The Past is Prologue
Chapter 12: Lyra
Spike Spiegel x fem OC
cw: medical horror, dissociation, conditioning, depersonalization, amnesia, forced nudity, ivs, restraints, memory loss, torture, sensory deprivation, losing time, loss of sight, unreliable narrator, vomitting, whump
Work count: 5k
Masterlist
Ao3
She woke up warm. It was an unusual thing to be. They preferred to keep it cold; never told her why. It was just the way things were.
The dark had more vibrancy to it than normal, a texture to it that made itself known.
She opened her eyes and with it came sight. Even with her eyes closed, the light seemed to want to permeate inside of her, refusing to be denied.
It was not the light she was accustomed to.
Well, that wasn’t exactly true. She wasn’t particularly accustomed to any light. For so long, the dark had been a foregone conclusion. Being bombarded with sight of any kind was disconcerting, left her malcontented. Only recently had she begun becoming accustomed to the light in the lab, static and cold and unchanging. At least it was something she could get used to, steady in its alienness, uniformly reaching into every corner, steadfastly painting the room a sharp white.
This was nothing like that. The light was warm and shifting, bending into shadows, morphing and creeping through the room. It felt intrusive, ominous almost.
It had not yet reached her. She was on the further side of the bed from the window. The man lay closer to it, tendrils of warm light lying across his chest.
He made a horrible wheezing sound as he breathed, one that made her a little nervous. It almost sounded painful, each inhale stuttering to make it inside of him.
What had he said? It was fuzzy, the memories fading away in a practiced manner. Had he told her to forget? The memories still felt too close to her for that. At the first command, they knew to flee.
Sit normally, he had said. She was fairly certain of that. Ignore that. He’d said that too. Had it been before or after the rule to sit? And what made it normal?
Could she get up? She did not know what was in place. At the very least, she was fairly certain she had not been told to do anything, so she remained seated. Inaction was rarely punished.
At least it had been. Back there, where they had been. Things had made sense there. She didn’t know how things aligned in this new room with new light.
She sat, tall and still, as the morning light crept across sheets, approaching slowly. It coated her hand, the warmth of the room consuming her as it did.
He rolled on his side, away from the light. She wondered if it bothered him the way it did her, if he could feel the sun worming its way under his skin.
Could she move her arm? She couldn’t remember if she was allowed. Rules were harder to remember here, the edges of things blurring together.
The man shifted forward, arm curling toward her, brushing against her thigh, reaching out. The brush of skin against… well, not skin. Clothes, pants, the ones that they had worn. She tried not to think about that, tried to keep it pushed out of her mind, back where the rest of her forgotten things went. It didn’t quite work out. It didn’t seem a part of her she could access; only available to others, never to her.
Maybe the man could help her, could order the uncomfortable feeling in her gut away.
He seemed to stir at the brush of his skin against the fabric of her pants. His face scrunched as he woke, eyes forcing themselves further shut and wrinkles forming along his nose.
As his face smoothed, his eyes finding their way open, his gaze settled on her. She watched as recognition sparked in him.
“Good morning,” he said, something wry and quietly victorious in his tone. “How do you feel?”
He asked it like the answer should be something positive. Maybe it should be. How did she feel? Much the same as she always did, she supposed, though certainly more disoriented. “Fine,” she said, and it sounded blunter to her ears than it had in her head. “Normal,” she corrected, and it fit into place better; sounded more mechanical.
He didn’t react much to either response. Instead, he stretched, his back arching like a cat, head sinking back into the pillows. “You sore?”
“No,” she said, falling comfortably back into old habits. “I do not feel pain.”
He groaned and threw his head back at her answer. She couldn’t help but wince. It had never been an incorrect response before. But then, things were different here. She would have to learn once more.
He watched her still, the displeasure only growing. “Stop that,” he said, and she did not know what she needed to stop. Her confusion must have been evident. “The worrying about your answers thing. You don’t need to, there’s no wrong answers out here. As long as they’re honest, I guess, though I wouldn’t mind you lying every now and then.”
