One-shots [Reqs: 5]

Oh, Boy - To Be Human

TRANS CROSS AU TRANS CROSS AU TRANS CROSS AU

uhh, no tws, though there is a panic attack, and also self-injury [not in a purposeful way!]

---------

Ink's tongue poked out between his teeth, his brows furrowed in concentration. He thumbed at his chin, squinting at the jumble of numbers and letters. How in the stars did Error manage to read this all the time??

He tipped his head, and twisted the window of code on its side, his eyelights lighting up with yellow and red. There it is!

Grinning, Ink grabbed his scarf, and began working on altering the set values.

—

Heavy. Wrong. Heavy. Wrong. Heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy-

He woke up, and almost thought he'd summoned his full ecto in his sleep. But this was heavier. This was denser. It was wrong.

Everything was wrong. The way his closed eyes flicked and twitched, the steady thump in his chest, the heavy something that clung to his head. He could feel it in the way the blankets dragged across his body, in the itchiness of his arms. He tensed, the moment it all registered, and immediately, all the wrongness moved.

He felt the air leave his lungs, felt his heart beat faster, felt his skin prickle and his hair raise, and Cross screamed.

----

Killer threw the door open to Cross's bedroom, his knives clutched tightly in his fists as he rushed in, Horror right on his heels.

"Cross-?!" Killer choked, screeching to a hard stop in his shock, his soul kicking into gear and spinning quickly, hackles rising in alarm. Horror grunted behind him, the two of them staring in wide-eyed shock.

"GET IT OFF GET IT OFF GET IT OFF-!!!"

A human, white-haired and pale, soft and feminine, broke off into hoarse screaming, thrashing on the bed, clawing at herself. She grabbed handfuls of her hair, ripping out bits of it, before digging her nails into her scalp and dragging them down, drawing more blood. Down, down, down, the hands went, scratching at delicate skin that peeled away and left bright red patches behind.

Killer was frozen, his mind reeling with fear. Where was Cross? How did this woman get here?? Horror snarled behind him, eye sharp at the smell of blood, human blood. LV crackled along Killer's bones in response to the sight of a human, but his soul squeezed with an instinct that stayed his hand.

He almost snarled, almost shoved the instinct down, but another squeeze made him stop and actually listen. It hit him, hard enough to give him whiplash, that he knew that voice.

The sneer pulling at his face dropped into cold shock, his LV hitting a hard stop, and he snapped an arm up to keep Horror behind him. Because he knew that voice, the one he'd never expected to hear again. He didn't let Horror by, not even when the other hissed at him, "Killer, it's a human." He hissed back instead, wordless, and kept his arm up, because that human was Cross.

She- He choked out a noise, a garbled version of Killer's name, and Horror went still as he realized as well. The fight drained out of him, leaving him wide-eyed and confused. Killer couldn't move, couldn't look away from his mate. He watched helplessly as Cross tried to rip himself apart, and couldn't do a single thing. Not when his soul was cramping with panic and his mind was throwing memory after memory of certain humans at him.

Horror blinked, slow, before his eye sharpened again and his expression hardened with resolve. He grabbed Killer's arm tightly, drawing his haunted expression towards him and away from the thrashing form on the bed. "I'll... handle 'em. Go get Night." He firmly pushed his arm down, "n' don't let dust come... no matter what." The words sparked a rush of anxiety, and Killer stiffened, suddenly terrified that Dust wouldn't be able to recognize Cross like they had. He shook out of his trance, tearing away into a shortcut that dumped him in the kitchen.