A Lullaby For Gods Chapter 91

DECEMBER 10, 2013

NEW YORK CITY

EVENING

The park is empty.

It is nearly nine in the evening, so it's no surprise. Most people aren't even thinking about taking a stroll at this hour, especially now that it's the winter. It's quiet, the bench they're on is under a blown-out lamppost, and they're far away enough from most street cameras that whatever footage can be caught of them will be dark and grainy.

"What is it?" Angeles asks him, staring straight ahead into the darkness of the fields in front of them. Instead of the building lights of NYC ahead of them, the night sky is what lights up the horizon - the battle damage from yesterday had affected power lines, after all.

"You have your phone with you, right?" Hal asks.

"Yeah?"

"I think it'll be easier if I just showed you instead of telling you," he says, already packing up the relevant part of his memories from his storage to send it to them. Their phone buzzes; they fish it out, a look of confusion on their face as they open their notifications.

It's not that it's easier, it's just that Hal can't trust himself not to lie right now. He's infected by a bloodleech. Who knows what the Heir of Blood could have him do given the chance?

Why did the bastard even bother showing up, anyway? Just to tell him about the Anathema Point, rattle him a little bit? Why is it important that Hal knows this?

He frowns slightly. Think, Hal, as the Heir of Blood said; as Angeles has said before, What am I not doing?

The tinny, warbling voices filtering out of Angeles' phone makes Hal glance over to them as they play out the video. It's from his perspective, obviously, so what they're staring at right now is their own face, what they're hearing is their own voice, talking to Hal.

It'd been a perfect copy, what the Heir had done.

Hal waits in silence for a few more minutes, letting Angeles play out the rest of the video without saying anything. He stares up at the sky, at the stars, watching a few pinpricks of light streak by. It's actually nice, being able to see the stars without all the light pollution, and without having to see a waterlogged city below him along with it. It's cold, enough that system alerts pop up in the corner of his vision, telling him to increase his chassis' heating to prevent his joints from freezing, but it's nice. It's quiet. Maybe if things weren't so dire right now, this might have been enjoyable.

The video ends. Hal glances over as Angeles' phone goes silent, and they continue staring down at the screen.

They frown, very slowly.

"The...Heir of Blood," they say.

"Yes," Hal says. "Responsible for the bloodleech that Karkat had, and god knows what else. All we know is that he's rather set on tormenting us."

"And you know nothing else?"

"He's given us nothing else," he says. "Did the Safehouse know anything?"

"Who's the Heir?" they say, murmuring it almost to themself. "It's Sapphrel."

Hal raises an eyebrow. "Elaborate."

"Before Cecil got sent to the hospital - you know when I told you he got hospitalized for exhaustion? And I also lied to you online about that, by the way, he was the friend I said got hospitalized for stress," they say, and then wince. "He was hemorrhaging - he was also exhausted - but before that, he had a fugue and he wrote down a cipher. It was - god, it was, for some fucking reason it was in polybius."

"The game?"

"No, not the arcade thing - a polybius cipher. It's an actual cipher," they say. "He wrote it down before we brought him to the hospital. And - Ruben and I, Cecil and Kevin too, really - we're kind of cryptography nerds? We liked solving and making codes as kids, so we could recognize it on sight. Could also crack it by hand with a bit of time to write a grid." They pocket their phone but only to start picking at their palms. Nervous habit. "That was what the cipher said. Who's the heir? It's Sapphrel."

Hal lets the information sink in. Angeles continues picking at their palms, drawing a bead of blood as one of their longer nails scrapes at their skin.

A small, harmless alert buzzes at the back of Hal's consciousness. Now that he knows what it is, all of Electric Love's hovering around the kid suddenly makes so much sense. He swats their hand away from their palm before they can injure themself further.

"Stop that."

They freeze, and then look up, almost afraid. "Do you - does that show up as anything?"

"Yes," he says. "I think the fact that I'm aware of what's happening now only makes it worse."

"Oh," they say. Even in the dim lighting of his visual feed, he can see the horror dawning on their face.

They're afraid.

Pink sparks curl around Hal's fingers again. Jegus, so it reacts to not only physical threats, but also their emotional distress. Him being hyperaware of their shitty classpect bond is definitely not helping.

"You're fine," he says. "It's fine."

"Sorry," they say, "Sorry - uh, I didn't mean - um - sorry - "

He can practically feel Electric Love about to jump out of his artificial skin as they turn away from him, pulling at the ends of their scarf so they can hike it up to their face, hiding from him, muttering apologies all the while. When that doesn't satisfy them, they adjust their coat, pulling it closer around their body.

