Fixated, [m] language and drug use

[Dice]

ooc: WRITE-SPEW! Got a little carried away, needed a Dice fix pretty badly. Enjoy!


Dice found himself rummaging through the drawers under the sink in the bathroom. Nine had hinted that he hadn’t flushed them all, he must have hidden those tranqs somewhere! God, just listen to yourself. You’ve hit rock-bottom record fast. You know there’s nothing in there. Just like there wasn’t the day before. Or the day before that.

Nine was gone for the afternoon. He had errands to run in which Dice could not partake, such as going back to his apartment to grab some of the stuff he hadn’t taken on the initial move-out, and giving the labs a quick fly-over to get an idea of the compound’s layout in preparation for breaking in. Dice was left alone in the quiet flat. He had already crawled around under the bed, gone through Nine’s bureau, and fished around in both nightstands. He moved towards the linen closet and began pulling out sheets and towels and dropping them on the floor in hopes that drug darts would fall out. He reminded himself of a dog that has been left at home while its master takes a vacation, wreaking boredom-induced destruction.

When the linen closet was emptied and the search proved fruitless, Dice began moodily folding up the bedding he had hauled out and putting it back. He didn’t want Nine coming home to the evidence of his frenzied search. His head spun dizzily as he got up too fast, feeling disoriented and unsteady. Just one dart, he was sure, would tide him over, if only he could find it. Christ, just stop it! You’re stronger than this!

He marched himself to the living room with determination and sat on the couch, dead-set on finding something to distract himself. He picked a magazine up off the coffee table – a medical journal Nine had gotten him from the library. He leaned back and flipped to the index. His finger automatically roved down the ‘T’ section, but he couldn’t find what he was looking for. He turned a few pages back to ‘B’. Benzodiazepine tolerance reduction, but increased flumazenil-precipitated withdrawal in AMPA-receptor GluR-A subunit-deficient individuals. Nine usually looked through the journals before giving them to Dice, to make sure there was nothing in there that might make Dice’s cravings worse, but he had no way of knowing benzodiazepine was in tranq. He flipped to the corresponding page, but soon let the journal fall, text-down, on his chest. He stared at the ceiling. He listened to the clock tick, counting the seconds until Nine came back.

Without any kind of distractions, most notably Nine’s company, Dice had nothing to occupy his mind but the state of his own body. He always felt flushed with heat, sweating profusely, to the point where he worried he might develop hyperthermia. He wasn’t sleeping well – even the added heat of a single sheet was suffocating. His headaches, muscular cramps, and stiffness persisted, on top of his regular morning nausea. Every sound was a jackhammer. He had pulled down all of the shades to prevent the angry, piercing light from hitting his sensitive eyes. It was like having a flu that came and went every day with unpredictable severity.

He picked up the magazine again. His eyes skimmed over the first few paragraphs, picking up on words like “nightmares”, “blurred vision”, “paranoia”, “agitation”, “restlessness”, “nausea”. He stopped at a section near the end. “A common complication of sudden withdrawal is increased panic and fear of madness, with some individuals developing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result. An abrupt or over-rapid discontinuation of benzodiazepines may result in more serious and very unpleasant withdrawal syndromes that may result in self harm, attempted suicide, delusions, mania, homicidal ideation and violent urges to harm others, and convulsions and catatonia which may result in death.” Well, that’s cheerful. He wondered how he could casually ask Nine to listen to his heartbeat to determine if he had tachycardia without worrying him.

Something inside him snapped. He sat up abruptly, glaring at the clock as though it had offended him. He tossed the magazine carelessly on the table, still opened to the page of the article, and went to get his jacket. His feet carried him towards the door automatically, like a wind-up toy. He was going out. In spite of what he had promised Nik about staying inside unless accompanied by one of the others. He wasn’t afraid of him anymore.

The thought of Nine’s heart-crushing disappointment when he found out about Dice’s lapse in self-control, however, was horrible.

Couldn’t be helped. This might be life or death. Strictly medical. He would die if he didn’t get a little benzo in his system. He’d be back in no time.

He pulled his collar up over his cheeks and bowed his head, avoiding the eyes of people he passed. He wasn’t precisely sure where he was going. Where do you buy drugs in Cri? He didn’t know a thing about the black market, just about stealing medical supplies. He found himself heading roughly in the direction of Xandre’s. He had a feeling about that vampire he’d bought those dozen bottles of blood from last month.

Multiple times as he walked he thought of Nine and felt the urge to turn back and forget about the whole thing, once even pivoting in his tracks and walking back a block before turning right around again. He needed this. Just a tiny bit, just enough to make him feel better for a little while. He found his way back to the marketplace he’d visited on his very first venture into Cri. The sanguinery was right where he’d left it.

He couldn’t help feeling that the place repulsed him less than it would most phoenixes. It reminded him of the familiar sight of the freezers at the labs, row after neatly organized row of labeled blood samples in vials.

The cashier was the same charming parasite who had attended him last time. “You again,” he smiled, showing his fangs. “Yer gal’s got quite an appetite. Careful she dun try to drain you when she gets bored.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Dice muttered, regretting his decision to come back here. He pretended to be perusing one of the coolers.

“Can I help you with anything, Mr. E?” the vampire asked. ‘Mr. E’? Had Dice told him his name last time? He supposed he must have. That seemed like a stupid thing to do. It had been a pretty tense situation, he had said just about anything he could think of to get in and out with the blood necessary to keep Xandre alive.

“Well…actually…I was wondering if you knew anyone who could hook me up.”

The vampire raised a pierced eyebrow. “What’s your poison?”

“Tranqs.”

The vampire let out a low whistle, which turned into a chuckle at the end. Dice couldn’t decide if he was impressed or ridiculing. Tranqs were pretty heavy stuff, though, so he was inclined to guess the former. The vampire’s eyes roved upwards, over Dice’s shoulder to something behind him. “Cooee, they come pretty fast.”

“Huh?”

“They come pretty fast when I pressed the alarm.”

Dice felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around. Behind him towered three vampires, wearing suit jackets and ties over their white wife-beaters. Dicen felt fearful bile rise in his throat.

“Dyson,” said the largest of the three, in a guttural growl.
“I think it’s Dicen, Hank.”
“Dicen, then. Our employer would like a word with you.”

Dice didn’t say anything. His fevered mind sloshed through a few scenarios of escape. They weren’t reassuring. His thoughts, as always, returned to ones of Nine. He couldn’t see how his guardian angel was going to find him this time. Please hear me, please help…

“We’re representatives of the Caedo. We need to have a talk.”

Talk? “Oh…kay.”

Hank exchanged a glance with the other two.

“How about you come with us?”

Dice’s heart was sinking past his knees. “Can’t we talk here?”

In synchrony, all three vampires pulled guns from their jackets and aimed them at Dice’s chest.

“Hey,” said Dice, “I’ve got an idea, why don’t I come with you?”

“Good idea,” Hank smiled, showing his fangs. The two other vampires moved forward quick as lightening and grabbed Dice by the arms, lifting him right off the floor and hoisting him onto the counter. The storekeeper averted his eyes and pretended to be very interested in reviewing a stack of receipts.

“What are you doing!?” Dice demanded, struggling against their grasp and straining forward as Hank pulled up Dice’s sleeves to reveal the bandages wrapped around his wrists.

“Ha! This is the guy, alright,” Hank chuckled, ignoring Dice’s distress. He pulled a little container, like a pillbox, out of his pocket and opened it with the hand not restraining Dice’s wrist. “You came here looking for a fix, didntcha?” From the little box he removed what looked like a flat-headed tack, with an usually long pin about half an inch long. Dice’s eyes widened as he caught sight of the sharp implement and he began to squirm with renewed vigor and desperation.

-----

Dice blinked as the light of the rising sun encroached on his eyelids. Where had he been all night? He couldn’t remember a thing past the blood market. He felt like this ought to be more worrying than it was currently making him, but his brain felt quite content with the gaping abyss in his memory.

He was sitting in a cobblestoned alley, propped up against a wall. The nearby sound of water told him he was still in Cri, somewhere near the canals. He felt achy and bruised all over, and had a vague recollection of being dumped out the door of a moving coach. He began to take stock of himself – seemed to be in one piece. Actually, aside from the achyness he felt really good. No morning nausea, no headache, no dizziness.

He felt a sharp jab of pain as he moved his arm. He looked down to see a little circle of metal stuck in the inside crook of his elbow. He furrowed his brow at it and picked at the edge, but it didn’t peel away. He locked the nails of his thumb and first-finger under it and pulled, gritting his teeth as the pain stabbed up his arm again. He gradually pulled the entirety of the long needle out of his skin and sat with the bloody tack-like applicator in his hand. The trickle of blood from the puncture made a little pool in the crook of his elbow.

He held the strange thing up to his eyes and turned it over and over. It reminded him of those hormone treatment patches they sometimes used in the lab. Something was written across the tack-head, and he strained his eyes to make it out, wishing he had his glasses. ‘Pocket’?

He rifled around in his coat pocket and found a neatly folded piece of paper. Across it, in hasty, even scrawl, was simply written a date several weeks from the current day (at least, he hoped it was just the next morning after his outing). The handwriting was very, very familiar, where had he seen it before?

He was startled to hear footsteps and hastily shoved the paper and the tack back into his pocket. The footsteps turned out to just be a female draconian heading to work. She looked down at Dice with a pitying expression as she passed. “Do you need some help, dear? I have some spare change,” she said kindly, offering a hand to help him up.

“Oh, no, no thanks,” Dice said, hauling himself to his feet. “Actually, I’m not really sure where I am. Could you direct me to the Fountain?”

“You’re not far at all, just take a left at the end of this street and follow down the main drag.” She bit her lip, her eyes wandering over his face, his pale cheeks, his dilated pupils. “Are you sure you’re alright? You look…completely stoned,” she said with an embarrassed smile.

“I get that a lot. Thanks for the directions,” Dice said rapidly before heading off in the direction she had indicated, hands shoved in his pockets. He was sure that he could figure out the way home from the Fountain. God, what must Nine be thinking, what kind of a night had he had, coming home to find Dice gone?

He made it back to their building without too much trouble, but soon found he was not coordinated enough to negotiate the stairs – that woman had been right, he was extremely high, not to mention pretty battered and bruised. By putting most of his weight on the railing and using his hands to get him up the steps, he ultimately made it to the door of their flat. Desperate though he was to just collapse into Nine’s arms, the thought of Nine’s all-night anguish and reaction to finding Dice’s disheveled carcass on the doorstep now was unwelcome. How could he possibly explain the incredibly idiotic thing he had done?

He couldn’t remember which pocket the keys were in, so he just pounded on the door. “Nine…?”

[Nine]

Nine arrived home an hour or two after Dice had left. He carried a garbage bag under one arm with a few of his things stowed in it and a grocery bag in the other. He put the groceries down to unlock the door and let himself in.

"I'm home," he called, putting the bag of bread and cheese blocks on the counter and tossing the garbage bag aside.

There was no answer.

Nine tilted his head and surveyed the living area more closely. He usually found Dice passed out on the sofa if he came home this late. Maybe he'd actually gone to bed bed.

Nine padded into the bedroom. When he didn't find Dice there, his steps became a bit more hasty. Not in the bathroom, either. "Dice!?" he called a little louder, stamping back into the living room like he might jump out from behind the furniture and scream 'surprise!' Still no Dice.

Maybe he'd wanted salad and gone out to get some. They'd run out of lettuce... Nine ran to the kitchen and searched for a note. He opened the front door again to check if he'd missed one out there. He was just sifting through the papers on their coffee table when he caught sight of the medical journal he'd given Dice a few weeks ago. He picked it up and scanned the page, trying to find anything, a clue. He didn't understand half of it, but he did understand the list of symptoms, and the words 'withdrawal' and 'addiction' stood out like nudists in a Catholic church.

Nine grabbed the journal by the spine and flapped the pages, hoping a slip of paper would fall out, SOMETHING to explain the disappearance, because it was becoming increasingly obvious now just why Dice had left.

He searched the bedroom and the bathroom once again with bleak hope. "Fuck." He tramped back into the hall and out the door, not even bothering with a jacket despite the cold.

He was just crossing the bridge over the canal when he heard Dice's voice. It didn't sound right, distant and far away, but he swore that he heard the words 'please hear me, please help me.' The feather suddenly felt blazing hot against his chest and his pupils narrowed to pinpricks.

He broke out into a run. He had no idea where the hell he was going, not even an inclination. The only thing he'd gleaned from that tiny bit of telepathy was 'Xandre' so he headed in that direction.

A few minutes later he was tearing through Xandre's house, demanding, "WHERE IS HE!?" and throwing doors open as if Dice would be hiding there. But of course he wasn't, why was he even bothering to check here? If Dice needed help why would he be here? "OhGodOhGodOhGod," he whispered, pacing through the living room once or twice while Xandre looked at him with the perfect 'what the fuck' expression. He stormed out of the house and transformed, flying back to the inner city and scouring the streets for a mop of dark hair and a grey coat. Any person matching that description was promptly thrown around by the shoulder and then dismissed because none of them were Dice.

Nine felt his ribs might crack from the growing pressure building in his chest. What if he's gone, what if you didn't really hear his voice, what if he's just left like Jayden did, why wouldn't he leave a note, this is my fault, it was that stupid journal, maybe he's back home now or maybe he's never coming home, what if he's in real trouble, what if he's dead?

"FUCK!" he exploded, stalking the streets in such distress that it attracted much more attention than he could really afford.

After checking a back-alley dealer's house (he knew the guy would sell tranqs to just about anyone), a Warden approached him and asked him what the matter was. Except he didn't ask it in a concerned way, he asked it in a 'I'll have to arrest you if you don't stop waking up the whole damn city' way. Nine grunted an apology that sounded more like 'get the fuck away from me' and stalked back down the streets, scouring every back alley and the edges of the canals and under bridges.

He was checking through an alley and started digging through a dumpster when his heart suddenly sank into his bowels. There was a body turned face down in the garbage and a fly was crawling along the shell of its ear. Not Dice please not Dice. He turned the body over slowly and breathed relief when he found that it was an older man with a beard.

He should have been sickened. He just kept searching. Nothing. Nowhere. And he couldn't hear Dice's thoughts, not at all, he couldn't even really feel what Dice felt. It was terrifying and infuriating and he didn't even know what he'd do if and when he found the phoenix.

It was almost dawn by the time Nine returned home, hoping to God Dice would be there.

