Edge Of Nowhere, Half Past Never. ch5

5 Friends With Benefits

By the end of day two I mastered the art of avoiding people. There were periods when rooms were empty and I had them all to myself. It was a pretty big complex for this handful. I stumbled upon Solitary in one of those presumably empty places. He got spooked and stared at me like a shitting cat. And there I thought he was expressionless, immovable existence.  

Obviously, he was up to no good again. "Don’t mind me, I’m just hiding from the rest."

“I’d have preferred to be hidden from you, too.” In just a second his mouth turned into a frown of disgust and little later face gave out to the apathy. I could bet he imagined I’m not here.

“And there I thought we started off good.”

“So did I, you snitch.”

Ah, crap. I knew it. “Aren’t you two pals? Thought would be alright.”

Didn’t know such sour expression existed. “Stop thinking.” That nasty bastard! If I wasn’t so meagre, I’d have already kicked his ass for all his abrasive bullshit. My frown was noticed, he elaborated without really wanting to, “I told you. We are not friends. I barely ever spoke to him.”

“Why does he do all that for you, then?”

“Because I told him to,” Solitary barked out. “Back when I first arrived.”

“Why would he…”

“See now? He is crazy. I don’t want to have anything to do with him.”

“He said you might be dying in a horrible death if he won’t find you to give the pills.”

“What are you, born yesterday? Oh yes, you are aren’t you. We are not able to damage or kill ourselves. I won’t croak.”

“Fine, I gotcha. No more tattle telling on you. Get back to whatever you’ve been doing. I just need a quiet corner to rest.” Lack of sleep and pills made mere walking quite the labour. Yesterday was still okay, today I felt extremely drowsy. Tomorrow the bone crushing pains will return. I was almost ready to go to the old band to beg for a relief. I will hold out overnight. When the actual ache starts morning on, it will be harder. Not the pain itself yet. The foreboding that it will only get worse the longer I delay. Sometimes holding onto the pride for as long as possible only meant bigger humiliation.  

Bleep. Millisecond of delay on the doors. With the corner of the eye saw Solitude dive behind the sofa. Click. Door opened up and a Busybody walked in, looked around and returned gaze onto me, “Have you seen him?”

“Yeah.” Paused for dramatic effect. Benevolent raised his eyebrows rushing me to proceed. I forced a grin down, “He left right after I came here.”

The most humane of us all growled in annoyance. “What is he thinking?” Turned around, left.

Loner got up and got back to his own stuff. “Thanks. I guess,” he glared a little, although appreciated the practical joke I pulled off.

“How do you do that?”

“What?

“Avoid him for days. It’s a pretty small place.”

“The smaller it is, the easier to control the environment. I know where he is at any given time.”

I think my jaw was open. That was amazing. “Can you teach me that?”

“In your case you need to avoid everybody, so it’s impossible.”

“Come on, don’t be so stuck up.”

“You will figure out ways to adapt. My trick works just in my situation.”

That kind of attention would have been taxing on anybody. I watched him toy with the corner of a shelf for few minutes. Looked like he was measuring random things. Outcast was up to something smart. I couldn’t tell what, though. What I did see, however, was that he was strained. And it wasn’t psychological. He was on withdrawal. Solitude was avoiding not only his pursuant, but also the pills.

“And how do you stay off meds for extended periods? Any tricks to that?”

Man hated looking into the eyes. He gazed over the shoulder this time, though.  Monotonous voice, “If you’re having cramps, go appeal to his goodie-two-shoes side and he’ll give it to you.”

“Ah, no, not yet. But when that happens, I want to know how to bear it.”

“No tricks. To me, that pain is a resolution. Reminder that I can’t give up. And I’d better bear this rather than the company of that fixated fool.”

I wouldn’t be able to. So driven. Focused. Independent in his dependency. Out of all Longings I’ve seen, I realised I admire Solitude the most. “Say, what the fuck are you doing over there anyway?”

Saw a question on his face. He wondered if it was a mistake to have shown me anything at all. “Prove you can keep your mouth shut first. If Lord Protector ever tells anybody that you’ve seen me with tools, you’re going down with me.”

So I did make a huge mess. The only reason Solitude felt indifferent towards me was my current neutrality. Brat was right. That probably was appealing to everyone.

Solitude did risk a lot here, though. What if I do sell him out? “What if I can’t?”

He raised an eyebrow, annoyed. “I’ll deal with it then.” I grinned. There goes the great manipulator. “For now, I know you know nothing about anything. You don’t even have a reason to undermine me. Yet.”

“You could have saved yourself a lot of trouble not risking anything at all.”

