Jun 29
Projecting my period cramps onto Ms. Ann like god intended
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Saudi Arabia
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from Kazakhstan
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from Bosnia & Herzegovina
seen from Bosnia & Herzegovina
seen from China
seen from Canada
Projecting my period cramps onto Ms. Ann like god intended
had the thought that i could make my oc lamp (It/They) into a weird alien with weird little eye-stalks. Featuring Ann (She/her) as she freaks out and Kyle (He/Him) whos is just sorta vaguely surprised
LifeAfterDeath Kid
Full Name: Ann
Pronouns: She/He
Gender: Genderless
Species: Goat-Skeleton Monster
Birthday: October 31
i love poly ships
WEATHERMAN Tag Game
"What kind of weather would your favorite oc/character be? Be as specific or broad as you'd like!"
Ty for the tag @inhurtandincomfort :DD this one is so fun omg. Here is the original thread
Espa: A cloudy afternoon, the kind where there's plenty of wind around. It is not dark per se, but the blue of the sky is all replaced by a soft gray. There is a bit of a chill in the air, the slight promise of rain that never comes. If you take a very deep breath you'll feel the smell of humid earth.
Gisele: A hot summer night with a clear, starry sky and barely a blissful load of wind to cut the heat. It's probably very late. The cicadas are singing in the corners and the moon is bright. It's not as dark as it could be.
Ciça: The final hours of the day, that sweet spot between sunset and night. The sun is warm and lovely and it covers everything in an orange layer of light, a shade that's nearly gold. Even if it was cold earlier in the day, the rays coming from above are more than enough to ward it all away and bathe everything in a cozy glow.
Ann: That odd time way past midnight, when "late" starts to become "early" because you've stayed up for too long and you can't tell where your day ended and another is starting. It's way too dark to be light but too bright for the darkness, and the sky is carried with heavy clouds that don't make the prospect of the morning arriving very exciting. The air is stuffy and hot. Even though the moon is long gone, the sun hasn't risen yet.
tagging @aromanticsky @oros-ash3s @warmfuzz-ies @yonbwekh + free tag! no pressure also you don't need to do it if you don't feel like it <3
chapter 19 — chances named nature
CWs: Conditioned whumpee, domestic slavery, multiple whumpees, Ann causing trouble for everyone since it's her favorite hobby or something, abuse, covert (semi-covert?) whump, slapping, some brief manhandling. Welcome to the final stage of Arc I! :) We're very close now.
Masterlist || previous
“But—”
“No buts. I said, she doesn’t need it. Did I hit you too hard or what?”
A flinch. “It just—she didn’t get dinner yesterday either, it’s—”
“I know my weapon, girl,” she landed her finger on her brow, feeling the servant go still under the contact. The threat. “I said she can handle it, it’s ‘cause she can. Espada.”
“Yes, miss.”
“Wait, Espa—”
“Come.”
The weapon got up from her seat, knife set and whetstone discarded by the balcony. She had the habit of sharpening her inventory and tending to her armory when there was no other task at hand. Ann figured there were worse pastimes to have.
The handler hadn’t bothered putting on anything besides flip flops, but gave her weapon the time to tie up her own shoelaces at the door. All the while, the servant stood in her corner, body drawn in a stiff position as she sent them an obstinate glare. Ann merely stared.
She slapped her across the cheek when she didn’t drop it.
It knocked her over, making the girl trip herself to the ground like an idiot. The servant looked up at her with wide eyes, a hand rising up to caddle the swelling bruise. She was otherwise frozen by the shock. Ann looked down at her.
“You got anything else to say?”
She flinched. Her throat bulged in a gulping motion, but she didn’t ever pry her eyes off her face. As if this was some kind of circus and she had the guts to stand against her or something. Ann wasn’t gonna just let it slide. She raised an eyebrow. It got her breath to visibly hitch, body drawing up in tension. The handler’s eye twitched. She crouched down to her level.
When Ann grabbed her chin, she hissed, “When I ask you a question—” A yelp left her mouth, but Ann clamped it shut with another hand. She wasn’t in the mood for noises. “You answer me with ‘no, miss’ or ‘yes, miss’, are we clear? Do I need to beat it into that little head of yours again?” The girl frantically shook her head, terror dawning on her face. Her chest was making ragged motions. She was having trouble breathing.
She released her face, getting her to gasp and shiver. Ann didn’t get up. She started to back up against the wall.
“I asked,” she repeated, before she could crawl away, “if you had anything else to say?”
“No!” She wheezed, out of breath. She’d averted her gaze, looking at anywhere but the handler’s way. Her hands were raised over her face. Another flinch. Before Ann could do it, she scrambled to correct, “No, miss. S-sorry, I, no, no. No. I don’t, I’m—n-no.”
“Ms. Ann,” Espada called from behind. She whipped her head around, shifting her attention to the weapon. “The sky seems gray. I’m afraid it might rain later.”
She sighed.
“We should get going,” she decided, supporting a hand on her knees and getting up. Ann shot last glance at the trembling servant on the floor. She hadn’t moved from her spot. It looked as if she was choking on air. She “Lunch on the table at noon,” she reminded her. “You heard me?”
“Yes. Miss. Yes, miss.” Her voice was several octaves lower, and she refused to lift her head off the spot she was staring at on the floor. Now that was a bit better, Ann thought. She grabbed her keys, turning her back, and walked out of the gate.
The weapon followed silently behind her.
--
“You’ll only grab the bags for me,” she told them, as they walked away from the house. Espa hummed in acknowledgment, because she couldn’t see it nodding from behind. “Last time you bought shit on your own, half the brands were wrong and the other half was missing. Not making the same mistake twice.”
Espa bit its lip. She was, as usual, correct. It still stung a little to be reminded, but it’d been pretty much their fault. “Yes, miss.”
Their tone was much more even when they said it. Unlike some, they had practice in it. And in not going out of their way to just piss her off. Ms. Ann wasn’t half as dissatisfied when they followed their way, turning a corner and stepping away from the neighbourhood.
Her steps were large, lazy over the empty streets—there would be a crowd when they reached the center, it thought. Espa's boots met the gravel and concrete softly, barely a noise being made. A shadow following on her tow, covered in black. Ms. Ann's hair waved slightly in the breeze, reaching below her shoulders. It was longer than when they’d arrived. Espa glanced up. They hadn't been fully lying earlier. There was no blue in the sky today. Like her, it hoped this wouldn't be a reprise from the last time they'd been taken to buy groceries. Their cheek ached just thinking about it.
"That fucking idiot," it heard her muttering at some point. If Espa's attention hadn't been mostly aimed at its handler already, it'd have snapped at her at that. They didn't tense up. Their lip was once again the target of it, instead. Ms. Ann kept mumbling, "Who does she think she is?" It had a feeling of where this was going, but they didn’t sigh. Even though it wasn’t like the handler would see it if it did. "She has one job. One job! And it's not to take care of my fucking weapons for me," she huffed.
It pretty much was, though. Espa didn't cook for itself. Neither did her, for that matter. It didn’t say that.
"Acting like you'll die if you go without a meal or two," she caressed the spot in between her eyes, sign of a potential headache. “God. You’re not a fucking toddler. Is she what, stupid?” It did agree with that part. Gisele was just being reckless. She needed to stop giving herself reasons to be beaten at every other hour. This little hunger was as relevant as a bug bite. Less, even. It didn’t warrant an intervention.
She was a little tiring, sometimes. It wished she had some more self-preservation.
It heard a scoff, a rock being kicked where Ms. Ann’s foot met it. She just hoped she would have forgotten about it by the time they came back home. "For fucking real. Why're newbies like that?"
Espa wasn’t supposed to actually answer, so she kept annoying herself about it. Which it was technically used to by now. Or should be. The periodic complaints followed them until the nearest cafe, where its handler thankfully distracted herself to get a treat. Espa watched the street as she did. It was a peaceful morning this side of the town.
"You want some, too, little lady?"
It took them a while to notice they'd just been addressed. Ms. Ann was already paying, a plump coxinha wrapped up in her hands and the pão delícia a soft, fluffy cheese bun stuffed into her mouth. She bit off a piece of it to free her mouth.
"She's good," she answered for it, licking her lips. The cashier cocked his head.
"You sure? I can do a little discount, if y—"
Ms. Ann snapped, "I said she's good," Espa had a throbbing sense of deja-vú at the scene. The guy seemed a little reluctant, they did not know why, shooting them a glance.
Espa blinked. He waited.
Ah. Their input. Or whatever. "I'm not hungry," they told him. "Don't want any. Thank you."
Ms. Ann grabbed the card machine from his hold while he was still frowning at them, single-handedly typing in her password. She used the exact same one for all of her accounts, for all of her devices. Espa didn't exactly know much of words or maths, but that was one string they surely knew by heart.
Begrudgingly, the cashier went to accept the payment, but got the machine shoved in his hands before he could reach out to it by himself. A half-yelp, and the thing almost fell to the ground. Ms. Ann was already stomping away. The weapon held back a sigh.
Hopefully, that'd at least take Gisele's little episode out of her mind.
The doors of the supermarket opened with a quiet hiss and a blissful load of cool air to let them in. Espa breathed out, relieved. Even though they were slowly growing accustomed, summer drew near without a care. Not here indoors, however. The faint, cold bite of the environment was welcome. The smell of the clean aisles, the fresh AC, it was all a little familiar. It was just like home. They liked this place.
Ms. Ann was much more used at navigating it than they were, so she was confident in reading up plaques and going straight to the section she wanted. It was quite thankful for that. She would grab an item, the cart, Espa's arm, give her very specific instructions for certain products before releasing them. They double then triple checked every item before bringing it. (It really, really didn’t want it to be like last time.) Soon, their shopping cart was filled. Espa recognized some soap brands she had apparently grown fond of lately. Hair products, for her and for it—Espa didn’t need much, but they saw that same three-in-one shampoo they were given back at the base. Gisele must’ve warned her that it was running out.
The line in the check-out stand she chose was filled with people. Though none of the others around were much emptier. Espa stood a step behind its handler, watching the surroundings. The line two rows to the left looked painfully slow, worse than theirs. The one just at their right was still long, but going more smoothly. Another glance at Ms. Ann. They hoped that wouldn’t worsen her mood. Two people had already taken their spots behind them on the line. Ahead, the queue was already walking. Espa took a look to check how many were left until their turn.
Their eyes burned into the spot ahead. They slowly turned around, looked back to check a second time, felt the heat slowly be sucked off their body.
It tasted copper. Its lip. It'd bitten it again.
Espa sucked in a breath, side-eyed her handler. No. Shit. No. She was leaning against the cart, verifying something on her phone. Unaware of her surroundings. (That was why she had Espa for.) It looked back ahead. Its mouth felt full of cotton.
Ciça was there.