He wasn't. And Nine couldn't think of a single place he hadn't searched, a single store he hadn't trashes, a single junkie's hideout he hadn't torn apart. And all that time he kept thinking what if he's dead what if he's dead?

Nine went through all the rooms in the flat three times again before he started pacing down the hallway, and when that didn't easy the tension he collapsed on the couch and considered the very real possibility that Dice had wandered off and been captured or killed. When that hit, when he really considered it, considered the consequences of 'what if he's dead,' that's when everything in him broke. All the flimsy supports just crumbled and he found himself sobbing into his hands and refusing to look around the living room because every damn piece of furniture and insignificant knickknack had a story to tell about Dice.

He'd never really cried to the point where his eyes were too dry and tired to produce tears, but the possibility that Dice was dead seemed more like reality at that point in time and he didn't know what to do. He felt angry at himself for not doing more, for buying that journal, for leaving Dice alone. Angry at himself for falling apart so easily. And as he got angrier he found it was that much harder to stop crying.

At one point in the morning, after collapsing on the couch with his arms over his eyes, after the well of tears had finally run out, he thought he felt a pain on the inside of his elbow. But by that point everything seemed too numb.

He almost didn't get up when there was a knock at the door. Because his mind had partially resigned itself to one of two awful things: Dice had left him deliberately or Dice was captured and therefore dead.

So... do you think your gun's still in his drawer or will he have taken your escape route with him too?

No... he had to go look, he had to know. If Dice had been captured he'd go find him. Maybe they wouldn't have executed him yet... Maybe he'd even get a trial.

The knock became a pound and suddenly Nine sat bolt upright. "Nine..?"

Nine vaulted over the back of the couch and nearly tore the doorknob clean off as he ripped open the door. The relief at seeing Dice alive only lasted a nanosecond. He yanked Dice inside by the upper arm and slammed the door shut, as if that would do anything to muffle the sound of his yells. "Where the FUCKING HELL have you been?! What the hell was so fucking important that you couldn't even leave a note!? Do you know how long I ran around last night looking? I turned the whole fucking city upside down looking for ONE PERSON and nearly got myself arrested by the Wardens. You know I don't fucking CARE if you need to go out for a walk or something – you know I don't give a shit about Nik's stupid rule about you going places – but considering you're a wanted bloody fugitive it might be nice to tell me where the fuck you're going, you know, in case you don't turn up because the 'Surgs have taken you away." All this came out in a stream as he paced the living room, never standing still, his body still coiled like a knotted ball of yarn. "I thought I heard you call for help, I thought for sure you'd been caught, I harassed dealers and random pedestrians who looked even a bit like you. I-I..."

He trailed off, looking at Dice more closely. Suddenly his eyes widened, pupils contracting to tiny hairs. "You're STONED!?!?!" His voice took on a tone it never had with Dice. Now he wasn't just screaming out of fear or worry, now he was really and truly angry. "WHAT THE FUCK, DICE!?!? You put me through HELL for a stupid fix?! Do you KNOW what was running through my mind all last night!? Of course not, you might have an idea if you weren't high as a fucking kite, but in case you've missed a beat, DISAPPEARING BOYFRIEND IS NOT A GAME I LIKE TO PLAY! You didn't leave anything, I thought you'd left like Jayden had, and then I thought 'maybe not, maybe you'd just gone out for something to eat and the 'Surgs had captured you and then...'" He choked on the words. His hands shook so violently and he kept running them through his hair. His voice was a lot quieter comparatively when he spoke again. "I kept expecting to find your body buried in a dumpster..." He sounded like he was being strangled. He gesticulated with his hands but there was no word to convey how horrific the night had been.

He collapsed into the sofa and leaned his elbows on his knees, burying his face in his hands. After a moment he reached under the hem of his shirt and slowly procured the tranq darts he'd stowed away 'just in case.' That 'just in case' scenario had been for near-death experiences, when Dice's body couldn't handle the withdrawal.

He slammed them down on the table and leaned back, staring at them with a mixture of revulsion and resentment.

"You're my biggest weakness Dice," he whispered, still staring at the tranqs. He couldn't look Dice in the eye, not when he looked so out of it, not with his pupils eclipsing his irises the way they did now. "If I'm really your superman, Dice, then you're the fucking kryptonite. But in reverse. Take you away from me and I'm more vulnerable than the crackwhore huffing turpentine on a 'Surg's back porch."

[Dice]

It was with tremendous relief that Dice was yanked through the door into the familiar room. Just the feel of Nine’s fingers against his arm, the grip laced with tension and distress though it was, made Dice calm and comforted. Thank god Nine didn’t do anything stupid while I was gone, like go knocking on the door of Insurgi HQ to try to rescue me. He could really see him pulling a stunt like that, too.

His face fell with dismay as he glanced around at the evidence of Nine’s horrific evening. The papers on the coffee table were strewn across the floor, small dents in the walls marked the spots where the handles of doors violently flung open had struck. Nine smelled terrible, reeking of garbage and decay. His cheeks were streaked with a dried salt trail of long-gone tears, as though slugs had crawled down his face. These little details stood out far more sharply in his mind than the fact that Nine was screaming at him. Dice wanted to hug him, but registered that it wouldn’t be a good idea just now. Nine was too wound up. He’d just have to wait for him to calm down, that was all.

He was having some trouble standing up without swaying on his feet, so he lowered his weight onto the arm of the couch, taking off his coat and laying it beside him. He chewed his lip as he listened to Nine tirade at him. It felt like a very large fist was squeezing on his internal organs. Nine was actually angry at him. He’d experienced Nine’s disappointment before, that time he’d smelled tobacco smoke on Dice’s breath, but had never been subjected to Nine’s rage. He just listened mutely, his mouth hanging open slightly, his clouded brain not fast enough to keep up with Nine’s words. He wished he would stop screaming and swearing, he was so loud. It was killing his buzz. That thought was so treacherous Dice felt like hitting himself. He kind of hoped Nine might hit him. It might help him release some of that pent-up anger and move along the process of forgiving him.

Nine produced the tranquilizer darts from inside his shirt. Well, that explained a lot. He didn’t realize he could do that with things other than his gun. Dice just stared at them uncomfortably as Nine pushed them across the table. Nine seemed to have exhausted his immediately accessible stores of rage, and the room was seized by a volatile silence. It was Dice’s turn to say something, but he wasn’t sure what. ‘I’m sorry’ really didn’t seem like it could possibly begin to cut it this time.

Dice looked up at Nine blearily, trying to combat the happy fuzziness obscuring his thoughts. His pupils were so big that his irises had ceased to be entirely. “You didn’t believe me, that night by the canal. I’m a Bad Person, Nine. Old habits die hard.” His gaze wandered to the medical journal flung on the floor, and the memory of how this all started came back to him. Nine had clearly already put together the pieces.

Now, how could he possibly explain without making it sound like the worst excuse ever thought up by an utterly hammered junkie? He was tempted to lie, to tell Nine that he’d just gone out to get a bite to eat or get some fresh air and had been abducted. That seemed like a sure-fire way to make matters even worse. He’d never suddenly felt a craving for salad or cookies powerful enough to drive him into the streets alone before.

In the Insurgi, anger was met with anger in turn, or with cold indifference; to do otherwise was to show weakness. This situation did not allow for indifference. “This night hasn’t been a cakewalk for me either. I didn’t inject drugs into myself, I was drugged. I was abducted by the Caedo.” Even as it left his lips, it sounded stupid. The anger just wasn’t in him.

He rifled around in the pocket of his coat and pulled out the bloody tack-like thing and the folded piece of paper. He put them down in front of Nine. “I have no idea what happened last night. I remember going to find tranqs and getting nabbed by three vamps, said they worked for the Caedo. They stuck this thing in my arm,” he pointed to the applicator. “After that…blank. I sort of remember being in a coach, talking to someone, and getting pushed out. I woke up in a gutter this morning when the drugs started wearing off, but I still have no idea what the Caedo wanted with me.”

This attempt to blame his disappearance entirely on the Caedo was not sitting well with Dice. Nine was still looking at him as though he’d intentionally stabbed knives into him. He had to abide by their new complete honesty policy or they’d never get anywhere. “But…I did leave with the intention of scoring some tranqs. I couldn’t take it anymore, Nine, not a second longer. I can’t stand it when you aren’t here, I’m left all alone with nothing for company but the pain and the sickness. I knew you wouldn’t get drugs for me, I had to get them myself, I thought I was going to die Nine…” he sniffled, wiping his sleeve across his nose, feeling pathetic. He knew now that he wasn’t going to die. He had convinced himself he was to justify going to get a fix. Remorse was dulling his high.

“I…I didn’t leave you a note. God, that was dumb. I guess I thought maybe you’d come home late, and you’d never notice, never have to know. I was ashamed. I hate it when you’re disappointed in me, can’t stand it,” he muttered. “You should be angry. You should. You should…I don’t know, hit me, starve me, lock me up, hang me on the wall by the pinkies…” Any kind of punishment would do, really, if it could help him atone for his terrible lapse in judgment.

He felt sick again. Just what Nine had been through that night was hitting him hard. At least Dice couldn’t remember what had happened to him. Nine had thought the Insurgi had captured him? What would happen in that situation? He certainly wouldn’t be given any kind of trial or appeal, he’d just be taken straight to the firing squad. It would not be a publicized execution, he would just disappear forever and Nine would never know. Unbearable. Like a torn soul-bond. That couldn’t ever, ever happen to Nine again. And the thought of finding Nine’s body in a dumpster…

“God, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry I don’t know how or if I can ever…ever…” he sobbed, the tears coming up at last. More than ever now he wanted to curl up in Nine’s arms, but the draconian seemed so full of a furious kinetic energy that he didn’t dare. “…I can’t even begin to imagine what you’ve just been through, what I put you through, I never wanted-“

“You might have an idea if you weren't high as a fucking kite, but in case you've missed a beat, DISAPPEARING BOYFRIEND IS NOT A GAME I LIKE TO PLAY!”

“I’M. NOT. JAYDEN!!” Dice screeched, his fists balled up and his jaw clenched. “For the last time: I would never, ever leave you, Nine. Not on purpose. I needed a fix, and I needed it right that second, and I was going to come right back but the fucking Caedo had their own ideas. I love you, I love you more than anything in the entire world and as much as I’ve lied in the past I’ve got to find a way to make you believe that! I’m not going to abandon you, you’re stuck with me.” He crossed his arms in defiance, vision still spinning – whatever the drugs in his system were, they sure as hell weren’t tranqs, they acted more like stims. He was flitting from emotion to hormone-fueled emotion like a Jack Russell terrier on caffeine. He really hoped he hadn’t just been set back to square one in terms of withdrawal recovery, but he was fairly certain the effects were different enough that his body wouldn’t interpret it that way.

He wasn’t thinking clearly. The words he was saying and the way he was saying them was not the way he wanted. He really wished they could have this conversation some other time, some time when he was sober and could properly express his remorse and fear without the fluffy-happy-high of whatever concoction he’d had shot into him threatening to encroach on the situation’s gravity. He wanted to go to bed, sleep off the high, try again in the morning. Nine had to know how aware Dice was of his suffering in his absence, but it was near impossible to communicate negative emotions when his body seemed to be drifting up up up. He didn't like this high, it felt all wrong.

He sighed, staring evenly at Nine across the table, over the tranqs. “I…I know I’m a weakness for you. I know. I’m probably the worst thing that ever happened to you in terms of your likelihood of survival. You are for me, too. We wouldn’t even be considering soulbonding if we weren’t both completely aware of that.” He pushed the tranq darts back across the table, away from himself. “I wish I could say you were my greatest weakness, my kryptonite. That would be a lie. Until I get past this withdrawal, tranqs are always going to be my greatest weakness, whether we like it or not. My heart and soul are yours completely, but my body still belongs to tranqs.” He said it miserably, with a tone of defeat and resentment.

He hadn’t really realized until last night just how utterly dependent his every function was on benzodiazepine, and it was about time he and Nine both realized that fully. “I want you to be my weakness. So, here’s the deal from now on. Nik had the right idea, we’re going to start following his rules far more closely. I’m a danger to all of you and to myself, so from now on you’re taking my keys with you when you leave, and you’re locking the door behind you. Got it?” Self-inflicted imprisonment was far preferable to anything like this happening ever, ever again. “I don’t trust myself anymore, so I can’t expect you to either."

[Nine]

Nine continued to glare at the tranqs, the medical journal, the walls, the frayed bit of the sofa he'd been picking at incessantly. He looked everywhere but at Dice, his jaw locked. He didn't know if he could speak even if he tried; it felt like his mandible had been cemented to his upper jaw.

“This night hasn’t been a cakewalk for me either. I didn’t inject drugs into myself, I was drugged. I was abducted by the Caedo.” Nine didn't say anything, but it was obvious he didn't believe Dice. What would the Caedo want with an Insurgi traitor? A little known Insurgi traitor too, since the 'Surgs didn't find it practical to publicize the names of their mutinous family members.

Dice started rummaging through his pockets then procured two things. Nine couldn't help noticing how bad Dice's fingers shook as he dropped the paper and the tack on the table. The paper just had a date on it – meaningless to him. He elaborated on the story but Nine was still glaring dubiously at the two objects. If Dice really wanted to lie, why would he invent something so far fetched? Unless it was actually true...

Nine couldn't even consider it. The point was he'd left. Without notice. With the intent of getting tranqs. And that he'd returned in the morning stoned.

"I couldn’t take it anymore, Nine, not a second longer. I can’t stand it when you aren’t here, I’m left all alone with nothing for company but the pain and the sickness. I knew you wouldn’t get drugs for me, I had to get them myself, I thought I was going to die Nine…”

Nine's snarl filled the room, "I thought you were dead! You're telling me you were so worried of dying from drug withdrawal that instead you risked getting caught by the 'Surgs, or the Caedo as it so happens, so you could shoot up, because that would in some perverse way save you?" He growled low under his breath. "I can't believe you're trying to excuse this." He'd gone from digging at the worn hole in the sofa to balling his hands into fists until his stubby fingernails snagged on the skin of his palms.

At least Dice seemed to know Nine's anger was justified. Though Nine would never, under any circumstance (unless, perhaps, life threatening ones), hit Dice or hurt him on purpose. He didn't have it in him. Though he felt that Dice deserved it right about now.

Dice began his apology, breaking down into sobs, but it was at this point that Nine lost his temper completely. Nothing seemed to contain the emotions writhing inside him, all of it just came out in the form of much shouting and screaming.

