Even with your eyes shut, you know what you want to see when you feel the veils of sleep start to rise slowly layer by layer. With each one, you remember who you are. You remember who you were with. You remember Tighnari. You recall the weightless feeling of life emanating off of him, and the way it embraces you just by seeing him.
It makes you think about how it used to feel when you basked under the joy of life.
But then you grew up, and the world showed its true colors around you. It stamped your purpose in red ink across your hopes and dreams: a replaceable cog in society. You, your mother, and the friends you pushed away. Waking up was enough of a chore when you knew what kind of environment you would be forced to work in no matter what place you decided on. College brought your hopes up, padding your naivety with false advertisements for the reality of work.
Work was exploitative, manipulative, and fake. Almost like a cult, if you really gave it some thought. They'll pat you on the back so long as you're a hard worker, and will retaliate as soon as you prove to be trouble, even if it's beyond your control.
Truly, the first thing you learned of the real world is that it doesn't pull punches and it doesn't grant mercy. Fake smiles of schadenfreude hidden behind far too few real smiles blur the lines of trust. Everything in life felt like it was there to raise your hopes and beat you down more.
But Tighnari is a relief from that miasma.
So the idea of opening your eyes and having to bear several more months alone with hardly any support is painful. How will you know when it's time to stop waiting? How long will you wait? What if it takes more months this time? What if you never see him again?
It's better not to wait in the long run. You've been dancing around this topic far too long, there is no point to continue scrambling for pennies to survive. Any financial stability you could possibly achieve would still be torture.
Just end your misery already.
You wished you could. It's really all Tighnari's fault you're still here, after all. If you weren't so intrigued and enchanted by the novelties he brought to the table, you would have already dealt with the core problem.
Maybe if you keep your eyes closed, you can fall right back asleep. Maybe you won't wake up again.
Maybe...
"Are you awake yet...?"
At the sound of Tighnari's voice, low and quiet beside your ear, your eyes flutter with slight movement under your eyelids. With a crease of your brow, you start to open them with a bit of hesitancy on your part.
It's dark, maybe because it's still night. Something's not right about this darkness though.
"Ti-" You start to say until a hand gently covers your mouth to stop you. You don't try to continue, waiting for his explanation first. His gloves smell like wildflowers.
"Quietly. They didn't see me hide in here and I can't tell if they're still out there...or alternatively, they know we're in here and are leaving us be," Tighnari says, his warm breath grazing your cheek. "How are you feeling?"
He removes his hand, allowing you a chance to speak now that you've got a sliver of information to contextualize your situation and whereabouts. The dazed part of your mind, still trying to grasp reality after sleeping so deeply, doesn't care about that though.
All you care about is that you woke up with him still beside you.
Against your better judgment, you reach out and find his shoulders, dragging your hands down over his chest to his heart up until he traps your hands in his to stop you.
"What are you doing? I didn't hide us in this closet to imply anything, now isn't the time for your flirtatious antics," Tighnari hisses slightly, though he doesn't sound quite as off-put as you'd expect him to be. That said, he's definitely troubled by the overall situation, you can hear that much in his voice.
He's right though, now isn't the time for things like that. You didn't actually mean for your actions to come off that way.
"No. You're not hurt?" You finally ask, mouth like cotton. Traces of sleep continue to cling to you physically and mentally, in a way that makes you hesitant to believe this isn't a dream.
As soon as you've spoken though, Tighnari's body relaxes beside you. You hadn't noticed him tensing up when you reached for him.
"You have no reason to be concerned for me, I'm fine. You're the one that was shot..." He says, a hand grazing the upper area of your bicep where you feel a tender swelling. To your surprise, there's already a bandage around the inflamed area, a bit too tight for your taste. Tighnari obviously treated you as soon as he had the chance. "Can you describe how you feel?"
"Uh..." Noticeably, you're still sleepy. Even holding your head up is exhausting, and it lulls drastically to either side whenever you try to look around in the dark. Unfortunately, you don't have night vision like Tighnari. "My whole body feels heavy...and my leg feels sort of numb from the toes all the way to my hip. How long was I out?"
"I've estimated a bit under an hour or so, but I don't know what time it is. When I tried to look at your phone display, it wouldn't function properly," Tighnari says, shuffling beside you and removing one of your hands from his chest to place your phone in it.
Trying not to feel sheepish that you've had your hands on his chest that long, you feel the surface of your phone and tap the screen twice. When it doesn't turn on, you hold the power and volume button for a few seconds.
No dice.
"It's run out of battery, I need to charge it," you say, slipping it back into your pocket and letting your hands fidget slightly when you realize it's kind of uncomfortable having your hands in your lap rather than around his neck or on his shoulders. You know he said now wasn't the time to "flirt", but...
You give in to the urge and wrap your arms around him, giving him an honest hug. You're not trying to flirt this time.
It's because you know walking out of this little room will produce the inevitable: Tighnari's departure.
How long will I have to wait to see him again?
Why are you going to wait for him? He's better off without you poisoning him with your presence.
You force the words out of your head, the sound of Tighnari's whispering growing somewhat frustrated when you rest your head on his shoulder. "Stop with your teasing", and "please control yourself" rolling off of his tongue as you cling to him. He says your name again firmly. Whenever he says it, you get butterflies in your stomach.
"Come on, that's enough. If it'll stop this behavior, I'll admit I'm blushing, alright? You win. Now, please sit back," he pleads with vexation, making you let out a humorous exhale.
"I'm not trying to make you nervous, you dummy," you tell him plainly. "I'm just happy you're not gone yet."
You leave him to draw his own conclusion from that. You can feel his tail starting to hit your leg, making you smile when his arms eventually wrap around you.
"I'm flattered..." he eventually manages to mumble, before the tapping of his tail on your leg stops. Not because he's controlling his emotions, but because he's grabbed the end of it. You can tell because one of his arms darted off of you like lightning and hit the floor with a noticeable thud, but you pretend not to hear it. "Your arm is swollen."
"I'm sure it is," you agree, lifting a hand after breaking the embrace. When your fingers brush over the raised skin of the area, you realize it's a lot more swollen than you initially thought. Is that what's making it so tight? "It's more uncomfortable than painful."
