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zara-renata · 2 months ago

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Even the rocks on the roadside in the N109 Zone could tell | ao3 | masterlist

Summary: How could you tell I was nervous?" -mc, phone call with Sylus "Remote Support". Sylus makes one final miscalculation. You wake up from a nightmare in a place you weren't ready to revisit. Sylus has to reckon with the inevitable consequences of how he treated you when you first met him, but you're paying the higher price.

Notes: Sylus x gn reader, Sylus x mc, second person POV, some Kieran and Luke POV. Slow burn, enemies-to-friends-to-lovers. This story contains: grief, angst, a panic attack, self-destructive behavior, threatened violence (both real [against other characters] and imagined [against mc]), reference to in-game violence on Sylus's part, mc with PTSD, mc with self-esteem issues and negative self-talk, hurt/comfort, a shampoo epiphany This is probably the lowest point in their relationship, and has the least amount of comedy of the series. But Sylus's bullshit from their beginning needs to be addressed before true love can really take off.

You’re here again. You think you’ve always been here, and any other memory is the dream. You have always been here, in this echoing house, the worn floorboards under your feet, still polished, still perfect for sliding along on socked feet, competing to see who can careen down the hall and hit the door at the end first. You have gotten so many bruises from slamming into the door at the wrong angle, but every one was worth it, to collapse with Caleb into a fit of laughter at the end. Even when he lost, and hit you instead of the door, slamming your body back into the door a second time—doubling your chances of concussion, as your grandmother would scold afterwards. But you’re not wearing socks now, and no matter how far you walk, the door at the end never comes closer. The closed doors lining the hall approach and pass with your steady booted stride, landmarks that offer no guidance at all.

You look back on the fever dreams of what you thought was your real life until you found yourself here, in this place again. The first time you reached out and clasped Xavier’s hand in yours, pulling him to his feet, trying to help him brush off the dirt from his beautiful white battle gear. Being held in his arms as the shimmering starlight of his evol lifted you both into the air to safety. Offering him a bite of your snack, watching his normally placid face light up with pleasure at the taste.

The first time you startled Rafayel off of his stupid, unsafe ladder. Walking barefoot with him along a deserted beach, the warm water sweeping over your ankles. Picking up seashells, and asking him if this one would fit in with his jumbled collection of knick knacks contained in his chaotic studio? Coming upon an eel trapped in the sand at low tide, the only sign of life an occasional gasp for oxygen—watching him carefully dig it out of the sand and release it back into the water. It swam away energetically. He said it was a dumb little eel, and would just get stuck again with the next low tide. You told him that you’d both just have to come back often to ensure that wouldn’t happen.

The first time you saw Zayne again as an adult, crisp white lab coat over the broad shoulders of a man, so incongruous to your memory of the narrow shoulders of a little boy. His achingly gentle touch, when he listened to your heartbeat through the stethoscope, how he inexplicably held your wrist in his soft fingers to count your pulse instead of using the fingertip monitor. How he kept the flowers you gave him on the windowsill in his office and shook his head every time he had to stitch your wounds.

And … Sylus.

The first time he held you bound before him, the glow in his eye blinding as he ransacked your soul with all the care of a corrupt cop. How his rough palm wrapped around your throat, and the paralyzing strength with which he tightened his hold. The suffocation, and the hate, and the fear, crushing your breath. The first time he called you a disappointment. All of those things, and everything after—the soft caress of his hand in your hair, his warm body wrapped around yours. Those achingly gentle faux memories, not even dreams, probably. Just daydreams, fantasies born from the pathetic need to be held gently again, in the way you hope someone held you as a child before you lost your memories.

Because you’re here again. And it feels so timeless, and so real, compared to these other faded memories. You must have always been here. You hear someone cutting an apple, the dull thunk of the knife hitting the butcher block, the juices misting with each snick. You press your ear against every door you pass. He’s so close. You’re sure of it. You lift your steel-toed boot and slam the flat of your foot into the next door in this endless hallway. It doesn’t even rattle. You kick it, again, and again. You’re sweating. Your head is pounding. You’re losing your breath and you can’t feel your legs anymore. You kick again. And again. And again. With what little breath you have left, you start to scream, the tears and the snot running down your face. He’s right there. If you’re strong enough. If you’re persistent enough. You can get to him. You can break yourself out of this nightmare, if you’re just enough.

You scream, and you scream, and you kick, and you kick, until your throat gives out.

You wake up, and the scream from your dream is just a whimper in your throat. Your legs are asleep from how your body is folded in on itself, lying in what seems to be a bed.

You wake up in the dark.

You have no idea where you are.

Your heart is pounding in your chest, a jackhammer in the cracked cement of your body.

Your hair, your face, the pillow, the sheets on the bed you’re lying, what you’re wearing—wet. Sweat. Tears slipping from the corner of your eyes into the hair at your temples.

Where the fuck are you?

You sit up, wince at the tingling returning to your legs. Feel along the bed. Nothing. Your hand finally hits something smooth and hard. You pat around, find the base of what you hope is a lamp, let your hand drift up. You switch on the light.

Impossibly, your heart begins to beat even harder. No. No. You don’t want to be here. You aren’t ready to be here. As long as you see Sylus anywhere else—on the street, in a crowded club, in your apartment, even in your bed, you can keep the memories squashed deep, deep down with all the other things that frighten you, that cause you pain, and you can handle being near him. But you can’t reconcile your memories from this place with the memories of being swayed gently in his arms in a crowd, the tender touches on your couch, your bed, a glass of water held to soft lips, your head pillowed against a strong chest with a steadily beating heart as you fall asleep.

You can’t be here.

You crawl to the edge of the bed, land on bare feet on a plush rug over a cold marble floor. The room is empty. The bookshelves, the imposing desk in the corner, the chaise lounge at the foot of the bed, the black leather armchairs and marble topped coffee table. The dark walls, the record player. You recognize each and every object, although you have refused to return here in your mind since you were allowed to leave. You could walk through here blindfolded. You wish you were blindfolded.

