You don't know why he's here. You don't know why he talks to you. You don't know why he comes into the hall everyday, and everyday without fail, says good morning. You cannot fathom the reason as to why he holds legitimate conversations in the two hours from his arrival to the time your exhibit opens. You don't have a clue as to why he smiles in your direction. You're completely and utterly terrified that you don't mind. Vous ne me dérange pas du tout.
He was wary of you the first few weeks, and you could hardly blame him: You're a fucking human with wings, with a reputation for attacking your keepers. You're not even going to mention how pointy your teeth are, or your crimson eyes, because that stuff just confuses you even more about why he's sticking around.
It's been two months since Sollux (though you still fondly refer to him as "Thollux") started working the morning shift, and you've talked more in the past six weeks more than you have in the past eight years. Your voice is still raw from under-use, and you wonder if you've permanently damaged it by remaining silent for so long.
You get self-conscious when you talk, you always have, but Sollux doesn't seem to notice. You had toned back your usual snark at first so as not to put him off, but by week three you realized he was just as full of shit as you are. Now, you have no qualms about curse-ridden banter fests between the two of you, and actually really enjoy them. Who wouldn't?
You look forward to the mornings, in that two-hour window, because Sollux doesn't treat you like an animal. Around him, you're not a beast pacing behind gold bars; you're just a human being with very unfortunate know he pities you, but he doesn't show it often, and for that you're grateful.
You've never appreciated pity, ever since you were a kid. Pity just got people hurt.
You don't run. You flat-out sprint, wings poking through your tattered, bloody jacket. You know you're leaving a trail of your unnaturally-bright red blood for your pursuers to follow, but you don't slow your pace over the clean cobblestones. You race through the winding, immaculate alleyways, flapping your wings every now and then to give you an extra boost, though this movement tugs at the gash cutting into your shoulder-blades. You avoid public areas, crowded streets, because if anyone else saw you...
You shudder, then yelp as a stone flies past your head, hitting a flower pot and shattering it. You jerk your head over your shoulder, stomach clenching at the sight of six very large men barreling in your direction.
You force back the bile in your throat, and keep running. Just a little more. You just have to make it to your home, votre maison. Because father is there, and mother is there, and they'll know what to do.
You use your superior agility to stay ahead of your adversaries, skillfully finding your way towards your home in the middle-district. Your father is a well-off carpenter, so your family has a large-ish home, with a guard at the gate; he would be able to handle these men, right?
But you're still relatively far away when you feel the first hand take a swipe at you, barely missing. You let out a screech, and dive down an alley; a bad move. You had hoped it would wind away into narrow passages like the alleys did by the port, but this one dead-ends. This one stops not fifty feet from the main road, and you find yourself pressed against the stone wall, watching the men who'd seen your wings approach, eyes blurry with tears.
"G-G-Gamz-zee..." You whimper, cringing away from the hand flying for your head. Just before it reaches you, you scream. "GAMZEE!"
"What're you doing to my lil' bro?" Your head jerks up at the dangerous, husky voice, staring in disbelief as your lithe big brother drops down from the roof behind you, landing in front of you with ease and effectively shielding you from view. Frère!
"Get out of the way, peasant." One of your attackers hisses, but Gamzee narry casts him a glance. He instead turns towards you, kneeling down in front of you before lifting you into his arms. You cling to him like a koala-cub, balling into his pristine cotton shirt. His hands flit over the wounds already inflicted upon you, the cuts and scratches from rocks, the malevolent slice between your wings made in an attempt to cut them from your back.
Gamzee slowly stands, then shifts around on heel, shooting a death-glare towards the man that had almost hit you, and you swear you saw the fucker cringe.
"You'll motherfucking pay for this." He growls, and you're positive in the assumption that you heard a whimper from one of the other men.
Then Gamzee whips around and leaps over the wall with ease, holding you close to his chest as he vaults away.
Things get fuzzy and black around this part, and you don't remember much until you see Gamzee stumbling towards you as you sit huddled at the end of another alley.
You cry out and leap to your feet, rushing to your brother. You barely manage to catch him before he tumbles to the ground, and you're immediately soaked with the deep-crimson blood spilling from the open gash across his ribs, the sight bringing a fresh wave of tears.
"Gamzee, I'm so sorry!" You wail, helping him sit against the wall, and he just chuckles softly, carding his fingers through your crazy mop.
"'T's okay, Karbro. I'm fine."
"You're not fine!" You sob, useless, clumsy hands trying to staunch the blood. "Mon frère, ne meurt pas! Don't die, brother!" Panic wells up inside you, fear nearly choking you when he smiles his lopsided grin and pulls you into a tight hug. You feel his breath shortening, his skin growing colder and colder. "Don't leave me, Gamzee!"
