Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

1. (we first met,)

The world felt like it was spinning from beneath his closed eyes. Azure squeezed them tight, trying to wrest away the dizzying dancing of colours to no avail. His entire body felt sore, and he felt the itch of a gash in the centre of his chest.

Hesitantly, he grazed his fingers over his chest, expecting to meet a bloody wound, yet he paused at the feeling of intact fabric. Huh?

Azure opened his eyes with confusion. He blinked at the sight of an unfamiliar wooden log ceiling.

He was lying on… carpet? Carpeted ground, with a sad deflated pillow shoved uncomfortably half-under his head, like a child had crammed it there. No wonder his joints ached to damnation and back - for some reason, he was sleeping on the floor. 

Azure felt a pulse of pain in his heart, and suddenly remembered everything.

Oh, Spawn. He pressed his palms into his eyes. Oh, Two Time, his dear Two Time. They had… they…

They had killed him, right? Five stabs directly to the heart would have killed someone.

(Azure had counted the painstaking feeling of the knife entering and exiting his body, the drag and push of his flesh against the cold metal - it felt all so numb to him at first until he realised what was happening. But it all didn’t matter, his Nightshade was crouched on top of him, tears dripping out of their eyes. He wanted to reach up and brush them away, to tell them everything would be alright.)

He couldn’t, not anymore.

…

Where even was he..?

“Oh, you’re awake,” a voice said to his side. 

It took a lot of effort to turn his head to look at the owner of the voice, and he felt his neck protest. “What..?”

A young man wearing a yellow vest and glasses crouched down next to him. “You were knocked out for a long time. Are you feeling okay?”

Azure stared at him, dazed. “Um,” He didn’t quite know how to respond. Who was this? Where was he? Is this guy his kidnapper? “I don’t think I’m supposed to be alive right now.”

Or that works.

The man blinked. “Oh. Uh, that explains how you got here, I guess.”

Azure really didn’t know how it explained anything, really. He rubbed at his chest, unsure of how the stab wounds had just disappeared. 

“Where,” Azure coughed and pushed himself up, “am I? Am I alive?”

“You look pretty alive to me,” the other replied. He then added on sheepishly, “Sorry you woke up on the floor, by the way. 1x tore up the couch a week ago, and all that remains are shreds.”

Who’s 1x? Azure shook his head with the overwhelming number of questions flooding his mind.

As he finished his sentence, three other people (is that a child?) walked into the room. They paused and looked at Azure with varying degrees of surprise. One had white hair tied into a ponytail, the other long yellow hair and an ice crown, and the very red child had horns and a tail.

What kind of ragtag group was this. Azure didn’t remember associating with any gangs, at all actually. Not since he joined the Spawn followers in that community housing system.

(He always knew something was off about the place. But even so, the complete dedication to a singular deity felt comforting. It allowed him to place his beliefs into one whole, and the quiet of the sermons calmed his mind. The peace of the nightshade garden consumed him in the afternoons, as he tended to the delicate flowers.

…The real reason why he stayed at all, though, was because of them .)

“Looks like the newbie’s awake,” White-Hair remarked with a condescending lilt to his statement. His face was neutral, with perhaps only a slight furrowing to his eyebrows that looked part of his resting expression.

“Hi! New friend!” the kid waved enthusiastically. Azure was immensely confused on why there was a literal child involved in his kidnapping. And why the child was so… red.

“What the hell is going on,” Azure said. He hasn’t sworn in years! “Pardon my language. Who are you all? Where am I? What is happeni-”

“Just try to calm down for now,” the yellow vest man held up a placating hand. “Panicking won’t achieve anything.”

How is he supposed to calm down?

“Did you kidnap me?” Azure frowned, knitting his eyebrows together. The white-haired man stifled a snort, the kid tilted his head with confusion, and the man crouched next to him raised an eyebrow.

