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The docking bay opens and Wolfwood steps into the cavernous space with careful ease. Engineers stand on the catwalks and repair mecha are already at standby. Wolfwood winces as he feels one of the joints in his digitigrade legs creak – shrapnel from a lucky rocket. He limps into the bay and eases his back into the cradle, lets it take the weight of his aching body as he cuts the feed from his external cameras.
There’s a moment where he tries to open his mouth to yawn, confusing himself when he doesn’t feel his jaw move. It’s silly. Mech’s don’t have jaws. Just a visor, faceplate and an armored helm. They don’t have eyes either. He shouldn’t need to blink.
When he goes to tip his head back, Wolfwood is surprised that it moves at all. He almost worries that he’s accidentally crushed the topmost part of his cradle. He feels it then. It’s not the muted sensation of external pressure or the lighting-hot flash of an impact to his armour. It’s the movement of his hair against his cheek, floating in the suspension gel filling his tube.
Wolfwood braces himself for what he knows happens next. All at once, the split-separation-clinging stops and Wolfwood crashes back into his body.
The largest cord at the base of his neck snaps and retreats back into the top of his tube. The rest are still locked into his ports – one each through the tops of his hands and the soles of his feet, a line of them down his spine – but past them all Wolfwood can feel is emptiness. He can’t feel his limbs.
He keeps his eyes closed. Past the rebreather over his face, Wolfwood knows there’s nothing but the soft teal glow of the suspension gel and the faint outline of the other components. His external audios are always cut while he’s being processed and repaired, but it isn't quiet. There's always the hum of machinery and the sound of his own breathing. It's not as lonely as other pilots claim it to be.
The gel isn’t cold, but Wolfwood still shudders when he becomes more cognizant of his body. His legs twitch and he tries to bend them the opposite way. His legs should be bending – he’s a pilot, he should be able to –
His fingers – his cannons are gone. They weren’t destroyed in the battle. They should be there. They’re gone.
There’s something sweet and chemical in the air he breathes. Static spreads up from the remaining implants across his body. Numbness sinks into each of his limbs and Wolfwood forgets that he’s stuck in the body of a human all over again.
He’s still numb, but no longer floating when he next opens his eyes. The cables connecting him to his body – his mech, no, wait – have already been removed and his tube is being drained. Without the fluid to hold him up and the numbness still clinging to his skin, it’s no surprise his legs don’t hold his weight. He ends up collapsing against the glass of his tube, crumpled in a wet pile of meat and useless limbs.
His forehead thunks against the glass. It’s still dark, but Wolfwood can still make out parts of his interior. Other parts – no longer his, no longer him – blink and turn and move even without his input. It feels like watching his own organs pump outside of his body.
He still hasn’t found his footing by the time the chest piece of the mech has unlatched and the catwalk extends, expecting Wolfwood to walk out under his own power. The light blinds him and as Wolfwood shies away, more engineers step into the interior and haul him upright by his armpits. One of them recoils at the texture of the gel, clinging to Wolfwood in a gossamer film.
It’s only a procedural instinct that keeps Wolfwood from falling back onto his face when they let him go. "Mission success," Wolfwood mumbles out.
"Your report — "
"No," Wolfwood interrupts, working his jaw. "No."
It's got to be one of the newer techs. The older ones know well enough to stay out of his way. The sky overhead is dusted with stars and he remembers the sun being up when he was launched. Bandit raids on sandsteamers are the kind of missions green pilots should be getting sent on. The ones who still trip over their feet and throw up after being disengaged from their mechs.
Wolfwood was briefed that this was a distress call. Last minute. He's their best available pilot. He was finally starting to get some good sleep.
"Chapel will… get it," he adds, just so the tech has something to tell the old man.
Wolfwood wipes himself down as much as he cares to — enough that he isn't dripping gel all over the linoleum floors, damn things get slippery — and tosses the towel over a handrail. As he makes his way down the stairwell, someone in a medic uniform asks if he's injured.
"Huh? No? Why you askin' ?"
"It's just — you're limping. Did you twist your ankle?"
Wolfwood looks down at his leg. It bends at one joint. The black bodysuit isn't cut and the structure of his leg is sound. Wolfwood glances back to his mech just in time to see one of the mechanics pull out the chunk of shrapnel from the topmost joint of his mech's leg.
He flexes his foot, rolls it around in its socket for good measure. "I'm fine. Thanks."
He wasn't shot. There are bullet holes in his mech and scorch marks across its silver plating. The closer Wolfwood comes to the floor, the more his sense of scale feels inverted. Dizziness starts to creep in, making the corners of his vision sway. Shutting his eyes, he rubs at the tops of his palms and focuses on not tripping over himself.
