Chapter Text
Kora and Atlas are sitting in the break room, Kora turns her gaze over to Atlas, who is staring at the table in front of her. Kora walks over to her, worry present on her face. "Are you alright? You look like you've seen a ghost or something."
Atlas goes wide eyed for a moment, looking up quickly. She calms down once she realizes. "I'm fine, just...tired." She hesitates before looking back down at the table, body tense.
Kora crosses her arms loosely, tapping her fingers on her shoulder. "Do you want to talk about it?"
Atlas fiddles with her hands before looking up again, still avoiding to make eye contact. "I-um...yeah actually."
Kora sits down across from her, placing her hands on the table, giving a look to say to take her time. Atlas takes a deep breath before beginning. She tells the story of the statement she read minutes before. As she went on, Kora looked more and more concerned. Finally reaching out and grabbing her hand. Atlas looked up, shocked but not moving away. It took Kora until Atlas stopped talking for her to realize what she did.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..."
She let go of Atlas and pulled away before Atlas reached out again, a shy smile apparent on her face.
"It's alright, where was I?"
"I believe you were telling me about monsters." Kora let out a soft laugh, tightening her hand around Atlas' hand.
"R-right, I don't know why I feel like...well like this. Like something or...someone is staring at me. I just want them to go away but they refuse to, they're ceaseless." Atlas sighs, a weight almost lifting off of her. "You don't believe me...do you."
Kora shakes her head. "No...I do believe you and I want to help you but I don't know how."
"Believe me, if there was an easy answer, I would tell you. But, I think I just..." Atlas lets the words float in the air for a while, Kora nods her head as if she understands.
"Why don't we move over to the couch, you look exhausted and I doubt these chairs are all that comfortable."
Atlas, without a sound, stands up, walking over to the couch, stopping just a second before she does to look towards Kora. She follows suit, moving towards the couch and sitting down.
The couch was soft, like it hasn't been used before until this very moment. Kora gently moved Atlas to lay down upon her lap. She didn't fight it, allowing herself to lay down and relax. Kora ran her fingers through Atlas' hair. It was just as soft as the couch.
Atlas gave a pleasant sigh, her hands intertwined over her stomach. This is a very much needed rest, though she hasn't known Kora long, she feels like she can trust her. They stayed like that for a while, Kora playing with Atlas' hair and Atlas relaxing right into it. It was as if there is nothing else in that world besides those two.
Of course, there are other people too. Dylan and Sophia at some point entered into the breakroom, probably taking their lunch breaks after doing their supplementary research on a recent statement that was recorded. They said nothing, if they noticed at all.
All Atlas was aware of at that moment was just Kora. But Kora did notice, she was aware and so she stopped. Atlas whined a little at the loss, her eyes closed still. She could hear and feel the tiniest bit of a chuckle before the hand was back in her hair again.
"You're like a puppy, you know that?"
Atlas cracked open an eye, false confusion on her face. "And what makes you say that?" Her voice soft and quiet.
"You just are." Kora says, booping her on the nose.
Atlas wanted to swat her away, but the heaviness in her arms made it so she couldn't. "You're lucky I'm too comfortable." She said, firmly closing her eyes again.
"I know, just go to sleep Attie."
"Okay..." She mumbled, drifting off to sleep, the world around her melting into nothing more than empty space surrounding her.
When she awoke again, she is covered with a wool blanket and Kora, as well as the others, aren't anywhere to be found. They most likely went back to work but Atlas couldn't help but feel scared. She hasn't felt like this since she was a child, but her parents never cared to sooth her.
She sat up, holding the blanket close to herself. The breakroom was dark, someone must have turned out the lights when they left.
She stood up, wrapping the blanket around herself, holding it tightly. She walked over to the door and peek out out into the hall. She opened her mouth as if to speak but she didn't feel like she could make words come out at this time.
She took a deep breath and walked out into the hallway.
Lights were on in the hallway so she didn't feel the need to go back into the break room and grab a flashlight but she couldn't hear or see very much outside of the quiet buzzing of the overhead lights and her own footsteps.
The fear she felt before became even more so the more she walked down the hallway, the buzzing getting louder but no voices could be heard besides her own breath getting heavier and heavier until she felt like she's going to faint from fear and—
Atlas wakes up with a start. Clutching her chest as she tries to catch her breath. She doesn't notice at first when Kora places a hand on her back, rubbing circles in order to calm her down. She turned around to face her.
"How long was I asleep?" She says through her panicked breath.
"A couple of hours, Sophia and Dylan left a while ago and I left briefly but then you started screaming." She crossed her arms loosely. "You scared the crap out of me Attie, I thought..."
A look of realization hit Atlas' face. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to scare you Kora, it was just a sleep terror." She said, placing her hands on her shoulders. "I'm alright"
Kora smiled slightly.
"though it really did feel real..." She muttered quickly afterward.
Kora rolled her eyes, clearly wanting to do something but holding herself back from doing it.
"I'm sure it did Attie, that's how those things works. But I think I should be getting home, you should too."
She stands up after she said that, leaving Atlas to watch her walk out.
"Y-Yeah..."
——— ☽༓☾ ———
Atlas never did leave the institute, she opted instead to go back to the archives. It was a strange feeling, she knew she wanted to go home, but she couldn't. It was like the archives were calling to her.
Begging her to stay.
She couldn't deny them, that would be cruel. She allowed herself to be pulled into the archives and picked up a couple statements.