Ice crown laughed. It was a tinkling sound, airy and high. Azure wasn’t sure if it sounded nice or if it triggered something in his brain. Ice crown strolled closer to the side of the room where Azure was sitting with yellow vest man.

“Kidnapped?” his long, yellow hair was braided nicely and sat on his right shoulder. Azure always thought longer hair looked nice - he was considering growing his own out before. Ice crown crossed his arms delicately, “How funny. Why do you say that?”

“The fact that I woke up on the ground in a strange house,” Azure deadpanned.

Ice crown smiled, and it didn’t reach his eyes. Azure felt a chill down his spine. “Well unfortunately,” Ice crown responded with a sigh, “if you were kidnapped, then all of us were as well. You’re simply the most recent addition.”

Azure blinked, trying to process the information. He rubbed circles into his temple as he spoke with thinly veiled irritation, “Dear Spawn, this doesn’t make any sense at all.”

“Spawn?” the white-haired man said at a quieter volume than his previous quips. It sounded nearly personal, but Azure wasn’t going to dive into it. “You believe in that kinda stuff?”

Azure hesitated. He knew, unlike most other members of his community, about the negative connotations most believers in Spawn held. He knew that the outside world saw their practices for what they were - cruel, controlling, a cult. But not all believers in Spawn were like that. Azure had placed his beliefs into Spawn before he found out about that godforsaken place, before he found his partner for life. It was easy, and comforting, to let a higher existence guide you to the right path. He found purpose in it.

“I do,” Azure finally replied rigidly. “You don’t need to tell me something I don’t already know.”

Both parties heard the extended meaning behind his words. The white-haired man seemed to let it go with a relenting release of breath, “Suit yourself.”

Ice crown eyed Azure with an analytical gaze, before his lips quirked up. “Interesting.”

Azure stared at him back. What was so interesting?

“Nice to meet you, little Spawn follower,” Ice crown began. He stood tall in front of Azure, not even bothering to get on eye level with him. His light cerulean eyes refracted like gemstones, and his blue vest was pristine and uncrinkled. The fur coat he draped over his back added to his silhouette, creating one of a predator. And for some reason, it seemed that Azure was his newfound prey.

“My name is Itrapped,” he smirked. “I hope we’ll get along for the rest of our lives here.”

Distantly, Azure heard someone groan from the doorway, and another person sigh exasperatedly next to him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the white-haired guy leave after throwing his hands up, muttering about some, Stupid ice queen and his dramatic antics again, I swear to Telamon.

“...My name is Azurewrath,” Azure said curtly. He stood up, not wanting to be looked down upon, and ignored the wave of dizziness that came over him. The other’s look of amusement increased. “Just call me Azure. And what do you mean, the rest of our lives here?”

The yellow vest man next to him stood up as well. He sent a suffering look to Itrapped, who simply gave back a plastic smile, before he replied with a long sigh, “Alright, let me explain it to you now. I hope you won’t freak out too much, unlike some people here.” 

Itrapped sniffed and looked away.

Spawn, take mercy on him. Azure momentarily closed his eyes to take a deep breath in. This was going to be a headache.

Chapter Text

          1.5. between

Apparently, Azure was in hell.

John (the other people there had introduced themselves afterwards, and there was also this Jason fellow that he apparently hadn’t met yet) told him that he was sent to a perpetual cycle of cat and mouse. Where there would be a killer. In the ‘rounds’ they get sent to? They would all be taken to a large, enclosed area, where they had to just survive for a period of time. Doing the generators lying around different spots of the place would help decrease the amount of time they had to stay there, said John.

And apparently, in the rounds they were all given these… ‘abilities’. 1x had rolled his eyes and said, “Why do you call them abilities? You make it sound as if we’re in some kind of shitty video game. We’re not. If we’re not careful, we can and will die in one of those rounds.”

