Fear in the face of god notes

title is from Riquiquí by Arca, which may or may not be relevant to the fic

Maybe he had sat in quiet while Six kept eyes on him, only half trusting even after all these months.

the outline here alludes to a quick exchange between rex and six -- this first early foray into the au started to sketch out the relationship between rex & biowulf and the relationship between six & biowulf. the note only says "rex tries to broach the subject and almost gets his head snapped off for it ("jeez I was just trying to be nice-" "drop it, rex" from six. who. kinda gets it)" but i feel like that's a pretty succinct summary of how they work together? rex, trying to be kind, getting bitten for it. so they fall back into this pattern of insults and distrust like they were never allies.

and six i think understands biowulf a lot more than biowulf would ever expect. it's just that biowulf is a jealous mess and six's proximity to wk always puts him on edge

The time skipped like damaged film. Sense memory of the mission skittered live through his nerves.

this is actually referencing one time when i woke up from a dental procedure and could literally see frames of my vision sliding in front of my eyes like film lol

Holiday already began to fuss over Rex, and she saw Biowulf in the blue glow and narrowed her eyes at him, but he had practice by now in ignoring her invitations for ‘check ins.’ That had been an indignity he had only suffered once, before he realized that she never offered it to the human members of their cell.

holiday wants to take this dog apart a little bit. everyone in this fic is a particularly cruel version of themselves i'm afraid

Better to put himself in the hallways and the catwalks alone, to comb through the tangle of his thoughts and pace out the nervous energy. In the castle he could prowl through the overgrown gardens and the labyrinth of corridors; he was not in the castle now, nor would be ever be again, so he made a loop of the maintenance halls and the outer circle of the situation room, the side that rounded close to the lone occupied office.

so that one singular scene in alliance of him pacing like a caged animal stuck with me forever and ever.

anyway a theme i was trying to crack at thru this fic without ever explicitly mentioning it per se was the mirror between providence & abysus, and the mirror between white knight & van kleiss. this is something like a one-way mirror of course, only known to the person who put it between them (biowulf, who still looks back over his shoulder at the thing he left). i don't think any of the defectors group would ever independently or willingly compare themselves to abysus

Once in Abysus some small white butterfly had come in unscathed on the wind and he had caught it between his fingers, finding it so delicate that the wings pierced on one claw without him meaning to do it; that's how White Knight's eyes felt on him, knifepointed to keep him pinned.

well this one wasn't in the outline. the interesting part of a character who is physically armored is finding the vulnerabilities in the rest of him

It wasn't unusual for there to be the scrape and murmur of activity in White Knight's room until early hours, but he didn't come away from it unscathed. There were shadows under his eyes.

in the outline i wrote 'white knight also just doesn't sleep.' there's not a lot of sleeping happening at this dam! more now that rex is back but having this big of a target on your back isn't very conducive to 8 hours a night.

He brought a hand up to his face, then aborted the motion just before his fingers touched the visor. (Biowulf knew that half-action – muscle memory for a lost human shape.)

so white knight is not very different from an evo.

his whole deal is being The Human Man, the ultimate, untouched, pure and clean, but here he is in this armor that makes him surpass humanity - unable to touch his own skin - unable to touch anyone else's skin. i think biowulf comes to see him as something more than human, up to the point that the exosuit comes off, if it ever does. a monster or an evo in the way his previous master was.

i wanted to add a few moments of wk forgetting himself, still adjusting to 24/7 exosuit wear. like trying to take an extra step at the top of the stairs. a reminder that even with the power he has in this particular scenario he is overall deeply powerless

If he hunched his shoulders, White Knight stood a few scant inches taller than him.

bw is alternately enormous and human sized in the show. i really err on the side of huge dog but he has such shitass posture that it brings him down to be about the same height as van kleiss. wk is already a big guy and the exosuit gives him extra mass. the height difference isn't inherent, it's engineered, biowulf putting himself lower

He did this – like there was some aspect of Biowulf only he could see, a page at the end of the book that made him up that Biowulf couldn't read, trapped in his own story – often. A study of his pawn that left Biowulf feeling scoured and seen through.

his pawn do you get it. because of the chess symbolism

wk is a strategist and a planner and it's not really by choice. so he's had a few years to learn how to stare thru someone like this