The thin sweater you find yourself wearing is soaked through with sweat. You shiver in the air of Sylus’s silent bedroom. You swivel your head, searching for your own clothes. For your boots. Nothing. You don’t want to go deeper into his room, away from the door, an exit, toward the bathroom and his huge walk-in closet for your clothes, or even to borrow more of his. You want out. You can live without shoes. You can’t live if your heart explodes from the panic clawing its way up your throat.

You silently slip out of his bedroom into one of the echoing corridors of his base, with its deep maroon paneled walls and marble floors, the dense gloom of the N109 zone filtering through the huge windows lining this hallway. You remember every single detail. You hear nothing. Just the thundering of your heart. You stride through the labyrinthine halls, the high ceilings soaring above you along with the elaborate, savage designs of the chandeliers. You avoid going near the dining hall or the kitchen or the den or living room, sticking to the outer edges of the wing you know will lead you to the front door. To the way out of this place filling you with so much dread you could collapse under the weight if you falter for even a stuttered heartbeat.

Miraculously, you make it without seeing a single soul. You turn the gothic monstrosity of one of the double front door handles, fully expecting it to be locked from the inside, but it shifts easily in your hand. You open it only as far as necessary to squeeze your shivering body between the doors and let it close softly behind you.

The night is cold. It’s autumn now, after all. Since there are no natural trees in the N109 zone, the wind gusts unchecked against your already cold body. Sylus’s base sits on a cliff overlooking the valley of the N109 zone with its towering skyscrapers thrusting into the perpetual night like crystalline stalagmites in a vast cave. His house is accessible only by a long and winding road up the hillside. A proper villain’s lair. It’s going to be a long walk through the cold and dark if you don’t figure something else out.

You hate yourself, for your tendency to make assumptions. For not asking enough questions. For refusing to think about all the things that you should keep in the forefront of your mind every single second of every single day. Why had you assumed that Sylus was taking you to a hotel to wait for the evol linkage to dissipate? Why didn’t it occur to your stupid ass that he’d take you to his fortified base, where he is the safest, where it doesn’t cost him any money, where it is his home, since you were already in the N109 zone at Amnesia?

You just fell asleep in his big fucking tank like an idiot, without asking a damn thing.

You will deserve the walk ahead of you. Hopefully it will be what you need to never forget again that this man is using you for his own purposes, and probably every single thing he has done up to this point has been to further his goals involving his need for your resonance. After all, the shopkeeper made it plain from the very beginning: you can’t resonate with someone who frightens you. Someone you dislike. Someone who disgusts you. Sylus has never disgusted you. Quite the opposite, unfortunately. But fear and hate, individually, are probably sufficient to block whatever it is in you that allows you to connect to another in such an intimate way.

And what’s the best way to get someone to stop hating you? To stop being afraid of you? Determine what they need the most, and then give it to them.

Your insomnia. Your desperate loneliness, always there, under your skin, for as long as you can remember, but amplified in the aftermath of losing your family. Your craving for human touch and connection, the kind of touch and connection you can’t bring yourself to ask of your friends. That you can’t stand to seek in strangers anymore, after so many failures.

And of course, Sylus has known what you so desperately want, since the very first night you met him. Your mind drifts to your hand, wrapped securely in his. To him pulling you against him, and reading you bedtime stories about indemnification and allocation of risk and remedies in case of breach. To his soft kisses along your shoulder. How many times did he drop in at your place after he released you from his base? Three? It’s only taken three evenings to accomplish his plan that probably began with the deal about the brooch. Lull you into complacency, acquire your affection instead of your hate, and your willing help instead of your fear. Three evenings, to replace him choking you until you blacked out. To replace … everything that came after.

You look down at your bare feet and bare legs. You can survive this. You can survive anything.

You make an inventory of your current situation. You’re barefoot. Unarmed. Soaked in sweat, and the wind is gusting. You don’t have your phone. But you do have your Hunter’s watch. That’s enough. You’ll get far enough away from the base to avoid Sylus or his minions alerting to your absence and finding you outside, call for help, find some shelter, and wait for someone to come pick you up. You recall that the landscape along the winding road leading up to Sylus’s base is fairly isolated. You gamble that there won’t be anyone coming all the way up here at this time of night.

Once you’re home, you will be able to think straight. When your heart isn’t jackrabbiting in your chest. When this jittery feeling, like you can run a marathon without breaking a sweat, isn’t coursing through your pounding veins. When the lingering despair from the nightmare about your grandmother’s house has faded to the tolerable thrum of grief you’re used to these days. And you will uphold your end of the deal with Sylus. You meant it, when you let the coin decide. You can be as resolute in your decisions as he is. You will be his friend. Why, when you know that most of his behavior toward you is calculated, manufactured—a talented forgery? Because Sylus is very good at getting what he wants. He wanted your affection, and your willing help. And he has been successful in acquiring it, despite your best efforts to resist his charm. You’re honest enough to admit that to yourself. And what even is friendship, if you expect something in return? He may only be able to think of friendship in transactional, cost-benefit, return-on-investment terms, but you don’t want to live that way. Despite your best efforts, you like him so terribly much, and that’s the beginning and end of it.

You will help him with his love, for whatever your help is worth, and you’ll finally wipe the slate clean. You just need… you just need your heart to stop for a minute. That’s all. And that can’t happen here, in the place where Sylus treated you more honestly than he has ever treated you since you were allowed to leave.

You take a deep breath and begin to jog. You can survive this. You can survive anything.

After being thoroughly entertained at Amnesia by Sylus’s Hunter, Luke and Kieran finally managed to dump Noah with Linda after settling the terms of their bet regarding how long they think it will take their boss to successfully woo the object of his unhinged obsession.