It was a disquieting notion. “I cannot lie,” she reassured him. “It is not what I am.”
“That means you’re under orders, right?” he asked, finally sitting up on the bed to get a closer look at her. “Do you know anything about those? Is it a mental thing? Or did they drug you?”
She looked at him; scanned his face and tried to figure out what he wanted. Surely he was aware that that was not information she was privy to, not something she was supposed to know. He had been around long enough to know that much.
He shifted under her gaze. He didn’t seem to like being looked at. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she was doing something wrong, that the blame for his discomfort fell on her shoulders. She just didn’t know what she had done; more than that had no idea how to fix it.
After a while, he seemed to stop looking at her for an answer. That, at least, allowed her to relax, to stop searching for anything that might have resembled something correct. Though, she supposed, that didn’t exist anymore. She didn’t know what the sentiment meant for her but he had said it.
Eventually he seemed to settle on something entirely without her input. It was only when they locked eyes again that she realized he’d looked away in the first place.
When he spoke, it lost its lightness, had a force behind it. She relaxed at the sound of it, at the change in his posture. He became a man she could follow.
“You still take orders from me?”
“I do. Whatever you are willing to give.”
He seemed to mull something over. Not her words, she watched him discard those, but something else. And then he said, “Okay, don’t scream. Feel pain.”
She doubled over almost instantly, her muscles heavy and strained, wrought with years of tension she hadn’t known was there. Something splitting made itself known in her head, the disquieting feeling of the light turning into something sharp and piercing.
She gasped in air, her lungs aching at the intrusion, her throat screaming as the air whistled through it. It was so dry, every breath like sandpaper. She opened her mouth to say something, but instead of words, a horrible, gasping cry escaped her, hoarse and airy and barely audible. She didn’t know how it had so much breath in it, not when she could barely bring herself to inhale. She hoped it didn’t count as a scream.
There was a hand on her back, moving steadily, up and down. It was warm. More than warm, she could feel it, even through the newfound layers of clothes. She could feel the texture of it, the roughness. It hurt, pressing up against her; a buzzing, overwhelming sort of hurt.
It was a stabilizing sort of pain. Her breathing slowed, hurting all the same but steadying itself.
She felt real, in a way she hadn’t in a long time. She leaned into Spike’s touch, his hand pressed against muscles she hadn’t even realized she was tensing. The pain proved a quiet reminder of their existence. It extended her out, her limbs all connecting back to her. She flexed her fingers, feeling them stretch, knowing she could move them.
“This is not what I am supposed to be,” she informed him. It wasn’t scolding or knowing. Just a fact.
He seemed to understand that much, at least. “It is now. It has to be. There’s no room for you to be what you were. Not out here.”
“What will I be then?”
He shrugged, hand withdrawing from her. She felt heavier without it. “I can’t decide that. That’s on you now.”
She reeled back, almost tumbling onto the floor. Spike’s hand shot out, grasping at her, keeping her steady.
“I can’t,” she informed him desperately, willing him to understand. “I need to be told.”
“Tough shit. No more commands, you need to figure things out on your own now.”
She didn’t know how to react. What could she do? Certainly not lash out, she still had to stay in line. But what did that even mean anymore? He had just said that the lines themselves were going away. How would she even be if that were truly the case?
He seemed entirely unaware of how thoroughly he’d torn her world apart, almost instantly shifting his focus away from her. She didn’t mind that part, she was accustomed to being ignored. That, at least, she knew how to handle.
So she sat, as she always did, waiting for her to be needed once more.
The clothes were a difficult adjustment to make. She imagined it was easier to adjust this way, with them coming alongside so many other changes. Now there was movement and sight and pain. The temperature was different, the frigid air swapped out for something warm and muggy. It was a deluge of changes, something that made the smaller things easier to digest. The sensation of cloth against her skin was hard to focus on amidst it all.
