#arasi

Arasi grouchily wakes from someone repeatedly flicking their antennae. They hiss and flatten their little jelly body against Marduke’s neck in protest. 

“Help, please,” Marduke asks, xeir voice hollow. 

As they start fully waking up, their awareness and control spreads through Marduke’s body and they start processing more of what’s going on. Marduke is upside down on the couch. Sounds like Jacki and Roxi are fighting again. Of course - when aren’t they fighting? 

The line between what feels like their body and what feels like someone else’s body blurs. They use Marduke’s voice to sigh, and stop flicking their own antennae. Xeir heart is picking up speed in their chest. There’s heavy footsteps, Jacki’s growling, and pleading from Roxi. A glance to the side shows one of the houseplants wilting - the canary in the coalmine. 

Alright, alright. There’s a growing pool of stolen energy bubbling in xeir body, and Arasi shoves a good chunk of it in their little jelly body sitting on their neck. No resistance or protest of course. Ehg, Arasi hasn’t even had a chance to fully digest the last batch. Xeir heart rate slows dramatically and xey take a slow deep breath. 

“Mardy!” Roxi screeches, aer voice painfully shrill. 

Marduke’s breath hitches. A leaf falls off the plant, and one of the stems fall over. Up goes the heart rate again. 

Right. Looks like Marduke gets to take a nap. Arasi shoves more of Marduke’s energy in their jelly body, dipping significantly past just the excess. Arasi’s careful not to take too much, of course. Just enough to knock xem out.

Arasi can feel as Marduke’s breathing becomes shallower and xeir brain functions slow dramatically. Arasi's perception shifts from 'our body' to 'my body', fully being able to settle in as Marduke falls asleep. 

"Stop! Stop! Stop!" Roxi repeats somewhere behind the couch. Arasi doesn't want to deal with this right now.

They can feel the warmth on the side of their neck grow as the little jelly body goes into overdrive to process the huge influx of food. They give it a little pat on the head, gently putting their index finger between the two antennas. They give a little chirp.

Teeeechnically, to be able to properly handle Marduke’s unhinged power, xey should probably have two jelly lads. But well, Arasi doesn't feel like sharing. 

Roxi's pleading has stopped. Which meansssss they should probably do something. They spin, turning from being upside down to rightside up. Crossing their arms over the back of the couch, they look at what's happening with Marduke’s eyes. Well. Eye. They look with the eyes of their jelly body as well.

Jacki is crouching, having grown far too big to comfortably fit under the vaulted ceiling. Annnnd Roxi is halfway down her throat. Roxi's legs dangle as ae shake, while Jacki's ribs have separated to accommodate aer top half. 

"Jacki, spit aer out," Arasi starts. 

Jacki pointedly swallows again, flipping them off. Arasi can hear Roxi sobbing.

"Jacki are you really going to make us do this stupid fucking song and dance again? Spit aer out. You know this never ends well for you,” they start, cutting to the chase and not wanting to bother with the whole escalation process this time. “What are you compensating for anyway? What do you get out of bullying aer? Are you proud of yourself? Proud that you can beat someone that’s normally half your size? Do you think it’s cool? Do you want a prize or something? A trophy? Put custom engraving on it about how you bravely triumphed and won over your younger sibling?" Arasi questions. 

During their little spiel, Jacki shoves Roxi all the way into her throat to free up her mouth. Arasi was really hoping for the opposite - pulling Roxi out to talk. Sometimes it works. Whatever. 

"Roxi is not my family. Stay out of it, bite sized freak," Jacki growls, her voice taking a weird tone as Roxi pushes her lungs against her floating ribs. 

“No, I don’t think I will. What happened this time? Did Roxi take the last cookie? Did ae not move fast enough to do your bidding, or not give you a reaction you wanted? Or did you lose your rigged bet on who picks up the miscellaneous tasks no one wants to do?”