The one rule: no interference that could tip the odds one way or the other. Luke, Kieran and Noah must act as neutral observers of the hilarious conundrum their boss finds himself in regarding the highly skilled, highly oblivious Hunter not being able to see what is obvious to anyone who has the unfortunate opportunity of being within a five kilometer radius of the two of them: that Sylus is head over heels, and so is the Hunter.

Each concerned party committed to upholding this sacred rule of non-intervention. Each of them lied through their teeth while making such a commitment. But Luke and Kieran can tell that countering whatever Noah will likely come up with to drag out this complicated courtship will require all of their combined talents to ensure the odds remain in their favor, and that Sylus will convince the Hunter to accept him sooner rather than later.

Luckily for them, this shitshow is a win-win situation. As long as Sylus is happy, Luke and Kieran are happy. And they can tell, the Hunter is already making Sylus happy. They can see it in how drastically his mood has improved ever since the protocore auction. He no longer vacillates between the few emotions he has shown in the years they’ve known him—rage, utter boredom, and the worst: an unsettling blankness. A cavalier attitude regarding whether he lives or dies, whether he wakes up in the morning or not, whether his heart is beating or at a standstill. He’ll sometimes make off-hand comments about the banality of just… surviving, of waking up to find that he’s still alive and being utterly indifferent to that fact. Every time he says shit like that, shivers run down Luke and Kieran’s spines. They’d much rather he punch holes in walls in a fit of rage or blow up buildings out of boredom than encounter him when he’s at his most… empty.

But ever since the auction, the twins have seen a veritable rainbow of emotions clear as a Linkon City’s sunny afternoon on their boss’s otherwise impassive face. Amusement. Worry. Fascination. Yearning. Pining. Longing. Craving.

“Luke, I’m truly proud of you for actually reading the thesaurus,” Kieran says from behind the steering wheel of their sleek, powerful muscle car. It was a present from Sylus. He claimed it was a bonus for their help in a particularly ugly business feud that ended up in more corpses than anticipated, but they both thought it was hilarious that the “bonus” arrived on the exact date of their latest birthday. Their boss really is the best.

“Thanks, man. It was like, really mind-blowing to learn how many words there are for Boss’s thirst for his pet.” Luke leans back in the sexy black leather bucket seat and enjoys the seat heating. Tonight is the coldest it’s been this fall. He fiddles with the sound system.

Kieran swats his hand away. “Driver’s choice. You know the rules.”

Luke pouts. “I’m not in the mood for Bach. Boring. I want Rachmaninov.”

“You don’t need to get wound up this close to home. It’ll take forever for you to settle down if you listen to Rachmaninov right now, and we really need to get some sleep. I have a feeling we’re about to get really busy with how distracted Boss is going to be with the Hunter.” He drums his fingers along the steering wheel. “He’s going to need all the help he can get.”

“Ugh, fiiine.” Luke hunches further into the comfy seat and stares out the windshield, watching as the bright headlamps slice through the dark gloom, lighting up a swath of the deserted road leading up to their home. Suddenly, he jolts in the seat.

“What the fuck—”

“Is that—?”

“The Hunter, yeah—”

“And, what the fuck—”

“Yeah, no shoes—”

“Call—”

“Boss. On it.”

Luke already has his phone clutched in his hand, and the ringing fills the car through the sophisticated sound system Sylus ensured the car had, along with the fastest, strongest engine for this model on the market.

Kieran watches the Hunter disappear in the rearview mirror, while simultaneously slowing the car as quickly as possible without making excessive noise that could spook the Hunter.

Sylus’s deep voice suddenly fills the car. “Speak.”

“Uh, Boss?”

“Who else, Luke?” Sylus says dryly. “Speak.”

“Do you know where your Hunter is?”

The line is silent for a beat. “I left Kitten in my bed, asleep, while I went to take care of some paperwork in the study.” He pauses. “Is there a reason you’re asking me this?” Anyone who didn’t know their boss like they do would think his tone of voice was indifferent. But all Luke and Kieran hear is a spike of worry.

“Uh, I’m pretty sure we just passed someone on the hillside road to base who looks, like, a scary amount like your Hunter. With no shoes on. Or coat.” Luke winces in anticipation of their boss’s response.

The line goes dead.

Kieran has slowed the car sufficiently to be able to pull a u-turn without tires screeching, and expertly swings the car around. He cuts the headlights, counting on the light from the blood-red moon to provide sufficient visibility. He then accelerates until he has the Hunter in view, and slowly follows the lonely figure, ready to provide protection until their boss can arrive and take the situation in hand. Luke and Kieran can tell that whatever you’re experiencing, this is not a situation that they are equipped to handle, and if they come up too quickly behind you, they’re worried you will bolt off-road and be even more difficult to collect again. They really, really hope you don’t notice their presence behind you until Sylus arrives.

Fuck. You’re being followed. And you haven’t found one damned area along the roadside that looks like it could serve as good cover since leaving Sylus’s long, convoluted driveway, because this region is a lifeless wasteland of bare dirt and rock and only small outcroppings of earth along the hill’s descent.

You didn’t remember it being so desolate. Probably because you were just so relieved to be escaping with your life, you were looking at the world through rose-colored glasses and failed to notice that the area leading up to Sylus’s base is as hospitable as the N109 zone’s red, red moon.

You had stiffened, almost pausing in your steady jog along the roadside as a sleek, sexy car that looked like it was built for racing came careening around a bend in the road, the two figures in it just silhouettes behind the blinding headlights as they roared past in a huge gust of wind and gravel. You had hoped, with all of your wildly out-of-control heart, that they were just business associates heading to the base for a meeting or something, and that whoever was in that vehicle wouldn’t recognize you or care about a lone nutcase going for a middle-of-the-night run in the middle of nowhere.

But you’re a highly trained Hunter, and you’ve gotten more sleep lately. Without turning around, you can tell that the same car is following behind you, which would be alarming enough, without the fact that whoever’s driving it is trying to be a sneaky shit with the headlights off. As if you can’t hear the purring of that sweet engine even over the strong wind. Idiots.

