Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Your name is Karkat Vantas and you are no stranger to fucking up.

You have an absolutely moronic and self-sabotory predisposition for feeling first and thinking later that has gotten you into shitstorm after unrelenting shitstorm over the past nine sweeps of your regrettable and deeply pitiful life.

But this… this takes the cake.

You’ve defected from the Alternian military. NO ONE defects from the Alternian military. The vaguest inclination of treason is enough to get you brutally culled if the right cobalt is around. You've… seen it happen.

And yet here you are, sneaking out of your base in the early hours of the day with nowhere to go.

It's a miracle you've lasted this long honestly, you think as you carefully watch the bored-looking olive on sentry duty. You know they switch out to one of the few jades on your base once the sun starts coming out. You know that this guy tends to get a little lazy and leave his station a few minutes early some days. You know because you've heard the jade he switches off with complaining in the nutrition block to their friends. You weren't entirely aware you were doing it, silently cataloguing information that could be useful if things went south for you. Now that they have, you're incredibly glad that you had the subconscious foresight to prepare for such a scenario. Really, it was inevitable that you would. All you can do now is hope that you're lucky enough to have stumbled across a day that the information you've gathered is pertinent.

Your bloodpusher pounds so hard it almost hurts as you watch the lazy olive yawn and glance at the clock. Come on, come on… Normally you hate people like this. People who refuse to take their jobs seriously and carry their own weight. Especially when they're sitting comfy enough on the hemospectrum to get away with it without anything more than a minor reprimand. If you abandoned your duty the way this slacker does, you'd be caught and whipped on the spot… which in your case wouldn't last long before you were subsequently culled in the most gruesome manner immediately available. But tonight… or today rather… you're need this slovenly sack of shit to be just that.

To your all-consuming relief, the olive stretches, then swings his legs off of the console and slinks out of the sentry station. Now's your chance. The moment he is out of sight, you grit your teeth and make a break for the gate. You've always been pretty fast. Not the best climber, but your adrenaline is enough to get you up and over the chain-link fence. You tear up your leg a bit on the barbed wire on the top, but you barely notice. At this point, you're so fucked that it doesn't even matter that your incriminating blood is on display, dripping down your calf. You land hard in the dust and are immediately back to a run. The base is in the middle of the desert, which means it's going to be a long while before you're out of sight. You just hope that no one is looking.

There are some mountains in the distance, so you head for those. You try to manage your pace. Keep going quickly, but not so fast that you run out of steam before you're anywhere close to cover. That being said, the fear-syrup rushing through your veins pushes you forward faster than you would choose, but keeps you going longer than you thought you would be able. You reach the foot of the mountains in maybe a little under an hour with no one on your tail as far as you can see. It's only when you've put a rock formation between you and the camp that you let yourself collapse against the rough stone, taking huge gulps of air into your aching bellowsacs. It's dangerous to stay in one place, even for a short while, but you can't make your strut pods take you another step at the moment. You sling your bag off of your shoulder and let it fall in the dust. It's light. Keeping it that way was necessary for a successful getaway, but it also means you have a very limited supply of food and water. You thank fuck your sickles make a comparatively light weapon.

It takes you too long to catch your breath, heat coursing through your muscles. While you were running it felt like you could go on forever. Now that you've stopped, you know it would take a miracle to get you going again.

Fuck. You're so fucked.

You sink down the side of the rock formation, well aware but actively ignoring the way the rough surface scrapes against your skin. You can't help but wonder if you're being a dramatic fuck as always. If that rust-blooded half-wit would have kept her mouth shut. If you didn't have to run at all. If you were finally going to get yourself killed, not because someone turned you in for your filthy secret, but because you were so scared that someone would.

But no, even you have to afford yourself the assurance that even if she didn't wipe you out on the spot, (as would be her—possibly only—blood right) even if she didn't turn you in to the first high blood she came across, even if she weighed the measly benefits to her station for turning you in against the death-sentence she would face as a harborer and somehow decided to keep her mouth shut for no perceivable reason but out of sheer idiocy… it was only a matter of time before your adult-molt hit anyway. You've been living on borrowed time since the day you hatched. But you'll damn well give yourself one last chance before it comes collect.

You crack open your canteen and drink carefully. You know better than to ration water, but the idiot in you forces you to leave a good measure for later. You cram a protein rectangle in your mouth and follow it with another sip of water. You pull up the torn fabric of your jeans and check your leg. Thankfully, you didn't bleed too heavily. It's dried now, darkened enough to almost pass as the rust you've been masquerading as for the past half a sweep. You're just lucky the bleeding stopped before it reached the ground. The dusty ground was hard enough that you didn't leave footprints, but a trail of your mutant blood mapping out your escape? It would have almost been poetic.

You roll down your jeans, ignoring the cut. You don't really have the time or resources to clean it. You take a deep breath and let it out in a huff, scrambling slowly and gracelessly to your feet.

You have a long hike ahead of you.

You don't know how long you walk before you let yourself take another break, but the sun is directly overhead. It's disconcerting, being out and about in the middle of the day. Not that you're not used to the lack of sleep, but back home… back on Alternia you would be long since burned alive. Your skin barely prickles in Earth's gentle sunlight, but your eyes are definitely starting to sting. It's too goddamn bright.

You've made it up and through the mountains. You don't know if they count as full mountains. Hills seems too pedestrian though. You don't know shit about topography and honestly you don't care. The point is, you're on the other side of some big ass rocks, and between that and the fact that you have a sinking feeling your fronds are going to give out if you don't sit down right the fuck now, you decide it's worth risking another break.

You sit in the shade of the mountain-hill-fucking-rocks-whatever you just traversed and drain the rest of your canteen. You were hoping you might stumble across a body of water at some point during your trek but, predictably, you weren't so lucky.

You knock your head against the rock. You're so fucking stupid. Running out into the desert with what… twenty ounces of water? You wonder for the millionth time today how you managed to stay alive for nine idiocy-filled sweeps, and lament the fact that your ridiculously lucky survival streak is about to come to a close.

At least you're dying on your own terms… sort of.

You munch on another protein rectangle (at least you were able to grab like… twelve of those) while you consider your… considerably limited options. The way you see it, you either keep heading in the direction you have been and die a slow, painful death, or head back to camp and die a… slow… painful… death.

Or you could curl up here. Let fate and the Alternian army's questionable level of concern for the fate of one defective "rust blood" decide if you die by the hand of your own people, or that of nature.

You sigh as you stuff the wrapper back in your bag. It's not even a question, you know. You're not an absolute idiot. You know that if you keep walking there's at least a chance you'll come across a source of water. You just don't want to allow yourself even a sliver of hope.

Even so, you let yourself rest for the better part of an hour. You really don't think anyone is coming after you at this point, but you honestly don't know. As far as you know, no one's gotten as far as you have. Or if they have, the pride of the Alternian army keeps it hush. You hope that that pride is enough for them to write you off as a brainless low-blood who inevitably died in the desert and soon enough forget you even existed rather than send someone after you to finish the job themselves. At least no one catches up with you in the hour you rest, but the possibility is enough to get you back on your feet as soon as the sun isn't so directly overhead.

So you start walking again.

And it's… boring as hell.

You follow the sun. As much as you hate having it in your eyes, it's the direction you chose when you started away from the base. And it's a good indicator of how much time passes. It's late afternoon by the time you decide to allow yourself another break. As the sun gets lower in the sky it seems to get brighter and it fucking burns your eyes. You rub at them bleakly as you wonder if it's enough to turn you into Terezi 2.0.

Fuck, you miss Terezi.

Just when you're about to stop, however, something prickles the back of your neck. You feel like… like you're not alone.

You immediately whip your bag around and grab your sickles, hoping it's just some hypersensitive instinct, but unwilling to leave yourself unarmed. You turn slowly. There are a few rock formations nearby. Definitely enough to provide cover. But you've been checking over your shoulder, keeping your ears peeled… there haven't been any signs of someone following you. Especially not the kind of blustering brute they would send after someone like you if they did care enough to track you down.

You're pretty sure it's just paranoia, but like hell are you letting your guard down. You turn back towards the sun and keep walking, gripping your sickles tightly by your sides. Your eyes flit around, scanning for any sign of movement. You walk for another ten minutes maybe. Nothing but a few lizards that made you nearly jump out of your skin. You almost write the whole thing off, but then you see it. A glint in the corner of your eye that disappears as soon as you turn your head.

You stare at the rock formation where you saw the gleam, weighing your options bleakly. You could turn and run, but you're so damn low on gas. You were just about to take a break goddamnit. You wouldn't make it far, and you'd only be making yourself weaker for when whoever… whatever… does catch up with you. That being said, you're already pretty damn weak.

You're not deliberating for long, but even so, your hesitation loses you the opportunity to make a choice at all. You only hear the scuff of a shoe in the dust when its owner is right behind you.

You whip around, blocking with your sickles, surprised when you find them locked with a sword. Even more surprising it the pale peachy skin of the owner. You've never actually fought a human, but you've been told they almost exclusively wield guns.

This one is just slightly taller than you, with shockingly white hair and a pair of dark aviator sunglasses covering half of his face. The part of his face you can see is as expressionless as it is alien.

You growl, knocking his blade away from you. He moves with it and immediately draws it around, coming at you from the other side. You block again, barely moving in time to keep him at bay. Fuck he's fast. And you're exhausted.

He immediately goes for you again. You block. As soon as his blade connects with yours he's drawing back and all over you again. There's no opening. No moment of hesitation for you to even think of turning on the offensive. Your arms are shaking with the effort of blocking his blows. He barely seems to register the effort.

You have… a stupid idea. But you don't even stop to think it over before implementing it.

You let his blade connect, hopping to the side slightly to lessen the blow, but it still gets you. Surprisingly, it doesn't cut right through. He had it turned so it hits you more on the flat than the edge. Still cuts. Not as deep as a clean slice. You see his eyebrows twitch in a way that you think is the closest you'll get to an acknowledgement of surprise. More importantly, you swing your right sickle in the direction of his throat and manage to get in an offensive attack by forgoing defense.

