((Hahah so y'know that askbox roulette meme, just for fun I rolled one for Skrah and his girlfriend.
And got 'shot in the head'.
Oops.))
"........"
This afternoon had gone from lazy and peaceful to deadly in a matter of minutes.
Skrah had assumed that it would be a nice day off. A nice breakfast, a quiet afternoon together, a few little exchanged nudges and kisses each time they passed by one another. He’d eventually laid down on his side on the couch to read for a bit and had ended up spending more time watching Delta than actually reading, the sniper having settled on the floor to clean one of her smaller guns, a 9mm from the looks of it.
He hadn’t meant to doze off, but it was so serene and the quiet was pleasant rather than awkward and he’d closed his eyes for about three seconds too long and slipped into hibernation.
It was either a blessing or a curse that he was a light sleeper- light enough for the clatter of a gun falling to the ground to jerk him out of his nap. He sat up with a soft grunt, violet eyes still too hazy from sleep to properly focus. “You okay, Del?” he mumbled. It wasn’t like her to drop things, after all, much less guns.
To his surprise, she’d gotten to her feet, her back toward the couch and her posture oddly rigid, as if she was fixated on something. “Delta?” he prompted again, brushing his hair out of his eyes and stifling a yawn as he got to his feet and moved to reach a hand toward her shoulder. “What’s-”
She swatted his hand away with a surprising amount of force, her other hand reaching for a dagger hidden in the front pocket of her hoodie. Skrah took a reflexive step back, holding his hands up as if to show he wasn’t a threat and feeling a cold knot of unease settle in the pit of his stomach when she turned toward him.
Her gaze was all but blank, eyes eerily wide and face near-expressionless. It took Skrah but a second to recognize all the indications that her free will had been bypassed, and it was a damn good thing that he realized it so fast too because it took about one point two seconds for her to decide he was a threat and go straight for the attack.
He narrowly dodged to one side and knocked her arm off target with his elbow, taking several quick steps back and settling into a defensive stance. This had happened before; he didn’t know how her creator had gotten his hands on her bypass code, but he did know that it was bad. Delta being the prototype of her line, her creator wanted her back.
There was no way in hell Skrah planned on letting that happen.
Mind you, not letting it happen was easier said than done considering that for one, he wasn’t wearing any armor, and for another, there was really no way to talk down a deadly-fast Reploid with no free will and a dagger in her hand and probably several more tucked away in various areas of her person. Not to mention Delta seemed to have decided that her boyfriend was currently a very big threat, or at least something that would prevent her from returning to her creator as her directive commanded.
“Asimov dammit,” Skrah hissed, finding himself able to do little more than back away and play a hard game of defense for the moment. Delta was relentless. Not that she wasn’t relentless when they sparred in general, but at least when they sparred she wasn’t trying to actually slice his neck open.
As soon as the thought crossed his mind, a misstep and a slow block led to a plasma blade slashing its way across the front left side of his neck- right over an old scar, no less. It wasn’t deep enough to cause any significant damage, but it still stung like hell and made his core race with fear at just how close that had been to something more vital.
Shit.
Something seemed to snap into place in his head, and he spun and elbowed the sniper in the chest hard enough to knock her back a foot or so. He seized the opening at once, darting back over to the couch and grabbing the headset off of the side table. “Shit, Delta, don’t make me do this,” he muttered to himself, quick to turn and block her next attack even as he got to work trying to establish a wireless link.
To his frustration, he was met with the equivalent of a solid steel blockade of protections and encryptions and firewalls, none of which he had the time or focus to even attempt to hack through. Delta’s hand tightened imperceptibly around her dagger, and she suddenly sprang toward him with what seemed like twice the speed of her previous attacks, as if the hacking attempt had only served to piss her off- or as close to pissed off as Skrah assumed she could get in this state.
It was taking all of Skrah’s focus just to keep himself alive, every nick from the sniper’s attacks only further cementing the fear in the pit of his stomach. He needed to get in and disable her, just one good hit to the right pressure point would-
“Tnod etatiseh.”
The garbled transmission caused him to start visibly, a low hiss of pain escaping him when the moment of lost focus landed him with a dagger in his left shoulder. He recognized the wireless signal easily enough, though it took him a moment to translate through the fact that Delta was somehow speaking to him backwards.