He looked up and spat out, “I’m not Solitude by choice.”

“Everybody needs somebody, huh?” weird notion popped into my mind.

Loner wrapped up. “Time to go. For you, too, I’d say.”

“How so?”

“Benevolent was free, therefore Bonehead wasn’t with him. Hence, he is probably looking for somebody else to fuck. Guess who would that be.”

Gasped, going pale as sheet. It’s been only two days. What the hell am I going to do? “Is it really this rare for someone to be held overnight?”

“There are no beds in the lab. No decent way to constrain us, either. It’s easiest to just call us back whenever they need us again. Unless, of course… They’re training our psyche. I used to spend days if not weeks locked away from everybody.”

This can take weeks? Oh no, oh no. I can’t go back to being punching bag. While my brain was suddenly awoken for an overtime, Nihilis painfully closed his eyes to gather up some unpleasant thoughts. Eventually he said, “I can direct you for today. Maybe tomorrow too. But you’ll need to do something for me.”

“Deal,” I uttered before thinking. There was nothing to think about anyway. Then I caught up with my tongue, “What do I have to do?”

“I’ll need to borrow your bunk. He won’t check there.” He seriously had a vicious stalker problem… Also, did he imply..? “You can sleep with babyface if you don’t like it. Just make sure no one sees it. What? I saw you two making out the other day.”

Where the hell was he? “We weren’t…”

“Don’t care. You in?”

 “Yeah.”

“They’ll gather here soon. Hide in the stall, let them all pass through. Honestly it wouldn’t matter if you spent there entire night, no one from that particular group would notice. Blockheads. I’ll come by later with intel. If it’s safe, you can go chill in the gym. If not, move on to the sleeping hall. It’s easiest to miss someone there. Dark and too many places to look through. Be silent. Avoid anyone knowing where you settle. They won’t recognise who you are, but it won’t matter.” He then turned off his supervisor tone and complained, “It’s so damn troublesome so avoid everybody.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Anyway, in evening anything rarely happens. Everyone’s too tired and sleepy. You already worked out that few people hang around at night. I’ll keep an eye on potential trouble and alert you if anything comes up, but that’s basically it.”

Grabbed reading glasses from the library room before leaving it. It’ll be a long day of waiting. While I was skimming through the pretty pictures in the visors, wondered what did he mean by a lot of places to hide in the bedroom? I must be out of imagination powder; there were only bunks, stacked one atop the other. Pretty plain. No holes anywhere. Even the lockers were in the wall inside the bunk. I guess I could throw a blanket over my head, crouch in the corner and tell them I’m not there when they poke. Should have asked. Most importantly… should I really trust that antisocial guy? Leap of faith, for both him and me. Nice way to get back at me for prodding.

Someone knocked. Didn’t even realise anyone walked into the room. “They’re busy. You can go to the gym, there’re only unrelated Longings. No elites are around today. Problem kids were called by Surgeons, too.”

My leap of faith. Opened the door. Looked around. Scornful monotony was alone. “Alright. Cya in the evening, then.”

I can only hope that that date night won’t go bad. He didn’t say anything and I turned back. Corners of his lips were strained. Oh. I see. I forgot. He was Longing of Solitude. Man desired my company even less that I did his. How cornered was he to hide under my fledgling wing?

Spent my time in the gym. One familiar guy spotted me but casually strode by to the food dispensers. They didn’t care. Good.

Saw Teenager around his friends in the main hall. Interesting to see him interact with others. It was pretty easy for him to get comfortable around people in ways that normally wouldn’t look normal. No one cared, though, because he was a kid.

One of them completely avoided him, even though they sat face to face. Man wouldn’t even meet his eyes. Looked for a reason inside of me and understood immediately. At some point those two had sex and one of them couldn’t forgive himself for it. Too bad, kid was doing everything to minimise the damage. Pulling him into conversations, trying to catch the gaze. It was sad to watch that trainwreck.

There was no chance to catch runt alone. His group must have socialised in the evening throughout some part of the night. Didn’t have it in me to interfere with the festivities, however friendly they looked.

Stalker restlessly circled around. Finally bumped into his ward when the guy came to tell me something. Hope it wasn’t anything important. I disturbed their routines too much. A trivial chat unfolded.  Could see Solitude was ready to dart away the moment Chivalry turned around. Recluse returned brief one-liners to anything that was said to him. As if bored by whatever he was listening to, eventually ripped video visors out of humanitarian’s hands to check them instead. Dismissed that almost instantly too by throwing them over his head. Impulsiveness and openness weren’t bad qualities, but for fuck’s sake, somebody needed to smack him asap. His minder was grinning like a fool though, showing no indication of irritation whatsoever. Looks like he really was a distant offshoot of standard Longings. They moved on.

