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You couldn't remember the last time you had slept soundly through the night. The coldness, the darkness, the loneliness in your new surroundings in the backroom felt too suffocating every time you laid your head down. No matter how long you tried meditating or trying to distract yourself beforehand, the nightmares always came flooding back with viper-like speed, swirling in your head in a noxious cloud of inky black abysmal dread until it forced you shooting up straight in your bed, screaming and terrified. You prayed no one else in the Mall could hear you when you did wake up screaming bloody murder, though you doubt your prayers were answered.
One night it had gotten particularly bad, worse than before. You were back in Duviri, the all-too-familiar execution in full swing. Though it wasn’t your head on the chopping block; no, it wasn’t your body beneath the executioner's sword, the one there now was much more metal and steel than yours should have been. The winds blew his hair and the strands grazed the blade set against his neck. You wanted to thrash against the Dax holding you in place, curse out Dominus Thrax as he began his speech, run to the warframe knelt on the ground and trade places with him, but your efforts were futile. You were frozen in place by an invisible force. And then it was too late; the sword had fallen. You watched in horror as his lifeless body slumped forward, his head severed onto the stone pavement, the lights of his warframe flickering out one by one as his systems powered down. A scream ripped through your throat, you cried out for him, shrieking until your vocal cords went raw.
That was when you woke up, tears streaming down your face, sweat coating your back, and a sob caught in your lungs. You tried to catch your breath, tried to remind yourself that it wasn’t real, but it all felt so…vivid. Like you had just watched his death happen right in front of you. Again, for that matter. How many times would you have to see it?
However, your train of thought was cut short when you heard a knock at your door. You caught your breath, waiting for the sound again, making sure you weren’t imagining things, and sure enough it rang out again throughout the room. You wiped your eyes with the back of your sleeves and hurried out of bed to scurry down the steps towards the sound, opening the door to find Arthur, hand raised like he was about to knock again and hair looking less than his usual well-kept look. He looked frantic, like he had rushed to your door in a hurry.
“Arthur? What…What’re you doing here?” You asked him. His presence wasn’t unwelcome, in fact, you were glad to see him in front of you after the scenes that had just been playing behind your eyelids, but it was still jarring nonetheless.
“I…heard you calling for me, so I came to check on you.” He hesitated, as if he risked sounding like he was making up excuses to be at your door in the middle of the night, or that he was hearing things himself. You wanted to adore the thought of him caring enough about your well-being to tear himself from his sleep to make sure you were alright, but the mention that he had *heard* you call out for him made your blood run cold. Had you been screaming that loudly? Or had some other mind link been made during your dream-induced emotional turmoil?
“Oh…sorry about that…I’m fine, Arthur. You can go back to sleep. I appreciate you stopping by though.” You plastered the fakest smile you could muster onto your face, hoping your defensive walls were tall enough that he couldn’t see over them. Though all it would’ve taken was one good blow to make you crack and crumble.
Arthur wasn’t fully blind. His experience with Amir had taught him the signs to look for, and he recognized all of them in you. The way you would be the first one awake every day, the discoloration underneath your eyes that seemed to get worse by the day, the weeks you would progressively drag on and continuously get slower on the draw before he would find you passed out somewhere in the Mall fast asleep, the noises that would startle him awake at night that he would tell himself was just the techrot underneath them but in reality was you screaming in your sleep. He had seen it all before, though this time it was even closer to home. “Would you like me to stay with you? Through the night?”
At first, you thought he was joking, having a laugh and poking fun like the rest of the Hex did with one another, but his eyes were so sincere you were caught by surprise. “You want to? Are you sure?”
“Only if you’re comfortable.”
You mulled your lip between your teeth, rocking on the balls of your feet slightly as you considered his suggestion. The thought of crawling back to the cold loneliness of your bed seemed daunting; like a trap laying in wait for you, ready to spring another bad dream upon your sleep as soon as you laid down. And he had been the one to offer…
“Okay.” It was barely above a whisper, but he heard it all the same, a ghost of a smile dancing across his face in relief. You stepped back, allowing him space to walk into the backroom, the mechanical door closing behind him as you swallowed your reservedness and threaded your fingers in between his, guiding him up the stairs toward your little loft apartment. He let you lead the way, never once making any signs of objection. The two of you had done this dance a hundred times before; him finding a comfortable spot on your bed, you curling into his side with your head nestled on his chest, his arm wrapped securely around your shoulders, a blanket tossed loosely over the two of you. Though this time was different, all of the time the two of you had spent on your bed he had never stayed longer than a few hours, certainly not overnight. You had never asked him to, he had never asked if he could, and it was left at that.