Skrah could only assume that she was using some kind of cipher to get through her bypass, and he could also assume by the shakiness of the signal that she was having a hell of a time doing so. “Od tahw uoy evah ot od. Ym kaew tops si eht kcab fo ym kcen. Fi uoy tnac hcaer taht neht-”
The transmission cut out to static, and it was only through long practice at keeping his cool under pressure that Skrah didn’t find himself shaking at the sense of dread he felt settling over him. “Dammit, I can’t do that,” he whispered aloud. She was too fast to land a precise enough hit to disable her and getting behind her would be an exercise in futility, so what was he supposed to-
Two more swings and Delta had pulled two more daggers from Asimov only knew where, one of those missing Skrah’s chin by less than an inch and the other one burying itself up to the hilt in his left thigh. An audible noise of pain close to a shout escaped him, and Delta spun in the pause, kicking him hard enough in the stomach to slam him down on his back.
Skrah both felt and heard his head crack against the wood floor, though he didn’t have a lot of time to lament it before Delta was quite literally on top of him. He started to lift his left arm, and she retaliated by bringing her other dagger down into his bicep to pin him to the floor. Shit, this was bad, this was beyond being bad, everyone he knew who’d ever gotten pinned in a life or death fight had been . . . had been . . .
Delta reached around behind her neck and pulled yet another dagger, and Skrah would’ve been mildly amused had he not been terrified out of his wits. For the moment, however, he was far more concerned with the plasma blade that she was trying very hard to stab down into his chest, even as he grabbed her wrist with his free hand and tried to force her back. The motion sent a jolt of pain through his injured shoulder, and he became aware that she was going to eventually win out in a contest of pure strength; injured and pinned as he was, there was no way he could keep holding her off.
Shit, she was going to kill him, he couldn’t let himself be killed he didn’t want to die, and if she killed him then her creator would get his hands on her and he couldn’t let that happen and Asimov he didn’t want to die! Fear-filled violet eyes darted back and forth, rapidly searching the room for something he could use in a pinch, anything he just needed something-
His gaze fell on the 9mm pistol that Delta had been cleaning, the gun still laying on the floor where it had been dropped. It was right in his reach, if he could get her off of him for two seconds- but there was no way a even gunshot would do more than slow her down for a second or two in this state, dammit, not unless he . . .
Oh, Asimov . . .
His hand was shaking against her wrist, she was winning dammit and the closer the tip of her dagger got to his chest the more desperation crept into his core and he- he couldn’t, it was kill or be killed he couldn’t-
Kill . . . kill or be killed . . .
With a shout of exertion, he forced his weight upward as hard as he could, twisting the sniper’s wrist and bringing his elbow around to strike the side of her head. Before he could change his mind, before he could hesitate and allow her time to regain her bearings and make another stab at him, he snatched the gun up from the floor and pointed the muzzle toward his attacker.
A single gunshot rang out, echoing off of the church walls, followed by a soft thump of someone’s body hitting the ground.
Then it was quiet.
Skrah slowly allowed the gun to slide from his fingers and laid his head back, violet eyes drifting shut. His core was still racing, chest rising and falling in shaky gasps as he struggled to catch his breath. It’s over, he tried to assure himself. It’s over, you’re fine, you’re safe, you’re alive, it’s over. It’s over . . .
He reached over to pull the dagger from his bicep so that he could sit up properly, the pain of the wounds she’d inflicted finally catching up to him. Somehow, though, that was nothing compared to the stab he felt in his core when the reality of what had just happened began to settle over his frantic thoughts.
Wincing with every movement, Skrah reached over to tug Delta into his lap with shaking hands, feeling a wave of the Reploid equivalent of nausea settle over him. There was a dark spot right between her eyes that even a fool would’ve recognized as a bullet wound, coolant spilling steadily from the back of her head and-
For one reason or another, his mind drifted back to an old story Delta had told him from before her days as a mercenary, of a fellow Hunter whom she’d been so close to, who had worked himself too hard and lost his sanity to a virus. How Delta herself had been forced to . . .