I was tired, but not sleepy. Not in a sense that I could fall asleep for longer than fifteen minutes. Perhaps should just stay the night here? Actually, I didn’t have to go to my own bed, either. Could just pick any other bunk that’s free… Probably bad idea, if I wanted to hold my end of the bargain and help out Loner. I had a feeling a stalker passionate about his duties would be there when I get up, and realise where his boy set up the outpost.

I found the shutter of my pallet already locked. Lightly tapped my fingers on it in the same manner that Recluse did before. Opened, I got in… and it was strange. The strong unpleasant de javu tried to choke me, even though Solitary backed off as far as he could.

He lit up some shiny toy and we could see each other. I breathed relief. Small difference, but it was a difference. Kept my mind off other things. I could see relief visiting his face as it probably did mine. Neither of us wanted to be this close to someone else.

“This is a bad idea…” I breathed out my thoughts.

“No backing out now,” Loner whispered out even more silently. I nodded.  Wonder how did he escape his supervisor? “I’m tired.”

He hit the rack, crouching quite a bit. I think he dosed off immediately. So jealous. I sat there by the ladder, leaning onto the wall and thought of plans to spirit away the flashlight. It really wasn’t much, light was very weak and dull as if it was ready to die any moment now. Did he leave it on for my sake?

When I woke up, he was gone like a dream. I can’t believe I actually fell asleep.  Or did I pass out, as always? I felt rested, first time in days. Still tossed and turned, but the tiny sparkle reminded everything was fine each time I opened my eyes in terror.  

Dull ceiling light showed all those ghostly figures getting up and fussing around. I overslept my break of dawn time, when everybody was still half asleep in their beds.

Now, if only no one noticed me… had to wait them out. An hour or so passed. Couldn’t stay here forever. Although that would have been nice. What if he’s not back yet? What if he won’t come back for days yet? What will I do?

It seemed safe, I got down, pressed the exit plate and somebody’s hand descended on mine. Tried to turn, couldn’t. He held both my hand and me in a tight grip.

Cheeky soft whisper tickled my ear, “Let go of the button, door will open up and everybody will see.” Indeed, I didn’t want to be seen as abuse victim so early in the morning.

“What do you want?”

He snorted. “It’s quite obvious, isn’t it?”

Figures. Throat dried up. Had to make peace with my losses and not make it worse. He removed his hand from mine and held my sides with both now. “Relax already.”

I didn’t. Caress started regardless. The empty touch slid under my shirt and I tensed up even more, shrinking in size. Not one of those little games where they tried to make me enjoy this, too. That wasn’t even so hard. I hated it. Made me loathe myself even more.

Somebody battered the metal from the other side. Muffled angry threats and commands to open the damn door. While I was pressing the button no one could open it. Handy piece of knowledge, even if it couldn’t help me that much right now. Each room had at least two entrances though, so perhaps it will never come to aid me in a useful manner at all.

I heard a moan. Shit. It was mine. I leaned onto the man’s torso, letting him touch me more openly. Why was I breathing so heavily?! Since when?

While my mind escaped the predicament, body was left unsupervised. I was feeling the pleasure the arms intended. They stroked my shivering skin and I got used to them. What he was waiting for? It’s not quite as it was before, when all they wanted was their own satisfaction in return for my agony. That’s all what sex meant to me now. Still, I begged in my head for this to end as soon as possible. Yet, the man toyed. It was as if his own pleasure was trivial, as long as he got me to dance by his tune. My childish powerlessness drove me into pits of despair.

My previous notion wasn’t completely true. Each time he pressed closer onto me I felt him getting harder. He was enjoying this way more than me. When he rubbed us together it reminded me of the pain I will suffer. This was no innocent fooling around.

I pushed him back with my free hand. The attempt amused the man and also, rushed. He stuck the hands into my pants and touched my thigh, sliding upwards and under the dick, deliberately leaving that part for later.

No. Couldn’t do this again. Not willingly. Released the button and dove forward. He didn’t expect that, and sweat on the hands didn’t help him to re-establish the grip. I fell into a roomful of people. They minded their own business, luckily. Few did see how riled up I was, but before they got any lousy ideas I was out of the living room, in the gym and strode into the washroom.

Fuck. What’s wrong with me to get turned on like that?

Sleeping hall connected to here too. That man was probably around. Not only that one, either. A couple circled around. I wanted to take shower to wash off that scent and sweat, but was afraid.

