Game Over {Arthur}

[Vash Zwingli]

It’s over.

Vash could feel everything that he’d worked for this entire time slip away as he’d been forced to the ground and detained. His wrists ached from how tightly the restraints held them behind his back, and that throbbing, cold pain from the metal was all he could really feel.

Well, that wasn’t actually true was it?

No there was the sharp pain in his head and knees from the fight that had resulted due to mere animal instinct to live…and well…as much as he didn’t want to admit it: fear. The pain to accompany this was a sharp pain in his stomach…something in the area of his ribs—probably broken from…whatever.

How did the fight even go again?

Vash couldn’t remember. Well...not fully anyway, though one thing that he did recall was a Taser, meaning that there was a very high chance that there had been a casualty of some sort…and it could explain the fact that he didn’t remember all of it as super-charging his system with any extra electrical current—especially while expressing strong amounts of emotion or stress would do that. Not that he’d exactly tried…or wanted to for that matter, but in his training he had been strongly advised to keep away from those sort of things as even the gloves he’d designed for himself wouldn’t be able to handle it. Not like any of this mattered now anyway.

No, it didn’t matter…what had happened was in the past…and the pain was only the sad result of it...if anything the fact that he could feel the pain of the material from the gloves sticking to the now raw and fresh skin that was his hands and forearms reassured him that they were still there.

Wait…why did that even matter anyway? To prevent him from hurting people? No...that didn’t matter now thanks to where he was going…if anything, any desire to stay alive would only be enhanced from having the very thing he had contained by the gloves, to be allowed to run its course. So no…that wasn’t why he felt better knowing they were there. Was it because they kept the fact that he wasn’t human hidden? Well…he’d blown that anyway, regardless of the gloves so it really didn’t matter in that respect. His desperation to hide his ability had converted into some wicked tool that turned his own…mutation against him and caused him physical pain. Those gloves assured that, and all for what? So he could hide? He couldn’t hide anymore…there wasn’t any point….so why did his mind still tell him it was good to have those cursed things on?

Maybe it had to do with the fact that it might show his father that he was still trying….

But Vash knew that wouldn’t matter though, not at this rate. He blew his cover, and that was all that his father had wanted from him…that was all and he couldn’t even do that. No, he couldn’t even just do that one damned thing when he’d given him the chance to prove his worth.

He’d failed.

That thought ached more than any of the physical pain he was feeling now. Everything he’d worked for didn’t matter now, he’d failed and he would be tossed in with the rest of the mutants.

They’d probably try to kill him due to how he had managed the entire system…or worse if they could manage. That, however, didn’t matter. No they could do what they wanted because there was nothing quite like knowing the disappointment and shame he would bring to the man he’d always looked up to…even if he was flawed and cruel at times…it had all been justified right?

Well, it’s not like that mattered now anyway as he knew the sort of attention that he’d get for this…they both would. Their only biological child wouldn’t be able to follow in their footsteps because he was the very thing they despised. Not like biological relations really meant much to Vash; family was family and Lili was his sister…she had been since they had brought her into the family. However it didn’t change the fact that he knew how his father was…and the fact that he couldn’t have done this one damned thing for him—even after giving him a chance to fix everything when he discovered that he was a mutant—even despite who he was. There would be a lot of questions he knew, he knew that, and he knew the sort of bad publicity this would result in. He only hoped that they’d be okay…because this would be completely his fault…all of it was his fault and he couldn’t do a damned thing to fix it now.

His worry for his sister was just as strong, if not stronger than that for his parents. She had been the only one that knew, and she’d kept it secret for him all these years…what would happen now? Would she do anything rash when the news was released? No…she was cleverer than that. But still…what would the others say to her? What would their father do? He wouldn’t get mad at her…no…he couldn’t…no one could ever get mad at Lili…right?

His family wouldn’t be attacked would they? His father wouldn’t lose his job…or would he?

