Rogue Sloth

Beyond Expectations [AHeartlessNobody & Summer]

Initially, it seemed like Caeyin’s trick had worked. As the human stared at the vision he’d created in shock, a sly smile crossed his lips. Still trapped by her metal chain in reality, he didn’t have a profound goal that he was trying to achieve by fooling her. Whether she fell for it or not, nothing had changed. He was still her prisoner, and he still had no way to kill her unless she was dumb enough to come within his reach. He would have loved to wrap his hand around her throat, but she wasn’t giving him the chance as long as she kept her distance. Instead, he satisfied himself by watching her obey his orders and drop to the floor while he sat, unarmed and immobilized exactly where she’d left him.

The sight of her reluctantly folding to his whims led him to wonder what else he could make her do. How far could he push her before she stood her ground? He debated between making her grovel and testing the waters to see if he could coax her to come closer to him, but before he could experiment with either option, he noticed something strange. Furrowing his brows, he studied the human warily as she tilted her head at the vision of himself that he’d projected. Something was off. The connection he’d made was still working, but her demeanor had shifted as if she’d noticed that he wasn’t actually standing in front of her.

He stiffened as she suddenly closed her eyes. To his own surprise, he began to feel the mental link straining. She was fighting back against his grip on her sight. Impossible, his eyes widened. Even the other soldiers that he’d trained with hadn’t been able to sever the connection when he’d used his ability against them. It was the reason why they loathed him so much. Any time he engaged in a one-on-one sparring match, his opponents were always rendered helpless because he veritably blinded them by taking control of their optical nerves and manipulating their vision. None of them had ever broken free from his invisible hold, yet this human—a supposedly inferior being—was actually pushing him out of her head.

The instant the link was broken, his pupils retracted to their normal size, and he stared at her in disbelief. Maybe there was more to her species than the previous explorers had recorded. Either that, or he’d found an exceptionally gifted human that was much more difficult to kill than the majority of her kind. He supposed that would explain why she’d survived against the virus his people had released over the Earth. Most humans had succumbed to its effects, but the hardiest had overcome. Again, he mentally kicked himself for being so overconfident when he’d found her. He should have known better than to assume she would be easy prey.

At her insult, Caeyin glowered at her venomously. There was no way she could have known, but the term she used struck a raw nerve in him. He’d heard it whispered among the colonists on the ship after it had been discovered that he’d been born different than the rest of his people. Outcast was essentially what it meant. In the back of his head, a red flag raised, alerting him to how peculiar it was that a human knew about such a curse, but he didn’t dwell on it. Right now, he was too irate to slow down and process the context of the situation.

“I don’t take orders from the likes of you,” he snarled, yanking on the chain around his wrist again in the slim hope that it would break, and he could finish what he’d come here to do. “And I’m not going to just sit here and wait for you to decide you’re through with me either, so you had better kill me or release me if you don’t like my prison manner, because I’m not going to stop until one of us is dead.”

Beyond Expectations [AHeartlessNobody & Summer]

Hearing the rustling of pages as the human frantically flipped through her book, Caeyin bit the inside of his cheek to stifle a laugh. He would sleep better knowing that he’d ruined her attempt to read. It wasn’t as good as killing her, of course, but while he was still figuring out how to get out of his restraint, it was the next best thing. Even better was the knowledge that she wouldn’t know he was the one interfering with her vision. Her kind didn’t know much of anything about his, and even if she did know a little, his trick was unique among Lunairans. Unless she was clever, she would probably assume she was going crazy rather than associate the phenomenon with him—

Suddenly, his thoughts were interrupted as he felt a sharp pain in the side of his head. He yelped in surprise and scrambled into a sitting position, eyes snapping open as he reflexively looked for the threat. As he brought his free hand to the sore spot just above his temple, he spotted the human’s book laying haphazardly on the floor nearby. She’d thrown it at him.

Indignant, he turned toward her with a scowl as she went on to throw a petty insult at him. “Stupid human,” he spat in return, inwardly aware that exchanging snubs was immature but too irritable to care about maintaining a stoical image. He had already been in a foul mood before she’d made it worse by hitting him in the head. It also didn’t help that he was naturally competitive and refused to let her have the last laugh.

