Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Vinestaff’s body was so warm. Subspace had convinced himself that was the main reason he let her visit him in Blackrock. Because despite the fact that one of her arms was cold, hard wood, the rest of her was so soft and so warm.

Compared to his own, icy, rotting body, that was adapted to the freezing mountainscape of Blackrock, her perfect body was designed for the humid valleys of Theives den.

So what if he locked the door to his quarters for an hour or two? He couldn’t possibly take the risk of being caught coddling and being pampered by another demon, especially not one with no rank from another faction.

It wasn’t during his working hours anyways. And he could live missing an hour or two of sleep each day, if it meant he got a moment of bliss. A moment with another demon that cared, another demon who does not fear, hate or want to control him.

It was a strange feeling to get used to, It certainly took a lot of convincing from Vinestaff to get him to go along with it. But frankly… he didn’t mind this. Not that he would tell anyone that, of course.

The truth, that he would only ever tell himself, he had no idea what he was doing. Or even why he was doing it for that matter. He never really had any doubts about his actions before, but he supposes it starts now.

He’s doing this because he wants to, like all things he does. But why does he want to?

Subspace couldn’t tell you why he didn’t hate Vinestaff, nor why Vinestaff didn’t hate him. At least in Vine’s case, she’s a demon with a heart made of gold and sent from angels. Subspace? Not so much.

The skill set that Subspace’s life had acquired was one of practical use. One of violence and cruelty that stems from his enjoyment of watching others suffer. None of the lovey-dovey bullshit taught to those soft-spined idealists from other factions.

He could not tell you what empathy was, other than maybe the fact that it was a weakness. One that he had learned to exploit.

And yet…

And yet his arms were wrapped around another demon. His fingers pressed into her back as if to prove to himself she was really there.

And in return, she held him back. One arm, cursed, would glide its splintered fingers through the disgusting mess that was his overgrown hair, and he would rest his head against it. Vinestaff’s other arm was draped lazily over his waist, and he leaned into the touch.

Vinestaff was dressed down in a pair of sweatpants, her white shirt featuring cover art from a band she liked. Subspace could never remember the name of it, but he didn’t understand the obsession around music anyways. The pink sweater she had worn to protect herself from Blackrock’s weather long since was discarded.

Subspace was still in his work clothes. Still in the uniform he wore day in and day out. He likely stank. Not that he cared. Subspace was letting Vinestaff cuddle with him, she had no right to care about how he smelled after work. Or… how he smelled in general.

“Subspace.” She suddenly spoke, her eyes opening to meet his gaze. He realises he’s been staring. “Shouldn’t I be going soon? Any longer and I might actually fall asleep here.”

“No.” Subspace replies far more quickly than he meant to. “You’re staying a bit longer.” The command falls easily out of his mouth, a tone that’s so used to coming from his lips, but for some idiodic reason it hurts to leave his words there.

“...Please.” He eventually adds on begrudgingly, the word even leaving his mouth is so foreign that it makes him shiver and nearly gag. His rotten arms hold her closer.

She should leave before morning comes. Should. Subspace has the authority to invite people in and out of Blackrock’s borders anytime he wants, perks of being the head of the robotics department as well as being favoured by the superiors.

Unfortunately, Subspace is plagued with the unfortunate condition of caring about his image. If people are not threatened by his presence, then what’s the point of being there at all? He doubts anyone would ever take him seriously again if they saw a foreigner calling herself his ‘friend’, leaving his quarters in the early morning.

Still, he really didn’t want her to leave.

Subspace grimaced at his own actions as he cozied up closer against her body, his face tucking itself into her shoulder to hide himself from his own embarrassment. She was so warm. And he was so cold.

“You need to sleep, Subspace.” Vinestaff speaks up again after only a few more minutes. It’s true that Subspace couldn’t fall asleep until he was sure Vinestaff had left the borders of Blackrock without getting spotted.

Subspace grunts, his weak, rotten hands roughly squeezing at Vinestaff’s body like that would even do anything. It was more a display of protest than an actual threat. He didn’t want her to leave yet.

What is wrong with him?

