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doledition · 9 days ago

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The Dancing Dolls

(A/N: This is a fic I wrote for @unmerrymagdalene as a part of the DOLGL winter server event! it features her pc, Lene, and @dolxiba pc Yara. CW for dissociation, references to rape, and religious trauma.)

𓇢𓆸𓇢𓆸𓇢𓆸

Lene sat in the orphanage hallway and tried not to stare at the tree.

Each year, Bailey bought a Christmas tree. It was never a grand, beautiful tree, like the ones Lene dimly remembered from the States. The trees Bailey bought were cheap, scraggly, weak at the bottom and thin at the top. The tips were haphazard and lopsided and had a strange, artificial smell that hurt Lene’s nose over the years, so much that she learned to breathe in through her mouth in the orphanage hallway.

Bailey was a cheapskate. She bought everything cheap, whether it ranged from cooking supplies to wall furnishings. The ovens in the kitchen Bailey had gotten were used, and they shook when left on for more than an hour. The pots and pans, when Lene first found them, were covered in rust, the black coating flaking off to reveal coppery brown and tarnished silver. The bathtub in the teens ward hadn’t been replaced in years- probably not for decades- and each time Lene climbed in she had to turn her eyes up, away from the verdigris green that stained the area around the drain.

It only made sense that Bailey would get the cheapest tree she could find. Lene had seen trees like those in the Shopping Centre, huddled together in the furniture section underneath the fluorescent lights, barely high enough to graze the ceiling. Dust settled on the leaves, and were only brushed off once they’d been bought. She guessed they may have been synthetic, judging from how she rarely ever saw the trees get watered, and the smell.

The smell was awful, plastic; it wormed it’s way behind Lene’s skull and made her body all hot and tingly, and she’d absent mindedly squeeze her thighs together before she heard a voice, a woman’s voice, and she sounded angry, and she said Magdalene you’re a sinner, a filthy sinner, the devil has taken ahold of you Magdalene, you filthy whore-

Lene never liked the Christmas trees Bailey picked out. Lene didn’t like how the orphanage turned red and green during Christmas, the drab walls slapped over with fake plastic garlands and the cracks spoofed up, the carpets dusted and drapes replaced. It felt fake, a forced merriment that only went skin deep most days. She’d watch orphans scramble to hang up streamers, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and then Bailey would kick down their doors the next day, drag them off and sell them to the highest bidder.

It was all fake, cloying, suffocating. Dust collected on the windowsills only to be brushed away; Lene sat in the snow covered garden and stared at the Cyclamen struggling to bloom underneath pounds of snow, petals bent down to the ground in a hunchback, and let the cold caress her skin.

𓇢𓆸𓇢𓆸𓇢𓆸

Lene stood in the kitchen and let the water flow down her fingers. This week was kitchen duty, and Lene had been relegated to the sordid task of washing the cast off pots and pans as the other girls-four in total, excluding her- worked themselves into a frenzy around her, chopping and peeling and cooking.

Lene didn’t know any of the girls. They were older than her, taller, with skinny frames and dyed hair and tough faces. The orphanage was huge-by virtue of it being the only in town- and all encompassing.

Lene, when she was young and new, had wandered through its halls, letting her feet take her further and further down its drab brown belly until she’d reached an older wing, closed off and dusty. She hadn’t even noticed she was walking away from the youth ward until she felt a sharpness on her shoulder, a heavy clamp, and the cold eyes of Bailey searing into her skull as she was dragged back to a room with walls that seemed to stretch high into the sky.

Sometimes, it felt like Lene’s body was on autopilot, a car driving down tarmac roads as people passed by her. She wondered what it felt like to see her legs walk and to feel them move, her muscles aching and blood pumping and flesh jiggling, and have the air leave her lungs as a force, not a whisper. She wondered what it felt like to look about the town, at the people brushing past her, and to walk without fear of feeling flesh upon her flesh, roving hands grabbing at her, pulling her, to feel like there was something sticky and wet descending upon her chest and slowly engulfing her body.

She wondered what it felt like, to watch the sun rise knee deep in her garden and be a witness, not just an observer.

