Work Text:
The door to the small bathroom locks behind you with a gentle click, and for the first time in days, Vega's presence retracts from your mind, giving you full privacy in his own way.
It had taken the majority of the day to convince Vega to allow you to shower- a human necessity that you had taken a liking to shortly after you had resigned yourself to the role the humans had assigned you. But while unnecessary, like many human habits you had picked up, it gave you somewhere to put a pause on your duty; a moment to just be you .
The bulb in the room is dull, but still bright enough for you to easily make out your features in the mirror. All your hues and tones, your horns and their jewellery, now dulled and chipped from the fight--everything that makes you so 'obviously' different to the humans--and the darkness under your eyes that betrays your exhaustion, the glint of hunger, ever-present. Curious, you unbutton your uniform shirt, sliding it off to finally observe the wounds that Vega had so carefully kept you from seeing while you healed under his 'care'.
Your torso is littered with scrapes and partially healed bruises, colourful blotches that follow the pattern of the broken bones that Vega had set for you when even feeding couldn't give you the strength to heal them yourself. The worst of all, however, is the wound that stretches around your side, dipping low to your hip and then back up across your back, following the pattern of your movement where you had tried to get away from the attack. You don't know how you haven't been feeling it; you've been carefully lain on your back this whole time and it's barely healed, raw and scabbed over, and now you're focusing on it you can feel it pulling uncomfortably on your skin when you twist-
You turn away from the mirror.
The relief you had felt at being allow a short respite away from Vega's gaze, at his lack of presence in your mind is quickly soured with the knowledge of just how much more you will have to heal, how much more of the acrid, bitter taste of hatred you will have to swallow down, and Vega must sense it, or have been looking for it, because he reaches out to you as you raise your hands to begin removing the jewellery from your horns.
'Is something wrong, my Warden?' he croons, and you are almost startled by how much having his voice in your mind again soothes you, 'Do you need to feed again? I know you have not been taking as much recently- I assure you, you need not worry about me. It is not like our little… friend's hatred is not easily replenished.'
'No, not hungry,' you tell him, and he makes a contemplative, almost disappointed noise.
'What is it then, Darling? Something must have caused your… swing.'
The tip of one pointed ear flicks, dislodging some of your hair as you hear him moving around in the room. A door opens- your best bet is that he has gone to collect the human anyway, probably to ensure that he is healthy enough to have the hate to fuel you for days.
'Have you been dulling my pain?' you ask him, completely ignoring his question. He chuckles.
'Yes, Darling, I have. I very much doubt that you would have been able to gather your strength as easily if your every movement was punctuated by all of your pain. I can give it back to you, if you wish for me to.'
'No.' Your jewelry clinks as you drop it all onto the side of the sink, eyes carefully directed away from the mirror, 'I just realised how much further I have to go before I am healed.'
A hum, and another door in the unfamiliar house clicks shut. From somewhere, the human screams , before the sound is quickly snuffed out, muffled by wards, most likely.
'My Warden, you need not worry about that. We have more than enough time for you to recover fully, and you may always ask me for my help healing, if you so wish.'
'No it's okay.' You don't quite know why you shut him down so fast--why you're so insistent on recovering by yourself, but he doesn't protest. Much. 'I'm fine, Vega. I can't exactly overexert myself while standing in the shower.'
'Oh Darling, I can think of many ways you can overexert yourself in the shower.' You scoff under your breath, gently pulling up your walls to get him to retreat from your mind.
'I'll call for you when I'm done, alright? You don't have to mother hen me.'
'I wouldn't dare, darling.' It sounds like he's grinning as he retreats from your mind, and this time you pull your walls up behind him to ensure that he stays out. In the silence of the room, your breath is unnaturally shaky, so you turn and reach to put the shower on, twisting the handles until the water is as hot as it will go. When you're satisfied that it's hot enough, you finish stripping off and step under the spray, not too bothered about where exactly your clothes land. You'll get them later.
