Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Lmaoo… good riddance to all the whiny, annoying brats on the surface of this planet,” Black snickers as we spectate Purple’s descent into the ‘pit of doom’. “At least we got the Impostor… I guess.”

Man… If any one of the other crew members were here and Black were dead, I would be Purple right now. But here I am, counting my blessings while looking on sympathetically as the latter screams and free-falls to her demise.

Upon her hitting the mattress, a ringing sound reverberates around the planet. Heh, time for the epitome of ignorance to be educated now.

The white words on my screen flash my victory as Black gasps beside me.

Any moment now… Let’s see how you react, Black.

“Wait, what? It wasn’t her??” Her alarmed voice causes my hand to fly to the main pocket of my spacesuit as I glance up at her in mock surprise. Upon noticing me looking at her, she turns towards me.

“Hold on a minute. If it isn’t her, then…” Her mouth drops as a look of realisation dawns on her face. “It must be you! It must be you… because she blatantly accused you!”

The minute she starts sprinting to the emergency button, which, by the way, has no emergency cooldown, I hastily fish out my IPad and sabotage the reactor.

It’s really amazing how a simple blare from the alarms can elicit so many curse words from so many ‘self-respecting people’ whom I’ve played with over the months in this game. Yeah, because clearly she’s the only one who respects herself.

All of a sudden, I feel a nudge on my shoulder.

“Catch you later, bro,” Brown nods at me as he jogs to the seismic stabilisers (which one, I have no idea).

“See you back in the waiting lobby,” I murmur as I stroll towards the Meeting Room table, shoving my IPad back into my spacesuit’s front pocket and taking out my knife from my side pocket.

Time to end this crazy game. I hope that Lime will forgive me… after I kill Black and win the game.

Propping myself onto the table, I attempt to shut out the blaring of the alarms in order to find some peace and quiet. My mind wanders back to Earth…

How are Mum and Dad doing? I wonder if they are finding it easier to manage without me to provide for now… or maybe I never made a difference in the midst of all their children. How is Jessie? Joseph? Jade? Julian? Are the former two taking care of my younger siblings… or are they too busy to look after them when my parents are off to work? I really should check up on them soon.

Personally, I can get along with Joseph the most because he’s the closest in age to me. When I was back at home, we would live and breathe video games. Man, those were the times… until the education system forced his hand into clutching a pen rather than a gaming console. As for Jessie… She's just too serious about keeping busy to spend any time with any of her younger siblings. First it was her A Levels and then before I left to play real Among Us, she announced that she had found a part-time job which takes up most of her days. Jade, well… She’s a bit of an unusual one. Something lurks behind her sunny smiles, I just know it.

Oh yeah, and Bailey, our family beagle. He’s just a puppy, but he’s picked up a lot of tricks already. (He’ll do them when he’s not rolling in the mud, which, to Jessie’s consternation, happens way too often.)

Last and certainly the least comes ‘Prince’ Julian. Ugh, I really don’t want to go into why he is the world’s worst sibling… but there’s time now, so.

The moment he was able to walk, he would do things like tip entire cups of milk just to get his older siblings (especially me!) into trouble. Then when my parents saw the mess, he would put on an innocent face, leading to them accusing the nearest sibling of making the mess despite said sibling’s protests. This is amplified by the fact that my parents simply don’t have time to do any investigative work into who actually created those messes.

The 4 of us really don’t like him… but ugh, he still has to be taken care of, right? Sigh.

The pitter-patter of footsteps snaps me out of my musings, becoming louder and louder. Like a hurricane, Black rushes into the meeting room of the Office, only to screech to a halt upon noticing me on the table.

The emergency sirens for the reactor meltdown have stopped. Looks like she has already fixed it with Brown… How committed.

“Well well well…” I smirk, theatrically stretching an arm out towards the girl, who looks rather bewildered at my behaviour. “Look who reached here early!!”

At the snark, the bewilderment on her face morphs into her normal inscrutable one.

How… unsettling. Shouldn’t she be more scared of her imminent fate? She’s not so dumb as to not know what’ll happen to her, right?

“Dang,” My last victim throws up her hands in defeat, seeming to resign herself to her fate but yet not showing even an inkling of resignation on her face. “Do your worst, then.”

What a response! But eh, whatever.

Not giving the girl a chance to run, I grab her right wrist, pulling her towards one of the walls. As she slams against it, the inscrutable look on her face gives way slightly to a look of pain but it is quickly masked again.

So quickly, in fact, that it doesn’t seem to have even existed at all.

Still unsettling, especially for someone whose emotions are usually displayed on her face like the huge neon signs in Las Vegas.

