Archive of Our Own

elle se dissout sous des lampes trop blanches,
(she fades away beneath the harsh white lights,)

le cœur en silence et les côtes si franches ;
(her heart silent and her ribs so clearly visible ;)

l’acteur parle d’or, de beauté, de lumière —
(the actor speaks of gold, of beauty, of light —)

mais moi, je la vois devenir poussière.
(but i see her turning to dust.)

ses mains tremblent encore lorsqu’elle sert le thé,
(her hands still tremble as she serves the tea,)

comme si vivre seul demandait trop porter ;
(as if living alone were too heavy a burden to bear ;)

et j’ai peur qu’un matin, sous leurs regards polis,
(and I fear that one morning, beneath their polite gazes,)

il ne reste d’elle qu’un fantôme amaigri.
(all that will remain of her is a gaunt ghost.)

— perseid ♧

ma chérie, my Mother Mary,
forgive me for my sins.
forgive yourself for the errors that you’ve made,
be gentler with yourself, as much as i was with you.
let not your sun burn you out,
bask in the moonlight, see its full light.
let not yourself wane from my fingertips.
i’ve erred before, but you? never once, nevermore.

♧ milan —

i see no sense of an error in my ways,
i see no fault staining your hands.
leave me be amidst the responsibilities i carry,
leave me be with the dirt of the gloves that i carry.
a necessary evil ensnares my lively duties
and i let myself fall into the snares of it.
you may understand me not for what i did,
but understand me now: this is how i live.

vesper ♧

hors d’oeuvre.

and i’ve been waiting ever so patiently for you.

The sun had long set on Los Angeles, and all that was left to pollute the sky with light was the busy city itself. From the shining neon signs of motels, billboards, and businesses, the grounds of the city seemed about as lively as it was in the morning. Cars, too, hissed down the asphalt roads, stopping only for red lights. Perseid saw it all from the balcony of Milan’s penthouse, high up into the night sky. He stared down at the empty gap between two cars; he could barely see it from above, but he could tell it was the perfect parking spot, a few feet away from the condominium building’s entrance. Vesper would park there, he thought to himself. She hadn’t come home yet, and both he and Milan were waiting for her. Their arrangement had been like this for the past four weeks.

Milan, on the other hand, leaned against the parted sliding door to the balcony. She didn’t dare come close to the edge where Perseid stood. Instead, she lit a cigarette, letting the gray ribbons rise from between her fingers. As soon as Perseid caught the smoke, they turned around to face Milan, eyeing the cigarette as they stifled a cough.

“Do you have any more?” Perseid asked, stepping away from the railings.

Milan felt at her pockets, before fishing out a carton and checking its contents. “…Yeah, want a light?”

“Ouais.” Perseid nodded, letting Milan slot a cigarette in between his fingers, and then letting them light it. “Merci.”

“Anytime, Perse.”

The two stood in silence for a moment, with Perseid shifting over to stand beside Milan, taking in the illuminated sight of the bustling city below them. Milan exhaled a plume of smoke, turning to Perseid—who maintained a carefully measured distance—before parting their lips to speak.

“Have you seen Vesper lately?”

“…Of course?”

“Well, duh, of course—but I mean, really seen her.”

“I do not understand where you are going with this. I have seen her, Milan. We share your apartment.”

“Penthouse. There’s an important distinction.”

“Bof.”

“Okay, point is, she looks a little … different, don’t ya think?”

“How ‘different?’”

“Like … I don’t know, a little more elegant somehow. Statuesque.”

“Quoi?”

Milan shrugged one shoulder, though there was something hesitant in the movement now, less teasing than before. “You know. Delicate—kinda like she’s been carved out of marble lately.” She tapped ash onto the balcony flooring before swiping it away with the tip of their sandal. “I noticed when she wore that black blouse last week. Her sleeves kept slipping down.” He sighed, smirking at the thought of her collarbones; they were pale, pretty, and perfect for love bites to bloom.

Perseid frowned immediately. “That is not a compliment.”

“Eh, what’s it to you?” Milan looked away towards the skyline again, cigarette glowing faintly between manicured nails. “I’m just saying she’s changed.”

The smoke curled between them both in slow, gray ribbons. Perseid inhaled quietly, shaking his head and stepping away before leaning his elbows against the railing again. Somewhere below, another car alarm chirped briefly before cutting out. For a moment, neither spoke. Then, Milan muttered, softer this time. “Though she barely eats with us anymore.” Perseid’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. “She still eats,” he answered automatically.

“Does she?”

The question lingered unpleasantly in the night air, more than the smoke they exhaled. Perseid hated the way Milan asked it so carefully, like someone trying not to scare a starved, wounded animal.

“She works two jobs,” Perseid said after a beat. “She is exhausted constantly. That is all.”

“That’s not all.”

Perseid took another drag from the cigarette; his stomach felt unpleasantly tight now. “You are projecting.”

“Oh, fuck off!” Milan scoffed, though weakly. “I know projection when I see it.” They folded their arms loosely over their chest. “Besides, I’m not the one memorizing what she does at dinner.”

Perseid went still, his long auburn hair flowing with the wind being the only thing moving.

“…Right,” Milan murmured, “so you have been.”

“I … notice things.”

“You notice everything.”

Perseid exhaled sharply through his nose. “That… tends to happen when you spend years around people trying to quietly kill you.” The words came out colder than intended. Milan merely blinked in response. Almost instantly, Perseid regretted saying it. The city noise below suddenly felt very far away—farther than it already was, at least.

Milan looked down at the cigarette between his fingers, twirling it. “That’s not fair.”

“I know.”

“She’s not on heroin, Perseid.”

“Of course not.”

“Then stop looking at her like she’s dying.”

Perseid opened his mouth to answer, but stopped, because down below, headlights swept into the condominium parking lot. A familiar car slid perfectly into the narrow space Peresid had been staring at for the last ten minutes, centered neatly between the white painted lines with almost surgical precision. “There,” Perseid said under her breath, already straightening. “She is home.”

Milan immediately craned their neck towards the glass doors leading inside. “Oh, shit—wait, do I smell like smoke?”

“Oui.”

“Fuck!”

The cigarettes were crushed hurriedly into the ashtray as Milan rushed back inside, Perseid following after them at a slower pace. The penthouse was warm compared to the autumn night air outside, with dim ambient lighting casting amber across the polished floors and expensive furniture. Ocho insisted on calling it depressingly rich. Speaking of, Ocho was sprawled upside down across the couch, tail lazily twitching as he flipped through television channels with little actual interest. At the sound of footsteps, one ear flicked upwards.

“She here?”

“Almost,” Milan said quickly, already waving off the smoke from her clothes. “Do we smell horrible?”

Ocho sniffed once dramatically. “Like divorced fathers and college dropouts.”

“Fantastic. Perfume. Now.”

Laughing, Ocho reached blindly for one of the many bottles sitting on the display shelves, amongst trophies, and sprayed Milan once, directly in the face. Milan recoiled instantly.

“Ack! Fucks sake.”

Perseid snorted despite himself as Ocho cackled loudly, sitting upright now to spray Perseid next. The Frenchman grimaced immediately.

“That is … too very floral.”

“That’s the point.” Ocho grinned. “Can’t have Vespie realizing you two are out there chainsmoking yourselves into lung disease!”

The electronic lock at the front door beeped before either could respond. Vesper stepped inside with the same restrained posture she always carried after work, shoulders stiff beneath her long coat, leather gloves still fitted neatly over her hands. Her hair looked slightly disheveled compared to usual, loose strands curling near her face from the evening humidity. There were faint shadows beneath her eyes tonight, too, darker than Perseid remembered. And thin. She was thin. That thought came to mind quicker than he could stop it.

“Good evening,” Vesper greeted automatically, slipping off her shoes near the entrance before stepping into slippers.

“Evening,” both Perseid and Milan said at the same time before exchanging glances with one another. Milan couldn’t help but furrow her brows at Perseid.

Ocho, meanwhile, loosely waved a hand as he draped himself over the couch. “Hi, Vespie!”

She walked forward, passing by the two with her work bag slung over her shoulder, then she paused. Her nose twitched faintly. a weak cough escaped her almost immediately after.

“You’ve been smoking again.”

Milan reacted instantly. “What? No, we weren’t!” They laughed a little too quickly, stepping towards Vesper before Perseeid could say anything. “It’s Ocho’s perfume, isn’t it?”

From the couch, Ocho blinked innocently. “Why am I suddenly the villain?”

“You bathed in that thing,” Milan shot back, waving dramatically towards him before turning back to Vesper with a grin that strained slightly at the edges. “Can you smell it?”

Vesper paused before eventually responding. “…Smell what?”

“…The perfume?”

A beat of silence.

Then Ocho burst into laughter loud enough to echo off the penthouse walls. “Oh my Gods, you absolutely nuked your sense of smell years ago, didn’t you?”