A cough. Baking dish, dropped into the sink, and the suds splashed angrily towards Lene’s face. She blinked and swiped a pruning hand over her cheek, where a drop of sink bile had landed. Behind her, she heard a girl-presumably, the one who had dropped the baking dish there in the first place- groan in annoyance. Lene didn’t dare look back. It served no purpose; she knew what would be on that stranger's face.

A moment of silence passed between the two. The shadowed girl stood, facing the sun, and Lene ducked further into her alcove. Her scrubbing intensified. Another moment, and the chopping grew in its cacophony. Lene scrubbed. The clock on the wall ticked 1pm. In the cold air turned humid and steamy from the boiling pots, Lene floated, and danced with the soapy subs in the basin.

A face appeared in her line of vision. The girl, the same girl, glaring at her, annoyance in her eyes as she squared Lene up. Her hair was green, Lene could see from her vantage point. Puke green, the green of radioactive cancers and nuclear waste. Fox ears sprouted from the top of her head, titled to the side in annoyance, the same sickening green as her hair.

‘Not gonna say anything?’ The girl asked. The question was not one of sheer curiosity, Lene knew that. Nothing in the girl's eyes or her voice indicated any sincere yearning for an answer, any interest in Lene’s interiority, or her mind and its chasms. Her lips were pulled into a sneer, thin and red, canines bared. The teeth itself were jagged, yellow, chipped and rough.

Lene’s own teeth were white, pearlesque, straight from regular dentist visits and the remnants of braces. They held no memories of dirt lying smeared into their crevices for days on end, nor of cavities spreading across the thin bone and spreading its rot through the enamel.

The other girl had hatred in her gaze. Not just hatred, no: something deeper and more instinctual, predator recognizing prey. Lene swallowed spit, her mouth dry. Prey, the wind whispered as she floated above, far far above. The girl could smell her strangeness, her alieness. She knew-they all knew, in fact-Lene did not belong. The American, lost. Lene who floated above this all, gone.

They all knew she was easy pickings.

A hand snaked towards her. Landed on her shoulder. Lene felt slime, heavy slime, encasing her body in warm, wet goo. The girl towered above her, most of the orphans did, and her hands were cold. So, so cold.

‘Fucking freak. Think you’re so much better than all of us, huh, sooooo much better. Is that why you don’t talk to no one-no one except the fucking nun. Suck up. You're such a little fucking suck up.’ The girl’s words held the traces of long kept up rage in her voice. Lene’s face tensed up, almost unconsciously, as the girl balled up her other fist, the left one. Her right clenched Lene’s sweater and began hauling her body, the heavy, corporeal thing, up and up and up. The body closed its legs and shut her eyes, and Lene floated above, staring.

𓇢𓆸𓇢𓆸𓇢𓆸

Lene chewed the popcorn slowly, teeth methodically pulling apart each of the small kernels. Her hands were salty, and small bits of popcorn clung to her fingers like homemade rings. TThe basket of popcorn lay solidly between Yara’s thighs, and Lene tried not to stare.

It was Christmas Eve, and a strange joy had settled in the Orphanage. Tinsel scattered about the halls, thrown into the air by overzealous youth and quickly wiped away by the older orphans, for fear of Bailey seeing. Stockings lay on the doorknobs of most of the orphans-not particularly filled, but not empty either- and the presents had been placed into three neat piles to wait until Christmas day. Joy tinged the usually oppressive air of the orphanage, and outside the small room the two sat in, Lene could hear a few makeshift Christmas carolers. It was nice. Not amazing-Lene could still feel hellfire on her skin, and the image of Christ on the cross, looking down at her with disgust-but…it was nice.

What made it even nicer, though, was that Yara was here, present and in the flesh, and she had spent a whole uninterrupted hour with Lene.

They’d been holed up in one of the rooms on the third floor for the past hour and a half. Some of the orphans, whether out of the goodness of their hearts or because they needed impromptu room sitters, had set up ‘event stations’, just for the holiday season. It worked like this: for up to two hours at a time, a group of up to four orphans-heavily vetted, to make sure they weren’t ‘unruly’-would be allowed to stay in a station, engaged in one of the various activities on offer, before being rotated out, and a new group invited in.