"I applied a salve to reduce the swelling. It's already doing a lot better than it was earlier," Tighnari says, surprising you when he takes your chin in his hand and lifts your face up towards his. You don't know what he's doing, but you know he's not trying to kiss you. "I took a closer look at those marks on your neck, by the way."
You tense up at his words at first, only to school your expression to retain a calm disposition as he draws closer to you and runs his bare fingers over the delicate areas. You didn't notice he removed one of his gloves. The points of his nails trail close behind his finger pads, light so as not to break skin.
"I put some oil on the marks and the discoloration is already fading thankfully. You're sure they don't hurt?" He asks, making you crack a bit of a smile.
"If only you knew," you answer wryly. Although you can't see him, you already know he's scowling at you by the burning stare drilling into your forehead.
"...What are you going on about this time? Are you making fun of me? If this is another attempt to embarrass me, I'm not falling for it," he retorts plainly, even though it's hard for you to take him seriously when you're still sitting on his lap.
"It's okay, you already lost before you even knew it anyways. But...do you really want to know?" You ask.
"I'm afraid of the answer," Tighnari neither accepts nor denies the request. You don't say anything until he gives you a proper answer. "How about...you tell me when we see each other again?"
Almost immediately your good mood evaporates at the thought of goodbye. Even for a minute, let alone months. You're sure it will be an eternity before you see him again. Bless his heart, Tighnari notices the change in your demeanor as soon as your expression changes.
"Don't look so upset, it's not like we will never see each other again. Whatever these crooks want, it's for us to be around each other for one reason or another. Besides, this gives me time to escape from your incessant bullying anyway. So..." He trails off when your hand finds his in the darkness, bringing it up to your face. You rest your cheek against his palm to feel his warmth for a few more selfish moments.
You're so very sad, a gray cloud practically forming over you in the darkness. He has no idea just how depressed the thought makes you. In fact, he seems to be in the opposite ballpark entirely following his initial shock, tail whipping to life with an exuberance that somewhat showers your heart with light.
The unchanging fact is that he's going to leave soon though.
I don't want you to leave yet. Can't I just hide you away for one more day?
"I didn't realize you enjoyed my presence that much."
You don't answer him, allowing the silence to stretch. If only he knew how lonely it was. In such a packed city, not a soul makes you feel as happy as he does with his kindness. You forget about the open wounds in your heart, the holes that leak the positivity that never makes it to your brain.
When he's around though, the pressure rises and courses it through your body. It leaks from your mouth, ears and eyes, but there's such an overabundance that you drown in the color, spilling your emotions into your hands and past your fingers.
Once he leaves, that pressure will decrease to a slow, painful drip again.
"I'll miss you," you genuinely say, making Tighnari's tail wiggle more.
"Likewise," he answers simply, fingers curling around your face more without your guidance. "But there will be a next time, there's nothing to worry about. I know it."
He moves his hands and takes both of your palms in his, helping you stand up on both feet. You already know what comes next. It's time to open the door and face whatever's on the other side. You still have no answer for the missing civilians, but it makes you nervous knowing there's somebody out there with enough power to make something like that happen. Especially without any public excuses or evacuation announcements.
"Ready?" Tighnari asks moving one hand, presumably to open the door.
You don't even get the chance to answer.
You don't get a chance to catch your breath.
A piercing orange light envelopes every sense of your body. It burns to the touch, resting over your tongue and presented before your eyes even with your eyelids closed. It invades your nostrils and travels down to burn your stomach, traveling out to the limbs of your body stretching out from your torso.
It's a thoughtless end to your thoughtless positivity, which you are only aware of when you wake up in the darkness of that little room all by yourself again.
━━━━━ |🌺| ━━━━━
You're not happy at all.
After extracting yourself from a shack somewhere in the outskirts of town, proving Tighnari had run a substantial distance from where you had passed out in his arms, you drifted in the direction towards the casino. You may not have energy in your phone, but at least you know enough landmarks to find your way back.
The original plan was to leave the casino because it was proven to be dangerous and test the limits of your freedom away from the suspected epicenter of the House of Horus. Although you considered it far more dangerous based on knowledge Tighnari wasn't privy to, here you were floating back towards it. Is it because you weren't scared of them? Because it was easier to stay where you were already guaranteed a couple remaining nights of free room service and shelter?
No...in reality, as much as these people seem dangerous, having injected you with who-knows-what, they are your only link to Tighnari. Perhaps the suffering is worth it if you could see him again.
You even have foolish thoughts that being in the palm of their hand may reduce your time away from him.
How pitiful. What would he think if he knew I was pining for him like this?
Embarrassed but committed, you stop when you reach a familiar intersection. About a two hour walk from where you woke up without Tighnari around, you were finally able to see the tall, gold outlined House of Horus, two tall statues overlooking the city.
But once you look towards the opposite direction, something else in the distance looms above. Right above the Pacific ocean, the warm hue of suspension cables and arches peers out from between the misty morning air. The fog makes it hard to see its true color, which is a matte bronze-red color you can never seem to get out of your head when you're alone.
You'd finally gotten out of the grittier area of the bay.
And yet once you had ordered a taxi, your request was not to drive the remaining distance to the House of Horus as you were initially headed. The words out of your mouth were the complete opposite- a development that made your walk out of the Tenderloin area of San Francisco a complete waste of time and energy.
"To the Golden Gate Bridge, please."
The driver only scrutinized you momentarily. You must look disheveled enough to match a certain stigmatized image of specific gate visitors.
"...Not for that," you find yourself adding, an unnecessary reassurance to the older man in the drivers' seat of the cab. He looks away from your reflection in the dashboard mirror.
"None 'o my business," he answers flippantly, despite how the affirmation has kickstarted his car into gear. You know better than to think he's only taking you now that he knows your motives aren't self destructive. Chances are that if you didn't settle his conscience and instead stayed quiet to allow the haunting imagination to take over in his mind, he would still take you to the iconic bridge anyways. For all you know, he didn't even believe your protest.
Such is the norm of the city these days.