He's too fast for you, though, drawing his sword back and blocking your blow with impossible speed. At least you've managed to throw him off his rhythm. You come around with the left one. Blocked. He hops out of the way as you sweep them across and hits you in the back with the flat of his blade as he does. You stumble forward winded. That was a clean enough shot that he could have easily killed you had he just turned rotated his blade. He's too good to be that stupid. Which means he's toying with you.

A growl rips from your throat as you whip around, slashing through thin air as he hops backwards, just out of your radius. You advance. He blocks the next attack. And the next. Moving steadily backwards. All the while, the blank expression on his face doesn't waver.

It infuriates you.

He catches the hook of your right sickle with his blade and twists. The leverage is enough to rip it from your grip and send it clattering across the rocky ground. You don't watch where it lands, don't have time to, as he is instantly back on the offensive, moving with the same speed he's been using to block your attacks and turning it directly on you. You can't do anything but dodge and block, stumbling backwards against his relentless blows.

He knocks your hand with the flat of his blade. Hard. You feel the shock reverberate through your bones as your remaining sickle flies from your hand. The instant it leaves your grasp, he's reaching forward and grabbing your shoulder, spinning you harshly so your back is to him.

You find yourself looking down the barrel of a rifle. Another human of similar complexion with a shock of bright pink hair holds it steadily, a mere arm's length from your face. This one also has sunglasses, tinted pink and heart-shaped. The first human's hand is still on your shoulder and you feel the tip of his blade press in warning against the small of your back.

You wait for him to run you through. Or for the other one to shoot. But neither of them move. You are disarmed, defenseless. They have you surrounded. What are they waiting for?

You glance at the place where your sickle fell. The other one is certainly too far away. But you might be able to grab one.

The human with the gun lifts the barrel, warning you not to. You swallow.

Then you slowly turn the inside of your wrists forward and tilt your head back, baring your throat in what you hope is a universal sign of submission. You honestly don't know. You weren't taught how to surrender to humans. You could do without the throat clicks that are automatically triggered by the action, but hey, you guess whatever makes the gesture more convincing.

Luckily, it seems to work. The gun stays trained on you as the human in front of you backs up. The blade stays at your back, which honestly concerns you more. You doubt the pink haired human would shoot, especially at such a close distance, and inevitably hit the human behind you. But the space they put between you gives you enough room to duck and roll.

You hear the humans shout as you get your hand on one of your sickles. The relief you feel is short lived, however, as you are suddenly tackled bodily to the ground. The sickle is wrenched from your hand and immediately turned against you. You lie on your side, one arm pinned underneath you, the other pinned to the ground by the white-haired human's knee. All of his weight presses down on you and his free hand shoves your head against the ground. The other holds your own sickle against your throat. You can feel the blade against your skin, and try to stifle your heavy breathing to not cut yourself on it.

"Give it up man," the human says quietly. If you didn't know any better, you would almost say it sounded like a plea… fucking weird-ass Earth accents.

He wants you do submit before he kills you which is some high-blood power fetish bullshit if you've ever seen it. If you were half the troll you pretend to be, you would push into the blade at your throat and end it all on your own terms. But you've always been a pathetic wriggler, too afraid of your own blood to spill it.

You let yourself go limp and close your eyes. Pathetic. You can't even look.

"Oh thank fuck,” he breathes.

You wait for the sharp stripe of pain to cut across your throat, but it never comes. Instead you find yourself shoved all the way onto your front. Your face stays pressed to the ground.

"A little help Rox?" the human calls.

"On it!"

A moment later your arms are wrenched behind your back and forced together at the wrists. Hands wrap a cable around your arms, starting at your wrists and winding half way up your forearms. It pulls your shoulders back, leaving your chest vulnerably exposed. You're starting to think that they're not going to kill you… immediately.

Fuck.

Your vision suddenly goes black as a thick piece of cloth is tied tightly around your eyes. Your pride is loath to admit it, but the forced darkness is almost a relief from the unrelenting brightness of the sun.

Part of you wants to keep struggling, but you know that you're useless like this. And you're so fucking exhausted. You just lie there. Let yourself be manhandled. Try to catch your breath.

One of the humans gets off of you. The other keeps one hand on your back, and the other on the back of your neck. You hear the male human speak a little further away and figure it's the pink-haired one keeping an eye on you.

"Yeah, we got him," he says. There's a pause. "I mean… yeah, I think so."

He must be talking on the phone or something. You bristle at the idea of more humans knowing about you.

"Yeah, course. Let me just… Hey Roxy," he calls suddenly. "I got him in the side. Should probably check on that."

You feel fingers tug at the hem of your shirt and immediately feel the fight flood back into you. You struggle. Logically, you know that your shirt is torn, there's no way they haven't both gotten at least a glance at your treacherous blood. But you're running purely on instinct at this point and every neuron in your thinkpan is telling you to not let them see.

"Woah, shit. Dave!"

Almost instantaneously, there is another set of hands on you again. Pressing your head into the dirt, holding you down so bodily you can barely breathe.

You feel the fabric of your shirt pull away from your skin. There's a low whistle.

"Damn, you got him good Davey."

"Thanks," Davey says blandly.

"Not too deep though," the other human continues. You hiss as they prod delicately at the wound. "Should be fine."

Your shirt goes back down. You feel fingers prod at your back and shoulders, your arms, then down your legs. You can't help but flinch when they jab at the skin you tore up climbing over the fence. It's a small flinch, but they must notice. Your jeans are rolled up.

"His leg's all fucked up too," the Roxy human says.

"Okay, that was definitely not me."

"Put up a hell of a fight already wounded," Roxy says. "Tough kid."

"Great," says Dave, his voice as flat as ever. "Just what we need."

"Oh shush. At least it means he'll probably be good to walk back."

You want to groan at that. You've been walking all fucking day. You're sick to death of walking. But like hell are you going to show any more weakness than you already have.

Your pants leg goes back down and you feel yourself physically relax just a bit. They didn't say a thing about your blood color. The dumb-ass shades both of them wear make it look dark enough to pass as burgundy. Either way, it's covered up again, and you can't help but feel a little better for it.

"Let's give him a minute before we head back. He looks exhausted."

You'll take it. You're so far past burnt out. You'll take whatever you can get.

"Let's get you upright kiddo," Roxy says. You resent being compared to a human wriggler, but you refuse to say a word to these people. Hands roll you over on your back and help you sit up. You think that's going to be the extent of it, but then they get their hands under your arms and pull you up, high enough that only your heels make contact with the ground as they drag you backwards. You hiss at the sudden motion and kick somewhat reflexively. Neither response seems to phase them in the slightest. They put you down slowly and carefully push your shoulders back. You find yourself leaning against something, which is both welcome in your exhausted state, and uncomfortable with your arms tied behind your back. You let a low growl inform them that you're still unhappy with being manhandled.

"Down kitty," they say. You drag your foot towards you and kick out for no good reason except that you're frustrated and you're limited in outlets at the moment. Your torn up calf scrapes against a rock and you hiss. You force yourself to take deep breaths and get your anger under control.

You've… never been very good at that.

"Damn," says the Dave human. "He's like… a whole-ass alien."

"I know…" the Roxy human says, grimly.

"You don't sound excited. You've been wanting to get a closer look at one of these dudes for months. Thought you'd be over the moon."

"Yeah it's just…" they trail off. There's silence for a moment. You can feel their eyes on you.

"Yeah man," says the Dave human. "I get it."

They let you rest for a while, which is a relief. Dave gets the bright idea that you might be thirsty and pours about as much water down your front as down your throat, but you can't be bothered to care much. It helps the headache that has been building steadily behind your eyes. Eventually, though, they decide it's time to go and the Dave human helps you to your feet. As soon as you're standing, you feel the cold muzzle of a gun press against the back of your neck and strangle a sound of fear that pulls itself from your throat. The mouth of the gun trails down and rests for a moment at your back.

You get the message.

The Dave human keeps one hand on the back of your neck and the other wrapped around your upper arm, directing you as you walk and catching you when you stumble over rocks and shit you can't fucking see. When he talks to Roxy, their voice comes from behind you and you don't have to guess that they have their rifle tracked on you at all times.

It's fucking terrifying, walking through the desert blind, with no way of breaking your fall if the human who captured you decides not to catch you. Luckily, that particular whim doesn't hit him, and he's plenty strong enough to keep you from faceplanting every few yards.

You walk for maybe an hour. It's hard to keep track of time. Roxy and Dave talk a lot, but not about anything particularly important to your situation. You're starting to get the feeling they maybe never shut up. You'd kindly tell them to, but you stringently refuse to say anything. You can only guess what they want you for, but your money is on information. And even if you don't really have any of any particularly strategic use, you'll keep your damn mouth shut. You'll be their prisoner, fine, but you won't give them shit.

Which brings you to another thought that deeply disturbs you.

Trolls don't become prisoners. Not to any race, but certainly not to fucking weak-ass humans. You come back more or less in one piece, or you die fighting. Getting captured is unheard of. Any other troll would have leaned into the blade that had pressed into your neck. Any other troll would make a break for it, knowing they would be shot, and die with honor rather than be taken a coward.

But you. You're a pathetic groveling parasite who regularly resorts to flagrant acts of cowardice just to hold onto your measly pitiful life. Even though you've never deserved it.

It's possible that you're the first troll to successfully defect from the Alternian army, but you sure as fuck are the first troll to get your dumb ass captured by humans.

This day just keeps getting better.

Chapter Text

You're pretty sure you've almost passed out at least four or five times on this journey. It's really fucking hard to tell if you've blacked out when your vision is already black. Sometimes, though, you feel Dave catch you from a stumble that you don't remember stumbling. You really don't know how much longer you can keep this up.

"Hey guys!" A new voice breaks through your suffering. Immediately followed by another.

"Jade! Be careful!"

You hear the scuffing footsteps of people running towards you. You brace yourself instinctively, weakly.

"It's cool," the Roxy human says. "He won't hurt you."