He gets more looks as he makes his way down the halls. He slouches, keeps his head down — the lights are too damn bright. Wolfwood doesn't know why his presence always causes such a fuss. They should be used to this by now. Maybe the novelty never goes away. It is strange to see part of a machine get up and walk away from its body —
Wolfwood pushes the hair that's fallen into his eyes out of his face and pulls. His fingers slide against the empty port against his neck.
He collapses back into his bed, ignoring the mess it makes of the sheets. Sleep, to his misery, is as difficult as it always is after a mission. Wolfwood wakes up in a cold sweat. The echo of ballistics and damage pings beat against his skull. The fabric tangled around his legs is flimsy and damp. There's a tightness below his ribs and Wolfwood splays a palm against them. He prods at the clammy flesh, mouth gaping for something he can't remember.
Breathe. He should be breathing. His oxygen intake mask isn't — Wolfwood sucks in a breath. The sound is haggard, the cough of an exhaust pipe.
He curls into his chest, wraps both hands around the back of his neck and squeezes. The metal is cold against his fingers.
He tries to roll onto his front. Wolfwood punches one of his pillows and shoves it under him. He drags the sheets over his head and his breath turns humid and the air becomes stifling. The bed is soft and Wolfwood can't remember the last time he fell asleep in it.
The pillow ends up tossed across the room. Wolfwood sits up and scrubs his fingers through his hair. It's grown out to the point that it hides the topmost implants.
Given his odds, chances are that he gets called into another mission anyways. He spares a moment to splash his face with water and scrub between his fingers before he makes his way back towards the hangar. He can't hear any of the heavy machinery, so he hopes they must have finished the repairs on his mech.
Whatever rest he'd managed to get doesn't seem to do anything for the lingering, reverse vertigo he's stuck with. He's so used to seeing the tops of people's heads. It feels alien to remember that he's shorter than a majority of the personnel.
To his luck, the hangar is empty and there's no one to ask him questions when he climbs back up to eye level with his mech.
"Hey," Wolfwood tells it, "they did a good job polishin' you up."
Most of the dents have been pulled out and they've washed away the worst of the scorch marks and dried coolant. The visor is still grimy and Wolfwood finds himself scrubbing his eyes.
It's an older model — technically a prototype of the current Strike Class mechs. 'KNI' is printed across the side of its thighs, though Wolfwood knows that the techs refer to it as the Knives unit.
When Chapel told him he'd be assigned to pilot it, Wolfwood didn't expect to come back from his first dispatch. The exact details escape his interest — something about its hardware, no one has all the details about how old world tech works — but all Wolfwood knows is that out of the nine pilots pushed into it, he's the only one who's lived longer than a year.
Their listed causes of death were catastrophic synchronization failure. Wolfwood knows what that translates to — their brains were boiled in their skulls before they could unplug.
There's an old joke among the more senior members that the mechs all come equipped with a casket. A major hurdle for newbies involves how long they can stay locked in a tube without external stimuli. It's an emergency scenario; if you somehow lose access to your mech and the safety protocols don't kick in, a signal gets sent out. If you're lucky, it only takes a few hours for the rescue units to pull you out.
Some start to scream. Others try breaking the glass. Wolfwood is proud to say that he still holds the record.
He steps inside the pod and out of instinct he looks up for the main cable to distend and connect. Wolfwood rubs at his neck and his other hand reaches out to trace the edge of the retracted glass.
"I know the missions are a pain," Wolfwood tells the mech. He eases himself to the ground and lets his back rest against the tube. "That was sloppy of me, gettin' us shot like that. Sorry."
Looking down into the interior working of his mech, Wolfwood can see some a few, errant lights still active. He's not sure what they could be. Maybe KNI doesn't sleep much either. The interior of his mech is warm and Wolfwood can hear the ever present hum of its internal components surrounding him.
Wolfwood closes his eyes and rests his head against his knees.
He jerks awake when he hears someone knocking against glass. Confused, Wolfwood wonders when was he moved to a room with a window, before he turns his head to see a crowd of techs anxiously rapping their knuckles against the glass.
According to their security feeds, he'd fallen asleep for a solid four hours before someone came around to do maintenance and found him asleep in a sealed tube. They'd tried for another, frantic hour to override the controls. Whatever glitch in KNI's code was stubborn and they'd ended up having to manually unscrew the glass panels before Wolfwood could be extracted.
Aside from a sore back and ass, he feels fine. It's not like he locked himself inside there. He won't complain about a good sleep either way.
