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It's funny, their little thing. That's what no one seems to get. People will always side-eye them with scorn, masking their confusion. Clown always gets the worst of it too, just because he's the scary one. Branzy has had people look at him like he’s a victim. They’ve asked if he needs to be saved, or if he’s being held hostage, or if Clown’s hurting him.
But Clown doesn’t hurt him. At least not in a way that matters. Sure, his idea of affection is sometimes, on occasion, a light tap that bruises, or an accidental slash with a knife, or a sword, or the scythe—but that’s just how he loves. It’s well-intentioned.
And no one seems all that concerned that Branzy’s getting kidnapped every other month these days! And that it’s always Clown coming to the rescue.
It had been funny at first; a natural consequence of starting a lucrative, if not unapologetically shady, business venture. Clown had wanted a front for his whole villainy thing and Branzy had wanted a place where he could do things he was good at.
The final result, the place the casino has turned into now, makes a lot of people angry.
And they’re not going to come after Clown for all they've lost—why would they? He’s horrifying.
Branzy is not.
He’s got his strengths, most of which involve a lot of hard work, the kind that goes into designing grand machines and rigging said machines, and being the more welcoming face of the casino. He can’t defend himself very well. He can’t get out of traps. He can kind of sniff out the people who get mad enough that they might try something later, but as soon as they’ve set their minds on revenge, he’s pretty much just along for the ride.
The good thing is that everyone blames Clown, labelling him as the Big Bad of their place. The not-so-good thing is that people have finally caught on to the fact that the best way to get to Clown… is through Branzy.
Hence, the kidnappings.
It’s the sixteenth time—and if that doesn’t say anything about crime in the city, he doesn’t know what does—he’s in some unknown location with a blindfold over his eyes, feeling woozy from being drugged and a bit bummed out that it had to happen on a Friday, when unsuspecting customers or gambling addicts come in great abundances.
He dismisses the disappointment as soon as he comes to his senses. He still can’t see, whatever had made him pass out for the journey to wherever they are, is starting to wear off, and that makes him aware of a sharp pain in his abdomen.
It’s cold, his whole body is, like sheets of ice coating his limbs and melting into his skin. He remains still either way, not a shiver or shake.
When he shifts, he has to bite his lip to suppress something between a groan and a whimper. He’s long since learned that these types, the types who kidnap poor, innocent scam artists, aren’t very patient. That’s all Branzy has to be; patient.
They’ve put him on the floor somewhere, his hands bound together and tied to something. Whatever building they’re in has a distinct, old smell, and judging by how their voices resonate off the walls, it’s a very open space. A factory of some kind, probably. No one wants to reveal their real base of operation to Clown, they just want the chance to kill him, finally.
Branzy wants to ask what their plans are for when Clown shows up. Are they the types to over-prepare or to underestimate? Judging by their slight dialects mostly associated with the lower class in the city, Branzy would assume it’s the latter. If they were smart, they wouldn’t have hurt him either—but in their defence, it’s not like anyone has lived to tell the tale of how annoyed Clown gets when someone as much as lays a finger on Branzy.
They’re waiting for a storm, they’re going to be torn apart.
The pain is still slowly making its way towards the surface, turning from a sharp sting, to a burning one . Seriously, what did they do to him? He can’t remember exactly what led him here. Usually, he’d assume that meant he’d been ambushed, knocked out, taken away. But with a wound, it sort of looks like he’d fought back, something he never tries.
On top of the pain, he’s needlessly dizzy too. It must be from blood loss.
Funnily enough, that’s something Clown is more used to dealing with. Sometimes he comes back from his… business with an injury so severe he’ll actually let Branzy help treat it, and Branzy’s learned a lot from that. Like how Clown, when fragile, becomes more menacing, deadly soft. In those moments, he makes Branzy think he’d rather have them both die together than Branzy ever as much as breathing about it to anyone else. But they’re way past verbal threats. So, it remains unspoken: that Branzy gets to help, how special, but how that tightens the bond between them, the chain that Clown holds, the end wrapped around Branzy’s wrist.