You feel the rifle tap against your back and barely manage to suppress a shiver. You've never been this helpless.

Foreign fingers touch your face and you bare your teeth uselessly. Your head is tilted back, then to the side, then to the other as you are presumably examined.

"Wow, he's amazing," says the higher of the new voices.

"Can't believe you guys actually got one," says the lower.

"Thanks for the faith, Egbert," says the Dave human.

The hands on your face leave and move to your shoulders to tug you forward. You assume they belong to the higher-voiced human.

"We'll take him downstairs. You guys should get some water, cool down. Come down when you're ready."

Dave finally releases you, turning you over to this new set of humans. You hate that it's a relief to hear their voices following you as you're guided a bit further, then slowly up a couple of steps. You almost trip on the first one, but the new human holding you is just as strong as Dave, and easily keeps you upright. You hear a door open and clumsily navigate a small step up. It's only once you're inside that you fully appreciate just how stupidly hot it had been outside. The cool air is a blessing on your prickling skin, and you can't help the shuddering sigh that escapes you.

You're taken a few steps further and then brought to an abrupt stop.

"Uh, John could you…?"

"Yeah, I've got him."

You're passed off to the human named John, who grips you firmly around your middle without hesitation and easily lifts you up off the ground. You yelp involuntarily in surprise and immediately transition to an aggravated hiss as he tosses you over his shoulder.

"Woah jeez, I knew they made noises but…"

"Crazy right?" You hear Dave's voice call from a bit away. "He did this, uh, clicky thing earlier. If we can get him to do it again, I want to sample it."

He's talking about your submissive throat clicks. That elicits a growl from you. A hand settles on the middle of your back.

"It's like the vibrations come from his whole body. So cool."

You stifle your growl. You do not want to continue entertaining these brainless fucks with your "cool noises." It's impossible to keep your responses entirely under control, but now that you know that these morons get off on them, you'll do your best to suppress them.

You immediately have to bite back a surprised noise as you suddenly move downward. "Downstairs." Right. John holds you firmly, but it's still fucking terrifying. You try to count the jostles. There are a lot of stairs. You lose track and hold your breath until you reach the bottom.

"John, Jade. Perfect," says yet another new fucking voice. How many of these freaks are there? "Put him in the holding room. We gotta talk next steps."

"Should we… uh… untie him maybe? It seems a little harsh to leave him like this," says John, starting towards wherever he was directed.

"Not just yet," says the new voice. "It won't be long. We're pretty much on the same page, I just want to hash out a few details with everybody before someone does something stupid and jeopardizes this whole operation."

"Or, you know, gets hurt maybe?" Jade half-teases.

"That too."

You hear another door open and John takes you, presumably, inside. Your digestion sac fucking drops when he maneuvers to put you down. He sits you against a wall.

"Sorry dude," he says. "Be back in a sec."

You let your head fall back against the wall as his footsteps retreat and the door closes. He didn't even take off your fucking blindfold. At least you're off your feet. They ache with the abuse you've put them through over the past however many hours. At least it's cool. At least you're sitting. At least it's dark.

You're so fucking tired.

As scared as you are, disastrously out of your element and hurtling towards a fate you can't even begin to comprehend, you feel yourself slowly slip away into graciously numb unconsciousness.

You have no idea how long you passed out for, but when you wake up your head is splitting, there's still a blindfold over your fucking ganderbulbs, and someone is trying to sneak up on you.

You hiss in the direction of the noise and the footsteps immediately stop.

"Shit, he's awake." You think it's Dave.

"Oh well," says… Jade? "It was a nice thought."

They stop trying to mask their footsteps and approach you casually. You hiss, kicking uselessly as each of them grabs an arm, lifting you to your feet.

As they lead you… somewhere, you can't help but wonder who they're going to take you to. It's pretty clear to you that these guys are bounty hunters. You wonder how much you're worth to warrant the lack of retribution you get in return for struggling. They must be getting paid quite a bit to keep you in one piece.

To your surprise, they don't take you far. It's not long before they stop and turn you. Together, they heft you up and onto some sort of surface. One set of hands leaves. It's your surprise and disorientation that keep you from struggling as your legs are lifted up as well, and turned so that all of you is on the table. You feel them grab your ankle and immediately flail.

"Shit, can you…?" Jade.

"Yeah, on it." Dave.

Arms wrap around your torso, holding you in place and a body leans across your legs, keeping them down. Some sort of strap is tightened around one ankle, then the other.

What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck.

Each of the humans grabs one of your arms and folds you forward. The ropes binding your arms suddenly loosen as another set of hands (you don't even know who the fuck) starts to untie you. Your shoulders ache from being pulled back such an unnatural position for so long. A whimper near escapes you, but you swallow it back to a less affected sound. The rope disappears entirely and you struggle to wrench your weak arms from the humans holding you. They easily force you back until you are laying down all the way, pinning your wrists up by your head. Straps tighten over your already raw skin.

Finally the hands leave and it's almost worse. You're so vulnerable it hurts. You pull against the straps futilely, breath coming quicker as your cautious fear devolves into outright panic.

"Fuck. I can't do this," says Dave.

"You're good, we've got it from here," Jade says patiently.

You feel a hand rest gently on your forehead and you flinch.

"Hey, hey…" It's John. He's speaking softly. "You're okay. We're not going to hurt you. Just checking you out."

He fucking… pets you. Placating you. What the fuck kind of pale bondage sadistic deranged…

As much as you want to fight it, you can't help the way your body reacts to this kind of stimulus. Your breathing gradually slows as he… shooshes… you. Fuck, you hate everything about this situation. Conciliatory hormones flood your system, washing out the violent fear-fueled ones.

"Hey, can I take the blindfold off?" John asks. "I think he'd be less freaked out if he could see what we're doing."

"If you think so," It's the deeper voice you heard when they first brought you downstairs. There's a soft thump. "Ow, what the fuck?"

"Of course it'll help. Go ahead honey."

Even though you know it's coming, you still flinch as John slides his hands around your head and fumbles with the knot. You feel it loosen and finally the fabric is removed from your face.

The first thing you register as you blink your eyes open is a blinding light directly above you. You hiss, wincing, and the guy standing over you immediately jumps and fumbles to direct it away from your eyes.

As soon as they're done being blinded, your eyes flit around, taking in as many details of the room and the people around you as you can.

You're in some type of lab. As you kind of already figured out, they've got you strapped down to a metal table. The overhead lamp is now, thankfully, turned away. The man standing over you, you guess, is John. He's tall, with light brown skin, messy black hair, and a pair of nerdy looking glasses. Standing on your other side, a couple steps away from the table, is a human with an even darker complexion and a mass of long curly hair, round classes perched on her face. From her proximity, you guess Jade.

There's a long counter stretching from the wall to your left to the wall in front of you, with a number of swivel chairs positioned periodically along it. On the expanse to your left is a collection of… equipment. None of which you recognize, but all of which look very sciencey. The wall in front of you features a very large window that looks into a small white-walled room. You guess this is the "holding room" they were keeping you in before they dragged you out to whatever this pan-boggling tom-fuckery is going to entail. The equipment on the counter in front of you looks less… sciencey… and more… control panel… ey.

Yeah. That makes sense, you think.

Roxy is sitting against the edge of the counter, leaning back on their hands. Them, at least, you recognize. They're standing next to another human who sits in in a swivel chair turned away from some sort of control panel and facing you instead. He's pale like Roxy, with spiky golden hair and the most ridiculous pair of triangular sunglasses you think you've ever seen. Dave, it seems, has left the room.

"Hello there," John says with a dorky smile. He glances over at Roxy. "You said left side right?"

"Yep." They nod.

John turns back to you and slowly brings his hand to the hem of your shirt, glancing at you periodically with a careful, placating expression on his face. You stare at him in contempt and breathe through your nostrils.

When he seems to understand that you're not about to flip your shit, he turns his attention fully to the task of rolling up the bottom of your shirt. You grit your teeth.

"Woah, okay," he says, eyebrows shooting up as he examines your wound. You tense.

"Aw damn. Did all the walking make it worse?" Roxy asks. They push off of the counter and approach slightly. "I know these guys are supposed to be durable but…"

"No, it's really not that bad," John assures her. "It's just…"

You swallow.

"I've never seen this blood color before?"

Your claws bite harshly into your palms. You want to curl up. You've never been this exposed before. Even when people have found out about your secret in the past, it was never like this. You always had a chance to hide. A chance to run. Now all you can do is lay as still as you can and pretend you don't exist.

Surprise, pan-shocking goddamn surprise: it doesn't do much.

"What do you mean?" Roxy asks. "He's one of the… uh… red ones? Right?"

John shakes his head.

"Usually it's darker. A lot darker. This almost looks like human blood."

"Is that weird?" Jade asks.

"I don't know?" He glances at you curiously. "I mean, it's pretty obvious that blood color corresponds to some kind of ranking or caste system. For all we know there's plenty of trolls like him on their home planet that aren't usually military."

You want to laugh at that. Mostly out of wild relief, but also at the notion of a caste of your treasonous blood running around. Not to mention the idea of there being a blood caste excluded from military duty at this point.

He shrugs.

"There's also a chance it's a mutation."

Instantly you are back to feeling like you're about to vomit. John doesn't seem hung up on the thought, however, and continues examining your wound. He grabs a black towel from a little table next to him and scoots it under you. Then he grabs a squeeze bottle thingy and starts rinsing your wound, wiping gently with another small towel.

Your neck gets tired from craning to watch him, and you've decided at this point that your blood mutation, miraculously, isn't going to get you any more killed than you're already going to be, so you let your head fall back and stare at the ceiling.

Eventually, the cleaning stops. You glance at John. He's examining the cut again.

"I'm sure it's fine," he says. "We should wrap it probably, but uh… Dave's a lot better at that bit than me."

"I can take care of it." It's the golden-haired human with the stupid shades. The only one you still don't have a name to put to. You crane your neck again to watch him stand up and start towards you. There's something about the way he moves that sets your instincts on edge.

