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“Let me see that.”
Ethan jumped at Heisenberg’s sudden voice next to him, making him jostle their shared table with his knee. Screws, nails, and bits of metal rolled in wayward directions, but the lord was quick to put them back into their places.
Ethan studied Heisenberg for a moment, processing his request, and saw that the man’s focus rested solely on the three-fingered hand that was curled weakly in his lap. “My hand? Why?” His voice was suspicious. Always suspicious.
Heisenberg did not reply, but held out a hand with an unreadable expression behind his shaded glasses. Ethan felt that familiar swirl of distrust sour his gut and he entertained the idea of rejecting the request, yet some strange force compelled him to gently set his damaged appendage into Heisenberg’s own anyway. Afterall, what could he possibly do to the appendage that hasn’t already been done? The lord gave a satisfied grunt and pulled it closer, forcing Ethan to shift a little in his seat.
Heisenberg’s grasp was startlingly warm, and Ethan could feel the electrical currents that ran underneath his skin. It felt good. Large hands pressed into his aching tendons, mapping out the area.
“You want a prosthetic?” Heisenberg asked gruffly, staring up at Ethan over his glasses. “Or are you going to walk around with three fingers forever?”
“I…” Ethan thought of the soldats, skulking around with metal entwined deep in their gray flesh like some sort of mechanical parasite. He thought of their bulging white eyes and barely concealed a shiver. “I’m not going to be another one of your lab rats .” Ethan pulled his hand back to his lap, his skin prickling with the lingering electricity from Heisenberg’s ungloved hands. The lord frowned, bewildered.
“‘ Lab rats ?’ No, it wouldn’t be like that. This is different.”
Ethan scoffed. “Different how? How do I know that I’m not just some experiment to you? We may have a common goal, but do you really think I would let you test my body like some corpse?”
Heisenberg turned to him directly, his face stony. Ethan was suddenly grateful for the man’s glasses, which hid Heisenberg’s intense reflective eyes from view. The air between them was suffocating, tension building at their impasse.
After what seemed like forever, Heisenberg sighed and turned away, pulling out a cigar from his coat pocket. Once upon a time, before their deal, Ethan could imagine that the Lord wouldn’t have backed down from an argument so easily, but much had changed in time since then. “So, so stubborn, aren’t you? You aren’t one of them. This is different because you are different,” Heisenberg muttered, bringing a lighter to the cigar in his mouth with a flick of his finger. “Nothing more, nothing less. It was just an idea, anyway. Figured you wouldn’t want to fight that bitch with eight fingers.”
Ethan furrowed his brows, frowning. He and Heisenberg had built up a small semblance of trust in the short time they’d spent together, and now Ethan felt guilt gnaw at stomach for dismissing that so easily. Afterall, Heisenberg had been the only lord to actually help him instead of trying to kill him right away. Barring, of course, their first encounter when the lord had stabbed a spear of metal through his stomach (they both knew it wasn’t nearly enough to kill).
“And what would you want in return?”
At this, Heisenberg smirked wolfishly. A trail of cigar smoke swirled lazily from the corner of his mouth. “Nothing, Winters. Nothing at all.”
“Bullshit, Heisenberg. Name your price.”
Heisenberg chuckled. “Hm, my price …” He trailed off, feigning uncertainty as he stroked his scruffy beard. “Heh. Seeing what’s underneath that skin of yours would be payment enough, papa, I promise.”
Ethan narrowed his eyes and rubbed the stumps of his hand absentmindedly, trying to ignore the lingering prickles there. “That can’t be it. Tell me before I drop the idea entirely. And don’t phrase it like that— I’m not an experiment.”
The grin on the lord’s face fell abruptly with impatience. “I gave you my word, and I intend to keep it.” A hint of warning darkened his tone. “It would be wise for you to remember that.”
“I… fuck. Fine. Whatever.” Ethan offered his hand back to Heisenberg, who took it smugly.
“I knew you’d come around,” the lord said, his strangely gleeful smile full of teeth. The sight sent a tiny shiver down the base of Ethan’s spine.
Heisenberg held Ethan’s damaged hand up to the lamp light and examined it over the rims of his glasses, his grip sending shockwaves up Ethan’s arm. The shocks weren’t painful, but they were certainly unusual, like the feeling he got when he drank too many cups of coffee in the morning causing his limbs to get jittery.
With a motion of his finger, Heisenberg summoned a metal measuring tape from across the room and began to take measurements. Ethan zoned out for this process, instead trying his luck with the book he had been reading before Heisenberg had interrupted. He had stolen it from Donna’s extensive shelves of books, hoping it might give him information about any local herbs he could use to make medicine.