Okay, so he hasn’t learned much when it comes to treating injuries, mostly because he knows it all already. Put pressure on the wound. Stop the bleeding. Bandage it. Do it all cleanly. None of which are things he can do at the moment, his hands being tied and all.
He doesn’t know how long it’s been either, a few hours maybe? With an untreated wound… that’s kind of dangerous.
Branzy shifts again, biting the inside of his cheek as he sits up properly, back against a jaggy wall. He takes a steadying breath as the pain increases with the added hardship of sitting upright. The voices stop for a moment, possibly to look over at him, now awake.
He wants to ask if they can get him something, like an ambulance, or a healing potion, or anything to wrap around his injury. But it’d be so useless that he doesn’t bother with the risk, they could’ve treated him while he was passed out.
Instead, he asks, unwisely, “So, how much money did I scam you guys out of?” as a little conversation starter.
“Shoulda used the cloth for a gag instead,” one of them grumbles.
Branzy shuts his mouth to signal that he can be quiet, no trouble, without them intervening. To his joy, they seem to accept that, they even answer his question!
“You didn’t get a damn thing from us,” another one of them says, this one had more bite to his tone. “This is only ‘bout the Clown. And you’re the only way to get to ‘im.”
Branzy hums, despite his effort to keep casual, his throat feels scratchy, his voice weak. “Why did you hurt me then? If it’s nothing personal, I mean. Could’ve done without—” He furrows his brow. “Stabbing me?” he guesses. The nature of his injury is hard to tell, it just hurts and hurts, but it feels maybe a bit bigger than what a bullet would do.
“We left a trail,” is the answer, said with a smirk in the tone.
Idiots, he thinks. Stupid fools. And yeah, the thought of his blood, outside his body, left diligently for Clown to follow, makes him feel sick, but really, digging their own graves might’ve been a better option than slowly dragging this out. They won’t be buried whole with how they've chosen to play it.
“Alright,” Branzy mutters, slumping a bit down the wall. “He’ll save me.”
“We’re countin’ on it.”
It takes longer than it usually does.
Branzy would find amusement in that if he wasn’t in agony. He’s beginning to think that these people are more competent than he’d first assumed, that they’ve got a whole plan figured out, that Branzy really is in the heart of danger while there’s something blocking Clown from having found him. There’s a trail of his blood! Branzy should be easy to find. So it must be something else.
They’re probably making a lot of demands. Don’t bring a weapon. Come alone. Listen to everything we say. Things like that. And Branzy knows that Clown is listening because if he wasn’t, Branzy would probably be in a worse condition.
Not that sitting around with an untreated stab wound is in any way good on its own.
He’s given up on sitting up. He feels too faint to do it. He’d rather be curled up with his cheek against the cold concrete floor. Even lying down he gets waves of dizziness and a few odd periods where he loses his senses and his thoughts.
It’s miserable. It’s really, really miserable. It’s the kind of thing that’d make any other man reconsider all the choices that let them there. Most probably wouldn’t end up thinking about how they’d started a business with the most terrifying person alive. And Branzy’s not innocent enough to feel bad for himself, he knows he’s had this coming. Sixteen times.
He still wants it to be over. Sure, Clown scares him sometimes… a lot. Too much. But he’s safe. He was a means to an end once, now he’s just everything.
And he will be there. He will kill these guys. He will save Branzy. He’s very serious about Branzy’s safety. After the first couple kidnappings, he’d joke about locking him up somewhere to be kept safe—admittedly, that had been one amongst many moments where Branzy just laughed nervously along. It’s their little thing, that’s all. Clown always softens the scary things with some loving comments anyway. “Aw, but I can’t do that, Branzy. I’d have to get a new engineer, and they wouldn’t be nearly as adorable.” He’ll always top it off with a kiss on the forehead, or a little pat on the cheek, or a hair ruffle. It’s cute, really.
Branzy wonders where the line is, but truth be told, it’s probably not there at all. Never was. All he needs to understand is that he’s under the protection of Clown. It’s the most valuable thing in the world, even if it isn’t doing much at the moment.