He's ready to return to his suite, maybe take a nap, when he hears heavy footfalls behind him.
"Holy shit, Nico?"
Wolfwood turns and Livio grabs him by the shoulders. There's a sheen of sweat to his skin and flyaways from his messy bun stick to his forehead. Wolfwood's nose wrinkles at the smell.
"You stink," he grumbles.
"Like you're one to talk. What's this I'm hearin' 'bout you passing out in your casket?!" Livio asks, shaking him again as if it'll dislodge the answer from his skull like a faulty vending machine.
"Didn't pass out. Just fell asleep."
"Nico, that ain't any better. C'mon, big girl's savin' us a bowl. When's the last time you ate?"
Wolfwood doesn't feel hungry. It takes a gentle prod to his side from Livio to prompt him to respond.
"Uh, last mission. KNI had nutrition rations equipped so… I ate."
"Intravenous fluids shouldn't be your idea of a breakfast," Livio says.
"Sorry," he grumbles.
His brother gives him a sad look. Wolfwood resists the urge to roll his eyes. He's fine — completely functional. Sometimes he does wish he knew what 'fine' looked like for others. He can admit that maybe his own standards are a touch lopsided.
Milly doesn't care about the fact that Livio still smells like sweat and Wolfwood still has old gel in his hair. She hugs them both and Wolfwood only just stops himself from collapsing into her firm embrace. He turns his face against her chest and Milly doesn't make a fuss when he lingers for a second longer after Livio squirms away and urges them all to find a table.
"Hello! You look… terrible," Milly tells him. "You can have my bowl. I always put extra sugar in my porridge but I think you need the treat more than I do."
"Thanks a bunch, big girl." Wolfwood hunches into his seat.
Livio leaves to grab him a coffee. Milly talks about the latest batch of letters she'd sent to her family. Wolfwood tries to nod at the right moments in between pushing mouthfuls of food into his mouth. When he starts to slouch further, she doesn't hesitate to wrap an arm over his shoulder.
The weight helps. Wolfwood manages to find enough energy to sit up properly when he sees Livio coming back with his own tray and two mugs.
"You really gotta get yourself transferred out of Knives," Livio comments. "It's a matter of time 'fore that thing fries your brain stem."
"You should be getting more proper sleep too. Only vampires sleep in coffins," Milly adds.
Wolfwood almost bites his tongue as he chews his food. "You know why I can't."
Despite the pilot overturn rates, KNI still remains their most effective unit. The old world tech it's been retrofitted with can't be mass-duplicated and far as Wolfwood knows, no one higher up seems interested into investigating why KNI goes through so many pilots.
It's no major investment to replace one component with another. If KNI does burn through him, then someone else gets sent to the meat grinder. Livio and Razlo are right below him in pilot rankings.
He wants to change the subject.
"Is there anythin' weird about your mechs?" Wolfwood asks, staring into his bowl.
"Well, Strife is a very classy lady. I wouldn't call her weird," Milly offers, willing to let this go for now.
Livio glances to her, then back to him. Wolfwood firms his lower lip and sucks on his spoon.
"She gets temperamental if she's sent out to do anything close to Worm nests, even though I tell her it's important work. She hates it when one of them gets crushed under her armour and all its guts get stuck in her wires."
"How'd you figure out she's a she?" Livio asks.
"She told me," Milly offers. "Didn't Stampede tell you he's a he?"
"I mean, it felt right. The mech didn't exactly speak to me, if that's what you're sayin'. "
This food doesn't taste like anything. It should be sweet, or bitter, something. Wolfwood chews another mouthful and almost feels sick as he swallows. He can feel his throat distend around the material. When it falls into his stomach, the weight of it feels like a stone.
"Nico? Nico!" Livio shakes him hard enough that his spoon drops into his half-eaten meal.
He isn't hungry. Wolfwood grumbles out something that sounds like a thanks, grabs the coffee and swallows as much as he can. The heat of it burns his tongue and throat, scorching the soft tissue.
"Sorry. The food was good," Wolfwood says, "gonna take a nap."
His next mission is another late night one. Another group of raiders trying their luck at a power plant. Somehow, they've even managed to salvage together a functioning mech for their side. It's an older unit, boxy instead of sleek. Less mobile, but armoured like a brick wall.
Wolfwood is dispatched and everything goes wrong.
These raiders know how to fight S-Class. Hidden under the sands is a latticework of steel cables that tangles up his legs. A duo of jeeps swerve out of his blasts, peppering him with grenades. Half the fight is spent inelegantly rolling through the dunes, dodging rockets and hoping one of them doesn't have a working EMP.