John nods, then turns to Roxy again, moving out of the way so that the disconcerting human can access your side.

"And then, right leg?"

"Yessir."

John moves to your leg, rolling up your jeans and trying to get a look at your leg. Unfortunately for him, and to your spiteful amusement, the wound is on the underside of your leg and it's going to be pretty damn impossible for him to examine it with your leg strapped to the table as it is.

Meanwhile, the other human is doing something weird to your side. You strain to look at him. It looks like he’s putting… little white stickers all over you. The fuck?

When he finishes doing that he nods to Jade.

“Hey Harley, I need to get the bandages around him. Little help?”

“That’s what I’m here for,” she replies cheerily, unfastening the wrist closer to her. The other human undoes your other one and passes it to her. She grips your wrists firmly and pulls you into a sitting position. She holds them up above your head while the other guy starts wrapping bandage around your middle.

This is so stupid. And humiliating. And did you mention stupid? You wouldn’t even bandage a wound like this yourself. You walked for a fucking hour and were tossed around like a sack of tubers with it and you were fine. It stopped bleeding forever ago. It will seal over entirely in a day or two, and if you're alive by the end of the week it’ll already be a scar. But these imbecilic fucking humans are putting you through this whole ordeal for some moronic reason you can’t even fathom.

You grit your teeth and bear it.

When he’s done with that, you’re lowered back to the table and your left wrist is fastened again.

“Can you get him on his side guys? I want to get a better look at his leg.”

Jade passes your "free" wrist back to the other human who holds it awkwardly across your chest. Then she goes and undoes your ankle, rolling you onto your side. She circles the table and holds you in place while John examines your leg.

He starts to clean it. You physically can’t watch him do it, but you can feel the water running down your skin.

“Huh, weird,” he says and you wonder just what else about your mutant physiology is fucking him up this time. “The wound looks pretty old, but the blood still seems pretty fresh. I guess trolls must heal a lot faster than we do.”

“It’s pretty incredible how sturdy these guys are,” Jade comments. “It’s like they’re evolutionarily designed for war.”

“Bodes well for the human race,” the golden-haired human says darkly.

“Aw c'mon Dirk,” Roxy says, "You know you find all this just as fascinating as the rest of us."

"Fascinating, sure," he cedes, "But I find the level of casual enthusiasm you're all approaching this situation with to be frankly a little disturbing. Need I remind you, we are literally in combat with an invading alien species."

"Nobody needs reminding, Dirk," says Jade. She sounds like she's smiling, but there's tension in her voice.

"Okay!" John suddenly says, a little too loudly and a little too cheerily to be purely incidental. Either that or he's impressively oblivious. "I don't this one really needs any attention. If you guys could just roll him back over, I want to check out a couple of things."

They do that, strapping you back down fully. Dirk goes to sit against the counter with Roxy and Jade pulls up a swivel chair to watch.

You're wary at first of the tests John performs, but none of them breach an upper limit of mild discomfort. He listens to various parts of you with an auditory pulse snake. He wraps a cuff around your arm which inflates to the point of discomfort, then deflates. He shines a light in your ganderbulbs, smiling apologetically when he has to hold them open against your reflexive squinting. He looks in your hear ducts and up your cartilaginous nub cavities. Which. Fucking why? He pokes around in your squawk gaper (always with tools, perhaps foreseeing that you would bite off any phalanges he sticks in there without hesitation).

He also just fucking… doesn't stop touching you. Which is about as close to torture as the whole process gets. He prods at your cartilage plates, runs his phalanges over your horns, counts the rungs of your bellowsac enclosures, and pushes on your internal organs. You hate the feeling of his warm hands, dull nails, running across your skin, invading your orifices. You don't think you've ever been touched this much in your life. It's enough to make you shivery and nauseous. At least he wears gloves, putting some small barrier, however thin, between his skin and yours.

He keeps taking samples too. Scraping the inside of your squawk gaper with little wooden sticks, pulling out a couple of strands of your hair. He even jabs a needle in your arm and steals a vial of your blood.

All the while, he notes numbers and observations out loud. You vaguely wonder why no one seems to be keeping track of any of it. It's all asinine anyway, but you really don't get the purpose of it if the information he's extracting isn't being recorded anywhere. You would guess humans just have a ridiculously inflated sense of curiosity if it weren't for all of the samples indicating he's collecting it all for something.

What that is, you can't imagine. But there's something incredibly frightening about these people having a whole catalogue of information about how your body works, what makes you flinch, what doesn't.

There's something weird about the way he talks to you throughout the whole process. Something weird about the way they all talk about you. As if you're not right there. He never directs you to do anything, opening his mouth in demonstration that he wants you to open yours. The questions he asks are rhetorical, never seeming to expect an answer. He talks to you in gentle words that don't matter, which drives you up the wall.

Your mounting suspicions are confirmed when Dirk calls him out on it.

"You know there's no reason to talk to him like that," he says. He's long since stopped watching the process and has turned his chair to face away from you and fuck around with the control panel instead.

John shrugs.

"I'm sure a soothing tone doesn't hurt," he says. "He's not as freaked out as he was at first at least."

They don't realize you can understand them. The implication that you're some kind of feral animal make you want to put them in their fucking places but… it's also an indisputable advantage. If they don't think you know what they're saying, they'll continue to talk freely around you. And they won't expect you to answer any questions that could get you culled.

Not that you're not long across the line of "things that warrant culling" at this point. But you'd still like to believe you have some level of loyalty to your people not to sell them out any more than you already have.

So you endeavor to keep your mouth shut.

Which is, again, never a talent you've found yourself particularly disposed of. But if there's one motivation you've found can fuel pretty much any impossible undertaking, it's spite. And right now you're in possession of an abundant supply.

John is examining the day-old cut on your arm and musing on healing stages when his examination is finally interrupted by the sound of a door opening.

"Yo, so, uh, Jake is back with Rose. They want to check out our new alien friend, but they wanted to make sure they weren't interrupting anything. Which like. I told them all of y'all were already down here, and that I would just be interrupting you anyway to ask, but I guess maybe Rose thought new people would maybe make him nervous and fuck up whatever you're doing so--"

"Davey, sweetie," Roxy cuts in.

"Sup Rox."

"You're fine. Go on and bring 'em down." You can hear the smile in their voice. It's disgustingly pale.

"I'm just about done anyway," John says, rolling your sleeve back down for about the millionth time. Your clothes clearly got in the way of his work, but no one ever… removed any from you. Small mercies.

"Nice. Okay. I'll just. Go let them know."

The door closes. John starts cleaning up his equipment, removing and disposing his gloves, and, by the sound of it, storing his tools in a closet outside of your line of vision.

It's not long before the door opens again and a collection of footsteps alert you to the unfortunate reality that you're about to meet yet another set of humans.

For fuck's sake.

You refuse to crane your neck to try and see them as soon as they walk in. You're sure you'll see plenty of them when they're up in your face and manipulating your body to their hearts' content as is, you've found, the species' general inclination.

Dave is the first to enter your line of vision. He's doing an awful job, in your opinion, of pretending to be nonchalant. In reality you think he looks incredibly uncomfortable. He's followed by a guy who bears a striking resemblance to both John and Jade. He looks like someone took Jade's coloring and slapped it on a slightly taller, much more ripped version of John. It's disconcerting to say the least.

The last human is the smallest one so far. She's pale, with short white hair held back by a lavender headband. Her hands are clasped in front of her. She walks smoothly, delicately. Everything about her reads as "careful."

You're immediately set on edge.

When she looks at you, it's different from how the rest of the humans have been. They all look at you. At your gray skin, and your wiry hair, and your horns. At all of the features that separate you from them. Even when they look at your eyes, it's clear they're looking at them. But she doesn't. No, she turns to you, barely bats a heavily made-up eyelid at your alien physiology and looks into you.

You don't even realize you're growling, low and rumbling in your chest, until John presses his hand against your sternum to seek out the origin of the vibrations. You glare at him briefly and swallow down the noise before immediately returning your attention to the disconcerting human female.

Dave leans over and nudges her with his elbow.

"Dude, I think he doesn't like you," he says.

She tilts her head thoughtfully, a careful smile gracing her face.

"Well we'll just have to get to know each other better then," she says. This prompts you to growl again. She raises one thin eyebrow, her gaze never faltering.

Your staring contest only ends when Roxy hops off of the counter and goes in for an enthusiastic hug, inquiring about her flight.

"Hey Dave," John says, motioning for him to come closer. "You should come see this. It's super cool."

Dave shuffles over, looking just as stiffly casual as when he first entered the room. He only seems to grow more wary as he approaches. You can't imagine why. You are insanely more helpless than you were when he ambushed you in the desert. There's literally nothing you can do to him in this state.

"Check this out," John says. He looks at you pointedly and opens his mouth, pointing to it like a dumbass. When all he gets is a snarl in return, he reaches out and squeezes your jaw, forcing it open. Dave's own mouth twitches downward as John nudges your lip up with his thumb, carefully avoiding your teeth. The discomfort on Dave's face suddenly morphs into surpriset.

"Wait, what? Holy shit," he says, leaning closer. You can't imagine what the fuck is so fascinating about your oral cavity, but this is the most excited you've seen him yet. He reaches towards you, then freezes and pulls his hand back. You stare at him blankly for a moment, then roll your eyes and stop fighting John. When he feels you relax, he stops holding your jaw open and you let them look at whatever the fuck it is they're so enamored by. They're just going to do it anyway, and at least it's less uncomfortable for you.

Dave does reach out now, gently pulling back your lips to examine your… teeth?

"Dude, what the fuck?" he says. John says nothing, just looks satisfied with himself. Smug little shit. "What even are troll teeth? There's like… no consistency? He's got like. All canines. Why the fuck would anyone have all canines? Shit doesn't even make sense. And he's got what… forty of them? Who the fuck needs forty stupidly sharp canines?"

You decide you're getting tired of this and snap your mouth shut. His hands immediately retract, but it doesn't stop him from soliloquizing on the apparent absurdity of troll teeth.

