Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Rain slices through the air like acid through metal.

It helps that, on Alternia, the rain IS acid. And it’s fucking pouring outside. Luckily from where you’re standing at the mouth of the cave you’re completely sheltered and have a beautiful view of the apocalypse Alternia calls ‘weather’. It boggles your mind that your squishy human body is probably the only thing on this planet that this rain can hurt. Seriously, what the fuck, Alternia? Why is EVERYTHING out to kill you?

“Hey.”

Well, almost everything.

You turn around. You are 61.20% positive that at this point in your friendship Polypa won’t kill you or leave you for dead. Heck, she trusted you enough to bring you back to where she lives and not a hideout! Knowing that information alone is enough of a death sentence from someone in her line of work and, frankly, you’re incredibly touched she trusted you with the information. It makes your head go all fuzzy just thinking about it.

Polypa, with purpose, walks over, grabs your hand, and pulls you away from the mouth of the cave. “You’re gonna fry your pan breathing in all the fumes outside. You can get away with that in the city, but you can’t out here in the wilds.”

Oh yup your nose is burning. Eyes are also burning. How about that. You gratefully thank Polypa as she leads you deeper into the caves and away from the death outside her doorstep.

You were both surprised and very not surprised to find out that Polypa lives in a cave in the middle of nowhere. 

On the one hand, you know she rakes in pretty mad cash as an assassin for hire because you have seen the price tags on a few of her anime figurines. You expected she probably had a nice, cozy hive tucked somewhere nondescript. On the other hand you also know that she’s constantly on the run for not only being an assassin, but for ALSO having a dead lusus. A nice hive in the city somewhere would be too constrictive and obvious for her vagabond lifestyle.

And, to be fair, the cave somehow totally has electricity. You can’t imagine it’s THAT bad living here.

Polypa’s cave reminds you a lot like her: it has all the essential a young troll needs for basic survival with very little standing out, and it’s got a high wall filled with anime and weaponry. The usual, really. She’s made use of most of the natural ledges and filled them with photographs. Some are old, a little yellowed with age and ash with a younger, happier troll frozen in time within. Most of them are more recent pictures of her and Tegiri and even more recently, you. 

Polypa leads you to a couch in front of a small television and shoves you onto it. The couch, not the television. She kneels in front of you. “How many touch stubs am I holding up?”

You squint at her hand, watch as the room stops swimming out of the corner of your eye, and report that she is holding up 3 fingers. Touch stubs. Whatever they are, she is holding them.

She gives a nod of satisfaction and sits down on the sofa next to you. “Sorry for keeping you out so late. This storm was supposed to miss us,” she says, a scowl pulling at her lips. “Should have known better. Gorecaster’s are wrong half the time anyways.”

You tell her that it’s no problem at all! You’re grateful more than anything that you have such a nice place to stay for the day and you don’t have to walk back to your buggy in the rain. The awful, skin melting, death inducing rain. You stretch out comfortably on the couch to further prove your point. She raises an eyebrow at you.

“If you say so,” she says instead of the dozen or so things you know she was thinking. “But just so you know, I only have one recupracoon and I’m not planning on sharing.”

Oh, what, does she REALLY think you’re going to try and go for that old romance trope? 

You’re totally fine just crashing on her couch for the day. You tell her as much and ensure her you don’t plan on encroaching on her personal space like that. Besides, what’s the point of sleeping in gross slime it doesn’t actually benefit you at all? Polypa stares at you for a second. A little longer than appropriate, you think, but who are you to judge? Eventually she seems satisfied by your answer and stands up from the couch. You watch her walk the short distance to her anime collection.

She pulls something off the shelf, quickly scans the back, and turns back to you with a smile. “Wanna watch cringey 90s anime until sunrise?”

HELL. YES.

Unfortunately you fall asleep before the first episode even reaches the end credits.

Damn it.

CRASH

BOOM

You fall off of Polypa’s couch with a start. You struggle fruitlessly on the ground to untangle yourself the blankets coiled around your legs until, finally, you’re free and able to alien roll away from your fluffy captor. You almost hit the coffee table. Almost. You stand and look around the cave frantically, still half asleep. It’s near pitch black in here with the lights off. What the fuck was happening? Had the drones finally come for both of you? Was it Her Imperial Condescension herself, here to tell you off for fucking around on her planet? 

There’s a flash outside bright enough to nearly blind you. Moments later, thunder ROARS above your head and through your bones. A picture actually falls off of one of Polya’s shelves and you hear the glass in the frame crack.

Ah.

The storm got worse while you were sleeping. Cool. Fantastic. Just absolutely wonderful. Alternia really just can’t do anything halfway, can it? The weight of this planet’s typical bullshit pushes a hefty, tired sigh out of you. You’re in the process of turning back to the couch to try and go back to sleep when you hear it.

It’s quiet. Muffled, especially by the ringing in your ears and the drone of the rain. But just a little deeper into the cave you hear it.

Whimpering.

A choice lays before you. Do you go back to sleep? Or do you follow the sound deeper into the cave?

Swallowing your anxiety you decide to press forward.

You immediately walk right into the table you had so far managed to avoid and crack your knee on a corner.

It takes every ounce of your self control not to yelling. You grit your teeth and bear it, figure out where the table is, and step around it. 

Your trek to the back of the cave is a slow one. Your memory of Polypa’s home is sketchy at best. Unlike trolls you don’t exactly have night vision; you pause and get your bearings by the light of lightning strikes that are just infrequent enough to leave you scrambling in the dark between bolts. Your eyes never truly adjust to the darkness. Swirls of colors burned into your retinas by the storm leave you jumping at nothing more times than you’d care to admit. The entire journey feels like it takes much, much longer than it should have. Or maybe that's just your perception of time and all the stress making it seem that way.

You finally reach a room in the back of the cave where the whimpering is loudest and the lightning can’t reach. Luckily you aren’t going in completely blind. The room is lit by a faint, green-ish glow emanating from the back corner of the room. The light of a recupracoon, to be precise. Something in your gut sinks.

You make your way over to the recupracoon with slow, measured steps. You have absolutely no doubt where that sound is coming from and you would hate to end up dead because she woke up thinking you were a threat. Getting to the top of the ‘coon when you actually reach it is a different story. There’s no ladders or stairs, just the exterior to climb up.

And so climb up it you do. You scuttle up that recupracoon like you were born on this bug themed planet yourself and reach the top like it ain’t no thing. You peer over the lip of it.

And there you see Polypa in the faint, green hue cast by the sopor slime, writhing in her sleep.

Your heart pangs in sympathy.

You realize with a sudden clarity that you did not plan this far in advance and have no idea what to do next. You were under the impression that sleeping in gross slime was supposed to prevent nightmares. If Polypa is having a nightmare while up to her nose in the stuff, it has to be a nasty one, right? You can’t just leave her like that. Will she kill you if you wake her up though? You feel like there is an absurdly high chance that she will kill you if you wake her up right now. You are pretty sure that waking her up would be the thing that finally kills you on this planet. Anxiety and indecision pulse through you. You’re torn between your natural inclination to be helpful and your lizard brain telling you not to die.

In her sleep, Polypa whimpers.

And for an instant you’re back on Earth. You’re younger, so much younger and you’re crying. And someone is running a comforting hand through your hair.

Unthinkingly, unsteadily you reach down and set your hand on Polypa’s head.

You freeze upon contact, waiting for her to wake up and rip your arm off, but she doesn’t. So gently, oh so gently, you press your luck and run your fingers across her scalp. Troll hair feels nothing like human hair, but you card your fingers through it all the same. You carefully smooth some of the slimy lumps out of Polypa’s hair and you whisper to her. She’s fine, she’s safe, it’s ok.

And against every single odd on this godforsaken planet it works. Polypa calms down in small increments. You whisper tiny encouragements and you tell her about your day, about your other friends, about Earth. Really, you just don’t stop talking. You're practically just babbling any little thing that comes to mind. You keep a constant rhythm with your hand in her hair way past the point where your arm is nothing but pins and needles. Slime sticks to you up to your elbow.

The whimpering stops. The creases in her face smooth, bit by bit by bit, until all of the muscles in her face finally relax. A tiny rumbling starts somewhere deep in her chest and she leans towards your hand in her sleep. The picture of her, right here right now, will be one you keep close to your heart perhaps for the rest of your probably short life.

Outside the storm continues to rage.

At some point you fall asleep just like that. The remnants of a half-whispered sweet nothing on your lips and your hand buried in Polypa’s wiry hair.

You’re back on the couch when you next wake up. A perfect scene transition. You’re under a small pile of blankets and pillows and faintly, very faintly, you hear the sizzling of something meaty on top of a stove. Sleep clings to your tired limbs. The rain has stopped and there’s a beam of moonlight slowly rising into view. How on Earth did you get here?

“You’re awake.”

You crane your neck awkwardly towards the voice. You find Polypa there in her tiny, makeshift kitchen with breakfast cooking away. She’s already fully dressed and her hair is up in a lazy ponytail. Voice hoarse with sleep you greet her warmly and inform her that you are, in fact, awake. Polypa blushes and turns back to the stove.

“Go back to sleep. Breakfast won’t be ready for a while yet and you had a long night,” she tells you bluntly.

Not as long of a night as she did, you shoot back.

Polypa tenses, almost imperceptibly. “...I’m sorry you had to see that.”

You sit up and bring half the pile of blankets with you. You’re still practically cocooned. You do your best to shrug though. It wasn’t that big of a deal. You really just hope she’s feeling better.

Still, Polypa doesn’t turn around to look at you. “You didn’t have to do what you did, you know.”

Huh?

“I woke up for a little bit,” Polypa flips an egg on her skillet. Probably an egg. Maybe not an egg. “Just long enough to realize I’d been dreaming and to be scared. But you were there.”

The air goes still. There’s a tension, a tension you’re a little too alien to be able to grasp. You apologize instead for invading her privacy. You just couldn’t leave her like that.

Silence stretches on for a few minutes after that. Polypa continues making breakfast and you drift in and out of sleep on the couch. On some level you think you should be helping her out. On every single other level you are very warm and sleepy and nothing is going to pry you from that except for death.

Finally, after what feels like an eternity, you’re startled back to lucidity by Polypa plopping down next to you on the sofa. She offers you a plate of food. Suddenly ravenous you reach out of your pile of comfort and snatch it from her without a word and begin shoveling food into your mouth. Polypa stares at you, eyes wide in shock. And then she laughs. It’s a short, simple, incredulous laugh, but it’s the first one you’ve ever heard out of her.

“That was the best night of sleep I’ve had in awhile,” Polpya tells you after you’ve inhaled about half your plate. “So… thank you.”

You flop your cocooned body into her shoulder. She doesn’t have to thank you, she’ll never have to thank you. You’re just doing what anyone else would do.

She chews on that for all of about a second. “If you say so,” Polypa says instead of the dozen or so things you know she was thinking. She wraps an arm around your shoulders and pulls you close. You carefully extract yourself just enough to throw a blanket over her and induct her into the comfort pile. Polypa goes bright green, but she doesn’t say anything. So you don’t either. You have no idea what’s happening here and you don’t want to ruin the moment with your big, stupid mouth.

“Can I… Can I tell you?” Polpya asks, quiet as a mouse. “About my dream?”

You nod against her shoulder. Haltingly, Polypa begins to speak.

Chapter Text

The heavy bass of the club thrums in your chest. It isn’t so much loud as it is powerful. Even where you are backstage, on the opposite side of the speakers, you can feel each vibration as it jostles your ribs and threatens to permanently damage your hearing. You’re shocked everything in the dressing room hasn’t been knocked from its shelves.

But you are on a mission and by gum if you’ve ever let your feeble little human body stop you.

Chixie jolts forwards and gawks at you, “He didn’t. ”

You pull back to ensure you don’t accidentally stab Chixie in the eye with an eyebrow pencil. As she settles back into her seat aghast you inform her that, yeah, he super did . He said it with the straightest, sincerest face you have ever seen someone say something completely wrong with. The entire experience of befriending Zebruh Codak seems like a weird fever dream in comparison to every other troll you’ve met. Until you begin explaining it to literally anyone who’s met him.

“God, he’s such a tool,” Chixie takes the words right out of your mouth. 

You set the eyebrow pencil down and look at your work so far. 

When Chixie DM’d you out of the blue and asked if you would be her +1 to another show, you’d said yes before she even finished asking the question. When it turned out she needed your help more than she specifically needed your company, well, you were beyond flattered to be the first person she thought of.

And when you had arrived to meet her in front of a very nice, very classy, very indigo and above club you understand why she wanted some backup. 

This was a BIG opportunity for her. 

It was also terrifying. You were terrified. Chixie was absolutely scared out of her mind. She was nothing but stock photo smiles until you’d gotten into her dressing room. At which point she shoved her face into the nearest pillow and started swearing. Loudly and colorfully. That’s about how you got to where you were now: what better way to settle some nerves than a friendly makeover and gossip? Did you have any idea what you were doing? Mostly not! Lucky for you GrubTube was FULL of makeup tutorials.

...But for the most part you were still fucking winging it.

It worked for you most of the time.

Finished with her eyebrows you carefully put the pencil back and grab some bronze-y eyeliner. You pop the cap off with your thumb and flinch when it flies off and rolls somewhere under the vanity. Whoops. Chixie laughs quietly and the sweet sound of it soothes your soul.

“We’ll hunt it down later, don’t worry about it,” she assures you. 

You nod and try and mentally prepare yourself for your next task. You have absolutely no idea why Chixie trusted you to do this or why you even offered to in the first place. The most you learned about Alternian makeup and fashion was from Stelsa. But here you are and here Chixie is, letting you poke around her face with pointy objects. You suck in a breath and get to it. 

In your personal opinion Chixie’s eyes are her biggest charm point next to her rarely seen, sincere smiles. The makeup around her eyes is going to need to be perfect in order to compliment them. You motion for Chixie to tilt her head up and gently, very gently, begin tracing underneath what a human would call the waterline. 

You don’t know what trolls call it. 

Probably something weird, like gander seam or event horizon or moisture wall. 

Chixie shuffles a little in her seat and you unthinkingly grasp her cheek in your free hand to steady her. She blushes. You blush. You power through and you don’t remove your hand.

“I wanted to thank you again for coming tonight,” Chixie says as the silence between the two of you begins to stretch.  You assure her it was no problem at all. You studiously finish with the eyeliner and blindly reach over to grab her eyeshadow. You gently press the shimmery powder to her eyelids completely In The Zone. Damn, you’ve got this SO hard. 

Chixie clenches and unclenches her hands in her laps. “I really, really appreciate it. It’s… it’s probably pretty silly, actually,” she trails off. 

You pull back from Chixie a little to gauge your work. You don’t think it’s silly at all, you inform her seriously. You’ve been on Alternia long enough. You understand the hemospectrum, mostly. You would want backup if you were in her shoes too. Literally anyone in your corner. 

That was apparently not quite the right thing to say. Chixie reaches out and grabs both of your hands when you lean back in to work on her other eye. You almost drop the little eyeshadow applicator in surprise and you look up at Chixie in confusion. Her face is set in a serious, no nonsense frown as she stares at you. The blush on her face is more prominent, now, and you can very lightly feel her claws digging into your wrist.

“I was planning on turning this concert down,” she mumbles quietly, so quietly that if it weren’t for your close proximity you don’t think you’d have heard it over the music. “I thought, what would the point even be? I would get here and the same old story would play out.” 

Her grip tightens on you, just a little, and then goes completely slack. Just holding you tiredly as she talks. Chixie, you note, has very warm hands.

“I would get here, I would get ready to go on stage, and something bad would happen. Something bad always happens,” her eyes bore into your very soul. With a slow, soft smile, Chixie says, “The only exception was the night you were there.”

Oh.

Oh wow, gosh, is it hot in here or is it just the blush that charged onto your face? You have no idea what to say to that.

“I remembered how it felt to charge onto the stage and how great it felt to stand up for myself for once. You gave me a push I didn't know I needed…" Chixie smiles at you; small, shy, and sincere. "I didn’t come to the city to be a coward, I came here to be heard. You helped me remember that. The worst anyone here can do is kill me. ” 

You very politely ask Chixie not to die tonight. Or even joke about it for that matter. Just imagining it makes you nauseous.

Chixie laughs again; a bittersweet sound with a fond, indulgent smile.  She rolls her eyes dramatically and lets go of your dominant wrist. “I wasn’t planning on it. That’s why I wanted you to be here,” Chixie admits. She gently pats you on the cheek. “You’re like my lucky charm. My weird, fashionably incompetant, alien lucky charm.”

That might just be the nicest compliment you’ve received since landing on Alternia.

“I don’t doubt it,” she pats your cheek again before fully letting you go, her hands returning to her lap. “I just wanted to make things clear between us. No misunderstandings.”

Everything is crystal clear, you tell her. So clear in fact that you actually have no idea what was unclear in the first place. Not a clue in the world.

“Good. ...You can finish doing my makeup, by the way. I didn’t mean to make you stop.”

You squeak out an apology and get back to work with shakier hands, but an oddly warm and steady feeling in your chest. You’re done faster than you expected to be and put a finishing touch of bright red lipstick on Chixie’s lips.

You carefully come around Chixie to swing the chair back towards the mirror. You can’t help but smile a little at your handiwork. It wasn’t anything extravagant and it certainly wouldn’t get you millions of internet views. Not by a long shot. You like it, though.

You nervously ask Chixie what she thinks.

She leans forward in the chair and stares at her reflection. Her expression is critical, appraising, and immediately all you can think of is how you could have done better.

But finally, after a moment, Chixie’s face softens and she catches your eyes in the mirror. “It’s not a look I would have thought to go with,” she says. “But I like it.”

You sag with relief. In the mirror, Chixie grins.

“And SHE is going to hate it.”

Wait. She? Who’s she?

Chixie spins in the chair to face you. Her smile is mischievous, a look you don’t ever think you’ve seen on her. You’re learning new things about your friends every day, you guess!

“Do you remember the band that stole my set? When we met?” You nod. “Do you remember their lead singer? The cerulean?” Again, you nod, even though the memory itself is foggy at best.

“She’s here tonight,” she glances away from you, seeming oddly embarrassed.

...Ok?

Chixie blushes and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “We’ve been… flirting, a little bit, on Chittr. Since then. Pitch.”

You do a very quick scan of all the Alternian lingo you’ve picked up. 

Oh.

Ok, you say again, understanding. 

She meets your eyes again with a sheepish smile, “The other reason I wanted you here. I really kind of want this to work. I stupidly, stupidly want this to work.”

You kneel down and take Chixie’s hands in yours. You look up at her and muster the most serious face you can pull off. You tell Chixie you’ll be there to back her up no matter what happens. With the concert, with this girl, with whatever. You will BE there.

Chixie smiles a watery smile and you see tiny, tinted brown tears creeping at the corners of her eyes. She stands up on legs that wobble from how long she’s been sitting and she hugs you, “I know,” she says.

And for a second on this awful, awful planet you feel comfortable and safe. Like maybe, despite the murder and the carnage and the death, things could get better. Things could go your way. You’ve found many kindred souls on your journey to discover every FRIENDSHIP this planet has to offer. But there’s something about Chixie; her drive and her dreams, her warmth and her fury, her courage and resolve. She’s got a special place in your heart. You try not to pick favorites among your friends, but if you did…

Well…

You aren't going to dwell on that thought.

The show goes off without a hitch. It’s not anything spectacular. Chixie sings a few pre-selected, pro-highblood songs. Her voice is gorgeous and her stage presence is irresistable. The drunk highbloods are entertained. Everyone claps and no murders are attempted. It’s really boring when all’s said and done. Despite the stress and rigmarole the night was rife with Chixie meets back up with you after her set and she is beaming . She hugs you within a inch of your life and thanks you for just being there.

Later at the after party you see her sneaking out with a cerulean girl you almost recognize.

Chixie catches you watching and she winks.

You give her an encouraging thumbs up.

You are SO proud.

Chapter Text

clickity-clack-clack-click-click-clack-clack-click-

The drone of tapping keys fills your ears. Galekh’s hive has always instilled an odd kind of peace in you; your butt in a comfy chair, a warm cup of joe in your hands, and a roaring fireplace never failed to iron out the ever-present tension you carried with you. It was nice to just sit and listen to him work. He didn’t need your input on anything, or need you to make any life changing choices for him usually. He just liked having someone else in the room while he worked.

And you really enjoy being that person.

R-i-i-i-i-i-p!

Tonight, though. Tonight you had a feeling things were going to go a little bit differently. For the umpteenth time this evening Galekh rips the page he was writing out of his typewriter, crumples it into a ball, and tosses it into the growing pile beside his desk. Goatdad was going to have a field day tonight when he inevitably managed to break in. 

Galekh’s been struggling with this particular part of his manuscript since before you got here and made yourself comfortable. That had been several hours ago.

You set your cup of coffee down gently on a coaster.

You rise from the leather bound chair and you stretch your arms as high above your head as you can until you feel something crack.

You check your phone to make sure there isn’t a murder spree happening in town and then you slip your phone back into your hoodie pocket.

It’s time to do what you do best.

Make an ass out of yourself.

You take an exaggerated, meandering path around the office before you make your way to Galekh’s desk. You stop at a nearby bookshelf and peruse a few of the titles in his personal collection, the ones he doesn’t just set out to impress guests. You stop at the fireplace to toss another log in and watch the embers explode upwards before falling back to their homes. You take an extra moment to look outside the room and make sure that 1) goatdad is doing alright and 2) the wiggler gates are all secure. Goatdad baas at you warmly. You baa back. It's a very meaningful conversation.

But all journeys, especially pointless ones, must come to an end. You arrive at Galekh’s desk with very little fanfare and find that a mass of tense muscles seems to have replaced him. He’s so absorbed in his typing you don’t think he actually notices you. Which, wow, rude? You see how it is. You eyeball the small hill of garbage next to his desk thoughtfully. You dismiss the thought. Annoying, but not annoying enough. You could throw those at him all night and you don’t think he would even look up from his work.

You actually know he wouldn’t look up because you tried that one night when you were bored and made a game out of how many you could toss through his horns like a football. But, eh, semantics.

Click-click-clack-clack-click-clickity-clack-clack-clickity-clack-clack-

You know what you must do. 

You close your eyes and channel your inner TwinklePaw; you feel the cosmos laid out before your pawstruts and the limitlessness of infinity expanding across your ocular receptors. Your pusher beats in time with the movements of the galaxy. You are a prime example of what the starcaste is meant to be, to become. Your ability to strategize and come up with plans on the fly has been a boon to your fellow purrbeasts. You are infallible. You are unstoppable.

With a grace you will never, ever recapture again in your entire life you climb on top of Galekh’s desk and lay directly on top of his typewriter.

It makes SEVERAL sounds of protest as it’s buttons jab into your stomach.

Galehk makes a number of similar noises. None of them are intelligible for several seconds as he tries to string together the words to ask you what the FUCK you think you’re doing. You shuffle yourself around on his typewriter a bit and make yourself comfortable. You proceed to fuck up the document in the paper rest even more. You can hear the teeth in Galehk’s jaw straining as he grinds his teeth in barely restrained fury.

“What,” he bites out, “do you think you are doing?”

You roll on your side to meet Galekh’s seething gaze, feeling and hearing the keys beneath your body go krshsks-krink-krrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr under your weight, and you raise an eyebrow at your friend. What ever could he mean?

A vein just to the side of his left eye begins to pulse visibly. Galekh is trying so hard not to lose his cool. It’s hilariously amazing to watch. “You know exactly what I mean. There is absolutely no way that you do not know exactly what I am talking about. It would be in both of our best interests if you dropped the act of ignorance now. I am on a deadline. You know this. I know this. This needs to be perfect. You are going to extract yourself from my keyboard immediately before I extract you myself.”

Nah.

Galehk’s face scrunches up, adorably appalled, “I beg your-”

Naaaaaaaaaaaaah. The wooden desk you’re on top of whines; not because of anything you’re doing, but because Galehk is digging his claws into it with enough force you’re actually a little lowkey worried he might break it. You suddenly remember your good friend here could kill you with his thumb, if he so desired, and get away with your murder. He wouldn’t, but he could. Maybe you need to turn it down a couple of notches. You’ve got his attention. That’s all you were after.

You tell Galekh he needs to take a break.

He squints at you over the top of his glasses, “That does not begin to explain why you have laid yourself upon my antique, one-of-a-kind, exceptionally hard to repair typewriter.”

You didn’t know how else to get his attention.

Galekh opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again, seems like he’s going to say something, and then closes his mouth again. He purses his lips for several seconds and stares at you like he’s waiting for you to drop the punchline. This wars visibly on his face with the fact that he knows you are absolutely serious. He squints at you like he can’t believe how much of an actual, straight up dumbass you are. 

Finally he lets out a heavy, frustrated sigh and sags into his office chair in defeat. “Alright. You have my full attention. Please explain your reasoning as to why you believe I am in need of a break when this draft is due to be on my editor’s desk by tomorrow evening.”

Do you have to cite your sources?

A tiny twitch, just on the corner of his lips. Not a laugh, not a smile, but close. “Only if you feel they’re necessary.”

Cool. Can he help get you off of his typewriter first? You’re actually kind of stuck and you don’t want to risk potentially breaking it for realsies.

That gets a very small smile out of him. He steeples his hands in his lap. “What ever could you mean? You seem perfectly fine where you are, in my astute opinion.”

Really?

Galekh raises an eyebrow at you, patiently waiting for you to begin your explanation. Ugh, fine, maybe you deserve that for being the one to climb up here in the first place. It's fine, you can work with this. You thrust out the arm that isn't being sandwiched underneath you and flex your fingers. 

1! He is not making any progress and hasn't been for several hours.

"That isn't true-"

You gesture to the paper pile LITERALLY right next to him and do your very best impression of Tyzias' 'are you serious?' face. Galekh looks at it, looks at you, and sulks deeper into his chair.

That's that, then.

2! Beating his head against the wall is not going to solve his writer's block. In fact, it is liable to hinder the writing process further down the line by tiring him out prematurely. 

You pause to let him interject if he feels the need. Galekh does not. The gracious host he is he does not interrupt you again and instead watches you with a careful facade of neutrality.

You press on.

3! It's almost time to feed his lusus.

Off in the distance, Goatdad bleats in agreement. You bleat back. Galekh rolls his eyes.

And 4!

...You don't like seeing him stressed out and think a break would do him some good. Personally. Burn-out is real and both ends of his candle are on fire. You're not even sure if Alternia has candles or what an equivalent to the word would be, but he needs to trust you on this. He should take a break.

And thus your case is said. You hold out your hand and its four extended fingers towards Galekh and wait patiently as he processes your arguments. You wonder if you're allowed to cite the bags under his eyes. You feel like you should have listed five things for the full impact of an entire hand's worth of evidence. A missed opportunity. All of your teal friends are judging you, in spirit.

Before you can go too far down THAT self-depreciative rabbit hole Galekh does you a solid and stands up from his chair. Like the gentlest of giants he carefully gets his hands under your armpits and lifts you off his desk with an enviable finesse. Like, goddamn, do you even weigh anything to him?

"No, lifting you is like lifting a bag of grapes," Galekh informs you. Ow, your self-esteem. "And for the record the Alternian word for candle is candle."

...Okay. Good to know. You thank him for filling in that gap in your knowledge. Galekh is still holding you straight out in front of him like you’re biohazardous material, but it’s actually pretty nice to be able to look him in the eyes for once. Galekh raises a suspicious eyebrow at you for the extended eye contact. All you can really do is answer him with a sheepish smile. You’ve learned to find joy in all the little things in Alternia. It’s a hard thing to explain.

“Anyways,” Galekh decides he’s not going to question your weird, alien behavior today, “I do not necessarily agree with your observations and find them to be heavily biased. However. It is very clear that seeing me struggle is causing you to worry an undue amount on my behalf and I… appreciate, your concern. Even if it is unfounded.”

So he’ll take a break? You ask him hopefully.

Galekh sets you down on the carpet, covertly checks that you’ve got your bearings, and sighs. “I suppose it is time to feed my lusus…”

The growing smile on your face threatens to rip it in two. Galekh scoffs and you and stalks passed you towards the baby gate at the entrance to this office. Not quickly, mind you, but powered by the same sort of purpose he puts into things he’s passionate about. It’s endearing, if you’re being honest. The tips of his ears look a little bit blue.

“Well, don’t just stand there! This is your idea after all. I expect you to make this ‘break’ worth my time.”

You scamper after him with a little extra pep in your step.

Chapter Text

The moons of Alternia hang low in the sky. Beneath their twin, shining rays, your scuttlebuggy chugs along through the outskirts of Thrashurst. It’s quiet this far out; you passed a single troll trying to get a ride and you haven’t seen a soul since. You were always paranoid about picking up hitchhikers, back on Earth. You’ve been bolder since landing on Alternia. You were not, however, THAT bold.

You glance drowsily at your phone.

The source of your late night quest.

The text you had received was from a number you didn't recognize. It's tone had been frantic, it's content cryptically mild. A goregle maps location out in the middle of nowhere had been attached. 

-!!!come here !!!immediately!!!

It had Lynera written all over it. 

You'd been under the impression that she didn't have a phone, but it wouldn't be the first time you were wrong about this sort of thing. Lynera just seemed a lot more old fashioned than the rest of the jades in the cavern. Maybe she was borrowing a phone? You have a lot of questions. You can’t help but wonder what on Alternia Lynera , of all people, was out doing in the middle of nowhere so close to sunrise.

As you drew closer to your destination the answer to that question did not become any clearer.

Signs of life started cropping up alongside the road. Scribbly, handmade signs of life, to be specific, and buggy tracks become plentiful. You squint at the signs as you pass them by. You use your vast knowledge or whatever to translate them. You were getting better at reading Alternian every day, but these signs? Fucking illegible gibberish. Where was Google Translate when you needed it?

Finally, off in the distance, you see something. 

A building crawls into view; it’s squat and hexagonal, a single story but pretty large to compensate for that. As far away as you are you can still make out large, bright, double doors at the front of the building with tiny, inscrutable, candy corns milling in and out in droves. There are scuttlybuggies taking up the whole front of the lot. A largerer, more official looking, significantly more legible sign passes you on the road: 

HER IMPERIAL CONVERSION CENTER. DUE FOR DEMOLITION. NO TRESPASSING.

You sit up in your seat and whip around to try and read the sign again, but it’s already behind you. You couldn’t have read that right.You turn back around in your seat and lean over your dashboard and look, really look , at the location Lynera has sent you to. You’re close enough to make out the trolls milling about out front while they wait to get in. Trolls have weird senses of fashion. You aren’t one to talk, but strictly from an unbiased standpoint, trolls were all over the map.

These trolls that you’re looking at took one look at that map and went ‘totally original character design do not steal’.

You were looking at cosplayers. A horde of cosplayers waiting to get into a convention.

Lynera sent you directions to a goddamn convention .

Your scuttlebuggy parks itself snuggly among its brethren. You step out and onto the cracked pavement and really just. Try and make ANY sort of sense of this situation. You couldn’t picture Lynera within 30 miles of this place, let alone somewhere inside the building. Had she come with Wanshi for supervision? ...No, absolutely no way. Had she come to GET Wanshi? That made a little bit more sense.

But then how the fuck did WANSHI get all the way out here?

God you had so many questions. You weren’t going to get any answers until you found Lynera. You shoot the mystery number a quick text to let Lynera know you’re here, you’re outside, and to ask where she is. You pass a few minutes leaning on the hood of your ‘bug and take in the Alternian nerdlife. The line going into the building is thinning out. The line of tired trolls ready to home before the sun rises increases. You have a few short conversations in passing with some cosplayers you recognize from a cult classic anime Tegiri suggested you watch.

Lynera doesn’t text you back. Your phone is silent. You consider messaging Bronya, but her cute Grype avatar is dark. Offline. You heave a tired, harried sigh.

Guess you’re going into the convention center where death probably awaits you. The things you do for FRIENDSHIP.