The heat is soothing on your aching muscles, and you stand with your face tipped towards the water, eyes closed, letting it run over your face as it saturates your hair. It reminds you of home, of Aria, and for a few moments you allow yourself to wonder why exactly Vega chose to bring you to this house instead of just taking you back to Aria to heal. Staying in Aria would be safer, after all, as no human could possibly get to you there, and your magic would regenerate more naturally there, maybe even with more strength, as you could have drawn from the sovereigns if you really had had the need for it. But, even with all of the counselling, you can't say that you know Vega well enough to know if coming here instead of staying in Aria is within his character, so pondering over it won't give you many answers.
Your tail, usually cloaked but now slick with water, winds itself around your calf to ground you, and you reach to wipe the water from your eyes, almost stabbing yourself with your claws in the process.
At Vega's insistence, you had begun to let your form rest more naturally, sparing some of your magic in the process and allowing it to regenerate faster. He had posed it as being for your own sake, but you were sure that he just hated how human you had looked in your time as his so called Warden, and had used your lack of energy as an excuse to shape your form into something he considered to be more fitting for a demon. It had bothered you at first, but then you realised how much of a toll it had actually taken on your strength to manipulate your form so much, and had eventually actually found yourself grateful for his insistence. A strange emotion to be directed towards him, if his track record is any indication.
The shower is devoid of soaps of any kind, so you create some of your own, tweaking each bottle as it manifests in your hand until you have a small army of demon safe bottles, ranging from normal soaps to exfoliating cleanses. You probably don't need any of them, but the routine of using them all helps to clear your mind. You start with the shampoo, specially made for your hair, shuffling under the water so that it still hits your skin while you scrub in the suds.
Distantly, you wonder how your co-workers are fairing. Solitaire had been attacking the Deltas and Feeders indiscriminately, and considering how most of the demons that were on duty with you that day had been weaker than you, you doubted that they had managed to survive like you had.
If it hadn't been for Vega's interest in you, you probably wouldn't have survived either. The thought settles uncomfortably behind your sternum, knotted and heavy.
Some of the suds fall dangerously close to your eye and you wince, squeezing your eyes shut to wash them off of your face and out of your hair. Conditioner comes next, then a cleanser for your horns so you can properly maintain them later. You could just do it with magic, but that would almost defeat the purpose of doing it by hand for relaxation, and all the motions quickly drive most of your heavier thoughts from your mind.
Just under the sound of the shower, you think you hear screaming again. A small, incessant part of yourself begs for you to find Vega and stop him doing whatever he is doing, but you drown it--and the screams--out by humming one of the songs a coworker got stuck in your head a few weeks ago. You could stop him, but also whatever he is doing is providing you sustenance, he's doing it for your sake, and also you'd rather not find out what he would do to you if you were to get in his way. Probably something worse than whatever he was doing to the human.
You scrub at your body with an--ironically-- blood red loofa, cleaning up with a soft scented body wash with added moisturiser. Hmm. Maybe you could take the time to file your claws, and even polish your tail, but then again you could always push your luck and see if Vega would do it for you, even if he would be more likely to use magic than actually touch you…
Something you'd noticed over the past few days was how… kind Vega had been towards you. He had said that he found you intriguing, but even so the people around you--and all of the reports that you had read on him--had never pegged him as the sort of demon to be kind , even if it would benefit him in the long run. Even when it had just been the two of you and the Ward that kept him in his cell he couldn't have really been considered kind --perhaps civil at a stretch--and the only favouritism he had shown towards you over any other demon had been purely caused by your lack of hostility towards him. Then again, you'd been civil with all the demons that had been put under your care, and none of them had shown up to essentially kidnap you in order to 'rescue' you from your co-workers and the job that you had chosen for yourself.