"Man, I saw these prints from the uh… Botswana study? And there was one dude who had four incisors, two canines, four sets of molars, whatever, standard human teeth set, but they were just. Randomly placed around his mouth. Teeth didn't give a shit about symmetry, or even, like, basic functionality. They were just like. Yep. Seems like as good a spot as any. Guess I'll shack up here next to this premolar. Oh what? Incisors are supposed to be in the front? Nah, I think I'll chill back here with my crunchy bros. Just. What the fuck? And like. You know the whole theory about the blood variation thing actually making them a whole bunch of separate species? Their dental patterns have fuck-all to do with it. Okay maybe there's like a slight correlation. But no species has this much universal variation. It's just not a thing."

You have a feeling Dave would just keep going if John didn't cut him off.

"One more thing," he says, grabbing Dave's hand and placing it in the center of your chest. He presses down gently, feeling your chest plates.

"Trifurcated sesamoid?" he asks, glancing at John. John nods, grinning goofily. "Nice."

"Hey boys." Both of them turn to look at Roxy. "If you're done with the xeno exam sesh, we should probably let him rest. It's been a long day. I'm sure he's exhausted."

If that isn't the understatement of the fucking millennia.

"Besides, some of us are getting hungry. We should talk food."

Dave nods. The same wariness you saw on his face earlier reappears. John shoves him towards Roxy.

"Go help Roxy with food," he says, the same goofy grin taking over his face. "Jade and I will take care of our new alien pal."

He nods again, looking relieved. It's only after he and Roxy have left the room that Jade and John start to unbuckle you. You're fucking sore for about thirty different reasons at this point, and you have to bite back a groan as they sit you up. You don't fight them as they guide you to back to the small room the lab looks into, well aware of how futile it would be, and not even willing at this point to put on a show for your own dignity. When you pass the small human with the darkly painted lips, you let a snarl escape you anyway. She merely smiles at you curiously.

Something about it aches in a discomfiting refraction of familiarity.

You're more or less gently shoved into the small "holding room" and the door shuts behind you. You just stand there for a moment, taking in the limited features of the cell and the sudden authority over your own limbs.

It's maybe five paces deep and ten paces long. The walls and floor are white and featureless, lit by fluorescent bulbs set into the equally white and featureless ceiling. A dimmer switch by the door controls them. You turn them as low as they go. The door itself is metal and heavy looking. It doesn't have any kind of handle. Just a rectangular panel where a handle would go. There's a mat on the ground, pushed against the back wall. The corner furthest from the door is curtained off, with a short ablution stand next to it. A plastic cup sits on ground. There is a camera hanging from ceiling in the other corner. What looked like a window outside of the room appears to be a large mirror on this side, taking up most of the wall.

That's all there is.

You heave a quiet sigh, closing your eyes for a moment and rubbing them bleakly in resignation. You go over to the ablution stand and bend down to pick up the cup. You fill it with water. You drink. You fill it again. You drink. You peak behind the curtain and are unsurprised to find a seat-less metal load gaper. At least they had the basic decency to curtain it off.

You put the cup down on the ground where you found it and go over to the mat. You lie down on your side, facing the wall. The fact that you can see the camera from here means the camera can see you. You put your hands over your head and tuck your face into your elbows, curling up as small as you can manage.

It's not long before you've fallen into an uneasy sleep.

Chapter Text

When you wake up, it's to an all-encompassing soreness that penetrates into your very bones, and absolutely fuck-all of a sense for how long you were asleep.

You rub the crust out of your eyes with your knuckles and sit up slowly, painfully aware of every shift in your aching muscles. You turn to sit against the wall, blinking blearily in the pseudo-darkness.

There's a change of clothes left near your mat, folded into a neat pile. One of your protein rectangles is sitting on top. This disturbs you for a number of reasons.

For one, it means the humans actually managed to come into the room and leave these things without waking you up. That alone is enough to make you shudder. You are usually an incredibly light sleeper. The slightest disturbance should have woken you up. You only take solace in the fact that they didn't take the opportunity to do anything to you, and that it's unlikely you'll let it happen again.

For two, you're already sick of protein rectangles. If they're giving you your own food, they must not have access to food you can eat. Or they just don't give enough of a shit to find something you can.

For three, you're really fucking hungry. All you ate yesterday were two of these things, and one more really isn't going to do much for you. Given how dead-set they are on understanding your biology, they have to be aware of that. Which, in your opinion, means one of two things.

Either they know it's not enough and are deliberately rationing you to keep you just alive enough to wring whatever use they can from you, or they're trying to make your food last while they figure out what you can and can't eat.

You hate yourself for suspecting, more than merely hoping for, the latter.

Either way, you scarf the thing down. It's gone too quickly, and leaves you unsatisfied. You stand up slowly and take about three steps to cross the room and get yourself a drink of water. There are a few new surprises by the ablution stand as well, which mostly serve to put you further on edge given that you somehow didn't wake the fuck up while they were dicking around in your general vicinity. They left you a bar of soap and a small towel. Thoughtful.

You drink your water. Then grab the clothes from the ground and examine them. A long sleeve black t-shirt and some gray sweats. Clean underwear.

Part of you desperately hates the idea of wearing the clothes they give you, making you even more "theirs" than you already are, but whatever. Your clothes are ruined. At least these are clean.

You do your best to clean up at the ablution stand, watching the dirty water run down the drain absently. You didn't really realize how absolutely filthy you were with dust and grime until your skin is clean.

You take the new clothes behind the curtain to change. It clearly wasn't meant for this seeing as there really isn't any extra space between the load gaper and the curtain itself, but like hell are you going to voluntarily put your body on display for those sick fucks when this works perfectly fine. You almost drop your shirt in the gaper twice, but don't.

It's fine. You're fine.

The clothes fit you fine. A little long, maybe, but they're surprisingly soft. And at least not half shredded.

You fold your old clothes and leave them in a corner of the room with the wrapper from your protein rectangle. You don't like just leaving garbage around on the floor, but there's no place for you to put it. You turn the lights up about halfway. The highest setting is way too bright.

You go over to the mat and sit with your back against the wall.

Then you wait.

Time passes, and you've never been very good at being patient. You pick at your clawbeds, a loose thread on your shirtsleeve, thump your head softly against the wall.

It's not long before you resort to messing with the bandages they wrapped around your middle, even if it means half-exposing your torso. Fucking humans with their weird-ass over-the-top mediculling procedures. You prod not-too-gently at the wound and yep. Feels about fine. Just like you thought it would. You wonder if they'll stop you if you try to take them off. You resist the urge to try for about ten minutes.

…

Fuck it.

You lift your shirt again and search for the end of the bandage. Of course they put it on your back the absolute sociopaths. You feel around until your fingers brush a smooth little tab of tape. You're able to cut it with your claw and immediately feel the tension release. Ha. You start unraveling their hard work, spitefully.

Nobody barges in and stops you. Which is both a relief and honestly a little disappointing because you're going to fucking lose it if you have to spend the rest of your measly little life alone in a tiny room with no means of keeping yourself occupied. But it also means you're not being grabbed and positioned and prodded, so there's that.

You finish unraveling the bandages, snarling in disgust at the pale pink stains on the otherwise pure white cloth. You weren't actively bleeding when John wrapped you, so it must just be remnants from the cleaning, but it repulses you nonetheless.

You roll the soiled bandages up into a ball and resolve to add it to the trash pile accumulating in the corner. First, though, you poke at your wound.

It's… okay fine it's not entirely sealed over. You guess is was slightly deeper than you thought. But it will still be perfectly fine without the bandage. There are about four little white stickers spaced out along the cut. They tug uncomfortably at your skin and you want them off.

You pick at one of the strips carefully. You manage to get the tip of your claw under the edge and pull gently. You wince as it yanks on your skin and the cut. It doesn't want to come up. You pull a little harder, just wanting to remove this thing from your body.

You pull too hard and accidentally scrape the wound with your claw.

You hiss and cover the spot with your hands. Shit. Good going dunderfuck you reopened your perfectly adequately healing wound with your ever insufferable inability to leave shit well enough alone.

You pull back your hands to glance at the wound and… god fucking damnit. Yep. There's fresh blood beading along the line. It's not a lot, but fuck if you're not sick to death of bleeding. It seems like that's all you do these days.

There's a click in the general direction of the door and you look up in a panic. Right. They can see what you're doing at any time. Fuck.

The door swings open and Dave steps inside, quickly followed by Jade. It shuts behind them.

You hiss, scrambling to back up.

Dave raises his hands, palms forward, and hunches over, taking a slow step forward.

"Hey, it's okay dude," he says. His voice is low and steady. At least he doesn't use the infantilizing tone John seemed to affect every time he was struck by the whim to talk at you. "Just wanna make sure you're okay and shit. No reason to go all feral rabies racoon man."

Jade stays by the door watching carefully. You really don't want to prompt another ambush. You avoid making any sudden movements as Dave gets closer.

He kneels down next to you. He reaches slowly towards your side, still caged by your fingers. He hesitates for a moment, then touches the back of your hand gently.

The moment his skin makes contact with yours it burns. You're caught completely off guard and lash out before you can help it, swiping reflexively at his face.

He catches your wrist easily and doesn't look to phased by it.

"Yo Harley," Jade is immediately by your side. You're now caged in entirely by the two humans. Wonderful. "Hold this for me."

He passes her your wrist casually and immediately goes for your wound again. You keep your other hand fisted in the loose fabric of your sweats to keep it from getting restrained as well.

He pulls up your shirt and examines the cut carefully. How he can see it (or anything at all) through those douchey shades is a mystery to you, but he doesn't move to take them off. He snorts quietly.

"Kinda overkill there Dirk," he mutters. "Dude walked like three miles with this thing, don't think it needs holding together."

He pinches the half removed sticker thing that's still hanging off of your skin and tugs. You hiss when it pulls on your wound. He stops immediately.

"Think you could run back and grab some stuff for me?" He glances back at Jade. "Alcohol, cotton swabs, and a… uh, gauze pad?"