You weave your way to the front of the line, cleverly cutting ahead and making sure you don’t get your head cut off in the process. Unlike Earth conventions all the weapons people in line are brandishing are super real. There’s no one at the door doing any kind of checks. There’s absolutely no size limit. Why would there be? This was Alternia, death planet extraordinaire

You finally manage to slip by a few trolls dressed in very elaborate lusus costumes and find yourself fully inside the convention. Organized chaos would be putting it politely. It was like someone decided to cross an anime convention with a ren faire, but decided even that was too bland and decided that large, terrifying, caged wild animals would spice the whole shebang up.

You remember the near miss from Wanshi’s fan meet-up and the chlorobear.

Something in your stomach drops and you feel bile rise in your throat. That.. that had sure been a close one. Wow you were so super glad you totally didn’t get yourself or a child murdered by a giant space bear! Like, wow, could you even imagine how totally awful and traumatizing that would have been? Aahaha…

Haha…

Ha………...

You need to find Lynera. 

You need to find her now. You pull your phone out of your pocket to see if she’s texted you back. She hasn’t. You try and call her. It rings and it rings and it rings before you’re greeted by Wanshi’s voice cheerily telling you to call back later. You shove your phone into your pocket and delve into the thick of it. You were starting to run low on night light. Maybe, if the stars were in alignment, your innate sense of dumb luck would kick in before sunrise.

“OMG!!!”

Or right now. Right now is also totally fine with you. 

You turn your head and find yourself meeting the starry eyed gaze of none other than your very good friend Zebede. His entire stout, little body is hauling loads and loads of fan merch. He’s clearly overencumbered and can’t run to meet you, but it’s very clear he wants to. You do him a solid and meet him 3/4ths of the way. He is clutching a sexy Cirava body pillow in his arms and peeking at you from around it.

THAT'S gonna be the centerpiece of your nightmares for awhile.

Zebede gawks at you like you’re the most amazing thing he’s seen in his life, “I had no idea you were going to bee here! You didn’t say anything on your Chittr!!!” Zebede gasps, and then his face falls. “Omg did you? Oh no, did I miss it? You totally did say something and I just missed it, oh no...” 

You switch friendship gears. You patiently explain that, no, Zebede didn’t miss any announcements from you. You didn’t even know this con was happening! If you did, he would have been the first to know you planned on attending. You’ve been pretty busy and haven’t been keeping up to date on most of your social media. You were glad to run into him, but you were actually just here to pick a friend up!

Before you have the chance to ask if Zebede has seen Lynera anywhere, he interrupts you. “Oh, you’re meeting someone…” he says. He hugs his body pillow closer for comfort ( Cirava you’re so sorry you don’t want this to be happening either please have mercy ). “I wish I had someone to drive me home. Or just to go to a con like this with… I was supposed to meet my really good friend oWildoWisp here for the first time IRL, but…” Zebede’s lip trembles. He looks about ready to cry.

Normally, this would be where you say something nice or encouraging. But the username Zebede drops strikes something in your brain. Like when you find the key piece that allows you to finish the puzzle with a clear idea of the picture. You ask Zebede if he means the WildWisp- ahem, oWildoWisp - who writes Soldier Purrbeast fanfic.

“Yeah! Do you know them?” Zebede asks. His mood does a 180 in a heartbeat. “I don’t read Soldier Purrbeast stuff really. I was waaaay more of a Wrigglers Horrifically Transforming Into Their Lusii and Saving the Empire fan when I was younger. But oWildoWisp really has a lot of talent! We don’t have a lot of fandoms in common, but we stay up late talking about all sorts of stuff!”

Was Wan- WildWisp still around here somewhere? They’re actually who you’re here to pick up.

An uncharacteristic scowl finds its way onto Zebede’s face. “They’re not here,” he grumbles. “I was SUPPOSED TO meet them here. We messaged a bunch and set up a meet-up point over in the writer’s alley and everything! But when I got there…”

Oh. Oh, you know exactly where this is going.

Let me guess, you say. Zebede got here and went to meet oWildoWisp and was met instead by an angry female troll with green lipstick, glasses, and a knife?

“Woah…” Zebede breaths out in awe. “How did you know?”

Lucky guess. Did he happen to know where said knife wielding troll was at? 

“I left her over in writer’s alley,” Zebede says with a shrug. “I wasn’t going to let her ruin this for me.”

You politely thank Zebede and wish him a safe journey home. When he asks where you’re off to in such a rush you lie and say you’re grabbing something for OwildOwisp since they couldn’t make it. He accepts that with a nod, adjusts the body pillow in his arms ( why was the empty eye socket so sexualized you don’t understand WHY??????? ), and points you in the direction of all the stuff he thinks Wanshi would like.

“Just be careful, though!” he warns. “That imposter oWildoWisp might still be over that way.”

You promise Zebede you’ll be careful and bid him farewell.

You immediately make a beeline for Lynera’s last known whereabouts.

You’re mired in doujins in no time. Wow, Alternia sure treated their fanfiction writers a lot better than Earth did. A whole entire section for them! Everyone here was being so respectful and nice. There were stalls selling actual, self-published books of fanfic and bargaining over ships. What a world. You can faintly hear Lynera screaming over the din of convention noises.

“-Are you deaf? I said don’t COME NEAR ME!”

Ah geez. Not actually that faintly.

You round the corner of a booth with fancy pens and stationary. That’s when you spot her: Lynera up on her tip-toes, face to face and fangs to fangs with a blue blooded security officer. A very tired, very fed up looking security officer with a very large, very bloody sword in his hands. It makes Lynera’s knife look like a toy by comparison. Does Lynera think she actually stands a chance in a fight with this guy? Or is she too pissed off to realize she’s in danger? You aren’t going to wait to find out. Time to bust out How to Calm Down Trolls 101.

You throw yourself into spectacle and push through the growing crowd.

You latch onto Lynera’s knife arm. You use your momentum and meager human weight to tug her back from the blue blood. Like a goddamn fucking PRO you turn Lynera so she’s facing you and firmly place a hand on her cheek. Lynera’s irises, formerly pin pricks of rage, go wide . Every ounce of tension leaves her body. Her cheeks BLAZE green. A high, scandalized noise starts up in the back of her throat.

She predictably opens her mouth to yell at you.

You shush her.

Lynera snaps her mouth shut with an audible clack . 

You pat Lynera’s cheek a few extra times for good measure. A few additional shushes. After you’re mostly positive she isn’t going to explode you turn to face the security guard. The guard is staring at you with wide eyes and bright blue blush. Ugh, you forgot about trolls and their sensitive sensibilities. You keep your arm looped with your friend’s and give him your best unimpressed look. You apologize for Lynera’s behavior and explain that you can take it from here. The guard opens his mouth, closes it, and settles for a baffled sort of nod before he leaves.

Well! That was easy. Way to use awkward social situations to your advantage once again. You do your best to ignore the hoards of trolls staring at you and turn your attention back to Lynera. Is she doing okay? Has she calmed down?

Lynera stares at you, dazed. Oh, shit, did you bust out the shoosh paps too hard? Is that a thing can happen? Did you break her? Lynera? You call her name gently.

That seems to do the trick. Lynera blinks at you owlishly, seems to realize something, and screeches, “Let GO of me!” You politely oblige and step out of Lynera’s personal space. She immediately pulls you right back in and begins fervently whispering, “What TOOK you so long? Do you have ANY idea the kind of disturbing individuals I’ve had to deal with? All of them STARING at me like I’M the one doing something wrong?”

You do not have the energy to explain convention etiquette to Lynera. You tell her instead you tried to call when you got here and it took a while to find her when you didn’t get a response.

She lets out a huff, “Wanshi’s palm husk died.That’s not MY fault.”

Since when did Wanshi have a palm husk, anyways?

“LANQUE bought her one even though Bronya SPECIFICALLY SAID that she was too young!” Lynera growls. “I confiscated it, of course! And you know what I find? Strange trolls! She’s messaging strange trolls who probably want to take her away from the caverns! And do terrible, awful things with her because she’s a jade!”

So Lynera took the most reasonable course of action and set up a meeting with one of these strangers in a place she’s never been before. Out in the middle of nowhere.

She nods excitedly. “See! I knew you would understand,” her smile turns vicious, triumphant. “I met up with that zZz_BUZZING_zZz SCUM and gave him a piece of my! Mind! He'll never bother Wanshi again if he wants to keep his head attached to his neck!”

Uh huh. Right. You raise an eyebrow at her. So why did she call you out here if she so clearly had everything under control?

"I! Well!" Lynera crosses her arms defensively. She tugs on her lower lip with her teeth. "Well...I…"

Well? 

"...I was afraid," she admits with a sigh. Lynera peeks at you over the top of her glasses. "After I was done yelling at that troll I was at a loss about what to do next. And there were so many PEOPLE around. I just… panicked."

Lynera blushes and looks away. It does SOMETHING to your heart. You’d be hard pressed to be able to identify what.

“You were the first person that came to mind,” Lynera tells you. Earnest. Warm and hesitant. She carefully stashes her knife away and reaches out to take your hands in hers. “Thank you for coming on such short notice.”

Yeah. Yeah, of course, any time. There went your ability to speak in proper sentences.

“OH MY GOD GET A FUCKING ROOM.”

Oh. Right, you were still super in public. 

You feel Lynera reeling back to raise hell and start screaming. You don’t know if you’ve got it in you to calm her down again. You take Lynera by the hand and you pull . It kind of feels like you’re wrangling an uncooperative dog by the leash. You pointedly remind Lynera she needs to get back to the caverns. YOU wanted to get home and get some sleep. You were done dealing with trolls for the night. It takes a little bit of doing and at least one threat to ditch your friend, but you successfully get the pair of you out of the writer’s alley.

You’ve been walking for a bit before you notice that Lynera has fallen in step with you. She clings to your side and holds your hand gently between both of hers. Fearful like a lost child, yet ready to strike anyone who so much as looks at you funny.

You lead the way through the convention. You don’t remember exactly where the exit is. You probably should have paid more attention while you were scurrying around. Whoops! All these booths sure start to look the same after awhile. And as nice as it was to walk around with Lynera the sun was going to be rising sooner rather than later. You REALLY didn’t want to be stuck in a building overday with some of these trolls. Or any of them really.

“Well, I’ll be! Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?”

God fucking bless your perfectly timed internal monologue. Someone out there HAD to be keeping an ear to the ground for you. You spot her sandwiched between a stand filled to the brim with uncomfortably large pectoraled hoofbeast prints and a shop that seemed to be only selling Furby related merchandise. Her barely legal style stands out against a backdrop of originality.

Remele!

You change course and steer Lynera over, hurriedly whispering ‘it’s ok she’s a friend!’

Lynera’s still a bundle of nerves when you stop in front of your favorite cerulean artist. She clutches your hand in a death grip. You feel her nails dig into your skin; not enough to hurt, really, but enough to notice. You decide to pretend you don’t notice for the time being. You happily introduce the two of them and pay no mind to the fact that there’s two whole caste levels between them. Remele is exceptionally chill for a cerulean.

Just as you expected, Remele leans over her table and offers her hand to Lynera, “Always nice to meet a friend of a friend.”

Lynera looks at Remele’s hand like it personally came into her room, shat on her desk, and bleated like a goat at her. Her hands do not leave yours. You’ve been working with Lynera, bit by bit, on not verbally tearing into every single person she meets on sight. And she was getting better! But she still struggled, sometimes. Baby steps. Wriggler steps.

“Charmed,” Lynera says tightly. 

Progress was still progress. Your heart wells up just a little bit with pride.

Remele takes Lynera’s cold shoulder in stride and uses her outstretched hand to gesture to her wares. “I’ve got a whole slew of prints and sculptures I can never get to sell at any of my hoity-toity highblood shows on sale. I also…" she gestures over to the other side of her stall with a wink. The ENTIRE side wall is bogged down with plushies. Remele grins,“...have PLENTY of exclusive merchandise I cooked up just for today! So go ahead and take a look around. If you see anything you like, I might just let you talk me into giving you a friendly discount.”

Huh. You turn back to Remele. Did she make all those herself? you ask. You had no idea she could sew! Lynera is still pretty distracted by the plushie wall in the corner of your eye, but you don’t pay it a lot of mind. You didn't look all that closely. Maybe Lynera had seen something she wanted to get for Bronya, or Wanshi.

“I’m a woman of many talents,” Remele boasts, preening.

That she is. Oh, wait, actually, if she has a minute, would Remele mind helping you and Lynera out?

“Oh?” Remele leans forward on her sales table, cheek in her palm. “What can I help you with? So long as it’s mostly legal and not too far away from my stand.”

Could she point you towards the exit?

She stares at you. Blinks. And barks out a laugh. “Is that all?” Remele asks, grinning. “That’s no problem at all! Give me just one-”

“Are you SERIOUSLY not going to SAY ANYTHING to her!?” 

Lynera’s shrill screech is harsh on your ears. You try and cringe back from it, but her grip on you is like a vice. You whip your head to look at her.

Lynera is staring daggers at Remele. Remele, in turn, very quickly gets over her surprise and has simply raised an eyebrow at Lynera. 

Say anything to WHO about WHAT, Lynera?

“This BITCH,” Lynera bites out. She jabs an accusing finger at Remele and swings it to the side with the same amount of vitriol. “About THAT!”

You follow Lynera’s movement. You frown, confused. About… the plushie wall? You need to talk to Remele about her plushies more?

Lynera snarls from somewhere deep in her ribcage and hauls you closer to where she’s pointing. “This! I’m talking about this! You aren’t going to let her get away with this, are you?!”

You cast a quick, apologetic look Remele’s direction before you focus your full attention on the wall. You scan the whole thing, top to bottom, twice. It’s on your second pass that you spot it. Sticking out just a little from underneath a bunch of generic lusii. I t’s not all that big; were it not for the shock of black on it you don’t think you would have noticed it under the sea of white. It’s also not necessarily SMALL either. It was a good hugging size.

It was a good, huggably sized plushie of you .

Awwwwwwwwwww .

You tell Lynera you don’t see what the problem is.

“Don’t see what the- This is illegal!!” Lynera lets go of you entirely for the first time since you found her. She gestures furiously at the Tiny You on the wall. “She’s selling your face! She’s making money! Off of you! Without your permission! TELL me you’re not okay with that!”

You look at Lynera. At the fury contorting her face, at her hands balled tightly at her sides, and at the pleading look in her eyes that says more than any word that’s come out of her mouth in the past few minutes. You sigh. You ask Remele politely if that is, in fact, a cute toy version of you.

“Nope,” she says, popping the P. The look she gives you is a knowing one. And a little too teasing in your opinion. “You ARE my muse, don’t get me wrong. But that little friend? They're just a cute little alien I whipped up for the people. I think that’s my last one, actually.”

Lynera makes a noise somewhere between a gasp and a gag. “How many of these disgusting things did you make? ”

Hey now, you think it’s pretty cute.

“You and everyone else,” Remele chimes in. She’s got a smile on her face, now; all coy like she knows something. “That whole wall was all stuffed alien friends toys when I set up shop today. That one was the most popular variation of it. It’s got a little customizable sweater.” 

Lynera stiffens. You watch, frozen with shock, as she lunges bodily over Remele’s display table. Like a tightly wound coil that has finally had enough and decided to just fucking snap. She brutally digs her nails into poor little Tiny You and rips them off the wall with a loud snap of plastic. You wince. Remele startles to attention.

“I don’t even see what the appeal of this would be!” Lynera sneers. She stands back up primly and glares down at Plush You in her claws. Tiny Plush You smiles serenely back. “It’s just a cheap, poorly crafted toy! As if you could even compare it to the real deal. Only a pervert! Would want something like this! Just thinking about someone HOLDING this in their arms at night makes me want to GAG! It’s not even that soft! And the sweater has a loose thread!”

Well now she was just being persnickety.

Remele leans over the table to whisper conspiratorially to you, “I’ll sell you that thing for half-price if you get this crazy bitch away from my stall.”

You sigh tiredly. Deal. Can you pay her later?

“I’ll make an exception for you,” she says, just a little louder, because Lynera’s rant has grown in volume. Remele jerks her head to the side. “Exit’s thataway.”

Cool. 

You stride over to Lynera, snatch Tiny Plush You out of her hands (oh wow, it’s so soft, goddamn), and grab her by the hand again. Whatever she was saying is cut off by an indignant sputter. When is she going to realize that your audacity has no bounds? You say bye to Remele and yank Lynera towards the exit. She complains the entire way to the parking lot. In fact she complains even as you are pulling out of the parking lot and well into your drive back to the caverns.

You let her get it out of her system.

When Lynera quiets, finally, you look over to check on her.

She looks… soft. She runs her thumb over the tiny, fabric head of Tiny Fabric You with an exceptional tenderness. She adjusts their sweater over their teeny arms and gently, oh so gently, brings one of their tiny hands up to her cheek. It’s more endearing than it has any right to be. If it was anyone but Lynera, you would be uncomfortable.

But it’s Lynera.

You cough. 

Lynera blushes and drops the doll into her lap. “I wasn’t doing anything!!!”

Yeah, okay. You won't call her out on being adorable. You let Lynera know that you’re gonna catch some Z’s while the scuttlebuggy navigates back. You SHOULD make it back before the sun rises. But if you don’t, she needs to wake you up so you can try and remember how to activate the sun shields.

Lynera looks out the window. You follow her gaze to the setting moons on the horizon, backed by the slowly lightening sky.

“I’m sorry I kept you out so late…” she mumbles apologetically. She picks up Tiny Plush You close and hugs them close. “I’m… I’m sorry I’m such a handful all the time. I’m trying to be better.”

You remind her that she IS getting better.

Lynera shakes her head. “I’m not good enough yet!” She pulls her legs up onto the seat and wraps her arms around them. Tiny Plush You peeks out from behind her knees. “I cause you so much trouble. But you’re always there to support me, and you try so hard to take care of me. I would be so lost without you. I’ve never… I’ve never had anyone like you, before. I’m so scared I’m going to mess this up.”

The air between you gets heavier. Heavy with unsaid words and unsaid implications. You take a deep breath. 

What about Bronya?

Lynera is dead silent. For a moment the only thing you can hear is your heartbeat in your ears and the clatter of the scuttlebuggy’s legs against the road.

“This is different from what Bronya and I have,” she says finally. Lynera meets your eyes across the center console and smiles, truly smiles in a way that makes the skin around her eyes crinkle. “What we have is mutual, isn’t it?”

That… That is a loaded question.

You do not know how to answer that question. Not right now. Potentially not ever. Your exhausted brain kicks into overdrive. You can’t let this silence hang between you, but when you open your mouth nothing comes out. Tiny Plush You stares at you mockingly from Lynera’s lap.

Your phone starts ringing.

The silence cracks like an egg and you seize it. You answer the call.

Bronya’s voice flows out of the speaker. She's polite as ever despite the underlying panic in her tone, “Hello! Is this the alien? It’s Bronya! Have you seen or heard from Lynera tonight? At all?”

A beat of awkward silence passes.

“Uhm… Hi, Bronya!” Lynera answers in your stead.

An additional, less awkward beat.

The relief in Bronya’s voice when she speaks is palpable, “Oh, thank goodness. You didn’t take your palmhusk with you when you left again! No one in the caves knew where you went! I was so worried.”

Lynera blushes and mumbles a few shy apologies. You assure Bronya that Lynera has been in good hands and you’re returning her to the caves.

“You'd better be! Do you have any idea what time it is?” You hear Bronya sigh on the other end of the line. “What were the two of you even doing?”

“Nothing!!!” Lynera cries out defensively. 

You can’t help it. You laugh.

It’s a long story, Bronya.

Chapter Text

You weren’t a fan of Jeff Foxworthy back on Earth.

You picked him up via cultural internet osmosis. Y'know, as you do. You watched a few of his specials. But honestly? His style of comedy just wasn’t your jam. There wasn’t anything really wrong with it, probably. Stereotype based humor had never really been your cup of tea. So his ‘you might be a redneck’ bit, his most POPULAR BIT, got stale. Fast. Maybe you just weren’t his target audience. Maybe you just had better taste in memes than a washed up country comedian. Either way, you didn’t see the draw.

You barely thought about Jeff Foxworthy on Earth.

You had ABSOLUTELY NOT thought about Jeff Foxworthy at all since you left Earth.

But at this particular moment, as you’re being carried like an awkward football under the buff, sweaty arm of a bronze-blood you’ve never met, you remember. You hear his voice call out to you from the depths of your memories; unbidden like the twang of a banjo busted over the long dead corpse of a horse:

If being kidnapped is the least eventful part of your day, you might need to leave Alternia.

But, like, in your defense, everything had happened very quickly. One minute you were minding your own business, out and about on the streets under the afternoon moons. The minute after that you’re making extended eye contact with a short, stocky troll in jogwear who has stopped directly in your path. The minute after that you were being kidnapped. No foreplay, no indication of what was going on. You were just very suddenly being carried like a bag of potatoes back the way you’d come. 

You probably would have struggled more, but you weren't all that worried? Really? You’d been taken in BROAD moonlight with SEVERAL witnesses. Witnesses who had watched, dumbfounded, as you were carried off. A few people had taken their phones out even. If you went missing one of your more technologically inclined friends would find you. You had no doubt about that. But you were also pretty sure this troll had different, non-murdery plans for you Or subtlety just wasn’t on the agenda for the day. It rarely was on Alternia.

Considering how CHATTY your kidnapper is, though, you are 99% sure of your continued life expectancy.

His name was Kiddik and he whistled a little when he spoke. He was extremely happy to answer every question you threw his way with gusto. While you were initially very intimidated by his muscles and his giant, terrifying fangs that CURVED and nearly reached his CHIN, he was a pretty friendly guy. The fangs apparently just meant that he couldn’t open his mouth very wide to talk. He compensated, somehow, by talking faster . 

And BOY did he have a lot to say. In order, the things you learned about Kiddik in the approximately ~20 minutes you were with him were:

• When he wasn’t kidnapping hapless aliens for extra cash, he ran a lusus grooming salon. He rattled off the address so quickly you asked him to repeat it thrice.
• He ran said salon with his matesprit who he was, and you quote, ‘horns over strutpods’ for, and he proceeded to gush about them for a good 2/3rds of your journey. You now knew more about them than some of your friends.
• Kiddik liked music and loved to whistle. He proceeded to serenade you for a few blocks.
• Despite initial appearances, he DID have horns, they were just smaller than the average bronze’s and they were almost hidden in his hair. You could see them poking out under the fluff. Barely.
• No, he WASN'T self-conscious about his horns at all, THANKS.

For the life of you you couldn’t get a word in edgewise. He was making your head spin.

You never thought you would meet someone on this planet FRIENDLIER than you.

By the time you made it to your destination your brain was too busy reeling with new information to give your surroundings any attention. It takes Kiddik dropping you none too gently to stand next to him, several seconds, and a friendly ‘psst’ to snap you back. 

Boldir waves at you from the booth she’s at. 

Oh, you’re… you’re just at the cafe again? After all that? Huh. Still a little dazed you wave back.

“Here’swhatyouorderedboss!” Kiddik says, slapping you on the shoulder as he does so. Ow.

“Thanks, Kiddik,” Boldir replies. She motions for you to take a seat. You do so shakily. To your kidnapper, she says, “Your payment is under the seventh usual spot.”

Doing his personal interpretation of a grin, Kiddik salutes Boldir, “Thanksforyourbusiness!”

And then he’s gone. Wow, everything suddenly seems so much quieter. Slower, somehow.

“He has quite a loud personality,” Boldir says, seemingly in agreement with your thoughts. “Sorry for kidnapping you.”

A well-timed waitress comes by with a single drink and sets it down in front of you. The scent of coffee hits you hard . Your poor self-control makes you immediately take a sip. Predictably you burn your tongue. You do NOT care. Your brain deserves something after what it just endured. You don’t question why Boldir knows your usual order. You just take a few hefty sips of coffee and tell her it’s nice to see her. Because it is! Boldir is probably the friend you see, like, the LEAST because of her stealthy dealings. You kinda missed her.

She stares at you, eyebrows raised. And then she shakes her head in wonder, “Is your entire species as trusting and resilient as you?”

You nurse your coffee with a little more care. It’s still hot, but it's not AS hot, and it fills your chest with warmth as you ponder Boldir’s questions. 

Resilience? Varied, usually. You weren’t actually very sturdy by human standards. Humans in general were pretty frail compared to trolls. Was being trusting a particularly human trait? You guess it really depended on the person. If you were being 100% honest, and you were because it was Boldir you were talking to, you trusted the trolls on Alternia more than you had ever trusted a member of your own species. Trolls were always pretty forward with their intentions and what they wanted out of you. Humans were…

Humans were… Complicated.

“Complicated?” Boldir echoes.

Complicated.

“I see,” she says with a nod. A small lull. “Psst. Would you say you trust me?”

Of course. Why wouldn’t you? You were friends, right?

“We’ve only met a handful of times,” Boldir points out. She doesn’t say it with any sort of malice; just a statement of a fact you both know to be true. She’s watching you with… something, in her eyes. Something you can’t name. “Are we really friends?”

You’re not sure what she’s angling for. Something uncomfortable and wriggling blooms in your chest. Your fingers tap the side of your coffee mug in an anxious rhythm. You THOUGHT the two of you were friends… you would LIKE to be her friend.

Boldir’s eyes narrow. “What if I poisoned you?”

Uh??

“You didn’t check before you drank that. Didn’t test it. What if I had the barista poison your coffee before it was brought out?” she presses. “Would you trust me then?”

You look down at the drink sitting snugly in your hands. You look back to Boldir and notice the lines of tension running through her. Like a bulky, irritated cat. You have absolutely no idea what’s going on. You have no idea what on Alternia might have even set her off. You’ve barely been here five minutes.

DID she poison you?

Boldir doesn’t answer. She stares at you enigmatically. Expectantly. Challengingly. Something petty and defiant rises up in you. You very pointedly take a GIANT gulp of coffee and refuse to break eye contact with her as it burns your throat. The silence stretches between the two of you. You chug the rest of your coffee and slam the mug down on the table. Boldir sits across from you, stone faced. You squint at her and pretend you don’t lowkey wanna vomit. You don’t think Boldir poisoned you. You tell her that you think she’s bluffing.

However, if she HAD poisoned you, you would trust that she had a good reason to.

Because she is your friend.

Whom you TRUST.

Because you are FRIENDS.

Your brazen declaration sits on the table between the two of you. 

Boldir doesn’t falter. She’s chewing on your words. Rolling them over in her brain as she glares across the table at you.

Finally, after what seems like an eternity but is likely less than a minute, the tension leaks out of her. Not all of it. Never all of it. But enough to tell you Boldir got whatever answer she was after. Enough that she cracks a somewhat apologetic smile as she stands from her seat.

“Would you like to take a walk with me?” she asks with a curious tilt of her head.

With that single question the tension seeps out of you, too. Even with all the caffeine jonesing around in your system you feel calmer now that she’s calmer. You stand up to join Boldir, and hesitate. Is it safe to be walking around out in the open? Doesn’t she have people after her? Like, ALL the people? The memory of Boldir in your arms, the life fading out of her eyes sits squarely at the forefront of your mind.

Boldir smiles at you. There really is just something about her smile that makes your anxiety vanish. “I think if I’m with you, everything will be fine,” she says. “But we’ll be sticking to the back alleys.”

With that assurance you follow Boldir out the back of the cafe with no hesitation.

True to her words the two of you never cross a street. Boldir leads you through the winding, hidden maze that makes up the interior of Outglut. The guts of Outglut, if you would. Places you never knew existed. You hop a few fences. Cut through a couple shady buildings. Hide while a drone passes above your heads. Backtrack once or twice. 

It’s thrilling, in an odd way. Comforting in an even odder way. Boldir knows what she’s doing and she knows how to do it well. You feel safer with Boldir, traipsing around the grunge filled back alleys, than you have in quite awhile. Safer than in the hives of your highest highblooded friends. You spend more time watching Boldir work and watching your backs than you do chatting. It's really nice. 

It’s a serene, uncomplicated silence.

“Psst. This way,” Boldir gets your attention in her usual way. She hops off an edge you didn’t even realize you were walking along and gestures for you to follow her down. “We’re almost there.”

You had no idea she had a destination in mind. You are, however, as always, down for anything. You jump down with significantly less grace, but still manage to nail the landing. Boldir looks at you a moment, pondering, before she holds up five of her fingers with a decisive nod. It takes half a second for thr meaning to reach you.

Hey , your landing was totally worth more than five points!

She raises an eyebrow at you. “I didn’t mean it as an insult. You are getting better at not falling on your face.”

You jut your lip out in a childish pout. Boldir pats you consolingly on the shoulder. “As with all things, you’ll only get better with practice.”

Is she telling you to jump off ledges more often?

“Well, when you phrase it like that,” she says with a roll of her eyes. You can’t help but snicker a little. Boldir inclines her head down the path you’re now on in quiet askance. You gesture for her to lead the way with a dramatic, ‘by all means’ wave of your hand. The smile that alights on her face is a small, fond one. 

The ground beneath you begins to gradually slope downwards the further you walk. Not enough to inhibit you in any way. Just a very gentle decline. At the end of it is a very large, concrete wall with a small, inky black hole at the base. Your destination, you would have to guess. You say that because the walls surrounding you are too high to climb now and there’s literally nowhere else for you to go. Boldir crouches and enters the hole soundlessly. Not wanting to be left behind you follow suit. It’s crunchier than expected.

This must have been some old, abandoned drainage canal, you think. It’s bone dry now. Were you near the ocean? A lake, perhaps? There was nothing left in it but the stale scent of debris long since left behind by the water that once carried it. It was almost poetic. The water meant to carry all this detritus to its final destination had left it behind. Just like life kept moving on, regardless of whether or not you were still keeping up. Everyone was just along for the ride until you fell out of the flow. Left to be picked up again later or trampled later by those who came after.

Damn. That was deep. You wish you had said literally any of that out loud. It just might have been insightful enough to impress Boldir. But the tunnel was widening, now, and so was the light at the end of it. Your chance is carried away in the stream of missed opportunities.

Boldir stops just before the end and holds her arm out to make sure you stop, too. You have to close your eyes against the sudden change in light. The salty scent of the sea greets your nose; carried on a clean, crisp breeze. You blink a few times to try and make your eyes adjust faster. Beside you, Boldir hunkers down to take a seat. You hear a faint clunking noise as she does. You squint determinedly until the haze in your vision clears.

The dark, shimmering purple of Alternia’s oceans expands before your eyes. It is hard to put into words the wonder the view instills. You’ve been confined within the limits of the city for a long time; where the edges are defined clear, so clearly, and you can always see where everything ends. Even in the outskirts, even in the countryside, there was a very definitive end to everything. 

This is not your first time seeing the ocean.

But seeing an ocean, after having been limited by the industrial sprawl for so long… it was an experience. You would believe it if someone told you, right this second, that you were on the only landmass on the planet and the ocean never ended. You take a seat next to Boldir, speechless. Your legs dangle off the edge of the pipe. Waves crash beneath you. Seafoam gently brushes the tips of your sneakers. In the surface of the rippling ocean the moons are nothing more than colorful splotches.

You bask in the feeling. The quiet, simple wonder of it.

Wow. 

“Psst,” Boldir’s hiss is almost lost in the sounds of the ocean. “I have a hypothetical question for you. Would you care to hear it?”

You know for a fact that 80% of Boldir’s hypothetical questions tend to amount to something far beyond your meager understanding of the world. So, of course, you tell her you would absolutely love to ponder the unknowable with her. What’s she got on her mind?

“Say you were to meet a troll who looked exactly like me,” Boldir starts.

Okay. You’re following her so far.

“This troll is exactly like me in every way. All of the same life experiences that ultimately culminated in the troll I am today,” she pauses, dramatically, and holds up a finger, “except for one thing.”

You turn your head from the ocean, your curiosity piqued. Boldir, in turn, has turned to look at you as well. But somehow… it feels a little like she’s looking past you. Through you, somewhere… deeper. Further away, like she’s talking to you… but not You. You, but not you. It’s a hard look to put into words.

“This troll, who is at their very core just an exact copy of me… has never met you,” Boldir says. “They have no idea who you are. They’re not your friend. They might even think you’re a threat. What would you do, if you met a troll like that?”