Your mind races. You have no weapon. You don’t even have shoes. Surprise is the only means of gaining an advantage. You half-turn, wrap your arms around your stomach and drop into a crouch, as if your stomach hurts and you can’t keep jogging because of the pain. Head down, you watch out of your peripheral as the car keeps slowly approaching in the dark. You let one arm drop from your waist on your side not in view from the car, and feel around on the ground until you find what you’re looking for. Then you wait.

When the car is only just a couple meters from you, you launch yourself from your crouched position and sprint directly at it. Its brakes screech as the driver is taken by surprise, but it’s too late. You’ve already vaulted from the hood onto the roof, and you’ve brought the heavy, dense rock clutched in your hand as hard as you can against the driver’s window. As it shatters, you reach through the now open space with your other hand and grab the driver by the throat, half pulling him out of the tinkling window frame. You hold the rock high above your head.

“Why the fuck are you following me,” you bite out through clenched teeth.

You hear the other car door open, but remain focused on the person you have by the throat.

“Don’t come any closer or I will make your friend unrecognizable for identification at the autopsy,” you snarl. You see the other person freeze in your peripheral vision.

You return your focus to the driver. Staring into his grimacing face, you see a young man, one you don’t recognize. He has a riot of floppy dark curls, shaved to a sharp fade on the sides and back of his head. His big dark eyes reflect the light of the red moon as they dart all over your face. He takes a deep breath.

“If I told you that you do not have anything to fear from me, or my brother, would you kindly put me down?” he asks in a voice that sounds alarmingly familiar. Your stomach cramps almost as painfully as your heart has been for the past hour. Without letting go of the driver’s throat, you turn and look at the man standing at the open passenger door, looking back at you with the same face as the man you have in your grip.

You let go, and Kieran sinks back into the car with a grunt. You scramble off the car roof and back away from it.

Just as you’re about to apologize, you see headlights cutting through the dark. You’re suddenly overcome with the wish that Sylus had killed you when you first met, because you can’t imagine how he’s going to react now, when he sees that you assaulted his employee and damaged his property with the rock that is now falling out of your nerveless hand.

You want to turn and run. You want to put this fucking night behind you. You hate that you’ve been thinking that so often lately. Every single time, you just want the night to be over. You’re so tired. Your heart won’t fucking stop doing that horrible thing in your chest, and you still feel like you need to run until you collapse to make it stop. But you’ve learned by now that there is no running from Sylus. Not in any way that matters. So you just stand there, waiting for the hammer to fall.

Thankfully, he doesn’t appear to enjoy toying with his prey tonight, because he quickly comes to a stop and parks the tank behind the twins’ car. He gracefully climbs down from the driver’s seat, slams the car door, and strides up to Kieran’s side, his black biker boots with the chains crunching on the broken glass. You wince with each footfall. He leans down and looks at Kieran. “You good?”

You can’t hear Kieran’s response, but you see Sylus nod and straighten. He gestures for Luke to get in the car, who obeys without comment. He then taps the roof firmly, twice, and strides toward you as Kieran pulls the car into the road, hangs an efficient u-turn, and disappears into the night.

You close your eyes and wait for Sylus to… you’re not sure? Hit you? Slam you with his evol? You brace yourself. Just because he’s been affectionate up until now, even through you throwing the duffel at him in front of an audience, doesn’t mean he’ll suffer you hurting his employees for no good reason. It doesn’t matter that this is the first time you've ever seen them without their masks on, and that it felt incredibly threatening as they followed you, for some unfathomable reason, with their damn headlights off.

Sure, you could fight back. Try to block his blow. But at this point, you feel like you fucking deserve it. You want to punch yourself in the face for hurting Kieran. You don’t know him, but he’s never been mean to you. The worst he’s ever done is give you a flare gun and pretend a pair of handcuffs could magically restrict Sylus’s evol. He didn’t deserve to be scared half to death and choked through a broken window because of his earlier prank. It occurs to you now that maybe stalking you with the headlights off was the twins’ idea of another prank? And you broke their car window and choked one of them. For fuck’s sake, at this point, you’ll welcome Sylus’s fist.

But instead of the hit you’re still bracing for, you jerk a little when you feel the heavy weight of a warm coat being draped around your shivering body.

You open your eyes. Sylus stands in front of you, wearing a thick cable knit sweater.

“If you wanted to go for a run, sweetheart, you could have just told me. We have a perfectly functional home gym, equipped with treadmills with big screens that make you feel like you’re running on a serene mountain path or along the beach. There’s no need to endure the desolation of the N109 zone’s ‘scenery’ when you’re here with me but want to work out.”

You just stare at him.

“What’s wrong? Crow’s got your tongue?” One corner of his mouth lifts as he taps the corner of your mouth gently with his index finger.

What the hell is happening? “Are you not mad at me?” you ask, completely at a loss.

“Why would I be mad at you?”

You gesture a little helplessly. “I hurt Kieran. I damaged your property. I interrupted whatever you were doing since you’re now out here instead of back at your home.”

“You didn’t damage my property. The car belongs to Luke and Kieran. Can I touch you?”

“What?” Your heart is a bloody, clenched fist, punching your body from the inside out. Sylus’s apparent calm in the face of all the mess that is you is making you feel like you’re insane.

“I said, can I touch you?” he repeats, as if he has all the patience in the world to repeat questions you clearly heard the first time.

“Like, can you hit me? Or strangle me? You want my permission to give me what I deserve?”

Sylus’ face changes. If you hadn’t been spending so much time recently watching videos on micro expressions and bluffing and acting, you might have missed it. He looks furious for a microsecond, and you want to take a step back. But you deserve whatever it is he’s feeling right now. You force yourself to stay still. You look up into his now neutral, lovely face.

He breathes in through his nostrils. “I will repeat this as many times as you need to hear it,” he says calmly, as the wind sweeps his silver hair across his forehead. Your heart is going to kill you, as you live through the eternity of the pause in this sentence. “I will never, ever hit you. And I will never think that you deserve to be hurt, for anything that you do, or don’t do.”

