Your name is Sollux Captor and you guess you could say you're a pretty lucky troll.
You mean, you guess you could.
Most would consider themselves lucky if they walked into their respiteblock to find the troll of their desires naked and waiting, just enough hidden from view by the pile of blankets she sat on to leave something to the imagination.
It's not as if this comes as a surprise to you. In fact, one could almost say that you had planned it; almost, of course, being the key term here because you had never actually agreed or even really discussed it at all, and god damn it you had lost so much you would at least like to keep your wits about you, but seeing her there and knowing you can is just so difficult.
You're so lost in those curves, the way the thin fabric drapes over that pale slate skin, the way her pitch curls are just tumbling everywhere and how the way she looks tonight reminds you of the way she used to be, really used to be, that you find yourself taking a few steps towards her. She looks at you blankly, and that's when you pause, staring at her, remembering.
"Aradia, I can't." The words are choked out of your mouth before you can even think about it and you remember when you first started calling her by her name on a regular basis, how you had to because what you used to say just seemed so friendly and casual and Aradia really is much more befitting of a dead person than AA is, and even though you think it's a beautiful name you wish dearly you had a different reason to be calling her by it.
She responds the way any calculating troll would, knowing how to get exactly what she wants. She shifts just so, and the sheet lying lazily across her bust slides down to pool in a second layer of soft cloth in her lap. You swallow audibly. Her gaze never leaves you, never wavers.
"This is what you wanted, isn't it." It isn't a question. She doesn't ask questions.
It is what you wanted. It is what you want. You throw your thoughts, your conscience, your guilt, everything, all out the window and you take long strides over to that pile and you're kissing her, and she takes it all in stride and matches your fervor with something more elegant and sure but no less heated. You search and search for any excitement, any satisfaction, not because you're touching her [no, of course not; you wouldn't even try to hope], but maybe because she's finally getting what she wants [no, not the sex, but what comes after].
Even still, you know all along there is none to be found. And it turns you cold inside, touching and kissing this hollow shell that runs through the motions like a whore would; at first glance it seems like passion but it isn't, it's just a lie, you know it is, but it's nice to pretend so you try to turn your mind off for a while. All the pain and the regret is shoved to one small corner, a tiny whispering voice that you can almost ignore as you close your eyes and drag your teeth along her throat and try to imagine what she'd sound like if only, if only, because the only sounds she's making are the ones in your head.
Death has done nothing if not sharpen her mind. She knows her way around people, and you have to admit that it frightens you. She knows your deepest desires and darkest hours and she's not afraid to use them to get where she needs to be. It's not even what she wants, but what the voices are pushing her to do. She's a puppet. She's a dead, calculating puppet and the only driving force behind her is penultimate destruction, the only driving force behind these kisses and these touches and this silent coercion [except you wanted it all along] is the end.
You remember how she proposed it, calmly yet insistently urging you to code the strange garbled ruins, never deterred each time you denied her, taking in your snappishness and your tired eyes and the way you'd turn away from her after only a few short words. She would observe the way you stare glassily at old pictures and the way you bite your lip when you look at her for too long, the way you swallow thickly when she lingers near. She takes these subtle signs and uses them against you, she knows you loved her.
It's what you wanted, you remind yourself, your hands gripping at the sheets, square palms and long fingers slick with mustard-tinted sweat. You open your eyes, you know it's a bad idea, and you stare at her, blank empty eyes and wild dark hair and those are your bite marks on her neck and shoulders, but she isn't breathing hard and she isn't sweating red and she isn't looking at you lovingly, and you remember that this isn't Aradia, this isn't yourAradia, and this isn't what you wanted at all. But it's too late; you're in this, and your body and your mind are screaming it's her it's not it's her it's not and you had wanted her so badly and you couldn't have her but you could at least try, at least forget, and forgetting was such a wonderful thing.
The closest you've come to forgetting about her death is when you're fucking her. You let out a short, breathless laugh. She doesn't even blink.
It's such an ugly word, you think, but it really is the best one. You're not making love. There is no love. You're not even really having sex. You feel like having sex requires at least the earnestness of both parties but really she's just there, doing her job, and you're fucking her like a fool because you fell for it and you know you did but you don't even care, do you?