In the background, an old radio crooned a soft German tune, one that Ethan couldn’t hope to translate. As much as he loathed to admit it, he felt more at peace here than he had in a long couple of days he’d been in this godforsaken village. It was a brief respite from the devastating events earlier in the week, and he couldn’t stop his shoulders from slumping as his brain finally began to quiet down. Fighting a sudden fatigue, Ethan dropped his face into the crook of his elbow and let out a deep sigh.
The touches on his hand halted. Ethan could feel eyes boring into the side of his skull, yet Heisenberg stayed unusually silent.
“What?” Ethan muttered sourly, “I can feel you staring at me.”
“When was the last time you slept?”
Lifting his head, Ethan narrowed his eyes. “Why do you care?”
His question was met with a shrug from the man. Glasses glinted in the light. “It’s presumptuous of you to assume I do. I just don’t want you falling asleep on me when we confront my bitch of a… ‘mother.’”
“I won’t,” Ethan said resolutely. “I’m fine.”
“Sure, sure. Whatever you say, Winters.”
Heisenberg turned back to Ethan’s damaged hand lying on the desk while Ethan sank back in his seat. He tried to ignore the way the subtle electricity would travel down his spine and tingle pleasantly in his tailbone. The sensation made his eyelids grow heavy.
He didn’t realize he had fallen asleep until he woke up to the sound of Heisenberg’s gruff muttering. His hand was tucked neatly back in his lap, and the Lord next to him was hunched over a piece of paper, scribbling away with a pencil.
All at once, an overpowering embarrassment flooded through his body and Ethan would’ve let out a withering sigh if he knew it wouldn’t call even more attention to his weary state. Falling asleep at the touches of your once-enemy was not a way to make a good impression.
Well, Ethan would let his previous actions with the other lords speak for itself on that matter, if he was worried about being perceived as weak. Afterall, he had passed all of Heisenberg's tests, and gotten through that god-forsaken stronghold. Ethan tried to mentally convince himself he had nothing to worry about in that department.
Cigar smoke wafted up towards the iron rafters and clumped in a wispy cloud near the ceiling. The heady scent seemed to surround Heisenberg, following him even in their first meeting. Thinking back on it made the scar sting with phantom pain (or, where he would’ve had a scar), and absentmindedly he rubbed at it.
This motion drew Heisenberg out of his manic scribbling, and the man peered over at him through shaded glasses. His hat was gone and his graying hair was tied back from his face. “Ah, you’re awake. I was starting to think you’d died.”
“From what? The stench of that cigar?”
That sharp-toothed smirk was back on in full force. “Always the hothead.”
Ethan regarded him for a long moment then sighed, shaking his head. The Fourth Lord seemed to soak up the attention like a dry sponge, meeting his stare head-on with a quirk of his lips.
“So, are you going to make me a prosthetic or not?” Groused Ethan, averting his eyes down to the stumps on his hand. The wedding band was still there, sitting snugly around the base of his finger, but the sight made a complicated mix of emotions stir in his stomach like sediment on the bottom of a river bed.
“No, I’ve been sitting here this whole time watching you sleep,” Heisenberg answered sarcastically. Then, with a deadpan expression and an eye roll: “Yes, Ethan, I’m working on it. I’ve drafted up two versions. One would be a permanent extension of your hand— it would merge with your flesh and become a part of your body— and the other would be more like a tool that you would have to strap on. Preferences? Thoughts? Critiques?”
Heisenberg slid a few papers in front of him. Each one depicted different angles and iterations of his own damaged hand, yet all Ethan could pay attention to was how well the man was able to draw. Taking Ethan’s silence as a sign of dissatisfaction, Heisenberg scrubbed a hand over his beard and clicked his tongue.
“Hm, but I suppose if none of these suit your fancy then I could draft up a few more. There’s no shortage of possibilities here.”
Caught off guard, Ethan hastily pointed to a random picture. “N-No, this one is fine,” he insisted. “I just want to get this over with.” Heisenberg’s eyebrows shot up in surprise when he saw Ethan’s choice.
“ Really ?” The word was drawn out, almost a purr. “You’re going for the permanent route, eh? Just when I thought I had you figured out, you go and surprise me.” The man stood up and summoned a bundle of metal tools into his waiting palm. “From my prior observations on your… abilities … I’m fairly certain this will work, but you’re going to have to trust me, Ethan. This is a permanent procedure, so there is no going back once I start.”
