Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Hecate padded her way to Chief’s room. 

The floor was numb against the flat of her shoes. She moved not with the rustle of clothes or sound of breathing, but with only Nightmare growling drowsily.

It was midnight. Not like the MBCC ever really shut down. Two rows to the right, she could hear muffled moans that scientifically occured during sex - she had no desire to name. From the ceiling there were echoes of stamping feet and clanking of metal weapons - Zoya. The hum of an electric guitar was ever present - Joan. 

There was one only place that she could seek silence in. 

With nimble fingers, Hecate pushed the door of Chief’s room open. 

She wasn't here. Even if Hecate knew Chief was gone on a mission, a pang of something inarticulate thrummed her chest. 

Hella had called her a ‘fucking weenie’ the first time this had occured. But she had stayed up all night with Hecate, whistling and yelping and cursing. She'd only let herself doze off, snoring loudly, when Hecate had pretended to fall asleep. 

Tonight, Hella was ransacking MBCC with her circle of friends. As she stepped inside, she conceded that she could only hope that at least two thirds of the building would remain unharmed.

Amid the messy stacks on the table Nightingale would hate (Labyrinth hadn't gotten to them yet) and the clipboard filled with photos of the Chief and Sinners (Labyrinth had let them subside with no great pleasure) a figure clad in black creaked. 

Hecate took her usual seat on the right of the metal desk. (Close enough to help, far away to not bother Chief. Though Chief always let herself be forced upon the table with Hella, and they were never more than a pace apart.)

Sinner NOX, Hecate thought, looking at the person in front of her. 

Rows of lights were placed on the ceiling of this room, some of them bright, others sallow. At Wendy and OwO’s behest, half of them flashed with colors. Some illicit parties occurred within this very place.

Right now, only three of them were switched on, and Hecate had been the one to do that. A pale glow was cast upon NOX, who was entirely unperturbed with this development. Hecate suspected she'd feel the same way if all of them ran or none of them did. 

The darkness must be her friend. Hecate’s knuckles twitched. 

It was her friend, too. 

When NOX shifted to study Hecate - a slight tilt of the jaw - the waves of white hair rolling down her back seemed almost plastered in place; they had not been displaced an inch. 

The inside of her eyes was as chalk-like as the outside. The complexion of her skin was lifeless. It seemed frozen, somehow, as if the cold was radiating off her like heat permeated through living bodies. 

The collection of souls named NOX did not say anything. She emanated an uncannily familiar aura of being less-than-human. Still as a statue and unassuming as the sky.

Hecate rolled out sheets of paper and pencils. NOX ignored her entirely. 

Drawing the first strokes, Hecate let herself drift away. Familiar motions and a vague sense of a goal was all it took for her baser instincts to take over. 

The only thing tethering her to the world was the desperate grip she had on her charcoal. When she closed her eyes, she already knew what scene she wanted to bring to the white sheet today. 

Hecate already knew that Chief would insist on framing this too. She loved to spend her evenings picking out the shade and shape and size of the border. Countless walls had been surrendered to Hecate.

Since Chief refused to stop, Hecate could only try to make the contents inside worth her time. 

She thought of the mild humming Jelena would make while she pruned her latest flowers, the constant fuming of Hella’s ramblings as she paced around, Eve’s frenzied nothings that were always too low to comprehend. 

NOX made no sound at all. 

~*~ 

Hecate found herself returning. 

~*~ 

Again. 

~*~ 

Again. 

~*~ 

And again.

It solidified into a never ending, daily routine: a cyclic motion. Hecate had become all too used to NOX by now. 

“Oi, you seeing someone?” Hella’s head was hanging off her bed. Her hair lolled downwards in great tangles. In one hand she held a gaming console, in the other a tablet. She seemed intent on letting neither go. 

Hecate blinked. “I can see… you? I'm not hallucinating anyone.” 

Hella scrunched her nose. “Right, what was I thinking… you? Pfff, never.” 

The rolling of her eyes was a lot less impactful upside-down. Hecate twitched her face backwards, Hella’s hair making her hyper aware of how her own were warring over her face.

“Hey,” she shouted as Hella nearly left the room. “If you're making a friend, you have to let me know who it is first. I, uh, need to make sure they're not an asshole or something. Y'know. Wouldn't want you begging me to beat them up later or something. Can't stand sobbing swines.” 