Two people ahead on the line, almost checking out. Ciça. Not at home, not across the town, not on a sunny Sunday watching TV or making herself a dessert. A mere five meters apart from them.
From Ms. Ann.
The weapon forced itself to inhale another load of air.
Their hands clenched around the hem of their shirt. They released the grip. Tightened it again. Made themself calm down. It shouldn’t panic. It had no reason to panic. She expelled the breath, much denser than it had been a minute ago.
(Ciça was here. Ms. Ann was here. Ciça couldn’t just be here.
She was.
Ciça was here.
Ciça was here.)
No. It had no reason to be worried. They didn't know each other. Never would. For Ms. Ann, Ciça was nothing but a random, unremarkable stranger. For Ciça—it breathed in. Held. Breathed out.
In. Out.
For Ciça, it was here.
It didn't matter who Ms. Ann was. She knew it. In that moment, Espa regretted everything they had ever done since arriving in town. They should never have entered her house. They should never have eaten beside her. They—
In. In, Espada.
Ciça was in front of them in the line. The only danger was of her seeing it. But it could find a way to deal with the recognition. Find a way to make it go unnoticed by Ms. Ann. Somehow make her forget about it. Right? No, bad train of thought. They were walking on a thin line here. It was far too risky. Could the both of them get out of the queue before Ciça ever saw them, give the excuse that the other right to the side was going smoother? Espa felt its blood roaring in its ears. Ms. Ann wouldn't change lines at this point. Their turn wasn't that far. Could it perhaps go out of the line itself? Grab something that she'd forgotten? The possibility that there might exist that “something” aside, it was unlikely. They'd have to ask. Just going out without permission would—she wouldn't even manage. The handler would grab their arm and they’d probably cause a scene. But if they spoke up, Ciça might turn. She knew its voice. A dozen possibilities swam inside its head, each being discarded as soon as they showed up. This was bad. This was terrible.
Espa breathed in. Out again. Released the pressure on the fabric at the base of her stomach.
The best case scenario, right now, would be Ciça merely not noticing them behind her on the line. She'd never turn, she'd gather her groceries and walk out of the supermarket, and Ms. Ann would never face the very personification of all of its failures, would never suspect a thing. They'd go home, she'd forget about Gisele's little outburst, and get back to the mission. No questions asked. Crisis avoided.
It was the best case scenario. Which meant it would not happen at all.
The best case scenario was never the one outcome. Hoping for it was just a great way to get yourself dead, caught or shot in the arm. Espa had enough experience to know that.
The worst case scenario—now, that would be Ciça seeing them. She'd recognize it, because of course she would, and would vocalize it. Ms. Ann would catch it. Because of course she would. She would find it strange, and they would be in for an interrogation once at home, for a lock to be put around their neck and for Ciça to never see the light of day again. Espa breathed in.
None of the two conditions that prevented a catastrophic turn were in its hands. Ciça turning. Ciça greeting them. The first was fully up to luck. People who relied on luck usually also got themselves killed.
Which meant that it was all on Ciça.
They felt something heavy settling on their stomach. Regret, maybe. They wouldn't be able to quite put a finger on the name. That wasn't what they had been trained to do.
The concerns didn't ease out from the front of their mind once, despite their handler not noticing it in the slightest. At least. Espa helped her settle the items on the checkout balcony, watching as they got rolled away for the cashier to scan. Ciça was just in front packing her groceries into the large bags she'd brought for herself. A pressure built up on its chest.
They felt a little like the floor had opened under its feet when it happened. Espa’s fingers closed around a package of rice. They didn’t want to look. Wanted to pretend they existed in a bubble where it wouldn’t matter, where it wouldn’t make a difference.
It always did.
They knew it. They always had. They wished Ciça wasn’t here. They wished they weren’t here. It was taken over by the immense, overwhelming feeling that it wanted to go home. It wasn’t up to them.
It never was.
--
Oh.
The familiar, fluffy short hair stood across the balcony, blue bandana and everything. It was her. She hadn't expected to run into Espa here. The first thing Ciça noticed was that she looked stiff, sort of—more than usual? Hard to tell. Could very well be only a trick of the light—, and the second was that this was a funny coincidence. Her lips irked up for a split second. Last time she came to the market, Espa was also here.
The kid's muscles seemed to still, tense, when their eyes met and she caught her smile. Ciça couldn’t help it as it dropped into a frown. Why was it—
Then, she noticed the third thing. Espa wasn't alone. It was a woman. A woman, half a head taller than her, skin white and hair silky, straight and dark, a mug on her face as she checked out her groceries. Ciça blinked. Espa's eyes darted for a second to her side, the adult beside her, before fixing back on Ciça.
The message was mute. She was almost taken aback by how loud it was.
"Espa," the woman called, unaware of the split-second interaction. Her voice was authoritative. Confident, as if she thought her every word was of the highest priority in the world. Unquestionable. And indeed, Espa perked up at her name and immediately looked at her. The woman gestured to another direction with a single glance, but Espa took the cue. Ciça looked in awe at the attunement. The communication without words. Espa crossed the check-out area towards the plastic sacks where the already scanned items stood. Towards her. Ciça realized with a bit of belated embarrassment that she hadn’t picked up all of her stuff yet. Espa tensed up ever so slightly as she approached the spot, started packing. She didn't acknowledge her presence otherwise. The woman continued to unload the ones back in the shopping cart to be added to the bill. Espa pointedly ignored Ciça. Even standing just inches apart. It was as if they didn’t know each other. As if Ciça wasn’t even there.
The little gears turned inside her head. Her mouth went a little bit dry.
Ah.
"What are you looking at?"
Ciça recoiled a bit at the words, taken from her trance. The younger woman accompanying Espa was looking in her direction. She seemed... mad? Ciça blinked again. The kid, still beside her, didn't pay attention to the scolding tone either.
It took Ciça a bit of a while to be sure that the woman was actually talking to her, though. She looked around, a little awkward. Okay. That glare was towards her alright. Ciça became a little defensive. "Excuse me?" She tried. The woman had an aggressive aura. She glanced down at Espa again, but she wasn't even looking up. Her hands tucked a bar of soap into another bag.
"Did you lose something in my face?" The woman continued. Seemed a little disgusted. Ciça clutched her shopping bag closer to her chest. "Fuck off."
"Would you like to pay in debit or credit, miss?" The cashier cut her off before she could continue, a tight-lipped smile. The woman snapped her eyes down at them.
"Debit," she snapped. With a huff, she said, "Espa, roll over. We're going."
"Yes, miss," she whispered, under her breath. Ciça glanced down at her again. Espa never faced her back.
The woman passed by, picking up some of the bags Espa had packed. Ciça couldn’t help but recoil a bit and give a wary look to the woman when she yanked Espa by the arm before she could even leave by herself, her own bags in a hand as the adult balanced the others over her shoulder. No complaints were ever uttered. No resistance ever happened. She silently let herself be manhandled, followed behind without a fuss. For a second, Ciça thought that she was witnessing a piece of a puzzle come into place inside her mind. It fit.
She gripped her own bags tighter. Finished packing up. Waved goodbye with a polite have a good week to the tired person at the checkout machine, walked up to the automatic doors. Espa and her—mom? They didn't exactly look alike. Perhaps she was adopted? Or had just taken up to her father. No. It didn’t really matter. They'd already left. The look in Espa's eyes as she was dragged away jumped to the front of her mind. It was mostly resigned. Accostumed. Under that, alert.
But underneath everything, it was afraid.
She bit her lip.
--
To make the day overall a little more catastrophic—just after miraculously avoiding a crisis it hadn't quite processed yet—it started raining.
While they still hadn't left the supermarket.
Ms. Ann audibly groaned, kicking a bit of dust off the floor. They were protected from the downpour outside, at least. The rain was sudden. Intense. The heavy splatter thrummed as if it wanted to reach them here inside, drown everything in a fifty-meter radius. That was bad. It hadn’t anticipated it would come to that. Espa shot a look at the landscape beyond them. Gray. Wet. And dense. Water ran across the corners of the street like it could carry off everything that was unlucky enough to fall into its current. It was starting to get humid and stuffy in the parking lot as well.
At least, it thought, that was helping break the heat. A little.
Then someone else arose from the automatic doors. Their eyes automatically jumped to the direction of the movement, but they snapped their gaze back ahead in the same second.
She chewed down on her lip.
It forced itself to take a breath. Held it there for seven. Breathed out for eight. Breathed in. Held.
Breathed out.
Out.
Ms. Ann was talking.
"Oh, that one again," she mumbled not all that subtly to herself. She'd sat down on the lot’s sidewalk, a heavy sigh leaving her lips. Her eyes narrowed against the light. It was getting beyond annoyance. Telltale signs of one of her headaches. That would not end up well. Steps approached them. Having a presence behind its back, where it couldn't see—it clenched its fist around the plastic bag. They didn't want to turn. It didn't want her to be there. Today. Out of all days. What were the chances? It shouldn’t happen.
(It would have not. If only they'd been quicker.)
(If only they'd taken longer.)
(No dwelling on the past, it berated itself. No dwelling on coincidences, on luck and on chance. It was unhelpful. It was really hard not to.) For the second time, and stronger than they remembered feeling in a long time, Espa just wished they'd go back home. Gisele must have lunch on the table for her handler by now. The thought made them register the hunger pangs again.
It breathed in. Out.
Ciça didn't, as it then noticed it’d been hoping, walk past them. Espa wanted to send her a glare. It restrained itself. Ms. Ann was still sitting, her head dropped as she supported her elbows on her knees. Ciça seemed hesitant—not nearly hesitant enough—to approach, but a glance at the handler was all it took for her to. It was getting progressively harder to pretend she didn't exist.
Having both her and Ms. Ann at such a short distance from one another rang some sort of alarm bell inside its head. Some sort of horror. As if two things that shouldn't get mixed together were being blended. Or maybe as if the sky and the sea had just switched positions. It was disorientating. They lifted their head when she entered the arbitrary perimeter they’d assigned as their space. It’d be weird not to, at that point.
"The fuck do you want?" Ms. Ann spoke first, also acknowledging the closeness. The weapon internally cringed. Great. She was annoyed. That headache was probably getting a little worse. They desperately wanted to tell Ciça to go away, as far as she could, but in no world they’d be able to do that. Ciça didn't recoil from the tone. She glared down at Ann instead. Espa became more exasperated about it by the second.
The last person that had stared like that at its handler had been Gisele. It felt a little nauseous as it remembered how that had gone.
"You don't need to be so rude," she was retorting. Espa didn't look at her for too long. Something about doing so felt dangerous. The sound of her voice was also slightly uncanny. Then it realized. She was annoyed, too. Espada breathed out. "You dropped this back there. I thought it'd be appropriate to hand it back to you." She was addressing her miss only, acting as if Espa wasn’t even there. The attitude gave her some slight relief. Being treated as if they were just a shadow on the ground. A weapon, sheathed behind the one supposed to wield it. This was safer. This was how it was supposed to go.