"Shh, I said it's okay, motherfucker." He whispers hoarsely, rubbing slow circles on your back. "Karbro, you can find your way home, can't you?" You don't want to, but you nod in confirmation. "Good, because you need to go there, okay? Tell mum and dad what h-happened." The end of his sentence is greeted with a very wet-sounding cough, and you clutch at him tighter. "O-Okay, Karbro?"
"I'm not leaving you here! Gamzee, you have to come back with me! Vous devez venir avec moi!" He coughs again, and you feel something wet and sticky hit your neck. You cringe, but don't move.
"Don't worry 'bout me, okay? You need a motherfuckin' smile on that little angel face." You shake your head vigorously.
"No!"
"Hey, Karbro. Je t'aime." You weren't prepared for that. You all but scream, beating your little fists weakly against him. The fucker just repeats that over, and over, and over again, like a song whispered in your ear.
"If you love me, why are you leaving?! Pourquoi?!"
"Shit, lil' bro, if I had it my way, we'd live forever. But miracles like that don't happen, so just remember: Je t'aime. Je t'aime, je t'aime, je t'aime."
"Je ne vous aime pas!"
"Aw, you don't mean that. 'Course you love me."
"No! Je ne vous aime pas! Je ne sais pas!" This is your fault; you're the reason Gamzee is bleeding to death in an alley, with only a sobbing little brother to keep him company as he slips out of the world.
You awake, crying out. A full-blown scream nearly escapes your throat as you jolt out of your nest, body hitting the metal floor with a slap.
You lay there for long minutes, regaining normal breathing patterns and fighting back tears. No, thinking about that night is one of the last things you want to do. That was, what, seventeen years ago, wasn't it? It shouldn't still hurt this much. It shouldn't still feel like someone is ripping your insides out of you.
Oh shit, you're shaking like you're having a fucking seizure and sweat drips off your forehead like you've just run a marathon. It's dark in the hall, alerting you to the early hour, but you have no clock to check the exact time. As you lay there, you realize you don't care, and that your ankles are bleeding from the jesses rubbing against them painfully.
It isn't long before tears are forcing themselves past your eyelids, and you genuinely hope Sollux doesn't arrive any time soon.
"'Morning, KK." You don't respond to Sollux's greeting, rather just stare at the trencher cupped in your hands, completely untouched. "KK, you okay?"
"I'm fine." You glance over at him, and know he's unconvinced. But he lets it slide, and you send him a silent thank-you for it; he knows when to back off.
You watch him as he goes about his morning chores, hoping your eyes aren't red or puffy, but know it's a slim chance. Maybe you can pass it off as a cold or something? But no. You've never been sick in your entire life; probably some freak side effect in your genes. No one would believe you if you tried to play it sick.
Once Sollux is done lighting the lamps, he returns to your cage and settles on the marble step that rings the exhibit and keeps the base of your cage a foot off the ground. You always lean against the gold mesh on the inside, and Sollux will settle next to you on the outside, shoulders almost touching. It's all part of the now-familiar routine you two have built for yourselves.
"Tho, anything interethting happen after I left yethterday?" Sollux inquires, crossing his arms lazily across his chest.
"Not really." Is your simple answer.
"Oh. That'th good, I gueth." You can almost hear his frown. "KK, are you alright?"
"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?" He shifts a bit uncomfortably.
"I don't know, you're jutht tho... calm. It'th weird." Well, he'd be pretty reserved too if he had a nightmare about his brother's death the night before, subsequently could not fall back asleep, and is now running on three hours of rest.
"Can we please change the subject?"
"Um, yeah. Thure." You both fall awkwardly silent, and your empty stomach churns in remembrance of the terror of rewatching Gamzee bleed to death. "Hey, KK?"
"Mm?"
"Why aren't you fighting?"
"What?" You turn in surprise.
"Why aren't you... fighting, trying to find a way to ethcape. I would be, if I were in your plathe." Did you just sense a hint of pleading in his voice?
You exhale slowly, pushing away thoughts of Gamzee and wrapping your arms loosely around your knees, leaning your head back against the mesh. "Well, it's not like I have anything to go back to." He falls silent, and you hear his fingers drumming the marble step.
"Oh. Um, can I athk why?" You sigh through your nose and rub a hand over your face. You trust Sollux more than you've trusted anyone in a long time, but maybe not that much.
"No, I would prefer it if you didn't ask." It would be today that he brings up your past home, with pain fresh on your mind.
"Oh, okay. Thorry." The two of you elapse into an awkward silence, admittedly not the first in this strange friendship that you've developed with the dirty-blonde guard. You love to surprise him every chance you get with your intelligence. You love to see his masked eyes widen when you use big words, you love to see his lips part when you swear unexpectedly, and this usually results in him falling silent to fidget uncomfortably. "Tho... How long have you had your wingth? Or, am I not allowed to athk that either?"
