Ben froze when Carlos fell asleep once more. Firstly, Carlos was too tired and that worried him a great deal... And secondly... Carlos had fallen asleep against him.
"Darn..."
He didn't know what to do. On one hand, this was probably inappropriate and maybe not okay with Mal, but on the other hand, he didn't want to move Carlos and Carlos clearly needed the rest...
He gave up and put a blanket over Carlos, then put on a movie at low volume.
...
He couldn't focus on the movie. Carlos, it turns out, is a very squirmy sleeper. He moves, gets close, grabs Ben's shirt, nuzzles into his neck. Ben shivered at the warm exhales against his collarbones.
"Carlos..."
"Mnrgh..."
Carlos' eyes fluttered open with a sleepy little groan. He was hanging precariously on the edge of sleep and wakefulness, his eyes drooping. He looked like one of those little sleepy puppies Audrey was so fond of.
"Carlos, move a little. Too close."
"Awwwh...."
Carlos whined. He actually whined. But he did move, grumbling about Ben not joining into cuddle piles. Which was... well, true. Ben almost never joined their VK cuddle piles. He wasn't against them, not at all, but he just didn't feel like he would fit into one.
"Hey Carlos?"
"Mhhhhh?"
"Do you like cuddling?"
Carlos turned his head to squint sleepily at Ben.
"The fuck? Yes? Why're you asking now?"
"... 'M just curious..." Ben answered, hesitant. "I mean, you all cuddle a lot, you and the VKs..."
"Yeah we do.... We used it for warmth back when the heating went out... Or when our parents got too mean, even for us...."
"Yeah?" asked Ben, unconsciously scooting closer. "I mean... Mal and I actually don't cuddle that much, actually. But I know you guys do..."
"Mh... She probably just wants you comfortable before initiating... Or somethin' like that, I dunno."
Carlos yawned widely, sharp little canines glinting in the sunlight. Ben's heart melted.
"Poor you, you must be so tired, hm?"
"Wouldn't be if you hadn't woken me up."
"I'm sorry... Do you want to..." Ben hesitated, looking away, then looking back at Carlos. He looked so soft then, so sleepy... "Do you w-want to cuddle? S-So I can uh... Make it up to you."
Ben hated how his voice shook. He shouldn't feel this embarrassed around one of his closest friends. Carlos, however, didn't really give a shit. He was exhausted and wanted cuddles. Who was he to say no when offered? He immediately snuggled closer to Ben, head buried in his chest.
Ben forced himself to relax and ran his fingers through Carlos' hair, which earned him a happy little hum in return. He could get used to this...
~
Nappy happy times yippee. Now I know that Ben is already emotionally starting to cheat on Mal which is NOT OKAY, but he does have a precedent.
If Carlos was aware he would not let Ben do this!
Okay, uncomfortable feelings over. Let me tell you I enjoyed writing eepy Carlos so freaking much he's so ANEJORCKELAFU.
In other MAJOR news, I made my best friend watch descendants with me and she not only agreed that Benlos was a thing, she said if any of them were a girl, they would've been the main pairing.
And she's AROMANTIC and can't detect when characters are flirting.
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Vacuum is a space where there is no matter, that is, empty.
 Viper feels a vacuum inside herself due to the lack of Chamber. And, with nightfall, she considers filling that void somehow. Even if it means taking down her pride and sending him a message.
It took three episodes of a reality show with a questionable quality and two pepperoni pizzas for Reyna and Fade give up trying to cheer Viper after throwing cruel truths in her face. Viper escorted them to the door with her head low. She couldn't remember the last time she felt so defeated.
Reyna gave her an awkward hug and Fade did the same, patting her on the back.
- Everything will get better… - Viper took a deep breath, irritated by the mediocrely generic phrase. Fade smiled, walking away from her. – See you!
Viper nodded but held Fade's hand, preventing her from leaving.
- Can you… - Viper pressed her lips, looking at their hands together. – Can you... Not expose Chamber? He deserves it, but… - Viper swallowed it dry, shaking the other's hand.
Chamber might have been a filthy sneaky idiot, but he had the decency to tell Viper that he hid a lot of things. Viper clearly remembered them lying on the bed, glued to each other, while he admitted he still couldn't talk about it to her. Chamber passed his thumb by her arm, as if the gesture brought comfort to himself.
Viper understood it. She also had secrets locked in seven keys she didn't want to expose.
But knowing that at some point he would have the courage to open up to her, it gave her a sense of responsibility for him and his secrets.
Chamber was still her filthy sneaky idiot.
Fade blinked a few times, surprised at the request. She smiled comfortingly at Viper, feeling privileged to be able to see a melted heart in someone cold as ice.
- Sure...
Viper nodded, dropping Fade's hand and crossing her arms.
- Thanks...
Fade smirked and turned around, leaving the apartment.
- We'll see you tomorrow!
Viper tried to force a smile. She ended up making a tired grimace and closed the door. She reflected on what she had just done.