And then your thoughts circle back to your co-workers, probably all heavily injured in the best case scenario. Without even thinking about it, you reach for Vega's aura, desperate to get rid of the feeling slowly settling into your very being. Inchoate magic doesn't need you to feel a specific way and you've always hated relying on negative emotions to use your magic, but in this very moment, even the cold, harsh glee of Vega's sadism is better than the tangle of grief for people who probably didn't even respect you.
The stretch of your aura nestles quietly against his, and there's a silent moment where you feel his aura curl itself around yours, even at the distance between the two of you before you're almost overwhelmed by the feel of his magic. You're overstimulated for maybe a few seconds, and then your auras reach equilibrium in the space where they touch, the familiarity of his presence soothing you despite how harsh his aura actually feels. You don't reach to talk with him though, and he respects your mental walls and keeps to himself too, allowing you to ground yourself in his aura as you turn the shower off, then dry yourself with a little, easy magic.
You don't realise that your uniform is conspicuously missing from the floor until you've stepped out of the shower. Your absolute stunned confusion must translate through your aura somehow, because a brush of magic directs your attention to a different outfit piled neatly on the counter across the room (was there a counter there before? you don't quite recall), the fabrics looking soft and warm. When you inspect it, you find it to just be a plain set of clothes that you might have pulled from your own wardrobe at home--fitted where you want it to be, loose where you prefer--and you smile to yourself, sliding it all on and carefully untangling your tail from the fabric.
Vega's aura sours with some strong emotion for a brief second when you cross to the shower again to gather the bottles that you hadn't used, but you ignore the change, carefully lining the various skincare items up beside your jewellery. You push a few wet strands from your face before you start, humming quietly to yourself as you apply the various products that you really have no need for. All it really does is make your skin shimmer, finally helping to return the life to it that you had lost with exhaustion.
You do attempt to rub some of the buffing oils onto your horns, but you quickly realise that it has been weeks since you last even thought about their upkeep, so you give up on the idea of being able to do it by yourself when minutes go by with no real visible progress. Sighing, you gather all of the oils for your horns and tail and retreat to the bedroom you had been residing in for your time in Vega's house, conveniently only the room over from where you are.
A radio pops into existence on the dresser when you enter the room, tuned to some old music channel that crackles every so often, and you roll your eyes as you deposit the bottles onto the bed and then settle onto the duvet, suspiciously clean of your blood.
'Done.' You finally tell Vega, and although you don't get a worded response, you do hear him start to move from wherever he is keeping the human locked up. You aren't sure why he doesn't just rift, so insistent on not stopping to human levels as he is, but you don't mind, as his approach through more traditional means allows you to create a mirror and begin smoothing oil over your horns again, carefully massaging it into the base and over the space where they connect to skin.
'Hungry yet?' Vega asks as he opens the door, only entering the room after you tell him that no , you're not hungry. As he crosses the room you notice a smear of blood on his boot, but it's not until he sits down that you realise that he's pretty much covered in the stuff.
"Wh- what did you-" you start to question, but he gently hushes you, using his magic to clean the blood from himself without a second thought.
'He isn't dead, if that is what you're worried about darling. He's too valuable for that at the moment. And besides, I'm leaving that honour to you.' For just a moment, horror seeps down your spine, but he's quick to move on, drawing your attention away from his statement with ease, 'Is that all for your horns and tail? I suppose they do seem a little under-cared for, despite how… pretty they still are.'
…
WHAT?
"P-pretty??" The words take a few seconds to really sink in, and then your face burns with embarrassment, and despite how composed you usually are, you find yourself floundering. He merely smiles at you though, languid and honey sweet.
'I have told you that I find you intriguing; several times, in fact. I wouldn't have done this for just any demon, you know?'
'I thought it was just because I was nice to you!' Scared of what might come out if you attempt to speak vocally, you return to telepathy again, and if the way he relaxes into his chair implies anything it's that he's satisfied with the change. 'And it's not exactly like there were any other demons around for you to 'rescue' from their fight.'
