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Someone is already in the break room when Neon creeps by during the early hours of the morning. The main lights of the room are still off when she enters, but one of the reading lamps by the couches has been switched on, its soft light barely bleeding to the edges of the room. It’s still enough for Neon to spot a woman curled into the corner of one of the couches, her head slumped forward, mottled grey hair covering her face from view. Her hands are wrapped around a mug, leant at the same angle her head is, threatening to tip.
Neon still recognises her at a glance, her stomach tightening before her mind has a chance to consciously recognise her. Their valuable new ally, the new agent, the woman who can drag out undiscovered fears and wield them as a blade.
In the silence, the sound of Fade’s soft breathing starts to echo in her head, and Neon hesitates at the threshold to the room, her fingers gripping the doorframe to stop herself in place. Something about Fade always has Neon on edge, feeling that same lurching anticipation she has in that long moment before a race, before a fight. That quiet moment of maybe, almost, not yet but soon that accompanies imminent danger. It’s not exactly the feeling she wanted when she left her room minutes earlier, when hunger had won the war against the early hour. She leans her body back, weight tilted towards the corridor she just left, her hand still gripped tight on the doorframe, anchoring her. She could just leave. Fade won’t even know she was here.
But hunger wins again. The perils of a fast metabolism, she thinks to herself, as she makes herself take that first step into the room. She leaves the lights off, using what small light emanates from the reading light in the corner to navigate. It sets most of the room in greyscale, but compared to the stark darkness of the corridor, it’s more than enough for Neon to make her way to the cupboards and struggle to reach behind the boxes for where she hid the last container of her favourite biscuits, the ones that get eaten by the other agents within a day if she doesn’t get sneaky.
She glances at Fade again, and her plan to sneak back out of the room and risk getting crumbs on her bed slinks out of her head. She’s never actually seen Fade sleep before. She always seems to be awake long after everyone else gives in for the night, and awake long before even the most determined of early risers. It answers that unspoken question of if she even can, forcibly drags Neon’s perception of her closer to the boringly mundane. Neon finds herself moving closer, some frightful curiosity determined to make sure she really is just a woman asleep, not some puppet left unpossessed for a single minute.
But it’s her, undoubtedly. She can see her chest move with each breath, steady mostly, then rushing as a frown crinkles her face for a few moments, before clearing again. Huh. She is strangely interesting to look at when Neon is not worried about the woman herself noticing. The henna across her face, her hands, sneaking in across her collar from somewhere deeper. And that ombré hair, the transition between black and grey even softer in the mild lighting. And- Neon really must’ve avoided looking at her for too long to not notice- surprisingly pretty. If she were anywhere else, if Fade were anyone else, she might be tempted to admire her a touch longer. Here it starts to feel dangerous, and if she’s honest to herself, it’s starting to feel a little creepy to be staring at a woman she barely knows.
Fade’s mouth twists again, her whole body tightening, and the cup in her hands jerks, a drop of dark liquid spilling down the side. Neon waits a heartbeat more for Fade to relax, then reaches out for the mug, slipping it out of Fade’s hands, only just brushing her fingers as she does so.
She sets the mug aside on one of the tables, turns back to see a rising swirl of black and red forming out of Fade’s skin. It twirls into shape, fangs and piercing eyes forming first. The cloud continues to swirl for a minute more before it condenses again, and seconds later the immense form of some awful nightmare creature is staring at her from its place perched on its mistress’ shoulders, its bulk perfectly balanced on such a narrow precipice.
“O-oh, hi kitty.” Neon whispers. The prowler hasn’t moved yet, just tilts its head and stares.
Neon takes a step back, and the prowler follows, taking a step off Fade’s shoulder to balance a paw on her arm, and continues down to her lap. Neon shudders, glancing back at Fade to make sure the movement hasn’t woken her yet. Miraculously, it hasn’t.
“Are you mad at me?” Neon asks the prowler, as soft as she can. “I wasn’t going to- I didn’t want the cup to break.”
Another step closer. Neon wonders whether the creature understands what she’s saying. She wonders if it knows how to distinguish friend from foe, whether nightmare creatures only understand pain. For all its unnatural colour, right now it has made itself look remarkably like a real animal. A panther maybe, or simply an immense cat. Which makes her wonder.
The terror makes her stiff, but with the prowler still calmly moving closer, Neon reaches into the box of biscuits she still holds, and gingerly hold one out.
It takes that final step in, too close for Neon to dodge any attack it may throw her way. It leans its long elegant neck forward too far, breathes in the scent of her hand, its whiskers brushing against her skin, the strange nightmare material it is formed from feeling almost electric against her skin. She can feel her own internal electricity rise to meet it, making her fingers buzz. Then warm heat envelopes her hand, something rough gripping her fingers.
She gasps, air suddenly too thin, and yanks her hand back on instinct, summons the storm from within herself as she cradles her injured hand to her chest… only for a look down to reveal her hand, whole, and the prowler standing in front of her still, calm as ever, its rough tongue swiping the last few crumbs from its mouth. She takes the electricity sparking off her and she forces it down down, makes it cycle back into her body.
A distant part of her screams to throw the food in her hand in the opposite direction and run. But that voice is drowned out by he overwhelming need to /know/, and without thought she takes out another biscuit and dangles it in the air above the creature.
“Sit?” She asks.