“I did not ‘nuke’ anything,” Vesper answered flatly, already shrugging off her coat. “I simply cannot distinguish whatever scent you people are discussing.”

Perseid watched Milan’s smile falter for only half a second; they must’ve both noticed how exhausted Vesper looked. It wasn’t ordinary exhaustion either, not the usual stiffness after a double shift. Tonight, there was a strange looseness to her posture, as if something beneath her skin had gone slack from overuse.

“Right, okay,” Milan hurriedly said, recovering. “Well—dinner’s here! So sit down before you start trying to answer emails standing up again.”

“I do not do that.”

“You literally did that yesterday.”

Vesper opened her mouth, paused, then quietly conceded, “Only briefly.”

“Mmhm.”

Milan gently steered her towards the dining table with a hand hovering near the small of her back—not quite touching—though Perseid noticed Vesper stiffen anyway.

The takeout containers had already gone lukewarm by now. White cartons crowded the center of the table beside scattered chopsticks, napkins, and an untouched glass of water Perseid had poured nearly an hour ago. Ocho wandered over lazily soon after, stealing someone else’s dumpling before collapsing sieways into a chair. Vesper sat last, almost reluctantly. Even now, she kept her work bag looped around one shoulder.

“You can put the bag down, you know,” Milan said casually, pulling forth a carton for herself and pushing one towards Vesper.

“I have a meeting in forty minutes.”

“You still need to eat.”

“I am aware.”

But she still didn’t set the bag down. Instead, Vesper pulled her laptop from inside it almost immediately after sitting, placing it beside her carton of untouched noodles. The screen’s pale glow reflected against her narrow amber eyes as she logged into something Perseid couldn’t make sense of at a glance—dense spreadsheets, graphs, tiny strings of numbers—one thing was for certain, though, she was multitasking. Again. Perseeid suddenly lost part of their appetite. Across the table, Milan tried harder to keep the mood alive. They talked about some ridiculous actor they used to know, and Ocho kept interrupting with increasingly embellished versions of the story until even Milan started laughing at how obviously fabricated it became. Vesper gave small responses when spoken to: a nod here, a quiet hum there, but Perseid noticed something else.

Her food remained untouched; the noodles were far beyond lukewarm now. Ten minutes passed, then fifteen. Vesper lifted the chopsticks once, absentmindedly turning noodles over as she stared at her screen. She took one bite eventually; it was small enough that Perseid almost wondered if he imagined it.

Then nothing again. Her attention remained glued to the laptop as the others slowly continued eating around her, or at least pretended to. Perseid realized at some point that Milan had stopped too. They were both watching now, trying not to make it obvious. The penthouse had grown quieter without anyone acknowledging why, with Vesper’s quick typing filling most of the silence instead.

Finally, Milan cleared their throat. “Vesper?”

“To what do I owe your attention?”

“You’ve barely touched your food.”

“I am eating.”

Perseid’s eyes flickered towards the two automatically, and to Vesper’s carton, noticing immediately. No, she wasn’t.

Milan noticed too. “Darling, one noodle doesn’t count.”

That earned the faintest twitch of irritation from Vesper. “I said I am eating.”

“But you’re working more than eating!”

“Milan, my deadlines do not disappear simply because you find them disagreeable.”

Vesper then went back to work, but not before rubbing at one eye with the heel of her gloved palm. For a brief moment, Perseid noticed her blinking slowly, strangely, as though focusing had become physically difficult. Then her chopsticks slipped slightly from her fingers. Only subtly, but enough for Perseid’s stomach to tighten. Vesper immediately corrected her grip and continued typing as though nothing had happened. Nobody commented on it. Nobody commented on the fact that her water remained untouched either. Or the way her shoulders had begun subtly curving inwards. Or the fact that her food eventually went cold entirely.

By the time Vesper finally closed the laptop, a near forty minutes later, the noodles looked almost identical to when she had sat down. “I must excuse myself,” she spoke. “My meeting begins shortly.” Vesper stood from the table with careful economy, as if standing too quickly might cost her something she couldn’t afford.

Milan looked at the food, then at her.

“You’re not finishing dinner?” he pouted.

“I am no longer hungry.”

Vesper adjusted the sleeve of her blouse afterwards, though the fabric still hung strangely loose around her wrists as she gathered her laptop, placing it back into her bag again, for safekeeping.

Milan, however, tried again, softer this time. “Vesper. You had like … two bites.”

“I had more than that,” she shot back immediately, too quickly for it to be casual.

“…Well, that’s not really the point,” Milan replied, their voice lowering slightly. “You’ve been working nonstop since you’ve got here. You can’t just—run on nothing!”

Vesper paused at that, just briefly, not enough for most people to notice, but Perseid noticed everything now, which was becoming its own kind of problem. Her fingers tightened around the strap of her bag. “I am not ‘running on nothing,’” Vesper defended. “I am functioning as required.”

Milan sighed, muttering something under her breath. As soon as Vesper says ‘functioning,’ Milan has come to learn that there’s no going back on her word. The woman treated herself like a machine, built to function.

Ocho, meanwhile, leaned back in his chair with the lazy curiosity of someone watching a slow argument unfold without the stakes at hand. “Well, isn’t Miss Ashley just adamant!”

Milan shot him a look immediately. “That’s not helpful!”

“But it is true!” Ocho snorted, tail flicking.

Vesper did not respond to either of them. She had already turned slightly to the hallway, attention slipping forward in that familiar way it did when she mentally left before physically doing so. “My meeting begins in approximately five minutes,” she added. “I will be in the office.”

Milan stood instinctively. “Wait—just—sit for a second!”

Perseid, on the other hand, finally broke their silence. “You did not finish.”

Vesper’s eyes flickered to him for a fraction of a second. “I am well aware,” then she added, gently but firmly, “It is not necessary.”

That sentence landed differently. It held a unique kind of finality. It didn’t at all invite any semblance of argument. It didn’t even acknowledge disagreement as a meaningful category. It simply stated a conclusion she had already processed and filed away.

Milan looked down at the table again, at the cold food, at the unevenly disturbed portions Vesper had barely touched. Something in their expression shifted—less irritation now, more confusion—something trying to disguise itself as reassurance. “But it is necessary,” they corrected softly. “You need to eat.”

Vesper gave a small, polite nod, though it didn’t actually concede anything. “I will address it later.”

“You said that yesterday,” Milan said before she could stop herself.

That made Vesper pause again. That pause stretched on for a beat longer than time counted. Eventually, she parted her thin lips to speak. “…I did.” And then, without any visible discomfort, she added. “I was unable to do so due to scheduling constraints.”

Perseid’s gaze dropped briefly to Vesper’s hands, to the way her gloves didn’t loosen their trembling grip on the strap of her bag—even when she wasn’t actively moving—to the way her posture remained upright, almost rigidly so, as if compensating for something internal rather than external.

Milan opened their mouth again, then stopped. Whatever they were going to say didn’t quite find a shape that wouldn’t turn into pressure.

Vesper stepped back slightly, already disengaging. “Goodnight,” before repeating herself, for a final time. “I will be in the office.”

Ocho eventually reached for Vesper’s dumpling, chewing slowly. “She’s gonna crash,” he said almost idly, like commenting on the weather.

Milan exhaled slowly, rubbing their face with one hand. “She’s just… busy,” they said, but it sounded less convincing the second it left their mouth.

appetizer.

and i’ve been searching the dark night for you.

The penthouse changed gradually enough that lines blurred between the exact moment the place stopped feeling lived in and started feeling managed around Vesper instead. Takeout containers began lingering in the refrigerator longer than they should have, little white boxes with dates scribbled onto them by Perseid, opened once and never touched again. The dining table became a place of more chatter than shared meals, and tonight was no different. Ocho was on another ramble, entertaining Milan and Perseid, as the three waited for Vesper to finish her meal, who was still typing away at her laptop, multitasking once again.

“I’ll tidy up,” she murmured, still seated before a barely touched plate and the pale light of her laptop screen.

Milan turned to Vesper, raising a brow. “You sure?”

“Please, don’t concern yourselves with it,” she said firmly, again with that same finality from last night’s dinner.

Silence hung for a beat, with Milan staring at Vesper with a pout.

“…Well, alright then.”

And soon, Milan and Ocho drifted away to the living room while Perseid lingered with a cigarette by the balcony, as her words sounded polite, considerate enough that none of them challenged it at first.

As soon as Vesper was left alone with her plate and laptop, she proceeded to prioritize work—typing away at her laptop for a whole twenty minutes before shifting focus—and after that, she carefully decided to stand up. Perhaps she could fetch a fresh cup of water before finishing her meal, she thought.