Forced to . . .
Irony could be such a cruel mistress, he thought to himself bitterly as he hunched over and clutched the sniper’s rapidly-cooling chassis closer to himself.
He didn’t so much as stir at the sound of approaching footsteps about ten minutes later, even a concerned call of his name doing nothing to rouse him. “Hey!” the familiar voice of his brother-in-arms insisted. “Skrah, what happened? You guys okay?”
Axl skidded his way to a stop at Skrah’s side, dropping to his knees with a frown on his face and teal eyes wide with worry. “What’s going on, is she alright? What-” His voice trailed off when he saw the bullet wound on the sniper’s forehead, the numerous wounds on Skrah’s body still dripping coolant, the 9mm pistol nearby-
“O-oh, Asimov,” Axl whispered. “S-Skrah, hey, look at me, okay? What happened to you guys? Did someone attack the church or what?”
To his dismay, Skrah’s only response was to turn his head away and hold Delta a bit tighter.
Axl frowned, but seeing as how his proximity scans weren’t picking anything up, he decided to assume that it was safe here for now. “Let me get you fixed up a little,” he said softly, getting to his feet and going to fetch a first aid kit from the bathroom. He could tell at a glance that the other’s wounds weren’t life-threatening, but he certainly didn’t plan to just let him sit there and bleed for the next few hours.
It pained him to see that his brother-in-arms hadn’t so much as moved by the time he returned, though a bit of gentle coaxing at least got him to loosen up enough to allow Axl to wrap some soft gauze on the worst of his injuries. “Hey,” he said once he was satisfied with his first aid work. “I know you’re shaken up, but I need you to talk to me and tell me what happened. Did you guys get attacked?”
A pause, and then Skrah slowly shook his head.
That sent a chill down Axl’s spine, his forehead creasing visibly with concern. “You two got in a fight . . . ?”
Another pause, followed by a single, tiny nod.
“What . . . what the hell . . . happened . . . ?”
Skrah drew a shaky sigh, turning his head away and closing his eyes, his voice rasping in his throat softly when he tried to speak. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he whispered. “Just . . . just go, Axl.”
“Skrah-”
“I said go!”
Axl flinched slightly at the raise in the other’s voice, getting to his feet with a nod regardless. “All right,” he said quietly. “I’ll be on the roof if you need me.”
***
The next week was hard- one of the hardest Axl knew Skrah had been through in a very long time, if ever, and it was no picnic for Axl either for that matter. They had both retreated to their own timeline for the time being, and while Axl was relieved that Skrah agreed to stay at their small headquarters where it was safe, he couldn’t say that seeing Skrah so closed-off and quiet, angry almost, was terribly fun or comforting.
On the seventh day since he’d found his brother-in-arms at the church, Axl made a very poor decision.
Well it seemed like a good idea at the time. Skrah had looked so much like a coiled snake ready to bite that Axl thought a good spar might help him let go of some of his pent-up emotion- and maybe get him to open up and talk a bit seeing as how Axl honestly still didn’t know what had happened that day.
It went well enough at first, at least until Axl gained the upper hand. Until he sensed a change in his sparring partner’s movements, saw the way his eyes darkened. He knew that look in Skrah’s eyes well enough- the look he got when he was growing desperate, the fear just behind the cold intensity. “Okay, okay, that’s enough,” Axl said, starting to loosen his stance and back down. “I think we’re done, Skrah, stand down- whoa!”
He barely ducked under a swing that likely would’ve broken his nose, practically scrambling backwards. “Skrah, enough!” he repeated. “It’s just a spar, stand d- owwwwww!”
Admittedly he should have been paying more attention to the fight than to his attempts to talk his brother-in-arms down. Hindsight was a bitch, however, because now his arm was twisted at an extraordinarily painful angle behind his back and there was very little he could do about it. “Owowowow Skrah get off!” he yelped as the former gladiator shoved him to the ground and gripped his arm that much tighter. “Arm that’s my arm get off ooowwwwww! Let go of me!”
Skrah twisted harder, and for one terrifying moment Axl thought that he truly wasn’t listening, that he was actually too far gone to hear and was going to actually wrench his arm entirely off of his-
“A-Axl?”