Eventually, Dice joined in. “I’M. NOT. JAYDEN!!” Nine's rumbling snarls just rolled off his tongue like peels of distant thunder as he pushed himself up and began stalking the living room again, the restless energy too much for him. He didn't seem to believe that Dice would never abandon him, either. "Well, I felt pretty damn abandoned last night! For a hit of some stupid drug, no less." He could feel Dice's eyes on him but he didn't return the look.

Dice didn't seem to get it. He didn't seem to get any of it. He was too damn high to understand just how morbidly wretched the night had been. Nine didn't get to sleep through it, he didn't get a nice happy high. He got the hollow ache of believing that the most important person in the world to him was dead and he'd never get the closure to know for sure, because the 'Surgs wouldn't likely hold a funeral.

“I wish I could say you were my greatest weakness, my kryptonite. That would be a lie. Until I get past this withdrawal, tranqs are always going to be my greatest weakness, whether we like it or not. My heart and soul are yours completely, but my body still belongs to tranqs.”

Nine's face changed and fell as fast as a pane of shattered glass. "Key!" he spat the word, holding out his hand palm up. When Dice continued to look baffled he elaborated. "The key to the house, give it to me."

Once the key was safely in his hand he shoved it into his pocket with his own and got up. "I'll come back when you're sober enough to get it." He marched toward the door, stopped halfway, then returned to the table and picked up the two tranquilizer darts Dice had pushed back toward him. "I could use these right about now," he muttered, and something in his voice sounded strangled and shaky like he was crying but his eyes were dry. He slammed the door shut behind him and locked it with the key Dice had given him.

Two hours later found him sitting under the bridge of the canal, staring at the amber liquid in the dart and wishing like hell he was the kind of person who'd just take a hit when life got too difficult. It would be nice to just float around in some non-existence right about now.

It hurt. The left over paranoia from the night still lurked like a misery-hangover, but the words Dice had spoken stung worse. Do you know what these fresh wounds need? Salt. Vinegar. Sandpaper.

Nine twirled the tranq and tried very very hard to imagine piercing his arm with it. It'll make his withdrawal worse, when we soulbond. If it stays in my system even a little bit, he'll feel it.

Nine twirled the tranq once, twice then chucked it into the canal and watched it sink. He did the same with the second.

------

He returned the next day, when he felt sure Dice would be sober. It was early morning, and about the time when Dice could usually be found hovering over a toilet puking.

Nine opened the door quietly and closed it behind him. He tossed the keys in a bowl with mittens and scarves by the doorway and walked down the hall. Sure enough, the sound of dry heaves drifted out of the bathroom.

Nine came and stood in the doorway, crossing his arms. He was still avoiding eye contact. Normally he helped Dice through this. He'd sit behind him and rub his back and bring him a glass of water. Nine didn't feel all that sympathetic right now.

"I'm not locking you in the house. I'm not caging you even if you think you need it. I'm not going to force you to quit. You have to want it bad enough. You have to want to get clean more than you want the goddamn drugs." He had his arms crossed and was now digging his fingernails into his biceps to the point of drawing blood. My heart and soul are yours completely, but my body still belongs to tranqs. Every bit of Nine recoiled at those words, but as if he were some kind of masochist he kept playing them over and over.

"You chose tranqs over me," he said it quietly, but saying it out loud opened up a dam. His eyes looked wet. "If I even had half the amount of dignity most people do I'd give you an ultimatum, but you'd know it would be lie. If I told you to choose me or the drugs right now you'd know that, even if you lapsed again, or lapsed completely, or just plain sold yourself back to the life of a junkie, you know I'd forgive you anyway." He didn't really know what he was talking about anymore. He just wanted to collapse in bed and sleep. He hadn't slept in 48 hours and it showed.

[Dice]

Dice realized, with growing dread, that Nine didn’t believe him. He thought he was lying. This was so much worse than knowing Nine was disappointed in him, or angry with him, that Dice was stricken dumb. All in one night, one stupid night of weakness, he’d managed to single-handedly tear down any edifice of trust they’d managed to construct between them. He’d never felt so idiotic in his life, not even as that bomb had gone off in the Oak with twice the expected blast radius.

Every glance from Nine was icy. It was the way Nine sometimes looked at his brother. Dice was not used to this kind of coldness. It made him want to reach out and touch Nine all the more, and simultaneously increasingly hesitant to do anything of the sort which might set him off. Nine wouldn’t even look at him.

"I can't believe you're trying to excuse this." Dice didn’t say anything, just toyed with the scrap of paper on the table, spinning it around by one corner. He couldn’t excuse it. Nine had called him out and he was left without defenses, a tortoise without a shell writhing on its back. And, frankly, he was just too fucking stoned to string together any kind of a logical argument for his actions. It was utterly repulsive.

He looked up at last, to give Nine a perplexed look, as he demanded the key from him. Dice obediently fished around in his pockets and procured the house key, dropping it into Nine’s palm without touching his fingers. He was handing over the keys to his cage once again.

He returned his attention to twirling the bit of paper, too wretchedly miserable to speak anymore. Nine snatched the tranqs off the table. Probably to make sure Dice didn’t shoot up again while he was gone – god, he didn’t trust him one whit anymore, did he? "I could use these right about now.” Dice looked up with a start. “Wait, what?!” He scrambled to his feet and pursued Nine to the door, his eyes full of horror. “No, Nine, don’t do that, please don’t do that! Wait!” his voice shuddered. He tried to stop Nine before he could leave, but he came too late, and in a moment Nine had slammed the door and locked it behind him. “Wait…” Dice repeated entreatingly, half-heartedly, as he listened through the door to the sound of Nine’s receding footfalls. He leaned his forehead against the locked door and closed his eyes. He screwed up his face in pain and let out a long, animalistic cry of anguish and frustration.

If Nine shot up, if he fell into the same destructive habits, Dice would never forgive himself.

He let his knees buckle and slumped down against the door’s base. He was sure Nine would come back eventually, but he had no way of knowing when, or if he would come back high just to give Dice a taste of his own medicine. The thought that he might have driven Nine to such vindictive, self-destructive measures made Dice want to cut his own fingers off. He’d have to wait and see. He’d just stay here until Nine came back.

----

A long, lonely, miserable day passed. Dice did not abandon his vigil by the door except to use the bathroom. As the drugs were processed by his system, the high faded away and ultimately disappeared, and with it went all that was keeping him from complete despair. Nine, by far the best thing that had ever happened to him, was gone, driven away by his greed. What had he said to him yesterday? He couldn’t remember it all that clearly, but the words ‘my body still belongs to tranqs’ echoed in his skull. What the fuck had he been thinking? Of course Nine had left, anyone would have. Even an angel, even a saint.

Would Nine even want to soulbond with him anymore? The thought made his heart stop and his breath catch in his throat. Would this make him rethink the entire thing, finally realize Dice wasn’t the type of person he could trust in his head? He clutched the vial and scale still hanging around his neck tight in his hand and mashed them against his chest, under the irrational impression that they might fade away if Nine willed it so.

As he returned from taking a piss, cursing the waking horror that was soberness, he paused by the coffee table. He sat on the couch and picked up the piece of paper and the tack-thing, rolling them over in his hands. What the hell had the Caedo wanted with him in the first place? What did that date mean? Why had they bothered to drug him? Why had they let him go? None of it made any sense. What made the least sense of all was that they hadn’t used tranquilizer to subdue him; whatever this new compound they had injected him with was, it was undoubtedly far more complex and expensive to produce. Unless they somehow knew he was resistant to tranq…but how could they? How had they known his name? It was enough to make him considerably worse than paranoid. At least it appeared that they didn’t know where he lived. He shoved the piece of paper back in his pants pocket.

His number of enemies seemed to be increasing at an alarming rate. The Insurgi. The Caedo. Tranqs. His sister. Himself. And now Nine. No, not Nine. Although he knew Nine was angry, he could feel that he had not turned against him, not yet. Not ever. He tried to convince himself that he was as redeemable as Nine thought he was. He was prepared to fight to the last breath to prove it.

His stomach made a loud noise. He recalled that he hadn’t eaten in several days – it hadn’t seemed very important at the time, the drugs had kept him complacent and distracted him from hunger. He walked to the kitchen. He’d grown very used to Nine cooking for him, and this thought made him wince. He’d seen Nine make French toast enough times that he thought he could handle it – eggs, sugar, milk, bread, butter. He was rather inexpert at it, and it took him a long time. Without even thinking, he made enough for two. Nine still wasn’t back.

His stomach made the noise again, and he began to realize it wasn’t hunger growls. He sighed resignedly and abandoned the toast to go to the bathroom. He had been hoping that the drugs, although they weren’t tranqs, might offset the withdrawal symptoms for a day or two. No such luck.

It was as he attempted to empty his already vacant stomach that he heard the door open. Thank god. Maybe Nine had timed his return so that he could go through the daily morning ritual of helping Dice through his nausea. Instead, Nine just stood in the doorway as Dice heaved over the toilet bowl. Dice could feel his eyes on the back of his neck. They were freezing cold. Nine began to speak, not waiting for him to be finished with his purge, but Dice absorbed every word above the sounds of his own retching.

At last, he pulled the flush lever and hauled himself up by the toilet rim. He turned to face Nine, and his eyes wandered to the draconian’s wrists. They were clear of needle-marks and dart-punctures. He breathed an inward sigh of relief and looked up at Nine’s avoidant face. His own face, he knew, was drained and pale, but he imagined he couldn’t possibly look more like hell warmed over than Nine did right now.

“I want it bad enough,” he said with as much conviction as he could muster, his muscles still twitching with the after-weakness of nauseous convulsions. Oh please, please let Nine sense just how badly he wanted it. He was almost disappointed to hear that Nine wasn’t going to lock him in – that way he wouldn’t even be able to feel tempted to sneak out. But Nine was absolutely right. Dice’s only effective lock against temptation was his own will, and he owed Nine that much…

He stumbled past Nine into the living room, trying to avoid the inevitable, but Nine’s accusation struck him like a dart in the back. He held the back of the couch and hung his head, bangs obscuring his face. “I chose tranqs over you,” he echoed, repeating Nine’s words with a nod. “And it was…unforgivable. Treacherous.” The brand on his wrist had never felt more appropriate. For once, his eyes were dry and Nine’s were the wet ones. He didn’t want his words tainted by emotion, he wanted it to be clear that he was speaking from the head as much as from the heart. “I deserve an ultimatum. You shouldn’t have to compete with the drugs, not when I…when I promised you I’d try harder, I’d get better, I’d stay clean. You promised you’d help me. I hope that still applies.”

He turned around and leaned against the couch’s back, looking at Nine’s feet. “I could tell you something like ‘I choose you over drugs, Nine! I’m going cold turkey from now on!’ but I don’t think anything I have to say holds much stock right now. So I’m going to hope, and endeavor, very very hard…to let my actions speak for me from here on in.” It was going to take time to build up Nine’s trust again from scratch, but time was something he had plenty of.

He finally looked up, trying to gauge if Nine was at all convinced. He found his lover strangely unreadable today. He could feel some glimmers of emotion through their link, but they were fuzzy and dim. Only one stood out. Abandonment. And it was every bit as bone-breakingly heart-crushingly spine-rippingly ball-bustingly painful as drug withdrawal. And Nine had endured it for him. Dice felt like a gold-plated piece of shit.

“You look tired,” he commented hypocritically. Neither of them had really slept in two days. “Want some toast?”

[Nine]

ooc~ sooo this thread has me crying like a six-year-old girl T_T definitely got pretty emotional writing this. It's a bit shorter. Nine isn't very... talkative atm.

bic~ "I want it bad enough," Dice echoed, but Nine truly couldn't tell if he meant it. He noticed the phoenix's eyes darting over his wrists, searching for the puncture marks and finding none. Nine scowled. "If that scale wasn't hanging from your neck, I would have shot up no questions asked." Just to be rid of hearing Dice's voice repeating those cruel words in his head. In the end, the possibility of putting Dice even a tiny fraction of the way backward in his recovery trumped his need to forget.

In retrospect, it would have been so damn easy to just pull Dice into his arms and forgive the momentary lapse in judgment, but after hearing those words... Nine couldn't even muster the notion of touching Dice. It was as if those words had nullified all the 'I love you's and sweet sentiments from the months they'd been together. Now all those memories translated to I love you, but not as much as my tranqs. It left a sour taste in his mouth.

To make matters worse, Dice repeated his words. Confirmed them. “I chose tranqs over you.” Nine followed into the living room, his movements stiff. He collapsed into the cushioned chair. He agreed. It was unforgivable. It was treacherous.

Could he help but draw comparisons to Jayden? Jayden had been the only thing remotely close to what he had with Dice, and he'd left Nine feeling only half as inadequate as he felt right now. Nine didn't deal well with feeling inferior. His ego felt like a popped balloon, not to mention his masculinity. After making love to Dice every damn day, he'd safely assumed that he'd laid claim to Dice's body, tranqs or no tranqs. Apparently not.

"I have been trying to help," he said, his voice still low and his eyes still shining. He stared hollowly at the coffee table and the two little artifacts from Dice's excursion. "And I'll still try to help." He bit his lip, turning to stare out the big windows looking out onto the canals. He had to ask, though at the moment he didn't think he wanted to hear the answer.

At the offer of toast, Nine shook his head. "Not hungry," he murmured. He didn't know if he could keep any food down. His stomach still writhed unpleasantly. Plus, there were still other things on his mind. He hadn't even broached the whole topic of the Caedo. He still couldn't be sure if that was true or not, though he was beginning to think it was.

There was still so much to talk about and he could barely bring himself to say the words.

"You quit for Lex," he said. He scratched at his arms, like this whole conversation made him itchy. "Was he really just a friend?" That brought on a whole new wave of nausea. He didn't want to consider that Dice might have lied to him about that.

That's when it really hit home. I don't trust him anymore. Just like that, the fragile little wall he'd built to keep himself from having an utter meltdown crumbled. The tears he'd held back traipsed down his cheeks. He couldn't bother to try and hide them, it wasn't as if Dice wouldn't notice. Still... "How the hell are we supposed to forge a soulbond out of this?" he whispered, his voice cracking. "Oh God." He looked awful. He looked bloody-fucking miserable. He still wanted it. Maybe even more. He'd probably stab himself with the vial right now if Dice agreed to it. But he knew he was being stupid. The wounds were still too fresh. He couldn't think. Even taking a day to contemplate hadn't really helped the way it should have.

Nine wiped at his damp cheeks and his hand came away dirty. "I'm going to have a shower," he said abruptly. Normally they did that together too, but just the memory incurred another bout of repetitive 'his body doesn't belong to you, it belongs to tranqs.'

