The Mental Image Of No. 4, The Literal Most Logical Person In The Group Sans No. 21, Taking A Mortal

The mental image of No. 4, the literal most logical person in the group sans No. 21, taking a mortal blow for someone will never not kill me because you can’t tell me that this boy gets rewound often: He’s so careful and because he’s skilled in close-range as well as long-range combat, he very rarely has any issues during fights??

                                             ❛ ｇｌｏｒｙ　ｔｏ　ｍａｎｋｉｎｄ . ❛

                                    [  𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚎𝚜  -  𝚗𝚒𝚎𝚛: 𝚊𝚞𝚝𝚘𝚖𝚊𝚝𝚊  -  𝚌𝚛𝚘𝚜𝚜𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚜  ]

leviamusesinpurgatory‌:

Had someone told Black that one day he would be so out of it that a verbal argument could break out between him and No. 4, he never would have believed them. He was no saint, he would never attempt to paint himself as one, but he had thought himself better than this. Better than turning on his most trusted member.

Black listened. He listened, he even felt that silence–that inhale–to his core, and all he heard was what he had assumed: There were things unsaid between the two of them that he wanted to have out in the open. No, he needed them. He needed No. 4 to be honest with him.

If nothing would make the Gunner understand the sentiment, then he at least wanted to make his intentions as known as possible.

Silence filled every crevice of the room. In his own inaction he felt ever missed opportunity he had failed to take. It was always in those silences, with a companion before him, that he became so acutely of who he was missing. When he used to be able to stand the lack of conversation between himself and No. 4, now he found uncertainty. Were she here… every moment would feel like they were still connected, even without words passing between them.

“You were in love with A20.”

Hesitance had left him the moment he thought of her again. Black needed and wanted to have everything out in the open, he was a man who knew honesty. He was an android mourning the loss of the one he loved. Who else could understand him but No. 4?

“Is it so wrong that I want to talk about her with someone who can understand this feeling?” When those feelings had now been classed as against the rules, when he broke them constantly, was he not allowed to ask that of his student?

“You never once attempted to impose your feelings on her, but as someone who knew exactly what those expressions meant–it would have looked awful as someone who loves her too to have not caught the meaning.”

Do you blame me? Had I not stood frozen, had I not been so focused on hearing her voice, would I have thought to go down there myself instead of barking orders? Was it a detriment of my years, my memories, of training others, or simply because I am that sort of man, that I never considered that?

Would you have gone right down there, and saved her?

Would you have hated me had I come back, told you she was dead, and you knew I hadn’t done the upmost to keep her with you?

“I want to hear you. Never before would you have confessed that, so do it now. Let me hear how you feel, not think.”

“Instructor.”

The warning in his voice was palpable, but the both of them know it’s moot by this point. There were several components that spared Black from No. 4′s ire, and one of them was the sheer magnitude of respect that the Gunner held towards his Instructor. Anyone would have noticed by now if they watched closely, how they shared mannerisms, how there was never a moment that the male unit questioned his mentor. That respect stayed his currently trembling, clenched fist, forced to remain at his side.

If it had been any other, he would have punched them across the face with every intent to break something.

You were in love with A20.

It felt cruel to bring her up, a knife in his heart to be reminded of someone he was never meant to have. He’d known it the moment he had seen her expression light up, when their conversation had come to a halt with a call of “Instructor!” that was filled with poorly masked excitement. For all that the female Attacker attempted in maintaining a cool demeanor, she was terrible at hiding how she felt towards Black. She might as well have walked around with a flashing neon sign from when humans still inhabited Earth that openly proclaimed her adoration for him.

You treasured her as much as she treasured you. I knew from just one look that there wasn’t ever going to be a place for me.

The mere thought made his chest ache with longing, with the envy he’d suppressed so fiercely, with the desire that she might one day look at him with that much love. He knew how much his mentor treasured her in turn, he was hardly any better at hiding his mutual affection. How many times had he seen them just looking at each other so tenderly that he had to force himself to hasten his pace as he strode through the halls of the Bunker?

Too many times to count on his hands. Too painful to truly make the effort to remember.

With their enhanced senses as androids, it wouldn’t be difficult to hear the sound produced from how tightly No. 4 clenched his fists. To be honest, he wondered if the other heard how his teeth were clenched, how his jaw had tightened, or knew how his throat had closed up in that secret he’d kept buried being brought up so calmly and plainly. Hell, he hadn’t even ever shared this much with No. 3, and for as much as they argue--The man was his best friend.

“--What do you even want me to say?”

He wasn’t a man who’d ever been arrogant enough to think he could be a better partner for No. 20, he’d been satisfied (Or so he told himself.) simply seeing the two of the people who mattered most to him in the world happily walking side by side. The Gunner’s jaw locked into place, before he found himself getting just as heated as he normally did when his emotions that had now become forbidden slipped into his raising voice. Of all the things to bring to the surface, it had to be this, it had to be this of all things when they can’t even seek out her Black Box.

Hopefully No. 3 was out of earshot by now, he thinks in the very back of his thoughts as his gloved nails dig into the palms of his hands.

“You know how I felt then, why make me say it. Why make me bring up something I was never supposed to feel, she had you!”

No. 6 is, as stated in canon materials, homosexual, but not in the sense that he actually wants to be intimate with the other person. He is very much a sexual sadist who gets off from causing immense physical suffering towards others, as well as inflicting mental/emotional pain. He adores underhanded tactics like surprise attacks, backstabbing, and taking hostages, as it only adds to his fetish. To him, cutting the person up, watching their blood fly, making them scream in pain, and looking down at them all the while as they crawl on the ground gives him as much pleasure as sex would give a normal person.

His fixations are always aimed at men, and if confronted with a woman would pay little to no attention to them outside of normal conversations. Whereas he would take as much time as possible to drag out a man who has his interest’s suffering (ie. Black) and enjoy every second of it to the fullest, he would more or less put as little effort as possible into killing a woman, or leave them with a mortal wound so they can bleed out alone. Hurting women won’t get him off in the least, so he doesn’t bother. This can, however, be bypassed if he is using a woman as a hostage in order to inflict emotional trauma onto another. That in itself would give him the motivation to actually put effort into torturing them. 

“--I endure that god awful ‘staff meeting’ and this is where I end up. Some reward this is.”

Because it’s beautiful and one of my favorite songs.