Vash really couldn’t blame anyone but himself for anything that would happen…what the mutants did to him or what would happen to his family as a result of this. He hoped that they would be okay…and that this wouldn’t affect anything in their daily lives…hopefully. He knew Lili would worry and he only hoped that his parents would do something to quell it, at least enough so that she could move on with her daily life.

He couldn’t blame his father for acting cruelly, or even possibly what would follow when news reached him of his capture. No he couldn’t blame him if he took a gun to his head and ended it. Not when this entire time Vash’s mutations were the elephant in the room that would blow everything up. Whatever that had to be done to minimise the damage of this knowledge going public needed to be done.

He knew the tone that his father would use…the disappointment was something that tied his stomach into knots, which ached greater than any of the physically sustained injuries.

Really, Vash just hoped Lili would be okay.

Maybe the news wouldn’t reach her right away?

Well…no that wasn’t likely due to the position their family had in all of this…this would likely be all over the papers…something Vash was all too eager to avoid for any reason.

It would be a lie to say that Vash had been even remotely aware of his surroundings at the moment…he knew they were in transport, was it just that dark or did he have a blindfold on? Where had he even been that they required transport of this sort…he never really strayed too far from the city or from home.

Home.

That word had never really set with their residence in Russia, he’d never felt comfortable here…not before he discovered that he was a mutant, and not after. No home for him had mountains, large mountains and charming mountain villages.

There they didn’t care about mutants or not…that’s why they had moved. They’d moved because they had frowned upon Mr. Zwingli’s blatant hatred of the mutants…and that is why he’d been sent back there to learn how to hide his abilities, as he didn’t have to worry about hiding as much.

He’d had a friend there once…a musician’s child. His only friend other than his sister, and he’d remembered how happy he had felt then…there were no mutants or hatred or rules. Just play. Play and music.

But they moved. They had moved because their opinions didn’t fully match that of the society they were from…his father had said he resented coming from their background, as those people were soft. They had tried to keep in touch but one day…the letters stopped coming. That was when Vash had thought that the person he had called a friend had decided to move on. And it had only solidified Vash’s desires to forget that time.

Why was he thinking about that now?

That was a question…that had been a long time ago, far too long ago….but the mountains were something he’d always pined for. But why now? Why now when he knew that there was no way he’d even see the light of day again.

It didn’t matter anyway.
That reminder came back to him as he was moved out of the transporter. The hands were rough and brutal, they’d initially yanked him out by his hair, and there was a lot of yelling. He supposed he should have listened to it but it really didn’t matter at this point, as proven by the knee to the stomach that he was granted.

“I said move.”

The tone was commanding, and he could hear the satisfaction in it—he supposed that was deserved as he’d frequently given the guards and other subordinates hell for being too forgiving.

But he listened.

There wasn’t any point in fighting or resisting at this point as he knew it wouldn’t exactly do any good or fix any potential damage that his family might have to endure. It wasn’t like it would save him either. Fighting at this point was just a whole lot of wasted energy for a fight that he’d already lost.

As they’d walked down the familiar path to the cells, he found it rather ridiculous that they even bothered to blindfold him. He knew these routes well…he’d memorised the entire underground in case any of the mutants had tried to get out. It would be interesting to see how they would try to detain him, as he knew this all so well. At the very least they would have to change their routine…as he knew they knew he had it memorised down to the very second.

Finally, they stopped moving—not like he really paid much attention, even though he knew just from the distance from the entrance where they had stopped.

Arthur’s cell.

Vash let out an annoyed sigh, of course.

“I suppose you wanted to make sure I was well acquainted with my cell mate.” He tone only further expressed the annoyance at just how damned perfect this was. He was probably going to end up dead within the five minutes that followed the guards’ departure. Well, at least it would put him out of his misery right?

The blindfold was finally removed and just as he’d expected, he was standing outside of Arthur’s cell and the door was opened for him. His well…snarky remark had resulted in a harsh shove from the guards. Well…he supposed he deserved that too.

