Time was easily misplaced in the Entity's realm. Probably partly because it wasn't replicated very well, but probably more because when things were normal you just didn't think about it. You were either in-Trail trying and usually failing at, not dying, or you were at the campfire, glad for whatever moments you had to recoup before being dragged into the next Trail. Existence was just that cycle and measuring with time seemed pretty pointless after a while. So, time got lost.
No big deal. What the fuck ever, right? If you're stuck in mother-fucking hell, do you really want to know how long you've been there?
Maybe.
It was a determination I made after first realizing I had no solid idea how long I'd been in the Entity's realm. After coming to the gut-wrenching understanding I couldn't even remember how many Trails I'd been in anymore or how many times I'd died. A person should remember something like that, right? It should be a firm fixture in your mind, impossible to get rid of.
Only it wasn't. Because a person could get used to anything if it went on long enough. You might hate it, you might despise every excruciating second of it, but you could get used to anything. Evan repeated, brutal death.
When I realized that, I'd come to the conclusion maybe I did want to know how long I'd been stuck in this bitch of a shit fest. Only, there was no way of knowing, so I had to let it go, let it pass, let it be. I had better things to do anyway. Like fuck with every killer I could annoy. That kept me going. But didn't really relieve the nagging itch in the back of my mind that wanted to know. Wanted to be free.
Because that's what the desire to track time, to grasp and hold and understand just how long you'd been trapped ultimately was. The desire to be free. When you were caught, you innately wanted to know how long you'd been caught because the idea of it, of all the lost time, clawed at the back of your mind, tearing you apart.
It was why animals chewed their legs off to get out of traps, I was fairly certain.
It was why I wished I could remember how long I'd been with Evan. Because I wanted out and I couldn't remember how long I'd been there. That time was misplaced right along with how many god damn times I'd died in the Entity's mother-fucking realm.
At first I thought it would be easy to keep track of what semblance of time there was, given there were no Trails going on and a seemingly set rotation of warm/cold, day/night patterns. But sometime after I bit Evan, all concept of time slid right between my fingers. All concept of how long just seemed to evaporate, leaving me with my growing depression and listlessness weighing me down. Both like a pull, keeping me tired to the bed as securely as the cuff around my wrist.
It didn't matter each succession of time was marked by my being alone, while I watched nothing and stared with blank, sightless eyes at corners or cracks or rumples of bed sheet, and then by Evan being there to feed me, or to demand to see my leg, or to open his arms and grunt, "Come on then, Saboteur," I still lost count, lost track, lost sense. And it weighed on me like the changeless no-light of the Entity's realm. Like the humiliation of going willingly into Evan's arms every fake night. I was never able to meet his eyes, but after biting Evan, I stopped putting up a fight and just crawled into his waiting arms every time. Curled into his chest and listened to his heart without a fuss. I fucking hated it! But I couldn't stop and it only added to my overall lethargy.
I wanted out!
And I was so… so…
The thought always trickled down into nothing. It was like parts of my mind were going empty, going dark, and I didn't know what to do with that. I fucking didn't know what to do at all!
Only two things gave me some vague idea of bullshit time and my missing thought processes.
One was my leg. The external ache died back a little at a time and the fourth or fifth time Evan rebandaged it, he took the stitches out. A time or two later he petted my calf and told me I could start putting pressure on it. Should start putting pressure on it, so the muscles could get used to it again.
I did. But not until Evan was gone. I didn't want him to see if my leg went out from under me and I ended up falling flat on my ass. That would be too embarrassing and I already couldn't meet his eyes for being a stupid bitch about having bit his hand. Fuck it. If I was going to crack my skull open on his floor, I'd do it in private.
So, I waited, and when Evan clicked the door shut and left me again, I watched the aperture for several heartbeats, while my breath hitched, then I padded to the end of the bed, and swallowed hard, looking down at the floor. Damn, but it looked far away. After however long not standing the idea of doing it was absurdly frightening.
And the bloody thing still hurt! The outer aching might have relaxed, but there was a constant, dull throb deep down that kept pace with my heart. It was going to fucking sting to stand up.