"Angeles," Hal says, softly, as to not spook them any further. They slowly turn back to him and he can already see tears in their eyes.

Right. They didn't have a very...comfortable childhood in regards to dealing with other people.

"Are you afraid of me?" he asks. "Is the fact that I am now aware of every ounce of distress you feel scaring you?"

"Huh?" Angeles blinks, surprised. "N-no."

"What's scaring you, then?" he asks. "I can feel your fear. You're upset at something."

"...okay now that you say that, that is kind of creepy, isn't it?" they say, chuckling nervously as they bring their feet up to the bench, making themself as small as possible.

They don't answer for a while, resting their chin on their knees as they look down at the ground. After a moment, though, they speak:

"I don't like being a nuisance," they say. "I don't like...inconveniencing people. I don't want to be a burden to anyone."

He sees them lift their hands, about to pick at their palms again, but they stop themself, grabbing onto their sleeves instead, pinching and unpinching the fabric.

"I hate hurting people I love," they say. "Whether by accident or not. I - I'm not a good person. I know I can be dangerous. I know I take up a lot of space and I'm exhausting." They pause. "That's why I hate being a nuisance."

"Were you told you were a nuisance before?"

They flinch. Ah.

Hal leans back in his seat. "Who told you that?"

"Relatives," they say. "I...uh."

He lets them think over their words, waiting patiently, though he does turn to let them know he's expecting an answer.

"...I'm a liar, let's just get that out of the way," they say, grimacing.

"I know. I am aware. I cannot recall a time you have told me anything that was true."

"Shut up," they say, some amusement returning to their tone. "But, it's fine?"

"We've established we've both been liars. We know why we've both been liars. It's fine."

"I'm illegitimate, that's one thing I told you that was true," Angeles says. "Some families can get really upset about things like that; mine especially, because they're like, kind of important? In financial circles? So they always tell me to lie about my background, stuff like that. It's drama shit."

"And you're telling me this?"

"I mean, you're unfairly cosmically bound to me, so at this point, what's off the table? Plus they don't even know you exist, so you should be safe from an NDA," they say, and then sigh, running a hand through their hair. "But - yeah, I was raised to lie about myself. I was raised to lie about my family. But my parents loved me, it was just a situation where my mom wasn't allowed to marry my dad." They scratch their cheek. "My relatives uh..."

"Didn't like you very much?"

"Didn't like me at all," Angeles says. "Save for maybe a handful. But yeah, it's uh, it's a whole thing. And I guess I kind of just..." They pause again. "Sometimes I feel like I ruined my parents lives by being born, you know?"

Hal stills. He's back in Dirk's hands again, in a small pair of glasses about to be crushed in half. He never should have been created. He was too much of a risk. He was too dangerous. Why the fuck had he ever been brought into existence?

"I represent the possibility of ruin for my family," Angeles says, burying their face in their knees. "Technically, I am someone in the line of succession for their shitty little business empire. I just don't have the right paperwork. I can challenge them for my birthright and start shit and - well, they know and hate that, so when I was younger, they made my parents' lives hell. And I..."

Hal stares at his feet as he listens to them talk. He himself never should have been created.

But here he was and he wanted to stay. He liked existing. Likes existing. He likes being alive.

"Sometimes I think if I could just stop existing, I gladly would," Angeles says. "But I'm here, you know? And I feel like offing myself would do more harm to the people I love than good, so I just don't do anything. I don't want to hurt people I love. I - "

Have done enough simply by being here. Hal knows the feeling. It's one of the only things he might be sure about, these days.

They're scared they're being a nuisance to him. Like they always have been to the people around them; to the family that didn't want them, to the parents they feel like they dragged down simply by being here.

He remembers, again, them not even hesitating to block a knife for him. That acceptance to get hurt just to protect their friends. Is this where that fierce protectiveness had come from? Is it not a sense of protectiveness at all, but a martyr complex and some warped sense of penance, like they can atone for existing by taking hits for people they care about?

Angeles has gone silent, face still hidden as they hug their knees to their chest. Hal lifts a hand, slowly, gently, placing it on their head, the chill of the night intensifying as enhanced perception activates.

"You're..." he pauses, almost swallows down the rest of what he's going to say, then, "You're not a nuisance to me."

Liar, some ugly thought rears its head at him again. He tries to stomp it down as much as he can despite the guilt welling up in him. He'd literally just thought about killing them not even an hour ago.

"You didn't ask to exist in the first place," he says. I didn't ask to exist in the first place, I was just brought here. "And you didn't ask for whatever the fuck this is. Neither did I. It just happened."

Yeah.