”Accusing Purple was pretty dumb, Black, even for you,” I sneer, leaning into her face to emphasise the point.

“Yeah, whatever. Just finish the job, Red,” The girl spits, her eyes narrowing into slits.

MAN, seeing her like this to me really makes me empathise with Purple on why she fears her so much. She looks really threatening… almost as if she’s the one about to murder me instead.

No. I’m the one with the knife. She has absolutely nothing on me.

“Fine,” I grit out through my teeth as I raise the knife to stab her.

“Oh wait, one more thing before you kill me,” Black raises a hand to stop me, and being a decent human being, I stop.

Ugh. What does she want? Hasn’t she wasted enough of our time?

“Oh, you have last words?” I punctuate every word with annoyance as I fold my arms, making sure that my knife is well away from my victim lest she decides to make a grab for it. Seeming to detect the annoyance, her countenance hardens.

“You should apologise to your best friend for sabotaging him so badly during the game. He seemed really pissed about you selling him out,” She mirrors my enunciation and action, her stance firm and unmoving.

S-Sabotaging? She’s really one to talk??!!

“It was an accident!” I retort a bit too quickly.

For some reason, the girl’s lips seem to quirk upwards… but her lips are back to her normal position after I blink.

She couldn’t have caught that moment of hesitation, right?

“You sabotaged your entire team too, Black,” I snap, finding myself getting upset despite myself. “Don’t be such a hypocrite.”

Why am I getting upset? It’s not like she’s sharp or smart enough to have caught that moment of weakness and to be silently lording it over me now… but why…

Why do I feel as if I’m not the one in control here?

“Yeah, but not on purpose,” Black counters, folding her arms. She clearly wants to end this conversation with a victory, even if it’s a pyrrhic one.

No. She’s the one who’s wrong… This girl sabotaged her entire team!

“Bruh, I also said that outing Lime was an accident!” I throw back indignantly, more than just a little annoyed right now. Like, c’mon, man, catch up if you want to initiate an argument with someone!

“Oh, really!” She bites back, a hint of venom which is all-too-familiar to me now. Still, the sudden show of aggression from her makes me cringe internally. “Then why did you continue talking about what Lime did even after you outed him?”

Shit. She’s right… She’s right.

It wasn’t purely an accident. After I outed him, I invented a story to get him and Purple thrown out and to solidify my alibi.

But I can’t tell her that. Telling her such a thing would be akin to letting her win.

“Isn’t it obvious? I… I had to follow up with the lie!” Much to my detriment, I struggle to come up with a suitable counter quickly, making the ends of her lips curl upwards (again?).

“Ah, so you were a coward~”

That inflection in her voice… for some reason, it really sends chills up my spine… but no. I have to continue defending myself against the likes of her. I have to.

“Look, Black, that’s none of your business,” I attempt to regain control of the conversation as my heart thunders in my ribcage. “Can you stop meddling in matters that are not of any concern to you and instead focus on the ones which actually are your concern?? Like, I don’t know, having better discretion about who the Impostors are when the answer is obvious???”

I see it. I see the slight twitch in her eye that she tries to hide when she adjusts her Among Us goggles. I see her press her lips together almost imperceptibly, annoyed but unable to retort. I see… the slight break in her calm countenance before she regains it.

“Woah, why are you so defensive, Red?” Her voice adopts a challenging tone as her eyes glint. “Tsk tsk… you know that you’re in the wrong, don’t you?”

I’m not even remotely close to being in the wrong?? What kind of high is she on??

Of course you are.

…

…nah, man. I’m going to kill Black where she stands right now… and my betrayal of Lime would be all but a distant dream. After all, the ends justify the means, don’t they?

A snarl escapes before I can rein in my temper. “I SAID, mind your OWN business.”

In the moment that the knife takes to come down on her, she has dodged out of the way and gripped my wrist so hard that it grows numb in a matter of seconds. Thankfully, I keep my grip on the knife.

“This IS my business,” She growls, coating every word with poison as I stare at her in what must be shell shock. “I’m warning you, Red. You had better apologise to Lime after this game… or else.”

She’s gripping me so hard… as hard as he gripped me when I did something “out of place”, according to him.

She’s not playing around anymore… but neither am I.

In fact, I never was.

“How is my friend your business? The fact that you have a crush on him doesn’t make him your business, y’know,” Aggression, born out of the desire to keep my fear hidden, flows out of me in droves as I try to wriggle my hand out of her grasp but she does not yield.

Instead, a “what?” is her snappish reply to my suggestion.

