Something’s off.
…1.82km/h. Visibility: 3.21km. Good looks, Hotshot.H̸o̶t̴s̸h̵o̴t̶.Ḧ̴́ͅo̴̙̕t̷̢͐s̸̳̾h̵̬̊ǫ̸̕t̵̥͌…
Vic presses knuckles to aching eyes, rubbing until he sees technicolor in the blackness, blotting out the constant flicker of information in his heads-up display just for a second. It’s been making him lowkey disoriented all day—like, it’s like it’s one of those optical illusion things where he swears there’s a pattern in the data, but it disappears the second he looks directly at it. Christ. Leave it to him to code himself into a migraine.
You good? Despite being right next to him, Rex’s voice comes over their private comm channel instead, low and steady into his brain. He breathes out, willing his heart rate to regulate.
Yeah, he sends back. Just need to defrag or somethin’. Tired.
Rex grunts, but doesn’t press it. He’s unnaturally still, posture ramrod straight thanks to the steel alloy drilled into his spine and the discipline drilled into his soul, the metronome twitch of his bladed tail-tip the only giveaway that something’s alive in that hulking body. He’s telegraphing, Vic realizes, projecting his stable vitals across their connection, trying to coax Vic’s deep-fried nervous system back into the green like one of those dogs they make hang out with cheetahs in the zoo.
It’s very sweet. And it’s very not working.
He absently chews at a fingernail as the display chatters away in his periphery. Coordinates, wind speed, adrenal output, H̴̩̔Ę̶̏L̵͈̍L̶͎̚O̸͇͗ ̴̪͊T̸̗͒H̶̥́E̸̤̽Ȑ̴̙E̵̞͘, ammo load—hold the fuck up.
His eye twitches.
…Hey, jack in here with me for a sec. Seein’ ghosts.
Rex doesn’t respond, digital or analog.
Big Dog. Yoo-hoo. Read me?
Nothing. For the first time in months, Vic’s alone in his head. He’s suddenly very aware of the eerie stillness of the oven-hot desert air, of the beads of sweat sliding down his back under his flak vest, of the silent ringing building in his ears.
“Rex, something’s…” He trails off as the display begins to expand, filling more of his vision, error messages stacking up. CONNECTION UNSTABLE. CONNECTION LOST. RECALIBRATING. H̴̩̔Ę̶̏L̵͈̍L̶͎̚O̸͇͗ .
No. Fuck. God. No. This can’t be happening. His stomach clenches, mouth going dry. Their chrome is clean, he wiped everything himself, rebuilt their mainframes from the ground up with Vargas and Bjornsson’s help. Mal’s gone, he can’t hurt them anymore he can’t he can’t he—
CONNECTION LOST. H̴̢̃e̶͎͛l̴̬͌l̷̗̐ơ̷ͅ. H̶̼̑ę̴̓llo. Hello, Montez. He can’t hear you. It’s just you and me.
Instinct sends him to the ground a millisecond before the gunfire does. He doesn’t even hear the shots ring out—his fucking audio is offline—and his field of vision is compromised, errors on glitches on errors, but not enough to save him from seeing Rex’s back arch unnaturally, arterial spray vivid against the acid-blue sky as his body spins, then falls, bare meters away from Vic. It might as well be miles.
He’s alone. And he can’t even scream.
[Fic by the exceptionally talented @bxtterflystxtches , who I have the honor of collaborating with for this event. Please show him some love!]
