Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The light flickers. The air humming with the quiet thrum of the void. The walls around him pulse faintly, threads of shifting starlight woven into their dark expanse. There’s a faint metallic rang, like the lingering scent of a dying star, underscored by the cold, dry sharpness of the void pressing in on all sides. If he breathed deeply, he could almost detect something—ozone, the ghost of energy long discharged, the remnants if ower that once crackled though the space.

A man stirs on a stiff cot. His breathing quickens. His fingers twitch. Then—his eyes snap open.

Panic hits first.

Grian’s eyes snap open. His lungs seize as he bolts upright, head pounding like something’s been carved out of his skull. His hands clutch at the thin cot beneath him, fingers digging into stiff fabric, grounding himself. The cold stone floor bites at his bare feet.

Where the hell is he?

Everything here feels intentional. Unyielding. Like it was not just built to contain, but to remind him—he does not belong to himself anymore.

His mind is a void. Nothing feels familiar—no place, no time, not even his own name. He searches his brain, panic rising, until one thing emerges from the emptiness.

Grian.

The name feels like an echo. Distant. Half-forgotten. But it’s his. He’s sure of that much.

Who was I?

The thought sends a cold chill through his spine. He reaches for something, anything—his family, a memory, a familiar feeling. But his mind is a blank slate, nothing but static where his past should be.

His breathing hitches. His hands tremble. He forces himself to stand, legs shaky beneath him. The floor is ice-cold under his bare feet. There’s a small metal table in the corner, a single glass of water sitting on top. He reaches for it, but then—

Footsteps.

Soft. Slow. Right outside the door.

Grian freezes, pulse hammering in his throat. His eyes lock onto the handle, breath held tight in his chest.

Whoever put him here… they’re coming.

Chapter Text

The footsteps stop.

And all that’s left is silence.

Grian exhales, his body tense, his hands clenched into fists. He doesn’t know why he expects danger, only that the air itself feels wrong—too still, too heavy.

Then, the walls begin to glow.

A deep, eerie purple, like the afterimage of a star collapsing in on itself. The pulse of it thrums through his bones, setting his nerves alight with something that feels like instinctive fear. His
stomach flips, and a cold chill creeps down his spine.

Then come the eyes.

They emerge from the darkness, shifting into existence as if they had always been there, just waiting to be seen. Glowing violet irises, blinking in eerie synchronization, watching him.

Watching.

He doesn’t know why the sight makes him feel like he’s being unravelled.

A voice—layered, distorted, the kind that scrapes against the inside of his skull—whispers through the chamber.

“Grian.”

His breath catches. He doesn’t recognize the voice, but something in him recoils as if he should.

The shadows in the room shift, and then—a man steps forward.

The polished metal of his armour glinted under the purple light, standing rigid in the middle of the room. The man does not flinch under the eyes of them. He does not react.

He’s used to this, Grian realises.

“Who-”

He looks down at Grian.

“Xisuma. Look down. Not at them. Never at them.” Something unreadable flashed in his eyes, under his mask, and something in him seemed to soften.

Grian lowered his gaze.

The pressure disappears not fully, but just enough that he doesn’t feel watched, and the knot in his chest dissipates.

Xisuma steps forward, lowering his voice.

“They’re testing you.”

Grian swallows. “For what?”

The walls pulse. The whispering starts, tendrils of voices slipping into the cracks of his mind.

“You are missing.”

”You are not whole.”

“We can see you”

”You can’t hide from us.”

Grian clenches his jaw. “I don’t understand.”

Xisuma’s hand twitched at his side as if he was resisting the urge to reach out and hug Grian.

That made Grian question whether he ever knew him before, well, forgetting everything.

Grian could feel his guard slipping down, knees weakening, the voices penetrating his head, making them seem louder and louder.

But no.

He had to remain in control.

He knew that if he dropped his guard, he’ll end up doing something he regret.

So he grits his teeth, determined to stay in control, focusing his gaze on the wall nearby.

A low, amused chuckle ripples through the air, velvety and knowing.