Jacki is very pointedly trying to ignore them by laying on the floor, but her lip lifts in a sneer. 

“That’s it, isn’t it? The bets that everyone knows you rig for you to win every time - you lost, and you’re mad about it. You like your stupid illusion of superiority. It eats you up inside that you’re the most pathetic one here. Marduke could best you in a heartbeat - literally. You don’t have a choice against your dad. You know you can’t do anything to me. You desperately grasp at anything you can for a false sense of superiority,” 

Jacki closes her eye. 

“This happens every fucking time and it’s getting old. Everyone sees through your stupid tricks. It’s pointless. And of course, now you’re pretending to ignore me because you know you can’t do anything, even if you wanted to. You’re just refusing to spit aer out because that would be admitting defeat, in a stupid made up game that no one is playing except you.”

Jacki groans, giving up the facade of ignoring them. “God, you just don’t shut the fuck up. You read way too far into shit. It’s our job to make sure the twerp stays stressed, so why can’t I have some fun with it?” she says and rolls her eye. “Don’t answer that, I don’t care.” 

“My job is to make sure that Marduke can live, and you make it real hard for xem to even be awake. And collectively, our job regarding Roxi is to keep aer elevated. Which means more than just stress! You could crack some jokes! Or get aer excited about something! Exercise! Action movies! Literally anything other than abuse and violation. Stress is the easy way out and you’re a piece of shit coward.”

“Or, you two can fuck off and mind your own business! Easy. You’re both great at ignoring shit, so just keep doing that. Problem solved.”

“Sure, but you have to spit out Roxi first.”

“Make me,” Jacki challenges, opening her eye to a slit and staring at their jelly body. 

It feels oddly invasive and exposing, having their jelly body be the focus. They’re more used to people making eye contact with the host body.

Jacki yawns, her lower jaw splitting and stretching like a snake. “That shut you up right quick.”

Is it worth it? Is it really worth it? They know they can force Jacki to let Roxi go, but honestly they really don’t want to deal with it again. They absolutely loathe the idea of feeling anything moving in their guts, much less a person. It makes their skin crawl. Not to mention that Jacki always puts up a fight about it, prolonging the process and making the whole thing absolute hell. 

Yeah, no. They tried. Jacki gets to win this stupid round of her stupid made up game. 

They need some fresh air to unwind. 

Arasi pushes off the back of the couch and stands up.

“Who’s the coward now?” Jacki taunts. 

Arasi ignores her, and tries to ignore the muffled sobs from Roxi. They pluck Marduke’s jacket from the coat rack by the door and leave. 

“It’s times like this where I wish I could just take Marduke and leave,” Arasi says, to no one in particular. Marduke is still asleep, no one else is around tonight. They just like talking. 

“This place is a ticking timebomb, and I need to figure out how to get out before someone loses more than just an eye,” they continue, putting the long purple coat on. They keep one side of it off the shoulder, so the fluff along the neckline doesn’t block the vision of their jelly body. It restricts the movement of that side a little bit, but that arm doesn’t work as well anyway. 

“Can I get out? There’s a contract looming over my head. I’d need to find someone else to take my job and regulate Marduke. Xey’re the one good thing in this hellhole. But at that point, I’m just enabling the cycle to continue. It doesn’t fix anything if I go. Not that I really care about the others anyway,” they say and sigh. They’re not really sure where they’re going. They’re just walking. The thought crosses their mind of just leaving anyway - letting the whole place spiral out of control and leave a crater. It’s probably just because they’re sleep deprived. Getting woken up for bullshit like that is never pleasant.

“Not really much of a ‘blessing’ is it, your power,” they say, holding their hand in front of their face. 

“Get too afraid? Die. Too happy? Die. Feel too much of anything at all? Die. Not to mention taking the entire local ecosystem with you. Sounds lovely. Why does the most tolerable person here get the worst power? It sucks,” Arasi says, letting their hand drop. 