He must’ve spent hours here at this point, time blending together as he fades in and out of consciousness. He tries to tune into their conversations a couple of times to see if there’s anything of value, but they’re smart enough to not reveal anything to him.
Everything is calm for a while, with Branzy shifting in and out of consciousness, blind to the world.
It changes with a single, terrible explosion.
Branzy flinches at the sound, scrambling to sit back up. He tries to shake off the blindfold so he can see whatever unfolds. The kidnappers curse like sailors in the aftermath. Rushed footsteps move their way over and Branzy can do nothing but flail when someone hoists him up with a steel grip on his upper arm.
“Hey—I’ll be cooperative, there’s absolutely no need to be so—”
“Shut up,” the man hisses.
Before he can respond, he feels something metallic against his throat. He instinctively tries to pull back, which presses him closer to his kidnapper.
“Not another step, hero,” the man says, this time it’s very much not directed at Branzy. He’s leverage now. Yay.
“We’ve followed your demands,” Rek’s voice responds steadily—oh, he must be dying of worry. Branzy wants to ask where Clown is. He’s not stupid enough to, but it’s a near thing.
“Who activated the trap?” the man demands to know.
Branzy smiles despite himself, a soft little thing that’s probably a product of blood loss and exhaustion more than genuine amusement.
“I did. It was an accident,” Rek explains sensibly. Then, “I also came alone. There’s no reason to make it any more complicated. Just let him go, please?”
Clown wouldn’t have asked, but Branzy is touched by the effort nonetheless.
“Not until we’ve got the confirmation that the Clown went where we told ‘im to,” the man says.
“Of course,” Rek agrees, taking a page from Branzy’s book of placating people to survive. “He’ll be there soon. But I’ve worked with him for a while, and you should know that he can be flaky.”
The kidnapper gives Branzy a quick shake. “Not with this one.”
Branzy needs a moment to breathe and find his footing.
Rek is doing a marvellous job at keeping his demeanour calm. “It’s hard to tell with him,” he elaborates. “If you ask me, he’s not gonna walk into an obvious trap to save someone who’s been taken like a dozen times already.”
At those words, miraculously, the man sighs. Not like he’s running out of patience and going to kill Branzy to prove a point, but like he’s been successfully snared by Rek’s words. Whatever Rek’s got planned behind the scenes, whatever he and Clown have arranged, playing it as if they’re, at most, reluctantly working together is one good move.
“Look,” Rek continues casually. “I’m not going to leave without my friend and neither of us has any interest in fighting you. But I don't want to see him die, so can I at least just treat him while we wait and see if Clown’s going to do what you asked?”
One second, Branzy tenses, scared that he’ll have read all of it wrong. The next, he’s unceremoniously dropped to the ground. The man mumbles out something about ‘annoying heroes’ as his footsteps get a bit further away.-
Then there’s a pair of hands, gently forcing him to lie on his back before they reach up to remove the blindfold.
“Good god,” Branzy cringes when light pours into his vision, making his eyes sting. He barely has time to recover from that before Rek rolls up his dress shirt. Branzy tries to sit up and have a look at his injury, but all he sees before being pushed back down is red. The bottom half of his beautiful, purple, carefully tailored dress shirt is stained red.
But also. “Where’s my vest?” he kind of just whines the words, pretending that he’s in no pain. He’s trembling a bit though, and his vision is blurring too.
Rek shoots him a helpless kind of glare. “Sixteen times, Branzy? Sixteen?”
Branzy feigns confusion by furrowing his brow. “Has it really been that many?”
“You—Branzy, I know you keep count of stuff like that.” Rek reaches into his bag and pulls out a first aid kit, all the while disappointedly asking, “When were you gonna tell me about those other fourteen times?”
Never, Branzy thinks. He was going to take it to the grave. So, he wonders how it got out, or rather, what made Clown share that particular detail. Had it been a slip? It’s not like Branzy had told him he’d rather not want his fretting friend to be worried every time a customer got mad enough to try something stupid. Clown might just have been complaining about it. ‘Oh, that Branzy. This is the sixteenth time. How long can I keep letting him get away with it?’ That’s something he’d say, all menacing.