And she continued thinking so, carrying her plate and cup to the kitchen. Vesper stared into her empty cup and at the sink before turning on the faucet and tilting her glass into the stream of water. As she watched it fill up, she felt her vision stagger and blur for a moment. Her brows furrowed as she tried to bring her gaze back to proper focus, yet to no avail; she drank the water and tried again, yet once more it was a fruitless endeavour. Vesper could feel sudden palpitations, an irregularity in her chest, and she clutched at the rim of the kitchen sink, head ducking down as her breath became labored. A spell of dizziness. She grumbled to herself, trying to breathe her way out of it.

Eventually, the episode began to fade, and as her spotty vision began to clear up, she inhaled deeply and closed her eyes, fumbling for another sip of water before opening them. For the past three days, it’s become harder to ignore what ailed her, but Vesper persisted. She straightened up and stared at her plate.

It was her leftovers from the night before. Cold stir-fry noodles. Vesper sighed, running a hand over her mouth as she narrowed a glare at the dish.

Somehow, just staring at the food overcame her with a sense of dread—a sickness, Vesper assumed—and the longer she stared, the more a static blur crept into her vision. It did make her sick just looking at the plate. She felt angered by this, and eventually she grabbed it, her hand now hovering over the kitchen trash bin. A sigh escaped Vesper as she began scraping the plate clean with mechanical precision.

Vesper supposed she did address the meal in a way. Just not the way Milan would’ve liked it.

Nor Perseid, as he watched her from the dining room, found her standing alone beneath the dim kitchen light. Watching her expression, completely blank, as she rinsed the plate clean, as though erasing evidence rather than simply cleaning up after herself. He wondered how Vesper didn’t notice him, or maybe she did, and she couldn’t care less to comment on it.

Perseid decided against getting a glass of water then. Instead, he started watching. Much closer.

Yet not obviously. Never obviously. Perseid knew that, in fact, he had learned better than that, from the same people who slowly tried to kill him all those years ago.

Soon, the kitchen itself seemed built more for caffeine than food. Tea bags overflowed from mugs. Coffee rings stained the paperwork. Groceries expired untouched in the back of the refrigerator while Vesper continued apologizing vaguely about ‘forgetting’ to eat them. Ocho still snacked carelessly at all hours, and Perseid began unconsciously tracking every object Vesper carried into the kitchen versus what she actually consumed. It frightened him how quickly he learned the difference.

…

Then came the blood in the bathroom.

Not dramatic amounts. Tiny crescents of red, diluted pink beneath running water. Rust-colored specks in the sink one early morning while Vesper washed her hands. Perseid stood staring at them longer than he should have while washing the ash from underneath his fingernails one afternoon, and moments later, he found Vesper in the hallway quietly pressing her gloves—which no longer fit either; excess leather bent at the fingers whenever she curled her hand inwards—against her sleeves.

“Show me your hands,” he said.

“It is inconsequential.”

“Vesper.”

A pause. Then she slowly removed one glove.

The rough skin along her knuckles had split from dryness, thin cracks opened from compulsive washing, cold air, and malnutrition severe enough that her skin no longer healed correctly. Perseid stared longer than he meant to, and took her wrist in his hand; he easily did so, fingers completing a circle.

“You needn’t bother yourself with me.”

“Non, Vesper. This is serious. You are bleeding.”

“It is but a scratch.”

Her hands looked wrong in their grip. Too light. Too fragile. Too thin. They felt especially wrong as they disinfected her cuts with antiseptic, brushing soft cotton against her cold skin.

“Please, it’s fine,” she insisted. Perseid noticed her voice had grown softer lately, not emotionally softer, but physically.

“Non. You need to tell Milan about this.”

After that, Perseid started watching more openly. They hated themselves for it almost instantly.

And then came the showers.

Long silences behind locked bathroom doors. The sound of water stopping, but no movement afterward. Milan noticed it first one evening when nearly twenty minutes passed without the door opening. He knocked once.

No response.

Twice.

Still nothing.

Panic crawled unpleasantly into his throat before he finally pushed open the door to find Vesper sitting on the bathroom floor, wrapped in a towel, damp hair clinging to the sharp lines of her shoulders, while steam curled weakly around her, elbows resting weakly atop her knees as if she had only paused briefly. She looked upwards when he entered, dazed in that distant, apologetic way she had begun doing more often lately.

“Oh,” she murmured after a moment. “Just another spin of lightheadedness.”

Another.

An unsettling feeling crept up Milan’s spine.

Hair had begun collecting in her brushes, too. Enough that Milan started removing it before she saw. The strands wrapped around their fingers like loose black thread while dread settled heavier and heavier like lead in their heart. By the time fallen hair reached the bedroom, neither Vesper nor Milan could really pretend anymore.

…

At times, Vesper wouldn’t talk to the three at all, remaining holed up in Milan’s office. She’d stay there from six to nearly midnight, only then leaving the room for a glass of water by then, as Perseid had noticed. It’s gotten bad enough that he can barely catch rest; all his mind can circle on is how this has done numbers to her health. The worst part was that Vesper still appeared functional enough to deny it.

The penthouse would continue around her in muffled fragments. The office light remained on beneath the crack of the door for hours at a time, pale against the dark hallway, while the muted clicking of keys continued at an almost metronomic pace. Vesper could hear the television noise from the living room, Ocho’s laughter, and something indistinct, and Milan’s humming as they arranged records. Sometimes Perseid would pass by the office and hear nothing else for several minutes straight—not a sigh, not even the creak of the chair. He could only hear typing. Constant, precise typing, as though Vesper herself had become another machine operating within the room, letting the blue glow of her monitor bleach her face into something corpse-pale and distant.

Her thoughts had become frighteningly procedural over the past several weeks. Everything now arranged itself into sequences, and priorities, and unfinished tasks that looped endlessly through her head with increasing speed the longer she remained awake. By the eighth consecutive hour of work, her mind no longer felt entirely connected to her body. Hunger became distant static. Fatigue dulled into something abstract, and even discomfort stopped registering correctly after long enough. There was only movement between objectives.

Complete this report.

Answer your emails.

Review inventory logs.

Prepare tomorrow’s schedule.

Do not think.

The last directive repeated most often.

Because thinking—real thinking—had become exhausting in ways work was not.

Work at least moved in straight lines. Predictable inputs. Predictable outputs. Problems solvable through endurance. But the others … they complicated things. They required emotional consideration, interpretation, and responsiveness. They touched her unexpectedly. Looked at her too carefully now. Asked questions with hidden meanings beneath them. Every interaction felt like another cognitive demand layered atop an already overheating system.

Work was linear, easier. Numbers behaved predictably, and spreadsheets didn’t touch her. Data sets didn’t stare too long when she entered rooms, nor did customer complaint soften their voices around her lately either. Work possessed order. Even the exhaustion made sense there, but relaxation didn’t. The moment she stopped moving, her thoughts could no longer arrange themselves correctly.

Sitting beside Milan on the couch became exhausting because she could feel the warmth of his body against hers too acutely now, Ocho’s touch lingered too long on her shoulders when he’d pass by, and Perseid looked at her with such awful concentration lately that it made her stomach tighten unpleasantly beneath her ribs. Or maybe that was the hunger she felt almost constantly. But it’s not like she had the time to care about it. Besides, love had become labor to her, and she already had enough on her hands.

So Vesper had begun avoiding them altogether.

Not out of hatred. That was the unbearable part.

It would have been easier if she disliked them. She knew they meant well.

Instead, guilt sat permanently, being the only thing filling her now, corrosively so. Milan would knock softly at the office door around dinner time, asking if she wished to join them, voice warm and patient in ways that made her chest tighten unpleasantly. Ocho would sprawl himself over the back of her chair whenever she forgot to lock the door, purring against her shoulder and complaining she smelled too much like old paper and strong coffee lately. Perseid lingered worst of all—silent in hallways, watching her with those observant eyes that seemed capable of measuring every skipped meal and every hour slept—it was then that affection had begun feeling indistinguishable from pressure.

The moment any of them touched her now, something in her body recoiled automatically—not from fear exactly, but from sheer mental exhaustion—as even kindness demanded response. Emotional reciprocity required energy, eye contact required energy, and smiling required energy. She no longer possessed enough at all to perform personhood correctly for extended periods of time. And so she withdrew harder each week, yet afterward came the guilt.

Always guilt.

Because the moment the office door shut behind her, her thoughts would immediately turn cruel in retaliation.

You are neglecting them.

Milan drove out to buy takeout tonight.

Perseid stayed awake waiting.

Ocho looked upset when you left.

You are becoming difficult to love.

The thoughts grew harsher the more exhausted she became, but strangely, so too did her ability to suppress them. Vesper had always possessed a frightening degree of self-control when sufficiently distressed, but now her emotions felt compressed so tightly inwards that they barely emerged at all externally. Instead, they circulated endlessly beneath the surface while she continued typing with trembling hands.