'My Warden, you underestimate me! Honestly, I thought we knew each other better than that by now. After all, you have trusted me with your truest self, have you not?'
His gaze is piercing, and you find that you can't gather the words to put together a response.
'Besides,' he continues with a chuckle, 'I have to admit that the sound your ribs made when they broke really was something to behold. A beautiful sound, one that I feel privileged to have heard.'
'...Is that meant to be a compliment?' Although your question is entirely serious, Vega just laughs, lips stretched into a grin that shows off just how un-human his teeth are, sharp and vicious.
'Darling, you seem to be struggling.' He says, gaze sliding up to where your fingers are still resting at the base of your horn. He's right, of course, it feels like you've made no progress at all during your conversation, and you sigh, lowering your hands.
'Yeah. I would have just done it with magic to begin with, but the sensation helps me ground myself, and I still don't really feel like myself.'
He hums, tips his head a little, and then seems to make some sort of internal agreement with himself. Your confusion must be palpable, because he smiles reassuringly.
'Sh, it's alright, darling. How about I help you out? After all, you have been doing a lot for me over these past few days.'
'I… I don't think letting you tend to me is really doing something for you-'
'Ah ah, hush. Don't worry, darling; showing me your true self is more than enough payment. And besides, I said I would tend to you, so tend to you I will. If this is what you need in order to fully recover, then it is what I will provide for you.' His aura warms, and you realise that this whole time it has been shifting, still connected to yours as it surrounds you with everything that is him . It's a strange experience, but it's not unwelcome- although you do feel as though there's something that you should be remembering from your training with D.U.M.P. 'Come here, darling. Let me take care of you.'
Carefully, you gather up all of the bottles, and then cautiously approach him. He doesn't seem to mind your apprehension though, taking the bottles from you and gesturing for you to kneel between his legs so that he can reach your horns. You blink, hesitating for a moment before kneeling, twisting as you go so you are facing away from him. He chuckles, the sound filling your mind as his aura presses in more snugly around you, softly merging with yours at the edges of your awareness.
'You should moisturise your tail on your own, darling,' he croons, passing the bottle over your shoulder. You take it without protest, tail flicking over your lap as you pop open the bottle's cap. When the flat of the end of your tail brushes against your thigh it stings, and when you lift it to see, you realise that there's a cut there that you hadn't noticed. It might have been scabbed over when you did your original general healing, but now blood is pooling along the edges. Without much thought, you push your magic to heal the wound entirely, and then desperately wish you hadn't as blinding pain races up your spine. You feel like you can't breathe , and you're vaguely aware of Vega's sharp inhale at whatever noise of pain you make, and then his fingers (slender, warm) are pressed firmly against your shoulders and the pain momentarily intensifies (do you make a noise? you don't know, you can't hear yourself think ) before it quickly ebbs away, the hurt replaced by the feeling of Vega's magic, the harsh cold slowly becoming one of the best things that you've had the displeasure (pleasure? it feels good, soothing even) of experiencing.
'Darling,' he says, voice soft in your mind, 'it's probably best that you disentangle yourself from my aura before you attempt to heal yourself. My particular style of magic is not something I imagine is very pleasant for an Inchoate, and if your reaction is anything to go by you would agree with me.' Weakly, you nod, and he sighs, gently guiding you to lay your head back onto one of his knees.
The bottle of moisturiser is gone from your hands.
'I… I didn't…'
'Shh, shh, I know, darling. It's alright. Just let me take care of you for now. You can feed once I'm done, and then you can try healing again once you've untangled your magic from mine, alright?'
'Al-alright.'
He hums in satisfaction, then carefully presses his fingertips against one of your horns, taking over buffing where you had left off. As you had expected, the sensation is soothing enough to chase all the thoughts from your mind, and it only takes a few moments for your eyes to flutter shut, suddenly drained of all the energy that you thought you had.
Maybe Vega had been right all along.