God, how long before I get over this? He didn't want to dwell on it anymore but his heart didn't forget so easily.

He showered quickly and returned fully dressed – another tiny detail that was completely out of character for him. The smell of french toast was doing nothing for his roiling stomach. He should have been hungry but he just felt exhausted. For a minute, he just wanted to pick Dice up and carry him off to bed and cuddle until he fell asleep, but he knew even that would result in a fresh bout of tears. He didn't think he could do much of anything right now without crying like a baby.

Suck it up for fuck's sake. The french toast was cold but he tried nibbling on it. He even managed to feel a little touched that Dice had cooked for him. That never happened. But his stomach didn't like food at the moment so he didn't get far with his portion. "I'm sorry, Dice," he murmured, still staring at his dejected plate. "I don't know when this is going to stop hurting."

[Dice]

Ooc: Oooohkay, this thread is starting to hit way too close to home. Been having some ‘treachery’-related issues in my group lately, and this conversation is creepily similar to the one I had with a ‘friend’ on my very very bad day last week. Scary how often RP mirrors life, can’t help injecting my issues into my characters.



“You don’t believe me. Fine. Why should you?” Dice spat, considerably more angry at himself than at Nine. He was glaring down at his own chest, at the vial and scale. Was that really the sole, flimsy barricade preventing Nine from becoming a junkie just like him? It throbbed against his chest like a second heart, feeding him fleeting tastes of Nine’s mind. Every throb beat with Jayden, Jayden, Jayden.

When he spoke next it was with a snarl. “You know what mate? I made a mistake. I do that a lot, as it turns out, as you well know. But the number of times I chose you over tranqs…doesn’t that count for anything? I could have gone out looking any of the times you left me here alone. I could have rifled through Penny’s pockets and found some shit. I could have gotten a fix when I found my tranq gun in my old pants, or when I confiscated Claire’s guns, and god I wanted to. But both times I swallowed my stupid craving and handed them over to you, for you. I don’t know why yesterday was the day, but I finally broke. I was a timebomb and we both knew it.” He shook his head, grimacing and looking away.

“I know that every time you look in my head you see ‘TRANQS’ in giant glowy neon letters hastily shoved into a corner somewhere. But you know what? Every time I look I see ‘JAYDEN’! Do you know how hard that is? You’re supposed to be over him, but he worms his way in all the time!” he recognized that the decibel level of his voice was rising defensively, and he tried to keep it in check when he spoke next. “We had a deal. Not formally, not in writing or anything, but it was there. We were going to help each other with the problems from our pasts. You were going to help me get over tranqs. I was going to help you get over Jayden. We’ve both got baggage. You’re just stronger than me. I’m not…I’m not fucking perfect like you.” He genuinely meant it. Nine was and always would be, in his eyes, the personification of worldy perfection. That made arguing with him a thousand times harder, because Dice knew he would always lose.

His temper dwindled. He felt empty and dry, wrung out like a sponge. “I can’t believe I said those things to you yesterday, while I was high. Of course I love you more than anything, of course I do. The trouble is…you always give me so much freedom. Tranqs have me in a stranglehold, I can’t get away, they don’t let me make choices or think for myself. As possessive and suffocating as you say you are, your clinginess doesn’t hold a candle to the slow, strangling asphyxiation of drugs. But yesterday I didn’t just feel withdrawal from tranqs, I felt withdrawal from you. It was terrifying. I couldn’t cope, so I gave in.” It was the best he could do for an explanation. No more excuses, just analysis, cold and sterile.

”You quit for Lex.” Dice responded with a small, sad smile. “Yeah, I quit for Lex. Know how he did it? He locked me in a bunker for five effing months. By the second week I was so desperate for a fix that I started eating the dirt under the footlockers hoping someone had broken a dart. See what I mean about you giving me too much freedom?” Up until now he’d been neglecting to mention this detail to Nine, figuring it wasn’t all that important, something Nine could find out and have a good long laugh about when they soulbonded. In truth, he hadn’t mentioned it because it was shameful. “Lex was harsh, he knew what it took, and he knew how utterly incapable I was of self-control. I wasn’t half as deep into the needles back then, either – it wasn’t until I got shoved in a rat cage and poked on a regular schedule that I learned what dependence really meant. If Lex had just asked me to stop, there’s no way I would have done it. You’re the only person in the world who could have made me hand over my tranq gun.”

"Was he really just a friend?"

Dice winced. That hurt. Had he really set back the trust between them that far? There was no chance Nine was going to agree with Dice’s plan for the heist of the labs now; leave the desperate junkie alone in a room full of drugs? He’d have to be mad!

It was driving him insane that Nine was being so completely distant - not looking at him, not touching him, when normally he couldn’t keep his hands and eyes to himself for more than five seconds. One of them had to cave in and abandon their pride eventually. Dice leaned forward and slid his hand across the table towards Nine. Touch me, touch me, please. Just one finger, just a nail…

It had to be the full, complete, honest answer. “We were very, very close friends. But that’s all we ever were. Friends. That wasn’t a lie. I’ve never lied to you since that night we went to the Venus Fly, I even told you just how bad the withdrawal was getting. I’ve never felt anything for another person remotely as powerful and enduring as I feel for you. Lex was handsome, and insanely smart, and I admired him a lot, but Lex-“

Lex. Shit.

Dice never finished his sentence. He snatched for the folded piece of paper and unfolded it with shaking fingers.

That was Lex’s handwriting. Of course. It was unmistakable. “What the fuck?” he hissed under his breath, reading the date over and over again. What the hell did this all mean? He couldn’t think about it right now. One thing at a time. Nine needed his undivided attention if they were going to work through this. He pushed the note back into his pocket and the thought of its meaning out of his mind.

When he looked up again it was to be greeted with the sight of Nine’s gradual breakdown. He was ineffectively trying to hide his tears behind his hands. Dice’s organs did a miserable little jig of discomfort before settling down somewhere in his lower trachea. How many more tears was Nine going to be forced to shed for him? He couldn’t take this anymore, he wanted so badly to just throw his arms around Nine’s shoulders, hold him tight, wipe the tears away. That would be an insult to Nine’s sensitivities, an attempt cajole him, to prevent him from feeling his emotions as he pleased. He tried to restrain himself, hesitantly reaching over to wipe a dirty tear-smudge from Nine’s face. Nine pulled away. Dice drew back. The tension was thick. His years of training as a medic were utterly worthless in this situation. He didn’t have enough bunny band-aids to patch up what was broken in Nine.

"How the hell are we supposed to forge a soulbond out of this?"

Dice choked on a damp sob of surprise and pain. His fears were realized. Oh god, he’d driven Nine to the very edge, practically right over the cliff. “Oh…oh Nine, please, please don’t say that, please…” His shoulders were hunched, his eyes imploring and glazed. “This can work, it still can! I…I’ll do anything, absolutely-effing-any-thing to prove this can still work. I know I’ve used up my second chance, but…one more, one more PLEASE. You’ve heard this song and dance before, but I can get better. I can. Please,” he begged, on the cusp of getting down on his knees and clasping his hands together. If Nine didn’t believe in him, there was no chance of him believing in himself enough to finally get clean. To his utter horror, Nine got up to take a shower. Dice couldn’t remember the last time Nine had showered alone, without him. It was wrong, all wrong, all wrong.

Left alone with all he had to live for crumbling down around him, he stalked into the kitchen and sat violently in a chair in front of a piece of toast. He shoved the plate to one side and let his forehead fall against the table, gripping the hair on the back of his head with his hands and sobbing and screaming into the wood like a child having a tantrum. Nine couldn’t hear him over the sound of the running shower. His saliva and tears clung to the varnished surface and he became more aware of the sweat of his daily fever. He would suffer from now on, the way he deserved, until he’d suffered as much as Nine had. It wouldn’t make him a martyr. It would just make him humble, contrite, maybe some day a penitence paid in full.

Exhausted, he moved to the sink to wash his flushed and sticky face before Nine came back.

Nine returned fully clothed, as though trying to hide his body away. His disinterest in the toast hurt a little, but Dice was already raw red with emotional blunt-force trauma. He slid into the chair opposite Nine and poked at his food disinterestedly. He wasn’t hungry either. It was tough to have an appetite when his mouth tasted like fresh bile and guilt. As the silence lingered and he felt the need to have an excuse for not talking, he forced a forkful into his mouth. It tasted terrible. Either his lack of appetite was so complete that all food now tasted like shit, or he was a phenomenally bad cook.

"I'm sorry, Dice." Dice shook his head violently as though he was trying to clear water from his ears. “Don’t be sorry. There’s nothing for you to be sorry for. I’m the one who should be saying sorry, over and over again until I run out of breath, but words are cheap. Either you know how sorry I am, and how much I love you, and how desperately I want to make everything better again, or you don’t.” He stabbed vengefully at his toast and ate another sickening mouthful.

Couldn’t they just climb into bed and forget all of this? No, Nine’s grief and pain had to be acknowledged, he had to be allowed time to come to terms with this treachery. “I’ll sleep on the couch tonight if you want…” Dice murmured. What if that wasn’t enough? What if Nine wanted him out of the house?

His head was bent so low over the table that his bangs were dragging through the butter.

[Nine]

ooc~ I'm sorry Ski T_T This post is much better, I think. I'm actually shocked it took Nine this long...

Also, I lied, this is the most heartbreaking thing ever: "Dice leaned forward and slid his hand across the table towards Nine. Touch me, touch me, please. Just one finger, just a nail…" If Nine had been capable of hearing that he would have caved so easily.

bic~ Nine felt fresh guilt well up at Dice's retaliation. He flinched, but he kept quiet. He didn't know how to put what he felt into words. It wasn't as though he could mentally muscle his way through his emotions and cast them aside, no matter how badly he wanted to.

"I would NEVER choose Jayden over you!" he snapped, eyes suddenly blazing. "And he's a person, not some chemical. I AM over him, but it's goddamn hard not to remember that time when I feel WORSE now than I ever did. Do you know how fucked up that is? Do you know how scared it makes me that the thought of losing you, that just the words 'my body belongs to tranqs' cuts deeper than a severed soulbond!? I don't draw comparisons because you're alike, or because I still have feelings for him. Christ, I barely LOOKED at him at the Venus Fly. I barely remember what he fucking looks like, Dice! The only reason he comes up now is because that pain is the only thing remotely close to this." He didn't sound angry anymore. This sounded more like pleading. He gripped the sides of his head as if he had a blistering headache and took a deep, shuddering breath.

"It does count for something... that you lasted this long. It's not... I'm not mourning your lapse in self-control, or the drug problem." For a split second his eyes flicked up to look at Dice. They returned to his own knotted fingers immediately. That sticks and stones stuff was bullshit. Sticks and stones COULDN'T break Nine's bones, but words cut him to pieces. Dice's words, specifically. "Those things I can deal with. It's what you said that kills." He bit his lip, trying to stifle the shuddering sounds his lungs made when he breathed.

Dice's explanation for why he broke was only mildly comforting. Nine shook his head. "I... don't want to cage you. I have irrational bouts of rage just thinking about the people who kept you a prisoner. I'll just... I'll just have to bring you with me if I go out or something. I don't know..." That sounded like a different kind of imprisonment, except that Nine wouldn't mind at all being locked in the same room as Dice for all eternity. Soulbonding, in some ways, emulated that exactly. "And I'm not... I'm not fucking perfect. I-I, it's just...You make me want to be a better person. That's why only you can call me Luca." His anger was burning out all together. Now he was just left with that muddy sort of misery clinging to him.

The explanation that Lex had locked Dice in a bunker without tranquilizers for five months made his head spin. That long? Nine tried not to imagine how desperate Dice would have gotten. Not to mention how brutally lonely such a withdrawal would be. "So... what? Should I stock pile the house with food, lock us both in and not come out for five months?" He actually didn't mind the sound of that. One thing was for certain, he couldn't imagine going through this heist with Dice still so desperate for tranqs.

The next question he was increasingly hesitant about. He didn't want to imagine that Dice could have lied about Lex but... Dice leaned forward, his hand on the table, every bit of his body language begging Nine to take that hand in his. Nine felt frozen. He wanted to reach across the table and yank Dice into his arms and crush him in the most suffocating hug he could manage without breaking ribs.

"We were very, very close friends. But that’s all we ever were." Nine swallowed an iron lump in his throat and nodded.

"Good," he said, just as Dice suddenly leapt up and went scrambling for that little piece of paper from before. Suddenly Dice was hissing under his breath, staring at that little piece of paper with renewed meaning in his eyes. Nine could only wonder, because a minute later Dice tucked the paper away. His expression sobered. Nine's eyebrows pinched together.

"What is it?" he asked, eyeing the tack that was still left on the table now. Was that blood on the pin? Nine scowled and eyed the new mark on the inside of Dice's elbow. He remembered the prick of pain suddenly – it had seemed so insignificant at the time – but he remembered feeling that pain in the crease of his forearm.

I'm supposed to be his protector, but people are still abducting him and now they're injecting him full of drugs? He was flying from one emotion to the other. Bitterness and grief to self-loathing and resentment.

He couldn't believe his own words, even as he spoke them. He'd never doubted their compatibility for a soulbond. He still wasn't. Everything had suddenly taken on a new slant though. Even after the words left his mouth he regretted them, and that feeling multiplied when Dice choked on a sob and started pleading that he reconsider.

Dammit, he really wanted to kneel down on the carpet, take Dice's hand in his and ask him to soulbond right now. He'd never have to worry about where Dice was, he'd always know if Dice was having a weak moment.

But that would be too much, and Dice wasn't ready, and he didn't know if he could handle Dice knowing just how broken and emasculated he'd felt because of one sentence. So he got up to take a shower and wash away all the grime still clinging to his body from rooting through dumpsters and back alleys in search of Dice.

The shower didn't relieve him or calm him though. It seemed weird, empty. It felt wrong because he wasn't having soap fights with Dice or slipping on the tub bottom and tearing down the curtains with the fall, then laughing hysterically for ages at their own clumsiness.

He finished with it quickly and went back out to eat (or try to). Nine had entertained many doubts since Dice's disappearance, but he'd never doubted that Dice was sorry for all this. Nine shook his head slowly. "I know you're sorry.... I am too..." He did blame himself for parts of this. Shouldn't have left Dice alone, shouldn't have bought him the journal, should have come home sooner before he left, should have known he wouldn't be at Xandre's... and the list of 'should haves' went on.

