Chapter Text
It was inevitable that he would trip and fall. Given the split in the sole of his shoe, it was more of a surprise how far he got before he did. The alleyway was dank and strewn with detritus, and of course he was not paying attention to where he put his feet – so it was as he looked over his shoulder to check if he was still being followed that his foot caught itself in an abandoned takeout container, and he was sent crashing to the ground.
Spamton’s hands flew out instinctively to try and catch himself, but it did little to help. Pain exploded across his palms and shuddered up his arms as they came in contact with the unrelenting asphalt below, his jaw colliding with it next with a terrible crunch that sent a shockwave of pain through his whole head. He skidded a bit before coming to a halt, his mind temporarily blank with shock & whole body screaming in pain.
The panicked roaring in his ears gradually abated, the distant nighttime sounds of Cyber City filtering in alongside the laboured rattle of his own breathing. He blinked, his vision continuing to remain black for several seconds before it slowly came back into focus. He grimaced as he struggled to sit up, freezing at the unfamiliar sound his palms made against the ground as he shifted his weight.
Spamton managed to roll onto his side, and he held his hand up to his face to get a better look. His once pristine gloves were soaked in filth and torn from his fall – but conspicuously absent of blood. How? His hands were still shrieking in pain – the scrapes he’d suffered unmistakably there. Or at least, it’s what his body was telling him was there. Though the nighttime air was pleasantly warm, he began to shiver violently.
It took several tries for him to get the glove off. It was once he’d had, that he started to understand the scope of what had been taken from him. His palm was as badly scraped as he was expecting. There was still no blood. What was there…
A strangled sound clawed its way from his throat against his will. He fumbled to remove his other glove, but it caught and got stuck. He continued to pull at the satiny material until it tore, his grip causing the joints of his fingers to let out an unsettling creak of straining plastic and- no. Not that. No. Some of the fabric remained trapped in the knuckles of that other hand, the sensation nauseatingly alien. His breath caught in his throat as he began to hyperventilate, hands coming up instinctively to cover his mouth. His fingers touched more smooth plastic, clicking against his teeth now exposed in a wide, unrelenting grimace.
He screamed. The sound was raw and discordant, closer to that of a wounded animal than anything he’d ever made before. He scrabbled at the asphalt as he forced himself to his feet. One of his knees gave out as he did, sending him crashing back into the asphalt. His leg and arm made a muffled, hollow clatter on impact, new pain exploding up his side. He lay there in agony, the pain in his knee magnitudes worse than even his still-pounding head. Gingerly he forced himself up into a sitting position, his stomach dropping as he saw the unnatural angle his left lower leg was twisted at.
Spamton clawed at his pant leg to draw it above the knee, the grime-coated material tearing slightly at the hem in his frenzy. Another segmented joint. More plastic. A facsimile of a kneecap, twisted at a painful angle. Exposing the point of articulation, bound by string.
The revulsion was so immediate and overpowering that it made him dry heave. He doubled over and to the side, his ragged breathing fractured by his gagging. He clawed at the neck of his shirt, ripping his tie off and tearing open his shirt. He needed to see how widespread the changes were. What kind of horror of puppet and flesh he’d become – for he was still breathing, his heart pounding in such a way it felt as though it may burst through his chest at any moment. Surely, it meant still part of him remained – all that he’d clawed to obtain, all that he’d made of himself. All he had made that bargain for in the first place.
But no.
How many times had he looked down at his own body in the morning, as he dressed? Reveled in all that he’d made himself into, and all that he had loved about him. There was once a time he’d been self conscious about the way his weight settled around his stomach and hips, at the way the scars on his chest had healed. But he had loved all of it, and Spamton had grown to love it all in turn, if not more than he did. It was all physical proof of his success. Of leaving his old life behind. Of succeeding beyond anything his fellow Addisons were capable of. Even as the weight of his Benefactor’s omnipresent gaze grew heavy, he was convinced that not even it could rob him of this.
How wrong he had been.
It was shaped much the same. The weight settled the same, the skin folding in the same places it used to. But he knew immediately, even without accounting for the seam that vertically bisected his torso, that it wasn’t his. His shaking hands rested on his chest, skin crawling at its unfamiliar texture. The way his scars weren’t even physically tangible from the rest of him anymore. Just printed on, a part of the fabric. A gruesome mockery. His throat tightened, the grief that filled him almost enough to overpower the pain.
A terrible thought abruptly occurred and Spamton grabbed at his throat and took in a shuddering breath. Nothing. No movement. The hand still at his chest clenched into a fist. He sat in silence and held his breath. No light-headedness came, even as the seconds ticked into minutes. His vision began to tunnel as a thought occurred to him.
Why is my heart still beating?
Spamton drew his fist back and slammed it against his sternum – or what used to be it. The impact was muffled and pain burst from where he had struck, yet the frenzied pulse remained. He flattened his hand against his chest, the revulsion returning with rapidity from the contact. His jaw clenched, the grimace tightening as his teeth grinded together, accompanied by another cacophony of straining joints and strings. His vision continued to tunnel, the terror and revulsion twisting into rage.
He drew both hands to his chest. He found the edges of the seam and dug in, plastic fingertips clawing for purchase. Even as pain tore through his abdomen he dug in deeper, a scream building in his throat as the nightmarish vessel of fabric and thread resisted him.
It was then that one finger managed to find purchase and slipped between two of the stitches. The sensation was indescribable and made his head spin but he tightened his grip, the half-formed scream morphing into a frenzied chuckle. He gave it a solid yank and there was the sound of tearing fabric – the indescribable sensation morphed into blinding pain and the chuckle became a laugh. He positioned his hand on the other side of the small hole he’d made, his laughter echoing harshly off of the unrelenting brick walls around him. He adjusted his grip, and pulled.