But now here he was, practically a furnace beneath you, his techrot-induced quickened heartbeat thrumming in your ear. You realized why it had never crossed your mind to ask him to stay; how were you supposed to get any sleep with the thought of him so close to you? But then you felt his hand make its way into your hair, his metal fingers mindlessly threading through the strands, a silent lullaby that calmed your mind enough for you to drift back to sleep, cozied in his arms.
-
You felt something cold dripping onto your nose, the startling sensation yanking you from your sleep. Your eyes shot open, your hand coming up to wipe the substance off of your skin. Your fingers came back drenched in thick, sticky red. The rest of your slumber that had held on to the back of your mind immediately vanished. You held your breath, looking up towards where the dripping had been coming from, only to be met with a mangled corpse impaled to the ceiling above you, blood dripping down onto you and the surrounding floor. You had been lying in a puddle of the stuff. You swallowed a scream and scrambled up, almost slipping in the sticky mess in your haste. Your heartbeat was in your throat and it was then that you realized where you were, scanning the area revealed a scene that felt hauntingly familiar. Hallways from your childhood, doused in blood and ghosts and sins of the past. The Zariman. How had you ended up here?
A piercing scream ringing off of the metal hallways and echoing towards your ears cut off your train of thought before it even had a chance to begin. People were being hunted, the body on the ceiling you had found was proof enough of that. You needed to *move*. Your feet decided for you before your mind did, picking a direction and taking off. You ran down the hallway, taking a left, a right, another left, screams and void explosions echoing behind you. Closer and closer and *closer*.
You came across an open doorway and swung yourself inside, praying it was empty as you crouched down, your heart hammering in your head and your breaths coming out ragged. You sat down, curling your knees into your chest and placing your hands over your ears, your whole body shaking. You could hear them, so close to your hideaway; their screams, their shrieks, the splatter of gore as they tore limb from limb. You breathed, in and out, willing them to Just. Go. Away. You didn’t know how you had gotten here in the first place but you wanted out, you wanted to go back. Back to Arthur, back to the safety of the backroom, back to the chaos of 1999, back to your chosen home. You wanted to go back to him. And maybe, just maybe, if you focused hard enough you could will yourself away from this place.
-
He had been sleeping, or at least he thought he had been sleeping, and then suddenly he wasn’t. Or…was he *still* sleeping? He honestly couldn’t tell anymore but he knew he wasn’t where he was supposed to be. Cold, void-touched metal walls surrounded him, hallways of someplace he didn’t recognize. He picked himself up off the floor, how he had gotten down there he couldn’t remember, but he stood up regardless, surveying what laid in front of him. A lounge room of some sort, destroyed as if during a fight and furniture flipped over as barricades. Wherever he was had been, or was currently, a warzone. A switch flipped in his brain that set him on edge, his fingers itching for his AX-52.
He exited the room carefully, seeing more of the same for as far as his eyes could see; battle-torn destruction and void-damaged metal. He heard a scream and whipped his head around, faced with multiple hallways that stretched in various directions. He pressed his back to the nearest wall and waited. One count, two count, three count, four…but nothing ever came. He heard it again, this time closer, but listening more carefully it sounded more like a strangled sob. It took him a minute to realize it was coming from inside his own head. Then he heard your voice.
“I’m going to fucking die here…They’re gonna kill me!” you were sobbing, choking on your own words as you screamed them out. You sounded terrified. He discovered he hated the sound.
“Who’s going to kill you? Where are we, love?” he asked, his voice soft in an attempt to soothe you, but his words fell on deaf ears.
“I'm going to die and…and I’m never-” you paused, hiccups overcoming you as you tried to speak and cry at the same time. “I’m never going to see him again! Fuck! I’m gonna die all alone in this stupid place! I just-” he could hear you sniffle, gulping in air between ragged breaths. “I just want Arthur back.”