For work remained simple. Input. Output. Completion. People, on the other hand, became harder the more tired she grew, and Vesper was very tired now. She noticed it in strange ways. Words occasionally took longer to retrieve during conversations. The penthouse lights seemed too bright after shifts, and her hearing would dull and sharpen unpredictably. Sometimes, Milan would ask her a question, and she would realize several seocnds too late that she had only been staring at them.

By then, her mind would already be slipping into that horrible, floating exhaustion where transitioning towards sleep somehow felt more laborious than continuing to work. Rest had stopped feeling restorative weeks ago. The moment she lay down, thoughts she’d successfully suppressed throughout the day returned all at once—unfinished responsibilities, social failures, bodily discomfort, the unbearable awareness of her own heartbeat—and it all tired her out even more.

One night, Vesper pressed two fingers harder against the bridge of her nose while continuing to type. The office had long since become cold. She preferred it that way. Heat made her feel sluggish lately, and it made the tremors feel more like shivers, which made much more sense to Vesper.

Outside the door, she heard footsteps pause briefly. They weren’t Ocho’s; they were too light. Nor Milan’s, she would hesitate longer.

…

Perseid.

Of course.

Silence lingered there for several seconds before those footsteps continued down the hallway again. Vesper’s shoulders loosened only after the sound disappeared entirely. Immediately afterwards came shame.

Severe social withdrawal often indicated heightened internal distress responses.

Another statistic. An observation. A useless fact she could recite while actively becoming unbearable to live with. Her chest tightened, heart pounding oddly for a brief moment.

The truth was, Perseid’s concern frightened her now precisely because it was genuine. Milan’s affection exhausted her precisely because it was sincere. Even Ocho’s invasive physicality had begun feeling unbearable because some broken, humiliating part of her still softened under it despite everything.

The longer she worked, the narrower her thoughts became. Cleaner. Sharper. Hungrier somehow. By hour four or five, her mind often settled into an almost mechanical quiet where nothing existed except completion. It felt good in the same terrible way holding one’s breath too long sometimes did.

Everything outside the tasks became unnecessary.

Including hunger.

Including exhaustion.

Including herself.

Her fingers paused briefly above the keyboard. A wave of dizziness rolled through her hard enough that the monitor blurred for half a second. Vesper shut her eyes. 72% of syncopal episodes associated with restrictive intake reportedly began with prolonged standing or sleep deprivation.

How fortunate, then, that she was sitting down.

…

Then, in bed, Milan walked into the bedroom, having just returned from a quick smoke, to see Vesper still wearing office slacks, her blouse half-unbuttoned. She didn’t at all look like she intentionally got into bed; her work bag sat on the night stand, pushing aside candles and the lamp. Even now, Milan couldn’t help but find her beautiful like this, exhausted for sure, clearly now, but beautiful. Their hand hovered over the last few buttons of her blouse, but they rescinded, thinking otherwise. Instead, they curled carefully against Vesper’s sleeping form and froze when their hand settled against her waist. Vesper temsed up too.

Bone.

Her hip pressed sharply beneath the fabric of her clothes with enough prominence to make Milan instinctively pull back as though he’d touched something fragile enough to splinter. For a long moment, they simply stared at her sleeping face instead, from the dark circles beneath her eyes, to the exhaustion permanently pulling down at the corners of her mouth, and how impossibly small she seemed now in the middle of their bed.

And for the first time since all of this began, Milan felt something colder than worry settle into their chest.

Fear.

…

Vesper stirred slightly. “… Is something the matter?” Her voice was thick with sleep.

Milan swallowed hard, shaking their head, before wrapping their arms around her again, pressing a kiss to her cold skin, gentler this time.

“Nothing is, darling.”

But inside, Milan couldn’t get over his findings, which made his chest stir with an intense heartbeat and stung sharp, welling tears in his eyes. For it wasn’t just Vesper’s body that Milan loved—and the many nights spent worshipping every inch of it—but it was the shell she was inside of. Milan had to. And Milan realized Vesper must’ve gone far beyond bearing how starvation felt. It broke his heart, in the most shattering manner, that she’d kill the only piece of herself that he could touch.

main course.

and i’ve used up all my latent energy for you.

Vesper had just finished another shift, working tirelessly on her laptop. She rubbed the corner of her eyes individually with the tip of her finger, suppressing a yawn as she watched the loading icon on her laptop spin before shutting down, the darkened screen reflected her appearance: her working blouse, collar crooked from tugging, dark circles hung under her eyes, her lips were cracked despite the glasses and mugs that littered the desk she worked at, and her eyes lacked any sort of life. She felt and looked hollow. Perhaps another glass of water would do the trick. Vesper got up, carefully, trembling hands clutching the armrests of the chair as she pushed herself up. As soon as she turned around, her eyes widened.

“Perseid?”

How long had he been standing there? Vesper blinked in disbelief, lips parting to say more, but she lacked the strength to do so with a dry throat.

“…Um.” Even Perseid themselves didn’t know what to say, not when they stood by the doorway of the office, reclining with a glass of water held close to their chest. “Did you … need this?”

Vesper’s gaze flickered to the cup, and she felt beyond parched just staring at it. “..How did you…” Vesper trailed off, a fog momentarily overtaking her thinking; she couldn’t help but wonder how Perseid knew, and how they opened the door so silently that Vesper completely missed hearing it.

Perseid, in truth, had begun timing Vesper without meaning to. Not intentionally at first. It simply happened. The same way people memorize recurring train schedules or learn the sound of faulty plumbing after long enough exposure. He knew now, with humiliating precision, how long her showers lasted before she needed to sit down afterwards. He knew how many hours she could work before her typing slowed. He knew which floorboards creaked beneath her weight at night and had realized, with mounting horror, that they had begun creaking less.

That last observation had nearly made him sick.

“I… Do not mind that—just, take it.” He stepped forward, and Vesper felt apprehension creep up her spine. She almost took a step back, and she immediately felt guilty for it.

“…Very well then.” Reluctantly, she accepted the offer, taking the cup. The water was cold, fresh from the fridge with that certain kind of air she could vaguely taste. “I appreciate the effort.”

Perseid nodded, stepping aside, allowing Vesper to leave the room.

As soon as Vesper left, she let loose a breath she didn’t realize she was holding, and frowned. Vesper took another sip of water and sighed, walking farther from the office and towards the kitchen. There, Ocho was rummaging through the refrigerator, sniffing at various containers, occasionally wrinkling his nose at some. Upon hearing Vesper’s footsteps, Ocho’s ears perked up, and he turned to face her.

“Heya, Vesper! Feel like breaking the fast yet?” He smirked, tilting his head into the cool air of the fridge.

“It’s nearly midnight, elaborate as to why I would have breakfast?”

Ocho laughed, claws clenching around a can of beer. “Oh, Vespie, you’re a funny girl.”

Vesper frowned. “…That does not answer my question.”

“I mean—aren’t you hungry? You’ve kinda been working your ass off for the past.. what? Three hours?”

“Six.”

“Good Gods, Ves! I didn’t take you for a masochist.” Ocho shut the refrigerator with a resounding snap before cracking up yet again just as he opened the can of beer.

Vesper’s shoulders sagged; clearly, this conversation was going nowhere productive. First, Perseid, now Ocho. She was growing tired of this.

“What?” Ocho took a sip from his can, stepping forward to bump it against Vesper’s glass with a soft clink. “Cheers!” He smiled, childishly so.

“…Goodnight, Ocho.” Vesper placed the glass down by the sink, its remaining water sloshing inside. Ocho pouted, claws reaching out towards Vesper as she began walking away.

“Hey! Come back, I wasn’t done!”

Vesper dismissed this; she had better things to do.

…

As soon as she arrived at the bedroom, she found the room to be completely dark, save for the blue light shining from Milan’s phone screen as they scrolled mindlessly, already dressed for bed. They were sprawled over the blankets, occupying most of the bed. Vesper slowly blinked at this, eyes still adjusting to the light. Milan hadn’t at all realized that she stood before them. And they still didn’t realize it when she slowly started tilting forward from exhaustion. It was only when she fully collapsed, right over their free arm, that they jolted, dropping their phone right on their face.

“Ow! Who—” Milan removed the phone from their face, huffing as they wriggled their arm, before turning over to see Vesper’s face. “Oh—darling, I didn’t know—are you alright?”

Vesper was unresponsive, trembling with shallow breaths as she remained, crushing Milan’s arm with barely any weight. Milan felt barely any pressure and immediately frowned. There should’ve been more of her; that realization unsettled them instantly.

“Ves?” Milan turned fully, grabbing her by the shoulder carefully, his fingers met the sharp angles of bone almost immediately beneath the fabric of her blouse, and Vesper tensed up.

“Gods,” Milan whispered. “Ves. Talk to me.”