Tilting his chin upward arrogantly, he decided to step up his efforts and give her a scare. “I was going to stay here a little while longer to see what I could get out of you, but I’ve changed my mind,” he bluffed, forging a new connection with her mind as he spoke. In the next moment, he took control of her sight again and transmitted a vision that was more complex than the last. In it, he reached for the shackle around his wrist and pulled on it hard enough that the chain link that attached it to the pole snapped in half, freeing him from his tether. He rose to his feet and took a few steps toward the human, closing the distance between them menacingly.

“If you surrender, I’ll kill you quicker,” he offered, reaching around to draw a silencer from his back pocket and aiming it at her chest. In reality, he only had one weapon—the one she had stolen from him after she’d knocked him out—but unless she had searched his body too, he doubted she would know that. The vision of him simpered at her cruelly and gestured with the fake silencer, “Go on, get on your knees. Try anything funny, and I’ll shoot you faster than you can blink.”

Beyond Expectations [AHeartlessNobody & Summer]

Real threat. The words reverberated in Caeyin’s mind like an alarm bell, and it took everything inside of him not to press the human for more information. He couldn’t tell if she was telling him the truth or lying through her teeth again just to scare him. According to the Higher Powers, he and the other scouts had been sent on their mission specifically to wipe out the rest of the humans—if there were any survivors left—because they were supposed to be the threat to the Lunairan people. If there was something else that was more dangerous, it was an unknown variable, and they may not have been prepared for it.

For a moment, he was almost tempted to swallow his pride and call for help, if only to alert the other scouts to this new potential danger. However, being unsure if she was trying to trick him or not, he didn’t touch the button on his belt. It would have been even more humiliating if he summoned the others to his location to be freed from a single human who had managed to overpower him and then warned his comrades about a hazard that didn’t exist. The pilot might even decide he was too easily manipulated to carry on with his assignment and send him back to the mothership. He tensed at the thought, deciding inwardly that it wasn’t worth the risk. Even if she was being truthful, he was sure the scouts could handle the danger without him.

“Don’t get your hopes up,” he muttered as the human seemed to lose interest in verbally harassing him. When he was finally left alone, he was relieved, though he tracked her movement with his violet eyes to make sure she was really done with him for now. It looked like she was going to take her own advice and get some rest in what looked like a makeshift sleeping area in the back of the winged vehicle.

Taking the opportunity to examine his restraint again, Caeyin turned away from her as she settled on her bed and fiddled with the metal wrapped around his wrist. Unfortunately, it held fast, so he proceeded to inspect the pole to which the other end was attached. He hoped that he would find a weak spot that he could exploit to break himself free, but both the device and its anchor were sturdily built. He was stuck unless he could get ahold of the key for the piece that held his wrist.

Frustrated, he let out an irritable huff and glanced at the human again with narrowed eyes. She seemed to be ignoring him with her nose in what he guessed was a book. He wasn’t in the mood to strike up another conversation, nor did he expect that she would simply give him the key if he asked, but he refused to be a compliant prisoner. If she was going to tie him up and keep him as some sort of trophy in her hideout, he was going to make her life as difficult as possible.

Shifting on the floor, he did his best to make himself comfortable by laying down on his side and folding his unbound arm beneath his head. Instead of going to sleep, though, he looked up at the human once more, his pupils dilating as he reached out to her telepathically and seized control of her optic nerves. With the connection in place, he closed his eyes, feigning sleep while he overrode her sight with a vision of the contents of her book disappearing off the pages so that she was left with what looked like a binding of blank paper.

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

It's definitely fun to write about, haha.

Iris may have regretted that, because Jay didn't realize he gave them vodka that was 75% alcohol xD

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

“Enjoyable now; total regret in the morning,” Miles nodded sagely, picking up one of the full shot glasses and taking a seat on the floor beside the coffee table. Technically it wasn’t as important for him to get drunk as it was for Caspian, since the prince was the one who had to look like he’d been out at the club all night, but he wasn’t the type to pass up a good time. Besides, it could also be helpful to the group later on if he was reportedly hungover too, just in case the soldiers questioned him and Jay. It was unlikely, since there was no reason for the military to make Cas their prime suspect in Iris’s disappearance over the members of the rebellion, but it was better to be safe than sorry. Jay was the only one who couldn’t drink, since he was supposed to be their designated driver for the night.