Okay. Okay, weird. He’ll strangle you, but he won’t hit you? He thought you deserved to be held captive for three days, denied food and water, forced to resonate, but he expects you to believe that he doesn’t want to punish you for fucking up as big as you did tonight? Where is the thin red line here? How can he say that he will never think you deserve to be hurt, when he hurt you so terribly during those first three days?

“Ask your question,” he says, but it’s not a command. It sounds more like a gentle invitation. What alternate reality have you stepped in tonight?

“I don’t understand how your mind works,” you say instead of obeying him.

“If you don’t ask, then you’ll continue not knowing how it works.” He still sounds infinitely patient. “As much as I’d like to, I can’t read your mind. Unless you ask, I won’t always know what you need from me.”

You shiver, even under the warmth of his heavy coat, but can’t bring yourself to answer. You close your eyes against the memory of his calloused hand around your throat. Of him tossing you in front of a huge mecha battlebot, sneering “You can handle it.” Of him telling you to survive the night, or else enjoy your last meal at his table. You open your eyes.

Sylus is watching your face, thumbs hooked in both trouser pockets. He shakes his head a little. “All right. I propose that we go back to the base, and you can pose all your questions there, no strings attached, without you standing out here freezing to death on your bare feet.”

This time you do take a step back, shaking your head. “No. No, nope, no thank you. If you could just dump me somewhere closer to the city, I can just get someone from the Association to pick me up. We can talk another time.”

He watches you closely, and you feel naked, with your heart a sledgehammer against the brittle framework of your ribs, and the sweat still soaking your hair. “Is there a particular reason you’re reluctant to go back home with me?” he finally asks.

You choke a little on a laugh. “You could say that,” you say dryly, with all the calm you can muster through the chaos in your chest.

“Care to share?”

You’re so tired. You’re so, so tired. None of it seems to matter anymore—whether he hits you, leaves you on the side of the road, or splatters you onto the gravel with his evol. “Do you really not know, Sylus? With all of your insight, do you really need your aether core to figure out why I wouldn’t want to go back to your criminal headquarters?”

“I thought you were getting used to the idea of the criminal aspect of my life,” he says slowly, as if that’s the important part.

“You’re right. I care less and less, every day, that you’re a wanted outlaw. But I really have no interest in reliving the days you spent choking me out and trying to brute force your way into resonating with me,” you murmur, because it’s so hard to say out loud, let alone think about it. You’re shaking. You’re shaking so hard, your bones hurt. Your teeth are chattering. None of these things have anything to do with how cold you are.

Sylus becomes very still, with the red, red moon above him, the wind still gusting through his hair, pulling at his sweater, and the dead earth stretching behind his tall figure.

“Can I touch you?” he asks again.

Can he touch you? Of course he can. All he has to do is what he has always done. He can just reach out and take what he thinks he deserves from you. As he has done since the first moment you met. But you don’t want to have to give him permission for it. You know you deserve it, but you still have enough of a sliver of self-preservation, or pride, or backbone—something in you refuses to give him this last bit of yourself by being complicit in whatever he wants to inflict on you right now.

“Can I touch you? Not to hit you. Not to choke you. Not to cause you any pain, in any way, whatsoever.”

You’re so confused. “Then why are you asking for permission, when you’ve never done that before?”

“Because I can see that bringing you to the base tonight, without talking to you about it, when you haven’t been back since our first few days together, was a mistake on my part. I may be many things, but stupid isn’t one of them. I do not intend to make the same mistake more than once.”

“I was stupid for not asking you where we were going,” you try to protest, although you don’t know why, through your clicking teeth.

“No, you weren’t. You trusted me to take you somewhere you would be comfortable. It was my fault for not considering that you would not feel safe in my home because of the way we began.” His voice sounds so resolute.

You just look down at your toes.

“Can I, please, touch you?” he asks, yet again, but this time he sounds a little strained.

Now that you know he’s not going to try to hurt you, you can finally nod. As soon as you start to bob your head, you feel yourself swept into the air, his strong arm under your knees, the other under your shoulders, and he holds you tightly, so that your face is tucked into his throat.

He carries you to the tank and manages to get the door open without letting you go, but instead of putting you on the passenger seat, he sets you on one of the bench seats further back in the vehicle, pulls the door shut behind himself, and sits next to you. He pauses, taking you in from head to toe, and then leans forward next to the driver’s seat and fiddles with something on the dash screen. He then sits back and pulls you onto his lap. Apparently, he hadn’t turned off the vehicle when he first arrived, because it’s so warm in here. He rests his hand, somehow still warm after standing out in the cold, against your heart.

“I know you want to go home right now. But it’s over an hour away. You need to get warmed up sooner rather than later. Do you trust me enough to allow me to take you back to base until you’re no longer shaking so hard it’s vibrating the whole armored vehicle?” he speaks, lips against your wet hair.

“It’s a tank, Sylus,” you protest, because even now you can't help yourself.

“Do you trust me enough to allow me to take you back to base until you’re no longer shaking so hard it’s vibrating the whole tank?” Sylus murmurs into your hair.

You don’t want to go back there. You just want to close your eyes, and be anywhere else but inside your body right now. Your mind drifts back to how thirsty you were in that house, the house he wants take you now. How thirsty you were, and no water was given. And when the terror would recede and exhaustion seeped into its place, the awareness of your hunger, and no food was given. How did you ever trust him to come near you again? How can he possibly ask you if you trust him enough to take you back there?

But being in his arms like this, despite everything he has done to you, his hand against your broken heart, is calming you in a way that makes trust and choice seem meaningless. You want to just stay right here, in this moment, where the past and the future are just fever dreams, and the only reality is Sylus’s hand, his lips, his chest against your shoulder and side. You want to carve your way into him, force him to carry you inside his skin so you’ll never be cold again. Even though he's the reason you're cold to begin with. You're so tired of this tangled, terrible bond with this terrible man.