“I’ll sleep on the couch tonight if you want…” Nine choked on a piece of toast. His head snapped up, taking in the sight of Dice hanging his head into the butter. He stood abruptly enough to send the chair tumbling backward and nearly tripped in his haste to move around the table. He hoisted Dice up out of his chair around the middle and clung to him. He wound both arms around the phoenix and tried his damnedest to hug him tight enough that they became one person.

"No!" He didn't want Dice sleeping on the couch, no matter how betrayed and fucked up he felt over all this. The tension in his gut dissolved and he was left feeling like the stupidest person on Earth for not having hugged Dice sooner. He tightened his arms around the phoenix like he might disappear and buried his face in the crook of his neck. "One night without you was murder, two was just fucking stupid, I'm not enduring a third." He kissed Dice's shoulder and neck and jaw, every bit of skin he could reach, making sure no other harm had come to him other than the cut in his elbow. He pulled away just the tiniest bit to look at Dice, running a hand over his cheek. "I love you, 'kay?" he said, his tone still damp from crying his eyes out. It didn't look like Nine had it in him to suppress the need to touch Dice, not for very long anyway. He finally gave in and kissed him greedily, moaning like a person who's just tasted their favourite food after having abstained for fifty years. He swayed on the spot a minute, stumbled, then crashed into the refrigerator. Still clinging to Dice, he slid to the ground and held him with an unrelenting, tight grip. "You scared me half to death. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have yelled at you. I'm so so sorry and I still love you and I still want to soulbond with you. That hasn't changed."

[Dice]

Ooc: Yes, I am now the master of hilarity AND misery *fist-pump* Happy times are here again

By this point, Dice’s spirit was simply too broken to retaliate any longer. Nine was right – Jayden was not the same as drugs. Dice never went through the torment of wondering whether the tranqs loved him back, of fearing the tranqs might abandon him. When Nine said he felt worse now than he had when his soulbond had torn, Dice just shook his head and averted his eyes, desperate to avoid seeing the pain in Nine’s. It was difficult, because Nine was now trying to look at him again. He didn’t even sound angry anymore, just sad, just broken, while Dice felt so overwhelmed he was turning numb.

I was high! he wanted to say. I was high, I didn’t know what I was saying! Of course he did. He wasn’t that stoned.

“I’m sorry, Nine. I regret those words more than anything, and two days ago I would have denied them completely, but…I have a serious problem.” He fiddled with his fork, his napkin, his hands. It was hard to say that out loud, every time, even though it was so blatantly obvious. “Like I said, drugs have me trapped. I don’t feel like I have any more control than I had in that cage at the labs. But I escaped that cage and I can escape this one too. Right?” He really hoped he wasn’t fooling himself, but the one thing he was certain of was that he would never pull a stupid stunt like that again. He would die first.

He considered Nine’s proposition that they go everywhere together from then on. Well, that way Nine could always watch him, always be there to stop him from doing something idiotic, but…”I can’t go everywhere with you. We’re vigilantes, we don’t have the luxury of planning things out that way. I’d be a humungous burden. Moreso than I am now, I mean,” he added with a tiny smile of embarrassment. Really, what had he done to pull his weight around here? Eat Nine’s food, attract Insurgi and prostitutes, and cause heartache…Other than those one or two life-saving medical interventions, he supposed. “You make me want to be a better person, too. Now more than ever, now I see how damn far I have to go.” He felt he had lost the privilege of calling Nine ‘Luca’ for the foreseeable future. His blood had boiled that night Jayden had spat the name through his own blood at their retreating backs. He didn’t want to ever hear that name uttered from the lips of a treacherous snake again. Any treacherous snake.

Nine’s next suggestion was that they stockpile food and stay holed up in the house for a few months. Dice couldn’t help a chuckle. “I know I have a pretty extensive history with being in captivity, but it wasn’t quite like that. The bunker was the base of our rebellion’s organization, and I was directing operations and making explosives all the time. It wasn’t boring. It wasn’t lonely either, there were people coming in and out all the time, I just wasn’t allowed to leave. I think at one point or another I tried to get every single member of the resistance to go get me some drugs – begging, threatening, bribing, blackmailing. But they were a loyal bunch, and Lex had them under strict orders not to bring me anything. One guy felt sorry for me and smuggled in a pack of cigarettes once, that was pretty exciting, though I’d quit a long time ago by that point. Smoked ‘em anyway. Getting over nicotine is a dance compared to the heavy stuff.” It was becoming increasingly clear that Dice’s real problem was simply that he had an addictive personality; smoke it, snort it, inject it, swallow it, sniff it, if it got into his hands he’d find some way to get it into his brain. Luckily his newest addiction was considerably healthier for him, and was 6’5” on two legs.

He was relieved to finally hear Nine express interest in the piece of paper. Under different circumstances, Dicen would already have chattered Nine’s head off with speculation and conspiracy theories by now. “It’s just…when you brought up Lex, I realized this is his handwriting. God that sounds insane, but it IS. Either the Caedo knows all about my history, my name, my friends, my resistance to tranqs, and is playing a very elaborate joke,” which seemed pretty damn unlikely, “or Lex finally followed through like he always talked about and joined the Caedo. And…abducted me, drugged me, and left me in the gutter. For no apparent reason. Huh. Well, I guess that sounds like Lex. What do you reckon this date means?” He handed the paper to Nine, very happy they were, if only briefly, distracted from their discussion in order to play detective. Nine would look great with a deerstalker hat and a pipe.

He turned his attention to the tack-like thing and held it up to his eyes again, examining it. It was completely unlike any applicator he’d seen before. “They shoved this thing in my arm, and it’s the last thing I remember. I assumed that’s how they got the drugs in me, but I’m not so sure anymore. Look at this.” He leaned forward on the table and held the tack by its head, between his fingers. “See how huge the needle is? It’s no wonder my arm still hurts.” The needle seemed unnecessarily gigantic. Its diameter was easily spacious enough to allow a grain of rice to slide through it. “I wish I knew what they drugged me with. It sure as hell wasn’t tranq.” He was speaking more comfortably now, more amicably. It seemed like he just couldn’t help being comfortable around Nine, even when he was angry at him.

Nonetheless, he was prepared for another lonely night on the couch. What Nine next did caught him entirely off guard. Dicen’s breath was crushed from his lungs as Nine hoisted him clear off his feet so the untied laces of his dirty sneakers dangled. His face broke into a huge smile over Nine’s shoulder. He laughed out loud, his body flooded with a warm wave of happiness like sunshine after a frigid night. He managed to pry one of his arms free and wrap it around Nine’s neck as his lover buried his gentle face into his neck and kissed his skin. "One night without you was murder, two was just fucking stupid, I'm not enduring a third." As Nine touched his face, Dice gazed up with him with the gratitude and adoration befitting a king, and the love befitting a soulmate. He beat Nine to the punch, straining forward and pulling Nine’s head down to lock him in a hungry-to-the-edge-of-starvation kiss. Oh thank you, thankyouthankyouthankyou.

He didn’t even notice they were falling. He thought that was just a function of the weightless, fluttery feeling he always got when they kissed. It wasn’t until they’d smashed into the fridge and crumbled to the ground that Dice broke from the kiss in alarm. “You okay?” he laughed, giving Nine a visual damage-check for about three milliseconds before driving another attack on the draconian’s cheeks and neck. “That’s it,” he said as he came up for air, “no more tranqs. I know I’ve said that before, but I mean it, no more thinking about them, no more talking about them. This…this has to be my gift to you, for all you’ve given me. I promise I’ll never scare you like that again. But from now on, when I have a craving, you had better be there to hold my hand.” The wonderful thing was that he knew Nine would be. He always would be. They were going to soulbond, one of these days, and the nightmare would end. This had all worked out the way it would with a married couple – have a fight, kiss and make up.

He closed his eyes tight and locked lips again, Nine’s warm and muscular body all around him. His eyes fluttered open again, like he was awakening from a dream, and he grinned devilishly. “I love you so god damn much. Tranqs can’t compete with this.” Yesterday’s words suddenly seemed far away and terribly inaccurate; right now, Nine was in complete possession of every aspect of his being. “Say you’re sorry one more time and I’m going to hit you,” he warned, laughing into the curve of Nine’s chin.

Eventually, Nine’s rib-cracking squeeze slackened and Dice managed to find his feet and help Nine up. Holding his hand tight, wordlessly, he led them to the bedroom. Sex wasn’t even on his mind. He just wanted to get under the covers and feel Nine’s body close to his, that reassuring presence he’d been denied the past two nights. And he wanted to sleep. Neither of them was acknowledging how utterly exhausted they were.

[Nine]

Nine didn't know why Dice had to ask him for confirmation, like he really wasn't sure if he could get out of this twisted, gnarled web of addiction. Nine nodded, jaw fixed in place. He wished like Hell his element worked in reverse. He wished that he could physically purge Dice of every last trace of that drug from his body and his mind. Make him forget...

Dice pointed out the obvious; he couldn't very well stay tucked to Nine's side during their regular missions. "Then I'll take a break from vigilantism. Laying low may be good for psyching the 'Surgs out for a few months anyway." He looked conflicted, forehead wrinkling up. It was obvious from his tone that he meant it, that he'd do all that in a heartbeat. He'd do anything to see a day when Dice didn't even think about tranqs, didn't have to throw up everything he'd eaten the night before, wasn't running fevers and blowing his health on something so insignificant.

"How could your family watch this happen to you?" he hissed, glaring at the tabletop. "Or were they... addicts as well?" He wouldn't be surprised. He understood that it had ultimately been Dice's choice, but part of him blamed the Insurgi upbringing too.

Nine relaxed a little as Dice kept talking. At least they could still talk... No matter how bad a fight they'd just had, they could still talk. Nine felt sure that if Dice could manage to ever give him the silent treatment, it would be slow, agonizing torture. Nine had grown incredibly used to hearing the sound of Dice's voice.

One minute, he found himself thankful that Lex had gone so far as to lock Dice in a bunker without drugs. The next he wanted to roast Lex's spleen on a stainless steel spit becaus how dare he abduct Dice and pump him full of drugs after all that. Nine's nostrils flared and he grit his teeth as Dice speculated over the handwriting that was so obviously Lex's. It was a distinctive hand, so Nine didn't doubt that Dice was capable of recognizing it even after so many years. “or Lex finally followed through like he always talked about and joined the Caedo. And…abducted me, drugged me, and left me in the gutter. For no apparent reason. Huh. Well, I guess that sounds like Lex. What do you reckon this date means?”

Nine looked thoroughly disgusted. "That sounds like Lex?" he echoed. No, he decided he didn't like Lex. In fact, he felt that if he were to ever meet Lex, he might like to introduce the sorry son of a bitch to a taste of his own medicine. Pump him full of drugs and leave him in a gutter and see how he likes it. "I don't like him. I can only guess at what the date means, but if I were a criminal kidnapper of some kind and left a note like that, it would mean something along the lines of 'this is the next day I'll come to abduct you' or else 'this is the day something really shitty happens to you.' Frankly I don't like either option. What if that drug has some kind of... delayed effect that takes place a week after injection or something? Can I kill him?" He sounded dead serious. At least he asked. He always felt a little hesitant about the people in Dice's past. He wanted to beat them senseless for ignoring and mistreating Dice, but he couldn't be sure if that would just make Dice angry at him. That the drug hadn't been tranquilizer unnerved him. On the one hand, it was good because maybe Dice wouldn't be set back too far in his recovery. On the other...

Nine took the pin to examine it as Dice held it out for him to look at. He narrowed his eyes, looking at the thick point with a furrow worrying his brow. "Looks like they could slide a pill in here... are you sure this is what they used to drug you? What if it's some kind of self-destructing pill?" Nine's voice took on a note of panic. He didn't like this any better than he liked the idea of repeating the experience of the past few days.

The conversation dwindled, though it had managed to alleviate a lot of the tension. If Nine's superhuman power was protecting Dice (and it had to be said, he'd epically failed at it only a day ago), then Dice's super power was making Nine feel completely at ease.

There wasn't going to be anymore talk about anyone sleeping on the couch though.

Nine was so glad to hear Dice laugh that he laughed himself, a short burst that came out in a sharply exhaled breath. Dice was perfect hugging size – he fit against Nine as if molded for this exact purpose. The look Dice was giving him caught him off guard too. There was nothing dark or hidden there, he looked loving and happy. He was wearing the same look Nine almost always wore when looking at Dice. But then, Nine had caught himself staring unabashedly at Dice on multiple occasions, to the point where Dice threw pillows at him if he noticed.

Crashing into the refrigerator when they kissed probably wasn't the most graceful, romantic move he'd ever made, but at least he managed not to squish Dice against a wall like the first time. They both sunk to the ground, Nine's cheeks wrinkling in a grin. "I'm fine, you're just a bad influence on my natural poise and grace," Nine joked. It felt good to joke. He could still feel that throbbing pain but it was insignificant next to the bliss. "This is the first thing I should have done when you walked in that door. Remind me next time we have traumatic, near-death experiences that making out feels a lot better than having a temper tantrum." He stroked his fingers through Dice's hair, pulling him in for another heated kiss.

Dice pulled away a fraction, launching into a sudden motivated speech about how he'd set the tranqs aside for good. “But from now on, when I have a craving, you had better be there to hold my hand.” Nine immediately grasped Dice's hand in his and kissed the palm. That simple gesture had come to mean a lot to him.

"Always. If you even have a stray thought, tell me and I'll be right there to distract you," he said solemnly while grinning like an idiot. "Even when I leave for a bit... I can hear you if you think hard enough in my direction. I don't know if that makes sense, but I heard you.. before you got abducted, I guess." Before he could wander down that thought process, he pulled Dice up by the butt and kissed the scale through his t-shirt.

“I love you so god damn much. Tranqs can’t compete with this.” Nine sucked in a breath, eyes widening like a puppy dog that's just been promised a cookie, a walk, a game of fetch and cuddles. He grinned tentatively.

"If I hadn't already asked you to be my eternal soulmate, I'd ask you to marry me right now," he said, eyes bright, though this time not with tears. He snuggled up under Dice's chin and kissed the dip in his clavicle. He still hadn't told Dice about where he really wanted that scale. Well, since they'd just gotten over their first ever true fight...

He allowed himself to be led into the bedroom. He hadn't realized until hitting the pillows how bloody exhausted he was. He tucked Dice against his side and shifted until he got comfortable. "Dice? What do you think of keeping my scale here?" he asked abruptly, drawing a finger over the indent he'd kissed two minutes before. He didn't feel all that scared asking. In the end, it didn't really matter, he just liked the idea of how it would look and how permanent it seemed.