“At least this time, we’re destroying our livers for a good cause,” Cas pointed out, taking his own glass and sitting on the opposite side of the table. With a glance at the clock on the wall, he saw that it was already after ten. His father expected him to be home by midnight, as usual, so he had a little more than an hour to get plastered, go back to the club and take Jay’s car back to his own place. Like Cinderella, except when my spell wears off, I’m going to be sick as hell, he thought amusedly, looking down at the clear liquid in the cup.

When Jay invited Iris to join them, the prince casted her a sidelong glance. He fully expected her to turn down the request. In addition to the fact that she had a raging alcoholic for a father, she also didn’t strike him as the type to let loose and take shots around people she barely knew. So, when she agreed, and Jay filled the third glass, he raised his brows in surprise. Either the stress of the last week was making her reckless or there were even more layers to the amnesiac than he’d thought.

“Yeah, Iris!” Miles howled his approval as Jay passed the full cup to her. “Should we toast to something? I feel like we should toast to something.”

“How about to pulling off a perfect escapade right under the army’s nose?” Cas suggested proudly.

“I like it,” Miles raised his glass. “To that!”

Cas laughed and tapped his glass with his friend’s and Iris’s and brought it to his lips to down the whole thing. However, as soon as he swallowed, he stiffened and started coughing into his sleeve. The alcohol was shockingly strong and scorched the back of his throat on its way down. Across the table, Miles had the same reaction. “Poison,” he gagged, wrinkling his nose in disgust as he turned toward Jay. “What the hell is this stuff?”

Jay blinked and picked up the bottle, only to snicker when he read the label. “Oh, fuck. It’s 150 proof.”

“Are you serious?” Miles gawped at him before coughing again and waving his hand. “Go get the Gold Line from the liquor cabinet. I want to get drunk, not die of alcohol poisoning.”

“My bad,” Jay snorted, taking the bottle with him as he exited the room.

“Well, that was unpleasant,” Cas made a face, leaning forward to rest his arms on the table. “Remind me never to take a shot from him ever again.”

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

Cas has never been with anyone before, so he's eager xD

Jay revealed the next phase of their master plan

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

When Iris explained that she was upset because she wanted to be someone that he could lean on, he shook his head. For the time being, he was more than happy to be that for her. Of course, he wouldn’t pretend like everything was right in his world after he’d been abducted by the rebellion and nearly killed twice, but he obviously wasn’t the one who needed someone to hold him up at that moment. He wasn’t nearly as close to breaking down as she was. Whatever emotional scarring he would have as a result of the trauma could wait to be uncovered until after he’d done his part to make sure she was alright. “You don’t have to be the strong one all the time, Iris,” he assured her in a murmur, pressing a soft kiss to her forehead. “Let me carry you when you’re too tired to stand.”

Her giggle when he stammered only caused the already noticeable blush on his cheeks to turn a shade deeper. Apparently his efforts to hide his fluster hadn’t worked out very well. He was just glad that she didn’t seem put-off by the fact that he’d thought about something other than talking when she’d said they needed to spend a night together. At the pub a few nights ago, he had been certain that they’d both wanted the same thing when things had gotten heated between them, but after they’d gotten to the capital, he hadn’t been so sure. A part of him had been worried that everything the soldiers had done to her would cause her to resent him, even if she wouldn’t admit it. Carrying him to the border was what had gotten them into this mess, after all. However, to his relief, she didn’t balk or pull away from him when she’d picked up on his salacious thoughts. It seemed like she still wanted to be with him in spite of the unexpected turn.

“I won’t forget that,” he assured her with a brash smile, elated that she said he owed her a night together. This time, he was sure she wasn’t just talking about having a late conversation. I guess I’ve got another incentive to make sure everything smooths over quickly, he mused, trying to stymie his racing heart by taking a low breath. Fortunately, the subject she brought up next was a perfect distraction.

“It’s really okay,” he assured her with a firm nod and a smile. “I promise, you couldn’t burden Miles even if you wanted to. He’s pretty much immune to anyone and anything that tries to drag him down.”

Almost as if on cue, Cas picked up the sound of the doorknob rattling, and he quickly took a step away from Iris, letting his arms fall from around her as Miles stepped back into the room. The other high born glanced at them, and then tilted slightly to peer around them with a bemused frown. “Where’s Jay? I thought he would have beaten me back here.”