"Mm, no, it's fine. I was born with them." You stretch a cramp out of your back as you speak, before closing your eyes tiredly; pain from your ankles had kept you up just as much as your dream about Gamzee had.
"Really?" You hear him shift around in interest. "I kind of athumed they were the by-product of thome experiment by the Baroneth." You snort at the ridiculous thought of human experiments.
"Do you seriously think the Baroness is smart enough to do something like that? No, these babies are thanks to a fucking mutation I get from my mother." Whoa, shit. After your fucking horrorterror about Gamzee, you actually just brought your mother into this conversation?
"Your... mother?"
"Um, yeah... I don't know much about it. Actually, it's more like I don't remember; it was sixteen years ago." He makes a disgruntled, half-pained noise in the back of his throat.
"You've been here for thixteen yearth?" You let only your eyes flicker to his face, which in contorted into confusion and perhaps a little anger; you don't know. You're fairly good at reading people, but his dicolored shades make it harder by hiding his eyes.
"Not here specifically;" You hear yourself saying. "I've only been here for seven."
"Where were you for the other nine?" You shrug, half happy and half scared of the change in topic; you're glad to have steered clear of your family, but there's nothing stopping Sollux from asking about the time you spent in other places. You don't really want to tell him, because just the thought of some of them bring back painful memories.
You suppress a shudder and ignore the dull pain of an unhealed scar across your ribs; no, your life certainly hasn't been full of puppies and rainbows.
"I've been here and there. Mostly people's animal collections." Something about your lack of sleep seems to make you very talkative. Once you start, you find yourself unable to stop. "Ooh, and there was this traveling zoo I was with for about a year, and the food was fucking brilliant. Then I was owned by this really weird old guy that tried to feed me birdseed the entire time I was there."
"You thpent time, in a... zoo?"
"'Course. If you haven't noticed, people kind of think I'm a savage animal." You think you hear him mutter
"I don't think you're a thavage animal," but you're not sure, so just turn your head away, bringing your knees closer to your chest. "Um, why didn't you jutht tell him you eat normal food?" Sollux inquires into the silence.
"Oh, the fucker hardly knew English. He knew like forty different languages, English and French not included on that list."
"French?" He shifts again. "Ithn't... ithn't that a dead language?" You shrug. Thanks to the Baroness' reign, all kinds of languages stopped being used, French among them. Your mother had always been adamant you and Gamzee be fluent in English as well as French.
"Yeah, I guess. 'Didn't stop my mother from teaching me."
"Theriouthly? Thay thomething then." You chuckle despite your tense shoulders.
"Like what?"
"I don't know..."
"Je ne sais pas."
"You weren't joking."
"Vous ne plaisantaient pas."
"Thtop that, KK." You snicker, wincing a little bit as your jesses are yanked. "You okay?" You nod quickly, hoping he can't see your feet very well, and look for a distraction. You find it: a lamp all the way across the hall that seems to have gone out.
"Lamp out." You say, and Sollux sighs, standing wearily.
"Well, that'th jutht thwell. I gueth I thould go fixth that." He casts you a concerned glance before walking across the length of the hall and setting to work.
You make sure he isn't look when you gingerly shift your feet, biting back swears as the chaffing leather cuts deeper into your skin. You'd stopped the blood hours ago, but they're just as likely to start bleeding now as they were then. You hope Sollux doesn't notice; you really don't feel like explaining to him that you're terrified-
Sollux's work and your thoughts are interrupted by a booming metallic clang, the large door at the other end of the hall bursting open to welcome thirty-or-so soldiers in anonymous suits and masks, all of them charging at your cage.
N-No!
You don't have time to do anything but get to your feet before they've thrown aside the door to your cage, your keepers swarming in. You nearly miss Sollux's cry of distress as you're shoved against the opposite side of your cage, one of the largest keepers latching your neck into a collar at the end of a twenty-foot pole, thrusting you off the ground and forcing you up the mesh until the other keepers can reach your feet with ease. Dozens of them drop from the top of the cage, suspended by ropes tied around their waists, and all but attack you as they force your wings back, pressing them against the metal to keep them from hitting anyone.
Their hands, their filthy, grimy, tainted hands pull at your feathers, gripping skin and bone, and it hurts and it feels wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong!
You don't scream, and you don't yell. No, the noises that are coming from your mouth are completely feral, ear-splitting and conveying the violation, the pain of them touching your wings. They pay you no mind, of course, quite content to jab their fingers into membrane, and nerve, and hold you down at the base of your wings, you writhing underneath them.