Even though every detail about this increasingly disastrous interaction was so wrong they could sense a chill in the air.
Ms. Ann snapped her head up, scowled at her. The fallen pack of tomato sauce was grabbed from Ciça's hands—roughly—before the other could even properly hand it to her. No surprise in there. She shoved the item inside another bag. Hastily. It fell down.
"There. Delivered it. Happy now? Espa, grab that fucking—ugh, that fucking sauce. Put it back inside."
"Yes, miss."
There was, of course, no need to be so antagonistic to Ciça. Aside from the throbbing ache visibly building up behind her eyes. Ms. Ann's wrath sometimes had unlucky, undeserving victims. That was how it worked. She felt bad for Ciça. It hadn’t wanted for her to be on the receiving end of it. But it hoped that'd make her go away.
Espa died inside a little when she didn't.
"You could easily pick it up," she saw her crossing her arms. The weapon had already bent down to fulfill the order. She had to let Ciça be behind her to make it work. They felt their skin crawl. "You’re sitting closer to it, don't even need to get up. Why are you so blunt with her?"
Their breath hitched. They'd just been acknowledged. The illusion of safety, of getting out of this without a scratch to anyone, faded like mist under the sun.
Outside, a heavy, louder rush of water came down. Like a balloon had popped off. It was continuous, oppressive, scratching the supermarket’s metal rooftop like it wanted to tear a whole into its barriers and invade. More ran to the ground, thickly swimming through the concrete surrounding them. A moat.
"You don’t act like you know better than me," the handler hissed, in tune with the rain. She massaged the spot between her eyes. Another bad sign. She was making it worse. Espa couldn’t help but actually tense up. Ciça. Just go away. Please. Couldn’t she sense the danger? The older woman stayed firm in her spot, some kind of foolish determination in her eyes Espa couldn't quite point the cause of nor understand. "Get going," Ann gestured to the raining outdoors. The sauce pack between its fingers was smooth, a red color. Bright. Vivid. It shoved it inside the sack with the rest of the food. "I'm not in the mood for little stunts like you. Get. Out."
They wished they could tell her to go, too. They wished they could convince Ms. Ann to just drop it.
But not a word left Espa's mouth. They didn't speak out of turn.
The air stretched out with an uncomfortable silence. The noise of the downpour outside filled its ears. Espa could feel Ciça glancing down at her, worried eyes glued on their back. It didn't close its eyes. In. Hold. Out. From the pause, the way she drew her breath, she seemed to want and say something else.
Espa couldn't describe its relief when she didn't.
"As you wish," she yielded, rolling her eyes. "I'm not in the mood for the likes of you either. Good week."
The cold seeping under her words was a little unsettling. Espa felt a little small. She didn't look at them again after leaving to wait out the weather on another corner of the parking lot. Away from them.
Away. It felt dizzy. But away was good.
Splatters of water swam down on the edges of the parking lot. Away from them. But Ciça would get wet. It didn’t look.
Ms. Ann tsked as she left, huffing a load of air through her nose.
It could feel itself getting a headache, too. It should probably eat when they got home.
The rain still took long to clear.
--
Gisele was nursing a sore ego and sore elbows when the sun came back at the sky. She was much more achey than she should be. She found it that it was extremely easy, lately, for her body to bruise. If she had to put a finger on it, it was the lack of nutrients. Or the stress. Or the lack of sun. Or maybe the poor sleep, who knows. She couldn’t remember the last time she had an actually comfortable night now that she thought about it. She wished she could google it, but, of course, she could not. She had had so many little questions she'd previously been able to look up on the back of her mind, now discarded as soon as they popped up. There was no window to the outer world here.
She barely had an idea of what day it was. Trying to come up with an answer gave her a headache. Though most things were prone to give her a headache. Any kind of ache, really. That wasn’t any special.
Gi thought she should ask Espa. Espa had access to a calendar. Probably. They had some sort of schedule. Right? They must know about it. But Espa had gone out. She felt her eyes burning. Ignored it. She’d done Ann’s food by now, because she at least had access to the hour. The table was empty and cleaned out of all the ingredients she’d used. So was the sink. Her stupid plate of pasta was waiting by the balcony, so she could see it first thing when she came back and wouldn’t have time for yelling at her for not having cooked her stupid fucking food. She’d have put it in the fridge otherwise. Though it wasn’t like she cared. It could spoil in the heat if it was up to her.
Gisele let out a heavy sigh under the table. Even though she had barely cooked something for herself that morning—no appetite. Not after that last beating she’d seen. Even after it’d been days. She had a distant notion that she probably should eat more, but—it was not what was on her mind right then.
She could only think about how Espa hadn’t eaten.
Breakfast was her only actual meal of the day. Gi laid spread out on the floor, enjoying her break. They always seemed so happy for breakfast. Why was Ann so mean? Today they didn't get to eat a single thing. Not actual, homemade food. Not even those ugly, disgusting, icky blobs of beige they called “rations”.
Little splatters had come in from the open windows. She should probably dry them, but her whole body ached. And the floor was so comfortable and cool.
The handler had gotten annoyed at some stupid little thing, too, as always, because there was always some stupid little thing to get annoyed at, and last night had also denied Espa their dinner. Two meals skipped in a row. All Ann’s fault. Always her fault. She hated her. Gisele closed her eyes. The sun shone increasingly bright across the window, but the top of the table she’d nested herself under was shielding her from it. It must be past noon already. Past noon, and no lunch for the house’s weapon. Past noon, and they still hadn’t come back. She wondered if the rain caught them on their way back.
A single tear streamed down her face, unwelcome. She turned on her side, caressing the still-sore spot on her cheek.
It wasn’t fair.
The sound of the gate sliding open beyond the garage sent a flinch through her body. Gi sat up, careful to not hit the top of her head. She stared at the door, carefully moving out from under the furniture. Closed.
(Not for long.)
She scrambled up from the floor, quickly going for the corridor to flee to the back of the house. Cowardly. But really, could she be blamed? The door from the laundry room closed softly before the living room's opened, and she breathed out in relief. Safe, for now.
She slid down with her back to the door. Her shoulders slumped, a whimper coming out of her as the throbbing behind her eyes had a sudden spike. Yeah. It wasn't fair at all. If she was home, she’d take an ibuprofen and a glass of water, but here, she—Gi narrowed her eyes to the lamp. She wondered for how long she’d have to endure all of this.
For how long.
For... how long.
The thought made her see white. She wiped it off her mind.
Dinner. She should really start planning dinner.
The handler had come inside and gotten mud on everything when she finally worked herself up to access the living room. Gisele silently cussed to herself. That demon. Could she not bother to just take off her damn sandals before dirtying all over the common area? Gi's knuckles grasped tight on the handle of the broom she used to sweep the floors off, a wet cloth attached to its end. The strokes were harsh. Annoyed.
She jumped when something touched her shoulder from behind.
"Stop. Look at me," Ann's voice. Gi's body obeyed before her mind could process. She tensed, painfully so, turning her neck to look back at the woman. She was frowning. Her breath got stuck on her throat.
Fuck, fuck, shit, had she heard her swearing? Her stomach sank. She must’ve complained out loud. Shit. Shit, shit, sh—
Ann crossed her arms, said, "Espada. Did you see her going out?"
Gi blinked. Her heartrate was accelerated. She slowly, confused, took a glance at the door. Open. The garage beyond, empty. It felt like it’d been ages since the time she had approached that part of the house. She looked back at Ann.
Her veins felt as if they were being filled with ice, burning colder by the second. She swallowed. Shook her head.
The hand on her shoulder got tighter. Gisele flinched.
"Not right now, idiot," she scoffed. "This last week. Past month, actually. I wasn't home all the time," she told her, though Gi knew that. It was more as if she was reminding something to herself. Gi didn't like where this was going. She couldn't quite move. She wanted to get away from Ann. She could feel her hands shaking, her chest heaving, a little bit too fast, but couldn't feel air entering her lungs at all. That was wrong. That was wrong, right? "She's hiding something."
It took a few seconds to realize she was expected to reply to that. A palm met her cheek and sent it sideways as she didn't. The broom dropped to the floor. Gi's ears were ringing.
"Answer."
The air started to compress down on her, crushing. Gisele weakly struggled out of Ann's grip. Away from the danger. Begrudgingly, the handler let her. She sucked in a load of air. There was still not enough of it around her. It’d all run out, solidified, somehow. Gi sent a fearful stare towards her. "I—I don't think so," she tried, realizing she was shaking all over now. She set her jaw. Mindlessly picked up the fallen broom, fingers clasping tight onto its handle. Her eyes dropped to the ground. She didn't want to look at Ann's. "She's behaved," she muttered. It was half true. Gi didn't know many weapons, but even she could tell Espa was as up to standard as humanly possible. Even considering all her infractions. Or whatever they wanted to call it. Her mouth was dry. She gulped down to wet it. Said, "…She wouldn't go against you.” Ann had to know that, right? It was painfully obvious, as clear as day. She held the bloom closer to her body, instinctively taking a step back. Espa did go out when she wasn't looking, yes. But firstly, Gi was no snitch. She shivered at the thought of what Ann would do if she found that out. It made her knees go weak for a second, eyes flashing with the image of the last beatdown. She was forcing out air before she could realize it.
And, really, she did believe in what she was saying. Mostly. Maybe reminding the handler of it would sate her suspicions. Espa was too well-behaved for her own good. Wherever the little walks she gave during the day or evening were to, she thought the handler had negative reason to worry. Unfortunately. It did make her wonder what was it that they did all the time, sneaking away at the slightest opportunity, but—well. When it came down to it, Gi also wanted to run.
She didn't tell Ann that. The handler kept staring at her, as if waiting for more. She drew her shoulders up. The moment stretched out to eternity, before, finally, Ann broke it. She gave a tired sigh, quitting. A sound of dissatisfaction. She couldn’t help but freeze up in place and brace. Only when her steps receded into the hall Gisele’s brain actually caught up to the fact she had left.
The girl took a step back. Another. She leaned against the nearest wall, the broom drawn defensively in front of her. A shield. She covered her mouth to avoid making a noise.
Fuck.
Previous // Next
Taglist: @otter-chaos-violence @oros-ash3s @inhurtandincomfort @swisscheesethethird @warmfuzz-ies @whumpawaydarling @catnykit @melpomenelamusa @whump-until-wretched @sir-fenris @stars-hide-our-fires @mxrr0rball @supasos0 @aromanticsky @violets-whumperflies
On today's episode of "Sami wants to convert everyone into liking Brazilian food", the snacks Ann bought for herself at the start of the chapter, the coxinha and the cheese bun, respectively, are very tasty you should try them out if you can :)
espada masterlist
Espa (they/she/it)'s life as a weapon was mostly filled with pain, obedience and blood—some of it its own—, until it met a kind, generous stranger. The namesake of Espada means "sword", but, unfortunately for the compliant, loyal life they've built for themself through all these rough years, they can't quite bring themself to remain as only that.