You pay the driver an unfair amount of money despite the fact that he didn't pull any "extended detour" tricks on you. Unusual for taxi drivers that give rides to the tourist attractions, but perhaps you don't look enough like a naive tourist.
Maybe he pities you for what you might be at the bridge to do...but in that case, why save you money by bringing you straight here? If you're here for the reason he might think you're here for, why not take you to the cleaners? They don't take Mastercard or Visa in the afterlife.
Whatever, I'm not here to do "that" anyways. I don't know why I'm here at all. I just...
You rest both arms on the rails of the gate fencing, overlooking the misty Pacific Ocean and clouds that hover across the land either side of the bridge. You can't help trying to deny the compulsive visit.
Maybe it's the comfort the idea of death gives me, despite its permanence. What a stupid reason to visit.
And though you think it, you find your eyes drawn to a man several feet away along the same end of the bridge as you. Cars continue to pass along the road between the visitors on foot, but nobody seems to notice the air around this specific man.
There's nothing significant about him. He's an average looking middle aged man, well-groomed brown hair and cleanly shaven for the most part. He doesn't look like the kind of person someone would expect to visit the bridge for suicide. In fact, there's something to be said about him that he's the image of a person lacking the very troubles that would lead to a trip here.
Yet...you watch as he pulls himself over the low fence and lands on the other side. There's a lip of the bridge that sticks out a bit, protruding further out only by a few feet or so.
As he stands on the edge, on the precipice of the end of everything, you stare wordlessly. Your lips have parted an inch in surprise, indecision smothering rational thought.
Should I go find security? What if he jumps in the time I've gone searching for help? Do I try to stop him myself?
Your shoulders drop the more you consider your choices. Alarm dulls to something like disappointment, and then resignation. Disappointment towards yourself, and resignation towards what might be inevitable.
In the end, what right do you have to get in the way of this man's choice? Wouldn't that make you a hypocrite, you who stood on the balcony of a stranger's home ready to leap out with the same finalized decision.
You know you have no right to approach him, but you do so anyway.
"Is he going to jump...?" You hear a girl say when you pass her among a group of teenagers. Just based on the time of day, they're either homeschooled or they ditched for the day. She doesn't sound too concerned, it's just curiosity. Bright and remorseless.
Once you reach the rails behind this man, you take up your previous pose and rest your arms comfortably again. Although it's comfy, there's a reason you're doing that as opposed to trying to jump over in a rush to yank him back. If you're too aggressive, he might be compelled to jump sooner.
"Hey," you resort to starting off gently. His shoulders tense up momentarily, but slowly relax when nothing happens in the following seconds. "You should be careful not to fall. It's dangerous and there's no coming back."
You know exactly what you're doing by announcing your presence though. It may be no secret what people come here to do often, but those same people are counting on others to be far too distracted by the scenery to look at them. They're also counting on people to mind their own business.
Especially while they're doing something personal like sorting through their thoughts moments before the final jump.
Yet here you stand, being a hypocrite about it. And with Tighnari who occupies your mind...what if you never give yourself the chance to jump?
There's no more chance to converse with the stranger on the other side of the bridge rails though.
To your unsurprise, he turns around to get back on the bridge and leave. He's shoved both hands in the pockets of his blazer to keep them warm from the sea breeze. You knew announcing your presence might stop him, but you didn't think he'd abandon his motives so soon. Maybe after a few more remarks, but it's been resolved a lot faster than expected.
What do you mean "resolved"?
You avert your gaze from the man's retreating figure, looking out into the ocean.
He'll probably come back here tomorrow to resume his business.
When it starts to get cold, you pull your hood over your head to keep yourself warm. It isn't until you feel the fabric that you remember what you're wearing, specifically when you smell the scent of the Avidya Forest. Although you went to Target to get a disposable scalpel for the procedure on your leg, you never got a top to replace the one Tighnari lent you. That's not what's important about this though.
What's important is that they didn't rip the proof of him off of you this time.
And you're glad. You snuggle into his shirt and remain where you are, feeling your gray cloud grow just slightly. How sad that the thing that reminds you of him doesn't bring you joy now that he's gone back, but only more loneliness.
Now what? Phase two was supposed to be a check to see if we would be able to leave the city without issue. "We"? He's not even here anymore, so what's the point? In fact, it would be beneficial for me to stay close to the hotel-casino if I want to see him again, right?
The thought lingers in your mind even when you've returned to the House of Horus. It's like the day never happened. You don't overhear anyone speak of the disturbance that enveloped you and Tighnari after you were about to leave that dark room.
You're soon back inside your room, the one Tighnari said the two of you weren't going to return to if you could help it.
You stay hopeful you will see Tighnari again soon despite your brain attempting to temper your expectations. To expect disappointment so it would hurt less if the contrary were to happen.
You're forced to purchase a second week stay in a cheaper room within the House of Horus when nothing happens.
Eventually you move out to a conveniently open apartment complex near the casino. Anything to be close to the place where "the enemy" has access to you.
Anything to get closer to seeing him again.
━━━━━ |🌺| ━━━━━
By the time six months had passed, between bartending and serving at the House of Horus to gain enough money to eat, pay your daily dues, and take classes for pole dancing, you were finally accepted into the team as a dancer.
Joanne, the owner of the Scarlet Vixen establishment located within the House of Horus that initially rejected you, saw your promising improvement and took you in..
Eight months in, and you were the lead dancer. Your uncertainty evaporated, and physical control unlike you ever experienced before would take over your body in front of the spectators. Such accuracy and control was praised when you executed risky dance moves.
With a reputation as the best dancer in the House of Horus, the Scarlet Vixen became an establishment that would undergo many renovations. Your hard work eventually awarded you with the title and stage name of Rouge, the new face of the Scarlet Vixen.
Nothing else out of place really happened during this time.
You were as safe as can be when traversing from the House of Horus to your apartment a few blocks away, despite the fact you worked the night shift between five pm to two in the morning. The hours of debauchery, according to Joanne.
The wage was decent enough now that you weren't a bartender anymore. Proper payments went towards your student debt, as small as you could manage compared to the total. Still, it was a livable wage with some extra on the side and you couldn't ask for more than "comfortable". You'd still be paying debts well into your deathbed, but it was better than the crushing thought of endless torment in the form of penalties and interest fees. Although small, you were finally making some headway.