[Dice]

Ooc: we’re continuing this conversation in bed because…bed is snuggly.


When Nine had raided Kleos’s house for Dice’s things, he had brought back a few pairs of pajamas. That had been a wasted effort, as Dice had yet to touch them. When he wore any clothing to bed at all, he still preferred old pairs of Nine’s pants, so long on him that the cuffs went over his feet and dragged along behind him. His heels had started to wear through the fabric from walking around the house in them in the morning.

His chest curved into Nine’s, the contours of their bodies matching perfectly like the segments of Pangaea. He made a sound somewhere between a dove-coo and a cat-purr as Nine nuzzled into him and his spiky hair brushed Dice’s jawline. He could sense Nine’s relief and regret that this hadn’t happened sooner. “This is much better,” Dice agreed through closed eyes.

While the tension had evaporated almost entirely, a tiny niggling worm of uncertainty still writhed in the back of his mind. “I…I’m still worried about you being forced to live day to day wondering when I’m going to crack next. I’m sure you must feel that way, on some level. Feel like ‘well, he caved in once, it could happen again any time’.” This wasn’t much fun, talking about himself like he was some kind of uncontrollable animal that might bite the hand that fed him. He wouldn’t, though, not this time. He wouldn’t break, he wouldn’t falter, and there was not the remotest possibility of him betraying Nine again. He repeated that to himself, over and over and over. “You seem pretty gung-ho about being my new vice, though,” he smirked, fingers spidering down Nine’s shoulderblades. For the moment, drugs weren’t even on his mental radar, but he worried that may still be an after-effect of his fix yesterday.

He huffed dismissively at Nine’s next suggestion. “’Take a break’ from being vigilantes? Obviously I would kill to have you around all the time, but…I don’t think it works that way, we’re in too deep. Every day I sit here waiting for this fucking withdrawal to go away is another day the Insurgi are dragging prisoners into those labs, pumping them full of chemicals, paving the road for them to end up just like me. We have to fight it, it’s what we do.” Of this he was quite convinced. If they gave up on saving Eterno, even if it resulted in his recovery, what would the point be anymore? From the minute Nine had referred to him as the Fourth Fear, Dice had been in the game to the last breath. “Might have to change our heist plans a little. You and Xandre are still going to head upstairs to polish off a few Surg bastards, but I’m going to stick to Leah like glue. She’ll keep an eye on me, it’ll be fine.”

At the next inquiry, Dice exhaled in a long stream like a deflating tire. “My family…” He readjusted his position, so that he was still pressed against Nine but was now looking up at the dark ceiling. “Aras and I were kindred spirits in that regard. Except she likes stims best. This one time I came home from the labs and, well, she was curious about it because she wanted to be a scientist like me and mum…anyway, she went through my bag. I guess she was expecting to find medical records or stethoscopes and blood pressure cuffs or something, but she just found loads of tranqs and needles. She asked me about it, took me completely off-guard but I tried to honestly explain to her what I was doing. Didn’t take her long to start trying it herself. I never wanted that to happen.” Should he have lied to her about what they were for? Should he have given her the tremendously hypocritical ‘drugs are bad’ talk instead? “On the up-side, Aras never seemed dependant the way I was. She treats the whole thing really recreationally, she can go days without it and then shoots up to get her out of bad moods or to have a bit of fun, or tests new drugs on herself to get a first-hand perspective. It’s…sort of scientifically creepy, but at least the stuff’s never turned her into a slobbering slave like me. Don’t know how she does it.”

He realized that hadn’t really been Nine’s question. “Uh, so, no, Aras never intervened because she didn’t think there was anything wrong with it. And mum…mum’s an unhappy person lately. She never really knew the shit I was getting into, the drugs or the rebellion or the consorting with non-phoenixes, any of that. I was sort of this mysterious being that supposedly lived in one of the rooms in her house, but I’d just come in and grab something and then leave again. Sometimes I wouldn’t come home for long stretches of time. We drifted apart, I didn’t want her to know what I was up to. I think what kept her going was her belief that I was busy becoming a brilliant doctor in the service of Siras. My god, the day I got arrested, I can only imagine how she…” he trailed off, wishing he wouldn’t keep reliving the trail of torment his path through life had thusfar left behind. And now Aras had moved out too, and Faron was dead, and Kleos was alone. “I really hope she hasn’t started using anything, but I guess it wouldn’t surprise me. And I couldn’t blame her.”

Dice couldn’t help laughing at Nine’s disgusted exclamation of ”that sounds like Lex?” “He’s a weird guy. He likes puzzles and riddles and games and that kind of thing, playing tricks on people, leaving them guessing. He likes to maintain his illusion of mystery, and he’s as cautious and methodical as a raccoon with OCD. And he can always do a great job at it because he’s so damn smart. He had this incredible design for a horseless coach once, it was mind-boggling. Still doesn’t make a whole lot of sense why he wouldn’t just come talk to me.”

He peered at the scabbed-over puncture mark on his inner arm. “Abduct me again? That seems like such a waste of time, to abduct me once, dump me, and then nab me again – why not just hold me prisoner? And they didn’t seem to have any idea where I lived. They waited until I wandered into a Caedo-run shop to get me, and when they got rid of me they just dropped me on a random street.” The self-destructing capsule idea was more interesting, and made him shudder down the length of his body. “I…I can see Lex inventing something like that, but…no, no, why the hell would he want to hurt me, or kill me? And if the Caedo wanted to for some reason, they would just have done it while I was in their hands, no?” He convinced himself there was nothing so malicious associated with the applicator. In that scenario, why warn him about the date, anyway?

Nine seemed to be getting a little worked up about it, that ever-present protective obsessiveness bubbling up again. ”Can I kill him?”

“What? N-no!” Dice stuttered, sitting up abruptly to stare at Nine in alarm. “No you can’t kill him! Christ, Nine!” he said with the surprised, chiding tone of a mother denying her son’s request to stab the family pet. “Lex was my best friend. What if he’s trying to warn me about something or help me out somehow without the Caedo knowing? I know his way of going about things is a little unorthodox, but I can’t even imagine why he’d want to hurt me.” He eased himself back down into Nine, feeling a little unnerved. “You’ve got a bit of a violent streak, you know that?” Phoenixes should run in fear at Nine’s approach; Kaezon, then Kade, then Penny, now Alexei. Well, at least Nine had asked. Dice had certainly never asked if he could punch Jayden in the face.

Nine had successfully planted the seeds of doubt. Lex was a Caedo man now, what if he did want to get Dice out of the picture? Dice knew his past, his habits, his methods. He might be a liability. Uncertainty and suspicion clung to his thoughts like molasses. He subconsciously scratched at the spot in the crook of his elbow. It was a little itchy.

Feeling bad for chiding Nine, he craned his neck up to kiss his cheek. He knew Nine meant every word he spoke, that every time Dice so much as got a splinter he’d come running. It was a little embarrassing. Dice couldn’t have cared less, however. “I never put much stock or value in marriage. Too institutional, too public. Soulbonding sounds a lot more personal, and special, and…” Nine was looking at him that way again, the way that made Dice feel the like most important person in the entire universe at that exact moment. He knew he was looking at Nine the same way. Why the hell weren’t they just soulbonding, right that second? Probably because Dice was so damn logical, and unspontaneous, and paranoid, and practical, and didn’t want to soulbond the same day they’d had their biggest fight. He found himself stifling a yawn. Better to think about this kind of thing in the morning.

“How is it possible that, in my most unlovable moment, you still love me?” he asked rhetorically through another yawn. His consciousness was quickly failing to the overwhelming force of tiredness compounded by the softness of the sheets and the warmth of Nine’s body. Nine was kissing his collar bone, and then saying something as his finger traced its curve. “Hmm? The scale?” he muttered, trying to figure out what Nine was talking about. His hand clumsily patted over his chest, trying to find the pendant around his neck. He pulled it up to one side and pressed the scale against his clavicle. Its curve fit perfectly into his shoulder’s indentation like stacked spoons. It caught the dim light snaking in between the curtains. Dice desperately wished he could see how ‘green’ it was.

His lips curved into a weary smile of happiness in its most purified form. “I’m not sure it’s my choice any more, I think it just belongs there,” he said, running his fingertips over the scale’s edges and the skin surrounding it. He took Nine’s hand, kissed the palm, and pressed it over the scale. “Let’s see, I guess the best way to go about it would be to implant it by threading it with a microdermal,” he mused, automatically snapping into med-school-mode at the thought of a tricky procedure, “Could just do a surface incision if we had something curved…as long as we didn’t do it sub-clavicularly, that would pass it right between the lymph node, salivary duct, and at least two arteries I’m rather attached to…” he continued to ramble off medical jargon and various possible procedural methods. It was strange to hear Dice talking about needles and scalpels not merely without fear, but with excitement. The first step to kicking the addiction had to be kicking the fear. He truly liked the idea of the scale becoming a permanent part of him. No risk of tearing like what he had done to Jayden, no gaping weak spot hanging from his ear. And, symbolically, it would be right above his heart, a piece of Nine within his skin. His onslaught of medical-spew waned as his heavy eyelids fluttered. He yawned loudly and nestled his head into Nine’s chest. “Have you changed your plans for that feather?”

[Nine]

Nine always had to chuckle at Dice's choice in pajamas. He thought it was endearing to see Dice wearing his clothes. Kind of gave the impression they were always having sex, and Dice was always a little too disoriented afterwards to register which pants were his. That might have been the case a few times, but now Dice was in the habit of it, and Nine obviously didn't mind.

He looped an arm under Dice's neck so the phoenix could use his chest as a pillow. He frowned just a little at what Dice said about living each day in fear that he would break down again and try to get some tranqs. Nine shook his head. "I trust you. Now you know how bad it freaks me out, I think you could manage even if I kept a stock of tranqs in the bathroom cabinet." Not that he'd ever take a risk like that. He didn't need tranqs on his missions, just a gun and his element. "I like being your new addiction. I've been hooked on you since... I don't even know. I can't pinpoint the exact time I went from wanting to befriend you, to wanting you wanting you. I didn't even know if you liked men right away. You have a habit of being less than straight-forward."

Nine didn't look like he agreed with Dice's take on vigilantism. It was a full-time job and everything, but this city corroded on a daily basis. Sometimes Nine had to wonder if their murders were just triggering more insanity than actually eviscerating the problem. If it were possible to harness his element in such a way as to pinpoint every evil soul in Eterno and wipe them out, he'd do that. But he had a feeling such a powerful surge would kill him too. "You're more important to me than this stupid city, Dice. If every time I leave, you feel sick that's... that's not going to help matters either. I'll have to keep canceling missions to come back and make sure you're okay. I don't mind doing that, just saying that I probably won't get much accomplished. Nik and Leah are pretty capable without me too, you know." It was clear he wanted this withdrawal to end as soon as possible.

He listened raptly to Dice's account of his sister's addiction, how they were linked that way. Except she did it recreationally. Nine had once been that way with alcohol, but he'd never been an addict. He was pretty obstinate about taking care of his health. It was part of the soulbond-lust he felt; he didn't want to risk his own health because he'd be risking his soulmate's too. "How long have you been an addict? Minus the years after Lex locked you up." Since meeting Dice, he'd only seen him stoned twice. The first time, their situation had been strange enough that it didn't seem that big a deal. The second... Well, Nine had decided he didn't like how drugs made Dice so insensitive, so numb. He felt a little bad for Dice's mom though. Her son had just disappeared and her other child wasn't around much. Nine had always been a momma's boy though, much as it was difficult to imagine the 6'5" beast of a man leaning down to kiss his mom on the cheek. "I wish your family wasn't 'Surg-friendly. I might actually get along with them if they didn't think of me as a rat infesting the city. Do you ever want to visit your Mum? Or would she... turn you in." He thought it would be nice for her to at least know Dice was doing okay... Maybe she wouldn't think so anyway if she knew he was snuggling into the arms of a drac each night.

Nine's arm tightened just a bit around Dice's shoulders as he elaborated on Lex's personality. He couldn't help feeling a little jealous... This guy was inventing horseless carriages and Dice hailed him as a genius. Nine wasn't the brightest. Correction, he wasn't the most educated. Dice systematically contradicted each of Nine's assumptions about the needle applicator. He took Dice's arm in one hand and ran his finger over the healing skin where Dice had scratched it. It looked a little red. "Is it itchy? It might have gotten infected; did you bother to clean it?" Probably not. They'd been a bit preoccupied being totally miserable a few hours ago.

"I hate to break it too you, Dice, but the Caedo don't always do things straight-forward like. It sounds just like them to abduct you, scare the crap out of you, put a self-destructing pill in your arm, come back on the date they warned about and give you some kind of assignment and use that pill as a threat. Or just kill you with it on the date they assigned, let you live in fear the whole week. They don't always do things quick and efficient, lots of 'em like playing with their food." He meant for the 'food' bit to be entirely literal.

Nine jumped a little as Dice suddenly flew up in bed, responding to Nine's question about killing Lex. He sat up too, staring intently at Dice's worried expression. Dice still treated Lex like a friend. Dice still bothered to defend him. Nine hated to pick at old sores, but this he really didn't understand. "He left you for dead, Dice. And if he knew to come for you now then he might have known you were still alive all along. Why are you defending him when he wouldn't even extend the same courtesy to you?" He didn't mean to sound so harsh, and there was a sympathetic tone to his voice, but as Nine saw it, Lex had lost the right to be called 'friend' anymore. None of Nine's friends would have given him up for dead until they saw the body themselves. And they'd tear down every prison and Insurgi establishment looking for him. Nine would have done the same.

He settled back under the pillows and hugged Dice closer, still looking perturbed. He had to snort at Dice's last comment. "You hadn't figured that out upon meeting me? In my world, if someone's a threat you get rid of them. Though I'm a little more trigger-happy when it comes to threats to your life." If the note and applicator were actually some cryptic, backwards way of trying to help Dice, Nine would eat his hat. He didn't own a hat, so maybe a glove.

"And, um... not to linger on a topic that's clearly bringing down the mood, but your earlier speech about vigilantism being a full-time job, and now the very real possibility that Lex is a Caedo but we shouldn't kill him is kind of contradictory. The Caedo are higher up on the list than the 'Surgs, Dice. They don't even do the things they do because they believe it's right, they do it for money. Some of them do it for fun. There's a chance... there's a chance the Lex you knew isn't Lex anymore. You're not the same person he knew either. He might still be good... I don't know, you spent a lot of time in a cage while the rest of the world was changing, that's all I'm trying to say..." It was as though Dice had been in a coma, really. Everyone had moved on with their life by the time he woke up...