There were five stations, with Lene and Yara currently stationed in the ‘movie marathon’ station. Lene didn’t quite remember the other stations (they’d been something along the lines of cookie decorating and board games, the usual, trite, holiday activities) and she didn’t quite care. Yara had signed them up for this, surprisingly, bringing a notepad with her and everything. Lene wasn’t sure just how Yara had managed to get them a spot-her reputation amongst the orphans wasn’t anything positive- but she knew better than to complain.

They were watching some low budget Christmas movie, about a ballerina and her locket. It felt as though it was meant to be high art, Lene thought as she watched the cheaply animated yellow dolls flit through the sleet ridden sky, but meaning was different from was. Is or was.

The movie came off more as cotton fluff, badly animated and interposed over scenes of snow falling in real time, the yellow art seeming almost like poorly drawn over piss. Though, it was the only movie in the pile they’d been given to choose from that wasn’t some b-grade Christmas themed porno, or an iteration of ‘I moved back to my small town for Christmas to care for my ailing mom and fell in love with a widowed lumberjack, and now I need to choose between him and my fiance.’

So it could be worse.

Yara snorted and grabbed a fistful of popcorn, carrying it to her mouth. She threw it in and chewed, some of the crumbs falling from her open fists towards the old, ratty couch the two sat on, and Lene resisted the urge to wipe Yara’s face. Kernels stuck to the tiny corners of her mouth, and a loose speck clung to her neckline. Yara looked carefree, relaxed, not induced by incense or weed but from the peace of the room and Lene’s company, and Lene wanted to bathe in it.

A loud buzzing sound broke Lene out of her daze. Her head turned, to where the TV sat. It was a small square, a relic of the 80’s, found in some dingy dumpster and hauled back to the orphanage. Lene remembered when that had happened, how the older kids had lined up with makeshift tools to pry the circuits open and fix it, breathing new life. It was semi-functional as of now, but watching it for more than an hour was a gamble. And it seemed that gamble had come to fail, as the tv buzzed and static played over the movie.

Yara sighed. Lene let out a breath through her nose. She moved to grab up the remote as Yara fished out loose pieces of popcorn from in between the couch cushions to plop back into the popcorn bucket. ‘Shit’, she surmised, and Lene nodded. Shit indeed.

‘Well,’ Yara said, looking up at the clock mounted on the side wall. ‘We have thirty minutes before we have to leave…wanna just chill here?’ They’d booked the room until 9 PM, and so far it was only 8:30. Thirty minutes. Thirty whole minutes to spend with Yara, face to face, just talking, no outsiders included. Lene’s head almost snapped off with how hard she nodded.

The TV lay forgotten as Lene turned to face Yara fully. The yellow light shone down on her like a beacon, a manufactured fluorescent halo. Lene could almost see angel wings spout from her back, glowing in the cold air. A blink, and they were gone, replaced by Yara’s-for once- full, undivided attention on Lene.

A moment of silence descended upon them. Lene had never been good at speaking, preferring instead to listen and watch. Silence came all too natural to her, a comforting blanket to drape herself in and cover her ears with. Her silence was unnerving to the other orphans, she knew-she wasn’t good company, too weird, with her eyes wide and mouth empty.

She never spoke, never fought back, passive and silent and strange. The silence lay, rough and unpolished, with all of them, except for Yara. She could always stay silent with Yara, and Yara wouldn’t mind. She was silent too.

Well, not that anyone else knew that. To everyone else, Yara was a delinquent, unbothered and unfeeling, apathetic and cold and unnerving. She fought with Whitney, and then laughed with her in class, throwing pens at whatever poor student was their victim. She drank, long and heartily, before going to kiss and dance with some random, going to clubs with Foxy and her crew and laughing cruelly into the night.

She prayed for aesthetics, yet she prayed all the same, to a paragon of lies and hallucinations, before being loud and unruly, and so fundamentally not herself.