“I was getting to it,” Branzy says, followed by him sucking in a sharp breath as Rek’s hand makes contact with his abdomen.
“No, you weren’t!” Rek exasperates. He pouts. “I can’t believe you were never going to tell me.”
“Well, I am very thankful that you’re here to save me so I won’t—” Branzy hisses and clenches his teeth. “—won’t have to die with the guilt of keeping it from you—hey, you got a health potion for a poor guy?”
“I’ve got a regen,” Rek says. “Just needed to check if you got anything in the wound we wouldn’t want stuck in there.”
“You’re so wise,” Branzy compliments, slurring his words. “Don’t think they hit anywhere important. They just wanted some blood.”
“Are you defending the people who stabbed you?” Rek’s words are reminiscent of the previous exasperation, but through hazy vision, Branzy can see his eyes darting all over the room to keep track of all the potential threats. He looks back down at Branzy, pulling out a lovely little vial with a pink liquid inside. “Wait, I shouldn’t be surprised, you’re always defending Clown. You’re just speedrunning Stockholm Syndrome with these guys.”
Branzy does not point out that they really have been quite nice about the kidnapping thing. He’d compare them to the group from kidnapping number eight, who left him with a broken rib, or the woman from kidnapping number twelve who drugged him so badly he spent a day seeing his worst nightmares. Those are not the words that would make Rek feel any better. So he doesn’t say them.
Although that’s mostly because he can feel himself slipping again.
A hand lifts the back of his head and Rek urges him to drink the contents of the vial. Branzy feels the effect almost immediately, softness that contrasts with the searing pain, flowing over him in gentle waves. It makes him feel even drowsier.
“Is Clown not coming?” he asks silently.
Rek’s face is too blurry to make out an expression. “I really don’t know,” he says. “They want him in a different location, but they agreed to let one of his allies in to tell him that you were still alive. I looked through a hole in the ceiling and reported back to him before I activated the trap.”
Not by accident, Branzy distantly puts together. Right? If they were going to let in a person to confirm that Branzy was alive, why would they lead him to a trapped entrance? That must mean that Rek’s done it on purpose.
To leave an opening.
Branzy smiles just as the room erupts into chaos.
Rek shoots up from the ground as someone jumps towards them; the same man from before has already fired two shots by the time he’s reached his full height. It doesn’t look like any of them hit him, because he’s dashing to the side, crushing strength and resistance potions on the ground as the next round is fired at him.
Branzy tries to sit up and scramble away, pushing the tiny dose of regeneration for as much as its worth.
Seeing the factory from a new perspective reveals just how big this operation is. He had heard voices before, sure, maybe half a dozen, but there are at least two dozen people fighting about now. And most of them have got their weapons aimed at the red and black blur that flickers between long-since abandoned machines.
This is not Branzy’s scene. It’s something he tends to forget every time he ends up in any fight bigger than a thumb war. The sound of bullets hitting metal sort of freaks him out—even if it’s not that different from the sounds behind the scenes of the shifting walls of the funhouse. He has a hard time keeping track of anything and if even a single person decided to go from him, he’d be dead. Fun.
It looks like Rek’s trying to drive people away from him though, with the way he’s pulled out his own gun and begun shooting people, putting a lot of negative attention on himself.
Branzy uses the opportunity to crawl away with his hands still tied, like the coward he is.
He makes it a glorious two metres before he’s kicked in harshly in his stomach, right in the still-healing wound.
He lets out a cry of pain and curls in on himself, the edges of his vision darkening. A strong hand grabs him roughly by the collar of his shirt and forces him to his feet. He tries to scream out for help, but his words are cut off by whoever has grabbed him, moving his other hand over Branzy’s mouth.
Branzy panics. The man begins to drag him away, uncaring of Branzy squirming, through the once-functional machinery and towards whoever knows. Branzy’s eyes dart around frantically, trying to find Rek or Clown between the dozens of people caught in the fight. But everything is so fuzzy. And loud. It’s hopeless.