Garbled grumbles fall from his mouth as he sits up in the large, lavish bed in his quarters. His face, despite being mostly hidden from his gas mask and eye patch, carried a scowl once again.

The scowl was his signature expression, the perfect opposite to that warm, slight smile that Vinestaff carried herself with. In so many ways they were perfect opposites. But they were also so strangely alike.

Both cursed with an affliction that limits their time wandering the living plane. Both completely engrossed, obsessed, even, with each of their respective interests. Both seeking some form of attention. Both constantly dressed in their favourite colour, pink.

“Fine. If you’re so eager to leave already, let’s just go.” Subspace spits, annoyed with the fact that she’s leaving already. It’s been longer than she usually stays, but Subspace can’t help but feel pissed off that he can’t have what he wants.

There’s a world out there where he forces her to stay. One maybe not so far away. It’s in his nature, after all.

He decided, for some reason, that he didn’t want that to be this reality.

Chapter Text

Here's the thing. Many people say that love makes it feel like the good times last forever. That was not the case for Vinestaff and Subspace.

Each of their bodies is failing them in unique ways to give them physical reminders of their own mortality. A painful, slow ticking clock which counts down to their demise.

It’s sort of what brought them together in the first place. Vinestaff’s curse, Subspace’s rot, they both knew that there was no forever for them. They lingered and clung to the company of another person who understood, even if they were so vastly different.

But despite all of this, despite the constant reminders of their imminent demises attached and sewn to their own skin, being together felt too good to really have an end in sight.

…

Subspace always thought herself of the first to go. The rot seemingly worked faster than Vine’s curse, and her blatant disregard for her health made her think it was guaranteed to not outlive her lover.

Maybe it was those late nights where Vinestaff would softly hum to herself as she gently made attempts to soothe and heal Subspace’s rotting skin. Flowers would bloom up her body as she rested in Vinestaff’s arms.

Maybe it was Vinestaff’s insistence to try and cure her. All those times that Vine listened to Subspace’s loud and hate-filled complaints about life’s woes while she tried to close any of the wounds caused by rot on Subspace’s body.

Maybe the world just decided to spite her. Ruin the one truly good thing Subspace was ever involved in by ripping it from her grasp before she slipped into the cold, loving embrace of death.

Whatever the reason, not like it mattered, Vinestaff’s body was almost completely turned into wood. Her limbs locked still, hard and cold while Subspace could do nothing but watch.

Vine couldn’t even move her arms to hold Subspace, and Subspace couldn’t even hold onto Vinestaff without gaining splinters, which stung and irritated the rot that was still eating away at her body.

Subspace tried so hard. She used all of that scientific knowledge she had been raised to know, all of that IQ which she bragged so openly about. But there was no saving Vinestaff. A curse has no cure.

She can’t fix this, she can only make it worse.

Still, ever so stubborn as she is, she tries anyway. At least this way, she won’t feel useless, and to Subspace, being useless is more painful then any rot or scar on her body.

“I will save you, I promise!!” She shouts, her hands gripping at the ripped and splintered fabric of Vinestaff’s shirt. Subspace reaches for the syringe, her hand struggling to find it as she violently refuses to take her eye off her lover.

Subspace made a poison, it’s what she does best, a poison which targets plants but is completely harmless to demons. Vinestaff’s only remaining not-wooden eye glanced at the syringe. She knew it was her coffin in liquid form.

If her lips weren’t sewn in place by wooden skin, Vinestaff would have something to say. A plea, maybe? A goodbye? She doesn’t even know what she would say if her lips were open. Maybe she’d just ask for one thing from Subspace, to bury her back home.

Vine’s home, in Thieves' den. She wants to rest for eternity in the garden she had worked so hard on. To stand as a tall cherry blossom tree, dancing gently in the breeze, with her sisters, the flowers, by her side. Each flower she had once nurtured and raised, now sharing soil with her own roots.

She wants to go home to see her brother. She wants to tell him that he’ll be okay without her, that he too will grow stronger and not become buried by her roots. She wants to stand tall in the garden so he can come see her. So she can still come see him. So that he can dance in the breeze with her, growing up towards the sunlight.