So… wait. You make a face as you try and get the exact nature of her question down. 

So. Hypothetically.

“Yes,” Boldir nods.

You meet a version of Boldir who’s never met you in her life. Basically, like, an alternate universe version of Boldir from a universe where your paths never crossed. 

“Correct.”

What would you do if you met her? Really? Like it's not super obvious?

Boldir raises an expectant eyebrow at you.

You would try and be her friend, duh.

The laugh that escapes Boldir at your answer is a quiet one. Just a single, airy chuckle that’s almost lost to the waves. “Of course that’s your answer,” she says. “Would you prefer that version of me, over the one you know?”

You don't really understand the question. You can't imagine you would prefer one Boldir to another. Wouldn’t she and the other Boldir still basically be the same person at the end of the day?

“Maybe so,” she says. She takes her hat off and sets it in her lap. “What makes an individual? Our ability to think independently? Or is it our memories? Our experiences? The perceptions imposed on us by the people in our lives? The influence of those people?"

Boldir looks at you with a curious tilt of her head. "Would it really be a stretch to say that this hypothetical troll and I are two separate people? An individual who has been influenced by you. And an individual who hasn't. One single, defining moment that changed them forever."

Well, when she puts it like that, you think you kind of get it. Almost? It's still a little over your head. You guess you would absolutely prefer to have YOUR Boldir. The one you met first.

“And what if you didn’t have a choice?” she asks quietly. “If we were never able to meet again. Would you remember me as the individual I was? Or would you let your memories of me bleed over into the troll you had at hand until we were one in the same?”

This… is a very, highly specific line of hypothetical questioning. Is there something she wants to talk about, not hypothetically? Is she okay?

Boldir smiles at you. Something shifts in her eyes, just a hair. It's enough that you're sure she’s back with you on this plane of existence. “I just think it’s an interesting scenario to consider.”

Boldir turns her face back towards the endless horizon. You wait for just a moment, never truly sure when she’s done talking, before you scoot a little closer to her. You lean gently on her shoulder, mindful of guns. You kick your feet just to have something to do. Not knowing the answer to her question makes you anxious. What WOULD you do in that hypothetical and totally impossible scenario? What would be different? Would you even miss the Boldir you’re talking to if you had an almost exact copy of her? 

Your heart clenches.

It hurts to think about. The idea of never, ever seeing one of your dear friends again. And seeing someone walking around who looks just like them, but isn't? You don't want to ever have to deal with that hypothetical scenario.

You tell Boldir very quietly that you would miss her very dearly if you lost her and she was replaced by an alternate universe version of herself that had never met you.

It's a bit of a mouthful of a confession.

“Can I ask why?” Boldir inquires, eyebrows raising. She doesn't judge you for rambling. She doesn’t ask in a way that makes it seem like she’s personally invested in your answer. Merely curious about your thoughts, as though she’d asked you about the local politics. 

You open your mouth. Close it, turn over the words you want to say in your head so you have them right in the order you want them. 

Sure, you tell her. You love making friends. And you would do your absolute damndest to befriend every single alternate universe Boldir you ever stumbled across. You’re sure they’re all as equally great as the one you know! But they would never, ever replace the Boldir sitting with you right here and right now. Those versions of Boldir never hacked your phone just to say hi. They didn’t teach you how to pick-pocket, you didn’t haphazardly save their lives, they wouldn’t have a scale for how awful your landing skills were, you wouldn’t have any of the same in-jokes with them.

None of those Boldirs would know your coffee order.

It’s the tiny things like that that make a difference. That make your Boldir YOURS. No one could replace THAT. Not even if you met and befriended a thousand Boldirs. You would never, ever forget about her . She's your irreplaceable friend. Your Boldir. No matter what.

Boldir makes a choked, breathy noise. She goes rigid for an instant; leaning heavily against your shoulder you’re terrified that something terrible has happened. A quiet huff of laughter escapes her. Boldir tries to stifle it with her hand. But it happens again. Then another, and another after that, until she’s full on giggling hard enough to make her shoulders shake. Boldir’s laugh is just as quiet and breathy as her usual tone of voice, but there’s something so pure about it. Unhindered by the weight she normally carries. The only words you can think to describe it is ‘giddy disbelief’.

For the first time since you met her all of the tension vanishes from Boldir’s body. 

You wish she could be like this all the time.

You wish she could smile like this without being afraid.

You're torn between laughing with her or crying for her.

As Boldir quiets down, a new feeling settles over the both of you like an odd, new blanket. Not uncomfortable, but different. A new level of familiarity. The shared knowledge of a secret. It feels like you’re not allowed to be here, with her, but you would trade everything in your life to stay here with her forever. Just you, Boldir, and the endless possibilities of the ocean stretching out eternally at your feet.

“I’ve never shared this place with anyone,” Boldir whispers to you. She tosses you a shy glance out of the corner of her eye. “It’s where I come when I want to be alone. But you are my friend. I trust you with its location and hope that it may bring you the same solace it grants me.”

Warmth floods your chest and the empty, awful hole that’s normally there soaks it up like the nasty sponge it is. Oh. Ohhhh no you’re really gonna cry. You take a short, hasty breath and do your damndest keep your composure. You don’t trust yourself to not say something stupid. Like your dumbass voice would ruin the moment. Boldir reaches out and tenderly takes your hand in hers. It’s warmer than you expected. Dammit you JUST said you weren’t gonna cry.

“It scares me, how much I trust you,” Boldir admits. “And it scares me how easily you trust. I envy how much faith you have in the good of people you’ve just met.”

You school your heart beat. Take another breath. You tell Boldir about an old Earth adage: that strangers are just friends you haven’t met.

You don’t see Boldir roll her eyes, but somehow you feel it. You DO see her grab the top of her hat just before she shoves your face into it. Her hat is SURPRISINGLY crinkley. Is that… tin foil?

"You should be more careful who you trust here. You aren't on Earth anymore," Boldir is saying as you right her hat on top of your head. It's still a little warm. Somehow, Boldir has already produced an exact replica of her hat from SOMEWHERE and it's back on her head. "Just because I didn't poison you doesn't mean someone else won't."

You frown thoughtfully. You do your best to be careful, but throwing safety to the wind in the name of friendship is kind of your THING at this point. That's how you've met almost every single one of your friends INCLUDING Boldir. And it hasn't killed you YET.

" Yet ," Boldir scoffs. She shakes her head, her mouth set in a straight, stubborn line. "I know I can't make you give up on your friendship endeavors. But will you at least keep the hat on you when you go out? Please?"

Is it a special hat? You ask curiously. Besides being special because Boldir gave it to you, you mean.

"It it lined with a special substance that blocks out celestial interference," she informs you proudly. She taps the side of her nose and winks. "It will also keep you safe from any unruly ceruleans you might run into."

Huh. You have NO idea what she means by 'celestial interference', but you do know a thing or do about the cerulean blood caste. You quietly thank Boldir and reach up to run your finger along the brim of the hat. Besides the tin foil it doesn't really seem special in any way. But Boldir made it, and she gave it to you, and that means more to you than anything else.

Boldir settles against you, satisfied with your answer. Her warmth leeches into you and goes straight to your heart. You lean back into her, just a little, and hope you can do the same.

An ocean of endless choices and possibilities sits before both of you.

Maybe you'll try and be a little more cautious with those choices in the future.

For Boldir's sake.

Chapter Text

Your day today starts out like any other day on this god forsaken planet.

You awaken well before the sun sets. Nightmares cling to the edges of your memories so tightly that you have trouble separating the truth from the tangible lies. They clog your reality. They slither through your brain and they whisper. Failures and death and dismemberment and murder and abandonement and betrayals and lies and monsters and armpits swirl, swirl, swirl until red becomes green and green becomes red in your mind until you’re sucked in. 

A cyclone of misery. 

A whirlpool of despair. 

A spinning galaxy’s worth of torment.

You can only watch helplessly as scene after scene plays out in your mind’s eye. 

You can’t escape it.

It’s already here.

You’ve been having a lot more nightmares since landing on Alternia. More than you EVER did when you were still on Earth.

But it’s fine. It’s, like, basically the usual for you now. You’ve got a system nailed down for it and everything! You’ve got the fancy coffee maker Tagora got for you set on a timer. It turns itself on while you’re asleep. You’ve got the timing of it almost perfectly down so that it starts brewing almost exactly when you start struggling to free yourself from your pile of blankets and defend yourself from imaginary terrors. By the time you’ve stopped crying the coffee is already hot and ready.

From there, with coffee in hand, you find a good place in your home to safely watch the sun set. When it’s safe, you’ll climb down. You’ll go find some trouble or make some yourself. You’ll fuck around and find a friend. You’ll run and run and run, involve yourself in shenanigans and sleuth out some problems until you collapse. And then, finally, you’ll sleep for a bit before the cycle starts anew. 

Bam. A totally healthy coping system. You are fucking NAILING it.

It’s as you’re sipping your coffee and clearing your Chittr DMs of weird spam bots and Zebruh Codakk that your dusk takes a turn for the unusual. Your phone lights up with an incoming call. Tagora’s face plasters itself across your home screen and the personalized ringtone you set for him starts a’ jingling. It isn’t unusual at all for Tagora to call you. In fact, he calls you every couple of days without fail, even if it’s just to make sure you made it home safely. He’s swell like that. 

It is, however, unusual for him to call before the moons rise. You answer your phone.

Hello? Tagora?

Silence, for a second, and then the sound of something rustling against the phone speaker.

Hello????

Scratches, more scratches, and squeak and chitter. Animal noises. Lusus noises. Your face scrunches up in confusion.

...Mr. Ferret Dad???? 

A series of consecutive, affirmative snuffles.

Is everything okay? Where’s GorGor?

And thus, your dusk takes a turn from the unusual and straight into a dire situation.

The setting sun is warm on your back as you hurry through the Alternian streets. A haze hangs over everything as the sidewalks begin to cool down and trolls begin to get ready for the night. You cut in front of scuttlebuggies and jaywalk at every opportunity. If it weren’t for the increasingly distressed ferret in your ear you would be reminded of the early mornings you had subjected yourself to back on Earth before you realized you weren’t up to par and you never, ever would be.

As it stands though there IS an increasingly distressed ferret in your ear and he’s totally chiding you for not taking YOUR scuttlebuggy to make the trip faster.

Listen, Mr. Ferret Dad. You know what you’re doing. If early dusk Alternian traffic is anything like the traffic you know, everyone is going to be in a rush and nobody is gonna be moving a fucking inch. You already passed by two separate accidents and three wholly unrelated murders-in-progress. If you’d driven you would still be stuck on Helmstreet. But no, because you decided to WALK, you’re already on Griefer. You are making great time.

Mr. Ferret Dad is not convinced and clearly does not appreciate your tone. Sure, you can practically hear him ask, you’re faster. But are you SAFER? What if you get HIT? What if you get MUGGED? What if you get CULLED?

You sigh through your nose. You spot an alley you can cut through to shave some time off your trip and you take it. You politely inform Tagora’s lusus that you are in constant peril of all those things at all times. The fact that it is early in the morning does not increase or decrease the chances of something terrible happening to you. This is Alternia. You should have been dead on arrival.

Mr. Ferret Dad makes a sad noise on the other end of the line. You know, Mr. Ferret Dad. You understand. He’s just stressed and taking it out on you. If you don’t get there safely it means all the longer before anyone gets to Tagora’s hive to help him. But you ARE on your way and you are STILL alive for the time being. You promise the ferret you’re being careful. You’ve just made it onto Redglare. You’re almost there.

Tagora’s hive comes into view and you run the last few yards to his doorstep. 

You’re fishing around in your pockets for the key Tagora gave you when his lusus opens the door. Mr. Ferret Dad is agitated and he TOTALLY KNOWS you weren’t being as careful as you promised. You hang up your phone and dart through the door, closing it behind you with a slam.

Tagora? You call out.

Mr. Ferret Dad bites at your ankles to get your attention. When he has it he makes several, jittery movements and darts off into the hive. All you can do is follow him. He pops in and out of view as you rush through the chrome filled domiciliary after him. Finally, the two of you arrive in Tagora’s bedroom.

He is facedown on the carpet. There’s dried slime all over him and he’s barely dressed.

Oh, fuck. You rush over to Tagora, kneel down, and flip him over. The minute you touch his skin you yelp and reel back. He is freezing cold. What the fuck. You bite the bullet and flip him over properly. Please don't be dead please don't be dead please don't be dead please don't be dead……

Tagora Gorjek does not seem to be dead. There is gross, teal gunk dripping out from under his eyelids. He’s extremely pale and he looks a little bruised from his fall, but he’s breathing. Shallow, haggard breaths. But breathing. You gently ease him up off the floor. You try and be extra mindful about his horns - now would be the WORST time to get stabbed. You get him propped up and leaning against your torso and you call his name again, gently.

No response.  Mr. Ferret Dad is getting increasingly freaked out and is running circles around you. It's NOT helping.  You shake Tagora carefully and call his name again, a little bit louder. A noise starts up in his chest; rattling like something stuck in a car engine before he suddenly coughs up a disgusting teal, viscous bile that splatters on both of you. His eyes open, look at you unseeingly, and close. Mr. Ferret Dad SCREECHES.

You whip out your phone.

AlienInVasionOfOne: Tyzias? Are you awake?

singlelicerlawyer is typing…

singlelicerlawyer: literally wwwwhen ammmm i not
singlelicerlawyer: wwwwhat’s up?
AlienInVasionOfOne: I’m at Tagora’s house and I think he might be dying!
singlelicerlawyer: good riddance
AlienInVasionOfOne: Tyzias, I’m being serious! Something is wrong!
singlelicerlawyer: relax, wwwwould you? It wwwwas a joke
singlelicerlawyer: tell mmmme wwwwhat’s happening
AlienInVasionOfOne: Okay, so. He’s like, really cold? Like way colder than normal?
AlienInVasionOfOne: There’s all this GUNK that he keeps coughing up and it’s also coming out of his eyes?
AlienInVasionOfOne: And he won’t wake up and Mr. Ferret Dad is losing his mind and I don’t know what to do.
singlelicerlawyer: wwwwho the fuck is mmmmr ferret dad
singlelicerlawyer: wwwwhat the fuck is a ferret
singlelicerlawyer: wwwwhat the fuck is a dad
AlienInVasionOfOne: It’s my nickname for Tagora’s lusus and I really don’t think that’s what you should be focusing on right now!
singlelicerlawyer: awwwwwwww
singlelicerlawyer: adorable
singlelicerlawyer: do you have one of those for mmmmy lusus?
AlienInVasionOfOne: Tyzias, please.
AlienInVasionOfOne: I’m seriously freaking out right now. Is Tagora okay? Do you know what’s wrong?
singlelicerlawyer: sorry, i just got a little distracted
singlelicerlawyer: soregore’s probably fine
AlienInVasionOfOne: Probably??????
singlelicerlawyer: it sounds like he caught the bug that’s been going around the office blocks
AlienInVasionOfOne: Do you mean an actual bug?
singlelicerlawyer: no. he’s just sick. nothing a day of rest and sommmme drugs wwwwont fix
AlienInVasionOfOne: Oh, thank God. Not an actual bug. I can deal with that. 
AlienInVasionOfOne: Do you happen to know what drugs?
singlelicerlawyer: yeah i’ll look up some immmmages and send themmmm to you
AlienInVasionOfOne: Tyzias, have I told you recently that you’re one of my favorite people on this awful planet?
singlelicerlawyer: only everytimmmme you see mmmme
singlelicerlawyer: but it’s nice to hear
singlelicerlawyer: tell tagora i’ll cover for himmmm today and to just focus on not dying
singlelicerlawyer: and mmmmake sure tegiri doesn’t find out you’re over there
AlienInVasionOfOne: Why can’t Tegiri know?
AlienInVasionOfOne: Tyzias?
AlienInVasionOfOne: ??????

When Tyzias continues to not respond to you, you assume she’s probably going about the rest of her dusktime routine. That’s fine. You have a ferret to calm down and a troll to relocate. You explain to Mr. Ferret Dad that Tagora is going to be okay. He’s just a little sick and you’re going to make sure he recovers. You are the BEST at problem solving, after all. You are going to be the BEST caretaker. 

Once the lusus is sufficiently calmer you move onto your next task. Carefully, oh so carefully, you begin to stand. You take on the dead weight that is your very good friend Tagora in small increments until you’re full standing and supporting his weight. You begin your trek across his bedroom. Your steps are measured; precise and balanced, ensuring you don’t fucking faceplant because you misjudged the weight of the troll you’re dragging. You thank whatever higher being exists out in the annals of space that Tagora’s recupracoon is one that’s low to the ground.

It still takes a couple tries to get him in there. All of your strength is in your legs. You need to talk to Nikhee about maybe doing some more upper torso exercises. Your arms are basically fettuccine. 

In the time it takes for you to get Tagora settled, Tyzias has messaged you back. Actual fucking beautiful goddess that she is, she’s sent you several pictures of bottles you can’t READ, but could totally recognize if you saw them on a shelf. She has even blessed you with the address of the nearest harmacy. You send her a string of extremely nonsensical, happy emotes in response. 

You kick on the heater for Tagora’s recupracoon and inform Mr. Ferret Dad you will be right back.

He looks at you doubtfully.

You super, super promise.

The lusus stares at you, sneezes, and skitters off to sleep near Tagora’s head on the edge of the recupracoon. Awwww.

You plug the address into your palmhusk and you are out the door. 

The streets are a little quieter, but no less lively. The sun has finally set. You pull up your hood and you try and walk with confidence. You didn’t need anybody stopping you. Something something, fake it till you make it. You belonged on this hell planet just as much as anyone else did. That is to say not at all. No one deserves to be on Alternia.

It’s the worst.

You arrive at the harmacy with no issues. It reminds you of a poorly photoshopped Walgreens; like if someone had desaturated and pasted gibberish text onto and then shoved a Walgreens into a strip mall and hoped no one would notice and claim copyright. You noticed, though. But you aren’t a narc. And, also, you think it’s probably just a giant coincidence. Why would aliens have Walgreens? Like, what were the odds?

You stride through the automatic doors filled with questions.

You have walked into a Walgreens. 

… 

What the FUCK-

There’s a goldblood with four exceptionally pointy looking horns at the counter. They’ve got earbuds in and a magazine open. Everything about them screams graveyard shift. They look up, briefly disinterested when you enter, and look back down at their magazine. Less than a second passes before their head whips back up. They look at you, look a little closer at you, and proceed to swipe their magazine and literally everything else on the counter off onto the floor on their side.

Shit, did you already do something wrong? You JUST got here. But the troll doesn’t look mad. Actually, they look… scared? Before you can even begin to think you’re any sort of intimidating, you remember. You were in such a rush to leave when Mr. Ferret Dad called you that you didn’t change out of your pajamas. 

AKA  you’re wearing one of Mallek’s Hoodies (that you totally didn’t steal). 

AKA you read as Cerulean right now. Also, you’ve probably got flecks of teal gunk on you. Literally no matter how you look at it, this troll probably thinks you might kill them for fun. Goddammit. Fucking hemocaste bullshit.

“Good evening! Esteemed patron!” says the troll with a panic laced sort of cheer. “Super sorry! Didn’t see! You there! Welcome to! Floorlimes if! You’re here! To pick! Up a! Prescription please! Have your! Photographed Identification! Card ready! How can! I help! You today!?”

Ah geez, just listening to this troll talk was giving you second-hand agita. You generate enough anxiety on your own, thank you very much! You very politely thank the goldblood… you squint at their nametag. Malcxe. You thank Malcxe and inform them that you’re here to look around and you will ask them if you have any questions. 

This does nothing to calm them down. 

In fact, they look even more worried at the prospect of having to deal with you in the future. 

Wait. Actually, you could use their help right now and save you both some trouble. You walk over to the counter and pretend that Malcxe isn’t about to vibrate out of existence from stress. You flip through your phone until you find the images Tyzias sent you and ask the clerk if they would be able to point you in the right direction. Malcxe takes the phone out of your hands completely unprompted and squints at it.

“Oh yeah!” Malcxe says, nearly shouts at you. “We’ve been! Selling a! Ton of! This stuff! Recently like! Every teal! Blood ever! Is sick! I can! Show you! Where this! Stuff is! At if! You’d like!?”

Having an easily achievable goal and a fastrack to get you out of the store seems to have calmed Malcxe down a hair. You’re down with that. You would also like to be out of this social interaction as quickly as possible. If you weren’t in the middle of something very important, you think you could try and find a pal in this antsy graveyard shift troll. Your current friends take priority, though, and right now Tagora needs you back in his hive.

With your phone in hand Malcxe walks around the counter and gestures you to follow them.

You walk out of the harmacy with your phone back in your pocket, a paper bag of medications and some other stuff you’re pretty sure is also medications, and a head full of instructions. Malxce realized you weren’t a troll just about immediately who could barely fucking read. Absolutely potential friend material. You’ll have to come back and talk to them again someday.

You’re back at Tagora’s hive in no time flat. Mr. Ferret Dad isn’t there to open the door for you this time so you shuffle your goods around a bit so you can find your keys.

You open the door to find Tagora standing there, STILL covered in slime, only SLIGHTLY more dressed, and Mr. Ferret Dad screeching like a tornado siren. 

Tagora wavers on his feet.

Without a thought in your head you drop the bag and your keys. In a fit of speed you didn't think you were capable of you rush over and catch Tagora in your arms before he falls. It all happens so perfectly and so cleanly you might as well have been in one of Polypa's tawdry palemance movies. Not gonna lie? You're a little impressed with yourself.

"What, exactly, do you think you're doing?"

Tagora snaps you out of your self congratulatory daydream. His voice is hoarse and when you turn to look at him there is teal oozing from all four corners of his eyes. He looks awful. He's glaring at you, but there's no heat to it. Like someone lit the fire, doused it, and left the embers to soak.

You decide to answer his question. You were very clearly saving him from planting his face into the carpet again.

Tagora sneers and you can practically see a charge being added for your sass. "I meant in my hive."

His lusus called you. You see another uptick in charges being added for conspiring with his guardian. Eh, worth it. He’s fined you for worse. 

You none-too-gently kick Tagora’s front door closed (because dammit you’re already being charged today and a few more troll bucks wont hurt) and help maneuver your teal blooded friend back to his respiteblock. Tagora, however, isn’t having it and weakly fights you the whole way there.

“You will cease this behavior immediately,” Tagora hisses. You, unsurprisingly, do not cease your behavior. Realizing that you won't be convincing him to go back to sleep, though, you DO change tracks. 

His living room is much closer. 

Tagora grunts as you, carefully, and as damn ceremoniously as possible, get him settled onto the couch. Mr. Ferret Dad appears with a blanket from somewhere and, bless him, the bag you dropped at the door. Tagora stares at it dubiously as you wrap him up like a little lawyer burrito.

You explain that he has nothing to worry about: Tyzias told you what to get. 

Tagora’s stare narrows as he turns it to you. “You told her.”

You look away sheepishly and find a gaudy piece of wall art to stare at above his head. You panicked, you admit, with a wobbling sort of laugh. You didn't know what to do. Finding him unconscious like that on the floor, completely unresponsive- it really scared you. You tell Tagora that you thought he was dead when you found him; just for a second. You tell Tagora that that alone was scarier than literally everything Alternia had thrown at you since you crash landed. 

Your admission is met with silence. It stretches, on and on and on like a nightmare, swirling and swirling, as embarrassment begins to crawl up your esophagus and choke you out with a dawning humiliation. Fuck, had you committed some serious alien faux pax again? A social dynamics thing, maybe? Did you cross a line? Did you offend him?

You get up the nerve to look at Tagora.

Tagora is staring at you. Unabashedly staring, struck silent. His eyes are wide, rimmed with viscous teal that's started slipping down one of his cheeks. He looks like he’s got a fever.

Your panic ratchets up about thirteen notches immediately. FUCK, you’re sorry, you are so sorry, just going on and on like this when he’s SICK. You’re the WORST caretaker. You bought a TON of stuff at the harmacy, though. You’ll get him settled, and medicated, and you’ll get out of his hair, you promise. Without even really thinking, you reach out one of your sleeves to wipe away the gunk building up in his eyes-

Togara grabs your wrist.

You blink.

The world shifts.

Congratulations! You are now horizontal.

Tagora’s pajama shirt is a little scratchy beneath your cheek. Not uncomfortably, just noticeably. His chest is still cold beneath it. You can hear his blood pusher beat, beat, beating just under your ear. His breath, still raspy, brushes the top of your head as he says-

“You are so stupid.” 

-but Tagora says it with such FONDNESS that it's hard to really? Feel insulted? You’re not sure if it actually IS an insult, but you don't know what else to make of it.

You are comfortable, but mostly kind of confused as he pulls the blanket over top of both of you.

“I did have a hunch, just for the record,” he informs you, settling his arms on your back in a loose embrace. There’s a smile in his voice. Tagora laughs, quiet, and it's a laugh you’ve never heard from him before. “I really should have expected such a bold declaration from someone like you. I am once again guilty of underestimating you. I apologize.”

Oh no.

Oh no.

You are missing something. You are missing something so incredibly crucial. And while you would be remiss to… interrupt, whatever this is, because you’re still tired from your early morning and Tagora is surprisingly comfy and he just sounds so happy…

You know you have to.

You carefully ask Tagora what he is talking about.

It is impossible to miss the way that he tenses.

Tagora is silent for a very, very long time after you voice your confusion. You are not in a position to see his face, or even crane your head to catch a glimpse. Your arms are pinned beneath you. You can’t ignore the feeling that maybe, just maybe, you should have kept your mouth shut.

After what feels like an eternity, Tagora says, “I have something I would like to ask you. About your home planet.”

You blink.

….Um? Okay?

“If it is painful to remember, or uncomfortable, you do not have to answer.”

That is uncharacteristically charitable of him. It makes you even more nervous than you already are.

“Were you in any relationships before you left?”

…Whatever you were expecting, it was not that. Never in a million years would you have expected that.

Tagora must misread your bewildered silence for something else, because he quickly begins, “As I said, if it is too much for you to talk about I am not going to force you-”

It’s not! You tell him it just caught you off guard, more than anything. That seems to settle him down, if just a little, and if you ignore the live wire that is the rest of this conversation.

With a surprising steadiness, you inform Tagora that you have never been in a relationship. That's part of what made it so easy to leave, really. You didn't have anyone to leave behind.

“...You’re not serious.”

You are, in fact, completely serious.

“You can’t be,” Tagora argues. “You don’t seem the type for a pitch romance; I can believe you wouldn’t have left behind a kismesis. But I find it hard to believe you’ve never had a matesprit, let alone a moirail.”

…Pitch? Kisemsis? Matesprit, moirail… your face scrunches in thought, the words ringing several not quite bells. Those words all sounded familiar... you'd heard them, but in what context? It had to have something to do with relationships, right? Or else Tagora wouldn't have brought them up... UGH you KNEW this, you were sure you did!!! It was on the tip of your tongue!!! Quora? Quadrilaterals? Quotients? …Quadrants! Those were the names of quadrants, weren’t they? That whole complicated relationship chart that trolls used?

Tagora takes a deep, deep breath. “So you know what quadrants are, then?”

Kind of? You shrug, but due to both yours and Tagora’s position it's not a very effective one. One of your friends had given a brief summary. You understood the gist of it, kind of. You understood the red and the black ones, they were the easiest, but you couldn't wrap your head around the other two. You'd seen them in movies, but you've been told that the movies were pretty inaccurate. Romantic relationships on Earth weren’t so strictly defined or nearly in depth as troll romance seemed to be. The closest thing humans had that might be a quadrant would be the heart one- blood pusher one? The red one.

Chillingly neutral, Tagora responds, “Is that so?” 

You nod.

On your shoulder, just barely, you feel Tagora tapping one of his claws.

“So on your planet, what would we be called?”

…Why does that question feel so loaded?

You would be friends. At least you would like to think so.

“Friends,” Tagora echoes.

You nod into this chest.

Tagora opens his mouth, you imagine with a question, and is promptly cut off by a harsh coughing fit. His arms constrict around you and you are forced to ride it out.

As his breathing settles, you ask if he’s alright.

“I’m fine,” he rasps. He doesn’t sound fine, at all, but he doesn’t give you the chance to call him out on it. “So this is what you would call friendship, where you’re from?”

You really have no idea what else you would call it.

Tagora barks out a laugh and it is a harsh, harsh sound. “So you would do this for anyone, then, if they were your friend? Whether it was me, or Tyzias, or Tegiri-”

Well he doesn’t need to sound so rude about it. And as much as you do like Tegiri, you wouldn't consider him to be the same type of friend that Tagora is to you, anyways, so it's a pretty poor comparison.

As abruptly as it started, the laughter stops. Tagora sits up on the couch with a great deal of effort. This effectively puts you in his lap, which is not where you expected to be at any point, ever, period, end point. You don’t know what to do with this information. You decide to deal with it the way you deal with most things at this juncture in your life: you try not to think about it.

You feel like a deer in the headlights of his stare. Low, and rough from coughing, Tagora states, “I am going to need you to clarify that statement.” 

You can’t help but feel you are in a dangerously precarious situation.

You ask him which part he wants clarified.

“Tegiri is not ‘the same type of friend’ as I am. What does that mean?” he asks you.

That’s… hm.

It’s sort of hard to explain. You care about Tagora differently than you care about Tegiri. It’s not that you dislike either of them or that one of them is a lesser friend (you love all your friends! Equally!), but you would say that you and Tagora are… closer? Than you are with Tegiri? That is the simplest way to put it, though that feels like it falls short of the actual answer. You’re not sure you’re explaining your feelings well, but it’s a difficult distinction to put into words.

Tagora squints at you through his crusty eyelids. Studying. Appraising. Thinking. “And do you have… other friends, who you would consider to be the ‘same type of friend’ as me?”

He doesn’t seem angry. It feels more like he’s studying you. A feeling you are much more acquainted with even if it makes you feel a little uncomfortable at present. You hope more than anything that means that you’ve said something right, and not that he’s just so furious with you that he’s looped back around to calm.

His question gives you a pause, but it's brief. He had already mentioned Tyzias. She and Tagora were just two of a handful of friends that you would consider to be close friends. Not through any faults of the friends you DIDN’T consider close, of course, but you clicked in different ways with different people. 

"Is that so…?" Tagora asks. Again, he doesn't sound angry, he just sounds… calculating is the closest word that comes to mind. Like he has puzzle pieces in his hands that he's been struggling with, but he's finally seen how they fit. "Fascinating. Though your explanation was somewhat lacking in detail, you have given me much insight to work with. I think I understand you better than I previously believed. Thank you."

He's? Welcome? You fidget in his lap, fingers tugging at a loose string on Mallek's hoodie's sleeve. So you two are… everything is cool? He's not mad? You're both good? 

Tagora chuckles. He's relaxed back into the sofa, bringing you with, until you're not QUITE horizontal but your head has returned to its previous position on his chest. "Oh, yes. I would say we are very good."

CallMeGorGor: I come bearing both good news and bad news.
 *_________

singlelicerlawyer is typing…

singlelicerlawyer: wwwwell hello to you too
singlelicerlawyer: glad to see you’re not dead
singlelicerlawyer: your caseload is a travesty
singlelicerlawyer: howwww’s the alien?
CallMeGorGor: They have fallen asleep on top of me.
 *_________
CallMeGorGor: I am willing to send you a picture if you’re willing to call us even.
 *_________
singlelicerlawyer: deal
singlelicerlawyer: wwwwhat’s the bad news?
CallMeGorGor: The alien’s home culture does not have an equivalent to our quadrant system. Their grasp on it as a concept is rudimentary at best and ill informed at worst.
 *_________
singlelicerlawyer: okay
singlelicerlawyer: give mmmme a second to digest that
CallMeGorGor: By all means.
 *_________
singlelicerlawyer: okay
singlelicerlawyer: so throws a wwwwrench into our plans sommmmewwwwhat
CallMeGorGor: Not necessarily.
 *_________
CallMeGorGor: While they seem incapable of discerning the differences between pity and friendship, they appear to at least be able to feel the difference
 *_________
CallMeGorGor: Listening to them attempt to explain their feelings on the subject was incredibly reminiscent to hearing a wriggler talk about their first pale crush. It was rather enlightening
 *_________
singlelicerlawyer: you’ll have to emmmmail me the sparknotes version
CallMeGorGor: I’ll consider it.
 *_________
CallMeGorGor: Regardless, this still does mean that we are going to have to adjust our plan of action in regards to the alien accordingly.
 *_________
singlelicerlawyer: gorgor, wwwwe’re lawwwwyers
singlelicerlawyer: changing plans on the fly is basically our job description 

Chapter Text

It is an unusually quiet evening in the bookhive.