Rubber had lined much of the room, he supposed it was fitting that they’d be paired together as the rubber no doubt blocked the ability to summon any sort of ghosts…and prevented Vash from melting anything from over heating it due to electrical shocks with his own abilities.

The restraints were finally removed from his wrists once the door had been sealed shut again and he didn’t even bother looking to find the other…he was done for anyway.

“Just get it over and done with.” He grumbled as he addressed the other, no fear in his tone at this point…just exhaustion of this entire thing.

Exhaustion and guilt.

It really didn’t matter if Arthur killed him then since the disappointment he had delivered to his family was much worse than any of that. He’d failed in what he had tried to do and that was all that mattered. If anything, someone killing him meant he couldn’t do any more harm to his family or their reputation. And it would…if anything, be a welcome release from all of these games and politics…and hatred for what he had been cursed with.

[Arthur W. Kirkland]

There was nothing more devastating to Arthur, who already had severely limited freedoms, than the possibility of never being able walk again, or even with good medical care, to only be able to walk with a permanent limp for the rest of his miserable captivity. Hence why injuries to the knees had once been so widely used against prisoners of war. His kneecaps had shattered from the shots to them . Fractures that spidered out from the impact. Arthur had never grieved more in his life, a mutant who had always valued his nonexistent freedom more than he valued his life. Walking was yet another symbol of freedom, his natural right as a human being. And it furthermore made him even more worthless than he already was in the eyes of humans. He would, truthfully, rather that those bullets had been aimed for his heart instead.

As Arthur had been carefully brought back to the Underground, his knees a bloody mess, the skin around the impact of the injury turning alarmingly dark from the excessive bleeding in and around the skin and muscle. He felt like raging against the world, like breaking apart, but he didn’t think that he could spare the energy for such a feat. His tears had long ago dried up as a child in Weeds, when he learned at a young age that tears went unheard. His grief and anger; however, were ever replenishing. He knew that he had been born a prideful creature; freedom to him was like air. The hope for it, however slim it was, was the only thing that kept him going. And as such, he was slowly dying with each passing year that he spent in captivity. Each year in the Underground stripped another piece of himself away. Arthur worried what he would be like after he had nothing left to give—an empty shell, a lifeless man with only his physical body left, waiting for someone to finally pull the plug.

What he had with Mihai, along with other relationships he had with a few others, felt like something that greatly slowed that inner decay. Behaving like a full-fledged human was forbidden, relationships were forbidden, and he kept that sense of secret autonomy alive. It was an act of defiance. For the longest time, he had been one of the few good things Arthur had ever experienced in this broken world. It hadn’t been that long ago when they’d made their intentions and their feelings clear. Even in their briefest of moments together after the breakout, Arthur could see that Mihai had no intention of leaving the city with him. And seeing that fractured those threads of defiance, that hope and love and longing. Once again, he could feel every molecule of deadness that the Underground had wrought in him. And he wanted that inner deadness to match him on the outside.

As the guards had been carrying him into his cell like the invalid he now was, he tried to reach for the man’s gun. The weak attempt had been quickly disabled, and the guards kept a careful eye on him since. Unlike their suspicions that he was going to use the gun on them, he was going to use it on himself.

He wanted to be free.

He wanted to be free from his broken body, from his subhuman life, and from the torment of his slow death in captivity. And if he couldn’t have that by more traditional means, then he was going to force it by cutting his life short.

Even as they placed him in the rubber cell, securing the heaviest restraints over him, tying him to his bed until they could get him under control, his eyes scanned the room for other alternatives. Bedsheets for a homemade noose, small objects that he could use as a weapon, but nothing would prove to be useful. Even the bedsheets had been stripped.