The gunner breathed a sigh of relief as he felt the other’s grip on him loosen, the weight on his back disappearing as Skrah got to his feet and backed away. “Freaking hell,” Axl said, pushing himself up and flexing his sore shoulder. “Okay, that was a bad idea, I admit. Sorry about that, are y-”
Before he could even finish his sentence, Skrah had already turned and sprinted out of the room, leaving Axl sitting on the floor and staring helplessly after him. “Crap,” he sighed, flopping down on his back with his arms splayed at his sides. “Well that went swimmingly . . .”
He laid there for a good ten minutes or so before reluctantly getting to his feet and ambling his way to medical to have Xan double check that nothing had been torn or dislocated. “You got lucky,” the human told him after a short scan and examination. “A few more seconds and you would’ve had some pretty badly torn musculature.”
Xan turned and pulled a syringe out of his desk drawer, quickly getting it loaded with a dose of nanites and motioning for Axl to turn. “I’ll go ahead and give you the boost to help your auto-repairs out; ping me if it gets any worse.”
Silence.
“Axl, it’s a needle, not a deadly weapon. Don’t look at me that way.”
The gunner made a noise something like a grumble, screwing his eyes shut and turning his head away and trying not to flinch at the sting of the injection. “For being an old man you sure are a baby about needles,” Xan pointed out as he turned back toward his console.
“Needles hurt,” Axl explained, getting to his feet and starting to head out. “Thanks Xan. I’ll be in my room if you need anything.”
“You still don’t know what happened, do you?”
Axl stopped in the doorway, his right hand curling into a fist for a moment before slowly relaxing. “No,” he whispered. “He’s hardly spoken to me since . . .”
“Be gentle with him,” Xan said quietly. “He’ll come around, Axl. He trusts you.”
“Yeah,” Axl said, though he didn’t sound convinced. “I know. Thanks, Xan.”
He took the walk to his bedroom slowly to allow himself time to think, stopping in his tracks as soon as he opened the door. Skrah was sound asleep on his bed, his eyes closed and his breathing slow and even. For once in his life, he was laying on his side; Axl could count on one hand the number of times he’d actually seen his brother-in-arms sleep on his side. Paranoia, he’d always assumed, a need to protect his spine and neck while he slept.
Axl crossed the room as quietly as he could, his features softening visibly when he caught sight of the black and green hoodie folded under Skrah’s cheek like a pillow. Not having the heart to wake him when he was finally getting some rest, Axl simply laid a blanket over the sleeping Reploid’s shoulders and slid a chair up so that he could sit nearby and keep an eye on him.
It would be a few hours before Skrah stirred, and only then to whimper softly and curl up tighter under his blanket. Axl frowned, reaching over and daring to give him just the gentlest of nudges. He’d woken the former gladiator from nightmares before, and he knew better than jerk him or startle him- oh, he knew damn well better than to do that. “Hey,” he whispered. “Wake up, Skrah. You’re just dreaming; open your eyes . . .”
He pulled his hand back as soon as he felt the other jump slightly, Skrah’s eyes darting around almost frantically for a few moments before finally settling on Axl. Instead of speaking, he rolled over so that his back was turned, his breathing audibly too-fast and shaky. “You okay?” Axl murmured, reaching down to scoop up the cat that padded over to rub and mew at his ankles.
When Skrah didn’t answer, Axl drew a slow sigh, looking up at the ceiling as if asking the powers that be why he’d decided to adopt the most stubbornly stoic Reploid in the world as his brother. “You can talk to me, y’know,” he said quietly, giving the purring bundle of fluff in his lap a scratch behind the ears. “I’m not gonna hurt you.”
“I’m . . .” Skrah took a deep breath, seemingly to force his voice to stay steady. “I’m fine. It was just a bad dream.”
“You are absolutely not fine,” Axl said, a bit of a scolding note in his tone. “And don’t go sulking at me over what happened earlier either; I should’ve known better than to spar with you when you’re this tense. My shoulder’s just sore. Now for the love of Asimov, stop pretending you can straightface your way through the rest of your existence and talk to me.”
“What’s there to talk about, Axl? I don’t have anything to say, all right?”
Silence.