He slumps. Whoever’s grabbed him doesn’t say a word, they just hurry through the pandemonium with purpose. Branzy expects to be taken out into the cold, thrown in some vehicle, and driven so far away that he’ll never be found. He’s very confused when he’s instead lifted up a flight of industrial stairs and into a control room.
The person is surprisingly nice about placing him down again, helping him against the wall under the windows that face the open area beneath. Branzy squints up at them, slowly taking in the features he can see past the all-black clothing and a mask that covers their mouth.
He finds himself staring into a purple eye, the other one obscured entirely by dark glitches, flickering about.
“Ash?” he asks, shock knocking him right out of the daze. “Do you want to kidnap me too?”
Ash’s one visible eye is somehow enough to show how much nothing the question makes him feel.
“I actually came here to help,” he says drily, regretfully.
Branzy smiles. “Oh, that’s so much better—that’s wonderful! Thank you so much.”
His gratefulness isn’t feigned at all. He’s missed Ash. They haven’t talked at all since… the thing. And now he’s here to help!
Ash sighs shortly.
“So, what’s the plan?” Branzy asks as a round of shots can be heard firing amongst the machinery. Clown is down there, fighting what should be an impossible battle. And Rek too, both to save him. Branzy really should help.
Ash’s face flickers again as he sits down on his knees, officially joining Branzy on the floor. He rubs the side of his head with the palm of his hand. “Nothing, Branzy. We’re waiting out the cooldown and then I’m getting you the fuck out of here.”
Branzy frowns. “But Clown is down there—and Rek. We’ve got to help them.”
“I’m gonna kick you again if you try to go back down,” Ash says.
“There’s no need to do that again—hey, why’d you even do it in the first place? It hurt.”
Ash just shrugs. “I had to sell it. All those motherfuckers thought I was one of them because of it. So you’re welcome.”
“Thank you then,” Branzy relents.
From what he remembers, Ash’s teleportation cooldown is proportional to the distance he’s jumped. He has no clue where Ash was before this, but he probably teleported inside, and if they’re waiting it out in hiding, it’s probably a few minutes at least.
That gives Branzy plenty of time to figure out if there’s any way he can be useful with a slowly regenerating stab wound and absolutely no weapons—not that weapons make him any more useful.
Unfortunately, he draws a blank.
He’d be more upset about it if he wasn’t so used to it. And hey, Ash is here! They finally have time to catch up.
“So,” he starts slowly, “how have you been?”
Another explosion shakes the buildings. Neither of them react.
“I’ve been fine,” Ash says through a sigh.
He doesn’t say anything else.
Branzy tries again. “Well, I’ve been good! Clown and I started a Casino. It’s so profitable! And we aren’t running that many lives.”
Ash isn’t even looking at him when he says, “I’m sure Clown is ruining plenty.”
And Branzy knows it’s not about some superior moral compass. Clown is evil, Ash isn’t good. No, it’s about that thing that happened between them. The one that Clown ordered Branzy to never ever ask him about. All Branzy knows is that one day, everything is dandy, the next, Ash is gone and Clown is threatening him again—something he rarely ever does directly.
This is the first chance he has to ask about it without getting hurt.
“Speaking of…” he says carefully. “What happened between you two? If you don’t mind me asking.”
Ash’s eye narrows. “He didn’t tell you?” he asks sharply.
“No,” Branzy says. “He was so upset. He didn’t want to talk about it at all.”
At those words, Ash’s expression turns stony again. “You know, I feel bad for you, man. He could cut off both your feet and you would convince yourself that you didn’t need them anyway.”
“Don’t give him ideas,” Branzy jokes.
Ash glares again, mildly. “Do you wanna hear what he said to get me to come here?”
Branzy blinks. “I guess?”
“If you don’t come, Branzy is going to die.” Ash massages his forehead again. “He has the balls to reach out to me after what he did—and you know what’s funny, Branzy? It’s the only thing he could’ve said to get me here and he knows it.”