Viper might not be the most caring person in the world. However, she could not deny that she felt the need to protect Chamber. She'd gotten used to taking care of him. She thought of the tests of previous experiments, when Chamber arrived at the lab with that same look of defeat that he had exhibited in the infirmary. Viper knew exactly what he needed without using words. She would go to his desk and hold his face, forcing him to raise his head to look at her. A low look never matched him. Viper would ask about "what went wrong this time?", reminding him that each failure was a learning opportunity. He would pass his hands around his waist, muttering the list of defects he had missed before testing the new weapon. She would complain that he had to do more than one check, in addition to improving a minimal little thing in the project that only she would give importance, while kissing his face to heal the emotional wound, assuring him that she was there to take care of everything. She would offer him a Snickers and sit on his lap to make the adjustments he had missed. He'd watch she work, in that way that she pretended she didn't notice so she wouldn't blush.
Chamber must have been devastated that Viper didn't go talk to him after discover of the flaw in their project.
Because Viper was devastated to let her man face it all alone.
The scientist shook her head, pushing away her dark thoughts. What a silly thing she was to let her heart guide her mind.
She looked the apartment. There was nothing interesting to watch or play on TV, as she didn't know which movie Chamber would choose for them to see and he wasn't there to support her legs while she was playing. She wasn't in the mood to eat either. She felt a weight fall on her shoulders just to consider the idea of going back to the lab. She decided to go to bed and, hopefully, sleep.
While waiting for sleep to come, Viper made one of the worst decisions anyone with a relationship issue could make.
Lying on her bed, she reread the messages with Chamber. The heart was tight, and the mouth formed a sad smile for the way they were. It's been four days since she'd make a grimace for a nickname in French he gave her. It's been four days since they gossiped about the life of one of the agents. It's been four days since they talked about some random subject that only they understood. By the heavens, she heard old audios out of sheer nostalgia for the sweet way he spoke to her. Viper thought she was the most ridiculous little being on the planet for doing all that and still couldn't stop torturing herself in that mediocre way.
Viper touched the cell phone screen, watching the letters on the keyboard. She typed slowly, afraid of the words she was forming.
"I miss you"
She read the message a few times, wondering if she really wanted to let him know how she felt, until she noticed the subtle change in the messaging app screen, right below his name.
"Fabron"
"Typing..."
Her eyes shone and she sat on the bed. She deleted her own message and waited for his. She stared at the screen, nibbling her fingertip. Until the message changed to a simple "online". Her shoulders fell instantly, only to stiffen again by changing the message back to "Typing...". Two minutes passed like an eternity in the blink of an eye, with no new message.
Viper held her phone with both hands, writing quickly.
"Do you want to say something?"
The finger stopped before sending. She waited a little longer, thinking he would finally send his message. But the "typing" was gone, as was his online status. She reread her own message. Once, twice. Erased it.
Viper threw her cell phone beside her on the bed, lying on it again and hugging a pillow. She missed hugging Chamber to sleep. She missed his nasal breath when he had just returned from Bind and how he looked like a baby when he slept.
She fantasized about walking to his apartment and giving him a scolding for making her suffer so much for him. She'd scream and push him away for being a tremendous selfish proud narcissistic asshole and everything else he really was, just to pull him close and say she missed him so much that she was feeling sick. Viper really considered to do that.
But she was a person who liked to analyze everything pragmatically. Life wasn't a romantic comedy in which everything worked out with a kiss. It always had the after happily ever after. And generally, it wasn't that happy.
She could go on without him. Time would heal herr pain... Well, in thesis. Because Viper knew better than anyone that there were wounds that time did not heal. She realized she didn't want Chamber to become one more scar on her calloused heart.
She could go to him. But, it wasn't fair. He was the idiot in that situation. He was the one that didn't have the guts to send her a miserable message. He was the wrong one. Viper's wounded pride was reminding her how much she did her best to receive the worst from him. So, Chamber didn't deserve anything from her anymore.
That was her brain talking.
Viper stared at a wall, fighting a mental struggle between reason and emotion from various perspectives. She slept at around 3 a.m., after making an extensive list of the pros and cons of continuing to have a romantic relationship with Chamber. It wasn't hard to find reasons to want to have a relatively happy life with him. And even less hard was to find reasons to want to kick him off a cliff and never look at his face again. And, in fact, she dreamed of both hypotheses.
Hard was to decide how she would deal with him in the morning, when they would have a mission together.
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The white van did not follow her. Yellow 2 and 3 knew when she needed to be left alone.
Aisha had no idea where she planned on going. The suburban street spread out in front of her, bathed in sunlight. Neat rows of ornate houses lined the road, complete with their twisting driveways and perfectly kept lawns. And she faced an impossible decision.
