Chapter Text
"Psst, Whale!" Charming spoke from up a tree. The young, red-haired demon spun around, trying to find where its partner's voice was coming from.
"Up here, silly." Their eyes met. Whale looked at them in shock.
"What are you doing here? Why are you up there?" It whispered.
"Does it matter?"
"You're not supposed to be here."
"Since when do you care? Come on, I found Mr. Whitman's diary, you wanna read it with me?" Charming jumped down and looked at Whale expectantly.
"You know faction leaders can't have relationships with members from another faction," Whale said carefully.
"Yeah, so? I'm not a leader yet. I'm only in training. It's outrageous that they chose me anyway," Charming responded, "come on, do you want to read Mr. Whitman's diary or not?" Whale sighed, "Fine. But it's your fault if we get caught."
"You're the best," Charming said after hugging it.
[sometime later]
"You know I'm taking this seriously, right?" Whale asked when Charming was about to leave. "I've been chosen for the experiment and I don't want either of us to regret this relationship because it isn't allowed." Charming thought about that for a while. "Okay," they said, "what do you suggest?"
"We pause this thing. Until the experiment is over, we were never together. No one can know," Whale answered.
"I know you can't keep secrets." Charming was amused.
"You'd be surprised," Whale said, "I can handle it."
"Okay, fine. I'll see you after the experiment then. I'll go prepare my speech." Charming seemed defeated. Whale kissed them on the cheek, said thank you, and left.
[day of the choosing ceremony]
After they had given their speech, Charming snuck backstage to where the chosen faction members waited for the experiment to start. It was surprisingly empty and Charming feared they were too late. They just wanted to say goodbye to their... ex. Yeah, that was what Whale was. Their ex. They hadn't spoken in months. Charming just needed to say goodbye. They couldn't let it go just like that.
They navigated their way through the tiny hallways. They've been there before. Those stupid reporters just had to keep asking questions, didn't they?
Whale wasn't in the changing rooms, nor near the bathrooms or the stage. It must have already gone outside. "Shit," Charming muttered.
Charming vaguely knew about a plane heading off to the experiment place. If they were quick, they could catch Whale before it boarded.
They ran outside. There the members were! Someone unfamiliar to Charming was leading the members to a plane. Whale was near the end of the line. Vii - who had chosen the nomad faction - was the last person. It would be difficult to grab Whale's attention without alerting Vii in the process.
Charming followed close behind the group. Luckily, there were many trees to hide behind to stay out of sight of the group.
They walked closer and closer to the plane. Charming was starting to think they couldn't say goodbye. "Please let me fucking speak to Whale one last time."
It was like the gods heard them. The group stopped walking. The person in the front seemed to explain something. Charming grabbed their chance. They threw a stone to Whale's feet.
Whale felt something touch its shoes. It looked to where it came from and locked eyes with Charming. They gestured for it to come over. It slowly inched backward. When it was out of Vii's sight, who was focused on what the mysterious person was explaining, it turned around and quietly ran over. "What the fuck are you doing?" Whale whispered aggressively.
"I'm only coming to say goodbye, don't worry. I've missed you so much, I just needed to say something before you left," Charming responded calmly. They gave it a quick kiss on the lips. Whale blushed a little bit. "Be careful out there okay?" Charming said. They almost added "I don't want to mourn over your death," but swallowed their words at the last moment.
"Thank you, and I will," Whale spoke before running back to the group without making any noise. It turned around one last time and gave them one last wave. When Charming was about to leave, they heard the unknown person say: "Let the experiment begin!"
They took that as their queue to run back to the stupid journalists and entertainment teams.
[a few months into the experiment]
Charming stared at their computer screen. The bureaucracy of taking care of all the factions was NOT cut out for them. They missed the thrill of danger. They longed for the exhilaration of risk-taking. After a few more minutes of mindless staring, they got up to get something to eat, or drink, or take a walk outside. Anything to get away from those godawful conflicts and laws. They opened the door and were met with an angry-looking woman, with a cloak covering her face and arms.
"Uh, hi. What are you doing in my office?" Charming tried to look past her to see if there was any security around.
"Don't bother. I control the place here," the woman said.
"Okay... who are you?" Charming asked cautiously.
"That doesn't matter. What matters is this." The woman held up a tablet with security footage. The tablet showed a tall demon and a smaller human hunched beside a tree. After a few seconds, the human kisses the human, and the demon runs to the left to somewhere off-screen. Charming instantly knew the human and the demon were them and Whale. "Care to explain that?" The woman asks.
"I don't know what you're talking about. Now please, I need to piss so can I pass?"
The woman only moved an inch to the right, but it was enough for Charming to shoot past them. Panic was bubbling up inside of them. They were in trouble. They moved towards the bathroom door, but at the last second opened the door to the stairway and bolted down. If there wasn't any security around, they could get away. They just needed to be quick. They reached the ground floor, flung open the door to the hallway, and sprinted to the main exit. Where security was waiting for them. Charming spun around. The woman and two other security guards were blocking the paths. They had used the elevator. Charming had nowhere to go. They moved away from the woman and bumped into the guards behind them, who grabbed their arms. There was no way Charming would escape their grasp.
"Would you like to be reunited with your Whale, Charming?" The bitch said while slowly walking over to them.
"WHO ARE YOU?!" Charming yelled at her. Fear was getting the better of them. The woman didn't seem at all phased.
"You can tell Whale Reading said hi. Oh wait, you can't. I'll make sure you pass out and lose your memory." Reading said in a terrifyingly calm voice.
"Why? What do you mean?" Charming said shaking. They could only accept their fate at this point.
"Honey, don't you get it? I control the experiment and you have upset me. Now deal with the consequences of your actions." Reading walked off. After a quick hand gesture from her, Charming was dragged away to face whatever fate waited for them at the already decaying clearing of the Faction Chronicles Experiment.