And yet. Like always with him, when he's right here, holding you with such fierce tenderness, you find yourself surrendering to the temptation, to the seductive illusion that you’re safe with him, and you let him have whatever he wants.

You just nod, your cheek rubbing against the soft sweater over his clavicle. You feel his chest expand in what might be a relieved sigh, or just exasperation, and the vehicle begins to move. You startle, but he shushes you. “It’s in self-drive mode, we’ll be back in a few minutes.”

You relax again, and the way back is a blur. You don’t want to look, as he lifts you from the car and carries you through the underground garage beneath the base, into the elevator that lifts you to the floor on which his bedroom is located. The same expansive windows, soaring ceilings, subtle light in wall sconces stream by as he strides forward.

“I can walk,” you try to protest, but again, he softly shushes you.

“No, you can’t.”

“I’m cold, not paralyzed,” you counter, exhausted, amazed you still have the capacity to argue with him.

“Yes, yes, but you haven’t seen your feet. And I have.”

“What?” you lift your head, but he presses your face back into his chest.

“You ran five kilometers without shoes on a semi-paved road, kitten. I’m pretty sure you’re not accustomed to barefoot running, based on the state of your feet.”

You shudder even harder. You hadn’t even noticed the pain.

And then, you’re back in his bedroom. You feel him shift, toeing off his shoes at the threshold. He passes the lounge area, his hulking desk, the bookshelves and the bed, and takes you into the black marble cave of a bathroom you recall from your hunt for the brooch. He sets you on the padded bench thingy that probably has a fancy name that you imagine every rich person has even in their bathrooms and then goes to the walk-in shower and turns on the water. Almost immediately, steam begins to fill the expansive space. He returns and kneels at your feet.

“Your clothes need to come off,” he says softly, but loud enough that you can still hear him over the spray.

Since you’re back here, the place where you spent so long helpless and trapped, it’s easy to slide right back into that space, but this time you don’t have the energy to even try to help yourself—you just nod again, but don’t move.

Sylus pauses, but then slowly reaches out and slides his coat from your shoulders. Then, so, so gently, he lifts the lower hem of the sweater you’re wearing, knuckles drifting along the sensitive skin of your stomach, and gathers the material under your armpits. With his other hand, he lifts one of your arms and pulls it through and out of the sleeve, and gently rests it back at your side again. He repeats the movement on your other side, and lifts the sweater over your head. Then, with one arm, he scoops you from the bench, gently but efficiently peeling the sleep shorts from your hips and over your legs. You’re left in just your underwear.

He carries you to the shower, the steam warm on your skin, and lowers you on one of the marble benches built into the wall. The water streaming from the shower hits him full on, and his own clothes are soaked through almost immediately. He reaches behind himself and pulls the sweater and undershirt over his head and tosses them back into the bathroom. He then grabs his belt, unbuckling it in practiced moves. Unzips his trousers, slips out of them, tossing them behind him as well. Clad in only a black pair of boxer-briefs, wet hair tarnished silver, he sits next to you on the bench and pulls you onto his lap again, your back to his chest.

And then… the two of you just sit like that, floating together in a timeless space composed of water, skin, and the steady shush of the shower water. His arms around you are as tight as a straitjacket, securing you against him as if he thinks you’ll dissipate like the steam and drift away if he doesn’t anchor you to his own body. He doesn’t say anything at all. He doesn’t ask anything at all. He just holds you, his cheek resting in your hair, and doesn’t let go.

Slowly, so slowly, your heart slows in your chest. Your body-wracking shivering ebbs in violence, until, finally, you are completely still. Now that your muscles aren’t locked into defending against the convulsions from the cold, and… everything else, you melt into Sylus, head lolling on his chest, the spray of the water soothing everything that hurts, and his steady heartbeat at your back soothing everything else.

But of course, because you’re you, and this life is your life, this peaceful emptiness doesn’t last long. You slowly become aware of the most terrifying need welling up inside you, one you’ve managed to resist since… now that you think about it, since the last time you were in Sylus’s home. You need to fucking cry.

All of your efforts to avoid this feeling—the terrifying loss of control, the exposure of the weakest part of yourself to yourself, or to another—refusing to speak about the terror and the pain inside you, the terror and pain you carry through every minute of every day, to your friends, to your doctor—all in a desperate bid to keep the floodgates of your tears bolted shut, are crashing onto the shore of this ocean of need. The need to cry. You’ve tried so desperately to avoid it, because once you start, you’re afraid that you will never, ever stop.

But now, being held by this man, who is so deeply threaded into the source of this feeling, somehow triggers the switch in your brain that says safe, safe, you can release the flood behind the gates, and you will not drown, because he’ll hold your head above water, no matter the cost .

You have no idea why your brain thinks this. You can guess why your brain considers a gunshot the same as a bomb, or why your first instinct when approached from behind is threat threat threat, neutralize first, ask questions later . But you cannot fathom for the fucking life of you why your brain sees Sylus and whispers, Shelter. Sustenance. Safety.

You can’t help it. The first tears begin to gather at the edges of your eyes. Your breath quickens, your chest begins to heave with the effort of holding it in. Your face is hot. But despite all of your will focused on not. fucking. crying... the tears begin to fall. At first, silently, but then from deep inside your chest, the sobs clawing their way out of your lungs through your throat, and suddenly you’re howling.

It hurts. It hurts so much. You hate it. You hate that Sylus is here as silent witness to all the weakest parts of yourself. You twist in his arms, straddle his lap. You wrap your arms around his neck and bury your face in his throat, and then you weep. You wail, snot and spit and tears sliding down his chest, because you’re blocking the shower’s spray.