Their mech is about to break through the wall and into the power plant just as Wolfwood manages to pry free one of his cannons and shoot out its cockpit. Wolfwood watches through the cracked camera as the topmost portion of the mecha detonates. Shame about those old designs — there's a reason they don't put pilots where a head would be anymore. Too obvious of a target.
The rest of the raiders scatter with their heaviest firepower down. Wolfwood fires off a few errant shots, but the net had done its job. It's so tangled up that if he pulls the wrong way, his vision floods with error messages and friction damage.
It doesn't dull his satisfaction. He's fulfilled his mission. Minimal casualties and structural damage.
He still feels exhausted.
With the mech immobile and slumped into the sand, Wolfwood is left to float in his tube and wait until they send a repair and recovery team. The camera keeps glitching and Wolfwood closes his eyes against it, not wanting to add a migraine to his growing list of damages.
There's a pressure in his legs that's mirrored by the cords crossing over the mechs legs. It digs into his thighs and leaves no room for Wolfwood to move. He can hear metal plates grinding against each other as he tries. A prickly static shocks his neck. Wolfwood relaxes his legs and lets the post-battle adrenaline drain out of him.
The violence is done. Further past him, Wolfwood knows there's a smouldering corpse in the mech he'd just destroyed. His last mission tallied over a dozen confirmed enemy casualties. There's old blood caught in the grooves of KNI's armour. There's blood stuck in the folds of his knuckles.
Killing is easy when Wolfwood is here; steel and fire, a weapon in the shape of a man.
What he hasn't found the confidence to tell Livio is that it's easier to be when he's here too.
He doesn't have to think — the mech processes all his external stimuli for him. Closed space has never been a problem for him. It's the open air and emptiness that crushes him. The size of everything feels all at once too big and too small. Space only makes sense when he's here; his scale definitive in relation to his mech.
The next breath he takes tastes almost sweet on his tongue. His head falls back into the sands and he sinks. When he blinks, it's nothing but teal light and darkness past that. Cameras are unresponsive. He's left to the familiar hum of machinery and the warmth of his suspension.
It's comfortable.
He winces as one of the cables at the small of his back pops loose and comes undone. The port automatically clicks shut and Wolfwood tries to grope around behind him for the floating cable. Each time he manages to get a grip on it, it slips through his fingers.
The stubborn thing keeps evading him and soon Wolfwood remembers that he's supposed to be exhausted. The cable drifts through the gel. Occasionally, it'll brush against him. It rubs against his cheek and Wolfwood can hear the plastic click against his mask.
It floats over his shoulders, settling over him like a snake. Wolfwood cracks an eye open to watch as it drifts down his arm, coiling around his bicep and forearm.
He gives it a little tug for the sake of his own amusement. There's enough slack that Wolfwood can comfortably bring his left arm up to get a better look at the curious thing.
Another cable pops free, this one from the top of his right hand. More of that sticky, sweet air filters down from his mech's systems and Wolfwood watches as the cable sways in the gel. His hand feels too clumsy to grab it, so he slaps it lightly when it starts to drift towards him.
He's still receiving input from the mech's systems, objective statistics about the mech's condition: fuel level, armour integrity, pilot vitals, repair systems, neurological mappings.
Without the rush of combat and the hyper awareness he needs to both pilot and fight, all the information flows past Wolfwood. It's all white noise and there's a special sort of bliss he finds knowing that he doesn't need to care about any of it.
There's nothing for him to worry about. Nothing is compromised. The distress signal is still projecting, clear and steady.
Wolfwood breaths deep. He drifts. The air being fed to him is honey sweet. He's still anchored to KNI and that simple fact is a comfort all on its own.
He feels the familiar prod of one of his connection cables against his chest. There aren't any ports here — there's nothing to connect to. A fragment of Wolfwood's awareness tells him that there's an incoming surge of power, but before he can think to act on the warning, a shock pulses out from the connections at the soles of his feet.
The surprise has him jerking away from the sensation on instinct. He doesn't hear the mech's hydraulics response to the action — a temporary disconnect from the main body to preserve power. Nothing is compromised.
Another shock ripples out through the port connecting his left hand to the rest of his mech. It jumps and pricks at the finer nerves of his fingers, leaving him with a strange sense of eager anticipation.
It isn't an error. Prickles of excess electricity discharge across his body, centered on the ports binding him to KNI. It isn't painful — the subsequent shocks are much more subdued than the first — and Wolfwood comes to recognize a pattern. Up and down his back, followed by a pulsing current through his fingers, then the soles of his feet.