But she knows that she isn’t going to get that. In her grief, Subspace will place her to rest in Blackrock’s greenhouse. Vinestaff will be admired by gardeners and passers by, ogled at as the once-living tree. She will be mourned, mourned by Subspace who will find her days sitting at Vinestaff’s roots, letting the rot bring her closer and closer and closer to her lover. Slowly.

Vinestaff will be studied. Poked and prodded by researchers right under Subspace’s nose, they might try to bring her back. It won’t work. Discoveries will be made, or maybe not, Vinestaff doesn’t know. What she does know is that Blackrock won’t want her forever.

One day, when the snowy climate is particularly bad, they will cut her into pieces and use her for firewood. They’ll use the space where her roots were to grow carrots and cauliflower and potatoes, they’ll barely manage to feed the starving nation and then sing their own praises once it’s done.

Subspace will protest this, if she’s still alive by then. But not even Vinestaff’s dead and cold body will be the catalyst that makes Subspace disobey her superiors. She’ll just hang her head, staring poison into the worker’s systems as she silently watches Vinestaff’s corpse be butchered in front of her.

Vinestaff doesn’t particularly want that. But she knows it’s what will happen because she knows Subspace. She knows Subspace better than anybody else in this world.

The clawed, poison-covered fingers cradle Vinestaff’s face, bringing her out of her thoughts. Subspace is crying. She never thought she’d see the day.

“Vine…” Subspace mutters, her voice quivering as she bites her lip in an attempt to hold back her tears. She looks angry, but that’s just her face when she’s sad. Vinestaff knows this. She knows this better than anyone.

The syringe comes into Vine’s stiff view again. It’s empty. She feels different, but exactly the same.

“Vine, I failed you. This wasn’t supposed to happen…” Subspace spat, each of her words muffled by the gasmask that hid her disgusting, rotting face. Her clawed fingers traveled down Vine’s body, her breath hitching as she took in the reality of her lover’s form.

Frozen in place. The wood was cold. The warmth that Subspace had once clung onto while they held each other in bed during the snowstorms that frequented Blackrock’s climate, gone. Everything she had the capacity to love, gone.

Replaced by wood. Cold, hard and splintered wood. Subspace dug her claws into the rough texture, scratching down the surface of it. If Vinestaff could speak, she would have winced.

“How… How did I fail? I’ve reinvented war, advanced my faction so far that they’d give me a throne if I asked.” She’d brag, the breathing in her gas mask sounding heavier than before. “But I can’t even save my fucking girlfriend…”

Subspace sobs, her head resting against Vinestaff’s shoulder. It was a strange sight, but Vinestaff deemed it fitting to be what she saw in her final moments. It was what she was expecting.

Maybe others saw it wrong. How Vinestaff gave up so much to be with Subspace, but Subspace could hardly change her homicidal tendencies for her. But Vinestaff saw it differently.

She gave up so much because she loves Subspace. With her entire heart. Because Subspace loves her too. She can see it in the way Subspace hesitates to be cruel when Vine’s lingering around her. Because Subspace doesn’t bother trying to push her away anymore.

Because Subspace actually considers disobeying her superiors for her.

Because Subspace is clinging to her on her deathbed.

Because Subspace tried to save her. She tried.

The air in the room felt colder, cold like Blackrock always is, a stark contrast to the humid embrace of the burning sun in Theives’ den. She missed it. Vinestaff wants to go home. To go tend to her garden, to push and shove her way through the busy street markets, to poke fun at how bad her brother is at video games.

She doesn’t want to be here anymore.

She wished she could tremble, pleading for her lover to carry her back home while tears flowed down her cheeks. But she couldn’t move. She couldn’t do anything.

Subspace wasn’t bothered to brush Vinestaff’s hair out of her face, too consumed by her grief. Vinestaff was already dead, in her mind. But that wasn’t true, she was right there. Right there and scared and suffering.

A moment ago, Vinestaff felt almost at peace about dying, but the cold, crisp air around her makes her lungs hurt when she breathes it in. She doesn’t want to die here.