“Not that I should complain much. It’s the reason why I have a stable living situation. Having reliable food and shelter is practically unheard of, not to mention being able to skip the uncertainty of finding a new host every week or two. I’m lucky to be here.” 

Yeah. Lucky. Ironic considering what they just left behind. Lucky to live in a house brimming with toxic tension and hatred thick enough to cut with a knife. 

“What am I even doing? Even after I leave, it haunts me like ghosts in my thoughts. Oooh I should write that down, that sounds like a great line in a poem or something. I need some kind of distraction. No more haunting today,” they say. Although saying ‘no more haunting’ doesn’t mean that the thoughts actually go away. The echoing sounds of muffled sobs keep haunting their thoughts. 

“No more haunting today,” they say again, more firmly. 

Okay. “Now what to do… I could go to a park, and nap in a tree? Find a nook to stargaze?”

There’s a twinge of pain from their midsection, and they put a hand to their stomach. “Or I could find some place that’s open and grab something to eat. Seems like Marduke forgot again.”

There’s also a twinge of guilt. Thinking about eating right now feels insensitive, considering what’s going on at the house. 

“Starving us isn’t going to solve anything. So what’s open right now?” Arasi muses, patting the pockets on Marduke’s jacket to make sure that they have xeir wallet. Yup, right where it always is. 

“There’s a couple 24/7 stores that ought to have something, at the very least. I could grab a sandwich from the deli section. Maybe swing by that coffee shop that serves tea at night. I’ve been wanting to try it out. Connect to the wifi and just watch silly ferret videos for a while.” 

Arasi pulls out Marduke’s wallet and looks through it. Annnd there - they pull out a slip of paper. ‘Arasi’s Allowance’ which has a series of numbers crossed out and re-written. Just around a hundred bucks left for this week. Right. They’re not used to actually being allowed money, much less this much. Woo, rich family.

There’s a deep breath with their lungs, and a quiet mumbling from the back of their throat. 

Marduke’s waking up. Arasi gently smiles, tucking the wallet away and focusing a bit more on keeping control of xeir legs so they don’t trip as they walk.

“Welcome back to the waking world,” Arasi says softly, trying to be calming. 

Marduke takes a sharper breath, startled. 

“Wanna sit down for a moment?” Arasi asks, looking for a good place they could sit. 

Another slow deep breath. “No, I think - I’m alright. What uh, what happened?” Marduke asks, running xeir hand through xeir hair.

“I got Jacki to let Roxi go, although I’m not sure how long that’ll last,” Arasi lies. “Jacki seemed particularly upset this time. I did what I could. I just needed some fresh air. And I think you skipped a meal or two, so I thought I’d grab something to eat while we’re out.”

Marduke’s guts twist themselves in nausea at the mention of food. 

“Texture sensitive day?” Arasi asks. This is something they have experience with helping, thankfully. 

There’s a small noise of confirmation, and xeir chest tights. They can already feel stolen energy start trickling in. Arasi quickly runs through a list of potential responses, based on what has worked in the past. 

“Hey, no worries. Want to start with a drink instead? I can’t remember - do you like boba?” Arasi asks with a more lighthearted tone. Redirection, that works.

Marduke nods. Another deep breath. Arasi can feel the systematic unclenching of muscles as xey release tension. The trickle of stolen energy stops just as fast as it started. It’s not really enough to be concerned about, so Arasi doesn’t worry about needing to eat it yet. 

“Let’s go grab a boba drink then,” Arasi says. They reach up, ruffle xeir hair, and smile gently.

They’ll just wait a bit to make sure that the trauma response has subsided, and bring up the topic of safe food again in a little while. If they remember correctly, for Marduke, it has something to do with things feeling mushy. So they start thinking of a list of not-mushy feeling foods to talk about in a bit. 

Marduke snickers, playfully wrestling control of the arm away to pat Arasi on the head of their jelly body. Just one finger, between the antenna.