“Wait, wait, hold on, Heisenberg. You aren’t even sure this is going to work? I already said I wasn’t going to be experimented on!” Ethan protested, standing up to glare at the Fourth Lord across the room. “I’m not a Soldat, I don’t want you to stick metal in my body on a whim and hope it works out. If this is just a ploy to get another play-thing at your fingertips then I’m out.”
For a beat, neither of them spoke. Ethan got the distinct feeling that he had just made a mistake. Heisenberg took a drag of his cigar as if to calm some of his wild anger.
“How many fucking times must I give you my word until you’re satisfied?” Heisenberg finally growled, narrowing his eyes, smoke flooding from his nose. He stalked closer, trailed by smoke. “I feel our partnership is a bit one-sided, don’t you think? Why is that?” Reflective eyes seared his own with finality. “Make up your mind, Ethan! If you aren’t with me, then get out of my way . I don’t like having my time wasted. Not now.”
Uncomfortable at the proximity, Ethan held up his hands in surrender. He barely fought back the urge to step away, to get away. His mind screamed danger— the same feeling he had been experiencing throughout this entire fever dream of a village. “Okay, okay, I know. Forgive me if I’m a bit nervous at the thought of having my hand cut open,” he shot back, “and it’s not like your family has a great track record when it comes to this sort of thing. Human experimentation seems to be a common trait around here.”
Heisenberg’s dingy trench coat flared as the man whirled away, clenching a fist at his side. Resentment seemed to pour from him in waves, rattling the metal all around them, and Ethan finally gave into his urge to step back. “They are not my fucking family!” The Lord thundered, “I’m not like them ! I’m nothing like them!”
It took a few moments for Heisenberg to calm himself, running a hand over his tied-back hair while drawing deep breaths. Ethan tracked the movement carefully, survival instincts kicking in, waiting for the right moment to grab a weapon if the Fourth Lord showed signs of aggression.
At last Heisenberg sighed, defeated, and the surrounding metal seemed to sigh with him. His voice was strained and weary when he spoke. “...I’m not asking for us to be friends. Hell, I’m not even asking us to be on good fucking terms. But we need to trust each other if we’re going to kill Miranda. I told you that I won’t harm you, and I meant it. I only want one thing.” Heisenberg turned to him, his glasses a dark, feral void. “And you know what it is.”
Ethan tried to calm his racing heart. “Yeah. O-Okay. I’m with you. I want her dead as much as you do.” He paused. “Go ahead, then. Do whatever you think is necessary.”
He expected Heisenberg to at least smirk at such explicit consent to tinker with his body, but instead the man merely nodded and summoned more tools to his side with a blank expression. They both sat down in their respective seats. Wordlessly, Ethan offered his hand and wordlessly, Heisenberg took it. The familiar electricity that simmered from his hands was now a wild storm, barely contained beneath the skin. Ethan suppressed a flinch when they touched. The Lord didn’t even seem to notice.
“I’ll start by making an incision at the top of your stumps, just wide enough for new growth to form. It should, if my prior theories about your powers are correct, connect seamlessly with the metal fingers,” Heisenberg informed him, his voice devoid of any of its usual flare.
“And if it doesn’t work?” Ethan couldn’t help but ask.
“Then I’ll extract the metal from your body and make you a prosthetic that isn’t connected with your flesh.” Impatient. Annoyed.
Embarrassment made the back of Ethan’s neck burn. “Right.”
After a few more measurements, Heisenberg released his hand and peered down at the sketches. “It’ll take some time to complete.” With a swipe of his gloved hands he gathered all the papers into a stack. “Miranda will no doubt be holding the ceremony soon. Go to the village and make any last preparations you need before the final fight. It’s gonna be an ugly one.”
Ethan did exactly like the fact that the lord was giving him orders, but he figured it was a good plan regardless. “Alright. When should I come back?”
“I’ll send you a message. Just don’t go on getting yourself killed.”
“You know I won’t. Not when we’re so close. Not when I can see Rose again.”
Heisenberg didn’t say anything, but Ethan could see a slight smirk under that scruffy beard.
Ethan wasted no time heading back to the village. The Duke had mentioned a number of dishes he could make with certain ingredients, and, craving the permanent benefits they promised, Ethan set out to gather what he could.
A day or two passed, the sky darkening with an impending storm. He had just killed a pig in someone’s backyard when the radio in their dilapidated house flickered loudly to life.
It, of course, was Heisenberg’s voice through the static. “It’s done,” he said simply, then the radio went back to silence.