What remains of her soft, warm eyes stares up at the fluorescent hospital light dangling above her head, a weak excuse for the feeling of the real sun. Subspace sobs more and clings to her chest. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

That was the first and last time she’d hear Subspace genuinely apologize. It might have warmed her heart a little, if she wasn’t so, so, so incredibly cold.

Vinestaff felt so drained, but she was too scared to close her eyes.

Subspace shifted, now looming over Vinestaff’s face as she stared down at her. She hardly had any resemblance to her old self.

“I have another idea… m-maybe I didn’t fail. I’m not leaving you, I’m just… I just… I need to get back to my lab. I’ll be ten minutes, not even that, five. Five minutes. Please, live another five minutes.”

Subspace rushed off. It wasn’t over! The great Subspace T.Mine is anything but useless, she’s going to make everything alright. Everything was under her control.
Vinestaff was going to be okay.

Vinestaff begged her wooden face to let herself cry.

Vinestaff was so tired, and so, so, so cold.

Vinestaff wanted to go home.

Vinestaff got more tired, suddenly feeling the sun back on her skin.

Vinestaff heard the distant clatter of footsteps, the sweet smell of the sticky street food that she’d always buy for herself and her brother.

Vinestaff felt the humid breeze against her skin, and she began to dance with it, her siblings all beside her.

Vinestaff went back to sleep.

It was warmer in her dreams.

Chapter Text

Subspace wasn’t thrilled over the idea of going to Thieves’ den, and was especially not pleased with having to dine with Vinestaff’s family.

He was going to just… sit there. For hours. Pretending to care about anything they have to say and pretending he can taste whatever food they forced him to eat.

They weren’t even mostly her relatives! Sure, her little brother was there, but the others simply included her roommate and one of her neighbours. The family-centred culture of this faction was annoying, as it meant Vinestaff could consider practically anyone as blood.

In Blackrock, demons are lucky enough to not have family bonds. Elites are pressured with the burden of children, but to everyone else, service to Blackrock is most important. Therefore, it makes sense why only elites have families, it would only become a distraction if the workers had ones.

He wouldn’t have agreed to this if he didn’t owe Vine for healing that patch of rot on his leg. He knew better than to leave a debt unsettled, especially one held by someone as salty as his girlfriend.

He wasn’t bothered to wear anything nice. Just a turtleneck, some trousers and boots, with his gasmask on his face, of course. He doesn’t believe that they would even let him into their house if they witnessed his mangled, poison-breathing lower face.

Thieves’ den was a… quaint place. The houses were packed next to each other like sardines, and even in the night there was never a moment where you couldn’t see your own two feet in front of you. It was bright.

It didn’t matter that the streetlamps overhead were mostly broken, as from their moss-covered poles had fairy lights and hand-crafted lanterns were strung, casting a warm orange glow over the empty night streets.

Subspace sighed as he stood in front of the address he was given by Vinestaff. A tall, yet skinny three-story house, with the front of it surrounded an arrangement of potted plants. Flower baskets filled with colourful overgrowth sat on the window sills, clearly well-kept despite the leaves spilling over.

He huffed at the sight, what might have been a slight smile appearing under his gas mask. Vinestaff definitely lived here.

With a groan, he reached out his hand, hesitated, and then knocked on the door.

It felt like a million years before someone answered the door, vague arguing being heard on the other side. Subspace prays that he doesn’t get caught in the middle of some petty fight between Vinestaff and her friends. He loves a good fight, but it feels like torture when he couldn’t care less about whatever trivial argument is going down.

Finally, someone opens the door.

The demon who answers the door is shorter than him, with bright green horns that shoot straight up and he carries a sour scowl as he looks up at him. Ah, this must be her little brother, Shuriken, if he remembers correctly. Vinestaff talks about him a lot.

Subspace just stares back at him, his face completely and utterly uninterested as he soaks in the intensity of Shuriken’s scowl.

“For your information,” The younger demon suddenly says, straightening his back as he leaned closer to Subspace, “It’s only Vine that wants you here.” Shuriken begrudgingly opened the door, inviting Subspace inside.

Subspace wasn’t expecting anything less. He paid him absolutely no mind and waltzed into the house.