(note: please block '#espada spoilers' if you aren't caught up on arc 1 yet!)
General cws: Human trafficking, child whump, compliant whumpee, living weapon whumpee, multiple whumpees, torture.
-> Espada is now on Ao3!
-> Drabbles Masterlist
ARC I:
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
(Bonus) 11.5
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17.1
Chapter 17.2
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
ARC II:
Chapter 23
(coming)
--
-> AU Masterlist
-> Art Masterlist (+ picrews and fanart!)
-> Other writing: Liar | Dog | Sniper | Escravos de Jó | Cold | Interrogated | Fingers in the wound | Forced to hurt | Touch aversion | Disposal | Sixteen | Natural | [And more!]
-> Fanfic (!!!): Out of This World by @whumpshaped
-> Misc: #espada wip tag | #espada asks | #espada art | #meta rambles tag | #espa oc tag
———
Taglist: @otter-chaos-violence @oros-ash3s @inhurtandincomfort @swisscheesethethird @warmfuzz-ies @whumpawaydarling @catnykit @melpomenelamusa @whump-until-wretched @sirnef-fenris @stars-hide-our-fires @mxrr0rball @supasos0 @aromanticsky @violets-whumperflies @painwithoutplot @whumpshaped
chapter 17 — weights named nurture (1/2)
Cws: Electrocution/shock collars, child whumpee, living weapon whumpee, kidnapped whumpee, multiple whumpees, covert-ish whump, brief panic attack, brief fear of death, off-screen whipping, whump aftermath. We're having a birthday! What a coincidence. This took me ages to write and I had to split it in two ops.
Masterlist || previous
When she was a kid, sometimes Gi wondered what lighting would feel like to the touch.
She often wondered about the dumbest things, she admitted. But the harsh, bright bolts of white cutting through the dark during the storms, making cracks in the fabric of the sky—they sort of allured her. She had a distant notion that it’d probably hurt. She probably should consider herself lucky to not know the answer to her musings. Lucky to be safe at home, sheltered under a roof. Watching havoc break from the clouds tucked into her blanket, while her mom yelled at her to not eat on the couch lest it get dirty with the crumbs.
Lucky to, even when she found her silly answer, for it to be while playing nearby a broken plug socket in the wall, feeling a jolt of electricity run from the tip of her fingers to the end of her hair. Her dad hurried to check over the damage. She had teared up. It was only so little—but it’d hurt. Gi had been lucky that her parents managed to take a day off, that time, just to be with her and make sure that she was okay. The spot in between them on the bed was warm and cozy—safe. They’d told her bedtime stories for the first time in a while that night. Giovanna, even, had sneaked out of the room they shared at the time to check over her because they were worried. It’d felt nice. She soon forgot about the pain. The bed was still warm when she woke up, alone, parents having left to go to work.
She was not so lucky now.
This wasn’t lightning. No. But felt exactly as she’d imagined one would feel. If only worse.
Gisele screamed.
An alarmed Espa in her whereabouts was the only thing she registered before her knees went weak and she fell forward, to the ground, but—no, her head didn’t hit the ground. Something was keeping her from doing so. Gi’s fingers twitched, sent alight, and her mouth was open in a choked cry of pain that was not nearly enough to convey how much it hurt. It burnt. Every inch of her skin was in blazes. Her brain had gone off, filled by the empty static you got when a TV didn’t have sound internet connection. The only thing inside her head was the pain.
She buried her fingers in the steady, gentle weight that held her—a cry for help—too out of it to even know what she was doing. The shock collar went on again. Gisele saw white.
It was minutes after that a panting kid with grit teeth landed her on the floor—inside—and Gi remembered where she was. The collar had stopped. She found herself unable to move.
She was trembling.
Gi’s chest heaved erratically. She blinked away tears—tears? Where had they come from?—still grasping onto whatever was near as if her life depended on it. She felt like she was falling. She bent down, gasping, and a weak, baby shock was triggered by the collar again. She flinched hard. Curled up further.
A firm hand pushed her up. Behind.
She blinked again.
It’d stopped.
But it still hurt. Why did it hurt? Her mind strained to make any sense of it. She raised a hand to her mouth, taken by vertigo, but couldn’t bend forward again. The hand on her chest wouldn’t let her.
Espa’s face met her eyes when she ended up looking to the side.
She breathed out. Still shaky. They looked worried. There was sweat damping their brow. They looked shaken. Worn. Were they okay? What had—
Gi’s blood went cold when she realized that she was sitting at the living room’s doorstep. Her body scrambled behind, away, as if the garage beyond would burn her.
It just had.
Fuck. Fuck. She whimpered, a small and weak thing, brainlessly leaned onto Espa again. They notoriously tensed, but held still. Gisele’s breath still held an accelerated pace. She might be panicking.
Panicking.
A single clear thought settled over her muddy brain, and she looked up again. Espa’s eyes were worried. Wider than normal.
“Where did that come from?” They whispered. Gi blinked, still dazed for a hot second. Realized that she sounded almost angry. Angry? The realization shook her out of her stupor. No. Why was Espa angry? Had she ever seen something like that? Gisele faintly noticed a little trail of blood in their bare arm. Moon-shaped dents. Her head was still filled with grainy noise.
Nails.
“Are you okay?” She asked, throat tight. Wasn’t sure if it was guilt or still the pain. Fuck—she- “I—Sorry. I d-didn’t mean to. Does it hurt?”
Espa’s hand closed around her arm. The touch made her bluescreen.
It felt nice.
“Do you want to die?” Espa’s voice reached her ears, audibly coming out through grit teeth. The words were whispered as low as a hiss. “Gisele, don’t come into the garage. It’s off-limits. You could’ve been fried to death.”
The words made her larynx lock up at once.
Gi just looked up at her, mouth open but unable to make a sound. To death. She held Espa again. Felt tears.
Her heart had never calmed down from the electricity. It only became louder then. The girl felt it crashing down on her. It made her feel really, really scared.
“Sorry,” she choked out. Her face was buried in Espa’s chest. She was scared. She wanted it closer. Fried to death. To death? She didn’t want to die. The possibility stretched itself out under her eyes, way too real. Tears streamed down her face. A hiccup came out. She hadn’t realized she was still crying. “Sorry.”
Espa was tenser under her, still as a rod. Gi distantly realized that the kid probably didn’t like her crying all over her chest. They weren’t really one for displays of emotion like this. She was sure they must find the image pitiful. Awkward. Gi couldn’t bear to let go. She felt vulnerable.
She was so close to the garage. She wanted to get away. The laundry room. Inside the house. Far inside. Away from the danger. It was too close. She could’ve died. Died.
Her ears were ringing. Her breath was heavy and too loud.
Espa softly drew her away. Gisele averted her eyes and hugged herself. Her body’s responses scared her. She was still trembling. Tears streamed down her cheeks.
“Don’t do that,” they said, after a while. Her voice sounded strained. As if she was catching her breath. Gisele tried to muffle another whimper. She was too scared to feel ashamed. She felt small. She wanted to be held again. The thought made her cry harder. She closed her eyes shut. “Don’t come. You—it—please. The collar has a set boundary. Please.”
Oh. She cracked her eyes open. It was not the clinginess that Espa was berating her for.
She wanted to hug her again.
Had enough self-restraint not to. Somehow. Espa was worried. They were just worried. She wanted to cry more, for some reason. There was a weird warmth in her chest. The back of her throat burnt. A switch in her brain didn’t allow her to be loud at all. Gisele’s attention was fueled in letting out ragged breaths, dense and slow, in order to not make a sound. Espa seemed to settle beside her at the footstep. The closed-roof garage stood in front of them, a deceiving stillness. Empty. Invisible. Just waiting for a single misstep to burn her from inside out. Gi tucked a foot closer to herself.
She managed to breathe deeply again before she figured out how to move. The pain of the shocks were a bit more far away now, but still loomed at the edges. Too close. Too fresh. She could only think around it, now.
Then she remembered. Why she’d been so stupid in the first place.
Gisele’s eyes shot up to the kid beside her yet again. Flinched back. Theirs had already been staring back at her. Before she could get a word out, Espa was back to speaking.
“Are you calm now?” Her voice was soft. “You should get inside, Gisele. Stay away.”
She breathed out again. Her bones were made out of lead.
Gi weakly reached out to clutch Espa’s shirt in between her fingers. It was damp with sweat. She’d been training when she stepped in. The kid recoiled away from the contact, but didn’t flee. Gisele’s brain might have still been a little slow to make sense of it. “I know. I knew,” she answered.
A beat. Espa’s chest rose up and down evenly, different from then. A mere few minutes ago. There was still the slightest phantom of what she’d seen. They shifted.
“You—then why you—”
“I remembered. The warnings,” she interrupted. Gi was staring at the garage’s floor in front of them. She felt a little out of her body. “Guess I just didn’t think that it was that bad. But I knew that. They told me.” Her voice was more detached than she thought should be possible. It felt weird. The words came out as if from her mouth out instead of from her chest. Gi gagged on her breath, inhaling sharp through her nose. She curled up her first on Espa’s tank top. It was sleeveless. Those she only used for working out. She was surprisingly scrawny for a minion assassin, even considering her age. Still—their arms were clearly strong. Littered by a plethora of scars. They seemed to grow a little more alarmed at Gi’s every word. She tried to catch her breath. “I was trying to get to you. You were panicking.”
She felt them freeze. A single, lonely load of air was all that left their mouth. Espa’s exhale was shaky.
An equally shaky hand reached out to hers, gently closing around her wrist and prying it away from their clothes. Gisele let it be removed without resistance. She felt her limbs a little limp. The arm slumped to the ground as soon as it was dropped. She caught Espa soothing her arm from the corner of her eye. Raised her head. This was worrying. This was worrying, right? Espa only did it when there was something up. Gisele’s mouth was full of cotton.
“It’s fine,” they said, anyway. As they always did. Her voice was choked up. She wasn’t even looking up. “I—don’t. Please. Don’t do that again. I’m sorry. D-don’t, please. Please. Don’t. That’s gone. I’m fine. Just don’t.”
“Liar,” it came out with a hiccup. Gi’s eyes welled up again. Had she ever stopped crying? She wanted to give her a hug. Why was she like this? It wasn’t fair. None of this was fair. She shouldn’t have come out, shouldn’t have gotten close to the door—it hurt. It’d hurt. This was scary. Espa had looked so scared. They had slumped over, leaned heavily over their weights, trembly easing their body down from a pull-up stand, collapsed to the ground. She was crying. It was silent, but it was familiar. Gisele was supposed to be sweeping the living room. The image matched itself to another, a distant one, of a kid falling to her knees after bumping over a laptop. That time, the attack was so sudden that she’d felt her jaw shake, afraid. Didn’t even engage. Just quickly obeyed what Ann had barked at her to do, gotten as far as she could from them. Left them alone. Then, it was a little easier. Espada had barely been a stranger. A dangerous asset. Theirs. But this—she was clutching her chest as if her life depended on it, gasping for air. Drowning on dry land. Falling apart. She didn’t know what had gotten her like that, didn’t have the chance to see, but hesitated for only a minute before going and trying to reach out to the kid and help.