‘You ok?’ Yara’s voice broke out of the blue, and Lene glanced up. Her nose had wrinkled-subtly, imperceptible, and yet she felt it. Yara stared at her. Lene blinked and cleared her throat.

‘Uh…yeah. I’m fine.’ Lene replied, before having a small sip of her water. ‘Just….’

‘Tired?’ Yara asked. Lene nodded. She wasn’t tired at all-in fact, she felt more alive than she had in weeks as she curled next to the other girl-but what could she say? Her thoughts were wild, rancid, cruel-they deserved to stay locked inside. Yara and Lene had just rekindled their friendship after all. Lene didn’t wanna scare her away.

Yara’s face morphed into a slight grimace. ‘Yeah, I get that. Been working fucking 24/7 lately, all for the Christmas rent or whatever. And presents-everything costs so much here. This is a bum-fuck town in the middle of nowhere, but a box of chocolates cost twenty euro.’

Yara sighed, and Lene sighed with her. ‘Bullshit,’ Yara said, before swigging down the rest of her soda. Lene tipped her glass to Yara as a sort of telepathic cheer before swigging her drink down with her. Bailey always raised the rent during Christmas. No one knew why, but the going theory was that it was motivated out of some weird pent up jealousy towards the little kernels of joy the orphans would have during the season. That, or Bailey did it out of some bitter irony, a power play fueled by cruelty.

Lene had a date with Avery this Saturday. Her skin crawled thinking about it. Avery was taking her to a New Years Party, one held in a swanky lodge on the edge between the Forest and the Moor. This was the first ball Avery had taken her to in a while after that first one long, long ago, the week after they had first met. Avery said he’d prefer not to take her, she hadn’t lost enough weight yet, but she’d have to come with him, this was an important event and Lene was docile enough not to embarrass him. It would have been better if she’d stuck to the diet he’d outlined for her-Lene had- but straightening her hair would have to do.

She drifted off during those dates, thinking of sitting in her garden or watching Robin play video games, or of her head cushioned in Yara’s lap as the day sped on. When Avery touched her, snaked an arm down her shoulder to grasp her thigh, she floated in the wind, thought of Yara’s hand and tried not to gag. Avery would finish with a gasp, and an hour later Lene would be dropped off at the curb and walk back home.

Yara had continued to talk, playing with her cup of soda. It was a plastic cup, red, and Lene thought of the American movies Yara would watch with her and Robin when they were younger.

‘I had to spend like…half of my earnings from Darryl’s to get Syd’s present. It’s worth it though-she deserves nice things.’ Lene’s stomach dropped a bit, and she had to fight back the inherent revulsion that built up in her. Sydney.

Lene didn’t know why Yara loved Sydney. Sydney was pompous, haughty, a devotee to half-truths and lies. Yara spent every waking moment with Sydney, holding her hand or kissing and cuddling. Lene would walk into the library and there Yara would sit, lovingly staring at Sydney, and Lene felt her stomach give out.

Yara didn’t have good taste. It was an unfortunate fact about her-she’d fall for liars and cheats, cruel conwoman with violence in their eyes. Their tones were bright and hips swaying, and Lene would sit and watch as their words slithered into Yara’s skull and she became less and less of herself.

Their machinations started off slow-Lene remembered how, when they were young and protected, Yara would leave for lunch. To the older kids' wing, she’d say, I don’t want to sit with babies. Robin would say that this was normal, and it was nice to see Yara make more friends, and Lene would sit with the smallest kernels of hate in her heart.

Then, Yara stopped hanging out with them, playing in the garden pulling weeds or hunting down bugs near the fence. I don’t want to, she’d say, eyes flitting between Lene’s face and Faye’s, I’m not a baby anymore. I’m a big kid now, not a dork. She’d say this calmly, methodically, nestling up to Faye and looking a bit like a kicked puppy when she was shaken off. But Lene knew Faye’s tricks, the malice in her eyes whenever she looked at Lene and Robin and labelled them as other.

Oh, Lene knew.

