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Gunpowder Tim was a troublesome teenager. He came out of a bad home, and when he was 13 he got kicked out for liking other boys. He was forced to leave his mother in a position to receive the brunt of his father's abuse. Understandably, this fucked him up royally.
He had a friend named Bertie Johnson. They'd been inseparable since they were around nine years old, trying to shoplift from the same store. Bertie had lots of siblings, and parents that loved him. When his parents met Tim, they loved him, too.
That is to say, when Tim got kicked out, he was only able to hide his homelessness for a couple days before Bertie dragged Tim back to his house to stay.
Tim had been a little in love with Bertie since he met him, and once he got to know his family, he loved him even more. The two of them kept getting into trouble; Breaking and entering, theft, getting into fights, occasionally arson, they did everything together. Tim would lay down his life for Bertie, had nearly done it a few times already, and knew that he would till the day he died.
The first time Tim told Bertie he loved him, they were playing video games in Bertie’s room, just like on any other rainy day where more wealthy children would be in school. Tim had been trying to work up the courage to say it for a few years now, they were both 17 and dreading having to find a place of their own. (it came as a given that they would be living together.)
His chest ached and he didn’t know how to say the words, and he was lucky Bertie was so intent on the screen or else he might have seen the pain on Tim’s face. He mouthed the words to himself a few times, then nodded. He could do this.
As casually as he could, though probably sounding a little pained, Tim threw out, “Hey, love you.”
Bertie turned and beamed at him, and Tim was in love with that sweet smile. “I love you too!”
Tim’s heart raced, he could feel his face getting hot. He felt himself tip toward Bertie, leaning in as close as he dared (which really wasn’t actually that close, and was more of an inclination than a lean).
“You do?” he breathed, hope fluttering in his chest. Maybe this could be good, maybe he could kiss him, he’s been wanting to kiss him since forever.
“Yeah, of course I do, dumbass! You’re basically my brother!”
And oh.
Well.
“Yeah mate, I feel the same.”
Tim never said it to him again.
He ended up picking up a string of boyfriends, none of which were bad, per sé, but none of which Tim could make himself care for the way he cared for Bertie. They all ended up breaking up with him for one reason or another, most of which tended to be “you hang out with your roommate more than with me” or “I just don’t feel like I’m a priority in your life.” It was fine, and completely fair. It wasn’t any of their fault that all Tim could do was imagine he was kissing Bertie instead of them.
He would never tell Bertie, though. He honestly felt like a creep for feeling anything like that at all, if Bertie thought of him as a brother. With Tim’s former family situation, he was basically incapable of seeing anyone as his family, it would hurt too much. It would be rude to tell him that now, though, they were 21 and Bertie fully believed that Tim thought of him in the exact same way he thought of Tim.
“I don’t think of you as a brother and I never did” would definitely hurt him, and “Because I’ve been in love with you since we were nine years old” would be worse. Bertie would be disgusted with him, Tim would have to find a new place to live, and that would mean untangling his life from Bertie’s. Tim didn’t know if he would survive having that much of himself torn away.
It didn’t matter. That same year, the two of them were conscripted to fight in the Moon War. They were lucky enough to train in the same camp, and were placed in the same division. Tim was just thankful that he’d be able to stay with Bertie until the end. He held no illusions that he would survive, not with the death toll so high already.
They fought together, ate together, and killed together. Tim wanted more than anything else to be able to tell Bertie how he really felt, but he couldn’t. What he could do, though, was protect him. Once on the moon, Tim found that he was fantastically good with guns, and had absolutely no moral qualms about killing so many of the Moon Kaiser’s soldiers. As long as Bertie survived, everything would be okay.
Tim forgot about one thing, though: one of the men in their division was an insufferable flirt, and seemed overly fascinated with Bertie. Tim could fucking see he wasn’t human any time he opened his mouth, all of his teeth were canines, but he seemed enough like a human to pass. He also refused to tell anyone what his name was, in direct contrast to his friend, who told anyone that was half listening that they were “The Toy Soldier.”
Tim found himself getting very annoyed by this. Whenever the not-human man was around Bertie, throwing dirty comments and gross insinuations at him, Tim found himself hovering over Bertie’s shoulder and death-glaring the man. Usually he backed off, but not always.