No, that was wrong. She faced a decision that she didn’t want to make. It was her life weighed against her village’s, and she knew which way the scale tipped, knew exactly what she was supposed to do here and yet--
Her eyes burned. Aisha felt the sudden urge to bring the egg out of her pocket and hurl it across the street, watch it crash against the asphalt and shatter into a million pieces. She had done everything right, everything; she had done her research and made a plan that had seemed foolproof. And Thomas Kind--that bastard deserved it, he had never once lived up to his name. He was nothing more than another selfish CEO, a conniving thief, but one way or another, Aisha would be paying the price for giving him his comeuppance.
It was a cold, caustic reminder of how unfair the universe was.
She was broken out of her thoughts by a soft whirring sound. Aisha looked up to see several simplistic white androids settling into a circle in the air around her, their black screen-faces peering at her curiously.
“State your name and purpose, stranger,” the security bot in front of her said in a monotonous, but somehow sinister voice.
Eyes narrowing, her hand drifted to the blaster on her belt. “Cora Kiver,” she lied swiftly, thinking of Kind’s house staff. “Housekeeper.”
The android raised its arm, and a soft teal light passed over her body. “No match,” it droned. “Prepare to be--”
What the robot planned on doing to her, Aisha didn’t take the time to find out. She raised her blaster and fired a swift shot through its head.
Instantly, she was under the fire of its comrades. She ducked nimbly out of the way of a shot and made a break for it, but they flew after her, too fast. She fired two blasts over her shoulder; one clipped a security bot’s arm, but its partner dodged the second.
Lunging out of the way of another brightly-colored blast, Aisha trained her vision on the fence at the end of the street. They wouldn’t be able to go past it, but that was assuming she could make it there to begin with. It was too far away, and the bots were better equipped for a chase sequence than she.
As she turned towards the androids and raised her blaster again, a blinding neon light filled the air, harsh and bright. Aisha shielded her eyes with her arm, stumbling backwards.
When the light faded, she opened her eyes, blinking.
The robots had fallen in an arc in front of her, their white metal bodies sparking. And an unfamiliar man stood behind them, his hand on his wrist. Aisha studied him carefully. He had closely cropped salt and pepper hair and a five-o’clock shadow that made him look a confusing mixture of scrappy and professional. His eyes were a startlingly pale, crystal blue, like chips of ice.
He looked up at her, expression curious. She narrowed her eyes as he adjusted his navy blazer. He looked like a businessman.
She didn’t trust businessmen.
“Hello, Yellow 1,” he said after a beat of silence. “Or should I call you Aisha?”
Aisha felt her blood freeze. “Who are you?” she demanded, raising her blaster again. “How do you know who I am?”
He gave her the sort of smile that made his eyes look even colder--and now he really seems like a businessman, she thought.
“There’s no need for that.” He nodded to the gun in her hands. “I’m not the enemy here.”
“Who are you? I won’t ask a third time,” Aisha growled.
The smile didn’t fade from his face. If anything, amusement only grew in his eyes. “My name is Nolan Sharpe, of Paricida IX. I have a proposal for you, Aisha,” he replied, voice gravelly under the smoothness of his words.
She scoffed, her grip on her blaster tightening. “I’m not interested.”
“Oh, I think you will be.” When Aisha raised an eyebrow, unconvinced, he gestured to the slight bulge in the pocket of her coat. “I can sell that egg for you. Give you the money so you can use it to save your village or something equally noble,” he paused for a moment as her eyes widened.
“But first,” he added, “I need you to do something for me.”
After watching this episode a couple of times, I came to the conclusion that this chapter, in my opinion,forsees the death of Papa Nihil.
I’ll explain why.
Tobias deals with implicit language such movie references, music, colors, and little scenes that might seem irrelevant, but they hide the true key of the situation. I believe the real message of this chapter begins at 1:45
“If I were to leave sister, tell me, would you miss me?”
I decided to use this quote for I believe it explains very clearly the way Papa Nihil feels. He has a mixture of fear, tiredness and guilt within him. He is a afraid that his beloved seestor wouldn’t miss him, he is tired of being Papa and he feels guilt for what he did to his sons.Â
Remember the note he wrote.
“All work and no play makes papa bad dad.”Â
Moving on within the chapter we have a more clear example of all this. When he is in the Church, he sees Imperator in her prime. Isn’t that a bit strange? It would be way too romantic that he would see her before passing away...but then the person change and he sees what I think it is the third Emeritus. I say this mostly because of the physical features and the fear? Nihil shows after seeing him.Â
I might be wrong, but I believe Nihil is divided in the love for Imperator and the guilt for killing his sons. Which makes me think..was it really necessary to kill all the bloodline? Wasn’t there a sort of..abdication process?
 If the predecesors were to die, does that mean the Cardinal will be killed when he becomes...useless for the Clergy?
Only time would tell.Â
“Play with us”
I think this was the most clear hint that Nihil will leave.Â
Doing a sort of research to the chapters the twins appeared, I noticed they never ever, appear at the same time than the Cardinal or interact with him...until now ..for me, that was quite strange..
I believe this was a sort of first approach to the Cardinal since soon they will have a new Papa to help.