Now, you’ve got to be thinking: it IS a bookhive. Isn’t it meant to be quiet? A place of learning where the slightest hint of degeneracy will be put to a pulpy end by the librarians? A serene place for minds to have the space to learn? Primed to be subsequently put into jars- then guarded for who the fuck knew what reason in a room full of other brains in jars?

You would be correct on all of those points. A bookhive should, ideally, be as quiet as possible. 

However.

When more than one teal blooded troll is gathered anywhere, it’s natural for it to get a little noisy. This is what makes the particular silence hanging over a table of three teals and an alien so prominent. The fact that you happen to also BE the alien in this equation just adds, like, a number of extra awkward layers to the situation. You don't know how to navigate social situations with trolls on a good day. Fucking let alone AWKWARD social situations with trolls. 

Goddammit.

You’ve got your arms crossed on the table and chin set atop them. It’s a study meeting, so you’re really just here to hang out. Next to you is Tagora. Tagora is outlining something for some big, teal lawyer school project and is keeping himself quite busy. Busy with WHAT is a mystery, but he’s busy. Tagora’s mouth is drawn in a tight line that makes it quite clear he’s not happy. Tagora is not the source of the heavy atmosphere. You know this because you know Tagora and Tagora would have made a scene by now.

Across from Tagora sits Tegiri. Tegiri is 100% focused on his studies - you’re not even sure if he’s noticed that the table isn’t as chatty as usual. His witty one-liners are barely getting a reaction; a grimace at best, silence at worst. He’s a little put out about it. Otherwise, he seems fine. Naturally, then, you can conclude that Tegiri is not the cause. And if he was you DEFINITELY would have known by now. But he hasn’t uttered a single, put upon sigh this whole time. So. It’s not Tegiri.

Directly across from you sits Tyzias. Tyzias, normally a hard worker and dedicated to the task at hand, is hunched over the table. She’s been staring at the exact same page in her textbook for about 45 minutes. You don’t know if she’s noticed. She’s made quite the effort to look busy up to this point, but her eyes have started to glaze over. She’s miles and miles and miles away. You’re not sure if you can reach her.

There is something going on with Tyzias. 

You don’t know what.

And you don’t know where to start.

From Tagora's side of the table you hear some particularly furious scribbling. Not two seconds later something thin prods rudely into your elbow. It’s a paper flashcard. You carefully drag the secret message the rest of the way under your arm. You know to read its contents in privacy. Luckily, it's a very short note. Tagora has never been one to mince words.

Fix this.
*___________

Wow, even when he's in a rush Tagora has SUCH nice handwriting. You scribble a tiny smiley face on the signature line and in your best, wobbly Alternian write back:

How?

You inconspicuously slide the notecard back over to Tagora and into some of his official project documents. He picks it up under the guise of straightening the pile and skims it with a quick flick of his eyes. It is then discarded. Your tablemates are none the wiser. You settle back into your former position and wait. You can already see the hints of a plan brewing behind Tagora’s eyes. 

You would say your partnership with Tagora typically amounts to you following the orders he gives you. It’s more than that, of course. You know it is. Tagora went on a very impassioned, extremely heartfelt rant about the equality of your relationship the first time you mentioned your dynamic with him to make sure it was hammered into your thick skull that you are EQUALS and he RESPECTS YOU and so on and whatever.

The fact remains, though.

Tagora makes a plan.

You follow it.

Profit.

Your very good platonic friend Tagora makes a few useless scribbles on his paper. He pauses, frowns, and scribbles again with a scowl. You can see from your vantage point that he’s not actually writing anything, just making squiggles.

“Tegiri,” Tagora says. His voice is clipped with frustration. “May I borrow one of your many writing utensils? Mine seems to have stopped working.”

Tegiri pokes his head up from his syllabus and adjusts his glasses. “Of course you may, sempai!” he quirks his head to the side, not unlike a slightly bemused dog. “It is rather unlike you to not have a spare of your own.”

“Someone,” Tagora says, “keeps using them to draw when I bring them to meetings. I’ve been meaning to restock.”

First of all: rude. You feel very Seen and you Do Not Appreciate It. It’s not your fault that Alternian legal jargon flies over your head. He told you to look busy at those meetings, what else were you supposed to do? Take fucking notes? LEARN?

“I see,” Tegiri replies with a sage nod of his head. He brandishes his pencil case with aplomb. You don’t know exactly where he grabbed it from, but it certainly wasn’t sitting on the table a second ago. He gently unzips the Doki Doki Trolldoka Psiiciika Tragica memorabilia and holds it out with a single minded reverence. “Please select your weapon.”

Tagora stands. He brings one hand to his chin, the picture of contemplation. The other he uses to support himself as he leans across the table to peruse Tegiri’s massive assortment of anime waifu pens. You see the instant the plan goes into action. A photo taken seconds before disaster strikes. You see the muscles of Tagora’s arm tense beneath his sleeve as he leans in closer to pick his chosen pen. 

And then it slides. 

Like a scuttlebuggy with its nav on the fritz his hand goes right out from under him and swerves right into Tyzias’s mug; not giving a single shit about the papers and books it hits along the way. You’re watching art happen in slow motion. The noise startles Tyzias and shocks her from her stupor. She, alongside you and Tegiri, leap to your collective feet to try and avoid the sudden rush of water. Tagora hits the table with a solid THUNK and sends everything clattering when he goes down. You’re impressed by the sheer level of carnage. It is a MESS of dripping water and disintegrating paper. 

The entire incident is over in a matter of seconds. 

There’s a beat of silence.

“What the FUCK, Gorjek,” Tyzias snaps. You cast a glance her way and you can’t help but wince. It seems her clothes took the brunt of the water damage. Her personal binder is clutched to her chest protectively. Completely dry. You let out a breath of relief you didn’t realize you were holding.

Tagora rises from the table slowly. Somehow, magically, the troll is COMPLETELY dry. Barely a hair out of place. Those few strays that escaped his hair gel are coerced none too gently back into place. He straightens out his clothes. Checks himself over. Tagora levels Tyzias with a cool stare when he finally deems himself presentable. “It seems incredibly obvious what just occurred, Tyzias,” he says. “My hand slipped.”

A muscle in Tyzias’s face twitches. You have never seen her look so ready to commit a murder. Which is SAYING something because she has had many, many a reason to. Carefully, stepping around the table and over the mess, you find yourself at her side. You quietly ask her if she’s okay. Her head jerks in your direction. When her eyes find you a small amount of her fury seems to evaporate. Tyzias takes a very deep breath in. Lets it out.

“I’m fine,” she lies. “Our project is not.”

You look at the sopping mass of paper congealing directly in front of where Tyzias had been sitting. You can’t help but wonder; what does Tagora have planned to fix THAT when the time calls for it? You trust he didn’t just wreck their end of trifester project willy-nilly. He’s too smart for that. He is also WAY too self-centered to do the whole thing again just to help an acquaintance (friend? Were they friends?) out. 

Tagora takes a delicate step around the disaster zone. “Well. It’s certainly not in an ideal state at the moment,” he tactfully agrees.

“No fucking shit,” Tyzias grinds out.

Tagora ignores her. “I trust you both have back-ups saved for your parts of the project?” 

Ah, there it is. 

Tyzias grunts an affirmation. Tegiri chimes off with a quiet, “hai, sempai”. Tagora nods.

“Then there’s nothing to worry about,” he points out. “We aren’t wrigglers. We can handle a minor setback.”

You HEAR Tyzias grinding her teeth, biting back a surely acidic response. You lay a hand on the crook of her elbow. She jumps, going stock still, before a fraction of tension leaves her shoulders. Her death grip on the binder lets up. You can just make tiny indents on the cover where her claws dug into the plastic.

Hey, you say, trying to get her attention.

Tyzias turns her tired eyes down to meet yours. You feel a pulse of guilt for your part in adding to her stress. You offer Tyzias a ride back to her apartment so she can change clothes. Tyzias opens her mouth. She takes in the state of the table, the state of herself, and shuts it with a defeated grunt. You low-key catch Tagora’s eye across the table. He nods.

You gently hook your arm with Tyzias’ and lead her from the room.

She’s quiet the whole way to the exit. The rain pelting the windows is just enough to draw a scowl from her. It had been spitting rain all evening, but you guess the clouds finally resolved to just get it all out of their systems at once. You spot your ‘bug parked down the sidewalk; a hazy shape in the deluge. It’s not a long walk to get to it. You were pretty confident that, under normal circumstances, you could make it before all of your skin melted off. 

There was just one small problem.

As opposed to wearing one of your usual, various, PILFERED HOODED SWEATSHIRTS, you were wearing a t-shirt that you had asked to borrow from Stelsa (that she was never getting back. So it was, technically, ALSO PILFERED). You thought it would make for a nice gesture of ‘teal solidarity’ in these stressful, teal times. It had garnered a genuine, teal chuckle upon your arrival to the meeting. Damn though were you sure not dressed for this weather. You’d be deader than the last time you got caught out in the rain if you went outside right now.

(Wait, what?)

Tyzias looks you up and down and seems to come to a similar conclusion. She shrugs off her lightly damp jacket and drapes it over your round little head with little fanfare or regard for your flailing. She can’t fool you, though. You saw the tiny twitch of a smile on her face. You KNOW. 

Both of you, now only barely suitably dressed to combat the elements, book it out the front door of the library screaming.

You slam the driver’s side door closed behind you.

Tyzias follows suit on the passenger's side, shaking rain out of her hair and sending droplets splattering onto your interior. They hiss on contact. “You okay?”

You pull her sweater off and hand it back. You’re a little itchy, but you’re fine.

“Good,” she says. With a sigh, she sags deeper into the passenger seat. “Gog knows with how squishy and weak your weird alien biology is, you’d probably have a bad reaction to this stuff. I’m really not in the mood to experiment with it today.”

Haha, right? You ignore the increased burning itch of your skin beneath your t-shirt and focus on getting on the road. Outside, the drizzle turns to a pounding downpour. You punch Tyzias’s address into your GPS and your buggy begins marching through the onslaught.

The steady droning sound of the rain makes your scuttle buggy feel smaller, somehow. More intimate. Tyzias settles into the familiarity of your passenger seat, her harsh corners going soft with exhaustion. Her eyes were closed before you even started moving. She's not asleep. Not yet, at least. If you weren't so familiar with her at this point, you probably could have been tricked into thinking she was. The steady rise and fall of her chest is almost enough to fool you.

The silence between the two of you is companionable. It always was, with Tyzias. It was why you always enjoyed spending time with her. If there was anyone on this planet you knew you could rely on, without fail, it was the troll next to you. You hoped she felt the same. 

Your bug stops at a traffic light. 

Your eyes flicker between the road and your resting friend. 

As much as you want to ask her what's wrong, ask her what you can do to help, as much as you want to see her smile… she looks tired. 

The traffic light changes.

Your journey continues in silence as your friend gets some well deserved rest.

Unfortunately, Tyzias does not live very far from the library. The rain does not let up upon your speedy arrival; it does not give a single shit about you, much like the rest of the planet at large. The gorecast had predicted all night storms and you didn’t doubt its accuracy. You park your buggy outside the hiveblock Tyzias lives in. Turn off the ignition. Watch out the windows as sheets of acid slice through the air. The asphalt is a wash of colors and light. You don’t see anyone else - they all must have gone inside already, not willing to brave the weather.

You wonder if you would make it inside before you were reduced to goo.

“‘Prolly not,” Tyzias slurs. You don’t jump, but it's a near thing. She’s got one eye, barely cracked, glaring out your car window. Tyzias grumbles something inarticulate under her breath  and sighs, “We’ll just have to wait it out.”

Like… In your buggy???

She turns and raises an eyebrow, “Did you have somewhere else in mind?”

…not really. You wrack your brain for any friends who live nearby, who would not only be home but also be willing to shelter Tyzias from the rain, and come up short. You just feel bad that she has to wait even longer to dry off. Was she getting cold? Did she want you to turn the heat on? Tyzias was more than welcome to run inside without you, if she wanted? You wouldn’t mind waiting out here for her.

Tyzias snorts.

“Sure,” she smirks, eyes glinting faintly with laughter. “Yeah, I’ll go inside for just a second. And when I come back out you’ll have vanished without a trace - like the trouble magnet you are.”

Dang, called out. You prefer friendship magnet, actually.

Tyzias eyes you up and down skeptically. “Same thing, when it comes to you,” she says, ALMOST giving you a proper smile.

A thought strikes you. You stick your tongue out her. Rude.

That does it. The stone wall of her face breaks and she laughs, short and surprised, “Blegh, I forgot that's what yours looks like. Put that thing away.”

You grin. Perks of being an alien: PERMANENT SHOCK FACTOR. You inch closer across the console towards Tyzias, contorting your stretchy alien flesh into goofier and goofier faces. Tyzias tries to shove you away with her hand to no avail, giggling.

“You’re so gross,” Tyzias says. She sounds annoyed, but her eyes are bright. Her smile is small, but it’s precious. “Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

You flop down across the cupholders, unduly proud of yourself. What? You ask innocently. Was there something wrong with wanting to see her smile?

“Is that what you were doing?” she asks. Tyzias rolls her eyes. “Did you cook that up, or do I have to thank Tagora?”

You freeze. Uh…

Tyzias raises an eyebrow at you, unimpressed, “What, did you think I wasn’t going to notice? It’s not like you guys were being subtle,” she huffs a breath out through her nose. Quietly, like she doesn’t mean for you to hear, she grumbles, “I guess I owe him one this time.”

You take a brief moment to wonder what kind of one upmanship is going on between your teal friends. You didn't really think they talked about things outside of like, law stuff. WERE they actually friends? You fidget, now DEFINITELY feeling a little guilty for your part in Tagora’s plan. You tentatively ask Tyzias if she feels any better.

Regarding you over the top of her glasses, she hums, “A little.”

There’s a beat of quiet. 

Tyzias sighs. She shifts in her seat, and all of her edges come bleeding back into focus as she begins to curl in on herself. Your smile falls as the atmosphere between the two of you shifts.

“I got into a fight with Stelsa,” she admits.

Oh.

“About my research.”

......................

…Oh.

Tyzias sighs, louder, scrubbing her hands down her face, “Yeah.” 

You… don’t know where to start with that. You’ve known since the beginning that Tyzias’s views on Alternian society were enough to kill a relationship (among other things, she had stressed. Priorities). It was dangerous; for her, for anyone she told. You also know that Stelsa already knew. Or at least that she had an inkling about it. Had she taken your advice to try and talk to Tyzias? Had it backfired? 

Was this your fault?

You wince. 

Did Tyzias want to talk about it…?

“Not really. I already know what I’m gonna say. It’s just… ugh. I’m just worried it’s not gonna be enough, you know?” Tyzias drops her hands, looking down at them. “What if I just make it worse?”

Hey. You reach out and grab one of her hands, clasping it between two of yours. Her hands are cold, but teals are always a little cold, so you don't mind it. Tyzias jolts. Her wide eyes jump to meet yours. You smile. Call it stupid optimism, but you think it’ll be fine. What matters is that Tyzias is willing to try, that Stelsa is willing to try. What's the worst that could happen?

Her stare turns dubious, “She could kill me, for one,” Tyzias starts. She uses her free hand as she continues to list off, “She could report me to the authorities, who will put me on trial, and then kill me. She could tell the rest of her sector, who will report me to the authorities, who will kill me. She could break up with me. And then kill me.”

Tyzias.

 “I can keep going,” she says.

You roll your eyes. 

But Stelsa wont do any of those things. It’s like Tyzias thinks she’s the only one between her and Stelsa who wants to make this work. Honestly. You’re pretty sure even IF they broke up, Stelsa would probably take the secret of Tyzias’s activities to her grave. Like, unless she REALLY pissed off Stelsa to the point that Stelsa really, REALLY wanted her dead.

If possible, Tyzias looks somehow even less convinced than before you started talking.

You roll your eyes. She’s GOT to trust you on this. Or if she doesn’t trust you, she needs to trust Stelsa. It’s not going to go nearly as bad as she thinks it's going to. They both care too much.

“But what if it does?” she asks. Tyzias takes one of your fingers and starts bending it back and forth. Moves to another to do the same. She seems fascinated by the elasticity of your knuckles, or at least suitably distracted.

You’re not going to lie. You don’t know what could happen if Stelsa decided to turn Tyzias in. Or worse, take matters into her own hands (You don’t know who would win in that fight. You also don’t want to know). You know at the end of the day this is about more than their relationship. That it’s scope goes well beyond your understanding of Alternian society. It’s beyond both of you, really, and bigger than you both beside. You can’t help with that. Not really, not in a way that matters.

So that is what you tell Tyzias. That you don’t know, that there’s no way for either of you to know. Not until she talks to her girlfriend. Dwelling on it, focusing just on the worst possible conclusions wasn’t going to do anything besides stress her out. 

“Maybe,” she shrugs.

You pause.

A thought strikes you.

You grin, and pointedly tell Tyzias she’s welcome to hide from the drones at your place if she really needs to.

Tyzias lets out a shaky breath, accompanied by an even shakier laugh. “Pass,” she says, gagging. “I’ll die before I ever try and climb your stupid tower again.”

It’s not that bad.

“It’s a miracle it hasn’t fallen over with you inside it,” she deadpans.

That’s what makes it such a good hiding place. No one ever looks up there!

“No one else is stupid enough to go up there,” she shoots back. She’s trying to keep a straight face, but she can’t fool you. You saw the tiny twitch of a smile on her face. You know. Tyzias grips your hand in hers. “Thanks for the offer, though. Maybe I’ll keep it in mind if I need to go on the run and I’m basically dead already.”

You’ll take it!  Besides, if worse came to worse, you’d already hijacked one space ship. You lean closer and tell her you’re pretty sure you could do it again, if she really needed to go on the run. You could take to the stars together! You were pretty sure between the two of you you could even avoid crash landing this time. What did she think about that? That could be fun.

Tyzias breathes in sharply. 

She covers her eyes with her arm and leans back in the passenger. She chuckles. Short, disbelieving, and edging close to hysteric. “Fuck. You really aren’t even trying, are you?”

Hey! You are so trying. You really would totally try and steal another spaceship! Especially if her life was in danger! It couldn’t be that difficult! If the two of you put your heads together, you’re sure that you could do just about anything-

Tyzias laughs. 

It is not a laugh that you have ever heard from her before.

With little fanfare or regard for your flailing, Tyzias takes you by the arm and tugs. 

Your heart skips a beat.

Uh.

You find yourself pressed close to her as Tyzias rearranges the both of you into a more comfortable position in your passenger seat. 

Uh??????

It’s not big enough for the two of you. Your limbs get tangled quickly and one of your arms ends up beneath her. The damp spots on her clothes become warm from your extended contact. Tyzias tucks her head under your chin. You hope she can’t feel how fast your heart is beating. Her hair smells like ink. Her sweater smells like paperwork and ozone. Her glasses poke you in the neck.

It’s not NOT uncomfortable.

“You’re fucking impossible,” she mutters into your shirt. Muffled, tired. She sounds exasperated, but you have no idea by what.

You open your mouth, but realize you don’t know what to say.

Outside, the rain persists. 

It can't reach you.

Inside your crappy little scuttle buggy, you’re safe. Tyzias is safe, warm, in your arms, as she resumes her dozing. The sky is still full of acid. Tagora is going to be mad at both of you later for taking so long. Tyzias still has to talk to Stelsa later. At any moment you could both die. You’re confused, but honestly no more than you usually are at this point in your life.

You gently pet Tyzias’s hair. It’s kind of greasy. You wonder if you could get her to take a shower before you go back to the library, and then wonder if that’s a weird thought to think.

She leans into the touch.

You can’t really tell if she’s awake or not.

It doesn’t matter, you decide, what prompted this. 

You wish you could bottle the peace of this moment to have on a shelf for the both of you. Etch every part of it into your memory, from Tyzias’s restful expression to the smell of takeout you forgot to get out of the backseat. Was this friendship? Did this still count as friendship, or were the lines getting blurry, washed out by the rain? Did it really matter?

…Did you want it to be anything more?

The thought makes your head buzz.

You don’t know. You really, really don’t.

You just know that you wish you could stay here,

in this moment with her

forever.

Chapter Text

Being diurnal on a nocturnal planet is hard. 

It’s hard, and no one understands.

You would like to think you’ve adjusted to being part of Alternia’s nightlife. The threat of death by sun certainly helped; as did spending your first several nights on the verge of death and running for your life until you collapsed! But change is hard. And falling back into old habits is easy.

You wake up just before dawn for the third day in a row. Already, you can feel the heat of the morning sun rising to meet you in your home. Like a crude approximation of a living creature you stumble out of the pile of blankets, pillows, and clothing you’ve deemed your bed. You meander towards the coffee maker on your countertop. You toss last night’s stale coffee out the window. You press a button. The machine gurgles to life. You walk back to your sleep pile while the coffee maker gets to work and pull your phone off its charger.

Your homescreen greets you, bright and cheery. It’s set to a picture of you, Wanshi, and Karako, all squished into frame with just a hint of Lynera’s horns peeking out beyond your heads. You took it when you last visited the brooding caverns (when had that been? A week ago, maybe two? Had it been longer? Time was getting away from you again). You’re all smiling, covered in dirt. Wanshi stole your phone afterwards for the very important purpose of drawing cat ears and whiskers over your faces. She’d been very proud of her handwork. You had been, too.

You all look so happy here.

It hurts to look at.

You swipe to check your notifications.

For the third day in a row, you’ve woken up to SEVERAL missed calls and messages. 

You stare at all of the alerts staring back at you, ponder your choices, and toss your phone right back into your bed. You’ll probably have trouble finding it later as a result. Frankly, you don’t care right now. You didn’t have the energy to respond to all of your missed messages the first morning you woke up with the sun and you definitely don’t have the energy to answer almost triple the amount. 

A part of you feels guilty for ignoring your friends. They’re clearly trying to get a hold of you. Another part of you rationalizes it, though: right now all of your friends are probably ASLEEP because they’re NOCTURNAL and you shouldn’t wake them up. They probably don’t want to hear from you right now. You wouldn’t blame them: you've been ghosting them for days.

It’s a flimsy excuse, but it’s what you’re going with.

You wander back over to the coffee maker and lean on the counter top to stare out the window. You won’t be able to stand in this spot for too long. When the sun rises it will shine exactly where you’re standing; as evidenced by the fact that it’s starting to melt a little from extended exposure. But that’s later. In the meantime, you have the pleasure of watching as the sun begins its ascent. A tiny, molten sliver just on the horizon.

It's not Earth. It's not home. It's an alien star in an alien sky, rising over an alien skyline. But just for a second, you think, you could be forgiven for pretending. In the early hours of dawn, while the world below you sleeps, who is there to judge you for being wistful? For yearning? Who is there to tell you you're wrong?

Somewhere, within an uncomfortably close range, you hear someone swear.

You feel all the blood drain from your face. You turn, slowly, slowly, towards the noise. Fuck. Shit. Fuck shit- Who in their right mind would be climbing up the watchtower so close to sunrise? Or AT ALL? Haha just kidding this is Alternia everyone is fucking nuts and no one is ever in their right mind. Were they lost? Were they drunk? God, what if they were here for YOU? Almost none of your friends actually know where you live. What if it was someone with a grudge? 

Would anyone find your body, secluded up at the top of a crumbling tower like the saddest Rapunzel ever conceived? 

Would anyone notice you were even gone? 

You frantically start looking around the room for something, anything to defend yourself with.

A candy corn horn pops up over the top of what you like to consider your front door-

“-This tower is a fucking death trap, why can’t they live literally anywhere else?”

The familiarity of that voice pops your panic like a balloon.

Tyzias?

“And her better half!” Stelsa announces as she hauls both herself, a casserole(???), AND her matesprit over the edge and into your home. 

What the fuck.

“It’s good to see you too,” Tyzias remarks dryly. She looks sweaty and exhausted. She glances around. “I see you’ve cleaned up since I was here last.”

What the fuck.

Tyzias stares at you. “It was a joke.”

What the fuck-

“You haven’t been answering anyone’s messages!” Stelsa cuts in. She wrings her hands awkwardly and takes a step further into your abode, looks at the mess, and steps back. “We did try to warn you that we were coming. I understand that this is a very short notice visit, but we’ve both been very concerned.”

“Are you just now waking up?” Tyzias asks, squinting at you.

You open your mouth. Close it. Open it again.

You think you might explode. Or melt. Or both.

You loudly announce that you’ll get more coffee going and that they can go ahead and make themselves at home. You turn your back to them. Fuck. Shit. You weren’t expecting company. You weren’t expecting TEAL company. You are, in fact, NEVER EXPECTING ANY KIND OF COMPANY. You live in a DEATH TRAP TOWER ON THE VERGE OF COLLAPSE. Do you even have enough mugs to make more coffee? If you do, are they even clean? Tyzias probably has her mug stashed on her person somewhere. You would stake your life on it. Maybe you could sacrifice your mug for Stelsa? Does STELSA even drink coffee? How could you not know such an important piece of information about-

In the middle of your downwards spiral you are roughly grabbed by the back of your shirt and physically pulled away from your countertop.

“Just watching you is stressing me out,” Tyzias tells you as she none-so-gently drags you across the room. She shoves you onto your couch with about as much care. 

Stelsa sits down next you, the picture of grace, and gently takes your hand in hers. She has set the casserole (??????) dish on your shitty coffee table. Tyzias sits on your other side. She doesn’t take your hand, but you can feel the weight of her shoulder pressed to yours and it’s a very similar sentiment. 

You swallow dryly. 

Oh, you are so screwed.

“You look like shit,” Tyzias informs you.

“Zizi!” Stelsa hisses. Tyzias shrugs. Stelsa sighs. “She is right though. Compared to your usual level of purposeful incomprehensible sensibilities this might be the roughest I’ve seen you since the day we met. Which is saying something considering you looked like a drowned purrbeast left out on my doorstep. Have you been ill? Have you been eating enough? I’ve noticed you don’t seem to have a thermal hull.”

You don’t mean to, but you don’t know what to do besides stare. It is too early in the morning to be dealing with Stelsa’s motor mouth. Half of what she says flies right through one ear and out the other. You catch the gist of it of what she’s asking you, though, and unbidden your usual spiel begins. You inform your guests that you’re in perfect health. In fact, you’ve never felt better! You’ve never really had company over, actually, and it’s such a pleasure-

“Oh mmmmmmmmmmmmmy gog,” Tyzias interrupts you, “Would you cut the crap already and tell us what’s wrong? We didn’t climb all the way up here right before sunrise for shits and giggles. No one has seen or heard from you in days. I usually can’t go a fucking hour without getting notified about whatever bullshit you’ve gotten yourself into.”

Is… is Tyzias really keeping such strict tabs on you?

Tyzias gives you The Look™. “Of course I’m not.”

“Tagora is,” Stelsa chimes in. 

Ah. That makes more sense. Well, sort of. You didn’t realize Tagora was keeping such strict tabs on you? Was there, like, a teal group chat or something that they all use? Is it all the teals they know, or just their specific departments, or like a mix, or-

“Darling, please,” Stelsa also gives you The Look™. It’s just as effective as it is when Tyzias does it. She looks tired, even when compared to her matesprit, and you realize she must be up WAY past her coontime. Stelsa grips your hand just a little bit tighter. “We've been worried. Everyone has been. And you’ve been such a good friend since you landed in our lives. Let us help you for once instead of the other way around. What’s going on?”

Your heart clenches in your chest. You’re fine. It’s really not as big of a deal as they’re making it out to be.

“Then it shouldn’t be a problem to tell us all about it,” Tyzias shoots back, settling further into your couch. She raises an expectant eyebrow at you. Goddamn lawyers. You’re completely full of holes and Tyzias is having none of it. Stelsa is rubbing soothing circles on your hand with her thumb.

You really don’t have a choice here.

You sigh, heavy and defeated, and you begin to explain how humans sleep versus how trolls sleep. Or at least give them a half accurate summary. That sun on your home planet is a whole lot less deadly than theirs, you tell them. Still deadly, but only if you don’t take the proper precautions. It’s an essential part of survival on Earth. Your species in particular evolved to take the most advantage of it. You sleep at night, you’re active during the day. So even though you’re far away from home, on an alien planet where daylight is a death sentence…

“You can’t help sleeping through the night so you can see the sun…” Stelsa finishes for you.

You nod. You’ve been trying to get yourself back onto a regular Alternian sleep cycle again, but it hasn’t been working out so well. Your usual tactic is to try and just stay up through the day; push through the exhaustion into the night and crash before sunrise. It worked back on Earth (most of the time). But then the sun sets, and you get so tired…

“Wait, wait, hold on,” Tyzias starts, voice ticking up an octave into disbelief, “So what you’re saying is that you’ve just been sitting up here the past three days? By yourself? Just what, sleeping?”

Yeah. Pretty much. It sounded pretty bad when she put it like that, but it was a fairly accurate summary.

They both stare at you, waiting for any further explanation. You unfortunately do not have any. You’re not sure what else they want you to say.

They stare harder.

“And you didn’t think to reach out to anyone? No one at all?” Tyzias asks. You shrug. She sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Why are you like this?" 

It just didn’t seem like that big of a deal. You didn’t want to bother anyone with your stupid personal, alien problems. It’s not like you weren’t going to get it fixed eventually. You were pretty used to handling things by yourself. You kind of had to be.

“Darling…” Stelsa seems at a loss for words.

You cringe. Ok, listen, you KNOW that it sounds bad, but it’s REALLY not THAT bad. Or even out of the usual for you, or anything. You’ve always been like this. Like, even before Alternia. It’s really not anything they need to worry about, you’re fine, you promise-

Tyzias grabs your face in her hands and gently pats you on the cheek. 

The shock of it snaps your jaw shut. Part of you isn’t actually entirely sure that just happened, because there is no way that just happened. Right? Tyzias didn’t, she doesn’t- 

Tyzias blushes, just enough to notice, but her face is stern. She wraps an arm around your shoulders and scoots closer. It is not as uncomfortable as you would have expected. This was happening. You were starting to feel a little emotionally fried by it all.

"Do you miss it? The sun on your home planet?" Tyzias asks you gently.

Your tongue sits heavy and useless in your mouth. You've been trying not to think about it, honestly. It didn't matter what you felt. You left everything behind for a reason. Even if sometimes, you wondered, if the reason had been good enough to warrant the decision. It was too late to go back.

You left.

You were likely never going back.

You were probably going to die on Alternia.

You chose this. You only had yourself to blame.

The second you step foot on that spaceship, it was too late to change your mind.

The silence stretching in the absence of your answer is broken by a quiet, choked hiccup. It's followed by another in quick succession. You are doing your damndest to not burst into full on sobs, but you feel it swirling in your chest like a nauseating geyser. The cracks in your façade are leaking.

The weight of the truth is almost too much.

It makes you feel sick.

You don't just miss the sun. 

You miss EVERYTHING.

You want to go back to Earth.

You want to go HOME.

The dam inside of you bursts. You can’t keep it contained anymore. It’s all just too much. You bury your face in your hands and start bawling. You love the friends you’ve made on Alternia, you do, but you are terrified. Every single day you are terrified. What if this is the day your luck runs out? Was this the day you finally died? Was this the day one of your FRIENDS died? What if the novelty of being a weird alien finally wore off and no one wanted to put up with you anymore? What happened when the void in your chest finally consumed you?

You wake up, every day, and the infinite possibilities terrify you.

