Chapter Text
I. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven
Cait
The ring in the Combat Zone is smaller than it looks. The metal cage glitters in the stage lights, stretching up and over, shrinking around the combatants. Trapping them in this tiny space with someone whose life depends on kicking the living shite out of them.
Which, Cait thinks, bouncing lightly on her the balls of her feet, loose and ready as the challenger fumbles with the door, is not unlike a mini-version of her whole fucking life.
Cait’s seen more than her share of idiots stumble into the cage, shit-talking and dick-measuring with their friends only to realize too late that Cait could cross the floor in five quick strides. Could have them gasping and choking faster than than they could blink, whisper-gurgling against her hands, eyes wide and terrified, like prey.
That’s not how she usually does it, though. Usually she takes it slow, draws it out, gets the crowd wild and screaming with bloodlust. Makes for a better purse at the end of the night, puts on a show for Tommy.
And there’s something in her that craves it too. The monster inside her that demands blood for blood, that wants to shove all her pain outward and force the rest of the world to fight her. To see her. Even if the world hits back so hard her fuckin’ bones feel bruised.
It’s like this guy, this sucker who wears spikes and blades strapped to his clothes. Cait gets it, even if she knows it won’t save him. Sometimes you have to look the way you feel inside. Sometimes you can only be soothed by sacrifice.
Tonight she’s an Old God. Tonight she’s a dragon. Tonight she’s steel and fury and black, black eyes as she kicks out with perfect aim at the poor fool who saw a pretty face and funny accent and failed to notice the muscled arms and simmering rage that went along with them. She knocks the wind out of him and he doubles over, wheezing. Grabbing the back of his neck, his body tensing up under her hand, she brings her other arm down with controlled, heavy force.
When Cait’s elbow connects with his skull there’s a sickening crunch that she feels more than hears. Ripping through the drunken, animal howls from the stands, the impact shivers through her arm and shoulder. The crowd roars as the nameless man thuds to the ground, bloody and broken and not dead-dead, at least not yet, but close enough. Close enough for both of them.
Cait lifts her arms as the crowd screams for her and she bares her teeth in a feral grin, blood rushing through her veins, though her muscles, skin crackling with adrenaline and oxygen and the faint, acid scorch of Psycho. The lights are burning down on her and the smell of sweat and rotting leather is in her nose, and even though she’ll have caps in her pocket and a drink in her hand tonight, the thrill of victory doesn’t last long.
Nothing does, these days.
Later, after Tommy tossed her winnings over with a knife-edge smile and the lights goes down for the night, Cait pads into her little room in the rafters and stretches carefully. Her tendons flex and bend as she assesses what parts of her need attention, might need bandaging or binding, the creaks in her knees and hip bones that are only getting sharper with time.
Cait knows her own body intimately, knows its strength and power, the scars that criss cross her back and stomach like a map of her own life. It’s her best thing, what’s kept her alive and kicking this long, too tough and fucking stubborn to quit or die. And yeah, she knows the drugs are what’s killing her but it just feels so good, the rush that thrums through her and turns her into a gun, into a weapon, into an unbreakable battering ram.
But her body’s always been owned, Cait thinks bitterly as she fishes out the surgical tape from under her mattress and winds it tenderly around her knee. Never hers, never able to fight for herself, and there’s a live wire buried there that she can’t, that she won’t, touch. It’s dangerous to press up against the sharp, broken parts of herself, to go poking around in the dark places.
It’s hardest when it’s quiet. Nothing to distract her from the heavy weight on her chest, the shuddering beat of her overworked, overheated heart. There’s something wrong with her. That she hates this place, but can’t leave.
That she doesn’t hate all of it. That the crack of her fist is electric-sweet, even if the hangover leaves her dry heaving with shame. That she still has a stupid, naive, little-girl hope that someday she’ll get out of here and do...good. That she’s even capable of goodness, if not redemption.
Tying the bandage off into a neat knot, Cait raises her legs up onto the mattress and turns off the lamp. She lies still, eyes dry, trying to slow her breathing.