You could at least say you weren't close to homelessness as you were before. As you told Tighnari, you managed to figure something out against all odds.
And yet...
You tilt the bottle of wine to your lips and stare out over the balcony of an apartment complex that isn't yours. It's the norm that you visit the homes of various strangers, to the point some even stop being complete strangers after many hookups.
Tonight in particular is another chilly night after letting a pretty face take you home. The city is still active and vibrant even at this hour, enough to keep your mind distracted momentarily as you assess your life choices up to now.
Your success had mostly been unintentional, though maybe not unintentional for "the enemy". Whenever you were met with suspect individuals giving on "stalker" vibes with underhanded threats and compliments fueled by desire, they would mysteriously disappear.
One moment they would say they'd wait for you after work outside your home, or they'd invite you to meet-ups you'd not agreed to in familiar places you'd usually visit alone and hadn't told anyone about, and then you'd never see them again.
As it would seem...someone was making them disappear. They were trying to keep these suspicious figures from troubling you, if you have to guess.
You won't linger on the thought too much, if only to keep your hopes from spiking up again and again. You must still be important if they continue to watch over you.
And despite everything, you are still trapped in a bog of depression. It's become warped now, fueled by even more loneliness than ever.
Amplified after Tighnari's visit to San Francisco, you soon realized just how much you enjoyed human connection despite your self-sabotaging habits. You've tried to make friends. Some lasted so long it surprised you. And even when they didn't say you were at fault for any arising disagreements, you still felt as if you were the problem.
Cutting ties to protect yourself became the norm. Keeping people at arms length tempered their expectations. And yet, even this didn't protect you enough. Furthermore, it hurt the people around you and caused your isolation to sky rocket.
Your coworkers no longer wanted to associate with the Scarlet Vixen on a personal level.
Two years had passed since you last saw those forest eyes.
Years. Years.
You were hurt, empty, and angry. Why would these people continue to protect you if they had no intention to let you see Tighnari again? What did they want? How was any of this fair?
There was never an agreement, just some silly assumptions drawn up by your own desires and daydreams. What were you expecting?
Done. It's the best word you could think of, at least to faithfully describe how you felt about the situation. Even after letting yourself get into altercations on purpose to stir the pot, you would only receive minimal repercussions- including an ankle monitor to keep you within a set perimeter of work and home. It didn't look like the kinds you'd seen on television, or like you searched online for.
It was...odd looking. Small and minimalist in design, made up of a thick silver wire within a clear cuff showing the circuitry inside its design. At the outer side was a little screen that didn't display a thing, despite that you were sure it could. Based on the sleek retro design far contrasting the usual common ankle monitors distributed to minor offenders, you knew it had to come from the lovely people that forcibly peeled you and Tighnari apart.
They didn't even give you stipulations against your drinking despite alcoholism being the root of your courage to cause a public disturbance. The authorities were more concerned and fixated on your mobility. Somehow, the interaction made you feel as if they were sending you a message.
"You're not going anywhere."
It made you angrier, but what could you do other than wait?
And so you resume your regularly scheduled routine.
Nice and quiet so he doesn't wake...
Your feet cry out in your heels as you close the door to the hotel room on your way out. It's a lot brighter in the hall than in the dark room, but you manage to slip outside without letting too much light in. Once you're at the doorway, you reach into your bag and dig around your personal belongings until you realize something frustrating.
Here you are in heels with nothing to change them out for because you left your cheap foldable flats at home. They suck, but it would be better than traveling the inclines of the streets back to your apartment complex.
With no other option, you close your bag and begin walking down the corridor on somewhat unsteady feet, the regrets of finishing a delicious wine bottle all on your own creeping into the forefront of your mind. If you'd known you had forgotten your flats, you probably would have saved the bottle and drank it at home.
No you wouldn't have.
Actually, yeah, you probably would have still drank it fully aware of a missing change of footwear.
Your state of dress is unkempt to the point of sloppiness. At first you don't really notice anything but the discomfort of the unaligned fabric of your skirt. Once you look down to see what's wrong, you eventually roll your eyes and start evening out the fabric so it's not crooked on your figure.
Either way, it's a bad way to be caught breaking the rules of being a pole dancer, that much is clear.
"Well, well, well."
The voice makes you stop in your tracks. You recognize it, low and feminine like a tiger. As you turn to look towards the room she's standing in the doorway of, you see her platinum blonde pixie cut hair shining under the light of the hallway.
She's gorgeous, bearing a cute fairy face decorated with minimalist style makeup. Hidden underneath that are her true colors though, the painted mix of smug amusement and malicious delight that's usually fueled by her disdain of losing her title to you.
Essentially, this was the previous Scarlet Vixen.
"Dani," you just say. You've never actually fought back much against her when she would maim you or passive-aggressively gossip. Hell, most of the time it didn't even bother you. Half of your infamy was your own fault for not maintaining friendships and allowing your shortcomings to give the wrong impression. It was your fault for not being good enough.
"I knew she was rotten from the start, I told you so."
"She only wants to hang out with the clients that ask for VIP private dances."
"I bet she sneaks around with them outside after hours to get more cash. Why else do those men send so many extravagant gifts to her at work?"
Well, she wasn't entirely wrong with that last one. The gifts and cash were not transactional, as what you were doing with them outside of work wasn't any sort of side hustle. You just coincidentally wanted the same things: sex.
It's against the rules to go and sleep with the clients of the club, so Dani catching you in the act will definitely get back to Joanne regardless that she seems set out to blackmail you by announcing her presence.
The blonde smiles and holds up her phone, playing a video of you entering a room with a man. He's a well known client at the Scarlet Vixen with a lot of money, holding your hand as he leads you in and closes the door behind you. Then another video starts automatically, one shot moments before calling out to you as you walk with obvious intoxication.
You already have a headache, and it's far too soon for it to be the result of a hangover. Nevermind the fact you're still inebriated.
Since you don't look very surprised, Dani drops her casual smile and frowns.