Hecate took another step and said - almost tenderly, “I won't stop being your friend in any case.” 

She was met with silence. It was content.

~*~ 

She unearthed the pack of oil pastels that had mysteriously ended up under her bedsheet. (Hella had spent the day smugly smirking. Hecate had let her have this victory.) 

Exhaustion had a way of blossoming in black under the hollows of the eye; lining the wrinkles of the forehead; ensnaring the bend of the spine’s curve.

NOX was all of that and none of that at once. 

She thought of Hamel and Yingying and Langsley. They would tell her there were stories hidden in the lilt of an arm or the sallow of flesh. Of course they would: it befitted them. They were dancers and romantics and fighters. 

Hecate was none of that. She wouldn't know what to do next. 

NOX hadn't been out fighting. Her injury couldn't be a physical one, or Anne and Iron would have confined her to the medical room. She didn't seem the type to stay up late gaming or dancing or singing. 

Then… it must be the voices. Just like the ones that plagued Hecate. 

The number one rule with them was that they could not be stopped. They demanded to be heard and considered. She didn't know how to control them, only that they had lessened recently. 

Hecate offered a hot pink crayon with an open palm. 

It took one, two, three seconds (she was counting by her heartbeat). NOX picked it up. Her face had neither brightened nor frowned. 

With uncharacteristically unsteady hands, she dragged it longly. 

Hecate leaned forward, seeing through the fraying bottom of her hair, using the tip of her thumb to smudge the color in. NOX mimicked her movements. 

Using only the hot pink, she etched a great, wild beast: an amalgamation of a crowd with twisted, darkened people; mouths open wide. They were melting into each other, an amorous, unsightly creation.

NOX’s Nightmare. 

Hecate breathed in. She was right, it was the voices. It wasn't something she could ask Wuhuanzi or Demolia to fix. 

Hecate and NOX would have to live with it forever. 

~*~ 

Seeing a pair of scissors held up to her face as Hecate entered was unnerving. There was no other way to put it. 

Her eyes widened, pupils dilating and she tightened the art file wrapped around her like an armour. The muscles in her legs clamoured to tense. 

She didn't feel unsafe. Her nerves weren't setting off alarms, her onsides weren't tingling, adrenaline hadn't begun pumping through her veins. 

NOX raised her fist. Between her first two fingers, she captured the errand strands of Hecate’s fringe and rolled them downwards, just above her eyes. 

Oh. She'd forgotten to deal with them. 

Sliding the blade in, NOX snipped at the purple. Hair blew to the floor without noise. Even the scissor seemed too scared to snap. She repeated the motions twice. 

From this distance, Hecate could make out the black miasma of the dress NOX wore and the different types of chains that hung over her neck, breasts, and abdomen. She could see them more clearly now. 

They went back to their usual stuff. NOX’s art had been dappled in shimmering glitter. It was all very pink and straining to the eye, but silently, Hecate promised herself she would present it to the Chief. And she wouldn't be shy this time.

~*~ 

Boxes of sketches were being misused as coasters right now.

Hella snickered at her as she made her way to Chief’s room. 

Hecate supposed it ought to have looked odd, using the same tray for ornamental teacups and art supplies. 

Angell had been happy to meet her in the kitchens, though. Every other Sinner took snacks from there (they had anti-stealing and hoarding protocols in place for Hella and her gang. It didn't stop them.) but Hecate didn't visit that place often. 

Hunger was the same as feeling her heartbeat to Hecate. She didn't understand how it crippled functioning, but Chief always made sure she had three meals a day. 

Nightmare curled around the fabric covering her legs. She hadn't summoned it in so long. Their exact dynamic was impossible to explain. It weaponized her fear against both Hecate and the world and wasn't a sentient being whom she could familiarize herself with. 

But as her creation, it would stay by her side as she struggled through this self-inflicted suffering. And it would be happy to feed upon her trepidation, hesitance. She couldn't quite always control if it would consume it whole or double it and ship it back to her. 

(She… was a creation too. One of experiments and scientists and doses of drugs. Hecate wasn't used to being a ‘she’. For years and years, she had been an ‘it’.) 

Misusing something yet again, Hecate's heel bore the brunt of clanging the door open. 

She snuck inside with an almost-blush. Sidling into place, she poured two cups of tea from the kettle, and pointed a finger towards the sugar tray. She took her own without sweetner. 