“You know your boyfriend is trying to scare me off again? If looks could kill, fucking hell.”
Bertie turned around, and startled when Tim was nearly right behind him.
“Tim! Oh my god, stop being so overprotective! I’m perfectly fine!” He turned back to the man. “He’s not my boyfriend, we’re basically brothers, we’ve known each other since we were little.”
The man looked confused, then gave an appraising look to Tim. He felt way too fucking exposed, like this random fucking monster or alien or whatever could see all of his secrets.
“You sure he feels that way?”
“Hm? What do you mean by that?” Bertie looked between the man and Tim with a confused smile. Tim felt anger building in his gut. He didn’t want Bertie to see what the man did.
“Fuck you,” he spat, anger and shame roiling in his gut at the man’s smug smile, and then he turned and stalked off.
“Take me to dinner first!” the man called back. It took all of Tim’s restraint to keep walking through the dim-lit tunnels and not turn and shoot him in the face.
(Bertie would recall the look of fear on Tim’s face, there for a split second before it was replaced with anger. He wouldn’t understand what it meant. Later, he would ask Tim why the man, Jonny, apparently, of course he told Bertie his name, bothered him so much, and Tim would turn over on his cot to face away from Bertie and mutter something that was probably “It doesn’t matter.” Bertie was used to Tim getting in bad moods for no reason he could understand, so he left it.)
When Bertie died, he found Jonny eating his corpse. Tim was no stranger to eating the corpses of the fallen, he had eaten both friends and enemies just to stay alive, but when he saw Jonny doing it to Bertie’s body, something broke.
“Get your fucking hands off him!” Tim screamed, aiming his rifle at Jonny. He would fucking torture that man for daring to disrespect Bertie’s corpse. (His corpse. He’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead. Tim couldn’t protect him. He failed.) He would take out his ankles and wrists, then knees and elbows, then shoot him so full of holes he would look like swiss fucking cheese.
Jonny scrambled back, but didn’t stop chewing the bite in his mouth. Once he swallowed, he looked at Tim, and had no fear in his eyes. Only manic glee. Tim fucking hated it.
“What are you gonna do to me? Kill me?” He had a southern accent instead of the British accent he normally spoke in, and he must have been faking it whis whole fucking time to blend in. Fucking monster bastard.
“Eventually,” Tim hissed. His rage was building up inside of him. His vision was turning red. He knew it was the Moon army’s fault Bertie was dead. Jonny was a distraction. “Give me all your weapons,” he said, instead of killing Jonny. The man nodded and took out 6 guns (where the fuck was he hiding all of them?) and five knives. He also took out a fucking fanny pack that was stashed in his backpack and tossed it to Tim. It had ammo.
Tim shot him and looted his corpse, stole a few of his belts for good measure so he’s had space to clip all of the holsters. He left the knives where they were, he wouldn’t be needing them. He already had one and that was all he needed.
The churning rage in Tim’s stomach was hot and all-consuming. He gave in easily. He tore his way through anyone he found alive, he didn’t care whose side they were on. Everyone was responsible. Bertie was dead. He had died before Tim could tell him how he felt. Tim thought he would be the one dying, not Bertie, never Bertie. He was too good, and it wasn’t fucking fair. Tim wanted to tear the whole world apart. (Maybe he would. Maybe, if he survived killing everyone on the Moon, he could ride a ship back to earth and try to kill everyone there, too. He was getting really good with explosives.)
Tim tore through battalions, blew up entire sections of the tunnel systems, stalked on the empty and abandoned ruins on the surface to take control of control towers for gas and microwave attacks. He wreaked havoc, he killed everyone he could, and still the anger in his heart wouldn’t wither, would never die until he knew every single person complicit in this was dead.
Later, when Tim was captured, he would see Jonny and the Toy Soldier, somehow not dead. Jonny’s disembodied head looked at him how he imagined someone would look at a god, with awe and love. It disgusted him.
He could use them. With the Toy Soldier’s weird habit of following all orders, and Jonny’s pure madness, he could destroy everything.
And so he did.