“I dunno,” Cas shrugged. “Maybe he found a magazine to read in the bathroom.”

“Are we really so boring that he ditched us to go through my sister’s Cosmos?” Miles said dryly, stepping back over to the sofa to sit down. “I would’ve thought he’d be excited to celebrate our escapade at the hospital.”

“Not this time.” Jay’s voice came from the doorway as he stepped into the bedroom. As Cas and Miles turned toward him, he grinned and held up a full bottle of vodka and three frosted shot glasses. “I raided your parents’ stash. It’s time for you guys to get wasted.”

Cas blinked. He’d almost forgotten about that part of their plan. Remembering that Iris had been with them when they’d come up with the scheme, he turned toward her sheepishly, “I forgot to tell you, but my dad thinks I’m at the club right now.”

“Yep,” Jay sauntered over to the table and set down his collection. “Now we just have to make it look realistic, so nobody asks any questions when I drive you back to the palace.” As he spoke, he filled two of the glasses to the brim and then looked up at Iris. “Want to join? It’s up to you, but either way, I’m getting these two shit-faced.”

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

Nice xD Cas just gets overly excited whenever the subject is even implied lmao

And Jay is running a different trip on top of that, but I’ll give more details when he gets back cx

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

I had to take the opportunity to throw in another awkward moment cx
I also think I'll have Jay and Miles come back in the next post or two tops.

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

When Iris told him not to apologize, Cas fell quiet. He knew it wasn’t entirely his fault that the soldiers had interrogated her so brutally, but he still felt a little responsible. He was the one who had told her to surrender to them at the border. At the time, he’d thought they would just hold her in a cell, and he could get her out by talking to his father. Instead, he’d woken up from surgery to find out that she had already been questioned multiple times, and his father was unwilling to see her as anything other than a traitor. Even if it wasn’t his fault that those things had happened, he had nothing else to say to her other than ‘I’m sorry.’ He didn’t know how else to acknowledge the suffering she had been through.

As she reached up to run her fingers through his hair and attempted to smile, he didn’t match the expression. Even as she spoke about her coping mechanisms, he could see that she was still trying to act tough in front of him. She might have thought it was working, but in reality, it was doing the opposite. It was apparent to him that she was wearing down every day, becoming more heavily burdened by all the trauma she’d endured. He had buried it in himself to some degree, but he knew he was a ticking time bomb waiting to explode the second he could no longer keep it all suppressed. By contrast, it felt like she had sprung a leak. Her negative emotions seeped out constantly, and her formerly bubbly personality had been replaced with something that looked like depression.

Noticing the tears in the corners of her eyes, he stroked her back gently. It seemed like she was getting dangerously close to her breaking point, and he wished he could tell her to just let it all out. However, Jay and Miles could come back at any second, and he didn’t want to put her in a position to be vulnerable in front of two people she didn’t know or trust. He sighed quietly to himself. Until he could think of a way to secure more than a few minutes alone with her, there was no way for him to help her process everything.

When she spoke again, he shook his head. “It’s fine. You just went to hell and back, so he can’t judge you for being jumpy.” He knew Miles didn’t look down on her for it too. His friend was honest, but he wasn’t unreasonable. Just because he’d been surprised that she wasn’t an obviously heroic person didn’t mean that he thought any less of her. If anything, he would probably be more compassionate now that he knew she’d been scarred too.

He opened his mouth to say so and then faltered, turning red as she said they both needed a night alone together. In the back of his head, he knew she didn’t mean what he thought she meant, but the fleeting image that crossed his mind when she said ‘enjoy each other’s company’ was still enough to make him flustered. The stroke of his hand on her back ceased, and he cleared his throat awkwardly, “R-Right. Talk…” Inwardly, he chided himself for jumping to conclusions, but the way she’d spoken so softly and caressed his cheek with her fingers had made it impossible not to take a plunge into the gutter.

Forcing himself to recover, he sighed, “I’d like that, but I have no idea when we can be alone. I have to go home tonight to make sure no one suspects that I was involved in helping you escape from the soldiers, and my dad might enact another lockdown if he thinks the capital is in danger. I wouldn’t put it past him. If he does, I’ll be stuck at home for at least a few days.” He studied her face solemnly. “I’m sorry. I wish I could stay here with you, but this isn’t over until the military gives up its search for you. I have to see it through to the end to make sure you’re safe.”