Wrong place, wrong time, that was it. There's no way for any of this to have been set by fate; Hal's not even a Sburb player, after all. Dirk is, and his session was most definitely not supposed to fall into this universe, not into one that still didn't even have an active game. If that was the case, then this universe wouldn't be dying, would it? Its walls wouldn't be so broken that shit just kept falling in, that it was held up only by the life of a single child who's likely going to die a slow, painful death.

Or so the Heir of Blood said, but jury's out on whether Hal can take the man's word at face value.

The point is that neither of this is their fault and neither of them should be punished for it. Neither of them asked for it. The universe just decided to fuck with them by making it happen.

Angeles lifts a hand to hold onto his; their fingers are deathly cold. His hand's warmer than theirs.

"Yeah...I guess," they say. "You...have no quest bed, no potential for godhood..." They look up, slowly, but only to give him a look of confusion. "So why you?"

"You mean why me of all people that had to be cosmically bound to your classpect?"

"Yeah, why you? You have a source with the same classpect, right?" they ask.

He pauses. "I know another Prince too."

"So why you?" they ask, looking down again as they always do when they think. "What happened that it was you?"

He tries to trace back all the events that have happened. Dirk was...presumably somewhere else; since he was with that troll girl in the news when he'd been captured, they must have been backpacking all the way to New York by themselves too, and were alone, much like Hal, Roxy, Davesprite and Eridan had been. Eridan, while he'd been around and had in fact fallen into this universe before Hal had, had mostly been at sea; his presence at Roxy's building had been on and off what with his prickly attitude at the very start of their friendship.

Hal had been terminally online. He had no other choice at the time, being artificial intelligence.

Wrong place, wrong time.

"There was no one else," Hal says. "Eridan was mostly away. I have no idea where Dirk was before. But the both of us managed to get in contact by accident."

"...you're telling me we sealed our fates because we got into the same chatroom?"

"That's currently my working hypothesis."

"That's - that's so lame," Angeles says, grabbing his hand off their head so they can lean back on the bench properly, staring up at the sky in disbelief. "That's such shit. Close proximity. We just happened to be next to each other and then the universe said - "

"Yeah, you're both cosmically bound now."

"That's terrible." Angeles sticks their tongue out, not at him, just at life in general. "Why couldn't it be something cooler? Like some big ancestral feud that never got resolved and now our destinies are tied? Or some family curse one of our ancestors couldn't get rid of and now our paths have to cross? Or - "

"Are you seriously complaining that the reason our classpects have decided they're tied was because they sat next to each other?"

"Yes," Angeles says. "It sucks."

Hal stares at them. Hal looks away.

Angeles pulls at his ear. "What the hell was that supposed to mean?"

"It means you're stupid. It means I think you're stupid - let go of my ear - "

Angeles lets go of his ear but only so they can punch him on the shoulder.

"So if I had met anyone else first," they say. "It would have been them?"

"It seems like it," Hal says. "Though it's still up for debate on whether that extends to all destructive classes, or if another Doom player would have fit the bill as well; there's too many variables we don't know right now." He straightens out the crease on his sleeve from where they'd punched him. "But from what we know: I was an active splinter of a godtiered player, and you were already displaying your classpect's abilities. That element of both of us being actively involved with the game's mechanics, whether we knew it or not, might have had something to do with it."

"Right place, right time, right wavelength," Angeles says. "...Doom player?"

"That seems to fit the bill for you," Hal says. "The Heir of Blood said you were an Heir too, correct? It's a straightforward class. An inheritor of destruction would be - "

"An Heir of Doom."

Hal nods.

"Heir of misfortune and destruction," Angeles recites. "Becomer of systems - " They turn to him, suddenly, as they realize just what that means.

Hal nods again. If their classpect abilities are ambient through their skin, the whole 'system' part of it would interact with him considering he's got a system.

"Embodiment of sacrifice," he reminds them.

"The Anathema thing," they say.

"From what the Heir of Blood said, you're the only thing standing in the way of this universe and its death," he says.

They frown. "Is that why there's been freak disasters everywhere, lately?"

He raises an eyebrow. They start gesturing as they explain.

"There were like, earthquakes recently - check online - " He's already opening windows before they finish that phrase " - and there was volcanic activity in the Pacific this morning. And there was news of like, a possible solar storm." Their frown deepens as they start murmuring to themself, thinking out loud. "And with you and your friends falling in from other universes, that means the Heir wasn't lying when he said there's universal cracks, which means the supervoids that currently exist in my universes have either all broken or - "

"You're losing me here."