Considering that, and the fact I didn't really want to smash my skull on Evan's floor, I sat myself on my ass, dangled my legs off the bed, and wrapped my arms around one of the posts on the footboard. Hanging onto that like an idiot, I shuffled my weight onto my good leg, then eased it unto my bust leg, too. I had to bite my lip, slam my eyes closed, and turn my whimper into a snarl, it hurt so fucking bad. A couple of seconds of minimal weight on the thing and I was sweating and trembling and had to slide down the bedpost and back onto Evan's bed.
I started crying angry, infuriated tears, then let out another snarl and started punching a pillow over and over again, until I collapsed in a heap. My eyes were tear-blurred, and I hitched little, useless sobs into the palms of my hands because how fucking stupid was it I couldn't even stand?!
I was also fucking mad I was crying about it like an imbecile, which only made the whole damn thing worse. My face was puffy and a sticky mess when Evan came back to sleep. He stopped and watched me, eyes examining me, as if looking to see if I'd done more damage to myself. I only hissed at him and crawled to his side of the bed, where I sat moodily, not looking at him. As if asking him what the hell he was waiting for. It was obvious what he would do, what he always did, and I just wanted it over.
Because after Evan tucked me against him, after we slept and Evan went off again to do whatever, I could try again. And again. And again. Because fuck it, what was standing compared to being stabbed or disemboweled or hooked in-Trail? I'd died over and over and over. I could do this. I could deal.
And I could do it without crying about it.
Though… apparently not without hanging onto a post and whimpering about it a good deal more. It was several long sessions of pulling myself up and down the post on the footboard before I could put my full weight on the leg without support. And even when I did, I couldn't do anything but stand for a long while. Walking was a whole other story.
I had to begin by edging around the bed, as far as my tether would allow, which wasn't far, and then back again. Around and round, hanging unto the edge of the bed, so when, not if, my leg gave out, I had something to hang onto. There was no way I was going to let Evan find me unconscious on his floor because I'd been stupid and knocked myself senseless. No. Fucking. Way.
So, I kept fumbling and hissing and trying not to trip on my own, damn chain, until I thought I had enough strength and balance to take a step or two away from the bed. I was elated when I did. The unreasonable swell of pride in my chest at standing and walking all on my own deflating in the next second when I realized I still had nowhere to go. And I was still hobbling like an old man. I was still fucked.
Nowhere to go. Trapped. Because Evan wouldn't let me out. Whatever his purpose was, I was still caught.
And that swelled my depression. Added to my listlessness. Whatever energy and motivation I'd found in trying to walk again evaporated with the understanding I wasn't getting out. Couldn't get out.
A festering knowing that circled into my second translucent sense of time and blanking mental state: the cuff on my wrist.
I'd stopped picking at it consistently, while I struggled against my own jacked-up leg, but when I was slapped with the knowledge it didn't matter if I could walk or not, the habit came back and hard. I'd pace a bit, why not? Nothing else to do… Then I'd sit and absently pick at the leather and metal circling my wrist. Looking at nothing, seeing nothing. Just… wearing my nails down on the unyielding materials.
And my skin, as well. It'd been rubbed raw before I gave my abused epidermis a break, once I got back into the relentless habit of picking, it became more than raw. It hurt, sure, but I didn't think about it, until I saw the first bright spot of blood on my fingertip. It sort of came unexpected to my dull nerves, and I just sat, blinking at it.
Blood.
Blood on my finger.
Fingers, I noted when I examined them closer. On my fingers and under my nails. A rather grotesque discovery I instantly felt the need to cover up. Because of course Evan would not appreciate it. I knew instinctually the fact I'd literally torn my own skin open would not sit well with the larger man. He wanted me intact for whatever god forsaken reason!
I told myself it was only a few scratches, shallow things, easy to hide things. And I kept telling myself that as I continued to pace and continued to pick.