"Come in. Let's talk," she stresses. This isn't an actual request.
With little on your schedule for the rest of the night, and nothing of importance lying in wait for you at home, you don't deny her despite your reluctance. You start walking towards her room and run your hand down your tired face, probably messing your makeup up. Dani steps out of the way to allow you in, but actively pins herself back against the door as you pass. Like touching you will infect her with something foul.
Weirdo.
The blonde seems a bit perplexed by your easygoing compliance as you walk over to the unused coffee table in the room. You take a seat with your infamous "hideous bag" at hand.
"What's this about?" You ask tired. It's not confrontational. It's very much simply getting to the meat of this interaction so you can end it and head out with as little casualties as possible. You blame the acceptance of her bad invitation on the wine.
"You're not in any position to ask me to speak quickly. I'll take my sweet time with this. You're aware I can give this proof to Joanne if you do anything I don't like. I'm sick of you tarnishing our reputation just because you can't keep your legs closed. Everyone's always being asked for 'extra services' thanks to you," she spits out, as if it wasn't fueled by jealousy before you started engaging with the clients outside of work. "Someone like you has no right to be the face of the Scarlet Vixen if you put the rest of your team in awkward positions- no, dangerous positions."
You stare at her quietly as you open your bag to fish out your sweater. Of course, it's your favorite one- even when it stands in stark contrast with what your outfit is on some days.
Dani is right about the controversy regarding your habits spilling over to the other girls. You didn't consider how your actions may affect your coworkers if you started sleeping with clients. But...you still did it. In guilt, you'd probably still do it if you knew beforehand that there would be repercussions of men expecting it of the other girls. At the very least, the girls could say no, and there was security to put a stop to any overzealous idiots walking in.
"Gaudy," Dani remarks when you pull Tighnari's top on. "I wouldn't want to be caught dead wearing tha-"
"Shut your mouth," you snap suddenly, even surprising yourself when your vision turns red for a brief moment.
The girl, who looked confident from the moment she called out to you, falters momentarily and stares with perplexed caution. You don't get enraged often and you've never responded like that to even the worst treatment at work. She's likely never seen you so angry. To ease her worries that you might get physical, you clear your throat and reword your knee-jerk reaction to something she can understand.
"I'm sorry. This shirt belongs to someone really important to me who I'm probably never going to see again. Insult anything else, but the shirt is off limits. I'll knock all of your teeth out if you insult it again."
You probably didn't ease any of her worries with that last part, but props for trying.
"I think I can say whatever I want when I have your career in the palm of my hand?" Dani reminds you in disbelief, prompting a sigh to escape your lips.
"Look. I don't have to do anything and I honestly would have complied out of pity before you insulted my shirt. You can show that video to Joanne, but I've been doing this for about a year now. Do you really think no one is aware of it? When the club I dance in and the rooms I sleep around with men in coexist within the House of Horus? What does that tell you? Besides, why do I have to pay the price for your garbage entitlement issues? I know you're partly doing this because you want to be the Scarlet Vixen again."
Prior to your ascension to becoming the new face of the Scarlet Vixen, the last lead dancer was Dani. Her stage name, "Ruby", was stripped from her as a result. Only the Scarlet Vixen could have a name related to the color red.
Dani grits her teeth together. It's probably not good for that hollywood-white smile she's bleached to perfection.
"What...the hell is wrong with you? How can you casually do things like that?! You're disgusting, you really are!" She says, nose scrunching up in anger. At least she's not denying the jealousy motive, considering how obvious it is.
Although she's furious, you can see the dollop confusion mixed in her wrathful gaze. You were never told by anyone notto mention this because no one told you they would be protecting you like that. It was just an assumption you came to the conclusion of.
But for the girl that's out to try and end you at every opportunity she got, you would tell her the bad news personally. Out of pity.
Or to see the look on her face once she dug a grave for her beloved career. It can sit six feet under right next to your astronomy career.
"High ranking executives of the hotel-casino started to coalesce at the Scarlet Vixen after I arrived," you explain, which is the truth, but for all you know the invisible group pulled some strings to get you the best position you could get regardless of actual skill. "The people you want to convince to fire me are the ones who benefit the most from my position. I'm telling you they won't do anything about this video of yours, for your sake. The only thing this video threatens is your career."
Dani will face repercussions if they find out she's got something against you. She'll end up fired without much fanfare and disappear like most other threats to you have. And someone else will take her place eventually.
Does she believe you though? No, of course not.
"...You are so full of shit."
As she marches to the exit, haughty and worked up, you give a shrug and stand up with your bag flung over your shoulder.
"Nice working with you. I hope you don't regret it," you say, pulling Tighnari's hood up over your head.
"Shut up!" She snaps, increasing her stride as you follow her out of the hotel room. Did she really only purchase a night here just to catch you sneaking around with this man? You know jealousy of your status as lead dancer is partly a reason, and the fact she didn't even like you before you became Rouge.
Now that you think about it, when this guy is in the Scarlet Vixen...isn't Dani always hovering around his area?
"Hey. I have a question."
"I don't want to answer your questions. The only reason you're standing next to me right now is because we're both leaving the casino-hotel," Dani retorts, neither looking at you nor deterring you from asking her.
"You only followed me now because you have a thing for that man I was just with, right?" You boldly ask, causing Dani to falter and whirl around to face you with wide eyes of disbelief. Either she wasn't expecting you to notice, or she thinks your assumption is crazy.
"Wha-? You think- Oh my god, as if I need someone like him. I'm very happy as I am not pining after anyone, thank you very much," she eventually sputters, a manic giggle of suspect origin slipping from her rose pink lips.
You decide you may as well tease her a little more before she fires herself.
"Alright, I guess you wouldn't mind if I go back for round two then-"
"Hey, NO!" Dani lurches back towards you and grabs your bicep when you start to turn, her hand a painful vice grip around you when you glance back with a bit of a wry grin. Although it hurts, it's a welcome distraction from the pounding headache. Her expression quickly recovers its hardness when she sees your satisfied expression.
"You...!" She starts, only for you to lift a hand to stop her.