John had replied after pinching his nose bridge as if 1x was some particularly annoying whinging child (but those two… look to be around the same age, right?), “It’s just for the sake of simplifying everything for Azure. You complain too much. Anyways,”

1x could slice at the killer with his venomshanks and stun them for a brief amount of time, while also inflicting a type of poison on them for a short period. John could tap into the lines of code running through the life of every single thing in the ‘arena’, and therefore let everyone know where the monster currently was. (Through some kind of mind link, John expanded. Azure… had only nodded in oblivious agreement to keep it moving.) The kid, c00lkidd, was able to set traps on the ground with his, what was it called, his c00lgui panel? However, everyone did encourage the kid to stay on the sidelines and hide from the killer, to Azure’s approval. Itrapped could summon his darkheart sword to swing at the killer and also stun them for a brief time, and if he sliced the killer through the eyes, the killer acted substantially more disoriented after coming out of the stun.

Azure queried why there was such a specific way, and how Itrapped had discovered it. John shrugged. Itrapped didn’t tell any of them the reason he tried that. 1x had scoffed, muttering something again about ‘Itrapped being so distant that he could betray any of the others at any given time’. Azure frowned slightly at this - even if Itrapped’s personality was a bit, uh, prudent, weren’t they all on the same side just trying to survive?

Azure had then asked why they couldn’t just continuously use these ‘abilities’ for the entire round to prevent the killer from attacking anyone. John and 1x had shared a glance with each other (Itrapped and the kid went to their own cabins, so it was only the three of them left in the main area), before 1x took the reins and said slowly, “We can’t.” Azure tilted his head to the side cluelessly. 1x ruffled his own hair roughly and continued like he was pained to say this, “As in, we physically can’t keep on using our powers. There’s… there’s something greater than all of us, and we think it's the thing that brought us all here in the first place, and that thing is also limiting the true extent of what we can do to defend ourselves whenever we’re in a round. So… you need to use your capabilities wisely.”

John nodded. After going on to explain a little more, about the nitty gritty details, and then just summarising it as a whole, the long winding explanation was done. None of it really made sense to Azure. Throughout it all, he was a little confused, then a little scared, and then moreso perplexed rather than fearful by the end of John’s explanation. From the way John stared at his expression after he finished, Azure could tell he looked as incredulous as he felt about the situation. 

Azure coughed, trying to school his face into a neutral expression, “Sorry. It’s just… really hard to believe. When did you say the next round was again?”

“Probably the next day,” John replied. “Oh, be warned, it is also constantly night here. So… we measure ‘days’ by the stretch of time after everyone wakes up.”

Azure sighed. “Ah. Great.”

1x turned around to leave the room to what was presumably the outside, throwing a half-hearted statement over his shoulder, “Now that the newbie’s all filled in, I can finally leave. See ya.”

Azure and John watched 1x disappear outside. Azure stood awkwardly, unsure about what to do now, as John’s gaze turned back on to him. Thankfully, John proposed with a small smile, “Why don’t you take a look around this place? There are a lot of unoccupied individual cabins outside, you can go claim one for yourself.”

John was pretty kind and well-meaning, even if it was difficult to see underneath his indifferent stoicism at first. Azure gave a tentative smile as well and responded with gratitude, “That’s a good idea. Thank you, John.”

John blinked at his thanks, and then sent him a commiserating look full of pity. Azure said a quiet goodbye as he walked outside, and heard John call after him, “Don’t venture into the forest if you’re not sure you won’t get lost. And get some sleep when you choose your cabin, you’ll need it!”

Azure waved a hand in acknowledgement, “I will!”