“Dark dammit.” Slid down by the wall, still considering the options.

“There you are. Don’t tell me you’ve been sleeping up to now. What a careless guy…”

Solitude. He looked completely  different today. Revealing style of clothing, his hair was done up. Usually he tried to blend with the walls. Recognised him only from the lack of intonation. I got myself together. “Camouflage?” Same pretty mug had some advantages.

“Won’t fool anyone longer than necessary.”

“What’s the plan?”

“Game room. It’s not really visited by that many. If anyone passes through we pretend to be these two other guys.”

Damn. He could totally be that other guy if he kept his mouth shut. He threw me a hoodie. Most likely to hide my distinctive princess hair. We relocated.

“Hey, Solitude.”

“What?”

“You people got any scissors or something like that here?”

“Why?”

“I need to cut my mane.”

“Can’t help you. Everybody would wonder how that happened.”

“Come on, man, I’m the damn damsel in distress here.”

“Just ask Surgeons when you get there. I actually can’t believe you still got it. Usually they start digging in right after.” He turned to me, eyeing suspiciously, “What were they doing to you if not butchery?”

“What do you mean?”

“You were called up, right? What did they do?”

“I was never called away from here.”

Surprise dyed his face. “Are you serious?”

“No, dark dammit, my life is a hot damn joke.”

“No wonder you’re still this strange.” He got lost in thought, then murmured barely audibly, “Blanks are rarely called up, but never heard of full model not being formed.” His expression only darkened.

“Oy.”

“What?”

“You clearly thought of something gloomy. I should totally know.”

He didn’t want to say, but had no reason not to. “You’re either custom made order, but then you’d already be with your Master. Or… It’s possible you’re another version of a Blank. They want to see where unrefined Longing is going.”

I suddenly began wanting to have a Master. “So… They’ll just kill me?”

“Look, I don’t know. It’s just what it looks like. I haven't even been here all that long. You should ask elites, most of them are old timers. Maybe they’ve seen this before. Even if so, you still have years ahead of you.”

Years. “How many?”

He shrugged. “It varies. They reap standard Blanks in around four, five years.”

Babyface said it takes around two years for Blank to become adult in their heads. So I’ve got two left. Congrads. You’ve gotten the answer to a million dollar question can your life get any worse?

“Don’t pay any mind to this. For all you know, you can be dead tomorrow by slipping in a shower. One way or another, our life expectancy isn't that great anyway.”

“Whatever. Not like I can do anything about any of this.”

“That’s the spirit. One advice. If you ever try to pull off something smart on them, succeed. Second chance will be burned off out of you along with some parts of your brain.”

“Enough. I don’t want to know anything else about this place.”

Solitary was amused in a gory way, although his tone remained the same, “Wanna know the funniest thing? We can’t even kill ourselves to escape it.” He laughed. It was deathly.

Of course. Loss of merchandise would incur heavy damages. How many years does it take to create one of us, anyway? It was way too grim. And I wanted to punch my new tactless friend. Luckily, his enthusiasm expired. I picked up a game meant to develop the response time. Should have used this room more often. Gym worked magic on my mushy body, but I was at times still pretty clumsy.

Few people strolled by, no one paid attention. Solitary even spoke with somebody. Then he got back to staring at the wall. Mysterious was the guy. We switched rooms a few times. It was amusing to see him in action. Even more fun when humanitarian walked right by not seeing what he was after.

Place was emptying out bit by bit. Couples steered clear of light early in the day, bands banded in their clubhouses and so on. It was an hour or so left until dark time. I wasn’t as restless as before since I had someone to look out for me, but still unsettled. How long will this go on for?

“You’re staying over tonight?”

“If I may.”

“You may.” I agreed without thinking again. It’ll be uncomfortable. I was sure it was plenty troublesome for Escapist to aid me, too. Probably way more than just lending half of bunk.

Separately we sneaked into my bed. Once again, he was on one side, and I was on the other. What a nice awkward sleepover party. “Sorry, the lamp gave out yesterday,” he said.

“What, are you afraid of the dark?” Tried to make fun of him.

“Aren’t you?”

I was. Especially in small cramped cages in which I’m not alone. He was okay, though. I had to keep reminding myself what was what, but it was okay.

“Too bad I can’t stand you. I’d so abuse the hell out of you for being such trusting idiot,” I kicked him lightly for sharing unnecessary mouthful. He, too, had a reason to be wary of me. If I wasn’t so damaged and this weak, that is. Solitude was already half asleep. Lucky bastard.  

This was a thin line of fragile trust, but it held.