"I won't see him anymore. No payment necessary, even if you do end up getting quietly removed by the House of Horus management for your video."
You bypass her, making the blonde grit her teeth in irritation. Seems like she isn't going to follow you anymore, probably so she isn't stuck having to be in your presence. This vibe in your interactions isn't new, it always becomes a fight in which Dani attempts to piss you off and you brush it off without much consequence.
"I said I don't need someone like him! I don't care! Hey! I said I don't care! Remember that, you damn hoe!" She shouts after you when you step into the elevator alone. You make eye contact with her briefly just before the doors close.
As soon as Dani is out of eyeshot, you cross your fingers. As unlikable as Dani is, you don't wish her to lose her job. Why?
You haven't recorded enough videos of her tripping during her dances. What will you guiltlessly laugh at if she's gone?
Your phone begins to vibrate in your bag. You don't get calls often, especially after changing phone numbers after your last call to your mom two years ago. As much as you love your mom, her having your phone number...well, she'll try to call you multiple times.
If you're not sure whether you'll still be here, there's no point trying to reconnect with her. For her sake.
From one of the open side pockets of your bag meant for bottled drinks, you fish out your phone only for the call to drop. You don't reorganize the number of the phone call. Not many people call you, but the ones that would are all saved in your contacts.
It's probably a scammer or a robo-call about missing credit card payments...even though I've been diligent with payments.
You push your phone back into the pocket it came from. If it's really important, you don't care much for it. The most important things you're focused on are already being dealt with, so everything else comes second.
Why are you still dealing with it though? Now that things are somewhat looking up, like financial recovery is almost within arm's length, why don't you feel better? Why do intrusive thoughts continue to flood your mind?
You let out a small hiccup, the jerk of your body testing your headache intensity. Your hand immediately settles so your palm rests on your left temple where the hiccup has incited a stab of pain.
Did I really drink that much...? I've had this quantity of alcohol before, but what's with this unbearable headache? Did I eat something bad before I got to that man's room? Or-
It happens suddenly.
The air is knocked out of you entirely, with nothing around that seems to have triggered it. You're alone in the elevator and you don't see, smell, or hear anything unusual, yet your chest tenses with an unseen pressure. It's a horrible feeling, making you stagger back into the elevator wall and curl in on yourself as your thorax throbs in agony.
What is this? A heart attack?
It's the first thing to come to mind only because of the location. Other than that, you're too young and fit to have an issue like heart problems. You don't always eat the healthiest of foods, but your diet is not so unhealthy it could send you to the hospital.
The elevator doors open to the lobby just as the pain starts to settle. Once you see the slots, servers, and game tables around the corner of the passage leading out of the north tower (one of three towers that holds all the hotel rooms of the casino), your latest thoughts evaporate.
"Not so unhealthy" my foot, it's probably all the alcohol you constantly drink that's making you sick right now.
Wouldn't that be funny?
Although the pain returns several times during your walk out of the casino-hotel, no one questions your state. You almost double over a few times, and resort to using the wall for some stability. It's not surprising that people ignore you. Most people at and around the casino are usually drunk or tweaked up, so they probably think you're someone who was in over their head with their addictions.
Only slightly true, you did drink a substantial amount of alcohol after all. Not enough to count as drunk, but enough to stumble quite a bit.
No one cares about people's addictions though.
Be it alcohol, sex, drugs, food, gambling- people who are fortunate to be outside the clutches of an addiction always cast judgment as if it's easy to stop. As if having children, caring about one's future, or risking valuables in life can compare to the mental wires that lead you away from logical priorities and into the entanglement and urge to satisfy an incessant itch in the back of your brain.
But they don't understand how those mental wires work. They're not something you willingly follow, they're more like hooks pierced into your skin. Because the experience of addiction exists outside of other's perspective, something they can't relate to or see, they don't understand it.
And thereby, it doesn't exist.
So they gather the evidence that betrays you by matching the alternative narrative: the addict holds the responsibility because they didn't "just stop".
"If she cared about the club's reputation, she would stop sleeping around in the VIP rooms. She's a slut."
"She came in tipsy and has the gall to say she can still dance? I can't believe she still works here, why haven't they fired that drunk, she's embarrassing the rest of us!"
Valid criticisms.
Perhaps you're not the kind of addict that's exempt from that criticism though.
It's been over two years and now look at you. You should have killed yourself a long time ago, not wait for a stupid little crush to come back from another world.
Death is better than this torture.
You pause outside of the casino, taking a deep breath to try and silence your thoughts, but they persist. It's a chant of everything wrong about you.
You're a bad person. You don't treat other people well, that's why no one wants to be your friend. You're better off disappearing. You're trash. Even if you try, you're a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure in every department. What's the point of getting back on your feet? You ought to rot at the end of a dark alley. Feeding yourself is just a waste of resources, it should go to someone more deserving.
You're too damaged to make meaningful connections with others.
In the end, you would disappoint Tighnari too. Why not check out before you can turn into a sour memory in his mind? It's not too late to go for a late night walk.
Although you're trying to counteract the intrusive thoughts, the weight continues to settle over your shoulders. Other than your mother, there's no one you can confide in to tell you otherwise. After you started making a stable enough income, you gave up therapy so you could focus on your debts. You thought it would make your depression get better if you slashed off those liabilities first.
But even after paying two credit cards off, you're still being exposed to the echo chamber of your depression with no one that will call the malignant voice a liar. No one to tell you it's wrong, and that you have some value beyond the shell of your body.
Your appearance is the only thing that ever gets praise. You?
You don't matter.
The weight of your thoughts breaks through your defenses as you inhale the night air. You haven't felt like this since you tried to jump off a balcony after your first escapade with a man. You thought you were resisting the hopelessness well enough, and you've been mostly apathetic to everything around you. Even towards the malicious gossip from your coworkers.
The cold air outside the casino-hotel is a blessing. You're surprised it's so much colder compared to the casino itself, which usually has the AC at full arctic blast, but maybe you were just claustrophobic or something.
All the streets are alive and full of energy as you pass people. With the longevity of the House of Horus, it's become a norm to see street performers. Musicians, actors, and artists of all types congregate on the streets to earn a few more bucks. More than a few are attempting to become the next online viral video on the internet.