Shuriken, opened his mouth again, ready to squawk something more at Subspace, but for whatever reason decided to stay quiet, biting his tongue and storming off into what he presumed to be the kitchen.

The house smelt strange, like cherry blossoms and lemon, and a strange, spicy scent was also wafting its way into the entrance hallway, from the kitchen. He might have coughed at how potent it was if he wasn’t used to breathing in actual poisonous gas.

He just had to find Vinestaff, so he could pathetically stick to her side like a lost puppy. It was the only way to avoid whatever ridiculous questions the other people in attendance probably wanted to ask him.

Hesitantly, he followed where Shuriken disappeared to and ended up in the dining room, with the kitchen just to his left. The kitchen was clattering with dishes as the two demons standing in there cooked away at a dish Subspace couldn’t recognise.

Just outside the kitchen, Shuriken leaned over the counter, gossiping with the blue-horned individual of the two cooks. How lovely, every member of this gathering that wasn’t who he was looking for. Fantastic.

“Greetings, Mr T.Mine.” The gravelly voice belonged to the older demon in the kitchen. A giant, muscular man with large red horns that framed his head like a crown, his face obscured by a silver mask.

Subspace only gave him a nod as a reply. Every demon in the room had stopped what they were doing to just… stare at him. Usually he revelled in attention, positive or negative, but their gazes seemed to be more calculating and generally unimpressed than hateful or jealous.

With a cough to break the silence, he placed his hands in the pockets of his trousers, attempting to stare back at the three of them with equal effect. “Do you know where Vinestaff is?” He asked, keeping his voice level and empty.

The three of them made eye contact with each other, before Shuriken spoke up. “VIIIIIINE, YOUR GIRLFRIEND’S HERE.” He shouted  suddenly at the top of his lungs, as the other two went back to their cooking.

A clattering of footsteps coming down the stairs echoed through the house, as Shuriken turned his back to Subspace, whispering to the blue-horned cook again. He’d seen both of those demons in phights before, but hell if he cared to remember their names.

Subspace had never felt more like a fish out of water in his life.

Thankfully, Vinestaff swooped in to his rescue, grabbing his arm and yanking him back into the hallway. She was dressed nice, her hair done up in a loose bun and her makeup more detailed than usual.

“Sorry, I wasn’t expecting you until later, so I was still doing my hair…” She apologised, giving Subspace that soft smile that she wears so naturally on her face.

“Don’t be. I’m just-”

“Your shoes.”

“What…?”


“You’re wearing shoes in the house.”

“...yeah?”

Vinestaff looked at him with a mix of disbelief and horror. “You could at least try to make a good impression! Take your boots off, hopefully nobody noticed.” She muttered those words like he had just taken a life in front of her. Surely it couldn’t be that big of a deal.

Subspace rolled his eye, but removed his footwear anyways, lazily tossing them towards the shoe rack next to the front door. “There, happy?” He grumbled, feeling a little bit more ridiculous now that he had lost the height advantage of his boots, and now stood at an equal height with his girlfriend.

“Yes. Better… It’s a start.” Vinestaff assured, stepping back to get a better look at him, making sure he wasn’t breaking any more unspoken rules.

Subspace had a feeling that he was going to have an even worse time than he was anticipating.

—---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By the time everyone had sat down for dinner, the table was eerily silent. Vinestaff gave him a little grace and sat next to him, but her brother was staring daggers at him from the opposite side of the table.

Glancing at the food that was put out on the table, it seemed to be some kind of stew? Or maybe a curry? Paired with a large serving of rice and pieces of what he assumed to be breaded chicken.

Then, the blue-horned demon from before, Slingshot, as Vine told him, began to hand out the utensils. Subspace didn’t know what he was expecting, but his heart sank. Chopsticks.

This must be some kind of cruel test, to see if he’ll embarrass himself by asking for a fork, or if he’ll submit to their cruelty and just suck it up. He was not going to do either of those things.

He was Blackrock’s head of Robotics, a genius and a prodigy to his faction when it came to sciences. Surely. Surely, he can figure out how chopsticks work. It’s basically just balancing a grain of rice perfectly between two sticks, how hard can it possibly be?