Yara had floated off over time. The rough hands of others had roughly hewn her into all manner of odd shapes, and when Lene looked at her, sometimes she could hear her heart break faster. Sydney was the newest of these architects. She treated Yara cruelly, like shit, molded her into the image of a nun until she’d sunk into a sea of delusion. Lene wanted to reach out and tear that burning halo from around her head.

‘...What are you getting her?’ Lene asked, swallowing past her revulsion. Kept her tone short and soft and sweet. There was no way to knock any sense into Yara that Lene knew of, no one else who seemed to sense Sydney’s vileness. Everywhere Lene turned, the opinion on her was the same: she was quiet, aloof, stuck up, but sweet. Gentle. Shy. No one saw through her disguise-but Lene did.

Yara and Lene had only become friends again three months ago. It felt as though no time had passed at all, skipping back into sync with each other as easily as pieces of a puzzle fitting together. But the silence held moments of tenseness, of questions that Lene fought not to scream. She couldn’t act cruel to Sydney, no matter how much she deserved it. The best thing for Lene to do was to be there for Yara. Maybe then she’d see her foolishness.

‘It’s a secret.’ Yara held her index finger to her lips and shushed Lene, a look of faint mirth crossing her face. A moment passed, and then she uncrossed her legs. ‘It’s this scarf she’s been eyeing for a while. Found it at the shops the other day on sale. She’ll love it.’ A small, soft grin spread across Yara’s face, and Lene was caught between admiration and the need to smack it off.

‘I got something for you too.’ Yara said. Now that caught Lene’s attention. Something soft and small Lene dared not name welled up in her chest.

‘Oh….you…you didn’t have to do that Yara…I’m fine without anything…’ Lene replied, fiddling with a loose thread on her skirt. She twirled it around her fingers, stowing away the smile building on her face. Her eyes caught on Yara’s fingers. They were long, spindly, and the nails were sharp and claw-like, black as the night. There were small patches of polish chipped off and Yara’s nails showed through underneath, pale and flesh like. Lene wondered if her hands were warm.

Yara snorted above. Stretched her legs out and wiggled her toes. ‘We’re friends, aren’t we? You deserve it.’ Yara seemed to ruminate on her next words, as though they were hard to shake out. Something crossed her face once again, a faint melancholy that emerged from deep within. ‘You deserve a lot.’

Yara turned her face towards the TV. The blank static buzzed and whirred in a frenzy. Lene wondered how many more years the TV had left in it. The clock ticked slowly, minutes turning to hours. Lene felt something inside her shake.

‘What would you do if you could leave town?’ The question shot out of Lene’s mouth. Her voice had risen, she noted dimly-nothing near loud, but louder. Yara looked back at her, as if surprised. Lene was a bit surprised at herself, yet her head lifted, and she bit back whatever apology was about to run out.

‘That’s…strange to be asking.’ Yara said. Her eyes were downcast now, staring at her nails as she flexed her fingers. She seemed cool, unaffected, yet there was a slight tension that had appeared in her shoulders. Nervous jitters ran through her hands, and Lene resisted the urge to scoop them up and hold them to her heart. It would be unseemly, strange, the feeling of flesh on flesh.

‘I haven’t thought of that. Uh…I’m honestly not sure I’ll ever leave, honestly…’ Yara said. Lene felt her heart sink. Yara looked back up, and her eyes bore into Lene’s. ‘Sydney’s here. I couldn’t leave her behind.’

This did her in. How could Yara say that, doom herself, all for that nun? That woman, who'd run Yara into the ground if she could, a monster if there ever was one. She’d already left Lene behind once-and no doubt, she’d do it again.

‘You-you wouldn’t leave? For her?’ Lene sounded incredulous, eyes wide and mouth almost agape with shock. Lene moved closer-not that she had meant to, but her body moved regardless of her mind- and almost shoved her face into Yara’s. If she looked into Yara’s eyes, maybe then she could reach something deep within her and pull it out, whatever gall and camaraderie they had shared as children.

Maybe then, she could get Yara- the Yara who looked for snails with her in the orphanage gardens, the Yara who laughed with her in the sun, the real Yara-back.