And combined, the degeneration of the skin on my wrist and my increasing ability to move around proved to show some small, inimical shift in what amounted to time in the Entity's realm. Even if I could no longer count it. My leg still fucking ached deep down, but I was able to hobble around better on my tether. Not great, not fast, but better. I could even stand for kind of long periods of time before I had to sit down. And my ability to limp around Evan's damn big bed at least let me get closer to the window. Not close enough to reach it and give me an exit, if an unwelcome exit, but close enough I could see out of it. Not that there was much to see… Changeless sky and a spit of Evan's land. Oh sure, sometimes I could see Evan out there too, but what the hell did I want to see him for? But… my leg was mending. Slow. An increment at a time. Even as my wrist deteriorated and my mental state dissolved. A few scratches became deepening gorges. Raw skin kept breaking open in new places. Part of me must have known sooner or later Evan would notice it. It wasn't exactly as though I could keep hiding the blood coming out of the wounds. But I didn't stop picking at it either. I couldn't seem to even realize I was doing it, until I ripped open a scab or some new, tender spot. My mind was elsewhere and my fingers seemed to move reflectively.
Because time was passing. It was moving and what had I done? The others would have given me up by now. Either given me up for dead, really and truly fucking dead, or given me up as somewhere worse. Somewhere where there wasn't an Evan around who wanted me alive. They had to have gone from panic to resignation to further fear. The thought if I was dead and hadn't come back meaning they were all royally screwed would have sunk right in, and that was my fault. I'd just had to go off and play around, go jack off, like normal, and look where that had landed me. Fucked myself and fucked the other all at once.
And I just… didn't consciously think about Evan's eventual, unavoidable discovery of my self-harm any more than I grasped what I was feeling. I just kept telling myself I needed to stop picking, needed to stop, but didn't stop. Didn't do anything but carry on, until the inevitable force called Evan MacMillan caught me in the act.
One thing had changed after Evan told me I should start putting pressure on my leg: Evan came to check on me more often. Possibly to be sure I didn't crack my head open on his floor, but also possibly for whatever other reason I couldn't even guess. The why was infuriating, bloody pointless to think about. Whatever the answer, the outcome was Evan appearing at random moments instead of just his marginally predictable twice.
When he found me, I was sitting hunched in the center of the bed, absently looking down without seeing and aimlessly picking. I was so lost in deadpan numbness, I didn't even notice Evan was there, until he rumbled, "What are you doing, Saboteur?"
I was still coming to blurry terms with the fact Evan was freaking there when he wrapped a hand around my right wrist and yanked my whole arm up and away from the rest of me and upset my balance, so I sort of hung there by that arm, making startled, uncertain sounds that weren't really whines or whimpers or anything else. Just confusion more than any other emotion. It took Evan growling, "What are you doing?" again before I got why he was manhandling me.
There was blood under the nails of the hand he held up in the air, and on the pads of my fingers. There was more blood in my lap, too. Somehow it'd splattered my knee and dripped unto the sheets in little, morbid constellations. And no wonder. Unfeeling, I'd picked at my wrist to the point red was all I could see where cuff met flesh. More of it, of that bright, liquid, red, was spilling into the cuff of my track jacket. It was still leaking and trickling in slow runnels down my arm, and I couldn't remember doing that. Couldn't remember hurting myself that bad, and I wondered if that's how it was with animals in a trap. If they just chewed and chewed and didn't really realize what was happening until it was done.
My dumb, dull-eyed staring must have convinced Evan I hadn't done it on purpose. That, or he determined this was yet another crime committed by a wild thing he couldn't fault for having done it because he only sighed something like resigned disgust and eased me back onto his bed, so I wouldn't fall awkwardly, due to upended balance. Once I was settled, he released my right wrist, shucked a bloodied case off a pillow, tore a strip from it, and wrapped it around my bleeding wrist, between the cuff and the sleeve of my jacket. Instead of tying it, Evan picked up my right hand again, and brought it to the wrapping, so I was holding it in place, murmured, "Stay," and left me like that.