She frowns, glancing between the two of you.

"I don't think I should leave you alone in here," she says, pointedly waving your hand in the air. You glare at her, not helping your case. "Maybe we should just wait until Dirk gets back."

Dave shakes his head.

"Nah, I don't want to leave him like this. If he keeps fucking with the butterfly bandages he could open more of it back up. Then it’s painful for him and a headache for the rest of us. Rather just take care of it now.”

She chews this over for a moment, looking concerned. Then she sighs.

“I guess so,” she says. “I’ll be as fast as I can.”

Dave nods. Jade places your hand on your opposite shoulder and gives you a pointed look. You bare your teeth at her but dig your claws into your shoulder anyway.

She takes a slow step back, watching you carefully, then quickly heads for the door. You watch as she presses her hand flat against the panel. There’s a click and the door pops open. She slips out and shuts it behind her.

The second she’s gone Dave starts rambling.

“Hey, uh, please don’t flip your shit dude,” he says, his tone as low and unaffected as ever. “Throwing down in the desert was one thing, when both were like armed and shit. But I seriously don’t want to fight you while you’re all wounded and helpless in your own goddamn prison cell. Though honestly I’m not sure I could take you hand to hand. Pretty sure you’re strong as fuck and you’ve got those like sharp-ass nail claw things. Uh. Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you this. I mean, not like you understand me or anything but fuck it. Still feels weird to admit that you could probably beat my ass to your face. Weird to say that to your face, I mean. Not put my ass in your… oh hey Jade what’s up. We’re just chilling.”

You don’t even have time to take advantage of the fact that you had him in here alone before Jade’s back, too surprised by the unrelentingly stream of bullshit that just poured unceremoniously out of his windhole. She crosses the cell swiftly and sets the supplies down next to Dave.

“You know the audio in here is projected into the lab,” she says, fixing him with an amused smile.

You don’t think you imagine the grimace that briefly passes over his face.

“Yeah course,” he bluffs. “I was just, you know. Oh hey the stuff. Cool.”

Jade rolls her eyes as Dave “seamlessly” transitions into fixing you up. She sits cross-legged on the ground and watches as Dave cleans up the blood you stupidly drew, then gets to work removing the small bandages. He douses cottonspheresticks with clear liquid and nudges it under the edge of the bandages. It stings when it makes contact with your wound but you hold back your reactions, hyperaware of his proximity to a point of vulnerability.

There’s certainly nothing pleasant to the experience, but at very least something is happening. You don’t really want them in here, but you’re loathe to return to your isolation and boredom.

When Dave finishes up, he takes one last look at the spot you fucked up and seems satisfied. He puts your shirt down.

“You’re not going to wrap it back up?” Jade asks, curiously.

“Nah,” Dave says. “If he’s just gonna fuck with it it’s probably better to leave it. Besides, if he doesn’t think he needs it he probably doesn’t. We’re trying to treat troll wounds like human wounds and they clearly don’t work the same. I’m sure he knows what’s up with his own body better than we do at this point.”

Jade crosses her arms.

“Or he doesn’t know what’s good for him,” she says, giving Dave an odd look. “It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve seen it!”

Dave snorts quietly and Jade grins.

“Well if it turns out he’s wrong I’ll take the blame for enabling him. Don’t see the harm in leaving it for now. Dude heals super fast anyway according to Egbert.”

Dave gathers up the supplies and pushes himself to his feet. Jade follows, collecting the trash you piled in the corner as they go to leave.

“Uh, later man,” Dave throws over his shoulder before slipping through the door.

The door clicks shut. You stare at it for a moment, then let out a huff of breath. You lie back on the mat and let your arm drop to your side, realizing you’d actually held it in place at your shoulder the whole time. You can feel where your claws dug into your skin.

You’re hungry.

Time passes slowly. You do your best to track it by how often they feed you. Which is, to be frank, not fucking enough. You're still getting protein rectangles. Three total in what you assume is a day, then a long period of nothing during what you can only guess by human diurnal habits is the night. It's maybe half of what you need, being generous.

You spend your hours doing any number of incredibly stimulating activities, including and pretty much exclusively limited to: pacing, staring at the wall, staring at the ceiling while you lie on your back and contemplate how much you hate yourself, and pretending to be asleep.

On the rare occasion you do sleep, it's light and sporadic. You're often woken by pangs of hunger and fucking humans trying to sneak in to leave you your "meals." You let them think they've succeeded in sneaking past your defenses. You hate looking at them when they hand you your latest ration, hate the warped vestige of pity in their eyes that hides behind a mask of pleasant ignorance. It's usually Jade who hands you food when you're awake. You're pretty sure it's Dave's near-silent footsteps that wake you up when you're trying to sleep away the discomfort.

It's been three days since your first night here (you think… it's very hard to keep track) and you're starting to worry about the longevity of your situation. You're not exactly sure how much you've eaten, but you're certain that you're approaching the end of your pitiful supply of rations.

You're woken, as you so often are after these long periods of endless nothing that you assume makes up the humans' sleeping period, by the sound of quiet footsteps. You open your eyes a fraction, but don't move from where you lay on your side, facing the wall. You listen to the sound of something being placed on the ground, then the soft tapping of retreating footsteps. The click of the door opening and closing is almost deafening in comparison.

You wait for as long as you can force yourself too. Whether it's some sort of rationing instinct that tells you to hold off on food for as long as possible, or just plain pride urging you to not appear any more desperate than you invariably do, you always grit your teeth and wait.

When your stomach insists, you sit up unceremoniously. You may spend a good amount of time pretending to be asleep, but you never engage in the theatrics of pretending to wake up. Let them always be unsure, why not?

You go to grab your first protein rectangle of the day and freeze when you realize that that's not what they've left you. Instead, on a paper plate sits a thick slice of some sort of dark loaf.

You stare at it, your expression slowly turning into a frown. It looks… similar to some variations of grubloaf you've seen? You pull the plate closer to you and poke at the offering. It springs back and doesn't leave your fingers greasy. A closer approximation of the leavened variety then. There are grayish chunks in it. You pick one out. It looks like a segment of some type of earth insect. You put it in your mouth cautiously and chew. It's crunchy and sort of nutty. Tastes and looks remarkably similar to clickbug. You pinch off a corner of the slice and test it as well. It's somewhat bland, but the texture is pleasantly springy. And all-in-all it's a welcome respite from the endless cycle of protein rectangles.

You wait for a few minutes after taking these initial bites, fighting the intense urge to give into your hunger and eat recklessly. But you're wary of Earth food. All of the food you eat back on your base is supplied from Alternian colonies or your home planet itself. Under normal circumstances, you wouldn't be eating food grown on Earth until it's been conquered and settled. You honestly don't know if it will make you sick.

When you don't seem to have any averse reaction to it and can't hold off any longer, you decide fuck it and go ahead and finish the slice. It's good, dense. You feel more satisfied than you have in days. Not close to fully, it's just one slice after all, but it's more than a protein rectangle could do for you, and you'll take what you can get at this point.

It gets better after that.

Your meals slowly but surely begin to approximate actual meals as the humans incorporate more variety into your allotments. Most of it is surprisingly good. Thick porridges with small orange larvae on top, stewed leafvegetables and some sort of legumes on baked tubers, and always plenty of whatever that loaf is that they've managed to concoct. Even that seems to become less bland over time.

One meal, some kind of flatloaf with the same seedpaste you've enjoyed on your regular grubloaf, makes you violently ill. You're leaning over the load gaper for hours, shaking and sweating with the effort of forcibly expelling whatever heinous garbage your body wasn’t meant to digest, and you only took a bite of it. You’re always cautious when they give you something new to try, and now you're glad for it. It’s the only time John comes into your cell. (With Jade and Dave standing close by, of course.) He checks your temperature, does some tests, and helps you drink some vaguely sweet liquid. You’re too drained to brush off his hand when he idly drags it over your burning skin, but when you wake up from sleeping it off, you hate yourself just a bit more for letting it happen.

But aside from that.

You find ways to entertain yourself. You practice your forms for hours on end, like you used to in your respiteblock back on Alternia (without, of course, your sickles). At first you get a grim sort of satisfaction from the thought that the humans can see you practicing. You’d like to think it puts them just a bit on edge—a reminder that as sorry an excuse for one as you are, you’re still a member of the most notorious conquering species in the universe, and they've decided to keep you in a cage. You soon realize, though, that you’re also an absolute tool and, if anything, all of your practicing would only serve to thoroughly educate them on your fighting style and let them outline exactly how to take you down should you ever try to attack one of them.

Still, it’s too solid a distraction to give up. You just can’t brush the knowledge of how much of a self-destructive moron you're being every time you do.

You write stories in your head. You used to dabble a bit before… well. Before. It’s frustrating, not being able to write any of it down, but it’s at least something to think about. You wonder if you'll ever get the chance to record them or if they'll inevitably die with you.

You try to recite the scripts of your favorite movies by memory. And by recite, you mean mouth the words in Alternian. You’re a little bit scared that if you start using your voice, you’re not going to be able to stop, and you’ll end up babbling incoherently to yourself for the rest of time. Besides, if the humans pick up Alternian, you’re fucked.

John has you taken out of your cell periodically to run more tests. You both hate it with every fiber of your being and need it more than anyone could possibly understand. Being in a room with other people, listening to their conversations, observing the interactions of actual living, breathing beings, even if they're goddamn insane-ass humans, makes you feel real. You don't understand most of the tests John subjects you to, but it's still a change of fucking pace. And aside from the occasional blood theft, none of it really hurts.

It drives you up the wall that John ceaselessly consoles you throughout the whole process. Even more so, if possible, you hate that you find yourself leaning into his touches against your better judgement, and responding to his soothing tones. It makes you feel absolutely repulsive when you think about it afterwards, skin crawling with the ghost trails of his grubby phalanges, and more confused than you ever possibly be. For the love of fuck you can't figure out why he does it. He… doesn't seem like the kind of guy to have this sort of depraved power fantasy. But then again, it's not like you really know him. And you're starting to realize that you can't really trust your instincts when it comes to him.