And Sylus? He keeps his arms wrapped around you, his cheek still in your hair, and doesn’t say a thing. After a while, you realize that he has started to shift on the bench, gently rocking you as you fall apart in his arms. One big hand, pressed flat on your back, runs firmly from the top of your spine to your lower back, and then back again. Still anchoring you to him. You feel a low vibration in your chest, under all the other sounds of the loud shower, and realize he’s humming very quietly. You have no idea if he’s humming something in particular. But the feeling in your chest is so soothing, eventually you realize that your sobs, and your tears, have slowed, just as the shivering of your body did while wrapped in his arms.

And then you’re done. You don’t have anything left—just the hollow relief of not being afraid, not shivering, not crying—the relief of not feeling much of anything at all. You try to hold on to it, grasp it in your fists. But like everything else, it slips through your fingers all the same, and you feel the shame come.

Miraculously, the shower water is still hot. It’s beating down on your back, your lowered head, still tucked under Sylus’s chin. You try to sit up, move away, but he just tightens his hold.

“Where do you think you’re going, sweetheart?” he asks, sounding like he has sounded since the end of the auction. Slightly amused. Curious. Infinitely tolerant.

You can’t say anything. You’re so embarrassed that he just witnessed all of… that. You just want to escape now.

“Hmm?” he murmurs into your hair, to emphasize his question in the face of your refusal to respond. And then, “Why are you always trying to leave me?”

You’re so surprised by the raw vulnerability in his question that you pull back to look into his face. He’s still holding you so tightly, your noses brush. His eyes are wet from the shower spray, droplets clinging in his dark lashes.

“What do you mean?”

“You leaving the base without saying a word is the second time in just one night that you were considering leaving me, without even telling me,” he says evenly, big hand still spread across your back. “Why?”

Suddenly, you’ve had enough. You are so tired of not understanding him, of trying to decipher clues from his inexplicable behavior, the incongruous way he touches you, treats you when you’re at your lowest, compared to how he treated you when you first met. “Why do you even care, Sylus? No amount of utility that I may have for you is worth you putting up with… this,” you gesture to yourself, face twisted in disgust.

“Utility?” he repeats, tilting his head. The hand on your back drifts upward until he has his big palm wrapped around the back of your neck, thumb along the side of your throat, fingers plunging into your hair.

“The dating advice… the resonance,” you remind him, though you don’t know why. You assume he knows exactly what you were referring to, that he’s just buying time to think of an answer that will make you stop asking inconvenient questions.

“You think I’m… ‘putting up’ with you, as you so charmingly phrase it, because I want your help with convincing my beloved that I’m sincere, and because I want you to resonate with me again? Is that what you’re saying?” he summarizes your thoughts.

“Why else would you go to all this trouble to spend so much time on me, when at every turn I end up doing something ridiculous? First, almost having a panic attack at the auction. Then, the very next time we’re out in public together, I make a scene during one of your business meetings. Then, the same night, because I’m just that awesome, I have another panic attack and almost kill one of your employees because I thought they were some human trafficker thinking he had an easy target tonight.”

“Why did you think they were human traffickers?” Sylus asks.

“He was following me with his fucking headlights off in the middle of the night on a deserted road in the N109 zone! What would you have assumed?” you demand, forgetting the whole point of this conversation.

He tilts his head, makes a little moue with his mouth. “Fair enough,” he acknowledges. “And that’s exactly why I’m not mad at you. I didn’t believe for a second that you would attack him for no reason. And, neither did he, by the way. Which is why you’re still in one piece.”

You eye him. “What do you mean?”

Sylus considers you for a moment, and then sighs. “Do you think you’re up to getting washed up before we unpack what you just said? I’ll make us something to eat and we can talk about everything once you’re clean and dry.”

You look down at your fingers, and see that their tips resemble raisins. You’ve made Sylus sit in this shower for at least an hour while you lost your shit. Despite the rich bastard being able to afford never-ending warm water, apparently, you can’t imagine this is how he wanted to spend his version of his evening. You nod.

“Finally, some sense from you,” he smiles slightly, lifting you in his arms. He sets you gently on the shower floor, and grabs a bottle from the built-in shelving containing a bunch of shower products. He kneels in front of you, his broad back blocking the spray from hitting your face. Despite the heat in the room, you shiver as he reaches toward you, as you feel his fingers slide from your calf to your ankle. Your brain stalls out and you can’t bring yourself to protest as he lifts your leg and gently foams some fragrance-free soap, and as delicately as possible washes the now-stinging sole of your foot. He gently lowers it back to the shower’s marble floor, and does the same with your other foot. When he’s done, he simply holds your foot in his palm, looking at it contemplatively, thumb running along the skin near your ankle.

After a few moments, he eyes your face, and then his gaze drifts to your hair.

“I probably suck at washing someone else’s hair. Can you teach me how to do yours?”

You start shaking your head. “I may have hurt my feet, but I’m still capable of washing my own hair. You really don’t have to do this for me,” you begin, but he shakes his head.

“Just indulge me. Please.” He looks steadily at you. Something about the way he says please, and the fact that it’s the second time tonight he’s asked you so earnestly for your permission to touch you, has you nodding, again.

He gently squeezes your foot, and then moves to get a few more bottles from the veritable drugstore he has stashed in the shower shelves. He then kneels back at your side and shows you, to your amazement, the same products that are sitting in your own shower back home. “Show me how you use these,” he says.

You stare at the bottles. Then you stare at his face. His eyes seem to gleam through the shower steam.

“Why—?” you ask, but he just shrugs.

“I was hoping you’d visit me,” he says nonchalantly, like it’s the most normal thing in the world for him to stock all of his friends’ personal hygiene products in his bedroom’s en suite bathroom.

Your mind drifts over all of the assumptions you’ve held about this man since you met him. All of the assumptions that have been utterly incorrect. You think about your assumption that he was dreaming about someone else, as he was biting your neck. You think about your assumption that the person he was describing in the Lethe lounge was someone else—anyone else, either one of your friends, a fellow Hunter, or someone you don’t even know. You think about the deal he made with you tonight—the help he says he needs in convincing someone that his feelings are sincere. Someone who refuses to consider that he doesn’t have an ulterior motive in treating them with kindness. In spending time with them. In devoting his precious free time to caring for them. Your gaze drifts between the bottles of the mid-range shampoo and conditioner he’s holding in his strong hands, because you can’t afford the really fancy shit you would really like to splurge on but you have too much pride to just buy the stuff from the grocery store.