The idea was quickly shoved out of her mind and replaced by blinding hot pain.
Gi flinched. What a way to help. It’d taken a while for Espa to even notice her, she’d realized—but the last thing she saw before she had her vision knocked out of her from the shock was the wide-eyed emotion of the kid turning to take her in (Gi’s blood-boiling scream, her slumped over figure, her pained flinching), enough to shake them off their state bad enough to move. She remembered the hands that cradled her being shivering, still so fueled by terror-driven adrenaline—and static, she was just realizing—that she could barely manage to get Gi back inside. Espa’s face showed fear. Real, raw fear. Fear for her. Even now, she could still catch how her jaw was tight. In order not to quiver. Espa had been afraid before, for some reason. Enough to fall to the floor. Gisele hadn’t helped.
A wince. Her head hurt. The electricity had stopped, but Gi felt something sharp pierce right through her skull. She leaned forward without thinking. She curled up on herself with a mute, open mouth. Espa grabbed her shoulders and pushed her back so quickly that it was almost violent. Back, and away from the collar’s danger zone.
“Gisele.” There was panic in their voice. Gi had the impression that the fact that she noticed it was less of a testament to her ability to pick up Espa’s almost non-existent tells, and more of a case of them being so unusually shaken by whatever had had a hold on their mind that they were incapable of concealing it like normal.
Concealing it.
Concealing it. Like normal. It occurred to her that maybe, Espa was always this scared underneath. The thought was a little nauseating. She convinced herself that it couldn’t be true.
Espa gently pushed her further back into the living room. Her fingers were shaking when they retracted. Gi opened her mouth, feeling the touch burn. She wanted it back. They got up. She was blinking, affected, closing and opening her fists. Looking at her, but almost in a way that made it seem that she was just trying to not let her eyes anxiously flick from one corner to the other. Espa looked as if just as uneasy from an electric shock as Gisele felt. “Go back inside. Please.” They visibly swallowed. “Don’t come.”
“I—I know,” she replied quickly. She did. Better than ever right now. “I hadn’t meant—are you okay? Espa, please. I—if you need a—”
The look in her eyes shut her up.
Gisele’s words died in her throat. She faintly looked down at the tiles of the living room behind her. Safety. Cold harsh lights. Better than the static-filled garage.
Espa looked like they were doing their best not to fall apart and rip at the seams. Concealing it. In front of her.
Gi slowly worked herself up the floor, leaning against the doorframe for support. The thin strap of metal around her throat was constricting against her pulse. She felt dizzy. Dangerously close to falling. She was a little bit too used to working through that. The realization made her skin crawl. She still didn’t feel completely inside it.
Her eyes welled up. She wanted to go home.
Gisele hugged herself, went back inside. She didn’t want to set foot out here ever again. She didn’t see if Espa heard her guilt-laced words as she stepped away.
“Thank you.”
--
Espa threw her head back. Catched her breath. Its chest was tight. Their ribcage was trying to crush their lungs from the inside, it felt like. Her mind was still racing—dangerously wild, dangerously manic and so, so so so so so so so so distracting and making her instincts light up—and it was hard. To keep breathing. But they needed to. Espa felt as if its throat would fully lock up in a moment, and it’d have to fall to the floor to fully gasp for air. Gisele’s interruption had almost made them snap, but maybe it’d been good. To shake some composure onto them. However feeble it might be.
It was weird to think that. It shouldn’t be good. Espa breathed out. Supported its weight on the pull-up bar, feet dangling from the floor. Breathed in. Held. Focused on the strain on their arms.
They breathed out.
Espa was still trying not to tremble as they grabbed their towel, clutched their chest in a corner, bit their tongue. They needed a minute. Fuck. Fuck. Shit.
She needed a minute.
Ms. Ann wasn’t out here to witness. Thank god. Thank god. Their eyes burnt. Fuck. It—this was pathetic. Espa breathed in again. She felt her chest rise, but she felt out of air. She told herself it was because of the exercise course. She wanted to puke. They needed to get themself together. They were a slip from collapsing.
Gisele could’ve almost died, and the thought pierced through their conscience with a strength that almost hurt. Espa didn’t gasp. They breathed in through their nose. Leaned against the wall. Fuck. Fuck. Why had she—it was its fault. She was trying to get to it. It—why were they that weak? Their muscles were made of goo. They couldn’t fall. They couldn’t. Ms. Ann would see. The thought made her see white. Gisele would see. Again. No. No. No, no, no, no no. Breathe. In. In. She gasped.
Didn’t fall.
Her scream still rang in their ears, so unused to a sound so loud inside these walls. It sent its nerves haywire, and only then it realized that it was for more reasons than one. Ice filled its veins. Gisele had cried too loud. Ms. Ann would hear.
Ms. Ann had heard.
The corners of their vision went dark. Espa breathed in. In. In. In. They felt hot. They needed a shower. They couldn’t move.
She sunk her nails into her arm.
It hurt.
It hurt. No. No, no—the servant was in danger. And it was its fault. They needed to go back inside. Espa couldn’t move. Their chest hurt. They were gonna start making noise. Soon. It needed to get it together. It couldn’t breathe. They were trembling.
Gisele had sunk her nails into them, too. It didn’t think she knew what she was doing. Maybe she did. Maybe it was retaliation for allowing herself to fall like that. The thought didn’t make sense, even to themself. She was spiraling. She needed to stop—Espa couldn’t breathe. The frustration raised tears to her eyes. Fuck. Stupid. They were so stupid. Useless. Weak. It almost wanted to drop in defeat.
It needed to check on Gisele.
It was only five minutes later that the weapon remembered her handler wasn’t even home in the first place.
Espa sat over the dumbbell stool inside their bedroom. The sunlight came in from the closed window, warm but weak. It was still day. It was only the glass that was too thick.
It breathed in. Held. For seven. Didn’t let any water fall. Breathed out.
Espa wished it would just go away already.
The servant seemed to go about her day—as usual. As usual. Ms. Ann was out. So she hadn’t heard that. It was not getting any easier to move—passing in front of the room every now and then. Espa flinched whenever they caught her from the corner of their eye. They almost wanted to close the door. It tensed up to a painful degree whenever she came—looked inside. It felt her gaze as she did. Every time—forcefully relaxing in a tense breath as she didn’t come in. It wanted to tell her to stop doing it. But the urge was ridiculous. She needed to do her chores. Going out of her way just to ease Espa off the burden that was staying together in one piece was a desire for the entitled.
They just needed to bear it. And breathe.
It would be gone. Soon. Soon. It better. Its breath quickened. Their blood roared on their ears. It couldn’t hear a thing. She needed to make it go away. Ms. Ann would be mad when she came back. It raised its hand to cover its mouth. Breathed through its nose. Caressed her arm with the other.
The shiny green gem hanging over the chain they held inside a fist shimmered in the corner of their vision. Green. It was almost like a tree’s leaves. Outside. They could pretend they were outside, like that. Espa raised the pendant to its face, covering its eyes. It was warm. They could pretend it was because a certain someone had touched it, and not because it’d stayed a couple days under their bed. The sun filtered through the window was almost like really feeling it on its skin. Almost. It let out an exhale. She was in her boots. There was no gravel under her feet because she’d worn them for a walk. Ms. Ann wasn’t home. It clutched the necklace tighter, catching its breath.
Gisele passed by the door again, breaking the spell. Her footsteps were enough to make the weapon flinch.
“So, how have you been doing?”
Espa didn’t answer. They still felt a little shaky at the edges. The couch was soft—too soft. Probably way too soft. Dangerously so.
And it was warm. Ciça’s house always was. Probably because of the sun. Sunshine was golden here, always freely entering through the open doors and windows. So many doors and windows. The mission’s house wasn’t like this. Nothing was like this.
In all honesty, they felt as if they’d melt.
That was a little dangerous. This sun was unlike the white, cold lights of the basement, the base, the settlement. That harsh lighting was better. It hardened them. This? It was warm against her skin. So, so warm. A reward it’d never earned. Barely broken by the steady humming of a fan cooling off the air from the ground.
They were afraid they would start coming undone like this. They stayed in their spot, back not meeting that of the sofa’s.
“Espa?”
It closed its eyes. Breathed in. Ciça was patient, wasn’t she? It was easier to be here. She could take a while to answer. She wouldn’t be mad. She wouldn’t be. But still—it was a little unfair. Espa was always misbehaving around her. Why did it have to be with her, out of all people? It was so unfair. Why was it that spoiled? The warmth was melting them. Rendering them useless, wobbly like a piece of molten metal. It was no use for a sword. But it just had to wait this out. Grasp onto the cold. It was the only thing keeping her together. The air didn’t want to come inside their lungs. Their muscles neared going beyond her control, feeling the phantoms of a tremour. Any slip and she might start full-on shaking. It was warm. The warmth was nice. Too nice.
She felt dizzy. Breathed out.
“I’m good.”
The woman stopped unpeeling the potatoes onto a bowl—Espa had been eyeing her knife. It was small, but sharp. It eased their mind a little to have something like that so clearly into their field of vision—and looked up at them. They didn’t meet her eyes. Still, could see the slight crease of her eyebrows. How she bit her lip. It let out a breath of relief when it smoothed out, relaxed, and Ciça dropped it. She went back to spinning the vegetable on her fingers.
“Been a nice week, huh,” she commented. The tone was idle, light. It was also too warm. It just nodded. There was a lump in her throat. It had been hours, and yet, they still hadn’t gotten themself together. Really pathetic. What an awesome weapon, Espada. “The weather is nice.”
That was true. Espa couldn’t bring itself to answer. They felt as if they’d puke. They needed to focus to keep going. It sunk deeper into the couch. It was comforting.
The weight of the sun, too. It reached out to them like a caress.
Ciça didn’t continue the conversation. She just quietly, easily, moved on with her chore, not pressing for any sort of response, and humming to herself. Espa was grateful for that. It was easier, like this. They could do with it. It breathed in, curling up its fists in the cushion, held, while keeping its jaw from shaking, and slowly, forcefully, breathed out.
It wasn’t working.
They tensed, violently, against their will, recoiling at the vivid image of Gisele a few hours ago. The servant’s cry cut through their mind in the lazy, golden afternoon, and they felt their breath hitch.