Nobody stops him either. They just watch. Or don't. It makes you burn.

All of this isn't to say you don't lose plenty of hours to staring at the ceiling, outlining everything you hate about your situation and everything you hate about yourself that got you into it. Because you do plenty of that as well. Who knew there were so many hours in the night?

It's been about a week since you got here. You think. You started keeping track of the days by making scratch marks in the plaster by your mat with the tip of your claw. You're not sure if you missed a day or not, though, and those first couple days are pretty foggy. It's either six or seven, though. Probably.

You've just finished eating your first meal when the door swings open. You frown. It's a weird time for John to send for you, but whatever. It's not like that guy makes the slightest bit of sense in the first place.

You startle when she steps into your cell.

It's the human female you saw when they first brought you in. You haven't seen her since. She's never in the lab when John runs his tests, and it's always Dave and Jade bringing you food. She's just as unnerving as your first impression.

You watch her through narrow eyes as she closes the door behind her, turning her back to you for a moment. No one comes into your cell alone. Not since Dave checked your wound, and it was pretty clear he wasn't supposed to do that in the first place. Even when Dave sneaks in while he thinks your asleep, you're pretty sure Jade stands by the door just in case.

She takes a few steps into the room, then sits down gracefully on her knees. You're sitting, as you so often do, on your mat against the wall. She sits as close to the mirrored wall as possible, which is still only a few feet away from you. She smooths out her skirt.

"Hello," she says, a small smile forming on her lips.

Your blood runs cold.

She's not talking at you. She's talking to you.

"My name is Rose Lalonde. I am a behavioral psychologist working with Skaianet Labs on the Chihuahuan Project. Our goal is to collect as much data on troll biology and behavior as possible. I would like to assure you that we mean you no harm."

Your nose twitches against your control. Her eyes flick to the reaction, and her smile extends just slightly.

“I apologize for the late introduction,” she continues, watching you carefully as you refuse to react. “This lab was under the impression that you did not understand English, or any other human language.”

You note that "this lab" doesn't seem to include her in that regard. You wonder how long she's suspected.

“But it seems the truth is to the contrary. I believe you can understand me just fine.”

She pauses. Perhaps to give you the generous opportunity to spill your guts. In the silence she leaves, you realize that you've been producing a low rumbling growl. You don't know when it started. You have deniability, you think. You made it pretty clear from the beginning that you don't like her. There's no reason they would connect your reaction to anything in particular she's said.

Right?

You’re going to lose your goddamn mind trying to play these games.

“Nothing you do will confirm or deny this fact,” she says, as if reading your mind. “I can assure you I wouldn’t waste my time with baseless bluffs. No, we have already found plenty of evidence that you can understand us. You’re very…”

She pauses, but something tells you she doesn’t really have to. Theatrics.

“Expressive.”

Your growl spikes in response and you would hate yourself for it except that she doesn’t seem to react at all.

Maybe she’s telling the truth. She has you all figured out, and you’re wasting your energy trying to keep up this charade.

Even so, it doesn’t mean you have to speak.

“I think you’d find your situation would be more manageable if you were able to communicate with us. Perhaps some of the… complications that occurred in first few days here would have been more easily avoided had you been able to assist us in understanding your species' nutritional needs and limitations. Your cooperation would be most helpful in preventing such misunderstandings in the future.”

You know a threat when you hear one. It makes you wonder, again, just how long she’s suspected.

She regards you calmly. You feel the way her eyes take in your expression, your posture, the way your claws bite into the side of your leg.

"You're a very interesting subject,” she says eventually. "And I don't just mean as an example of your species' psychology. There's something fascinating about you as an individual."

She pauses. You're starting to sense a pattern with these pauses. It's irritatingly difficult to tell if she's genuinely thinking about what to say next, or if she just does it for dramatic effect. You lean towards the latter.

"Did you know that you are the first of your kind humanity has managed to take into custody?" She asks. "I don't think it's a coincidence that it's you."

You wince. You had your suspicions, but it still stings to have them confirmed.

"You have a very strong survival instinct that supersedes your sense of pride and your fear of mistreatment," she says. "It might surprise you to know that this isn't so uncommon in humans, but in the experience we've had with trolls it seems you are of a rare disposition."

Low blow, but fine. You're not unaccustomed to taking insults. It's not like she's fucking wrong anyway. You already know you're a cowardly piece of shit.

"And yet," she continues. "You still refuse to cooperate when you know that doing so could very easily improve your quality of life, implying that you don't act entirely in self-interest. There is something you are still trying to protect, and, I suppose, what I am so curious to know is what?"

She gives you space to answer. Which, of course, you do not. This doesn't seem to deter her in the slightest. In fact, she almost seems delighted to have the opportunity to continue.

"The circumstances surrounding your… apprehension tell an interesting story after all" Her smile finally breaks through the borders of calculatedly pleasant and into smug territory. "After several weeks of observing the Chihuahuan troll military camp from a distance and multiple attempts to surreptitiously apprehend a scout, finding each subject more willing to take their own life than submit to custody, our own scouts discover an exerted troll with limited supplies and no means of contact, who not only puts up a fight upon being discovered, but eventually surrenders when he is finally overpowered."

You grit your teeth.

"And, perhaps most interesting, in a species that shows distinct cultural and biological markers of liberal subscription to the practice of eugenics, he belongs to a blood caste previously entirely unidentified and wears an injury on his arm that appears to be a day old."

Her expression has barely changed but she manages to look so damn smug regardless. You breathe heavily through your twitching nub, burning with the frustration and shame of having your shortcomings and mistakes projected right back at you. You hate that she knows. You hate that she can look right at you and see you for the pathetic nookstain you are.

Your desire for attention has always been a fickle thing. It's your most pathetic fantasy, that people will look at you, will look up to you. That some impossible day you'll be worthy of someone's time and affection.

But you never want them to actually see you.

She sees you.

"So, what I have to wonder," she says, her smug look fading into something akin to curiosity, “is what could possibly coerce someone as stubborn as yourself into protecting a society that adamantly refuses to protect you?”

She clasps her hands in her lap. You stare at her neat black fingertips.

“Because I don’t believe it's fear. And I don’t believe it's pride."

She tilts her head, and her small smile suddenly appears genuine.

"I think you’re loyal.”

Something in her eyes turns her smile sad. Then it twitches and fades, and her face becomes a blank mask.

“Loyalty is a powerful thing," she says, "but misguided, it can be incredibly dangerous.”

She stand up. She’s not even going to give you the opportunity to respond. She knows you won’t.

"I hope you understand exactly what it is you’re loyal to," she says. Then she looks away. "Think about it."

You watch her leave.

You swallow thickly, fingers curling into fists, claws digging painfully into your palms.

You raise your fist to the side and slam it into the wall behind you, ignoring the way your eyes water at the bright shock of pain that thrums through your wrist.

You ignore the way your secret silently streams down your face.

She comes to see you again the next day. You're lying on your side, facing the wall, as has become your habit. You didn't bother to get up when Dave and Jade brought you your first meal. It, presumably, sits on the floor where they left it.

You don't need to recognize her footsteps to know that it's her, but you do anyway. Soft. Careful. Deliberate.

You hear her sit down.

She doesn't say anything. She knows. You hate that she knows.

She waits.

You exhale heavily and slowly sit up. You turn to face her, leaning back against the wall. She has a small notepad folded in her hands. You grit your teeth.

"Fuck you." And god, you never thought you'd see the day when your own voice sounded so weird. "What do you want to know?"

Chapter Text

“Let’s start with something simple,” she says, taking a pencil from behind her ear and pressing the tip against the notepad. You’ve spent enough time here to know that everything in your cell and the lab is recorded. She doesn’t need to take notes. It’s infuriating.

“Full name?”

“Karkat Vantas,” you answer, only hesitating for a moment. Answering her questions feels unnatural. It makes your stomach turn in guilt and disgust.

“Rank?”

“Treasonous piece of shit.”

Her eyebrow quirks up, but she seems more amused than annoyed.

“Previous rank,” she amends.

“Lowblood scum.”

Her expression flattens and now you think you’re bordering on annoyed territory. You roll your eyes.

“I’m not fucking with you," you say, then think. "Mostly. That’s about as close to a rank as anyone bellow yellow is gonna get. I mopped floors and took messages. You don't get a fancy-ass title unless you're a pretentious fuck higher up on the spectrum.”

Or you have crazy-ass powers. Then you just become a weapon.

She makes a note of this, apparently satisfied.

“How old are you, Karkat?”

“Nine,” you respond automatically. You watch as her eyebrows jump just a fraction in what you think approximates surprise, then settle down into a muted display of understanding.

The fascinating micro-expressions of Rose Lalonde.

“Nine of what units?”

“Oh,” you say. “Sweeps. That’s uh…”

You try to remember the conversion in your head, but you can’t pin down the exact number.

“A little over two Earth years?”

She seems more satisfied with this.

“Is there an age of maturation in troll culture?” she asks.

You shift.

“Adult molt hits around ten sweeps if that’s what you mean,” you say, bitterness seeping into your voice. It’s a sore topic for you. You have the feeling she’s going to be poking at plenty of those for as long as you decide to comply.

“What does adult molt entail?” she asks.

You roll your eyes. Mammals.

“It’s your last chance for growth, first off. Your skin comes in darker. Depending on where you are on the spectrum, your horns might get a lot bigger too. Your, uh,” you clear your throat, “eyes fill in.”

“Fill in with?”

“Your blood color,” you say curtly.

She makes a little note at that. You grumble, but she just ignores you.

"You can't honestly tell me you haven't seen any adult trolls," you say, the thought suddenly occurring to you. "There's not a lot of them running around Earth, sure, but they're here. You have to have seen some fucking pictures at least."

She looks just a bit surprised again.

"Well," she says, shifting so her legs are tucked up beside her. "We had our suspicions, but we weren't certain that they were adult trolls. There's so much differentiation, especially between blood castes, that we couldn't be sure they weren't some class of their own."