Yara moved her head back. It had sunk halfway into the ratty couch, and her black hair was overtaken for a moment by olive green wool. ‘We’re promised Lene. That’s basically marriage…’ Yara continued on. Her eyes had left Lene’s face, ricocheting around the room wildly, from the drab gray wallpaper to the dim light above head, flickering with each passing minute. ‘That’s not just something you can walk away from.’

‘But..you’re not married. Not really.’ Lene powered through. She breathed in slightly through her nose and moved back to her place, like a good friend. She tried not to ball her hands into fists. Anger lay inside her, a pot left to simmer. A woman’s voice rose above-good girls aren’t angry, Magdalene. Mama knows best. Good girls don’t get mad, Magdalene.

Good girls didn’t get mad. Lene didn’t get mad.

Yara shook her head. A faint smile on her face, as though Lene was too stupid to understand her little Temple lies, to bow down and lick the Temple at its feet like a good girl. ‘It’s…kind of like a marriage of the soul? Or something-that’s how Jordan described it.’ Yara’s face had pulled into an even deeper smile, one of love and joy, of promise. She was enjoying the thought of it, of being tied to that witch forevermore, of laying down her head so the Temple could cut it off. Just another lamb to the slaughter.

Lene felt as though she was thousands of miles away.

The TV flickered back on with a resounding crack. Yara startled and swore, her hands knocking over the bowl of popcorn. Its contents emptied out onto the floor and Yara dove down to the ground, swearing all the while as she flipped the bowl back up and began cramming fistfuls of hairy, lint filled popcorn back in.

On the screen, the ballerina, clad in her favorite summer dress, twirled in a field of snow. Her face was resplendent, gorgeous, the perfect doll. The beasts and birds of the forest had joined the ensemble cast, yet they did not dance or laugh as the girl spun. Instead, their faces were downturned, dejected, cartoon mouths hanging ominously towards the ground. The ballerina stopped her twirling and collapsed onto the snow packed ground and sobbed, as her gold heart pendant lay in shards beneath her feet.

‘My feet! My great, big, clumsy feet!’ the ballerina sobbed, and the forest sobbed with her. ‘My love pendant, it is broken! Oh, how will I remember the past now-it is gone! It is gone! It is gone, and I cannot get it back!’

‘Ugh, this crap is so annoying.’ Yara muttered as she switched the TV off. Lene’s gaze was ripped from the screen as Yara went to fish the DVD out of the console player, fiddling with the pearlescent disk before fitting it back into its case. She set it back in the basket the two had picked it up from. Lene, eyes roaming, saw the popcorn basket, filled back up and set on the couch in front of her.

A knock rapped on the door. ‘Two minutes!’ came a voice. A new group. Yara rolled her arms back. Lene sat and felt herself float off into the distance. There was a stain on the grey wallpaper, she noted. Large and blue. Almost like a blemish.

‘That’s time.’ Yara muttered. She grabbed her sweater off of the couch and draped it on. It was a black hoodie, Lene noted dimly. Ratty, well-worn, and almost, Lene realized, almost the same sweater Faye used to wear.

‘...You coming?’ Lene’s body looked up. There, offering her hand, Yara. For her to hold, she realized dimly. Lene wondered what her palms felt like. Were they warm and soft like when they were kids? Or was it cold, icy, devoid of pulse and life and ripped away from the past?

The light buzzed above them.Yara looked resplendent. Even as kids, she’d looked resplendent. She’d always looked beautiful to Lene, even when the years changed her.

She hoped against hope that Yara hadn’t changed too much.

Lene sheathed her palm inside Yara’s, and tried to ignore the beating of her heart as the other girl hoisted her up. It was 9pm, and Christmas lay ahead. Yara began talking about something. Lene didn’t know what. All she knew was that, at this moment at least, it was 9pm, it was almost Christmas, and for now, her oldest and truest friend held her hand, and she hoped that meant something.