Tyzias shuffles in her seat, carefully, until she’s able to pull you closer. It’s an awkward embrace: the angle is off, Tyzias is stiff, and you’re basically half in her lap. Tyzias, nonetheless, hugs you close. She rubs a hand gently up and down your back, whispering useless but comforting words as you cry into her chest. The couch shifts, just enough to tell you that Stelsa has moved to better be able to hold your hand. 

Your voice warbles as you try to apologize.

“Shh,” Tyzias tucks your head under her chin. “You have nothing to apologize for.”

That just makes you cry harder.

You’re not sure how long you spend crying. The sun doesn’t move very far into your home, so it can’t be very long, but you can’t tell. All you’re sure of as the flood begins to slow is that you’re warm, and raw, and comfortable, and tired. You pull back from Tyzias just enough to wipe your eyes with your free hand.

“How’re you feeling?” Tyzias asks, softly, so softly, that it almost sets off another round of tears.

You don’t necessarily feel great, but you feel better. You didn’t realize how badly you needed that.

That earns you a small smirk, “Shocker,” Tyzias says fondly. “Local alien who runs themselves ragged taking care of others doesn’t take time to care for themselves.”

You huff. Okay, first of all-

“She is right, you know,” Stelsa chimes in. You turn back to look at her. Her eyes are watery with unshed tears, but she smiles at you. "You always try so, so hard to solve every problem you stumble across and make everyone around you happy… but when was the last time you did that for yourself? When did you last let someone return the favor?"

You open your mouth. Close it. That… that isn’t how it works. Your friends all have REAL, ACTUAL problems. All of your troubles paled in comparison next to theirs. Your problems were just stupid, little things that no one could do anything about. Barely anything. Your problems didn’t matter.

Stelsa exchanges a look with Tyzias over your head.

Tyzias takes your face in her hand again and turns it to look at her. Her thumb is warm as it brushes over your cheek, a little scratchy from a healing papercut. She smells like paper, and ink, and sweat, and Stelsa’s shampoo. She sets her forehead against yours and you lose all ability to think.

"They matter to us… to me," Tyzias whispers. Backlit by the rising sun, you could mistake her for an angel. “Do you want to know why?”

You can’t breathe. Everything in the world, in the universe, feels like it’s narrowed into the pinprick of this moment and, if you move, you’re sure you’ll shatter it. 

Tyzias presses forward, heedless of the universe, “Because you matter to me. When you’re happy, when you’re upset, when you’re out making friends, when you can’t sleep, when you’re homesick… I want you to tell me, because all of that matters to me. I want to know.” 

You feel the prickle of fresh tears start up again. You don’t understand, you don’t, you don’t. You hadn’t done anything to deserve this. How could you matter? To anyone on this planet? You were just a stupid alien who crashed into their lives. You bumbled around and made messes of literally everything. How could someone like you ever- 

"Because we care about you,” Tyzias tells you gently. She wipes a stray teardrop as it rolls down your cheek. “So many people care about you, it's actually kind of disgusting. We’re not going to lose interest in you; your novelty or whatever isn't going to wear off just because you’ve been planetside for awhile. Because that isn’t how it works. Not here.”

You are definitely crying again.

You’re not sure if you believe her.

“You don’t have to. Not right now,” she says. Tyzias leans back, just a little, and plants a kiss on your forehead. “But that isn’t going to stop it from being true.”

Your first thought is that her lips are soft. You don’t have any other thoughts besides that for a long, long time. 

(You’re going to have a crisis about this later, in the midst of several other ongoing crises you’ve been ignoring in regards to your romantic life on Alternia.) 

(But that is a problem for future you.)

“We aren’t going anywhere,” Stelsa tells you presently, setting a gentle hand on your shoulder. “We’re here for you, whenever you need us. Please don’t forget that, alright?”

You sniffle.

Alright.

Alright.

You’ll try. You’re just not used to this. Any of this. It’s been a very, very long time since anyone cared about you. It’s hard to believe it took leaving Earth to find anyone who did. Tyzias looks at you for a long, indecipherable moment when you say that. You fidget awkwardly under her stare, heart pounding. What?

Tyzias shakes her head. She grins at you, toothy and full of promise, and rudely tugs your hood over your head, “Nothing, we’re just gonna have to make up for lost time. C’mon, get up.”

You fluster as Tyzias stands, unbalanced and chilled and BLINDED BY THIS STUPID HOOD THAT’S BETRAYED YOU. Stelsa giggles at your floundering, but she helps you get up from the couch. Your legs feel shaky. You’re standing though and that’s what matters. Your EVERYTHING feels shaky, if you were being quite honest. All this crying has left you very tired and emotionally drained. You could probably sleep until nightfall at this rate. Who knew all it would take to fix your sleep schedule was an intense emotional breakdown?

Tyzias picks up the casserole (????? seriously, what was that-?) dish off your coffee table. Stelsa wraps an arm around Tyzias’s waist, her other arm around your waist, and begins walking to the edge of the room. Wait, were you going somewhere? This close to sunrise? Where were they planning on taking you???

“We are getting you out of this stupid tower for the day,” Tyzias says, in a tone that leaves no room for argument. “Get on Stelsa’s shoulders. It’ll make climbing down easier.”

But- You can climb down on your own though…?

Tyzias rolls her eyes at you. Stelsa hauls you up on her shoulders, and you wonder briefly if you even weigh anything to her.

“Hardly!” Stelsa informs you cheerily. “I think Tirona weighs more than you!”

Well then. You get comfortable and pretend your pride isn’t a little wounded. Tyzias has a chuckle at your expense, but you’ll allow it. You’ve barely been awake and it’s already been a long day. You can’t imagine how either of them are feeling. You don’t know how you’re going to thank them for this. 

You DO make a point to ask where you’re going.

“My place. It’s closest,” Tyzias tells you. Her face is amusingly grim at the prospect of leaving your tower. “Besides, Owl Mom’s been asking after you.”

Oh. Yeah, that’s fair. It’s been awhile since you stopped over to visit Tyzias’s lusus. Or Tyzias’s hive period. 

Stelsa cranes her head to look at her matesprit and, bemused, asks, “Owl? Mom? Tyzias, what are you talking about?” 

You can’t help it. 

You laugh. 

Tyzias does, too, her eyes crinkling at the edges. She looks very tired, but content. You can’t deny that you feel about the same. As the three of you begin the long, arduous journey that is descending from your tower, you try your best to explain the concept of both owls and moms in terms you think a troll could understand. You don’t think you’re doing a great job. It doesn’t help that BOTH of them keep interrupting you with other questions about Earth on the way down and distracting you from the point.

They keep it up the entire way down.

It’s nice.

Being a human on Alternia is hard. It’s hard, and no one understands. Not really.

But they care enough to try.

And you think that’s more than enough.

singlelicerlawyer: i’ve got the alien
singlelicerlawyer: wwwwe're at mmmmy place

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Chapter Text

tick, tock

You’ve been here before.

tick, tock

You have no idea where you are.

tick, tock

You are in an eye seeringly green lounge. The chair you’re sitting in is a studded, overstuffed, polyester- pleather- leather- relic from times so far gone in the future that you’re impressed it’s not falling apart. It’s incredibly soft. It’s extremely uncomfortable. It’s your designated seat, whenever you visit. Everywhere, from every corner of the room, out of sight, in your face, everywhere, you hear clocks.

Tick, tock

The devil sits across from you in a pristine white suit.

Tick, tock.

In between you on a wooden, lime green table, sits a chessboard. Him, white. You, black. You’re not sure how long you’ve been playing. You don’t know when you started. You don’t know where you are. You don’t know when this ends.

Tick, Tock

The devil moves his bishop across the chess sphere. His bishop becomes a queen- a rook- a child- a friend, as it takes your knight- your pawn- your love- your life with a cruel, pragmatic indifference. The devil waves his hand over the game in acquiescence. It’s your turn.

Tick, Tock

You stare at the chess cube. You’ve never played chess. You don’t know the rules. You don’t think your side is meant to exclusively be made up of pawns. They warp and change before your eyes; familiar, unrecognizable faces continuously smoothed over into marble in an inescapable cycle, consuming themselves. You don’t know what to do.

Tick, Tock

You reach down to move a chess piece-

Tick, TOCK

-you flinch and rear back, seeing red, red, red, swirling against green, green green-

Tick, TOCK

There is a terrible, bleeding slash across your palm. Your pawns are friends- are rooks- are knights- are knives. A blade, every single one of them, pointed at you. You don’t know how to move them without getting hurt in turn. You don't know how to touch them without ruining them, destroying them, staining them in your red, red, red, red, red, red. 

Tick, TOCK

You don’t know what to do.

Tick, TOCK

The devil speaks. His words are gibberish to you; grating, indistinguishable nonsense that scratches, scratches, scratches at your ears, your mind, your everything with every utterance, every askance, until your head is pounding. You feel sick. You might be sick. The gaping hole in your chest screams.

TICK, tock

The devil laughs at you.

TICK, tock

You are bleeding everywhere.

TICK, TOCK

You’ve had enough of this.

TICK, TOCK

You’re done.

TICK, TOCK

You're DONE.

TICK 

The devil asks you if you’re having fun.

TOCK

You flip the table.

tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick…

You hit Tagora’s floor with a muted thud. The nightmare, already fading, scratches at the edge of your memory. Your jack rabbiting heart begins to slow. Distantly, just above your own breathing, you hear Tagora’s wall clock ticking away. What time even was it? You groan into the carpet. You hope you at least managed to get a FEW hours of sleep. You had a long night ahead of you with the teals. The blanket Tagora had been so kind to lend you is tangled around your legs, trapping you despite your best efforts to kick it away. You let out a sigh. You use your palm to push yourself up-

-red on red on green, swirling, everywhere-

-and hiss, dropping back to the floor in surprise. Fuck, what the fuck? What happened to your hand? Were you bleeding? Your hand gives an uncomfortable pulse. You sit up, carefully, until you’re cross legged against the sofa you’d been sleeping on. You stare at your hand. It’s too dark to see the extent of the damage. Your eyes aren't that good. But in the dim ambiance, you see it: the horrid, iridescent sheen of blood oozing from a sizable gash across your palm. 

You feel dizzy.

What the fuck?

How the HELL had you managed that? Did you catch something when you fell off the couch? No, that couldn’t be it - there wasn’t anything for you TO catch. Tagora had moved his coffee table after your last sleepover SPECIFICALLY so you didn’t hit it when you inevitably rolled off the sofa. What HAPPENED then? Did you catch a stray staple in the upholstery? Did you need to trim your nails? You flex your hand as a test and wince. Fuck, that smarts what the fuck-

You hear a distant, but rapidly approaching skittering. It is your only warning before Tagora’s lusus is entirely up in your business, sniffing intently at your hand. Ah, shoot, you must have woken him up when you fell. You try to assure Mr. Ferret Dad that you’re alright. He squints at you. His eyes glint dubiously in the darkness.

Well, can’t blame an alien for trying.

Mr. Ferret Dad sneezes. He darts away from you towards the faint outline of a doorway. Darts back to you, runs in a circle, and darts away again. He wants you to follow him. You sigh. With a medium amount of difficulty you manage to free your legs and stand. The world goes sideways, but not enough to matter.

Quietly, for fear of waking your host, you follow his lusus into the darkness.

You find yourself once again in Tagora’s immaculate ablution block. You flick on the light and try to ignore the resulting spots in your vision. Mr. Ferret Dad scurries ahead of you across the tile, clearly on a mission. You pad in slowly after him. You cradle your injured hand in your other, noninjured one, hoping against hope that you haven’t left a blood trail across Tagora’s hive. Blood was a bitch to get out of most things, but white carpet? You shudder. You try not to think about the money you’d owe Tagora for the cleaning fees alone.

There’s a rattle across the bathroom. Mr. Ferret Dad successfully pulls a drawer open beneath the sink and beckons you closer. You peer into it. You are PLEASANTLY surprised to find a very well stocked first aid kit. Huh. You don’t know what you were expecting, honestly. You quietly thank Tagora’s lusus for showing you where it is.

Mr. Ferret Dad stares at you, sneezes, and high tails it out the door.

Which, fair. As clever a lusus as he was, Mr. Ferret Dad was still just an animal. You doubted he was particularly equipped to tend injuries. You also weren’t his charge. Or a troll, for that matter. No, you were completely out of the lusus’s wheelhouse and that was fine. So long as he didn’t wake up Tagora you wouldn’t begrudge him anything.

Beneath the bathroom lights you get a better look at your injured hand. Thankfully, in spite of its size and how much it was bleeding, the cut was mercifully shallow. You’d be willing to bet it wouldn’t even scar. Whatever cut you must have been sharp. You turn on the faucet and stick your hands under the cold water. It stings. You almost pull your hands out. But the gash needs to be cleaned and, frankly, so do your hands. They're sticky and it's starting to make you nauseous. 

You grit your teeth and scrub. 

Your blood swirls down the drain. It’s garishly red against the pristine, white porcelain.  You lose yourself, for a moment, to the morbid inclination to just watch it, until the water begins to run pink.

You turn off the faucet.

You make the executive decision that you don’t want to risk getting blood on any of Tagora’s very nice decorative towels. Instead, you do your best to dry your hands on your bright teal night shirt (which was also Tagora’s, but it was also yours now). You sit down on the tile in front of the sink. You begin carefully picking your way through the first aid kit. It was luckily about the same as a first aid kit back on Earth. You don’t recognize some of the small tools inside it and you don’t trust the random, spiky bug in a jar that you find, but that’s alright. All you're really after is some gauze and a pair of scissors.

It’s as you're measuring the length of bandages you’re going to need that you hear footsteps in the hall. Loud, incredibly close and getting closer footsteps. This is your only warning before Tagora bursts into the bathroom in all his striped, pajama’d glory. 

You stare at each other, separated by about three feet and a thick silence.

The bathroom lights buzz.

You tell Tagora hi.

Tagora snaps out of his stupor. He’s on his knees next you in an instant, taking the scissors from you and rummaging through the first aid kit. He barely glances at you. Voice still hoarse with sleep he begins to ask, “Do I even want to know how you managed-”

Tagora chokes. He looks at you, REALLY looks at you: your hands, your clothes, and the blood trail leading to you across the tile. Every ounce of color drains out of his face. You hadn't taken him to be the squeamish type. 

"You- Your-" he stops, stumbles, working his jaw in a way you've only really seen him do when he's trying not to lose face in front of high bloods. Tagora is absolutely transfixed staring at you. If he didn't look so ready to vomit, the attention might be enough to make you blush. As it stands you're mostly confused. It's not like this is the first time he's ever seen you injured. "Your blood… it's… "

Oh.

Oh no. 

Oh fuck.  

You were so distracted riding the euphoria of friendship that you forgot for a second that you were on a planet where the hemospectrum existed (again). It's not the first time Tagora has ever seen you injured, no, but it’s definitely the first time he's ever seen you bleed. 

Being an alien put you automatically at the bottom of the social hierarchy. You knew that. THAT was acceptable, though, because it put you outside of the hemospectrum in most trolls’ minds. You were ALIEN, not LOWBLOOD. No one asked where you landed on the hemospectrum. Ever. As far as anyone knew you had Schrödinger's blood color. You liked to keep it that way. You didn't even tell your FRIENDS what color your blood was.

Not after Amisia.

Not since you learned.

It wasn’t that you didn’t trust them… no. That was a lie. You didn’t trust them. Call it a gut instinct; a niggling, background fear. They couldn’t know. They couldn’t.

Tagora is pale. He still hasn’t moved. You aren’t sure he’s breathing.

It was hard to deny the reality of your blood, brighter than any planetside rust blood’s, when it was spattered across his bathroom floor.

A chill goes down your spine.

You hesitantly call Tagora's name.

His eyes refocus on yours. He blinks. He opens his mouth. Closes it. Loses his nerve, before he seems to gain it back again. Tagora takes a deep breath through his nose. "We need to disinfect that," he says shortly. He turns his attention back to the first aid kit and rustles around in it, producing a box you’d skimmed over in your own initial search. He looks at you, looks at the box, and comes to some sort of decision.

Tagora opens the box and pulls a wipe out. Carefully, so carefully, like he’s afraid you’re going to break, Tagora takes your injured hand in his own. He wipes the disinfectant across your cut in a single, brusque swipe. It comes away BRIGHT red. It also burns. You flinch in his grasp.

Tagora rolls his eyes, "Don't be such a wiggler." 

You’re not. You just weren’t expecting it. Tagora huffs out a laugh, just a touch hysteretic, and some of the tension eases out of his shoulders. A little gentler he resumes cleaning your wound. You try not to fidget. The disinfectant stings. Tagora’s hands are cold and tacky with sopor, just like the rest of him. His hair is plastered to his forehead. The bathroom is dead silent - cloyingly so. You could cut the tension between the two of you with a knife and, even then, the knife would fucking struggle. 

You have to say something.

You don’t know what to say.

Mechanically, Tagora sets the bloodied disinfectant wipes to the side. He begins cutting the gauze you’d previously been measuring. 

You bite the bullet and ask Tagora if he’s okay.

His eyes flick back up to you, unimpressed. You fight off the instinct to cringe. Tagora cuts a strip of gauze, “I’m the one who should be asking you that.”

You’re FINE, honestly. The cut isn’t even that deep. Tagora gives you a pointed look. He gives a harsh tug on to gauze he’d started wrapping around your hand and you yelp. Rude. Okay, you weren’t 100% fine, but he seemed kind of, uh… he just seemed really…

“Surprised?” he offers, raising an eyebrow.

…Aghast? Repulsed? Horrified? 

“I was-” Tagora cuts himself off. He takes a deep breath, centering himself, and continues wrapping your hand. “It was unexpected,” he settles on.

You let the words hang in the air for a few moments, rolling them around as Tagora finishes his work. Red keeps coming to the surface under the gauze and, every time, Tagora adds another layer. You swallow dryly. You’re hanging off the edge of a precipice. You feel like the world is about to fall out from under you and there's nothing you can do to stop it. Everything about Tagora is infuriatingly neutral: so perfectly schooled, so shuttered, that you can’t get a read on him for the life of you. 

He sets down the gauze, seemingly satisfied with his work. 

Tagora does not let go of your hand. He takes your pinky and curls it. Straightens it. Curls it again, seemingly lost in thought as he plays with your alien joints.

You steel yourself.

You ask Tagora, weakly, if he hates you now.

Tired eyes snap to you, alight with an unexpected fire. “What?”

You quail under the intensity of his glare. 

You ask again - if he hates you now. You were a hemospectrum freak, right? That’s why he reacted so strongly to seeing your blood. You’ve sat in on enough teal meetings to know how the Empire handles deviations: namely, that it didn't. It didn’t matter that you were a completely different species. You were different. You were lower than a lowblood. You would understand it, you lie, if he hated you. That’s just how Alternia worked. You wouldn't hold it against him. Really. Though, you would really appreciate it a lot if he could maybe hold off on killing you until-

“Stop. Stop, just stop,” he growls. Tagora drags a hand down his face. “Shut up. I don’t hate you. Stop putting words in my mouth.”

But your blood-

“Was unexpected,” he stresses, pinching the bridge of his nose. “And that’s all it was.”

Oh.

… was he sure?

"Yes." 

…so you were still friends?

Tagora lets out an explosive sigh. He takes both of your hands in his and waits, patiently, until you’ve worked up the nerve to look at him. “You are my partner,” he tells you, holding your gaze to make sure you’re listening. “The contract between us is non-negotiable. I want to stay by your side for as long as you'll have me. Is that understood?”

You meekly nod. Your heart does a funny little flip in your chest that proceeds to go right off the handle. God, if you didn’t know Tagora any better, you’d think he was proposing to you or something. Did he really mean it? …Even if you might have gotten blood on his carpet? 

Tagora cracks a small smile. "Even if you bled all over my carpet."

You blush. Cool. Because you were trying really hard not to, but you’re pretty sure you didn’t manage to catch all of it and also there was 100% some in front of his couch and-

Tagora shushes you. “It's alright, don’t worry about it. We’ll take care of it later,” he assures, gently rubbing his thumb across your palm. He holds up your bandaged hand between the two of you. “How does that feel? I didn’t wrap it too tightly, did I?”

You experimentally flex your hand. You don’t have much wiggle room, which is probably for the best all things considered. You would hate the bleed through any more gauze. Your palm tingles a little but it doesn’t hurt. 

Tagora nods, “Good,” he says. You expect him at this point, with the situation resolved, to lean back out of your personal space. He pointedly does not. Tagora makes himself comfortable on the floor in front of you, knocking one of his pajama’d knees against yours. He never lets go of your hand. Tagora regards you with a tired, but stern stare  - only a little diminished by his bedhead. “Now, tell me what happened.”

Ah.

Right.

You tell Tagora that there isn’t much TO tell. You really don’t KNOW what happened. You’d been having a nightmare: of that you were certain, even if you couldn’t recall what the nightmare had been about. (Tagora’s eyes narrow at that, just a hair, but he doesn’t interrupt.) The next thing you knew you were on the floor. Somehow, in the in-between, you managed to snag your hand on something. That was really it. You’ve been wracking your brain for what you could have sliced your hand open on since you woke up, but nothing was coming to mind.

Tagora digests this. You can tell he isn’t satisfied with your explanation - can see the gears in his brain turning as he tries to figure out how you managed to hurt yourself on nothing. There's a hint of exasperation brewing just under the surface that he’s trying very hard not to let show. Ultimately, Tagora sighs and asks, "How are you always finding new ways to injure yourself?"

You open your mouth-

"That was a rhetorical question."

-aaand close it. You offer up a sheepish apology.

“It’s alright,” he tells you, the repeated affirmation no less thoughtful the second time. “I’ll take a look tomorrow. Tegiri may have left one of his throwing knives between the cushions again.”

That would definitely explain it. Really, what else could it be? You are about to ask Tagora if that is a consistent problem he runs into whenever Tegiri visits when you are interrupted by a jaw cracking yawn. Ow. 

Tagora quirks an eyebrow at you. “Did you get any sleep?” he asks.

…not much, you admit. You’re also still not sure what time it is if you’re being completely honest.

Tagora accepts this with a quiet nod. He casts a glance around his ablution block, thinking, calculating. He looks at you. Looks at the mess you’ve made of his bathroom. Tagora comes to some sort of decision. 

Tagora stands, startling you when he pulls you up with him. Your legs erupt into pins and needles. Tagora steadies you with a hand on your shoulder, “Come on,” he says, offering you a small smile. “We have a few hours before we need to go and meet the others. You can rest until then.”

You stomp one of your feet, hoping to get feeling back in it. A few more hours of sleep… yeah, that would be nice after all this. Tagora should try and get some more sleep too. You were really hoping Mr. Ferret Dad would leave him be. You know Tagora hasn’t been getting much rest between cases recently. You feel a little bad that he had to wake up to come take care of you. 

“Don’t be an idiot, of course I woke up to check on you. You’re my guest,” Tagora rolls his eyes. He guides you out of his bathroom, taking care to turn off the lights as you exit. You are plunged into darkness. You’re not that concerned. You trust Tagora to know how to navigate his own hive.

…or at least you did, until he starts pulling you down the hall away from his rumpusblock.

“You can’t very well expect me to let you sleep on the loungeplank if there’s potentially a knife in it,” Tagora points out and- oh, there’s the usual charge for asking stupid questions. You thought something had been missing from this whole debacle.

Tagora leads you to his respiteblock. You look around, wondering if there was a couch in here you’d missed, or maybe a pile of some kind, but all that stands out in the dim is the glow of his recuperacoon on the floor. 

…Wait.

You can just barely see Tagora raise his eyebrow at you. “Is there a problem?”

There were several problems. 

You don’t say that, because he’s been very kind to you tonight and it would be very rude, but it’s a close thing. Tagora is looking at you expectantly. You have to say something. You aren’t sure where to start: maybe with the fact that sopor slime is ineffective on you, or maybe that the mere idea of sharing a troll bed with Tagora is setting your face on fire.

You settle on the sopor slime (because you’re a coward.)

Tagora blinks. “Is that so?” he asks, sounding genuinely curious at the prospect of your immunity. He shakes his head,  “Be that as it may, I have nowhere else for you to sleep so you will unfortunately have to bear with it.”

Tagora begins to lead you into the room and hesitates. One of his fangs peeks out over his lip as he worries at it, glinting in the low light. He looks… shy all of a sudden. Which is not something you thought you would ever live to see. Or really thought was possible. Why was HE shy? This was his idea! He shouldn’t have suggested it if he didn’t actually have the nerve-

“I would also rather not let you out of my sight at the moment. You’ll have to forgive my selfishness,” Tagora adds - a quiet, bashful askance.

You wheeze.

Fuck. Okay. You weren’t even in a state to unpack all that. If you weren’t blushing before you sure were now. You mumble something inarticulate into the hand you’ve decided to hide behind and drag Tagora towards his stupid recuperacoon before he can say anything else that might kill you.

He chuckles after you.

The slime is warm as you tentatively put a foot into it. Like fresh gelatin that still needed time to set, or like extremely soupy mashed potatoes. You step the rest of the way into the recuperacoon. It’s not your first time being inside of one, obviously, but Skylla kept hers cooler than this. The difference was throwing you off.

You lay down against the back of the recuperacoon, careful to keep your head above the slime. You're glad you had the forethought to keep your gauze covered hand out of the stuff because it immediately saturates your night shirt. It’s always a weird feeling, the way the sopor makes your skin buzz, but it’s not terrible. You still don’t want it touching a half open wound.

Tagora settles down next to you with far less dramatics. He takes your bandaged hand again, above the slime, and stares at it with a hard to read expression. You immediately corral your racing thoughts: he JUST told you that he didn’t hate you. A short walk down the hallway wasn’t going to change his mind (probably, hopefully). You tentatively ask Tagora what's up.

“Does anyone else know?” He asks you after a moment. When your answer is a blank stare, Tagora clarifies, “Your blood. Does anyone else know about it?”

Oh. Yes, there’s one other troll who knows what color your blood is. You tell Tagora about Amisia, about her art and how she’s claimed you as her muse. He looks distinctly uncomfortable at the idea of her using your blood as paint. Or maybe he’s uncomfortable with the fact that she bled you like an animal for it. It could easily be both. You usually tried not to think about it when you visited.

“And she’s the only other troll besides myself?” Tagora presses.

Yes. Well, maybe yes. Probably. Tagora tenses beside you and you explain, quickly, before he can get mad at you, that your recollection of the first few nights after you crashed was incredibly spotty. There’s a lot you straight up do not remember and a lot of what you DO remember blurs. You are PRETTY sure, though, that Amisia is the only other troll who has seen your blood. You have a very distinct feeling you would be dead otherwise.

Tagora relaxes back into the slime. “Yes, you almost certainly would be,” he agrees, letting out a breath you hadn’t realized he was holding. “Trust an artist to care more about her craft than the law. As always, your luck astounds me.”

You don’t know if you would call it luck. You were anything but lucky. If Lady Luck knew you existed you were sure it was for the express purpose of flipping you the bird. You want to argue the point, but another yawn cuts you off.

“And here you said you were immune,” Tagora teases.

You ARE immune. Like, mostly immune at least. Probably. But you are also very tired and you are very comfy and warm. Tagora laughs at you, soft and fond, like a jerk. He doesn’t believe you. Ugh, stupid, insufferable lawyers…

“Get some rest,” Tagora says, failing to keep the amusement out of his voice. It shimmers in his eyes. “I’ll wake you up before we need to leave so you can rinse the sopor off.”

A shower DID sound nice… could you use his fancy soap again?

Tagora says something. His words are muffled, muted by your fading consciousness. But his voice is soft, his voice is warm; it envelopes you like the slime surrounding you. You sink into it. You are warm. You are safe. Nothing can reach you here, not so long as Tagora keeps holding your hand. He said he wants to stay with you forever. Sleepily, you wish you could stay with him, too.

Your eyes drift closed.

For the first time in months you fall into a deep, dreamless slumber where the devil cannot reach you.

Chapter Text

Boldir, you begin. Your voice hardly breaks the silence of the alleyway. The lockpick in your hand gives another, equally quiet click as you successfully get that stupid fifth pin to finally lift. You’ve been fighting with it for what felt like hours (in reality you’re sure it’s maybe, probably, only been a minute).

To your left, Boldir gives you a “hm?” of acknowledgement. You won’t begrudge her lack of a proper response: her attention is rather handily split between watching you work and watching both of your backs. There weren’t any security cameras watching this door (one security oversight of many, it seemed), but that didn’t mean some rando troll couldn’t still cut through the alley and stumble upon your… illicit activities.

The lock gives another click. You’ve almost got it.

You tell Boldir, not unkindly, and with all of the friendship in your heart, that this was not what you had in mind when you told her that you wanted to hang out more.

Her eyes flick to your face. A crease forms between her brows, eyes widening just a hair, and Boldir asks, “Are you not having fun?”

You’re not… NOT having fun. You wouldn’t go THAT far. You just… you gesture, rather uselessly, at the door to the building you’re currently helping her break into. You were not expecting this level of crime this early into your friendship. Maybe a few more pickpocketing adventures. Or some shoplifting. A few more misdemeanors before you jumped into felonies.

“I would argue that breaking and entering is actually a relatively low level crime,” she responds. The lock clicks, a sturdier click, and Boldir trades you for one of the other lockpicks stashed in her pockets.

You frown down at the lock. You guess she has a point. In the grand scheme of Alternian crime, breaking into some random office building is pretty small potatoes next to mass murder and extortion and being a livestreamer. You’re probably worrying about this too much. It’s not like you haven’t done worse since landing on Alternia, anyways.

“Oh, no,” Boldir is quick to correct you. The lock gives a final click. The bolt retracts with a clunk of finality and the door swings open. Boldir rewards you with a pat on the shoulder and a reassuring smile. “I just meant in comparison to what else we’ll be doing, breaking and entering is nothing.”

…wait, what-

Boldir waltzes through the newly opened door and you nearly trip following after her.

The emergency stairwell you enter into has seen better days. More than half the handrail is hanging lackadaisical off the side of the stairs in a curly middle finger to TROLSHA. Paint is chipping in more than one place off the concrete walls; faded cerulean giving way to a graying teal in what would probably be considered an affront to any highblood that thought about it too hard.  There’s a few, sad remnants of caution tape scattered here and there- the only evidence that anyone was aware of the hazard and had half thought to do something about it.

Also, the entire middle section of the staircase is missing.

There was also that.

Boldir clears the gap with no trouble. She is kind enough to reach back across to help you make the jump yourself. You can't help thinking that Boldir's hands are warm. Through the window in the door at the top of the stairs you can just make out the blandness of an office hallway. Boldir holds a finger to her lips and presses her ear against the door.

The coast is clear.

You enter the hallway with Boldir, hand in hand.

The two of you quickly make your way through the bright blue hall, passing empty picture frames and emptier offices. Plastic crunches beneath your feet with every step. If you had to guess this entire part of the building was under renovation (and had been for a very long time, and would be until it changed hands again.) Boldir stops the both of you in front of a pair of double doors at the end of the hall. Potted, plastic plants stand guard on either side; even in their artificial immortality you’re pretty sure they’re wilting from neglect. Boldir pulls an I.D. card out of her pocket and slides it through a fancy looking scanner on the wall (you wonder, distantly, who she filched it off of). The scanner beeps and Boldir leads you into a locker room.

“Wait here,” she says, pushing you onto a bench in the middle of the room. Boldir promptly vanishes into one of the changing rooms along the far wall. You hear a thud as her coat hits the ground and you wonder, left alone with the mildew and your thoughts, what you’re doing with your life.

Worse than breaking and entering. Did Boldir want your help robbing this place? You feel like she normally hired people for that kind of work when she could. She hates having her name on things. What did people even steal from offices like this, anyways? Documents? USB Drives? Grubs? Floppy discs? Computers? If it was something digital you doubt Boldir would be here in person at all.

You let your eyes unfocus tracing water stains on the ceiling. One of the lights on the wall flickers. Was it for something she was investigating? She is always talking about things like the lunacracy when she doesn’t think anyone is around to hear her- about how there’s someone on the moon secretly controlling all of Alternian society, even the Empress. Did trolls keep their civilization ending conspiracy evidence stored in filing cabinets? You guess it needed to go somewhere…

The door to the dressing room opens. Your gaze drags downwards and you open your mouth to ask Boldir what the plan is exactly-

-and just about choke on your tongue.

