pots—splash and drinkable, healing pots—splash and drinkable. Liquid food supplements and tranq darts (a bow and arrow stuck deep into his inventory) and medical restraints and a sleeping agent that Minute can put in any kind of food and the component parts of an IV machine and several pre-made bags of IV solution and four long coils of hempen rope. He wishes the rope is of a softer variety, but that's a naive fear. That will be the least of his problems if it gets to that.
By the end of it, there is a hidden drawer in Minute's cabinet full of almost six gallons of assorted poisons and drugs, so many that someone who stumbled on it would consider Minute a manic or a monster or something. A serial killer. And Minute doesn't know if they are wrong.
He hooks a lock to the cabinet, keeps the key hooked to an interior pocket deep inside of his layers of clothing. He's paranoid, right? Worried about Spoke and Mapicc hurting themselves. Not an unfounded fear.
(Some part of him, the bitey little smart-ass, asks "Why are you doing something to people you care about that could drive them to suicide? This cannot be for 'the greater good')
(But Minute is too far in to stop now. It's either Spoke and Mapicc's suicide risk or his suicide risk, and Minute isn't a selfless person.)
Plus a couple of other things, for the instincts, for emergencies. The suplies needed to fully simulate the void, for Spoke. (Weighted blanket, full-body restraints, a ping-pong ball cut in half to put over his eyes—if Spoke thought he was in the void, it would trigger his instincts.) A couple of super sparkly things, for Mapicc. A gem inside of a puzzle box, that would focus Mapicc on trying to open it instead of clawing Minute's eyes out.
And eventually it is time. Spoke and Mapicc had come over to his home a couple more times, had begun to trust him enough to eat food that they hadn't seen be cooked. Which was kind of necessary for this plan to work, so Minute can count himself lucky.
Spoke and Mapicc are lured to Minute’s base with the promise of warm food and good company—from the other side of the communicator, Minute gets the sense that they are stressed out about something, and are going to use this to de-stress. It something about how their responses are frayed and thin, impatient, sharp, desperate?
It doesn’t matter. Minute bites his tongue—deep and sharp, almost to the point of bleeding—and reminds himself to focus on what is in front of him. This is a delicate procedure, he needs to focus if he wants to actually succeed at this.
Mapicc and Spoke arrive at the end a couple of Minutes late; Minute greets them at the door. He wonders how much of this he will remember after everything is over, what will stick around in his mind. Will he remember how Spoke’s eyes are wide and almost desperetley happy when faced with Minute, with the safety he provides? Will he remember how Mapicc’s limbs were shaking from overexertion?
He’s almost sad. It’s not the sudden rush of guilt that he was hoping for, but it is something, and he grips it like a life ring in the tides of the ocean. What will his life feel like once everything is over? Will it matter? How will he change? He’s spent all of this time planning and plotting and preparing for this event—now that it’s here, he feels the pressure. If this doesn’t make him feel better, nothing will.
Minute feels like the villain in a fairytale, hiding his true intentions behind smiles and food that is spiked with sleeping pots, the dosage very carefully calculated.
Spoke and Mapicc begin to fall quiet, blinking longer and responding slower. Mapicc starts panicking, Minute can see it in his eyes. He tries to poke Spoke in the shoulder and convey to him that something is very, very wrong, but Spoke just stares at him, not comprehending.
It’s clear Mapicc doesn’t want to telegraph what is wrong to Minute, under the impression it was not Minute’s fault, and not wanting to give Minute something to use against him. It’s laughable how paranoid Mapicc is, considering the lack of grasp he has on the situation. It’s like watching a toddler try to manipulate an adult—the toddler knows so little the power imbalance is laughably stark.
It fails. The combination of Mapicc’s overcaution and his misunderstanding leaves him vulnerable, and the drugs come on him faster than he expected. He drops like a sack of rocks against the back of the chair he is sitting in.
Spoke doesn’t react, as he hadn’t reacted to anything Mapicc had tried to tell him for the couple of minutes prior. The drugs and his instincts mixed together into a strange cocktail—of course he wasn’t in danger, Minute is here! The adrenaline that brought Mapicc to awareness never comes for Spoke.
He follows in Mapicc’s footsteps soon after.
It’s starting! Minute thinks. Or he has reached the end. It depends on what happens in the future, if this is permanent or will end suddenly.
How will he be framed in the future? Will Spoke and Mapicc ever understand why he did what he did? Will they ever forgive him? Will they ever make it out of the prison Minute has created for them? Because that will define if this is the beginning of something greater, or the end, where Mapicc and Spoke kill him.
As Minute gently gathers Spoke up into his arms and walks down to the nest, he figures he doesn’t really care. Better to fail as an active participant than do nothing as a bystander, watch the world spin away without you.
He settles Spoke down in the nest, securing him with a not inconsiderable amount of rope. He slips him under a weighted blanket, and turns off the lights in the room. It is plunged into a very void-like darkness. His own instincts perk up at that. Why are you leaving the kid in the void alone? they ask.
But he has to get Mapicc, so he pushes past the mild discomfort and leaves the nest again.
Mapicc is settled with much the same ease as Spoke. He is very very cute in his sleep, his tail flicking lazily in the air. When he is tucked in next to Spoke, he instinctively relaxes against him and wraps his arms against him. He must have recognized Spoke’s scent, Minute realizes. He still goes to the length of tying up his legs, though.
If this reaction is anything to go off of, this is going to be easier than Minute expected.
Spoke is less drugged than Mapicc. When Spoke wakes up, his head is in Minute’s lap, and Minute is threading his fingers through his hair. He’s still coming out of the feeling of the drugs, so Minute has a laughably faster reaction time; Minute shushes Spoke’s confused mumblings and continues to soothe him with physical touch.
Minute follows his own instincts, which know better how to utilize the tools baked into both Minute and Spoke. Within about ten minutes, Spoke is back under, trying to squirm himself deeper into Minute’s lap and murmuring happily, not even pulling at the ropes.
Mapicc wakes up next, groggy as all hell. Minute has the amazing experience of watching him feel Spoke in front of him, his instincts registering that, and the adrenaline leaving his body. He tenses up for a second and than drops down like a puppet with cut strings.
Minute turns his attention from Spoke’s hair to rubbing across the sharp points of Mapicc’s spine poking through his skin. He seems to like it, if the way he snuggles deeper into Spoke is any indication.
It’s heartbreakingly cute. Minute watches the two as they sleep, and feels nothing but purpose flooding his chest. Here. He’s done something. He’s finally acted.
Mapicc’s going to be a problem in the future, Minute knows. But he has plans. There are enough drugs in the secret cabinet to keep Mapicc docile until his biology turns on him.