“You could tell me what happened, for one.”
“I don’t . . . want to talk about it.”
“God, you are so impossible,” Axl muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose and shaking his head. “You know, you were built with the ability to feel for a reason. It’s okay to feel.” His expression softened slightly, and he moved his hand to allow Nutters to hop onto the bed. “And it’s okay to grieve for someone.”
“S-shut up,” Skrah whispered, his voice almost hoarse with strain. “Just . . . just shut up and leave me alone, Axl, I’m not . . .” He gasped softly when Nutters plastered herself against the back of his neck, and Axl quickly reached over to tug the kitten away.
“You’re very sweet, Nutters, but I don’t think he wants anything on his neck right now,” Axl said, allowing the feline to scramble her way up onto his shoulder and snuggle up to his jawline. “I’ll feed you soon, okay? Yes, I can hear you purring and I like you too, you’re very-”
He paused halfway through his sentence, realizing that Skrah had tensed up, that he was shaking visibly as if trying to hold something back. “Hey,” Axl said softly. “You okay . . . ?”
“No,” Skrah rasped out, shifting enough to cover his head with his hands. “No, I’m . . . I’m not. I killed her, Axl. Her free will was bypassed and I couldn’t stop her and I got pinned and I was scared and I . . . I . . .”
Axl blinked, his eyes going wide as a cold realization settled over him. “I . . . I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t . . . o-oh Asimov . . .”
Almost cautiously, he reached out to lay a hand on Skrah’s arm, though he quickly pulled it back when his brother-in-arms jerked at the touch. “This is what happens,” Skrah whispered, his voice still tight with strain. “This is what happens every time, every damn time I think I’m close to someone. I always lose them, it always . . .”
A soft, pained noise escaped him, the closest he could manage to a true sob. “It hurts . . .”
There was a long pause, Axl falling silent as he searched for the right words. “She’s probably shaking her head at you from cyberspace right now,” he said at last. “You know as well as I do what her creator would’ve done to her. And I know it’s painful. I was forced to kill more people than I can count as a Hunter and as a mercenary, even people that I desperately wanted to save.” He swallowed, an image of a devil-like Reploid with a scythe in his hand and a scar over his eye coming to mind. “And she loved you, you know. She knows damn well that you did what you had to do.”
“Th-that doesn’t change the fact that I-”
“I know it doesn’t.” Axl shook his head, letting the cat slide down from his shoulder onto the bed again and this time watching to ensure that she wouldn’t fluff herself against Skrah’s neck again. “And I know it’s not going to be a snap of anyone’s fingers to get you to feel any better. What I want you to know is that I’m not gonna leave you.”
A pause.
“Yeah, I know.”
“All right . . .” Axl slowly got to his feet, dragging his chair back over to the desk and pulling a datapad out of the drawer. “Try and get some rest, okay? I’ll be here if you need anything.”
Skrah didn’t answer, and Axl took that as his cue to fall silent and start on some of the diplomacy reports he was behind on (not that being behind on reports was anything new for him). For the first of many times, he desperately wished there was a reliable way to communicate with Reploids lost to cyberspace, short of nearly dying or teleporting oneself through firewalls and scramblers specifically designed to prevent teleportation.
Axl had done both. Neither had been fun.
For the moment, however, he just wanted Skrah to rest- even a short nap would be good for him, at this point. “The long road ahead of us just got longer, brother,” he whispered to himself, chewing idly on the end of his pen as he got to work. “Asimov, someone give us both the strength to get through this . . .”
((It's almost midnight why the fuck did nightmare muse strike me NOW of all times.
Ah well. Enjoy.))
“Axl?”
He’s standing out on the roof alone again. Leaning against the edge, gazing out at the setting sun in silence. A light breeze ruffles the ponytail hanging against the back of his neck, but he doesn’t stir.
He’s been wearing his hair down like that for a long time now. Since . . . that day. It reminds him of Zero, I’m sure. I call his name again, taking a few paces toward him.
There’s a long pause, but he finally turns his head toward me, blinking as if his optics are refusing to focus. “Hey, bud,” I murmur. “You okay . . . ?”