“Are you alright?” Boldir asks you at a somewhat above average speaking volume. She’s got a medical mask pulled over her mouth, so you can’t be sure, but you get the very distinct impression that she’s smirking.

It is very rarely that you ever see Boldir without her trench coat and hat. You’ve seen her in her meditation garb maybe four times, max.

Never in your life would have even thought you might see her dressed in office casual.

Boldir stands before you in a (fancier than you thought she owned) white dress shirt tucked casually into a pair of sleek, black slacks. She’s thrown her trench coat over her shoulder and it's only in noticing that that you notice her normally chipping claws are filed . She’s got a pair of suspenders on that are a bright shade of indigo; matching the lanyard around her neck and the thin, plastic glasses sitting on top of her freshly side swept bangs. Boldir’s hair has been pulled into a short ponytail, sitting low to her neck with surprisingly little fuss. She’s done something to her horns to make them a little thicker, a little blockier, like a child’s drawing of a house as opposed to the usual olive point.

She is, in short, almost unrecognizable. 

“You know, I’ve often wondered what it might take to render you speechless,” Boldir says, eyes crinkling at the edges. “Who knew it would be something as simple as a change of clothes?”

You sputter and pick your jaw back up off the floor. This isn’t what you would call simple! This was the opposite of simple!

Boldir chuckles. She pulls the mask down off her face and shares a conspiratory smile. “It’s actually very simple. Would you like me to show you?”

Oh! You blink. Well… if she wanted to? You’d feel bad if she took the time to take it all off when she’d JUST finished putting it all on. It seemed like a lot of work, even if she called it simple. She could always show you the particulars later? When you both weren’t at risk of being caught trespassing? You didn’t mind waiting. 

“I think you’ve misunderstood,” Boldir tells you. She walks closer to the bench you’re sitting on and you’re struck by the fact that she’s taller than normal. Is it just because of how she’s modified her horns? Was it her shoes? It wasn’t just your imagination, was it? Boldir kneels down in front of you on the tile and you can’t tell. You’re used to being eye level with her, but something about this just feels… different. Boldir fishes around in one of her trench coat pockets and pulls out a makeup case. “I brought a disguise for you too.” 

Every single thought flees your head.

Oh, FUCK yes. You’ve ALWAYS wanted to do a heist in disguise.

She tilts her head at you, “We’re doing a heist now?” Boldir asks, amused.

Well, you kind of just assumed it was something like that. She hasn’t told you what the two of you were doing beyond ‘worse than breaking and entering.’

“Hm. That I haven’t,” Boldir agrees.

She pops open the makeup case and does not elaborate further.

You have NOT gotten used to being on the other end of having makeup put on. No one had ever offered, back on Earth, and the number of trolls that wanted to do your makeup was frankly perplexing. You’ve let Chixie do it a few times, when she’s asked- she likes to test palettes out on your sickly pale visage. Baizli and Barzum like to practice their clown makeup on you for similar reasons. There was also the time Lynera held you down to try and do your eyeliner; you almost lost an eye in the process and Lanque laughed so hard when he walked in on the two of you that Bronya thought he’d choke.

Having hands on your face was weird. Having troll hands on your face was weird. Their skin is always rough, no matter their occupation, and God forbid any trolls ran at the same temperature…

… Boldir’s hands are warm. 

Her makeup application process is not especially elegant, nor is it fancy, but it is efficient. Like the twins smearing paint on your face, but with a purpose. Her eyes don’t leave her work (your face) and the intensity of her focus is almost enough to make you blush. Boldir is finished with you in record time. It feels unnecessarily intimate all the same when she pulls away to inspect her work.

“Open your mouth,” Boldir says after a moment of contemplation. You do as you're told without much of a thought and jolt when she jabs something into your upper teeth. Your mouth snaps shut on instinct. Your teeth clack together on fangs. Boldir wipes her hands on her dress shirt, rather nonplussed that you almost bit her, and says, “Careful with those, the adhesive is fairly weak. I don’t want you to swallow one.”

You open and close your mouth a few times, adjusting. She’s given you quite an overbite to work with. You run your tongue over the points. You always kind of wondered what it would be like to have fangs. You’re actually a lot less worried about eating one of these bad boys so much as you’re worried you’re going to catch your lip on one of them and bleed everywhere. What was the point of the teeth?

“When creating an effective disguise, it’s important to consider even the subtle details,” Boldir explains. She points to her own buck tooth, “A troll trying to remember what I looked like may not remember my face exactly, but my teeth are a very prominent feature that might stick with them. Your lack of fangs was the second thing I noticed about you.”

Huh. You give her a curious look. What was the first thing?

“Your lack of horns,” she says, tapping the side of her head. Which, yeah, in hindsight that’s the obvious answer to your question. That’s USUALLY the first thing trolls noticed about you.  “I haven’t worked out the logistics for attaching a fake pair to your head yet, unfortunately. I will try to have it figured out for next time.”

Next time? You feel a smile pulling at your lips. The two of you hadn’t even finished the crime you were currently committing and she was already planning the next one?

Boldir pulls her face mask back up and pulls her glasses down to her nose. “Bold of you to think I don’t already have it planned,” she says, arching an eyebrow at you. Inscrutable as always, you have no idea if she’s joking despite the levity of her statement. You’re a little worried she’s not. 

Boldir stands up and brushes the grime off of her fancy pants. She inclines her head towards a nearby, mostly clean mirror and you are sufficiently distracted once again. You giddily hop off the bench to go take a look at yourself. You use your sleeve to wipe some of the dust off the mirror, leaning over the sink to get a closer look.

And you stare.

To say you look worse than normal would be an understatement. That is not to say that Boldir did a bad job, or even that her application was unskilled. You’re actually very impressed with her handiwork. It was just unfortunate that you were going to have to talk to people like this.

You were often mistaken by those not in the know as a sickly, hornless troll riddled with every malignant mutation known and unknown to science. 

Boldir hasn't done anything to detract from that notion: she’s emphasized it. 

The bags under your eyes have a faint, rusty tint to them the likes of which you’ve only seen in gold on Folkyl. She’s put a similar dusting of rust across your cheeks and rather prominently on your nose: you can’t tell if it’s supposed to be a blush or if she’s meant for you to have a fever. There’s a few, barely there hints of gray in your complexion now that are truly only there to highlight how pale you really are. She’s drawn a few prominent veins in the juncture of your neck in eyeliner. Your new fangs hang over sleek, black lipstick and it takes every ounce of control to not self consciously chew.

You don’t just look like you could drop dead any minute. You look like you’ve already dropped dead, several times, and have been unlucky enough to get back up. What’s worse is that you can see the logic behind this disguise: it was likely easier for her to work with what was already there than to work against it. Disguising an alien like you properly would take a lot of makeup and more time than you both had in this locker room.

The acknowledgment doesn’t make you feel any better.

Was this what trolls saw when they looked at you?

… Was this what your friends saw?

Boldir walks up behind you and drapes her trench coat around your shoulders. Except, it’s not her trench coat- a similar one, maybe, but not hers. It isn't heavy with concealed weaponry and it has a zipper where hers has buttons. An unfamiliar red sign where her familiar olive one was meant to be. She pulls the hood up on it and you find yourself in possession of a pair of short, blunted, candycorn horns.

You stare at yourself in the mirror.

Something akin to a troll stares back.

Your whole body slowly begins to itch.

Boldir says your name, halfway between curious and concerned, but you can’t tear your eyes away from your hazy reflection.

When you first landed on Alternia, months ago, the hemospectrum had thrown you for a loop. It was just so alien. It was still overwhelmingly alien - the way it was interwoven into every aspect of troll society. How it literally colored every one of your friends' interactions and relationships. Your relationships. There were so many expectations tied to that one, immutable personal trait. A planet's worth of secret rules that everyone knew. 

Everyone except you.

You used to wish you'd been born a troll, those first weeks. 

Just so you could understand. 

It was a selfish thought. An envious thought. One you daydreamed about when you were bored, entertained when you missed a cultural cue. What kind of troll would you have been?

You couldn't see yourself as a highblood. Couldn't imagine yourself ever feeling the rages they were characterized by. Couldn't picture yourself living in their fancy townhouses with servants too scared to look you in the eye. It didn’t matter how well you got along with the purples at the church. Being so casually cruel, so callous… that wasn’t you.

No, you thought you would have been a cerulean at the highest. Even then, you couldn't really see yourself as a cerulean. You just liked to think you would have fit in with the midbloods. A lot of your friends were midbloods. You could see yourself as a teal pretty easily; maybe not as a lawyer, but probably a paper pusher (you were too bad at numbers for Stelsa’s job). Perhaps, you’d thought, you could have been in the brooding caverns helping shape troll society as a jade! Then you met Polypa and you wondered if you had what it takes to be an olive. Olives were all pretty hardcore: you'd like to think you might make it as an olive on Alternia. If nothing else, you’ve always been quite the survivor.

But that would make you quite the lowblood, too, wouldn't it? The sign in the mirror stares back at you, damningly. Lowblood was the obvious answer for where you fell on the hemospectrum. You were practically one already, as an alien. Stuck at the bottom of the barrel with a gun pointed at you, always in the crosshairs no matter what you did. Even if you lived, would you be happy? Living a life someone else had decided for you?

It was a thought that used to keep you up at night.

It was a thought that had kept you up on Earth, too.

Boldir calls your name again, a psst on the edge of your attention. You feel a hand land on your shoulder. The nails aren’t sharp enough. Yours aren’t, either.

You used to wonder if you would have stayed on Earth if everything had been taken out of your hands. If your future had already been predetermined before you were born. If you’d had anything to look forward to. If you didn’t have to choose. 

Would you be as thrilled as Kuprum? As proud as Fozzer? As stalwart as Tegiri?

Would you fear it? Would you resist it? Would you run? You’d think of Daraya, of Mallek, Skylla, and Chahut. How all of their hard work, the lives they had built for themselves - how it would all mean nothing when they went off-planet. How much they wanted to stay. How grim their futures were going to be when they were forced to leave.

Would it be worth it? Giving up the freedom of choice, just to ensure your life had a purpose? Any purpose at all?

Was it really any easier than what you’d been doing on Earth? 

Did you really want to be a troll, or did you just want to stop feeling like an alien for once in your life?

A well manicured hand takes center stage in your vision, grabs the edge of your hood, and pulls down.

Your staring contest with the troll in the mirror is interrupted. An arm wraps itself around your shoulder, pulling you close. The angle is off; the indigo is just a little too tall for this and you’re not used to having to mind your horns. There’s a click-click of plastic on plastic as glasses are folded up and put away. 

“I’m sorry,” Boldir says.

She didn’t do anything.

“You’re shaking."

It wasn’t anything she did. Honestly, it wasn’t. You take a deep breath and drag your hands down your face. Your lipstick smears across your palm. It’s an oddly grounding feeling. The itch under your skin begins to fade.

Boldir makes a doubtful noise in the back of her throat, but she doesn’t press. She leads you away from the mirror with all the grace you would expect of an indigo of her stature and sits down with you back on the bench. She pulls the hood down off of your head. You reach over and pull her mask down. She lets you, surprisingly, and likewise doesn’t move when you move to make a mess of her bangs.

Boldir, plain faced and olive and familiar, with worried eyes and a crease between her brows, asks in her typical stage whisper, “Are you alright?”

It makes you smile. You… are actually surprisingly fine. You run your tongue over your teeth again, mindful of the manufactured points, and find that most of the itching has subsided. Boldir’s arm around your shoulder is incredibly helpful in that regard.

“You seemed upset,” she says quietly. A little guiltily, “Is it because I disguised you as a rustblood, while making myself an indigo?”

You can’t help but snort, and the look Boldir gives you for it is priceless. No, you weren’t upset about that. Maybe a little annoyed that her disguise was infinitely cooler than yours. You really couldn’t care less if she’d made you teal or gold or fuschia. Since when have you, the alien, ever cared about hemospectrum caste politics bullshit?

Boldir’s sigh of relief is a small thing, but her smile is lighter for it. “I don’t believe you ever have. You think I look cool?”

You do! Though, to be fair, you always think Boldir looks cool. You’re very biased: she’s probably one of the coolest friends you have. You tell Boldir that she should tie her hair back more often. It’s a very nice look on her. 

“Thank you,” she says with a chuckle. It’s quiet in here, but for the two of you. The city outside may as well not exist. Boldir inclines her head a little, just enough to catch your eye.  “If it wasn’t ‘hemospectrum caste politics bullshit’, as you put it, may I ask what made you upset?”

The question makes you pause. You weren’t… upset? Really? Not in, like, the regular way you guess. You weren’t about to burst into tears or anything. Upset more in a ‘oh this touched a nerve you didn’t realize was still exposed after all this time and it’s been so long you’d forgotten that nerve existed’ way. If that makes sense? You don’t think you’re explaining this very well.

“I think you’re explaining it fine,” Boldir tells you patiently. Her smile turns a touch rueful, knowing, “I don’t suppose you want to talk about it?”

You cringe. Not particularly. Not that you’re not sure she wouldn’t be a great listener! You’re sure she would be!  It was just a lot to try and explain, and it wasn’t a conversation you wanted to have in a musty old locker room? Really?

Boldir nods, not the least bit put off by your ramble. She very rarely was. “A raincheck on the feelings jam, then,” she says, like a promise.

Smiling appreciatively, you nod. A raincheck. Your chest flutters with the thought; an altogether not unpleasant mix of self conscious nerves and giddy anticipation. Not the typical combination you associated with a Boldir hangout, but you didn’t mind. It was nice to have another, tangible hangout planned with her. Boldir was the friend you saw, like, the least because of her typical stealthy dealings.

… though it did seem, lately, like she was trying to rectify that. Boldir did invite you to join her on this heist, after all. 

The realization makes your smile all the more sincere. 

Boldir returns it, something undeniably fond in her eyes that makes your insides squirm and your ears burn. You pull your hood up to hide your blush. Boldir laughs at you, a wonderful sound despite your embarrassment, and that’s enough to distract you from the weight of the horns on your head. You use the edge of your sleeve to fix some of your smeared lipstick.

When you get the nerve to look at Boldir again she’s fixed her disguise back in place. Her mouth is covered, but the smile in her eyes tells you everything you need to know. “Are you ready to keep going?” 

You nod, hopping off the bench to stand next to her. She is taller, you realize: maybe only by about an inch or two, just barely enough to notice if you weren’t paying attention. A little short for an indigo, but who were you to talk? You were awfully pale for a rustblood. The two of you made for quite the odd pair. 

(Not that that was any different when you were out of disguise.)

You grin, all false teeth and confidence, and tell Boldir you’re ready for anything.

“Excellent,” Boldir beams, clapping you on the shoulder. “Let’s go burn a building down, shall we?”

Fuck yeah!!!

… wait, what-

Chapter Text

You worry that being on Alternia for so long has… desensitized you, to things. 

You’re a lot more comfortable with blood, for example. It helps that blood on Alternia comes in a variety of colors: shades of green don’t make your lizard brain panic the way red does, no matter how spattered it is. The copious jars of the stuff lining Amisia’s walls barely even register when you visit her anymore. Death, similarly, has lost much of its impact unless it's your life in immediate danger. Traffic being held up by a murder is more of an inconvenience than anything else, nowadays.

It’s also smaller things. You barely register the legs on anything you eat at this point. Troll technology being half organic no longer makes you cringe the way it used to. Someone bursting through the sound barrier with their psiionics over the city is no longer an amazing feat to witness; it’s almost murder worthy when they do it in the morning (stupid kids) or worth an eye roll at best. 

It’s the natural progression of integrating into a new culture: it wasn't going to always be new.   You understand that. The human brain is exemplary at adapting to even the greatest of changes. It would be a waste of precious mental energy to freak out every time you saw trolls stabbing each other and then hatesnogging on the train - you just got used to it.

All of that to say: you are intimately familiar with the feeling of waking up after being violently knocked unconscious. 

You worry you should be more worried about that.

(that might be the brain damage talking, though)

It helps that your extremities are all free. You’d be a lot more panicked if you couldn’t move - always a bad sign, in a situation like this. Tied up meant extra danger. Tied up meant your kidnapper had more in mind than just a friendly conversation. Tied up meant your choices were limited. But this? You’re sure you can work with this. You have worked with worse than this. So you do your best to keep your breathing steady and try to get a feel for your surroundings. Best not to let on that you’re awake yet.

You get the feeling you’re not alone.

You’ve been laid out on top of an uncomfortably lumpy pile of some sort. Your mind readily supplies ‘laundry’, but you’re pretty sure the thing you’re laying directly on top of is a very stiff armed plush toy. Not only that, but you think? There’s a pillow lodged behind your head? Something dense and decorative - the fabric is scratchy and there’s something tassel-esque touching your neck. Like something off Tagora’s guest couch.

A pile of things that were supposed to be soft, then? Did your kidnapper make this with your comfort in mind, or was it just a convenient place to toss you? There’s no way to know without opening your eyes to look. You decide to move on from this observation for now and gather more information.

You can’t help but notice that it’s quiet. Like, unusually quiet. There’s a distinct lack of ambient electrical buzzing and you can’t hear any nearby traffic. Are you out in the middle of nowhere again? You wish you had an easy way to gauge how long you’d been unconscious. You don’t think it’s been that long. You don’t feel THAT out of it. Last you remember, it was still early evening when you left to go meet up with Azdaja and Konyyl… 

… They would notice if you were TOO late, right? You’re sure at least Konyyl would. The fact that they haven’t come blasting in makes you think you haven’t been out longer than maybe an hour… 

… unless they can’t find you? 

(or they had better things to do?)

It’s actually fairly dim on the other side of your eyelids, now that you care to think about it. Which is kind of concerning. It’s not your typical double moonlight dim, either- it’s like, murder dungeon dim. Torture basement dim. Trapped under rubble during a battle royale dim.

… you’re underground, aren’t you?

Fuck.  

Okay, okay, take it easy there. Breathe. That’s just a THEORY and not a CONCRETE FACT. You don’t KNOW that you’re underground. You haven’t even opened your eyes yet, stupid, you can’t start doom spiraling over what-ifs yet. 

… Even if it’s a very possible what-if. Because if you WERE underground, it WOULD explain why Azdaja wouldn’t be able to find you (if he were coming to your rescue). It would also explain the SMELL. The air where you are is unusually CRISP: free of the usual Thrashurst cocktail of asphalt and smog, and cooler than your typical Alternian evening. It’s disconcertingly FRESH and a little bit DAMP.

It dawns on you in very short order that there is only one place on Alternia that smells anything like this. Somewhere that is slightly left of nowhere AND underground. Somewhere that just happens to be home to at least one troll extremely liable to knock you out and kidnap you without consulting you about your evening plans.

You missed the obvious in your panic. 

You open your eyes.

Lynera looms over top of your helpless body. Her lips pull into a thrilled little smile when she sees you're awake. Lantern light glints off her glasses and flickers in her pale yellow irises. 

You are once again in her study room in the jade caverns.

Well.

At least she doesn’t seem to have a knife this time. Not in her hand, at least. God knows she has one stashed in here somewhere .

“Oh thank goodness, you’re finally awake!!!” She breathes out in relief. “I was starting to worry that I’d hit you too hard!”

…too hard?

You bite back a sigh. You pointedly ask Lynera why she felt the need to knock you out at all . You thought you were PAST this kind of behavior with her. Friends didn’t KNOCK EACH OTHER UNCONSCIOUS just to hang out! 

Lynera winces, holding her hands up placatingly. “I promise I had a very good reason!!!”

You stare up at her, unimpressed, from the pile of miscellaneous bedding she dumped your incredibly unconscious, incredibly kidnapped body onto.  

She cracks immediately. Ever the open book, you watch Lynera’s expression as she speedruns the five stages of grief about twenty times in about as many seconds, and you can’t even bring yourself to feel bad about it. You watch her silently debate with herself about telling the truth. Watch her open and close her mouth as she fails to come up with a convincing lie to tell instead. You watch her life flash before her eyes (which usually happens first when she does this, but who are you to judge her breakdown?).

Lynera’s face turns a dark, marshy shade of green that goes from her neck all the way to her ears. She clenches her hands hard and SHRIEKS- 

“It was Wanshi’s idea!!!!!!”

… Ah.

That explains so much, and yet so very, very little. You give in to your urge to sigh. Lynera flinches at the sound. You bite your tongue. You send up a silent prayer to whichever odd space god is listening in to not lose your patience with her. Because it’s a very delicate balance, chastising Lynera. You have to be forceful enough with her to make sure she understands why you’re upset with her…

… but understanding can turn into self-flagellation on a dime if you’re not careful.

(The last thing you need right now is for her to start crying.)

You take a deep breath. You school your expression. You try your best to exude an aura of ‘I’m not mad, I’m not even all that disappointed, I’m just kind of confused’. You sit up, struggling a little bit against the shifting blanket mound, and scoot over so that she has room to join you on the pile. You motion for her to come sit down.

Lynera doesn’t budge. Somehow, she blushes harder.

You motion again with a bit of pizazz.

Lynera awkwardly sits down as far from you as she can without falling off the pile. Which is not very far at all, but she certainly gets points for trying.

You count to ten in your head. You do NOT sigh.

You tell Lynera, softly, that you aren’t mad at her.

“You’re not?” her lip wobbles dangerously.

You’re not, you assure her.

She looks up at you hesitantly and sniffles. “Even though I ruined your date tonight?”

Yes, even though she ruined your- wait, hold on, date? Date? What?

“... Yes?” she offers hesitantly. Lynera delicately wipes her nose with the edge of her sleeve. “With those sordid, foul mouthed mercenaries you’re unfortunately so attached to?”

Who is she- oh.

Oh.

You can’t help yourself. Maybe it’s the leftover adrenaline from realizing you were kidnapped. It could be the belated relief you weren’t actually in any danger. Maybe it’s a burgeoning concussion. Maybe the concept of you having any love life at all really is THAT funny.

You laugh. 

Lynera gives you an odd look; like she’s just now realizing she MAY have, in fact, hit you too hard. With a barely withheld snort, you explain to her in no uncertain terms that you were NOT going on any dates tonight. Your craft nights with Azdaja and Konyyl were a strictly platonic affair. They were no more romantic than any of your other usual scheduled weekly friend hangouts. You would know, you have a lot of those.

(Friends AND hangouts.)

The look on Lynera’s face edges dangerously close to dubious. But, whatever she’s thinking, she for once decides against voicing it. She instead shifts a little closer to you on the pile and lets out a sigh. “I’m still sorry. For hiding in the bushes by your hive. And hitting you over the head with an encyclopedia. And dragging you through the streets… and some fields. And maybe breaking your palmhusk. And ruining your… plans. ” 

That’s. 

Okay. 

That's a lot to be apologizing for. Actually. You sort of wish you knew less now. You can feel the dust and dirt and grime on your skin now that she’s pointed it out and it’s starting to make you itch. Getting your palmhusk fixed is probably going to be a pretty painless affair. You’re afraid to ask exactly what she means by maybe breaking it , but you’re confident that Mallek will be able to work his techno-magic on it when you see him next. 

You’re a lot less thrilled at the prospect of having to bother one of your friends to use their shower.

And Lynera still hasn’t actually told you why she felt the need to knock you out in the first place.

Lynera groans into her hands. “It was Wanshi’s idea.”

Once again her explanation doesn’t really tell you anything. You’re going to need her to elaborate. You need CONTEXT. WHAT was Wanshi’s idea?

Lynera chews on her bottom lip. She looks like she just bit into a lemon, which is typically how she looks when you force her to be honest with you. You watch her dying blush reignite as the seconds drag on. “I just… I wanted to- you just– we just!! Ugh!!!” Lynera throws her hands up with a yowl of frustration. “You never talk to me!!!”

…Huh?

“We’ve been moirails for WEEKS now but all we ever do is talk about MY problems!!!” 

…huh???

“And it worries me!” Lynera’s hands fall into her lap, grasping, searching for a knife that's not on her person, “I’m so scared of our relationship becoming too one-sided and you resenting me for it! But whenever I try and get you to open up, you always change the subject!!!” 

Wait, wait, wait hold on, you think there’s been some kind of misunderstanding-

“And I didn’t know what to do!” Lynera plows forward, either ignoring your attempted interjection or oblivious to it. She’s on a roll now. You realize to your horror how long this must have been building up inside her. Lynera’s eyes start to shine in the low light. “I thought you didn’t trust me… and especially after that STUPID party…”

Your heart sinks. Oh. Oh, Lynera, no…

“And Wanshi… Wanshi and Karako heard me crying. And I yelled at them! I told them to go away! But they wouldn’t leave me alone until I told them what was wrong! So I told them!!!”

Lynera pauses just long enough for her to scrub her hands down her face.

Just long enough for the guilt to really start eating you alive.

Because who were you even kidding, acting like you didn’t see this coming? 

You knew. 

You’ve known.

You’ve known that this conversation was LONG overdue. You’ve been dancing around it like a goddamn ballerina for weeks. You can play up the oblivious alien schtick as much as you damn well like, but Lynera has always worn her heart on her sleeve when it comes to you. There was NEVER any doubt how she saw your relationship. It was never a QUESTION. You KNEW. 

You knew you were being cruel- capitalizing on her feelings for you just to make it easier to calm her down when the two of you were in public. Justified in the fact that it was for her own good, but knowing deep down that it was just convenient. You were so SURE that you could play pretend at troll romance and get away with it without any consequences. Without actually reciprocating.  

In reality, you knew you couldn’t keep it up forever. 

You knew she would call you out on it eventually. 

You knew you would have to be honest with her when she did

It isn’t like you don’t CARE about Lynera. You DO. She’s your FRIEND. You just don't… 

You just can’t…

Lynera’s next words are quieter, said with a huff of a laugh. “Wanshi told me I was crazy. She said you’re so pale for me that it makes her want to gouge her eyes out with a spoon whenever she sees us together. She said… she said it wasn’t that you didn’t trust me, you were probably just shy. ”

Lynera’s hands fall next to her onto the pile. Not just a pile, a fucking PILE- straight out of one of Polypa’s tawdry little dimestore palemance novels. 

Being eaten alive by a cholerbear would be merciful compared to this.

“So I thought…” Lynera sniffles, “because our d-dates usually take us out of the caverns, I wanted to make a safe space for you here! So we could be alone together, and we wouldn’t have to worry about anyone interrupting us!!! But I wanted it to be a surprise, and I couldn’t bring myself to just ask you to come over, so I-”

Lynera cuts herself off sharply. Guiltily. Her claws dig fitfully into the soft fabric of the pile. Specifically, it seems she has a death grip on the head of the plushie Remele made in your likeness some time ago: you hadn’t noticed it earlier. It must have been the toy you were laying on top of when you woke up. Lynera notices it, too. Her stiff fingers go slack. She looks at the plushie for a long, long beat before slowly pulling it into her lap. She stares morosely into its beady little eyes.

“Am I a bad moirail?” Lynera asks you quietly.

Oh no, fuck you haven’t even SAID anything and you’ve already made everything worse. But what are you supposed to say? That you weren’t moirails to begin with? You do not know how to answer that question. Not without making her cry. Not without ruining the friendship you’ve worked so, so hard to build with her. Can you even lie your way out of this? Is it even worth it to try? Would you be able to live with yourself afterward, if you did…?

… oh, who are you kidding? Of course you couldn’t. It would eat you alive- until something else on Alternia ACTUALLY ate you alive. You owe her honesty. You know you owe her honesty. Even if it hurts (it does). Even if it ruins everything (it will). It’s literally the least you can do. Lynera deserves so much more than a sham relationship that’s only kept alive so you can avoid the consequences of your own actions. 

The silence drags on between the two of you. 

You so desperately wish you were better with words.

You tell Lynera that you’re sorry.

Her head snaps up to stare at you. “What?”

You take a deep breath.

You tell Lynera you’re sorry. You tell her that you’re sorry for not being more considerate of her feelings. For being insensitive. You tell her that you’re sorry for making her feel like you didn’t trust her. You tell her you’re sorry for not following after her at Ardata’s party. You tell her… 

You tell her that if anyone is the bad moirail here, it’s you.

“What?” Lynera gasps, aghast. She grabs your hands faster than you can blink. “No! That wasn’t what I was trying to say at all! You’re the perfect moirail! You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me!!! It’s okay if you’re a little shy, we can keep taking things slow! I know I’m rushing things! I was just worried you-”

You tell Lynera that you don’t reciprocate her feelings for you.

Her entire body freezes.

You could hear a pin drop in the silence that follows. 

Fuck you wish you’d died in that stupid spaceship crash-

Uncomprehending and wide eyed, face stuck in a nerve riddled smile, Lynera goes, “Huh?”

Her hands are limp in yours. You take a deep breath. Carefully, so carefully, you untangle her fingers from yours and push her hands back into her lap. You dug this grave and on god, you are going to lie in it. It’s the least you can do.

You tell Lynera, again, softly, that her feelings for you aren’t mutual.

You see the tears start to gather in the corners of her eyes. Her smile hangs stiff on her face. “I don’t… I don’t understand.”

You briefly weigh the pros and cons of explaining to Lynera that humans don’t operate in troll quadrants. 

You decide that telling her won’t help.

You tell Lynera, again, that you’re sorry. That you didn’t mean for this to get so far out of hand- out of frond . You were just so caught up in the whirlwind of being her friend, of trying to help her make MORE friends... and she’s been making such great friendship STRIDES. The barista at the coffee place she really likes is AMBIVALENT towards her now! Just the other day she had a lukewarm conversation with Daraya! You were worried if you told Lynera how you really felt, that you only thought of her as a friend…

You were worried she would just go right back to square one.

Lynera’s eyes narrow. The plastic smile falls from her face. What had previously been a zero knife affair is quickly starting to feel like a five.

“You’re lying ,” she tries. A hollow accusation. Was she trying to give you an out from this friendship suicide mission, or was she hoping that saying it out loud would make it true?

It doesn’t matter. You were being painfully honest with her, whether EITHER of you liked it or not. No matter what, at the end of the day, she was your FRIEND. She deserved that much. Even if she likely wasn’t going to be your friend for much longer after this.

Lynera’s shoulders begin to shake. You can’t tell whether it’s from barely contained rage or the force of held back sobs. You’re not confident in her ability to keep it in for much longer, regardless. Dangerously quiet, Lynera says, “I don’t believe you.”

You wince. You know. You know. You’re SORRY. What you did to her was EXTREMELY shitty and manipulative. You should have just been honest with her. You’ve just gotten so used to LYING about this kind of thing… There were hundreds of other ways you could have gone about trying to help her with her temper. Ways you could have made her feel more at ease in public, or even just-

Lynera stands, abruptly. Her arms hang ramrod straight at her sides. She hasn’t stopped shaking.

She’s stepping out of the pile and marching towards her desk before you can even try for another sorry . With zero hesitation Lynera wrenches the lowest drawer open with an awful, spiteful crack. You fully expect her to pull out a knife. To your surprise, she yanks out a notebook: a pale, rosy, bullet point with a little white splotch on the bottom corner of the cover.

Lynera slams the drawer shut and you wince. There’s still a ghost of a blade kissing the back of your neck: you somehow feel more in danger now than when she literally had you at knifepoint.

She marches back to the pile, stopping just a few, scant inches from where the blankets start to sprawl out across the cavern floor. Her looming presence is heavier, this time. Stone faced and backlit by a torch, you can’t get any kind of read on her. She opens up the notebook. Silently, she flips to a seemingly random page somewhere towards the middle of it.

Lynera reads off what sounds like a date.

She looks at you, expectantly. You look back at her just as blankly. You don’t know how to tell Lynera you don’t know what month it is.

She squints at you, fire dancing on the rims of her glasses. “Three weeks ago. You helped me keep an eye on Bronya while she went on a- EUGH - date with that awful, sleazy, no good lusus wrangler that keeps showing up unannounced.”