He can feel the minute changes in each pattern; stronger shocks, longer pauses, multiple ports activated at once. Wolfwood arches his back when all the connections along his spine come to life. The shock is strong, binding out every other sense. When it finally stops, he's left twitching in the aftermath, head lolling back and gasping into his rebreather.
The pattern starts up again, slower. His next breath tastes chemical and crisp. It reminds him of mints and medical solvents. He breaths deep and a drowsy haze starts to overtake him. Exhaustion finally takes its toll. He only has the energy to twitch and weakly moan at the shocks passing through him as sleep comes for him.
When Wolfwood feels his consciousness return, he's mildly surprised to realize that he'd gone from lying in the sands to docked in the hangar. He doesn't remember standing up and walking inside. The repair team must have dragged him back. His arms and legs feel heavy and a humming buzz saturates his skin.
The cockpit is open again, but this time, the tube is still sealed. He can't see much beyond the teal haze and the silver tubes obscuring his vision. Wolfwood can hear talking. None of it is directed to him. Which makes sense. He isn't compromised.
Wolfwood doesn't know why so many people feel the need to riffle and prod at his insides. He isn't compromised.
Wolfwood breathes and feels the cables winding around his torso, growing across him like vines on a trellis. A cluster of them braid around his rebreather, keeping his head tipped up towards the ceiling and wrapping around his face. He pinches his eyebrows together. The ceiling is almost completely obscured with silver cords. There shouldn't be so many.
He catches a voice murmuring something about a forced disconnect. A little pit of dread opens up in Wolfwood when he thinks that they might try to drain his tube and carve him away, regardless of the risks.
Wolfwood shakes his head and the cables around his face constrict. Around him, he can see the way the engineers all freeze as they all hear the massive creak of the mech move around them. Alarmed voices raise in volume and quantity. A blindingly strong light suddenly fills his vision and Wolfwood recoils, screwing his eyes shut and drawing his legs into his chest.
There's a screeching snap and the sound of metal crashing and collapsing against itself. Screams dig into his ears and Wolfwood is ready to clap his hands over his head and tear them off.
The moment the thought comes to his mind, everything goes deaf. There's nothing. Wolfwood can still see the light through his closed eyes, tinted red through the membrane of his eyelids, until he blinks and all he sees is blackness.
There's nothing, not even the burning red of light shining through his closed lids. A temporary disconnect from sensory input.
The tension starts to drain and his limbs fall slack. Even deaf and blind, Wolfwood knows he's perfectly safe inside of KNI. He can feel the cables sliding over his skin, cool and heavy. The static returns, low and warm, sinking down to his bones.
They stretch down his neck and over his chest in lazy coils. He presses his cheek to the length of one of the cables. The surface is warm and smooth. It seems to linger against his face as Wolfwood leans deeper into the touch. He can feel the cables around his chest squeeze. They remind him to breathe. The air tastes sweet.
More cables reach lower, finding the joint of his hip and thigh. Wolfwood parts his legs, letting them explore and wind across his body. There's no cause for worry. It's only KNI. Around each joint, the cables tighten and flex, testing each limb. The manipulations are delicate; one arm raises, one leg bends, his neck is turns gently to either side.
Wolfwood makes a muffled, shy sound as he feels more of the cables animate. With so fewer senses, the slide and pressure feels so much stronger. He swallows and shivers when he feels one of them wrap around his throat. Instinct has Wolfwood rolling his hips, seeking more pressure, more static, more.
There's a pleasure following the thought that feels almost smug. The starkness brings Wolfwood back enough to question where the thought came from. From under the lull of honey and numbness, Wolfwood stretches out a mental hand.
He finds something grab his wrist. It's warm, gliding across his skin in a quicksilver tide.
He opens his mouth.
Error messages explodes across his vision.
Wolfwood wakes up screaming.
Bleached, white lights burn his eyes. Boxy, beeping machines flank either side of him like guards. Stringing out from them are wires of a dozen different colours, connected to his body through a pattern of electrodes down his arms and over his chest. Each of them are cold and stiff under his skin, little plastic splinters he can't remove.
The door to the medical wing bursts open before Wolfwood tries to tear himself free. Razlo storms inside with a nervous looking doctor trailing behind him. His brother grabs him by the collar of his medical gown, pulling him up to look him in the eye.
"What the fuck happened in there, Nick?" Razlo demands.
Wolfwood tries to speak. It's as if his throat is full of broken glass. His eyes start to burn. All Wolfwood can do is shake his head and push his forehead into his brother's shoulder. The doctor starts to open his mouth before Razlo snaps his head to turn his lethal glare against him.
"Get the hell out."