The chaos began once everyone began serving themselves, it was first-come, first-served, as Shuriken grabbed a piece of chicken from right under Slingshot before he could take it.

Subspace wasn’t quite sure of what to do with himself. In Blackrock, there are hardly any shared meals and when there are, there’s always some hierarchy of who gets the first pick of what. Not… this .

Of course, he picked his servings based on texture. Rice was quite sticky and grainy, not his style, so he grabbed hardly any. He grabbed a large portion of the curry, or whatever it was, as liquid foods are always good in the mouth.

Then, came the chicken. The rice he could just shovel onto his plate, and the curry had a ladle. But the chicken, he would need to use chopsticks. Just before he was about to commit to reaching for the chicken, Vinestaff put something in his hand from under the table.

A fork.

He decided to use the fork instead, and if anyone at the table questioned it, he’d just mock them until they dropped it.

Here came the part Subspace had been looking forward to. He reached his hands up to unclasp his gas mask with a click, and everyone at the table grimaced as plumes of poisonous smoke erupted from his rotting mouth.

The red-horned demon at the head of the table, Katana, as Vine explained, broke out in a coughing fit as it wafted in his direction. The poor older demon tried to mask it as something else as he pretended to be choking for the sake of being polite.

“Ahem…” Katana eventually cleared his throat, ending his coughing fit as he caught a glimpse of Subspace’s amused, smug grin. The table was dead silent as Subspace’s mouth finally stopped gassing the room.

Everyone just started awkwardly eating, and Subspace began to revel in the negative attention, despite Vinestaff’s very obvious glaring at him.

“Subspace. You work with Hyperlaser, yes?” Katana’s melodic, yet gruff and deep voice eventually broke the silence at the table. Subspace scowled, he was hoping this would be done quickly, in silence.


Still, he scooped up some rice and curry onto his fork and waited for it to cool down, not wanting to breathe out of his mouth and make everyone subject to his poison breath again. “The mercenary? Yeah, he works for me.”

The topic of his work was one that Subspace planned to avoid. He was not looking forward to the inevitable moment where he boasted about the screams of agony that echo in the room while he runs his experiments, and then all of Vinestaff’s family stared at her, judging her taste in partners.

SFOTH forbid he has hobbies.  

Still keeping the topic on Hyperlaser, Subspace nodded along at whatever the older demon was saying, pretending that he cared in the slightest while everyone ate. Katana was the first to finish, placing his mask back over his face, but he stayed seated at the table, likely for etiquette reasons.

But of course, Subspace couldn’t help but stir drama, he thrived on conflict. “It’s not like the two of us are friends, or anything of that sort. Friendship is a waste of working time, and Hyperlaser is…well he’s hardly even alive. More tool than breathing demon.”

The table turned silent again as a singular, glinting, red eye glared at Subspace from behind the metal mask obstructing Katana’s face. Subspace might be frightened if he didn’t have biografts stationed outside to escort him.

The rest of the meal was painfully silent, each moment passing slower and slower until Subspace eventually finished his plate, lifting his gas mask and clipping it securely back on his face.

This meal had been exactly like all the other gathered meals he was forced to attend, however instead of conversing with educated leaders and nobles of his faction, he was forced to make small talk with a bunch of randos he couldn’t give two shits about.

And, of course, his girlfriend. Although after that meal he wasn’t sure how long he’d keep that title. From the corner of his eye, he noticed Vinestaff’s expression, concerned? Angry? Disappointed? He wouldn’t know the difference.

It seemed like all four other demons at the table were glaring at him now. Perfect, if absolutely nobody wants him here, he can leave already. It was a dumb idea to come to this in the first place.

“I’ll excuse myself. Vine, I’ll see you next week.” He declared, standing up from his seat and making his way down the hallway, placing a hand on Vinestaff’s shoulder as he walked past. Maybe that was his way of making an apology, maybe that was just an acknowledgement of Vine’s disapproval, he wasn’t sure himself.

As Subspace laced up his boots, he sighed. It was a shame, Vinestaff gave him hope that maybe he did have the capacity to feel empathy, but it was clear now that he most certainly didn’t. Because as far as he could tell he didn't care, he just didn't.