[ P ] living hell

She'll wake up soon. He can tell by the shallowing rise and fall of her chest, and the slight movements she makes every now and then. Ikaros doesn't usually get to see them wake up. He watches with a sense of strange fascination, lounging in a worn armchair that sits in the opposite corner of the room from the bed, his features partially obscured in shadow. Afternoon sunlight filters in through a grimy, narrow window that sits well above even his own head, suggesting that the room is in a basement level of the building. Even if she managed to drag the scant amount of furniture beneath the window, she'd get to face the wild disappointment of learning that it also doesn't open.

The bed she's laying in is modest, big enough for one body comfortably and not much else; the wooden legs and weathered headboard are scorched with burn marks, and admittedly, there is blood staining the mattress beneath the clean furs he'd laid across it. Aside from the bed and the chair he's currently sitting in, the room is bare and empty. Ikaros doesn't intend to make her live in squalor, but he'd had to leave nearly every one of his possessions behind, and the manor is in a state of disrepair he hadn't been anticipating. He'd done his best, given the circumstances—but these accommodations are temporary.

He knows Celeste will be confused when she wakes up and takes in her surroundings. Ikaros would have liked to take a few more days to prepare a more proper room for her, but he's kept her sedated for too long already. He could filter enough water into her mouth to keep her sustained, but feeding a limp body is another matter entirely, and he doesn't like that he can see her ribs poking out from her fur. He has to wake her up if he wants her to survive.

Ika's nails tap slowly on the chair's worn leather armrest, but every time she moves slightly, he stills, waiting perhaps a little too eagerly for that moment she finally opens her eyes. He's been waiting for hours now, but he has a vast well of patience to draw from, and he won't dare miss such a pivotal moment. He's been looking forward to it for days, after all.

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Purple eyes stared back at her for a fleeting moment before everything went black. The world faded into a deep void, and the only sounds that pierced through the darkness were muffled and numbing—a persistent clacking against a solid surface. The rhythm was maddening, driving her toward the edge of consciousness. She stirred, desperate to open her eyes, but they felt weighed down, as if glued shut. The musty scent of the room clung to her, and had she been able to see, she would have understood its origins.

A groan escaped her lips as the pounding in her head intensified. With each fleeting moment of awareness, a searing pain gnawed at her stomach. Hunger? When was the last time she had eaten?

Celeste groaned again, feeling the sensation slowly return to her body, starting from her toes. She wiggled them, encouraged as feeling gradually spread to her legs, arms, and finally her head. With effort, she lifted it, faltering slightly as she opened her eyes. Her vision was blurred, but she soon discerned the silhouette of a shadowy figure. Was he sitting?

Drawing a slow, steadying breath, she blinked hard—once, twice, three times—each blink bringing the scene into sharper focus. As the figure came into view, it took her a moment to recognize him fully. “What?” she managed to mutter, confusion swirling in her mind. Where was she?

Celeste turned her head, scanning the empty room, her gaze landing on the mattress beneath her. Had she drunk too much? She struggled to recall the events leading up to this moment, but it was unusual for her to party so hard in the middle of the week. Returning her focus to him, she narrowed her eyes, grappling with a sense of familiarity. “Do I know you?” she questioned, her head rolling back for a brief moment as her gaze drifted away. When it returned to him, those piercing purple hues met her gaze, stirring an unsettling recognition deep within her. Something about those eyes felt hauntingly familiar.

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Her toes move first. Ikaros clocks the movement, his gaze sharpening on the way she wiggles them, as though fighting off a numbness. She probably is. He doesn't ordinarily have to keep his targets unconscious for so long, and he's not entirely certain of the lasting impacts from having the drug in her bloodstream for such an extended period of time. He'd had to ensure her silence and compliance, lest they both lose their lives in the harebrained plan he'd formulated on a whim. Of course, Celeste would have lost hers regardless, but Ika has worked hard to keep a target from his back. He's put himself in the line of fire for her, and he can't fucking figure out why.

At last, her eyes slant open, glassy and disoriented, but awake. Impressively, she manages to lift her head, albeit unsteadily, and her green eyes drift towards him for a moment before shifting to take in her surroundings—unsurprisingly, the confusion doesn't clear from her face. She is many miles from the last place she'd been whilst awake, and she's never going back. His head tilts slightly, watching her with hawk-like intensity. She finally manages a coherent question, and Ikaros smiles slightly, though it doesn't reach his eyes. "No," he says simply, rising to his feet with the lethal grace of a predator who knows how to move in silence and shadow.

He doesn't go to her at first, crossing the room to the door, which he opens with a soft snick, poking his head out and speaking to someone in the hall before he retreats back into the room, nudging the door shut again with his shoulder. He has a glass of water in his hand now, and he pads to the side of the bed, peering down at Celeste with an inscrutable expression. "Can you sit up?" he asks, gesturing slightly with the cup to indicate that it's intended for her. His behavior is cool and almost clinical, more akin to a doctor than a captor, but there's still something impossibly predatory about Ikaros, no matter how detached he may appear.

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No

His reply is simple, yet she can't help to feel like she has seen him somewhere before, though unable to try and process it with the way her head pounds. She groans as he crosses the room and opens the door, grabbing a glass of water and bringing it over to her so she can drink. She looks at him for a long second before she takes the glass of water and sips it. Celeste doesn't realize how thirsty she really is until she is done drinking the water and her thirst doesn't feel quenched. "I need more," she requests, her mouth still feeling puckered dry. Little did she know she didn't have access to as much water as she needed due to being under.

"Where am I?" She finally asks as she slowly begins to regain more of her consciousness. The four walls that occupy her don't seem familiar, and the state in which he chooses to live almost seems cruel. Where she should have been worried she still has so many questions and no one else to ask them.

Slowly she tries to bring herself off to the floor so she can sit, as requested. She is unsteady at first, wobbly in the legs, and it takes her some time before she is able to gain enough control to do so. She feels nauseous and hungry, it almost felt like an out of body experience and she didn't feel in her best health. "I think I need to go home," she says. Back to her comfort, her food, her bed. Back to her family. Surely they knew where she was, or maybe he found her in a bad position and decided to nurture her back to health. Whatever it was, she needed answers.

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