In their credit, they work quickly, cutting away your old jesses and bandaging up your ankles before putting new ones on, but it doesn't stop you from heaving to and fro, trying to shake them off your wings at the very least. Your shoulders are weak, and your gut is lurching from how wrong it feels, how you feel ravished, violated, raped.
It drags out until you can barely scream anymore, then all at once, it's over.
All the keepers hightail it out of your cage, dropping you unceremoniously to the ground and slamming closed the gold door. Your legs scream in resistance to your harsh landing, and you have no qualms about letting them buckle.
Within seconds, it's just you, curled on the floor, wrapped around yourself as weak cries of pain wrack your chest and hot tears force themselves over your cheeks in burning currents. You do your best to curl your wings back, but they hurt; they're sore and shaky, and you really don't have the mental capacity to deal with them right now, so you let one drape over your body, the other curled against the mesh as tight as it can go. You don't fight back the sobs, even though they scrape against your raw throat, because your exhibit will be closed for the next week; they always do that after they change your jesses.
This is why you suffered through bleeding ankles for weeks, to avoid this, to put it off a little longer.
With all the study they've done on you, they still don't realize your wings are sensitive, are a private part of your body, and touching them is just as violating as when they catalogued every inch of you against your will. They don't realize they're slowly tearing away your sanity, but they know they're slowly making you theirs. You know they know, with their sick expressions when they actually have the balls to remove their stupid masks. You've been here seven years, and they've slowly been stripping away any sense of you that you had.
You are no longer your own.
Your sobs have stopped by now, but not your tears or your trembling. You feel like your mind is shattering, crumbling with every passing second, and nothing can piece it back together.
That's when you feel long, bony fingers nestle themselves into your ratty, sweaty hair, and you whimper, hating yourself for being so weak. Why is Sollux still here? Why hasn't he left? You had expected him to leave as soon as the Keepers got there, as all of the guards are supposed to do. Wh-Why hadn't he...?
You squeeze your eyes shut, listening to the soft sound of Sollux sitting on the step, and unconsciously scoot closer to him. His nimble fingers start carding and out of your tangled locks, and you try to steady your breathing, but as a fresh wave of tears comes, you give up. You loathe yourself when you give up, but something about Sollux's presence makes you feel... safe. And that fucking terrifies you.
You're choking on another sob when you hear Sollux humming. It's a slow, sweet tune, and he weaves his fingers in time with the beat. It's comforting, like a lullaby, and you realize that's probably exactly what it is.
You want to push away from him, and tell him to fuck off, to leave you alone, but you don't. You don't, and you know he pities you now more than ever.
"F-Faire foutre..." You mutter, and Sollux makes no move to tell you he heard you; he continues humming the unknown melody, and your stomach writhes at the thought of what happened to all those who had pitied you.
You don't want Sollux to die. You don't want... you just want him to be here, teach you to remember what comfort is like. But you don't know.
Vous ne savez pas.
A/N: Okays, so first: Translations (In order of appearance {I've included the ones that have their English bits next to them as well, just to make sure they all make sense to you guys})
Vous ne me dérange pas du tout - You don't mind at all.
Votre maison - Your home.
Frère! - Brother!
Mon frère, ne meurt pas! - Brother, don't die!
Vous devez venir venir avec moi! - You have to come come with me!
Je t'aime - I love you.
Pourquoi?! - Why?!
Je ne vous aime pas! - I don't love you!
Je ne sais pas! - I don't!
Je ne sais pas - I don't know. (Yes, they're the same.)
Vous ne plaisantaient pas - You weren't joking.
F-Faire foutre... - F-Fuck... (In relation to the explictive, and not screwing/shagging/banging {I think this is right, but I'm not sure})
Vous ne savez pas - You just don't know.
Second: Sorry it's taken me so long to update! Relapsing and school Finals aside, I'm also having trouble getting back into SolKat, because I was an idiot and got into DaveKat -_-'
I really don't like how this chapter came out. I've completely rewritten it three times, and while this is the best of the three, I can't write action scenes, so that's why the flashback and the whole "changing-jesses" thing are complete and utter crap. I sincerely apologize.
Oh, and in the flashback, KK is... three. It was about a year before he was taken away from his family. I'll go into THAT bit of his past later.
Third: I'll be updating Charcoal and Scars next, and then Runners. I would update Of Freckles and Silver, but I write those when the muse descends, and it appears the muse is incapable of descending at this current point in time.
I'll also be updating 69 SolKat Prompts over on Archive of Our Own, if any of you are reading that.
Fourth: Again, I swear I had something else to say, but am blanking. I'll edit this if I think of it.
Thank all of you for support! I'm really glad you guys are liking this, because I really love the plot, and wouldn't be writing it if you guys didn't want to read it. so thank you! ^-^
~Webs
Oh yeah, you guys know jesses are leather straps used in hawking and falconry, right? If not... well, now you know XD