You slink past them, nauseous and in pain both in your head and chest as you walk up to a cab to ask for a lift to your place. Although it's not very far by foot, you already know you can't handle walking anymore. San Francisco is sort of known for the sharp inclines and declines when it comes to their streets, kind of an annoyance whenever you forget to bring a change of footwear and are forced to walk outdoors barefoot or with your heels.
"Are you sure you don't wanna go see a doctor?" The man in the driver's seat asks, eyeing you up and down in a less than favorable way. Still, you can't be picky right now. All you want to do is get home and find your pill bottle, so you can leave the way you choose to leave.
Sorry, Tighnari. I can't wait anymore.
"No, I'm...fine. Just take me to the address I've provided," you repeat, your voice calm and in stark contrast to your face twisted in discomfort.
You climb into the backseat and he starts the meter while you get comfortable in your seat. After nearly forgetting to clip your seat belt on, you're soon lulled into a dreamlike haze.
Despite the cloud trying to pull you into the unconscious realm, you're still awake and can see the passing lights on the roads along with the foot traffic. You even hear the taxi driver shouting at irresponsible drivers while making questionable choices on the road himself, jostling you in the back seat and triggering more chest pains.. If you were able-bodied enough to wait for another cab, you probably would have.
Don't fall asleep. You need to watch out for where you're going, in case he tries to pull a fast one on you with the meter. Getting home as fast as possible is all that matters, there's no need to prolong this torture.
It's too difficult to focus. Especially with the bumps and inclines the car drives through, which continues to agonizingly cause more pain to your chest and head. You're so nauseous you might actually vomit all over the interior of the cab.
It isn't until you hit the third traffic light on the way home that another painful pressure snaps you into action.
The cab driver cries out when you gag, making you throw open the door in the street to purge the contents in your stomach. Red stains the white painted marks of the road, the flavor of stomach acid and blood sitting on your tongue as you lean out so you don't ruin the upholstery of the car.
"Get out! Get out of the car!" The driver shouts, visibly worked up. Confused, you get out thinking it's just because he wants you to clear the contents of your stomach out before resuming the rest of the drive.
He wouldn't leave a sick girl in the middle of the road just to keep his car clean, would he?
It's such a naive belief that you almost start laughing through your next barf wave when he abruptly drives off with the backseat door wide open. So yes, there really are people out there that would drive off and leave a person to upchuck their last meal in the middle of the busy road full of irresponsible drivers.
The cab door shuts with the motion of his car the further it goes, passing the green lights of the traffic as you're left collapsing to your knees and vomiting in the middle of the street.
Am I dying?
You crack a smile at the thought, though you're not as thrilled as you look. After what's just happened, you feel like you're going a little crazy. Now you can't even get home to your pills, all because you were sure you wouldn't need them for a while.
Once again, your avenue to suicide is thwarted because of his mere existence.
"Let's set the pills aside in this cabinet! Because we're not gonna use them anytime soon! I'm stoooopid enough to believe I'll see Tighnari in a week"- fucking ridiculous mental gymnastics.
It's hard to care. You're just staring at the blood you've thrown up, exhausted and apathetic beyond belief. In the background, you can hear cars honking at you to move. More people that don't care about whatever's wrong with you, fully focused on their own little bubble universe.
Maybe not everyone though, as you feel a hand start to pull you away carefully. As you follow the stranger, everything's starting to spin.
What if I'm not dying? What if it's them? What if...
It's a thought that you're hopeful for as you let yourself be dragged around the traffic.
Hoping for the best, you welcome the darkness that creeps on over you, only to experience what you can only describe as the fastest blackout you've ever undergone.
It's unnatural, taking hold one second...and promptly spitting you back to pure clarity standing alone on your own two feet.
Huh?
You blink and frown, looking down at your feet. You're still wearing your heels and your slitted maxi skirt. Above it is the top Tighnari left behind, hiding the small black bralette you originally chose as a seductive enough top for the night.
The blacktop of the road is pristine, not a drop of blood or even regular vomit in sight. Puzzled, you look at your hands and find that they're clean as well. Odd since you definitely recall getting some of your vomit on them. You don't even have that foul taste on your tongue anymore.
My headache and chest pain is gone too.
Your clean hands settle on your chest as the traffic lights shift from green to yellow behind you. The color of the light reflects on the white painted road marks, enough to make you turn to look up at it. Somehow you're exactly on the street where you were passing out, but it's like everything changed around you. The incline is the same, the road looks the same, the buildings are exactly as they were when you stepped out of the cab and got sick.
And yet there's no longer a single car or person in sight.
The lights of the intersection alternate for nothing, giving passage to cars that no longer exist. The crosswalks even alternate between walking and no walking, though no one is around pressing the buttons to request a walk signal.
What the hell kind of a development is this...?
You don't know what to think of it, other than by acknowledging you don't see a single soul around. This isn't Teyvat, it's home...but it's all wrong. The otherness of the place sets off a deep set fear in your gut, making you dig into your bag for your discreet lipstick stun gun.
Half of you wants to call out and see if Tighnari is in the area.
The other half of you says that would be reckless and call out unwanted attention.
You're not sure if you're alone here or not, but if you're not alone and someone other than Tighnari is around...well. You'll probably throw up again.
With nothing else to do, you start walking in the direction of your home only after removing your heels to walk barefoot. It's more comfortable since you have to walk down the city incline, which would be a lot harder to do with heels on. Never mind how you always seem to manage knocking the bone of your ankle against the cuff of your ankle monitor on your other foot all the time.
Just head home and then we can question all of this after...maybe stick close to the center so you're able to see anyone coming.
The discomfort only gets worse the closer you get to your apartment complex. The streets aren't changing in appearance, at least not regarding the lack of activity. You've never seen San Francisco look so dead in this area. It's like there was an unbiased rapture of every living creature in the city.
You don't even hear birds or crickets.
Just as you're starting to get used to the silence, your ankle monitor starts to ring out loud when you reach the last intersection, your apartment complex just right across the road on a corner. You're startled out of jogging the last stretch to the safety of your home, stepping back to look down at the cursed device clinging to you. The piercing ring echoes in the empty city, more than disturbing you as it shatters the imposing silence.