It couldn’t take out of its mind the way that she had fallen. Convulsed. Espa didn’t raise a hand to her mouth. Didn’t move. It could do that little. It could. They could. The warmth was gonna melt them. They felt dangerous tears pricking at the corners of their eyes.
A shudder, and something was draped over them. A weight. Espa clinged to it, choked up, before realizing what it was.
Ciça’s blanket.
The woman didn’t say anything, just quietly went back to her chair under the window and resumed her cooking. Espa didn’t move. It couldn’t. The blanket was light, thin, so it wasn’t crushingly hot. The fan’s breeze might’ve helped with that. Was it turned straight towards it, now? It was so light it was painful, a bit. They remembered this. Ciça had borrowed it out to them once. They shakily wrapped it around themself, exhaling. It was grounding. It was nice.
Ciça kept humming her songs. Espa breathed in. Breathed out.
--
She didn’t know what had come over her, but the kid seemed a little off, today. It wasn’t all that unusual, Ciça thought, but her quietude was... a bit too quiet. The stillness was a bit too still. Even for Espa. It was more as if it was a mask this time, a tightly-shut lid for containing something—and as if the container was at the brink of exploding from the pressure. She looked like she was painfully trying to keep herself afloat. There wasn’t much Ciça could do, she grimly realized, but there must certainly be something. Not small talk. Espa looked like she would crumble if she had to take her attention from wherever it was to listen, or to answer. She could swear she caught a slight quiver in her lips, a pained wrinkle around her eyes. Her shoulders were tenser than normal. Whatever “normal” even meant for her.
So she left her be. If she was keeping count, she would say this was the third time, maybe. The third time that Espa looked like she was being crushed by some weight, the whole world crashing down on her, too much for a kid like her to bear. And yet, she tried. Almost succeeded. It was impressive. It was haunting.
Why did she feel like she had to?
There was so little that Ciça could do when she got like this. The woman hummed, an old record of Legião Urbana dancing on her lips to try and make the mood lighter. Ciça had noticed, over this past month they’d known each other for, that Espa tended to hug herself when she was too overwhelmed, buried herself inside her cape when something was too much to bear. So she thought that something like this might be able to help.
And, by the way that the kid clung to the soft yellow fabric on the spot she hadn’t ever gotten up from since arriving, fingers clasping onto it for dear life—even if it hurt to see—it was working.
It wasn’t that hot indoors despite the sun outside. It was the first thing she’d noticed back when she moved here, half a decade ago. These walls posed a good defense against the heat. The trees planted across the street surely helped, too. The potatoes and carrots rolled around in her hands, peels easily relenting under the slice of the knife. It was an easy task, not quite boring, but soothing, a little. She had to do it, anyway. Had been at other preparatives the entire day—albeit slow and lazy, but come on. She had the time to spare. That was how she liked doing things—and by now, it must be four already. She feared that soon would be the time for Espa to go back home.
The idea weighed heavy on her stomach. Back home. Like this? Ciça didn’t know what had happened to get her to this state. She could only imagine—and, to be perfectly honest, found nauseating to do so. She’d seen the scars. Not for the first time, her fingers itched to do something. Help. Surely, surely (her eyes burnt the slightest bit), there was something she could do.
Something more than looking out for her for the short while she was here before she was forced to let her go back. To there. Ciça had a hard time picturing Espa’s home. She had clues—they were written all over her. In the bruises. In the soft, subservient tone she always spoke in, a tone that screamed I’m listening. I’m obeying. I’m not resisting. Please, don’t hurt me this time. In the way she held back a flinch at any sudden movements. In the way that she was way too good at it. In the way she couldn’t even break down. How she held herself because nobody else would do it. Ciça wanted to give her a hug. They’d been through this enough times for her to figure that it was the last thing she should do in times like these.
So she kept peeling the vegetables.
--
It was almost night when Espa felt firm enough to speak.
It didn’t ever take the attention away from the air coming in and out of its lungs. The light coming from outside was softer, cooler. More dim. They were still warm. The blanket draped over them remained gentle. The couch, too. It was soft. Ciça had gone into the kitchen and come back a couple times already. They were watching. They liked watching her.
A breeze came in from the open door. If it turned its head, it would be able to see the stars, even. There weren't any stars back at the house. Not back at the 129B. Not there.
“What are you cooking?” It worked itself up to ask, after a minute. Ciça liked making small talk. It needed to get itself together and be back to normal. Its voice came out too small. Espa bit its lip in shame.
The woman seemed to perk up at it, regardless. Her eyes carried a pleasant surprise when she turned. There was a little smile on her lips, as she did. Espa felt as if the sun was back up in the sky.
They blinked out the image. Hugged themself tighter.
“A salad, some snacks” Ciça hummed in response. She was up on her feet now, putting something together on a tray. The fan had never been turned off, its blows mixing with the breeze coming from outside. “Preparing some things for my birthday on Sunday.”
It blinked again.
“...Birthday?”
A giggle. Espa ran a hand through its arm. Shakily breathed out. Their mind was still whirling. But they must be good enough to go out and about now. Fucking finally. Ciça shot a glance at her, looking slightly coy. Like an excited kid. Her smile showed teeth.
It was in a cute way.
“Yup!” She turned back to whatever she was doing. Espa shifted the slightest bit in its spot to try and see what it was. Their body was too heavy to move much. They felt slow. The sky darkened beyond the windows. “The twenty-second. Called some people to come by,” she commented. “Not family, they... nobody would come, I’m sure. But there’s Denise, from my gym, a couple friends. I’m planning a little lunch with vatapá and caruru. The salad is a side dish. Most of the rest should be done by then. Denise will come help me out on the weekend, too.”
She didn’t answer. Birthday. Breathed out.
“Oh, by the way,” she resumed. “When’s yours, Espa?”
It whimpered. “Sorry?”
“Your birthday?” Her face was soft. “You don’t, uh, need to tell me. Just curious. We could do something sometime.”
It looked back down. It was the second time they were asked this very question that week. “March fourteen,” they said. It was as true as they could muster. That was when everybody back at home counted it, anyways. For everyone. And they were no exception. “That’s nice,” it managed. "Your party.”
Ciça nodded. She sat back down, cracking her back, and then set her eyes back at them.
“Would you want to come?”
They gripped tighter at the blanket. Fuck.
“No! No, I mean, I understand. You might not. I wouldn't be upset. You don’t need to put yourself in danger, or anything,” she was quick to add. Espa internally groaned. Fuck. “But if you... want to come, you can. It’ll be a little after noon, but there should still be food until way after, too. I won’t be sleeping early either.”
Espa bit its lip. Sunday. Two days from now. They remembered what they had to do on Sunday. A heavy wave of defeat settled over them, final.
Ferdinand’s yelling and blabbering cut through their memory. They breathed in, shaky. He was always so loud. Espa wasn’t loud like that. Hell, not even Gisele was. What was wrong with him? It would be certainly busy that day. And Ms. Ann was bound to be home, too.
No. She might already be at this hour. It had to go back.
It felt choked up. “I’m sorry,” they started. They didn’t want to let go of the blanket. They couldn’t melt. They needed to go back.
It was warm.
“I—” an excuse. It needed to give her some reason. Fuck. Espa hated this. It had to go. Didn’t it? I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
That was all they ended up repeating. Espa didn’t feel fully in control of its own words. They needed to breathe. Their mouth felt dry.
“It’s okay,” her voice. Espa looked up, tasting blood. It was gentle. It was warm. It hurt. “I understand, Espa. It’s okay. I’m not upset,” she lied. Espa wanted to die. “It’s okay.”
The words echoed in their ears as Espa said goodbye for the evening.
Ciça waved at them, a smile on her face. Espa wanted to smile back. They couldn’t do this little. They were bad at smiling. Their face felt as if it was made of mud.
The warmth of the blanket—of the sun—didn’t disperse even as they walked through the rapidly cooling streets. Not as they came to a halt in a corner, overcome by a sudden wave of nausea, one that made them shake as they pushed through. Not as they made the over-familiar steps back to the house, walked through the old park with broken swingers. The smell of its trees, the yellowish glow of the street lights—they’d done this path enough times to go back home with their eyes closed. It didn’t even notice as it finally came into view.
Tucked in between two other houses—identical, all of them—a subtle couple numbers and letters near its front gate indicating why it was any different from the others.
The plate had four characters. Four. Nearly the same amount as the ones branded onto her arm.
129B.
--
When Espa’s name was shouted from the living room, the door closing with a smooth click, Gisele’s blood ran cold. She turned her neck to stare at the laundry room’s entrance. Horror closed around her like a snake suffocating its prey.
The kid still wasn’t back.
“Where is she?”
Gi thought the floor would crumble below her feet when the handler snapped her door open and glared down at her, a monster straight out of her nightmares. Ann’s eyes were dark. Darker against her light skin. Gi’s eyes fled from her figure.
Her breath went heavier.
“Espada, she’s not here,” she hissed. “Answer. Where is she?”
Fuck. Fuck.
“I—I d-don’t—” she shut herself up. No. She was about to tell the truth. When had the truth ever helped with Ann? “S-she, I-I...” Her lip quivered. Gi told herself to get it together. “I—I’m not sure. I think she went f-for a walk? Maybe look for you?” She flinched. “It’s been. It’s—it’s been a couple minutes, I d-don’t know when she’ll be back.”
It was already late enough for the windows to be barred shut. Espa had been gone right after lunch. The sun hadn’t seen her come back.
Gisele’s lies were met with silence.
She felt like her lungs would fully fail at any moment.
A strained sigh. Ann left.
Gi quivered, panting. The woman stomped away from the laundry room and she couldn’t move. The door was left open. Exposed. Vulnerable. Gi almost didn’t have it in her to close it back. Her ears were ringing.
Fuck.
Espada arrived in five. She knew it, because in five, a loud slap reverberated through the house. Then yelling and shouting. It was only one voice. Hers. Gi’s heart jumped to her throat. She had no reason to be scared. Her body seemed to think Ann herself was just reason enough.
It wasn’t completely wrong.
The kid came nursing her arm half an hour later, and the crack of the whip still echoed on her ears. There was blood. Espa’s face was placid. Gi was sure hers was full of tears.
She gave her a hug. Espa tensed under her.
“Sorry-sorry!” She was aggravating her injuries. This was terrible. This was bad. “You’re okay. You’re okay? I didn’t mean to hurt you.” Her eyes scanned them up and down. Espa looked tired today. Gi ran her hand through her hair. There were no words of comfort inside her. A lock of curls fell down her face. She hesitated, reached out to hold Espa’s hand in hers. They almost recoiled. “Was she—was she hard on you? I’m sorry. I—I said you were only gone for a few minutes,” she mumbled. Fuck. Her eyes welled up. “I wish I could stop her.”
Something shifted in Espa’s eyes. They looked away.
“It’s okay. Thank you.”