The clothes were not entirely unobtrusive though. In fact, far from it. There was a persistence to them. Even forgotten for many hours, eventually the fabric would rub the wrong way and she would be reminded once more that she was engulfed, consumed completely.
She opened her mouth before clamping it shut once more. Was she allowed questions here? Spike had yet to get upset. She had foggy ideas, even, of their first meeting. Of bombarding him with questions early, before her lead had been drawn quite so tight.
“Do I have to wear clothes always now?”
He gave her a look, one that made her feel as if she’d done something wrong. She wasn’t sure if it was the question itself or the concept of it. “Yes.”
She hummed, an acknowledgement of her internalization of the new rule. Another question began to edge its way towards her mouth and she deliberated swallowing it down, refusing to push further and risk upsetting Spike.
Then she looked down at herself and saw the white ensemble she’d only ever seen under the harsh, cold light of the labs. “Does it have to be these clothes?”
That seemed to give him pause, making him look up at her. “Shit. No, it doesn't. I’ll get more when I go out. I should… We haven’t eaten. Shit, I forgot about eating.”
She, too, had forgotten about eating. She knew of it, intellectually, but it had never been something relevant to her. She knew humans could not survive without food but she did not think she had ever eaten and here she was. Was she human? She couldn’t recall.
As she considered it, Spike struggled to his feet, stumbling his way to the door. It seemed an incredibly strenuous feat but there was nothing she could do in regard to it other than to watch him go.
Things settled after that. The waiting was easier. It was a simple thing, to let the strangeness fade away when she was on her own. All she had to do was sit and wait. She was good at that.
She wasn’t sure how long she sat there, waiting. The passing of time was a sense that had long since faded. It was easier that way, to sink into the monotony. It turned the waiting into something else, something without expectation. Without time, there was no waiting, not really. Just existing.
When he came back, he was leaning on a long, closed umbrella, the handle wood and the closed fabric of it a deep blue. In the other hand was a bag, one that he was holding at his side, arm fully extended.
“Food,” he explained as he let the bag thud to the floor. “And clothes. I didn’t know your size.”
He picked up a wad of fabric and threw it at her. The clothes, she assumed. They pooled in her lap and she stared down at them, remembering the way he had put the clothes on her not so long ago. When she looked back up, he was staring at her expectantly, clearly waiting for her to do something, so she began to sort them, trying to reference the various fabrics in front of her with what she had seen.
Some of it was inherent. She knew what a shirt was when she saw it, knew where it went, but there was something daunting and unknowable in the how. She could not remember how to put clothes on, could only remember the vague shuffle of being dressed hours before, and likewise of him struggling to support himself while yanking the other man’s clothes over his form.
She gained nothing by waiting, though, and so she began. As she began to pull off the familiar doctor's gear, Spike turned away before freezing and turning back, seeming to remember how new the development of clothes was to her, how there was nothing secretive or private about her body to him anymore.
She almost wished it would stay that way. It was simpler that way. She did not know how testing would happen now, most of her ports and access points hidden away by fabric. Maybe there would be no testing. She wasn’t sure how to know.
He seemed resentful of the struggle she had with the fabric, of her knowing intellectually where the clothes needed to be and yet having a difficult time putting them there. It felt like failing a test. She tried not to focus on it overmuch, every time she did she only seemed to falter more.
She wondered how often she would have to do this. Some instinct told her it would be often, though she hoped it was not true. Having to see him look at her like that, frustrated and irritated and like she was wrong, seemed an insurmountable task. Perhaps it would get easier, her limbs beginning to remember how to do it. It seemed unlikely, and she did her best not to hope. It had never led her anywhere she should have been.
The clothes, for their part, were massive and clearly used, worn at the edges. The shirt left her dwarfed, hanging loose on her sides. An equally oversized jacket accompanied it, thick and warm with patches on the edges to cover thin spots from wear. The pants fit her a little better, though they still hung loose over her hips. They were all different shades of dark, none quite managing to match with each other but each working to create a shadowed silhouette.