She knew she shouldn't, that it would affect her performance the next day, but she couldn't fight against it. She didn't want to fight against it. It felt natural, reading out the statements, one after another, no breaks in between. It felt good. Wonderful even.
The words flowed out of her mouth like water. She couldn't stop now even if she wanted to. She did have to stop eventually, she knew this already. She could still die of dehydration or starvation, whichever one came first for her. But she kept reading on and on and on.
There was no windows in the archives, no way of telling whether it has been hours or days. She only knew it has been days because Kora came down after not seeing her for a while. The sight she saw could only be described as chaos. And not the kind of chaos the archives were already in, this sort of chaos only happens when one locks themself away and never comes out.
Atlas was sat there, at her desk, reading. No, rambling about something. Kora couldn't really make out any of the words she was saying but she knew enough to tell she needed to intervene. She walked over to Atlas and placed a hand in front of her. It didn't seem to break the spell but it did allow her to separate Atlas from the page. That was enough to break it, enough to get Atlas to look up from the table. Her eyes weren't focused in on anything particular. That worried Kora, so she brought her arm around Atlas and helped her up.
"You're going home, don't try to protest. I'm coming with you to be sure you're properly taken care of."
Atlas didn't try to fight it. She never could when it was Kora.
They both carefully walked up the steps and got into Kora's car. Kora made sure they were both in their seat belts before they set off home. Atlas fell asleep once more, Kora noticed, smiling softly, her eyes remaining on the road in front of her.
Atlas opened her eyes slowly when she realized they were no longer moving. She felt a sharp feeling at her side. Kora was poking her, whispering her name. It was dark outside and the only light visible around her was from inside the car.
"How long was I out?"
"A while" She said, already unbuckling Atlas' seatbelt. "I didn't want to disturb you but I think you would feel a lot more comfortable inside." She already had an arm around her shoulders, helping her to stand.
Atlas tried to stand up by herself first but her legs felt like wet spaghetti.
She could barely make out the fact she was moving until they made it to the door, she felt Kora's arms leave her and could make out the jingling of keys, she watched her the best she could as she opened the door and put her arms around her again.
Her eyes fell closed and when they opened again, she was staring at the ceiling. She carefully lifted herself up into a sitting position. She was sitting on Kora's sofa with her nowhere in sight. Atlas sighed, laying back down. No use trying to find her, she'll only place me back here. She thought to herself for a while longer until she fell back to sleep.
——— ☽༓☾ ———
Atlas could faintly smell something delicious, she opened her eyes to be met with light shining directly at her, she placed her hand over her eyes and turned towards where the smell was coming from. She could hear dishes being placed on what she could assume was a table and the quiet hissing from what she could assume was the stove.
She let her hand fall and opened her eyes again. Her stomach gurgled and that's when Kora turned to face her. The smile she gave her made her face go hot. She turned away, a smile on her face as well.
She made her way over to the dining table where a plate and cup was already sitting. She sat down, a hand over her stomach as Kora walked over and placed scrambled eggs, two pieces of toast, and filled her glass with juice. She looked up towards her, ready to say something as Kora shaked her head as to say don't worry about it. She placed some food onto her plate and some juice into her cup as well.
They both sat in silence for a while, just eating and drinking. Kora was the one to break the silence. "How did you sleep?"
That caught her off guard, she swallowed the bite she had taken before answering.
"Fine, you?"
She let out a soft breath that was probably a laugh. "I slept fine." She poked at her food a bit more before speaking again. "I would've brought you up to my room, but you fell asleep before I could do so."
Now it was her turn to laugh. "Yeah, sorry for worrying you last night, I don't know what came over me."
She cut her off before she could continue. "Don't worry yourself about that, from the way you looked, I knew it couldn't have been completely in your control."
She blushed again, looking back down at her now empty plate.
Kora took both of their dishes and scraped them for her. When she came back, Atlas was already standing, staring at her. When she caught her staring she looked away, bringing her hand up to rub her neck. Kora's face softened, walking back over to her and placed her hands on her shoulders.
"Hey, look at me Attie."
Atlas looked back up to meet Kora's gaze. Her face reddening from how close she is.
"What's wrong sweetheart?"
She opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it again. Her eyes fell to her lips.
Kora noticed this and smiled slightly. "Would you like me to kiss you?"
Her eyes flicked back up to her, eyes now wide and her face somehow even more red. Kora's smile widened even more and she leaned down slightly to kiss her forehead first and then her lips.
Atlas sighed happily, her hands slowly reaching up to cup her face. When they separated again, she breathed in deeply. Her eyes fluttering before focusing back onto Kora.
"Hi..." She said meekly, Kora chuckling softly.
"Hey there sweetheart."
She held her for a while longer, the outside world, if there ever really was one, was silent and still. Atlas laid her head against Kora's chest, wrapping her arms around her waist, standing there for a little while. It must have been about 15 minutes before Atlas looked back up to her.
"Okay, this is getting a little awkward, shouldn't we be getting back to work?" Kora placed a finger over her mouth, Atlas shut her mouth.
"I already called you in sick, you need to rest. Also I kind of wanted to spend the day with you outside of work." Kora's face went a little pink.
Atlas rolled her eyes and sighed. "Well? What are we going to do today then?"
"I was thinking maybe a walk, movie and cuddles?" She nearly whispered there, only loud enough for her to hear.
"Alright, lead the way then." She placed her hand in Kora's. She made a vague sound of excitement. Both of them already had their shoes on so they went off on their adventure for the day.