The words all sound so heavy, but Branzy is completely lost to what gives them so much weight.
“Well, I’m glad you’re here,” he says. “I’ve missed you.”
“I thought he was gonna kill you,” Ash clarifies sharply.
“He wouldn’t,” Branzy assures with confidence. That much, he knows. Hurt, yes, sure. But kill? Never.
For a moment, Ash just looks hopeless. “I’ve seen him with his scythe against your throat, man.”
And then something strange happens, something that Branzy will blame on the elevated emotions of his sixteenth kidnapping. He falters, just a bit.
“That was—no—you’re misunderstanding it,” he frets. “It was ages ago, gosh—so long."
Everything had still been new then, and Branzy hadn’t quite learned all the little things that helped him understand Clown. He had overstepped, tried to set a little boundary, and he had realised his mistake before Clown had pulled the weapon on him, even. Ash had come into the room—thinking back, the Ash in his memory looks so much younger than the Ash in front of him now—confused and horrified.
But nothing had happened. Branzy’s heart had been caught in his throat at first, his eyes stinging with unshed tears and his hands trembling so badly that he couldn’t hold any of his tools for hours.
But nothing had happened. Ash was gone two weeks later.
Ash is here now, looking completely defeated.
The little glitch around his eye now covers almost half his face and Branzy kind of wants to bring him back into the lab and see what it’s all about. Maybe another day. Probably not.
“I’m glad you think you’re fine, Branzy,” he says.
It should be condescending, but Branzy recognises that it’s a genuine sentiment. So, it doesn’t bother him. It’s the thought that counts.
“And I’m really glad to see you again,” Branzy says with a smile. “Even if the circumstances are less than ideal.”
Ash rolls his eye. “Yeah, man. Sure.”
Branzy knows that there’s nothing more from that conversation; nothing that Ash wants to share and nothing that Branzy even feels like asking.
It’s probably for the best that Ash hadn’t explained what happened either. Clown still doesn’t want Branzy to know, or else he would’ve told him. So maybe he’d just be upset if Branzy sought out the answer anyway. Better keep that to himself.
“You look like shit, by the way,” Ash says conversationally. “How’s the injury?”
Branzy shifts, realising only then that the pain has faded. It still stings, but for a stab wound, a mild sting is miraculous. Maybe Rek put something else in that potion.
“The regeneration has definitely done its job,” he says. “Cooldown?”
“A few minutes.” Ash slowly gets to his feet again. He spares a glance out the window. “Looks like they called for reinforcements,” he observes.
Branzy helps himself to his feet a bit faster than he should, looking through the dusty window with a worried frown.
It takes him no time to spot Clown, mostly because he’s the target of the dozen or so people who are still chasing him around the area. There’s a lot of red splatters down there, bodies strewn about on conveyor belts and cold concrete. Rek appears to be keeping his distance, hitting and running, helping Clown thin out the number of attackers, but Branzy only looks at him for a few moments before his attention is recaptured by Clown.
He must’ve taken some devastating hits. Not many people ever get the opportunity to even attempt to overpower him by numbers. So now, even if it’s only one per cent of bullets that hit, that’s still an injury more than he usually suffers.
Branzy wants so desperately to jump into the fray and help out, even if Clown is skillfully dancing through the machines, the white of his mask obscured with blood from the lives he’s taken for Branzy tonight.
The thing he hates the most about the kidnappings is that it whisks away any illusion of equality.
At the casino, where Branzy greets the guests, where Branzy designs the machines, where they’ve been away from that darn laboratory so long it feels like they’re different people; that’s where Branzy feels the happiest. He knows that everyone who knew him before Clown thinks he’s lost it. He did lose it for a while. He met the worst person in the world and managed to love him. He’s crazy. But he gets to do things he never could have done on his own.
Clown gets that. He knows exactly what he’s given Branzy, which will always be more than Branzy can give to him.
But Branzy still thinks they work. There’s a side to it all that no one else will ever comprehend, and it’s the one where Clown, beneath all the threats and the imbalances, loves Branzy too.