“About damn time,” Ethan muttered to himself, then began the trek to the factory, stopping along at Duke’s carriage to drop off the meat. He then insisted that Ethan stay to eat, which if someone had told Ethan a few days ago that he would be sharing a meal with the merchant he would’ve probably told them to fuck off. It was bizarre, and something about the man was still off-putting, but the Duke had helped him probably more than anyone in the entire village.
The Tochitura de Pui , however, was delicious, and he left the Duke’s carriage feeling heartened by the warm meal. By the time he arrived at the bridge outside the factory, the sky had grown even darker with the impending night. He stepped determinedly across the stones, mentally digesting the fact that after this, there was no more turning back.
After this, he and Heisenberg would join forces and kill Miranda, once and for all.
The factory doors opened automatically as he approached, but Heisenberg was nowhere in sight. Ethan stepped through the garage, the smell of dirt and dust and oil filling his nose. All things considered, it wasn’t a bad smell.
“Heisenberg?” Ethan called. He wasn’t quite in the mood to play hide-and-seek with the lord (not that he ever thought he would be), so Ethan stubbornly made his way deeper into the factory without waiting for an answer.
There was a clatter, and then a piece of metal whizzed by his head so fast that Ethan barely managed to duck out of the way. He turned around, gun pointed in the direction it came from, and was ready to start shooting until he saw the culprit of the attack.
Heisenberg (who else?) stood in the doorway, grinning as if he had just seen the most hilarious thing ever. “Did you enjoy your little date with the Duke? Dinner by candlelight, isn't that just so romantic?”
It was such obvious bait that Ethan merely rolled his eyes, reluctantly lowering his gun. “Jesus Christ. Care to explain why you’re flinging things at my head?”
“Just makin’ sure you didn’t grow soft after your date.”
Ethan scoffed. “You’re so full of shit.”
Heisenberg’s grin flashed as he turned, beckoning Ethan down the hallway. “Follow me, Winters. I finished your digits. Come take a look at them.”
Wordlessly, trying to calm his annoyance, Ethan followed behind Heisenberg. He wondered if the lord had actually taken this “commission” seriously, or if he was just trying to get one last laugh in before they had to sober up and fight Miranda.
They stopped at a room a few paces outside the cargo bay— a new room that Ethan hadn’t seen before. Most of the space was taken by a large desk, filled to the brim with precision tools and scrap metal and papers. In front of the desk was an old chair, its dry, green leather lightly littered with cracks and tears. Ethan noticed a set of magnifying glasses on a stack of paper, which struck him for reasons he could not explain.
“These were a goddamn piece of work,” Heisenberg said, a hint of pride in his voice, then gave Ethan a metal box painted yellow, “So I’ll let you look at them before I… uh, install them. It’s been a long time since I made anything so detailed.”
That explained the glasses on the desk.
Trying not to feel too touched (after all, the dude was still a ginormous prick), Ethan opened the box to reveal two shiny metal fingers, both engraved with a tasteful bunch of roses near the edge. The detail was astounding to Ethan, who hadn’t hardly expected them to be in the shape of actual fingers, much less almost completely real-to-life and adorned with the decorative namesake of his daughter. He felt oddly emotional staring down at them.
At the top of each finger was an indentation where the nail would be, and somehow Heisenberg had managed to replicate the visual creases in the joints quite well. The joints themselves were sturdy, yet flexible— bending naturally. To top it all off, his wedding ring sat snugly around the base of his ring finger, just above the roses, looking as though it had been made for the prosthetic.
Ethan, to be completely honest, was speechless. He stared at the fingers, then looked up at Heisenberg, then stared at the fingers some more. “I… uh. Wow.”
Heisenberg was looking at him intensely, no doubt waiting for validation. His eyes shone silver in the overhead light as he whispered lowly, “I don’t give gifts to just anyone, you know.”
“Thanks,” Ethan said simply, slightly choked, unable to say much else. He had never been good at expressing gratitude. “I… this… it means a lot.”
Strangely, the lord looked immensely satisfied at the meager answer. “Hm.” He breathed out a small chuckle. “Excellent. Sit in the chair and I’ll put them on for you.”
He did as he was told, lowering himself into the green leather chair that creaked under his weight. Heisenberg cleared off some space on the desk, then promptly grabbed his hand and laid it flat in front of him. Muttering to himself, Heisenberg opened a drawer and pulled out a scalpel.
It took every fiber of self control in Ethan's being not to shoot Heisenberg in the face as the scalpel came closer, his fight or flight response beginning to kick in.
“Cool your jets, papa. I know that look in your eye, and I don’t like it. Just relax.”
Ethan swallowed thickly. Easier said than done , he thought to himself.