You bite down hard on her shoulder. Your hands plunge south mercilessly. You dare to hope for a response, a sign of life, anything.
Nothing. She only arches against you and that's what you want but no it's not what you want not really but you can't have anything else so you'll just have to settle for this. You screw your eyes shut again because you just can't take her dead gaze anymore and you try to remember how nice things used to be, because you had never gotten to tell her, never gotten to kiss her, touch her, hold her, but all of that wistful longing was better and you would trade those days of only having her smile for this cold and unfeeling sex in a heartbeat, you know you would.
She pulls you down into a fake impassioned kiss and you lose yourself again. She knows what you want but at the same time she doesn't, cannot comprehend, because a few seconds of oblivion will haunt you forever, taunting you with so close yet so far. Her love isn't something to bargain with but apparently her sex is, and you feel so dirty, and you feel like if she were alive she would hit you and then cry, and you would cry too because you are a terrible person; in fact you're crying now, your back is curved and your shoulders are taut and your muscles are strained and you're crying. You can sense everything so clearly and your eyes fly open, a rush of cold sharpness to your mind, your spine pressed against the skin of your back, her light fingers touching upon each and every ridge, the sound of your ragged breath and the silence of hers, the taste of Aradia but something's missing, and her smell is gone, replaced with sweat and sex and shame. You kiss her again and you can taste the salty tears on your tongue and she probably can too, if she can taste; you're not actually sure.
You choke back a sob that isn't even really a sob, because you're not that pathetic, are you, to cry in front of someone who wouldn't care at all. You lean down and bury your face in her shoulder, kiss her throat over those purple bruises, and as you feel her clawing at your back you lose yourself for a moment because you can't see those dead eyes, and for a moment she just feels so real, and you whisper a messy, "I love you" into her skin.
You hope dearly that she doesn't hear. Maybe she didn't. You think you gave her enough of a distraction. You wonder vaguely if she can even orgasm. You hadn't thought about it. Her body lay, rotting, probably, underneath her destroyed hive. The woman you have just slept with is a tangible ghost. You don't even know how you feel about it. It's as if you are dying of thirst but there is water in front of you; look at it stare at it long for it suffer but do not touch do not partake.
You know you have to get up. You don't want to. But suddenly you remember that you just fucked the ghost of your best friend and suddenly you feel sick, disgusting, cold, shaking. You raise yourself off of her and you turn away, your head bowed over your knees, the heel of your hand pressed against your burning eyes, throwing the end of a blanket over your lap in shame, so much shame, regret, pain, hatred even.
This is what y0u wanted. Her dead voice echoes inside of your mind, and it's almost worse than all the other voices combined and it hurts so much.
"Yeah, but not like this," you whisper, and the tears won't stop, they just won't stop. It's silent for a while, a really long while. You hear her shift. You look back at her. She is lying on her stomach, her arms crossed in front of her face. Her hair is everywhere, tangled in her horns, spilling over the deep dip in her lower back. Her ankles are crossed in the air and she is looking at you blankly, no pity, no acknowledgment of the fact that you are crying, that you have fucked her and then cried like a baby.
You can't decide if it's better or worse that she doesn't care.
"What's wrong?" Her empty voice outside of your mind startles you. She's been mostly silent this whole time. You hate it.
"Nothing."
"You don't look very pleased." Not even an eyebrow is quirked. It is just a simple statement. "Was it not good enough?"
She doesn't even have the decency to look abashed. Of course she doesn't. Neither do you. You're just tired and in pain, so much pain, but it doesn't matter so you don't bother. "That's not it." It's like talking to a child.
"So?"
"So."
She shifts again, pushing her hair back. It's silky and slips through her fingers until a tangle catches. You made that tangle when you fisted your fingers in her hair and tugged her closer. "I take that to mean it was good."
"Yeah," you sigh at length, after a long quiet while. "It was… fine."
She doesn't skip a beat. "So then, will you code it?"
You cringe. Nothing like a harsh reminder from someone else besides your own self-deprecating hatred that this was very much an apocalyptic business deal. You look away again, hanging your head. You want to disappear.
"Sure. It was a deal, after all."