She lifted her arms as she finally felt the last of the fabric settle into place around her, presenting herself to Spike for approval. His head tilted ever so slightly as he took her in. She felt the pants slip past her hips again and tugged them diligently back up. They began to creep their path back down again.
“Those fit?” he asked, watching as her hands settled back at her sides.
“No.”
He hummed, hands falling to his own waistband, loosening the buckle on his belt and pulling it out with one sure tug to the end of it.
He walked up to her, still leaning heavily on his newly acquired umbrella. He hitched her shirt up, tucking the side of it into her pants to give himself better access, and slid the belt through her belt loops one-handed.
It was a decidedly slower process than the removal of the belt had been, especially one-handed. She just stood and watched. Occasionally his hand would brush against her, through her newfound layers of clothes, and she would have to fight the urge to lean into it. It was so new, one of the only new things in her life she didn’t have to fight the urge to shrink away from.
She supposed she was accustomed to touch through a barrier, in a way. The difference between touch filtered through the fabric of a shirt and touch filtered through cold medical gloves felt minimal. And yet, somehow, this felt monumental in a way nothing with the gloves ever had. That was routine, mundane. That was meaningless.
Eventually he managed to secure the belt on her waist, the buckle taking a few minutes and more than a few swear words. It occurred to her that she might be of use in fastening it but Spike didn’t say anything and so she waited.
The belt left her pants tight around her waist, snug and almost restricting. She could feel the tight band of it with every expansion of her stomach as she breathed.
He seemed unconcerned with her, shifting his attention back to the bags as soon as her pants were no longer at risk of pooling back onto the floor. He unpacked various boxes, all of them absolutely riddled with bright colors and words. She could read them, she suspected, but it was likely best that she not unless guided to. She could not remember the last time she had read something so it seemed outside of her domain.
He froze in his unpacking, turning to her wide-eyed. “I haven’t drunk anything since we left.”
She could not find the major significance he seemed to in the statement. She remembered drinking, vaguely and distantly, the way she remembered some of the mundanities of the past they had otherwise removed access to. But it had not mattered in so long; surely it did not warrant such urgency.
“Neither have I,” she added. It seemed the sort of addendum he might appreciate. He seemed disoriented by her when she allowed herself long stretches of silence.
He made a displeased, almost gargling noise. “I didn’t think. I’m so used to feeling dehydrated that I just…” Another irritated groan escaped him as he continued his slow shuffle over to the counter, grabbing the poorly washed glass sitting in the room, filling it in the sink, and downing it, water dripping down his chin as he swallowed the last of it.
“I’m sure I just drank half a dozen parasites,” he said with a grin. She couldn’t tell if it was genuine or not. “And remnants of some unsavory things on the glass. This place is such a shithole.”
He filled the glass again and drank it down, still completely but a little slower this time. Then he filled it a third time and extended his arm out to her.
It was clear what was expected of her. She took the glass hesitantly, cupping it with both hands, staring down at it.
“You have to drink it,” he informed her.
She was, of course, aware of that. The urge to snap at him rose in her, unbidden. She pushed it back down and raised the cup to her lips, downing the whole glass in an imitation of Spike.
It all felt wrong; the contractions of her throat, the liquid sloshing inside her mouth, the way it sat heavy in her stomach. A sort of cramping blossomed in her sides as the water pooled inside of her. She gave the cup back to Spike as she finished, willing the water to still inside of her, for her body to accept it. It did not seem inclined to do so.
And then there was a spasming inside of her, her throat constricting once more as her insides churned. Before she could really panic and try and figure out what to do, the water was coming back up. It hurt this way, not the dull, unfamiliar ache of drinking but a burning, insistent pain. It splattered against the sheets, looking exactly the same as it had in the glass. She wasn’t sure how it had changed inside of her but certainly it had. She did not know how it had suddenly felt like liquid fire otherwise.
The pain did not go away when the liquid did, though it did dull, fading ever so slowly. She just stared down at the new wet spot on the bed as she felt it, the time passing unbidden.