That’s what makes him come every single time—even during kidnapping four, which Branzy had kind of arranged on purpose just to see. It’s also what makes it so hard to watch him fight without interference.
Most importantly, it’s what makes Branzy notice something he had missed until now.
“The machines!” he exclaims, trying to keep down his rising excitement. “We can control them remotely!”
Ash glances at him. “There’s no way, are you kidding me?”
Branzy grins. “Absolutely not, my friend!” He points down at a big, metallic and rusty machine sitting by the wall to their right. “That’s a generator. It’s the kind that runs on its own energy, so it doesn’t need to be fed anything to keep it going.”
He stumbles as he hurries back to look at the control panels he’d ignored when they first got into the room. Sure enough, it all looks primitive. The place is old and abandoned, of course, it’s not going to hold the most advanced technology. But that just makes it easier.
Ash must see something new in him—or rather, something old. A past in which Branzy had pursued all kinds of sciences and been quite capable at it. Whatever he sees, or however he feels about it, is unclear.
But he still asks, “How do we turn it on then?”
And Branzy’s grin widens as his eyes trail over the room. It takes no more than two seconds for his eyes to zero in on what he’s looking for: a lever, pointing towards the ceiling from the wall behind the door.
Branzy walks over to it, says, “This will do it!” and pulls.
A low thrum sounds out from the generator downstairs.
Ash turns back around to look through the window and Branzy runs his fingers over all the little buttons and levers on the control panel. There are lights blinking, half of them green, the other half red.
“Only half of it is moving,” Ash informs him helpfully.
They can do with that, Branzy thinks a bit maniacally. “The timing’s going to be a bit complicated,” he explains quickly, almost tripping over his words, “but I need you to tell me when someone who’s not Clown or Rek is standing below those big pistons.”
He can’t see the layout of the factory from his position at the control panel. There are two big black screens to show that surveillance would’ve helped the people who worked here, but Branzy can only rely on Ash. And Ash has to be really specific, almost impossibly accurate.
“Uh, now,” Ash says. “You sure you don’t need more information—”
Branzy has already clicked the button, a beautiful little thing that activates every piston at the same time, pressing the warm surfaces against the sturdy conveyor belts with immediate and unforgiving force.
There’s a delay of one second before a scream rings out throughout the whole building—it’s the first big one, because Clown usually kills people so quickly that there’s no time for that. And it’s not the only one, just the loudest one. As it fades, two more can be heard, and those don’t stop. Branzy figures that just means one dead, two injured. He’s still smiling.
“You just crushed a man to death,” Ash deadpans. “And now everyone knows we’re up here. Nice.” He blinks drowsily through the window again. “Do it again.”
Branzy presses the button without delay.
One second, another few screams.
It makes him unreasonably excited to hear. He feels like someone has recharged him with all the energy he’d lost getting here. It’s all back, and it’s all so uncontained that he presses the button again without Ash’s cue.
With the seventh scream of someone getting crushed under the brutal force of a piston, Branzy runs back to the window to see how things have changed.
There were still half a dozen people left, cautiously running around like frightened little deer. A few men can be seen writhing and groaning, arms and legs mangled messes as they’re pulled along on the conveyor belts. The ones still standing have stalled their chase of Clown, choosing instead to tend to their allies.
Clown’s red and black silhouette whirls through the machinery with Rek just in tow. Neither of them has any hesitation in regards to moving under the pistons, they’ve figured out that the machines are on their side, so they’re heading further into the heart of everything, quickly making their way towards the staircase. Their footsteps echo as they hurry up the metal. Ash quickly faces the door, too cautious about anyone entering to turn his back, even if he also just saw Clown—or maybe it’s because Clown’s the one who’s coming in.
The door springs open and Clown steps inside, silently. Rek closes the door behind them and keeps a lookout through the door's window.
“Clown!” Branzy exclaims. The relief of just being in his vicinity again makes him feel so frail again that he almost stumbles.
The mask makes it so very impossible to tell how he’s feeling—something that instantly puts Branzy on edge. It doesn’t keep him from smiling. “I am so sorry, I got into so much trouble again,” he hurries to say.