Vesper tried.

The room strangely stirred around her. Her chest hurt. Her pulse had become too fast again, fluttering violently beneath her ribs in a way that reminded her unpleasantly of trapped birds. She knew, logically, that panic could produce chest tightness. Hyperventilation too. Sleep deprivation reportedly impaired nervous system regulation by nearly 37%.

Unfortunately, logic was losing against terror.

Because for one horrible moment, she genuinely thought:

This is what dying feels like.

Her hand seized Milan’s wrist.

“I don’t want to die.”

Milan’s face drained immediately. “What?!” Their voice cracked upwards as they pushed themselves upright, one arm around her back now. “Tell me what you feel.”

“I—” Vesper bent forward again, trying to pull air into lungs that suddenly felt too small. “I apologize—”

“No, no, don’t do that—don’t say sorry.” Milan’s panic peaked beneath the softness now. “Do you need an ambulance? I’ll call one right now.”

Vesper tried to take a deep breath, shaking her head. That’d be an unnecessary expense. She had to control herself. Instead, she felt the tightening in her throat as she bit back a sob, her eyes stung horribly, and she buried her face even further into Milan's shoulder. Her vision blurred violently as tears finally spilled free.

“…No, no, it’s gone. It’s—I’m…” Her voice broke entirely.

“What? Tell me.”

And suddenly, Vesper couldn’t stop. The exhaustion had gone too far now. Past suppression, past management, and far past functionality.

“I’m tired, Milan.” The sentence came out shattered.

Vesper folded inwards against them as tears streamed uncontrollably down her face, shoulders trembling with the force she’d spent months restraining. Milan stared at her in stunned silence before immediately pulling her closer, hand moving in slow circles against her back.

“There, there,” he whispered shakily. “Breathe for me.”

Vesper stiffened at the contact automatically before forcing herself to stay still. Guilt immediately followed. Milan was trying to comfort her; she should reciprocate appropriately, she should calm down. Emotional dysregulation reportedly worsened cognitive fatigue in individuals already under chronic stress. Another useless fact.

“I can barely keep up,” she confessed suddenly into Milan’s shoulder, words spilling like her tears. “I haven’t the time to cook anymore, I cannot focus properly, I’m forgetting things at work, and I still have another shift after that, and I—”

“You’re overworking yourself, I get it,” Milan whispered.

“You don’t understand.” Vesper pulled back just enough for Milan to see how bloodshot her eyes had become. “You don’t know the worst parts.”

And then it all spilled out.

The blood in the sink, dizziness after showers, and the hair collecting in brushes—though Milan had already known about the latter. The nights she sat on the bathroom floor because standing became difficult, the way food had begun making her nauseous after only a few bites, and how the office became safer than the rest of the penthouse because nobody expected anything from her in there except productivity.

Milan listened in horrified silence.

And then came Perseid.

“—And Perseid…”

Milan raised a brow immediately. “What did they do?”

Vesper hesitated. The problem wasn’t because Perseid had harmed her. It was something else entirely.

“He disinfected my wounds,” she admitted quietly.

“What?”

“The cuts on my hands.”

Milan blinked.

Then slowly, Vesper added. “…Will you forgive me?”

The phrasing made Milan’s stomach drop. “Where are you going with this?”

“I believe…” Vesper swallowed weakly. “He has ulterior motives.”

Milan stared. “You’re gonna need to speak layman’s for me, doll.”

“Perseid has been watching my every move.”

“…WHAT?!”

The shout hit the room hard enough that Vesper physically flinched, eyes squeezing shut as pain spiked behind them instantly.

Milan slapped a hand over their own mouth. “Sorry—shit, I didn’t mean—”

“I’m not done,” Vesper weakly whispered.

So she continued, confessing everything she unwillingly noticed. She confessed about the footsteps outside the office, Perseid’s lingering stares, and the way Perseid somehow always appeared whenever she needed water. The quiet monitoring, too, and the unbearable feeling of being observed constantly.

By the end of it, Milan felt sick. They didn’t believe Perseid would intentionally hurt Vesper, but something about it felt emotionally intimate in a way they hated immediately. Perseid knew things Milan didn’t, Perseid noticed things Milan missed, and suddenly Milan couldn’t stop thinking about the way Perseid looked at Vesper lately. Perseid seemed too attentive now, too careful, and too emotionally invested.

Once Vesper finally cried herself quiet against their shoulder, Milan’s own thoughts had already begun spiraling somewhere ugly. As Milan found this troublesome, he didn't take Perseid for the type to stalk. Let alone doing so under his own roof. He wanted to do something—no, he needed to do something about this. But Milan just wasn't sure what. So he did the next best thing; he asked Ocho for advice. As, oddly enough, despite allegedly being the youngest in the collective, Ocho knew a lot more about life than he usually let on. Especially when he pried at the right times.

…

Ocho was smoking on the balcony when Milan approached him later that night, or pretending to smoke, rather. Half the cigarette burned untouched between his claws while he lounged against the railing like some smug alley cat basking beneath city lights. He looked over immediately when Milan stepped outside. “Oho,” Ocho grinned faintly. “You look awful!”

“I need advice.”

“That bad?”

Milan crossed their arms tightly. “It’s Perseid.”

That got Ocho’s attention immediately; it was subtle at first, just the slight perk of his ears. “What about her?”

Milan explained in rushed fragments: the monitoring, the staring, the hovering, and Vesper’s distress. By the end, they were pacing. “…And now I don’t know what the hell to do,” Milan admitted. “I mean, who even does that?”

Ocho was quiet for a beat too long, but he eventually broke his silence. “…Well.”

Milan stopped pacing. “What?”

Ocho glanced away toward the city lights with deliberate casualness. “I mean… Perseid does look at her kinda funny.”

Milan went still. “What?”

“Oh, c’mon.” Ocho waved a hand lazily. “You seriously never noticed?”

“Noticed what?”

“The whole sad, little yearning thing.” Ocho snorted. “It’s honestly embarrassing.”

Milan stared at him in disbelief. “No.”

“Oh my Gods, you really didn’t.” Ocho laughed softly beneath his breath now. “Milan, he practically hovers every time she walks into a room.”

“That’s because she’s sick.”

“Mhm.”

“And because he’s paranoid.”

“Mmhm.”

“And because—”

“Milan.” Ocho tilted his head. “I’m not saying they’d try anything.”

A pause.

Then, with a drawl at the start, Ocho followed his words up with. “But I am saying Perseid’s the kind of person who’d convince himself he’s helping while emotionally crawling halfway into somebody else’s relationship.” The sentence hit exactly where Ocho intended it to. Milan’s stomach twisted violently, and suddenly every interaction replayed differently, from Perseid staying awake for Vesper, to memorizing her routines, to touching her hands, and noticing symptoms before Milan did.

Milan felt cold all at once. “You think he wants her to cheat on me?” they asked quietly.

Ocho blinked innocently. “I didn’t say that.”

“…Right.” Milan clenched her fists. Now she definitely needed to do something about this.

…

The next night, the penthouse smelled warmly of roasted beef, black pepper, and potatoes. Milan had spent almost an hour cooking despite pretending otherwise, swatting Ocho away from the kitchen repeatedly. At the same time, Ocho draped himself over the counters, calling the dish ‘Vesper’s puppy chow’ with enough amusement to earn a wooden spoon thrown vaguely in his direction.

“She likes it,” Milan defended automatically.

“I never said she didn’t,” Ocho grinned. “Just sounds like something you’d feed a trembling little rescue dog.”

Perseid should have left then.

Instead, he remained near the kitchen doorway with a cigarette burning untouched between his fingers while his eyes drifted repeatedly toward the office down the hall, where pale monitor light spilled beneath the half-open door.

Vesper emerged eventually, slowly, that was what unsettled him first. As though her body now required active instruction for every movement. She wore another work blouse despite it being nearly midnight, sleeves hanging loose enough around her wrists that Perseid’s chest tightened unpleasantly at the sight. Even more so when they saw the bruises and bites around her neck, peeking from her collar. That being said, they looked away immediately upon noticing.

Milan brightened immediately. “There you are!” Their voice softened instinctively around her lately. “C’mon, darling, I made your favorite.”

Vesper paused beside the table for half a second too long before sitting.

“I appreciate the effort,” she replied quietly; it was becoming an automatic response. Vesper stared down at the bowl before her with visible concentration, as though the act of eating itself now required mental preparation. Ocho talked enough for everyone, filling the silence with idle nonsense while Milan nudged the spoon closer toward Vesper’s hand.

“Just a little,” Milan coaxed gently.

Vesper obeyed. In three bites. Small ones. Mechanically chewed while her eyes remained distant and unfocused, fingers twitching occasionally against her slacks beneath the table. Perseid watched her throat work each time she swallowed, watching the effort in it. Then she stopped. The spoon settling against porcelain.