"I won't kill him. But if he threatens you... outright threatens you." He didn't have to finish that. Dice knew how Nine would deal with that situation.

He fell silent, hoping that wasn't as cruel as it sounded in his head. “How is it possible that, in my most unlovable moment, you still love me?” Nine's face broke into a grin. He ruffled Dice's hair and kissed his temple.

"You just wait. I'll have an unlovable moment and it'll be your turn to forgive me." He had to wonder where the limits stood though. If Lex was a threat to Dice's life and Nine did kill him, would Dice forgive him? Nine didn't think so, and it caused a bit of the previous ache to throb painfully. If Dice killed Leah or Nik... Nine's heart stopped. Of course, Dice would never... Well... Nine had to consider that Dice didn't like Nik much, and for good reason but... He shook the thought off, returning his attention to Dice's clavicle.

He didn't feel nervous asking, even though it was an incredibly personal question. He watched Dice fumble for the necklace. He brought the scale up to his chest. He pressed it against the dip between bones and smiled. Nine stared at the scale, glinting and contrasting Dice's pale skin. It fit perfectly. Nine didn't realize it, but he was growling a little under his breath. It was his contented growl: the draconian equivalent of a purr. He leaned forward and kissed the scale then Dice's skin. “I’m not sure it’s my choice any more, I think it just belongs there,” Dice murmured. Nine nodded his agreement. He didn't understand most of the medical talk (except the part about sub-clavicularly inserting it, which he didn't like the sounds of at all). He assumed Dice would know the best, safest and most secure way to fix the scale in place. "It suits you," he rumbled.

"I... don't know. Where to put the feather, I mean. If I could do the same thing I would, but I don't know if that's even possible. I have this black chain my mom gave me. It's made out of malachite or something like that." He nuzzled Dice's hair and kissed his head. "If you can figure out a way to make it a permanent attachment, I'd do it." Nine couldn't believe how easy it was to talk about this. A few months ago he wouldn't even consider bringing up something like soulbond adornments as permanent attachments. A few months ago, Dice had looked revolted by the very idea of a soulbond. "What made you change your mind about soulbonding anyway?"

ooc~ on a semi-on-topic note, there are sub-clavicle piercings, and they are frightening

[Dice]

Dice grinned and pressed his lips against Nine’s bare chest. “You trust me, huh? What terrible judgment you have.” His – or Nine’s, as it now was - feather and vial of blood rested against his forehead, and he craned his neck to nudge the cool, smooth glass with his nose. “But you’re right this one time. There’s not a chance in hell I’m doing that again. Two nights without you was the worst withdrawal I’ve ever had. If you danced around naked wearing nothing but a fanny-pack stuffed with tranqs I wouldn’t touch them. Except maybe to get the damn fanny pack off.” He shook his head disapprovingly, as though the image of Nine in a fanny pack was offensive to his sensitivities. He laughed at Nine’s accusation that he was generally ‘less than straight-forward’. “You know, I’d have to say the exact opposite about you; you are exceedingly straight-forward. I just have a little bit of tact and don’t immediately tell mysterious strangers ‘by the way, I quite like to sleep with men!’ even when I’m stoned out of my mind.”

He was concerned by the concept that Nine was choosing him over his duties as a Fear. He traced the bullet scar on his chest with his little finger. “Look, Eterno sucks, it’s a hellhole, I know. But the fact of the matter is that it’s a sanctuary, a last bastion for human life in a deadly world. It’s not just a ‘stupid city’. People don’t have a choice about living here, not really. Here or dead, that’s not a choice. If people can’t live safe and free in here, there’s nowhere else to go to escape that kind of treatment. What the Fears do matters. Now, if you feel like you need a break from the killing, that’s fine. As it is I interrupted your vacation that day I almost blew my brains out, as I recall. But the second I’m over this withdrawal we’ve got to make up for every single day we missed and then-some, you with me?” It all sounded very impressive and honorable but, Dice reminded himself with a surge of morbidity, making up for lost time was going to require an awful lot of murders at some point. Here he was accusing Nine of a violent streak, while himself proposing a massacre.

He considered how long he’d been an addict, chewing the inside of his cheek. “I started the heavy stuff when I started at the labs, straight out of school, around a century and a half ago. I was at the lab for 58 years, that much I know. Lex shoved me in that bunker about a decade before the Massacre, and that was 82 years ago, right? So…a good 60 or 70 years then,” he said nonchalantly, quickly doing the math. “And clean for the last 90 while I was with the rebellion. Then they locked me up and tranqs brought me to my knees all over again.” Those years of shooting up at the labs never seemed like a big deal. It was just fun, he’d never felt dependant on the drugs. Maybe Aras was deceiving herself in the same way. He understood completely. He doubted he could have continued to run experiments on prisoners day after day if he hadn’t managed to maintain his high.

He was thinking about Aras now, about how she was faring, what she was doing, whether she was happy with Claire. His sister did not share his fierce sense of monogamy, and if she was the least bit dissatisfied with her situation he was certain she was to be found flirting with anything that moved – boys or girls – as long as it was a phoenix. He considered that a far more disgusting habit than the drug use. As for his mother…”Naw, I don’t think visiting mum would be such a good idea. I’m not sure how she’d react. What if she called for officers? I’m just glad you saw her and she seems okay. It’s probably for the best if she doesn’t know what’s happened to me – she’d die of shame if she found out I’d gone and joined the Fears.” Yes, better that she think he’d gone into hiding. Or been killed, even. “I also wouldn’t be able to stand it, because I don’t think she’d be overly fond of you, or our relationship. And not just because you’re a drac.” The ‘because you have a penis’ was left unsaid. Poor woman had raised two children of ‘nontraditional’ sexual preferences. Grandchildren seemed unlikely unless Aras’s next heartthrob was male.

Dice’s nails ran over and over the spot on his arm until the skin was red and irritated. “Yeah, it’s a bit itchy. I didn’t clean it, but it doesn’t seem infected. I must be having a reaction to the drugs, like a tuberculosis test.” Nine’s fingers felt strange on the spot, and the slight pressure brought an uncomfortable, achy pain which he shied away from. The skin was a little swollen. Hopefully that would go down by the next day. “If it gets any worse I’ll put ice on it. Or hydrocortisone if we have any.”

When Nine kept pressing the point about Lex, Dice’s face darkened. “There’s no reason to be jealous, babe,” he insisted, trying to keep his tone neutral. He was beginning to feel irritated and defensive, and it wasn’t Nine’s fault. He was having doubts, and was determined to fight them off tooth and nail. “Lex thought I was dead or in prison, end of story. He’d been through those labs, he knew we didn’t keep phoenixes as subjects. He had no reason to imagine I might have ended up in a cell. He might have tired to rescue me from Malum prison for all I know, only to find I wasn’t in there.” Sure, that scenario worked. At least it was a far less painful explanation than that Lex had simply forgotten about him and moved on with life.

He rolled off of Nine’s chest and over so that he was facing away from him. He wasn’t trying to be avoidant, he just needed a moment of semi-aloneness to think. Lex wasn’t just Lex anymore, he was Caedo. The Caedo stole and murdered and extorted for its own sake and that of greed. The Caedo were sworn enemies of the Four Fears and all they stood for, every member a pest to be exterminated. If he started making exceptions for people he had once considered friends, where would it end? He couldn’t just strike Lex’s name from the hit list; Lex was still a terrorist, and now his brilliance was aiding the evil Dicen claimed to oppose.

Nine was certainly correct that Dice had changed a lot – for the better, he hoped. Lex could easily have changed too. Actually, equally concerning was the thought that Lex hadn’t changed at all. He opposed the Insurgi, but it was at any cost and with the tactics of a guerilla warrior. The thought of the Caedo adopting his methods was frightening. But…god, this was the one time he really wanted to tell Nine he was dead wrong.

"I won't kill him. But if he threatens you... outright threatens you." “Okay! Okay, I get it. If we see him again, just promise me you’ll let him explain himself, alright? If he’s a threat then…we’ll do what we have to do.” All he could do was hope Lex’s intentions were honorable, or at least that he would listen to reason. “You’re right. You’ve saved my rear more times than I can count, and he left me for dead. I’d be an idiot not to take your side this time. You and me against the world, right?” With finality, he rolled back over onto Nine’s chest, hoping the conversation was now closed. He didn’t want to think about it anymore.

Better to be thinking about positive things – soulbonding, for example. “You’re asking the easy questions tonight! I know exactly when I decided soulbonding with you made sense. It was right after that night at the Venus Fly when I told you Elkyone Labs was named after me. And you loved me anyway. I wanted so, so badly to be able to see inside your head, to see in myself what you saw in me.” He kissed him again and then rested his chin on Nine’s.

He pulled on Nine’s leather cord with the feather and vial and put it over his head, so that it encircled both their necks. “I don’t know what to do about the feather. Is there some way we could…stitch it to your skin? I just don’t want there to be any way for someone to get it off you without a real fight.” He knew the necklace Nine was talking about – he wore it all the time. “Yeah. You’ve got to keep it on that, you’re right,” he conceded. The scale and feather seemed to know exactly where they were supposed to go. There was no reason the feather couldn’t be on the chain and somehow attached to Nine’s chest, though. Nine was absolutely right that a few months ago Dice would never even have considered making their tokens into permanent attachments, but hearing Jayden’s anguished cry as half of his soul was ripped away had changed his point of view. He pulled Nine even closer, closing his eyes and praying that that they would never be torn apart.

---

It must have been several hours later that Dice opened his eyes to the darkness of the room pressing down on his sight like velvet. The sound usually dominating his ears was Nine’s even breathing, but it was absent now. He thought he heard a distant crash, like something being knocked to the floor. Doing his best not to awaken Nine, he sat up and peered around the room, eyes adjusting gradually. A male figure was silhouetted in the door. Dice stared mutely for a split second before his mouth remembered how to scream. “NINE!” Nine didn’t stir. Dice shoved him hard in the shoulder, “Nine, GET UP!” The man in the doorway was walking forward, gradual and calm. Dice grabbed Nine by both shoulders and shook him, his panic mounting.

“He won’t wake up,” the man said in a hushed tone, standing at the foot of the bed with his head tilted to the side.

Dice had grabbed his unloaded gun off the bureau, prepared to use it as a club. He maneuvered himself protectively over Nine’s prone body as a flesh shield. “Don’t come any closer! How the fuck did you get in here? What did you do to him?!”

“Your friend is a little overprotective. He might have gotten in the way.” The man was rooting around in his pocket disinterestedly. As he turned his head to the side Dice saw the profile of his face.

“Wake up Nine! You can kill him now!” he yelled desperately as Lex drew closer with an empty syringe in each hand.

Dice awoke to the reassuring return of Nine’s respiration. So, the nightmares were back on the syringe motif, huh? Super. Thankfully, nothing in his head could hurt him. Including his psychological tranq addiction, dammit. He hugged Nine tight, privately celebrating his continued existence, and tried to fall asleep again. He found that he was too awake. The spot on his arm still itched fiercely.

He slipped Nine’s necklace over his own head and gently laid the talismans back on the draconain’s sternum. He slid out of bed to the floor and underwent his regimen of crunches and push-ups. From there he went to the bathroom to wash his face. His body decreed it was not yet throw-up-time, so he plodded into the kitchen and made an icepack to strap around his elbow. He also pulled the little punnet of strawberries out of the fridge. With it in hand, he went back to the bedroom and crawled up over Nine, straddling his body with three limbs, and lay back down on his chest.

He put the punnet down on the sheets and rested his head on his hands, watching Nine sleep while he ate a strawberry contemplatively. “I think we should get a dog,” he told the sleeping creature of Hellenistic, statuesque glory. “In case anyone ever tries breaking in. Prostrating myself over your incapacitated body no longer seems like an effective deterrent to intruders.” He smiled contentedly and held the strawberry under Nine’s nose, hoping the sweet smell might coax him awake. “I can’t imagine you having an unlovable moment,” he whispered.

[Nine]

Nine raised his eyebrows, brushing a thumb over the arch of Dice's cheek. "I would never wear a fanny pack," he said, as if this were an issue of life or death and not an affront to fashion. But really, why wear something that creates an enormous bulge just a few inches North of where you'd actually like to look good and bulgy? Nine didn't need any reinforcement in that department anyway. "At least one of us is straight-forward. How long do you think it would have taken us to hook up if we were still dancing around the taboo 'I'm gay' topic." He thought about it. "Probably not long... It was pretty obvious from the start that I was utterly smitten kittens for you. And as you've experienced, it takes a whole lot to make me keep my hands to myself." He nuzzled into the curve of Dice's neck and squeezed him in a hug to illustrate the point. It was too easy to get comfortable like this. Nine could already feel his eyelids drooping.

"Alright, alright, then we'll consider it a small vacation and make up for it later... I know... I know you're right. Eterno isn't just some stupid city. It is important..." He paused, kissing Dice's shoulder. "But it's still not as important as you are. I always put Leah and Nikola's well-being before that of the city. I'm doing the same with yours... If this city took the people I love most away, I wouldn't see anything worth saving. And I wouldn't be there anymore to save it." He rubbed a hand up Dice's stomach, wrapping it around his ribs. His hands seemed incredibly big against Dice's frame. And this was after Dice had gained some weight from actually eating real food.

As Dice calculated how many years he'd been an addict, Nine's face crumpled up a bit. "Christ," he murmured as Dice came up with the total. He was about to say something more, but cut himself off. He didn't want to alarm Dice anymore than he already had tonight with all this talk about Lex, but that was sixty or seventy years probably shaved off their lifespan. Nine didn't know the permanent effects of drug abuse, but he knew there were many, and Dice's immortality only freed him from a few of those effects. "Don't worry, we'll get through this fine," he said decidedly, nipping the phoenix's ear.

It was a little disappointing, to say the least, that Dice would prefer not to see his mother again. Not that it was really a question of desire – they really couldn't. "My Mum would have loved you... So long as she didn't know the kind of stuff you invented before meeting me." He smiled weakly. His mother would have loved anyone that made Nine this happy. She'd loved Jayden for that reason, at least in the first few years when Nine had been perfectly happy in that relationship. At this point, Nine wished it were possible to erase the memories of Jayden completely. Dice's gift to him was a nice tranquilizer addiction, but in Nine's mind, his gift was much worse.