I sort of just half lay, half sat there, absently watching the blood bloom out on the white fabric like a slow flower, not really expecting anything but that Evan would come back. He wouldn't have told me to stay if he wasn't going to come back. That wasn't the Evan I was becoming all too familiar with. He was going to… do something when he came back. I just didn't know what that something was. That was all. I just had to wait. Wait for Evan and I'd know, though. And the question of what Evan would do when he was back in the room with me was more pressing than the sting I was little by little beginning to feel. I really had fucked up my wrist. I didn't think I'd done anything irreparable, or Evan wouldn't have left so casually, but I'd still fucked it. And wasn't that just fucking fabulous? So ultimately god damned stupid of me…
Evan didn't keep me waiting long and my muddled thought process didn't take me far beyond that notion of my own idiocy, before I had to focus in on the lager man. He'd brought several things with him, but I couldn't see them all right away. Evan had them in a box, for ease of carrying, and laid them out one at a time. Mostly medical supplies my mind skimmed over listlessly, but there were other things, too. I was turning my head away, almost letting it droop in partial exhaustion, when less innocence things appeared beside the bandages and ointments. A soft, leather collar that fastened closed with a metal loop, a bolt cutters, a lock…
I stiffened, the fingers holding the torn piece of pillowcase around my wrist gripping so tight blood oozed between them, to spatter the sheets, yet again. I should have been snarling, should have been back peddling away, while showing him my teeth, but I couldn't seem to find the energy. I was so fucking tired and I was bleeding and I'd done that to myself and I didn't know what Evan was going to do, and even if I put up a fuss he'd just do it anyway. Maybe do more. I didn't know, I didn't understand him, or this, or anything, and I was tired. I just wanted it over. Whatever Evan had planned and whatever this thing was between us.
Evan's probing eyes noted my tensing, just as much as my weary face and lack of movement, and he didn't seem inclined to leave me guessing. "The cuff needs to come off, Saboteur," he rumbled. "I'd put it on your other wrist, but you'd only claw at it again. If you can't control yourself, the chain needs to go somewhere you're less likely to scratch.
Bastard.
The thought crawled through my mind because this explained the collar. He anticipated I was less likely to scratch at my neck and was going to collar me like an animal. Like an errant dog. And I hated it, hated him.
But all I could seem to do was shuffle and shift, so I was more sitting than reclining, my hands together in my lap, the blood still leaking in slow drips that pattered unto the sheets, my spine bowed, and my head hanging. I didn't really want to look at Evan. I didn't really want to do anything. I wanted to sleep and be free and roam through the fog, harassing killers. I wanted to be out of the Entity's mother fucking realm. I wanted never to have been here. I wanted… not to be. Not death so much as inexistence. Dissolution. And not even really that. I wanted a thing I couldn't grasp and baring that, if I couldn't have that I would rather not be. Not here…
Feeling heavy, I held the frayed strip of fabric closed over the wound I'd inflicted on myself and hardly noticed Evan talking again. Evan explaining and then questioning. "The collar is soft leather. Thick enough you won't be able to break it, but light enough it won't bother you. I can leave it loose enough for you to breathe, without you being able to get it off. It won't be an issue, unless you decide to try something stupid, and you won't be doing that, will you, Saboteur?" When I didn't answer, too caught up in my own heavy lethargy to really catch on to what Evan was saying, he grunted, gripped my chin between a thick thumb and forefinger, and repeated, "Will you, Saboteur?"
The fact of my chin being held in Evan's fingers wrenched me back from the nowhere I'd been drifting to, and I scrambled back from him, to sit hunched, shacking my head moodily. One of the few direct answers I'd ever given him because, no, I wasn't going to do anything stupid with his damn collar. As much as I want out, wanted free, choking myself to death in the partial hope of it getting me back to the campfire was as inviting an opportunity as exiting the MacMillan manor by Evan's second story window. I wanted it over, but wasn't quite ready to try it that way, yet. Maybe if Evan had actually been hurting me, instead of just humiliating me, I would have risked it, but Evan was… just…
"Come here, Saboteur."
I glanced up, then away, unwilling to look at Evan's longsuffering, oh so patent expression. The man was just patching up all the stupid, fucking, idiotic injuries I seemed to inflict on myself. He was keeping me alive and I didn't get him, didn't get why. I was hardly a fun or amicable pet. So, why keep me? Why when he got nothing out of it but me in his arms at night?
"Saboteur."
Evan's voice was beginning to hold a note of aggravation, hardening it from his normal rumble, and I whined and did my best to awkwardly position myself in front of him, without meeting his eyes.
The larger man sighed disgust and reached for my hands. He unwound the soaked cloth and tossed it in his box. I would have drifted again, aimlessly, but a wad of gauze was forced into my hand and Evan used it, and my hand, to staunch the sluggish creep of blood coming from under the cuff. A clear sign he wanted me to participate, and I did without argument or complaint. Would have stayed that way, thoughtlessly obeying, if Evan hadn't brought out a small key. A tiny, silver glint that drew my weary eyes like a magnet.