White Knight tapped a finger against his other arm, but there was something in his voice. Biowulf could never quite identify it. Humor, or else impatience. Not knowing left him unbalanced, which kept him alert.

see it's fine if men treat him like dirt and jerk him around he needs to have it to like, survive. he needs that or life will creep up on him and kill him when his guard is down. it's good that vk did that to him too

This was another thing White Knight would do often: he would lay the lie out bare and clear and then meet Biowulf’s eyes like to see what he made of it. The allure was in how comforting it was to let those lies go unchallenged.

at this point in their relationship wk is comfortable with this thing around. well maybe not comfortable - but he's worked it into the way his life works now, and he's started relaxing a little bit around biowulf. his sense of humor is dry as hell and the dog isn't great at understanding it.

Watching it had left Biowulf uneasy; he had never before cared to guess at the hidden reason why the target was so bright on Rex's back. He could have been made god through the Pack, and their master -

i forgot, actually, about this bit. rex just has such a potentially weird and intense relationship with other evos, especially the ones that treat being evo the way that biowulf does. what happens when you've been acting like going EVO was a blessing & your greatest priest couldn't communicate with the nanites the way a teenage boy could? rex kinda straight up talks to the nanites and it's gotta sort of be like finding out your DNA is sapient

“Well. I have to give Black Knight credit for her optimism, if she really thinks she'll get anything of use from him in that state. I hear he’s not exactly all there after his little trip through time.”

so all of the dialogue in this part came straight out of the outline. i find that certain segments and exchanges are so vital to the tone and pace of the fic that i get them kinda wholly formed before i start even sketching out the rest. i do this with opening paragraphs especially; i'm not so good at skipping the first lines and coming back to them ... it doesn't keep flowing without it.

if anyone would be able to identify van kleiss' lie here, it'd be biowulf. especially because of how pathetic he would find it. van kleiss lowering himself to that extent... it would disgust him, a little.

He had been the animal, frozen in the sudden light of the lab, van Kleiss’ eyes turned onto him sharp and dark, as lucid and brilliant as the day Biowulf had left him in the Bug Jar. He had been the dog hunched quivering in the corner. Van Kleiss had seen him and met his eye and tipped his head, half inviting, and when Biowulf hadn't moved he’d looked away unafraid; and because his master had willed it so, Biowulf had not gone to harm him.

this came fully written in the outline too

he saw through van kleiss and van kleiss saw right through him but on that end, it's because this is the shape van kleiss made out of him. van kleiss built him to be unable to harm his master. and he built him to be wounded by his master's disregard.

this is a little thing called a 'panic attack' btw biowulf. you are freaking out big time. get medicated

“Disappointing,” he said, and Biowulf flinched full-body. White Knight tsked disapprovingly, but he tipped his head, half inviting.

so! 1. wk really like bro why didn't you kill him. that would have been awesome. 2. the mirror is back. who doesn't love a repeated line of text. biowulf is primed to see every tiny similarity between white knight and van kleiss and in fact yearns to do so. white knight would hate it if it was ever said aloud but biowulf could write a whole novel about the ways he and van kleiss are alike. it's terrifying & soothing to the dog

The discontent of his betters fell over him like a blanket, sweetly familiar, a maze he knew how to navigate. It took him by the gut and guided him.

so this is not a dog who is mentally well. this is not a dog who is particularly capable of acting alone. this is a dog who has spent five-six years being molded into a perfect desperate servant by a guy who generally wouldn't care if he actually lived or died. and that's fine for biowulf. it gives him purpose. every time that van kleiss was disappointed in him it was simultaneously an earth-shattering world-ending event and a perfect light of guidance. he would beg for van kleiss to tell him he'd done poorly. in this exact moment of white knight shaking his head there's a transfer of power that only biowulf can see

But White Knight barked a laugh, a gleeful kind of surprise, and said, “Oh, is that so?”

my outline here says "wk instantly like lol? how far can I push this ? the answer is literally so far." this is a little bit a game for wk. he is not being a very good person in this fic! no one is! it's fine! they are deeply stressed they are not coping

Balancing on the unpredictable wire of permissive boundary-pushing, identifying what's acceptable by faith alone, was a familiar sour bite that made Biowulf's blood pound in his head. Being forced back away from his prey only because his master wants to see him hunger for it tightened a hot knot in his core.

so i think -- well one i think vk and biowulf fucked. So write that down. but two i think vk really enjoyed fucking with biowulf's head, making him guess what was permissible from one day to the next, making him toe the line and then redrawing the line. it's a technique to keep his servant on edge and alert and malleable, and it's also a lot of fun for freak men. biowulf got very good at, as much as anyone can be good at it. moreover, he became very bad at brushing off van kleiss' irrational frustration. van kleiss could be pissed about something deeply and obviously unreasonable and it would still cling to biowulf's insides like oil

here, at least, there's an immediate controlled response of yes or no.