What? Is she really that blind as to how obvious her mannerisms are to other people? Although… she’s not, though? The way she’s conducting herself now, which is so different from how she usually acts… It’s as if she’s manufacturing her responses, which shows that she’s aware of how she acts and how to act.

Or maybe I’m just overthinking this.

“Yes, Black… do you really think that your obvious stares in his direction would go unnoticed?” I level a glare at the girl, annoyance and fear bleeding into irateness.

However, she does nothing but scowl at me.

“Me, have a crush on your friend? Are you hallucinating or something?” A rather forceful wave of her other hand (like she’s swatting a fly) further punctuates her words.

Ugh, this girl… man. It’s too obvious.

“Accept it, Black. Your secret’s been revealed,” I deadpan as I stare into her eyes, trying to force her to tell the truth for once.

“That’s not true, Red. I don’t have a crush on your friend. Why would I?”

Nah. No one is buying what you’re selling, Black.

Also, what do you mean by “why?”??

My instinctive reaction to insult her intelligence (which I should have done a long, LONG time ago) is not received well by said person.

“What the heck??” I resist the urge to scream in pain as she cuts off my blood flow, forcing me to drop my knife on the ground.

“Ooo, my favourite weapon! Man, that knife looks sweet…” Black purrs, a greedy grin itching up her face as she gazes at it almost lovingly.

Well, given that there are only two physical weapons in the game (knife and gun), saying that the knife is her favourite weapon isn’t really saying much… and also, she’s not An Impostor this round! She can’t have it!!

“Well, you’re not allowed to have it. It’s mine,” I grit out through my teeth.

“Who said that I’m not allowed to have it?” The smug tone of voice that she adopts is similar to her usual tone of voice when she concludes her false accusations of other people… but somehow, this time, it seems to have some sort of weight to it.

Ugh, I hate it. I hate that smugness so much.

I know that it’s supposed to mean absolutely nothing because I have the upper hand here, and yet-

“HEY!” A yell of surprise breaks my thoughts as Black suddenly shoves me, making me stumble back, and allowing her to pick up the knife.

She… She has my knife!! She’s not supposed to have my knife!!

“Wait, what?? You… You can’t do that!!”

“Pretty sure it’s not against the rules, though,” The girl smirks as she twirls the knife (W-What?? She can do that without cutting herself??). “The only thing that is against the rules…”

She raises the knife, pointing it towards my chest.

“.…is stabbing you with it.”

She’s right… She’s right about that…

Knowing that her argument has trounced mine yet again, Black withdraws the knife and pulls her goggles down, making the glint in her eyes more pronounced somehow.

“Let’s talk a bit more about your good friend before you kill me, yeah?” Her tone becomes conversational, friendly even, as she offers her free hand out to me expectantly.

Huh?

“But before that… give me your gun.”

WHAT??? In her dreams!!

“Are you mad?? Why would I??” I yell as my hand instinctively flies to the side-pocket containing my gun, protecting my only weapon from the girl trying to confiscate my weapons from me as if I am some CHILD.

Ah, crap. Now she knows the location of my gun.

“Do you remember who I am, Red?” A thin layer of ice slides into that rather weak friendly facade that she is trying to put up, making goosebumps form on the skin on my arms.

Other than a really weird freak? No, not really.

At my non-response, my victim (I repeat, my VICTIM) straightens up, making me gasp internally at how tall she actually is. I mean, I always knew she was tall, but man, she’s taller than me!

“I’m the host of this lobby… and do you know what lobby hosts can do?” She sneers, leaning towards me slightly as malice glitters in her eyes.

What lobby hosts can do… What can they do…

Oh crap. OH CRAP.

If I don’t do what she wants me to, she might kick (or even worse, ban) me from the lobby. I’ll be separated from Lime… unless…

“I can just tell Lime to jump ship with me, y’know,” I stand up straighter to face off with her yet again, unwilling to back down just yet. “He’ll def-”

I slump as realisation hits me like a thirty-pound sledgehammer.

“…oh.”

“Yup,” The girl clicks her tongue as she lifts her chin, condescension oozing from her every pore.

Ugh… Was this how she planned it all along? Why does her IQ suddenly choose to spike now??

“Look, Lime and I are friends. I’ll obviously apologise to him after the game ends,” A sense of frustration wells up in me at having lost her petty little mind game. HERS, out of all people. “Now, can you stop wasting my time and let me kill you?”

Much to my chagrin, the only response I get from her is her pressing her nose in obvious irritation, her brows furrowing.

Time to end this, then.

My hand unzips the side-pocket and whips out my gun… before Black catches it in the span of time that I raise it up to her heart.