"Ah, sorry," they say, though it's thankfully not said with the same fear and anxiety they had earlier. "Just rambling, uh - but that would make sense, though. If this universe hasn't completely died out because of some magic mumbo jumbo, then there's still bound to be some destruction stuff that shows, right? Like symptoms of a disease that the immune system is actively fighting, there's just symptoms of that fight showing."

"You're very chipper for someone who just found out they're this universe's sacrificial lamb."

"A-ah, well, you know..." They scratch at their cheek again, nervous.

Then, they sigh.

"Hal," they say.

"Yes?"

"If...I have to die to let everyone else live," they say, "Let me die, okay?"

"Is this the martyrdom complex talking?"

"I do not have a martyrdom complex."

He gives them a dubious look.

"I don't," Angeles insists. "But - I'm one person. I'm just one person. Compared to that, there's billions of people on Earth. A-and recently, we've discovered there is life outside of our planet, so that's billions and billions more, all scattered around the galaxy, and just - !"

They look up at the sky, grinning, so bright that it's like they're not even talking about their own future demise.

"I am one life in a sea of many," they say. "One point in history and one point in time. If it's just that one insignificant point against the lives of the rest of the universe, I would be terribly selfish to want to live, right?"

"Selfish, maybe," Hal says. "But aren't you afraid?"

Their smile turns sad. "No."

Ah.

And here marks the difference between the both of them. Hal is afraid of death.

Angeles is not.

"We're going to save our friends," Angeles says. "We're going to get that infection out of you. And then - " They turn to him again, smiling. "If I go, then I go, and you're going to enjoy everything in my place. Cosmic buddies rules and all that."

"There's no such thing."

"There is now," they say. "I know your classpect might get in the way, but like - if there's no other way, then I'm telling you to put a bullet in my head, alright?"

Hal frowns.

He should be a logical creature, yes. He should be able to weigh the pros and cons of this situation easily, and even then, this should be a no-brainer. They're right. They're one life against billions, and they're voluntarily offering their life for everyone else's.

It's probably the cosmic bullshit that's going on with their classpects that's not letting his words come out of his mouth.

"We should have an agreement on how we're going to go about this whole classpect-binding thing," Angeles says, already moving on to the next issue. "I'll...try to take care of myself more so you don't get inconvenienced. I'll tell you if there's something wrong with me. And in turn, if you sense anything I can't, you tell me and I'll see what I can do about it."

"Angeles."

"Hm?"

"You're so blasé about this whole thing."

"Well, I mean, you're fine with it, right? That you have to deal with me and all," they say.

"I meant you being the universe's sacrificial lamb," he says. "I understand that people can be detached when they think in statistics, so think about it on a smaller scale: if it was a life and death between you or me, which one would you choose?"

"You."

Hal's mouth flattens to a thin line. He eyes their injured arm, though with their sleeve in the way, he can't see the bandages.

"If it was five strangers or me, I'd choose them. If it was Jeremiah or me, I'd choose Jee. If it was any of my friends or me, I'd choose my friends."

"If it was anyone from your shitty family?"

"I'd still choose them," they say. "Hal, I know it's - I know I'm a liar and a hypocrite, and I don't expect you to understand, but I have lived my whole life knowing I'm unwanted. I want to be useful for once."

But he does. He does know what it feels like to be unwanted.

"So if it was down to me or anyone else, it would be anyone else. If it was down to me or you, I'd choose you. With no hesitation," they say.

That might be the first time anyone's ever told him he's important enough to warrant someone laying down their life for him. He knows he should feel touched, even just a little but - the only thing it does is make him frown slightly in frustration.

"But there are people who love you," he says. "There are people who want you around."

"I know," Angeles says. "But it's like...I know that. I can feel that. But I myself just still feel out of place, you know? Like I myself have no love of life. That I find nothing interesting about being alive, and I don't even know why."

They let out a small sigh, their breath misting in the cold night. Hal slowly takes off his coat.

"I...have not seen all of the world," he starts. "But I have seen enough of it to know there's still a part that's so, so good."

They blink up at him, surprised, recognizing their own words being said back to them.

"I know I have friends that care for me," Hal says, wrapping his coat around Angeles' shoulders. "I know there's one asshole out here who's insistent I shouldn't hate myself."

They laugh softly.

"I have few people I hold dear," he says. "But all the same, I'd do anything for them."

"Isn't that just the cosmic shit talking?"

"No," he says. "No, it's not."

"Oh," they say, looking down, picking at the lapel of his coat.

An alert appears in Hal's system again as Angeles' distress suddenly spikes. Shit -

He hears them sob, softly, shakily wiping at their eyes.

"A-aah, sorry," they mumble. "I don't mean to cry, I just - "

"Jegus, get over here."