To her chagrin, NOX added not five - the amount of cubes Hella would add, and Chief would sigh at as she topped her own drink with four - but almost halved the original quantity. It was disconcerting, like Shalom and Cabernet. 

Thankfully, her eyes did not pop from their sockets. Hecate internally gulped, but then again. Most would call her own tea unpalatable. How was she any better than NOX? 

She shuddered as she downed the entirety of her meal in one go. It was scalding hot. Hecate liked the way it burned. 

As NOX’s focus gravitated elsewhere, Hecate once again let herself gawk at her necklaces and chains. 

Her dress had been gifted by the Chief. She wore the cardigan Hella had stolen/borrowed/question mark. She had acquired her bonnet from one of their adventures. 

Did the chains mean something, too? Did they tie her down? Did they anchor her to something? 

Closing the lid of the kettle, Hecate began pointlessly stirring her half-empty, half-full - depending on if you asked Hella or Chief - cup. 

But NOX was more like Hecate. It was just tea, probably. 

Chapter Text

The lilies in Vautour Bleu’s garden, where she was currently strolling, reminded Hecate of the dress Chameleon wore. 

There were plenty of whites, if one cared enough to look for the hues and undertones: Hecate's lab coat - though she didn't wear it anymore, Cassia’s or Bianca’s hair, Coquelic’s flowing gown, Du Ruo’s ethereal robe.

Why was she thinking about the array of whites again? Oh, yes, because Hecate loved the color. It was plain, unassuming, to the naked eye. It was a vast void of nothingness. It was dainty and delicate but also pure and innocent but also serene and calm. 

It was the best color to paint blood over - and now she just sounded like Victoria. 

But more urgently, from rows and rows of foliage Hecate was sure the muted, stark white was NOX. NOX’s white was a blank slate of emotions that had been seeped away. NOX’S white was big and prominent and would love to swallow others whole. 

It was only natural they should meet outside of Chief's room. Even it felt like breaking a ritual. Then again, if traditions had any backbone behind them, they wouldn't fade. 

Nearby, on the cracking silver wall, there was jumbly yet flashing graffiti. Hella had wanted to cut vandalism off her list of crimes, closely after arson. 

She had somehow done something to Ninety-nine, something between convincing, compelling, coercing, to provide her with the paints - unsurprisingly. She'd covered Rahu’s shed of weapons, who didn't seem to give fucks about trivialities like this anyway. 

The point was, Hecate knew this place. It was her home. 

Hecate knew this place. And she could get to know NOX here, too. 

Hands wrung to her sides, eyes pinned straight ahead, Hecate tried to not let herself slip away to the cracks carved over NOX’s legs. 

Scars came in many flavours. Hecate's were her crestfallen shoulders and bland, fatigued facial muscles and her inexperience with crying. Hella’s were her too vibrant smirks and never ending strings of curses and averion to open attachment. 

Those cuts, those lines, must be branches of NOX’s past.

There was a sudden moment, and Hecate realized NOX had bent down to pick up a fallen flower on one knee. Was inertia even a factor for someone who practically glided? 

The flower was a muted purple, withered and wilted. Its pointy petals were beginning to crack. It looked tired like it'd chosen to fall off its petiole after one too many nights. 

NOX tucked it in the curve of Hecate's ear, and it was granted life once again. 

Hecate grabbed the curve of NOX’s wrist with a quiet question. 

And there it was, skin cold as ice. Did touching Hecate make her feel like she was thawing? 

NOX twisted her fingertips until they surfaced over her protruding veins. Not painfully, not carefully. It was the most amoral act of infliction Hecate had ever experienced. 

She thought of L.L.’s swimming pool, Dove’s storage room for her letters, Yugu’s corner of the library that spanned almost half of the establishment. 

Following those axioms, Chief's room was Hecate and NOX’s. But they didn't have to rust away in that place. 

Besides, Hecate had a very good, very safe plan. 

(Hecate's been really rubbing off her lately. She should do something about it.) 

~*~ 

The lab still consisted of the last dregs of whatever EMP’s been upto lately. 

Hecate unearthed a test tube. Walking up to the cabinet of chemicals, she pulled out Sodium from the topmost rack.

She was pretty sure that they were supposed to be placed alphabetically, but. Someone might have shuffled them around on purpose. That someone might even be Hella. 