The thud of the door shutting has Wolfwood relaxing by a thin margin. Razlo finally lets him go and starts to pace, hands wringing around the air, a snarl etched into his face.
"Sorry," Wolfwood croaks out.
"Don't — don't fuckin' apologize Nick. Don't do that."
Wolfwood glares at his brother, undeterred by his expression and chokes through his words, "What else 'm I suppos'd to do?"
"I don't know!" Razlo shouts, "you… fuck. You asked Liv about our mech, is that what this is about? Why didn't you say something?!"
" 's not Kni. Not him."
Wolfwood rubs up and down his forearms and biceps. The room is lukewarm, but there's a chill clinging to his skin that won't go away. Skin — his armour is gone. He's not wearing his pilot suit. He checks the backs of his hands and sees the silvery shine of metal. For good measure, Wolfwood feels his back and finds the ports there are intact too.
He frowns when he sees that there's a thicker, rubbery black diagnostics wire stretching out from his neck and into the mass of medical equipment. The sight of it is so viscerally wrong that the sight almost makes Wolfwood wretch.
All of this metal is cold, foreign and quiet. None of this is right. Kni should be at the other end of these connections.
"Raz… do either of you… " Wolfwood pauses, trying to find the right way to explain any of what happened, "do you like bein' part of Stampede?"
"Being a pilot? Well — "
Wolfwood cuts him off. "No. 's not… not what I mean."
Livio had once explained to him what it felt like having Razlo control over their body while he drifted in their shared head space. He'd visualized it as a waiting room with an unlocked door. He waited for his turn to use the body when Razlo no longer felt the need to, but could throw open the door should he see fit.
Whatever Wolfwood has — whatever Kni gives him — it isn't that. Livio and Razlo are his brothers who happen to share the same body. Livio wears their hair in a bun. Razlo spikes it up into a mohawk. Livio likes layers. Razlo insists on muscle shirts and tank tops.
There's no boundary between his self and his mech. It feels wrong for Wolfwood to even think of Kni as his. Compared to Kni, Wolfwood is vestigial. He's a small, delicate component hiding in the core of a steel giant. He's the trigger to a weapon. He always feels so cold outside of his tube.
"Kni… where's Kni?" Wolfwood asks, voice shaking.
Razlo isn't happy, but they both know emotions aren't his strong suit."He's gettin' a deep clean. The techs aren't gonna let you within five feet of him after how much it took to pry you out. You've needed a break for a while, anyhow, and Chapel can't hold this against you either."
Fingers of ice drag themselves down his back. Wolfwood stares into the sheets thrown over his legs. Razlo goes quiet and sits beside him, lingering until he's ushered out by another doctor.
Wolfwood is told that the disorientation is normal for a forced disconnect. He should expect dizziness, nausea, phantom limb syndrome — as if these are meant to be unfamiliar sensations and not a simple fact of Wolfwood's existence. If he had the energy, he'd laugh in the doctors face.
When the man finally leaves, Wolfwood manages to find enough of his voice to ask him to turn the lights off.
The sheets are too thin. The mattress is too soft. Wolfwood tries to cram his head under his pillow and it might as well be a bag of air. Nothing works. What's worse is that every time Wolfwood thrashes in his sleep, it pulls at the wires stuck into his skin and under his ports and the pain jerks him awake.
Even what sleep he can find isn't good. In his dreams, his mind tricks him with the fleeting weight of silver cables. Wolfwood sees them turn to liquid, then into hands that grope across his chest and press against his face. Wolfwood opens his mouth and two fingers press down against his tongue.
He wakes up panting, cock half-hard against his thigh. Whatever arousal he feels is quickly drowned out by the sheer loss every time he wakes up. So he's left uncomfortable, cold, and for the life of him, Wolfwood doesn't know what he's supposed to do about any of this.
When he is awake, Wolfwood tries to force food down. It's what his brothers would ask him to do. The texture all turns into a wet mush that sticks between his teeth. He does his best to talk when Milly or his brothers stop by. Livio doesn't like when he asks about Kni — Razlo outright refuses — but he still keeps him updated.
"They haven't asked me to start doing sync tests with KNI," Livio affirms, "but I heard there's a new shipment of recruits on base."
"Crash dummies." Wolfwood grunts, scratching at his right hand and port.
"You'd think they'd stop wasting people on KNI given how volatile that mech is. It ain't right."
"Mhm."
He agrees and Wolfwood sincerely hopes that no one else gets chosen. A sour taste fills his throat at the idea of someone else trying to pilot KNI. More than just the risk to their life, it feels wrong. Wolfwood can't shake the sense of revulsion of someone trying to fit into a place made for him. It feels like an invasion, like an infection.