He blinks a few more times, more slowly now. His green eyes are dull, almost closer to grey, and there’s no life in his expression. It’s like he doesn’t even recognize me. “A-Axl?” I whisper.
When he attempts to turn farther toward me, there’s a sharp snap from one of his joints, and his expression twists into a mask of pain. “Axl!” I start toward him, but the sound of him crying out in pain sends a hot stabbing sensation through my core. “Nghk-!”
I clutch a hand to my chest, my breath hitching slightly even as I continue to try to stumble closer to him. No matter how many steps I take, the distance between us doesn’t change. He whimpers every time he tries to move, eventually falling to his knees with his arms wrapped around his midsection. His armor is crumbling from his legs and arms and torso as if it’s made of no more than rust. “Axl!” I cry again, feeling another sharp pain, this one lancing its way downward toward my midsection. “H-hang on, we’ll get you some h- hgh . . . !”
A sensation of something rising in my throat catches me off-guard, and I begin to cough and splutter, each hack bringing a rush of coolant from my lips. I can’t breathe . . . my ventilation system is flooded, why is it flooded with coolant?! Why can’t I breathe?!
I try to call out- his name, a plea for help, anything- but all I manage is an unintelligible choking sound around the coolant every breath is bringing up. I can feel it spilling down my chin and neck and pooling on the ground as I fall to my hands and knees, my palms skidding in the hot, slick substance, and when I try to inhale through my nose, I can feel myself losing fluid from that too. I can only pray it’s not trickling from my eyes as well, I’m in too much pain to tell for sure.
When I manage to find the strength to look back up at him despite the unending hacking, a violent shudder runs down my spine.
He’s shaking. His eyes are wide with pain and grief and anguish and terror. His lips are moving, but I can’t hear what he’s saying around my own coughs, and it takes me several long moments before I can make out what he’s trying to say.
Don’t leave me.
“A-Ax- ghk . . . ! Hgh . . . !” I have to let my head drop so that I can keep my airway even slightly clear, the action bringing a fresh wave of coolant up from my ventilation systems. I’m . . . I’m drowning! I’m drowning in my own blood and my friend’s right there, my best friend’s right there, he’s hurt and he’s scared, he needs me, I can’t . . . I can’t . . . !
I can’t breathe . . . !
I can’t see him any more, but I can hear his voice now, and I can sense him shaking his head in desperation, and somehow I know he’s too scared to move no matter how much he wants to run from the sight. Don’t leave me, don’t leave me, don’t leave me . . . !
Skrah, please, don’t leave me, I don’t want you to leave me, please . . . !
***
“Skrah!”
The familiar voice jerks me awake, and I immediately scramble to sit up, coughing and choking as my systems try to clear the water that I’ve presumably been inhaling. Asimov dammit, I must’ve fallen asleep in the bath again and slipped underwater, my chest . . . !
“Skrah. Skrah, listen to me; just breathe.” A few moments later, I feel my girlfriend’s familiar hands on my bare skin, rubbing my chest and back to help still my coughs and ease my breathing back into a normal rhythm, and I find myself more than grateful that I’ve been leaving the door open just the slightest crack as an invitation if she wants to keep me company sometimes. “Calm down; you’re fine. Breathe . . . there you go, just calm down.”
“Th-thanks, Delta,” I manage to rasp out once I catch my breath enough to speak, though the rise and fall of my chest is still painful and rapid. A few more coughs slip out, a reflexive response more than anything; water isn’t exactly fatal to me, but my ventilation systems don’t appreciate it very much. Just water, I tell myself as I look down at my hands to see no trace of dark reddish-brown. Not coolant. Just water . . .
“Don’t mention it.” She keeps one hand rubbing my back in slow circles, and I close my eyes and allow her familiar touch to settle my rattled nerves. “I could hear you spluttering from upstairs; I didn’t figure you were trying a new style of karaoke, so . . .”
“N-not exactly, no,” I murmur, my throat raw and my chest sore from coughing so hard. “Nightmare. M-must’ve slid underwater in my sleep.” I rub my forehead tiredly. “Is Axl okay?”
“Asleep on the couch, last I saw. He must’ve crashed pretty hard if all your noise didn’t wake him.”