You don't know what exactly to say to that, but the realization that you're alleviating some pretty solid ignorance here hits you suddenly, and you're not sure how you feel about it. The best you can pin it down to is an unfortunate assortment of various flavors of bad.

“How long is the average troll’s lifespan?” she asks.

“It depends,” you say, a little sharply.

She gives you a flat look.

“Natural lifespan. I appreciate that you’re frustrated, but obstinance will only serve to prolong this process.”

You snarl.

“Yeah well fuck you too. I’m not an absolute bulge-chafing moron—I know what you meant. Like I said it fucking depends. Rusts are somewhere around twenty sweeps, fuchsia's practically a goddamn eternity, and everyone else is somewhere in the middle.”

She doesn’t seem phased by your retort, seeming to find the information satisfactory enough. She tilts her head curiously.

"And where would you fall on that spectrum?" she asks.

You laugh darkly.

"How the fuck should I know?" you say, a little hysterically. "I'm not even on the bulge-splintering thing. For all I know I'll drop dead tomorrow and the batshit rules or whatever the fuck governs troll biology will be perfectly satisfied. Your indiscriminate guess is as good as mine."

You think it's about the most useless answer you've given so far, and yet you end up watching Rose scribble in her notepad for the longest period yet. You wonder just what the fuck she's writing.

It makes you uncomfortable.

Before you can politely ask her about it (by which you mean loudly complain) she changes the subject.

"How did you come to learn English?" she says, her eyes lagging on her notes for a moment before settling back on you.

"I learned it on the way to Earth," you say. "Everyone does. It's basic fucking protocol, learning the language of whatever planet it is you're about to conquer. Why the fuck wouldn't we?"

She tilts her head thoughtfully.

"You realize English isn't Earth's only language. Many would find the implication offensive.” The way her mouth turns up tells you she’s teasing you.

"Yeah of course it's fucking not. Because you're all a bunch of masochistic dunderfucks who don't give a shit about basic communicative functionality."

That seems to amuse her.

"How many languages does Alternia have then?" she asks

"One," you say, flatly. "Because we're not insane."

Her mouth quirks upwards again. You're getting the general impression that she finds your answers—and, by extension, you—amusing. It irks you that she's not taking you seriously.

"Do you know any other of Earth's apparently dysfunctional diversity of languages then?"

"Just English and Español. We learn whatever major languages are spoken in the region we're deployed. If on the minuscule sliver of a chance I survived long enough to see this region conquered, I would have learned whatever gratuitous clusterfuck of language is popular there."

"And you're fluent in both?" she asks, curiously.

"Uh, yes?" you say, giving her a look you hope communicates how stupid the question is. On the other hand it doesn't really matter if it does, because now that you've fully committed to being a species-betraying shit smudge you're free to communicate this fact with your mouth. "I'd have to be a blithering dipshit with viscous utility slime clogging my pan not to."

Words. It's nice to have them back.

Rose ignores your colorful language in favor of looking curious and asking (you guessed it!) yet another goddamn question.

“What does the language acquisition process look like for trolls then?” she asks.

You frown.

“I don’t know,” you say. “We watch a bunch of videos and then we fucking know it. What else do you want me to say?”

You don’t get why she finds this line of questioning so fucking fascinating, but whatever. At least she’s not asking about your blood anymore.

“And how long does that take?”

“A few weeks?” You shrug.

She seems impressed. It makes you uncomfortable.

“What?” you say. “How absurdly long does it take humans to complete the basic fucking task of learning a language. A goddamn human Earth year?”

That’s a ridiculously long amount of time for such a simple fucking skill, and you expect her to call you out for being ornery again. Instead, she just smiles.

“Many,” she admits.

You stare at her blankly.

“How the absolute nook-chafing fuck,” you say slowly, “is such a laughably incompetent, developmentally wriggler-staged half-apologetic excuse for a species holding its own against the Alternian fucking Empire?”

She actually gives you a goddamn grin, and it’s probably the most unnerving expression you’ve seen on her yet.

“We were hoping you might be able to provide insight on that matter yourself,” she says.

You return a spiteful grin of your own.

“Sorry, but if you’re looking for military secrets you’re fresh the fuck out of luck. The idea that anyone would tell me shit is beyond laughable.”

“That’s alright. You might be surprised at how useful the information that you can provide is to us.”

That sobers the smug right out of you. Guilt twists in your digestion sack. You would say you can’t believe what a useless sell-out you’ve become except that you totally can believe it. Because the thoughts and feelings that have led you down this particular path… well they’re not entirely new, are they?

Rose looks at you thoughtfully, and you think she must sense the way you’ve drawn in on yourself.

“Perhaps a little quid pro quo is in order,” she says. “I’m sure you have plenty of questions yourself. Why don’t we exchange information?”

You eye her warily. You’ve been wondering about a number of thing actually, but you didn’t expect to have the opportunity to just… ask. You guess after gleaning information under the radar for so long the idea of getting straight answers to your questions feels a little unnatural. And suspicious.

After all the more you know, the more of a liability you would be if they ever decided to… but you’re not even going to let yourself hope for that so fuck it.

“Who the fuck are you people?” you ask, against your better judgement.

“Like I said, we’re Skaianet labs.”

You know she knows you won’t be satisfied with that. She’s fucking with you. You snarl at her smug little smirk.

“And that doesn’t mean shit to me,” you say. “Are you part of the human government or whatever convoluted excuse for a system of leadership you have on this clusterfuck of a planet? Because nothing about this shitfest reads 'official protocol' in any capacity."

The limited knowledge you have about Earth leadership systems boils down to "bureaucratic as fuck." And while you're certainly no expert on what that entails, something about this whole situation just feels… off. They've taken too many risks.

Rose appears to think. “Appear” being a generous euphemism for “pretends to as if she doesn’t already know exactly what to say but can’t pass up the apparently perfect opportunity to fabricate drama.” You know. Half—scratch that—pretty much all of the friends you’ve ever had are just as slutty for theatrics.

"You could call us… government adjacent," she says. You scowl. She elaborates before you can complain. "We have some connections that allow us to operate outside of certain supervisions and regulations. In return, they're guaranteed some of the best results they could hope for."

You chew on this.

"Well that sounds shady as fuck," you say after a moment.

She just smiles.

"Perhaps."

So, unless she's lying (which you don't think she is; she's clever, but you tend to think yourself pretty adept at sniffing out horseshit) you're in the hands of some incredibly powerful people who are in no way obligated to keep that power in check. They're essentially highbloods, and you're at their mercy.

This shouldn't surprise you, but you find yourself just a little more nervous regardless.

"Can you tell me more about the different troll blood castes?" she asks. Apparently it's her turn to ask questions again.

It's not one of your favorite subjects to discuss, but you do your best to give a bare-bones rundown of the hemospectrum, pointedly avoiding your personal relationship with it. She seems to find the topic fascinating, but doesn't stop to make many notes. You're starting to glean that she's not taking down information as much as keeping track of her own thoughts, and that most of those thoughts have to do with you rather than whatever you're telling her. You don't love that you're her favored topic of analysis, but there's something just a little reassuring that she has to write down her thoughts to keep track of them. It makes her just a bit more… organic.

You get to ask another question after that and unfortunately can’t resist the urge to squander it by asking how much time has passed. It’s still a relief when she confirms your assumptions that it’s been six days since your capture. You think it would have freaked you out more than you’d like to admit if you had missed a day or two in there. Or if you were operating on some totally arbitrary day-night cycle with absolutely no accurate grasp of how much time has passed.

She asks you more questions about troll society. Some about the military, but mostly always coming back around to your culture. She seems to find it morbidly fascinating, which you don’t really have much of a response to. You know human society is squishy soft and coddling, so you sort of get where she’s coming from.

She lets you ask some more questions of your own, and seems to answer them fully, but you find it curious that you always end up spending much more time answering her questions than she does yours. Especially because you barely notice it happening while it does. She’s good.

You’ve been talking for what feels like forever, and you skipped your first meal and you think she notices when you transition from your normal level of irritability to actually just so fucking done because she flips her notepad closed and gives you one last assessing look.

“Thank you for your cooperation,” she says eventually. “I know this is a difficult situation for you but I hope you understand where we’re coming from in taking the measures we have. That said, is there anything I can do to make your situation more comfortable?”

You laugh bitterly.

“How about letting me out of this fucking cell?”

She smiles and it’s so plastic it hurts to look at.

“Unfortunately we can’t do that,” she says robotically. “But if you continue to be as helpful as you have been today, there’s a distinct possibility we’ll be able to consider it in the future.”

And that makes you angry.

Your lip twitches and you roll your eyes.

“You don’t believe me?” she asks innocently.

And. You can’t just.

“You realize I know exactly what you’re doing?” you seethe. “You’re going to placate me with little comforts and pleasantries, holding the root-vegetable of freedom over my head until you’ve wrung every last drop of even marginally useful information from me, from my body, and then when your voracious appetite for incriminating evidence you can use against my species is finally satiated, you’re going to kill me. And if I know anything about you bleeding-bloodpusher, facetious, squeamish humans, you’ll find some incidental way to do it that lets you conveniently shirk any remote guilt or blame you might otherwise be inclined to pathetically indulge in over the whole miserable affair, even if it means a slower, more painful death on my end. So fucking forgive me if I refuse to pretend to be the vapid ignoramus you clearly want me to be. You can dissect my biology, pick apart my psyche, drill me for information all you want but don’t fucking insult me by lying to my face and pretending that all of this ends with us shaking hands and amicably parting ways when you know goddamn well it fucking doesn't."

You're shaking.

Rose's face is blank. Completely inscrutable. She says nothing.

A moment passes.

You deflate. You avert your eyes and stare avidly at the floor. You're so fucking tired.

"A blanket," you say eventually, quieter. "And something to read. I'm bored out of my fucking mind."

Your voice comes out hoarse. You put it through a lot after such a long period of disuse.

You see Rose nod out of the corner of your eye.

"I'll see what I can do," she says.

You don't watch her leave.