After a while, she had no idea how long, a new glass of water was being presented to her. Or perhaps it was the old one. They looked the same and she could not recall where the one she had drunk from had gone. She hoped it was not the same one, though she imagined it was the water and not the glass that had done this to her.
“Sip,” he said as he handed her the glass. Then he winced, shoulders hunching in a little. “I mean, you should sip. It’ll make you feel less sick.”
She didn’t really understand the purpose of the correction. She supposed it turned the order into a suggestion but surely the order hadn’t upset him. He’d done it plenty before, even if he was showing a newfound aversion to them now.
And then he left. She stared down at the mess she made, some instinct inside her telling her to clean it. She ignored it, sipping at the drink she’d been presented with.
Spike came up with an armful of sheets, half stumbling his way into the room. He dumped them on the floor, gesturing for her to move. She shuffled off to the side of the bed and he began to sort through the new blankets.
“They said to be more careful next time and that we don’t get any more sheets. I think they’d have an aneurysm if they saw the actual state of them. They definitely think we’re screwing by the way.”
She hummed, taking another sip of water. The acidic taste of bile in her mouth was beginning to abate.
He pulled up the sheets off the bed and they almost looked like they were floating, air bubbling under them around her. He nodded his head at her, something like intent in his eyes. “Come on, off the bed.”
She shuffled off, still holding the glass. She wondered if she was supposed to sip again but he had said nothing and he decided she would rather not.
She watched as he fixed the sheets, occasionally keeling over and lying on the half-made bed, resting and steeling himself for the next movement. It seemed more like a battle than it did a task. He looked different in the warm, shifting lights. Everything looked softer this way. There was something in the back of her head, asking to come out; the light tugging at memory. She ignored the instinct to follow it, to see what the hint of recognition might lead to.
She tried to evaluate him as he keeled over onto the bed once more. Was he injured? She was fairly certain that it was more dangerous to be injured here than it had been back at the labs. That was the trouble with being out here: you had to worry about things. She’d never had to worry about anything back there. Everything would always turn out how it was meant to.
“Are you hurt?” It had a chance of upsetting him but she was worried that he might be and it might go unaddressed if she didn’t ask. What would happen to her if he died? No one knew where they were. No one would come to get her. There was only one thing she knew with complete certainty, she would not be able to go on on her own.
He huffed from his spot on the bed, trying to tuck the sheet under the mattress below him before promptly giving up and letting the sheets just pool across the mattress. “I mean, I have half a dozen tubes sticking out of me and I can’t walk, so I wouldn’t say I’m doing great.”
She stared for a while, trying to understand the answer. It was spoken like it should have been obvious. She was sure it probably would have been, to someone else.
He looked up at her, head upside down from the way he was lying. “Nothing life-threatening, if that’s what you’re wondering. At least I hope not. Certainly nothing we can fix here.”
Something that could be fixed somewhere else then, from the sounds of it. She wondered if it was one of the things he’d listed. The walking, she supposed, was important. She could see how frustrated he was by his inability to move, could see the irritation that she could walk better than he could. She thought, privately, that perhaps if he had been better behaved, he would have an easier time moving around. Surely some of the blame fell on him; there was a reason she’d left there in better shape than he had.
She, of course, did not voice this opinion. She had a feeling it would not be well received.
He studied her back as she studied him. She supposed that was what she was doing, with her looking and her thinking. It felt odd, made her feel like them. But he did not tell her to stop and did not seem displeased so she made no real effort to cease the behavior.
“Do you have any family left?” he finally asked as he studied her. She wondered if he found what he was looking for. “Anyone you could go to?”
“No.” She knew it was true, unequivocally.
“Are you sure?” he prodded.
She spent a little longer thinking on it, trying to pull up faces or to find the source of that certainty. She had nothing, she just knew. “I am sure.”
“Yeah,” he said. He sounded sad. She wondered if she had made him that way. She didn’t think she was supposed to wonder. “That makes two of us.”
