AU: Symbiosis

Context: A bit of a look into Sabre and Goblin's backstory :>

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[3rd Person POV]

An older child sat in a sterile, mostly empty white room. He fiddled with the hem of his shirt, which was white like the room along with matching pants, as he sat on a bed in the corner with a grey blanket wrapped around him.

The only other things in the room were a small table against the wall and another, smaller blanket bundled underneath the bed. He liked it better there, where it wasn't as eye-hurtingly bright and it was quieter there than when he was actually sleeping on the bed. Whenever he tried to lie down on the softer bed instead of crawling under it and sleeping on the floor, he could hear the loud noise of something mechanical in the ceiling, and sometimes even another loud, similar sound in the walls. Besides, the compact space was comforting. However he couldn't lie under there now; the coated people wanted to watch him, and they got upset whenever he hid.

Opposite of the small table in the room was a window. It was blocked by something most of the time, which let him know that it wasn't in use, meaning that he wasn't being watched. But every so often he hears one of the people behind it flip a switch, making something change in whatever blocked the glass and made it see-through to the people on that side. He could still see the silhouettes of them, though. That's how he knew when they were watching him. Observing.

He's never actually seen them, just their shadowy outlines behind the window, but other things distinguish them. One of them wears a lot of perfume based off the strong smell, and has some sort of jingling jewelry on all the time. He recognizes that one's voice from when he got his friend. Another taps his fingers on a desk he guesses is on the other side of the window a lot, and mumbles about abilities and changes to something. The last one has shaky hands and drops stuff a lot because of it, and really needed to stop eating peppers before coming in here. The smell hurt his nose.

The child listened as he stopped playing with the end of his shirt and grabbed onto the blanket, pulling it to further wrap himself in it as he eavesdropped on the people's conversation.

"And you haven't noticed anything different yet?" A dull voice asks, accompanied by the sound of tapping fingers.

"No, sir. Nothing so far." The familiar voice says, the jewelry jingling again. "Maybe the entity went dormant after the procedure?"

"It shouldn't have. It should be active right now, the changes should have taken effect immediately and should still be in effect even if the entity is dormant."

"Should we do a check on the subject, then?" Another voice asks. The spice smell gets stronger for a moment.

"Maybe, if no changes are seen within the next few days." The dull voice replies. "We need to see results with this."

The child starts to tune out the conversation, noticing his friend talking to him. He and his friend talk inside his head, and have been doing that since they were introduced. The people don't seem to notice their conversations.

After being introduced, they figured out pretty soon that they shared a body now. The child didn't really notice anything too different, but then again everything before he and his friend were introduced was kind of... fuzzy. All he noticed was that he could hear the noise in the walls and that he was always getting really, really hungry.

Speaking of, his friend was telling him just that. They were both hungry. There wasn't anything in the room that they could eat, though, so the child decided that he's had enough of being watched for today and went to go crawl under the bed again.

But that's when he smelled something. It was definitely spicy, and new and weird, but it was also definitely food. Looking around for a few seconds, it took him a little bit to figure out that the smell was coming from the other side of the window. The familiar voice and the other voice start arguing.

"Keith, what did the site manager say about bringing food near the subjects' rooms?"

"It's fine, this falls under the list of things that are okay to bring in. Besides, it's not like he can smell it or anything."

"But... Curry? Really?"

"I'm not gonna stain anything, chill out."

"You better not."

The child gets up and walks over to the window, pressing his face and hands against the glass. Yep, it was definitely coming from the other side. The silhouettes look at him, one of them seeming to be especially surprised.

"What's he doing-?" The other voice says

"I don't know... he's never come up to the window before." The familiar voice replies. "He usually stays far away from it when we're observing him."

"How does he know when we're observing him? The window is one-way."

"He can probably still hear us."

They stay still for a moment, silent. Then, the third silhouette pushes something closer to the window. The new smell gets stronger, and the child starts seeing if there's any gap between the window and the wall.

"Can he... can he smell that?" The other voice asks. "There's no way he should be able to smell that, right?"

"Perhaps this is one of the changes... it just wasn't noticed before." The dull voice says, sounding curious.

He stops. His friend just offered to help. He wants the food too, after all.

The child places his hand next to the lower part of the window, and watches as his hand starts to turn black.

"What the-?"

Tendrils erupt from the blackened skin, quickly darting to the window and somehow go under the seal on the window. The child can see the coated people on the other side freak out and jump back as he feels the tendrils grab something round. It feels like a bowl. Probably is one.

"Ack-!"

"Sir-?!"

"Stay calm! It's not attacking!"

He tries to pull the bowl to himself, but is stopped by the window that is very much still there. He tries to pull it under the seal like the tendrils can go through, but it just repeatedly slams into the glass. After a while, the child and his friend give up trying and take the tendrils back. They return, and his hand goes back to normal. As he walks back to the bed, he can still hear the people talking.

"...Well. You got your results, sir."

"What the heck did it want my curry for-?"

"Hm... Has the subject been fed today?"

"Yes, sir. More than a subject normally would be, actually. Twice this morning and three times this afternoon. It shouldn't need any more..."

"Yet more changes... make sure to log this."

"Of course, sir."

"...I'm not sure I want to pick that bowl back up now."

"Well, I'd think the subject deserves a reward for showing such promise. I have an idea on what to do with it."

A while later, the child is just sitting on the bed talking to his friend once again, when a small sliding hatch on the metal door opens and someone pushes through a bowl, then it closes again. The new smell from before fills the room.

The child excitedly takes the bowl and brings it over to the bed, both he and his friend very happy as he tries the new food. It's spicy, like he expected, but tastes good.

Today is a good day.