He could hear the guards outside his cell, murmuring. The door opened and they had brought someone else in, a girl. And from her state of dress, it was easy to tell that she was another Underground mutant. He hardly acknowledged her or anyone else. His stare forward, his legs bared and visible, his trousers had been long taken by the guards while they inspected his wounds. The girl kneeled, her wide eyes scanning the damage, her fingers trailing gently down his legs. She pressed her cool palms right above the injuries, along his lower thighs as the skin, muscle, and bone begun the process of being painfully repaired. He could feel the power from her touch seeping into his skin like liquid heat. Arthur’s heart had quickened and he felt the smallest stirring of something warm in his chest when he realised what she was doing. She was healing him. She was handing him that smallest bit of hope back, that he could walk. He endured the pain of his bones shifting back into place. This pain was a small price to pay.

His breath felt tight, and he barely even felt the warm tracks of silent wetness from his eyes, tears that he hadn’t cried in nearly a decade. There was no embarrassment in the normally prideful Arthur for showing that kind of involuntary emotion. He shifted in his restrains, unable to wipe them away. The guards flinched when he moved, their hands immediately going to their hips where a variety of weapons rested. Arthur’s eyes were only on the girl, knowing that he could never be able to thank her enough, even if she was simply following orders. Her wide eyes met his briefly before the guards hurriedly escorted her away. The sealing of the door was loud and seemed to echo in his secluded room. The worst sort of isolation for poorly trained, inconsolable mutants.

Arthur only rested his head back, releasing the tense breath from his lungs, the wetness drying over his face, as he couldn’t move his arms. While they removed the restraints from his limbs against his bed, they’d kept the ones over his arms, until he could 'behave himself', they’d muttered with a certain degree of smugness. Another element to his punishment.

In the exhaustion and moment of faux peace, sleep pulled him under. He didn’t know how long he’d been out, but he was groggily dragged out of sleep when the loud, heavy door opened once more. He heard voices on the other side, but couldn’t make them out, not that he put much effort into making them out.

His eyes widened when he noticed Vash being escorted into his cell. The discovery of the worm actually being a mutant only when he had been captured, when the revealing of Vash's power had given him away. Arthur had only been filled with black disgust when the realisation came as quickly as the unleashing of his ability that night. The guards must be in a humour today, pushing the man who nearly crippled him into the same cell. Arthur raised himself the best he could on the bed with those restraints, using his shoulders and recently repaired legs to do so.

His breath immediately strained when he heard Vash’s words, indignant, exhausted. Even in captivity, he came across as challenging. His privilege followed him into the cell, apparently. The bastard didn’t even look at him.

Arthur’s anger and pain was brittle, so much so, that he could feel his fingers shaking inside his restrains. There was a long, pregnant silence as he stared at Vash’s profile. ”Look at me.” Arthur’s voice was quiet, cold, and ugly beneath the calm delivery. He was demanding more than for Vash to simply pass his eyes over him.

Another pause as Arthur gave him the chance to do so. Whichever he chose to do, he continued. ”Why the fuck would I do that for you?” His voice was still calm, still lined with venom. ”Not when you get the honour of experiencing what it’s like to be worthless, just like the rest of us. You’re insignificant, you’re no more than an animal to them, just as you’re no more than an animal to several in here.” It was funny, how people like Vash and the other guards who treated others like dirt beneath their boots were somehow more deserving than them of a human title.

“You’re one of the few who actually deserves to be treated like this, locked away, bled out for all the money the Underground could ever possibly make from you, and left to rot like the worthless drivel you are. You’re asking to be put out of your misery? This must be difficult to comprehend, for someone as formerly privileged as yourself, but life as a mutant far surpasses death as punishment. I hope you enjoy every bleeding morsel of it.”

[Vash Zwingli]

THESE ARE THE DAYS WHEN I HATE THE WORLD HATE THE RICH, HATE THE HAPPY, HATE THE COMPLACENT. TV WATCHERS, BEER DRINKERS, THE SATISFIED ONES. BECAUSE I KNOW I CAN BE ALL THOSE LITTLE HATEFUL THINGS AND THEN I HATE MYSELF FOR REALIZING THAT. BE SAFE, BE SAFE.