More joints creaking, more threads snapping, more pain. But it wasn’t enough.
Again.
The seams strained, but did not give.
Again.
The seam remained intact, the fabric tearing instead. The pain was beyond any he thought he would ever experience. His vision swam and blurred, his laughter growing more erratic.
AGAIN.
With one final tearing of fabric, it was done. Spamton lost his balance and teetered sideways, barely catching himself before he collapsed. Something spilled free from the cavity he’d made and he blinked repeatedly, forcing his eyes to adjust as his laughter died in his throat. He unsteadily reached out and picked up the hunk of material, its edges as frayed as his newly torn open torso. It was a bundle of straw.
The rage built in him again as he tossed it aside and, without hesitation, plunged his hand into his chest. A guttural noise wrenched its way between his clenched teeth, his vision blacking out temporarily from the intrusion. He clawed around, caring not as more of the cheap & antiquated stuffing spilled free and onto the asphalt below. His fingers brushed against a hard edge and he grabbed for it, hand closing around the object that was the source of his frenzied heartbeat.
Spamton sat there, hunched over and struggling to stay conscious through the pain, the sensation of the object gripped in his palm nearly causing him to pass out. His battered palm skidded against the ground as he struggled to keep himself upright. He braced himself; taking a long, pointless breath before he painstakingly pulled his hand free.
He was holding a heart. His heart, bright blue and shaped like a valentines’ gift box. It was connected to the inside of his chest by a supple extendable phone cord, the cruel irony of it making his head spin. Its pulse sustained even as he held it in a death grip, his vision dipping in and out of clarity.
Spamton finally stopped resisting the pull of gravity, slumping over sideways. His shoulder collided painfully with the ground but he barely registered it amidst what he’d wrought upon himself. He lay there, staring at the mockery of anatomy gripped in his palm. Feeling its pulse against his fingers as it continued its erratic trapped-animal pace. Something dripped onto his face and he glanced up, just in time as another drop landed directly in his eye. He grimaced, groaning as he unsteadily returned his heart to its place in his chest, and forced himself to sit up.
The rain built into a downpour in the time it took for him to button his shirt up and wrench his knee back into place, and by the time he was on his feet he was soaked through. He managed to stumble over to a nearby overhang and eased himself down under it. His hand pressed to his chest, pain bursting forth as he touched the edges of his wound through his shirt.
Spamton knew he would need to repair it sooner or later – though without any of his previous resources or connections he would need to get creative. His grief surged again and he choked out a small, strangled noise as the full weight of his loss crashed down upon him. He drew his legs up as much as he was able through the pain and rested his forehead against his knees. His eyes and throat burned with the phantom of his old body’s emotions but no tears fell – another cruel twist of the knife. He clenched his teeth and grabbed at his hair, whatever remained of his pompadour obliterated by the frenetic action.
It was there, huddled up in a still-dripping wet ball where he fell into an uneasy sleep.
<~~~>
A cacophony of car horns woke Spamton with a jolt. He was knocked off balance, his shoulder colliding with a nearby utility pole. He looked around wildly – temporarily forgetting where he was, or how he got there. As he twisted himself to look around the open wound in his chest exploded with new pain and he gasped aloud, the events of the night before coming back in a frenzied blur.
He staggered to his feet, grimacing at the way his still-damp suit clung to him and the stiff ache in his limbs. He stared down at his hands; at the way the paint had been scuffed away by his fall, leaving deep gouges and scuff marks. He reached down and gingerly tested his knee, grimacing as he felt how loose it was compared to the other. He leaned back against the wall and rubbed at his face, shuddering at the new, unusual angles it had taken on.
He had been in rough spots before. Hell, he’d been homeless before. But this situation was an entirely new frontier. He pushed himself off from the wall and started to pace, peeling off his blazer to wring it out the best he could.
When he’d counted himself among the Addisons, they pulled from shared resources for their sales. But he’d had to pay out of pocket to set himself up, something that wasn’t on the table now. He patted down his jacket and pants pockets, grimacing as it yielded only a paltry handful of change and a very waterlogged stack of business cards. Definitely not on the table. Not that he would turn to that pack of vultures again – his jaw clicked as he clenched it. They’d thought themselves too good for him before, then him too high and mighty to associate with once he’d made it big. No, he would never turn to them for help, even as a last resort.
Spamton’s frenetic pacing slowed as his thoughts then turned to his business partner. His heart laying within the gash in his chest ached; the look on his face as he had fled haunted him behind his eyelids every time he blinked out of muscle memory. He had no way of contacting him now, no money for a pay phone at least – but surely a man with connections such as he had would send out people to find him. Surely.
But the thought of being seen like this- his hands gripped his jacket tighter. No. He couldn’t let that happen. It wouldn’t happen. Besides – his lingering pain and grief coalesced into a white-hot ember of near irrational rage – it had been his incessant questioning that drove him into this mess. That had robbed him of his body. He turned and lashed out, punching the nearby brick wall with all of his might. The blow sent an echo of last night’s agony ricocheting up into his shoulder.
He just couldn’t take a hint. Wouldn’t listen to him. Only concerned with furthering his own interests, his own relevance. He recalled the nightmares he’d had, sent from his Benefactor whenever he toed the line. Of what it had told him of what was to come.
He turned his gaze to the overcast skies above. He would not go crawling to anyone for help. He would solve this problem himself. No benefactor this time. And if any opportunity came along for him to exploit, he would take it by the horns. Just like he’d always done. For the first time since the morning prior, his bared-tooth grimace twisted itself into a smile.
I will reach [HEAVEN], no matter what it takes.