☆ Control ☆ (COMPLETED)

72: Are sadists attracted to misery?

CW. Gore, be warned.

TW. Extreme scenes of graphic self harm, be warned. Do not read second part of chapter if you feel you want to avoid this scene.

After being patched up and checked up on by Basketball, Tree and Robot Flower were allowed to return to their rooms for the day. Robot Flower had been glitching a lot less since being fixed by Basketball, which was a relief, but Trees burns were hard to help.

She told Basketball what happened.. well, unfortunately she had to tell her the fake version. Though the fire part wasn't fake so she talked about that more. Basketball was shocked hearing their stories and.. honestly felt guilty. They talked about the snow and stuff too.. Two had honestly made it a lot worse than it had to be.

She let them leave eventually and they went to Robot Flowers room. They ...just.. took a moment to reflect. Tree sat down on Robot Flowers bed with a long sigh, putting his head in his hands..."I.. can't believe we're the only ones who made it back.." he muttered, not being able to forget about what happened.

After everything...they had lost even more of their friends. Losing Onigiri in the fight was bad enough but.. 3 more? It was unclear if Anchor was dead or not but.. PDA definitely was. Nickel hadn't been found but the fire would have definitely screwed up his robotics.

The plan was already coming to a fail.. could they really do this on their own? Not only that but, they were going to have to tell the other half of the group what happened.. neither of them had mentioned it but were both dreading it, knowing that it had to be done one way or another.

Robot Flower grunted awkwardly, looking off to the side "Mgghhgh.. this really sucks. I can't believe we are already basically failing this." She whined, looking over to him as he had his head in his hands. "Do you still think we can do this.. you know, with half of our group dead?"

"We'll have to see.." Tree slowly looked over to her, tired. "My..er, walkie talkie was destroyed by the water when you pushed me in the river. We need to use yours.. " he informed quietly.

They were met by a moment of silence. She reluctantly took it out, gazing at the small thing in her hand. "..Do we have to tell them?"

"We do.." Tree sighed. He thought for a moment, noticing she looked uncomfortable "L-Look.. er.. I'll tell them if you really don't want to."

She contemplated it, thinking about what she would even say and how she would say it. She went to walk up to him quietly, placing it in his hand. "..Thank you, really." She mumbled. He grabbed it tightly.

"It's..fine. One of us has to, anyways." He proceeded to gently press in the button, moving it close to his face and clearing his throat. "H..Hello? Leek? Match? We um..made it back. Is.. anyone there?"

There wasn't any reply for a moment, making Tree impatient. He glanced up to Robot Flower and gave her a look, before flinching as he heard a voice come out of the small device, her surprised just the same.

"Hello?" Needle said from the other side, rather static-y voiced. Tree felt relief hearing her voice, as it had been so long and honestly after being on the verge of death it felt .. lucky to hear it "N-Needle! It's Tree. We are back at the base."

"Oh, wow! That's great! We were all beginning to get worried, haha.. hey guys! They've arrived-"

Sound of movement was heard, before another voice came out. It had clearly been taken away from her. "Tree? It's Leek. We.. saw the smoke up in the distance, we are aware that there was a forest fire close to where the base is. There wasn't one down here but.. .." there was a pause. "What happened.. "