The prowler leans back and springs upwards, wrapping its front paws around her arm and reaching up to take her entire hand into its mouth again. The feeling of the creature touching her still makes her stomach roll, the strange almost-real-but-not-quite feel of its fur making her skin feel numb. It doesn’t exactly have weight, but she feels the coiled waiting strength of it regardless. Like a cloud that needed only a thought to become tangible. An inch off real, a step away from a real beast. She had seen this /thing/ create itself from thin air, has seen Fade summon it from a distance, a horrible thing made of nothing but teeth and malice. But the creature in front of her now licks a rough tongue over her palm slowly, then scrunches its nose when a loose spark comes off Neon’s body.
It’s hard to remember that horrible monster from the battlefield, easier to picture a gigantic spoiled cat, the kind she likes to sneak treats to under the table when their owner wasn’t looking.
“Come on.” Neon says, slowly sinking down to sit on the floor, watching as the prowler follows her. “Are you hungry?” She whispers, dropping the container next to her and reaching out to pet the top of its head with her now free hand. She glances at Fade again, but the woman hasn’t moved. Neon wonders just how much the creature is an extension of the woman, but the thought of letting her anywhere as close to Neon as the nightmare creature she is currently petting is likely to earn Neon a knife in the arm.
Neon stops petting the prowler for a second, and takes out two biscuits, shoving one in her own mouth before offering the other to the prowler. The gentle rasp of its tongue is less shocking now, and when it relaxes its posture and leans its great head into her lap she lets it, rubs her hand against the underside of its jaw until it starts to purr. Its head has no real weight, but the vibration of its purr echoes through her bones.
Just a particularly large housecat, she thinks, proud and mighty until food and attention breaks its will. She wonders how easy it is to summon, how far away it can get from its mistress. When else she could convince it to appear. Would else would it like to eat? Fish maybe?
She manages to drag her hand out from under the creature, which makes the dance of petting it while feeding it smoother. It bares its giant teeth, grasps the edge of the biscuit and jerks its head down, snapping the biscuit in two. It seems content to leave the rest in her hand, so Neon eats the rest. Only once it’s in her mouth does she consider the idea of nightmare creature germs, but she’s too committed to spit it out.
“Doesn’t she feed you?” Neon asks.
“No.” A voice responds. “She doesn’t. What are you doing?”
Neon slowly tilts her head up, finds Fade where she was before, and only when Neon makes herself look longer does she notice one of Fade’s eyes is open and staring at her.
Her mind moves too fast for coherent thoughts to form, and the clockwork pieces of her brain whir, skip a gear, and collapse in a pile of metal.
“Um.” Neon says, intelligently. “It likes biscuits?”
She watches as Fade moves finally, rising gracefully to her feet and stretching, every subtle movement languid. Strange to be caught here. Neon feels trapped, both by the creature on her lap, its whiskers tickling the inside of her wrist, and by the gaze of the woman across from her.
There must be things to say. Something charming, maybe. Or sharp, intelligent. But she cannot think clearly like this, curiosity and terror curdling inside her, Fade’s attention on her making her feel jittery. If Fade is awake, can she order her creature to do something awful? How much free will does the prowler really have? And would she, even?
“Don’t you sleep?” Neon asks.
Fade pauses mid stretch. Puts her arms down at her side once more, her movements still slow, but now Neon can tell that speed is deliberate, closer to coiled waiting tension than anything casual.
“I don’t like to.” Fade tells her. She reaches out next to her, finds her forgotten mug, and downs what is left in the cup in one fluid motion. The lukewarm coffee forces a grimace from Fade. She puts the cup down, and glances back at Neon, opening her mouth for a fraction of a second before closing it .
Her gaze shifts to the prowler, still content to lie where it is, and she tilts her head, stalks closer to Neon. “How did you…?”
Neon shrugs.
Fade considers her for a long minute, until Neon cannot take the pressure of it and looks away. Then Fade touches a hand to her prowler’s head, and the sharp lines of its form blur. She twists a hand, and the creature dissolves into smoke, and melts back into her skin. Can she still feel the animal, Neon wonders. Where does the line between the woman and the creature lie? Is it like the current in Neon’s own body, a constant thrumming force she has become used to, a second heartbeat alongside her own?
Two many questions, and few that she believes Fade would answer. She meets Fade’s eyes again, finds curiosity mirrored there.
Fade extends a hand down to her, and Neon doesn’t hesitate to take it, nor to letting Fade gently pull her to her feet. Unlike her creature, Fade’s hand feels real. It feels terribly mundane, calloused but warm, but the contrast between it and that strange smoky texture of the prowler has Neon holding on to it longer than would be polite.
“It’s late.” Fade observes.
“Oh.” Neon says. “It is. I should. I should go.”
Fade is too close still, and her answering smile bares too much teeth. Neon has to suppress a shudder.
Neon drops her hand, murmurs a goodnight, and turns to leave, taking long steps until she is outside of the room, her back leaning against the closed door. She flexes her hand, clenches it, watches as excess energy escapes from her in small sparks, too small to rise more than a few millimetres from her skin. The sharp feeling of it, like tiny needles pressing against her fingertips, is familiar.
Through the door, she can hear the muffled sound of movement, the clink of a mug against the hard bench, the clack as cupboards open and close. Neon makes herself breathe in and out, and reaches inside herself to feel the movement of the electric current under her skin, let’s her thoughts fade until the flow of it is all that remains.
She stays there until the scent of coffee escapes from under the door.