At this angle, the light of the visor his much of his face, but Biowulf could see him wet his lips.

"haha what the fuck am i doing. welp i'm doing it"

Biowulf had never missed his humanity in the last six years. That was a lie. ... Biowulf convinced himself that when he came close, he could smell the tang of sweat and blood underneath the ozone and metal. He still wished for a tongue. He wished to press himself whole against the sturdy pillar of White Knight's body, mouth open and thighs spread, whining incoherent.

so. two guys who are smoothly metal and don't have access to the human bodies they once had, huh.

Ok. So. This is a kink thing. it's a smut fic. it has my kink shit in it. and i love the idea of a bw that doesn't even have penis!!!!! and guess what wk: that's you too buddy! two freaks who don't have cocks to touch trying to get off on dominance & submission alone and it's kind of working

“Don't call me that,” White Knight interrupted him, but his voice had gone rough and low. Biowulf could hear his breath heaving under the combined whir of the exosuit and his own body. “You’ll call me White Knight or you won't call me anything at all.”

ok he knows a little that it's a van kleiss thing but also he doesn't want to admit that he's really into being called master because that's for fucking weirdos. he's completely normal.

White Knight rocked into the touch, but then he bared his teeth and grabbed Biowulf's hand at the wrist.

i couldn't find a way to communicate this well given the limited third person but this is white knight getting frustrated with the fact that he's locked into the exosuit. the same heat and pressure that biowulf is going nuts for is just reminding white knight that he's in another, smaller cell. sure it gives him power & a little bit of freedom but at the end of the day he can't even be touched. so he's wresting back control here

The tight pleasure of White Knight’s foot between his legs skidded close to pain, then tipped firmly into it, aching and wonderful. Biowulf's back arched like he was being pulled up by a marionette string. He did not try to run from this; low sounds punched out of him when White Knight leaned forward, one arm propped on his knee.

oh man i forgot about this particular bit of blocking. this is great. not to toot my own horn. but. White Knight kinda has a certain way he moves that i feel is very easy to channel thru fic. all his old masculine predation coming through here. sense-memory of being an overconfident adrenaline-filled gunslinger. using his mass to intimidate. wk leaning his weight directly onto biowulf and then affecting an almost casual pose... yeah

what was in my outline here: "a semi-mad glint in wk’s eye. high on domination and the possession of a superhuman soldier who has obedience to him alone." maybe he gets it a little why vk was always so smug

“Beg me to stop,” White Knight told him, voice barely audible over the rush of blood and nanites in Biowulf’s head. Biowulf thrashed; he choked on words; he shook his head.

“I won't,” he promised.

well i don't know what he expected. he could have killed biowulf here and biowulf would have said please & thank you

in my outline here: "wk tipping his head, half-inviting, with that triumphant knife-edge smile. catching on that neither of them are gonna come. 'beg me to stop.'" i'm a little disappointed that i didn't remember to put the echoed line in, tbh

He watched White Knight smile mildly at him and walk back toward the desk, whatever late night paperwork still waiting.

this is in part of course a power play on white knight's part but also a symptom of his frustration. he can't more than half-feel anything and while the dog's reaction is... fascinating, maybe he should be punished for daring to be able to get so much out of this interaction

White Knight’s presence in the room was a known weight, now.
...
He could feel the ring of the collar around his throat.

so. the dynamic shifted, obviously, probably more than white knight would ever have intended, but a switch has tipped in biowulf's stupid doggy brain and he's dedicated himself fully to his new master. please be mean to him some more

this fic has become essentially canon to my au at this point. it's not always Exactly this way but something to this effect happens that establishes that there's a fucked up power dynamic here that biowulf craves & that commits him in services to white knight