He could feel his heart wretch. Did you not know he was here? You had to have been the one to summon him here, right? He knew of no one else who could. He scanned the hallways one last time, double making sure the coast was clear before heading back to the room he had originally found himself in. He sat down, closed his eyes, and tried to focus on your presence. You had to be in there, somewhere. “Sweets, can you hear me?” he tried, your cries still echoing around his mind. When there came no reply he tried again. “Listen to me; you’re not alone. I’m right here, love. Can you hear my voice?” he made sure to be gentle, but with a twinge of his commanding-ness that he knew, or at least hoped, would grab your attention. His brow furrowed as he searched for anything in his mind that could be a response from you, anything that showed him you were at least listening.
“...Arthur?” It was meek and hesitant but it was there. He let out a sigh of relief, the sobs had stopped and you had acknowledged his presence.
“I’m here, love. By Sol, I’m here. What’s going on?”
“I…I don’t know!” you burst into tears again, he could practically feel the sobs racking your whole body, your cold tears on his face and the nerves of his fingers shaking with anxiety. He cursed himself for not approaching the subject more delicately.
“Come now, sweets, you’re alright. Nothing can hurt you now that I’m here, you know that. Let’s start with, where are we? Can you do that?”
He could hear you try to regulate your breathing, a trick he had taught you the first time he had witnessed you having a panic attack. The memory made him smile, just a little. “I…um…we…we’re on the Zariman and- oh Arthur! The Angels! The Angels are coming! Can’t you hear them?! They’ll find us! We have to run! *Right now*!” you had stayed calm for all of about two seconds, panic zinging through his nervous system as you tried to will his feet to move. But he held them still, his will over his own body stronger than your attempted control while you were in such a frazzled state.
“Hold on, love, who’re the Angels? Are they the ones trying to kill you?” You didn’t have time to answer him as a piercing shrill scream rang through the metallic halls, this time Arthur knew for certain it wasn’t coming from inside of his mind. He was quick to his feet, looking for something, anything, to defend the two of you with. The room provided nothing. He cursed, grasping for his exalted blade, hoping his protoframe abilities still worked in whatever nightmarish place this was. Thankfully they did, the sword glowing to life in the palms of his hands. The blueish steel was all he needed. He could hear the shrills becoming louder as it screamed, sharp metal claws clanking and echoing off the walls as it searched. The creature was hunting. He didn’t have much time.
He knew you could hear the monster through his ears, your presence had retreated to the farthest corners of his mind you could find, trying to escape the horrors that awaited you on the outside. But he could still hear you, could still sense you, crying and shaking and pleading with him to just make the thing *go away.*
“I’m here to help, love, but it’s up to you. I don’t know what I’m up against. You don’t have to fight this, but you need to help me. I know you’re still in there, you’re still you underneath all that fear.” he was as calm as he could be knowing that an unknown void horror was about to be barreling down on top of him at any moment. But there was no response. And the newfound ringing in his ears could only mean that the creature had found him.
He dashed out of the room, sliding across the floor and down the hallway, skirting underneath the legs of the lanky abomination. It shrieked, clawing at him with its metal arms. He rebounded, pouncing off of the floor and using the wall as leverage to jump at one of its legs, slashing at the metal, void energy tumbling out as his blade made contact.
“Arthur,” you called out, his concentration severed at your sudden words. The creature slashed at him and his momentary surprise knocked him off balance, it missed, but only by inches as he jumped back and landed on his calves.“Arthur, I’m here! Aim for its center!”
He grunted, ducking down as it swung at him again. He rolled, sliding until he was perfectly underneath the monster. His move confused it, its claws slamming down into the ground around itself as it spun around in a circle in an attempt to claw under itself, screeching the whole while. “Look up!” you shouted in his mind, and he immediately obeyed, being met with a center mass of concentrated swirling void energy, the coldness radiating off of the tip of his nose. “See?”