Clown tilts his head over so slightly, even with the mask on Branzy can tell that he’s being looked over, top to bottom, just for a second.
Then, he steps forward and cups Branzy’s cheek with a bloodied hand. “Don’t be silly, Branzy,” he says sweetly. “You’ve done nothing wrong this time at all.”
Branzy lets out a breathy chuckle, leaning into the touch. “Yeah—I—yeah.”
He could drown in it, that’s the thing. He can no longer remember a time when he was not irreversibly connected to Clown. And he couldn’t care less.
Clown’s hand moves from his cheek to the back of his neck. Slowly and deliberately, he leans down until their foreheads are just shy of touching. His voice is cold when he says, “I got a little bit mad when you first activated the machines. That was a big risk.”
Branzy holds back a shiver and quickly sputters, “I just wanted to help.”
“And you did so well,” Clown says, warm again. “I mean that was gruesome. I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone to die the way you killed those people.”
Those words are complicated. Branzy could spend hours unravelling them, finding a compliment on the surface and something much more sinister beneath; the emphasis on how Branzy had done something horrible, how he had done it without remorse.
But in the end, Clown has said it with his own form of kindness, so Branzy soaks them up like a lilac welcomes the rays of the sun.
“Thank you, Clown,” he whispers.
He makes the mistake of glancing away from the dead eyes of the mask and meeting Rek’s eyes. Rek looks pale, stressed beyond belief. But there’s something else in his eyes too, something much more dark and frustrated.
Clown taps his neck, forcing his attention back to him before pulling back slightly and turning his head to the side.
“Ash,” he says sharply. “Get Branzy out of here. I still have some… cleaning up to do.”
Ash just stares, for a second, a storm behind his eye. “Okay,” he says. Boldly, that is the only word he speaks to Clown before turning his full attention to Branzy, holding out his hand in a lazy manner. “You just tell me the location. As long as it’s still within the city it should be fine.”
There’s really, definitely, no choice but to take Ash’s hand, but Branzy has gotten extremely good at being able to tell when people have something ulterior behind their actions. He sees the whole thing unfold immediately, the way Ash slights Clown by not even sparing him another glance, the way he urges Branzy to step away from Clown instead of walking over himself. It shouldn’t mean anything, but it must.
Branzy’s going to leave that for the two of them to unravel. With safety just around the corner, he doesn’t want to be thinking any harder about the little intricacies of people. He just wants a shower and a change of clothes. He’s simple like that. So he smiles at Clown, not the placating smile he has to force out sometimes, this one is genuine, it’s all the other ‘thank yous’ that he can’t say until they’re alone.
He takes Ash’s hand, tells them the address of Clown’s most secure safe house, and lets himself be engulfed by the dark flickers.
Ash ends up staying for exactly forty seconds. He doesn’t have any more words for Branzy. It stings, in an odd way. Branzy has never done anything to hurt him. They were very good friends once. But their final goodbye before Ash leaves out the door is just Ash saying that he hopes Branzy finds freedom one day.
Branzy is left alone to clean himself up, and to move through the safehouse with clumsy and tired steps, all the while thinking of what a mess the day has been.
Ash’s presence had disturbed something in his mind. He’d said all the things Branzy had heard before, all the same concerns. That little look Rek had had at the end held all of the same worries too.
They think he’s trapped—no, they know he’s trapped. Branzy has known it from the moment Clown showed up in his life. There was never the illusion that he had any choice when it came down to it. But it’s been years. It’s ridiculous that anyone still looks at Branzy as if he’s been caught in something he doesn’t understand. He always understood anyway.
And there are things they’ll never see.
They’ll never see Clown coming back, placing his scythe against the wall by the door and unclasping his mask, letting just a fraction of his exhaustion show. They’ll never see him letting Branzy fret in the way he can’t help, his worry clouding over his entire world. They’ll never see the two of them cooking breakfast together the next morning, kidnapping forgotten in favour of planning out their next big scam for the casino.
That’s just for Clown and Branzy.