It would feel like cheating. To Dice at least. He'd have to see those memories and live them. Hell, if Dice had any past heart throbs Nine would go mad the minute he saw even a glimpse of those memories. It was already obvious how jealous and possessive he could be.

Nine frowned. He instinctively wanted to deny that he was in any way jealous of Lex. But that would be a flat out lie. "So what if I'm jealous? You still hail him as a brilliant scientific genius... thing," he said lamely. Nine pouting gave the impression of a sulking grizzly bear. It was simultaneously cute and completely out of place. "You beat my ex into lunch meat," he said, as if it were a valid point of argument. Dice's explanation for why Lex hadn't come for him at the labs still didn't sit right. Lex would have known where to find Aras at the very least and interrogate her...

Dice rolled over and away from him, which didn't translate too well in Nine's mind. He whined a little and nosed the nape of Dice's neck, but Dice seemed to be lost in thought. Nine waited, still resting a tentative hand against Dice's hip. He didn't like this, he wanted to go back to cuddling. Tonight's fight was still a little too fresh for Nine to tolerate any separation. "I'll shut up about it now," he said, just before Dice rolled over again, sounding less than appeased, but at least not cutting Nine off entirely. Nine didn't exactly like how Dice put it. You and me against the world, right? No... that's not how Nine had meant it either. But he'd said that he would shut up about it, so he did.

The change in topic was a much welcome one. "Hnn, you'll be able to see yourself through my eyes after we soulbond. You glow... do you think you'll be able to see colour through my eyes?" That was a novel concept, but he didn't know if it would work that way. He was pretty sure he'd see Dice's memories in black and white. "What are you looking forward to most? What's the first thing you want to see inside my head?" He could name a number of things. His lips quirked as Dice pulled the necklace around both their necks. It seemed kind of symbolic of soulbonds in general, keeping them both in one circle, overlapping souls. Nine couldn't see how anyone would find it repulsive. "I don't know when I decided I wanted to soulbond with you specifically. I'll admit I thought about it... a lot earlier than I should have. Never seriously, but I thought about what it would be like..." He trailed off. His emotions were a bit too jumbled. He wasn't as logical or precise as Dice. He couldn't even really pinpoint the moment when his sexual innuendos had gone from being playful jokes to serious propositions.

"If you could somehow sew the feather to me, that's how we'll do it. I don't need it to be attached to my chain. That's sort of a.. separate token. It'd be different if you'd given me the necklace. Anyway, I want the feather to be... permanent. Like you said, no one's getting it off me without a fight."

Dice looked wiped and drifted off almost immediately after the conversation died down. Nine watched over him a minute or two, fingers wandering over skin. He couldn't believe he'd spent two days without touching Dice once. Well, he had touched him when he'd pulled Dice in the door, but that had been too brief. He leaned down to kiss the top of Dice's head then fell asleep himself.

He woke up hours later when someone started prodding strawberries through his lips. He was a bit surprised at what Dice was muttering about though. "I like dogs," he mumbled, nibbling the strawberry. "What's this about lying prostrate over my... incapaci-whatsit body." He cracked open one eye, hoping that one eye was enough to give Dice a quizzical look with.

“I can’t imagine you having an unlovable moment." Nine smiled a bit, touched. He wished that were true, but so long as Dice believed it...

"You mean last night, when you were giving me the cold shoulder, that had nothing to do with me having an unlovable moment?" He opened both eyes and stretched, looping one arm over the small of Dicen's back. He leaned up to kiss Dice's temple and snatched up another strawberry. "I wouldn't say you've had an unlovable moment yet. Even while I screamed myself hoarse, I still loved you." He considered the punnet of strawberries a second and arched an eyebrow.

"You know, I was going to sugar these and dip them in chocolate with hopes of romancing you out of your pants one night. I'll have to come up with a different desert. I never did make that cheesecake."

[Dice]

Ooc: I love liquid time, and being able to transfer everything to the next morning and address everything in any order I want This is long mostly because I had a four hour train ride to write it, and because I find writing Dice very soothing and didn’t want to stop. Heh, I’m sure you don’t mind.


Dice grinned broadly as Nine gradually awoke, the smell of strawberries drawing him back to the waking world. Dice wasn’t being very neat about feeding him. He licked the excess juice from Nine’s lips and nose. “Oh, so you heard what I was muttering to myself, huh?” He smiled groggily and closed his eyes a fraction as Nine leaned up to kiss his temple. “Mmm,” he vibrated contentedly, looping his arms through the gap between Nine’s neck and the pillow. He ran his fingers through the back of the dark, matted hair, trying to persuade it to spike up again. Given that it hadn’t been washed in several days, it was not particularly compliant.

“Then I have no intention of ever making you wear a fanny pack,” Dice promised with a chuckle. Nine’s revulsion at the idea was interesting, and Dice found that if he focused he could catch little glimpses of what was running through his head. What he found made him laugh out loud. “I wouldn’t worry, babe; you’re hung like a blue whale!” Hearing Nine mentally applauding the grandeur of his equipment was simply too adorable not to now warrant a very long kiss from Dice.

He pulled back at last and just lay with their noses touching. “Yeah, okay, I’m not straight-forward. Guilty. I don’t like wearing anything on my sleeves or divulging too much to people I don’t know, it just gets you into trouble. I obviously realized you were cute right away, but I was a little more focused on being abducted by a complete stranger seconds before shooting myself in the head following the murder of my father. While high. I wasn’t in a romantically-inclined mood, sad to say. Good thing you gave me a little time.” His dimples were so pronounced from smiling that there seemed to be a danger of his cheeks disappearing into them entirely. “I hope you never have to keep your hands to yourself,” he cooed, pulling his hands free and sliding them down Nine’s thighs suggestively. “Which reminds me…”

He sat up abruptly and rolled out of bed. He grabbed the as-yet-unpacked bag of clothes Nine had stolen from his house, and returned to his place straddling the supine draconian. He dug through the bag, his tongue sticking out the side of his mouth as he searched. “Heeeere we go. Knew I still had them.” From the bag he withdrew a pair of glasses with large lenses and thick, coal-colored rims. He put them on. Nine’s face became a fuzzy grey blur.
“Whatcha think? I wore these at the academy to see the blackboard from the back of the lecture hall. Mum thought they were cute. I disagreed.” To his surprise, Nine seemed to think they were arousing. His hands were roaming over Dice’s body in an exploratory fashion. Dice watched the tendons of Nine’s robust hands ripple beneath his skin – it was amazing that someone so powerful could deliver such tender caresses. Dice was very pleased with the way his own body had transformed in the past few months. It was alarming to think of the way he had looked after Nine had rescued him – dirty and scrawny, face sunken, eyes bloodshot, every rib clearly visible, skin colorless (or so Nine had told him). Now his muscles were a bit more defined, his stomach firm and filled out. Next to Nine he still looked like a twig, but there was no comparison, at the labs and today, in terms of health. He’d probably look even better if it wasn’t for the withdrawal making keeping food down so difficult, but Nine ensured that more food was never in short supply.

His lip curled with sympathetic revulsion in response to Nine’s scowl. “Yeah, 60 years is…a long time. And I haven’t factored in all the years I smoked. Christ I’m a mess. I’m gonna-“ his stomach lurched, making the sickening, squelching noise of a displeased digestive process. Right on schedule. His hand flew to his mouth. “Hold that thought,” he groaned through his fingers, sprinting to the bathroom. So much for the strawberries. This was getting terribly repetitive. At least this time Nine didn’t stand idly in the door and watch him throw up; how quickly the scars of yesterday were fading.

He was back in bed again in a few moments, still shivering a little but doing his best to just shake it off. “Ahem. Like I was saying. I’m gonna get clean this time. You’re my nicotine patch. I’m getting better at the throwing up thing already, see?” He rubbed Nine’s shoulder in a circular motion, waiting for the shiver to fade from his fingers. He listened to Nine speak about his mother with a wistful smile. “I really wish I could have met her.” He found himself missing his own mother, but…no, he could never go back there again. It would just mean more pain for both of them. Better not to think about it.

He sighed and his smile faded, though the mirth remained in his eyes. “Go on then, be jealous of Lex even though there’s nothing to be jealous of. You’re twice the man he is. Poor guy has so many health problems…doesn’t hold a candle to what most hybrids have to deal with, though, apparently. Still, if you did to him what I did to Jayden it’d be a bit like tossing a hemophiliac down the stairs.” Nine still seemed deeply bothered by the whole thing. The more Dice thought about it, the less he could blame him. The fact of the matter was that Lex was not a good person, and that provided a far more all-encompassing explanation for why he’d never tried to rescue him. But…they had been friends, he was sure. It didn’t make much sense.

"What's this about lying prostrate over my... incapaci-whatsit body." “I had another nightmare, that’s all. We talked about Lex too much last night. I dreamed he broke in and drugged you, and all I could do was lie on top of you and try to fend him off with the butt of my gun. I was scared shitless. Must be pretty obvious to you how much you’re shaking my faith in him, huh?”

Nine still seemed lost in thought. Jayden Jayden Jayden baaaaah. Then again, what was Nine going to see when he looked at Lex though Dice’s eyes? “I’m sorry I keep praising him. You’re entitled to your jealousy, I did have a crush on him when I first met him, for…what, a few days, a week? Until I figured out he was straight. It wasn’t anything, I just thought he was pretty, and I was lonely, but…thought you should know,” he explained uncomfortably. Nine needed to know before he found this out by digging through Dice’s memories. It wasn’t an infidelity, wasn’t a betrayal, and Dice was not ashamed. He just hoped Nine wouldn’t be mad.

Inevitably, the conversation always drifted back to the topic of soulbonding, for which Dice was thankful. It was his favorite topic. “That’s…that’s fascinating, Nine,” he said with absolute sincerity, his face lighting up. “But no, I doubt I’ll be able to see your thoughts in color. My brain won’t know how to interpret and translate that kind of visual input, seems to me. Maybe I can learn.” He would kill to be able to see colour, even if just for a moment. Just to see what all the fuss was about. And to find out what green looked like.
“Okay, so we can share our minds, and when one of us gets hurt the other one does, right? I’m wondering, how far does the bond between our bodies go? When you eat, will I feel full? When I sleep, will you gain energy?” That seemed unlikely. They were still two distinct bodies, after all, and would need the same amount of food as always.

"What are you looking forward to most? What's the first thing you want to see inside my head?" “That’s a really good question. And a toughy, I’ve got to think about it. I’m going to try thinking…I’m not sure how to put this, but loudly, see how much the feather and scale let you pick up on.” There were so many things he was curious about, things which Nine had explained but could surely not compare to being seen first-hand. He wanted to see Nine’s childhood, growing up by the canals of Cri before Dice was born. He wanted to experience the bond he’d once had with his brother, to understand the relationship he and Nik had once shared. He wanted to see Nine’s mother, feel the love and affection and approval he imagined such a person to be capable of, which had been so absent for so long in his own household. He wanted to meet Leah and Xandre for the first time as Nine had met them. He wanted to see what had been running through Nine’s head throughout The Fight in Nik’s apartment. And he desperately wanted to know what kind of emotion could ever, ever have driven Nine so far into the dirt that he would consider killing himself.

He also had a certain scientific (or masochistic) interest in a number of aspects of Nine’s life experience: the sensation of a tearing soulbond, the feeling as his body was flooded with botanical toxin, the knowledge of retrieving metal objects from his skin and causing hearts to burst. He wanted to always know just what Nine wanted and just how he wanted it, how to make the most out of every single night and every single day. He was also excited at the prospect of reliving their relationship from the other end – experiencing the flutter of Nine’s heart at each kiss, especially his surprise at the first. It was hard to imagine anyone else loving someone as much as Dice adored Nine, but he really believed Nine’s affections might match his tit-for-tat. It was a utopian concept. They’d soon find out.

“This question is too hard,” he said at long last, “but I’ll give it a shot. What I’m most looking forward to…I think just knowing that we can trust each other in a way no other two regular people could possibly trust each other. Completely, absolutely, transcending doubt entirely. I just…I want so badly for you to know, to know you can trust me. And then maybe I can trust me too. I already trust you.” That took care of part 1 of the question. He nibbled Nine’s jawbone as he continued to debate the second part. It was tremendously difficult to choose just one thing. “The first thing I want to see…is what it’s like to be so tall,” he said jokingly, nuzzling further into Nine’s neck. “Okay, okay, the first thing I want to see…I’ll be honest. I want to see the night you became a Fear. When you found that little girl, when you made a man die with your element for the first time. I want to see what happened that night, what managed to push you far enough to dedicate your life to fighting for and against this filthy city.” What could drive a man, especially one as sweet and compassionate as Nine, that far? Short of being locked in a biological weaponry research lab.

He bit his lip before continuing, realizing that what he was next going to say could sound more self-centered than he intended. “I also want to see what you saw in me the day you rescued me. I still can’t understand why you did it, risked your life to scoop up a sorry, stoned, suicidal bag of bones. At the moment I felt I’d lost all worth and hope, you saw something in me. I want to know what it was.” With this admission, he let his breath out slowly, not having realized he was holding it in. It was not so much himself he was curious about, as what rare, beautiful quality in Nine allowed him to see diamonds where other people saw shit. “Those are my answers. Your turn, love.”

He played with his feather around Nine’s neck, holding it in both hands and turning it over. “Huh. I feel like it should still be on the chain. How can we make the chain permanently attached?” he wondered aloud. He was also wondering about something else. “Where do you buy a dog in Cri? I like big dogs.” Nine reminded him of a big dog. Even the way he was looking at him, head tilted to the side and one eye open. He couldn’t resist the urge to muss Nine’s hair. “My giving you the cold shoulder last night had nothing to do with you having an unlovable moment. It had to do with me being absolutely furious at myself for being a retard, and taking it out on you. You were angry, and that gave me an opening to retaliate. I’m not sure I’ve ever wanted your love so desperately as I did last night. After all that…I’m feeling pretty darn confident that you and I can weather more than just Insurgi patrols.” His search for drugs had been idiotic, and the aftermath traumatizing, but it seemed that in the end their relationship was all the stronger for it.

He tried to balance a strawberry on Nine’s nose. He finally took it in his teeth and lowered the other end into Nine’s mouth. He sucked on it and Nine’s lips a moment, their blood-vials clinking together. He thought the strawberries were delicious enough without sugar and chocolate. “’Romancing me out of my pants’?” he repeated incredulously, sticking his tongue out and blowing a raspberry. “I hope you’ve realized by now that requires very little effort from you. I won’t say no to cheesecake, though.”