Calloused fingers cut the bloody bandages from Ethan’s hand, electric waves pulsing up and down the skin on his arm. His heartbeat sped up in his ears. The smell of cigars overpowered anything else and Ethan breathed it in, willing his fingers not to shake.
As Heisenberg cut into the tender mold-flesh of the stumps, Ethan bit down a few colorful curses. His brain screamed at him to get away from the pain but his body couldn’t move, paralyzed in the heat of the overhead lamp and the cigar smoke and the glint of Heisenberg’s silver reflective eyes.
Gently, the lord dipped the metal prosthetics into a green bottle of first aid medicine, then, with little preamble, inserted the bone-like rod deep into the cut. Ethan couldn’t hope to bite his tongue against the pain this time.
“Ack, fuck !” He tried to pull his trembling hand away, but Heisenberg’s grip was unyielding as he shoved the other metal finger into his flesh. Ethan jolted, hitting his knee on the table and sending loose items in all directions off the desk. “Ah, shit! C-Christ,” he groaned, panting. Then, for good measure, between breaths, “fuck!”
Through the pain, Ethan felt Heisenberg massage the tendons of his palm— a comforting, calming gesture. The electricity felt good in the midst of the blinding pain, and Ethan tried his best to focus on it.
“Breathe, papa. Let your body do its thing.”
Ethan closed his eyes and nodded, resting his sweaty forehead against Heisenberg’s leather-clad shoulder. He breathed in that familiar smell and rode the waves of soft electric currents over his skin, trying desperately to ignore the way his hand felt like it was on fire.
Eventually the pain subsided, and Ethan shakily glanced down at his fingers, slightly surprised to see that there was actually a seamless bond between his skin and the metal. Small tendrils of black gripped onto the prosthetics, barely visible to the naked eye, keeping the fingers in place.
“Not bad,” Heisenberg murmured, intrigued, his voice close to Ethan’s ear. “Bend ‘em. See how they move.”
It was as if he had been born with them. To Ethan’s brain, there was no distinction between what was metal and what was flesh. Of course, there was no actual feeling in the prosthetics, but he could bend them and control them like he had before they were bitten off.
While Ethan tested out his new digits, Heisenberg took rushed notes on the nearest piece of paper he could find, hungrily observing the scene for any relevant experimental details. Creating prosthetics for soldaten was nothing when it came to Ethan Winters, whose body was a complete anomaly.
Ethan held his hand up to the light, obliviously backing away from their almost-embrace. Relief was left in the wake of the pain, and now Ethan could truly admire the fact that his hand was whole again.
“These are great,” Ethan admitted. Then, teasingly, he added, “I think you found your calling.”
Grumbling, Heisenberg finished up his notes, then set them off to the side to study later. “Real funny, Winters.” They both looked down at the metalwork attached to Ethan’s hand. “Maybe… maybe in another life.”
It was the most emotion Ethan had heard from the lord, besides anger. Hearing the sadness in Heisenberg’s voice took him so off guard that his eyes snapped up to look at his expression. But Heisenberg’s face was stoically blank, hidden partially in shadow from his hat and glasses. Ethan didn’t particularly care for the lord or his family issues, but the unexpected sadness reminded him that Heisenberg was once a human, long ago.
He, too, was a victim of Miranda.
“We’ll kill her,” Ethan asserted confidently. “She won’t get away with all the shit she’s done. I promise.”
Ethan stood in the muddy field outside the factory, rain dripping from the ends of his hair and falling into his eyes. Heisenberg was dead.
It was almost morbidly comical how easily Miranda had tossed aside her once-son, crushing his metal army to bits and running a tendril of mold directly through his cadou. Ethan had only been able to watch as she tossed the mechanical abomination of a heart onto the ground in front of him. It had continued to beat for a long few moments, writhing in the mud, beating like it was still embedded in the lord’s chest, then shuttered to a stop.
A flash of lightning fell in the distance, and Ethan had stared as the mutated remains of Heisenberg crumbled into dust, then eventually mixed into the mud with the rain. Large chunks of metal that had been fused into Heisenberg’s mutated form fell from the sky around them, blazing despite the downpour from the sky.
“What a fool,” Miranda purred, sidestepping a flaming turbine as it fell, “he actually thought that I hadn’t noticed his treasonous behavior! As if I would be so blind!” She cackled, then stomped hard onto the crystalized remains of Heisenberg, shattering them.
With it, the metal fingers on his left hand dissolved into nothing.
And how ironic was it that only moments later, Ethan died in the same way— heartless, slumped in the mud and rain and mold. Rose’s name fell from his shivering lips, and he lamented all the promises he couldn’t keep.