The sudden topic change throws you for a loop. You can feel all the gears in your brain grind to a halt, stutter, and start fruitlessly turning the other direction in a blind attempt to keep up. A half remembered memory drags itself to the forefront of your poor, confused brain. You throw your confusion to the side. It’s not doing you any good at the moment. Your main skill is ROLLING WITH IT, so that is what you DO. 

So. What was Lynera talking about…?

… Oh! 

You do remember this! 

This was when the two of you stalked Bronya to Skylla’s farm! When it turned out all they were doing was discussing the merits of, like, early lusus introductions? Or something? The specifics had kinda gone over your head. You’d been more focused on keeping Lynera’s murderous jealous rage from getting you both caught (as well as avoiding a very persistent Ladyy). The two of you got grubcakes afterwards on the way back!

“We did,” Lynera acknowledges. With a sigh, she continues, “You made sure I didn’t make a fool of myself that day. When the two of them were flirting over tea you held my hand, even though I held you too tight. You led me into one of the barns and we sat in a pen full of freshly hatched quackbeasts until you decided I’d properly calmed down. We got so distracted playing with them that Bronya left without us.”

… yeah, yeah you remember. You’d had to pick a feather out of Lynera’s hair. You’d never seen her smile so softly before, or laugh quite so loud.

Lynera flips to another page of the notebook. A diary, you surmise. She reads off another date and, again, regards you expectantly over the top of her glasses. She lets out a huff when you don’t respond. “Two weeks ago. I requested your help with one of Karako’s biweekly tutoring sessions.”

You nod. An easy recollection: you remember not being MUCH help with said tutoring session. You weren’t much of a teacher. Or disciplinarian. All you’d really done that day was keep Karako entertained enough to stay in his seat and parrot Lynera’s lesson in simpler terms so he stopped launching paper footballs through her horns.

She nods. “When we were cleaning up after the session was finished, I went on a rant about how ungrateful he is and how much of a terror he is to teach. How much he FRUSTRATES me. Having sat through a class with him I expected you to agree with me, but…” Lynera trails off, hesitantly.

You remember this, too.

You HADN’T agreed with her. You heard her say all those things about Karako as she tore up some grammar assignment he’d done poorly on and you snapped. You’d been furious . If Karako wasn’t learning anything, that wasn’t his fault as a student: that was LYNERA’S fault, as a teacher. If she was so smart, so clever, so organized, shouldn’t she be able to figure out a way to teach Karako that worked for HIM?

You still feel a little bad about the whole exchange. Lynera hadn’t cried, but it was a near thing. It was almost worse that she’d quietly asked you to leave.

“It hurt a lot, hearing you say all that. I think it hurt more because you were right, and I didn’t want to hear it,” Lynera’s grip on the notebook tightens, but she doesn’t let her claws dig into the cover. “I got so mad at you!!! I wanted to prove you wrong! So I completely changed the plan for his next tutoring session: I did it how I thought you would try and teach him.”

THAT was news to you. 

… that did explain what happened next, though.

The scowl on Lynera’s face is deep and unmistakable. “Karako got full marks on everything I gave him during our next lesson.”

You remember. Wanshi and Daraya had FLOODED your messages that day: with pictures of Karako’s test results and Lynera’s consternated face as she’d been grading them. You’re pretty sure you still had them in your phone.

“I hated it. I hated that you were right,” she says, surprisingly blunt. The tension leaks out of her shoulders, and Lynera takes a deep breath, “But it was something I needed to hear. It’s not something any of the others would ever say to my face… even if they tried, I know I would just ignore them. Because they would just be using it as an excuse to call me a bitch again. But you didn’t call me out to be cruel… you did it so I could improve.”

You don’t tell Lynera that you had mostly done it because you hated seeing Karako be dismissed that way (it was a little too familiar). You do see where she’s coming from: that wasn’t the first time you’d put your foot down and made her reflect on her behavior. Because she could be better. You knew she could be better. You saw improvement every time you saw her. 

Lynera flips to another page in her diary. She reads off a date, but doesn’t bother waiting to see if you recognize it. “Last week. You helped me go to my first carnival,” she says, a tiny smile starting to push through her stern expression. “You threw a sportskin globe at the troll in charge of the target game because he was using his telekinesis to rig it against me.”

You cringe at the reminder. It certainly wasn’t one of your most thought out ideas: the two of you got chased out of the carnival for that. The juggalos had been PISSED at your lack of decorum.

“But it was still a lot of fun!” Lynera is quick to assure you. “I even managed to grab the hopbeast toy I was trying to win for you when we ran! I would have never gotten it without your help!”

… It WAS a pretty nice little stuffed rabbit. A little more chitinous than you were used to, but cute. You just wished she’d been able to get it without you needing to bean the guy running the stall in the face with a baseball. 

Lynera kneels back down next to you on the floor. Her smile is a little wider when she says, “I know. I still think it was very sweet of you to do that for me though.” 

Well, of course. You weren’t about to let that guy rip her off at her first carnival! She deserved a good memory of it! What ELSE were you supposed to do? 

Lynera laughs. A bright, incredulous little thing that leaves you wondering what she thought was so funny. “And I’m supposed to believe that you aren’t pale for me?” she asks coyly.

It takes a second for your brain to connect back to the topic at hand. The gears spin so fast they start smoking. A blush rises to your cheeks as the implications start to sink in.

Hold on, HOLD ON, those are just like, three examples-

“I have more,” Lynera tells you plainly, holding up her diary for emphasis. You realize with a swelling dread its TRUE purpose.

OKAY, but like! You weren’t TRYING to pale flirt with her! You totally understand how the signals got mixed: that is, admittedly, YOUR BAD. You never really think before you do or say anything. You were HONESTLY just concerned about her mental state and well being in an entirely regular, platonic friend way!

Lynera raises an eyebrow at you.

Shit.

She does not believe you.

You need to switch tracks, fast, before this gets even more out of control than you already let it get.

Okay, okay. Listen. Even if you were… pale for her (and you’re not!), wouldn’t she want someone less… alien? Wouldn’t she prefer another troll? Like, literally anyone from her own species? At all?

Entirely too earnest, Lynera says, “No.”

You start to sweat. She should REALLY, REALLY think about this. You would make a TERRIBLE moirail. You’ve BEEN a terrible moirail. You’re an ALIEN. You’re an emotionally inept doofus! A socially inept one, too! A day doesn’t go by where you aren’t shoving your foot in your mouth and making a fool of yourself. 

“I do that too, you’re not special,” Lynera retorts, raising her eyebrow even higher. “Also none of those things you said are even remotely true. Except for the alien part. If you think they are, we're going to have to have a long discussion after this about your self confidence.”

Ugh!! Your self confidence is FINE. She is MISSING the POINT. No matter what she says or what examples she pulls out, you AREN’T pale for her! You can’t be her moirail! That’s all there is to it!

Lynera closes her notebook with a quiet snap. Upon closer inspection you notice that the odd white splotch on the cover you’d noticed earlier is a little white rabbit. One of her claws tap, tap, taps just above its ears. “You keep saying that,” she says, narrowing her eyes at you. “You still haven’t explained to me why.”

You have given her PLENTY-

“An actual explanation,” she cuts you off shrewdly. Rudely. “All I’m hearing from you is excuses.”

You’re going to scream. They aren’t excuses. You’ve given her nothing but completely valid reasons! It’s not your fault if she doesn’t like them: you’re just laying out the facts. You AREN’T pale for her. You don’t know what else she wants you to say.

Without missing a beat, she says, “The truth would be nice.”

AUGHHHHHH you are TELLING her the truth! You CAN’T be her moirail!

“Why?” she asks.

You launch to your feet in a burst of frustration and nearly slip and fall back on your ass into the pile. You just CAN’T! That’s all there is to it! 

Lynera doesn’t budge. Calmly looking up at you, she asks again, “Why?" 

Because you just can't!

“Why?”

BECAUSE YOU DON’T KNOW HOW TO BE!!!

…Acknowledging that feels awful. Saying it out loud feels WORSE. Fuck, why did you say that? The righteous frustration that had been building up inside you goes right out and you slump back down on your knees.

Carefully, so carefully, Lynera reaches out and sets a hand on top of yours. Which is unfortunate, because you were just considering strangling yourself to put an end to your misery- Lynera has much more upper body strength than you do and is unlikely to be on board with your plan. But her hands are pleasantly cool in comparison to your overheated everything, so you suppose you’ll just have to live with being alive for now.

“You know, I’m… I’m really new to this, too,” she admits, like it's news to you. She’s gone soft around the edges; bashful and blushing, as if THIS is somehow the most embarrassing thing that’s happened between the two in the past hour. “It’s okay if you don’t know. We can learn together.”

It’s a nice sentiment. Extremely sweet. Terribly romantic. Were it not directed at you, you would be so incredibly proud of Lynera for articulating her feelings so earnestly.

As it stands, she has completely misunderstood what you meant.

You can’t be in a pale relationship with her, because you don’t know how to be in a relationship. Period. End of. Lynera opens her mouth, a rebuttal on her tongue, but you don’t give her the chance.

Tagora had asked you, once, if you’d been in any relationships before you left Earth. You had told him no, and you hadn’t been lying. 

Tagora didn’t need to know that it was because you had been too scared to try. 

You’ve always been a coward at heart: never particularly prideful and rarely concerned with the consequences of running away or taking a loss. The matron at your old orphanage had always hated that about you (a mutual feeling). You aged out of that place not because no one ever tried to adopt you, but because you always turned tail at the first hint of genuine human connection. For as long as you can remember, you’ve been terrified of being known. 

(even at a young age, you knew there was something wrong with you)

But being on Alternia for so long has… changed you, for better or for worse. You’re so much more bold, fancy free- and yet you’re still just as scared as you ever were. But for the first time in your short, sad life you want.

You know that if you took the time to really examine your feelings, you could sort them into quadrants. It would be painfully easy. You know it would be, because you’ve done it, and then you buried the resulting goop under 300lbs of ignorance and about 20ft of concrete self-deprecation. Because doing that, and accepting that you did in fact have FEELINGS for your friends, would mean you’d have to start examining all of your friends' feelings for you in turn. 

And that?

That’s terrifying.

Acknowledging that Azdaja and Konyyl have been trying to ashen court you for months? That Mallek’s flirting might not just be extremely committed-to-the-bit troll gay chicken between pals? That an unreal number of your friends look at you with pure, unadulterated pity in their eyes whenever you show up at their hives and proceed to fuss about how much you’re eating or if you’ve been getting enough sleep or if you’ve showered recently?

Admitting that it's mutual?

ACTING on those feelings?

You’d rather die.

Because it isn’t like you don’t CARE about your friends. You do. Stealing that spaceship might have been the stupidest thing you’ve ever done, but you would do it again in a HEARTBEAT if it meant you could stay with them forever. Landing on Alternia is paradoxically the BEST and WORST thing that’s ever happened to you. Your FRIENDS are, without question, the best thing that's ever happened to you. You might even be willing to admit (to yourself) (alone) (in your tower, as far away as you can be) that you LOVE (some of) them.

You just don't… 

You just can’t…

The sigh that pushes out of you feels like it’s coming from a universe away.

You’re just scared. You’re scared of letting any of them get closer to you. You’re scared of opening yourself up to their scrutiny. Scared to let them get a really, really good look at you, because then they might see you for what you REALLY are: a desperate, desperate fool- rotten to the core with loneliness, so sick with it that you had to flee your own planet because the rest of humanity clocked you for what you really were the minute you said ‘hello’.

You’re scared they’ll see you, and then they’ll leave.

But you love your friends. You trust your friends.

You want to know them. 

You want to let yourself be KNOWN.

And you’re terrified of how little that actually scares you anymore.

Through your inarticulate ramble, Lynera holds your hands. You’re not even sure how much you managed to say out loud: so often your words remain trapped as thoughts, or you say the things that were meant to stay in your head. You can never be sure until it’s too late to take them back.

You have, apparently, said enough to make Lynera start tearing up.

Your own eyes feel a little wet.

(fuck, the last thing you need right now is to start crying)

A pair of stiff arms wrap around your shoulders in a hesitant, too tight embrace; like she’s afraid you’ll slip out of her grasp and vanish the instant she stops trying to forcibly merge your rib cages together. Lynera’s claws dig into your shoulders. Her glasses poke into your cheek. Her bony shoulder jabs into your windpipe. It’s a hug that's as inexperienced as it is earnest, uncomfortable as it is warm. 

You hide your tears in her shirt collar and hug her back.

Lynera pushes against you, gently, until you allow her to push you onto your back on the pile. The weight of her on your chest makes it hard to breathe. You don’t feel terribly inclined to ask her to move. 

“I’ll kill them,” she whispers vehemently, her breath tickling your ear for how close she is. “Everyone who’s ever hurt you. Your entire planet. I’ll kill them all.”

She’s serious. You know that she is. You also know that you should probably say something to dissuade her (even if the chances of her ending up on Earth are a trillion to none). 

Unfortunately you’re a little emotionally compromised at the moment, and the mental image of Lynera crash landing into your old orphanage like she’s the nicest angel God could send when you asked for a friend is very, very funny.

“Don’t laugh at me! I’m serious!” Lynera pushes herself up so she can glare at you. Her hands bracket your head in a way that you’re sure would have her blushing at the implications, were she not so focused on being indignant.

You assure Lynera that you know she’s serious, promise. You’re just wondering how she’s planning to make it to Earth.

She rolls her eyes, “It can’t be THAT hard! YOU got here!”

Ha. Yeah, that's a fair blow. You guess she’s got you there.

“I do,” she preens, sparkling with self satisfaction. “And I also… I do get you, you know? Maybe not exactly, but…”

Lynera looms protectively over top of you. Her smile turns soft and mushy, as it's wont to do when you’re alone with her. It’s just a little extra wobbly than usual. Your current position casts her face in shadow, but your close proximity allows you to see the affection welling up in her eyes. The sincerity of it is almost too much for you to handle. You think the only reason you haven’t buried your face in your hands at this point is because you know she’d pry them off.

Oozing pity with every word, she tells you, “I know what it’s like to be scared. And alone. To feel like no one could ever really want the real you…” Lynera bites her lip. She shifts a little on her hands, hesitating, but only for a moment. That moment was apparently all she needed to steady her nerves because the next thing you know, she’s leaning down and placing a sweet kiss on your forehead. “But you… you make me feel like maybe I’m fine, like this. That maybe there are people out there who would appreciate all of me, even the parts that are hard to like and- and I want to do that for you, too.”

Lynera’s lips linger against your skin as she speaks. It feels like a small miracle when she finally pulls away, but it’s short lived. She simply adjusts herself so that she’s better able to look you in the eye while she continues her vivisection of your soul. You kind of wish she’d actually just stabbed you instead. It would have been merciful, compared to this.

“Will you let me do that for you? Will you let me take care of you?” Her hands clutch at the fabric on either side of your head. Like a prayer uttered at the altar of your skittish heart, Lynera begs, “…Please?” 

Inside of you, something cracks. A fissure of sincerity up the walls of your carefully constructed facade. It rushes to join up with the other chinks and fractures you’ve acquired recently; the ones you’ve been covering with duct-tape and cheap plaster in a bid to pretend the structural integrity of your act wasn’t completely compromised from the inside out. You’ve already been struggling to keep the whole thing from collapsing (there’s been so many close calls recently, too many). 

You knew you couldn’t keep it up forever.

You knew that the longer you did, the worse it was going to feel when it all came crashing down.

(you kept trying, anyways, because you knew the alternative would change everything, and somehow that was even worse)

You tell Lynera, in a whisper fraught with more emotions than you ever let yourself acknowledge on a daily basis, that you don’t think you know how to be helped.

Lynera smiles at you. You think it might be the softest smile you’ve ever seen grace her face, “Would you be willing to try? For me?”

... You guess that is the question, isn't it? Now that you’d bared your heart and you didn’t get torn to sad little shreds immediately for having feelings, were you willing to actually give moirallegiance a shot? Was that something you actually wanted? And, more importantly, were you willing to give it a shot with Lynera? … fuck, but how many of your other friends were pale for you? You know that it’s more than a few: you’ve seen the way Tyzias looks at you when she thinks you aren’t looking and it isn’t like Galekh is subtle.

Would you choose Lynera over them? Or any of your other friends? Would you HAVE to? Could you be moirails with more than one person, or was that against the law? You don’t know if you’ve got it in your heart to actually make that kind of choice.

You meet Lynera’s gaze. She’s waiting, with an impressive amount of patience, for your answer. You know what answer she wants to hear. It’s written clear as day all over her face.

Unfortunately for her you’ve chosen today of all days to be honest.

You ask Lynera if you can think about it.

Lynera freezes. “Can you… think about it?” she repeats back to you, faintly, like she’s making absolutely sure she heard you correctly. Lynera’s arms start to shake on either side of you. Her smile’s gone stiff at the edges again. There’s a hint of a blade in her voice and daggers in her eyes when she demands, “What do you mean, ‘can you think about it’? What is there to even think about? What else do I need to say to convince you? What the fuck else--”

Lynera cuts herself off sharply. Guiltily. Her entire body trembles above you as she works to get her temper in check in a way that doesn’t involve wringing your neck. You still kind of wish she would, if just to put you out of your misery. You wish you could reach out to her. You wish there was anything you could say now that wouldn’t just make this harder for the both of you. 

But there isn’t.  

Lynera takes a deep breath through her nose and lets out a sigh, “I’m sorry,” she starts off, and you know she means it. “I’m rushing things again, aren’t I?” 

You wouldn’t say again. You’re pretty sure you can’t actually rush a relationship when one half of it is ignorant to its existence. Lynera lets out a short, wet sounding laugh at that, and you take it for the small victory that it is. You promise Lynera that you won’t leave her hanging forever. You just… need a little time to think about things. And sort yourself out a little. Would she be willing to wait? Just a little bit longer?

“I suppose… I guess I’ve waited this long. A little more waiting probably won’t kill me,” she concedes. With marshy green cheeks, she quietly adds, “Especially if it’s for you.”

It’s cute. Lynera’s cute. You feel like you’re allowed to acknowledge that now. You open your mouth to say something to that effect- some sort of thank you, perhaps, or a declaration of your affection for her or maybe just how important she is to you. What comes out, instead, is a wheeze as Lynera drops her full weight back onto your rib cage and wraps her arms around your neck in a crushing hug. Ow.

“Just!!! Don’t take that long!” she wails desperately into your ear. “Just because I’d wait forever for you doesn’t mean I WANT to!!!”

You manage to rasp out a laugh through the pain. You loosely wrap your arms back around her torso and assure her that you don’t plan on making her wait THAT long.

Somehow, Lynera hugs you harder. “...I would though. Wait forever, if I had to,” she tells you, much more quietly, as the silence of the cave settles comfortably around you. 

You bury your face in her shoulder again. You hope it’s enough to hide the hitch in your voice. 

You know that she would. 

You know.

Chapter Text

It comes. It goes. It leaves you grasping, gasping on the cusp of something… something you don’t necessarily want. But something you need. Like a traveler dying of dehydration who finds an ocean and doesn’t care that they shouldn’t drink. It gives you the courage you never had back on Earth. It makes you do things that you look back on with shame, never ending shame. It’s left you with so many stories and memories that you should be satisfied with where you are. 

How you are. 

Who you are. 

But then it comes again…

The thirst… for F R I E N D S H I P.

And you’re in luck! You’re meeting up tonight with someone who is ALREADY YOUR FRIEND!

Well. 

Sort of. 

Could you call someone who was a Chittr follower of a Grumblr mutual that you’ve only spoken to twice your friend?

Trick question: of course you could. Hanging out with your regular friends has been… very intense, recently, for no real particular reason. You really kind of just need a break. From some of them. Specifically. For no reason. Just some regular ol’ non-complicated friendship shenanigans to thoughtlessly sweep you away. 

Something new.  

Thankfully, your NEW friend had been kind enough to reach out to you before you were forced to retread the same old boring friendship paths. Which was GREAT news for you! You wouldn’t want to risk your friendship muscles getting rusty! 

Then what would you do?

Your meeting place is located, blissfully, pretty near the center of your usual haunts. Not too far into the high blood side of town that you could get into any serious trouble with patrolling drones, but not so close to the low blood side of town where you could ALSO get into serious trouble with patrolling drones. A nice, almost safe middle ground in a section with a lot of midbloods. 

Are there just as many drones here as in any other part of the city? 

Yes! 

But you’ve got an ace up your sleeve for trouble tonight! The drones aren’t going to have any reason to mess with you when you’re palling around with a cerulean.

And there, just up the street, you spot her.

She, thankfully, is the same troll you’ve seen numerous selfies of (you refuse to get friendship catfished AGAIN). Her dress is short, blue and lacy; the kind of dress that fancy old dolls wear in movies and in antique stores. Lolita is the style, you think? Trolls have anime, so you feel safe to assume they also somehow have lolita despite lacking the culture associated with the subculture. Her cerulean stockings are that same style. Her hair is a short, efficient bob - candy corn horns forming almost a perfect circle where they arch out from behind her bangs.

She looks flawless.

It’s honestly kind of uncanny.

You shake your head and call out to your (totally legit and in no way anything but trustworthy) FRIEND and hurry to meet her.

Nevron Ryhsid turns her head and smiles beatifically at you. Her voice is a soft thing when she opens her mouth to greet you. A faint hiss trails behind her words, “There you are. I was getting worried.” 

You meet her gaze and you’re almost struck speechless. You’ve seen her eyes plenty of times in her photos online, of course, but seeing them in person is quite a different experience entirely. 

She only has two, but there’s six pupils in each. Like planets orbiting a black hole. 

You feel those eyes staring at you and your attention snaps back. Your new friend is watching you, a single perfect eyebrow raised. 

Ah, sorry, you got distracted! It’s just so nice to finally meet her. She’s even prettier in person! She’s also shorter - shorter than every other cerulean you’ve ever met. You are smart enough to keep that to yourself. You feel the gaping hole in your chest greedily sucking in the feeling of her attention on you, already, and the desperation to keep it is bubbling hot enough to make you itch. You are going to friendship SO hard tonight.

So, what was the plan then? Nevron had set your meeting place, was there something around here she wanted to do? Shops she wanted to go to? Restaurants she wanted to try? A movie she would like to see? Anyone she wanted to visit? You were down for anything!

“Anything?” Nevron asks. Her smile twitches wider, bleach white. You can’t help but glance at her fangs. You try not to shiver in your sweater. They look very sharp. “Well, I have good news for you then. I did already have an agenda in mind for thiss evening…”

The hairs on the back of your neck prickle like a cold drop of water just rolled down your spine.

“...if you would be willing to help me with something?” she inquires sweetly.

This was it. The high you were looking for, your bread and butter. What kept your legs moving on your worst days. What kept you from becoming less than nothing. What kept you from collapsing like a dying star in on yourself until you were nothing- nothing but particles on a dying wind. Where you THRIVED.

You tell Nevron that helping is PRACTICALLY your middle name. You may well even change it to that legally one of these days, just to stress the point! You would be more than happy to do anything she needed.

You would like to say within reason. 

(you know that you should)

But you don't. 

Because you know yourself well enough to know that your standards have gone out the window for the rest of the night - until you collapse and regret it all in the morning. She could ask you to murder someone in cold blood and you’re hardly sure you’d bat an eye at the request beyond some clarification. 

(It’s been too long.) 

(You’ve been empty for too long.)

(You feel the tips of your fingers going numb.)

(You needed someone NEW.)

Nevron takes a step closer to you. Her heels make a dainty click on the stonework of the sidewalk. She takes your cheek in one, bony hand and you feel the points of her immaculate manicure poke into your skin. You look into her eyes.

You can’t look away from her eyes.

“I am so glad to hear that,” Nevron hisses.

You shiver, again. The evening is balmy but you’re oddly cold in your sweater. It feels like someone’s gone and spilled a cup of water in your head; spreading out slowly over your thoughts and dripping down into the rest of your body. There’s a prickling numbness climbing up your arms.

“You see, the owner of thiss book store has been very unkind to me,” Nevron is explaining, her tone even and soft, flowing into your ears. You hadn’t noticed you were STANDING in front of a bookstore, actually. You don’t know how you missed it. It’s blindingly obvious. Nevron taps a nail against your cheek and your attention snaps back before you get the chance to read the sign above the door. “He even had the nerve to ban me from entering the building. I would like more than anything to give him a piece of my mind.”

Nevron’s smile hasn’t changed, hasn’t moved, but somehow it is ICE cold.

You nod. You don’t know why you nod, or remember even thinking about nodding, but you nod.

Nevron sighs. “Unfortunately he’s higher than I am on the hemospectrum. Which would not typically be a problem, but thiss troll also has connections in… higher places. I can’t do anything to him without it reflecting back very poorly on me. He’s too notable, too blue.”

Every part of your body is cold and stiff now. You try to wiggle your fingers and it takes all of your strength twitch. You try to pull away from Nevron’s hand. NOTHING is cooperating. You’re FREEZING. Everything feels distant, muffled; like you’re trying to move underwater but something is dragging you down, down, down.  

A memory surfaces from the depths: not quite repressed, but certainly not fondly remembered. 

Your ability to recollect anything from right after you crash landed on Alternia is usually clouded by a hazy, adrenaline fueled jumble of pain and desperation. 

Your memories of Ardata’s hive stand out very sharply among the mess.

You try to pull away again. You can’t. You are silently screaming to move, just move get away get away get away  

but 

you 

can’t

move.

Leaving nothing but a dull, numb throbbing in its place, Nevron drops her hand from your face. She looks you up and down and smirks, satisfied. “I don’t think I need to explain any further. You’ve already said you would help me, after all. You’re very sweet. I do like that in a friend.” 

A friend.

You nod.

You didn’t want to nod.

You want to cry.

You are so scared.

You do a small, patronizing spin in time with Nevron’s twirling finger. “You really aren’t much to look at, but I know you’re more than capable enough for thiss. That’s why I reached out to you in the first place.”

Nevron slips something small into the front pocket of your hoodie and takes a step back. You don’t see it. You’re not allowed to look. You feel the weight of it like a chain around your neck all the same. Like a puppet on strings you nod obediently and turn to face the bookshop door. 

It’s amazing how something so completely mundane makes your stomach churn with dread.

“Good luck!” Unrepentant and awfully pleased with herself, Nevron gives you a gentle shove forward.

In one, fluid motion you reach out and grab the door handle. 

And you pull.

Above your head a tiny bell chimes.

The door swings closed behind you.

The smell of parchment assaults you the second you enter the store. It’s crisp and clean and you know immediately that this place is too high brow for you to just be casually strolling into. It reminds you quite a bit of Galekh’s personal library, truth be told. If you survive this you’ll have to ask him if he’s ever been here. It really seems his style.

You begin making your way through the store robotically. It’s pretty empty, but the night is young. There wasn’t anyone at the front desk. You imagine whoever mans it  (trolls it?) will probably be headed back up so long as they heard the bell. Your throat constricts with the thought. Your eyes roam the aisles as you pass, methodically searching for an unknown target.

You feel like you’re going to puke.

“I’m terribly sorry to have kept you waiting. I was dealing with some late arriving stock and- oh! It’s you. Good evening.”

The world falls out from beneath your feet. You turn towards the voice.

Galekh Xigisi stands before you. His posture is professional, his smile is pleasantly surprised, and he has a fancy little nametag pinned to his vest. 

Owner. Manager.

Too notable, too blue.

Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no no no no no no no no no nononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononononono-

“I suppose it really shouldn’t come as a surprise to me that you’re here. I don’t remember ever telling you I owned this store, but you do have quite the uncanny ability to show up anywhere,” Galehk is saying, monologuing, completely unaware of you throwing yourself against bars of the prison that your body has become. "Your timing is actually impeccable. If there's space in your timetable for the night would you be interested in assisting me in organizing this late shipment? You'll be compensated, of course. It's just imperative I get this done as soon as possible. I have someone arriving for a consultation shortly and it would be terribly unprofessional to make them wait. I hope you understand."

"Of course I’ll help," your voice says, foreign, hissing, and vile in your ears. "That's what friends are for, right?" You feel a smile form on your face; misplaced and crooked and sharp with too many teeth and wrong, it was wrong -

"Splendid!" Galekh says. Maybe only you can tell something is wrong because you're in the driver's seat. Watching the crash but unable to stop it. Galekh turns his back on you and motions for you to follow. "The store room is just a little further back this way, if you would."

You follow behind him with a pep in your step.

You have to warn him, somehow, but everything just seems so far out of your reach. You try and feel out if you can feel ANYTHING, control literally ANY part of your body. You're like a solid block of ice that occasionally melts just enough to move. 

Nevron's grip on you is unrelenting. It’s like you’re watching a horror movie version of your life play out before your eyes and someone has strapped you to the chair, put a gag in your mouth, and stapled your eyes open so you don’t miss a second of it. You can’t think of anything to do. You can barely keep your thoughts in any coherent order. You try and move, try and yell, try and blink , and you just can’t . 

All you can do is watch.

The storage room is at the very back of the store behind a pair of heavy looking, large wooden doors. Galekh opens one of them with ease and ushers you through. It’s stuffier back here. A little smaller than you expected it to be. The ceiling lights hum above you. A very simple desk sits against the far wall with a fold out chair leaning up against it. 

There's a cup of coffee with steam wafting off of it on top of the desk. 

The mug is one you recognize from Galekh’s personal collection. You recognize it specifically because it’s a mug that you bought him; with a tiny cartoon goat on the side saying ‘baaaaaaah-ck to work!’. You thought he hadn’t liked it at the time. You were pretty convinced he’d hated it, actually, but was too polite to tell you to your face. He had taken it from you without a word and Galekh was rarely a man without something to say at length. 

Apparently he liked the mug enough to bring it with him to his job.

Galekh gestures to a large pile of cardboard boxes. “I think it would be best if we both worked on one box at a time. The process is extremely streamlined and simple: all you need to do is check the book over to ensure it isn’t damaged in any way. If everything checks out, the barcode can be scanned into the system.” He pauses, looking at you, contemplating. “I can show you how to do that as well, if you would not mind assisting me. The teal I hired to do all this is under the weather and will likely be unavailable for the next few days. You are, of course, under no obligation.”

You’re already walking towards the boxes before he finishes speaking. “Wow, are you always thiss thorough?” you hear yourself ask. You climb deftly up a couple of the boxes to reach one at the top. The thing in your front pocket presses up against your stomach; a reminder.

Galekh walks over and gently picks you up and off of the stack of his merchandise. His hands linger on your torso as he sets you down. He’s a little puffed up with pride at the compliment, and it kills you. “I would say being thorough is one of my many notable characteristics, though you’re more than welcome to list off more,” Galekh says. He digs into one of his pants pockets, pulls out a box cutter, and holds it out to you. “And while I admire your tenacity I would much appreciate it if you worked from the floor. If you would like to get started I’ll go and find my extra scanner, unless you have any questions? I would be more than happy to clarify.”

You take the box cutter with an incredibly steady hand. You have so much you want to say. You feel the smile on your face twitch wider. Your hand brushes Galekh’s, just briefly, and it burns. Your voice says, “No questions here! We’ll have thiss done in no time. There's nothing we can't do together, right?”

You look up to meet Galekh’s gaze. He’s smiling at you, softly, and that smile opens a chasm in your chest that gapes and howls and starts consuming you from the inside like a black hole. Your lonely, friendless nights up in your tower where you sit and you wait and you wonder if maybe, just maybe the next friend you make will make the ACHE finally fade, will finally make you feel WHOLE, pale in comparison to this. On the very edge of your senses you feel your eyes begin to water.

Galekh’s hand falls from yours and back to his side, “Right,” he agrees. He coughs and turns away. The tips of his ears look faintly blue. “I’ll leave you to get started. My other scanner is in one of the lower desk drawers over there so I won't be far away if you need any assistance, or anything at all.”

You bob your head in a nod and do a dramatic little salute with the hand holding the box cutter. Galekh regards you for a moment, likely wondering if you’re going to accidentally stab yourself at some point this evening. Eventually he turns his back on you and walks over to the desk. He kneels on the floor to reach the drawer he needs to get into. 

Sometimes you forget that Galekh is a giant of a troll. Even on his knees, he’s still a little taller than you... 