Slow. Slower. Slower.
Deacon
The face in the mirror is a stranger.
It’s not that unusual for Deacon. He’s been under the knife so many times in the past few years it’s practically a joke at HQ, and even though most face swaps aren’t nearly as dramatic as the name would suggest, it still takes some getting used to. Seeing the slightly altered chin and nose, the bones shifting under his skin in that new, not-quite-right way. Gently, he reaches up to trace his fingertips over his swollen face.
He’s in what the pre-war folks would’ve called the ‘recovery room’ after surgery — in Commonwealth terms, that meant a room, a door, and a mirror so the patients can admire the good doctor’s handwork. It’s not Deacon’s first rodeo, not by a long shot, but he knows the Doc isn’t kidding when she tells him to take some time to get used to his new features, to make sure he doesn’t balk the first time he catches sight of his reflection.
It’s a strange thing, she says, when the picture you have of yourself in your mind doesn’t match the person staring back at you. She and Deacon can agree on that, at least.
Though really, the image Deacon has of himself is less about his face and more about his persona, more about his actions and his mission, his conviction that there’s still time to be a net good for the world even if he barely makes the margin. This scraping off, cutting his old self away until the tender parts underneath are raw and exposed, is all just part of the process.
He practices his expressions in the cloudy mirror, making sure his best tool and sharpest weapon is still up to the task. Drawing his eyebrows together for a frown, quirking a corner of his mouth up for a smirk, letting everything go slack for an expressionless stare, still and opaque. It hurts to move his facial muscles this soon after the surgery, but he’s got a delivery the day after tomorrow and he needs to be up for it, needs to be ready, needs to be smooth and unknowable and new.
Deacon blinks and shakes his head, his eyes still gritty and sore, and reaches in his bag for a razor. Should do a practice run with shaving, he thinks. Slow and careful. Glory might consent to shave his head every now and then but there’s no way she’s gonna hold his face her hands and scrape a knife across his cheek. Though, Deacon thinks with an inner smile, she’d probably be fantastic at it. Synth precision and all that.
There’s no soap or water on hand, so he doesn’t even really try to get the stubble. Just drags the razor carefully over the unfamiliar skin, the dips and divots he doesn’t recognize, pressing gently to test the pliancy, the give, to see the flesh bleached white under the pressure. It doesn’t seem real yet. His nerves are dulled and his brain doesn’t recognize him. Still a costume, still a fever dream.
Deacon swallows, blade against his Adam’s apple, and tries to force himself to get a grip. He’s slipping a little into that unreality that comes with deep undercover work, fading away. So thin he’s transparent, so light he’s vapor. Barely even in the world anymore, with his constructed face and personality and life story. He thinks how easy it would be to just disappear completely, to pop a Stealth Boy on life itself.
It doesn’t sound like suicide when you phrase it like that, he thinks wryly. Suicide is guns and blood and jumping off a cliff, a giant middle finger to whoever or whatever hurt you. Not this. Not quiet and tired and broken down, peeling yourself away layer by layer and getting smaller each time.
Sometimes Deacon thinks nothing at the center of him at all. A black hole, the dark void of a night with no stars. If it’s so easy to change who he is, was he ever even real in the first place? He reaches out to touch his reflection in the mirror, and there’s a lurching, nauseous moment when his face blurs under his hand, dissolving into someone he hasn’t seen in a long time.
Deacon’s first face wasn’t so different, really.
No. He drops the razor on the floor and steps back, taking several deep breaths. That person is dead now. He fights to calm himself and closes his eyes, the floor tilting and swerving under his feet.
There’s a distant part of him that realizes this is bad, that most people do one, maybe two facial reconstructive surgeries in their lifetime. He’s done over ten, and right now he feels them all, the ghosts of everyone he’s ever been flicking against his skin, the shadow-memory of a jaw, a smile, eyes, that were once his. He inhales slowly again, letting his breath out through his nose.
Hold tight, hold fast. Tough it out for one more run, then go down fighting.