Milan stared at the nearly untouched dish. “Vesper.”

“I’m still working,” Vesper murmured, ready to leave the table. “I apologize. My concentration is somewhat compromised tonight.”

“You’ve barely eaten.”

“I understand that.”

“Then eat.” The sudden shift in Milan’s voice startled even themselves. Vesper visibly stiffened.

Perseid immediately straightened from the archway.

Ocho’s ears twitched upwards slightly with interest.

“I said I understand,” Vesper repeated, softer now, eyes fixed downwards.

Something in Milan cracked then. Because, suddenly, all they could see was every untouched plate. Every lie about eating earlier, to every night spent curled around a body growing lighter and colder in their arms, and every half-finished meal scraped quietly into the trash after midnight.

“You’re killing yourself, Ves. You’re killing the only piece of you that I can touch! What is wrong with you?!”

Vesper was stunned. She raised a trembling hand to respond, breath shuddering as she spoke. “…Please, I see no difference in our practices. Milan, you still smoke. At least I have my reasons.”

Milan immediately stood, shoving their chair back hard enough for it to scrape violently across the floorboards. “Fine. Fine, forget it.”

“Milan—”

“No, seriously, forget it.” They laughed once, brittle. “Apparently, my cooking’s miserable anyway.”

“That’s not what she said,” Ocho pointed out lazily.

Milan immediately recoiled. “I know that.”

“Then why say it?”

“Because clearly nobody wants it!”

Silence struck the room. Vesper’s shoulders curled inwards instinctively.

Perseid interjected from the kitchen doorway. “Do not do that.”

Milan whipped around. “Excuse me?”

“She is trying.”

“Seriously? Trying to what, starve herself? Because that’s clearly what it’s turning out to look like.” Milan sighed taking the bowl from the table as they miserably dug into it with a spoon. “Fuck, this shit’s miserable.”

“… I thought you took pride in what you do?” Perseid raised a brow, standing from the archway of the kitchen.

Milan grumbled, standing in front of Perseid now. “I do.”

“So you are just mad at Vesper then?”

“No—I.. I’m just tired, Perse. Now move.”

Meanwhile, unnoticed entirely, Vesper’s vision had begun swimming. The voices blurred strangely at the edges. Sound stretched too far apart. Her hands no longer felt attached correctly to her body, and something warm and nauseating rolled beneath her ribs while the overhead light burned painfully white against her eyes. Masking cognitive decline under severe exhaustion became increasingly difficult after prolonged nutritional restriction. A useless fact. Another one.

The room tilted slightly.

Something warm touched her wrist.

Ocho’s thumb.

“Hey,” he said softly. “Stay with me for a sec.” The phrasing irritated her faintly. She was not going anywhere.

“You look awful.” Ocho grinned, tail flicking lazily as he stroked the narrow part of her wrist.

She tried responding, but the sentence caught somewhere behind the fog gathering thickly inside her head. Ocho glanced toward the kitchen once before crouching beside Vesper’s chair. “Shh,” he murmured lightly. “Don’t think about them right now.” His hands settled carefully against her arms. Warm, steady, too easy to lean into.

“I can walk,” Vesper whispered automatically.

“Mhm,” Ocho hummed. “Sure, you can.”

And before she fully realized what was happening, he had already pulled her upright against his chest with one hand. The sudden movement made black spots burst violently across her vision.

“Ocho—”

“You’re fine.” He purred, petting her with a free hand. “C’mon. Bedtime.”

Vesper should have protested harder. Instead, exhaustion swallowed the thought whole before it fully formed. By the time Ocho carried her down the hallway, Milan and Perseid were still stuck in a tense impasse.

Then, Milan looked toward the dining table. Empty chair. Their stomach dropped instantly. “…Where’s Vesper?”

Perseid’s head turned too.

At that exact moment, Ocho came back out of the bedroom like nothing particularly important had changed, shutting the door behind him with a careful, almost domestic gentleness that did not match the tense air still bleeding out of the kitchen. Milan saw him first; their brain lagged for half a second, refusing the implication. Milan went white.

“What did you do?”

Ocho blinked. “Gods, calm down—”

“Where is she?!”

Ocho blinked. “In bed.”

A pause. Milan didn’t move.

Perseid had already stopped speaking entirely.

“In—” Milan’s voice cracked. “In bed?”

Ocho tilted his head slightly, as if the question was confusing. “Yeah? She was fading out at the table. I brought her to lie down.”

That sentence landed wrong in every possible way, and Milan’s face changed instantly. It wasn’t just anger—something more fractured—something that had been slowly cracking all night, finally giving way all at once.

“You—” Milan stepped forward. “You just took her?”

Ocho’s ears flattened slightly. “Oh, don’t start acting crazy, too.”

“She could barely stand,” Perseid snapped.

“Exactly why I carried her.”

“You touched her without asking!”

“She couldn’t even walk straight,” Ocho replied, with an annoying lilt. “What did you want me to do, ask permission once she fell over?”

“That’s not the point!” Milan’s voice rose, sharp enough to sting the air. “You don’t just take her into my room like she’s—like she’s—”

“Like she’s what?” Ocho cut in lightly.

Perseid moved then, finally, voice low. “You did not need to carry her alone.”

Ocho glanced at him. “She didn’t exactly object.”

“That does not make it okay,” Perseid interjected.

Milan turned on Perseid immediately, and something in Milan finally broke open properly.

“Oh, now you talk?” Milan’s laugh was thin and panicked. “After everything? After you’ve been watching her like—like some kind of…” They stopped. Their breath hitched.

Because the thought completed itself before they could stop it.

Everyone is watching her.

The kitchen. Perseid. Ocho. Even Milan, if they were being honest. All of them orbiting her constantly, noticing every change, every refusal, every fraction of decline, and suddenly, Milan couldn’t separate care from possession anymore.

“I’m her partner!” Milan shouted, but it sounded less like a statement and more like something they were desperately trying to hold onto with shaking hands. “I’m supposed to—I’m supposed to know what’s happening with her.”

Perseid’s expression tightened. “That is not what this is about.”

“Yes, it is!” Milan snapped, voice breaking now. “You don’t get to act like you’re the only one worried. You don’t get to stand there like you’re the only one who cares when you’ve been—been hovering over her—”

“I was trying to keep track of her condition,” Perseid retorted, accent thick from distress.

“By sneaking into the office while she worked?”

“I was making sure she did not—”

“Didn’t what?” Milan stepped closer, shaking now. “Didn’t disappear?”

The words hit too close.

Silence.

Ocho exhaled slowly through his nose like he was watching something mildly interesting unfold. Then, casually, almost absentmindedly, “You two are gonna wake her up.”

That did it. Milan flinched hard, then spun toward the bedroom door.

Ocho shifted slightly in front of him, and for the first time all night, Milan’s composure was fully shattered.

“Move,” they said, voice thin and shaking.

Ocho didn’t.

Milan’s eyes went wide. “MOVE!”

From behind them, Perseid stepped forward too, tension snapping tight again—but not at Ocho this time, instead, at the situation, specifically at the realization forming slowly in all three of them at once, that none of them had actually seen her walk into that room. Only Ocho had. Ocho was still smiling faintly, like he knew something they didn’t.

Milan shoved past him. The bedroom door slammed open, and all sound dropped out of the penthouse. Vesper lay curled on the bed exactly as Ocho had left her—still in work clothes, one glove half off, hair messier than usual, face turned slightly toward the pillow—as if she had simply taken a break from work to nap.

Milan froze in the doorway.

All the anger drained out of them at once, leaving something hollow and frightened in its place.

“…Vesper?”

dessert.

and i’ve saved a serving of the best for last, for you.

A day had passed since the argument, and Milan had almost threatened to kick the two out of the penthouse, but she couldn’t bear doing so. In the end, Perseid and Ocho managed to spend another night despite everything. Everyone moved around one another like bruises being avoided. Ocho, strangely enough, adapted fastest. He kept his distance from Milan with theatrical obedience, lounging around the living room with exaggerated innocence while Perseid withdrew almost entirely into silence. Vesper noticed all of it through a haze of exhaustion thick enough to dull most emotional responses before they fully formed. That worried her; she knew she should’ve cared more, but emotional blunting during prolonged malnutrition often impaired affective responsiveness before cognitive concern developed.

Another fact.

Another excuse.

That night, Vesper fell asleep before fully meaning to. Still dressed. Still vaguely aware of Milan beside her in bed later on, fingers carding distractedly through her hair with unusual gentleness. She wanted to respond appropriately somehow. Reassure them. Apologize again. Instead, she drifted in and out of shallow unconsciousness with thoughts too slow to assemble properly. At some point during the night, Milan fell asleep too.

But Perseid did not.