The words left a bitter taste in her mouth. She tried studying their face, looking for signs of pain that were never there. The only thing she found was the same old neutrality. A careful concealed expression. Mild, just soft enough not to be a scowl. And the shaking. It wasn’t much, just a tremour on their jaw, an unsteadiness in their hands, but—Espa had been shaking all day. Ever since she caught them collapsing in the garage. And she hadn’t stopped since.
Gisele gulped down the emotions to keep them out of her voice. She tucked Espa’s hand closer to herself. It offered no resistance. Old scars and half-healed bruises were spread on the skin, a variety of shapes. The fingers were calloused, nails clipped to the base. It was cold.
“Here,” she bit the inside of her mouth. “I’ll patch you up.”
Previous // Part 2 ->
Taglist: @otter-chaos-violence @oros-ash3s @inhurtandincomfort @swisscheesethethird @warmfuzz-ies @whumpawaydarling @catnykit @melpomenelamusa @whump-until-wretched @sir-fenris @stars-hide-our-fires @mxrr0rball
chapter 23 — a sina named return
translation notes: "sina" means "destiny", a fate which one always falls back into and cannot seem to escape.
CWs: Aftermath of character death, aftermath of torture, grief, some dissociation, servant whumpee, living weapon whumpee, multiple whumpees, child whumpee, past whump, self-blaming, brief reference to gunshot wound, references to death and murder, offscreen violence.
We're so back.
Masterlist || previous
The tap sang, the water’s pour fading seamless into the muffled hissing outside. Sore, bony hands rinsed the plate under the current and turned it around, gently wiping the foam off its outer rim. The tips of the fingers were already soggy with humidity, brittle nails hastily cut uneven. The dish drainer clinked softly as it was lowered into its grid, porcelain joining the others.
Gisele sighed.
The cold wet night outside seeped in from the walls and the tiles on the floor like it wanted to scoop her skin, dig deep, take out all of the heat in her bones. Her clothes didn’t do much to protect her from it. Her soles, shaky supports to her weight, were barefoot; the little PJ shorts and the flaccid tank top were all she had, even if its straps kept falling down her shoulder in an unending cycle of adjusting and re-adjusting. Phantom goosebumps trailed across every inch of exposed skin, defenseless victims against the drop in the air. The chilly water from the tap didn’t help. She scrubbed her eyes, trying not to let the cold get too much to her. The rain had started more than an hour ago. She’d been home alone far before it’d even started.
Gi hadn’t really expected to be so. She might’ve even been a little confused. It was a buzzy feeling, far away like dregs echoing in the murky depths of her mind. Worry? Though not all that much. She had more pressing issues at hand and tasks to do before heading to bed. Besides, she figured, Ann was going out a lot lately anyways. What was the harm in another little outing? It wasn’t like she was paid to care.
Paid. Ha.
(Espa wasn’t going out, though. This wasn’t fully normal.)
(But then again, maybe she was just going back to her little outdoors routine?) (She hoped so. The kid looked miserable stuck at home.)
(She couldn’t say she didn’t relate.)
There was that, that unease, baseline by now, and slightly nostalgic, about hoping they’d come home before the handler noticed they were gone. There had been something off earlier. Espa had risen in a rush from the hallway as if having seen a ghost and stormed out the door with barely a fumbled explanation when questioned. It’d been more alarming right then. But even as the clock ticked, the most noteworthy thing that had happened was a roach hiding behind the fridge. The sense of urgency might’ve atrophied. Her brain forgetting about the feeling, Gi figured the asshole could’ve just forgotten something and they went out to take it. Her keys, perhaps? She’d sighed sadly at the idea. It would have been far too much luck.
Maybe Gisele should’ve been more concerned. And yet, she was slowly learning to let these fade into the background. Drowned out by the dense fall of water on the sink and the heavy splatter outside on the ceiling, lest she drive herself up the walls with paranoia. Espa had been good at evading their handler so far. On most occasions, at least. So she wasn’t actually thinking that much about it. She was currently more focused on scrubbing off a stubborn stain from a wooden spoon with the harsh side of the sponge, fruitlessly willing the excess fat to get out.
That was a little before the clock hit nine.
Gi’s body painfully locked up at once when the gate echoed open. It was loud—louder than Espa would’ve done. They, they were always quiet. She bit the inside of her cheek as she made herself keep looking down and focus on the fucking spoon. Her stomach just sunk, somewhat in sympathy. So she was here first. That was a shame.
Then she got in the range of the smell.
Gisele’s awareness had been, she would notice, gradually moulded by her time here. “Here” as in the house, the hellish, mind-numbing and terrifying weeks under the handler’s angry scorn. “Here” as in bound to these people by a ring of steel around her throat, almost like the collar of an animal, caged inside tiny little walls to never see the stars. She was sensitive to some things, now. The sound of angry steps, for one. The harsh plap of skin against skin.
And far worse than what had ever spilled from her monthly pads, the distinctive, metallic scent of blood.
Gi’s own turned to ice in her veins as the handler strode her way across the garage and shoved open the door to the living room. Her flip-flops were stained by mud. The rain got louder for a second before she shut it, smearing her crime all over the floor Gisele had just finished cleaning. Crimson red dripped beside the puddles. It leaked from something ugly on the figure she carried inside, a sack of potatoes made out of flesh and meat. Gi’s breath hitched as her eyes laid on it. It was like a knife to the skull.
Espa looked, in short words, like they’d just come back from hell.
Her hold on the sponge weakened without her meaning to. It was a miracle the spoon didn’t slip from her fingers and clattered to the floor then and there. Espa’s clothes dripped water, made sticky and heavy with the rain. They didn’t seem to notice. Their hands were soaked in thick, awful red. There were smears of gore on her face. Bruises and cuts fought for attention on the surface of her deep brown skin, dark bruises of wrong shades and sharp, bright splinters freeing the blood from her body. Their bandana had fallen off somewhere in the way, leaving their hair in an indistinct cloud around their face. Their feet were bare. And their eyes were downcast.
Their eyes.
Before she could even think about regretting it, the girl found herself bolting to her side. She scrambled to wipe the soap off her hands on the frayed tank top, ignoring Ann’s imposing figure to try and catch them when she released them from her grip. Gisele was trembling. The kid looked ruined. Fragile. Her brain started aimlessly running alarm bells at some point, without an outlet for what to do. Oh, fuck. What had—Was she—
Her mouth parted on its own. She didn’t know why. To ask, to cry, to shush, to scream for help. The handler brushed her wet strands off her face and shook her head, passing through the girl with a sigh. With a sharp twist and without changing her gait, she yanked her by the hair.
The breath got caught up in Gi’s throat. She coughed, adrenaline shooting through her system. “I—” she panted, “N-no, what did—no, no, no no no! No, no, nono please, she—” Her brain blanked as Ann’s fingers ruthlessly twisted and unmade her flimsy bun, scrambling to come up with anything coherent amongst the cloud of indistinct, sudden fear. Worry won. “What happened to her?”
The words were delivered nearly with tears. Ann just stared her down in poorly-concealed disdain. There was a worn-out accent to her usually vicious scowl. Gi curled up on herself when she dropped her butt-first against the hall’s entryway, a mute order to go back to the kitchen. She bit down a whimper at the impact to the floor as Ann sighed, again. It was heavy and dragged-out. “She’s fine,” she provided. Then added, darker, “The blood’s not hers.”
Gi just stared at her. Her ears were roaring. Espa remained limp where they fell when Ann ripped her from them. She was breathing hard and she didn’t like it. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
She flinched when Ann turned her head back with a disbelieving glare, remembering who it was whom she was exactly talking to.
Gi’s brain helpfully deprived her of remembering just what happened next. When she came back to herself, her arms were shakily risen over her head to shield it, her eyes were tearing up, and her cheek stung.
And the handler was gone.
The sky still poured buckets outside, providing thick white noise to fill in the cracks of the night. She half-swallowed a hiccup, unexpected, as her eyes laid more clearly on the pool of mud where had been her friend. Her tongue tasted bitter.
Her skin numbly prickled into the humid air. It was coated in the stench of blood she was going to be made to clean. Gisele sat there for a moment, hearing the rain assaulting her ears. She made herself get up. Choked on saliva. Furiously wiped her eyes.
Fuck. She needed to find out what had happened to them.
Experience was enough to tell her that after Ann took them, they would probably need her help. She forced herself to breathe in.
She didn’t finish washing the dishes.
The girl jerked in a flinch when the handler finally unlocked the basement’s door from the inside. She arose from the underground smoothly, drying her hands with the casual abandon of someone back from a bathroom break. Ann merely spared her another one of those looks as she came out. She sunk in on herself. The handler produced some sound of annoyance from low in her throat, something her brain was tempted to confuse for a snarl. It made her hackles raise.
“She’s not allowed to come up,” she ordered, not even looking at her. Gi’s eyes locked on her with the rapt attention of a bunny in face of its end. A shift on Ann’s jaw betrayed her mood. Her voice was tight and she was completely out of patience and maybe Gisele shouldn’t have come here right now. “Patch her up. Don’t pull some shit like feeding her sorry ass either.” She groaned. “I’m going to bed.”
With that last announcement, she stomped away. Gi kept staring as her feet pounded the floor on the way out. Ann’s fingers soothingly caressed the bridge of her nose in a nervous habit, and the laundry room’s door closed with an ugly thump. Her body still took some more to move.
Gi turned her face to look underground.
The staircase stretched out into the heart of the darkness, underground. The bottom was so obscured it gave the impression of being infinite. It was as dense an atmosphere as she remembered. She second-doubted her willingness to go and help, for a second. Surely Espa could deal with it on her own?
The thought made the bittery taste on her mouth grow acrid. She put a hand on the doorknob and lowered herself into the basement. She made a valuable effort of blocking her brain from its thoughts and the shaking from her hands.
The taste grew worse, as she walked down the stairs.
Light invaded her eyes when she reached the door at the bottom to enter. Gi winced. The basement also had those bright, painful lamps from upstairs. She’d nearly forgotten. It was so... dark, in her mind. As Gisele tried to blink away the shock to focus her vision, assaulted from where she stood, the figure down there twitched. It was too minute a movement for her dazed eyes to catch. Gi breathed out. She went down the final step. Didn’t dare close the door behind her.
Once inside the basement proper, it was like being caged in a nightmare. She ignored the whip stand screaming for attention on the corner of her eye, feeling her knees buckle. Her breath hitched. She held her ground. Not now. Not now. She swallowed something that tasted an awful lot like bile. It felt a bit like a dream. Kind of in the bad way and kind of in the numb one. Or like being wrapped all around by the deep sea. Gi shook herself out of it as she found it. They were there.
Espa was kneeling. Or collapsed on their knees, rather. Which she tried not to notice too hard. When they caught her presence, they flinched. Hard. Gi startled to a halt, frozen.