"Deny us all you like. We are patient. We are watching."

His hands are shaking. He clenches them into fists, nails biting into his palms. His pulse pounds in his ears, a frantic staccato against the quiet, but it does not drown them out.

His knees buckle. He presses a hand to the wall, but the surface beneath his palm is warm, pulsing like something alive. His breath stutters. The light overhead flickers again, and this time, it
does not come back.

Darkness swallows the room whole.

The voices press closer, curling against his skin, filling the space behind his ribs, sinking their teeth into his mind.

"Let go."

No. He won’t. He can’t. But his body is not listening, his thoughts slipping between his fingers like sand. His limbs are heavy. The world tilts.

He can’t hold on.

He exhales, shuddering, and the world shatters.

The last thing he hears is laughter—soft, knowing, victorious.

Then—

Nothing.

Chapter Text

—

light.

it drags him back like claws in his chest, ripping him out of the dark. grian jolts awake, gasping, choking on air that tastes wrong—stale, metallic, sterile. his body shakes. the cot creaks under him. he clutches the fabric like it’ll anchor him, but the room is already tilting, slipping out from under his grip.
stone. steel. harsh corners. it’s not the same place. he knows that much. but the walls still hum, faint, almost inaudible, like something breathing beneath the surface.

he presses his palms to his head, trying to shove the whispers away, but they’re gone. replaced by silence. too still. too neat.

that’s worse.

he forces a breath in, out. his chest rattles with it. his name—he repeats it to himself like a prayer.

grian. grian. grian. it sounds foreign already, thin and cracked, like it doesn’t quite belong to him.
a scrape. metal against stone.

his head snaps up.

the door is open.

xisuma stands there.

no violet glow. no endless eyes. just armour. tall. steady. familiar—except nothing is familiar anymore.
they don’t move. they don’t speak. the silence stretches so long grian wonders if he’s imagining him.

xisuma finally breaks it. voice low, rough through the mask. “you lasted longer than i thought.”
the words skitter down grian’s spine. not comfort. not praise. assessment.

his throat is dry. “what… what was that?”
xisuma tilts his head slightly, unreadable. “a welcome.”

grian’s breath hitches. a welcome. no. no, that wasn’t—he shakes his head, the word curdling in his chest. “that was—” he can’t finish. the language isn’t there. torture. unraveling. death. none of it fits.
xisuma steps into the room. his armour hums faintly, energy rippling under the metal. every footstep feels too loud. too heavy.

grian stiffens. his fingers curl against the cot. his pulse thrums in his throat.

“they wanted to see if you’d break,” xisuma says. softer now, but still flat. “you didn’t.”

grian lets out a sound that’s almost a laugh, sharp and cracked. “didn’t i?”

xisuma doesn’t answer.

the silence swells. it presses in on grian, crawling under his skin, filling the hollow of his ribs. he can’t breathe. he can’t tell if the voices are gone or just waiting.

xisuma moves closer. his gauntlet twitches—like he wants to reach out, steady him. or grab him. grian can’t tell which.

his body screams at him to recoil, to run, but there’s nowhere to go. the walls are too close. the air is too thick.

xisuma’s voice drops lower. “let me help you. before they test you again.”

help.

the word sticks in his chest like a knife.

grian swallows hard. his voice comes out cracked, thin. “why me?”

xisuma doesn’t hesitate. “because you’re missing pieces. they think you’ll be easier to take apart.”
grian’s skin crawls. his head spins. missing pieces. his memories, his past, his self—it’s all gone, carved out, stolen. and now xisuma knows. how? why? was he the one who told them?

his hands shake violently. nails bite into his palms until he feels warmth—blood. the stinging pain welcomed him, grounded him, for a second or two before he was snapped back to reality.

xisuma doesn’t move. doesn’t flinch. just watches. too calm. too steady.

“what do they want?” grian whispers.

xisuma’s answer comes quiet. heavy. “you.”
the word echoes. bounces off the walls. lodges in his skull.
and grian can’t tell anymore if it’s xisuma who said it—
or the voices coming back.