…

Early morning light bled weakly through the curtains in dull blue-gray strips. The city outside had not fully woken yet. Neither had the penthouse. Milan surfaced from sleep slowly, disoriented by the unfamiliar heaviness pressing behind their eyes. They reached instinctively toward Vesper first. Still there, still breathing, yet too lightly. Milan frowned faintly. Her body felt cold even through the blankets. Beside them, Vesper remained deeply asleep—or something close enough to it. Her breathing was shallow. One gloved hand curled weakly near her chest while the other had slipped halfway off the mattress sometime during the night. Milan sat up carefully, noticing movement near the bedroom doorway.

It was Perseid. Now standing perfectly still.

The sight startled Milan hard enough that their pulse jumped. For one strange second, neither spoke. Perseid looked awful. Exhausted in a way that hollowed people out from the inside. His eyes were bloodshot, his dark hair disheveled from repeatedly dragging nervous hands through it. He stood near the cracked doorway with the rigid stillness of somebody who had not relaxed once all night, and he was watching Vesper, it wasn’t lustfully, nor possessively, but worse. Fearfully. Milan’s stomach dropped, because suddenly—horribly—they understood. This was not new behavior. Perseid had done this before. Probably many times. Watching doors. Listening for movement. Checking for breathing. Monitoring. Terror had made him compulsive.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

Perseid was slightly startled, as though only now realizing Milan was awake.

“She almost fainted yesterday,” he answered immediately. A justification.

Milan stared at him. “You’ve been doing this for a while, haven’t you?”

Silence.

That was answer enough. The realization made something cold spread through Milan’s chest. Horror. Because Perseid genuinely believed this was necessary. “You stand outside our bedroom at night?” Milan whispered, still in disbelief.

Perseid’s jaw tightened immediately. “I was not watching her sleep.”

“You are literally doing that right now.”

“I was checking whether she got up.”

“Why would she—”

“Because she nearly collapsed yesterday.” His voice sharpened suddenly. Too fast. Too defensive.

Milan climbed out of bed now, careful not to wake Vesper, as anger rapidly replaced that disbelief.

“She told me you’ve been following her around.”

“I was making sure she was eating.”

“You listen outside doors.”

“She locks herself in rooms for six hours.”

“You monitor her injuries!”

“She was bleeding through her gloves.”

Each answer came instantly. Clinical. Precise. Exact. Frighteningly rational. And that somehow made this worse.

Milan lowered their voice. “She is not your patient.”

“She is barely functioning,” Perseid hissed quietly. “Somebody has to pay attention.”

“That somebody is me.”

“You didn’t notice until she told you.” The sentence landed like a slap.

Milan’s face hardened instantly. “You don’t get to say that.”

“But it is true.”

“No, what’s true is that you’ve crossed every boundary imaginable because you’ve decided your fear matters more than her privacy!”

Perseid’s composure finally cracked. “You think I enjoy this?” he snapped suddenly, voice rough and low enough not to wake Vesper. “You think I want to stand outside the doors counting whether she coughs? She nearly passes out every time she stands too fast now. She cannot hold utensils properly anymore. She sleeps in work clothes because she is too exhausted to change. Yesterday, she forgot what she was saying halfway through a sentence and pretended she did not.”

Milan went still.

Perseid stepped forward now, years of restrained panic finally splitting open beneath his ribs. “She is disappearing right in front of us.” The rawness in his voice stunned the room into silence. Perseid dragged a hand violently through his hair, pacing once before stopping himself. “I know what this looks like,” he continued hoarsely. “I know it is invasive. I know she hates being watched—but every time I stop paying attention, she looks worse the next day.”

His breathing had become uneven now, too. “She is cold all the time. She shakes after showers. She hides food in napkins.” Perseid swallowed hard. “Do you understand how bad it is to watch somebody actively ruin themselves while they sorry—apologize to you for … for inconveniencing you with it?”

Milan’s anger faltered. Only briefly. Because when they looked back toward the bed, toward Vesper lying there barely conscious with exhaustion, another horrible realization surfaced underneath all the others. Perseid was right.

And yet. “She still belongs to herself,” Milan said quietly.

Perseid rolled his eyes.

“You don’t get to surveil somebody into surviving,” Milan continued, voice trembling now. “You don’t get to treat her like she’s already dying.”

“I’m trying to prevent that.”

“Are you really?” Milan snapped. “Because you hover around her constantly, you undermine everything I say, and now suddenly you’re obsessed with whether she sleeps? What, you thought if she got weak enough she’d come crying to you instead?”

“That is not—”

“You don’t touch her when she’s vulnerable just because you’re miserable!”

…

Vesper woke up to voices. An argument that arrived in fragments through the dense fog of sleep deprivation and exhaustion, words slipping unevenly beneath the surface of her consciousness like distant waves crashing against a dam.

“…not healthy—”
“…you think I don’t know that?”
“…watching her—”

Her name surfaced somewhere inside the blur, then again. Vesper forced her eyes open slowly. The room swam immediately. Morning light burned pale against her vision, weak and gray through the curtains, but even that felt too bright against the pressure behind her eyes. Her body felt horribly heavy, every limb weighed down by exhaustion so complete it bordered on paralysis. For several long seconds, she simply listened.

Milan sounded upset. Perseid sounded terrified. The argument began to make clear of itself slightly as her hearing caught up.

“…she’s scared of you now—”
“I was trying to keep her alive.”

The sentence struck something deep and unpleasant in Vesper’s chest. This had gone far enough; this was precisely what she had wanted to avoid. Emotional burden transference often occurred in households containing chronically ill individuals. She had become disruptive, distracting, and destabilizing; she became a problem. And problems required resolution.

Vesper pushed herself upright immediately. A mistake. The room lurched violently sideways. Her pulse stumbled hard beneath her ribs as black spots instantly crowded her vision. She inhaled sharply through clenched teeth, gripping the mattress while nausea rolled through her stomach in slow, sickening waves.

She just needed a moment.

The argument beyond the doorway continued.

“…I told you she still belongs to herself!” That was Milan.

Then Perseid. “What happens when her body stops working entirely?”

Vesper swallowed hard. No, she needed to stop this now. She forced herself to stand. The second both feet hit the floor, her body revolted. Blood drained downwards too quickly. Her hearing dulled instantly beneath a thick rushing static. The bedroom tilted at impossible angles while pain sparked, stinging behind her eyes. Still, Vesper moved.

One step.

Then another.

Her hand dragged weakly along the wall for support as she approached the doorway. The apartment beyond appeared smeared and distant, figures indistinct through the swimming darkness invading the edges of her vision.

Milan noticed her first. “…Vesper?”

Both people turned immediately.

The sudden attention hit her like another physical blow. Too much. Too many eyes. Vesper opened her mouth anyway.

“I apologize,” she said automatically. Her own voice sounded strange and far away.

Milan’s expression changed instantly. “Wait—hey, don’t—”

“I did not intend…” Vesper tried again, breathing unevenly now. “To create interpersonal—” The sentence dissolved halfway through.

Because the floor vanished. Her knees simply stopped functioning correctly. Vesper felt herself sway violently sideways as her vision blackened completely. There was a brief, detached moment of confusion. Then movement. Fast. Perseid reached her before he could even fully process doing so. One second, he stood across the room. The next, his arms caught her hard against his chest as her body collapsed outright, fingers instinctively gripping beneath her shoulders to keep her head from striking the floor.

“Vésper!” Their voice cracked. They weren’t composed anymore. Fear punched clean through it.

Vesper barely registered the impact of being caught. Consciousness flickered unevenly at the edges now, thoughts breaking apart too quickly to maintain.

Humiliating.

Her body had failed publicly.

Again.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered weakly against instinct before she could stop herself.

Perseid’s grip tightened involuntarily. “Stop that.” The words came out harsher than intended. Desperate enough that even Milan froze. Vesper tried to orient herself, but Perseid’s heartbeat beneath her cheek was too loud, too fast, his breathing uneven against her hair while one of his hands shook visibly where it braced against her back. Milan moved immediately.

“Oh my Gods—okay, okay—lay her down, lay her down!”

“I got her.”

Perseid already sounded frighteningly focused again now, panic compressing itself into cold functionality. He lowered Vesper carefully against the couch instead of the floor, supporting her neck automatically while Milan rushed for water with trembling hands. Vesper hated all of this instantly.

The attention.
The panic.
The disruption.
She was becoming inefficient.

She hated that word.