For a moment, nerves already stretched thin, both girls just stared at each other. Or at least, Espa did. She couldn’t quite stand to look for long.
Ann had taken their shirt. The collar around their throat looked terribly visible in its absence.
Gisele felt her face make an unhappy grimace in response. They followed her with their eyes in their spot as she made her way there. Carefully. She hadn’t forgotten the medicine kit. “...Hey,” she greeted low, throat tight. Her vision was swimming, but she tried to ignore it. (Emphasis on tried.) The weapon’s expression was hard to make out. It seemed dangerously close to something she couldn’t bring herself to quite name. Her voice trembled, going high and hysterical instead of gentle. “Are you okay?”
She winced at their lack of response. Bad one. “Sorry.”
Her eyes tracked Espa biting their lip, and they turned their pained expression to the floor. Gi tried not to chew down on her own. She eyed her wounded sack of a body, enthralled by the horror. Ann had made it worse. Gi’s eyes were captive to the sight of the single drop of blood falling down. Some patches of bare skin were burnt.
Cauterized.
She belatedly realized, with a bit of detached alarm, that they were shaking. But didn’t move. If not for the trembling, death grip they had on their own arms, one would’ve thought them a picture. Separated from the viewer by a layer of paper. She shakily set the little box on the floor, eyes on them. No reaction.
Gisele took a deep breath. She tentatively lowered herself on their side. Their chest rose at a timid, rigid pace. Her fingertips were so sunken she was afraid they might draw blood. Gi’s tongue felt thick. This was bad. She pushed out, with difficulty: “What—what did she do?”
To her surprise, the weapon’s eyes started to brim, shiny, with what she took yet a moment or two to realize that were tears.
--
The weapon had fought to drag its body back in control when it was left alone. They weren’t so successful with their mind.
Ms. Ann’s voice was still ringing indistinctly in their head. It couldn’t make out the ghosts of the words as much as sit with them, paralyzed. Other feelings fought for attention, and they couldn’t do a thing to stop them. They still felt the rain. A foreign stone was sunk deep where its vocal chords should be. Everything hurt.
So much they couldn’t breathe.
It might’ve been minutes or hours after when the door opened again. It had still been in position—in a fool’s attempt to pass for one. It might’ve been their last scraps of obedience, or rather it might’ve been that it couldn’t focus long enough to make its body move. Pathetic, truly. It didn’t even want to do so. The weapon had been drowning in a haze of nameless emotions when she arrived, with no hope to come up for air.
It wasn’t sure that it even deserved to.
She braced for pain—or would have, were she any more capable—but it wasn’t even Ann. It was Gisele. They flinched against themself when they heard her steps. It sunk its fingers, stopping mid-soothe, deeper into its arms. It was instinctive.
She looked scared. And sad, which ached some part of them they couldn’t place, and after she stepped down from the stairs she slowly started approaching them. Its eyes tracked her like they would a threat. They couldn’t do much else. Its arms throbbed. Its skin stung. It had been sinking in for the past thirty minutes that it had been years since it’d gotten her that mad.
Gisele looked at it and asked it if it was okay.
A good weapon would’ve answered. They didn’t even want to exist right now.
From the corner of its eye, it only noticed her getting more worked up and nervous. She squatted down with some difficulty. “...What—what did she do?”
Something unpleasant rose up with the memory. It wished its brain wasn’t working well enough to supply that.
Gisele looked sadder. Her hands hovered uselessly in front of her body, and Espa sunk its own deeper into its arm. It sucked in a breath. Then a drop of water slid down their cheek and fell from their face.
Oh.
Fuck.
“Oh, no.” Gisele let out in a breath. “Shit—hey, hey, I’m here, okay? She’s gone.” That struck them like a belt. “You’re good, you’re g-good, okay? Espa?” It tasted blood. It didn’t dare cover its eyes. But it didn’t want her to see, either. Pitiful. Espada blinked, trying to get their breathing to even. In, Espa. She could focus on just one thing. (She couldn’t.) In. Out. In, hold it there, and— “Y-you—it’s okay,” repeated the servant. Gisele wasn’t good at this. It was awkward. They just needed to breathe and get it together. The air smelled like blood.
She’s gone.
Nails sunk into their skin. Like her blood.
The weapon breathed in again, trying not to choke. In. In, and—no, no, no no no. No. Out. They could calm down. They just needed a second, then they’d be good again. It tried opening its mouth to tell her so.
Her hands met its hair and any semblance of eloquence died right there.
Gisele looked at her, expression somewhat baffled and horrified, and started petting its head in the same spot its handler did when it pleased her enough. Unlike they had today. Espa’s skin was wet—not all of it was water—and dry. The warmth of hers was clammy and damning. It tried to focus on the blisters on its body instead. Nothing was working. “She’s gone. You’re good now.” It was strangled. “I’m here. O-okay? I’m here. You’re okay.”
An ugly shake tried to take over their body. Espa’s eyes spilled. It shot up a hand to cover its mouth before the sounds started coming out.
“Oh—hey, hey, it’s okay. Here, I got you, okay?” It couldn’t breathe. The harder Espa tried to hold it in, get themself together, the closer it got to just getting out. Gisele reached out closer, easy and fluid as a dancer, and pulled its head closer. “Shh. It’s okay. She was rough. You can cry. I’m here.”
The closer touch somehow made it even worse. Espa’s breath catched. It shouldn’t. F-fuck, she—
They’d held Ciça like this. Just hours before.
It wanted to scream.
Gisele wouldn’t let them go until they stopped—until they stopped fucking crying, so it just had to get it together and stop. Its chest hurt. Espa’s throat produced a pathetic noise their hand wasn’t enough to muffle, and they started to lose control. Water fell onto her shoulder. Espa needed to get away. Gisele’s skin against its own was too much to handle. They were going to crumble. They couldn’t do it. They tried to leave their mouth free to gasp for air.
They shouldn’t have done that, in retrospect.
The basement echoed with a whine, involuntary and breathless. Espa bit its mouth shut to abort it, but it was too late. Gisele seemed a bit shocked. Its whole body was sore. Her wrath, their stupid fucking defiance, the fading adrenaline, it all blended together in a dull, sharp pain. Its mind wandered to her, left there. The rain must be making the body cold right now.
The bullet wound on its arm lit up. Espa couldn’t breathe.
Why?
Oh, god, they were—they’d done it. Ciça’s blank eyes faced them when they tried to close theirs, previously shining stars blinking out into a hollow darkness. She had been so scared. She had been in pain. Something awful, something worse, got caught somewhere between its chest and its throat and made its whole body convulse with the contained noise. Their chest clenched, spreading cold through their limbs. She was still there. Limp. Vulnerable. Hurt. Destroyed. It shouldn’t have let her get hurt. They should’ve protected her. They should’ve kept Ms. Ann away. They should’ve been more careful. They—
She wasn’t supposed to be gone.
It couldn’t stop the tears as they came. It couldn’t stop the awful, traitorous trembling. It couldn’t stop Ms. Ann. It couldn’t stop a bullet that had already been fired, lodged into her chest. The blood oozing from it looked sick. It looked wrong. Why now? Why her? Ciça was so good, she didn’t deserve—It hadn’t even been her fault. She didn’t even know. They should’ve warned her. They belatedly remembered, as if it had been weeks ago, when they ran through the town earlier, looking for her. They should’ve been faster. They clung to an image, a realization slowly washing down on them.
Her house.
They hadn’t locked back the porch when they left.
It dropped heavy on its body. Nobody would be there to lock it back again. Her plants had just been watered, but who—who was going to take care of them? Would they miss her? It pictured the lonely daisy at the porch, withering away in the wind. It gagged. Her fridge. All the nice food in her fridge was going to waste. Her wardrobe was going to stay there, forgotten. Catching dust.
It wasn’t supposed to end. She should still have time. It recalled that she had bought a special pair of pants to use in the holidays the other week. They were new. She was excited, gloating about it. She was excited to wear them. She was excited about her TV show. She must’ve been excited for tomorrow. She was supposed to sleep in her bed tonight. Cozy. Warm.
She hadn’t even gotten to eat the rest of the chocolate cake she’d done before Ms. Ann got her.
Espa couldn’t breathe. They couldn’t think, nor will themself to move. They sagged to the floor, a useless, worthless puddle of poorly-muffled noise and shaking and water and weakness and her blood, and they just quit. It wished she could be fine. It wished she could go back home, tender and whole and safe. She was planning to see her nephew, in a month. The water falling down its cheeks and the deadly burning in the depths of its throat felt as bad as Gisele’s shooshing, her hand painstakingly rubbing, pressing down the exposed vertebrae of its back. It made them sick with poison from inside. Weapons were used to dead bodies. They’d made dozens of them fall. They’d checked fallen assets, searched for their pulse just so they could give the headquarters an accurate report of the loss. They’d searched for it in the factory. They knew where to look.
Right now, it was like they could feel it in real time. Ciça’s breathing, slowing down to a pained stop. Her lungs struggled, trying to keep breathing. It wasn’t their choice to make. Her heart, fluttering weaker under their fingertips. Then the blood. The twitches. The bullet, sinking deep. Weapons were used to dead bodies. Weapons, if they were keeping track, could tell exactly when a person became one, from one second to the next. The carcass had still been warm then. She’d always run warm.
It shouldn’t have been her.
Espa thought, for nearly a full second, that they were drowning. They weren’t sure of where was up and where was down. Everything hurt. Its mouth opened and closed, but no air came in. Everything felt heavy, oppressive. Everything burnt. There was water everywhere. They were cold. Gisele was still there. They couldn’t take it anymore. Every brush of her skin against their bare back (bare? When had they even—) made them recoil. It was like bugs crawling up their ribs, thousands of centipedes making their way through their flesh. Her other hand was dangerously close to their neck. The collar was almost a welcome defense on there. It half-wished it’d go off and fry them to the core.
It could barely move its fingers when it shakily raised a hand to shove her off. It wasn’t thinking clearly. If it had, it wouldn’t have done that. Weapons didn’t retract. Weapons didn’t tremble on the floor like stupid fledglings. Weapons didn’t allow their charges to die.
It felt more tears coming. It covered its mouth again, helpless, and curled away.
Gisele stayed there, unmoved and in increasing shock, as the weapon kept hammering onto the thought that she should be alive. As if, if they wished for it strongly enough, it would come true. Ciça’s tender, big hands. Her wrinkled smile. The laugh lines around her eyes. Her large frame, the little skin rolls on her back, the little pleased hum she did when she cooked for herself. How she licked her fingers when she ate fruit. How her laughter echoed through the air pristine like a bell. Her buzzed hair was always itching. She was always talking about how it’d been too long and she already needed to shave it again. The taste of long-gone bread hugged its tongue, bitter. It squeezed its eyes shut, soaking into the ghost of warmth.
It all blinked into nothing, followed by the thunder of a gunshot.
It wanted to scream.
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