“Yeah, yeah I do,” he replied, kicking up off of the floor into a jump straight through the creature, leading with the tip of his sword. He met the ceiling as it screamed, ricocheting off with his hands and landing onto the floor as the monster crumbled, the two severed halves hitting the floor with a resounded thud. All remains of the glowing void energy were gone, dissipating out of the cracks between the metal like wisps of smoke blown away in a storm.
“It’s dead…” you told him as if you didn’t actually believe the corpse by his feet. He kicked it for good measure, showing you that it was well and truly not getting back up. You breathed in relief and he could sense the smile ghosting across your face. But it was quickly chased away by the sounds of more shrieks echoing down the halls. Again, and again, and again. As if there was more than one this time. You began to pull away again, your heart rate intermixing with his and beating in his throat. “No…no no no. No! Arthur, I can’t! Not again! I can’t! Arthur!” you were panicking, breathing becoming a challenge as oxygen refused to fill your lungs. It knocked the wind out of him.
He fell to a knee, propping his weight on his sword. If he didn’t calm you down, and quickly, you would send the both of you spiraling into a panic attack. He could already feel his heart rate quickening, trying to match yours. Damn this transference.
“You can, love. You’re strong enough. I’m right here with you.” he focused on you, blocking out the noises fast approaching. He spoke slow, steady, like a beacon in the whirlwind of your racing mind, searching for you.
“We don’t have time for this, they’ll be on us any second!” you screamed in his mind, the essence of tears streaming down your face and ghosting down his skin. You were trying to will him to get up, to run, to do *anything* but just sit here like prey waiting to be slaughtered.
“Slow. It. Down. Breathe, sweets.” he commanded, but not in a forceful way. The change of tone in his voice made you listen, though. The gruffness from his lowered octave had a way of pulling your attention and he knew it.
“I…I…”
But he didn’t let you continue and instead began deliberately breathing in and out, slowly, surely, steadily. Your mind suddenly went blank, the swirling thoughts seeming to calm as you unintentionally started to follow his example. Everything worked better, clearer, now that oxygen was returning to your system, and by proxy Arthur’s system as well. He could feel your mind begin to calm, the whirlwind slowing into a breeze. Relief washed over his nerves as you continued to breathe like he had shown you, your tears drying up and your heart rate returning to normal. He leaned on his sword and fully stood up, rolling his shoulders back and positioning his feet into a fighting stance just as the clicking of metallic claws rounded the corner down the hallway in front of him, the mass of void and twisted metal creatures coming into view, screeching and screaming.
“What do we do?” you asked him. Your voice was quiet, timid. He could tell you were still frightened, but you sounded more sure of yourself. Your voice was here, in the current present with him, and not lost or trapped in the fears of your mind anymore. You were relying on him. He had asked you to place all of your trust in him at this moment and you had done so without a second thought. Sol above, he would never forgive himself if he bollocked this up now.
“These creatures scare you.” it was a statement more than a question but he could feel your presence nod furiously in his head. You watched as he stared the approaching void angels down, his sword raised above his shoulder at the ready, his face carved out of stone as their claws clattered and tore down the hallway towards him. “Then we kill your fear.” his voice was low, threatening, dangerous. Sharp as the blade held in his hands and twice as deadly. He sounded so sure of himself you were almost weary to ask if that was even *possible*, but you never got the chance to anyway, his blade clashing with void-enhanced steel for the second time.
There were at least three, if not more that could pop out of the walls at any second. Arthur slashed and dashed around the space provided, nicking the metal appendages of the monsters whenever an opening was available, which wasn't often. Claws constantly crashed down around him, threatening to crush and impale him with every move. Worry chewed at your nervous system. He was part warframe, sure, but he could still only handle so much. He was starting to slow down, the constant dodging and bouncing around wearing him thin. Sweat stuck thick to his brow, drenching his hair. He rebounded from a jump and kicked off of the wall with his foot, coming down on one of the angels with the tip of his sword, embedding it into the corroded metal, inches too far from hitting the mass of energy in the center. The creature wailed and tried to shake him off, leaving his sword still stuck in its carapace and throwing him across the room into a different wall, *hard*. The impact left a noticeable dent in the metal exterior. He heard you groan in his head, his name tumbling from your lips as if to ask if he was okay. Which only left him more confused.
