Archive of Our Own

Gumballs. Again.

The set of three shine in the way-too-bright artificial light.

Poppy wants to scream.

Floor seven, and no medkits, no bandages, not even instructions or a single pop.

Usually, she'd hate having her own face stare back up at her when she's in danger, but right now, Dandy is just being extra. 

Sure, Astro may have yelled at him on floor one and shocked the eight of them, but that doesn't mean he gets to retaliate like this - or at all, considering he's the one who put them in this damned elevator. They didn't deserve to die because Astro called Dandy out on his mess.

But here they were. Cosmo was bleeding from one arm, ichor drenching his white hoodie and smeared over his friendship bracelet. Sprout hadn't made it into the elevator; no one knew what happened to him. But Cosmo kept hoping.

A ding. Dandy's petals and eyes gleam red. 

"Fine," he grits, teeth audibly cracking and making Poppy cringe. "Keep your tapes."

She will.

The elevator door opens a few seconds later, and Poppy takes in a sharp breath. Her ribs are aching, and her feet are sore, but she's okay. Her socks are stained with her friends' blood but it's okay, because she's okay.

She just doesn't want to find out how long it takes for this elevator to reach the top.

She just doesn't want to know what awaits her there.

She just doesn't.

Machines are a breeze for her. Cosmo may struggle, with his oven-mitt wrapped hands that he refused to take off ("A gift from Sprout," he'd explained, with a smile so strained that Poppy didn't dare speak her mind), and so may Yatta, who's constantly seen by those things with her uncontrollable energy and bright ribbons, but Poppy finds them easy.

Every hit she takes makes her stronger. Every tap of her fingers against the valve settles her mind.

Every scream she ignores makes her want to go home.

But she persists.

Ding. Ding. Ding. She does three this floor, happily accepting praise from Astro, who quietly praises her as they wait in front of the elevator for Cosmo to complete the last.

"You did well," he murmurs, clutching his blanket closer. The edges are stained and frayed, torn from where he'd rushed to run away but gotten tangled in it; there's a nasty gash under the brim of his nightcap that remains from the encounter. "Very fast."

"Thanks!" she chirps, lifting one of her arms, bracing her hand on her bicep, and flexing. "I've got energy!"

"You don't say."

Yatta pipes up, tail ribbons practically wagging as she swings her arms back and forth. "So do I! We should totally race later, once we're out of here!"

Poppy freezes, smile crooking before she swiftly fixes it, laughing like she'd never heard the last part of the sentence. "Sure! I'd love to race!"

Astro gives her an unreadable look, but doesn't say anything. 

Cosmo finishes last, and off to floor nine they go.

Floor eleven is when everything goes to hell. 

Poppy is cornered, crying out as Scraps' clawed tail digs into her wrist and yanks. With the release of its teeth comes some of her flesh, ichor pooling in her palm, and she bites back the burning bile that builds in her throat.

Cosmo tends to her when he can, but he's just as damaged. Scraps is fierce, and with no one to keep her attention on the wide map that they hardly know, it's hard to keep away from her reach. 

Her trembling hands scream at her as she brushes off her skirt, leaving strokes of her own blood on the pink fabric. Each twist of the valve wrenches out a sob.

No one can help her other than herself. She won't allow it. 

Poppy is a big girl, she can handle some pain.

Yatta pats her head when she passes by, and Poppy manages a watery smile. Yatta, for once, doesn't smile back. 

"We've still gotta race later, bubble," she chides softly, eyes still bright despite the blood that stains her teeth. "You can't be getting hurt now. Not when we've gone so far."

She can't tell if the reprimand makes the floor more or less bearable, but it goes swiftly, at least.

Six machines, if she can remember correctly. Just six. She'll be okay.

Blot rounds the corner and flashes her a thumbs up. 

Poppy doesn't respond at all besides a short, sharp nod.

Each jolt of her wrist feels like all of her tendons are snapping beneath the tattered skin. She bites down on her tongue and tastes metal.

"Rotavele ot teg!" 

Crap.

She's all the way across the map, and Scraps is rounding the corner.

Panic swells in her throat and she wants to cry, but she forces it down, steeling herself.

What is she even worried for? She's Poppy, and every hit she takes makes her stronger, faster, better.

She rushes from behind the counter, narrowly dodging the teeth that rake across her skin, leaving thin red streaks and tendrils of ichor tracing her arm. It's not quite as bad as it could be, so she takes it, using the moment to dodge Scraps' claws and bound through the hallway.

The elevator is her only reprieve, and she needs to reach it.

Poppy refuses to give up here.

She firms everything in her soul and grits out a scream through clenched teeth as she slips rounding a corner too sharply, her aching, broken wrist crunching against the floor as she uses it to catch herself.

Tears wet her eyes and blur her vision as she runs.

She sees nothing,

and then she sees everything.

Cosmo hugs her with a sob, practically wailing. "I thought you were dead, she was so close behind you and- oh my God, Poppy, your hand!" 

Poppy doesn't need to look down to know what he's talking about.

Bone juts from her skin, black blood seeping into her torn sleeves. Arcs of pain jolt up her arm and scream danger.

The only danger is the flower that's in front of her.

He smiles as she walks up to the counter, pupils red and soul-searching as she meets his eyes.

A few beats pass, and she manages a single sentence. "Where are the heals, Dandy?"

He finds what he's looking for, and with the same, uneasy smile, he leans back and presses the lever.

The only thing she hears when he descends is manic, frantic laughter.

She's crying.

She can't stop crying.

She won't.

Cosmo's oven mitts are clenching in her good fist as she screams her pain into them.

He's dead.

He's dead, and it's all her fault.

She shouldn't have let him see it.

Shouldn't have let him see Sprout's torn, twisted body, desecrated by so much good that he became the unspeakable. 

She should've known when she heard those slow, steady, desperate steps behind her that she would lose her best friend to death.

Cosmo had walked into the main's awaiting arms and smiled, like he didn't see the ichor that dripped from gaping eye sockets, or the jagged teeth that protruded from what was once a friendly smile. 

He died with a laugh.

Poppy died with him too.

Astro's hands rub circles on her back as she hiccups, his light soothing but only in the way it does a moth. She drinks off of it, sinks her teeth into her bicep and tries to muffle her cries.

It almost works.

She does machines with her vision so blurry she can't see the valve, missing skillcheck after skillcheck until the haze consumes her. 

This is the hardest hit she's gotten yet.

Poppy doesn't know if she's going to be able to recover.

Step after step after step into the open elevator doors, the light burns her eyes and makes her hiss.

"I don't know if she's okay," she hears Yatta murmur to Blot, the two looking concerned.

How did they stand seeing Looey? How could they see him, rotting and torn apart, and not a person anymore? How did they stand dodging their friend's corpse, his head torn from his shoulders and linked only by his spinal cord? How could they? How?

"Ton s'ehs."

Dandy gives her a band, and she gracefully does not claw her nails down his face.