‘NOT AGAIN!’ My brain screeches at me.

“Bruh, what now??” I find myself wincing at the sheer strength of her grip, unrelenting in its intensity unless she wills it to release me.

I can’t drop my gun too. Doing that would render me utterly helpless against her.

Her eyes fly open so fast that I jerk back slightly, as if I had just watched the “HERE’S JOHNNY!!” scene from ‘The Shining’.

“Swear it to me,” She intones, her voice low and ominous.

“W-What?” I stammer, suddenly too aware of the matted hair plastered against the back of my neck.

Don’t get me wrong, I got what she said. I just haven’t processed it properly yet.

“Swear to me that you’ll apologise to him after this game,” Her firm voice leaves no room for doubt, giving the impression that something terrible will happen to me if I question her again. For example, my fingers might take a little trip from the rest of my hand. “Now.”

Geez, lighten up, will you?

“I swear I’ll apologise to him after this game,” I resist the urge to let out an exasperated sigh and to roll my eyes, instead using my eyes to bring her attention to my hand. “Now, let me kill you.”

It takes only about 1 second before Black shakes her head, her dark eyes having scrutinised my face.

“Not until I hear some sincerity in your apology,” She presses her lips together, her face deathly serious with no trace of emotion.

Grr… Why should I even respect her wishes on when she should be killed? Oh right, because she’s the one clutching my already bruised hand and preventing it from pulling the trigger.

What have I done to deserve this… I just wanted a fair and clean round, man. No misery involved.

Oh, and sincerity? Seriously? She’s one to talk about that.

I don’t realise that I’ve said all of the above out loud until my fingers begin to feel like they are being crushed.

“Want to say that again, Red?” Black snarls as I scrunch my face in pain.

What a Herculean grip she has on my hand… impossible to get out of…

“You… You’re hiding your emotions. Y-You keep hiding your emotions,” My voice trembles, betraying some sort of fear towards her which is probably what she’s wanted to elicit from me from the very beginning.

An Impostor, scared of a Crewmate… It would have sounded ridiculous to most (including me before this), but not me now. One wrong move, and my fingers might be good as gone.

“Me, hide my emotions? Please,” Mirthful laughter fills the air as the girl continues lying through her teeth. “I’m the last person who should be accused of such a thing. Haven’t you played enough matches with me to know that?”

But she is. It is without a doubt that she’s hiding her true emotions from me right now. (Or maybe she’s expressing them through her grip on my fingers and hand.)

Seeming to think that she has made her point, Black smirks as she releases my fingers from her grasp.

Phew. Any longer and they would have broken off. Seriously.

“We’ll talk more later,” She comments lightly, nodding towards the gun which still remains in my hand. “As for now, you should probably kill me before your good friend comes in here.”

Oh, right, Brown.

Wait, huh? I don’t hear anything… oh wait, I hear it. The plodding of footsteps through artificial snow.

Wow, her timing is good.

“Red, have you killed her already?” Brown’s peppy voice contrasts the very words that he speaks, with his footsteps growing louder and louder. “I don’t see the Defeat sign on my IP- waittt a minute.”

He screeches to a stop, furrowing his eyebrows as he looks between me and my victim. Whom I still have not killed yet.

Awkward…

“Oh, um…” He grins sheepishly, realising the situation he has put me in all too late.

“Interesting… so you two hatched a plan to kill me off, it seems,” Black’s overly-sweet voice, so different from her normal harsh one, makes pinpricks form on my skin.

Fear-inducing… voice… but ahem. Everything is fine!

“Umm, no…” Brown’s denial falls flat on the ground between the 3 of us as she raises a questioning eyebrow and I internally facepalm myself. “Well, yeah, kinda…”

Way to go, dude. Way to go.

Note to self: Brown can’t lie to save his life.

With a rare amused look, she turns to me.

“Well, go ahead then, Red,” She folds her arms, not showing the slightest hint of fear in her facial features. Does she think that I don’t have the nerve to kill her??

“Kill me.”

The moment she utters those words, a flare of pain shoots through my right hand, making the right side of my face scrunch up. Transferring my gun to my left hand instead, I shake my right hand vigorously.

Dammit, this girl can REALLY grip things.

“Wait, Red, what’s up with your hand? Did you injure it??” Brown’s worried voice rings in my ears due to its intensity.

Well, at least SOMEONE here actually cares. The girl, on the other hand…

“Yeah, Red, what happened to your hand?” Black activates her sugar-sweet voice again, so saccharine that I’d be genuinely surprised if even Brown doesn’t suspect something is amiss.