Her limbs felt numb and distant while shame settled hot and suffocating beneath her ribs. Syncope associated with malnutrition often indicates worsening cardiovascular instability. Another fact. Another horrible, horribly useless fact. Above her, Milan looked close to tears. Vesper watched Perseid through blurred vision as he crouched beside the couch, one hand still hovering near her shoulder like he could not quite convince himself to let go yet. And for the first time since this entire ordeal began, Vesper realized something deeply unsettling; Perseid had been preparing himself for the possibility of her dying.

cuts singe fresh as i feel my skin and throat dry,

at the time i never felt a thing, even upon hearing your cry.

but now i feel a twist as firm as hands upon my neck,

a punishing feeling that makes me wish i were but a speck.

i know its name very well.

it’s shame, of the revealing kind,

like my ribs, and my spine.

vesper ♧

with tears in my eyes, darling i beg of you.

help yourself to a portion of me,

drink me up, take everything you need.

let me be here for you like a true lover.

for what else can i do for you like no other?

— milan ♧

like the fox trapped in snare,

i see you helpless.

i worry whether i should dare to bless,

you, with freedom. for i am only a hare.

and your doting doe never leaves your side.

they caress every part of you, from your tail to your spine.

jealousy and pity, a poison i find.

like smoke from cigarettes,

my lungs, my heart, they entwine.

♧ perseid —

a clean plate.

and i’ve realized the faults in both our maws.

The walls were a dreary gray—with paint peeling in flakes—and the small window barely let in any light with all the buildings surrounding the hospital; the lightbulb didn’t help much either. The room was near silent, save for the beeping of the hospital monitor. Vesper lay in bed, purely unconscious, as Perseid, Milan, and Ocho sat by her side on the allotted bench. Perseid couldn’t help but continue to monitor her vital signs, staring blankly at the way the IV dripped slowly, and the rhythmic monitor itself. He couldn’t at all look at Vesper, not when she was in her pallid, gaunt state. His gaze lacked any sort of light; Perseid, in its most honest form, felt hollow.

Milan dabbed at their teary eyes with the sleeve of Vesper’s coat. They felt like a failure; they couldn’t at all believe themselves, nor the scene before them. It was gutwrenching to see Vesper like this, with thin tubes connected to her intravenously.

Ocho, on the other hand, leaned closer to Vesper, smoothing a hand over her blanket as she remained unconscious. He hummed idly, as if he wasn’t disconcerted in the slightest. Milan and Perseid both shot him a glare the first few times he did so, but it had gotten to the point that they couldn’t care less, so as long as Vesper was still breathing, which she was. Vesper would be okay. Ocho knew more than that, but it didn’t help that she looked like she was on death’s door. Being pale and so thin that she could shatter.

The room continued to stay silent for the next several minutes, marked only by Milan’s sniffling and the monotonous beeps of the monitors attached to Vesper. It was only when Vesper began to stir from her unconscious spell that the three zeroed in on every near imperceptible movement of hers. Milan hesitated to break the silence, wiping at their eyes, when suddenly Vesper parted her dry lips to speak; her voice was barely above a whisper.

…

“…Am I missing work?”

Silence.

Perseid’s expression crumpled first. Not visibly. Barely at all, really. Just the slightest tightening around his eyes before he looked away, jaw tensing. Milan let out something between a laugh and a broken sob, immediately covering their mouth with Vesper’s coat afterwards as fresh tears welled in their eyes. On the other hand, Ocho smiled, eyes narrowing into crescent slits as he grinned.

“Good morning, Ves,” Ocho said softly, as though greeting her after a nap rather than unconsciousness. “Welcome back.”

Vesper’s eyelids fluttered weakly. Her vision still looked unfocused, amber irises struggling to settle properly on any single object. She swallowed dryly with visible difficulty before trying to shift upright. The monitor immediately began protesting faster. Perseid stood so abruptly that the legs of the bench screeched against the hospital floor.

“Do not,” he snapped.

Vesper froze. The sudden harshness in his voice seemed to disorient her more than frighten her. She blinked slowly towards him, exhaustion dragging at every inch of her face. Even awake, she looked disturbingly fragile beneath the hospital sheets. Her cheekbones were too prominent beneath pale skin, and dark circles bruised heavily under her eyes. Without the structure of her usual clothing and posture, she looked uncharacteristically small.

Perseid hated it. He hated how long he’d noticed. From the skipped meals, her untouched tea, to the way her sleeves had begun hanging looser and looser around her wrists week after week, while everyone kept pretending functionality meant health. Himself included.

Vesper’s lips parted again. “What time is it?”

“Three in the morning,” Milan answered quietly, still sniffling.

Vesper’s features shifted into something of confusion. “… Tomorrow morning?” Her hearing had dulled at the moment.

“Non,” Perseid interrupted flatly. “Three in the fucking morning.”

Ocho snorted softly, resulting in him receiving an elbow to the side of his head from Perseid.

Vesper stared at the ceiling for several long seconds as though processing that information required significant effort. “… I see.” Her voice had gone hoarse.

Milan immediately reached for the cup of water near the bedside table, fumbling slightly before helping tilt the straw towards her carefully. Vesper hesitated only briefly before taking a sip. Even that tiny movement looked exhausting. The sight nearly made Milan cry again.

Gods. Her hands looked skeletal. How had they let this happen?

Milan replayed every stupid little moment they’d rush aside over the past month: Vesper claiming she had already eaten, Vesper drinking coffee or tea instead of meals, and Vesper insisting she simply felt tired from work. All the while, Milan had been too distracted by their own spiralling emotions and endless penthouse drama to realize she was actively deteriorating in front of them. Or maybe they had realized, long before it got to the point it had gone to, and maybe they just didn’t have the guts to confront it. The guilt sat nauseatingly heavy in their chest like lead.

Meanwhile, Ocho remained beside the bed, chin resting against one hand as he studied Vesper openly. Unlike the others, his expression remained unreadably calm. “Y’know,” he murmured lightly, “you scared them pretty bad.”

Vesper’s eyes shifted towards him slowly. “… My apologies.” The answer came automatically, reflexively so.

That hurt Perseid more than if she had started crying. “You do not apologize for that,” he said suddenly, exhaustion roughening his voice. “Merde, Vesper.”

She looked at him properly then, and Perseid immediately wished she hadn’t. There was something awful about seeing Vesper confused, not emotionally detached like her usual self, nor restrained at times when her patience neared its end. Just genuinely confused, like she couldn’t understand why everyone looked so horrified. “I did not intend to create inconvenience,” she whispered. “I must apologize.”

Milan made another wounded noise into her sleeve. Perseid laughed once under his breath, humorlessly so as he sat back down. “Inconvenience,” he repeated quietly. Ocho’s tail flicked laziily behind him. “She thinks this is about inconvenience,” Ocho hummed, making a plain observation.

Vesper’s brows furrowed faintly. The monitor continued its steady rhythmic beeping in the silence that followed. Perseid, on the other hand, finally forced himself to look at Vesper, directly and fully, for the first time since arriving. She looked terrible. Hollowed out. Like someone had carefully scooped pieces out of her over time until only the structure of herself remained. Perseid had seen malnourishment before. Seen soldiers running on fumes, stimulants, and sheer desperation, but seeing it happen to Vesper specifically filled him with a kind of rage he didn’t know where to place. Mostly because part of it was directed to himself.

“You fainted,” Perseid finally spoke up. “Milan and I … we were arguing.”

Vesper blinked once. She didn’t at all recall it anymore.

Milan nodded. “You could’ve split your head open—but, um, Perseid caught you.”

Another blink.

“They said that your blood pressure was low enough that you could have died if…” Perseid trailed off, carding a hand through their hair.

Vesper finally seemed to get it. Only slightly. Her gaze drifted downward, towards the IV in her arm. Perseid watched the exact moment that realization began connecting itself behind her exhausted eyes: the hospital room, the fluids, the aching weakness in every limb, the frailness she now had.

“… I see,” she repeated, under her breath.

Ocho leaned closer against the mattress edge. “You haven’t been eating properly,” he added conversationally. Vesper immediately looked away from all three of them, which was enough of an answer.

The room fell silent again. Outside the window, distant ambulance sirens bled faintly into the early morning. Somewhere down the hall, nurses and their laughter filled their shifts. Life continued normally around this awful little room. Milan suddenly stood up and turned away, dropping Vesper’s coat onto the bench as they pressed both hands hard against their face.

“I can’t do this,” he whispered shakily.

Vesper looked alarmed immediately at the change in tone. “Milan—”

“No,” Milan interrupted, voice cracking. “No, don’t—you don’t get to sound worried about me right now, Vesper, are you serious?” The words escaped harsher than intended. Vesper recoiled slightly, and Milan instantly regretted it. “Oh, Gods,” he breathed, wiping at his eyes aggressively. “Sorry. Sorry, I just—Christ.”

Perseid leaned back heavily into the bench, suddenly exhausted beyond description. Nobody spoke for a while after that, but eventually, though quietly, Vesper broke the silence.

“I did not realize it had become severe.”

Perseid closed his eyes. Of course, she hadn’t. Because Vesper approached her own suffering the same way she approached everything else: as something to manage privately until functionality failed entirely, and by then, it was almost always catastrophic.