"We really gotta get you a hobby. I could ask Razlo to lend you our paints?" Livio offers.
"Huh. Thanks."
Before his brother can continue his offer, the blare of a base-wide alarm screams through the air. Wolfwood clamps his hands over his ears and Livio jumps to his feet. Over the PA system, they both hear the call for an emergency evacuation of the hangars. When Livio makes a break for the exit, it's instinct to follow. The moment he tries to move, the wires go taunt and Wolfwood feels the weight of the machines he's tied to drag against him.
Wolfwood grabs a fistful and tears them out, thin metal and plastic snapping under his fingers. He tries to jerk his other arm free, but the black cable ties his right arm to the bulk of metal by his bedside. He can't find the patience to remember how to disconnect himself manually — the screaming, it won't stop. Instead, he plants one foot against the front and kicks against it.
The heel of his foot aches and sends impact tremors up his leg. Wrapping the cable around his other wrist, Wolfwood yanks and with an elastic snap, he's pulled himself free. Momentum has him stumbling back and landing on his ass with a heavy thud. It takes him a moment to get his legs back under control before Wolfwood is shoving past the door and running out into the halls.
The halls are a flood of blaring emergency lights. He hugs the wall for support, struggling to look over the stampede of bodies. His brother's already long gone. Engineers rush past him and Wolfwood realizes the direction they're fleeing and starts to bully his way through the crowd. Red and white lights flash over the entrance to the hangar bay and he can feel the impact of a mech's footsteps shaking the ground.
The screech of twisting metal has him leaning against the doorway, teeth grinding as he struggles to stay upright. He brings a hand to his mouth, choking on the dust filling the air. As he squints around, he can see crushed machinery and sparking wires across the ground. Another heavy crash draws his eye's to the source of the mayhem and Wolfwood can't believe it.
Kni is rampaging. Chunks of concrete smash against the walls. Metal debris is crushed under his footsteps. The signal lights across Kni's body flash a deep crimson and that shouldn't be possible. They were programmed to be yellow.
Kni slams an arm down and drags it across the ground, pushing up mountains of rubble. The helm swivels, lingers on the mess before and tossing it aside. The mech drives it's other arm into the ground, pounding with a force that knocks Wolfwood onto his knees.
He coughs against the dust. It clumps his eyelashes together like mortar. Each breath feels like swallowing sand. Wolfwood raises his head, one hand squeezing his throat and forces as much air into his lungs as he can.
"Kni!" Wolfwood screams.
His voice is so ragged, he doesn't expect either mech to hear him. Wolfwood flinches when Kni's helm snaps to look at him, red spotlights beaming down on him.
The shadow of the mech looms over him. With a heavy clunk, Kni's chest piece splits open and dozens of cables dart out and find Wolfwood, dragging him inside and sealing the chassis and tube behind him. When the first port connects, Wolfwood screams again from the tide of molten, burning heat he feels. It crashes against him, threatening to burn him alive.
He barely registers the warmth of the gel filling the tube until it flows over his head. It doesn't taste at all like Wolfwood expects, like a lukewarm, herbal tea. It's only after the moment passes that Wolfwood remembers his oxygen mask. Fresh panic has his clasping his hands over his mouth and he holds as much air as he can in his lungs.
One of those silver cables suddenly jabs over the tops of his palms. When Wolfwood releases one hand to bat it away, it slips under his remaining hand and pushes itself into past his lips. He gasps out in surprise and bubbles flood his vision.
It reaches further down, over his tongue and deeper down his throat. Wolfwood starts to spasm, his weak gag reflex straining against the flexible metal. Under all the heat and blind panic, he barely feels the lightest shock spreading out from his neck. All the muscles of his respiratory system go slack.
'Wolfwood. Breathe.'
The command is so sudden, so certain, that Wolfwood does. He can feel the movement of air through the cable, feeding into his lungs. It make's no sense — Kni doesn't… Kni shouldn't be able to —
'Nai.'
The rage finally dissipates, leaving Wolfwood sedate in a way being connected to Nai always feels. His voice is softer than Wolfwood expected. The name fits better, sounds smoother than his own pronunciation.
He hears a laugh and from both ends of his tube, cables stretch out and wind around his limbs. They look different than the normal connections; splitting and unwinding into fine wires that wrap around him in spirals of silver lace.
'Wolfwood. Component. Vital. Possess. Stolen. Returned.'
Something slips under his ports — integration. Wolfwood can feel the soft metal wind itself through his nervous system — security. It's not enough for Nai either, the fragile connections between them. Wolfwood can still taste the fury at having a stranger trying to control to his body.