The sight outside was full of gloom. The darkness of the forest felt all-consuming in the corners of his vision, creating the sense that he was being watched. Azure shuddered, arms hugging himself underneath his brown cloak. His gaze swept across the small clearing, taking in the dirt trail path leading to what looked to be a dock by a lake to his left side, and to his right side, two rows of small cabins facing each other on opposite sides of the trail. Beyond the cabins was more forest. The abundance of trees and the silence of the area would have inspired tranquility in Azure if he was in any other situation than he was now. Now, the trees felt all-too-tall, looming and great, threatening in its dark silhouettes. The silence felt eerie rather than calming, and the back of Azure’s neck prickled with the sense of something else being there with them. 1x must be right. There had to be something larger than the eye controlling them all here.

Azure shook his head rapidly, running soothing hands over his arms in a repetitive motion. There was no one in the area other than him, everyone else must be in their own cabins - save for John, who was still in the largest cabin. That must be a common meeting place then, considering its size and placement in the clearing.

He walked along the path to the right where the cabins were. They all looked rather worn down, with wooden planks sticking out in places they shouldn’t, and moss growing in the darker cracks and crevices across the walls. Azure walked silently and carefully towards the cabins at the end of the path, something he had learnt to do from his teacher in the Spawn community - to never let your guard down, always keep several tabs on your peripheral vision, be poised in a position ready to take on any attack-

A finger tapped his shoulder, and Azure’s body seized up.

Azure did not scream. It must have been the whistling of the wind that created that high-pitched screech. (He hopes no one else heard that.) Warmth flooded his face, he closed his eyes for a second, as he slowly turned around to face his perpetrator.

To be faced by someone’s collarbones. Azure blinked, shocked, and his eyes trailed up to the other’s face. What a tall guy! Even then, Azure couldn’t even see the person’s face actually, it was covered by some sort of a hockey mask.

“Sorry,” the person signed. Even though Azure couldn’t see his face, his body language drooped like he was trying to lower himself to Azure’s height. He… kind of acted like a wet puppy.

Azure’s eyebrows raised in pleasant surprise. Oh! Someone who signs!

In Azure’s silence, the other person must have taken it for not being able to understand sign language, since his hands wavered, unsure what to do and his head tilted down. Azure went to quickly correct himself and said, “No, no, you’re okay! I, um, overreacted, heh. A little on edge in this place…”

The man seemed to have brightened, from the way his head snapped upwards to look at Azure again. “You understand sign language?”

Azure smiled gently. “Uhuh! I learnt it a long time ago, actually. Back when…” Azure’s smile fell slightly, before he shook his head to change the topic. “You’re the other guy I hadn’t met yet, right? Is it Jason?”

Jason nodded. “When did you get here? I was in my cabin until now.”

“Ah, not too long ago,” Azure responded. Habitually, he twirled a strand of his hair around his finger. “John and 1x explained most of everything to me. It’s really hard to believe, speaking honestly. I just can’t believe…”

Azure trailed off, looking to the side as his mouth flattened. He couldn’t believe that he had died, and then he woke up in hell. If he were fated to die by Two Time’s hands, then at least the universe could have just graciously let him rest in peace for the rest of his deadened lifespan.

Azure’s eyes stung and he held back tears - he always did cry too easily. He continued with a pitiful, wet laugh, “Sorry. It’s a lot to take in.”

Jason shook his head, and signed sympathetically, “It’s normal to feel that way. We all did when we first got here. You should rest in one of the cabins.”

It was a bit difficult to tell what Jason was thinking or feeling most of the time with the mask covering his whole face, but Azure could tell he was a considerate person. Azure nodded thankfully. “Thanks… I’ll probably do that now,” Azure paused, before asking, “What about you? What are you doing out here?”

Jason’s head swayed to the side as he replied. “I was going to look for the child. He made me promise the other day that I would play with him tonight. But I exited my cabin and saw a new face walking down the path, so I wanted to say hello.”

“I’m happy you did,” Azure hummed thoughtfully. So Jason and the kid must be pretty close, right? “Are you and c00lkidd close?”

Jason paused for a second as if his question was surprising. His shoulders hiked up a bit and he signed hesitantly, “Close?... I suppose so. He has attached himself to me ever since he first got here. Perhaps… it was the matter of imprinting on the first face he saw.”