He wraps his arms around them, just like they did with him on the balcony just a few nights ago. They're even smaller, when they're curled up and crying, sobbing quietly into his shirt. He raises the temperature of his chassis slightly, just to help warm them up a little as he holds them.

One of their hands is on his chest, their pulse thumping away in place of the hollow spaces in his body. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

"If we're going to make this work, we need to be on the same page," he says, resting his chin on their hair. "You will not deliberately put yourself in danger. You will not do anything to harm yourself. If I am in physical danger, do not jump in to save me; I can easily upload my source code back to the tower to transfer it to another chassis - I can burn through a thousand bodies, you can't."

He feels them nod against him. Good.

"If there is something that's upset you, give me a head's up so I don't spend the whole time trying to figure out if there's actual danger or not. If it's something I can help with, tell me," he says. "And I'll have to ask you to stop lying to me as much as possible."

"Okay," they say. "Just don't tell anyone who doesn't already know about - about the shit I tell you."

"Done," he says. "What's your end of the agreement?"

"Tell me if the bloodleech thing is doing anything dangerous. Tell me what's up with you and like, warn me too."

He can do that. It's only fair after all.

"Alright."

"And, my powers, whatever the fuck they are," they say, "Obviously, we can use them as a power boost for Electric Love. We gotta figure out what they are, and if you need to use them - then we're going to."

He frowns. Well, it'll be up to him to work around the whole issue of using an obvious advantage while not putting them in danger. He can handle it. He's handled worse before.

"Deal."

"And what I said before still stands, if it's a desperate situation and it's me or everyone else, you will kill me," Angeles says.

It takes him a while to answer that. "Okay."

"Good," they say. "And you gotta take down everything on higher shelves I can't reach."

He has to stop himself from laughing at that. It's still difficult controlling the automatic, kneejerk reactions he has when enhanced perception is activated. "Now you're just taking advantage of me."

"But not reaching higher shelves makes me upset." They look up at him, fake-pouting and batting their eyelashes.

"You're not as cute as you think you are."

They pull on his ear again.

"Fine - god - this is tyranny - "

"You are lucky I'm not asking you to let Electric Love carry me around everywhere."

"Stop thirsting after my Stand," he says, flicking their forehead to make it even. "He hovers around you enough as it is."

"Because I'm adorable and I deserve it."

"Whatever makes you sleep at night, yeah," he says.

They stick their tongue out at him, maturely, as they brush aside the hair from their eyes to rub at their sore forehead.

"Come on," he says. "We need to get to the hotel. The others are already looking for us."

"'Kay," they say, trying to hold onto Hal's coat still on their shoulders. It's large enough that they're almost swallowed by it, more of a blanket than a coat on them. Hal snickers.

They glare up at him.

"Once I figure out my powers," they say. "You're dead."

"Sure," he says, "Stay alive until you can kill me, then."

They pause, expression dropping - no, opening up, to something more like awe as they realize exactly what he's been trying to do for the last five minutes, now that they've stopped crying.

They slip their arms into the sleeves of the coat he's lent them, sighing softly.

"You're upset," Hal says.

"At you. A little. It's more frustrated than upset," they say. "But I guess it's a good kind of upset. You're like one of my newer friends, you know? We've only known each other for a couple of months. You're tied to me and you didn't want to be. I expected you to be mad."

"I was, a little," he admits. "But you don't really seem the type to hold this whole thing over me."

"I never would," they say. "I love you too much for that."

"Ah, okay, dial back the appreciation a little."

They laugh. "See how weird it is?"

"Clearly," he says, "But will you be alright?"

They nod, sighing again. "I'll be okay," they say. "I'll be alright, Hal. I'm not going to hurt myself. I'm going to dial back the recklessness."

"Good," he says, patting their head again. They let him. "You good to walk?"

"Mm."

"Let's go, then."

They fall in step with him as he starts to make his way out of the park, making sure to keep them in his periphery as they seem to be deep in thought, lips pursed as they look at the ground instead of straight ahead. It's been quite a day. They can have a few moments to themself.

"Hallmark," they say. "Hal."

He turns to them. "Yeah?"

"You really don't hate me for this whole 'cosmically bound through classpects' thing?"

"No," he says. "Sure, we'll have to go through a lot of trial and error, but I know you didn't ask for this any more than I did. I don't hate you."

"Okay."

"Hey," he says.

"Hm?"

"If you ever need to talk about anything, if you ever need to just have someone with you," he says, holding a hand out to them. "I'm here, okay? If it helps, I'm here."

Angeles smiles, taking his hand, squeezing it softly.

"Yeah," they say. "Thank you."