He had been thrown across the room by a void-born monster, slammed into a metal wall with enough force to dent it, and yet he felt…nothing? He felt fine, if he was being honest. A little tired from all the fighting but certainly not injured, not like he should have been for someone who had just been flung spine-first into a wall. But *you* were groaning in pain. The gears began to turn in his head just as the angels found where their plaything had escaped to.
“It’s a dream…” he dashed away from the oncoming threat, now defenseless as his sword was still out of reach.
You felt the need to cough up blood but doing so was impossible while inside a warframe, the copper liquid forcing its way back down your throat, Arthur’s words not even registering in your head. “What?”
“This is your *dream*, love! It’s a nightmare! This isn’t real!” It had clicked; you were tormenting yourself, running through your worst fears, and causing yourself pain in the process. He hadn’t quite figured out how he’d ended up here with you, but this dream didn’t include him, he was never aboard the Zariman. His pain wasn’t a part of your torment.
“What do you mean this isn’t real?! It fucking *feels* real!” You didn’t believe him. How could you believe him when your head still throbbed from being thrown and blood still poured from between your teeth?
He huffed, sliding underfoot of the metallic beasts as claws swung in his direction again. “You trust me, don’t you? Transfer out of me and prove me wrong, love. I wouldn’t lie to you.”
You hummed aggressively, though it reverberated through his ears as more of a whine. Whether you believed the facts you were seeing in front of his eyes didn’t matter, you believed him, and that was enough.
“Let’s get out of here. The both of us, okay, sweets?” He asked softly, his hands at the ready as his eyes focused on the void angels stalking towards him, backing him into a corner. The threat was imminent, but his attention never left you, though, in the back of his mind. You were his way out of this hellscape, his *only* way out of this hellscape of your memory’s creation, if he could get you to listen to him. He didn’t panic as their claws started to swing in his direction, their shrieks piercing his eardrums, and he didn’t flinch either when their metal appendages came to a dead stop mid-air. Their hulking frames had froze mid-stance, outstretched towards him, but now dead, lifeless, their screams coming to an abrupt halt, deafening silence washing over the area.
“Okay.” You answered, your voice clear as a bell ringing in his head. His eyes forcefully shut, his protoframe body shutting down as his mind drifted back to reality.
-
You awoke with a gasp, tears automatically streaming down your face as you bolted upright, clutching and clawing at your chest as your lungs tried and failed to catch up to the rapid racing of your heartbeat. Arthur had woken up at the same time as you, a groan tumbling from his lips as being forcefully yanked from transference turned out to be a very rude wake-up call. He regained his composure quickly, though, sitting up and immediately pulling you into his lap, cradling you in his arms. Moments like this you reminded him of those old porcelain dolls that used to be everywhere before the techrot took over; small, fragile, one wrong move and he could shatter you into a million pieces that he wouldn’t have the first clue of how to put back together the right way.
“Arthur…” you called out his name, watery eyes staring up at him.
He brushed your hair out of your face, the strands sticking to your skin due to sweat, likely from you being fitful in bed during your nightmare. “You’re okay, love.” His voice barely above a whisper in your ear.
“I’m sorry.” You blurted out, a fresh wave of tears falling from your eyes. His hand came up to caress your cheek, his metal thumb gently wiping the tears away as they fell.
“What for?”
“For…for bringing you into all…that. I…I didn’t even know that was possible. I’m so sorry.” you explained, placing your hands on his chest to ground yourself, the warmth of his frame radiating through your fingertips and keeping you from bursting into sobs.
He tightened his hold on you, silently reminding you that you were here, with him, in your home in Höllvania, no longer trapped within your dream world. “You reached out to me when you needed me, don’t feel like you have to apologize for that.” he kissed you softly on the forehead, the feeling of his lips lingering on your skin. You crumpled against his chest, exhausted and at a loss for words. “You’re safe, love. They can’t hurt you here.” he reminded you, nestling his face into your hair as he gave you another gentle squeeze.
He held you there in the dark, for how long you couldn’t remember. You cradled securely in his arms and him wrapped protectively around you, chasing away any further nightmares. Neither one of you fell asleep anytime soon, but when you did, you knew he would be there, your swordsman, his steel at the ready to drive away the monsters that plagued your mind.