875 WORDS Arthur W. Kirkland TAGGED Please don't kill him. NOTES

The shame that had already started to grow the moment he’d been told to go with the officer only increased as he stood there. That shame of what he was, and the fact that he couldn’t control himself even after all the chances he’d been given. He’d shamed his family…they were supposed to be the leaders of the anti-mutant movement. And here they were, the sole biological child of one of the political leaders of this movement, a mutant. A mutant that had been given he chance to learn how to hide himself and redeem himself as part of the family merely because he was their descendant. He’d been sent to schools to hide it; he’d learned how to fake the blood tests if he needed and how he could control it…if only he had that much self-restraint. Apparently not. It didn’t exactly help either that his….abilities were ones that could indeed be particularly dangerous if left unchecked. He’d completely screwed this one up and there was no fixing it now really. That was the worst part, the fact that there was no way to somehow patch up what he’d managed to screw up. He’d done everything up until this point to prevent this from happening, even so much so as to become a puppet for his father and do things that he himself would not have condoned. He’d killed mutants…and people, all just to keep this whole damned mess from getting out, from possibly causing his sister grief or his father bad publicity or losing the influence he had. Vash had known all too well what he was doing in order to prevent all hell from breaking loose, and he knew just what many people thought of it and knew all too well the consequences of being caught. What would eventually come from being left out for the other mutants to chew up didn’t really bother him. If anything that would be some sort of relief to just have something to focus on other than well, the guilt for failing his family like he had. Hearing what Arthur had to say to him didn’t exactly help or hinder the situation, and nor did he turn for another few moments, just allowing himself a moment to compose himself. “I’m not asking you to kill me, I’m not asking anything of you, I’m not an idiot.” Vash nearly laughed at his own words then. Death was something much greater than what he deserved and he knew it, he knew it all too well as at this point…being put out of his own damned misery sounded pretty good at the moment, but that wasn’t going to happen. At least not if the mutants he was stuck with had any semblance of intelligence. He was somewhat counting on the others not being, as he knew well that Ludwig would probably try and kill him after what he did—which had left him with several nights without sleep after that. He turned around after a few more moments and looked over Arthur. He could see the level of his anger from the way Arthur’s hands shook. “I’m inviting you to cause me the same amount of pain that I caused you…I’m not going to fight back….there’s no point.” Saying those words out loud only caused the knot he felt in his stomach to twist tighter, and that was starting to show in his expression, and he didn’t really care that he was showing defeat at the moment—not in the slightest. His pride had already taken the biggest hit he had imagined it could from being caught, and the only thing worse he was anticipating was hearing from his father—if he even was even granted with such a privilege. “I know what I am and I know what I deserve, you don’t need to remind me of that.” His tone was bitter—and the exhaustion he was feeling echoed through it more than anything else as he dared to step closer to him. Eventually, he reached the bed and stared down at Arthur, just watching. “Why did you bother trying to run before? If you think the world out there will treat you any better…you’re wrong. Maybe if you made it out to the mountains you would have found some sort of safety, but you would have been caught and killed before that.” He sighed, trying to keep the imagery of home out of his mind as he knew that would do no good now. “Privilege isn’t something a mutant gets, playing human or not. You’re still controlled by someone, or did that not cross your mind that becoming a monster wasn’t exactly my first choice?” Not that he blamed anyone else for what he did as well the blood on his hands were well, on his hands and no one else’s. He had chosen to listen to what had been asked of him under the false hope that maybe he could return home and be left alone….but well, that wasn’t going to happen any time soon. “I figured at the very least though that you wanted to take a shot at me or two for some sort of personal satisfaction…I’m sure the others down here will try.”

deltra of gangnam style