I nod, slowly getting to my feet and draining the water as Delta passes me a towel. “I better get back to studying . . .”
“Oh, no you don’t. Not even.” Delta puts a hand on her hip, shifting her weight to one side and throwing me that familiar look of hers- eyebrows raised, lip set in a stubborn line. “You need to get some sleep. Asimov knows you always have nightmares like this when you’re overworked.”
I open my mouth to protest, but she silences me with a quick kiss on the lips. “All right,” I sigh when she pulls away a few moments later. “All right, I’ll take a break. There really is no arguing with you, is there?”
“Never,” she replies, a grin curling at her lips as I tug on a pair of slacks and then loop an arm around her waist. “Now come on. I’ll lay next to you if it’ll help you sleep, hm?”
“I’d like that, Del,” I murmur. “I-I’d really appreciate it.”
Even so, I can’t stop myself from pausing to check on him. True to Delta’s word, he’s sound asleep on the couch, ponytail draped loosely over the back of his neck and a small blue plushie with the likeness of one of his mentors tucked under his arm. I stay there for a few minutes, running a hand through his hair and ensuring that he’s sleeping peacefully, before allowing my sniper to lead me upstairs.
I promptly settle down in bed next to her, relaxing onto my back and nestling my head against her shoulder. “Sorry,” I say softly as I close my eyes and allow her to draw me closer. “I worry about him a lot, especially lately. He hasn’t been himself.”
“I know, Skrah. I know.” She places a gentle kiss on my forehead. “Don’t apologize. It’s plain to anyone with a good pair of eyes that he’s in a lot of pain. But it’s also pretty plain to see that your being there for him helps a lot.”
She says something else, but I can’t make it out. I’m tired, I’m anxious, I feel like I just took a hammer to the chest, and my throat is still burning.
But gradually, her warm scent and the familiar hum of her core and the rise and fall of her chest as she breathes begins to soothe my racing thoughts, and I eventually find myself lulled to sleep in her arms.
Lucia hummed a high tune softly as she made her way through the city. Ever since she'd been trying more and more foods, it was something she'd been rather... or... very interested in. Being worked on all the time she didn't get things like that! And there wasn't any way it could affect her badly..... right?
She played it off with a shrug- only doing so half way before her eye caught something... or someone... that looked familiar. She looked, looked away, and then took a double take. ...Oh, boy. That was a familiar figure wasn't it? Her core buzzed for a moment as he stopped walking, thinking and thinking for before realizing who exactly she was looking at. Oh boy.
threepointdelta replied to your post: A cat had been trailing the gladiator for some time, and it seemed it was doing so rather deliberately. It was…a pretty scruffy looking cat, to be completely honest. Its fur was short and messy, mostly black with white across its chest, face and paws. The only thing that made it look not quite like a stray was the navy blue bandana tied about its neck.
The cat paused in its tracks, sitting down and curling its tail about itself. It looked up at him, giving him a look that mirrored his own.
((Song: My character singing a song to yours, or vice versa.))
“When the lights~ go down~ in the ci~ty~”
The former gladiator closed his eyes, soothed by the hot water enveloping his synth-skin, and reached over to turn the radio up a bit.
“And the sun~ shines~ on~ the ba~ay~”
He tipped his head back slightly to allow the water to soak into his black hair, feeling the dark strands sticking to the back of his neck, and he brushed a few errant locks behind his ears. A bit grudgingly, he wondered if another trim would do him any harm . . .
“Oh I wanna be the~ere~ In my ci~ty~”
Of all the things Delta had gotten him to enjoy, baths. Baths, really. Damn, the hot water was relaxing though. And with a little classic rock piping through the radio, well . . . It took more effort than he’d like to admit not to doze off.
“Oh~whoa~ oh, oh~oh, oh~”
Speaking of Delta . . .
He didn’t stir or open his eyes, but he did stop singing long enough to turn the radio down. “I know you’re out there, Del,” he called.
It was more a guess than anything, but it was pretty much confirmed when he heard a small squeak, followed by a rapid shuffle of footsteps. The faintest of chuckles escaped him, and his lips twitched in that not-quite-smile that she always seemed to bring to his features. He reached over and turned the radio back up.