𓇢𓆸𓇢𓆸𓇢𓆸

Fin

#dol #degrees of lewdity #fanfiction #pc #pcverse #dolgl #server event #winter sever event #sydney #avery #lene the faithless #yara the hypocrite #yaralene #pc x pc #writing #dol fanfiction #degrees of lewdity pc

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thecensusbureau · 1 month ago

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"-I can't let you have these things because they're not safe for you to handle without someone watching over you. You'll be safe here, just call me or Papa if you don't feel like it, okay?"

Cucurucho then kisses Asha's forehead, standing up from where they were kneeling to be within her height range. They ruffle her hair with a parting pat as they move towards the door leading to the office shortcuts.

"I won't be long, okay? Just a short moment to talk to Dad, and I'm coming back home after."

They wait for their daughter to pipe out an "okay," with a nod before stepping onto a warp plate into their office. Cucurucho sighs. It's been a good while since they were even here. A month or two, they guess judging by the light dust that has settled over their monitors and desk. At least their workers keep their plants alive.

After adjusting their casual and appropiate enough clothing in the full-body mirror and getting rather nostalgic over their barely used workspace, Cucurucho steps out the door to begin their nervous wreck of a trip up towards the main higher-up office. The floor itself doesn't scare it anymore, her boyfriend being there lessens the memories a little bit, but it still hurts to even remember the dread of simply just arriving. Their workers being around also helps.

Several notice its prescence as it takes the long way up and converse in small talk and greetings with an overall message of being missed around the building. Some even accompany Osito on the elevator ride and as it walks off to the private sectors.

Right as her paw lifts from the scanner, familiar silence and darkness hits Cucurucho with unease as they continue on their walk. This floor used to just be dark, with living and breathing, non-fur over metal, employees that bustled around them as they'd make their way onto the second elevator to take them all the way up to the most isolated floor of them all. The cold empty breeze hits them again.

It's silent, and dim, and horrible, and overwhelming, and they just can't feel like they can even ever breathe. The feeling of metaphorical lungs restrict the air coming from their snout, and Cucurucho clings onto the wall behind it and painfully breathes. False raising and lowering of their chest as they gasp and gulp for air they simply do not need, with unneeded tears reflexibly springing to their eyes.

Why now, why bother? You're so close, you can see his door a few feet across from you. Why are you afraid? Why are you panicking? You're alone, and you're making another fool of yourself where you believe you're being watched and yet there are no eyes on you at all.

Osito inhales deeply, and walks forward.

At the door, their paw instinctively raises up to knock while their body tenses like it has months ago. But they're safe, they're fine, because when they give a knock, a warm face greets them instead. They don't have to hide here.

"Holy shit, you scared me." Jeremy admits, his hand over his chest. "I mean I knew it was you, 'c-cause of the knock, but I just- wasn't expecting that you'd visit. Come in, come in!"

He pulls them inside, arms immediately folding over their fat and hands worming underneath their shirt to squish the fur on their back. Their partner sighs deeply, burying his face in their body like a dog that missed its owner. Cucurucho doesn't mind though. They chuckle, smiling to themself, as they shut the door and indulge in the hug. "Miss me that much?"

"Mmh. You know me. I barely see you at all lately... work and all." He hums. His hands moving feel like unintelligable shapes on their back. "Let me just... be here for a second, and you can... tell me what you're here for." It nods, admittedly enjoying the attention that it selfishly missed.

Cucurucho absentmindedly moves its paw over to brush his hair, gnawing its synthetic cheek as it thinks over its words. "Well, funny enough, I'm actually here about... work." Jeremy looks up enough that it catches Cucurucho off guard to choke. "Ah- About my work, specifically. If it's not too much trouble, if you'd let me back in the office?"

He raises his brow almost amused that they'd even consider such a thing.

"Oh, you don't need to do such a thing, love." Jeremy starts with his hands now moving to the sides of its head, its cheeks squish and rub in a comforting pattern. Cucurucho almost yields by instinct.

"I don't want you to come back and like, I don't know, have the mindset that I'm your boss around here while being my partner at home." He shrugs, "I think it'd be less stressful for you if you just don't clock in at all."

"Plus with Asha around, you'd be juggling a lot of work, and I just don't want to inflict that kind of stress upon you."