It was a mercy to that small thing that Nai did not kill it. He had taken the intrusion as proof that Wolfwood had expired like humans always did. He did not want this one to expire. This one is special.
Wolfwood feels the cable in his mouth start to pulse — curiosity. The rudimentary mask his pilot had used before kept Nai from properly examine this place. Wolfwood's tongue rubs against the underside. His lips try to seal around the smooth metal. It tells Nai that this skin is special too. Sensitive. Erogenous.
The gel provides a helpful medium to ease the first press against his hole. It stretches and aches, but as Wolfwood starts to bite down on the cable in his mouth, Nai rewrites the sensation and removes the pain entirely. He will not be so careless as the small things that broke him in two. Nai monitors Wolfwood's vitals as he pushes deeper, feeling for how Wolfwood's muscles twitch and his breathing spasms.
'Safe. Breathe.'
Nai keeps the flow of sedatives diluted as he tests Wolfwood's fingers. It would defeat Nai's objective if Wolfwood were not aware for his maintenance. The novelty of digits is strange, but Nai finds himself enjoying their tactility. Wolfwood feels his own fingers wrap around the length of his cock, tracing the veins and rubbing at the spongy tip. Nai forms a fist and Wolfwood moans, hips pushing up into the tightness.
Wolfwood is not compromised. These involuntary movements are evidence of his pleasure. Nai brings his other hand to his chest, squeezing over one of Woldwood's pecs. Two fingers pinch a nipple between them and Wolfwood cries out, high little moans that Nai knows are a distressed response.
The hand around Wolfwood's cock starts to move. The cables push deeper. Nai will be careful. He has a limited understanding of what makes his pilot feel good, but it's a delight that Wolfwood responds so well to his efforts.
Nai rubs further into his ass, mapping for which spots makes the body nestled inside him whimper. Nai thinks that it's wonderfully convenient that he has such a simple method to keep his pilot relaxed. He finds a particular center of nerves inside Wolfwood and speeds up his thrusts against it.
Wolfwood feels when he spills into his hand. It's indecent — he is not compromised. Nai continues to rub at his prostate, hoping to coax more beautiful sounds from his pilot. Wolfwood is not compromised. Nai will be careful.
Wolfwood tries to nod, but his head doesn't move. He needs know if it's safe to feel so much bliss. He needs Nai to keep him safe. He needs… he needs…
Nai pulls another orgasm from Wolfwood's body. Nai observes the sound Wolfwood makes and the way his mouth hangs open. His lips remain parted. His throat swallows around the cable. His stomach flexes and his back arches in a smooth, elegant curve.
There's no evidence to suggest that continuous stimulation would be bad for his pilot. Wolfwood is still moaning and his cock remains stiff. Nai listens to his pilot's flickering, incomplete thoughts as he struggles to remain coherent.
Nai pours another wave of sedatives and a small dose of aphrodisiac into the air Wolfwood breathes. In truth, his pilot's vitals are awful, to the point where Nai almost believed that Wolfwood's baseline was simply lower than the mean. He can map out every frayed neuron, read the buildup of cortisol in his pilot's brain. Nai will not be so careless.
Every time his pilot returned, Nai could see more of Wolfwood had been scrapped away. It had surprised Nai to see how much strength Wolfwood had to endure. Nai feels it in every fight, every encounter against bandits and while defending against Grand Worm raids. Looking at Wolfwood now, Nai finds that he can no longer tolerate the conditions Wolfwood is placed in when they are separated.
Nai wraps one of his cables around Wolfwood's throat. The muscle contracts involuntarily and to his surprise, Nai observes how Wolfwood's spent cock twitches. He winds further length of cable around his pilots neck, slowly constricting as Nai registers these new responses.
Wolfwood's neurons flash with ecstasy. His eyes flutter, even as his oxygen intake becomes critically low. Nai relaxes and Wolfwood makes an audible sound of distress. He whines around the cable filling his mouth and tries to bob his head, coaxing more of it's length down his throat.
A weak stream of expulsion drips out from his cock and Nai tries to find a sequence of words that describe his feelings. It's nothing short of pure delight.
Wolfwood needs him. Wolfwood is a strange, foreign part of Nai that he does not understand and refuses to be separated from. More importantly, Nai cannot trust humans to care for what is his.
Nai's outward sensors register audio from the ruined hangar. He ignores the feed in favor of mimicking a prior motion he'd observed from Wolfwood; crossing his arms over his chest piece.
Wolfwood is where he is needed — Nai cannot lose him again.