You understand the nature of tools. You work with tools every day in your job. Your knives, your swords, your guns. You maintain your tools with a diligence that others may consider fanatical, but which you know will help you survive, in the end. A whet stone, to sharpen your blades. Gun brush and oil, to clean and ensure the weapon doesn’t jam when you need it the most. These things are essential in caring for your most useful possessions.

If you are a tool, the only things Sylus needs to maintain your utility are an absence of fear, your willingness to help him, the strength of your body in being well rested and well fed. Everything he has done up till now could be interpreted as serving the purpose of maintaining a tool he intends to use in the future. But a tool doesn’t have to be attractive. A tool doesn’t need clean, well-moisturized hair to function. The cosmetics of the thing are irrelevant, as long as it can efficiently serve its purpose. But you also know that Sylus likes shiny things. He likes the best, finest things. But if he wanted you to be as attractive as possible for aesthetic purposes, he could have bought the expensive, top-of-the shelf products that you’re sure he buys for himself if he was hoping you’d visit and inexplicably be showering in his bathroom. But no. He bought the products that you use. That you’re used to. That he knows you like because you had bought them for yourself. You cannot understand how the presence of your own shampoo and conditioner in his shower could serve any of the purposes of an owner maintaining the utility of a tool.

You look back up into his face, and he’s looking at you patiently, but also with an eagerness to get started on helping you with your hair. Aside from everything else—how you started, how he treated you in this house—you don’t dare believe that the assumptions you’ve been making up until now are wrong. You aren’t ready to handle the emotional devastation if you begin to hope that the person Sylus wants in his life is… not someone else, only to find out that such an assumption is also wrong. You can’t. You can’t, not yet.

So you just gesture at the shampoo. “I start with this.”

He sets the conditioner down. You proceed to tell him how you take care of your hair, and he follows your instructions silently, with a clumsy obedience that is incredibly endearing. His fingers along your scalp are so soothing, you melt into him as he washes your hair, your back to his chest. When he’s done, he takes the same care with the conditioner, touching you like you’re made of the most delicate blown glass instead of the scratched and scuffed stainless steel you imagine yourself to be.

When he’s done, he withdraws his hands from your hair and says next to your ear, “I’ll leave you to finish washing up. Towels and clothes will be on the bench. Call for me, and I’ll bandage your feet.”

And then you’re alone, with the water still beating down on your chest and shoulders. You peel off your underwear, and just sit there, knees drawn to your chest, letting the soothing heat stream down your back.

Your mind drifts. Again, you think of his calloused hand around your throat. You think of him sneering that you’re such a disappointment. You think of the thirst, and the hunger. You think about him dragging you across the floor with his evol, every time you tried to claw your way of the room where he forced you to resonate, over and over again.

You think about his embrace as you danced at the auction, your clasped hands as he let you decide when to detonate the bombs before you slipped into a panic attack. You think about the first time you fell asleep with him, on the back of his motorcycle. You think of a pot of poisonous flowers, wine the color of his eyes in a glass held to your mouth, his hands in your hair tonight.

You know that you can’t continue like this. Something has to give. You can’t be his friend, while being terrified of your memories of him. You need to do what he has asked and ask him questions, so that you can finally reconcile the man who just washed your feet so tenderly with the man who suggested cutting off your hand to break the linkage between you the first time the energy shackles bound you two together. The man who brings you wine, and more food than you could eat in a week, with the man who starved you for days.

You slowly get to your feet, wincing at the pain in your soles. You must have cut your feet up pretty bad, but you don’t want to look. You hobble to the shelves and let your hand drift over the array of neatly organized bottles. Your hair products are the only familiar products. Everything looks fancy as hell, with minimal branding, dark and masculine. You find body wash, and squeeze some onto your palm. The scent of citrus rises to your nose—you’ve finally found the source of oranges you sometimes detect on Sylus’s skin. You eagerly lather the soap between your hands and quickly cover your body with it.

When you’re done rinsing, you hobble out of the shower and find the towel and clothes stacked neatly just as Sylus had described. You even find the same type of towel you use specifically on your hair. You wrap it around your head, slip into the silky tank top, shorts and robe, and sit for a moment, elbows on your knees. You see yourself in one of the huge mirrors above the large sink and counter. You look so fucking tired. It’s time. You can’t keep shoving everything down, down deep. You need answers.

“Sylus,” you call. You wait. He appears in the doorway, leans his long body against door frame, shirtless with black silken pants hung low on his waist, warm looking slippers on his big feet.

"Yes, my dearest treasure?"

You laugh a little at the absurd endearment. Somehow, even when you're feeling at your worst, he always manages to make you laugh. It would be so easy, to close your eyes. To pretend that the way you began with him was the dream, that his gentle touch and silly endearments are the real Sylus. The only Sylus. But you're tired of lying to yourself. If you try to shove it all down, down deep, what happened tonight will only repeat itself, in possibly worse ways. You need to find a way forward, a way to realign the conflicting images of Sylus, to sift through them like mirages in the desert. You'd rather see him clearly, from his most malignant to his most tender selves, than continue to be lost between your horrific memories from those first three days and how he's looking at you right now. As if you're somehow precious to him. You take a deep breath.

“Can we talk?”

#love and deepspace #love and deepspace sylus #lads #lnds #lds #l&ds #sylus x reader #sylus x mc #love and deepspace fanfiction #i'm worried that this is too heavy #but i think how sylus treated mc at the beginning can't just be glossed over #my fanfic #i'm hoping to return to more shenanigans maybe halfway through the next part or the part after #hope some people still enjoy it #not to worry no twins were hurt in the making of this silly fic

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