…but not by much. 

You pocket the box cutter. You aren’t going to need it. You reach into the pouch of your hoodie and run your thumb over the cold, smooth exterior of whatever it is you’ve smuggled in. You pull it out without much fanfare. It is equally as overwhelming as it is underwhelming, but maybe that’s just because everything you’re feeling right now is muted by an omnipresent sense of dread and grief and panic and ice.

In your hand, glinting in the fluorescent lights, is a glass syringe. 

… Wait, no. 

It’s too large to be a syringe. The general shape is close, but it’s not quite right. It actually reminds you very vaguely of a DART: the kind you remember seeing on nature documentaries back on Earth. The type used on large animals like elephants to knock them out - the darts that had to have a giant needle to match. Inside the glass is a clear, viscous looking liquid that catches the light in a distinctly unnatural way. Teeny, tiny particles float within, almost invisible, squirming. They might be alive. Considering the rest of Alternia, they very likely are.

Your eyes travel back across the room to Galekh.

They land on the exposed nape of his neck.

Every single atom in your body seizes up.

… no.

You spin the syringe in your hands a few times until it lands snugly in your palm. Ready for use.

No.

You take a stilted step forward. The floor is carpeted and it isn’t as if you had the heaviest footfalls to begin with. You barely make a sound.

You let loose a silent scream.

Your determination, your fear, your self preservation and your love for your friends reignites the fires of defiance inside of you. You renew your struggles with the incandescent rage of a sun. You THRASH. You BITE. You pull and you pull and you PULL at the strings leading you forward. 

You are not going to let this happen. 

You are NOT going to let this happen. 

You REFUSE. 

You dig in your heels and you tell Nevron to pick a fucking God and pray, because so help you, the second you have any OUNCE of control over your body again–

The next step you take, you stumble. Not enough to notice or really impede your progress. 

But it's enough to give you hope.

The distance between where you were standing and where Galekh is knelt on the ground is, in reality, rather negligible. It feels like miles. 

It stretches for longer.

You’re already exhausted. You have to imagine Nevron is starting to get tired, too; she’s been at this for too long, micromanaging everything you do. You’d like to think you’ve gotten a grasp on how the psychics on Alternia work by now. She can’t keep this up forever. Maybe that’s why you’re having an easier time fighting back. 

You reach out to use your hand and you nearly drop the dart.  

You try to speak and you feel a word, a sound, just on the tip of your tongue. 

Every single step you take is a battle of wills. You will not back down. 

Not for this. 

… You're upon Galekh faster than expected. 

Like someone turning on a garden hose you feel Nevron pouring her focus into controlling your hands and arms. Unbidden, the dart rises over Galekh's head as your hand raises. You're poised to strike.

A strangled, gutted noise escapes you.

Your arm swings down.

Fast, faster than you can even register, Galekh’s hand snaps out. His thumb digs painfully into the meat of your wrist. Your hand goes limp. The dart hits the carpet with a muted thud. Galekh stands and turns around, fully, and you feel small, very small in the shadow of him. 

He looks at the dart. 

He looks at you.

If looks could kill the burning, hateful rage in Galekh’s glare would reduce you to ashes.

“Nevron Rhysid…” he begins, with the calm of a receding tide, “What part of ‘never show your fucking face around me again if you place any value on your life’ did you fail to understand?”

Relief hits you so hard it nearly chokes you.

You DO choke as a snarl rips itself out of your throat, “Perhaps if you didn’t have your head shoved so far up your own ass I may have been able to hear your request."

Galekh remains unimpressed with her. His expression only softens as he looks at you, really looks at you, and says, thickly, “I’m so sorry you were dragged into this, my friend. She should have never involved you in her wriggler tantrum. I promise that I won't hold this against you. I know you were not in control of your actions. I forgive you.”  

Galekh raises his other hand in your peripherals. 

“I hope you’ll be able to forgive me in turn.”

You understand immediately that he plans to knock you out. You accept his decision completely. You’re not even a little mad. Nevron realizes what's about to happen about a tick after you do and is significantly less understanding than you about it. You feel your free hand scramble for the box cutter still in your pocket.

She’s out of time.

“Please,” you gasp,

and

Galekh 

hesitates.

You whip out the box cutter and swing.

Several things happen in very quick succession, then. 

There’s a grunt of pain and the sound of ripping fabric. Galekh rears back away from you: his arm is bleeding, bright blue.

The puppet strings holding you go painfully taut. You’re afraid something inside of you is going to tear. It feels like something already has. You feel your entire body trembling from the strain of it. All at once all of the tension in your muscles releases and-

-you drop. 

You hit the floor like a graceless ragdoll, freshly sentient, barely catching yourself on your hands and knees. Feeling returns to your feeble body with the kindness of a knee to the stomach. You vomit up your meager breakfast. You heave again and are rewarded with stomach acid. It burns. It smells terrible. Your head is SCREAMING. You hear Galekh speaking to you, panicked, but it’s all so much. 

Everything is so much.  

There’s hands on you and they feel like a firebrand. Arms enfold your pitiful body, strong and secure and too tight. You hear a heartbeat right next to your ear. You squeeze your eyes shut. It takes everything you have not to puke again.

There’s a slam from across the room. A new voice, a familiar voice, enters the fray with a panicked cry of “Galekh!?”

Mallek? What was Mallek doing here? Since when did the two of them hangout without you? Or at all? You want to ask, but your brain is a painfully gurgling ooze that’s trying its best to drip out your ears.

A conversation goes on over your head in anxious tones: about the troll outside and a failed pitch something or other, but it's all meaningless gibberish to the ringing in your skull. The only thing you can focus on is the thump, thump, thump of Galekh’s heart.

A hand gently touches your cheek and you flinch. The hand retreats.

Someone calls your name.

You pry your eyes open. Mallek’s face fills your vision, blocking Galekh’s directly behind him. You’re all huddled close on the floor. Mallek smiles, a strained thing for your benefit. His eyes are alight with concern. “We’ve got you, buddy. Everything is okay.”

He reaches out again, slowly, bright blue eyes keyed to your reaction. Mallek gently cups your cheek in his hand. It’s rough: calloused and covered in dozens of tiny scars and day old scrapes. The familiarity is an unexpected lifeline that you cling to. You reach up to grab his hand and both of the blue bloods startle. Carefully, Mallek adjusts his hold on you until his fingers are splayed either side of your ear and his thumb rests gently on your temple. He doesn’t remove your hand from his.

“What the fuck are you doing,” Galekh doesn’t quite ask so much as he quietly demands.

Mallek’s eyes narrow in concentration. “I’m assessing the damage,” he replies, entirely unperturbed by the hostility. Mallek taps the side of your head lightly to get your attention. You didn’t even realize you’d zoned out. His eyebags look awful today. “Hey. I want to check your thinkpan and make sure she didn’t do anything screwy up there. Can I mess with your head a bit?”

You blink at him, uncomprehending and more than a little out of it. His hand on your face is warm. Galekh’s arms around you are warm. When did you start shivering? What were you talking about? You were getting nauseous again. You knew you shouldn’t have eaten that expired vending machine burrito for breakfast… 

“Alternia to the alien,” Mallek taps the side of your head again. Your focus lands just behind him, on Galekh’s face; sweaty and pale, he looks worse than when you had him convinced rainbow drinkers were real. His glasses are askew. There’s blood on his cheek. There’s blood seeping into your sweater. You should say something, anything. His heart beats, beats, beats, just a little too fast next to your ear- 

Mallek taps you again. His jaw is clenched. “I need a clear yes or no, dude.”

Galekh gives an impatient huff. “I don’t see why you don’t just get it over with. They are clearly not in any state to respond-”

“Consent is important,” Mallek cuts him off. “Especially when it comes to mindfuckery.”

Mindfuckery? What? Was Mallek going to do some more weird cerulean shit to your brain? Could he even do that? Since when? No, no thank you, you’ve had more than enough of that for a lifetime.

… but if you trusted anyone to fuck around up there, it would be Mallek. You know he wouldn’t do anything shifty. He’s too nice. Nice enough to ask before he used his weird alien mind powers on you. Did he know a way to make your head stop spinning? You would love to stop feeling like someone tried to carve your soul out of your body with their nails and got bored halfway through.

You make an effort to catch Mallek’s eye and nod. The action makes you dizzy.

Mallek sighs in relief. “This is gonna feel weird,” he warns you, cringing apologetically.

Mallek leans forward until his forehead is touching yours. He’s close enough for you to count the hairs in his eyebrows. His piercing glints in the low light. You kind of want to kiss him. Fuck his eyes are so blue. You’ve always wondered why that is. Was it because he was almost an adult? You’d noticed the last time you visited the farm that Skylla’s eyes were starting to get flecks of bronze in them. Were Chahut’s eyes turning purple? Were they already? You weren’t sure. You didn’t look her in the eyes enough to really-

Something snakes its way across the tracks of your out of control train of thoughts.

Mallek was right. 

It feels very weird.

His funky cerulean brain powers are remarkably tamer than you expected. Well. Compared to your previous mind control experiences, at least. You’re not even especially uncomfortable. You know that Mallek’s THERE, and that he’s DOING things, but even in your current brainless state you’re pretty confident you could shake him off if you really wanted to. Mallek isn’t making you do anything, isn’t pulling any strings, he’s just…

Slithering.

In your brain.

You know.

As one does.

Compared to the bite of Ardata’s and the torrent you now associated with Nevron, Mallek’s psychic powers feel… tame. Like the mental equivalent of Snakedad crawling up your legs looking for pets: a little intrusive, but altogether entirely harmless and mostly interested in stealing your pizza rolls.

Mallek snorts out a laugh. “You know what? I think I’ll take that as a compliment,” he tells you playfully.

…wait. 

Wait.

Can Mallek hear what you’re thinking? Like, right now? Like, RIGHT NOW right now?

… has he been listening to your stupid narration bullshit this entire time??? 

Before you have the proper chance to panic about that, Mallek pulls away with a smirk. He extricates his hand from yours and uses it to rap his knuckles on top of your head. Ow, rude. “All clear. Severance shock, but that is to be expected considering I knocked their puppeteer out cold.”

Galekh accepts this with a nod. You’re glad to know at least he knows what Mallek’s talking about. “How long does severance shock normally last for?”

“Usually about an hour. My ‘funky cerulean brain powers’ should speed up the process though,” Mallek explains with a teasing grin.

Oh, he isn’t going to let you forget about that, is he?

Mallek’s not wrong though: your head DOES hurt significantly less now. The ringing in your ears is finally starting to die down and you feel less inclined to vomit your lungs out. Victories across the board as far as you’re concerned. Nonetheless, you still hurt all over and you’re still pretty light headed. You don’t plan on moving anytime in the extremely near future. 

Considering how wrapped up you are in Galekh’s arms right now, you don’t think you could get up even if you wanted to.

“I’m so dreadfully sorry about all this,” he’s saying when you tune back in. He’s talking to Mallek, thankfully. You feel a little less bad about not paying attention. You’re going to have enough to apologize for later without adding gratuitous inattention to the list.

“It is not something you need to apologize for,” Mallek responds. His tone leaves no room for any attempt Galekh might make to disagree and, to his credit, Galekh doesn’t try. Mallek stands and pulls his palmhusk out. “Do you have a worst aid kit around here? I’m going to message the others and let them know what is going on, so if not-”

Galekh jerks. “Don’t,” he pleads desperately. “Please, don’t.”

Others? What others? Since when did these two have any friends besides you in common? 

What were you missing???

There’s a tense, fraught beat of silence, before Mallek sighs, “Just the lawyer. I want her hammer for this.”

He couldn’t be talking about… Tyzias?

“She’ll bring her matesprit,” Galekh grouses.

“I’ll ask for her discretion,” Mallek promises.

Definitely Tyzias. Since when did either of them know Tyzias??? Or Stelsa, for that matter???

There’s another uncomfortable moment of silence where you’re sure Galekh is going to argue with Mallek some more. You can only assume that it’s the result of the exhaustion and pain that he doesn’t. 

“Fine,” he bites out, a scowl etching its way onto his face. “Just… don’t let her back here. There’s a case of bandages under the front desk.”

Mallek nods. His eyes linger on the two of you bundled together on the floor. Something… not quite envious, not quite longing, flickers across his expression: like a glimpse of a snake in the grass, before it vanishes- replaced with an easy smile. “You got it, boss,” Mallek tells Galekh, giving him a cheeky two-finger salute. Mallek gives you a quick wink, before he holds his palmhusk up to his ear and absconds out of the room.

… you’ll have to ask him if he’s alright later. Whatever opportunity you might have had went with him out the door.

You turn your attention to Galekh and ask how he met Tyzias.

He blinks down at you. The ghost of exhaustion hovering over him dissipates, just a little. “Through Tagora, obviously. She has fine taste in literature, even if she has shit taste in coffee.”

You nod. A fair assessment. That’s something Tagora complains about, too. You’re not enough of a coffee snob to try and pass judgment on her: you ALSO have shit taste. 

You don’t even bother asking Galekh if he knows how Mallek knows Tyzias. You doubt that he knows and even if he did, you would rather ask your friends yourself later. If she’s going to be showing up to help Mallek out with… something, involving her hammer, you’re sure you’ll have the opportunity for some inquiries. And if Tyzias doesn’t want to talk about it, you have no doubt you can probably get an answer out of Stelsa.

You instead ask Galekh if he’s okay.

He looks at you like you’re an idiot, but luckily an idiot he’s fond enough of to keep around. “Am I okay? I should be the one asking you that question. I’m so sorry I didn’t realize your condition sooner. I have it on good authority that being on the other end of Rhysid’s mind control is an excruciating ordeal for the unwilling. I can’t imagine a worse troll to have the misfortune of crossing paths with. She’s a bitch .”

Ha… haha, yeah… how…

How unlucky… 

The adrenaline in your system is starting to fade. You feel awake, clear headed, for what feels like the first time in days. You feel like YOURSELF for the first time in days. Maybe weeks. Whatever had gotten into you has gotten out of you, been sated, and now…

The hole it left in your chest is filling with shame.

With every friendship high, there had to be the inevitable friendship crash.

Seriously, what the FUCK were you thinking, agreeing to meet up with a stranger off the internet? AGAIN? You were still SO LUCKY that all Zebede had really wanted from you was to hangout and talk about boy bands. But he was a statistical outlier. If he’d had even one menacing bone in his body, that entire friendship chapter of your life could have gone disastrously.  

You knew better. You PROMISED yourself after Boldir that you would stop trying to make friends with strangers who sent you out of the blue messages to meet in weird places. That kind of carelessness was going to get you KILLED. Or WORSE. You COULDN’T keep testing your luck like that.

… but you just couldn’t stop yourself. You could NEVER stop yourself. It was like the spirit of friendship itself possessed you. You knew it was a bad idea. Everything about Nevron had SCREAMED bad idea. You just… you didn’t care. You had to meet her. You had to make her your friend. You HAD to. No matter what it took. Even if it meant…

Even if you had to…

Maybe this was why no one on Earth ever wanted to talk to you. Had you always been this desperate? So fucking friendship thirsty? Or was that just the lingering trauma from the spaceship crash? You really wish your memories of Earth weren’t such a hodgepodge of random bullshit. You know you didn’t leave anyone behind, but…

… you must have had acquaintances, right? Other kids from the orphanage? Coworkers? There must have been someone , at some point that called you a friend…

Right?

You really… can’t remember. 

You feel sick all over again.

Quietly, from a little ways outside yourself, you ask Galekh if he ever gets lonely.

“... I believe everyone does,” he says, eventually, after almost too long of a pause spent examining you. You lean your head harder into his chest. Galekh’s heart beat is steady, but it’s not as comforting as it was a few minutes ago. You can feel it when he sighs, “Though I won't deny that I may be more… susceptible to it, than most.”

You nod for lack of any better response. This wasn’t exactly news to you. Galekh had confided in you over coffee, once, that as much as he enjoyed keeping to himself he wished he had some of your talent for making friends. 

That’s what you were good at, after all.

Friendship.

You feel your nails start to bite into your palms.

You force yourself to take a breath.

The incessant drone of the overhead lights persists: a constant toll on your shredded nerves.

You ask Galekh if his loneliness feels like drowning, ever. Like suffocating. Like starving. Like dying. If the feeling left him desperate enough to do anything to make it go away, anything- if only briefly, if only so it didn’t kill him outright. If only so it killed you slowly.

The grip Galekh has on your shoulder tightens. A muscle in his jaw twitches. You barely catch the unmistakable flicker of alarm that crosses his face before it’s forcefully shuttered behind an immaculate mask of strained neutrality. You can still feel his blunted claws poking into your hoodie. The heavy pause between your question and Galekh’s answer stretches dangerously long.

He sucks a short breath in through his nose. Finally, in a voice that implies he’d discarded at least a dozen other inquiries before settling on this one, Galekh carefully asks, “Is… that how it feels, to you?” 

He sounds distraught. Is it too late for you to walk this conversation back to safer territory? Probably. Galekh’s got that look in his eyes: that hard, determined gleam he gets that demands answers from dilapidated manuscripts is focused solely on you now. You don’t think you could distract him if you tried.

But that’s… 

That’s fine, you think.

You can do this.

You’ve been practicing honesty recently. Emotional vulnerability and all that bullshit. You’ve been doing it (kind of). You’ve been making it happen (barely).

You can have this conversation. 

You’re an adult. It’s fine. Galekh is your sort of friend sort of maybe something else; he wouldn’t be sitting in his own blood on the floor with your vomit less than a foot away cradling your body if he didn’t care . If he didn’t GENUINELY want an answer to his question. So if he’s willing to do this, YOU can do this.

To your credit, your voice only breaks a little when you tell him yes.

The rest of the details spill out of you from there: Nevron’s first message to you, her reaching out to meet up in person, the moment you realized you’d made a mistake and everything that happened after . You try, for perhaps the first time, to really put into words the effect that siren song of FRIENDSHIP has on you. How often it makes you feel…

… makes you feel…

… like you're not the one in control.

Galekh takes both your hands in his free one, likely just to stop you from fidgeting so much as you ramble. He otherwise does not interrupt you. It’s almost uncanny, actually, how quiet he is; usually when you talk to him about human stuff he’s chomping at the bit with questions, asking you to clarify this or that or translate any Earth specific words he can’t figure out through context clues. There’s none of that here. Galekh just holds your hands and listens. 

You can’t decide if his uncharacteristic self restraint is making this whole ordeal better or worse.

(the answer is a mix of both that’s doing awful things to your heart that you don’t have the time to examine right now)

Across the store, you hear the front door jingle.

“So this… drive , we’ll call it,” Galekh starts, quietly, only breaking the silence when he’s sure you’ve finished speaking, “It is not something that is typically inherent to your species?”

You swallow roughly.

No. Not like this, it’s not.

Galekh nods, falling silent once again. Contemplative. His thumb rubs absent, mindless circles into the back of your hand and it’s hard to tell if he’s doing it for your benefit, or his. The thin line of his lips edge dangerously close to a grimace. He’s frustrated, clearly, but you think it’s less directed at you and more at the state of you. 

“I want you to tell me. The next time you start to feel like you’re losing control,” Galekh says at length. With a hint of a blush he very quickly rushes to add, “Or, rather, I want you to tell someone. Someone that you trust. Someone that would be willing to help you should the need arise, and not use your… affected state for their own benefit.”

There is a loud, unsaid ‘which means you should tell me, because I am all of those things, obviously, in case I wasn’t being clear’ hidden in his bluster, and you can’t help the fond smile that worms its way onto your face hearing it.

Galekh lets go of your hands to fix his glasses with a huff. “Don’t look at me like that. If you truly feel that you cannot trust yourself during these ‘friendship episodes’ it only makes sense that you have some sort of supervision. I know for a fact that I am only one of several of your acquaintances that finds your distinct lack of survival instinct in the presence of friendship concerning. Knowing now that you feel that you can’t control yourself when this happens only makes me feel more so.”

You wince, sinking down into your hoodie a little. You guess you never realized you were worrying anyone when you went out to make friends. You kind of just assumed you were only worrying yourself.

“You attract trouble like a refrigerator attracts a magnet,” Galekh informs you flatly. “Were it not for my great respect for you as both a friend and as an individual with the freedom to do whatever they want, I would have locked you in my hive for your own safety weeks ago.”

You are so surprised to hear that Galekh (of all people) has ANY respect for you that you are willing to ignore how casually he admitted to wanting to kidnap you.

Galekh’s eye twitches, his brow furrowing in that cute way it always seems to when he’s questioning whether you have a working brain in your skull or not, “Of COURSE I respect you. It’s frankly outrageous that you seem to be under the impression otherwise when I have given you an ample amount of my time and companionship, as well as more than your fair share of my coffee. While I believe I can deduce why you may THINK I wouldn’t have the utmost respect for you, I am telling you now that your train of thought is not only erroneous, but entirely unfounded. In fact, while we still have a moment to ourselves, there is something I would greatly like to discuss with you in that regard-”

Oh. 

Oh no. 

You’ve gone and set him off. And you were having such a NICE moment, too. ANY other day you would be thrilled to let Galekh sing your praises and giggle at his clever little footnotes, but not when he’s got a POINT to try and prove about it. Ugh. You don’t know if you have it in you to listen to a LECTURE about what Galekh finds respectable about you

Luckily, somewhere up in the aether, whichever poor guardian angel that’s in charge of your farce of a life has come back from its smoke break. An exuberant “Knock knock!” cuts off whatever it was that Galekh was keen to keep prattling on about. He looks suitably put out about it

He continues pouting as Stelsa pokes her head through a gap in the door, beaming.

“I’m so sorry to interrupt!” she says, looking anything but. Stelsa proceeds to lug a MASSIVE first aid kit into the room and strides across the carpet to where you and Galekh are both still sat on the floor. “Mr. Adalov didn’t really tell us how bad the damage was, so I brought a little bit of everything with us just in case! And I’m glad that I did, because you both look positively terrible. Thankfully, I’ve got a fresh roll of bandages, various gels, a trephine, clamps, tweezers, tape, a cranial brace, a hemogobbler, gauze, forceps, scissors, a cartilage crusher- ”

Scratch that. There is no angel looking out for you. No merciful god would ever put you in a room with BOTH of these chatterboxes with the headache you’re rocking.

Stelsa keeps listing off increasingly dubious medical instruments as she kneels down on the floor, mindful of the various fluids soaking into it. She sets the first aid kit down with a metallic thunk weighty enough to crush a cat beneath it and sets about prying you out of Galekh’s unyielding embrace.

He is understandably less than thrilled about it, “I specifically asked Mallek to not let anyone back here,” he informs her shortly.

“Sorry, not sorry.” 

Speak of the devil. You poke your head over Stelsa’s shoulder as she gently leans you against Galekh’s desk next to his good side. You find Mallek leaning against the doorframe, hands in his pockets and looking entirely too amused by what he’s looking at. You also spot a very tired looking Tyzias just behind him and watch Boldir(???) push open the other storage room door. She looks… decidedly less amused than Mallek does. Uh oh.

“It was starting to seem like the two of you wouldn’t be coming out on your own, so we made an executive decision,” Tyzias helpfully supplies, a very knowing eyebrow raised over her glasses.

You and Galekh both blush.

Stelsa pats your shoulder sympathetically. “Are you feeling alright, darling?” 

Besides dying of embarrassment? Yes, you feel pretty okay. Though if she’s got any water in that first aid kit you would LOVE some. Your mouth tastes terrible.

Tyzias enters the room and kneels on the floor next to her matesprit. “Here,” she offers, holding out her mug for you to take.

You take Tyzias’s mug with only slightly shaky hands and take a greedy sip of her water. Fuck yes. HYDRATION. You take another bigger gulp and swish it around your mouth a few times before swallowing it down. Bleh. You’ll have to brush your teeth later. You hand Tyzias her mug back and tell her in no uncertain terms that she is one of your favorite people on this awful, awful planet and you don’t know what you would do without her.

Tyzias’s chuckle fills your weary heart with butterflies “You say that every time you see me,” she points out, smiling.

You muster a smile back. That’s because it's TRUE every time you see her.

Tyzias rolls her eyes, but her exasperation with you is a fond one. More than anything she’s just relieved you aren’t hurt.

Next to you, Stelsa and Galekh seem to be in the midst of a long winded debate about the pros and cons of cutting the sleeve off his jacket so she can better get at his box cutter wound. Currently, they seem to be at an impasse. Mallek hovers nearby, just a little out of range, hands still in his pockets. He catches your eye and gives you a ‘what can you do?’ sort of smile that makes you snicker.

“Psst.”

Boldir’s coat enters your field of vision. You promptly turn your head to find her standing next to Tyzias in front of you, holding Nevron’s dart carefully in her hand. You’d almost forgotten about it, in the struggle. She must have found wherever it ended up landing on the floor. Light dances across the glass as Boldir examines it. Your skin starts to crawl just looking at the thing.

“Did she tell you what was in this?” Boldir asks, gentle but insistent. You shake your head. She nods, looking worryingly relieved by your answer, and carefully hides the damned thing in one of her coat pockets. “I’m glad. I’ll see to it that this is disposed of properly.”

Awesome. Fantastic. Your shoulders unhunch, which is a relief unto itself because you hadn’t even realized you’d started curling up into a ball in the first place. The next time you see one of those darts will be too fucking soon. You still feel like you should ask her what the was inside of it, what was squirming , just to know in case you run into it again… but god, you REALLY don’t want to know.

You hear the distinct, quiet crinkle of tin foil above you and it is your only warning before Boldir drops her hat onto your distracted head.

You peek out from under the brim questioningly. 

Boldir smiles at you. Which is, in all honesty, an extremely generous description for what she’s actually doing with her face at the moment. Boldir is only smiling at you in the sense that the corners of her mouth are upturned, and that is where the similarities end. 

“Since I can only assume you lost the last one I gave you,” Boldir begins pleasantly, and oh you haven't heard her this angry in a minute , “I thought it would be a good idea to get you another. So we can hopefully avoid something like this happening again in the future.”

You duck your head to try and avoid the extremely unimpressed glare she’s leveling at you. You don’t need to look to know that she knows that you know that SHE knows YOUR tinfoil hat is sitting at home on your countertop right now, and you just walked out without it.

You mumble out a thank you. And then an equally meek apology.

Boldir sighs. “You always seem to find yourself at the center of things so much larger than yourself,” she mumbles cryptically, really more to herself than to you. You ask her what she means anyways. Boldir shakes her head, reaching out to flick the brim of her hat down into your eyes. “Nothing you need to worry about. All that matters is that you’re safe now and that the problem has been handled.” 

You hurriedly reach up to fix your new hat. You would really like to know what Boldir means by ‘handled’, because something being handled on Alternia usually runs the gamut between meaning ‘murder’ and ‘locked away in a torture basement until they’re crazy’. You don’t particularly LIKE Nevron, but you don’t want her dead about it.

Unfortunately, in the few seconds it takes to right yourself, she’s already moved on into a hushed conversation with Mallek across the room. Boldir catches you pouting out of the corner of her eye. She shoots you a quick, warm smile that makes your insides feel wiggly and immediately dismisses every other coherent thought you had running through your head.

… wow you are SO fucking easy. It’s kind of embarrassing. It’s still just so WEIRD, having THIS many people care so much about you at ONCE. The novelty hasn’t worn off yet.

You’re not sure if it’s EVER going to wear off.

A hand brushes up against yours, hesitantly. You don’t think twice about intertwining Galekh’s fingers with yours and you hear his voice jump an octave in the middle of his sentence at your boldness. You bite your tongue to keep yourself from laughing. 

You guess there might be a few perks to being easy. 

You glance over to see how it’s going with his arm. The sleeves of both his jacket and his undershirt are in tattered pieces on the floor, but he doesn’t seem particularly torn up about it. He and Stelsa are deep in discussion about a book you’ve only barely heard of while she finishes wrapping him up. There’s a light dancing in his eyes that betrays the stubborn frown on his lips. It's a light that persists even when Tyzias interjects something that makes BOTH of them glare at her.

It’s… nice, seeing him like this. Seeing all of them so relaxed, so comfortable in each other's presence. Is it selfish, how much you wish you could keep this moment in a bottle so that it might be preserved forever? How much you wish the rest of your life could just be this? The easy smiles, the laughter and the warmth and the friendsh-

“How are you holding up, bud?” Mallek asks, plopping down next to you on the floor. You take a quick, cursory glance around the room for Boldir and catch her coat going out the door. Mallek gently knocks his shoulder against yours, answering your question before you even get the chance to voice it, “Don’t worry, she is coming back. She just had a couple calls she needed to make.”

You let out a short breath. Cool. Okay. Concerning, in its own way, but it’s probably fine. Boldir is more than capable of handling herself and her affairs. She’s probably just figuring out how to safely get rid of that dart. 

(you are FAIRLY confident she wouldn’t keep it for herself)

As for how you’re holding up… you would say remarkably well, all things considered. You’re actually kind of surprised at just how good you feel, considering- well, everything. You’re pretty sure you have HIM to thank for that.

Mallek scratches at his cheek. “Aw, shucks, I didn’t do that much. I just wish I could have gotten here sooner, you know?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Galekh interjects, narrowing his eyes in Mallek’s direction. “Were it not for your timely intervention as well as your invaluable support in the aftermath, I fear that both myself and our mutual acquaintance would have found the situation we found ourselves in significantly more… dire. You shouldn’t dwell on what the outcome might have been in an idealized what-if scenario. You arrived in time. I believe that is more than enough, don’t you?”

“Uh,” Mallek stares, eyes wide, briefly rendered speechless by the conviction in Galekh’s voice. You nudge your shoulder against his. You flash him your best, most supportive smile, and Mallek rubs the back of his neck a little sheepishly, “Well, fuck, I guess if Mr. High and Mighty wants to name me the hero of today’s events…”

You let out a snort. Galekh just rolls his eyes, “I wouldn’t go that far.”

Tyzias props her chin up on her hand, examining the two of you with a critical eye, “So what exactly happened, anyway? Adalov gave us the short version outside, but he admitted to skimping out on most of the details.”

The warmth that was finally starting to come back to your chest freezes. Galekh glances at you out of the corner of his eye. He squeezes your hand, a silent message that hangs for a moment between you both: how much do you want to tell them? Would you rather me do the talking? You don’t have to do this alone.

You squeeze his hand back. You hope it's enough to convey everything you wish you could tell him. Your throat feels tight. There is a nonzero chance of you bursting into tears before the night is over if you decide to do this. You’re pretty sure that if you open your mouth right now you aren’t going to stop talking until you’ve told them EVERYTHING, because the idea of leaving anything out at this point feels like a betrayal. 

But you aren’t alone. You don’t have to DO this alone.

You have Galekh on one side of you and Mallek pressed into the other. Tyzias and Stelsa are both within arms reach if Galekh ever lets go of your hand, and Tyzias in particular keeps knocking her shoe against yours. Boldir strolls back into the room and doesn’t hesitate to sit back down next to Tyzias in front of you, her brow creased in concern. For you. They’re all here for you. It doesn’t matter where you look: there’s love in every direction and all of it is pointing towards YOU.

Isn’t that a wild concept?

And this is something… this is something you want. It might even be something that you actually need. 

(you don’t think you could go back to a life without this)

Galekh squeezes your hand again. You squeeze his back.

You keep squeezing.

You tell Tyzias that it’s kind of a long story. It’s probably going to take a while to explain. You wince, and add that it’s also probably going to make them all VERY upset.

There’s a little bit of shuffling as everyone gets comfortable on the floor. Stelsa scoots closer to Tyzias. Boldir sheds her coat and Mallek leans even harder into your shoulder. Galekh’s starts rubbing soothing circles into the back of your hand and you think you might just start crying now. No one moves to leave. You don’t think the possibility even crossed their minds at all.

They’re all here for you. They’ll be here for you after this, too.

The only one who ever doubted as much was you. The realization is making you feel kind of silly, in hindsight, but that’s not exactly a new feeling at this juncture. You’re sure you’ll think of a way to make it up to them. After this.

But you can’t stall anymore.

You force yourself to take a deep, shuddering breath- 

and you ask your friends if they ever get lonely.