TRIGGER WARNING: Mention of sexual assault, mention of abuse. Very light; no details.


The rest of the meeting went by quickly. Jesse sensed it half had to do with the fact that they were still in the middle of their 'cold' mode and sniffling and trying not to drip snot everywhere, and...

Half to do with the fact that Ivor was trying to avoid Mevia murdering Hadrian on the spot.

Before long everyone was going to bed and the sky was dark and glittering with stars...

Actually, Jesse was pretty sure it was because they were sick; there was no way it had gone from morning to night that quickly.

They'd probably zoned out during the meeting at some point; somehow not noticing it, and then sometime between the meals and the attempt at talking to Hadrian that did not last very long due to him seeming more than a little annoyed at having to deal with them, time just shot by in the blink of an eye, and Lukas was setting Jesse in the infirmary bed and ruffling their hair.

"You should get some sleep. It'll be good for your cold," he told them gently.

Jesse frowned slightly. "You're not going to sleep?"

"Nah. Gotta go talk to Harper." The blonde half-demon shrugged. "She said she needed to talk with us really quick before we headed out tomorrow."

"Do I have to go?"

"No, you're exempted 'cause of your cold," Lukas smiled and ruffled Jesse's hair. "Lucky. I wanna get extra sleep too."

Jesse giggled, and Lukas smiled before he slipped out.

Reuben snuffled. Jesse pulled the little pig to their chest. He was warm... was it weird that he was? He was a vessel creature, so maybe that was just how they were...

The little pig wiggled so that his little body was curled right up against theirs, and they slipped into sleep from the sound of their own heartbeat.


Lukas was smiling as he made his way into the hall.

It slipped a moment later.

He had been smiling because Jesse had bought the lie.

They were not exempted because of their cold; they were exempted because Harper had not wanted them to come at all.

He made his way through the hallways; they were ornate (not as ornate as the Underneath, but still things that felt very magical decorating the area). She'd been pretty insistent that they not be present, although Lukas had suggested if she was trying to protect them, she didn't have to; they were pretty good (well, they now didn't go practically catatonic at the sight of blood) with gore now.

Her reply was a shake of the head and a simple "Better", which he took to mean it would be better if they were nowhere near the conversation.

He tried to keep this in mind as he slipped into the conference room where the others were waiting; Jack, Radar and Nurm were probably off getting ready. He noticed with a faint note of confusion that Hadrian was in the room; he supposed that since he was going to be Jesse's guardian for a few weeks (great) this was information he needed to know as well.

"Is this important, Harper?" Hadrian asked her impatiently, looking like he wanted to be anywhere but right here at that moment. "You do have to get an early start in the morning."

"You can leave if you want," Mevia shot back at him.

Harper twisted her fingers.

"It's Jesse," she said at last, quietly.

"What about Jesse?" Ivor was frowning now. In fact, most everyone was looking at her intently, although Hadrian did roll his eyes.

The demon lord tilted her head down, considering her words. Someone hurt Jesse was too vague and could be misconstrued; she had to pick her words carefully, especially considering all of the non-lord people in here that made her struggle to piece together her words into coherent sentences.

"... I suspect someone..." The word stuck fast in her throat with an abruptness that surprised her; it was stuck and she couldn't get it out. Part of it might've been that she hadn't spoken in full sentences in front of anyone except Ivor and Mevia and Isa in a long while, but she didn't think that was it.

It wasn't a pretty word. Not the definition, not the sound. There were some words that sounded alright but had really horrific meanings, and this... this word was awful in every sense of the word.

And she couldn't say that.

Not about Jesse.

The word was choking her, so she refused to spit it out and let it go and instead let different words slip past, words that meant the same thing but that could make it past her throat because she was choking on the word.

"... sexually assaulted them."

Aiden frowned, but nodded, even as Ivor went ramrod straight in shock at those words and Hadrian's eyes flickered back to Harper. "Yeah, recently. Remember? Sirena–"

Harper shook her head. "No."

Aiden paused.

Turned slowly to look at Harper.

His brow creased.

"What do you mean, no?"

Isa took Harper's hand, glancing at Aiden. "Harper has... an ability. Many demon lords and barons gain an extraneous ability, sometimes when they split– like we did– or when they come into power, or when they become a half-demon. I know Lukas has... something, and Soren has the ability to see pain. Harper has the ability to..."

She stalled, trying to find good words for it, and Mevia segued into her own, very blunt explanation almost flawlessly. "Harper has the ability to sense when something's been done to a person. Kind of like Soren's ability, except she can pick out what things have been done to them. Like..."

She faltered, and looked at Harper. "Like abuse. Mental or physical. Or... or being..."

Her own tongue faltered on the words.

Harper often found her own silence to be a bit deafening. Nothing except the sound of tinkering and redstone and machinery and nothing else. She rarely even spoke or turned on a jukebox to fill the silence, unlike Mevia, who'd occasionally hum random bits of songs that simply sounded odd out of context.

But she could've told you, here and now, she had never heard a silence so absolutely deafening and stifling and choking as the one that fell over the room at the realization.

Someone had done that to Jesse.

Someone had done that to a seventeen-year-old.

That bothered her more than the abuse. More than being beaten down by a father or a parent or every person who ever met them, every human that they'd ever come across taking every chance to beat them down and hurt them and break them.

And though they only sat in silence for a few seconds– maybe half a minute at the longest– Harper drowned in the silence.


A/N: ... well.

At least the others know, now, I suppose.

Anyone wondering how Jesse's doing on their own, left alone in the infirmary?

RQTC: Is there a type of music you like to listen to?

I used to say everything except hardcore EDM and some metal, but now I just answer Taylor Swift. It's pretty honest because I have a playlist with every album of Taylor Swift on my phone and I just... sit and listen to it. It's the fastest way to get me feeling sappy. Not... the best thing considering I listen to it while writing this story.

I am a clock. Reviews are the batteries. I am broken from sheer amount of battery.

Responses to reviews!

That's all for now! See ya, so long, and enjoy?

x.X. A.L. X.x


The infirmary was empty and quiet, the sound of people chattering in the market below filtering through the window so quietly it was like a whispered lullaby.

Reuben snuffled in his sleep, curling closer to Jesse. They sniffled in their sleep, still a little stuffed up and sounding like a stuffed-up version of Reuben, and pressed their face to the little pig.

There was the creak of a door.

The filtering of blue light into the room, which was cut off a moment later as the nurse slipped through the door, easing footsteps across the floor near-silently.

She looked up for her target and found it almost instantly; it would've been hard to miss, with them being the only occupied bed in the whole infirmary.

She smiled.

Lifted the thing she'd been keeping under her apron.

The tip of the syringe gleamed in the moonlight, catching the light even near the door, as far from the window as she could get.

"I never thought I'd get you alone."