Azure resisted the urge to coo as he brought up a hand to his cheek. That was just adorable! He grinned and waved lightly, “That’s too sweet! Well, I won’t keep him waiting for you. Farewell, Jason!”

If Jason weren’t wearing a mask, Azure thinks he would see a light dusting of pink across his cheeks from embarrassment. Jason nodded in assent, and walked down the path away from Azure.

Azure laughed lightly to himself, mood lifted, and turned back around. He walked towards a cabin that seemed to not be used by anyone else, stopping at the door. He gave the door a light push, to find it wasn’t closed, and the door slowly swung open with a long, low creak. Azure glanced around the cabin. It was rather small, with only two rooms. Across the bedroom, there was another entrance supposedly leading to a bathroom, from the glimpse of a sink Azure could vaguely see from this angle. Azure stepped inside gingerly, carefully and quietly closing the door behind him. A few potted plants decorated the windowsill surprisingly, right by a modest wooden desk opposite the small bed. 

Azure let a smile overcome his face at the sight of familiarity. Back home, his room was just filled to the brim with all kinds of potted plants - pothos, peonies, ivies, snake plants, of course various nightshades - you name the plant, Azure had probably cared for one before. As he stepped closer to the desk to observe the little plants, he saw petals of a familiar purple colour.

Nightshades?! Azure gasped in excitement, forgetting about all his other troubles just for this moment. He leaned over, hands coming up to softly cup the delicate petals in his hand. They looked just like he remembered. Belladonna nightshade flowers were always his favourite plant. They looked enchanting with their dark, royal indigo colour and pale yellow centre, yet they were renowned for their toxicity. Such a beautiful thing could cause one’s demise, Azure always thought it was such an alluring attribute. He didn’t know why he was so attracted to it.

“Hello there, little beauty,” Azure murmured adoringly. He ran his fingers across the rich green stem of the plant, up and down the dips of the bowing leaves. He laughed to himself as he looked over the other plants, geraniums in one and a jade plant succulent in the other, and said to himself quietly, “Crazy person as always, talking to plants. Amarah always told me it was a weakness of mine.”

Azure sighed heavily, feeling the large weight of everything settling in his chest again. It’s a good idea to get some rest now, right? Jason and John advised him to, after all.

He settled down on his knees next to the bed after shuffling out of his boots, coming into his regular routine once again. He closed his eyes as he clasped his hands together and pressed his nose to them, and rested his elbows on the bed. Whispering reverently, he urged his words to find peace, “Dear Spawn, great Spawn, please watch over me as I sleep. Deliverer of all life, protect me from all violence, anguish, and conflict,” after hesitating, Azure added, “and protect all others here in the name of Spawn, my soul, I am grateful for all you have done for me.”

Azure slowly opened his eyes, and took a deep breath in. He… wasn’t sure if he truly believed Spawn could protect him anymore. His teacher Amarah would surely say that he was stabbed by the love of his life for a good reason by the name of Spawn, everything happens in life for a reason, he can hear in their voice. Azure’s chest twinged, and he pressed a hand to it. He… doesn’t fault Two Time for it. Yes, Azure was scared, angry, betrayed in the moment, but the second he saw tears fall out of their remorseful eyes onto Azure’s face, Azure knew he could never blame them for it. 

Perhaps it didn’t happen for a good reason. And that was alright. But either way, the metaphorical gaping hole in Azure’s chest would never close, the vacant emptiness Two Time had left in his life would be ever-present.

He climbed onto the bed and lied down, trying to will away his worries before they could haunt him in his sleep.

Azure wasn’t sure if he could go back to that time ever again. The pain felt too great to bear, even thinking about it. He could only keep moving forwards. As he drifted off to sleep, he sleepily replied to Two Time’s mouthed apology before his vision had gone dark, “I forgive you.”