Obviously, I can’t tell him the truth or I’ll incur her wrath sooner and later… or worse, he might not believe me, and the former thing still happens.

I have to lie. Again.

“Urm…” My hesitant voice does not inspire confidence in either Brown or myself as I try my hardest to think of a good excuse for my half-broken hand. Gosh, the trauma of almost losing my hand is really handicapping my brain right now. “I accidentally slammed it against one of the walls of this place… but don’t worry, Brown.”

“It’s fine.”

The greatest lie of all.

However, Brown accepts it readily.

“Oookay… but be more careful next time, Red. That looks like it hurts,” He cringes a little at my red hand, which, even now, is gasping for oxygen.

Flinching in a mixture of pain and his naïveté, I nod.

“Right…” I mutter.

How can he be so gullible? Or maybe he knows what’s happening and is playing along (but I highly doubt so, looking at his openly concerned expression now rather than a wary one).

Feeling the two Crewmates’ gazes on my skull, I stop shaking my hand, suddenly self-conscious, and transfer my gun back to my right hand.

Of course, Brown has a comment to make about that.

“Hm? Red, why your gun? I thought you said you were going to use your knife?” He frowns, genuinely confused about my change in decision.

Dammit. How do I answer this guy without endangering myself?

If I tell him the truth about Black injuring my hand and confiscating my knife from me, I’ll probably incur her wrath as I mentioned earlier. Wrath in the form of her killing me painfully… not now, but when she’s actually An Impostor. Killing me by wrapping her hand around my neck, probably.

That thought sends shivers up my spine. So much for the thought that girls are more defenceless and less courageous than boys.

“Uhh…” is the only thing that I can get out of my mouth before I am interrupted. AGAIN.

“Why not, Brown?” Black intervenes smoothly, a serene smile forming on her face. “A gun is not a bad weapon to use as well… although for me, a knife wins out in a heartbeat.”

My dear friend, however, ignores her, instead choosing to continue prodding me for an answer.

Wait a second. The knife is with her right now. If I just point Brown in the right direction… I might be home free.

“Um… My knife is with-” I gesture in her direction. However, when I turn to look at her hands, there is nothing in them.

Huh?? Where did it go - oh.

Wait, when did she drop it?? I didn’t notice her dropping it at all!

Ugh, now I just look stupid. Again.

Upon seeing the knife on the floor, Brown’s eyes widen. Part of him is probably wondering how it ended up there and another wondering why I’m not trying to retrieve it back.

His response, however, surprises me.

“Ohh, okay…” He murmurs. “Also, like, just wondering. You’re not holding her in any way. What makes you think that she won’t just run away from you right now?”

Oh, right. Good point.

“Don’t worry, Brown… I’m not so dumb as to actually try and press the button. After all, you guys would probably vote me out if I do that, right?” There’s an edge to Black’s voice, a sliver of irritation which lines her words.

Seriously? She’s the one who’s irritated? When I’m the one who was stopped from doing my job in the first place??

“Yeah, I guess…” He mumbles, actually seeming a little guilty about betraying his useless teammate. Like, dude, why??

In order to stop the acid from rising in my throat, to be unceremoniously thrown up all over the floor, I direct it towards the girl.

“Oh wow, so smart, Black.”

The hardened gaze that she gives me makes a small part of me shrivel just a little.

“Okay, stop it, both of you,” A sharp intake of breath, followed by her pressing her lips together so tightly that they form a thin line. She’s royally pissed right now… and she might actually try to kill me soon if I don’t do that to her first. “If you want to kill me, Red, just do it already. I won’t run away, I promise.”

Oh, and NOW she’s okay with getting killed with my hand being severely injured. How ironic.

Shakily, I hold the gun in my right hand, using my left to cock it. However, it takes all of me to even get it to stay in my aching hand.

And the soft snickering of the girl in front of me, the corner of her lip turned up in a smirk and her hand poised to cover it from Brown’s view, does not help me in the slightest.

She wanted me to start preparing to kill her so that she could direct the teasing away from her and towards me… how despicable.

“Wow, Red. You’re really horrible at using the gun, y’know that?” Black licks her lips (with that weirdly-shaped tongue of hers that isn’t exactly unique), clearly enjoying the show of me struggling with my gun, a struggle which is due to her injuring it in the first place. “I mean, sure, your wrist is injured, but still-”

UGH! I can’t take it anymore. She’s SO annoying!

“Can you STOP talking?” The angry burst from me, a cumulative result of all the nonsense that I’ve had to bear from her thus far, does not end well for the latter as I point the gun at her and fire. A scream rents the air as the bullet hits its mark, her heart.

Heh. In the end, she’s still human.