Chapter Text
Makto had stolen a small fortune of mixed alloys that Nitzan had put ages into stealing. It was a little each time, stretched over weeks of missions, but it was high time to infiltrate his galleon again and steal some of it back.
He anticipated Makto being on alert after having not seen hide nor hair of him for a long time.
He didn’t anticipate Makto knowing why— he should have. He was hiding behind a pillar, Loki comfortably invisible, as the lich stalked the empty cargo hold. A trap. The other hold likely had his things, but Makto’s troops were on high alert and sweeping the galleon. The alarm was going, filtered to slight acknowledgement of sound through Loki’s sensors. If he transferred out, Nitzan wasn’t sure he’d be able to hear it at all; just a low, thrumming pulse of the Void.
“Come out, my little Adversary.” Makto spoke, not a normal taunting sing-song, into the darkness of the cargo room. “I know it’s been a while since you’ve had your... treatment.”
Nitzan hated to admit that he was right. The buildup of Void-manifest that he couldn’t purge properly himself had reached surely overwhelming levels; his eyes had gone from darkened to black nearly a week ago, and just yesterday had started, tearlike, dripping a black ichorous fluid that wisped away into nothing. His nose had started doing the same thing three days ago. It bubbled in his throat whenever he tried to speak. He’d managed to avoid letting his transference-body get hit and therefore be launched into an awful cycle of agony and delirium again; he knew he couldn’t do it forever.
He knew also, by now, that Makto truly wasn’t going to attack him when he was in this state. He didn’t know what to think about that, really, but was grateful for it. Maybe he’d set this trap for Nitzan to attack him, but the larger possibility was that he hoped Nitzan would be incapacitated by the Void again and wanted to lord it over him. To help him. To hold him when he was weak, and purge the curdled Void, making up some intricate reason for having treated Nitzan with anything other than cruelty after. Nitzan knew how this worked. Makto liked to have one of the Origin System’s most feared operatives in his debt and Nitzan liked stealing his shit, and until Nitzan got lucky and beat him down enough to stab him with his parazon, things would stay that way.
He transferred out of Loki and slipped into the Void, the process as easy and natural as breathing. Now, his breath fought for space with clinging black gunk. He blinked a few times to clear his vision, ultimately failing; everything was dim and shrouded because his eyes were completely filmed with the stuff. His tear ducts were constantly leaking. It didn’t taste like anything, but occasionally he found himself drooling Void-manifest. More commonly, it would escape him on an exhale, like his lungs were full of smoke.
He finally left the Void when he saw the fuzzy outline of Makto ahead of him. He moved toward it, steady for the first couple of steps, but he hadn’t made himself go so far in this state unless it was in the Orbiter where he could stop, and lean on something, and rest. He got up to Makto and tried to say something, managing only a drowned-sounding noise, and collapsed onto his knees.
Void, he just wanted to be free of it. His body listed forwards, then backwards, then forwards again until he leaned against something cold and solid. The metal of Makto’s armored legs, his mind identified even though his eyes were muzzy and useless. Makto touched the back of his head, and normally he’d balk at the touch, but everything else was too fuzzy to pay much attention to; the brush of his fingers was anchoring. He was glad for it.
“Let’s go somewhere more private than this.”
He leaned down and picked Nitzan up, this time maneuvering him to hold him with one arm under his back and the other under his knees. The movements jostled, but never enough to hurt and send him spiraling down into agony. He let himself go lax, leaning into Makto in an attempt to make himself less unwieldy to ferry.
“My poor Adversary. I will make you suffer, but it will be me, not some cheap trick of the Void.”
Nitzan should not have been comforted by that. Makto did make him suffer— broke him over and over when he hesitated to strike him down.
He took no pleasure in kicking Nitzan when he was already down. That was a small mercy.
A large mercy that he felt driven to do something about it. Nitzan groaned and shifted in Makto’s grip, coughing up a smoky mass of Void-manifest that dissipated into nothing shortly after. Makto stopped walking when they reached a closed-off barracks, sitting down with Nitzan still arranged across him. He maneuvered him carefully, helped him sit up, then laid him down again on the barrack bunk.
He heard the clicking noise of the nullifier device engaging and hunched his shoulders. He hated the thing, even knowing he owed his recoveries to it— and he needed it, because while he felt the staticky field engulf him all he could see was hazy darkness.
Makto put a broad hand on his shoulder, fingers spanning to his chest. Despite himself, he whimpered, waiting for the inevitable twisting sensation and the purges. There was a building pain, Makto shifting to get into a position to hold him down, and then his world dissolved into white, blinding agony.
He surfaced near the end, when it was just spits of Void-manifest leaving his throat in syncopated, hiccupy coughs. Makto was holding him down by the shoulders again— he was crying. What might have passed for tears were ichor-black, dissolving and dissipating. He felt much lighter than he had before; but cold, and raw.
When he finally laid still Makto turned off the nullifier device. He patted his shoulders.
“No more tears, my Adversary.”
Nitzan sighed, pleased that it came without bubbling or pain. “I hope so.”
“You were talking,” Makto finally said after a long few moments of silence. Nitzan looked up at him, managing a confused noise in lieu of actually asking for clarification. “What were the monsters?”
“The what?”
“About halfway through, you started talking about monsters in human skin.” Makto waited to see if Nitzan would respond, and continued when he didn’t. “Stalking the ship.”
Nitzan winced. It would be easy to lie and make up some Void-wrought terror; he knew he should.
“Do you know how the Tenno were created?” He broached instead, quietly as if to be able to pull the words back. Makto shook his head. They both knew that this was wrong-- Nitzan should leave. He should go back to pretending this never happened.
He told Makto, instead, stared up at the ceiling and tried not to think too hard.
He didn’t want to move, but knew he was expected to return to his own ship. Makto would hunt him down when the urge struck him or Nitzan annoyed him enough, or else Nitzan would sneak onboard his galleon again in an attempt to win back his stolen items. That was how these things went. It was a familiar routine.
Nitzan wanted to look around a bit before he left, and what Makto didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
“Please. I’m...” Makto looked down at him. Nitzan tucked his face in the crook of his elbow, forcing his breathing to steady. “I’m so tired. Let me stay for a little.”
He knew Makto liked that— aside from honorably letting him stand back up to be struck down properly, liked to watch him cringe away and try to crawl when he’d almost, but not quite, been damaged beyond bleedout. He liked to see him worn down, with his exhaustion on display.
It worked. Makto put a hand on his shoulder and sat next to him.
“You may stay for a few moments.”
He didn’t expect him to do that. Still, he closed his eyes and let his consciousness transfer to Loki, activating his invisibility and prowling through the galleon in search of some reward to steal for himself.
He stayed partially in himself, though, to feel Makto’s heavy hand on his shoulder.