That's sweet, for sure. And she gets it, Osito understands that he means well by this. He knows how they get around the office, their past with the higher-ups, and struggles with work in general. He knows that they don't want to go through that again, and they love him for that. But it's different this time. It's different because he's here. It's because he's in charge, and he knows them like the back of his hand.

So why does it feel really... bad? That he's trying to protect them, that he's not hiding the fact he doesn't want them to relapse into their vulnerability at the Federation. That he doesn't want them hurt again.

"I... understand that, however, honey, I just..." Cucurucho's voice strains. How do they tell him that they need to work again just for an important meeting? Just so they don't feel useless? It's selfish.

"I-I really need to come back. It's important. A-And for the Board of... Directors... meeting." They mutter.

"That... group of higher-ups that-that hurt me, and promoted me, and berated you for it?" Jeremy says incredously. "I- Rucho, I don't want you to come back if it's just to impress them. I don't want you working just because you were pressured into it, that's fucked!"

Cucurucho opens their mouth to argue, but he's right. They shake their head. "I-I know that, but I just don't want to show up—"

"No, no no... I- We'll just have the Bureau go instead." He shakes his own head, pushing back against them now. "I'm sure we'll find an alternative or something, Osito. I just don't want you to go through that again."

"I'll find some way to manage without you, okay?"

And something breaks inside of them. Like glass shattering and its pieces piercing onto their fake skin for them to bleed out as if it didn't hurt. Such meaningless words hurting a robot who had just learned how to feel fully. For the first time in its mechanical life, the lights in their eyes dim as they struggle to even process what their Duckling is saying to them.

He's bringing their head down to kiss their cheek, and all they could think about is if he had already managed without them anyway. He's smiling, and they find themself smiling back nervously.

They feel faint.

"Hey, cheer up, baby. It's not that bad." Jeremy jokes, unaware of the amount of dread his girlfriend is experiencing right in front of him. He squishes their cheeks like a pet in an attempt to cheer them up. "At least you're not in boring meetings all the time, heh." Cucurucho wants to bash their head in.

"...Right."

Their shoulders get patted, and as Jeremy steps back, they slouch. He sighs, brows furrowing with a concerned smile. "I'm sorry, if I like... disappointed you. I just don't want you hurt again for something- avoidable and stupid." He shakes his head, wryly chuckling to himself. "I love you, you know that right?"

"I... Yes, yes I do." Rucho weakly agrees, giving him a dry giggle. They sounded unconvincing, but he believed them.

It's still the truth, regardless.

"I'll see you at dinner, don't try to set the kitchen on fire again." Jeremy teases, sticking his tongue out at it with Osito instinctively doing the same. It giggles, light temporarily setting back in its mood. "I'll try. I um... I'll see you later, sugar." "See you."

He steps back forward and gives them one last squeeze, stepping away with a tip toed kiss that leaves Rucho tasting coffee and him tasting sweets.

When they both turn away, Pato going back to his work, and Cucurucho going behind the door, it presses its back against the frame with its paw holding against its mouth. They know he won't hear anything, it's soundproof from the inside and out, so they know he wouldn't hear them trying not to fall apart immediately. Heaving for no reason, holding back false tears, and trying to calm down.

Osito hiccups.

There's no real reason why they're crying, or even threathening their pristine white fur to get ruined by black sludge of its tears. There should be though, they weren't hurt, they were, in fact, being saved from being hurt in the future.

Shouldn't they be happy? Shouldn't they feel good about this?

They don't know.

Cucurucho takes the long way back again, wiping their eyes and plastering their well-known and well-practiced smile back on. Nobody takes a second to doubt it. Not even Asha, who darted to clutch their leg the moment they entered into the house again.

Osito takes a second to recover, when Asha gets tucked out curled up next to them, and calms itself down. There's no reason to be ungrateful. It'll be okay. So it shuts its eyes, takes an unneeded breath, and stares ahead.

Focus on Home.

It's where you belong.

#server event #server offline #long post #yaoiverse #my island #standalone; dont rb

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