Since you don't know what's going on, there's no telling the dangers lurking in the shadows.
Although you're aware they wouldn't give you an ankle monitor that's easy to remove, you still grab it and try to remove the device while hopping on one foot. The latch hardly exists as a moving part without the right tool to pry it open, so all you do is fumble and hop around like a fool in the end.
Do you have to step back? Are you outside the perimeter?
You jog a couple feet back and relax when the ringing settles and stops. Other than your unsteady breathing, everything is quiet again. You duck into a dark alley near a dumpster where you hope you'll still be safe from your misbehaving ankle monitor, heart ready to leap out of your chest as you try to calm yourself down.
So I did cross some sort of perimeter...but why is my apartment outside said perimeter? How does that make sense? I know this place is odd, but home is home. It's never rung like that for approaching my home any other time.
Is it because it's not actually my home?
You wait behind the dumpster, looking back deeper into the alley every few minutes in case somebody thinks to sneak up on you.
No one appears. In the time you wait, you're still completely alone.
What are you supposed to do then? You're suddenly not sick anymore, your apartment is across the street in a no-go zone, and you have nowhere to settle down for the night...
Get comfy here. Right by the dumpster, just like the trash you are.
Well, there really isn't much else to do, so you relent to the idea and go to stuff your stun gun into your pocket. When you promptly remember none of the articles of clothing you're wearing has pockets, you throw up your hands in exasperation and stuff the device in your underwear. It's not dangerous, the lipstick stun gun is one with a cap, so the prongs that deliver the zap aren't touching you.
Tired from the walk, despite a majority of it being downhill, you become vaguely aware of the gaping emptiness in your stomach. Although there's no proof you vomited, you feel oddly unsettled on the inside. So did you actually vomit, or not?
Just when you're about to sit down, you scowl and turn around to look at the building wall behind you.
Spawning an idea that you probably should have had considering there's nobody around, you walk out of the alley and further back in the direction you came, keeping close to the same building until you reach the front doors.
This is one of many hotels situated at a distance from the House of Horus with better prices compared to the hotels closer towards the iconic casino. It's meant for visitors that are unwilling to pay the expensive price the House of Horus advertises its rooms for.
If no one's around, you may as well crash here, right?
If Tighnari's around, it's better for him to catch my scent rather than go around screaming his name like a desperate simpleton. The path I've walked would be bound to lead him to me.
You push open the doors and grin when they don't resist your entry. Pristine but empty, you march up to the vacant front desk after grabbing a random housekeeper keycard owned by a "Jillian Stewart" and immediately gun it for the elevator. Rather than picking a random floor, you let it take you to the first floor and enter the first room down the hall to keep things simple.
The room itself is clean and untouched. The smell of clean linen has you promptly locking the door and moving to settle in the room as if nothing anomalous is occurring outside your room.
Just before you flick on the lights, you halt and instead use your phone flashlight to dimly light up the room, covering the majority of the light with your palm. Your first course of action is to get to the open window, closing up the thick curtains and only releasing the light from your palm once you're sure none of the light is going to escape outside.
You check the rest of the room from that point, examining the nooks and crannies under the bed, in the closet, in the bathroom, and you eventually relax to the point that your exhaustion hits you like a truck. No one's in the room...but you have one last thing to do before you go to bed.
Curious to see if anything has happened outside, you turn off your phone flashlight when you approach the window and duck under the curtain to examine the street.
Nothing.
It's exactly the same as it was before you came up.
After a few minutes of waiting for anything to happen, you duck back into the room. You don't know what to think about this. It's weird and kind of scary, completely different from waking up in Sumeru's Avidya Forest the last two times. Somehow, you would prefer to wake up to a spino crocodile with it's open jaws in your face as opposed to whatever this is.
You turn your phone light back on and turn to face the darkness of the room.
There's a figure standing under the blanket on top of the bed.
Your first instinct is to tense up and freeze, staring at what in all other times you'd guess to be a juvenile prank from someone. The only thing is that you don't have any friends for them to do something like that, and you doubt Tighnari would do it either.
You checked the entire room before this. There's no way someone could have snuck around you, and there's no way anyone was laying down hiding under the sheets in the first place. You climbed up on the bed earlier, it was flat.
It's been a while since you've been as scared as you are now.
You see a movement under the blanket and then notice the hem lifting, revealing a large gun underneath in the hands of a male figure wearing black. His form becomes visible up to his belt, enough to reveal he's actually kneeling, rather than standing. After you stare at the gun for a minute, you actually relax despite yourself.
Wait, why are you relaxing?! He's going to shoot you!
And yet that's still a thousand times better than thinking there's a goddamn poltergeist straight out of Paranormal Activity stuck in a room with you.
With your initial fear having died off, you only yelp a little when you feel the painful punching stab at your upper right shoulder, making you glance down to see a dart sticking out of you. It's smaller than the dart you were shot with before Tighnari's disappearance the last time.
Am I going to see him?
You're not scared at all.
You're excited.
You patiently wait for the tranquilizer to kick in and glance back at the figure hiding under the comforter, showing more signs of life despite the dead quiet around the two of you.
"Took you assholes long enough," you remark bitterly, a half snarl of disdain etched across your features as you lower yourself to sit on the floor so you don't fall once it really starts to take over. Although this dart was smaller than the last one, somehow it seems to be working faster. "What the...hell is this place anyways...?"
You have to swallow between your words when your mouth starts to feel dry.
A sticky feeling twists your thoughts around, making you shake your head and blink a few times. It's almost like that feeling the strange sound in the Avidya Forest always causes right before you're about to leave.
The man doesn't answer. He doesn't remove the blanket from his head either, settling to wait as you lay down and eventually succumb to the drug. The last thing you remember, clouded by confusion and sleepiness, is the blanket shifting so the man can climb off the bed and lift you up over his shoulder.
Your last thought is a wish that needs no repetition.
You've never been more excited to be whisked away by "the enemy".
━━━━━ |🌺| ━━━━━
~ Fin ~