Evan's face said he expected it. Anticipated my reaction and the way I tracked the key in his hand. "You aren't going to run, are you, Saboteur?"
Slow, my gaze lifted from the key to actually look at him. He was going to untether me, untie me, let me off my leash, and I… Looking into Evan's flat expression and dark, uncompromising eyes, I knew I wasn't going to do a god damned thing. I might have been able to hobble around again, but I'd never be fast enough if I tried to run. Evan would grab me before I'd gone two steps and haul me back, kicking and hissing. And then…
My eyes sank back to the key, then to my hands, one holding white cotton, slowly turning scarlet, to the opposite wrist. I shook my head and shivered, something in me defeated in the most primal of ways.
I was going to do nothing…
Nothing…
And I didn't know why.
Evan's large hands covered mine and unlocked the cuff. The key's turning in the lock was a soft click, and I stiffened, every part of me going rigid, even as more shudders worked their way up my spine. Evan stilled, stopped with our hands together like that, in a kind of knot. Watching me work through the screaming thoughts in my head, those too loud, pulsing bleats that were turning my vision blurry and making me dizzy.
Free! Free! I was free!
Only I wasn't and I couldn't and I was going to pass out or blank out or do something equally stupid in front of Evan because I couldn't seem to get enough air and my heart was beating too fast and I didn't know if that was from the cuff coming off or Evan's hands on mine and—
"Breathe, Saboteur."
I raised blurred, wavering eyes to finally meet Evan's gaze, and I decided two things. I was dizzy, so very bloody dizzy, and I couldn't seem to get enough air because I hadn't been breathing. I'd forgotten to mother fucking breathe because Evan had taken a key to my cuff and Evan was touching me. Just that. Just those simple things had taken away my god damn ability to get air! And wasn't that… that…
My thoughts were drifting away, going dark because I was about to lose it and actually pass out. But—
"Breathe," Evan commanded again and I found myself slumping forward, taking shallow breaths. Little, ragged sips of air that left me worn and lightheaded. Partly, I thought I was still going unconscious, but my keeper proved otherwise.
Evan made a sound in his throat and unwrapped the cuff from my wrist, the action keeping me alert, keeping me focused on him through doggedly determined, narrowed eyes. Yet, before I could even react to the fact of the loss of it, that cuff that'd kept me bound so long, Evan's hands circled my wrist and began cleaning the blood away. I let him. Let him tend to me like the wounded thing I was, let him clean up what I'd done to myself, let him bandage it and pat my hand when it was done. I didn't even move when Evan took the bolt cutters and cut the cuff from the chain. I just sat there listless, even in my minute interest in everything Evan did. As if the registration of each detail held a weight of intensity as it bloomed across my mind. A weight as though my body were sand about to crumble down into the soft folds of the sheets under my legs. Because… be… cause…
Nothing.
I was going… to… do…
"Look at me, Saboteur." Evan's gentle rumble called me back from wherever it was I'd been wondering, and I raised faraway eyes to his face. With a soft grunt, Evan took my jaw in a hand and tilted my chin up a little more, so my neck was exposed. I could feel my pulse fluttering there, like the heartbeat of a pinned bird, and maybe I looked like one, too. Dazed, unmoving. Evan barely noticed, though. He settled the collar around my neck and adjusted it to a loose fit before slipping it closed and joining it to the end of the chain with the lock.
And all I could do was sway and blink at him, feeling the weight of that chain pulling me down. It was a light feeling, a hardly there sensation, but my tingling, hyperaware nerves felt the drag of every link drawing me to the bed. Perhaps Evan saw it, maybe he noted the overload behind my eyes. Possibly. But for whatever reason, he made a small sound, brushed what he had brought with him to the side, and folded me in his arms, tucking me to his chest and laying us both on the bed.
"Sleep, Saboteur," he murmured against my ear and, against my will, I felt myself giving in. Felt myself melting into nothing in his arms with his heartbeat against my back. Warm with his arms around me.
And so… so… fucking confused.