Eyeing the names labelled over the bottles in a colorful sketch pen with little doodles that Yanyan had volunteered to do - they were pasted on, obviously, she wasn't allowed to touch the hazardous substances - Hecate decided she would never, ever sleep soundly again. 

Pouring water in the glass with one of the shiny gray taps, Hecate readied them for the experiment. 

Hella had been dying to do this; in some small, childish race, she got to do it first and would be able to hold it over Hella's head. Not the explosion part, Hella wouldn't not do it, but the approved explosion part. 

When she turned around, NOX was absolutely docked. 

Over her black attire a plain lab coat was draped. She had a pair of reusable gloves and eye protection goggles. It was a ridiculous degree of protection. 

Belatedly, she realised NOX had carried extras for her. 

Cladding herself in those layers felt… nice. They would do little to actually repel stronger acids and such; besides, Hecate - and NOX - had faced much worse in battle: blood, gore, etcetera. 

Still. 

Hecate popped sodium into the water and couldn't help her lips from turning upwards. A smile broke out on her face, eyes glimmering with wonder, the same time as the explosion rang true.

“And that's a shot alright!” A flash of a camera told her it belonged to Pine. She winked at Hecate, off whom giddiness still radiated in tsunami-esque waves. Hecate clapped her hands together, giggling. 

(The supervisors at her childhood home wouldn't like her doing this. She had long stopped caring.) 

Plus! Since it would made its way straight to MBCC’s daily newspaper, Hella would be goaded by default. ‘Oh, so Hecate gets to blow things up but I don't? No, me endangering lives isn't relevant!’ 

Hecate kept on smiling. 

Hella hadn't always read the newspaper. It was something of a by-product of beginning to love Hecate, because even though it never had anything that was boring and serious by extension, Hella always seemed to know what was going on and where. 

The fact that she was the cause for half those occurrences, well. It was a Fact. 

“Thank you guys,” Pine said cheerfully, “Tomorrow’s issue is ready.” 

Hecate nodded at her. Pine was everywhere, always, something about authentic news. She liked it; it was charming.

A cut captured close to the bright yellow spark and it would be perfect clickbait, not that Pine relied on that. NOX, on the other hand, was busy with ice and heat and a brown chemical with a pungent smell. 

Hecate studied it as it lost its color and gained it again. 

Nitrogen Dioxide and Dinitrogen Tetroxide: an equilibrium where both of them turned into each other again and again and again. Fascinating, she decided. 

(Unsurprisingly, Hella was insurmountably unconsolable later.)

~*~ 

She didn't know how she hadn't noted it earlier, but some of the guards were scared of NOX; others just avoided her. If she was tipping on the cliff of sadism or narcissism, Hecate certainly wasn't feeling it. Chief liked NOX, same as most of her Sinners. 

Hecate was mostly tolerated. Some of Chief’s friends even adoringly doted on her. But she knew what it was like to be an anamoly. 

She held her middle finger up to them, halfway between weening off her happiness from just seconds ago and her standard blank-faced.

Their pupils dilated and they scuttered away curiously. 

Hecate frowned. Chief had told her to was a not-nice gesture given to not-nice people when Hella had done it. (To be fair, she was rarely not doing it.) And then Chief had given it to some of her more corrupt colleges, so it couldn't be that offensive - right? 

Even if Hecate had caught NOX’s eye, she doubted she would be given an answer. 

The flower behind her ear went to the table in her - thankfully - Hella-less room as NOX followed. 

She should feel embarassed about the doodles from NOX that were pasted over her pinboard. But it was all very disconnected and Hecate wasn't feeling it. 

Neither was NOX, apparently, and the wordlessness all the pseudo-approval Hecate needed. 

Hecate let her pick up one of the pastel markers Sumire had sweetly gifted her.She parsed through the artworks, finding a blank spot under a drawing and pressed in two dots with a half-loop under them.

Oh. 

~*~ 

They went up to watch the stars later. 

As a shooting star faught its way downwards, Hecate wished for Chief to return home safely, and soon. It was an act she'd learnt from her.Mimicking her, NOX, too, closed her eyes.

Chief had taught Hecate to wish; she'd also probably taught NOX the same. 

~*~ 

The next day, Matilda urgently requested back-ups for Chief's current mission.